Media.
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.
Sometimes there is a topic that is too big for just one podcaster. Sometimes a simple medical podcaster, a simple wartime journalist can't handle a topic on their own. They need to combine forces. A special team up has to happen.
And that, my friends, is what's happening today on this special crossover edition of the House of Pod And it could happen here in hop Ich Hoppitch special myself, doctor cave Hote Hope I'm saying there correctly, and James Stout are going to be talking to you, along with two very special guests about what's happening out there in the protest, What risks the protesters are facing, what health concerns we have for them, how they can best prepare and more.
James, Hey, buddy. Hey, it's nice. Nice to be podcasting with you again.
You really enjoy our team ups here, our special Marvel team ups that we do.
It's a fait, it's a fun one. You're my favorite collaborator.
Covey. Hey, I'm going to.
Take that as total sincerity, even though I'm not entirely sure. So I thank you for that. Yeah, because I think that sounded sincere enough. I like these I like the me too.
I do too.
Let's introduce our guests. We have some very special guests. I will actually ask you guys to introduce yourselves. Let's start with you, Miriam. Can you tell us a little bit about who you are and what your background in this field is.
Sure, Hi, I'm Miriam, she or they pronouns. My background in the field of podcasting is that I'm with the collective Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness, which puts out the podcast Live Like the World Is Dying, as well as the podcast Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness and the spectacle.
And my experience in the field of what I think we're here to talk about today is that I've been a street metic for over a decade, which means I've treated a lot of injuries on people who've been messed up by interactions with police.
I mean, we're going to talk about this more, but my first question is, is it pretty much ninety percent or more violence from the police that you encounter. Do you ever encounter anything else, like violence amongst protesters themselves or something else that happens along the way, or is it solely what you're experiencing is treating violence from the side of the police.
So that's a good question. It is mostly violence from police. Sometimes it is violence from non state affiliated or or at least not on duty fascists so you know, you're proud boys, you know, other people like that, or just
generally sort of hostile right wing actors. Sometimes it is also, you know, sort of underlying medical stuff more so, like somebody has been out at the march all day and they didn't bring their medication with them and so they're having a seizure, and you know, then there's also environmental stuff. You hate, stroke, your hypothermia, you're I was running to catch up with the march and I stepped off the curb,
weird ow, you know, stuff like that. But in terms of violence, yeah, it's it's mostly coming from the cops. I've I've certainly never seen a friendly fire incident of violence amongst amongst protesters. I'm sure it could happen, but but I have not seen it. I've seen people that I'm in the streets with or wherever with attacked by by people who wish them harm, who are people from the state or you know, like I said, not currently on duty as cops, but you know, basically cops.
No, I'm digressing too far, and I need to introduce her other guests. But I have another follow up question and I need to ask. I'm so curious, Please, have you ever had to take care of, say, someone on the other side who's been injured.
So as anybody who works in any kind of emergency, you know, medical response will tell you. Anybody who's an a MT or even anybody who's like a lifeguard, the first thing you do before you approach a patient is established scene safety. So if a Nazi has been hurt, it is not safe for me to approach that patient because there's a Nazi over there.
I see, Okay, I think I'm picking up what you're putting down on that one.
So it has not happened.
Yeah, anybody who is acting as a street medic is acting under what called good Samaritan laws, you know, which protect you from any kind of bad outcome. If you start taking care of somebody, you know, start helping somebody out in the streets based on whatever train you have, you know. Same thing like if if somebody collapses at a bus stop and you start doing CPR based on the Red Cross class you took, that's good Samaritan stuff.
Same way, it does not obligate you to intervene, especially in approaching somebody who is actively seeking to do you harm. So I would not consider that within my within my lane.
Understood.
Well, let's introduce our second guest. We have doctor Richard Pharaoh, who is a doctor in the Los Angeles area and is a family practice physician.
May I call you Richard? Uh? Yeah, you may? Okay, very good, Richard, welcome to the show. Thank you very much.
Gotty, it's a pleasure to be on. You know, you kind of mentioned it already. I'm Kelly Medicine. I've also experienced in street medicine in the LA area. Also, you know, this is obviously something that's really important to me right now, given everything that's been going on. In the city and also important for me just giving the fact that I'm a Latino, I'm a proud Coaster, Rikan Cuban, and just that's part of the huge reason why I'm in medicine.
So I'm really happy to have an opportunity to talk about, you know, the ice protests and the stuff that's been going on to protect our community.
That's great to hear. Can you tell us a little bit about what you've been involved with recently down in Los Angeles?
So I as far as what I've been involved in in Los Angeles, you know, I've been coordinating with some of my colleagues who I knew from residency and just other colleagues just who are all involved in social justice, as well as the CIR, the Physicians Union, you know, who are engaged in trying to like provide medical support to the protests in the area. So I've had experience working on some of the protests that have occurred both in LA and OC.
Yeah, that's really good to hear.
I think people will have been spending a lot of time like watching footage the protests right in the last I know what we weekend now, fuck knows, it seems like a long time. I haven't been sleeping very much. Give or take eight to twelve years.
Time has meant nothing. Yeah, March of twenty.
Twenty, yes exactly, yea, it is sixteenth or twenty twenty, and here we are. I people would have seen a lot of people get hurt, right, And I like, as a journalist, like I was in La last week, you kind of tend to get towards the more violent end of things because that is our job. Most people who go to protest don't get hurt, right, And I don't want people to like hear anything we're saying today and think, oh God, I'm going to get fucked up, because most
people don't get fucked up. And like my stunts, You don't fight fascist because you think you're going to win or you think you might not get hurt. You fight fascist because they are fascists. And sometimes people do get hurt. So let's talk about the ways that people get hurt. Either of you is welcome to answer this, but like, what are some of the common mechanisms of injury that you see when you are out there street mega King, when when the cops are out there hurting people.
I would say that like in terms of the things that we would typically see. I just want to start off by saying, like, absolutely, we're not out there just because we know that we're going to be successful in any type of advocacy. If that was the case, then we wouldn't have that many people, you know on that front.
You know a lot of people know that it's you might be losing ground, but you're not there because you're trying to when you're doing it because you know that you want to be on the right side of history. You want to do the thing that you believe to be morally right. As far as like the type of injuries that you would typically see, I think in order to answer this question, I would kind of break it off.
Into two sections.
Like you have mainly protests that have not evolved into violent confrontations with law enforcement, and you have protests where things like you know, for instance, right control agents have been deployed in like the like the non you know, dangerous side of things, Like you might have the kind of stuff that you would encounter in any sort of
major events. You know, you're gonna deal with dehydration, You're going to deal with people who are like in in overcrowded areas that might you know, accidentally fall hit and trip over one another. In those kind of circumstances, you know, when we enter into the space where you know, riot control agents are being involved, the quote unquote less lethals non lethals, which I'm going to kind of go into later,
is a bit of a non uh a misnomer. In those circumstances, we look at like chemical exposure to things like to your gas. You know, there's a lot of different ways that that manifests that type of exposure, and we can kind of get into that a little bit as well. And then also we have you know, projectile weapons like rubber bullets, you know, flash bangs, those type of things that you might encounter, you know, like sort of blunt trauma to people's bodies.
Yeah, and you'd like to add Miriam.
I mean, first of all, like you're doing great out there. Good for you for out there. It's a hell of a time. There's regional variation, I think to some of the stuff that we see. So I am based in New York City. You know, not all of this the work I've done has been in New York City, but most of it has and in New York city. We
don't have tear gas. They just don't do it here because the police found out after deploying tear gas extensively during the RNC that the thing about tear gas is it gets sucked into vents, and when it gets sucked into vents, it gets on all kinds of people in the subway and in buildings, and that causes lawsuits. And the NYPD does not enjoy that, so they use pepper spray instead, because pepper spray is more directed, it doesn't
linger in the air the same way. You hit the people that you are trying to hit, you know, and anybody else who's walking by, and also your buddies who are standing next to you because you fired into the wind, which is always a good time.
Any such cases, Yeah.
So many, There's a there's a whole series of what we are calling locally peppa pigs, which are it's what you think it is. So yeah, we see a lot of a lot of pepper sprite. We also, because one of the primary weapons of the NYPD are just sheer, overwhelming numbers, we see a lot of just direct hands on violence, just cops hitting people, punching people, throwing people to the ground, we see a lot of very rough takedowns.
Now if you're you know, acting as a street medic and in that situation, you don't get to treat those people because if they are taking down by a cop, they are then swarmed by many other cops and they get taken away. Then that's something that we might see when we meet that person later at jail support. But the other weapon that we used to see quite a bit but haven't in more recent years is the l RAT,
which is a sound cannon. They do still use it, but they use it to like make announcements and annoy people. They use it to like make obnoxiously loud announcements, but not to blast out people's ear drums, which was sort of its weaponized form. We haven't seen that recently though police will willie you know, they all carry tasers. You don't tend to see a lot of that at protests, but it's certainly something that we're constantly aware that they have the ability to do. But yeah, it is here.
It's mostly pepper spray, nightsticks, fists, knees, you know that kind of thing.
I would assume that a lot of what they'd do, like for example, tear gas was, to my understanding, first developed in World War One really to cause confusion amongst the enemy. And what I assume a lot of these things that they're using, the sound canons, is to create panic and confusion and hopefully get people to run and
move and in mass, unorganized ways. And I wonder if you're seeing crush injuries, if you're seeing injuries related to just the people moving and being scattered around and running in different directions, is that something that you that you have seen in this process, either of you.
Yeah, well, just real quick, like to the first thing you said, the absolute like the purpose of every police weapon is to cause fear. One of the reasons that I think they so often use things like to your gas and pepper spray when they could simply choose to not is like one, because they have it because their budgets are outrageous and they have, you know, all the weapons they could ever dream of, and why not you know,
well we have it. But I think that the other reason they use it is because it does freak people out. It scares people, and so you know a lot of people have had like a big dude shove them before. You know, that's like not a super unfamiliar situation. It's not a great situation. People don't like it, but they kind of they're familiar with it. They're familiar with the concept getting sprayed by a mysterious chemical that makes you feel a thing you've never really felt before. That's a
lot scarier. And you don't know what's in it. You don't know what's on your body, you don't know why it hurts the way it hurts like. You just know, like, oh, yeah, I mean, I guess, I guess this is what tear gas feels like. I guess this is what pepper spray feels like. Yeah, it's frightening, and yeah, people absolutely get hurt running away it makes it difficult to see. Like squeezing your eyes shut is like a very immediate reaction.
So people run, They lose whoever they were at the action with, they get separated from their group, they get disoriented, they may be having trouble breathing. They may be panicking because they're having trouble breathing. Then they're having trouble breathing because they're panicking, you know. So yeah, you do absolutely see all of that.
Yeah, I mean, I really want to second what Miriam has been saying here. You know, as far as like the most common agent that you see in tear gas in the United States at this time, it's believed to be agents CS and this this is something like you mentioned, it was developed right around the time of World War Two, and they started like be coming into effect in the in the in the late fifties. A point of thought for this is it was actually made legal for use
in warfare in the nineties by the Geneva Convention. So you don't see the US or other armies like using this on soldiers, but we're using it in protests.
Well you don't.
You don't necessarily see the US military following the Geneva Convention.
Okay, well we can. That's a fair point. Yeah.
Of the wars of law, the TAA gas is one that it is walls of law. Those of wool people do be using TA gas sometimes, but yeah, they shouldn't be.
Yeah, and you're right.
Is first in the Geneva Conventions in nineteen twenty five, but then nineteen ninety seven specifically it was prohibited. The thought behind that is they did it because they didn't want someone to get one gas and not know exactly what it was. And then use the really nasty stuff like sirin gas, et cetera. And the reason our police are able to do it on our protesters is because they're pretty confident that our protesters don't have it would use siren gas, so they feel they feel free to
use it at our Yeah. But speaking of sound canons and disturbing noises being shot into your ear holes commercials, we'll be right back.
All right, we're back. We should talk about noxious gases.
There has been this persistent rumor, I don't just mean in the last link ten days, there's been a persistent rumor every time that people have been taar gused that this time the cops are using super tear gas, special tea gas, cancer ta gas. To be clear, like the effects of tear gas on people, especially to my understanding, like people who menstrate, are fucking long term and nasty. So let's just address like what are the reagents in tag gas and what are some of the outcomes we
can expect short term and long term? And then do we suspect that the cups are using super tags this time?
Well, I guess in terms of like the agent, like we kind of mentioned it a little bit ago, agencs the more complicated long name, oh chlora benze laden melanitril.
So this is actually.
It's so that's absolutely the kind of thing you talk about in dinner conversations. But the compound itself, it's actually not in a gas form. It's actually a solid. It's a crystalline substance that's released that's aerosolized after any type of like explosion from you know, a grenade or canister, and it's as far as you know the types of things that you will experience. It takes effect in the
first twenty sixty seconds of contact with the body. It's a nucleophilic substance, so that means it will adhere to tears, it will adhere to moisture on your skin, like sweat, any type of like saliva or mucus, and like the first things you'll typically notice are the tearing, the redness, burning, blurred vision in your eyes. Specifically on your skin, you could develop burns or rash. A contact dermatitis has also been associated with a development of this on your skin,
burning irritation in your mouth. You can also develop running nose. The more kind of more serious, long term effects that can be more systemic you can actually develop shortness of breath, wheezing, or chest tightness. You can also develop nausea or vomiting if you ingest much of it while you're in the
protest and you kind of already brought it up as well. Unfortunately, we don't have a lot of systemic research that has been done on the impacts of agents like CS that are in tear gas on people, but we have a couple of things that have come up about pregnancy outcomes. We do see increased rates of uter and cramping, menstrual bleeding, breast tenderness, and delayed menstrual ramping as well in pregnancy.
We also don't know how well it crosses into breast milk, so you know, it's this kind of challenging question and the CDC is official like stance on it is this idea that like they don't believe that it crosses. But again, we don't have that research, so we can't know for sure.
Great cool, good thing to be fogging Live city blogs with.
Yeah, well, we don't know everything it does, so probably some of it is fine.
You know, James, when you're mentioning how it keeps coming up and there's these concerns of there being.
Like a cause and cancer.
We have no proof of that right now, but I mean we really don't know, so it is a little concerning long term, especially journalists like yourself who are exposed to it a lot, so that that is something I would love to see.
But I mean, how you're going to study it? Who going to find that? Yeah, I mean I don't know. Rfka Junior might who knows.
It might be like we're not funding real research anymore like vaccine.
So we get on the right pubcosts, we can probably make that happen.
So before we move off of the gas, let's just talk about, yeah, treatment of it and what you what you will do out there in the field someone comes to you, and let's try to address some of the most common misconceptions about what you should be treating or how you should be treating.
Yeah.
Oh yeah, I'm so ready to go. Yeah yeah.
Since forever, there have been like rumors that there are these I think because of sort of the way that it is mysterious, like the cops have these, like you know, containers of this awful poisonous, magical potion that they spray on you, and then we have to find the antidote. So things that I have heard as being good for tear gas and pepper spray include raw onion, lemon juice, apple cider, vinegar, Coca cola, avocado.
Delicious, it sounds sounds.
A nice great actually, and then the classic milk as well as maylocks. My personal favorite is when somebody like jumps into correct somebody on milk and it's like no, no, no, actually it's milk of magnesia, not regular milk.
So oh you got to get it from which.
Is what you actually do is flush out the eyes with water. I mean, that's it. That's the only thing. It's water. The number of things that should go into a human eye are basically water and any any medicine that is designed for the human eye. And saline solution, I guess you know. And definitely you could do an eye flush with saline. It's just that if you have saline in your bag, it weighs just as much as water, and you can't drink it when you get tired.
You can, and way you can, but it's.
Not recommended and you can't refill it from a tap.
You can drink anything, James, if you're not a cow, but if you have.
A bottle of water, you can do a bunch of eye flushes, and then when it starts to run low, you can refill it from a tap because that has water in it too. It's very readily available water in most places. And all of the other things that are out there that people will tell you should use, you should not use. I have never seen any good evidence that any of them are better than water at getting
pepper spray or cheer gus out of your eye. All of them are kind of predicated on this idea that there's like a chemical reaction you are trying to affect. And then that is sort of further based on the idea that the reason this stuff hurts is because it is acidic. Because I think people think, like, what's a chemical that burns acid?
Right?
These are not acidic. That is not how they work. They are chemical irritants. And you don't want an acid base reaction in your eye anyway.
You want to be doing chemistry experiments in your eye.
Yeah, you actually usually wear goggles when you do chemistry experiments. I'm not like a chemist.
But memium water sure is great, But what about all that fluoride you're getting into your eyeballs.
Okay, have you thought about that.
That'll prevent eye cavities, Richard?
Anything else to add to that.
I know, I think you hit the nail on the head, and I think that when I look at what physicians typically recommend in terms of response to your gas, I always think back on the doctor Glockham fleckin thread that became very popular on Twitter. I'd be very interested to hear what your thoughts are.
We're on that.
Miriam I think like one of the things that tended to come from from that particular thread because he does have experiences as an ophthalmologist. He mentioned washing your eyes with baby shampoo and rinsing copiously. I think like the challenge with that is obviously, like what Miriaman mentioned. One, water saline are the better options for for irrigating your eyes,
especially after exposure. For one, the fact that it's you know, you never know what else, like it's it's better to avoid any other type of irritants that you could, you know, be exposed to your eye. Also the fact, like we already mentioned, the fact that the agents into your gas there they're nuclear filth, meaning they're they're attracted to water. So by using water itself. You are effectively going to
help to irrigate it. And you know, we typically recommend anywhere upwards and twenty minutes for that type of exposure. And then as far as I'm not sure if you mentioned milk already, Maria.
Milk counts me.
Yeah, we can't mention it enough eyeball cheese.
We cannot mention eyeball cheese.
And what.
Is the.
Let's let's think about what the context of where we are in a protest. It's very typically outdoors for many hours, usually in summertime. Exactly kind of like the idea of putting this you know, this this culture on people's eyes, like.
I think yogurt, actually yogurt.
You may as well, you may as well go and get some Greek yogurt and pour it on your eyes, so, you know, he really gets back to the idea of
like constant irrigation. Clean water is perfectly fine. If you have water at the protests, usually the best thing to do is have the types of water bottles that have like a flip off cap, so that way you can easily, you know, pour it over their face and then recap it for later use on someone else or yourself I think the other thing too that's really important to discuss is, you know, because it's this solid aerosolized substance, it can sometimes adhere to your clothing, So you know, there's a
couple of different approaches.
You know.
Physicians for Human Rights has a PDF that I strongly encourage anybody who's listening to a review if you find yourself in the position of either being a protester at a protest or being a medic at a protest, they recommend if you've been exposed to your gas to hang your clothing afterwards in a heavily ventilated place for up
to forty eight hours. If you're not able to do that, placing your clothing in a plastic bag, including your shoes, outside and not mixing it with any of your other non exposed clothing is the ideal response afterwards.
Yeah, I'll add when doctor Glockinflecken was on our show talking about this back during George Floyd, we discussed it and the other thing that he recommended, and he is actually not just a very very funny internet person, he's also a very good ophthalmologist. And he also recommended initially when it happens soon as you can blink rapidly. That
really helps in the sate the tear response. You're still gonna need water, but it's going to help start get that jump starter for you, and it's going to require a lot of water. About one to two leaders is generally what people will say. So it's hard to have that much with you on hand when you're out there protesting, but if you're able to, I feel like water is one of the more important things you can bring with you.
Yeah, So to the thing about the baby shampoo. First of all, Yeah, I think the recommendation with that is to wash the skin around the eyes with the baby shampoo, not not directly in the eyes, but that that's like a less harsh way of removing the chemicals from the skin there, because you would definitely wash skin with soap and water, but I could see maybe using like a
gentler soap directly around the eyes. That makes sense as far as like my technique with doing an eyeflush in the streets, a continual twenty minute irrigation just is not feasible.
Now.
