It Could Happen Here - It Could Happen Here Weekly 194

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Starting point is 00:02:45 I'm Andrew Siege, Orsona's Andrewism, on YouTube, and I'm here with... See, it's James. And honestly, I shouldn't see welcome to It Could Happen here. I should really see welcome to It Is Happening Here because... I mean, just a second with you, James. How are you doing? You're safe? I'm okay.

Starting point is 00:03:03 Yeah, I'm safe right now. We are living through wild times in the United States. Every day is a new hell. Indeed, indeed. And although I'm not in the US, the flames of that hell definitely lick the rest of the world in ways big and small. Yeah, they definitely do. I was just talking to people in Syria yesterday and like the Alavis, Al-Awhite, whatever you want to call Alevis, if you want to say it, are facing quite substantial persecution currently.

Starting point is 00:03:33 And, like, one of the larger refugee-accepting countries in the world just isn't doing that anymore, unless you're a white South African, of course. And, like, that has these massive trickle-down effects for everywhere. It's just one example of how, like, America, so goes to the U.S., so goes the world, you know? Indeed, indeed. And not just in Syria are the feelings of conflict tearing up a world apart. I think most people I now know about the situation in Palestine the way that Israel is carrying out to genocide there

Starting point is 00:04:03 you know the Russia's invasion of Ukraine the Civil War in Myanmar and Sudan the you know struggle between India and Pakistan over Kashmir and the Kashmir people who are you know left on the on the wayside you know the Tamil genocide they can place in Sri Lanka I mean there's so

Starting point is 00:04:26 many things happening across the world right now. It's really difficult to keep up. Yeah. The friends in Myanmar would prefer the framing of revolution to civil war. They're pretty explicit about that. Okay. Yeah, you're right. You're right. You're right. I should be using that terminology. Yeah, it's not appropriate everywhere. But in their case, like there has been a civil war since 48 and a substantial change with the 2021 revolution. Right. Right, right, right. Thank you for that Yeah, yeah, of course. I think now is a really good time to have a general, almost strategic discussion on anti-war struggle. And so today I really want to look at how we can counter the propaganda around war, the actions that are possible to take against militarism at home, and how we can build solidarity across oceans and borders.

Starting point is 00:05:19 Yeah. So to understand how to agitate against war, we first need to agitate against militarism. And so to know, militarism is the belief or policy that a nation should maintain a strong military and be prepared to use it aggressively to defend or promote its interests. It often involves glorifying military virtues and ideals and prioritizing military strength and readiness above other aspects of society. So that's a basic Google definition. My copy of the anarchist encyclopedia is the English version, which is abridged, sadly,

Starting point is 00:05:52 but the original French has the full unabridged anarchist encyclopedia. So with a bit of shaky online translation magic, and managed to pull its definition of militarism as well. Militarism is a system that consists of having and maintaining military personnel. Its essential and a valid goal is the preparation for war. The recruitment of a standing army and the organization of the cadres of reserve army, the accumulation, the putting in place, the maintenance and a state of service of ever more modern, more perfected war material.

Starting point is 00:06:20 In short, it is the preliminary organization of war. But what are the implications of that? Well, all over the world, I think we can see, you know, the consequences of statism, the might makes right pursuit of conquest, the fighting wars abroad or at home for strategic interests, ideological commitments, resource claims, whatever the case may be, the rivalries within the ruling class and how that plays out and how it's that blows back on all of our faces, you know, the profits, the military industrial complex, which keeps, this whole system churning on, you know, the blood of innocence, of course, the long-standing

Starting point is 00:07:01 consequences and continued work of colonialism. And of course, the way is that militarism gets turned inward with the suppression of strikes, of activism, of popular unrest, when the now militarized police aren't enough, they often bring in the military itself. And of course, with militarism, you also have the narrative component. you know, the building of patriotism that so plants the seed of fascism. And you know, states can survive without militaries, is true. The state typically depends upon some effort or some attempt at a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence within the territory by some definitions.

Starting point is 00:07:47 But states which do not have militaries often can do so because they have outsourced their military function. their military functions to another state, and or because they have other systems in place to control dissent, to develop a significant degree of social conditioning and pacify the population. I was just trying to think of states that are militaries. Like, in my experience, I guess, you have, like, the Panama right, doesn't have a military. It has the center front, which are, like, the frontier protection, I guess, but essentially, like a militarized border patrol. And they do have Marines and stuff as well, I guess, so they kind of do have.

Starting point is 00:08:22 of a military. It's a kind of a renaming exercise more than anything. Indeed. The same thing of having a militarized police, but it's not a military technically. Yeah. We'll have it a militarized coast guard and it's not a military technically, you know. Yeah, yeah. You have countries like the Republic of the Marshall Islands, which just outsources its, it's militarization to the United States, right? Like the US, well, I think that is a distinct thing. People in the Marshall Islands have seen the horrors of war very closely and also the dangers of militarization, right? Like the United States nuked the Marshall Islands, a country with which it had no quarrel, with which it was not at war, just to practice in case it needed to nuke a country with which it did

Starting point is 00:09:05 have a quarrel, I guess. The legacy of that is very obvious and continues to this day there. But if Marshallese people wish to join a military, they can join the U.S. military and the U.S. guarantees their security in theory, but it's, yeah, it is a distinct. Like, for instance, if you join the U.S. military in the Marshall Islands and wish to access your veterans' benefits, the easiest way to do so is take a five-hour flight to Hawaii. Like, they don't have any benefits for actual veterans there. So I guess in that case, like, maybe it does give people a different relationship to, like, state violence.

Starting point is 00:09:37 Yeah. It's, I mean, obviously different, police have different histories as to how they came to those arrangements, but you definitely see a relationship between colonialism and the outsourcing of military functions. Yeah, definitely. Now, historically, anarchists have been anti-militarist. The encyclopedias call this aspect of the anarchist struggle, the aim to disqualify militarism, to denounce its terrible and painful consequences, to combat the warlike and barrack spirit, to stigmatize and dishonor war to abolish the regime of the armies. So abolishing militarism looks like material relief from the oppression, military violence,

Starting point is 00:10:25 the redirection of resources that go toward military, toward instead things that actually benefit the lives of everyday people, you know, the reduction of pain and suffering throughout the world, the abolition of borders, which so often are the motivating force behind military exercise. And while no anarchists would deny that armed struggle

Starting point is 00:10:49 is necessary for defense, it's not the same as having an imperialistic or hierarchical ambition toward, you know, power over toward dominating populations of people. Yeah. This reminds me of the discussion that happened in the CNT in Spain in the 1930s previous to the Civil War.

Starting point is 00:11:10 and even before that, right, where there was a very profound and obvious discussion on, like, how to defend the revolution, how to defend communities, whilst maintaining anti-militarism. And that's why we didn't see, like, there was not a, like, a standing army beyond, you had affinity groups, right? And then you had, like, defense committees of six, six to eight people. And those people, like, took on the role of organized. for a potential violent, like in order to defend the community, right, like to use violence to defend the community against violence. But even as it became clearer and clearer that Spain was like spiraling towards conflict, they resisted the idea of establishing and I think more militarized than that.

Starting point is 00:11:58 Yeah, and I think civil war, Spain is a really good place to look at first. We some experiments or efforts or ideas would have played out, strategies would have played out. And I think it's really important to take those experiments and see how we can iterate on them and build upon them. Because, I mean, what I've always admired that we've carried on this anti-militarist torch, it's very important to remember the landscape has changed from wartimes past. You know, we're not in World War times anymore. Yes. You know, the strategies and the discussions and the approaches that may have worked back then. it doesn't work

Starting point is 00:12:38 in the same way now. You don't even have to declare war officially anymore in this day and age. You can just say that or you're doing in a special military operation or you can just send billions of dollars of aid

Starting point is 00:12:50 to a country that you want to support and even troops that countries want to support and technically you haven't declared war yet. Yeah. And, you know,

Starting point is 00:13:03 not only that, you also get to unleash generational trauma and poison upon generations of people, but it's okay because you were going after some terrorists. You know, you just get to push money and supplies toward this camp

Starting point is 00:13:18 or that, and where the US is concerned, it at least used to have to seek congressional approval. But as we see, that's not really a thing now, especially post 9-11. You know, back in the day people thought putting pressure

Starting point is 00:13:34 on their elected officials to protest would be enough. And, you know, there's a debate we had to the extent to which that worked for situations like the Vietnam War. But as we've seen with this song and dance again and again and again, the protests are not hitting like they used to. You know, the response to the protests has been so routine at this point. You know, you just send the police to bash some heads in or back to get the military because the movers and the shakers on the people who can actually be reached with these protests, you know, and no matter how peaceful we proclaim our protests to be, we're talking about moneyed interests here, you know, a military industrial complex

Starting point is 00:14:13 that has to have line go up, you know, who doesn't have to give a damn about some people walking on the road. You know, the system has grown since the 1910s, the 1940s. It has grown in such size and complexity to the point where, you know, you don't have to care necessarily about a single moving part about a single action or protest. Yeah, and the two kind of combine and what we're seeing in the United Kingdom right now, right? Like, there's the complete dismissal of protest and this, like, I'm thinking of a better word than imprecise. But, like, the vagueness of the definition of terrorism has allowed the government at the United Kingdom in combination with the absence of a Bill of Rights in the United Kingdom, right,

Starting point is 00:14:57 to just be like, oh, Palestine action and terrorists. Like, you are the same as the Islamic State. because Palestine action undertook it in non-violent direct action, right? But it's ludicrous to suggest that that was terrorism. And that it doesn't be any reasonable definition of the term. But we're in a stage now where governments can declare anyone, the enemy, without any particular oversight. And that's the logical conclusion of two decades of this.

Starting point is 00:15:25 Yeah, I mean, to an extent that has always been the case. I think what's different now is that they're not even really attempting to hide. behind any sort of consistent principles or consistent standards. You know, because even back then, you know, the anarchists were being called terrorists and being, you know, chastised for that. Yeah. I guess also like a class system is more entrenched than it ever has been in a sense. I'm just thinking like wars are not fought by the mass of middle class

Starting point is 00:16:00 and the people who become senators. for the most part, right? I mean, in the US, sometimes senators will have done military service. It can sort of boost their career opportunities. I get that. But, like, it is not, for the most part, the sons of the people who start the wars,

Starting point is 00:16:16 who die in the wars, right? It's people of a different class. In a way that, like, even in a distinct way from, like, the era of the world wars, right? When large numbers of people of the middle class, especially, not the very privileged people that like did die in those wars and I think like the memory of the first world war probably did have some impact on like the reticence of some politicians to

Starting point is 00:16:43 dive into the second one but we we don't really have that now indeed so we criticized this particular approach of the protest and i know the inevitable question is so what can we even do at this point and you know this is why i consider it very important to take a step back and look at what is actually keeping the system going right and what's keeping the system going is and it's always been labor right yeah not to say that labor and labor struggles to be all and end all of our politics but it is to say that if we want to make a significant impact, that is what we have the greatest control over our labor. And so when I talk about things we can do to affect change, I always have to take it back to the ongoing process of social revolution, the things you do to oppose

Starting point is 00:17:49 and the things you do to propose. You know, on the opposing side of things that includes counter messaging, you know, even though we may not have the resources, of mainstream media or government communications, we have weight of mouth, we have trust between ourselves, and we have alternative media that can be, especially in this day and age, just as powerful if sparked right, especially considering the fact that the general sentiment, the populist sentiment has, whether you're coming from a leftist direction or a rightist direction, the general sentiment has been moving toward anti-establishment politics. the anti-establishment sort of momentum is what's growing right now.

Starting point is 00:18:34 And the issue, of course, being that sometimes that anti-establishment momentum can be hijacked, such as what Trump did, you know, to get himself elected the first time. Yeah. He rode that wave. And, you know, this whole Epstein situation, we may see that foundation of his base, potentially crumbling apart a bit. But we have to look at what is. actually motivating people right now and how they can be reached an alternative media with an

Starting point is 00:19:04 anti-establishment message is i think one of the better ways to do so yeah you know wherever you see it you need to be out there you know on social media or through other avenues calling out the ridiculous cautious bellies used to manufacture consent for you know to be wary of potential force flags can be used as a justification for military action to consistently poke holes in the narratives that have allowed, you know, nationalist and xenophobic sentiments to become the force that they have become today. And, of course, even engaging in that messaging, of course, try not to let campism infect your countermeshaging either.

Starting point is 00:19:49 Yeah. You know, that's how you get people who are, you know, they're going to go about a free Palestine and then they start, when he asked them about Ukraine, all of a sudden, it's actually really complicated. It's actually the fault of the US and the EU and NATO and not Russia, even though Russia is the one who actually invaded and is actively killing people and destroyed infrastructure as we speak. Yeah. Right. I mean, there's conversation to be heard about the US and about the EU and about NATO, obviously, but it's very clear. Yeah, it's very uncomplicated. Who's actually killing people right now, you know?

Starting point is 00:20:24 Yeah, there is one country which is taking children and trying to like re-educate them, give them to families in Russia which is committing murders of civilians. We don't have to resort to like 10-year

Starting point is 00:20:41 geopolitical trajectories to say that it's wrong and it should be opposed. Exactly. Exactly. And also I want to make this point about quantum messaging because it's a consistent gripe I've had. In fact, one of the main reasons I started my channel in the first place with your counter messaging, whether it's in person or on the internet or wherever, those stay perpetually

Starting point is 00:21:03 on the back foot. In other words, don't just counter message. Yeah. You know, right now, and it's what irritates me so much, the right wing sets the conversation. Yeah. You know, you have people, they say, oh, we want to talk about critical race theory, and then everybody's talking about crypto race theory because they talk to it or they want to target trans people and all of a sudden we have to scrabble to respond to all their erroneous and ridiculous claims about trans people yeah that counter messages is important is important but it cannot be all that we do right yeah and this is a bit out of left field but you know of course i'm not one who is partial to electoral approaches but you can see some of that not just counter messaging but

Starting point is 00:21:50 also actively messaging taking place with Zora and Mamdani strategy. Yeah. You know, when you look at how he speaks, how he addresses some of the bad faith arguments that are made against him, his rhetorical strength and popularity, in part lies on his refusal to carry on the conversation on the enemies too. Yeah. You know, so they will go at him for something, and he's going to spin it right back around to talking about the things that it's really matters to people, to set the conversation

Starting point is 00:22:20 to get people to respond to that because a lot of the responses toward him have been trying to distract from his actual messaging and his ability to stay on message as something I find really admirable despite, you know, my concerns about the

Starting point is 00:22:36 investment of energy in electoral strategies. Sure, yeah, yeah. Yeah, there are still things we can admire about these people if we don't agree with everything. And I do think, like, in that sense, something I think about a lot with, like, messaging and can't counter messaging, especially around war. It's like, I've spent some time in the A&ES, in what people

Starting point is 00:22:58 call Rajava. And like, one of the framings that I've consistently seen, and it's mostly in, like, the lib-leaning mass media, I guess, is that people went to Rajaba to fight against IS or Dash or ISIS, whatever you want to call it, right? And like, in doing so, that is how the, The revolution in Rajab is not understood by most people, right? And they have taken the power away from it in their framing of it because people didn't just go. Some people did go just to fight IS, right? That they went because they saw what IS was doing.

Starting point is 00:23:34 They understood it as inhumane. And they wanted that to stop. And that's admirable. But people also went because they saw what people were building in Rajaba and they thought that was beautiful and they wanted to defend it. And that's admirable too. And sometimes the messaging around specifically Roshava, Myanmar to an extent, right, there are international volunteers there too. And of course, like folks from Myanmar who have picked up weapons who never thought they would.

Starting point is 00:23:59 And they didn't just do it to oppose the hunter. They did it because like in the, despite all the horrible things about war, and it should be avoided at all costs. In the conflict, they have built liberated spaces and they've experienced freedom. and they have experienced how that feels and they've built a revolution that is beautiful in spite of the war, not because of it. And they want to defend that. And I think that's a messaging that we should consider, right?

Starting point is 00:24:31 Because the messaging that everything has to be against something bad always sort of it presupposes that there can't have been something good. And in some cases, there has been something good. And, like, we won't fully understand what was happening there unless we understand that. And I think we should push back on that messaging when we see it, especially in, like, legacy media. Absolutely. Absolutely. And that really connects to the, you know, the other aspect of the social revolution paradigm, because it's not just about opposing.

Starting point is 00:25:07 It's also about proposing that something different. Yeah. And that is often far more energizing than simply talking about everything that's wrong with the world. Yeah, definitely. And I think also for those who maybe have concerns about the risks of oppositional messaging, there's another area where you can direct your energy to support the opposition without necessarily actively being involved in it. You know, because it's not enough to just oppose the system. you have to build something else.

Starting point is 00:25:40 And you could be part of that building something else, you know. So when we're messaging, we want to redirect people's energies to the actual frustrations and interests, you know, to resenter the conflict and the lens on the actual divisions of society, such as class, to make moneyed interests known. And, you know, even though it's never been easy to be anti-war, you know, especially in the center of empire. And in many ways, technologies today have empowered much greater oppression. You know, in Russia, individual and mass protests are met with severe oppression, massive fines,

Starting point is 00:26:15 jail sentences, etc. In the U.S., you can face police brutality, censorship, even deportation. And in Israel, I haven't seen or heard anything from the Israeli populace in terms of resisting what Israel is doing to the Palestinians. But I know that those who do stand against the mandatory conscription do face jail time for their refusal. So it's not easy to be anti-war, especially in militarized and empire-building territories. I get that stress and that worry. That opposition is still necessary,

Starting point is 00:26:53 but there's other things that we can be doing than just message it. Yeah. You know, there are things that take on less risk, such as building an alternative, and there are things that take on more risk. Now, protests, even peaceful protests, are no longer risk-free endeavors. And I know when most people hear

Starting point is 00:27:12 about, you know, we need to push back, they hear, okay, if us organize a protest. Honestly, we could use a bit more imagination. In this day and age, like I said, the protest is not hitting like I used to. It's become like a pressure valve or a tool of pacification. that could be tolerated for a time

Starting point is 00:27:39 and then met with repression in the moment it's time to wrap it up. And there have a couple of reasons why protests are not, you know, able to do as much. You know, they have the moneyed interests.

Starting point is 00:27:51 You know, they can end up being divided according to various arguments of a strategy. And I'm sorry to say this, but protests as of late haven't accomplished very much besides getting people

Starting point is 00:28:04 mutilated or jailed. or worse in the past few years. And in fact, a lot of the resources that could be spent, you know, building alternatives are being spent instead on, you know, paying people's bonds and getting people out to jail, prison relief, that sort of thing. Not to say those things are not necessary. You know, don't leave your comrades to rot in jail. But I think we need to consider the free data that we've basically been giving away

Starting point is 00:28:32 to the ruling class in the form of pictures, names, addresses, identifying data that they can be used to repress or disrupt or infiltrate protesters and protestant organizations down the line. As James Herod, and it's another James, as James Herod wrote in The Weakness of a politics of protest, where I've been getting some of these critiques of protests from, he says, thus instead of powerfully concentrating our mental and physical energies on solving this problem, to eliminate this obstacle to defeating capitalism, we are taking to the streets once again, merely protested, merely engaged in what is basically mindless activism.

Starting point is 00:29:16 End quote. Later, he says, it's easy to agree on what to protest against. The list of things that need to be stopped under capitalism is long. So long, in fact, we don't even need to agree. There's plenty to choose from. So just pick something that suits you. Perhaps this is why so many activists got involved in protesting. It's not so easy, though, to figure out what we want to replace capitalism with, to work out convincing arguments about how it will plausibly work. And it's set about creating such a social world, especially since so little energy has been devoted to the task." End quote. And, you know, I get why protests are popular. You know, as he says, it has a low barrier to entry. You just have to show up. And in a society

Starting point is 00:29:56 that has been so deliberately atomized, we amassed collective action has been made so difficult, protests has become pretty much a very easy avenue to get those things done. Yeah. And, you know, protests can work in certain instances for limited goals, but I think that those uses

Starting point is 00:30:14 are diminishing day by day in the cost-benefit analysis. Yeah. I'm just thinking about, like, there was a letter George Orwell wrote to one of his readers on the subject of anti-fascism where Orwell was lamenting that, like, the anti-fascism that he was encountering,

Starting point is 00:30:31 in England, right, in between his participation, the Spanish Civil War and the Second World War was always centered on hate. And like, it's sort of an idea, like, we get the two minutes of hate later in 1984, right? But maybe it comes from here. And, like, it never proposed an alternative. It just said, it pointed to something and said bad. Something I've tried not to do in my journalism, right? Very often we do this as a journalist, too, we point something and say bad. We don't look for the ways that it could become better. And so, like, protesting can become such an identity for people. Like, you see it, I'm just thinking of, like, every time I get sent a link to Instagram, right, which is a platform I don't really

Starting point is 00:31:16 participate on. But I will look at things and they'll be like, oh, San Diego protest news, San Diego protester, SoCal protester. And, like, I think we should resist that being an identity because we want to build something beautiful as well as opposed what is bad. And if we don't have something beautiful to propose, what are we doing out there? Exactly. Exactly. And, you know, there's room for protests. I don't want to give off the impression that there isn't. Yeah. But for all the lovely talk about peaceful protest, that works when there's an actual threat backing up those protests. You know, you don't just do the peaceful protest. You know, Gandhi didn't single-handedly win India's independence by marching peacefully.

