It Could Happen Here - Who Bombed The Greenpeace Boat, An Earth Day Special

Episode Date: April 21, 2023

Mia tells the story of the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior and the movement against nuclear testing.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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with nothing to lose. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts from. Happy Earth Day. And by happy Earth Day, I mean the Earth is dying and people are killing it

uh yeah welcome welcome dick it happened here the earth day episode now now now quick question mia what is earth so the earth is one of many many many planets in the universe. It's a congealed rock. There's some, like, melty shit in the middle of it. But on the outside, there's a part of it that's nice to live on, and it'd be nice to continue to have it be that. Ah, okay. This is different than what I had been raised to believe, but I'll humor you here.

Please continue. Yes, and so okay we're going to be talking today about uh one one of the many attempts to uh destroy the earth and also garrison is here too hello yes hi i'm i'm here also for the earth for the earth yeah yeah and this is a special episode featuring a bombing so it is oh i love a good bombing yeah this is very exciting actually technically speaking it's two bombs so it is near midnight on july 10th 1985 the crew of the greenpeace boat rainbow warrior which is docked in the harbor of auckland which is new zealand's largest city a thing that i learned

while researching this episode wait really that's new zealand's largest city, a thing that I learned while researching this episode. Wait, really? That's New Zealand's largest city? Yeah. Yeah, there's not a lot in New Zealand other than Hobbits and that one show about vampires. A lot of cheese, too. They make a lot of milk. So, yeah, the Greenpeace boat is docked

in this harbor. Most of the crew is asleep or some of them are playing cards, and they are relaxing after having celebrated the birthday of one of their crews. Suddenly, a massive shock rips through the boat. Water starts flooding into the ship. The lights go out and the crew thinks they've been hit by a tug boat by accident.

That lasts a couple of minutes until a second explosion hits the boat. Mr. President, a second explosion has hit the boat. 9-11 joke yes very excellent good work so the crew the light like the people fleeing 9-11 the crew flees the boat but they realize that their photographer a guy named fernando perriera is missing and perriera like hasn't quite realized that the boat is like under attack and so he runs back to his cabin to

grab his camera and then the second explosion hits and the boat sinks so fast that he never has a chance to get back up. Um, and he drowns to death and the crew very quickly realizes that this is not an accident. Um, and rescue divers discovered there are massive, there's like massive holes in the ship from where I've been blown up from the

outside. And they eventually determined that this boat, which is, again, a Greenpeace boat that is doing nonviolent civil disobedience, has been sunk by limpet mines. Oh, boy. Oh, I love a good limpet mine. I'm so happy that we're getting limpet mines in this episode.

Yeah, yeah, we're getting limpet mines. There'll be some special forces boats later. Or did I say boats? It's one boat. But yeah, we're going through all of the sort of naval combat greats here excellent but this raises the question who would commit such an act of terrorism on the i can't actually say on the soil of new zealand because it's technically in the water of new zealand in the waters of new zealand yeah yeah yeah off the coast of new zealand sure yeah we get it

yeah but okay so to answer this question we need to talk about the anti-nuclear movement and you know there's been a kind of rewriting of history about what the anti-nuclear movement was actually about um to basically like sort of purely focus on the anti-nuclear movement as something it's just about nuclear power but that that was never true. The movement was always way more larger than that, and a huge part of it was about opposing nuclear weapons, both in terms of, like, opposing nuclear tests and in terms of fighting for nuclear disarmament on the fairly simple principle that having weapons that can kill everyone on Earth around is a bad idea.

Well, it's a bad idea if you don't want to destroy the entire earth but that's true yeah if you want to destroy the earth it's a pretty good idea actually unfortunately i'm on a living kick right now so i'm i'm now anti-destroying everything on earth yeah it's good that you can admit your bias up front though that's yeah yeah this is a very important thing in journalism yeah so you know okay so when we talk a bit about nuclear testing because it doesn't it doesn't happen anymore um nuclear testing okay so we used to just like detonate nuclear bombs like in the air damn right you're goddamn right we did yeah and it turns out this this kills enormous numbers of people but the problem is that it kills them very

