It Could Happen Here Weekly 51

can make your own decisions. Oh boy, it's nine eleven, but a day after it's you will be listening to this on nine twelve, after you have um finished whatever it is that you do on nine eleven either either be sad or uh tell jokes or nothing at all. Um, it's all fine. There's no wrong thing to do when you're thinking about a day where a really fucked up

thing happened. But that's actually untrue. There is one wrong thing to do, and we're going to talk about the wrong thing today because most people, I think, I think back to the day after nine eleven as oh, everybody was like out of their minds with like grief and fear and saying some really fucked up shit and generating a kind of fury that acted as propulsion and justification

for a lot of very very bad things. Um. And it's not in general a time that we should look back on with particular pride or or certainly what's the word I'm looking for here? Um, nostalgia? Everyone that is, except for Glenn Beck. Um. Now, James, we've got James do out here. Chris, Hey, Chris, what do you what do y'all know about Glenn Beck? Because James, you are This is controversial to say, but I think we should

rip a vand aid off British. Um. And Chris, you're very young, so I'm wondering how much do you know about Mr? Beck? He was like the my memory of him, he was kind of like the well, I don't know, or is not quite the right word, but he was like he was like like the guy in sort of like right wing ship head like punditry for a while. My memory of him, he was like he was like a slightly more put together Alex Jones, Like he had like the weird pinboards and ship and like it is

this the right guy? Yeah, he's Alex Jones with a budget in terms of kind of the space he fills. Um, James, did you know, did you catch much of him. No, So my engagement with Glenn Beck is mostly through like teaching American history classes and trying to explain like the explosion in lies and bullshit and hate that immediately follows nine eleven. Yeah, and so no, they've never really heard his stuff. Yeah, Glenn Beck, he's he's doing radio, ship

and stuff before nine eleven. By the time he actually comes on the scene, it's a few years after nine eleven and he gets a show on Fox News. Um and Glenn Is. You know, I watched him every night. My parents always watched him. My dad considered him to be like a really good historian um, which is bleak um a lot, but he was. He was He was a unique sounding figure. So when Glenn Beck comes onto the stage, right, the biggest dude in right wing media

is still Rush Limbaugh. But rush Is has kind of taken a back seat in the last couple of years, especially right after nine eleven. Two guys like um, Sean Hannity and Bill O'Riley, you know, and those are kind they are kind of like they are powerhouses in right wing media. And then you've got well those guys are on TV. You've got this cast of people who are like bargain Basement Discount Rush Limbaughs on the radio that are all kind of waiting in the wings for their

chance to be the next big TV hero. UM. And those guys include people like UM, UM, like Glenn Beck, and also folks like Michael Savage. UM. There's a couple of a lot of maniacs that you probably have not heard of that we don't need to dredge up. But Glenn Beck kind of sales out of the fever swamps of the right wing media UM and gets a fucking TV show on Fox News, and in very short order he is the biggest fucking thing on the network. Fox News is the most popular network in the country, and

Glenn Beck is their number one host. In two thousand nine, he's pulling in something like three million viewers a night. And yeah, he's he's he's very very influential. UM. And this is the point in time and two thousand nine, by the way, the other thing that's happened that's big in right wing media circles is Barack Obama has been

elected president. Now, yeah, you've got Birtherism happening, But in general, I think one good way to think about it is that nine eleven super charges the right, but in a very like populist way in a because there's this expectation, like we talked about in the last episode, this expectation that people are coming back to God because there's been a big disaster, We're going to war, and war all ways benefits you know, the conservatives in the in the

you know, the party, like we're gonna win this war and that's gonna be huge for US. Um. And you also have like just this this sense because Bush becomes the most popular president anyone can remember having that the type of history is with conservatism, you know, in the immediate wake of nine eleven, and then that all goes

to ship because conservatives have terrible ideas for everything. Um and they launched two disastrous wars, and by two thousand and nine there's not a lot of people who are gonna like admit in public, No, I think we both those wars were good ideas that were handled well right. Even the people who were who were real bullish about that stuff are like, well, you know, they didn't do this right or that right, or it's impossible to win

in that part of the world. And you know, it was that's the I heard different versions of that from from different family members and stuff. But there's this this real sense of aggrievement and in the wake of Bush, like it's it's kind of taken for granted because about how disastrous his his presidency had been. At um he was not. You know, it's not going to be a Republican who won that election. Um. But the fact that it is Barack Obama, a black guy, they lose their

goddamn minds. I think they've been ready for I think even they would have been fine with Hillary Clinton. Obviously they would have liked gone nuts on her like they did on Bill, but like I think they would have, I don't think that would have caused them to go

crazy the way that Obama did. Um. It is it is not wrong to compare the impact to nine eleven in a lot of ways, because it's this massive shock that shakes the center of their world that they view as an attack, as an assault on like white middle class Americans, and the shock waves of that. I mean, we're still dealing with them. But one of the things that's that's happening here is that after nine eleven they had this sense that history is with us, momentum is

with us. And after Obama gets elected, you see the conservative movement get much more insular and much more conspiratorial and much more focused on like grievance and anger and revenge um because they know they're nothing's going to bring back the people. So there's there's kind of nothing but

but vengeance um. And Beck is the guy who's going to tap most effectively into this feeling, this feeling of fear and this need to feel like you're like you were right after nine eleven when it felt like everything was surging forward in the rights direction. And so in two thousand nine he launches what he calls the We Surround Them campaign. Now, the we in this I think is supposed to be conservatives and them is the government.

But I think you can assume other you know, if you think about the urban rural divide in this country, there's another meaning to that sort of thing. Um. Now, this this is a series of segments and specials on beck show that grew very popular, so popular, in fact, that a lot of local right wing organizations start hosting viewing parties. And this becomes like the earliest stirrings of the Tea Party movement. Right all of these right wing

radio stations and stuff. These local talk radio stations and other organizations are holding viewing parties for to watch Glenn Beck talk about you know, his do his we surround them act. And I'm gonna play a clip for you now from one of these viewing parties. We're gonna play a couple of clips. This is from one filmed by a talk radio station in Fort Wayne, Georgia. Um and uh yeah, it's it's it's something else, all right, So I want to um, I want to play this for you.

I think it's a fascinating artifact. And how the radio host chooses to introduce the event is noteworthy, as is the man's appearance with six hundred six freaks watching Glenn Beck on Fox News for nine project it's amazing. So well, it's interesting to me. I think it's it's kind of worth going over a couple of things there because that's

that doesn't seem like a lot. But the fact that he he describes the guy the people in there is sick freaks and and and then like we're sick freaks, but like kind of taking pride, and that that's what he assumes Brules would call them for watching Glenn Beck. You can see a shade in this of a lot of liberals because they're dumb. We're taken by surprise when like Hillary Clinton called Trump supporters a basket of the plurables,

and they immediately adopted that name for themselves. Now you see the stirrings of it here right like this is this is what the movements turned into. Um, you're taking pride in the fact that you're outnumbered and and despised. Also the project I'm intrigued. Oh yes, that's that is that is coming. We're we're building to that. Um. So anyway, we get some rock and guitar licks, just just some some of the best preloaded writes, free guitar music I've ever heard. And then we pan into this very full

conference room. There's like six people in this thing and they are, as far as I can tell, all white. Um, it is certain that the only people they talk to when they do like because you know, the camera goes around to get people's statements on the event, the only people who are featured on camera are white, like a hundred percent of them. And I'm gonna play a clip from that now, good by, and I'm glad you're doing this. I'd like to get our constitution back. I love you,

You're doing it. We're all behind you. Thank you. Land. We are Jackie and Bill Better. We're from Angle, Indiana and we would like to thank you that you are helping us, we the people, to take back our America. Thanks you're the man, Glan. What you're doing is great for America. You're and encouragement that all of us were fed up with the federal government. Now they were like, it's impossible. I know video I have not seen since

I was James. James might die. Yeah, there are a couple of extinct kinds of white guy in that video. The very last of them died to COVID when they cut a hole in the middle of their mask and went to a Luby's. It's missed. Now here's the thing I want to acknowledge something that is impossible to deny, which is that the fact that we are laughing at them in this way is part of why they got so angry and put Trump in office right, part of why liberal tears is a thing, part of why there's

so much focus on this desire of hurting the enemy. Um. But also they just all look like impossibly American, like like these people I used to see in Barcelona. From a hundred yards away, people would be like, how do you know in American? And like my friends would be like, first of all, you've come dressed as a fucking tree yourself and this book these are some of the people who raised me. Are are not? You know, I grew up around these people. I grew up with these people.

