It Could Happen Here Weekly 110

bad things happening here, meaning you know here. Obviously, here at cool Zone, we have a little bit of a habit of talking about colts. Some of you who have been listening to Behind the Bastard since the beginning will remember how we kind of started that series with several

long episodes about a guy named Keith Ranieri. And today we're here to talk with a wonderful author and journalist, Sarah Berman, who has written both about the next sim cult and about a new cult that some of you are probably familiar with if you if you caught the recent Netflix documentary Prime has a documentary out too on the Twin Flames cult, and so we're going to introduce why this is such an interesting cult, why it's kind

of groundbreaking. But first, Sarah, welcome so much to the show. Graham, Hey, hey.

And eventually it sort of becomes, you know, an all powerful control over people's lives, where they go, who they interact with, even their life partner, even their gender identity. So yeah, lots of people calling it a matchmaking cult.

sort of. I think the Appeals has speaks to, among other things, kind of the deep loneliness that a lot of younger people feel, you know, as we're dealing with this kind of increasingly closed off, isolated nature of society, especially since COVID, as well as kind of mixing that with some of these you know, much longer standing older cult traditions in a way that felt really really interesting to me and also like something that could only exist now.

they start selling Yes, you can have this too. All you have to do is buy our you know, coursework and whatnot. And I think it does speak to, especially during the pandemic, a sort of deep dark loneliness in isolation that's happening where people are enticed by this couple who they're just regular, you know, Michigan white people.

the cult leader at all times. And this is very People are not all together, they're not all living in

one area, They're geographically isolated. The dynamics that this reproduces itself with our parasocial dynamics, the same dynamics podcast listeners have with like like like you know, it's a more extreme version of that, but it's part of this thing we see with twitch streamers, we see it with like YouTubers, this kind of And it solves one of the mysteries because I've watched this stop with a couple of friends who kept being like, well, these people don't seem charismatic,

they don't seem this doesn't seem like, it doesn't seem like they could be attaining this.

sent thousands of dollars. And so that to me right away, like you said, you know, isolating people from their family members who might you know, raise questions or you know, want to know more about what's happening, asking for money so blatantly, you know, in denying contact based on an amount of money sent, that all sounded pretty bad to me, and so I started looking into it. That mom pointed me towards Elle, who is also featured in the Netflix series.

She's also Katie in the A Vanity Fair piece that later came out after our reporting, and it just sort of snowballed from there. I'll put me in touch with I would say half a dozen ex members. At that point, some different mothers started contacting me because they all were sort of in a group chat trying to figure out how they could re establish content contact with their mostly daughters. That was my origin story. We put out a piece

fairly quickly. I tried to get it out within a month or two of that first contact.

seen before. From a cult, and I guess, I guess I think the way into this is talking about the sort of divine masculine, divine feminine stuff.

falls apart, it doesn't make sense. But I think, yeah, something that's been taken away in some smaller circles is that, oh see, you can coach someone to change their gender, and that's you know, blame teachers, blame whoever for doing that.

join a cult is not a new thing. That that's something that a lot of you know, and changing hair, right.

a lot. It's a lot to take in, and I definitely like to bring experts up to speed on this and get their perspectives because I don't know everything, you know, I can't possibly pretend to know what's in someone someone's heart and mind and body, you know, at any time. So everyone is just working through it. Like one of the experts in the documentary says, you know, some of these folks could have been transmit all along, but the way that they're being told to do it is concerning to say the least.

like a transphoman. She was being basically like tokenized by the group as this like hey, we're like trans inclusive thing. And I wonder how much of the way they were able to do this is from basically taking the firsthand experience of like actual trans people and then like using that to try to convince people of this really weird sort of essentialist, like we've decided that you're the divide and masculine, so you have to transition to be a man now.

of feed them into the group. And you're right, I think if you have a bunch of queer, open minded people in a space, there's a lot you can do with you know, suggestion, There's a lot you can do with a deck of tarot cards. It seems a lot of these, you know, gender conversions started with a tarot reading where they would just hold up a card that represented them or their supposed partner and you know, sort

of building off of that. So it is it's new and old in so many ways because yeah, you're just using the divine to basically just dictate any aspect of someone's life. You know, what they eat, what they wear, they go everything.

that's supportive of them, and if especially they have not had that, Yeah, it's it's I mean, it's deeply insidious and evil.

I go on the Facebook group. You know, I'm block now, but when I could, it would you know, show folks really deep into a fantasy, you know, like they want a perfect life for themselves where they are openly welcomed with open arms, where the people that they care about care about them back, you know, and that's often not actually the case in their home life, but it seems to be real on this Facebook page, and they think, you know, if I just put in the work, this

will happen for me. That straight guy who I'm into is going to come around and see that we're twin flames. And so yeah, it definitely also feeds into a bit of fantasy and delusion. That's you know, I think maybe a symptom of us being so isolated in our you know, pandemic brain spaces.

But what's not incompetent is your reporting on this subject and I'm I'm curious as you realize how potentially a lot of what's going on in this cult, with this divine masculine divide feminine stuff, could, if not handled carefully, play into some really pernicious culture war stuff that's going on in the country right now. How do you kind of, like, how consciously did you sort of work to avoid that?

So that was my main, you know thing, was I was going to listen to trans people and then yeah, I guess just trying to sort out what was the ideology of the group, how that was being you know, I guess executed, and yeah, just trying to come from this perspective that, yeah, nobody can tell you what your gender is and this is actually an example of that. It was hard to wrap my head around, and I still worry about it. I'm still worrying about my words kind of right now.

and be like hey, like we need to stop gender clinics from being able to do this.

right is you know you it's you can't talk. It's really really it's almost impossible to like talk to the people who are going through this and get an understanding of what their sense of their gender is. I mean, like I've I watched a couple of the videos that they made and like, I don't know, it's it's it's really difficult to like it's it's it's easy to play arm tre psychologist with it, and I don't want to

do that. And so yeah, I think I think you've been watch a difficult line, and yeah, I keep.

think it's similar in a gender conversion coaching situation. Some people acquiesque, you know, they they get into a high pressure situation, they're being told who they are, They're being told there will be consequences if they.

having someone force a gender on you. And I really hope that these people, like I hope these people.

a gender if that you're not. And so yeah, I'm hoping that this develops in a way like of solidarity and not of weaponization by right wingers.

up to. He's obviously probably the biggest recent cult in the US, and like US popular culture at least, you know, there's a couple other a little bit of other competition for that title, but not a ton And yeah, I wanted to talk to you a little bit about how some of how people's awareness of that because like, obviously, given the media environment, all the people getting pulled in by the Twin Flames cult were aware to some extent of cult dynamics and probably of this story of this

cult that is not unrelated.

are similar. And sure enough, I go and look at this mind alignment process and you're right, it's it's kind of similar to auditing, and scientology is kind of similar to you know, what Nexium was doing.

twin Flames Universe. And you know their diet plan was actually, you know, load up on calories, right, So there's some.

nobody retracted. But sure enough, a couple months after that, they did file a defamation suit against I want to say, seven or eight members and one mom, and of course that got thrown out. But that's the next you and playbook is sue, sue folks until they don't speak to anyone anymore. Right, So it's a silencing tactic and it worked. It really shook people up. I definitely wanted to give people space after that. Yeah, it was definitely deja vus.

I guess to see that many lawsuits because there were two separate ones booth thrown out.

of thing. But like the fact that somebody sends you a we're going to sue you or like a ease and desist. Does not mean they can actually hurt you, right, It just means like for a lot of people, that's like a go to sort of thing.

to do cult stuff. And I think part of like one of the things that is unfortunate. It's just I'm not a law expert, again, but just from what I'm looked at, it's not clear to me that they've broken a law in a way that's going to be easy to come after them for.

to me that sound a bit like fraud. You know, wire fraud is a very broad concept. I don't know if that's actually the case. I am not a lawyer, I'm not a prosecutor, but definitely I think the filmmakers behind the Netflix documentary in particular, think that this is up to the FBI. They should be taking action, and they want their documentary to spur that action.

and mayhem. And it's also the it's also you know, it's we are We are vastly approaching the holiday season, which means that I, I think next week am doing my yearly bat Man Returns watch party, which I am extremely excited about. Is it's gonna it's gonna be a fun time, which is it's probably it's probably the best Batman movie. Oh no, it's just the aesthetics. The aesthetics are unparalleled.

I find them endlessly fascinating. We have this one from two thousand and three called Mkzine oh No. On the cover, we have a mind control, ritual abuse and political implications, the cult of National Insecurity. I've not flipped through this one super in depth before because I'm more taken aback by the other magazine I got from twenty twelve called

Paranoia the Conspiracy Reader. On this cover we have beyond MK Ultra Satellite Terrorism in America, science fiction or space Faction, oh No, And Dark Knight Kill Programming, which is obviously the one we're going to be talking about here today.

you've seen it. We will we will get into some of some of the stuff, but I want to I want to talk about how these conspiracy theorists saw this movie because the way that they do political analysis of media is very different from the way actual academics and people who take this stuff seriously do political analysis of media. And I think there's an interesting juxtaposition there. So this is this is the cover page for this story.

the threat of social chaos it poses. Despite rallying people around their deceased hero Harvey Dent, the rich are losing their grip on Gotham City. Antagonist Baine played by Tom Hardy, and his League of Shadows rise up against the bankers and the elite billionaires like Bruce Wayne, and attack Walsh Street, savagely beating the rich while promising the good people of

Gotham that tomorrow you claim what is rightfully yours. Bain's organized violence against the wealthy evokes the reality of Occupy Wall Street, but Bain is no Robin Hood. He is plotting a massive transfer of wealth through stock exchange after inciting civil unrest and taking control of cutting age weapons technologies whose algorithm can be directly traced to Bruce Wayne, software which will avail them from the fortunes of the rich.

As the war between the people and the police in the Dark Knight rises indicates the predictive programming of statistical data could very well undermine the one percent and send them into the streets where the disgruntled will eat them. Fraudulent practices will be exposed, identity theft, credit card fraud, securities fraud, and a number of other practices that the elite do in order to bilk the poor out of

their money. This is one interesting thing about these sorts of kind of conspiracy radio guys, how they're both against the elite but also fundamental also for the elite. Like this film is celebrated as being you know, like it's deriding the anti corporate occupy movement, which they hate because they hate they would dislike, you know, a left wing popular uprising.

It is not the rich, but anarchy that is the bane of Gotham's existence.

Imagine that intelligence is aware of the threat and issues a declassified memo from the Department of Homeland Security warning lawn Hosement that terrorists could be killing people in movie theaters. All that is needed is the catalyzing event and immediately the police estate is activated. Flash riots take place in cities,

civil unrest, bruise under the radar. Truth becomes stranger than fiction as we examined the media stories surrounding the main story of the so called brainwashed low nut James Holmes opening fire in a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, on July twentieth, twenty twelve, an allegedly killing twelve and injuring fifty nine others. Interesting use of the word allegedly there in regarding regarding the people that were killed.

to brainwash you to activate the police state. Once you receive a bit of predictive programming.

boy sings the national anthem with a British accent. Bain pauses to listen to the distinct voice, then says, Nott the Gerbers brigand after which the stadium is bombed and the mayor is killed in his reserved viewing box. Now, Clyde Lewis believes that this was a bit of predictive programming in order to prepare people for a mash casualty event at the London twenty twelve Olympics, which you might you might know did not happen, was not was.

that did not happen. So that's, you know, as as as we're going to be talking about, you know, how people view mass uprising and political movements in media for the for the rest of this episode, this is how a certain sect of conservative does their own media analysis, which I think is a really is a really fun, really fun look into how their brains operate, sorting a very political film into these into these predictive programming boxes.

