It Could Happen Here - It Could Happen Here Weekly 64

Episode Date: December 24, 2022

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

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If you've been listening to the episodes every day this week, there's going to be nothing new here for you, but you can make your own decisions. Hello, podcast fans. It's me today. It's James. It's only James. We're giving you some updates on the UC Strike, but we recorded these before some changes happen, progress, you could call it, maybe it's not progress, depends on where you're at position

wise with that. But there are two interviews today. One's going to explain a little bit about the bargaining and the differences between rank and file on the bargaining team. The other one's going to explain the very important and radical and progressive access needs, demands that were made. And it seems like ultimately not, at least they're not on the table in this tentative agreement. So there's a tentative agreement

out for voting right now. If you have been on the internet today, Saturday, and if you've been on today, you'll have seen it presented as if the strike was over. That's not necessarily the case, right? The contract is up for ratification and it's ratified by union members who have to vote on it a number of people are organising for a no vote especially

people who are in departments or parts of the university which would qualify for lower tiers of pay the contract has tiered pay has tiered pay both geographically and based on what kind of work you're doing and so a lot of people who are left at the bottom of those tiers are obviously feeling like they've been out on strike for five weeks and haven't got what they wanted a lot of people who are left at the bottom of those tiers are obviously feeling like they've been out on strike for five weeks and haven't got what they wanted. A lot of people who are on those higher tiers are also feeling like they should be expressing solidarity with their fellow workers at the bottom. But you will have seen a lot of reporting. Some of it came out very, very quickly after the tentative agreement was made, which is odd and perhaps is because the union appears to be, the union staff, I should say, the people who are making these,

some of the people who are in favour of this contract are using a PR company, which appears to have maybe seeded some stories and some publications, but we can't be sure. Certainly they were very quick to press. So I would urge you to listen to this as sort of a coda to some of what you might be reading there are two things you can listen to them separately you can listen one after the other

we won't have any podcasts for a while over the over the break so i will speak to you again in the new year and i hope you enjoy both these interviews muhammad can you just explain first of all tell folks like which campus you're at and maybe what you're studying and where you are in the giant structure that is the UAW, UCSD? Yeah, absolutely. So I'm at UC San Diego. I'm a fifth year in the PhD program in the Department of Ethnic Studies. And yeah, I specifically study Muslim racialization and sectarianism in the U.S. And how that links up to imperialism, settler colonialism, gender formations, things like that.

And I suppose my place within this, as you say, the labyrinth of UCSD and UAW politics. Right now, I'm just a rank and file member. D-N-U-A-W politics. Right now, I'm just a rank and file member. However, a couple years ago, I was the unit chair for San Diego. So I was actually on the bargaining team previously. And that was at the beginning of the pandemic. And so a lot of like COVID bargaining, for example, I sort of like oversaw that. And prior to that, um was a organizer with the cola movement and so i helped organize the wildcat strike um here at san diego yeah uh yeah nice yeah yeah that's a long history of union organizing it's good and so can you explain to folks a little bit about because you mentioned the bargaining team there right and um maybe people

won't be familiar with the distinctions in union organization obviously this isn't italy in the 1960s so you don't bargain with the entire union en masse sadly but they do the university meets with a certain group of union representatives so could you explain like who they are and how they're selected to start with maybe yeah absolutely um so there are essentially two levels of well three levels of leadership um within the the union so at the top um in terms of statewide leadership you have uh the executive board um and that's you like president, vice presidents for North and South campuses, trustees, treasurers, things like that. And then you have campus based leadership. And that's split between head stewards that are apportioned to campuses based on their population and size. And then you have two kind of sort of like head leadership positions, one being the unit chair and the other being the

recording secretary. And so the bargaining team for the whole union is composed of the unit chair and the rec sec from each campus. And this time around, we've added someone from UC San Francisco. They're usually not represented like in past bargaining cycles, they haven't been. So there are now 19 people on the the uaw 2865 bargaining team um whereas previously there had been 18 um yeah and i guess the sort of like final level of leadership that combines both campus level and statewide leadership is what's called the joint council um but that's kind of the the hierarchy of the structure of the union okay yeah it's fascinating they just went to an odd number because I want to get on to

something next, which is this division. I think people are calling them BT-10 and BT-9, right? Yeah. Which could have been BT-9 and BT-9 if you didn't have the UCSF person, which would have been a whole larger sort of mess. Oh, it's so much fun. Yeah, which would have been a whole larger sort of mess. Oh, it's so much fun. Yeah, that would have been great. So what is this division?

There are two distinct, I guess, positions as regards bargaining. So perhaps you could explain a little bit of that. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think just, you know, this might be obvious, but just to preface with the fact that even within these so-called camps of like BT10, BT9, there's a lot of heterogeneity, right? And so we saw this voting bloc emerge in the first week of the strike, mainly around the wages demand and how, you know, one of the central pieces of that original demand, the way that it was crafted, was that it was aimed at bringing members out of rent burden. And so rent burden, I'm sure folks have talked about this before, but it's defined as paying more than 30% of your monthly income in

rent. And so that translated in terms of our demand to a minimum base wage of $54,000 a year, along with wage increases that are tacked on to the increase in like the median rental price for housing. And so in that vote, we saw, you know, the split emerge 10-9. And then we saw, again, this kind of split paralleled in the vote to have open or closed bargaining sessions, and the fact that 10 people voted to have closed sessions. And again, you know, since then, another big concession, I'm going to use the term concession, even though there's a lot of consternation coming from like UAW leadership, because a concession is technically when you lose something you've already had, you already have. And so when it comes to like the disability and access article, um, you know, something that we proposed and which, you know, demand that was crafted through

and by, uh, you know, disability justice activists and disabled workers was mandatory supervisor training. And that was dropped. Um, and again, we saw that along same lines of 10 and nine. Um, and so, you know, I, I think ideologically speaking, if I were to kind of, you know, analyze this and give my take, it's that the nine people I think are more committed to, I suppose, being like, representative of their campus concerns. And so for example, some of those BT-9 members I was on the bargaining team with a few years ago, and they and I didn't necessarily agree on a lot of issues. But now because their campuses have been vocally in support of demands like a cost of living adjustment, a COLA, or in support of not dropping the amount of childcare that we can

get folks reimbursed for. Actually listening to their membership has caused them to kind of quote unquote side with other bargaining team members, which may have other ideological commitments beyond just the contract. And so commitment to progressively defunding UCPD, the police department, and sort of putting those funds elsewhere within the university system. And so, yeah, I mean, I think, you know, we see that kind of split emerge, you know, now with this bargaining cycle. But this is also a split that's existed within the union for a while. And so you look historically at the 2018 contract cycle, 2014, right, 2010, 2011. And there's always been this kind of division. And it's represented in

American labor more broadly, between kind of like socio political unionism on one end, and more like liberal or business unionism on the other. And so it's not really, or at least it shouldn't be surprising to us that a lot of those BT10 members or a majority of folks on the statewide executive board are aligned with what's called like the administrative caucus at the UAW international level, or they're vocally supportive of current UAW president Ray Curry. And in the latest general elections, even though officially the local didn't take a stance, on social media, there's photos of our union president posing with Ray Curry

for the Curry Solidarity team. And so there are those kind of like larger structural alignments as well. Yeah, and of course, if people aren't aware, and even, like you say within the union as a whole like yeah and within the whole like american unionization right we have the afl cio which includes uh unions which are of police officers and then we we have i know that the ucsd uh locals of you of at least the uc I should say, of UAW have made statements about that being an issue,

but it's still a thing that's happening. Yeah, it doesn't necessarily follow, especially in this country, that labour organisation is always progressive in its other politics, right? Yeah, absolutely, yeah. I thought it was really cool that a lot of the demands that were made were progressive when when the strike began right like um there was a cops off campus demand there was access needs demand and things like that like uh you know access to child care for people like some of them some of them were economic some of them were not economic

some of them which has always been a thing with student organizing. We can go back, I'm not very good at maths, we can go back to 1968 and we can look at students making political demands and that changing the demands that unions made in the 1960s. And I think it's cool that you all had those going in. Where are we at with the bargaining now? it it doesn't look like cops are leaving campus from what i can see right now yeah i think um so it's kind of complicated right now because we've uh just recently entered a voluntary pre-impasse mediation. And so a lot of the big outstanding articles, wages, child care,

the remission of non-resident supplemental tuition, which disproportionately affects international students, right, makes them, quote-unquote, more costly to the university. So a lot of those open things now are being discussed through this mediator. And I think even within that process, we see a lot of the same issues emerging that have been present for the entirety of the bargaining process, which mainly is that, again, my position on this is that our bargaining team hasn't been pushing enough. And you see that kind of on two levels. One, at the actual table, there's a lot of passivity. And so when, you know, the bargaining team is kind of explaining their decision to membership, it's mainly, you know, they're saying things like, well, we reduced the wages demand by

$11,000, like right away, because that's what would be more amenable to the university. And of course, that is not true, right? Because the UC came back to us with like a $28,000 offer or something like that, like pitifully low. And so again, there's a lot of, you know, concessionary, I think moves. And there's the desire to kind of close the gap with the university, essentially. And again, that kind of betrays, I think, a fundamental misunderstanding from our bargaining team that somehow if we are respectable enough, if we present enough rational arguments, the UC will respect that, right? They'll sort of like give in to our demands that will somehow goad them to come in our direction. Whereas, you know,

we should see the UC as like one of the largest bosses, one of the largest landlords in the country. And so of course, they're going to try to screw us out of as much as they can because that's their function. And so on one end, I think we've seen a lot of core demands get dropped. We've seen intense like weakening of our position, as well as a

really incredible lack of transparency. And so I mentioned before the fact that most bargaining meetings or most bargaining sessions have been closed doors. The fact that a number of private sidebars have taken place. And oftentimes membership gets very vague emails or we're told progress was made. We won certain things, but then the technicality of those wins is completely left out of the picture.

Even more recently, bargaining team members voted to make the votes at the table private. And so after dropping the coal demand, you know, folks were upset and obviously reaching out to the bargaining team, showing up to caucuses and being upset. And so from there, the bargaining team framed this as harassment and essentially voted to make all the votes private. And so, you know, we've seen a lot of moves like that, that, you know, make it clear that the union leadership is trying to preserve the union rather than preserve its

membership, right, and preserve the well-being of those folks. And so I think at the table, again, we see this kind of passive or concessionary strategy. And on the ground, when it comes to the strikes at all these campuses, we see something similar, where, you know, the majority of the actions that we took in the first two to three weeks of the strike was just picketing, right? And obviously, you know, the picket is a powerful tool, the picket is a very symbolic tool. But in a, you know, industry like the academy, picketing doesn't serve the same purpose as it might at a factory. We're not actually shutting down the workplace. It's a great show of force in a way because you have thousands of people out. But obviously, when we're being required to sign

up for 20 hours of picketing to get our strike pay, folks get exhausted. We'll have huge marches through campus, go to a rally, and it'll be two hours of people talking. And that exhausts people. And even when it comes to, you know, like at UC Davis, they had, the undergrads actually had like an amazing direct action where they blockaded the campus every single day. And that, of course, led to a legal response from the university. And the union leadership, you know, rather than challenge that or, you know, take measures to make sure that those folks could organize autonomously of them, started like harassing and disciplining folks, basically, for taking part in solidarity actions that may push up against the law. taking uh taking part in solidarity actions that may push up against the law um and so what we see as like a concessionary um attitude at the table i think is translated as a very um or it's translated into like respectability politics um on the ground um yeah yeah no i think that's an

excellent way of phrasing it and that's's sort of what you were definitely suggesting and what it seems that we've seen. So where does that leave people? I think some of the things that have been suggested to be looking in the sort of current proposals, both from the union and the university, would leave people with a contract that they would find, I'm guessing, unsatisfactory, right? Especially after four and a half, five weeks of being out

and possible withholding of pay, right? Which we can get onto. But where does that leave people? Like what's the feeling amongst your, obviously you can't speak for the rank and file across the whole university, but what's the sort of feeling amongst the rank and file with regards to what do we do if we get this offer,

which doesn't give us the things that we went out for in the first place? Yeah. I think that there is a lot of just polarization around that question. I've heard from a number of folks, unsurprisingly, I think people who are materially at least treated a little bit better, right, we get higher pay already from the university, being all right with it, you know, but that's the most that I hear. I haven't heard anyone, even the most staunch supporter of the union establishment, say that this contract, or at least what is bound to come

to the table at this point, is going to be satisfactory, is going to actually be desirable. It's just seen as like, oh, this is the best we can get, and we might as well settle in like every sense of the word. But that being said, there is a large contingent, again, of folks that are totally fine with that, or they're tired of striking, or they're seeing a lot of retaliation from their supervisors. they're tired of striking or they're seeing a lot of retaliation from their supervisors. And the union, I think, has failed to not only respond to that retaliation and to like reassure and empower members, but it's also failed to, you know, the technical term in organizing would be inoculate. Right. There is a huge, in my opinion, organizational failure to make clear exactly what could happen to folks when we go on strike, or to prepare us to hear the talking points from the university,

and how to, you know, collectively organize against it to build up a kind of consciousness to resist internalizing that and to say, like, oh, I don't want to strike because my job's at risk or something. And it's like, yeah, of course, right? That's the point. You know, it's like, we're taking that action. And so on one end, right, I mean, there's a number of reasons as to why and that kind of hinted at that, but there is a large contingent of people who would just be okay, and they're going to vote yes. you know, you've seen around social media, or you've talked to other folks who are on the side of voting no. You know, I think a lot of the consternation there comes, again, from the fact that we've dropped so much, and kind of have left our most vulnerable members out to dry. So whether that comes from, you know, reducing the amount of childcare, or dependent healthcare, or, you know, again, dropping those like really core

elements of the disability and access needs articles when it comes to dropping COLA and dropping our wages down to a point where we would still be in not just rent burden but severe rent burden, it's been leading a lot of folks to, you know, promote the idea that we're going to vote no regardless because even if the remaining articles, the remaining articles are better than we expected and they get tentatively agreed to, there's already too much that's been lost to make this an adequate contract. Not even great, not even satisfactory, but just adequate. And so, of course, that kind of division, as you might say,

has brought up a lot of tensions, especially in the last few days. Um, but you know, I, I think now we're seeing, uh, a, a broader gap between these two like sides, um, where there are folks that are pretty much again, set on voting yes, because it's good enough. pretty much again set on voting yes because it's good enough um and there are other folks who um are pretty staunch in voting no and trying to build up that movement um and i think the point we're at now at least speaking from that like vote no side is that um we really need to outline and be transparent with membership uh where we can go from there. Like, how do we demystify the process or the possibility of impasse? You know, that's been a concept that's thrown around a lot by

union leadership and is never fully unpacked. And so it's like a fear-mongering tool that's been, in my opinion, at least like used to subdue member militancy. So that's one issue. Another issue is how do we reopen certain articles? How do we build this quote-unquote long-haul strike to gain more than we've already given up at this point? And so I think a lot of those technicalities that are up in the air are renewed areas of organizing focus. Yeah, so you don't have to abandon some of those demands which were non-economic like yeah those can still be yeah i mean i guess

there's no point in really speculating how many people will vote yes or no we'll see once once we see the agreement and yeah but like can you give us an update then on where striking gets obviously progressively harder as it gets longer? People don't want to stand on a picket for five weeks, six weeks. They don't want to go home for the holidays. They have this pressure that's been leveraged, perhaps unfairly and sometimes erroneously, that their students will face immigration immigration or graduation consequences which is largely untrue and so like can you talk about there's there's a chance that people won't be

getting paid right in december has that happened to anyone what's the latest with that um so a lot of what's been going around um in terms of uh issues with pay uh a lot of the news i've seen concerns uh postdocs so folks from the local uh 5810 who actually just signed and approved that tentative agreement um so the university has put out some language implying that they'll retroactively dock pay um and so um yeah i can't like speak to the technicalities of that. Yeah. But that's definitely a concern I've seen floating around. And I know that they're actively organizing around it. For ASCs and student researchers, none of us have been docked pay yet. We all got paid for December.

