It Could Happen Here - Rekia Boyd and the Chicago Police Department's International Reign of Terror, Part 2

Episode Date: March 4, 2022

Mia Wong continues her conversation with Raven about the Chicago police and how they weaponize tensions between ethnic and immigrant groups to maintain their hold on power.   Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You should probably keep your lights on for Nocturnal Tales from the Shadowbride. Join me, Danny Trejo, and step into the flames of fright. An anthology podcast of modern-day horror stories inspired by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America. Listen to Nocturnal on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to It Could Happen Here, a podcast about how much I, Christopher Wong, hate the police, and specifically the Chicago Police Department. And we are bringing you part two of my interview with Chicago journalist Raven about more crimes of the Chicago Police Department, their international impact,

and how the police weaponize race and class lines in order to preserve their power. Enjoy. You know, I've spent a lot of time just like in like cop social media spaces, right? And of course, it's like rotting my brain and you know it's it's honestly just really tough to deal with sometimes but you know one thing that we see like over and over again if you look at the memes that they share and the the posts that they write on on facebook and all of these things is it's they see the people as their enemy right like they're they're trained the military the militarization of the police isn't just about the equipment that they have and the money that they have it's also about their psychology

yeah and how they they view themselves as like warriors fighting the bad guys but because of the nature of policing the bad guys are literally anyone who isn't complying with what they say and usually this is like black people you know marginalized people poor people um and then there's sort of this like you see a lot of these like memes where they they talk about themselves as like sheep dogs protecting the sheep yeah from the wolves and yeah and like the sheep are supposed to be like the innocence which typically if you really go deep into it it's like in their minds that's like women and children who are like mostly white right yeah like they think they're

protecting like white innocence from like bad guys and and there are layers to it right because like obviously it doesn't always work out that way and And, you know, there are like poor white people in rural areas who deal with police repression. You know, there are like wealthy black people who get pulled over by the cops just because they're driving while black. Like there are certainly like layers upon layers here, depending like class and and just everything but at the end of the day like they're training themselves up to be a military fighting the people invading their spaces taking over and the psychology of it is just really, really dark too, because you have these people who, because we're sending them into under-resourced communities, sort of after the fact, after traumas occurred, after there's been violence, there's been shootings, everyone's poor, you know, whatever. There's been shootings. Everyone's poor, you know, whatever.

We're sending them into these places where there's just like the most horrible things about poverty and about violence are happening. And that's all they're exposed to. So then they end up with PTSD or all of these problems, you know, like the alcoholism rate, the domestic violence rate, all of these things within the Chicago police force are extremely high. And all of this comes back to because we're treating everything as punishment, we're coming in after the fact, we're not actually treating these problems at the source. We're just sending people in to manage the chaos after the fact. And then they end up traumatized. They end up enacting more crime and more violence upon these communities. And it just becomes a cycle that no one can get out of.

And then it comes back to just like defunding the police and state priorities. Like where are we putting our resources? Because if we were putting them in the right place, so many of these things wouldn't be happening in the first place. Yeah, and I think one other thing, I think it's important to note that we talked about this on our,

you know, the episodes about the cartels. We talked about this on our episodes about the other episodes about Chicago police, which is that the other thing that happens is that the chicago police just they you know they they they see the drug trade and they go okay we're just gonna get in on it and you know and the the sort of the combination of these people these just incredibly violent armed people with like total impunity and an enormous amount of money is that you know they they they they they become themselves in just you know they they they become exactly the same thing that they're that they were you know

nominally supposed to be fighting and that has all of these these downstream effects if you talked about the the the way that the way that this militarizes basically everything right this this militarizes the police this has you know the violence of it has the effect of militarizing like militarizing everyone else it militarizes the non-state actors and it just sort of it just keeps rationing up the level of violence and as long as you keep throwing the state at it and as long as the state just keeps essentially like going okay i just i well okay we have a drug trade i'll just get a cut of it and as long as that keeps happening like all all of the stuff that the cops are you know nominally there to to deal with is just going to keep escalating because the state that like because like just

because state violence is intensifying and making it worse right right and it's just so like they're so fucking racist yeah like i just can't i mean like i don't we have to we have to keep talking about that because it's just like so much of just like where like where they get their information and how they exchange like if you look at these cop social networks and where they're getting their information and the kinds of things they're saying to each other about black people in chicago are all so ridiculously wrong because they're just parroting these like cop blogs that they read full of all kinds of just batshit fucking conspiracy theories about like our our black da or prosecutor excuse me kim foxx being like a puppet of george soros they literally believe this yeah and and it's echoed by people like tucker carlson you know in national media

