It Could Happen Here Weekly 43

can make your own decisions. Welcome to it could happen here a podcast that, for the first time ever, is being recorded on an earth that I no longer have to share with that fascist rap baster chinzawabe. And with with me, with me to celebrate this occasion is Garrison Davis. Hi, Hello, and James, have have we actually have we like introduced you? Introduced you? Yet I didn't think so. No, I just pop up talking about three D printed guns and people

who hate butterflies. Yeah, this is this is truly a dark day for democracy. I am saddened by the horrible loss of a great leader, UM, A hero to feminism and women UM, and I guess a hero to those who defend war crimes. So I guess before heard before before Wefore we get into one of the funniest things that has happened in maybe twenty years. Um, you do you want to like talk about who you are? Because you are now one of us and I'm very excited

about it. Yeah, I'm wanted. Yeah, I'm now a podcast. Yeah. Um so who I am? I am a journalist, I guess, uh and a historian and I wrote a book about the first week of the Spanish Civil War. And my PhD is in the history of international anti fascism, building international anti fascist alliances through physical culture, which is very nerdy, but yeah, I love that stuff with else I'm British if that had not been made abundantly clear but accent. And I live in southern California, which means this is

a Now this episode is a majority Commonwealth episode. Really exciting. We made it. Yeah, well we do in the national anthem in a minute here and we'll just stand up. Uh so, ex Prime Minister kind of he's not around anymore, is he? No? He is dead as fuck? So all right we should I guess I guess we should explain who Shenzo Abe is. Yeah. Okay, if if you want a really really long account of what the Japanese Liberal Democratic Party is because they are some of the worst

people who've ever existed democratic How can this be? So? The very short version of this is that the Liberal Democratic Party is a party that was founded by Nobusuke Kishi, who is one of history's worst war crimin les person like personally responsible for enslaving hundreds of thousands of people in China. Uh. He's the guy who basically he's the guy who was in charge of the economy of the fascist war machine, like like in Japan Jua War two.

He was the guy who ran like the sort of fascist puppet state called Manchuqua that was run by Japan after they conquered it. Uh. Real war criminal also just like personally raped a like extremely large number of people. I think that, like I was almost never discussed when people talk about him, almost like like a shockingly high white number. Yeah. It's of sex crimes. It's wild. Yeah.

And he's also mean. He's involved with the Japanese military sex slave program, which he referred to as comfort women. And I refused to call the comfort women because that is a fucking horrifying euphemism for again, a program of military sex slavery. Uh. He also was one of the people who signed off on Unit seven thirty one, which was Japan's chemical weapons testing unit where they fucking like purposely infested, in facted and tested chemical weapons on prisoners. Uh. Yeah,

he's one of the worst people ever. And then he got a bunch of CIA backing and so backing from the Aukuza because the CIA is working with the Yakuza on early uh fifty Japan. And she's able basically to force all of the other conservative like people to join his party, and the sort of the merger of the of the Liberal Party, Liberal Party and the Democratic Party is now the Liberal Democratic Party. This is Keishi's party. He founded it. Uh, he drags everyone else into it.

He does an immense amount of corruption. He tries to bring fascism back. He narrowly fails. Shinzo Abe is his grandson. Uh. The LDP Liberal Democratic Party, Yeah has Yeah, it sucks. It's like like the way that I've been thinking about, like how do you explain this to people who don't who don't have like a background in like Japanese like

war crime stuff. Is like imagine if like one of Hitler's generals had like survived World War Two and then the CIA made him made him the Prime Minister of Germany, and then and he got more fascist because people were saying mean things about his grandpa. He's like, oh, I don't like that they're calling him bad names. I'm going to get more fascist down. So, like ill Be, Abbe himself, he's carried he's been carrying out a lot of the

same things that that she was trying to do. Kishi was trying to sort of restore the sort of full fascist power of the police. Abe has been doing a whole bunch of shifts of centralizing power in the executive and spanning the police's power to just arrest whoever the funk they want. Um. So, one of one of the other things about Japan is that like legally in their constitution they can't go to war. And like both Kishi and Abbe like this is like they're big fucking things

that they want. They want to fully rearm Japan and they want Japan be able to go to war because they want to do the fucking empire again. And you know, so this has led. Yeah, Abe has been doing fat um. He also the thing he's probably most famous for in terms of like the reasons people think he's bad because he is he's like just actually a monster. Is he's just like a like unfathomable degree of war crime denial,

like he he pulled. So Japan in the nineties had admitted that they fucking kidnapped and enslaved like an enormous number of people from of people from Korea, people from China. I think they also did. They did in the Philippines and Indonesia too, although there's less sort of coverage of that, and like tourn them into military sex slaves, did things

to them that are like, I fucking unspeakable. Um. And so the Japanese government in the nineties had admitted they did this and apologized for it, and Abe was like, no, funk that that's that's wrong. He's also a part of this group called Niponka Guy, which is like a fascist group.

And okay, so this this is, this is according to a US congressional report, what they believe quote Japan should be applauded for liberating must of East Asia from western colonial powers, that the ninety eight Tokyo War crivate stripe unials were illegitimate, and that the killings by Japanese troops through the nineteen thirties seven Nunjing massacre were exaggerated or fabricated. Oh boy. They also openly yeah yeah, yeah, they also

saw the nudging denialists. They're they're they're sex slave denialists. They openly call for the restoration of the monarchy and the institution of Shinto as a state religion. Umb like a like has continuously said that the sex slave like did it were like, did were there voluntarily? Does another thing that but but but but Hillary Clinton just tweeted that preg Minister was a champion of democracy and a firm believer that new economy, society, country can achieve its

full potential if you leave women behind. What you know, she to be fair, to be fair, to be fair, both abbe and nobody. She did, in fact believe in using women to fuel the economy, just not in that way. He also, there's there's neverthing that so probably these most

like famous most controversial thing was. So there's the shrine called the um Yasukuni Shrine, which is is the shrine is dedicated to soldiers who like died serving the Japanese emperor and in in this so there's this thing called the Book of souls that has like lists of names right of just like the other people who died, and a thousand sixty eight of the people who were of the people in that book are people who were who

were convicted of war crimes. And there are also at fourteen Class A war criminals who either died or were executed who are considered martyrs there and Abe fucking like visited there and like brand and ship and this piste off everyone, any I mean, this is like there are lots of people who have gotten mad and me already for celebrating Abbe's death, and my, my, my, My official line on this is, if ab didn't want me to celebrate his fucking death, maybe he shouldn't have celebrated the

lives of the people who killed my fucking family, So fuck them. Yeah, so he's not not not a great dude, This real pack an automatic. The other thing we should mention too before we go into sort of like the details of the shooting is that there is an election actually, but by by the time this episode drops, I think the election will have happened, um, where there is a real chance that the Liberal Democratic Party is going to sort of like just fucking sweep it. Because Liberal Democratic

Party immediately start to blame me the left for this. Uh, there's a whole bunch of i mean, just absolutely horrifying stuff where they're blaming Korean people who live in live in Japan, which, if you know anything about Japanese history, when that stuff starts happening, like in in after the Canto earthquake, h a bunch of people just started blaming Koreans for the whole thing, and they fucking literally exterminated almost the entire Korean population in several major Japanese cities.

And so this stuff is very scary. Uh, it's possible that this is going to set off like an incredible right wing lyrici of Japanese politics, and there's a chance that this this this could be the actual thing that like full on triggers Japan like we are being and you know, going back into sort of just being a pure fascist empire. So this is not Yeah, that that

part is really bad. The motivation for the assassination is still, at least at time of recording, still slightly unclear, very uncle according according to some politicians and news media, we do know the suspect is Hito Kojima. That you can you can infer a little bit fased on. So yeah, there's there's like French politicians and a Greek news channel who are you see pictures of video developer Hideo Kojima and passing them off as the shooting suspect, which is

really funny. It is funny. Pictures of Kachima like inside like a Russian like communist hat fucking thing, pictures of him wearing a joker shirt and standing in front of a Jacobara picture and there you see this as proof that it's via left wing terrorist and it's actually video game developer Tokajiba. It's yeah, So like I guess what we know about the actual shooter, Um, we don't know that much. Is a forty two year old guy who was a former veteran of the of the Japanese Self

Defense Force. He was he was a Navy guy, which I guess partially explains why he can shoot a gun. Um, But yeah, the details are really murky. What what we've got at time of recording is the Japanese police saying that it wasn't because of a political thing, and that it was because of a group that he was that I was a member of who the funk knows what that means. That can mean any number of things. I I'm not going to speculate live on here because I

I don't know. Uh yeah. But also it was extremely funny and we should we should talk about the weapon that was. Yeah, this is why. This is one of the reasons why it's extremely funny and we we should probably gonna hand this over to James because James is a bit a bit more of an expert in this type of uh d I Y weapon rate. So what what the fund is going on with this homemade gun? Yeah? This ship, Yeah, this ship is fucking this ship. This

is crazy. Um, yeah, it's extremely funny. It's extremely funny that all these people with fifty thou followers on Twitter who quote and quote do Ocean like immediately label this is a three D printed gun, which is not. It does not look this gun is being held together with duct tape like that. That is that. That is the kind of weapon that we're dealing with. You. This is this is a homemade gun like held together with fucking duct tape. It is extremely It is like he got

blown up by an electric blunderbuss. It is Yeah, like there they're gonna be well, be three D printed parts in like around it. But it is, but it's not it's not looking it's it's it's not like it's not like a neducite or anything. Um, it's it's a weird like electronic pipe duct taped together shotgun. Yeah, it's I think perhaps if people don't understand, we should like break down how firearms work broadly and then how this one

works specifically. Sure, right, so like and there's no reason why you should be familiar with this, but like you need something to explode, something to make it explode, and something to go at the end, and a way to make sure it only goes in one direction. Right. Uh So what this character has done is seemingly it's yeah, it's like a blunderbuss or a musket in that it seems to be like muzzle loaded from the front. Uh And uh, I'm looking at it now and it really

is just covered in duct tape. I tweeted a picture of it. It's a gay. Yeah, this ship is is very old fashioned. He seems to have made his own powder to like it was very very smoky, which you can do. I'm not gonna tell you how to do it, but it's the thing that is possible, and so essentially from what I'm seeing here, it looks like it's like a piezo electric ignition which then ignites his homemade powder that he had, uh, and then he's put something in

a shotgun. Means it doesn't have rifling right, so it doesn't impart spin on the projectile. So he's basically got two pipes, a piezo electric ignited some homemade powder, and then he could have put nails in there. He could have put a cast lead ball, anything, bolts. And this wasn't the only homemade weapon he had. The police rated his house. He had a whole bunch of supplies that looks it looks out of like it looks like it's

out of like fallout or something. It is like there was one like blunderbust that had nine different barrels all duct tapes together. It's like exposed wiring, exposed circuit boards, like it's it's like it's extremely JANKI yeah, it's like I'm not entirely sure that the nine barrel one the central barrel isn't touched by the by the structural duct tape, and I'm not sure that it wouldn't have moved in one direction or the other when he fired it in Yeah,

I think that's a there's like a yoga. I can't see what he's put something on the He's made a butt stock with that one, so like he can be shoulder it, I guess. And I don't know if that's like a piece of tire or what, but yeah, yeah,

this is not a precision weapon. Wooden boards. There's like some type of like reflective it looks almost like a smartphone's attached to some of the wiring or there's something reflective screen that looks like it's like like an electronic control box, which could could just be like an old smartphone or something. Yeah, I wondered if he could, because that's what you use for for an improvised explosive device, right,

it's a it's a cell phone to actuate it. So it could be maybe he had a plan to just put it near where are they going to be and then call it and then think that would be well, I mean, no, this this is a this is a much better assassinated has the stock, So I'm guessing. I'm guessing would he beginning to hold it because otherwise there's no reason to put the butt stock there. Yeah, but who knows this guy is operating a different level. We have no way to know what he was thinking, at

least at least at least not at the moment. What he was thinking was I want to kill Shinzo Abbe with my pipes and planks. He did it. He's exactly whatever you think of him. This man didn't successfully kill Shenzo Abbe with a gun held together by duct tape. It's it's pretty impressive, Like I think the everything about

this is kind of impressive. A he so so there were there were two barrels on it that each fired, and he managed to hit him from like a pretty good distance away, Like we don't have there's there's no video that directly well at least not that's out yet that's like directly shows the shooting. We have a lot of video because I was giving a speech, right, so we have a bunch of video of like filming Abbe, and it's and because of where it is coming from

off screen, like that was a pretty good distance. And as best I can tell, he only hit Abbe. I don't I don't think. I haven't seen any reports of anyone else getting hit, So I yeah impressed. That is actually that is actually kind of slightly surprising. Yeah, there was there was no one else hit. It's like he just got the guy. He was that that that is genuinely pretty rare and assassinated, like like basically like a

homemade blunderbust cannon was like surprisingly surprisingly controlled and accurate. Yeah. I just found a picture of it with the Cyberpunk seven logo underneath you, which is pretty great. Yeah, this rule. Yeah he did manage to cause it kind of just put like a large, massive lead ball in it, I guess, And yeah, whatever, because I don't think it I don't

think it was one thing. So that one of the one thing I could say about the that we guys we know about the EMMA was that like there they were like a bunch of like they're they're one of the munch of the reports about the injuries that he suffered. We're talking about like he got hit in the back, but they're also holes in his neck. So my guests from a lot of there's a lot of blood from

a lot of different places. Yeah, I guess it wasn't one thing then, but I don't know everything that was kind of interesting about this is like the extent to which Okay, so like he was like was like very clearly dead, like people people had like reported him at the scene is having no vitals and they were like, yeah, his heart stopped, and they had like coptered at him

to like what tokyo, Yeah, tokyo. But the Japanese government did a very good job of making sure the press had like no information, and so there was just like there was like many many many hours where they were like pretending that he wasn't dead and like wouldn't confirm that he was dead. And he's like this, this man is clearly dead as shit, like he has gotten blown up by a blunderbus like in the back. His next gone.

He's like, I mean he's not not gone, Like his his neck is next been shot, his heart is stopped and they just sort of like keep it there for for a pretty impressively long long time. And that's the only thing we we we know very little about what happened and why um the pressidmen keeping the government's been keeping a very tight lid on information about the shooting

so far. Yeah, I guess we want to pivot into the gun control side of this sure, Um I guess okay, so the I mean like there was a mayor shot a few years ago. Yeah, justin seven Yaka is a guy shot the mayor of Nagasaki. So like, and like there's a there's been a lot of people, like journalists, people who are like supposedly japan experts who are like, oh, this is really rare in Japanese culture. Is like, no,

it's not. People get assassinated, like like the Japan has a very low rate of gun violence, but of that gun violence and the number of politicians gonna get assassinated

is like unbelievably high. And you know, I mean like that there have been there there have been a lot of I mean like Abe's like grandfather, it was a yakishi like got stabbed right after we left office, like and he only didn't die because the guy who stabbed him claimed that he wasn't trying to kill him, he was just stabbing him, which is one of the weirdest things I've ever heard. I don't know, I I suspect some yakuza bullshit was going on there, but yeah, like

Japan has assassinations, um it. There's there's this weird thing where people think Japan is this place that's like like no violence happens, like it's a completely orderly society. It's like all this all this like weird stuff. Famously, Yeah, it's like this this is a country. Like this is a country where people like like even in like the seventies and like through the eighties, people would charge like

