It Could Happen Here - It Could Happen Here Weekly 122

Episode Date: March 16, 2024

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Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into tech's elite and how they've turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech brought to you by an industry veteran with nothing to lose. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts from. Curious about queer sexuality, cruising, and expanding your horizons? Hit play on the sex-positive and deeply entertaining podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Join hosts Gabe Gonzalez and Chris Patterson Rosso

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now on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday. Welcome to Gracias Come Again, a podcast by Honey German, where we get real and dive straight into todo lo actual y viral. We're talking music, los premios, el chisme, and all things trending in my cultura. I'm bringing you all the latest happening in our entertainment world and

some fun and impactful interviews with your favorite Latin artists, comedians, actors, and influencers. Each week, we get deep and raw life stories, combos on the issues that matter to us, and it's all packed with gems, fun, straight up comedia, and that's a song that only nuestra gente can sprinkle. Listen to Gracias Come Again on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, everybody. Robert Evans here, and I wanted to let you know this is a compilation episode, Call zone media. There's going to be nothing new here for you, but you can make your own decisions. Welcome to It Could Happen Here, the podcast that tells you what's going to happen before it's happening. I'm Garrison Davis.

Joined with me is Mia Wong. Blue. So today we're going to be talking about predictive programming, something that I assume some conspiracy theorist has accused this show of doing, specifically Robert. But we're not going to talk about us too much. Instead, we're going to talk about the origin of this conspiracy theory and some famous use cases throughout history of how you might have been affected by predictive programming, the listener. So let's start by defining our terms here. Predictive programming is a conspiracy theory that future events are seeded within fictional

media like film, TV, video games, and books to subliminally influence the public perception of real world events. But this isn't simply about movies like just predicting the future. It's an intentional method of large-scale social conditioning used by a conspiracy of deep state government agents and the entertainment industry this term was coined by a conspiracy theorist named alan watt different from the uh like pop zen writer alan watts different guy there's a one letter difference i'm sure i'm sure they share some amount of audience crossover, but they are different people.

He kind of coined this concept around the early 2000s, from what I can tell. He's a Scottish-Canadian conspiracy theorist. Oddly enough, he's kind of one of the least problematic conspiracy theorists that I've run into. He's openly pushed back on anti-Semitism from David Icke and Alexid ike and alex jones like he just seems to kind of be a silly guy uh he died a few years ago for from what i can tell at least on like a cursory search he's like not the most problematic i mean obviously still a conspiracy theorist but like kind of like the token good conspiracy theorist i don don't know. But he defined predictive programming as the power of

suggestion using the media of fiction to create a desired outcome. A more expansive definition that he gave is, quote, predictive programming is a subtle form of psychological conditioning provided by the media to acquaint the public with planned societal changes to be implemented by the elites. If and when these changes are put through, the public will already be familiarized with them and will accept them as natural progressions, thus lessening any possible public resistance and commotion. Predictive programming, therefore, may be considered a veiled form of preemptive mass manipulation or mind control, courtesy of our puppet masters. So that's Alan watt that is that is his definition like i

said he kind of came up with this idea in the early 2000s and it spread like wildfire throughout his competitors and his contemporaries in the conspiratorial milieu yeah it's really recent i thought i thought it was older than that yeah no it is this is a new one it is it is a relatively new conspiracy theory like it doesn't it doesn't go all the way back to, like, some of, like, the rough ideas were kind of used by stuff, you know, going all the way back to, like, the John Birch Society, but the actual term, predictive

programming, and the modern understanding of that term are much more recent. An Ohio State University article on the topic said, quote, predictive programming at its core is a tactic to reduce resistance by introducing concepts that seem far-fetched and continuously reintroducing them to make these concepts appear more likely or at the very least acceptable. So that's more of like a outside-in definition from researchers. So let's go back to Alan Watt a little bit,

because he's kind of been largely forgotten in the conspiratorial milieu, replaced by a whole bunch of more like bombastic and, and troubling figures like Jones and Ike and many, many smaller, smaller conspiracy theorists. But I listened to what I believe to be the first kind of broadcast where he, what I believe to be the first kind of broadcast where he, where he coined this idea, as opposed to Alex Jones, Alan Watt is like a very like calm speaker. Like he's, he's,

he's actually kind of just like pleasant to listen to. Cause he's just so like, like calm methodical. He's not like bombastic. Uh, he just sounds like a regular, like chill guy. His,

his website is amazing. it looks like a 1995 website that has never been updated it it is it is fantastic i love that the website has stayed up after his death because it is just a joy to look at but alan watt describes predictive programming as a quote-unquote ancient science he thought that quote families of actors go back thousands of years they're a specialized section of society that intermarries within their own ranks unquote so like he thinks all actors come from like this one large like intergenerational family that have been that have been like in the profession of acting which like is kind of true for like the copulas but like you know it's like yes there's a massive like nepotism problem but like no yeah actors aren't like a single family that goes back

like millennia um but that is that that is one of his beliefs he calls he calls producers magicians quote they know what messages must be imprinted into the minds of the audience. They know the techniques, a perfect science, unquote. He also talks about how Shakespeare was involved in predictive programming. Quote, Shakespeare was the magician that brought the English language into being, unquote. So he means that like Shakespeare is like the person who developed like the modern, the modern English language. Like obviously English like predates Shakespeare,

but like he thinks that through Shakespeare's writing, he was able to like popularize the modern form of English, which just isn't true, but it's a, it's a, it's a funny thing to believe. And he thinks all these people are like literal magicians, like,

like wizards, like, you know, like, like wands, pointy hats, like they're, they're all like doing actual like magic.ians, like wizards, like wands, pointy hats. They're all like doing actual magic. This seems like such a roundabout way of doing this.

Like you can just do magic. So true. So true, Mia. So Alan Watt talks about that in the late 60s, there was a big weeks-long international meeting to decide that Hollywood would be the place to create the culture of the future. He then discusses how Hollywood controls people through war movies and how the DOD helps Hollywood with equipment for war movies, but they have to approve all the messaging, which that has a little grain of truth in there.

Yes, to use military equipment, you do need to get like approval from people in the government. And yeah, there is a form of Hollywood that is like, just war propaganda. Like that is, there is, there's, there's a kernel of truth here, but not exactly in the way Alan Watt talks about it. Do you know what else has a kernel of truth? All of these ads, there's one single kernel in all of these ads that is revealing a divine truth of existence. So watch out and listen for this one kernel of truth. okay we are back to talk about alan watt and his predictive programming idea which has spread through the conspiratorial milieu like wildfire so probably the funniest thing he gets to on this whole hollywood as magicians rant is quote if you look at the word hollywood

it means holy wood which of course is the staff of the magi the grand magus of the occult he waves a wand and everything is changed he casts a spell so incredible so he thinks that hollywood literally refers to like a magic wand like a holy a holy wood um he then he then also talks about hollywood as like as like a grove like like hollywood like the place is is is a grove quote similar to jewish holy groves in folklore. Moses's staff was placed in a grove, and that was a special place for higher magi to meet, unquote. And I don't think he means this antisemitically. It just kind of sounds antisemitic. But he talks about...

Anyway. You can't even blame the US on this one. This guy's Canadian. Scottish-Canadian, yeah, yeah. Literally me, literally me. I can't even blame the US on this one. This guy's Canadian. Scottish Canadian. Yeah. Yeah. Literally me. Literally me.

I'll read one more Alan quote here, which is just a banger. Hollywood is the magician's wand. Holy holly. Which has been used to cast a spell on the unsuspecting public. Things or ideas that would otherwise be seen as bizarre, vulgar, undesirable, or impossible are inserted into films in the realm of fantasy. When the viewer watches these films, his or her mind is left open to suggestion, and the conditioning process begins. These same movies, which are designed to program the average

person, can give the discerning viewer a better understanding of the workings and the plan of the world agenda, unquote. So unlike a lot of modern conspiracy theorists who like refuse to watch movies because of predictive programming, Alan Watt thinks it's actually useful to watch movies because you can get like a future like glimpse at what is going to happen in the world, which is like a neat little difference

compared to some of his modern contemporaries. Yeah, you can watch Batman and realize that Occupy Wall Street's happening. Yes, one year ago. Yeah, totally. Predictive programming in the past. In the past. Yeah, yeah. Preemptive. So let's talk about some examples of predictive programming. Now, one thing that people often point to when discussing this is the television show The Simpsons. Now, a writer and producer of The Simpsons from back in the 90s, Bill Oakley, gave a statement to Reuters a few years ago about the concept of The Simpsons being able to predict real-world events. Quote, I would say in general when people say The Simpsons has predicted something, it's that we were really just satirizing real life events from years before. And because history keeps repeating itself, it just seems like we're predicting things, unquote. Which I think is actually a really great observation. The show actually hasn't made very many predictions.

It is often just satirizing actual events from around the time of the show's production. And lots of those events we've just now forgotten in the present, and similar events keep happening in the present, like viruses or Donald Trump running for president, just like he did in the 2000s. So it's easy to kind of see these things as predictions when in fact, we've just forgotten the events that they were originally satirizing. Now, many of the kind of viral quote unquote predictions you see online associated with The Simpsons actually just have a vastly different context within the show, and in many cases are actually just altered images,

fan art, Photoshop, or memes with mislabeled timestamps, or genuine images satirizing current events, making it appear as if The Simpsons version happened beforehand when really it was like something satirizing an event a month ago made to look like it was actually produced in like 2007 or something, right? So it's just a whole bunch of manipulated media. One instance of something that like appears to be an impressive prediction, but is actually just showing how the creators of the show pay attention to politics

is the purple suit that President Lisa wears, bearing similarity to Kamala Harris's getup on Inauguration Day. But purple was also worn by Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton during previous Inauguration Days. It's the color of the suffragette movement, and it tends to symbolize unity between red and blue states. It's a very common thing that women wear at Inauguration Day. So it's just a good guess.

So there's a lot of stuff like that. Now, probably the most famous example of the Simpsons' predictive power is probably the 9-11 poster from the New York episode. Now, there is a wealth of eerie 9-11 imagery from years before the attack, either associated with the date itself, destruction of the Twin Towers, or in the case of the Simpsons, both. Now, as for the others, 911 is just a common number in the US, so you see it pop up in a lot of stuff. And the Twin Towers, as well as the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State, and the Chrysler Building, are all often used in like post-apocalyptic or like societal collapse, destructive artwork. Of course, there was the bombing at the World Trade Center like a decade prior. And it's really easy now

just to focus on instances of art depicting the Twin Towers, right? We have Michael Keaton's The Squeeze from 1987, Cookie Monster Eating the Twin Towers in 1976, The Towers Disintegrating in the 1993 Mario movie, the infamous illuminati card game the coup's party music album cover and my personal favorite instance the pilot episode of the x files spinoff show the lone gunman in which members of the u.s government deep state remotely hijack a commercial airliner to crash it into the world trade Center to blame it on terrorists and start a new war in the Middle East. This episode aired six months before 9-11. It is the funniest thing.

It's wild. It's like specifically being like an X-Files spinoff. It's just, it's just gold. Hilarious stuff. And obviously for another predictive programming type thing in the wake of COVID-19, many have pointed out that movies like Contagion or even Zombie Media are instances of predictive programming to get the public to accept a massive global pandemic.

When in most cases, it's actually just like scientists being like, hey, a pandemic could probably be a big problem. And then screenwriters being like, oh, let's write a movie about a pandemic. Right? Very, very easy. Do you know what else contains very important subliminal messaging, Mia? Cars too? Well, the products and services that support this podcast. Listen to these to get a glimpse into the future. all right we are back and we are joined by robert evans to give his thoughts on the predictive power of the simpsons hello robert hey you know garrison once upon a time i watched a simpsons episode

where homer decides not to go to church and instead to stay asleep on Sunday all day. And that really kind of predicted me sleeping in this morning after getting in on a late night flight last night and missing the start of this recording. So the power of predictive programming simply cannot be denied. Cause there's a scene in that where Homer like closes his eyes and curls his toes and pulls his, his covers up over himself when he's avoiding church. That really predicted me at about 11 a.m. this morning. Well, that's great.

Do you know who else is good at predictive programming? Batman. Okay, so we've already talked a little bit about some of the predictive programming conspiracies based on the Dark Knight Rises in the first segment of our Occupy Gotham City episode. You know, how the Aurora Colorado shooter was a modern MKUltra victim programmed to distract from the software leaks that'll expose the corrupt elites

because his father worked on predictive algorithms for the financial sector, just like the plot of The Dark Knight Rises. Not the plot of The Dark Knight Rises. Not at all. But let's not forget that the movie also conditioned us to accept a major attack on a big sporting event, something which has also

not really happened. So I'll actually be seeing Clyde Lewis again next week, so I will try to get his thoughts on his Dark Knight Rises failed predictions. We'll see how that goes for me. But those are not the only conspiracy theories around this movie.

For the next one, we will turn to the king of the lizard people, David Icke. Ah, there we go. He claims that when the GCPD are trying to track down the location of Bane's nuclear reactor, there's a shot of a map on which there's a location marked as sandy hook and you'll never guess what happened five months after the dark night russus came out oh my god yeah yeah so yes um now i've i've looked into this a decent bit because, yes, there is a location on the map of Gotham City marked Sandy Hook. Now, this is probably named after Sandy Hook, New Jersey. Yeah. Just south of New York City.

As on the Batman map, it is an island that is just south of Gotham City. In the comics, it's called Tri-Corner Island. The specific map of Gotham they use is from the 1990s, and it's called Tri-Corner Island for like this specific map of Gotham they use is from like the 1990s and it's called Tri-Corner Island. I think they renamed it to Sandy Hook in the Dark Knight Rises. So a similar map in the movie was used for marketing materials that

labeled Sandy Hook as a neighborhood in Gotham and this map also contained a neighborhood called the Narrows a common Gotham borough in Batman lore. In the wake of the Sandy Hook shooting, this led schools in Narrows, Virginia to delay the return of students for winter break to install additional security precautions.

And this was all based on a conspiracy article titled, Is Narrows the Site of the Next School Massacre? Which of course it wasn't. Clear folks. There are Sandy hooks towns named Sandy hooks in Connecticut, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland,

Mississippi, Missouri, Virginia, Wisconsin. Like it's, it's, there's a lot of them. We've made a lot of them.

There's a lot of places that are Sandy and look like a hook. And the secondary problem with this is that we have school shootings in so many places that if you just have a map in any movie, there's like a one in 12 chance that there's going to be a shooting there now. So great, great society we've built. I do kind of wonder, is this something that we've like inoculated ourselves against by having so many school shootings? Like because you could never Sandy Hook got so much attention because like we didn't have as many shootings back then and it was so terrible. got so much attention because like we didn't have as many shootings back then and it was so terrible and like maybe now we move on to because it like you're talking about elements of this but like people obsess are still obsessed over the sandy hook shooting today in a way that like i don't think most mass shooting victims have to deal with like it becoming the center of this national mania campaign yeah and many pointed out that this

this batman conspiracy theory is kind of incongruent with other sandy hook conspiracy theories uh being like it's supposed to be a big shocking incident to get people to start to start like wanting gun control versus what why would they try to warn us about it's about it happening if it was if the point of it is to be shocking? Like, it doesn't quite make sense, as most conspiracy theories do. But David Icke said, quote, the Dark Knight Rises is classic Saturn symbolism and Satanists worship Saturn. So there you go. Now, curiously, do you know who else lives in Sandy Hook?

There you go. Now, curiously, do you know who else lives in Sandy Hook? Suzanne Collins, the author of The Hunger Games, which leads us to our next topic, The Hunger Games. I found this amazing blog called Through Ancient Eyes by this British guy named Neil, who's obsessed with the occult and is like a David Icke fanboy. This blog is glorious. So I'll start by reading the opening paragraph from this blog. Quote,

don't think for a minute that the script for the Hunger Games books is purely fiction. Here we have predictive programming at its finest. What I saw was the second part of a three-part narrative that clearly plants ideas of acceptance, sacrifice, and revolution in the minds of youth. The books are awash with symbols and archetypes that seem to be classic programming devices. And more alarmingly, the books seem to project a very viable future for not only America, but for the world. Unquote. I mean, look, he's not entirely wrong because of all of the pieces of revolutionary literature and nonfiction of that have come out during our lifetimes. The hunger games has inspired a lot more revolutions. Absolutely.

That's why this one is so fun is because no, like 2020 was like a not insignificant part of 2020 was due to a whole bunch of kids growing up with the hunger games no no i i know people who are still fighting in the jungle so in part because of that book yes exactly so we we will we will get into that in a bit um now neil neil believes that the country of Panam is quote, clearly a reference to both Arcadia and the Greek God Pan unquote. So it's an author who was up late at night looking for country names and remembered an old airline.

