It Could Happen Here Weekly 127

your mail. Is Tommy Espinoza, who's a union steward for the National Association of Letter Carriers to welcome to the show.

federal employees. That is especially not true for members of the Post Office, and that is a real issue because the government has decided that, like, yeah, I know, all these people who do vital service are not allowed to go on strike and it absolutely sucks. Yeah, So I think this gets into sort of where I want to start, which is with the sort of history of the National Association of Life Carriers, a union that is not allowed

to strike, and how sort of weird that is. So yeah, I was wondering if you could talk a bit about sort of the origins of the union and what effect that has had on how organizing works or doesn't work.

And I do want to be crystal clear here. I am not advocating for a strike that would also be against the law, and we don't advocate for anything that's against the law. What I do want to advocate for is the right to strike, because being quasi federal, there's a lot of limitations in what the NAOC and the general postal unions are able to do. In total, there are nine bargaining agreements and seven unions within the Post Office, some of which are the manager's unions, so take that

as it is. Yet, on top of not being able to strike, none of our money that we collect as union does can be used for lobbying purposes, so they can't support a single candidate or any of the parties involved. We have a separate fund for that with the NALC called the Letter Carrier's Political Fund, to try and circumvent the restrictions that are put on there. And as a result of that, it's like we're fighting with our hands tied behind our back. We are unable to organize effectively.

Our union leadership seems to be afraid of protests and picketing for fear that it'll be misconstrued or labeled as a strike, and they're I think generally afraid of public opinion.

buying attempting to buy politicians. And then also your leadership is like we can't strike, I mean, we can't protest because someone might think it's a strike and the public might commenitus, and it's like that that doesn't seem I don't know, it really seems like it's like it's not only have you tied both hands behind your back, you've like tied them behind your back to your legs and you're now rolling around on the ground.

they were calling for a national strike. Nixon called in the National Guard to try and deliver mail, and the National Guard had no idea what they were doing. There's an amazing video that I'll try and send you afterwards. It's just the National Guard at our cases where we sort the mail. An interviewer is asking him, do you think that you're doing a good job? It's just like, no, it's just some kid, you know. And don't get me wrong, I'm just some guy. But you need the training, you

need to know what you're doing. And it's not something that anyone can pick up in a day, but it's a job that anyone can do. But yeah, for the first time, the mail had stopped, and that won us collective bargaining binding arbitration, which is a process that I think most people within unions know what they mean, but to explain it, arbitration is what happens when our parties cannot agree on a settlement for a grievance, and eventually we call in a third party, an arbitrator to decide

for us, and those are generally lawyers. On top of binding arbitration, it gave us a new pay scale and set in motion.

which is our binding contract. There's the JCAM, which is the Joint Contract Administration Manual, just what the Post Office and the Union use as the interpretation of the contract. That way, we are not arguing and spending time about what the contract could mean. We can just focus on whether or not someone broke our agreement. So after this, one would imagine that a quasi federal institution would honor the contract that was created, argain in good faith, and treat their employees.

sort of heyday of militancy was. I mean, like, you know, if you look at like how the UAW worked in like the sixties, right, they'd have a guy with a whistle standing on the line, and if someone did a contract violation, he would blow the whistle and everyone would just sit down and you'd immediately have a strike right it, you know, And like that level of miltancy. You don't need to be at that level to enforce a contract, but you have to actually be willing to do stuff

and to fight management over it. And if you're not willing to do that, your contract is effectively meaningless. And that's a real issue with a lot of unions.

And that's something that like, you know, I think, let me okay, the the enforcements of laws depends on sort of the the depends on a set of of relative balance of forces and whether people care about enforce in the law, which is how like for example, like if you pirate like seven movies and you get you get

three copyright strike, you go to prison. But you know, like the sam Alman or whatever like AI company can literally steal everything on the entire Internet and get money for it and no one will love to prosecute him, right, And so so you know, whether or not something is illegal is to a large extent or or the difference between something being illegal and you going to prison for it largely has to do with the balance of forces involved.

And that's something that you should keep in mind when and this is this is the thing, this is the thing that that cuts the other way too. Employers just do illegal actions literally all the time, and it doesn't matter because the state doesn't care.

done to the individual. Eventually, the Department of Labor says, yes, we will pay this individual, and the post office is liable to pay them now they are off the rolls, which means there's a greater period of time before this individual gets their money. And there's a certain form that within the post office the managers need to fill out.

which could be scheduled years out. I think if you do the math for our current rate of handling these cases and how many cases we have, it'll take around fifteen years to get through the long.

I joined, I didn't think of them at all. You know, they're just the guy that shows up at my house every morning. A lot of people seem to think that the post Office is going out of business, and our customers are facing increasingly long lines, misdelivered or lost mail, and an increase in postage for a service that is getting worse. People are paying more for worse service, and it's easy to point out the issues from the outside

and be rightfully upset at them. I do feel like we're doing a disservice to our our customers, and I'm not really not trying to attack them when I say that they're uninformed or clueless to the inner workings of

the Post Office. I do directly want to attack Congress and say that, yeah, when they post They had pushed forward a bill called the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act in two thousand and six, which required the Post Office to prefund one hundred percent of its retiree health benefits

and liabilities seventy five years into the future. What so, overnight, the Post Office was handed a five point five billion dollar burden, and that's where the whole I don't know if you remember, I certainly wasn't conscious of it at the time, to save our post office stickers that were being sold and trying to fund the post Office. And really that's where the rhetoric of the post Office is going under comes from. The Other thing I want to point out is that we are a quasi federal We

actually accept nothing from tax payer monies. It says it's a service, but really the post Office has ran as a business. We don't even get subsidized because they don't need to. My local union president loves to remind us that the post Office is a business that has a revenue of seventy eight point two billion dollars, and he'll want me to stress that the point two is extremely important because point two of a billion is twenty million. They are not in jeopardy. We are not going out

of business. And the Postmaster General, Louis de Joy, he's the second highest paid public servant in America, just underneath the President of the United States.

as consolidation efforts for a business. So what they're doing is their consolidating infrastructure and the workforce, which means closing post offices in order to save money and shoving three installations into one building. That's why the lines are getting longer. It also means that from dispatch, the employees have to drive an extra mile or two into their working zone, which of course means that we're going to go into overtime, and this just throws a wrench in the mail handling process.

He has single handedly made the service a lot more reliable, and I do think that you're right. Irreliable, yeah, sorry, more unreliable, And I do think that you're right. He wants to destroy the post office not only for the election, but to the point where it makes more sense to go private. Now is the time to point out that the joy is a major shareholder in FedEx, which is.

And my commute isn't that bad. I think I'm about fifteen minutes each way, and I really can't imagine driving two hours after an eleven hour shift just to eat and come back and do it again.

an unknown amount of time until you quit. And if you're in a busy place, then that just means that they're going to work you to death. So when you join the workforce, immediately you lose time with your family. You lose time with your loved ones and your friends, and I myself am so fortunate that all my loved ones have been beyond understanding. But every time I talk about it, I get asked the same thing, why don't you quit?

et cetera. And so if you can just cause high turnover rates on purpose, that's the thing that a lot of these sort of business gohoule like Nightmare or factory people love in their workforces and makes everyone else's life just a living hell. But you know they're getting They're still getting paid.

the bottom up, by the workers, for the workers. But it really does feel like it's like National is its own entity, and so I guess that would bring us to talking about the union and the future of the union.

As negotiations started over a year ago, he kind of went missing and it was later revealed that he was inpatient, which is fine, get your help, but there was nothing left, no notes left for us to strategize with, and our membership is just in the dark. And beyond that, the leadership has gone missing. It's it's very dark times for the NAOC.

of people who can make decisions for themselves. And if it's if that's not happening and you get to the point where these decisions are being made by a very small number of people who can just sort of vanish, like that's that for whatever, And you know, literally whatever reason that is, right, it could just be you get sick. It could just be like whatever happens. That's just a

terrible way to organize things. And I guess it's also like I want to make take it like like like a little tiny tangent to be like, if you're doing any organizing project, your goal is to organize yourself out of a job, Like you're like ideally, if you were in an organization, it should be able to function without you. There should Not having an indispensable person is a fiasco.

contract negotiations, and I hope this sweeps the nation. We're not allowed to strike, as I've mentioned, and our leadership is so shy when it when it comes to activism or mobilization of the workforce, they don't want to touch the topic. The closest thing we have to it is a rally that is enough is Enough that's being held in Baltimore soon about the violence that's being done to

postal workers. We're being robbed and we're being harassed, But even then we're missing a large chunk of the danger that is posed to postal workers, because yes, we're being robbed on the streets, but we're also being bullied and harassed inside of our work places by management, by the people who are supposed to empower us to do the job effectively.

was frowned upon. But I think that public opinion will be largely in our favor, and that public opinion can really put pressure on the legislative branch on Congress, and if we are transparent about our union, what we're asking for, the issues that we're facing, I think that the public

would be on our side. If the people in America knew that management was falsifying time records or training records and interfering with workers' comps, claim and back pay, or that they're not paying the settlements that they've agreed to pay, that they're not scheduling arbitration sessions big or small, that they would care, and that they would join us in

the streets. One major thing that happened, I think it was last year in the summer, we had a letter carrier, his name is Eugene Gates, who died in the Texas heat Jesus year because management told him not to take

as many breaks or he would face discipline. These pressures that we face when when you're threatened that you will lose your job if you don't listen to us, you will push yourself to the point of exhaustion and further, Yeah, I think that the Post Office killed mister Gates and there wasn't as much outcry or.

happening in these workplaces. And the second thing I think that's sort of important in terms of getting people to you know, trying to actually do like mass mobilizations even just to get people to understand what's going on, is that I think a lot of people who are facing these kinds of conditions think that they're alone and think that it's just something that happens to them, or they've been in them for so long they think that it's

sort of normal. And having a bunch of people go no, like a this happens and be it shouldn't happen is extraordinarily powerful because you know, like that that feeling of isolation is is the thing that all of that you know, you're that your bosses depend on to make sure that you know you you just keep going along with these conditions even though they are just objectively horrific. And I think any strategy that's not based on that is just not going to go anywhere.

what I want to push is for union solidarity. I want the NLC to hire organizers, specifically organizers to try and get the public mobilized and as well as the workforce, so that we can put pressure on Congress, so that we can show our bargaining teams that we support them, and so that we can have clearly defined bargaining terms.

