It Could Happen Here - It Could Happen Here Weekly 110

Episode Date: December 9, 2023

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you can make your own decisions. make your own decisions. Oh, man, welcome back to It Could Happen Here, a podcast about it, meaning bad things happening here, meaning, you know, here. Obviously, here at Cool Zone, we have a little bit of a habit of talking about cults. Some of you who have been listening to Behind the Bastard since the beginning will remember how we kind of started that series with several long episodes about a guy named Keith Raniere. And today we're here to talk with a wonderful author and journalist, Sarah Berman, who has written both about the NXIVM cult and about a new cult that some of you are probably familiar with if you caught the recent Netflix documentary, Prime has a documentary out too, on the Twin Flames cult.

And so we're going to introduce why this is such an interesting cult, why it's kind of groundbreaking. But first, Sarah, welcome so much to the show, Graham. Hey, hey, so good to be here. Thank you for inviting me. Yeah. Sarah, your book is called Don't Call It a Cult, wonderful book about the NXIVM cult. And yeah, you are kind of the person who first, I'm not sure if you're the very first person to ever report on Twin Flames, but you're certainly the person who broke the story in a meaningful and detailed way. How did you, well, first off, we should probably start with,

how would you describe Twin Flames to people? Right. So Twin Flames Universe began as sort of a YouTube channel and a Facebook group that was all about finding true love. So this group promises not only that you find your true love, but also that you will find career fulfillment and enlightenment. And basically everything good will happen to you.

Miracles will happen only if you spend thousands of dollars on their coursework and keep up with their sort of spiritual homework, which is a never ending treadmill. And eventually it sort of becomes, you know, an all powerful control over people's lives, where they go, who they interact with, even their life partner, even their gender identity. So, yeah, lots of people calling it a matchmaking cult. Yeah, it's a matchmaking. I mean, one of the things that I think is interesting to me about the kind of like rhetoric of the of the cult leaders, and this is one that there do seem to be kind of two people heading it up a couple, is the the idea that like they have the ability to see who someone's soulmate is. And like, that's a that's kind of it both sort of I think the appeal this has speaks to, among other things, kind of the deep loneliness that a lot of younger people feel, you know, as we're dealing with this kind of increasingly closed off isolated nature of society, especially since COVID, as well as kind of mixing that with some of these, you know, much longer standing older cult traditions in a way that felt really, really interesting to me, and also like something that could only exist now.

Yeah, totally. Yeah, there's so much to impact there. So in their early days in 2014, this couple Jeff and Shalia, I mean, Shalia is actually a Megan, but Shalia is the name she arrived at through some conscious journeying. They have these videos where they just met and they are in love and they are making eyes at each other. And this is something to attain. It was sort of started as this, you know, romantic YouTuber content. And then they start selling, yes, you can have this too. All you have to do is buy our, you know, coursework and whatnot. And I think it does speak to, especially during the pandemic, a sort of deep, dark loneliness and isolation that's happening where people are enticed by this couple who they're just regular, you know, Michigan white people. They're making eyes at each other,

doesn't look like anything special to an outsider. But clearly, you know, thousands of people have sort of latched on to it, have, you know, hoped that the secret knowledge that this group is giving them, you know, will bring them happiness. And because it's sort of an all-encompassing ideology where if you even question the group, well, then you are definitely never going to see your life partner and will probably see hell at some point in your life. You know, it just creates this perverse incentive to just keep pouring time and effort into this group in a way that, yeah, I don't think could exist in any other time frame, especially not through Zoom, right? So most of these classes that they sell are happening on Zoom, just like you and I are on today. So that, you know, NXIVM could never achieve,

right? This group has achieved a level of, you know, connection and I don't know, just getting into people's brain stems through a laptop screen, which is incredible for our time. Yeah, it's very I mean, again, this is part of what's so modern about it is that it appears to work entirely like cults and particularly cult leaders are tend to be such social phenomena. This is nearly always a thing that involves person-to-person contact. In fact, one of the things any cult expert will tell you is a hallmark of a cult is the focus it puts on isolating members and prospective members away from their friends and their family and keeping them under the power of the cult leader at all times. This is very, people are not all together. They're not all living in one area. They're geographically isolated. The dynamics that this reproduces itself with are parasocial

dynamics. The same dynamics podcast listeners have with like, you know, it's a more extreme version of that, but it's part of this thing we see with Twitch streamers. We see it with like YouTubers, this kind of, and it solves one of the mysteries because I've watched this doc with a couple of friends who kept being like, well, these people don't seem charismatic. They don't seem – this doesn't seem like – it doesn't seem like they could be attaining this degree of control over people. And I think part of what explains that is just like, well, someone may not seem charismatic when you're watching little clips of them in a documentary. Someone may not seem charismatic when you're watching little clips of them in a documentary, but when they're in your ears and on calls with you and stuff all day, every day, your body builds up. They get through your defenses that way. That's how parasocial relationships kind of work.

Absolutely. Yeah, you just have the binging quality of how people consume media these days. And it's the same for, you know, YouTube rabbit holes that radicalize sort of right wing white men. So it's the same process. These folks who I was speaking to, they were consuming up to 10, even 15 hours of this content per day. And they were feeling like they had to keep up with that just to maintain their coaching title or what have you. So yes, they have Jeff inside their head at all times. They start speaking like him. You can kind of tell when a still involved member emails you that it sounds just like the leaders.

It is a fully saturating, indoctrinating process. And I guess, yeah, you don't have to be particularly charismatic in person to achieve that kind of saturation when you have the YouTube algorithm. You know, unfortunately, my YouTube algorithm is also ruined. So my next up on YouTube is looking pretty, it's yikes these days. I actually discovered a really effective method for my own research in various cults, which is I just use my roommate's YouTube premium account. So I have ruined his life, but it's not a problem for me.

So it's worked out really well is what I'm saying. I mean, I might try that solution, but I live with my partner, so he might not appreciate that. We'll see how it goes though. I'm kind of curious, how did you get on this story? Like, what was your backstory there? Yeah, so I was in the depths still of reporting on NXIVM.

I don't believe the sentencing for Keith Raniere had happened yet at that point. So this was late 2019, early 2020. One of the mothers was the first to reach out to me. And she had two daughters who are featured in the Netflix series in the group. And she had told me that she was cut off from all contact, that the only contact she did have with one of her daughters was when she sent thousands of dollars. And so that to me right away, like you said, you know, isolating people from their family members who might, you know, raise questions or, you know, want to know more about what's happening, asking for money so blatantly, you know, and denying contact based on

an amount of money sent, that all sounded pretty bad to me. And so I started looking into it. That mom pointed me towards Elle, who is also featured in the Netflix series. She's also Katie in the Vanity Fair piece that later came out after our reporting. And it just sort of snowballed from there. Um, I'll put me in touch with, I would say half a dozen ex members at that point. Uh, some different mothers started contacting me cause they all were sort of in a group chat trying to figure out how they could reestablish content, uh, contact with their mostly daughters. That was my origin story. with their mostly daughters. That was my origin story.

We put out a piece fairly quickly. I tried to get it out within a month or two of that first contact. Yeah. Well, that makes a lot of sense. And I want to continue talking about this. We'll get into a lot more. But first, it's time for an ad break. So here we go.

Ah, and we're back. Mia, did you have anything you wanted to to move into next yeah so there are some parts of this that are very familiar in the sense of the the combination of christianity and weird new age spiritualism stuff i think it's a pretty old combination i mean the moody's very famously sort of pioneered this thing. I mean, you know, you can go back to the 1800s and find versions of it. The thing that I think is interesting about it is the way that they've effectively been doing conversion therapy on people. And I don't know, this is something I haven't really seen before from a cult.

I don't know. This is something I haven't really seen before from a cult. And I guess I think the way in to this is talking about the sort of divine masculine, divine feminine stuff. For sure. Yeah. I agree that this seemed new and, you know, sort of bizarre to me. And certainly I've already seen on Twitter, some, uh, right wing takes on it that give me a lot of uncomfortable feelings because they're obviously taking the wrong opposite lesson. You know, when I guess when I watched this, I see, see, you can't tell someone what their gender is, you know, it doesn't work. It falls apart. It doesn't make sense. But I think, yeah, something that's been taken away in some smaller circles is that, oh, see, you can coach someone to change their gender. And that's, you know,

blame teachers, blame whoever for doing that. So this particular group does have a divine masculine and divine feminine teaching that used to be a little more flimsy. So in the early days, they just said, if you're in a queer couple, it just means one of you has the more wearing pants vibe. You know, it wasn't supposed to literally translate to a gender expression or gender identity. But later on, when, you know, you had this growing amount of, you know, cis women who are, I mean, they're interested in finding their man. And that's not happening because, you know, the group makes it very hard to actually meet outside people. If you're on this constant treadmill of doing spiritual homework, you don't have time to meet your people. And maybe when you talk about it, it's pushing people away. So eventually in late 2019, they started actually making pairings. And to get around the fact that, you know, folks said, well, that's not my, you know, orientation. I'm not attracted to women.

They started actually telling people, well, you're the divine masculine. And actually, you know, you going back your whole life probably knew this all along and we're just revealing something to you. And that sat the wrong way in a lot of cases. And a lot of people left around that time. But they successfully paired up, I think, more than a dozen people around that time. But they successfully paired up, I think, more than a dozen people around that time, and they continued to do pairings into 2020. And some folks did come along on the journey. They did, in some cases, pursue top surgery and hormones and have changed their names, changed their pronouns. It's, yeah, it's not, obviously there are moms who are just barely coming to terms with this and, you know, they're not always using the right language and they're a little confused, you know, and that confusion

was often used as a reason to cut off all contact, you know, say, hey, mom, you're transphobic, you know, and push them aside. And so I think it is new in some sense, but it's also very old in the sense that cults often create a brand new identity for people, right? Like new names when you join a cult is not a new thing. That's something that a lot of, you know, and changing hair, right? Shaving a head. That's like one of the OG cult things. Exactly. Yeah.

So, I mean, this is, I guess, an updated version where, I mean, it's kind of smart in a way that like people might be afraid to question it. Right. Like you're hiding behind something that sounds very progressive and very inclusive. And that's what a lot of cults do is they hide in very progressive spaces. Oh, shit. But yeah, it's a lot. It's a lot to take in. And I definitely like to bring experts up to speed on this and get their perspectives because I don't know everything. You know, I can't possibly pretend to know what's in someone's heart and mind and body, you know,

at any time. So everyone is just working through it. Like one of the experts in the documentary says, you know, some of these folks could have been trans men all along, but the way that they're being told to do it is concerning, to say the least. Yeah, and I think there's some interesting stuff with how they were able to do this. Even before they started forcibly transitioning people, this is, I think, the most trans people I've ever seen in a cult like this like the the number of people who were trans going in was really high and I I suspect that was how they were able to sort of like like you know like one of the people in the documentary was talking about how she was like a trans woman when she was being basically like tokenized by the group as this like hey we're like trans inclusive thing and I wonder how much

of the way they were able to do this is from basically taking the first hand experience of like actual trans people and then like using that to try to convince people of this really weird sort of

essentialist like we've decided that you're the divine masculine, so you have to transition to be a man now stuff. The origin story of it is you're right in reaching out to LGBTQ type communities. So folks like Arcelia, who you see in the documentary, and also Jesse, who you see in the Netflix documentary, they were sent out recruiting in queer spaces. So any type of queer Facebook group, Twitter user, you know, YouTuber, they were in the comments there talking about their twin flame journey and talking about how queer inclusive it was. So they were actively doing that. And it's fascinating to see, you know, you can go

back through Twitter history and find, you know, how they were phrasing these things, you know, like that was their job basically to do outreach for the group in queer spaces. They also did lots of PTSD spaces, former military spaces, you know, they really like tried to find any slice of a person who might need a community who might be lonely and and sort of feed them into the group. And you're right. I think if you have a bunch of queer, open minded people in a space, there's a lot you can do with, you know, suggestion. There's a lot you can do with a deck of tarot cards. It seems a lot of these, you know, gender conversions started with a tarot reading where they would just hold up a card that represented them or their supposed partner.

And, you know, sort of building off of that. So it is, it's new and old in so many ways because yeah, you're just using the divine, uh, to basically just dictate, um, any aspect of someone's life, you know, what they eat, what they wear, where they go, everything. Yeah. And it's, I mean, it's also, we're talking about like how, uh, uh, how much of this kind of plays on loneliness the fact that people are desperate for companionship that particularly younger people are like dating less or more socially isolated and like if you want to push that up to the nth degree you take a group of people who is under siege right now. And so particularly having trouble like being safely out

and around people, right? Like you give them what looks like it's a safe, welcoming community that's supportive of them. And if especially they have not had that, yeah, it's, I mean, it's deeply insidious and evil, I would say. It's powerful stuff. I would say when I go on the Facebook group, you know, I'm blocked now, but when I could, it would, you know, show folks really deep into a fantasy, you know, like they want a perfect life for themselves where they are openly welcomed with open arms, where the people that they care about, care about them back, you know, and that's often not actually the case in their home life. But it seems to be real on

this Facebook page. And they think, you know, if I just put in the work, this will happen for me, that straight guy who I'm into, is gonna come around and see that we're twin flames. And so, guy who I'm into is going to come around and see that we're twin flames. And so, yeah, it definitely also feeds into a bit of fantasy and delusion. That's, you know, I think maybe a symptom of us being so isolated in our,

you know, uh, pandemic, uh, brain spaces. Speaking of isolated, uh, shit.

Well, it's an ad, it's an ad break. I don't, I don't know anything that goes with that, but here's some ads. Ah, and we're back. Sorry, you've you've just encountered some of our classic incompetent ad transitions. reporting on this subject. And I'm curious as you realize how potentially a lot of what's going on in this cult with this divide masculine, divide feminine stuff could, if not handled carefully, play into some really pernicious

culture war stuff that's going on in the country right now. How do you kind of, like, how consciously did you sort of work to avoid that? Yeah, that is definitely something I'm worried about is that this could feed into some sort of culture war talking point. And, you know, you're seeing the seeds of that. If you search Twitter very deeply, you can find it. I guess X, I'm calling it Twitter. It's still Twitter to me.

Yeah, it's still Twitter. It's only acceptable dead naming. Speaking of dead naming, yes. So I definitely wanted to be as careful as possible, listen to trans people as much as possible. You know, so that's why Arcelia was one of the first folks that I talked to. And, you know, she had just such an interesting understanding of this because she, you know, had transitioned before she came into this group and she was able to witness so much of the coaching that was happening. And I'm just so grateful for someone who goes through that ringer and still is able to articulate what happened afterwards. Because, you know, not everybody comes around to understanding it as deeply as she did. So that was my main, you know, thing was I was going to listen to trans people.

And yeah, I guess just trying to sort out what was the ideology of the group, how that was being, you know, I guess, executed. And yeah, just trying to come from this expert perspective that, yeah, nobody can tell you what your gender is. And this is actually an example of that it was hard to wrap my head around and i still worry about it i'm still worrying about my words kind of right now yeah that was something in the documentary that like you could see the filmmakers kind of like you can you can see them kind of going back and forth between wanting to use people getting top surgery as this kind of like shock factor thing, but then also like at the same time being like,

wait, hold on. Like this is, you know, this is something that you can very, very easily like be a right wing transphobe and just like take a clip of and put on the internet and be like, Hey, like we

need to stop gender clinics from being able to do this and i don't know like i i think i i think you've handled it pretty well but i don't know like this is this is something that is like i i think like one of the important things is is this cult is ran by cis people. And I think it was a good decision for you to talk about it in terms of conversion therapy. Because that's a lot closer to what's happening than people transitioning. And I don't know. I would say the thing that's complicated about it, right, is, you know, you, it's, you can't talk, it's really difficult to like it's it's easy to play armchair psychologist with it and i don't want to do that and so definitely i think i think you've been walking a difficult line and yeah i keep my hands off that too you know like i am not going to tell

any one of those folks you know Gabe Ray what's going on in their brains and bodies I just do happen to know about the systematic sort of coaching that they were you know exposed to so you know for in the case of Jessie Hersey uh she had months and months of coaching around letting go of her entire life, her entire identity, starting over, let go of any image of what you think your twin flame could be. Right. And so if if you're doing that, you know, and and eventually folks do sort of acquiesce, I think it's similar in a gender conversion coaching situation. Some people acquiesce, you know, they they get into a high pressure situation. They're being told who they are. They're being

told there will be consequences if they, you know, go back to their normal queer self. So, so that actually does get somebody to change, but in a fear-based situation. So I can speak to the coaching, but yes, I'm never going to be a person telling anyone what their gender is because we don't know. Hopefully, you know, they can break free of what I think is, you know, pretty manipulative, coercive practices, and then they can tell us more about who they are. Yeah. And I mean i i think the other thing i'll say about that is like well i mean we we know just on a societal level that it's possible to force people to live as a gender that they're not and to identify themselves as that gender

by systematic social pressure we know this because this is the story of like every trans person who's ever lived right and totally you know and like it sucks like it really fucking sucks like having having someone force a gender on you and i i really hope that these people like i hope these people find find who they are and you know whatever form that takes that they're not being coerced into it because like, yeah, that's something I think that was in, I think it was in the Netflix documentary that people were talking about. This is like, you know, in terms of people who could understand what this is like, like, I think other trans people are probably some of the only people in the world who actually do like even sort of understand what it's like to be forced to be a gender that you're not and so yeah i'm hoping that this develops in a way like of solidarity and not of weaponization by right-wingers but i mean i think you guys have done all you could reasonably do to avoid that like Like the culture war is going to do what the culture war does.

I wanted to get into Keith Raniere a little bit and kind of how what went on with the NXIVM cult, because he's a friend of the pod over here. We've talked a lot about the details of what he got up to. He's obviously probably the biggest recent cult in, in, in the U S and like us popular culture, at least, you know, there's a couple other,

there's a little bit of other competition for that title, but not a ton. And yeah, you, I wanted to talk to you a little bit about how some of how people's awareness of that, because like, obviously given the media environment,

all the people getting pulled in by the Twin Flames cult were aware to some extent of cult dynamics and probably of this story of this cult that is not unrelated. Definitely. Yeah. So there is a bit of stories colliding. When you write about cults, there's only so many of them and inevitably the stories start to cross over. So I was still covering the NXIVM trial and fallout sentencings when this story came across my desk. And even the first person who talked to me about it was like, I think it's similar. I think their practices are similar. And sure enough, I go and look at this

mind alignment process. And you're right, it's it's kind of similar to auditing and Scientology is kind of similar to, you know, what NXIVM was doing. So it's, yeah, the tools of manipulation are common across many of these groups. And I would say, you know, not just ex-members of Twin Flames, but even potentially the leaders of Twin Flames have studied other groups, including NXIVM. There is the detail in the documentary that Jeff actually made folks in the group write an essay about why Keith Raniere was a cult leader, but why he was not one based on watching The Vow and Seduced. So that's just, yeah, worlds colliding for me. But yeah, I think NXIVM has, in some ways, brought a certain understanding. So some of the sources I was talking to,

yeah, had an understanding of how that worked and, you know, what made that wrong, what made that coercion. Twin Flames doesn't have as many of the aspects as NXIVM. So they don't have a blackmail program, right? There's no branding in Twin Flames universe. And, you know, their diet plan was actually, you know, load up on calories. Right. So there's some various differences that, you know, maybe Jeff studied and thought he could fly under the radar with that. I don't know. I don't know Jeff's motivations. He has only sent me long rambling emails. He has never agreed to an interview. But yes, there's so much commonality, including the lawsuits that came out of this. So when I reported on this in 2020, immediately after our first story, Twin Flames Universe sent a bunch of threatening letters to all of who they suspected was cooperating with my reporting.

So this was a group of some 35 people. I definitely didn't interview all of them, but they were suspected collaborators. And it basically said, if you do not retract your story within 24 hours and write a public apology, we are going to publish very damning information about you. And we might pursue a lawsuit. And this letter was not signed by a lawyer, you know, so Vice felt very comfortable in reporting on it, which we did um and of course nobody retracted but sure enough a couple months after that they did file a defamation suit against i want to say seven or eight members and and one mom and of course that got thrown out but that's that's the nexium playbook is sue suit folks until they don't speak to anyone anymore, right?

So it's a silencing tactic. And it worked. It really shook people up. I definitely wanted to give people space after that. Yeah, it was definitely deja vu, I guess, to see that many lawsuits. Because there were two separate ones, uh, both thrown out. Yeah. I mean, and that's like something I've had to like coach some, some younger journalists and stuff through too. Cause it's a, it's a favorite tactic of a lot of terrible people like send out

legal threats and like, this is not legal advice. You should always consult a lawyer, but the vast majority of threats like that that are sent out cannot be backed up to any realistic extent. Again, don't ever assume that always consult a lawyer about this sort of thing. But like the fact that somebody sends you a, we're going to sue you or like a cease and desist does not mean they can actually hurt you, right? It just means like for a lot of people, that's like a go to sort of thing. Yeah, but it does evoke emotions. And it does mean you've got to reach out to a lawyer, which is scary, you know? Yes.

Yes. Thankfully, we had vice lawyers on that one. But I don't know. In the Netflix documentary, Jeff actually names me, you know, and tries to intimidate me by name. And that was actually cut from a much longer video. And I have to say, when it first came out, it did make me want to puke. Now, when I see it in the series, it makes me laugh. But yeah, you can really intimidate someone with that stuff.

Sure. I think we should probably end on kind of talking about where things are now. Because again, if you've watched the documentary, I think the thing that was brought up to me by a couple of people I know who watched it was like, so wait, they're still just out there doing it? You know, we're used to when stuff like this gets covered, there being some sort of satisfying narrative arc. They've been charged. They're in prison. They're on the run. But they're just continuing to do cult stuff.

And I think part of one of the things that is unfortunate is just I'm not a law expert again, but just from what I've looked at, it's not clear to me that they've broken a law in a way that's going to be easy to come after them for. Yeah. broken a law in a way that's going to be easy to come after them for. Yeah. So this is the interesting thing about Twin Flames Universe is it does sort of straddle this line between, you know, it's not NXIVM. They weren't clarity. They haven't abducted people.

Yes, exactly. They haven't risen to that level. Although there are folks who are in this group who believe they were trafficked, which is an interesting perspective because they weren't able to choose the person that they were having sexual contact with, that they didn't even get to control when or how that sexual contact happened. It would take, I think, you know, a very ambitious prosecutor to take on that kind of case. But back in 2020, some of these moms were already calling, you know, the FBI and the local Farmington Hills police. Farmington Hills has been like, this is not our jurisdiction.

If anything, like go to the FBI. Um, we haven't heard any particular updates from that case. Certainly, folks have said things to me that sound a bit like fraud. Why fraud is a very broad concept. I don't know if that's actually the case. I am not a lawyer. I am not a prosecutor. But definitely, I think the filmmakers behind the Netflix documentary in particular think that this is up to the FBI. They should be taking action and they want their documentary to spur that action. So, yeah, we'll see what happens. I, you know, am, as I said, not an expert, not a lawyer.

But certainly a lot of the things that I've heard about sound very concerning and very similar. Yeah, I mean, and I, yeah, it's tough because like, I mean, I do, I will say I would be shocked if there's not an active FBI investigation purely based on how popular the documentaries have been, right? purely based on how popular the documentaries have been, right? Like, that doesn't mean anything will actually happen, but at this point, I would be shocked if they were not seriously looking into it just because it's like they're probably getting hassled by a bunch of people. Yes, and I mean, it is a very culty thing that they also collect everything, you know, video of everything they've done. There's a lot to look into.