In part because I just think the university has a really hard time keeping track of who's on strike. On top of the fact that, I mean, I don't know if anyone's already complained to you about UC Path, but the payroll system that got rolled out, yeah, a few years ago. It's terrible. It's an absolute fucking nightmare. Yeah. And so I think it would be a massive achievement for them to even be able to withhold folks' pay through that system. Yeah, they've struggled to pay people in the past including myself yeah yeah um yeah absolutely and so um you know i i think it is it is a real concern but at this point um at least to my

knowledge no one in 2865 or sru has been affected by by paying. And then let's talk about the grade withholding, which is now like today is today, right? That the grades should be due in. Obviously, many people are not filing those grades, which again, is another example of the UC just being a bureaucratic disaster, but we can skip past that. So the grades are not being filed. Can we talk about some of the suggestions that have been made by the university? I know one of them was that students on F1 visas might face consequences. That's not true, as best I've been on F1 visa,

as best I understand it. And that students on grants and scholarships might face consequences. Can you explain sort of what they've said and then perhaps offer some insight into why you think that that might be misleading? Yeah, absolutely. So exactly what you're saying, you know, folks in vulnerable categories such as people on academic probation or whose financial aid is dependent on being in like, you know, good standing or, yeah, like international students. Yeah, there's been a lot

of fear mongering and misleading information out there that these students might be, you know, kicked out of school, they might be deported, they might face, you know, again, like financial consequences. But it's important also to recognize that having a grade remain blank, is that having a grade remain blank. It doesn't affect folks' GPA. It doesn't affect folks' academic standing. And for international students, the best that we understand,

and we've actually communicated with universities, international students' offices, and what they say is that it's enrollment that matters, not necessarily having the grade. And so even if, you know, let's say like all of someone's grades are withheld, they've still enrolled in the requisite number of credits. Right. And so that that standing in terms of a visa wouldn't be affected. And the same goes for even something as simple as moving on to the next course in a sequence. simple as moving on to the next course in a sequence. Because, you know, again, it, the withholding of a grade doesn't affect that kind of like progress or academic standing.

And as a sort of like technical note, a lot of folks are again concerned that like, well, wouldn't this blank grade lead to an incomplete or wouldn't it lead to an F? And in terms of the incomplete, there's a reason why we're not filing everyone with an I. We're leaving the grades blank because an incomplete is costly. It's more work for everyone. And so we're avoiding that. And blank grades don't default to an F until the following semester or following term ends. And so for us at UCSD, since many of us are withholding grades, those blank grades wouldn't turn to an F until the end of winter, so around March.

And I don't think anyone expects the strike to go that long. Yeah, yeah. That would be truly historically. Yeah, so how has the undergraduate response been then? Yeah, that's... It's difficult because I know at certain campuses, like I mentioned UC Davis earlier, there's been huge undergrad involvement there.

At San Diego, I think the response has been a bit mixed. I know many of my students, for example, were supportive of the strike. And within my department, Ethnic Studies, we did try to get students more involved. Like we held teach-ins to get students to come out. And, you know, the class I'm TAing for right now is called Land and Labor. And so we talked about, you know, UCSD, right? And the relationship to like colonialism, capitalism, land and labor.

to like colonialism and capitalism yeah landed labor um and so we've tried to integrate you know not just um you know student engagement and support but also to use this as another form of study right as a form of study that's not that's outside the kind of like bureaucratic mess that is the university with its nonsense um i think what's difficult at san diego is that um you know political engagement has historically come in waves obviously at all universities folks come and go but it's particularly acute i think at san diego where there's massive moments of like upheaval and like folks coming out in the thousands like we saw back in um 2020 um around the pandemic around the the uprisings um during the summer around even the cola movement right which was a little bit before that we saw huge numbers of undergrads come out in part because

we were able back then at least to connect our demands to their concerns right the fact that psychological services on campus are horribly underfunded, right? People have to wait a whole quarter to get even the intake appointment. The fact that, again, like they're getting screwed over with housing just as much as we are, paying over 10 or $15,000 a year for a dorm.

And so that connection back then, I think really drew out the undergrads And that's what's really lacking now. Again, I think because of the way that the union has framed the struggle quite narrowly as not just what affects workers, but what affects the majority of workers, that's left out a lot of the broader concerns. a lot of the broader concerns that has foreclosed a lot of broader critiques of the university. And so when it comes to something like the cops off campus demand, the fact that we have bargaining team members at UCLA, for example, literally lie and say that it's never been on the table is really indicative of how the union is trying to frame this. And so the fact that, you know, again, those broader conversations around the UC being a landlord, around the way that, you know, profit and resources are inequitably distributed through the university infrastructure, right? Those things drop out of the conversation about our strike.

And if we do bring it up, we're seen as dissidents or something like that or radical. We do bring it up. We're seen as dissidents or something like that or radical. And so the fact that those things have dropped out, I think, has led to us seeing the situation like we see at UCSD, where the undergrads are almost ambivalent, if not hostile, because we haven't done a good enough job engaging them. We haven't also organized alongside and with them. Rather, it's been like come support your tas and not like we're fighting together right and so it's it yeah it betrayed it gives the impression that this is like a very one way um or you know like a unidirectional form of support where in reality you know we should be building up those ties of solidarity and that you know we should be focusing not just

on winning a contract but then building and sustaining this movement um against the university in a much larger or broader sense yeah because it's i'm speaking from experience i know a lot of those undergrads feel very disempowered in their relations with the university and and some of the demands like the access needs demand uh you know the demand for improved student counseling and psychological services things like that like that would benefit directly everyone on campus and then yeah it's a shame not to see that it's a shame to see that sort of left to the side when i think yeah it could build a more effective movement yeah so yeah it does seem to go like you said campus by campus department your department like

has historically been a lot more engaged than others uh i think it's fair to say so and so we've reached the christmas break now uh grades have been withheld which i think a lot of people thought was like sort of a nuclear option or like a step up uh yeah which it doesn't seem to have been like it really hasn't done anything um and the uc has entered into or they the university and the union have entered into a voluntary pre and pass mediation when do you like if you were just speculating and when do you think we'll see like a resolution because it's already slipped out of coverage right like if i look at our local newspaper that they've stopped reporting on it it doesn't help absolutely yeah um i think you know it's it's difficult to to speculate in part because

as we've seen with past bargaining updates they tend to drop bombshells on us. Like with the whole COLA demand being severely cut down, we found out about that like two hours before the bargaining session, which is at like 10 p.m. And so it's totally possible that by the end of this week, we'll have a tentative agreement. Like folks have been speculating on that. It wouldn't surprise me. I would be disappointed, but I wouldn't be surprised. At the same time, though, I do think that we've been able to build up sufficient pressure on the

union establishment or the leadership that I think it might be a bit more hesitant, right, to take that sudden of a move or to kind of come out of left field or something like that. And so, you know, there is a distinct possibility, especially with the holidays coming up, that this might go into the new year. And obviously, that would be like my hope to go as long as possible. But yeah, I think it's incredibly tough. And i think it's it's incredibly tough and i think that's causing a lot of anxiety um and it's kind of a disorganizing energy right to not know when something like this might happen because there is such an utter lack of communication or um you know democratic input um and i think in terms of you know the the coverage or the grade strike, what's really unfortunate, I think, is the way that I've heard, you know, from the horse's mouth, right? Certain bargaining team members saying that withholding grades isn't an important form or isn't an impactful form of labor withholding because the university doesn't care.

And historically, we've seen that they really do care. And within academic strikes, withholding finals is a massive thing, right? Yeah. And I think that in order to really realize the impact that that'll have on the institution, we have to go for a few more weeks into the winter quarter. And, you know, right now, even to try to build up some more, I guess, like, you know, PR around grade withholding. There are folks doing research and trying to calculate, like quantify what like, you know, each credit would mean in like real dollars. And then the fact that, you know, hundreds of students grades are being withheld for a three or four hour, like or four credit um class and what that translates to

into money um yeah and so yeah yeah i mean if we look at what the university does right it it turns its capital into into into income essentially through like leveraging its credibility for a credential and and charging people masses of rent for living there increasingly and you can't take away the housing right which is its major source of revenue but you you't take away the housing right which is it's a major source of revenue but you you can take away this there's this product yeah and and and there have been um you know there are a number of petitions out there uh for example um uh for undergrads to request like a reimbursement of their tuition for any classes that haven't been um held or grades that have been withheld. And I think

that's a really fantastic way to engage them and to put pressure on the university. There's also been attempts or at least, you know, some strategizing on our end on how to have the grade strike impact the university's accreditation. And so we are trying to look for avenues to increase the pressure um from this kind of like strategic move yeah that's smart yeah yeah it must be difficult i'm sure like as you develop relationships with undergraduates and especially when you're ta in your department the class you care about it it's a shame to to lose that opportunity to talk to people about important things like land and labor and so i'm sure it's a shame to to lose that opportunity to talk to people about important things like land and labor and so i'm sure it's difficult to not have that chance to even check in at the end of this

end of the uh the term and just say like you know this has been fun what have we learned yeah absolutely um and i think you know for a lot of us who are ases you know we're doing this not just for ourselves but for our students right because we care about education and we recognize that the university as an institution is actually corrosive right to a quality education and so absolutely i think like there is a sense of loss i think the fact that i can't like you're saying close out my class the fact that i can't um you know really invest in my students the way i want and not trying to blame that on the strike but trying to blame them on the conditions that have brought us to to strike in the first place right yeah yeah um i don't want to get like full marxist on main but like yeah the further

alienated you are from your labor then the like the less that the experience is for your undergraduates and that is definitely a thing that happens at the university you become more and more inalienated and uh oh yes yeah the joy that dies yeah i say with a phd and doing no work in academia and muhammad is there anything else people should know about the strike like that we haven't talked about that we haven't talked about? Let's see. I would say, you know, one important thing is that both for folks within the university system and from, you know, the outside, is to kind of place this strike in historic context. I think when the union leadership has spoken about this at all,

it's mainly around the size of the strike. The fact that it's historic because we have, you know, 48,000 possible strikers from throughout the UCs. And that's kind of misleading because I think the real kind of like historic potential within this struggle is, for example, establishing a precedent of what a researcher strike looks like. Part of the reason it's so difficult for us to not only, you know, mobilize researchers, but also, you know, push back against retaliation is because there is no set structure for what that kind of strike looks like, right? There is no effective way that we have to counter the possible impacts on these people's futures. And so I think that, you know, really emphasizing that to folks is key. Another thing is the COLA demand, right? The fact that we are trying to, or at least we've tried to tack

our wage increases, not just to inflation or the consumer price index, but to the median increase in rental prices. That would be huge. And that's not just big for us as workers within this local, but that does set the precedent for all workers in the US. And I think that we really, by we, I mean the union as a whole apparatus has not stressed the importance of that or the kind of like monumental shift that that could um kind of provoke in the the landscape of american labor broadly just so if people aren't aware like like rent in california has gone up way more than double almost almost triple the rate of inflation yeah and working people people who are members of unions by and large tend to be people in California has gone up way more than double, almost triple the rate of inflation. Yeah.

And working people, people who are members of unions, by and large, tend to be people who don't own property. They tend to be people who rent property, right? And I can see by your unfinished concrete ceiling that you're renting from the UC, which is the biggest landlord in California. So you're right that this is a very historic thing. Is that rent increase for cola? Is that tied to median rent in the state or is it median rent across UC rented, uh, like, like apartments?

So I think the actual language, so this is part of the problem is that because it was dropped so quickly at the table, we weren't even able to get into the vicissitudes of the demand itself. And so from my understanding, the increase would be based on the least affordable or essentially the largest increase that we'll see at any of the campuses. And everyone's wage would be increased to that. that we'll see at any of the campuses. And everyone's wage would be increased to that.