And yeah, I think that having solidarity between unions and reaching out to the other movements in a time where union support is higher than ever is such a clear path that we are just ignoring for whatever reason because people are afraid to speak out against the Post Office. And so I'm really not sure what's going to happen with our current contract, but I do know that the fight never ends, and that while we stand on the shoulders of giants, we have to pay respect to these

giants by not giving up now. And I'm a relatively new employee and steward, but I'm really walking in the footsteps of some warriors. The branch president I mentioned, Ken Lurch has given me so much support and education and has done so much hard work over the years that I don't have to reinvent the wheel, none of us do. We just have to continue the struggle.

out at the end. So after the second ad break, Charles will go Sherean and I will come back and we gonna address some stuff that we found in that op ed. We will also link it in the description to this podcast.

Central Kitchen in different places. Like my longest experience with them was starting in twenty eighteen in Tijuana, right when we were trying to feed people who were part of a caravan of migrants who had arrived right before the midterms, and what was a relatively normal thing became a really big political sort of football, which resulted in the people, remember like people being tear gassed in Mexico from inside the United States, people being held first in a baseball

stadium and then in an old strip club, which was really gross. And they're being essentially no and goo presence at first and then Mutual Aid Presence and then World Central Kitchen were one of the first people to show up and cook for people, and like, at this point,

there was a really dying of need for food. Like I have this vivid memory of three of my friends and I are riding in a bed of a pickup truck into this refugee camp and people just mobbing for food and water, and like people would get about, like not stamping on children once once we stopped, but like I was really worried there was going to be a crash.

People were very hungry and very thirsty, and I had just had massive respect for people showing up and just being like, we are people who cook food, and what we're here to do is cook food and these people are hungry who were going to give it to them? And so I've always been admiring of their work since then. And I went to Childs, like what your sort of initial experience was with them, and if you could describe like sort of what sort of work you've seen them doing. Yeah, So.

was never any official partnership. Some of their comms people gave us advice, some of their fundraising people gave us advice. First time I ever saw them in operation was coming into the Jimish train station week two of the Ukraine War, and they were the organization feeding all the refugees coming in a bunch of people in World Central Kitchen, and the thing I noticed was none of them were speaking English.

They were all speaking Polish and Ukrainian or Russian. And I started to realize, this is an organization that knows how to mobilize a local population and a local response as a part of the thing. And that's something I really noticed when almost a year later, I flew from Ukraine to Turkey when a seven point five Magetude earthquake went through southeastern Turkey, Kardistan and I flew into Adanna and then basically linked up with the World's Central Kitchen

people in the city of Osmania. And one of the things I noticed was how quickly they were able to get into Syria when nobody else was getting into Syria. And the reason is because it's just chefs. It's just using chefs in restaurants in places where they already exist. Every place in the world has chefs and restaurants. And Jose Andres has this amazing quote that I really like. He says, everyone already works for World Central Kitchen, they just don't know it yet. And I saw that in action.

I saw all these kitchens transformed into you know, shelters and food distribution sites, and I got to work alongside their team. So my project, I was trying to fundraise for heaters and blankets to heat the AFAD tents in the affected regions in Kurdistan and in the Kurdish villages on the on the border with Syria, because there was it was still very cold at that time and there

was not you know, adequate attention paid to that. Obviously, AFAD and its cronies is part of the whole reason that that incident was as bad as it was, but World Central Kitchen stepped up in a big way in Turkey, and I was really impressed with kind of their outfit. We were working out of the same distribution center, you know.

I got to a company, Jose Andres on a couple of his deliveries, and we went in to Hate and walked around and saw the extent of the devastation and visited all the World Central Kitchen feeding sites, and it was just it was all Turkish people and Gurtish people who were there working from World Central Kitchen. They had been mobilized by this entity. So there's this decentralized element

to World Central Kitchen that I found really impressive. It didn't feel like the top down, bureaucratic thing I kept throwing into in my humanitarian work with these big NGOs. It was much more grassroots, much more bottom up. So it gained a lot of respect for me in that sense.

their way, and sometimes that doesn't work well. I can recount countless examples of this, right, NGOs that exist to do things in a certain way and don't adapt to a local situation or culture. And that's something the World's Central Kitchen have done really well in my experience, all over the world.

of their team, you know as a result. And I think that is part of that is there's a lot of people who won't even go into Gaza, you know, if they had the opportunity, like you said, these big NGOs, I think last time I was on the on the podcast Sharen, I talked about, you know, seeing these big UN advertisements in the Copenhagen airport saying save Ukrainian children when I first when I was going over there, and then as soon as I got there, I mean, the

minute you go east to Leviv, You're not going to see a UN truck anywhere. And it was it was that way for nine months, you know. In Yeah, it was just a bunch of people with like brand new white Land Cruise or Pratos, sipping cocktails and Leviv while subcontracting with actual humanitarians working closer to the front line. World Central Kitchen was not that way. They were all the way out, all the way on the east. Everywhere I went there was World Central Kitchen cars, even deep

into Donyetsk, And that was really impressive. It was so it felt antithetical to the whole nonprofit industrial complex model that I'd become familiar with, and I was impressed by that.

bad guys. We're helping the victims of this conflict, and you know, we're on the side of the angels in this and that was the positioning, and I think it was a bit of a wake up call when after October seventh he did the same thing in Israel and went and you know, gave food to the to the to the different Kibut seam that were affected by the October seventh attacks, and at first very much positioned himself as like, we're here to help relieve the affect at

israelis which again for like polite liberals in the humanitarian world. You know, Israel Ukraine both aligned with Western interests, Western values theoretically, and I think and then you know, suddenly the war focus goes from what happened to the kibbut seem to what's happening in Gaza. And so they went to Egypt and they started helping the refugees, and then they tried to get into Gaza. Then they did get into Gaza and they set up, you know, an effective

system of the food aid. And I started to notice while that was happening that the perspectives of a lot of the people that I was working with in the aid community were starting to shift on this whole thing. People who didn't have a political interest in supporting the Palestinians and were just kind of supporting Israel because of the default. When they actually went to Gaza, they started to really change their tune.

what's happening in Palestine and genocide. He's saying Israel has the rights to defend itself, and then he spends a bunch of time in Gaza, and now he's greeting everyone in Arabic, and then this thing happens, and he immediately points the finger at ISRAELI says, you guys targeted my team, you killed them deliberately, and you made sure the job

was finished, and that is just so reproachable. And in doing so, he became one of the only really big celebrity voices to make what appeared to be something of a one to eighty turn on that conflict. And pretty much everyone that I've worked with in the humanitarian or journalism space has also done the same thing in regard

to Gaza. I'd say most people thought my views on this were too extreme after October seventh, when I began immediately criticizing Israel, and now the ones who have actually been there pretty much on equivocally say they're the bad actor in this region. And I think you saw that shift happen in real time with sort of the attitude that World Central Kitchen took to Gaza. All that stuff

is available from public statements. I don't want to share private sentiments that have been shared with me by members of World Central Kitchen staff. Those are their own and they don't represent the organization. But I think even just watching the yo yo of Jose Andres's perspective on this change has been enlightening.

side right now, and we need to welcome that. And like there are a lot of people in this country right who we need to do that same one eighty and giving examples of people doing that is good, like they and there are a lot of people who don't see themselves when they see dead people in Gaza, and that's a problem, right, And that's some shit that they need to examine, and because there's a lot of bigotry there.

But if they see themselves in those aid workers, or they see themselves in Jose Andres, and look fucking when I saw the bodies of those aid workers, right, you have a tall, skinny British guy with long hair in a plate carrier with a badge on like that, That's what I look like to ninety nine percent of the world, and it's hard not to feel like, oh shit, like that could be me, and and I have well, I feel like I have a lot of empathy for people in guys that are friends in guars that we speak

to them on the podcast sharing and I spoke to them last week. But whatever it takes for those people to change their opinions right now is what we need, and we can we can dissect how we got here later, but like every minute that this continues, more innocent people die. And if we can stop this one minute sooner than there's an important life that we can save. And I think it's really important to focus on where we are, not like how how we got here right now, if that makes sense.

in a year worldwide. It's fucking horrific. And yeah, we will do well to put aside our differences and make it stop, I think.

the center of the logo. Right on top of the truck there was or the van was a red cross, a clear red cross, and it struck right in the center. I think that image is now going around again from two thousand and six.

