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Hey everybody, Robert Evans here, and I wanted to let you know this is a compilation episode. So every episode of the week that just happened is here in one convenient and with somewhat less ads package for you to listen to in a long stretch if you want. If you've been listening to the episodes every day this week, there's going to be nothing new here for you, but you can make your own decisions.
Hello everyone, and welcome to the podcast. It's me James today, and I'm joined by my friend and yours, Charles McBride, documentary filmmaker, humanitarian activist, writer. And you've just been in Palestine, is that right, Charles, Yeah, just got back like a week and a half ago. Nice, welcome, Welcome to America and the Free Damn, that's a rough transition. Actually, thank you for Thank you for joining us so soon after
you got back. So there's a lot to talk about, right, Like I feel as if, in like legacy me the year when there is less discussion of Palestine recently, maybe just because I'm seeing so much domestic US coverage like twenty four to seven, right, we're in another like Trump
news cycle. But yeah, especially with reference to the West Bank. Actually, like, can you look update people on the last maybe you know, maybe in the time you were there, and then what's suspected what's happening in the West Bank.
I think that's going to be even less coverage. Sure, So I've taken two tricks for the West Bank in the past year. Yeah, So August of last year May of this year. I noticed a rapid deterioration just between those two time periods. So, I mean it was bad
last year when we went. That was right when I was when my team went there to begin our documentary, they had just launched this new operation in the West Bank, which was pretty much the largest ground operation they launched Israelis had launched since the second Endebata, and it was targeted at the northern refugee camps of Focam, Nurse Shams, and Jeanine. A lot of people know Janine, they've heard
that in the news, you know, it's relatively familiar. Not a lot of people realized that the situation in Tokyoom and in Norsham's is quite similar, and those three camps in particular were targeted by the IDF operation. On the second trip, we couldn't even We couldn't even get to those places, not with the unrep personnel that we were supposed to go with our documentaries on UNRUTH, the United
Nations Relief Works Agency for Palatign refugees. And last time we were there, they were able to bring us to the camp. They showed us where the Israelis had you know, bulldozed their facilities and done various air strikes in the camp.
This time they.
Couldn't even take us there. So we went to other camps and said camp everyone's spirits were low. Lots of people were talking about West Bank annexation as if it seemed like an inevitability.
Yeah.
Yeah, And I actually spent some time inside forty eight on this trip, and I went down to Yafa and to Tel Aviv and interviewed some long time kind of liberal journalists from RITZ and they we're just talking about how the shift in Israeli society over the last year has been quite marked as well, particularly around the question of just generally ethnically cleansing Gaza, which was something that was, according to his telling, like really only heard in very
right wing circles like Kannis circles over the past a couple decades and is now just pretty routinely heard across the spectrum Israeli society that the best solution to this is should just deport everyone from Gaza.
Yeah, that's pretty bleak, Like I mean, I guess the process of manufacturing consent has been pretty pretty successful and pretty complete in that sense, Like just the dehumanization of Palestinian people has been pretty successful at least there. I guess if people aren't familiar, we should just like explain
that Palestine is well. The areas which are now like legally allotted to Palestinians, I guess, are not contiguous, right, Jaza in the West Bank at different areas separated by Israel, and like the bulk of what you have seen in the last two years has been Israel's war on the people of Gaza, but the West Bank is a different and larger area which has also seen significant israelly like military aggression and violence from settlers, right, like a paramilitary aggression.
I guess you could call it. People I think maybe will have heard of ANRA or maybe will at least be familiar with seeing it. Can you explain, like what the agency does. It's a unique agency, right, like it doesn't work anywhere else in the world. It's quite a unique thing to this Israel Palestine context.
Yeah, so ANRA is probably the most controversial UN agency, and that has everything to do with the context in which it was founded. It was explicitly set up in coordination between the United States, the newly founded State of Israel, and the Arab League coming to the United Nations and presenting a plan to deal with the displacement of seven hundred thousand Palestinians from their home as a result of Nakba in nineteen forty eight. So out of that context,
it's designed as a temporary aid refugee organization. It actually it's set up before un HCR, so it's mandated specifically for the Palestinians, and the Palestinians don't end up falling under un HDR when it's established. So there's a lot of particularities about UNRA that make it different from other UN agencies, which is also something that the Israelis like to highlight because they're engaged in a multi decade credibility campaign against UNRA.
But to the extent that it is.
Almost entirely staffed by Palestinians, it is quite different than other un agencies, which typically involve multinationals international personnel. Now, a lot of the higher leadership at UNRA is still kind of your same international diplomats, but in the words of the Zionist academic that I interviewed for this documentary,
most of those have quote unquote gone native. So most of the international diplomats do tend to, you know, obviously be quite sympathetic to the conditions which the Palestinian staff are are working under. So my documentary is a it's an investigative documentary to some extent, and it uses the frame narrative of the Israeli allegations that UNRA had been infiltrated by Hamas and that UNRA personnel had taken place
in the October seventh massacre. Yeah, it uses that as a hook and a frame narrative to talk about what is this organization?
Yeah?
Why did it go from something that was set up as a temporary relief organization to seventy seven years later? It is responsible for maintaining the livelihood and well being of five point nine million registered Palestinian refugees, not only in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, but also in Syria. In Lebanon and in Jordan. So the politics of it get very hazy very quickly. But it's kind of an inconvenient thing for everyone because the organization was
explicitly designed to end right after a few years. But the assumption was after a few years there would have been a political resolution to the Israeli Palestinian conflict. There has not been, and here we are seventy six, seventy seven years later and we're still at that point, so un still exists.
Yeah.
One of the ironic things we've found when filming this documentary is that everyone involved in this process wants this organization to go away. Yeah, Israelis, the Palestinians, the staff themselves. The only thing they disagree on is when and under what conditions?
Why?
Yeah, I think it's Yeah, it's very interesting, like as refuge agencies go, because, like just I was recently reading Sally Hayden's or rereading Sally Hayden's book about the refugees in Libya. Right, it's called My Fourth Time We Drowned.
It's an excellent bok.
If people haven't read it, that you read it, very
good audiobook as well. Like that they incorporate some of the voice notes you got from the refugees, which I think is good, and as it's typical of United Nations refuge you workers in many areas, the bulk of them end up living or spending a lot of time in Tunisia, right, like not in Libya and coming in like in you know, the typical image that you see of the United Nations is like a bunch of people in white land cruisers, right, and they pull up and they do their thing and
they leave. They're not either part of the population or or even with the population. And they're often criticized for this around the world, right, and they're very susceptible to like state narratives, right like in Libya there's there's all kinds of evacuations of corruption or like sort of state capture.
I guess, so an agency that's supposed to be international and supposed to be impartial, and they're supposed to above all things, advocate for refugees, right, And sometimes you can see at tension between the IOM and the UNHCR of this kind of shit. It's different with under a right like like they are from what I've heard from Palestinian friends, like more respected by Palestinian people. Because of the work that they do and the value that they provide.
Yeah, I mean, I would say, like trust in HONRA is probably higher than in the Palestinian authority. The PA is largely seen as a contractor or subcontractor for Israel, right, and UNRA is seen, you know, as flawed. I mean, there are a lot of Palestinians who are deeply critical of UNRA, particularly the constant efforts it takes to sort of remain neutral on all of these political questions. Yeah, and you know, inefficiencies that are going to come with
any multinational institution in Goo. Yeah, of course, but in general they seem to I mean, at this point, we've interviewed dozens of people who had various relationship whether they had gone to UNRAS schools or they had taken you know, they had been to unrehealth clinics, and by and large they they preferred these and they saw the value in UNRA.
They liked the unraschools, they liked the unrahealth clinics. UNRA is largely responsible for the fact that Palestinians are one of the most literate populations in the Middle East, and many of them speak English incredibly well. I mean like, yeah, it's wild talking to an eight or nine year old girl who grew up in a refugee camp and she's speaking to me in perfect English talking about how she wants to move to Los Angeles and become an actress. And it's just it's wild. And that's kind of a
testament to what Unner has done. And that's very inconvenient for Israel because when you educate a lot of refugees who can then learn English and turn around and speak to the world in very eloquent ways about the nature of their oppression and their suffering, it becomes an ideological barrier to your particular political project.
Right, And this is one of the things that has distinguished the genocide in Gaza in terms of like how it's been perceived in the US at least, Right, is that, like, you have a very literate population that is able to articulate what is happening directly via social media and to traditional media, right, like to people like yourself making documentaries like this is distinct from populations like I think of the Rahinga right, you know, I speak to Rahinga people
pretty often, but I don't think most Americans see Rahingah folks if they go on TikTok or Instagram and you know, as a result, I think people would have cared as deeply. You know, people would have been in the streets for that. But that communication wasn't that And yeah, it is extremely inconvenient. If your project isn't an ethno state, right and you're willing to cleanse areas of other ethnicities to build your ethno state in it, which is what's happening, then it's
very convenient. If there's people you're trying to cleanse can talk to the world, you know, in the language of the world, understands and very eloquently and make their case for not being ethnically cleansed. Yet, No, it is tribute to the work that animal has done. You know what, I guess we should do. I guess we should take an advertising break right now. So let's do that.
Wean't come back.
All right, we are back. Let's talk about the alternative to UNRA. Alternative is a wrong word. Let's talk about the attempt to make an end run around unrisk existence by installing this fascicle NGO. I guess you could call it an ADO or like aid provider. This is a Gaza Humanitarian Fund people who aren't familiates, synthetic alternative. Yeah, yeah, yeah, this sute. This is like the zin of UNRA, you know. Okay,
so what's going on with the guy? But let's talk about what it is and what it claims to do first, and then we'll talk about how it's not doing it very well or at all, like people are fucking dying in droves.
Yeah, mil high View.
UNRA maintains most of the aid going in and out of Gaza. Everyone I know in the humanitarian world has had to interface at least to some degree with UNRA during the aid process, and that's difficult because it has been essentially been declared a terrorist by the Israeli government and has been banned from operating inside what Israel considers to be its territory, including occupied East Jerusalem and increasingly
in the West Bank. They're trying to limit its operations and in Gaza they say they can't work with them because they're Hamas. So it's the UNER people are quite confused because they they've had to deconflict with the Israelis for this entire time and recently as a result of this law. It's actually become illegal under Israeli law for the Israelis to coordinate with UNRA, and so the UNRA people don't have been actually they don't really understand what's
going to happen. There's been some limited coordination, but still we talk to people who are very high up in the organization and they essentially had no idea what the Israelis were planning to do to replace UNRA or to coordinate with them in Gaza, and so they just kept kind of doing their thing until the Israelis literally made
them stop in certain instances. Right My documentary is called the War on UNRA, and part of this war has been the propaganda efforts and the Israelis going after this organization and everyone in the humanitarian aid world's sort of been asking the question, well, what are you going to do to replace it? This is an organization that deals with like two million people in Gaza and like three
million in the West Bank. Not all of those are registered with UNRUPP, but it's dealing with all the refugee camps there in Gaza itself is a refugee camp like it only exists as such as a result of the knack Buck because it's where they put all of the
displaced people who weren't in Jordan. Yeah, and so the Israelis basically had the backskins Wall, and they're like, okay, well, we have to come up with some alternative to this because we can't come out and say, actually, our main goal is to depopulate Gaza and settle it.
Yeah.
Yeah, And so they cooked up this idea of the Gaza Humanitarian Fund, which was kind of this public private partnership backed by the Israelis and the Americans, and the intention was to entirely subvert not only UNRUB but the entire UN infrastructure that goes into the Gaza strip. For instance, every UN agency in the world actually piggybacks off of the World Food Program because they're always the first ones in.
So it's WFP infrastructure, trucks, you know, vehicles, everything like that that goes in first, and then UNHCR, UNISEF, all this thing they're piggybacking, coordinating with WFP. In this instance, WFP is coordinating with UNRA. The Israelis one died not only bypass UNRA. They want to just put the entire UN system out of that. So to do that, they formed this sort of collaborative partnership under the management of the Israelis, which was supposed to be kind of an
amalgam of all of these different private NGOs. And I don't want to get too much into the specifics of like who sort of was involved in that, but a lot of people kind of took them at face value. This is they wanted this to be a real solution, and so they offered to help and kind of set up this system which was supposed to be overseen entirely by the Israelis and the Americans from a security perspective.
Yeah.
One of those was Jake woodho was the founder of Team Rubicon, which is an organization that does a fair
amount of excellent work all around the world. She resigned from the Godza Humanitarian Fund a day before it launched and went on record saying we cannot actually do this while keeping to humanitarian principles of humanity and neutrality, which was a signal to the world that this was a highly politicized project, which is precisely what the World Food Program under the leadership of radical leftist activist Cindy McCain has been saying about this from the start, and une
Philipe Lazarini, the head of UNRA, said, this is a clearly political sized event under the only the UN system is the only one capable of actually dealing with this in a humanitarian way. All those concerns were brushed aside. American contractors were brought in and the results were relatively predictable.
We've seen at this point two pseudo massacres, I mean, the first one with that full Palastinians were killed, and just this morning, twenty seven Palastinians were killed at a GHF distribution after gunfire was opened up on them.
Yeah, we're recording on the third a Gene so that
was when this second massacre occurred. And yeah, like I mean, just today, as we're recording this, I've seen that Boston Consulting Group again like not exactly, like a bastion of wokeness, has terminated this relationship with the Guards Humanitarian Foundation, Right, Like the kind of conceit that this is a replacement for UNRAH to begin with was somewhat fascical, right, But people who were prepared to go along with that, either because they can make money doing it or because they
thought this was the only way to stop people starving, are still deciding that, having seen the way that this is run, it's not worth it, right, right, And there's also some political heavy handedness going on with this, one of the most obvious features being specific aid distribution points in the south of Gaza, which are designed to bring you know, whereas UNRA and WFP were going to people, they were trying to get food through as much of
the Kazas trip is possible, including people who wanted to return to their homes in the north, the JCHEF is like, nope, you starving population will need to make the journey to this distribution point. And this distribution point only, which you know, has the political effect of depopulating these areas that you know Israel is operating in. Yeah, which of course is
also that criticism. There's some videos going around so Impalstinians celebrating, Yeah, you know, the relief efforts of the of the JHEF. I think some of them have been like verified by Reuters. You know, Israeli media is making hey of that. You know, people praising Trump in Gaza, right, which you know, these people are starving and they're very happy to get aid. Yeah,
that doesn't mean that like everything is above board and cool. Right, it means that like the people who need to food got feed.
Yeah, I mean, and that's the political complexity. The situation is that the people of Gaza have just been abandoned by everyone, right, I mean, there's there's there's a lot of criticism to be a had of how Hamas has handled this. There's a lot of criticism to be had of obviously the way in which Israel has behaved and the UN system and the international system. So I mean, I'm glad that like some of them are getting food. Yeah, that is that is an improvement off of none of
them getting food. But everyone in the AID world is starting to go on record saying the main problem is Israel preventing AID from going into the Gaza strip. And actually I want to harp on that a little bit because the reason that has been given primarily for that is that Hamas is stealing the aide. Every time they're asked about this, they go back to, well, we want to get aid to people Gaza. Unfortunately Hamas keeps stealing the aid and so we can't allow it. We need
to allow us to trickle in. Yeah, that's interesting for two reasons. First of all, the yet to provide any evidence that that's actually occurring. And second, because all humanitarian experts agree that even if that was the case, say everything Israel said about Hamas was true, and they were stealing, you know, ninety ninety five percent of the aid that's
coming in and selling it back. The humanitarian solution to that would be to flood the strip with so much aid that it would literally be impossible for them to like to stop that, which we can't do, Like it would be possible for us to flood the Gaza Strip with so much aid that it would be like an abundance of food. So the decision not to do that is a political one.
Yes, definitely, Like I was going to say, on the face of it, it doesn't matter. There are lots of situations, to be clear, where people steal aid. It's undesirable, of course it is. But yeah, the solution is more aid, not like unfortunately the aid has been stolen, so now then children must have. Yeah, that only works if you're prepared to accept the outcome in which little children die of starvation.
Which the Israelis are.
They're perfectly I mean this near was a University of Pennsylvania poll. I'm not saying eighty four percent of Israelis are in favor of the idea of just simply either killing or displacing everyone in the Gaza strip eighty four percent.
Yeah, it's wild to see, Like it's been such a strange couple of years in that sense, right, because more people in this country are aware of the plight of the people of Palestine than ever have been, and more people are engaged with it. That is mostly good. Some people have been gaged it in a way which is far from good, right, Like, I don't think there's really very much to be gained. Fucking throwing molotov cocktails people in Boulder is not making anything better for anyone. It's
just making everything danger more dangerous for everyone. And it's fucking stupid.
And I would extend that to gunning down yes, so would I. Yeah, Israeli a couples outside of the Jewish Museum in DC. I don't think that's necessarily the best way to help people in Gaza. No, Like, yeah, standing outside the vent for Jewish people and fucking shooting random people,
it's not that. Again, it doesn't make anyone safer, it makes all of us left safe, and like, it does nothing to stop people dying and starving in Gaza, and that's it's not the crux of the problem, I guess, but like that is a problem, right that people are engaging with Gaza, but nothing is helping people here know how bad it is that children are starving in Gaza, But that hasn't changed the fact that children are starving
in Gaza. In fact, like you know what I've said, it's a lot of times like I moved her in two thousand and eight, and I had engaged with the movement before that in the UK, right and the situation passtime to be was very different then, but like it wasn't something that people had heard of here for the most part, unless you were within like certain leftist or sort of people of maybe they're like Middle East an
extraction would know about it. Of course, now people do know, and all over the world people know, and we've seen huge marches. Right, Like the situation is worse than it's ever been, I mean not ever being the knuck Bowl was pretty fucked too. But as the world looks on, right, like, the gender side continues and people continue dying, and seemingly the acceptance of the Gardis Humanitarian Foundation by states of the world. Is really troubling, right, Like, we're concentrating this
starving population in a small area. It's contrary to everything that humanitarian principles stand for. And I know we don't see. I mean, there is a very ready alternative. It's whether anyone is willing to step up and tell Israel to stop stopping aid and the god like this could end at least in my estimation, like very quickly. Right, we have enough aid and even aid in the region to
feed all those people right now if we needed to. Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's there's there's tens of millions of pounds of food rotting and warehouses and Jordan and Egypt right now just waiting to go across the border.
Yeah, and people dying.
It's the lack of political will, mostly on behalf of the United States, you know, but also I think the members of the Abraham Accords and the EU. Yeah, it's a devastating indictment. And I think the interesting thing about it is it truly pulls the mask off of the quote unquote rules based world order. Yeah, the US led rules based world order, because you just I mean, it's just so obvious that no matter how many people want this terrible thing to end. That we're seeing this very
obvious genocide is being livestream to our phones. The powers that be are too invested to to let it stop. You know, they're they're into the hill. We've already seen the degree to which the United States is compromised in its media and government storytelling in relation to Israel Palestine. Did the long unwillingness of people to speak up about this followed by the very rapid turnaround of people who are now rats fleeing the ship. Yeah, they're seeing the
unmistakable reality of this genocide. And you know, it's like everyone says, once this is done, everyone will pretend they were against it from the start. And you're now starting to see that, right, you know, with like the former White House Press secretary.
Yeah yeah Miller, Right yeah.
Miller was like, yeah, they've been committing war crimes than they were doing it while I was there. But I didn't speak on my behalf. I was speaking on behalf of the United States government.
Right, yeah, the old the old Numberg defense.
M hmm.
Yeah, They're like, I was just doing my job thing, which like is not actually don't actually an excuse for participating in war crimes and like should have been an excuse for apologizing or excusing them, right.
I know that you guys have talked about and that we'll have spoilers for this, but I know you guys have recently had a series Unpacking and Or, which is my favorite TV show. Yeah, and I was just so happy that they snuck that one line in about when Cyril asks what they're doing here and she just says following orders.
