It Could Happen Here Weekly 107

to remotely control the Kamikazi drones. Musk, having spoken to a Russian ambassador, saw Crimea as a red line that, when crossed, would escalate the conflict, potentially even provoking a nuclear retaliation, and so he acted disabling or depending on who you ask, refusing to enable styling access in the Crimea region. When the Ukrainian drone serbs approached their targets, they suddenly stopped communicating with their operators and eventually washed

up ashore, harmless and impotent. While the specific details of this episode are hazy, the core truth is unambiguously clear. Elon Musk is a supremely powerful individual and through action or inaction, has the ability to influence the outcome of combat operations in the bloodiest war inflicted upon European generations. It's a level of power typically only reserved for nation

state actors, not tech company CEOs. Throughout history, we've seen plenty of examples of individuals and companies with outsized country like power and influence. Musk isn't unique in that regard, nor is he the sole cautionary tale about why this

shouldn't be allowed to happen. As a private individual operating within his capacities as CEO, he's unconstrained by democratic accountability, and as a private businessman, he has his own conflicts of interest from Tesla's long history of sourcing aluminum from Russian companies to his contacts with the highest echelons of

Russian leadership, including Vladimir Putin himself. Historically, the only real accountability mechanism for people like muscusbeed in the media, and yet in this case, the media is chosen instead to fate the Elon musk creation myth that he's a trailblazing real life Tony Stark that will take humanity to the stars, rather than asking him many hard questions of any kind.

This situation is the product of a media industry dominated by journalists seeking access to popular public figures, pulling their punches in the process. The most notable access journalist is Kara Swisher, who has spent decades covering the tech industry with a pantomime like aggression, asking the quote unquote hard questions without ever really pushing the level of discover that

might make a source um willing to pus aarticipate. Swisher famously, in an interview during the All Things Digital conference in twenty ten, convinced Meta CEO then called Facebook Mark Zuckerberg to take off his hoodie after asking him a challenging question about Facebook's invasion of privacy, only to be distracted by the design of the inside of what he was wearing, effectively objecting to her own line of questioning for entertainment purposes.

Eight years later, Swisher would interview Zuckerberg about Cambridge Analytica and Russian interference in the twenty sixteen elections, lobbing softball questions like make a case for keeping info wars on Facebook and responding to Zuckerberg outrights saying he wouldn't ban Holocaust and Sandy Hook deniers by asking how it made

Zuckerberg feel when people said Facebook killed people Nyanmar. The Swisher house style is simple, ask a big meeting question, and then failed to interrogate a single answer in any way, shape or form a round. A month later, Swisher would interview Elon Musk, who at that point had aided harassment campaigns against reporters, called a man saving children a pedo file, and had his companies faced multiple allegations of sexual harassment

and racism. When asked about his fights with the press over Twitter must claim that the Wall Street Journal, whose Wisher used to work for, outright lied about investigation into Tesla's production figures, to which Swisher asked him if he realized the dangers of him saying such things about the press, and proceeded to help Must paper over his claims, saying

that he quote just doesn't like falsehoods. One of the richest and most powerful men in the world sat before Swisher, and her interrogation involved asking him simple questions about why he was doing things, lightly teasing him, and saying that he looks and I quote rested in calm. To be clear, this is an ultra powerful billionaire, and this is a was at the time enterprising journalist who everyone looked to.

In April twenty twenty two, the week that Must announced the Twitter acquisition, Swusher gave a strange interview to James D. Walsh of The New Yorker, defending Musk, who had of course waived you diligence on the acquisition, did not seem to have a single clear plan about how he might run the same. She claimed that you couldn't pin Musk down, that he was quite complex, and that we would be

surprised about what he likes and doesn't like. Musk, who has invented none of the core products that make him rich, is a quote visionary that gave Swish a genuine answers and arguably the most damning thing she could have said, would call her back. That was her litmus test that he would return her calls. Her ultimate defense of Musk was that and I quote inventors were very difficult, problematic people, and the moderation on Twitter was not working at the

time of acquisition. These are all, of course, demonstrably force based on the events that followed, the growth of hate speech, the lack of accountability, the biggest face on the platform, and the fact that every third post seems to be some kind of spambot, either selling T shirts or pornography

or cryptocurrency scams. Swisher only turned on Musk when he emailed her calling her an asshole in November twenty twenty two, including a screenshot where, according to Swisher, she was actually defending him, saying that the US government should pay Elon Musk for starling. Since then, Musk has gone from a difficult to pin down visionary to carver Swisher calling his social network a and this is agonizingly horribly written a

thunderdome of toxic asininity. Swisher, it appears, only worried about what she called Musk's price of cocktail of ignorance and big ego until he was rude to her. One of the most famous tech journalists in the world who has failed to take any real shot at any of the people she's questioned across decades of doing this has now been reduced to making epic dunks that sound like a twenty one year old Harry Potter fan trying to cast

a spell. It's embarrassing. Swisher isn't the sole media figure guilty of having treated Elon Musk with kid gloves or treating his bloviating with otherwise on ducrid duity. This is a problem that affects almost every news outlet and reporter that covers billionaires. The assumption is always the billionaires will act with empathy, patience, and grace, three things that Musk, Bezo, Zuckerberg, and their ilk totally lack. Failing that, one would suppose

they'd act like a normal person, a losing proposition. If you've ever read Jeff Bezos's texts, these people are not like us. They do not experience human struggle. They don't have bills or bosses or fear of anything, let alone authority. Each and every billionaire is effectively above the law, and that is the place that you must start to understand them. It's deeply frustrating, especially when you consider the myriad of opportunities where the media could have taken must task and

held him accountable. Take high Poop, for example, Musk's concept for a high speed mass transit system where pressurized capsules would hurtle between cities through vacuum tubes at speeds as fast as seven hundred and sixty miles an hour. Hyperloop Musk promise would allow commuters to travel between San Francisco and Los Angeles in as little as thirty minutes, and with the network powered primarily by solar power, with no real environmental impact. If anything, this could have been a

much bigger deal than Tesla. High speed transit that doesn't burn fossil fuels could truly have changed the world. So what do you think happened? Do you think that Must delivered on this on this product that helped play a vital role in cementing his image as a real life Tony Stark. Not only would it be faster and cheaper than anything currently in existence, but it'd be greener too.

What followed was a gushing or at least gredulous flow of media coverage, including from The Washington Post and The New York Times, both papers of record. It wasn't until the hype gradually died down that people began asking serious questions about hyperloop's viability. An exhaustive report published by the Transportation Research Laboratory earlier this year raised a serious questions about the feasibility of hyperloop, particularly when it comes to

passenger transportation. Riders, it noted, would be exposed to extreme physical and mental stress, with the noise, vibrations, and rapid acceleration and deceleration inflicting an unknowable toll on the human body. Questions about safety still linger, and then there's the thorny issue of cost, with high bloop requiring an all new infrastructure. Even the shortest routes would involve a multi billion dollar upfront investment. These points were for the most part absent

entirely from the earliest coverage of high ploop. The media also missed the fact that hypeloop wasn't even a new idea. In the nineteenth century, countless invetors toyed with the notion of an atmospheric railway where vehicles traveled through a near vacuum environment on the momentum of pressurized air. A small demonstrator route was even built by Ismbard Kingdom Brunel, the

legendary British engineer who designed the first transatlantic steamship. While Highpoloop differed in some meaningful ways, it was still nonetheless much like many Musk products, a derivative of an earlier idea, The Boring Company. Musk's hilariously named Tunnel Boring startup earned similar credulous coverage upon its inception, driven in no small part due to Musk's decision to raise working capital by selling branded flamethrowers dubbed the not a flame Thrower to

anyone that paid five hundred dollars. This stunt, aside, the Boring Company one praise due to its stated mission to reduce the cost of digging tunnels, which are often an inevitable and expensive part of road and mass transportation development. Like hyperloop, The Boring Company fed into the Tony Stark image of a billionaire that could, through sheer force of will,

change the world and fix once intractable problems. I quote Meashable when they said, Musk build machines to travel more efficiently on the Earth and above it, so traveling through Earth seems within the realm of his capabilities. If anyone can transform the seemingly absent minded half joke into world changing technology, it's Elon Musk, said The Guardian, And then

reality here. The Boring Company's first commercial project, a one point seven mile tunnel in Las Vegas, where I in fact live, wasn't a traditional road tunnel or part of an underground metro system. It was, in fact far less impressive, a single lane loop where human driven tests, there's varied passengers between points of interest in the Las Vegas Convention Center, and where traffic jams are a routine frustration for passengers.