Starting point is 00:32:01 Yeah. You know, there has to be something back in itself, or else it's going to be very easy to ignore and suppress. Yeah. And I think that protests should not be our default. Right now, they are our default. And I think they are better uses of our collective time, energy, and resources, even though protests are very easy compared to some of the things that are more necessary right now, you know. But if protest is where you're dead set on funneling your energy, I would just say that you should at least learn de-arrest strategies. You know, there are resources online to get some information on that on

Starting point is 00:32:37 the arrest strategies. You can look it up. But if it's possible, if you see the situation playing out, you know, try not to sit by and let your comrades get pulled away. You know, it is very possible the numbers on your side to prevent the police from harassing, targeting, and taking away people. You know, there's other stuff you can do as well besides protests that I keep alluding to because, you know, sadly, the media's no longer, you know,

Starting point is 00:33:03 a safe space to share things in depth in some cases. But just remember that the key is actual disruption. You know, the media will not be with you. It will be trying to manufacture consent on everything that you do, manufacture consent against any action taken on the things that you do. and the only way to counteract that is to maintain relationships on the ground, to maintain actual local solidarity.

Starting point is 00:33:28 Because once you have those local relationships in that local solidarity, there's no amounts of things that the media can do the media could stir up that can prevent the people who see that you're on their side, see that you're standing up for them to turn against you, right? What problem happens is when you don't have any relationships, you don't have any networks,

Starting point is 00:33:47 you don't have any community building, and you just doing stuff, the messaging is unclear. You know, that's where I think the media could really pounce on that. I would also say, you know, sabotage, you know, hit their pockets. And the main thing, the thing that I've alluded to earlier is to strike. Yeah. You know, to organize strikes, to use your labor power.

Starting point is 00:34:10 Because power still comes from our participation in production and the threat of withdrawing our participation. We have to realize that in this. time we're living in, even the effectiveness of strikes have come under threat. In two ways. The first way is that the permanence of employment is not what it used to be. And with the rise and spread of AI, you know, you have to ask yourself, how long will strikes in certain fields be effective anymore? You know, I have my doubt that AI will ever reach a point where it can replace people. But honestly, for a lot of these companies, they don't necessarily care about whether it's capable of replacing people or not. They will still try and

Starting point is 00:34:56 use it to replace people. So we have to be cognizant to the fact that this is the direction they're pushing things in and we have to be able to stand up against that before we reach a point where between AI and the nature of temporary work of the gig economy, it becomes harder and harder to organize ourselves. Yeah. The other thing that I've noticed that is made striking so difficult and that we have to be aware of is the pacification or the domestication of unions, right? There was a time historically where unions were a powerful, influential, revolutionary event for us. Such is not the case today, unfortunately. Yeah. You know, there has been legislation put in place that many unions,

Starting point is 00:35:50 are terrified of crossing. Every eye has to be dotted. Every T has to be crossed. And so the things that would actually make union action, the most effective are of the things that unions nowadays will refuse to do. Sympathy strikes, general strikes. And so what can we do if we are in an industry

Starting point is 00:36:09 where the union is collaborating with management, where the union is utterly reformist, where the union refuses to actually step up and represent the people that's supposed to represent it? And this is where historically wildcat, a legalist, strikes have had to come into play. Strikes that do not depend upon legality, that do not sit back and waive mission, that carry far more risk, of course, that are far more difficult to organize, but are going to be necessary if we want to liberate ourselves from this constant capitulation toward the machine.

Starting point is 00:36:50 In the article, striking against the work war machine by Jeff Shantz and P.J. Lilly, they said, quote, wartime strikes and sabotage, partly because they're illegal and unsanctured nature, bring rank and file workers together outside of union structures. Workers have to make crucial decisions about front of the strike directly in face-to-face meetings or on the picket lines. Bureaucrats, who are left to their fundamental role of broken with the bosses, can be relegated to their sidelines in such situations. In Germany in 1917, illegal strikes helped to sweep the union structures right out of woodplaces. Strikes increasingly took on an anti-union, as well as anti-boss character, with wildcats occurring in growing numbers throughout the armistice and beyond. So I wanted to, of course, pull on this example, because this is not a unique issue, right?

Starting point is 00:37:43 even historically, where unions have stood against the struggle of workers against war or against, you know, actually defending their class interests, the rank and file have had to organize themselves accordingly. So that's also something to keep in mind. Yeah. And last but at least, I just want to touch very briefly on the proposed side of the social revolution equation when it comes to anti-war struggle. And as usual, this is going to take solidarity, materially, not.

Starting point is 00:38:13 just saying that, oh, we stand in solidarity with such and such and such, actually sharing aid, sharing notes, supporting refugees, and going further, because this, I think, is where a lot of our energy needs to be right now. Our efforts to oppose are going to be, for the most part, toothless, as long as we don't have an underlying structure that we are building upon, that we are seeking to defend and to expand. You know, we are not at a position right now where we pose much of a threat yet and we also have to consider that merely posing a threat is not going to liberate us by itself so much to consider as we you know wrap up this episode what you can do to put forward that alternative to actually try to create the new social

Starting point is 00:39:03 arrangements that we think should replace capitalist status militarist order and this is something that I talk about on my channel, of course, I talk about building the commons, building alternative media, alternative economy, and developing our powers, our drives, and our consciousness. And so you can check that out if you'd like. Unfortunately, this is, it is happening here. And don't forget, you can check out the YouTube, the Patreon, etc. All power to all the people. Peace.

Starting point is 00:39:39 Have you ever looked at a piece of abstract art or music or poetry and thought, that's just a bunch of pretentious nonsense? Well, that's exactly what two bored Australian soldiers set out to prove during World War II. When they pulled off what was either a bold literary hoax or a grand poetic experiment, publishing over a dozen intentionally bad but highly acclaimed works of expressionist poetry under the name Earn Malley in an incident that caused a media firestorm and even a criminal trial. The Earn Malley episode made fools of believers and critics alike and still fascinates poetry lovers to this day. We break down the truth, the lies in the poetry in between

Starting point is 00:40:26 on hoax, a new podcast hosted by me, Lizzie Logan, and me, Dana Schwartz. Every episode, hoax explores an audacious fraud or ruse from history from forged artworks to the original fake news to try and answer why we believe. Listen to hoax on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey guys, it's AZ Fudd. You may know me as a gold medalist. You may know me as an NCAA national champion and recent most outstanding player. You may even know me as a people's princess.

Starting point is 00:40:58 But now, you're also going to know me as your favorite host. Every week on my new podcast, Fud around and find out. I'll give you an inside look at everything happening in my crazy life. as I try to balance it all, from my travels across the globe to preparing for another run at the Natty with my Yukon Huskies to just try to make it to my midterms on time. You'll get the inside scoop on everything. I'll be talking to some special guests about pop culture, basketball, and what it's like to be a professional athlete on and off the court. You'll even get to have some fun with the fud family. So if you follow me on social media or watch me on TV, you may think

Starting point is 00:41:32 you know me. But this show is the only place where you can really fud around and find out. Listen to Fun Around and Find Out, a production of IHart women's sports and partnership with unanimous media on the IHart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. The Stuff You Should Know guys have made their own summer playlist of their must listen podcasts on movies. It's me, Josh, and I'd like to welcome you to the Stuff You Should Know summer movie playlist. What Screams Summer? More than a nice, darkened, air-conditioned theater, and a great movie playing right in front of you. Episodes on James Bond, special effects, stunt men and women, disaster films, even movies that change filmmaking, and many more.

Starting point is 00:42:11 Listen to the stuff you should know summer movie playlist on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Welcome to Pretty Private with Ebeney, the podcast where silence is broken and stories are set free. I'm Ebeney, and every Tuesday I'll be sharing all new anonymous stories that would challenge your perceptions and give you new insight on the, people around you. On Pretty Private, we'll explore the untold experiences of women of color who faced it all. Childhood trauma, addiction, abuse, incarceration, grief, mental health struggles, and more. And found the shrimp to make it to the other side. My dad was shot and killed in his house. Yes, he was a drug dealer. Yes, he was a confidential informant, but he wasn't shot on a street corner. He wasn't shot in the middle of a drug deal.

Starting point is 00:43:02 he was shot in his house unarmed. Pretty Private isn't just a podcast. It's your personal guide for turning storylines into lifelines. Every Tuesday, make sure you listen to Pretty Private from the Black Effect Podcast Network. Tune in on the IHeartRadio app,

Starting point is 00:43:20 Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Hello, everyone, and welcome to It Could Happen here. My name is Donnell. Kurd. I'm a writer, analyst, and researcher of Palestinian and Arab politics. I'm an associate professor of political science and a senior non-resident fellow at the Arab Center, Washington. Today we'll be speaking with Ushra Khalidi, the policy lead for Oxfam. Our discussion will cover Oxfam's work in the occupied Palestinian territories and the current crisis in aid distribution. We are recording end of July, July 27th, 2025. NPR reported in May of this year that Gaza has

Starting point is 00:44:02 already reached phase four of the integrated food security phase classification, the IPC, which is coordinated out of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, an organization called the Famine Early Warning Systems Network. So what does this all mean? Phase four means emergency. As NPR writes in their May report, hardship steepen, food gaps widened, and people resort to really extreme forms of coping. So the famine early warning systems network does not have a in Gaza at the moment. This is their best guess. Phase 5 is when they declare a famine. We're seeing very terrible images in the media and on our phone screens about the level of deprivation in Gaza at the moment because aid has been blocked off by the Israeli government.

Starting point is 00:44:50 Writing for Al Jazeera, just a few days ago, former UN official Monsakhani accuses the UN of not declaring famine despite overwhelming evidence because he says officials are worried about their careers and possibly worried about antagonizing the U.S. But regardless of whether it's phase four or phase five, the situation in Gaza is dire. In July 27th, today, when we're recording, there's reporting that there might be airdrops, that the trucks on the Egyptian border are moving towards Gaza after the Israeli government has received a lot of pressure over the ongoing aid crisis. But, of course, that may be too late for many Gazans. As I said, we're speaking with Bushar al-Di today, who will talk to us about her work from the vantage point of Oxfam.

Starting point is 00:45:35 Boshah, thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for having me. So let's begin with first describing Oxfam's work in occupied Palestinian territories. Yeah, sure. We've been here since 1956. We have offices in Ramallah and Jerusalem and Gaza, and Oxfam was originally set up as an organization to fight famine, you know, the first kind of famines that we've seen globally.

Starting point is 00:45:58 That's originally why Oxfam was fed to set up. up. So a lot of its programming is around water and sanitation, food security, livelihoods, working with farmers. A big part of our program is water and sanitation, helping, for example, farming communities, providing them with irrigation pipelines. You know, it could be agricultural inputs needed for growing their crops. It could be technical support to farmers to support them in growing, for example, vegetables. How do you grow crops of vegetables around date trees? You know, so it's kind of that kind of work in terms of the food security component that we have a big part of our work is with women's organizations, women's cooperatives, women's farming cooperatives as well, especially in

Starting point is 00:46:42 the West Bank. And then a lot of work with kind of the relevant ministries and relevant trade unions on, for example, agricultural insurance. So getting, you know, trying to get insurance for farmers in case their crops or are ruined or sabotaged or damage, for example, by settler violence, etc. So there is kind of like a piloting kind of program where we're looking at the potential providing insurance to the farming sector here in Palestine. Other things could be, could look like, you know, small grants to start a small kind of business. Women, for example, ceramics, women's cooperatives in farming. I mean, and so, So a lot of it worked like this, and most of our operations are actually run through partners.

Starting point is 00:47:31 So we have about 90 partners kind of across the occupied Palestinian territory, and about 80 to 90 of our operations are actually completely implemented through partners. But of course, after 7th of October, our programming really drastically kind of shifted to fully humanitarian, where, you know, we are now basically providing hygiene kits, food parcels, some agricultural inputs as well where we could in Gaza it looks like setting up latrines, hand washing state, like mobile stations.

Starting point is 00:48:04 It can be like water trucking. I mean, it's changed, you know, depending on the access that we've had. So, for example, since March, this year we've not been able to enter anything because of Israel's full total siege on Gaza. So nothing kind of entered. So our operations look like

Starting point is 00:48:21 psychosocial support to women, young girls in shelters, trucking water from one area to another, where we felt like these communities potentially needed water or had a little access to water. It looked like a cash for work. We do a big, big, big part of our, both now in the West Bank and in Gaza is providing cash for work.

Starting point is 00:48:42 So, for example, we have daily workers that will remove solid waste with their bare hands, unfortunately, because there's no materials to remove waste in Gaza. but then they would receive like kind of daily, daily rates in order to get paid. And then there's like cash vouchers for the most vulnerable where they can, you know, have a voucher in a store and they can, you know, purchase items that we agreed, for example, with a store owner that, you know, people can purchase with our kind of cards. So it's very versatile, versatile, and especially in last year's had to adapt and change,

Starting point is 00:49:19 you know, very quickly and flexibly, depending on the situation. what's available in the markets. But that's kind of like what our programming looks like across the territory. Yeah, thank you for explaining that. And it brings me to, I mean, you touched on a little bit,

Starting point is 00:49:32 but it brings me to a second question that I think is important for listeners to understand is how has the war in post-October 7th really impacted the restrictions that the Israeli government is imposing? So we know there's a siege in Gaza,

Starting point is 00:49:49 but also in the West Bank. Absolutely. there is so much happening. How has that impacted Oxfam's work? It's completely restricted us. And not just us. It's, it's all of the international kind of sector, including UN agencies. I mean, we know what they did within Roa. Would we maybe explain that? Yeah. I'll, I mean, Israel, the government of Israel's kind of attacks, or let's say, attacks on the humanitarian and civic space. It's been a longstanding policy affairs and started well before 7th of October. It's gotten just you know, much tighter, much more restrictive sense.

Starting point is 00:50:25 But, you know, this goes back decades. I would say kind of the most notorious development in shrinking space. We call it shrinking space. It's 2021 when they declared six organizations, Palestinian civil society organizations, mostly are human rights organizations, some of the most notorious and well-known human rights organization where they're designated as terrorist organizations.

Starting point is 00:50:49 So that was kind of the first big, you know, development where many of those partners, those six partners, were actually partners of international organizations. So, you know, we found ourselves kind of advocating for continuing our support to these six, despite the designation by Israel. You know, and there was never, of course, evidence provided by the Israeli government as to what evidence they had, why would they deem these organizations, terrorist organizations? But, you know, they continue to operate under very, very difficult circumstances. Their offices were raided, their assets were confiscated, but, you know, they're still operational and we're still certainly supporting them.

Starting point is 00:51:31 And of course, you know, shrinking space or the restrictions on humanitarian civic space, it translates into, you know, into so many different restrictions. It could be, you know, restrictions on permits, restrictions on what crossings you're able to use as a humanitarian, you know, whether you can go through that crossing or another, it can be visa restrictions, and we started seeing that visa restrictions even before the war, and after the war, of course, everything kind of changed. And now we're facing, and I'm talking more about, like, legal restrictions in terms of our work, and then I can talk more about, like, the siege and the actual blockade of humanitarian aid into Gaza, which is, you know, effectively completely restricted and our operations and has dismantled. really the humanitarian sector in its entirety and has reverberating impacts to the rest of the territory.

Starting point is 00:52:24 But for us, I think the first kind of sign of turmoil was when there was already a decision, but nothing had been kind of formally communicated of a new registration process for international organizations. That started already in 2024 where the civil administration announced to our respective organizations.

Starting point is 00:52:47 organizations, that there will be a new registration procedures. The Israeli civil administration. The Israeli civil administration. And so it was only kind of 10 months later that the criteria was kind of presented to us. And only a year later that the criteria actually came into effect. But in that time where they were announcing these new measures, there were lots of visa denials. Permits, of course, were completely non-existent for humanitarian.

Starting point is 00:53:15 So for example, you know, I had a permit to. Gaza for six months. That, of course, stopped. All of our staff in the West Bank had permits to travel both to Gaza and in Israel. Those stopped on 7th of October, and same vice versa, are our colleagues in Gaza who had permits to come to Israel to travel through the Allenby Bridge because, of course, you know, policies don't have an airport, so they have to travel through Al-NB to travel through Amman. Those also stopped. So that's one other kind of like, you know, measure that was taken against international organizations. And then when the new registration rules were made public and the criteria was made public,

Starting point is 00:53:56 there's a new ministry set up called the Ministry of Diaspora and something affairs. I know diaspora affairs. I forget the full name of the ministry. But it's an interministerial committee that, you know, it's made of basically ducks. You know, if you look at the background of some of these people that are in the committee, I mean, you know, it's, and they are now deciding of the registration of international organizations. And the criteria is onerous, it's political, it's big, and, you know, even, even it, it crosses some of our red lines in terms of, of organization. I mean, one of the, I think the most contentious criteria is submitting staff lists and all of the information of our staff to the Israeli authorities, which is something we never had to do before.

Starting point is 00:54:44 it's not something that is actually in any other context. It's not abnormal for an authority or a country or state to ask, you know, who is your staff working for this organization you're seeking registration from. But obviously, because of the, you know, unprecedented number of humanitarian workers that have been targeted and indiscriminately targeted as well, in Gaza, we've got more than 400 humanitarian workers killed. At this point, we are unable to submit our staff list

Starting point is 00:55:12 because of, you know, we have no guarantees of protection. Even though we have guarantees under, you know, international law, this is not applied when it comes to Gaza and in Israel's conduct in its hostages against humanitarian workers in humanitarian space. So that's one of the criteria. But there's also other criteria where, for example, we would be revoked or not re-registered if we are seen to support some of the designated organizations

Starting point is 00:55:38 that were designated early on, which most of our organizations do. So many of us are facing about to face basically being deregistered in Israel and losing our presence in Jerusalem, which has such a big implications, not because we're so desperate to have presence in Jerusalem, but because it says a lot about what the future of East Jerusalem means. Right. Because you're removing Enorwa, you're removing the INGOs, and you're removing all the program and the support that goes to organizations that are operating in Jerusalem providing legal services

Starting point is 00:56:12 to people that are losing their homes, that are getting their homes demolished on a daily basis, legal services for settler attacks that happen also in East Jerusalem and school provision of school services, educational items, educational activities, summer camps, you know, I mean, etc., etc. The list goes on. That will be removed, and that's kind of, you know, it's working now in parallel with the annexation kind of plan that Israel has been threatening and implementing at the same time. So, you know, everything is moving towards this annexation. It also has vast implications because many of our organizations operate in Area C

Starting point is 00:56:49 because the most vulnerable communities, you know, are in Area C. And so we always, you know, we as part of our programming is obviously reaching the most vulnerable Palestinians and those that need to help and support the most. And so annexing Area C and deregistering at the same time, de-registering us, from Israel means that we will also have very, a lot of difficulty accessing these communities and accessing areas CES we met here in organizations. We've not had visas for international staff for since the beginning of the war. And then when you look at, you know, Gaza, so this is kind of like looking at the West Bank

Starting point is 00:57:23 and what is how it's evolving in the West Bank, but then, you know, the fact that we would be deregistered would effectively mean that we cannot operate in Gaza anymore because you have to have an Israeli registration in order to be able to bring goods. inside Gaza. And so if you're deregistered, you can't bring in goods into Gaza. This triangulation of the humanitarian and civic spaces is all encompassing in Gaza.

Starting point is 00:57:56 Of course, it looks like our materials have been systematically and deliberately denied, rejected, delayed, you know, over the course of the last 20 months, but of course, and it's worse since March 2nd when Israel imposed its total siege on Gaza and basically has completely sidelined

Starting point is 00:58:11 the UN, INGOs, and policies of the society. And since then, we've not been able to enter anything in Gaza. And I doubt that we will be able to enter anything moving forward, especially that the registration kind of window ends in September, beginning of September. That's when we'll finally know who is going to be registered, who's not. But I expect for an organization like Oxfam, as part of the registration process,

Starting point is 00:58:34 It's very vague, so we don't know how they will apply it, but there's something about basically calling, again, you know, calling out or speaking out or calling for accountability of individual soldiers and members of the IDF. So what that means, I don't know, but we call for accountability every day because it's part of our mandate. We're not just an operational organization. We're a rights-based organization. And so we have a mandate to also, you know, where we witness violations of human rights or of international law, it is our mandate to speak out on it. And so there's no operations without that. So that's where we're at right now. It's an incredibly difficult space. It is, of course, deliberate. This is a deliberate policy of Israel that is carried out against the kind of humanitarian civic space for years. It's also, there's another law. There's a law that's against Israeli human rights organization where it will start taxing, Israeli human rights organization that are receiving foreign funding by 50 to 80 percent or something like that. So it's just, it's, you know, it's deliberate, it's thematic. We have been the only ones in Gaza that have been able to actually report independently on what's happening in Gaza,

Starting point is 00:59:44 like the humanitarian's happened, not even a journalist, because of course, you know, I can argue that yes, Palestinian journalists are independent, but, you know, the most of the world would probably disagree with that. So really, I mean, the independent kind of eyes and the neutral eyes, or let's say impart, impartial eyes, I won't say neutral, happen in the humanitarian and UN agencies. Sidelining us means that we'll also see a reduction of quality reporting on what's actually happening in Gaza. So it's terrifying.