When we look at the base wage, though, the 54K, that was tacked on to, again, a kind of like median income or a median rental price throughout the state as well. And so actually 54K would be exactly enough to get me out of rent burden. So anything less than that would actually still keep me in rent burden. And so, yeah, that's kind of how the events. Yeah, which rent burden is far too normalized, I think, especially in California. Yeah,

yeah. And like collective bargaining as tenants as well as workers is fascinating, right? Like it's something we've seen, but not on a large scale, like, and, and like you aren't on rent strike yet. But yeah. And I'm sorry. As a side note, yeah, we did have a couple of rent strikes within the UC system in the past few years at Berkeley, at UCLA, and here. And so I was actually part of organizing in the aftermath of COLA at the beginning of the pandemic. I helped organize the first rent strike within HDH, UCSD grad housing.

And so we have also seen that, but that's another way that the union has kind of limited the scope of this movement because there's been so much focus on us as only workers and the bread and butter issues. We kind of lose sight of the way that withholding rent, as you're saying, is another way of like really getting at the heart of the uc's profit engine yeah yeah um yes it is a shame that these like um yeah if you want to think into historical perspective i of course like i love paris 68 to you know it's like the monolith of student political organizing i guess and student political organizing changing the established structures of the left uh which which is it's some of what you had demanded was very similar to that in a sense and that it was

societal and political as much as it wasn't economic right and american unions tend to phrase themselves in terms of like respectable liberal politics not that so it's a shame to see that go i guess absolutely and i think you know uh this actually came up in a meeting, which kind of astounded me. But again, on one hand, astounded me. Another hand was completely sort of like to be expected, which is someone saying we need to make this movement as accessible as possible to workers without an activist bone in their body. And so, again, there's always that appeal to the right

always the appeal to the most um conservative reactionary force and always at the expense right of the folks who are the most vulnerable always at the expense of expanding this movement and so as you're saying something that is more uh socio and socially and politically engaged yeah yeah i think most people become activists when they have to live in their car because they can't afford to live in the UC housing when they work at the UC, but that is not everyone of course. And all right, Mohammed, where can people find you? Do you have social media? Do you, is that something you want to share? Would you prefer to share like your unions or something else? I guess, uh, on, on Twitter, um, I am, uh, at IslamoMarxist. There you go.

Yeah, so folks can find me there. Otherwise, I mean, if there are folks within the UC that are organizing, within any of the VoteNo channels, I'm sure folks could find their way to me. But yeah, I think just in general, like following the rank and file and COLA associated accounts on social media, trying to attend as many meetings as possible is really how I think folks can get more in tune with the struggle.

Yeah, that's great. Thank you so much for your time. I appreciate it. And yeah, best of luck with everything. Thanks so much. So I'm joined today by Megan Lynch, who's the founder of and a volunteer for UC Access Now, which has been one of the important bodies lobbying for increased access needs for people with disabilities at the UC as part of this strike. Hi, Megan, how are you doing?

Hi, I'm doing well. Thanks for having me. Great. Thanks for coming on. Megan, can you explain and maybe explain a little bit about UC Access now first, and then we can get into sort of what the issues were and what the demands were? Well, let me start with clarifying what access needs are. Generally, I wouldn't want to have more access needs because it would mean that I need more things that I need to negotiate getting them met. So an access need is, uh, I have something that I, I need somebody to, to, you know, the, the, the inaccessible environment that we have often it's, it's sort of default inaccessibility.

And so having an access needs means that, you know, I need to work out how to be in that environment. And sometimes you can even be in a really well accessible environment and it would be hard for people to meet your access need without, again, trying to come to some kind of agreement. So there's a difference between accessibility and access needs. And I just wanted to clarify that. Thank you. Yeah. I think that's very important. So can you explain then what sort of issues people were running into before the strike? Like what sort of things

were there that limited people's access to university spaces or education or work? Well, still very much going on. And in fact, it's actually increased during the pandemic. The only time where things got a little better for some of us was, you know, in March 2020, when everybody, you know, and this is what often happens is that something, when suddenly people who don't identify as disabled need something, and there's enough of that, then there's no problem. Nobody has to submit medical documentation. Nobody has to get special permission. It's really not a big rigmarole, right? But when you identify as disabled and you say, I have this as an access need, then suddenly you get the Spanish Inquisition in terms of whether you deserve

this thing that your tax dollars have been paying for at your institution anyway. So it really runs the gamut for, you know, I guess what I could best talk about is my own situation and what led to the formation of UC Access Now. So I arrived here before the start of fall 2019 as a 50-year-old disabled grad student. So I'm already in a kind of unusual position by being 54 years old here and then disabled on top of it. And I was set to TA my first quarter here. spot even before the quarter started that the kinds of cycle wrecks they have here at uc davis which is you know usually lauded for being quote-unquote bike friendly yeah uh were not accessible to me and that they would eventually you know i could do it once or twice without hurting myself but over time i was going to be hurt and that would get in the way of me being

able to do my duties as a ta not to mention anything I need to do for myself. Because I was riding, like a lot of disabled cyclists, I don't ride the standard upright bicycle. I ride a recumbent bicycle with under seat steering. And the racks are not usually a big deal places. i've lived in a number of different cities in california uh berkeley los angeles see a lot of places have what are you know you racks you know it which is similar kind of to a sheffield rack for folks who know those except you know not quite as big so it's not like it's this special you know you don't go to a special adaptive store for this rack it is a more accessible rack and most cities are sensibly using them. But for here, because despite their bike friendly reputation, they actually want to

prioritize space for cars. They have made these racks that are so close together and not supportive, et cetera, that the only part I could ever lock my bike to would be the ends. And that's what everybody else wants to take first. And it wouldn't even be easy to the ends because again, these are really very specifically, they have wheel wells and the relationship between the lock thing and the wheel well is exactly the space of part you would do if you had sort of a standard adult size upright bike.

And honestly, they're not even good for people who ride those. So for instance, if you go on UC Davis subreddit, you will see sometimes threads where people are bullying people who want to get a cruiser bike because they're like, those things take up too much room. No, it's not that they didn't take up too much room. It's that the racks are very poorly designed. Yeah. There are things that take up a lot of room in cities, but they are SUVs. Yeah. They would rather bully somebody about their choice of bike than to say, hey, these are really what a waste of taxpayer money to get these bike racks that not only don't work for a lot of disabled people, but don't even work

for people who are riding cargo bikes or using a trailer or, you know, other things you would want to do. So, so anyway, I went first to the Disabled Students Center here, which is, you know, the rationing and policing agency for disabled people. And, you know, it's amazing to me, like this, these are the people and they will literally call themselves experts on disability and accessibility. And they said to me, gosh, it never occurred to us that that would need to be accessible. This is on a campus where they're trying to encourage you to leave your car at home. At least some of us. Right. Yeah. And and it's also how you get to school and to work. Right. So why wouldn't I need that to be accessible?

And so I asked for something as simple as, can you sign a letter? They wouldn't do it. They wouldn't back me up at all. So then I go directly to the Transportation and Parking Services. They were like, it's not covered under ADA, which is not true. And then they were like, the solution they under ada which is not true and you know and then they were like the solution they wanted to pose with it you know eventually when i finally after months got a meeting they were like well give us your schedule of classes and we'll install one of these racks

at each building you're at as if my schedule isn't going to change each quarter right yeah yeah and it's going to take is that a better use of yeah Is that a better use of tax money to send a crew around to like, to, to, to jackhammer concrete at a different location for each quarter, according to each disabled cyclist class that changes, just get the right rack. So that, that's when I went to the union and even in the union at that time, uh, it, you know, it was really clear. It wasn't just with that issue. I had other issues,

but this was definitely getting in the way of my work as a TA because it was hurting my hands very badly. And in fact, I'd fallen a couple of times and my bike had fallen on top of me and like, nobody helps you. You just sit there watching you like a turtle trying to get up again. So there's things like that. There's things like even just the housing here in terms of, for instance, if I had had the luck of having a romantic partner, if I'd had the wealth and the ability to choose to have campus, I was, I had zero priority whatsoever. And so I very nearly ended up starting that quarter having to live out of my car because, you know, and I would think it would be pretty clear that a 54 year old disabled grad student might actually have, uh, maybe have more, uh, have fewer options in housing than somebody who's in their twenties and isn't disabled. But, uh, but you know, and I'm not saying that parents don't need family

housing or anything like that, but what I'm saying is very clearly, I think some disabled people do have strong access needs to have accessible housing near campus. And that's very much not something that they bothered themselves with here at UC Davis. So, you know, there's other things in terms of online accessibility and other things, but those are the things that affected me that I think are worth mentioning simply because they're both unusual things people don't tend to think of. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And it is a very, it's a very difficult system to navigate. Like, like you said, I think one of the things that's really stood out is this demand for documentation for any sort of accommodation

that you might need. They can make it very hard. I remember I was teaching at UCSD and I shattered my pelvis. And that made moving at all extremely difficult for me. And they wouldn't give me a parking pass. And like then proceeded to off me once I had diabetes, which is a whole like interesting, like it's sort of calculation of which one of those things

will definitely stop you walking. So yeah, it was extremely sort of humiliating, I can say from a personal perspective and degrading and time consuming and unnecessary. And so what were the demands then? At the start of this strike, right, there was an access needs element to the demands being made by the union.

So perhaps we can go through, maybe first we can go through how you went from like this bike rack, which didn't accommodate a pretty basic need to transport yourself to campus. How do we get from there to the union having access needs demands as part of the strike? So as far as UC Access now is involvement with it, We went on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram and published the demand manifesto in July of 2020. So the months between, you know, the fall when I made, you know, went through these processes and when I finally decided, okay, nobody's doing anything

about this and I don't see any other organizations. So let's, you know, jump into this. don't see any other organizations. So let's, you know, jump into this. By July, UC Access Now was contacted by somebody who was an officer within UAW 5810. And that's the postdoc and academic researcher union. And they had seen our work, you know, via social media and whatnot, and said, you know, we're about to go into contract bargaining, and we'd really like to talk about disability issues. So we had a meeting with them. And we actually had, we did a presentation also to them, but for their social justice seminar series, but we also had a meeting with a number of people from 5810 in terms of, let's, you know, let's think creatively here. Let's, let's be ambitious about what it is, you know, because the thing is, is that a lot of what people tend to do, particularly,

particularly when they're not disabled, but even some disabled people can do this because internalized ableism is really hard to throw off. We sort of you know and this is true of other oppressions too you know we're all sort of used to this system that has this policing uh austerity etc you know we all get schooled into not hoping for much anymore because we're just so used you know in my lifetime i've lived through decades of this kind of reggaeton baloney so so it takes a while to think big about these things but that's what we were trying to do and so we sort of brainstormed with them as several uc access now members and several uh 58 10 members in terms of the sorts of things they could be uh asking for and so if if there's time and you don't mind, I can give you a view of that because the other

stuff's online, but this isn't. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Please do. So again, this is sort of just a spitballing document, but we were like, you know, all ads for postdoc positions on all platforms, they have to be accessible. Now, some of this and some of what we're talking about is stuff that you see is actually legally obligated to do and just has not been doing. That would be one of them. Training, you know, most emergency access plans are not made with the input of disabled people and they don't even mention us. So, you know, there are considerations for accessibility for different types of disabilities, different people. accessibility for different types of disabilities, different people. We have several buildings on UC Davis campus here that have little placards right in the lobby that say, they say something like,

if you depend on visual alarm systems in an emergency, please let somebody else know you're in this building, blah, blah, blah. And it's like, even the way that's phrased, because, you know, quote unquote, abled people, are you dependent on a sound alarm system to get out in a fire? But they don't phrase it, you know, as dependence when it's for them, right? They only phrase it as dependence when it's for somebody who's deaf or hard of hearing. Yeah. So we've got several buildings on campus where they know that it's not up to, not even just ADA, but just like basic human decency. People will die in that building. Deaf and hard of hearing people will not know that there's a fire or other emergency alarm system going off because we couldn't be bothered to pony up for some lights.

So that kind of thing in terms of an emergency action plan, these things have to be done. There has to be training, not only for the supervisors, but really for UC itself, because the whole system is just, you know, crammed full of ableism, you know. Online working is key to accessibility, so it has to be a regular option, not just something for the pandemic. It should have been the whole time. And it also shouldn't, you know, be a big burst up to it. There are some, you know, there are like kind of things you would think of as smaller that we put in here simply because, again, we're trying to think creatively, which is, you know, reimbursements, for instance. I mean, that's a general problem with grad students and whatnot, is that the university, which has far more resources than we do, is sort of, you know, taking its time reimbursing us for things that we had to get, right? And so the debt is actually being heaped

onto the people least able to support it. And when it comes to disabled people, that is going to be even more of a burden because most disabled people have a higher cost of living and often have a lower income to boot uh so we put you know that in there we put in uh uh reimbursements for costs incurred uh working at home or or or you know in other ways remotely for an employer that's section 2802 of the california labor code um uh you know sick policy in terms of like uh commuter checks which you know or some other kind of thing for public transit uh make the child care spaces and lactation rooms are accessible because you know the union will like lobby for that right but you need to be you need to be expressive about the idea that these things need to be accessible like people don't think of everything

needing to be accessible but really it does yeah and that sends a very sort of condescending message about like what you know different people with different disabilities might or might not be doing which obviously isn't great that the uc is doing that and so like. So I thought these demands were fascinating because it's not what we often talk about when we talk about strikes. We talk about strikes often purely in terms of economics. In the US, that can include things like non-wage benefits or healthcare.

But in most instances, we talk about strikes in bread and butter terms like they have gone out and they want this much money to come back and I think that strikes have the potential to build much greater solidarity by doing things like this by incorporating these I guess social justice demands is one way of phrasing it. These basic human decency demands would be another way of saying it. And it really impressed me that this was part of the package of demands from the union. How have things gone? Are you comfortable talking about how things have gone since the strike began?

Well, I certainly don't know everything backwards and forwards, because honestly, it would be hard for any one person to know it all. It's all extremely complex. Yes. There's a difference between things that are traditional to do as opposed to things that are actually the law and then, of course, the actual enforcement of the law. So anyway, this has been going on for a whole year. And as you can imagine, penetrating it as your average person, it can be very difficult. So I will certainly give you my view of it so far as I've seen it. But we do have – so we helped 5810 with sort sort of spitballing and they took it from there. And what they started out with was not as, you know, ambitious as the spitball document.

