It Could Happen Here - Remember, Remember, the (Other) 5th of November

Episode Date: November 5, 2024

Mia and James take a break from America to discuss the history of Guy Fawkes Day, the heroes of the German Peasants War, and the future of trans cinema. Sources: https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/inspire-me/real-story-of-bonfire-night/ https://www.ajc.org/news/on-luther-and-his-lies https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/guy-fawkes-bonfire-night/index.html https://deadline.com/2024/10/lilly-wachowski-anarchists-united-grants-1236161483/ https://www.autostraddle.com/lilly-wachowski-interview/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The 2025 iHeart Podcast Awards are coming. This is the chance to nominate your podcast for the industry's biggest award. Submit your podcast for nomination now at iHeart.com slash podcast awards. But hurry, submissions close on December 8th. Hey, you've been doing all that talking. It's time to get rewarded for it. Submit your podcast today at iHeart.com slash podcast awards. That's iHeart.com slash podcast awards. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off

our second season digging into tech's elite and how they've turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech brought to you by an industry veteran with nothing to lose. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts from. On Thanksgiving Day 1999, five-year-old Cuban boy Elian Gonzalez was found off the coast of Florida. And the question was, should the boy go back to his father in Cuba? Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home, and he wanted to take his son with him. Or stay with his relatives in Miami?

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we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Listen to Black Lit on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. AT&T, connecting changes everything. Hey, I'm Gianna Pertenti. And I'm Jamee Jackson-Gadsden.

We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. If you're early in your career, you probably have a lot of money questions. So we're talking to finance expert Vivian Tu, aka Your Rich BFF, to break it down. Looking at the numbers is one of the most honest reflections of what your financial picture actually is. The numbers won't lie to you. Listen to this week's episode of Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to It Could Happen Here, a podcast taking place on a day that will live in infamy and set a country ablaze. I am, of course, referring to Guy Fawkes Day. I'm your host, Mia Wong. With me is James.

Hi, Mia. I'm excited. I'm excited to share with people some of our national traditions in the United Kingdom. Yeah. And so as a person from the country who won the revolution, I get to do the British episode because you should have fucking relegated to the French. Yes. So, all right. The thing about the gunpowder plot is that like another event occurring on november 5th there are no heroes and everyone like sucks shit yes so in order in order to

return to a time of heroes and to get the context of what the fuck is going on here we're taking a digression because i am never going to get another chance to talk about this part of history unless I write a Martin Luther episode. So we're going all the way back to the origins of the split between Protestantism and Catholicism. Good. But Martin Luther. Yeah. I was raised a Lutheran. Okay.

So I got a very, very sanitized version of who Martin Luther was. And then I read about who Martin Luther actually was, and I was like, holy shit! Yeah, different dude. Martin Luther, and this is the part also that doesn't really get talked about in the sort of Lutheran tradition, because Lutheran the Lutheran tradition is not a revolutionary tradition, shall we

say that. The thing that Luther did when he started Protestantism by accident was accidentally kicked off a genuine full-scale social revolution in Europe with his attacks on the Catholic Church. He was not trying to do this, but he very quickly has in fact accidentally done this. And through the sort of breach that he'd opened and like the ironclad walls of Catholic monarchical rule came the German Peasants Wars. And my favorite dude in this entire period of time uh florian gayer i don't think i'm actually familiar with florian good name oh

this guy rules this guy fucking rips okay there is a knight who there's a lot of debate about this but the sources that i've read a long time ago when I was reading about this guy says that he is the only like they are the only like knights, like mounted knights in like the entire history of Europe to defect and join a peasant revolution. Oh, they're these guys. They're like the knights or something. Yep. Yep. The black company. Yeah.

Yeah. He fucking rules. Yeah. It slaps. So the Durban Peasant Wars kick off and he enjoys the peasant revolution with this sword that is supposedly inscribed with the words, neither cross nor crown, which is just unbelievably based.

He fucking rules. A proto-anarchist. Yeah, yeah. And his thing, him and the Black Company, which is part like, it's part knights, part like peasants,

just basically run around Thrygia and kill the shit out of nobles and priests and, like, spread the glorious fire of the peasant revolution. What a hero, yeah. It's awesome. I found a picture of him. Strong chin as well, I will say.