Starting point is 01:00:14 It's an attack on our ability to even understand the level of the problem. Absolutely. That is being left in the wake of this war, which of course is ongoing. But also, I think it's really important. I mean, the things you just described, I think it's really important for listeners to understand this. The aid question, the question of these humanitarian or, organizations and what's happening to them, whether it's the registration through the Ministry of

Starting point is 01:00:35 the Asper Affairs, and I think combating anti-Semitism is its full name. That's it. Sorry. Should have a record. So, yeah, I mean, there are so many problems with this ministry and it has been even internally criticized by Tel Aviv University, for example. Yeah, yeah. Or even actually members of the government itself, by the way.

Starting point is 01:00:54 I think there was a, yeah, there was something about somebody in Israeli government, not attending the inter-ministerial committee meeting, you know, because it was. It was not wanting to be associated to it. So, yeah, it's a very problematic committee. But I mean, if this kind of committee is responsible for registering international organizations and humanitarian organizations, then there's all the blockade of aid. All of these are parts of the same ethnic cleansing strategy that we're seeing in Gaza, what do you want to call it, ethnic cleansing or genocide, you know, people are being eradicated.

Starting point is 01:01:28 Yeah. We're seeing large-scale displacements in the West Bank. And as you mentioned, if these organizations also stop existing in Jerusalem, we'll see Jerusalem next. Yeah. Not piecemeal the way that we've been seeing it, possible, you know, more aggressive way. And so I really think it's important to kind of underscore for listeners that this is part and parcel of an annexation and ethnic cleansing plan that people from the religious Zionist party have been saying since the early 2010s, Bezalalz Motritch, a finance minister today, had the decided. plan that said, you know, you either surrender or transfer. And we're

Starting point is 01:02:04 at that level. They are transferring. They are making sure that that happens. And they are in the West Bank as well. I mean, you know, it's quiet and all eyes are in Gaza, but I mean, we've seen displacement of entire communities in the last few weeks only. Yeah. Let alone, the largest numbers of forcibly displaced

Starting point is 01:02:20 Palestinian since 1967 in the West Bank this year. And in the refugee camps that have been attacked. Exactly. So, you know, and again, I mean, you know, you can look at the history of smear campaigns against Onoa by the Israeli authorities. I mean, that's just in itself, you know, the services that Onoara provide, you know, we have to re-emphasize, like, education, health services.

Starting point is 01:02:46 I mean, you know, shelter. Onoah provides key services that the Palestinian Authority has no ability to respond to. What is going to happen to all these people when, you know, and already in our, So listeners, electricity cut off in Ramallah. This is our lives. Yeah. So we might have to restart some of that answer. That's fine.

Starting point is 01:03:10 Yeah. So did you want to pick up where you left off? I was, yeah. I mean, the point is that this is, you know, a longstanding policy by Israel. It's just like very much accelerated. Like every other policy of theirs when it comes to, you know, forcible displacement, collective punishment, you know, detentions. I mean, everything is at a record.

Starting point is 01:03:28 and accelerating so quickly with this right-wing, far-right-wing government that has zero checks and balances, nobody holds them accountable to anything. And so, you know, they're able to get away with all of this. So, I mean, my sense is that, you know, very soon, you will no longer see kind of the long-standing organizations that have been here for decades

Starting point is 01:03:54 that have very much understood the context very well and have understood that it's impossible to do the work that we do without also bearing witness and speaking out on what we're witnessing. And I think the UN in that way, you know, even the United Nations, where in Palestine has made sure that the state's committed to that mandate because of how important it is to speak out on what you're seeing around you. I think like that's purely, I think like, you know, we're the only ones that are able to witness and record independently what we're seeing on a day-to-day basis. And I think the UN has been incredible in keeping a record of that.

Starting point is 01:04:36 I mean, I think they started recording in 2008. So it's like 18 years now almost of monitoring violations all across the territory. And if it wasn't for the work that the UN has done in that, we wouldn't be able to say that there is a genocide being carried out in Gaza or that the risk of ethnic cleansing has risen exponentially in the West Bank, the reason why we're able to say this is because we're able to see the patterns and the data. And, you know, you can contest the data. But, you know, even you were talking about the IPC,

Starting point is 01:05:10 the IPC is not even reflective of what's really happening. And they say it themselves, but, you know, of course, the media, the way the media kind of focuses on what the results, because, you know, you only have time for sound bites. But if we read the IPC alerts, it's clear that, One, they're always delayed. So they're always talking about a time that's already passed and we're way beyond beyond that. And two, it says that it doesn't have access to Gaza.

Starting point is 01:05:36 But look at the testimonies, you know, just like just reading the testimonies that some of our organization have recorded in the last week, just talking about our own colleagues and how they're facing starvation themselves. I mean, I think the testimony speaks to themselves on what is happening in Gaza. And I don't need the IPC to tell me that there's a classic. for five, it's never going to declare famine when it's not there. Like, there's never going to be a time where the IPC, because that's not even the role of the IPC.

Starting point is 01:06:04 The role of the IPC is not to declare a famine. The role of the IPC is just to collect the data and publish the data. And then it's the role of the UN or another international body to do so. So we're not going to see a payment declaration because we don't have access. And so, you know, we're not going to be able to say that with confidence because the IPC is never going to be able to publish that data. But I don't think it matters. I think what matters is what we're seeing on the ground, what's being reported. And, you know, I mean, it's undeniable, really, by the pictures themselves. I mean, the videos and the pictures that

Starting point is 01:06:37 are coming out of Gaza just speak for themselves, really. So it's definitely unprecedented times for us. And it's going to be a very, very interesting and frightening, terrifying here, to be frank. Yeah. No, I mean, as I said at the beginning, and there are, of course, critiques also of the limitations of the UN. But this idea that they are wanting organizations as a condition of registering them to somehow not bear witness to what is happening and not to write reports about what's happening, it's a way of hobbling the ability of actually creating policies. Like if you want to talk about famine or if you want to talk about poverty, as Oxfam does,

Starting point is 01:07:21 How could you solve it without talking about the root cause? In every way, in every direction, the Israeli government is attempting to hobble the ability of international organizations, of the Palestinians themselves, to be able to solve the root causes of these problems. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it will have to be fine creative ways, just like, you know, our Palestinian civil society partners that, you know, have been also designated, have had to find, you know, ways to continue doing their work. But, you know, I mean, even them, you know, they've lost funding. They've had to reduce their operations. They've had to reduce their field officers that go to the field and do this work. So, I mean, I, it's so uncertain.

Starting point is 01:08:04 But I think the fact that many of these organizations have been here for so long understand so deeply the context. I think organizations will also do whatever they can in order to ensure that they continue their important work here and find ways to continue to work. I don't know how. It's really a new time for us. Like, we've never been there before. So we don't know what it looks like, how we're going to be able to continue our work. But we're committed to that.

Starting point is 01:08:32 So we will find, you know, whatever, I don't want to say loophole because, you know, there are none, but we'll find whatever way to continue, to continue kind of being here and being present and remaining present because I think it's also part of our commitment to the work that we've been doing. doing an OPT for decades. So yeah. Yeah. I think maybe we should end on a discussion about the Gaza humanitarian foundation. I mean, I've already mentioned it in a previous episode,

Starting point is 01:09:03 so I encourage listeners to look into that. But I, you know, think it's important. We discuss what is this foundation and what what is the impact it has had on people in Gaza and on international organizations that are already doing this work. Yeah. Okay, the GHF or Gaza Convention Foundation slash GHF, I don't like talking about it as such because it's the issue, of course, that's one of the issues, but GHF is part of many actors, okay? And it's not GHF.

Starting point is 01:09:36 GHF is a facade for many actors that, you know, the U.S. and Israelis, it's an Israeli plan. And I don't think we need to, we cannot, you know, I know there's U.S. military actors in, GHF at, you know, the border and shooting at people, but this is an Israeli plan, okay? And we have to dub it as such. This plan actually came into, we started hearing about this plan a year and a half ago. It was maybe in May last year. We saw the General Islands plan on what they wanted to do in the north when they started the ethnic cleansing campaign in the

Starting point is 01:10:11 north of Gaza, where they besieged the north and tried to force everybody's self. The idea then was already, they had already, we were already hearing about something called humanitarian bubbles. And the bubbles are the sites of what, it's what's become the sites, right? But this idea, what has been floating around for more than 18 months, it's just that nothing kind of transpired until May, I guess, that's when May the operation started. So it's really launched this as an authorization mechanism. This is how it was originally kind of, and that would expand basically, is really military control over how aid enters, moves within, and is distributed inside

Starting point is 01:10:52 Gaza. And of course, I mean, that and on its own is a clear attempt to instrumentalize humanitarian aid. So, you know, and I think it's very important to clarify, you know, our organizations, we operate under extremely rigorous standards and mechanisms where we ensure that aid is not diverted. And I think aid diversion, you know, it's been talked about like how mass. A diversion. Eidivision exists everywhere. It exists in every crisis we work in. Like, it's something that is part of, you know, crisis mode. Like, this is where when there's a crisis, when there's chaos, that's where there's space for informal actors to start popping up. So it's a symptom of every crisis around the world. And so, you know, it's not just a Gaza thing.

Starting point is 01:11:40 So we have protocols on how we can ensure that aid diversion doesn't happen in operations. And of course, as humanitarian, we would never accept military or profit-driven intermediaries overriding what we call principled aid delivery. Because it basically means that you're expanding military control over aid operations by an actual party to the conflict, you know, which of course risks that aid will never reach the most vulnerable, you know, of course at a time when it was most needed. So from our perspective, there is no scenario where we would accept any attempts to militarize or privatize humanitarian aid, whether it's in Gaza or anywhere else, because such actions

Starting point is 01:12:25 actually violate international humanitarian law. But also, they undermine the core principles of humanitarian law, which are impartiality, independence, and humanity. These are our principles that guide all of our work. And of course, what is the most dangerous about this model is not only, the massacres that have occurred near daily at these food distribution sites run by the GHF and other actors, it sets such a dangerous precedent where occupying powers around the world will now be able to dictate the terms of aid based on their political agendas and their military goals. That is what's effectively now happened, is that if it's happened and Gaza, why can it not happen in Uganda, in DRC and Sudan?

Starting point is 01:13:13 And I want to also take it a little back. Let's talk about the pier. The peer last year is exactly the same. It's the same thing. It's an international company called Fogbo run by former U.S. military veterans and soldiers and others, other actors, that, you know, spent 320, million dollars on a floating pier that brought virtually nothing in and in fact was used for one rescue mission rescue operation by special forces where they entered uh i think it was the way that camp

Starting point is 01:13:57 the refugee camp at the time and were able to obviously yeah rescue hostages but kill i mean you know a dozens in that operation using the pier and hence why we're like we do not we would distance ourselves and from the beginning distance ourselves from the peer. There's no difference with the distribution sites. It's the same kind of idea that with logistics, we can address

Starting point is 01:14:20 a political issue. The issue of Gaza is not an issue of logistics. The UN or INGOs don't know how to do the war, policies, so the society has been responding to the civilian needs in Gaza from before the war. You know, 80% of the Gaza

Starting point is 01:14:37 population was dependent on humanitarian in assistance before the war. So, I mean, you know, but it's not that we didn't know how to do it. It's that we were prevented from doing it. Right. We were deliberately prevented from doing it. So it's a political decision. It's not a logistical decision that prevents us from doing our work in Gaza.

Starting point is 01:14:55 And so branching Israel control over who receives the aid, where they received the aid, and from who has basically turned what is relief, what should be relief to the civilian population, It's actually a tool of coercion because what we saw is massacres, people being shot indiscriminately at. I mean, we heard Dr. Nick Maynard yesterday. Yesterday, he came back from Gaza a week ago where we've heard of children being shot in the testicles at these distribution sites. You know, and not one. He mentioned on the same day, he saw a half a dozen boys with the same injury. Sniper shots.

Starting point is 01:15:34 Sniper shots in the testicles. at food distribution sites. Right. So what's happened now is that what Israel has done is that it blurred the line between what humanitarian assistance is, what a military objective is,

Starting point is 01:15:46 and of course putting the civilian, Palestinian civilians and aid workers as well because aid workers, we know of some of our colleagues in different organizations, but even themselves have had to go to these food distribution sites because there's nothing

Starting point is 01:15:57 and we're unable to even support our own staff at risk. And of course, I mean, this entire system has eroded any protections that are guaranteed to aid workers and humanitarian responses under international law and under the Geneva Convention. So it's not only that it killed people

Starting point is 01:16:16 and that it's harmed Palestinians, but it actually, it's also a complete disregard for international law, complete disregard of international law. And at the same time, I think what people fail to remember is that at the same time as this plan of the distribution sites was Senate being set up in the South. At the same time, Israel, every two days, was evacuating, forcibly displacing,

Starting point is 01:16:42 basically the population towards the South, right? And in less than two months, we've got almost a thousand Palestinians that were killed, but also an immense movement of the population towards the South because that's the only place that they had food, right? So, you know, this is not protection. This is complete coercion.

Starting point is 01:17:01 You know, when you move aid into fence, supervised faces under military, really military control, frankly, and what we saw from the pictures, recall some of the darkest chapters of humanitarian failure of our history. It's not protection, it's coercion, and, you know, no countries, nobody should ever support a model that is basically treating civilians as prisoners. And that's not what humanitarian aid is about. Humanitarian responses have to be guided by international law. It has to be, to remain voluntary. It has to be grounded in the dignity of the people and it has to be delivered impartially, not shaped by Israel's occupation or Israel's siege or Israel's military

Starting point is 01:17:44 control. So not only has this scheme reinforced military control over the Gaza's ship, it has completely dehumanized Palestinians by design. Like, Palestinians are only worth a box of food. That's what, basically, essentially what has happened is that we have reduced a humanitarian in response that addresses hospitals, medical care, water, sanitation, wastewater, shelter. It goes right to dignity to a box of flour, you know? That you can get killed getting. Or you get killed. And not only that, it's a first come first serve, you know, it's whoever's the strongest.

Starting point is 01:18:23 It's the survival of the fittest. That's not what humanitarian aid is about. We're supposed to meet the most vulnerable. We need to reach the pregnant moms, the people with disabilities, the record number of amputees in Gaza, the record number of disabled people in Gaza right now. Children, half of Gaza are children. They are part of some of the most vulnerable sections of society.

Starting point is 01:18:45 Age should be going to them. They don't have, they shouldn't have to come to us, walk for, you know, I mean, some people have said 20 kilometers they've had to walk to go to these distribution sites in the middle of the night. In sand dunes, they have to duck because, otherwise they might get shot by sniper shot. And then when the gates of hell open of these, you know, fence zones, whatever you want to call them, I don't even like calling them distribution sites because they're not distribution sites.

Starting point is 01:19:11 It implies that there's some sort of like system to it. There's no system. It's literally the gates to hell and then everybody flows into the, you know, floods. And we've heard of people carrying knives to protect themselves because they're getting looted because it's not enough of force food. And then there are gangs that are being weaponry. by the So, and actually, what I was saying to people is that actually what GHF has created, it has created the perfect, it's the perfect recipe for armed gangs and aid diversions

Starting point is 01:19:43 occur. Like, it's actually like providing the perfect environment for these informal actors, gangs, criminals to prosper. So, you know, this is, this is, you're creating that kind of environment. Because let's just be very directed. This is not about aid. No, of course. not this, no, not coercion. It's about coercion. I mean, as you mentioned, from the very

Starting point is 01:20:05 beginning, it was about sequestering Palestinians. Yeah. And they said it. Actually, and by the way, they said it. The Israeli war cabinet has said that, you know, and it's like, we have to take things at face value sometimes. They said it. They've been seeing it for the last year. We just, you know, waited until it happened on the ground to be able to now say it and confirm it. But this was their plan from the beginning. And there was nothing implied. It was very explicit. Right. No, I mean, very, very clear. And it really frustrates me personally because, you know, Arab media, Palestinian journalists, Palestinians on the ground testimonies would say, we're being arrested at these sites. They're using facial recognition. They're very much politicizing aid. And it took forever for us to even be able to say it to even be able to report on it until Western media source is confirmed. yesterday, a number of children were released from being arrested at these AIDS sites. And I couldn't mention that in things that I wrote because they didn't believe

Starting point is 01:21:08 Palestinian testing. I mean, the GHF contractor themselves, themselves have admitted to what is happening and everything that we've been seeing and saying and, you know, and warning. I mean, you know, I'd like to say as well, I mean, I want to underscore, actually, Humanitarians have been underlining this very, very explicitly to everybody since before they were even set. So, you know, I can sleep with a clear conscience that we did what we needed and we could, you know, what we could do. And we did warn that this would happen and this would be the result. And now here we are. Right. No, I mean, it's, it's absolutely important calling. So I want to mention to listeners that I will put in the show notes a lot of, you know, these

Starting point is 01:21:51 citations, the UN reporting that close to 1,000 people have died at these sites. Yeah. The doctor, Nick Maynard, speaking to Channel 4 News in Britain about what he saw. Yeah. I also want to point listeners to a volume that was released called suppressing dissent, edited by Zaha Hassan and H.A. Hellier, because full disclosure, I do have a chapter in that book, but it's about the shrinking civic space prior to October 7 and the dynamics that we have seen, you know, basically playing out at this point.

Starting point is 01:22:24 Thank you so much, Bushra, for coming and speaking with us under such severe circumstances and explaining, I think, really succinctly. The dangers of this moment, because what is happening in Gaza will change the world. It will change everywhere. And it already is. I think, you know, I would tell listeners, go look at AP's article on Fogbo in Uganda and Sudan. we're already seeing it. It's not even that it will change the world.

Starting point is 01:22:52 We're already seeing the precedent that Gaza has set for other humanitarian crises and for these military actors and private contractors to profit from misery. That's essentially what is happening. It's happening. So, you know, I would also direct you to that article from AP that came out a couple weeks ago

Starting point is 01:23:10 about the same companies operating in Gaza and, you know, being complicit in the atrocities that we're seeing unfold in Gaza, now operating in other contexts and crises, humanitarian crises. Really? Terrible. Breaking world. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:23:24 Yeah. Well, thank you so much. And thanks, Dana. Thank you. And hopefully see you soon and talk to you soon. Insha'u'll take care. You may know me as a gold medalist. You may know me as an NCAA national champion and recent most outstanding player.

Starting point is 01:23:53 You may even know me as a people's princess. But now, you're also going to know me as your favorite host. Every week on my new podcast, fud around and find out, I'll give you an inside look at everything happening in my crazy life as I try to balance it all. From my travels across the globe to preparing for another run at the Natty with my Yukon Huskies to just try to make it to my midterms on time. You'll get the inside scoop on everything. I'll be talking to some special guests about pop culture, basketball,

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Starting point is 01:24:45 In 1920, a magazine article announced something incredible. Two young girls had photographed real fairies. But even more extraordinary than the magazine article's claim was the identity of the man who wrote the article, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the man who wrote Sherlock Holmes. Yes, the man who invented literature's most brilliant detective was fooled by two girls into thinking fairies, were real. How did they do it? And why does it seem like so many smart people keep falling for

Starting point is 01:25:22 outlandish tricks? These are the questions we explore in Hoax, a new podcast from me, Dana Schwartz, the host of Noble Blood. And me, Lizzie Logan. Every episode, we'll explore one of the most audacious and ambitious tricks in history, from the fake Shakespeare's to Balloon Boys, and try to answer the question of why we believe what we believe. Listen to Hoax. on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Stuff You Should Know guys have made their own summer playlist of their must listen podcasts on movies. It's me, Josh, and I'd like to welcome you to the Stuff You Should Know summer movie playlist. What Screams Summer?