I think that got replicated a lot throughout the unions, which is, you know, my advice as somebody from the outside, just thinking about negotiations in general. You know they're going to cut you down, right? So why would you be the one to cut you down? You know they're going to do it, right? You think big, let them cut you down. And unfortunately, the majority of voices in the bargaining teams tended often to be at least where the access needs articles were concerned, tended to be kind of let us cut ourselves down. So the starting doc for 5810, although, you know, it's still had things in it that were very, like if we have the original version of 5810 instead of what actually uh the folks you know voted on

voted yes on recently uh it would still be a revolutionary document in in u.s labor history i think you know i don't i've never heard in the news if anything any uh uh more ambitious than that but but definitely it was down from what we were starting with, which, you know, so, but I think what happened was that, you know, 5810 came out and they were trying to coordinate and learn from each other, did different units, right? So then folks on SRU and UAW 2865 also worked on the access needs articles. And the access needs articles even in themselves was a change because the previous versions of these things were phrased as reasonable accommodations, which is language that stems from the Americans with Disabilities Act. which is language that stems from the Americans with Disabilities Act. And even that phrase is something that is really outdated because it is the idea. The idea is who is deciding what's reasonable, right?

The person who has no lived experience of disability or this gigantic public institution that is funded, including by disabled people's tuitions and fees and whatnot and taxes. But, you know, where's my money go? It goes into building an inaccessible university, right? So why am I supposed to let you judge what is reasonable? I think it's incredibly unreasonable that you use my money to build a university that not is is not only hard for me to be at but is actively hostile to my health um and so you know and just the the word accommodations centers and codifies that inaccessibility as being the norm right and anything you do different from it is like you

being accommodating well get that get the hell out of here with that stuff yeah yeah yeah it makes much more sense to phrase it in those ways and like yeah it seems like it was as you said a very ambitious goal and one that like not all of those the things got transferred which is i mean the that that can happen in strikes, but it's also like, it's a non-economic thing that the university could have given to you all that it wouldn't have had to have, you know, I mean, and the university has a lot of money and it would be very possible for it to pay graduate students the ways they asked for at the start and post-grad, post-docs

could be paid the wages they asked for too and it wouldn't really hurt the university. They could, you know, there are a million ways they could fund that and but well i think that gets to the crux of why they don't do this because the thing is is that if if you really think about it this way and it takes a little doing because again we're sort of schooled not to yeah but um it is a form of misappropriation of public funds. If all of the public is funding this institution, and we do that through our state and our federal taxes, we do, and then of course, if we get in,

we're doing it through tuition and fees. And then of course the grants the university gets are also federal grants and this sort of thing. Then what you're doing is you're taking money that comes from all of the public and pre-pandemic figures in terms of like, this is before the mass disabling event that the pandemic is. The 25% of adult Americans had at least one disability. So you're taking money from those

folks and you're saying, but we're not going to build this public university in a way that is not only like tolerable by you, but like a place where you could thrive. It doesn't even reach tolerable. It actually drives a lot of us out of here. It worsens health. And I have no doubt that it has killed people. So what happens, The reason I mentioned this is because that misappropriation of funds, you know, that's the incentive. Right. What can if if if you're going off this austerity mindset that you shut off like people from things they need. Right. What happens to that money? Well, we have an admin that is completely bloated in size. completely bloated in size. We have every single chancellor getting a raise during a pandemic that they completely blew in terms of public health protections, in terms of accessibility, even to people when they needed it during the pandemic. Like if they hadn't been fighting accessibility that long, we would have handled the pandemic better because we would have had better online

pedagogy already available and developed. Yeah. So it is it that's a kind of jump that people don't make but that's exactly what's going on that's why they have the interest in putting this rationing and policing bureaucracy together to like not many disabled people even get here because this is of course not the only ableist institution it's hard to even get here but then when you get here they want to reduce who can get their access needs met and then the access needs being met is such a gauntlet and only the most privileged of disabled people can get that and so you know as far as as far as disabled people at UC who are in the system, so to speak, you know, are registered or whatever, that's going to not at all be

representative of the public. That's going to be mostly white folks with some access to privilege, you know? Yeah, of course. I think you've given a good sort of elucidation of why this is a struggle that obviously everyone should be part of and everyone should be getting behind because it's all of us are invested in this and all of us are paying for this university, which isn't accessible right now. What's your advice? Because there are unprecedented numbers of people forming unions, right? Like Starbucks being one example that we see a lot of coverage of, but all across the country, there are more people forming unions, there are more people going on strike. How should they organize around similar things? How should they organize around getting these access needs met? Well, I think you have to start by sweeping your old side of the street, which is that you have to make sure that your union communications, your meetings, everything about your union is accessible. And if you don't know how to do that,

then that's where you start. You start with learning what accessibility is and how to make things accessible because what we found when we started, when we came out kind of, UC Access Now did, was, you know, as you can imagine in a society where there are quite strong financial punishments for even, you know, even identifying as disabled. punishments for even just say, you know, even identifying as disabled. And what I mean by that is like, say again, here on UC Davis, you were talking about how hard it was for you to get parking, right? You know, when you had a shattered pelvis, how it was to go every single day here on campus, there are abled employees driving trucks and vans that they drive straight up to the door of the building on the sidewalk, blocking egress for actual disabled people and actually blocking fire egress out of the building.

Because that's what's, you know, because they can't be bothered to walk 20 feet from the legal space that they have already have the privilege of being on campus compared to everybody else. Right. But they had to have it even more convenient to that. And then they drive straight up to the door. Right. But they had to have it even more convenient to that. And then they drive straight up to the door, right? Nobody gives them, nobody says boo about that. Nobody says you need to get a medical documentation. Nobody says you're getting fined and you don't get to drive this campus truck again or whatever.

None of that goes on. What would happen, I guarantee you, if that employee identified as disabled all of a sudden, then they would come down on that person for what they're doing. It's a real, so because of these things, there's a lot of incentive for people to hide their disability. Because you get, there's a lot of stigma, but there's also a real, quite real financial hit to it. a quite real financial hit to it. And, uh, and so what happens once you sort of create a safer space to talk about it, uh, people will start DMing you, you know, and they will let you know that they're starting to have problems on the job or whatever. They may not be ready to come out for those. Like some people it's obvious they're disabled, right? It's not even like they have a choice about quote unquote coming out. Right. But for other people, it's obvious they're disabled right it's not even like they have a choice about quote unquote coming out right yes but for other people it's not obvious unless they tell you and they have a lot of incentive to not you know identify that way um but when you make your union a safe and

inclusive and accessible place you will find that you have already been making assumptions about what your union membership is so you already have members who are disabled. It's just that they're not telling you about it. But furthermore, if your union starts really becoming an accessible, inclusive place, you know, not performative, really being there, like your communications are accessible, you're clearly, um, educating yourselves around ableism, educating yourselves around accessibility. So like when you have your meeting, it's not in a, a room that isn't wheelchair accessible, that doesn't have a working elevator on that floor, you know, all these things that people

kind of don't think about until, uh, they're the one with the broken leg, then that really goes some way to helping you organize things. And you will find you already have members that you can tap, you know, because they'll start to feel more involved once they see you're willing to go to bat for them. And what I would say that folks should learn from the UCUAW experience right now. And this doesn't just refer to disabled workers. It's really other marginalized workers, which is, you know, if you're in a contract bargaining situation

and it's clear that like you're the bargaining chip, like why would that group want to hang with you you're you're saying support us and what we want but we're going to desert you when it's your time you weren't going to depend on the fact that everybody likes more pay and we're just going to say okay you're going to stick with us and and work you know with the union no matter what it's like now a lot of people are going to go well i'm sticking you know, with the union, no matter what. It's like, no, a lot of people are going to go, well, I'm sticking, you know, you clearly don't support me. So I don't see why I need to go with you and put myself at risk. Cause if you win, I'm going to get the raise anyway.

And, uh, and if you don't win, well, then that's good for you because now you know how it feels like to be tossed aside, know so so you have to really be there for your marginalized workers you know it has to be this non-performative thing but the but the thing is is that if you are non-performative about it you are you're making the workplace not only better from disabled workers you already have but you are making it better for yourself because every single one of us pretty much is going to be disabled either temporarily or permanently at some point in our lives. It is the easiest club to join. And, you know, I think as we

found during the pandemic, you know, people, a lot of people they make this they say oh online sucks online school sucks why does it suck because you never invested in it it's like several it's several decades old you never invested in it you never put any effort or money into it like that's you know so if you want your workplace to be a good quality workplace for you, that is not only just like a place you barely, you know, feel okay going to, but like someplace you really, we spend most of our lives in the workplace, you know? Yeah. Especially as grad students. Right. So it should be someplace that really makes us feel better and fulfilled because nobody

works well when they're stressed out. Nobody, you know, you're not productive when you're constantly stressed. So this really should be a win-win all around. And, and you're, think about it this way also, which is that, you know, and this is particularly applicable when it comes to UC. And, you know, the pandemic is another great example of this is this has gotten a little bit of focus in the press, but I don't think as much as it deserves, which is that you have this not only an event where millions of people died globally. Right. But you have you have quite a few people. They have long COVID. They have other things. People who arrive at UC and particularly who go, you know, get to the point they've got their degree or whatever, you know, these are people who are trained, highly educated, trained in a certain thing, they're making contributions to their field, do you really want it to be that we lose all the knowledge that these people have, all the

institutional memory and experience that these people have, just at a time when we're facing incredible crises as a planet, you know, in terms of climate change and in terms of, you know, the attacks on democracies and things, or just even what the people mean to their community, right? You know, you're talking about the fabric of your community. If you make it, if you have an inaccessible workplace, if you have an inaccessible school, if you have places, you know, in the public square that are not accessible, you're making it so that when somebody becomes disabled and that person could be you, you may never be able to practice the thing that you love and you've trained for your whole life. that you love and you've trained for your whole life and the community loses what you could bring to this at a time when we need more than ever every all hands on deck to be like solving climate change and other problems that face us yeah yeah that's very well said actually that yep it's a certainly made a very good case so i wonder i mean obviously the negotiations are still ongoing at least for uh the sru uh and for uh i think for ta's as well

um so what can uh people do to support the demands that have been made like how can people maybe who are not part of the union who are not part of the union, who are not part of the UC even, or perhaps undergrad to a part of the UC, but not part of the union, how can they show solidarity and support here? Well, I think part of it is not giving up on the idea that we can press for the original Axios Needs article.

I know there's all sorts of like you know technical rules about regressive bargaining but honestly i think uc has broken a lot of the rules of bargaining so i don't see why that doesn't you know it's like what's good for the goose is good for the gander as far as i'm concerned but there's also even outside of bargaining you know as i said a lot of these things are things that you see routinely breaks ada you see routinely breaks ADA. You see routinely breaks, there's other parts of disability law in terms of Section 504, the Rehabilitation Act, and there's some California law as well as my understanding of it. So, you know, you see, just as they have this rationing and policing agency bureaucracy, and it's two separate silos,

one for students and one for workers and they do that like even the fact that they do that communicates that it's not about offering accessibility as a default because why would you have two silos for that well you have two silos for that because the law that affects students and affects workers are slightly different so what you're coming from is this aspect of we are dedicated to only doing the barest minimum of the minimum required by law. So we don't even want to meet that minimum required by law. It's like, it's like, you know, you want to offer minimum wage, but if you can get away with it, you're not even going to meet minimum wage. And you have a lot of lawyers and a bureaucracy to make it possible for you to do that. That's what UC does. So that kind of stuff is stuff that outside of even a labor contract, you should be able to write the

governor, write the lieutenant governor who's actually got a seat on the board of regents, write your California legislators. You know, when there was a, there was a NIMBY who sued Cal, this was in the news this year. There was a NIMBY who sued Cal to make it so the Cal couldn't make housing and or to make it so the Cal was going to have to limit how many it was admitting because in the opinion of that group, like they weren't building enough housing to take care of their students and they were crowding up Berkeley and blah, blah, blah. Like they weren't building enough housing to take care of their students and they were crowding up Berkeley and blah, blah, blah. The outrage about that from parents who wanted to send their kids to Cal was so great that like within a couple of weeks, the governor and the legislators had passed something to address that. If you put that kind of pressure on the governor, the lieutenant governor and the, you know, your state legislators, they will make sure that the UC office of the president feels that pressure because these are things, these are laws, you know, at the, we had more ambitious things beyond law, but some of the things that we were, that are trying to do in this contract are really just things that they're already required by law to do, but aren't

doing. We were trying to give it make it so there was more teeth there because clearly the federal and state teeth weren't good enough so we um we have a resist spot petition out there but you you know to make it a little easier to contact your if you're a californ, the ResistBot petition would work that way. But if not, like I said, if you're a parent of a student here, you can write. If you're an alumni, you can write. Just really hammer them about it. Okay. Yeah, yeah, definitely.

I think writing does make a difference. I think especially for an institution, I don't quite know how financially dependent they are on donations, but they certainly do like to solicit them, especially if you're an alumnus because they solicit them from me a lot. I do not have that much money.

So yeah, thank you very much for sharing all of that with us. And I thought that was really, really instructive. How can people find you and how can people find you see access now if they want to find you online? We are on Twitter as access, you see at access,

you see we are on Facebook and Instagram as well. Actually is also LinkedIn for the more businessy people. That's you see access now. And you can also reach us at UC access access now at gmail.com if you wanted to email us wonderful yeah thank you very much and uh just to finish up briefly we are going to try and make a transcript of this available at the same time as the episode goes out and so folks uh would like to read it that way if that's easier for them then we're going to make sure that we have that for this one so yeah if yeah, if you're listening or if you think someone else that you know would like this

and listening doesn't work for them, then we're going to do that. Thank you so much, Megan, for giving us some of your afternoon. And yeah, I hope you see some support and I wish you the best of luck with everything. Well, thank you so much. Welcome. I'm Danny Thrill. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter? Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHART and Sonora, an anthology of modern-day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America.