Powerful jawline. Yeah, and he has an interesting sort of conflicting legacy. So he gets killed eventually because the giant peasant revolution is eventually destroyed. And we'll talk about Martin Luther's role in that in a second. But he has this interesting legacy where he's taken up as a national hero by like every kind of non-establishment faction of German politics. So he's like like there's an SS division named after him.

Oh, dear. He's also like one of the heroes of east germany yeah i can see this yeah and like this is one of these things for like in like a night in like 20 30 germany you will have communists social democrats and the nazis all singing like the same songs about this guy yeah you know he's one of the few sort of redeemable figures in german history yeah yeah they go fucking rips yeah and this is what happens with national myth making right you just take this thing and make it plastic

it's like you mold it to whatever you want it to be whatever you want your national story to be yeah yeah and like this happens with Mokno in Ukraine this happens with when we talked about this on Margaret's show when I did we did a bunch of episodes about anarchism in Korea and like they do this with a bunch of Korean anarchists

too they become like national like state heroes and it's like well okay this guy would have absolutely shot you i'm like this is one of these things where it's like like if you if you if you were to show if you were to show this guy the ss you'd be like what the fuck like what the fuck is wrong with you get my sword out again yeah it's time to it's time to start the killing again yeah and very specifically gary is like he actually had known martin luther back before he like joined the peasants and like specifically the fact that they're they're like these peasants are like sacking castles and killing priests and like the ruling class very specifically makes is like like the fact that the ruling class could conceive it would be in danger is the thing that convinces martin luther to become i think i've made this argument on the

show before but i think he is at very worst like the second greatest kind of revolutionary in my in like the last four or five hundred years because i i hold that the greatest kind of revolutionary is the one who starts the revolution and then realizes holy shit i can't control this i don't like where it's going and then immediately turns kind of revolutionary to kill everyone who was involved no not like that yeah yeah yeah yeah so the product of this is that martin luther writes this book kind of long pamphlet called against the murderous thieving hordes of peasants and aligns himself with the princes yeah and you know so then this is the start of what is eventually a a century you know there's a couple centuries of religious war in here we're

gonna get you but this is in a lot of ways i think the beginning of the reproach ma between catholicism and protestantism because sure, because class is more important. Yeah. Yeah. And that actually, weirdly, is an extremely important part of the story of Guy Fawkes Day. Yes. Yeah.

And, you know, the other thing that Luther's up to in this period is trying to outflank the Catholics on antisemitism, which is pretty hard because, like, this is the early,

this is the early, like, 1500s, right? Yeah. We are, are like 40 years out from two spanish monarchs uh like expelling the jews from spain yeah so like 16th century antisemitism is like pink i don't know it's hard to exactly like tier list the like periods of antisemitism but like right like the holocaust holocaust is obviously number one and then like this period like the kominitsky pogrom and like some of the stuff in late 19 in like late 1800s russia or like

yeah something like the worst periods in human history for this yeah this is pretty horrific shit and and luther decides that he's going to like outflank the catholics and anti-semitism and so he writes this book called on the jews and their lies which is like yeah the first version of this that i wrote had a joke here about how it could have been written by hitler but then i then i i like did a little bit of reading about it and was like holy shit this specific thing was used by like nazi like oh i'm sure lutheran pastors specifically to justify the leap up to the holocaust in like 38 so that's great um yeah how cool yeah so this is this is you know this is the sort of

formation of like what you could call like the the protestant kind of revolution against the sort of social revolutionary forces they kicked off right well the anti-semitism like hardline stuff is a bit later but there's there's one more kind of big uprising which is very funny which is the anabaptist and moonstar who formed this like oh yeah pretty base democratic commune that eventually kind of turns into like a sex cult thing but like in a way that's more like people realize they could be poly that it is like normal sex cult yeah it's people it's people like like emerging from an extremely constrained like yeah socialized sexuality i guess yeah and you know so and this is like this is you know those are the two sort of periods of like high of like the highest levels of class conflict

that are the result of the process Reformation. And this kind of ends with Munster when they all get killed by the monarchies. And this is something about the European peasantry that I don't know, maybe one day I'll do a project on why the European peasantry was so much worse at doing revolts than the Chinese peasantry.