Like that's, that's what was going on. The region of Arcadia was home to Pan and characterized by a vast wilderness with its lavish parties for the God of the wild and his nymphs quote the hunger games capital is an urban forest of the gods in its classic symbolic reversal of the true meaning it becomes a city dedicated to all that would be the opposite of true freedom unquote now neil loves symbolic reversal how you will see something depicted that is like you know like being against totalitarian governments this is actually symbolic reversal where it's actually pro-authoritarian governments because this is this is how he talks about the entire the entirety of of the movie and how it's

actually trying to like seek acceptance for a one world order military police state. Similar to David Icke, Neil also notes the Saturnian symbolism with the goat imagery of the astral sign Capricorn linking to Pan, as well as the composite representation of the devil image Baphomet. Now, I am not a planetary magic guy in general, but Saturn is often like linked to to the harvest, to destruction, chaos. It's a whole thing. But Neil says, quote, both Capricorn and Aquarius are ruled by Saturn and its hidden vibrationality effect on the powers that be, banking, law, education. Therefore,

Panem is the ultimate Saturn city of the the future panam is very much the typical totalitarian future nazi like city it is also where that links to pandemonium in the form of a pandemic is the hunger games preparing the youth of today for some kind of tyrannical future born out of the events of the next decade that will lead to global pandemonium which is unfortunately a pretty good prediction coming from like coming from like the early 2010s yeah they kind of were talking about a pandemic that leads to global unrest rebelling against a tyrannical future so pretty pretty good analysis by neil there now neil also Neil also notes curious linkages between the segregated 12 districts of Pan Am,

just as our perception of time is governed by 12 hours and months. Oh my God. He breaks down Pan Am even further, claiming that the letter E and the letter M are like numerology references, the E linking to the Intel and Saturn-like Explorer logos.

And Neil says, quote, according to some researchers, which is a great way to start a sentence, according to some researchers, the letter E is a very important letter number because it represents the fifth essence or element, the power of transcendence. No, has the Dramatria started?

Oh yeah absolutely absolutely no he he goes all out on the letter m the letter m is a very important letter in the mystery schools of antiquity uh-huh being the numerology equivalent of 13 this of course relates to the 13 original districts or the 12 sectors around the one capital oh yeah sure there are of course 12 jurors and one judge the m or the 13th letter is the master with 12 disciples and esoterically speaking 13 is the experiencer of the 12 signs of the zodiac there are 12 months in the gregorian sun calendar and 13 months in the lunar calendar there There were 13 districts, but now only 12 remain. There were 13 colonies. The U.S.

is Satanism. So true. So true, Mia. There's a lot of talk about how kids can't read anymore because how we fucked up reading education around the early aughts and shit and the damage that that's done. This is showing that you've got a bunch of boomers

who are going through these books, who are reading them very carefully, who are Googling every word in them to see if there's different things. Yeah. And they, they catch all of this, like put all this weird maniac shit together, but they don't just get that.

Like, yeah. If you tell kids a simple story about another young person overthrowing a tyrannical government, maybe they'll burn down their Capitol building. Absolutely. It's happened before and it'll happen again. Neil gets obsessed with all these little tiny,

tiny rabbit holes that are ultimately meaningless and like misses the very glaring obvious thing right before his eyes. He says, numbers and letters are vibrational codes that affect the subconscious. The more I look at Saturn symbolism, the more I see a thought form, waveform, or a vibrational pattern

that permeates the collective thinking of humanity. No, you miss the obvious and more, like there's always obsession with like numerology and it's like, well, no, a big part of why the Hunger Games caught onto people and was like so easy to like meme and spread as part of these revolutionary actions is they have like a thing, a hand thing that you did. They had a little salute and like kids could do it to each other. It's the same shit.

Neil is not a fan of the salute, by the way. Well, that's good. I'm sure he's got some fascinating opinions on that shit. Oh, he sure does. opinions on that shit. Oh, he sure does. And we will hear his extremely fascinating opinions on the Three Finger Salute, as well as

other Hunger Games conspiracies, and new upcoming predictive programming conspiracies based around the Civil War movie in the next episode. So, stay tuned tomorrow for even more exciting news on how you can predict the future by watching movies.

See you tomorrow. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into how tech's elite has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose. This season, I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel-winning economists to leading journalists in the field, and I'll be digging into why the products you love keep getting worse and naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get me wrong, though. I love technology. I just hate the people in charge and want them to get back to building things that actually do things to help real people. I swear to God things can change if we're loud enough, so join me every week to understand what's happening in the tech industry and what could be done to make things better. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com. On Thanksgiving Day, 1999, a five-year-old boy floated alone in the ocean. He had lost his mother trying to reach Florida from Cuba. He looked like a little angel. I mean, he looked so fresh. And his name, Elian Gonzalez, will make headlines everywhere. Elian Gonzalez. Elian Gonzalez. Elian. Elian. At the heart of the story is a young boy and the question of who he belongs with. His father in Cuba. Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or his relatives in Miami.

Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. At the heart of it all is still this painful family separation. Something that as a Cuban, I know all too well. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story, as part of the My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Gianna Parente.

And I'm Jimei Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline, the early career podcast from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. One of the most exciting things about having your first real job is that first real paycheck. You're probably thinking, yay, I can finally buy a new phone. But you also have a lot of questions like, how should I be investing this money? I mean, how much do I save? And what about my 401k? Well, we're talking with finance expert Vivian Toot, aka Your Rich BFF, to break it all down. I always get roasted on the internet when I say this out loud, but I'm like, every single year you need to be asking for a raise of somewhere

between 10 to 15%. I'm not saying you're going to get 15% every single year, but if you ask for 10 to 15 and you end up getting eight, that is actually a true raise. Listen to this week's episode of Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back to It Could Happen Here. I'm Garrison Davis. I'm joined by Mia and Robert to discuss predictive programming.

So last episode, we talked about the origin of this conspiracy theory, how this Canadian-Scottish conspiracy theorist named Alan Watt came up with this idea that through Hollywood movies, TV, books, video games, the secret cabal of shadowy governments is trying to subliminally prepare us to accept planned events as they take place in the future by putting little hints, shadows, and seeds into our everyday entertainment diet. One of the oldest examples that conspiracy theorists will point to as an example of predictive programming is this book from the late 1800s called Futility

that talks about a fictional ship called the Titan, which was thought to be completely unsinkable, which eventually crashed on an iceberg and sank. This obviously mirrors what happened to the Titanic in the decades to follow. So yeah, we're going to be talking about this sort of stuff. Last episode ended in our discussion of the Hunger Games. I found this old conspiracy blog by this British guy named Neil, where he talks about all of his theories surrounding the Hunger Games books and movies. all of his theories surrounding the Hunger Games books and movies.

So, we will return to hear Neil's thoughts on the predictive programming implanted into the Hunger Games. Neil also has fascinating opinions on trains. He really doesn't like that in the Hunger Games there is

a big train system which he links to the European Union's future train plan as well as there is a big like like train system which he links to like the which he links to the european union's future train plan as well as as well as like um uh high-speed rail plans for north america which he is very against because do you know who else used trains was it the nazis garrison the nazis was it the nazis it's the nazis you know you can tell this is an older conspiracy because they because they're actually using the nazis as the people who use trains and not like the soviet union yeah i think neil just really likes driving and he thinks that driving is like the epitome of freedom

so he talks about how like trains are trying to control which areas the country you can go to instead of the freedom of the open road i got stuck behind a train in traffic on my way to the airport. Very frustrating. Which helped make me late to this call. So I actually, I think he's right. I'm on board now. He also rants about this 1992 UN plan

called Agenda 21, about like a big environmental management plan with highly condensed human settlement zones. This is something that both John Birch and Glenn Beck were also like really oh alex jones is huge on yeah this was the entire conspiracy ecosystem for about 15 years couldn't shut the fuck up about agenda 21 some of them still go on about it so neil's upset because that looks similar to like the panama map of like because panama is in like a post-climate collapse

we have these very condensed areas of settlement and like a vast, like unusable landmass in America. So he, he has, he has this whole thing about that. He, he doesn't like that. President Snow looks like the Saturnian figure of Kronos,

the father of time who devours children. Just like how Kronos, just like how President Snow sacrifices children to maintain like societal control of Pan Am in the Hunger Games. Don't let him see my bathroom. That'll really get us in the center of some... I have a giant copy of the Saturn eating his son painting that's right next to my toilet. It's a great painting.

Also, not necessarily about that. They just found a painting of a guy eating a guy and we're like it's probably saturn that this guy was trying to paint that is the research quality that neil also does he's like yeah it's probably all these things seems like it's saturn yeah it's it's it seems like it's saturn yeah kind of uncomfortable to imagine it's anyone else uh neil also compares the Hunger Games to China's one-child policy and the population reduction conspiracy theories of Agenda 21.

Just like in the Hunger Games, it's about having children kill each other, just like the one-child policy. Yeah, that's how China does their one-child policy. Other children are told to kill children if there's more than one family. Back on the revolutionary tract quote i can't confirm that susan collins used the archetype of artemis for her character of katniss but what can

be observed is how this female role model is a symbol for revolution a new order and more importantly a new world system this is clearly the blueprint for a new america so part of this blueprint that he talks about is like implanted microchips and a brutal police state that arrests and kills protesters unlike our current police state which would never arrest or kill a protester yeah and everyone just carries microchips around yeah yeah uh now more more devious than the murder happy police uh, Neil finds the bird symbolism to be, including Katniss's dress, which transforms into the Mockingjay symbol,

which, according to Neil, looks, quote, remarkably like a Bennu bird of Egypt, as well as a phoenix, especially when encircled in fire. Quote, the phoenix is a classic Mystery School symbol that relates to the unseen forces

that transforms the world. Both Katniss and Peeta's costumes set afire as they enter the arena before the tournament. With Katniss becoming the bird on fire, she is the embodiment of the coming transformation, the beginning and the end. Katniss and Peeta are symbols of Artemis and Apollo, the twins

and children of the new world order of gods. Smokeless fire is also a major symbol used by the Illuminati and is, and as their vehicle to communicate with the archons. He never goes into further detail about the archons. Yes. Smokeless powder is what made war possible. So,

you know, we, there's other things. It's not just the Illuminati. We use it for fireworks too. Katniss is the woman clothed in fire sun in the book of Revelation

and the EU, the United Nations and the Security Council replicate this symbolism. A phoenix rising out of the tyranny and war. It's all reversed symbolism, of course,

because these bodies are set to administer the world army police and the future new world order, unquote. So he's there complaining about a united nations mural uh that was made after world war ii about a phoenix of peace rising from the ashes of war and how this is actually reversed symbolism because they're actually going to be you know laying out this global one world government uh calling it peace

you know he also talks more about the book of revelation and how 12 and 13 combined and unification of the new world just like in the bible and then finally to get to that three that three finger salute it quote it's interesting when you dig a little deeper and find that katniss's salute is reminiscent of a certain nazi youth salutes found in eastern europe in the late 1930s. And he's also quite concerned by the new adoption of the salute by the Girl Scouts, despite the three-finger salute being used in scout organizations for over a century. Yeah, yeah.

Like, the Boy Scouts are sinister, but not because of the salute. No. The salute is the least of the problems with the scout agencies. That was a brief moment of reprieve for a lot of those boys getting to do a salute and then he also says quote it's no surprise that the mockingjay pin also looks similar to a nazi gunner badge because as i've already shown guys the bird is the symbol for the power of revolution a new order that goes all the way back to the holy roman empire and these are the guys will be like like, well, look at the Mockingjay symbol.

It's similar to, then they'll see like a scout sniper flag that looks like the SS logo and go, well, there's clearly nothing related to that. And then we will close this section by continuing on the revolutionary elements. Quote, what kind of revolution does Katniss symbolize? Are the youth of today being readied for another revolution followed by another dictatorship? How many more celebrities are we going to see

being used as a mouthpiece for revolution? I am all for peaceful revolution based on respect and love, but the movies never portray that kind of revolution. A peaceful revolution is one inspired by

the inner world of imagination and not necessarily the outer world of the five senses. The kind of revolution. A peaceful revolution is one inspired by the inner world of imagination and not necessarily the outer world of the five senses. The type of revolution that the elite would want us to unfold here would be one born of pandemonium. The Illuminati and those in control of the current global empire in the making love to hide their agenda in plain

sight within commercial, so-called fictitious movies and in the media industry in general. The Hunger Games is the script for the totalitarian elite ruled brutal police state. The agenda is repeatedly being laid out in front of our very eyes, both in real everyday life and in things we choose to expose ourselves within the so-called entertainment

industry. This is one of these things where all of these conspiracy theories center around the fact that people, for reasons that are incomprehensible to me, believe that the u.s government wants you to do is shoot guns at them yes right no no they don't i guarantee they don't want you to shoot machine guns out there they would like you to spend money and go to work that's the primary thing the u.s government wants you to do pay your taxes without too much fuss. Do you know what else the U.S. government

wants you to do, Robert? I know a number of things the U.S. government wants me to do, Garrison, but I won't. I will not stop telling people to take colloidal silver

for all of their health care problems. The only way to really carry out the revolution starts with putting silver in your body. all right we are we are back i've actually always wanted to do the topical silver and get that like blue skin i thought i thought that'd be kind of cool you have to do a lot of it garrison i i'm well aware i feel like we can achieve this with body paint.

I do find it very funny that they're so obsessed with the Hunger Games as this, like, this is the elite showing you how they're going to crack down on all of us. And then when it actually when the Hunger Games inspires an actual revolution, it's like the one that gets no support from any, like,

spook agency. Of course. The only one. There's no CIA, no FSB, no fucking nothing. Like it's, it's just a bunch of teenagers and their books and 3d printers. I mean, and like looking back at that,

at that hunger game section, it's always interesting how people like this, they're like in the real world, very like pro police in a lot of cases, but then also being like, they're trying to instill a police state, right? It's like they get to, they get to eat their cake and have then also being like they're trying to install a police state right it's like they get to they get to eat their cake and have it too where they're they are both pro law

enforcement but also anti this like imagined evil version of law enforcement that's always like right on the cusp of being introduced there's a through line there which is that they are anti whatever it seems like people are telling them is like obviously okay it's it's it's oppositional defiant it's the same reason why like you think that you're on you're living in a normal earth so it's got to be a hollow earth right yeah like it's this if something is popular if a movie's popular it can't just be a movie that people liked and if it's like you know i i saw a I saw a Hunger Game, the first Hunger Games movie, and I tried to read the books and I was like, nah, I can't read these.

You know, they're not, they were not written for me. Like it's, it's, it's just, I was not interested in them. And that's all I really thought about it. But like certain people, if they see something popular and they don't immediately fall in love with it, they have to come up with some reason why it's sinister. And it's the same thing that leads them to reject everything else, right? That like if other people like something

and I don't get it or I feel weird or don't understand it, then it has to be a fucking conspiracy. Like that used to be 1% of this country and through social media, it's become like half of us because it's a deeply addictive way to feel i think the most sinister thing about the new hunger games is that they did not put nearly enough hunter shaver in in that movie um so let's know that is let's continue to the last that's got to be predictive hunter shaver so they're wanting okay so this is

like very clearly oh no oh no i could go into like i could go into like they're trying to make the kids trans right they want to like hunt down their parents oh my god shaver is literally trans shave right and shave you know well i'm saying you could easily turn it into a conspiracy theory garrison you could make it work so lastly we're going to talk about the new hit movie leave the world behind garrison made me watch this i'm never going to forgive them for it one of it is it is one of the most recent examples of a movie sparking predictive programming conspiracies uh it's by the creator of mr robot which retroactively makes

mr robot much worse. Now, there is a few reasons why this movie has caused so much uproar. A major factor being that it's produced by the Obamas, as in the presidents. Very irresponsible. There's Havana syndrome references, discussion of an evil cabal that runs the world, plans to collapse the United States, and the two child leads wear t-shirts that read obey and nasa respectively which has been the cause of a lot of discourse on the far right how to obey nasa yeah yeah the left's long-term plan look several of the letters in nasa are also in. Are you going to tell me that's a coincidence?

Yeah, probably. I will now share this clip from Steve Bannon, who had a Dutch far-right e-girl on his show to discuss the movie. Oh, no. He's doing good, then. So he's doing good. That's good. I was worried about Steve. He's doing good. That's good. I was worried about Steve.

