Behind the Bastards - It Could Happen Here Weekly 91

Episode Date: July 15, 2023

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less ads package for you to listen to in a long stretch. If you want, if you've been listening to the episodes every day this week, there's going to be nothing new here for you, but you can make your own decisions. [♪ INTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ Oh, it could happen here is the podcast that you're listening to right now. And while we normally talk about it could happen here, if you've been living in France recently, then some of it has been happening to you.

I don't know if that's a bad introduction. We're talking about the riots that have recently convulsed large chunks of both European France and some of their overseas territories. So we're going to be chatting about that. I've seen a lot of disinfo. There's a lot of people flipping out about guns and stuff and you know a lot of bad information people blaming it on like Ukrainian weapons sneaking over all that's bullshit But there's a real fascinating history here and and the riots as much as people specific bad actors have attempted to make them into like Some new and horrifying thing. It's not just like a oh Franspy riot and thing. There's like, there's like a, a, a, a history, uh, that's, that's pretty clear that explains like why this, this happened

in France this time, what had happened in 2005, what happened in what the late 80s. Yeah. I was, why this seven was, I think the other big one in this kind of, these, these have been happening. Yeah. I was going to talk about all of that. Yeah, so Mia, I'm gonna let you take the lead here and I'll chime in PR in. Yeah, so okay, I guess we should basically briefly talk about like before we go into this, you're like what actually this is. So, well, I guess it'll be two weeks ago

when this goes up. A cop did like a traffic stop of this kid in a car and they just put a gun through the window and shot him. It's really bad. There's video of it. If for some reason you want to see a cop sticking a gun in a car and shooting a 17 year old, it's really bad. This is kicked off like Like, it's, it's, it's, okay.

It's always difficult to like measure how intense a riot is. When it started, people were, I saw people saying it was like more intense than like the 2005 one. This is like, you know, we've talked a lot about French riding on this show. These specific kinds of riots are like by far the largest in most intense, like kinds of riots that happened in France. This is like a significant escalation from everything that's been happening, even the last sort of like seven years, which have been, you know, there, like there have been a lot of riots in France recently.

These are by far the most intense. In the time I've been writing this, the police killed a second person by, okay, so I'm gonna give my account of what I think happens. The French police are going like, oh, who can say how this person was hit by a projectile? But as best I can tell, they shot a guy in the chest with a flashball, which is a flash ball is like, it's effectively a grenade launcher that shoots flashbang grenades. Now, it's supposed to be like a, it's a quote unquote less lethal ammunition, but the thing about less lethal munitions

is that they have to shoot people directly with them, they die and they just fucking killed this guy. They're less lethal because they are not meant to be shot at people. They're meant to have a dispersal effect when shot near people. If you shoot people with them, yeah, they're very much lethal.

Yeah, and we talked about, in the last episode that I did about this, there was another guy who thankfully has regained consciousness, but was in a coma for several months because he was also shot by, I think he was shot by it. Maybe he was one, I forget, I should have actually looked at this before I did this, but he was shot by a similar list, lethal mutation, and he thankfully has survived. This guy did not, but he was shot by like a similar less lethal edition. And he thankfully has survived. This guy did not like they just killed him.

Uh, the reporting about it has been terrible. Like the Guardian headlines said man struck by man struck by projectile at protest, which again, this guy was shot by the cops like directly into his chest with one of these weapons. So it's been really bad. And you know, okay, so to get an understanding of what's happening here, too. I wanna go through this. There are sort of like four broad types

of people who rioted France. So, okay, so the first kind of rioter, I think is the one where people are like, maybe most familiar with, which is like, the French far left like riots a lot. This is mostly anarchist, some other people. And that's like a kind of standard Parisian riot will be these people rioting.

You know, we talked a bit about sort of development of the black block in France and the last episode we did about this. There's, you know, there's also sort of like more mainstream left like trade union groups who will have giant marches and those also sometimes turn into riots because they get attacked by the police and stuff like that. And those ones tend to be larger. Like the trade union ones have bored people but tend to be less

variety. There's the Shirei Jean or the yellow vests who are most of the people from rural areas who either sort of like do roadblocks in rural areas or they come into cities and do marches and riots. and they riot pretty intensely. And these three groups have started to be, you know, I probably will be seeing a pension like reform protests and like riots have been these groups were starting to work together. But there's another group of people in France who riot who are the residents of the banhly, I thought that's not how you pronounce it. God damn it. Okay, before before I do this, I That's not how you pronounce it. God damn it.

Okay, before I do this, I've looked at how you pronounce it and I've now forgotten. It's Bonn-Louis. That's how you, well, okay. I'm not gonna law for you any advice. I'm not gonna law for you any advice. I'm not gonna law for you any advice. I'm not gonna law for you any advice.

I'm not gonna law for you any advice. I'm not gonna law for you any advice. I'm not gonna law for you any advice. I'm not gonna law for you any advice. I'm not gonna law for you any advice. I'm not gonna law for you any advice. I'm not gonna law for you any advice. I'm not gonna law for you any advice. I'm not gonna law for you any advice. I'm not gonna law for you's like, I'm a child of the post 9-11 era. It's written into my DNA. I can't help it. I'm sorry. You guys were right about that war, but I still,

it's still like, it seared into me as if with a laser cutter. So I'm not going to try to pronounce it. My excuse is I'm holding a grudge for that time. They owned a bunch of Shanghai for like a bunch of years. So that's a, that's actually many fine reasons to insult the French. And we're just all things you can go after every other powerful white country that ever exists. Yeah. Or other country for that matter. I mean, France is pretty classic, classic colonialism in a lot of ways.

Yeah. And we are, oh boy, are we going to be getting into that? Yeah. Which actually that, that's a good, you know, good shopping off point for who these people are. So the bun, yeah, so the bun, I'm gonna, I'm gonna just say supper because I, I can't do this.

Yeah, look, it's the French word for suburbs. Suburbs in France are different, like in the United States, the suburb, suburbs have been up until at least pretty recently, a fairly reactionary, like what you might call it. White flag, enclosures. Yeah, it's a lot of white conservatives lived in the burbs. It was kind of like one of the reliable areas for

Republican votes and stuff. In France, like upper income people, people with more money are a lot more frequently living near the center of town. And the suburbs, a lot of which were built specifically for communities of people from French overseas population who were moving to the country. They set up public housing and stuff for them. The idea was that if you moved people over in communities into these neighborhoods, it might make integration

and stuff easier. There's a lot of reasons why this didn't work and communities into these neighborhoods, it might make integration and stuff easier. There's a lot of reasons why this didn't work that I'm not an expert on, but there were a lot of problematic aspects of the execution, including the attitude among them. The attitude that goes back pretty far among a lot of French folks that like,

well, a positive thing is if they just kind of become French and drop any other aspects of their heritage. And anyway, whatever, it's a whole thing. But we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna,

we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, these are very, they're not exactly the same as like American housing projects, but they're much closer to that than they are like, the sort of American white flight stuff. Yes.

And the people who live there, there are some white people, like white French people who live there, but there's also a lot of French people who are like either, like pretty, some of them are pretty recent immigrants. There's a lot of people from Algeria, like specifically. And the way that like the French understand this, basically, is like,

all these people are like black and Muslim and like that, you know, okay, the French are very racist. Like, and, and this is the thing that like, I was in academia for a little bit, right? Like, I, I like thought I understood the like average level of racism of an academic. Holy fucking shit. Oh my God. I'm gonna quote for something about the suburbs. Like, that's from a piece.

I'm gonna talk about that piece just a little bit because I think it's a really interesting way of thinking about like what the attitude in front, in front, like France is. So this is about the banhlier. The French word for suburb is banhlier. A word derived from banieur mitea ban, that is to exclude or banish. And this is a thing, this is from a,

an article called the French Autumn Rights 2015 and the crisis of Republican integration. And this is a really interesting piece because half of it is pretty reasonable analysis of how the left failed and portrayed these people. And the other half of it is pretty reasonable analysis of how the left failed and portrayed these people. The other half of it is then talking about how Muslim people and people from North Africa have inherently patriarchal reactionary family structures. Because of this, they can't be integrated to French society. I'm like, what the fuck? This is just a random academic.

He just sounds like a stormfront guy. It's fucking wild. Um, so I want to talk a bit about how these things came to be. Because I think it gets too sort of like, you know, what these places actually are and why these people are writing. And to do this, we need to go back to the French conquest of Algeria.

So all right, so the the the the French government. Yeah, it's like, yeah, it's it's second maybe to the Germans in terms of like the brutality of the conquest. And honestly, like that's kind of a they're both so horrific. It's kind of pointless to be like which of these is worse. These are both like genocides that large chunks of the world just decided to pretend didn't happen. Yeah, so all the thing with the French version of it,

is it because it's the French, it's like, like the actual and the French political end of it is basically like a tragic comedy. So I'm gonna tell the story. Yeah, a lot of it's the result of incompetence. And I mean, we talk about this in our Napoleon the third episode's behind the bastards, but yeah. Yeah, so like the official causes bellied

for the French of this war is that the French took out all these grain loans under like the directory and then like under Napoleon from the Algerian government. The Algerian government was like, hey, are you ever paying this back? And the French were just like, no. So this ended in a like a tiff

where the governor of Algeria hit the French ambassador with a fly swatter. And this led to the French monarchy at this point is led by his guy named Charles the 10th, who's Mike Duncan calls in what, quote, what are the great idiots of history? And he's like about to get overthrown. So he's like, oh, I'm gonna invade Algeria.

And this is gonna like distract everyone from the fact that everyone hates me and they're gonna overthrow me. And this doesn't work, right? So the French like conquer Algeria, but Charles the Tenth is overthrown literally three weeks after this finishes. But the sort of crucial thing here

is that like the successive French government's keep control of Algeria and They you know this this is I like one of the places where the sort of like modern French racism emerges from is There's this you know the whole invasion is wrapped up in this like Like monumental layer of racism. That's about like you know Oh, we're gonna go free Algeria if I'm quote, like, oriental despotism. This is like a civilizing mission. And we're gonna like, you know, and this is like,

this is the stuff that, you know, if you've been, if you've seen any like, French social media post about this like now, right? Like, this is the kind of racism they still do, which is they like, they consider Islam like a backwards culture of these, if you're like, integrated into French republicanism. And, you know, this is

yeah, this is this specific kind of French racism is very, very old. I'm also briefly mentioned. We're going to mostly talking about Algeria here because like a lot of the people who end up living in these suburbs are Algerian, but like the French had a whole empire. I they conquered a bunch of parts of like the bunch of Western Africa. They, you know, yeah. And this was also it's worth noting a lot of it was conquered very frequent, very recently. Like it was only in the late 1800s, I think that they solidified their control over Algeria. It was kind of right in the same period. I'll just kind of directly ahead of

the the Franco-Pression War that they took a lot of Indochina. Like this was they were kind of later to having huge overseas possessions. But unlike the Germans, they made up for it in in terms of the breadth of their their acquisitions. Yeah. If you want to call it that it gets yeah. Yeah. Well, one thing I think is interesting about this is like Algeria. The fresh conqueror Algeria after they've lost Haiti, just like a very interesting sort of thing here. But one of the things that this gets to

is that the French state, literally it doesn't matter like who, like in what period of time in French climate history you get to the straight, the French state is just structurally anti-black. Like it is so unfathomably racist. And you know, the way this sort of plays out in Nigeria, right, is like they hold on to a junior for 130 years.

But one of the sort of products of this, right, is that okay, so like a junior is now part of just like the French empire effectively, right? And this means that over the sort of this, right? Is that okay? So like Algeria is now part of just like the French empire effectively, right? And this means that over the over the sort of decades, the French government starts like importing Algerian like workers into France because, okay, so one of the French carry out basically like a series of genocidal campaigns to where they just like like progressive different French regimes like steal more and more of the land that anyone ever in Algeria had until you get to a point where Algeria is just effectively a French settler colony. And so, okay, so they've displaced all these people

and they start recoding in the Go-Work in France. But this becomes a huge problem for the French state because, you know, now they have a bunch of colonized people in France who they need to keep colonized. And in order to do this, you get Foucault's boomerang, where you have these French police that are training Algeria who are used against Algerians in France. And I was such a...

It's not just that it's used against Algerians, it's used against people from all over the sort of French empire from Northwest Africa, even people who were from Haiti, who wound up in France. But this comes to a head in 1961 when there's just... One of the weirder parts of French history is there's a second coup attempt where all of these officers, these like these French

officers in Algeria are like terrified. The French people had voted to like, they could have led to Algerians getting the billy to like vote over like self rule, right? And the French colonial officers in Algeria go nuts over this and they try to overthrow the government and it fails. But the result of this is that the goal gets like dictatorial powers in France for like five months. And in October of that year, the Algerian National Liberation Front, which is like the, you know, this is like the, the giant sort of movements of the like French of the

Algerian anti-colonial movement, like they have this giant protest in Paris. And the police just start shooting them. I mean, this is, this is, this is, you know, like, this is not a riot, right? Like, this is, this is, this is just like, they have a giant piece of March. The police start start shooting them. I mean, this is, this is, you know, like, this is not a riot, right? Like, this is, this is just like, they have a giant piece of March. The police start just killing them. They kill several hundred Algerian protesters. They, they throw their corpses into the sand.

Oh, I'm going to read this quote from the BBC. One photo captured the chilling sentiment of the time, showing graffiti, scrolled along a section of the SENS embarkment saying, here we drown out gerians. And they kill at least 200 people, probably more than that. They are throwing children into the river to try to drown them. It is fucking awful. And the French government, they deny that this happened for decades. The first, this massacre is in 1961, right?

The first, the first, like, French prime minister to a French president to admit that this happened, did it in, like, it was, I think it was, I think it was 2011. It was 50 years later that the first French politician like admitted they did it. And the government has still never apologized for this. So these are, this is what the French police are, right? Like they are these people. They are, you know, they're the people who, like, a bunch of Algerians did a protest for independence

and they killed, like they threw their children's corpses into a river. And this is the sort of long-raged backdrop of everything that's happening in modern France today, right? Is the fact that France was an empire still, like, is in a lot of ways an empire, and their police are just unfathomable violent and racist. I mean, yeah, I think I might say like, if you're American, pretty fat, I'm ugly violent and racist.

Yeah, but yeah, like it is, it is, yeah, I think that's a fair, fair summary. Yeah, like if there was ever a reasonable society on earth that people could live in, it would be very easy to go, this is the most racist thing you've ever seen, but unfortunately we all live in hell world. And, you know, sorry, our metrics are like,

is, like, have the Brazilian police killed more people per capita than the American police? Yeah, again, it's one of these, like, we don't need to litigate this. Like, I think the point is that when, when people kind of like flip out over these images of buildings being let on fire and shit getting broken and you know, people shooting out cameras or even like beating folks, you know, in the street as part

of a riot and freak out about, you know, how the the the place has gone to hell. Like violence that exceeds that by by many factors has been like the norm for segments of French society going back as long as the United States has existed. So, you know, like the, the, the, the, the ugliness that you see in the moment of the riot is not like it, like, focusing on that and ignoring what, what's caused it, like, why people have been, and ignoring what's caused it, like why people have been like reached a pitch where they're doing stuff like that is kind of an error, an error at least in like historical analysis. And I think also an error in terms of like the severity of what we're looking at, like none of like all of the ugly shit that's happened, because at least one person was killed by rioters and all this but like all of the ugliness of this current set of riots doesn't compare to one boat sinking in the Mediterranean. Yeah. Um, like and that those things are very much

tied together. You know, France has had a significant role in why northern Africa is the way it is right now, and why large chunks of that continent have endured waves of successive starvation, famine, death, war. I don't know. I want to just briefly talk about Vietnam for a little bit, because I think something that people don't really understand is that like, okay, so right at like both in the 30s in Vietnam and sort of through World War II, like huge portions

of the country were starving and they were starving because the French had completely fucked their economy and was like was taking all the food and was taking all the resources and like, you know, like that's, you know, that's a big part of the reason why the original sort of like word in Vietnam that the French fight happens, right? It's like, it's why people drive them out is that there are just innumerable people who just fucking starve and die because the French colonialists would just like fuck you. And you know, like the French Empire, it doesn't get as much attention as like the British or the Spanish or like the Americans,

but it was like incomprehensibly inhuman in terms of just like the shit that they did. And I fuck them, they lost yen, Ben Fou, they'll lose again. Well, yeah, I think we should note when it comes to like the violence of the French police, when we're talking about how they are very American in the way they do violence, that is reflected in the statistics. The French police are the deadliest police force in continental Europe. Part of why is that recent law that was passed in 2017, which made it a lot easier for French police to

be able to fire their weapons, specifically at people they think might be about to commit a serious crime. Part of the reason for the change in the law was the, oh God, what the Charlie Hebdo shoot mask. Yeah. There was just this like belief that, because two police officers were killed in that and there was this kind of belief Among segments of the population that maybe if the police had been able to be more aggressive They would have responded more successfully to the shooting. I think the existence of the American police and and the number of mass shootings we have might Are you against that? But that's one of the things people will say is why this shooting happened.

And I think it's worth noting the effect of that law. That law, like it more than doubled the average number of, like, like, very, very specifically, like the number of North and West African people who, like, French people who get shot by the police doubled. And yes, and depending on the year, right, it either doubled or in some cases almost tripled. Yeah, right. It's been extremely stark the change. It's also worth noting that, um, you know, in 2005, we had a huge set of riots, uh, in the suburbs of Paris.