slowly with increased cancer rates which is very difficult to sort of track or like prove direct causality and you know this is aided by the fact that when countries do nuclear testing they are almost always killing people well they're almost always dropping this the nukes on indigenous land which means that they're killing people who the government and most of the country just like does not care about and you know you you can literally map colonialism and sort of the value that a given like a given state places on people's lives by you know where they tested nuclear weapons so for example the u.s tested nuclear bombs in places like the bikini atoll the marshall islands a former tribal land in

nevada and new mexico and in Hatesburg, Mississippi. Okay. So Jesus Christ, all those are bad, except, except Mississippi. No, no, that was also bad because,

uh, guess, uh, guess, guess, guess what race the population of Hatesville, Mississippi was. All right.

Yeah. Uh, they got paid $10 to get relocated. Quote unquote. Yeah. This is, this10 to get relocated, quote unquote. Yeah. This is not a white city that they are blowing up with a nuclear bomb. It's not like a gated community for white men in their 50s or something. No.

No. No, the only good nuclear testing we did was back in the day when they used to set off nukes right outside of Vegas. And so all of the Vegas people would watch the nukes go off and then get irradiated. That was that was kind of funny. Yeah, they also they also irradiated the Area 51 people one time. And that was also extremely funny. They sure did. And there was that like guy, I think it was uranium.

There was like one of the dudes who was on the Manhattan Project. I think it was uranium. There was like one of the dudes who was on the Manhattan Project. There was this like dude who there was like an accident and he just sucked down a bunch of nuclear fuel. And they had to like he could never work in a lab again after that. And he every for like decades afterwards, his breath tested positive for like radioactivity. But he lived to be like 80 something. Like it didn't seem to have hurt him.

He said it tasted kind of like sour candy. Okay, so he's tasted the forbidden nuclear water. No one else has to now. We know what it tastes like. Yeah. Oh, yeah, Donald Mastic was. He was sprayed in the face with liquid plutonium chloride and swallowed

some. But apparently that's fine, so there you go everybody. Drink liquid plutonium chloride and swallowed some um but apparently that's fine so there you go everybody drink some plutonium you'll live a long life so the u.s i guess i guess also tests it on their nuclear scientists but yeah so that those are those were the u.s tested the ussr tested nukes in kazakhstan which there's an amazing story about baria going where there's nobody amazing story about Beria going, there's nobody, nobody lives in this part, nobody lives in Kazakhstan, so we'll be fine. It's like, okay, Beria, people, in fact, you live there. China tests its nukes at a site called Lop Nor, which is in Xinjiang, because of course it is.

And the French do their tests in the Sahara and Algeria until the Algerian revolution forces them out, which good for them. Death of betrayers, the Algerian workers councils, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But this means that the French now no longer being able to bomb like their colonial possessions in Algeria. Yeah, they they they start testing the nuclear weapons on particularly the. They start testing the nuclear weapons on particularly the... Maruro? I don't know how to pronounce this. I'm really sorry.

What is it? Maruro Atoll in the South Pacific. Yeah, I mean, that sounds close enough. Yeah, sure. Yeah, and so they start these tests in secret. So there are people on islands nearby who don't know that there's nukes going off like they don't even have bomb shelters right it's real loud these days anybody notice how loud it's gotten here yeah i was like you know you can see the fucking mushroom cloud right yeah like these people you know the the french military scientists are like oh it's fine they're not gonna

be in the fallout they're unbelievably in the fallout radius. If anyone ever tells you you're not in a fallout radius, that's your first sign that you are, in fact, in a fallout radius. Yeah, it's never it's never a great it's never a great sign. I don't think that's happening. I don't think anyone has ever assured a group of people that they're not going to be exposed to radiation and been telling the truth. Here's the thing. Here's the thing. If they had merely gone to these people and said, you're not going to be exposed to radiation and been telling the truth. Here's the thing. Here's the thing. If they had merely gone to these people

and said you're not going to be exposed to radiation, it would have been better because then at least it would have had a chance. They just didn't tell these people at all they were testing a nuke. Sure. They just blew it up. Great.