Okay, so we see a movie here now that is co-produced by the Obamas about the potential, a potential cyber attack, which causes mayhem, obviously. And I saw it and it reminded me an awful lot of the narrative portrayed in a video published about two years ago by the World Economic Forum. And this was a video in which they supposedly warned us for a cyber pandemic. Interesting choice of words there. And they detail what could happen if we are under a cyber attack and that the only way that we could solve an attack like that would be to disconnect everything and everyone completely from the internet. that would be to disconnect everything and everyone completely from the internet. So I figured this seems to me like a classic case of predictive programming, where not just the World Economic Forum, but now also through movies and fictional stories, they are trying to prepare the public to the idea of cyber attacks and the potential chaos that

could come with that. idea of cyber attacks and the potential chaos that could come with that. So that is, that is her, her big problems with the movie, which we'll see, we'll see echoed in a lot of the people we talk about here, um, with the world economic forums warning about a big cyber attack. Uh, she then went on to rant about the movie's anti-white sentiments, probably from the Obama's involvement. Clearly. Yeah.

She has, she has almost a million followers on Twitter. It is wild. Also, because she's Dutch, her last name is, and I shit you not, Vlaardingerbroek. So, great, great stuff happening in the Dutch. Yeah, what is that predicting? For a summary of the movie, I'll let this conspiracy theory tiktok explain the basic themes that we'll be discussing here essentially the movie is about the downfall of civilization and how it's done in three steps first step being that the government is going to

be toppled from within next one that it's going to be littered with disinformation and misinformation to confuse the masses and to create chaos the third step if the first and second step are done correctly is going to cause basically a civil war causing the paranoid and problematic to start turning on each other the little girl is obsessed with the last episode of friends called how it ends which is interesting because the star of the movie julia roberts also dated matthew perry way way back matthew perry who also passed away earlier this year movie also references like billionaires and their bunkers, and it references the cabal on way more than one occasion. The heart of it is that the cabal has fallen,

and so nobody is in charge, and this is what's leading to the fall of the United States of America, essentially. It has a very predictive programming feel to it. With the Obamas and the constant references to water, planes crash in the water, and a boat called the White Lion runs up on shore from the ocean. Everybody wants water. They're constantly drinking water. Here's some water. You want some water? Didn't the Obama chef just drown? I can't watch anything anymore. I can't enjoy anything. To sum it up, the entire movie itself doesn't even have a plot. There's no real storyline to

this movie and the ending is awful. If I were were not paying attention like i am i would think the movie would be terrible there's no resolution there's no real start it just seems like it's just here just here it's just telling you and one more thing it talks about microwave emp like okay that's that's that's that their brains are so melted that like they they can't see a movie made in the image of all of their fears is made in the image of all their fears like the whole it's so unsettling it doesn't even start properly it's just it just begins you're just in it like i know man that's that's kind of how a movie goes i like how she talks about she like she like can't enjoy movies anymore which is like the end result of all these all these conspiracy theorists like they just they just can't enjoy life because they see everything

as a series of like interconnected incidents leading to some kind of grand narrative that makes it impossible to like actually like be happy which is probably the funniest thing um also that she thinks the movie predicted the death of the Obama's chef, which I don't even know if that's real. Yeah, but if you're one of these people, that's the most significant thing that's happened the last 18 months.

The Obama's chef and Matthew Perry are like the Rosetta Stone for everything that's wrong in society and not just two people who died because it's a year. Because Matthew Perry used to date jessica roberts who's the star of the movie of course and there's friends references all throughout the film so it's all connected subtle friends references in the movie very subtle you'll miss him if you don't pay attention so the the the last conspiracy theorist we're

going to talk about is this is this like named Tristan Haggard, who spends most of his time on stream selling hormone supplements for men so that they can boost their testosterone and stop being soy boys while discussing various conspiracies. Love it. He says, quote, cyber attacks, bio-warfare, weaponized Lyme's disease, lone star tick, chronic wasting disease, things that get you to stop eating meat. These things, these types of programs, these types of programs are

seeded throughout the film. I feel like the tick bite and a lot of that stuff might have been a little bit of that DARPA extracurricular script additions. Yeah, yeah, unquote. Yeah, sure. Yeah, of course. The fact that a kid gets bit by a tick and gets all fucked up is like trying to stop you from eating.

They're trying to stop you from eating meat. Quote, I feel like the average normie might not put together the Lyme's disease possible bioweapon connection. Unquote. Amazing. Yeah. I don't think the average normie might might not put that one together you know that does suggest to me that all these people are going to die in 30 seconds if there's any real kind of unrest because their attitude towards the idea of disease is that was planted by the new world order yeah people won't get sick. Now, these two guys on this stream

also said that they they had to stop watching Mr. Robot in the third season because there were too many quote unquote gay scenes, which is really funny.

I had to stop watching it in this first season because I don't like Remy Malek, but, you know, you see, I was built different. I had I had to

keep watching just for Christian Slater, but that's just me. He did make it hard to quit. Yeah, yeah. So most of the time, these two guys on their conspiracy podcast just complain about how Ethan Hawke is a weak little soy boy.

That's not unfair. And all of the quote unquote BIPOC people were more like put together and more commanding. They constantly say BIPOC, which is an interesting choice from them. That is really fascinating. Especially since Mahershala Ali's daughter isn't really a character in that movie. Mahershala Ali is okay because he's, he's a great care, a great actor, but like,

it's not like, it's not like all of the care, the characters who aren't white are like written stirringly. Well, most of the characters, this movie are written like dog shit. They're all incredibly unlikable. Elevates things.

Yeah. But, uh, Tristan here says, quote, there's so much predictive programming and social engineering of how the mechanics of possible collapse of the power grid collapse and the communications would result in basically chaos. And then I have this little clip here of him talking about the big cyber attack. Right now, a lot of people are saying, well, this is predictive programming.

They're going to do this cyber attack and you know we've been talking about this type of stuff for years right with the cyber polygon exercises and the world economic forum and uh you're working with uh defense contractors military intelligence whatnot working on the possible scenario of a cyber attack right the cyber attack is one of these scenarios that they're saying it's got to happen it's coming the big cyber attacks coming but i feel like films like this the intention could be to make people so afraid of just the mere possibility of a total collapse like this so they they obviously sound like they know what they're talking about there that's very very very polished, Tristan thinks that he has a better idea to kind of seed collapse. Quote, a better way to implement this would be to not really roll out a huge wide-scale

power outages and communications outages, but make it a protracted, small, and localized so that you can still maintain a certain level of propaganda and control, and then create enough fear to where people will accept the mandatory digital ID for the internet and the central bank digital currencies and whatnot. It's like a limited type of thing, a regional type of thing that then is hyped up to be the worst thing ever, unquote. These guys are really like talking about this mandatory digital ID and the central bank digital currencies as being this big threat. And there's going to just be, any day, this cyber attack,

which is going to force us to all adopt this digital ID to be able to sign into the internet. Quote, all you have to do is have most of the normal people afraid enough of the possible scenario and tease it. It's almost like a cyber attack brinksmanship type of thing, unquote.

So they think that you don't actually need almost like a cyber attack brinksmanship type of thing, unquote. So they think that you don't actually need to have the cyber attack. You just need to have people afraid enough that it could happen by talking about it in media, film, TV, you know, all this sort of stuff. You can't even get people to like change their passwords.

Like, I don't know. It's so funny because like the past few months there actually has been a decent number of cyber attacks constantly yes which are yeah like a very like a constant influx which are all just being constantly handled and it's it's not led to any of these massive apocalyptic scenarios that that that they're talking about no i mean like the movie has part of how the movie has to make this like has to make it like why the movie is set in the middle of nowhere is that if it's set in a city and the internet goes out the way people

would actually respond would be like the way they respond when there's just some sort of random outage initially like like uh oh shit my phone doesn't work right now i guess i gotta figure something else out for a second like it it's it's easier to have it seem disconnected and like completely disorienting when you have everybody like out in the middle of nowhere without other people around to make shit make sense i'm going to play what one more clip from from tristan's live stream here i feel like well also i mean they haven't they've been building building all of this technocracy stuff to throw it away. Right. They've been building it to implement it. So if there was an outage or the cyber attack or whatever, this would be some temporary limited thing, you know, hyped up into oblivion.

And, oh, it was all the Trump MAGA people or it was all the Christians that did it to get working with Russia. Right. That's what they're going to say. Yeah. Yeah, totally. They're going to blame the big cyber attack on the trump christians that's gonna be who's gonna who's gonna launch the big attack totally absolutely that's who everyone will assume knew how to do a hack is the trumpers yeah amazing first we taught them how to change the settings on their smart TV, and now they've hacked the planet.

What do we do? As soon as you turn off motion smoothing, then you're ready to go. They're going to hack the system, get in, shut everything down. Oh, Lord. So this Tristan guy was getting, like, hundreds of dollars in super chats on the stream. He's verified on YouTube. He has over 100,000 subscribers subscribers and he is one of the has some of the like not not very

hidden anti-semitism but like i am kind of surprised that he's able to say as much as he is while still being verified and getting all this money because he has this line towards the end of his of his stream quote the little girl is inside the house with the bunker that everyone else was trying to go to. And she's sitting at the table surrounded by, like, goy slop. She's just got all the freaking kibble foods like Funyuns and Doritos. She's having a feast of gluttony. It's all freaking globo homo kibble. Fruity pebbles and stuff.

She's just gluttonously consuming a bunch of, you know, trash processed foods. She's just all alone, just looking kind of autistic, unquote. What the fuck? So yeah, he's just talking about like goy slop. Like there's like the Jews are creating junk food to pacify. They want you to eat worms and stuff. Yeah, exactly. So that is most of his of his his interesting opinions on

Leave the World Behind, a pretty a pretty bad movie, a pretty bad movie. You know, there is one real conspiracy theory about it. It has nothing to do with the Obamas or predictive programming. We see a character at the beginning of the movie, a survivalist prepping to take care of his family, even though no one knows a disaster is coming. And later, near the end of the movie, when Ethan Hawke's son is sick, we meet the survivalist again. It turns out he's a handyman. He lives in the edge of town, and heremors, Kevin Bacon plays a handyman character who, with his friend Earl Bassett, played by Fred Ward, has to fight off an attack by subterranean ancient giant worm beasts in order to save himself and his small community. Like Dune. Just like Dune Garrison. And in the lore of the Tremors movies, Val McKee, Kevin Bacon's character, is not seen in further movies because he gets rich and he marries Rhonda LeBeck and they move off somewhere.

Maybe they move to the northeast, to an island off the coast of the East Coast, where he bought a house and became a survivalist prepper, informed by his experiences with his good friend, Bert Gummer, the local survivalist who shot a giant worm to death and maybe leave the world behind as a stealth sequel to the first Tremors movie showing what Kevin Bacon's character does later in life. I would be so much more of a fan of Sam Esmail if he if he tried to if he tried to put the Tremors movies into the canon of Mr. Robot. It would have been perfect. I would have completely changed my opinion on this movie.

They'd shut up to Kevin Bacon's house and he'd come out with a gun and they'd been like, look, we just need some antibiotics. He's like, antibiotics? What about the fucking worms? How are you people walking around? And then the movie ends. That's the end of the movie. It was all a Tremors sequel. You Korean-Iranian terrorists went into the wrong rec room.

So, lastly, I just want to talk a little bit about some of the obvious problems with this predictive programming idea. It completely ignores the fact that humans use art as a form of cultural creation. We imagine futures in,

in our art specifically because they could come into being like a lot of, a lot of like sci-fi that influences technology comes from this. That's also kind of the basis of, of Mark Fisher and Nick lands, like a cultural hyperstition where you specifically make art to have this larger cultural effect that then it can bring things into being, as opposed to the more individualistic use of occultism. And then a big part of all of this predictive programming thing is also just apophenia, right?

It's people creating connections and patterns and random data. Because it's actually easy to look back and pick out past media that has seemingly predicted events, but it's much harder to identify current media that is actually predicting future events, right? This is a part of hindsight bias. The tendency that we have to look at past events is more predictable than what they actually were. It's a common psychological response to a traumatic event, like a big pandemic or a school shooting.

There's also, you know, all of these, all of these predictive programming theories fall into these kind of contradictory depictions, which is why the, which is why the Hunger Games guy like calls it like reverse symbolism, right? It's if this,

if predictive programming is orchestrated by a shadowy cabal seeking to implement a totalitarian takeover by normalizing an incredibly oppressive government in media and film TV. Why is said media almost exclusively about like rebel heroes overthrowing an evil

totalitarian government, right? It doesn't actually match. And there's been a lot of like cultural studies showing that whether you portray something in media as positive or negative will strongly affect the audience's takeaway of the stimulus. So if you show something positively, they're more likely to view it as a positive thing. If you show something negatively, they're more likely to view it as a negative thing, right? This sounds very obvious, but you do have to do social science

to actually show this is a real pattern. And then finally, I will end this by quoting from that article from the Ohio State University. Quote, there are a few purposes for predictive programming, and not all of them have to deal with tyranny. Some of them are meant to lessen the blow of an event like 9-11, or as previously mentioned, the Sandy Hook shootings. The contradiction arises when thinking about why the government would want to warn us or

prepare us for Sandy Hook. The whole point of Sandy Hook conspiracies is to doubt the event even happened so the government would create a conversation around gun control. This would defeat the purpose of staging it if the government was trying to ensure a smaller or inexistent response, unquote.

Especially looking back at what we talked about with The Simpsons. It's just a fun game people play, right? It sounds like a fun a fun world to to to live in if you can imagine this interconnected web connecting every single thing that happens to your own experiences it's it's it's it's a way to turn turn the world into like this this great mystery that you can solve instead of just like experiences that you have to live through these people need real hobbies like finally the thing i wanted to

mention is that the the upcoming discussion of predictive programming is all centered around this movie coming out next month called civil war which many many of these people in their discussion of leave the world behind are are are very much talking about how Civil War just seems like a sequel to Leave the World Behind, because Leave the World Behind seems to get set up like a possible American Civil War, and how this upcoming movie is itself going to be a massive predictive programming operation to prepare American citizens for civil conflict with each other. So have fun seeing a whole bunch of conspiracy theories develop around this movie.

That comes out next month. Yeah, that'll be, that'll be good. I mean, I wish people would start some conspiracy theories around Alex Garland's TV show devs, which is dog shit also.

And, and one of the, one of the worst uses of that guy from parks and rec that I've seen in a long time. Heartbreaking. They use math to see the past garrison. That kind of reminds me of this movie I watched for research called

Knowing with Nick Cage who finds a piece of paper that has numbers that's able to predict catastrophic events. Alex Jones thought this movie predicted an oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico. But besides that, you don't see it it you don't really see it much in these in these circles despite it's very like obvious like predictive focus yeah mostly devs features a bunch of very

good actors standing around and staring at a screen where a grainy picture of jesus from the past is lit up in like movie theater uh size screens like it's it's it's very it's very mid that's what i'm saying about devs it's pretty mid folks don't watch devs yeah i mean same same thing with this obama movie so yeah yeah watch out for the obama's new movies which are all gonna seed the collapse of humanity as well as the a24 civil war movie which is probably probably devious in some way so yeah have fun with that you know oh i'll say this barack obama it's not his fault obviously that a bunch of racists lost their mind when he became president but knowing that it was kind of irresponsible for him to make his debut movie production a movie about a cabal taking over the government using

secret weapons? Absolutely. You knew what was going to happen, Barack. You're not a dumb man. Tell me that's not what was going to happen. Absolutely. All right. Well, I think that does it for us today. Have fun predicting the end of this episode.

Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into how tech's elite has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, better offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose. This season I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel-winning economists

to leading journalists in the field, and I'll be digging into why the products you love keep getting worse and naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get me wrong, though. I love technology. I just hate the people in charge and want them to get back to building things that actually do things to help real people.

I swear to God things can change if we're loud enough. So join me every week to understand what's happening in the tech industry and what could be done to make things better. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts. Check to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com. On Thanksgiving Day, 1999, a five-year-old boy floated alone in the ocean. He had lost his

mother trying to reach Florida from Cuba. He looked like a little angel. I mean, he looked so fresh. And his name, Elian Gonzalez, will make headlines everywhere. Elian Gonzalez. Elian Gonzalez. Elian. Elian. Elian Gonzalez.

At the heart of the story is a young boy and the question of who he belongs with. His father in Cuba. Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or his relatives in Cuba Mr. Gonzales wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him or his relatives in Miami imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom

at the heart of it all is still this painful family separation something that as a Cuban I know all too well listen to Chess Peace the Elian Gonzalez story as part of the My Cultura podcast network available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Gianna Parenti.

And I'm Jimei Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline, the early career podcast from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. One of the most exciting things about having your first real job is that first real paycheck. You're probably thinking, yay, I can finally buy a new phone. But you also have a lot of questions like, how should I be investing this money? I mean, how much do I save?