Starting point is 01:26:04 More than a nice, darkened, air-conditioned theater, and a great movie playing right in front of you. Episodes on James Bond, special effects, stunt men and women, disaster films, even movies that change filmmaking, and many more. Listen to the stuff you should know summer movie playlist on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Welcome to Pretty Private with Ebeney, the podcast where silence is broken and stories are set free. I'm Ebeney, and every Tuesday I'll be sharing all new anonymous stories that would challenge your perceptions and give you new insight on the people around you. On Pretty Private, we'll explore the untold experiences of women of color who face this. at all. Childhood trauma, addiction, abuse, incarceration, grief, mental health struggles, and more, and found the shrimp to make it to the other side. My dad was shot and killed in his house. Yes,

Starting point is 01:27:00 he was a drug dealer. Yes, he was a confidential informant, but he wasn't shot on a street corner. He wasn't shot in the middle of a drug deal. He was shot in his house, unarmed. Pretty private isn't just a podcast. It's your personal guide for turning storylines. into lifelines every tuesday make sure you listen to pretty private from the black effect podcast network tune in on the iHeart radio app apple podcast or wherever you listen to your favorite shows hello everyone and welcome to the podcast it's me james today and i'm very lucky to be joined by bryce from no more deaths and what we're going to talk about today is this really excellent piece of data visualization and research that depicts a very sad topic, which is

Starting point is 01:27:50 the deaths of migrants entering the United States. And Bryce, I know has done a lot of work on this. So welcome to the show, Bryce. All right. Thank you. Yeah, you're welcome. I guess maybe we can start off. I'm looking at this data visualization on a map right now, and we'll have links in the show notes for other people who want to look at it. Can you explain, like, what this dataset is? Yeah, so we collected through a bunch of different sources, medical examiners, justices of the peace, Sheriff's apartment, CBP's own data, just a bunch of data on individual migrant deaths along the U.S.-Mexico border. And so this is different data through each source, but generally we tried to get a lot of demographic data, location data,

Starting point is 01:28:36 cause of death, and at least some form of the incident narrative to kind of get a little bit of the context of how each of these people died. Yeah. If people are looking at the map, they can see various colored dots, right? And they can click on that dot and that will give them the fiscal year, the border patrol sector. In some cases, you'll see the type of death, maybe a gender and age, things like that. I don't know. Looking at it, like, it's one of those things that maybe is more emotionally difficult to view if you're more familiar. Like, I can look at these dots and I can think of places I've been. I can even think of. I can even think of. the day I was there, and it's quite, I don't know, it's impactful to see that all these people have died in places I know so well. Perhaps we can explain, like, the scale of this is huge, right? Do you know how many, exactly how many data points there are on here? I think there's something like 12 or 13,000. Yeah, it's vast. Which overall is, like, not a great sort of, like, indicator of how many people have actually died or even though how many people could be reported to have died just because the Texas

Starting point is 01:29:43 state is so wonky. Yeah. Let's get into that then. Let's talk about maybe the sources for this data and then maybe perhaps how your estimates are much high, even with some of the emissions, like the data that you have tends to show underreporting. So like, can you explain first? Like, where does this data come from and how did you get it?

Starting point is 01:30:07 you were saying the Texas numbers are lower, but can you explain how, like, there are these multiple jurisdictions and how, you can't just, like, ask someone for this information? Yeah, there's a few people we're able to just ask for it. Well, generally, it all comes from formal public records requests, from medical examiners when we're lucky, because medical examiners usually have really good, easily shapeable data. So that's what we did for San Diego County. Yeah, they're very good. Pima County, the state of Mexico, El Paso. Other places have a coroner that are associated with for sheriff department. And that's

Starting point is 01:30:41 usually a little dicier. They're a little more reluctant to give up records. That would be like Imperial County or Yuma County. And then Texas, it's just like a medical legal nightmare. So there's, if smaller counties don't have

Starting point is 01:30:56 medical examiners, they just had justices of abuse, which are part of like the courts. And they'll go out and investigate deaths. And if an autopsy is needed, they'll send it off to another county to get an autopsy. There's a huge amount of counties in Texas like this. So that data all came from this researcher,

Starting point is 01:31:13 Stephanie Loitcher, from the University of Texas, Austin, who is working on a different project, but was gracious enough to share everything that she had collected. But that was, like, just a huge amount of, like, work physically going to each of these counties, looking at, like, paper records from Justices of the Peace, writing down all that data. There's some that comes from, like,

Starting point is 01:31:35 sheriff's department, some that comes from various other sources. So the Texas data, for example, Webb County, medical examiner, they don't give up their data to anybody. And there's a lot of issues

Starting point is 01:31:49 with then potentially not having actually performed autopsies on a lot of migrants. And there's some potential focuses about that going on. But yes, so Texas is really messing. And a lot of it,

Starting point is 01:32:02 you'll notice, like Texas has a lot of the purple dots. Yeah. The purple dots under location data from Border Patrol's database. And so that ends in 2018. So we have data past 2018

Starting point is 01:32:15 and Border Patrol or not location data. And so a lot of Texas ends up being this just the Border Patrol data unless we had low-specific access to that place is justice to the peace data. So the Texas data is pretty limited

Starting point is 01:32:31 for that reason. Yeah, you can see a sort of very few red dots, which are your other data sources like in Texas, aside from it. It looks like maybe Brooks County, you're able to get justice to the peace data there because the density is profound. Yeah, it's just the Brooks County Sheriff's the Department that actually puts together that data. They're really keen on the whole thing.

Starting point is 01:32:55 Okay. And partially it's because the data exists, but partially it really is just for just to reach cluster of depth in that area because of a checkpoint south of their. where people will get dropped off south of the checkpoint, hike around. It's just, like, massive, massive, open graveyard in Brooks County. Jeez. Yeah, I don't think I've spent much time in that part of Texas, but certainly, like, some of these other ones I'm much more familiar with.

Starting point is 01:33:23 Let's talk about the CBP data, right? You mentioned it there. One of the things that you found was that CBP has a systemic issue with undercounting deaths, right? Yeah. So where does that come from? So I've heard from, I guess, for years, Pumain Borders and Pima County Medical Examiner has been documenting this since at least 2014,

Starting point is 01:33:46 the major undercount on Border Patrol's data. But something I've hear a lot is just that it's cases where Border Patrol wasn't personally involved in the search and that they had, like, changed their counting system to only be counting cases where they were involved. And I think that may account for some of it. But in order to compare these deaths, Border Patrol's data is just really gnarly and messy and bat. There's typos, there's misspelling, states are wrong, ages are wrong, genders are long.

Starting point is 01:34:16 So you really, in order to compare them, you really have to go person by person, go down the list, find the death in the Border Patrol database, look at the medical examiner data on the final matches person by person. So because we have so much of the incident narratives from the medical examiners, we can actually tell when Border Patrol was involved. And so we marked when Border Patrol is involved, when they're not involved, and then when that case doesn't actually get counted by Border Patrol. And it doesn't actually really line up. There's not a huge correlation there.

Starting point is 01:34:47 I mean, there is some correlation, like older skeletal remains, things like that, often won't get counted. But generally, there are a lot of cases where they directly involved where even they were the first responders on the scene to a distress call or any number of things where that person won't end up in Border Patrol's database. And then other cases where it seems like they had no involvement, that person ends up in Border Patrol's database. So, I mean, they've been in trouble with the GAO multiple times for undercounting or improperly counting or reporting these deaths.

Starting point is 01:35:18 And so they have access to medical examiner data, medical examiner send them the data. They just don't use it. We often also noticed that the causes of death really don't match up in a lot of really specific cases. Yeah. For Wallfalls, for instance, was the most notable one. There will be a huge amount of cases that medical examiner will say one force trauma. And then Border Patrol's data will say medical examiner on the genit or exposure or any number of other things, which like for the most part causes the death seem to line up. So the fact that these wallfall deaths, it happens to not line up is like, you know,

Starting point is 01:35:58 I don't want to assume they have bad intent, although obviously border control is bad intent, but it seems like it happens regularly enough that it's hard to feel like it's not, that is somewhat intentional, that the cases that they're kind of choosing to change the causes of death for. Right. So like it obfuscates the lethality of the border war rate, like it's the amount of people who it kills. Yeah, I mean, to a huge degree too. I mean, the fact that border patrols data is kind of our only source of data for migrant deaths and then specifically for deaths caused by Border Patrol or like wallfall deaths means that

Starting point is 01:36:31 the amount of deaths that we need the public has access to, like wallhole deaths, for instance, is just a drop in the bucket compared to what's actually happening. So all of the research and reporting and all the stuff that happens around these key related deaths is drawing off of just like truly false numbers. Yeah, yeah, and that leads to people drawing, like, bad conclusions, right? Right. The other thing that you found is that, like, there seems to be an underreporting of in-custody deaths, right? Or an undercounting of people who die in custody.

Starting point is 01:37:15 So can you explain how you were able to ascertain that, different between the in-custody death recorded by the Office of Professional Responsibility versus the ones that you found, right? Right. So the Office of Professional Responsibility is part of CBP, and they're supposed to be recording all of, all CBP-related deaths, including according to the Deaths and Custody Reporting Act, like 2013 or whatever it was. I mean, deaths in-custody, there's a very specific definition of what in-custody means.

Starting point is 01:37:43 and so we tried to follow pretty strictly what that definition was to kind of make our own assessments using the incident narratives. Yeah, I'm curious, what does it mean? Like, I'm thinking about door detention, right? Like, does that count as in custody? Yeah, so any only time, if a person is in the process of being apprehended, if a person has been apprehended, if the person has been detained,

Starting point is 01:38:07 is a person who is physically in custody, border patrol, in a border patrol vehicle, in a CPU facility, all those things would count as in custody. Okay. It's just important because in at least one of the cases, the Border Patrol agent involved said the person wasn't in custody, he was just detained, which for the purposes of reporting, there's actually no difference.

Starting point is 01:38:27 Right, yeah. But he said that clearly to not have it be labeled as in custody death. Right. And what it seems like that ended up not being labeled as a in custody death. So it's definitely, I think they're aware the fact that these are being reported and kind of trying not to have that, case. That don't have too many of them, like, up here.

Starting point is 01:38:46 Another interesting data, interesting is your wrong word, but another data point here was the amount of deaths caused by pursuit, right, or in pursuit. I guess maybe you should just explain, like, what pursuit is to people if they're not aware. Yeah, so there's two kinds of pursuit. We list them at the same year on the database you can see. The difference, there's chases in a motor vehicle, and there's chases on foot. So, for example, a person's getting chased through the desert and collapses and dies. They'll be considered a death either pursuit or if a person is in El Paso or San Diego or Imperial County Moore is chased and ends up falling in a canal or jumping into a canal to escape and drowns, the idea would chase on foot.

Starting point is 01:39:35 And then motor vehicle pursuits are, you know, with a person who's being chased by Border Patrol and the glaring crashes and people are. killed. Use of force cases also include some of these cases through OPR standards and CBP standards. If spike strips are deployed or if a vehicle is ran by a Border Patrol vehicle, that's considered use of force. So that's where a person died due to that. We would call that a use of force death. Yeah. So I guess those are the two to three different times of receipt. That's a great view. And so like, yeah, those are, as you say, they're broken down in the database, right? but in the spreadsheet they are combined. What does this data show us about, like,

Starting point is 01:40:20 I guess if we look at the last half decade or so, let's go back to like 2016, right, border policy, like what does it show us about like Title 8, Title 42, we're like a little too close to the Biden asylum ban to have, I guess, like, good data on that yet? but do you see a clear pattern in like the border rhetoric and border quote-unquote enforcement and the amount of death or the type of deaths? Oh, definitely.

Starting point is 01:40:52 Yeah, it's immediately clear. I mean, even Biden's asylum ban, I think there was an immediate effect. I mean, even just with as a No More Death Volunteer, we started seeing people crossing the border, crossing the desert that just never would have made the attempt previously, you know, and then started to see those people reported in the death data, too. So I think all of that is pretty clear. So with Trump's restrictions on asylum, I think that the biggest thing, honestly,

Starting point is 01:41:22 was all the metering policies, rather than just Title 42 or night protection protocols or any of that. It was just the fact that people weren't allowed to access the border country. Yeah. Ended up kind of like going around to enter, like, other places in the desert, with the border to pick them up, that all this started to have. happening. Yeah. And so it's kind of like a trickle in 2019, 2020, a little bit more in

Starting point is 01:41:46 2021, and then 2022, you suddenly see just huge amounts of people from countries other than Mexico, Central America, starting to show up in the data. And then also, like, people who clearly were trying to see the asylum showing up in this data, all the way up until it can slow down after, you know, the end of 2023, and then, but definitely continued through front of time for it. Yeah, definitely, like, speaking from my own experience on the border here, we saw the same thing, right? Like, people crossing who you wouldn't have seen making that crossing in places and times that they wouldn't have crossed, you know, before the Biden asylum ban. And, like, that definitely resulted in, I mean, there was a weekend in September where I think, five people died, September

Starting point is 01:42:37 2024. We had a heat wave and like, yeah, it immediately resulted in multiple fatalities that like wouldn't have been the case previously. I wonder like, what is this data set in terms of like recommendations, right?

Starting point is 01:42:53 In terms of like how we can use this data set, obviously we're at a time when I guess the Trump administration had its complete asylum ban stayed. But we're back at like people can't in good faith. turn up to a port of entry anymore and just be like, hey, I'd like to claim asylum and really hope for the best. Like, what does this data set tell us in terms of, like, what policies

Starting point is 01:43:14 kill more people and, like, I guess, like, what recommendations arise from the data in terms? Obviously, I guess the recommendation is to have laws that allow people to fucking enter this country and claim asylum without walking across the desert. But that seems like it's too much to ask. So, like, what do we learn in terms of, like, specific policies that are particularly fatal and like the ways that those that could be mitigated in it if it's not already by like water drops and such yeah that's a hard question just because um talking to you know the older people and no more deaths who've been around since like kind of the early years of prevention pituitarians yeah they thought about sort of feeling like you know when they were first out there

Starting point is 01:43:57 being like man this is really unsustainable you can be out here all the time like this maybe like a few more years we could probably handle and then hopefully this prevention through deterrence thing will have like kind of stopped they'll see like this is unsustainable and then here we are all these years later and it's worse than it's ever again and the original prevention through deterrence policy is like this strategy of essentially killing people in the hopes I know people will stop trying to cross the border or something and um it just is the original thing that it's really hard to get away from And the fact that we're now applying the same strategy of death and suffering to asylum seekers is really horrifying.

Starting point is 01:44:37 So I think number one, open up ports of entry to allow asylum secret to seek asylum, bring back even the sort of minimum asylum protections that we had back then. Other things like how people are dying really matters. So for example, in the El Paso sector, there was very, very few deaths in 2014. the last couple years it's been the deadliest single small area in the entire border and a lot of that was just because the border has just become so militarized that even this like urban area where you know people are dying a mile from town

Starting point is 01:45:11 people are dying in town we I was part of the recovery where we this person was on a road had been there for about three days dead it was about 40 feet from the busiest the busiest road in the entire town Jesus, yeah. And that's just not something that really fits in with the ordinary narrative of, like, prevention through deterrence, people are getting pushed out to these more remote areas. And I think just the level of militarization is just up to the level that it really is just deadly kind of,

Starting point is 01:45:41 I mean, even, yeah, all these deaths in San Diego, as you know. Yeah. Also, so like all these wall tall deaths are pretty much all since, like, 2017 or even more recently. So the construction of all this new border wall, you can point very directly to, to a huge amount of deaths just caused by wall falls. There's the canals in Imperial County and El Paso that kill a huge amount of people. There's El Paso right now. It's in the process of redamping their whole canal system.

Starting point is 01:46:09 It would be a great opportunity to add some sort of like safety systems in place so that people don't die. There is all the pursuit deaths, which now are not just being caused at Border Patrol, but also like the Texas Department of Public Safety, now that Operation Lone Star, has popped up. There's all these things where the kinds of deaths and the kinds of people dying and all that stuff has changed and increased really drastically in the last few years. And you can kind of point to a lot of them. But also it's like, yeah, I don't know. It's hard to really have any smart thoughts on it besides just like border patrols unbeformable and just needs to be disbanded entirely.

Starting point is 01:46:50 Yeah. And like this whole border regime, right? The whole idea of like an iron border that we enforce in a physical space the point of it is to kill people the point of it is to deter people by having

Starting point is 01:47:04 perfectly innocent people who you'd be happy to have as your neighbor die in the desert like that's that is that is the policy goal like I'm just looking like I'm looking at

Starting point is 01:47:14 Pinto Canyon which San Diego people will know is like it's pretty like don't if you're listening to this don't go to Pinto Canyon you might die it's not a place

Starting point is 01:47:22 to just go looking around if you're not experienced traveling out in the desert. But like even Pinter Canyon is gnarly. But looking along the wall, the wall kills way more people than this rugged and a difficult piece of terrain in the middle of nowhere. Like it's things that we have paid a lot of money for that kill the most people. And that's pretty brutal to confront. One of the other things that you guys were able to determine was that, like, a number of United States residents had died, right, in this data set. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:48:06 Can you explain that for people? Totally. So, yeah, like you said, there's people you'd love to have as your neighbor dying in all these places. And not just that, but your actual neighbor. The amount of people whose main residents listed was just in San Diego County, in Oceanside, in Bakersfield. and Indianapolis, places that we've all been to. We were able to record for San Diego County and a few other counties. A lot of where people actually live and some of the circumstances for why they were crossing through

Starting point is 01:48:40 the desert in the first place, a lot of it is people who were very recently deported or who just traveled to Mexico because they had to get some paperwork done or wanted to visit family or things like this just had entire lives in the United States. and then passed away on the way back into the country. Yeah. Yeah, including, I mean, it's really heartbreaking to even see.

Starting point is 01:49:02 There's a lot of cases where the person who actually finds the body or recovers the body is that person's family members or their spouse or their children even, which only happens because, you know, bored of trolls generally not that interested in

Starting point is 01:49:18 recovering bodies or in looking for people who are lost. So often, yeah, off and it'll be, yeah, somebody's spouse who comes and is actually the first person on the scene. Yeah, it's very common, right, for volunteers to be alerted via, like, you know, I know some of the search and rescue groups are alerted by, like, Instagram, for instance, that, like, someone is missing, right? It's not like there is, like, despite this being massively overfunded, you can't just call and they won't just send out an ambulance, like, a lot of, a lot of, A lot of times it is either the family members or like a bunch of volunteers just driving out there in the trucks that last night.

Starting point is 01:49:59 Like I can remember in running into some migrants in like 2023 and then being like, hey, there are some other people down there. And I was like, where, how'd you know? And they'd found them on a Snapchat map. Oh, wow. And like that was, you know, the only thing that maybe saved those people's lives. And yeah, it's pretty brutal to think that like that there's still really, there's no one, well, there are people you can call come help you, but it's not the people who are. getting billions of dollars. Let's talk very briefly, before we finish you up, about deaths outside of the United States. I see you have some data. Like, obviously, my familiarity is

Starting point is 01:50:32 with the Daddy and Gap, which I could like getting, I don't think that data exists. But, like, I see you have a number of data points within Mexico. Can you explain, like, how you came across those, and, like, to what extent that data is, if at all, like, representative or complete? Yeah, so it's not at all representative or It all comes from the National Institute of Immigration, the I&M in Mexico. To, I guess if you do border work and the group of Sperta are, they're like the sort of like, quote-unquote, humanitarian aid group for migrants instituted by the government of Mexico,

Starting point is 01:51:12 in Mexico. And so we, through the Mexican rule of the FOIA, you're able to get data from the group of Spada, which throughout the years there's been kind of like changing locations of offices. So the data we have is just from where their offices

Starting point is 01:51:31 are. So it's usually just sort of like a number of deaths for that particular office for that particular year. It's very, very limited. And there's many, many, many deaths that we then have other data to

Starting point is 01:51:47 show that doesn't exist here. So it's really just kind of like shouldn't be taken as any kind of representative sample, it's purely just the one piece of Mexican data that we were able to quickly put on a map. We did get other data

Starting point is 01:52:02 from specific states in Mexico, but we, because of time and capacity and just the data itself, we're unable to turn that into a map. Just yet, we would be able to do something with that. Yeah, and I think

Starting point is 01:52:19 it still remains true that, like the single deadliest mile of this journey is the United States border, like at least from this data that you're seeing. Would you say this data still supports that? Probably. I don't know. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:52:35 Yeah, probably. I just don't want to say, because the data is just so bad in so many places, especially in Mexico. Yeah, I'm thinking of like the Dallian, right? Like, it's very deadly. I have seen people die there. Like, it's obviously

Starting point is 01:52:51 a very, very difficult and rugged place, but I think comparatively, probably more people die at the US border just because A, they're more of them and because people come. Like, people are, not everyone has to cross the area and like people can fly to Mexico or somewhere further

Starting point is 01:53:07 south, right, and then come up that way. Where, if people want to find this data, or perhaps there's someone who's like a ninja with data and data visualization, and they want to offer to help. Like, where can people find this and how can they reach out? to No More Desk if they'd like to help in some way. Yeah, so just on the No More Desk website, we can see the report and the map and all that stuff.

Starting point is 01:53:28 And in there, there's a link to the media outreach email, which in the next couple months is my email. And just feel free to send an email there. And yeah, I'm happy to give greater access. And right now, the data is pretty anonymized for privacy and safety. Yeah. And there's a lot of the fields that we've kind of talked about that don't appear in the public database. So I'm happy to share that with researchers, activists, advocacy people, journalists, things like that. And also, we desperately would have a lot to help.

Starting point is 01:54:05 So you're interested in looking at some spreadsheets. Yeah, just taking it. Cool. Great. Thank you so much your time. And for all the work on this, I know this was a lot of work getting those records. And I think it, I don't know, it gives us something to point to to show how many people this. This border shit is killing.