I am. I am of these people. Um, I think I wear better shirts. But but but it is like you you see in this these people who feel like and that's kind of the thing they're communicating. Something has

gone wrong with the country. And the thing that's gone wrong is they are looking out and people don't look like them, and in fact, people are looking at them like they look weird, and people are making fun of their ways and their customs, and this has taken them by surprise, and they're extremely angry about it and seeing a black man as president, which is the least anyone could look like them, right, Barack Obama many flaws two

thousand nine. There was not many cooler looking dudes than Barack who Obama like and that you have to understand, like the bar is so low here that like a reasonably well dressed person is like dropping a nuclear weapon on like six cavemen. It is. Yeah, yeah, OK. So the show ends with Beck because they're watching Glenn Beck on a fucking projector, and it ends with him near tears.

He would cry on his show, consly telling everybody there that they were all going to meet back together in six months to find some ways in which they've managed to to to add some nine twelve energy to their lives. And we'll get to this more. But the thing he's saying is that the day after nine eleven, we were the best version of ourselves as a country. Everyone was

so godly and so loving and so united. And that's the thing that we need to get to deal with the horror of Barack Obama being the president um and obviously the other thing happening. I shouldn't. I don't want to be unfair here. It's not just that they're scared about Barack Obama. This is two thousand nine. The economy has just completely shadow fucking brick. The housing market is through the goddamn floor. Some actually scary things are happening too.

It's just that they're kind of grafting all of them onto the specter that is Obama. You know. Um anyway, Uh yeah, So after this we pan out to widespread applause in this very full room, and then we cut two interviews. This time. I know everyone's gonna be really excited. Here there's a baby. It's pretty cute. It's pretty it's a pretty cute baby of the youngest Glenn Beck fans. Look at that child has my reaction to this, it's so funny. It's so funny. Look at this. Let's get

this baby's statement. Just shine it blinded with a light until it weeps. Yeah, that's the good stuff. Okay, so this this video has paused on a freeze frame of a guy in a suit that when they talked to this guy they call him the best dress. I'll just play it, I will I will just play I wasn't planning to play this, but I will play it. Sorry, the best dress. Uh, guy here, did we have a good time today? Why did you think of the presudation? I thought it was nice and it's nice to get

together with great turnout. I know that so many people still care, know that guy. Okay, that that that exact kind of person was like the political class of like the town I grew up in, Like these are the people who were like like this is the guy? Yeah, yeah, like the thing the things they get up to were like like there was a guy who was taking money from the sheriff's department to try to abolish the police so that he could install the Sheriff's department as the

only law enforcement like division in this town. While he tried to sell like, oh god, that that is a kind of person night like he has he has some strong, strong Republican city comptroller energy from for like a town, for like a town of thirteen thousand people. Yeah, he's dressed much like Ricky Gervais dressed in the original Office. Yeah dump piece mean he is literally the guy Ricky

Gervais is making fun of. Yes, yeah he is. So. Beck paired his message of government accountability, as he framed it with and this is what we're talking about the nine twelve project, which follows. We surround them with nine principles and twelve values, which, if followed, would help bring your heart back to the mythical nine twelve. This moment

in which America was was beautiful. This this we've gone from the fifties, like there's this, there's this twenty twenty year Golden Era to like, we had one great day and if we could just get back to that, everything will be fine. Um. So here's here's the nine value or nine principles. Sorry, it's nine principles and twelve values. I want you to hold me accountable if I fucked this up in the future. The nine principles are Number one, America is good. Number two, I believe in God and

he is the center of my life. Number three, I must always try to be a more honest person than I was yesterday. Number four. The family is sacred. My spouse and I are the ultimate authority, not the government. And I say this a lot, but in the Roman Empire, the father of the family used to be able to execute his wife and children. And you're a fool if you think that's not what these people want things to be like. Um. Well, and there's slaves too, that's also invariable,

and the slaves are a critical aspect of this. Yes. Uh. Number five, if you break the law, you pay the penalty. Justice is blind and no one is above it. This is, by the way, confusingly a reference to all the people who lost their homes in the house and crash. Um, that's what he's talking about. That they didn't. They didn't. You know, you can't like bail people out. Um. Number six, I have a right to life, liberty in the pursuit of happiness, but there is no guarantee of equal results.

Number seven. I work hard for what I have and I will share it with who I want to. Government cannot force me to be charitable. Number eight. It is not un American for me to disagree with authority or to share my personal opinion. And number nine, the government works for me. I do not answer to them. They answer to me. Now that's fun. There's there's some interesting things they're including. The government can't force me to be charitable, you know I will, which like the side of that.

That is something that actually happened on nine twelve is a bunch of people showed up and volunteered to, like at great personal cost because many of them got sick and died, to help pull bodies out of the rubble

and try to save people. Right, And that the government literally did not need to tell people to do that because a bunch of cops actually refused to go do anything at all, And and the like the government, the government knew about like like that the when when the government did do something, it was they they put a

bunch of firefighters like inside of the range. It was the dusk was toxic and then just fucking got them killed, which and then spent the next we had to have John fucking Stewart fight for them to get some kind of recompense from the federal government, which credit where it's due is a legitimately cool thing that he helped do. But like, why did it fall upon the Daily Show guy to share that the guy who's doing transphobic bits at the same time. Yeah, yeah, Like it's kind of

didn't Ted Cruz vote against healthcare benefits for these people? Yeah? Absolutely, Which again it's very funny that like the government can't force me to to to be charitable. It's like, well, what that actually ends with is people actually volunteering and risking their lives and then the government, the conservatives in the government callous lea voting to let them die in agony because like, well, why should I have to pay? Oh, you do was rescue people during our country's darkst hour?

Why should I have to pay? Like it's this, it's amazing. Shit. Um, now that I'm sure you're curious about those twelve values, they're really boring, Like it's boy, It's like boy scout ship. It's like honesty, reverence, thrift, courage, Like it's not worth focusing on the thing this entire time think I've been thinking about. This is the exact naming scheme that like, like if you just walked up to someone on the street and like asked it, what what what are what

are the nine principles and twelve values? Like this? This sounds exactly like like that. This sounds exactly like what like a like a a a mid level like a mid level Chinese bureaucrat would name their campaign to like make sure the water restoration is done properly. Like it is the exact naming scheme of like like campaign style stuff and like fucking like post post vours China, I mean well ended. And Beck is Yeah, there's a lot

to say about that and about Glenn Beck. But um, you know, so I got that list of twelve principles from Glenn Beck dot com. What I find interesting is that the principles as are up on his website right now, because this is a thing he still gets into every now and again. Are somewhat different from the ones that he debuted on the episode of his show in which

he introduced the nine twelve Project. And I found the way he worded point eight point eight is it's not un American for me to disagree with authority or to share my personal opinion. I found the way he actually worded that in the show very interesting, And I want to play that for you now because it's it's quite a bit different. Do you agree with this. It's not Unamerican for anyone to disagree with my opinion, but my

opinion or others opinions maybe anti American. Anti American rhetoric would be anything that's destructive to the Constitution and our country as the Founders understood it, unless you want to change that. There it is, Yeah, there we go, There we go. That's the real good grievance. Yeah, yeah, I respect. You're right to say anything unless you're disrespecting the Founders, of course, which which case, Yeah, like swat teams will

convince immediately, etcetera, etcetera. We were we are reading the wrench Moobs. Now. After introducing those principles, he asks his audience to mail him personal photographs so he can put them together into a big we surround them graphic, which you can find if you really want to. Um, it's yeah, it's if you want to get an idea of like the people who are listening to Glenn Beck, that will

give it to you. Now here's what happens. Immediately after he gives the email address for people to send this to calm all right, the climate change people are pulling a page from nazis what are your kids learning at school? Perfect moment in American television. Yeah, it's it's it's it's

really incredible, right, it's. It's also it's also thing like you couldn't do this any word, not because you not not not actually because you can't say that about climate change, but because if you tried to say that about the Hitler youth people will get mad at you. Oh yeah no, yeah, you'll get in trouble. Oh yeah yeah, I hate the youth defenders will be a day with very very pro environment.