They were working for the Palestinian Red Crest and they deserve every bit as much outrage as the words Central Kitchen people do what they did with every bit as admirable, but like, if this is what it takes for people to change, then like I hope that they will also acknowledge that everything else that happened before was an a trustee too, talking of like a trustees, we have an advertising break now.

Isam Abudaha. And just a reminder of how frustrating it is that this had to be the red line for people. There are over thirty three thousand people in Gaza who have been murdered, nearly half of which are children. There are probably thousands more who are trapped under the rubble, and other thousands that are just unaccounted for because of the bobbing of hospitals and the lack of records. So to have the killing of six aid workers be a

red line for people. That's what I mean by saying it's frustrating because it is a tragedy, but tragedy has been taking place for the past six months and also the past seventy six years. So yes, the video that Charles made gossa well deserved attention, and I'd love for you to talk about it a little bit.

from a humanitarian trip. I mean, you know, like James probably knows, you make friends really fast when you're connected, when you're in these sorts of scenarios, and you know, I had, I made friendships while I was in Turkey that I've maintained, and but then my my Palestinian advocacy was separate. You know, I'm over here educating and everything.

And then suddenly there's this converse jints of like former co workers on this team dying and then it being the fault of this regime that I've spent the last six months trying to educate people on why it's bad.

And I posted a video which was my tribute to the fallen WCK employees, who were very close friends of people that I got really close to on that project, and it was a tribute to them and also a way of pointing out how their martyrdom has been has overshadowed the martyrdom of so many Palestinians who will never get the kind of press and attention that they did, and I think it achieved that effect. The video went very,

very viral. It's exceeded a million views on TikTok, it's around a quarter a million on Instagram, and more than that on the accounts that have reposted and shared it, sometimes without the context that I am not a World Central Kitchen employee, nor do I represent the opinions of

the organization. And one of the things that I think made that story go viral is that I did shift the attention to I said, this is a genocide, and I said, as grieved as I am at the loss of these people that I have this connection with, I do want to point out that it is overshadowing the horrendous loss of life of Palestinians, and I think that

resonated with a lot of people. It also resonated with my former my friends at w CK, who reached out to say, we appreciate you using your platform to talk about this, especially considering the fact that w CK employees do not typically are not really supposed to be making statements online about this, so they have a little more

leeway with that. Concerning the fact that the head of the organization has explicitly now condemned Israel for this strike, but I've had some very interesting conversations with friends of mine that either still work or connected to the organization.

And that's a slightly complicated thing because World Central Kitchen subcontracts with so many different people, So at any given point, there are people who are connected to World Central Kitchen who are not representatives of the organization or technically employees. So you know, you can't say definitively this is what the majority of people in WCK feel about Gaza or Israel or anything. You know, different people have different opinions about that whole situation.

to suggest you did, but the internet does that. I want to talk about one more, talking of disindienuous things on the Internet, I guess there was this thing that went around immediately in the aftermath of the photos coming out of the different people's corpses that like it seemed to be mostly like tankies or perhaps people who still believe that they can generate revenue from views on Twitter, saying that like, because these people had a security team,

the security team was somehow spies and the evidence they're working phase are right, and you can speak to your experienced childis like, I've worked with security teams and seen people working with security teams all over the fucking world because war is dangerous and you have the thing that everyone needs.

And that is a that's never a guarantee. But in all the people I've met who actually are legit, you know, security consultants or or just veterans who have applied their skills towards a pro social humanitarian purpose are pretty good guys. And while I'm sure you know there are some of them who are connected to various you are still connected to sort of the intelligence services of their various countries. I think that's definitely a possibility. A lot of them

are not. They're just veterans who are trying to help and they this is a way that they can make a living and while doing something that has a low moral hazard.

out of their ass. And a lot of it is if you have set yourself up against everything that comes out of the West, then every everything that looks like a fingerprint of an intelligence agency or anything is going to ring your alarm bells, obviously, you know, James. I feel like Ukraine is a great example of this. The fact that the United States supports Ukraine means that Ukraine must be the villain, and that the entire thing must

be a CIA SIOP and their spies everywhere. And I'm a spy for going to Ukraine and helping grandmothers get their insulin. All of those things have been said about Ukraine, about me, about you know that sort of thing, and we know it, we know it's not true.

the US too. I've just noticed that they are like fewer ultra Zionist Brits than Americans.

in Afghanistan. It doesn't stick the landing quite so well when like, you have friends and you can kind of see through the nonsense. Yeah.

my family wasn't dispensationalist. It was all about in times, you support Israel because that's where you know, that's where Jesus is going to come back. So yeah, I remember, I mean I I we even had like fake Passover ceremonies in our church. God, this is bringing up some interesting.

were not the good guys. And then I think reading The Fateful Triangle by nome Chrompsky really solidified that. And uh, obviously Ilan Pope kind of was the nail on the coffin for me. So yeah, and speaking of like you know what happens in DC, and you know, America's opinions on the Middle East, most of them are dogshit opinions because most people do not have some sort of strong

point of reference to this zone. But it goes back to what we were saying about how being against genocides should be a very big tent and we should resist efforts to make it smaller. Because I'm reading through the Hundred Years War in Palestine right now Rashid Khaldi, and one of the things that he said is how the war is fought in the United States in Congress because

we hold the keys. So as much as it's as painful as it is to try and change the minds of dumb Americans with no geopolitical understanding, it's absolutely essential to holding Israel to account. It is actually one of

the best things that you can do. And when someone who has the international appeal of Chef jose Andres points the finger at Israel and said, you killed my employees deliberately and you're starving Gazans, that goes a long way towards shifting the opinions of the people who actually hold the keys to everything Israel does.

command for approval. And in light of that, none of the things that they've said about this make any sense whatsoever, because if if they're protocols, because they're either, it's like they can't decide what they're trying to gaslight the world into believing every claim that they're making is muddling what they're trying to get the world to believe about them, and it just gives everyone the distinct impression that they're recklessly, incompetent, lying, evil, or potentially all three.

that they could have used. But one of the things that they do in the US does it too, but it's a bigger thing with Israel is if they have inert or low yield health fire ammunitions sort of guided munitions at a five from a helicopter or drone, and they use them to do a thing that they call roof knocking, right, which sounds maybe like you're like knocking on someone's ref What you're doing is sending a missile through somebody's roof, and that is the means by which

you alert them to evacuate the building because you planning a larger strike that in itself. Yeah, we have this great ISR capability and what do we do? We launch missiles into the homes of civilians and then hopefully they will run away and fear for their lives so that more of them don't die when we blow up that block ten minutes later. Like, it's just you know, you have to look at what's happening, not what's being said. I guess, but.

you can see just how far they've been able. They're scrambling now because they've been able to get away with so much for so long, and their excuses are falling apart because they're alternatively depicting themselves as a highly disciplined and professional, you know, army, or that they're just making mistakes because it's war and that people should get off their back because no one holds anyone else at the same standard that they hold Israel.

harkive and their website is missionharkive dot com. And if you're looking for an org that is already working in Gaza to provide life saving aid in the wake of you know, unrubbing gone. World Central Kitchen now pulling out an era pulling out. Global Empowerment Mission is still there and still fulfilling a lot of the same functions that those organizations were doing.

He says, for months, World Central Kitchen leadership censored material coming out of its Gaza operation and refused to honor staff concerns about their work there. And even though they're finally taking a stand after its personnel have been murdered, it is much too late. So he resigned in early March of this year, and at the time he was the only staff member of Palestinian descent at WCK. And

there is an amendment. There, he says that while WCK hired many Palestinian contractors in Gaza in Egypt, he was the only Palestinian with staff status following the departure of one other longtime employee, and he resigned in protest of

the extensive unexplained censorship regarding Gaza At the organization. They talk about how in December seventh of last year, they sent a letter to wck's executive team, and that letter called for WCK to join other regionally active NGOs in calling for a ceasefire and condemning his reels blockade, as well as conforming its language and coverage of Gaza to the standard that was stepped by the coverage of Ukraine,

as well as stopping meal service in Israel. It got fourty three signatures, and the WCK executive team declined to meet up with the people that signed the letter, and they failed to respond to any inquiries, and they also actively still served the meals in Israel while the second day of the ICJ Genocide hearing was happening in January.

not been mentioned anywhere externally. Like, I think that's a

real crucial getting off point. You can have shit politics, but if you're not saying stuff when your people are getting bombed, like until they're getting killed, A, I don't know what's wrong with you, and B if you didn't change things that, I don't know they didn't change things, right, that's not detailed here, but like you have to change things if your people are being bombed, Like if I'm working somewhere where that's a likelihood, you know, like if

if we get bombed once and we're lucky enough to be okay, we do not continue doing the same shit. And I'm not entirely sure that they did. I don't want to for a moment suggest that like the people who died were in like complicit right, that's not what I'm saying. It's not what you're in saying. I very much understand the desire to go to places where dangerous things are happening and help the people who did nothing to deserve this, and I think the people who did

that deserve are an ending gratitude and respect. I'm not for a minute saying that that's not true. I'm saying that this organization needs to really think about how it does shit if it wants to continue operating.

that were lost. And then three days later, Jose Andres posted a video to w CK's Instagram where he only makes reference to the October seventh attack, with no mention of the climbing Palestine death till at the time or the blockades and then on social media, Charles mentioned this of the episode. On October sixteenth, he tweeted at the Spanish Prime Minister to be removed for her protest of the Israeli tactics, and at the same time, WCK continued to work closely with the IDF over the course of

the relief response. The initial statement as well as Andre's video, were decisions that were made by leadership against the concerns of a WCK personnel. There's this paragraph that I want to read just verbatim. Much of the work in a genocide is not pulling the trigger, but instead minimizing and denying that a genocide is going on. Genocide is a phenomenon of gradual boundary pushing. Each increment must be accepted by the parties with agency for the next to be reached.