Because the Chinese peasantry knocks off dynasties all the time. The Chinese central government is like a hundred thousand times more formidable as a force than any of these dipshit Holy Roman Empire principalities. But the Chinese peasantry did it anyway. I don't know. The German peasantry fought hard. It doesn't go great for them.

Yeah. I mean, the entirety of the European society is structured along the state monopoly on violence and how oh yeah like feudalism is like the sine qua non of feudalism is having the ability to kill all your peasants yeah and it's it's a it's a it's a system and i think this is something that like you know this is the there's reflection of this you see in sort of like fantasy a lot right where like people will write monarchies and then you'll get like or like he's

using like science fiction right where like people people understand what's bad about a democracy because you've all lived in one and you know all the ways that it sucks but because most of us like haven't lived under an actual monarchy you don't yourself man well okay even, even then, even then, compared to this shit, people don't understand how just hideous this shit is. And this is going to play a role. I mean, this is like, again, this is like the thing that starts the French Revolution,

where the first time that, not the first time, but when people actually start beating the monarchists seriously, people have this tendency to remember the violence of the French Revolution. It's like, yeah, there was a lot of shit that was very bad, but also these people

that they are fighting, these are people who for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years, anytime anyone has even dared to talk back to them, has just fucking murdered them, their families, and everyone around them. Yeah, like as horribly as possible. Yeah. Yeah, and, as horribly as possible. Yeah. Yeah, and, you know,

as the process of their, them holding on to their fucking deranged hereditary power system. And the consequence of this is that once these revolutions are put down, sort of Protestantism versus Catholicism, like, it's not fully this

because it's like, there are sort of popular e i mean not in a good sense but there are sort of like more mass like catholicism versus proselytism stuff but like a lot of it politically becomes the domain of like princes who are either sort of running wars that are like nominally religious based. Although like go, go, go look on what side France enters on the 30 years war at about 20 years. Uh, when, when France enters on the side of the Protestants to figure out exactly how much,

right. But like, you know, but this kind of conflict becomes this, this kind of more, the actual politics becomes centralized in the ruling class. Yeah. The metaphor that popped in mind to me

is one that will make sense to about four people but it's kind of like the way that all politics became centralized in the bath party in syria over the course of like the 60s and 70s like all where like you have this mass politics but the only politics that matters is the military and the military factions the military fighting it out like that's kind of what's happening here is that like all of these princes are sort of centralizing religious power but this means that like religious wars quote-unquote and conflict becomes the domain of like these coups and counter coups by like princes and they're like noble factions and shit yeah and that's where we find ourselves in the year 1604 at the beginning of the gunpowder treason and before before we get that uh do you know what else supports the gunpowder treason. And before we get that, do you know what else supports the gunpowder treason?

17th century. Yeah, definitely Chumba Casino. Yeah, the really major funders of the gunpowder treason. Yeah, it's okay if you lose your money at Chumba Casino, guys, because they're trying to blow up the Houses of Parliament.

Hey, I'm Jack Peace Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black Lit, the podcast for diving deep into the rich world of Black literature. I'm Jack Peace Thomas, and I'm inviting you to join me and a vibrant community

of literary enthusiasts dedicated to protecting and celebrating our stories. Black Lit is for the page turners, for those who listen to audiobooks while commuting or running errands, for those who find themselves seeking solace, wisdom, and refuge between the chapters. From thought-provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Together, we'll dissect classics and contemporary works while uncovering the stories of

the brilliant writers behind them. Blacklit is here to amplify the voices of black writers and to bring their words to life. Listen to Blacklit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hola mi gente, it's Honey German and I'm bringing you Gracias, Come Again, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or is the podcast for you. We're talking real conversations with our Latin stars, from actors and artists to musicians and creators,

sharing their stories, struggles, and successes. You know it's going to be filled with chisme laughs and all the vibes that you love. Each week, we'll explore everything from music and pop culture to deeper topics like identity, community, and breaking down barriers in all sorts of industries. Don't miss out on the fun, el té caliente, and life stories. Join me for Gracias Come Again, a podcast by Honey German, where we get into todo lo actual y viral.

Listen to Gracias Come Again on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The 2025 iHeart Podcast Awards are coming. This is the chance to nominate your podcast for the industry's biggest award. Submit your podcast for nomination now at iHeart.com slash podcast awards. But hurry, submissions close on December 8th. Hey, you've been doing all that talking. It's time to get rewarded for it.