like anytime chicago comes up you will hear these kinds of just completely off the wall conspiracy theories about like communist blm antifa soros funded kim foxx like ruining chicago and and i'm not like defending kim foxx don't get me wrong she's still a prosecutor she's still like putting people in jail yeah but she you know she was elected because she was to be she was supposed to be this like big reformist and and all of that and so she's become a target and then she's also become a target for them because she's a black woman so it's easy for them to to make her into a lightning rod of hate basically yeah and you know like they just the dehumanization of of black chicagoans that you see in these in these facebook posts that these people are writing the things that they're tweeting like it is violently disturbingly racist and all of that comes back to just how they view themselves as like an occupying army in these communities like they don't view themselves as like cooperative partners in helping these communities like it's no we're there

to occupy we're there to extract resources we're there to like you know benefit off of this gang warfare if we can you know and and like you mentioned like if you look at, like, the corruption and the things that have gone on with that, I mean, like, I mean, that goes back to city council, right? I mean, we have aldermen, we have alder people who are essentially in bed with the cops looking for, looking out for them. Yep. And, you know, like, they're dedicated cop aldermen i mean like all of our chicago aldermen are older people excuse me are democrats by name but it's like no we have five or six older people who are republicans yeah like they call themselves democrats because they wouldn't be able to be elected in chicago if they didn't but they are

absolutely like cop loving republicans you know they just call themselves democrats because they wouldn't be able to be elected in chicago if they didn't but they are absolutely like cop loving republicans you know they just call themselves democrats because they like support gay marriage or whatever yeah well just because it's chicago and you like you can't run it so yeah like the like the the the only time a democrat has ever lost one of these elections was uh the time a uh i want blanking on the name of the cult uh the time a larouchite accidentally won the primary like that that's basically it like yeah i mean it's it's it's you know this this is a democratic city but you know a democratic city just means incredibly right-wing and police which right right yeah and and when you look at the history of policing in chicago you have to go back decades and decades and kind of look also too at like where a lot of these cops came from in the aftermath of like the dissolution of like the official like mafia

and like al capone and all that stuff yeah you had a lot of working class immigrants from like european communities like the polish community the irish community the italian community and all of these communities have their own like police associations here, like the Italian American police association, the Polish American police association, all of these things. And so like, it becomes this being a cop to go back to sort of like the international ties here, being a cop becomes this like identity

for them and their families like a lot of people are cops because their dad was a cop their grandpa was a cop their cousins are cops their brothers are cops there's like a family honor sort of in like being a cop and and a lot of them, you know, and that goes back to why they show so much solidarity too with like cops from other countries is it's like the profession in and of itself is lionized. And then on top of that, you have right now in Chicago, like because of gentrification because of just like immigration patterns and the way communities have changed we have these like traditionally Polish Italian communities that feel like they're being encroached upon by mostly like Latinx communities.

So we had, for example, like, you know, this shooting, the murder of Anthony Alvarez up on the Northwest side, the far Northwest side of Chicago last year. And in the aftermath of that, we saw a lot of like tension between the traditional like Polish, Polish-American community up there and then the new wave of like Latinx immigrants. And the problem is a lot of the people in the Polish community up there have family and relatives who are cops.

So we had like cops trashing the memorial you know to the to anthony alvarez we had like polish biker gangs like riding by the rallies trying to like intimidate people and it all comes back to like white supremacy and just straight up racism right like 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 podcast there's another example of that with like the the the the the columbus statue that was sent here by mussolini that eventually yeah so one of the like one of the i guess you call it the second wave of the uprising in chicago was a bunch of people like enormous numbers of people throwing things at cops who were attempting to defend this statue and this was like a huge like the italian like american like the right wing of it got like extremely mad about this and there was this sort of i don't know there's all this sort of tension between like between these these different communities yeah and some of that comes back to like also um the construction of of the interstate right so like in the

i don't know when they started building the highways down by uic is like in the 50s or the 60s right you had this like traditional italian american community down there by university of illinois at chicago and like on taylor street and then people built the highway and it like fucked up a bunch of shit you know some people had to sell their homes you know some their traditional neighborhood was like destroyed all of these things and then this university is built and that coincides with that and so you end up getting a lot of like old school racist italians getting pissed at the students and at the school and everything in the aftermath and it's a really really multicultural school i don't know if you're familiar with uic

yeah but it's like there yeah so uic has like one of the largest immigrant student population student bodies like in like the country um it's just a very very diverse school i'm pretty sure white people are actually a minority if you look at like the demographics of just like how people identify in student surveys uic is the university of illinois in chicago uh yeah it's a one of the big universities in in the city yeah just for the non-chicagoans yeah not yeah different there's a different one university of chicago that's like yeah that's the one i went to which is cursed in many ways they've got their whole thing going on because their campus police force is one of the largest private police forces in the world. Yeah. And, you know,

I guess we can talk about that a little bit too, because that's this sort of like, it's kind of horrible binds where it's like, yeah. So it's that, that police force is one of the largest police forces in the world. It has shot students. It has shot people who are not students. It does a bunch of horrible things, but then, you know, sometimes there's, there's this kind of trap, right? Because like one of, one of the things that happens is like, well, okay, so you get rid of the UCPD, right. And then, you know sometimes you're there's there's this kind of trap right because like one of one of the things that happens is like well okay so you you get rid of the ucpd right and then you know okay so they're going to bring the chicago police department in and it's like

the chicago police department are like one of the few institutions in the world that's worse than like the regular ucpd and it's you know and that was one of the things that was that was really inspiring um in in 2020 was just yeah the the way that they abolished the chicago police department like movement was sort of like enfolded in this broader just in this broader attempt to just abolish the chicago police in general but it's this weird thing where it's like you have these you have these occupation zones and it's like the the that that part of the south side and the other thing i think that people don't understand about the chicago police department is that they have an absolutely enormous range that they patrol right that that doesn't include that it's way it goes way off campus like they have they have an

absolutely enormous range of things they can include and they they do things like uh you know they'll they'll just like like like lock down the entire campus and they'll just do this just happen because they'll be like chasing someone who like i like one of the one of the times i was there someone like they'd like stolen something from like a video game store and the whole campus got locked down like the cops were screaming at everyone to stay in the buildings like and they just like you know they had this like enormous numbers of cops just sort of like swarmed through the entire the entire campus for like an hour and this just like happens i mean there's cops everywhere they just they do stuff like that and there's this whole you know and but this is one of those other things where you get these tensions because so you Chicago, the university of Chicago also has like, it's not as large, but also has like a, like, it also has like a a Chinese international student who got shot in a robbery last year.

And that was a huge, I think that was last year. Yeah, that was, yeah, it wasn't January. It was like at the end of the year, I think. Yeah, yeah. And that turned into a huge thing where you had these sudden, you know, because we've had these anti-police protests. But then suddenly there was this huge wing of like, basically the right wing faculty, a bunch of just like absolutely reactionary, like extremely rich CCP scions. had this like giant thing that was like, it was, it was,

it was this sort of microcosm of, of, of the, the broader sort of like turn against the anti-police movements by using crime. And they had this whole thing. It's like, we need to keep the campus safe.

And they were like, Oh, we need to give you the UCPD, the ability to lead, to, to go off of campus, which, you know,

they already have. They're like, we need to give them more money. We need to have more cops everywhere. And it was just, it's just this sort of like, you, you,

you get this horrible, horrible sort of sort of like you you get this horrible horrible sort of pendulum effect where like you get this violence and then you know people like the the like the the the rights response to that violence is just to create is you know just to send in more cops to create more violence and it just keeps escalating it keeps escalating and it's it's you know and then there's there's a sort of dynamic of this right where rich students at the university of chicago and this is so some extent this is it's mostly a class and race thing but it's not entirely but like people who go there just like have this like incredible fear of literally everyone around them it's like they turn to mini cops like yeah there are people who are screaming about how like

just the red line is not safe at night and i was like i i have literally like i i have walked like 30 blocks back home at two in the morning and been completely fine like you guys are just cowards but and you know you're cowards and extremely racist but like yeah like all all of these sort of factors blend together and you you get these you get these coalitions of of these this right-wing pro-police people who want to just not not just like you know not not just support the police but want to continue to expand it so they can feel safe and it's like you're not you're not even in danger but they have they have they have the same sort of like this whole town is trying to kill us like racist cop brain mentality and yeah sorry this is this is this has been me being upset about this because yeah no no i feel you and it's like it's and but it

relates back to kind of like campus policing in general and kind of why it exists which is that a lot of colleges i mean not all of them It depends on where you are, but some colleges, especially in large urban areas, were built in the middle of largely black communities. Yeah, and that's the University of Chicago to a T. There are reasons why necessarily like they're built in these places. And so the campus police departments function as just a way to like keep the students isolated from the community. Like it's making a community within a community. It's making this little enclave. And then, of course, people are are then going to view anyone outside of that enclave with like racist suspicion right and if you have immigrant students who may or may not be wealthy it depends on where they come from

but you you will see has like a lot of as far as i'm aware like wealthy international students and they might be coming from countries where like there aren't any black people or there aren't very many. And just because they're coming from this country doesn't necessarily mean that they are left wing. So they're coming into these communities with not a lot of experience just sort of around people who look different from them. And so they're going to be, of course, looking to like these police figures than to, quote, protect them. But to go back to it, it's like, okay, well, if you are feeling unsafe on the train at night, for example, why? Why isn't the train safe?

why why isn't the train safe like why are people using it as you know shelter why are people doing drugs on the train like why is there violence happening and that just comes back to again like we're not actually addressing the real problems by just adding more police and i i will say like i think i think again, the other thing that's happening here is really just the University of Chicago is a place to which the world's elite is transplanted. And you can see this very clearly along, because there is, the wealth gap between poor international students and rich international students is the largest single wealth gap in the entire university. It's unbelievable.

And you can watch it playing down on class lines, and it plays down on other lines, right? lines right where you have like like you know you like yeah you have like you have both we have students from i don't know you have students from china you have students from vietnam and like one of them will be trans and you know it turned yeah it's like oh hey look like yeah like when you have like when you have a chinese trans student right it's like yeah they're they the the the people who back home have experienced depression in various ways are consistently consistently anti-police and consistently

significantly less bad about this stuff. In my experience, it's very much is just you have this sort of transplanted like you have this sort of transplanted elite from you have this sort of transplanted elite from other countries that come to the university of chicago so they can you know study economics and go back to their own countries and like continue to like rob their own populations

and those people are the ones who are doing this stuff and it's i don't know it's you you see a lot of kind of like this like i think really misguided like anti-racism that's like well okay we have to take the security concerns of of these these of asian people seriously it's like these are this is this is the chinese ruling class this is this like you don't need to take these people's concerns seriously they are fanatic they are ferocious right-wingers who've just read hyatt for the first time like you guys these these are these are not the same people as the people who are suffering under the like right right and and we saw that we saw that too with like the big wave of of stop asian hate protests here last year yeah where we had like this big rally down in Chinatown with like a huge, huge number, like hundreds of people from the community came out.

And you had a lot of younger people who very much had like, you know, defund the police kind of sentiments. But then you had, we had like police representatives speaking at the rally. Yeah. About how they were going to to make like chicago safer for asian people yeah it's like i just like this stuff like it makes me so angry like cpd honestly uh yeah no it was regular cpd like i i'm chinese they almost fucking killed me on campus like these people like they're not these these these these like they they're like the police will keep us

safe but like you know there's been this there's been this incredible weaponization of the asian american community like you see this you see this in chinatown there's been this like there's like chinatown is like and this is different even in the last like like three or four years has turned into this just like like incredibly right wing i mean It's not everyone, but you see there's a bench in Chicago in front of the library. They have these tables, and the tables have an engraved plaque on them that says, No Loitering, and that says, We will call the police on you if you loiter. This is outside of the library. view loiter this is outside of the library like it's yeah they have this sort of like incredibly right-wing like anti-anti-right like anti uh like homeless people campaign that's

happening and it's it's i don't know it's one of just the most depressing things i've seen here because you have you know you you have the chamber of commerce as a sort of like you know as the most powerful political force in a lot of these communities. And like those peoples are right wingers and they just, they, they, they don't have the same interests as like the rest of the Asia of the Asian American community.

And it, you know, and it gets, you get this horrible, horrible thing, which is what was happening on the Chicago campus, which is like essentially the right wing, like pitting the right wing is like, just pitting the like basically basically like pitting asians

against black people and it's right horrible and it right and it just comes back to like who who is benefiting from this like who when we when we have immigrant communities or non-immigrant communities you know like being upset with other communities what are the greater forces here that are like benefiting from that sort of like inciting and it's always like the fascist cops who, who ultimately come out on top there, because if they can keep the people fighting amongst themselves or they can stoke prejudice and racism between the people, you know, they can then come in and scoop up resources and when you look at like a school like university of chicago they just have a massive massive amount of money right like the resources there are just unbelievable unbelievable and so of course you're going to have people in the community who are resentful of that who are upset about that because like they don't have affordable housing they don't have good jobs like they're trying to make a living and

keep their kids safe and here's this like university in the middle of their neighborhood with all of this money and wow i'm so amazed i'm just so happy that like somebody's doing construction right now outside my apartment thank you for this timing i'm so glad about this um but but essentially like you know you they the students the students end up being a scapegoat for all of their, like, all the communities, like justified fears about what's going on. Right. Justified. They're justified in being upset that they don't have these resources, but it's not necessarily like the individual students.

Yeah. And, and there've, there've been a lot of really good. So like right, right before one of the things that was happening in, in Hyde park, like right before, one of the things that was happening in Hyde Park, like right before I got there was there was this huge campaign. Basically there wasn't a level one trauma center like on the South side. And so, you know, if you get shot, right,

they have to like take you in a helicopter to the North side to a hospital there. And, you know, in that time, like there's a good chance you're going to die. And there had been one, but it got shut down because it wasn't making any money. There was this huge community student campaign to force the university to open one of these trauma centers.

I think it's important that we don't have to fight each other. That's not a thing that... I think that university... I don't think it should continue to exist. I think at the very least it should be like taken under community control, but who, but like, yeah, like for, for the people who are there. And, you know, I think like for, for the Asian Americans listening to this and for, for, for people who are students, like you, you do not have to be the weapon to the cops you don't you can you can work together and and and when you do that you can win and you can win you can win like really incredibly tangible gains for the community and you can save people's lives Welcome. I'm Danny Thrill. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter?

Nocturnum, Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora. An anthology of modern-day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you. 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. podcast or wherever you get your podcast you know it also outside of campus same deal with chicago police right like we don't need to have the eastern european communities fighting the latino communities fighting the black communities like we don't need to have these like all of these communities just like fighting each other instead of like the actual oppressive forces at the top. kind of i don't know i i guess tipping point i think where either people start to show solidarity or we're fucked yep like there are massive not to get like super existential with you but like there are massive massive forces right now right-wing forces trying to benefit off of all of this factionalization. And as we see tanks rolling into Ukraine, this is a global phenomenon. just happening at home it's happening everywhere and like we don't have a lot of time left to stop this and to bring it back to this like far right trucker faux trucker convoy shit show that's about to happen and roll into roll into our capital, I'm just struck by the timing of it all.

And I'm certainly not going to be a conspiracy theorist about it and be like, well, Putin has planned this all. It happened at the same time. But I do think that whether or not it's planned to happen at the same time, it's absolutely going to benefit these people that this is happening right now in Ukraine. horrific anti-trans bills that the anti-trans well not bills but anti-trans uh government action i guess is the correct term in in yeah that's happening in texas right now yeah it's uh you know like people people draw comparisons to to the third reich and to nazi germany and them banning like youning homosexual dance parties and things like that. They didn't start out saying, we want to kill all the Jews.

You don't start that way. You would do the smaller attacks first. You build up to it. You take power inch by inch until like nobody can stop you yeah but i i think i think you know there's there's an important note here though which is that like it it's it's very easy to sort of especially in times like this to sort of just like be be in a place where it just it looks like history's just washing over you right that you know we're we're bound by these sort of irresistible powers and forces and that's not true

like these these these these kinds of fascist movements can be defeated these kinds of movements can be defeated but they they they they can only be defeated when we actually take our place as the subjects of history right like we we are that we are the people who through our actions create history and you know when we also are the people who create the world we see around us but you know and as david gray was incredibly fond of saying It's like, we are the people who create the world around us. And that means that we can, it can be otherwise. And, you know, when we essentially like, when we reclaim our, you know, our status as subjects, our status as human beings,

our status as the people of which history is composed of, and we move, we can stop these things. Like there do not have to be another like there don't have to be more nazis they don't have to be more genocides they don't have to be more wars we can stop them we just have to fight right i don't disagree with that i think i think it's a completely true i guess i'm just i don't know maybe i'm like a doomer i don't know like it's it's really hard right now to kind of see i guess sort of mass resistance forming in the u.s specifically just because of the way the pandemic has wrecked us.