Starting point is 01:54:21 Oh, do it. In 1920, a magazine article announced something incredible. Two young girls had photographed real fairies. But even more extraordinary than the magazine article's claim was the identity of, of the man who wrote the article. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the man who wrote Sherlock Holmes. Yes, the man who invented literature's most brilliant detective

Starting point is 01:55:01 was fooled by two girls into thinking fairies were real. How did they do it? And why does it seem like so many smart people keep falling for outlandish tricks? These are the questions we explore in hoax, a new podcast from me, Dana Schwartz, a host of Noble Blood. And me, Lizzie Logan,

Starting point is 01:55:21 every episode will explore one of the most audacious and ambitious tricks in history, from the fake Shakespeare's to balloon boys, and try to answer the question of why we believe what we believe. Listen to hoax on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Starting point is 01:55:40 Hey guys, it's AZ Fudd. You may know me as a gold medalist. You may know me as an NCAA national champion and recent most outstanding player. You may even know me as a people's princess, but now you're also going to know me as your favorite host. Every week on my new podcast, foot around and find out,

Starting point is 01:55:58 I'll give you an inside look at everything happening in my crazy life as I try to balance it all. From my travels across the globe to preparing for another run at the Natty with my Yukon Huskies to just try to make it to my midterms on time. You'll get the inside scoop on everything. I'll be talking to some special guests about pop culture, basketball,

Starting point is 01:56:15 and what it's like to be a professional athlete on and off the court. You'll even get to have some fun with the Fudd family. So if you follow me on social media or watch me on TV, you may think you know me. But this show is the only place

Starting point is 01:56:27 where you can really fud around and find out. Listen to Fud Around and Find Out, a production of IHeart Women's Sports and partnership with unanimous media on the IHart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. The stuff you should know guys

Starting point is 01:56:43 have made their own summer playlist of their must listen podcasts on movies. me, Josh, and I'd like to welcome you to the stuff you should know summer movie playlist. What Screams Summer? More than a nice, darkened, air-conditioned theater, and a great movie playing right in front of you. Episodes on James Bond, special effects, stunt men and women, disaster films, even movies that change filmmaking, and many more. Listen to the Stuff You Should Know Summer Movie playlist on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Welcome to Pretty Private with Ebeney, the podcast where Silence is broken. and stories are set free.

Starting point is 01:57:19 I'm Ebene and every Tuesday I'll be sharing all new anonymous stories that would challenge your perceptions and give you new insight on the people around you. On Pretty Private, we'll explore the untold experiences of women of color who faced it all, childhood trauma, addiction, abuse, incarceration, grief, mental health struggles, and more, and found the shrimp to make it to the other side. My dad was shot and killed in his house. Yes, he was a drug dealer. Yes, he was a confidential informant, but he wasn't shot on a street corner.

Starting point is 01:57:53 He wasn't shot in the middle of a drug deal. He was shot in his house, unarmed. Pretty Private isn't just a podcast. It's your personal guide for turning storylines into lifelines. Every Tuesday, make sure you listen to Pretty Private from the Black Effect Podcast Network. Tune in on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. This is It Could Happen

Starting point is 01:58:24 Here, a show about things falling apart. I'm Garrison Davis. This episode, I'm joined by Mia Wong. Mia, I have some upsetting news. Oh, no. Which is, frankly, one of the best ways to start this episode. And one of the best ways to start this show. So I'm pretty sure that I found this account called, let's see,

Starting point is 01:58:47 at Hill Hitler, and I think he's posting some things that is a little bit fascist. Oh, wow. I have decoded some of at Hell Hitler's communicates, and I have uncovered a secret Nazi code. Wow, this is an incredibly

Starting point is 01:59:05 unexpected revelation from Hale Hitler. He has posted some pictures in, like, what I would assume is some kind of military uniform that looks like, I don't know, it's some kind of like Germanic military, uniform. But I've noticed that there's some runes on this uniform that look very similar to the odal run. So I'm thinking, because of the run, this guy might be a Nazi. Thank you for your work, Harrison. We can never have determined this. That's right. You can find me at Ossent Defender online.

Starting point is 01:59:34 Oh, no. Don't send people the Ossent Defender. That does it for us today, and it could happen here. Now, so this episode, we're going to talk about something that's been slowly frustrating me, the past few weeks. And that is the misapplication of dog whistles. And let's just get right into it. People have been noticing patterns, noticing trends in official communications from the DHSGov online accounts, which now is the main way the government sends out communications, unfortunately, especially on X the Everything app. But this extends outside. of X, the everything app, this extends outside of blue sky, the internet in general. This is about how we understand the messaging of fascists and understand how rhetoric and anti-fascist

Starting point is 02:00:29 education works and ways that I think it's currently being misapplied. So bear with me, this is going to be kind of an odd episode, but I think it's worth it because I don't want us falling into the same traps that we maybe fell into. years ago. So let's, let's start by talking about some communications posted on the internet by at DHSGov. A picture of a painting titled American Progress by John Gast, captioned A Heritage to Be Proud of, comma, a homeland worth defending. So, on the surface, you know, maybe a slightly hashtag problematic sentiment here with a hashtag problematic. With a hashtag problematic painting, or at the very least, a painting depicting the genocide of Native Americans and

Starting point is 02:01:20 indigenous people, specifically with like a white supremacist outlook, with this enlarged white woman bathed in a white cloak, bringing forth the tide of quote-unquote progress as indigenous people are forced to flee from the edge of the painting. It's fun because this is a painting. We literally, when they had to explore, Manifest Destiny, like Colonialism Good, this is the painting that was in my textbook in high school history class. It is like the er, the er colonialism, good,

Starting point is 02:01:57 genocide, good painting. Genocide Good. That's what the painting is. But what I have found through some hashtag research, there might be a hidden code in this communication from the DHS. Already an agency that only has the best interests and of really all people who strive for human rights, the DHS. So, if you count all of the words in the tweet,

Starting point is 02:02:21 guess how many words there are in this tweet, Mia? Fifteen? No, so close. So close. Oh, 14. 14 words in this tweet. Which may remind you of the 14 words, the Nazi signifier,

Starting point is 02:02:37 which I should probably just explain. Surely most people listening to this is familiar with the 14 words, since it seems everybody thinks they are an armchair expert on fascist rhetoric. But the 14 words, we must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children. This became a popular hashtag dog whistle, especially in the past, I would say, 10, 15 years, usually by implanting 14s and usually 148s with 88.

Starting point is 02:03:13 meaning howl Hitler, because H is the eighth letter of the alphabet. This became a common Nazi tag. You could see this in graffiti. You see this embedded into posts. See this in like Nazi artwork. And going back to this DHS post, we can not only count 14 words in this tweet. This is actually a 1488 because two of the H's in this post are capitalized, unusually. and that means Hal Hitler

Starting point is 02:03:44 because age is the eighth letter Oh, but wait, actually looking at this post again, there's actually other words in this tweet that are also unusually capitalized, but don't worry, don't worry, this is still a dog whistle, because those other words that are capitalized in the first sentence

Starting point is 02:04:00 are the letters A and D, which, if you convert those into numbers, are one and four. So it's actually another 14. Oh, wow, we're doing we're doing numerology. We're doing Jamatria, we've become Q&O. We're so back. So if you cannot tell by my, my thinly veiled sarcasm in that last section, I think this methodology is a little bit silly. What are we doing?

Starting point is 02:04:28 What are we doing here? We're converting capitalized letters in the first half of a tweet into numbers and then rearranging the order of those letters to get a 1488. It's literally Jamantria. And then also counting the total words in the whole. while still disregarding the capitalizations in the last four words for another 14. What are we doing? How is this the piece of evidence

Starting point is 02:04:50 that sinks, sinks the Trump administration and finally proves that they're fascist? You can just look at all of the fascist policies the Trump administration is enacting instead of doing numerology on tweets. People are thinking, ha ha ha, ha, I have decoded the secret Nazi message

Starting point is 02:05:09 with A-H-H-D, 1-88-14. Nice try, Groypers. Meanwhile, you can just look at the actual text of the post. You can look at the painting. Both of those things have an inherent fascist quality. It's literally defending the concept of ethnic genocide, of manifest destiny, while the administration, the DHS, is currently furthering ethno-nationalist policies. They are doing this. This is Homeland Security, right? I don't know. if people realize that ICE is a part of Homeland Security, but like, this is the agency that is literally rounding people up and sending them to camps. We have camps in multiple countries now. When I say they're being round up and sent to camps,

Starting point is 02:05:54 it's genuinely unclear whether what I'm talking about is the fucking concentration camp in Florida. Seacott in El Salvador. Yeah. I mean, I think people have now escaped, so I can't technically call the Honduras one at death camp. But, like, again, they're setting people to South Sudan. They're like, they're just doing this.

Starting point is 02:06:11 Like, what are we doing here? So, this episode, I want to focus on how people are misusing anti-fascist education, or I would argue they're misusing anti-fascist education, and kind of missing the forest for a cardboard cutout of trees. Yeah. Not even trees, kind of something that could be a tree if you look at it from one angle, but maybe isn't actually a real tree. And you don't need to sound like a Da Vinci Code conspiracy theorist

Starting point is 02:06:40 to point out the obvious. Like, dog whistles don't matter. Yeah. If the regular whistle is already fascist. If they're just saying things openly and, furthermore, doing it. Doing things.

Starting point is 02:06:54 Yeah. What purpose does a dog whistle have? What are we doing here? And this is something that we're going to discuss. I'm not just saying this and closing the episode. We are going to get into these. Yeah. And I think part of what's happening here,

Starting point is 02:07:08 everybody is so cooked by the paranoid style of American politics. Everyone is so eager to decode the hidden messages that we're missing what's right in front of us. QAnon has a total victory. QAnon does not really exist in the way that it did in 2018, that the Q&on cult and conspiracy theory as like a singular cultish project is kind of no more. But QAnon has a cultural victory over the entire United States, and not just on the right wing, not just on MAGA.

Starting point is 02:07:44 So much of American politics now is litigating who is and is not a pedophile, who is and is not trafficking children, who can notice which events are staged, who can notice hidden codes, who can decode anonymous messages on the internet. And this is what, what, like, everything is. And, like, the real turning point, I think, for the right wing was, probably the 2020 election in like a massive fracture from reality in which they think that election was legitimately stolen. And obviously there was many events leading up to that, which contributed to this. And I think one of the biggest fracture points for liberals was the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, with people creating whole new alternate realities that that event was staged. And because that door was opened, now I am seeing such a massive flood of things that I would label as blue and on conspiracy theories, which is kind of a nonsense term.

Starting point is 02:08:35 but it gets the point across. And I'm going to do a whole piece on Blue and Onon very soon. I've been collecting Bluon and Conspiracy theories for a while. But I wanted to do something specifically about this 1488 and like secret codes thing because it's so evocative of like, you know,

Starting point is 02:08:51 Q drops. And it's evocative of, you know, searching for Masonic codes, something that American conspiracy theorists have been doing for generations. And we're to talk about that more and read a little bit of an essay on that topic after this ad break. And I will let you know, there's going to be two messages

Starting point is 02:09:10 in the ad break that if you decode, you win a special prize at the end of the episode. So make sure you listen to every single second of the ad in case you miss the code. Okay, we are back. Speaking of the paranoid style in a American politics. I want to quote a few sections to kind of frame what I'm talking about here. This was an essay written in the 60s by Richard Hofstetter, Richard Hofstetter, Richard Hofstetter. One of the first like modern pieces on American conspiracy culture and politics. I'm going to, I have three paragraphs here that I selected as being relevant to the current, the current topic at hand. quote, there is a style of mind that is far from new and that is not necessarily right wing.

Starting point is 02:10:12 I call it the paranoid style simply because no other word adequately evokes the sense of heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy that I have in mind. Nothing really prevents a sound program or demand from being advocated in the paranoid style. Style has more to do with the way in which ideas are believed than with the truth or falsity of their content, unquote. And I like that section specifically, because 1488 is a real dog whistle. We can see this used. There's aspects of people who are trying to search for this and trying to search for

Starting point is 02:10:49 patterns in the communications of, admittedly, fascistic government agency that I find sympathetic. Like, I can understand because, yeah, that is a real dog whistle. I'm going to continue the quote. Quote, the paranoid spokesman sees the fate of conspiracy in apocalyptic terms. He traffics in the birth and death of whole

Starting point is 02:11:09 worlds, whole political orders, whole systems of human values. He is always manning the barricades of civilization. He constantly lives at a turning point. Like religious millinerianists, he expresses the anxiety of those who are living through the last days, and he

Starting point is 02:11:25 is sometimes disposed to set a date for the apocalypse. as a member of the avant-garde who is capable of perceiving the conspiracy before it is fully obvious to an as-of-yet-unaroused public, the paranoid is a militant leader. Demand for total triumph leads to the formulation of hopelessly unrealistic goals. And since these goals are not even remotely attainable, failure constantly heightens the paranoid's sense of frustration, unquote. Hofstetter is talking about something that me and Robert specifically have discussed a lot on this show before, how everyone in America wants to have access to

Starting point is 02:12:06 secret information. Everyone wants to have the exclusive piece of secret intel that will solve everything. And having that informational exclusivity in a world of information saturation, right, of a vortex of like meaningless noise, it's such a romantic idea that I alone have the info or the clue to piece this together. And it's my duty to inform the masses. It's a very romantic notion. And it's also one that is exactly perfectly anti-suited for the moment we live in, which is actually just a moment where everything that is happening is just stunningly literal. Like, it's all out of the open. Like, what is happening with the Trump administration? Okay, in 2020, there is a massive uprising to attempt to attempt to fundamentally change

Starting point is 02:12:58 the structurally racist nature of the United States to deal with its fucking class inequalities to deal with the structural violence of the state this was reacted to by a massive fascist movement that spent half a decade gaining power and then finally took power in the form of like a bunch of pissed off petite bourgeois fucking car dealers

Starting point is 02:13:18 and like literally a billionaire real estate mogul backed by the richest tech company guy in the world right and they came together to build fascism this is the most straightforward like if this is a conception of how a fascist takeover works that is so thuddingly literal

Starting point is 02:13:38 that it defies narrativeization because it's just there there's no subtlety to it they're just saying it they just want to do it and they're doing it but everyone is convinced that there's like some kind of secret hidden conspiracy and it's like no they're just doing

Starting point is 02:13:53 the thing that they're saying yeah you can argue that we have a a Groyper occupied government not because of counting words in posts but because of not only who they're bringing on for Doge, but literally ICE and DHS as of today

Starting point is 02:14:08 which I'm recording this on Wednesday because this comes out Wednesday night are copying like Patriot Front style tactics of loading up ice agents in U-hall style rentable trucks to to hunt down people to assault and kidnap. They're just copying the

Starting point is 02:14:24 Patriot Front playbook here. The ICE director said that he wants an Amazon-like mass deportation system, calling it, quote-unquote, Amazon Prime, but with human beings. They're saying this. You can listen to the actual words. I'm going to read another quote here from the Paranoid Style of American Politics essay. Quote, a final characteristic of the paranoid style is related to the quality of its pedantry. One of the impressive things about paranoid literature is the contrast between its

Starting point is 02:14:56 fantasized conclusions and the almost touching concern with factuality it invariably shows. It produces heroic strivings for evidence to prove that the unbelievable is the only thing that can be believed. Respectable paranoid literature not only starts from certain moral commitments that can indeed be justified, but also carefully and all but obsessively accumulates quote-unquote evidence. The paranoid seems to have little expectation for actually convincing a hostile world, but he can accumulate evidence in order to protect his cherished convictions from it, unquote. And I think that gets into the psychological mechanisms on why people are doing this Nazi code hunting. It's actually a form of like self-coping, looking at the

Starting point is 02:15:44 horrific state of the federal government, looking at the brazenness in which ICE is operating, and this is a self-preservation mechanism. Someone on blue sky that I was talking to about this was arguing, like, ICE doesn't need to dog whistle. They have no reason to. Like, dog whistling is for trying to, like, sneakily get racists or fascists into power while signaling to a nationalistic base that they are, like, one of them, right? But these guys are already in power. Yeah. And the base already knows that they're in power. There's no point in dog whistling. They're just using ICE to establish an ethno-state. They're using explicit ethno-state rhetoric in a post from this morning, which has

Starting point is 02:16:24 one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten words. Not fourteen, ten words. Wow. DHS said, quote, serve your country. Defend your culture. No undergraduate degree required. Defend your culture. It's not

Starting point is 02:16:40 about locking up criminal migrants. It's about defending a culture from its destruction through ethnic demographic shifts. They're not trying to obscure what they're doing in the slightest. No. And I want to return to something else that the Hofstetter said in that, in that second paragraph that you read about how, like, one of the central conceits is that, like, you know, there's this giant conspiracy that's being unleashed and the American public doesn't know anything about it. And like, yeah, you can, you know, it is distressing to a large extent, the extent to which people just don't know what the government is doing. But also, like, if you look at any polling at all about anything that people are doing, everyone hates it, there isn't like a secret thing that you can say to convince people that. that all these people are Nazis

Starting point is 02:17:23 because that's not even a particularly useful project because everyone fucking hates them already like trying to fight this in the realm of sort of the accumulation of the evidence of conspiracy instead of in the realm of like, hi, I'm your neighbor, you also fucking hate this. Let's go fucking like do this shit people are doing in L.A. and like follow these fucking ice fans around, right?

Starting point is 02:17:44 That is stuff that people are doing but it doesn't have the kind of like instant emotional gratification and register of trying to like accumulate hordes of secret knowledge so people do it less even though it's less effective in my discussion of this like online on various cursed social media sites i've gotten a lot of pushback to my pushback of these tactics and what i what i see as a sort of like

Starting point is 02:18:12 abuse of anti-fascist education right because people like you know robert evans myself you know molly conger spent the past eight years trying to actually, you know, educate people about like Nazi rhetoric, like in like Nazi signals and in dog whistles, right? And as an attempt to hopefully prevent them

Starting point is 02:18:31 from expanding their power. And we may have succeeded in education, but we may have failed in the prevention. Yeah. Of them seizing power. And that also makes me kind of question the effectiveness of certain tactics. And it's

Starting point is 02:18:47 now very odd to see things that we've, you know, argued for visibility around to kind of be used in ways that don't really make sense. And it's kind of like trying to tame a monster that you've partially created. And it's so frustrating to me because, I mean, one person who I was lightly arguing about this online was saying, like, this is not numerology. And we don't have to be just okay with a clear attempt to normalize white nationalist rhetoric. And like, first of like, codes aren't rhetoric. Codes are codes.

Starting point is 02:19:23 And the textual fascist sentence is the rhetoric. What they're actually, like, saying, which has, like, proto-fascist or fascistic aspects, that is the rhetoric. And they're doing it. Is there somebody out there in 2025 who's going to finally realize that DHS has an agency, has fascistic underpinnings via a chronically online Twitter user explaining that if you count words and turn certain capitalized letters into numbers, it makes a secret Nazi message. Is there one person? No. It's going to become convinced to this. No. That's not the purpose.

Starting point is 02:19:57 So we're trying to conceptualize this as like, we have to, we have to make sure we call out the use of Nazi rhetoric. That doesn't apply to this specific thing that we're talking about. Yeah. And also like I think, you know, like I think we've sort of kind of just, to some extent we've just failed on the normalization front. Because again, like it's the president of the United States. Yeah. This is the official account of the Department of Homeland Security. It has already become normalized because they have power. The only way to denormalize it is not actually to do media critique. It's to like actually oppose them. But that's scary. That's scary. That's scary. Do you know it's easy? Posting on X the Everything app. Yeah. This is how this kind of

Starting point is 02:20:38 conspiratorial worldview actually empowers the state because the central conceit of the conspiratorial worldview is that there is a nearly all-powerful agency that controls an apparatus that enables it to basically control any events that it wants, right? This is why it can stage things. This is why it can rig elections. This is why it can like, I don't know, like, it can just, like, magically, like, disappear anyone. It can replace them with anyone. It can stage any protest movement it wants to, right? And I think you've seen this a lot in the American case where, like, I see people who are, like, genuinely well-meaning leftists who are convinced that if you do anything to resist the American state, you will immediately be killed because the American state is all

Starting point is 02:21:17 powerful and irresistible. And that's just fascist propaganda. Yeah, you're falling victim to the panoptic off. Yeah, but it's fascist propaganda that fits into the narrative structure of conspiracy. And because the state is dangerous, right, and can hurt you, it's very, very easy to, you know, accumulate structures of evidence that support the emotional sort of core of this thing that is just literally fascist propaganda. People are resisting. the state every day, right? Why is ICE fucking doing patriot prayer tactics and fucking, like, hiding people in, like, fucking U-holes to jump out and grab people? It's because when they tried to fucking mass, we stomped them, right? And when they drive around in their cars and

Starting point is 02:21:58 you can see them through the window, everyone follows them. People can follow them around and alert their community members on where ice is. Like, again, mother, motherfuckers and fucking Lulu Levin shit are like screaming at ICE agents when they try to arrest people. Like, yeah, that's the actual condition we're in. And like, yeah, regular people, and that's why I find some people who would be, you know, self-described as, like, anti-fascists or self-described as, as leftists, almost falling into this trap, like, more so than others. And it's a little bit evident of something that, like, I've described as, like, the forever 2016, how we're all kind of stuck in the mindset of this 2016, 2017, 2018 era. And we have this unwillingness to realize that that's not the political situation on the ground anymore. We are actually not in Charlottesville.