RB convoys with sticks and like fight them. Like this is a country that like like people they have a sort of ape ship switch that just like yeah, they have their fair share of like cults that do activite, like the fair share of political extreamers that do exilence like this and like everywhere else in like like everywhere

else in the world, stuff just happened sometimes. Yeah. Yeah, I think it is interesting that like Japan has extremely strict gun control, right like licenses, test background checks, prohibitions, and most people learning and carrying. But like it's kind of interesting that this is more of a like a First Amendment question, I guess in American terms, right, Like, if you're on the internet enough, I'm sure it looks like this person has just googled how to make gun

and like this is what came up. And so I think it's kind of fascinating that that this person has been like aside from their possible connection to any criminal networks, but like I know the Yakuza were selling guns to people in me and Mark pretty recently, so they have

access to this. Yeah, and like the mayor who got whacked by yaks A guy, like if the Arkansa is going to do like I don't know if yours is going to do a killing like they like they they have access to weapon, they would use a real gun

active together. Okay, so like probably, but also like I wouldn't completely rule it out because I wouldn't rule out them just finding some guy and doing this thing the FBI does and it's like, hey, you're gonna go do an attack now, Like it wouldn't It wouldn't surprise me if that if they did that as like a possible ideally thing, but like we don't know. Um, I still

don't think we can rule out that head out. Kajima is the mastermind behind this, um and it's all I mean, it's I know right, it's it's just employed to play his next game. UM just have to add a few like nonsense names to the all the all the people involved, like blunderbustman. And then it's just it's it's easy, easy. But yeah, it's fascinating that this person was seemingly like maybe had other plans or had tried several other like

craft firearms, and settled on this one. But yeah, they had access to a lot of pipes, that's for sure. Did you guys see the yuk As a guy who was arms dealing to me and Ma? No, no, oh, for fucking wild. So he he was like extensively stung by the Feds to this guy he was yuk As. He was part of it, like an ongoing sting operation for like several years where he was selling like basically like trading guns for drugs, trading guns to buy drugs. He was selling to a couple of groups in Me

and Ma. He was two groups in the Tamil region and a couple of other people and he uh, he was at least one of the people he thought was a buyer was actually a fed. And they've captured all of these amazing conversations where they call the guns like cake and ice cream. Like one of the one of the things in the the criminal complaint, it's a picture of him just with like a a law like an anti tank weapon, and he's just like giving it like the V sign, and he's wearing these like yellow aviators

and a leather jacket. Like the way they arrested him was at a steakhouse I think either in New York or New Jersey, but like they lured him into a steakhouse meeting and then he got busted by the FEDS. But yeah, these guys were trafficking like serious stuff like surface to our missiles some things. They have access to

some pretty heavy equipment. Yeah, that's a that's a pretty old Like the officer has been sort of like I don't know how you describe it, like a kind of like para arm of the Japanese state in a lot of ways for a very very long time. Like there are there have been like because of people with basically special forces training. Um, they they at one point like kidnapped and killed the Empress of Korea as part of like a thing to like justify started a or so

they are they're very well hooked up. I I I don't know, it's still unclear to be because like that's the obviously everything again, like they're the LDP has a lot of the Akasa connections because kind of okay, partially kind of everything is, but partially also because the accusae were like a sort of founding like political block of the l d P in the first place. So who knows, like LDP people have gotten like attacked by Akas people before. It could be that, it could be something else. We

sort of just don't know yet. Um. Yeah, there's nothing identifying this guy. Like I'm just looking at a picture of him and there's nothing particularly sort of identifying his clothing or anything like that. Yeah, I guess, I guess that's the deficitions of extremely funny critical support to Hideo Kajima and all of the other freedom fighters. Oh, I guess guess when you talk a little bit about the international response to this, Yeah, because people have no idea

what's ethnic. Yeah, I mean, like so like all the Americans are sorry of like are doing the all American liberals deserve of doing that, Like, oh my god, he was a good guy. It's like, no, he wasn't. This guy was a monster. Um Okay, I will say this, Both the Chinese and the Korean embassies are being surprisingly diplomatic about it, as in no one they haven't no

one has actively insulted him yet social media wise. Likely that's a good move for like inter country relationship, but like, okay, like try Japanese relationships with Korea with South Korea and North Korea are really bad, and a lot of the reason why they're really bad is specifically because of Chanawabe and because of all of his bullshit. Happy but they're

not going to like Rubb it. I mean, it's not clear to me that they wouldn't have done this if this had happened like the two Tho tangs, Like these guys really hate each other. Um. Yeah, there's been some sort of like people people are trying to do a Taiwan angle on this because Obb is like a Taiwan supporter, But I don't Yeah, I don't think there's actually that much. The people want this to have much more geo political like significance than it probably actually will. Um yeah, yeah,

well it's meantime. Yeah, fascist is dead. That's always funny. It happened, Uh it did in fact happen here. Well, it happened over there, but you know what I mean, Um, it could happen here. Sertain statistically we are we are about to do based on. Yeah, yeah, you wouldn't need to to deductate model in America. No, with the amount of firearms here, it is kind of a little is sometimes a little surprising how little stuff like this actually happens.

There's obviously a lot of work that goes into like preventing it, but but still sometimes it's it's kind of it's kind of shot king. Um. Yeah, like I think, I think. I think if you look at the last twenty years, I think more Japanese politicians have been assassinated

to American politicians. Like I'm trying to think of an American politician because because they do a lot more American politicians and a lot of guns they killed, they killed when when they went after Gabby giffordge they killed someone, I think, But yeah, I don't I'm trying to think of anyone else other than that, um not in recent memory. The guy who showed Reagan is now touring. Yeah, but he didn't even kill him. That's not even assassination. That's

just an assassination attempts like a very bouched one. Yeah. Yeahs that crossover between John Hinckley and Hideo Kajima, It's possible that will be the game. I'm just gonna keep referring to the suspect of Hideo Kajima. It's worth noting that like he did have armed God, so were um God's president. That you can see their guns in their whole services. They take down the person who shot him, but they they were not on their A game that day. Yeah,

that you can see in the video. There's like one of the guys, I think, trying to like get a bulletproof briefcase in between Abe and the guy and just doesn't work. It just it just it just fails completely. They had one job they didn't Yeah, like the operation meat Shield. They weren't just on they weren't just not on their A game. They completely feel that they're over. Yes, it's not like the guy even tried to run away.

He just like stood there and got arrested. Yeah. Yeah, he did not really put much of a did not put up much of a fight. Yeah, yeah, he know he didn't. Yeah, he he went down pretty fast. I guess he went with like this small again, maybe to conceal it, because it looks like he was pretty close. Yeah,

that is that is very likely. Well, a very dark day for democracy, um dark day for feminism um as Hillary Clinton said, Ah anyway, yeah, yeah, Luckily they have RAMA Manual as a bastard to your pan to come to them in it's difficult. The the the l d P are the only people on earth who does who actually deserve RAMA Manual. So look, if if you, if you didn't want to have to deal with RAMA Manual, you should have taken all that's your money. Is this

is this is now their curse. Well, I'm sure we'll talk more about these types of holmemade weapons and all that kind of kind of stuff in the future because it is. It is interesting. And you know, places where places where like actual firearms are hard are harder to get. We're seeing more and more ship like this popping up. Yeah yeah, and that'll that would definitely be worth be worth getting into, along with three D printed weapons. All right,

anything else to add? Does that? Does Does that? Do it? Yeah? I think that's a wrap. All right? Well, follow the show on Twitter, Instagram. But happened here pod and cools the media, Uh, see you next time? Even critical support to Hideokachima, welcome to it could happen here the podcast that just happened here? All right, that's my by part done, Chris,

What are we What are we talking about today? I I have brought you all here today to discuss one of the most sacred and variable of our political institutions, an institution whose words echo through history and carved the political, legal, and economic framework of our world. I am referring, of course, to the bread riot. Hey, there we go. I love good bread riot. I do too. This is this is a good a non zero part of why I wrote this episode. How how is this? How is this relatable?

The grain supplies seems really stable right now? It's all what everyone says about the grain supply. No one. No one has thrown a ball top through a bank window in two hundred years. I was. I was reliably informed by several Marxist historians that that bread riots were over. I'm gonna I'm gonna google Ukrainian wheat harvest, as I do every exactly five years. The moment just now came up where where I check it every five years. Let

me just uh, is there a problem? Well, let me go eat my fifth wonder bread slice of the day and not think about it. Good stuff, all right? So yeah, let's talk bread riots. Yeah, we're talking bead riots. So prep riots are an ancient institution. Um, you can, I mean, you can find them like very easily as far back as the Roman Republic, of Roman Republican policy bread like Okay, if you wanted to go further back than that, I have no doubt you could like spend probably ten minutes

and find bread rioting in like Sumeria or something. I didn't do this. And the reason I didn't do this, even though I'm talking about the history of the bread riot, is that the sort of the structure of the bread riot is shaped inexorably by the sort of political and economic conditions around it, and the political and economic condition of ancient Rome are somewhat similar to us, but not really.

So instead of doing that, we're starting in the late seventeen hundreds, where there are a lot of bread riots, but particularly there's a lot of very well documented bread riots in the UK and France. And I guess but before we actually like talk about the specific riots, we should you should talk about what a bread right actually is because okay, so I mean, on a very superficial level, of bread riot is when people don't have bread and they riot, But the actual response to that and what

the riots look like are interesting and sort of complicated. Um, I'm going to quote now from the book Free Markets and Food Riots. This is just talking about specifically the seventeen hundreds riots. But yeah, food riots took several forms. A the blockader and trade that prevented the export of grain from an area in which shortages existed. Be the price riot or taxation popularity in which food was seized by protesters, a just price set and the lot sold.

See a grarian demonstrations in which farmers destroyed their own produces, a dramatic protest. Indeed, the market right, in which the crowd took me retribute of action against commercial agents, bakers and millers and local magistrates in the form of looting or tumultuous assembly to force dealers and local authorities to reduce prices. So, okay, there's a lot of different things

going on here. We're going to get back to the farmer's protest stuff like a lot later because the specific kind of like rural like versions of this kind of fading into the background for a couple of centuries. Um, what's happening the urban centers. That was really interesting in a lot of ways, and it gets at the core of what's going on in these sort of like late

santeen hundreds riots. Notably, the crowds who are doing the rioting are just like they're not just like seizing the bread and eating it, which is a thing that like you would assume they would be doing if they were you know, it's a bunch of people who are starving and there's bread and they take it, right, But that's that's actually not what they're doing. What they're doing is essentially negotiating over price. You see this in the sort

of price riot thing, right. You know. The thing that they actually do is they see a bunch of grain and then they sell it off at what they sort of like and what they deem a fair price is. And you know what what this is the something to do basically is it's it's a it's a very very direct way of trying to get bakers to lower their prices. And the other thing that's about these riots is that they are they're they're very politically sophisticated, and they're they're

very targeted. Um, there's the thing you hear a lot, and if if you ever read anything about any modern riot, you will hear just people ranting about how people are destroying blindly destroying their own neighborhoods, and it's it's just

like not true. Riots tend to have sort of riots tend to have a sort of political specific political focus and attacking specific targets, which is why, like, you know, the first things that go up in a riot are pawnshops, liquor stores, police stations, and now stores that think they're

employed employees badly They literally have specific targets. Yeah, yeah, like it it's you know, it's it's it's very like all all of all of the stuff that's happening is stuff that has like it's the result of political grievances that people have sort of been accumulating for a long time. And this is also true of these sort of of

these early bread riots too. Going back to the book, free Markets and food rights, protesters did not rampage indiscriminately, but focus their wrath in particular individuals and institutions whom the crowd held responsible for unjust practices. Typically, it was not the producers or retailers of food, but the middlemen who were seen as responsible for shortages and price raises.

The grain dealers wholesalers, speculators, and mills. Grain shipments by wagon ship and canal bars were seves and distributed among participants are sold at a just price. Warehouses were rated with similar results. Textile workers in seventeen seventy reams quote sees the talents of our gets proceeded to sell all the grain in the market at three quarters of the current price. They then turn their attention to the warehouse into the grainaries of numerous religious houses, which they treated

in a similar fashion. Yeah, and so you know, like this, this this is like this is a pretty remarkable degree of political sophistication right there. They're not targeting sort of farmers or bakers, and especially not targeting people who are like well known election the community. They're targeting people who they can directly tie it toto grand price speculation. And this is, you know, in someone sense like this this is a demonstration of the kind of like basic contradiction

of the market. Right on the one hand, you have bread as this like physical thing that you need to survive. On the other hand, you have bread as this market commodity, and the market you know, as a market commodity. It's a sort of speculative asset which people are like buying and selling and hoarding like stocks, because not because they actually eat it, but because they're interested in its sort

of market value. And you know, the Marxists will call this the difference between the use value or like the value you get from eating a piece of bread, and the exchange value, which is like the bread is a commodity that can be traded for the commodities. And you know, I like this is this isn't sometimes like this is

behind a lot of like the housing crisis. Right now, you have a bunch of people who buy houses and apartment buildings that you know, not because they need to live on them, but as an asset that will appreciate over time, you know, like appreciating value over time like stocks do. But this means that people who like need houses to like live in them, like, don't get a house because they're being held by people who are trying

to get the value to appreciate. And the goal of these riots is basically to prevent bread from becoming an exchange value, that is, to sort of like market commodity user speculation and turn them back into use values. But even again here this is interesting, right, because it's not like these people are like like like anti market, anti capitalists, right, they tend not to sort of just seize the bread out right. What they're doing is they they're insisting on

buying it at a specific quote unquote just price. And this this sort of gets into the question of, like, why are these riots happening in the first place. Um, The obvious explanation like, Okay, the people are rioting because the price of bread is increasing, But that's that's not actually like an explanation, right, It's just it's a precondition. But there's a lot of places where bread prices rising, you'd never get a riot. So a lot of of people have studied this and try to figure out what

is happening. The second explanation that historians come up with is something called the moral economy, um and and and in this bottle, people aren't just reacting to like a price increase, but what they're actually reacting to is what becomes known as the entitlement gap, which is this gap between people what people think they're entitled to based on the morality and how hard they work, etcetera, and like what they actually get. And so you know, in less

academic language. It's people going like I'm getting price gouged. This is bullshit. Bring the prices down that what they're supposed to be. And you know that's part of it.

That there's there's another theory that argues that food riots are different by these like really complicated or like webs of horizontal social relations and like things like a networks of wives and like political organizations and sort of like alliance is to happen inside of villages stuff like that, and that, you know, and these groups sort of like react to price increases by banding together and voicing people

are lower prices. Um. Now, notably, I want one of the like the things I listed in those that like web of things right as wives, net works as the sort of like first community widly as the food riots. Um. And this is this is turns out to be important. Women are often like the leaders an initiator of bread riots, and the sort of theory behind it is that they're actually the ones like buying the bread and so they're sort of they're more in tune with disturbances of food prices, etcetera.

And you know, the food price increases are a threat to what academics called social reproduction or an essence like taking care of yourself, your family and your household, like making sure you can sort of support and raise your children. So there's well, so the the good version of it is it's you're taking care of the people around you.

The cynical version of it is it's social. It's real, it's social reproduction because you're creating another generation of workers for capital, all right, but because women end up doing like enormously disapportionate amount of that work. Uh, they you know, they wind up in the streets first because they are the people who are most acutely sort of like sensitive to this stuff happening. Um, yeah, what's what's you know?

The and and the other thing is sort of worth noting here is that riots are these these kind of bread riots are usually urban affairs, and they're sort of they're the product of people who live in cities, right, It's sort of artisans and industrial workers. There's this like fighting corps of teenagers who seemed to show up in all of these bread riots, and thankfully that that that never happens today. We do not have a bunch of teenagers show up any time to fight the cops. And

something bad happens. No experience with this. Yeah, I've certainly never seen anything like that happened these other countries. Have the FEDS put piles of bricks out on the street, Well, you know this is we have. We haven't. They haven't gone to that level of entrapman yet. They're right, they're not powerful enough that this. This is before the development of the police state. Yeah, they didn't have an FBI to burn down the Third Precinct. Yeah, they haven't devented

the agent provocatury yet. A cunning false flag. So what's interesting about the eighte century riots? Those I've been talking a lot about how these are live women, and that's true, but specifically the age ones tend to be more gender balanced and later riots. And I'm going to read this from the historian Lynn Taylor because it's it's one of the funniest things I've ever read in my life, and

I love it. Cynthia Bolton's study of the French Flower War of seven of seventeen seventy five makes clear the mixed nature of traditional food riots. Indeed, the number of men involved had increased significantly in the Flower Wars due to the changing male economic social including familial and political status. During thecon regime, there's was a life of precarious and

declining social economic position. This equilibrium in the family structure of political alienation, one that left them in position similar to those of mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters. The men who rioted had in crucial ways been feminized. Oh boy, they before they're writing, because I mean, this is a thing that literally happened in uh in Myanmar during the uprising.