Other projects in other cities, most notably Chicago and Los Angeles, have either been canceled or are on indefinite hiatus. There is nothing that the Boring Company has done. The tunnel in Vegas is useless. It's claustrophobic, it's ugly, feels like being in an airport lounge, except there's no food. It's strange. It doesn't feel like it solves a problem other than

how can Elon must get more attention? And that really is what he craves Musk's wafer thin skin, his volatility, and his propensity to overpromise an under deliver has never been a secret. While he's been able with some success to obfiscate a misdirect through a well crafted media persona,

the clues have always been there. Musk's reality distortion field goes some way to explaining how he has managed to amass the extent of the power he has and how he cemented himself into our nation's most vital industries like transportation, communications, infrastructure, and social media. He has a fairly consistent battle plan. He makes a big promise, he delivers enough to make the media believe he's for real, and then he relies upon the fact that very few parts of the media

will ever follow up with him. There is no challenging Elon Musk in the media. The thinnest amounts of criticism are usually meant by a horde of crazed Tesla fans or at times Elon Musk himself. He's created a paper thin media image built on the smallest, thinnest s structures of reality. He has found a way to manipulate the media using his large amounts of power, money, and his

few friends. Elon Musk is a danger to society. He's a capricious demagogue desperate for more power and attention, and he will do whatever he wants, whereever he wants, wherever he wants, because we are societally unprepared for billionaires. It's no longer healthy, or safe or honest to see Elon Musk as a dorky charlatan, carrying sinks into offices or destroying social networks to settle insular beefs. Elon Musk is a nation state level actor with a net worth larger

than the GDP of Ukraine. He associates only with equally spurious reactionaries like Bill Maher, Ronda Santis and David Sachs, and he's easily influenced by anyone who agrees with his thinly backed beliefs. Musk isn't polarizing, He's polarization given life, an empty man made of contrarianism and grievances, and he'll happily change the world based on his own personal beliefs.

As a result of our market driven government and compliant media, Musk has caused and will continue to cause human suffering. An actual death in his pursuit of fame, power and capital. It's time to stop treating him as just an entrepreneur, an investor, an executive, or an industry blow hard. As a result of our market driven government and compliant media, Musk has caused and will continue to cause human suffering an actual death in his pursuit of fame, power and capital.

It's time to stop treating him as just an entrepreneur, an investor, an executive, or an industry blow hard and see him as a man who has used his incredible wealth and status to twist the world to his petty, ignorant, and selfish desires. It's important to realize with complete clarity that Musk makes electric cars that are sold around the

world and sells rockets to NASA. He runs Twitter x or whatever it's called these days, one of the largest communication networks in the world, and of course Starlink, the satellite isp used throughout the world that is specifically marketed to places that are otherwise inaccessible to traditional broadband. This is not just the goofy redditor posting epic means and

saying exactly anymore. Elon Musk has chosen to and will continue to choose to use his influence over these networks to interfere with global events, and because the media and the government has been so utterly tepid in their approach to him, he's accumulated such power and influence that he is on some level unstoppable. Since his acquisition of Twitter in twenty twenty two and the subsequent layoffs of six thousand people, Musk has revealed to the world his deep

seated reactionary beliefs and his noxious, pathetic victim complex. He has become obsessed with the woke mind virus, a term that he uses to vaguely refer to everything from progressive education on college campuses to San Francisco's growing homeless problem. He's made Twitter's box prob one that he tried to use to cancel the original acquisition, significantly worse, littering replies with bots trying to sell your t shirts or make you join the latest script ocurrency scam, some of which

even include elon Musk's face. He took Twitter's verification system, a flawed yet workable solution to verifying whether a tweet came from the person who actually sent it, and turned it into an eight dollars a month premium account that verifies nothing other than whether someone is capable of completing a credit card transaction, and by destroying Twitter's trust and safety team, Musk has allowed the world's real time communications channel to become one rife with racism and other hate speech,

leading to Fortune five hundred advertisers worrying that the network and I quote perpetuates racism, which was raised in a Semaphore story from earlier in this year, Musk has shown he is more than willing to do things based on not what's good for the world, his businesses, or his users, but on what will confirm his biases and protect his

financial interests. As a result of these moronic and malicious choices, Twitter's valuation is tanked less than a third of the forty four billion dollars he paid for it, losing half of their advertising revenue and changing their name to X, which some have argued killed further billions of the original

company's brand value. Being a selfish, ignorant, and gormous Charlatan, Musk has now blamed Jewish nonprofit the Anti Defamation League for ruining his company, claiming that the ADL had pressured advertisers into killing X slash Twitter. Musk had previously sued the Center for Countering Digital Hate, another nonprofit that published research showing the growth and hate speech on the platform.

Musk is now fine with the ADL because they resumed advertising a deeply confused and utterly pointless exercise that only sought to further increase bigotry on his website. For all his statements around freedom of speech, Musk is the ultimate capitalist dictator, willing to use his money to intimidate and

censor those who dared to criticize him. He's already done so on Twitter, banning an account that tracked publicly available records of private jet flights, censoring over four hundred tweets critical of Turkish President Erdigan in the week's running up to an election, suppress accounts critical of Indian Prime Minister Nearendra Modi, and cut access to links to newsletter platform

Substack when they launched a network competitive to Twitter. Musk is a propagandist willing to work with any fellow reactionaries who feel scorned by progressivism, personally helping Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis launch his campaign on Twitter and funneling money to alleged sex trafficker Andrew Tate through Twitter's Creator program

on our nation's roads. Muscus created another problem. In March twenty twenty three, According to The Washington Post, a seventeen year old stepped off of a school bus on North Carolina Highway five point sixty one. As he stepped off a testa Model y allegedly with Tesla's autonomous autopilot engaged hit him at forty five miles an hour, throwing him into the windshield and leaving him lying face down on the pavement. He thankfully survived, but broke and fractured his

leg in the process. Incident, which the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is still investigating, is part of a growing list of victims of Tesla's open beta test of quote full self driving, a buggy dangerous software available on hundreds of thousands of Tesla vehicles allowing users to let the car drive, which has resulted in the deaths of seventeen people and led to seven one hundred and thirty six

other injuries and crashes. In theory, activating Tesla's full self driving lets your Tesla take the wheel, making turns, avoiding other vehicles, maintaining speed avoiding objects and theoretically helping you

arrive safely at your destination. The problem is that this has only ever been a beta, meaning that every new release involves some sort of new bug, such as the one that Electric Car blog editor Fred Lambert claimed tried to kill him in September twenty twenty three by trying to veer at highway speed into the median strip on the road. One might imagine that such a thing is illegal.

Effectively unleashing beta software onto the world's road without sufficiently testing it would for any normal person lead to imprisonment and a lifetime of fines. Musk, thanks to his incredible wealth and power equivalent to that of a small nation, has managed to avoid much scrutiny with the occasional government investigations that never seem to go anywhere, and despite a well documented culture of racism and sexism, very little seems

to happen to test the at all. This is because our society, in its government, its media, and its citizen try is woefully unprepared to deal with billionaires. Musk is able to operate as a noxious, abusive, and reckless monster in public, using his companies as vehicles to lend himself, money and political weapons with little scrutiny or punishment on

their own. One might fob off these concerns as one time things, but the reality is there's a pattern of malicious and capricious acts or one after another, again and again,

done in broad daylight for all to see. Musk has shown he will push what ever envelope he sees fit, and as Ronan Pharaoh's New York Magazine piece shows, there are very few people in the government, former and otherwise anywhere really, not investors, not other members of the Silicon Valley elite, who are willing or able to get in the way. Musk is so unbelievably rich, well connected, and powerful that he can push around just about anybody, even

if they work for the Pentagon. Yet Musk's desperation for attention and adulation mean that he can be pulled in any direction that feels like it scorns his critics, And when his critics are pretty much anyone who isn't a right wing lunatic, it almost guarantees he will continue to power around with authoritarian regimes that will influence his remarkably

malleable brain. The actual solution will be to treat Musk as what he is, a dangerous entity with a higher GDP than Ukraine and an ego that rivals their invaders president regardless of what happened in crimea Musk is the ability to know when attacks are happening and influence their outcome as a result of his for profit, privately held satellite internet communications firm that the US government is paying for. Elon Musk is a nation state global threat and must

be treated as such. He must be treated as if he will make decisions based only on what he believes will benefit or amuse him. He's the wish dot Com version of Bond's earned stavro Blofeld, an offensive, charmless, and boorish monster that has successfully bought his way into the elite and found that no matter what he does, their

patience is unlimited and their scruples are few. Musk, like another high profile narcissist, the former President Donald Trump, routinely finds himself ensnared in litigation, both in regulators and private individuals, even though the government never really seems to actually do anything to him. The SEC is currently investigating Musk for securities violations concerning his acquisition of Twitter. This would be his third tryst with the Commission, the first in twenty eighteen,

the second in twenty nineteen. In both cases, very little happen. However, at the same time, he faces actions from former employees stiffed on severance pay and from those who allege age and gender discrimination with factors in their dismissal from Twitter. For Musk, these lawsuits are unlikely to be anything other than the minor annoyance rather than any kind of existential throat or something that otherwise curbs is most egregious of behaviors.

There are people who could help. There are people that could sway.

people face. They may act as if they have civic responsibility for the few people we have that could actually change things. The ones with the war chest to box out Musk. Blocking X from app stores and excluding him from their circles are sitting on their hands. One approach proposed by Stephen Feldstein in The Atlantic is to treat Musks businesses as they are vital to national security, and as a result, take them into public control when necessary.