Starting point is 02:22:44 This is a different situation. This is 2025. And one other defense of this code hunting that I've seen people say is, quote, Nazis love playing games like this. So it's important that we call it out. And another person saying, quote, this is a fun, a little game for their group chats while they kill and disappear people, unquote. And like, first of all, this is not a game. This is actual people's lives who are being. deported, who are being sent to foreign prison camps. These are not games. And I think that

Starting point is 02:23:16 view of like anti-fascist education risks repeating like the OK symbol debacle, right? Where dog whistles end up being created or spread further due to this gamified version of like Easter egg anti-fascism. It's kind of like the Barbara Streisand effect, where you end up almost accidentally making them start doing the thing, which Nazis always have have that like frustrating impulse because they're the little bitch boy ideology, I think, as Ratlimit put it, one of one of my favorite posters. And like, I'm not saying that Nazi signposting should be ignored, but I think we should be thoughtful and careful of how we do it to recap the OK symbol thing. That was invented as like a fake dog whistle to try to trick leftists into convincing like the media

Starting point is 02:24:05 and then having the media try to convince regular people that anyone who uses like the OK hand symbol is secretly a fascist. And this scheme worked. And eventually the OK symbol became an actual symbol used for fascists to identify each other through this ironic detachment because it was being talked about in the news as a secret Nazi symbol, even though this whole thing was like invented as like a joke online. And I'm afraid I've started to already see a similar thing happen with the 14 words dog whistle with an increased use of the 14 words and invoking the 14 words among far-right accounts,

Starting point is 02:24:41 specifically because of this whole debacle with the DHS Gov account and their heritage to be proud of homeland worth defending American Progress like ethno-nationalist posting. And I truly cannot say, one way or another, if that American Progress Post

Starting point is 02:25:00 had a intentionally embedded 14-words dog whistle inside. I can't tell you that. And the point I'm trying to make is that it kind of doesn't matter, but the way we talk about dog whistles does matter. And as frustrating as it is, that sometimes this feels like we're just living in the meme where the Nazi starts shaving his head because everyone's calling him a Nazi. That is how Nazis work sometimes. And I don't want to play into this attention spectacle that they so badly want. But, you know, You know what I do want right now? Is it the products and services that support this podcast?

Starting point is 02:25:37 Another ad break. That's right. Be sure to listen for the third and fourth hidden clue in these ads. All right. We are back. To briefly take a small tangent here, I think there is something very important about like, the fact that we're all stuck in 2016, which was sort of like the peak of irony, right, as a social affect,

Starting point is 02:26:07 has left us really unprepared for now where everything is just sort of like, you know, they're just doing it and saying it, right? Yeah. And it's not this sort of like irony-pilled-deniability shit. They just do it. And people are just not prepared for that. They're able to wage this war kind of on both fronts.

Starting point is 02:26:25 And I think they are still pushing this. I'm going to quote from a friend of the pod, Rat Limit, one of my favorite mutes. quote, prediction. The Nazi salute will become common within two years. Right-wingers will half-ass it for plausible deniability, memeify the backlash, and then start fully doing it, quote-unquote, as a joke to quote-unquote troll the libs for being hysterical enough to think that they were doing it in the first place. Fascism is a little bitch ideology because it's too timid to enact its cruelty until it can frame its cruelty as retaliation against others for anticipating it. And this has been proven right, fact, than I think what Rat Limit predicted. There's this current trend on X the Everything app where white girl aspiring influencers are doing Nazi-style salutes

Starting point is 02:27:16 and trying to memeify the backlash. Several posts going viral of these like aspiring influencers either at the pool or cooking or doing laundry or walking your dog while having your arm in a Elon Musk, my heart goes out to you, Nazi salute style facts. passion. And I think focusing media attention on someone like Musk doing a Nazi salute makes sense, right? He's like an actual person affiliated with the government. But making a whole

Starting point is 02:27:45 media blitz about random blue check Twitter girls, maybe not so much. Maybe that doesn't have any actual value if a random, like a random Twitter poster from Missouri is trying to garner backlash by doing a Heil Hitler salute in their kitchen next to their instapot. I keep coming back to the thing that I wrote about the original Lossie Salute and about the ways that everyone, you know, like one of the functions of capitalism is that everyone has been trained to experience the world and think in the image of action instead of like actually existing things. That's what I want to talk about next. Yeah. Yeah. Let's do this. Let's do this. Yeah. Go for, go for it. No, I think part of this focus on, on like, these hidden codes and even just like these like messages online is a liberal. opposition to the aesthetics of deportation, but not necessarily the act itself. It's carrying

Starting point is 02:28:41 on deportations in a mode that seems not in line with, like, neoliberal governing. And that's, I think, what a bunch of the backlash being focused on the aesthetics of the Trump administration, like how they film, like, gaudy ASMR videos that they post from the White House account of deportations and use military planes. Those are aesthetic differences. And those differences may be important. And they're bad, right? I'm not saying these things are good. Those things are still bad. But when that gets focused on slightly more

Starting point is 02:29:11 than just the pure act of deportation itself, that I think is evident of being trapped in this like capitalist realism being trapped in this like this neoliberal. Yeah, the society of the spectacle. Exactly. Right. Let's like in June, I arrested 30,000 people and did

Starting point is 02:29:27 18,000 deportations. In May it was 24,000 arrests and 18,000 deportations since February. the Trump admin has averaged about 14,700 deportations of month. The highest number of deportations ever was in 2013 under Obama, averaging 36,000 a month. The Biden admin averaged almost 13,000. When the Trump administration started using military planes for deportations back in January,

Starting point is 02:29:57 mainly as an aesthetic choice, that triggered backlash and rejections from Mexico and Colombia, Mexico refused to allow U.S. military aircraft carrying deported migrants to land in their country. Colombia also barred two military planes full of migrants, but later caved as Trump threatened punitive tariffs.

Starting point is 02:30:15 And you can see the same thing about deploying military to the border, something that Biden also did, but has a larger aesthetic backlash under Trump. Do you have something you want to say on this image aspect? I have some quotes from Fisher. That's kind of all I have left. Yeah, I mean,

Starting point is 02:30:30 it is very fitting of our styles of politics, that you're going to Fisher here and I'm going to Benjamin. Benjamin is quoted in these sections that Fisher is pulling from as well. Yep, yep.

Starting point is 02:30:40 I'm going to the source. I'm not going through the fucking CRU bullshit. Like, Bob Marxist, bourgeois running dog. But, no,

Starting point is 02:30:54 but like, you know, like one of the things that Walter Benjamin who people genuinely really should read, he's one of the great original theorists of fascism

Starting point is 02:31:02 and he, fucking died trying to flee the Nazis. And one of his arguments was that, you know, one of the cores of fascism is the replacement of politics with aesthetics, right? That aesthetics would allow you to, you know, feel representation instead of do the action. And this is, this is an analysis that has been sort of like folded through a whole bunch of different analyses of how capitalism functions, right? This is, this is one of the three lines of the society a spectacle. And it's this real issue that we're dealing with now because again, kind of in a sense what has happened to everything, right? And you can argue to some extent that like

Starting point is 02:31:42 our channel being called Cool Zone Media is sort of this, is that all politics from every side has been completely reduced to aesthetics. And completely reducing it to aesthetics allows, like allows the fascist mode of politics to simply draw in a bunch of people who can sort of just now passively experience living through the sort of collection of images and this emotional aesthetic. Yeah. And it also is doing the same thing to us, but the thing is

Starting point is 02:32:08 they have the fucking state and we don't. Right. And so if you don't fucking exit, if you don't exit the sort of mirror world of aesthetic of sort of like of fucking living in images, right? And, you know, go do the actual shit that DeBoard is talking about in the society of spectacle where you and all your

Starting point is 02:32:24 friends form workers councils and fucking start taking all of the shit back from all of the people who were taking it from you, you're just going to live in the fascist nightmare forever. I mean, you could look at the union resistance to ICE deportations specifically in L.A. with Russian workers. That's literally doing that. And, like, I would argue, like, now,

Starting point is 02:32:41 it's not so much that fascism is politics as aesthetics, but especially now it is an aestheticized politics. And you can even see that insofar as its focuses on, you know, like race and, like, ethnic purity, like blood and soil. That's why they're posting American progress, driving out the indigenous people with the Aryan white lady carrying the torch of progress.

Starting point is 02:33:02 It is an aestheticized politics on like a very pure level. And again, to quote from my goat, uh, the anti goat. Quote, Mark Fisher in Catholicism, quote, ultra authoritarianism and capital are by no means incompatible.

Starting point is 02:33:20 Internment camps and franchise coffee bars coexist. Neoliberals, the capitalist realists par excellence, have celebrated the destruction of public space, but contrary to their official hopes, there is no withering away of the state, only a stripping back of the state to its core, military, and police functions. This is very similar to something that me and Mia talked about right as Trump got elected in terms of the state becoming more removed but hostile.

Starting point is 02:33:46 Yeah. Although, see, again, I disagree with officials here because the neolibals understood what they were doing to begin with. They were never trying to wither the state away. That was just the lies that they told the fucking basses. Like, sure, I mean, that's what, contrary to their official hopes. Yeah, yeah, and it's like, you know. Quote, such a blight can only be eased by an intervention that can be no more anticipated than was the onset of the curse in the first place.

Starting point is 02:34:11 Action is pointless, only senseless hope makes sense. Superstition and religion, the first resort to the helpless, proliferate. Unquote. This is part of what I conceptualize as this code hunting is almost a form of this hopeless superstition. petition. To continue, quote, the catastrophe is neither waiting down the road nor has it already happened. Rather, it is being lived through. There is no punctual moment of disaster. The world doesn't end with a bang. It winks out, unravels, gradually falls apart. What caused the catastrophe to occur, who knows its cause lies long in the past, so absolutely detached from the present

Starting point is 02:34:48 as to seem like the caprice of a maligned being, a negative miracle, a maladation which no penance can ameliorate, the turn from belief to aesthetics, from engagement to spectatorship is held to be one of the virtues of capitalist realism, unquote. And yeah, that's what Mia is talking about with Gita Bore and society of the spectacle. That's the trap that I think a lot of people are falling into right now. And though it's arguable that living in a liberal contradiction may be preferable to fascist authoritarianism, that still doesn't mean. It's like good, right? That's That's not what we're arguing here. Fisher then quotes French philosopher Alon Badoo, quote, to justify their conservatism, the partisans of the established order cannot really

Starting point is 02:35:34 call it ideal or wonderful. So instead, they've decided to say that all of the rest is horrible. Sure, they say, we may not live in a condition of perfect goodness, but we are lucky that we don't live in a condition of evil. Our democracy is not perfect, but it's better than bloody dictatorships. capitalism is unjust, but it's not criminal, like Stalinism. We let millions of Africans die of AIDS, but we don't make racist nationalist declarations like Lemosovich. We kill Iraqis with our airplanes, but we don't cut their throats with machetes like they do in Rwanda, unquote.

Starting point is 02:36:09 And already parts of this are slightly outdated. Oh, yeah, no, because we're doing this shit now. But this is the thing, is both are tragedies where millions people die, right? One of them is through the aesthetics of Neurbanes. liberalism. The other one is through aesthetics of racist nationalistic declarations, which the Trump administration is currently playing with. That is what they decided to do. Yeah. And so the reaction to it is on this aesthetic note, not necessarily on this pure actual humanistic opposition to deportations as a process that is inhumane, that we should not allow at all. Yeah, I see the logic of this all the

Starting point is 02:36:45 fucking time talking to people. We'll be like, okay, like no deportations. And then you get a whole bunch of people being like, well, but what about criminals? It's like... Some deportations. What are you... This is the structural logic of the original, like, deportation blitz from Trump. Creating a class of undesirables that you can then always add to and press the border on, like what Carl Schmidt talks about.

Starting point is 02:37:04 This is the structural logic of fascism. But everyone thinks about deportations this way now, and they're mad that Trump is doing it and not Biden, but, you know, until people actually break through the sort of peer opposition to the aesthetics and actually start, you know... know, having a kind of totalizing opposition to the system that is doing this, we're just going to be stuck here. And this is, I think, one of the limits of using anti-fascism as this, like, aesthetic code hunting is because a few days ago, the THS posted a Woody Guthrie song, his song, America the Beautiful, with the DHS posting, The Promise of America is Worth Protecting,

Starting point is 02:37:44 the future of our homeland is worth defending. Notably, everyone in this video is all white people. which this sentiment is the same thing as the 14 words, except it has 15 words. So therefore, not a Nazi dog whistle. We're safe, guys, we're good. I counted the words. There's 15 of them so you can disregard what the actual text is saying. And I think that is like the prime contradiction in which I am growing increasingly frustrated.

Starting point is 02:38:13 So that's most of what I have to say about the limits of Nazi code hunting and the aesthetics of superstition and the paranoid style in American politics. Mia, do you have any final wise, wise notes? The time for Nazi code hunting, if there ever was one, has passed. It is now time to end the episode right here. That's right, it is. We're late for a meeting. Oh, and if you were able to decode the hidden message in the ad break,

Starting point is 02:38:44 send the contents of the message via email to your local congressman to redeem your prize. Bye-bye. Have you ever looked at a piece of abstract art or music or poetry and thought, that's just a bunch of pretentious nonsense? Well, that's exactly what two bored Australian soldiers set out to prove during World War II. When they pulled off what was either a bold literary hoax or a grand, and poetic experiment, publishing over a dozen intentionally bad but highly acclaimed works of

Starting point is 02:39:24 expressionist poetry under the name Earn Malley in an incident that caused a media firestorm and even a criminal trial. The Earn Malley episode made fools of believers and critics alike and still fascinates poetry lovers to this day. We break down the truth, the lies and the poetry in between on hoax, a new podcast hosted by me, Lizzie Logan, and me, Dana Schwartz. Every episode but hoax explores an audacious fraud or ruse from history from forged artworks to the original fake news to try and answer why we believe. Listen to hoax on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey guys, it's AZ Fudd.

Starting point is 02:40:05 You may know me as a gold medalist. You may know me as an NCAA national champion and recent most outstanding player. You may even know me as the People's Princess, but now you're also going to know me as your favorite host. Every week on my new podcast, Fudd around and find out, I'll give you an inside look at everything happening in my crazy life as I try to balance it all. From my travels across the globe to preparing for another run at the Natty with my Yukon Huskies to just try to make it to my midterms on time. You'll get the inside scoop on everything. I'll be talking to some special guests about pop culture, basketball, and what it's like to be a professional athlete on and off the court.

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Starting point is 02:40:59 Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast The stuff you should know guys have made their own summer playlist of their must listen podcasts on movies It's me Josh and I'd like to welcome you to the stuff you should know summer movie playlist What Screams Summer? More than a nice, darkened, air-conditioned theater,

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Starting point is 02:41:35 Welcome to Pretty Private with Ebeney, the podcast where silence is broken and stories are set free. I'm Ebeney, and every Tuesday, I'll be sharing all new anonymous stories that would challenge your perceptions and give you new insight on the people around you. On Pretty Private, we'll explore the untold experiences of women of color who faced it all. Childhood trauma, addiction, abuse, incarceration, grief, mental health struggles, and more. And found the shrimp to make it to the other side. My dad was shot and killed in his house.

Starting point is 02:42:11 Yes, he was a drug dealer. Yes, he was a confidential informant. but he wasn't shot on the street corner. He wasn't shot in the middle of a drug deal. He was shot in his house unarmed. Pretty Private isn't just a podcast. It's your personal guide for turning storylines into lifelines. Every Tuesday, make sure you listen to Pretty Private from the Black Effect Podcast Network.

Starting point is 02:42:34 Tune in on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. This is It Could Happen Here, Executive Disorder, our weekly newscast covering what is happening in the White House, the crumbling world. What it means for you? I'm Garrison Davis. This episode, I'm joined by Mia Wong, James Tote, and Robert Evans. We're covering the week of July 30th, August 7th. Robert, what is Texas? So the original root word of the state's name is Tejas, which means friendship, a thing that no one in Texas has ever known.

Starting point is 02:43:13 because it's the angriest, meanest state in the country. That's, that's Texas, Garrison. Up for some stiff competition these days. Up for some stiff competition. But it's still, it's still holding out, isn't it? Everything's bigger in Texas, Garrison. It's famed as being the second or third worst state that borders New Mexico. So, you know, rarefied company.

Starting point is 02:43:33 Really, it can compete with all of the states bordering New Mexico except for Colorado. But the states bordering New Mexico except for Colorado are Oklahoma and Arizona. Texas. So, not high bars. Texas has some of the finest air bed and breakfasts that I've ever stayed in. That's right. Including one with a deeply disturbing basement. Okay, just because they had one torture basement, James. So we're talking about Texas right now because a bunch of the Democratic state legislators just fled the state for Illinois, I believe is how the name of the state is pronounced. It's French. It's French. It's French. Fact check from a real Illinois and wrong. This post fact-checked by real it annoying. So when you've got a legislature of pretty much any type, at least in the U.S.,

Starting point is 02:44:21 I'm sure there's other countries that don't do it this way, but you need what's called a quorum in order to actually do anything, which means of the total number of elected members of the legislature, you need a certain number of them. Otherwise, you can't like do anything because there's not enough people there in order to actually have it be a valid vote. And I probably don't have to explain the reasonings why there's some pretty obvious reasons why you'd want it to work this way. But there are, however, some downsides to it. You know, potentially, you can be, depending on whether or not your side is doing it, it's a downside or an upside, right? Which is that if you have a side that is the minority in the government and they don't want a vote to go through, they can just bounce. And if they bounce at the right time before the legislature has been called and like no one's there, then you can't get a quote. and nothing can get done. And this is big news right now because in order to stop a redistricting vote, a bunch of Democratic legislators have fled. But this is a thing that has been going on for

Starting point is 02:45:24 well over a century. And it is a thing that both sides of the aisle have engaged in with substantial regularity. I'm not an expert on any of this. The earliest example I can find of anyone doing this is in Texas. I'm not saying that means it's the earliest example. of anyone in the U.S. doing this. But the earliest example I found in my research was from 1870. So there's an article on this in that by the Texas State Historical Association called Understanding the Rump Senate of the 12th Texas legislature. And the Rump Senate is a term applied to the 15 radical Republican members of the 12th Texas legislature who fled in 1870 to stop a vote on a militia bill. And this bill gave the governor power to declare martial law. It gave him the

Starting point is 02:46:10 power to establish a state police force. It increased the appointive power of the governor. A bunch of stuff that's not all that interesting to us today because governors, like every state does this today, right? Like there's state police everywhere. Every state governor has the power to call a militia, you know, a national guard or whatever. Like, this is not controversial today, but it was back then. And it's important that I note that while it was 15 radical Republicans who fled in 1870, those were conservatives, right? Like the radical Republicans were conservatives in 1870, right? So this is, this is kind of a reverse. If you're just sort of looking at things from a liberal or conservative point of view, this is kind of a reversal of what's

Starting point is 02:46:51 happening right now in Texas, although it's happened a lot of other times since, right? So this is 1870, and I should note it didn't succeed, right? This is, however, one of the fairly rare times, when this kind of thing happens, if it goes on long enough, every time the governor basically will declare an arrest warrant for the legislators who have left. And as a general rule, this does nothing, right? Like, the governor has the ability to find them a certain amount per day, and it has the ability to call out an arrest warrant, but it's not like a real arrest warrant. Like, if you murder a guy and then flee to another state, an arrest warrant will be issued that law enforcement in that state has to abide by it, right? Because you murdered somebody.

Starting point is 02:47:32 This is not a real crime. Basically, if you flee back, if you wind up back in the state that you left, you can be taken into custody by law enforcement in the state, but they can't leave the state to get you. And almost, I would say, like, 90% of the time when something like this happens, nobody actually gets arrested. However, in 1870, several conservative members were held under arrest for like three weeks until the Senate could pass the legislation. So as is usually the case, whenever stuff like this happens, it only succeeded in kind of delaying the inevitable. It didn't succeed in actually stopping things. And this has happened a number of times in Texas. Most recently, Texas Democratic lawmakers broke quorum in 2021. And I want to quote here from an article in ABC News, quote, Texas state lawmakers less broke quorum in 2021 when Democratic House representatives fled Texas to prevent measures restricting voting options. The measures eventually passed after internal Democratic fissures led to enough representatives returning to form a quorum. And this is the kind of thing where Governor Abbott allowed the sergeant of arms.

Starting point is 02:48:37 are commanded the sergeant of arms to arrest the members within Texas. Weirdly enough, a couple of them did return. The first was Philip Cortez, who, like, briefly came back to Austin to handle personal business, and there was a civil arrest warrant signed, but then he fled the state again before he could be arrested. There were warrant signed for the 52 remaining absent legislators, but law enforcement didn't arrest or detain anybody. Eventually, enough Democratic legislators came back into the state for, like, personal reasons. some of them had like shit to handle like in their own life. Some of them had other things they wanted to push through in terms of like legislature and so they were like, I guess I'll come back

Starting point is 02:49:17 and let this happen. And eventually the House reached quorum and this past, Democrats did not face the $500 a day fine that they'd been threatened by the governor and nobody was arrested. Now, I've been talking about Texas here, but this happens all over the place. In fact, when this story first broke, the immediate thing I thought back on was what happened very, very, recently in the state of Oregon, and has happened a couple of times in the state of Oregon. It was mine, too. They do this all the time. They do this a lot. It's like for months. Yes. This is, this is a common thing in Oregon. It has started, and this is, both parties have done this, I should note, right? Both Democrats and Republicans in Oregon, as in Texas have done walkouts. They don't even have

Starting point is 02:50:00 to leave the state. They don't even have to leave the state, although they have recently. This seems to have started in Oregon, I think, in the 1970s. There's actually a really good article that's like an overview of a bunch of different states' history of doing this in Central Oregon Daily News, although it's an AP Press article. So I guess Central Oregon Daily just is licensing this thing. But anyway, in Oregon, the most recent case of this happening was in 2023. After Republicans staged a six-week boycott, which is the longest so far in Oregon legislature history, over a rule. a law the Democratic Party was pushing to protect abortion rights and the right to gender affirming care for transgender people. This, again, did not succeed. This was passed in the legislature.