Um, I think it killed one person. And the riots were sparked as the result of police were chasing two kids. I believe they were Algerian French kids. And they wound up hiding from the police inside of a building that was part of one of the trains and got electrocuted. Yeah, I think what it was, they were like trying to,

they were trying to like go home and they started, they like cut, they decided to cut through like a construction site and someone called the police on them. So they're the only way from the police. And I, okay, so I've heard different versions of this. And I don't think we're ever gonna know precisely what occurred.

Yeah. Like there was a version that was circulating at the time and now that might be true, but I don't know about, but there's a version of was circulating at the time and now that might be true, but I don't know about, but there's a version of it that says that like, the police stood there and watched these kids get electrocuted. And that's possible.

I don't know what that happened, but like, you know. A lot of people certainly believed that that had happened. And so, and it was not obviously the death of these kids, as is always the case when you have riots, this big was sort of helped to catalyze existing feelings. One of the things that was sort of in one of the reasons why people were angry was that Muslims in France at this point in time had essentially zero representation. In 2005, Islam was France's second most popular religion after Catholicism. There were seven million French citizens

of Arab or African origin. They had no representation in the national assembly, not a single member of the national assembly was a Muslim or even Arab or African in their descent. So there was literally no representation. They were targeted by the police. These kids die a suspicious death. And people riot like like mother fuckers, you know.

Yeah, and I was a pretty good set of riots. Yeah, it was that one, the 2005 ones, I can pull some of the stats on it. Before I want to go back, I think I've got some right here. I actually, yeah, at least, I think they burned, they burned 10,000 cars. Yeah, multiple police stations, government ministries,

like city halls, 230 public buildings damaged. Yeah. So it was, they went pretty hard. Yeah, I mean, it was, it was like, you know, this is only a set of time. This was the biggest, like, unrest in France since 1968. And it is worth noting some of the differences between the government's reaction to the riots we just had and to the 2005 riots. In 2005, the interior minister of French

Nicholas Sarcosi called the people involved in the the riots scum who needed to be got rid of. Yeah, it was, yeah, it was, it was, it was pretty ugly. And there was sort of immediate like defense of the police force for their actions. It's been a bit different in this most recent case for one thing, a manual Macron immediately like said that the shooting was horrible, like the actions of the police were bad,

which got the police very angry at him. Yeah, camera footage of the shooting then came out and made it very clear that this was an execution as opposed to a complicated situation, which isn't to overly defend Macron and the administration. You can see just some, how things have changed in France politically. I think everything is going on there. Is that Macron? It's just a way weaker government than the French government wasn't in like Justin five right like one of the things you know, so one thing is looking at was so in Justin five the French deployed 11,000 police are trying to contain it and they kind of didn't. But in like the stuff that happened like two weeks ago they there were 45,000 police deployed. 45,000 police deployed.

So this is, I think it gets to the severity of what's happening and how scared the French state is of it because the current French government is not very stable. They've been trying to, they're on, this is like the fifth round of riots that they've seen in the last seven years. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Which is also evidence that the police who have largely gotten what they wanted from the government in over the last 17 years or so have not succeeded in at all reducing the severity. And in fact, have continued to spark this kind of like these kind of riots. The other thing that's going on here, right? So partially it's because the French police are like unbelievably racist.

Yeah. The other thing that's going on here is this sort of, I mean, I guess you call it like the long-range crisis of capitalism, right? Like youth unemployment in this service is 45%. And this is the kind of thing that caused the Arab Spring, right? It was like, you know, you have all of these populations who are just structurally unemployed,

right? There's no jobs for them. What they, you know, what jobs they can get are like these just awful, like, you know, Americans are familiar with dog shit service after jobs, right? Like, it's that kind of stuff. And, you know, and this is a product of a lot of sort of long range, like political trends, right?

It's, you know, like capitalism is in spitting people out of the social system. The other thing that I think is really important about these protests is that, out of the social system. The other thing that I think is really important about these protest is that the kids in the suburbs are like not really connected to the French left. And there's a reason for that. And the reason for that is this movement that happened in 1981. So in 1981, we got really the first of this kind of riots. So you know, these suburbs were like mostly, these like housing developments, you guys were

mostly built like in the 70s to accommodate like a new flow of migrant workers from, mostly from Algeria or from other places too. And in, in 1981, you get the first of these riots. And French society is like holy shit because there's a bunch of non-white people rioting and they lose their minds. And after the first set of riots, which the thing that's, I think it's just thing about this too,

is the initial riots aren't that big. Like they're like pretty small compared to like what has come after compared to the self-hospital. The riot technology was in its infancy at that. Well, it's not just, we were still, yeah, it's very, yeah. Yeah, a riot technology was in its infancy at that point. Well, it's not just a, yeah, it's very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, The first, after the first of these riots, there's this giant, there's an attempt by the French left to like organize these people.

They have this thing called a queer movement. I don't know, it's French, it's B-E-U-R. I think we've all established that we're not gonna be impressing anyone with the level of our understanding of the French language. Yeah, wait a look. But you saw that they had they had this sort of anti-racism movement. And you know, they carry out in a hundred thousand person march from Marseille to Paris. But the problem is this movement starts to like fail almost immediately and starts to fall

apart because you know, at this point, mid-Aran, who is, he's like on and off again as the French Prime Minister for a lot of the 80s, and mid-Aran is from the Socialist Party. And his plan for this is to basically do attempt to co-op this movement and to turn all of these people who live in the suburbs into like a new voter base for the French Socialist Party. But the problem with this is that, instead of, okay, so the Minerian does some reforms kind of to put money into these communities, but again, these people are being structurally disenfranchised by a combination of sort of French racism, like the physical urban geography of these suburbs,

like capitalism in general. And you know, these are sort of like macro forces. And I, Midterrand's plan to stop the riots is, he has these summer music festivals that like higher unemployed youth that are, that are, that go by the name and I'm not making this up, SOS, receives me.

It's just, it's so much racist. They're just like, y'all, this is our plan, this is all the rights. We're just gonna have like these like, good work guys. Music concerts. No, I think you got it. I think you got it.

This weirdly, this kind of works for a little bit. There is, there was a, there was apparently a fun version, like a better version of that that occurred in Oregon. And like, I think it was the 1980s when they were, they were going to have like a Republican convention in town. And so the state governor, I think McCall was his last name, was like, okay, I'm going to throw a big music festival, like two hours south of Portland, and I'm going to tell the cops not to bust people for drugs.

But yeah, that's a different thing. Yeah, this thing, you know, the problem with this thing is again, like the point of this is not actually to sort of solve the sort of structural racism of French society or do anything about capitalism. It's to build a voter base for the socialist party. And you know, after a couple of years of this, the people in this movement, like the actual kiss of the suburbs are like, what the fuck? Like our lives still suck shit.

Like you guys haven't changed anything. And you know, there's a and there's a lot of promises that the French Socialist Party breaks. One of the important ones is that the French Socialist Party had been promising to let immigrants vote in local elections, and that's just fucking vanished, right? This never happened. This is part of why there is like no,

there's so little representation in the French government. And you know, the actual, the actual sort of broader goals of this anti-Raisrisament, it fails. And there's an undocumented workers movement that sort of comes, that splinters off from it, but it's completely destroyed by the French business class. And France, in this point, period, still has some very strong unions. And the unions just like, we're like, no, fuck you, like, die. And just told them to fuck off.

And from there, and from the betrayal of the socialist party, and also simultaneously, the other thing that's happening in the 80s is the rise of sort of like this French New, like the French New right is like resurgence. These guys, when I say the French New, right, these people are like fucking neo-nazis right. Like very, very, very, very, very, very famous French neo-nazis

who modern neo-nazis reappear in this period. And they start doing, there's a bunch of anti-immigrant murders that are just horrible. And, but, you know, the state is just, cut off, got on, like, yeah! Whatever, like, fuck it, you guys can die. And so, and this has a massive impact on, on the culture of these suburbs.

And, you know, what, what, what kind of political possibilities they have, because these people, like, like, to this day, you will get people talking about, like, the great, but talking about the great betrayal and how they got fucked by the Socialist Party. And so, like, these people don't, like, they have very little contact mostly with the mainstream French left.

The mainstream French left is, especially the Central Left is really fucking racist, like, even the Communist Party is really fucking, and part of what was happening here too is the 80s in the period where the Communist Party collapses. And so like all of this sort of like, the organized left factions don't like them. The unions are like what the fuck are these Algerians? Like fuck them, they're Muslim, we hate them.

And so the legacy of this is that the government does some welfare policies and they try to do some job creation a little bit, but this was always just doomed to fail because these are, you know, like France in this period is deindustrializing. And so the product of this is like, you have all of these people who are now just unemployed who were attempted, like, you know, there was an attempt to integrate them into the left and left just fuck them, but, you know, obviously they can't, they're not going to go to the right because the right hates them, like, even more of them the French left does. And you get these, you know, and what happens is like

these people, these like, these masses of like precariously employed, like unemployed immigrants become this like massive focus of the French state. And when conservatives take over in the 90s, like, they use them as this like race escape guilt for like every problem. They begin this like massive authoritarian Like campaigning as black and Muslim people like you know like we're in the US right like we know what that looks like and You know and what one of the other things that that starts to happen is like like the French state and the French right like portray all these people sort like the 80s is also the period like you know

This is this is right after the Iranian revolution, there's this rising fear of Islamism. And the way that the state responds to this is basically by going to all these people or Islamist terrorists, we hate them. All of the jobs programs that have been set up and all of the welfare programs disappear, like those were funding for the music concerts even just vanishes.

And all of this stuff is happening, particularly intensely in the early 2000s. And that's the other context that leads up to the 2005 riots is that by 2005, people who are living in these places have seen like, like really serious deteriorations in their standards living in like the last like four years because these programs are just being destroyed. And you know, and then, you know, and you get these protest SR in 2005. And there's another very similar thing that happens in 2007 when the police like crash into two kids on a motor, like a police car crashes the two kids on a motorcycle and kill them and there's like there's like a smaller but like very very intense

like Series of riots and then it's kind of weirdly quiet for a bit You know, I mean I might say quiet. Okay. It's been quiet for the writing and I might say quiet. It's been quiet for the writing and the French police keep killing people. One of the things that everyone, the people are talking about this one is in 2017, it came out that the French police just like fucking raped a teenager and it's fucking horrible. Yeah. And then I think leads us kind of into like into the into the sort of modern like the thing that's happening right now

Which is that you know Like the kids who are riding in the street and I think I think this is a big part of the reason why it's this intense is that You know, these are these are like 17 and 18 year olds, right? They are they're old and they're you know they're, they're too old to believe in the sort of like fairy tales of French liberty and equality, right? They know what that looks like. They know that it's like front, front, like French liberty and equality means a

police baton fucking breaking your skull because you were walking down the street, right? But they're also, you know, they're 17 or 18. They're, they're too young to know that they're supposed to be afraid. And because of that, they have, you know, like they burned down multiple police stations, like it's, the writing has been just incredibly intense. One of the things that has probably been the major touchdown people have heard about these riots on social media and stuff is a Or at least the thing that I saw being spread the most was like the fact that rioters were using firearms There's a couple of these things that like I noticed one was people flipping out over like the presence of guns in France

And and interestingly folks on both sides of this, I think got stuff wrong because people, on one hand, you had people being like, where the fuck did they get guns? Something suspicious must have happened. They must have come in from Ukraine because France is a European country. And European countries don't have guns in the civilian population. Like, yes, yes, they do. France, actually, interestingly enough, France is one of those countries that primarily regulates who is allowed to own what kinds of guns as opposed to what kinds of guns can be owned. So in France, with the right licensing, you can own most of the kinds of firearms that you can own in the United States. In fact, in France, if you have the proper kinds of permits, you can own something like an AR-15 with a 30 round magazine,

which you could not purchase in the state of California. Now, these are still very stringent gun control. If you're going to have, because again, they split the kinds of firearms into category, and the most restricted kind of firearms are semi-automatic rifles like AR platform guns. If you're gonna have something like that, you're doing an intense background check,

you're doing, like you're submitting to random searches by the police, like it's not, it nearly is easy, it is to acquire firearms in the US, but there are quite a lot of firearms. I think you're allowed to own up to like 10 magazines per gun and a thousand rounds or something like that. That said, I don't believe the majority of the guns that we've seen on the streets and the riots

are normal legal civilian-owned arms. That said, the existence of guns in these protests has also been heavily overstated, largely a result of footage of shit like people shooting out cameras with what are actually air rifles. That folks just assume are real firearms. There's also been shit like there was one video that went really viral that was a petrol bomb being set off by protesters at a government building. And it was just blue checks on Twitter,

people who pay Elon for it. We're spreading it saying, look, people are using RPGs in the riots. You know, writers have rocket launchers. These are in some, there were a number of folks who got tens of thousands of shares and likes claiming that this was a, these were examples of like heavy weaponry from Ukraine getting over the US for one thing. If guns were, if weaponry was getting out of Ukraine, RPGs are not like the thing that people would be psyched to get, you can get RPGs in Europe and you're generally getting them from North Africa, right? Or from the Balkans, you know, there's no shortage of con bloc weaponry in that part of the country, but it was not an RPG being used.

Yeah, well, there's something I want to talk about a little bit is that the actual thing, the actual weapon of the French writers is fire. And this is something they are way better at this than the Americans are, right? Like I saw a couple of videos that were just wild. So I don't even know how they did this. Someone had set like one of those like skyscraper tall construction cranes on fire and not the bottom of it, right?

They set the cabin on fire. It's like, I don't even know how you do that because like, like did they climb up the or tall construction cranes on fire, and not the bottom of it, right? They said that they set the cabin on fire. It's like, I don't even know how you do that because like, did they climb up the thing? Like, they got, they, okay, so like, did they set it on fire and then climbed down while was on fire? Like, how do you even do that?

I saw another video that was unbelievably funny where a bunch of protesters like, like in front of the mayor of their town covered his car in gasoline and lit it on fire, which was very funny. But like, you know, this is the thing like fire is, like fire is area denial, right? Like that's that and that's key. Yeah, it's it's Arizona.

It's down to have an use of advance. You're able to protect your flanks. And also, it is, it is a very, very good way to, like, it is a very, very, if the thing you want to do is destroy a police station, like lighting it on fire is a very, very good way to do that. And, you know, it's very effective at destroying cars too, is the everything I think I think I have absolutely enough of it, sure. Yeah. And, and, and, and like, the everything that's been happening is there's been a lot of looting. But this is, I actually think the most depressing part about these entire riots is that

most of the looting, you know, like, I am pro-looting, this is like one of my stances, right? But like, like there is a lot of looting that is people looting high-end goods that they normally just would never have access to, right? That's not what's happening here. Most of the looting that's happening here is food and medicine. Yeah. And that is the most depressing thing. The fact that people are doing subsistence looting is like maybe the most depressing thing I've ever heard in my entire life. Like I- Yeah, I- I- I- I- I, it's the cost of living crisis just like, and again, the fact that like we're talking about places with 45% youth unemployment, right? It's, the conditions are so unbelievably bleak that like, yeah, I mean, like this is what

happens when you do this to people is like they fight back. The only thing I want to talk about is that a lot of these people are like one of the things that people focus on. I actually think it's very funny that there was a guy interviewed in the New York Times who had like the moderate position on the riots and their moderate position on the riots was it's okay that they're burning police stations but why are they burning schools? And I want to talk about the burning schools thing a little bit because this is something that gets talked about a lot. And you know, okay, this is, you know,

this is a sort of sociological question that gets, because this is like burning schools has been a thing that's like this would just happen to you all, so five happened to you all, seven, even going back to some of the riots in the 80s and 90s people were burning schools and the reason these kids are burning schools right is that most of the people the people who are burning these schools are like there are kids who went to these schools right and you know they were either in these schools or they just got out and they realized these schools didn't do shit right

like going going to one of these schools doesn't live to out of poverty, studying hard doesn't live to your out of poverty, you're fucked. And you know, it's like, yeah, of course, like of course these people are lighting these, are lighting their schools on fire, right? They're attacking, they're attacking,

like the actual friends, like institutions that were systematically set up to fuck them. And one of the other, like you know, like one of the things that always, the people always talk about is like, well, why are you, you know,

this, you get this with American riots too, if people ask like, why are you burning your homes? Like why, why are you burning your own community? And I mean, specifically with the French suburbs, right, like these suburbs are a cage. They were built as a cage. They were built specifically as a cage to contain a bunch, like as France's way

of containing this non-white labor force that they that they imported into the country. And so, you know, and it's like, yeah, and every single day the bars of the cage are just are fucking getting are shrinking, right? The cage is shrinking. The walls are getting tighter and tighter. There's less food, there's less money, there's less opportunities. And yeah, you know, and some people start burning down the cage. And everyone is walking around going, why are you burning your cage down at your home? But it's still a cage.