This wouldn't be without precedent. The legislation that allows this, the Defense Production Act, has been invoked fifty times since its inception, both in times of war and civil necessity like the twenty twenty two infant formula shortage. While Stalink would remain a privately held company, it would be obliged to prioritize the national need. Full nationalization, Falsteine noted, would also be a possibility if Musk failed to cooperate. Full

nationalization would be a drastic measure. But at this point, what other options exist for Elon Musk? What other options exist for someone that is so reckless, so dangerous, so selfish, and so capricious. What options exist to deal with someone who has inserted himself into the most vital aspects of the American economy, making himself billions of dollars off of governments, subsidies,

and contracts. How the hell do you handle someone who has insulated himself from media scrutiny despite holding immense nation state power. Musk is not a goofy weirdow or the real life Tony Stark. He's a fragile, meanhearted ogre one hell bent on seeing his whims brought to life at any cost. The only way to write about this man, the only fair coverage of Elon Musk, the only clear perception of this man, is to frame him as a villain,

a bigot, a bully, and a crook. But what do you do about the man who has everything?

It will mean that it's no exaggeration to say that people's lives will be at risk and that the important mutual aid work that's already been done will only become more important as we get rain, we get snow, and we get cold temperatures, and people continue to be detained without shelter, food, water, or adequate clothing. If you would like to support those efforts, you can find the way to do so at link tree slash Border Kindness. There's a dot before the ee, so it's l I NK

tr ee slash Border Kindness. I'll also post a link on my Twitter if you'd like to find it there.

intent to create it actually started decades before that. We're going to be talking about the Balfour Declaration, which resulted in a significant upheaval in the lives of Palestinians and was issued over a century ago. On November two, nineteen seventeen. The declaration turned the Zionist aim of establishing a Jewish

state in Palestine into a reality. The pledge is generally viewed as one of the main catalysts of the Nekba, the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in nineteen forty eight, and the conflict that ensued with the zion Estate of Israel. The Balfour Declaration is regarded as one of the most controversial and contested documents in the modern history of the Arab world. So what is it the Balfour Declaration It

means or is translated to Balfour's Promise in Arabic. It was a public pledge by Britain in nineteen seventeen, declaring its aim to quote establish a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine. The declaration came in the form of a letter from Britain's then Foreign Secretary, Arthur Balfour, addressed to Lionel Walter Rothschild, a figurehead of the British

Jewish community at the time. The declaration was made during World War One, which was just a reminder from nineteen fourteen to nineteen eighteen, and this declaration was included in the terms of the British mandate for Palestine after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. So on November two, nineteen seventeen, the Balfour Declaration became the basis for the movement to create a Jewish state in Palestine. A week later, the declaration was published in the Times of London for all

the public to see. The content of the letter is rather short, so I'm just going to read some of it right now. It goes, Dear Lord Rothschild, I have much pleasure in conveying to you, on behalf of His Majesty's Government, the following Declaration of Sympathy with the Jewish Zionist Aspirations, which has been submitted to and approved by

the Cabinet. His Majesty's Government view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object. Keep in mind, at this time the British had no control over Palestine. It was still under the Ottoman Empire, but in this letter Britain was essentially preparing to take it over in the very near future.

I also want to include that at this time Jewish people only made up six percent of the Palestinian population. I'm going to play audio from a video posted by former guests of the show The Amazing Sim Kern, where they break down the last part of the declaration. Sim is referencing in this audio Rashid Khalidi's book The one Hundred Years War on Palestine, A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance nineteen seventeen to twenty seventeen.

the Palestinian people. Yes, they were promised civil and religious rights, but they were not granted political or national rights, and this meant that for the next fifteen years, as people in Palestine tried to resist the establishment of a zion Est state within their country, the takeover of all their land by Zionist groups, they were unable to find any audience in the halls of power because Balfour had declared them to not have these rights and to not really

be people. They weren't even referred to as Arabs or Palestinians in the Declaration, just non Jewish. Ninety four percent of the people of this land had just been written out of existence as far as the Western powers were concerned. Kalidi describes how between nineteen seventeen and nineteen thirty six, almost all of the organized Palestinian resistance to Zionism was

peaceful and legalistic. They would form political committees, but the British said, you're not allowed to have political activity and shut those down harshly. They would send delegations to the League of Nations, to other countries to try to get to support to Britain, but they would not even be seen in the halls of power. They would not even get audiences because they were told basically, as Palestinians, you have no rights allowed to have nationalistic interests.

the war. The declared aim of the mandate system was to allow the winners of the war to administer the newly emerging states until they could become independent. The case of Palestine, however, was unique. Unlike the rest of the post war mandates. The main goal of the British mandate there was to create the conditions for the establishment of a Jewish national home, even though Jews, again at the time,

constituted only six percent of the population. Upon the start of the mandate, the British began to facilitate immigration of European Jews to Palestine, between nineteen twenty two and nineteen thirty five, the Jewish population rose to nearly twenty seven

percent of the total population. And even though the Balfour Declaration included the caveat that quote nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of the existing non Jewish communities in Palestine, the British Mandate was set up in a way to equip Jews with the tools to establish self rule at the expense of the Palestinian Arabs. Understandably enough, the document is seen as controversial

for several reasons. First, it was, in the words of the late Palestine American academic Edward Zaid, quote made by European power about a non European territory in a flat disregard of both the presence and wishes of the native majority resident in that territory. In essence, the Balfour Declaration promised Jews a land where the natives made up more than ninety percent of the populace. Second, the declaration was one of three conflicting wartime promises made by the British.

Surprise surprise, when the declaration was released, Britain had already promised the Arab's independence from the Ottoman Empire in the nineteen fifteen Hussein McMahon Correspondents. However, the British also promised the French and a separate treaty known as the nineteen sixteen psychs Pico Agreement, that the majority of Palestine would be under international administration, while the rest of the region would be split between the two colonial powers after the war.

This Hussain McMahon correspondence was a series of letters exchanged in nineteen fifteen to nineteen sixteen during World War One between Hussain and Beinnati, who was the Emir of Mecca, and Sir Henry McMahon, the British High Commissioner in Egypt. In general terms, the correspondence effectively traded British support of an independent Arab state for the Arab assistance in opposing

the Ottoman Empire. However, the correspondence was later contradicted by two things, the incompatible terms of the sex Peco Agreement, which was secretly concluded between Britain and France in May nineteen sixteen, and Britain's Balfour Declaration in nineteen seventeen. The declaration, however, meant that Palestine would come under British occupation, that the

Palestinian Arabs who lived there would not gain independence. Third, the declaration introduced a notion that was reportedly unprecedented in international law, that of a quote national home. The use of the vague term national home for the Jewish people as opposed to state left the meaning open to interpretation. Earlier drafts of the document used the phrase quote the reconstitution of Palestine as a Jewish state, but that was

later changed. However, in a meeting with Zionist leader Heim Wizman in nineteen twenty two, Arthur Balfour and then Prime Minister David Lloyd George reportedly said that the Balfour Declaration was quote always meant to be an eventual Jewish state. Okay, let's take our first break here because.

a racist, and an anti Semite. The Balfour Declaration is a statement that can fit into two tweets. As we mentioned, Arthur Balfour, the British Foreign Secretary at the time, announced that the British government would support establishing a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine, and more than one hundred years later, those written words continue to define the

dynamic between Israelis and Palestinians. In twenty seventeen, marking one hundred years the declaration, Little Bitch Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin and Yahoo went to London to commemorate the centennial occasion with Theresa May. I hope you know by now, though, that the declaration is really nothing worth celebrating, And though he may be most known for aiding the Zionist cause in nineteen seventeen, it's crucial to remember that Arthur Balfour

was a white supremacist. He made that much clear in his own words. In nineteen o six, the British House of Commons was engaged in a debate about the Native blacks in South Africa. Nearly all the members of Parliament agreed that the disenfranchisement of the blacks was evil, but not Balfour, who almost alone argued against it. When talking about the black people in South Africa, he said, we have to face the facts. Men are not born equal the white in the black races are not born with

equal capacities. They are born with different capacities which education cannot and will not change. But Balfour's troubling views were not limited to Africa. In fact, despite his now iconic support for Zionism that celebrated by Zionists everywhere, he was not exactly a friend to the Jews. In the late nineteenth century, Pagram's targeting Jews in the Pale of Settlement had led to waves of Jewish flight westward to England

and the United States. Little insert here that the Pale of Settlement was a western region of the Russian Empire with varying borders that existed from seventeen ninety one to nineteen seventeen, in which permanent residency by Jews was allowed, and beyond which Jewish residency permanent or temporary was mostly forbidden.

So created by imperial decree. The Jewish pale of Settlement was that part of the Russian Empire within which Russia's Jewish population was required to live and work for more than one hundred thirty years between the late eighteenth and

the early twentieth century. Although it was initially intended to forestall commerce between Jews and the general population of Russia, the restrictions imposed by the pale fostered the development of a distinctive religious and ethnic culture in an area covering roughly three hundred eighty six thousand square miles or one million square kilometers between the Baltic and Black Seas. The word pale as used in this sense, comes from the Latin polus or stake, one that might be used to

indicate a boundary. A pale is thus a district separated from the surrounding country. It may be defined by physical boundaries, or it may be distinguished by a different administrative or legal system. The Jewish pale off Settlement was both a defined area within the Russian Empire and a legal entity regulated by laws that did not apply to the Russian

Empire as a whole. So back to the main narrative, the targeting of Jews in the pale of settlement led to immigration of many Jews to the West, to England and the US. This influx of refugees led to an increase in British anti immigrant racism and outright anti Semitism, themes not unfamiliar to US today. Support for political action against immigrants grew as the English public demanded immigration control to keep certain immigrants, particularly Jews, out of the country.