And so they detonate, like, they detonate nukes all over Polynesia. In, actually, a few years ago, there was a thing called the Maroua Files, which was a bunch of investigative journalists got together. They got a bunch of classified French military documents. They got some scientists together,

and they did a whole thing about the sort of influence that the effects of this nuclear testing has. And I'm just going to read from that quote, according to our calculations based on a scientific reassessment of the doses received approximately 110,000 people were infected. Almost the entire Polynesian population at the time. Good God. So it radiated like the entire population of Polynesia.

This is, this is great. So. I mean, that's the entire population of Polynesia. This is great. So, you know. I mean, that's not ideal. That's not ideal. Yeah. I'll give them that. And, okay, so obviously nuclear testing has negative effects on humans.

I feel like I don't need to explain how nuclear testing has, dropping a nuclear bomb on a place has a negative effect on the environment. That seems. Are you sure? It seems pretty obvious. testing has dropping a nuclear bomb on a place has a negative effect on the environment uh that seems are you sure are you sure it seems pretty obvious i think we're all more or less caught up on nuking things being bad for them except well except for underwater aquatic lizards uh which seem to do really well when exposed to nuclear tests yeah they they look they can they they they have atomic breath now they've got absolutely yeah big big they get to star in a movie with a a surprising number of members of the cast of simpsons um yeah it's it's all it's all upsides oh and that uh ferris bueller i think was in it so that's pretty good yeah did these people get to star in a movie with ferris

bueller uh no they died of radiation poisoning yeah that's unfortunate that's unfortunate yeah and so these tests and some other tests of the u.s are doing the marshall islands are the origin of greenpeace so there there have been environmental groups like the Sierra Club have been involved in anti-nuclear activism because, again, bad for the environment, dropping nukes. But, okay, so the activism that the Sierra Club people are doing is based

on bearing witness. And the Greenpeace people rightly are like, fuck bearing witness, they are dropping nuclear bombs, we are going to try to stop these bastards the only way you can beat a bad guy with a nuclear bomb is a good guy with a nuclear bomb i'm introducing a new initiative to arm all greenpeace members okay the personal personal tactical nuke not a joke the davis crockett this is this is i am not kidding france's rationale

for why they have nukes which is that the thing is literally called like this like the the the weak deterring the strong or something and it's like ma'am you are france like come on okay yeah sure france is acting for the protection of uh the against the strong. It's like, oh my. I mean, look, I would, if I had the option, I would keep a nuke in my basement, you know, just in case. Yeah, someone comes to my house, you know, I've got the option then, right? Like, what if, because like right now, okay, say Pakistan decides to try to rob my house. I don't have a counter to their nuclear arsenal.

But if I keep, you know, and I'm not even talking, like, six to ten megatons in my basement, that's enough, I think, to discourage aggression, right? Or if, like, my neighbor decides to call the city on me, you know? I've got an option. There's a problem with this plan, which is, how are you getting the nuke from your apartment to Pakistan?

Well, I mean, look, it's if they come to my house, right? That way I can I can nuke all of my stuff so they won't want it. And that way they won't rob me in the first place. Right. This this this makes about as much sense as actual nuclear and actual nuclear doctrine yeah i mean it's it's worked for decades mia like i don't know what your problem is here if it if it's worked for for all of these great powers you know it can work for me or i could do what the british do and send you know some of my some of my people out i could

send james or garrison out underwater with a nuclear weapon and just have them always waiting in the sea to nuke my adversaries if somebody takes me out, much like the British nuclear fleet. See? We as a human race are really good at coming up with good ideas. Yeah. Our ideas are amazing. They rock.

We never have any bad ones it is funny that there's just like some guys who are expected to like follow a dead man's orders at the end of the world uh for for unclear reasons like there's just a letter and it's like if all of your loved ones die open this letter and do whatever it says nukes are really funny when you think about them. Yeah. So, okay. So in the late 60s and early 70s, there's people who are like, this is a terrible idea. We should not, in fact, drop nuclear bombs.

And these groups in the late 60s become Greenpeace in 1970, 1972. Okay. Great for them. Good for them. Yeah. All right. So we've talked about the French having to move their nuclear program into into the Pacific after being ran out of Algeria. Greenpeace starts doing direct actions against French nuclear testing. And so so in 1972, Dave McTaggart, one of the founders of Greenpeace, sails his boat into a French nuclear testing area.