From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you. with supernatural creatures. I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows

as part of My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Wahoo! And welcome to It Could Happen Here. My name is Shereen, and today you are stuck with me. Yes, what a treat for all of you beautiful people out there. I've been wanting to do an episode about the World Cup for a while, but I felt like there was just so much to cover and it was also happening in real time, so I wanted to wait a bit so I could have enough stuff to pull from. I will say I am recording this on Monday, December 19th. It is the day after the weekend where France lost to Argentina and Argentina are now our World Cup champions. I'm happy about that. And then Morocco did lose last week to France, which was

devastating to me and my family and the rest of the Arab world because we would have loved to see them beat their colonizers. But they got really far. And I want to talk about the impact that that's had. They did come in fourth when they lost to Croatia this weekend as well. So just in case y'all needed to know that. But I will say I am really happy for Argentina. And maybe it was because Morocco lost to France, but I wasn't mad seeing France losing. And all the celebrations I've seen from people celebrating Argentina have been so heartwarming. and yeah but anyway I wanted to focus on something that I think has been so unprecedented and beautiful and singular and I think deserves more coverage and that is this show of Palestinian solidarity that has been happening during the World Cup it is so cool and I want to talk about why it's happening the circumstances that could lead to this happening, and what it means, because I think it's very significant moving forward when it comes to Palestinian rights and Palestinian support. So let's get into it. There's a great

article by British-Palestinian writer Hamza Ali Shah titled Palestine is the biggest winner at this year's World Cup. And this article did such a good job compiling some key moments, so I'm going to be referencing from it a lot as we continue this episode. Okay, here we go. Despite the Western media doing its best to ignore it, the World Cup has seen a huge tidal wave of Palestinian solidarity, and it's united the Arab world in a really special way, and also highlighted just how many people, Arab and non-Arab alike, support the Palestinian cause. And so, not to be too cheesy, the biggest winners of this World Cup, in my opinion, haven't even had a team at all competing, and that's the Palestinians. The

World Cup has been characterized by unforeseeable developments and dramatic quote-unquote upsets, which is a word I don't even really like, even if it's grammatically correct when it's used in fucking sports jargon, but I don't like it because it kind of sounds like a bad thing because it's upset. Boo-hoo. But really, I think surprises like this are a really good thing because what these upsets usually mean is simply that the underdog won, which is a narrative I will always support. So these surprises really started with Argentina's loss to Saudi Arabia, which shocked everyone. The faces in the stadium, jaws on the floor, everyone was shocked. I watched it with my mom. It was, it was incredible. And it was truly a beautiful game. I highly recommend you at least

watch some clips from it. It was fucking cool. And I don't know, it came out of nowhere. It was really beautiful. And after this victory, King Salman of Saudi Arabia ordered that day that they won a public holiday. To say the least, everyone was losing their minds. And these surprises seemed to be endless in this World Cup, mostly because, as I said, the obvious teams were losing to the underdogs. And coming out of this, one of the most consistent themes has been this overarching Palestinian solidarity that has unfolded, particularly among fans of Arab nations. The 2022 World Cup was already significant on its own. It's held in Qatar,

making it the first World Cup to be held in the Arab world and the Muslim world, and only the second held entirely in Asia after the 2002 tournament in South Korea and Japan. The Arab world is obsessed with soccer. An understatement to say obsessed. I shit you not. It's a huge part of Arab culture, Middle Eastern culture, and so this was already a huge deal to start with. And I think these two things together, the fact that it's very cultural and the fact that this is the first time it's been on an Arab stage, I think these two things together created the seed for Arabs and Middle Easterners to really come together in a way we've never really seen. And this first World Cup in the Arab world has captured, in this symbolic way, this reality where Western powers have receded in the face of their challengers. Morocco, they reached the semifinals and they played France, their colonizers,

which was so symbolic. Saudi Arabia humiliated one of the tournament favorites, Argentina, and then Tunisia did the same to its former colonizer France. Japan, they beat Germany and Spain. This traditional power imbalance in global soccer and what it means for geopolitics, I feel like it can no longer be taken for granted or ignored. As many as 5 million Moroccans live abroad, mostly in Europe, and they've celebrated the team's victories in huge street celebrations in France and Belgium and Spain and the Netherlands and just internationally. For Moroccans living outside of Morocco and for so many other migrants from the Arab world or Africa,

they've been driven by decades of desperation in their home countries to risk everything to reach Europe, only to suffer abuse and contempt. So this achievement after achievement was a huge, pivotal milestone. And I think this drive has been coupled with the show of Palestinian pride in Qatar as well. There was no Palestinian team at the World Cup, and yet the Palestinian flag was everywhere. Not only in the hands of celebrating Moroccan players and fans, but also at every game and on the streets of Doha and Qatar. It was just overwhelming and so amazing to see. And these displays, they shocked some Israeli journalists who had been assured by their own government that the U.S. brokered Abraham Accords that had happened between Israel and Morocco and other Arab states. They thought that this signaled that the Arab world had relinquished any pretense of advocacy for Palestinian rights. But as we see with a lot of sports, soccer creates its own form of civil society.

And especially because it's a huge international game in a way that no other sport really is, and also being played in a region where civil society has largely been suppressed by authoritarians, it's made it clear in this World Cup that the Arab public is not willing to follow their unelected leaders in accepting the brutality against Palestinians and what human rights organizations have called Israel's apartheid system, aka Israel's ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, violence, brutality, murder. The list can go on. I'm sure you've heard me on my soapbox before, but it always bears repeating. My point is that the Arab public and the people in these Arab nations do not represent and do not necessarily believe in these leaders that, again, they did

not elect. It's all authoritarian dictatorships and just corrupt government that, I mean, we can get into history another time, but the disablement of so many of these governments have been because of the Western world, to say the least. I don't know. Different episode. I'm getting distracted. Sorry. Even countries that did not qualify for the World Cup are surging with this united pride and pro-Palestinian sentiment. The Palestinian cause is obviously near and dear to the hearts of many Arabs across the world. And again, not only is this the first time the World Cup has been hosted in an Arab country, it's also probably the first time there has been such a large gathering and concentration of Arabs across nationalities gathered all in one place. And again, at almost every single game, there have been fans holding

the Palestinian flag or banners that say Free Palestine in the stadium. In their matches against Australia and Belgium respectively, Tunisian and Moroccan fans each unfurled a huge free Palestine flag in the 48th minute, which is very significant because this is in reference to the 1948 Nakba, which translates to the catastrophe. The Nakba deserves millions of episodes on its own, but essentially it was the mass expulsion and ethnic cleansing of at least 750,000 Palestinian refugees in 1948 when the state of Israel was formed. A side note that I do want to mention here is that there's an incredible film on Netflix right now that you should all go watch. It's called Farha, F-A-R-H-A. It's about the Nakba. And there's

never been a film like this before. And the Israeli government has been doing this like smear campaign against it and has been calling it all sorts of terrible things. But the other side, Palestinian supporters and Palestinians, they've made it so successful. They've outdone the haters, I guess, to say the least and it's doing really well and it's because of these supporters that it's doing so well so I mean sorry to get a little bit tangential here but I really encourage you to watch Farha on Netflix right now there's never been a film about this catastrophe the Nakba so I highly encourage everyone to watch or even just like put it on in the background while

you're doing something else so it counts as views. Just keep supporting it. I think this is a really important time and it feels really significant that this is all happening at the same time. So anyway, go watch that film. But Tunisia and Moroccan fans each at the 48th minute in reference to this catastrophe, they unfurled this huge Free Palestine flag. And by waving that Palestinian flag, Moroccan fans and players expressed a very public dissent from the choices of their government and of the Western powers, and as well as other Arab autocrats to abandon the Palestinians to their fate. And as they advanced, Morocco was able to sustain the attention on these issues. And their players proved time and time again

that they are more than deserving to be playing on this world stage. Morocco was also the first African team to make the semifinals of the World Cup, which is also a significant achievement and a lovely slap in the face to anyone who doubted them. The Moroccan defense was incredible, maybe some of the best defense I've ever seen. But due to soccer's globalization, the top players in soccer have for decades all played in Europe's elite leagues.

And this was the first World Cup in which all five African teams were coached by African coaches rather than by European ones, and Morocco's coach in particular appears to have made an exceptional difference. During Tunisia's game against France, a Tunisian fan ran onto the pitch and he waved a Palestinian flag, cartwheeling in the process. The crowd erupted into chants of Palestine as he was dragged away by security. And in a different match at the stadium, fans chanted, with spirit and blood, we will redeem you, oh Palestine. They chanted this in Arabic. And this occurred on the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian people, November 29th, and it felt very poetic. And then when Morocco knocked

the former champions Spain out of the tournament, the Moroccan team posed for the standard celebratory team photo, and instead of holding the Moroccan flag, they all held a Palestinian one. A winning team holding up the flag of another country has literally never happened before. And the fact that it's a Palestinian flag, I don't know, man. Chills. I'm obsessed. Obsessed. But okay, I feel like I'm going to get more rambly and distracted. So before I do that, let's take a break. I could not think of a witty segue to get there, but here are some ads. Okay, we're back. I also wanted to mention what, in my opinion, is the most iconic image of the 2022 World Cup, and that is when Morocco's Sofiane Bouffal was dancing with his mom after his team's brilliant upset victory over Portugal in the quarterfinals. They were dancing and happy.

And she's wearing a hijab. And it was just this pure display of joy. And it just felt really familial to me. And it felt that way to a lot of Middle Easterners and Arabs and Moroccans. This moment. This dancing between him and his mom, it was a statement of pride and of priorities and a reminder that as the mother of another great football player, Zina Dean Zidane, she once said that, quote, some things are bigger than football.

Bouffal and his mother, like the majority of Morocco's players and coaches, they live in European cities, and they're part of that continent's vast, marginalized, and embattled migrant underclass. Again, she wore a hijab, something that she would be barred from doing if she was a teacher or a public servant in France. Against all of that, this moment on the field was captured in a moment of unbridled joy it was so pure and so human and just reminded everyone i hope reminded me and my family of who we are and again i think this is really significant when you think about the geopolitical implications that we've seen during these games with countries like countries like Morocco playing against the teams of the countries that colonized them, aka when they played with France. It really feels like this beautiful blossoming of culture against all odds of

trying to suppress it. So, outside the stadiums, this theme remained the same when it came to Palestinian solidarity. A Saudi Arabian vendor selling flags of different countries, he went viral after he was spotted giving customers an extra Palestinian flag as a free gift with any purchase. And so this uplifting message that has been repeated time and time again during this World Cup is that Palestine can never be removed from the hearts of the people. And there are so many heartwarming videos like the one I mentioned, and I urge everyone to follow Palestinian accounts to keep up. If you're curious, I know the World Cup is technically over now, but these videos are so fun and joyful to watch. I really felt so much joy watching them. This outpouring of support for Palestine is reminiscent of an earlier time in history when the Arab world was also united in its support for Palestine. The Palestinian cause was once a driving force in the policy direction of the Arab world,

and it reached its zenith in the 1960s when nations like Syria, Jordan, and Egypt, they went to war against Israel with the anti-imperial objective of regional Arab unity and Palestinian liberation. However, those aspirations were stomped out in 1967 when Israel quote-unquote won the Six-Day War or the June War, which is also known as the 1967 Arab-Israeli War or the Third Arab-Israeli War. Just a very quick history lesson here. This war was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab states, and it ended after Israeli tanks and infantry advanced on a heavily fortified region of Syria called the Golan Heights. They successfully captured the Golan Heights after this the next day. On June 10th in 1967, a UN-brokered ceasefire took effect and the Six-Day War came to an abrupt end. The casualties between the two opposing sides

are basically incomparable. I'm going to say some stats here, but just bear with me. Between 776 and 983 Israelis were killed and 4,517 were wounded. 15 Israeli soldiers were captured. Arab casualties were far greater. Between 9,800 and 15,000 Egyptian soldiers were listed as killed or missing in action. An additional 4,338 Egyptian soldiers were captured. Jordanian losses are estimated to be 700 killed in action, with another 2,500 wounded. The Syrians were estimated to have sustained between 1,000 and 2,500 killed in action. Between 367 and 591 Syrians were captured. It's an incomparable, an insurmountable loss.

And I might go as far to say it was a massacre, because it was so unbalanced. Casualties were also suffered by the UNEF, the United Nations Emergency Force, that was stationed on the Egyptian side of the border. In three different episodes, Israeli forces attacked a UNEF convoy, as well as camps in which UNEF personnel were concentrated, as well as the UNEF headquarters in Gaza. headquarters in Gaza, and this resulted in one Brazilian peacekeeper and 14 Indian officials killed by Israeli forces, with an additional 17 peacekeepers wounded in both groups. That's your history lesson for today, at least for now. But as you can imagine, this was a huge loss for the Arab world. In addition to sealing the Golan Heights, this war led Israel to seizing and occupying all remaining Palestinian territories. And, as you know or should know by now, Israel has maintained its control of the land at the expense of the Palestinians, with Arab leaders not able to do much in protest over these years.