Like the fact that people are made to live in the cage doesn't make it any less a cage. And that's why these people are burning it. Because they know from the experience of their everyday lives of what it's like to live here that this place is fucking killing them. And so they responded in the classic French fashion, which is too lighted on fire. Yeah. It is. If the goal was to integrate these people into French culture, there's an

extent to which they work. Yeah, absolutely. There you go. You created the beauty of globalization. That's right. That's not a phrase. Like, yeah, I again, like in terms of the people flipping out about stuff, like I think it is important to think about,

to keep in mind why people are doing this, how bad a situation has to be for people to, as you said, burn their houses, their homes down around themselves. When you think about looting as a function of basic survival, that's the degree to which these people have been like stretched out. And the fact that people are freaking out over shit like guns. And it's largely honestly when I talk about that, largely the reason why is because there's a whole ecosystem of mainly largely right wing people like immediate influencers, a lot of whom got blue checks

as soon as Elon offered it because it puts them up higher in the search results, who started making money in 2020 posting riot porn from the United States and who are desperate to return to those days. So anytime there's disturbances anywhere, they're going to try to like what is the most, you know, oh, you know, a lot of folks on the far left and a lot of folks on the riot are angry at, you know, the US for sending weapons to Ukraine. Well, let's blame this on that. Or, you know, I want to make some sort of point about gun control and pretend that like French gun control laws, you know, don't work because some of the rioters have old shotguns or AKs that got smuggled in from

across the Mediterranean. So I'm going to make it about that. But all of which is number one like calculated in order to increase the profit of a specific, a specific kind of dishonest media influencer. And all of which ignores like the humanity of people who are in a desperate situation and acting desperately as a result. Yeah, and I think, and I think the everything that really pisses me off about this is that it obscures the actual parts of this that are interesting and that are, you know, like that are genuine, the radical and ways that like I don't like one of the things that people tried to do in this is like people tried to break their, like their friends who'd been like arrested by their friends

stay out of prison. And they didn't, they ended up failing because, and this is one of the other things that's been happening is lots of countries have police anti-terrorism units, right? The French have like multiple kinds of them. They also have like military police units. But the French were using these like anti,

like specifically anti-terrorism units against the protesters. And that's one of the units that got deployed. I'm pretty sure if I, if I, if I, if, if, if, if the sources have been reading are correct, that was like one of the things that happened in this was an anti-terrorist, they sent an anti-terrorist immediately to stop a prison break. And that's, I think, you know, it's, it's a really sort of emblematic thing of what the French state is and like where it's going, right?

It's like the, the,'s like the French Republic was born from a bunch of people trying to storm a prison. And it has now gotten back to a bunch of people trying to storm a prison and they send a bunch of like, fucking anti-ride, like anti-terrorism. It was so funny. It was so funny. It's after them.

He's weird, right wingers were like, look, this is what happens when you let all these foreigners into your country that destroy the culture. I'm like, man, this is what happens when you let all these foreigners into your country that destroy the culture. I'm like, man, there's not a goddamn thing more French than just stacking a prison. Then attacking your own prison. Like that is the most they have, like, these people have literally returned to tradition. Yeah, they think they think they they've become French royalists again.

It's just like, oh God, like in Shilah, they suffer the same fate. Like, anyway, whatever, it's very frustrating the way in which we're seeing kind of, I think, I don't know, we'll see. I probably shouldn't be such a doomer because I don't actually know the extent to which all that worked for the kind of people who were attempting to grapple and wrestle these riots into something that could make them

quick cash. But it is kind of a reminder that those people are still there, that like infrastructure of deceit still exists. And every time, you know, the next time there's big riots or protests here, every time it happens anywhere, that shit is all going to spin up. I will say one of the, in terms of like stuff that worked, the use of pellet guns to take out cameras was, seemed to have been extremely effective. Oh, okay, there's another thing I should talk about

that like didn't, doesn't show up on film much for obvious reasons, but like one of the most effective things that was happening in this riots was people using cars to break down the front of stores. Yeah. And the second one that was very effective was people use it like there's a lot of use of scooters as like a way to get as a way to get like move around really quickly as a way to redeploy as a way to like like like like like you know okay the thing about these protests that is that is really sort of interesting in a lot of ways is like it's

what what what they've basically done like not not from a sort of anarchist ideological perspective but from an organizational perspective is that they've created like a bunch of networks with affinity groups. And so though, like the way this stuff is happening, you get a very small group of people who are capable of moving very quickly, and they just go do a thing, right? They don't tell anyone else what they're doing. There's no sort of like, there's no sort of like top down central command that you can just sort of like stop, right? It's this incredibly sort of decentralized like it's this incredibly sort of decentralized movement and the police just like It took them like a week

like over like about to like really like take back control of these places and You know and I and like right now what the period we're entering is like a period that we saw right after the George Floyd operaizing, which is like, this is the period where like the police cracks down and like tries to arrest a bunch of people. Yeah. Simultaneously, like, I don't see a world where we don't see another one of these in the next, like five, maybe 10 years, because none of the structural problems are, like all the structural problems at the French state are just getting worse and worse and worse and worse. And, you know, at some point, someone is like, like, I think the problem with this and

the problem with the French would have been in general has been, for the last about 20 years, right, there have been a lot of very, very similar sort of riots trying to bring down governments and they mostly don't work. But at some point, someone is going to figure out something and they are going to do it. And France could well be a place where that happens just because the state's capacity to do violence is, you know, like the state's legitimacy is just purely reduced to its capacity for violence. And I don't know.

That's not great, but I mean, it's what's happening. And I don't know, I hope I hope I, I hope someone beats them and I hope the people that beat them are better than the current pack of murderous jackals. Speaking of other things that are like a long and proud tradition in French politics. Yeah. Like, there is nothing more French than overthrowing the French.

I mean, that's not just French races. Yeah, that's like everywhere where you're like, wow, these people suck. I hope they get overthrown and also not by someone worse. Yeah. No more to polians. Yeah. No more, no more Napoleon's, Napoleon's Napoleon's Napoleon's Bonaparte. That's the plural.

All right. Well, I feel like are we, is that us for today? Yeah, I think that's that's that's that's been a riot. All right. That's been our French riots episode everybody. Until next time, I don't know, maybe a choir and train with a pellet gun. You know, they're easy to get, uh, surprisingly effective, legally not firearms, you know. You can like, you look, thing they're very useful for if there's like small animals that

are like trying to eat your fucking garden. Yep, you can use them on that as well. Small animals for the government. Sacred Skando, one of the best new podcasts of 2022, is back with a closer look at the darkness surrounding mega-church La Luz del Mundo and its leader, Nasson Joaquin Garcia. They believe that he was Jesus Christ on Earth. It wasn't even so much that he liked sex. He wanted something to pray.

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Would we be next? Who is killing all the kids? And why? In that moment, I saw rage. And why do you some want the town secrets to stay dead and buried forever? I'm not sure why you're digging up all this old stuff again, but I'd be careful. Don't say I didn't warn you, Nancy. Listen to the Murder Years on the iHeart Radio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your

podcasts. Hey, what's up y'all? This is Eric Andreik, but we made a podcast called Bomming about absolutely tanking on stage. I'm talking about your most amazing hair and several experiences of the performer. I tell gnarly stories and I talk to friends about their worst moments of bombing in all sorts of ways bombing on stage bombing and public bombing in life like the time I stole a girl's phone during a set and she dumped on stage and

Through a big a maker punch to my nose. I want to know what's the worst way they ever bombed or performed way too drunk or high It was there every time where they thought they were going to crush and they stunk it up time where they thought they were going to CRUSH and they stunk it up. Coming with Aircon Dre and WheelFare is Big Money Players Network on the I-Hard Radio App, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey everybody, welcome back to It Could Happen Here. I'm Robert Evans and this is a podcast about things falling apart and nowhere. I don't know, showcases collapse quite as well as the US Mexico border. And that's my little introduction. Now I'm going to pivot over to James Stout. James, what are we talking about today? Well, today we are talking about the US Mexico border specifically in the great state of Texas, which people might remember from its Winter Power Grid failures. It's upcoming summer power grid failures,

and Greg Abbott's sort of hilarious and also very cruel and terrible antics on the border. And we're joined today by one guest who, or two guests we've had before to talk about the border on the bug cast. We've got Jen Bud, a former senior border patrol agent and author and an activist, and Mariana Trevinia Wright, a former senior board of patrol agent and author and an activist.

And Mariana Trevina Wright, who people remember as the butterfly lady, the previous owner of an M4 assault rifle, the lady who made the cop walk off butterfly sanctuary once, and hero occasionally of Twitter.com. How are you guys? We're good. We're good. Good to see you guys? We're good. We're good. Good to see you guys.

That is nice to hear because we are, this is normally the time of year where Texas is rough climatically. In this particular year, it's downright apocalyptic down there. Yeah, we just don't go outside. You're likely to vaporize spontaneously. Yeah, it looks bad. Yeah. And so what I've gathered us here today to discuss is the upcoming implementation of

a floating border wall, a barrier, which is going to make children drown. I don't really know how to describe it. Press one if you could sort of describe this proposed, it's Greg Abbott's talking about it, but it's it's clearly like a not just a state thing. So perhaps we could start out by explaining exactly what he's been talking about, what's design looks like? So the Floating Boarder wall I confess in the beginning, I was kind of like, I don't get it because I'm thinking, oh, wall, you know, going, extending upwards. But essentially, what it is, are these giant buoys, plastic buoys that are very tightly woven together so that you can't go in between them. And then the buoys also spin. So if you grab onto them, you're going to just spin down. And then underneath the buoys is a four feet of netting.

So if you try and swim underneath it, you will be captured in the netting. And then you will likely drown. It's originally, I think the original design for the makers was to prevent groups like Green Peace and so forth from getting to oil, what do you call them, oil stands out in the middle of the ocean and keep their boats from getting to them. So now they're going to use them and string them because the border technically, most Americans

I don't think know, this border technically along a lot of parts of the Rio Grande in Texas is in the middle of the river, depending on where the river's flowing that year. And so they will have to also be weighted down as well. And the hope for the governor is that most of the people will drown trying to get over to the US side, which means their bodies will remain in Mexico and then we won't have to deal with them. Easy peasy. Yeah, that is a particularly dark consideration. Our border is already, if people aren't familiar with decolonial outlets, they have some good visualizations, but you can see where migrants die. They have one, I think it's called where migrants die. And there are various sort of colors for different people

dying from exposure, people dying from dehydration drowning. And overwhelmingly, people don't die on the way here. They die within a few miles of our southern border, normally on the north and the sides. Our border is already, and Jen has covered this extensively how our border is already, and Jen has covered this extensively, how our border is already killing people. But this is, I think, particularly cruel. Is it something that, like Abbott started talking about it maybe a month or so ago, maybe two months ago now? Is it something that he's

doing sort of of his own, like the Arizona sort of container wall or is it something that he's proposing as a sort of federal operation? What's going on? I think originally probably got the idea because in the Trump administration they had promoted this and so I believe that the former chief under Trump Rodneyney Scott, was probably, they were probably researching it him and CBP were researching how to do this because it would take quite a few, quite at least quite a few months, if not years,

to research this and make something like this happen. But I think that they abandoned that because they knew that that's just not gonna fly federally. But although, why wouldn't it, I mean, all deterrence policies are based on this kind of cruelty. not gonna fly federally, but although why wouldn't it? I mean, all deterrence policies are based on this kind of cruelty. So I guess visually they thought it would be too much. But since Rodney Scott is no longer the chief

of the border patrol and he resigned, he's been working with the state of Texas and specifically with Governor Greg Abbott to develop new policies and and so forth. And he's been down there helping the union and helping other exporter patrol agents come up with new policies and new cruelties for Greg Abbott to to install. So I think originally the idea was a federal idea. And now it's come down to the state of Texas. Okay. So I guess how far along is the state of Texas in like I know before Trump built his border war, we had these little 30 foot prototypes in San Diego and he gave a lot of contracts,

people who'd given him a lot of money in his election campaign. What's it, Wheatland tube, I think is the big one, and the mixed deal. But how far is the state of Texas along in in its plan to create a floating murder barrier? The buoy barrier, border barrier is already created, and it's available in various links. And I should add in addition to the buoys in between the buoys are spinning radial blades. So you. Yeah, it just I mean, every aspect of this is a bloody nightmare. Yeah, I went to the manufacturer site and it addresses

this too. So you can't even get to like the middle of the buoy with, you know, something and cut the string of buoy because they're these radial razor blades too. Ooh. So the state will be deploying it in thousand foot strips. And Jen and I did a little podcast on this, I don't know, a couple of months ago, when we first saw these signs appearing on the river and they were super strange.

It was Memorial Day weekend, I believe. And they were numbered and they said like RGV for Rio Grande Valley, RGV191, 192, 193. We thought, are these mile markers like we have on the freeway, but they weren't at any particular distance. And they were put at at any particular distance. And they were put at various spots that appeared as though they could be areas where migrants cross, they can also be the paths where the cows and the horses come down to drink. Jen's been on the river with us.

She's observed that at various platforms on the river where water pump stations are for farmers and irrigation districts and such. So we saw these signs. The RGV191 is facing the river facing Mexico. Yeah. The backside of it is a caution, danger, risk of drowning sign in English and in Spanish, but it is facing the United States on the bank of the Rio Grande River in the United States. So it's in no way a caution to anyone who might be approaching the river. And we thought, why are they suddenly putting up these signs? Because, you know, forever, people have been crossing the river. And border patrol is on the boats there, Texas DPS,

the Coast Guard, the U.S. Coast Guard, now game wardens, now Florida Highway Patrol and Florida Fish and game and all these, I mean, it is everybody's floating the river now, not for recreation, but hunting migrants and so then we thought, well, maybe these are so that when these out of state interlopers and at times even the militia who show up to help them could easily communicate with the authorities. Say I'm at marker number 191 or whatever, then it was just a few days after that that the announcement of this floating border bou buoy barrier came up.

And I, my guess is the markers will be used to determine where those are deployed, where they get moved, and that sort of thing so that then they can be accounted for. Right. So are they proposing the entirety of the river be covered by the single? They're going to move segments of it to areas where I think it's a high traffic area. They're going to begin an eagle pass where four people drown just this weekend. But then according to Steve McGraw, who's head of Texas DPS, it sounds like they will be putting them all along the river in areas they believe are high traffic. Right. Yeah, yeah.

And Jesus Christ, it is the dark. Yeah, Eagle Pass is where all those people died in the, in the Anglican and the condition trailer, like I think two years ago, right? Was that Eagle Pass? Those kind of trailer horrors have happened near us in Falfurious and San Antonio. Unfortunately, they happen throughout the border region and there are so many ports of entry, land, ports of entry along the Texas, Mexico border because Texas is, I mean, Mexico is our number one trading partner with the US.

And we have NAFTA, which established the North American free trade zone. So if you have a television or a refrigerator or you drive a car in the United States today, chances are those pieces and parts are manufactured in Mexico, in the free trade zone, and then they get brought over by truck.

Same thing with so much of our produce. So the amount of that trailer traffic is enormous, and those trailers are used for human smuggling. At much higher numbers, we should note than the river area. Same as for narcotics trafficking.

Those things are coming across by the truckload and in shipping vessels, not in small bundles across the Rio Grande River. Right, yeah, I think most narcotics enter the country through ports of entry rather than between ports of entry and it's nodding. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Yeah.

Yeah. Absolutely. Especially the narcotics that are very expensive. Even when I was an agent in the mid-90s, I used to say, why do we only get marijuana? And the agents would say, well, cocaine is too expensive to put on somebody's back and hike it through the mountain. Yeah, exactly. Crosser river or in the desert.

So it's just easier to buy off a CBP agent or a board of patrol agent and just get waived on through. Yeah, they're not dumb. Otherwise, these are huge money businesses. You're not throwing a half a million dollars of cocaine on some guys back. Right. And risking it floating away in a real brand. Yeah. Yeah.

This is valuable merchandise. Like they, they, they, they're no like, no more cavalier with it than like target is, you know, like, right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. These obviously this is part of a sort of larger, I don't know, it's a, Abbott does a lot of posturing on the border, right? And that posturing has real consequences for migrants. And it has real consequences for people living on both sides of the border as well, right? And especially I think people who have to do a previous coverage of that will be very well aware of that.

Perhaps we could sort of characterize this within the context of Operation Loan Star, within the other, like you've said, the other deployments. It's not just even Texas National Guard who are now deployed to the border. So could you give us like an overview of all the ridiculous lapping that's being done. Well, there are 12 or 13 states to date that have sent prison guards, their national guard, and state police to the border. And this is related to two different campaigns, basically, by the Border Patrol Union. One is by Border Crisis with that hashtag, which they launched in March of 2021.

And the other is, every state is a border state, which was a battle cry for MAGA politicians during the midterms. And so what we see now are these red states with, you know, with governors who want to capitalize on looking tough on immigration, sending reinforcements to the border. To Santa's obviously was the first to do that because he's been very vocal about envying Abbott and how Abbott had kind of a leg up on him in any campaign because Abbott got the border. And Abbott got to, as you said, posture there and be the new sheriff in town and stepping in where Sleepy Joe is not performing.

But what we see in reality is Brandon Judd, who's the president of the National Border Patrol Council, was stuck to Trump. You know, they were best buddies and, you know, basically campaigning together. And then Brandon Judd kind of fell away from Trump when he lost reelection and has become Greg Abbott's best buddy and press junket sidekick and help stage the launch of Operation Loomstar, which was like a fourth of July type parade with the tanks and the helicopters and the planes

and the boats and the, you know, the ATV agents and the horses, the whole nine yards. And people think, I think most people in the United States believe that Abbott is this renegade doing this all on his own. And what we see as the reality is, it is a joint operation between the state government and the federal government, but the feds won't admit to it because of the optics. It's bad enough that Biden continued border wall construction, which most of his supporters opposed. Now he is working hand in glove with Abbott.

And when I say our experience, what we see daily and what I have documented is US border patrol working with Texas Department of Public Safety Troopers and Operation Loan Star Texas National Guardsmen literally riding in the same vehicles together responding to scenes patrolling. And at the Butterfly Center, we had National Guard, Texas National Guard, parked on the levied our property, blocking our access back and forth.