So this scared and xenophobic public found a sympathetic ear in Balfour. In nineteen oh five, while serving as Prime Minister, Balfour presided over the passage of the Aliens Act. This legislation put the first restrictions on immigration into Great Britain, and it was primarily aimed at restricting Jewish immigration. According to historians, Balfour had personally delivered passionate speeches about the imperative to restrict the waves of Jews fleeing the Russian

Empire from entering Britain. So maybe it's not as astonishing as you would think that Balfour, whose support of the Zionist cause has made him a hero among Zionists, would have implemented anti Jewish laws. But the truth is his support of Zionism stemmed from the exis exact same source as his desire to limit Jewish immigration to Britain. Both of these things can be traced back to his white supremacist beliefs. Balfour lived in an area of stirring nationalism

highly defined by ethno religious identity. Because of these sentiments. The early twentieth century was a time when seemingly liberal Western nations struggled with the challenge of incorporating Jewish citizens. Balfour wanted to keep the UK as a white Christian ethno state. What the Zionists provided Balfour with was a solution to the challenges Jewish citizens posed to his ethno nationalist vision, a solution that didn't force him to reckon

with them. Instead of insisting that societies except all citizens as equals, regardless of racial or religious background, the Zionist's movement offered a different answer, separation. Balfour saw in Zionism not just a blessing for Jews, but for the West as well. In nineteen nineteen, he wrote the introduction to

Nahem Sokolo's History of Zionism. In this introduction, Balfour wrote that the Zionist movement would quote mitigate the age long miseries created for Western civilization by the presence in its midst of a body which it too long regarded as alien and even hostile, but which it was equally unable to expel or to absorb. By both giving Jews a place to go and a place to leave, Zionism seemingly

solved two problems at once in Balfour's mind. In other words, his support of Zionism was motivated by his desire to protect Britain from the negative effects or the miseries, as he said, of having Jews in its population. Rather than protecting the rights of one of its minorities, Britain could simply export them, or at least not import anymore. This is one of the many reasons Zionism itself is anti Semitic.

We can even fast forward to now and see how Zionists are telling telling anti Zionist Jewish people that they're no longer Jewish for supporting Palestine. That belief and statement in itself is extremely anti Semitic. Criticizing Israel on the Israeli government, however, is not but putting that aside. We can see that from the very beginning, even in its origin, Zionists associated and allied themselves with the worst kinds of people, like people who believed that Jewish people are quote an

alien and hostile body among them. Needless to say, Balfour's view of Zionism is steeped in the same kind of white supremacy as Balfour's view of South Africa's blacks, But his support of the Zionist dream had another problem. Rather than solving the problem of how to handle a minority living in a white majority country, the Balfour Declaration just

shifted the same problem into a different geography. The tension between ethno nationalism and equality is definitely and equally present today between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean, and see where the Israeli state rules over the fate of millions of Palestinians who either have no right to vote, are treated as second class citizens, or our refugees denied repatriation.

Today it is Israel that views Palestinians as demographic threats and sees the quote presence in its midst of a body which is too long regarded as alien and even hostile, by which it was equally unable to expel or to absorb let's take our second break here again because I have to so see you later and we are back. So that Balfour's legacy of supremacy persists as much as

British support for Israel does is no accident. We have arrived at this point today because the white supremacist attitudes of Balfour informed policy lending imperial right to a project in pursuit of national self determination for Jews by trampling on the rights of native non Jews. Remarkably, by Telfour was unabashedly aware of the hypocrisy in his stance. In nineteen nineteen, he wrote a letter that said this to

the British Prime Minister. The weak point of our position, of course, is that in the case of Palestine, we deliberately and rightly declined to accept the principle of self determination. We do not propose even to go through the form of consulting the wishes of the present inhabitants of the country, the seven hundred thousand Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land. Those are his words and a letter that he wrote

to the British Prime Minister. So there's no misconstruing that there those seven hundred thousand Arabs, of course, made up approximately ninety percent of the population of Palestine. Again bears repeating that Jewish people, before this declaration was implemented, made up only six percent of the population, and therein lies the fundamental problem that continues through this day, more than

one hundred years later. Palestinians are denied the right to have rights because from the outset their views, their human rights and by extension, their very humanity, were consistently seen as inferior to those of others. That was clear in Balfour's perspective and the British Mandate's policy, and it persists in one form or another in many, if not most, of the policies of the Zionist State of Israel through

this day. In modern times, as much as in nineteen seventeen, the battle between ethno nationalism and equality has risen to the foreground. We saw this in Donald Trump's rise in America and in Theresa Mays brexited Britain. Rather than resolving this tension, Balfour's support for Zionism merely exported it to Palestine, and resisting the legacy of Balfour's racism is absolutely necessary. If there is ever to be peace in Palestine and beyond.

A little bit more history here about why this declaration was issued. The question of why has been subject of debate for historians for decades, with historians using different sources to suggest various explanations. Some argue that many in the British government at the time were Zionists themselves. Others say the declaration was issued out of an anti Semitic reasoning that giving Palestine to the Jews would be a solution

to the quote unquote Jewish problem. In mainstream academia, however, there are a set of reasons over which there is a general consensus. One, control over Palestine was a strategic imperial interest to keep Egypt and the Suez Canal within Britain's sphere of influence. Two, Britain had to side with Zionists to rally support among the Jews in the United States and Russia, hoping they could encourage their governments to

stay in the war until victory. Three, there was intense Zionist lobbying and strong connections between the Zionist community in Britain and the British government, as well as some of the officials in the government being Zionists themselves, for Jews were being persecuted in Europe and the British government was

sympathetic to their suffering. I think that last point is usually used as a validation to why Israel exists today, but feeling sorry for a people and giving them someone else's land is really not a solution in my opinion. Of course, the Balfour Declaration was also not received well by Palestinians and Arabs. In nineteen nineteen, then US President Woodrow Wilson appointed a commission to look into public opinion on the mandatory system in Syria and Palestine. The investigation

was known as the King Krane Commission. It found that the majority of Palestinians expressed a strong opposition to Zionism, leading the conductors of the commission to advise a modification of the mandate's goal. The late Anni Ebba Adhadi, a Palestinian political figure, condemned the Balfour Declaration in his memoirs, saying it was made by an English foreigner who had no claim to Palestine, to a foreign Jew who had

no right to it. However, it's very important to mention here that the other vital important source for insight into Palestine opinion on the declaration at the time. AKA the press was closed down by the Ottomans at the start of the war in nineteen fourteen and only began to reappear in nineteen nineteen, but it was under British military censorship in November nineteen nineteen when the Alisti La Da Laivi,

the Arab independence newspaper based in Damascus, was reopened. One article had a response to a public speech given by Herbert Samuel, a Jewish Cabinet minister in London, on the second anniversary of the Balfour Declaration. The article said quote our country is Arab, Palestine is Arab, and Palestine must

remain Arab. In nineteen twenty, the Third Palestine Congress and Haifa decried the British government's plans to support the Zionist project and rejected the declaration as a violation of international law and the rights of the indigenous population. I'm gonna pull audio from Sim's video here again. They kind of summarize in a really good way what happened in the years leading up to the Nukaba.

and the British. And it's estimated that between fourteen and seventeen percent of the adult male Arab population was killed.

Palestinians really should have organized an armed revolt earlier. It was too late by the time they did, but they had spent fifteen years since the Balfour Declaration trying peacefully and legalistically to earn their rights, and that was ultimately a dead end. But Palestinians really clearly did not want to fight a war. It wasn't until they'd exhausted every single other option to them. They tried legal routes, they tried organizing, they tried a strike. You know, they had

done everything they could. And this was a population that had been stripped of huge amounts of its land, that was destitute, that was impoverished, that was starving, that was shut out from any economic opportunity in the land they had lived on for millennia. They were farmers. They didn't want to wage a war. They wanted to make olive oil. But because this guy didn't want Jews moving to the UK, they didn't get to have their country anymore.

little by little. This was the situation of Palestine, which for many centuries has been in the deepest sleep until it was shaken by the Great War, shocked by the Zionist movement and violated by the illegal policy of the British, and awoke little by little. And while Britain is generally and understandably held responsible for the Balfour Declaration, it is important to note that the statement would not have been

made without prior approval from the other Allied powers. During World War One, in a war cabinet meeting on September nineteen seventeen, British ministers decided that the quote views of President Wilson should be obtained before any declaration was made, and indeed, according to the Cabinet's minutes on October fourth, the ministers recalled Arthur Balfour, confirming that Wilson was quote

extremely favorable to the movement. France, surprise, surprise, maybe to no one, was also involved and announced its support prior to the issuing of the Balfour Declaration. A May nineteen seventeen letter from Jules Cambon, a French diplomat, to Nahem Sokolo, the Polish Zionist, expressed the sympathetic views of the French

government towards a quote Jewish colonization in Palestine. This letter, again the precursor to the Balfour Declaration, says it would be a deed of justice and of reparation to assist, by the protection of the Allied powers in the renaissance of the Jewish nationality in that land from which the

people of Israel were exiled so many centuries ago. The Balfour Declaration again is widely seen as the precursor to the nineteen forty eight Palestinian Nekba, when Zionist armed groups who were trained by the British forcibly expelled more than seven hundred and fifty thousand Palestinians from their homeland, and

they massacred fifteen thousand Palestinians. Despite some opposition within the war cabinet predicting such an outcome was probable, the British government still chose to issue the declaration, and there is no doubt that the British mandate created the conditions for the Jewish minority to gain superiority in Palestine and build a state for themselves at the expense of the Palestinian Arabs.