Especially after this 1967 loss, a lot of Arab leaders almost seemed indifferent. When we fast forward to 2020, something happened that seemed like a decisive death blow to the hopes of Palestinian solidarity. In 2020, the Abraham Accords were signed, and these were a series of joint normalization statements between Israel and Arab countries that would theoretically pave the way for increased business and diplomatic relations. The implication was that Israel could afford to maintain its apartheid rule and still enjoy warm relations with the Arab world because their politicians, too, were happy to willfully neglect the Palestinians. Officials from Bahrain, the UAE, and Morocco all signed the supposed quote-unquote peace treaty with Israel. However,

as we've seen from this year's World Cup, the Arab people do not agree with their politicians or their decisions. Again, most of these decision makers are not elected by their people. There's a lot of corruption at play, and I think it's very important to always separate a government from its people, as we're seeing especially in Iran right now, which is something that makes me very emotional and deserves to be talked about more. I can't do it justice in this one sentence, but I urge you all to keep spreading awareness about Iran, please. What they're doing to protesters is inhumane and truly medieval. Recent polls indicate that the Arab public widely disapproves of the Abraham Accords, strongly disagreeing with the prospect of

normalizing ties with Israel as long as the Palestinians remain oppressed. But if there were still any lingering doubts that these accords are bullshitted and not wanted, the experience of Israeli journalists in Qatar can be seen as this decisive confirmation that the treatment of Palestinians will actually be what dictate the trajectory of normalization. will actually be what dictate the trajectory of normalization. Israeli journalists broadcasting live have been interrupted by rallies of people chanting pro-Palestinian slogans and waving Palestinian flags. An Egyptian man went viral after he leaned into the camera and said, live on Israeli television, be the Palestine. Fans refusing to speak to Israeli channels has also

been a hilarious common occurrence. One particular exchange included Moroccan fans posing for the camera before swiftly walking off upon realizing it was for an Israeli media outlet. The reporter's response was one of shock, repeatedly citing that a peace agreement had been signed by Morocco, thereby assuming that the Moroccan people themselves endorsed the notion that Israel's crimes could be whitewashed and forgotten. And again, I highly recommend you watch these videos. They have brought me a joy that I haven't felt in literal years. And it's just beautiful and most importantly hilarious to see. I highly recommend. There are silver linings sometimes to life and I feel like there

are enough terrible things happening where a little joy is fine and seeing Israeli journalists being humiliated. Thank you. Thank you world. There's a thread on Twitter of World Cup football fans refusing to speak to Israeli channels. I'll try to put that in the notes somewhere. But regardless, highly recommend looking up these videos. Just, again, beautiful, beautiful stuff. And as I mentioned, Israeli journalists often seem bewildered as to why they are being boycotted. An Israeli reporter told the New York Times, I really changed my mind here in Qatar. We are not human beings for them. They want to wipe us out from the map, which is obviously not true. And language like this is one of many Zionist talking points that are all stupid. And while Israeli journalists speculate about being wiped out,

that is in fact the lived reality for Palestinians under Israeli rule. Also, there is a video that was captured, and I'm sure there are many more instances like this where it was not captured on video, but the Israeli police were violently cracking down on Palestinians, including children who were celebrating Morocco's previous wins in, including children, who were celebrating Morocco's previous wins in occupied East Jerusalem. They were celebrating Morocco becoming the first African or Arab country to reach the semifinals. And they were literally beaten up. There's no defense in this video. That's the thing that I can't get over is the IDF acts in a way that is so indefensible and so obvious. And you can say

maybe similar things about the police here. It's mind-blowing that they've been able to terrorize Palestinians for basically a century now. I also want to play this video while you're going to hear the audio. There is a Palestinian activist online that I really admire. He's always posting really great things. And he sometimes posts funny things, which are very funny. But his name is Sobhri Taha and his handle is S-B-E-I-H dot J-P-G. He posted about basically what Israel has been doing just throughout even the past week when this World Cup is happening. And I feel like he'll say it better than me paraphrasing it. So here he is. Let's go through everything Israel has been doing to Palestinians in the past week or so during all this hype of Morocco making it to the semifinals. And these are the reasons why so many people are carrying and waving the Palestinian flag at the World Cup right now,

including the Moroccan team after their matches. First, we have Palestinians who are celebrating Morocco's wins being attacked by Israeli occupation forces. They're out here waving the Morocco flag, trying to celebrate with them. And of course, it has to be cut short with Israeli soldiers coming and hitting everyone. Then we have a 16-year-old child named Jenna Zakharne, and hitting everyone. Then we have a 16-year-old child named Jenna Zakarny who was on the roof of her house when she was shot in the face by Israeli forces during another illegal raid of the city of Jenin. We have another 16-year-old Palestinian child, a boy named Diyat Rimawi, who was also killed by Israeli forces in west of Ramallah. On top of those two, we have four Palestinian men also killed by Israeli forces. Mujahid Hamid, Ata Shalabi, Tariq Damaj, and Sudqi Zakarnif.

Israeli forces demolished another Palestinian home in a town near Jericho, then another Palestinian home in the town of Tayyiba. Israeli occupation forces fired tear gas at journalists who were covering the Palestinian protests against the illegal Israeli settlement expansions in the town of Bid Dajan. You'd think that we're done, but there's more. We have an Israeli soldier brutally beating a young Palestinian man in Nablus. The soldier sits on top of him and punches him in the head. In the east of Hebron, Israeli forces cut down 50 olive trees belonging to Palestinian farmers.

And of course, Israeli settlers continue to break into Al-Aqsa Mosque under the protection of Israeli occupation forces. This is why everyone is waving the Palestinian flag at the World Cup. This is why that Tunisian man randomly ran through the match with the Palestinian flag, or why Israeli reporters are being ignored and shunned. These are the reasons why. Not because of anti-Semitism, it's because Israel is literally killing Palestinians. I'd rather just blame it all on anti-Semitism instead of simply holding Israel accountable for their actions. Everything I just listed happened in the past like 10 days,

putting aside everything that Israel has been doing to Palestinians for the past, well, almost 100 years now. So don't be surprised when people stand with the people of Palestine. Last week marked six months since Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu-Ekla was assassinated by Israeli forces. And while her death did attract more coverage than is usual, in part to her being an American citizen, it was unfortunately not an exception. it was unfortunately not an exception. Since the year 2000, 50 Palestinian journalists have been murdered. Many, many more civilians, including children, have been murdered. So if media representatives or journalists from an apartheid state can't seem to understand why the reception to their presence has been so cold, they just are better off examining why that is and why their government

is actually the one attempting to wipe a people off the map. Even in the weeks during this World Cup, Israel has killed multiple Palestinians, has murdered multiple Palestinians. They killed a 16 year old girl when she was on her roof searching for her cat. She was shot four times, twice in the head. How can you justify that? They're claiming it was an accident, but it's similar to what police say here when they shoot someone multiple times in the back and then blame it on the person that they murdered and the family that they destroyed, xyz, etc, etc. And just to put it in perspective, Israeli forces have killed over 215 Palestinians this year, making it the deadliest year in over a decade. Israel is the one who does not see Palestinians,

as is proven time and time again by their actions as human beings. Something so significant is that the public support of Palestinian solidarity has not been confined to only fans of Arab nations. Brazilian fans also proudly raise the Palestinian flag, and Uruguay supporters have been spotted donning the kofiya, which is the symbolic black and white scarf that has become a symbol of Palestinian resistance. And they're also wearing pro-Palestinian shirts, with fans insisting the Palestinian people deserve freedom. One clip that also went viral on social media featured an English fan who, during an interview with an Arabic channel, confessed that his Arabic wasn't really that strong, and then he shouted, Palestine in great Arabic. And then he broke into this free, free, free chant with everyone

around him. Again, joyful, beautiful stuff that just proves that this kind of support works and it grows and it spreads. And so all this really goes to show is that while Arab governments have been normalizing relations with Israel, that sentiment is not reflected in the streets, and Arabs and non-Arabs alike are more passionate than ever about the Palestinian cause. Some Palestinians living in Qatar have referred to the World Cup as a, quote, golden opportunity to introduce our cause, as a, quote, golden opportunity to introduce our cause. And this intent has been received enthusiastically, to say the least. And yet, in the face of such an unavoidable talking point, there has been a striking, if not unsurprising, radio silence from Western media. It's a huge reason why I wanted to talk about this in an episode. I found it so strange that

my family and friends who were tuned into the World Cup were constantly talking about something that hasn't been covered at all by Western media, at least not in a real honest way. If anything, the World Cup has ignited Islamophobic and Orientalist tropes in some Western news coverage, which I think is so shameful. For example, I'm going to go through a little list that Al Jazeera shared. A Dutch newspaper published a cartoon of Moroccan men stealing the World Cup trophy. And this image, they're on a bike, and they're grabbing this trophy from a white man. They're depicted as not white, obviously. And it just reinforces these stereotypes of young Arab men in the Netherlands being seen as criminals.

Another example is, okay, so when Muslims put up an index finger, it's what we call Dahweed. Which is to signify the oneness of God. Because in Islam, there's only one God, just like all the big three as far as religions go. But when these Muslim teams are winning, the gestures from the players, like sometimes you'll see a player raising an index finger or raising two index fingers. And so this fucking German TV news anchor responded to Morocco's success by suggesting that these players that are raising their index fingers are showing support for ISIS. And some fans have responded to this with humor, but at the same time, it's like you're laughing only because it's sad and maddening. Another example is a cartoon in a French newspaper.

It depicted Qatar's national team as bearded caricatures that were playing soccer, holding rifles and machetes. It is such an ugly cartoon. And I have no idea why they insist on making these artistic depictions. I think they know because it's gone people riled up in the past. It's almost like they're like poking the bear. So it's kind of annoying that it's so childish in my opinion. But again, terrible depiction of Arabs. What's new?

And then another example is a photo caption in a British newspaper stated that Qataris are not used to seeing women in western clothing when in reality about 87% of Qatar's population is from other countries including western ones and this caption was later removed. Another example, yes there's still more, is that a French journalist joked about there being a lot of mosques in qatar as if that was something like notable to be aware of uh yeah no shit people are fucking muslim in qatar and then a danish tv channel literally compared morocco's players who were celebrating by hugging their mothers on the field they compared them with monkeys on live television.

TV2 News, they showed a segment in which the anchor Soren Lippert, he held up an image of monkeys embracing while talking about Morocco's national team players hugging their mothers. And while comparing black and brown people with monkeys is a common, unsurprising, racist trope. It was still pretty upsetting to see it happen in this year of 2022. Whatever. I just think the obvious Orientalist nature of Western news really came out in full force for some of this coverage. But yeah, I just think these kind of depictions and coverage, it reinforces stereotypes that are harmful and shameful. And it further makes immigrants and people of color in countries that they immigrate to just get terrorized.

And I just wanted to bring up some examples to remind you that news sucks most of the time. Okay, the World Cup and all the joy and pride that's come from it is all my family and I'm sure most Arab families have talked about for the last month and I feel like it barely registers here. You have no idea how happy I've seen my parents and my mom in particular just texting me updates or watching a game with me. We're all so united in a way that I haven't felt before. And it's just really beautiful and it reminds you that borders are all made up and in the end we're all the same people fighting for the same things. large sections of U.S. and British media have engaged in the practice of deceptive framing and untrue coverage when it comes to covering Israel's treatment of Palestinians. We've seen this in inaccurate headlines, the twisting of words, and the general constant

anti-Palestinian and pro-Israel bias that is almost always present when Western media talks about Palestine. And if Palestine rises in the political agenda, Western media is quick to disparage it. In the UK, when a Labour Party candidate made reference to Palestine during a campaign in 2021, the liberal-leaning New Statesman magazine referred to it as, quote, unhinged and an obsession. British-Palestinian writer, again, Hamza Ali Shah, writes in his article, do people suffering from decades of cruelty deserve support? Apparently not, if they're Palestinian. It's characteristic of this bias that, while human rights have been a hot topic throughout the World Cup and fans across And this, unfortunately, isn't surprising. But it doesn't make it any less disappointing.

He continues, as it maintains its rule, Israel has spent years with unconditional assistance from the Western world, cracking down and suppressing Palestinian solidarity. We are under no illusions that the outpouring of support at the World Cup will cause the occupation to grind to a halt or prevent Palestinians from being killed. As a British Palestinian, he says, I often see the misery of my family, who are living under occupation, get swept under the carpet by the international community. As a result, it's hard not to exist in a perpetual state of despondency. But seeing the Palestinian flag hoisted so proudly during the World Cup has been heartening,

flag hoisted so proudly during the World Cup has been heartening because it provides new grounds for hope and it shows that this is by no means a solo struggle and that the commitment to Palestinian liberation remains as unshakable as ever. That was the end of his article and that's a great place to end because that was fucking great and poetic. And I hope that you also go watch the movie Farha on Netflix. It's really important. And it all goes hand in hand with supporting the Palestinian people and continuing to raise awareness because that's a huge reason why we've gotten this far. That's a huge reason why we've gotten this far. And the culmination of all of that being broadcast from the World Cup internationally has just been really, really incredible and beautiful to watch. And yeah, that's the episode.

Until next time, I don't know. Go watch Farah. That's the only thing I can really say and I hope you all have nice holidays whatever you do um yeah have fun goodbye

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

I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And today we are going to tell you a story of the Republican Party using extensive political violence in an attempt to manipulate an election to install their unelected presidential candidate as dictator of the United States. And by this, of course, I am referring not to the 2020 election, but to the election of 2000. of you who do not remember this story and this is okay i was like three when this was happening but weirdly i have a very very this is legitimately one of my first memories is just i have the words engraved into my mind hanging chads and so we we will get to what exactly that is, but the 2000 election was one of the most chaotic elections in the history of the United States. Now, the U.S. has a long history of really, really weird elections. I mean, you know, from the perspective of sort of like, is the U.S. a representative of democracy?