Yeah. The, yes, the hard drive that one of the folks in the documentary named Keeley collected was literally called the Holy Grail. Right. Jesus. Yeah, yeah. For NXIVM, for Keith Raniere, his, his you know damning evidence was called studies so I feel like this is the studies hard drive in that

case well we'll continue to all look at into this and excited to kind of see hopefully eventually some sort of justice being done although that's always a lot to ask for out of the world.

Yeah, well. Mia, did you have anything else you wanted to get into? I think that's basically everything. Okay. And Sarah, did you have anything else you wanted to make sure to mention? Well, I would just like to mention that, you know, having a belief about something like a soulmate is not necessarily a bad thing. I don't want people to feel stupid for having weird beliefs. If you open your third eye and believe your partner has been in your dreams since birth, that's fine to me.

I don't want to disparage that kind of person. It's the systematic coercion that I'm particularly concerned about in my reporting. Maybe you could check out my book. It's called Don't Call It A Cult. It's about the NXIVM case. You can follow me on Twitter.

SarahBerms, B-E-R-M-S not X. I'm dead naming Twitter again. Yeah, that's fine. Yeah, that's about it. All right. Well, everyone, that's been another episode of It Could Happen Here. Until next time, why don't you go happen somewhere else?

Hey, guys. Hey guys, I'm Kate Max. You might know me from my popular online series, The Running Interview Show, where I run with celebrities, athletes, entrepreneurs, and more. After those runs, the conversations keep going. That's what my podcast Post Run High is all about. It's a chance to sit down with my guests and dive even deeper into their stories, their journeys, and the thoughts that arise once we've hit the pavement together. You know that rush of endorphins you feel after a great workout? Well, that's when the real magic happens. So if you love hearing real, inspiring stories from the people you know, follow, and admire, join me every week for Post Run High. It's where we take the conversation beyond the run and get into the heart of it all. It's lighthearted, pretty crazy, and very fun. Listen to Post Run High on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, I'm Danny Thrill. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora. An anthology of modern day horror stories

inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hey, I'm Jack Peace Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black Lit, the podcast for diving deep into the rich world of Black literature. I'm Jack Peace Thomas, and I'm inviting you to join me and a vibrant community of literary enthusiasts dedicated to protecting and celebrating our stories. Black Lit is for the page turners, for those who listen to audio books while commuting or running errands, for those who find themselves seeking solace, wisdom, and refuge between the chapters. From thought-provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Together, we'll dissect classics and contemporary works while uncovering the stories of the brilliant writers behind them. Black Lit is here to amplify the voices of Black writers

and to bring their words to life. Listen to Black Lit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to It Could Happen Here, a podcast about stuff falling apart and how it can maybe come back together. I'm Garrison Davis. Joining me today is Mia Wong. Hello. Hello. So I don't know what this episode is about. I have been told the words David Graeber, and that's all I know. Graeber will come up. So we've had a lot of upsetting stuff that's been covered on the pod recently.

It's not a great time in the world. There's a lot of upsetting things happening. But I thought we might get a small reprieve from all of the real-world chaos and mayhem to talk about some fake-world chaos and mayhem. Hey! And it's also, you know, we are vastly approaching the holiday season, which means that I, I think next week, am doing my yearly Batman Returns watch party, which I am extremely excited about. It's going to be a fun time,

which is probably the best batman movie oh no it's just about oh no the aesthetics the aesthetics are unparalleled but i've discovered what this episode is about but there is another batman movie that's also set during winter time which is also also very political because Batman Returns is weirdly political. We have the penguin running for mayor. It exposes the corrupt core of our political system. And there is another Batman movie also set during winter that tries to expose the corrupt core of the political system, which is Christopher Nolan's 2012 The Dark Knight Rises. A not very good movie, which I think we have referenced before because there's this one essay by one David Graeber, which really gets into the film, which we're going to get to. But the reason why I actually put together this episode or I wanted to do this is because when I was at the ghost conference earlier this year in seaside,

Oregon, as you can listen to that two parter, which came out last Halloween. I, I got a whole bunch of old magazines from this conspiracy talk radio host. Now I, I love collecting old magazines. I,

I find them endlessly fascinating. We have this one from 2003 called MKZine. Oh no. On the cover, we have mind control, ritual abuse and political implications, the cult of national insecurity. through this one super in depth before because i'm more taken aback by the other magazine i got from 2012 called paranoia the conspiracy reader on this cover we have beyond mk ultra satellite terrorism in america science fiction or space faction oh no and dark knight kill programming which is obviously the one we're going to be talking about here today. Oh, no.

Is this the Sandy Hook thing? No. Oh, God. This will briefly get into the Aurora mass shooting because this comes up in this article. I'm not going to get too into it because that's actually not the focus. Yeah. Well, I think I'm realizing I'm confusing my – You're confusing your 2012 mass

shootings no there's that because because there there is actually a alex jones conspiracy that there was predictive programming in the dark knight returns or the dark knight rises that's what this is going to be about oh okay okay okay sorry this is by discount alex jones clyde lewis who lives in portland Oh, God damn it. There's some pretty fun stuff in this issue, which we might get to later at the end to kind of close out

all of our political mumbo jumbo that we will actually get into as well. But I want to first look at how conspiracy theorists read this movie and how they read the political aspects

of this movie because this movie is obviously very political. If you've seen it, we will, we will get into some of, some of the stuff, but I want to, I want to talk about how these conspiracy theorists saw this movie because the way that they do political analysis of media is very different from the way actual academics and people who take this stuff seriously do political analysis of media. And I think there's an interesting juxtaposition there. So this is the cover page for this story.

The storm is coming. Oh, no, no. Stage one already off to a bad start. Yes, yes. All right. So I will read a little bit from this magazine and then we can kind of talk about it and then compare to our colleague, David Graeber. As I was watching Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises, I didn't know the political substance right away, which is a great way to start this because the film is so obviously political. like people who haven't like this movie like starts with bane literally saying he's going to occupy wall street and like seizing well before see this wall street this this is this

is what we will soon be debating um but anyway um i only saw it as a bit of predictive programming and a believable scenario as to how it might all begin in In The Dark Knight Rises, Catwoman, as Selina Kyle, and Batman, as Bruce Wayne, are dancing at a socialite gathering when Selina purrs in his ear, there's a storm coming, Mr. Wayne. As it turns out, The Dark Knight Rises is a damning indictment of the anti-corporate movement

and the threat of social chaos it poses. Despite rallying people around their deceased hero, Harvey Dent, the rich are losing their grip on Gotham City. Antagonist Bane, played by Tom Hardy, and his League of Shadows rise up against the bankers and the elite billionaires like Bruce Wayne and attack Wall Street, savagely beating

the rich while promising the good people of Gotham that, tomorrow you claim what is rightfully yours. Bane's organized violence against the wealthy evokes the reality of Occupy Wall Street. But Bane is no Robin Hood. He is plotting a massive transfer of wealth through stock exchange after inciting civil unrest and taking control of cutting-edge weapons technologies whose algorithm can be directly traced to Bruce Wayne, software which will avail them from the fortunes of the rich.

As the war between the people and the police in The Dark Knight Rises indicates, the predictive programming of statistical data could very well undermine the 1% and send them into the streets where the disgruntled will eat them. Fraudulent practices will be exposed. Identity theft, credit card fraud, securities fraud, and a number of other practices that the elite do in order to bilk the poor out of their money. This is one interesting thing about these sorts of kind of conspiracy radio guys, how they're both against the elite, but also fundamentally also for the elite. Like this film is celebrated as being, you know, like it's deriding the

anti-corporate Occupy movement, which they hate because they hate, they would dislike, you know like it's deriding the anti-corporate occupy movement which they hate because they hate they would dislike you know a left-wing popular uprising but in the end they actually prefer this corporate like uh illuminati to the actual alternative well and it's it's it's interesting too like the ways that they think that like rich people exploit people is through like credit card fraud it's like that that's how you think rich people get rich like really like all right we are almost at the end here christopher nolan's epic sounds the alarm of the advent of an organized puppet master anarchy that plans to topple the government by exposing and gutting the fortunes of the elite. In real life, it might look like an Occupy in the streets,

sands and evil drums, a soundtrack pounding out the perennial battle between the haves and the have-nots. While The Dark Knight Rises acknowledges the systemic inequality and injustice, it is not the rich, but anarchy that is the bane of Gotham's existence. Get it? Get it? It's a pun.

Nolan portrays the Occupy anti-hero Bane as a demagogue, ultimately seeking to speculate on legitimate grievances. And when Bane hands the reins of power over to the people, they really won't know what to do with it. Which is something that never happens in the movie, by the way. No! Now, at this point, Clyde Lewis stops talking about the movie. And instead, it talks about this bit of predictive programming in the movie, which has a few kind of aspects.

Then there is the intriguing subplot that seemingly seeped into reality on the eve of the Dark Knight Rises release. That a software company takes its findings to the Supreme Court and exposes so-called political heroes, which would lead to riots and marauding shooters, creating mass casualties. Imagine that intelligence is aware of the threat and issues a declassified memo from the Department of Homeland Security warning law enforcement that terrorists could be killing people in movie theaters. All that is needed is the catalyzing event and immediately the police state is activated. Flash riots take place in cities. Civil unrest brews under the radar. Truth becomes stranger than fiction as we examine the media stories surrounding the main story of the so-called brainwashed low-nut James Holmes opening fire in a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado on July 20th, 2012. And allegedly killing 12 and injuring 59 others.

Interesting use of the word allegedly there in regarding the people that were killed. Oh boy. And then the next sentence is really where things pick up. Not only is James Holmes connected to the neuroscience super soldier peak soldier performance experiments, but his father works for a software company that analyzes fraud. to the neuroscience super soldier peak soldier performance experiments.

But his father works for a software company that analyzes fraud. So I'm not going to actually read the next bit because it is just the ramblings of a conspiracy brained lunatic who thinks that because the shooter's dad was a neuroscientist, that therefore his son must have been this victim of a super soldier program to brainwash you to activate the police state once you receive a bit of predictive programming and the the other

i will i will get to one other paragraph um and then we'll be we'll be done with this article because there's really not much more substance um quote the chilling predictive programming looming behind The Dark Knight Rises does not escape at least the unconscious of those watching. Bane, the leader of the fictional anarchist mob, decides to plant bombs in the Gotham underground, the final target being a stadium where the mayor of Gotham attends a sports event. A young boy sings the national anthem with a British accent. Bain pauses to listen to the distinct voice, then says,

Let the games begin! After which, the stadium is bombed and the mayor is killed in his reserved viewing box. Now, Clyde Lewis believes that this was a bit of predictive programming in order to prepare people for a mass casualty event at the London 2012 Olympics, which you might you might know did not happen. What's not what's not a thing, but he is convinced that this is part of some predictive programming to either trigger this event or cover up this event or allude to this event. Again, an event that did not happen.

So that's, you know, as we're going to be talking about, you know, how people view mass uprising and political movements in media for the rest of this episode, this is how a certain sect of conservative does their own media analysis, which I think is a really fun look into how their brains operate, sorting a very political film into these predictive programming boxes. But we will return to talk about

the Virgin David Graeber and the Chad Mark Fisher after this ad break. We are back. I am waiting, watching for the rich to be thrown from their balconies as wealth is redistributed and a man in a very fancy coat takes over a sporting event. So I read almost every, like, serious political analysis of the Dark Knight Rises that I could find from fascists, from conservatives, from liberals, and from leftists and anarchists. Everyone agrees that this film has some very, very obvious Occupy parallels. We're going to get into how much of those are actually kind of built into the film's production versus how much of those are more or less coincidental. Now,

unfortunately for me, not actually unfortunately, because I actually do like Graber a lot, but his analysis was by far the best out of anybody else's in regards to this film. Unfortunately, the schizoid acid-fueled chaos magic of Mark Fisher kind of paled in comparison to the precision of the anthropologist David Graeber in terms of their analysis of this film. But both of them had roughly the same opinion. Graeber just went into a lot more depth about how kind of this film actually politically operates. So I'll be mostly talking about and quoting from Graeber with a few things from Fisher kind of mixed in. And then we'll compare it to some stuff in Breitbart and The Daily Caller

and a few other reactions from liberals who enjoyed the film too much and are unwilling to kind of cede this conservative ground to Nolan's 2012 film. And I think this is actually really interesting to talk about this film this year after the release of Oppenheimer, which I think is Nolan's probably most politically mature work. And he has definitely grown a lot in the past 10 years as a filmmaker, at least in terms of his ability to get into politics in a way that is not just purely reactionary. I think a lot of his early films are kind of absorbed by this reactionariness. I think a lot of his early films are kind of absorbed by this reactionariness. And I think he has matured a decent bit, at least as a political filmmaker. So we will start with a paragraph from Graeber.

Quote, Christopher Nolan's Batman The Dark Knight Rises, not the title of the film, is really a piece of anti-Occupy propaganda. is really a piece of anti-occupy propaganda. Christopher Nolan, the director, claims that the script was written before the movement even started and that the famous scenes of the occupation of New York, Gotham City, were really inspired by Dickens' account of the French Revolution.

This is probably true, but it's disingenuous. Everyone knows Hollywood scripts are continually rewritten while movies are in production. And when it comes to messaging, even details like precise wording or where a scene is shot can make all the difference. Then there's the fact that the villains actually do attack the stock exchange. Still, it's precisely this ambition, the filmmaker's willingness to take on the great issues of the day that ruins the movie. So the script was written well before Occupy started. Shooting for Dark Knight Rises ended two months after the start of Occupy.

Most of the shooting for the film took place before Occupy even happened. And now in 2011, it was widely misreported that the movie was going to be filming at Occupy itself, which started from like, I think something in the LA Times, which just got blown out of proportion, was not true. They did shoot in New York, but they did not shoot at Occupy. Yeah, probably because they would have gotten run out. Probably. Now, leading up to 2011, both Nolan and what became Occupy were on very similar conceptual roads. They were just leading to two very different places. The Dark Knight released in the middle of the 2008 financial crisis, right after the 2008

writers' strike ended. So there were a lot of class issues circling around in Nolan's bubble. So it made sense that Nolan's next Batman flick would tackle these things that rose to cultural prominence by the time he finished the more Patriot Act-inspired The Dark Night. Now, Nolan and other writers obviously saw economic inequality and corruption seeding people's anger and the rising possibility of civil unrest, and that was put into the script. And then it just happened two months before they finished shooting. Now, Nolan also took a lot from The Tale of Two Cities. This, probably more than anything else, The Dark Knight Rises is actually based

on The Tale of Two Cities, a passage of which is read at the end of the film. And there's plenty of parallels to the French Revolution, including the storming of Bastille. There's actually two prison breaks inside The Dark Knight Rises. There is the release of Blackgate, and then there's, of course,

when Bruce Wayne escapes the giant hole in the ground and frees the other prisoners as well. So still, throughout all of these kind of class issues that Nolan is talking about in this film, he still shows a deep distrust of populism or at the very least feared how easily it could be subverted in a charged financial climate. I'm going to read one quote from Fisher here. Quote, When Nolan revived the Batman franchise in 2005, the setting, Gotham, in the midst of an economic depression, seemed like an acronistic reference to the superhero's origins in the 1930s. 2008's The Dark Knight was too early to register the impact of the financial crisis,

but The Dark Knight Rises clearly attempts to respond to the 2008 situation. The film isn't the simple conservative parable that the right-wingers would like, but in the end, it is a reactionary vision, which I think is the fairest way to look at this film. But now we're going to go deep into Graeber's analysis, which is by far probably one of the best write-ups on 20th century superheroes and their role in American culture. It's my favorite by far. This is the one that I always push on people when people talk about Marvel because- Yes. No, absolutely. This is an essay that you've referenced a lot on this show. I've been going into a bit of a graver resurgence lately. I deeply enjoyed his essay on puppets, which I'm going to respond to by writing an essay on why nihilists hate puppets and accept the adversarial framing of the police.

But that is a digression. Now we will get back to Graeber's essay in the new inquiry titled Superposition. The thing I want to mention here about this essay is he wanted to call it on Batman and the problem of constituent power, but they wouldn't let him do it. So it's called superposition instead. That is certainly what it's actually about, is constituent power. We will get to that very shortly. So, quote, superheroes are a product of their historical origins. Superman is a Depression-era displaced Iowa farm boy. Peter Parker, a product of the 60s, is a smart-ass working-class kid from Queens.

Batman, the billionaire playboy, is the scion of the military-industrial complex that was created, just as he was, at the beginning of World War II. I will say, the early origins of Batman are far divorced from that, but that is certainly what Batman has evolved into. Quote, these heroes are purely reactionary in a literal sense. They have no projects of their own, at least not in their roles as heroes. Almost never do superheroes make, create, or build anything. The villains, in contrast, are endlessly creative. They are full of plans and projects and ideas. Clearly, we are supposed to,

at first, without consciously realizing it, identify with the villains. After all, they're the ones having all the fun. Then, of course, we feel guilty about it, re-identify with the hero, and have even more fun watching the super ego clubbing the errant id back into submission. This essay that Graever wrote is very freudian um graver makes a lot of freud references in this i am not going to be getting into as much but superheroes are also very very freudian um yeah i want to i want to say one thing about this specific passage or specifically the the the way that you're encouraged to identify with the hero and then like that gets like that gets subverted you're supposed to come back to the hero so this used to be a kind of you're supposed to identify with the villain

and then yeah and then come back to the hero yeah so and this is part as this works as like a conservative project of conservative ideology and this used to be like an implicit thing in these movies and then you get to black panther which is literally well literally they just like that that is just the met like like they they stopped being subtle and were like, hey, here is a guy who's an anti-imperialist and then the ending reveal is, oh my god, he's actually evil. In terms of Marvel, I would say yes. I think my two favorite superhero movies, which would be Tim Burton's Batman and Batman Returns, do the of this, where very obviously the villain is the main characters of both of those, and Batman is really just a side character. And I think

those actually work better for this medium so much more. Oh, yeah. When it comes to Marvel, absolutely. Yeah, they're just like openly doing this now. It's really sort of like, yeah, the second one's about two. Yes, yes. Now, Graber then talks about kind of what the project of these comic books were originally supposed to be and how that kind of continues on today into pop culture.

Quote, politically speaking, superhero comic books can seem pretty innocuous. If all a comic is trying to do is tell a bunch of adolescent boys that everyone has a certain desire for chaos and mayhem, but ultimately such desires need to be controlled, the implications would not seem especially dire, especially because the message still does carry a healthy dose of ambivalence. After all, the heroes of even the most right-leaning action movies seem to spend much of their time smashing up suburban shopping malls,

something that many of us would like to do at some point in our lives. In the case of most comic book superheroes, however, the mayhem has an extremely conservative political implication. This is where we start getting into God versus the people and using both of these things as constructs, right? Neither of these things really fully exist in a super material way. Both of these things are constructs, quote unquote God, quote unquote the people.

They both occupy a very similar ontological role. And this is something that Graeber gets into. Quote, Any power capable of creating a system of law cannot itself be bound by them. In the Middle Ages, the solution was simple. The legal order was created, either directly or indirectly, by God. The English, American, and French revolutions changed all that when they created the notion of popular sovereignty, changed all that when they created the notion of popular sovereignty, declaring that the power once held by kings, and by extension God, is now held by an entity called the people. The people,

however, are bound by the laws. They are able to create the laws through those revolutions themselves. But of course, revolutions are acts of lawbreaking, so laws emerge from illegal activity. This creates a fundamental incoherence in the very idea of modern government, which assumes that the state has a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence. It's okay for police to use violence because they are enforcing the law. The law is legitimate because it's rooted in the Constitution. The Constitution is legitimate because it comes from the people. The people created the Constitution by acts of illegal violence. It all circles back on itself. The obvious question then is how does one tell the difference between the people and a mere

rampaging mob, which is a question that comes up all the time across the political spectrum from anarchists to fascists to liberals. This is a debate that still goes on. Without the law, what is the difference between the people and just a lynch mob? Now, Graeber doesn't really give an answer to this because this doesn't really have an answer. This is a very vague question and kind of, as Graeber points out, it's vague by design. Quote, the response by mainstream respectable opinion is to push this problem as far away as possible. The usual line is that the age of revolutions is over. Now we can change the constitution or legal standards by legal means.

This, of course, means that the basic structures will never change, unquote. And this is where kind of Graeber talks about how the role of tradition has totally taken over the legal implications of our system here. How the US, which was at once progressive in its electoral college and two-party system, is now quite old-fashioned compared to a lot of other popular democratic countries. democratic countries. There's a good line, quote, we base the legitimacy of the whole system on the consent of the people, despite the fact that the only people who were ever really consulted on the matter lived over 200 years ago. In America, at least, quote unquote, the people are long since dead. So now we have this situation that we have this idea of the legal order, which comes from God, which then came from armed revolution. And now it just comes from this idea of the legal order, which comes from God, which then came from armed revolution. And now it just comes from this idea of sheer tradition.

Now, there's obviously a lot of American politicians who would want to give this power back to God. Yeah. But even then, I was like, it's really hard to actually do that like even even governments that are very explicitly theocratic like for example like iran it's like well they still have elections and they still have this like it the the the the notion of of popular sovereignty belonging to the people is very hard to dislodge unless you're going to straight up impose a monarchy and even a lot of the monarchies now are like you know they they follow the european thing of like claiming to like derive authority from the people or something sure but we also on we also have people like like uh walsh and michael knolls who are very openly like catholic monarchists who

yeah and like you have a lot of prominence in American culture. Yeah, it's like, I don't know. I wish them bad luck. Yes, that is a more moderate thing I wish upon them. So back to Graber, quote, for the radical left and the authoritarian right, the problem of constituent power is very much alive, but each takes diametrically opposite approaches to the fundamental question of violence. Now, I think this is something that has – I'd be interested to see Graeber revisit this idea now. Unfortunately, that cannot be the case because this question of violence has certainly evolved a lot in the 10 years in which he wrote this.

evolved a lot in the 10 years in which he wrote this, both in terms of how the alt-right operates, but also in terms of how the quote-unquote left views violence as a necessary political tool. But getting into his analysis of the 20th century, I think it is still fairly accurate. Quote, the left chastised by the disasters of the 20th century has largely moved away from its older celebration of revolutionary violence, preferring non-violent forms of resistance. Those who act in the name of something higher than the law can do so precisely because they don't act like a rampaging mob. For the right, on the other hand, and this has been true since the rise of fascism in the 20s, the very idea that there is something special about revolutionary violence, anything that makes it different from mere criminal violence is so much self-righteous twaddle. Violence is violence, but that doesn't mean a rampaging mob can't be the people, because violence is the real source of law and political order.