Now, okay, I have my issues sort of in principle with nonviolence as your pure organizing political principle, but if you are willing to sail your boat under a nuclear bomb to stop it from going off, that is pretty based. Yeah, man, I have trouble

coming up with any critiques of that. No, this rips. And the other thing is is pretty based yeah i mean i have trouble i have trouble like coming up with any uh any any critiques of that no this rips and like the other thing is like you know this isn't this isn't a stunt right like they are they are actually prepared to get nuked yeah no that's that seems like a pretty yeah commitment yeah i'll give them that it's it's sick uh and so they refuse to leave and the french the french navy eventually gets so pissed off that a French Navy ship rams their boat like a fucking trireme in order to get them out. Hell yeah. So they're forced out because they're rammed by a trireme.

Happens to the best of us. We've all been there. Sometimes, sometimes you just get, you just get rammed. I don't know. It happens. So true. sometimes sometimes you just get you just get rammed i don't know it happens so true so they they greenpeace tries to go to the international court of justice to get a ruling to force france to stop the testing and the french government uh stakes out what i i i i claim is like the primary status political principle which is that what is justice to a man holding a gun?

And they just absolutely ignore the International Court of Justice. So in 1974, they're trying to do another set of nuclear tests. And this time, you know, so Greenpeace is like, okay, well, we're going to send like a flotilla of boats out this time. Did you just say a flotilla?

Yeah. Is that a word? Yeah. Yeah, that's a group of boats, this time. Did you just say a flotilla? Yeah. Is that a word? Yeah. Yeah, that's a group of boats, Garrison. That's like a murder of crows thing? No, yeah. Yeah, but this is a very common name for a bunch of boats.

I've never heard that before. Now you have. A flotilla. Yeah, L. Ron Hubbard had a flotilla of boats that he made teenagers pilot and jump off of when he was angry at them. You know, I was thinking about this. I think this is actually the first flotilla of boats that we've had on any of our shows that is good. That's not that's not commanded by L. Ron Hubbard.

Yeah, or like the Moody's. It's a whole it's a whole sort of line of bad. But this is this is a good flotilla. But the Navy this time is like, OK, we're not going to mess around with these people and let them get inside the testing zone. So they just board McTaggart's ship and just beat the shit out of him and his crew. And so the French Navy claims that like, oh, the Greenpeace people just like turned around on their own and McTaggart, you you know mctaggart's like very badly

visibly hurt so he like shows up to the press and the the french navy goes oh i mean he's like mctaggart is like he is he he's like blind in one eye for several months like he is very very badly beaten and uh the french navy claims that was actually the result of a fall which i i i will allow you to draw your own conclusions you walked into a door yeah i i i'll let you draw your own conclusions about parallels between the state and domestic abusers but yeah yeah unfortunately for uh the french navy the greenpeace crew have managed to like get the beatings on camera and they're able to smuggle like the film canister off the boat and get it to the newspapers and so the newspapers the next day just have a bunch of like pictures showing

the French Navy just beating the shit out of these like random Greenpeace people and this eventually actually works right there's sort of there's I mean there's there's a sort of political pressure campaign that Greenpeace is waging there are these there are these campaigns in the French courts to get the government to stop and eventually in 1974

the French government agrees to stop conducting atmospheric tests and nuclear weapons. Now, Robert, do you know who else stopped conducting atmospheric testing after years of public pressure campaigns? The US and the USSR? Yes, but also the products and services that support this podcast. Oh, that support this podcast. Yeah, no, I mean, most of them. Most of them. Welcome. I'm Danny Thrill. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter?

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I know all too well. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story, Listen to Chess Piece, 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. Ah, we're back. And, you know, that I'm hearing now that we we did have an ad from Blue Apron in there who does continue like low Earth orbit atmospheric nuclear weapons testing. But, you know, it's the only way to get your food boxes to you in a timely manner. They have to use the Orion Drive, which is a special spacecraft engine that relies on popping nuclear weapons out of the back of a spaceship and using them to accelerate it to near light speed. It's actually that's a you can look that up. It's a pretty cool idea.