Yeah.
How often are we going to hear that in the next few years?
I guess? Yeah?
Yeah, it's so predictable, right, Like every time this happens, right, And this isn't the first time the United Nations has basically allowed it. Genocide tappened right under its nose. No, and it will probably won't be the last because, as you said, right, like, the idea that we have a rules based world order, it's a lie. It's a myth that exists to make people feel better and feel like
this stuff couldn't happen again. But like you know, we have ICC warrants for people who are traveling freely around the world. It doesn't matter that the ICC can't enforce its own warrants, right, Like you could say something to war crime, it doesn't matter. No one's the war police aren't going to go and arrest all the people doing it.
Yeah, it's mostly just kind of a Yeah, it's kind of a placebo. I'm not really sure what the function it serves. I mean, I'm not a big international institutions enjoyer, Like I'm deeply skeptical of the United Nations in almost
every one of its aspects. My team and I've talked several times about the point that this documentary has that weirdly like it's improved our trust in international and geos just because we're seeing like the degree to which UNRA is operating on increasingly less budget every year and still managing to be effective.
Yeah.
I think a huge part of that is again, it is staffed by the local population who are from these areas, and they have a duty and a commitment to care to their people.
Yeah.
But in general, no, I mean, I don't understand what the point of the UN is if you don't give it the US military, Like I mean, if as an anarchist, I don't believe that this is a great solution to things. But like, if you wanted to enforce the UN, you would need the World Police, Like you would need to just use the United States to like hunt down these people. Yeah, and utilize it's eight hundred military bases in every country to enforce these rules.
And we don't really yet we allow these things to happen. But yeah, I'm not the big international institutions enjoy either. Like I've seen the UN be fucking useless in most continents that people live on. I would really like it, though, if they would do something to stop the suffering of the people of Palestine. Like, it doesn't mean I wouldn't
be happy. It doesn't mean I'm not happy when I speak to guys from PK, guys that who we've had on our show several times, right, Like when they talk to us about like where should we send money, They'll be like, oh, Unroawa able to get my family some food this week or whatever. Like I'm happy to hear that, and I'm glad that they're there, Glad that they were there at that time. I guess, So, like what does
the future hold? The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation seems to be falling apart within a very short period of this whole thing being stood up, which is unsurprising, right, can you explain, like, what does it take for a that lives up to basic humanitarian principles to get in there?
I think that's a really difficult question to answer because we have bribed so many options.
Yeah, I mean truly.
I mean the last time I think I was on this podcast, it was to talk about my colleagues and the World Central Kitchen who got killed in Gaza. That was an attempt to try and alleviate the suffering of Palestinian people, and it had predictable results. You know, there's all these groups have been operating and there to the extent that they can, and the result has been too little,
too late. And everyone is saying, from Sidney McCain at the World Food Program, to Philip Plazarreni to you know, DeAndre like from the private sector, everyone is saying, the reason this is a problem has nothing to do with moths. It has everything to do with about that Israel is restricting the amount of aid doing to the Gaza strip. And now everyone's waking up and asking the obvious question
of like, well, why are they actually doing that? And in the answer corresponds to those polls we see that indicate that, you know, yeah, fifty percent of Israeli society is open to killing everyone in the Gaza strip. Eighty four percent are open to displacing them all. This is just what Israel wants, and I think the humanitarian world is slowly swallowing that very difficult pill. And I don't I can't really tell you what comes next outside of a political resolution.
Yeah, which seems higher and how to come by in the current international climate, Like certainly it's not coming from the US, right, Like.
Yeah, I mean, like something to watch would be that Senator Welch from Vermont introduced a bill to immediately refund UNROW Okay, yeah, and it has it has a House a correlate with I think, yeah, woman Jiapaul and a few others who are trying to kind of push that through. I mean, the United States funds three hundred million dollars, which is about over a third of un annual budget, and we've restricted that funding for the past year and a half.
Yeah, so if we restore.
That, I think that would be a big signal to Israel that like, we're not playing ball anymore.
Yeah.
I just think when you have a rubber stamp Congress and a fascist president, that's probably unlikely to pass.
That's a big reach. Yeah, yeah, I actually think this is an area where elected officials to the right of Trump support its on this one. I think, like, you know, I spend a lot of time in rural East County San Diego, right, Like, I talk to people who have very different politics to my own. Yeah, it's a nice way of saying that, but like I've had people who straight up I'm sure voted for Trump be like, man, they're letting little children stuff, like what the fuck is wrong?
You know, Like, like, I think it's an area where a more sensible politics would be able to build consensus.
But here we are, right, yeah, I mean there is no opposition. Like the Democrats are not an opposition party. They're just happy being like the junior partners in fascism.
Now.
Yeah, they're having a little party today where they're giving out tacos because they're trying to somehow encourage Trump to go ahead with more sanctions and tariffs and more genocides. I guess, like I don't quite know what the Trump always chickens out think, like, well, I'm glad he's stick it out with the tariffs, isn't Isn't that a good thing. Yeah, like, yeah, like, what are you trying what are you trying to say here? I think maybe I don't want to confront what they're
trying to say. But this is a thing that like at the current time, like it needs state action to stop it. Yeah, we do not have an organization which which is able to mobilize people in such a way that they can stop it, like and that is it's really desperate if you care, right, because the states of the world very clearly for decades and decades and decades have been unconcerned with Palestinian people and their wellbeing and
they're not doing shit about it now. I think there are still people who are able to make a meaningful benefit to the lives of people in the West Bank.
Right.
I understand why people are hopeless when they look at what's happening, you guys, And I understand why it seems bleak and it seems like there's nothing you can do. Are there things that like concrete actions, organizations, groups that you think people can engage with and we've heard from some of them on the show before, right to be in a solidarity way or to help people in the West Bank.
Yeah, you know, I think like, I honestly, I think there are people who could probably better answer this question from me who've actually gone and done protected presence operations in the West Bank.
I know that they're like the people.
In Massafayata are often asking for foreigners to come and do that, and a lot of people will go through like Jordan Valley Solidarity or ism or something like that. I'm usually one to discourage foreigners from jumping feet first into a HoriZone with great intentions and no knowledge of
the language or everything that's going on. Yeah, but there does seem to be a genuine call from amongst the pales in community in the West Bank to have people who are willing to physically get in between you know, Alsinian villages and settlers and the IDF. Yeah, so that is a concrete thing you can do. That's a dangerous thing to ask somebody to do.
Yeah, I don't think it's something people should rush into, right, Like, we've interviewed people who have been shot.
Doing yeah exactly.
A young woman was killed doing that, Yeah, aishunar Agi.
She was shot yeah, feet away from my friend who was just in the West Bank, and he just got banned from the entire territory for ninety nine years, And I was talking to him about that because I wonder about, like, you know, my work, and sometimes I feel like I'm not going far enough in my solidarity because I'm doing this investigative documentary and I'm not physically putting my body on the line. Yeah, sure, but I can still go to the country, Like my support for the Palestinians is
still ongoing. So I think people need to ask themselves, do I want to take one drastic measure to like show this is my solidarity with alsign in an instant, whether it's joining like a flotilla that might get airstrikes, or you know, setting yourself on fire outside of the Israeli embassy, or do I want to like contribute in the ways
that I can as best I can. I mean, I'm a storyteller, right, So I said, I need to find a story that I can tell about the Palestinian that will humanize them in the eyes of people who are not naturally sympathetic. And I think a lot of people think that they need to be putting their body on the line. Or it's like I talk about this with disaster relief all the time, Like disaster happens and people see you on the TV, they're like, I need to be wearing a high viz best and distributing a box
of aid to someone. It's like, no, you probably don't. Actually, like the thing that you can best do to help people is probably the skill that you've been perfecting in your own career as well as like in your own life. Right, if you're good at spreadsheets, you can help people get access to housing. Yeah, one hundred percent. You know, if you're good, if you're good at lifting things, then maybe
you should be lifting boxes. But like, I have a friend who's the Emmy Award winning director of photography, and he's like, I have a and I can lift everything's and like show me where to go? And he was hitting me up the entire like first two weeks of the LA fires, being like where should I go? And I was like, me, you're an Emmy Award winning videography. Tell the story of the fires, find the survivors, like, bring their stories to life and let the world see
what our community looks like. And he did that and it went amazing. Yeah, So, like I think people should think about when they want to help. You know, if you are a saramicist, or you sow or you're a musician, write a song about gods. Like, there's so many ways to help that don't involve physically putting yourself in between a settler and they're in for and a Palestinian family whose language you can't speak.
Yeah, I totally agree. Like there's and we see that with border stuff, right, like everyone wants to do high k out to the border and drug water or you know, everyone wanted to in Kumba, right, like the other people wanted to help us, and people did help us, and it was amazing, it was really beautiful. But like people were also able to help the skills they had, like
making jewels and selling it or maybe doing a benefit gig. Right, there's a long tradition of anarchists benefit gigs, Like it's a thing that we do, do a zine, yeah, like you're upon concert, you know, yeah, yeah, many many such cases like within doing that, there's the intangible benefit of showing people that people care about them, like all around
the world. I remember, you know, just recently I saw people from the Karini Nationalities Defense Force, Right, so one of the revolutionary organizations in Miamma making a statement about solidarity to people of Palestine and to their children, and you know that they too have experienced their children being killed, they too have experienced these bombing runs and state oppression, and that like they see them and they care about them,
and even in their own time of war. That's like the front in Karini State is hot right now that they are still thinking of the people of Palestine. I saw Palestinian people were very touched by this, right, like it does Obviously you can't eat someone's good thoughts, but like there are things you can do, like because yeah, you can't be down there right now giving people a sandwich as much you'd like to, and for some people that's either not possible or maybe just not the best
use of their time. And like, I think it's a really good message to everyone's good at something. Do you, like, find the thing that you're good at and use it to help people? I think is really valuable. Is there anything else you'd like to share with people before you finish up here?
Yeah, I just think I would.
This was a dark conversation because I don't really see a way out of this humanitarian situation. But I think there's a degree to which that's been the case from the start, Right, The real trick of the imperial thought machine is that the pace of oppression outstrips our ability to understand it. Yeah, to quote theory twink charisenemic. But don't lose hope, right, because the world does care about
Palestine more than it ever has. Yeah, they feel that the people there feel our love, they feel our solidarity, and that is not valueless, right, Like, yeah, no human is useless. Who lightens the burden of another. I was depressed as hell coming back from this recent drop the Palace sign, and I went to the mountains and that's we met with a bunch of people who were just really energetic about like Palestinian solidarity and and really cared
about it. And it was like, yeah, it was so nice to go from that and just be able to tell my Palestinian fans like, hey, by the way, we just spent an entire week talking about what we can do to alleviate to some small degree the suffering that your people are going through.
That matters.
Yeah, Like every small act, every little thing, right, the small deeds of ordinary folk.
That's what keeps the darkness is bay.
Yeah, and that's really prescient. Often, like refugees will say to me, Sientias will say to me. In the last six months now, I guess that they think Americans don't care about them anymore, And that really fucking breaks my heart, like more than I can express with words, because I care about those people so much, and like it does make a difference when they see people doing things, and they can be small things, but like I know how my set lifts up somebody in talk times, Like yeah,
because I've been with them in pretty dark times. So yeah, it does make a difference. And like if that's what you can do, then then people shouldn't think as valueless.
Yeah, and also UNI pressure people, you know, continue to make people embarrassed for believing in genocide. Call your congressmen and remind them that they are their shills and cowards. I think a lot about you know, you mentioned like
nineteen you mentioned World War two earlier. I mean, if we had had TikTok in the age of Dakau and Treblinka and Oschwitz, I think about like the American government knew about the final solution, We knew that the box cars were going to these extermination camps, and we refuse
to bomb them. Yeah, we focused on military targets. If we've been able to live stream you know, some from inside Auschwitz, and we were also able because of pro public or whatever, to find out that FDR was choosing not to bomb the concentration camps, there would have been outrage. There would have been a huge amount of outrage I think in the American population as there is in Gaza. And that's an important thing. It's something we have access to now we can put that external pressure onto people
and make them uncomfortable. That's what brought down South African apartheid. Like it's the it's the BCGS pulling out of the Gaza Humanitarians Fund. Yeah, basically, British companies just got so embarrassed to work with South Africa that they just eventually stopped.
And that's what brought.
Down, right, Yeah, because people wouldn't shut the fuck up about it, right, They wouldn't let them do other stuff and be like we're not talking about that today. And like people in the case of South Africa wouldn't play sports with South Africa until it fucking stopped doing its apartheid. Right, Like I was gonna say it was global like a boycott, It wasn't quite global. It's Rael was not boycotting apartheid South Africa. But yeah, that stuff does make a difference. Charles,
when's your documentary coming out? Where could people find it? What can they view it on?
I'm still in the editing phace, so I think give me two months and I will have a better idea of when it's coming out. I'm hoping like before Autumn dam twenty twenty five. It is a time Emily piece, right, it has some some relevance that's time sensitive. But you can follow it on on Instagram. It's just at the war on Unra you n RWA.
Yeah, and my personal account also posts a lot about it.
That's Charles McBride with a y. Yeah, and it's the same on substack TikTok YouTube.
Yeah, like child said, you don't have to be there getting an m full pointed at you to make a difference, and so like, yeah, I would encourage people to do the little things to you. They're not that's small actually, but just yeah, the things that aren't going to Palestine necessarily.
Absolutely, Yeah, and like take heart, you know, don't despair.
Yeah, yeah, find some joy, welcome to it could happen here A podcast about it happening here, which, if you are paying attention to the news today is Los Angeles, not just LA but largely LA right now, which over the course of the last couple of days while we were off for the weekend, has broken out into.
A series of protests and cop riots that are kind of consuming national news. The federal government has activated the California National Guard and asserted federal control over them. Governor Newsom is kind of pushing back against that, although not in a way that I am convinced or I've seen
any evidence of matters at this point. The United States Marines, a group of I think about five hundred from Camp Pendleton, which is down near San Diego, have been activated as well, which is a probable violation of pose coma tadas, so that was kind of unclear to me the extent which they're in theater at this point. Largely, all of these actions have been ineffective in making the protests go away
at this point. What sparked them was a series of ice raids that took about two thousand people into custody and brought a bunch of Los Angelinos out in Paramount, California who were met by the police, the LAPD providing crowd control to Homeland Security HSI agents. Yeah, and that's the gist of what went down. Things have just kind of escalated from there. Yesterday probably four to six thousand people in the street as opposed to five hundred or
so the day before. So things have continued to escalate and the LAPD and their police have had no real luck in containing the demonstrations. We'll see how long that situation lasts. But yeah, that's where we are right at this second. More or less, things are continuing evolve today, will have evolved since Yeah.
Yeah, by the way, we're recording this on Monday, this will probably be coming out like Monday night, Tuesday morning. Yeah, so who fucking knows what will have happened by then. This is like about one pm Pacific time when we're recording this. I want to start also by going back to that National Guard deployment, because that national the federalized National Guard deployment is hideously illegal. Oh yeah, like unbelievably illegal.
I cannot emphasize enough. This is like constitution shatteringly illegal. Yeah, and the way this is being reported in the media is fucking hideous. They are just straight up lying about it. So okay, So Trump has not declared the Insurrection Act yet, right.
No, they activated a directive that Trump signed cited ten USC one two four six, which is a specific provision within Title ten if the US Code on Armed Services. That provision allows, or part of that provision allows for the federal government to deploy National Guard forces quote, if there is a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against
the authority of the government of the United States. So basically, the claim being made by the administration here was that the federalization of the California Guard was justified by the fact that the people of Los Angeles, which at the point this was done was somewhere less than a thousand.
Of them five hundred people, Yeah.
And were an open rebellion because they had yelled at a bunch of ice officers for a while. That was the situation.
Yeah.
Well, and also it's worth noting too, even if there was a rebellion, which there isn't. He also can't use that section because it's in coordination with the governor. You could only do what if the governor is working with you, and the governor, like Newsome, is being a real piece of shit. About this for again, like.
The president of the LAPD has been Yeah.
But it's like he's been sitting the LPD up, but he hasn't given permission for the federal government to use the California National Guard. They're just doing it, right, This
is like they've just stolen a state national Guard. And Neustroom's response has been, because he fucking hates protesters so much, has been like, oh this is bad, Am I gonna like do anything about the fact that, like, again, every single law about how the National Guard is supposed to be used, it's just been torn the fuck up.
Yeah.
No, like fucking MPR and like a bunch of the Maintiam media reporting about this has just been saying that, oh, well, he used this provision and it's like, no, he didn't. Like he did not he explicitly every single part of the thing that lets you use this provision, none of the conditions have been fulfilled, which means he's not using it. He's just saying shit and doing it.
Yeah, that's exactly right.
And the activation of the US Marines is based on like heg Seth posted a tweet being like I've got marines ready in Camp Pendleton, which like there's absolutely no constitutional justification for no, especially since the National Guard had just been put in for deploying active duty US Marines
into this situation. Absolutely not, it's all super like for one thing, the the situation that they're in right now in terms of like what we've seen from the National Guard yesterday was like they're not very effective at this, right. They fairly quickly after being deployed started using, you know, firing impact munitions at the crowd, attacking the crowd in the same way that the LAPD had done.
Nothing.
That was like, I would say, an escalation beyond how the fucking cops were active.
Right.
But National Guard is bad at handling these kinds of things, right. Their force organization is not meant to be able to be split up into small enough units the way the cops are in enough areas, Like they're just not meant for this sort of thing.
It's not how they're.
Meant to be deployed to counteract protests, so you wind up just kind of keeping them in this big blob of guys who you don't have good Like they're sleeping on floors in government buildings right now.
Because the Quartering.
Act exists, which is amazing, and because there's not much in the way of organization behind deploying them, and they don't know they're not I mean neither the police generally well trained with their impact munitions, but these guys certainly aren't. And they freak out at the drop of a hat like they're like worse at it than the LAPD, and the LAPD.
Is, you know, not good at it, they're just good at hurting people.
So you've just kind of got this large, brittle group of guys who you can plunk down in an area while protesters continue to gather in groups all around the city. And the more stories of shit like a blob of National guardsmen fucking up protesters you get, the more people are coming out and the less controllable the situation becomes.
And it seems like we're seeing the very beginning stages of people actually learning tactical lessons from twenty twenty and twenty twenty four with the poal sign encampments. Yeah, which is like, yeah, like, if you concentrate all of your people in one spot, police departments are very very good at massing the whole bunch of people and rolling you over. Ian We've known this since twenty twenty. If you are at a whole bunch of different spots at the same time,
they're terrible at responding to that. And that's kind of what's been happening. Yeah, there's been a unch are protests popping up in different places. It's been very effective at sort of like preventing that kind of like one giant sweep mobilizations that were like destroying the student encampments.
Yeah, and I'm looking at based on reporting from CBS News, about seven hundred US Marines have been activated from the twenty nine Palms base near San Diego, which is, per Jim Laporta, who's a defense reporter, widely considered to be one of the worst bases to be stationed at in the entire military. Are being deployed to Los Angeles right now. So that's just great.
Yeah. Someone asked Trump what would it take for him to use to authorize the deployment of the US military on American soil, and he said, that's just that's up to me, which is not how any of this works. Yeah, Like that's just pure military dictatorship stuff. If Trump is just able to like use the military just do whatever the fuck he wants. That is just that is the constitution gone, That is the pretense of democracy gone. It
is real bad now. It hasn't happened yet, but there has been a bunch of extremely alarming other shit that's happened. So the cops arrested the president of California SEIU, which is the service workers union in California, very very large union. Not a super billetant one.
No, And David Huerta isn't who you'd call like a particularly militant leftist.
No, he's just like a he's just like a kind of like a Democratic Party labor guy. And they just like arrested him outside of outside of one of the initial protests where he.