I can hear Tucker Carlsson saying that, Yeah, it's it's I just want to share with everyone that manned by Number five by Bob the Builder hit the UK number one spot on September twelve, two thousand and one. You know what, you know what James never forget. And the Queen was still alive, then she must have loved Mambo number five. I bet there was a little bit of Monica by her side, a little bit above the builder in the queen, A little bit of Rita's all she needed,

um get it died very sad. So the nine twelve project, as it kind of grew out of the weas around Them campaign, if you kind of I don't know. I found it written online. I can't exactly confirm this, but it seems like it kind of started um when Beck took a call on his talk radio show. And this is a little bit of a couple of years earlier from a guy named Ed in New Haven, Connecticut who expressed feeling out numbered as a conservative on the American

political stage right. And that's that's really like what the all of this kind of grew out of. It's this response to the feeling like out numbered. Um. And I think that's an important thing to understand if you're trying to get to like the thing that the thing that they want to go back to when they talk about wanting to go back to nine isn't anything to do

with the actual terrorist attack. It's the fact that everyone was so frightened that they unthinking Lee, uh, that they unthinking Lee submitted to the right wing that was in power at the time, right, Like like that it was. That's what nine twelve is to them. Yeah, like it

it was. It was the last time conservatives were able to like effectively cancel like mask cold, like they like the only time cancel sulture has ever been real was like the Dixie Chicks and could just do that like if if you if you didn't start all of your concerts, like if it's like my Miley Cyrus didn't go on stage and like say something about the troops at the beginning of a concert, like they would just destroy you and you would never be heard from again. Yeah, it was.

It was literally, like legitimately scary to not be unthinkingly pro America and like wildly so. And and that's what they want to get back to, right, is that the fear of actually questioning conservative hegemony. Um So, I want to play a clip from the episode in which Glenn Beck first introduces his nine twelve project to his audience of millions on March fifteen, two thousand nine. Here's how Here's how this introduction goes. Hello America, they're waiting. I'm

backstage right now at Fox. I'm getting ready to show you that you are not alone. This Uh, this is your country. You're still in control. But it seems today like nobody gets it. Now that is a fascinatingly blatant statement of white conservative supremacy. Right you, you're in charge, but nobody gets it. They don't understand that you're supposed to be running things right. Um, It's it's incredible how blatant it is. But it also like you do have

to understand he's speaking to this real frustration. This is like where we get Trump is these millions of people are like, why don't they understand that we're supposed to be in charge? Um, there's there's an incredibly I don't know if you're going to get to this like later there's the next video on the fucking YouTube thing is

from Vices. Glenn Beck is a conservative and exile. After Trump chat a little bit about that at the end, I'll do a whole Glenn Beck episode behind the Bastards, But I really I want to keep digging into this so I'm gonna I'm gonna press play again here. You know, you've lived your while life in a responsible way. You didn't take out a loan that didn't require any kind of per proof of income, yet now you're being forced to bail those people out. You've been concerned about this

country through the last administration and this administration. If you're like most people both administrations, it's not about politics. You actually believe in something, and you thought for a while they're your politicians did as well, and now you kind of realize, well, maybe maybe they don't. When you come home after a hard day at work, all you want to do is put your feet up. All you want to do is just relax and just watch a little

television catch up with what's happening in the world. But every time you turn that television on, it just seems like the whole world is spinning out of control. The war, Islamic extremism, Europe on the bring even pirates now closer to home. Mexico isn't safe for vacations or kids anymore. Six thousand were killed or be headed on our border just last year, and Phoenix now has the second highest rate of kidnapping in the world. So there's a lot

going on there. But I think the thing that is most fascinating to me is that like the way he just me is like cartel violence. It's a problem because it's not safe for our kids to vacation in Mexico anymore. Mexico only exists for spring break. That all problems are at their root about Americans, right, Like that's that's what's

going on here. Well, the other thing that's interesting to me is like that he throws into like Europe under siege thing, which was like like one of like the big like fascist things in like that period, like word for word, Europe under siege, like fortress Europe Ship. Yeah, this is when Andy andy No started his like no ghost zone. Yeah exactly. I think so right around here, maybe a little bit late, members of my family who are extremely Caucasian living in some of those dog zones,

like I lived in Europe in this period. It's it's just so ridiculous. Yeah, and it's it's incoherent, like if you look at the specifics of everything. Because he's yelling about the financial crash because he has to be angry with it because half of his market is terrified and losing money or has have lost jobs and stuff as a result of the crash. Um, But you can't. You can't portray it as a problem of like corporations rapaciously

destroying and hollowing out the middle class. So instead the problem is that like foreign there's a line in there about how like foreign corporations are just treating Americans like a market, which is like, well, how do Americans treat everything like? Of course they treat them like a market. It's capitalism. Um, it's not very coherent, But like, what is coherent is this sense of grievance, right that we

have been we as Americans have been specifically wronged. Um, we're not and and we as When he says americans, obviously he's only referring to a specific kind of American. Um. But yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna press play again here. The forgotten man is you the voice that no one seems to hear, just quietly saying, enforce the law, take responsibility for yourself. You can't have it all. And anybody

who promised you that was a liar. Cren economic downturn, worst economic crisis, worst month of job loss, Like something is happening in America. Paradigm's about to change your friends and neighbors. Republicans, Democrats, Independence, They're all beginning to wake up and wonder how did this happen to us? M hm. So yeah, the words September two thousand and one just

hit the screen as soon as he finishes that. But I mean, what you're seeing in that is like the stirrings of what becomes Trump is um, you know, it's it's very m h. And there's just like photos of white people up on the left and right. Yeah, like one of the most hideous like two columns I've ever seen in a video. It's one and a half of

each king. Yeah, yeah, it's not done well. Their graphic design was science had just simply had simply not advanced to that level yet, like a people to understand this, there are supposed to be three lines of pictures going across the screen. The middle cut, Yeah, the middle line is cut in half. The was half of one person's face on each side of of of the screen. And what they're what's being done here, What Beca is doing here is he's trying to take the anger and like that.

People still felt about nine eleven and turn it kind of towards in a different direction, right, because what it actually happened on nine eleven was that a group of terrorists had attacked the literal center of American capitalism UM and of the American military industrial complex. Right. Those targets were picked specifically because of what they were. UM. The Twin Towers contained one tenth of all office space in Manhattan.

Their largest tenant was Morgan Stanley, which lost over eight of its market value in the two thousand eight crash. Worst yet in Beck size, the victims of the attacks are all New Yorkers. Now, I don't know, if you're not in the conservative media bubble, you may not get it, but like New Yorkers, that was like a slur, Like they literally like a slur to call somebody a New

Yorker values exactly. So Beck can't focus on the actual victims of nine eleven because they are people that it is in his best interest to train his audience to

to despise. So instead he focuses on how nine eleven was basically an act of disrespect against the this forgotten man, right, who's now kind of surging up like that's what he's doing here, right, that's what you have to do if you're Glenn Beck, because again, you can't actually focus on the real victims of this, which is why it's not incoherent ideologically for conservatives to talk the way they do about nine twelve and then vote not to help people

who were first responders and had their fucking lungs filled with poison. Um. Yeah, it's good stuff. So obviously, because Beck has to thread this needle, he focuses instead on how the attack hit American prestige and confidence. I remember how picture perfect the day was. It wasn't a cloud in the sky, and America seemed invincible, and yet in the blink of an eye that airplane appeared to hit a little bit down the building, around the fifty or

six floor. Again, it's struck flush. The skies were filled with black clouds, and our hearts were full of terror and fears absolute disaster. We realized for the first time how fragile we really were. Then something happened. So now in September twelve, and the first image we see after disaster and destruction is a group of firefighters holding a

gigantic American flag with roughly the footprint of a school bus. Right, And this is this is good, right, this is and also it's a it's interesting that this is what he chooses as like the image of America, like rebounding from this great defeat, as opposed to like, I don't know, firefighters pulling people out of the rubble and saving their lives. Like no, they got a big flag and say, you know, we're gonna be okay. It makes sense though, right, like

like the actual lives are unimportant. The thing that's important to save is the image of America. It's the slag. Yeah, this on the region. So yeah, well look yeah about us. I'm gonna continue here. And we promised ourselves that we would never forget on September twelfth, and for a short time after that, we really promised ourselves that we would focus on the things that were important our family, our friends, the eternal principles that allowed America to become the world's

beacon of freedom. I can carry you out the arrested, the wire and people are not the haling down. Well here all of us now. I want to point out here the choice of that clip. It's both because that was a very famous speech that Bush gave that really made his presidency in or at least the early part

of it. In a lot of ways, you could argue that a significant amount of the the kind of the political capital that he expended invading Iraq came from this particular speech and generally how he handled the days after the attacks. But it's interesting that they picked this because it really is it's very much in line with this this feeling and talking about the forgotten man, talking about they're not listening to us, they don't know that we're

in trouble. What Bush is saying here is literal words are um, I hear you, and the people who knocked these towers down are going to hear you. Right you. Your your anger will have a reaction in the world. Right it will be met with fire and fury, right like?