I think we should do it. It is very funny to me that it's like, OK, we have this incredibly convoluted drive that's powered by nuclear weapons and it it gets you to around the speed of light maybe it's it's not even convoluted it's literally just the spaceship poops out a nuke and it makes it go faster it's a fun idea i'm gonna be honest with you i think it's a fun idea it is but like it can't even get you to like the next solar system very fast well nothing probably ever can which is why we're all doomed to die alone in the dark yeah very sad other thing that's sad okay so the french government agrees to stop doing like tests in the atmosphere right however this is just atmospheric tests i never agreed to stop doing like non-atmospheric tests so in 1985 the french government is gearing up to do another round of nuclear testing and

greenpeace is once again bringing a flotilla to try to stop them now greenpeace are already in 1985 they've been involved in another anti-nuclear well okay really it's just it's it's all the same anti-nuclear campaign but so the other people who are dropping nukes in the pacific are the u.s and when they they nuked the marshall islands the people of this uh island called rongalap uh began suffering from radiation exposure even though they were also once, told by the American government that they were fine. And so the U.S. is going to drop another nuke. And they refuse to evacuate these people. And so Greenpeace, like, brings their boats, like, brings the Rainbow Warrior. And these people ask, like, Greenpeace for help. So Greenpeace, like, evacuates them all to another island and, like, brings, like, construction materials construction materials and supplies so they can like set up on a new island.

And it's this really, I don't know, it's a really sort of grim look into what, you know, like what this nuclear testing actually means, which is that a bunch of people who've been living in a place for hundreds of years are forced to flee for their lives like you know the state won't the state won't even like ethnically cleanse them right like they they are they are forcibly relocated from their homes but the state won't even do it because the state's like no it's fine we're just gonna die radiation poisoning and so they have to get someone else to like move them and it's i don't know it's it's really bleak uh these people survive which is good but the u.s doing nuclear testing in the marshall islands which i i'm betting at least 40 of you don't know of the control um yeah it it sucks so okay so they they they they they get done with this evacuation they're back in auckland and then their flagship the rainbow warrior gets bombed and greenpeace talks later about how they

actually got really lucky because you know remember what i said earlier there are people who are still awake like playing cards if those people had been in their cabins a bunch of them basically would have drowned immediately because the cabins got flooded instantly by the first bomb so they got very lucky only one person died i i to this day i do not understand why the people who did this thought they could do this without killing anyone like i it's baffling to me i i i don't know i at least they claim they weren't trying to kill anyone uh so new zealand police start investigating you know, hey, there's been a, like a terrorist attack on a boat in our harbor. Sure.

Yeah. That seems like a thing you'd look into. Yeah. I get that. They get very, very lucky. And they get lucky because there are two people in this boating club who are like watching the harbor, trying to see if, like trying to catch someone who's been stealing diving equipment.

like watching the harbor trying to see if like trying to catch someone who's been stealing diving equipment and in the middle of the night they see a man in a black wetsuit carrying a zodiac inflatable speedboat ashore and get into a van now okay so it's unclear to me which model zodiac this is but for people not familiar with boats uh zodiac makes something called the mill pro which is a a like it's an inflatable speedboat that is used by like most of the world's special forces units. And so these two guys are like, this is really sketchy. And so they

put two and two together when they realize that a boat's been blown up and they're like, oh my god, it was probably these guys. So they go to the police and they're able to get the license plate of the van and so the staff at this like van depot have to like sit there and like stall the two people in the van and keep them from leaving long enough for the cops to show up which is something i really really

desperately want a video of it just sounds really funny i do love the idea of like the average people who work at like a car rental company being asked like, hey, could you do like a little bit of counterterrorism for us today? Just like a skosh of it in between denying people rentals because they don't have a credit card. It's amazing. Okay, so the cops show up and they arrest this couple who are claiming to be newlyweds but the New Zealand government quickly discovers that both these people have forged passports from Sweden hell yeah

and so they discover their real names and by god is that the Marseilles that is a man with a baguette it is the French CIA they have planted this bomb and what is the french cia called uh hold on because we can't just say the french cia yeah so it's the it's the directorate general for

external security or dgse that is oh that's a much worse much more definitely we're gonna we're gonna go back to calling it the french yeah i Yeah, I'm going to read it in French. Secret police, I think we can all agree, secret police need to have three-letter acronyms. CIA, GRU, FBI. Like, it just doesn't work with four. Or you need to have one kind of sinister-sounding name, like the moukabarat, but like the DGSE.