And I went and said, Hey guys, you know, this is our property. And we have to have access to it during regular business hours for, you know, my staff who are working here and our members and visitors who come to explore and enjoy. So I need you all to move. I need you to move your Humvee so we can get back and forth. And I recorded this interaction as I do all.

And they said, ma'am, we don't take our orders from you. We take our orders from Border Patrol. And that was a revelation to me when this happened a couple of years ago. So I actually got on the phone with the Patrol Agent in charge, the highest ranking Border Patrol Agent at the McAllen station. And I said, his name is Tony Crane.

I said, Tony, you need to come out here and tell these guys to move. They're saying that we'll only do it for you and they only take orders from you. And Tony drove out there to the Butterfly Center, to the Levy and instructed the National Guard to move their vehicle and they did. And this is something we've seen over and over. And I now have an email commander or regional director rather of Texas DPS Victor Escalon,

who the rest of the nation may know from the Evalding tragedy. I have email from him where he involved in tragedy. I have email from him where he is invoking the federal statute that DPS claims gives them the authority to ignore our Fourth Amendment rights and enter private property without warrant as long as they're working with water patrol. And they are claiming that they are doing so at the request of the United States Attorney General, according to the federal statute. Oh, yeah. Importantly, the like federal government in any of its aspects isn't saying, no, this isn't true or like, you know, they're at work, you get like you say hand in hand with these. And like, it's not even just a joint federal and state operation. Like, I know, I think it was South Dakota's deployment. Was it that was funded by a wealthy individual? Like, the state didn't pay for it. Um, I can't

remember which Dakota it was, but it was funded by a wealthy donor who paid for it. And. Yeah. Whichever state, Christy, no, M is in charge of, yes. And I believe that also happened in Kentucky or Tennessee. Same thing. It was a wealthy donor who funded their state national guard deployment. Yeah. And then perhaps, Jen, you could explain

to people why it is so different. If they believe they have these within 100 miles to border and then again within 25 miles as a border, so many of your fundamental rights don't apply. Could you explain how that works and then how, if the National Guides see themselves as also having the ability to sort of wave the fourth amendment, what that would mean for the privacy of people living along the border. And the United States Border Patrol Academy. So I went through the academy and asserted in June of 1995. So I can at least testify to that. They basically, you know, I had a

four year in law. So I knew a little basics about it and then going to the academy it was really kind of sad because they don't really teach you much of anything. They're just like, you know, their rights are limited. We're allowed within 25 miles of the border by the law to go on anybody's private property and even search their buildings as long as it's not a domicile and that can sometimes be in question. Whether it's being used as a domicile or we consider it as a domicile. And then within a hundred miles of any land or sea border which encompasses two thirds of the United States population, we can basically stop you and ask you to prove that you're a United States citizen.

basically stop you and ask you to prove that you're a United States citizen. And so then they increase that with checkpoints that are a little ways away from the border, where they under the guise of asking for your citizenship, they then get to police get to police American citizens or legal residents. And as the years have progressed, Border Patrol keeps trying to push those authorities. In the beginning, we weren't allowed to work with local PD, the local sheriffs. There was a very clear separation, a very clear line between Border Patrol and cops are at least legally on written paper that were supposed to be. And after 9-11, what we end up seeing is the border patrol decides to get very heavily invested into surveillance. And it's not a coincidence. Former chief Rodney Scott was in charge of that during that time. And his basic statement was, you know, if a car is bombed

and I rack, the border patrol needs to know about it. So they considered anything in the world to be important to the border patrol. And they wanted the border patrol to be the go-to agency and as far as surveillance. So that's why you see them being used in Black Lives Matter protests and things like this. And we saw them a lot in the Trump administration where they were supposedly guarding federal buildings and then went and attacked them. So what you see is the board of control trying to quietly eke into what is typically considered peace officer authority. So they're trying to get peace officer authority in Texas through

the state legislature. And they just keep trying to expand their authority more and more. What I see in Texas specifically is when you look at the history of immigration, when the United States, when we first, you know, when when when Texas first became a state and all this other stuff. Originally, the states did their own immigration patrolling. And so if you went and you decided you're gonna somehow, you landed on the coast in Georgia, then you would have to go to a Georgia official and pay whatever it is that they required a viewing session.

So what I see more and more is like, Texas is taken back that authority and saying, were the ones that are going to say this. And so then they can make money off of the deterrents policies and all of this other stuff. So it's just a constant expansion of the rights of the cops while at the same time constantly reducing the rights to the people who live here. And even the people that cross here, a lot of people think they'll say, you know, that migrants don't have any constitutional rights.

Well, that's not true. They have constitutional rights because it says people in the US Constitution doesn't say citizens. So in certain areas, it will say citizens and then that is exclusive to United States citizens. But the basic rights are afforded to even migrants, but because the migrants don't have much of a voice, the Border Patrol gets away with everything, secret teams, cover-up teams, and all this other stuff.

Border Patrol agents will just flat out tell you Constitution doesn't exist down here. And they never get in trouble for it. So, one of the things Jen just touched on is Texas DPS getting in on this immigration business is when Governor Abbott declared that operation loonstar would be targeting Hispanic males and in some places they talk about of fighting age. So they're already depicting all of these individuals as like soldiers in some invasion and a gang war

and you know, that they're again hostile combatants to the United States, but they were going to charge them all with criminal trespass. So we hear a lot about how awful the cartel is and how much money they take from migrants and then hold them for ransom and how expensive it they take from migrants and then hold them for ransom and how expensive it is to get across.

Well, once they get across, the state of Texas becomes the cartel. They arrest them, charge them with criminal trespass, put them in the county jail, it's a $5,000 fine. Then when they're released from state custody, they're immediately handed over to federal detention. And that is generally the for-profit, Geo Group, or Core Civic.

And there, my understanding is, fines for detention can be $10,000 to $12,000 for your federal detention. And so here we have, it used to be just the, the, for a profit, federal detention facilities cashing in on our criminal immigration policies. And Governor Abbott's like, hey, why aren't we getting a piece of the pie? So that is what Operation Lone Star is really about. It's not about public safety.

It's not that all this fentanyl is coming across the Rio Grande River being smuggled by migrants. It's about to ching, ch ching, to ching, to ching, putting all of them in to the county jail at $5,000 a hit. Yeah. Yeah. And it's all the while, right? Like he's, I know some of the Texas National Guard people aren't getting the benefits they would normally get if they've been mobilized or deployed because it's a state deployment, not a federal deployment. As much as Aber and DeSantis Trianglis, the border is a dangerous place,

full of drug warlords in cartel violence. Overwhelmingly, the people in that in Lone Star who have died have died because they got drunk and drove because they have an accident with a personally owned firearm because Texas Lord doesn't allow them to stop the National God bringing their own weapons. They're not getting into gun fights with secarios, right? Like it's not it's not any anything like that. It's the standard problem of taking a bunch of men away from the place they normally live and making them do mind numbing duty. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and they're doing mind numbing duty in, you know, exasperating heat. It's boring as hell.

heat. It's boring as hell. We see them asleep in vehicles watching Netflix, doing other things. When National Guard totaled their enterprise rental truck on the gate at the National Butterfly Center, what we found were butt light cans on the ground, which we can only assume cans on the ground, which we can only assume bounced out of the truck bed when that truck made impact and was destroyed. The local police will not release any public information related to to calls and reports that they have to take of drunken disorderly conduct, noise complaints, property damage, sexual assault, all of these things happening at the hotels where National Guard is staying. But we know from visitors and from property managers

and others that this is happening regularly because they don't have good leadership. And it's frankly, it's like really young kids that are down there. And the other thing that we need to say to you is that the National Guard that's being posted there, the young National Guard kids are seeing increased rates as suicide. And that's something that's particular to border patrol agents because when you're an oppressor and you do that cut of work, then you're going to end up,

the suicide rates go through the roof as they are with the border patrol. And now you're seeing that with the National Guard. But Marianne is right. There's a lot of stuff that they're suppressing about what these National Guard kids are getting into because they're bored down there. So they're sitting down there and Texas drinking

and opening it up and getting in trouble. But it's all kind of hushed us quiet about that. Yeah, not right. And not only are they bored, but these are, like you said, 18, 19, 20, 21-year-olds getting paid $6,000 a month, like they have never had this kind of cash before, and what are they going to do with it? They're going to go buy guns at our local pawn shop. They paid the National Guard that well. That's what they're being paid.

Initially, their taxes were not being withheld or anything. That was a whole nether issue. And then for a while, they were trying to unionize because they were not getting the benefits of a regular deployment and the ones who were working in law enforcement already as police officers, firefighters, paramedics and such. They also, while they're on deployment, do not accrue their hours toward their pensions. So they're taking another hit for that. So these were all things that I guess the state didn't really think through when

they called all these people up and forced them to come sit on the border and do mind-numbing work for the most part. No, it's just a terrible idea. Comprehensive. It's one of those things. If you spent any time studying the surge in Iraq and kind of the later part of the Bush years, and some of the shit that happened when they just grabbed a bunch of national guard guys and threw the like, it's a lot of the same

shit. It's people who were like finding ways to get alcohol and drugs who were crashing cars who were because like, yeah, you were, it's just, this is, this is an inevitable consequence, which is why you shouldn't do something like this unless there's like a dire reason to need to bring the national guard into a situation like a natural disaster. Yeah. I think, go ahead. I would, I would say that they all need housemothers. I mean, like, fraternities have and stuff because every time I run into one of these young men and

they start to like look at me or open their mouth a certain way. I just want to grab them by the ear and be like, ah, you know, junior, I'm going to spank you, you know, but for snapper. you know, but for snapper, you are 19. You should not be in this position right now. Yeah. Yeah. Get out of here. Yeah. Go back to. Yeah. We spoke to a few of them at a grub at night when we were down there. And like one of them was just saying, he we spoke to a few of them at a grub at night when we were down there and like one of them was just saying like he's trying to Guess some money for college in yeah, I don't I don't think they're occurring those benefits because If they're under state orders it they don't get it so Greg Abbott's kind of screwing everyone apart from himself and his his little friends I guess Maybe to finish up. I know that and one

I think the only case like I can know that one, I think the only case like I can come across of this happening of someone dying trying to rescue migrants was a national guard soldier who tried to rescue people from the river and drowned from what I understand. And like, obviously this drowning barrier is going to the border patrol or even invested in investing in getting people from the river, which they might not be if they're from the Mexican side, if they're still on the Mexican side of the border, right? In theory, would put those people, those like National Guard and border patrol agents in danger too.

So what have border patrol to say about the floating barrier so far? They haven't said anything about it so far, and there have been a few Border Patrol agents who've lost their lives jumping into the river as well. There have been other migrants who've lost their lives trying to save their children and so forth. Migrants die every day in that river. And the Border Patrol is just going to stay quiet about it because they like it. It's their management who's going along with it.

And if they didn't like it, and if the Biden administration didn't like it, then they would come out and say, say, or they would come out and have chief glory chauve as come out and say, no, we're not going to have this. This is going to kill people. This is not right. You know, on our first blah, blah, blah, which we all know it's bullshit, but the truth is is they really don't care. They just don't care. And as they say in the Border Patrol, we learn and you all learn, I knew it, but you all learn from the 1015 group on

Facebook. They call them floaters and take pictures of them and make fun of it. So the Border Patrol could care less. It's just one less migrant. They got a process. to care less. It's just one less migrant. They got a process. Well, and as Jim said, if US border patrol was opposed to this new border barrier, they would say something. Well, I think it's even worse than that. In 2018, Trump got border wall funding. And as you mentioned, he had his, you know, commando climb all these border wall prototypes in the desert and all of that. In 2019, he got his second tranche of border wall funding. But 2020 and 2021 were continuing resolutions.

So he was getting border wall funding after that, but it was always for existing approved designs. And those are the concrete with the seal ballards. So for even though Trump floated the idea of this border barrier, this floating border wall, to get congressional approval or US Army Corps of Engineer approval for such a thing would have been an issue. Also, there's the issue of the International Boundary and Water Commission Treaty, which is a binaural treaty with Mexico that governs the Rio Grande River, the water that flows in it, the boundaries who gets to take how much water from it, things that are built and might affect the flow

of the river. As Jen mentioned, the international boundary is the middle of the river, no matter where the river is flowing now because over millions of years, it has shifted, the channel has shifted many, many times and greatly. So, we know the feds probably border patrol with the Trump administration, so DHS wanted this floating border wall. The easiest way for them to get it is to have Governor Abbott do it. In 2005, the Real ID Act, in that act of legislation, Congress gave the Secretary of Homeland Security the authority to waive every law, local state, federal, for border barrier.

So it doesn't say border wall. It says border barrier. So presumably this buoy border barrier would also be covered. So the feds don't have to worry about something like the National Environmental Policy Act or the Endangered Species Act or the Rivers and Harbors Act in deploying this, but they do not have authority to waive treaties or the Constitution. So since at least 2005, the federal government has been trying to devise ways to effectively waive the IBWC treaty. One of the ways in which they have done that is with the We Build the Wall campaign, which

built, you know, they built border barrier on the international boundary line in Sunland Park, New Mexico, and in Mission, Texas, and the US government settled with them, allowing this illegal structure to stand in violation of the treaty in spite of Mexico's objections, thereby setting a legal precedent effectively waving the treaty. But now Abbott can do this and who's gonna sue him? The IBWC isn't gonna do a damn thing because they have no authority to sue on their own. They have to go to the federal government and ask the Department of Justice to sue on their behalf. It's the Department of Justice that has already

settled with Fisher Industries for the We Build the Wall Fraud Fence in violation of the treaty. The other issue is Texas doesn't have to abide by NEPA or any equivalent law. And we know that the feds have in the past devised really nasty reach-arounds for the law, where if they get busted doing something illegal, like having customs and border protection,

spray, emaz appear, a broad spectrum herbicide that is a known carcinogen all over people, animals and plants on the border. They get sued and made to stop that. They'll simply pass the money through to the state of Texas and ask them to continue it. And I think this floating buoy border barrier is exactly that kind of thing. The Biden administration can say, we're not doing it and they don't have to get approval for this design and they'll just find a way

to either pass the money through to Texas or allow Texas to continue to basically fund raise for it. And they'll just find a way to either pass the money through to Texas or Allow Texas to continue to basically fund raise for it by prosecuting immigrants for criminal trespass and finding them to get out of county jail Yeah, well that is doc I think it's interesting to point out though that when governor Ducey of Arizona put up his train car thing, Biden administration did get involved with that and they were upset about that. So far we haven't seen anything about this and so we'll see if they deploy it and the Biden

administration stays quiet about it. Yeah, I mean, we're closing in on, like November, 2024, and I think Biden really is very sensitive about being seen as quite a week on the border. And like given the absolute disaster, there was the end of title 42 and the way they handled that. And they didn't really say anything when board patrol was clearly holding people in conditions that are in violation of their own detention standards. Like, I don't have high hopes for the Biden administration to do that. It's interesting because you would think like the whole thing from the union and everybody that is probe water patrol and anti-immigrant was like if you in title 42 then it's just going to overwhelm the water patrol and more people will come. And we kept saying for a

year like no that's not going to help and it's going to be drastically cut. And so it's drastically cut. And I you would think the Biden administration would be like look what I did. Yeah. Yeah. And but they're not. I mean, they have no clue how to talk about the border and what to do on the border. It's sad. No, it's this double-edged sword of Get In Line. Do it the legal way. So the people who say we're not anti-immigrant, we just want them to do it the legal way and get in line. So Title 42 ends. We've got the CBP1 app, which gives them an appointment. So they can stand in line to cross at a legal point of entry and do it legally. And now they've got to find a way to thwart that

and to mess it up. And Biden, as you said, is not saying, look at what we did. We've got everybody standing in line doing it the legal way. Yeah, I think they don't want to look at CBP1 too hard, given what a disaster it's been and how biased it's been

and how bad it continues to be. But yeah, for sure, for sure. They've failed to offer any other options. And yeah, I don't really have any hope that things will not just get worse. There seems to be a bipartisan consensus that it's okay to kill lots of people trying to come to our country for help because it's bad if Fox News just mean to you.

Jen has been very vocal and produced lots and lots of research and documentation on how our deterrence policies are designed to kill. And there are not a whole lot of people using the G word, but Jen has been courageous enough to do it. I was recently told by my employer that I could not use it. And I think it's a horror, but Jen can speak to it. And I think it's a horror, but Jen can speak to it. We have to do a whole other episode. I think we should do. Well, we will, we're definitely going to keep covering this because it's one of the things it just disappears from a lot of national media in between election cycles or in between.

Well, and then yeah, unfortunately, it's one of the things where kind of the numbers are heading in the wrong direction nationwide because like the border, like the, the right is winning on border stuff right now. The right is winning on immigration. Like, there's some pretty dark polling, like as much as, you know, some of the last couple of elections have been positive in terms of the pitiful performance of like kind of MAGA Republicans. Like if you look at kind of how Americans are polling on border issues and immigration issues, it's pretty bleak at the moment. And I don't really, I don't think anyone has a great clear clue is to like how to reverse

that at the moment, which isn't to say that it can't be reversed. It's difficult. Well, it's difficult, especially when the Democrats are always seeding the argument to the Republicans. Yeah. Absolutely. They're afraid to make the argument that a robust and humane asylum system that can

inspect the people requesting asylum is a national security issue and you need one. You can't just not have an asylum system. You have to have it's an essential part to the national security infrastructure. So people that argue that we shouldn't have an asylum system because it's a threat to national security or completely ignorant about what they're talking about. And so they have to start framing it as a national security issue, one where we can have people come and be inspected and so forth.