I think there's a pretty good argument that no election until like after the Civil Rights Act is even sort of a legitimate election. But, you know, I mean, insofar as you like consider elections to be legitimate, which, you know, OK, but, you know, the U.S. is no is no stranger to someone winning an election than not taking office. There are, in fact, if you go back into your American history, there were two different elections that are called the corrupt bargain. There's John Quincy Adams in, I think it was, yeah, 1824 makes this really, really weird alliance

with the original American political sleazeball, Henry Clay, to get himself installed as president. Although that's truly an election where there are no heroes, where it's John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay, allying to bring down Andrew fucking Jackson. So, you know, no heroes there. There's another election

after reconstruction, which is the end of reconstruction where the Republican party literally trades and like trades ending reconstruction for putting their president in office after a truly genuinely wild set of voting results happens where like all of the votes are in a box and the two parties are fighting over like who's gonna count the votes because the guy who counts the votes from like the box is the person who's gonna determine who wins the election and so there's this whole negotiated thing where the the 1800s like racist southern democrats are like okay it will give you will give you this election if you promise to pull

troops out of the south so okay you know american elections have always been sort of more fraudulent than people give them credit for but the 2000 election even by the standards of like an american election is some bullshit so let's let's let's go back let's go back to the origin of the story. The year is 2000. For the last time in human history, humanity has taken collective action to stop an impending catastrophe, having by the heart-rending labor of a bunch of cis-admins, including a guy that I knew growing up who literally spent New Year's Eve until the bell rang, like basically in a closet with a bunch of computers at his job trying to make sure White UK wouldn't happen. But, you know, we did it, actually. We actually did it. There was human collective action to stop a major catastrophe from happening. And Al Gore, a Democrat who claims to have invented the internet, is running against Harvard-educated, and actually and actually yale educated oil man cosplaying as a cowboy whose name is george bush and i i i god i don't know i i don't i feel like

people have kind of forgotten how really genuinely sleazy george bush was like he he has this sort of public like you know one of the reasons he wins elections is he has his public image is like the guy who you know like everyone like he he's the presidential candidate who you'd want to have a beer with but again like literally everything from his like public mannerisms down to like the minutiae of his accent to like the stupid cowboy hat that he wears all of this this is bullshit right this is a fucking harvard guy. All of this, this is bullshit, right? This is a fucking Harvard guy. And all of this is, you know, completely and intricately manufactured by a set of very, very, very, like, sleazy, but incredibly ruthless and efficient

Republican political operatives. Now, George Bush's father is George H.W. Bush, who was the first and only director of the cia to become president so yeah and bush bush is running on this sort of neoconservative alliance of texas oil men evangelical hardliners and weapons contractors um the weapons contractors part uh winds up being incredibly relevant when 9-11 happens and both Bush and Dick, his co, uh, what's it called? Vice presidential, uh, I guess candidate at the time, but his vice presidential selection, Dick Cheney, who is like Dick Cheney, like saying that he's like the physical human embodiment of the military industrial complex is underselling how closely tied Nick Cheney is to the military industrial complex.

And, you know, like this is this is part of the reason why the war in Iraq happens, because, again, like this entire coalition is just like it is. It is the it is is the sort of height of the military petrodollar coalition. of the the military petrodollar coalition uh just a a coalition of pure evil like fueled by war profits and homophobia and but you know part of part of what's been happening in in this entire period is this is this is the year after the battle of seattle um the anti-globalization movement hasn't been smashed but again this is this other thing is this is pre-911 right this is this is a very very short period of time where like in between the battle of seattle and uh uh 9-11 where american politics are very very very weird and you get another thing that we don't really have now but it from the 90s until about 9-11 kind of existed, which was that there was a period where third parties kind of mattered-ish. Like Ross Perot in the 90s arguably maybe could have won the 1992 election if he hadn't just given up.

up but yeah you know and one of the sort of products of this is that the green party is actually a real thing in in 2000 in a way that they're kind of not right and this has been this sort of enfolding of a bunch of left-wing social movements into a just absolutely disastrous attempt to enter party politics um but they pull you know and this is the thing that no one has ever heard the end of but they pull a bunch of votes into Ralph Nader in Florida, which winds up being a big deal. But the product of this is that this election is on a knife's edge. Both sides of this election are unbelievably close. The entire election comes down to Florida. of this election are unbelievably close.

The entire election comes down to Florida. Now, the problem with the entire election coming down to Florida is that the American electoral system is a fucking joke. It is a disaster. It is a genuine embarrassment. The United States is a country that has more resources than, like, it has enough resources that, like, Genghis Khan would weep. resources that like Genghis Khan would weep

like it has a genuinely unfathomable amounts of resources and its election system is basically run by a bunch of weird dipshit like local

like a weird patchwork of like completely underfunded and overworked local government officials who never have real budgets and who just spends like two months not sleeping with their like three co-workers trying to make the elections work and this is really weird because like most places on earth that have elections um there's like you know a national thing that sort of does the elections in the u.s like no no it relies heavily on volunteers it's just like this weird patchwork quilt of stuff and florida being florida a bunch of stuff goes very wrong very quickly um there there's two famous ballot problems, the most famous of which is hanging chads.

So, okay, okay, what is a hanging chad for people who've forgotten or people who, you know, weren't alive then? Which I realize is, man, the fact that I have co-workers who are not alive for hanging chads is a really, really disturbing thought. But okay, so what is a hanging chat um the answer is that in florida the way this ballot works is that you have to physically punch holes in your ballot and you know you punch a hole in the place like it okay so today right when you fill out a ballot you have to like fill in a square right with a pencil i in in in florida you have to like hold punch that square this is maybe the worst ballot design i can possibly imagine and it goes terribly wrong a bunch of these whole punches basically don't actually remove all the paper and there's there are so many ways so many ways that this gets fucked up the the hanging hanging Chad is the most famous one that hanging.

So a Chad basically is the piece of paper that when you punch the thing with like the hole punch, it's supposed to like it's the paper that comes out of the hole. Right. A hanging Chad is when you do the hole punch thing, but the Chad is still connected to the piece of paper by like one corner. But but but again, less lest you think there's only one way that these ballots get fucked up. No, no, no, no, no. There's there are like there are a unfathomable number of ways that these ballots don't punch correctly. They're they're swinging door. Chad's there's tried. Chadads, there's dimple chads, there's pregnant chads. It's unbelievable. And a bunch of people's votes just don't get counted

because these ballots, the reason they're doing these whole bunch of ballots is that these are, you know, this is supposed to be like the fancy new voting technology, right? And the new voting technology is these voting machines. And the way the voting machine works is basically the voting machine can check if there's a hole there. And if there's a hole in the paper, then it counts it as the vote. But if the entire chain hasn't been punched out, it won't count your vote.

This is a problem. And there's another problem. And that problem is the butterfly ballot. So the butterfly ballot is this ballot they're using in Florida that was originally designed to help elderly voters. It's supposed to be, the goal of the ballot is to have larger font sizes to make it more accessible for people, which this is good, right? Like, okay, I support accessible design,

I support accessible design for voting. The problem is, this ballot is designed like shit. The way it works is, there's a two-page ballot with a crease in the middle. It's kind of like a book. It's like you unfold a book in the middle of the ballot. On both of these pages, there are different candidate names and parties. The problem is in order to pick a candidate, you have to punch one of these sort of circles. But these

circles are in a line down the middle of the crease of the ballot, right? So you have candidates on both. You should Google what these look like because it's kind of hard to explain. But basically what's happening is that there are different party names on each side of the ballot. But then in order to pick which party you're voting for you have to pick for a specific hole that's supposed to be next to the like the candidate you supported in the in the middle of the page the problem is these are all in a line right they're all in a straight line which means that two candidates can be like across from each other on the same page or on opposite pages, and then there's two holes that are

right next, because the holes are both in the middle of the ballot, right? So you get these situations where for example, and this is the one that's important, inside of there's two lines, and then there's, it says Al Gore and Lieberman in it, right? And inside of those two lines

in the middle of the page, there are two holes, and one of these holes votes for Gore. But the other one of those holes is for the candidate on the other side of the page, which is Reform Party candidate, crypto fascist ghoul, Pat Buchanan. And the result of this is as people start looking through these things, Pat Buchanan has a bunch of voters from democratic party strongholds and like also particularly like a bunch of like democratic catholic voters vote for buchanan and buchanan himself is like there's no way this is real like buchanan's like you know he he's he's a figure will probably like one day do a like a We'll probably talk about more on this podcast. Yeah, there's a Behind the Bastards episode about him.

He is a fucking Nazi. He sucks ass. But he's also... He's from a kind of evangelical who really, really, really fucking hates Catholics. And, you know, so there's a bunch of these Catholic Democratic voters who voted for this guy. And everyone's like, what the fuck happened here? The thing that happened here is all these people got confused. And, yeah, so this is a disaster on 100 million levels.

And when we come back from ads, we will talk about the product of all of this, which is not good. All right, we're back. product of all of this, which is not good. All right, we're back. So on election night, the media starts to call Florida for Gore based on exit polling, but they start getting calls from Republican political operatives saying, hold on, hold on, hold on. It's actually too close to call. And the initial count from Florida has the Republican party ahead. But when I say the Republican party is ahead, they're ahead by like 1600 votes. And so this triggers a mandatory recount,

but, and this, and this is another problem with this, right? We, we, we've gone through at length, all of the problems with these ballots,

right? The recall that they do is a recall using the voting machines. And those voting machines are, guess what, the ones that are, if you rerun a fucked up Chad ballot through the same voting machine, it's going to get a fucked up result. So, okay, so they run this again, and the difference in votes comes down to like 500 votes.

And at this point, Gore's campaign requests a manual recount. They want people to look at the ballots by hand and figure out who people actually voted for because these machines are a fucking shitshow. But in any kind of sort of like, you know, an even remotely competent or sane like democratic

political system there would be a bunch of people doing this like they're you know like when when an election happens there would be just a very very large number of people mobilized to make sure that it runs smoothly there's not there's like a bunch of like unbelievably overworked and underpaid some of you are people who also people who are just fucking volunteers like a bunch of like unbelievably overworked and underpaid. Some of you are people who also people who are just fucking volunteers, like a bunch of just random, like unbelievably exhausted, like local election officials who have to do this recount. And this is where the Bush campaign sees their chance to steal the election. So the election happens on November 7th and on November 11th, the Bush campaign sues to stop the election. So the election happens on November 7th, and on November 11th, the Bush campaign sues to stop the recount. Now, we talked on a previous episode a while back about the Democrats, how they have this line in the 2000s about how they're part of the, quote, reality-based community, and how this is a reflection of, you know, if you look at the whole quote, which is

from a Republican political strategist, what they're saying here is that what's happening is that the Democrats observe reality while the Republicans set out to define reality. And this is the moment, this election is where we get to see how the dynamic, we get to really first see these principles in action. I'm going to read from the Washington Post here. Unlike the Gore campaign, which focused on filing motions in Florida courts to keep the recount going in key counties like Miami-Dade, the Bush campaign waged a broader, costlier effort on multiple fronts, Blakeman said. It was a three-pronged effort, he said.

It was a court battle, it was a recount organization. And it was also a PR effort. Because although the voting effort ended, the campaign never did until there was a definitive winner. So what happens here is Republicans start this massive media blitz to convince people that Bush actually won the election. And this is a really really important moment in sort of american history because it's one of the things that solidifies um it's one of the things that solidifies sort of like like owning the libs for example it's like a major point in it's like like one of like the key focal points of america of republican politics and this is eventually going to consume like all of their politics right until we when we get to sort of

you know like now right where that's like we're owning the libs is the only thing this is about you know this this had owning the libs is kind of like it's been a part of republican politics for a long time but this is where we really start to see it sort of consuming everything and okay if you look at their like like what they're saying by modern standards it is incredibly weak shit right this is like this is a culture that has just emerged from the 1990s nobody has invented real posting yet but it is real on the lip stuff like they have this whole campaign where they call the goy liberman campaign sore loser man

and everyone has like sore loser man hats and like they have all these like printed signs and like t-shirts and they're selling merch. And, you know, and so, you know, they're running basically an op and they're running an op to convince everyone that like, no, actually, we've legitimately won this election and it's over. And the recounts just people being butthurt. They lost. And this is where things get really, really weird. and this is where things get really, really weird. So in Miami-Dade, where there's a manual recount going on, a bunch of protesters in fancy suits show up and start screaming at election workers.

Now, if this was the old Democratic Party machine, like, LBJ would have personally pushed six of these guys out a window, and the recount would have been run by, like, 60 of the burliest dudes in the entire Chicago mob. But this is the incredibly decrepit 2000 Democratic Party who have replaced all their mob guys with consultants. And these people legitimately like, you know, they believe in the rules and the norms and the process. The result of this is that Bush literally destroys the entire United States and I think in like irrevocably damaged like the entirety of the of, you know, like whatever is left of the American democratic system. So how how this is achieved, but back in Miami, Dodd, this Democratic Party operative is seen walking around the recount area with a ballot.

Now, this is a blank ballot, right? This guy is going to see he's going with an election official to go see if he can replicate like the like how the hanging chad stuff happens to prove that like this is what's going on. But the Republicans see this guy and they immediately start screaming about how the Democrats are stealing the election. And they like beat the shit out of this guy. And just a full-on riot starts in this government building. And it works. The recount stops. The election workers are

terrified. The recount, yeah, like everything stopped for the day. They can't do anything. And the next day, the recount is fully stopped. It never resumes and the republicans are stunned by this they assume that like you know the political operatives doing the rioting we're going to like face some opposition to the democrats on the ground for you know like literally assaulting and intimidating uh a bunch of election workers in order to like stop votes from being counted but there's they don't

there's there's nothing there's no resistance at all um here's a quote from douglas hay who is a republican political operative who's one of the organizers of the brooks brothers riot who he tried to do a redemption arc in the media in 2020 to sort of like, oh, I was part of the Brooks Brothers riot, but even I think the stop the steal stuff is bad, which like I think my man doth protest too much. Here's the quote. I still don't understand how it was that we completely outmatched the Democrats, Hayes says. And this is how Bush wins the election. The Supreme Court, which again, it should also be known the Supreme Court is staffed by a bunch of George H.W. Bush appointees, eventually hears the case and decides that the Constitution says

that the winner has to be declared by a certain time, so there's no time for a recount, and they hand the election to Bush. And this is achieved, and this is possible, because of the Brooks Brothers riot. And the Brooks Brothers riot is what this whole sort of Republican-Operator thing comes to be known, because they're all wearing Brooks Brothers suits. Now, okay, there are a lot of people involved in this riot who are at the core of modern Republican politics. Yeah, Neil Gorrich and Amy Coleman Barrett, and I think there's actually one other person the Republicans have elevated to senior office. There are multiple people on the Supreme Court today who were on

the Bush legal team when they were doing this. And there's also the question of the extent to which Roger Stone is involved. If you ask Roger Stone, he claims to have organized literally this entire thing. Now, other people who were involved with it claimed that Roger Stone was like fucked off at a hotel somewhere else and was just sort of around and didn't actually organize it. But either way, this set a precedent

for how you can rig an election, which is if you can seize a majority on the Supreme Court with sort of like you know you can put your sort of loyal minions there and then you can have an initial count of an election that look that that that looks like it's favoring you even if that's not actually true if you then have a an initial count of an election that says that you win and then you can stop and then you were able to stop votes from being counted from November until January,

you will win the election. That is the precedence that was installed by the 2000 election. And if you look at the Stop the Steal campaign, this is exactly what Trump is trying to do. And literally, Roger Stone is also trying to do this, right? This is what's up.