And what about my 401k? Well, we're talking with finance expert Vivian Tu, aka Your Rich BFF, to break it all down. I always get roasted on the internet when I say this out loud, but I'm like, every single year, you need to be asking for a raise of somewhere between 10 to 15%. I'm not saying you're going to get 15% every single year, but if you ask for 10 to 15 and you end up getting eight, that is actually a true raise. Listen to this week's episode of Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hello, good morning, good afternoon, good evening, and good night. I'm Andrew Sage, and I run the YouTube channel Andrewism, but this is It Could Happen Here. Today I'm carrying on my discussion of everyone's favorite subject, collapse. I'm here, of course, with... Garrison. And last time, we spoke about the what, why, and how of collapse, as well as the many ways people respond when confronted with this crisis. So if you're curious about that you can listen to the previous discussion.

One thing I didn't touch on last time was the various levels of awareness that people have about collapse because as with most things in this life it exists on more of a spectrum than anything. We're all on this learning journey and some people are further along if you could even really relate it's not way than others some discussions of collapse are informed by author paul shafirka's stages of collapse there are five stages in total and the first stage is dead asleep which is where you're really just vibing you know you can see some issues in the world here and there but that could be fixed right all we got to do is organize a bit better change our behavior slightly tweak the rules and we'll be fine but then you move on

to the next stage which is the awareness of one fundamental problem it's when you realize oh there's something structurally wrong but you only see in one part of that structural flow so it seems everything is not you know cash money you know maybe you found out about the depths of systemic racism or imperialism or overfishing or mass extinction or fracking and you know as one does you start to freak out a little bit you know maybe you mobilize to bring some awareness of this issue just so people know that you know something is wrong let's fix it and that one problem can even consume you entirely and then consuming all that knowledge about that one problem you keep learning and if you really do keep learning and are open to learning more and more about the issue,

eventually reach an awareness of many problems, the next stage. The more you learn, the more you worry. You're taking all sorts of information and begin to see how complex and multifaceted the world's problems are. Now it's hard for you to even prioritize which issue needs to be dealt with first. In fact, you're so overwhelmed, you might be reluctant to acknowledge new problems because you already have so much on your plate. Alas, you cannot ignore the other problems forever, not unless you want to keep running in circles. So you get to the stage of awareness of the interconnections between the many problems. It starts to dawn on you that there are no easy solutions. Shutting down factory farms may lay off millions

and leave perhaps hundreds of millions without a complete meal. Or efforts to raise the standard of living in the developing world through industrialization in the footsteps of the developed world just might accelerate the earth's demise and profit a select few. At least you're thinking on the systems level now, beyond the symptoms toward the source. on the systems level now beyond the symptoms toward the source perhaps there is no one solution perhaps the gravity of such a solution may be too much to bear so finally the last stage you get to awareness that the predicament encompasses all aspects of life so much so you might even pine after ignorance as you realize that this series of problems, or rather this all-encompassing P Predictment includes everything we do, how we do what we do, how we relate, and how we affect the entire planet. The Predictment

is so massive you might even reach a point where you're just like, there is no S solution to this P Predictment. No easy answer, no quick fix, and you can't do it alone. So, now what? Now, in the last episode, I would have spoken about a couple different responses that people have had to collapse. Occupation, hedonism, overwhelmment, blind hope, individual change, progress worship, leader worship, apocalypse worship, despair. But as promised for this episode, I want to be a bit more constructive in focus. And so to answer the question, really, is there any way out?

But before I get to that, Garrison, do you think there are any stages I might have missed in that progression of understanding? Or what have you observed in your experience? I mean, one thing I kind of will reiterate that is this is something that was talked about a lot when Robert was putting together the second season of It Could Happen Here is trying to avoid looking at collapse as one singular moment and more as this

it's a more Gaussian more fuzzy slow crumbling of things that we have grown to rely on. And sometimes you could envision it eventually reaching some sort of tipping point. But other times, that tipping point's never really ever reached. It's just this forever kind of crumbling and then rebuilding and then crumbling and rebuilding. And you get to a Ship of Theseus situation,

where eventually, at one point, the thing is completely different from what it used to be. But there was never a full moment of quote-unquote collapse. It was just this continual crumbling, and then becoming into the next thing. That kind of sounds similar to what John Michael Greer described. No, not John Michael Greer, David Korowitz. He talks about this idea of like oscillating decline.

Yeah, yeah. These recessions, these declines, and you have a couple of peaks when things have to climb up a little bit. And then the overall picture is like a downward trend. But there are some like brief respites of recovery. Yeah, and that's definitely a mode that I think about a lot. You know, a lot of people are worried of like some event triggering a much kind of larger scale collapse. And I think it's good to focus on all of the smaller crumbling

that's just always happening all of the time, no matter where you live. So, I mean, my experience is pretty similar. I think one of the first issues that I became fundamentally aware of was climate change. Sure. Of course, I mean, you crack open any one of those,

I don't know if you ever got one of those big books of knowledge as a child. Yeah, yeah, yeah had i had a i had a few kind of plasticky pages yeah just so they have all these big amazing pictures yeah so i remember seeing in those in one of those books like this huge like mountain of trash and seeing like this this floating garbage patch in the ocean and i was just like wow and then later on so first thing wasn't even climate change it was pollution and then later on I started learning about climate change and then that really became like my major thing and then later on I as I got older and I learned about learned history and that sort of

thing I came to economics and all that stuff i came to realize just how big the situation was and now i'm here so as i said in the previous episode we really don't need blind hope and i should be abundantly clear we definitely don't need hopeless despair it's a little rhyme there. So how do we respond to this predicament? The short answer is that I don't know. The long answer is this whole podcast episode. I mean, I could give some platitudes. You know, we need sobriety, clarity, lucidity. I mean, Paul Schafrika points out in his article that those in stage five

awareness who see that the predicament encompasses all aspects of life look to one of two paths i mean i've since adapted interpreted and remixed the two paths so not one-to-one with what he had in mind but you should get the gist the first path of response to the predicament of collapse is the inner path of self-healing. It's a manifestation of that fake Gandhi quote be the change you want to see in the world. Sort of retreating into oneself, digging deep and personal developing your self-awareness. I mean some people take this to mean some sort of hyper individual thing and it low-key is if you tilt and twist your head slightly you can maybe see it in a different light I don't think it has to mean becoming a monk or an aesthetic I don't think it means denying

systems or ignoring the painful truth I think it involves taking in the gravity of what we're dealing with, such a grand scale issue, and putting it in a personal context. Unabstracting it and understanding it through a more imaginable lens. I'm not one to fall back on evolutionary determinism or anything like that. anything like that but i do think often about how we kind of weren't meant to be processing this entire planet sure this entire population you know i think we're very good at dealing with immediate problems very good at looking at situations that are before us that are directly impacting us and looking at how we can solve that. And of course, no local solution necessarily is going to by itself solve a global crisis, but medley of local solutions can.

But we're not even talking here with this inner path of local solutions yet. We're talking even at a smaller scale and local, at the base unit of society, which is the self. So you might continue pursuing knowledge of the issues, start developing your practical skills and people skills, try to minimize your lifestyle in preparation for the economic and social shocks of collapse. Perhaps seeking to settle somewhere you've determined is best suited to weather the coming storms, which I believe I saw a video like some years ago where this guy was saying the Midwest

might be the best place environmentally to settle. I don't know if you'll cover that in the first or second season of It Could Happen Here. I mean, that was something definitely we were looking into during some of the research phases of a lot of the agriculture that is currently based in the south of the United States. Every decade is going to start moving up and up and up. And particularly Canada is going to enter a very large agricultural

economic boom. That process has already started. But yes, there's going to be this slow rising level of industrial farming, which, first of all, isn't actually great for the land itself. Once all of the land that's abandoned in the southern states, after it's been tapped for so long it's really just like dust like it's it's not actually useful dirt anymore but it's all of that stuff's going to start moving farther and farther north as the as the conditions for growth start changing um and i mean it's the same thing for a lot of a lot of things that are grown in like more like jungly forest mountain

areas where every year uh like coffee and chocolate, they have to start moving the crops further up the mountain. And again, that's obviously not a great long-term solution because the mountain's only so high. And it costs a lot of money to constantly be moving your crops higher and higher up a mountain.

Indeed. But that is the sort of agricultural and economic drive that's going to start getting more and more common to supply the amount of food that Americans are used to eating. And it won't. In the case of coffee, actual coffee beans are not going to be as common as they were today or 20 years ago. It's going to become more of a higher-priced luxury item. And I'm sure Americans will get their caffeine fix some other way. But yeah, those sorts of changes

are going to become more and more commonplace. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And this is why, you know, anarchists get, I think, unfairly labeled like, get, I think, unfairly labelled like excessively agrarian or maybe parochial in their focus. But I think

that as we talk about the degradation of soils, we talk about the failures in the long term of monoculture, large-scale farming, the only way that we're really going to see that sort of land restored again is through the sort of agroforestry, permaculture, you know small-scale practices that involve rebuilding that relationship between people and the land itself.

Regarding outside of the U.S., I don't know what my game plan would be. The dry seasons are certainly drier, and I think last year actually was one of our driest wet seasons. So I don't really plan on leaving, but I do think about it. I do find myself thinking about, okay, where am I going to, like, where am I going to settle? You know, like, where am I going to be able to, like, safeguard myself and stay connected with people and live, you know?

So in a sense, I am on that inner path, educating myself as much as possible, trying to develop my practical skills, focusing on what I could do as an individual to make changes in my own life and partially in my surroundings in a way that is manageable. Do you see yourself in this path as well?

I'm not sure. I spend a lot of time thinking about the future, I guess, but I try not to lock myself into any particular pathway. I don't know. I've already started to move around the u.s uh leaving leaving the places where i've kind of grown up for the majority of my life that are actually decently suited for for some kind of climate collapse um but yeah i i i don't know. I have some form of hesitancy to, like, cede territory or just, like, write off places as just being, like, not worth it. Especially, like, the South, the American Southeast.

Just, like, there's kind of a notion just to, like, write off large swaths of areas, whether, like, agriculturally, like, climate-wise, or, like, even, like even like politically being like oh this is just where all of the fascists are going to live and like that's not that's not true this this has this area of the country is actually is one of the most diverse parts of the country and to write it off all as like just like republican land is i think is grossly misguided absolutely on the other the other hand, if things get really, really bad, I'm also going to hold onto my Canadian passport and just go and have that, have that as a backup option just to, just to go up North into, uh,

into the snowy desolate of Northern Alberta. Um, so, you know, if push comes to shove, Antarctica is the final frontier. Right? So I always kind of, I have that backup option, which is easier than a lot of people, but it's something I try not to like, I don't like relying on that kind of notion. I feel you.

I feel you. Yeah. And I mean, that's part of why I don't see this inner path as fully satisfactory to me yeah even though I feel it's a path I've unconsciously chosen due to some of the challenges I faced on the outer path but still what clicks with me more is the outer path I've also called it balanced realism which is you, hard to balance because a lot of people who confuse realism with pessimism, you know, when you just see everything being awful,

that's, oh, I'm a realist, you know, but truthfully, I think taking the outer path of balanced realism means shaking off the burdens and blinders of both pessimism and optimism and alarmism and denialism and fatalism and hedonism and all these other setbacks and obstacles. All of the other isms. Except for Andrew some.

Sure, sure. Keep watching Andrew some, please. But yeah, really loosen yourself from your own hopes and fears. but yeah really loosen yourself from your own hopes and fears really i think the way i try to see it is i have no idea and no one can really know what outcome there will be you know up to now i haven't met a prophet i haven't met a seer i haven't met a fortune teller I don't think any of us really know what the outcome will be and there's so many factors that we can't even calculate and take into account I mean, for all we know it will be very disruptive of our reality, right?

and personally I'm not really a believer in there being interstellar alien species but you know imagine just out of the blue like on a random thursday afternoon there was an actual alien invasion you don't think any of us could really predict that of course there are things we do have the ability to predict and work with and stuff like that but really of course that's an exaggerated example but i want to be able to recognize and accept any number of possible outcomes in the face of such a grand predicament i think maintaining realism is difficult especially with so much information swooping around in the ether you don't know what's true and what's not but i

think it's necessary you know you agitate you fight you build for the best but you also prepare and defend for the worst brief aside by the way on optimism i see really two sides of collapse optimism both i think are well, but both unfortunately misled. There's the optimism that collapse absolutely will not take place, which I think is a sort of optimism that doesn't really quite understand where collapse, what forms collapse can take. And there's the sort of optimism that collapse will take place, but we'll overcome it. I mean, the hows of collapse might not line up fully with our predictions, but there is a very clear trajectory that we are on. So the idea that collapse is just not in the cards at all

really feels like wishful thinking. Humanity I don't think has the plot armor that we tend to think it does and that lack of plot armor also means that there's really no guarantee that we'll overcome collapse if it does occur. There are no sure outcomes to be sure, but that doesn't mean we're destined to come out of this unscathed. But what do you think of optimism, considering

what you do for work? Um, I don't know. I honestly don't think about optimism very much i see a lot of like bad stuff like every day as a part of my job i think about a lot of like grim stuff i suppose but it's honestly not something i i i i think about i i think it's it's a little bit of its own bubble i i think there's a utility for having hope but not having a sense of just like static optimism i i think i think hope is a is a is a useful thing to have in your brain but but not not have it be as like this just like umbrella that you apply to every single aspect of your life in the way like optimism is

but in terms of like like when you're mentioning like the alien thing i think one one way that people do think about collapse to try to cope with it a lot is like it's kind of some form of like deus ex machina like like this this something will happen whether that's some other like catastrophic event or like apocalyptic event or or it's some newfound scientific advancement that one day will pop into existence and then will solve all of these problems. I think both of those are kind of a form of a deus ex machina, and both of those are actually ways of coping,

even though one is more apocalyptic and one's more utopian. I thought you were talking about the video game series you know oh when you said you know no like i was thinking oh yeah like you know like cybernetics and yeah yeah for sure sure sure i mean like that kind of that kind of is its own form of deus ex machina in in terms of this this this thing entering from backstage that now solves all of these problems we have in the story of the world. But I mean, that's the thing that a lot of people try to find some.

So it kind of allows you to not be in denial about the current predicament, but still envision a future that is pretty similar to what we currently have, just with this like magical invention or this or this like or this like apocalyptic event that forces people to like actually solve some some degree of problems you know it's kind of it's kind of like the thing in alan moore's watchman being like if there was a giant squid then the whole world would team up

together solve the problem and i don't know that seems a little bit less likely yeah unfortunately climate collapse ecological collapse is not a giant squid and there is no doctor manhattan yeah and even even after covid right you have this massive like world threatening event and it's it's kind of the the perfect example of, it's like a, you know, a version of the giant squid. And that did not lead to the whole world working together to solve this big problem. I mean, to be fair, it was like a giant invisible squid. Yes, it was. To be fair as well, the giant invisible squid is still there.