Submit your podcast today at iHeart.com slash podcast awards. That's iHeart.com slash podcast awards. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into how tech's elite has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose. This season, I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel winning economists to leading journalists in the field. And I'll be digging into why the products you love keep getting worse and naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get

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

He looked like a little angel. I mean, he looked so fresh. And his name, Elian Gonzalez, will make headlines everywhere. Elian Gonzalez. Elian Gonzalez. Elian. Elian. Elian Gonzalez.

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

Or his relatives in Miami. At the heart of it all is still this painful family separation. Something that as a Cuban, I know all too well. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story, as part of the My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get

your podcasts. We are back. We are back to the past. We're back to, I guess, the future of where we were several seconds before that. So England famously became Protestant when King Henry VIII

wanted a new wife and the Pope wouldn't let him get a new wife. Another new wife, right? Was it like... No, this was a new wife. Wait. That's a rhyme for this. Divorce beheaded, died. Divorce beheaded, survived. Yeah. I think it was the first divorce because after that he just

went ham on the wives and through this incredibly silly chain of events they leave the Catholic Church and become Protestants through Anglicanism which is Catholicism light yeah and I think it's more Catholicism light because Lutheranism

also gets described as Catholicism light but I can emphatically state there was a major difference because I was raised Lutheran and I fucking have no guilt whatsoever. It rules. No guilt. Zero.

I feel bad about nothing. It's awesome. It's no shame, Catholicism. Church of England is more or less Catholicism minus Pope. Yeah, yeah. And obviously they differ over time because, you know.

Yeah, because it's just the drift of history. They evolve differently. Yeah. Yeah, but this starts like actual, a series of kind of horrendous religious conflicts inside of the UK where just like a bunch of random people get killed

because once princes become the people controlling religions, everything gets unbelievably stupid really quickly. Yeah, it's just a vehicle for elite fucking ambition. Yeah. They can pick a faction and use that to get a little bit higher up the ladder. So there's this series of coups and counter-coups to attempt to reinstall Catholic rule

or get rid of Catholic... And it's all really boring. It's so boring. I cannot emphasize... Let me tell you me i did that in history in school for years somehow i overcame that to get a phd in history but that shit was dull it's it's hideously boring like which is insane because like like bloody mary is involved in this and it's still boring oh yeah there's a lot of beheadings the prince is in the

tower famously with the little dead children a lot of a lot of beheadings, the princes in the tower, famously, with the little dead children. A lot of murder. Yeah, but boring murder, which is staggering. How do you make murder boring? Easy. You do this shit. Yeah, Shakespeare wrote some good plays about this shit, for those of you who are interested. Yeah, go consult that. I don't know. I don't know.

So by 1604, a group of guys that would eventually extend to like 13 Catholic guys start to form a frankly not very good plan to do a coup and appoint a child king to restore

Catholic rule to England. Or child queen. Yeah. They love a child king. So this plan has... Okay, I'm separating it out into three stages. I don't know whether it's fair to, but I'm doing it. So, part one, use a bunch

of gunpowder to blow up the English parliament. Okay. Now, and this is something that's very important to understand what's happening here. This is not a parliament in the sense that we understand it today. Like, this is not like a in the sense that we understand it today like this is not like a representative body like the parliament is basically it's an assembly assembly of nobles yeah it's the instrument of power of the english aristocracy yeah which is one of the greatest

forces for human evil in the entirety of human like the 300 000 year history of humanity yeah we don't have it britain doesn't have a universal franchise until after 1832 so like yeah and this is this is this is 1605 yeah right like and throughout that whole period the the power sort of the aristocracy like weighs but this this is they are unbelievably powerful i see they don't have an universal manhood suffrage even until later i think 1848 before that every constituency has its own franchise rules which makes parliament even fucking weirder yeah you have something like proto-democratic and you have somewhere it's just a guy yeah and he just shows up to parliament and represents himself yeah it's great yeah so you know this part of the

plan deploying at the parliament plan great we love it we support destroying the english aristocracy uh yeah always great get the king why not it's gonna was it gonna support destroying the english aristocracy uh yeah always great get the king why not it's gonna was it gonna be at the state opening of parliament i i think it was it was going to be at some session of parliament where the king was going to be and that was part two of the big parliament yeah fun fact britain still does this uh incredibly antiquated uh like barbaric Yeah, this is where the... We need China to conquer the UK and establish civilization there.