Oh, my God. I'm sorry, that sounds like a bank. Yeah, I mean, it's the Direction General de la Securité. No, no, that's off. That's trash. Trash. France, you have been suppressing people

for so long, and you don't have a better secret police name than that. That's shameful. Yeah, by the way, their address, MI6, that's a great fucking name for your secret police. Incredible. Or MI5, whatever the real one is. Yeah, anyways, if you ever want to go take a visit to these people,

their headquarters is on 141 Boulevard Mortier, Paris, France. It's at 48. 87.44 North, 2.4067 east latitude. Great. I don't need to go back to France. Yeah, go fuck with the DGSE.

I'm not that big a wine guy. It's fine. So they catch these agents whose names are, I you not gene camas and gene luke castare no yeah that makes sense no so the the the police catch these two there's like 10 other well there's like eight other people involved uh two of them get i think like maybe two one or two of them get caught in australia but the australian police aren't able to hold them long enough for the forensic evidence to come in. So they have to release them and they flee. And there's this whole thing where like they flee at a yacht and then they get on a submarine and the submarine shoots the yacht to sink it.

It's, it's, it's a whole thing. I actually, okay, it probably is worth mentioning here that as silly as the French CIA's name sounds, like, they have one of the most extensive networks of surveillance and sabotage of any intelligence agency in the world. It never gets talked about, but they have people everywhere. They are lethal. They absolutely suck. But, yeah, so they get caught and the the the french order an investigation and their first investigation concludes that like well we asked okay so these people are our spies right but we just asked them to spy on greenpeace we didn't ask them to do a bombing everyone's like okay yeah sure french government

so the the french we've all been there yeah yeah it's like well no okay so you you you you may have caught two of our spies dragging a zodiac boat well with a guy you know a guy in a wetsuit dragging a zodiac boat into a van but that doesn't mean he did the bombing and the french media does their own investigation and like quickly concludes that like that not only did the French order the bombing, the bombing was personally signed off on by French Defense Minister Charles Herdu, and also quite possibly French President Francois Mitterrand. Well, okay, at least Mitterrand's got a good name for an evil president. Yeah, well, this is interesting, right?

Because if you know your French history, for those of you who know your french history you will note that minaran is a man of the french left he's he's he's the prime minister he's the president from the from france's socialist party right he has like okay he has a program of amnesty for italian communist terrorists where like if you're able to make it to france they won't extradite you? That's pretty cool. The communists would never have a nuclear bomb. So very famously, Antonio Negri, who's the guy who writes a bunch of books that are very famous in the early 2000s, he's one of the founders of the autonomists. He flees to – he uses this to flee to France after the Italian government accused him of being the mastermind of the red brigades who had just kidnapped and killed former prime minister alden morrow so negri gets himself parliamentary immunity by getting elected as an mp and then flees to france which is just very funny and then midiran refuses to extradite him so okay so on the one hand you

would think that midiran is like i don't know kind of cool i i don't i i don't think so i don't i yeah so mid-iran okay so in terms of sort of being sympathetic mid-iran is like a is a kind of different kind of neoliberal than the kind that we that we sort of know so i i my i would classify in terms of sort of neoliberal like neoliberal politicians right like neoliberal heads of countries i think there's sort of like three kinds of them there are sort of the right-wing hardliners who people like thatcher like pinochet and reagan although reagan's weirdly reagan is slightly less hardline than like thatcher is but yeah so okay so there's there's those people there's the sort of like third way neoliberals like clinton and tony blair who are like i guess like liberals in the american sense

but are still sort of like real hardliners on economics. And then there's a group of people I would call like the quote unquote socialist neoliberals like Mitt Oran and Italy's longtime socialist party prime minister, Bettino Croxi. Like, I don't know if I could actually call him the most corrupt man in Italian politics, but like he's like at least in the top five, but he's prime minister for like 20 years. And he's also like this. So these are these are people who are nominally socialist and will talk about like doing socialism, but then are also like implementing neoliberalism. And, you know, I think the closest thing to this in the US is like if Carter had beaten Reagan, we still would have gotten neoliberalism, but it would have been sort of like softer than it was under Reagan. So, you know, you have your sort of kinder, gentler form of neoliberalism. And do you know who else advocates for a kinder and gentler form of neoliberalism?