That is that is the promise being made. And it's this this undercurrent and everything Beck's doing here of the thing that he is working with, the clay that he is molding is the fact that these people don't feel listened to and like and that they deserve to be listened to, and that the when they're angry at something, it should be hurt, right like. That's that's the undercurrent. He's talking about family and togetherness, but like that's what

he's actually promising people. I'm really interested in this, Like, like I don't this is probably like nine twelve or wheneveryone he's getting this speech. I think I always come back. It's weird given where conservatism has gone, right, and like he's taken this in very much a clash of civilizations direction. But like Bush was giving that, like Islam is the fabric of America speeches that week he was speaking in mosques and two Muslims and being like that, like this

is not a clash of civilizations. Obviously, fucking he even went and fucking killed millions of Muslims, right, most of them innocent symbidians who had nothing to do with nearly all of them, right, But yeah, it's just interesting that like he's Bush who was giving this like this isn't a clash of civilizations thing, and it's become a clash of civilizations thing like eight years later, Yeah, yeah, and

it's become but in a very different way. Right, Because one of the things that I think is happening here is the problems that Americans, regular Americans are facing in two thousand nine, are this massive economic strife caused by predatory lending, outright fraudulent business practices by major banks, the fact that the legal system had been changed in order to allow this massive con to go on, um, and then it had been followed by this massive chrony capitalist

bailout that ignored regular working people. Glynn doesn't want his viewers to focus on all of that, right, because those are his backers, right. But what so instead, what he's doing is he's taking they feel disrespected and vulnerable because they have been right now, there's unreasonable aspects to that, but they have been disrespected by the people who are stealing like all of the money in the country and fucking them over too, and leaving their homes hollowed out,

piledicted waste lands. Um. But you can't focus on that. The cure is, the cure that Beck offers them is not materially improving anyone's conditions. It's not altering the systems that people cannot prey upon others that way. It's by striking someone else. It's by striking back at that sense of agreevement. Right, it's by this is what's going to turn into owning the Libs, right, just hurting the left. Conservatism now is purely about harming groups of people they

view as opposed to them. Um, that's part of why trans people are so focused on by the right right now, is that it's the symbol of liberalism to them, and they want to hurt that symbol. Right. This is this is the answer Beck is offering, and it's going to be adopted by the thought leaders of conservatism. We don't need to focus on doing any Nothing can be done right, Nothing can be done. The grift is running out, collapses coming.

All that we can do is redirect the anger they feel it being fucked by us towards hurting other people. That's that's the magic that Beck is pulling off here. It's pretty cool. It's interesting too, I hope pretty well. Like it's interesting to compare this, I think to like both Reagan and um, like Reagan and Nixon, because this is very very similar to Nixon talking about like the

silent majority and the stuff. But it's like those people have an actual political project, like like Reagan, Reagan is to trying to completely annihilate the welfare state and like, you know, dude, like they have stuff they're trying to do.

But like post Bush was like, but but Bush was the time they tried to like do stuff, and it's like like Bush is so hated by this point that like like even Glenn Beck at the beginning of this is being like, well, we had concerns about the last administration too, and I was like, well, yeah, because he's like just by by every conceivable metric, just completely like

annihilated the United States. But yeah, it's like it's it's this interesting thing that like, yeah, it's like like this is the first time they've talked like this, But the level of nihilism is just like so much like the politics has been emptied of content to like such a greater extent, and I think I think part of it to also what's happening here is that like there's like the like the the only thing left like for sort of like the capitalist who are backing back, like the

only thing left for them that they could possibly win is getting rid of Social Security and they kind of like Obama gave him the chance to do it, and they kind of like blew it. But like they don't like this is like the ages like they they actually have, Like they're there's like there's there's tax racils, like there's not actually anything for them really to do, but they still have to sort of like maintain this constant vigilance against anyone even remotely trying to make the world better

by taking away some of their power. And I think that's like another angle of why all of this is just sort of like this like incredibly empty nihilism, because that's like that that's the only politics you can have to defending group people who have won. Yep. Yeah, well that's a good note to end on. Um. I hope you have all enjoyed getting to meet Glenn Beck in the nine twelve project. I know I've enjoyed it. Uh, goodbye.

So I'm here today with Aria and an Aria. She lives at the Eden House over there in Kenya and is the chair of the management board at trans To Rescue and has over forty years of trans rights activism, and they're going to explain today a little bit of what trans Rescue is, what Eden Houses, and the threats and attacks that they've been facing in the last couple of days here and so preps and you could explain

what Eden House is. And I think I really liked in the website where you explain the difference between like a Heidie hole and a haven. So if you could get into that, that that would be wonderful. Sure, um uh Eden House is a uh there's a trans haven in in Kenya. It's our primary mission is that we helped

trans people escape from dangerous places. That implies that we help them go somewhere, because of course they have to have a safe place to go too, which means we often end up renting an apartment short term or doing something like that while they get established in their new place. The problem and of course that that was getting expensive in Kenya where we can move a lot of people because some areas of Kenya are quite dangerous, but the major cities are not quite so dangerous, so we move

people into the major cities. But we were trying to be efficient and save money and Uh we thought about making a kind of temporary doss house or a place with bunk beds to the ceiling and what have it. But we realized that would still cost his money and it wouldn't be a very positive experience or affirming ex

variance for the folks living in it. And we realized for that we could instead do a trans haven that is a place where a person could come and if they chose never leave live there the rest of the life if they want. So when someone comes to Eden House and expect to receive help to find some income producing activity, and as time goes on, they will eventually be expected to contribute to the running of the house.

Our plan is we just started a month ago, but our plan is by about the end of the year to have the house no longer be requiring funds from us, and then we can do it again. Yeah, we have

space freight people. When we get up to eight and it doesn't look like it's going to bleed as dry, we can do it again, and we can and in the end we end up with something that I think many trans people in any country would love to have, because that's uh, you know, that's something as long as I've been around, there have been many discussions of building

such places. Yeah, it's it's a very admirable project. And I know Gary and I just used to be Tenacious Unicorn Ranch I've been before, and it's really powerful to see like how empowering those spaces are and how they can help people. So I can see that you set up in Kenya. Was there a reason that you picked Kenya?

It was that it was was a very large trans community there or something that led you to uh frankly, in in such places people often have um uh there is the old queer Uh I know somebody who knows somebody a lot uh system and people have kind of webs of trust. And as a result, where we get people coming from to ask us to move them, it's very irregular. Uh. There are some countries we never hear from,

and we certainly know there are queer people there. We know the conditions are bad and would you know, and we'd be happy to move people, but we don't have a lot of penetration. And others like Kenya, we're in the network and people are telling giving each other, are uh contact info. Um. Also we have some capabilities we had built up kind of center there, so we decided

to focus on Kenya. Kenya is relatively easy to get into as far as visas and so on, and so um it's a place we can send people when they when we might have trouble getting them into uh say Europe or the United States. Um, we can with and so we're perfectly happy to end up with. Lots of folks would like to make the place attractive enough that it's also a place that we even have people coming

who aren't particularly in immediate danger. We'd be We're working from a philosophy of abundance that we want to grow and we have a rule of we don't want to make a place that we wouldn't want to live ourselves. And honestly, Eden House is a nice place. It was the personal home of of a rather wealthy family. It's looks nice. Sorry, would you maybe like to describe for us at your experience at the house, what it's like and how places like this are important so that people

can understand. Maybe if you could start with how you became aware of the Eden House and that that this was an option that was available to you. Okay, So um I met um um. We got in touch with Anne ali this uh this year, yes, Alicia around February generally, if I'm not wrong, so um we if that was before Eden was formed. So we really had a long