When the British decided to terminate their mandate in nineteen forty seven and transfer the question of Palestine to the United Nations. The Jews already had an army that was formed out of the armed paramilitary groups trained and created to fight side by side with the British in World

War II. More importantly, the British allowed the Jews to establish self governing institutions such as the Jewish Agency, to prepare themselves for a state when it came to it, while the Palestinians were forbidden from doing so, paving the way for the nineteen forty eight ethnic cleansing of Palestine. We're going to end the episode with one more audio clip from Sim's video. I just think it really describes and summarizes why exactly Arthur Balfour is an extremely evil person.

we're seeing of. I mean, you've seen them, children under the rubble, crying for help, parents losing their babies, and it doesn't make sense for me to describe the images. But my point is we have never seen a genocide take place right before our eyes. All the proof is there. Israeli leaders have been very clear in their intention for genocide. Just for example, Israeli Cabinet member Avidijkter. I don't care if I said his name wrong, but he said that

they are rolling out Nekba twenty twenty three. That's one example of extremely genocidal language as being used by not just Israel but also American politicians as well. There are photos side by side of the nineteen forty eight Nekba to what's happening right now. It's happening again. The mass

expulsion of Palestinians is happening right before our eyes. There are Palestinians who have experienced the Nekaba in nineteen forty eight who are experiencing it again, being displaced so many times in their own country, and right now over a million Palestinians have been displaced. We are also just being inundated with the most bizarre propaganda from the IOF. I've decided to call them the IOF from now on instead of the IDF because they are not defending anything. They

are the Israeli offensive forces, not defensive. So just a disclaimer there over my choice of words. But it's strange they post photos of Arabic text saying it's something else. Just recently I saw that they posted a calendar that they found in a house that they say are a list of Hamas hostages. It's literally just a calendar with the words of the week written in Arabic. And that is just one example of many. And I feel like if I keep talking about this that will never stop.

But my point in bringing us back to modern times is that this all started with a decision made by men who had no business making a decision. Arthur Balfour had no fucking business handing over a piece of land that had nothing to do with him. It was never his place. And what galaxy does that make sense to anybody? Zionism and Jewishness and Judaism are not equivalent, and I hope at this point in time people are realizing that.

I hope that this episode sheds some light on how the roots of Zionism itself are rooted in anti Semitism. It's nobody's place to decide to play god and just pretend people don't exist in a place that you want. It doesn't work like that. That's not human. So I think it's important to remember history like this because something like this does not happen overnight. It did not happen

or start on October seventh. This is something that has been decades in the making, and it all started with one stupid man making a decision with other stupid men that have way too much power that resulted in the suffering, the continued suffering of an entire people, the dehumanization of an entire people, We're seeing it play out right now. So I think as you learn about history, as to learn about things like this that maybe seem like they

happen so far away, they really didn't. We are experiencing the ripples of those decisions. And that's the episode for today. I hope it was informative, and I hope the genocide of the Palestinian people comes to an end. So in the meantime, Free Palestine, No no dot Com.

the United States Institute for Peace. What follows is my conversation with Billy and some insights on a situation on the ground with the Madelai PDF. You'll hear more from Sire Montiney in another episode that we're working on, but I wanted you to hear his personal on the ground perspective now as well. First, I let nine nine, the translator from Mandel a PDF, introduce our guest.

You can, I wouldn't characterize it as a stalemate as many have, but there's there's essentially been, you know, small pockets of progress where the resistance is capturing territory, but all almost exclusively rural areas of the country. And then things changed radically on October twenty seventh, when whereas Before the twenty seventh, you had a range of armed stakeholders involved in the conflicts, some under the deposed National Unity government, as well as what's called the K three C, which

is four of the biggest ethnic armed organizations. But a lot, a lot of the reason why we hadn't seen the level change in the military balance of power was because of the absence of some of the biggest and most powerful armed organizations that had more or less state on the sidelines.

You've seen the kN you taking important towns on the logistics corridor on the Thai border. Kareni groups have moved into Meyse on the Thai border with Kareni State. The Chin National Front has initiated attacks in Balatwa and Southern Chin State near the Bangladesh India border.

of context or something like that. So we organize world that we won't become a blood dirsty organization, but just to fight for the military pool. And one more thing is we are following the two CEOC, which is a code of context and then chain of commands before we form up as these military organizations.

incubated by some of the longer term armed organizations. In this case, the Kachin Independence Army helped for the emergence of the Arakan Army, which has really grown in the past ten years into one of the strongest armed stakeholders

in the country. Before the coup, under the on Sansuchil National League for Democracy government, they were in intense fighting with the MR military and on Sansuchi strongly supported the MEMR military's operations against the AA, and that kind of built some bad blood, as you might be might imagine, between the AA in the National League for Democracy and and that bad blood has made it difficult to build alliance across ethnic lines and with those resistant organizations that

involve n l D folks. But the key point here is that the AA is operating in two places were kind State and in Northern Shan State on the and Kachin State also actually it's the GUY now, but and they're an extremely powerful armed organization, highly disciplined, highly effective.

of Shan State. We've also seen some tension between the t n l A and the s SPP, which is another Northern Shan army that's closely aligned with the Wah and Chinese. So that's a that's a pretty complex array of relationships there. But the TNLA is also an increasingly powerful armed organization, one that administer administers territory and has also been locked in conflict with the Memory military for some time. The last group is the m n d

a A the MEMR National Democratic Alliance Army UH. This is a Ko Kong ethnic based armed organization that for a long time controlled territory along the China border. In two thousand and nine, Men Online, who is now the commit ender in chief and the head of.

which is very closely tied with the Chinese. I mean they use Chinese currency, they speak Chinese they fully administer their territory and autonomously. And then the other organizations that are relevant here is the National Democratic Alliance Army and d a A, which is essentially you can think of it as a closely tied.

learn to fight. Before the revolution, he said he had no experience and he didn't even play fighting video games. I asked him how it felt to be joining a group he'd been raised to hate and how he got there.

from the like Manulee region. It's very cool for the people from the Manley region because Manley's yeah, and in mountains it's very cold in here. So we stay having problems about the weather problem, but now we are getting

used to it. And he said that he is also surprised that TNLA, the a National Libation Army is a wealth am military and then they are also following the code of conduct and then the following the democracy way, and then most of the leaders from the TNLA of the liberal ideas and then they also one we work on to the young leaders from the Revolution Force US.

is very positive in a lot of ways. So yeah, the t n l A, the has been provided weapons and training for PDFs in Mandalay, the k i O, the k i A has been providing weapons and training and tactical and strategic support to PDFs and sagain, the Arakan Army has been maybe more than any group, providing tactical UH support and weapons and training to PDFs in Bogo, Arowadi, Maguay and now more recently in Segaine, so really the

the Burman heartland of the country. So yeah, all of these ethnic minority based armed organizations are now collaborating, sharing resources and knowledge with UH, with with Bamar ethnic PDFs. There's a so that I think the main question here is like what does this mean for intercommunal relations, What does this mean for the future uh of you know, of the country is there? Does this indicate there's potential for greater national solidarity in the absence of the MEMR

militi very fracturing communities and so on. But yeah, it's a radical shift in those relationships.

has been doing at the among the general public. I mean, we've done three different studies over the past year to assess intercreminal relations in the post couperiod and to kind of see how relations have shifted, because there's a really dominant narrative that MEMR is kind of irreconcilably fractured and that the communities are loyal to their ethnic identities not their national identities and.

ethnic identity, which totally cuts against narratives about MEMMAR. And Yeah, I mean, I think there's been considerable gains and inter ethnic relations, and it's you know, it's hard to determine, you know, the causal linkages here, whether you know, the improved inter ethnic relations are spurring greater military collaboration and

collaboration on humanitarian assistants and governance and so on. But it does feel like there's a major shift and social dynamics in addition to these kind of military shifts that

are taking place. I mean, I think that the research we've done has found there to be sort of extremist national perspectives still remain, but that they're they're the likelihood of them escalating to violence is reduced, in large part because the public's vulnerability to UH incitement or to highly devisive political speech.

the that the actual horizontal relationships across communities are not

are not as bad as many presume. Actually, one of the surveys that we did found that Memar's intercommunal relations are no worse than countries with much lower levels of violence, which is kind of an indication of the fact that it's really vertical dynamics like violent political speech, highly exclusionary governance structures that are driving intercommunal violence, and so that those on that dimension at least that the person to

person intercommunal relation or relationships, I think there's a lot to be.

laws is dubious. They have have the initiated kind of casino operations which are illegal in China and really targeting Chinese public. And during COVID, when China a lot of Chinese nationals were forced back to mainland China, these criminal enterprises were short on labor and so they shifted their approach. I mean they shifted to trafficking people into their zones and then operating out a global scale finding labor from around the world, you know, using not not low skilled labor.