Starting point is 02:50:46 And there were actually some consequences, although it hasn't been enough time to see how serious there will be, because there was a different GOP walkout over climate change legislation, which also failed in 2022. And as a result of that 2022 walkout, voters approved an amendment to the state Constitution in Oregon, which barred lawmakers from getting reelected if they had more than 10 unexcused absences in a single annual legislative session. And as a result of the walkout the next year over abortion rights and gender affirming care, 10 Oregon Republican lawmakers were barred from seeking re-election. Again, as I stated, this is something that very rarely actually does anything. There's a 2021 case in New Hampshire where Democrats walked out in protest of an anti-abortion

Starting point is 02:51:31 bill, the Republican House Speaker locked the doors to maintain a quorum. I'm going to quote from that Central Orkin Daily article, I'm locking the doors right now so that everybody in the chamber will stay in the chamber shouted House Speaker Sherman Packard, who later refused to let Democrats back in to vote on the bill.

Starting point is 02:51:47 It's just fucking, like, representative politics is just not, it's shouting at each other. I want them to fight with Keynes. They should be fighting with Keyes. Agreed. Give them nerves. Give them, give them all a nerve, let them fight it out. I would say, 90% of the time, nothing is at least from the reading I've done,

Starting point is 02:52:05 nothing is achieved except for a delay, which is not to say that that's nothing. And also, I do believe, like in the case of the Democratic Party, I don't think what the Texas Democrats are doing will stop the redistricting. Like, the Republicans are going to win this fight. It's worth fighting.

Starting point is 02:52:19 Yeah. I'm glad they're fighting it. However, very rarely is the actual law stopped or is anything but a delay achieved? One of the rare cases in which something more was achieved is in 2011 in Wisconsin. Johnson. Democratic state senators fled to Illinois as a protest against Governor Scott Walker. He was attempting to strip public workers of their union rights. Yeah. And this, you know, this walkout was

Starting point is 02:52:43 staged at the same time as a mass pro-union demonstration at the Capitol. And after several weeks, they won a partial victory. Republicans weakened the legislation, which is like significant, right? Like the fact that they actually got concessions over this. And sometimes the delay can be significant. The same year that that all went down in Wisconsin, Indiana Democrats also left for whatever reason, Illinois is where you go if you're doing this. No one wants to come get you. No one's going to Illinois. Fuck that. It's just not worth it. I've been to, fuck Illinois. Sorry, Illinois is the hero of this story. We love you, Illinois. Yeah. Chicago's fine. For whatever reason, this is the state you go to if you're a Democrat doing this in the modern era. If you're in Wisconsin, it's not that far away, I guess.

Starting point is 02:53:28 Well, this is Indiana, too. That's also not very far away. Yeah, it's also not far. Yeah, they couldn't make it to California, you know? It's further now that Texans are doing it. Yeah. But Indiana Democrats left in 2011 to prevent Republican law that would have stopped unions from levying mandatory fees on union members, which would kind of make, could potentially make it impossible to do a union. Because nobody wants to pay for a union, but everyone wants one, right?

Starting point is 02:53:54 Yeah. Every worker does. You want the union protecting you. You don't want to have to give it. up your money. So it's the kind of thing you could, I think the Republican plan was use the natural greed that people have in order to hamstring unionizing efforts. Many such cases. And the Democrats left, which left the House short of its quorum and threatened to stay in the other state until they were promised that the bills would not be called. Republicans successfully

Starting point is 02:54:21 passed the bill, but they had to wait until the next year. So again, every now and then, you eke a win out here or the site doing this eats at a win, and everyone does it. And everyone has been doing it for more than 150 years. Nothing about this is new, with the exception of the fact that they actually look to be pushing some serious legal consequences. The most I've been able to find in the history of this is what happened in 1870, where a number of people were arrested and held in custody for a few weeks. Usually no one is arrested, and usually the fines aren't even actually levied, right? Now, this does cost money. The last Texas walkout, Texas Democrats were spending like 10 grand a day on, you know, food and bored, you know, paying for their hotels or whatever, which was, I think Beto O'Rourke raised most of the money through his pack, which is what covered it. A few hundred grand. Yeah, like $600,000. So, you know, this does cost money to do because you've got to put these people up. But generally, you're not really hiding them. And generally, the legal consequences are more of a threat than a reality, right? Right. And that might not be true in this most recent case. Yes. Yes. And we're going to throw to you, Garrison. But first, you know who does force serious life-changing legal consequences on people?

Starting point is 02:55:38 Jay Pritzker? Yes. And the products and services that support this podcast, which are entirely, we're actually backed entirely by J.B. Pritzker. From your mouth to God's ears, Robert. Not like knowingly. I stole his debit card. And boy, that guy has a high daily spending limit. Let me tell you. Well, he has a lot of shadow companies. Anyway, thanks, J.B. Please don't change your password to your online bank. So, as Robert said, Republicans in the Texas legislature are trying to gerrymander, Texas to increase their total power over the state.

Starting point is 02:56:24 proposing a redistricting map that would add five more Republican seats. And in an effort to prevent or delay this, this past Sunday, 62 Texas Democrats fled to Illinois to deny quorum in the Texas House. And only 12 need to return in order for the redistricting to go through with the main goal right now being trying to stay out of the state until November. In terms of consequences, new House rules adopted back in 2023, after the 2021 quorum can impose a $500 fine per day for missing lawmakers, not just from the governor. Now, on Monday, the Texas House Republicans voted to issue civil arrest warrants for the lawmakers,

Starting point is 02:57:09 empowering the sergeant of arms and the Texas state troopers to locate, apprehend, and transport the rogue legislators back to the capital. Governor Greg Abbott announced he had mobilized the Texas Department of Public Safety to return the Democrats to the chamber. Now, these warrants really only apply within state lines. These are civil warrants. They're not facing criminal charges. Though back in 2003, during a similar quorum break due to gerrymandering efforts, federal resources were used to track planes with suspected rogue Democrat lawmakers. And Abbott has already proposed trying to declare their house seats vacant if they do not return, a tactic which would probably prompt some lengthy legal battles and require new special elections to take

Starting point is 02:57:54 place to fill the seats. So that still would delay this process. That's not a quick solution. But there has been some breaking news as of this morning, recording Thursday. On Thursday morning, Texas Senator John Corby announced that the FBI would now be investigating and working to locate the Texas House Democrats saying in a press release. I thank President Trump and Director Patel for supporting and swiftly acting on my call for the federal government to hold these supposed lawmakers accountable for fleeing Texas. We cannot allow these rogue legislators to avoid their constitutional responsibilities, unquote. So the extent of the FBI's involvement in tracking down, locating, or apprehending the Democrats is currently unknown. The FBI has declined to comment, but this is something that's going to develop in the next week.

Starting point is 02:58:46 Which they always do on ongoing cases, like, yeah, sure. If you email or whatever, the FBI about any ongoing case, this is what they do, period. It's been their policy for forever. Yeah. So it doesn't tell you anything. Just saying that in terms of, like, we do not know what the extent of their involvement is going to be at this point. Right. Yeah.

Starting point is 02:59:05 And they might not even know either. Yeah, this could just be a cash Patel TikTok. Yeah, there's a good chance they're internally scrambling to like, what are we going to do? This would be unprecedented, sending a federal, like, law enforcement arm to physically apprehend and return lawmakers. That is certainly an escalation from using, like, federal resources to track planes like they did in 2003. This would be a whole new ballgame. Yeah, as I noted, it's uncommon for them to be arrested inside the state by the sergeant-at-arms. Sure. I mean, like, arrest just means, you know, you'd, like, accompany them back to the capital or force them to return to the capital.

Starting point is 02:59:44 You're staying here. You're not going to leave to the state. Yeah. I mean, you've got a guy called Sergeant Arms involved. It's not serious. But even that's pretty uncommon. Yeah. No, I mean, like most quorum breaks fail because legislators just choose to return, whether to do personal business, whether to do political business, it takes a lot of discipline to not return to your home for a period of, like, three to six months. Yeah, you got stuff to do. Most people's, a lot of people have what are called familial, famarles, something like that. Familias. I don't know what that. I think it's a new concept. Yeah, we're still working at Cool Zone to get a handle on it.

Starting point is 03:00:21 We'll have a report on whatever that is soon. Don't worry. Yeah, they've got to get back to the pollicule or whatever. But they haven't violated a federal law, right? No. So federal... They even violated a Texas law. Yeah.

Starting point is 03:00:37 Yeah. Yeah, it's not a law violation. It is literally the governor saying, I'm sending guys for you. Yeah, this is some old-timey parliamentarian shit. And, like, you know, as I was saying, it's like, again, it isn't, this could just be a cashmattel TikTok op, but also... God, I hate the way that sounds. I want a fucking way to describe our federal law enforcement. Oh, it's unhinged.

Starting point is 03:00:59 This is genuinely, okay, I'm going to take a very, very slight detour, which I said this before, but also, like, the thing that gives me the most hope about all of this is that, like, look, they found the right-winger to put in charge of the American secret police, and he doesn't want to do his job because he just wants to be a podcaster. Hey, understand. So like, you make me director the FBI, and I promise to be more or less the same. Yeah, but, you know, but if this is actually a thing, right? And federal agents are suddenly grabbing lawmakers out of Illinois, that is... That's a big deal. Yeah, that's a massive escalation. And that's why, as people fully supported by Pritzker's private militia, we will be on the front lines defending the Texas lawmakers.

Starting point is 03:01:40 That's right. Yeah. Saluting the Chicago flag. Mm-hmm. Yes, as Governor Pritzker recently stated, Blood for the Blood God, Skoles for the Skull Throne. Classic Pritzker. I do you need to do some Pritzker, not even slander here,

Starting point is 03:01:55 some just fuck you, tiny bit of fuck you Pritzker news, which I was going to talk about a little bit anyways later. But Pritzker has basically allowed a bunch of hospitals in Chicago to stop covering gender affirming care for minors, even though it's, like, illegal under Illinois state law. So fuck him for that. eat shit. Yeah.

Starting point is 03:02:15 We will unfortunately oppose the connote of the Great Plains. Yeah. And what's the reasoning there? Has he given any? He was just like,

Starting point is 03:02:24 oh, well, they're going to lose funding. Oh, no, it is over. Yeah, okay. Yeah,

Starting point is 03:02:28 it's over the threats. But like, yeah, a number of states have been, have been something similar is brewing in Oregon right now.

Starting point is 03:02:35 Yeah. Yeah, we've, yeah, this has been happening in Oregon. We, we just had an episode about people

Starting point is 03:02:39 resisting this in Pennsylvania. this will be a continuing ongoing struggle, but I, fuck you, Pritzker, eat shit. Like, I do have two science stories for this middle segment here. First one, I'm going to call on everyone's,

Starting point is 03:02:59 I don't know, probably my least favorite Kennedy, RFRFK Jr. Wow, controversial. Yeah, yeah. There's a lot of bad Kennedys. After reviewing the science and consulting top experts at NIH, FDA, HHS has determined that MRNA technology poses more risk than benefits for these respiratory

Starting point is 03:03:20 viruses. That's why, after extensive review, Barta has begun the process of terminating these 22 contracts totaling just under $500 million. To replace the troubled MRI programs, we're prioritizing the development of a safer, broader vaccine strategies. Sure. Sure thing. Sure thing, Mr.

Starting point is 03:03:42 Kennedy. Oh, Jesus fucking Christ. Yeah, that sounds true and not like we're throwing away a holy grail of medical miracles. Literally won the Nobel Prize. Yeah, yeah. So this is, this is some devastating news where he is removing 22 contracts from researchers and universities that are developing new mRNA vaccine technology. And earlier in that video, which I'm not going to play, because it's just him basically lying. But he was lying about how mRNA technology has been ineffective against upper respiratory infections because it only targets a single protein, which not only becomes obsolete due to mutations, but actually accelerates the mutation process and prolongs pandemics. This is not true. You can... No, no, it's not true. This is not true.

Starting point is 03:04:28 And one of the most unique aspects of mRNA technology is that the vaccines can be developed at a much faster pace to be deployed against mutations. And even if a vaccine does not 100% prevent an infection, that doesn't mean they still won't decrease the severity of symptoms. He is trying to coat his decades-long anti-vaccine advocacy in this scientific language while actually just stripping away all of the funding and removing access to vaccines. And this is stuff that he promised not to do in his confirmation hearings. He said that he would not take away vaccines, and he would not change who's on the vaccine advisory panels.

Starting point is 03:05:10 He has done both of those things so far. Two months ago, he fired all 17 members of the advisory panel. I talked with Kaveh about this, and he replaced them with eight anti-vaxxers. And not only did he remove a multi-million dollar contract from Durnah to continue MRNA vaccine research. He now canceled these 22 other contracts, totaling $500 million of technology.

Starting point is 03:05:31 people are going to die and get sick because of these changes. Yes, yeah. Which doesn't just affect like COVID and the flu. It also affects all of the other ways that MRI technology can be utilized. A lot of these research projects are about expanding the possible use of this technology beyond upper respiratory infections. So this sucks. Yeah, this is real bad.

Starting point is 03:05:55 I am very nervous about the development of the HIV vaccine and cancer vaccines, things that we were getting so close to now being put into jeopardy because this fucking clown is in charge of health and human services. A ton of this work done at the Solk Institute in San Diego, actually. It was reported earlier this week

Starting point is 03:06:15 that some Republicans and Trump himself might actually not be happy about this, and Trump has a meeting scheduled with RFK Jr. today to discuss these cancellations. So we'll see where that goes. In some other science news, Sean Duffy, interim NASA administrator, who also is the Secretary of Transportation, who directed

Starting point is 03:06:36 his employees to prioritize funding and grants towards demographics with high marriage rates. He announced that he was expediting plans to launch and operate a 100-kilawatt nuclear reactor for the moon. Great. Look, there's a lot of people living on the moon, and power outages have been a constant problem there, Garrison, if this science fiction novel from the 1960s is accurate.

Starting point is 03:07:04 I talk with a friend of mine who is an anonymous NASA contractor. She gave a quote, quote, I need a cigarette, unquote. Great, because he just got fucked. It's also worth noting that all of this is coming in the context of the largest, really, like the largest cuts

Starting point is 03:07:23 in the history of American science, across the board to anything that's actually like... I'm going to get. even remotely doing science. Like, yeah, sorry. I just, I just want to go on it. Especially space science. Like, Duffy is trying to manufacture this new space race

Starting point is 03:07:36 and prioritize, like, manned moon missions, all while cutting at least 50% all NASA science missions and just, like, absolutely crippling NASA's capacity to actually develop technology. Now, Duffy said at a press conference announcing this new directive on Tuesday, quote, we are in a race to the moon.

Starting point is 03:07:55 A race with China to the moon. And to have a base on the moon, we need energy. Unquote. Is that fucking 1950? What are you talking about? That is the time when the greatness happened, Garrison. They want to go back to that. The NASA contractor I spoke with said,

Starting point is 03:08:13 quote, NASA is already down at least 20% of its workforce and behind on its previously announced to lunar missions and objectives. See the Lunar Gateway and Artemis 3. I just don't immediately see a world where NASA does this successfully. even if they go the route of contracting it out, if the success, specifically the lack thereof, of the commercial lunar payload services program

Starting point is 03:08:35 and the commercial LEO destinations program has any indication for how this will go, it will be mirrored in failure and many years behind schedule at best, on quote. This new NASA directive from Shandafi calls for a fission surface power program executive to be named by the end of August, who will then implement an overseas...

Starting point is 03:08:55 Yes. Yes, who will then implement and oversee the project while reporting directly to the NASA administrator. The directive reads, quote, since March 24, China and Russia have announced on at least three occasions a joint effort to place a reactor on the moon by the mid-2030s. The first country to do so could potentially declare a keep-out zone, which would significantly inhibit the United States from establishing a planned Artemis presence, if not there first, unquote. And this is, I think, a big part of why Duffy is wanting to do this. And the contractor I spoke to said, quote, if they're able to extend some, quote, unquote, exclusion zone around a reactor on the surface where other countries aren't allowed to land,

Starting point is 03:09:38 it's not difficult to imagine that they may try to use this to de facto claim areas of the moon for the United States, unquote. Hell yeah, we have colonized the moon. And there's even more trouble. use cases. Part of the directive reads that this would, quote, encourage dual use, civil and defense,

Starting point is 03:10:00 operational architectures for deployed fission, surface power systems in coordination with interagency partners. Moon base. Unquote. Space Force finally getting its moment in the sun on the moon, I guess. This really is just like the pure unspeakable tragedy as unspeakable first version of colonialism

Starting point is 03:10:20 because it's like the moon, Moon is the one place that is actually Terranolus and there's nothing there and there's nothing to gain from being there. There's just nothing. But, you know, we got to colonize it. Yeah, well, the sun never sets on the American Empire if you've got the moon on it as well. So you got that going for you. It's just the pure drive of colonialism detached from its actual like material motives. Having failed to gain Greenland, we will pivot and take the moon instead.

Starting point is 03:10:54 I mean, you know, the Moon and Greenland are both similarly habitable territories. It's true. But you can't do backflips in Greenland. So, this is the plot of despicable me. Like, that's what we're doing here. We're doing the plot of despicable me. Yeah, many science fiction movies have predicted this. Please send them all to us.

Starting point is 03:11:16 Yes. As was noted by Robert Heinlein, the moon is indeed. to harsh mistress. Wait, what is that I hear? Is that the tariff song? Oh, God, every time, every time it's good. Let's talk turf tariffs. There are so many of them.

Starting point is 03:11:47 The tariffs have gone into effect. so we're going to do a full episode about this on Monday because there is so much tariff bullshit that it quite frankly needs its own actual episode in which we're going to be talking about shit like for example the US has maybe on accident maybe on purpose

Starting point is 03:12:06 recognized the Junta Myanmar is a legitimate government to the tariff stuff we're talking about that on Monday because we don't have time for that shit what we instead have time for is the just massive array of tariffs on a list of country so long that we just genuinely can't read them all. Okay, this is a very, very confusing raft of tariffs in a lot of ways.

Starting point is 03:12:29 It's simpler than the other ones, but, okay, so, so percy and then, if the U.S. runs a trade deficit with you and you're not also in one of the other special categories where we have imposed a really high tariff on you, it's like 15%. If we have a trade surplus with the country, we imposed a 10% tariff, this doesn't make any sense. Sure. Okay. So it's like in terms of the stated motives of the tariffs, it doesn't make any sense except in terms of like raising money, which these raise very little actual money relative to like the amount of money the U.S. spends. I mean, right-wing commentators have, have stated that the end goal of this massive tariff program is to abolish income tax because we can fund the government

Starting point is 03:13:08 through tariffs actually. Great. Yeah. And just no, no, you can't. Like I, this is, this is just, this is Yeah, at the same time, it's driving the deficit into the fucking sky. Yeah, and we've talked about the sort of risks that this has caused with like the sort of true believer deficit hawks versus these just completely unhinged fund the government with tariff weirdos. But comma, there have been a huge number of countries that now we have 15% tariffs on. We've also gotten a formal like announcement of the 100% tariffs on semiconductors unless you invest. do some kind of significant investment in the U.S. It's deeply unclear what the fuck that means.

Starting point is 03:13:52 Apple has pledged to invest $100 billion in the U.S. There's this very, very weird thing on the right where they just think that you can make iPhones here. You can't. You just simply cannot. We do not have the labor force. We do not have the technology. Yeah, but Tim Cook did just bribe Trump with a nice plate.

Starting point is 03:14:12 A gold iPhone. An orb. ingot of gold I thought it was a gold iPhone There was some glass involved as well No it was it was a plate that was on Like a gold like brick base I love that yeah that's the way we do it now

Starting point is 03:14:28 Like really subtly we slide it under the radar You have to bribe the supreme ruler By giving gifts of gold to grand good favor Oh god It's like fucking smorgue Whatever like he has this pile of gold that he's going to be sitting on. Oh, man.

Starting point is 03:14:47 He's going to be Scrooge McDucking in that shit by the end of four years. Oh, don't get us started on ducktails. Oh, no, no, no, all right, cutting that here. Yeah, that'll really inflate the length of this episode. That's what they call a layup in sports ball. Yeah, what's the terrace up to? They're calling me the fucking Wembenyawah of shab fucking inflation shot blocking.