And then the people who are the nefarious people, yeah, they're going to go in between the ports of entry, find, arrest those people, but let's have a humane system otherwise. So it's also fundamental to the success of our economy. And with, you know, the U.S. birth rate is declining. And without a robust, safe, timely immigration system, ideally one that allows people to go back and forth because what I hear from people here is, I miss my country, I want to return to my country, I want to come here to see my family, to work for a season, or for a spell, to send money home, but then I want to be able to return. And our current system is too deadly to allow them to make it through and then go back and attempt to do that a second time. Another issue related to

the narrative and and red winning on immigration is we found at the Butterfly Center that when Biden continued building border wall. And we said, oh my gosh, you know, this is what's happening. And we posted photos and video and everything of it. People who had supported us, Democrats, liberals with a capital L who had supported us said, you're lying, or that's just their continuing Trumps they had to. Then when we contradicted every one of those arguments with facts, then they said, oh, well, if Biden's doing it, then there must be a good reason. And the US can't accept everybody.

And you get this walking back of all of the things that they were saying when Trump was president about being humane, about needing an effective system, about creative solutions and all of this. And now it's suddenly, well, you know, we can't let everybody in. And so I have honestly found, and I'm going to take a lot of hit flat for this, but there's basically no difference between a moderate Republican and a liberal capital L. Yeah, it certainly seems that way. Certainly Trump had months of Title 42 Biden had years of it. Like it's, yeah, certainly.

I mean, it's, I think pretty much impossible to argue with that at least on the, uh, on a broad scale. Like if you're just kind of, like, looking at, at national trends, uh, there's, there's ample support for that argument. Yeah, Biden, I mean, uh, Obama deported more people than anyone. Absolutely. Yeah, massive number. Yeah. Um, well, cool. Absolutely. Yeah. Massive number. Yeah. Well, cool. Yeah. Yeah. Where can people find out more terrible stuff about the border? Is there a podcast they can listen to? We do have a podcast, Border Patrol Watch, Mariana, and I have kind of started it just to talk about a lot of these issues that we feel are being left

out. And it's on YouTube. We also have a TikTok account and Twitter for the moment. We'll see how that goes. And Facebook and Instagram. And there is board of patrol watch.com. Yeah. And that list, there's a page on there for all the agents arrested for rape and pedophilia. There's a corruption page. There's a page on how they try and indoctrinate the youth down here on the borderlands and so forth. So yeah, I'm all about that, Jess. Yeah, that's hashtag on her first. And so where could people that's all but a part watch? How about YouTube? You guys have individual accounts? Where can they find you?

Jen is doing most of this and I believe it's under the Border Patrol watch banner. Because you know, both of us found ourselves targeted or throttled or being really suppressed by Twitter and Facebook. Lost my 40,000 followers, yeah. Yeah, but by the way, which is great, you had a great thread on agents who have facing charges for sexual assault and that's a very small minority of agents who have done sexual assaults, certainly. But yeah, there's some really good information for people on there. Yeah, those are just the ones who are being prosecuted

or have been convicted. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, most of them, sadly, have not. I didn't even know what to have it, it took too long, and it was far too convoluted. Well, we can talk again on that happy topic another day, but thank you so much for giving us some of your afternoon guys. We really appreciate it. Thank you guys for all you do and for getting the word out.

Sacred Skandal, one of best new podcasts of 2022, is back with a closer look at the darkness surrounding mega-church La Luz del Mundo and its leader, Nasson Joaquin Garcia. They believe that he was Jesus Christ on Earth. It wasn't even so much that he liked sex. He wanted something to pray. It's the largest cult in the world that no one has ever heard of. For three generations, the Luz del Mundo had an incredible control on his community that began in Mexico and then grew across the United States.

Until one day... A day of reckoning for the man whose millions of followers called him the Apostle. Their leader was arrested and survivors began to speak out about the sexual abuse, the murder, and corruption. This is just a business and their product are people. They want to know that they will kill you. Listen to all episodes now on the I Heart Ready Up Apple podcasts or whatever you get your podcasts. 911 what's your emergency? You shot her!

Oh my God! It's a nightmare we could never have imagined. And a killer who is still on the loose. My small town rocked by murder. There are certain murders I'm scared to discuss. In the 1980s we're in high school losing friends, teachers, and community members. One after another, after another, for a decade. We weren't safe anywhere.

We're teenagers terrified to leave our own homes. Would we be next? Who is killing all the kids? And why? In that moment, I saw rage. And why do some want the town's secrets to stay dead and buried forever? I'm not sure why you're digging up all this old stuff again, but I'd be careful. Don't say I didn't warn you, Nancy.

Listen to the Murder Years on the iHeart Radio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, what's up, y'all? This is Eric Andreik, but I made a podcast called Bomming about absolutely tanking on stage. I'm talking about your most amazing hair and experiences of the performer. I tell gnarly stories, and I talk to friends about their worst moments of bombing in all sorts of ways.

Bomming on stage, bombing in public, bombing in life. Like the time I stole a girl's phone during a set and she dumped on stage and threw a big A-maker punch to my nose. I wanted to know what's the worst way they ever bombed or performed way too drunk or high, and was there ever a time where they thought they were going to crush and they stunk it up. Subscribe to my podcast Bombing with Eric Andre to hear more crazy stories from me and my friends.

I'll have guests like Sam Jay, the little say Sloan, Michelle Butteau, Mac DeMarco, DJ Doug Pound, Saturday Night Live, Sarah Sherman, and more! Listen to bombing with Aircon Dre on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network on the I-Hard Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. It could happen here. I'm going to be a little bit more patient

than you can expect. I'm going to be a little bit more patient than you can expect. I'm going to be a little bit more patient than you can expect. It could happen here. It's the podcast that's happening here. That's not what we called it that, but, you know, such as the world. And today I'm going to be talking about one of our, I don't want to say rare, but we're doing one of our, how do we put the world back together episodes? And in order to do that, I'm gonna be talking with Mira and Corrin,

who are two organizers for the dual power gathering bit west. That's happening in what, like two months, ish. Yeah, it's Corrin Mira, welcome to the show. Hi, thanks. It's great to be on. Yeah, it's great to have you two. Okay, so I guess I should... I guess we should start with...

Well, I don't know if seconds the right term. The first of these happens last year in Indiana. Is it last year? Yeah, it was last year. I had to make it. I had to do a quick, checking my memory to make sure that 2022 was in fact last year. And we haven't somehow skipped the 2024 already. Oh, boy, things are going great here. But yeah, I wanted to, I guess, start with talking about what the dual power gathering is and yeah, like what happened at the first one and how did it go?

Yeah, so dual power gathering, I guess maybe I think to start with is what is dual power. Yeah, we haven't talked about that in a bit. I can't explain it for new people. Maybe the best way to put it is something that maybe a lot of people have heard before, which is building a new world in the shell of the old. So we live in a society, right? Unfortunately. So there's a lot of institutions that we have to deal with.

And for a lot of people, it's essential to rely on these institutions because there's not other options. And as anarchists, it's kind of our goal to build those other options. And dual power is that building a second power in opposition to the state powers. So, you know, like tech stuff, so internet mesh networks, I'll just alternative infrastructures, alternative medical care,

though I'm sure that specific phrasing can imply something else which I did not mean, but just working with communities to try to not rely on the state. And so dual power gathering is bringing together a bunch of people from orgs and independent activists and honestly people who just want to get involved and don't know a lot to help build those counter structures. And honestly this calls on media brought a lot of people. The one to the podcast last year. So it seems like your audience really likes this stuff. Yeah.

I'm sad I wasn't able to go to last years. I was in the process of like setting up for it. And then I had a COVID scare. It had to like lock down for like an entire week. And it turned out that I didn't have it, but I'm very sad. I preferred that you didn't spread COVID. Yeah, I was like, you know, okay, let's not like endanger people's lives.

That seems better than in fact doing that. And on that note, since there's been questions, both other events, we will be having mass requirements and at the event to make sure that immunocompromised people are not being excluded, want to make that clear. Yeah and this is this is like you know so I like the last one from by understanding you like you know it was it was a bunch it was a bunch of people like camping in the dunes basically and is this one also going to be sort of like mostly an outdoor thing? Yeah so it's going to be we're not just going to say the location here. You can find that out through registering, but the location is just near Chicago and it's

similarly outside. It's a big open space, not a lot of trees, which is sad this year. But yeah, it'll be mostly camping, but there's cabins and people can stay in hotels nearby also. Yeah, so I guess, okay, we've talked a bit about what dual power is in building this kind of counter-power and building. I mean, I guess I just want to say a little bit. These are, dual power institutions are just a lot of the things that, you know, just we talk about building or like people, you know, or we've been involved in building. These are these can be things like tennis unions, like different, like different, well different, like regular unions, like caucuses and unions, like mutual aid networks,

like worker centers, so there's, you know, there's all sorts of things that can be involved in this. But now having gotten, we've gotten through dual power, we've sort of gotten through gathering, but I want to ask a bit more about what happens at the thing when you go to it. Yeah, so it's built on the unconference model of doing things, which in essence is aiming to counteract the idea that we need to have a sort of structured event that's, you know, you do this at this point, you do this at this point, you do this at this point. Instead, it's meant to be built more towards libertarian socialist principles. And it is where people are able to kind of build their own agenda from the start of the event and kind of structure their day how they want to. So you can talk to these people to go to a skillsharing event on

a stop the bleed training. You can just talk to these people who go to a skill share event on how to facilitate meetings. You can talk to these folks to learn a bit about anarchist history, you know, just all these different things that can be formatted. However, you may so choose and that are all kind of happening at the discretion of people who are involved. So it's very much so just up to you to build your own day.

And of course, you can also talk to other people there if you need some help, plenty of the organizer involved or more than willing to help out. And you know, when people hand in figuring out everything is and what they might want to do and what other people are doing to structure their day around, met at the core, you know, to build around individual choice autonomy and just a non-hierarchal method of going about it. So I can talk a little bit more about how that looked practically

from last year. So the first night I wasn't there so I can't talk much about that but it was it was just mostly getting to know everybody. People were coming and throughout the night because work and all that on a Friday, but then that Saturday after breakfast, which I don't even remember, it was like, oh, meal or something. We got together in this assembly area and brought out whiteboards and marked out days and people like just stuck up what they wanted to talk about in a session on the board in a time slot. And then we got everyone to figure out which ones of these can be condensed. You know, do two people have similar ideas? Can they talk about how they might want to

have a session together? And then people just chose which sessions to go to. We kept the white boards up so people could see what was going on and where. And that worked out pretty well. I think the biggest concern from that was people wanted to go to everything. We simply did not have time. And we were like, can we make this a week? And I think that's pushing it money wise. It's expensive enough to rent a campsite for a weekend. Hey, if it has like just a bunch of land they have sitting around, they want to give to us for this.

Yeah. If you can make whatever rancher farm you have, like accessible for people, then, yes, please reach out for future gatherings. But the most important part I think was that the gathering model allowed all different groups there who had similar interests. For example, there was a POC caucus to self-organize. There was also like a sex workers group. They were able to come together on their own, figure out what was going on. And it wasn't based on what organizers thought was important. It was based on what participants thought was important. And I think that also facilitated a lot of networking. You were able to see, hey, there's a DIY medicine circle going on in this campsite. Well, I'm going to go maybe stop by. I might not say the whole time, but I'm going to check it out see if I'm interested. See if I like, I like the people there.

And it allowed for especially newer folks to interact with veterans veteran activists and just engage with stuff they might have only felt interested in slightly and actually get involved and contribute. So yeah, that's how it practically went for the unconference. And we didn't hear that many complaints about it except that it maybe some time sessions were not time, like the time was too short or too long or that it wasn't like a week or two. Yeah, I mean, you know, and that's stuff that like, especially the first time you're running an event, like stuff like that happens,

and you know, we can, like stuff like that happens. And you know, we can... Okay, this is... I have not an enormous amount of experience running like panels and stuff, but like I've done it and it's like, God, getting the timing right is really hard and very annoying. But it's, you know, this is a thing that subsequent events will, can and will sort of iterate on and get better at because you know, I guess what what what what what what of one of the things that we are in fact learning at these is how to do these things that you know, I guess in this way hasn't been done before. Yeah, and it's not I mean not technically not been done before.

Well, I've done it this way. Yeah, yeah like, there's crime think convergences or like the bashback, but yeah, yeah. Well, I think it's an interesting thing to on a sort of like, I don't know, I think I think there's a way in which this is in some sense, kind of getting back to like older, like, models of anarchist organizing, that kind of like, I'm not going to say they disappeared, but there'd been sort of less of them due to like, you know, I just sort of like political shifts and this is like shifts to what people organized and like just what kinds of stuff were happening

at any given time. And so, you know, and I think like the consequence of this is a lot of people sort of relearning or you know, relearning and inventing things that like had been known, but, you know. I ever, ever had been known, but everyone's working through it together and it turns out we're pretty good at building things. Yeah, one thing that I think is really cool about DBG that kind of shines through is seeing about D.B.G. that kind of shines through is seeing how something like building an event like this,

like when I first got involved, you know, I pictured building an event like this is a huge ordeal, you know, it was, you needed all these big connections, you needed to know a guy, who knows guy, who knows a guy, he needed so many different resources at your disposal. It never really hit me that this could be something that just regular people could just up and decide to do. It's not to say it doesn't take a lot of effort and work. It does, but it's still ultimately something that is in the power of people to do if they really set themselves onto it

and are able to find enough helping hands, both physically and in terms of the actual event. So it's like, it's really cool to see just everyone coming together in the organizing process and it's just being a very organic, organic natural thing. It's like, I don't know, you see it a lot with like other specific events. I've done food and not bomb stuff that I've seen it there too, but like, it's different when it's something that you typically foresee, at least I did, foresee as like, oh, you know, building a whole weekend long event, you know, you need, you have to have corporate big shots doing that, you know, how can you expect the little guys to do that? And yeah, it's also cool to see people just jump in and help who might not even have other

organizing experience. They've started this last year to near the end of the planning for the gathering, there were so many people joining. A little circle is on planning, food, and transportation logistics, and how can I contribute? And I think the resounding result was people finding political hope that was a term I heard a lot from individuals who both were and helped organize the last one and were hoping to create a similar thing this time.

Yeah, and that's something that like I think everyone can use a bit more of right now in a sort of in a very sort of depressing and bleak. Like there's a lot of bad there's a lot of bad stuff happening and the ability to generate hope. And you know, you can even think of it in sort of, and just turns it like more ral, right? Like, it's really, really, really hard to actually achieve or change anything

if everyone has just sort of given up already. And, you know, like being around other people and being in like planning events with people and doing stuff with people is a very, very good way to just break the kind of existential dread and depression of living in hopelessness of living in this disaster that we've all been thrown into. Yeah, something that somebody had mentioned at the last gathering that really stuck with me was that because of the uprising in COVID, most leftist organizing was formed through trauma bonding. Yeah.

And it was really nice to form relationships outside of traumatic incidents. And they felt longer lasting and much safer than relationships built during crisis. Yeah, and I think, I think that's just sort of important to long those lines to remember, is that like building relationships, there's a decent extent to which that's just all organizing is.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's not all organizing is, but it's a really important part of it and the way that people are able to do this, especially in the wake of a bunch of like, you know, I mean, really sort of traumatic and horrible experiences people went through. Like, yeah, glad we have a better way to do this.

Yeah, stuff like this is essentially, well, some of the only things that give me a sense of optimism for the future, because those who know me know like tend to be a very pessimistic person. I don't look at current events to what it can slightly and say, oh, wow, these are going pretty topsy trivia out there. So, but when we have stuff like this going on, that's just built at the level of, hey, where people try and to make things better and prevent the chaos from the outside world and the world around us from just consuming everything.

It's like it gives a nice sense of community and a nice sense of hey, we're not allowed in this and that maybe tomorrow things will be a little bit better than they work today. Yeah. It's especially important in my opinion. I the first gathering I was not living in a city as I do now. Why was living? And not a city that just people in big cities would call a city. I was in Nebraska. And I was going to joke about Davenport or something. And that's kind of on a fair Davenport.

Yeah. So being able to meet other rural organizers in various places, especially honestly, the Appalachia region, which I did not realize was so related in their struggles. Was important because no matter how much I wanted to network, it wasn't really that opportunity. As much as there is in cities and in cities, there's a doesn't mean you're necessarily meeting more people or people that you necessarily would like to organize with. meeting more people or people that you necessarily would like to organize with. There's often more need and not necessarily more anarchists. Yeah. Yeah, and I mean, you know, this is something we've talked about before, but we've basically built it while, okay, I say, we didn't really build this, but the social system we lived in,

the social system that we live in has been built sort of very specifically and very deliberately to isolate people. And yeah, and you know, this sort of functions in different ways depending on sort of geography and like regional stuff. But yeah, like I think this is, you know, an important tool to sort of break that and to bring people together and to bring like, I don't know, I think I think I think another part of this we haven't talked about as much as just like really incredible things happen when you bring people together from struggles that like turn out to be very similar but like aren't

Art, like, art usually involved with each other, or like, you sort of like, not like, I haven't been able to sort of like link up before. You get very sort of like, I don't know, you get a lot of really interesting sort of like ideas and strategic stuff from it. Yeah, like, one thing that I've noticed, especially, because I've done a lot of small town role organizing, is that you can kind of easily develop like very isolated communities and isolated radical cultures in like specific regions.