Oh, not Blue Apron. No, they support going right back to the old days. We're talking like East India Trading Company. In fact, as we speak, Blue Apron's flotilla is on the coast of India right now, ready to try their hand at making another Raj in Calcutta.

Wish you could all see Garrison's face. It's amazing. It's fine. it's fine it's fine 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. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into how tech's elite has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search,

better offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose. This season, I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel-winning economists to leading journalists in the field, and I'll be digging into why the products you love keep getting worse and naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get me wrong, though. I love technology. I just hate

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

in the ocean. He had lost his mother trying to reach Florida from Cuba. He looked like a little angel. I mean, he looked so fresh. And his name, Elian Gonzalez, will make headlines everywhere. Elian name, Elian Gonzalez, will make headlines everywhere. Elian Gonzalez. Elian Gonzalez. Elian. Elian. Elian Gonzalez. At the heart of the story is a young boy and the question of who he belongs with. His father in Cuba. Mr. Gonzalez wanted to

go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or his relatives in Miami. Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. At the heart of it all is still this painful family separation. Something that as a Cuban, I know all too well. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story, as part of the My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Ah, we're back.

So the consequence of this is that, you know, despite the fact that Mitterrand is like nominally a socialist, he is completely committed to nuclear testing as part of his like nuclear deterrence program um funny funny how that funny how that always happens huh yeah you know now supporting colonialism is not out of character for mitteran who as part of a previous coalition government in the 50s had presided over the guillotining of Algerian rebels but uh his his reaction to his government and possibly also him personally bombing the rainbow warrior is not good yeah so that's nice to hear at least not a not a great look buddy yeah so so because French people are extremely, the reaction in the French public about their government carrying out a terrorist attack is that there's a giant nationalist upswell and people get really angry because they're demanding that the two French intelligence agents, who, again, are serving 10-year manslaughter sentences in New Zealand for bombing a ship involved in non-violent civil disobedience in the harbor of a country that France is not at war with.

People are mad that they are being held in prison and they're demanding they be released. That makes sense from the French nationalist side. It's the French far-right. They're pretty bad.

Again, lots of non-farfar right people in France get involved in this. And they have this whole thing about the way they talk about it is amazing. They talk about it in terms of liberating them. It's like they just murdered a guy with a bob. They used two mines to blow this ship up. but they use two mines to blow this ship up it's just like and so the mid-era's government's response is they start putting sanctions on new zealand's exports that's funny awesome that's funny and this is this is a huge deal for new zealand because uh they're they have a you know new zealand's economy is like in large part an agricultural based export economy and they export

just an enormous amount of cheese to France. Yeah. I did not know that. Yeah, well, so New Zealand is like one of the world's leading dairy producers. Yeah. I thought they mostly just made those like Elfin Dwarf and Wizard movies. Oh, yeah, I mean, they do make a lot of money producing Limbus cakes, which can keep you going for an entire week, you know? Wait, I'm realizing

Now, I'm not, Gare, do you know the story Of how New Zealand Was, like, dragged into Supporting the Iraq war and sending troops to Iraq? No. Okay, okay I need to tell the story, because I'm realizing there's some of our listeners Who might not have heard this the last time I told the story Okay, so, in the WikiLeaks

Papers, it comes out That New Zealand sent sent troops to Iraq because – so New Zealand had had a milk for oil program where they would trade milk to Iraq for oil. And the US threatened that after they invaded Iraq, they were going to cut off the milk for oil deal. And this was like Fonterra, the giant milk cooperative in New Zealand was so powerful. And the New Zealand government was like, fine, don't cut off our dairy, our milk for oil program. We will go to war. So yeah, New Zealand did not go to war for oil. New Zealand went to war for the milk market.