That there are kind of local, local cultural sort of attitudes there that make it that have made it for a long time, like essentially considered like shameful to touch women's clothing um or particularly like there's certain things that like you don't wear and that you're not supposed to look at if you see someone dressed that way, um that are like traditional women's clothing. And so a bunch of male protesters would dress that way and form up and like ranks at the protests because it made the

police like uncomfortable and sometimes like back off. That's extremely cool. Yeah, there's like some literal examples of that very recent riots. Yeah, And I think that gets at one of the things that's sort of happening is happening in this period too, which is that like one of the kinds of things that gen raise these bread riots is this kind of is this instability and gender roles and is this sort of instability in in what the role of a person in society is going to be and that I don't know,

it has a lot of interesting effects. And when those effects are riots, the stuff that stuff that happens is really cool because you get a lot of sort of like gender roles getting messed up, you get a lot of like social ties being broken. I guess. So the other thing that's going on in this period, um that is is important because because it's sort of like foreshadows a lot of what the sort of later bread riots are going to be about. Is that and this is

this is like the fourth theory of bread riots. If you sort of like go through your economic historians of this stuff. Um they're talking about basically the late Senti hunters are are one of the sort of key moments

in like the formation of the modern state. And what this means in terms of food is that control the food supply is mood from these this sort of like parentalistic like feudal state thing where on a local level you have guaranteed prices and access to food, and this has shifted to laws for capitalism in which there is there there are there are no price controls, there's there's no guarantee you can get food. And subsequent to this, also at the same time is the centralization of the

military bureacracy. And cent relation to the military bureaucracy means that they're taking more control of the food supply um here here from few markets and food riots. Again, older parent realistic models operating at the local level and assuring a prentiful supply of necessaries at a low price were undermined by new national policies aimed at greater efficiency and

market regulation. Spanning a century and more. The policies included such varied activities as enclosure, land concentration, capital, intensification of farming, proletarianization, grain exports, taxes, tariffs, and other government efforts to regulate the food supply. Price riots were simply one expression of popular grievances stemming from this broader change. And this is something,

this is something that that's very common. Bread riots are are like deeply an intimate linked in the with the ways that food, food product the food production process is changing, and specifically linked to the link to the ways of the food production process is changing because of the state and markets. But we're sort of leading into the late seventeen hundreds, and at this point something happened that no one expected. A bread riot went completely the other direction.

It irrevocably changed the state in the market itself. Um. And I am talking about histories maybe most famous bread riot. That's right, it's the French Revolution baby, liberty, egality, fraternity, han han and this is this is this is you mean to tell me that the French had a revolution. I mean it's kind of it's kind of marginal. Admittedly, the fame that doesn't sound like the French that I know. That's true. The modern French have replaced revolution with racism unfortunately.

But you know, look, look we're we're we're we're in the seventeen hundreds. Things are different. Um. Yeah, and so we're we're we're in in a secondary going to talk about the Red riot that changed the history of bread rights and the course of world history forever. But first, do you know who doesn't love bread riots? Yeah? Who is the primary sponsor of this show? She realized the whole cake thing didn't work out great. So now she's saying,

let him have podcasts, let them cast pods. We're back in. Our primary sponsor has been executed by a mob. So if you are a member of European nobility, maybe you're a Habsburg you know, um hit us up and uh offer us a sponsorship. Yeah, well, okay, we we We're going to rewind a little bit before they kill Mary

Antoinette to get to how that happened. So one of the things if you read the sort of literature on bread rights, one of the things bread right people will talk about over and over again is bread rights being a political and they kind of like stretch this to a point, well because I mean okay, so like like there's a couple levels which doesn't make any sense, right, Like, okay, if you think that bread is being sold at too high a price because people are are gouging you, that

is political, right, and then you go out and make them nott do that. Yeah, that's politics. People love to say things aren't political when they don't align with like a simple political party, like if it if it doesn't line up directly with the kind of approved debate topics between the political parties that dominate things. They like to say ship is a political but you know, starving because of the tax decisions or whatnot is is an inherently

political thing. Yeah, and and and and deciding that you're not going to starve and taking bread from people, it's

an incredibly political thing. Yeah, that's the politics. You have done a politicy, I've done, You've done a lot of politics, and you know, but but one of one of the things that that and the other thing this leads to is if if if a thing that involves bread suddenly like turns into capital p politics, and suddenly you have people doing things that are like well understood as like conventional political gestures, immediately everyone stops calling it a bread right.

And if but like, if you look at what's actually happening, it's here's a bunch of people who are mad about the price of bread. Uh, they went to change the price of bread. It kind of didn't work, and so instead they oversee the government and this is this is this is this is uh, this is the bread right that that we're getting to now up until you know, up until nine, like you can argue that like people historians will argue that oh it's bad rights a political

that just ends in I think it's October five. But but by this point the French Revolution is like, well underway. Um, they've stormn the Bistell. There's a bunch of people in a parliament writing a constitution. But like in October of nine, it's still unclear, like how radical any of this is going to be? Right, Um, at this point it still seems likely that there's going to be a king. And not only is there gonna be a king, the king is Cearlialy gonna be pretty strong. And then yeah, in October, uh,

maybe history's most same as bread right breaks out? So seven thousand women who are like incredibly piste off at the high price of bread and Paris march on Versailles, which is where the Royal family of France had been like governing France from for like a hundred years. And these women are really really angry and they they they basically forced the royal family to come back within to Paris.

And I guess it's it's important to note here that Paris and versided like twelve miles apart, so this isn't like a multi day journey. They just like get mad one day and they wake up and they walk to the next city over, and this radically changes the entire direction of the French revolution because once, if the royal family is in Versailles, right like, the Parisian mob doesn't have direct access to them. But once that, once they're in Paris, and once once once this bread riot like

brings the king to Paris. Suddenly the entire, like, the entire concentrated political power of the French system is now centered in Paris and is now in a place where subsequent bread riots can actually do stuff. And this directly leads to the King's being executed, This leads to our sponsors getting guillotined, and it basically it's it's it completely cements bread as sort of like the central part of of like one of the central aspects of what the

French Revolution is about. Like by by, by the end of the revolution, that the that the slogan of the sort of revolutionary French working class is bred in the Constitution of seventee. So you know, you can you can you can you can look at the priorities there and look at like all of this is sort of and a sort of extended rolling bread riot um unfortunately for us uh and spoilers to everyone who has not caught

up on the end of the French Revolution. The revolution loses, Napoleon takes power, and this is where we enter the era of what's going as the bourgeois revolution. This is this is the modern era. And if you if you've read your like your like Arab cops swam, you're like, you're you're sort of very conventional like march historians, you're

conventional sort of liberal historians. They will all tell you that the bread riots ort of dies in nearly eighteen hundreds, and that's replaced by like strikes and political protests organized by unions and parties, because like the rural class has been like displaced at the center of history by the industrial working class. And that's just like not true, um.

And it's not true in two senses. One, it's in the sense that like we have bread riots now, but it's also not true because there's another wave of bread riots that are that are very very conventional and very much sort of in the classic Sampion Hunter's bolt. Here is here's Lynn Taylor again. It is true that the proactive form of protests became common, even predominant by the

early twentieth century. However, scatitude the periodical literature are accounts of twentieth century food riots, which looks surprisingly like those of the eighteenth and early nineteenth century, something not expected

in modern industrialized nation states. Food riots occurred in northern France in nineteen eleven, in Britain during the winter of nineteen sixteen, nineteen seventeen in New York and nineteen seventeen in Toronto and BOTHWY three in Barcelona in nineteen eighteen, in Vichy, France in nineteen forty two, and in northern France throughout the German occupation. The form of protests was remarkably consistent in each and reminiscent of traditional food riots

of earlier centuries. And these are these are these are very conventional sort of eighteenth century bread riots. They're led by women. They refuse that they're led by women who are refusing to pay a higher price for food. And in some sense they kind of are a political in that there are various attempts in like basically all of these protests by like organized political organists to take that over, and basically every single time the women who were involved

are like, no, absolutely not uh, there's there. There's a very funny one where I think this is the the I think this is the British one in seventeen were like a bunch of men show up and the women are like, no, go home, you can't riot with us.

This is this is our riot now. Yeah. Then the British case in particular was also interesting because this is the middle of World War One, and so you know, this is a sort of giant presence looming over these these these bread riots, and you know the government sort

of like that. The government, in response to this, or sponsor to widespread hunger, like, decreased these price controls on food, but farmers are just refusing to obey them, and so women in Mayport organized and the result was quote when one farmer said he did not care what the government said about price controls, there was bedlamb The women rushed the farmer's cart, and the street was quote filled with hooting, yelling, women and young people while potatoes, cabbages and turn ups

were flying through the air. The example of Mayport soon spread to other parts of the country. These riots are led by housewives who had filled the front line and did much of the fighting. Although the miners of Cumberland were also active in supporting their wives efforts, both as added bodies strengthening the crowds, but also through the Minors

Association other working class institutions. So A, I don't know, I had to include this specifically because the image of a bunch of people throwing cabbages at farmers is extremely

funny to me. Oh, but the other thing I think is interesting here is you can serve to see the shifts from the sort of eighteenth century like riots to these ones on on a social level, where you know, in the eighte hundreds you're dealing with sort of like town and sort of peasant cultural groupings thur s approaching the protest, but by the nineteen hundreds bread riots are

being backed by like organized political institutions. Um, there's another one in New York in ninteen seventeen, which is remarkable for being it's self organized by Like it's remarkable because it's it's self organized by women, even though this is like the part of New York they're in is a Socialist Party stronghold, But the Socialist Party isn't there people

who do it. It's the women who are like married in a lot of cases the Social Party or in to some excenter in it, but are sort of operating autonomously, and they do this thing where they sort of like they start setting and forcing these boycotts of like shops that are deemed to be at like price gouging levels, and they fight the cops and they do a bunch

of stuff. Um. And the ones I mentioned in Toronto earlier interesting because those ones actually do like have an organization in the beginning, but in keeping with sort of the tradition of of of the bread right, the organization was the Jewish Women's the Jewish Women's Labor League. And these are these are remarkably effective political movements. They win their demands really quickly. I'm going to read one more

account because it just rules. Uh. Lester Golden and Temma Caplan have both examined food riots in Barcelona in nineteen, part of a wave of riots which occurred between June nine, seventeen and March nine throughout Spain. As in previous cases, these riots arounted because of devastating price inflation I think we know nothing about now this time, resulting from the post war collapse of the economy. The participants were all women.

They forbade men's participation, and the actions were led first by radical Republicans and then by a small group of female and arco syndicalists. The women's demands were simple and straightforward. They demanded lower prices for foods. They attacked bread shops and cold wag as it took over a ship laden with fish. When police and civil guard attempted to break out the women crowds of women on the street, the woman turned on them, stripping some of the officers of

their pants, spanking or thrashing them, and sending them home. Yes, yes, that's that's it's so good, perfect, perfect, This is the energy we need in every century that human beings have ever inhabitants. Amazing that the historians are parent parenthetical note after that is quote, rather undermining their authority in the process, which yes, I would imagine. So, yes, if you are if you are being spanked by a crowd, you have lost control of that crowd. That that that is that

is fair to say. And so they it takes about three weeks and they win and prices drop thirty So good for them. That's a pretty solid look. Hey, I think I think most of the people listening would do some hardcore spanking if they could get at cut on their grocery bill. Yeah, it's it's look, I'm just saying it is much harder to pull down a modern cops trousers because they're wearing like so much weird ship on top of it. But belt technology has improved tremendously since then. Yeah, however, Comma,

where there is a will, there's a way. Yep. If I learned one thing from high school, if that anyone can be pantsed just you just you just have to. You just have to. You just have to want it hard enough. You have to want it more than the person wants to be wearing their pants. That's right, that's right,

you have to believe. So there's one more of these bed right since we're talking about, which also is not conventionally framed as a bread right, but is entirely keeping with everything I've said here, the February Revolution in Russia. Um So, the February Revolution is the revolution that actually overthrows there. There's another revolution, which is the act Revolution, which is one of the bullshers come to power. But that's a that's that's a separate one. They're fighting a

completely group of people. The February Revolution has all of the sort of key factors of a bread right right. There's these massive bread lines. Women are piste off by lack of food. The revolution itself is led by women whose like male comrades had literally told them, don't, like, don't go out and do a protest on that day

because this is International Women's Day. But the like all all of the men who are like doing this are are convinced that, like the conditions aren't right for revolution, so they try to get everyone to stay home, and everyone's like no. And you know, like the sort of key difference between the like this bread right and the other bread rounds we were talking about is that, you know, the the demands of the of the the march in

International Women's Day, United seventeen are overtly political, like they they are chanting down with the czar and they're trying to overthrow the government. And this, you know, this is another thing that has this sort of like incredible impact

on on how the bolshot revolution is is sort of working. Right, Like Lenin winds up using peace bread in land as one of the sort of like central like Bolshevik slogans because part of it, because a huge part about the revolution is is just a bread riot, and that that that's where where we're that's that's where we're gonna leave it today, with the world just completely and utterly transformed

by another bread riot. And next episode we're going to get to the modern bread riots because those are also interesting. And yeah, we're gonna once again prove everyone who insists that bread riots don't happen anymore wrong, A thing that I didn't know existed until I started reading this and then now incredibly mad about. Yeah, So go out there and have a bread riot, pants a cop or a mother kind of riot, you know, a guacamole riot um, a mate riot um, you could have You could have

some kind of corn riot um. You could have a riot over order Lan. That would be a unique kind of riot. Don't think anyone's ever rioted over that. That bird that that's such a beautiful songbird. That eating it as a sin, so you have to like hide your shame underneath a sheet so God doesn't see you eat it. Have a riot over one of those, you know, Yeah, I do that. I love how often the Holocaust has

been trending over the last year. Um, that's good. That's the thing you want to see trending in um It's it could happen here, all right, Chris, continue with your bread riots. Yeah, we're back. There's more riots. Uh now. Last episode we talked about historians declaring the end of the bread death of the bread riot, and like in the sixties and early seventies, Like I think that this is this is one of the ways you can tell that period people genuinely thought the world was going to

get better. It was that like they genuinely believed that like the centralized state and like capitalism can always provide foods. You want u bread riots anymore you get market You if you were born in that period, you like grew up and people were fleeing from dynonic as is in the street and like getting getting eaten by woolly mammoth's And then by the time you're forty, you've got the telegraph. So I get it, right, I get why people think that that progress was really go back in those because

they got they wiped out the dynonic as. This is. Yeah, you have seen how wear'd taff building the pyramids exactly exactly exactly you have you have you have seen the future rise up literally and rent of view, and they went from eating mud to Hershey's chocolate. It's it's an incredibly impressive sort of sort of period of modern historical evolution.

And you know, and one one of the things you see, like like you'll see like Marxists calling bread rice primitive rebels doing like populist mob politics that's been like displaced by proper Marxist class politics. And then like every single one of these people was like the most wrong anyone, like basically from that period until until the moment the end of history. Guy starts writing, they are the most

wrong people like on the planet. Well, it's also funny to hear that idea that like there was something primitive about these people's class analysis, because like the Brothers Gracky and Ancient Republican Rome a lot of this ship they're saying, it's not at all primitive class analysis like this, it's

it's pretty developed. Yeah, And I mean, like the Marxist will do some long argument about how like oh they they have they have false consciousness, they're not trying to abolish the class system or whatever, and it's like, well, I mean, like I look at the Martin the Marxist

in demolish classist them either. So like yeah, like yeah, like that these are these are very The's something we're gonna be coming back to a lot this episode is that the people doing this are incredibly sophisticated political actors. And one of the sort of modern version of this is in the nineteen seventies, not only did bread riots not and there's a new kind of bread riot and these riots are collectively known as the I M. F

Riots um. From from from January nine, seventy six to October nineteen ninety two, there are riots in Peru, Egypt, Ghana, Jamaica, Liberia, the Philippines, a year, Turkey, Morocco, Sierra Leon, Sudan, Argentina, Ecuador, Chile, Bolivia, Brazil, Panama to Tunisia, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Guadibala in Mexico, Yugoslavia, Zambia, Poland, Algeria, Romania, Nigeria, Hungary, Venezuela, Jordan,

the Avery Coast, nigeri, Ron, Albania, India, and Nepal. Were you just do like the wacko the whacko Warner's song, It's that's literally all the play I found the chart that has all of them is like, there's just so many. They just keep happening. And again that's only like they they're they're still happening. And the ever thing I should mention is those are just the ones that are called

the I m F riots. There's a bunch of other riots, some of which are bred riots, that aren't called the I m F riots because they're not really sort of like directly involved with the I m F. And and that that this raises the question of what the fund is an IMF riot? Uh, And the answer is that, unfortunately, to to understand why people are throwing ball atops through bank windows, we have to talk about banking a little bit. Um.

I I have talked, I guess at length. Yeah, I I apologize, but we will we will get back to the riots, damn, But I promise we just have do a little bit of banking. So yeah, I've talked extensively

on the show about the crisis of the seventies. And you know, the short version is that in a thing that is completely unrecognizable today, the global economy collapses, inflation skyrockets, countries across the global South start taking out these suggestable right that they've been taking out these suggestable right owns, and then suddenly the interest rate spike and they started faulting on these loans. Here's our free markets and food

riots talking about it. Although the causes of the crisis run deeper, by the nineteen seventies, many smaller nations began to feel the strains of insolvency as a result of a world wide recession, successive oil price shocks, declining world

commodity prices, and accelerating debt service obligations. So but basically, like if you're a small country, right, the price of everything you need to buy, like oil, is going up, and the price of what you can sell, which is like commodities like copper tin, is collapsing, and these lead to what are like these massive what are called balance of payments crises, And so we should we talk about

what about what a balance of payments crisis is? And this one is up being really important here there's the story about che Guevara, like right after like literally right after the Cuman revolution, is he so he goes to the US and he's in a he sits he's in this meeting with a bunch of bankers, and he's trying basically to get Cuba's gold reserves and cup us sort of like foreign exchange reserves out of the S. The

U S doesn't steal it. And it was funny about it is all the bankers who are talking to him, like all of them report afterwards like, woll wow, this guy talks like a banker, not a communist. And the specifically the reason they were like, oh hey, this guy talks like a banker is that he knew what balance of payments was. Um. The short answer is at a balance of payments crisis is when there's more money flowing out of the country than there is coming into it.