Was injured him quite badly too.
Yeah, yeah, like beat the shit out of him. And then he's still being held in in a federal detention building. They're they're they're charging him with with federal felony conspiracy to impede an officer. And again this is this is the this is the head of like one of the largest unions of California.
No, and they're they're justifying it in part based on the charging documents because they saw him texting on his phone outside and assumed he was texting to like a protester to give them more.
Yes, right, Like it's like fucking cortoon cloud. But like the actual effect of this again is that they have like one of the they have like the president of one of the largest unions in the state, like yes, in a federal detention building. So, I mean there's obviously been like unions are pissed about it. There hasn't been any kind of large scomobilization from them yet. But if there was one possible thing you could do to actually get Seiu outfits ass and like show up to shit,
it's this. We don't know exactly what's going to happen. The reporting that I've seen so far has suggested that there is actually a kind of heartening degree of cross union support for like, holy shit, the Feds like just grabbing the president of a union is in fact bad. We're gonna have to see exactly how that plays out. But like he's still fucking in there. Maxine Walters like
tried to enter the facility to check on him. This has happened with a bunch of different congress people who have tried to enter this one in LA and a couple of other ttention facilities. They are all being denied, which is unhinged.
Yeah, especially since they have oversight over facilities like this.
Yeah.
Other news for from today that's just come out in the last less than a day, the government has deployed MQ nine reapers I think at least two of them over Los Angeles. These are the drones that are that we were using overseas to shoot hell fire missiles of people.
That's not what they're being used for here. They're being used for surveillance.
The last time this was done was in Minneapolis in twenty twenty.
Outside of their use.
For surveillance over the border, but there's MQ nine's over an American city surveilling protesters. Speaking of that, there's also just been like the threat of surveillance being used against protesters. Kind of The most chilling example from yesterday was an LAPD helicopter flying low over a crowd, shining a spotlight on them and saying like I've seen, we can see all of you.
We're going to come.
I'm going to come to your houses later, like you're all on camera and I'm cut, like specifically I'm going to cut. We're coming to your houses.
Later, Yeah, it's police state shit. Like, yeah, it's police state shit.
Now do I believe that they actually have the ability to No, they don't actually, but yeah.
That said, like where if you're going to one of these protests, we're a fucking mask, yes, like I don't know, like both for COVID, but like also Jesus fucking Christ, like their flag petator truts over these protests, like wear masks. Good lord, do you know what else wants you to buy masks?
Yeah, the products and services that support this podcast perhaps, and we're.
Yeah.
So I also want to talk a bit about the specific conditions that caused all of this stuff, because I think the reporting on it has been really bad. So there were two thousand arrests from ICE on Tuesday. They rested two thousand people on Wednesday. I think these are like national numbers, the numbers like very specifically in LA's are these several hundred people have been being held in
just horrifying conditions. You know, some of them are being held in federal attention centers, but they're also just being held in like the basements of these fucking buildings because there's not enough room to hold this many people. You know, I mean, even the conditions and the regular attention center are terrible. But like the immigration lawyers who people were able to reach and talk to, are talking about hundreds of people in rooms designed for thirty. There's no cots,
They're sleeping on the ground. Sickness is spreading, there's not enough food or water. Conditions are fucking horrifying. A lot of the people who are in there, you know, the ones that we've been able to get any kind of contact with from their lawyers. A lot of these people cannot be deported because there are people who have been granted stay of deportation by the US government, which means they cannot be deported. But I said, just fucking kidnapped them. Anyways.
There's videos you can see from the protesters outside the buildings will and there's something I remember from Occupy Ice in twenty eighteen that's just fucking harrowing, is that, like when you're outside these buildings sometimes you can hear the people inside shouting, and it's fucking harrowing. And with these ones, there's a bunch of videos if you can see that the people inside the buildings are trying to like shine lights out of windows so that people know that they're inside.
It's fucking horrifying, And I think just how bad this is, Like how bad it was that like all of these fucking people in their fucking tanks just rolled up and started kidnapping people has just kind of been lost in all of this discourse about the protest. It is like, no, this is what was happening, Like this is straight up soldiers are just taking people on the night, Like that's what this is, you know, And this has been happening
all over. There was also a huge sort of protests have started at this home depot where okay, so this is where this is where we would get into the point where like it's kind of difficult to see what's going on. Ice claims that they were just staging a bunch of people. The private whole ind Security said to the BBC that there was no raid on this home depot planned and that they were just staging there. I don't don't believe that, because these people live, were a living.
It is their job. They are police.
It is their job as a cop to lie to you. It is a constitutionally protected thing that they have according to the Supreme Court, which is absolutely ridiculous, but I am pretty sure they're lying about that. But regardless, there's you know, like their approtest started off and then like the cops just started tear gassing the people who were protesting. Yep, this massive rage at a home depot.
Now there was another kind of noteworthy event is when ICE showed up in force they got There were kind of two different actions. There was one down at a federal building where people attacked in dissembled barricades at the same time as people showed up to go after the ICE caravan. Ice officers were pelted in their vehicles with a number of objects. Yeah, and again this is the kind of thing that makes it a lot more difficult.
I mean that just appears operational operationally to be true for them to crack down when they're expecting, you know, action in one direction and it comes in multiple at
the same time. There was another instance earlier in the protest where ICE officers were surrounded by a crowd and cut off for about eight hours while the LAPD refused to respond to them, and they eventually had to land a black Hawk on the street in order to resupply because they were out of water and I think running low on munitions.
Which they then used with.
Reckless abandon So yeah, there's also as I'm looking right now, just as about two hours ago, a US Marine Age one Z viper attack helicopter was filmed flying low over Los Angeles. So it looks like we've got active duty US Marine Corps forces in the city. Unclear if they're directly engaging with anyone. I haven't really heard of a lot of activity today, but yeah.
Yeah, My guess is things will intensify, you know, as the day goes on and as we sort of roll into night, because how some people sort of start getting off work and when temperatures start coming down a bit.
That's the open question right as to like what's going to happen. The last couple of days we saw numbers escalate, but now it's Monday, people have work and there's more true. It's like, yeah, it's not clear to me that that's going to happen, that this is going to be like a yeah, we'll see. I'm seeing a lot of early comparisons to twenty twenty, and it's not clear to me
that that's going to happen. One thing to note is that kind of at the top so far we've had four to six thousand people out in the street in Layah, which is not you know, compared to twenty twenty numbers. And while we've seen some sympathy demonstrations, I mean here in Portland, I don't think it got larger than forty or so people. There was another you know somewhere less than one hundred people in San Francisco that some a good chunk of them got.
Kettled the other day. But not mass demonstrations yet in other cities.
Yeah, yeah, it hasn't. It hasn't like really kicked off everywhere yet. And it's also interesting because like these protests are kind of coming off of the back of a couple of like scattered things. We talked about this on executive Disorder, but there were a there's a very big confrontation in Minneapolis last week. There's another one in Chicago where they like attacked a bunch of Chicago aldermen, which
was a time. The way it's been going is like you get a giant raid and it pisses people off and there's a flare up, and the flare ups have been getting larger, but it hasn't been like a sustained thing. It's largely been reactive to these kind of large raids, and you know that's not necessarily like the recipe for
a sustained thing. However, the term administration, their target goal for the number of arrests a day is three thousand, so like they're trying to intensify the number of rags they're doing and how sort of like aggressive and like
militant they are. And I think that might be a thing that causes this to accelerate as we go, as we head into like next weekend, because if they're still doing this, right, like if feds are if suddenly like like hundreds of FEDS are in Chicago again and they're like grabbing people out of like Logan Square, right, or you know, they're they're trying they're doing this in like in New York, they're doing this in like other places.
I think it could start to escalate, but right now it's still very much unclear.
Yeah, I mean, and that's where I stand to on this is like I don't actually know what's going to happen with this demonstration, but I think that, you know, one possibility is certainly that this continues to escalate and that you just get more and more people out consistently the others that it kind of peters out from this point.
If it continues to escalate, then the state is or the FEDS are in a situation where they have committed to continuing the escalation chain and there's not much for them to go once they've got active duty soldiers in the streets, but just actually shooting at people with live rounds, assuming that they can't stop the demonstrations with a show of force, and likewise, there's not much else for people to do but either back down and stop coming out,
at which point the administration will take a victory lap and say that like, look, this works, and this will become their standard go to whenever a city erupts is immediately nationalize the state National Guard, bring out life troops. Right, that's what will happen everywhere. That's going to become the new norm. Or people will continue escalating and yeah, Like in that case, the situation is, like do people escalate
to deploying more force. Do they have that real option right or does the kind of stress of responding with that sort of force largely with soldiers that this is not the primary thing they signed up to do. Do they start like stop obeying orders. You know, these are the kind of things that we would then be looking at to see, right, Like that's kind of where there's a couple of different places it can go from here.
You know.
Another possibility is that, like if we see an instance of like, okay, in order to try and crack down on this, they authorize the use of deadly force against a chunk of demonstrators and people get killed, then do you see this kind of thing erupt in cities all around the country like we saw in twenty twenty, right, in which case, again things get very because there's not
there's not a lot of the US army. Really, there are a lot of cops, but compared to the US population, there's not even that any cops, right, and widespread enough discent like this, you know what would force some very difficult decisions from the federal government and from the administration, right, And that's kind of our best case scenario is that you get enough people out in enough cities that like it is just crashing the US economy, right, and there's
no real way to lock down the unrest, and you start getting National Guard refusing to respond to deployment orders as well as active duty soldiers like refusing to respond right like these are. That's the kind of thing we're looking at in terms of like a potential best case scenario here. I don't know where things are going to head.
I think maybe a likelier possibility is not that we hit that that situation right now, but that we start to see, like as this kind of peters out, the administration puts out a victory lap, and then we start to see you demonstrations responding in other cities, and maybe there's kind of a slower tempo of escalation here.
But I don't know.
I want to say that my hope is that they overplayed their hands here, but I just don't know that that's clear, in part because we haven't seen the scale of mobilization by people that is clearly going to be impossible for them to respond to.
Right.
I am still expecting that we're going to get a really large escalating series approachest this summer. It's June that I am. It is June ninth as we're recording this, right is going to be a long, hot summer. Right, regardless of whether this is the one or whether it Peter's out here, I think it is absolutely possible that this Peter's out and this isn't the one. I don't think it's very likely that this Peter's out the Republican's sake a victory lap, and then we don't get more
protests this summer. Yeah, at this scale or larger, Yeah, I think I think that's very unlikely. We should take an at break and that I want to talk a little bit about some of the tactics we've been seeing, because they're very funny.
Ah, and we're back.
I should probably note very quickly that, like obviously, one thing that happens when shit like this goes down is that you get people posting on the.
Internet their thoughts about this.
One of the more prominent posters on Twitter in the new musc Era has been the menswear Guy, who made a couple of statements that I don't entirely agree with about Like, I mean, in general, support protests, but I don't support you know, violent protests what I would call some kind of mish interpretations of the civil rights movement, but also like not something I would I don't. I don't care that much if people are wrong on the internet.
Yeah, I mean, he did have a straight up poster meltdown where he was like yelling about someone's like breakup to say that they're insufficiently devoted because they didn't stay with this person, to like keep them in the curry. There is melt on base.
Shit, but like, but matters, people melt down, posters melt out. What I think what matters is that like he made a post later, a longer one, talking about the fact that he was undocumented, his family was undocumented because you know, they came to initially Canada after the tet offensive and entered the US through a porous border, and talking about the way in which being undocumented has like affected his
entire life. And now the vice president and the DHS account put us in a picture of like spy kids of a kid with like a little like computer tracker thing on his eye, and Jade Vance made a post being like basically, we're going to deport the menswear guy for his posts.
Yeah, which is fucking hideous.
Which is it's just like again another example of the ridiculous level of government repression that we're looking at here, like where the federal government is like targeting themselves based on posts that make people angry.
Yeah, and well it's basically post on Twitter. Yeah too, like, and like that's also an important thing of like, if you're not on Twitter, it is harder to get the eye of the state on you if you are on Twitter. Yeah, Like, the Vice president can be posting fucking unhinged reply images to someone talking about deporting you, like Jesus fucking Christ. Yeah, is a horrifying level of repression. The sort of mirror to this is the stuff we've been seeing on the ground.
Right there's a video going around of a like a pretty right wing at like Australian journalists who's just like talking about the protests.
And like maybe twenty feet their back turned to a police right line, it's.
More like like fifteen. The guy like the end of the right line just like turns and shoots.
Her very casually about no protesters close to her, absolutely, no question, no no chance that he was aiming at someone else, zero chance, no chance that he thought that she was attacking him. Just shot a lady in the back of her thigh with an impact mutition for no reason.
The most on hinge part of this, well, okay, the most on hinge part of this was that they fucking did this. The second most On Hinge. Part of it was that her fucking like her fucking outlet in the description of the video said that they appeared to be targeting a profire, like appear to be targeting a protests, Like, no,
they weren't. Man, there's this really amazing thing with the American press were like they are incapable of objectively describing the thing that a cop does because if they described the thing that the cop does, it looks like anti.
POA everyone can see yeah.
Yeah, and so they have to just lie about it and be like, oh, it was Colon Crush is like, no, with your own eyes you can see, but the headline is lying.
This is not questionable. This is not an arguable point. This is not debatable. Oh, the footage is objective.
Enob watched the video.
It's like, okay, guys, he just shot her because he wanted to, because he thought it was funny, Like that's why he did it, we know.
Yeah, And like this kind of shit just continues to happen, Like the press has learned nothing from twenty twenty. They're still doing all the stupid snography shit. There's actually been shit the cops I've done in this protest that I've never actually seen before, which is a new one, because by by the time I was like, I was like a few weeks of twenty twenty, I had seen basically everything, right, Like, I'm doing this for like fucking ages. I've seen the
cops trample people with horses before. I had never seen them trample a guy and beat him with the same person on a horse. Yeah, beating a guy and trampling them with the horse at the same time. That's a new one. Good fucking God. That's also and I think it's actually is this worth understanding? Is that, like that is the points of police horses, Like the reason they have them is so they can trample people with them.
Yeah, it's to run people over with them.
Yes, Yeah, And it's it's real fucking bad. That's that's hideous and shit like this has been happening this whole time. There's been a bunch of journalists who have really been really severely injured by impact munitions.
Right.
Yeah, one guy who got shot in the skull with a you can tell it's a forty millimeters round because of the indent that left in his skull.
Yeah, those things are like the size of your fist and.
Yeah, they're just they're they're massive, and they're not they're not even meant to be fired directly. When you're shooting at people, you're supposed to shoot them up at the ground and bounce them into people.
Yeah.
Now, no cop has ever done this.
They don't use them that way. I've had a used on me, like I'm sorry.
Yeah, this this munition has never been used like that, no single time.
That's and that's the general truth of riot munitions. And actually, I don't know if this guy was shot with a with a with a rubber around or a foam round. I think they probably shot him with a grenade, which you're also not supposed to shoot at people, but again they do all.
The time, which also kills people a lot.
Guy very nearly died in Portland a few years back from that. Only his bike helmet saved him.
Yeah.
Yeah, like this is this is a This is one of the most common ways people get killed in protests is by the cops shooting them. Yeah, like ture gas cans specifically, especially like in Turkey, this is a huge thing. Like a bunch of people got killed by by you gonna keep my trus canisters. Yeah, However, Coma. There has been a bunch of extremely funny and like pretty effective
tactics people have been using. One of which I've never seen before that is fascinating is people were calling wimos, which are these like driverless yes, yes, yeah.
So they would use the app to.
Call winmos to places they wanted to set up roadblocks, stop police cars going through, and stop ice cars going through, and then they would light them on fire. And they did this to so many of these cars that the LAPD called Wimo and told them to shut it down because they were like, literally, it's it's it's a self driving flaming barricade.
Well, and I think white people were doing it is in part because like they like the board started spreading that, like the police, were you getting footage from wimo, right, So they were like, well, these are surveillance machines and yeah if you if you show up, you light one on fire and there's this flaming barricade.
Yeah yep.
And then and then then people figured out that you could just like, oh, we could just bring these to places like this. This is a self deploying flaming barricade.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And and the other thing that that's interesting about it too, is it's another one of these examples that you see in protests of like people have this tendency to think of riots as these like really spontaneous things that nobody's like thinking about a lot. But the thing about why mows is that, like, if you've like walked in a city that has these things, these things have tried to run you over at least once. Yeah, Like there's there's a verileles angle. There's also the angle that these things
are trying to fucking kill you all the time. And so and this is like, you know, this is a very common like like first thing that happens in the riot is like people burn down the thing that has been trying to fucking kill them this whole time. Yeah, so this is this one, except they figured out how to turn it into flaming card barricades.
Yeah.
So I don't know, I guess we should end this with assuming things do kind of get get bigger, or assuming things get bigger later. Yeah, and you're watching this and either you head out soon and wind up you know, being at a protest, or that happens later. There's a couple of things to keep in mind. One of them
is especially as we hit the summer. There's always trade offs when we talk about like different kinds of body armor that you may or may not want to have, right you know, the two broad types are soft ballistic armor and hard ballistic armor. When we talk about like ballistic body armor that can that is resistant to bullets, downsides to both of those are expense no reliable body armour, and I'm talking about NIJ certified body armour, which you
should always shoot forard. None of that is ever cheap. Some is cheaper than others. Soft body armor is really all you need for riot munitions. It doesn't stop the pain as much as hard body armour. I've been hit in hard body armor by impact munitions by like foam rounds and stuff and barely felt it, whereas being hit
with them in soft armor is still pretty painful. However, hard body armor, like the stuff that stops rifle rounds, can shatter when hit by impact munitions, and again, because it's a significant expense, means you might not have that hard body armour anymore. The other thing keeping counters that when you're talking about like armor for your body, if you're worried primarily about impact munitions, it doesn't have to
be ballistic. Stuff like football pads, hockey pads works very well against soft munitions.
Right.
Again, there's a huge trade off and potentially a safety trade off if it's one hundred and ten degrees where you are, like the danger of wearing any body armour and how much it slows you down, and how the odds of it causing you to have heat stroke or whatever can be significantly higher than like whatever you'd gain in protection. However, there are some things you should never go into a situation like this without in terms of armor. One of those is a helmet. Again, there are ballistic
helmets that are resistant to pistol rounds. There are no helmets that exist that will reliably stop rifle rounds at by close range with a rifle. We're talking within a couple hundred meters, right, Those don't exist. They can stop maybe a ricochet or a glancing blow. They're good for shrapnel, they're good for pistols. That's what helmet ballistic helmets are for, and those are great for police riot rounds. A ballistic helmet is a really good thing to have if they
are shooting rubber rounds or shooting grenades. Directly at people. It is not, however, the only thing you need or the only thing that could provide safety. It's not ideal to have like a bump helmet or a bike helmet as opposed to a ballistic helmet, or like a bike helmet as opposed to a bump helmet. These are different things. A bump helmet is higher rated than like a standard bike helmet. A motorcycle helmet is also pretty robust.
A bumper.
A motorcycle helmet is better to have if you're being shot at with non lethal or less than lethal whatever you want to call them munitions, but all of those, any kind of helmet is better than your bare skull when police are shooting into a craft. So where something even if it's a ten dollars fucking bicycle helmet, if that's all you can get where that, don't go into
a situation like this without a helmet. Bring something like a fucking camelback or whatever that you can have on your back and drink water from regularly, as well as bottles of water that you can use to wash out tear gas. Only use water to wash out tear gas water. And if you catch people being like milk works. Tell them you are wrong. Don't use milk.
No friends, corets, lovers, your family. He can be the generation that stops using milk for tear gas.
You can do this.
You don't need to make cheese and your eyes only.
You can set people. For the love of God, it doesn't work anytime.