Under the direction of CEO Aaron Gore, Linda Roth, and quote Chief Feeding Officer Jose Andres, World Central Kitchen recklessly endangered its personnel, selflessly exploited the situation for its own benefit, and actively participated in the normalization of an ongoing genocide.

less person starves, that's good. It doesn't mean they don't have to be perfect to help, but they don't get to be exemptive from criticism because they're helping, right, Like World's Central Kitchen didn't want to help us at the border in Hucumber. My friends reached out. They didn't want to do that. Yeah, I don't think you should expect

endios to share your your radical politics. It doesn't mean that they can't do harm reduction, and it doesn't mean that when they are doing harm reduction, they sometimes need your money, and in the such situations where this is happening, you should give it to them if you can't help

more directly. Right, But like you know, if we look at their communications, we do see them calling for a cease fire, which is about what you can expect from an NGO, you know, we actually it appears that we see Hosse Andrews calling for a ceasefire, and we see World Central Kitchen saying Jsse andrew is for a ceasefire, which I don't quite know why they don't just say we are calling for a ceasefire. They didn't sign that

document with the other rango. It's like that. I don't know if they're trying to play like have it both ways. I don't know. I don't I'm not privy to those conversations. Right, they didn't sort of wholeheartedly say this is the genocide but they have to get permission for Israel to do stuff.

I mean, now they're saying it, but after the Trustee that happened, the whole world is watching, right, Not that the whole world shouldn't have been watching from the start, but I don't think enos are ever going to be you know, it's radical that there's people on the internet want them for They're also they're doing stuff and people on the internet aren't, so you know, we have to

respect that. And I don't want any of this to take away from the fact that some people from all over the world, right from Europe, from Australia, from the United States, have died feeding people who need to be fed, because that's the most any of us can give, is our lives, right, And so I don't for a minute want any of this to detract from the sacrifice they made.

No should their sacrifice be held in any higher regard than the sacrifice made by hundreds, if not thousands of Palestinian aid workers, right, people working for the Palestinian re Crescent, a Palestinian even the Palestinian people working for International NGOs right, or the United Nations people who have been killed, right, None of the sacrifices it should be ignored or ound mind because if people are certainly given a lot more than I have, I don't have any right to say that.

I think, yeah, this organ it changes communications, right. I think they've obviously realized that there is no nicely nicely about this, like you have to call a spade a space when it comes to what's happening in Gaza, which is a deliberate and targeted campt to kill civilians, thousands and tens of thousands of children even And I think until we move the conversation onto where that is being called by its name, that is to say, genocide, then

I don't think we'll see that the reactions that we need, and I think they appear to have reflected on that. I wish they've got there sooner, but they're there now, and I'm sorry that it took these people's lives to get there. But what I see from them is what I see from other NGOs. It's not they're not certainly not uniquely bad. In fact, they are better than very many indios. And they were there when other people weren't, and they're delivering food when other people weren't, So I

don't want, I don't want to distract from that. But yeah, they're this messaging, this internal conduct, like there's somebody these internal messages, they are traveling and like again, it's just what i'd expect from any other NGO, whereas I've seen these guys do things in many ways sort of better than other angios, but none if that messaging takes away from these people giving their lives, and I don't want to suggest that.

for the organization were in disagreement with this. I think the last thing I want to read from this article just really highlights that WCK did not protect the people that worked for them. It says, save the possibility of genuine and competence, the WCK leadership's decisions were not made to maintain neutrality, did not increase effectiveness, and as April

first demonstrated, did not protect personnel. The leadership's failure to honestly portray the dire reality in Gaza and lack of an attempt to influence the genocide in Gaza via its status and close ties to the Bien administration means that they bear responsibility for its outcomes. Let no one say they did everything they could. And this is obviously talking

about the leadership versus the personnel. And then he goes on to close the article saying that his experience is one experience and when he resigned there was a palpable, widespread atmosphere of disappointment among the staff and employees. And he ends with just calling on current and former WCK employees, contractors, and volunteers to publicly share their stories as well in order to force accountability and change.

friend Molly Conger for a little recurrence series. I like to call look who's stalking? That was the That was the stocking joke. I'm wanted to open the episode with my own journeys.

In twenty nineteen, he was publicly identified as a regional leader in a white supremacist organization, and in twenty twenty two he announced he was running for office.

And I want to make it very clear. I don't want time, distance and white polo shirts to soften this. Identity Europa was a neo Nazi organization.

about killing Jewish people himself. So it's not just guys hanging out right.

which he attributed to the popularity of the video. Identity Europa was heavily involved in the Summer of Hate, that rash of violent white supremacist rallies across the country in twenty seventeen. They were instrumental in planning as Unite the Right rally.

acronym they stole. But the rebrand was not successful and the group died out completely in twenty twenty, and Casey tried to pretend the rebrand wasn't just an attempt to escape the fallout of the leak, but it really was the leak that killed Identity Europa. At least seven active duty military members were identified in the league. A school resource officer at a high school in Virginia was suspended,

a Minnesota National Guardsman was recalled from basic training. So jud Levins was just one of dozens of members of the group to be identified in those chatlogs. The work of anti fascist researchers who identified Blevins and the leak chats was corroborated and published in an article on right wing Watch by Jared Hult within weeks, and it's about as solid as an idea as you could hope for from a chatlog, or, depending on your position, the kind of idea you really don't want. A user called Conway

was Identity Europa's regional coordinator for Oklahoma. He recruited and vetted new members, organized outings for banner drops and social events, and frequently posted pictures of the white supremacist propaganda he'd been putting up, encouraging others to do the same, and offering tips on how to create more effective visuals for the group's online accounts. In over eleven hundred posts over a nearly two year period, he left a lot of clues. He posted a link to an article in his hometown paper,

the Enid News and Eagle. He posted a photo of a relative's baby, details about his parents' lineage, his plans to move home to work for his father's business, and in the lead up to the Unite the Right rally, he excitedly shared the discord that he would be carrying the original flag of the state of Oklahoma, a red rectangle with the number forty six inside of a white star, and photos from the rally show just one man carrying that distinctive flag that was designed by a member of

the Daughters of the Confederacy, jud Levins. As he grew into his role as regional coordinator for Identity Europa, he coordinated member meetups, getting several guys from Oklahoma to drive down to Texas for a get together. Conway posted about the meetup, and photos posted by other attendees show Blevins standing shoulder to shoulder with other members holding a large

Identity Europa banner. Conway even posted about his appearance on a twenty eighteen episode of Identity Europa's podcast, where he emphasized the importance of staying in the You will not replace us mindset. The time he announced his run for office in twenty twenty two, it had been over three years since he'd been out at as Conway, the Hate Group member who attended the Unite the Right rally.

colleges and getting you know, conservative students to become more base. Right, so this is a rational course of conduct, I think for where he was in twenty nineteen when Identity Europa died. But in any case, by twenty twenty two, anybody in Enid you could read his posts praising Hitler and celebrating Identity Europa for striking fear into the heart of the jew his words.

His hometown newspaper, the Enid News and Eagle, ran an article about the allegations, which he never denied. A month before the election, and without ever having to give a straight answer on the issue, he won, and that could have been the end of the story. Right, You know, we've seen this trend in the last few years of these radical right wing elements trying to melt into the

mainstream Republican party. You know, we've got these horrible little gropers working in congressional staff positions, and you know nazis going to spack and not getting ejected. They're getting out of the streets and into the meeting rooms.