And the results of this is that you run out of money, and particularly the thing you run out of as American dollars, which is the thing that you need to like buy oil. So you get these countries that are massively in debt and they run out of money, and the only thing they could do is turn to like is turn to the International Monetary Fund and the i m F, who like the only description of the i m F that I have is that like they're they're they're basically like if the cartoon Bank of Evil

from Despicable me like ran the entire world economy. They you know, so the I m F shows up to these countries and is like loll lamau each ship, and they forced these countries to implement like in order to get loans. They forced him to implet what are called stabilization programs because of the quote conditionality of the loans

that they have. All these like this really technical boring like neoliberal like legal language for it, the like the this this is all sort of banker speak for if you wanted other loans you can buy food, You're gonna have to rob every single person you know and hand them and hand us all your money. Uh. This eventually becomes now to structural adjustment programs. There's all of this

sort of technical language disguise what's going on. But what's actually going on is that in order to pay off, in order to pay the bankers for these loans, they are taking food for the moles of children. Um. Yeah, here's a more technical, I guess explanation of what's happening here. Austerity programs include stern measures or shock treatments that trigger market mechanisms to stimulate export production and increased government for

exchange reserves. So, according to the theory, currency devaluation make three world exports more competitive in the international market. Reduced public spending curbs inflation and saves money for debt repayments. Privatization of state owned corporations generated more productive investment and reduce public payrolls. Elimination of protectionism and other restraints on

foreign investment lurns more more efficient export firms. Cuts in public subsidies for food and basic necessities helped to get prices right, benefiting domestic producers. Wage restraints and higher interest rates reduce inflation and enhance competitiveness, and import restrictions can serve form exchange for debt servicing. So this has winners and losers, and the losers are like everyone in the country that is happening to and this is and this

is pretty cost cross class. Like these policies they hir workers, the hir peasants, the hair small shopkeepers, the middle classes annihilated just like people who are consumers you buy goods, and even the sort of like the local capitalists just get screwed by this because what the I m F is doing is forcing everyone to have lower wages, taking massive benefit cuts and massively spiking the price of food.

And you know, I I I want to get remind everyone that this this is explicitly what the Federal Reserve is trying to do to us right now, Like this is this is the kind of stuff that they're talking about in order to curb inflation, is to just make the pay everyone less, make everyone take benefits cuts, and then increase the price of ship. So the winners of this are like six bureaucrats, international investors, and like a

class of like absolutely horrific large agricultural landowners. And this this has about the effect that you would expect it to um. Between nineteen seventy six and late nine two, some a hundred and forty six incidents of protests occurred, reaching a peak from nineteen eight three to nine, continuing

to the present without attenuation. Now, the authors who are writing this right, they're writing this in nineteen four So when they say they continue to the present without tentation, they four, The thing is the last one of those

riots ended like a week ago. Oh yeah, yeah, they're still they're still going um so, and you know, and these these riots are slightly different than the the sort of like classical bread riots, right, because they are about the increasing price of food, it's also about the increasing price of fuel or sort of broader austerity measures or cuts to services and stuff like that. Um here, here's

there's a quote about like what these things actually look like. Um. Demonstrations and riots typically target specific institutions perceived as responsible for the depredations. Marches and protesting crowds converge on major thoroughfares and government buildings, such as the treasury or the national bank, or the legislature, the presidential palace. Looters attack

supermarkets and clothing stores. Where fuel and transportation subsidies are part of the austerity package, busses and gasoline stations are burned. The international dimension of austerity are recognized symbolically in attacks on travel agencies for and automobile's, luxury hotels and international travel agencies or all that too, but also international agency offices. And you know this is gonna sound familiar from the

last episode. It turns out that just like the eight Touch of People, that the attacks of these things are are very targeted. The sort of like forms of resistance have changed over time, because you know, this is now we we we do have modern political organizations. Right, Like we get general strikes, you get sometimes you get just noble bread riots. Sometimes you get these just things that are like large protests and then they turn into riots.

And what's interesting about them is that these are very sort of these are very sort of cross class movements. Right. You have your sort of classical sectors of the urban poor. You have, like particularly in the global South, you can you have your shanty dwellers, you have unemployed youth, you have small street vendors or like a crucial sort of element of these things you have like just your guy selling cigarettes on the street. Um, you get you also

get like parts of the industrial working class. You get sometimes you get unions. A lot of times you get students, you get public employees. Sometimes you get professional groups. One of one of the interesting things that's reading about this, I've read like a few books in this EREA who were talking specifically and this this isn't like the nineties, right, We're specifically talking about professional groups in Sudan. And it's like it's like, Okay, it's it's people are talking to

professional groups and Sudan backing rioters against the government. It's two thousand and nineteen. People are talking about professional groups backing protests against the government. It's like it's I don't know, Like there's this extent to which all of these things that the I m F riots have just been happening over and over and over again for about fifty years, and a lot of the elements are incredibly similar. One of the other things that's going on here is that

these protests are driven are driven by mass organization. Typically, austerity protests were precipitated by dramatic overnight price heights resulting from the termination of public subsidies on basic goods and services, proclaimed by the government as a regrettably necessary reform, urged by the I m F and international lenders as conditions for new and renegotiated loans. Five deaths in the first

Peruvian protests to get a pattern of violence. Peru remained a hotbed of austerity protest, with students and workers demonstrating against increased food prices in followed by followed in by a march of public employees over state layoffs. This protest, so cheered by other public workers watching from surrounding the office buildings, was dispersed by police tear gas. So like that that's that's a very sort of yeah, yeah, like

we did. I mean, this is this was happening. This is happening in Peru like last year, right, actually was it last year? Was it earlier this year? I don't know. Time is fake. And that's actually like the other thing that sort of startling about this is like the places that riot are still the places that are rioting, and like it in an enormous number of cases, it's it's

the same places sometimes it's the same people. Um. I think probably the most famous protests of the sort of era is it's called the caracaso I'm pronouncing nice really badly, by my apologies in Venezuela, which is reaction to a nine like increase in train and bus fairs. And there are these are like these are massive riots. Um at least a hundred and probably like a couple of thousand

people are like gunned down by the army. And three years later, a relatively unknown colonel named Hugo Chavez tried to overthrow the government that had carried out the price increases. Travis, you know, Travis is better known for his other works, but he's the sort of tie between the I M. F Riots and the sort of next phase of political resistance to this stuff, which is called the antique, which is like known as the anti globalization movements in sort

of the nineties and nearly two thousands. And the thing that's interesting about these things is that I don't know, the I m F rights don't go very well, like either they lose or at best, what they were able to get was like temporarily stall some of these reforms, and I say like reforms quote unquot like the serve and the olive old like slashing benefits. So they were able to pause them a bit and then they would

sort of get restarted after people left the street. But in the late nineties and the thousands, people start winning um Argentina is sort of famously forced to like tell the I m F to funk off and they default on their loans. After this like enormous autonomous uprising two thousand one that like very nearly overthrows the government enforces that like five heads of state. There's the whole sort

of pink tide in Latin America. The I m F gets like driven out of a bunch of countries in East Asia, and then she doesn't eight the entire world economy collapses, which it turns out is bad for everyone. And this does This does two things for our story. The first is that like countries are suddenly going broke again, and because they're like just completely broke, the I m F is just back and is able to sort of

enforce programs on places like Greecent Spain. And the second thing it did was set off an enormous wave of bread riots and uprisings. And I think, like most people, if if you tell them that two eight set off like an enormous wave of like protests, they're They're immediately going to go, oh, you mean the Arab Spring And I am talking about that, But that's actually not specifically

what I'm talking about here. There there's there were like immediately in twos and immediately after there was another massive wave of bread riots that every like just everyone is completely forgotten unless the thing that you do specifically is study bread riots. Um. Here here's from. Here's from the piece called a Political Economy of the Food Riot. In two thousand and seven and two, the world witnessed a return of one of the oldest forms of collective action,

the food riot. Countries were protests occurred range from Italy, where pasta protests in September seven were directed at a failure at the failure of the Prodi government to prevent a thirty percent rise in the price of pasta. To Haiti, where protesters railed against presidents provolves impassive response to the doubling of the price of rice over the course of

a single week. Other countries in which riots were reported including the Uzbekistan, Morocco, guianam Are, Titania, Senegal, India, Indonesia, Zimbabwe, Burkina, Fossil came Ruined, Yemen, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Mexico, and Argentina, and some commentators have estimated that thirty countries experienced some sort of fruits some sort of food protests over the period. Now we've been talking a lot about like food consumers in this because that's mostly the people who are involved

in bread riots. But you know, as was happening in seventeen huntres with this sort of original stuff like this whole time this is going on, there's there's a sort of massive shift in the global food economy happening where and this has been happening for a long time now, but it's it's sort of it's been accelerating the last about half a century, which is that the number of people who are like peasants and who produced food for

themselves has been massively declining, and people are getting forced into cities. And this means that there's you know, there's there's been a number of other things that have gone along with this. Uh, there's been this massive increase in like cattle production, for example, you get all these monocol

yours um. And another thing I think I've mentioned before is that the World Trade organizations like Agreement on Agriculture like outlaws agricultural subsidies for the global South, but you know, the US is still allowed to have like farm subsidies, which means that you know, if when you're when you enter these free trade agreements, you get all of this like enormously cheap food from the U. S has dumped into all these other countries, and you know, if you're

a Mexican farmer, suddenly you can't compete with all of this food from the US because the food from the US is cheap because the American government subsidizing it, but the Mexican government can and this just like absolutely annihilates any attempt by a country to maintain food security by like producing food for themselves. And this this sort of class of like self sufficient peasant farmers who had been you know, they support themselves by producing their own food

and selling to the market. These people just can annihilated and they get forced into what's called sort of casualized labor that they you know, they the later version of this is like uber right, but that they're forcing to gig work. They're kicked out of sort of the noble economy, and you know, because they don't have sort of fixed contracts or you know, it's a lot of people are working with for no contract with with no contracts at all,

they're enormously insecure. And once the people are forced into the labor market, like changes in the global economy can make them like almost immediately unable to afford food because you know, like if the less sort of economic and secure you are, the more the more you're affected by

price increases. Which is obvious, but it's worth saying because it dictates a lot of like who does bread riots and yes, and so governments are not entirely like blind to this, and they're concernings that they're gonna get overthrown, and so you see a bunch of governments trying to

respond with sort of price stabilization stuff. I think the most famous example of this is that like the Egyptian army like literally controls like an enormous number of easips bakeries and they like directly run them, and they directly run them, so like you control the price of bread to try to like stop revolutions from happening. But and she doesn't. Eight they just kind of stopped working. Um,

here's the political economy of the food riot. Again, over the year between two thousand and seven and two eight hundred and thirty increase in the global price of maze and the sevcent increase in the price of rice, with similar price increases and soybeans and other major food commodities. Um, yes, there there are these massi food price increases, and this, you know, this does the thing that massive food price

increases does. Right, there's there's and there's immediately enormous riots, and there's the cycle that happens where the protesters, you know, the protesters immediately blamed the government for the crisis, and then the government is like, well, it's actually not our fault because you know that it's happening because the things outside of our control, and the protesters are like, oh, it doesn't matter who we elect, they do the same things,

and like they're both kind of right, Like the government

is just like sucking these people. But it's also true that the sort of like the whole food system is designed to take like the means of food production out of the hands of like the workers who need the food and putting them in the hands of like, you know, enormous corporations and as people in places like Sri Lanco, which you're gonna talk more about later, continually emphasize like this, this food sovereignty issue is as much as a political issue,

Like it's an incredibly political issue, and it's it's it's as much like what's at steak in these bread riots as the sort of imfinosterity stuff. Okay, this is probably a good place for an ad break, but I can't think of a transition. Uh yeah, you know who isn't allowed to eat is the products and services that support this podcast, all actively starving to death. So get these deals now while you still can, and we're back. So all right now we're gonna talk a little bit about

the Arabs Spring. We're not gonna talk an enormous amount about it because that's the whole thing. Um. But if if, if you've been following like the stuff people have written about the Arab Spring, there's an enormous number of people who spend like a lot of their time arguing about whether or not it was actually sparked by food prices.

And you know, you'll get a lot of analysts to argue that like food prices in Tunisia where the air spring starts, like, weren't really higher than normal, And what you're seeing instead is like, well, it's not actually food prices. It's just that there's a generation of people who've been farmers but like can't support themselves anymore, who've been forced into like fighting non existent wage labor in cities and

like that. That is part of what's happening. But I think there's there's a sort of like fundamental misunderstanding if what causes a bread right, right, Like you know, as as you talked about like in the first episode, one of the things that causes bread riots is it's not actually necessarily the magnitude of the price increase that causes them, right, What sets What sets off bread riots is people is

people feeling like they're not getting what they deserve. Now. Obviously, like if the price of bread increases, you're going to get a lot of people going like, fun, this, I work my ass off and now I can't feed my family. We deserve better in this is time to riot. But sometimes even if red prices are stable, you can you

can get it. You can get a thing where everyone, like, you know, the amount of bread is bad, everything is expensive, and one day someone wakes up and just goes funk, this I deserve better and they do a bread riot

and and this is the case. And you know, and when when that kind of thing is happening, right when when when you're dealing with you know what like moral economy stuff, when you're dealing with with this gap between like what people think, like like what people think their life should be versus the fact that their lives which is absolutely terrible. Even if you like decrease the price of bread, that's not actually necessarily going to like stop

people from rioting. And if you look at like occupy for example, to like you know, that's also happening in this period, like what brings people there isn't necessarily strictly the price of food. It's the sense that like, yeah, I've been screwed by and I've been screwed by the ruling class, and I deserve better than this, and and

this is this is what you see Indonesia. And one of the things what you see in sort of Phoenicians Syria is that like a lot of the uprisings, like they have this huge sort of rural core with with this population of the population to people who've been kicked out the agricultural sector, and you know, and like that that is a bread riot, right, And it's a bread right in the sort of double sense of like it's the people who are involved who used to be involved

in in grain production and now can't be. And then also that like you know, people, people have hit the

sort of expectation gap thing. And what I think is sort of interesting about this is that these bread riots, these rural bread riots, are like they're they're the closest thing we have to sort of the classical twenty century revolution, right, Like that that's one of that's the thing that causes like the twenty century revolutions are the first generation of people who are like but maybe in the first like two or three generations, people who come from the countryside

into the factories of the people who do revolutions um. And but the thing is this is this is this is the century, not the twentie century. Like if you get kicked out of your farm, there's there's no job in a factory, like you're just unemployed, and you know, and this changes the dynamics of of sort of everything. And I think, okay, like people like broadly know the course of like the Arab Spring and a teen wave

of uprisings, they happen, they get crushed largely. But there was another wave of these sort of riots, protests and uprisings that started in Haiti and like in eighteen over this massive field price hike. And here is a partial list of places that like people have like rioted in in large numbers since a dozen in eighteen Haiti, Sudan, Algeria, Hunduras, Chile, and Rock, Hong Kong, Iran like four times, Lebanon, like three times, Columbia, like three times. A couple of things

happen in France. There was Puerto Rico, there was popular There's there was Indonesia, where in our second Ecuador one. Now there's Catalonia. Like people righted in the US there there were massive digits, roadblocks like in Canada, ukimedia Kampa went up where there was stuff. It's a culture. Like there were two different ways of protests. In India, there was like Belarus, there's Kazahstan, there's Kyrgystan, there's Usbekistan. There's Molly.

There's stuff in Nigeria or stuffing o Libya, like there's stuff in Sri Lanka. We're about to get to this. This whole thing has has been happening like everywhere, and it's been intensifying the lasting the last year of like three or four years. Um, we're not basically like year four of this cycle. And and you know, obviously, like every single one of these protests has their own like local political conditions, and like a lot of these aren't

even sort of loosely about the price of bread. They're just about sort of other stuff that's happening. But like like of the operations that I mentioned, like something like fifteen of them are directly about the price of food or the price of like transitive fuel. And we're gonna talk a little bit about sort of two of the most recent like protest waves. We're gonna talk about equa word.