And if somebody starts talking about well, no, you know, actually it's just like if you eat something spicy and milk.
No, no, no, no, no, none of that's right. I'm telling you none of that's right.
Now.
Some people do use something called law, which is like a mixture of I think it's an an answer or something like that.
I think exactly what's in law, And yeah, that can be effective, but don't use it. Just use water. Use water. Use water. Just use water.
If you are if you have some degree of like professional medical treatment, and you decide law is better, do whatever you want doctor right, but like, don't you listening, use water right?
Just water. Look melt ice into water.
Clean water.
It's idea from something like guess anyway whatever. When it comes to mace, water eventually will get mace out. Mace is way different from tear gas. Tear gas. With water, you can be back to functional in a couple of minutes, right, if you wash your eyes out. I've been tear gas like two hundred fucking times, and I'll tell you it never takes that long to get your eyes functional again.
Assuming.
The other thing you want to note is that if you're going into a tear gas situation, if you wear contacts, don't glasses only, right, because you do not want to have mace or tear gas in your eyes. When you have contacts, it can cause permanent debilitating damage.
Right.
They may need to surgically remove your fucking contacts where you're goddamn glasses. You can, and I have worn contacts with like a full face respirator or a full face gas mask. But there are still dangers there, including that if you are wearing a full face mask or a gas mask or something like that and the police catch you, they will pull that up and mace you underneath your mask. It's happened to a bunch of people I know. And if you're wearing contacts under there, you can get in
very bed shape. There are easy ways to make glasses holders if you've got a spare pair of lenses inside a mask like that. Anyway, the other thing to note is that mace is not the same as tear gas. Mace fucks you up for much longer. You are going to be out of commission for at least probably twenty to thirty minutes with mace. In the best case scenario, enough water will eventually wash out mace, right, It will eventually deal with it, but not on any kind of
short timeframe. Right, It's going to take you a while to get enough mace out of your eyes that way. Ideally, you get to a place where you have access to something like a faucet or a hose, and you use dawn dish soap is the best thing to use. That's going to remove the surface thing. There's a better thing for this, but I'm talking about if you don't have access to specialized things or like baby shampoo, right, something like that. Ideally, dish shop next would be something like
baby shampoo, right, with a good amount of water. The very best thing for mace is a specific wipe that's made to be used for this, and this does also help for tear gas. It's called pseudocon Wipes sud e coo inn. You can buy it off of Amazon right now.
They're not expensive. And carry a couple of packs. You generally want to like take what's in there in two different pieces and use one to kind of wipe away from your eyes, and then the other to clean your face up afterwards, once you've removed the bulk of the material.
Pseudocon wipes are the best thing to use with mace. Anyway. That's a quick and.
Dirty guide to what kind of stuff is useful for this. And as always, water water, water, Yeah.
And the one last thing I want to add is that there is there is one more scourge that you can end in this generation. Stop getting kettled on bridges. I swear to God. Don't cross the bridge. Do not don't be like my action is we're going to hold a bridge. Every single time there's one of these goddamn protests, like ten thousand people get a rest on the Brooklyn Bridge. It happens every time. The thing with bridges is that if the police cut off both ends, you are now
stuck on the bridge. Don't go onto the bridge, simply do not. Like I'm not even gonna give normally the speech that I give here is about like, oh well, if you've here on a bridge, make sure you can hold one side of it. No, no, no, no, no fuck that. No bridges. Don't go on bridges. We can stop as a society. We have the technology. Don't get don't get kettled on a bridge. It is so fucking easy you simply don't go on the bridge.
Yeah, okay, and that's that's the episode for today. Everybody use water, don't get kettled on bridges.
Yeah.
Good luck everyone, Good luck, Hi everyone, and welcome to the podcast. It's me James today and I am lucky to be joined again by make We're going to talk today about and just like right off the top, this is going to be a sad episode. Not much good happens to migrants in Libya. A lot of bad stuff happens. And if you someone who prefers not to hear about like violence or sexual violence or incarceration, there's probably some other stuff I'm overlooking, this might not be the episode
for you, and that's fine. But Mick, how you doing. Hi, James, I'm goods I'm good. That was an uplifting intro, wasn't it. I felt like that was a really positive way to start the show.
Yes, definitely, definitely, but probably very warranted because it's not going to be a fun episode. Like there's torture, there's imprisonments, there's some slave months. It's horrible. Yeah, Libya is probably one of the worst countries in the world to be a migrant at the moment, if not the the worst. Yeah.
I mean you have a whole industry, a whole part of their economy that is predicated on enslaving migrants lately selling people and all of the other kinds of violence that come from that.
Exactly. There's I think over twenty or thirty different facilities with varying degrees of government involvement in those facilities, and it's very hard to pinpoint exactly like where does the government and where does this human trafficking business begin? Right, It's similar to like early mid Soviet Union, where there was so much organized crime happening within the government that it was also impossible to distinguish like where one began
and where the other ended. Yeah, like which was which exactly it was under breast nev I think, but don't don't quote me on that.
Yeah.
So yeah, so give us a lad only. Well, first of all, maybe I guess if people have been not listening, why are we talking about Libya.
Well, on May eighth, that was reported that the Trump administration was considering deporting migrants to this North African country, which is a new low. Like the bar is buried and these motherfuckers just grabbed a shovel. I don't think it's possible to exaggerate just how cruel this would be if it were to happen. As I said earlier, Libya is probably the worst country in the world to be
a migrant at the moment. And to illustrate that, I'm going to briefly quote from this twenty twenty two the International article Men, women and children returned to Libya returned in this case meaning that they tried to cross the Mediterranean and were picked up by the Libyan coast guards. Returned to Libya face arbitrary detention, torture, cruel and inhumane detention conditions, rape and sexual violence, extortion, forced labor, and
unlawful killings. Instead of addressing this human rights crisis, the Libyan Government of National Unity now called the GMU, continues to facilitate further abuses and trench impunity, as illustrated by its recent appointment of Muhammad al Koha as Director of the Department for Combating Illegal Migration, which we will be referring to as the DCIM from now on to make
that entire list. Somehow worse, there has been extensive documentation from human rights groups that strongly suggest that the DCIM works together with non governmental militias, making the latter responsible for at least six unofficial detention centers, although it is reasonable to assume that there might be more.
So reporting out of Libya is hard to understate it. Yes, Sally Hayden has an exlent book called My Fourth Time We Drown that like, one of the things I like about it is it explains like her journalistic process, and it's people who are detained in places where they can't get out, clubbing together to get one message out on the one phone that one person smuggled in in part right lake because someone had the battery, someone had the screen or whatever, and someone else had a simcard and
like that way could they could get a message out. But it's everything that we hear about. We can assume that there is probably a lot more of it happening that we haven't heard about, or at least some more of it happening that we haven't heard about.
Yeah, the worst part about this is that it's knowing that it's probably worse and it's probably more extensive than we know, because Yeah, as you said, Libya is a hard country to do this kind of reporting, and I am assuming that it's not very safe for a journalists to just go there and go talk to people. Yeah.
Yeah, And like at the end of the day, you're not just as I'm sure you'll explain, You're not just fucking with the Libyan government. You're fucking with the European Union is absolutely complicit in this. They ain't coming to save you. We'll get to that how work. The EU is complicted in both funding and in actions. Yeah, so let's first get this onto the proper context. We're going to dive a bit into the history of Libya because that played a major part in how this situation is
right now. So we'll start by talking about the former dictator Muamar Kadaffi. He took control of Libya through a military coudetta and ruled it from nineteen sixty nine up until he faced mob justice in the Libyan Civil War in twenty eleven. He is or was accused of human rights violations and cracking down heart on dis scent and opposition.
Initially was on the list of states which sponsored terrorism, but from two thousand and four onwards he slowly began to rekindle ties with a number of countries, with one of the main champions for rehabilitation being Italy, the former colonial power that had occupied Libya. So to no one's surprised we're bringing in colonial here now, James, you get three guesses as to what one of the cooperations was
between Libya and Italy. Well, I could get many things. Ray, there's some stories about good Affi and Berlusconi, but we won't talk about those. Was it preventing migrants crossing the Mediterranean Sea?
Yes, that is true.
Yeah, something the Italians loved to do.
It was happening back then as well. Yeah, it's a really weird relationship between Italy and Libya. That's also kind of fascinating. But then we're going to get all the way off topic if we dive into that.
Yeah.
So, somewhere between two thousand and four and two thousand and five, Libya was supplied with money and equipment to help stem the flow of illegal migration coming from Africa. Kadaffi himself said in twenty ten that this was to prevent the laws of European cultural identity to a new Black Europa, after Libya was paid fifty million euro for this purpose that same year.
Yeah, yeah, based anti colonial. Yes, I'm sure there's a good aff he did nothing wrong movement that exists on some corner of Reddit that I haven't oh got that plummeted into yet. But yeah, this guy was a third.
I cannot find a stick long enough that I would touch that community with, to be honest. That's also something that plays in here, and that I think if you read a lot of human rights reports you come across it. But there's also like a distinct form of racism for sub Saharan or like Eastern African people. Definitely, Yeah, that's also going to play into this. It's just a smorgas board of bad stuff. Yeah.
I mean for people who perhaps grew up in the United States, you know, for their own received veried education in school about African geography and politics, like this can be hard to grasp. Right, Like Africa is sometimes perceived as a country, not a continent in sort of discourse in the United States, and that's again, like it's not people's fault, like it's in nature. Our education is just
failing people. But yeah, if you're not familiar, rarely view it's called in North Africa and like great replacement style. Racist conspiracies absolutely exist in North Africa about people from Sub Saharan Africa, either that the parts of Africa that are beneath the Sahara Desert and in the which you could find by looking at them that. But yeah, like just because this is in Africa, like racist shit is absolutely going down.
No.
I think it was highlighted a bit when the president or Prime Minister of Tunisia was cracking down on migration that there was also like a very distinct racism against against Sub Saharan Africans.
Yeah, but it is.
It's a global thing where it because racist is a social construct and it's not like an inherent thing that that you You'll hear this a lot. You know, I've worked in Hispanijula a lot, right, the island that contains hating Dominican Republic, the island which receives millions of dollars from the United States to reinforce the border between two
nations that make it up. You will hear this reference to Haitian people as black from Afro Caribbean Dominican people, right, And this idea that there's this racial distinction between the two, that it's a nature of race, right, it's it's such a construct between mobilized to create a power dynamic.
And that's a whole other topic of discussion because I identity and race are so intermingled but also so fluid. Yeah that you could talk for hours about it, but
that's not why we're here. Yeah, a warming up ties with Libya as a pragmatic approach from the EU as it lies just on the doorstep of fortress Europe, but also marked the start of set fortress to start externalizing its borders into Africa, slowly working towards keeping migrants and refugees from setting food on European soil, which would entitle
them to apply for asylum. So even that's that that step that's encoded in European law, we're trying to like circumvent by just making sure that they don't cross the Mediterranean.
Right.
So sometime later, when the civil war began during the Art Spring, Yeah, Libyan dissidents got rid of the sex best that was more Mar Kadaffi so the world became a slightly better place after that. Currently, there are two major factions fighting over power in Libya, although there are numerous other groups involved. To dive into this would probably take up most of the episodes, so I will leave that aside. Yeah. The first of the major factions is
the GNU. The Government of National Unity, led by Prime Minister Abdul ahmit de Deba, even fills the north west of Libya, including the capital Tripoli. The other faction is led by US Libyan National Khalifa Hafta, who commands the Libyan National Army or LNA, who expressed loyalty to the elected governments and are therefore often referred to as the ho R the House of Represented Sentatives. I will try
to be consistent with these acronyms, but no guarantees. Unsurprisingly, after I was mentioned in accusations made in twenty three for his militia's treatment of migrants, with some reports indicating that they or he may be profiting of the smuggling SAM. We pretty much got a warlord over there with an army at his disposal who's not disincentivized not treat migrants
as things for his own profit. Yeah, right, Another fun fact that reveals how absolutely fucked up the situation is the capture and subsequent release of infamous warlord Osama Ala Musti by Italy. Al Masri had outstanding warrants from the International Criminal Court due to him having the triply branch of detention centers backed by the Special Defense Force, both of which are used of atrocities and war crimes during the Civil War. He was captured in Turin after a
soccer match. The ICC requested he be arrested, but they too based tribunal declines to approve prove it, after which I must relyos for his knies back into Libya Jesus.
So yeah right, we love our ICC and then not following through on it, Yeah right, Like the ICIC does not in fact have an army that it can send out to people who completely ignore it.
Yeah, it's a body that doesn't have any power to really enforce decisions. I know that the current Dutch Prime Minister said of Benjamin Nett and Yahoo that they could just ignore the outstanding warrant for his arrest, that Yao could just visit the Netherlands, which, like, I don't even know what to say about that.
Yeah, I mean, this is the nature of what you're talking about in an extent, right, like the ICC's rulings, and all human rights only exist insofar as they are convenient to the powerful states in the world.
It's very much it rules for d but not for me kind of attitude.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, I find it extremely disheartening and I feel myself growing more cynical because of this world that I grew up in and I'm slowly seeing that all the rules and all the great things that I was taught in school are kind of not rules but more like guidelines. Yeah.
Yeah, and that only applied to certain people. It's really heartbreaking to see. Like I mean, I've heard it a lot from people, right, but especially from Burmese people. They really educated themselves an international law. When they were going
out to protest. At first, they talk about the r twop like the responsibility to protect, which is it doesn't matter to concept in international law that I've allowed someone to intervene, and like they thought, this is the international law, it's the world law, so someone's going to do it, and like no, you know, over the months that they were in the streets, over the thousands of deaths that they've seen now they've come to realize that that that
law isn't there to protect them, that there's no one who's coming to save them, and that's led to them building a very unique and beautiful revolution. But at the same time it's costs thousands of innocent lives. It's heartbreaking to see their faith being misplaced in this institution. It doesn't care about it.
We can talk very high and mighty about all these laws and whether in war or whether but refugees, but in the end, very often they just seem worth as much as the paper they're written on. Yeah, exactly, It's
okay to become cynical after that realization. Yeah. So, while the conditions for migrants were getting noticeably more horrible in the aftermath of the twenty eleven intervention by NATO, it was, as we said earlier, by no means the start coulduff be very much used migration as leverage to gain concessions
and standing among European governmental bodies. Exploitation of migrants was already reported by Human rights WROTS back in two thousand and nine in a similar vein the fact that the Libyan Coast Guard routinely picks up migrants in the international waters to return them to Libya has also been documented as early as two thousand and nine. How Frontecs is involved with that will get to that later. These processes and dynamics were very much already in play prior to
Cadulphie meeting his maker. This kidnapping of migrants, because I don't think there's a better or a harsher word for it, is an explicit violation of international European and Italian law. Non reviolment, which is the principle in these laws, means that no refugee shall be returned or expelled to a territory against their will where their freedoms and life are threatened.
From January first, twenty nineteen to June thirtieth, twenty twenty, Libya received sixty one point six million euros as part of the European Union Integrated Border Management Assistance Mission mandate, with an explicit focus on establishing state security structures in the country. Funding is meant to help stem migration to Europe with strengthening the border management, law enforcements and criminal justice systems of Libya. Emphasis is placed on disrupting the
networks that operate the smuggling and trafficking of persons. We already discussed. These institutions are directly or indirectly contributing very often to the exploitation and enslaverment of refugees. So that's sixty one million euros that has indirectly gone through those very systems that enslave and torture people. Yeah. So the many liberal authorities often have direct links to militias or
organized crime groups that engage in these practices. Authorities in the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Interior, the Department to Combat Irregular Migration, the Libyan Coast Guard, and the Special Deterrence Force have all been implicated. It has gotten so bad that even the Ministry of Defense employs Coast Guard units that are made up of militias who profit from these human rights abuses. Yeah.
Fastical to think that like you could throw some money at this problem and not just like more empowered these people.
Yes, it's even I think when we talked last year about this, I think Rose from Migrant mentioned it. But the Libyans get paid twice because first they get paid to make sure that to return these migrants back to Libya, but then they can also get paid for selling them into slavery. What do you even say to that.
Yeah, I think it's genuinely unfavorable for a lot of people than twenty twenty five. People are absolutely being captured and sold into slavery. That is occurring.
Yes, I've read some Human Rights Watch accounts of people who were imprisoned for sometimes years and then made to
work in one way or another. For whoever ran that particular detention center and the one that I'm thinking of right now, after six years, I think that person was able to buy himself away from the authorities than his boat was captured within thirty minutes after he got off the boat, Libya got back to a different attention center where he spent four days, and I think after that he got another chance on the boat, and I think he was rescued by a volunteer or human rights organizations
who are also patrolling the sea north of Libya.
Yeah, we interviewed some of them talking of patrolling the seas. Maybe this is an advert for a boat.
Yes, there will be a frontact at right now for all the European listeners.
Yeah, yeah, all right, we are back.
So we left off with just briefly mentioning how the Libyan state functions as part of this almost an organized crime syndicated profits from the abusive innocent people, and this is in a way not really surprising. Back in eighty five, academic Charles Tilly already argued that the states as a form of social organization, it's pretty much indistinguishable from an
organized crime group. Yeah. I'll make sure that the sources in the description below if anyone is interested, But for those who don't want to read it, in very short, they're both major organizations over which you have very little control, and if you don't pay them the taxes or protection money that they want, then people will show up to break your legs. That's the two sentence explanation of that article. Yeah,
I like that. After the principle of non refoulment has been violated, refugees are brought to detention centers in theory under the supervision of the DCIM. In practice, this does not hold up. There are no official or verified numbers of how many centers there are or how many people are even held captive. They are Libyan numbers, just somewhere between seventeen to thirty five facilities holding over seven thousand people.
Human rights groups have questioned these numbers and argued that the number is likely between ten twenty thousands people being held captive. The reality is that we simply don't know. Yeah, we don't know exactly how many facilities there are to hold these people, and we don't know how many people are in them. Human rights watchers or UN delegates often don't get the full picture even if they go there
to visit and inspect the places. There was one part of what I read where they would only be allowed during the day, but then at night is when most of the horrible stuff happens. Yeah, So still there's very much a process of trying to not show what is being done there. People in these detention centers are held indefinitely and lack any sort of legal processes or procedures
to determine their status. In fact, according to a twenty nineteen RUN report, there is no official procedure to assess asylum status in Libya, meaning that in the legal sense, these categories absolutely meaningless.
Yeah.
On top of that, there's also a lack of a process for exiting entertainment, so that that's an entire procedure that is just done at the whim of whoever happens to control like that particular facility.
Yeah, and that could be someone who has just like seized it by arms from whoever controlled it last, right, exactly.
There's sometimes facilities are abandoned and they can become official. There's also been reports of the government rating like unofficial centers, but then recapturing those people and put them in official centers.
Great, that'll make it better.
It would be funny if it wasn't so fucking horrible.
Yeah, Yeah, it's bleak.
The DCM closed down five centers that had a history of human rights violations. This act, however, had little effect on holding abuses. Reports of beatings and torture continued as some official centers closed by the DCIM quickly became unofficial sites reopened and operated militia's. Yeah. For example, the Buisa Official Attention Center in Sawiya was ordered to close due to reports of sexual abuse taking place. He reopened a day later and operated under a new name managed by
armed groups. DTAEE explanation was seamlessly transferred from official to unofficial banners, helping empower militants and criminal actors in the region. So we're now going to take a deeper look at these centers. I found an amazing article by Nadia aldayon Aaron Anfinson and Graham Anfinson in there, and James that this Israel the Journal of Human Trafficking, which is an actual academic journal that exists.
Jesus, Yeah, I mean I guess. Yeah. If there's the thing, someone has written a PhD di station about it, it makes sense.
I imagine this journal is just one or two articles and for the rest it's just pictures of Jeffrey Epstein and Andrew Tage, just back to back to back. Because ah, yeah, again, would would be funny if it.