This is why, as Walter Benjamin noted, we cannot help but admire the great criminal, because, as so many movie posters have put it, he makes his own law. Because, as so many movie posters have put it, he makes his own law. After all, any criminal organization does inevitably begin developing its own, often quite elaborate, set of internal laws. They have to, as a way of controlling what very violence that it brings into being and through which it is ultimately enforced. Now, I think this is also true of even certain aspects of the left where we have – we don't call them laws. We might call them like community guidelines or something. But we often actually do this same process, especially in the anarchist kind of formations that try to replicate gang formations like purposefully. try to replicate gang formations, like purposefully, we, we, we, we get this, this, this same essence that, that has developed in order to, people might, you know, uh, reject the use of the word police, but at least, uh, you know, make some kind of structure that deems which violence is acceptable and which violence isn't. But back to Graeber, quote, this makes it easier to understand

the often surprising affinity between criminals, criminal gangs, right-wing political movements, and the armed representatives of the state. Ultimately, they speak the same language. They create their own rules on the basis of force. As a result, they typically share the same broad political sensibilities. In Athens nowadays, there's active collaboration between the crime bosses in poor immigrant neighborhoods, fascist gangs, and the police. In fact, in this case, it was clearly a political strategy. Faced with the prospect of popular uprisings against a right-wing government, the police first withdrew protection from neighborhoods near the immigrant gangs, then started giving tacit support to the fascists. For the far right then, it is in that space where different violent

forces operating outside of the legal order interact, that new forms of power, and hence of order, can emerge. What does this have to do with costume superheroes? Well, everything. Because this is exactly the space that superheroes and supervillains also inhabit. An inherently fascist space, inhabited only by gangsters, would-be dictators, police, and thugs, with endlessly blurring lines between them. Sometimes the cops are legalistic,

sometimes they're corrupt, sometimes the police themselves slip into vigilantism. Sometimes they pursue the superhero, sometimes they look the other way, sometimes they help. Villains and heroes occasionally team up. The lines of force are always shifting. If anything new were to emerge, it could only be through such shifting forces. There's nothing else, since in the DC and Marvel universes, neither God nor the people really exist. Now, this is, I think, this is Graeber hitting on something that really does hit at the core of this whole genre. Is that this is the genre which is really only inhabited by the Ubermensch as this, like, governing body, right? There really isn't the god in any kind of there's there really isn't the god in any kind of meaningful way there isn't the people in any kind of meaningful way there is just the super

individual the ubermensch himself is what inspired joe schuster and jerry siegel to create superman like this is this is the origin of of this entire genre by the way i i want to i want to mention some some colleagues but nerds are going to get very angry here and be like well there's a one above all it's like okay like god like there is technically god in this right but like god is a thing that you can beat the crap out of like it's not god in the sense of like god ordained authority

it's not it's not the same thing that's not what Graber's talking about please don't be pedantic in the comics or whatever I'm talking like as like a literary tradition, God does not operate as a significant role in these pieces of art. Like if you're going to be looking at this genre

as art for 12 year old boys, God does not operate a specific crucial role in this world's ontology. And it's funny too, because one of the things that happens after this is there's a thing called Occup avengers and they make this attempt to bring oh no it's it's a shit show it is awful it's so bad like it's well and it's interesting to you because like anytime they try to so that that was an attempt to bring in like sort of the people as

like a left-wing constitutive body and that was a disaster they tried to do it like they tried to do it again but the people exist as this sort of like very right-wing like force that is like as like this bob that's constantly on the edge of sort of like destroying society

whatever that's been like the most recent attempts to do it there are certainly attempts to bring in like the American political system into various aspects of comics whether that's like like the most yeah attempts to do it no there are certainly attempts to bring in like the american political system into various aspects of comics whether that's like lex luther being president whether it's stuff like in the i know this stuff and i think it's called the immortal hulk has has has a lot of politics but that one's wild that one's i i do think graver's kind of point here is still accurate and rings true. I have one other paragraph from Graeber, then we'll kind of get into a little bit more discussion.

Quote, insofar as there is a potential for constituent power, then, it can only come from purveyors of violence. The supervillains and evil masterminds, when they are not merely indulging in random acts of terror, are always scheming of imposing a new world order of some kind or another. Surely, if Red Skull, Kang the Conqueror, or Doctor Doom did ever succeed in taking over the planet, there would be lots of new laws created very quickly. Yeah, and there was actually, after he wrote this, there was an arc where Doctor Doom successfully conquered the entire universe, and he did in fact do exactly that. Yes, which also- Another W fact, do exactly that. Yes. Which also... Another W for common David Graeber W. Which also does not last very long,

because if that happened for a while, it would make the story incredibly boring. Yeah, so they had to undo it. Things always return to the status quo, which is also another crucial aspect of this genre, that things have to return to the status quo, which is something I will get to very shortly. Back to Graeber.

Quote, although their creator would doubtless not himself feel bounded by them, superheroes resist this logic. They do not wish to conquer the world. Now, this is where I'm going to actually disagree slightly with Graeber. He writes that superheroes, quote, remain parasitical off the villains in the same way that police remain parasitical off criminals. Without them, they'd have no reason to exist. Now, I'd argue that the police actually create the spectral category of criminals to justify their own existence. Criminals didn't create the police. It's the other way around, right? You can at like the way, even the past few years, police

have been lying about inflated crime rates to justify their own increased funding. And now, obviously people always broke social norms, but if you're looking at the actual, like the actual, like political class of criminal and the political class of, of police, this is like, it's like everyone has done a crime, right? Like police commit more crimes than the average person, but they do not often get called a criminal. I'm talking about like a very political class that we call criminal. And this is something that the police create. And curiously, in the same way, most superheroes also predate their respective supervillains as it is the presence of the superhero that often births the adversarial supervillain.

We see this across tons of superhero medias where they use the example of how the superhero predated the arrival of these theatrical villains. And this is actually the superhero's fault, right? This happens in Batman. This happens in Spider-Man. This is very, very common. We even see this in something like The Boys or The Watchmen, both of which target superheroes as a reactionary right-wing tendency, which are aligned with the police and military. We literally have Homelander creating supervillains to justify his own existence or super terrorists.

In The Watchmen, the actual team predates the arrival of many supervillains. So this is one small nitpick I might say with this article, at least in terms of the causality loop between superheroes and villains and criminals and police. Do you know what also predates all of us, every single person listening? We're going to have someone who's 100 The advertising industrial complex predates every single one of you fuckers. The surrealists burst this hell hole

of advertising which tricks your mind via predictive programming to get you to buy this fucking food box. We are back. We have returned to the status quo of our podcast. Speaking of which, we're going to talk about returning to the status quo. So what superheroes and the police, which are very ontologically similar roles in a lot of cases, what their end project is, is that they seek to maintain what is and then seek out and destroy anything

that threatens to alter our civilizational fabric. They fundamentally are defenders of the status quo. That is the role of the superhero across almost all media. This is why, if you had the powers of Superman, why are you just saving cats from trees and instead not fundamentally reshaping the world in something that is better? Now, this is a question that gets tackled by people like Grant Morrison and Alan Moore as to, they often give reasons for why someone shouldn't do that. But still, this is a fundamental aspect of this genre, is that these guys never really have any generative political project. They are purely reactionary and they purely are made to hold up the status quo and always return to this single point from which they emerged. Back to Graeber, quote, they remain defenders of a legal and political system which itself seems to have

come out of nowhere and which, however faulty or degraded, must be defended, because the only alternative is so much worse. They aren't fascists. They're just ordinary, decent, super-powerful people who inhabit a world in which fascism is the only political possibility. Why, might we ask, would a form of entertainment premised on such a peculiar notion of politics emerge in the early to mid-20th century America at just around the time that actual fascism was on the rise in Europe, was it some kind of fantasy American equivalent? Not exactly. It's more that both fascism and superheroes were products of a similar historical predicament. What is the foundation of social order when one has exercised the very idea of revolution, and above all, what happens to the political imagination. So at this point, Graeber starts talking about how basically all

power goes to the individual, but the individual who is embedded within a system. He discusses how the core audience for superhero comics are adolescent or pre-adolescent white boys at least that was in the 1920s or 30s and 40s and roughly is still the case it's that these comic books and now marvel films although unfortunately marvel films have a much broader audience um but they are they are they are targeted to people who are at a point in their lives where they're like where they're likely to be both like the most imaginative um and a little bit little bit rebellious, right? This is like, this is the 12 year old white boy is the, is the, is the thing that this is targeting. Um, so they're both very imaginative. They're a little bit rebellious, but they're also being groomed to take on positions of power and authority in the world, right? They're about to

transition to being fathers, sheriffs, small, small business owners, middle management, right? So this is what this genre is targeted towards. So what are they supposed to learn from these kind of endlessly repeating stories that are all very much the same story? One aspect is that imagination and rebellion will inevitably just lead to violence, right? And then second is like imagination and rebellion, violence can actually be a lot of fun. But ultimately, violence must be directed back against any overflow of imagination and rebellion, or else everything will kind of go into chaos. These things have to be contained. So this is why superheroes are only allowed, I'm going to quote from Graeber again, quote, their imagination can only be extended to the design of their clothes, their

cars, maybe their homes, and their various accessories, unquote. Basically all of their imagination for the superhero is limited to commodities, right? This is the fundamental aspect where that's the only acceptable outlet for your imagination. It's

just with commodity fetishism. That's the only possible way. Back to Graeber, quote, it's in this sense that the logic of the superhero plot is profoundly, deeply conservative. Ultimately, the division between left and right sensibilities turns on one's attitude towards the imagination. For the left, imagination, creativity, and by extension, production, the power to bring new things and new social arrangements into being is always celebrated. It's the source of all real value in the world. For the right, it's dangerous and ultimately evil. The urge to create is also a destructive urge.

But this is also what separates conservatives from fascists. Both agree that the imagination unleashed can only lead to violence and destruction. Conservatives wish to defend us against this possibility. Fascists wish to unleash it anyway. They aspire to be, as Hitler imagined himself, great artists painting with the minds, bloods, and sinews of humanity. I think this is a really good distinction between conservatives and fascists in terms of how they view creative violence. And to get back to superheroes, I think this medium, as Graber points out, has this kind of built-in essence of a guilty pleasure. It revels in the absurdity of both the costumed heroes and villains, all while still targeting an imagination which is too expansive,

too outside the norm, as being the ultimate crime. This guilty pleasure aspect even applies to the great superhero satires like The Watchmen and The Boys, which we applaud for poking and prodding at the conservative superhero, all while still reveling in watching the outlandish antics on screen or on the page. Now, Graber even applies this guilty pleasure aspect into explaining the kind of the conservative backlash to superheroes in the 40s and 50s, particularly with the book Seduction of the Innocent, which kind of viewed superheroes as this weirdly fetishistic kind of naughty impulse, which resulted in superheroes getting very

sanitized and much more silly, much more campy, which resulted in the fantastic 1966 Batman show. But still, it kind of points at this guilty pleasure aspect. There's something inherently kind of naughty about viewing this material. All right, we are nearing the end of Graeber's analysis here. Quote, if the message was that rebellious imagination was okay as long as it was kept out of politics and simply confined to consumer choices like clothes, cars, and accessories, this had become the message that even executive Hollywood producers could easily get behind, which results in stuff like the 1966 Batman show. And now leading us back into Christopher Nolan, we get this really good paragraph from Graeber. We get this really good paragraph from Graeber. Quote, if the classic comic book is ostensibly political about Mad Men trying to take over the world, but really psychological and personal about overcoming the dangers of rebellious adolescence, but then ultimately political after all, then the new superhero movies are precisely the reverse. They are ostensibly psychological and personal, but really political. But ultimately,

they go back to being psychological and personal. So, this is me just riffing now. Let's take Batman Begins, right? We have Ra's al Ghul who operates in this psychological role of a second father for Bruce, right? After Bruce's training and initiation into

the League of Shadows, only then does Ra's reveal his political goals to destroy Gotham and rid the world of corruption. So this is like the psychological is the first bit. Then it's actually political. And then by the end, it actually goes all the way back into being truly psychological. Now, I'm going to read one paragraph from Graber, which is only because it has a very funny two-word combination. In the original comics, we learned that Ra's al Ghul, a character introduced tellingly in 1971, is in fact a Zirzan-esque primitivist and eco-terrorist determined to restore the balance of nature by reducing the Earth's human population by roughly 99%.

None of the villains in any of the three movies want to rule the world. They don't wish to have power over others or to create new rules of any sort. Unquote.

And I just really like the term Zerzan-esque primitiveness to describe the 70s Ra's al Ghul, which is amazing. A deeply brain- like, a deeply brain like a deeply

brain poisoned way to describe a comic book i mean like if you're unfamiliar um john zershin is an eco-anarchist writer um who certain uh sects of kind of social anarchist theorists liked to make fun of yeah i think i think great graver's most devastating thing about the primitivists was calling them all marxists because they're the only people on earth who say it's a program not a critique which is very funny i think like one of the things that's kind of going on here is like everyone who's writing about superhero movies is also trying to settle their own grudges a little bit. And two of Graber's grudges in this is like, one of Graber's grudges is that he was like,

like he was tear gassed, like very, very close to a lot of where these things were shot, like a month before. And his second grudge is that he had to spend the whole fucking 90s arguing with a bunch of primitivists. And he's very annoyed at it because it's early 2000s. Yeah.

So those are his grudges going into this and i do believe his his kind of framing of the nolan supervillains of not really having any desire to like rule the world as ringing true they they really only want to like wipe the slate clean i think graber correctly identifies nolan's supervillains as being primarily some form of anarchist. Just a very peculiar type that really only exists in Nolan's imagination. Graeber describes them as, quote,

they are the anarchists who believe that human nature is fundamentally evil and corrupt, unquote. I think this is taken to its most obvious extent in The Dark Knight with the Joker, who openly claims affiliation with anarchy and fetishizes destruction. His sick and twisted imagination is the real villain, even with the backdrop of the film's kind of deceptive war on terror framing.

Now, between the production of The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises, the funniest thing happened. The economy completely collapsed in 2008, and it wasn't due to an eco-terrorist cult or a clown set on a total negation. Instead, it was bankers and finance managers and Wall Street bros who became the obvious villains. In their quest to maintain the lie of endless growth, millions of people lost their homes and source of income. So in response, there was a whole bunch of popular uprisings that took place all around the world. Graeber lists regimes being toppled in the Middle East and people occupying squares everywhere from Cleveland to Karachi, trying to create new forms of democracy. So there's this resurgence of constituent power, right? And this imagination driven kind of radical

and largely nonviolent form of resistance, at least here in the States. And this is the sort of political situation which superhero universes can never really fully tackle because it can't exist within their own weird ontology. To quote Graeber, quote, In Nolan's world, something like Occupy could only have been

the product of some tiny group of ingenious manipulators who are really pursuing some secret agenda. Why does Bane wish to lead the people in a social revolution if he's just going to nuke them all in a few weeks anyway? It's anyone's guess. He claims that before you destroy someone, first you must give them hope. So is the message that utopian dreams can only lead to nihilistic violence? Presumably, it's something like that, but it's singularly unconvincing, since the plan to kill everyone came first and the revolution was a decorative afterthought in fact what happens to the city can only possibly make sense as a material echo of what's been most important what's happening

in bruce wayne's tortured brain yeah it's like it's a good line which is yeah because in the end batman and the police rise from the abyss. Literally, in both cases, both of them are trapped underground. They both rise from underground, join forces to battle the people occupying outside of the Gotham City Stock Exchange. Batman fakes his own death by disposing of this nuclear bomb. And Bruce Wayne gets to live happily in Florence with the criminal Selina Kyle. And then a new, a new phony martyr legend is, is born in the role of Batman and people

of Gotham are returned once again to the status quo. I'm going to read kind of Graber's final, final kind of overview of the, the entirety of this message, right? Like of what this thing is really trying to convey, right? Quote, if there's supposed to be a take-home message from all of this, it must run something like, yes, the system is corrupt, but it's all we have. Anyway, figures of authority can't be trusted

if they've first been chastised and endued terrible suffering. Normal police might let children die on the bridges, but the police who've been buried alive for weeks can employ violence legitimately. Charity is much better than addressing structural problems. Any attempts to address such structural problems, even through nonviolent civil disobedience, really is a form of violence because that's all it could possibly be. Imaginative politics are inherently violent, and therefore there's nothing inappropriate if police respond by smashing protesters' heads

repeatedly against the concrete. As a response to Occupy, this is nothing short of pathetic. When The Dark Knight came out in 2008, there was much discussion over whether the whole thing was really just a vast metaphor for the war on terror, how far is it okay for the good guys, America obviously, to adapt the bad guys' methods. The filmmakers managed to respond to these issues and still produce a good movie. This is because the war on terror actually was a battle of secret networks and manipulative spectacles. It began with a bomb and ended with an assassination. One can almost think of it as an attempt on both sides to actually enact a comic book version of the universe. Once real constituent power appeared on the scene, the universe shriveled into incoherence. Revolutions were sweeping the Middle East,

and the U. the US was still spending hundreds of billions of dollars fighting a ragtag bunch of seminary students in Afghanistan. Unfortunately for Nolan, for all of his manipulative powers, the same thing happened to his world when even the hint of real popular power

arrived in New York. So that is kind of the essence of Graeber's view of this movie. I think it's pretty good. This is a pretty solid take on this. Now, there's obviously people who have opinions that are less good than this. I'm going to read this write-up from these two guys jeff spruce and zach buchamp who argue that batman represents this symbolic defense of liberal democracy which i think is true but the way that they go about their analysis i think is heavily flawed um because yes i do think he represents a defensive liberal democracy i just don't think that's necessarily a good thing. So they talk about how fear is the kind of the core emotion across all of Nolan's Batman films, right?

We have in Batman Begins which overwhelms the power of political and social institutions that are meant to address such criminal underworlds. We have Batman in his role is to fight injustice by turning, quote, fear against those who prey on the fearful, right? Batman is this terrifying symbol meant to restore the balance of fear between the anarchic private underworld and the gutless public sphere. To quote Jeff and Zach's write-up, quote, in The Dark Knight, Nolan continues his examination of the terror of anarchy, as well as the potential for the state and allied institutions to abuse their enormous power.

Bane and each of Nolan's other villains attempt to exploit fear for ideological projects, revenge, or simple fun. Batman aims to channel it, to make his opponents' legitimate grievances subjects for debate in an orderly system, rather than through violent resolution. Which is not what Batman does. What? Batman punches people. Wait, were we watching the same movies?

Quote, to entrust Gotham to heroes with a face, as he says in The Dark Knight, and to democratize Batman as a symbol that can be embodied by anyone. It's not that Christopher Nolan is taking a side in our political debates. He's simply defending a particular system through which we address them. Which is nonsense. dress them which is nonsense um uh a writer from forbes said that this analysis is quote a beautiful rebuttal to those critics who viewed the film as fascistic or as a critique of left-wing populism batman as the defender of liberal democracy not of conservatism or liberalism but the system itself from the forces of fear and. Gotham as an examination of the frailties and pressure points that make this system weak in the face of the unexpected and uncontrollable.

While there is indeed both praise for the role of civil society in these films, there's also a portrait of economic inequality that provides the brittleness needed for men like Bain to truly succeed. This is not a critique of the government or private sector as so much as it is a critique of the frailty and fragility of our system and its institutions and the power of symbols to combat this fragility which is a deeply a deeply liberal analysis but it's not even good like i mean this is the thing this is the thing that really pisses me off about this the the the cadre of liberal intellectuals that we've gotten in the last like 20 years is like look you don't have to be like unable to form coherent and that like it is it

is not a precept of liberal of like of like liberal intellectualism that you are unable to form a coherent argument or do any piece of analysis whatsoever. Like they used to be able to do this. And then at some point, like after the war on terror, they just stopped. And now all we have is like Matt Inglisius. It's like these people- I think this is what Graybert talks about

when there's like a fundamental incoherence. Yeah. And I think this is really exemplified by like the structure of The Dark Knight Rises. It's a very messy film. The pacing is bad. The plot is very convoluted. It's,

it's so, it's so plotty, which is often Nolan's kind of biggest failure as a, as a filmmaker, in my opinion. Um, it's, it's,

it's very structurally just confusing. Um, whereas the dark night, it's actually pretty clear. Um, it still has a few of those weird plot, like super plotty elements, but overall it's,

it's, it's, it's much clearer, but in the wake of the war on terror and then the financial crash, there's this fundamental incoherence that kind of seeps into everything. I have two final takes to read.

I know we are getting long here, but I think it's important to look at what the conservatives and the fascist right actually said about this movie beyond just the conspiracy rattled ramblings that we started this episode with. Yeah. This is from The Daily Caller, 2012.

The film is sympathetic to the concerns of the poor and points out that some who achieve wealth don't earn it legitimately. But these themes disappear as soon as the hulking terrorist Bane takes over Gotham City. All the criminals are released.

Rich people are executed in sham trials headed up by Bane's lunatic friends. Government officials and police officers are killed or captured. Bane claims that he is solving inequality by leveling the playing field, but his true plan is to perpetuate mass murder by setting off a nuclear bomb. In this way, viewers see a familiar story unfold. one that's reminiscent of communist and fascist revolutions in russia germany cambodia and north korea no matter how legitimate criticisms of the economic political and social order may be any revolution that shatters the rule of law or eliminates the market entirely will this will necessarily result in greater inequality, suffering, and death.

It's so funny. You can tell how on the defensive they are like in the wake of Occupy because you have these people going like, wait, social inequality is real, but if you try to do anything to it, it's also so funny. This is the interesting thing about,

like, I think the fundamental incoherence of it politically is that they've tried to graph the French Revolution onto Occupy because like- Yes, yes. The two things that Occup occupy resolutely refused to do was one have a leader and two like do any kind of mass violence like arguably outside of oakland but that wasn't even like what that was like okay in oakland sometimes they fought the cops like in new york like no only bank window in new york that was broken the entire time was, I think it was a Bank of America window that was broken when a cop smashed a protestor's head through it.

Like, it's... That's why I really don't think... The Dark Knight Rises isn't about Occupy. It just isn't. It arose from similar conditions that Occupy arose from. And then in its final two months of filming, they did some parallels to Occupy. But it is much more about the French Revolution, especially in like Bane is like a vanguard. Like he is a leader of this.

There is there's no there's no such role in Occupy. Now, during during the editing and final production of the film, obviously, they realize that there is some obvious parallels here, which they do, which they did indulge in. But I mean, most of the writing and the filming of this took place before Occupy. I think it just came from a very similar social place. Yeah. Although even as a

French Revolution thing, it's incoherent because it's not like it's not like Robespierre got in there and was like, this is all a secret plot so I can just like

start executing beggars. Like, it doesn't make any sense. It's like, that's why it has that fundamental incoherence, right? Yeah. There's one other paragraph from the incoherence, right? Yeah.

There's one other paragraph from the Daily Caller, then we will read something from Breitbart. Like the communist parties of real authoritarian states, Bane and his cohorts represent a new ruling class that pretends to care about equality and liberation, but in practice resorts to oppression and extreme violence. The film's good guys are Batman and the police officers of Gotham who bravely go to war to prevent Bane's genocide.

Genocide! These guys have never had more than two thoughts consecutively. It's really impressive. If the political message of The Dark Knight R rises seems muddled which which it does it's because real life problems can't be solved with batman there is no well-funded superhero with a glut of fancy gadgets and moral incorruptibility no a core part of these films is that batman is morally corrupt this is sorry nor are there villains in America as damning and transparently evil as Bane.

The film doesn't offer much George Bush is right there! The film doesn't offer much of a practical answer for what The film doesn't offer much of a practical answer for what to do about inequality, social unrest or terrorism.

Great work, Daily Caller. God. Where do they find these guys? I guess they find these guys from failed actors, so makes sense. You mentioned Bush as being an obvious villain. Well, Breitbart disagrees.