But we will we will return to talk about the Virgin David Graber and the chad Mark Fisher.

of those are more or less coincidental. Now, unfortunately for me, not actually unfortunately, because I actually do like Graber a lot, but his analysis was by far the best out of anybody else's in regards to this film, And unfortunately the schizoid, acid fueled chaos magic of Mark Fisher kind of paled in comparison to the precision of the anthropologist David Graeber in terms of their analysis of this film, but both

of them had roughly the same opinion. Graber has just went into a lot more depth about how kind of

this film actually politically operates. So I'll be mostly talking about in quoting from Graber, with a few things from Fisher kind of mixed in, and then we'll compare it to some stuff in Breitbart and The Daily Caller and a few other reactions from liberals who enjoyed the film too much and are are unwilling to kind of seed this conservative ground to Nolan's twenty twelve film, and I think this is actually really interesting to talk about this

film this year after the release of Oppenheimer, which I think is Nolan's probably most politically mature work.

a piece of anti occupy propaganda. Christopher Nolan, the director, claims that the script was written before the movement even started, and that the famous scenes of the occupation of New York Gotham City were really inspired by Dickens's account of the French Revolution. This is probably true, but it's disingenuous. Everyone knows Hollywood scripts are continually rewritten while movies are

in production. And when it comes to messaging, even details like precise wording or where a scene a shot can make all the difference. Then there's the fact that the villains actually do attack the stock exchange. Still, it's precisely this ambition, the filmmaker's willingness to take on the great issues of the day, that ruins the movie. So the script was written well before Occupy started. Shooting for Dark Knight rices ended two months after the start of Occupy.

Most of the shooting for the film took place before Occupy even happened. And now in twenty eleven, it was widely misreported that the movie was going to be filming at Occupy itself, which started from like I think something in the La Times which just got blown blown out of proportion.

were just leading to two very different places. The Dark Knight released in the middle of the two thousand and eight financial crisis, right after the two thousand and eight writers strike, ended, So there were a lot of class issues circling around in Nolan's bubble, so it made sense that Nolan's next Batman flick would tackle these things that rose to cultural prominence by the time he finished The More Patriot Act inspired at The Dark Knight Now, Nolan

and other writers obviously saw economic inequality and corruption seating people's anger and the rising possibility of civil unrest, and that was put into the script and then it just happened two months before they finished shooting Now. Nolan also took a lot from the Tale of Two Cities. This

probably more than anything else. The Dark Knight Rises is actually based on the Tale of Two Cities, a passage of which is read at the end of the film, and there's plenty of parallels to the French Revolution, including the storming of Bastille. There's actually two prison breaks inside The Dark Knight Rises. There is the release of Black Eight, and then there's of course when Bruce Wayne escapes the Giant Hole in the ground and frees the other prisoners

as well. So still, throughout all of these kind of class issues that Nolan is talking about in this film, he still shows a deep trust of populism or at the very least feared how easily it could be subverted in a charged financial climate. I'm going to read one

one quote from Fisher here. Quote when Nolan revived the Batman franchise in two thousand and five, the setting Gotham in the midst of an economic depression seemed like an achronistic reference to the superheroes origins in the nineteen thirties. Two thousand and eight to The Dark Knight was too early to register the impact of the financial crisis. But The Dark Knight Rises clearly attempts to respond to the

two thousand and eight situation. The film isn't this simple conservative parable that the right wingers would like, but in the end it is a reactionary vision, which I think is the fairest way to look at this film. But now we're going to go deep into Graver's analysis, which is by far, probably one of the best write ups on twentieth century superheroes and their role in American culture.

all the fun. Then, of course we feel guilty about it, re identify with the hero and have even more fun watching the super ego clubbing the errant id back into submission. This essay that Graber wrote is very Freudian. Craper makes a lot of freud references in this. I am not going to be getting into as much, but superheroes are also very very Freudian.

is literally well literally they just like that. That is just the like they stopped being subtle and we're like, hey, here's a guy who's an anti imperial list and then the ending reveal is, oh my god, he's actually evil. In terms of Marvel, I would say yes, I would. I think my two favorite superhero movies, which would be Tim Burton's Batman and Batman Returns, do the reverse of this where very obviously the villain is the main characters of both of those and Batman is really just a

side character. And I think that was actually work better for this medium so much more. Oh yeah, but when it comes to Marvel, absolutely yeah, they're just like openly doing this now. It's really sort of like, yeah, this was what the second one's about.

After all, the heroes of even the most right leaning action movies seem to spend much of their time smashing up suburban shopping malls, something that many of us would like to do at some point in our lives. In the case of most comic book superheroes, however, the mayhem has an extremely conservative political implication. This is where we could start getting into God versus the people and using both of these things as constructs. Right, neither of these

things really fully exist in a super material way. Both of these things are constructs quote unquote God, quote unquote the people. They both occupy a very similar ontological rule, and this is something that Graper gets into quote any power capable of creating a system of law cannot itself be bound by them. In the Middle Ages, the solution was simple. The legal order was created either directly or

indirectly by God. The English, American and French revolutions changed all that when they created the notion of popular sovereignty, declaring that the power once held by kings and by extension, God, is now held by an entity called the people. The people, however, are bound by the laws. They are able to create the laws through those revolutions themselves. But of course revolutions are acts of law breaking, so laws emerge from illegal activity.

This creates a fundamental incoherence and the very idea of modern government, which assumes that the state has a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence. It's okay for police to use violence because they are enforcing a law. The law is legitimate because it's rooted in the constitution. The constitution is legitimate because it comes from the people. That people create the constitution by acts of illegal violence. It all circles back on itself.

because this doesn't really have an answer. This is a very vague question, and kind of, as Graber points out, it's vague by design.

a lot of other you know, popular democratic countries. There's a good line quote we base the legitimacy of the whole system on the consent of the people, despite the fact that the only people who were ever really consulted on the matter lived over two hundred years ago in America at least, quote unquote, the people are long since dead. So now we have this situation that we have this idea of the legal order which comes from God, which then came from armed revolution, and now it just comes

from this idea of sheer tradition. Now, there's obviously a lot of American politicians who would want to give this power back to God.

The very idea that there is something special about revolutionary violence, anything that makes it different from mere criminal violence, is so much self righteous twaddle. Violence is violence, but that doesn't mean a rampaging mob can't be the people, because violence is the real source of law and political order. This is why, as Walter Benjamin noted, we cannot help but admire the great criminal, because, as so many movie

posters have put it, he makes his own law. After all, any criminal organization does inevitably begin developing its own, often quite elaborate set of internal laws. They have to as a way of controlling what would otherwise be completely random violence. From the right wing perspective, that's all law, ever is. It is a means of controlling the very violence that

it brings into being and through which it is ultimately enforced. Now, I think this is also true of even certain aspects of the left, where we have we don't call them laws, we might call them like community guidelines or something, but we often actually do this same process, especially in the anarchist kind of formations that try to replicate gang formations like purposefully, we get this same essence that is developed in order to people might you know, reject these to

the word police, but at least, you know, make some kind of structure that deems which violence is acceptable and which violence isn't. But back to Graber quote. This makes it easier to understand the often surprising affinity between criminals, criminal gangs, right wing political movements, and the armed representatives of the state. Ultimately, they speak the same language, they

create their own rules on the basis of force. As a result, they typically share the same broad political sensibilities. In Athens nowadays, there's an active collaboration between the crime bosses in poor immigrant neighborhoods, fascist gangs, and the police. In fact, in this case, it was clearly a political strategy face with the prospect of popular uprisings against a

right wing government. The police first withdrew protection from neighborhoods near the immigrant gangs, then started giving tacit support to the fascists for the far right. Then it is in that space where different violent forces operating outside of the legal order interact that new forms of power and hence of order can emerge. What does this have to do with costume superheroes. Well, everything, because this is exactly the

space that superheroes and supervillains also inhabit. An inherently fascist space inhabited only by gangsters would be dictators, police and thugs, with endlessly blurring lines between them. Sometimes the cops are legalistic, sometimes they're corrupt. Sometimes the police themselves slip into vigilanteism. Sometimes they pursue the superheroes, sometimes they look the other way. Sometimes they help. Villains and heroes occasionally team up. The

lines of force are always shifting. If anything new where to emerge, it could only be through such shifting forces. There's nothing else, since in the DC and Marvel universes, neither God nor the people really exist. Now, I think this is greater hitting on something that really actually does hit at the core of this whole genre is that this is the genre which is really only inhabited by

the uber manch as this like governing body. Right, There's there really isn't the god in any kind of meaningful way. There isn't the people in any kind of meaningful way. There is just the super individual. The uber manch himself is what inspired Joe Schuster and Jerry Siegel to create Superman.

wish to conquer the world. Now, this is where I'm going to actually disagree slightly with Graber. He writes that superheroes quote remain parasitical off the villains in the same way that police remain parasitical off criminals. Without them, they'd have no reason to exist. Now, I'd argue that the police actually create the spectral category of criminals to justify

their own existence. Yeah, criminals didn't create the police. It's the other way around, right, you can look at you can look at like the way even the past few years, police have been lying about inflated crime rates to justify

their own increased funding. And now, obviously people always broke social norms, but if you're looking at the actual, like the actual like political class of criminal and the political class of police, this is like it's like everyone has done a crime, right, Like police commit more crimes than the average person, but they do not often get called a criminal. I'm talking about like a very political class that we call criminal, and this is something that the

police create. And curiously, in the same way, most superheroes also pre date their respective supervillains, as it is the presence of the superhero that often births the adversarial supervillain. We see this across tons of superhero medias where they use example of how the superhero predated the arrival of these theatrical villains, and this is actually the superhero's fault, right. Is this happens in Batman, this happens in Spider Man.

This is very, very common. We even see this in something like The Boys or The Watchmen, both of which target superheroes as a reactionary right wing tendency, which are aligned with the police and military. We literally have Homelander creating supervillain to justify his own existence, or super terrorists in The Watchman, the actual team predates the arrival of

many super villains. So this, this is this is one one small nitpick I might I might say with this article, at least in terms of the like the the causality loop between superheroes and villains and criminals and police. Do you know what also pre dates all all of us, every every single person listening.

the status quo. So what what superheroes and the police, which are very ontologically similar roles in a lot of cases, what their end project is is that they seek to maintain what is and then seek out and destroy anything that threatens to alter our civilizational fabric. They they fundamentally are defenders of the status quo. That is, that is the that is the role of the superhero across almost

all media. This is why if you had the powers of Superman, why are you just saving cats from trees and instead not fundamentally reshaping the world in something that is better. Now, this is a question that gets tackled by people like Grant Morrison and Alan Moore is to they often give reasons for why someone shouldn't do that, But still, this is this is a fundamental aspect of this genre is that these guys never really have any

generative political project. They they are purely reactionary, and they purely are are are made to to hold up the status quo and always return to this single point from which they emerged, Back to grayber quote, they remain defenders of a legal and political system which itself seems to have come out of nowhere, and which, however faulty or degraded, must be defended because the only alternative is so much worse.

They aren't fascists, They're just ordinary, decent, super powerful people who inhabit a world in which fascism is the only political possibility. Why might we ask what a form of entertainment premised on such a peculiar notion of politics emerge in the early to mid twentieth century America at just around the time that actual fascism was on the rise in Europe? Was it some kind of fantasy American equivalent. Not exactly. It's more that both fascism and superheroes were

products of a similar historical predicament. What is the foundation of social order when one has exercised the very idea of revolution, and above all, what happens to the political imagination? So at this point Graver starts talking about how basically all power goes to the individual, but the individual who is embedded within a system. He discusses how the core audience for superhero comics are adolescent or pre adolescent to

white boys. At least that was in the nineteen twenties or thirties, and forties, and roughly is still the case. It's that these comic books and now Marvel films, although unfortunately Marvel films have a much broader audience, but they are targeted to people who are at a point in their lives where they're like where they're likely to be both like the most imaginative and a little bit rebellious. Right, this is like, this is the twelve year old white

boy is the thing that that this is targeting. So they're both very imaginative, they're a little bit rebellious, but they're also being groomed to take on positions of power and authority in the world. Right, They're about to transition to being fathers, share of small business owners, middle management.

go into chaos. These things have to be contained. So this is why superheroes are only allowed. I'm gonna I'm gonna quote from grayper again quote their imagination can only be extended to the design of their clothes, their cars, maybe their homes, and their very successories unquote. Basically all of their imagination for the superhero is limited to commodities. Right, This is this is the fundamental aspect where that's the only acceptable outlet for your imagination. It's it's it's just

with these it's just with commodity fetishism like that. That's that's the only possible way back to Graper quote. It's in this sense that the logic of the superhero plot is profoundly, deeply conservative. Ultimately, the division between left and right sensibilities turns on one's attitude towards the imagination. For the left, imagination, creativity and by extension, production, the power to bring new things and new social arrangements into being

is always celebrated. It's the source of all real value in the world. For the right, it's dangerous and ultimately evil. The urge to create is also a destructive urge. But this is also what separates conservatives from fascists. Both agree that the imagination unleashed can only lead to violence and destruction.