Wasn't so fu Yeah, yeah, I can't. I can't imagine working as an editor at the Journal of Human Trafficking is a job that like you have that is like the like the special Force selection cause of mental health. Yeah, like you you are facing all the challenges that can be thrown in a person.
Oh yeah, I'm sure there's like a psychologist like on standby at the journal just to make sure like that that the people running guitar roll right. Yeah. So these academics distinguished between three types of centers, official meaning they are run by the state in so far as that means anything. Of course, then there are the two unofficial types, which I will call semi official and officious. Semi official centers are those run partially by state forces in cooperation
with local groups, militias, or other non state actors. Official centers are those run entirely by non state forces. What conditions in official centers are air quotes better than the latter two. It's by no means a good place to be. None of these three categories are exempt from all the violence being done to people. All three have been named
and implicated in abuses and violations. According to the authors, there are about twenty one official sites, twelve semi official, and twenty two of vicious sides, with one reportedly being run by ISIS in Naphalia back in twenty fifteen. Cool ISIS had a stronghold in Libya back in the day.
Yeah, I did.
Yeah, And the fact that ISIS might have been involved in human trafficking is the least surprising thing here. Yeah.
I mean they were trafficking people into the Islamic State, into their what their so called caliphate, right, Yeah, this.
Is progressed, and now trafficking people away from it. Yeah, this is a small victories. Of all these sites that I just mentioned, a remarkable amount is Intriqually, the capital of Libya. Sometimes these sites overlap with areas with known prostitution rings. The researchers found at least nine such networks, with the majority of the sex slaves being from Sub Saharan regions to East Africa. Jesus, they are mostly women,
but it also happens to men. Libya has no laws or procedures to criminalize male sex trafficking, while man are still the minority. I do think it's worth mentioning. Yeah, absolutely, that is also something that happens and most likely underreported on.
Yeah, I think it's something you'd really struggle, Like the nature of masculinity and like its toxicity makes it hard for people to come forward to you and say this is happening to.
Me, right exactly, And it makes that that process becomes even harder if there is no legal framework to stand.
On, yeah exactly, there's like there's nothing to say like this is that at least you can say what's happening to you is wrong. It's perceived as a crime, right, Like, if that's not there, it's no like, how can I support this person, Right, who do you direct that person to? Like exactly anybody who has been trafficked and forced into sex work, like, and I've spoken to migrants for whom
that has been the case. Like, there's a great deal of stigma they have to overcome, which they shouldn't have to, Like, it's not none of what's happened to them is their choice, but it's very difficult for them to talk about it, and it's very unlikely for them to really be able to get any form of accountability for the people who did this to them.
And that's in.
Settings outside of Libya, like in Libya, fucking good luck, I imagine.
Like, I think that's just a problem in general, not just in Libya. Yeah, it's arguably much worse than Libya. But yeah, even in countries that we're much more familiar with, this is happening, and it's still very hard to obtain the accountability from the perpetrators that any better world would be happening. Yeah, So I am now going to quote for the article for the next batch of horrors for
women and girls. Various degrees of sexual violence were commonplace facilities that did allow some angio access barred visitations at night, which is when many severe abuses occurred. Detention center operators performed systemic rape on women and teenage girls on a nightly basis. Those that resisted were threatened with death. Others were killed by severe sexual assault and rape. Impregnations by
the detention center of officials also occurred. So yeah, I'm going to briefly cite the accounts of someone who has been for that. Afni, which is a pseudonym. An eighteen year old Somali woman told me very softly that she was gang raped by smugglers multiple times near the end of the two years she spent confined in a smuggler warehouse in Kufra. Released from the warehouse and dispatched the
Tripoli defend for herself. When she became pregnant, Aufne gave birth to a little girl, depending on handouts and help from strangers to survive. She told me that when she decided to attempt to see Crossing with her daughter, they ended up in another nightmarriage smuggler warehouse, where one of the smugglers refused to find food for her baby unless Afne had sex with him. Her daughter died when she was seven months old.
God oh what a fucking leak thing.
Yes, the entire article that that quote was frob is like rife with crimes like this. Yeah, right, is horrific stuff. I'll make sure that it's in the notes below if you would want to read that. Yeah, and absolutely no shame with people don't want to read this because it is fucked Yeah. Yeah, you didn't have to expect yourself to all this. You don't have to know every detail that is to care about people. I think it's okay
not to read it. Yeah. Ah, so I want to close this particular censure budget brutally driving this point home. But like women and teenage girls are being raped to death over there on a systemic level. Yeah, and I'm fucking disgusted with the fact that the EU is still sending money there that is indirectly facilitating this.
Yeah, I've mean fucking well, it gets on it's high horse about like gender and quality and women's rights and such things, and then like unless it's the inconvenient gender equality of migrants, right, or that the rights of migrants.
Which yeah, I need a cigarette now. Fuck.
It's the fucking worst thing that I deal with talking to people about work. It's like people who have survived sexual violence, or like people who can reasonably expect to encounter it and making this journey because they think that it's their only option anyway.
Yeah, it's it's not that people who undertake this journey to a batel of life that they want are unaware of the risks.
It's despite the risks that they're just doing it. Yeah, that's the same in the Americas, rightly, people understand that they're you know, I mentioned this in my Darien Gap episode, but very young children are subject to sexual violence, which
also sometimes results in their death. Yeah, and like they understand that the world is at such an exaggerated level of inequality that people are willing to take those risks because that's the way the only way that they feel they can secure a safe future for their children.
Yeah.
It is a level of courage that I cannot fathom.
Yeah, me need that.
The best I could do was just acknowledge that I can't fathom it. But that's also like a very bitter built to swallow.
Yeah, it is like I uh, you know, I attend wars for work sometimes, and the women who take on the migration, especially when not that men are not subect to sexual violence. Say ah, but it's probably more likely for women to experience it. The women who take on the migration journey alone or with their children. Those people's bravery, Like I can't fathom being that brain. I can't imagine how one can be that courageous dedicated to one's child.
And we talked in our podcast recently about Primrose who came with her daughter, Like that's someone I'm still like just in awe of, you know, like you don't see that kind of courage and dedication and just like ability to push through things that are horrific with this goal in mind of reaching the United States, Like it's and it continues to be something that I struggled to find words to express obviously, but it's really something.
I want to say something, but just speechless, Yeah much to say, you know who else should be speechless?
Is it the products and services to support this podcast?
I sure hope. So it's just two minutes of silence.
Yeah, hopefully it'll just be a little moment for quiet contemplation for all of Yeah. There, all right, we're back. We've we've had a glass of water, and we're going to keep doing the podcast anyway.
Yes, rehydrates a bit. Yeah. Yeah, so in terms of like explicit accounts, that was it. Okay, Yeah, so if someone had to skip over that part, that part of the episode should be done. You can start listening again. So, as of this recording, They're Missing Migrants Project who tracks migrant depths and those who become missing. Between our quotes, approximately thirty two thousand people are either dead or missing and presumed death in the Mediterranean that I have been
confirmed Jesus. The overwhelming majority of these people drowned while attempting the crossing. Two five hundred and eighty two of these cases were registered in twenty twenty four. Last year, roughly seventy thousand people attempted the crossing, according to statistics from the European Commission. This may not appear as a lot of deaths compared to the crossings, but this figure does not take into account deaths on the journey towards
the crossing. I was not able to verify how the number of seventy thousand was made up, as the EU website I got it from is a collection of data from different countries and agencies who register it. What do you think is safe to assume and let me emphasize assume here is that people captured by Italian multice cypriots or Libyan coastal authorities is included in this number, so that those are people who've attempted the crossing and then
are taken back to Libya, possibly undertaking the journey again. Right, Because yeah, I know you've stressed this a few times, but a number one does not mean that it's just a single person. It can be the same person who tries to cross multiple times.
Yeah, right, people will repeat crossings. I think we reach a point where the numbers are not and not that every point of these people is a person, right, But like, I wouldn't be any less pissed off if it was fifty thousand, Like.
After a certain amount, it just becomes a number because we just can can't imagine how many people that is.
Yeah, Like we shouldn't ever have to conceive a thirty two thousand people drowning, right, that it's not a thing that in the twenty first century that we should allow to happen as a society, and like, yeah, this shit, Like you know, I've participated mutilat along the border and very familiar with death at the border, but The scale of this is unfathomable even to someone who's spent a decent amount of time across the migrant trails of the Americas.
Two thousand and five hundred two deaths in a year, like.
That's a small village.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
On the other yearly basis, yeah, it's a decent size city if you take that thirty two thousand number.
Yeah, yeah, it's like a mid sized music festival of people who didn't need to die.
Yes. I checked the website called Info Migrants, and they estimate that the Libyan Coast Guard alone has returned again. Air quotes around twenty one thousand migrants are caught during a crossing attempt, So the vast majority of these people end up back in the detention centers we discussed earlier. So that's around one for every three and a half people being captured.
Jesus.
Yeah. Yeah. There was at some point a video making the rounds, and it was this African woman on a boat, filmed with like a mobile phone, and she was just crying and she's just saying like, Hey, if the Libyan Coast God shows up, I'm jumping overboard. No way am I going back there?
Yeah, I've seen that.
That is one of those statements that I will immediately believe.
Yeah.
Yeah, people have self immolated in those detention centers like said is dead, misery and their desire for the world to see them. I guess I can understand why someone would just rather stop being so.
The little calculation I just made that leaves us with forty nine thousand people making the crossing, of which eighty two diets, resulting in forty six thousand, four hundred people entering Europe through the Libyan roots. Again, these are approximations. More exact numbers will never know. Yeah. I tried to track money and expenditures a tiny bit to see how the EU is dealing with this. It's not one of my strong suits. I want to be upfront with that.
I was able to find that between twenty twenty and twenty twenty three, THEEO granted at least one hundred and five million euro under the European Integrated Border Management Assistance Mission. This is money that is directly going to Libya for assistance in managing our border. This number does not include money directly or indirectly given to Libya from individual member states or from the budget of the Euse Border Agency FRONTACS.
The latter has seen an absolute massive increase in their budgets. Yeah, from around two hundred and fifty billion in twenty sixteen to over eight hundred and forty billion in twenty twenty three. God.
Yeah, that's a vast increase.
Yes. And what's relatively recently been happening is that rather than have their own vessels in the sea, they are using air reconnaissance in the form of drones or other airborne vehicles spot spot boat boats or thingies with migrants, and then they give that information to the Libyan Coast Guard they can pick them up right. And this is where the eu IS, I would say, directly complicit in like the abuse that that that's happening in Libya.
Yeah, I think that's a perfectly reasonable thing to say.
Because we know what it is likely to certainly going to happen to the people that are picked up by the Libyan Coast Guard.
Yeah.
And if you're saying, like Helebin coasted ALcom here pick up these people, you know what's going to happen to those people. Again, it's not good. And they keep doing it despite it being more than a decade of evidence at this point abusive migrants.
Italy, in particular, as the country receives a lot of migrants from Mediterranean crossings, is keen on helping Libya in terms of training, material and funding. Additional agreements between the two countries shut another uncomfortable light on the dynamic. There was first the EU Libya slash Italy Libya Memorandum of
Understanding signed in twenty seventeen. It saw an enhanced enhancement of military insecurity related to trying to prevent migrants from making a crossing advertently or inadvertently trying to make Libya their final stop and trap them there under the conditions
that we just discussed. That agreement is a continuation of the Treaty on Friendship, Partnership and Corporation that was signed by Libya and Italy back in twenty eighth which described the corporation in detail VISV combating illegal migration from Libya to the EU. We also have the Multi Declaration from twenty seventeen, which only strengthened unbacked governmental organs within the EU, as well as a commitment to further assist Libya in training,
in providing funding and technical assistance. Those are the main purposes of disagreements to prevent people from passing the prestigious gates of Fortress Europe, because politically, we'd rather add them to the mortar with which those walls are built Jesus. And it is these conditions that Washington ghouls thought would be a suitable place to send migrants to who do not speak the language, know the people have legal representation
or assumably even have the money to do anything. We've barely spoken of the civil war that is still going on there, yeah, with like fighting in the capital of Troopoli happened like two weeks ago. We haven't spoken about any legal or law related issues that these people would invariably run into were they to be deported to Libya. It's the umpteen for example of colonialism, militarism from states, war wandering, and the transfer of problems to another place
or to another generation. Very much like climate change, actions such as these will have immense direct and ripple effect that our children, anchorant children will learn the consequences of. And the last bit I've added because let's hope that no one is going to be sent Olivia from the States, but I can very much imagine that those people will face the same horrors that they will have to create
their own little communities just to be able to get by. Yeah, I can imagine some people might might run into ISIS over there and become radicalized. We could also get like small pockets of people who just write a survived but are still stuck there and grow resentment. There is no real way to estimate what the consequences are going to be of deporting people there other than that like the cruelty is happening that Washington grules are aiming for.
Yeah, exactly.
I think that the point is to hurt these people as much as possible in the moment, and then there isn't really to a long term thought process beyond that. Like I guess I would like to say that people were enraged at the thought of the United States sending migrants to Libya, and they should be. I'm glad that they were, but they should also be in rage at
the reality of the European Union doing it every single day. Yes, way more than twelve people, and like you should care about that too, especially if you're in Europe, like you know, obviously I am a person from Europe. I think it's easy, like for people to get this kind of smug social democracy kind of like, oh, look at the Americans, they're
so fucked up. Not saying things a un fucked up here they are, but like the EU is doing some fucked up shit to migrants, and like people in Europe should be in the streets about that too.
Definitely, this is just the biggest of all the issues. But there's also abuses and human rights violations happening in the Balkans for the people who take that crossing. There's people who try to cross from a rock quote to Spain. Yeah, who also encounter again, not as bad as the things we just talked about, but by no means good.
Yes, definitely shouldn't be happening.
I don't even want to use words like good or bad because like they tend to lose all meaning. Yeah, like less bad doesn't necessarily mean good. Yeah, that doesn't, it means less worse. And yeah, there are there are places to make that crossing that are less worse than Libya.
But still, yeah, that doesn't mean any of it is desirable, yeah, or like that we should accept any of it. No, No, people should be fucking mad about all of this.
And I also I would like to have to go back a little bit about what you said about like this buck European the social democracy. Yeah, like that's definitely an attitude that's not uncommon among Europeans. But then again, we very often fail to look into our own backyards. Yeah. And also Europe tends to be politically a few years behind the US. But we've also seen a rise in autocratic regimes like Victor Orbon. Yeah, massive example, Maloney and
Italy is another one. But also in my own country of the Netherlands, they try to bypass parliament in order to make an emergency law to make sure that migrants wouldn't enter the Netherlands, And as we speak, they're threatening to stop the government formation if no stricter measures against migrants are being taken.
Yeah.
So it's these little seeds of like autocracy that are almost more worrying because it's these little steps that happen and before you know it, things are getting worse quick Yeah.
Like, anyone who pays attention to the US can see that the vehicle on which fascism was delivered to us is being delivered to us. A better way of saying it is anti micro sentiment, right, Like that is how this country built the toolkit that is now being used. And you know, the rest of the world should pay attention to that, I hope. Yeah, we should see it as a warning sign, not as a manual. Yeah, that's a good weapon it Yeah, unfortunately it's being used as
a manual by certain European governments. Yeah, so thank you for sharing that traumatic piece, for reporting that. I think that's that's rough.
I would say you're welcome if it was. It's a fucking grim to say that at the end of all that. Yeah. No, I'm happy that I read a lot and put it together. I'm also going to have to find a puppy and cuddle the puppy for a few hours. Yeah.
So yeah, that's all I have for now. Great, Yeah, that's all I got to Thank you very much.
I ain't coming. That was a big one.
Welcome back to It could Happen Here a podcast that was originally about the theoretical possibility of mass civil conflict and coming militarized authoritarian regime and is now about the reality of that happening to different communities at different speeds all around the country, and right now Los Angeles is where we're focused.
On.
Yeah, as you've probably heard from the news or from the episode we did earlier this week, Los Angeles, Californi has been in a state of what the president declared insurrection, where most people would declare fairly small protests based on the overall size of the city, topping out at maybe four to six thousand people on Sunday, and the President is called a National Guard, He's called in the Marines, and we called in James Stout to head up to Los Angeles and look at the scene.
James, that's right, Yeah, the alternative to the United States Marine Corps. Yeah, so I've just got back from LA I was there on Monday night, obviously covering the protests. I got there mid morning, I guess. But at that point the SEIU were having a rally. Yeah. The rally was for the release of David Huerta, who was released on bail. I believe after that, not while the rally was going on, and from there, like I basically sort
of started walking around downtown LA. I guess there was this really weird kind of phenomenon where you'd like go down to a place and you'd see one hundred people shouting cops, Feds, troops or some combination of the three. Right, pretty often around the Federal building, it's weird. At the front entrance, like where the entrance was, you had like a initial presence of the front line with National Guard with maybe it looked like it was maybe like NCOs
or something. You had loaded service weapons, and then other soldiers had shields in it and like old school wooden button sticks, right, just just a long long ass stick. Basically around the other side you had LAPD at the front and National Guard behind them, and then across the street from that you had California Highway Patrol and their riot squad. And then in another location I think it was at City Hall, you had l a Sheriff's so
like literally every agency that can claim any jurisdiction. Right, there was also a DHSRPF FPS like to literally every every federal and local agency that could send cops sent cops.
It wouldn't surprise.
Me to hear that there were more than a thousand cops, like maybe it was hundreds, But it was hard to get a handle on because every street you went down, every corner you turned, you ran into another wall of cops. Right with ten or fifteen cars behind them. They were constantly driving around until you know, I stayed until about two in the morning, and it's protest obviously, like as I'll explain later, kind of escalated, I guess, and as
police violence escalated. In the evening, you'd see these convoys of cop cars just hauling ass through downtown periodically every hour or so, like running lights and sirens, like a dozen or so cop cars just booking it through downtown. Yeah, so it's very hard to get a sense of like
who they are, what they were doing. They closed all the freeway entrances and exits, which like I took the I took the train up trying to be a mass transit enjoyer, and it made it a fucking nightmare to get anywhere, right, Yeah, that makes sense, Like anyone who lives or works in downtown LA will have experienced this already, but like it. And then throughout the fuck in the evening, right, you've got people coming up to you being like, hey,
I live in little Tokyo. I can't get back because there's a wall of cops and they keep throwing tear gas. Relates any suggestions, Yeah, I can't get home. Yeah, Like and unfortunately, like you know, not much we can suggest. And then on top of that, because it's southern California, you know, the United States, really people who can't afford a place to live or sleeping on the street, and
they're getting tas too, and they're getting flashbag too. I remember like we were up by LAPDHQ at one point and I seen this guy sleeping on a bench and the cops were pushing up the street and I was just trying to sort of take a position where I could take a photograph, you know, when I saw him sleeping, and I was like, oh, should I wait, wake this guy? You know, I don't want him to get a nasty surprise and wake up to a wall of robocops. And at that point the cops opened up with whatever they
were shooting that time, forty milimeter, thirty seven milimeter. Yeah.
Most of what I've hearded is like a mix of pepper balls and yeah forty milimeter yeah, yeah, grenades and rubber rounds.