I mean this is these are high skilled kind of middle class workers seeking employment in the tech industry or some other scheme that they you know, eventually they're you know, held at gunpoint and forced to scam their co nationals.

affiliated criminal organizations. So essentially, over the past year, the Chinese have have noticed not only the financial losses but the potential for social instability because as youth unemployment has grown in China, you know, these young people are seeking new employment opportunities, crossing the border in memr for high paying tech jobs and then being held at gunpoints. So you have you know, mothers on social media saying I haven't seen my son in three weeks, and you know

he's being held in a scam operation. So you know this is this is diletarious at two levels, you know, the financial scam losses and the trafficking, and it's all being run by border guard forces that are commissioned by the Malamar military. And yet you see countries around the world, including China, going to the Malamar military and saying please

shut this down. And of course the Malmur military has no intention to shut this down because these these scam operations are financing the border guard forces that are their key weapon against the resistance. So they need the border guard forces and so they will never shut down the scam operations, and so what what ensued was essentially earlier this year. I mean the Chinese came to the Malmour military and said, we will suppor you at every level.

We will prop you up, provide you weapons, to provide you assistance if you can demonstrate the capacity to govern, the capacity to provide stability on our border, the capacity to provide to allow us to pursue our economic interests. And the SAC has completely failed this test. Scam operations have exploded China's economic interests. The Chupu Especial Economic Zone remains in a impact assessment phase. The Lepidon copper mind

is non functional, the Mitzo dam is non functional. They're just not getting out of the SAC what they wanted. And so there was a meaningful shift recently, it appears, and I think by all indicators that we can see the Chinese greenlit Operation ten twenty seven that they at least did not stand in their way.

And then because we for example, we use like a K types, we have the different So it is not very possible to arm the better weapons from the the Mali army. We only used some of the weapons, like for the artillery or something like that, but that's only a few we got from them. What we really need is about the better artillery or s A M or something like that for the a strights.

to me that the essay c's capability is weakening. I mean, yeah, their their access to foreign currency and to purchase weapons is highly constrained now. I mean their primary providers Russia and China, you know, ones fighting their own war and the other is kind of is a little bit more skeptical as to whether they deserve their support. I mean they just last week the US initiated new sanctions on the Meanoma oil and Gas enterprise that provided half a

billion dollars in revenue for the junta per year. Yeah, that's a major that's a major issue for them accessing US dollars which they need to buy weapons. I mean, the Ties can no longer pay the Memoir military and USD and the Memor military doesn't want bought. So they're literally negotiating barter agreements where they you know, sell gas for material goods. But now you have the Resistance controlling you know, part of Cocker Rig on the Asia Highway

into Thailand. I mean, they control the borders, are the starting to in a way they hadn't before, So even this sort of bartering or material trade is is less viable. So yeah, I mean, I think they're just really asset constrained, and it does I mean just the fact that they haven't been able to retake these critical logistic coups. I mean the border crossings that the Resistance has have controlled constitute forty percent of the of the of the overland

trade between China and Memar. It's you know, it's like four billion dollars in value that's being you know, that tax loss for the SAC it's considerable. It's considerable losses there as well. And how long they can really hold out and maintain their air assets is really questionable, particularly since they've had to massively diversify their air asset purchase,

which really makes it more complex to service points. And so yeah, I mean, I think I'm not sure that the Resistance has much more capacity in service to air or air defense, but it does seem like there the SACS capacity to inflict atrocities in this way has also been constrained.

And as one person, resistance fighter indicated, essentially you fire your gun in the air and they lay down their weapons, which is more you know, an indication of of where the military stands and the support that these these highly isolated I mean, this is a fractured light infantry force that's dispersed a posts all over the country, and you know they're resupplying from the Northwest Command in Monuoas to towns within thirty minutes drive by helicopter because they can't

they can't move, so there's just not logistics support to these posts. And so yeah, you've got folks in there that just the will to fight is pretty small. Morale is shrinking from a very low base, and so I think there was the the general pattern is just resistance taking military barracks and posts.

the revolutionary people of Myanmar, something will cover in greater detail on another episode, but it's yet another illustration of how the revolutionary people of Mianma have continued to defy everyone's expectations about how and where they will go next, and how they've managed to dream up a vision from more equal and just future, even as they face the injustice and inequality of fighting a war the world doesn't

seem to care about. Without a single dollar of international military aid, little support other than strongly worded letters from the UN at sporadic intervals have come. To the end of the episode, I asked Sya Montine if he had anything else he would like to share with.

back to our country. He's a little bit from words, you know, say that if other governments are not helping us because they can't get any benefits from helping us, even if they don't want to help us, just don't look as like we are the wild ones. We will be trying to get the level of the other countries.

about that and then take news. You know, if you guys can can come and visit us, and then you can see how we treat people, and then how we respect the civilians, and then how we follow put of contexts in person.

millions in Gaza. They can include civillions and revolutionaries from me and Mark in their demands going forward.

And you know, for that cardinal sin they've been missing too preton ever since. So today we're going to be explaining exactly who who the Lights were and why their actions resonate with us today in the twenty first century. We'll talk about their history and their motivations and their brave stand against the relentless march of capitalist progress. We're also such on some figures, some of their tactics, and the last impact they left on history. But most importantly,

we'll be covering why they struggle Somatus today. So here we are. You know, in the nineteenth century indust Revolution souping through England, British working families were going through some very tough times as the economy was in turmoil and unemployment was spreading like wildfire. It really wasn't a good

situation to be in. There was this never ending war with Napoleon's France, there was Drian resources and causing what Yorkshire historian Frank Peel described as the hard pinch of poverty. And to make matters worse, food was in short supply and the prices were shooting up. Not only were jobs hard to come by, but even putting basic food on the table was becoming a serious challenge. So it's a really tough period for these families and they were feeling

that squeeze in every way possible. So that Light emerged as a response to these seismic shifts as a loosely organized group of textile workers and weavers who healed primarily but not exclusively, from the nottingham Shire region of England. At the heart of their struggle was the mechanization of the textile industry. Factories powered by steam engines and intricate machinery were replacing traditional cottage industries, leading to unemployment and

a decline in working conditions. In the place of a cottage industry where cloth workers could work as many or as few hours and days suited them, the factory had a reseren where workers would work long hours at dangerous machinery, be fed meager meals, and submit to the punitive authority

of the foremant Factory owners were winning. As I alluded to earlier, the rights were not blindly opposed to this idea of progress, as they've been misinterpreted, but they were seeking to protect their livelihoods and the quality of their craftsmanship. Many of the original rights were actually quite savvy when

it came to technology. In fact, some were highly skilled machine operators that ended up smashing the very machines that they were accustomed to use in They had no issue with welcoming innovations that made their lives and their jobs easier, but they had an issue with the way that the new machinery is being used by the factory owners to

reduce them to mare cogs in the industrial machine. And they didn't like that factory owners were using the machinery to kick out the trained and skilled cloth workers in fear of child laborers and other lower skilled workers would

be easier to exploit. The cloth for these machines produced was of lower quality, but because it was so cheap to churn out and there was so much of it, the factory owners were still ted inner profit and so that you know, that sucks for them, which is why the rights to resist these changes embraced a distinctive form of protest. At the time, labor organizing was labor organizing was illegal, so they chose a suppose even more drastic

method of targets in the newly introduced machines for destruction. Yeah, they were.

was a symbol, not their actual leader. He was a legendary weaver who was said to have been whipped for idleness, so he smashed two knit in frames in a fit of passion. More likely, Nedlood didn't exist. He was more of like a folkloric character, but the Rights named themselves after him and would call them King Lood and General Luod. Funny enough, the authorities actually thought he was the ringleader

of the whole operation, so they tried to hunt him down. Meanwhile, of course, the Ludites jokingly referring to the Lud's office and Shewood Forest, and some of the Luodites would actually cross dress as luds wives during their protests.

Sometimes the thing that just people did. But yeah, you can see it in depictions of the Luddites, Like people even took the time to paint it into their paintings exactly exactly.

in the balls. Yeah, chad move indeed, indeed, But these actions were not just you know, random acts of vandalism and violence. They were a desperate plea for change. In fact, they mainly confined their attacks to manufacturers who specifically use machines in what they called a fraudulent and sitful manner to get around standard labor practices. The lights wanted machines that made high quality goods, and they wanted these machines to be run by workers who had gone through an

apprenticeship and got paid decent wages. Those were really their main concerns. And besides the raids and the smashing, they also had a couple other tricks up their sleeves. They organized public demonstrations, They sent out letters to local industrialists and government officials to lay out their reasons for wrecking the machinery. They were just smashing flow reason with no messaging. And in different parts of England, you know, you had

different approaches, different stances and different material conditions. So, for example, in the Midlands of England, the rights had the Company of Framework Knitters, which was this recognized public body that could talk to the capitalists through named representatives, and so they used that legitimacy as a recognized institution to back

up their demands. But up in the northwest of England, textile workers didn't have these established trade institutions, so they used their letters to push for official recognition as a united group of trades people. You know, it's like an early union. The demands and just of course about smash machines. They also wanted high min on wages and again an end to child labor. They were playing the long game, and in Yorkshire, you know the tone shifts of it.