And like regularly claiming lives. We kind of just go about with our days kind of ignoring it's like oh you know there goes there goes fred you know snatched up by the giant squid i'm sure in the watchman world there would be a great many of like squid deniers of people who are like no this good was never real. This, this good was all fake. That was all faked in New York city. It was,

it wasn't real like that. I've long said, there's no opinion that everybody in the world will agree with. You know, like if you were to say, for example, that all humans need food to live, there's going to be a contrarian who's going to tell you, actually,

I survive on photosynthesis. I'm a contrarian who's gonna tell you actually i survive on photosynthesis i'm a breatharian you know there's there is no uncontroversial tea because they will i think there'll be a deniers no matter what you know as you were talking about optimism and some of the dark things you're dealing with it reminded me of something that that shook me yesterday i was watching sean on youtube uh sean's video on palestine and he shared the story of this young Palestinian boy who had filmed the video celebrating himself, winning, uh, getting a thousand subscribers. And he was sharing his goals of, you know, he may get in 10,000 and a

hundred thousand, maybe even a million. And he was killed last year by the IDF. So I think, I mean, it's connected, but not entirely related. We're talking more along the lines of ecological collapse and systems collapse and this sort of thing. And while it's true that for much of the world, collapse is not going to look like a singular event, I think it is also important to recognize that and remember that there are people for whom collapse, or rather

their subjective collapse, the collapse of their world, their way of life, their existence, is staring them in the face right now. I don't want to their existence is staring them in the face. Absolutely. Right now, you know? I don't want to compare misfortunes, but, you know, there is that reality that, you know, some people are facing, like, cataclysm right in their face, and for others it's like a slower burn. But ultimately, similar feats you know that was something we were also considering when putting together some of the climate change focused

earlier episodes from a few years back and like the effects of climate change or just collapse in general are not like uniform right they they it first targets on the periphery and like whatever it's kind of a faulty way of doing that right like an old term would be like the third world is we're trying to find better better terms for there's so many terms and i don't really fully work yeah i was actually recently talking on a live stream about how like like i'm just like I feel like all these distinctions people try to draw like the West is just the East or global North is global South

they're all a bit messy in actual application but the people on the edges of Empire the edges of the, the edges of the imperial engine are going to face this a lot sooner

than the people in the imperial core. And whether that's collapsed through war, like forced collapse, or that's collapsed through environmental factors, both of those are often the case. People are going to do a lot of work to maintain the Mecca of New York city, but they're not going to care if a small town,

not even a small town, like Jakarta could sink into the ocean. And absolutely. Like, just like who cares, right? Hurricanes taking out, like act like,

I mean, I care just to be clear. Whole countries. Yeah, no, absolutely. Like those those these things do not do not get held on the same the same level yeah yeah so i mean i supposed to answer my own question i think you do need a dose of optimism to keep you from falling into despair or completely checking out of the struggle uh just for the sake of your mental health but not to the point of of blindness from the truth i don't think there's anything wrong with

maintaining some level of emotional cushioning to keep you going, to fuel you to wake up in the morning and make it through your day, but not to the point of delusion, I suppose. And so I think this is the value of the outer path as well. And I think this outer path is fueled by a bit of inner grace and peace. You you know you've let go of some level of naivety and passivity you're moving acting doing adapting and here of course i'm thinking of like

the permaculture movement the transition towns network all the other ongoing movements and projects none of which are perfect mind you none of which are going to save the whole world or anything but they're certainly trying i'm also thinking of like the movement for the mst in brazil and you know the la vie campesina who we would have interviewed some people about recently these groups these movements these struggles are thinking, are looking local, thinking global and actually really making a difference. I think that outlook is necessary. I think we need more political movements that can be honest about reality, that aren't waiting for a savior or politician, that aren't waiting until it's too late to act, that aren't removing power from the hands of people and placing it elsewhere. Movements that are far less reactive and more proactive. Maybe we'll never see a global shift to degrowth or a steady state economy in our lifetimes

without a major disruption and shift in the efforts of grassroots movements. But we can definitely see small-scale, local local resilient systems springing up and spreading that are better able to endure the coming economic, social, ecological shocks. I am as pro-social revolution as they come, but I think we need a more expansive understanding of what that entails. I was reading actually this morning Anarchy, a Graphic Guide by Clifford Harper, and he spoke about how 65 years of persistent agitation and organization culminated in the largest, most far-reaching revolutionary movement of the modern times. I think when we discuss the Spanish Civil War and the CNT, FAI, a lot of people get caught up in what was happening during the Civil War. But I don't think there's enough focus on the fact that these organizations were moving moving and shaking in their communities and in their regions for decades prior to any major you know pop off you know like a general strike does not happen overnight an insurrection does not happen overnight especially not not without the level of broad scale support there will be

necessary to sustain those efforts on the topic of the transition movement in particular, that movement was officially started in 2006 in the UK, but had some roots before then. In 2004, permaculture designer Rob Hopkins tasked students at Kinsale Further Education College with applying permaculture principles to the concept of peak oil, leading to the creation of the Kinsale Energy Descent Action Plan. Two students, Louis Rooney and Catherine Dunn, developed the transition towns concept,

presenting it to the Kinsale Town Council, which adopted the plan for energy independence. Then Hopkins later moved to Totney's, England, where he, along with Naresh Kian Grandi, developed these concepts into the transition model. Transition Town Totneys, founded in early 2006, served as inspiration for other transition initiatives globally. In early 2007, the Transition Network UK charity was co-founded by Rob Hopkins, Peter Lipman, and Ben Brangwen to support and disseminate transition concepts worldwide. By 2008, the project had expanded, with numerous communities becoming official transition towns. These are things you don't hear about in the news, but these are positive developments that have been happening under the radar for decades at this point. By May 2010, over 400 community initiatives were recognized as official transition towns in various countries, reflecting a diverse range of communities involved, from villages and neighborhoods to cities and city boroughs.

local and sustainable food systems, new cooperative economic models, sustainable transport systems, energy descent action plans, and even heart and soul groups built to respond to the emotional components of collapse and transition. In the book, How Everything Can Collapse, which I referenced in the previous episode, Paola, Savine, and Raphael Rafael Stevens talk about the paradox of collapse, and I'll leave it in their words because I think it was really well put. Quote, from a philosophical point of view, transition is a strange and paradoxical thing. It is both catastrophist and optimistic, that is to say, both lucid and pragmatic. Lucid because the people involved in these movements are not in denial about catastrophes. Most of them have given up the

myth of eternal growth as well as the myth of the apocalypse. They know and believe in what awaits us and are generally receptive to catastrophist language because they already are committed to their search for real alternatives. Pragmatic because catastrophist political thinking is not apocalyptic in nature it not claims you worried about the end of the world but more precisely about a sudden and potentially traumatic reorganization of ecosystems and societies neither business as usual nor the end of the world just a world to invent together here and now and good transition movement is vitally rooted in imagination and I've spoken about the vitality of imagination in the past. In fact my video on the

subject was partially inspired by Rob Hopkins book From What Is to What If. You imagine, you sketch out the details and you roll up your sleeves and you make it real. During the development of the transition networks project Rob Hopkins along with others published the the Transition Handbook, which is structured in three parts. The first is the head, which are the facts of the situation. Then you have the heart, which are the emotional consequences and desired futures. And then you have the hands, which is how you get from imagination to action. And I just thought that was a really great approach, even though the handbook is dated in

some ways. Of course, guiding people through the process of even accepting transition and getting them on the outer path works well on the small and personal scale, but there is a challenge of scale. Serene and Stevens point out that you can't exactly announce on a large platform, listen up everybody, prepare for the end of the world. As you can imagine, it ends up being a self-fulfilling prophecy. It's kind of like telling people not to rush out and buy up all the toilet paper. Transition on larger scales is difficult. Not to say it's not difficult to build the local community's resilience

from disruptions in food, energy, climate, etc. but on the macro scale it's even more difficult, at least if you're determined to take on a top-down approach. You get what I'm saying? It's because this isn't exactly a problem that rulers are capable of solving. The debt system is not going to go away by decree. The energy system that fills their coffers won't shift until it profits them either. And in a scene like a state, the anthropologist James C. Scott spends a lot of time discussing just how that top-down perspective of the world is inherently limiting and incapable of effecting those sorts of changes.

But thankfully, the people able to act were rulers of the world. As Stephen Stevens put it, transitioners do not wait for governments. They are already inventing ways of living through this collapse in a non-tragic way. They are not waiting for the worst, but building for the best. Ultimately, I'm trying to get on the level of the Transition Town realists on the outer path

that are building networks, building community, and building sustainability. I highly suggest that if you're looking for ways to help out in your local situation, check out the Transition Town network and see how you can tap in or start your own initiative in your own area. That's all I have for now. All power to all the people.

This is It Could Happen Here. I am Andrew. This is Garesan. Peace. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into how tech's elite has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech

from an industry veteran with nothing to lose. This season I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel-winning economists to leading journalists in the field, and I'll be digging into why the products you love keep getting worse and naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get me wrong though though. I love technology. I just hate the people in charge and want them to get back to building things

that actually do things to help real people. I swear to God things can change if we're loud enough. So join me every week to understand what's happening in the tech industry and what could be done to make things better. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts.

Check out betteroffline.com. On Thanksgiving Day, 1999, a five-year-old boy floated alone in the ocean. He had lost his mother trying to reach Florida from Cuba. He looked like a little angel. I mean, he looked so fresh. And his name, Elian Gonzalez, will make headlines everywhere.

Elian Gonzalez. Elian, Elian. Elian Gonzalez. Elian, Elian. Elian Gonzalez. At the heart of the story is a young boy and the question of who he belongs with. His father in Cuba. Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him.

Or his relatives in Miami. Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. At the heart of it all is still this painful family separation. Something that as a Cuban, I know all too well. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story, as part of the My Cultura podcast network available on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Gianna Parenti.

And I'm Jimei Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline, the early career podcast from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. One of the most exciting things about having your first real job is that first real paycheck. You're probably thinking, yay, I can finally buy a new phone. But you also have a lot of questions, like how should I be investing this money?

I mean, how much do I save? And what about my 401k? Well, we're talking with finance expert Vivian Tu, aka Your Rich BFF, to break it all down. I always get roasted on the internet when I say this out loud, but I'm like, every single year you need to be asking for a raise of somewhere between 10 to 15%. I'm not saying you're going to get 15% every single year, but if you ask for 10 to 15 and you end up getting eight, that is actually a true raise.

Listen to this week's episode of Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, this is It Could Happen Here, and I am Shereen. Today we have an update for you about what is happening in Palestine. There is a lot that is happening in Palestine, way, way too much to cover in a single podcast episode, but I hope this at least gives you a general idea of where we currently stand. Just for clarity and context, I am recording this on Tuesday, March 12th, so any numbers I mention, unfortunately and probably are different now. numbers I mention, unfortunately and probably are different now. At this point, there have been over five months of bombardment and genocide, and this has caused a humanitarian crisis in Gaza,

with children starving to death due to malnutrition and dehydration as Israel has imposed restrictions on aid deliveries to Gaza. Five months of genocide on top of more than a decade and a half of blockade have caused relentless mental harm to children in Gaza, according to a report released by Save the Children on Tuesday. 25 Palestinians in Gaza, including at least 20 children and a two-month-old baby, have died of malnutrition and dehydration, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. The true death toll due to starvation is feared to be much higher, as many Palestinians, particularly in northern Gaza, face famine and are almost entirely cut off from the severely limited humanitarian aid which is entering Gaza through the southern Rafah crossing. Many Israelis have also been blocking aid from entering Gaza. A group of

Israeli protesters have been blocking aid trucks from crossing into the Gaza Strip for weeks now, vowing that, quote, not a single loaf of bread should reach those trapped in the tiny region of the Gaza Strip until all remaining hostages are released. The area around Kerem Shalom, which is Israel's only functioning border crossing with Gaza, is a closed military zone, but the IOF officers and their presence there hardly deters the dozens of protesters, who are mostly settlers, families of hostages, and deactivated military reservists. It does not deter them from trekking through the area and protesting in an attempt to slow aid trucks from entering Gaza. I'm noticing right now that I'm interchangeably using Gaza and Gaza. Gaza is just

how you say it in Arabic, so FYI if I jump around, my apologies. On the ground, CNN recorded an interview with protester Debbie Sharon. She pointed to an aid truck convoy and said, This arrives into the tunnels of Hamas, fighting us and holding our hostages. There is no evidence that the majority of aid, including food and medical supplies, is going to Hamas. Sharon and her fellow protesters are demanding

that aid stop entering Gaza, where over 30,000 people have now been killed, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, with people at an increasing risk of starvation. Another protester named Katya said, they should only get the minimum calories to survive. If they are starving to death, give the hostages back. Not a single loaf of bread should go there till our hostages are coming back. When questioned about the scale of human suffering in Gaza, Katia seemed unmoved. She said, prioritize the kefir bibas over any Gazan babies. Kefir bibas is a one-year-old who is being held hostage along with the baby's parents, so that's what she's referring to, prioritizing Israeli

babies over Palestinian babies. Very little aid has made it into Palestine, and perhaps nothing captures what the U.S. and Israel actually are than a picture that has been making the rounds on social media recently. It's a photograph showing USAID drops and Israeli airstrikes targeting civilian areas in northern Gaza happening at the same time, falling on the rubble of destroyed buildings. The aid and the airstrikes dropping at the same moment. It's dystopian and beyond fucked up. Since October 7th, Israel has also shut off entry of food, water, and medicine, as well as other supplies from entering Gaza. Only allowing a trickle of aid trucks through two crossings in the south. Israel has blamed the starvation that Palestinians are enduring in Gaza on UN agencies,

saying that they fail to distribute supplies piling up at Gaza crossings. The UNRWA, which is the largest UN agency in Gaza, says Israel restricts goods and imposes cumbersome inspections that slow entry of aid. Also, distribution within Gaza has been crippled, UN officials say. They say that convoys regularly are turned back by Israeli forces, and that the military often refuses safe passage amid fighting, and that the aid does not get to the people that need it the most, often being grabbed from trucks by hungry Palestinians en route to the drop-off points.

Recent airdrops of aid by the U.S. and other countries provide far lower amounts of aid than truck deliveries, which have become increasingly more rare, and they're also sometimes dangerous. The UNRWA says that Israeli authorities haven't allowed it to deliver supplies to the north of Gaza since January 23rd. The World Food Organization, which had paused deliveries because of safety concerns, said the military forced its first convoy to the north in two weeks to turn back on Tuesday. Shireen from the future is here just for this quick update. Yesterday, Wednesday, Israeli forces hit a food distribution center and aid center in Rafah. The UNRWA said that one of their staff members were killed and 22 others were injured, and it said up to 60 people were believed to have been working there when it was hit. Those killed were said to be a 15-year-old boy and four men who were between 27 and 50 years old. Rafah resident Sami Abu Salim said,

It's a UNRWA center, expected to be secure. Some came to work to distribute aid to the people in need of food during the holy month of ramadan suddenly they were struck by two missiles the unrwa chief philippe lazarini said in a statement that it was one of the very few unwa distribution centers that was still operating in gaza after these five months genocide. He said this attack comes as food supplies are running out, hunger is widespread, and in some areas turning into famine. Every day, we share the coordinates of all of our facilities across the Gaza Strip with parties to the conflict. The Israeli army received the coordinates, including this facility yesterday. Since October, the UNRWA

says at least 165 of its 13,000 employees in Gaza have been killed, and that more than 150 of its facilities have been hit by Israeli forces. Here are the latest casualty figures as of March 13th at 12.40pm in Gaza, there are at least 31,272 people who have been killed. Of those, there are 12,300 children who have been killed, as well as 8,400 women who have been killed. There are more than 73,024 people who have been injured, including 8,663 children who have been injured and 6,327 women who have been injured. There are more than 8,000 Palestinians who are missing in Gaza. The latest figures from the Palestinian Ministry of Health for the Occupied West Bank is as follows. At least 432 people have been killed, including more than 115 children. There are more than 4,650 Palestinians who have been injured in the West Bank.

In Israel, officials have revised the death toll from October 7th from 1,405 to 1,139. As far as the injured go in Israel, there are at least 8,730 people who have been injured. According to the latest data from the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the World Health Organization, as well as the Palestinian government, as of February 25, Israeli attacks have damaged more than half of Gaza's homes. 360,000 residential units have been destroyed or damaged. There have been 392 educational facilities that have been destroyed, including all universities. 12 out of the 35 hospitals are partially functioning. 132 groundwater wells have been damaged or destroyed.