Obviously, Breitbart disagrees. Here's our final take on The Dark Knight Rises. Quote, Bane, a hulk of a man burning with resentment against a society whose only provocation is being prosperous, generous, welcoming, and content instead of miserable like him. What? First of all, that is not Bane's gripes. But anyway, in Gotham's sewers, Bane recruits those like himself, the insecure thumbsuckers raging with a sense of entitlement, desperate to justify their own laziness and failure, and to flaunt a false sense of superiority through oppression, violence, terror, and ultimately, total and complete destruction. As expected, The Dark Knight Rises is a love letter to Gotham City, its flawed but ultimately decent people, its industry and generosity,

all of which are byproducts of liberty, free markets, and capitalism. Did they watch this movie? In other words, just as The Dark Knight was a touching tribute to an embattled George W. Bush who chose to be seen as a villain in order to be the hero, Rises is a love letter

to an imperfect America that in the end always does the right thing. And Nolan loves the American people. The wealthy producers who are more often than not trickled down their hard-earned winnings. The workaday folks who keep our world turning. A financial system worth saving because it benefits us all. And those everyday warriors who offer their lives for the greater good with every punch of a clock.

offer their lives for the greater good with every punch of a clock. Nolan's love for this country is without qualifiers and is symbolized in all of its unqualified sincerity in the form of a beautiful young child sweetly singing a complete version of the Star Spangled Banner just before Occupy attempts to fulfill its horrific vision of what equality really means. Nolan... Sorry, I... fulfill its horrific vision of what equality really means. Nolan, sorry. Like, this is one of the... This whole thing, it's such a great explanation

if you weren't around for it, for how the Trump guys just completely blew aside all of the old George Bush coalition, because all of the George Bush guys were fucking like this. They all talked like this. It was this like absolutely insufferable, like it's completely sincere nonsense.

It's crazy stuff. It's all this shit. Because also it fundamentally misunderstands Nolan as a filmmaker. He is purposely juxtaposing a British child singing the Star-Spangled Banner at a sporting event with this destruction inherent to America. He's making these things kind of combat each other. This is actually pretty good framing. And this guy fundamentally misunderstands this. Nolan's genius as a filmmaker is without question the pacing, the editing, the performances, the humanity of The Dark Knight Rises will be talked about for decades. Which it doesn't.

This is by far one of his worst films. This is widely seen as one of his worst films. The editing, pacing, performances are all heavily criticized. This is actually like a bad movie. I do like the juxtaposition of the Star-Spangled Banner at the sporting event with this like spectacle of destruction. I, I, I do like the juxtaposition of the star Spangled Banner at the sporting event with this like spectacle of destruction. I think that plays very well, but like that is,

this is, come on, come on. These are the people who, and this, this is the thing. This, this,

this is why the sort of Trumpist, like the, the, the, the, the sort of like ironic detachment stuff became so popular because these are the people who listen to born in the usa and are like this rules this rules like this is this is about how america is good and it's just like like these people they have nothing there's nothing going on

with them there's just like there's nothing going on in their heads they don't have any ideas whatsoever they just have that like they just have this like reflexive flag worship stuff and that it's awful it's like the whole fucking american right was like this it's just like yeah and then the israeli trumpians just destroyed them because this is a really good example of nothing of the conservative political conditions that led to populist takeover right we have all of these guys who are lampooning populism and have this very like deeply sincere neoconservative outlook, which then got decimated in three years by Trump's very kind of basic childish rhetoric,

just blew this stuff out of the water. I think this is, all this stuff is a very fascinating snapshot into the politics of 10 years ago. I know there's a lot of Zoomers who listen to this who may not have been as politically engaged in 2012. All this stuff is a very good look at that. And I know this is too long, but the final, final thing to just laugh at. We will return, as all good superhero stories do, return to the status quo of my paranoia conspiracy reader magazine. Gladio 2.0. Which also had a review for the cabin in the woods movie,

uh, which it thinks is a secret Illuminati message about how they're secretly control rooms that are, that are like, uh, navigating your entire life. There's like people in control rooms who are like controlling every, every aspect of your life.

The cabin in the woods was an ironic admission of this pretty good pretty good our technocratic controllers and manipulators are crass and evil pretenders able to get off only spectacles of pain and torture pretty funny there's some quite racist stuff in the middle which i'm just not i'm not even going to mention oh yeah that's the other thing it was like people were really racist people are still really racist people are still quite racist shit that like like you could say shit back like like people were really racist. People are still really racist. People are still quite racist. You could say shit that like, like you could say shit back. Like, like people who are ostensibly liberals would say shit back then that like would get you like thrown off a building today. We have an article by someone who says, quote, My father worked with Jimmy Carter on the submarine one killer and chased flying saucers for Project Blue Book, which is a fascinating article.

And then it talks, it also talks about here that CERN is building a matrix, like, you know, like the movie The Matrix. Oh my fucking God. We have. One day we need to do an episode about the CERN conspiracy. We should. It's the silliest thing.

We really should do an episode about CERN conspiracies because, man, yeah, they are certainly quite amusing. There's one other aspect in this article that I wanted to mention. Here's the CERN stuff. Oh, here it is. Here it is. This is in the Aleister Crowley section of the article. Oh, no.

Oh, no. You know, I think we've actually suffered enough. I will let you imagine what this guy says about Aleister Crowley, Hitler, and V for Vendetta. Oh, no. So I'll let you imagine what that says because we've gone on too long. I'm happy you were able to join us in our deep dive into the 2012 disaster, The Dark Knight Rises. Not very good movie. And instead, if you want to watch a Batman film about politics and Christmas, just watch Batman Returns.

That's what I'm doing this week. So get your friends together, watch Danny DeVito vomit black goo for two hours, watch Michelle Pfeiffer's Catwoman in a latex suit. It is much, much better. So that does it for us today. It could happen here. I hope we learned a little bit something

about constituent power, police, superheroes, and how CERN is building a matrix and this predictive programming targeting the next Winter Olympics. Hey, guys. Hey guys, I'm Kate Max. You might know me from my popular online series, The Running Interview Show, where I run with celebrities, athletes, entrepreneurs, and more.

After those runs, the conversations keep going. That's what my podcast, Post Run High, is all about. It's a chance to sit down with my guests and dive even deeper into their stories, their journeys, and the thoughts that arise once we've hit the pavement together. You know that rush of endorphins you feel after a great workout? Well, that's when the real magic happens. So if you love hearing real, stories from the people, you know, follow and admire, join me every week for post run high. It's where we take the conversation beyond the run and get into the heart of it all. It's lighthearted, pretty crazy and very fun. Listen to post run high on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, I'm Danny Thrill. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter Nocturnum,

Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora. An anthology of modern day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters. To bone chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you. I know you. Network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Jack Peace Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black Lit, the podcast for diving deep into the rich world of Black literature. I'm Jack Peace Thomas, and I'm inviting you to join me and a vibrant community of literary enthusiasts dedicated to protecting and celebrating our stories. Black Lit is for the page turners, for those who listen to audiobooks while commuting or running errands, for those who find themselves seeking solace, wisdom, and refuge between the chapters.

From thought-provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Together, we'll dissect classics and contemporary works while uncovering the stories of the brilliant writers behind them. Blacklit is here to amplify the voices of Black writers and to bring their words to life. Listen to Blacklit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, everyone, and welcome to It Could Happen Here, a podcast about the world falling apart and people putting it back together.

Today, I'm lucky to be joined by Margaret Kildury. She is the host of Live Like the World is Dying, a podcast for what feels like the end times. And we are going to talk about bug out bags, don't we, Margaret? Woo, bug out bags or go bags. Yes, or I bet they have other names. Okay, wait, can I tell you my favorite? Yeah, hit me. Okay, the first preppers I ever met were these weird, cool anarchists 20 years ago. They had an oh shit gear or OSG stashed in their basement. I love that.

Yeah, that's great. That's basically what you're talking about. It's the thing that you go for when things are going to shit. Yeah. Yeah, and I think the reason we're talking about this is A, because it's entertaining. It's always fun to engage in hypotheticals. B, because we've got Margaret here because she's very knowledgeable on this stuff and that's what she covers on Live Like The World Is Dying. If you haven't listened to that

podcast, you should. It's very good. It's got lots of sensible preparedness focused content. Is that a fair summary, Margaret? I hope so. Yeah, our whole thing is that we're basically trying to talk about community i'm not the only host i'm one of three hosts yes um we try to talk about community preparedness rather than individual preparedness or rather how the two are not at odds with each other like how what's best for the individual is to be part of a functioning community yeah and how like the bunker mentality will get you killed so one of my favorite things in the world is talking shit on preparedness done wrong and since most of the preparedness space skews at best center right but also far right

there's lots of it done wrong that we can talk shit on like for example this is me setting you up for yeah yeah bugger bags there it is. That's like a layup and a dunk. Yeah. Basketball, I understand it. We're really good at it. Yeah. There's nothing that we like more than sports ball. Yeah.

Okay. So the reason we're talking about this today is because I have spent a lot of time recently in refugee camps, helping out, helping people, feeding people, giving them blankets, playing with their children, doing all the things. And obviously everyone who who enters these camps comes with a bag, right? They bring a bag with them. They can generally have one sort of carry-on size bag when they enter custody. And that's generally all you can carry when you're moving across the desert mountain ranges of Baja California and Southern California.

And I spent a day there and it was cold and it was wet. It was miserable. And I was spending the day there and it was cold and it was wet. It was miserable. And I was trying to keep people warm and I was trying to build shelters all day. And I was trying to just do things along with my friends. Obviously, this is by no means a solo effort. It's a great group of people who you've all heard about if you listen to this podcast. We've been out there all day. And then I got back and just because I hadn't had a difficult enough day, i logged on to twitter.com x.com and because you wanted your day to get worse yeah exactly i thought what can i do let's be pissed off at a fucking stranger on the internet you don't care about you've never met but you let them make you angry anyway that's what that's what i did uh i logged on and i logged on promptly to

be greeted by some prick with i guess not your. I suppose it shouldn't be a prick, whatever. Someone who hadn't quite like, someone whose idea of preparedness was heavily influenced by the film Red Dawn and not by reality. Which is like 90% of the people in that space. But this person had, you know, this kit with a gas mask, with a folding AR-15, with one of those law tactical folding things

so you can break the buffer tube, with seven or eight magazines of ammunition. The sort of stuff that, yeah, sure, you would need to do one sustained firefight and then what are you going to do but like it just really struck me that the juxtaposition between these two things that i have seen people have to quote unquote bug out or oh shit or whatever i myself have have had to leave a place where i was and go to a refugee camp for a few days a few years ago and i've never seen a situation where a folding assault

rifle would be that useful to me and i have seen a lot of people who could really fucking use a sleeping bag or a warm coat or a toy for their child because their child is crying they didn't bring any toys you know and lots of people don't have any preparedness stuff at all. That's fine. You know, we all start somewhere. But like, if you're going to do this, I want you to do it in a way that might be useful to you. And so that is why I have asked Margaret Killjoy to come and help me. And the right and the problem, of course, with this scenario that we discussed is that

instead of having a folding AR, they should have a folding AK-47 because then there's no need to break a buffer. That's it. Yeah, and you can scavenge ammunition from the Cubans. Yeah, I see what you're doing. Great. Yeah, yeah. No, and although actually,

if I was going to fall deep into gun stuff and talk about how people who are obsessed with AK-47s while living in the United States are also not doing preparedness right because anyway. Yeah, yeah. And actually, AKs break all the time. I have personally seen that happen,

and you cannot, in fact, not maintain them at all. Yeah, and there's more parts available for ARs. But the point is that most of the time you don't need firearms for most crises. Yes. Many crises are made worse by having a firearm. And okay, so a lot of your background is with refugee stuff, and you've had to escape to a refugee center refugee center and work in refugee situations all the time. One of my main backgrounds is that I lived out of a backpack for a long time when I was a cross punk, right? I was a homeless hitchhiker who, you know, hopped freight trains and slept under bridges and things like that. And I come from more of a position of privilege than a lot of people who do that. I chose to do it as part of an activism lifestyle and stuff, you know, and so I'm not trying to like get stolen valor

here, but I spent a very long time living outside and the people who live outside all the time, who have only a backpack, know what goes in the backpack really well. And you don't see homeless people with guns. And it's not because they're not legally allowed to have them. People, I mean, well, that's part of it in some situations, right? It's, you know, when you don't have a safe place of storing something, it becomes a lot more complicated. But like, you're even talking about a group of people who often have to resort to violence to defend themselves and largely not using firearms to do it. Because in most situations, they're more trouble than they're worth.

Because someone who's living outside is going to have to deal with cops all the time. Someone, and this is what you were talking about when we were talking about getting ready for this episode. It's like, well, let's say you have your AR and you approach the border. Yeah, you're getting engaged really fast by like 75 border patrol guys who

have been training their whole life for this uh no not saying that they're particularly like well trained or efficient but like they have been waiting for the one person with an assault rifle who they can fire at for a very long time yeah and the only purpose of having a firearm is if it makes you and the people that you care about more likely to survive. Yes, which doesn't happen if the entire border patrol is shooting at you. Right. That's a bad vibe. That's a worse time.

Yeah, no, it's like I always carried a legal knife, you know? Yeah. Like wherever I was, I'd have a legal length knife and that was fine you know yeah efficient yeah look into knife laws though before you uh before like knife laws in america almost as complicated as gun laws and uh well you live in california you can't have a cane sword yeah that's right but i can open carry a large machete on my belt as long as i don't attempt to conceal it oh yeah or sword a regular i used to hitchhike with a machete so yeah yeah there have been times when I've been doing stuff

with a machete yeah exactly I needed it I was going to go camping I did actually once get I think it was a park ranger or someone like I was coming in

from free diving and when you free dive you always have a knife because I've experienced this actually when you dive and you get tangled in fishing nets

and you're breath hold diving you need to get out so you don't die. Yeah, so you have a knife and you cut yourself out. The guy would say, oh, you're supposed to have that knife. And I'd say, yes, yes, I'm supposed to have that knife. So yeah, you can open carry a knife. It just depends on the county you're in in California, but in San Diego County.

Okay, so to talk about bug out bags though, what we do want them for is going to be different person to person. And what I recommend that any preparedness minded person or any person, I hope more people become preparedness minded, is to think about the crises that could happen that are likely and think about what you would want and how you would deal with them. And my argument upfront is that this can reduce anxiety if you do it right. If you fixate on these things forever, like a lot of people don't engage with preparedness

because they don't want to be anxious about it. They don't want to think about a forest fire, right? But if you, I've said this before, maybe even on this show, I'm not sure. It was like when I lived in a cabin really in the woods, like I currently live in a house in the woods, but there's like a little bit of buffer. But I built a 12 by 12 cabin

and I cut down two small trees and built a cabin. Right. And so I worried about forest fire. And so I, I thought about what to do, which was, uh, make sure that I always had like, you know, some sort of radio and, and, or cell communication available to me, uh, keep a bag ready with all the stuff I need. Keep, make sure that my car is half a tank of gas, and that's it. That's all I was going to do to prepare. There's more you can do, but that's all I was going to do. So I stopped worrying about forest fire. And so I think done right, a go bag or a bug out bag or preparedness in general can reduce our anxiety. And the thing that I think people get wrong is that for most people,

moving over land by yourself and surviving in nature is not a likely response to crisis. There are some times where that will be true. And even like you're talking about like working at, you know, the border where people are having to like build shelters and things like that. But for most people, I don't even say put a sleeping bag in your go bag because size might be more important than that. Yeah. Having other warm stuff and emergency blankets and things like that, I do absolutely advocate, you know.

But then again, I often make sure that I have a sleeping bag around because I do live in the middle of the woods. And if my cars were broken and there was a bad thing, I would have to go overland 10 miles to get anywhere. Yeah, because your situation is not the same as everyone's. And I think that's a really good point. For most people, I advocate that you think about your bug out bag as your get out of town for a weekend bag. It is the, you live in a hurricane area.

It is a blizzard's coming. It is your stalker ex is in town and you don't want to be around. It is a, I decided all of a sudden I'm going to go visit my family and I don't want to pack. You know, it is just a, it's, you're more likely to spend a night in your car on the road somewhere like in a blizzard let's say you know yep so what do you need to spend the night in the car in your car in the snow and the answer is not that much you need water and you need warmth food is like great right yeah we can kind of i mean you should have a little bit of snacks to see why not have snacks around yeah and it's in a stressful situation of snacks to see why not have snacks around yeah and it's in a stressful situation having something to eat it helps it calms you down it helps you deal with that stress yeah and one of the other things that we were talking about is we're talking about how you know okay so like the basic level that i advocate um i advocate actually even more than having like your your bug out bag is having a

smaller pouch that is your emergency bag and that goes into whatever other backpack or purse or anything else you're carrying around and i actually like make these and distribute them to my friends and stuff um oh here's a fun tip if you're the prepper in your family or friend group when it comes time to holiday presents if you give them preparedness stuff that has to be on top of whatever else you give them because you can't just give them your weird niche stuff yeah like you have to give them what they want as well as the wind-up radio you know yeah yeah yeah that's fair if uh if sad you can't just recycle gear that you wanted to try didn't like just give it to your aunt or something i mean you can you just recycle gear that you wanted to try and didn't like. Just give it to your aunt

or something. I mean, you can. You just also have to do other stuff too. Yeah, you can. You're just a bad niece or nephew or whatever.

Non-binary child of sibling. So, I say that these emergency kits are three different things. They are a hygiene kit because like the thing that I need the most often when I'm suddenly didn't prepare and i'm suddenly somewhere and i'm staying

out late is like a folding toothbrush right yeah or like some wet wipes in a packet or you know i don't know like uh nail clippers or something yeah like if you like i'm a person who used insulin right so like i have a lot of bags insulin insulin in. It's in most of my bags because I'm up shit creek without it. Yeah, it's better to have it, you know? Yeah. I'm very lucky to have access to insulin and even have some spare. Not everyone does. It's because pharmaceutical industry is terrible.

It is. Yeah, that's actually one of the hardest things when talking to people about preparedness is getting more of your medication is very complicated. And a lot of the methods that people should consider are not legal and I'm not going to advocate them. It is legal to buy medicine, I think, for your own personal usage in countries that are not the United States when you're traveling there anyway.

Yeah, that makes sense. Okay, so you want hygiene, you want a basic first aid kit, like kind of on the like boo-boo kit level, right? Which is as if it's like not important, but actually like you just don't want, infections can get real bad. So you just want to make sure that you have the ability to clean a small wound and treat it, right? And what is it? It's hygiene, it's medical, and then it's survival stuff. And for me, this is just like tiniest amounts of one of the cool things about preparedness is

that the little first things you do are so much more likely to be useful than the complicated things later right like having a a bick lighter is so much more likely to be useful than flint and steel and fire starter and all of the bells and whistles yeah do you love my flint and steel and fire starter and all of the bells and whistles. Yeah. I do love my flint and steel, but you're right. It is exponentially more useful. I've been at the border all week, right? People are cold. It's very windy. I have flint and steel in my truck.

I have used that zero times. I have gone through an entire eight pack of big lighters. I've refilled my Zippo twice. I've given away all my lighters. Yeah. Because, yeah, when you're cold in fact you are not inclined to start shaving little pieces off a large metal rod yeah exactly and like i keep little bits of fire starter and things like that in these emergency kits basically anything that is like

light and cheap and useful goes into these kits for me you know but the stuff that i prioritize is stuff like the first lighter is more useful than the second one, you know? Yeah. Margaret, do you know what's probably not light, certainly not cheap and rarely useful? Gold. That's right. Yep, gold.

You've nailed it. Let's hear about gold. All right. We're back. That was an advertisement that you don't need but margaret was about to pivot i think to telling you some more things that you do need right if so go ahead margaret okay so tiny little emergency kit you just put it in everything and it's just like it's always useful and it's like everyone i give these two is always a little bit like oh thanks

and then about a year later they're like oh i was at this protest and someone cut themselves or just some really minor strange random thing they're like it always comes up that it's really useful that i have this tiny little flashlight in a bag always oh yeah love you know any torch and um and okay so there's that and then if you want you could have a a designated bug out bag and you keep it in the front closet or you keep it under your bed or you keep it wherever is like kind of useful to you. Some people might keep them in their vehicles. That really depends on where you live. I wouldn't necessarily advocate it in a lot of places because vehicles are more broken into and also have more temperature fluctuations and things like Advil and like over-the-counter medications aren't like they don't do so great with like wild temperature fluctuations. Okay, so you get yourself a bag.

And what kind of bag really depends on what you're talking about. Like we were showing each other our bags beforehand. Yeah, this little insight into our interactions off mic there. Yeah, and I'll describe mine and you describe yours. And I'll describe mine, you describe yours, And I'll describe mine, you describe yours, and then say why you have it, and then I'll say why I have mine. Okay. You go first.

I basically have a regular day pack computer bag. There's no waist belt. It's designed to hold a laptop. That's my bug out bag. What I have is a Mystery Ranch day pack. It's a 32 liter bag. It's called a Scree 32 for those of you who want to be just like me. And I have it because I really like the carriage system Mystery Ranch uses. It's like a yoke.

So it carries like a frame backpack, but isn't big and bulky. Yeah, that's cool. I've used it. I think I've used this bag on every continent in the world apart from the Antarcticctic like it's just a bag that i can put stuff in that is a size that is not obnoxious and it works for me for almost everything i day hike with it i i go on overnights with it i use it as my carry-on on the plane uh yeah it's just a useful bag that is not covered in molly and multicam and such things yeah and i know it works for me like i i've i've used it for a long time and i know that it's suitable for my body with heavy weights yeah no and like i love i love bags and i i will happily geek out about bags and like that bag is

me too it's pretty nice and this is like my least favorite backpack right i have like other backpacks like my day hiking bag is like a 25 liter you know actually has a waist strap and i like really like it but i keep it packed with my day hiking stuff you know and so you do a lot of outdoor sports yes um yeah yeah and so it really easily doubles as all of that, right? Yeah, exactly. Like I'm, you know, most weekends, you know, I try and sleep outside at least once a month. So, you know, I just sort of have that stuff anyway because it's part of my day-to-day life. And mine is designed from the period of my life where I basically would go to whatever anarchist coffee shop was in whatever town and just hang out there and work all day. Right?

Yeah. And so like, and I was like, and I used to have a bug out bag that was like a little bit bigger. It was like a tactical bag. It was a three-day assault pack, you know? Yeah, perfect. And to be fair, I lived in a cabin in the woods and it was 2020 and the odds of major military crisis were much higher. And, you know, but like, but right now I'm just like,

this is my bag that comes with me when I go to my friend's house or when I go see my family. And because it's, the important thing is that you have the bag that is available. Like the piece of gear that you have is always better than the piece of gear you don't have. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You don't have to save up 200 bucks for a you know a mystery range or an osprey bag right

but if your thing is being outside all the time like you know you should have those things right yeah and okay so what i put in my the everyone's going to have really different stuff in their bug out bag, but some of the lists that I have as my like, kind of like core of it that I would recommend that most people would want to have some version of. And you should add things and we can talk about these things.

Yeah. Your passport and print copies of any essential records, such as your animal's rabies vaccine card and medication and things like that. This is the stuff to help you ease bureaucracy as you move through the world. This is actually a thing you need to be careful with because then sometimes you don't want to bring your passport everywhere you go, right? You don't want to lose it, you know. But if it's your bug out bag that's waiting for you in case of an emergency, I think that's a decent place to keep it.