Starting point is 03:15:09 Fuck this. We're talking about chip infrastructure. People have been trying to develop, like the infrastructure developed ships for a long time now the Biden administration did this. The Chinese government is pouring a bunch of money into it, and it's basically impossible to actually develop domestic chip infrastructure other than the kinds of infrastructure the U.S. already has, because the really short version of it is that it's not just a technological problem, and it is. It's really hard to actually develop the technology. This is why almost all of the direct productions of they're trying to replicate

Starting point is 03:15:38 basically just happens in Taiwan. It's not just a problem of the technology is really hard. it's a problem of the machines to make the machines that you need to make these things exist in like one place in the world in Switzerland, right? So in order to actually scale up production of this, which is in theory what these 100% imported semiconductor tariffs are supposed to do, right? You have to go up three layers of the supply chain.

Starting point is 03:16:06 You have to make the machines to make the machines that make the semiconductors, right? That's like the simplest way to explain it. we don't know we can't fucking do that like apple can throw a fucking hundred billion dollars they don't they won't do shit right so they're chasing just a ghost but you know our entire sort of like trade policy is just being run by the just weird fascist measmic phantoms of of all of these trade policy people now it's also worth noting that there's been you know another I guess kind of tariff that's been enacted other than hilariously the countries that tried to

Starting point is 03:16:41 negotiate with Trump got worse rates than the ones who just waited until he imposed a 15% rate, generally. That's good, funny. But also, so Trump has been threatening anyone who buys oil from Russia and also, I think Venezuela, although it's been less stress on that, with 50% tariffs. Right now, he's threatening India with 50% tariffs because India has been buying oil from Russia, that India's tariffs are currently at 25%. He has also just straight up imposed a 50% tax.

Starting point is 03:17:11 tariff on Brazil for refusing to release Bolsonaro. There's been some updates on that front where Lula is just straight up refusing to do direct talks at the U.S. Lula had the exclusive interview with Reuters, where he said, quote, we had already pardoned the U.S. interventions in the

Starting point is 03:17:27 1964 coup, said Lula, who got his political started. I understand it. Listen to the Lula episodes we did. They're very good. More Lula, quote. But this is now not a small intervention. It's the president of the United States thinking he can dictate rules for a sovereign country like Brazil. It's unacceptable.

Starting point is 03:17:43 It's worth noting that this is actually a pretty massive change for, like, Lula's specifically relations with the U.S. Lula actually had very good relations with George Bush, but he is writing a massive tide of Brazilian anti-American nationalism. And he's attempting to spread this tide elsewhere, right? He's been specifically saying that he's calling on organized resistance from particularly India and China, but the rest of Bricks, which is a, well, okay, Bricks was originally a category of assets that's now kind of vaguely a political alliance

Starting point is 03:18:15 who's main members are Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. It's unclear if this will happen. I kind of, I don't know. But Lula's the first person really, really seriously trying to organize resistance to this outside of the EU. The EU's also under threat of 30% tariffs

Starting point is 03:18:33 if they don't just sort of like see the Trump's demands. But like, you know, again, India also negotiate a deal with the U.S. and then immediately got their tariffs. like he's now being threatened with 50% tariffs so you can't negotiate with him to escape this. So I don't know

Starting point is 03:18:46 Lula may be the beginning of sort of organized, like large scale organized tariff resistance to the U.S. being framed in this sort of like collective struggle versus the U.S. thing. That's an interesting political trend that we'll be following as all of this continues. Okay. And the rest

Starting point is 03:19:02 of the unhinged amount of tariff news we're going to be covering Monday. I will make a brief note that the Yale budget lab is estimating like a $2,400 increase for the average family just in terms of like inflation prices for this, especially on

Starting point is 03:19:18 things like clothing. They were specifically, I think there's a CNN article about, they're specifically talking about running shorts and shoes and anything, any goods from South Asia massively increasing in price. They're talking 30% increases very quickly. So, yeah.

Starting point is 03:19:34 Now, obviously all of this news is, I don't know, The stock market has kind of like accustomed itself to tariff news. But comma, we got a really, really bad jobs report last month. And well, actually, well, well, I don't know if that's true. I think the jobs report could be completely faked. Yeah, who can say. If the president says it, it has to be true.

Starting point is 03:19:58 It's a Biden. Do you know a Biden appointee? Oh, that's right. Crazy. Crazy. The auto pen is issued this jobs report. Oh, God. So, yeah, Trump has fired the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics for releasing this report.

Starting point is 03:20:16 We are just, we are just truly fully into the deep end of shit now. I mean, the report just showed that we didn't have very positive job growth. And, like, anyone who's trying to get a job right now can confirm that. It's, like, a nightmare. Yeah, and we're just, like, we're just, like, fully going to be in, like, you know, I mean, it's unclear exactly how fast American data collection capacity is going to degrade. It is worth noting this is the thing that kind of happens at the end of dictatorships when they really start going to shit is that they lose the ability to trust their own statistical apparatus. Yeah.

Starting point is 03:20:47 I mean, like, anything that happens that Trump just doesn't like, you can claim it's fake and rigged. Whether that's losing an election, whether that's his good, his good close personal friend, Jeffrey Epstein, or if that's a Bureau of Labor Statistics job report. Yeah. It's all rigged. It's all a hoax. Yeah. Yeah. But to tie this back to Lula for a second, I think it's actually a really interesting historical parallel that's worth noting that Lula's rise to political prominence came off of a series of strikes that was held because a bunch of economists that were working with inside the Brazilian labor unions figured out that the military dictatorship of Brazil had been faking their inflation numbers. And like, this is one of the things that caused the end of the dictatorship. So, you know, you can only lie about the inflation rate for so long before like, Someone goes like, hey, you've been lying about this the whole time. And I don't know. This has brought down military dictators just before.

Starting point is 03:21:41 And that's why we have to hold archive of our own accountable for faking those inflation numbers. I agree with you entirely, Garrison. I don't get paid enough for this. You've lost me. I'm not following. And yeah, that has been tariff talk. You know what? We'll continue to be available to our listeners at an excellent price despite tariffs.

Starting point is 03:22:02 the products and services that support this podcast? That's absolutely correct, Garrison. Well done. All right, we're back. And also back is the United Kingdom, where a poll shows that more than half of Britons think there are more migrants in the UK illegally than legally. This isn't true. No, but feelings matter way more than facts, James.

Starting point is 03:22:36 Feelings matter. Yes, they do. The actual data, even at the highest estimate of undocumented people shows that it's around 10 times more foreign people who are in the UK with documents. This is indicative of a broader issue, right? The discussions that we're having around immigration are nearly all based on massive amounts of misinformation. Misinformation by a mission was extremely common in legacy media until very recently, right? Like, there was simply not people covering immigration in a serious fashion. Like, even in the Biden administration, the reporting that was done was atrocious. This comes as a Labor government's disapproval rating in the UK hit 67% in the UGov poll,

Starting point is 03:23:24 which I think is very indicative. Like, what Labor did, right, was try to adopt right-wing culture war positions. to get people to vote for them. And it does not work, and it's not working for them. You can look at their policies towards trans people, right? They're atrocious, and it's not buying them in a favor that they wanted to. Moving back to the United States, Yon Sugo, she's called Sue by her friends. It's been released by ICE after being detained at a routine hearing.

Starting point is 03:23:52 A 20-year-old young woman is a Korean national, South Korean, evidently, right, and the daughter of a priest. So she's here on a visa as a dependent of a religious worker. There are a religious worker visas, and she's here as a dependent. She is, I believe, in a process of transitioning to a student visa. She had another, at the hearing, her case wasn't, like, dismissed or revoked. She had another hearing set for October. I claim that she overstayed her visa. Her lawyer says that claim is not true.

Starting point is 03:24:25 I'm particularly interested in this case because of the intervention of the, of the diocese, the Episcopalian Diocese of New York. And so it was the Episcopalian Diocese's New York's legal team who fought for her release. She was very quickly moved to Louisiana. We know that ICE likes to do this, right? It likes to move people to places where it feels like it has a favorable circuit court. The Diocese legal team was able to secure her release, but they are still working on a release of a 59-year-old Peruvian asylum seeker

Starting point is 03:24:52 who has been detained after having her court date moved up. So in her case, they said, hey, we've got a hearing that this opened up, why don't you come in on Thursday and then detained her? Which is just reprehensible. It is really good, I think, that these big religious organizations are getting involved directly in these cases, and they're taking on responsibility. They're using their pulpits as a place to oppose this. I think that's good.

Starting point is 03:25:18 I think regardless of your stance are organized religion, you should be happy about that. These are institutions that have power in this country. talking of institutions that have power, detainees in Florida's Alligator Alcatraz are being denied their right to file court documents because federal courts are claiming they're not under federal jurisdiction. State courts are claiming they're not under state jurisdiction, which is fairly reasonable given that they have not been charged with or accused of in many cases any crimes in the state of Florida. They're not being held. They were not detained by, well, sometimes they were detained by Florida law enforcement, I guess, but only in their capacity. capacity to enforce federal immigration law. Yes.

Starting point is 03:25:58 With the special deputized status. Yes, it's, yeah, it's deputized, which we're about to talk about. There have been some very funny outcomes of that. This, isn't it, like, I've seen it report as a loophole. It's not a loophole. It's extremely fucking clear that they were detained by the federal government for immigration reasons, and they have every right to representation in immigration court, right? This is not a loophole.

Starting point is 03:26:23 They're just denying people their rights. and I think reporting it as a loophole is entirely ridiculous. A judge has ordered a document showing who is contracted by whom the facility be produced as part of a civil rights lawsuit. So what that will do would obviously document that the federal government is paying. For some of this, I know Rick DeSantis had wanted to use FEMA money for some of this. Breaking news. So a federal judge, Kathleen Williams, has ordered that construction, new construction,

Starting point is 03:26:53 halt. They won't be allowed to do any new filling. paving or infrastructure building for the next 14 days, temporary pause, they can still continue to hold people, right? This is not going to stop those people being denied their rights, which is what's at stake here. So we talked a little bit about those Florida deputies, right, who have been, I guess, seconded to ICE

Starting point is 03:27:15 or they've been cross-sworn to do ICE work. ICE is recruiting very heavily right now. It's offering $50,000 sign-on bonuses. It has reduced the minimum age and it seems to have no maximum age cap from what I can tell. Border Patrol has been issuing all kinds of waivers for years, right?

Starting point is 03:27:35 For all kinds of things that it's supposed to have as like standard for its recruiting. So it isn't particularly new. ICE has been known for a while as kind of if you want to be a Fed and go around and carry a gun and you can't get hired to do gun stuff for the feds at other agencies,

Starting point is 03:27:51 ICE is probably the place you're going to end up, right like their standards are lower than than other agencies and now they're like specifically selecting for the most like online unhinged right wing frees to join their agency as like a national police force

Starting point is 03:28:06 and that's like what they're doing in their messaging online and also some news this week Dean Kane has has joined ID it's most likely in like a promotional capacity but still worth noting. Yeah you might get chased

Starting point is 03:28:22 by a middle-aged Superman. So let's talk about what Ice is doing to recruit. First of all, it is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on big trucks. We know Donald Trump himself is a fan of big trucks, many pictures of him enjoying big trucks over the years. ICE has spent $196,000 on Ford Raptors for recruiting purposes. The Raptor, for those you know, familiar is like a tricked out F-150. They were issuing Raptors to field agents for a while.

Starting point is 03:28:51 they're not the best vehicles. Like, I've heard plenty of agents complain about the Raptors. Yeah, they're not good. Yeah, they're not. And BP had a special, like, lowest possible trim of the Raptor. They're popular now because people will buy them used as government surplus and make them good. But, yeah, the Raptors they had didn't work too well. They also bought a GMC Yukon for $101,000, which is a very expensive GMC Yukon.

Starting point is 03:29:18 I have also noted that ICE is recruited. from the police who have been cross-sworn into doing ICE enforcement. This has resulted in some very funny beefs between agencies, including, can I share this video? Can I screen share? Yeah. Yeah, let's ask what's a video. And then what has happened is ICE has sent emails to, I don't know, how many agencies, by no, several agencies.

Starting point is 03:29:44 I've talked to several sheriffs that their deputies have received this request. And basically, it's a recruiting tactic. It's, hey, we got your email now. You got certified, and it's something like, dear colleague, you've shown an interest in this and that. We won't let you know that we are offering a $50,000 bonus paid $10,000 at a time, and it's for five years, obviously. Man, is that not bite and a hand to feed you? We went through all of that, took our time utilizing our local resource, not ours yet, but local resources, and then they try to recruit you right out from Monday using the very emails that. we give you? Finally, they found something bad ice has done. This is real. This is a new low

Starting point is 03:30:27 even for ice. Yeah. Sheriff Chip Simmons, calling ice out for their poor form. Sheriff Chip Chip finally found something that shows the... True depravity. The compromised heart of ice. Yeah. Yeah. Where will they stop? Well, let's talk about where they will stop or at least start spending. Ice has been spending some money. this week. Some of this, I think, like, some of the sort of reporting on NFC isn't hugely responsible. So, like, I signed a sole source contract with BI2 technologies, for example, for, quote, licenses for the inmate identification of recognition system and the mobile offender recognition information system. They call these Iris and Morris based on their initials,

Starting point is 03:31:12 right? These are for ERO, so that's their enforcement and removal operations brands. B2 pitches Iris is being able to identify people with no physical contact. based on the tears in their iris. This technology has been used by police for a while. So you'll notice it was called the inmate identification. So the way they would obtain these Irish scans would be scanning people who were detained, right? CBP will also have iris scans. So will USCIS, right?

Starting point is 03:31:41 This is one of the pieces of biometric data that's sometimes collected from migrants as part of their process of moving into the United States and getting their documents, etc. What Morris will do is allow them to search a registry of previous offenders. In 2024, Niagara County Sheriff's Office were the first Sheriff's Office to add iris to their vehicles. But Athena reported as this is, as a CBP office or ICE officers, are going to be scanning people's irises with their phones.

Starting point is 03:32:10 I don't see any evidence of that technology existing, either in the contract that the government has or on the website for the company that makes it. and guessing what this will do is if they have somebody who, for instance, has previously been detained, somebody who has done time and come out, then they would use this to, like, as a way of identifying them, right? When, after they've detained them before they take them to wherever. The big issue here, right, is that B.I.2 owns this database of scans. So this database includes Morris, right, which is previous people who have previous offenders. They have a sex offender registry within it.

Starting point is 03:32:47 They also have databases of seniors who are at risk for going missing. So I think that's people with dementia that people can voluntarily sign up to. And they have a database of missing children as well. B.O.2, interesting company, they also, they offer a bunch of services for detention companies. They previously partnered with the support our Sheriff's Foundation to provide lower cost prescriptions to sheriffs and deputies. They're pretty embedded in this law enforcement world. Other contracts I saw for ICE, new tech solutions for fingerprint. scanners. Again, fingerprint

Starting point is 03:33:19 information is routinely taken from migrants. People getting green cards, people getting visas, people getting citizenship. Yes. Anyone who has in any capacity and really engaged with USCIS, like all those categories you mentioned, Garrison, will have already done this. They did also

Starting point is 03:33:36 purchase Grey Key, which is more concerning. Which is for breaking into cell phones. Locked cell phones. Yes. It's for trying to get around the lock on your cell phone. I've written about Gray Key before. for input magazine. Generally, the way they do this is that they try and make a copy of the cell phone and work on a copy so they don't get locked out of your cell phone. But Greaky is an extremely nefarious piece of technology for breaking into people's phones, which you otherwise

Starting point is 03:34:01 wouldn't be able to access. So yeah, that is what I have for Isis spending spree this week. For our last story, I would like to also talk about technology, but technology in the news, some, some AI incidents that have broken into people's news, news gathering process. Former CNN anchor Chris Cuomo has shared a fake AI video of AOC, giving a speech in Congress, calling out the Sydney Sweetie American Eagle ad as racist. God damn it. I got to see this. Why is it have to all be so stupid?

Starting point is 03:34:39 I was tweeting today and saw a clip of AOC saying that Sydney Sweeney ad was racist. And so I replied to it, and I said, why do you care about this and ignore what matters most? Why in all the times that you've called on Israel to stop? Why have you never told Hamas to stop, told Hamas to surrender? Why would you ignore the St. Louis attack on that Jewish guy who had his car bomb? AOC tweeted back and said, dude, that's a deep fake that Sidney said, you suck in so many words. she was right they got me she was right

Starting point is 03:35:18 I suck he has been owned oh that's not bad that's pretty good that's funny yeah I chose to cut off the clip there

Starting point is 03:35:26 I think it gets the point across yeah that's the right place for it to go beautiful beautiful on this AI video

Starting point is 03:35:33 of AOC it is clearly like embossed into the video itself this is an AI video from from chat

Starting point is 03:35:42 GPT memes plus AI art on Instagram. Oh, what a fucking car. This guy is being elevated as a fucking journalist. Jesus, wept. He later said on News Nation, on his show, they got me.

Starting point is 03:35:58 AI, it was really good, and it did seem like something she would say. I'm going to now play the AI video in question to see if you think this is something that AOC would say. Sydney Sweeney looks like an Aryan goddess. And the American Eagle Jeans Camp pain is blatant Nazi propaganda. I mean, fuck.

Starting point is 03:36:17 Watching that sultry little temptress squeeze into a Canadian tuxedo, three sizes too small, with her bouncy little fun bags on the screen staring at you. Okay, that's enough. It's not.

Starting point is 03:36:31 Oh my God. No more. No more. End the episode. Fuck that. We've got to see it all. That's a trick. This guy got me. Oh, man. What a, one of our greatest journalists.

Starting point is 03:36:50 You know, AI really has to be, you know, we've hit AGI if it can, if it can crack a mind as keen as Chris Cuomo. It was really good and it did seem like something she would say. Oh, God. It's not even how her voice sounds. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. Some one of the most unhinged things I've ever seen. Just to watch that and then wonder why she hasn't commented on her mask in the same breath.

Starting point is 03:37:22 It's truly an indication on where our country's at. That AI video is 80 seconds long. It gets so much crazier, but we don't need to say anymore. The other incident of AI in the news, former CNN chief whiteout's correspondent Jim Acosta, interviewed an AI avatar impersonating a school shooting victim. Oh, my God. Is this one of those things that like every town or someone was doing? Yeah, yeah.

Starting point is 03:37:47 Yes, I caught this when it happened. Here's a video. I would like to know what your solution would be for gun violence. Great question. I believe in a mix of stronger gun control laws, mental health support, and community engagement. We need to create safe spaces for conversations and connections, making sure everyone feels seen and heard. It's about building a culture of kindness and understanding. What do you think about that?

Starting point is 03:38:13 I think that's a great idea, Joaquin. That's not even an answer. That's not an answer. That is disgusting. This is one of the grossest things I've ever seen. Create a culture of kindness and understanding. Yeah, that'll fix it. Thanks.

Starting point is 03:38:24 Incredible human evil. Not a person. That's someone's child. That's not someone's child. Right. Jim Mcosta wrote a blue guy. It's just a generic AI. Well, no, it's not a person.

Starting point is 03:38:34 It's, it's a human being. Yeah, but they've attempted to reanimate through cringe AI, someone's kid, and they look like a character. and it's a small world. Yes. The parents are involved in this process. Jim Acosta wrote on Blue Sky at 4 p.m. I'll have a one-of-a-kind interview with Hakeem Oliver. He died in the Parkland School shooting, but his parents have created an AI version of their son for a powerful message on gun violence. Unquote, you did not interview Joaquin Oliver.

Starting point is 03:39:01 That's not, that's not him. You did not interview that person. No, you did not. You didn't interview anybody. You have helped to spread a fake puppet of someone without their knowledge and consent. just as gross is doing it for, like, movie actors, right, who have died. This is, and, you know, more gross. Actually, like, significantly more gross. Yeah. It didn't even suggest, like, it wasn't even, like, willing to be, like, ban AR-15s or whatever.

Starting point is 03:39:31 Yeah. Like, there was no, nothing suggested here. Like, I can't believe how milk toast for a dead person who was killed by an AR-15, it wasn't even willing to say, it was just, like, vague. new gun control and also a culture of kindness, but, like, can't even be specific, this gul that you've made? You're putting fake words in someone else's, like, death mask mouth. Yes, it's so, it's so unethical.

Starting point is 03:39:56 Like, I don't even know what to say. He doesn't work at CNN anymore, but my God, like, this is not journalism in any way, shape, or form. No, I don't want to, like, punch down on the, I don't understand. Like, I know parents who have lost children right through my work. I've talked to lots of them more than I'd like to. And I understand the desire to get your kid back in some form. Sure.

Starting point is 03:40:19 Whoever the fuck came to them and said, we're going to make an AI of your child so it can argue with journalists about gun control is a fucking ghoul. Pure evil. No, the fault here is on the people promoting technology. And in effect, that's what Jim Acosta is doing here as well. Yeah, totally. No, because the journalist is totally irresponsible. And profiting off of it.

Starting point is 03:40:37 It's so gross. So anyway, that was our AI news to close the episode. Sorry we couldn't end on the AOC ad instead had to end on a bit of a more sour note. I genuinely wanted to know where that AOC ad goes. I'm going to watch it. Oh, I'll send it to you, James. Yeah. Okay.

Starting point is 03:40:55 We reported the news. Yeah, I guess. We reported the news. Hey, we'll be back Monday with more. episodes every week from now until the heat death of the universe. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Coolzone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

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