267 places of worship have also been destroyed. I really want to emphasize how damaging starvation is and famine is. Starvation causes long-lasting damage to the body. Large numbers of people in Gaza are experiencing malnutrition. Studies of famines in other countries show that famines can have long-lasting impacts on people's health and even that of their descendants. A new type of video has been circulating online from the Gaza Strip. Footage showing families baking quote-unquote bread, which is made from birded, eating weeds, and giving newborn babies days to suck on instead of milk. The Accountability Program Director at Defense for Children International Palestine said,

It is unthinkable that in 2024, in a world that produces more than enough food for all people, that Palestinian children are starving to death. The starvation of children is a hallmark of genocide and a deliberate political choice by Israel, backed by the Biden administration. It is complete madness that Israeli authorities continue to prohibit and restrict food and other life-saving supplies to a starving population while the international community stands by. Palestinians in Gaza started to experience chronic hunger within weeks of October 7th. At this point in time, Israeli strikes have killed more than 30,000 Palestinians, and this is according to Gaza's Ministry of Health. The death tolls that come

out of the Palestinian Ministry of Health, they account for Palestinians who die at hospitals or whose families report their deaths to the ministry. Due to the telecommunications blackout, the collapse of the medical system, Israeli ground invasion, and continued Israeli aerial bombardment, many Palestinians are not able to reach hospitals. And so this number is likely far, far greater than it actually is. And as I mentioned, Israeli authorities have repeatedly blocked and severely restricted any humanitarian aid from entering Gaza. On Tuesday, Israeli forces attacked Palestinians who were waiting for aid trucks at the Kuwait roundabout south of Gaza City, and they killed seven people. Keep in mind, this is after what has become known as the Flower Massacre. On February 29th, the Israeli

occupation forces, aka the IOF, killed at least 118 Palestinians who were attempting to get aid from a convoy in Gaza City. In this Flower Massacre, along with the 118 Palestinians who were shot and killed, at least 750 additional Palestinians were injured. They were just trying to get food from the aid trucks to feed their family. The United States recently delivered two airdrops of aid alongside the Jordanian military into northern Gaza. The airdrops contained a total of 74,800 meals, and this was widely criticized as a public relations move because the Biden administration is still clearly complicit in Israel's genocide of Palestinians. International criminal law prohibits serious atrocities, including core crimes of genocide, the crime of aggression, crimes against humanity, and war crimes, and provides for individual criminal responsibility

for perpetrators. The crime of genocide constitutes the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group in whole or in part. Genocide can result from killing or by creating conditions of life that are so unbearable. Intentionally using starvation I've said this before on this podcast, I'll say it again, but at this point, international law means nothing. It means it hasn't meant anything for a long time. Nothing happens when Israel continues to break international law. So, that phrase is a little empty to me, when they are in to break international law. So that phrase is a little empty to me, when they are in violation of international law. But here we are. And it should be noted that

starvation of civilians also contributes and is an act of genocide. I've talked about why this is genocide in other episodes, but it's a clear act of genocide what Israel is doing to Palestinians, and many scholars agree with that. Anyway, let's continue. As weeks of blockades on food and other aid have turned into months, starvation has reached historic proportions. One recent report by the Global Nutrition Cluster, which is a United Nations Children's Fund, aka UNICEF-led partnership of humanitarian organizations. It found that in December of 2023 and January of 2024, 9 in 10 children under the age of 2 and more than 9 in 10 pregnant and breastfeeding women surveyed had consumed two or fewer food

groups in the previous day. This situation is considered severe food poverty. Nearly two-thirds of households were eating just once a day, if at all. In the northern Gaza Strip, one in six babies and toddlers were acutely malnourished. Aid organizations say that these numbers today are likely to be far, far worse, and that the rapid onset and complexity of Gaza's food crisis is unprecedented. Ted Shaiban is the Deputy Executive Director for Humanitarian Action and Supply Operations at UNICEF. He said in a recent statement, Strip is poised to witness an explosion in preventable child deaths. If the conflict does not end now, children's nutrition will continue to plummet, leading to preventable deaths or health

issues which will affect the children of Gaza for the rest of their lives and have potential intergenerational consequences. There are nearly 2.2 million people living in the Gaza Strip, nearly half of whom are children. Nearly 160 million other people worldwide are facing hunger, including millions of people in Somalia, Afghanistan, and Sudan. The short-term health consequences of food scarcity have been studied extensively. In children, an especially vulnerable group, severe acute malnutrition can lead to muscle wasting, stunted growth, and medical complications, including sepsis, meningitis, diarrhea, and severe anemia. Worldwide, nearly half of all deaths of children less than five years of age are linked to malnutrition. A growing body of research is

finding that even if these children return to normal nutrition levels, a period of acute malnutrition can lead to long-lasting damage later in life, and it may impact future generations. This is one of many examples of why Israel's genocide of the Palestinian people isn't just about death and the lives they've destroyed and the land that they've taken. Israel's genocide is also about robbing Palestinians of any livable future, affecting generations of Palestinians to come. And they've done this since 1948. That's why it's no accident when children are targeted by the IOF, when they're starving, or when they're shot.

They are murdered as a way to prevent Palestinians from having a future or having any hope. We see how the IOF shoots children with the intention to kill. There are many, many examples of this, but here's a recent example. Two children were killed in November in the West Bank. Adam Samer El Ghul, 8 years old, was shot in the head. Bazel Suleiman Abu Al Wafa, 15 years old, was shot in the chest. These children were both murdered and shot with the intention to kill. The Israeli military and border police forces have been killing Palestinian children with virtually no recourse for accountability for decades.

Back in August of 2023, well before October 7th of 2023, Bill Van Esfeld, who was the Associate Children's Rights Director at Human Rights Watch, said, Israeli forces are gunning down Palestinian children living under occupation with increasing frequency. Unless Israel's allies, particularly the United States, pressure Israel to change course, more Palestinian children will be killed. And that is exactly what has been happening. Many, many more Palestinian children have been killed. All preventable. Human Rights Watch researchers, in documenting four killings that happened, interviewed in person seven witnesses, nine family members, and other residents, lawyers, doctors, staff, and field workers at Palestinian and Israeli rights groups, as well as reviewed CCTV footage and videos that were posted on social media, as well as statements by Israeli security agencies, medical records, and news reports. In all cases that they researched, Israeli forces shot the children's upper bodies without, according to witnesses, issuing warnings or using common, less lethal measures like tear gas, concussion grenades, or rubber-coated bullets.

I also want to draw attention to how this genocide is also a mass disabling event that will harm an entire generation and make them reliant on infrastructure that does not physically exist. More than 10 children a day lose a limb in Gaza. And this is from the source Save the Children. At least 17,000 children, which is 1% of Gaza's overall displaced population of 1.7 million, have now been orphaned in the Gaza Strip. And the number of children who have been killed in Gaza, this number is now reaching 13,000 children. The number of children reported killed in just four months in Gaza is higher than the number of children killed in four years of war around the world combined.

Let's take an ad break, and we'll be right back. And we are back in the 24 hours between sunday march 10th and monday march 11th during which the vast majority of americans were busy watching the stupid fucking oscars seven massacres were committed by israeli occupation forces against families in g, killing 67 Palestinians and injuring 106 others. This happened as people were distracted by watching this dumb display of nothing. Palestinians are continuing to be murdered. And as for where things currently stand right now, there are more than 1.7 million civilians who are trapped in the Rafah, which is Gaza's last place of refuge. It's right on the south, on the southern border. And this is after Israel kept telling Palestinians to go south because of these quote-unquote safe zones that

were clearly not safe at all. A massacre is happening in the Rafah right now and the world is silent. And to make matters worse, not that they can get any worse, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says that he intends to press ahead with the invasion of the city of Rafah. Joe Biden, useless, warned that the offensive would be a quote red line. But as we know, a slap on the wrist for Israel means absolutely nothing and they continue to act with impunity, without any repercussions. When asked on Sunday whether Israeli forces would move into Rafah, Netanyahu replied, We'll go there. We're not going to leave them. You know, I have a red line.

And you know what the red line is? That October 7 does not happen again. It never happens again. He also dismissed the idea of a ceasefire for Ramadan, saying that he would like to see another hostage release because without a release, there's not going to be a pause in the fighting. And he also doubled down on his rejection of the possibility of a Palestinian state. He says, The positions that I espouse are supported by the overwhelming majority of Israelis who say to you after October 7, we don't want to see a Palestinian state. The Israeli people also support

my position that says that we should resoundingly reject the attempt to ram down our throats a Palestinian state. That is something they agree on. The evening of Sunday, March 10th, was also the first day of the holy Muslim month of Ramadan. Tariq Ahmed, who is the UK minister of state responsible for relations to the Middle East, North Africa, and the UN, on Monday he urged Israel to, quote, allow unhindered access to Jerusalem's holy sites during Ramadan. What has Israel done since then, you may ask? Well, Israel has put up a barbed wire fence around the Al-Aqsa Mosque, something it hasn't done since 1967. Israel erected barbed wire on a fence around the Lion's Gate area adjacent to the Al-Aqsa Mosque complex in occupied East Jerusalem. The Jerusalem governor's office itself said in a statement on Monday,

this is a dangerous precedent that has never occurred since 1967. The Lion's Gate, also known as Bab al-Asbat, is located within Jerusalem's Old City and is one of the main gates leading to the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Israel clearly aims to prevent Palestinians from entering Al-Aqsa Mosque during the holy month of Ramadan. Israeli forces have also imposed a strict siege on the Al-Aqsa Mosque for the past five months, preventing entry into it. On Sunday night, Israeli forces prevented hundreds of Palestinians from entering the mosque to perform the Taraweeh, a special night of prayers during the holy month of Ramadan. They also beat a Palestinian man near Bab al-Zahra, one of the gates leading to the mosque, before detaining him. Soldiers also reportedly detained

an al-Aqsa mosque guard from the old city of Jerusalem. Continuing along with the news from just this week, on Monday, Israeli forces arrested six Palestinian boys from the town of El Esawiyah, northeast of occupied Jerusalem. Video footage showed a group of Israeli soldiers tying the Palestinians with a rope and dragging them in a humiliating manner through the streets of El Esawiyah. You see this in this footage. They wrangle them and treat them like fucking cattle, worse than fucking cattle. They're treated worse than animals. And the entire world is witnessing this. And what is absolutely sickening to me is that so many Americans would probably care more about a dead dog than about a dead Palestinian. And if that sentence made you

uncomfortable, well, it's supposed to. Palestinians have not been treated or depicted as human for so long that it's just become normal. But it is not normal, and Palestinian life matters just as much as any other. I want to also take a moment to talk about what's happening in the West Bank. According to Amnesty International, Israeli forces have unleashed a brutal wave of violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank in the last five months, carrying out unlawful killings, including by using lethal force without necessity or disproportionately during protests and arrest raids, as well as denying medical assistance to those injured. The organization investigated four emblematic cases where Israeli forces used unlawful lethal force, three incidents in October and one in November, which resulted in

the unlawful killing of 20 Palestinians, including seven children. Researchers remotely interviewed 12 people, 10 of them eyewitnesses, including first responders and local residents. The organization's crisis evidence lab verified 19 videos and four photos in examining these four incidents. Amnesty International's research also found that Israeli forces obstructed medical assistance to people with life-threatening wounds, as well as attacked those attempting to assist injured Palestinians, including paramedics. Since October 7th, Israeli forces have stepped up raids, carrying them out almost daily across the occupied West Bank in what it describes as search and arrest operations. In one recent incident that you may have seen online, Israeli forces carried out a raid

masquerading as medical staff. In 2023, at least 507 Palestinians were killed in the West Bank, including 81 children, making it the deadliest year for Palestinians since the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs began recording casualties in 2005. Erika Guevara-Rosas, Amnesty International's Director of Global Research, Advocacy and Policy, said, under the cover of the relentless bombardment and atrocity crimes in Gaza, Israeli forces have unleashed unlawful lethal force against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, carrying out unlawful killings and displaying a chilling disregard for Palestinian lives. These unlawful killings are a blatant violation of international human rights law

and are committed with impunity in the context of maintaining Israel's institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination over Palestinians. These cases provide shocking evidence of the deadly consequences of Israel's unlawful use of force against Palestinians in the West Bank. Israeli authorities, including the Israeli judicial system, have proven shamefully unwilling to ensure justice for Palestinian victims. In this climate of near-total impunity, an international justice system worth its salt must step in. The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court must investigate these killings and injuries as possible war crimes of willful killing and willfully causing great suffering or serious injury. The situation in Palestine and Israel is a litmus test for the legitimacy and reputation of the court.

is a litmus test for the legitimacy and reputation of the court. It cannot afford to fail it. Since October 7th, across the West Bank, Israeli security forces' use of unlawful force during law enforcement operations has been unrelenting, sowing fear and intimidation among entire communities. It has also been used to disperse rallies and protests held in solidarity with Gaza and demanding the release of Palestinian prisoners and detainees. Between October 7th and December 31st of 2023, 299 Palestinians were killed, marking a 50% increase compared to the first nine months of the year.

At least 61 more Palestinians, including 13 children, have been killed so far in 2024 as of the end of January, according to the numbers reported by Ocha. Israel has a well-documented track record of using excessive and often lethal force to stifle dissent and enforce its system of apartheid against Palestinians, leading to a historic pattern of unlawful killings committed with impunity. In one illustrative case investigated by Amnesty International, Israeli military and border police forces used excessive force during a 30-hour-long raid on Nur Shams refugee camp on October 19th. During the operation, Israeli forces killed 13 Palestinians, including six children, four of them under the age of 16, as well as arrested 15 people.

Israeli military sources quoted in media reports said that one Israeli border police officer was killed and nine were injured after an improvised explosive device was thrown at them by Palestinians. Residents told Amnesty International that during the operation, Israeli soldiers stormed more than 40 residential homes, destroying personal belongings and drilling holes in the walls for sniper outposts. Water and electricity to the camp was cut off and soldiers used bulldozers to destroy public roads, electricity networks, and water infrastructure. Among those killed during the October 19th raid was 15-year-old Taha Mohammed, who Israeli forces shot dead in front of his house when he came out to check whether Israeli forces had left the area. Israeli forces had left the area. Taha was unarmed and posed no threat to the soldiers at the time he was shot, and this is based on eyewitness testimony and videos that were reviewed by Amnesty International. A video filmed by one of his sisters and verified by Amnesty's crisis

evidence lab shows Taha walking on the street, peeking to check for the presence of soldiers, and then collapsing on the street outside of his house after the sound of three gunshots. Fatima, Taha's sister, told Amnesty International, they did not give him a chance. They did not give him a chance. In an instant, my brother was eliminated. Three bullets were fired without any mercy. The first bullet hit him in the leg, the second in his stomach, the third in his eye. There were no confrontations. There was no conflict. An eyewitness told Amnesty International that when Taha's father, Ibrahim Mohammed, then attempted to carry his injured son to safety, Israeli forces shot him in the back. A verified video filmed by one of Taha's sisters immediately after the shooting shows Taha's father lying on the ground next to him before limping

away. My father raised his hands, showing the soldiers that he had nothing in them, he just wanted to take his son. They shot him with one bullet, and my father fell next to Taha. I wanted to mention that one example, but many many more have happened since then and before then. Protests in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza have been held frequently across the occupied West Bank since October 7th. Some protesters have been seen throwing stones in response to the presence or forceful intervention of the Israeli forces. The IOF's use of lethal force in response to rock throwing is not new, even if the rock throwing is done by children. In theory, lethal force in law enforcement can only be used when there is an imminent threat to life.

Its use is not a proportionate response to stone throwing. In another egregious case that happened on October 13th in Tulkaram, two eyewitnesses described to Amnesty International how Israeli forces stationed at a military watchtower, both at one of the main entrances to the town as well as on the roof of a nearby home, and then they opened fire on a crowd of at least 80 unarmed Palestinians who were peacefully demonstrating in solidarity with Gaza. Two journalists who were at the scene separately told Amnesty International that they saw Israeli forces firing two tear gas canisters at the crowd and shortly afterwards opening live fire at them without any warning shots. The two journalists saw four people being shot and injured

as they tried to run away from the shooting. A few minutes later, Israeli forces then opened fire in the direction of the journalists, even though they were both wearing vests clearly marked as press. They hid behind a wall, along with three children, and had to remain there for about two hours as the operation continued. the operation continued. During this time, they also witnessed a Palestinian man who was riding past them on a bike being shot by an Israeli soldier. One of the journalists also saw another demonstrator being shot in the head. She described how the victim was suddenly shot and fell to the ground. The obstruction of medical assistance by Israeli forces during operations like this across Palestine is

unfortunately a routine practice, and Amnesty International has documented this for years, saying it is a part of Israel's system of apartheid. Under international law, Israeli forces have an obligation to ensure anyone injured by their forces is able to access medical treatment. to ensure anyone injured by their forces is able to access medical treatment. Amnesty International investigated five occasions where the Israeli forces hindered or prevented those who were seriously injured in demonstrations and raids from receiving critical medical assistance. They also shot at Palestinians trying to help, including medics tending to the wounded. During the raid I mentioned earlier on Nur Shams on October 19th, three eyewitnesses, including a paramedic on the scene, said two

ambulances were stopped at the entrance of the camp and prevented from reaching the injured. The witnesses said the residents were forced to transport the wounded to a hospital in private cars. Since October 7th, according to the UN, more than 400 Palestinians have been killed, 107 of those being children in the West Bank. I also want to mention the settler attacks on Palestinians, not just by the IOF, because these settler attacks have also become routine. Settlers have burned cars and houses, blockaded roads, damaged electricity networks, seized farmland, severed irrigation lines, attacked people in their fields and olive groves, and killed people, all without repercussion. The UN has recorded 573 attacks by settlers in the

West Bank since October 7th, with Israeli forces, the IOF, accompanying them half of the time. At least nine people have been killed by settlers, and 382 have been killed by the IOF, according to these numbers by the UN. Human rights groups in Israel and the West Bank allege a long pattern of violence that has been enabled by the IOF. The army, however, of course, denies this. Human rights groups in Israel and the West Bank allege a long pattern of violence by settlers that is enabled by the occupation forces. The army, of course, denies this. As I mentioned earlier, the IOF has a long history of using unnecessary lethal force, and we're seeing

that increasingly happen in the West Bank. I want to end this episode with a quote from the Israeli group B'Tselem. They told the BBC, since the beginning of the war in the Gaza Strip, Israel has continued to implement a lethal open fire policy in the West Bank. Of the almost 400 Palestinians killed by Israeli forces since October 7th, many did not pose a threat at the level that would justify the use of lethal force. With extremely rare exceptions that usually involve low-ranking soldiers, no one is brought to justice for the killing of Palestinians. This reflects Israel's profound disregard for the lives and bodies of Palestinians. And that is our episode for today. As usual, please, please keep talking about Palestine. Please keep raising awareness about this ongoing genocide that's

happening in both Gaza and the West Bank. And yeah, just don't stop talking about it. Free Palestine. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into how tech's elite has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose. This season, I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel winning economists to leading journalists in the field, and I'll be digging into why the products you love keep getting worse, and naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get me wrong though, I love

technology. I just hate the people in charge and want them to get back to building things that actually do things to help real people. I swear to God things can change if we're loud enough, so join me every week to understand what's happening in the tech industry and what could be done to make things better. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com. On Thanksgiving Day, 1999, a five-year-old boy floated alone in the ocean. He had lost his mother trying to reach Florida from Cuba. He looked like a little angel. I mean, he looked so fresh.