We're gonna talk about Sri Lanka because they're there are two very different kinds of protests, even though they're both kind of bread riots or at least there, I mean, they're both very much the modern equivalence of it. Um but they look very different. And there there's just I think and I don't know, I think it's like interesting reasons why. Um yeah. So so we're gonna start with, like with Sri Lanka um on. On a very basic level, of Sri Lanka has a giant balance of payments crisis.

This is you know, it's just like that. This is a sort of like large scale political version of famines. Right, Like, there's plenty of food and fuel in the world, but the government sharlocket does not have dollars to buy it with. Now, the reason the government doesn't have dollars to buy fuel with is because the government is basically like an incredibly corrupt sctatorship that keeps like imputting lujury goods it didn't need. And they did a bunch of like tax breaks at

rich people, and suddenly the government was broken. Everyone was like wow, how did that happen? It must have just been the pandemic and it was like no, you like you gave all the money to rich people. And then as the crisis sort of went on, um, they the government decided to ban fertilizery imports and so this just meant that people couldn't get fertilizers. So it's like farmers just didn't plant food because curious decision. Yeah, it's like it's it's one of those things you look at it.

It's just like like like who thought this was a good idea? Yeah, what was the positive end of that game in here? I mean it's like the only like okay, So like I I think what they were thinking is that, like, fertilizer costs dollars, right, we're running out of dollars, so we're gonna stop people from spending their dollars like on buying this stuff so we can keep more dollars in

the economy. But like, what what are you what is your long term plan here if you don't have like anything to get dollars with or and you also don't have food. So this, to the surprise of exactly zero people. Lookcept I guess the government of Sri Lanka causes a

food crisis, food shortage. Um. And this is a kind of classic like this is the kind of classic like situation in which the I m F we intervene in the seventies and they're interviing now and you know this, this is a classic like struggle against this starting right, you have the ruling class blowing up the entire economy by like fueling debt money into pointlet's infrastructure projects. And now they're doing these like massive austerity measures and trying

to get loans to b I MF. This is you know, this is this is this is this, this is this is this is stuff we understand that we've seen before. Um. But this is also this is also a food softigy problem, right. The SriLankan government has just completely screwed their farmers, which means you have to import even more food and and you know the result of this is months and months and months a very impressive sort of clock cross class protests with like basically every social sector in the streets.

And that's both a good thing and also a thing that is kind of a mess because you know, like there's civil war. The civil war ended like less than a decade and a half ago. Right, so you have people in the streets from sectors who like do not like each other at all, and I don't know, and you know, you get the thing that happens here, right, You get these moments of like incredible solidarity and then moments of incredible like what the funk are you guys doing?

And you know, like one of the things that happens a lot in these protests, like in all all protests, like this is like okay, the protests are like pre tame for literally months, right, Like it's just people doing protesting, and then I cops and and people like allied with the government start attacking their testers, at which point people like burned down the house of the ruling family. They

start throwing people. I think people probably saw the videos people like throwing cars of like government ministers in the rivers, which was a good time, and like yeah, like that that stuff was, you know, a direct reaction to sort of like the government's violence. Right. Um, you know, okay, I can't give like a full, like detailed political history here because, like dear god, it is incredibly complicated and I don't understand it very well because you know, I

don't study Sri Lanka. Um, if you want to go

to account of this. Brohini Hensman's political dimensions of the crisis in Sri Lanka is a really good sort of like short like look at what's going on here, um, And and this is the sort of like this is you know, this is a broader trend and like all these protests right, like like every single bread right takes place in its own unique context, Like Sri Lanka, for example, Like Sri Lanka used to have the world's best and largest like mass Trotskyite party, like they were the Trotskyites

is like the only place on earth the Trotskates like a real like mass political party, and they were like a part of the real political process. And then they like sold out the working class and entered a bunch of governments that like did terrible stuff. And you know, okay that that that's like a local context, doesn't happen anywhere else. But you know, every single one of these states,

right is embedded in global capitalism. And that means that every state is affected by the sort of like broader economic trends and sort of beerocratic structures to hold everything together. They're affected by the i m F, the World Trade Organization, the World Bank. And the thing that this means is that the timings of uprisings and riots tend to synchronize with each other, and we actually just sort of brought

her up like economic forces. And the product of this is way is these sort of like periodic ways of uprisings. And so the closest out we're gonna talk about the most recent of these. Well, it might actually not be the most recently these by the time this goes up, but yeah, yeah, we're we're gonna talk about Ecuador. Um. The situation Ecuador is very different from what's happening in

Sri Lanka. The biggest difference, I guess is that instead of sort of like waiting for conditions to get bad enough that like an uprising happens like more or less spontaneously, which is kind of what happened he doesn't nineteen an Ecuador. There there's a there's a there are huge protests there, um,

but they were largely spontaneous. But instead of like waiting for people were just like what if we just called one of these And by by people here, I specifically mean the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador or Kona, and you know, okay, okay. As we've seen through this whole sort of thing, right like bread riots like adapt to the political organizations around them. And in Ecuador we're dealing with a quick essentially modern form political organization, which

is the Indigenous Confederation. And I guess I should sort of like preface this a bit with like the specific form of indigenous confederation in in Latin America that emerges in this period is like a different thing than older ones because there have been indigenous confederation for a long time.

This is like a this is this is a very specific like political thing that emerged across Latin America in in sort of the seventies, and the really really started string up in the eighties as results of like a lot of things, one of which was like how shitty the old like Marxans lends vanga groups like we're on

indigenous issues. And one of the one of the groups that forms in this period is kana and Kanae is one of the world's most bilitants like indigenous federations, and since they're founding in in six they've called half a dozen uprisings against neoliberal governments, and I think I think they knocked off like three presidents, which is a pretty

impressive track record. And on July two, faced with skyrocketing inflation on like basic consumer goods and a like really shitty like far right government, they stage another one um and this is another sort of I don't know. The thing is interesting about this is that it's it's part general strike, like part street protests, part riot, and part just like mass mark for the from the sort of

periphery of Ecuador to the core. And by periphery and cora, I mean in the sort of metaphorical sense, like it's a bunch. It's a bunch of indigenous peasant groups from all over the country, just like marching on descending on the capital Keto. And this is a this is a complicated process like that, you know. Okay, like the left everywhere has like political divides and mostly they're kind of nonsense in a lot of way, like okay, like that

there's ideological divides and this personal divides and whatever. But like Ecuador's left has has real political divides, and these aren't these aren't like sort of petty ideological like personal stuff, like they're like they were caught under the sort of previous like old like leftist, pink tight governments of Raphael Carrera. Like there are like soldiers and cops who are beating the ship out of indigenous echological protesters. And you know this means that like yeah, you know, okay, So so

Carrera is like parties running for president again. Careers are running, but careers parties like running in an election, right, And you know this means it's like, yeah, okay, like maybe you're both leftist right, but you know a lot of people who are like, oh, fun, no, like I'm not voting for these guys. These are the guys who like

sent the army against our anti mining protests. And so you know, the thing the thing that is interesting here is like like these protests don't even pull together the entire recordorian left. Um, there's like other stuff going on here too, like the there there's some of the unions that went on strike in nineteen, like don't go on strike this time because of some political stuff that's happening.

But the thing, the thing about KNA that's really impressive is that they're still organized enough and they still like they're organized enough that they're able to just take control of parts of cities and they have a lot of allies supporters amongst the students and workers and keto. And this means that when the government makes this enormous mistake and arrests karas like kind of Newish leader. Ah okay, this guy's name. This guy's name, I guess in Spanish,

it's like Leonidas is that. This guy's name is leonitis Um. He's the head of I use the Distance Federation Um and he sees a protest leader. He was protested leader in twenty nineteen. That's how we got elected to like head this organization. And they arrest him on day two of the protests. And this is a catastrophic mistake. The protests just like explode and you know, bye bye bye

by like a week in. I think that the government's claiming they were doing fifty million dollars a damage a day, which I'm not actually sure I believe that because governments and corporations to this too, and they're talking about like losses from like strikes as they tend to overra emphasize how much damage has done because it makes them like look better in the press, and that makes the protesters

look worse. But they they they they're able to damage like significant parts of the economy, and by June, like they kind of win. Basically, the government's forced to negotiate with them, and they don't get all of their demands, but they get price decreases for like fuel and gasoline, which is like a huge part of why this happened in the first place. They get bans on mining and drilling and indigenous and protected areas. They get like strength

and price controls. They it likeal rural loan forgiveness, like interest rate decreases. They get subsidus for farmers, they get subsdues for families, they get they manage to get the government to declare a state of health emergency over COVID. It's like this is this is impressive stuff, and you know, and the other part of this is that they're like, Okay, the agreement is that we will stop protesting if you do this, and if you don't do this, we're gonna

do this again. So yeah, I guess I guess my sort of wrap this up. There's there there's an American proverb that is really common amongst sort of like American China watchers, which is that I so supposedly the Chinese word for crisis is composed of two characters, danger and opportunity. And it's like not true, as likes to get at the polo logical analysis of China that that's not what

that's not what the characters made. But everyone, like everyone in the US, like political stamishment, like believes this right, and you know, but like as as an analysis of China, it is completely useless. As an analysis of the US of the American psyche, it's incredibly valuable, right because this this, this is the way the American ruling class thinks. It's it's every single crisis is both a danger and an opportunity.

And that's something that we in some sense also have to do because that's you know, these are the sort of situations that we're in, right, bread, riots are a thing that just they happen, Right, they will continue to happen. They have been happening for thousands of years, like presumably they will happen for thousands of more years. And there's no use sort of like either pretending that they don't happen or making these sort of moral or tactical arguments

like for against them, because they just happen. And the question that we're that we're faced with is what are we actually going to do about it? Right? Are we going to set them out? Are we gonna side with the state and repressing them in the name of sort of like stamping out color revolutions, are like providing order a stability, or like protecting small businesses? Or are we going to you know, take to the streets and fight alongside them to sort of break the system that creates them.

And this is the second question from here is if we're going to do this, how what what what we've seen from Ecuador in the past month or so is that if you take the fight to them and you're sufficiently organized, you can win. And that means the question now, as our food prices continued to increase, as food prices are only going to continue to increase, what are we going to do? And Yeah, that that's all I got. I have. I have a single question, yep, what are

we going to do? Well? I'm kind of bummed we never brought up are good friend Pete Buddha j Edge

in his uh bread his bread preci fixing ordeals? Yeah, I mean that that that that's kind of a sign of just like how kind of like I guess you could say masculalized, like our culture has been that people didn't riot over that because like that is a thing like if if if if if you said, Pete Buddha jedge back to like a late Frets village and she tries to do this thing like he does the systematic like bride bread price fixing, right, like all of these

people would have been getting hit by rocks. So yeah, I do that again. Yeah, do that again. Wow, Barons, this brazen incitement. Yeah, yeah, that's great. Well that is it for us today. We love to incite things, folks. Until next time, go incite yourselves. Welcome to it could happen here. The podcast that's increasing about things that are actually kind of already happening of and today it's gonna be it's gonna be one of those. And we're talking about in the kind of the uptick in rhetoric around

queer exterminationism that's happened. Most of the stuff is what this is discussions and legislative proposal and rhetoric that was really kicked off last month during Pride months, specifically because of the Rovy Wade ruling that really opened the door on a few not good possibilities. UM. But because we're gonna be talking about some more grim stuff today, we're gonna we're gonna open with something slightly more funny. Um And that's a friend of the Pod, Dr Jordan B. Peterson.

UM now with with me today is is Chris and James greetings? All right, So Peterson, he got he got really mad at Elliott Page. Um and now does not really have a Twitter account. And it's pretty funny. Uh And, a few days after he was banned for continuing to miss gender Elliott Page, he released a video that can only be described as a super villain monologue um as as a part of his new partnership with Daily Wire Plus,

the hit new streaming service. Um And, just because I think it's funny, We're just gonna we're just gonna play a few clips of of this of this evil supervillain monologue because it's really funny, and then it'll circle back to kind of our topic towards the end. So ah speaking, speaking a friend of the Pod, Peterson, here's here's our here's our one of the clips that's you've probably already heard if you're if you're terminally online. But it's incredibly funny.

If I'm required to acknowledge that my tweet violated the Twitter rules? What rules you songs of good old, good old Peter said, You know the thing, I've always been sort of like that clip in particular, It's like, I don't know if I was trying, I don't know if I could emulate just the it's sounding like you've edited together sixteen clips. If you my tweet violated that Twitter rules,

that's like it's his speech pattern is so bizarre. And also like in the the video was like nine minutes long, like proceeding that line, he explained what rule he broke around miss gendering and harassment, so like he explained the exact rule. Ah, but we always get more, Peter said, if you ask for it, yours woke moralists, we'll see who cancels. Who like funny. He's actually sneering as well. If you watched the video, like yeah, yeah, he's he is, he's he's going all in on the bit. He's doing

like Ozzi Mandius but hammed up. It's it's frankly impressive. This is this one's also also a decent one. I am employing this awkward and impossible naming style because it is now apparently mandatory and and probably doing it wrong. Nonetheless, as you're doing it wrong is the whole point of what has been made mandatory. But also I'm trying to make a point. I've essentially been banned from Twitter as

a consequence. I say banned, although technically I have been suspended, but the suspension will not be lifted unless I delete the hateful tweet in question, and I would rather die than do that. That means that you have a healthy relationship to the platform of Twitter. Um. There's also this this great clip of him talking about, like, I'm actually happy how my Twitter account has gone. Now Twitter is insignificant in the final analysis, and you're like, what the

fund does that mean? What? What fun What final analysis are you talking about? What do you what do you mean? The final analysis analysis of what? Like? What is? Oh uh, it's it's pretty funny. There's there's two more clips from this rent that I want to do, which kind of are going to get more to the heart of our issue today. Um, They're they're not great. They actually are kind of they kind of suck. So without further ado,

here's their good doctor friend. And finally with regard to the final phrase criminal physician, I must say that I've had some postcoital so to speak, regrets about that phrase. It is clearly the case that the surgical operation performed by the butchers who butchered Elliott slash Ellen was legal. So was it criminal or not? Were the operations undertaken by the fascist physicians who carried out the Nazi medical experiments legal Yes, under the laws of the time, But

were they criminal? I'll leave that question up to you to answer. So that's pretty gross for a lot of reasons. Um One, the kind of historical context of using Nazis too compare to your own transphobia is a little dicey when you consider how with the Nazis did to trans people into like queer books. Like, yeah, he's advocating for

the Nazi position here. Yeah, there's been so many bands on queer books this Like just in the past two years, Uh, the Library Association tracked almost six d books that were challenged, in the highest number since the organization began tracking book bands in the past twenty years. So talk talking about like the Nazi scientists, they're like you like you have is his his historical context of obviously is incredibly lacking,

or he's just or he's just a grifter. I think, honestly, he's just kind of I think he's just kind of lost it. I think I don't even think he's fully a grifter. I think he's just kind of not understanding what's going on anymore. Of because you can watch like interviews and stuff where people can try to use reasoning and logic with him, and you can watch his brain

start to process it. But it's just like otherwise, he just doesn't think in any sort of logical manner, put his words or his like stream of consciousness into any historical context. He just says what he wants, and he's used to people just taking that as a fact. Um, he's used to like regurgitating bad Joseph Campbell and people be like, oh, yeah, you sound smart. Would know he's actually not, he's of but man, it's it's yeah. The

whole Germany Nazi scientist experimentation thing is incredibly incredibly frustrating. Um. I don't even know what else to like say about a say about that, because I mean even that that line you could focus on for a while, like compare how like the history of medical documentation of like transitis and the Nazis. How that's like such a big thing is that the Nazis destroyed so much medical research on gender transitions, losing like like decades and decades of research

that we're only now starting to regain. Incredibly incredibly gross. But there's this one, one, one, last one, last clip. I wanted to play of of of our of our good doctor and are we degenerate, you know, profoundly threatening manner? I think the answer to that may well be yes.

So that's not great. He really is like just advocating for the Nazi position every turn, Like, yes, he's just continuing to advocate for fascistic reasoning of fascistic views of decadence and degeneracy insomuch as it is a threat to civilization and a threat to Western society. And then he goes on in this clip to justify Russia's invasion of Ukraine because the US is helping Ukraine, which makes Ukraine degenerate by proxy, so Russia is doing a war on degeneracy.

And that's like, that's his arguments, Like that's his level of logical reaciting yea, which which is funny because it's like if if you ever heard any of the like radio because every wants a while, there will be radio clips are just like Ukrainian Russian soldiers yelling at each other and it's just both of them calling each other gay over and over again. It's just like, we like

bring back that level of discourse to America. Well, um, we're gonna take a quick break and then we will come back to talk about our other really close friend of the pod, uh Matthew Walsh. So stay stay tuned for that. God Okay, I have I have one question for everyone here. Um what what? How? How? Woman? What?