It still is. You can find Trump talking about this months before the election, right? This is why he was trying to do his whole thing about the mail-in ballots, because he and Roger Stone and sort of all the political operatives who are involved in the circles were like, okay, so we know that a bunch of Democrats are going to do mail-in ballots because of COVID, because they don't want to be there at the ballots. They know that the initial count is going to favor them. And I think people have forgotten this, but if you remember the night of the election in 2020, I remember even a bunch of my friends who were people who were fairly serious, I don't know, politics, people who were really deeply invested in politics

like thought that trump had won the election because the what would have been counted on that night was just was just the the sort of initial it wasn't counting the the mail-in ballots and so yeah the the plan was just to delegitimate mail-in ballots in the eyes of sort of the the well mostly the republican base but like sort of the American populace as a whole, and then have a bunch of people physically assault these centers to get them to stop, the places where these votes are being counted to get them to stop the count. because but yeah there's a few things like one of the things is that you know you can't if you're gonna do a play like this you have to run it like you it it you you are relying on the sort of physical intimidation of the court workers but mostly what you need to do is make sure that it's stuck in a court fight and the problem is that like the the sort of modern like trump based people like they don't

have any competent lawyers so ruda giuliani is like trying to do this shit or whatever but like that guy i don't know that guy may have known what a law was in like 1973 but his brain has been just melted by like inhaling cigar smoke and truly copious amount of drugs so you know they're not they're not really able to sort of pull this off but bush is and the result of this is the American reaction to 9-11, is the war in Iraq, is basically the sort of freedom in the u.s like the ability for you not to be constantly surveilled the ability for you to like you know live live in a society in which there's like every single thing you do isn't being monitored by a thousand different kinds of police stations who are all sharing your tweets so they can fucking grab people out off of the road and fucking unmarked vans right like that's all stuff that is a specific product of the sort of kind of fascism that the

Bush administration deploys. And they're able to do this because they just straight up stole an election. And now we all sort of just live in the permanent afterlife of the Brooks Brothers riot. This is what January 6th was. This is what Stop the Steal is. And it's what the modern Republican Party is. So yeah, happy holidays, everyone. I hope you have a good new year. And inshallah, we will destroy these fascist Republican bastards and make sure that none of them ever get to do this again. Welcome. I'm Danny Thrill.

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

I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of my Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, hello.

Welcome to another episode of It Could Happen Here, with a twist. This is the holiday special um so you know buckle up you know santa might make an appearance um but i just want to take a moment to discuss you know this whole idea um of christmas this practice this globally celebrated uh cultural festivity and um i guess some of the not to be stereotypically leftist but the issues i have with it um alongside um i think some of the uh best um and most i think um hopeful elements within it. I don't know about the rest of you. And by the way, I'm joined by.

Garrison. And Christopher. I'm very excited. We get to finally talk about the issue that I've been wanting to talk about ever since we started the show. How telling your kids that Santa exists is actually child abuse. This is very exciting. issue that i've been wanting to talk about ever since ever since we started the show how telling your kids that santa exists is actually child abuse this is very exciting i'm glad we can have this civil discussion to to to cover these these hard-hitting topics that are impacting us most in uh in 2022 i'm sure are you trying to say this is're like a Santa abolitionist or something? Yes. I think the fact that we condone lying to children in this way every Christmas is sick.

I'm sorry, but that's so politically unrealistic. I don't know how you have a platform. I can't take that seriously. It teaches our kids not to trust us. It is really an extension of the great man theory that Santa, as this man, is the only one capable of delivering all these presents. I think it's quite… I trust it's also a manifestation of patriarchy. That's right.

It is quite problematic. You know those elves are not getting paid. You know that Santa has tried to bust unions at his workshop every year. I don't think those reindeer are treated very well. There is a whole lot of issues here. Yeah, it's a normalization of the surveillance state. That's right. Elf on the Shelf, classic.

Yeah. Elf on the Shelf came to rise after the Patriot Act was introduced to condition American children into thinking it's okay to always be watched. This is sick. condition american children into thinking it's okay to always be watched this is it's it's this is this is sick uh parents are culpable in promoting this myth um i think this needs to be addressed you know what i think you know i think i think you all need to be christmas billed i don't know about you but i love i love christmas i think um i think it's I think we need to take a Christmas pill. You know, of course, the actual gift getting hasn't been the best, especially once you get past a certain age. It's like, oh, okay, this is what it is then.

But, you know, the unity and the joy and the excitement. I mean, what about that? You know, the color, the food and the drink, getting people together, catching up, you know, celebrated in many different ways religiously and non-religiously and of course it's not even celebrated at all in some places and with some people and you know there are other religious observances and holidays around this time you know like Hanukkah and Kwanzaa and whatever else. But, you know, I think a lot of us are most familiar with Christmas. And I think we're, you know, mostly familiar with the origins of Christmas. That's not the kind of episode we're getting into here. I think, you know, we all know about Jesus and Yule saturnalia and all that fun stuff knows it about charles dickens and

scrooge and of course the um the diagram of um scrooge and cringe and you know whether or not those two concepts overlap but i want to look more to the sort of you know ideas of what christmas is what it means you know um and really how a lot of our society's issues come to the forefront around this time of year um the scourge of scrooge is particularly apparent i mean for many christmas is basically capitalism on steroids for one um and And Santa helps to sort of promote that from an early age as a propaganda tool of the capitalist, as I'm sure Gary would argue. Thank you.

Thank you, Andrew. Great. Great stuff. Well, that's the episode, everybody. Thank you for tuning in. I hope you have a good holiday season. Oh, wait. I think Andrew has more to say.

Yeah, I think we're wrapping up a little bit early there. But we can talk about the fact that Santa really is a big fan of this ultimate, this GDP growth sort of inducing, this pro-growthist capitalist production for production's sake, consumption for consumption's sake. Like the idea that Santa expects children to write

and request something from him every single year, that he stakes an entire holiday upon his own business and upon his own production. His whole industrial apparatus is centered around this one event um and i mean the sort of consumption we see around christmas season it's like it ramps up you know online stores department stores malls just bursting with with people um looking to buy buy buy um all around the world in america at least 2019 saw americans spend over 1 trillion dollars just on the christmas season i mean it's just glorious excess honestly and of course there's

also the excessive you know decorating and shopping and drinking and the issues that sort of arise with um those things and that sort of overindulgence is part of what's seriously harming the planet not to you know blame individuals and exclusively because you know obviously this sort of thing is encouraged by you know advertising and by entire industries that are built around around this this idea of consumerism. But the holiday is basically, you know, it's become this thing where the focal point is to indulge, to splurge, to consume. And you see it in a lot of Christmas movies too.

I mean, Christmas with the Kranks is one particularly iconic example. And with all this, you know, consumerism, it feels like we lose sight of the purpose, you know, of the gift-giving. I don't think we've lost our selfless nature, but I think we've lost some of the heart within it. I think it's by design. Our natural tendency to care for the people in our lives is sort of exploited.

We're expected by the system to act super hyper-competitively in the spirit of capitalism. But now we have to be super generous and caring around this time of year but just in a way that just so happens to profit countless anyways like yeah yeah be generous be caring and stuff buy this gift for you know your loved one and i will pocket the change and i don't think it has to be that way but the commercialization of what were once holy days tends to do that and of course with all these soup kitchens and canned food drives and Red Cross centers

outside groceries pulling everything in for some donations and by the way don't donate to Red Cross they're kind of problematic Salvation Army do not donate to Sal of problematic. Salvation Army. Do not donate to Salvation Army. Honestly, either of them.

My bad. I think I was confusing them. Red Cross just takes credit for anarchist projects in the relief of disasters. And Salvation Army hates gay people. And also has shot anarchists.

A thing they don't talk about very much. Well, damn. That should probably be an episode. Yeah. There's another way of that. But yeah. Yeah. It's like all this stuff is happening. And it's like this sort of performance of, oh, all of a sudden we care about, what's the name of that little kid from Christmas Carol?

Tiny Tim. Tiny Tim. Tiny Tim, yeah. All of a sudden we care about Tiny Tim. In a system that literally requires an impoverished base of people. You know, poverty is certainly this virtue that we we look to help to ameliorate we care for you know we we want to uplift the tiny tims we want to warm the hearts of the scrooge mcducks of the world rest of the year it's just like oh well you know this

underclass is a petrol underclass needs to exist i think the extension of our Tendency towards mutual aid throughout the year And across bonds of kin and non-kin alike Is something that we should Pursue To prefigure A gift economy Not just Around a particular season but year round

I think that is a worthwhile Exercise to look into-round. I think that is a worthwhile exercise to look into. And of course, I think, you know, ideally we would want to see, I guess, you could call this my Christmas wish, readjustment to this sort of consumption around this time of year to one that is done with a sort of a degrowth mindset, one that is cognizant of, you know, local conditions, one that seeks to reduce a sort of a degrowth mindset, one that is cognizant of local conditions, one that seeks to reduce food miles, localize production, consumption.

So that's, I guess, wish number one, Christmas wish number one. Let's make a gift economy rather than a capitalist gift consumption day. And of course, I think our christmas wish on this topic would be a wish for work abolition you know with all that consumption happening around this time of year it really does a number on the service and manufacturing and delivery and so on and so forth workers around the world you know work sucks in general but it extra sucks around this time of year you know with sweatshop labor with retail hell around this season it's really the opposite of peace on earth for a good chunk of the working class you could call it the season for overworking

and it's not just for um you know gare's token oppressed group, the elves. There are other workers that are being exploited that we should probably be championing. Yeah, we talked about this in a couple of the China episodes that I did. one of the big reasons for the the sort of huge like worker uprisings in china in the last like few weeks was that like basically a bunch of people got locked into a factory because foxconn and apple were trying to hit their christmas like production targets and people started fighting the cops because they were like this actually sucks i don't want to be stuck in here being lied to about how much i'm gonna get paid so that these companies can have their christmas sales i mean yeah definitely i think it's completely

fair to say that the worker elves are very mistreated um but with the exception i think of specifically the elf on the shelf elves i I don't think those count as workers. The elf on the shelf elves are cops. They only function as snitches for the surveillance state. So yes, the elf workers are mistreated and should unionize and should deserve way more support and possibly even the abolition of work. But the elf on the shelf elves are not workers.

I think that's an important distinction. Yeah, yeah. It's like they're class traitors more than anything. Exactly, yeah. Very blatantly so, yeah. It really is the season for overworking. It's very interesting that that's really what triggered the protests in China. I mean, I would love to see celebrations and festivals of giving in any sort of anarchic society,

but it isn't fair, nor is it right, that these festivities are built on the exploitation of others. I mean, what kind of celebration is it to be had when people are suffering in such a capacity to produce that sort of celebration and speaking of suffering i think um there are a lot of people who suffer through family around this time of year and i think some people actually appreciate having to work through the holidays because it means they don't have to deal with said family and i mean family is a big focus and the sort of culture of christmas but you know unlike the greeting cards and the billboards and stuff not everyone's family is

picture perfect and holidays often open a lot of wounds and heightened dread for a lot of people. Hurt people, consuming people, and a lot of toxicity and intoxication is brought under one roof during Christmas celebrations, bigotry, abuse, that sort of thing. It's not a fun time for some people. And so I think it's important in this season and in general to let go of this sort of patriarchal and restricting designation of family in favor of something that is more subject to to choice to agency uh to consent to you know more expanded forms of kinship bringing people

together who care for and enjoy and want to share each other's company, you know, creating new traditions, to build new bonds of solidarity and care. I think, you know, opportunities like these, seasons like these, enable us to demonstrate the veracity of the liberation that can be had in our projects. I think it's something something a lot of people need around this season because mental health woes seem to worsen around this time of year the often toxic

culture of christmas can be fairly bad for people's mental health you know it's loneliness and depression and suicide and the struggle to care for your basic needs, let alone enjoy the season. It takes a big toll on people's well-being. I know it's easy to say, oh, just go to therapy and whatever. But with the inaccessibility of therapy and with the fact that therapy is not necessarily a salve for material conditions, there needs to be a social safety net in place. There must be healing in community and not just in isolation. And so I think this season is another opportunity for us

to reflect on that and to try to avail ourselves to those who we fear might be suffering at this time. And if you yourself are suffering, it's trying to reach out and sort of engage in that sort of mutual aid and mutual support. I think there's a lot that we can reframe and reconsider surrounding Christmas. I mean, for a season of kindness and giving, unfortunately hurts a lot of people, but that can change.

You know, through through solidarity through generosity through kinship solidarity organizing the bottom up extension of the principle of mutual into everyday life um redirecting our generosity around this time from giving to the pockets of billionaires to giving to the people um to display our capacity for well-doing, to think locally, to think DIY, to think meaningful rather than to just, oh, add another thing to the Amazon cart. And of course, not just physically giving gifts,

but also being generous with our time and our love and our care because we do need each other, not just in this time but in general i think bread santa had some um entertaining suggestions for this season too bread santa of course being peter kropotkin he figured that we should all pose as santa claus perhaps gear as a subversion of what he represents as a Catholic, went to all pools as Santa Claus or as Saint Nicholas and to infiltrate the stores and give away the toys.

In one postcard, Kropotkin wrote, that on the night before Christmas, we'll all be about. While the people are sleeping, we'll realize our clout. We'll expropriate goods from the stores because that's fair and distribute them widely to those who need care so yeah merry christmas and happy holidays to all and to all a good fight for freedom For freedom. You can of course find me on YouTube at Andrew O'Sullivan on twitter.com slash and underscore St. Drew. And if you want, you can support me on patreon.com slash St. Drew.

That's it for me for this year for It Could Happen Here. See you all next year. Great. Destroyist icon Santa Claus. Merry Christmas. Hey, we'll be back Monday with more episodes every week from now until the heat death of the universe. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com,

or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It Could Happen Here updated monthly at coolzonemedia.com slash sources. Thanks for listening. You should probably keep your lights on for Nocturnal Tales from the Shadowbranch. Join me, Danny Trejo, and step into the flames of rife.

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