Failed it. They're like, Britain couldn't even do a bourgeois revolution. Do you know how easy it is to do a bourgeois revolution? Like, Sun Yat-sen pulled it off. No, but Britain has the most established fucking aristocracy in the world. So...

Oh, my God. At the British state opening of parliament, which still happens to this day, right? because britain has the most established fucking aristocracy in the world so oh my god at the british state opening of parliament which still happens to this day right incredibly like antiquated procedure they search the cellars of parliament beforehand to check that no one else is trying to blow them up like this is now part of the uh part of the uh and like there's a whole there's like an exchange of hostages uh like like there are all these things that are built in from bizarre episodes in british history they they send someone from parliament to buckingham palace to be like a hostage oh my god for the duration of it's an incredible this is yeah this is the stupidest system in the like it the british the british system like i think functionally it is a more advanced democratic system than the American system.

But in terms of the way that it's, like, procedure works, it is like, like, the American Constitution, which is, like, one of the most regressive constitutions. Like, a constitution that failed to enshrine one person, one vote. Yeah. Right? to enshrine one person, one vote. Yeah. Right? Like, that constitution looks like fucking Star Trek compared to, like, watching this stupid-ass king

hauling around a scepter. Yeah, some dude bangs on the door three times and then, yeah, Sausage Fingers gets in there and reads his speech. Yeah, so part two of the Gunpowder plot is to kill the king who's going to be there, too. This is also great. We like killing the king.

Cool Zone Media is a pro-killing-the-king... too. This is also great. We like Killing the King. Cool Zone Media is a pro-Killing the King media establishment. Yes. Regicide rules. We love it. It's great. Part three

is to install a Catholic theocracy to replace the Protestant one and we simply do not love this. This shit sucks. That's where we diverge, sadly.

Yeah. This part's very bad. V for Vendetta may have misled you about the intentions of Guy Fawkes. Yes, and we'll get to V for Vendetta because I think that's an important part of the closing of this story. So, the plan falls apart,

the plotters get betrayed, Guy Fawkes, who's the guy who's supposed to light the gunpowder, gets caught and tortured, which is really funny because you'll read accounts. I'm going to read a bit from an account from the somewhat dubiously named EnglishHeritage.org that is like, they're just quite pretty good on this. Yeah, they own lots of big old houses and stuff. If you want to go and see a manor house,

you're probably going to give them some money to go in. It's not as bad as something named english heritage could be i guess it could be a lot more racist in an open and explicit way yeah yeah now but like the thing about this right is like they don't actually describe what happened to him during his interrogation as torture even though they tortured the shit out of this guy oh yeah like the king was there well they tortured the shit out of this guy oh yeah like the king was there while they tortured the shit out of this guy oh yeah yeah very unpleasant i imagine yeah yeah and so eventually like all the plotters are like either captured or killed and i'm gonna read this from that english heritage article quote each was found guilty and sentenced to a traitor's

death by the grisly ordeal of hanging drawing and, and quartering. Oh, yeah, hung, drawn, and quartered. The men were hanged. It's so bad. I loved this shit when I was in school. You don't understand how great this is for, like, eight-year-old boys. Yeah, but, like, Jesus fucking Christ. So they were hanged, cut down while still alive, castrated, dismembered, and beheaded,

and then their bodies were cut into quarters and displayed for all to see and for birds to feast upon. Yep. According to all accounts, all faced their fates bravely. So, this is something that, like, is genuinely important to understand, because we're going to get to the French Revolution part of the story very soon. These people are fucking deranged.

They're, like, they're psychopaths. Like, they just they do this as public entertainment. Oh, yeah. Like, they hang people and then cut them down and castrate them and then dismember and behead them while Oh, yeah. Like, they hang people and then cut them down and castrate them and then dismember and behead them while they're alive. Like, they do this, like, for fun? Yeah. Isn't this the opening scene of Discipline and Punishment by Foucault?

Doesn't he describe this? Yeah. Yeah, and, like, you know, like, this is... This is the thing you have to remember about the French Revolution, is that, like, these, this is the thing you have to remember about the French revolution is that like, these are the people who rule Europe for like 700 years. Oh yeah.