What is? What is that featherless biped? Okay, behold. So when we're talking about Matt Walsh, obviously, last month he released a pretty poorly made transphobic documentary that was basically just a clipse of him getting owned by like actual doctor there for not understanding like basic ontology and medical reasoning. Um, the documentary was just uh. Other friend of the po, JK Rolling, just expressed support for the documentary. So if that's if that's on an indicator that like turfism is

just like a direct preamble to open fascism. I don't know what is because I mean, Matt. Matt Walsh jokingly describes himself as a fascist, but that's because his his beliefs actually are fascistic. Like he said, it's one of those jokes that only is funny because everyone agrees on the central premise, like it's it's that, it's that, it's that type of humor. Um so like J. K. Rowling

just endorsing an open fascist. So I'm not going to talk about the documentary in depth here because it's not that good and it doesn't really make any points that need to be refuted. It it talks about how like it talks about how how puberty blockers are um sterilization uh drugs, which is not the case long term when you're on them, Yes you cannot, you cannot do that

because it's obviously inhibiting your your hormones. But once you go off puberty blockers you can procreate again, which which also I just want to take a second here to to look at this position, which is that, Okay, so puberty blockers are sterilization things, right, I like, okay, so this is the arguments and sterilization, right, Who are you

giving puberty blockers to children? Why the fuck do you care well like children, and it's like, wait, I mean they arguing it's like that, but it'll make them, it'll make them permanently sterilized, like like you're castrating these kids by giving them pumanity blockers, which no, that's not how that works. You're you're just arguing in bad faith. It doesn't matter. But anyway, I don't want to talk about documentary in length because it's not interesting enough to talk about.

But this the documentary real quick? Is this the one way he like goes to like quote unquote the country of Africa asks people translates extremely racist. Yeah, great to see j k Rowling, like known non racist lining up. Yeah, like behind the descentitist tropes of African creator the creator Kingsley shackle Bolt. Yeah, just the most cringe. Yeah, that's

what we call a rich white woman moment um. Yes, all right, So but we are to talk about some other things Matt Walt has been doing, specifically how he has increased exterminationist rhetoric into his discussions around trans people. So we're open to talking about de transition ers. So the vast majority of real de transitions, which are very rare, like there's very few of them, especially considering there's already very few numbers of trans people but like or something, Yeah,

it's it's it's very very few. Um But the vast majority of people who do make the choice to de

transition are usually due to experiencing aggressive transphobia. Um and and the idea of the de transition or has been inflated and used as a straw man to attack the trans community just by and large, with with many documented cases of turfs or far right activists creating like fake stalk Papa accounts pretending to be de transition ers to write horrifying but fictional stories that that that happens a lot.

There's a really famous case on Reddit of an alleged de transition er who has found out to just be like an alt right troll. Um And this all really sucks because the people who do de transition because they realize it's just not for them are generally pretty rad people who continue to be very much pro trans because they do understand the fluid nature of gender and gender

expression through this entire process. Like but and anyways, when quote tweeting an alleged de transition or expressing regret medical decisions that they made, Matt Walsh said this quote, we can't just oppose the transition of children. Yes, that's particularly evil, but it's also evil to do it to anyone of any age. This young woman was nineteen, a legal adult when she was mutilated. Does that make it okay? Obviously not. Put it another way, it should be illegal for doctors

to do this to anyone of any age. It should be illegal for anyone of any age to transition period. So this demonstrates the jump from no one's like that, that the rhetoric of no one should transition until they're an adult, to no one should be allowed to transition at all. And it came just as quickly as the trans community was telling you it would. This This jump is not a big one. It is very easy to say no no hormones until you're eighteen to saying no

no hormones at all, um. And that's that's what we're entering into. Walsh's rhetoric is increasingly exterminationist, um and eliminationist, just saying that, like his all of his preferred policies would result in the total prohibition of trans identity and

the criminalization of any gender firm in care. Um. These people are fundamentally opposed to having any agency of your own body, whether that's hormones, whether whether that's abortion, right, Like, all of these people get mad just when they see someone with colored hair, Like they don't like someone's ability to have bodily autonomy. That's there, that's one of their

core politics. And you see this a lot, especially when it comes to like trans men, because there's this notion that there that their bodies exist in service of SIS straight men, right, and anything that gets in the way of that is an attack on SIS men in general and all the patriarchal society. It's like very very very much like regular misogyny, but with an added bonus of transphobia.

Conservative activist Christopher Ruffo made a tweet a few days ago with a picture of Elliott Page pre transition, with the caption that says, this is what they took from you, right. It's it's like this notion that their bodies belong to you assists man, and by them choosing to change their bodies as they see fit, that's an attack on their body's access to you. Um, it's it's it's it's it redes a whole bunch of misogyny. Does. It does a

whole bunch of really bad transphobia. Um, it's a really gross package, but it it It hits on a lot of points of like this type of patriarchal conservative brain. And I think this this this even carries out into like hatred of trans women, as you know, as trans women are seen as predators, so they hate trans women to protect siss women, right, like you it's all of this like possession, right, It's it's it's this possession of the body of a female, so you need to protect

it against the creepy trans women. Right, It's like it's it's all of this idea of like owning women's bodies is central to a lot of these ideas of transphobia. So we're gonna see a lot more stuff about how it's going to change from no hormones, no transition until you're eighteen, to no hormones, no transition until you twenty five, to no hormones and no transition at all. This past year, we've seen many proposed felony healthcare bands for trans youth.

Um said bills have passed in multiple states like Alabama, which means that it's going to forcibly de transition teens

across the state. In Missouri, there's a similar bill in the works titled the Save Adolescence from Experimentation Act Um, which currently applies to individuals younger than eighteen, but Missouri physicians and healthcare providers under the bill would be prevented from recommending gender firm in care to patients who are under eighteen, and there's already been discussion in legislative sessions

to extend the bill past the age of eighteen. While debating the bill, seeking to restrict access to gender firm and care, so lawmakers suggested that the medical interventions like hormones be withheld from transgender and non barinary individuals until

they're twenty five years old. And during a public hearing for the House Bill to six nine, a psychologist, Lorie Hayes testified that she believes in adults under the age of twenty five are unable to fully comprehend the traumatic and drastic and irreparable quote unquote changes to their bodies that will they will undergo if they receive gender affirming medical treatments like puberty blockers and hormone therapies also will testifying,

hay Is uh the psychologist said that she supported conversion therapy. So that's surprising too, nobody, Uh, or it shouldn't be. It also takes those people to the point where they're not necessarily edigible for their parents healthcare. Right, So, like I think twenty six is the time when you can do when your to you age out. Yeah, so it's it's again like it's a backdoor like prohibition on transitioning for other people. Yeah, yes, it's it's just trying to

stop it at all. It's you can't you can't take their word for it. They just they just don't want you around. That's it. Like they want you to to kill yourself. They or they want you just to go away or not be tread like that's that's that's what

they want. It's obviously I'm gonna do a few just Journal of American Medical Associations found the gender affirming healthcare include including puberty blockers and hormones between the ages of thirteen and twenty, was associated with lower odds of moderate or severe depression and seventie lower odds of suicidality. Now. They study published last year by the Trevor Project found that among transgender non binary miners hormone therapy associated with

nearly lower odds of recent depression and suicide attempts. So they just want to ban the things that make you more likely to live, right. They just don't want you around. That's the actual message. So back back to just kind of extra speaking of just not wanting you around. UM that we're gonna do some updates on Protect Texas Kids.

The extremely open, extremely transphobic, openly Christian fascists that there are words not mine group based in Texas who organized a lot of events to harass either drag shows or harass Pride events last month. It's leader Kelly Needered. I'm gonna that's what I'm gonna say it, um tweeted a few weeks ago. Quote let's start rounding up people who participate in Pride events. I wonder what she means by that. I wonder, I wonder what. I wonder what that means.

Surely doesn't mean she just wants to kill all gay people. Oh oh it does, okay, um And another tweet from the main Protect Texas Kids account was today's protest went. No children seemed to be in the drag show, but there were a bunch of adults wearing mouse ears and watching the men dressed up as Disney princesses dance around totally normal and not weird. Right, So it's obviously not about protecting kids, right, Like, it's they that's not the focus.

That's not even that's not the focus of their tweet. That's not the focus of what they want, right, Protecting kids quote unquote is a cheap excuse just to want to hate gay people and want gay people to go away. That's that's all. That's all it is. We've been like, it's we're kind of retrunning the same ground here, but man, it's it's so it is still frustrating how many people like fall for the bit it's not. It's not not

about protecting kids, not about saving kids from groomers. You can look at all of the sexual abuse in Evangelical churches, Catholic churches, it's Christian summer camps. Whatever, it's not it's not about protecting kids. They don't give a single fuck.

It's about wanting gay people to go away. Now. But with Kelly Needers and protect Texas Kids accounts, which they used to organize their Christian fascist events, both of those got banned in mid June Kelly has got banned for saying, let's start rounding up people who who participate in Pride events. But this, this extends beyond Texas, extends beyond Twitter dot com. Right, Obviously these people were just using Twitter to organize, so

it are already stended out into the real world. But it's not it's it's not It's not just Texas either. See I think it's A congressional candidate Mark Burns, who is a pro Trump pastor, was running for South Carolina House district. He called for the execution of LGBTQ and trans people by using grooming rhetoric, and then he laid out exactly how executions could legally be done. So this type of like state enforced a genocide. Let's let's play this.

Let's play clip. The lgbt transgender grooming our children's minds is a national security threat because it is ultimately the zigon to destabilize the republic we called the United States of America. That's why when I'm elected, I don't want to just vote. I want to start holding people accountable for treason to the Constitution. I am going to push to reenact WHUAC. WHOAC is the House of an American

Activities Committee. It was a real committee that was formulated back in the fifties, and it's a committee that we should re enact that starts holding these people accountable for treason. You need to hold people for treason, start having some public hearings, and start executing people who are found guilty for their treasonous acts against the Constitution of the United States of America, just like they did back in seventeen seventy six. You know what, South Carolina, this is our guy.

It was an amazing the way he misspoken called it the House off on American Activities. It's like a fun place. So that's not ideal, is it? Of that kind of stuck. Yeah, that was really out there. He's yeah, kid advocating. It's just it's just it's mainstream. It's trying. They're trying to mainstream the political ability to advocate genocide, right, and some of them it's not some of them, it's not fully catching on yet. Right, It's we're on the on ramp

to this um. The South Carolina pastor was defeated by the incumbent Representative William Timmins in the GOP primary for the state's fourth congressional district. But Pastor Mark Burne's still received of the vote, So that's still a lot of people. That's still a lot of people voting for that, and

that number, I don't think it's gonna shrink. Yeah, and like and it's also it's also worth doing that, like everyone loses him, Like it is so unbelievably hard to beat an incumbent in Yeah, i'mory, Like it's just it's yeah, so like even even if he was just a normal guy with like regular politics, you would have lost the election. So still, yeah, it's not actually a referendum on his popularity, like the popularity of what you're saying, it's percent of

the vote. Yeah, it's worth noting that. Like even here in southern California, right where it's supposedly like very liberal, we had a candidate for sheriff's office who is that was a deputy city attorney and was endorsed by the Union Tribune just openly spewing like transphobic groom of stuff yeah a public meetings and getting endorsed by the local newspaper. They were rescinded their endorsement later. But this isn't just

like a red state thing. If people think that that is that No, that's obviously there'd be a lot more common the people who run for sheriff, who generally tend to be more conservative because they're running for sheriff. Yea true. All right, Well, let's let's have an add break and then we'll come back to talk about Wait, talk about Roe v. Wade and the attack on future rights, including the ability to have same sex relationships. Oh wow, what a fun time we have today. All right, we are

we are back. So after the Supreme Court overturned a rov. Wade last month, there was an immediate push for anti gain, anti trans legal challenges using the same legal logic against the right to privacy based off of the the traditions

deeply rooted in our nation's history quote unquote. So this was like undoubtedly gonna happen, right, we've been We've been proposing that this was a possibility for a while, but it was definitely made worse by Justice Clarence Thomas front of the Pod, who argued in a concurring opinion that the Supreme Court should quote reconsider its past rulings quodifying rights such as the right to use contraception, the right to have a same sex relationship, and same sex marriage.

Invoking Griswold, Lawrence and Oberfeld, three cases having to do with americans fundamental right to privacy, due process, and equal protection, Thomas wrote, quote, we have a duty to correct the error regarding these established in those precedents, which pretty grim, pretty grim framing there, because that's a bad sign um, and we are already seeing stuff like this in effect. Actually, we don't need to wait for the Supreme Court to

make rulings states that are starting to do this exact thing. Uh. In an ongoing Alabama lawsuit that cites dabs overturning Roe v. Wade about medically detransitioning all trans teenagers, there is this deeply threatening turn of phrase quote, no one adult or child has the right to transitioning treatments not deeply rooted in our nation's history and tradition. Ha ha, interesting how they put adult or child there? Isn't that isn't that intriguing?

And it's also fun and how the deeply red our nation's history thing is now just sort of like here here is the word that you say to let you do fascism, And it's like oh, hey, do you know what it is deeply rooted in our in our nation's uh traditional history, shooting congressman. This is the thing that has been done many times, like I mean again, like like this, it's like like this is this is the

whole like this whole thing. It's just like it's it's so the whole thing is it's so incredibly sort of nakedly transparent and cynical and like this is you know, it's it's a centerd fascist thing, right. We're like we're going to create some sort of mythical past and then we're gonna like resurrect whatever fucking things existed back then. It's like, oh, hey, what actually existed back then? I don't know. People try to kill the government all the time.

They're really they're really playing from like the lower Keith t traditionalist framework here. Um, They're they're doing all the bits we thought they would do. It's not great. Uh. Late last month, during the end of Pride, Texas Republican Party unveiled it's updated official position on lgbt Q issues, definding homosexuality as quote an abnormal lifestyle choice unquote and

also opposing quote all efforts to validate transgender identity. The party's new official stance on lgbt Q issues wasn't veiled during Pride Month and as advocates fight against record number of anti lgbt Q bills introduced in states across the country this year, more than three hundred and forty bills, according to the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest lgbt

Q advocacy group on the legal front. Thousands of Republican activists met at the party's biennial convention in Houston in mid June to agree to the party's platform on a range of issues, including the rejection of the election results and a call to a repeal the nineteen Voting Rights Act, which was in acted to prevent discrimination against black voters. Ah, this is I would say this is a mask off moment, but they've never had the mask on in the first

People like, that's that's like that that's specific one. That is a thing, like like half of the Republican Party's platform has been people suing about the Voting Rights Act exact exactly. It's not actually a mask off. It's just that they're doing it louder than they were doing it before. The section titled Homosexuality and Gender issues, UM had the party stating that LGBTQ people should have no legal protection from discrimination and in fact suggested intent to ensure people's

ability to do hate speech and hate crimes. Part of the forty page resolution reads, quote, homosexuality is an abnormal lifestyle choice. We believe there should be no granting of special legal entitlements or creation of special status for homosexual behavior, regardless of state of origin. And we oppose any criminal or civil penalties against those who oppose homosexuality out of faith, conviction,

or belief in traditional values. Ha. I just I just want to put it on the record here that like the number of a number of my friends who have been attacked like in the last three months is it's a lot. I got, I got called I got, I got called a faggot for the first time in the Straights of Portland a few months ago. It's it's, it's, it's it's it's it's accelerating, it's it's going, it's it's

it's going. Um. But yeah, I mean, specifically, I think a lot of this, the last part of that resolution there about you know, opposing any civil penalty is against those who oppose homosexuality out of faith. I think that's that's probably definitely a referencing Steadfast Baptist Church, the church that just opens that openly advocates the genocide of queer people, which we've talked about in our in our last City

of Hate episode. I think I think they're also trying to go back to like the whole like cake bullshit thing. Oh yeah, obviously stuff like that. It's like, it's we honestly, we are so past the cake problem now because now they just want to know there's murder. They just wanted to like mass, they just want to do mass. Gend

as side, like, I'm so overcakes. Like and in the trend of increasing the age barrier of gender affirming healthcare into adulthood, the Texas Republicans called for the ban of gender affirming healthcare, including the distribution of huberty blockers or hormone supressing therapies and the UH and the performance of gender affirming surgeries to anyone under the age of twenty one. So that is the new Texas Republican official position is that these things should be banned UH for under the

age of one. And that's not a that's not a hard cap. They're gonna keep raising that cap as often as they can, and as proof, I will offer up the past thirty five minutes an episode, like everything we've said in the past thirty five minutes is supporting the opinion that that cap they wanted to go up. Yeah. Uture. They also simultaneously advocate for like heterosexual relationship age of consent to just dromp oh yeah, like twelve years old.