Sometimes at big actions, you know, medics will set up clinic space, says Tens, stuff like that, and occasionally very Occasionally you can do the like true gold standard of eye irrigation, which is twenty minutes of continual saline irrigation, where you like have a bag of saline like in a hospital and you plug it into a nasal canula and you tape that to the bridge of the nose and just let the person lie down. That works, but
like it's just not feasible in most street situations. So what I do is I will basically I'll put on gloves. I will get consent, because you know, anytime you're treating somebody who's been brutalized by the police, you are like you are treating an assault victim, and you should prioritize their consent as much as you can. So I, you know, do a quick like, hey, what's up. My name's Miriam,
I'm a medic. Can I help you. I guide them out of the area of immediate danger if they can't see, and then I flush first one eye twice, and then I have them blink a whole bunch, and then the other eye twice, and I have them blink a whole bunch, and then they're usually able to open their eyes and navigate safely on their own. Sometimes they need another round with that, especially if I didn't you know, if I missed, you know, if it's dark and there things are moving
around and I miss the eye or something. But usually that gets enough out that they are going to be able to navigate the situation. And because they are tearing a lot, that's part of the flush too, right, the body is doing that on its own and flushing too much with water. I think in that initial moment, you're just washing away tears at that point, so doing like a first round of like forceful of forceful flush. You know, you're really like using a forceful stream to push the
chemicals out. And then Okay, their eyes are open, they're still in pain, and like that's just gonna last for a while. Your eyes are going to continue to hurt, and like that sucks. You've been harmed. Somebody did a harmful thing to you, and you are going and to continue to have pain for a little while. But if you can see that, your immediate danger is reduced and you can get out of there, and you can, you know, in a calmer moment, maybe do another couple eye flushes.
Maybe you know, use soap and water on the face, clean up a little bit and like be a little bit happier with how you feel. But my priority in the immediate moments after somebody's been spread is to like help them so that they can get out of there if they need to, because they probably do.
Yeah.
Yeah, well, speaking of things that will make you tear up, I'm sorry, I'm terrible commercials stay tube will be right back, beautiful.
All right, we are back, and I guess let's talk about rubber bullets of various impagnations, and then let's talk about how people actions people can take to keep themselves a little bit safe. Right, understanding that you are not the one who gets to choose if violence arrives at your protest. The cops are. And we're recording this on Sunday, like date in June, and people had their big No Kings March yesterday. They were largely like extremely nonviolent, and
they still got attacked by the cops in La. So let's talk about impact munitions.
Right.
One thing we didn't mention actually was pepper balls. I've had the a combo, yeah right, I've had the ill fortune and receiving some pepper balls in the balls. Oh yeah, very uncomfortable. Cops will try and shoot you in the groin.
I had a colleague who encountered this just a few days ago.
I'm sorry they fucking like, there's no.
Yeah, it happens with such frequency that you'd have to be really trying to believe that it was an accident. So let's talk about things that can hit you, right, if we start with pepper balls and then move on up to like what people call rubber bullets, which I think baton rounds is like a more technical description of what they are, or marker rounds for a big foam or rubber things that hit you. Sometimes they leave a little puff of chalk on you, and theory like that
identifies you for the cops to arrest you. I guess in practice it's just another thing that they can use to smash into you. But let's talk about some of the things that the cops can shoot from their little guns. Bean backgrounds is another one, right, that comes out of a shotgun, and it's what it sounds like, right, It's a bean bag traveling very fast. Somebody here in San Diego lost their eye to one of those in twenty twenty.
But let's talk about some of these impact munitions and like what the potential risks are for people there.
Yeah, I think that.
I mean, just the one point I want to bring up in terms of these they're often called in the media non lethal or quote unquote less lethals. Yeah, and I think that what's really important to recognize, and you kind of already hinted do with James, people have been killed with rubber bullets, plastic bullets.
We actually have.
Amnesty International did a report in twenty twenty three that you know, showed that over the course of about five years, you know, dozens of people have died as a result.
Of the use of rubber bullets.
We showed that between nineteen seventy two to nineteen eighty nine, just in Ireland, sixteen people were killed. In Palestine, between eighty seven and ninety three, twenty people died just from the use of rubber bullets. And you know, that's reports. We don't know how many in truth actually were impacted by that.
Yeah.
I would also add to the British Medical Journal back in twenty seventeen looked at about two thousand little bit or two thousand people who had been affected by these projectiles, and three percent actually did cause immediate mortality and then fifteen percent was long term chronic injury or illness or some sort of being maimed from the event. So, yeah, you're exactly right. It's pretty significant, especially with the number
of these that are shot. You know, they don't have to keep record about how many of these they shoot. So Actually, one other question I have for you, Richard, that you could help answer to one in LA did you see them shooting these things and you would kind of allude to that you felt that they were actually directing them towards you. Did you feel that, being there as a medical professional, that you were being targeted.
I myself was fortunate and not hit by a rubber bullet. From witnessing my colleagues who were actually there present at this protest, they themselves were hit with HERR bullets below the navel. He had previous experience from an earlier protest that week where he had actually been struggling. The thing he told me that I remember is like, I'm never going to one.
Of these things.
I'm prepared again. Yeah, because he did have that situation where he was kind of hit closer to the groin, So we ended up wearing I remember he was wearing a kind of a fanny pack for this particular protest that we were at, and you could very clearly see the dust marks, like the chalk marks of their bullets struck on this on his on his fanny pack. Yeah, you know, it's it's it's definitely something that we noticed.
Many of the other medics at this event commented that they had been previously struck or targeted once they the police began firing rubber bullets. As far as we we, fortunately we didn't see anybody who was struck, you know, closer to the face. But there were reports after the No King's protest yesterday that you know, several people had
been struck in the eye or on the forehead. There was one picture, i think earlier from earlier this week, that one of the reporters in downtown La had been struck with a non lethal foam round directly in his forehead and it was this you could see this very clear, enormous wealth the size of like a grapefruit, Yeah, and bleeding, and it was it was you know, very clearly like aiming above at the face.
In these cases.
Yeah, there was a huge number during the Chilean protests in twenty nineteen, twenty twenty, eye injuries were huge. There were hundreds. There's a there's a club somewhere of journalists who've lost eyes to rubber bullets. I think they call themselves the Cyclops Club or something. They're writers, they you know. But yeah, like, these things are incredibly dangerous, and eye injuries especially are really common. They are less lethal only in that it is less likely to kill you than
being shot with live ammunition. But like most things are less likely to kill you than live ammunia.
Grizzly barry is less likely to kill you.
My friend Rebecca Watson says, you know, samurai blade is less lethal than AK forty seven, but it's still not something you want them to have to use against you.
Ideal if you weren't being attacked doing what is a constitutionally protected rate in the US. Hey, everyone, I just wanted to record a little pick up here to explain a little bit more I guess about forty millimeter and thirty seven millimeter less lethal projectiles. They are sometimes called baton rounds that I saw baton round written on the Safari land thirty seven millimeters one, but they are not the same as the baton rounds. You will have seen
British military using in Northern Ireland. Most of the modern ones that I am aware of are not designed to be skipped off the ground, albeit there deserately are, or at least were rubber bullets that were designed to be skipped off the ground at one point. The use of a bullet made of rubber that's fired out of a conventional rifle is very rare. In the United States, there are things called simmunitions, which are munitions fire out of a conventional rifle using a different bolt, and they are
generally used for simulated force on force training. You can think about it like going paintballing, but with regular guns orbit with a bolt that makes it so you can't load live ammunition into that gun while it's set up for simmunitions. Those will use extensively. I believe in Columbia identified some simmunition casings. I've not seen those used by police anywhere in the United States. What the LAPD uses
is a forty millimeter exact impact round. It has a plastic body and a sponge nosed and that is designed to be point of an point of impact right, so shot at someone like you would.
Shoot a gun at somebody.
There are other leslethos in use even in LA I saw a thirty seven millimeter Safari land round. I saw FN three H three's, which is like seventeen millimeter. I saw pepper balls, various different versions of leslethal munitions, but most of the ones that I'm aware of in twenty twenty five are designed for point of a point of impact. They're also extremely dangerous, and as we've said here, they
can kill you. It's wanting to clarify that, So like, yeah, these things are dangerous, right, like they have caused serious
injury or death. Let's assume for a minute that like the folks listening have not attended many actions before, right that they are right, they're younger or like they just haven't been in that world in that part of their life, and they've seen what's happening recently, and they're pissed off and they want to attend, but they're afraid, right, and they want to know what they can do, what they can bring, how they can prepare themselves in the understanding
that like, it isn't one hundred percent safe because the cops can decide to attack you whenever they want. What can people bring? How can people prepare to be as safe as they can be.
Bring water, I mean not just the eyeflushes, but like bring snacks and water. Like you're going to be out there for a while, you need to keep yourself going. You need to keep your friends going. Bring friends like be there with somebody who is going to watch your back, somebody who knows a number for like your emergency contact, you know, if you get grabbed stuff like that, especially if you're new to the It's like, try not to run alone.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, even if it's like just hooking up with people when you get there.
You know.
Yeah, I've been at a protest that was starting to look scary and a woman turned to me and said, I'm here alone. Are you here alone? And I said yeah, and she said, now we're here together, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, which is beautiful.
It's a good place to make friends.
It's a very like honest feeling to have. I mean, you're seeing for the problem for many people is probably the first time that you're seeing someone aiming a project out at you and am aiming a firearm at you and firing. So yeah, you know, there's a good reason to feel worried. That's like the fact that we have to worry about that in this country period is you know, it's very chilling. I think that, you know, Miriam mentioned
it bringing friends is really important. Something else that like we've talked about in circles in LA I think is like really understanding going in What is the amount of risk that you are willing to take entering into these spaces I think is extraordinarily important. I think of my colleagues who were at the UCLA protests earlier during the
Palestine movement. Yeah, they kind of asked the question like they kind of framed it in like green light, yellow light, red light, Like in terms of green meaning like I'm okay with you know, whatever risks might be involved, like as far as like what my understanding of what this protest could entail, yellow being like I'm I'm not prepared to go so far as to be arrested, but I'm willing to be present on record if necessary, serve as a witness for my other colleagues who are going to
be in this space. Red meaning you know, I'm not necessarily prepared at this point to go that far. I don't I want to support, but I also don't want to get arrested. And I think it's important to like, you know, recognize that not necessarily shame other people in terms of like where they're at in this.
Yeah, yeah, understand Yeah, absolutely, because because everybody comes at this from different places.
I think it's really important, like when you're in these spaces to like, you know, kind of understand the risk of the other people who are alongside you, because if you're a medic and you're trying to treat other people and then you have all of a sudden you're by yourself because the other people are like, well, I you know, this is what I sign up for out Yeah, that is also scary, even if you're you know, you're very willing to be there.
Yeah.
So I think just having those conversations and planning more than anything, planning, planning, and planning is extraordinarily important.
Yeah.
I think that's very well said, great points, and everyone has a different level of risk. And just to be totally clear for our listeners, there was over two thousand different protests yesterday and there was the minimal amount of violence and they were all peaceful. For the protesters were the vast, vast, vast majority peaceful and things went fine, and some like the one I attended was actually kid friendly,
so there was it was a safe place. But particularly in certain places, there's always a small chance, if not large, and depending on the police presence there, that things could go the wrong way, and it is something to keep in mind. So I particularly like your point regarding everyone has a different level of risk and that's okay, you're still contributing.
I'm not.
I mean, I'm not a place myself where I'm planning on getting arrested. That's just not something I want to do. But I would like to protest that I would like to support.
In along those lines.
What are ways that other people who have medical backgrounds could potentially contribute or support.
You in terms of the ways that like medics can
you know, respond in these situations. I think for me, I have you know, a box of medical equipment that I want to go to bring on site, like I'm obviously like and said, I'm bringing water because that's going to be foremost like my most useful tool to help anybody who's going to be affected by things like that, like to your desk, you know, as far as other things like having extra masks, I think is really really important, you know, because it's a huge way of reducing respiratory
exposure to the aerosols that are going to be in the air. And then eye protection, eye protection, eye protection. Now, the thing about like, you know, we've seen different types of protection for your eyes that are effective. We've seen goggles being used like the ones that you would you would see in a lab. They're not actually effective unless you close the sides the vents with tape because otherwise the aerosols actually can still get inside the mask and
irritate your eyes. So if you are going to be like bringing that type of eye protection, it's important to think about that. There's like some higher end, you know, more effective tools that provide both eye protection and helping to filter particles. Just using a basic goggle mask with the vents covered in an N ninety five for just about anybody, I think is a useful tool. So having those types of supplies for people who need them is helpful for sure.
And as far as like a really low risk thing that people with medical training can do is show up to jail support, because that's like that is a huge way you can help not just people who are arrested, but anybody coming out of jail is by doing jail support, and what that entails is hanging out where people get released. People will usually bring food, drinks, clothes, shoelaces. People often get out without shoelaces, belts, and like a couple of you know, extra layers of clothes if people get let
out and it's cold, and check out people's injuries. Often people will be taken to the hospital during processing if they have something that the police can't ignore. But people often get released with injuries and it can be really good to have somebody there who can evaluate them. Honestly, it's often just giving them like a judgment call on do you think this needs somebody else to take a look at it, you know, in a professional environment, or can I put some ice on it and go home?
Type thing. And almost everybody getting out of jail has handcuff injuries if they were arrested in a mass arrest because in mass arrest situations, cops tend to use the plastic zip tizes, which can get incredibly tight, even more so than metal handcuffs, which have a little bit a little length of chain. They strain the shoulders, especially larger people,
especially if somebody has a bag on their back. Cops will often cuff them in such a way that the bag pushes on their hands and makes the cuffs increasingly tight. And having a medical professional or a street medic or even somebody who's like just there to like take a look and be like, yeah, man, I see that that's really fucked up that they did that to you. I'm so sorry can be useful. Having somebody there to witness
and acknowledge and to document. If somebody is planning on doing something with that, you know, then that's important too. So if you cannot be arrested, find out what's happening with jail, support and go support them because that's chill, that's calm now. I mean, there are no guarantees in this world but now, but it is far more likely to be chill and calm. Yeah, and you can hang out and eat snacks. Oh and this is the one
situation where medically speaking, bring cigarettes. People want cigarettes when they get out of jail, and they deserve a fucking cigarette. Is it good for them?
No?
I know, I just am sorry. I hate cigarettes so much. I listen. I'm not going to say you can't, but I will never give someone a cigarette. It goes against things I just can't listen. There's certain lines I will draw as a doctor. One I have to help everybody even if I don't like them. Two, I can't give them cigarettes even if I like them. So I just can't. Those are two things I can't bring myself to do. The cigarette one really adjusts me crazy, but I get it.
In that case, maybe bring some cards for whatever your local public transit is, or failing that, you know, have some cash on hand to send people home in a taxi or have somebody who standing by with a car to help people get home. Stuff like that that's really important for jail support, perhaps even more than a cigarette.
Yeah, I would add that.
Another thing you can do if you're medically like a medical professional. Especially it's helped other people learn really big sic skills. You don't even have to be at a protest, right, it could be a week later. There are medical professionals who do street medic training. You can teach people stop the bleed in a day and potentially save someone's life.
And so if it's something that you you know, are skilled enough to teach, and you need to be honest about whether you're skilled enough to teach that or not, you know if you've watched a for you YouTube videos and you're not, that's something you could use to really help other people who are who are going to be there at a time when you're not comfortable or safe
being there. I guess for the end of the show to wrap up, if people are just attending to be fucking mad and there are a lot of people who are fucking mad right now, what should they bring? And if people want to access training right like, what are some some resources that you would suggest. What are some types of training in terms of like first aid that people can access, so that people should access if they're the thinking of attending these things and they're worried.
I mean, I think in terms of the type of first aid that you need to be really conscious of, especially in any any type of like event where you're going to be with a lot of people and you're going in as a medic. And this isn't just for protests. I think it's for any type of event. We do live in a world where unfortunately there is a lot of mass shootings. Even if they're firing rubber bullets, we don't know who else may also attend, who may also be going with the intention of being violent, So I
mean you mentioned it yourself, stopped the bleed. Having basic understanding of how to what types of on the field. First aid should be done. For individuals who have got received a gunshot wound, I think is really important if they've been struck by a car. We've already seen earlier this this weekend that there were shootings in I believe
in a couple of different cities. It's I'm missing which one unfortunately happened, but I do know of at least one report of a tesla being driven into a crowd of protesters this weekend, So it was, Yeah, if.
I get killed by a tesla, I'm going to be so fucking mad.
Indignity.
That is actually the thing that concerns me the most most protest is some actor coming in from outside to do something like that. That part really does concern me, especially because so many of these are, are, like I mentioned, kind of family friendly, and they should be. I think families for the most part, should be able to come to these things. So that is something that I'm always constantly on the lookout for.
Yeah, cause fucking scammy, like I experienced car bombs in my career, but also just like cause. Driving into crowds of course undult damage and Americans do be loving large cause and the cops won't stop them.
Like, at least in La.
My experience with the cars were kind of in and out the whole time, and that did not make me feel secure.
We had one individual who was stood in front of a van that was carrying ice agents and that person essentially got run over them in that situation, I know they were not at all stopping for.
That because it's a big risk, Like I guess with that in mind, one thing I think about sometimes and these things is like you don't want to be going into this, like like traumatizing yourself by doing this. But a degree of situational when is to include what are my points of cover and what are my ways out?
Is good to have.
Yeah, it helps, It helps me feel safeer anyway.
Yeah, And that's another huge reason to always run with a buddy, right because if you're running with a buddy especially, I mean I think I personally think that if you are doing medical stuff, you should always have a buddy just because if you're going to be stopped and like somebody's got to watch your back and like it's and you know you might need a second opinion. You can
call in that buddy for a consult. You know, the Medic collective that I that I run with On really big action days, we'll put together like little bingo cards that will distribute to all the Medic buddy pairs as a situational awareness game. So like, if we're all rolling out to this, you know, to a big, big action, we'll put like they'll be squares for like a cop who clearly is not awake, or your ex or you know, a person who forgot sunscreen, or you know, just just
things to look out for. Yeah, and I think honestly like making a little bit of a game like that if you're going to be out all day can be kind of fun. And it also makes you keep looking. It makes you not just look down at your feet as you as you march another mile, you know.
Yeah.
Please, a's another great reminder. Please prepare for the weather, prepare for the elements. Bring water, bring sunscreen, bring hats, all that stuff.
Sunscreen can trap the chemical irritant next to your skin. I like to wear a sun hoodie like you can get hoodies with a SPF. I am a palass person, right some of you can see.
Me for listeners. It is indeed true.
I was gonna say, is that sun hoodie? Why you in no way have a watch tan?
Yeah?
Okay, yeah, friends, trends can see my absolutely brutal tan right now, absurdly white. When I was a bike racer, I used to have the logos of my sponsors burned into my back and that was cool and normal. That's unsettling, yeah right, yeah, yeah, that was a political moment for me. Actually, yeah, I like to wear sun hoodie because sunscreen it can trap irritants against your skin. But if it's a creamy kind, right,
I think after point it absorbs and it doesn't. But I've definitely experienced that kind of paste on your skin kind of situation. Interesting, some of the nalist like injuries I've seen have been heat related at protests. If you're organizing a protest, don't send it straight up a fucking hill, like I just don't let like like go easy on people.
You know, the people will be bringing a lot of stuff and they have science and stuff like the might whether comfy shoes, like could go easy on them with the with the hill climbing, and then because you're doing it in the middle of the day often as well, like you know, don't hurt people, Richard. I know you were going to mention somebody else.
The thing I was trying to mention this is this is less so for i'd say ems non physician individuals. Actually, before the podcast, I had a chance to talk with one of the regional vice presidents for CIR, the Physicians Union that I was formerly a part of when I was in my.
Residency, Kayla.
She has a lot of experience being involved in protests and street medicine, and the thing that she likes to mention is like, physicians have a tendency to want to do a lot in a moment, and so Miry mentioned situational awareness. I think situational awareness is extremely important. Being able to know when you have the time to do a certain intervention versus when it's time to get this person out of here and to a safer place, I
think is like very very important. Yay, so less does more in these situations, is what I would say, is pretty important.
Yeah. Yeah, Well.
The thing I do like as a journalist primarily not a visual one, I often work with photographers right as a two person team. I have been a photographer protest in the past, and your world is very small than that viewfinder, and it's kind of the same. If you're helping someone right who's injured, that becomes your whole shit. I will have my physically have my hand on my photographer a lot of the time on their back right, and if they need to start moving backwards, I am
going to start moving them backwards. Obviously, you don't want to leave someone who's hurt, but like if you're the buddy, it's good to be that close to the person who's providing care so that you can have a way out if you need to have a way out.