Yes, I agree. You want an encrypted USB stick with copies of all these important documents, such as your driver's license, your passport, house and vehicle titles or rental agreements, insurance information, contact information for family and friends, vaccination records for your animals and the like. It clearly shows that I have an animal and not kids. I'm sure there's other stuff that you would. Yeah. I mean, I literally, this is just making me think of,

I ran into a guy the other day who had come to the U S with his dog, border patrol wouldn't process him alongside his dog. So volunteers kind of looked after his dog while he was processed and then returned his dog to him. Yeah. But now he's going to have to go through the process of certifying the dog's vaccinations maybe the dog will have to get them again luckily like he and the dog are on a road trip to their final home where the place where they want to live where they're meeting up with friends and family so they're having a great trip across the country right now like yeah yeah that just having easing that transition

through bureaucracy by having those documents to hand i'm sure would have been great yeah and like honestly the more i read about uh people dealing with um refugee crisis and like oh i don't know the right to return various places the more you can prove like the ownership of the stuff you own and things like yes yeah it could be very easy to become... I understand that lots of this bureaucracy exists to make people legible and therefore taxable by the state. If we're talking from an anarchist perspective, I understand why it exists. I've been reading James Scott a lot recently if that hasn't shown off there. But in a scenario where the state exists, which is the one we are in, then there are advantages to being legible and understandable by the state and certain disadvantages to being illegible to the state when you're trying to get your house back.

into my 30s uh the single most useful thing that i carried was my driver's license without warrants because i used to have my id run every single day because actually it's actually part of the reason i have a strange aversion to carrying a hiking style backpack around often is because i learned when you look like a punk and you have a travel like a hiking backpack you are now the cop's main target um yes yeah yeah yeah and so like whereas when i have like a computer bag i'm not the cop's main target and that makes my life easier you know um okay small amounts of emergency food such as protein bars that you want to like swap out every couple of months i recommend putting in the ones that you don't like um because otherwise you'll eat them because otherwise you'll be like oh i could go i know where i have a tasty snack yeah yeah this is sorry just before we recorded i ate a bar from this bag that i've been showing you

yeah yeah um there's a product called a humanitarian daily ration which is a a vegan mRA that they give to refugees. Oh, wow. Yeah, those are great. Everyone can eat them. They're very good to have. And I have those for emergency food because everyone can eat them.

Rarely do I feel like I want to eat them. Yeah. I've been recently keeping, I haven't eaten one yet. I've been keeping these flavorless emergency ration bars. Oh, like the lifeboat rations? Yeah. They're just like, I think like oil and sugar and flour or something. Oh, sounds delicious.

Yeah, and it's like, you know what? It's three days worth of food at 1,200 calories a day. It's barely three days, whatever. Yeah. Okay, so I recommend having that and making sure to swap that out. Overall, I advocate not putting in things that will go bad because you are going to forget about this

until it becomes a habit for you to check it every month or so. Okay. A travel hygiene kit with toothbrush, floss, toothpaste, moist towelettes, foam earplugs for sleeping in noisy environments. That one is like way more. Yeah. Yes, yeah, yeah. A time in my life when I was uh mostly living in my car traveling around france racing bicycles uh i got caught in a snowstorm uh along

with a number of other people who were traveling in various vehicles and some of them were traveling in order to to make an asylum claim um and we all got sent to this refugee camp where basically we're sleeping on the floor of a large building and i did not sleep for days because people had children and you know it's loud and like yeah those earplugs would have been the most important thing yeah yeah and it was like i actually started carrying them just because of going to shows when i used to do that more and then i was like oh these are really useful in all kinds of situations. They cost like nothing and they save your hearing. The bang for your buck, the non-bang for your buck is very good.

Yeah, the poof for your buck is great. Nail clippers, your daily wear makeup, and anything else you might need goes in your hygiene kit. Any prescription or over-the-counter medications that you rely on. And one thing that came up from a doctor friend of mine recommended, when I first started making these kits for my friends, I was like buying bulk aspirin and putting it into little drug baggies, you know? Yeah, smart. And my friend was like, you need to put blister packs in instead.

Blister packs being the like little yeah individually when you individually labeled ones yeah both margaret and i using hand yes yeah to explain this thing yeah yeah we're professionals yeah because the police have less cause for suspicion if you are searched and this is clearly advil it says so it is packaged um in a way that is not convenient for people to make their own packages yeah Excellent idea, yeah. And so, and actually what's funny is that of all the ones that I put into people's things, the only thing I haven't been able to get blister-packed is caffeine. Because I put caffeine into these things because a lot of people are addicted to it

and also because it's useful to be able to stay awake in certain environments. And so I actually put in like different, like caffeine powder drinks or caffeine gum or other things like that. Yeah, it's going to say get MRE caffeine gum. Yeah. And I give them to my friends who are about to drive sleepy. Yes. And that's the main use that I have had. It's amazing.

I don't drink caffeine. It's amazing how much caffeine I have on me at any given time. Lethal nose. Yeah. A change of socks and underwear. And these should be like climate appropriate, especially like wool socks are like the most useful thing in the world just as a general rule. I think that a packable rain jacket and or poncho is incredibly useful here. A lot of people like the ponchos that are sort of a slightly more military style because you can use them as a tarp and make a shelter if you need.

That might be overkill for your particular environment. You might also just have like your hiking rain jacket that goes in there. A puffy, packable, warm top is a little bit of a like bonus item. I think having a warm upper layer is really important for a lot of... Until you've slept outside without a sleeping bag, you have no idea how cold it is in the summer to sleep outside. Yeah, on the ground especially. Whenever I'm watching movies or reading books, and the kid runs away from home,

and they go and they sleep in the woods, I'm like, the fuck they did. They did not sleep that night. Yeah, you lie on your side holding yourself wondering why you made these choices in life yeah yeah i might add that if you're going to have a specific like a puffy jacket for this and you don't own a puffy jacket yet a couple of things to consider are that um generally compressing down will help make it lose some of its loft so it will be less lofty yeah um so you don't want to keep that stuff compressed for a very long time uh or super compressed right don't cram it into the smallest ball uh remember that

when you buy down jackets all the baffles which are the sewing lines across it um like those areas that are not insulated right so you don't actually want the ones with the with a hundred little baffles going down them oh interesting that makes sense yeah uh and then synthetic uh insulation does a lot better with um with with cut with wetness it retains some of its insulating properties and my final thing with down jackets i think a lot about down jackets i'm sorry is get one that is a size bigger than you would normally get for like oh yeah because you don't really want to be taking stuff off when you're cold you want a jacket that you can just put on over all your stuff and we call it a belay parka in the in the in the sort of mountaineering community but

it's like a static thing right so you're hiking you're mountain climbing you stop you immediately check that thing on over everything. That keeps you warm until you start moving again. That makes sense to me. I advocate personally, I advocate for synthetic. I advocate because it's cheaper. You can leave it compressed and because it insulates better in the wet. And it is much heavier and larger for its insulating value. But for me, having spent a lot of my life

like sleeping in sleeping bags with no tarp or whatever and just being like, I'll just fucking deal with it. It's not raining that hard. You know? Yeah, yeah, totally. Like I have fucked

some really expensive down sleeping bags. Even the oil on your skin will actually eventually cause that down. Yeah, like that. You really have to baby some ultra light down stuff which is fine like if i'm mountaineering and i'm going to make that i will baby my bag because i don't want to carry extra shit but this is not that exactly like if you are trying to do a through hike you might look

at this very differently and there's a version of the world where your crisis might involve moving over the mountains in winter to get out of a country that has just elected a fascist who says that he wants to kill all the communists or whatever. Yeah. I've spoken to those people. Yeah. And so like in that situation, get the mountaineering shit, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Other stuff to have in this bag, a heavy duty trash bag. You can put all your stuff in it to keep it dry yeah yeah there's a there's like all these like arguments about how to keep your bag dry and overall and i'm curious if this has been your experience um it people have been moving away from like

pack covers where you cover the pack and instead just put everything inside the pack into something that's waterproof yeah that's what i've done for a very long time uh you can spend a lot of money on stuff sacks. The event ones at Sea to Summit make a cool, because they have a one way breathable fabric. So you squeeze them and the air goes out. Oh, that rules. It doesn't go back in. It's pretty cool.

But then you end up with these really hard bricks of clothing or whatever that you can't make them fill the space. They just end up being solid. So sometimes they don't pack as well yeah i have used three millimeter uh contract grade bin bags for years yeah the mountains and the deserts you can sleep in them you can make them into a poncho you can fill them with brush and make them into a sleeping pad uh yeah great items and it's sketchy but a lot of people um who are stuck living outside in very cold environments will wear them close to their skin for like a really intensely heating, insulating layer.

But it's sketchy because then you sweat like hell and you can freeze to death. You have to be really careful with that. That's some life or death shit. Yeah, exactly. I'm not telling you how to do that on air here. Yeah, good call. But yeah, they have a lot of uses. You can use them to gather water too. I'm not telling you how to do that on air here. Yeah, good call. But yeah, they have a lot of uses.

You can use them to gather water too. I've done that before. Oh, that makes sense. Cash. Cash is really useful. The amount of cash you want to carry has to do with the amount of cash that you're willing to put into a bag

that just sits there and does nothing. Yeah. Or gold, of course. Yeah, totally. I have so many thoughts about gold and yeah i know yeah yeah anyway uh that's beside the point that's for home prepping okay you want a spare usb battery and charging cables i i would advocate an octopus cable that has like mini usbc and lightning charger all on one cable so you don't have to keep track of multiple cables for multiple devices

yeah that guy right here uh i'm trying to look what the brand is of mine because i got one okay uh recently and when i'm working in places that are conflict zones especially places where i think i might have to go like peace out to a bomb shelter for a few hours days whatever um i i like to have a little pouch with yeah all my charging and medical and essential stuff. This is called a lever cable, and I found it to be very handy. Because it's stiff and it doesn't... Cables get twisted and frayed a lot. I like this guy because it doesn't do that.

A little buzz marketing for you there. Yeah. No, I'm going to look into those later. Because as much as I'm like, oh, fuck all the gadgets. No, what I'm trying to say is you don't need all the gadgets but they're kind of cool and like and the size of extra battery you have is depending on what you're doing you know like if you're reasonably sure you're gonna be around power just have a little one and because like you know what you're gonna be the one who saves the night when everyone's drunk at the bar

and someone's phone is dead and they're the only person who has uber set up right and you know um yeah like i've been trying to advocate that purse snacks are the best example of prepping and that everything that like men are trying to do is like catching up with the fact that like women are actually culturally in in our society like better at prepping um yeah but okay uh i put a mylar emergency blanket in these are these like you know they seem almost gimmicky they're these incredibly light little plastic tarps right uh one probably saved my life when i was like on my like 12th or 13th birthday when i like woke up getting hypothermia five miles from the road in a wet tent so i'm just like yeah no eyes

are great like yeah they're great they uh they can do a hypothermia wrap with them they use them for signaling if you're in a different kind of situation uh we can't use them in the refs you can't start working because one of them floated into a transformer uh and that oh wow that yeah so yeah that's your uh that's your caveat there don't use them around high voltage power but yeah those things you're not going to get anything warmer for that size it's the size of a couple of credit cards stacked on top of each other yeah totally and like in mine i have like a slightly nicer one because i don't have a sleeping bag in mine i have like a emergency bag sleeping bag i've never used it i don't

oh yeah the um there's a company called Survive Outdoors. Fuck, I'm saying a lot of companies today. Buy whichever shit you want. I don't care. There's a company called Survive Outdoors Longer that makes one that's about the size of a beer can. Yeah, that's what I have, I think. Those are great. I've fucked up a night one of those when I was

doing the Look How Ultralight I Can Be stuff. It's not great, but like but here you are recording here i am not complete with my full set of digits so like i can't really complain you know yeah exactly and those things won't float off into a power transformer they're a bit heavier yeah yeah yeah no that would be yeah it would be an advantage of it uh yeah and it's orange on the other side so again people will see you right which contrary to what you might have seen on youtube you want people to see you most of the time most crises you're going to encounter you're not going to be hiding right

sometimes when you're like hitchhiking and shit you do have to not be seen and then i get really yeah how bright all the tents are and so i kind of want one of the like new bullshit camo ultralight tents but yeah that's i don't hitchhike i have a fucking truck it's bullshit i'm fine a full water bottle i think it's always worth having a full water bottle in your in your bag this is the heaviest thing in your bag um water is just fucking wonderful and you need way more of it than you think you do when you're exerting yourself i have been historically advocating a single wall steel canteen so that the water can be boiled in an emergency directly in it. But a lot of people have a preference for lighter weight and that makes a lot of sense.

And also even having something that just looks a little bit more civilian also makes a lot of sense. I actually think the ultralighters might be right on this one and they use the, to use a brand name, they all get those smart smart waters but then they don't keep drinking smart water they drink one and then they clean it and refill the bottle with tap water yeah or with the sort of filter fits on top of them which is very handy right yeah the thing i do like about a single wall stainless bottle a the smart water bottles or you fill them up and then they freeze they can break right and be I

like to do like the Nalgene baby you know where you you boil some water put it in that thing and then you are cold that comes into bed with you yeah very pleasant experience

yeah no that that makes sense to me I don't know weapon to full water full full steel water bottle. That's true. Just push someone on the head with it. Yeah. They're not coming back from that. Even the guy with the folding AR, he's not getting up, you give him a couple with the water bottle. Yeah. Well, and if we're going full crust punk, I also recommend a lock attached

to a chain. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, if you have a bicycle, it's very handy. That's true. That's true. Yeah, yeah. Areas of our interest. Yeah. Okay. A butane lighter, a Bic lighter.

An emergency whistle. This is the most like, I was at a firearms training and we were talking about a bunch of stuff and people were like, all right, and this is how you like signal the following, you know, like range clear kind of stuff, like use a whistle, blah, blah, blah. And everyone's like, I didn't bring a whistle. I'm like, I got three in my bag. Like, what are you doing? Yeah, amateurs. They're light and cheap and useful.

Like the number of people who wouldn't have died in the woods if they had a whistle. Like more than anything else. Because people think that the solution to our problems is fix it yourself usually the solution to problems is get help yes yeah yeah and that's a great like you're going to use a lot less energy whistling and shouting yeah and most if hiking backpacks

will have a chest buckle that is also a whistle and if they don't you can probably change it yeah and that rules that's the kind of shit I like to see yeah it's well thought out it's clever we love it and when I lived on a land project I made everyone put the hurricane whistles

by their door so that like we didn't always have good cell reception or whatever and so that there's an emergency we can

everyone has a whistle loud enough to be heard by everyone else on the large property oh yeah smart yeah costs a lot less money than a ham radio,

which is something I've been. Right. And like, I'm not anti-having like, you know, good walkie-talkies and stuff, but yeah, sometimes you're just like, no, I have a hurricane whistle

or even I just have a regular whistle. Okay. A folding knife. 3D print them. What's that? You could 3D print them. Pretty good ones.

Oh, that's cool. Like 3D print them and give them out now. That's cool. That's awesome. I keep a folding knife in in these bags i also usually just have one on me but and you know the least weapon looking knife you can get is going to be a bang for your buck in terms of like being able to go with you lots of places obviously this isn't going to your carry-on luggage. A rechargeable headlamp or flashlight.

And then a basic first aid kit. That's my, you know, there's all kinds of other stuff. If you're going to be hiking, if you're, and if I know I'm going to be like in a lot of situations, one of the first things I would add is a tarp and a sleeping bag. That would be like the next things to go in. Sleeping bags are pretty big um yeah and i generally have that stuff like in a general sense both for doing this and for generally enjoying outdoor stuff it really helps if you can have your shit organized in stuff sacks and labeled so that you know if if you

should you need to leave your house in an emergency right it's going to be more comfortable if you have a sleeping bag and a frayable pillow and a top you can grab them in 10 seconds if you've got them labeled right and then it's this will also help you like i like to camp the worst part about camping is packing so if i have all my stuff i can just be like okay i got a sleep a cooking system, I've got some 24 hours of food, I'm ready to rumble. Yeah. No, it makes sense. But you know what? Who else is ready to rumble?

Yeah, it's Ronald Reagan. They're ready to fight at all times. Yep. Here's an ad for fighting. We're back, and we've now learned to fight. Thanks to the adverts. Yeah. For the Muay Thai BJJ.

Actually, that shit's fun. Yeah, that shit's cool. Krav Maga. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The Reagan gold of martial arts. Yeah.

Okay. So what do you... Okay. So I have other stuff that I keep in my app my bag that is like more fun or i think incredibly useful but not in the like dead basics that i keep um but what else do you keep do you have any like fun stuff or other stuff that i didn't mention yeah a couple of other things i think um one of the things i use the most this is my little bag that i have that if i have to go to air hl or something and it's very very small it's like i don't know uh it's it's the size of a small

paperback book is would go into a bigger bag but one of the things i use i take on trips with me and i use it everywhere i go and this is like a quarter inch bit driver oh nice yeah and it spins it spins on it's just a tiny screwdriver with where you can change the bits yeah and then i have a set of bits yeah uh so like i use this bad boy all the time right i use it when i get water in my podcasting equipment which is a thing that i am want to do uh okay you have to uh this is my this is is my, this is my ladism, right? I'm breaking the frame of Big Podcast. You keep a sledgehammer specifically for breaking frames.

Yeah. Weaving machine frames. If you run it. Yes. Yeah. If there's one thing I fucking hate, it's a weaving machine. And I take them down whenever I can. But this, this guy is really useful, right?

Like, you know, you could be staying with, with you could be there are a million things right there your bed in your hotel is is loose and you need to tighten it you need to take apart your podcasting machine uh there is you know there's something wrong with your phone whatever it is like a screwdriver and a few little bits super handy yeah you want to help your friend put together some IKEA furniture? Not a problem. So it's very, very small. It's probably the size of a cigarette. And then the set of bits is the size of another cigarette. Very easy to carry around with you everywhere. I am an appreciator of Sporks. Oh, that was on my follow-up list too. Oh, excellent. Good. Yeah. I'm a person who thinks about Sporks a lot. You guys can read my spork reviews at backpacker.com if you want to that's awesome yeah that's that's not a joke uh it's just a reflection on the sad person i am um so yeah a okay are you a long-handled

spork or a regular spork see the long-handled spork is nice for when you're going into an mre type meal yeah how often you're going into an mRE-type meal compared to the pocketability of a normal spork? Right. No, that makes sense to me. Yeah. The MRE spoon is the best bargain eating device. It weighs six grams, which is less than a titanium spork. You can dip it into hot water. It doesn't melt. It doesn't break like a traditional plastic. It's not like a fast food plastic spoon. It's the best bang for your buck when it comes to spoons okay and when i shape when i

was a when i was a more of a crust punk yeah always on my waist belt was a titanium spork with a p38 can opener keychain to it yes because no matter no matter what, I could get into a can of Amy's chili. Yeah. The amount of people I've seen, and I took camping a lot, sometimes I'll go with my truck, sometimes I'll go by myself,

you know, on my feet. The amount of humans I've seen with very expensive overlanding setups, trying to open a can of food on a rock, it's a lot of humans. Like, a can opener is a very handy thing. and they and the p38 or p51s these are the tiny military ones they weigh

nothing they're like 10 of them would fit on a credit card you know yeah yeah yeah i have one in my truck but yeah they're very small yeah in terms of other things uh i do like zip ties zip ties very small very handy yeah you can always fix it with zip ties i'm just looking at this bag in front of me and thinking what else i have that's uh remarkable i saved the day with zip ties when when i was driving in the woods with my friend when um some part of her exhaust system fell off of her van and i was like dragging on the ground. And I didn't normally carry zip ties, but my dad had always been like zip ties. They're amazing. And I was like, sure, dad, whatever. So I had some in my truck.

Yeah. Very handy. Zip ties and duct tape, certainly in your vehicle. You can fix most stuff that wants fixing with zip ties and duct tape. I just like to wrap the handles of my stuff. Like I have a little Bic lighter here and I just wrap that in duct tape and then I have the duct tape and I have the Bic lighter.

Duct tape also is great tinder. You can start a fire with it. So it really has many, many uses. You can use one lighter to light the other lighter on fire. Yeah, yeah. You could also take the tape off your lighter

if you wanted to avoid lighting your lighter all right if you did light your lighter you'll get a moment of excitement when it goes poof yeah unless you're holding it which gives you a moment of pain which can be exciting yeah it could be exciting uh hopefully you're close to a hospital yeah and yeah i like to carry it like a little pre-made there's a um i like to i do like to vacuum seal stuff it's a thing that imade. I do like to vacuum seal stuff. It's a thing that I enjoy. I recently got a vacuum sealer. I've been getting really into it.

So I'll vacuum seal little packets of pills, little plasters, band-aids for American listeners, into little packs and give them to people or keep them places. It maybe helps them with aging a little bit. But having a bag like that, you could just open in an places. It maybe helps them with aging a little bit, but having a bag like that, you could just open in an emergency. It's super handy. The other thing that I like, and largely this is just because I go to places and I have

these tiny little fishing chem lights. They're designed for certain fishing floats. They're very good if you need to see something- And so that's glow sticks for the non-tactical crowd. They're designed for certain fishing floats. They're very good if you need to see something. And so that's glow sticks for the non-tactical crowd. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or silooms for the British tactical crowd. Oh, okay. They're very handy if you need to mark something at night.

They're not going to be great for like, I have flares in my car if my car breaks down on a dark road and I don't want people to pile into the back of it. But for smaller things, you're going around a campsite and you want to be like, oh, there's a piece of rebar sticking out the ground here, right? You can crack one of those bad boys and it'll light it up. No, that makes sense. They're also just a way to bamboozle young children.

If you're around kids at night and you can suddenly make light appear. Just make sure they don't eat them. Okay, but see, this actually gets to something that you brought up earlier. A lot of crisis situations, an awful lot of them you're not alone. And in an awful lot of them, things like being able to entertain kids and things like that is like, yeah, a genuine need, like a very useful thing and so like i know people who keep you know like i mean usually people who have kids but they keep a stuffed animal or something like that in their bag um yeah like i was so there were a lot of children

in these camps down the border and that's very fucked up uh but like i realized i didn't have any toys so i got loads of these tiny little stuffed animals someone had donated. They're about the size of a golf ball. And it gave each child an animal, right? So they could play with their little animals and the animals could be in community with each other. Oh, that's amazing. Yeah. Yeah. They were so pumped. And it wasn't just that the kids were like, yeah, I got a toy. The parents were like, thank fuck. They are so bored, right? Or like, I have a small finger puppet that I was using the other day to entertain them uh i don't know where i found it i found it in one of the vans we were

using yeah it's like a seal uh and like something like that makes it all the difference when you have nothing to do with your kids um and i guess like along those lines when i am bored i have the kindle app on my phone i think it works with all the phones Obviously Jeff Bezos is a bellend But like That's a It's a British word Yeah Yes it's a British word

We don't like Jeff Bezos He's a dick right Yeah it's always the end of a dick The tumescent part Yeah Yeah okay Yeah For those who weren't clear in the audience

Yeah But yeah Jeff Bezos is a dick But the Kindle app is nice You can also have PDFs of books on your phone. But it's, again, like I'm telling you from personal experience, when you're sitting in a giant warehouse with nothing to do for a few days, somewhere I have a picture of building a fort with this little, you know, just like three or four, you know, and her folks had come.

Her folks were refugees and we were just bored, so we built a fort out of mylar blankets yeah but um someone had an inflatable ball which we just played with for hours because you're so bored yeah so yeah just having like an app on your phone where you can read books it's probably going to be more useful to you than that short barreled rifle that you have to pay a 200 tax stamp and let the feds come into your house for. Yeah. Every Crestpunk I knew, you always carry what you need, and then you carry something.