Or like these motherfuckers. And so, you know, like they, they, they stopped the gunpowder treason. No one gets blown up. Um,

and November 5th, like immediately gets declared a holiday, but it's not really the same holiday as, as we have today. I'm going to read again from that article quote since 1673 and up until the 19th century some crowds have paraded an effigy of the pope through the streets strung up above a bonfire this symbolized continuing prejudice prejudice towards catholics which again like you motherfuckers weren't Catholics until fucking seven seconds ago. What is wrong with you people?

You were all Catholics until your king decided to make a fake pope so he could get divorced. What the fuck? Yeah, the anti-Catholicism goes pretty hard. Like for a country where you were like you were all literally catholics until the king decided you weren't what is oh my god i hate christianity so much this shit sucks so badly talking of parades have you uh have you read about the uh the lewis bonfire in sussex no okay they like they go super hard for bonfire night they also like I think it was the same day or something that some protestants were burned at a stake there oh great uh but they have

this big parade where they like they drag like I think it's burning barrels of like pitch or tar oh my possibly those are the same thing uh they have like I'm gonna invite you to google Lewis uh Lewis Bonfire just just tell me what the first image you see is. Oh, Jesus Christ. Oh, no. Oh, no. That's Parade of Burning Crosses. Yeah.

Oh, no. That's correct. Yeah. Oh, jeez. What you're going to see is a Burning Crosses. Jump scare. So they don't just burn Guy Fawkes in Effigy. They have these big sort of...

Every year they'll have like the person of the year they're gonna burn, so like, Effigies that they've burned include David Cameron, Jeremy Clarkson, and Seb Blatter. Like, some of it goes surprisingly hard like I think at some point like there's like a formal like they've been investigated by the police

for hate crimes multiple times nearly all of them are against politicians so like you know we probably should mention they also burned

a Romani caravan Jesus which is pretty fucking terrible yeah alright speaking of burning David Cameron

do you know who else burns David Cameron? Is it the goods and services that support this podcast? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, I'm Jack Peace Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black Lit,

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

while uncovering the stories of the brilliant writers behind them. Blacklit is here to amplify the voices of Black writers and to bring their words to life. Listen to Blacklit on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The 2025 iHeart Podcast Awards are coming. This is the chance to nominate your podcast for the industry's biggest award.

Submit your podcast for nomination now at iHeart.com slash podcast awards. But hurry, submissions close on December 8th. Hey, you've been doing all that talking. It's time to get rewarded for it. Submit your podcast today at iHeart.com slash podcast awards. That's iHeart.com slash podcast awards. Better offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose. This season, I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel-winning economists to leading journalists in the field,

and I'll be digging into why the products you love keep getting worse and naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get me wrong, though. I love technology. I just hate the people in charge and want them to get back to building things that actually do things to help real people. I swear to God things can change if we're loud enough. So join me every week to understand what's happening in the tech industry and what could be done to make things better.

Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com. Hola mi gente, it's Honey German and I'm bringing you Gracias, Come Again. The podcast where we dive deep into the world of Latin culture, musica, peliculas and entertainment with some of the biggest names in the game. If you love hearing real conversations with your favorite Latin celebrities, artists and culture shifters, this is the podcast for you. We're talking real conversations with our Latin stars,

from actors and artists to musicians and creators, sharing their stories, struggles, and successes. You know it's going to be filled with chisme laughs and all the vibes that you love. Each week, we'll explore everything from music and pop culture to deeper topics like identity, community, and breaking down barriers in all sorts of industries. Don't miss out on the fun, el té caliente and life stories. Join me for Gracias Come Again, a podcast by Honey German, where we get into todo lo actual y viral. Listen to Gracias Come Again

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On Thanksgiving Day, 1999, a five-year-old boy floated alone in the ocean. He had lost his mother trying to reach Florida from Cuba. He looked like a little angel. I mean, he looked so fresh. And his name, Elian Gonzalez, will make headlines everywhere.

Elian Gonzalez. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian Gonzalez. At the heart of the story is a young boy and the question of who he belongs with.