And it's not a great pitfall to fall into because you miss out on what development that might happen else, or it might sound a lot of other things that might happen in other regions. And even beyond just regions going into specific intersectional issues like different different organizers who might focus specifically on racism versus sclerophobia versus ableism They can there's all things to learn from each other. Yeah, there's all Interconnectedness and we tie that into interconnectedness of different regions. There's just a big need for things to be kind of like a large web of connectivity instead of just, you know, of things are kept separate and now we're stuck developing on her own. And that's, that's never fun. Yeah. And you know, and I guess,

sort of going this sort of back around to the specific event. The thing that you all are doing to combat this is the dual power gathering in Midwest. So I wanted to talk a little bit about like, well, okay, when is this happening? And also, what are the plans so far for what it's going to look like and what people are going to be doing?

So it's August 17th through 20th. And this year's going to be pretty similar to last year. And you can also look at dual power west, which had their gathering earlier this summer. If you go to Savo Media, I think it's SavoMedia.noblocks.org or whatever. Noblocks addresses. You can look it up. They did a good report back on how that went. We'll also have a documentary up if people want to learn more. Sorry, that's side track. But we'll put links to that in the description. So right now we're soliciting a lot of people to come and bring what they have to offer to the table.

We are in the end stages of setting everything up and getting everything connected. And part of that is we want people to bring over what they want to share, you know, skills they want to share. Cool things they've learned about leftist history, things that are important to know for modern day society, intersectional issues, discussions, basically anything the people could think of that might be worthwhile. Come on over, bring it in. We'd love to talk to people and hear more about it. So, in terms of specifics, so we might have planned, that is where we're currently at. We're aiming for it to be like last year, in that it's a Skillshare event in a discussion. last year in that it's a Skillshare event in a discussion. Like I said, a discussion and just a way for people

to share what they know with each other. And a few of us currently involved, you know, we all have our own ideas. I personally want to talk about unions and kind of be like, hey, unionize your workplace. But that's more so just me and that it could be up to anyone, but what they want to do, kind of building off the young conference model of it. It's if people want it and you know, it's not like how to be a fascist one-on-one, then it's welcome.

Some things we predict that will happen at the gathering will probably be circles on trans health care and abortion care given recent events. Well, it doesn't, it's not really recent feeling anymore, but that plus, I think much more community defense is coming up because of those. And I think as always, there's all the DIY folks who come in last year, pretty cool. And I might overemphasize how much that's a part because I'm also one of those DIY people. It's a problem and an addiction at this point, but like, you know, people who wanted to just build their own car. It's cool stuff. Yeah. The random expertise of people coming was wonderful. The random expertise of people coming was wonderful.

And that all came together in ways I don't think anyone could have predicted. That's very good. Literally the showing how to use batteries and how to, like in a correct way, chaining them. Education, I have an engineering degree. A lot of this stuff was so new to me in a very good way. I hope that similar people come back. We can never predict leftists or wild. You never know. If they're going to take to something, we don't even know if certain people liked it because they just dropped off the map because they were, you know, just walking to Denver or something after the gathering. is our focus has been on getting people to network.

And so I think what we've planned besides food, which I think we're going to talk about in a second, is just making sure people come away with the relationships they've talked so much about already and trying to give people the opportunities explicitly to socialize because we also know that people tend to be not very friendly when approached in maybe every day organizing, even though you say they should be maybe, but life's stressful and I don't blame people. So we're trying to make it a very friendly environment for talking to other people and trying to maybe make that the only other structured thing in the day besides meals. Yeah, well, I guess I should also say that like if you, if you can do something cool and only other structured thing in the day besides meals. Yeah, well, I guess I should also say that like if you if you can do something cool and you want to go show people how to do something cool, you should in fact do this

because it rips. Please. Yes, I'm just for me. Like please, come and show us some cool stuff. Like there is so much opportunity for amazing things. Yeah, and I guess, you know, speaking of amazing things, yeah, we should talk about food a little bit because, you know, food, important part of all human society. So for food, we're aiming for it to be a catered vegan food from local restaurants,

along with various co-cognizals as well, or is what we're kind to be covering three meals a day, a progress function dinner, and aiming to have enough to cover everyone for the three days of the gathering. Yeah, and if food we have doesn't work, we also have plans to make sure that we can accommodate people. This is not far from other, it's not like out in the middle of nowhere. We'll be able to access various like stores and stuff.

A lot of the gatherings would rely on the typical way of just having. I don't know. So some gatherings just have the food happen. They just say, well, food's on the group. And that's fun and all, but we also want to ensure that there is food. Yeah. And that there's like veganism for people, which is absolutely. Yeah. And stuff like that. Do you have anything else that you want to talk about about the event before we close out? Yeah, I'll just say too that we are aiming for this event to be accessible with

focus disabilities, focus children, essentially to anyone that would be interested, we also have to be accessible. On our website, we talk a bit more in detail about the specific ways in which the site itself is disability accessible. And we also invite folks to, if there's any suggestions, concerns, anything with a sort for how we can make this more accessible for people, more welcoming, more open. We invite people to come and let us know. We're still learning and still trying to do this better. So anything we can improve upon, please let us know because we wanted you right by folk. And on the note of families and kids youth are absolutely welcome. We have some families in some parents specifically in the organizing right now.

We hope we want kids to be able to be as involved as they want to be. Last year, I think that it ended up working out with the kids that were there and they're amazing and you can see that in the documentary too. But we want to make sure that's something we actually plan for this time to make sure that they don't feel excluded and also that parents are able to fully participate. And yeah, you can see more on our website, which is dpgmidwest.org. Yeah, we'll have links to that in the description too. Yeah, and on there, you'll see linked is our open collective where if you go there, you can, there's a variety of options on there, which might be overwhelming.

There's a donation option if you can't come, but would like to donate. And then there's tickets. They don't, you can use pseudonyms. It's pretty anonymous. It's fine. But, and you don't have to pay necessarily, but there's a suggested donation listed on there so that we are able to afford the campsite and people don't have to pay too much up front to buy the campsite, I guess rent the campsite for

the days and get food and stuff. And then there's options to get reserved a spot in a cabin. If there's still spots left, we don't need to have a reservation, but we're trying to make sure that we're prioritizing people with those access needs. And of course, our emails also listed on both Open Collective and the website. So that'll probably be the main source for info.

We also have a collective account just by the problem. Yeah, you're right now. Learn off-sec, do that people. It's good. You will go far. I'm learning abstract at the DPG. Yeah. I'm thinking about making a Tumblr because what's happening. But yeah, it's that also at DPG Midwest at

collective dot social. Yeah, and once again, this is running from August 17th to the 20th and yeah, it sounds interesting, go sign up and yeah. Yeah, thank you too so much for joining us. I say, thank you very much. I'm saying us, sorry. I just, I just, I just reflexively do the us

and then I'm like, wait, hold on, hold on. There's the royal we in the anarchist us. Yeah, and I'm excited. I don't know. I may be there. I may not be. It depends on a bunch of scheduling stuff that I have very little control over. But yeah, other people should go. It's going to be a good event and yeah thank you to you again. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah and this has been it could happen here.

You can find us in the usual places if they still exist by the time this episode comes out. Oh yeah, we have we now have the cooler zone media thing if you don't want to listen to the Reagan ads or like I don't know a bunch of other ads for podcasts or whatever weird things playing right now, I think I've been getting casino ads lately, which is kind of interesting. But if you don't listen to that, we have a subscription service from Apple that you can buy. And then you don't want to have ads for all of our shows. We're working, we're still working on the Android one that hopefully will be happening soon, but that's never thing that's, we're doing our best. We're not, we unfortunately are not

Apple. Like, we don't own all the stuff, so we have to do a bunch of stuff to work through it, but yeah. Go out into the world, build do a power and have a good time while you do it. Sacred Skando, one of the best new podcasts of 2022, is back with a closer look at the darkness surrounding mega-church La Luz del Mundo and its leader, Nasson Joaquin Garcia. They believe that he was Jesus Christ on Earth. It wasn't even so much that he liked sex. He wanted something to pray. It's the largest cult in the world that no one has ever heard of.

For three generations, La Luz del Mundo had an incredible control on his community that began in Mexico and then grew across the United States, until one day. A day of reckoning for the man whose millions of followers call him the Apostle. Their leader was arrested and survivors began to speak out about the sexual abuse, the murder and corruption. This is just a business and their product are people. They want to know that they will kill you. Listen to all episodes now on the iHeardReadyUp, Apple Podcasts, or whatever you get your podcasts.

911, what's your emergency? You shot her! Oh my god! It's a nightmare we could never have imagined. And a killer who is still on the loose. My small town rocked by murder. There are certain murders I'm scared to discuss. In the 1980s, we're in high school losing friends, teachers, and community members.

One after another, after another, for a decade. We weren't safe anywhere. We're teenagers terrified to leave our own homes. Would we be next? Who is killing all the kids? And why? In that moment, I saw rage. And why do you some want the town secrets to stay dead and buried forever?

I'm not sure why you're digging up all this old stuff again, but I'd be careful. Don't say I didn't warn you, Nancy. Listen to the murder years on the iHeart Radio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, what's up, y'all? This is Eric Andreik, but I made a podcast called Bomming about absolutely tanking on stage. I'm talking about your most amazing-asserable experience as a performer. I tell gnarly stories and I talk to friends about the worst moments of bombing in all sorts

of ways. Bombing on stage, bombing in public, bombing in life. Like the time I stole a girl's phone during a set and she dumped on stage and threw a big A-maker punch to my nose. I wanted to know what's the worst way they ever bombed or performed way too drunk or high. I wanted to know what's the worst way they ever bombed or performed way too drunk or high That was there every time where they thought they were going to crush and they stunk it up Subscribe to my podcast bombing with Eric Andre to hear more crazy stories from me and my friends I'll have guests like Sam Jay. So we'll say slow and Michelle buto. Max tomorrow

Do you do a dog pound Saturday night lives Sarah Sherman more! Listen to bombing with Aircon Dre and Will Ferro's big money players network on the IHR radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello and welcome to another episode of It Could Up In Here with your guest host Andrew of the YouTube channel Andruism. Today I'm joined by Mia and I'm looking to discuss a topic that I brought up in passing in a previous episode. That being the idea of confeviality and the episode in question being in my podcast on de-growth. So when I first stumbled upon this concept of confeviality, I thought it was just one of those exciting, fluffy, agit-prop-buswoods, right? Something you threw into, you know, your propaganda, your conversations, your descriptions of a better world, like, oh, I would love to live in a world that's more convivial, only those things. Convivial be in defined in the dictionary as the quality

of being friendly and lively, right? Synonyms include immuability, affability, congeniality, etc., etc. I didn't come yet to be a thosaurus. I came here to talk about the deeper meanings behind these things. So in such an this, uh, weirdness to, uh, in more depth, I ended up going down this rabbit hole and I discovered there's a whole history to the tomb. That spans, I mean, I'm not going as far back as it's Latin origin, right? And we could talk about the French and their lone woods making their way into the English language.

We could talk about the Spanish concept of Confidencia being interpreted literally as living in the company of others, or in one particular context, such as in Spain between the 18th and 15th centuries, describing the peaceful coexistence between different religious groups. But I'm not going that far back. I'm sticking to the history of the tomb from Ivan Illich to the decroeth movement to the confiduality manifestos that have come out of all nine and offline discussions,

academic and non-economic discussions of this idea of confiduality. Now I gave a sort of a basic dictionary definition before, but I want to go a bit deeper, right? So what is conserviality exactly? Conserviality is about creating a fun and friendly atmosphere where people can come together and have a great time. That's it in this essence, right? It's that feeling you get when you're surrounded by lively conversations and laughter and a sense of celebration. You know, there was moments where everyone's enjoying each other's company and it's a real sense of camaraderie.

I think using, uh, conserviality as a barometer is really helpful, uh, in as a barometer is really helpful in organizing situations, right? If you're in an environment where you are organizing, you're doing praxis and you're not picking up those convivial vibes, it may be a sign that there's some toxicity in the mix there. I'm not saying that in the mix there. I'm not saying that the work of activism has to be a tripped in a Muslim park, right? It doesn't have to be a carnival, but I think that does need to be for solidarity to exist. I think they should have some level of camaraderie and confidality in the atmosphere. So you can think of confidality as the spirit of hospitality and warmth, right? It's like when you gather with your friends

or when you have those family or kids, you're bringing them together, even in the workplace, you know, when you and your workers get along really well and you're organizing to create this union, you're gonna take down your boss, It's a fun time, right? And so how do we get from this sort of seemingly simple, sociable idea of living and enjoying life in the company of others, making people feel welcome and included?

How do you move from that idea? This confiability is a vital part of human interaction. To confiability in a more political context. How do we go from just talking about social connections and ad meeting to our lives and enjoying festivities and shift to conversations about the social and political state of the world right now. Right? There's this one particular guy who's kind of responsible for this. A guy I personally like to call the List, that being the one and only Australian philosopher,

social critic, and Catholic priest, Ivan Elich. Over the course of his nearly 80 years of life since 1926, this multi-hyphenate, I think that's the two we use people who have a lot of different titles, right? This multi-hyphenate from Vienna, Italy, had a significant impact on a bunch of fields, you know, from education to medicine, technology to social justice. I know his name because he came up with a lot of when I was doing research on schooling, tea schooling, and just the education system as a whole. But apparently, he's done a lot more than just that. He's challenged conventional thinking

in all sorts of fields. And he's questioned the inherent assumptions and structures of modern society. Ivan's, and I hope he doesn't mind if I'm pronouncing his German name correctly, right? His German last name correctly. So I just call him Ivan. He probably wouldn't mind because he's dead, but Ivan's intellectual journey took him through a bunch of different parts, right? He studied theology and philosophy and eventually became a priest.

And he lived and worked in different parts of the world, including Latin America, where he witnessed first-hand the effects of development projects and the power dynamics between developed and developing nations. And those experiences deeply influenced his critical perspective on the modern industrialized world. He also became a very prolific author,

known for its thought-proof hook in an often controversial writings, such as D. School and Society, which published 1971, tools for controversy, published 1973, and medical nemesis, published in 1976. And in these books, he challenged established institutions and systems systems offered alternative visions that emphasized individual autonomy, community engagement, and, wait for it, convivial relationships.

Inletias or Ivans, critique of education systems contributes the development of alternative educational approaches such as home schooling on schooling and learner sense education. His examination of the medical establishment sparked discussions on patient empowerment and the need for a more participatory model of health care, something I would like to discuss in a future episode, though I would like to find someone in the disability justice space to have that discussion with because that

is an area of experiential ignorance for me. Yeah, so if everybody has any suggestions, I'd appreciate it. But Ivan's legacy, right, it extends far beyond his lifetime. As it's clear, he has a lasting impact on critical theory, on social philosophy, and the quest for more just and humane will. And I'm gassing up the guy a lot, and I'm sure he has some flaws that someone will no doubt inform me about.

And I have not read all of it. So, you know, some, some, he does, he didn't go sign the cart like change by being a priest, I assume. So I'm sure he has his flaws. And I have not read all of his literature. I haven't even read medical nemesis yet. But in tools of confiability in particular,

I want to discuss his perspective on confiability and its role in society. In the book, he expresses these deep concerns about the negative effects of modern institutions and systems, and he argued that they often hindered post-off freedom or autonomy in human flourishing. He believes that many of our social structures have become oppressive, as they dictated not only how we should live, learn and interact, but also how we saw ourselves as people. He argued that our systems had become highly centralized, relying on professional expertise and complex technologies that limited

individual agency and self-determination. Now, one could be bad faith, I suppose, and say that, oh, is he saying that, you know, Ivan was anti-complex technology, is he some sort of popular culture, bastardization, of Luddite, or something, but his concern was not necessarily on the technology itself and the complexity of the technology, but more so how that technology slotted into the structure of society as a whole, right? His concern was about how these elite professional groups had established what he called a radical monopoly with a fundamental human activities, including health, agriculture, home building and learning. And this monopoly, this

monopoly is criticized and not the technology, but the monopoly, according to Ivan, had led to a detrimental war and subsistence that deprived formerly present societies of the essential skills and new how. Yeah, and I mean, like, I feel like that's a pretty, I think, I think it's pretty hard to like to that line. Well, I don't know if some, I think specifically that line of agriculture

is pretty hard to like not agree with. If you look at the effects that the green revolution had on the people who do agriculture. Oh yeah, sure. Yeah, and I think this comes, goes to it. Like this falls in with the sort of like, you know, like the sort of social technological aspect of it of like, the fact that this was combined with this massive sort of social technological push to, you know, dry

farmers into debt, you know, so they could afford the inputs for this stuff and what it, what it did to sort of, what it did to the actual farming communities and what it did to people's livelihoods and, you know, the way that like a lot of this was just a sort of smoke screen for like consolidation of major landowners, etc, etc. like I think he's pretty on the right point. Yeah. For those who don't know by the way, the green revolution refused to a period of technological advancements and agricultural strategies that took place during the mid-20th century, primarily in developing countries. It aims to increase agricultural productivity and food production to the adoption of high yielding crop varieties, increased use of fertilizers, pesticides, and modern farming

techniques. And the green revolution is basically responsible for a lot of the most damaging practices that we see in agriculture today. From the heavy reliance on chemical inputs, like fertilizers and pesticides, which leads to soil degradation, water pollution, loss by diversity, the emphasis on monocultures and replacements of traditional crop varieties with high yielding ones that reduced agribute

diversity and lead to diseases proliferating between certain species, intensive farming practices that could not be kept up with by small-scale farmers. Like Mia was saying, the consolidation of land and the ability to manage that land into these Acro business corporations and meet your landowners. Yeah, and I think it's worth emphasizing that this was very explicitly seen as an anti-communist thing. I mean, the state department's like actual explicit line was a green revolution to stop a red revolution. So like a big part of what this was about was like stopping land reform from

happening, which is incredibly bleak. Yeah, and now it's the dominant practice globally and it's having detrimental impacts globally and. Yeah, and I mean, some of those deep blood dead, some of them are going to be dead very soon. And the rest of us have to suffer the consequences. Story of my life. Yeah.