Conservatives wish to defend us against this possibility. Fascists wish to unleash it anyway they aspire to be, as Hitler imagine himself, great artists painting with the minds, bloods, and sinews of humanity. I think this is a really good distinction between conservatives and fascists in terms of how they view creative violence. And to get back to superheroes, I think this medium, as Graver points out, has this kind

of built in essence of a guilty pleasure. It revels in the absurdity of both the costumed heroes and villains, all while still targeting and imagine which is too expansive to outside the norm as being the ultimate crime. This guilty pleasure aspect even applies to the great superhero satires like The Watchmen and the Boys, which we applaud for poking and prodding at the conservative superhero all while still reveling and watching the outlandish antics on screen or on

the page. Now, Graver even applies this guilty pleasure aspect into explaining the kind of the conservative backlash to superheroes in the forties and fifties, particularly with the book Seduction of the Innocent, which kind of viewed superheroes as this weirdly fetishistic, kind of naughty impulse, which resulted in superheroes getting very sanitized and much more much more silly, much more campy, which which resulted in the fantastic nineteen sixty six Batman Show. But still it kind of it kind

of points at this this this guilty pleasure aspect. There's there's something inherently kind of naughty about about viewing this material. All right, we are we are nearing the end of

Graber's analysis here. Quote if the message was that rebellious imagination was okay as long as it was kept out of politics and simply confined to consumer choices like clothes, cars, and accessories, this had become the message that even executive Hollywood producers could easily get behind, which results in stuff

like the nineteen sixty six Batman Show. And now leading us back into Christopher Nolan, we get this really good, really good paragraph from grab quote if the classic comic book is intensively political about Madaman trying to take over the world, but really psychological and personal about overcoming the dangers of rebellious adolescents, but then ultimately political. After all,

then the new superhero movies are precisely the reverse. They are sensibly psychological and personal, but really political, but ultimately they go back to being psychological and personal. So this is me just ripping. Now let's take Batman begins right. We have Racial Gul who operates in this psychological role of a second father for Bruce right after Bruce's training initiation to the League of Shadows. Only then does Race reveal his political goals to destroy Gotham and rid the

world of corruption. So this is like the psychological is the first bit, then it's actually political, and then by the end it actually it goes all the way back into being truly psychological. Now I'm gonna I'm gonna read one paragraph from Graver, which is only because it has

a very funny oh two word combination. In the ritual Kobis, we learned that rayshal Ghoul, a character introduced telling Lee In in nineteen seventy one, is in fact a zerzen Esque primitivist and terrorist determined to restore the balance of nature by reducing the earth's human population by roughly ninety nine percent. None of the villains in any of the three movies want to rule the world. They don't wish to have power over others or to create new rules

of any sort, unquote. And I just really like the term deservesi esque to describe the seventies racial ghoul, which is a deeply, a deeply brain poisoned way to.

corrupt unquote. I think this has taken to its most obvious extent in The Dark Knight, with the Joker, who openly claims affiliation with anarchy and fetishizes destruction. His sick and twisted imagination is the real villain, even with the backdrop of the film's kind of deceptive war on terror frame. Now, between the production of The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight rises.

Graver lists regimes being toppled in the Middle East and people occupying squares everywhere from Cleveland to Karachi trying to create new forms of democracy. So there's this resurgence of constituent power, right, and this imagination driven kind of radical and largely non violent form of resistance, at least here in the States. And this is the sort of political situation which superhero universes can never really fully tackle because

it can't exist within their own weird ptology. To quote Graver or quote in Nolan's world, something like occupy could only have been the product of some tiny group of ingenious manipulators who are really pursuing some secret agenda. Why does Bain wish to lead the people in a social revolution if he's just gonna nukee them all in a few weeks anyway, it's anyone's guess. He claims that before you destroy someone first, he must give them hope. So is the message that utopian dreams can only lead to

nihilistic violence. Presumably it's something like that, but it's singularly unconvincing, since the plan to kill everyone came first and the revolution was a decorative afterthought. In fact, what happens to the city can only possibly make sense as a material echo of what's been most important, what's happening in Bruce Wayne's tortured brain.

happily in Florence with the criminal Selina Kyle. And then a new new phony martyr legend is born in the role of Batman and people of Gotham are returned once again to the status quo. I'm gonna read kind of Graver's final kind of overview of the entirety of this message, right like, of what this thing is really trying to convey, right quote. If they're supposed to be a take home message from all of this, it must run something like, yes, the system is corrupt, but it's all we have anyway.

Figures of authority can be trusted if they've first been chastised and endued terrible suffering. Normal police might let children die on the bridges, but the police who've been buried alive for weeks can employ violence. Legitimately, charity is much better than addressing structural problems. Any attempts to address to such structural problems, even through nonviolent civil disobedience, really is a form of violence, because that's all it could possibly be.

Imaginative politics are inherently violent, and therefore there's nothing inappropriate If police respond by smashing protesters' heads repeatedly against the concrete as a response to occupy, this is nothing short of pathetic. When The Dark Knight came out to this in eight there was much discussion over whether the whole thing was really just a vast metaphor for the War on Terror? How far is it okay for the good

guys America? Obviously to adapt the bad guy's methods. The filmmakers managed to respond to these issues and still produce a good movie. This is because the War on Terror actually was a battle of secret networks and manipulative spectacles. It began with a bomb and ended with an assassination. One can almost think of it as an attempt on both sides to actually enact a comic book version of the universe. Once real constituent power appeared on the scene,

the universe shriveled into incoherence. Revolutions were sweeping the Middle East, and the US was still spending hundreds of billions of dollars fighting a ragtag bunch of seminary students in Afghanistan. Unfortunately, for Nolan, for all of his manipulative powers, the same thing happened to his world when even the hint of real popular power arrived in New York. So that that is kind of the essence of Graber's view of this movie.

I think it's pretty good. This is a This is a pretty a pretty solid take on this now there's obviously people who have opinions that are less good than this.

We have Batman, in his role is to fight injustice by turning quote fear against those who prey on the fearful right Batman is this is this terrifying symbol meant to restore the balance of fear between the anarchic private underworld and the gutless public spear to quote Jeffinzax right up quote. In The Dark Knight, Nolan continues his examination of the terror of anarchy, as well as the potential for the state and allied institutions to abuse their enormous power.

Bain and each of Nolan's other villains attempt to exploit fear for ideological projects, revenge or simple fun. Batman aims to channel it to make his opponents legitimate grievances subjects for debate in an orderly system, rather than through violent resolution, which is not what Batman does. That man punches people. Were we watching the same movies quote to entrust Gotham to heroes with a face, as he says in The Dark Knight, and to democratize Batman as a symbol that

can be embodied by anyone. That it's not that Christopher Nolan is taking a side in our political debates. He's simply defending a particular system through which we address them, which is nonsense of A writer from Forbes said that this analysis is quote a beautiful rebuttal to those critics who viewed the film as fascistic or as a critique of left wing populism, Batman as the defender of liberal democracy, not of conservatism or liberalism, but the system itself from

the forces of fear and chaos. Gotham as an examination of the frailties and pressure points that make this system weak in the face of the unexpected and uncontrollable. While there is indeed both praise for the role of civil society in these films, there's also a portrait of economic inn quality that provides the brittleness needed for men like

Baying to truly succeed. This is not a critique of the government or private sector as so much as it is a critique of the frailty and fragility of our system and its institutions, and the power of symbols to combat this fragility, which is a deeply a deeply liberal analysis.

So the cadre of liberal intellectuals that we've gotten in the last like twenty years, it's like, look, you don't have to be like unable to form coherent and that like it is it is not a precept of liberal like of like liberal intellectualism, that you are unable to form a coherent argument or do any piece of analizable like they used to be able to do this, and then at some point, like after the War on Terror, they just stopped. Yea, Now all we have is like matt Iglesias and it's like these I.

It still has a few of those weird plot like super plotty elements, but overall it's it's it's it's much clearer. But in the wake of the War on Terror and then the financial crash, there's this fundamental incoherence that kind of seeps into everything. I have two final takes to

read say. I know, I know we are getting along here, but I think it's important to look at what the conservatives and the fascist rite actually said about this movie, beyond just the conspiracy rattled ramblings that we started this episode with. This is from The Daily Caller twenty twelve. The film is sympathetic to the concerns of the poor and points out that some who achieve well don't earn it legitimately. But these themes disappear as soon as the

hulking terrorist Baine takes over Gotham City. All that criminals are released, rich people are executed in sham trials headed up by Baines's lunatic friends, government officials and police officers are killed or captured. Bain claims that he is solving inequality by leveling the playing field, but his true plan is to perpetuate mass murder by setting off a nuclear bomb.

In this way, viewers see a familiar story unfold, one that's reminiscent of communist and fascist revolutions in Russia, Germany, Cambodia, and North Korea. No matter how legitimate criticisms of the economic, political, and social order may be, any revolution that shatters the rule of law or eliminates the market entirely will necessarily results in greater inequality, suffering, and death.

in practice resorts to oppression and extreme violence. The film's good guys are Batman and the police officers of Gotham who bravely go to war to prevent Baine's genocide.

content instead of miserable like him. That's not Bain's gripes, but anyway, in Gotham sewers, Bain recruits those like himself, the insecure thumbsuckers, raging with a sense of entitlement, desperate to justify their own laziness and failure, and to flaunt a false sense of superiority through oppression, violence, terror, and ultimately total and complete destruction. As expected, The Dark Knight Rises is a love letter to Gotham City. It's flawed

but ultimately decent people. It's industry and generosity, all of which are by products of liberty, free markets, and capitalism.

that in the end always does the right thing. And Nolan loves the American people, the wealthy producers who are more often than not trickled down their hard earned winnings, the workaday folks who keep our world turning a financial system worth saving because it benefits it's all, and those everyday warriors who offered their lives for the greater good

with every punch of a clock. Nolan's love for this country is without qualifiers, and is symbolized in all of its unqualified sincerity, in the form of a beautiful young child sweetly singing a complete version of the Star Spangled Banner, just before Occupy attempts to fulfill its horrific vision of what equality really means. Nolan, Sorry, I can't.

because it fundamentally misunderstands Nolan's a filmmaker. He's purposely juxtaposing a British child that's singing the star spangled banner at a sporting event with this destruction inherent to America. He's he's, he is, He's making these things kind of combat each other like this is this is actually pretty good framing

and this guy fundamentally must understands this. Nolan's genius is a filmmakers well, Nolan's genius as a filmmaker is, without question, the pacing, the editing, the performances, the humanity of the duc Knight Rises will be talked about for decades, which it doesn't. This is by far one of his worst films. This is widely seen as one of one of his worst films. The editing, pacing, performances are all heavily criticized.