They were going from letter writ into making more direct and violent threats against local authorities who they saw support in these nasty machines that messed with the job market the Yorkshire that writes meant business. In fact, they carried around these sledgehammers that they call the Great Enoch, named after local blacksmith who had manufactured both the hammers and

also many of the machines they intended to destroy. As they declared Enoch made them, Enoch shall break them, which I think is just the division that gives me is like, you know, God of War style, you know, swinging around this sledgehammer smash of the machines.

they were experienced with and where you found them. Of course, they were sending out death threats to some industrialists as well, and in fact Some of these industrialists were so worried about let light attacks that they had secret chambers built into their buildings as escape plans in case things went south during an attack. Yeah, you could imagine them cowering in their holes. Yeah, just like as were outside.

these ordinary people and their desperate and fair please for change. Yeah, surely it was a human response right.

would hire. So the owner ordered his men to fire into the crowd, killing at least three and wound in eighteen and then soldiers killed at least five more the next day.

men were actually the Lightes. Some had no connection to the movement, and while these trials were technically legitimateury trials, many were abandoned due to a lack of evidence laid in the acquittal of thirty of those sixty men, and it's evident that these trials were primarily intended as show trials to discourage other the Lights from continuing the activities. And then here's where we get to the important bit.

Parliament went on to make a machine breaking I eat, industrial sabotage a capital crime with the Frame Breaking Act of eighteen twelve.

the army. Like it's like a like there are people who have not reconstructed their opinions on labor organizing since the LA that period.

like material reasons people feel nostalgic. Nostalgic as well. Yeah, like when think about you know, safety, when you think about the ways that our cities have changed, think about you know, all of the material realities that have changed in these decades, and it makes sense. But just like I wished for the simpler life of the present, our people now wish, you know, go back to these simpler times of.

But yeah, this is just like when I had an estate and I could direct the peasants to trim my trees in a certain shape, life was better for them kind of, but like in a meaningful sense, right, Like

the lives of working class people were not improved. Right we see, like the like GDP, which is a useless metric that, like the amount of of like value of goods the country produces an industrial revolution goes up and up and up, but the quality of life and even life expectancy does not, right, Like people are dying earlier and certainly like and chiefly life expectancy is dropping because children are dying, right, either from the industrial conditions or

conditions in cities, and so like, in a meaningful sense, those people's life was not improved. The life of the bourgeoisis was improved.

in their agency. It's more of a paternalist like it's I guess not dissimilar to the way Britain treated its colonies in many ways.

who live in lavish But whether you talk either of those cases, when you look at the reality of the situation on the ground, it's like, oh, you actually go back to that time, it wasn't also on Shannon Russ, you know, like it actually was not good to be a peasant. Actually, I mean there are certain things that you know a lot better than now in terms of perhaps the vibrants of culture or the ability to lean on a community for support and that sort of thing.

But or take for example, this oil boom situation talking about with Trinidad. Yeah, like there was this massive influx of wealth and stuff, but there's also you know, a whole bunch of corruption. And also we had the whole nineteen seventy Black Power revolution that was born out of the frustration of the people at the time. There's an all sunshine and rainbows, you.

fuck all to help you. It's like I can see how that might promote some nostalgia.

to the production of inferior goods and unemployment. He concluded that the proposed law, the Frame Breaking Act of eighteen twelve, was only missing two crucial elements to be effective twelve butchers for a jury and a Jeffries for a judge, which was a reference to George Jeffries, an infamous hanging judge known for his very harsh judgments.

transforming to it, can also disrupt lives and communities. The lights experiences, the lights experiences echo even today, you know, in an era with the fear of technological unemployment, with discussions and the impact of automation and AI.

on progress. Today, it seems this history as we have of repeating itself as we face a similar struggle against technological changes that come about to the detriment of workers. As some tech has been used by tech companies in various industries to drive down wages and worsen conditions for common workers. Say, for example, technological unemployment. Theladites who once resisted the encroachment her machines would find their concerns reflected

in our modern world. As a technological advancements often come with the cost of those whose jobs can be automated away.

For instance, in the manufacturing industry, robots and automated assembly lines of streamline in production lead into increased efficiency and lower costs for companies, but these efficiencies often meant the displacement of human workers, and such as in manufacturing, the ripple effects extend to various sectors like customer service, transportation, and data analysis, and so there's this fear of job

displacement looms large. However, technological unemployment, which is the belief that as technology advances, human jobs are at risk potentially into widespread unemployment, has been described by some economists as

a fallacy. Back in the early days of the Industrial Revolution, when the advance of mechanization began transforming various industries, and with workers fear and automation would render them job less and devalue their labor, the people took a stand, but as time passed, new industries and job opportunities emerged to replace some of the old ones. Ultimately absorbing that workforce.

Fast forward to the twentieth century and the rise of computers and automation technology reignited concerns about technological unemployment, but again, new jobs were created in new industries. Today, the debate continues as artificial intelligence, robotics, and automation advance at an unprecedented pace, and it remains to be seen what the

long term consequences of those technologies may be. My position has really always been that we should be working less anyway, but instead people are obsessed with creating new jobs, even when they're unnecessary. See you know, of course, David Graber's

bullshit jobs. But you know, even if the idea of mass unemployment due to tech is not true, if we end up replacing the jobs that are eraised with new jobs, whatever the case may be, tech is nevertheless quite capable of destroying livelihoods, creating unintended consequences, and further concentrating power in the hands of fewer and fewer people. Tech advance

when it makes a job more fulfilling and enjoyable. They are also those who make it more tea us and grinding, I mean, yes, tech and free us from some tasks. You know, accountants have digital spreadsheets to make their lives much easier. For example, writing is way easier now that the personal computers is more common. But while technological progress can produce prosperity, there's really no guarantee that the prosperity will reach the workers. In most cases on the capitalism,

it very clearly doesn't. In fact, many of the benefits of the industrial revolution were really not felt by the workers until decades later, after many of them had been you know, crushed or poisoned or killed or you know, died in a factory fire or whatever they shut down when protesting, you know, like that, they didn't see the benefits until much later on. You know, it's not like

you know, these things introduced and boom, everybody benefits. I mean even now, not everybody in the world is benefiting

from you know, the computer age. There are still many people, like for example, in the Congo, who are endurance slavery and slave like conditions in order to you know, procure the materials necessary for the computer age totally, and yet they're not seeing those benefits and arranged we're scene when they'll see the benefits that many of us enjoy in various parts of the world, and particularly that there was

enjoy in the global North. In our relentless pursuit of progress and technological advancement as defined by capitalism, we also end up losing our nature, our community, and in many cases are craftsmanship. I mean, I remember John Booth, the one who had said can you keep a secret? Or so can I? Yes? Other words, you know that the new machinery, right, Beman's chief blessing in Surface Curse. It's

a side he were differently constituted. That's where I have to bring in the one and only the ls I've spoken about him before, of course, the Austrian philosopher, the theologia and the sort of everything Guy ivan Ilich.

not supplant it. We had convivial tools empowered individuals and communities, fostering creativity and autonomy while preventing the concentration of power in the hands of the few. According to Ilig, conviviality is individual freedom realized in personal interdependence. It's basically the ability of individuals to interact and to interact creatively and autonomously with others and the environment to satisfy their individual

and collective needs. Convivial tools, or those which are robust and durable, preserve or enhance ecosystems, level unequal power relationships, and give each person who uses them the greatest opportunity to enrich the environment with the fruits of their vision. And a convivial society is one in which tools, which according to Lag includes physical hardware, productive institutions, and productive systems,

so tools will be factories, hospitals, schools, farms. All of those things are being included in his definition of tools, and a convivial society is one of which those tools operate on the humans scale and save the people instead of rulers. The idea of configual tools really challenges us to a few technology as a means to enhance our

lives rather than displace our livelihoods. It's a call to harness innovation for the bettend of society instead of the perpetuation of radical monopolies, which I spoke about in a previous it could happen here episode. I think a Lodites like John Booth would have certainly appreciated that message.

We're looking more at the label, organized and roots of the original Latite movement, and of course even see echoes of Ogloodite action in the vandalism against self driving cars.

It also includes the techniques of operation and the social organizations that make up particular technology work. Technology reflects our worldview. The forms of technology we embrace, whether they be machines, techniques, or social structures, are seeply roots in our perception of life, death, human potential, and the relationships between humans and nature. Our choice of technology, in many ways, mirrors our outlook on

the world. That outlook in the modern world is shaped by a rather mechanistic approach to life, characterized by rational thinking, efficiency, utilitarianism, scientific detachment, and a belief in humanities, ownership and supremacy over nature. That's how the end of getting texts like the Military Industrial Complex and they were and sprawl. Honestly, in a sense, the old lites kind of had it easy.

forced those processes on them under the guise of progress. Glendening saw these victims as the basis of a new Bloodite movement struggling against what has been called the Second Industrial What has been called the Second Industrial Revolution alongside

thinkers like Lewis Mumford and Ivan Ilich. Those survivors have gone on to create groups such as as Those Victims of America as part of ME, Victims of Their Friends, Citizens Against Pesticide Misuse, DALK and Shield Information Network, des Action, and National National Association of Atomic Veterans, National Committee for Victims of Human Research, National Toxics Campaign, and the VDT Coalition.