And that's why we called it a coalition of the willing yep oh new zealand is a truly a cursed place and you know and the the i mean i i don't think new zealand's the cursed one in that instance it's true but they also like this is the this is the second time that new zealand is going to capitulate to like the to the demands of a violent imperialist in order to save their cheese market. I mean, that's like a fair criticism of New Zealand, but as an American, I do feel like I don't really have much room to talk shit on this particular issue. It is our fault that this is all happening. I just am'm not gonna blame new zealand for this okay that that's fair that's fair i i i will kind of blame them for this one

although this is also france's fault so what what they're able to do is they're able to well okay partially also so like eight of the other people who are involved in this bombing like are just got out free and so new zealand is like hey guys, like, send us these people so we can try them? In fact, it's like, no, absolutely not. In fact, we will impose sanctions on you. And what they're able to do is they're able to force New Zealand to, like, enter UN arbitration, even though, again, they've already arrested and convicted these two guys, right?

Because they obviously did it. And the UN in typical UN fashion goes okay so France is powerful and New Zealand isn't so fuck them and they negotiate a deal where like these two French officers are going to be like released and stationed in this like tiny island at the French control for three years and so the French don't even do that

they pull these guys out in less than two years so New Zealand is they pull these guys out in less than two years. So New Zealand is... It doesn't go great. I mean, I don't know. I say it doesn't go great for them. In the short term,

they suffer a series of catastrophic defeats. In the midterm, the French eventually get ordered to pay $8.1 million to Greenpeace, who use the money to make another boat called the Rainbow Warrior 2,1 million to Greenpeace, who used the money to make another boat called the Rainbow Warrior 2 and continued to, like, sail fleets to stop French nuclear testing. Mm-hmm.

And I'm going to read from Greenpeace's website. Quote, In 1995, the Rainbow Warrior 2 was boarded by French commandos as it led further protests against nuclear testing in Moria Atoll. When Greenpeace activists were asked for their names, they only gave one, Fernando Perriera,

which is the name of the guy who the French had killed earlier. So they have their I'm Spartacus moments and, you know, eventually, it takes a very, very long time. But they win. In 1996, France and China do, like like one last nuclear test and then sign the comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty.

India and Pakistan do a pair of tests each in 1989. But since then, no country has tested a nuclear weapon except North Korea, who does it all the time. But, you know, I don't know what Greenpeace is supposed to do about North Korea testing nuclear weapons.

Yeah, I mean, look, you can't. And it is, I will say this, like, from a realpolitik point of view, you know, there's an argument to be made that, like, yeah, the kind of balance of nuclear power certainly provides a degree of protection to some countries. But my argument would be not having tested your weapons makes them more frightening. If you're France and you're like, look, man, anyone who tests us, we don't know what's going to happen when we fire these things. We don't know if they're going to go to the right place. We have no idea what will happen when we fire our nukes. So come on and fuck with us.

But literally anything could happen. That just seems like a better threat to me. I, I'm not going to advocate that one. I think that's the stance. I think that's the stance. Build increasingly large weapons and never test them so that we just know

if shit goes down, we could all die. You know, okay, well, it doesn't involve nuclear testing, so I'm coming around to this position. Never test them. Just build increasingly large doomsday devices and be like, no one knows what'll happen if we have a war. Why not? Maybe none of them work and we all get to really think about what we've been doing. You know,

in all seriousness though, this is a massive victory. There are millions upon millions of people across the world, and millions of people who have yet to be born, who are going to live their lives free of the effect of radiation poisoning because people stood up and fought nuclear testing. Yeah. And, you know, this is the message that I want to sort of

end Earth Day with, which is the people who are destroying this world are incredibly powerful, and they are willing to kill protesters in order to keep their power and keep maiming the world further. But if you just keep fighting them, no matter what they throw at you, if you just every every single time they hit you, if you just come back and keep fighting them again, you can win. And this is this is the way that it happens. All right. Well, that's that's a good that's a nice that's a nice note to end on so everybody get out there um and get nuked once and then everything's fine yeah yeah get nuked once and you'll be okay like that scientist who drank the plutonium it's surprisingly easy to not die when you get exposed to unbelievable

quantities of radiation. That seems like a responsible note to end on. 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 Shadow. Join me, Danny Trejo, and step into the flames of right. 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. 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. Black Lit is for the page turners, for those who listen to audiobooks while running errands or at the end of a busy day. From thought-provoking novels to powerful poetry,

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. 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. 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.