And that's what this is, right. This isn't a guy who got out of White Nationals organizing and in an unrelated fashion, became a local politician. No, he said years before he did this that this was a good idea that he had. You know, he never said I renounced my previous actions and beliefs. I regret bringing an active recruiter for a hate group. He just changed the way

he was doing it. And he said countless opportunities to be clear about what he believes today and whether that's different from the beliefs he espoused between twenty seventeen and twenty nineteen, and he won't. He won't say I no longer identify with the posts I made when I was enthusiastically posting the fourteen words. And that's probably because he just found a better way to do it. But there were people in Enid, Oklahoma who saw right through that.

you're not allowed to go to his house anymore. That's what that means, Juxes.

march at the University of Virginia. And now this I didn't even think about it until I was writing this that what an incredible coincidence of timing. Right, So May twenty twenty three, he's being sworn into office. It was just I think maybe two weeks before he was sworn in that the first indictment was unsealed against the guys who are now facing felony charges for participating in that torch march. Right, so it was we did an episode

on this a little bit ago. But if you're not familiar that the guys who marched in that torch march at Eva in twenty seventeen, some of them are now being charged with a felony under Virginia law for burning an object with intent to intimidate. It's obviously a sort of a law aimed at the Klan, right, sort of a crossburning type law. But they were burning, they have these burning objects, and they were menacing people. It was

racially motivated. So they're being charged with this felony for burning an object.

are pleading guilty to felonies. You know, he's up there voting on resolutions and passing ordinances about you know, storm water management or whatever. Or I think one of his accomplishments in office was getting a Texas roadhouse in Enid.

they made an offer of reconciliation. All Blevin's has to do is acknowledge the truth, denounce his past actions, just own up to it, start making amends. Just say yes I did that, No, I don't do it anymore. And he can't do it. Throughout this entire ordeal, he's never owned up to it. There are pictures and video and his own words across multiple online accounts. There's no plausible deniability here. There's no saying, well, maybe that's not him. You know, it's him, so just admit it and say

you're not that guy anymore. But he has consistently refused to even acknowledge it right on several occasions, you know, when really pressed, he dismisses that twenty nineteen article by Jared Holt as quote a hit piece posted four years ago by a George Soros funded leftist outlet, calling it smears and slander.

his supporters do. At one of those council meetings in November of last year, a woman speaking in support of Levins said the allegations weren't credible as they came from organizations like the SPLC that quote only exist to smear conservative Christians.

vote on it. It got tabled. And at that meeting, Commissioner Derwin Norwood, the only black member of Enid City Council, offered Blevins his forgiveness and gave him a big hug and told him he loved him.

some liberal coup. Patterson is also a lifelong Republican candidate formed the week before the election, Patterson was quick to say like right off the bat, the second she opened her mouth, she said, contrary to the rumor, I was not recruited by the Enid Social Justice Committee. And she said, you know, she'd been thinking about running for a while. She loves Enid, but she was pushed to action by her opponent's inability to clearly denounce his past involvement with

a white supremacist group. And it is remarkable right to see conservative Republicans in the South saying like that Nazi stuff is too much for me.

of the questions were, and he gave another non denial. Right, he said, this election is about the next three years of this city, not about organizations that disbanded five years ago. But he went on to say that he would quote gladly, plead guilty to speaking out against what is being done to this country and the anti white hatred in the media. So he tries to talk around the issue, saying, you know, he was just advocating for the same policies that got

Donald Trump elected. But it's not like he was on the local Republican committee, right, He wasn't working on a GOP campaign. He was an organizer for a group that supported those policies of the Trump administration explicitly because they believe those policies were a stepping stone towards the full Nazification of American politics. Right, you know, the relationship between

those two things troubling concerning. But you can't pretend there's no difference between voting Republican and holding a torch at the Nazi parade. And that's what he's trying to do here. He's trying to blur that lines. You know, I'm just being punished for being a proud conservative. And it's like, which which part right people who's you know people who want free speech, and it's like, well, which word do

you want to say? And at no point during this recall campaign, from when they announced it in November to the election two weeks ago now, at no point during this recall campaign did he publicly denounce any of the white supremacists who supported him. Outlets like v Dare, a white nationalist publication run by an English born anti immigration race scientists who lives in a castle in West Virginia, wrote fawning editorials which were promoted by prominent white nationalists,

including Identity Europa founder Nathan Dimigo. Fascist telegram channels provided guidance to subscribers about Oklahoma's campaign finance laws, which would allow them to donate to Blevins's campaign anonymously as long as they kept it under fifty dollars. According to reporting by Christmathias and Huntington Post, a man in Tech who runs a business with a known Patriot Front member donated nearly two thousand dollars to the campaign, which made up

the bulk of the donated cash. And you might give him the benefit of the doubt and say, well, maybe he didn't know he was being endorsed by some of the largest elements in organized white supremacy in America.

white supremacists, white nationalists, and ethno state enthusiasts. How can you expect people to believe you're not that guy anymore when you have their public praise, their endorsement, and their money in your pocket. But you know who does not have two thousand dollars in cash from Patriot Front in their pockets?

That's a lot. Yeah, that's a lot more people who showed up to you know, an off cycle special election.

a lunatic fringe, right, That's that's the electorate speaking. But Matthew Gibert, a former State Department employee who lost his job for failing to disclose his active involvement in white supremacist organizing, noted in his telegram channel that while the loss is disappointing, an open white nationalist winning forty percent of the vote is quote, nothing to despair over, and you never got a hand out to the guy who hosts a podcast about the joys of Nazi fatherhood or whatever. Yeah,

but the numbers are what they are. You know, he did win forty percent of the vote, and this was after months of very public debate in the national spotlight that made it impossible not to know what the allegations were.

And it's not like these were just diehard conservatives who had walk into the voting booth and put their check mark next to wherever the letter R was right in this election, the other name on the ticket was a Republican too, Like, these were people who walked in there and knowingly and intentionally cast their vote for a guy who used to vet new members for a Nazi club. This isn't a fairy tale, it's reality, right. This wasn't an offensive win by progress or the left or what

have you. This was an effective defense And I hope conservatives can see a little lesson here, right, Like the story is too often one of ever ratcheting extremism. You can only win if you go further, if you go wilder, if you're appealing to the people who are on the absolute extreme end of what's acceptable to say in the party. But this was a case where a fellow conservative said, Hey, I want to take some books out of the library too. I'm not a liberal, but we just can't be out

here saying the fourteen words, right. And I think some of the buzz around this story comes from people in bigger cities or bluer states. I mean, honestly, I'm of this as well, who were shocked that, you know, purple haired liberals and progressive clergy even exist in a place like Enid, Oklahoma. But this red state blue state dichotomy is a myth. Most places are purple, most places are

sixty forty. Even in places that reliably one hundred percent of the time vote Republican, there's still a large minority of people who are not represented by that. So even in a place like Enid, which is Republican at the polls, you have a pretty big chunk of the population isn't represented on that two colored map. That doesn't mean they don't care. And when I watched those Enid city council meetings, I saw Charlottesville.

this nebulous, nefarious thing called activism. That you know, it's sort of this boogeyman of the professional troublemaker. And throughout this process, Blevins and his supporters have smeared the group organizing the recall, the Ined Social Justice Committee, is some kind of fringe radical group. They're Antifa, they're freaks, They're not like us. They're coming for our children. His recall campaign website called the petitioners an unhinged group of left

wing fringe activists. And the campaign website didn't say what he could do for you. It attacked the petitioners and said this is what they will do to you. And I've seen this in my own city council meetings, right, this sort of bizarre tendency of those in power to write off the people they don't want to hear from as activists. Well, those are people we need to listen to.

Those are activists. That's a different kind of person. Anyone who's asking for something they don't want to do, something that's uncomfortable, something that requires them to look inward, or look at the structures they're upholding. They undergo this instant metamorphosis from constituent to activists. This is no longer a voter or a constituent. This is a crazy person. This person isn't your neighbor anymore. They're an activist.

Maybe he just smelts quietly back into society and puts roofs on houses. A week after the recall, he filed paperwork to change the name of his dad's contracting business from Invincible Contracting to Great Planes Roofing. The paperwork filed shows that the company is now registered. The company is now registered. His address a house in Enid that he bought last summer, with a VA loan. But now that he's free of the self imposed recons train of running

for office, maybe he leans into it and becomes this guy. Right, Maybe he's just the guy that this happens to, and he goes on the cancel culture grievance circuit. Maybe he goes full throttle and tries to get back into movement organizing. I think his failure to come out and really celebrate the movement and really own it and say yes, I said that stuff and it's good. I think that failure, as they would perceive it, would hurt him a little bit if he tries to re enter the movement, but

not so badly that he couldn't do it. You know, they're so desperate for new material that they would probably embrace him if he wanted to be the figurehead of the month. Yeah, hopefully he just does the roofing thing though.

in a place where it wasn't easy. Yeah, you know, and there's there's lessons to be learned here. Go to the meetings, get a seed and sit council chambers. Go to the library board meeting, go to the school board meeting. You don't have to be an activist, whatever that means, but be in the room because nobody's going to change the world on their own. And maybe changing the world

isn't even a meaningful objective. I don't know what that means. Yeah, but today, maybe there's something you can do with your neighbors to stop the rising tide in your town. You can't change the weather, but you can put down some sandbags. And there are jud blevins Is everywhere, hiding behind mealy mouthed rhetoric of conservatism and quietly chipping away at your local institutions.

catch up to the current political zeitgeist. Our media landscape is inundated with depictions of unreality, political extremism, collapse, and rising civil tensions. Some of these succeed more than but most are still deeply neoliberal in their depictions. The Obama produced a Netflix movie from last year, Leave the World Behind, was a speculative look at a collapse orchestrated to jumpstart

a second American Civil war. Alex Garland's voyeuristic civil war movie just released, which sort of gestures at politics with offhand mentions of portlaind maoists and the Antifa massacre. But as a movie, it completely fails to understand the moment we currently occupy, and I believe is even more out of touch than the Obama collapse movie, but we're not

talking about that today. For my thoughts on that, you can look up my review on Letterboxed and refer to the reviews I liked for a more robust critique of Garland's deeply troubling depiction of quote unquote neutral war journalism as uncritically virtuous. Instead, this episode will be turning to a depiction of modern da extremism that I'm not sure

is better. It's still deeply neoliberal and honestly more overtly copaganda, but one that I still find more interesting and I believe does understand our political moment much better than Alex Garland does, who comes off as less and less intelligent in every single interview he does. Last month, the television show Law and Order did an episode focusing on Robert Rundo's far right fitness groups, the White supremacist Active Clubs.