Some foam, Yeah, some foam. I found some Safari Land thirty seven milimeter foam casings on the ground. Oh nice. Yeah, And yeah, mostly what it was, you know, LPD have those green forty milimeters launchers with the eotex on top, and that was what yeah, looks down the barrel of a few times. And so if the evening went on right, you'd get larger groups and they become like, you know, more vocal, I guess in their protesting. At one point,
people having like a street dance party. Occasionally people would would throw a firework or set off a firework, and then sporadically and like without really any clear kind of signal, at some point clearly the whole area was declared a lawful assembly. I'm guessing it's very hard to actually hear when they're saying stuff on the l rad unless it's directly like pointed at you. But I heard some signed kind of ol rat had an awful as MBI announcement
at some point. And Yeah, Periodically you'd come around a three corner and be like one hundred hundred and fifty two hundred people protesting right, and then the cops would toss a flashbang or a tear gas, loose off a few rounds, push thirty yards and then stop and then do that again ten fifteen, twenty thirty minutes later, and they keep doing that, and then they push people back past these various buildings which had cops like stationed in place, like on the parapet of the building or on the
courtyard outside, who would then also fire at them. So the protest never really got a chance to centralize. People didn't really get a chance to centralize in one place. And you know, like to have a sense of how many numbers of protesters there were was hard because every torny you turned, there were more people and there were more cops. So like it was a bit broken apart.
And I think that was the goal of the policing operation right to flood the city, was cops to shut it all down, to make get hard to get there, yep, make it hard to gather there.
I still don't get the sense. And this is what it sounds like from what you've said that most of what is being done effectively is not the National Guard and certainly not the Marines.
It's the federal and local police.
And their game plan here is if they assuming things calmed out in Los Angeles, which is probably the safe bet right now, every time they get over a certain threshold of protesters a couple of hundred one thousand or so in a city, you know, do the same thing, right, Like deploy the military national or federalized the national Guard, get them out there, right, like that's that's where they're headed.
Yeah, I think so, Like I don't know if LA will back down, to be clear, Like LA's a city of what like like four million people.
And eighteen nineteen million in the greater Los Angeles metro area.
Yeah, like it's uh, I know right, Like I had these I had good conversations with a lot of people who are out there protesting. Want to go you to ad Like I said, we were really well were by everyone,
which was nice. Like it wasn't the same crowd as folks I've seen in twenty twenty, Like no one was in black block, right of course, and then it was very young people and like a number of them approached I was for a time, I was with Charles McBride and like some other oh yeah yeah, colleagues and friends like people I've known for years. Right, we cover the same kind of shit, And people would come up to us and just be like, hey, it's good that you
guys are here, thank you for staying here. After we got fucking tear guests, Like people should understand that was happening like the unprompted people would would come and say thank you, which was nice, you know, and like we
didn't really face any any hostility for being there. But people when I spoke to them, like there was a lot of a lot of people I spoke to were very young, and they would say that they were the citizen kid of parents who either were you know, like permanent residents or visa holders or you know, they're very
I'm sure some of them had undocumented parents. I can't remember speaking to anyone who said that, but I'm sure that given the numbers of people and the number of times I heard like, I'm the citizen child, so I should be here showing up for my family and my community. Right, Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, And like it's gonna be hard to back those people down because they were fucking angry. Yeah, a real palpable sense of like fuck you would look
very present throughout. People were also afraid, Like it's not people who are necessarily used to this, right, And like you said, the police response is an overwhelming use of violence, right, indiscriminately.
Shooting it people from what what's the what's the furthest distance you were seeing them fire it people from.
I mean I probably saw them taking one hundred meter shots, I'm guessing.
Which is very long range for this sort of stuff.
Yeah, I mean so at one point when we've got pushed back past the LAPDHQ there, they had the whole sort of front face of it, and they led off a bunch of shots towards myself and some others. I just sort of got down behind some cover there and started filming. And then there was a group of young people who were in one of those kind of classic
LA three corner open quad more things. Yeah. So they're basically in a U shaped container right with only one way in and one way out, and right there's glass stores around it like that, you know, there's all the shopping bits people go shopping, and there's pillars in the middle, and the cops are just unloading from a distance of
maybe one hundred meters from labd HQ. I think into these people who are effectively like in a like fish in a barrel right there, They're in a container where they is the only way out is the direction the cops are shooting from. There was a small outlet on the other side, which eventually they were able to take.
That meant they had to cross across like a four lane road while being shot at by the cops, and the cops just kept shooting at them there, like it wasn't like they shot a couple of times that they clearly shot, reloaded, shot, reloaded, And I was filming from the other side, but you could see these projectiles whacking out like reinforced glass in the front of these business at head height, not breaking the glass and falling on the ground, punching a hole straight through. You know, they
get coming with serious force even at that distance. And like those people weren't presenting a throat twenty one right, like like they had retreated into that building after the cops shot their first volley and the cubs just kept shooting at them. I saw a lot of that throughout the night, Like it didn't seem like, you know, anyone was like, Okay, now is the time for you guys to fire, you know, like they just just sporadic pot shots throughout the evening.
Yeah, well, we're gonna continue talking about what's going on in Los Angeles and what we think is going to happen next.
But first, here's some ads. Fuck and we're back.
So if you read like the manuals these people are supposed to follow how they're supposed to utilize the riot control weapons that they use. There's a couple of things that you see. One of them is that there's supposed to be like a bladder of escalation before which they start utilizing force at range. And the other is that there's certain ways they're supposed to use these munitions, like, for example, you're not supposed to shoot people with rubber bullets.
You're supposed to bounce them off of the ground and into people, because otherwise they're not really less than lethal. Yeah, we're seeing a lot of cases of people who've had at least several that I can count, I think three of people having surgically removed different like rubber and foam rounds, and it doesn't look like they're abiding by kind of any of the rules by which, per their own documentation, they're supposed to practice.
Right, I mean, yeah, that's what I saw.
Some of them even have ear techsic on their launches, which I don't know why you'd want an ear take if you were skipping it off the ground.
I don't know.
Maybe there's a different rounds they're using, but like, yeah, yeah, the overwhelming. What I saw was just like zero to one hundred, right, Like they'd push, they'd throw a TAA gass or a flash bang and then you just hear like pop pop pop pop pop pop pop. Yeah, there's a bunch of them unloaded, and like raising the forty milimeters launcher to the shoulder and pointing it to someone
two feet away, Like like I saw a lot of that. Yeah, you know, we'd be going down the streets trying to find a different angle, trying to find where we could stand and do our jobs as press right and come around the corner and just just get forty milimeters pointed at you. I didn't see any skipping shit off the ground. Yeah, I did see businesses getting their windows punched out by things that the police were shooting at people like yeah,
which I'm sure we're one not getting blamed on protesters. Yeah, yeah, exactly right. I Mean I saw CNN last night was picking up fucking phone but on rounds and being like these are what they're throwing at the cops, Like yeah, it just remarkable. I mean I did see L A.
S D.
And National Guard with rifles with magazines in the maguel and you know they had a round chamber.
Doesn't matter, does it. No, you're a second away from chambering around, right exactly.
Yeah, the IDF carries with an empty chamber and it hasn't stopped them killing a whole lot of.
People, has it.
The presence of lethal force was closer than I've seen before.
Yeah.
Look, I'm familiar with seeing overwatch at these things. Right, someone would what you would colloquially referred to as a sniper on a rooftop. But it's not overwatching if you're just in the back of a pickup truck with an M four right, look at it, an unmagnified optic, like you're not You're not over watching shit, you just have lethal force right there. And I saw that a number of times, right from the National Guard and then la SD they did the whole l rad like go home.
It's been declared an an awful assembly thing. But then there wasn't that kind of scaled use of force that, like you say, it is supposed to be there. There wasn't really much in way of like we're going to start shooting now, and like, of course that means that if you're an unhoused person, if you've arrived at if you're if you're a local person just trying to get home, it's very possible you can just walk past and get
tear guest. Like at one point, right they were opening up, and like I'd been looking for a place for use of bathroom for a while because fucking southern California, right, like there are no public bathrooms.
Yes, which is you know, increasingly every major city.
He was an issue.
People got, people get arrested by the fence for like being on federal property in Portland. Great when like there was really nowhere else to go.
Yeah, yeah exactly, and like some some kindly local guy invited us into his building and asked that, you know, let us use the bathroom. But yeah, then we stepped out and suddenly we're like confronted by cops again. Like, you know, I could have been someone who was there just going to have to get a size of pizza.
Yeah.
The force was like sporadic and unpredictable throughout the evening. And then as were these convoys of vehicles that would just come hauling as through downtown right obviously not you know, stopping at red lights, et cetera.
It was weird.
Sometimes a green light would happen. So the cars would start going like and then this cop convoy would come and some of them would turn right, and some of them would assume the cars would stop and go straight on. And so you had the situation where the cops were nearly hitting each other and it just like it seemed utterly chaotic and I don't know what they were doing
other than driving around a high speed for fun. Once they did manage to kettle some groups of people right like they uh again, folks maybe who haven't been at these events before will not be familiar with the way these things work. But like the police would move in from both sides and then suddenly you're like, oh shit, there's nowhere to go. And then I did didn't put up in a school bus to take presumably to detain those people and take them to process them. But yeah,
the tactics were like, I mean, it's their cops. Is what you expect that you know, we've both been doing this for a while. You expect them to use those weapons in the way they could inflict the most damage and harm to people. And unfortunately, like that does seem to be happening in Yeah, well, in terms of where things are right now. You know, Gavin Newsom is trying to thread the needle.
It looks like between letting the LAPD do whatever they and he to be fair, I don't think he has any issue with people getting fucked up with right nussions what to do, while also not seeding responsibility for security of his state to the federal government, which has been an interesting line for him to walk.
Yeah, I mean his stance seems to be like, the LAPD can fuck up these kids, just fine, we don't need your help.
Yes, which I mean they literally can, Like I will say, yeah, that's not incorrect, right, I'm not talking at a moral level. I'm just saying, like, yes, the LAPED has sufficient force for the protests that have been that have existed.
Yeah, I mean the LAPD then the first Nights who are caught off God, I think right.
And so was Ice, And there was a lot of debate about because, like you know, LAPED not coming in initially to support ICE when they got surrounded, like and that's those are the kind of things you get when the authorities are taken off balance. But if the numbers don't keep increasing, you know, and they have to increase pretty exponentially as they move in, you know, federal agents in the National Guard and mobilize the whole police force in a.
City like LA.
Then this situation becomes basically impossible for protesters to regain the initiative. And I don't know if i'd say it's impossible right now, but unless there's some sort of like massive sea changes, what's happening that does seem kind of like where things are going to go. And to be clear, here we're talking about primarily Compton Paramount some protests, and then downtown Los Angeles some protests. There's a handful of city blocks and one of the largest metro areas in
the entire country. This is not Los Angeles all collapsed.
You know.
Yeah, it's not like the rights to could after after ruddy king right, right, right, not not even a little bit yeah yet right, like yeah, I mean people are pissed off obviously, like and maybe they're you know, will you'll get that sort of thing you had in Portland, right where more people came as the protest continued, and as more and more FEDS turned up, Like there were people who might not have showed up at first, just being like upset at the presence of Feds in their city.
I don't know, but yeah, it seems like right now that their move is to flood the city. I mean, crazy volumes of cops shouting all the exits on the one ten today. Yeah, National Guard, Like the National Guard folks were mostly around the Federal building from what I saw, but like just a huge volume of cubs and no particular plan other than a vast number of police. And I guess, you know, massive detentions, massive use of riot munitions,
massive use of violence to dissuade protest. But then I've seen like obviously it's interesting, right, like, and I'm sure you've experienced this, Robert, Like you can be like nose to the to the grindstone in a conflict zone or at a protest and other clue what's happening, and I have to go on a Twitter or a blue Sky to work out what the fuck's going on?
Right, you can tell kind of what's happening in front of you, and even then that you sometimes see something or you're looking left and the thing happens on the right, and you get three different stories about what happened.
Yeah, totally, and so like you know, you know, we found out David Twitter had been released when me I sent a message saying that, like, right, and then likewise, folks for finding out that they are protests in other areas of the country, which you know is always I think, gives a little morale boost. Yeah, so like there's a chance. I mean I'm seeing more and more I sort of big protest in New York tonight. They can't deploy the
Marines everywhere. I mean, right there, there are a lot of marines, but not that many.
I know.
It's in one sense, like and I know that this is maybe a strange opinion or stance or what have you, but like, in a sense, it gives me hope to see these things like at a protest or you know,
like a big action like that. Like I always feel kind of very cared for and in a strange way because like the only thing that matters is taking care of each other, right, and trying trying not to get hurt, and then for folks who are in the street to try and remain there, right, And like it's quite a like you have this kind of disaster community, right, the same thing that you sometimes find in conflict zones or after natural disasters, and like, right, It's always beautiful to
see that, right, Like, you know, I'm vegan and I could not find any fucking vegan food for a while, and like people were bringing me snacks and I thought that was really sweet, and like, you know, I saw people taking care of strangers when they got tear gass, or taking care of strangers when they get shot, or like just folks who have bought snacks and like wanted to give them to one house people who were there, right, So all that stuff is just a reminder that like
you know, like actually, you know, if you were consuming this through the fucking New York Times, right, you'd think that people were looting and burning the city. And I idn't see anyone to steal shit. I did see people take care of one another. Yeah, and that's a beautiful thing. And you know, maybe people need to be in the streets to find one another right now, because you know, every every year people it gets harder to go outside,
easier to stay on the internet, right, people get more adomized. Yeah, and like it was cool to see like young Mexican folks, young Salvadorean folks, ateml and you know, people have different extractions who are now Americans and in addition obviously to their I think identities and backgrounds showing up and then like young black folks showing up with them and being like, yeah, you know, like fuck the police, and like it was cool to see maybe folks who are a little bit
more liberal, like I definitely had folks who are like, oh, we're not here for the riot. We're just here for the peaceful protest in so much as you know, and no one wants to get shot in the face with a forty millimeter, right, no one. No one's there to no, absolutely not. And so it's cool to see those people making those connections. And we need to make those connections now, right, We need to talk to people and talk to each other.
I didn't see people beefing with each other. I didn't really see the like optics police, right, if you were again, if you were consuming this on the fucking blue sky, which can be intolerably libs sometimes like seeing people being like, you know, because I personally disagree with the optics of
this one person's decision, the whole protest is therefore flawed. Yeah, the whole protest as fuck, And let's just let I steal their fucking children, Like, yeah, people letting people be and deal with the consequences their own actions instead of being condescending.
Now, and I mean I'm looking at Twitter right now where half of the comments are about someone who drove through a crowd in LA and people either this is what happens when America gets fed up? Or what other option did he have? You know, you're getting a mix of that sort of thing.
Yeah, shit, are people okay? Like I'm not.
Aware of any like serious injuries fatalities, certainly, but yeah, yeah that was the other weird thing, like vehicles throughout that means LA everyone's driving all the time, but there were vehicles like constantly just moving through yep. Yeah, No, it's LA rights with people coming out to do their donuts and stuff. But like it is a risk, like if someone we've shared a car bomb, brother, but yeah, oh yeah, we sure did. I've seen a few car bombs.
It always freaks me out. We need a big crowd like that, and then you've got these cars around like the potential for vehicular violence. Yeah, it's not great. Yeah again, right, we have the quote unquote public safety forces deployed in massive numbers, and no one's no one's stopping that.
No, And you know, also just a note to people, the only realistic way to stop cars in this situation is with a barrier made of other cars. Right is you block off the route of march with vehicles. There's no other realistic tool at your disposal as somebody who's part of a protest to stop a full ass vehicle. We're gonna talk a little bit more with a couple of updates from the ground and then close out.
But first here's our last bit of ads.
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So we're back in James.
While you were leaving, the Mayor of Los Angeles declared a curfew in place from eight pm to six a m. For the one ten to the west, I five to the east, out, one ten to south, I five and one ten to north. This is from the public safety alert texted out to people in Los Angeles. So people are allowed to travel to and from work, to seek or to give emergency care ems. People are exempt. No one else is exempt as far as I'm aware. But yeah,
that's that's the situation. So part of why Mayor Karen Bass is issue at curfew is that it gives the police extra kind of freedom to take people into custody, right yeah.
Oh, credential media are exempt. Yeah, that's what I was told.
Yeah, people too, and from work. Credential media, emergency and medical personnel law enforcement are the limited exemptions. So that's what we've got going on right now.
Yeah.
And if you are at their working as a journalists, like it's important to carry your press pass right oh yeah, yeah, we'll stop you from getting shot with impact munitions because they've done that to a lot of people. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, And like you know, I had a large blue press badge on my play carrier like I always do, and like, yeah, it's not doesn't make you bulletproof. Yeah, there's a curfew tonight, which, like you say, just gives them the means to use
more coercive force and to charge people more harshly. They'll continue doing that. Helicopter shit, right, they had probably four or five helicopters.
They really love putting them out in LA and especially now that they got the military. Yeah.
Man, it had a real kind of blade run of vibe to be in this dark city at night with these helicopter circling spotlighting people from above, and like little fires happening across the city and then occasional clouds of like spicy air floating towards you. I have seen since speculation that they were using some kind of other chemical irritant instead of tear gas. I think that the most likely explanation is just they were using tear gas that was older.
Yeah, it tastes different when it's older. The shit the FEDS US is often different from the shit state or local police use, like yeah, you know, you get different sort of mixes, but I'm not aware, like it's I'm certain it's just tear gas, right.
Yeah, yeah, I think it's just a bit different.
Yeah, different variants in ages of ta gas and sometimes they've take on different appearances too. And they weren't really fogging the tar gas, not that I saw. They were just tossing tossing out the grenades. You didn't get that like wall of tear gas that you guys.
Are familiar with in Portland.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but it took on like the protest athetic, Like I didn't see as many people with half masks or hard hats or goggles, any of that stuff. So like, yeah, and in one sense, people it's great to see people coming out and like engaging their right to protest. Yeah, and coming from where they are as they are showing up to show out for something, leaving work or whatever.
Yeah, yeah, it makes me worried for them.
Yeah, Like you know, I'm they're around the block a few times, and I'm worried that people are going to get fucked up.
So, yeah, it's curfew tonight. It's curfew tonight. There's still marine numbers are still at around seven hundred. There's about four thousand National Guard troops, so the number of military deployed significantly outnumbers demonstrators at this point. Mayor care and Bass has stated that or or Sorry. The Pentagon has stated it's costing about one hundred and thirty four million dollars this deployment. So jesus man, Yeah, it's it's it's
like I'd say, it's it's not a pointless escalation. The point of the escalation is that they want to keep using the military, right, Yeah, definitely.
Yeah, and to sort of establish a precedent that domestic unrest could be dealt with by the military, which, to be clear, like by my reading, is completely in contradiction of the Constitution. Yeah, but a lot of things that are in constitution of the Constitution happened, especially with policing all the fucking time, right, Like, yeah, like it is important not to normalize this again, Like you don't have to be like a blue head Antifa to be like
this is fucked up. And I think I definitely spoke to a few people, like folks who have come out of church and stuff, just like, yeah, we had they had sent the marines here, so we just came on down because that's not okay, that's good to see. Yeah, And those are conversations that people who are invested in not living in a country where your first memorizs don't matter anymore because you can get shot by an eighteen year old marine who hasn't had the time to really
morally and ethically consider that decision. Yeah, Like it's important to have those talks with people now because like it is very concerning. Yeah, you know, you and I have have attended a few civil wars. I don't want to be like this country spinning towards civil wars that you know, don't think we have a long long way from that.
I mean, when the President stands in front of a bunch of enlisted men at Fort Bragg and talks about how they're using the military to restore order to an American city that's been invaded, there's no longer an argument that those comparisons are an escalation or exaggeration, right, like hyperbolic, like yeah, like we're in the shit right now, folks. Yeah, and like show me a thing that Asad wouldn't have said today, right, right, right. And what you don't have
is an actual insurrection going on. What you don't have is anyone actually fighting the government. You have people who are like angry and yelling and some folks who throw through rocks. You do not have a militant uprising against federal power. They're just kind of acting like it. Yeah, Like if you have an insurrection in this country. This country has a shit ton of guns. You don't know if there's an insurrection because people will be using them. Like that's not happening.