And you almost set your personality around this. Like, I knew a guy who was not an ultralighter, and his name was Pogo Dave. I had a fucking pogo stick. Yeah, an old metal, like, rusted pogoogo stick and i almost broke my knee with that thing um oh yeah yeah in the middle of nowhere yeah yeah i don't know if younger listeners will be familiar with the pogo stick do you think that's like uh do you think the zoomers in the audience i have no idea they're probably look it up kids yeah and yeah and so having something and it's funny too because every like

prepper manual is like, and a deck of cards. And this is like technically true, but I'll tell you what people actually play is hot dice. Having some like

six-sided dice to play this really annoying game called hot dice. Or like, bring some D&D dice and just start playing like role-playing games

with people. You know, like there's like having the entertainment things. And then the other other thing i think it's really worth considering having a small musical instrument uh i find that like there's a reason that cross punks play music everywhere they go yeah are you about to pull out a harmonica i have a harmonica in a pistol magazine pouch that i take on the side of my bag when i go to places hell yeah i yeah we took me so when robert and i did our miyamotori but i left my

harmonica with the uh the people who you're gonna hear singing at the start of our show they play their guitars and song for us cool i left them the harmonica and they play it now yes a harmonica and then it's got harmonica the one thing that i have in my bugger up bag that's a little bit extra but i swear by i have a nintendo switch um and a bunch of physical game cartridges for it because when 2020 hit i lived in a cabin in the middle of nowhere i was off grid i barely had any electricity i basically had to walk half a mile to my car and like charge things in my car for a while until i like got together enough money to get some solar panels and some batteries and stuff. Right.

Because I had not planned on having my cabin be suddenly where I lived. Well, like full time, not going anywhere else lived. And the first thing I got was a little tiny, it's called a Bit Boy. tiny it's called a bit boy and it is a like tiny game boy that has every single nintendo and super nintendo and sega genesis game pirated onto it oh wow and immediately ordering that after the podcast and it costs like 40 bucks i don't know how much they cost now but they're not expensive because they're little weird 3d printed pirated things and they like use almost no electricity and so it uses way less electricity in a cell phone and that saved my sanity and then when i finally got my shit together enough to get a nintendo switch and i could play skyrim like

and it's not that i like had nothing to do people are like oh you don't need to entertain yourself in crisis because you're busy it's like, you can probably only physically work on building your house to get it ready for the apocalypse you think you're living in for maybe 14 hours a day. You know, maybe 10 to 14 hours. Yeah. And if you don't do manual labor right now, it might be a lot less. Yeah. Like. You have downtime.

Not always in every situation. But, like, injured need to sit around and do something. Or, you know, like, entertainment is, like, actually really useful. Yes. And then if you bring a paperback, and I recommend it, bring one that you've already read because you know you like it. I normally don't reread books all that much, but when I need to turn my brain off, a book that you've already read for a lot of people is going to do better.

And if you haven't, so you should get a jump start on this by reading, my book Escape from Insel Island. Oh, magnificent. All right, thanks. Yeah, it's also you can do the tabletop role-playing game that we did. Yeah, there's an Escape from Insel Island tabletop role-playing game that's coming out next year. Well, there's a little zine version of it that I think you can download now, but it's going to be slightly better. Yeah, keep that in your bag.

The other thing I was going to plug that I forgot about was download the Google Maps onto your phone or whatever brand apps you want, maps you want, and have a watch that doesn't need a battery. I think that's super handy. You can use the watch to tell the direction of south, which will obviously give you other compass directions if you really need to but you can tell the time uh you would again be surprised how like people might imagine that after x happens they won't need to tell the time because it won't matter you probably will need to tell the time in most of your crises um you know even to know if something has happened or it's not

happened right and so being able to do that it's very handy and having a watch that powers itself is a way to do that no it makes sense i. And having a watch that powers itself is a way to do that. No, it makes sense. I use one that doesn't power itself, but it like lasts three weeks or so when I'll charge and like vaguely charges itself from the sun, but not very efficiently. There's also, and I know there's like, now we're getting into the weeds.

Okay, here's the other pitch. It's fun. Besides doing the basics, you can nerd out about it and you can do it cheaply because nerding out about it is free you can find your other friends that want to talk about this bullshit and talk about what is bullshit you don't have to go out and buy fancy crazy shit um sometimes you want the fancy crazy shit but most of the stuff we're talking about is super cheap um and then you can have the joy of talking about this shit but most of the stuff we're talking about is super cheap um and then you can have the joy of talking about this shit and getting into the weeds with it and

but there's a um there's an app i think it's called keywix and it lets you download wikipedia and read it on your phone offline yeah that would be good my other i've just remembered one more thing that margaret and i talked about off mic a while ago, because this is the kind of people we are. Yeah. It's called bank line. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

So the tactical crowd are very into paracord because it's a little bit stronger and you can pick out the inside lines and stuff. It's also very shiny and can be annoying to not sometimes. If you get some bank line and you need to construct a shelter, which is relatively unlikely, you can. and you need to construct a shelter which is relatively unlikely

you can if you need to repair your clothes and you have a needle you can pick it apart and use it for that but if you're bored like every everyone should know a few knots uh you know if you know how to do like a i guess a figure eight knot if you know how to do a trucker's hitch a bowline knot um and you're probably pretty good if you know how to do a trucker's hitch, a bowline knot. You're probably pretty good if you can do those, honestly. You can do a lot of stuff with just those. A prussic, maybe another friction hitch. You can practice those when you're bored.

It's fun. It may not be as fun for you as it is for me because I'm that kind of person. If you like to learn stuff, and then you can share that with someone else. It's fun to teach people, and then you can share that with someone else, right? It's fun to teach people, and then they can teach you a couple. I have taught and learned knots from people from half a dozen nationalities in the last month, and it's fun. And it's cool to share.

It's also like when you're in a shit situation, being like, huh, having a moment where you're not thinking about a shit situation instead of thinking about, that's cool, I learned that knot. It's very nice, actually. And so, yeah, like a Brazilian rodeo guy taught me a couple of knots. That's cool. The other day.

Yeah, it was sweet. We were helping. We had dumpster dives from tents that Susan G. Komen was throwing away. And so we were helping put those up. And in one case, we had the fly sheet, but not the tent. So we were trying to work out how to make them to a tarp. Did some different knots. It was fun.

And bank line is cheaper than paracord. Probably don't need the paracord with a fishing line inside in 99% of circumstances. So get some bank line, number 36 bank line. Okay. And then the other, the cross punk challenge is you just start fixing your clothes with dental floss. Oh, yeah. Dental floss is great for that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Get a sale needle and dental floss and you'll smell minty fresh. Uh, yeah. And when I make my emergency kits, I take little, um,

they're sort of sewing needle vials. I like them better than the little slidey kits where they, everything gets lost all the time. Yeah. And, um, I just get these little tiny vials. They're clear so everyone knows what's in it. And I put safety pins, regular sewing needles, and leather sewing needles into them. And then when you're sewing with leather, the other thing that I recommend people carry.

Okay, like in 2003, if you are a crust punk, the things you need to have on you are at all times, you need a folding knife, you need a headlamp, you need a multi-tool with pliers, and you need a folding knife you need a headlamp you need a multi-tool with pliers and you need a sleeping bag and like and a spork and a can opener yeah and that's kind of it in a lot of ways yeah don't combine those things don't be the person with the spork multi-tool now because you'll get beans in your knife and it fucking actually, that's called a hobo tool. There actually are multi-tools that are... Oh, sorry, a spork.

No, no, no, it's a spoon on one side and a fork on the other. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Those suck. Anything that folds, anything that folds, you should keep it away from food. Yes, yeah, yeah. Your folding knife is going to get so gross. I mean, you'll do it anyway.

But I think we're kind of probably at time yeah yeah I can keep going that's going to get tweezers but okay this is enough stuff

yeah if you want to hear more of this kind of content yeah yeah Margot does a whole other podcast oh I was going to say just trick them

into having me on to talk about this stuff more but yeah oh yeah yeah yeah we'll have you back. We'll do a whole other one. But Margaret also has a whole other podcast, which you should listen to.

What's it called? And where can people find it, Margaret? Well, OK, so the prepper one is called Live Like the World is Dying. Your podcast for It Feels Like the End Times. It comes out every Friday. And I also have a Cool Zone Media podcast called Cool People Did Cool Stuff, where I talk about history and about cool people who did cool stuff. And James has been on both of these podcasts. So if you want to hear us

continue to banter about things, there's so many more options available to you. Yeah. Maybe download them for those terrible times when you just need the calming voice of me and Margaret talking about bags. That's's right we'll just do it like just like it's okay you're gonna get through this yeah i know that things seem bad right now and they are bad but it's okay we'll just do a whole hour of that yeah yeah it's an hour of that i'm proud of you yeah Yeah, totally. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We will be your anarchist affirmations. That's another podcast. This has been It Could Happen Here.

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

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From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters, to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of my Cultura podcast network available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Jack Peace Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black Lit, the podcast for diving deep into the rich world of Black literature. I'm Jack Peace Thomas, and I'm inviting you to join me and a vibrant community of literary enthusiasts dedicated to protecting and celebrating our stories.

Black Lit is for the page turners, for those who listen to audiobooks while commuting or running errands, for those who find themselves seeking solace, wisdom, and refuge between the chapters. From thought-provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Together, we'll dissect classics and contemporary works while uncovering the stories of the brilliant writers behind them. Black Lit is here to amplify the voices of Black writers and to bring their words to life. Listen to Black Lit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, it's Shereen. Welcome to the pod. I'm back to talk about, you guessed it, Palestine,

because we need to keep talking about it. There is still an ongoing genocide happening in Gaza, and if you ask me, a slower genocide that's been happening for the last 75 years in Palestine. And there are so many aspects of history and of what's currently happening that are worth delving into. Today, I wanted to focus on a new investigation by Plus972 Magazine, and this is an investigation that was confirmed by The Guardian, and it reveals that Israel is deliberately killing large numbers of Palestinian civilians in Gaza. Need I remind you that the Palestinian population in Gaza is mostly women and children. Doesn't mean that Palestinian Palestinian men are disposable because they are not. That is something I do reject about constantly saying women and children. It's only because I think it reinforces the idea that every Palestinian man could potentially be a terrorist when really they are the ones pulling people out of the rubble and treating them in hospitals.

and treating them in hospitals, and Palestinian men are incredible. So their loss is just as tragic. My point is, though, that I keep seeing Israeli officials on news outlets and everything spewing lies and bullshit about how the IOF is trying everything they can to avoid civilian death, and that is just simply not true. And now there is definitive proof that it's not true with this investigation. As of this recording, the death toll in Gaza has risen to over 21,000 people. This number includes those who are presumed to be dead underneath the rubble. At this point, the number of killed and displaced Palestinians is higher than the number of killed and displaced Palestinians during the Nakba of 1948. Right now, almost 1.9 million Palestinians, which makes up about 80% of Gaza's entire population, have been displaced.

I really want you guys to absorb what that means to eclipse the numbers of the Nekba in 1948, which is the catastrophe that coincides with the establishment of the state of Israel, which up till this point was the greatest act of terrorism against Palestinian people. So the fact that we have eclipsed the numbers of the Nakba, which amounts to about 750,000 Palestinians being displaced and about 15,000 people dead, to have eclipsed those numbers in about two months is truly horrific. And I hope that comes across when you hear these numbers. Humanitarian organizations that once warned the world of an impending catastrophe in Gaza are now describing an apocalypse. The UN humanitarian chief said the situation in Gaza is apocalyptic.

Israel's relentless bombing of Palestinian society has taken it past the point of collapse. Bombs are still falling as winter draws near, and millions of Palestinians are starving, dehydrated, sick, and living in unsuitable and unsustainable conditions and shelters. In addition to this, all cell service in northern Gaza is down. Palestinians can't contact their loved ones and they can't share the reality of what is going on on the ground. Cutting internet access and service is a very deliberate act on Israel's part to silence people, the same way they've been targeting and killing journalists. Israel does not want the world to see the truth, and cutting internet access is a great way for them to avoid this. Keep in mind that news outlets are not allowed in Gaza, so the Palestinian journalists on the ground, most of whom are very

young in their early 20s, they're the ones being targeted because they're the ones showing the truth with their photos and videos and activism and news. So I want you guys to keep in mind how deliberate everything Israel does is when it comes to cutting internet, food, water from Gaza. It is deliberately starving and cutting off these people. Nowhere in Gaza is safe. Israel is bombing everywhere, including the areas they tell Palestinians to go to to find safety from the bombs. So there are no safe zones, regardless of what Israeli officials are telling us. Everywhere is unsafe because Israel is bombing everything, including the areas they're supposed to go to for safety. Israel is not trying in the slightest to avoid civilian casualties.

And that's what we're going to talk about today. So this investigation is based on conversations with current and former members of the Israeli intelligence community, as well as reports from Palestinians and independent data. the Israeli intelligence community, as well as reports from Palestinians and independent data. It explains how destroying Palestinian homes and society in the process of killing Palestinian civilians is very deliberate as well. It explains the tactics Israel has used to kill Palestinians at an accelerated rate during the past two months, which amounts to a clear-cut case of genocide, as well as genocidal intent. I truly can't believe there are still so many people in denial that what is going on in Palestine is in fact a genocide,

because I've heard truly the most inane arguments as if to prove their point this isn't a genocide, whether it's about population growth or the fact that Israel hasn't killed enough people. it's about population growth or the fact that Israel hasn't killed enough people. But I'll have to get into that later only because I will go on forever and just start ranting. But if every genocidal scholar and Israeli historian I can think of agrees this is a genocide, if humanitarian organizations are also telling you this is in fact a genocide, it is a genocide. Genocide is about intent on the part of the person committing the genocide or the entity committing the genocide. It's about intent and about the actions. It is not about birth rate or whatever the shit a Zionist will try to argue about. It's not about

that. And what's happening is genocide, whether you want to hear that or not. This investigation also explains how Israel seeks out what it calls quote-unquote power targets to bomb. Power targets are non-military targets like homes and public buildings, like schools and hospitals, and Israel targets and bombs these for the direct purpose of terrorizing Palestinian civilians and harming their society. Israel's deliberate attacks on Palestinians and their society are illegal and inhumane, to say the very least. Then again, something being illegal truly means nothing at this point because Israel has violated international law for decades without any repercussions whatsoever. Something being illegal means nothing and the UN feels useless because nothing ever happens. This is not the

first time Israel has murdered Palestinians indiscriminately. It's not the first time they have violated international law or committed war crimes, but nothing ever happened before, so why would it happen now? Permissive airstrikes on non-military targets and the use of an artificial intelligence system have enabled the Israeli army to carry out the deadliest attack on Gaza ever. So the Israeli army's expanded authorization for bombing non-military targets, the loosening of constraints regarding expected civilian casualties, and the use of an artificial intelligence system to generate more potential targets than ever before, all of this has contributed to the destructive nature and the

deadliest military campaign against Palestinians since the Nekba of 1948. As I mentioned, this investigation by Plus 972 Magazine and Local Call is based on conversations with seven current and former members of Israel's intelligence community, including military intelligence and air force personnel who were involved in Israeli operations in the besieged Gaza Strip. In addition to this, it includes Palestinian testimonies, data and documentation from the Gaza Strip, as well as official statements by IOF spokespeople and other Israeli state institutions. Compared to the previous Israeli assaults on Gaza, the current attack, I will never call it a war. This is not a war. I have said this before. A war indicates both sides are equal and have an army, but you literally can't go to war with an entity you are occupying. Regardless,

compared to previous assaults on Gaza, what's happening now is unprecedented. Israel has named the current attack on Gaza that is happening now, the current genocide, it has named its actions that have started in the wake of October 7th after the Hamas attack, Operation Iron Swords. And we've seen the Israeli army significantly expand its bombing of targets that are not distinctly military in nature. This includes private residences as well as public buildings, infrastructure, and high-rise blocks, which sources say the army defines as these power targets. Israel seeks out these power targets to bomb. Power targets, again, are non-military targets like homes and public buildings. And Israel, again, targets and bombs these for the purpose of

terrorizing Palestinian civilians and harming their society. And this is according to intelligence sources who had firsthand experience with this application in Gaza in the past, who confirmed that not only is it mainly intended to harm Palestinian civil society, but it's also meant to quote, create a shock that among other, will reverberate powerfully and lead civilians to put pressure on Hamas, as one source put it. Several sources spoke on the condition of anonymity, and they confirmed that the Israeli army has files of the vast majority of potential targets in Gaza, including homes, which stipulate the number of civilians who are likely to be killed in an attack on a particular target. This number of casualties is calculated and known in advance to the army's intelligence units,

who also know shortly before carrying out an attack roughly how many civilians are certain to be killed. So the Israeli army knows just how many Palestinian civilians they'll kill with each strike, and Israel kills them anyway, fully aware of the number of civilian death that will ensue. In one case discussed by these sources, the Israeli military command knowingly approved the killing of hundreds of Palestinian civilians in an attempt to assassinate a single top Hamas military commander, allegedly. One source said the numbers increased from dozens of civilian deaths permitted as collateral damage as part of an attack on a senior official in previous operations to hundreds of

civilian deaths as collateral damage. Another source said nothing happens by accident. When a three-year-old girl is killed in a home in Gaza, it's because someone in the army decided it wasn't a big deal for her to be killed, that it was a price worth paying in order to hit another target. We are not Hamas. These are not random rockets. Everything is intentional. We know exactly how much collateral damage there is in every home. The investigation revealed that another reason for the overwhelming civilian death toll as well as the number of targets in Gaza is the widespread use of an AI system called Habsura, aka the gospel. The gospel is largely built on artificial intelligence and can generate targets almost automatically at a rate that far exceeds what was previously possible. This AI system, as described by a former intelligence officer, essentially facilitates,

in his words, a mass assassination factory. Israeli sources said that the increasing use of AI-based systems like Habsura allow the army to carry out strikes on residential homes where a single Hamas member lives on a massive scale. But testimonies of Palestinians argue that the army attacked many private residences where there was no known or apparent member of Hamas member lives on a massive scale. But testimonies of Palestinians argue that the army attacked many private residences where there was no known or apparent member of Hamas anywhere in sight or any other militant group residing. Such strikes can knowingly kill entire families in the process, and that is exactly what has happened and keeps happening. In the majority of cases, the sources said, military activity is not conducted from these targeted homes.

One of them said, I remember thinking that it was like if Palestinian militants would bomb all the private residences of our families when Israeli soldiers go back to sleep at home on the weekend. This source was apparently critical of this practice. He's still a fucking soldier, so I don't give a shit. He's still a fucking soldier, so I don't give a shit. Another source said that a senior intelligence officer told his officers after October 7th that the criteria around harming Palestinian civilians were significantly relaxed. As such, there are, quote, cases in which we shell based on a wide cellular pinpointing of where the target is, killing civilians. This is done to save time, instead of doing a little more work to get more

accurate pinpointing, said the source. The result of these policies is the staggering loss of human life in Gaza since October 7th. Over 300 families have lost 10 or more family members in the Israeli bombings over the past two months. That number is 15 times higher than the figure from what was previously Israel's deadliest war on Gaza in 2014. One source said, there is a feeling that senior officials in the army are aware of their failure on October 7th and are busy with the question of how to provide the Israeli public with an image of victory that will salvage the reputation. with an image of victory that will salvage the reputation. I just think it's really pathetic that an entire army will bomb and obliterate a piece of land with millions of people on it because they're essentially embarrassed that they failed. It really just makes you realize that

humans are small, silly creatures that are just too powerful for their own good. Getting your ego slighted is not an excuse for committing a genocide, and there's nothing you can say to make me think otherwise. From the first moment after the October 7th attack, politicians in Israel openly declared that the response would be of a completely different magnitude to previous military operations in Gaza. IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari on October 9th said, the emphasis is on damage and not on accuracy. And the army swiftly translated these declarations into actions.

Israeli intelligence divides its targets in Gaza into four categories. The first is tactical targets, which include standard military targets like armed militant cells, weapon warehouses, rocket launchers, anti-tank missile launchers, launch pits, mortar bombs, military headquarters, observation posts, and so on. The second is underground targets, mainly tunnels that Hamas has dug under Gaza's neighborhoods, including under civilian homes. Aerial strikes on these targets could lead to the collapse of the homes above or near the tunnels. The third is what we were talking about earlier, power targets, which

includes the high-rises and residential towers in the heart of cities, as well as public buildings like universities, banks, and government offices. The idea behind hitting such targets, say three intelligence sources who were involved in planning or conducting strikes on power targets in the past, say that a deliberate attack, devastation, and destruction of Palestinian society will exert civil pressure on Hamas. The final category of targets are family homes. The stated purpose of these attacks is to destroy private residences in order to assassinate a single resident suspected of being a Hamas member or an Islamic Jihad operative. But Palestinian testimonies explain

that most of the families that were killed did not include any operatives from any organization. In the early stages of the current genocide, the Israeli army appeared to have given particular attention to the third and fourth categories. According to statements on October 11th by the IOF spokesperson, during the first five days of fighting, half the targets bombed, which amounts to 1,329 out of a total of 2,687, were deemed power targets. Just to loop in the people that maybe don't know, but IOF is used instead of IDF by a lot of Palestinian activists because they define it and I define it as Israeli occupation forces and not defense forces because what they're doing

has never been defense. So you might see many people call it IOF because that is what they're referring to, Israeli occupation forces. One source said, we are asked to look for a high-rise building with half a floor that can be attributed to Hamas. Sometimes it is a militant group's spokesperson's office or a point where operatives meet. I understood that the floor is an excuse that allows the army to cause a lot of destruction in Gaza. That is what they told us. If they would tell the whole world that the Islamic Jihad offices on the 10th floor are not important as a target, but that its existence is a justification to bring down the entire high-rise with the aim of pressuring civilian families who live in it in order to put pressure on terrorist organizations,

this itself would be seen as terrorism. So they do not say that. As expected, testimonies and videos from Gaza unsurprisingly show that some of these targets that have been attacked have been attacked without warning and without prior notice given to their occupants, thus killing entire families as a result. Let's take our first break here, because that's what we do. And we are back. UN data for the period up until November 11th, by which time Israel had killed 11,078 Palestinians in Gaza, stated that at least 312 families have lost 10 or more people in Gaza. For the sake of comparison, Operation Protective Edge in 2014, 20 families in Gaza lost 10 or more people. 20 in comparison to over 300

now. In addition, according to the UN, at least 189 families have lost between six and nine people, at least 189 families have lost between six and nine people, while 549 families have lost between two and five people. According to the UN, and this number is changing and unfortunately rising even as we speak, 1.9 million Palestinians, which is the vast majority of the Strip's population, have been displaced within Gaza since October 7th. The IOF claims that the demand to evacuate the strips north was intended to protect civilian lives. However, Palestinians and most of the world see this for what it is, that this mass displacement is part of a new Nakba, an attempt to ethnically cleanse part or all of the territory. And I'm not just making up the phrase new Nakba, because Israeli politicians and officials have described what is happening right now as a Nekba, as well as stating genocidal intent in many other ways.