discussion on us moving from where we are. Were at the coast and things were really really brutal at the coast side of Kenya, like we were going a lot of stress, even lost to one of our friends, and um yeah, it wasn't really good it was really bad. So yeah, we had a discussion about moving to um to Eden House and that it was a working progress. So we took some time working on that. So eventually it happened and so we came to Eden House and

it's a very beautiful place. I would agree with that. Um. Yeah, and yeah, and also flew all the way to hear because we were new here and there were some things that we needed done. And yeah, we are three of us currently in Eden House. UM. I got in touch with Anne and the rest of the team. There was dooris on board. Actually she's the person who was like you know, responsible for the Malindi team. And yeah, the two sisters that I have like okay, they're my sisters

because we've been through a lot of help together. So yeah, um, we come all away from Malindi. Also we are here together and so far. Um when we got here, UM, the place it's very beautiful, but just needed a little you know here and their decoration and you know, clarifications and modifying and you know, precusuals were by you know

putting on security lights and the security wires. Yeah, still some things need to be upgraded, but you know, um, we still need to resource for a lot so that we can have something's being done by So far, so good. Everything is good. I'd interject that we're trying to foster a spirit of self sufficiency and so we've been Um, we've got everybody to make the furniture. Yeah, the furniture in the house has been made by the residents. And we're starting some various sort of fundraising, you know, our

income activities. We're we've made a chicken coop and we're in the process of getting chickens, getting chickens and and uh sewing machine. And one of our residents is a talented artists. We're going to set her up to have a place to sell her artwork. Ah, that's the kind

of things we're doing. Thank you. Um all. Yeah, I'm really curious, kind of on a day to day basis, what are the things that you and the other people who are at the Eden House do in order to like protect yourself, like when you're going about town, when you're doing errands. Um, is there like a degree of operational security that you have to keep in mind? Yeah, Actually, we have a rule whereby we don't go anywhere without letting each other know, especially if we're going to a

long distance UM. Putting in mind, we are very new into this area, so we don't know a lot of places. So currently we are just in the house trying to get to understand a few things. Actually, we've been doing um um the repairing we have. We have a chicken coope at the back. It's kind of a small um as a small place whereby we needed to fix some things. So we've been working on that so that we have the place ready for the chicken when they're ready to

come in and all. So for me, I've been um going around to see at least allocate some few places where by, you know, we can feel safe, like the hospitals. I've been trying to get in touch with people like around here. I haven't been easy, but at least now I can say I can go to an hospital that at least it's kind of familiar with me. Um. Yeah. We also have a place where we buy what are these things that the house supplies and all that stuff.

We're really trying as much as possible to like minimize our moving around from places to places to draw attention. So we're just trying to go with time and see how people will accept us existing to these community, So we don't want to bring any attentions whereby people who start asking questions like you know, what's happening there? What's not happening there? Yeah? Yeah, I noticed as well that the house is to belong to a politician. It's right.

So I have some measures of sort of external physical security as well, Yeah, which is good. Maybe we can talk about I know, you can use a big country and it differs vastly depending on where you are and who you're with. How is the climate towards trans folks? I haven't been in Kenya for probably ten fifteen years. How is the climate towards trans people? Have things? Have it become like a big topic like a culture war thing recently or is it sort of can you explain?

But I guess what it's like. You're saying. It seems like it can be really just to go outside, which is pretty sad. Yeah, yeah, it is. That is to go outside, you know, um here and Kenya um in different sides of kind of like at the coast, okay, taking example at the coast side from where I come from. It's um it's really bad for the trans community because now they're they're very transphobic and homophobic people that like most of the transphobic and homophobic people come at the

coast side. Because these are people that tend to keep their culture and religious like you know, more of more of a key thing in in someone's life, more of like they use, They use the Quran and the Bible to Prinsius to crititize the trans people and the gay community. So being in that area it's very very bad and

very very risky for trans community. Comparing to the other side of Kenya, I wouldn't say it's not risky, but um, their level of understanding of the trans community and the gay community, it's um, it's more of an it's more of an away that they're kind of confused, not sure where to understand. But it depends with also the air that you are you might find you end up. For example, now we're eating house is like for the few for

the man that we've been here. The feedback that I can say I have from the community around here is there like more of people that are come and more of people who are you are more of used to their own personal things. They don't like, you know, put their nose into the to the things that they're not involved with, if you get what I mean. Um, in other towns having new people, people who like you want to know why they're there and don't you know all that stuff. But in this town that we have, we

are in eating house. It's it's kind of safe in a way that people are not putting their nose in into us, like more of wanting to know about us rather than they're welcoming us. Moreover, you know, the landlord is kind of friendly. I would say that, Um, the cubander cubander, it's more of a small grocery shops. So the cubanders around here, the small grocers the show are the people who are selling the you know, the groceries

and other stuff. They're friendly. I haven't, Um, I haven't in carred or you know, engaged or seeing any trans abic or homophobic reaction towards demand that I've been here. Most of the people here are much of welcoming. Like I would say that. End up. Yeah, it's really different from where I come from. Trust me, from the town that I come from, you can't walk with makeup or with anything that makes you look galish or anything that makes you look resemble to the transgender or maybe gay

or something. It will be a bad thing for you in the day. Yeah, a little bit of the geography of Kenya. Remember that U on Kenus coast up in the north uh is the border with Somalia and um, so the culture naturally mixes over the border. And um this is also an area where lots of folks are coming over because of the political instability and Somalia, and

it's an area of al shabab uh terrorist activity. So so makes particularly the north part of the coast rather dangerous plighte Yeah, just if people are interested, I know, like the State Department sort of has it do not travel like north of Lama pretty much, so like people can sit on the map, but yeah, there are certain areas where risk would be higher. And fortunately talking of that, like it it hasn't. There have been some attacks, right threats against Eden House in the last couple of days.

So if either of you would like to explain exactly what happened as far as you're comfortable, I think that would be great. Yeah, let me explain, because I think I'm the right person to explain that. So, um there, there, there there, Okay, this happened when Amazon around here. Actually we had an attack and now one of the windows. People people breaked into their house, not inside the house, but instide the compound and they tried getting in the house.

But yeah, thank god the place has secured doors and windows. But they took off one of the glass from the window and they tried to like they had a stick that was was was holding um, yeah, a magnet on the end. So they were trying to use the stick with the magnet to pull out the keys so that they can have and clear entrance into the house. But thank god, we had removed the keys to where we used we normally used to put and kept it to

somewhere else. So the kids that we are aware they were targeting, they were only the keys to the meter box and the fridge, so they took those and yeah, I presume they later realized that they wouldn't go through with those because we're not the right kids. So the next thing we wake up in the morning, the magnet was down on the floor and we noticed that the window had the piece of last missing. So that was

the first incident that happened. So we reported that to um, to the to the landlord, and previous day before that happened. Those neighborhood came by and they said that someone tried to break into their apartment and they are kind of curious because they never knew if people moved into this house or they just wanted to check in what was going on, and that we can we kind of get into like you know, know each other, and that they kind of gave us a warning and that's why we

removed the kids. And the day when they came, they couldn't get in. So yeah, after I left, Now this is a recent incident. That then then the next night they came back and found a couple of broken whendows in the morning, like they tried to price some windows out and ended up breaking glass and gave up. But but yeah, that's so. At the time, I think we all the start of this as ordinary, you know, theft activity,

but it's pretty unclear. But this maybe more targeted attack. Yeah, and perhaps it's silly of me to even ask this, but could you speak of it on what kind of

help you can expect from law enforcement? If any um, I would say, if any I would say, like you see the place where we are staying, from the law enforcement, I would expect that they put some like you know, the they have a name that they put that that that the lights that normally the government's supposed to supply, like you know, the what what do they call that these lights that they normally have to support from the MS. Yes, street lights. So the place that you're staying, there's no

street lights. So if if if, if if a police was to ask me or you know, any security measures that were to be put, like, I would say that they put the street lights. Those would help at least there will be more lights for like you know, that should scare people away, even if those people are thieves or anything. You see. So, yeah, that was that's what I would say. Okay, yeah, and I know two people were hurt in the most recent sort of active question right, yes, yes,