Yeah, it's young people in the street waving flags and shouting and like saying fuck the police, is a constitutionally protected right in this country. Like, yes, it is. You should not get hurt for exercising your first amendment, right right, Yeah, man, Like I'm I'm proud of all those people who showed up.
I'm proud of them for taking care of each other.
Yeah, And I hope that they stay there, and I hope that they you know, as they stay there, they become more astute.
Yeah, they learn some stuff.
I saw a lot of running two hundred yards away from the cops in a very straight line state, down a straight street. Yeah, Like, which is not the move right that you want to be.
You want to be. I'm up, he tiese me, I'm down.
Yeah.
Serpentine, serpentine, you do the worm, That's that's how you get him.
Yeah.
There is some polling out early polling.
This is from g Elliot Morris, formerly of five point thirty eight, but conducted June tenth by you gov. Of four thy three hundred and nine adults, do you approve a disapprove of deploying National Guard soldiers to the Los Angeles area to respond to protests over the federal government's immigration enforcement Thirty eight percent of food approve, forty five percent disapprove, and nineteen percent are not sure. Do you approve or disapprove of deploying marines to the Los Angeles area?
Thirty four percent approve, forty seven percent disapprove, nineteen percent not sure. So you know these aren't popular measures, although they're also not as unpopular as you would hope.
Yeah, that's that's not great. I'd like to see you more. I mean, yeah, you've got Tom Cotton doing. Is I forgetting to woll stoot you on a wash Post?
OpEd?
Right?
Send in the troops for real?
This time?
Was that? I thought that was the Times?
Was it the time?
I think I forget exactly. Yeah, they're somewhat indistinguishable these days, quickly in the op ed pages. You're right, robbit, it was the Times. No, No, that's a twenty twenty op ed. Oh, twenty twenty five op ed was in the Wall Street chair. He got a new one. Okay, yeah, he wrote twenty twenty, rubbit, he wrote send in the troops. In twenty twenty five, he wrote, send in the troops comma for real for real? Okay?
Well he got it, yep, yeah, I mean yeah, he got what he wanted.
Well done, Ranger Tom guy who lied about being an Army ranger yes, not a ranger, Tom, Yeah, not a ranger Tom. Yeah. I mean you see this in the UK a lot. I'm very familiar with this kind of oh soo doing the pos. Yeah, maybe that's a good place for us to end. If you were in the US military or the National Guard, if you were someone you love is in the military of the National Guard.
Now it's a good time to read up about bloody Sunday. Yeah, happened in Ireland, and now is a good time to look at what's currently happening, what has been happening to those soldiers, because it took a long time for those people to stand trial. And it's not officers who are standing trial, right, it's soldiers. It's paratory business case because those are always going to be the fingers on the trigger, right. Yeah, And so you know, no one, no one knows which
direction history is moving in. But like things don't feel morally right, you know, there were things that the GI Rights Hotline. But I think people should be aware what happens when countries use their militaries to oppress protest and what has happened to some of the soldiers who have been ordered to do that.
Yeah, well, look up Bloody Sunday folks. Maybe we'll cover that in the not too distant future, because yeah, that's just going to get more relevant. Don't listen to you too if you can avoid it, but just look it up. Yeah, avoid you two. Not the song Sunday, our bloody Sunday. But yeah, all right, everybody, Well this has been it could happen here. We will be back tomorrow. We'll see if Gavin Newsom has been arrested yet. All right, thanks James, Yeah, thanks, that's an episode.
Bye to Live in Die in l A. Hey, this is not a game.
It is smoke bomb blast.
That was the data Feds king. That was the data Feds king. That was the data bets.
Live in din in l a.
Why nothing will be the same. It's smoke bomb blast.
That was the data Feds came.
That was the data Feds came.
That was the data fet A Little and Dying in la I ain't a song we sang. It's the gang banging Traders. We was ready when it came for us. Monkey Monkey Piggy, Piggy, immigration cowardpping off the back of black bands, out in Paramount, black bagging, family, kidnapping, broad daylight stare with us, staring us to fight back, right right. He trying to make a shoe sides Black Love, Brown Pride won't play when it's time to ride for West
side East Sides. He trying to send Americans to Foremard prisons. You don't think he'll try.
To put black bodies inside.
Game time, Homie, gonna meet us on that Lameter. I ain't scared of nail Lamiga. We knew the trail we're being here. Gonna keep it peace, Bro. They gonna try to bait us. It insta gat us. But wait, bro, take it to their face, Brody masking in this paper. Then we work for the border. We just following with all this, but fear overtakes them matches a facade. We exercise our rights, they said, National Guard, and one thing's
for certain. Burned down the regime when the president chooses to send the marine and die in la Hey, this is not a game.
It is smoke bomb blast.
That was the data FEDS king. That was the data FEDS king. That was the data FEDS ca live and die in la Why, nothing will be the same. It's smoke bomb blast. That was the data FEDS cane. That was the data FEDS cane. That was the data FEDS came.
This is it could happen here. Executive Disorder, our weekly newscast covering what's happening in the White House, the crumbling world, and what it means for you. I'm Garrison Davis. Today I'm joined by Mia Wong and James Stout. This episode, we are covering the week of June four to June eleventh. Let's start James with an update on the protests happening in LA in response to mass ice raids in the Los Angeles area and also around the country.
Yeah, so I've been in La. I was up covering it. I'm back home now. It's on Wednesday. We did a whole episode about this people can listen to. In terms of update, I think things were a little bit smaller tonight. There were a large number of detentions made late tonight. You mean last night? Tuesday night?
Tuesday night?
Okay.
Yeah.
To summarize, right, the first two nights saw the city.
Caught off guard.
Yeah.
The weekend was pretty spicy. Yeah, it got pretty well that there. A couple of cop cars got destroyed. To think some weimos made the ultimate sacrifice. Urrip Weymouth yep Oh. I saw them trucking the Weimos out and there was not much Weimo left, Like it was the cremaines of the Weimo passed me gone, but Notfregan. So by Monday morning they had flooded Los Angele.
It's with police.
I saw police from LAPD, LASD. I saw police from fps DHS, National Guard, California Highway Patrol.
It's play.
It's like Pokemon for cops up there, and that resulted in them splitting.
Up protesters, kettling and detaining people.
On Monday night. Yeah, and they made extremely liberal use of impact munitions, chemical lyeritans, et cetera. Fatday Sunday, Monday Tuesday. Thousands of impact munitions that you can find casings all the DTLA if you just go walk around. I saw a lot of like people are tagged up a lot of buildings in DTLA. But from what I've seen, I don't know. We'll see, right, It's also the week, so maybe maybe things will get bigger again over the weekend.
Yeah, things can get less combative during the week because people are busy with work and keeping themselves like fed and yeah, handhouse, and then on the weekend things can sometimes open back up again.
Yeah.
And also it's worth it's worth noting how these how these specific protests are flaring up, which is that like these ones are flaring up when Ice like drags people out of a place.
Yeah, it is directly in response to ICE kidnapping their names, right.
And so you know, the next time ICE does a bunch of kidnappings of people, there's a chance that it will pop off again because people are being like, holy shit, don't take my neighbor away.
Yeah.
And the LA protests are already happening in a sequence.
Right.
We had stuff happening in San Diego. We then had stuff in Minneapolis. We then had stuff in Chicago. We then had the really big flare of which was LA. And I think what's interesting right now is that instead of having just like nationwide riots like there was in twenty twenty, this is more like a sequence that actually directly follows the actions of ICE. And in some ways,
I think this can be harder to combat. If every city has the capacity to do what LA has done in response to the actions of ICE, that follow the actions of ICE, that could be harder to prepare for than just the federal government realizing that we have to do massive counterinsurgency everywhere, all at the same time, like what happened in twenty twenty. If instead this is a rolling sequence of protests that happened directly in response to
ice actions, any city could be next. Instead of just trying to prepare for nationwide riots, they have to be this more like mobile fluid force. They have to respond to different outbursts that happen in different cities at different times. And I think the other advantage that this model has is that the actual protesters themselves can also iterate on tactics.
Instead of trying to reinvent the wheel every time, you can take what happened in a previous city, like a week ago, two weeks ago, and iterate on that, iterate on what was unsuccessfully, what captured attention, and what was able to catch the cops off guard, minimizing mass arrests.
Yeah, in terms of the state response, just in case people have missed it right, two thousand National Guard troops, seven hundred United States Marines. The Marines whitly came from twenty nine Palms. I know the Corps has like an urban warfare school or at least had one there in twenty nine Palms. Obviously Camp Pendleton is a bigger base. I actually might not be geograph. They're both huge and closer to LA, but they sent them from twenty nine
Palms instead. I didn't see any Marines. They're just supposed to be protecting federal assets and not supposed to be out there like straight up policing. Obviously, that's, you know, unconstitutional. One could make a case it's unconstitutional to be deploying them at all in this fashion.
There are some on the streets now. National Guard is actually making arrests on the street. Marines have not as of Wednesday, but some of the Marines have been deployed. There's upwards of seven hundred who are like in the process of being deployed to LA streets right now, out of two thousand available troops, some of which are actually
still receiving training on standard rules of force. So these people do not have necessarily like extensive training on police crowd control, but are currently brushing up on crowd control tactics.
Yeah, what I saw from National Guard was like it seemed to be by rank, although I'm not certain of that. Guys with with shields and sticks right, just straight up poles as opposed to like truncheons like a T shape or an L shape or whatever. And then probably one in every five or six had an M four with a magazine. That's a gun for people who aren't familiar, it's in AAR fifteen and that's obviously live ammunition. So like they didn't seem to have any access to like
less lethals or they didn't bring them. A Y did, but I don't know about marines. And obviously we saw like police using less lethals. And then LASD also had some cops with m pas amongst their formations.
And this is just about to like really expand outside of LA and California amidst anti ICE protests across Texas. Governor Greg Abbott just deployed the Texas National Guard. And on Tuesday night, I believe MSNBC broke the story that ICE is about to send Special Response Team quote unquote tactical units to five Democrat controlled areas, namely in New York City, Seattle, Chicago, Philadelphia, and northern Virginia.
Yeah, SRT is like a swat team if if you're not familiar, Like there was a DHSSRT that ended up responding in to that South Park protest in San Diego that we mentioned last week or the week before.
As of Wednesday, there's already been protests this week and over half US states. This will certainly continue throughout the weekend, at least for LA. On Tuesday night, the mayor announced an eight pm curfew in downtown Los Angeles. There were
mass arrests Tuesday night, hundreds of people. I think the other advantage that this kind of rolling sequence model that we've seen with like San Diego, Minneapolis, Chicago, LA is that not only does it give people time to like iterate on tactics, but it also gives people a break. If anyone who survived twenty twenty, like you know how how intense burnout can be from just doing that all
the time. Yeah, and having the built in brakes where you can like recover physically and mentally while iterating on tactics, that could be interesting to see.
I think also this one thing we should notice about this, which is that like there's a very clear actual thing you're trying to do here, which is stop them from taking these people. And even if you fail to immediately take someone, like stop them taking someone in the moment. Every single like second they're having to do dealing with this shit is means that they're not doing it. Yeah, so you're you're degrading their capacity. Yeah, exactly. The time
is like the most valuable asset year. Yeah, and like obviously again like the larger goals you want to like expel, like you know, like one of the most common things I'm hearing from people is just like ice out of the city, right, Like, we don't want them to be fucking doing these raids, but every every time they're forced to like actually face resistance when they're doing a raid makes it much much harder for them to do what they have to start planning for there to be resistance
to the rage, which slows them down. And yeah, everything you could do to put fucking wrenches into the gears until the machine breaks is good. And then there's a there's a very clear path from A to B two C in a way that they're kind of aren't. Like, it doesn't rely on politicians doing stuff. It just relies on us stopping them.
So yeah, yeah, it.
Tak me politicians doing stuff. The city of Glendale did cancel its detention contract with Ice, right, so they won't be detaining people there. So like a little bit of progress there. And Gavin Newsom has said some shit about the deployment of the National Guard and California has far a court case like news has not done everything in his power to stop that. But it's Gavin Newsom. What do you expect I'll be back in the al a. Things continue there, but it's uh, certainly the biggest protest
we've seen this time around in the Trump administration. All right, let's go and break and come back to discuss more news. We are back and unlike people from twelve countries who will not be coming back to the United States for the foreseeable future because the Trump administration has announced.
A new travel ban.
The form of the travel ban is basically, anyone who applies for a visa or is in the process of applying for a visa currently, if they are from one of these twelve countries is unable to obtain a visa
to the United States. Right the twelve countries, seven have partial restrictions, and then the full ban is on Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, eritrere Haiti, Iran, Livia, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen, and then Borindi, kuber Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela have like a higher barrier, right and some visas are not available to them. Meanmar is an interesting inclusion there.
Yeah, it is.
They looked at two criteria eteems right, because Trump made an executive order at the start of his presidency, like looking to identify countries for a travel man. The two criteria they had were visa overstay percentages and the quote unquote not having a competent central authority to cooperate with on vetting. Right, So like you can't do a background check on someone if their country doesn't have that facility. It's a claim, right. I think they got vanmar on
visa overstay percentages. It's worth noting, right that they use percentages and not raw numbers for a reason, because, yeah, a certain percentage of Burmese people may overstay their visa. I think it's twenty seven point one percent. That amounts to five hundred and forty three individuals. If we look at for instance, France, these are twenty twenty three numbers, about zero point six percent of French people over stay
their visa. That amounts to nine one hundred and eighty two individuals, right, So like a percentage is great, but a big percentage of a small thing is still a small thing. Yeah, this is how they're attempting to justify it though in terms of bulletproofing it through the courts. Obviously, they didn't have the best luck with their travel ban in the first administration, so using this tactic is one that they're hoping will justify it. Will it will stick
the landing through the courts. I should add that they have some exemptions right, existing visa holders who are currently within the United States can remain in the United States.
Right.
In practice, lots of these countries only get single entry visas, so it might be hard for them to leave and come back. But it's sometimes I've heard it reported that all these people, like people from these countries can no longer come to the United States or be in the United States, and that's not true. There are exemptions for people who are dual citizens. There are exemptions for adoptive children. There are exempts for ethnic and religious minorities in Iran.
There are exemptions for sports teams because the United States. Well, the United States is holding the World Cup and the Olympics, right, yeah, so it would be something of a fascical spectacle if you know, nineteen countries were not represented. I mean, the Olympic Games is something of a fascical spectacle to begin with, one could argue, but yeah, they didn't want that, right,
they didn't want that like international spectacle. So a professional athlete visa is hard to get at the best of times, so that is a high bar, but those ones still seem to be available. And then there's also exemptions for SIV wrote special immigrant visas. These are people who've worked closely with the United States. The vast bulk of them will be Afghan people, people who worked as interpreters or otherwise cooperated with the United States during the twenty years
the United States was a war in Afghanistan. Again, I've seen that mis reported, including by people who really should know better. But you know, I'm never not disappointed in a lot of people's immigration coverage. This will be challenging court, right, but I think they have gone some way to trying to make this a bit more bulletproof than they did before. And it is concerning that they seem to have a
better chance. Obviously pretty concerning, especially for us, you know, with our extensive reboarding on Burma or Mihanmar, that those people can't come here and be safe. Yeah, that's a travel ban in a nutshell, I guess.
Also, I think it's worth noting so like this is just an expanded version. Well, I guess it's like a little bit of differences, but it's basically an expanded version of the Muslim band from his first term.
Yeah, with some new countries and I think maybe the removal of some countries from previously.
Yeah, and like it's worth noting that, like in Tromp one like that immediately caused the airport protests, which were like the first big protests of the administration that were extremely effective until people like went home. And this time it's basically been a news story because we're so far along that the protests have been about like ices dragging our neighbors away, and yeah, I just think that's fucking bad as shit. And also the airport protests, like we're really effective.
Some of the more effective protests in those years. Yeah, I am I did see a flyer for an airport protest, but I've seen no evidence of one's occurring.
Yeah, I had heard that there was going to be one on Monday, but that it just like didn't happen. So I don't know what's going on with that. Yeah, but that was a thing that was pretty effective, and they also didn't eat the shirt of everyone for most of it, which was nice.
Yeah.
Yeah, well Mia, talking of beats, how about we dropped some beats right now with this sick tariff song. Great work, James, thank you, thank you, jazz rocking jazz bots.
Sorry, jazz rocking jazz bock. The Donald Trump has apparently, according to him, resolved that the trade war with China. He's claiming the negotiation one is he's claiming, he's claiming victory, mission accomplished. Yeah, the claim that he's making out of the out of the London negotiations. And I want to point out that I have not heard anything from the Chinese side. It's possible there will be soft from the
Chinese side by the time this episode comes out. It's possible this whole deal will have collass by.
The time this comes out.
It seems like the deal is that US maintains tariffs of fifty five percent, which is what they're at right now, China maintains ten percent tariffs, and then China ensures US access to rare earth metals, and then the US does. Trump was talking about the US not actually doing a crackdown on like Chinese international students. So who knows what the fuck is going to happen with any of that. That is the reporting that's coming out right now.
I don't know.
Quite frankly, I am skeptical this is going to hold. I again, like I don't I don't know if like in two days when this episode comes out of any of this is gonna be true, because again we have heard nothing from the Chinese side. It has all been from Trump, So who the fuck knows. But yeah, that's that that is.
That is the late of tariff news. This is the kind of short one. That's that's what we've got that's exciting. That's exciting that we won trade is back. I can go back to buying everything I own from Timu, no problem.
Yeah, I mean, I give my usual disclaimer that fifty percent tariff on China is like fucking ruinous the global economy, et cetera, et cetera. I do genuinely hope that like the Chinese international students are getting cracked out on because Jesus fucking Christ, those poor kids. All of these policies are tied together in this sort of like unhinged like American Nationalists project, et cetera, et cetera. They're all connected.
They hate it and AA really really fun time to be a Chinese trans woman in the US.
WHOA, Okay, it's also fun to enjoy the COVID vaccine because we might not get it for much longer. I guess I'll do a brief update on an episode I did with Cave a few weeks ago. So RFK has now dismissed the entirety of the ACIP, the CDC's Vaccine Advisory Committee that has just been completely dissolved. This happened
on Tuesday. That was the big theory that Cave had is that if that panel gets dissolved, that that was kind of the last line of defense with like reasonable people being in charge of COVID vaccine recommendations at the CDC. And that has gone. And just a few minutes ago, RFK Junior announced the replacements. And i'd have not had enough time to look into all these guys, because this
was literally just thirty minutes ago. But at least half of them are at the very least what would be considered COVID vaccine skeptic, oh cool, right wing libertarian types, people who have been dismissed from their academic positions. Basically, it's who you would expect RFK two to submit to a vaccine advisory panel. The very least half are like cranks. I will try to look into the rest of these guys in the future. We should probably do a full
follow up episode eventually on the new panel. So not looking good on the COVID vaccine front.
Yeah, we also have very bad news from the FCC, which instead of like you know, I don't know, Like I know, crypto scams are supposed to be the SEC's thing, but I feel like the FCC also should have fucking things with crypto scams. But instead of instead of going after the fucking crypto scams, what they're doing is they're gonna hold like meetings basically with what is I'm assuming is going to be a bunch of the most unhingedy transgrifters and anti trans like hacks, frauds, and violent bigots.
Notably not trans people. Yeah, yeah, they will be included. No for the statements no trans people, no trans people, no, no, No. They're looking into ways to do like FCC investigations for like deceptive marketing practices for any doctor and also parents for some reason, which how the fuck is you got heater a parent for defective marketing?
What the fuck are we doing here? But anyone who like gives a child's any kind of trans healthcare?
I mean, is it specifically trans healthcare or are they trying to like specify like surgical procedures, because I've seen some like mixed reporting on this.
It's unclear right now. The wording that I saw was so ambiguous that I think it could be anything.
But I don't know.