Yeah um. Speaking of speaking of Texas, near the end of June, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who sent us office home in the celebration of the overturning of Roe v. Wade, said that he will defend Texas anti sodomy law. It's a Supreme Court revisit's lawrence view Texas. I'm gonna play

extremely frustrating clip here, here's a fun time. I'm sure you read uh Justice Thomas's concurrence where he said that there were a number of other of these issues grizz wald, uh lawrence and ogofell that he felt needs to be looked at again. Obviously, the lawrence case came from Texas.

That was the what outlawed sodomy? Would you, as Attorney general be comfortable defending a law that once again outlawed sodomy that questioned Lawrence again, or Griswold, or gay marriage that came from the state legislature to put to the test. With Justice Thomas said, yeah, I mean, there's all kinds of issues here, but certainly the Supreme Court has stepped into issues that I don't think there was any constitutional provision dealing with. They were legislative issues, and this is

one of those issues, and there may be more. So it would depend on the issue and depending on what state law it says at the time, And just just for the sake of time here, you wouldn't rule out that if the state legislature passed the exact same law that that Lawrence overturned on sodomy, you wouldn't have any problem then defending that and taking that case back to the Supreme Court. Yeah. Look, my job is defend state

law and I'll continue to do that. That is my job into the Constitution, and I'm so First of all, in this clip of Kenpacton, he looks like a zombie. I don't know what's going on with his face, but his ECUs twitching in a way that looks really uncanny. He looks like he like, look at look at this man's face, Look at what is going on. That's an unfortunate pause. No, he looks aet in motion too. It's not an unfortunate pause. He just looks. There is something

going wrong with Ken Paxton. We need you to the bottom of this. But also all of that stuff about make enforcing laws against sodomy, making gay sex illegal, they don't want gay people to find because what they're actually saying, um, and if you do, they want to send you to jail. Um. So that's something that Ken Paxton wants wants to do um wrapped in very flowery language about defending the laws on record, that laws that you are enforcing, therefore you're

making the laws in effect. Um ha. So one one aspect of this that I want to touch on again before we close out in our in Our City of Hate episodes about the Christian fascists in Dallas attacking drag shows and Steadfast Baptist Church, and even in some of the stuff that we've gone over in this episode, right, there's a lot of talk about like government approved extermination um, whether that be like for treason, for Unamerican acts, executions

based off Biblical law, rounding up people for degenerate or deviant behavior, arresting doctors for performing gender affirming surgeries. There's there's a lot of like talk around, like the government's ability to legally gen side people. Um. But the other aspect of this is like the vigilante justice angle of people wanting to just do physical violence themselves. And there's a way that these two things can intersect in a really interesting way. I'm gonna play one one last clip here.

You know some teachers pushing X values on your third grader. Why aren't you going to thrash the teacher talk to an orongal person's kids about sex in kindergarten? You get beaten up. You should be beaten up. Please. If I was a parent and my fifth grade daughter had had to sleep and shower in some kind of cabin at some summer camp that I paid money to send my child to, and there was a man calling himself a woman sleeping in her cabin, my husband would have beat

him into the ground. Where are the men actually standing up against these men who think they are women that are trying to compete in these females. Sports shouldn't put up with it anymore. You need to intervene. You need to show up to the sporting like this is not happening. Actually, there is almost nothing that can be done. Uh that is uh, that is over the line to stop that.

It's disgusting. There was a time in this country of just a little more decency where if someone even voiced the idea of taking your kid to a drag show to be arrested, they are underqualified to have children. They should have their children taken away from them because it's child abuse. So that's a lot of stuff, but rent you know, it fluctuates between talking about people taking this into their own hands in a very like obviously like

misogynistic and transphobic way. Again, it's about like the access to you know, protecting access to the feminine body um, and then a lot of other stuff around, you know, the government arrested people and try it's about it. It's a mix between like doing stuffy yourself, you know, in a form of like the vigilante um um or you know,

eventually advocating for the for the government's ability to do this. Now, we we've covered a number of incidents of like a violence or of things that that we're escalating to the point of that right before it stopped. UM. Across you know, the Dallas area, we talked about stuff in Boise, Idaho with Patriot Front. We talked about the Proud Boys who stormed the library outside of San Francisco. UM, I think those are in our in our I think I talked about most of those across a few of the city

of haid episode. UM. Then we have uh there's but there there is other incidents outside of just those cities. UM. In Atlanta, a youth justice group was forced to cancel their rally in support of trans rights after an organizer received a specific quote vulgar death threat. In Calama, Washington, a school was put on lockdown after an anti transit student threatened a mass shooting following a broad student walkout

in support of a trans classmate who had been assaulted. UM. People graffited pervs work here on an elementary school in Venture County, California, following a local right wing papers story about a third grade teacher who affirmed a trans students name and pronouns. In the lead up to Pride Month, and anti LGBTQ activist named Ethan Schmidt Crockett vowed to hunt gay people and trans people and their allies at target stores um following the story's decision to celebrate Pride.

He made the same threat a month before. In June, he attended the counter protest of a pro gun control March of Our Lives demonstration carrying an a R fifteen. In Kiel, Wisconsin, schools are forced to shut down and go virtual after bomb threats were made in response to the district's investigation of anti trans harassment by three students.

Something I've been thinking about a lot the past few weeks is that even before Roevwade was overturned, multiple states enacted laws for like vigilante bounty hunters to do the work of the state that the state wasn't legally allowed to do yet like directly right, And so they were getting regular people to combat and intimidate providers into not doing abortion procedures. And we're already seeing an increase in

physical attacks targeting queer people. And I think many more regular people are waiting for the state government's permission to do the same thing. We don't need to wait for the Supreme Court to say gay sex can be made illegal, right. States can already start doing this stuff now. And there's already people waiting in the wings, and as soon as they get to go ahead, they will jump at this opportunity. I'm gonna play one final clip that is pretty pretty grim.

I just said a man tell me in public that he can't wait until he's legally able, until he's legally able to hunt me. Now, I had a man in public he can't wait until he can legally hunt us down. This is not okay. This is not okay. So that was a queer person who lives in Oklahoma talking about

something that happened to them last month. M and I try to when I make these episodes, I try to not just lay out a whole bunch of bad things to be like, here's a problem, all right by everybody, like because that sucks, but also I don't know what the solution here is, because this sucks. Of The California House and Senate just passed bill uh S B one oh seven. This bill would provide many protections for families

fleeing states like Texas and Alabama. It would protect them from extradition, from out of state investigations and from out of state custody judgments based on providing gender affirming healthcare. The bill is currently in review by the California Committee on Appropriations, and then it would need to be signed by the governor. If your state doesn't have a trans sanctuary law on the docket, maybe it's time to ask your representative about that. UM, preferably maybe when they're like

out at dinner or at church. UM. But also like even getting to the point where we're making plans to flee to other states, when trans people are forced to make plans to flee out of country, when you're investigating what kind of citizenship you can get based on your

ancestral family history. Once we're at that point, it's really hard, like it's it's and in my discussions with queer friends the past few like the past few weeks, we've been having more and more conversations about that, more and more plans about when things really do fully breakdown, where do

we go what do we do? Like and it sucks because there's so many people who live in states like Oklahoma, like Texas right where that's people's homes, that's where that's where these queer people are living, and they shouldn't be forced to leave like they that that shouldn't happen. And we have great folks like the Elm Fork John Brown Gun Club, to think, are providing a really good example of how queer people can work together to start doing

community defense your own areas. Uh to say no, this is our home too, and we're gonna fucking walk around with rifles to defend it if we have to. Um. Obviously, not everyone mentally is able to do that, right, but there's there's there's other ways to get in, get more connected to your local community, to strengthen like queer areas

inside you know states where these things are happening. The other thing I see a lot with queer people that makes me really sad is that fighting the state right, fighting these types of big homophobic institutions who want to kill us, that's hard and scary. We feel so powerless. We we want to feel like we have any agency, want to feel like we have any power at all, because there's so many people with power who are hurting us,

and it's hard to actually fight back against those. But we feel powerless, so we want to feel like we're able. So instead we turn on other people who are within our own communities because it's easier to attack people who are like us. It's it's it's it's easier to to to do to do that, right, it still gives you

a sense of having agency. But they're trying to murder us all like personally disagreements on politics or whatever aside, Like it would be really nice if we stop just doing nonsense fighting with each other and doing dumb like click drama, dumb discourse like they're trying to they're trying to kill us. Can we not? Can we not do that? I know you want to find some way to push back on something so you feel like you have an

ability to do anything. And doing it against the police, doing against your state governments, doing it against the Supreme Court, that's much harder, right, It's easier to do it against you know, a friend of yours or someone who used to be friends with that's so much easier. But that's not helping in their attempts to just do genocide. So I think making plans to get out of where you are,

if you have to, making plans is necessary. Sometimes I've I've thought of this, I've been even me in the Pacific Northwest have had have have had many thoughts about that. It's also very important to start strengthening your relationships with other queer people in your communities and starting to put together ways to work with them. UM, to make a show for uce and say hey, we're here, We're not

gonna we're here to stay right now. You can't you can't scare us out right now, because there needs to be some way to combat it, because these people they're trying to do they're trying to be regressive right like there, we are already at a point that we progressed far enough that there. They are scared of how much progress has happened, so they're trying to turn the clock back. Our challenge is to keep the change coming and push back against these people who are trying to hold on

to the dead twentieth century. Right. The fear of change and the fear of the future is driving their return to the asked, we don't need to just run away, because we should. We should be winning this fight in some ways because we already hold We already hold the ground that they want to take away from us. So, yeah, bad stuff is coming, but just because bad things happened in history doesn't mean they need to happen again, like we there is ways to intervene to stop this, UM,

should you keep your passports renewed? Yes, you obviously should. Um, But we don't just need to run away because we actually have ground to stand on here. So yeah, and I think I think one thing is also important to remember is that the people who got us here we're facing way way worse solids than we are. Yeah, people who had to do this. Yeah, And so like, like the job that we have is incredibly intimidating, it is also easier than the stuff that has already been done.

We already we already got to this point facing extremely harsh condition and we already got there. Um. I don't know, it's just it's always struggling to try to find ways to think about this that gives you a little bit of like, you know, it's just like it's so easy to be a duomer. It's so easy just to say we're all funk, we all need to move away. That's the simple solution. But there's most simple things are also usually incomplete and wrong. So just trying to find other

ways to think about this problem. Because we don't need to tell for people to run away, um, and you don't need to tell them they have to fight either. Um. You know, people can make their own decisions and offer their own resources and start operating in a network that helps the survival of all of us and increasingly challenging times. And I should also say, like non queer people like, look that the defining characteristic at this moment is that

there is a silent, silent majority that supports crew rights. Yeah, and if if the the the the the only way that we actually lose this is if is if that majority does nothing. But if that, if that majority moves, if this is people who actually believe in this stuff, and if the non queer people who actually believe that we should have rights and we should be able to live our lives do stuff, we will fucking crush these people.

They will be remembered as a fucking grain of dust in the sand that was crushed by the tide of history. And we can do that. We can destroy them. We can, we can, we can, we can make it for we can make this moment in history a incredibly brief blip where people are like, oh, hey, that was wasn't it weird when homophobia came back for like three years and then it was just gone again. That that that that is in our power. We just have to do it yep,

all right, well, strength and community relations. Stop stop doing nonsense in fighting for no good reason because you want to feel powerful, put that effort into actually finding the people that are trying to hurt you, or put that effort into making friends. That does it for us today. That was my episode on the increase in queer extermination.

Is um um Yeah, see you on the other side. Hello, and welcome to it could happen here a podcast about things that could happen, or, in today's case, are about to happen. I want to talk to you today about the Friendship Park, which exists between San Diego and Tijuana. If you haven't spent time at the border, it's difficult to understand how, despite getting bigger and uglier every year,

it feels at once omnipresent and non existent. Friendship Park was always one of the places where the boarder loomed, but it never quite managed to beat out the tremendous feelings of goodwill you could experience there on a Saturday morning, on a piece of sand next to a steel fence

that demarcates the end of the United States. Boarders exist to control us, not to protect us, and it is never more apparent than it was at Friendship Park, where you could watch grandparents meeting grandkids, dreamers checking in with

their parents. A Friendship Park, half century old institution that allowed family divided by the border to meet across the French The borders certainly didn't make anyone feel safer, but over time, people who had never set foot on the two miles of sand and Imperial Beach that many families walked across weekly to be together made laws that would make it even harder for those families to be together. For decades, the park was the only places mixed immigration

status families could come together. People flew from across the US to meet relatives who are trying to make the crossing north to join their friends and loved ones. It was an emotional place, but most of the time it was a happy place. You could see kids having parties on the Mexican side, and sometimes concerts would take place with the band split between two countries, with playing one tune on the Tijuana side, the fences covered in murals. At moments it felt like a small victory over the

pointless cruelty that happens here on a daily basis. The park itself was opened by pat Nixon in At the time, she said, I hope there won't be a fence here too long. Since then, the US government has built a secure fence in the nineteen nineties under Bill Clinton, then are supposedly more secure fence following nine eleven. Then it

built the secondary wall. In two thousand nine, gate was installed to allow people to enter at certain times on weekends and meet their families, separated by just one barrier. Now there are plans to replace that secondary war by building a thirty ft wall under the pretense that the current structure is unsound. This new wall made it a Trump design, but built under Biden's instruction, will not have a gate, and the last place in the country that

families could touch and heal will be gone forever. Customs and Border Protection blocked access to Friendship Park in February. Have you reigned? That year fourth State officials to temporarily closed border Field State Park, the larger park in which

Friendship Path is nestled. Since then, Border patrol has not opened the gate that lets people unite briefly with their families, they claim, and influx of migrants has prevented them from having the staffing required to open the park, but on weekends agents are posted up right by where the park gate is anyway, in case people try and make the crossing without permission in order to see the families that many of them have been separated from for over two years.

Throughout those two years, I've crossed the Tijuana and to report on the growing number of people come around the world from Haiti, from Central and South America, or Ethiopia, and recently Ukraine, to name but a few countries. Despite the heartbreaking stories of danger, fear and loss, and separation from the people they love, they haven't been able to file asylum claims due to the Trump administration's spurious use of public health laws to severely and illegally limit asylum.

I don't have time here to explain the entirety of the Migrant Protection Protocol and Title forty two, and I don't really want to either, because the justification behind them isn't what's important. The cruelty they manifest is what's important.

Joe Biden, who came to office promising a kind of approach, has defended some of these policies in court with his Department of Justice, and a particular cruelty of Title forty two, which allowed authorities to expel migrants who arrived at uth Land borders, has persisted despite Biden's recent change of heart, because several states managed to sue successfully to keep it in place. In the midst of all this, more and

more people have been separated by the border. Now the Biden administration is looking to permanently close the wantedtle island of Hope that remained on a beach at the end of America. Obviously, a park with a massive fence doesn't solve a broken system or make the cruelty any less cruel. But it was a place for healing and kindness and love and families, and now that place, too is under threat. I cut up with Robert Vard, friends of Friendship Park, to talk about the park, the threats to it, and

what you can do to help. Robert, would you like to start off just by introducing yourself and explaining sort of where you fit in this uh, in the Friendship Park world and in the world of the border more generally. Absolutely, my name was Robert. We're in a part of the

friends or friendship or leadership group. And you know the reason I'm so involved with Friendship parking Bay Friendship Piker so important to me, uh is because I was actually one of those uh family members uh that at one point in my life I was deported and the only way that I was able to see some of my family um was through the border wall there at Friendship Park.