this was the day before yesterday. Okay, are they doing okay, yeah, they're fine actually, and one of them I helped myself, yes, and one of them I have my arm injured but not really deep. The other one is asleep. She had a really bad injured back stabbed and you know at the arm also catched. Yeah eight teachers at the back

really bad. Yeah, sorry, yeah, that's not good at all. Okay, So that that's not great, have you since the attack is like an ongoing aggression against you and it's seems like someone's targeting the inn house, right, Um, if you ask me, I would say it's more of targeting the eating house, because, um, I don't understand why we would only be the only person, like the only people experiencing the same the same incident over and over like the

next the next houses. They don't complain in such incidents like you know, like this guy literally if um, I'm just picturing the fact that we had to go out and you know, turn on the machine and we saw this guy and he just bumped into us with a knife and catching us home. So I'm just picturing if this guy was waiting for like I'm just seeing it, if he was waiting for more people to come so that they can attack coming inside the house. Why was

even standing there in the first place? Because we found him there and he was like he came through me because I was the one who was in the front. So I just keep asking myself, like why was he standing there? What was he waiting for? Yeah? Yeah, And I point out that to get there, to get there, he had to climb a high stone wall topped with razor wire and get into position without triggering the motion detectors. Yeah, which is you know, not impossible to do, but it it was,

but they keep coming back. Yeah. Yeah, So I'm sure people listening will be upset by this. Is there a way that people can like express the solidarity or support you financially? Yes, we need funds to keep running the house. And in fact, the guy escaped through a hole that was left only because we ran out of razor wire. We need funds to keep the project going. We need funds to also to support our primary work. We're continuing

to get people out of places like Saudi Arabia. We have people, we have people who are kind of who are in mid travel right now, and we have other people in the high de holes in dangerous countries, and we want to move all those people, and we'd like to start right now. We're not even taking new folks on because we just have such a backlog. I'd very much like to fix that situation. Um, So, for all

these reasons you know, we're doing. We're happy with what we're doing, but but we do need funds at the moment. Let's get into that a little bit. You know the we here is trans Rescue, right, yeah, yes, Trans Rescue is a nonprofit and you're based in Europe and you move trans people out of dangerous situations. That's correct. We're based in Um. We're based in the Netherlands. We're a A sticking, which is the U in the US that

would be a five oh one C three. We're an A n B I qualified sticking, which basically is a five O one C three. Okay, And you were telling us before we started the cool that you think it costs you about euros to move each person? Is that right? Yeah, that's the average. Um. The average is probably slightly going down because of course, to move somebody into eden House from the coast might be as cheap as uh eighty bucks to send them a ticket and then a few

hundred dollars of settling them in eden House. On the other hand, getting people out of Sawdy oftentimes means not only flying of them, but sometimes flying our own personnel in and out on UM often kind of crazy roots. So a person might find themselves a long way from either Saudi or where they're finally going to end up, and as a result, and then so yeah, we end up having to spend a lot on plane tickets and

then we also sometimes this takes months, we play paperwork games. Um, we are not people smugglers, but but we certainly are helping people get to a country where they can actually claim asylum for the most part, which means, um, you know and successfully claim this aylum. And that often means manipulating edge cases in the international travel system. Yeah, yeah, that makes it of sense. I can see whether it

would be expensive and complicated. Yes, So it's great that people can do an h that is there anything like I noticed you asking before for some mutual aid help with your PR? Is that something you still need? Look at the things people can do, maybe they don't have the means today. We were a small organization, we're not very large, and we actually are just cranking up our PR operation. Um. We could use a press list, we could use We could also use amplification from organizations with

more kind of online cloud. We're basically a little group of people and for two years we operated as an informal group of activists. We realized that was probably not ideal for this very serious work we're doing, and so last December we reorganized as a proper sticting, but yeah, help with boosting our signal at the moment would be very useful. Anyone who can, you know, can spread the word of what's happened and now, so we would be very much appreciative. Yeah, well we can definitely do that.

Hopefully every facts come to It's just so people can find you. It's Trands Underscore Rescue on Twitter, It's trans Underscore Rescue on twitsure, it's Trands Rescued or dot org on the web. I will share that fundraising link when when this comes out. Are how have things been for you the last couple of days, Like I must be pretty rough, I imagine, not not feeling safe at the house. Yeah. Actually, actually the advice that we got from the landlord and

the neighbor. There's a neighbor here, a lady. She came by and I have a NUMBI called her the day we had an incident and she came in the morning when he had a tough So she suggested that we shouldn't be going out late night and by time we make sure that all the doors are locked and yes, and stay safe inside in case of anything. She asked me to kla and also the landlord asked me if in case of anything, if I hear any movement or any suspicious thing happening outside the gates, I just give

them a call. It's good. It's good to people are sticking up here in your commune. It's really good to hear really good. Yeah. Yeah, we appreciate that, and on their behalf, what y'all are doing is very important, and we're you know, sorry that you're encountering this kind of resistance, but we hope we can help at least get the message out about what you were doing it. I'm much appreciate it. Thank you, It's much appreciated. UM. I regret

that we spent most of the time on security. I'm more I'm excited about, uh, many of the positive things we're doing. We're you know, we're trying to set up h a place where trans people can live their lives and thrive and and have you know, normal lives. Uh yeah, let's talk about that. Let's talk about like, how many people do you have at the eating house right now?

If you're comfortable sharing that. Sure, we just opened, so we've got three people, We've got one more person who UM went back to settle kind of settle his affairs and we'll be moving in UM. And we have UM and we've got space for eight at the moment um. We've had a couple of other people on choir but but haven't like, aren't there yet. We're kind of excited by the space we've got because there's actually room around us to grow, So we're expecting to get to get bigger. Um. Yeah,

I hope you do. And how many peoples trying to rescue you been able to help, like as an organization overrule one way or the other, We've we've moved about two dozen people. Of that, roughly a half have been the serious kind of get people out of Saudi Arabia type moves. The others have been folks that we helped in sort of less dramatic ways. Okay, yeah, that's a it's a very meaningful contribution to a lot of people's lives.

That is great. Yeah, I get you know, it's great. Uh, at least one person lives locally, and it's great to kind of occasionally have him over for dinner or you know, and know that we got him out. Yeah, that must be really nice. And I think, yeah, it's important not to just center like hatred but also about success. Yeah. Absolutely, yeah, I love that and it's cool that, like you have

plans to grow. I've seen that you have agricultural areas around, so you're thinking of like growing some food around the house. And actually we have brought some poles. We have some vegetables like spinach, cabbage, to me, atoes, green paper. Yes, did they did? The gardens survived the flood? Uh? We Actually I was about to tell you that. Actually when the water was coming in the old all the spinach went and lied down, and we were kind of worried.

But when it stopped, when the water stopped flowing down, the sun came out, they kind of started going straight. So I was much worried about that. But it's kind of freaking out because they all went down and were like they're dead. We have a drainage problem in front of the house and the recently there was a crrential rain is hard to kill things. I did not know

about Kenya. It hails there. I did not expect. I did not like sort of imagine hail, but but it hailed several times while is there and everybody was cold while I was walking around. The T shirt Yeah, yeah, yeah, I can you add some of our best weather and can you for sure? Yeah? And looking at these pictures, it's great to see you guys are making your own furniture and doing all these things and really enjoying your time there as well as obviously we don't want to

just focus on the threat. So hopefully you can go back to that. Hopefully people can support you. Area's onywhere online people can find you. Do you have a Instagram or Twitter or anything like that? Yeah? I do have a treat to account. My tutor handle is at rams hyphen area. How do you can you spell that out for us? At MS? Okay then hyphen lower, hyphen underscore, Yeah, yeah,

underscore then are I guess? Okay? Great? Yeah? And it's for for yourself and is it if it just trans Rescue it's our personal one and thing else you'd like to my mail if someone wants to contact me, is Annie A N N I E at trans Rescue dot org. Okay, yeah, hopefully And um we have a contact form on the website as well if people are interested in talking with us. Um, okay, great. Is there anything else you'd like to get to before we finish up here? Yes, at on Fridays. We have

a m we have office hours. So if you're in a country like the UK or the US and you would just like some advice or to explore your options, that's another service we offer as well. Are happy to talk with you on video about that. When would those be there? It's six pm Central European summertime, okay, which I think works out to midday in the U s okay some parts of the US. Yeah, and your fingers primarily in English. Those are primarily in English. If you