This was so incredibly useful and helpful and insightful. We appreciate both of you coming on. Let's close up here. What I would like to do is not only plug something for yourselves, but what I'd like to hear and our listeners actually enjoy, is to hear something that's bringing you some joy in these times. Some piece of media, art, film, book, podcast, anything, you name it, a good restaurant that you really love. You want to give a shout out to whatever it is,
something that's bringing you a little bit of joy. So let's do those two things. Marian, Let's start with you. What can we plug and what's something that's bringing you some joy?
So thank you for having me on. This was delightful. So I will plug Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness, which is the collective that I'm a part of. You can find us at Tangled Wilderness on Blue Sky and Instagram and nowhere else. And we have a website which is Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness. We have a Patreon, all
that stuff. But the main thing I want to tell you about those guys over there is that James and I did a podcast recently for the show Lives Like the World is Dying on protest health and safety, and we go really in detail on specifics of gear, specifics of first aid techniques, and I think people should maybe check it out if they're if they're going to be out there.
We'll put it in the show note.
Yeah, because we're professional podcasters like that.
You can crazy on it to make it happen here if you'd like to find the show notes.
Right. Wait, Miriam, So what's the thing that's bringing you joy? Oh? I have remember that, Joey.
I'm familiar with the concept. I have been rewatching the Shira and the Princesses of Power cartoon.
Wow, nice, love it. What about Jim? She is outrageous.
You know they didn't read make that as an overtly queer Netflix series, so I have had less exposure to it. But you know, cartoon sword lesbians can't argue with it.
Yeah, that sounds pretty awesome, all right, Rachel? What about you?
As far as something to plug, A huge pleasure of being able to work on Blue Sky helping to put together the med Sky feeds. So if you're on Blue Sky, be sure to subscribe to our labeler so that way you can get your medical specialty on your accounts and you can get your posts on one of our forty
different feeds. And then also as a Latino, I can't leave the podcast without mentioning also we are working on Latin Sky and it's the amount of latinidad and joy that I've been seeing on that feed over the last few days, despite the pain, it's been very inspiring. So I think that's like the plug that I want to put out there. And as far as the thing that brings me joy right now, I like I was torn. I heard it like a bunch of people have already plugged, and or so.
I'm not gonna plug, and or you can.
You Yeah, you know, I'm gonna I'm gonna give some love to Ryan Coogler's Sinners, which.
Is easily one of them movies.
I have seen in at least the last five years. It is an extraordinary movie. Every everything about that movie.
Is like art.
I just hope that Ryan Cooler can just make original movies for the rest of his life and that he doesn't have to like be stuck doing franchise stuff, because when he's just given a canvas, he he makes beautiful, beautiful art.
Yeah, right on, right on.
That's for so James, what about what about you?
What we plug? What can you plug? For you? What can I plug?
That was a hot dog guy who went on the freeway in Los Angeles when everyone else went on the freeway. So that person's a fucking hero. I would let you know if you're if you're in the I'm vegan, so you know, maybe the bun. But for the rest of you, get after it. You know you can. You can listen to my podcast. You may be already are It could
happen here if you haven't listened. It would mean a lot to me if you had listened to the podcast I made in the Daddian Gap last year when I traveled with migrants who were on their way to the United States. Those people and those their stories are really
important to me. So if you would listen to one thing I ever made, it would be that you can find it by searching Dadien where Dreams Die, and then it could happen here podcast and it will come up unless you're using a really shit search engine a Google has been even more fucked by AI. And then, in terms of stuff that gives me joy, recently, I have
been listening to like the music of the anti apartheid movement. Again, I kind of when I was a very young person, my sort of first exposure to activism was through people who had resisted apartheid in South Africa, and they were very inspiring to me, and they still are very inspiring
to me. I listened to that music with them, right, Like apartheid, to be clear, ended when I was eight years old, but like it was cool because it seemed like at that point the good guys were winning, right, and so here we fucking are Anyway, I listened to that because it.
Reminds me that they always lose in the end.
So yeah, I enjoy like like the Specials and Eddie Grant and even the incredibly eclectic sun City album.
Great choices, Great choices.
And for if you happen to be listening on the House of Pod, you've heard James come and talk about the Darien Gap. That was a really amazing story and it resonated with a lot of listeners, and you should listen to the full multi part series that he put out on that if it's so much better, So please do that for me. If you happen to be listening on it could happen here. Listen to the House of Pod.
You like it.
You'll hear James and lots of people you already know love and meet some new people. And you'll hear us make fun of medical grifters in the wellness community and that sort of.
Thing as well members of the Cabinet. And I can't believe it. Yeah boy.
As for the thing that's bringing me joy, I recently had a chance to expose my kids on a long drive to the work of Jeff Buckley, who is for you younger listeners out there, you may not know who he was because he unfortunately passed away when he was only thirty. But he was really a once in a generation talent who was a voice. His songwriting transcended different genres. There was rock, there's jazz, there was folk. He could span
a vocal range that just really is amazing. And you only had one studio album, Grace, but it is amazing and highly recommend that or really any of his live album's, Mystery White Boy, They're all fantastic. His cover of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah is the best version of it in my opinion. I will fight you. I will fight you. If you say rufus waynewright better, I will physically fight you. So it's just raw and beautiful and I hope you guys
check it out if you haven't already. Last thing I will plug June twenty eighth, if you happen to be in the Bay Area, my band will be playing at the Hotel Utah in San Francisco. It is one of my favorite places to watch or play music and it's just super fun. Come up and say hi, and we'll chat and we'll maybe share a drink.
If we have time. Okay, thank you all so much. Thanks James. This was fun. Huh, Yeah, that was fun. It was beautiful. I had a nice time. Let's do it again.
Okay, bye, hello, and welcome to it could happen here.
I'm here once again with it's James again.
Great to talk to you again, James.
Yeah, likewise, glad to be here.
You know, I spend a lot of time thinking about the world and how it works and all that jazz, and I.
Assume you do as well.
I do, yeah, yeah, increasingly worrying about the word.
Yeah.
This place, this home is quite the puzzle. And much like a puzzle, it has been carved up and divided in so many different ways, sliced, labeled, ranked, and measured from all kinds of different angles. And that's really what I'm interested in talking about today, the different ways that we try to explain the differences we see on the
global stage. So going from the concept of civilized and primitive, to the East and West binary, to the imagined communities called nations, to the clash of quote unquote civilizations, to the concept of first, second, and third worlds, to the development spectrum, to the global North and global South, then finally to the core and the periphery. So we have a lot of ground to cover in this episode.
Yeah, I really like this stuff. Like as a historian, like we're always kind of forced into certain divisions, right, Like even when you apply to you to your funding, right like you're normally in like a geographical area, or like you're trying to shoehorn something that's just interesting into one of these boxes that gets funding. And I think like often that impacts how we see the world, so we have to write with that goal.
Absolutely absolutely. I find the way that we approach the telling of history so fascinating And in another life maybe I would have been historia.
I never I can recommend it. Yeah, yeah, it's I enjoy the doing of history. It's the doing of academia that I don't enjoy so much.
So I suppose as a historian, I'm going to ask you a discomforting question. Great, would you consider yourself civilized or primitive?
Oh? That's a fun one.
I don't know, Like I don't like that binary because I think it's it's a value statement, right, And I think, like James Scott talks about this, Actually this is a really interesting I've had this. James Scott right talks about the idea of people who exist outside of the state being labeled as primitive by the state. It's in the art of not being governed, and that that's sort of
the narrative there. The inherent message is that the state is the final and superior form of human organizing and people who have chosen to exist outside it are not because they chose to, but because they haven't made it there yet. And of course Scott problematized that suggests that maybe it's a choice, not a failure to accede to that civilization. And it's a concept that like young Burmese fighters have echoed back to me, I don't.
Think they're aware of James C.
Scott if I'm being honest, but they they will say to me, like when, because when they left the cities to live with the ethnic revolutionary organizations there, they had always been told that the reason those people lived outside of the Burmese state was because they were primitive, violent, But then they came to live and fight alongside them,
and they were like, no, these are a family. They were brothers and sisters and siblings, and like they want the same thing as us, Like they're not primitive, they just don't want the state. So I guess in that sense, I would want to be labeled as primitive too. I think the primitive people are doing cool shit and then the civilized people are not.
Yeah, yeah, I mean that's one of I think one of the one you're in Global binary is one of the oldest. Yeah, you'd hear that sign of that kind of just position or civilized and primitive or civilized and barbarians.
Yeah.
You know, in ancient Rome you see that distinction between the civilized Roman citizens and the barbarian other.
Yeah.
And in that instance, and in a lot of instance, it's just used as this ideological tool.
Just at superiority. Definitely. Yeah.
Like, I think we have to be really careful as his story about these assumptions that we make. It's always we love to make a lot of assumptions about revolutions too, And I would wager that I've attended more revolutions and many of my academic colleagues, and I think many of those are grounded in the truths that people accept as truths without ever testing them. And like, I think this sort of civilized barbarian one, it's kind of the same like that.
Yeah, it's a classic one. I mean, do you know where the word barbarian even comes from.
Isn't it the language thing? Like, because I didn't speak is it Latin? They were just going like bar ba?
Is that right?
Yeah, it's because of what you know, Rome did this all the time, where they just borrowed, will say, from what the Greeks were doing. Yeah, so in Greek, barbaros meant anyone who did not speak Greek. Okay, as the Romans just kind of took that and expanded to talk about anybody who wasn't on their whole wave of urban planning and you know, codified legal systems, the philosophy, the education they are at, all of that stuff.
Yeah.
Yeah, the Barbarians didn't have those those refinements, right, Yeah, you know, but of course the relationship between the two is not so simple, right because the later on in Roman history, as you'd know, Barbarians quote unquote were incorporated slowly into the state and became very useful armies and a reserve full of labor and all these different things for what Roman was trying to do with the expantship.
Yeah, and luckily contemporary American right has been very normal about that, and it isn't using that for like it's sort of eugenic eugenic agenda right now.
Yeah, very very much eugenics VI these days.
Yeah, where my father lives is right on the border between England and Scotland and you can visit Hadrian's Wall. I rode my bike all along it a couple of years ago.
Oh yeah.
It's like a fun edge of empire kind of thought experiment, like you beyond this line of the barbarians or uncivilized people today, it's like unremarkable, like like it's literally it keeps some people sheep in their fields at points along.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Yeah, like some stones kind of piled on top of each other and it's kind of an unremarkable novelty. But it's funny to think that at one point there was this binary world, right and they felt that the outside was so dangerous to them that they had to provide a physical barrier, something we're still doing.
Indeed, and as we're speaking of walls, by the way, this reminds me of another major empire where this sort of dichotomy was a curtain. You know, it wasn't just taking place in the Mediterranean bull you had and of course ancient China.
This whole identity.
Constructed around these moral and cultural and political ideals.
Of course, you had the.
Whole Confucianism, Taoism, a legalist thought all shape and what it meant to be, you know, conducting yourself properly and in a civilized manner. And so those who did not ascribe to those ideals would have been people who were labeled barbarians, often the people on the other side of the Great Wall.
Yeah, we are the United States is literally doing the exact same thing, right, Like we're building a giant wall and labeling other ring the people on the other side of it.
Yeah, you definitely see the genealogy there. Yeah, but I think there's a closer genealogy we could draw upon for that particular reference, though, which is how later European empires would appropriate the Roman civilized Baberian binary to justify their assimilation and extermination and colonialism.
Definitely one of the things I I like to do, even with the you know, the United States and it's in formal empire, right, Like I love to show my students cartoons, like political cartoons, like there's one of the White Man's Burden, which like distill.
You know, sometimes the picture is worth a thousand words.
But it distills that whole binary so well in it in a way that seems like repugnant to most of
my students today. I guess, I don't know, maybe maybe folks are moving back that way, but like the imagery and the distinction between the way or even like Lewis and Clark when they're addressing the indigenous people they meet and calling them children, right like like this this binary distinction is so it's so apparent, and like, I don't know, it seems so outlandish, I think to most folks today, maybe, but then we do similar things, I guess in uh,
you know, it just slightly most subtle ways sometimes.
Yeah, exactly. I mean when you look at what was taking place with the Enlightenment and that whole development of this particular order, it's deeped in these particular values with the European culture was the ideal standard, and everything that
did not measure up to that standard was barbarical. Primative is just that has never really gone away, you know, and it continues to be used to justify the domination of Western powers, particularly in the way that they've instilled these European norms and practices across the world when it comes to things like relation to the land, when it comes to things like the divisions between people, between genders, all these things, all these attitudes that are now so widespread,
originated from in part, this elevation of one above the other. And speaking of I mentioned that we'd western there, and that's really another way that we've sort of maintained this binary in a different course of pain, although it's not quite the same. So there's this sort of lingering framework of the notion of the East and the west. Right in the ancient times, it was China versus Rome. These days it's probably China versus America.
China really is that old?
Yeah, yeah, and okay, this is probably a very probably very gen z reference for me to make. But I don't know if you've seen these edits circulated on social media of the Chinese president Chichin Ping going like buzzer Beijing, and then there's like a whole bunch of like skyscrapers and like like hardcore like electronic music edited to show like all these advanced ones, and people in the comments are saying things like be China do nothing win.
I have not seen those.
Yeah, yeah, that's definitely dating me a little bit in terms of my social media diet. But yeah, just seeing the dynamic between China, or between the East and the West, the Orient and the Occident, to use an older term, it's just another way that we've created this sort of boundary between people that either on one side or the other, there's a necessary tension between the two.
You know.
This concept of the Orient and Orientalism is something that would side identified famously as something that was constructed by the West as an exotic, irrational, decadent, and dangerous place. And so that whole dualistic narrative was then put into the imperial project to legitimizet domination and to position the East as a passive subject without a voice of their
own and constant need of Western intervention and guidance. So this West becomes this sort of stage for modernity and science and region and progress, this whole idea of the protagonist of history and the orients the East. They're the primitive,
I guess, side of that binary. Although unlike the civilized primitive binary or civilized barbarian binnary of old I think while there could have been racial components to it in the past, this one is more explicitly racial and geographic in its division, because I mean, in ancient Rome, anybody
could essentially become a Roman citizen. You know, it wasn't necessarily racially, you know, pure area and sense that a lot of New Nazis and stuff today like to look back at that period as you had a quieter diversity of phenotypes in the Roman Empire. But you know, when you come to this orient and occident dichotomy, it's it's very much racialized. You know, a lot of times when people talk about the Western Wold, it really tends to be I guess a more politically correct way of seeing
the White Wold. Yes, at least in my observation.
Yeah, yeah, definitely that's often the subtext.
Because I mean that's something I've always struggled with, pin and down right, because why isn't Brazil considered part of the West? You know, why isn't Mexico considered part of the West?
Right?
What will we west of? Like? Like what it's not even it's not the Western hemisphere like as you say.
Yeah, I mean Western Fami to say is more straightforward, but is it? Because there are too many colored people in Mexico and in Brazil.
It seems to be, right, like, it's not even countries strongly from Western Europe was strongly impacted by settler colonialism from Western Europe. Because the entirety of Latin America is impact.
And they should be included, but they're not.
That they're not.
Yeah, yeah, and it yeah, it's I've always struggled with that one. Other than the neoliberal, capitalist white countries. It's it's it's what people don't want to say.
And Japan sometimes yeah yeah, Japan, yeah yeah, Amber of the Club.
Yeah, or like sometimes also not Spain. This is a particular like bug Bury, I guess of Spanish history.
Really, I don't think I've seen enough one.
Yeah, for years, like literally you would be excluded from European history, like like Africa starts at the Pyrenees.
It's a sort of phrase that needs to be used. Hilarious.
Yeah, Like I guess it compounded because Spain was so isolated under Franco, right, but like, yeah, that this they called it the black legend that like Spain does not belong to Europe and and it's not again it's racialized, right, it's because Spain had this exchange with the Muslim world right,
and like that that culture deeply impacted Spanish culture. And even after the Conquista, it's like it's like you know, the French historian, so we're just like, nah, you guys are tainted, like you, you don't get to come back.
It's kind of a similar situation with the territory. So the former Artoman Empire as well, technically part of Europe and yet you know, maligned in some way.
Yeah, yeah, a little bit less than Still, it's like you'll have too much, too much Turkish to watch Muslim influence.
You all got a.
Yeah, you need like a thousand years to decompress before we let you back in.
Yeah.
I mean honestly, if the Pope wasn't based in Italy, I'm sure Italy would have a similar dynamic. I mean, Italy is a recent construction, right in terms of as a country. Ye, but only look at the two Sicilies for example, that was under North African rule for a significant period of its history. But let me not get too far off track. One way, we're one more tangent, and that is I'm far from being a Dungist by any means, or a Maurist or anything of that nature.
But there is something to be said for the way that the East of the Orient has been sidelined, marginalized, treat it us lesser than for so long, and now they're at a point where their geopolitical sway has to be respected.
Yeah, I'm not.
Rooting for them by any means. I'm not one of those people is like, yeah, multipolar world. I would rather we have no poles, you know, as an anarchist.
Yeah, yeah, I do know what you mean.
But it's like it's a bit of shodding for it, I guess.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it is, you know, ironic in a but yeah, not necessarily in a good way. Like I've just seen Ji Jimping meeting with Minan Plang, the dictator of Miamma today, and I'm like, I'm not excited for that pole of the world.
Not at all, not at all. Yeah.
I feel the same way about the way that the Sahel Federation has kind of kicked out France. I'm like, yeah, stickt to France. But also military huinteras.
You know, Yeah, yeah, like the rebranded Wagner Core now.
Like yeah, and the the collaboration close collaborations Russia. But you know, a lot of this thing is really a lot of these relationships, these geopistical relationships are so opportunistic. It's all opportunistsm Yeah. End of the day, they don't really they're not really necessarily guided by principles.
Yeah, like the difference I guess between like, for instance, I you know, I've been thinking a lot about anarchist at war, right, and people go and fight in other people's to depend other people, right, like like the the people who went to Rajava to fight, people who went to Mima to fight. Like there's a difference between doing something out of a sense of solidarity and doing something get root opportunitiesm And like that always shows itself in the end.
Yeah.
I mean the Wagon Group's involvement in Africa is the most blatant capitalists dravn opportunism.
Yeah. These people are not there for the anti colonials that are like.
Standing with the oppressed peoples of the world. Yeah.
Yeah, like watching the Battle of Algaeis and setting off to immediately liberate the people of Africa.
Literal mercenaries right yeah. Yeah, But getting back onto the main topic, talking about all these ways we divvy up the world out of the linguistic and cultural and geographical differences that we observe around us came this concept of nations, right. Nation as an idea also came out of the European imagine nation. It's commonly defined and it's usable by today. But it's commonly defined as a large community of people who share common identity, often through language, culture, history, and
sometimes ethnicity. Then who usually inhabit a specific geographic territory with its own political organization. The communations without states as simply a cultural community for people feel a collective belong and then share that snee. But nations are as we know, mostly tied up with states today, hence nation being used as a synonym for country.
Yeah, this is one of my bug bears. I guess is an academic like I tried to develop this concept of Catalan nationalism that like at the time was inherently anti fascist, I think or was trying.
To be like that.
It ain't now like this. It's a very Catalan right now. And yeah, I do still find it hard when people say nation is the of state, especially Americans, Like, it's very hard, right because state is like a subset of the state here, like the sort of motive division of the federal state. So it can be hard to explain those differences.
And as you mentioned, this sort of way that the Catalan nationalism has shifted it really I think gets to the whole weakness of the nation idea. So Benick Anderson famously called nations imagined communities because the community exists as a collective fantasy. You know, they imagine a deep comradeship with people who they've never met, and this fantasy has boundaries not just about who is included, but also famously
who is excluded. And this fantasy is not necessarily something that is automatic or natural as we tend to see it today, But it's really the rise of things like print capitalism, with the mass production of books and newspapers, and that's what really shaped the standardization and formalization of these imagined communities through the creational like common cultural reference
and a shared sense of history. And then of course you had the nation idea further being developed by liberal revolutions and through the shared experience of clu your rule. You know, we're subject populations with mobilized nationalism to claim self determination.
Yeah, definitely like it. I'm sure.
The only I'm trying to remember I borrowed this from someone but the idea of like identity entrepreneurs is one I like, like it's when religion loses its claim on universal truth, specifically in Europe.
That's like a market for identity that is open.
And the creation of nations is like, to my mind, like a bourgeois project, right Like, it's an entrepreneurial endeavor that they seek to create something, a benefit from it and like it yet to a agree that's turned against them, it's still an entrepreneurial endeavor, right Like. Still, you could be creating a nation which wants to kick France out of Morocco, right that that nation may not have space
for everyone who inhabits that territory of Morocco. Like it's still it's a sort of for some people.
Construct absolutely absolutely, I think the elite intellectual current of nationalist movements can go under stated. You know, oftentimes what stirs up the masses toward that specific direction, because I mean, the masses will revolt against their conditions, But what sort of directs it in that national independence direction? And this concept of nation is tends to be that sort of
elite intellectual current. I often look at the history of and Tobago as a reference point see is that's where I come from.
The whole process of.
Nation building is always ongoing, and we are in a position where there's an effort, there's very strong efforts to both push for a nation building but also recognize our divergent pasts, you know, because we have this sort of almost equal in population Indo Trinardian and Afrotrianardian populations, and then a mixed population as well, and then you have some Chinese and Syria and Lebanese and Venezuela and Filipino and all these different groups come into Trinidad, and because
of that colonial past, their tensions is between those groups and things are still play out to this day. But while those tensions are played ound, there's also an effort to construct a unity through an allegiance to the nation of trinand Tobago to create a sense of national identity. And as a very young country, it's still quite difficult
to do. I can imagine, especially in the United States, it might have been a similar situation where you have all these different European populations and different populations from around the world who are in the US, and there hasn't quite yet been a fully built up American identity yet, and so a lot of those tensions are still kind of playing out, and so it takes a couple of generations for there to be a sense of American identity that arises.
Out of that.
Yeah, definitely, Trinidad being one a younger colony and two only recently becoming independent in nineteen sixty two, it hasn't had enough time yet at I suppose develop that patriotism that America is so known for. And so you still see a lot of people continue to have allegiances to the ancestry, to their heritage, even before they have any sort of sense of connection to the country. Concept of truead.
Yeah, the American would be interesting because the people who did the American Revolution might often call themselves English, right like, And it's this kind of post hawk nationalism that has applied, right like, they did begin constructing a nation, but after they after they gained the apparatus of the state, right like.
And sometimes they'll talk about their freedoms in terms of English freedoms, which they themselves are not granted, right that they don't have the same freedoms as English people in England when they are a British colony. This concept of freedom, they will elucidate like it, and like so much of it is based on like English common law. Right, they didn't necessarily see themselves as distinct. That comes later. And like the US, one is interesting because they have to
develop this kind of civic nationalism. M I guess France has said two of course, but like France is probably the og there.
But like this.
Idea, like you've subscribed to these ideals, therefore you're an American because they're like this this nation constructed by people from all over Europe.
For the most part.
The phrasing is universal, but the implementation is not. Right, it's also a country where people own other people.
Yeah, yeah, I think, I mean, like I was saying earlier, it does help in our struggle for autonomy and independence from clune On rule to have this construct other nation, right, but it also obscures a lot of the real material divisions and society, you know, between the wing class and the elites. And so you have this national identity that is constructed by intellectual and you know, economic elites, and it's overlaid on a population that doesn't really have us
see in that construction. And so these nationalist projects will try to downplay or suppress differences in conflicts. And but as part of why nationalism so often lends itself to fascism, because fascism is an outgrowth of this idea of nation where they promote this vision of national unity and stifle class conflict and create a collusion of classes that pushes aside of people who don't fit within their concept of the nation.
Yeah.
Yeah, I often think, like when I'm talking to my undergrads about nation, Like the most distinct way I could say is like the salient we through both space and time, right, Like, it's the people you identify with, it's the us, and fascism weaponizes us against the rest of humanity or against us mostly like against escapegoat group who become them. Right, and then like the nation is for us, the state is for us, it's not for them, Thus they must be exterminated.
Exactly.
It's an obvious outgrowth of nationalism.
Hence xenophobia, hence anti semitism, anti blackness, anti indigenuity, all these prejudices. I mean, And that's the thing about nationalism. It's not necessarily consistent because you'll say, all people from this land, you know, we should desay to be United except for those people who are also from this land. They don't get to count, you know, they are perpetual outsiders. They don't share the true culture. They aren't part of
our destiny. So even if they're legally citizens or legally a long term residents, or they haven't residents there for a long time the entire lives for generations or if the case may be, they don't count. They're outside forever.
Yeah, yeah, they can never assent to like a sort of higher status of being one of us. British people like to mobilize this one a lot, right, Like you can be British, but.
You can never be English.
Yeah, I forget who coined that coined the phrase cricket nationalism, but it's just particularly kind of ridiculous, Like, oh, if you know, if there's a Test match between Britain and Pakistan and Britain Trinidad Tobago, who do you support? Like is that, like are you really going to make that the core of your national identity? Like the cene qua non of being British is like which flag you take
to the cricket match? Like it's particularly ridiculous and if it doesn't reflect exclusion, right, people aren't taking their flag to the cricket match because like that's the core of the entity. They're just like, yeah, well kind of I get treated differently because of my ethnic boundary, like makeup right ethnic presentation. So I guess you guys don't like me, so like they'll be funny when we kick your ass cricket, like it's the cause of arrow points in the wrong direction.
I guess I can imagine I will not be bringing any flags to any cricket match because because I don't attend cricket matches, I'm not not too big of a fan of cricket.
It can't be doing it.
I stick to my football, and I say football in the international sense.
Good, yeah, yeah, I can't stand around long enough to play cricket, to be honest.
As we're talking about national liberation, these struggles often took place in the context of the Cold War, right, which is where we get this other sense of this other framework for divving up the world now. Growing up, I was always told that, you know, trant Tobago is a
third world country. I had a social studies textbook, and I taught first world, second world, third world, But I didn't teach first world second World, third world in the context of the Cold War, because I grew up in a post Cold War world and these terms came from the Cool War but persisted after the Cold War. So what happened I was taught we have third world because
we are still developing. We're not at that intermediate stage development where we could see the second world, and we're not at that first world level of developed and like America, right.
And.
That's that's a smaller side for me. But I've always found it mildly irritated when I see people use this famous social media catchphrase or America is a third World country in a Gucci belt.
I haven't seen now on the yet. That's annoying.
I'm sure you've seen similar sentiments, this idea all America's third world, American.
Stud world, Yeah, I have.
Like, it's just annoying to me yet, So one, it completely divorces the concert of the third world from its actual origins and to it. Also, I think reflects that kind of a blindness to what's happened in the rest of the world, in the countries that are actually considered third world and the differences between them, you know, for everything that we can express frustrations about in the US anybody in the third world, I think, and I've when I when I've visited the US, I've seen it with my
own eyes. You know, there's still things there that Americans might take for granted that are just not that would never be taken for granted in another context. And I see, of course the divisioncy in America's version of the First World versus you know, some of the European Social Democracy's version of the First World. So I get that frustration, you know, the lack of free health care and that
kind of thing, investment in infrastructure and all that. But let me just get into the background behind the tomb. Right as we step into the Cool War, you have this concept of the three world model that came after World War Two. The pre war status cool was over and you had new conflicts on the horizon. And to the film, first World originally described the capitalist block led by the United States and Western Europe, were capitalist markets, liberals,
and rock see an economic progress was celebrated. And then you had the Second World block, which referred to the communist bloc led by the Soviet Union, where what I would consider state capitalism and centrally planned economies shape their societies. So in the First World yet countries like the US, Australia, Africa today might be shocking. You know, Iran was even considered part of the First World block during the Cool War.
That might be shocking now because when we think of some of these countries like, oh, those are third World countries. Those are undeveloped countries. They aren't at the developed level of the West yet. But in the context in which has three World model originated, these were countries that explicitly aligned themselves with the policies of the United States and
its allies as capitalist nations against the Soviet Bloc. And the Soviet Bloc you had, of course countries like China and Vietnam, Laos, Ethiopia, Yeah, and Huba, all these different countries align themselves explicitly with the Soviet Union. Then the third World and where the third will concept came in was with all the countries that stood against picking aside. Yeah, a lot of these were former colonies and nations that
chose not to side completely with either. And so this whole concept, this whole idea of the non aligned movement, it really kicked off thanks to the joining of the Indian Prime Minister, the Canayan president, the Indonesian president, and the president of the United Arab Republic, alongside Yugoslavia and so all these countries who all had very different economic arrange ones Yugoslavia famously was kind of doing its own thing compared to a lot of the other countries associated
with socialism. India and Ghana they were also kind of doing their own thing, kind of a mix trance. Tobago's also considered part of the non aligned movement, and so these classifications at the time, these were geopolitical and all political ideology is not necessarily economic development. So technically speaking, the terms shouldn't even be relevant us today. I mean, the Cold War of the twentieth century is over. But
over time the narrative began to twist. You know, so because you didn't pick a side, you didn't pick the red team or the blue team, you didn't pick the First World of the Second World, this narrative developed where or you didn't pick a side, you're politically independent, so you're poor, you're chaotic, your failed state, all these different things.
And of course there were incidents in part influenced of course by state actors in the US and state actors in the Soviet client block would have contributed to this outcome, But over time you get this sense of or the
third World is failure. All these states were trying different path of development, different approaches to governance from either of the two camps, mixed hybrid approaches, but in the end that's just this just got them stuck with the label of underdevelopment and at having them being seen as lesser. Now today people don't use food world as much as they use developing, at least in you know, the more above board discourse. But that division also has its own implications,
right the developed countries versus the developing countries. It's kind of a softer sorts of version of the same thing.
Yeah, it's kind of gentle, Yeah, the same shit.
What those terms do implicitly, it's like, you know what, you're fish in water, so you can't recognize water. It's hard to recognize these things, these ideological impulses when we're submerged in them. If you take a step back, you realize, oh, these terms developed and developing, they have very heavy implications.
And the implication is that there's a single linear path to progress modeled after Western cap that all societies are progressing towards through industrialization, through consumerism, through the ALMIGHTGP growth, and so development to your underdevelopment becomes a tool of intervention. It becomes a way to mask imperial interests with the sort of the nair of oh, we're just kind of helping you out.
You know.
It's like we move from your savage you're primitive, so you're just not developed yet, but theory will help you out. And that's how you get the whole sort of IMF and World Bank, introductions of models of debts and policy conditions and metrics and all these different things to sort of shape these countries into client states, states that can
be used to further Western development. The Cold War is technically over now, as I said, so I suppose we've reached the end of history, as the famous saying goes,
but not exactly. In the only nineteen nineties, Samuel Huntington came up with a thesis to explain the conflicts that would define the post Cold War world and as we entered into the twenty first century, and so he argued that the future of global conflict would not be defined by competing ideologies or economic systems, but by cultural fault lines.
In his nineteen ninety three article in Foreign Affairs, which Lates expanded into his nineteen ninety six book The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order, Huntington predicted that the primary source of conflict in a new
era would be between distinct civilizations. His model would have pointed to clashes between the West and other groups Islamic nations, the Confucian East, and of course set up this sense that the West is this pinnacle of rationality and modernity and all these others in competition with the fantastic, amazing West. And I always like to call out some of these strange ways that he has divided the world.
Right, So sub Saharan.
Africa is all grouped up into the African camp, all of North Africa, the Middle East, into West Asia, all of that is considered part of the Islamic civilization. Forget all the differences between any of them. By the way,
Indonesia it's also part of the Islamic block. You have the Sinic or the Confucian block that includes China, both Koreas, Taiwan, and Vietnam, except for the parts of China that are under the Buddhist camp, such as Tibet, So Tibetan is kind of carved up on its own as its own camp. Mongolia is also under the Buddhist camp.
Thailand and all.
These others in Southeast Asia considered part of the Buddhist camp. Yeah, and then you have the Latin American block, which is everybody part of Latin America and even people who are not technically Latin America and are kind of swept in there. And I'm going to be a by the base of the map that I saw on the Wikipedia article on the subject.
Yeah, I found that map. Now it's some.
Very busy are divisions, and we used to cut up this will we have the Western rule versus the Orthodox world, which includes Kazakhstan and Greece and Ukraine and Russia all under that civilizational banner.
Yeah.
The Philippines is somehow part Islamic, part Western, and part Sinic. It's a very unusual blend.
Yeah.
And then he's just got like Japan, it's just hanging out there by itself.
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention especial Japan is kind of it's the one thing.
Yeah, it literally says Japanese.
I've forgotten about that, and then he goes on to freak out about like the like Latin world as he sees it, like fucking dividing the United States right like in his his is it called like who we are or where we are or something his book about migration in the United States m it was after Clash of civilizations he wrote this book about like how the like I think I don't know quite remember how he termed it, like this, he us Latino or Hispanic or something else,
but like that that that population increasing in the United States will like divide the United States into two fundamentally opposed civilizations.
Yeah, yeah, he has some interesting compulsion. Yeah, And unfortunately his thesis found its voice following the events of nine to eleven partitions and media. These people were taking his ideas to kind of justify the one and terror that
would unfold. It also creates sort of cultural device that settle into place at home will not create but shape those cultural divides as you create the sense of oh, if there's if we're experience in a clash of civilizations right now, then this flood couldn't quote of people from another civilization is a threat to the vision. It's something
that needs to be targeted and fought against. Yeah, and so, in a sense, his classicalizations is kind of a repackaging of a lot of the binaries and divisions we've spoken of what before. You have elements of nationalism, you have elements of civilized versus barbarian, you have elements of East and West, the Cold War dichotomies. All of that kind of comes together in this neat package. Finally, we enter the twenty first century, and they are two very popular
ways that we now categorize the world. People tend to use the phrases global North and Global South as a softer or more politically correct alternative to develop developing or first and third world. It's considered less loaded, more neutral sounding, and it's originally popularized via UN frameworks and the brand line, which is done in nineteen eighty, which drew a literal line across the globe, separating the wealthier North from the
poorer self. To be clear, though, despite the geographical language, it's not literally about hemispheres. Australia is considered part of the Global Nor and Mongolia is considered part of the global South, but generally speaking, the global salt refus the post colonial regions and the global North refoos the wealthy, industrialized countries of the world. To me, again, it's not
really a flawless framework. It has all the same binaries and smoothing over of complexities of internal class divides between For example, ritually it's in the global South and poor communities in the North. It gives impression that entire countries share unified class experience, I think. I think it also has the potential to obscure inequality between South South relations.
So yes, two countries may both be a part of the Global South, but there could be a massive power differential between them that you know, set them up for interventions and equal treaties, and also sort of different sorts of medaline. For example, Saudi Arabia, at least in one map that I saw, is considered part.
Of the Global South.
But as we know, Sauy Arabia is famous first medline across Africa and the Middle East. It's interventions, it's financing of different conflicts across the region. Now I get why the term is used. It creates a sense of shared struggle, especially in anti imperialist and climate justice spaces. But I think it has weaknesses. You know, and how we construct solidarity on that basis.
Yeah right, Yeah.
And the other and final system that I wanted to mention that has gained popularity these days is world systems theory, which is actually older than class civilizations. It came out of Immanuel Wallastein's work during the Cold War and he kind of stood out and said that he was rejecting the three world system and the simplistic country by country
development models. Instead he created this world systems theory that saw capitalism as a single global system, not a patchwork of individual national economies, on labor roles, on commodity flows, and on power concentration. And I think in an even more globalized world it makes the most sense. So to wall Esteem, they have three different zones of the global economy.
You have the core, which as you know, have strong states financial capital, tech heavy industries controlled over global institutions, and they tend to exploit the labor and resources of the periphery, while export and high value goods and debt structures and the periphery of the countries that tend to have weaker institutions, extractive or career economies, reliance and export and raw materials debt defendency and structural adjustment policies, and
they often dump in grounds for pollution, waste and arms from the global North. The semi periphery are then considered under his model, the countries that mediates between the core and the periphery. These are industrialized and economies with mixed labor and capital exports. They sometimes exploit others while being
exploited themselves. These include countries like Brazil, India, Mexico, Turkey, and South Africa, and they tend to seal as the buffers that stabilize the system while chasing core status.
I think this model is very dynamic.
It could be more dynamic, but it does have the capacity to highlight the systemic interdependence of this glocal system, that one region's wealth is contingent on another's dispossession. It makes it very useful for understanding that, you know, poverty is not some religious happens, it's land is very clearly
structured and developed by the wealth of the North. And I think also with the corporate free model, you see the sense of a one way flow where value and labor goes from the periphery to the core, but there is another direction that flew goes right because the migrants from the perifree, they go to the core. They fill precurious rules and core economy is like care work and agriculture and logistics, and so they almost become an important
periphery within the core. And their absence from the periphree also deprives the perifhree. Hence the phenomenon of brain drain, where people are siphered the way as label and the and the educated population tends to leave, you know, their countries of origin. But I say, I'm saying it's not just a one way flow because you also have that sense of diaspora and diasporic networks that kind of reverse the flow. Remittances for some countries can be a significant
chunk of their national income. I think the Philippines is a classic example of this. Some of the Caribbean countries, either historically or presently, we're very dependent on remittances from their diasporic populations sending money back home. Lebanon is another example, Salvador is another example. They become key part of the national GDP, that sort of relationship of my creatia. Yeah, but I think what I want to do with this corporate free model,
or this core prefree semi prefer model is expanded. And one of the ways that I found very useful to do so comes from fellow podcaster shout out to Elija j Ayub. Yeah, I read an article of his that was on the anarchist libraries called the periphery has no time for binaries. This very crucial point, and I coulte we are as peripheral to the global selt regimes crushing us as they are perceived to be by the Western think tanks and foreign ministers who view their imagined space
as the center of the world. China and Russia and Iran are peripheral to the West, and any and all activists in China and Russia and Iran a peripheral to their governments. So I kind of like this sense of not just looking on the country level, but looking at particular populations, populations within countries the relationships between them, bringing that class dynamic. Yeah, with between populations more prominently.
Yeah, Like if you look at the like the example I'm familiar with, relate like the what we could look at Kurdistan or meen right, there are ethnic groups within that country that are subject to colonialism by the core groups within that country, right, like asides Arab belt stuff for the Boma majority using classic colonial divide and rule
tactics right now against the rahiner in Themma. And like, I think it doesn't make sense to see that whole country is peripheral, right, Like that binary doesn't function when like the salient colonial violence happening, especially in the MMA, it's happening within the Anma, but it doesn't make any less salient. And like the experience of colonialism is still violent. And if we only use this like state level binary, we will totally miss.
That exactly exactly, And I think it's important to be clear. Obviously I've rejected a lot of these frameworks in covering them. You won't see me using the civilized primitive binary anytime soon. But some of these concepts can be useful.
You know.
They do shape the way that we view the world, how we.
See ourselves the imperfect, of course, but because they're trying to map onto reality, and reality is a shifting beast. But I think it's good to have some sense or some language to understand the inequality and podynamics present in the world. So we can reclaim these frameworks, so we can reject them. You know, we could use them for solidarity or for division. But the question I want to leave us with the wrap of this episode is how do we build a world where these divisions are no
longer descriptive or relevant? And that's all I have for today, or power to all the people.
Peace.
Hey, and welcome to take it up. And here I'm Andrew Sage and I'm back with James.
It's me again. Welcome back. Yeah, good to be here.
Great to have you once again, offer you to have me. I'm not sure the dynamic is here.
Yeah, yeah, MEI it's nice to be together.
It's an egalitarian dynamic. You know, we're both having each other in a sense.
Yeah, yeah, we're sharing this podcast.
Yeah. I think there are a lot of concepts that it's good to grasp to get a sense of how this world works. Kind of continuing from the previous episode where we spoke about all the different ways that we can divide up the world and understanding the world and so on. Today's sort of pursuit of that endeavor. I wanted to get into a particular concept that is so benign yet supervsive in this system, and it's the idea of externalization. Do you get what I mean by that?
Yeah, like making people of things other.
Yes, But specifically, I think I want to address how capitalism persists by pushing harm onto the other, Yeah, onto the someone or something else, shifting the costs of particular actions, either environmentally, socially, or economically. I think the easiest example I could point too is how a company may choose to save on disposal costs by dumping their waste into a river, which can thus poison the water supply, the ecosystem, and the health of all those human and non human
lives who rely upon or live near that river. Do you have another example you could probably point to? Yeah, I mean there are lots of them.
One of them that I think of a lot is like how in the US, rightly, products that we can't recycle or that we can't landfill, we will literally ship to.
Somewhere else to be dumped.
Like, our consumption creates so much excess and so much waste, and we can't be confronted with that waste, so we tip it to places where people consume less.
Yeah, it's uh, I mean you see, I don't know if you've seen, ay the footage of some of these places, their whole costs of fast fashion waste for example in Africa, or just eweiste leaching into the soil. It's really quite tragic.
Yeah.
I remember someone on net once was telling me that like one of the things that children did where they had come from was they would pick through e waste, specifically charging cables to get the copper out. M M. This would result in them having like these terrible injuries to their fingers because they were like prying the cables apart, and you know, over time they would get little pieces of both shards of metal EMBD in their fingertips.
Town.
Yeah, that's terrible.
Yeah, it's pretty pretty grim condemnation of a way of consuming.
Yeah, it's messed up.
It's messed up, and I think when you see that sort of stuff, it's hard to unsee it. When you see that impact on't the world, it's hard to unsee it. But that's part of how this concept thrives, this externalization thrives, it's by obscuring itself. Yeah, so that's what we kind of want to do with this episode, get up a full breadth of its history, its present, and its apparent future so that we can not see all the different
ways that this occurs. Now, this pass and on of courts may have always been an option on the table, but we can see that a lot of traditional economies did not go that route because traditional economies were often human economies, as David Greeber used the term in Debt, the first five thousand years, you know, these were economies focused on human relationships. They were embedded in kinship and land and customs and obligation and reciprocity. So what you
owed was really financial. It was to you enable your elder, your clan plan itself, and so you could not really avoid the costs of your actions on others, because that was at the center of it all others. But the transition to capitalism was a shift in what the economy was. It enforced the idea that everything is or should be,
up for sale. The economist called Polani called it the Great Transformation, when land, labor, and money were turned into fictitious commodities, treated as if they were products for sale. Plenty saw the modern state and the capitalist market economy as a package deal. Graybot also made this very clear in Debt as well. For this new kind of economy to take hold, people had to change how they thought
about work and trade and relation with each other. And see in the world, those conditions had to be created by the state, so you could look at how electritional economies and commons had to be disrupted to force the shift. In England, you had people pushed off of common land that they had use for centuries, and they had no choice but to sell their labor to survive and go into the factories. We have to remember that he never started in the factories. That actually started in the colonies.
This dispossession of people and from place started through that colonization process. Already amplify through that colonization process extracting the wealth of people or of labor, of land, of resources from one place to concentrate it to another to displace people and land and costs and secluialism was capitalism sort of training ground for externalization. You plunder a little bit over here, you profit a little bit over there. And this is really where we get to the core of
capitalist externalization. With the shifting of the costs. On a small scale that looks like the river pollution example. From the global scale, it looks like what will steam is getting into with world systems theory how the wealth and stability the coronations depends on the exploitation of the periphery.
So slavery and genocide and ecological ruin, all of these are costs that create the wealth that the core enjoys, but it's made invisible to that core because when you're part of an ongoing relationship with community, with land, with ecology, with people, the actions have consequences that matter, They reverberate, you can feel them, and that demands a level of
responsibility on your part. But when you take the things that have been woven into relationship and turn them into plain old transactions, those transactions can then offload the costs, offload the consequences, make them someone else's problem. So, yeah, cloven is very affordable now, but it's affordable because somebody somewhere was underpaid and overworked. The smartphone. It's convenient, it's useful, successible,
but it's parts of mind and the dangerous conditions. You know, your food solicious, nutritious, not exactly affordable these days, but it's picked by hands that cannot afford that same meal. So the harms of these systems, the harms of these actions, of this level of consumption doesn't cease to exist, it's just externalized, so it could be rendered invisible to one point of view. Yeah, and it's not something that can be set up without a fight. You know, people would resist.
Enclosures were met with resistance, colonizations met with resistance, and even to the workers strike, you know, people do fight back. It's not just this sweeping and nevitable process. But because of the collaboration between state and capital, that collusion of status and capitalist interests, the whole system has managed to persist thus far. It's a very formidable forward dealing with So we can set it back here and there, but
we have not defeated it yet. Yeah, and I say yet, because you know, as we get into there are ways to loosen its script. I think what's fascinating about capitalistic externalization today is just how much it has skilled and got more sophisticated in terms of the work that makes the world run. The most essential label is often the
most invisible and undervalued and precurious labor. You know, where we're talking about the work that's necessary to clothe ourselves, the work that's necessary to feed ourselves, the work is necessary to build infrastructure such as in the Gulf States where you have litual modern slavery taking place to build up those countries where they're talking about gig work, transportation to livery that sort of thing, or reproductive work stuff
like what it's called housewifery or domestic labor. Should you think of other examples as well.
Yeah, I like the one you gave about your cell phone, right, like those rare earth materials. Like it's not some like safe mining operation bring serves out.
Of the ground.
It's human hands in dangerous conditions that kill people.
Exactly, poisons people. It's it's not even necessarily a quicker death, it's often a slow, yeah, lifelong death.
And it poisons that part of the world for generator. Like we could stop right now, and it would take generations for the damage to stop, exactly.
That's the thing about destruction, right, destruction can be very quick, as the rebuilding that can take.
A long time. Yeah.
And if you look at how quickly Gazo has been flattened, this is how long it's going to take to recover from that.
It's like nine and d yeah, yeah, yeah, like it.
I mean I'm very familiar with that particular example, right, Like how quickly you can destroy something with a bomb from an aeroplane, and how hard people had to work
to build it. In October of twenty three, I was in Kurdistan and like, I know how hard people work to build it, Jaba, right, to try and build a little island of democracy without the state in a place where the state has been weaponized against tons of different ethnic groups who are not Arab, and even against Arab people who didn't agree with the state's particular.
Wine a thing.
And one night, you know, like the power station's gone, they bombed while I was there, like an oxygen bottling plant for people who need supplemental oxygen, either temporarily or permanently, and like it's gone now. And now to build that back up in a world where you are largely alienated from the system of states in capital, right, you're trying to build stuff back up as much as you can from networks of solidarity and ingenuity, and that takes years.
And yeah, yeah, but it's not visible, and.
That's not even getting into the emotional and mental tool of something like that.
Yeah.
Yeah, oh that can be a setback as well. Yeah, when I've been talking about sources, we're talking about Yeah, that loss. Yeah, that that that pain.
Yeah, Yeah, the pain.
Made even worse when the skilled people, skilled workers who were responsible for upkeeping such something like that also wiped up by that same bomb. Makes it all the more difficult to recover.
Yeah, or drawn away right by the conditions of becoming a livable So you have this like brain drain, where people who have skills that are considered to be commercially valuable have.
An opportunity to leave.
The people who who don't have those have the opportunity to stay or don't have your opportunity to leave, I guess, like or even like, you know, the US made a bit a different version of externalization, I guess. But like the US made a big thing of how it defeated the Islamic state in you know, twenty nineteen, I guess.
I can't remember when the last Atlan Alba goose was, I think twenty nineteen, But like we externalized it off florid the cost of that's yeah, the dying part, like the Yeah, US pilots did a whole lot of killing, but the dying part that, yeah, we externalized that right to Kurdish and Arab and as Syrian fodder. Yeah, to
people who would whose lives didn't matter. Yeah, Like I remember a time standing in a cemetery there, just looking at lines and lines of graves, and I just left the house of someone who's thirteen year old son was killed in a drone strike and just thinking, like, each of these is a mother burying her child. That like, we essentially asked for the most part, right, like, to
do that. We said, hey, what you guys do the dying part because we don't want to like it kind of sucks, sucks for the United States and Britain in Iraq and Afghanistan, so we'd like someone else to die now. And then you know, here we are a few years later, right and like the night before, Turkey has been bombing the place where I'm looking at these graves, and the US a doing shit to help, right Like, even though these people had like made this massive sacrifice, the US
wasn't like, yeah, we're your friends. It's not a friendship relationship, you know, Like it's it's like you said, it's an interaction, okay, like a yeah, purchase more than a solidarity based thing.
Yeah, And once again we really see that core externalized and its costs onto periphery and We see that both in the sense of on the global stage between countries or between populations cores and peripheres, but even internally within countries, as we mentioned in the previous episode talking about that divide between the core and the periphery where you have but a lot of people have called the economies biggest trick,
you know, your socialized failures and privatize profits. Yeah. So in two thousand and eight with the financial crash, people were evicted, but the balance got built out and the early stages of COVID corporations got relief, gig workers were exposed. Yeah, you know, in the process of austerity resulting from neoliberalism, social services get cut in order to balance the books, but there's never any consideration of or let's trike cutting profits.
Yeah, and that's one thing that can never go down.
Yeah, yeah, exactly, I think or even like within you know, we all all food come from the soil at some point, right that, Like I can't tell you how many people I know that my family are in agriculture, right, who have died or.
Lost limbs on farms.
It's the same is true if you're in the mining industry, right, Like, that's not something that's visible. You know, you don't like go to the supermarket and bite your bread, right, and you don't think that someone got their arm in the combine harvester when they were doing the field that went to the flower that major loaf of bread that costs one dollars ninety cents, and now the person doesn't have an arm.
It's invisibilized. Yeah.
I mean, it's the same thing when you see like these natural disasters taking place right, floods or burnings, right when when California is on file and when Pakistan is completely flooded out. Those are the consequences of the actions of corporations, of the actions of this entire global economic system. And meanwhile, the corporations are getting carbon credits to continue
doing what they will always do it. Yeah, you know, and so the actual consequences of what they're doing, they're paying for carbon credits, but the actual consequences of what they're doing are being paid for by the communities that are displaced by the consequences of this climate change.
Yeah.
Yeah, And we never talk about when we talk about migration, right, like that's a great The climate change is a great example that we don't talk about how the bulk of people coming to the United States are coming from the place is most heavily impacted by climate change.
Yep.
Like I was in the Marshall Islands a few years ago, and there will be no more Marshall Islands within our lifetime, yeah, because of the consequences and massive corporations have made. But
like they don't have any agency. It made me really like it was hard because they're doing stuff like they use a to get it to get around the atolls, right, they use little like two strikeout boards, and they're trying to build solar canoes instead and solar boats so that it's it's cleaner energy, right, Like less than a percent of a percent of the world's carbon emissions come from the Marshall Islands, and they're like trying their hardest to
do their part to reduce their emissions, but like they can't make the impact that needs to be made to stop the sea levels rising. And arguably, like when the world had a chance to do so, like you see them speaking at the United Nations and then the UN being like the line has to go up.
Yep.
That means your island does to sink.
And that's why you know, reform is not in can be enough, because this is how the system is designed. It's designed to push risk downward and outward, onto the working class, onto the global south, and onto the next generation. Because that's another dimension of externalization. Right time, even our future gets externalized in a sense. You know, all of our resources are limited or finite resources that can used up now at an increase in velocity.
Right. Yeah, the national debt.
Of some countries is being something further and further into now. Right the emissions the center of all those emissions now fossil fuels, you know, all that stuff, because we don't have to do the consequences, so the future don't have to do the consequences as the system digging its own grave, because even though the system needs stability, it will sacrifice future stability for present profits. It will sacrifice nature, which is the basis of the economy. It will sacrifice nature
to the economy in service of the economy. It will treat natures disposable and infinite and something external to the way that we run things as if as if it's not going to catch up to us, and so as collapse will accelerate, as the consequences become more apparent on the sacrifice zones of the periphery. The powers that beyond interested in fixing it. You know, they're going to fortify themselves against it through border patrols, through climate walls, through
militarize disaster response. They're going to double down.
Yeah, make it harder and harder to see the consequences of a excessive consumption of capitalism, like until the levy breaks, I guess literally or metaphorically.
Yep, literally or metaphorically. And I want people to keep
in mind who are listening. You know, this Qan periphery is und just the periphery out there, it's also the periphery within that we're talking about in terms of consequences, the internal dumping grounds, whether it be you know, indigenous reservations, or the neighborhoods of black and round people, or the prisons that often serve as the holding tanks for discontent and for poverty and for all the nasty consequences that society doesn't want to deal with because of the way
society has been structured.
Yeah, or just like under the bridge near your house, you know, like like we.
Exactly treat exactly like.
San Diego has this particular legisative initiative, which I find like obviously it's fucked, but also like it's very so it's so obvious, like they they passed to think on a camping there where they're going to make it illegal to be.
Unhoused on the sidewalk.
You're like, it's a bad and it's band against camping on the sidewalk, right, And all it does it doesn't provide housing for people, and that it doesn't solve the issue. It moves people. Our cities very hilly and we have lots of canyons in which they can't build. It moves people into these canyons.
Wow, and it.
Just makes the same people invisible, right, Like that's the goal that the goal is not to provide any form of solution. It's just to move these people away so they don't have to be poor in public. And so the people who who use homes as a vehicle for wealth creation, not as a place for humans to live, don't have to see the consequences of their actions.
Exactly. It's all about what they want, right, I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, in a sense, depending on how you look at it, any one of us can be a core and any one of us can be a periphery. You know, to our rulers, we are all the periphery that they can push their consequences onto. In another sense, you know, I am part of the periphery, and do you are
part of the core, James? And in another sense, you know, I might be considered part of the core in my own country in some ways because of my class position, because of my educational background, because of some of the ways that I can be insulated, whereas you know, other ways, you know, you might be the periphree in the United States, to the core, to the elites, to the ruling class. And so this isn't to diminish the very real differences
between the global core and the global periphery. It's also make it clear to those of you in the global core that you should be in solidarity with that global periphery because their consequences are ultimately your own. You know, ultimately we are all the ones who are going to be holding the costs, cleaning the mess, surviving the fallout. And then it's nothow tough. It is because when you live with a system that is based on externalization harm, you can end up lashing out on others as well.
You know that that that logic, that systemic logic becomes it o an lies, become as part of how you navigate even your relationships. But we don't have to accept that way of doing things. The periphery, regardless of which prefer you're referring to, does hold the potential for change.
And so you know, in the beginning, when we were speaking of externalization of economic and the economic dimension specifically, it's important to understand capitalism relies on these flowers, these very smooth flows of labor, energy, and resources and data from periferrey to core however you define those terms, and so when we interrupt those flows, even briefly, we can
shake those foundations. And that sort of approached, that effort to interrupt, is really part of what social revolution is about. It's how we make the changes that we want to see. Yeah, you know, I speak a social revolution as not some flashy one time event or moment in history, but as an ongoing process, as something that is taking place right now at different levels, in different ways all over the world.
And so we can speak of the things we do to oppose the current system, like these strikes and blockades that have taken place around the world, the indigenous land defense struggles that are taking place around the world, they rent strikes and mutual aid that have taken place around
the world. And then beyond that sort of opposition, talking about the things we do to propose and alternative to construct the kind of world and the kind of life that we need so we don't have to rely on these systems anymore, that exploit us, to make these systems obsolete, to build the cooperatives, to build work a control, collectives and disaster response outside of the state, to sort of crack the system, and to create in those cracks the
space where a different system, a new life can grue. Yeah, to not become one big machine or one centralized struggle or movement, but to multiply and interconnect and adapt to the niche circumstances we're all dealing with, like my celium, you know, like the mushrooms.
Yeah, yeah, that technology, Like it's sort of you're like opening a crack thing paraphrases Zappatista texts right like and they have this either just phrase I like from Supermandente Marcos. That translates just like, we don't have to change the world because we're building another one right now, and you know you don't have to we don't have to conquer. Like there's this obsession on the left with like revolutionists, like you said, like an act that occurs at a point in.
Time capital r revolution.
Yes, yeah, as opposed to like building the world where the things that we don't wish to see become irrelevant through our actions every day. Like you use the example of people being an house, which I mentioned before, right, Like the way we build a world where those people aren't externalized is by not externalizing those people. Like you know, it's not hard to do. You probably talk to human
beings every day anyway. Just continue to do that, you know, take your neighbor a sandwich, and like that's the revolution that you can build slowly, and maybe it's not as exciting. It's like, you know, the one way you I've attended the revolutions where people fight against the state, but you
still have to do the hard work. You still have to do that, like day to day building of a different way of relating to one another, even in those revolutions where things change quickly and violently exactly.
Yeah, yeah, and I mean even before we get to that point you know, to be able to change the way relate to each other. It starts with mindset, It starts with shifting our realm or possibility is, you know, not necessarily killing the memes of capitalism, and I mean memes in the sensor. Richard Dawkins originally use the term as these cultural ideas that persist, that spread, that adapt It's difficult to kill those those memes, but you can
replace them with better memes. And so replacing and popularizing those memes, those ideas, you are challenging the idea that you know rest is laziness, you know, challenging the idea that you know the end goal is profit, that there's no other system besides Catholics, and that that's something better isn't on the horizon. Shift in that sense reality, I think is a very important part of the struggle, and with every act, because I think ideas have to be
accompanied by act. With every act, I think it helps to break the spell, to cut off, to put an end to that externalization. Because even though capitalists and will continue to try to push its arm outward and downward, are we and away from view, we can continue to challenge it inwardly, to push our struggle upward and to center our struggle in the center of view so we can see it, so that we can feel us, and so that we can act against it. And that's all
I have for this episode. All forward to all the people. Peace.
This is it could happen here. I'm Garrison Davis. Today I'm joined by Mia Wong. I am reporting from the beautiful and side People's Republic of New York City, and we are Zoe back. It is Clover Dimes Squares on Suicide Watch. Zomentum is sweeping the nation. Zoronimum Donni has won the Democratic primary for the mayor of New York City, beating veterans sexual harasser Andrew Cuomo. It was it was quite a night in New York last night. We are
recording this Wednesday morning. The final ranked vote will be done in about a week, but Cuomo has conceded the race to Zoron, who has declared a pretty decisive victory.
It's been very funny seeing the dashing weeping of the Quotmo camp has been very funny. New York has officially been upgraded from a Tier two to a Tier one point five. Chinese City given give it another decade, it'll it will have entered Chinese civilization.
The vibes are good. The vibes are good. Well.
The only difference is that now we will have an actually communist government in a city instead of the fake state capitalist governments of the Chinese mega.
City objectively more communists to one point five chety city government.
An American bogeeli.
Uh.
It was. It was a pretty exciting night in New York last night.
I and many people were not expecting a clear result so soon. I think Cuomo conceded around ten to thirty as the boat was still coming in, but it was pretty clear that Zoron did a like very very impressive, very impressive sweep, really solid turnout across the boroughs, just to like get a sense of like where we were at. Like I got to announce to a pretty pretty large room full of trans people at the Metropolitan Bar that Cuomo conceded to Zoron, and Zoron has won. And I
had not felt better in months. It was really in big rating Is was like the first like ray of hope in a political sense that I've that that it's been like so deeply felt. Nothing ever happens. Camp Is Is is finally finally taking.
It so jover for nothing ever happens the shear, the sheer like joy and excitement being in like a room of like one hundred, one hundred queer people, as as as Cuomo gets defeated and so on securing the primary, it was it was just infigurating.
In many ways, this feels a lot bigger than even like AOC's win a few years ago. And it feels so much more real than like the Sanders campaign really ever did, because New York is such as like as such a condensed concentrated area. Now it has not quite like an inevitability but of a pretty a pretty strong certainty of of what's going to happen come November in the general election.
Yeah, And I think the thing that's maybe in some ways the biggest deal about this is that New York was like the capital of the giant sort of right wing backlash inside the Democratic Party to twenty twenty. Yeah, right, like this is the city that elected Eric Adams in twenty twenty one.
Right, like it just.
Straight up a cop is ruled for like four years by just like this unhinged, corrupt alliance of like fucking real estate developers and like unhinged right wing billionaires and the cops who ran this really really effective sort of politics of like the demonization of unhoused people and like anti immigrant politics, and the shift right in this in the Neu Democratic Party like single handedly shifted the entire
country to the right. You could literally see where the New York media market was in the twenty twenty two elections. You could see on the map who was getting the news because it was so right wing. And that's just broken.
That whole thing, Like this place was just which was like the capital of of the kind of revolution broke and that whole tide like you can it's you know, in the same way that like Hunters Thompson talked about how you could see like you could see them with the tide of the sixties broke standing in Vegas, Like sitting here right now, you can see the place where the tide of that right wing surge in New York broke. And it was last night we saw their high points. Yeah,
they couldn't elect the fucking sexual predator. That was as far as they could go.
A Cuomo too, Like like.
I know some people are slightly annoyed about like the outsized influence of the New York mayoral election, affecting everybody who's like online and cares about politics in the United States and even even abroad. But this is like not not only as New York, like the biggest city in
the country. This is like more so a representative battle for the future of the party and like what the future of democratic politics, not just the Democratic Party but literally like like democracies and like what the future of politics in this country is going to be is kind
of emblematic over how this race went. Are we going to go back to like the same old establishment dem Party stuff, Clinton's Cuomos, Obama, Biden Harris, or are we actually going to legitimately chart a new course forward to counter this fascist element taking power across the country and against nearly all odds and like thirty million dollars, the underdogs actually would and pulled it off really strongly, And this really is like the battle for the future of
the party. Early turnout was massive for this primary. In the final three days of early voting, we saw like the youngest demographic of voters come out in high high numbers. One quarter of early voters were first time Democratic primary participants. And young voters between the ages of twenty five and thirty four made up the largest share of early turnout.
And this was all up against the entire forces of the Democratic Party establishment coming together in the past few months, just specifically to stop Mamdani from taking the primary election. There was twenty five million dollars of super pac funding behind Andrew Cuomo, which is the largest in New York City mayoral history. This pack was backed by Michael Bloomberg, Door Dash, Bill Ackman Trump funder and this pack allowed Cuomo backers to spend three times as much money than
what Quomo's actual campaign legally can. In comparison, Mamdanie's pack had just one point two million dollars plus five hundred thousand in anti Cuomo spending from the Working Families Party. In an attempt to seal the deal, the Cuomo team got the coveted Bill Clinton endorsement, really really forming like the Toucher's alliance with Cuomo and Clinton, Bill Clinton, Bill Clinton.
There's one more sex pens for you to endorse. It's time for you to endorse Donald Trump. What world job that like?
That that really was like emblematic of like the type of democratic party that Mamdani was up against, right, and the one that working people of New York and people around the country we're hoping might finally get defeated after it's won one over on Sanders for the past like eight years, and last night it finally happened.
Yeah.
And I also want to say, like this is not just when we're talking about the sort of political apparatus to the Democratic Party being deployed in support of Cuomo. It wasn't just like the DoorDash guys like bringing out their checkbook. It was like the actual internal political machines of a whole bunch of very very important and influential local and sort of mid level political officials through their entire political machines behind Cuomo and then got fucking rolled
in ways that are just absolutely hysterical. Entire political machines basically just got annihilated trying to stop this.
It was.
It reminds me in a lot of ways of like the way that like a bunch of the old machines broke in in Chicago with with Brandon Johnson were like you had like Mike Madigan making one last appearance the most powerful figure in Illinois politics for thirty years and just gets crushed in that election. So this was both a money efforts and a we're using our political machines on the ground to try to do this, and they fucking lost.
And it rules.
They were photo shopping images of Zoron to make him look more brown and muslimah. They were making its beard longer, they were making his skin and his hairy darker. Like, they were pulling out all the stops and it didn't work.
It was like Clinton two thousand and eight, like Barack Hussein Obama, like burther conspiracy shit. Yeah, like, that's the last time I remember this party being this racist, like very specifically in these lines.
And it failed, and it didn't work. It failed.
We'll talk about some of the actual results and Zoron's campaign itself after this break. All right, we are back. It's a beautiful sunny day in New York. It's actually way too hot. There's a massive heat wave going through the entire East coast. New York has been like one hundred degrees the past few days. Thank god, it was one hundred degrees on the day of the election. It kept all those Cuomo supporters home. We're calling him Mandate of Heaven Mandani, good stuff. So let's let's let's talk
about the actual results so far. So as as of this morning, Wednesday morning, we got ninety three percent of the vote in on the first rank, Mondanni has forty three point five percent versus Cuomo's thirty six point four and Zoran ally brad Lander with eleven point three followed
by a whole bunch of others. Now, really, as soon as like numbers started coming in, like after the early vote, which which we expected would lean in favor of Zoran, but after more and more results started coming in, Manhattan started to looking more and more orange. And that's the
that's color at the times as using for Zoron. And this was the first like sign for me that Zora might be having a pretty good night, because people were expecting that, you know, pretty big chunks of Manhattan and certainly like Staten Island in the Bronx would be would be going towards Cuomo decisively, or at least if this, if this was going to be Cumba's night, that's what
we would be seeing. And that's not what happened. The northern tip of Staten Island leaning towards mom Donnie and really most of Manhattan except for the Upper west Side and the Upper east Side went to Zoron. And that is like super super I guess, like surprising, but like positive surprise, like surprisingly, this is this is like this is great. Yeah, like a really really strong night.
Yeah.
One of the most interesting trends of this was that Mandanny just just absolutely annihilated like every Asian district up up fifteen, up fifteen and not Okay, so you would kind of expect this in South Asian districts. He went into a bunch of what are generally pretty conservative, like like Chinese districts and like Queens and shit, and just fucking rolled them.
Yeah, Like in like South Brooklyn.
Like a very very powerful sort of like right wing Chinese political machine like went to war against him, just annihilated.
Right.
The Asian vote in general had kind of been trending right in the last half a decade based on sort of like anti immigrant shit, anti homeless shit and all of that. Just like instantly pivoted.
Everything's out of astoria in Queens just just full full zor On. Yeah, and like just rolled these districts.
And I think this is a thing where I think We're gonna talk more about the ice stuff later, but I genuinely think part of what we're starting to see here is like.
Brad Lander, who the MVP brad Lander honestly like like a critical part of this who knows to him like absolutely, like we certainly have different opinions on some key issues, but he really pulled out the stops to make sure that Cuomo does not get in, yeah, and helped him defend against them pretty pretty horrific yeah, is homophobic attacks.
Yeah, and like, and that alliance I think was actually was really really important because it meant that the kind of like left flank of the liberals and the progressives and sort of social democrats weren't fighting each other, which has been what's happening and like fucking every other city is that these two factions go to war and then like just the fucking sex predators win the election because of it, and shere you get a very very important
strategic alliance that allows a bunch of people to vote for Mamdani who wouldn't have. And this this sort of alliance that they've forged here was just like stunningly successful, basically like outperformed expectations basically everywhere. I think this is also a kind of decisive anti ice thing because both Mamdanni and Lander have been actually straight up on the
front lines of like anti ice stuff. Lander famously got arrested for trying to get in the way of a just hideously illegal disappearance of Uffish constituents and got fucking arrested for it. And I think that stuff we're seeing the political impacts of everyone being like, holy shit, they're trying to deport like every nu migration in this country.
Yeah.
Madanni up six points with the Hispanic up five with white plus fifteen Asian. Quomo is is up eighteen percent with the black vote.
And Quomo like underperformed there too, he did underperform.
Yeah.
One thing that's interesting is the medium income levels. Madani did better with middle class and high income vote middle class up ten, high income up thirteen, whereas Cuomo did better up thirteen with lower income, Which I mean, this is like some classic We see this a lot in like national elections, where like people vote against their own interests.
This is weird.
This is like what the Republican Party gets so much of their support from. So this is also like education bracket difference.
Yeah, and I think some of it also is like a lot of the voters who would have voted vandor and would not have supported Mondani like were given permission to back him, and that boosted his vote share a lot.
Yes, But like in terms of like why lower income is swinging towards Cuomo, Yeah, specifically people making under fifty k year swinging more towards Cuomo, even though Zoran is running a campaign specifically for those people that is also largely up in the bronx.
I will also say, like, the other thing that's very weird about the way these are tabulated is because it's it's tabulated by area, not by the actual people, yes, correct, which means you can get these things where like you see this Trump sometimes where like it looks like he's doing really well in like a district with like a really with like really low median income. But what's happening is like every single rich person in that district voted
and then no one else did. Yeah, So the numbers are a bit weird when when when you're looking at these sort of like priestin counts. Yeah, votes, but yeah, it's it's been a I don't know it's a it is a constant trend in the Bara Ohough, I guess this is everything that was actually very very different from Chicago, where in Chicago it was like basically pure income line for Brandon Johnson, the sort of like vaguely left person.
There is like New York is a very like middle class city in a lot of ways, Like there's a lot of people in the middle class bracket, a lot of people in the lower class bracket as well, but in terms of like like medium income levels, there's like a huge, huge number of like middle class voters. Specifically, like the vote map for the for the middle income
is so much bigger. I think it is worth highlighting what made Zorn's campaign special right, Like people are probably pretty familiar with like the slick videos, which yeah, he was really good at making videos. He is a great communicator, probably his biggest, like biggest strength is his ability to be like personable and is of just a pretty good
public speakers, great at communication. His mom's a relatively well known filmmaker, and not super surprising that he put he put a lot of work into making sure his like online TV ads were like top notch. One of the more unique things that he did is a huge focus on multi language outreach, which like, obviously New York is a city of like dozens and dozens and dozens of languages, and the Quoto campaign did not focus on that, but
this was a huge, huge focus of Zoron's campaign. Like, when you signed up for phone banking, you got to go through a massive dropdown menu of languages to phone banking, and Zoron himself was like speaking multiple languages. On the campaign trail, he had a huge, huge volunteer ground game. It was canvassing door Knox phone banking. My apartment had people stop in multiple times in the past week alone. The biggest focus of his campaign itself was a focus
on affordability. I want to Play a ad that started running on TV and online about two weeks ago. This is one of his less personal ads, right, like as opposed to his ads where he's like talking around New York talking to people, like addressing straight to camera, that kind of stuff, which is kind of in the staple of his campaign. So like, this ad is not that it is more like a classic political ad, but I think it still hits really hard. And this one like
kind of brain wormed itself. Into my head because of how like concise it is, and it hits so many things that even because of the last like general election, right like the twenty twenty four presidential It reflects the things that a lot of voters are concerned about, which is affordability, even if that means they will vote against their interests and vote in support of these like crazy tariffs. But I'm going to play this thirty second ad here.
There is a myth about this city.
It's the lie that life has to be hard in New York. I believe we can guarantee cheaper groceries, we can raise the minimum wage, we can freeze the rent for more.
Than two million tenants and.
Build hundreds of thousands of affordable homes. It city government's job to deliver that. We are done settling for less.
Are you ready for a city we can.
Afford a.
Rising?
Went Thromlicus.
So that was the main app that's been going across TV the past two weeks. This is this is his like final final push, and it addresses this like a conception of New York that's definitely been in my mind ever since I was a kid. I always thought this is a thing you can only live in if you're you know, very rich, if you're well off, and like, upon visiting here for the first time, I just realized how much that isn't true, how much this is like
actually a working class city. How many people keep this massive like concrete machine running who do not live in like a Manhattan pent house. Obviously, and yes it can be challenging, but we've like almost abandoned this place as like a zone of combat, as like a place to actually like build like an affordable, an affordable, stable life. And to see a candidate just directly address this is
so invigorating. He ran on freezing the rent, free buses, a pilot program for city run grocery stores, free to low cost childcare, raising minimum wage, and he didn't cave or waiver on controversial issues, or apologize or redact for past statements. He got really good at deflecting when people asked him about like previous statements out about how you know,
the NYPD is terrible. He did really good about moving towards talking about how NYPD should not be handling people in like mental health crises, how there should be other public safety workers who can help people in distress who are not the NYPD and just a very very slick job handling some like massive, massive amounts of anti woke attacks, referencing like the twenty twenty era of politics. Let's go on a break and then talk about his acceptance speech
and the reaction from the National Democrat and Republican parties. Okay, we are so back. So the past few months, Democrats have been asking this question like, how do we how do we reach young voters, how do we reach the young white to male vote. We need like a Joe Rogan of the left, all these types of crazy things.
And you had this guy Zord who started to get massively popular with young people, including young young men, and that you saw this entire party mobilized to stop him, to suppress any any movement that Zora was able to make.
And David Hogg, who is currently also being.
Rap fucked by the Democratic National Committee, has been campaigning with Zoran the past few weeks, and he he said a few days ago, quote, the same establishment that is spending millions to destroy Zoron will say in a few months that we need to spend millions on polling and testing to win back young people. Open your goddamn eyes. It's free and yeah, he's right, this is the solution. The solution is staring them in the face and they were wanting to stop it.
Yep, young people are begging you to co opt them, and they won't do it because they know what they would rather have Nazis and one percent higher taxes.
They want to be co opted.
And like actually fight for something, like actually have something to strive for, and like that's something that the Democrats have been so resistant to the past eight years. Like even even Joe Biden's campaign wasn't like fighting for anything, it was to like return to normal. Kamenthris's campaign wasn't really fighting for anything either. It was just to stop Donald Trump. And this is like this campaign wasn't just about beating Cuomo. It was also about like envisioning an
actually positive future of the city. And I was legitimately surprised that Cuomo conceded so early on. In his speech, he said, quote, tonight was not our night, Tonight is his night. He deserved it.
He won.
And from the moves that Komo's making, it seems like he's probably not going to run as an independent in the general like he maybe have been planning to if it was closer. It does not seem to be going that direction. It seems like he's kind of realized that his career is finished.
Yeah, he got rolled. Go back to the suburbs. Motherfucker.
Ugh Chuck Schumer called Soharan Wednesday morning and posted quote, I've known Zora Mamdnnie since we were together to provide a debt relief for thousands of leaguered taxi drivers and fought to stop a fracked gas plant in a Storia. He ran an impressive campaign that connected with New Yorkers about affordability, fairness, and opportunity. I spoke with him this
morning and I'm looking forward to getting together soon. Alkim Jeffries said, congratulations is Zar Mumdanni on a decisive primary victory. As having been, Mumdannie ran a strong campaign that relentlessly focused on the economy and bringing down the high cost of living in New York City. We spoke this morning and planned to meet in central Brooklyn shortly. The top dogs are bowing down.
All these Chuck Schub retreats are just straight up Please don't primary me because AOC is going to beat him by thirty.
He's gonna get primary like he's done. Who did you get obliterated? But I was expecting slightly more resistance, And it seems like parts of the Democrats have like realized that this actually is the future of the party now and there's no use fighting anymore.
This is the way to go.
Yes, it goes against what all like the consultants are saying, right to be like, you know, the Democrats went too woke, we went too far to the left.
We have to return to the center.
Even though that's what we've been doing for the Democratic Party for eight years. This election shows how much of that is like a complete bullshit lie that no, it's not about going too far left, it's about actually wanting to fight for something real. And I'm kind of surprised that the these these two top dogs are giving in to the zmentum.
I think also, and this is the thing like some one of my friends brought up, is that like mom Downy like isn't really like aoc no, no, no, this is something like very very important for like New York politics, which is like he's not like I'll be politically he is, but like he's not a complete outsider to New York politics.
All these people know him they know him from like legislative shit right, and he has like relationships with them in a way that would be very very different if if he was, like I don't know, just like some like a complete outsider who'd been like a protest leader or whatever.
He has he has proven himself.
He has like tense relations but like yeah, but like he like these people know him, and that's something that can matter a lot in terms of like how these reactions play out and in terms of like how desperate they are to stop him.
The Attorney General of New York was making like Obama two thousand and eight references, being like this, this was the energy in New York last night. And I wasn't around for the two thousand and eight presidential election. I mean I was alive, I just don't remember because I was also in Canada. But it did feel pretty exuberant last night walking around Brooklyn. And like this absolutely still is like a rejection of the Democratic Party establishment. That's
what these results show. And we have to like claim a firm victory now, like hard line with with with with such a strong fist that like any potential fuckery in the future, whether it's from like other Dems or from the Republicans, like from Trump right, like they're obviously willing to arrest the New York City controller. So like any potential fuckery needs to look so much worse. People have to close ranks around zor On like immediately and
like strengthen him. He needs to be like the face, like if they're going to take this guy down, he needs to be like the face of everything for like the next while.
We're sort of seeing like slightly smaller sharks, like trailing around the wake of the shark. Like you were talking about the Democratic Turnyan General Leatitia James, who gave a really really compelling speech, like I actually think she's like a better speaker.
Than any of the people involved in this race.
And she is like she has one hundred percent primary in the governor, like not one hundred percent, but like probably primary in the governor next year. Like this is you know, like people, people are sort of people have been flocking around this for a while and I think, I don't know, this is this is some real doesn't take a weatherman to see which way the winds are blowing shit Like they are, Yeah, they are, they are.
They are living in fear they are, they are bending the knee, they are et cetera, et cetera.
Very funny.
And now the Republican Party is going to be on the attack. The baton's being passed from establishment Dems to the Republicans to.
Try to take down.
Zoron, or at least paint Zoron as this new like radical face of the Democratic Party, like like racism levels are gonna They're gonna reach never before seen heights. It's gonna be like Post nine to eleven all over again. The National Republican Congression Committee is already calling Zoron the new face of the Democratic.
Party, which yeah, he should be.
That's not like fucking bring it if you want, just like a breath of fresh air, I would recommend watching some financial news from from Wednesday morning.
Oh it's so good, Hot commy summer Baby, hot commed Sumner.
Who I Am.
Executions in Central Park are about to begin.
The Workers Republic is established, the Commonwealth of Labor rules.
We're waiting for Chairman mcdani to make the final call. Lists are being made.
Only you can ford the Soviets seize your workplaces. At the time is now. I do want to play a brief click from c NBC.
If you've seen where what Batman is up against in Gotham and what the guy running for mayor is up against.
That's what it reminds you.
They're taking Wall streeters and make him walk out onto the ice in the East river as and hope and then they fall through.
I mean there is a class warfare.
That's so what's happened here? I think it's a rich type. There's a division within the Demo. Whoa, that's right. There is a division. The revelation baby.
Eat the Wrench. There is a division of the Democratic Party.
Walked them out onto the ice. We're sending him onto the ice.
Is all on hand in hand with the Bain and Chilly and Murphy are gonna be.
Sending them on to the hunts and the spirit of occupy lives. Oh my god.
Bill Ackman Cromo and Trump Backer said quote, I was a bit depressed when I woke up this morning, but now I'm optimistic. I have a great idea on New York City, and I will share it as soon as I can. We are looking into legal issues. Good luck, good luck, Bill, have fun out there.
Oh no, they're good. Wait, this is they're just gonna do persperas in Agane who cares. Oh no, bring it, bring it. I will say like this this coverage, like I like, people don't.
Understand how one hints coverage is going to be. Like in Chicago when when when Brandon Johnson won the election, Brandon john is like significantly to the right of mom Donnie. Right when Brandon Johnson won the election, the Chicago press went so insane that all of them pretended to be
pro immigrant. Oh yeah, Like, do you understand how unhinged the press has to get here because like like one of Johnson things that he was like fucking over like immigrants here, and he was like this immigrant the shelters are putting put in where substandard and people are getting sick, and like we had the best coverage of immigration issues under Biden in the country because specifically that was the thing the reason to attack him.
I'm super curious what the Times is gonna do because like they've also pulled out all the stops the past the past few weeks to try to to try to stop Zoran.
It's gonna be unhinged.
The winds blowing in his direction now though, like I don't know what they're gonna do.
I don't know, Like I think that specific class of people is just going to hate him until the end, Like I think. I think, like like David Brooks is going to be writing college about how there are like pagrams going on like on this streets, Like Brett Stevens is gonna be like I don't know, they're going to go to call it like super Lebanon, Like it's gonna be like levels of unhinged no one's ever seen before.
Now, speaking of the Times, Obama's tree strategist was quoted in a New York Times article Wednesday morning, quote, there is no doubt that Trump and Republicans will try and seize on him as a kind of exemplar of what the Democratic Party stands for. The thing is, he seems both principled and agile and deft enough to confront those
sorts of confrontational plays. I do want to read off from a Fox News screenshot this morning, showcasing Zoron's horrific, terrifying communist platform, which includes housing freezing rent, building afford level housing, creating city owned grocery stores whoa fair, free buses, raising the minimum wage to thirty dollars by twenty thirty and LGBTQIA plus protections expanding and protecting gender affirming care citywide, making NYC and lgbtq a I plus the sanctuary city
and trump proofing NYC to end ice cooperation. Hell yeah, thank you, thank you Fox News for that, for that great list of reasons.
It's to like Zaran Mamdani, I think.
I think I think it's actually genuinely really important. She's like the only Democratic candidate in fucking ages who actively campaigned on like putting more funding in the trans healthcare like sixty five million dollars of funding.