Story of existence on this is, right? Yeah. You think that's sort of wild about it too, is that like the countries that did land reform like developed better capitalist economies than the ones you didn't. But yeah, like, yeah. Yeah, they're better doing capitalist. Yeah, well, I mean like yeah, it's like they're better

It turns out doing land reform actually does help both like non-capitalist and capitalist economies But unfortunately the green revolutionary people the green revolution people like already even like People who care about the efficiency of capitalism they care about like the power of the land-owned in class Well, yeah, and I mean that I don't know if this is a saying, but I might make it a saying I think socialist sub-bats are doing capitalism and capitalist so yeah This is the entire story of China, right? It's like yeah, like is it much much is Leninism is a really really efficient way to like turn a Feudal economy into a capitalist economy? Yeah, like if I was in charge of capitalism, I was going to make sure that the people at the bottom class

bought into the system who will sale. I'd yeah, propaganda education is a part of it, but also you want to make sure they're not vulnerable to being radicalized and the best way to do that is to ensure the basic needs are met. But you know, even arguing that will have some people misinformed I would say but well intentioned label and you as socialist. Like I think people should have good things. You're dirty red comment you, a socialist. Like, I think people should have good things. You're dirty red, come at you. But you know, it's just, well, it's just literally welfare capitalist,

but apparently that's too much for a lot of capitalists. Well, not apparently. I mean, literally the reason we have welfare capitalists is because socialists fought for it in the early 20th century and early mid-20th century. So, you know, we have socialists to thank for everything, basically. But I'm getting off track, right? So, like I was saying, this monopoly, this radical monopoly of fundamental human activities, that's what Dutchimental war and subsistence are deprived peasants societies of essential

skills and no hope. Instead of promoting human flourishing, all this economic development ended up feeding into what Ivan has tuned modernized poverty. And it's something I think about often, right? This idea of the poor back then versus the poor now, right? And of course, it depends on which society it's talking about, which time period it's talking about. But let's just pick some random like historic poor, poor person, right? Let's just see, I don't know, generic civilization, E. I don't know, generic civilization, e. This person is poor, right? They have to work, they have to work with bland, backbreak and toil.

Sometimes readers would rule it and be like, oh, we're going to take your stuff now. And then they would like ride their horses away. And probably, I don't know, tab on you or whatever. Or the readers would rule in, they'll take your stuff and then they'll be like, oh, I want to stay. And then now you have to pay taxes to me every year and that's how a state's were created. But whether it's nomadic warlords or settled warlords,

at least you had a house, at least you had a community, at least you had the ability to grow your own food, even though a lot of that food was being taxed. And at least you had certain skills that you could use to sustain yourself, right? Compare that to modern poverty, where you have this large swath of people who are dependent who are

mechanical parts in a system that they cannot fully understand a comprehend and Control for themselves with this you know whole Industrial evolution where you take This process of making a chair for example and you break it up into a bunch of different steps and each and each person that step really knows how to do one thing, but they're not to do the entire thing. Right, like the poor today versus the poor yesterday, the latter still had these skills for subsistence, and many of today's poor, particularly the urban poor, because I know they've ruled poor a lot of them still sustain themselves still practice you know, substance, substance farming and that kind of thing. But particularly urban poor, they don't even have like a lot of those skills to rely on to even sustain

themselves at that level. For the urbanists and the audience, you might appreciate the divan also talks about the dominance of cars and how they've created this radical monopoly over land, sitting our uber environments into the domain of cars, which are only compromises the environment for pedestrians and cyclists, but also disrupts our innate mobility as human beings. So even takes it a step further, right? And this particular opinion of his is a bit shaky for me. So something I've been let in, stew in my brain a little bit more. But let me just read the quote. The radical monopoly cars establish is destructive in a special way.

Cars create distance. Speedy vehicles of all kinds render space scarce. The drive wedges are of highways into populated areas. And the next door tolls on the bridge over the remoteness between people that was manufactured for their sake. This monopoly overlanded in space into car fodder. It destroys the environment for feet and bicycles. Even if places and buses could run as non-pollucin, even if planes and buses could run as non-pollucin, non-depletian

public services, their inhuman velocities would degrade man's innate mobility and force him to spend more time for the sake of travel. I'm sure you could pick up on why that puts like a little bit cheeky, right? Yeah. It's not just anti-cars, he's also a bit anti-plain and bus. To be fair, I'm also anti-bus, but like planes, I don't know, like are they great for the environment? No, do you sometimes need to go to another continent? Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So he probably reads like R-slash F-cars and he's like, you don't take it far enough. Yeah, I don't feel like a lot of it. Oh, I'm impressed. Liberals.

But yeah, so I highly recommend reading the actual book and full for food and insight and context and I do want to dig into a thoughts on a food and a future but You know food for thought Let me know what you think of those in human velocities But anyway Memes aside, I think the benefit of if Anne's critique of the radical monopoly is that it provides a different perspective, right? It sheds light on the negative consequences of excesses specialization, technocratic control, and the prioritization of speed and efficiency over human well-being.

Zoey B on YouTube actually has a really great video and the idea of efficiency as this ultimate moral good. So I recommend checking that out, especially since the standard narrative that we are actually bombarded by is that all these things are unconsciously good, right? What I appreciate about Ivan and his ideas is that they challenge us to reconsider our relationship with systems, tools and institutions, and it encourages us to strive for more balanced and configurable society. And what does that configurable society look like to him? Well, let's continue.

If our solution argues for the developments of new, accessible accessible and user friendly instruments that would allow average citizens to regain practical knowledge and reclaim control over their lives, as well as resist the domination of specialized elites. That's why Ivan Iligis book tools for confiality is sponsored by Skillshare. I know that was a bad joke. Ivan believed that society should be organized to serve the needs and aspirations of individuals rather than creating systems that limit their potential and autonomy. And so for Ivan, conviviality, here we are back to the original topic, Confuviality represented a society in which individuals

had the power to shape their own lives, free from excessive dependence on institutionalized systems. He envisioned a world people had access to convivial tools, simple user-friendly technologies that empowered them to take control of their own destinies. For example, the dominant education system separates learners from the real world and disempowers them. Ivan advocates for a more self-directed and community-based education where people could

pursue knowledge and skills according to their own interests and needs. Ivan also critiques the over-reliance on medical professionals and calls for a shift towards a more participatory model of healthcare that gives individuals access to information and resources that allow them to actively participate in their own health decisions rather than being these passive recipients of medical interventions. In transportation systems, he also advocates for more human skill and community-oriented transportation alternatives. He envisions neighbourhoods designed for walking and biking, which would foster social interactions

and reduce the environmental impact of excessive motorised transport. In essence, Ivan Viyudkin for Viality has a transformative concept that imp to restore individual agency and personal connections and a sense of empowerment in society. He challenged the prevailing structures and systems that limited human potential and proposed more participatory community-driven alternatives. And to this day, his ideas continue to inspire discussions on how we can create a convivial society that values human relationships, self-determination, and a shared responsibility for shaping our own lives. What I found particularly interesting in research in this was that in the books,

vision of tools, there would be developed maintained by community of users, that actually had significant influence on the first developers, the personal computer. My influence, I know. Most notably, one of the first developers of the PC, Lee Felsenstein, Lee Felsenstein. He and several others were just, were inspired by this idea within the book because remember Ivan is writing this before the internet and they go and they take this idea and then they make the internet or they make the police not a computer because computers existed prior to the police not computer but they weren't as

accessible they weren't a tool of conserviality whereas the police not computer of today is and I just think that's beautiful and amazing. But Ivan's ideas did more than just, you know, shape the course of human history. He also would shape the creation of a confevialist movement. In 2010, eight years after Ivan died and 37 years after Ivan published tools for confiality, Raymond de Boaveur published Confrontalism, a philosophical manifesto.

And in it Boaveur begins by discussing the key theme in Michael Pollan's books, The Botany of Desire, which is a great read by the way, and The On-Niveau as Telemma, which I haven't read yet. But the key theme is co-evolution, right? The first book, Humanely suggests that plants manipulate humans to co-evolve with them, take in care of their needs in exchange for nutrition or beauty. And the second book, The On-Nivoyce Dilemma, the importance of interconnected components for vibrant farmers emphasize,

with corn serving as an example of a plant of relies on humans for survival. Boavea proposes that focusing on the prefix cool in co-evolution can have philosophical implications, similar to William James's emphasis on the preposition with. By, you know, examining the significance of these prepositions, Q-com or Q-less, whether sin, the author argues for philosophy that recognizes omnipresent interconnection. Michael Pollan's books do this well in the context of food,

but Boaveir wants to take the implications of this take-in preposition seriously into a re-arrangement of philosophy itself. And now we're getting kind of heavy, right? As Boaveir argues philosophers have often neglected the significance of interconnected relationships. While farmers recognize the importance of interconnectedness, you know, how things like land and water and stuff all work together, modern philosophy on the other hand, according to Barveille, since the Renaissance, has been focused on these self-standing and independent entities, not interconnected entities. entities, not interconnected entities. I don't know how true this is because I'm not,

I didn't study philosophy, but I'm just communicating Boavez arguments here, right? And so the idea of autonomy in modern philosophy according toavere, seemed to exclude the with factor in existence, relegating relations and interconnections to a secondary rule. So, Wavere saying is that philosophy is taught on this foundation that we are autonomous and self-sufficient, first, right? And then everything else comes after. Through soul, for example, a portrait and idyllic existence where connections, independencies

with users, these impositions, you know. We went from being autonomous to being stuck in this web of interdependencies. And then as a result, coming on to that, the philosophical idea of liberation for some ended up returning. For some meant returning to this original state of authenticity and disengagement from connections. The concept of freedom itself became something that was anti-interdependency. As the focus shifted away from this idea of humans being inherently interdependent.

But then this alternative point of view came about, right? And this shift coincided with the introduction of the term symbiosis symbiology, which combined the Greek word for life with the preposition with. And the concept of symbiosis found it to eventually into everyday language and discourse. So that's the Greek term, symbiosis. And then we go to the Latin term, confidity, meaning with living, and that long-prereated science and philosophy used to describe just ordinary experiences. And so to avoid getting lost into the philosopher's favorite pastime of, you know, navigating various

woods and all the baggage, to boil it down to simplicity. Boave is seeking to ask what a convivulous tune in philosophy might look like and what changes in philosophy might be taken place. For one, he's concerned with how embracing trivialism might change our understanding of metaphysics. Right? By embracing this metaphor of existence,

as about the relation and conjunction between components, about the interplanet connectedness of various elements rather than about a collection of separate units. You end up going from this position of isolation to this position of profound interrelation. And then you begin to focus on the interactions between people rather than just the experiences within people. In this fair, for the soft grant apology,

Wafer argues that a country failed 200 mean redefining humanity. You know, taking this concept that, you know, we're not just these purely logical and calculated beings. We are humo sapiens. And the term sapiens is derived from the Latin word for taste, which highlights the human capacity to constantly try and test, to constantly experiment, to actually participate in interactions with our surroundings.

So in this kind of a real turn, we return to the original definition of the name we gave ourselves. As teasters, as flexible, edicable, subject investigation and improvement, constantly testing and experimenting and then seeing what is best in specific contexts, seeing the taste as sapiens, as homo sapiens, taste is inherently pluralistic because there is no universal taste. There is no single taste. It is like, oh, this is the taste. Everybody must adhere to this taste. Everybody has a different taste. We talk about that when we talk about taste. And I think the implications are particularly profound when we bring it into the

pre-frigerative, this fair of pre-figurative politics, right? Whereas T-sters, as experimenters, we are looking for ways to prefigure new social relations, institutions and relationships and structures and systems for the future in the here-know. And that requires T-syn, that requires taste and that requires experimentation, that requires an acceptance of pluralism because everyone has a different taste and everyone's going to bring something different to the table. And that's beautiful.

And then also in the field of epistemology, the contributors perspective challenges the opposition between subject and object and understanding reality. Your jack's the idea of the mind is a mere mirror reflecting reality, or projecting pose and conceptual schemes onto reality. Because, configure the sum is about how the intermediaries, the facilities or interactions, how they affect the way that we perceive and reflect on reality itself. affect the way that we perceive and reflect on reality itself. It also requires us to let go of this subject object dichotomy in our pursuit of knowledge and understanding which itself has implications on even the field of science because the idea of the scientists in the popular imagination is the subject who is whatever that

scientist is studying, that is the object. But conservatism, of course, is to pose and reflect on how that subject, that object, and how intermediaries between them affect their perception of each other, affect the subject, the scientific ability to pursue knowledge and understand and affect the objects if the object is a person through the same. And finally, Bovair Dixon, to the rigid division between nature and culture, and how the convivious perspective challenges that. The continuous interactions and transformations that occur in existence

makes it problematic to consider the divisions between human societies divisions between human societies and the ecosystems that surround them as fundamental aspects of existence. The boundary between nature and culture is one that constantly blues, it is difficult to please, particularly when there's an embrace by certain cultures of that interconnectionist and interdependence between their culture and the nature surrounds them. And then when you see that blurring of lines between culture and nature, you might also recognize a blurring of lines between human and non-human in the context of community. The idea of community being an exclusively human domain becomes less apt, I suppose, as I recognize the way that non-humans influence and affect and engage and interact with humans

in this, you know, collectivity. We use terms like community and city and society and stuff to refer to the human aspects of interaction. And we use things like ecosystem and biome to emphasize non-human aspects of interaction. But the interactions in humans, animals, plants, and inanimate entities, do not always slot so neatly into that metaphysical description of reality. Of course, we use these divisions for certain specific research purposes. We say, oh, I'm a sociologist, I'm an anthropologist, I'm a biologist, an ecologist, etc. But we can't forget that convivialism, conviviality asks us not to that those are human impositions, that we should not let obscure our ability to make sense

of reality as a whole. I know things got really heavy there. I hope that everything I said made sense. And if you need a breather, it was sometimes a pause and reflect further on the implications on this simple, cute, fun to say a little Latin word, confiability. We're going to take a pause here. But next time you can join us as we discuss how people have gone from this term to their ideas, to poivés, for the soft-glentifications, to more recent manifestos, other convivio movement,

and how they can relate to degrowth and beyond. You can find me on youtube.com slash andruism and you could support me on patreon.com slash saying true. Once again, I'm on true joined by Mia and this is it could happen here. This. This. This. This. This. This. This. This. This.

This. This. This. This. This. This. This. This.

This. This. This. This. This. This. This. This. This. was Jesus Christ on earth. It wasn't even so much that he liked sex. He wanted something to pray. It's the largest cult in the world that no one has ever heard of.

For three generations, the Luz del Mundo had an incredible control on his community that began in Mexico and then grew across the United States. Until one day, a day of reckoning for the man whose millions of followers called him the Apostle. Their leader was arrested and survivors began to speak out about the sexual abuse, the murder and corruption. This is just a business and their product are people. They wanna matat, they will kill you. Listen to all episodes now on the I-Hard Rainy Up, Apple Podcasts, or whatever you get

your podcasts. 911, what's your emergency? It's a nightmare we could never have imagined. My small town rocked by murder. There are certain murders I'm scared to discuss. In the 1980s, we're in high school losing friends, teachers, and community members. One after another, after another for a decade.

We weren't safe anywhere. We're teenagers terrified to leave our own homes. Would we be next? Who is killing all the kids? And why? In that moment, I saw rage. And why do you some want the town secrets to stay dead and buried forever? I'm not sure why you're digging up all this old stuff again, but I'd be careful.

Don't say I didn't warn you, Nancy. Listen to the Murder Years on the iHeart Radio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. I tell them gnarly stories and I talk to friends about the worst moments of bombing in all sorts of ways. Bombing on stage, bombing in public, bombing in life, like the time I stole a girl's phone during a sentence she dumped on stage and threw a big A-maker punch to my nose. I want to know what's the worst way they ever bombed or performed way too drunk or high. There was a time where they thought they were going to CRUSH and they stunk it up. bombing with Aircon Jail and Will Ferrell's big money players network on the IHR radio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to part two of Convertiality.

What is it? What are the people thinking about it? Always this funky Latin would change in the evolving and to an entire movement? And how is it affecting other movements? Last time we spoke about the idea of cultural reality, which is essentially good vibes. Fun, happy, chill, cool interactions between people. You know, living well together and enjoying life in the company of others.