To discuss, I am joined by longtime far right researcher Molly Conger.

Pop culture media like this is often very sensational, turning very real pain trauma and death caused by the far right into this form of kind of mindless entertainment and often reifying the role of good government and good cops to maintain order against racist insurgents, even though more and more of their ilk begin to occupy public office and become cops themselves. But politics and culture are hand in hand.

Lots of what became the al Right grew out of gamer gait, and I think there is a real use in understanding how the political activities of fascists and anti fascists are depicted in mass media. I believe there is some value in knowing what NBC and the writers of Law and Order think in Active club is as like a sort of cultural litmus test, and also to see how well people like us are doing in trying to

educate about these types of groups. But I totally understand that not everyone wants to suffer through a forty minute Lawn Order episode about cops beating the Nazis, So instead I will watch it for you and talk about exactly how they depicted this with Molly here today. So I think the most efficient way for me to do this is to kind of give a recap of the episode and as I start going through it, we will discuss a certain points. I can't just summarize all of it

in like a short paragraph. I mean I could. I just think that would miss out on a lot of stuff. So instead, we're going to go through the episode and comment as things happen. And this episode ends up being about a lot more than just an active club. It's actually pulling from a few other influences that we will talk about probably towards the end. Anyway, that felt sloppy to me.

kind of join in. The woman quickly switches to a more empty subway car, where she then bumps into another black man whose eyes look kind of vacant and has make weird grunting noises, and then the man appears to lunge towards the woman. We cut to crime scene tape stretched across the subway station. Two police detectives to enter the subway car, where a dead body lies on the ground. But it's not the scared white woman. It's the oddly grunting black man who appears to have been strangled to

death with no apparent witnesses. He's identified as twenty four year old Ellis Joyner, a stand up comedian who A detective says, quote came from down South, love to talk about how much he loved New York. The other detective remarks, great place to live, not such a great place to die. Cut the title screen with music that I assume has not been updated in like thirty years, because the actual it sounds so so nineties.

knew that. Anyway. Back to law and order, Ellis Joiner's credit card identified the station that he got on at, which also had broken cameras, but police pulled streetcam footage from a few blocks away, which shows Joyner getting into a fight with another comedian where Joyner got punched. The other man is recognized as Malcolm Paige, a stand up who quote used to open for Chappelle back in the

day unquote, so already setting up something fantastic. The detectives interview Page and show him social media footage of Joiners is set from last night, making fun of Page for being old and irrelevant. Page says that verbally attacked him because Joiner quote got his panties in a twist unquote over some of Page's jokes quote hit too close to

home for fancy boy unquote. And when Page says fancy boy, he does this little shaky hand thing, which the detective asks if that's supposed to imply that Joyner is gay, which the older comedian says, yes.

according to Paige, weren't getting along either. So there's some kind of like like God, a new suspect arises exactly exactly. So police look through Joiner's emails and texts in the cloud quote unquote, and can't find any record of a boyfriend, making detectives surmise that he must have been in the closet, which is a baffling thing to surmise. Cops then contact quote the Traveler app. That's that's Traveler spelled.

would threaten his comedy career. Zain maintained nothing ever got physical between each other and explained that his assault charge was from trying to break up a bar fight, but when the cops arrived, they targeted Zane because he was black, to which the two NYPD detectives nod solemnly.

at him and Joiner. Security camera footage shows someone matching that description exiting the train car one stop before Joyner's body was found, and one of the detectives recognizes the symbol. We will learn more about this mysterious hoodie, sneaker, and symbol after this adbreak. So I first, I just want to describe what this symbol is. It's it is. It's this octagon with spiky corners and like two k's facing

like like like one facing backwards. Yeah, one one facing forward with one facing backwards, but smushed together and the shared middle pillar is like an arrow pointing upwards.

extremely accurate. The cops are graded by jacked staff member with a shaved head, and they asked to speak with the owner, and this skinhead employee says that they just missed him. But there's a picture on the wall of the owner holding a trophy and he's wearing the exact outfit in the subway security footage. The detectives are told

that he was getting a cab to the airport. Now thought I thought this was gonna be like a classic Rundo move right, do some crimes flee the country, But allegedly he was actually flying to Toronto, which actually will kind of get explained later on. Cops are outside to see if they can spot him before he leaves, and they see a man in yellow sneakers and a logo emblazoned hoodie walking towards a cab. They sprint tap him

on the shoulder. The MMA guy throws detectives against the car, starts fighting, not realizing their NYPD because he has like earbuds on. Cops pull their guns, then he surrenders. The owner of the gym is named Domino Dominal. It's a weird it's weird name.

are going off here. It ended around midnight. Afterwards, Kovec said he walked to his girlfriend's dear By apartment. He was never on the subway, but he explains that the gray hoodie and yellow sneakers are part of the Combat Academy uniform that all members wear.

if like really sartastical answer. They're like, oh my god, this fucking guy asking if the cameras are broken. The cops tell Brandon that they found Ellis Joyner's missing cell phone in his gym locker. They searched his house, they didn't find anything, but they got his They got a warn for his gym locker and found the cell phone, and they alleged that he stole it after he realized that Joyner recorded a video of the fight that ended up with Joiner being strangled to death.

the court part. But whatever, it should be called order and law, which just guess, I guess, just doesn't sound good. So a front page story in the legally not New York Post is being passed around the DA's office. It reads self defense or racist killing hero or zero.

But based on the cell phone video, the DA decides to pursue a murder case due to a quote depraved indifference to human life unquote displayed by choking someone for full three minutes after falling unconscious.

it's recording, and turns it off. As the video is playing, the prosecutor and the jury are all shaking their heads so that we know that they don't agree with it. Hugh Dancy questions the medical examiner, who explains it after Joiner lost consciousness, he could no longer pose an a lethal threat to the defendant, who continued to talk donor

for three more minutes. The defense suggests that a surge of adrenaline distorted time and awareness of his surroundings, which in the panic of the moment, made brand did not realize Joiner lost consciousness for that long. Ellis, Joiner's secret boyfriend, testifies next. He says the defendant was weirdly staring at Joyner and himself, and that Brandon moved aggressively to step in Zayne's way. When he was trying to exit the train and said, quote unquote watch yourself in a quote

unquote racist tone. The defense brings up Zayne's past aggravated assault charge to cast doubt on his testimony.

at her. She then claims Joyner reached into his pocket and she was scared he had a knife or something, so she screamed. She screamed for help, and Brandon Arnau saved her. She testified that mister Arnau grabbed Joyner away from her and the two men started fighting. Laski calls

Brandon a hero, and a jury looks on inquisitively. After the female witnesses quote unquote compelling testimony, the prosecutor talks with the DA about offering a manslaughter plea but the DA is steadfast since the video clip of a man begging for his life and being choked to death for three minutes after falling unconscious has not actually changed. Hugh Dancy remarks that new context for the video isn't really

in their favor to it. The DA just replies, just because a white woman saw Joyner as a threat doesn't make it true, like okay, based in New York, DA, I guess. Back in court, the prosecution asks Rebecca Laski if she was actually present when a quote, the defendant choked the life out of a joiner unquote. She clarifies that the train stopped as the men were still fighting. Joyner was reaching into his pocket. She was scared that he maybe had a knife.

wasn't acting aggressive or grunting in a threatening manner. He was stuck in a subway car having an asthma attack. And he addresses Laski saying, quote, you saw a scary black man making a noise. Objection Uh sustained, So yeah.

heading down the right path. But I can't help you because it would blow my cover unquote.

murder case. But the counter Terrorism Bureau explains their scope is much larger than this one case and they have quote had their eye on Kovac for a while now. They explained to the DA that his MMA gym is actually a quote active club part of an international network of a white supremacist sleeper cells that all front as MMA style gyms unquote. So okay, okay, okay. White nationalists have been using MMA gyms to front for activities for decades.

or two, maybe three like per state. We don't fully know, but I will give them points for adding in the Canadian chapters, which most people kind of overlook, but.

of hate unquote a very kind of retro slogan. We don't really use that anymore, but if you look like ten years ago or like, yeah, around ten years ago, you would see a lot of like liberal articles talking about the new face of hate. Quote no more white sheets or burning crosses. They've adapted and created a facade

to mask their racist beliefs unquote. So the DA wants their undercover guy to testify to secure the conviction against one of the active club members, but the counter Terrorism Bureau doesn't want to blow their nine month undercover operation even for a murder conviction, as they've quote recently received credible intel that Kovak is now stock pile a leg of firearms and explosive materials unquote.

the situation unquote. So the DA breaks the news to the prosecution team that the undercover will be unable to testify because the active club is quote planning a coordinated attack along the lines of the January sixth insurrection unquote.