This is actually like a bad movie. I do like the juxtaposition of the star spangle banner at the sporting event with this like spectacle of destruction. I think that plays very.

into the politics of ten years ago. I know there's a lot of zoomers who listened to this who may not. It's been this politically kind of engaged in twenty twelve. All this stuff is a very good look at that. And I know this is too long, but the final final thing to just like that. We will return, as as all good superhero stories do, return to the status

quo of my paranoia. Conspiracy Reader magazine, which also had a review for The Cabin in the Woods movie Uh, which it thinks is a secret Illuminati message about how there's secretly control rooms that are that are like navigating your entire life. There's like people in control rooms who are like controlling every every spect of your life. The Cabin in Woods was an ironic admission of this pretty good,

Pretty good. Our technic credit controllers and manipulators are crass and evil pretenders, able to get off only spectacles of pain and torture. Pretty funny. There's some quite racist stuff in the middle, which is not not even gonna mention.

very good movie. And instead, if you want to watch a Batman film about politics and Christmas, just watch Batman Returns. That's what I'm doing this week, So get your friends together. Watch Danny DeVito vomit black goo for two hours watching Michelle Feifer's Catwoman in a latex suit. It is much much better. So that does it for us today here

it could happen here. I hope we lead a little bit something about constituent power police superheroes and how CERN is building a matrix and this predictive programming targeting the next Winter Olympics.

world is talking shit on preparedness done wrong. And since most of the preparedness space skews at best center right, but also far right, there's lots of it done wrong that we can talk shit on. Like, for example, this is me setting you up for.

They bring a bag with them. They can generally have one sort of carry on size bag when they enter custody, and that's generally all you can carry when you're moving across the desert mountain ranges of Baja California and Serthern, California. And I was spend the day there and it was cold, and it was wet, it was miserable, and I was trying to keep people warm, and I was trying to build shelters all day, and I was trying to just do things along with my friends. Obviously, this is by

no means a solo effort. It's a great group of people who you've all heard about if you listen to this podcast.

But this person had, you know, this this kit with a with a gas mask with a folding AR fifteen right, with one of those law tactical folding things, so you can like break the buffer tube with seven or eight magazines of ammunition. Like just like it just the sort of stuff that, yeah, sure you would need to do like one sustained firefight and then then what are you

going to do? But like it just really struck me that the the juxtaposition between these two things that I have seen people have to quote unquote bug out or oh shit or whatever. I myself have had to leave a place where I was go to a refuge camp for a few days a few years ago, and I've never seen a situation where a folding assault right for

would be that useful to me. And I have seen a lot of people who could really fucking use a sleeping bag or coat or a toy for their child because their child is crying, and bring any toys, you know, and lots of people don't have any preparedness stuff at all. That's fine, you know, we'll start somewhere, but like, if you're going to do this, I want you to do it in a way that might be useful to you. And so that is why I have asked Margaret Kiljoy to come and help me.

in refugee situations all the time. One of my main backgrounds is that I lived out of a backpack for a long time when I was a crosspunk, right, I was a homeless hitchhiker who you know, hopped freight trains and slept under bridges and things like that. And I come from more of a position of privilege than a lot of people who do that. I chose to do it as part of an activism lifestyle and stuff, you know. And so I'm not trying to like get stolen valor here,

but I spent a very long time living outside. And the people who live outside all the time, who have only a backpack know what goes in the backpack really well. And you don't see homeless people with guns, and it's not because they're not legally allowed to have them. People. I mean, well that's part of it in some situations, right, it's you know, you don't have a safe place of

story and something. It is a lot more complicated, but like you're even talking about a group of people who often have to resort to violence to defend themselves and largely not using firearms to do it, because in most situations they're more trouble than they're worth. Because someone who's living outside is going to have to deal with cops all the time. Someone, And this is what you were talking about when when we were talking about getting ready

for this episode. It's like, well, let's say you have your ear ar and you approach the border.

it right, if you fixate on these things forever. Like a lot of people don't engage withparedness because they don't want to be anxious about it. They don't want to think about a forest fire.

like a little bit of buffer. But I, you know, built a twelve by twelve cabin and like in that, I cut down two small trees and built a cabin, right, And so I worried about forest fire, and so I thought about what to do, which was make sure that I always had like you know, some sort of radio and or sell communication available to me, keep a bag ready with all the stuff I need, keep make sure that my car is half a tank of gas. And that's it. That's all I was going to do to prepare.

There's more you can do. That's all I was going to do, so I stopped worrying about forest fire, and so I think, done right, a go bag or a bug out bag or preparedness in general can reduce our anxiety. And the thing that I think people get wrong is that for most people, moving over land by yourself and

surviving in nature is not a likely reci response to crisis. Yes, there are some times where that will be true, and even like you're talking about, like working at you know, in the border, where people are having to like build shelters and things like that. But for most people, I don't even say put a sleeping bag in your go

bag because size might be more important than that. Yeah, having other warm stuff and emergency blankets and things like that, I do absolutely advocate, you know, But then again, I often make sure that I have a sleeping bag around because I do live in the middle of the woods, and if my cars were broken and there was a bad thing, I would have to go over land ten miles to get anywhere.

Let's say, you know, so, what do you need to spend the night in the car in your car in the snow, And the answer is not that much. You need water and you need warmth. Food is like great, right, yeah we can kind of. I mean, you should have a little bit of snacks to so you why not have snacks around?

here's a fun tip. If you're the prepper in your family or friend group when it comes time to holiday presence, if you give them preparedness stuff that has to be on top of whatever else you give them. I guess you can't just give them your weird niche stuff. Yeah, like you have to give them what they want, as well as the wind up radio, you know.

And for me, this is just like tiniest amounts of One of the cool things about preparedness is that the little first things you do are so much more likely to be useful than the complicated things later. Right, Like having a big lighter is so much more likely to be useful than flint and steel and fire starter and all of the bells and whistles.

so there's that. And then if you want, you could have a designated bug out bag and you keep it in the front closet or you keep it under your bed, or you keep it wherever is like kind of useful to you. Some people might keep them in their vehicles. That really depends on where you live. I wouldn't necessarily advocate it in a lot of places because vehicles are more broken into and also have more temperature fluctuations, and things like advil and like over the counter medications aren't

like they don't do so great with like wild temperature fluctuations. Okay, so you get yourself a bag, and what kind of bag really depends on what you're talking about. Like we were showing each other our bags before it.

was like a tactical bag. It was a three day assault pack, you know, and I like perfect, And to be fair, I lived in a cabin in the woods and it was twenty twenty in the odds of major military crisis were much higher, and you know, but like, but right now, I'm just like, this is my bag that comes with me when I go to my friend's house or when I go see my family. And because it's the important thing is that you have the bag

that is available, like it. The piece of gear that you have is always better than the piece of gear you don't have.

these things. Your passport and print copies of any essential records such as your animal's rabies vaccine card and medication and things like that. This is the stuff to help you ease bureaucracy as you move through the world. This is actually a thing you need to be careful with because then sometimes you don't want to bring your passport everywhere you go, right, you don't want to lose.

I'm sure there's other stuff that you would Yeah.

a hiking backpack, you are now the cops main target. Yes, yeah, yeah yeah, and so like whereas when I have like a computer bag, I'm not the cops main target, and that makes my life fasier, you know. Okay, small amounts of emergency food, such as protein bars that you want to like, swap out every couple of months. I recommend putting in the ones that you don't like because otherwise you'll eat them, because otherwise you'll be like, oh, I could go tasty snack.

to swap that out. Overall, I advocate not putting in things that will go bad, because you are going to forget about this until it becomes a habit for you to check it every month or so. Yeah. Okay. A travel hygiene kit with toothbrush, floss, toothpaste, moist tallets, foam ear plugs for sleeping in noisy environments. That one is like way more. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I am.

the counter medications that you rely on. And one thing that came up from a doctor friend of mine recommended. When I was first started making these kids for my friends, I was like buying bulk aspirin and putting it into little drug baggies you know, yeah, smut. And my friend was like, you need to put blister packs in instead blister packs being the like little yeah, individually individually labeled ones. Yeah. Yeah,

to explain this thing, yeah, yeah, we're professionals. Yeah, because the police have less cause for suspicion if you were certain and this is clearly advil, it says, so it is packaged in a way that is not convenient for people to make their own packages. Yeah, and so and actually it's funny is that of all the ones that I put into people's things, the only thing I haven't

been able to get blister packed is caffeine. Because I put caffeine into these things because a lot of people are addicted to it, and also because it's useful to be able to stay awake in certain environments. And so I actually put in like different like caffeine powder drinks or caffeine gum or other things. Yes, yeah, it's going to say, get MRI caffeine gum. Yeah. And then also and I give them to my friends who are about to drive sleepy. Is like yes, And that's the main

use that I have had. It's amazing. I don't drink caffeine. It's amazing how much caffeine I have on me at any given time. Yeah, A change of socks and underwear, and these should be like climate appropriate, especially like wool socks are like the most useful thing in the world. Just as a general rule, I think that a packable

range jacket and or poncho is incredibly useful here. A lot of people like the ponchos that are sort of a slightly more military style because you can use them as a tarp and make a shelter if you need. That might be overkill for your particular environment. You might also just have, like your hiking rain jacket that goes in there. A puffy packable warm top is a little

bit of a like bonus item. It's I think having a warm upper layer is really important for a lot of it's until you've slept outside without a sleeping bag, you have no idea how cold it is in the summer to sleep outside. Yeah, on the ground. Especially whenever I'm watching movies or reading books and like the kid runs away from home or they're like on the and they go and they sleep in the woods, I'm like, the fuck they did? They did not sleep that night? Yeah?

it into the smallest ball. Remember that when you buy down jackets or the baffles which are the sewing lines across it, like, those are areas that are not insulated, right, So you don't actually want the ones with the with one hundred little baffles going down them.

this bag a heavy duty trash bag. You can put all your stuff in it to keep it dry. Yeah. Yeah, there's like all these like arguments about how to keep your bag dry and overall. And I'm curious if this has been your experience. People have been moving away from like pack covers where you cover the pack and instead just put everything inside the pack into something that's waterproof.

battery and charging cables. I would advocate an octopus cable that has like mini USBC and lightning charger all on one cable so you don't have to keep track of multiple cables for multiple devices.

one who saves the night. When everyone's drunk at the bar and someone's phone is dead and they're the only person who has uber set up right, and you know, yeah, Like I've been trying to advocate that per snacks are the best example of prepping and that everything that like men are trying to do is like catching up with the fact that like women are actually culturally in our society like better at prepping. Yeah, but okay, uh, I put a milar emergency blanket in. These are these like

you know, they seem almost gimmicky. They're these incredibly light little plastic tarps.

heaviest thing in your bag. Water is just fucking wonderful and you need way more of it than you think you do when you're exerting yourself. I have been historically advocating a single wall steel canteen so that the water can be boiled in an emergency directly in it. But a lot of people have a preference for lighter weight and that makes a lot of sense, and also even having something that just looks a little bit more civilian

also makes a lot of sense. The ultra light. I actually think the ultra Lighters might be right on this one. And they use the to use a brand name. They all get those smart waters, but then they don't keep drinking smart water. They drink one and then they clean it and refill the bottle of tap water. Yeah, or with the soil of filter fits on top of it, which is very handy. Right. Yeah.

bah blah blah blah. And everyone's like, I didn't bring a whistle. I'm like I got three in my bag, Like what are you doing?

of other stuff. If you're going to be hiking, if you're and if I know I'm going to be like in a lot of situations, one of the first things I would add as a tarp and a sleeping bag. That would be like, yeah, the next things to go in sleeping bags are pretty big.

help you. Like I like to camp, the worst part about camping is packing. So if I have all my stuff, I can just be like, Okay, I've got a sleep system, I got to cooking system. Yeah, twenty four hours of food, I'm ready to rumble.

open in an emergency. It's super handy. The other thing that I like, and largely this is just because I go to places and I have these tiny little fishing chem lights, like they're designed for certain fishing floats. They're very good if you need to like see something and so that's closed sticks for for the non tactical crowd yeah, yeah, yeah, or silooms for the British tactical crowd.

a kind lap on my phone. I think it works with all the phones obviously. Jeff Bezos is a bell end. But like that's age.

we were just bored. We built a four out of miler blankets. But someone had an inflatable ball which we just played with for hours because you're so bored.

then the other thing. I think it's really worth considering having a small musical instrument. I find that, like there's a reason that cross punks play music everywhere they go. Yeah, are you about to pull out harmonica?

was off grid, I barely had any electricity. I basically had to walk half a mile to my car and like charge things in my car for a while until I got together enough money to get some solar panels and some batteries and stuff, right, because I had not planned on having my cabin be suddenly where I lived

well like full time, not going anywhere else lived. And the first thing I got was a little tiny it's called a bit boy, and it is a like tiny game boy that has every single Nintendo and Super Nintendo

and Psychogenesis game pirated onto it. Oh wow, and immediately ordering that off to the podcast and it costs like forty I don't know much they cost now, but they're not expensive because they're little weird three D printed pirated things and they like use almost no electricity and so it uses way less electricity in a cell phone and that saved my sanity. And then when I finally got my shit together enough to get a Nintendo switch and I could play Skyrim, like and it's not that I

had nothing to do. People are like, oh, you don't need to entertain yourself in crisis because you're busy. It's like, look, you can probably only physically work on building your house to get it ready for the apocalypse. You think you're living in for maybe fourteen hours a day, you know, maybe ten to fourteen hours.

a lot of people is going to do better. And if you haven't, So you should get a jump start on this by reading.

talk about with this bullshit. You don't have to go out and buy fancy crazy shit. Sometimes you want the fancy crazy shit, but most of the stuff we're talking about is super cheap, and then you can have the joy of talking about the shit and getting into the weeds with it. But there's a there's an app I think it's called Keywix, and it lets you download Wikipedia and read it on your phone offline. Yeah, that would be good.

pick it apart and use it for that. But if you're bored, like everyone should know a few knots, you know, if you know how to do like a I guess figure eight, not if you know how to do a truck has hitched a bowl and knot and you're probably pretty good if you could do those, honestly, Like, you can do a lot of stuff to a justice prussic, maybe another friction hitch.

The other thing that I recommend people carry it Okay, Like in two thousand and three, if you are a crustpunk, the things you need to have on you are at all times. You need a folding knife, you need a headlamp, you need a multi tool with pliers, and you need a sleeping bag and like and a spork and a can opener. Yeah, and that's kind of it in a lot of ways.

and of what's currently happening that are worth delving into. Today, I wanted to focus on a new investigation by plus nine seven to two magazine, and this is an investigation that was confirmed by the Guardian, and it reveals that Israel is deliberately killing large numbers of Palestinian civilians in Gaza. Nita remind you that the Palestinian population in Gaza is mostly women and children. Does it mean that palestine men are disposable because they are not. That is something I

do reject about constantly saying women and children. It's only because I think it reinforces the idea that every Palestinian man could potentially be a terrorist. Really, they are the ones pulling people out of the rubble and treating them in the hospitals, and Palestinian men are incredible, so their

loss is just as tragic. My point is, though, that I keep seeing Israeli officials on news outlets and everything spewing lies and bullshit about how the IOF is trying everything they can to avoid civilian death, and that is just simply not true. And now there is definitive proof that it's not true with this investigation. As of it's recording, the death toll in Gaza has risen to over twenty one thousand people. This number includes those who are presumed

to be dead underneath the rubble. At this point, the number of killed and displaced Palestinians as higher than the number of killed and displaced Palestinians during the Nekaba of nineteen forty eight. Right now, almost one point nine million Palestinians, which makes up about eighty of Gaza's entire population, have

been displaced. I really want you guys to absorb what that means to eclipse the numbers of the Nekba in nineteen forty eight, which is the catastrophe that coincides with the establishment of the State of Israel, which up till this point was the greatest act of terrorism against Palestinian people. So the fact that we have eclipsed the numbers of the Nekba, which amounts to about seven hundred and fifty thousand Palestinians being displaced and about fifteen thousand people dead.

To have eclipsed those numbers in about two months is truly horrific, and I hope that comes across when you hear these numbers. Humanitarian organizations that once warned the world of an impending catastrophe in Gaza, are now describing an apocalypse. The UN Humanitarian Chief said the situation in Gaza is apocalyptic. Israel's relentless bombing of Palestinian society has taken it past

the point of collapse. Bombs are still falling as winter draws near, and millions of Palestinians are starving, dehydrated, sick, and living in unsuitable and unsustainable conditions and shelters. In addition to this, all cell service in northern Gaza is down. Palestinians can't contact their loved ones and they can't share the reality of what is going on on the ground. Cutting internet access and service is a very deliberate act on Israel's part to silence people the same way they've

been targeting and killing journalists. Israel does not want the world to see the truth, and cutting internet access is a great way for them to avoid this. Keep in mind that news outlets are not allowed in Gaza, so the Palestinian journalists on the ground, most of whom are very young in their early twenties, they are the ones being targeted because they're the ones showing the truth with

their photos and videos and activism and news. So I want you guys to keep in mind how deliberate everything Israel does is when it comes to cutting internet, food, water from Gaza, it is deliberately starving and cutting off these people. Nowhere in Gaza is safe. Israel is bombing everywhere, including the areas they tell Palestinians to go to to find safety from the bombs. So there are no safe zones.

Regardless of what Israeli officials are telling us. Everywhere is unsafe because Israel is bombing everything, including the areas they're supposed to go to for safety. Israel is not trying in the slightest to avoid civilian casualties. And that's what we're going to talk about today. So this investigation is based on conversations with current and former members of the Israeli intelligence community, as well as reports from Palestinians and

independent data. It explains how destroying Palestinian homes and society and the process of killing Palaestinian civilians is very deliberate as well. It explains the tactics Israel has used to kill Palestinians at an accelerated rate during the past two months, which amounts to a clear cutcase of genocide as well

as genocidal intent. I truly can't believe there are still so many people in denial that what is going on in Palestine is in fact a genocide, because I've heard truly the most inane arguments as if to prove their point this isn't a genocide, whether it's about population growth or the fact that Israel hasn't killed enough people. But I'll have to get into that later, only because I

will go on forever and just start ranting. But if every genocidal scholar and Israeli historian I can think of agrees this is a genocide, if humanitarian organizations are also telling you this is in fact, the genocide is a genocide. Genocide is about intent on the part of the person committing the genocide or the entity commuting the genocide. It's about intent and about the actions. It is not about birth rate or whatever the as Ionists will try to

argue about. It's not about that, and what's happening is genocide, whether you want to hear that or not. This investigation also explains how Israel seeks out what it calls quote unquote power targets to bomb power targets are non military targets like homes and public buildings like schools and hospitals, and Israel targets and bombs these for the direct purpose

of terrorizing Palestinian civilians and harming their society. Israel's deliberate attacks on Palestinians and their society are illegal and inhumane, to say the very least. Then again, something being illegal truly means nothing at this point, because Israel has violated international law for decades without any repercussions whatsoever. Something being illegal means nothing, and the un feels useless because nothing ever happens. This is not the first time Israel has

murdered Palestinians indiscriminately. It's not the first time they have violated international law or committed war crimes. But nothing ever happened before, so why would it happen now. Permissive air strikes on non military targets and the use of an artificial intelligence system have enabled the Israeli Army to carry

out the deadliest attack on Gaza. Ever, so, the Israeli Army's expanded authorization for bombing non military targets, the loosening of constraints regarding expected civilian casualties and the use of an artificial intelligence system to generate more potential targets than ever before. All of this has contributed to the destructive nature in the deadliest military campaign against Palestinians since the

Nekpa of nineteen forty eight. As I mentioned. This investigation by plus nine seven to two magazine and local call is based on conversations with seven current and former members of Israel's intelligence community, including military intelligence and air force personnel, who were involved in Israeli operations in the besieged Gaza Strip. In addition to this includes Palestinian testimonies, data and documentation from the Gaza Strip, as well as official statements by

IOWS spokespeople and other Israeli state institutions. Compared to the previous Israeli assaults on Gaza, the current attack, I will never call it a war. This is not a war. I have said this before. A war indicates both sides are equal and have an army, but you literally can't go to war with an entity you are occupying. Regardless, compared to previous assaults on Gaza, what's happening now is unprecedented. Israel has named the current attack on Gaza that is

happening now, the current genocide. It has named its actions that have started in the wake of October seventh, after the Hamas attack, Operation Iron Swords, and we've seen the Israeli armies significantly expand its bombing of targets that are not distinctly military in nature. This includes private residences as well as public buildings, infrastructure, and high rise blocks, which sources say the army defines as these power targets. Israel

seeks out these power targets to bomb. Power targets again, are non military targets like homes in public buildings, and Israel again targets and bombs these for the purpose of

terrorizing Palestinian civilians and harming their society. And this is according to intelligence sources who had first hand experience with this application in Gaza in the past, who confirmed that not only is it mainly intended to harm Palestinian civil society, but it's also meant to quote create a shock that, among other things, will reverberate powerfully and lead civilians to

put pressure on Hamas, as one source put it. Several sources spoke on the condition of anonymity, and they confirmed that the Israeli Army has files of the vast majority of potential targets in Gaza, including homes, which stipulate the number of civilians who are likely to be killed in an attack on a particular target. This number of casualties is calculated and known in advance to the army's intelligence units, who also know shortly before carrying out an attack roughly

how many civilians are certain to be killed. So the Israeli Army knows just how many Palestinian civilians they'll kill with each strike, and Israel kills them anyway, fully aware of the number of civilian death that will ensue. In one case discussed by these sources, the Israeli military command knowingly approved the killing of hundreds of Palestinian civilians in an attempt to assassinate a single top hamass military commander. Allegedly.

One source said the numbers increased from dozens of civilian deaths permitted as collateral damage as part of an attack on a senior official in previous operations two hundreds of civilian deaths as collateral damage. Another source said nothing happens by accident when a three year old girl is killed in a home in Gaza. It's because someone in the army decided it wasn't a big deal for her to be killed, that it was a price worth paying in order to hit another target. We are not Hamas. These

are not random rockets. Everything is intentional. We know exactly how much collect damage there is in every home. The investigation revealed that another reason for the overwhelming civilian death toll, as well as a number of targets in Gaza, is the widespread use of an AI system called Habsaora aka the Gospel. The Gospel is largely built on artificial intelligence and can generate targets almost automatically, at a rate that

far exceeds what was previously possible. This AI system, as described by a former intelligence officer, essentially facilitates, in his words,

a mass assassination factory. Israeli sources said that the increasing use of AI based systems like Habsora allow the army to carry out strikes on residential homes where a single Hamas member lives on a massive scale, But testimonies of Palestinians argue that the army attacked many private residences where there was no known or apparent member of Hamas anywhere inside or any other militant group residing such strikes can knowingly kill entire families in the process, and that is

exactly what has happened and keeps happening. In the majority of cases, the sources said, military activity is not conducted from these targeted homes. One of them said, I remember thinking that it was like if Palestinian militants would bomb all the private residences of our families when Israeli soldiers go back to sleep at home on the weekend. The source was apparently critical of this practice. He's still a

fucking soldier, so I don't give a shit. Another source said that a senior intelligence officer told his officers after October seventh that the criteria around harming Palestinian civilians were significantly relaxed. As such, there are quote cases in which we shall based on a wide cellular pinpointing of where the target is killing civilians. This is done to save time instead of doing a little more work to get

more accurate pinpointing, said the source. The result of these policies is the staggering loss of human life in Gaza. Since October seventh, over three hundred families have lost ten or more family members in the Israeli bombings over the past two months. That number is fifteen times higher the figure from what was previously Israel's dead las war on

Gaza in twenty fourteen. One source said there is a feeling that senior officials in the army are aware of their failure on October seventh and are busy with the question of how to provide the Israeli public with an image of victory that will salvage the reputation. I just think it's really pathetic that an entire army will bomb and obliterate a piece of land with millions of people

on it because they're essentially embarrassed that they failed. It really just makes you realize that humans are small, silly creatures that are just too powerful for their own good. Getting your ego slighted is not an excuse for committing a genocide, and there's nothing you can say to make me think otherwise. From the first moment after the October seventh attack, politicians in Israel openly declared that the response would be of a completely different magnitude to previous military

operations in Gaza. Idspokesperson Danielle Hagari on October ninth, said, the emphasis is on damage and not on accuracy, and the army swiftly translated these declarations into actions. Israeli intelligence

divides its targets in Gaza into four categories. The first is tactical targets, which include standard military targets like armed militant cells, weapon warehouses, rocket launchers, anti tank missile launchers, launch pits, mortar bombs, military headquarters, observation posts, and so on. The second is underground targets, mainly tunnels that Hamas has dug under Gaza's neighborhoods, including under civilian homes. Aerial strikes on these targets could lead to the collapse of the

homes above or near the tunnels. The third is what we're talking about earlier power targets, which includes the high rises and residential towers and the heart of cities, as well as public buildings like universities, banks, and government offices.

The idea behind hitting such targets, say three intelligence sources who were involved in planning or conducting strikes on power targets in the past, say that a deliberate attack, devastation and destruction of Palestinian society will exert civil pressure on Hamas.

The final category of targets are family homes. The stated purpose of these attacks is to destroy private residences in order to assassinate a single resident suspected of being a Hamas member or an Islamic Jahad operative, but Palestinian testimonies explained that most of the families that were killed did not include any operatives from any organization. In the early stages of the current genocide, the Israeli army appear to have given particular attention to the third and fourth categories.

According to statements on October eleventh by the IOF spokesperson, during the first five days of fighting, half the targets bombed, which amounts to one thousand, three hundred and twenty nine out of a total of two than six hundred and eighty seven or deemed power targets. Just to loop in

the people that maybe don't know. But IOF is used instead of IDF by a lot of Palacini activists because they define it, and I define it as Israeli occupation forces and not defense forces, because what they're doing has never been defense. So you might see many people call it IOF because that is what they're referring to. Israeli occupation forces. One source said, we are asked to look for high rise building with half a floor that can be attributed to hamas. Sometimes it is a militant group's

spokesperson's office or a point where operatives meet. I understood that the floor is an excuse that allows the army to cause a lot of destruction in Gaza. That is what they told us. If they would tell the whole world that the Islamic stuh Hot offices on the tenth floor are not important as a target, but that its existence is justification to bring down the entire high rise with the aim of pressuring civilian families who live in

it in order to put pressure on terrorist organizations. This itself would be seen as terrorism, so they do not say that. As expected. Testimonies and videos from Gaza, unsurprisingly show that some of these targets that have been attacked have been attacked without warning and without prior notice given to their occupants, thus killing entire families as a result.

Let's take our first break here, because that's what we do, and we are back you and data for the period up until November eleventh, by which time Israel had killed eleven thousand and seventy eight Palestinians in Gaza stated that at least three hundred and twelve families have lost ten or more people in Gaza. For the sake of comparison, Operation Protective Edge in twenty fourteen, twenty families in Gaza lost ten or more people twenty in comparison to over

three hundred now. In addition, according to the UN, at least one hundred and eighty nine families have lost between six and nine people, while five hundred and forty nine families have lost between two and five people. According to the UN, and this number is changing and unfortunately rising even as we speak. One point nine million Palestinians, which is the vast majority of the Strip's population, have been

displaced within Gaza since October seventh. The IOF claims that the demand to evacuate the strips north was intended to protect civilian lives. However, Palestinians and most of the world see this for what it is that this mass displacement is part of a new Nekba, an attempt to ethnically

cleanse part or all of the territory. And I'm not just making up the phrase new Nekba because Israeli politicians and officials have described what is happening right now as a nekba, as well as stating genocidal intent in many other ways. So Duve Waxman, the Directtion euro of UCLA's Y and S. Nazarin Center for Israel Studies, talked a little bit about this in a phone interview with NBC News. Some of that rhetoric can be seen as potentially genocidal

from the way it dehumanizes Palestinian civilians. He noted that the right wing ministers who made comments like this are quote not in the war cabinet, so their awards can only have so much impact on Israeli policy. But still, hearing ministers of any kind in public, officials with millions of followers and eyes on them, make suggestions like flattening

Gaza with a nuclear bomb should be concerning. Nonetheless, Agriculture Minister Avi Dickter, a member of the right wing Lecud party, told Israeli Channel twelve that the quote unquote war would be Gaza's nekba, using this Arabic word for catastrophe that we all use to describe the nineteen forty eight displacement

of Palestinians as well as their genocide. He said, from an operational point of view, there is no way to wage a war as the Israeli army seeks to do in Gaza with masses between the tanks and the soldiers. When Dictor was pressed on his use of the word nekba to describe the situation in Gaza, he said again, doubling down, Gaza nekba twenty twenty three, that's how it'll end.

A week before these comments were made, Israeli Heritage Minister Amahai Iliyahu apologies from his pronouncing it, but also not really sparked outcry after he suggested that dropping a nuclear bomb on the Gaza strip was quote one of the possibilities in the current conflict. Also, it's important to remember that the increasingly hostile rhetoric from Israel's far right cabinet ministers has not only centered on Gaza, but also the

occupied West Bank. An example of this is when Israeli Finance Minister Bezialel Simotrik, who was a prominent settler advocist, called for the creation of quote sterile zones in the West Bank in a letter that he sent Anya who and Yoov Galant, the Defense Minister, and this letter was shared with Israeli media. Such sterile zones, he said, with block Palestinians from entering certain areas and bar them from

harvesting olives close to Israeli settlements in the enclave. This letter also came during the annual olive harvest, with ol of farming being a primary source of income for many Palestinian farmers in the West Bank. It also came during a surge of settler violence against Palestinians in the area, which has only increased since then. There was a law

that was passed a couple of years ago. I believe that essentially allows Israeli soldiers to shoot unarmed Palestinians without any legal repercussions, and we're seeing that happen in real time in the West Bank. So as this genocide is unfold Gangaza, keep in mind there's no Hamas in the West Bank and they are still committing acts of terror. There also a side note, if you guys want to learn about the significance of olives and olive trees for Palestine,

I did an episode about that. You can look it up. But the olive harvest and olives and olive trees in particular are very significant part of Palestinian life. One such case of both increasing settler violence and targeting olives and all of farmers in particular is in Balal Saleh, who was killed while tending to his olive trees earlier this month. An elderly couple were also attacked by settlers last month

without provocation while collecting olives in the West Bank. Comments like those made by Simotrik only in bolden settlers to attack Palestinians again. I want to mention here that it is not against Israeli law for soldiers to shoot at unarmed Palestinians. It is permissible and done all the time. When that is the norm. Of course, you're going to have hateful settlers adopting the same strategy when they're armed

with no repercussions. According to the Israeli Army, during the first five days of fighting, it dropped six thousand bombs on the Gaza Strip with a total weight of a four thousand tons. Media outlets reported that the army had

wiped out entire neighborhoods. According to the Gaza based Elmizan Center for Human Rights, these attacks led to the complete destruction of residential neighborhoods, the destruction of infrastructure, and the mass killing of residents, as documented by Ademizan and numerous

images coming out of Gaza. Israel bombed the Islamic University of Gaza, as well as the palastinan Bar Association, a un building for educational programs for outstanding students, a building belonging to the Palestine Telecommunications Company, the Ministry of National Economy, the Ministry of Culture, roads, and dozens of high rise buildings and homes, especially in Gaza's northern neighborhoods, again striking targets like these functions primarily as a means that allow

damage to civil society. That is a direct quote from a source, and the sources understood, some explicitly and some implicitly, that damage to civilians is the real purpose of these attacks. In May twenty twenty one, Israel was heavily criticized for bombing the El Jallah Tower, which housed prominent international media outlets like Al Jazeera, AP and AFP. A source said, the perception is that it really hurts Hamas when high rise buildings are taken down because it creates a public

reaction in the Gaza Strip and scares the population. They wanted to give the citizens of Gaza the feeling that Hamas is not in control of the situation. Sometimes they toppled buildings and sometimes postal service and government buildings. The idea of causing mass devastation to civilian areas for strategic purposes was formulated in previous military operations in Gaza, honed in by the so called Dahiya doctrine from the Second

Lebanon War of two thousand and six. According to the Dahiya doctrine developed by former iof's Chief of Staff Gadi Zenkot, who was now a kanescant member and part of the

current war cabinet. According to him and this doctrine, in a war against guerrilla groups such as Hamas or Husbandlah, Israel thus use disproportionate and overwhelming force while targeting civilian and government infrastructure in order to establish deterrence and force a civilian population to pressure the groups to end their attacks. The concept of power targets also seems to have been

emanated from this same logic. The first time the Israeli Army publicly defined power targets in Gaza was at the end of Operation Protective Edge in twenty fourteen, the army bombed four buildings during the last four days of the war, three residential multi story buildings in Gaza City and a

high rise in Rafa. The security establishment explained at the time that the attacks were intended to convey to the Palestinians in Gaza that quote, nothing is immune anymore, and to put pressure on Hamas to agree to a cease fire. An Amnesty report in late twenty fourteen stated, the evidence we collected shows that a massive destruction of the buildings

was carried out deliberately without any military justification. Previous operations have also shown how striking these targets is meant not to only harm Palestinian morale, but also raised the morale inside Israel. Herods revealed that during Operation Guardian of the Walls in twenty twenty one, the IOF Spokesperson's unit conducted a si off against Israeli citizens in order to boost awareness of the iof's operation in Gaza and the damage

they caused to Palestinians. Soldiers using fake social media accounts to conceal the campaign's origin, uploaded images and clips of the army's strikes in Gaza to Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok in order to demonstrate the army's prowess to the Israeli public, which is, in my opinion, pathetic. During the twenty twenty one assault, Israel struck nine targets that were defined as power targets, all of them high rise buildings.

One security source said the goal was to collapse the high rises so that the Israeli public would see a victory image. The bottom line is that they knocked down a high rise for the sake of knocking down a high rise. Let's take our second break and we'll be

right back. We're back, okay. So not only are we seeing Israel attack an unprecedented number of power targets, we're also getting testimonies from Palestinian residents in Gaza that indicate that since October seventh, Israel has attacked high rises with their residents still inside without prior warning, which leads to many civilian deaths. Such attacks obviously result in the killing of entire families, and this was experienced in previous offenses.

According to an investigation by AP conducted after the twenty fourteen war, about eighty nine percent of those killed in the aerial bombings of family homes were unarmed residents, and most of them were women and children. Sound familiar. Just goes to show you that Israel has been doing this for a long time without anything happening because international law

is bullshit. But really, think about that, eighty nine percent of those killed in the aerial bombings in the twenty fourteen war sasgenocide were innocent people who were unarmed, most of them women and children. The exact same thing is happening right now. Some examples of the current indiscriminate bombing of residential buildings are the following. On October tenth, Israel bombed the Babbel building in Gaza, and this is according to the testimony of Belal Abuhatzira, who rescued bodies from

the ruins that night. Ten people were killed in the attack on the building, including three journalists. On October twenty fifth, the twelve story Eltage residential building in Gaza City was bombed to the ground, killing the families living inside it without warning. About one hundred and twenty people were buried under the ruins of their apartments. According to the testimonies of the residents, yusuf ahmud Shadaf, a resident of Eltaje, wrote that thirty seven of his family members who lived

in the building were killed in the attack. He said, my dear father and mother, my beloved wife, my sons, and most of my brothers and their families were killed. Residents stated that a lot of bombs were dropped that resulted in damaging and destroying apartments in nearby buildings as well. Six days later after this, on October thirty first, an eight story building the Elmu had seen was bombed without warning. Between thirty and forty five bodies were reportedly covered from

the ruins. On the first day. One baby was found alive without his parents. I'm not sure if I mentioned this in a previous episode, but I think it bears repeating that children in Gaza are being admitted to hospitals completely alone and with no surviving family members, and this is happening so often that hospitals now have an abbreviation for these children WCNSF Wounded child with no surviving family. The ones that can't speak are marked as unknown. There

are many children and babies like this. Journalists estimated that the attack killed over one hundred and fifty people, and many are buried and remain under the rubble. The building used to stand in Uzurat refugee camp south of Wadi Gaza, in the supposed safe zone which Israel directed the Palestinians who fled their homes in northern and central Gaza. It therefore served as a temporary shelter for the displaced before getting obliterated into smithereens and bombed to the ground, killing

hundreds of people. According to an investigation by Amnesty International, on October ninth, Israel shelled at least three multi story buildings, as well as an open flea market on a crowded street in the Jebelier refugee camp, killing at least sixty nine people. The father of a child who was killed said, the bodies were burned. I didn't want to look. I was scared of looking at Yamad's face. The bodies were scattered on the floor. Everyone was looking for their children

in these piles. I recognized my son only by his trousers. I wanted to bury him immediately, so I carried my son and got him out. According to intelligence sources, Habsorah aka the Gospel the Ai system we mentioned earlier. This AI system generates, among other things, automatic recommendations for attacking private residences where people suspected in bold suspected of being

Hamas or Islamic s Jahat operatives live. Israel then carries out large scale assassination operations through the heavy shelling of these residential homes. Haabsorah explained one of the sources processes enormous amounts of data that quote tens of thousands of intelligence officers could not process, as well as recommending bombing sites in real time. I wanted to put in bolds suspected because that is a crazy thing to do when you don't know for sure what the fuck you're doing

and who the fuck you're killing. Just putting it out there that it's at this point can't be any clearer that it's not about Hamas. It's about the eradication of the Palestinian people, which has been slowly happening for the past seventy five years, and now it has accelerated. It's not about Hamas because that is a crazy thing to

do if you're only targeting Hamas. One former intelligence officer explained that the Hubsori system enables the army to run a quote mass assassination factory, in which the quote emphasis is on the quantity and not quality. A human eye will quote go over the targets before each attack, but it need not spend a lot of time on them. In twenty nineteen, the Israeli Army created a new center

aimed at using AI to accelerate target generation. The Target's Administrative Division is a unit that includes hundreds of officers and soldiers and is based on AI capabilities. This is according to the former IOF Chief of Staff, Aviv Coochavi, and he gave an in depth interview about this earlier this year. He said, this is a machine that, with the help AI, processes a lot of data better and faster than any human and translates it into targets for attack.

The result was that an operation Guardian of the Walls in twenty twenty one, from the moment this machine was activated, it generated one hundred new targets every day. You see in the past there were times in Gaza when we would create fifty targets per year, and here the machine produced one hundred targets in one day. One of the sources of the investigation by plus nine to seventy two magazine said, we prepare the targets automatically and work according

to a checklist. This source also worked in the new target's administrative division. They said, it really is like a factory. We work quickly and there is no time to delve deep into the target. The view is that we are judged according to how many targets we managed to generate.

A senior military official in charge of the target bank told Jerusalem Post earlier this year that thanks to the army's AI systems, for the first time, the military can generate new targets at a faster rate than it attacks. One more time for emphasis, for the first time ever, thanks to AI systems, the military generates new targets faster than it can attack them. Another source said the drive to automatically generate large numbers of targets is a realization

of the Dahia doctrine. The Dahia doctrine, as mentioned earlier, is when Israel uses this proportionate and overwhelming force when targeting civilian and government infrastructure in order to establish deterrence and make the palasinging people cower and fear and admit defeat essentially, and so this AI system is really helping

achieve this Dahia doctrine. In the process. Automated systems like HPSURA have thus greatly facilitated the work of Israeli intelligence officers and making decisions during military operations, including calculating potential casualties. Five different sources confirmed that the number of civilians who may be killed in attacks on private residences is known in advance to Israeli intelligence and appears clearly in the

target file under the category quote collateral damage. According to these sources, there are degrees of collateral damage according to which the army determines whether it is possible to attack a target inside of private residence. One of the sources said, when the general directive becomes quote collateral damage five, that means we are authorized to strike all targets that will kill five or less civilians. We can act on all

target files that are five or less. A security official who participated in attacking targets during previous operations said, in the past, we did not regularly mark the homes of junior Hamas members for bombing. In my time, if the house I was working on was marked collateral damage five, it would not always be approved for attack. Such approval, he said, would only be received if a senior Hammas

commander was known to be living in the home. To my understanding, today they can mark all the houses of any Hammas military operative, regardless of rank or confirmation of membership. The source added that is a lot of houses. Hamas members who don't really matter for anything live in homes all across Gaza, so they mark the home and bomb

the house and kill everyone there. On October twenty second, the Israeli Air Force bombed the home of Palestinian journalist Ahmad al Nahouch in the city of Der El Badach. The strike on October twenty second collapsed blocks of concrete onto Ahmed's entire family, killing his father, brothers, sisters, and all of their children, including babies. Only his twelve year old niece, Manak survived and remained in critical condition, her body covered in burns. A few days later, Malak died.

Twenty one members of Ahmed's family were killed in total, buried under their home. None of them were militants. The youngest was two years old, the oldest his father, was seventy five. Ahmed, who was now currently living in the UK, is alone without his entire family. This part particularly gutted me. But Ahmed's family WhatsApp group the group text thread that he had with his family. It was titled better Together.

The last message that appears in this group was sent by him a little after midnight on the night that he lost his family. He sent this message someone let me know that everything is fine. No one answered. He fell asleep and woke up in a panic at four am, drenched and swept, and he checked his phone again nothing, and then he received a message from a friend with the terrible news. Unfortunately Ahmed's. The case is very common in Gaza these days. In interviews to the press, heads

of Gaza hospitals have been echoing the same description. Families enter hospitals as a succession of corpses. A child, followed by his father, followed by his grandfather. The bodies are

all covered in dirt and blood. The report does not have data regarding the number of military operatives who were indeed killed or wounded in aerial strikes on private residences in the current genocide, but there is ample evidence that in many, many cases, if not most, vast majority of none of the people killed or military or political operatives belonging to Hamas or Islamic Jihad, the bombing of family

homes where Hamas and Islamic Jihad operatives supposedly live. It likely became a more concerted IOF policy during Operation Protective Edge in twenty fourteen, and this is when Israel began to systematically strike family homes from the air. Human rights groups like Betstellem collected testimonies from Palestinians who survived these attacks. The survivors said the homes collapsed in on themselves, glass shards cut through the bodies of those inside, the debris

smelled of blood, and people were buried alive. A UN report defined this in twenty fifteen as both a potential war crime and a new pattern of action that led to the death of entire families. And we're seeing this pattern repeat in real time right now. In twenty fourteen, ninety three babies were killed as a result of Israeli bombings on family homes, of which thirteen were under one year old. As of a month ago, two hundred and eighty six babies aged one year under were identified as

having been killed in Gaza. And this is according to a detailed idealist with the ages of victims published by the Gaza Ministry of Health on October twenty six. This number has likely doubled and tripled, if not more, at this point. So in many cases, especially during the current attacks on Gaza, the Israeli Army carries out attacks that strike private residences even when there is no known or

clear military target. For example, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, by November twenty ninth, Israel had killed fifty Palestinian journalists in Gaza, some of them in their homes with their families. The murdering of these journalists, again, may I remind you, is very deliberate as far as silencing Palestine and people in Gaza from sharing the truth about

what's going on. Rosti Charage is one of these journalists who was killed, who was thirty one, and a journalist in Gaza who was born in Britain who founded a media outlet in Gaza called Almidia. On October twenty second, an Israeli bomb struck his parents' house where he was sleeping, killing him. There's also journalists Salam Memma who similarly died under the ruins of her home after it was bombed, of her three young children. Hadi seven died while sham

Aged three has not been yet found. Under the rebel, two other journalists, Dua Shutaff and Sema Makimad were killed together with their children in their homes. As of this recording, Israel has killed over sixty journalists since October seventh. That's going to be the episode for today because that was

a lot, and I hope it was helpful. This investigative report is extremely important, especially now that we're seeing these Israeli officials and officers shamelessly saying that they're trying their best to avoid civilian casualties, when here we have proof that that is in fact a lie. So I want to do this episode to counteract the argument that this is about Hamas. It's not about Hamas, isn't Nothing can justify this amount of murder and death of people, point blank.

Absolutely nothing justifies a genocide. Nothing. So I hope you guys keep learning about Palestine and raising awareness about the genocide and staying active in your communities and following Palestinian journalists that are still alive and risking their lives to share information. Motaz Azaiza is one of these journalists that is consistently posting on his stories There's also Bisan who

is at Wizard Underscore Bisan one on Instagram. She's been an incredible source and really just being so vulnerable and sharing exactly what's going on. And I have no idea, and I hope I never do. How hard it is to not have time for grief. Palestinians do not have time to grieve their day. They're too busy photographing them and videoing them, so the world will even believe that they're going through a genocide. Something I wanted to bring up is that these journalists in Gaza are the ones

that are left. They've been posting these heartbreaking last messages on social media. Be SAand posted on December second, I no longer have any hope of survival like I had at the beginning of this genocide, and I am certain that I will die in the next few weeks or maybe days. My message to the world, you are not innocent of what is happening to us. You, as governments or peoples that support Israel's annihilation of my people, we will not forgive you. Humanity will not forgive you. Even

if we die. The history will never forget Motaz, also on December second, said it's about life or death. Now I did what I could. We are surrounded by Israeli tanks. Gaza's strip is getting divided into three parts, the North of Gaza, the Middle area and De La Baah and Han Yunis and the Dafa. The movement is becoming nearly impossible, and of course there is no safe place and people just don't know where to go. It is hard to keep up and watch, but it's truly the least you

can do. We are so privileged in one me making a podcast and you listening to it, So the very least we can do is use our privilege to help those in need and be the mouthpiece that they so desperately want and are begging for, and not letting their stories be buried under the rubble with them just because Israel is trying to cover it up. So with that, I'll see you next time. Hello, This is Shreen and I'm joined by James. There's no preamble here, We're just gonna introduce ourselves.

of something like a scarf. The kaffeia is the black and white checkered scarf you might have seen that's worn by Palestinians and their supporters, and it's really symbolic and corn to Palestinians, and especially after those three students in Vermont were targeted because of the kafia, I thought it was worth discussing what it is. If you hear noise in the background, that is my cat and I apologize. That's just texture for POD.

just a post denouncing genocide. I think the meanings that people push onto these things is really dangerous, and discussions and meetings on the issue have been barred. People who express any kind of sympathy for Palestine, even in old

social media posts, have been dismissed from their job. We're seeing counter campaigns by pro Israel groups in the US trying to globally shut down the voices of pro Palestinian activists and to criminalize elements of Palestinian identity itself, for example, like displaying the Palestinian flag or wearing the Caffea headdress slash scarf. And this week, I think it's worth mentioning that the House passed Resolution eight ninety four, which equates

criticizing Israel with being anti Semitic. Ninety five Democrats helped the House GOP pass this extremely ingenuous and dangerous resolution, and in their words, it's against anti Semitism, but it is extremely dangerous for the Jewish community in and of itself because condemning any criticism of the Israeli state should only be taken for that. That's the thing that I understand. People people project onto things.

weren't ready to call like literal genocidal fascism, genocidal fascism in case it got some votes or money. Now now they're ready to. Now they're ready to go hard as fuck against Palestinian people. Which it does seem like there's a whole lot of people in Congress who weren't given a cudgel to beat Muslim people. Won't think about it for more than five seconds, but I do want to. I just want to read this part from the Jeruisdom Declaration, the Jeruisom Declaration dot org.

democratic state, a federal state, or in whatever form. I think that's pretty clear, right, Like obviously the variety of options there, all of which are neither genocidal nor in the face of it anti semitic. It's just like this is just a canard, like I saw Scott Peters, who is the congress person for Poway. Scott Peters, I think it's pretty uncontroversial to say it's a giant piece of shit. Scott Peters is the reason why my incidence still costs

lots of money. Fuck Scott Peters. But he was in this case accusing UCSD students of being anti Semitic for passing a BDS resolution. Another thing that Jewishalem Declaration which again was signed by Deborah Hurtz, the head of Jewish Studies at UCSD, specifically calls out as not being on the face of anti Semitic right, like these people aren't in some cases listening to what Jewish Studies scholars are saying, And I think we need to be careful when obviously

all of us will call it anti semitism right. I've been personally at the forefront of calling anti semitism in the law enforcement apparatus in San Diego when our DA used anti Semitic tropes in her twenty eighteen campaign that

seems to have been memory hold. But because this I think is often simply being weaponized as another way to suppress protest movements and specifically to justify Islamophobia, which we should all stand against, like regardless of where we stand on two states, one state, whatever, Like I think if we can see people using something to the cudgel against a group of people who have been victimized by this state for a very long time, and they're continuing to

do it like this shit got us twenty years of war, fucking tens of thousands of lives right ruined or last, and we're going right back to it and like, if you can't see why it's a problem, I don't know if I have much more to say.

any kind of display of supporting Palestine. And you're right, it almost cheapens the meaning of anti Semitism because it almost makes us overlook true danger to the Jewish people.

And it also completely raises the identity of anti Zionist Jewish people, which makes up a big part of the Jewish community in my opinion, even though they want to make it seem like they're the minority, but the majority of Dinas country are actually even Jewish, So Zionism is yeah, equated to Jewishness in the slightest I.

we don't have to listen to them. They don't get to tell us what it is and it's not these things, and like, yeah, you fucking do not get to talk about anti semitism when you said shit about Charlottesville, right, Like, it's clearly two phased, it's bullshit, and it's just a cultural with which to be a protest movement that they see as woke or leftist or comprised of Muslims who they think are less than and like it's obviously despicable the people who did say shit about Charlottesville will make

common cause with these people who are very clearly doing this in bad faith. Yeah, it's we can oppose anti Semitism, and we should, and we can oppose Dlamophobia and we should.

perceived to be Arab and Muslim. And I remember this the tweet that Biden tweeted a couple of weeks ago when he was trying to cover his ass and be like, we hate Slamophobia too, but he said people perceied to be Muslim and wrongfully, no, wrongfully perceived to be Muslim was the wording, as if it was like a bad thing to be perceived Muslim. So you do you ever that tweet at all?

October seventh to October twenty fourth, which is a one hundred and eighty two percent jump from any given sixteen days stretch last year. Because on average of twenty twenty two, that number was two hundred and seventy four complaints, and Corey Saylor, the research and advocacy director, said, we're working seven days a week around the clock fielding incoming complaints.

I have only ever seen that twice in my career, right after nine to eleven and in December twenty fifteen, after that announcement by Trump of his plan to ban Muslims from the country.

are hateful have access to hurt those people. And that's something I've become extremely concerned with recently, like and with half of Congress or more whipping up this kind of hysteria, right, which obviously you know, like George W. Bush benefited very greatly from although if you look at the stuff George W. Bush says, and this is not like yas George W. Bush like he is outflanked large number of the Democrat Party and his to the left in his acceptance, like

Islam is a fabric of America's speech, Like it's wild how far we've come in a bad direction. But San, do you know what else is leading our listeners in a bad direction?

Muslim rhetoric. There's also a man in Illinois who was charged with a hate crime after he demanded two Muslim men to get out of the country and threaten to shoot them. And as we said, actual Muslims aren't the only ones at risk from Islamophobia, anyone perceived to be Muslim, including Arabs who belong to other faith groups and seeks. For example, our target. On October fifteenth, a nineteen year old sixteen was attacked on a New York City bus

by an assailant who tried to remove his turban. And I think we should all remember that for palace Onions and more generally Arabs and brown people, this isn't a new thing. We've always been demonized and using the humanizing language has deadly consequences, often not only for Palestinians here, but those in Gaza and any person of color around

the world. I want to also point out that he Jabbi women are easily identifiable as Muslim and they're particularly easy targets for people that are terrorist and filled with hate. A Muslim pediatrician, a Hijabi woman was killed after being stabbed multiple times while sitting outside her apartment complex last month.

know about how our country feels about Palestine. Because he was saying truly abhorrent things like not enough children have died yet.

words as well. I think the most common one other than kaffia is the hata. It's also said that the prophet Muhammad war One as well, so it has a long history and it was used as the symbol of high rank and honor among priests. When you move forward in history, the kaffea was adopted by peasants who wore it while they were working on the land to protect them from the sun and the sand, that seems obvious. And it was in the winter to protect them from

the cold. A very multifunctional piece of clothing.

a green bass. But like it's a very practical garment that people in this part of the world have worn full Like even before Islamic people wore these things so like cover their faces.

Mediterranean Sea. And then there are some curvy lines that resemble olive trees, which are a major point of pride for Palestinians, with the pattern representing perseverance, strength and resilience.

So it's an extremely symbolic, important symbol for Palestine. It hasn't always been, and that's what we're going to be going through because at this point, Palestinians view it as a symbol of their cultural and national identity, and unfortunately others view it as a threat because, as I mentioned, those students that got shot in Vermont, where two of them are wearing a caffea, it's said that they were speaking in Arabic and one of these students is now

paralyzed from the chest down. So it really is important to deconstruct what the scarf is and why on earth it would spark that kind of fear and anybody, because it's not about fear or hate, it's about Palestinian pride

and culture and history. As long as Palestinians are oppressed, then even something as simple as a traditional scarf can turn into something bigger than just cultural pride, because now it's a political statement, and I want everyone to realize that it's not something to be feared or something to get nervous around if you see it out in the open. So let's go back in history. Are you ready to go back in history?

middle and upper class Palestinians. I wanted to point out here that the word like peasants is a little bit extreme because the word in Arabic is pH lahin and fe laheen. I guess is more villager type, but it's not really used in a very condescending way because a lot of things are considered for lahi, Like the one of my favorite dishes in the Middle East is judada, which is just lentils and rice, and that's considered a

falahei dish. So I just wanted to put that out there that it's not like a dis per se in Arabic to say, to call them peasants, it is like an indication that they are of lower class because jud dada is cheap to make, for example. But it's not exactly this like surf word. Does that make sense?

in this way, whether it was intentional or not. In the beginning, the kaffia basically was their uniform because these rebel groups were made up of poorer men and that was what they wore, and that made it easier for the British to target them when they were in urban areas. So as the fighting escalated, rebel leaders urged Palestinian men, all Palestinian men to ditch the tarbush and don the kaffia instead, and so when Palestinians did this, it allowed

fighters to blend in and evade British troops. At that time, the majority of the armed resistance was taking place in the villages, and the fighters used kafia to hide their features,

helping it to become associated with the revolution. So it was only a strategic success to do this on the rebels part, but it was a breakthrough for the lower class as well, who basically forced their clothing onto the elites, and this catapulted the kafa as something that crossed classes and became a prominent national symbol.

way one could argue that the working class were kind of being tricked into supporting this bolshour project or however you want to see it. But yeah, nations arose well around the world this time, and they all took on symbols, so like this was perfectly timed to sort of slide into that pos totally.

to get included into the picture. Leila Khalid is a Palestine activist and a former militant who, fun fact, was the first woman to ever hijack a plane. Yeah feminism, after she took part in hijacking a plane flying from Rome to Tel Aviv in nineteen sixty nine. Just to a disclaimer that no one was injured in this hijacking,

that wasn't the point of it. But a journal was captured a photo of Khalid holding her rifle while styling a kafia like a woman's head scarf, and this image became so popular it helped cement Leila Kylote's status as an icon in the Palestine resistance movement. I think Leilah Skala deserves an episode all on her own because she's an extremely fascinating woman and she's still alive, so maybe

one day. But her choice to wear the kaffia was viewed as a feminist move on her part, and it ushered in this idea that Palestinian women were part of the Palestinian rebellion and a part of activism, part of the resistance, and because they had largely been excluded in some way or regulated to other roles in the resistance, and so by making the statement and putting the kaffea over her head. She was also acknowledging cultural norms of Palestinians and using a men's scarf to do it. But

at the time I think it was really revolutionary. And first when you see the kaffia break classes, now you see it break genders. And now it's becoming even more acceptable for more people to wear it. And so she continued to wear the caffea, often around her neck, and

it inspired many Palatine way to do the same. But at the same time that hijacking she took part in drew international attention and many people in the West started associating Palestine resistance with terrorism, and unfortunately this meant the caffee would also come to mean something else in the Western world. The Alstar Arafat almost did not go anywhere

without a caffee. He was the chairman of the PLO from nineteen sixty nine to two thousand and four, and he helped popularize the image of wearing a caffea around the world by again almost always wearing one in public, and many non Palestine activists at this time, especially those who participated in anti colonial, anti war, and other social justice protests, they began to recognize the scarf as a symbol of resistance and wear it to express the solidarity

with Palestinians. But at this point Israel had labeled Arafat to terrorist and the United States designated the PLO as a terrorist organization. And so again. While some people identified this scarf with the Palestinian struggle, others viewed it as controversial and even a violent symbol. Many other global leaders around the world started wearing the kaffea as well. Even

Nelson Mandela at one point was photographed wearing one. I think something especially humorous in modern times is how the kaffia has entered the fashion world, and its meaning is kind of completely erased when this happens. Some clothing brands took the scarf's widespread appeal and co opted it, and it sanitized its meaning, and it erased its relationship with the Palestinian cause. I think it's important to bring up here that Palestinians and supporters of Palestine encourage everyone to

wear the scarf. It's not appropriating it when you wear it in solidarity. It's appropriating it if you co opt it and make it into something. It's not like a skirt or I saw a version of one that had like intricate stars of David in there to be worn by Israelis. I think that's appropriation. But when it comes to solidarity and being in protests and showing that you care about the Palestinian cause, it's encouraged to wear it. And so I feel like a lot of people are afraid of cultural appropriation.

was just the thing that I wore, you know. And it was at that point the movement for a free Palestine with I think, much more established in the UK than it was in the US and among obviously like white folks such to himself. I immediately got sent to like a secondary inspection when I arrived in the United States.

I got off the plane, I had my little badge with the Palestinian flag, I have my little cafea and the guy was just like go in the room, and then yeah, we had a great talk about the stuff I had from Cuba, which at the time was obviously not a place that Americans were able to go. I think I still can't. So yeah, it was great, It's good. It was a wonderful start. They asked me what I was doing for my PhD. I told them I was

studying anarchism. That went down like a sack of shit, and you know, from there it began along and enjoyable relationship with our friends who keep us safe at our borders.

It's the only caffe manufacturer left and it's been seeing a huge uptick that is, in their words, unparalleled ever before in their sales. Apparently they sold eighteen thousand of them in October and now they're in high demand all the like. It's sold out everywhere. And this is the authentic coffe. So one I have, Yeah, you have one from Putter Wawi, which is great.

and then they just become aesthetics. And that's like the point in which happens to punk is when you can buy like a battle jacket, or look that jacket with safety pinsil down the arms a gap right like that, It's no longer punk, is it if you got it from fucking gap? Like the whole point of punk is to do it yourself. And I think this is in danger of happening again, as it kind of did in the early two thousands. So it just becomes an aesthetic.

Because after the shooting, that happened in Vermont. A lot of people were afraid of even wearing a kafir of course.

you can do it in the sense of solidarity. And yeah, maybe maybe you can spark some conversations which can be beneficial.

I feel pride wearing it. The Caffeia has become a way for Palestinians to visualize their land, visualize their home, and visualize Palestine as an entity that can exist in themselves as well as outside on their clothed bodies. So that's the episode. Uh Free Palestine. Bye Hey.