All of these, of course are based in the US, and there are also actives groups like earth First that could have been classified under the Neololte cause and Earthful strategy was to stop environmental intrusions by any means available, legal and otherwise. So they will be slashing engines, slashing tires, disabling engines, blocking roads. Most famously, they would drilled spikes into trees and wilderness forests to prevent them from being logged by chainsaws.

back against its cultural impact. Peasants and farmers staunchly rejecting participation in the various development initiatives imposed upon them by compliant governments, often under the influence of entities like the World Bank or the US State Department. For example, during the early nineteen eighties, some farmers in Mali took a stand against the construction of dams and dykes for a

rice growing program that they wanted no part of. Other communities elsewhere have rallied to hold dam projects that threatened to submerge the ancestral lands, and some of them successful, as seen of the villagers who protested the Narmada Dam in India and the early nineteen nineties, and others have faced more daunting challenges, like the people of eastern Java who protested against the Neper Irrigation Dam and faced deadly consequences at the hands of Indonesian security forces in nineteen

ninety three. Yeah interous tribes have also organized to combat deforestation and road building projects that encroached upon their territories. The Chipco tree Huggan movement in India during the nineteen seventies and eighties famously succeeded in stopping government clear cutting efforts, and similar projects have echoed across the globe, from Malaysia to Australia, Brazil to Costa Rica, Solomon Islands, Indonesia and beyond.

Traditional fishermen in many regions, such as the Indians of continent, Malaysia, Indonesia, and multiple ports along the Pacific coast of South America, including Ecuador and Columbia, have also taken action against industrial fishing fleets encroaching on their waters and jeopardizing their livelihoods. In some cases, these protests may have involved the destruction of machinery, but sabotage, you know, is not unheard of, like in the case of a high tech chemical plant

in Thailand in nineteen eighty six. The driving force behind these actions really mirrors to ethos you know, as they share this full un desire to preserve the ways of life and livelihood in the face of industrial capitalisms, relentless pull towards a wage and market system. And then, of course, outside these movers and shakers, these onderground activists, there are also you know, the philosophical litites like the aforementioned illage.

The neololite spectrum is more diverse and intriguing than one might imagine. While it may not have crystallized into a more formal movement with clear representatives, as is expected of movements these days, it unites a wide array of individuals to share common awakening from the allure of unchecked technology

and resist various aspects of the industrial monoculture. Perhaps of the connections between these separate groups strengthen we'd see a greater recognition of the interconnected challenges in this grand tapestry of all evolving world. But the thing is to address the challenges posed by these technologies. It's not enough to merely regulate orti vidual items like pesticides or nuclear weapons. What's required is a profound shift in our thinking about

humanity and in our relationship to life itself. We need to craft a new worldview that paves the way for a different way of interacting with our world, our technologies, and our felt human beings. We need to reconsider our place in the ground scheme of things and to imagine a world where harmony and balance take precedence of predomination and control. In notes toward a Neulrite Manifesto written in

nineteen ninety, also by Chelli's Clendoning. The author outlines three core principles and four prescriptions that could drive the Neulrite movement. In terms of principles, firstly, and I suppose most essentially to addressing the misconception, Neulorites are not anti technology. Actually says technology is intrinsic to human creativity and culture. But what they oppose are the kinds of technologies that are at root destructive of human lives and communities. The next

principle two is that all technologies are political. Quote a social critic Gerrymander rights in four argumented Elimination of Television, a book I read some years ago, by the way that a premedians revisit. But continuing the quote, technologies are not neutral tools that can be used for good or evil dependent on who uses them. They are entities that have been consciously structured to reflect and serve specific, powerful

interests in specific historical situations. The technology is created by mass technological society. Are those that serve the perpetuation of mass technological society. They tend to be structured for short term efficiency ease of production, distribution, marketing and profit potential, or for warmaking. As a result, they tend to create rigid social systems and institutions that people do not understand and cannot change or control. The last principle three is

that the poisonal view of technology is dangers limited. Glendoning argues that the often hood message, but I couldn't live without my word processor, because of course she's writing this, you know, years and years ago.

their creations and upbeat utopian terms. You know, pesticides will increase yields to feed a hungry planet, nuclear energy will be too deep, too cheap to meter, et cetera. And of course you know you have to throw in that that potshot at nuclear energy. It's very very twentieth century coded text. Yeah, however, quote learning to critique technology demands fully examining its sociological context, economic gratifications, and political meanings.

It involves asking not just what is gained, for what is lost and by whom. It involves looking at the instruct introduction of technologies from the perspective not only a few in use, but of the impact in other living beings, natural systems, and the environment. And then there's the neolodide program, which loses me a bit at some points, even where I may agree with some of their principles, and you know, you might say that's a sign of my propagandized mind

in our technological society. But I'll leave you to be

the judge of that. Here's what Glendening explicitly proposes one as I moved toward dealing with the consequences of modern technologies and preventing further destruction of life, the New Lotte movement should favor the dismantling of nuclear technology, chemical technologies, genetic engineering technologies, television, electuro wagnetic technologies, and computer technologies, which, according to them, you know, according to her course, disease

and death, create dangerous me to gens in case of television, functions as a centralized mind, controlling force, poisons the environment, all these different things. And I mean I gets some of the justifications for some of these technologies, right, yeah, of course, disease, death, you know, pollution, social issues, right yeah, But I at same time, I don't believe in through

and out entire sciences and technologies. Who will see like that, you know, it feels like it feels like a very myopic view being presented on some of these texts.

promise of that which we occasionally see deliver as well. Right, Like if you saw today that I was just watching a video of the Yeppe Gay in Syria that the people in Rojaba like talking about the importance of women in the revolution in Myanmar, and like just occasionally the internet or technology gives us the thing they were supposed

to give us this ability to connect without barriers. Absolutely, but yeah, like you said that that's the computer or the cell phone and that was recorded on or whatever happened because somebody, somebody in the congo and in horrific conditions and the DC had to dig out some rare earth chemical and then got paid next to nothing and their ancestral homeland was ruined by some rabid company that makes billions of dollars and pays people like shit.

we live under this capitalist hegemony. The next step in the program to the New Write movement should favor a search for new technological forms and the creation of technologies by the people directly involved in their use, not by scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs who gain financially from mass production and distribution of the inventions, and who know little about the

context in which their technologies are used. I don't necessarily believe in, you know, splitting it down the middle like that, as if you know, scientists and engineers are not going to be the people that are directly involved in their use. And in some cases that's true. But another case is, you know, you know, people who are using the pros sometimes the people who invented it, yeah, iterated on it and whatnot.

irrasible imprint on their users. And she's advocating for the creation technologies are foster independence from technological addiction and promise political freedom, economic justice, and ecological balance. They are I can't.

for the benefits of life on Earth. For example, community based energy sources utilizing solar, wind and waters technologies, organic biological technologies and agriculture, engineering, architecture, art, medicine, transportation and defense, conflict resolution technologies which emphasize cooperation, understanding, and continuity of relationship. And decentralized social technologies which encourage participation, responsibility, and empowerment.

Now you know, I'm the solar punk guy. I'm the you know, the anarchists on YouTube. Whatever he got me on these. You know, I agree with all of these obviously, But what I find interest in is that this list seems to ignore how, you know, the technology is being advocated here are linked to the previous technologies that would

just be in decride. You know, like in one section she's talking about, you know, a fan of these chemical technologies, but chemistry is an inevitable component of the biological technology such you're advocating for. Are you saying that you don't like computer technologies, But when you're talking about like solar wind and water energy, which to be fair can be low tech too. Yeah, there is usually some involvement of a computer in those energy systems. So I think it's

you know, sight inconsistency there. But I don't know, what do you think?

was just in Rojabo for the last few weeks. But one of the things that I heard from everyone there, right from like and not just from like people in the women's movement, but also from like random guy in the market who I'm having tea with, is like that this idea that we can't can't decolonize the country until we declonize our family, and the notion that like women were the first colonized group of people, which and so like if we can't do gender equality, what you know,

what are we doing what we can't where where we find this revolution to liberate our country when we can't liberate our spouse, daughter or what have you. So definitely, yeah, it's just it's a very powerful I know it's not like as fun as taking a sledgehammer to a cotton mill, but like if we if we replicate that kind of extractive extractive capitalism is what makes the supply side of these things so bad, and it's what also leads us to think about using them in a way that can

extract the most value from the worker. So I would absolutely say that you know, the break the frame in your mind.

and functionality. We perceive the human role not as them of other species and planetary biology, but as integrated to the natural world with appreciation for the sacredness of all life. We foresee a sustainable future of humanity if and when Western technological societies restructure their mechanistic projections and foster the creation of machines, techniques, and social organizations to respect both human dignity and the nature's wholeness, and progressing towards such

a transition. We are aware that we have nothing to lose except a way of living that leads the destruction of all life. We have a world to gain. Quote word that was.

being asked at all. You know, you see you get these announcements for new technologies, new innovations, new techniques, new whatever. It's always just like you know, marketing and advertising, and then it's just implemented. There's no say of people, there's no raising questions about what are the consequences of this? Be ten years on the line, twenty years on the line, fifty years on the line, hundred years on the line, you know. Yeah, yeah, and the lessons of letters are

very clear. Technology should serve humanity, not the other way around.