In particular my son, who is active duty military, and because of the military status, um, you know, I was not able to come across the border, or it was very difficult for him to secure authorization from his command uh to be able to cross the border, and therefore the only type of visit um that I could have with my son and my my granddaughters was through that

border wall. So firsthand I understood very well, uh the importance of allowing on the weekends, uh at least for you know, a few hours on the weekend, that opportunity for families to uh to be able to uh to meet there at Friendship Park. Yeah. So perhaps we should explain for people who aren't here in San Diego what the what Friendship Park is, right, or perhaps what it was in say before it was shot absolutely uh back

prior to COVID. Friendship Park is a by national park separated by a border while actually by two border walls on the southwestern tip of the United States bordering Mexico. It's a border between Imperial Beach and Tijuana Beach. And the Friendship Park is actually a strip of land inside

Borderfield State Park. And that strip of land is in between UM two border walls boarder fences, if you if you say so, UM, and that part is considered to US friendship part, which is the area where UH person's families uh mixed status families from both sides of the border with meat. But it wasn't only a place for families to meet. There's also a place for people of good nature of the United States and Mexico to be able to meet and UH and also extend their friendship

between the two countries and the two communities. UH. You know, back up fifty almost fifty one years ago. This is the area that then First Lady pat Nixon UM actually inaugurated as International Friendship Park and actually went as far as cutting a part wire or having the Secret Service at the barbed wire there at the park so she could reach across to the Mexico side and hug the

people of Mexico. UH. Because of the the you know, the sentiment, the feeling of of that friendship between the two countries, and you know her very famous words, uh, that she wished that there would no longer be a fence here to separate these two great countries. And of course we know that fifty one years later, almost fifty one years later, Uh, that has taken an opposite course of direction, where we now have two border walls. Plans are to direct to even higher, uglier eight walls to

divide our two great countries. Yeah. So perhaps again, I think people have a very uh the way that people see the border when they don't live on the border is very different to the way we see the boarder when we live on the border, right, And I think part of that is in this understanding of walls and fences and barriers and the various things which we have already along the border. Right. So, um, maybe you could give us a little sort of potted history of the

different Uh. I think you're right there secure fences right that were built through the Friendship Park and across the sort of San Diego Tijuana area. Right. Well, Uh, you know, again, for the longest time, the only fence that used to separate the two countries was that that strand of barb

wire UH. However, after Operation that Gatekeeper nine eleven UM, it was decided to to build the sturdier fence and then in two thousand and eleven the secondary fence UH was erected and at that time the threat of the being closed again because of the advocacy of friends or Friendship part UM, it was negoty negotiated with with Order Patrol UH that the the park would continue to remain open with a limited access of at that time persons UM at a time on Saturdays and Sundays from ten

o'clock in the morning to two o'clock in the afternoon. UH. That second wall was erected when the federal government um UH claimed eminent domain from the state of California and acquired that piece of land UH which is UH now considered the enforcement area and to us UH is the area that were better known as Friendship Part right, and so UM, what's see, there's a threat to the park now, right, there's a there's a new threat, and I think people

UH again it might not have realized that we're continuing to build border wall, border barrier order DIKE. It's sometimes called UH depending on which part of the country you're in.

But can you explain how, despite Joe Biden having signed this executive order saying what he claims saying not one more mile of wall, how are we still having this threat of building a bigger, uglier wall, right, And you know, I think that's uh, that's precisely the question, Uh that French or Friendship park paracity that why is it that Uh?

If President Biden has stated that he would not build one more intro Trump's border wall, all of a sudden now has decided uh to finish the construction of Trump's border, Well, it's a question that that that we all ask, uh. And there's part of the the petition that we have reached out to uh Border Patrol as to the inclusion of the public and in those plans on continuing the

replacement of the that while with thirty foot fallered fencing. Yeah, and that thirty footballered fencing, that's what people will be familiar with as the Trump wool, right, That is correct, something that you know, the fenishing that exists right now. Uh. You know, it's it's there. And I guess even though we we may not like what it is and what

it represents. Um, you know, but it is there. But now to go even further and further desecrat our part with two thirty foot walled style defenses just completely uh obstructs the the aesthetics of the park, desgrades our part. Yeah and so yeah, with this sort of further threat to the park cluoming you touched on it earlier, but I'd like to go back to like what the park means, especially to families who are separated by the border right

and can't cross to see each other. Oh absolutely, uh, you know, on on when the part was open on on a weekly on a weekend basis. Uh, you know, we would have families, uh you know, for example, grandmothers that had never met their their grandchildren, you know, meet their grandchildren for the first time route across that border wall. You know, mothers that hadn't seen their their kids in

twenty thirty years. Uh, you know, the joy of you know, of being able to at least see them across that border all and just you know, a couple inches away from them. And even though you know, nothing could pass

through through that barrier. Um. The only thing that was able to pass through the um the orifice there on the wall or the fencing was the tip of your finger, which is why uh we kind of uh uh created what we call the peak kids because that's the only thing that would reach across and that's the only way we would be able to hug and kiss our loved ones on the other side of the border. UM very significant.

And you know something that uh that we hope more people would understand is that you know, by heavy the part open and families allowed to be able to visit across that fence, it would allow people, even though it's not the best scenario, but at least it would give people. It would give families the opportunity to remain being a family, to have a little bit of contract with their loved ones.

Something very important. We keep hearing about reasons for you know, a border walls and more uh check h TEG and and security and so forth, because incursions, Well, Todd, this is one of the reasons why, uh, you know, we have more incursions because people get desperate from losing contact with their loved ones that they're willing to risk their own life to be able to reach their loved ones. That's why you have increase in people trying to swim

across the border. Wall. That's why you have people reaching out to further points in the desert trying to reach their loved ones. That's why you have people climbing, uh, some of these thirty foot walls and falling and uh uh you know, bravely injuring themselves out because you get to the point that your family is everything in your life and you're willing to risk your life to reach

that family. When uh order uh, when Friendship Part was open, Uh, we had a lot of conversations with a lot of people that came to the part to visit their families, and in speaking to them, uh, they would tell you that, you know, being able to see their their families, their loved ones and sharing those moments together with very comforting and bettery energizing and motivating to continue to fight to search for a legal opportunity to be being able to

reunite what their loved ones. Yeah, and I think we should point out that, like, since since the park has been closed, it's not just the park being closed which has created like a hostile environment for people seeking asylum or seeking to reunite with their family in the United States, where we've had the Migrant Protection Protocol, which is better known as Remain in Mexico, and we've had titled forty two, sometimes called catch and Release, both of which do the

same things that you say, which is increased the amount of people who cross in higher risk areas and increase in danger to migrants chiefly. So there's this there's this perception I think that things changed in January, but they didn't. I think for most people, certainly people I've met, trying to come to the United States to be safe, they still can't. And as you say, they they still can't

see their families. And perhaps we should also mention that, like sometimes we talk about um Friendship Park being binational, but it's more than that, right, Like, it's not just people from Mexico who come to meet their families of Friendship Park. It's it's there's people from all around the world who are unable to come to the United States but are in on it right right absolutely, And uh, you know it's not just you know, families that gather there. Uh,

it's friendships. It's an opportunity, um for people from any part of the world to be able to make a connection, make a friend right across that border while without actually having to across the border. Uh if for whatever reason they may be, they cannot uh come across to the Mexico or to the Mexico site. Uh. You know, the part is all about friendship. That's what why Uh to first Lady Pat Dixon, We're so important the decks and nation of the part in consideration of the great friendship

that existed and has always existed. And and you know what, no matter what happens, UH, that is going to continue because uh, in particular San Diego and Tijuana, we really want to be unity. Um. There's a tremendous population in San Diego that have relatives in Defuana and vice versa. And it's not only you know, the family, but commerce. Uh. You know, we're one community and one way or another,

you know, uh, people are are gonna stay connected. Uh always figure out different ways to be able to to remain connected and have that friendship. UM. And I think part of uh the reason for that is because uh, you know a lot of people see that that border fence and they see a barrier, but uh, we see that much more than that barrier is the barrier in our heart and with you know the people of our community. That barrier doesn't exist. The only barrier to us is

that that friends. The barrier in our heart does not exist because we have respect for each other and we consider ourselves friends and one community on both sides of that border will yeah, yeah, definitely. I think it's yeah, the border exists a lot more sort of on the ground, and it doesn't in the community here. And I think so many thousands of people cross every day, it's really odd to have it presented as this hard, impenetrable thing.

And then it's also just an annoyance and the reason that we set in our cars for hours trying to cross north. I wonder if we can talk a little bit about Because there's a Friendship Park, and then there's the southern side, right part lamy Stad. What's the official sort of set up in Mexico with regards to the park.

It's a little different from the US, right, Uh yeah, well, you know, the big difference on the Mexico side is, like our pastor John Fantasy says, on the Mexico side is one big party, you know, one one big uh friendly happy atmosphere, just like what you would expect to find in any part where families gather on on the weekend and now you know during summer vacation even during the week UH, you know, a bustling UH beach city with a magnificent friendly part, family oriented UH, family friendly

part where where people go to enjoy a a beautiful part. Um. Unfortunately, UH, our our friends on the U S side, I cannot enjoy the part as uh as much as UH our friends on the Mexico side do because of these limitations on the part. Yeah, it's it's a shame. Like you said, it's very contrasting like the U. S side, it's kind of difficult to get to and it's only open and set now is It's what it's not open at all

post and we should explain that, right. So it was closed in UH for COVID and then if I understand right following that it remained close because border patrol were understaffed. They claim, right, that is where we have been told that Friends of Friendship part originally that it was close because of COVID UH, and the understanding was that UH when the COVID situation UH was over, then that their

plan was to reopen Friendship Part. However, now we're being told that because of a lack of personnel that they're not able to staff it accordingly to be able to open it. Uh. You know you judged a little bit earlier on the MPP program. Uh. You know, if there has been increased in incursions into the US, a lot of it has to do with the asylum process UH that has been halted for so many for the last

couple of years. That uh, you know, forces people in desperation uh to take their life at risk and try to gain entry into the US. You know, UH, it's not that difficult to understand if if you're living in a country where crime and violence is widespread, and you have a choice whether you leave your country and travel three or four thousand miles to reach some kind of safety, uh, to protect the life of your of your loved ones,

of your family. UH. You know, you're you're going to You're gonna if you risk that, You're gonna you're gonna risk you know, your life trying to get across it and protect your family. And if the only way you can do it is by jumping over that fence or streaming around that ocean, uh, you know, that's what we've seen happening, and a lot of that has got to do with uh the asylum process. Uh that is been

shut down and continues to be shut down. Um, people are gonna continue to try to to to save their life and their life and their their family. Uh. That's why we're hoping that, um the asylum process can be reinstated as an international law requires calls for it. Uh and UH that would would definitely uh show a decrease. And now in incursions, um again you know a lot of these incursions, uh are people trying to reach safety

for themselves, their in their loved ones. Yeah, and it's been a very difficult situation in Tijuana for a lot of people, a lot of people who have arrived since MPP started. Like for a while people were camping at the at the at the border crossing right but in town like a head west they got cleared. Yeah. It's it's also sort of forcing the all these shelters and nonprofits in Tijuana to saddle the burden, which that they

do a very good job with largely. But this you know, with this massive, richest country on the on Earth, and we just could have should have shutting the door at a minute and saying like you're not welcome, right that that that is absolutely correct. So I know that you you've been doing some events at the Friendship Park, right, You've got a concert coming up. Could you tell us about that? Yes, absolutely, we have a concert coming up

about four our fifty first anniversary. And the headliner for the concert is a gentleman known as the the father of Mexican rock and roll, uh, which begun here here I'm saying here would be begun in Tijuana, Mexico, Vier Baptist And uh. You know what what is really neat is that Javier Batiez was actually the the mentor of Carlos Santana. And you know we all love the music of Carlos Santana, incredible performers. Uh. Well, he had his

start with Javier Baptiz. Uh at one point here in Tijuana, Mexico. I keep saying here, I'm in San Diego, uh in Tijuana, Mexico. And you know, Javier is is an icon of rock and roll music, uh and of Tijuana. And you know what, uh, what I think is really special about this concert UH is speaking to Javier. Um. You know, his ideals are very much along the ideals of uh what Friendship part is all about. And you know friendship puts a smile

on people's face. And that was something that that you're told me personally, Um, I love to play my music because my music puts a smile on people's face, and I like to make people happy. That's great, and and you know that's the whole idea behind friendship, part to make people happy, to have people enjoy a beautiful part, enjoy their families, enjoy the friendship across the border that we have. Yeah, exactly. And I think it's very sad. The whole set of Cannad is very sad, right, like

the idea that, um, we don't have it. We have enough money to build a giant steel barrier, but not enough money to open this place up for you know, a few hours a week for people to see their families and enjoy themselves, enjoy that time to get it just seems almost that pointlessly cruel, I guess, and which I don't know. Sometimes a lot of the immigration system seems pointlessly cruel to me. Yes, yes, absolutely, Uh, when you separate a mother from a child, that is cruel.

When you won't allow a mother and a child to even be able to gather for a couple hours a week, separate from a barrier. That's very cruel. When you don't allow people of good nature, of good will to visit

even though it is across a barrier, that is not good. Yeah, I think it's important that people across the country like obviously, like it can be really difficult to care about everything, right, Like, it's it's a pretty difficult time, and with Supreme Court decisions and the seemingly sort of NonStop mass shootings, it's a difficult time for everyone, I think. But like, um, I think it's important that people realize that the border is where a lot of these policies get tried for

the first time. Right, these these things which like if we look at the way that like privacy of people living on the board has been eroded for a very long time, and that's happening to other people. Happened, right, It was a border patrol drone that was flying over

Minneapolis during the protests. And so if people want to push back and to show solidarity and support, how can they support the park and how maybe can they support the people who are stuck in in Tijuana and want to cross but are allowed to cross because of of mp P or Title forty two or restrictive asylum sort of legislation. Well, you know we're asking people to do it. Well, uh, you know you're in the southern California area. UM, you

know rain or shine. Uh, we go ahead and continue having events that Friendship Park on the U S side, like our bike rides, our Native Flora workshops, our Border Church on on Sundays at one thirty in the afternoon. UM, we invite people to come and join us. Uh, come and join us on a bike ride, come and join us on border church and show your your support for the need uh to continue uh the work that had

been done for so many years. That friendship part in some port of our by national families and our by national community. Also very important. Contact your your congressman, contact your your senator, and if you're in California, of course

your your California senators. UH. Assembly persons. UM. We need to urge them to uh uh to advocate for us before Homeland Security, UM, before the Secretary of Homeland Security, so they may understand the importance of the Friendship Park offers not only to the families, but to to our communities. You can secure a border a lot better through friendship then through Uh, you know border walls that at a given moment can be breached. Uh as we have seen

they have occurred. Um, the strongest security that anybody can ever have is a good, strong relationship on both sides of the border. Yeah. I think that's that's that's very well well said. And so if people want to come to Friendship Park, can you just explain how they would get to one of these events and where they have

to go? Absolutely? Uh, but I would recommend is follow us on We have Facebook, Twitter, Instagram accounts Friendship Part and also saw our website friendship part dot org where we have information on all the different events on our border. Church on this way, you can join us uh on on the U side, or do you want to come to the Mexico side. Uh is wide open. You can.

You can go directly right to the monument area where you can enjoy this, uh this great beautiful monument to commemorate out uh the demarcation of the of the of the two countries. You know, you can you can enjoy it either either way. But we we do like uh and we stress people that come out and join us on the U s side. Uh, so that uh, you know we're not forgotten, So that there's a beautiful piece of land um on Borderfield State Park known as Friendship

part uh is not forgotten. And not only that, you know, uh, enjoy the beauty of of of the park. We have a beautiful park their Borderfield State Park uh adjacent to Friendship part Um, something that very a few people are being taken advantage of. Lately, We've had quite a few more visitors out there, horseback riding, bicyclinge uh, a few

families out uh, you know, taking gift in the ocean. Uh. But this is a beautiful pub beach that that we have there on the U S side and welcome, you know, our our community, We're San Diego to community to come and enjoy it as well. And you know, as you come and enjoy it, you support our efforts to demonstrate the need to keep our part open. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's a very uh. Yeah, it's not hard for people to help, and I hope they will. How long do we have? Do you think? How long do we

have before they break ground on this new wall? Right? We're not sure how long we have. We were told that it was a matter of weeks. Uh. Does that

mean two weeks, three weeks. It's hard to say, but we know that it could happen at any at any time, Uh lady, We've observed several uh crews out there doing uh surveys and such of the area, so we know that it's uh any moment they should be breaking ground, and we hope that before that ground breaks that they will consider our request and uh you know, uh public uh uh for public support, for public input as to what the park should look like. Uh you know, give

that consideration. Uh too. You know, if you're gonna you're going to replace walls to make sure that uh you know, the that gates are a lotted uh so that these visits can continue, because we understand there's no provision at this point for any kind of uh of gate for uh you know, for person access for people access uh into the area. Uh. That of course tells you that there's no intention of continuing at one point to open the park for the visits. UH. And of course that's

extremely concerning, yeah, especially for people separated by the border. Okay, UM, so just to finish up, can you give us those social media's and web addresses again where people can find you and help Sure? Absolutely uh. We're website is www. Friendship part dot org. Um the Facebook, you can find us under friendship Art. You can also find information under ordered Church. Great. All right, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate you taking the time to

talk and it's a busy time for you. You're very welcome. Thank you for the opportunity to be here with you today. Thank you. 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.