speak Arabic and or Farsi or Urdu, contact us. We can arrange to have somebody who speaks those languages talk with you. We maintain a telegram group trans Rescue and if you get on there you can use machine translation and talk with us very well. And we have Arabic speakers the monitor that. Yeah, hopefully people can take advance

to that if they need it. Thank you so much for your time, Like our platform is here for you if you want to share anything else, If anything else happens, please let us know, and we really appreciate you taking the time a hopefully thank you, Yeah, thank you, thank you so much. Al Right, Okay, goodbye everyone, thank you by thank you, Hey, welcome to it could happen here. This is Robert Evans, and this is a podcast about

things calling apart. UH. And today we definitely have a thing's well, I don't know, hopefully not falling apart, but certainly getting fucked up episode for you. UM, this is going to be better part of the world that probably fairly few Americans spend much time thinking about. UM. It's certainly a conflict that's kind of been lost in everything that's happening in Ukraine right now. UM. But Armenia and Azerbaijan, their neighbor have been at a state of more or

less regular war since UM since longer than that. But this kind of latest wave of it started in UM. It was over a breakaway real while what's often referred to as a breakaway region that both countries claimed and that stayed kind of independent for a very long time until invasion by the Azeris in this area which is majority Armenian UM. And it was kind of a military

disaster for the Armenian side. The war went very badly, a lot of troops were killed, a lot of territory was taken, and ever since the Azeri military has been carrying out border strikes in and around areas that are kind of near their shared border with Armenia. UM. Over the last ten hours, as I record this, and and I'm talking to you all on Monday UHT of September, over the last about ten hours, UM, the Azeri military

has launched a fairly unprecedented set of strikes within Armenian territory. UM. So not just kind of hitting border areas, and not just hitting military targets, but hitting cities, hitting civilian areas, trying to move troops across the border. There's video evidence of this. UM. To talk about what's happening, what's been happening in the past, over the last couple of years, and what's happening now, UM, I'd like to welcome on

Joe Kasabian. Joe you will know from his podcast Lions Led by Donkeys, from his book The Hooligans of Kandahar, and a number of other books that I think we'll talk about a little bit at the end here from his appearances on the Behind the Bastard. Joe, you are an American citizen, but you're also Armenian and you're currently in our media. Yeah, UM, I moved here a couple of months ago permanently, UM citizenship is we kind of have like our own repatriation laws. But I'm still waiting

on that. UM. And so to to go off a couple of things that you said, we've been at a state of war effectively since the nineties when we first gained independence from the Soviet Union. UM. Without going into the incredibly complicated history of Nagano Karaba or Artsach Um art so still exists. They did not take all of it in UM. But Tony Tony was a military disaster for Armenia unequivalably. So we lost over four thousand people. UM, huge swaths of territory where UH their population became the

victims of a regional genocide. UM. There are no Armenians that have been confirmed to still be alive within that territory. UM. There's endless videos of a ZI troops beheading old men and women and and destroying homes and cemeteries and churches. UM. And ever since UH the war ended in a month has not gone by where UM either art Saw or Armenia itself has not been attacked. We've probably lost over a hundred soldiers since then. UM. These are kids, their conscripts.

We have UM military mandatory service here. UM, so these are eighteen nineteen year old kids doing their two years of service. On top of the civilians that are currently being bombed. We we don't know how many people are dead at the moment um. And it's UM, it's truly aggravating. I mean, Armenians live with this all the time. It's a sort of hanging over our heads. When this is going to happen. Um happened with unpress attended international support

and not only support, but willing willingly ignoring it. Um. I mean NATO powers helped as er by Jean Doulas, UM, Turkey and Israel Israel, Israeli drone designers literally test flew as suicide drone into Armenian soldiers to sell it. Um. I mean, it's it's it's honestly kind of I don't know what what to say about it other than that's it should be another thing that the world should be united against and they never will. No. I mean, it's

it's so frustrating. One of the things that I have had a lot of issue with because obviously I, as you are, I'm supportive of Ukrainian people's attempts to so far quite successful attempts to stop Russia from taking over their homes. Um. But one of the things that's happened alongside this is a kind of lionization of a specific kind of Turkish drone, the bractar Um, which was particularly effective in the opening stages of the war, and military

technology military equipment. Walks can argue as to whether that was due to Russian kind of tactical failures and operational failures, or whether it was due to new realities about how drones function. But one of the things that was ignored in all of this kind of fetishization of this drone and people raising money to buy more of them, is that the drones were really combat tested for the first time,

massacring Armenians. UM. Yeah, and it's I try not to get too mad when I see stuff like that, because I understand whether Ukrainians are happy, of course, and like, yeah, I should point out unequivalently I support Ukraine's fight for independence, just like I wish people um supported ours UM and and the war. The wars effectively have the same kind of propaganda angle. Um. Obviously, before Russia invaded Ukraine, they're

talking about you know, Denozi vacation or demilitarization. When when you look at their speeches and the rhetoric, it's that they believe that Ukraine does not have the right to exist and that Ukrainians are either are Russian or they also should not exist. And that's effectively what we're looking at. Two. UM, this is why Armenians constantly compare what is happening now to nine um. Ashba Jean continuously says they want art Sah or the Nogana Karabak, they they want it back.

But that's not what they're attacking right now. UM. If you look at the rhetoric of Aliev and his government going all the way back to the nineties when his dad was in charge and a few other people. Um, their ideology is that Armenia is not a real state. They have claims over our capital Yerevan. They have they have claims over the south where they're invading right now, and everywhere those soldiers go they wipe out the local

population of Armenians. There are no Armenian survivors and Hadrud or Shushi or any of these other places they took in there, they do not exist. And ever since then, they've been purposely going through and destroying any evidence that Armenians ever lived there, which is ridiculous. Armenians have been

living in these places since before Rome was fucking established. Yeah, um, I mean, and this is obviously we're talking about the Armenian genocide, which occurred during kind of the in concurrent to the kind of late stages of World War One. UM, and uh was unrecognized by the United States until what was that now, two years ago Joe yeah something finally became the first president, first US president, to recognize it. And and this is because we We've mentioned Turkey a

couple of times. There's a couple of reasons for this, but most of them boiled down to not wanting to piss up, piss off the Turkish government. Um. The Turkish government has strong attitudes that essentially everybody in Anatolia is Turkish and all. Yes, there were no Greeks, there were no Kurds, there were no Army, and this has led to, I mean, it's led to ethnic cleansings and genocides against

the Armenians and against the Kurds. One of the things that was being done in ro Java, UM that I found so compelling was was an attempt to educate, an attempt to buy the Kurds there to educate people who were joining the YPG about Kurdish complicity in the genocide against Armenia because they recognize themselves as victims of the same thing. You know, starting I think you know all of the it's hard to say starting in right, because

we're trying to talk about concurrent conference. They all go back. Everything's going back quite a while. You mentioned Ali of a little bit ago, and I don't want to talk about him. Um, we're talking about il Ham Aliev, who's the current president of Azerbaijan, the worth uh and of course the the son of the former leader, which is always a recipe for a good functional des Also his wife as vice president. Yeah, and his wife is vice president, which is nice. It's just like it's just like house

of cars. Yeah, he's the Kevin spacey. Um. His his attitude and rhetoric towards Armenian in general is eliminationists at best. Um, like he's I mean, the country's put out stamps that show Armenia being fumigated like dirt went during the height of the pandemic, which like as a genocide scholar. You know, generally, when I see a picture of a place being gassed,

I get suspicious. Um. Uh, they've talked, they've talked about how it was a good thing that in the nineties Armenians were driven from Buku and the Bukoprograms and a few other places. Um, I mean weren't there like literally like some of those drop these arms shows and stuff

like pieces of captured equipment with blood on it and stuff. Yeah, and they also had, um honestly one of the weirdest, like it's incredibly offensive and racist, uh, the these um caricatures of our of Armenian soldiers who like, at the same time they're like racist towards Armenians but also vaguely anti Semitic, Like they looked like a character of a Jewish person to come out of their sturmer um with like you know, and I understand how stereotypically people think