And this is I think one of the things it's not clear that they know right now, right Like, it's all just really really up in the air. What the fuck this is going to turn into or if this is even going to turn into anything. We had that whole at the beginning of Pride. The FBI was like, hey, you can report like doctors doing like trans healthcare here to things. Yeah, and some of these have not really turned into anything yet. The anti Wolk FBI soliciting tips
for people providing trends healthcare. Yeah, yeah, so, like I don't know, we'll put a pin in that one to see if some fucking horrible stuff happens out of the out of there. That's you know, one of the next gian anti trans things that they're doing, as all of the anti immregrant stuff happens, as they fucking make vaccines illegal.
Like it's so much of the trends dust specifically is like just the chilling effect that it's trying to scare people away from providing people with the health care that they need to live fulfillian lives. And it's working.
Like there are there are lots of clinics that have like fucking stopped and if you if you are one of the people at these clinics.
Fuck you eat shit well. And I think that is where people can apply pressure.
To Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, So I was gonna say, yeah, it's like there have been protests.
You're not going to change the mind of the Trump administration on this topic at this point, but you can apply pressure to people who are feeling like they're too they're too scared to actually provide healthcare, and they can be reminded that no it is their duty to provide people with healthcare.
Yeah, And and people have successfully gotten clinics to start to restart like transalth go for kids by just going out and protesting. This is also just like if you're I don't know, you're in like a blue city and you don't know immigrants, and you're like, I want to do a protest, this is the thing you can do. You can find there's one in Chicago right now that I'm blanking on the name of where there's a bunch
of protests. Yeah, but like you can find the clinics that are refusing to do this and you can go fucking protest them, and this can and will work.
We've spoken on the show before to healthcare workers who are like very dedicated to keeping the provision of gender affirming care. So like you want to listen to more.
You can hear that.
Yah, you can hear how folks are organizing to retect that. Yeah.
And all of those people are fucking heroes, even if they probably won't be remembered as such for a long time, but they are. And keep doing it and keep the fight up.
Let's go and break and then return to finish up on an exciting piece of news. Hooray. Okay, we are back. So as usual, a massive, massive news dropped right after we finished recording last week's Executive Disobium, and that is the the Elon Musk Donald Trump breakup story got a lot more messy. So this is what we're gonna close on, possibly one of our last stinky Musk segments.
But I fucking know it, Jesus Christ, We'll never forget you.
Eat On.
Oh uh miya, do you wanna do you wanna to start us off here?
Yeah, let's let's start this off with. Okay, I have been seeing this has kind of stopped now that Elon has kind of like run crying back the Trump. But like we'll see, there was a there was a moment where a lot of the like like Matt and Glaciers, like a lot of the sort of like reasonable Democrats or whatever we're trying to be, like we should try to recruit Musk into the coulistion.
That was a scary moment.
Yeah, yeah, I.
Want reminds everyone this is the guy who did two Nazis saluted the inauguration two two of them. He did one and then he did a second one. People have forgotten that they also did the second NA, like Census administration came into office. He has spent this time destroying the federal government. He has spent this time terrorizing like
government employees, just shutting down fucking important government institutions. Enormous numbers of people are going to die because of the things that he's done, like the shutting down to USAID
and particularly like the vaccine programs, the ANTIHAV programs. You know, like he's just been doing all of the shift for this entire time, right, he has been just systematically looting and tearing apart anything in the US federal government that even can remotely do anything for a person from again, everything from like HIV prevention to like destroying a bunch of the apparatus that like figures out what the weather
is going to be and tells you when storms are coming. Yeah, he has been fucking doing that.
Well, like Mia, the weather is woke. You can't you can't forget the woke weather machines.
Yeah, that's right.
I just had a meeting with the Southeast Alliance where we're deciding the weather for the next few weeks.
Fucking God, make it less hot here.
It's too fucking hot weather too hot. I know, well, we have to raise the temperature. It's all it's all part of the plan, large scale political planned, that's right, you get it, James, Yeah, the plan more heat, more riots.
I don't know, that's right, Okay, it's it's also remembering that these two were very very close sort of like during this election cycle. Right, Trump was just straight up going first. Buddy was just I mean, she's just just like straight up in Philadelphia, like paying people to vote.
Through these like raffles. Elon a Celon. Yeah, Elon was just like yeah, straight up doing these right.
Trump just like did a tesla ad.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's like he just did a tesla ad.
They first, buddy has gotta gotta have each other's backs, you know, never say that again.
So there had started to be a little bit of tension between them, like as the tariffs are mounted, because the tariffs are you know, not good for Elon and think things kind of came to a head when Elon tried to buy the Wisconsin Supreme Court election and just got his ass kicked harder than anyone I've ever seen get just absolutely thumped.
And this is where the policy wonk sector of the right was starting to like side eye Elon and question his like yeah, yeah, invincibility, right, this this this this guy that can come in and like save the Republican Party, can secure every future election. That's where that I like view of Elon started to really get called into question. Maybe this guy is kind of just a one hit wonder.
Yeah, and and and you can also look at a lot of the stuff that was sort of happening here in terms of like she is staggeringly unpopular, right, everyone fucking hates him, and like the Number Party did a really bad job of this. But like just like the party's base and the Tesla protests were very effective and like negative polarizing opinion of him.
Negative, people really really dislike him, Like worldwide, everyone hates it.
She cost right wing parties.
Elections and countries that like, yeah, he's never been taggering staggering like she she may have accidentally saved Germany from fascism for like a decade.
It's very funny, you know, critical support to the to the fascist carmaker who saves Germany from fascism.
Yeah yeah, and then so okay, so we we've we've been coming up to like the end of his appointment as like a special What the fuck was the name of the term special government employee?
H special government employe? Oh it was special. I was gonna say that.
Then I was like, it can't be called special government employee.
We call it age.
Ski.
Okay, well, James, you can't say that. No, no, you can't.
I've been canceled.
But there was always a question of like what exactly his role is going to be going forward once his time is a special government employee like ran out, but
then he leaves with Stephen Miller's wife. So, as we reported a previous episode, but the final break came over the weekend over the budget, big beautiful budget, and Elon has been pissed off at this budget for like a while, and over the weekend he finally starts straight up doing like kill the budget posting and telling people to like call their senators to kill the budget instead of just saying it's bad. And this is I think actually an important thing to note here, like.
Like actively campaigning against the budget bill and yeah, yeah, which is essentially Trump's like core policy at this point. It's like the to the way to push through a whole bunch of the stuff that he can't just do himself as president. Yep, is just trojan horse through this budget bill. Yeah, and and and this gets too.
I think something that's like a kind of important split in the Republican Party right now about this budget, which is that like Musk is a is a budget deficit true believer, right, Like yes, he and his guls are trying to destroy the federal government because like ideologically they don't think it should really exist except for like as a tool to hand the money, as a tool to like shoot people who they don't like. But he is
part of this cadra of tech people. And this is very very common in these tech circles, and you see that in some finance circles of these people who believe that the US is about to like enter like the super Great Depression because the the amount of the GDP being spent on debt payments is too high, and so they think if they don't like stop this right now.
And this is partially why they are trying to like crash the economy, because they thought that if you crash the economy and you did all this terrift stuff or like whatever.
It would it would decrease the cost of of US borrowing.
Now that didn't happen, right, The interest rates of the bond shot up because everyone was like, holy fuck, these like absolute maniacs aren't gonna pay their debt, so you know, none of the shit is working. But they are like true believers on this yeah right, And this is again, this is very very very common in tech circles, like these people who like are are really like, oh God, the US is gonna die unless we like yeah, like unless we start just like destroying the national debt.
And the whole DOGE idea is built around like terminal tech brain and it's it's it's trying to apply the logic of these like startups that are kind of scams, but trying to apply the logic of startups to an entire government. And there was an interview NPR this week where they talked to a DOGE employee. Oh yeah, he has an ex DOGE employee, and NPR asked about how much fraud and abuse they were actually able to find, and he said, quote, I did not find the federal
government to be rife with waste, fraud and abuse. I was expecting some more easy wins. I was hoping for opportunity to cut waste, fraud and abuse, and I do believe that there is a lot of waste, there's minimal amounts of fraud and abuse to me feels relatively nonexistent.
And the reason is, I think we have a bias as people coming from the tech industry where we worked at companies you know, such as Google, Facebook, these companies that have plenty of money, are funded by investors and have lots of people kind of sitting around and doing nothinguote. So his idea that the government must be full of like fraud and abuse is because that's just how tech companies work, and that the government works the same as a tech company. Yeah, and I think Elon have views
this the exact same way. That's why he was doing his like Twitter takeover stuff to the government. Yeah, is he believed that's how it actually functions, and it doesn't.
That's not really how the federal gureacracy functions. Like these people have just like eaten the fucking kool aid, right, Like none of the Republicans actually believed that like the US like economy functions like a pocketbook, Like none of them believe that you're because it's not true, right, Like you don't print your own money, so of course the
US government doesn't find it like a pocketbook. But like, this is the generation of people where like the people who are just so absolutely pilled on the ideology have taken over. But on the other hand, there is Trump, and Trump doesn't give off fuck about any of this, right, Like, the faction that Trump here is representing is the faction of capitalists who just wants tax cuts. You don't give off fuck about like all of this weird tech brain stuff.
Like they elected Trump with the mandate of handing them trillions of dollars in these formuli tax cuts, and that's
all they can about. And we're getting a giant conflict between them because as much as Trump has just sort of been like lying about the budget numbers or whatever the fuck, if you're one of these actual budget off people, you can just look at the budget and go, this is going to increase the debt by like two trillion dollars or whatever the fuck, right, And it's revealed a sort of pre existing source of tension inside of the base between the sort of tech people and a lot
of the rest of sectors are capital which aren't as ideologically pilled. So let's get into all of the actual shit because it's very funny. So Business Insider put together a really good minute by minute timeline if you want to do that. I'm not going through this shit minute by minute.
I'm not gonna go through minute by minute.
I am.
I am going to go through tweet by tweet. Tweets. We have to talk about the tweets. The first time I've ever really wanted to say that they're so good. Yeah, the first big tweet, and this was, you know, amongst Elon crashing out about the budget bill and talking about how he's going to cancel certain SpaceX SpaceX projects. But the first big tweet from Elon was time to drop the really big bomb at real Donald Trump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have
not been made public. Have a nice day, Donald J. Trump. Mark this place. In the future, the truth will come out. So this is the really big one, as Elon says, the really big Bob.
I actually think this, in the long run could be one of the most important aspects of this entire fight, because the right is incredibly conspiracy brained. They've all been like hyped up on this, like Epstein pill shit, and like specifically on like the Trump's gonna release Epstein files and show all the Democrats, right, but they've always had like the psychological block about talking about the fact that like Trump and Epstein are the most connected motherfuckers anyone's ever been.
I'm gonna read this.
There's a very famous quote from a New York magazine article that's like Trump talking to a bunch of people at like a meeting. Quote I've known jeff for fifteen years, terrific guide, Trump booms from a speakerphone. He's a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side, no doubt
about it. Jeffrey enjoys his social life so like he knew right he was trans ages, Yeah, some two doesn't two, Like he's He's on Epstein's fucking.
Plain like he is, like everyone know exists, right, Like everyone except everyone knows this, right, everyone except for like the weirdo QAnon right understands this, And some of the young on people try to justify this as being like no, Trump was like you know, a deep mold, a deep plant who got in close with with Epstein, so that we could eventually round up and arrest all the Democrat pedophiles. Right,
that's what they try to justify it. But now that that sort of like specific Q and on logic doesn't really exist as much on the right anymore. Yeah, Now people just like memory hole, especially the right, they just memory hole that like Trump and Epstein were best buddies.
Yeah, and like and and this is the thing, it's been impossible. We'll talk about on the right, you just can't do it right. Yeah, And suddenly on Musk, who is a guy who like is capable of shifting what right wing discourse is, It's suddenly like, yeah, this guy's a pedophile.
I want to read this.
This, this post that Trump made has response to this, right, I missed this when this happens. I've only seen this in the business inside of reporting, so on truth social Trump's response to this was to post it or to truth truth.
Thank you.
Of David Shoon, who tweeted this quote. I was hired to lead Jeffrey f Stein's defense as his criminal lawyer nine days before he died. He sought my advice for months before that. I can authoritatively, unequivocally and definitively say he has no information to hurt President Trump. I specifically asked him.
Yeah, that sounds legit.
This is one of the most unhinged posts I have ever seen.
This genuinely, this is this is not a joke.
If you if you are a fucking poster and you you are like, what can my contribution to like the future of democracy be? You need to push this shit into the unhinged like fucking like the depths of like fucking eight chan right like into into like the fucking breeding layers of the most unhinged right wing spaces in the world. You need to be going in and just
injecting this shit straight into their fucking brains. You you need to be like like just like just just hyping them up on the most unhinged conspiracies about Trump being like a fucking like being a fucking Epstein guy, because
this is completely unhinged, Like what do you mean. His defense lawyer, who was hired nine days before he died, is supposed to have specifically asked him about Trump and the and Trump's response to being called a pedophile is to go to this guy fucking inject that shit into right wing discourse. We know four Chan does this the leftist discourse all the time and injects like the worst discourses of all time, fucking do it to them.
It is odd how this was really the first thing that breaks through this block. On the right, you had Alex Jones like freaking out on Twitter being quote, God help us all ye oh yay, Kanye was freaking out. Cat Turn was crashing out on the timeline. It was really bizarre. Trump's immediate response was saying, quote, I don't mind Elon turning against me, but he should have done
so months ago. This is one of the greatest bills ever presented to Congress, and then goes on to talk about how great the bill is.
It's wild.
You had Ian Miles Chong tweeting about Elon versus the president who will win my money is on Elon Trump should be impeached and Jadvan should replace him with Elon Musk boosting this claim saying yes, yeah.
It's pretty good. It says pretty funny.
Something that's extremely indicative of the current cultural moment that we are at is during this spat, when when things really broke out on on Twitter and truth social During during this spat, both the Vice President of the United States and the director of the FBI were on two separate podcasts and got to live react to this.
That's very funny.
Unfortunately, I am going to play the clip. I will start with JD. Vance reacting live on a podcast by someone named THEO Vaughn.
Here here's here's my basic reaction to like all this stuff is luck. First of all, like absolutely not. Donald Trump didn't do anything wrong with Jeffrey Epstein. Like there's the guy is whatever the Democrats in the media says about him, that's totally bs. Here here's my basic my basic read on it. First of all, I'm the vice president's President Trump. My loyalties are always going to.
Be with the President.
And I think that Elon, he's an incredible entrepreneur. He's actually done I think does was really good. This sort of effort to root out waste fraud abuse in our country is really good good And and look, man, I'm always going to be loyal to the President, and I hope that eventually Elon kind of comes back into the fold. Maybe that's not possible now because he's gone so nuclear.
I hope it is, do you know why?
Yeah?
I mean so, look, I think number one.
Elon's new to politics, right, So part of it is this guy got into politics and it has suffered a lot for it. But I mean, I and I get the frustration there, and I get the frustration that. I mean, look, Congress got the spending bill, but the main purpose of the bill is not actually spending or cutting spending, though it does cut a lot of spending. The main purpose of the bill is to prevent the biggest tax increase. But I understand, like it's a good bill, it's not
a perfect bill. Like the process in DC. If you're a business leader, you probably get frustrated with that process because it's more you know, bureaucratic, it's more slow moving. So I think there's just some frustrations there. But I I really, man, I think it's a huge mistake for him to go after the president like that. And I think that if he and the president are in some blood feud, most importantly, it's going to be bad for
the country. But I think it's gonna be I don't think it's gonna be good for eeln either.
So that's jd Vance's reaction to this. He eventually got put onto like damage control. We'll talk about that in a sec What is more interesting to me is Cash Pattel's reaction, because Patel's been taking fire from the right for being a little bit soft on the promise of releasing the full Epstein files, trying to downplay the extent of the files and say there's really nothing in there
that's super notable. And this has gotten him in trouble because him and people like Dan Bongino have for years made a living out of talking about how the Epstein files is going to ruin the Democratic Party. They have all of this evidence, all this footage, and now that these guys are in power, they're simply not talking about this issue. And this has got some of the Q and on right upset, and Cash Ptel's reaction to this is frankly baffling. I'm not participating in that conversation.
Have a nice day, DD.
So much takets fall away.
There going back and forth about different things.
And yeah, he said he was disappointing elon ye want to leave Jesus Christ.
That's a crazy thing to say. How does he know?
Does he know that Donald Trump is in the Epstein files or does he have access to them?
I don't know how he would, but I'm just staying out of the trump elon thing.
That's way outside of my life.
Are they?
I know my lane and that ain't What do you mean, isn't your lane? You're the director of the FBI, you are in charge of the Epstein files. This specifically is your lane. This, this one thing is actually your late it's unhinged. Oh my god.
His big thing now is yes to wear a hunting camera all the time. I guess that says his new lane.
So after the heat of this started to die down, you started to get more of the right to try to, I guess, soothe the tension. A lot of a lot of people trying to trying to talk about coming together. You had right wing commentators trying to frame this as two alpha males beefing, right, this is this is just how you just how alpha males be. We got We've got to quote some of these because Jack Pasovic famously said, some of y'all can't handle two high agency males going
at it. And it really shows this is direct communication fallow centric versus indirect communication. Guy no centric, I understand you aren't used to it. Wonderful stuff from Pasovic. As usual. You also had our friends at the New Norm posting videos about trying to solve this dispute through a dancing competition. Roll the clip.
Can't we all just get along?
We've got to cook you to say, hey.
I do find it odd that a lot of people's innate reaction after the heat died down was even if Elon Musk is semi credibly accusing the president of being a pedophile, can't we just all get along together? I don't know why we can't just get along? This is
this is hurting the country. And Elon's like remark about Trump being in the files is in and of itself just kind of baffling from Elon's perspective, because he was bragging in tweets about how he is responsible for Trump being elected, and Trump was then having to respond to that by claiming that they would have won the election
without Elon. But Elon was saying that without him, Trump would have lost the election right after he called him a pedophile, which is super interesting because it's essentially Musk saying I'm fine with making sure a pedophile gets elected president, but I draw the line at a bad spending bill. Yeah, Yeah, that's really what is too much for him. The implication is that if he didn't get essentially shafted from the White House, he just would have kept this a secret.
And he's like okay with working with Trump otherwise except for the bad bill And maybe he's maybe he's butt heard about Trump threatening to terminate his governmental subsidies and contracts. But like, come on, elon, this is crazy.
Yeah, yeah, not the most well considered. It is fantastic that the richest man in the world is addicted to posting because we get some real we get some real banging.
Posters, posters madness. It never never fails.
I gotta say, though, Trump's posting response terrible. This guy has washed There's nothing there. He's fucking gone mentally like he could have fucking get like even twenty twenty. Trump just destroys him in one tweet like none of this is He's there's nothing left there.
He's a shell. Now. They have now been making attempts to fold the team back together. It was reported recently that actually on Friday night, which was the day after this spat on unfolded on Twitter, but a Friday night jd Vance and White House chap of staff Susie Willis
had a call with Elon to de escalate the conflict. Eventually, Elon has started deleting some of his more inflammatory tweets about the president coward and has now posted quote, I regret some of my posts about President Trump last week. They went too far.
I said the thing that I wasn't supposed to say.
So he got us stern talking to by Jade Vance, who is kind of caught in between Trump and Musk here but has stated that his loyalties will will always lie with the President. So yeah, that is the current state of the Musk and Trump fallout. It will not be able to go back to how it was, but they might try to play nice again. Yep, I think that does it for us here at it could happen here. We reported the news.
We reported the news.
Hey, We'll be back Monday with more episodes every week from now until the heat death of the universe.
It could happen here is a production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website fool Zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can now find sources for it could happen here, listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening,