It Could Happen Here Weekly 25

but a gamified an engaged community. Listen to Boss Level on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Raised by Wolves the podcast is back for season two. I'm Holly Fry and as host of the companion podcast to the hit HBO Max sci fi series Raised by Wolves, i am unwrapping the latest season of this cosmic space opera for fans by talking directly to some of the incredibly talented folks who helped

bring the show to life. Stream Raised by Wolves now on HBO Max and subscribe and listen to Raised by Wolves the podcast on the I Heart Radio app, HBO Max, Apple podcast Gusts or wherever you get your podcasts Okay recording. You have a story to tell and maybe you've thought I should start a podcast, Meet Anchor. It's a powerful app that lets you record a podcast anywhere and get it hurt everywhere. All you need to do is download the free Anchor app and hit record. Just go to

anchor dot fm, slash get started. Make a podcast with Anchor. That's Anchor, dot fm, slash get started. Great. I think we got it. 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 gonna be nothing new here for you,

but you can make your own decisions. Everyone. I'm Robert Evans and this is Myanmar printing the Revolutions and it could happen here. Special mini series, an in depth documentary investigation with me and journalist James Stout. Over the next four days, you're going to learn about the gen Z militias of the mean Mar Civil War, three D printed weapons, and a bunch of other really fascinating stuff. Besides, so,

without any further ado, here's James. Ever since the first person built the first fence, took land from everybody and annexed it to themselves, property rights and violence have gone hand in hand. With property grew the state, and when the state came the police. Today most of us grew up under the control of states, and they're so ubiquitous that their violence is often overlooked until a particularly agreed to this incident occurs. But all states, even the most benign,

rest on a monopoly on violence. State to the entities that imposed laws on a given area, and if you break those laws, state can beat you up, a lot you up, or shoot you up. When the state loses the monopoly on violence, it ceases to be able to enforce its laws, charge its taxes, and enforce its will on the people at rules. We've seen this all over the world, from the Democratic Republic of Congo to briefly downtown Seattle. Our state in the USA speaks the language

of rights and liberties. When we want to appeal to the state, we tend to use that language. Even though our state, as we saw in it's backed by plenty of violence as much as any other. It goes a long way to camouflage that violence. Some states are a bit more mask off. They speak to their citizens more or less exclusively through violence, and when citizens need to respond to that state, they respond to the language it

uses to speak to them. That's how a teenager from Yangon, Myanmar ended up on Reddit in summer of one asking strangers how to use a three D printer and computer to make a rifle. Me and Ma isn't a country that is on the radar for most of the US. If it is at all, it's probably because the State Council and Foreign Minister on Scien Succhi. She managed perhaps the history's fastest pivot from Nobel Peace Price winner to

head of a government accused of genocide. But Suki is in jail now and the Rahania, the muslimmethnic group that the military attempted to eliminate from the east of the country under her rule, are just one of many ethnic and political groups. They're an open armed conflict with the military, who now hold control of the government of Myanmar, known

luckily as a tapmad or the military sees power. In early one you might have seen a video of a woman doing an aerobics workout as the vehicles rolled in behind her to seize power. Ever since that day, they've been committing crimes against humanity all over the country. Miama has a longer history of dictatorship than democracy. The British East India Company occupied the area that now represents the

country in the nineteenth century. As always they talked about civilizing missions and freedoms, but in practice the occupation was extractive and only benefit the Anglo Burmese and a few Indian civil servants they brought with them often. But this month led to resistance that manifested itself in hunger strikes and everyday acts of disobedience, small ways of saying no. In a few instances, it became open and unbrest builed

into the streets. The country became a major battle ground during the Second World War, with Japan evading and seizing the country before Allied forces took it back In a fierce campaign in nineteen as many as a hundred and fifty thousand Japanese troops died. Burmese people fought on both sides. A son, Ang San Suki's father demanded that Britain granted him and his fellow Burmese people independence if they fought

for the Allies. The British refused. A Son then went first to China and eventually Japan for support, and eventually he fought against the British with his Burmer Independence Army. But after two years of occupation, a signed his comrades changed sides under a broad alliance called the Anti Fascist Organization. They turned on the Japanese and they once again to gup arms to liberate their country. On the fourth of January,

Burma became an independent republic. The new republic's territory combined three British territories and over a hundred distinct ethnic groups. For the next fourteen years, these groups struggled to find a democratic Burma and an identity for themselves within it. Mostly they failed. The period was characterized by the Chinese Civil War, spilling it to Burma, ethnic arm insurgencies and repeated demands for a federal republic with a weak central

government in the military. A rate at new demands for a federal republic stage to coup. Burma spent the next twenty two years under the military rule of a council, pursuing what they called the Burmese Way to socialism. Burma's planned economy left it largely isolated from the rest of the world. Home the press was censored, and a type of nationalism that combined nominal socialism and Burman ethnic identity became the official state ideology. During this period, Burma became

one of the world's poorest countries. Sporadic protests were met with overwhelming force, and the eighth of August and uprising began. It started among his students in Yangon, but it took real quickly around the country. The so called eight Uprising because of the date, began with the general strike and huge nor violent protests. These were met with gunfire. Protesters

fought back with Molotov cocktails and rocks. The military fired into hospitals, and by September eighteen they launched a coup to take the country from a one party state back to a military dictatorship. It was during these protests on San Suki, the daughter of independence hero On Son, emerged

as a national figurehead, especially in the west. Amatov g the Indian writer, wrote the following about eight across Burma, people poured out in thousands to join in the protests, not just students but also teaches, monks, children, professionals, and trade unionists of every shape. It was on this day, too, that the Hunter made its first determined attempt at repression. Soldiers opened fire on the demonstrators and hundreds of unarmed marches were killed. The killings continued for a week, but

still the demonstrators continued to flood the streets. After the uprising had been suppressed, multi party elections were later held, while the new National League for Democracy party of Ansan Suki won the most votes, the Hunter refused to seed power. Protests continued off and on for decades, with the two thousand seven Saffron Revolution, which the government violently cracked down

on monks, resulting in the most international condemnation. Following the Saffron Revolution, the government's isolationism hindering aid After extensive cyclone damage. In two thousand and eight, the military government finally implemented the roadmap to discipline flourishing democracy that had developed in If you're wondering about the aim of the country, it's officially changed in as well, but like much of the nation's history, a grand proclamation from the government didn't mean

much on the ground. Both words derived from Barana, a name that the majority ethnic group who we're calling Burman here he used for themselves. Many opposition groups still use Burma instead of Myanma. It's another small way of saying no to the military's attempt to control every aspect of their lives. Finally, on the eighth of September, the army took to the streets and the coup, led by their Chief of Staff, General Sormon. The next day the killings

began again. Yeah. The army later described these people as looters. Yeah. It was not until two thousand eleven that the military junta finally stepped down and passed on power to the Union, Solidarity and Development Party in an election that was widely seen as fraudulent. A year later on San su Chi was released, and by two thousand fifteen her National League

for Democracy won an absolute majority. While she was barred from holding the presidential office, she took on the role of State counselor, and Myanmar entered a period of liberalization, which, although never the federal democracy promised when the country gained its independence in nineteen forty seven, allowed for significant freedoms of communication and speech, especially for the Burman majority ethnic group.

Not everyone was reconciled to the change. Many of Myanmar's A hundred and thirty five ethnic groups feel marginalized by the state, which tends to be dominated by the Burman ethnicity. Some of these groups have armed in surgeon wings, often more than one per ethnic group, as they disagree on politics or religion. These groups have fought various Burmese governments since the nineteen forties, but many of them reached to cease fire with the government as the country passed from

military to civilian rule. One group, however, saw a huge uptick in violence. The Rohinga ethnic group have been persecuted by Buddhist nationals since the nineteen seventies, but the campaign against them increased in violence and scale in two thousand sixteen, when the Totma Daw began a huge crackdown against Rohinga

people in Rakin State. The persecution began in response to attacks by the Arkan Rohinga Salvation Army on Burmese border outposts, but the campaign that followed had nothing to do with the small insurgent group and a lot to do with the desire of the Totma Daw to destroy or drive out all Rohinga people who they claim are undocumented migrants

from Bangladesh and not citizens of Myanmar. While the world praised Suki, her government looked the other way as the military carried out a genocide that displaced over a million people and killed tens of thousands. It was in the context of growing international condemnation of the genocide that Myanmar went to the polls in November of The November twenty election was only the nation's second since the official end of military rule. On San Suchi's National League for Democracy

won a resounding victory. The military backed Union, Solidarity and Development Party holds twenty five percent of seats under a constitution that Suchi wanted to change. It didn't take defeat well. The election was neither perfectly free nor fair. The Rhinga have been almost wholly disenfranchised. The government claims they are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and thus unable to vote. Areas with ethnic armed organizations which opposed the government often had

poles canceled and internet cut off. According to Human Rights Watch, The Carter Center estimates that one point four million citizens couldn't vote. The one opposition party that was certainly not short changed was the militaries However, it was the Union Solidarity and Development Party USDP which had been calling for election delays due to COVID before polls opened. Once the

elections concluded, they immediately began questioning the results. They continued to attempt to undermine the vote for months before they resorted to force on the first of February, the day before the newly elected legislators were due to be sworn in. The world largely ignored the situation, apart from the one viral video where a masked fitness instructor dances in the foreground as a PC's roll through a roadblock and into

the parliament complex behind her. On Sang Suchi was arrested, charged with breaching COVID nineteen restrictions and illegally importing a walkie talkie, and General min On Lang was installed at the head of a military junta. If this sounds a little like a stop the Steel fantasy, that's because it

is eerily similar to one. Myanmar's democracy is not what academics call a consolidated one, which is to say that democracy has never been the only game in town there, but the United States seems to be rapidly deconsolidating its own democracy. The allegations of election fraud and Meanmar were no more credible than those in Arizona. However, the military's tradition of political engagement there removed many of the barriers in between electoral defeat and the death of a lived democracy.

Within twenty four hours of the coup, the people of Myanmar had fought back. Healthcare workers and civil servants were on strike by February third, and a boycott of junta owned businesses had begun. Protests began with a handful of people. The memories of massacres of pro democracy protesters in the nineteen eighties kept many away, but a younger generation who had grown up with relative liberty, internet access and basic freedoms, had not seen blood in the streets like their parents.

They had seen activists in Hong Kong, the USA, and Ukraine take on violent state apparatuses, and they had often seen them win. By the six of February, twenty thousand people in the streets of Yangon, the largest city, and the internet was shut down. Nationwide. Protests began peacefully, with memorable signs like my eggs is bad, but the miniitary is worse, and we are protesting peacefully, but with the

W a P capitalized, so it said whack. These signs were designed by generation of kids who grew up with access to the Internet to attract international attention. Despite the ban, they used vpn s to shore him due to their struggle.

Once sound read you've messed with the wrong generation. Now will never be allowed to ruin our own lives, the tapped the door showed its cards pretty quickly, police began a suppression with sling shots and clubs, then tear gas and flash brag, and quickly they moved to rifles and rocket papel grenades. By the ninth of February, myth Way Way, a twenty year old woman had been shot in the street. Soon those young protesters have switched signs for shields. By

the mid march. On m forty His day, a hundred and fourteen civilians were killed in a single day, including sixty five in Yangon who were kettled by police, surrounded and then shot quickly. Shield walls were set up, Medics identified themselves in the protest movement, and hard hats and goggles were distributed, but this didn't tip the balance of power in their favor, so all in a former student

union leader was there from the start. In the text message, he told me I did not miss a single day as a member of the KaiA State National Strike Committee. I later became more involved in anti authoritarian protests. In the early protests, you see him in photos walking in the front of the group carrying flags and banners with his student I D card on a lanyard around his neck. But by March he's wearing a black shirt, goggles and

a hard construction hat. Meanwhile, the National League for Democracy politicians who had escaped to tension joined other parties and

set up a National Unity Government in April. The National Unity Government contained members of the National League for Democracy, but significantly or hinder activists was appointed and advisory the Ministry of Human Rights and the National Unity Government has announced it would for the first time accept the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court with respect to all international crimes committed in Myanmar since two thousand and two. This

would include the Ring genocide. By May, both the National Unity Government and so well In had realized that no amount of non violent protests was going through this large regime that was happy to gun down kids in the street. So on the fifth of May, he left for the jungle. That same day, the National Unity government announced the formation of the People's Defense Force or PDF. Within a month, eight hundred soldiers had affected to these pro democracy guerilla units.

Many put their guns with them, but what didn't join the PDF. Instead, he joined one of me and MARS. Any ethnic armed organizations groups opposed to a central state and its domination by the Burman ethnicity. To understand these groups, you need to understand that my m R is composed of dozens, not hundreds, of ethnic groups, but that the Burman, who make up about two thirds of the population, have always controlled the state and used it as a tool

in furthering their interest. Some of these groups, like the current National Liberation Army and the Kachin Independence Army, have been fighting for decades since the country emerged from British colonial rule at the end of World War Two. All of these groups drown a combination of ethnic and political grievances. Many of them administer semi autonomous territories like the current state.

In two thousand thirteen, thirteen ethnic armed Organizations or e a o s came together to form the Nationwide Ceasefire Coordinating Team in c CT and signed an eleven point Common Position of Ethnic Resistance Organizations on national Ceasefire or the Lisa Agreement. Most of them seem to agree that they would accept a federal system rather than complete autonomy. In two thousand fifteen, a ceasefire was signed, but conflict between ethnic armed organizations and between e a o's and

the government continued. Since the coup began, EO membership has skyrocketed, and in October, the National Unity government announced alliances with several groups under a central chain of command. Some political organizations who played a part in the nineteen eighty eight uprising, like the All Burma Students Democratic Front, have been revived as armed groups. The A B s DF recently attacked Tatmadach ships using an RPG. Attacks on military basis have

also stepped up. PDF units have ambushed and killed policemen and raided police and military outposts. Each time they do, they steal valuable weapons and ammunition. The Tatmadau has responded with shellings and air strikes against residential areas, executions, mass physical retribution, and the murdering of civilians and aid workers

and burning of their bodies. As a result of all this ethnic armed organizations have joined forces with anti authoritarian Roman people under the auspices of the People's Defense Forces, which are under the command of the exiled National Unity Government. We have never experienced such kind of brutalities from the military as well as a strong resistance from the people. They try to make sure the whole country submit to them, but we still refuse to allow them to be our rulers.

This defiance has led to the formation of the People's Defense Forces or PDF, a coalition of thousands of resistance fighters were carrying out surprise attacks on Hunter checkpoints, bombing army convoys, and supporting ethnic armies in their fight against the regime. Twelve months ago, these men and women were students and office workers protesting the coup. Today they're training

to overthrow the military. Bennesota is the tough choice, but the young people um they are ready to defend the community. They have to, of course, sacrifice their own daily life ordinary life. Since March of the influx of new recruits has changed these groups. Generation Z militias like the Karinni gen Z Liberation Army have sprung up, founded by kids who were holding memable signs at protests just a few months earlier. They care less about ethnic independence and more

about beating the junta. Many Burman kids join these groups. These organizations of young fighters received training from the experienced guerillas hiding in the jungle, but they tended to adopt a less top down military structure and armed themselves by scavenging whatever weapons they could find, often twenty two caliber rifles better suited to shooting squirrels than soldiers. It was these kids who grew up online and knew that there was nothing you couldn't learn about on Reddit, who tipped

the balance of force away from the state. Unlike the ethnic armed organizations and other more experienced guerrillas in Myanmar, these kids have little military experience. Their organizations have few rules and regulations. They're made up entirely of young people.

As a result, there are certain things that they're less proficient at, but they're much better at things like grasping the use of new technologies, which has led to me Amar being the first country in the world where three D printed weapons have taken part in a revolution against the government. We're going to hear more about that and many other things as this series continues. Hey there, I'm

Jess Milady Confetti here. Hi, I'm Psyche and I am hey Shady lady, and welcome to Boss Level podcast, where we feature conversations with gas Tube leveled up bringing an X feed riost to the table. That was always my response, because is like, I am like a unicorn here right like, because there's not allowed of like out of the closet female gamers. I know a lot of them. Like it was like a battlefield. They're like, this is our cool

boys club and be here. No. Sorry, Hey, this is a very dark corner and I'm a lot of light and right quarter. We picked the brains of professionals, creators and bosses and industries across the globe to help our listeners achieve their own boss level. We are not just creating a podcast, but a gamified an engaged community. Listen to Boss Level on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Katy Lows. You might also know me as Quinn Perkins from Scandal

for Rachel from Inventing Anna. I'm also a mother to my son Albi and my daughter Vera. I wanted to create a space for open and honest conversations about all things parenting, and I thought a podcast was the best way to do just that. Check out season five of my podcast, Katie's Crib. It is super raw, vulnerable, and hilarious. Katie's Crib in no way shape form is judgmental or telling you exactly how to parent or exactly how you should be. I think it really just makes you feel

less alone and gives you a community. We're going deep with guests like inventing Anna's Anna club Ski, how to Get Away with Murders, Asian Naomi King, and Yes, sometimes my funality when he burst into my studio, so that's cool. Listen to Katie's Crab every Thursday on the I Heart Radio, app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On the Art of Accomplishment podcast. We love anxiety, anger, sadness, and selfishness. Most people do everything they can to get rid of

these emotions, but nothing makes them go away. We, however, welcome them because they give us a healthy advantage if we know how to interpret their signals. Listen to the Art of Accomplishment podcast on the Heart Radio, Apple, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. To understand yourself and be who you were meant to be. Hey, everybody, I'm Robert Evans and this is me and mar printing The

Revolution Part two. Since the dawn of firearms, regular people all over the world have had the same basic idea, Maybe if I made myself a gun, the government wouldn't be able to be such a dick to me. Historically, this has had little impact on the willingness of governments to be dicks to people. In the beginning, all gun manufacturing was done by individual artisans, and thus making a gun in your home was really no different from making it in a shop, as long as you had the

proper tools. Guns in this period weren't super useful on their own, and we're best fired in a volley by a shipload of dudes at once. Since individual firearms were extremely inaccurate and cumbersome to use, the fact that some poor blacksmith could make himself one wasn't much of a threat to anybody in power. It did mean that battlefield prowess came from large blocks of trained soldiers, not fudel

lords on horseback rallying untrained peasants. This change in technology led to a change in warfare and helped to change society. As firearms evolved and became these central weapons of battle, they required more intense tooling and more expensive manufacturing capacity. Nations and peoples without the know how or infrastructure were

at a tremendous disadvantage. As soon as this situation came into being, these unfortunate communities set to work finding ways to gain the advantages of firearms without the manufacturing capacity their foes enjoyed. Indigenous cannons and regions resisting imperialism often consisted of composite materials less sturdy than bronze or iron. In the sixteen hundreds and seventeen hundreds, Indigenous Americans in South America used wooden cannons to fight against Spanish and

Portuguese conquerors. The Vietnamese used wooden cannons to resist the French during the Coach in Chaia, a campaign of eighteen sixty two. American Indians used wooden artillery to blast settler fortifications in the seventeen hundreds and eighteen hundreds. In the months that led up to the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, the men who fought to create the United States busied themselves building rifles and cannons in their homes and communities

to resist the English. This trend has never really stopped in warfare. The day before we recorded this, James, my partner in this series, sent me a screen grab from a live stream of someone in Ukraine printing pieces for a K forty seven's on a three D printer. Firearms manufactured outside the arms industry have played a role in every conflict of the modern era, but as you've probably guessed, they have had the greatest influence in the little wars

of colonialism. European nations rarely allowed any sort of firearms ownership in their colonies except the individuals and ethnic groups that adopted its local enforces. Since most of these places had never developed their own industrial base for arms industry, colonial rebellions often relied on home made weapons in their early stages, along with modern firearms pilfered by deserting local soldiers.

Where domestic productive capacity existed, European colonizing nations went out of their way to relocate it, along with the profit it generated, to the metropol All were reflected on this in his novel Burmese Days, saying in the eighteenth century, the Indians cast guns are at any rate up to the European standard. Now, after we've been in India a hundred and fifty years, you can't make so much as

a brass cartridge case in the whole continent. Meanwhile, among the colonizers, being armed became almost a synonym for being a man. This was particularly true for the colonial police forces and militaries, but it was also true domestically. Most people are broadly familiar with the US Second Amendment the robust gun culture that it spawned, but during the higher colonialism,

English citizens are also free to earn themselves. In Prime Minister Robert gascoyne cecil Marquis of Salisbury, gave a speech in which he claimed he would laud the day when there was a rifle in every cottage. In England, firearms were utterly unrestricted at this point. The first chaine to this came in with the first Law that required a permit to carry a handgun and restricted children from buying guns. Still, firearms were widely available until a red panic gripped the

nation in following the ball strict revolution in Russia. Across the ocean in Spain, where firearms ownership was less strictly restricted where all well himself would learn what it was to fire a rifle at someone who shot back. Arm Unions and working people served as the only bullwalk to a military coup. In ninety six in Madrid, one officer opened his armory to the union militias, but another refused to hand over for the bolts for the guns they

had been issued. The Barcelona, where the anarchists left, had a long tradition evample at violence. The coup was repelled by workers with guns, and the general leading troops there was imprisoned and executed. The same pattern played out all across the country in July, when the military rose up to topple the elected government. In the cities where the government opened the armories to the people, the coup was repelled. In the cities where the government did not, the coup succeeded.

Reflecting on this in nine or WORLDWARID, the totalitarian states can do great things, but there is one thing they cannot do. They cannot give the factory worker a rifle and tell him to take it home and keep it in his bedroom. That rifle on the wall of the laborers cottage or working class flat. It's a symbol of democracy. It's a job to see that it's days there, despite Orwell's please. The years that followed the Second World War led the greater restrictions of the ability of the public

to arm itself. By the nineteen fifties, carrying any weapon for self defense was illegal. Semi automatic center fire arms were banned in nineteen eighty eight, and pistols were banned in nineteen ninety six after a mass shooting killed sixteen children in Dunblane. This was all utterly infuriating to a man named Philip A. Looty. Loody, born in nineteen sixty five grew up on a farm in West Yorkshire, England.

We don't have a tremendous amount of detail about his upbringing, but by the time he was in his early thirties he'd become a committed crusader for an unrestricted right to bear arms. A skilled machinist with a well equipped shop, Loody began the long process of learning how to craft homemade firearms. Soon he was building semi and fully automatic weapons.

Now these were not military grade firearms. The barrels were unrifled, which made them terribly inaccurate, but every piece could be crafted from widely available things like sheet metal washers and screws. The person assembling a looty gun would need to be a skilled craftsman, but they would not need access to welding rig forges or rather expensive industrial equipment. Booty published a book Expedient Homemade Firearms the nine millimeter Submachine Gun

in nineteen ninety eight through Paladin Press. In the late nineteen nineties, Paladin was one of the places you could go to mail order fringe political literature and guides for stuff like trapping human beings or disabling the drive system of an Abrams tank in the United States. Nothing about Ludy's book was or is illegal, but Phil didn't live in the United States. He was arrested several times, starting in the late nineteen nineties when a pair of illegal

home built guns were found on his property. Ludy spent the rest of his life, which ended in two thousand eleven, operating a website where he raged against gun control. His main argument was that England was headed for totalitarianism, and like Orwell, he believed only public ownership of arms could

prevent this. Unlike Orwell, Ludy was firmly on the right wing He traced society's problems to quote a combination of political ractness and anti freedom of speech laws legislation governing how we speak about such subjects as religion or a

person's race being just two examples. Words and phrases that have been used for centuries without malice are now insipid in people's mouths and said to cause offense by those very same speech police, who, on the other hand, turned a blind eye to the violence, foul language, and sexual references blasted daily through our TV sets, a phenomenon that

really does cause offense to many people. Loody never succeeded in sparking a renaissance in civilian arms ownership in the UK, but his ideas were adopted by organized criminal groups all around the world. In Brazil, looty guns can go for as much as twenty five hundred dollars. From two thousand eleven to two thousand twelve, nearly half of the submachine

guns seized by police and salpolo were homemade. Most of these arms were certainly used as tools by drug dealers or other gangsters, but some of them were surely also the tools of citizens who simply sought a way to defend themselves in a place with no real rule of law. Looty guns have long been popular among motorcycle gangs in Australia, and in October of two thousand nineteen, a fascist terrorist carried out the last of that year's eight Chan shootings

in Halla, Germany with a looty gun. His weapons, thankfully did not work well. As a general rule, looty guns were never going to be of much use to anyone besides organized criminals. They aren't great in a gunfight, but you can use them to spray bullets into a room or a vehicle at close range pretty well. The year after Phil Looty died two thousand twelve, a fellow named Cody Wilson decided to carry on his work. Cody felt three D printing carried the possibility of eventually manufacturing arms

of equality that might rival traditionally produced guns. He started simple with a single shot three eighty handgun based around the old Liberator pistol from World War Two. The Liberator had been a single shot forty five caliber handgun meant to be dropped into Nazi occupied territories, used by insurgents to stealthily kill single German soldiers and take their guns. Cody Wilson described himself as a crypto anarchist, and when his ideas began to draw attention, he dropped out of

law school to create Defense Distributed. This organization was dedicated to the development and distribution of plans to craft three D printed weapons. It used a platform called deaf CAD to allow users to develop and share blueprints. In two thousand and thirteen, the first CAD gun file became available online to everyone. It was downloaded more than a hundred thousand times in two days. I'd like to quote now

from an article on the website three D Natives. This prompted the US government to demand that Defense Distributed removed the file from their site. What followed as a legal battle between Cody Wilson and the U. S Government, consisting of back and forth lawsuits. It lasted five years until in two thousand eighteen, the Trump administration legalized three D printed guns. The same year, Wilson was charged with sexual assault of an underage girl and had to step down

from Defense Distributed. Nonetheless, the organization did not cease to exist without Cody. Today, for a yearly fee of fifty dollars, users of the Deaf CAD website can access the files containing different designs of three D printed guns. And I should note here that it's probably more accurate to say the Trump administration legalized sharing the plans and printing the files and whatnot of three D printed guns, not legalized three D printed guns. Homemade firearms have been federally legal

in the United States since forever. The fighting in the courts over all this has continued ever since, and in two thousand nineteen a federal judge and Seattle temporarily blocked DEAFCAD. This sparked the creation of a new group, Deterrence Dispensed, which was even less centralized. The basic idea was that this would make them harder to take down via lawsuits or police action. Not stated was that this might also

protect their reputation from a Cody Wilson situation. The debate over the legality of three D printed firearm plans continues on to the present day, but the development of these arms has continued at an ever faster pace. The best modern three D printed arms can even rival inventional guns. It's worth emphasizing that these are not purely plastic tools.

The Liberator pistol used a metal nail, and the better three D arms have metal barrels rifled using other craft methods that require some nohow but arguably less than it took to manufacture a looty gun. Three D printed arms have been confiscated by police around the world, but in recent months they've begun to crop up somewhere new in the arms of revolutionaries fighting against a military coup. Me and Ma Burman before that has adversively strict gun control

laws for decades. When Georgie Orwell was a policeman there in the nineteen twenties, he may have carried a gun, but the people he was policing did not. In the nineteen thirties, the British leaders allowed tact organizations similar to militias to form and drill, but they weren't allowed to carry guns. Gun licenses under the dictatorship were issued primarily to party members, but most revoked after failed pro Democian uprising.

The only civilians who were permitted to earn armed with the Chin, the nation's poorest ethnic group, who rely on guns to hunt for food. In many cases, these guns were flint locks that would not have looked that out of place in a battlefield two centuries before. In practice, though,

things are very different. The current conflict is best seen as a flare up in violence has been ongoing since Britain left the country in the Tapma door has consistently used violence against marginalized ethnic groups in the country, and

they have consistently taken up arms in response. But unlike civil wars in the Middle East, wealthy nations in the West have not been flooding Meanmar with weapons for decades, and the various E a O S or ethnic armed organizations have had to turn to much more unorthodox routes to arm and equip themselves against the government. To get a better idea of what things are like on the ground,

we spoke to Pierre. He's French, but he's a serial volunteer with national liberation struggles around the world and fought with the people in the early two thousand's. Yes, so the ammunition is a constant problem. The shortage is absolutely permanent. And yes there is two sources and for the for the for the weapons, there is the black market, and

the prices, especially of ammunition, are prohibitive. This is why I would like to have my notebook here with me because I think I wrote down the conversation I had with some leaders of the kind of at the time asking them why we didn't do more persons. Well, like, we just can't afford it, uh, you know, uh, we just can't afford it. Like strictly we we don't we we don't have enough ammunition to do any kind of

uh of operation we need to. So all the operations with you were always focused on if we could capture some ammunition, if we could geture like weapons, but especially immunition. Yeah, so there is you know, that's that's the second source of of course of uh of weapon. Uh let's say source is the is the captures of course, then the black market. The black market used to be huge in Cambodia. I don't know what's the situation now. That was in

the nineties. There was it was a bit of the Albania of some STEA at this time, right, And so there is also the other ethnic groups that received sometime say a lot of uh of of arms and ammunition from sponsor of STU. Some of them, like the West the dummies are sponsored by China. So like their supply of munition, it's pretty good of of weapons. I think

it's even cartigo and stuff. Um. Then there is other groups that also produced locally quite good their own on arms, light arms usually so yeah, these are the different sources of welcomes the okay in in the time I was there in the early weeks of the protests. Once you a claim clear that non violent demonstrators were going to be met with state violence, protests began to fashion weapons. First, they thought soldiers with the salt rifles, using catapults and

bos and arrows. It was incredibly brave, but it wasn't very effective by the twenty eight so much protesters are taken a step first, a group calling itself the Calais Civil Army set up barricades and defended them using pressurized air rifles that fired marbles and bicycle wheelbearings. The rifles all used the same design and the same components. They were based on a video someone found on YouTube, but they weren't lethal. They helped protesters defend their space, albeit

at great cost. In that first clash, four protesters and four soldiers were killed. The protesters and Calais were able to hold out a few days using old hunting rifles and air guns. The ambush military patrols and they took four police hostage. Then they exchanged them for nine incarcerated protesters. But nearly April, the Tapmador returned to the protest camp in Calais with rocket propelled grenades and machine guns and killed eleven people. We must fight back against them. If not,

our generation will face a worse situation than us. They have no laws, a neighborhood villager who battled the regime's forces told the Irrawaddy, a local paper. The air guns

spread around the country quickly to avoid surveillance. Protesters talked about cooking up yanny on telegram channels, and what they meant was desperately scaring the internet for a way to fight back and finding a way to make an air rifle out of a beautane canister, a pipe and a cigarette lighter, combined with fireworks and smoke bombs made of potassium nitrate. The air rifle gave protest is just enough cupboard to escape police charges, but they also gave the

hunter an excuse to further escalate the violence. Attitudes are hardening among the protesters too. In Mandalay, they took air rifles to the barricades on Saturday, hardly a match for the weapons of war they face, but now they know this is a fight to the death and more destruction. After a fire raged and Pgdalgon Township Overnight, people living there but kept away by security forces were turned to

find sixty homes burned to the ground. Now all they can do is pick through the ashes, trying to save anything from the military's policy of scorched Even the Tatmadaw makes its own weapons, a highly unusual move for a

relatively small nation. Totmadaw troops and police can be seen with a bewildering array of indigenously produced copies of HIM sixteen s ouzies and even five five six Galil pattern A K style rifles, as well as in three light machine guns, which are slightly updated copies of the MG forty two used by the Nazis in World War Two. After the failed eight eight eight eight uprisings in Night, the military offered concessions to China and return for more

advanced weapons. They got them, but it didn't stop China from also supplying Ethnic armed organizations e a o s don't have access to the same munitions factories that the government does, but there is a long tradition of homemade weapons in Myanmar. In more remote parts of the country, homemade air rifles and shotguns seem to have been relative commonplace before the start of the conflict, and they were

mostly used for hunting. The country has also covered with land mines, which the E. A O S used a great effect against the Totmadaw. We spoke to Pierre, a former combatant with the Karin who no longer lives in Myanmar. His experience is not that recent, but it helps us to understand the way this conflict has been fought for decades. What we used to produce A lot of land mines,

that's uh, that's produced at the base. Yes, with like you know, very very lot of systems with a little bit of of type of plastic explosive pt of bomboom for contactors and like your batfield. That's it. Pellet guns are not good for combat and E A O S mostly relied on weapons imported from Thailand, India or China. Overwhelmingly these were A K or In sixteen pattern rifles. Yeah, mostly in my and the units have been there is

probably a majority of a K platforms in this time. Yes, yeah, definitely, I mean it's more reliable and you know, simple to operate. It's very adapted to the to the to the type of it was. It was quite correct. I mean I swee from the moment that I switched to a case at least because at TOST I tried to use this scurperency M. Sixteen and it was a nightmare of malfunctions. So I switched back to a case, which is what you best know and used or my idea doesn't have this.

I never really had any any malfunction with the case. Maybe one time. It's a faulty lot of communition. But

let's see, not the rifles. The fight, Pierre says, has never been restricted to the battlefield for the top medal violence against civilians as part of their four cuts doctrine that cuts off funding, food, intelligence, and recruits for the e a O. S now they are moving that same outlook to the cities like literally uh literally by by absolutely no laws of well ass I mean like one of the first things that I saw when we went going battle and in the in the Karen villages, huh

around the house one of operation is that there was absolutely no girl between the age of eleven to the age of seventeen. I was like, I asked, you know, my my uh commander about it, and he says, yeah, like obviously it's if they stay as they will be rapped by the that model and the first patron the first time they will will come. You know. So this this gives you a little bit of the tone of

what they are about. They constantly ransom civilians when they don't model them, like you know, shell villages for no reason or because there had been an operation of the kind, and they take evenge and who they can take evenge and is the civilians. You know. This is this is how the b This is what they are basically. The top the doll is a large army and many of the conscripts are hardly high speed operator types. But that

hasn't stopped them from killing thousands of innocent civilians. I mean they have as many army defined units with different military value. Uh let's say, uh, you know, um, many times the units that they stuck on hilltop in the middle of rebel zone are not like the most combative, let's say, but sometimes we will get surprised resistance. But yeah, except of that, when they to an operation in uh in a place they bring in like more elite troops.

Let's say, by contrast, the k and l A, the Karni National Liberation Army and other e aos relied on civilian support to survive. The Canada operates in uh in karen H territory and the civilians are karen I mean pretty much when we when we arrive in uh in the village. As as medics, you know that we us that the kind of the population distribute medicine. Uh No, like I don't know what it was like quite uh it's quite a fun new acquisition coming from the Tonto.

This attitude has helped them pierces and they have always been open to non current recruits. First of all, is not absolutely not um let's say some kind of ethnicist or organization or ethno nationalist like you know, with some hate for US. I think group including the Obama echnic group that like traditionally you know is the is our the leaders of the model that have been oppressing them

for seventy years. But they have absolutely no resentment that are extremely open to work with the Democrats, democratic forces from from every ethnical But yes, since nine said, the k and l A had been linked to link up with democratic rebels, providing them with training and shelter in order to further their shared goal of a federal and

democratic country that treated all ethnicities with respect. So so these Obama rebels, let's say, uh so trained by the currents and so by people I know very well since it was my commander then never so I've seen, I've seen the currents. I've always been extremely accommodating to the Obama opposition, meaning the Obama the main ethnic group. I'd say this for me for people that might not know

the difference. So and so the currents always had representation and they took like you know, political refugees, let's say, from from inside the Boma in the territor is the control mano close I was like the Students Association, the exact name I contricle right now. But all these are organization of position. And so now they keep this tradition by helping the uh these new rebails of the PDF

to get military training. And yes, by the summer of young people had flooded into the jungles, and many of them, even the ones of Burman ethnicity. We're fighting alongside the Karin and Corenni rebels. They had previously seen as troublemakers and terrorists. Just a year or two before. We spoke with one of these people, Zall Lynn, who left his home in May. There was students, friends, but also young people from just the neighborhood. Most people were just above twenty.

A lot of them were single. You know, there's women as well, people whom new technology, young people from the from the technology computer uh apologists why called university. A lot of these people who knew modern technology went into the jungle too, go into Chundle to train and be able to overthrow the men online government. So there was it was very tiring. We had to go up and down unlocks of hills. It was two days of walking get there, so up and down the hills and back down,

up and down until we got to the training plant. Hello, I'm Stacy Wilson Hunt, your host for Inventing Anna, the official podcast from Shonda Rhymes and the creators at Shawonda Land. Inventing Anna tells the story of a young woman who charmed her way into the pocketbooks of New York's elite. Why is she gonna take off with that twenty million dollars from the banks or was she going to pour it into this foundation. You know, people look at Anna

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the story. Everything's true until it's not, basically in Anna's world. Listen to Inventing Anna, the official podcast every Wednesday on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. From Cavalry Audio. The studio that brought you The Devil Within and The Shadow Girls comes a new true crime podcast, The Pink Moon Us. The local sheriff believes there may be more than one killery. It's been four days since those bodies were found and there's

no arrest as it this morning. They were afraid it's face it out in that area, what if they come back or whatever. It scared me to death, like it scared me. I was very, very intimidating to live here. Crazy to think you go to sleep one night, maybe snuggling with your loved one, and never wake up, or maybe you wake up in a struggle for your life,

which you lose. Joint host David Raderman as he explores one fateful night when evil descended upon small town, Ohio killed eight members of an Ohio family in a pre planned execution. The family was targeted, most of them targeted while they were sleeping. Follow the Pink Moon murders on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. What grows in the forest trees, Sure

no one else grows in the forest. Our imagination, our sense of one day, and our family bonds grow too, because when we just connect from this and connect with this, we reconnect with each other. The forest is closer than you think. Find a forest near you and start exploring. I Discover the Forest dot Org. Brought to you by the United States Forest Service and the AD Council. Hey everyone, I'm Robert Evans, and welcome to episode three of Printing

the Revolution. Here's my partner, James Stout. In the spring and summer of millions of Americans had versions of the same experience. State forces killed the helpless man, Protesters took to the streets in anger, and armed agents of the state responded with mass violence. A lot of people's lives changed for ever and fairly short order. What happened in Me and Marra after the military coup was that story

turned up to eleven within days. The military had used live fire and demonstrators or a source for today's episode, were twenty two years old at the time. He spent his days working as delivery driver hang out with his girlfriend playing video games. On the day the coup started, he was playing pub g after a long shift. Soon he and his girlfriend took to the streets with thousands of other gen z Burmese kids. The state responded with massacres,

often firing automatic weapons into the crowds. So I had them been particularly politically active before this moment. In fact, he felt pretty poorly towards revolutionary supposing the government in

the jungle, seeing them as rebellious troublemakers. Um in the past, we thought that the military is a group that loves all the people, that all the different groups in the in the country, and then there's just a few people who ate the moltree, but especially after the cool we face it with our own foreheads and home with the guns. We can face the evil the military and all the human rights and things that people who hated the military before we're talking about. We understand it now because we

had to face it ourselves. And then they're gonna tell us terrorists, and however, must fix all us. We know that we're finding for human rights, and we know that each person deserves these basic things, you know. So so even when we capture a soldier, we don't kill them immediately as they're unarmed, you know. When they have sure PDF, they torture and kill them very very horrifically or horrendously, and they kill and to hurt all the citizens and

ordinary bystanders. So for us, what they're telling at rebels before, we're not rebels. They're the ones that are rebels. So we have to call down rebels. They're the terrorists. But as violence against protesters escalated, Zull began to see through the lives he'd been told by the military of his life. What we were calling as rebels are what we kind of become. But we know why we are now rebels that's because of their terrorism there, oppressive reviews, and their

violation of human rights. That's why we have to revolt against them. For a time, protesters responded creatively with giant potato guns meant to fire less lethal protect ours long distances. These homemade guns will be fired in volleys well. Other protests protected them with shields. Some of these tactics were effective a points, but it quickly became clear that the government was willing to massacre everyone standing up to them.

So his girlfriend and their friends quickly decided that non violent resistance wasn't going to work, but they didn't give up. As we get onto into June, there's two paths, right. We can be normal, we can go on the streets. We can not ask for the people's power back, and since that's not working, we know that what we have to do is we need to hold these guns. Get these guns. And on the military side, all they know

is that they will solve this by holding guns. So the only thing, the only path that's left for us is to take those guns for ourselves. So around the end of May we started entering training school. So the downtour is what the word he used, and it's something like this corner part um so one corner part one to two. So talking, what that means is that in the funtings, funt things that we were doing, hunting rifles that we were using for that. So we kind of

start started and we fought first in Dimoso. If we can ask the military nicely, then there's no reason for us to be using guns. But since they don't listen to our demands or our request at all, then the and since that all we can do, all they are saying, all they're doing is using the guns and being terrorists trying to shoot us. So the only thing that we can do to get what we need and what we want is to take the guns for ourselves. And so, like hundreds of people his age, it's all headed into

the jungle in May. The decision wasn't an overnight one or an easy one. But after protesting non violently, then meeting state violence with community defense, then seeing his peers gunned down in the street, he didn't have many other choices. He picked up a megaphone, then a shield, and now he was heading in the jungle to pick up a rifle. The only problem was that there weren't any rifles. He left with his girlfriend and quote with blessing of his parents.

Keep that in mind for later. When he first went to the jungle, Zall went to a two week training camp where the Karinny People's Defense Force taught him the basics of guerrilla warfare, but they didn't have enough weapons to arm him and his friends. So these gen Z militants began their fighting careers with twenty two caliber rifles. If you aren't a gun person, the twenty two was one of the smallest widely available bullets. Like any bullet, it can kill, but as a caliber it's better suited

for shooting rabbits than soldiers. These twenty two rifles were handmade locally and only fired one shot at a time. But it was those rifles that Zaw, his girlfriend, and their friends carried into their first gunfight with the Totmadaw. After battling like that for about three weeks, the shooting stopped, he said in an interview we conducted over signal. After the shooting stopped, we grouped together money to buy arms

by asking for donations. They were massively outgunned, but determined to fight on with the weapons they could make and buy on the black market. Until they could find something better, even if that meant taking guns from dead soldiers. The military's guns are extremely good, of course, compared to point two two's, he said. We fight with the mindset that we must win. Our minds are always prepared to take their guns when a soldier falls. It's a mindset to

want the enemy's arms to beat your own arms. You need to want to resist injustice because we are fighting for what is right. We do not get sad even if we die. We are happy, even when wounded. We no longer care if our arms are matched unevenly. Now, despite their enthusiasm PDF units all over the country, we're

finding themselves in the same desperate situation. When thousands of young people in myanm Are decided to take up arms against the government, they're just weren't enough guns to go around. A K pattern rifles sell for three thousand dollars on the black market, and a RS sell for up to

seven thousand dollars. The g d P per capita in twenty was just twelve hundred and eighteen dollars and thirty five cents per person, and unlike militias in Syria and Iraq, the Pro Democracy E a o S and Myanmar don't have the benefit questionable benefit of the US flooding the region with its fire hose of guns and money. Undeterred, Zall and his squad took to YouTube, where they found videos explaining how to make two to three caliber bolt

action rifles. Again, if you're not a gun person, two to three may not sound very different than twenty two, But whereas twenty two is commonly used to shoot squirrels, two to three is the standard rifle round more or less for the US military. These new bolt action two two three's All and his friends were making could not match the rate of fire of a modern rifle, but they could at least match those rifles in stopping power.

Once these gen z insurgents had the technique down, they created a detailed album on Facebook showing how everything from the stock to the barrel could be made with pipes, lumber, and hours and hours of detailed hard work. Unlike their guerrilla warfare instructors, these kids had grown up on the Internet rather than the jungle, so they knew that if it exists, there's a subreddit for it. It was the

Internet that came to their rescue. Three D printed guns have been around for a decade, but the early models didn't work well and suffered from a pretty bad reputation due in part to Cody Wilson, the pedophile libertarian activists we discussed last episode. Jake Hanrahan of Popular Front has covered the printed gun movement extensively. Cody Wilson made his whole thing like, I'm the guy with the three D printy guns, and he was on this moral cru side.

The three D printed gun lads, particularly Deterrence Dispense, We're like, yeah, we don't. We don't give a ship about that. We're just putting our stuff out into the world. Obviously they got the ideas, but they weren't really wedded to this idea of it being one person. Deterrence Dispensed was a group of anonymous activists who were more concerned with making printed guns that worked than making a name for themselves.

Hanrahan was connected to one activist who used the pseudonym Jay Stark, through the group, and after three years of conversing online, Hanrahan met Stark in Germany to produce a documentary. Jay Stark died of a heart attack following a police raid last year, so we spoke to Hanrahan about actual world deal. His whole worldview comes from this idea that you know, it's everybody should have the right to be able to fight tyranny. And if you can't fight tyranny,

like you're fucked. And the way to fight tyranny in the modern era is firearms. We know that. You know, there's there's no you can't argue it's that no peaceful march gets rid of a fascist dictatorship or whatever. But he he was, he he was you know, there's some people would say he was far right. Some people say it was an anarchist. Some people say he was a

US patriot. I mean, first, he wasn't even from America, and he had a lot of he liked the laws in America, but he wasn't like some of the American kind of fan boy or anything in that sense. He liked the gun lawds. He liked the freedom of speech lords, which I do as well. You know that personally, I in this country, you know, if you tweet the wrong thing, even in jest, like police will literally come to your house in Britain like it's happened, it's fucking mental um.

So yeah, he liked that kind of thing, um, And I think I think for him it was he was very tunnel vision, you know, he was very tunnel vision. It was just freedom, freedom, freedom, and if he said, well what about this, what about that, he was like, I don't care about that. Until the freedom is there, there's no point looking at anything else. And so his brain was always on people that are living on the tyranny,

you know, and it genuinely would. I know, there's a lot of people, even leftist, particularly leftist, have tried to completely smear him as a white supremacist. They were saying, oh, everything he said in that dog that I made was really it was secret um, anti Jewish white supremacy. And then it came out that he wasn't even white, you know. It was like very good, very good, you fucking idiots.

So there was a lot of that going around. But I honestly believe that deep down he was just tunnel vision, focused on this idea of every until everybody is not living on the tyranny, I must go on this mission. And okay, if if someone shoots up at school with what I've invented, so be it, you know, which I'm not saying that's good but that was just his idea. You know, he was like, so be it, fuck it

if I can. You know, he was very genuine when he was done about the wigas or he was on about the mistreatment of Kurds from Turkey, and you know, he was like, look, if we can build something that can help them, well, sorry that the West might get funked up because of it, but I'm focused on this now. Obviously, in in practice that would be chaos probably, but you know, he just saw it the way he saw it, and

that was that. The cavalier attitude Stark seems to have had to how his invention might be used is of course worthy of criticism, but the revolutionaries on the ground in Myanmar were not concerned with ideological debates over the ethics of homemade firearms. They needed guns, and they needed them now. J Stark's f GC nine, which stands for Fuck Gun Control nine millimeter, was simple to make, easy to use, and relied entirely on parts you could print

or buy in any hardware store. In September, a post popped up on the fosse cads subreddit, which is dedicated to the manufacturing of three D printed guns. Stark is a hero there. The post said, I wanted to say thanks to this community, the creators of f GC nine and the various mods when we could. You guys are literally empowering the armed revolution against dictators and one of the most underdeveloped countries. We are now equipped with f GC nine and starting the armed revolution to the cool

leader dictator. As one poster comments, the account quote went from posting about mobile games to how to three D print SMG S two, desperately asking people to pay attention what was happening in my and mar Then after the f GC nine post, it was deleted entirely. J Stark never lived to see this. He would have loved it. What everything that he was doing, that was the main focus in my opinion, that like, it couldn't be a

more perfect, like practical actual realization of his project. You couldn't pick a more perfect version of it to happen like that, you know. And there's a lot of talk of all where there's a lot of drug dealers in Amsterdam, of FCC nines. There was a Nazi recently arrested with one. You know, these people are awful, of course, but the most prevalent use of the f GC nine, and at least from what I've observed, has been from the rebels in MYRMA making them. I think that I've seen like

thirty of them so far. You know, that's a lot of them, and there was one was found stashed in a bush. My theory is they're left around for ambush attacks and areas that are not as fully controlled by the rebels. First CAD, a community of mostly US based gun printers, lost its collective mind, and it didn't take long for people to make the connection between the post and a desperate plight of me and my spring revolution.

Soon after the post, the tap the Door started posting pictures of f GC nine, often without sits, captured from fighters in Yangon, and the twenty one September, the Tapmo Door's Ministry of Information released a statement, I'm thea th way yea mint. We're found with an f GC nine Mark two pistol five rounds of nine millimeter any nisition. They were arrested along with their drone. The military alleged they were an urban unit from the same generation Z

Freedom Army that's all was a part of. That same month, the military posted pictures of three more captured FGC nins, suggesting that at least five have been captured by late September. Then two months later, a new post popped up in the Fosse cat sebreddit. Hey, I'm back and the guy who posted a thank you note back in September here. Now that the f GC nines are ready known by the dictator, I can proudly announce the We're from me and Mar. Yes, we are mass producing FGC nines to

fight back against the Dictator. More intfo about our production will be published later this time. The user you slash daddy u m c D hung around to answer questions. Those bastards didn't know we had the tech back then. Now that everything is in public, we can proudly say we're from me and Mar. We are mostly responsible for production in R and D, even though we also involved in other ground missions. We distribute the FDC nine to a lot of different urban guerrillas in urban and rural areas.

Some of the units got arrested a few weeks ago, which you might have already seen on the sub credit. Apart from the FTC nine, there are other equipments and weapons that are being produced with three D printers, he wrote. He said his team were residing in ethnic armed organization areas, mainly the current National Union and the Kachin Independence Army

controlled zones. He posted that they tried other three D printer designs, such as the plastic of which is a printed a K forty seven receiver, but getting the other parts made it impractical. By contrast, the FTC nine can be made entirely using a three D printer and some hardware store parts. According to another source, me and Must motorcycle repair shops made quick work of the metal barrels and bolts. Electro Chemical machining was used to make more barrels.

They also had the chance to buy a few glock barrels from Thailand, Daddy U m c d said, but those cost a lot more than the FDC nine barrels. While his account continued to post, the military continued to share photos of captured FCC nines. Three workshops that have been using lathes to make the barrels are raided. The photos of three more captured guns popped up in November, alongside bolt action rifles. It's still had stickers on their

stocks from what looked like US gun shops. Production and decentralized locations continued despite the raids, while other groups fought on with homemade revolving rifles, crude homemade wooden stocks, another improvised weapons. A telegram channel with instructions in Burmese on how to make the guns made sure that even when one shop or gunsmith was taken out of the fire, the knowledge wasn't lost. Although filament for their three D printers were becoming harder to get, they'd stock powered a

lot in advance. Daddy U M C D try to manufacture automatic FTC nights and another printiple model called Professor Parabellum square tubes of machine gun. But nothing else seemed as easier as reliable as the FTC NIGHTE of course

read it. Being read it, people questioned the veracity and utility of his posts, he responded, FDC nines are just part of the game because they could be produced with what we have at the lowest cost available rifles of four thousand to seven thousand U S dollars at our border, f gcs are under one hundred dollars. Rifle parts are ten times more expensive than lock parts. To all those who are saying these photos of Suss, we don't want

to blame the suspicion. If any of you remember the threat I posted in September, you will remember that we are mass producing FDC nights. The ones in the photos you've seen were supplied by us. There are many groups like this now we do the main production, just like I explained in September. Then, Daddy U m c D went on to thank the other members of the subreddit, claiming their active help with the only reason he and other revolutionaries have been able to overcome certain technical issues.

We wouldn't be here without you guys, especially someone who shared with me. The buffer spring and fire control groups bring measurements, he said. By late November, photos of f GC nines in the hands of fighters emerged and they showed sights. This time they had longer barrels and home

made suppresses too. The f GC nines were apparently used by urban units for close up fighting and for the training of new fighters, since they have essentially the same controls than they are fifteen or M sixteen rifle, both of which are common in ME and mis rebel units. We have successfully streamlined variety of techniques to produce f GC nine one thousand plus efficiently. Our primary forces are equipped with proper rifles. F GC nines are a guerrilla warfare.

We started using those in Hit and Run and Special Task Force missions too. We don't share much about the mission to the public yet. It will definitely come and when it does, are updated here if I'm still alive ha ha wrote Daddy U m c d on the False cat Sebreddit. Even with production in False Wing, ammunition remained a problem. Although some regions can produce twenty two and nine millimeter at home. According to Daddy U m c D, five six can be purchased in large quantities

at the border with Thailand, but it isn't cheap. Instead, the PDF alid and raiding police and military outposts in the same way the e O has had for years. Nine millimeter is the most common center fire pistol around in the world. That's why the Turrents Dispense picked it for the f GC nine sees weapons often only have a handful of rounds, but that's enough to kill a

soldier and take his weapon. Jay Stock might not have been around to see his invantion used to fight Tyranny, but Hammerhan thinks he would have been happy with the results. He would have been made up. I think that's everything he wanted to achieve. You know what I'm saying, That really is everything you wanted to do. Even the National Unity government me and mus government in exile has come around to at least some of Jay Stock's ways of thinking.

According to Daddy U m c D Ministry of Defense Minister already promised about the right to bear arms at the first day of the revolution. Promises made by revolutionary governments are not exactly solid commitments, but it's not hard to see why a generation of kids like Zaw, forged by an asymmetrical conflict with a government that possessed a near absolute advantage in armaments, might be committed to staying armed even if they win. At the moment, the future

of their struggle is very much end doubt. Scrolling through Facebook photos of Zol and his comrades is a surreal experience. They look not just to young soldiers mostly look young, but they look like students kids from some weirdly militarized university. Photos on Facebook show them sprawled out together in the grass and camo fatigues bearing rifles, but each glued to

their phones as they cuddle in together. Zaw and his girlfriend, who he described to us as the girl I love, fought alongside each other until January seven of this year. The battle that we started, she was coming within and you know as EPA. Since weapons landed near her and hit her like so ther bone broke so so she had to go to hospital. Three D printed and homemade guns have helped, but Zoll and his friends are still fighting against a modern military with planes, night vision goggles,

and tanks. Despite this, more than a year after the coup, they're still fighting and more soldiers deffect to join them weekly. It's hard to see what victory looks like. The cities will be another battle altogether. But the jungle camp where's all video calls us from, it's impossible to see what giving up might look like. Either he's still fighting, his girlfriend is healing, and they both committed to staying out in the jungle until they are in their freedom back

or diet trying. And we're live here outside the Perez family home, just waiting for the and there they go almost on time. This morning. Mom is coming out the front door strong with a double arm kid carry looks like Dad has the bags daughter he's bringing up the rear. Oh, but the diaper bag wasn't closed. Diapers and toys are everywhere. Oh, but mom has just nailed the perfect car seat buckle for the toddler. And now the eldest daughter, who looks to be about nine or ten, has secured herself and

the booster seat. Dad zips the bag clothes and they're off. Ah, but looks like mom doesn't realize her coffee cup is still on the roof of the car and there it goes. Oh, that's a shame that mug was a fan favorite. Don't sweat the small stuff, just nail the big stuff, like making sure your kids are buckled correctly in the right seat for their agent's eyes. Learn more n h t s a dot gov slash the right Seat. Visits dot gov slash the Right Seat, brought to you by NITZA

and the ad Council. What grows in the forest trees? Sure you know what else grows in the forest Our imagination, our sense of wonder, and our family bonds grow too, because when we disconnect from this and connect with this, we reconnect with each other. The forest is closer than you think. Find a forest near you and start exploring. I discover the forest dot org brought to you by the United States Forest Service and the AD Council. Look to your children's eyes to see the true magic of

a forest. It's a storybook world for them. You look and see a tree. They see the wrinkled face of a wizard with arms outstretched to the sky. They see treasure and pebbles. They see a windy path that could lead to adventure, and they see you. They're fearless. Guide to this fascinating world. Find a forest near you and start exploring and discovered the forest dot org brought to you by the United States Forest Service and the AD Council. I'm Robert Evans, and this is part four of me

and mar printing the Revolution. And then once we got there, we couldn't rest, you know, reign side or whatever. Women as well, we were all like try when they came, when we were leaving, they were all like very fair skin beautiful. And then we went in and then everyone got tamped in the jungle. We're training all the time, you know, people in training camp. We were driven apart.

And then the reason that we were all doing business because of an Aline coup as students and how much he has terrorized the public and the people, and that's why we were We have this morale and the ability to get through the training and be able to wield weapons. Zora and his friends went into the junglist students, programmers and kids. Now they're fighters. They were tech savvy young people,

he says. They grew up online and that generational divide which the internet brought here came much later in Mihama. It wasn't until twenty eleven the people really gained access to the Internet and with it the new ideas and identities that it brought. Those generation are among the first to embrace global connectivity, and now after having it taken away,

they're refusing to give it up. The start of the coup in February, the military, well gen Z was organizing online, social media and all that so and they were kind of I think this is from my experience, but um kind of organizing around like gen Z is going to be different than the generation because we have the Internet, and also we know more about the world and can

come communicate to the rest of the world. I think one thing that was big was that in two thousand eight, it just took one video leaking out of the country for there to be big international repercussions. It's worth noting that when people in Burma talk about the Internet, they mean Facebook. Phones come with the Facebook app installed and it's sometimes exempt from data charges. For many people in Burma,

using the Internet means using Facebook. Zor and his friends are different from their parents in many ways, not at least in their perceptions of authority. This has led to a situation where the PDF people's defense force units are much less hierarchical than units of the Townmador. So when we make decisions in our group, there's no master and students.

There's no teacher and student. But you know the way that it works, there are people who are good, they're older, people who are more trained, and then their new recruits, new people who just came in. So of course the people who were there for longer and know more about the situation have more voice. And when we discussed, especially people who were there when we founded this group, there

were only really eight people from when we group. So those eight people kind of discussed on the bigger strategy. You know, we don't really vote there. He says he wants to do it. He thinks it's good. We are there's the seven of us we think is good, or we support him, or someone says, well we don't really like that idea, then we don't do it. They try to achieve more gender quality as well. There's are explained that in his unit the women are not always the

frontline fight is that's the place there's no discrimination. You know, we're men can women and men were training whoever could come. But like on the battlefield, people, we don't use women that much on the battlefield. That's one thing that we do know is that it is not it's not really discrimination. But if women are with us together, we have a confusion about whether we need to protect them or we're just fighting with with them or they're fighting in front

of us. And that there's one thing that is very different. It is that in terms of mentality, we we can't. We never take the women out really far into very dangerous fights. So often they're in the back as back up or two supplies or things like that. But as you know, the military government, the military terroristists are very very it's very unethical. They don't follow the rules, so

you know they're gonna shoot whoever they see. So even if they're hanging back and they're sending medical supplies there. They can still get hit for ZOR in particular, there's a lot of stake. After almost an hour and a half of talking, I asked about his parents. I've heard of retribution attacks against the families of fighters and wondered if he was worried about that. So mom and dad are both they support me fighting against the military. They're

very happy. Is that really wants to do cdium, but he can't run away because the military has taken his uh mother and his sisters. He's still has five sisters. They're all still in that military command and they're worked there in the military stool schools, so it's very hard for them to run away, right, So he really wants to leave the military, but he can't though whole so that the fact that I am they're trying to fight against the military. He's very happy, and but he tells

me to be careful about my own life. They're supportive and they really want to come fight themselves, but they can't because of my sisters and my mother. So him seeing that I can do it, it's really wonderful for them. So his father, his other brother and other people, but are three of them below him they've all usually just lived together with his grandfather and stuff in the military. Compounds are near the military, so he really wants to call all the people that are still there, but they

can't leave. This is what civil wood does, trapped us in a situation where we can't make the right choice even when we know what it is. In many situations, it's pretty hard to discern right from wrong in the midst of so much violence. Zool has been able to fight, but his dad is stuck fighting against people like his son in order to protect his daughters. Thousands of families across the country divided in the same way by circumstance

or ideology. The military is something of a separate society, has its own schools in its own culture, but ethnic armed organizations have not been close to open populations either, and so whole new identities have been forged by Generation Z while their families often struggle to abandon all certainties. As we record this, Zoo is still fighting, his girlfriend is still healing. Every few weeks a video of him

and his friends pops up on redditor Facebook. They have optics on their rifles now and are taking long range shots at the TOTMODA who rely on iron sights. They shoot and reload like soldiers, and they laugh like kids. The Totmada still controls the cities, but to move between them they have to travel in convoys at breakneck speeds, using ambushes, mines and knowledge of the terrain. E A O S and the PDF are able to deny the

military access to large portions of the countryside. Without a serious change in the conflict, it might stay like this for years. A report published this month detailed the attacks in the Karini state by the Totmada on churches, residential homes, camps for displaced people, which killed sixty one and the months since Saw left the city. On Christmas Eve. In Uprusso's township, they killed at least forty civilians. Autopsies show

some were gagged and burned alive. In recent months, the Totmodal has increased its use of air strikes against targets that it deems legitimate. Ming Anhlang, the junta's leader, flew to Russia twice. In twenty twenty one, he was proclaimed an honorary professor of the Military University of the Russian

Armed Forces. Quote. We are determined to continue our efforts to strengthen bilateral ties based on the mutual understanding, respect and trust that have been established between our two countries, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said at a meeting with the coup leader on June twenty second. We pay special attention to this meeting as we see me and mar as a time tested strategic partner and a reliable ally in Southeast Asia and the Asia Pacific region. He went on.

Min On Plange was equally lavish with his praise, saying that he saw Russia as a friend forever. Myanmar relies heavily on Russian hind M I thirty five helicopter gunships, transport helicopters, Mid twenty nine and s U thirty fighter jets and Yak one thirty ground attack aircraft to carry out bombing raids and straight civilians. All of these weapons systems have been seen more recently in the fighting in Ukraine.

One prominent Burmese Irish family, the Kiyotongs, has helped the junta avoid an international arms embargo using their global connections and a network of shady shadow companies. They have purchased helicopters under the pretense of using them for tourism and the oil and gas industry and handed them over to the Topmadaw. They've also helped shuttle coastal radar to Menmar, which the Topmadal used to track Rohinga refugees and provide

cover for several aircraft purchases. To fund these arms purchases, the Totmada has found willing markets for luxury goods abroad, according to Justice for Menmar, since the coup in February, the United States has imported fifteen hundred and sixty five metric tons of teak from the Anmar, using intermediaries to

avoid sanctions. And the two thousand seventeen two thousand eighteen financial year, the last year for which data is available, the government received one hundred million US dollars in revenue from taxes and royalties applied to the timber tradee There were more shipments than two thousand eighteen, offering the top Medaw the chance to make enough money to continue purchasing weapons to use against their population. The conflict in Myanmar

remains complicated. It's easy to reduce the alphabet soup of rebel groups to E A O S and the PDF, but these groups and their motivations are diverse. Pierre explained to us that even within the Kuran there are deep divisions. Well, first you have to know that historically the Karen Rebellion that started in nineteen forty eight nineteen, so quite a long timeable was led by by Christian by the Christian minority, okay, of the of the current people because obviously that was

the most Western educated people UM at the time. And so this elite kind of reproduced itself in the canoe. Who is out being the canoe is the current National Union is a democratic movement. But you know, our elites tend to reproduce themselves. And so most of the leadership, let's say, of the Karen National Union and the current

National Liberation Army was Christian like. And so the Burmese Junta, the Burmese military government UH, decided to use this to create a wedge between between the Karen Christians and the Karen Buddhists UH and sent monks to say, agitate and try to cause this split on religious grounds no UH, and they succeeded in parts and succeeded to to separate a part of Karen Buddhists that created the democratic Karen Buddhists Army, which then allied themselves, of course to the

to the junta and to h to attack the to attack the kind of and the manner of flow, which of course they knew all the all the words there on the defenses and where was the defense situated, et cetera, and succeeded in destroying the capital of the Canon National Union in Manaplo. In So that was the situation pretty much when I arrived. It was pretty like there was

not so much territory anymore held by the Callen. And more more importantly, they lost a lot of income because a lot of their income come from a tax at the border that they can control, you know. Uh So, yeah, that was the situation. Not every e a O has embraced the National Unity Government directly, after all, many of its members were enthusiastically running cover for the Rohinga genocide

a few years ago. Many of the eos remain technically under a ceasefire with the top Medon, and the top Meadon knows that if it pushes too far into EO territory, it risks provoking a full blown response. The a O s, meanwhile, have been aiding and training the PDF and still maintaining enough deniability that Natapmada has not been forced into a

confrontation e a O PDF. Alliances look different in different regions, and often realities on the ground bear little relationship to the back door diplomacy and official stances embraced by leadership and public The war continues to have a huge toll on civilians, According to the United Nations, in total, some four hundred and forty thousand people have been newly displaced since the coup happened in February one, adding to an existing three hundred and seventy thousand who had fled their

homes from earlier waves of violence and over a million people who had fled the Regina genocide. More than half the population of Corenni State has fled. Humanitarian access is hard. Much of the relief effort for displaced people occurs within local communities. Thousands of refugees at camp along the border with Thailand, which is defined by rivers. Initially, many people fled into Thailand, but terrible conditions in refugee camps led

some of them to return to Myanmar. Now they wade across the river for international aid donations of food and water, but they can't bring themselves to stay in the crowded camps overnight, so they wade back to sleep on the Burmese side of the bank. The UNHCR, the High Commission on Refugees, it's been unable to access camps in Thailand

or My and ma to check on the conditions. But it has urged the Thaire government, which has been incredibly accused of forcing people back across the border, to move people to better conditions further into Thailand instead of keeping them in camps near the border. And here we find the unfortunate, unavoidable reality of the civil war in Mi

and Maa. For all the uniqueness of aspects of the conflict, the innovative ways of gen Z militias have interfaced with older ethnic military forces, the three D printed arms, et cetera. At the end of the day, this is another brutal, horrific conflict between large numbers of people who want to be free and a small number of people who want to control them. From me and Marto our media, Ukraine to Syria, Ethiopia, to Iraq and beyond. The novelty is

the twenty one century conflict. Don't change the fact that at the end of the day, each war brings with it what might be the truest symbol of our current age, parents saying goodbye to their kids, camps filled with deathperate people fleeing violence, and government's all over the world willing to send nothing more than kind words and stern warnings.

This is a PostScript to episode four. It's not one that we've been intending to record, because it's not news that we'd ever hoped to have to share, but here we are. Unfortunately, we found out that about ten days after we last spoken, a couple of weeks before we released our podcast, Zor died. And he died in battle fighting with the top my door. He's really was, I suppose,

an amazingly brave and courageous young man and Um. I think that his loss is one that reflects the realities of of what war is, which is not great and glorious and exciting. It's young men and sometimes young women, young non binary folks. I imagine too, um dying when they had no quarrel with anyone, when they just wanted

to live their lives. Two years ago, a year and a half ago, even he was just loving the people he loved having fun, being a kid, riding his motorcycle, speaking to his girlfriend on his phone, living a happy life. And then someone who had power decided that they wanted to have more power, and they decided that it didn't matter how many kids had to die so they could have what they want. And he decided to say no

to that. And that's brave, and I think all of us would agree that what he did was right and morally courageous, and that that we would hope to be brave enough to do the same if the same thing happened to us. This one's hit me quite hard, honestly. I know this is my job, and it's happens, that's happened before and it will happen again. But he was

such a happy, polite, kind young man. He never didn't pick up the phone, He never got tired of explaining stuff that we didn't understand, and he always answered our questions. There was nothing that was off the table. There was nothing that he wouldn't talk about with us. He was completely open, And yeah, we will miss him greatly. He died fighting the thing that we all have to fight, right, fascism, dictatorship, totalitarianism,

military horization, and yeah, we'll will grieve his loss. Both Robert and I. We've just spoken on the phone and we found out because of contact of mine on the ground sent me a Reddit message with a link to a Facebook post and it's very clearly zorin no doubt about that it names him, and unfortunately it also shows him dead. So we were not in any doubt that it was him who died, and we're not in any doubt that we will gravely miss him either. We both hoped to go over and record with him, to speak

with him, to meet him. I've spoken to him several times on video, sometimes just to chat, not even to to record anything, just just to chat, just to catch up and and look at what each of us was doing that day. So it's a hard loss for me and for Robert too. As I said, we've just spoken. Um, so yeah, that's the news that we hadn't hoped to end on. Obviously, though, this is the reality of war, and as the world is looking at the conflict in Ukraine now, I'd urge you too to look at the

conflict in Myanmar. To another Russian bomb killed, another nice kid who never had any quarrel with anyone, who just wanted to live his life and I didn't want to live the rest of his life with a boot on his neck, and so he decided to stand up against it. As you can probably hear my voice, I'm quite upset by by his loss and will be probably for a few days. So I'm sorry to have to end this podcast on such a sad note. I'm sorry for his family who are now caught between the loss of their

son and trying to protect their daughters. I'm sorry for his girlfriend, who's dealing with shrapnel in her own leg and now the loss of the person she loved. And I'm sorry for his comrades. And they've said they'll go

on fighting, and I hope they do. And I don't think there's any point really pretending to be objective at this stage in the games, and I hope they win, um, But I mostly just hope that like one day, young men and women and everyone else just gets to live their lives without having to kill and die, because ultimately, no one should have to and no parents should have to bury their kids. So yeah, as much as we're all focusing on Ukraine and what's happening there is terrible,

Please don't forget Zoro his comrades. Please don't forget his legacy, and please don't forget him. We won't and we obviously want to dedicate this podcast to him and what he stood for. So yeah, he's sending a message anyone anywhere in the world, I can get you and it will hurt. It was a plot straight out of James Bond, an assassination carried out with the world's most toxic chemical weapon. The victim was Kim Jong Nam. He was the firstborn

son of North Korea's supreme leader. He should have been a successor. Instead, he'd be murdered in one of the most brazen and bizarre political plots of all time. Join us as we investigate the potential motives. Kim Dragon actually had several reasons for wanting to assassinate his older brother, the family backstabbing. There's a lot of clothing and dagger stuff about Jim John and the petty paranoia in North Korea.

When somebody challenges you, that challenger must be and eight behind the most audacious assassination of the twenty one century. Listen to Big Brother on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Have you ever felt depressed about work only to have your dad be like, why you're so down? So you told him you hate your job and he said, well, you better talk yourself out of it. And then you thought, hmm,

I love to talk. I could host a podcast. And then you went to Speaker from my Heart and started a podcast and got good at it, then monetized it, then quit your boring job and told your dad thanks for the advice. And he was like, well, that's not what I meant, and I don't understand what a podcast is. But you seem happy, So that's great, kiddo. You ever do that? Well, you could at speaker dot com. That's spr e A k E R. Ask your dad you

actually don't. If I could be you and you could be me for just one hour, if you could find a way to get inside each other's mind, walk a mile in my shoes, wacome mile in my shoes shoes. We've all felt left out, and for some that feeling lasts more than a moment. We can change that learn how it Belonging begins with us dot org, brought to you by the ad Council. Welcome out of us, Oh,

welcome to it. Could happen here. I'm Robert Evans, recording from a deeply unsettling airbnb right near the border of Texas and Mexico. UM. I'm here with my good friend James Stout. Say hello to the people. Hi everyone, and we're gonna talk about well, let me let me introduce briefly.

You'll you'll see the episodes soon enough. We're down here reporting on um a mixture of of of right wing militancy, government militarization of the border, and the attempts by people trapped in the middle to survive and avoid those authoritarian structures. So today, James and they're going to talk about molotov cocktails. Um. But first, James, you want to talk about this airbnb. We're in for a second because you book this motherfucker deeply.

Yeah yeah, yeah. So what happens when you have like less than twenty four hours before you arrive and need a place for more than two people is uh, you really get into the depth of Airbnb. And I've found this place which how to describe it? Um? Yeah, yeah, unsettling? Yeah yeah, it it just feels wrong. I can't put my finger quite on where there is a basement which definitely has like murder vibes, and there's not basements in Texas normally, and it's it's it's crumbling and unsettling. There's

a some pump that doesn't appear connected to anything. There's puddles of standing water. Um. I think there's like nine bedrooms in this house. Yeah, but only one like is upstairs, and it seems to have like like to be designed to command an arc of fire around the house. Then there are other bedrooms which are like kind of in this stable block. What else is weird? Like three of the bedrooms are separate from the main house and in a built in a way that it looks like a

roadside motel. And then there's a main house that has like four living rooms for We're sitting at a large kitchen table right now, which spins around a central access. For some inexplicable reason, we have the overwhelming feeling that something horribly wrong was done in this space because it doesn't everything is a little off. None of the decorations look like people. This is some sort of trap house,

but we cannot identify the kind. I think you describe it best when you said it's like one of those this person does not exist photos, but of a home and you can't work out what's wrong. But it's not human and it's not right. So we just had to get that out of our systems because it's been deeply unsettling the last couple of days. We're here now, James, you wrote an article about Molotov cocktails that got you

in a bit of a fascinating situation. I want to just kind of walk me through what happened there and what the fallout was. Yeah, well, the one that started it was about how to tear down statues, and that was for Popular Mechanics. In In that article, I interviewed a couple of experts and one of them explained how to make something called thermite. Thermitees like an exo thermic reaction, and you mix a couple of things, they get hot,

They get hot enough to melt some metal. So if you were interested in bringing down a statue of a bigot, that might be helpful to you. By the way, it's legal basically all of the US to possess thermite and pretty simple to make. Not that you know, you can google it. You can figure that out yourself. Yeah, I'm not telling you how to make it. I'm telling you that it exists, exists, and is surprisingly legal. Yes, and if you need to weld some ship underwater or join

together some train tracks, it's the right tool for the job. Yeah. If you happen to be I know a lot of the Russian Army in Ukraine listens to this podcast. If you happen to be in the process of abandoning hundreds of millions of dollars in armor, thermite can allow you to stop Ukrainian farmers from towing it back to their homes. Yeah, but don't do that if you're a soldier. Just just run, um, go to the Ukrainians. I'll let you call your mom. They're nice. Um. Okay. So I write the story for

Pop Mac Right. It's just a useful guide to people who are looking to safely dispose of a racist statue. Right. And when I write it, I think their readership might lean pretty conservative, or they felt like that was a safe space. Anyway. It immediately became like the epicenter of the culture War for like a week, including triggering one Benjamin Shapiro, who then sub tweeted me like a coward and asked when I'll be writing my story about Molotov cocktails,

which I subsequently wrote. So that that gets us to the Molotov cocktail story. I was in Russia today as well, now band media outlet no no no. I wrote it for a British magazine called Huck. I just I've like Huck is like like Vice but less tragic, like device went bad, Hu Hut school um, And so yeah, Ben Ben was upset. Ben orchestrated this kind of right wing panic around the story. Uh, they canceled pop mac for

a while. And I wrote a piece about the history and I guess chemistry of molota and they're rolling democratization movements. That was really fascinating to me. So yeah, that's how we got to the Molotov story. And you want to give me kind of some cliffs notes on the history of the Molotov and it's rolling because what I know about Molotov cocktails, I assume it's named after Molotov, of the Molotov ribbon trop packed right, the slav Molotov. Yeah, um, And I know I have been near a couple of

them going off. I nearly got lit on fire by one, and I watched a colleague get let on fire by another. So I am aware of what they do. Um. But yeah, why don't you walk us through kind of the close notes of the history of molotovs. Yeah, absolutely, so. Um, A lot of times you're going the Internet and you're readingthing about history and it will turn out not to be right, and that that's often the case of Molotov cocktails. So, yes, they're named after the love Molotov. We can get to

why they're named that way in a second. But they their origin is actually with Franco's nationalist fascist, national fascists, whatever you want to call them, national Catholic troops in the Spanish Civil War. So early on in the Spanish Civil War nineteen thirties seven ish, the Republic had some Soviet tanks and they were using these against the At Fentybro. They were using these against the nationalists, and nationalists were throwing what they then called petrol bombs at the tanks

too great effect. Those old tanks had rubber on the wheels that turned the tracks and those would melt. Um. So that's when they were first used. And if you're not familiar with what a Molotov cocktail is, it's an improvised incendiary device. It's a glass thing filled with a flammable thing topped with some kind of cloth with a

flame that the goth is burning. And when you throw it, obviously the glass thing breaks, the flammable liquid comes out, and the flame catches a liquid and you have a fireball. So the first time we kind of see them is used it in the Spanish and war. We see references to them in like British media in the nineteen thirties when British reporters were going out to watch the Spanish Civil War and they were like, Wow, what a development,

what a technology, and so they used there. But where they get their names in Finland, right when the Soviets invade Finland. Why they got their name is that Molotov claimed that his planes were not dropping bombs. You'll see like a history of gas lighting in Russian foreign pol or Soviet foreign policy here. Um he claimed they weren't dropping bombs. He claimed that they were bringing aid to the people of Finland, right, And Finland was like, this

is ridiculous. So they kind of started calling the bombs Molotov's bread baskets, and pretty soon everything that was shipped was associated with Molotovs. Bombers were Molotov's chickens, blackout items for Molotov's curtains, and so the they switched many of their state alcohol factories to making Molotov cocktails, and so they started calling these these petro what work called petrol

bombs Molotov cocktails, and that's how the names dug. It is neat that Russia has such a long history of causing other nations to retool their domestic liquor production towards making bombs to throw at Russian soldiers, and like, how what do we now eighty odd years on from from nineteen six seven, Like it's it's not always Russian tanks, but it's nearly always Russian tanks, right like Spain, and the Russian tanks are obviously like in Republic in Spain

is much preferable to Franco Finland, Hungary in nineteen fifty six, right, um, and today in Ukraine you see people throwing bottles of petrol with flames on top of Russian tanks. Yeah, they

have a long history. Yeah, I mean it's it's among other things like especially if you don't have easy access to firearms and and no access to explosives and stuff, like it's it's not a force equalizer, but it does allow you to to do certain things militarily that that would be harder to do, um if you were like trying to manufacture something a little bit more like it's easier than making a grenade, right, Like, yeah, and it does much more damage than a rock, but it's not

much harder to come by for most people. Right. And one really interesting thing I read about them was by this academic who I really like his work. It's called Ali Cadiva, and he's Iranian, and he's looked at like democratization movements all over the world, right, so, how do authoritarian regimes collapse? And his research suggested that like peaceful extreme like extreme like quote unquote peaceful protests tend not to work, and insurgencies hadn't had that high of a

success rate. But his paper is called stick, stones and Molotov cocktails, and like his research suggested, like, if you're prepared to do violence against property by hidding it with stick, throwing a stone, throwing a monotor of cocktail, then you are more likely to have success in toppling a regime. So like, because they're accessible to people who don't necessarily

have guns, aren't doing insurgencies. They've had this really interesting role in arming nonstate actors or arming liberation movement throughout history.

I mean, that's really interesting because it would seem to suggest, like a reading of that paper would seem to suggest that, yeah, it's not so much like being willing to carry out like a militant movement, but being willing to destroy things as one of the primary signs that like you have a chance of actually overthrowing an authoritarian regime is like your your ability to prepare to to do damage, um, like of a financial nature. Like is that kind of

the argument is making. I think the argument he's making is that, like, and it's an argument that can't be made enough. Right, the damage to property is not the same as damage to people, and violence against property in the name of liberation or justice is okay and tends to work. And but yeah, you have to have some skin in the game. You have to be prepared to fun some ship up if you if you want to bring down a ratime which is prepared to use violence

against you. That's kind of talking about the use of these tools within liberatory struggles, but they're not I guess the liberatory struggles, and I have the beholder that's talking about the use of these tools and kind of like

street movements that are agitating for change. But we also have this military history UM, which I think is much more muddled in terms of its actual efficacy as a as a weapon, its ability to deny area, it's ability to destroy UM or damage like enemy uh like combat ability. Do you do you have any kind of sense of like how effective Like we're seeing all these people in Ukraine arming themselves with cocktails UM, evidence of of of you know, the efficacy of these in combat is a

lot murkier UM, at least within the present conflict. Do you have a sense of how historically they useful they tend to be for that, Yeah, I think depending on the age of the and and then the type of the vehicle you're attacking. Right, So like these old Russian tanks, UM, what they would do a lot always make something which is not quite what we would see of the Monotov cocktails. I had a whole blanket that was soaked in petrol and that would get caught up in the track and

then it would destroy that. There was a bit of rubber on on the wheels interface with the tracks that it would melt and that would immobilize the tank and then folks could swarm it from all angles. That was kind of the move there, and then I think they've been more useful in Ukraine than one might have expected. Because of the nature of some of the Russian military vehicles,

they tend to carry their fuel on the outside. They also because of the mud, they'll carry lots of pieces of wood that they can use to put under their wheels like you would you know, like sand ladders on the truck, and so those tend to catch fire more easily. I know the b MPs also have fuel storage on the back door, which is is pretty optimal for if you want to walk up behind someone and set something

on fire. So that they've worked pretty well there. In other places, yeah, they seem to be more of annoyance, Like I know, I've spoken to people who have been in the military in the in the UK and like the big thing in Northern Ireland right again right, you have a sort of a liberatory movement there, and so they were very popular, but they didn't seem to do

much of them. Cause people distress, cause people personal injury sometimes but not particularly too they weren't game changing in terms of like the monopoly on violence there, but yeah, they seem to be very very I think they're better when you have a ton of people throwing them. I think you have a lot of people setting things on fire,

that tends to be it causes people to stop. And I think with Russia being lacking in excellent leadership, it seems like we could say in Ukraine and some of their soldiers maybe lacking in training, and with the fact that they tend to carry fuel externally so their vehicles catch fire. If you can just convince some conscripts that their vehicle is on fire, they are going to get out, run away. And we've seen that a lot, right, a

lot of people running away. Yeah. I think when I think about, like outside of military users, where I've seen molotovs be most effective in like the time I've been covering, can't for the first thing that comes up is the Maidan Revolution Ukraine, l where people were throwing some of

the same people throwing molotops at Russian troops. Now we're through a mix of throwing by hand and like catapult devices were launching sometimes hundreds of molotovs in a couple of minutes and like melting tank treads to the ground, which is definitely like that's a that's obviously it was effective. It's also almost a different kind of weapons system when you're when you're dealing with that kind of volume grad

molotov launcher. Yeah. Yeah, but then I can think about, like, there's this really amazing video that you can find if you look of Greek anarchists on bicycles swarming past a Greek police station and throwing it looked like about a dozen molotovs at once, and and just like sacking a police station that way and then biking right the funk off and like disappearing into the city um, which is which you know, seemed like a more effective tactic than some of the ways I've seen them used, where it's

like a person throwing a molotov um and then the cops get really fucking angry, but it doesn't really do that much damage to them, and then people get or they hit the wrong person. Like it is, it is a tool with a high degree of chance for error if you don't know what you're doing. Yeah, it's there's a decent skill requirement. You also really don't want to have like anything flammable on your hands or shirt or

anything like that. Like I've seen people really end up badly after trying to make a molotop and just hurting themselves trying to light it or throw it or drop. Yeah, it's it's not. It's not one of those things that like you want to casually suggest people use because the odds of actually injuring yourself with it are pretty high if you're not being careful. Um, and if you if you're going into a situation where you think people might

have Molotov's natural fibers. People natural fibers, not synthetics. Yeah, well if your friend welding gloves, your friend like, yeah, you don't want to be caught on fire. So let's talk a little bit about how, like what are the different kinds of constructions of molotops you've seen people using and how they changed over time. You talked a little bit about kind of the early Spanish were like full

blankets and stuff. Yeah, I think one of the interests where we go from Spain to to Finland, right where we're seeing the same thing basically petrol or maybe ethanol or something like that inside a bottle with with just a wig orright something sort of. I know in Spanish Civil War they were using jars a lot like jam jars.

But when things started to develop, a thinker is in the UK, so in Britain, and you actually have this guy called Tom Wintringham who went to Spain as a war correspondent, decided to become a soldier and then returned to the UK and tried to share what he had learned with British people right in this article he wrote for Picture Post, and he was very much into Molotov cocktails is a great way of fighting an invasion, much like actually the old guy you heard, did you hear

the guy who called into NPR recently, Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, he was outstanding, just just turning NPR into our how to do gorilla warfare. And so what they did they made this thing called the number seventy six grenade, and they made six million of them, I think Jesus Christ. And they still find them. It's funny, they'll still find them in like when they'll be digging the foundation for a building, they'll be like, oh shit, this is not a box of beer. And what those had was a

strip of rubber that they dropped in it. It was in a bottle with a cap, and it had a phosphorus ignitor actually, so you didn't have to light it, you just hosted it. And yeah, and those are extremely effective. The rubber dissolves and then that allows the flaming liquid to adhere better to the person or thing that is hit. Right, and you're almost like making a napalm bark, yes exactly, yeah, yeah, yeah, and the phosphorus will last for a long time. It's

much less risky to the thrower. And you can also have a whole box of them and just keep throwing them, right. You don't have to light each one, you don't have to have someone else like each one. So those seem pretty effective. I don't know if they were ever really used in Anger, because obviously the Nazis never landed in the UK, but yeah, that was that was a pretty big development, and that kind of set the tone for the other developments which I've seen, at least. I'm not

like a molotov expert. But people put sugar in them, people put polystyrene in them or what do you call that? What does sugar in them do? I think it gives it a higher viscosity, and I think they sort of it maybe melts when they are like sticks in it, like creates like a sticky kind of hot, like like if you're making toffee. I would imagine, Um, the big

thing I've seen people putting in them is various like plastics. Right, So when you look at the You've seen these videos of old ladies in Ukraine with cheese graters just grating like packing styrofoam, and they put that in there, and that that does the same thing, right, creates a more viscous kind of napalm which adheres to the thing that

you throw it at. And that I think if you're talking about persuading someone that their tank is on fire, if it keeps burning for ten twenty seconds, you know you don't have a very long time to get out of a BMP, so you're going to getting out, I would imagine. Well, that does point to like an interesting reality of like not just this war all war, but like specifically in the context of territorial kind of volunteers

who are on paper terribly out gunned. Um. But the psychological dimension is that, like you said, if you can convince people they may be in an armored vehicle that has unquestioned supremacy over the partisans attacking them. But if you can convince them they are on fire, they will make decisions that lead them to no longer have the advantage in terms of firepower. It's not impossible to do. Yeah,

I think you saw that. I think there's some footage from my dan of them sort of ambushing some armored vehicles. And yet once you throw half a dozen molotov cocktails from above at windows, you can only get those people to abandon their vehicle and run away. That's the goal. If they get out, there are a lot more vulnerable to further attacks from molotov cocktails or anything else. Right, So yeah, I think it. It really plays into that

kind of guerrilla or sort of like underdog side of conflict. Yeah. One of the things that's interesting them about me. I mean, you and I just finished this series that dealt heavily with like three D printed weapons, homemade guns and stuff. But you know, there's a lot that you, as the state can do to reduce people's access to firearms, or even to reduce people's access to like knives that are bigger than kitchen knives. A lot you can do to

reduce people's access to conventional arms, but everywhere has got liquor. Yeah, exactly, it's almost impossible to stop people having them. Right, If you have gasoline, diesel, alcohol, and glass things and fabric and lighter, you have access to these. So yeah, they're accessible to everyone, and they are incredibly effective. Like, they're probably the most effective thing that you could make in your home if you were doing an insurgency. You're fighting

Russian invaders in this case. Yeah, well, James, was there anything else you wanted to get into on the subject of molotobs or other forms of cocktails? Yeah, let me think I should probably say that it's probably illegal to make them in the United States, And I mean there are specific ways you legally can, but you you need a number of different permits. Yeah. Yeah, you do have

to ask the government. So I probably wouldn't suggest to do Yes, you have to, I probably wouldn't suggest doing that, But no, I think it's always interesting to look at these like, if we want to move towards a world where there is less authority more freedom, then these things which take away the state's monopoly on the ability to do violence should always be not necessarily like things that we want that. It's interesting. Yeah, that's one of the

things that's fascinating to me. Obviously, Ukraine is a pretty standard government within the global or at least up until this point, has been like they are. They are a state that has done a number of ugly things in

its past, and we'll do them in the future. But they're in this fascinating moment where the government has really set down any claim to a monopoly on force in a lot of fascinating ways, the kind of widespread here's how to make molotov here's had a disabled And one of the things that's fascinating, the Ukrainian government very famously sent around sheets which are like, here is where to throw molotovs to do the most damage different Russian vehicles,

which are also Ukrainian vehicles. Yeah. Yeah, and also those vehicles now belong to random farmers. Like I saw that. It was a thing with the Ukrainian equivalent in the I R S who said, like, don't worry, you don't need to declare this tank on your income tax. Right, how does one tax a person who has a tank? Yeah, or in the case of some of them, has a twenty million dollar anti aircraft system. Yeah, who is the tax man who is willing to go and collect that?

Like they have become ungovernable, right, Yeah, I mean it's we're they are in the thick of it, and maybe for the rest of all of our lives. Nobody knows how long this thing is going to last. But if if the war does end in any kind of reasonable time frame, the what's Ukraine going back to. I don't know how they go back to being a normal state when they have when they have opened the udgates to everyone.

Is the army now? Well? I think it's Yeah, it calls into question number things, right, like that maybe you don't necessarily always need is very strict disciplinary and structure to fight very effectively. But also yeah, that like do you need the state? Right? People are just doing their own thing right now, and I yeah, I don't know how you really take that back, Like how do you go and collect the tanks from people? They know how

to kill tanks, that's what they've been doing. Yeah, the Ukrainian government in the future, if we imagine a time of people piece, it will be quite a while before there's any chance of like, well we better send in the riot troops to crack down on this protest. It's like, no, you're not going to get those riot troops to go anywhere near there. Yeah, Like, yeah, it's testing out this

armed society as a polite society thesis. But yeah, I don't know how the police return to a country which is seemingly at least holding off, if not defeating, a military superpower. Yeah. It is a fascinating question, and and no one really has a clear answer, but I do

think it's interesting. Of course they have embraced the Molotov as you've kind of made the case here that's it really has this history as this great kind of democratizing force within the conflicts between people and governments and governments

and governments. Yeah, and and people in capital, right, Like if you're prepared to destroy capital goods like people have done for centuries, and that that seems to be the way to make change, right, It's kind of interesting, I think, to reflect on from our me and my podcast, I thought was that they had very strict gun ownership laws before this, very very strict apart from from one ethnic

group called the Chin. But what they've promised to do afterwards, at least according to our sources is to allow people to keep and bear arms, right, because I guess they kind of have to write because a they can't stop them anymore. These people are three D printing guns and be the only way they got freedom or if this is if the if they're able to defeat the Tapmador, then the only way they've they've become free is through

fighting for their freedom. And it's seems that they're not going to be willing to give that up, especially for the ethnic groups there. So yeah, it's really interesting to see, like what kind of a state emerges from a sort of uh, what's the sorts of word? Like like it's it's not an authoritarian structure, right, the military is are not like a lot of people in Ukraine are not necessarily authoritarian instructures. So what emerges for the state when

we've had this horizontal resistance? Yeah, these are These are fascinating questions and ones that I think will all be continuing to ask and answer for for the foreseeable future. For now, do you have anything you want to plug before we were all out? James M No. You should listen to our podcast on MIAMA. You can follow me on Twitter. That's my name at James Stout Patreon. I wripe some other things I teach at the community college. If you want to take some history courses, we can

learn about molotovs. Have a lecture about that. But otherwise, no, that's about all. Well, that's going to do it for us here until next time. Don't make a molotov if it's illegal where you live. But but do think about molotops because, as the last couple of weeks have shown us, you could buy next week be living in a state where it's very legal to make molotov cocktails. That could

happen to any of us. You never know, you know, you never know, So you know, do some reading online, use a use of VP a VPN to do that reading browser. If you're gonna be how to make molotov, do some very careful reading, and um, you know, keep an eye on the world. Hey, we'll be back Monday with more episodes every week from now until the heat death of the universe. It could happen. Here is a

production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool zone media dot com, or check us out on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or Wherever you listen to podcasts, you can find sources for it could happen here, updated monthly at cool zone media dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.

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