Yeah, fucking being pro trans wins.
Being anti trans gets your ass kicked back to the suburbs.
Like fucking Cuomo, eat shit, eat shit.
Your Democratic strategists fuck off and die eat shit. You will be the ones in the fucking graves that you were digging for us, Like, fuck off, we have dunk your electoral grapes.
This is why when I was at this like trans open mic at Metropolitan last night, like the whole room just like lit up in cheers, because yeah, like we've been we've been dealing with the past like six months. This idea that like trans writes is like the thing that's killing Democratic paulics and fucking know it isn't.
Yeah, and Quo Quoto Cuoto read as a fucking transphobe because he is, and it didn't work. This is the joint feminist transgender victory over the forces of the turf sex predator.
Fuck them.
To wrap up my stuff here, I do want to play one minute from Zorn's acceptance speech, which I think uh speaks for itself.
And it's where the mayor will use their power to.
Reject Donald Trump's fascism, to stop mass ice agents from deporting our naghbor.
I to covered our.
City as a model for the Democratic Party, a party where we fight for working people with no apology. A life of dignity should not be reserved for a fortunate fuel. It should be one that city government guarantees for each and every New Yorker. If this campaign has demonstrated anything to the world, it is that our dreams can become reality.
I sure hope this is the model for the Democratic Party going forward. Via you wanted to close on a sad note.
Yeah, I was really depressed this entire night because I remember feeling a lot like this in like twenty twenty three in Chicago.
Yeah, because this happened in Chicago. Yeah, well not this, but a version of this. Yeah.
Like obviously Brandon Johnson was like significantly to the right of like everything that's been happening in New York. Like not he wasn't like a right winger, but he was like you know, like the local DSA had conflict with him from other stuff. But like, you know, I remember feeling like this and then one year later, like swat teams like deployed by the mayor that.
He claimed he didn't send.
We're beating up art students outside like literally in the middle of downtown for trying to have a Palestine encampment. And you know, like my bitter cynical personally got rap fucked by the mayor's office.
Yeah, like Citicis, I'm on, this is like it's gonna be weird. There's gonna be a lot of shit that sucks this.
This guy is like advocated defunding the police and is attacked like the NYPPD for years. Yeah, and now he's intensively going to be in charge of it, and he's he's not gonna be able to abolish the NYPD like that that's not gonna happen. No, So there's gonna be a degree of like you know, moratl like crisis. He's gonna have to work against some of the things that he stated he believes in.
Yeah, And on a structural level, there's there's a really significant problem here, which is that, like the moment you become the leader of a capitalist city, right, it becomes your job to keep the economy running. And the problem is that like keeping keeping a capitalist economy running means you have to your job is now maintaining growth for for this economy, right, and maintaining growth through the economy means figuring out how how to have corporation continue to
make more and more money. And that's not compatible with being a socialist. And everyone who has ever tried to like deal with this crisis you either like you have two pass it's like one you become a capitalist, right, and we see this fucking all over the place, right, it's like you know, it's it's it's Barcelona and Caboo coming into power, which is like this sort of like left wing council kind of like books to Nite thing, and then they immediately start like evicting migrates right or
two or two, you actually do the thing. You do the thing you do, you do the actual socialism, and we fucking we like you know this is this is the beginning of the end of fascism in a way where we see a fundamental change in the structure of our economic system and that can be the outcome of this, but we have to build it, not him, like.
And I think the most he's gonna be able to do is provide a bit of a safer zone for us to operate in in New York.
Yeah.
Yeah, he's going to be introducing more like social democratic policies, Like he's gonna make the city like financially easier to live in. Yeah, things will suck less, which is good. He is going to to the end of his power fight against Trump's.
Efforts to deport your.
Neighbors, and like, that is so much better than both what Cromo would do and Eric Adams, who is actively collaborating with the Trump administration. So this man's not going to actually be the least algae. He's not actually going to be the guy that ushers in the Red Revolution,
which is not even something I necessarily want. But I think what he can do is make this an actually better place to live right now, and specifically make it a better place to live as the national politics in this country are controlled by a fascist and a cabinet full of fascists.
Yeah, and he can make the largest city in the country the rock upon which the tide of fascism breaks and.
That matters, that does well, that doesn't for us today, greatest city in the world.
Cheer one point five Chinese City. Let's go.
Oh, who's got ed?
That's not how we start these episodes.
Wow, that's how we're starting this one, Garrison, it's already begun.
Welcome to Executive Disorder, our weekly newscast covering what's happening in the White House, the crumbling world, and what it means for you.
That's right, motherfuckers.
That's Robert Evans. I'm Garrison Davis. I'm also joined by Mia Wong and James Stout. This week we are covering the week of June eighteen to June twenty five.
That's right, a good week where nothing but good things happened. Assuming you are someone who manufactures thirty pound gravity utilizing bunker busting bombs.
Thirty pound that's quite a small one.
Thirty thousand, thirty thousand, that's thirty thousand. Sorry. Anyway, we're talking about Iran. We're gonna start with Iran. We're gonna start with Iran's nuclear program, and I think we should start. We need to start by giving the kol Zone media cool kid's guide for how to enrich uranium.
Oh no, I don't want to get arrested robbers, now, Mia, it's not illegal to tell people how to enrich uranium.
Google will do it, and I assume they're correct. Robert, it is legal for white people to do this. I don't know if it's legal for.
Me to do this.
It's okay, it's okay, it's okay. Look, if I've learned one thing, it's that it's okay for white people to talk about any kind of bomb on the internet. So we'll be fine. I'll be fine. That's what matters, Robert.
Do I have kidnapping insurance? Do we have an extraction team for me when I go to ice prints? We don't.
We have an extraction team, but it's not the cool kind anyway. So let's talk about how to make nukes. Because one thing you'll constantly hear whenever the US or Israel talks about Iran's nuclear program, is that they're just three to eight months away, right or weeks away. This is what you'll hear sometimes just technically if you three months is a number of weeks away whatever.
And they've been saying this for longer than I've been alive.
Here's the thing, it's technically correct, not in a way that like is correct in the way they are trying to push it, but in a way that is like literally correct, which is that Iran paused their nuclear program in two thousand and three. The current Ayatola has not given the command to start it up again. There is
no evidence that it is currently operative. Back in March, US military intelligence the DA concluded that there was no indication Iran had decided or attempted to restart their nuclear program. That said, it has been true since two thousand and three that they are potentially about three months or so away from having a nuke because of the way that
making nukes work. So in order to make the standard kind of nuclear weapon that we're talking about here, you need a bunch of enriched uranium, right, and there's two kinds of uranium. There's two thirty five and there's two thirty eight, and naturally they always show up together, and there's always a lot more two thirty eight than two thirty five, and two thirty eight is fucking bullshit. If you're trying to make yourself a bomb, right, you want
the two thirty five. And I'm not going to go into a ton of detail about like how you do this, but because of just the nature of how uranium two thirty five and two thirty eight work, they're chemically identical, so you can't use chemical reactions to separate them, right, So you can't use any of the easy ways that you would like separate one from the other in order to constant trait the kind of uranium that they want.
The only way to actually do that is by using a centrifuge, which is, in short, uses the magic of spinning in order to separate out the uranium that you want from their uranium that's not very useful to you. And Iran has a substantial quantity of like sixty percent enriched uranium, which is basically one step away from ninety percent, which is like what you need to actually build the
bomb that they need. And they've had a shitload of this uranium sitting around for a while, right, because it keeps well, and theoretically, if they were to start their program up again, it would be theoretically possible to enrich it in fairly short order to the concentration that you need, right and at that point, once you have a sufficient quantity.
And you'll hear slightly different numbers, but generally agreed that they have a sufficient quantity of uranium that is fairly enriched that if they were to finish the they can make somewhere between like eight to ten warheads with it, right, like something somewhere in that vicinity, and they could have a functional warhead within a matter of weeks after enriching,
because enriching the uranium is the hard part. Once you've done that, it's very easy to make a nuclear weapon, right, sufficiently skilled people could do it with like fairly minimal technology if they like. Getting the rich uranium is the hard part. So it's technically true that Iran is that, you know, close to having a weapon they have been
since two thousand and three. But the more important part of the story is that they have not been working on a weapon, and there's no evidence even for the DEA concluded in March that they were not actively working
on a nuclear weapon. So what's actually been going on here is that while the Ayatola has not reauthorized the program in quite some time, pressure has been It's been generally agreed by people watching, you know, Iranian politics, that pressure has been building on him in order to reauthorize the program.
Right.
There's a good CBS News article on this that notes that the US Intelligence Community assessment stated that there was an erosion of a decades long taboo on discussing nuclear weapons in public, brought on by all of the pressure against Iran by Israel.
Right.
In other words, the more Israel and the United States threaten and actually do bomb Iran, the more public support there is, and the more acceptable it comes to talk about restarting the program, right, because continuing to bomb and attack them makes the case very strongly that well, we probably need one of these fucking things, right, because otherwise
they're simply not going to stop. And that's been the lesson of the twenty first century, which is, if you are a country that has beef with the United States or any other nuclear power, the safest thing to do is get a nuke and then get more nukes as quickly as possible, right, So that's the situation that we're in.
Iran has not moved any closer to having a nuclear weapon over the last twenty some years, but because they've got this uranium, you can always technically say, well, they could be months away.
Right.
So this all leads us up to last week's strikes on Iran. These were using a wing of B two bombers. Actually, there was quite a few aircraft involved. Prior to the bombing attack, there was a lot of discussions like the United States preparing for much more extensive action in Iran because we flew all of these different, like refueling planes all around the world, and we're like setting up very clearly this like massive set of infrastructure to refuel and
keep a bunch of planes in the air. Now, the reality is that all of these refueling planes and whatnot were part of this bombing mission, and the bombing mission did not just include the seven bombers that actually struck Iran, but another wing of B two bombers that flew in the opposite direction as part of a feint, as well as fighter jets and reconplanes that were necessary to help set up and protect the whole apparatus that we were setting up to get these seven B twos to the
target area. Right now, the actual mission was about thirty seven hours, which is not the law longest mission B two cruis have flown. That was forty four hours, and it was over Afghanistan in two thousand and one. And keep a pin in that because we will be talking about how successful that mission was, because there's some similarities
between it and what was done in Iran. Now, the B twos that we flew over Iran were armed with these big thirty thousand pound bunker busting bombs, and well, we'll talk about these as well in a while, but I want to I found out there's a very interesting article on a CNN Politics by Michael Williams that interviews one of the guys who was part of the longest B two mission, that mission over Afghanistan, who talked about like what you have to do in order to carry
out a mission like this. And I want to bring it up because, you know, in the middle of this very shameful episode for the United States, it reminds me of what makes me proud of this country and what makes me proud of this country is our tendency to dose bomber pilots with massive quantities of amphetamines so that they can be absolutely spun off their asses when bombing a foreign country. And that's exactly how you get bomber teams over to a country like Iran for thirty seven
hours of flight time. Is everybody is prescribed amphetamines and they are high as shit. They are pissing in ziploc bags full of kitty litter. They've got a chemical toilet in the back. They're just spun off of their asses, pissing into cat litter. And that's that's how strikes like this are managed, which I think is beautiful.
Yeah, except for the whole you know, Trump starting a little war aspect of it.
Yeah, sure, sure, the massive civilian casualties are always a.
Tragedy, Yeah, the death eminicent people.
But you know it also, it was from fighter pilots that we get a swinger culture. And it's from fighter pilots and swinger culture that we get popularized amphetamines in the United States. And without that, you know, I don't know, we actually probably wouldn't miss out on much that was very good.
But the seventies would have been different. Value was lost. Might have been better, Yeah, it might have been better.
I don't know. I feel like Jefferson airplane wouldn't have been as good. But maybe they'd be close something else. Yeah, maybe they'd been called something else. So the primary munition that these B twos were supposed to be dropping over Iran, and the whole reason why the United States was needed because Israel had carried out a bunch of strikes on
Iranian nuclear facilities. But basically, Iran, being intelligent, knew that, like, well, they're going to bomb these facilities like as long as they exist, and it's very difficult to get like these centrifugias made, right, Like that's the hardest part of getting a nuclear weapon is getting the equipment that will allow you to enrich uranium. And so it's very precious and you can't you don't just have you can't just remake
it super easily. So Iran buried this shit, right. They had a number of different sites which were hit by both the US and Israel, the most deeply buried of which was a place called at a place called Fourdoh, and the actual facilities were buried underneath like the ridge of a mountain beneath ninety meters or about three hundred
feet of rock. Right. And we have this tendency in the West in part because of generations of like military industry propaganda, and in part because the Air Force really wants you to believe this that bombs are a lot more powerful than they are now. Bombs are great at blowing up buildings that are just hanging around on the surface of the earth, and they're great at killing people. They're great at killing civilians, people who are not you know,
armored or defended against them. They're awesome at that. You know, what bombs suck at is going more than a couple of feet below the earth. They're terrible at it. Even really big bombs, even the scariest bombs we've ever made, absolute dog shit at getting through, especially like stone and rock. And so Israel was like, we don't have the capacity, we don't have the technology to actually like crack a
facility like fourd oh. The only thing that can is these bombs that can only be carried by the Bee two, which are these thirty thousand pounds bunker busters.
Right.
And the question that comes up then is like, Okay, well this four doah is ninety meters. It was beneath ninety meters of rock. How deep can these GBU fifty sevens, these massive ordnance penetrator bombs, which had not been used in combat before? How deep can these fuckers go?
Right?
That seems like a simple question. You will usually see most of the graphics on the news will show that it penetrates sixty meters right or two hundred feet, and then it detonates, right, which you could do damage to a facility that's buried deeper. Right, If you're detonating it like sixty meters down and it goes down ninety meters, that explosion could do enough extra damage. It could damage a facility that's just like another thirty meters below.
Right.
Theoretically, however, that doesn't tell the full story. And I'm very indebted in this part to an NPR article by Joff Brumfel, who did actually like the math. Right, So we figured out a long time ago when we started bombing things, there's like a mathematical equation to how far a bomb that's a given weight and dropped from a given height and has a given explosive payload can penetrate through different kind of substrates right that you can just
kind of plug that equation in. And yeah, I want to quote from Jeff's article right now, because it does a very good job of like looking at kind of why this was sort of a dogshit plan from the start. I went back to take a look at the math from those early studies and I found it was actually straightforward.
The so called penetration equations have existed since the nineteen sixties and depend on a limited number of factors, including the shape of the nose cone, the weight and diameter of the weapon, the speed at which it hits the ground, and crucially, the type of earth it gets dropped on. It depends enormously on the kind of rocks, as Raymond Gene Laws, the professor at the University of California, Berkeley and one of the original authors of the two thousand
and five National Academic Study and Earth Penetrators. When I ran the calculations using a key equation from that study, I found that the GBU fifty seven could go up to eighty meters underground if it was dropped in salty clay.
In medium strength rock, things looked far different. The GBU fifty seven could only go around seven point nine meters beneath the earth, So that's not nearly the sixty meters that you're seeing claimed on most and it's nowhere close to ninety, right, And there's a good amount of data we already have. Trump obviously claimed as soon as we did this bombing run, because we dropped a fairly heavy
cluster of these bombs, twelve on four to zero. And Trump's claim was that, like, yeah, it was completely destroyed. His press secretary said, when you dropped twelve thirty thousand pound bombs with perfect precision on a target, there's only one result, complete destruction. And that's not true even if you just like look at the past of us using
these weapons. I mentioned earlier that two thousand and one mission to Afghanistan that was us trying to blow up that's purported like cave fortress that bin Laden had.
You may have seen the diagram in Tora Bora, and we didn't. It didn't work because it's really hard for all of our technological might, it's very hard to blow up something buried under rock, Like it doesn't matter how many of these giant bombs.
You have, We're shit at it. Right now, there's still some debate. The DIA assessment says that basically, we did damage, but it was at most maybe enough to knock them back by eight months, and probably less than that. Right, it's kind of debatable, and we don't have perfect data on this, right, I don't know that Iran has perfect data on this, because one thing we can confirm is that the bombing sealed the intro, so it's possible they
can't get into Ford Oh quite yet. Right, Like, there's going to be some work needed to do to be able to get these facilities if they were to do that, which again they were not based on US military intelligence, were not doing prior to the bombing, but based on satellite imagery, it does not look like there's not really good evidence that we did any kind of significant damage. There's some reports that some centrifugias were damaged, but those
reports state that other centrifugias were intact. So it's one of those things where like there's not any strong evidence. And in fact, the DIA's report suggests that, like, the damage done was fairly minimal, given the extreme cost of this operation and the brags that the administration has been making that like they totally destroyed these facilities, right, right, We simply did not totally destroy these facilities. Now, it's a little too early to say so precisely, like how
bad is this? Right, But you know again, that's kind of the early data is that, like the DIA assessment says, we set them back maybe a few months at most. One of the fun things about this is that Iran moved their uranium prior to the bombing, right, Like, you can't really move these giant centrifuges or these big underground facilities, but you can take the uranium and you can just drive at places and we don't know exactly where they
hit it. The head of the IAEA, which is the International Atomic Energy Commission, has already come out and said, like, I have no idea where Iran's uranium is. And it's the job the IAEA's job is to account for every fucking gram of uranium held by every country in the world. Right, they are supposed to know at all times where it is. And he's like, I have no fucking idea, Like, we don't know where it is, and we don't know how much damage is double, we don't know where this is.
There is at least one report stating that Iran's plan was basically load this up into the trunks of a bunch of cars and park them in public parking lots because they probably they're not going to bomb a public parking lot outside of like a store, which is really funny, actually fair, The US might do that.
A Israel will send me bomb a fucking pokin they hit a press, which parking there's so yeah, yeah, and they'll pray a show game, right like they will send hundreds of trucks and vans from every location.
Yeah right, they'll send way more.
It's it's just the funniest thing in terms of it also points out how doomed efforts like this are where you just like, well, with our technology and our fancy stealth bombers, we clearly we should be able to figure this out. And it's like, nah, we're just gonna park. We need one hundred cars. We'll bring in six hundred cars and we'll park them randomly all around the country. Fuck you, what are you gonna do? Bomb every parking lot? Like, it's very funny quote.
From parking lot bombed? What are you gonna do? Yeah?
Anyway, that's uh, what's going on with us? Bombing Iran and so again very expensive. Yeah, probably did not do.
Much Trump the Doves strikes again the peace maker they calling them the peace maker.
Yeah, we'll talk about the peace bullshit after this. We should throw to ads first.
Thank you note from Grumman for sponsoring this segment.
We're back. So like the fourd Oh nuclear enrichment facility, Trump is between a rock and a hard place with with this whole carrying out illegal stripes on a sovereign nation thing. I'm a jig in that he came. He came to power a large part by promising I'm not going to do a World War three. I'm not gonna All these democrats are crazy warmongers, but not old Donnie t. You know, you can you can trust me to be
a peacemaker. And then he fucking bombs around, which is kind of a major escalation, right, So, and we're not gonna There's been people arguing with this have happened under Kamala Yaddiya. I don't, I don't, I don't give a shit. I don't really shit it's happening now. Fucking fuck off, Like it's not it's not worth talking about that. We're talking about what's happening, which is that this is a
major escalation. But Trump has had to He's kind of been hedging between like, yeah, look at how fucking cool our weapons are. We fuck them up so bad, and also and now it's time for peace. We have to stop the violence. Why don't you guys come to the table. Let's all be friends, and getting pretty pissed at the Israeli government, Yes, because he announced a ceasefire, and Iran was like, after striking back and hitting US bases in
a number of countries, was like, okay, we're done. Like we did the thing we had, we did the face saving thing. We have to launch missiles after youbamas. We can't not do that. Yeah, but we did it. We got our strike off, and we're not going to continue if you guys don't continue, right, And Trump was like, I did it. I made peace. Look at look at
how good I am. And then Israel immediately starts carrying out more straits and Trump is, are we gonna play the audio of it cursing on TV because it's very good. Here's here's Trump being confronted about this, Like, within hours of this Israeli strikes.
You know what we have.
We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don't know what the fuck they're doing.
Do you understand that?
So that's a pissed off man, and he's pissed off again. I do think people are generally wrong when they're like, oh, Trump's much better on Israel because he can confront net Yahoo. That hasn't really proved to be the case yet. But unlike Biden, Trump clearly doesn't care about Like he's willing to be pissed at net Yahoo.