And I feel like people are, I mean, people are just checked out, right? Like they're exhausted, they're broke. I, you know, a million people have died because of the government's just complete lack of adequate handling of COVID. And so I completely agree that this isn't inevitable. We can stop this. At the same time, I don't know what it's going to take

for Americans as an entity to actually stand up and fight this. And I'm not blaming individual people because it's like all the reasons for people being exhausted and checked out are like also by design right because of course like if we keep people exhausted and checked out then the oligarchs at the top like can continue to like loot society yeah i mean i think i i i think i'm sort of less sanguine on that just because like you know because i remember this is the same thing that like everyone said right before the uprising like everyone was checked out everyone was sort of like you know like the the pandemic had just started everyone there was this like general consensus that like mass action was impossible and then right you know like two days later they burned down a

they burned down a police station and like they're looting the miracle mile and you know it's like it's like it's the these these things like you know like every like the the the the the people who are in some sense the most in tune with like what is happening it'll like often tend to be the people who are most shocked by when when these kinds of things just emerge seemingly out of nowhere and so i don't know i i think i think i i i i i think we can't know what exactly will set off the next wave but i but i i think it's a safe bet there will be another one because there always is oh yeah for sure we've never you know we we have yet to hit a point so bad that people stop

fighting like ever in history so oh for sure yeah and and that's the long arc of history too is it's like people have always been fighting for their liberation yeah in some way and if you look at the longer story, you know, there might be very long periods of darkness and repression and collapse. And then people emerge from that and new societies emerge, new ways of thinking, all of that. And I think where we're at now, like at this moment, there are certainly small ways that people can resist and ways that we, like we have to focus on like our immediate communities too. You know, it's so easy to get, to feel helpless when you like, you look at things on such a grand scale because of course like we can't all just like run into ukraine right now and like stop putin there's there's really not a lot we can do when it comes to like things like that but we can

like take care of our friends we can like make sure that the people immediately around us have what they need. We can check in on our unhoused neighbors. Some people here in Chicago are prepping to take in Ukrainian refugees, for example, right now. And that's the sort of action that is definitely going to be needed. Chicago are prepping to like take in Ukrainian refugees, for example, right now. And, and that's like the sort of action that like is definitely going to be needed. Um, and you know,

like when you look at the story of like something as horrible and, and just like awful as the Holocaust, like, of course there are all are all these like small stories of like people who like sheltered, people who were being sought out. And, you know, there were all these different kinds of resistance movements in Germany and in Poland.

And it's not just about like all the people that that hitler killed it is also about all the people that like were that people managed to save you know and it is also like i don't know we we in america especially it's like we gotta get away from the hitler comparisons which i know i just like just made yeah like it's it's you know like don't get me wrong like there's obviously like plenty of parallels and it's important to be like students of history and like understand what's going on and everything but like we don't what we're seeing is like we're going to see a kind of fascism that is unique to our era right like i don't know that trump is going to come out and call for like outright genocide and like you know build build death or like ron desantis is going to get elected and like build

death camps like it's going to look different than it has in the past, even if some of the phenomenon are similar. So what we're looking at instead is, especially with climate change, we're looking at a lot of controls over borders. And obviously some of that is what's happening in Europe right now too, but people are going to be looking to control resources like water oil land as we know that they're like running out and so this this sentiment against like immigrants especially you know that's something that is going to just keep getting worse yeah and so i think it makes it harder for people to to i guess recognize that things are as bad as they were, if that makes sense. Yeah. And ultimately, like, it's just, yeah, mass resistance is the only way out, right?

Yep. like the people have to resist and we can't keep waiting for like Joe Biden or anyone to be our political savior yeah I think that's a pretty good note to end on thank you for joining us

do you have stuff that you want to plug not at the moment no I mean I think I guess our twitter account but that's about it okay yeah well this this has been this has been another episode of it could happen here you can find us on twitter and instagram at happen here pod uh you can find stuff at cool zone we have a website there, stop asking me for sources. They're,

they're on the website. They get out, they get uploaded. Uh, yeah. So yeah, thank, thank you once again for joining us.

It could happen here as a production of cool zone media for more podcasts from cool zone media, visit our website, cool zone media.com, or check us out on the I heartartRadio 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 Shadow. Join me, Danny Trails, and step into the flames of right. An anthology podcast

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