And his name, Elian Gonzalez, will make headlines everywhere. Elian Gonzalez. Elian Gonzalez. Elian. Elian. Elian Gonzalez. At the heart of the story is a young boy and the question of who he belongs with. His father in Cuba.

Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or his relatives in Miami. Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. At the heart of it all is still this painful family separation. Something that as a Cuban, I know all too well. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story, as part of the My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Gianna Parente. And I'm Jimei Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's

Talk Offline, the early career podcast from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. One of the most exciting things about having your first real job is that first real paycheck. You're probably thinking, yay, I can finally buy a new phone. But you also have a lot of questions like, how should I be investing this money? I mean, how much do I save? And what about my 401k? Well, we're talking with finance expert Vivian Tu, aka Your Rich BFF, to break it all down. I always get roasted on the internet when I say this out loud, but I'm like, every single

year you need to be asking for a raise of somewhere between 10 to 15 percent. I'm not saying you're going to get 15% every single year, but if you ask for 10 to 15 and you end up getting eight, that is actually a true raise. Listen to this week's episode of Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, and welcome to It Could Happ here podcast uh about things falling apart and people

putting them back together i am back after after a lengthy court battle i've been allowed to return to the podcast which i'm very grateful for and i'm joined today by john and haval two friends of mine who volunteer right here in akumba a lot a lot more than i do and we're going to explain some developments that have happened give you all an update on the situation here, and let you know how you could help. So welcome to the show, both of you. Hello. Thank you. Good to be back. Yeah. Welcome back. If you'd like to just introduce yourselves, like your name, like whatever role you play out here, pronouns, and any like affiliation with any organization

you feel is relevant? So my name is John. I'm someone that lives in the area. This situation just kind of showed up in my backyard. I was kind of forced into it rather than volunteered into it. And I've been dealing with it nonstop since the beginning. Yeah i'm one of the main uh sets of boots on the ground um i'm val i use they them pronouns and i organize with direct action drumline and zine distro doing a lot of mutual aid which is how i got involved in all this and also with alocha lotto helping out on the ground since the beginning with john pretty much just a little after John started. So, yeah.

So that's what, nearly six months. So if you're not counting may. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. So yeah, it started in may and then it stopped during the summertime.

It picked up again in September and we've been dealing with it nonstop. Yeah. People will have heard briefly from John's father, Sam in our may episodes about title 42 uh which we did yeah it seems like forever ago um it also doesn't seem like very long ago it's just one big weird like collapsing of time so last time we spoke last time i spoke with with haval we had this situation where we had three distinct concrete camps right uh adjacent to gaps in the wall which volunteers were servicing with food water warm blankets we were building shelters

and and we've heard a lot about those camps does one of you guys want to explain how things have changed since then and really particularly in the last what six weeks so yeah it's changed quite uh radically actually so between the months of september and uh december we were servicing these three camps kind of more or less in our immediate area it was pretty straightforward our routine would consist of stopping to each camp two times a day and uh feeding people providing them with uh all the different things that the US government was not. And I kind of wish things were simpler like they were back then. Yeah.

So at the end of the month of December, Secretary Blinken made a visit to Mexico. And I suspect that he pressured the Mexican government to police our border for us. One of the immediate changes that we saw as a result of that was the foundation of two Mexican National Guard camps at two of the gaps that feed into those camps in our area. And that has basically stopped any people coming through those areas. This has not made any less people come into the country. Actually, the numbers have been fairly consistent. It's just that people have been forced to go in through other areas. So there've been many, many new OA ads that have popped up west of us. We have to drive quite a bit further towards San Diego to go and service those areas.

The main one being sliders, which we're seeing about 200 people come in sometimes in a night. It's not a good scene. Whereas those three ones that we were originally servicing had dumpsters and porta-potties at the very least. They still do. With no one coming in. Still there. Exactly. Yeah.ies at the very least yeah they still do they still no one coming in still there exactly yeah moving at the speed of government the new ones don't have that and people are having to spend um what how long were the people there most uh during that crazy crazy time just like a few days ago i think they were up they were there for up to like 19 hours

yeah going on a day right yeah because we first so to backtrack to people like we we heard from a member of the community that there have been people seen held there right at sliders and then we went out there and we kept finding like uh warm fires like where people had clearly been there and built fires we could see what people have scavenged to brush and a lot of documents ripped up around there yeah the telltale signs yeah yeah all these signs and so we were able to use that to to suppose that was a place where people were and then i guess was it eventually someone stayed the night there and that was what allowed us or we bumped into people there someone bumped into people there well we have an acquaintance

uh that's been very helpful towards the cause that uh lives just close by to there and he's kind of the one that sounded the alarm and from there it's like you said it's a lot more difficult right like it's probably a 30 minute drive it's a steep off-road so like when it rains it's hard to get to so that makes it more difficult for us to to provide stuff for people there and like i guess people should realize that like we didn't find out about this because border patrol called us and said like hey there are people here without food water or shelter yeah that's not a thing that they do we actually did uh one another volunteer brendan and i were driving

out and we stopped on the road i don't think you were with us um john but uh we started talking to one of the agents because there was two or a group of people from, I think, Egypt. It was the day everyone did the mass exodus from 177. So we stopped and we're talking to one of the agents. And he did slip that there was another camp. He didn't name it. He didn't say where it was. He just said it was that way.

And that was around the same time that Morgan had mentioned it to us. So we kind of pulled it out of this agent because we were talking very nonchalantly with him and he was being generally nice but yeah they they don't tell us about this stuff yeah and we have to find him myself and what i think that brings up is that there are potentially more right we we know for a fact there are we know that there are more. And I think it's obviously people think of California and they think of LA and they think of San Diego and they think of the beach and pleasant weather. But can you explain, it's been really cold out here

and pretty miserable, right? With the wet weather we've been having. This is a pretty unknown part of Southern California. We're a mountainous region just east of San Diego within San Diego County. I mean, it's not it's not crazy high it's you know it's about an average of three thousand to four thousand feet above sea level but yeah it gets very windy over here gets very unpleasant it often drops down to freezing

yeah and that's if you're out there all night and you have any shelter and any any way to get warm and you're potentially wet from crossing a river or crossing a stream that often pops up in the desert, it can be a really miserable situation. So like it's important that these people receive help. And right now it's just through word of mouth and the local community that we're able to find them. Right.

And give them that help. Yeah. Yeah. So going forward, like we've seen like this movement of migration West, what does that mean for the ability of volunteers to provide services to migrants? And what does it mean for the safety? Like you said, that the push factors haven't changed, right? So people are still coming here and they still have things to get away from that lead them to come here,

but they're not coming the same way where we could so easily help them in these three concrete sites. So what does that mean? Well, it takes a lot more time out of our day just to drive there for one. The main one, Sliders, is up a very shitty road. I think they call it Sliders because it's so muddy and slidey over there when you're driving. Yeah. I put someone's head into the roof of my truck driving up there. That's how long you go. Yeah. And we're not the only ones that are displeased with this.

It makes the life for the border patrol more difficult, makes life for the emergency medical services more difficult. And of course, it makes life for the migrants more miserable. And the owner of the property. and the owner of the property and the owners of the property in which they're hosting these uh you know detaining these migrants yeah we i think they've every single one has been on private property so far right and i think we spoke to most of the property owners at this point and it just seems to come out of the blue at them like it's it's very strange permission is never sought yeah and uh i think i know one of them is suing the border patrol for it but i'm sure that would take months but obviously it does have an impact

on the landscape as well people understand there'll be a cold so they're cutting down whatever they can to burn to make shelter to to make their experience a little bit less miserable so that's the yeah that's that's kind of a a bargaining tool that we try and use when trying to convince the property owners to allow us to build shelters over there. It's just to try and convince them that it'll be good for them to have migrants not be in a position to be forced to have to cut down the vegetation on their land and trash their land. And, you know, by allowing us to build shelters on their property and give firewood to the migrants that are being held on their property, it's better for them in the long run. Yeah. And the first time we went out there, they had created these shelters by just ripping brush and creating these like semi circles that were maybe about a foot or two. Some of them were very impressive. Yeah. yeah yeah like two three feet high and it was nice you know and enclosed so they had some sort

of shelter but yeah they had to rip all that from the vegetation around the area which just ruins the ecosystem there i'm sure yeah and it must tear up your hands as well like lots of thorny bushes and stuff yeah um yeah it's it's not desirable for anyone and talking of things aren't desirable we unfortunately have to take an advertising break uh so we will do that hit some stuff that you don't need all right we're back uh those are some products and services now we're going to talk about the way john being very local to hakumba right how it is like organizing in a rural community and the way that obviously you have people of very disparate political leanings in in the area and like how you've managed to like phrase what we're doing and to organize in such

a way that at the very least people aren't like actively pissed off at you yeah so first of all i'm a quaker come from a quaker family and uh first and foremost i am doing this for religious reasons and i like to try and remind people of that so when people try and come at me with anti-immigrant sentiment i just try and remind them that you know this is this is basically what you're supposed to do according to the Bible. And, uh, you know, uh, to hate on any of these people is very unchristian. And when I do so, it's very hard for them to come at me with any of that stuff. But still, yes, for the most part, the community over here have not been very helpful towards this. They have not been very enthused

with all these migrants coming in. And they've been very regrettably misinformed about it all. They're still looking at various crazy sources for their news, like YouTube channels and stuff like that. And it's kind of hard to believe. It's like you guys live in the area.

You can just drive straight out there. You can talk to me, a person that you guys know yet you still choose to uh look up all these various whack jobs on youtube yeah yeah we've had something of a problem with it the youtube people right like there's a whole info a whole ecosystem of right-wing youtubers that i think probably most folks don't know about even if you take an interest in other like right-wing conspiracy stuff there's a whole ecosystem of right-wing border youtubers who have been i mean describe what you've seen right we've had like a new right-wing fascist out every day it seems there's oreo express uh antonio guero's been out here uh jlr investigates jlr roger ogden

was out here the other day classic it's kind of calmed down though in the last last couple of days but there was a period uh in late february where it seemed like they were coming out every single day yeah just a different guy in a different lifted jeep yeah exactly just after that whole border what was it that take back our border convoy yeah i got them all riled up to come out actually what really set them off to to be aware of all this is when fox did their big piece out here and they were out here for multiple days yeah that's what kind of like turned on the tap yeah and that's very common anywhere you go on the border right like fox has a border reporter uh bill malugan people will be

familiar with bill malugan from publishing a story in 2020 which suggested the police officer had a tampon uh used tampon put in his Starbucks coffee which was demonstrably false and didn't really very much look like a tampon uh you can google more about that if that's interesting to you but like someone who perhaps should have lost their journalistic credibility at that point uh is now doing border reporting for Fox and this is when i speak to people all along the border right here arizona texas yeah the stuff that fox puts out very strongly correlates with anti-migrant sentiment both both locally and with like these these folks coming in and streaming and they're always asking for donations right like it's not a uh it then they're not like uh

advert funded or like publicly funded like they're funded by donations for what? Yeah. Well, I forget the channel that Aguero was on, but he's constantly asking for donations and like, Oh, thank you. You just dropped $10.

Thank you for the five spot, blah, blah, blah. Like they all sitting in his car. That's what they're grifters. That's, that's what they're out there for every,

it seems like a third of their broadcast time is spent asking for donations right yeah yeah it's like a like a charity stream except it's the opposite of charity i guess exactly so pay me to do hateful things streams yeah and i think like that as we get as we look between now and november i think it's really important that like the border will be a topic that people who never come to the border will argue about constantly between now and november right fox news will have reporting on it nbc will have reporting on it like and both of them will have reporting that isn't anchored on what we see every single day out here which is a wide variety of people from all over the world who are having a very difficult time right here and need our help

right and we're doing what we can to help them so i guess what like people who are listening to this will in the next i don't know how long it is till november what six months seven eight months um they'll have conversations with their family members, with their friends, with people in bars, whatever, regarding the border. What do you think they should know about what we're seeing? Because there's this whole border invasion narrative, right? And this is not an invasion. We were just out joking with some people

and helping them get their firewood prepped. These people are not a threat. I think people often make the mistake of considering this issue to be a political issue. It really is just a humanitarian issue. Vast majority of the people that I've talked to have very legitimate reasons for needing to come into this country. Whether they're from Ecuador, you know, you know the situation over there. Recently, there were gangsters that took over a TV station.

Right. of the situation over there recently there were gangsters that took over a tv station right or in guatemala where i spoke to a man who told me that his children with college degrees can't make enough family money to feed their families uh or even in afghanistan where people have literally had the taliban threaten their families lives same with idan and the ayatollah escaping all the kurdish people in turkey i mean the list goes on uh or you know climate refugees like the mauritanians that we just spoke with earlier yes they're they're coming and they have really reasonable grounds for asylum over here yeah and it wouldn't be a such an quote-unquote invasion if they were just allowed to walk through the port of entry this it's this process is so silly because they cross they could just do

this all at the port of entry they really could but the policies just choose not to do this yeah right that's the part that really doesn't make sense is like we're letting them in anyways why do we need to make their lives so uncomfortable? Yeah. And dangerous, right? Dangerous. I mean, John, you and I were on a water drop, uh, maybe two months ago now, six weeks ago, um, in, um, slightly West of here. Right. And do you remember we were driving down to where we're going to get off and we met that family, uh, from Guinea. There was a, like, do you want to just describe what you saw? Cause I think it was like, at least for me, that was like, I've seen this a lot, but it still emotionally affected me. So yeah, there was a, there was a Guinean woman and her kid. I think he might've been like,

what, four or something? Three. Yeah. And, uh, and there was also a Nigerian woman, Nigerian speak English and Guineans speak French. they weren't really able to communicate with one another and uh yet they were still traveling side by side because they they just teamed up because they were in a desperate situation together uh one of them was uh was she in sandals one of them didn't have shoes at all it didn't have shoes at all right yeah yeah it's six weeks is a long time you know when you're doing this yeah well you see horrible things every day yeah it's been a very eventful time every day feels like a new story um yeah yeah and uh they just kind of sat on the side of the the road and uh were out of breath and they were just basically asking us to help them yeah i remember the little girl because we

were obviously concerned with this lady who didn't have shoes and us to help them yeah i remember the little girl because we were obviously concerned with this lady who didn't have shoes and trying to help like bandage her feet and stuff but then i remember the little girl just wasn't saying anything and i suddenly realized oh this little girl's probably very cold she was like you know early like uh mildly hypothermic yeah so i had her wrapped up in a little uh mylar blanket with me to warm her up and it's just i don't know it just for one reason or another that was a moment where i was like why on earth are we doing this to a three year old like what what possible reason could there be yeah this three-year-old girl to have hypothermia here in like the richest country in the world who who could possibly agree that this

is a good thing yes yeah or another experience i had in the beginning of February where there was this Colombian man who was in tears, who approached me and told me that his daughter was very, very ill. And he dragged me over to a porta potty. And she was there bundled up with like nine blankets or something, not really responding to my questions. He was trying to contact 911, but the responder on 911 or the dispatcher didn't speak Spanish. So I had to communicate with them and navigate the whole situation. Turns out she did have hypothermia. Yeah. to the hospital so again it's another case of family separation who knows what might have happened they would have gotten processed separately he could have ended up in louisiana and she could have ended up in riverside or somewhere yeah and at that point once again it's not the government or your taxes that will pay for those people to be reunified right like

that's work that's done by ngos and organizations. Exactly, yeah. Despite the massive amount of money we spend on, and we were just talking the other day about how the architectural marvel of sections of the border wall, right? Where they've poured concrete at like a 45 plus degree angle and spent millions of dollars for every yard of that. And we don't have enough money

to give this three-year-old girl a blanket or to get that family back together. It's pathetic. it's yeah it's mind-boggling yeah even today with that dude from brazil he came up to me when we first got here they were starving wanted food water and he was like i'm sick i have a fever so i hooked him up with some cold medicine that we had in our med kit and then later when we went back to do the second round of feeding he got more food and he was like thank you so much we're starving we were told to uh when we were dropped off to wait in the mountains at 6 p.m to 6 a.m so they were just hadn't really i don't know if they were on the american side yet or how that worked didn't really describe it but had to wait in the mountains before

crossing and so people are getting sick out there uh we ran into that dude with the dog bite at 177. We always go check this one camp because there hasn't been, since Guardia Nacional had put their camp on the other side, there hadn't been a whole lot of people crossing in this area, but we go check it periodically and one morning, yeah, we saw this man hobbling towards us as we're driving

down the road with a stick. And we're like, why is he walking like this pulled over? And he was bitten by a dog. He said he went to take a drink of water and some dogs attacked him two dogs i think yeah yeah he described it as a wolf right like he used the word wolf yeah yeah so we called ems and they picked him up and took him to the hospitals right but if you hadn't been there it's a long way to walk with a dog bite in your leg yeah and who knows border patrol might not even have ems'd him out they might have just tried to process him with the dog bite. Yeah.

Could have gotten infected. But just to go back on the mutual aid question that you had earlier, it hasn't all been negative. It's actually been a really great experience in which I've met really great people from all kinds of walks of life who have just joined together because they see a problem and know that they're the only ones that can make a difference. And it is a sure, easy way to be really important and make a difference in other people's lives. You don't really need to have much more than a good heart and a willingness to work. Yeah. I think we should talk about that more because not some of us had some like prior life experience right working with

refugees or migration but i think most of us just were people who were like yeah this isn't right and i am able to help and so i'm going to help and so can you talk about like how people can help and then like you said i think i've actually got a lot out of this and i feel more affirmed in my belief that like we can look out after each other without the need to control each other and like we don't necessarily need people with guns and badges for to create a society that cares for people who need taking care of and so perhaps you could describe like how people can help and then what it is that you've got out of this that keeps you wanting to do this well first of all yeah we don't we don't have a clear structure of uh authoritative structure over here it's um we take ideas as a collective different people have contributed different things there's a woman that

really nailed down the pb and j making system and we've all just been following her lead there some people came up with the idea of having a cell phone charging station that was you and uh it's just the list goes on and uh if you wanted to help you could just come by to the border come to one of these sites and just start distributing food or teaming teaming up with us somehow or by donating to the GoFundMe. Yeah. What's the GoFundMe, John? So it's a GoFundMe that was set up by my dad.

I don't actually know what it's titled. Hakumba Migrant Aid, I think. If you search GoFundMe Hakumba Migrant Aid, it comes up. Samuel Schultz, I think, is by Samuel Schultz. You'll know because it has like $50,000 on it and like maybe seven words as a description it's like google because not much else is going down here i guess um but yeah people can help that way and we've had people come who listened we had two people this morning right who'd heard about it on the podcast and it come and helped yeah and it

made a really really great difference yeah they camped out at the sliders and really held it down, which is really important. I mean, for some of us, we, you know, like John and I, we kind of do like a morning shift where we get up really early and make sure to do everything that we need to do, prepping sandwiches, checking on all the camps. But a lot of people come in in the middle of the night. Sliders had people come in, what, at midnight or 1 a.m.? Oh, yeah, all throughout.

A group came at midnight, a group came at like 1 a.m., and then all throughout some a group came at midnight a group came at like 1am and then there were also more that came at 4am yeah so like having someone on site camping you know making sure that people's needs are met and that if any emergencies take place that they're taken care of and it's just that smiling face when they get here it makes a huge difference like that dude from brazil like earlier he was saying to me he was like thank you so much like this is like this is humanity right here like i'm a human and i'm like yes we will treat you like humans here like at the end of the day you know uh these people coming through central america and mexico they go through so much you know uh extortion

people ripping them off just feeling unwelcome throughout that whole voyage. Just having a group of people welcome them into the country and treat them with dignity is worth more than any bottle of water or sandwich that we can give them. And that's the main thing that we're doing, I would say. I want to emphasize that people can help in so many ways that you can send us stuff you can send us money or you can just show up if you just have a weekend that's totally fine or a day it's totally fine or if you just want to come and make sandwiches that's totally fine like um it we're a very diverse group of people and some people have

had more time than others but yeah everyone i think is valued and like you said i think like we're the way that we organize without anyone like we organize horizontally has allowed us to be so much better like do you remember the day there was a day when we ran out of plates uh and we were we were like down in willow and it was just it was like chaos um and then uh someone who just arrived that day was like oh what if we put the beans in a sandwich bag and give people that was actually peter who's back now after after going on rump springer for a while but yeah uh like if we had been like no i'm in charge we've been doing this for longer then those people wouldn't have got fed right but because we were like willing to listen then the people got fed and like we were all happier because the people got fed right like it worked better that way

so like as things change because like border patrol have said explicitly that they're trying to push people west right what do you think like what do we need going forward what do you see like the situation being and like it would be good to explain the context of like the changing seasons here as well yes so uh i think what we're going to see more of is people that are crossing in uh unorthodox areas more people that are hopping the fence more people that are cutting the fence, more people that are cutting holes in the walls, just popping up all over the place. So yeah, it would be great to have eyes along the border, people that are willing to travel up and down along the border to find out where these people are coming through. Because for the most part, we don't know oftentimes where

these people are coming through. there are a couple of new oads open air detention sites that are relatively close to us that we can't find even right yeah like maybe if we had a super fancy drone we could find them or just boots on the ground a nice off road vehicle yeah all those things yeah then these are all things that cost money that we don't have but like we've all put lots of miles on our trucks and lots of miles on our boots trying to, trying to help out. My exhaust is falling off.

All these bumps. Yeah. My, my transfer case took a beating, but like, yeah, if we had more people, some of us could focus on feeding people here because there was what,

how many people were there when we just left now? 120, something like that. Oh no, actually probably more. If you count the new group, I think, you know, a conservative estimate would have been maybe 140 yeah so that's we've made 140

sandwiches to feed them today and we chopped firewood and taken that out and uh we'd be given all that out right that was after the same thing at breakfast time that doesn't leave much time to go meander along the border and look for another site. So if we have more people, we could do that. And that will be really valuable. Also, if you have connection to firewood. Yeah, if you're a person who can bring us a lot of firewood. We have one homie right now and he's breaking his back cutting wood for us. So yeah, that's a definite big need out here.

Yeah. Is there other stuff like that that people who maybe aren't here but have connections to or they could they could send that's particularly needed a nice off-road vehicle if they got one lying around firewood is definitely a big thing that's that's a huge need yeah see it's getting really cold up here and especially in like sliders too i think it's higher in elevation so exposed to there's nothing between you and the wind yeah like yeah it's very cold out there yeah but and and just other things that are that are easier for us to get but we just constantly need such as jackets blankets bread yeah we make a lot of pbngs yeah yeah tents all these things right like the wind and the sun

destroys everything that we've stockpiled after a while and we have to keep reinventing the wheel and then sometimes border patrol destroys our stuff as well or uh sometimes some some chuds come and destroy our stuff which which oh the chuds destroying our stuff yeah we should talk about the destruction of the shelters before we finish i guess just to end on a sad note um well it's a happy note because we built them again and they're fine so there were some shelters i think uh mostly they were ones that had been built well they're all ones that have been built volunteers yeah and what john you saw what happened to the shelters right yeah so uh we built some shelters at one of the sites at um one of the main sites

uh you know it was very simple just by uh having a plywood as the frame holding it up and then uh nailing down some tarps on it with battens it was uh it was a nice thing it stood up to the heavy winds that we have here very well it's incomparably better to not having a shelter out there oh yeah it's a completely different yeah they're instantly used once people cross and it's awesome to see like adults that are alone will get out and force families children in the shelters like yeah you get it first for sure yeah and uh yeah we built those it was working out good then one day the border patrol showed up or a company that was subcontracted by them and demolished them all using skip loaders and bulldozers and such. We showed up the following day,

we rebuilt all the shelters and we were really happy about it. You know, it was kind of a big fuck you to them. You can tear down our stuff, but we'll just come back and build more. Yeah. But then what was it like a three, four days later or the next day,

maybe I'm not sure. i wasn't the next day two days it was close yeah uh some guys just showed up and they tore it all up with hammers they finishing a tiny little finishing yeah yeah luckily they didn't really come equipped like maybe with the with the tools uh they didn't really know what they were doing yeah i think it's fair to say that but still it's it's annoying when you put the time into building it right and border patrol didn't destroy contractors didn't destroy the shelters but first we were like oh maybe they're not using this but there are 140 people there right now like in in the shelters that got rebuilt for a third time right so like i guess even we we do appreciate people donating and we understand that people's

resources are scarce and like the economy is bad and uh the rent is too damn high etc but like every time we build up enough stuff we have to like we're always running uphill because like stuff just gets destroyed either by the by the weather or by the border patrol or by volunteer border patrol judge so like we could i guess desperately need your help and like at some point the news cycle will move on from the border and that doesn't mean that we will be able to move on from having people to help here right because like john said there were people and people always deserve to be treated with dignity is there anything else you guys think that people should know about the situation here? Before we wrap up.

It's kind of chill. It is really nice. Like I like being here. I come here because it makes me happy and my friends are here. Yeah. And like the Sliders location is located in a really awesome,

like you can see down just past the border wall. There's like a nice little train track that used to go from us into mexico i guess and just beyond that there's like sheep on a farm yeah in the distance like rolling hills the clouds come through and like say it's a really beautiful place to be and to hang out and the a lot of the locals that don't hate what we're doing are very nice the people at the hotel are very supportive and yeah we're we're a great group really good people it's always really fun to do anything like this people are generally enamored by our project and want to be involved and come back a second time i mean we're kind of like cowboys i mean we're doing this all on our

own we're driving up and down looking at the sites looking around and all that whole responsibility is on our shoulders yeah it feels good to take responsibility for something definitely we're doing this yeah it's like no one else will so we'll just do it like that's fine it's it's very like it reminds me of the punk scene growing up but like it's a big important thing like yeah like you said fox every national news network has been down here every grifting streamer has been down here but at the end of the day it's a big important thing like get like you said fox every national news network has been down here every grifting streamer has been down here but at the end of the day it's it's a few dozen random people who are actually the ones making sure that people don't die here yeah for all the government attention for the millions of dollars spent it's just us yeah working on a fraction of the but i mean it costs them more to fly a helicopter for a few hours than it does for us.

Yeah, than we've ever spent in our entire GoFundMe. Yeah. And yeah, like we get it done. We are, we're very efficient, I guess in that sense. But yeah,

we would love more people. People have come because I listened to podcast and that also like just for me personally means the world to me. Like most of the time we just talk into a microphone and then you can't really see who you're talking to unless, unless you go on like social media and that's not always the best reflection of humanity uh so like it really means the world to me that someone like listens to this when they're driving to work or you know going on a jog or whatever they're doing and it's like no i will i will go and i will help uh because i think that is how we solve so many of

our problems like there is a massive problem with people not being able to afford rent living on the street in this country. And we solve it in the same way by just showing up for each other. And there's also different ways to get plugged in. Like if the desert's not your thing, it doesn't, I mean, this is like where the process starts as far as like the spectrum of the

whole border crisis or not crisis, but the whole border humanitarian situation we have going on here so this is what we're doing out here but there's also airport runs a lot of them get ditched in the airports so i think we all we got sd and maybe mdef immigration defense law center kind of hold down they do airport runs border patrol just i guess at night they don't drop them off like after 10 or something they don't drop them off at the iris station they'll just drop them off after 10 or something. They don't drop them off at the Iris station. They'll just drop them straight off at the airport. So they need help being fed.

A lot of them don't have plane tickets. People need blankets because they have to sleep there. So Wheel We Got is great for that. You can plug in with them. And I think Alotrolato and who else is it? MDef as well that's doing the Irish street releases. So when the border patrol just releases them on the street, like a lot of people just get in a cab and go,

they have the resources. They can do that. They're already planned, but some people don't have any money or they got robbed on the way here. So they have nothing. They need a lot of help. They need to figure out where to go. They need a place to stay.

So there's the street releases. There's the airport. There's, I think that's kind of. Or, or by just helping with shelters and organizations in whatever city you happen to be living in you know the majority of the migrant well not the majority but a very typical answer migrants give me when i

ask them uh where in the united states they're going to is new york city or chicago or any of these major cities yeah lincoln nebraska the other day you do you do get some weird ones like that yeah yeah it's gonna be uh idaho have fun yeah we know it's beautiful it is yeah yeah there was a guy haval and i met from minority ethnic group in russia we met in september like i remember one of those first really cold nights and i was talking to this person and uh they were in pennsylvania and i checked in with those first really cold nights and i was talking to this person and they were in pennsylvania and i checked in with them a few weeks ago and they're like happily living in pennsylvania can't understand a word anyone else is saying it's nice to see and yeah you can

help those people in in whatever community you're in and like if you're further along the border there's uh paja samaritans there's no mas huertes there's humane borders um tucson samaritans as well right yeah all along the border you know there are the uh there are lots of good people in texas right it's a sidewalk school in reynoso matamoros uh there are people at the national butterfly center they're very nice people who we've heard from before like all along the border and like all around this country there are there are things you can do to help and like i want to reinforce it it's not like this penurious thing we do that's miserable and we all get together and cry every night like we we do have a nice time even though we we have seen some really stressful things like

we all look after one another and hold space when people do need help or extra time to process something but uh it's a very supportive community and we support each other through lots of other things like aside from this and i think a lot of people in general in the 21st century america struggle with isolation and that's a thing that uh that capitalism does to people right it isolates us from each other and so hopefully like i think this is a solution for me this this has been a really positive thing but like generally my sense of hope. Yeah. And like what we're doing, this kind of does it's disaster humanitarian relief effort.

It's kind of with the way the climate is going in the world and climate, uh, yeah. It's not going to get less common. Yeah. This will just be getting more common and like this kind of like preparing and building community and like this disaster scenario is gonna yeah definitely be more in common so it's not that easy to do i mean it's

not that hard to do uh you know you just gotta have the intention and then you just gotta get together and do it that's all that's all you really need to do don't think that it's like if this if someone had said to us what plus or minus 50 000 people probably have come through i've no idea on the numbers but somewhere around there yeah probably more than that yeah if we like i remember in may when we cleaned up the first oads um when we were like when i first met your mom and dad john like we were cleaning up the first oads and and we were like wow that was a horrible thing that happened that was really fucked if someone had said right well between now and uh next march 50,000

people will come through here and it's mostly going to be you guys who are here picking up trash and that's that's all it's going to be like it's on you it would have been it would have seemed overwhelming right but it i don't think people should feel afraid to confront these big problems because like between the group of people who who we've assembled here we've been able to confront this problem and make it survivable and treat people with dignity and bring some dignity and humanity into a situation where there wasn't any right yep yeah there's a role for everybody no matter what you do you can find your niche of what you know you makes you feel good or something that you're good at you know yeah it's finding the little fascists that destroyed our things online and

doing all that online footwork or it's building shelters or it's making pb and j's or our friends made a website they made a really good website website yeah or even yeah just being someone that speaks multiple languages is a huge need out here especially i mean spanish is pretty common um but the harder language is like um i mean mandarin is huge yeah yeah if you speak mandarin and you reach out to us and we can call you then that would be huge right that could be real in a medical emergency that could be a life or death thing yeah and so there are a ton of ways to help and i've re-encouraged people to get involved if they can where can people follow along with you two do you have like social media or anything that you want to plug um yeah i don't i'm gonna keep mine private we're depriving the world it's such a

beautiful thing yeah one of the i how i got involved in this is through members of a drum line that i am part of so we show up for protest um have been since 2020 um direct action drum line on instagram we post a lot of different stuff from organizing for Palestine to we were doing a lot of Black Lives Matter stuff early in 2020 and now it's kind of cross mix with Border Raids since I've

been out here so we occasionally will make posts so you can follow along there Alocholato is a good one to follow on social media. Inca Paul wellness on Instagram, borderlands relief collective. I'm sure a lot of the people listening already follow a lot of these people,

but yeah, there's a network through all of that. And so once you start following one or the other, we all tag each other and reshare each other's stuff. So you can get involved that way and figure out what's going on. Yeah. And the book is it board? What's website for that's a great resource border a.github.io i think these if you give it a google somewhere somewhere around that you'll find it is a good website and like

if you are facing similar issues in your community wherever you are whatever it is like we've definitely made a lot of mistakes and we've learned a lot and so we've tried to document the things that we've learned so that you guys don't have to reinvent the wheel somewhere else right like you know you can be an efficient pb and j maker just like us learn shirley's technique all right thank you so much guys i really appreciate your time likewise thank you cheers 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,

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