And true, they started getting into this kind of debate around like the ethics of like doing a long term infla tration operation versus seeing like a like like an active like like seeing an active threat, or like seeing a way to like currently clamp down on a like arm of an organization, even if they can't get the whole thing yet, and they have this debate like is it is it better to like do like a long term strategy or to like just like chop off as many limbs as we can as we go on and again,

it doesn't make sense because if they have all this credible intel, why not just like get them right now? But like what I wrap it up? So back in court, mister Kovak is on the stand. Hugh Dancy asks if he and the defendant have ever discussed quote, racial ideology, to which Kovac says, I don't know what that means. Believable the Probible. I mean, yeah, that is the correct

answer for this situation. The prosecutor elaborates racial purity into racial marriage, what role black people should or shouldn't have in society, and Kovac once again feigns ignorance. Hugh Dancy asks about Kovacs eighty eight to tattoo being a Nazi symbol and Kovec just says, I don't know, I just like the number eighty eight, and then he doesn't.

it that people who share their hateful worldview. They rely on plausible deniability because if the racism isn't overt, many good people are all too happy to assume it isn't there. But every once in a while, in moments of panic or anger, the mask will slip unquote. Hugh Dancy closes by saying that Ellis Joyner was an innocent, unarmed black man suffering a medical emergency, and the two white people on the train assumed he was a violent threat, and

they attacked him. And even if there was no intention to kill at the start quote, at some point, the defendant's focus shifted and his racial hate began to manifest unquote, yelling blood and soil at Joiner quote a declaration of hatred for all people of color unquote, as Brandon choked him to death.

this isn't a hate crime case, it doesn't matter. What matters is whether or not he used excessive, like more force than was necessary for a self defense argument.

not going to convict on murder. Tube we do think it was manslaughter, so we're going to convict on that, even though that wasn't the charge in the indictment. So I can't imagine that this DA would not have pushed for lesser included charges.

about needing food and water. No one was helping him. He was yelling that he didn't care about going to jail. He was ready to die, and this was reportedly frightening other writers. Daniel Penny, a twenty four year old former marine, approached Neely and placed him in a lethal chocold that lasted anywhere from five to seven minutes, depending on if you ask the prosecution or the defense. Penny was repeatedly told by other writers that Neely appeared to be dying.

By the time first aid was being administered, he was already dead. Daniel Penny was let go after being questioned by police, and only arrested eleven days later. I think this is the part where they're like, do we want to let them go or charge him now? I think that's kind of what they're doing here. On June fourteenth, twenty twenty three, he was indicted on a charge of second degree manslaughter. The trial scheduled to start on October eighth,

twenty twenty four. So this episode also, I think it fails in a lot of ways in this depiction of active clubs. It uses certain terms, like the term active clubs, which I was surprised they just I'm surprised they use because that's kind of a more of like a niche term, but they just made it to be this like MMA

elite Nazi squad. And I think them trying to include this bit does an incredible disservice to trying to depict the killing of Jordan Neely, which, first of all, like there's already problematic aspects of right of turning this this like really fucked up thing into a piece of entertainment. That's kind of why I started this episode with that monologue.

But I think by cramming so many other elements in here, like this, like this homophobia angle, this this this active club angle, it does a real disservice to the actual incident that they're trying to comment on, where there was a man in a very crowded subway who very publicly was basically lynched because a few writers were not super comfortable when riding the subway because this man was yelling

for food and water. So it's not great, But after watching Leave the World Behind Civil War on this, I think this is the best depiction of our current political moment out of all of those three things, which is a pretty fucked up bar. I guess, Molly, do you have any other thoughts on how they depict Nazi stuff in this?

very short, but it's kind of to the point. I'm on letterboxed at Hungry bow Tie, and then the reviews that I liked, which are underneath my own review, go into more depth about kind of the problems with that film in my opinion and other people's opinion. Anyway, Where can people find you online? Molly Oh?

grassroots for thirty five years. So that's why I released it. But that's you know, the secondary anyway.

great understanding of how that works to understand. So I was wondering if we could start off with you explaining like this, this long and painful history of like ultranationalist Buddhism in Myanmar and how it's empowered the genocide of Muslim people and also the hunter today.

Buddhism in Burma, you know, like different kingdoms. But when when when we were under the British for one hundred and twenty four years, the you know internally warring Buddhist kingdoms, you know, like Rakine and Morn and Burmese and Sean, they all at Buddhist kingdoms and they formed this oppositional ideological identity as you know, nationalists Buddhists that would confront the alien colonial British rule. So in that sense, you know, nationalism was not a bad thing at all because it

was you know, primarily for image concipatory struggle. But then like you know, then fast forward post colonial independence period nineteen forty eight onward. Right when when the British rule was removed at the end of the Second World War three years after the the oppositional Buddhist nationalists, you know, umbrella identity collapse, right so Raklines want to full ground their ethnic city given that the main oppositional commonality, the

colonial colonialism, was no more. And so that's when the ethnicity was reinjected, you know, into the ideological formation. And interestingly, as you would know as well, the end of the Second World War was followed by the Coal War, right. And on the one hand, like you've got you know, godless communists, atheistic Russia, a Soviet Union and in China. And then on the other hand, you know, essentially Christian West,

you know, or at least allegedly Christian West. And in that context, the alternationalism was essentially encouraged to buy the by the United States and allies. You know, like if

you that this is nothing new. If you look at the rights of like a socialist governments across the Middle East, you know, primarily Muslim Middle East, you would find like the rights of Muslim brotherhood and you know what we call today fundamentalist islamicist right, but that you know, the Buddhist with at no central orientation were encouraged you know,

by the United States through grants and aid. The same way like you know, the rights of you know, fundamentalist Islam was encouraged or or midwifi with the US money. Because this is important because through the eyes of the coal war strategists, the only way that egalitarian leftist ideologies could be confronted was through this, the faith based ideology. So I don't want I'm not saying that the Burmese nationalists and also nationalists were not responsible for their own growth.

But I also what I'm saying is that there was a larger global context in which this monster was hatched. Yes, and so, but even you know, like the going back to the nineteen thirties, after the War Street collapse, you know, then like you know, the the recession pervaded across the world, and colonial economies like Burma with massive agricultural explorer economy, the British founded expedient to basically turn to a religious divide and rule, and like you know, the Burmese Buddhist

laboring classes were pitted against the Indian laboring classes of different religions, but that was more like the Buddhist nationalists and non nationalists versus you know, like what we were called today migrant laborers from India, you know, under the because we were part of British Empire. After the British left, the Muslims began to be scapegoaded, and then finally I think like the we cannot understand yes, you know very well the nationalism or alter nationalism without some kind of

political organization. And that organization is what we call Burmese political or state, whether it's controlled by the civilian elected politicians or the military military as an organization, political state's always there, whether it's you know, fascism in Nazi Germany or Italy or Japan or like you know, the genocidal Mimah about fifteen years ago. State was the engine. Actually it's not the people that were generating this toxic ideology.

It was state that was inventing, manipulating and mobilizing towards their sinister end.

exploitation or racialized or ethnicized administration. And all the security laws and you know, ordinances and whatnot, they were formulated with the interest of the ruling colonial interests or power like at the time British and what the what independence did was really transfer of this internally racialized entity we call state from the white man's hand to the Brahman's hand,

you know, the Burmese. So so when when you the state wasn't actually finding it difficult to foment racial or inter we don't use the term race here, inter ethnic conflict or inter religious conflict. The state itself embodied this divide and rule outlook because it remains internally colonial, you see what I mean? And so so I think that it isn't simply the policies of the you know, X

y Z regimes that have rude Burma since independence. But the state itself is conducive to, or you know, supportive of this kind of inter religious and inter ethnic contest because there there are no principles of equality as as ethnic or religious communities or there there there was no sense of you know, horizontal or vertical fairness among the political class and the majoritarian agrarian communities, and so the

state is self problematic. Yeah, that's why, like you know that when ol San Suci came to you know, semi power, because the military is still controlled or backseat drove for a regime, she found it really difficult to maneuver because she was straight jacketed in this you know internally colonial shell.

the progressively militarily stronger recind Buddhist Arakan army. That's just one area. But you know, if you look at other regions like shun Stay, for instance, there's an extremely complex

ethnic contestations happening. Right, so what like political scientists call like a horizontal violence is taking place, and so it's like there are multiple conflicts at work, you know, but of course like the military is number one, you know, problem maker, but they're also lesser evil forms of like political and ethnic conflicts taking place.

I think it's probably like articulated. I'm sure you are articulated, most notably by James C. Scott of like and he looks at the example of me and Ma has been rightly criticized in some areas of like the mountains, as an area where people can I guess, choose to opt out of the state or or to be where the state is not completely consolidated, I guess, and never has been.

to haunt the Burmese society. I think, like the way I look at it is like you know, center and peripheree, right, irrespective of the altitude. I mean, at this point, like altitudes no longer really strategically important because you know, we're we live in the age of drones and like you know, MiG twenty nine and sixteen, mountains are no longer cover you see what I mean, right, Yeah?