His father in Cuba. Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or his relatives in Miami. Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. At the heart of it all is still this painful family separation. Something that as a Cuban, I know all too well. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story, as part of the My Cultura podcast network,

available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We're now returning. Let's go back to that thing I was reading about what happened to them paying the Pope. Yeah. So this symbolized continuing prejudice against Catholics. However, during the French Revolution,

English and Irish Catholics fought for Britain, which found itself on the same side of the Pope. And perhaps because of this, in around 1800, Guy Fawkes seems to have finally entered the picture as the boogeyman of Bonfire Night, rather than the Pope. Fawkes was barely mentioned in 5th November sermons in the 18th century, and his name doesn't feature in the

titles of books or tracts before 1800. But after that date, his name began to appear, and Fawkes seems to have quickly become a central character in English popular culture, often portrayed as a dashing, doomed anti-hero. Yeah. And this is a reminder that Protestantism versus Catholicism is a fucking joke.

The ruling class has always had one religion, counter-revolution, and when their asses are on the line, Protestant terrorists and Catholic Supreme Court justices can work together just fine to make sure you can't get a fucking abortion. Yep. So, you know, what we have here, and this is an interesting thing in the sense that like Guy Fawkes becoming the guy that Guy Fawkes Day is about and not like the Pope is literally an icon of sort of like of kind of revolution. Yeah, that's a good point.

Like specifically against the french revolution but it's interesting because it's like this eventually seems to kind of have backfired because guy fox kind of like becomes the central figure right but then and this is something that like this article also mentions that i want to go into more everything sort of changes again about this when the movie v for vendetta gets made yeah it's very strange yeah and let's actually so before we do v for vendetta can you talk a little bit more about like what people do during during guy fox day because it's fun yeah totally yeah so it is fun it is it's a nice like a little as burnings in effigy go you know a fun one at least what we used to do i grew

up in a more rural area uh is we'd all everyone would if you had like wood or you chopped down a tree you know in your land or you had old furniture you'd all bring it to one place right big field you pile and you're with it's fucking high it's like a couple of stories high by the time damn and then you go down on the 5th of november everyone gets fireworks this is is where I'll tell my firework story. Very amusingly, when I was younger, everyone in my village clubbed together to buy one of those fireworks displays, you know, where it's like a box and you light one fuse and they all go off.

Oh, shit. So we've set that up, my dad and his mate, and we're in the van there. We've lit it. Then we're sort of standing there, like, ready to go, woo, ah! Unfortunately, we've placed it upside then we've we're sort of standing there like ready to go oh ah um and unfortunately we've placed it upside down bouncing off the ground and then it flips on the side we're now behind the van and it's just it's fucking smashing the van so yeah what you do is you get fireworks, you shoot them at your friends, you shoot

them in the air, you have a massive bonfire. And this is November in Britain, right? So days are short, nights are long, everything's wet. So you're using a lot of petrol to start the bonfire, like irresponsible amounts of flammable. You just have a huge fire. And then if you have old clothes, at least i'm sure it's different if you grow up in like a more urban setting what we would do is we get our old clothes tie the bottom of the trousers together tie the uh wrists together and then you stuff all that

with straw that you have right and then you put a head on it uh pet like a bag like a plastic bag or flower bag you draw a little face on it and that's your guy um you can go around to people's houses and ask for a penny for the guy that's that had sort of become quite old-fashioned by the time i was a child but you make these guys and then you take them down there and then you you put them on top of the bonfire before you light it and everyone watches as he catches on fire and burns to death. And you have toffee apples at the other thing. Oh, that's fun. Yeah, I used to like it.

And you have sparklers, you know, which is, you know, a little sparkler on a stick. Yeah, it was fun. It's got something for every age. You're a little kid, you have a sparkler. And then once you get to, you know, like 10, 12, you can shoot fireworks at your friends. Like, really, it's something for everyone i guess unless you're catholic yeah but that's the thing though that the catholicism and protestantism it's very it's secularized yeah like they've been united they've been united in the single great british religion of counter

revolution so now everyone can celebrate guy fox day together yeah it's true and it's supposed to like reinforce the state and be like if you fuck with the state we will burn you which v for vendetta kind of i guess messes with a little bit but yeah and and this i think it's actually a really interesting process because i think guy fox now is most known for the guy fox mask which was one of the symbol of the symbol of anonymous and like one of the symbols of yeah but it wasn't before that yeah yeah and parts of how this happens is so is is a character named guy fox in alan moore's view for vendetta and view for vendetta is not about a catholic plot to establish the catholic rule in in in britain yeah this is about like effectively the government