And he was really pissed in this openly, like yeah, absolutely.
Openly, very yeah, because again he's hanging a lot on like nobody would dare go back to war when I said they were at peace? Right, Like that's that this is like an ego thing for him more than anything. He certainly doesn't give a shit about the human cost of any of this. But yeah, and so that's where we are right now. Are we done? Will there continue to be more strikes and retaliation strikes. Something's gonna happen.
It's not done, right, none of it's done. No. But you know, also, Iran's not stupid, right, This is a country that has been in these circumstances and in variations of this conflict for a long time, and they are neither foolish nor suicidal. So they're not going to be completely reckless here, right, Like I think you're seeing and what you've seen is pretty calculated responses where they are aware of how much they think they can push when and where, right, And so I, you know, I think
we're likely to like I don't know that. I think the escalation ladder is in like a runaway state. I don't see that evidence right now. But this is not the end of this, right, Yeah.
So something we got news of today in the last this is Wednesday. We got this in the last.
Hour or so, is that Trump like send on TV the thing that you're not actually supposed to say, which is that the US and Iran coordinated to have the Iran shoot these bases. Oh my god, it's like okay, like they like we literally went on TV and said, quote, you saw that working vessels were shot at us the other day, and Iran was very nice. They said we're gonna shoot them at one at one Okay, I said, it's fine.
Everybody evacuated.
Not the basis Like obviously the US has always done this, but like we've never had the president go on TV and just say, yeah, we let Iran shoot empty military.
Basis, Yeah we worked it out with them. Yep, yep.
This highlights something that's so interesting when I when I say this, I don't mean to ignore the fact that real people are dying, like particularly in Iran. It's horrifying, But there is a massive degree of this at the at the the nation state level that is kfa right, and that that proves it like Iran is like okay, look k.
FAE with the cost of like yeah, thousands of lives, people will die. Yeah, it's it's it's dick measuring.
The fact that iron is only to talk with you us about like okay, what can we strike that's not going to escal things for you, like yeah, we'll pull
you know whatever. And also that's to a degree that was going on with the strikes on Iran, right where they got enough of a warning that they were able to move their physical material right Like this is there, which is not to say that like things are like copasetic and friendly, but everybody's got everybody, but Israel has like a vested interest in things not escalating to much even the Trump administration, right has a vested interest in like, there's a line we don't want to cross because we
just don't see any like benefit in it, right, and that is that is a part of what's going on here. Yeah, anyway, that's probably enough talk about Iran and news and stuff. But anyway, remember, folks, you too could be a nuclear power if you can just figure out how to make a functional centrifuge and get a shitload of uranium. You know, it's not that hard.
It just comes out of the ground, depending on what that ground.
Is, depending on where that ground is.
Should you talk about immigration, sure, all right, I love immigration sadly, but Congress does not agree with you.
They rarely do, James, they rarely do.
Yeah, that is one of the things they say about Robot Evans. I want to start, actually with a little no disclaimer rant. Almost every day for the past six months, someone has sent me a tip saying that ice are rating a hospital. This has happened almost every month for the past ten years. I have received this tip thousands
of times. To my knowledge, it has never been true. Nonetheless, this rumor persists, and especially among people who might be newer to migrant advocacy or newer to observing immigration enforcement. What is happening in one hundred percent of these cases that I have looked into, is the customs of Border Protection or ICE or some other immigration detention agency is taking somebody who is in their custody to the hospital, and then that person is getting treatment, and then they
are released again to that immigration agency. Normally, those immigration agents can't enter non public areas of the hospital i e. Treatment rooms, but they can into public areas i e.
Lobbies.
This rumor, which continues to spread, which I've seen people including journalists sharing on social media, kills people right. I'm aware of one incident in which someone was having a medical emergency and didn't want to go to hospital, a medical emergency which could very well have killed them within hours, and didn't want to go to hospital because they had heard that ICE was at the hospitals. I understand that people are coming to this with varying levels of experience.
It's cool, it's great that people are showing up for migrants, but people need to exercise caution around this because it is not harmless to spread that rumor unless you are absolutely certain that it is true.
It hurts people and I.
Keep seeing it and I think it's important to say something about it, including two other journalists. Okay, with that said, let's start with some good news about immigration. ICE agents in San Diego scattered from the San Diego Court when the newly appointed San Diego Bishop Michael Farm, who is himself a refugee. He was an accompanied miner from Vietnam, entered the court to accompany people to their immigration hearings.
Bishop Farm was joined by Taha Hassane. I'm saying that correctly of the Islamic Center of San Diego and our Lady of Guadaloupe Church, Pastor Scott Santa Rossa. They say they're going to keep doing this quote as needed. So this is actually one of the very few things, at least in court houses, seems to have worked.
Right.
We've covered this in previous weeks that what is happening is that the government is dismissing the case against people and then immediately detaining them and forcing them to fight for their asylum well detained.
Right.
This has been happening all across the country. San Diego is the only place I'm aware of where religious leaders right from across the religious community are accompanying migrants to their detention hearings. So we saw Brad Lander doing this in New York politician, but this is the only instance I'm aware of where clerics are doing it, and it seems to have worked. It seems to have in this incident or in these instances, prevented ICE from detaining people.
And like, I'm not a religious person myself, but I will say that I respect this. I think this is this is cool. I've reported before, I spoke a lot about Jesuits in the Darien Gap and the how impressed and in awe of their work with migrants I am. And I think this is another example of people organizing with groups and they might not normally organize with but that having really beneficial results.
Right.
This huge win for the woke Marxist pope as well. It's always good to see.
Yep.
Hell yeah, huge win for Marxism this week. Yeah, generally a big week for Marxism in other years. A district court has ordered another man, Geordian, Alexander Melga Saint Maron, returned from El Salvador. He's Salvadorian, but he was removed thirteen minutes after a court order barred his removal and thus he was removed in violation of that court order right, and the District Court has ordered him returned. I'm not
aware if he's being returned yet. On Wednesday, we shall see, I guess, because the Supreme Court has allowed the Trump administration this week to continue removing migrants to countries which are not specifically noted on their removal orders. We spoke about this before, in the case of the attempt of the DODA to remove people to South Sudan. We've spoken about it in terms of removing people to El Salvador
who are not themselves salvad are in right. This isn't really deportation, and I think rendition is a more accurate way to describe it. And it will certainly result in people facing hardship and more likely than not, people facing torture and probably being killed.
It is a disaster.
It was a very short and unsigned order, and the justices that it wasn't a final decision right, that they paused the Massachusetts District Court ruling, which had in turn paused the process. So the process is now ongoing again. It's worth noting that the Massachusetts District Court ruling didn't stop them doing it, it allowed them a meaning attempt at expressing their reasonable fear of torture.
Right.
Three justices dissented, so to Mayor, Kigan and Jackson. So to Mayor wrote the descent, I'm going to quote from it here briefly, apparently quote the Court finds the idea that thousands will suffer violence in far flung locales more palatable than the remote possibility that a district court exceeded its remedial powers when it ordered the government to provide notice and process to which the plaintiffs are constitutionally and
statutorily entitled. As she pointed out, the government was seeking relief from this order in Supreme Court, but had also been openly flouting here right. This flouting of lower court orders lines up with a res Ruvenni, a DOJ lawyer who was fired for I guess not following the DOJ line in the Aberdegogavcia case. He filed a whistleblower complaint in Congress this week that the NAT has seen. You can read the whole article in the show notes, but in there you can hear Emil Bouvet, who's he was
Trump's personal Laura in twenty twenty three. Trump is now nominated him to be a judge, but he tells DOJ lawyers that they need to be open to responding fuck you to court orders. The allegations in a whistleblower complaint are pretty concerning, right in terms of the ability of the courts to stop the DOJ doing anything. I would urge you to read it. It's going to be linked
in the show notes. We don't really have time to summarize all of it here, but I think I think the fuck you comment summarizes it pretty well.
Yeah, and speaking of things that you should buy, here's ads. We're back, And since we've just done ads, let's let James give an ad for something that's not a product or service but as better yeah things, if you have any money left.
After investing in all the wonderful goal their appetites to want to sell you. One of the people who we have interviewed on this show extensively, who came into the Artistrates through Acumba and who provided us with a really in depth account of his immigration detention, has let me know that he is struggling to find a lawyer and
pay for a lawyer. So far, he's been taking care of all of his legal paperwork himself, which is very admirable, but obviously, like many migrants, he understands his chance of the success will be much much better with a lawyer, something he himself is struggling to pay for right now whilst also supporting a family. If you would like to help, the link for that is www dot GoFundMe dot com
slash f slash Standing with our Family. It will also be the first link in the sources for this episode, so if you're listening on your podcast app, you can scroll down to the show to find it that click it and help out if you'd like to.
Well.
I think it's time for Gahre's good news round up, and let's start with some actually like fantastic news. My mood Khalil has been released after one hundred and four days in ice custody.
He missed the birth of his first child.
Was it his first time meeting his child? Did he get to meet his child?
I think he'd gotten one visit where he got to meet his kid, if if I'm remembering directly, it's still kind of about two thirds of the way through his detainment.
But now he is back in New York as his case will continue. This is a good step in the fight against disappearing people for political differences.
Like, this is important.
This is possibly like the one of the most important national pieces of news. That's still a developing story right now.
I've seen some responses that are like, yeah, so after one hundred and four days of being illegally detained and you know, a guy finally got released, this is still a bad thing, And like that's true, this is a bleak story. But like it's actually kind of like foolish to not acknowledge this as a significant win, right, Like, it's important.
They did not want to release him.
They wanted to keep him, Yeah, forever, they did not want to release him.
Yes, this is good. This is a good thing, and it's proof that it is worth fighting because you can win.
Yeah, Like every.
Day he's not in jail and that he's with his family is a better day.
Yes, is a win. Yeah, it's a victory. Yes.
Also some good news in New York it is so clover Soran Mamdani won the Democratic primary for the mayor of New York City Tuesday night.
This is quite exciting.
I got to announce to a massive room full of trans people that Cuomo conceded to Zoron, and I have not felt better in months.
It was like one of the one of the one of the.
Brightest rays of hope that we've had, and a rejection of like the old Democratic Party establishment. Yes, Zoron had to beat like thirty million dollars of super pac funding against him. He mobilized the youth vote in ways we've never seen before in New York. A quarter of early
voters for first time that Democratic primary participants. Zoron ran a very very solid campaign with slick videos online and on TV, multi language outreach, fifty thousand like on street volunteers, canvassing, door knocks, phone baking, and a distinct focus on affordability, including freezing rent, free buses, pilot program for city run grocery stores, free to low cost childcare, raising minimum wage, and resisting Trump's efforts to use ice to deport New Yorkers.
Myself and Mia did a full episode yesterday if you want to have a more in depth look at the New York mayor roal primary.
Yeah.
We should also note here that per acbs New York inner with former Governor Cuomo. He has stated that he is considering running against Mom Donnie as an independent, So we'll see how that goes. We might get to see Cuomo lose twice in a year, which would be pretty funny.
Yeah, I mean, honestly, I would be surprised if he actually decides to run in the general. A lot of like like Ackman is going behind Adams. It seems they're certainly going to be targeting from like Republicans and maybe even some den like establishments.
Oh yeah, sure definitely.
So to like remove Zoran as like a viable candidate, they're going to pull out some crazy like red scare communist shit from the fifties. Absolutely, they might try to remove his legal status as a citizen, like they're gonna pull out the stops. But this is like after the twenty twenty four election. This is like the first first like clear look at what a new Democratic Party could look like. And right now is the face of Zorrong. Yeah that's all I have.
Yeah, and you know, it's nice to see a win again. It's like the Mahud Khalil thing, right, It's it's nice, absolutely, like this is this is good things can happen now? Does this mean is this a part of a fucking progressive wave that's sweeping the country. Does this prove that, you know, being pro Palestine and pro trans is the best electoral strategy in one hundred percent of districts? Now,
like this is this is New York. We like, this is one election, but it's like good news and it it I think it there's a very solid possibility that we will see this as like part of a growing trend that when candidates are actually left wing and unabashedly so, when they don't try to tack to the middle, when they don't try to embrace you know, a hodgepodge of like contradictory policies in order to please some sort of like farcical median theoretical median voter, that they do better.
I do think that, like maybe that's what we'll see. But you know, obviously one election in New York City is not a one one primary in New York City isn't enough to prove that like this is going to be the same kind of thing we see nationwide.
I mean, but it did show how to mobilize like a huge number of like young people and like a lot of a lot of like young men, which which the Democratic Party has been like whining about for the past few.
Months, terrible about Yeah, and that's a big.
Deal, Like how do we reach out to the young men in this country? And like Zoron showed you how to do this, it's actually fighting for like real things that make your life better.
You can get people excited about your candidacy. If you're standing for something and getting people excited, it's even more important than just being like, well, this theoretically polls the best, because if you do take all the positions that poll well, but nobody gives a shit and you don't have any kind of excitement or the ability to build like a grassroots ground game, then you'll do worse. Like if you have that behind you, if you have all that enthusiasm,
you can make less popular positions more popular. That's how politics works, right, Look at Trump, you know, like the whole everyone's always wondering like how does he get away with all these things that were forbidden for so long? Is because he had a lot of enthusiasm behind them, and that wave allowed him to push a bunch of boundaries.
And like that's how it works.
It can work the other way too, if you try, if you're not just gutless if you're not a fucking shumer.
So in less good news and the less good news, I mean really really horrible news, terrible news. Yeah, So last week we got the results of the United States versus Gremetti. I think most trans people have been expecting that this was going to be really bad, but it was. It was I guess technically not as bad as it theoretically could have been, but this ruling was. There's a six' three ruling that Upholds tennessee's yeah ban on gender affirming
care for. Minors that ban IS i mean just like hideously. Illegal it's like very obviously ces. Discrimination The Supreme court gave genuinely LIKE i had a friend described, as like we're just in Pure calvin ball, Land like it's if you read the, decision it's fucking.
Nonsense it's. Gibberish that also.
Makes it hard to figure out what's gonna do because the legal reasoning is just so unbelievably.
Nonsense like it leaves it it leaves in place the twenty twenty ruling on sex discrimination in the workplace for trans people, intact but it invents this new justification that you can discriminate against trans people if you're discriminating against gender dysphoria as a diagnosis specifically not necessarily them being, trans but but the ability to treat gender.
Dysphoria, yeah it's it's really really fucking.
Weird i'm probably gonna do like a full episode looking at like like bringing into actual legal people to talk about with degal. Impacts you're going to be this is really. Bad this means that like twenty five states bans on gender firming care go into.
Effect. Yeah one of the.
Worst parts of, this right is that you, know and this is this is one of the biggest issues with like targeting and trans kids in, general is that just the structure of the family and if childhood makes it really hard to help these kids because they're significantly more isolated than. Transadults, right it's harder for trans kids to find. Community it's harder for the community to find, Them. Yep and because of the structures in place, here like they
are denied the autonomy to keep. Living and if their parents decide to just be like fuck, you we're just doing we're going to do conversion therapy on you by refusing to let you, transition they can do, that and it's extremely hard to resist.
It, yeah the root of so much, AUTHORITARIANISM i would, argue, like the absolute core of the fascist movement is the idea that parents own their. Children, yeah and that like that is the most that is the single most important property right that, exists is your ownership of.
Kids i'm going to, say it's bed time if we ready get to the core of, it isn't, It, Robert, yeah it's.
No robert's go in full like no future queer, Theory LIKE I i agree with.
You, no he's, Right, no this is THE i don't think this is even debatable as someone who has raised. It it's this and it's it's not a simple, problem right because like kids are not adults and shouldn't like have full autonomy about, choices like you, know because they'll they don't understand the world. Fully there's a degree to which kids need to be like.
Guided, yeah you should stop a child if they're gonna walk into the street and get hit by a, bus right, yeah like grab a fire or.
If they only want to eat candy for, dinner, Right, like that's there are. Limits but the idea that like and so parents own their, kids they're like that that is just it's pure poison and it's killing us.
All and like more, broadly like guys who hate that kids are the fucking full front.
Of fascism right.
Now like, Yeah Elon musk Bought twitter because he hates his, Daughter, yes more more than if any any other. Thing like it's uh, yeah it's a repugnant. Ideology it's just.
Gusting. Yeah.
Yeah, anyway we'll do some sort of more detailed look at this that like that at some, point BUT i think we've you, know covered the.
News, YEAH i, MEAN i think the last the last THING i want to say about that is like if your trends AND i know this was a bigger thing and the immediate wake of last, week but keep.
Living yeah, yeah, yeah stay. Alive maybe get a passport because you can do that right. Now there's a lot of benefit even if you're not going to, travel if you don't have the money to, travel there's a lot of benefit in having that.
Id.
Yeah, yeah we're all going to see the sun rice together like we, are and it's going to be.
Beautiful but do you know who won't is a man From norway who will probably never be seeing The United states ever.
Again, god oh my, God, Okay, Garrison.
So to finish this, episode we're going to talk about the one deportation we're kind of allowed to laugh. At not because the guy is. Bad the guy seems perfectly, fine but the circumstances around the deportation are so. Bizarre it's wild shit and it Affects. Norway so it's you, know it's like, Whatever garrison Anti norwegian, ACTION o no offense To. Norway i'm just, like it's it's not like this guy's getting deported to a place where he's in.
DANGER i love You, norwegians even If garrison.
Doesn't this is not a guy who's going to. Suffer he's not going To South, suda, beer life threatening or. Whatever he's.
Fine.
YEAH A norwegian man was coming to The United states for vacation and at the border check point AT i Think, newark he was questioned and handed over his. Phone on the, phone porter agents found a photoshopped picture of BABY JD v sorry of bald BABY jd. Vance yeah, yeah and for this, reason BABY jd denied entry into into The United states and deported back to Your.
Thomas country On.
Earth. Anyway said photo has now been shown in The Irish parliament because we live in it's beautif the world's.
Beautiful they're Deporting norwegians for Jd vance. Memes, now this is the level that we're, At like The party Of Free speech deporting people who has have Jd vance memes on their.
Phone, like on the one, HAND i think you can make the argument that fascism has always been this, stupid like google Google mussolini's headquarters and look at that.
Building is this? Dumb but, like good, lord LIKE i, just oh my, GOD i have personal.
Vanity there's such fucking tiny babies about. It like that's, like that's like the really defining characteristic of this era of fascism is that if you make fun of them the tiniest, bit it is the worst consequences they've ever stuffed in their entire, lives and they fucking lose their mind that everyone doesn't fucking love.
Them, yeah they they're they're fully like willing and like desire to use the complete might of the states to uh to step on anyone who dares defy their, authority even even when that defiance is manifested through having a picture of baby Jd vance with a bald head like, that that is too. FAR i DON'T i don't know what else to say about bald BABY Jd.
Fance you, know get get a, tattoo get a full facial tattoo or like a bin afflet.
Denaturalized for YOUR jd events back.
Tattoo you can't punish you not for a. Tattoo, no it, is it.
Is it is funny how much vans in the border patrol do not understand the barber strikes that in. Effect this picture is now. Everywhere it shows how how HURT. Jd fance is by these, photoshops even though he's tried to laugh along in the.
Past, Yeah i'd love to, know like how is there a directive that has come? Down like no streams did some like office and field operations, guy.
Did they send it up To Stephen miller with like Hey, steven is this?
Okay it seems like, no, no, no.
It's somewhere a take offence on behalf Of Vaughan's like that could be very.
LIKELY i think that is.
What, Happened like that all of the data suggests that's what.
Happened roberts talked about this like working towards the furor stuff. Before but like we're seeing a version of that, here, Right, like.
Oh, YEAH i mean like all of the current border agents are Like trump cultists, essentially like they're they're the most evil people you will you will ever.
MEET i, mean of the of all the federal, agencies, right IT'S cbp that has had the lowest vaccination. Rate they're playing One american use in their break, Rooms, like, yeah they are more ideologically sympathico with what's happening THEN i would imagine most OTHER feds. Are, yeah, certainly LIKE
ice are pretty much in lockstep with The trump. Administration, yeah if you want to HELP, AMOS i guess don't send A. Jd vynce baby, meme but you can send your money again to GoFundMe dot com slash f slash standing with our. Family they'll be in the show notes, Too and if you would like to contact, us you can do so using proton, mail which is only encrypted end to end if you are sending from an encrypted
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