I think like it's interesting to hear young Bamar PDFs fighters now be like, oh, I chose to go to the mountains, even though it sits very much alongside that Canelian analysis that you had of like the wild people or like quote unquote savagery, right, which or when I speak to Bamar people who are like twenty one now who joined the PDFs at eighteen seventeen after the coup, they had all been very much indoctrinated with the idea of non Bamar people as quote savages or wild people

who lived in the quote mountains or jungles, and like choosing to go there to escape the state. I think it's really interesting to hear like that analysis reproduced in their storytelling of their own lives.

that the way people dress. I mean it's also like you know, the rural and urban divide as well, you know, the even like those who grew up in the in the non majoritarians, you know regions, you know what I

call it, the peripherys of the Burmese colonial state. When they settle in Rangoon or Mandally or or you know major urban areas, they they begin to dress, they begin to I mean, they necessarily adapt to the the the Burmese way of life, the majority dominant you know, customs and whatnot, and so so I still stick with the you know this whole colonial relations the organizationally and psychologically. The yeah, I mean also that we have the vocabulary.

If you want to oppose a central state or the central regime, we say, we take refuge in the forest, right, And we take refuge in the forest or under the tree against the scorching sun or like pouring monsoon rain right, or the evil center right. And so so it's all built in. It's in the language even you know, like organizing an armed revolt or going underground is described as

taking refuge in the forest the jungle, you know. And and and what's what's interesting though, is like you know, from the state's perspective, if you're taking refuge in the in the jungle, of course, like that's treason us and you know, that is an act of criminality. But if you if you use that language, or if you if you do exactly the same thing literally physically, if you're a Buddhist monk, you know, you you are considered holier than monks that continue to live in the city, you

know what I mean. So you go, you know, the forest monks versus like a city, town or village monk. Right. So this is quite a fascinating linguistic you know, twist here on one hand, like you know, but from the revolutionaries perspective, if you're in the jungle, you grow certain aura around you. You're in the jungle, right, and you don't you don't wear jeens or you don't look like city people by you're wearing you know, like the fatigue,

army fatigue and you know, jungle the paraphernalia. And as a revolutionary that's like, you know, that's I check with our time.

emerge as oppositional entities. In other words, whatever administrative structures that you know, the the the current armed revolutionary organizations set up, they need to first make sure they don't replicate that the internally colonial nature of the state that they have been fighting and to some degree of like success at this point in history, right, because the coloniality is very much connected with the idea of pure ethnic identity, you see what I mean, and in this day and age,

I mean whether I mean you've been to current State and other places in Burma and and you know in the Middle East at Curtis and so. But they're they're they're always like, you know, the idea of pure ethnic identity, right, even if you're a revolutionary. But but but the truth, the truth is, you know, even small places you will find Muslims and Hindus and Christians or people with different

migratory histories and class background. You flettened them into a single ethnic identity, right that well, that that that in and I mean self perception, we are a new Kuran state or Karany state or Kachin state, right, even Kachin the late the term label the label Kachin in the north.

You know, they have about like the three or four major groups there, and and some resent being referred to as Kitchin, but they go along because they are against the more evil CenTra, a Burmese Buddhist state, right right, so so so so so that's why when I when I explain to you, you know, at the outset of this the conversation, this like your Buddhist identities merged as an oppositional umbrella, anti colonial identity against the British when

that common oppressors has gone home, and then we start fighting each other, you see what I mean? So number one, it's like you know, that is very very important. These new entities do not define their political organizations along any idea of like you know, blood and soil. Yeah, and that's very very important.

other weapons. You see what I mean? Because like what they need to do is as soon as like that they have secure any like ancestral region, what they need to do is they need to separate law and order maintenance from the defense. Yeah, And the reason we have gotten into this bloody mess is because the military did not separate law and order administration as a civilian function

function from the national defense. So the current progressively militarily successful ethnic resistance organizations have to demilitarized self consciously and as a matter of policy their new administrations. So these two things, you know, move away from blood and soil idea of identity and demilitarized and civilianize the administration.

solidarity with people of other ethnic groups. That's something that like sometimes they will articulate to me, right that, like, you know, we were told these people were bad and evil and savage, and they're not, and there are allies

in this fight against dictatorship. Do you think that that's replicated in the in the leadership of eros like that that idea that this blood and soil nationalism has been the blood soil identity, I should say, is something that's like a big problematic and devisive and will always be so like, do you not see that replicated so much?

And then the other one is the half of the population of these ethnic communities have remained marginalized, and that is war men, if you you know, I mean, on one hand, it does make sense that you know, men with guns and men with like you know, the fifty years of revolutionary experience are going to play leading role. But these guys have to make a conscious effort in changing their own value system, which is like, you know, bring in new generations with more progressive ideas into policy

making circle, leadership circle, and bring in warming. And you know, I wish I understand I know more about the Kurdish revolutionary organizations. My own very limited understanding is that you know, gender equality, I mean, for the for the Islamophobic crowd, it might be quite shocking, but the Kurdish revolutionary organizations are you know, much more gender equal, yeah than like you know, white democratic societies.

yours does. And I think that there's I think increased solidarity and communication between the Kurdish freedom movement and the resistance movements in mem which I hope can only do

good for that. Like, especially with regard to gender relations, it was interesting to see the Kereni K and d F Battalian five issued a statement which said that like they had a long way to go in terms of gender relations, and they looked to the Kurdish model of example of where they can get to, which at least it gives me hope that these things can get better.

be you know, it's an rebellion. It's different from a revolutionary movement. Revolutionary movement involves a shifting fundamentally the non progressive values and outlooks. Right. That that is something that needs to happen, and that that, in my view U

is a deeply you know, intellectual psychological process. But I think I think that the the the that is happening, you know, and so the so that that that ideological progressive shift is it's going to hit the uh, the ceiling at some point because you've got old men in a decision making positions who are not who haven't bought in entirely uh, the need to shift their value system. And then partially it's not simply ideological, it's also self interest.

When you're when you're the when you're the boss for twenty five years, you know, you're a little like autocredit tyrant, you know what I mean, right, organization, So shifting the you know, giving women and younger generation spaces me you know, you shutting up fifty percent of the time and letting the other you know, people speak fifty percent, you know, like they're no more like monologue for one hour, you

see what I mean. Yeah, so even like you know, the airtime, you have less airtime, that's like you're less. That's your self interest your airtime, you know, let alone economic and other interests. This is just like talking in

a meeting, you see what I mean. I've been through like some of some of the meetings and stuff, and so you know, like guys think that only they have important things to say, you know, especially military matters or big items, okay, like women talk about welfare of children and you know, widows kind of shit.

taboo to walk underneath a woman's lunch. Yes, so yeah, so they hung them around their protest camps when they were in Yangon fighting the police, and that the police wouldn't come in, so that you were like, oh, this is when I realized that sexism hurts everyone. So I

think it's yeah, I have hope for that generation. I think it's It's been one of the things that has given me so much hope for the world in general as I've been covering the revolution in the Amma, is to see people reconstruct and change their identities in a progressive and inclusive way, and people, you know, people in this countries and the UK as well are so stuff in their sort of regressive identities. And to see young people there acknowledged that sexism, homophobia, these these racist and

inter ethnic like hierarchies are damaging everyone. It's given me a great deal of hope for the future.

leadership is very important, you know. I mean I don't I don't believe in this like a goddess idea of like a group of men, uh you know, you know, guiding guiding the herd. Right, But at the same time, I think like these older men should meet the younger generations halfway. Yeah, And I'm not saying like okay, all right, you know, like a you know, like don't trust anyone above forty because I'm sixty, so I still want to

be trusted. And but yeah, I mean I'm sixty and I can take ship from eighteen year old junior friend

or colleague could tell me you're full of shit. And here's the reason I listen, Right, So I assume, like other other people my age, my generation, will be able to uh do the adjustment right and especially for the better and the But but I think that said there, they are really articulate young people and women, yes, who whose voices need to come to the full like you know, like people the people I mean, like we don't live

in isolation anymore. Like in the nineteen sixties and seventies and agies, Burma was very isolated and so you know, and so the ideological currents did not reach within the Burmese society. So that the type of religions or religions I mean Christianity, the type of Christian practices outlook whatnot remain like extremely conservative compared with like you know, even

like a conservative like Christian country like USA, yea. And but now, like you know, with we live in the social media internet age, and so you know, young people you know use the term like intersectionality, you know what I mean. They start to see like race, class, gender and other issues, you know, like inter intersecting and then producing or reproducing or ending like different forms of you know, repression and you know, exploitations and whatnot. We still have

a very very long way to go. We can't shift. But that's not not to say that, you know, we should feel like discouraged, you know, but we we We won't see instant changes.

four c dot com CEO. It's a good platform. We encourage and actually we seek out uh you know, very radical ideas in multiple languages Burmese or or Chin or Karani or whatever language they want to use. We don't censor anyone. They can say anything as long as they're not advocating fascist them are violence or like you know, things like that. And so yeah, I encourage to take a glandset our South East Asia Network of anarchistic activists and scholars.