So Dov Waxman, the director of UCLA's YNS Nazarene Center for Israel Studies, talked a little bit about this in a phone interview with NBC News. Some of that rhetoric can be seen as potentially genocidal from the way it dehumanizes Palestinian civilians. He noted that the right-wing ministers who made comments like this are, quote, not in the war cabinet, so their words can only have so much impact on Israeli policy. But still, hearing ministers of any kind and public officials with millions of followers and eyes on them make suggestions like flattening Gaza with a nuclear bomb should be concerning nonetheless. war would be Gaza's Nekba, using this Arabic word for catastrophe that we all use to describe the 1948 displacement of Palestinians as well as their genocide. He said, from an operational point of view, there is no way to wage a war as the Israeli army seeks to do in Gaza with masses between the

tanks and the soldiers. When Dichter was pressed on his use of the word Nekba to describe the situation in Gaza, he said, again, doubling down, Gaza Nekba 2023. That's how it'll end. A week before these comments were made, Israeli Heritage Minister Amahai Eliyahu, apologies for mispronouncing it, also not really sparked outcry after he suggested that dropping a nuclear bomb on the gaza strip was quote one of the possibilities in the current conflict also it's important to remember that the increasingly hostile rhetoric from israel's far right cabinet ministers has not only centered on gaza but also the occupied West Bank. An example of this is when Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Simotrik, who was a prominent settler advocate, called for the creation of, quote,

sterile zones in the West Bank in a letter that he sent to Netanyahu and Yoav Galant, the Defense Minister. And this letter was shared with Israeli media. Such sterile zones, he said, would block Palestinians from entering certain areas and bar them from harvesting olives close to Israeli settlements in the enclave. This letter also came during the annual olive harvest, with olive farming being a primary source of income for many Palestinian farmers in the West Bank. It also came during a surge of settler violence against Palestinians in the area, which has only increased since then. There was a law that was passed a couple years ago, I believe, that essentially allows Israeli soldiers to shoot unarmed Palestinians without any legal repercussions.

And we're seeing that happen in real time in the West Bank. So as this genocide is unfolding in Gaza, keep in mind there is no Hamas in the West Bank and they are still committing acts of terror there. Also, a side note, if you guys want to learn about the significance of olives and olive trees for Palestine, I did an episode about that. You can look it up. But the olive harvest and olives and olive trees in particular are a very significant part of Palestinian life. One such case of both increasing settler violence and targeting olives, and olive farmers in particular, is in Bilal Saleh, who was killed while tending to his olive trees earlier this month. An elderly couple were also attacked

by settlers last month without provocation while collecting olives in the West Bank. Comments like those made by Simotrick only emboldened settlers to attack Palestinians. Again, I want to mention here that it is not against Israeli law for soldiers to shoot at unarmed Palestinians. It is permissible and done all the time. When that is the norm, of course you're going to have hateful settlers

adopting the same strategy when they're armed with no repercussions. According to the Israeli army, during the first five days of fighting, it dropped 6,000 bombs on the Gaza Strip with a total weight of about 4,000 tons. Media outlets reported that the army had wiped out entire neighborhoods. According to the Gaza-based Al-Mizan Center for Human Rights, these attacks led to the Gaza-based Al-Mizan Center for Human Rights, these attacks led to the complete destruction of residential neighborhoods, the destruction of infrastructure, and the mass killing of residents.

As documented by Al-Mizan and numerous images coming out of Gaza, Israel bombed the Islamic University of Gaza, as well as the Palestinian Bar Association, a UN building for educational programs for outstanding students, a UN building for educational programs for outstanding students, a building belonging to the Palestine Telecommunications Company, the Ministry of National Economy, the Ministry of Culture, roads, and dozens of high-rise buildings and homes, especially in Gaza's northern neighborhoods. Again, striking targets like these functions primarily as a means that allow damage to civil society. That is a direct quote from a source, and the sources understood, some explicitly and some

implicitly, that damage to civilians is the real purpose of these attacks. In May 2021, Israel was heavily criticized for bombing the Al-Jalaa Tower, which housed prominent international media outlets like Al Jazeera, AP, and AFP. A source said, The perception is that it really hurts Hamas when high-rise buildings are taken down because it creates a public reaction in the Gaza Strip and scares the population. They wanted to give the citizens of Gaza the feeling that Hamas is not in control of the situation. Sometimes they toppled buildings, and sometimes postal service and government buildings.

The idea of causing mass devastation to civilian areas for strategic purposes was formulated in previous military operations in Gaza, honed in by the so-called Dahiya Doctrine from the Second Lebanon War of 2006. According to the Dahiya Doctrine, developed by former IOF's Chief of Staff Gadi Ezenkot, who is now a Knesset member and part of the current war cabinet, according to him and this doctrine, in a war against guerrilla groups such as Hamas or Hezbollah, Israel must use disproportionate and overwhelming force while targeting civilian and government infrastructure in order to establish deterrence and force the civilian

population to pressure the groups to end their attacks. The concept of power targets also seems to have been emanated from this same logic. The first time the Israeli army publicly defined power targets in Gaza was at the end of Operation Protective Edge in 2014. The army bombed four buildings during the last four days of the war, three residential multi-story buildings in Gaza City, and a high-rise in Rafah. The security establishment explained at the time that the attacks were intended to convey to the Palestinians in Gaza that, quote, nothing is immune anymore, and to put pressure on Hamas to agree to a ceasefire. An amnesty report in late 2014 stated,

the evidence we collected shows that a massive destruction of the buildings was carried out deliberately without any military justification. Previous operations have also shown how striking these targets is meant not to only harm Palestinian morale, but also raise the morale inside Israel. Palestinian morale, but also raise the morale inside Israel. Haaretz revealed that during Operation Guardian of the Walls in 2021, the IOF spokesperson's unit conducted a PSYOP against Israeli citizens in order to boost awareness of the IOF's operation in Gaza and the damage they caused to Palestinians. Soldiers, using fake social media accounts to conceal the campaign's origin, uploaded images and clips of the army's strikes in Gaza to Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok in order to demonstrate the army's

prowess to the Israeli public, which is, in my opinion, pathetic. During the 2021 assault, Israel struck nine targets that were defined as power targets, all of them high-rise buildings. One security source said the goal was to collapse the high-rises so that the Israeli public would see a victory image. The bottom line is that they knocked down a high-rise for the sake of knocking down a high-rise. Let's take our second break and we'll be right back. We're back. Okay, so not only are we seeing Israel attack an unprecedented number of power targets, we're also getting testimonies from Palestinian residents in Gaza that indicate that since October 7th, Israel has attacked high-rises with their residents still inside without prior

warning, which leads to many civilian deaths. Such attacks, obviously, result in the killing of entire families, and this was experienced in previous offenses. According to an investigation by AP conducted after the 2014 war, about 89% of those killed in the aerial bombings of family homes were unarmed residents, and most of them were women and children. Sound familiar? This goes to show you that Israel has been doing this for a long time without anything happening because international law is bullshit. But really think about that. 89% of those killed in the aerial bombings in the 2014 war slash genocide were innocent people who were unarmed, most of them women and children. The exact same thing is happening right now. Some examples of the current indiscriminate bombing

of residential buildings are the following. On October 10th, Israel bombed the Babel building in Gaza, and this is according to the testimony of Bilal Abu Hatzira, who rescued bodies from the ruins that night. Ten people were killed in the attack on the building, including three journalists. On October 25th, the 12-story Eltage residential building in Gaza City was bombed to the ground, killing the families living inside it without warning. About 120 people were buried under the ruins of their apartments, according to testimonies of the residents. Yusuf Amr Sharaf, a resident of Al-Taj, wrote that 37 of his family members who lived in the building were killed in the attack. He said, Residents stated that a lot of bombs were dropped that resulted in

damaging and destroying apartments in nearby buildings as well. Six days later after this, on October 31st, an eight-story building the El Mu had seen was bombed without warning. Between 30 and 45 bodies were reportedly covered from the ruins on the first day. One baby was found alive without his parents. I'm not sure if I mentioned this in a previous episode, but I think it bears repeating that children in Gaza are being admitted to hospitals completely alone and with no surviving family members. And this is happening so often that hospitals now have an abbreviation for these children, WCNSF, Wounded Child with No Surviving Family. The ones that can't speak

are marked as unknown. There are many children and babies like this. Journalists estimated that the attack killed over 150 people, and many are buried and remain under the rubble. The building used to stand in Nuzurat refugee camp south of Wadi Gaza, in the supposed safe zone which Israel directed the Palestinians who fled their homes in northern and central Gaza. It therefore served as a temporary shelter for the displaced, before getting obliterated into smithereens and bombed to the ground, killing hundreds of people. into smithereens and bombed to the ground, killing hundreds of people. According to an investigation by Amnesty International, on October 9th, Israel shelled at least three multi-story buildings, as well as an open flea market on a crowded street in the Jabaliyeh refugee camp,

killing at least 69 people. The father of a child who was killed said, the bodies were burned. I didn't want to look. I was scared of looking at Imad's face. The bodies were scattered on the floor. Everyone was looking for their children in these piles. I recognized my son only by his trousers. I wanted to bury him immediately, so I carried my son and got him out. According to intelligence sources, Habsura, aka the gospel, the AI system we mentioned earlier, this AI system generates, among other things, automatic recommendations for attacking private residences where people suspected, in bold, suspected of being Hamas or Islamic Jihad operatives live. Israel then carries out large-scale assassination

operations through the heavy shelling of these residential homes. Habsura, explained one of the sources, processes enormous amounts of data that, quote, tens of thousands of intelligence officers could not process, as well as recommending bombing sites in real time. I wanted to put in bold suspected because that is a crazy thing to do when you don't know for sure what the fuck you're doing and who the fuck you're killing. Just putting it out there that it's at this point, it can't be any clearer that it's not about Hamas. It's about the eradication of the Palestinian people, which has been slowly happening for the past 75 years and now it has accelerated. It's not about Hamas, because that is a crazy thing to do if you're only targeting Hamas. One former intelligence officer explained that the Habsura system enables the army to run a

quote, mass assassination factory, in which the quote, emphasis is on the quantity and not quality. A human eye will quote, go over the targets before each attack but it need not spend a lot of time on them. In 2019 the Israeli army created a new center aimed at using AI to accelerate target generation. The target's administrative division is a unit that includes hundreds of officers and soldiers and is based on AI capabilities. This is according to the former IOF chief of staff Aviv Kochavi, and he gave an in-depth interview about this earlier this year. He said, this is a machine that, with the help of AI, processes a lot of data better and faster than any human and translates it into targets for attack. The result was that in Operation Guardian of the

Walls in 2021, from the moment this machine was activated, it generated 100 new targets every day. You see, in the past, there were times in Gaza when we would create 50 targets per year. And here, the machine produced 100 targets in one day. One of the sources of the investigation by Plus 972 Magazine said, We prepare the targets automatically and work according to a checklist. This source also worked in the new target's administrative division. They said, It really is like a factory. We work quickly, and there is no time to delve deep into the target.

The view is that we are judged according to how many targets we manage to generate. A senior military official in charge of the Target Bank told Jerusalem Post earlier this year that, thanks to the Army's AI systems, for the first time the military can generate new targets at a faster rate than it attacks. One more time for emphasis. One more time for emphasis. For the first time ever, thanks to AI systems, the military generates new targets faster than it can attack them. Another source said the drive to automatically generate large numbers of targets is a realization of the Dehia Doctrine. The Dahiya Doctrine, as mentioned earlier, is when Israel uses disproportionate and overwhelming force when targeting civilian and government infrastructure

in order to establish deterrence and make the Palestinian people cower in fear and admit defeat, essentially. And so this AI system is really helping achieve this Tehiyya doctrine in the process. Automated systems like Hapsora have thus greatly facilitated the work of Israeli intelligence officers in making decisions during military operations, including calculating potential casualties. Five different sources confirmed that the number of civilians who may be killed in attacks on private residences is known in advance to Israeli intelligence and appears clearly According to these sources, there are degrees of collateral damage, according to which the army determines whether it is possible to attack a target inside a private residence. target inside a private residence. One of the sources said, when the general directive becomes collateral damage five, that means we are authorized to strike all targets that will

kill five or less civilians. We can act on all target files that are five or less. A security official who participated in attacking targets during previous operations said, in the past, we did not regularly mark the homes of junior Hamas members for bombing. In my time, if the house I was working on was marked collateral damage 5, it would not always be approved for attack. Such approval, he said, would only be received if a senior Hamas commander was known to be living in the home. To my understanding, today they can mark all the houses of any Hamas military operative regardless of rank or confirmation of membership. The source added, that is a lot of houses. Hamas members who don't really matter for anything live in homes

all across Gaza. So they mark the home and bomb the house and kill everyone there. On October 22nd, the Israeli Air Force bombed the home of Palestinian journalist Ahmed Al-Nawuk in the city of Deir el-Balakh. The strike on October 22nd collapsed blocks of concrete onto Ahmed's entire family, killing his father, brothers, sisters, and all of their children, including babies. brothers, sisters, and all of their children, including babies. Only his 12-year-old niece, Malak, survived and remained in critical condition, her body covered in burns. A few days later, Malak died. 21 members of Ahmed's family were killed in total, buried under their home. None of them were militants. The youngest was two years old the oldest his father was 75 ahmed who is now currently living in the uk is alone without his entire family this part particularly gutted me but uh ahmed's family whatsapp group the group text thread that he had with his family. It was titled Better

Together. The last message that appears in this group was sent by him a little after midnight on the night that he lost his family. He sent this message. Someone let me know that everything is fine. No one answered. He fell asleep and woke up in a panic at 4 a.m., drenched in sweat. And he checked his phone again. Nothing. And then he received a message from a friend with the terrible news. press, heads of Gaza hospitals have been echoing the same description. Families enter hospitals as a succession of corpses, a child followed by his father, followed by his grandfather. The bodies are all covered in dirt and blood. The report does not have data regarding the number of military operatives who were indeed killed or wounded in aerial strikes on private residences in the current genocide, but there is ample evidence that in many, many cases, if not most, vast majority of, none of the people killed were military or political operatives belonging to Hamas or Islamic Jihad. The bombing of family homes where Hamas and Islamic Jihad operatives supposedly live, it likely became a more

concerted IOF policy during Operation Protective Edge in 2014. And this is when Israel began to systematically strike family homes from the air. Human rights groups like B'Tselem collected testimonies from Palestinians who survived these attacks. The survivors said the homes collapsed in on themselves. Glass shards led to the death of entire families. And we're seeing this pattern repeat in real time right now. In 2014, 93 babies were killed as a result of Israeli bombings on family homes, of which 13 were under one year old. As of a month ago, 286 babies aged one year or under were identified as having been killed in Gaza.

And this is according to a detailed ID list with the ages of victims published by the Gaza Ministry of Health on October 26th. This number has likely doubled and tripled, if not more, at this point. if not more, at this point. So, in many cases, especially during the current attacks on Gaza, the Israeli army carries out attacks that strike private residences even when there is no known or clear military target. For example, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, by November 29th, Israel had killed 50 Palestinian journalists in Gaza, 29th, Israel had killed 50 Palestinian journalists in Gaza, some of them in their homes with their families. The murdering of these journalists, again, may I remind you, is very deliberate as far as silencing Palestine and people in Gaza from sharing the truth about what's going on. Rasti Sharaj is one of these journalists who was killed, who was 31, and a journalist in Gaza who was born in Britain, who founded a media

outlet in Gaza called Al-Media. On October 22nd, an Israeli bomb struck his parents' house where he was sleeping, killing him. There's also journalist Salam Memah, who similarly died under the ruins of her home after it was bombed. Of her three young children, Hadi, seven, died, while Sham, age three, has not been yet found under the rubble. Two other journalists, Dua Sharaf and Salma Makhimad, were killed together with their children in their homes. As of this recording, Israel has killed over 60 journalists since October 7th. That's going to be the episode for today, because that was a lot, and I hope it was helpful. This investigative report is extremely important, especially now that we're seeing these Israeli officials and officers shamelessly saying that they're trying their best to avoid civilian casualties,

when here we have proof that that is in fact a lie. So I wanted to do this episode to counteract the argument that this is about Hamas. It's not about Hamas. It really isn't. Nothing can justify this amount of murder and death of people. Point blank. of murder and death of people. Point blank. Absolutely nothing justifies a genocide. Nothing. So I hope you guys keep learning about Palestine and raising awareness about the genocide and staying active in your communities and following Palestinian journalists that are still alive and risking their lives to share information. Motaz Ezeiza is one of these journalists that are still alive and risking their lives to share information. Motaz Ezaiza is one of these journalists that is consistently posting on his stories. There's also Bisan, who is at wizard underscore Bisan1 on Instagram. She's been an incredible source and really just being so vulnerable and sharing exactly what's going on.

And I have no idea, and I hope I never do, how hard it is to not have time for grief. Palestinians do not have time to grieve their dead. They're too busy photographing them and videoing them so the world will even believe that they're going through a genocide. Something I wanted to bring up is that these journalists in Gaza, the ones that are left, they've been posting these heartbreaking last messages on social media. Bisan posted on December 2nd, I no longer have any hope of survival like I had at the beginning of this genocide,

and I am certain that I will die in the next few weeks or maybe days. My message to the world, you are not innocent of what is happening to us. You, as governments or peoples that support Israel's annihilation of my people, we will not forgive you. Humanity will not forgive you. Even if we die, the history will never forget. even if we die, the history will never forget. Motaz, also on December 2nd, said, It's about life or death now. I did what I could. We are surrounded by Israeli tanks.

Gaza Strip is getting divided into three parts. The north of Gaza, the middle area, and Deir el-Balak, and Khan Yunus, and Rafah. The movement is becoming nearly impossible. And of course, there is no safe place, and people just don't know where to go. It is hard to keep up and watch, but it's truly the least you can do. We are so privileged in, one, me making a podcast and you listening to it. So the very least we can do is use our privilege to help those in need and be the mouthpiece that they so desperately want and are begging for and not letting their stories be

buried under the rubble with them just because Israel is trying to cover it up. So with that, I'll see you next time. where I run with celebrities, athletes, entrepreneurs, and more. After those runs, the conversations keep going. That's what my podcast, Post Run High, is all about. It's a chance to sit down with my guests and dive even deeper into their stories, their journeys, and the thoughts that arise once we've hit the pavement together. You know that rush of endorphins you feel after a great workout? Well, that's when the real magic happens. hit the pavement together. You know that rush of endorphins you feel after a great workout? Well, that's when the real magic happens.

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Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora. An anthology of modern-day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors

that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Jack Peace Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black Lit, the podcast for diving deep into the rich world of Black literature. I'm Jack Peace Thomas, and I'm inviting you to join me and a vibrant community of literary enthusiasts dedicated to protecting and celebrating our stories. Black Lit is for the page turners, for those who listen to audio books while commuting or running errands, for those who find themselves seeking solace, wisdom, and refuge between the chapters. From thought-provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Together, we'll dissect classics and contemporary works while uncovering the stories of the brilliant writers behind them. Blacklit is here to amplify the voices of Black writers and to bring their words to life.

Listen to Blacklit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, this is Shereen and I'm joined by James. There's no preamble here. We're just going to introduce ourselves. Yeah, yeah. We're not going to introduce ourselves. Yeah, yeah. We're not fucking around here. Serious business. I actually, like, every time I start recording,

I genuinely don't know how to start a podcast. I don't know any, like, any time this happens, I feel like I am doing it for the first time. Yeah, me too. We could just do a thing like Robert, where we just kind of make a body noise. Exactly. Maybe next time.

I'll have to practice that in the mirror a few times. But thank you for joining me today. Essentially today we're going to talk about the rise in Islamophobia and how the demonization and dehumanization of Muslims and Arabs leads people to be scared of something like a scarf. The kafiya is the black and white checkered scarf you might have seen that's worn by Palestinians and their supporters. And it's really symbolic and important to Palestinians. And especially after those three students in Vermont were targeted because of the keffiyeh, I thought it was worth discussing what

it is. If you hear noise in the background, that is my cat, and I apologize. That's just texture for pod. Texture for pod. Yeah, that's what we give you here. Yes. But yeah, we're going to talk about keffiyeh, where it comes from, what it means, why people do it, the time that United Airlines andachel ray joined the forces of international jihad it's going to be be an interesting podcast yeah i didn't know about that part so i'm excited for

you to tell me about it yeah i'm excited to talk about united airlines they're great long-time supporters of the palestinian cause so first before we start to talk about the kafir i want to talk about this uptick in anti-Muslim, anti-Arab, anti-Palestinian hate, because we've been seeing a lot of supporters of Palestine lose their jobs, an agent in CAA, a lawyer in England, numerous journalists and news anchors. we take seriously enough because liking or sharing a social media post denouncing genocide should only be seen as that, just a post denouncing genocide. I think the meanings that people push onto these things is really dangerous and discussions and meetings on the issue have been barred. People who express any kind of sympathy for Palestine, even in old social media posts, have been dismissed from their job. We're seeing counter campaigns by pro-Israel groups in the U.S. trying to globally shut down the voices of pro-Palestinian activists and to criminalize elements of Palestinian identity

itself. For example, like displaying the Palestinian flag or wearing the keffiyeh headdress slash scarf. And this week, I think it's worth mentioning that the House passed Resolution 894, which equates criticizing Israel with being anti-Semitic. 95 Democrats helped the House GOP pass this extremely disingenuous and dangerous resolution. And in their words, it's against anti-Semitism, but it is extremely dangerous for the Jewish community in and of itself because condemning any criticism of the Israeli state should only be taken for that. That's the thing that I understand. People project onto things. Yeah, anti-Semitism. I wanted to, like, when I was studying at UCSD, one of the professors who I was very fond of, who was very informative on my academic opinions and the way i teach especially with someone called deborah hertz who's head of the jewish studies department at ucsd she is one

of dozens if not maybe maybe hundreds of academics who signed something called the jerusalem declaration which like i believe most of them are involved in jewish studies or holocaust studies israel palestine middle east studies things like that right and like i think it's useful to have some clarity around these topics because like right now there are people who gave zero fucks about anti-semitism when there were literal mobs carrying torches through the streets screaming about jewish people right when when uh some of the people listening to this podcast and people on this podcast made every effort to call that what it was when large numbers of people in congress didn't give a fuck weren't ready to call like literal genocidal fascism genocidal fascism in case it got some votes or money now now they're ready to now they're ready to to go hard as fuck against uh palestinian people uh which it does

seem like there's a whole lot of people in congress who weren't given a cudgel to beat muslim people won't think about it for more than five seconds um but i do i just want to read this part from the jerusalem declaration it's jerusalem declaration.org you can find it yourself criticizing or opposing zionism as a form of nationalism or arguing for a variety of constitutional arrangements for jewish or palestinian people in the area between the jordan river and the mediterranean that's listed under things which are not on the face of anti-semitic right it goes on it is not anti-semitic to support arrangements that accord full equality to all inhabitants between the river and the sea whether in two states a binational state a unitary democratic state a federal state or in whatever

form i think that's pretty clear right like obviously there are a variety of options there all of which are neither genocidal nor in the face of an anti-semitic it's just like this is just a canard but like i saw scott peters who is the congressperson for poway uh scott peters i think it's pretty uncontroversial to say it's a giant piece of shit scott pet Peters is the reason why my insulin still costs lots of money. Fuck Scott Peters. But he was, in this case, accusing UCSD students of being anti-Semitic for passing a BDS resolution. Another thing, the Jerusalem Declaration, which again was signed by Deborah Hurt, the head of Jewish studies at UCSD, specifically calls out as not being on the face of anti-Semitic, right?

Like these people aren't, in some cases, listening to what Jewish studies scholars are saying. And I think like we need to be careful when, obviously, like all of us will call it anti-Semitism, right? I've been personally at the forefront of calling it anti-Semitism in the law enforcement apparatus in san diego when our da used anti-semitic tropes in her 2018 campaign that seems to have been memory hold but because this this i think is often simply being weaponized as another way to

suppress protest movements and specifically to justify islamophobia which we should all stand against like regardless of where we stand on two states one state whatever like i think if if we can see people using something because the cudgel against a group of people who like have been victimized by this state for a very long time and they're continuing to do it like this shit got us 20 years of war fucking tens of thousands of lives right ruined or lost and we're going right back to it and like if you can't see why that's a problem i don't know if i have much more to say to you like yeah it's not great yeah i think that's a big reason why i wanted to bring up the resolution because when you have pundits and politicians pointing at a pro-Palestinian protest and being like, this is pro-Hamas, and when the resolution

specifically calls out the from the river to the sea chant, which in theory should be protected by the First Amendment, but that's not real. That's what really troubles me because it's vilifying the entire idea of supporting Palestine, and that includes any kind of display of supporting Palestine. danger to the Jewish people. And it also completely erases the identity of anti-Zionist Jewish people, which makes up a big part of the Jewish community, in my opinion, even though they want to make it seem like they're the minority. But the majority of Zionists in this country are actually not even Jewish. So Zionism isn't equated to Jewishness in the slightest. I don't think we need to cede to Congress a group of people who, like I said, who have been justifying war in the slightest. I don't think we need to cede to Congress a group of people who, like I said, who have been justifying war in the Middle East for 20

years when it comes to defining what bigotry is. A group of people who are ruling over a country that's built on stolen land by stolen people. We don't have to listen to them. They don't get to tell us what it is and it's not these things. And you fucking do not get to talk about anti-semitism when you said

shit about charlottesville right like when it's clearly two-faced it's bullshit and it's just a cudgel with which to beat a protest movement that they see as woke or leftist or comprised of muslims who they think are less than and like it's obviously despicable that people who did say shit about charlottesville will make common cause with these people who are very clearly doing this in bad faith yeah like it's we can oppose anti-semitism we should and we can oppose islamophobia and we should but opposing them goes hand in hand in my opinion because we are essentially the same people like i I don't see a big separation. Obviously the hate is different, but I think fighting both Islamophobia

and antisemitism, it goes hand in hand. Yeah, with that, we should mention also that like consistently missing in American discourse are Sikh people. There's something I want to get into in a little bit. I want to get into how there's a huge rise in Islamophobic attacks. And specifically there was a Sikh person who was attacked because he was presumed to be muslim because um the anti-arab dehumanizing

language that we hear in the media it emboldens like hateful terrorists to commit hate crimes against arab muslim people or people who are just perceived to be Arab and Muslim. And I remember the tweet that Biden tweeted a couple of weeks ago when he was trying to cover his ass and be like, we hate Islamophobia too. But he said, people perceived to be Muslim and wrongfully, no, wrongfully perceived to be Muslim was the wording, as if it was like a bad thing to be perceived Muslim. So do you remember that tweet at all yeah i don't know i try not to look at president biden's tweets because it's really a source of joy in my life but that's fair that's fair like look the the dude sitting here what little children and pregnant

ladies and old folks are sleeping out in the dirt in the border for the third night in a row like i give a fuck about what he thinks again right that guy doesn't get to legislate morality for me because he has none and and word i simply don't give a fuck what he says word i like that approach i like that approach uh but um muslims and arabs did pay attention to that word wrongfully and it just kind of reinforced the sentiment in the country when it comes to arab and muslim people or those perceived to be Arab and Muslim. And the Council on American Islamic Relations said it received 774 requests for help and reports of bias incidents from Muslims in the U.S. between the 16 days of October 7th to October 24th, which is a 182% jump from any given 16-day stretch last year. Because on average in

2022, that number was 274 complaints. And Corey Saylor, the research and advocacy director said, we're working seven days a week around the clock fielding incoming complaints. I have only ever seen that twice in my career right after 9-11 and in december 2015 after that announcement by trump of his plan to ban muslims from the country oh yeah yeah that was a good time in uh history yeah but the attacks on sick people are like a classic post 9-11 absolute like islamophobic mania on the right and like uh it's something that like i'm consistently afraid of now right when i'm at the border when there are muslim people there every day uh and there are sikh people there every day and there are also jewish

people there right literally someone yesterday we were trying to get some candles for a hanukkah menorah right but it doesn't matter people who are hateful have access to hurt those people and that's something I've become extremely concerned with recently like and yeah with half of congress or more whipping up this kind of hysteria right which obviously like you know like George W Bush benefited very greatly from although if you look at the stuff george w bush says and this is not like yes george w bush like like he he's outflanked a large number of the democrat party and his to the left in his acceptance like islam is a fabric of america speech uh like it's wild how how far we've come in a bad direction and yeah but shen, do you know what else is leading our listeners in a bad direction? Please. Tell me more.

Yeah, it's this advert for Ronald Reagan memorabilia. Hopefully we get a Kissinger one soon. Inshallah, we'll get a Henry Kissinger gold coin advert in this episode. We're back. I think it's worth mentioning some incidents that have happened when it comes to harassment and physical violence against Muslims and Arabs. On October 15th, you probably heard that a six-year-old was stabbed to death with Dia El Fuemi. He was stabbed 26 times, and his mother was also attacked and was in critical condition. He was killed by his landlord, who was spouting anti-Muslim rhetoric. There's also a man in Illinois who was charged with a hate crime after he demanded two Muslim men to get out of

the country and threatened to shoot them. And as we said, actual Muslims aren't the only ones at risk from Islamophobia. Anyone perceived to be Muslim, including Arabs who belong to other faith groups and Sikhs, for example, are a target. On October 15th, a 19-year-old Sikh teen was attacked on a New York City bus by an assailant who tried to remove his turban. And I think we should all remember that for Palestinians and more generally Arabs and brown people, this isn't a new thing. We've always been demonized and using dehumanizing language has deadly consequences, often not only for Palestinians here, but those in Gaza and any person of color around the world. I want to also point out that hijabi women are easily identifiable as Muslim, and they're particularly easy targets for people that are terrorists and filled with hate. A Muslim pediatrician, a hijabi woman, was killed after being stabbed multiple times while sitting outside her apartment complex last month.

Yeah, and to tell the community that's just been bereaved to not, you know, like be afraid. Yeah. Again, it's a great time to say nothing, if that's your opinion. Yeah, I think it's, we're not really considering how afraid the community is. I don't want to minimize the like jewish people feel afraid to like there are real incidents of anti-semitism uh like there are definitely right-wing shitbags who are anti-semitic who are trying to hijack hijack the palestinian liberation movement for their own ends and they suck and they're terrible

and we should all denounce that the same force do islamophobia like that's not a controversial statement i think for anyone who's not a complete turd yeah 100 both communities are rightfully fearful and that fear is valid for both communities the last thing i want to say about this rise in islamophobia is that ex-Obama advisor Stuart Seldoitz, who was harassing and saying the most heinous things to this Halal cart vendor in New York. He was at one point the U.S. State Department's director of the Office of Israel and Palestinian Affairs, which I think should tell you all you need to know about how our country feels about Palestine because he was saying truly abhorrent things like not enough children have died yet.

To be fair, that guy represents the shitbag. No, I'm not, again, this is not a pro-State Department statement. But there are definitely people within the State Department who are upset. People have left the State Department because of the way that... And obviously those people have felt that their voices are being marginalized because they've chosen to leave right they haven't been listened to but i guess i wanted to bring that up because someone with that much hate was

in charge of some decisions that affected palestine and he has so when you watch these videos that are taken on multiple days which indicates that he was stalking this person you see this man smiling in like almost hannibal lectury and he's filled with so much hate it is like spewing out of him yeah it's genuinely disturbing yeah it's disturbing yeah it's disturbing like i kept saying that for weeks and no one punched him in the face but that's yeah um a better world yeah one day but essentially i wanted to just go over that really quickly about how the rise in islamophobia and anti-palestinian anti-arab sentiment makes it even more important to continue to stand up for palestine and their people and their fight for liberation and wearing the keffiyeh itself has been a symbol of this struggle for palestinian

liberation and so we wanted to tell you guys about its history james is wearing one right now good job yeah because he's cold um visual visual prop for a podcast yeah i love to do it it's a little it's a little secret between us yeah yeah well not anymore sorry not anymore no thanks shireen but what is the kafir just go over the basics it's a cotton square shaped headdress with a distinctive checkered pattern that is worn in many parts of the arab world the black and white one is known to be worn in palestine and i didn't know this to be completely honest but apparently it dates back to Sumerians and Babylonians in Mesopotamia in 3100 BC. It's been called other words as well. I think the most common one other than keffiyeh is the hatah. It's also said that the Prophet Muhammad wore one as well. So it has

a long history and it was used as the symbol of high rank and honor among priests. When you move forward in history, the keffiyeh was adopted by peasants who wore it while they were working on the land to protect them from the sun and the sand. That seems obvious. And it was in the winter to protect them from the cold. A very multifunctional piece of clothing. Yeah.

You see, like, everyone in this region has some kind of thing. Like, Kurdish people have their own different versions, right? Everyone behind me, the Kurdish refugee gave to me the other day which was very kind but like even when you saw like United States uh troops fighting in the Middle East right they adopted like their like tactical version that was like a green base but like it's a very practical garment that you know people in this part of the world have worn for like even before Islam like people wore these things so like cover their faces and just because it makes sense practically like it's just yeah for the climate they're very handy yeah yeah and this is not very commonly known but the

patterns on the kafir is known to symbolize different aspects of palestinian life so there are some bold black stripes on the edges that are meant to symbolize the historical trade routes that strength, and resilience. So it's an extremely symbolic, important symbol for Palestine. It hasn't always been, and that's what we're going to be going through. Because at this point, Palestinians view it as a symbol of their cultural and national identity. And unfortunately, others view it as a threat, because as I mentioned, those students that got shot in Vermont, two of them were wearing a keffffiyeh. It said that they were speaking in Arabic. And one of these students is now paralyzed from the chest down. So it really is important to deconstruct what the scarf is and why on earth it would spark that kind of fear in anybody, because it's not about fear or hate. It's about

Palestinian pride and culture and history. As long as Palestinians are oppressed, then even something as simple as a traditional scarf can turn into something bigger than just cultural pride, because now it's a political statement. And I want everyone to realize that it's not something to be feared or something to get nervous around if you see it out in the open. So let's go back in history. Are you ready to go back in history, James? I am, yeah. Can we do a sound machine, Daniel? Like a try and travel sound? Do you guys ever play Mario's Time Machine? I was obsessed with that game. It's

PC. Maybe we can find that sound. So the keffiyeh evolved out of the common headdress, as we're saying, that men in the Middle East wore to protect themselves from the elements. It was specifically worn by nomadic and Bedouin communities from villagers to city people and townspeople. Fiyyeh was often associated with peasants. The tarbush, or the red felt hat that is like a cylinder shape that you might see people wear, that was often worn by more urban, middle, and upper-class Palestinians. I wanted to point out here that the word, like, peasants is a little bit extreme because the word in Arabic is falaheen. And falaheen, I guess, is more villager type. But it's not really used in a very condescending way because a lot of things are

considered falahi like the one of my favorite dishes in the middle east is mjadda which is just lentils and rice and that's considered a falahi dish so i just wanted to put that out there that it's not like a dis per se in arabic to say to call them peasants it is like an indication that they are of lower class because jadada is cheap to make for example but it's not exactly this like surf word does that make sense yeah yeah like humble not like yeah yeah like a surf yes exactly so in 1936 though things started to change in the arab revolt when there was an uprising against British rule and occupation of Palestine, and this included demands for independence and an end to Jewish immigration,

the armed Palestinian rebel groups were largely made up of poorer men. So in this way, whether it was intentional or not in the beginning, the keffiyeh basically was their uniform because these rebel groups were made up of poorer men and that was what they wore. And that made it easier for the British to target them when they were in urban areas. So as the fighting escalated, rebel leaders urged Palestinian men, all Palestinian men, to ditch the Tarbush and don the Kafiyah instead. And so when Palestinians did this, it allowed fighters to blend in and evade British troops. At that time, the majority of the armed resistance was taking place in the villages, and the fighters used the keffiyeh to hide their features, helping it to become associated with the revolution. So it was not only a strategic

success to do this on the rebels' part, but it was a breakthrough for the lower class as well, who basically forced their clothing onto the elites and this catapulted the keffiyeh as something that crossed classes and became a prominent national symbol this is like perfectly timed as well to coincide with like the rise of nations to nationalism in the early 19th and like a late 19th early 20th century right like yeah when religion and like a late 19th, early 20th century, right? Like when religion and like religion stops having this universal claim on truth and we see the decline in monarchy at the same time and the rise in more like at first like middle-class democracies, right? We call them sometimes bourgeois revolutions.

Like the nation came to be the way one could argue that the working class were kind of tricked into supporting this bourgeois project or however you want to see it but uh yeah nations arose all around the world in this time and they all took on symbols so i think this was perfectly timed to to sort of slide into that position totally that's a really good point so as the revolt came to an end some elites palestinian elites discarded the kafir and they turned back to the tarbush. But at that point, it was already too late because the keffiyeh had already been established as this emblem for Palestinian resistance, and this made Palestinian men

also just start wearing it for an expression of their national identity. In the 1960s, we saw it become even more unifying because women started to get included into the picture. Leila Khalid is a Palestinian activist and a former militant who, fun fact, was the first woman to ever hijack a plane. Yes. Feminism. After she took part in hijacking a plane flying from Rome to Tel Aviv in 1969, just a disclaimer that no one was injured in this hijacking. That wasn't the point of it. But a journalist captured a photo of Khalid

holding her rifle while styling a keffiyeh like a woman's headscarf. And this image became so popular, it helped cement Leila Khalid's status as an icon in the Palestinian resistance movement. I think Leila Khalid deserves an episode all on her own because she's an extremely fascinating woman and she's still alive, so maybe one day. But her choice to wear the keffiyeh was viewed as a feminist move on her part, and it ushered in this idea that

Palestinian women were part of the Palestinian rebellion and a part of activism, part of the resistance. And because they had largely been excluded in some way or regulated to other roles in the resistance. And so by making the statement and putting the keffiyeh over her head, she was also acknowledging cultural norms of Palestinians and using a men's scarf to do it. But at the time, I think it was really revolutionary. And first, when you see the keffiyeh break classes, now you see it break genders, and now it's becoming even more acceptable for more people to wear it. And so she continued to wear the keffiyeh often around her neck, and it inspired many Palestinian women to

do the same. But at the same time, that hijacking she took part in drew international attention, and many people in the West started associating Palestinian resistance with terrorism. And unfortunately, this meant the keffiyeh would also come to mean something else in the Western world. Yasser Arafat almost did not go anywhere without a keffiyeh. He was the chairman of the PLO from 1969 to 2004, and he helped popularize the image of wearing a keffiyeh around the world by, again, almost always wearing one in public. And many non-Palestinian activists at this time, especially those who participated in anti-colonial, anti-war, and other social justice protests, they began to recognize the scarf as a symbol of resistance and wear it to express their solidarity with Palestinians. But at this point, Israel had labeled Arafat a terrorist,

and the United States designated the PLO as a terrorist organization. And so again, while some people identified the scarf with the Palestinian struggle, others viewed it as controversial and even a violent symbol. Many other global leaders around the world started wearing the keffiyeh as well. Even Nelson Mandela at one point was photographed wearing one. I think something especially humorous in modern times is how the keffiyeh has entered the fashion world and its meaning is kind of completely erased when this happens. Some clothing brands took the scarf's widespread appeal and co-opted it, and it sanitized its meaning and it erased its relationship with

the Palestinian cause. I think it's important to bring up here that Palestinians and supporters of Palestine encourage everyone to wear the scarf. It's not appropriating it when you wear it in solidarity. It's appropriating it if you co-opt it and make it into something it's not like a skirt or i saw a version of one that had like intricate stars of david in there to like be worn by israelis i think that's appropriation but when it comes to solidarity and being in protests and showing that you care about the palestinian cause it's encouraged to wear it and so i feel like a lot of people are afraid of cultural appropriation, but it's not, when it comes to the kafir, it's not about that.

It's about solidarity more so than the act of wearing something that is from Palestine. Yeah, it's not the same as wearing a plain Indian headdress, for example, or these things which are very appropriative and you should listen to the people whose things you're wearing before you wear them as a rule or yeah before you make them into your miniskirt line yeah and when capitalism enters the picture that's when we cross into appropriation territory usually, and the symbolic meaning goes away. In 2016, for example, an Israeli fashion designer, Dodo Bar-O, used the keffiyeh to create a range of dresses and mini skirts, and she received a lot of backlash for this.

I think Israel doing this is especially ironic only because what haven't they stolen is my question the land the the food and now the clothing i think it's pretty um sad yeah that's right up there with like the washington football team having the racist ass name or like yes exactly it's it's a very appropriate and almost genocidal right to like suggest that like these people have a long history here kind of like that's actually your history and to like suggest that like these people have a long history here kind of like that's actually your history and to like take it and exactly history is like it's like really uh insidious it's like it's like a cruel to co-opt a struggle that people are just like trying to their people have been trying to survive for so long and to make it into something

silly to make it into something that it's not is really hurtful and really pathetic yeah it's not respectful it's not like it doesn't show a good faith effort to come to a solution in which both peoples are respected right exactly the last example i'm going to make as far as fashion quote unquote goes is that in 2007 urban outfitters sold a keffiyeh that came in many different colors but they simply promoted it as a anti-war scarf. And unsurprisingly, controversy ensued, and they eventually pulled the item from its shelves. But I do remember this really brief moment in time

where this happened, and it was so bizarre, I just had to mention it. But let's take our second break. Yeah, and then we'll come back with a story about that scarf. This hopefully is an advert for United Airlines, famous keffiyeh in Julius. All right, we're back. And we are back to discuss a famous supporter

of the Palestinian cause, Rachel Ray. Because for those of you who are blessed to be thus far unaware of this, in 2008, Rachel Ray wore a keffiyeh. She actually wore the Urban Outfitters model, which is like a silk scarf. It's a little different. Keffiyehs are normally like a thick kind of cotton. She wore it in a Dunkin' Donuts advert.

And Michelle Malkin, who's one in a long line of crazy right-wing people, accused her of wearing it, quote, wearing the symbol of murderous Palestinian jihad, which is a real insight into where we were there at the end of the bush presidency as a nation uh absolutely batshit insane uh that was when i moved to america good times actually that was when i moved to america wearing a keffiyeh on the plane because it was my idea it's my thing that i wore it's a gift from someone who i'm very close with uh and we used to wear them all the

time at protests that was a time when is Islamophobia was very present in the UK. And so it was kind of a way, I guess, to show solidarity or invite confrontation, depending on if it was me or not. I think I was probably in column B as well as column A. But it was just the thing that I wore. And it was at that point the movement for a free Palestine was, I think, much more established in the UK than it was in the US. And among obviously, like, like white folks such as myself, I immediately got sent to like a secondary inspection when I arrived in the United States.

I got off the plane, I had my little badge with a Palestinian flag, I have my little keffiyeh, and the guy was just like, go in the room. the room and then yeah we had a great talk about the stuff i had from cuba um which at the time was obviously not a place that americans were able to go i think they still can't uh so yeah it was great it's good it was a wonderful start they asked me what i was doing for my phd i told them i was studying anarchism that went down like a sack of shit from there it began a long and uh enjoyable relationship with our friends who keep us safe at our borders wow still everyone has an origin story i suppose before that i was just a lib not true uh yeah any uh interesting saturday nights no thank you for sharing that i didn't know about the Rachel Ray thing

until you told me about it because, I mean, way to go Dunkin' Donuts, I guess. It's like... Yeah, unfortunately, they pulled the advert. Still. It's a shame.

In theory. Yeah, still. Yeah, yeah. Dunkin' Donuts stands with Palestine. Yes. It's okay to put a donut on your keffiyeh because donuts are a friend of the Palestinian people.

That's the takeaway. Correct. We had donuts. I was covering a protest the other day outside a drone manufacturing facility. Someone bought donuts. Oh, nice. Donuts continue to stand alongside the Palestinian people.

Wow. Powerful. Yeah. I wanted to mention really quick how, I mean, in addition to capitalism just like being a disease, a lot of keffiyehs nowadays are being sold like in mass because the Palestinian cause is getting more popular. But there's only one factory left in Palestine that actually makes them. More than five decades ago, there were about 30 across Palestine.

And now there is one in Hebron hirbawi it's the only coffee manufacturer left and um it's been seeing a huge uptick that is in their words unparalleled ever before in their sales apparently they sold 18 000 of them in october and now they're in high demand all the like it's sold out everywhere and this is the authentic coffee it's the one i have yeah you you you have one from putter wowie which is great it's very nice actually yeah don't don't be buying like an avi express one because they're thinner and like it's when it's very nice you can tell when it's authentic because it's good quality has a weight to it and just aside from that supporting palestinian companies is important and they're not the only ones that sell Palestinian keffiyehs.

They have some websites that they share on their website that you can get their keffiyehs through. But I think it's important to realize that there's only one place left in all of Palestine that still makes the keffiyeh. Yeah, it's a good gift in the holiday season. Yeah, go add yourself to their email list. And they notify you when it's available for pre-order. So I think supporting that factory is really important, especially now. And it's heartbreaking that it's the last one. Makes a great sling, too.

One time I broke my arm and used this guy to tie it off. It works like a champ nice so it's got got my endorsement yeah multiple functions still to this day yep now you can do all kinds of things the blankets the sling can filter water through it because it's like a cotton fabric you have some turbid water so yeah many uses exactly are you familiar with dick hebdigger no no no okay hebdigger is like academic can write about punk but in his work on punk he talked about how subcultures become commodified and then they just become aesthetics so like and that's like the point in which that happens to

punk is when you can buy a like a battle jacket or like a jacket with safety pins all down the arms a gap right like it's no longer punk longer punk if you got it from fucking gap. The whole point of punk is to do it yourself. And I think this is in danger of happening again, as it kind of did in the early 2000s, and it just becomes an aesthetic. I don't want it to undermine the Palestinian narrative for liberation. You know what I mean?

That's the thing that I hope does not happen. I don't think it is right now. I think so far people are wearing it in solidarity. And I personally really like when I see someone wearing it because I want it to be normalized. I don't want it to be something that people look at and are afraid of or are afraid of wearing because after the shooting that happened in Vermont,

a lot of people were afraid of even wearing a keffiyeh. Of course. Yeah. I think it's the solidarity thing you can do right like uh you know you can wear this you're not only showing your solidarity maybe you can invite conversations you know yeah exactly you can educate folks and like uh also yeah if people are being targeted like you can choose to stand with them or not right and by doing that you know hopefully they can't shoot all of us.

Uh, one would hope to know America. They fucking, but they've been trying. So yeah, it, you can do it in a sense of solidarity and, uh,

you know, maybe, maybe you can spark some conversations, which can be beneficial. You can educate some people. Yeah. If they call you, if they call it the scarf of Islamic murderous jihad or whatever that

Michelle Malkin called it, then probably not a conversation that will end well. Then you can just throw a donut at that person. Yeah. It's up to us to take actions that change how people perceive things in the world. And that's just a great example of one thing. But I guess we've talked about in this episode how the Kofi is part of the Palestinian past, present, and future. It's a historical artifact that documents the history of a people, and it's a living symbol that inspires hope. And it's interesting that a piece of cloth can have such strong emotions tied to it.

But it's really inspiring that it's a prevailing symbol of freedom. And yeah, I love it. I feel pride wearing it. The kafir has become a way for Palestinians to visualize their land, visualize their home, and visualize Palestine as an entity that can exist in themselves as well as outside on their clothed bodies. So that's the episode. Free Palestine. Bye. Hey, we'll be back Monday with more episodes every week from now until the heat death of the universe.

It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio 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. Hey guys, I'm Kate Max.

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