of the uk is going to have in five years when they just, like, completely descend into fascism. Yeah, we're not that far away now, to be honest. Yeah, and it's about that government getting overthrown by an anarchist revolution. Yeah. And it's like this because, like, you know, Alan Moore is a leftist. It's made by the Wachowskis

of Matrix fame who are also trans leftists. We're going to close on them actually but you know sort of what happens here right is like this mask becomes a

symbol of like kind of like really altogether detached from the original figure of Guy Fawkes and like through the form of this

movie like this becomes the symbol of like the 2011 like Occupy Cycle revolutions everywhere yeah and like one of

my most sort of like harrowing memories like coming up in that movement was of this like 2014 everything's going by 2014 everything's going to shit right like the trinity war has kicked off the rabab massacre in egypt has like slaughtered a bunch of protesters and egypt's like just under

full military rule and there's a like there are like palestinian kids like wearing guy fox masks and there's like this image that haunts me. There's a video and an image of it. This kid is like 17, maybe like 16, 17, like wearing this mask. And he walks around a corner and this really sniper just fucking shoots him in the head. And there's this picture of him with like this mask with a hole in it next to his face. And he's just like lying there on the floor and it's yeah like one of the things that is like the reason why the way i am now is because of that shit yeah and you know in some sense like he's becoming weirdly an enduring danger to the state

in ways that he would be extremely pissed about which is very funny to me yeah it started as a graphic novel right it was a graphic novel before yeah? It was a graphic novel before. Yeah, yeah. It was an Alan Moore graphic novel. Comic books. Yeah. Yeah. And I want to close on the Wachowskis. And specifically, I wanted to shout out.

So again, like the Wachowskis made the movie V for Vedetta, which is the thing that like popularized it and is in a lot of sense responsible for like the aesthetic of the 2011 revolutions. And she's founded a new project called anarchist united i'm going to quote from an interview with her quote it will be a studio wholly owned by a foundation it's owned by this 501c3 the 501c3 provides grants for artists and young filmmakers with marginalized points of view hopefully those people will create stuff bring it over to the studio the studio can make it and then fund the foundation. So you create this evergreen operation

that can hopefully exist outside of the studio system if necessary. And so they're making a bunch of trans shit. Like they're adapting Gretchen Felcom Martin's Manhunt, which is like the most trans femme ass

like book of the last, like it's a book about trans misogyny and it's getting, we're getting it fucking adapted. That's awesome. Yeah, it's really cool and yeah like I think I think I don't know that that's the thing I want to close on is like a note of

hope of like even the most deranged kind of revolutionaries actions against the state can sometimes ricochet around 400 years later and turn into like a revolutionary movement bounce back into transform films and uh it's like um i often think about hunger games like yeah the hunger game

symbol i've i would love to interview the lady who wrote hunger games i think she's quite like doesn't like the media attention so much from what i've heard yeah but like that became the symbol of the like around the the milky alliance right alliance, right. In Hong Kong, Myanmar, obviously, even in, uh, Thailand. Yeah. And like, it's fascinating how these things have these cultural, um, like, yeah, they, they sort of bounce around. It becomes something completely different from what they were. Yeah.

Well, and, and, you know, it's this weird thing too, cause like the Hunger Games is born of Suzanne Collins, like flipping channels between coverage of like the, like watching the bombing in the Iraq war and reality TV. Yeah. I remember reading that. And you see, and you're watching like this rebound of this, like the intense reaction of this cultural moment to 2003, 2004, like the, like the, one of, one of the peaks of, of American like kind of counter-revolution. Rebounds around, and suddenly a bunch of, like,

a bunch of revolutionaries of Myanmar are doing the, like, fucking two figures thing. Yeah, yeah, doing the Cub Scouts. Yeah, and so, you know, this is one of these things where, like, you know, who knows where your story one day is going to end up and rebound to. But if we survive this, we are promised that this year was the beginning

of the golden age of leftist transcendence. So, let's fucking get there more and... If you're in England, enjoy burning shit tonight. If you're in America, who knows? Maybe same. I'll enjoy burning shit tonight. Yeah!

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Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Jacqueline Thomas, the host of a brand new

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