Making sure people are included and welcome so they can relax and have a great experience. We spoke about the illest multi-hyphenate that is Evann Illich. We work with the philosophical foundations that are being built around conformality and what those implications have been on metaphysics and philosophical anthropology and epistemology and law. And so now we're going to get into the actual movement. So the first manifesto was published by the Center for Global Cooperation Research in 2014. It discusses some of our current threats including global warming and its consequences ecosystem degradation, nuclear disaster risk, resource scarcity, poverty, wealth disparities, political disintegration, instant conflicts, terrorism, insecurity,

criminal networks, influencers, speculative finance and politics. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, the drill, if you're in the space, everything sucks, it could happen here. That's the name of the shoe, et cetera. The central challenge is that we could drive ourselves to extinction right now, if we don't turn this car on, and we could take most of the

world with us. This particular manifesto is just asking four basic questions and their considerations and what we should consider about them. For one, the moral question, what me individuals literally aspire to and where must they draw the line? And the manifesto answers with considering that every individual has a legitimate aspiration to be treated with equal dignity, to have access to the necessary material conditions for their vision of a good life or considering other perspectives and participate meaningfully in political life and decision-making. However, individuals must also avoid

exe in bounds and succumb into this infantile desire for power and control, which jeopardizes social cohesion and the principle of common humanity. What that means is that we need to actively be combat in corruption, refusing to engage in actions that compromise, please have a voice, please not gain, opposing the corruption others, the extent of one's abilities and courage, fighting hierarchy. I mean, the manifesto doesn't say anything about fighting hierarchy,

which I think is a fault the manifesto. But I think for that, I guess reading at the implications are pretty clear. And that's what I have to do with a lot of stuff I read, you know, like read between the lines and pick up the points that the author missed. And so that's the moral consideration, right? What should we aspire to? Where must we draw the line? We aspire to be in truth, equal dignity, have an access to decision making power, have in a good life equal dignity, have an access to decision making power, having a good life, by having access to material conditions met, and we try to avoid exceeding boundaries, our social boundaries, and we should try to avoid exceeding social boundaries related to hierarchy and control and power. The second question is political.

It asks us which are the legitimate political communities. So the manifesto argues that the establishment of a single world state in the near future is unlikely and fiscal organization will continue to be based on a plurality of states. And that I think demonstrates the limitations of this manifesto is imagination of confidualism. That's what happens when you have this clearly radical idea and you try to

squeeze the radical idea into a fundamentally unradical and status quo idea as nation states. But let me not excessively editorialize, I'm just presenting this movement and what it's important to be an argument, right? According to their perspective, states and political institutions are considered legitimate only if they uphold principles such as common humanity, common sociality, individuation, and managed conflict. To me, that's wishful thinking, but I digress. The legitimate states, and it pains me to even say this, but I can't just communicate in, I'm just communicating what the manifesto argues. The legitimate states extend rights beyond civil and particular rights, encompass economic, social, cultural

and environmental rights. They ensure a minimum income for the poorest citizens while also implemented a maximum income to prevent excessive wealth accumulation. The legitimate states maintain a balance between private, common, collective and public goods and promote association activities with an old global civil society. Their view digital networks as tools for democratization and treat them as commons, foster an openness, free access, impartiality, and sharing. And they also revive the tradition of public service and prioritize a preservation of existing common goods while promoting the development of new common goods for the benefit of public service, and prioritize a preservation of existing common goods

while promoting the developments of new common goods to the benefit of Humarty. Again, it goes without saying, I take a seat with this investment in states. I think a lot of their goals are noble, if they were not so tied down by this investment of the state structure. Because for anarchist perspective, many of these ideas are not compatible with the structure

of a state and even theoretically, even hypothetically, if a state would implement all these changes, where people had full participatory involvement in decision making, where the hierarchies were flattened and where everyone had free access, no access, and they were commons and all this laddida. Some anarchists, not everybody, but some anarchists wouldn't even consider that to be a state anymore. But let's just get into the weeds of anarchist discourse and we're moving on. The third question that the manifesto

asks is an ecological question, which is what we may take from nature, and which is what we may take from nature and which is what we must take from nature, which is what we may take from nature and what we must give back. And the manifesto asks us to consider that human beings should no longer see themselves as owners and masters of nature, but rather as interconnected with it, right? To ensure ecological justice and preserve a well-managed natural heritage for future generations, humans must establish a relationship with nature based on giving back as much or more than they take. The manifesto argues that the level of material prosperity that can be sustainably extended to the entire planet is roughly comparable to

the average wealth of the wealthiest countries in the 1970s, and that wealthier nations was better responsibility to reduce the demand and nature relative to 1970s standards, even as they maintain the current quality of life. Priorities of the manifesto include reducing CO2 emissions, emphasizing renewable energy sources, with undeclared fossil fuels, and shifting away from viewing animals as mere resources for industry. The principles of gift and interdependence

should thus guide relationships with animals and the youth as a whole. Lastly, the food spawner first who leaves us with an economic question, which is how much material wealth we may reproduce and how should we go about producing it if we had to remain true to the answers given to the moral, political and ecological questions. Manifesto asks us to consider that there is no proven connection between monetary or

material wealth and happiness, which promotes the need then to explore alternative forms of prosperity beyond economic growth. As you can see earlier on, we're making those connections to the idea of de-growth more than that later. And so this calls for a plural economy that balances the market, the public sector and social solidarity economy based on the nature of goods and services involved. Again, they're perspective, but while the market and profitability are legitimate, they must align with principles of common humanity, social cohesion and ecological considerations. And by addressing the issues of the financial economy, such as rent, terrorism and speculation, through strict regulation, oversight, market restrictions, and elimination of tax evils,

humanity can tap into a broader spectrum of riches beyond economic and material wealth, including fulfilment derived from duty, solidarity, enjoyment, and creativity in various domains. Which of course highlights the importance of creativity and meaningful relationships with others as an essential component of a prosperous society, even if not materially or monetarily prosperous. The manifesto goes on to define conservuelessness. The term that they use to describe all those elements and existence systems of belief that help us identify principles for enabling human beings, simultaneously to compete and cooperate with one another,

with a shared concern to safeguard the world and the full knowledge that we form part of that world and that its natural resources are finite. When it comes to conserviolism, it's crucial for us to hold on certain principles that can guide us in margin conflict, prioritising cooperation while being mindful of the limitations posed by scarce resources, recognising respect, not interview points and doctrines, opening the doors and engaging dialogue and priesthood perspectives and being open to question and growth. All of that this manifesto sees as essential to the idea of

Confucius. It even goes on to propose Confucius policies, right? You know the minimum, maximum income, protecting natural resources through various reforms and regulations, tackling unemployment, promoting, reduced work in hours, supporting the growth of the associationist economy. Of course, I feel that's where the manifesto falls short, but I do appreciate some of the ideas that it introduces or that it expones upon. I mean, I'd appreciate all of the answers

to the questions that it raises, but I appreciate it raising those questions, even if I might have slightly different answers to them. The thesis of this manifesto seems to be that a different kind of will is not just possible, but crucial and urgent thing necessary. I don't like that it doesn't call out capitalism sufficiently or really at all. It seems to have an overly cozy relationship with the state too, which is not the greatest. Not cool. They do say, quote, there will clearly be as many, perhaps conflicting, permutations of conservillism as there are of Buddhism, Islam, Christianity,

Judaism, liberalism, socialism, communism, etc. Not least because conservillism in no way invalidates these. So, fey enough, in a sense, I appreciate that they can accept that their particular interpretations, not the only one that they can be. I'm sure by this particular passage, they mean that there will be socialist orientations of conservularism and liberal orientations of conservularism and Christian orientations of confidus and etc. Because they don't see confidus almas incompatible with any of them. I think I might take some issue with, I guess, not refining. Confidus alfood though. I appreciate that they themselves didn't refine it because,

you know, they're clearly quite liberal. but I think that country-relizma's idea is something that needs to be distilled further, because when you have this sort of free-fraud, everybody and everything goes approach to the ideology, I think it opens up a lot of room for states and corporations and NGOs to kind of slip in there and be like, oh, look at us. We are going to add confefillism to our constitution and that kind of thing. It's like, then they go and everyone in the plus and be wow xyz he government just added contribute to the sums their constitution three chairs for them and then the government just continues doing what it usually was doing before added contribute to the sum to its constitution.

You know it's like with with the whole I spoke about it in my one-feather podcast episode yeah it's kind of like a situation it's Y, ICT, right? Ecuador and government was like, we are going to protect this forest. We're not going to drill for oil in this forest, even though it has a bunch of oil in this forest. Over six billion dollars with oil in this forest, we're just going to ask the international community for like 3.6 billion of that oil. And once you all pay that, we're not going to drill the oil. And we want to set this precedent for other countries to follow in Yadda Yada and we added

Poynge viewers, of course, Tushan and all that cash money, right? But then they got like $200 million worth of pledges. And then they were like, actually, no, we're still going to do it, even though we didn't get all the money. And then a year later, they're like, nah, we're not going to do it anymore. And then a couple years after that, they started drilling in the National Park. And then a couple years after that, they started drilling even further,

even closer to indigenous territories within the park. So, you know, that's like a cut up in the fluffy woods of states and corporations. Yeah, there was a version of this that happened in Bolivia where they did like a very similar thing and then within half a decade, like riot police were storming the offices of like one of the giant like into just confederations.

So it's, you know. Yeah, I mean, keep in mind a lot of what states do a lot of politicians to is just PR, right? And I think a lot of people are able to recognize how it's happening in their own country. But due to ignorance, perhaps of other countries, they see a politician doing the same thing in another country and they're like, wow, why can't we be more like them?

And it's like, well, yeah, to be fair, you know, there are politicians and governments that are doing better than other politicians in government. So I'm not going to like blind my eye to that. But yeah, you know, at the end of the day, they're still politicians, they're still governments, they're still doing their PR, putting out their best image, putting out their best foot forward, hold on to whatever power they have. Yeah, and with both Ecuador and Bolivia too, it's like, well, okay, if you want your politicians to have PR like that, like you too can block every single road in your country, start starving your capital out like. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Politicians do not descend from the heavens. They are the product of a combination of material conditions and social forces. So get better social forces. Exactly. Exactly. That's that's the young. That's how we elevate a pitch for

anarchism, by the way. But I did say there were two manifestoos, right? So what about the second manifesto, right? Consuvialist manifesto number two. Published by the Confivialist International in 2020. Oh, recent. And they define a confivialism as a comprehensive philosophy that encompasses 2020, who recent and they divine a Confucianism as a comprehensive philosophy that encompasses humanist, civic and political principles aimed at fostering harmonious coexistence in the modern era. Emphasizing the importance of living together and outlining normative principles to guide that interval. that in temple. Second manifesto of conservillism emphasize the need for a new

political philosophy to challenge new liberalism and address global issues. Pause. This idea of something that you see a lot, particularly in that sort of NGO space, right? A lot of not radical organizations and movements will speak about challenging neoliberalism. And it could usually tell because they specify neoliberalism, they don't say capitalism, they're not anti-capitalists, they just anti-neuliberalism, which in itself isotic code because new liberalism in itself is just a recent

put mutation of copulous. Yeah, and I should point out like there, as bad as neoliberalism is like there are forms of capitalism that are worse than it. So yeah, you know, see see as evidence World War Two. Yeah. Yeah. Just why it's what I didn't put that on the record. Just a roll. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But just just for the sake of people's own ability to scrutinize information and scrutinize movements, it's an interesting trick of the language because by rallying against

neoliberalism, they're able to like bring interesting trick of the language because by rallying against neoliberalism, they're able to bring in a lot of the anti-capitalist people into the mix and draw from that crowd. But a lot of these movements are not themselves anti-capitalist. If you want something more than a nice a capitalism, that is something to keep in mind. Even if you take parts in the movement, nothing wrong with that, still, something to keep in mind. So the second matter of festo, it also highlights the interconnectedness

of young people's concerns about climate change and environmental degradation. Talks about the struggles of those seeking freedom from dictatorship, so there was being forced to migrate. And it aims to offer an alternative vision for a post-neural liberal world, which promotes shared values and a sense of agency. Furious intellectuals, activists, writers and artists are all committed to this collective

project, the aim of creating this globally shared vision for the future that is more inclusive and more participatory. The manifesto, the second manifesto, like the first one, talks about the post-World War II growth in principles of human rights, and the shift in capitalism towards speculative and rentier practices, talks about the decline of liberal democracies and the rise of liberal democratures, and speaks about resentment growing from past clear domination domination and radical movements

including alkyd reflecting that animosity. Again, I'd like to previous manifest to talk about ecological threats like global warming and air pollution, oceanic pollution and accumulation of plastic waste, nuclear disasters, weaklands, ecosystems, rise unemployment, job displacement, wealth inequality, lack of regulation for transnational companies, physical fragmentation, terrorism, all that fun stuff. And this time, the second manifesto outlines five principles to form the basis of policies or ethics or organizational actions, right? Common naturality, common humanity, common sociality, legitimate individuation and creative opposition. These principles emphasize one, the interconnectedness of humans with nature, to the importance of respecting the shared humanity of all individuals, three, the value of social relationships,

four, the need for individuals to develop the individuality we're respecting others, and five, the recognition of peaceful rivalry for the common good. five, the recognition of peaceful rivalry for the common good. These principles are meant to be guided by the imperative of hubris control, which promotes cooperation and prevents the desire for power and access. A manifesto also emphasizes the importance of balance in these principles to avoid their potential negative consequences. One of the things that the manifesto is really trying to get at, in particular, and the reason that it even establishes this imperative for hubris control, is because it argues that

ideologies focus primarily on satisfying material needs and overlook the crucial role of recognition and desire and that by reducing politics the fulfillment of needs Ideologies feel to address the problem of limiting the desire for power and control To me, it just seems like the people who wrote this manifesto aren't familiar with anarchism and anarchism's centuries-long confrontation with power, control and desire for it that has altered the course of various human societies. But I digress, manifesto instead points to religions as playing the historical role of trying to

curb our desire for power and control. Um, that seems to me like a very poor argument considering the history of religion, but the point of the manifesto is trying to make is that modern democratic discourses struggle to restrain limitless desire and often reproduce the hubris of the aim to combat. And so the role of a contributor to movement then should be in part on persuading individuals to renounce the desire for dominance and reinforce the principles of common humanity, sociality, naturality, legitimate innovation and creative opposition. Again, I won't think in the direction people are taken convivialism is radically enough because I think it leaves room for to fall and take

existing structures. I mean, the manifest even talks about creating a convent realized party to a very night hoop in liberal democracy. Yeah, and I also want to just point out the sort of like, just how, how weak of a position it is to, you know, have one of your goals be to just to convince individual people to want less power.

Like I just sort of boldly anti-structuralism, present prescription. Yeah. But I mean, I guess that's something that I've come to expect from to expect from sitting millions, right, a lack of engagement with structural domination and how structures and form how individuals behave. You know, like, yes, individuals act within structures, but I think people have asked you to unmask to meet meet structure incentives like it's not just about all If you get rid of this bad person from position of power, but this good boost in position of power Then everything will be honky Dory like no, they're still They're still like you start from confronted the way that that structure that position incentivizes certain behavior

But like I said before I'm an anarchist take what I like and leave what I don't. They also say no matter first, so they're configurator some belongs to nobody. So I've decided that, you know, my version of configurator some is not going to be this water down, water, crust salad, kind of watercress salad kind of pithy, weak, limperasted, take on, you know, world alter-instructural change. Lastly, I didn't want to touch on because I should say I would. This significant rule that configurality is played in the decruth movement, particularly highlighted in texts like decruth of vocabulary for a new era. Inspired by Ivan's ideas, can for reality and decruth has referred to a society that values joyful, sobriety,

responsible consumption and the use of limited tools that are emancipatory and responsive to human needs. The ideas that you find outlined in tools for confiability, which I spoke about in the first part of this two part, is considered part of the intellectual roots of decrypt as an idea itself. And confiability is often discussed in relation to technologies, including digital technologies.

in relation to technologies, including digital technologies, and how technology is suitable to a deeper society must be convivial. One particular tool has been developed for self-assessment, political education, researcher and I was convivial principles, and that is the matrix for contrivial technology or MCT. And the matrix for contrivial technology is to go with a very basic definition, a normative schema that forces discussion concerning teeth with technologies in context of political education. The MCT is meant first to reflect on the dimensions of the materials we use in technology and how we produce with technologies, how we use those technologies, how those technologies fit into the infrastructure, how accessible they are, how interactive they are with the environment, how adaptable they are in changing circumstances, and much more, how appropriate they are, and much more. Our appropriate they are and much more. By beyond the

MCT, convivialities are also being used in the decore of space to describe public spaces, goods, conservation movements, and even humans within decore of literature. Transition into a convivial society is considered to be one of the core objectives of the decore of movement be one of the core objectives of the de-gruth movement. One of the core shifts that needs to take place for us to de-grow as a society. And so that's the long and short of it. The contri-vill-list manifesto, confri-vill-list-zulman, confri- zoom and configure reality as ideas, how they've changed and been adapted and how people have been built in on the ideas they're in, in the sphere of philosophy

and politics and education and technology and more. Food for thought, I hope you appreciated this briefed exploration. As I like to say at the end of my videos, and I consider it particularly apt here in the context of conviviality and convivial technologies, all the power to all the people. Once again, you could find me and Drew on youtube.com slash and tourism and support me on patreon.com slash saying true.

And as usual, this has been, it could happen here. Where things happen, we talk about stuff. Peace. Hey, we'll be back Monday with more episodes every week from now until the heat death of the universe. It could happen here as a production of CoolZone Media. For more podcasts from CoolZone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for it could happen here

updated monthly at coolzonemedia.com slash sources. Thanks for listening. What's up, this iced tea was something I know you're gonna wanna hear. In my new podcast, ICT's Daily Game, I'll be dropping some daily wisdom and personal insight that I believe is essential to achieving success in business, love, life, hustling, whatever. I'll be coming to you every single weekday with a fresh new quote that speaks directly to me and I hope to you as well. In five minutes or less, I'll break down why these words matter and reveal personal stories and experiences that show them in action in my life. My goal is to inspire all of you out there to achieve

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