Armenians look in like these racist art where we have you know, big hooked noses and big eyebrows and things like that, which admittedly I know I meet both of those personally, but that's besides the point of Like if you look at the pictures and they were taken down because like even like Israel was like oh that's a bit much, and like they help that happen. Um. But like also to talk you can't talk about as by genre without talking about Turkey because they have this ideology

that's like two people, one state. They do believe in like pan Turranism, especially urd iwan Um. I mean he's been ever ever since, he's gone like full fascist, That's something he's been hammering the drum on and like this is an extension of that. He's effectively a neo Ottomanist. He wants to reunite the Oman Empire, which is fucking insane but also has real life things, you know, but also to bring us, you know, to the conflict that

Americans are more focusing on. As we've talked about before, this is another similarity between what Russia is doing in Ukraine and what is Erbajon and Turkey are doing in Armenia. They're both these kind of um redemptionist dreams of people who want to bring back some sort of lost imperial splendor, right and are are utilizing kind of the tactics that the technics of genocide in order to try to make

that happen. Yeah, I think for Turkey it's a lot of this lost splendor, especially as their economy, it's itself from mismanagement, and I think for Azerbaijan it's the other way around. In the nineties, when we fought the first car A bah War, Armenia one UM. I mean it wasn't from being military's military, militarily superior, having more money. It had to do with two largely unorganized forces in

the fallout of the Soviet Union, and Armenia end up winning. UM. And ever since then, that loss has been something of like national It's like it's kind of like the national mythos of Azebaijan, because before then Azerbaijan is a national identity simply didn't exist. It's relatively new UM. And that loss in that war became the defining moment. That's where UM, the lost Armenia was internalized and like it became school curriculum that Armenians were the were at fault for everything.

We're sub human, we've been compared to cockroaches. Like for instance, if you have, say my last name, you cannot legally enter the country of Azebaijan. You cannot enter that country with an Armenian last name, it's racism, and fascism is

state doctrine there. So when you know their oil production kicked back up from after the war damages and after the fallout of the Soviet Union, on top of military reforms that have been lasting for thirty years, they're the ones on the up swing now, not Turkey in my opinion, and it also helps their fighting someone like Armenia, which no Armenians that we have military history and everything, but we have no fucking money, we have no natural resources,

we have no allies, we have no one's gonna air drop palettes of fucking high Mars and Yerevan like nobody's coming to help us. We have a k S that fought in the First War, we have BMP ones that have probably seen more combat than most people who are still alive, an armored personnel carrier. Essentially we we have nothing. Um. I'm not going to speak about the cape bills of the Armenian military, but like you can imagine what a small landlocked country with a small population, not lot of money,

can field. It's not a lot. Um, Yeah, it's not a lot. And this kind of gets us to another topic that has to be broached with this which is kind of talking about the relationship of Russia to all this because one of the things that's very frustrating about this conflict is that Americans particularly tend to want things very simply. So you hear you've got a Russian client state,

which is how it is, not what Armenia is. I'm not saying that, Joe, obviously, but is how it's easy to especially like kind of in the boil out, sort of break things out as it's like, Okay, you've got this state backed by Russia and then you've got this other state fighting that that's backed by Turkey. Well, Turkey's part of NATO, they're part of, you know, the fight against Russia, so they must be the good guys. And none of that's accurate. But I think it's I think

it's important to explain why. So, I mean, it's it's really hard to explain Armenia and Russia's relationship other than imperialism. Um. Obviously, Armenia has been conquered by countless countries throughout our fucking long history, but the most recent one being the Soviet Union, which we did not join willingly. Um. And then after

the fall of the Soviet Union, the Russian Federation. Um, we're solidly within Russia's fear of influences by no active choice of ours were members of the c tso were members of the Eurasian Economic Union, and neither of those were by choice. We were strong armed into it because there's no there's nothing else, there's no other option. Um. And as far as it goes, is is like the

brotherly relationship or this client state. It would be exactly like someone blaming Ukraine for what happened in Maidan, or blaming Ukraine for what happened in or what happened now because they're trying to get away from that. I mean, we can't. We don't have the resources to do it. Just just for an example of how Armenia plays like tight ropes, this ship never once if we voted in favor of Russia during this war. We like they're like our representatives to the U n our our Ministry of

Foreign Affairs are prime. This there is solidly neutral because that's the best he can do. Um. Right, you know he's either voted against, uh, he's voted uh, he's abstained. He's never voted for to support Russia during this war at all. Um, Now, Obviously, back in there was a different Armenia. UM. We had a pro EU movement here that was quite strong. This is before I lived here, of course, UM that voted to declare our intentions to

want to join the EU. I believe this is under President Sergisan UM and it passed overwhelmingly in the popular vote, because unlike the people invading us, we are a free and fair democracy with the freedom of speech and expression and everything else that people like to claim they want to defend, but they don't UM. And after a five minute meeting with Putin, it was gone. There's no more referendum, and we decided not to join the EU anymore. But

we I mean the president. After that we had our Velvet Revolution which got rid of him UM and distance ourselves from Russia as much as we realistically could so inten I believe UH. For instance, Armenia UH kind of slightly supported Russia when it came to annexing Crimea. And now you can kind of see why the president was a fucking stooge. That's not the case anymore. We now have a parliamentary system and as much as I am not the biggest fan of Prime Minister or passion Yon,

He's not that guy. That's not like the Armenia is a different world. Um. And I know, like like you said, people really like to simplify these things. They want this to be a team sport. They want this to be NATO versus Russia, and you know, people like Belarus or whoever else. But there's a there's a pretty big fucking difference here. We have not actively supported this war. There has been anti war protests outside my fucking window since

the war has started. Ukrainians have flooded here by the thousands and they have met nothing but Armenians who have well come down with open arms. Russians have come too, and we're not the biggest fans of them, but what can you do about um. You know, like we're we're solidly neutral in this and it's one of the things that fucking and I mean granted neutral government wise, people wise. Absolutely,

we're not neutral. Um. And one of the things that pisces me off the most is that people can see the realities of the war in Ukraine where they can see right through Russian propaganda when it's like demilitarization, denification, whatever, and they can see on its face that's complete and

utter bullshit. But like when because you know, Ukraine is fighting for their sovereignty, their independence, and the right to exist that we all have, um, and when it comes to us, we don't get that, like, oh, well, we're calling for both sides a de escalate and maybe our omnia shouldn't have started this. We haven't done anything. It was fucking midnight last night and the South started being bombed. What the fund is there to be de escalated? You

can't deescalate self defense. So you have what is a really uncomfortable situation and one that a lot of people don't like talking about the reality of because essentially, when you have a country like Azerbaijan that is insisting on repeatedly violating the territory of its neighbor um and that has proven not just a willingness but an eagerness to engage and engage in acts of ethnic cleansing and genocide, you have two options for dealing with that other than

let them do it right. Option one is send in peacekeepers to stop the aggression. Now Russia has troops that were called peacekeepers in the area. Um. You know, there's you could debate prior to the invasion of Ukraine. How good they were at that job, um, but they certainly are not capable of doing it now. Um. So then the question is, okay, who else? Who? What? Who else

is peacekeepers are gonna come in? Right? And if that's not a realistic solution and you don't want to let Azerbaijan just do a genocide, then what you do issue give them weapons Armenia weapons, not as people already doing

that part unfortunately the US. Yeah, indeed, um. And again there's this we're all kind of in terms of like the discourse around this in the United States living in the shadow of the War on Terror, in which an irresponsible quantity of weapons were handed out to an irresponsible variety of groups. Um, and many of them went to bad ends in bad places. Um. The reality is that, you know, we're sitting on a fucking stockpile of weapons here in the United States as tall as the sky

and handing over a tiny percent of that. When people talk about like that we're giving this much aid Ukraine, We're not spending that much cash straight on ad Ukraine. We're picking up ship we have in mothballs and we'll we're handing it to them because we've spent all of our treasure on on a pile of guns larger than you can conceive of in terms of its actual size

and weight. UM. And I don't know, like when when I think about what is to be fucking done here realistically, UM, I would like for our Menia to have access to javelins. And I'm send some stingers. Even. One of the things that pisses me off is like, like you said, there's two options here, you do nothing, and you're complicit in

a genocide. That's what this hits like. It's it's like being silent and you know, um and in ninet, it's being silent, in nineteen fifteen, it's being silent Rwanda, we were silent during most of those things, and we saw how they were, Like, there's only one way this fucking ends if we don't get guns, and that's with a lot of dead Armenians. That that that and by supporting Azerbaijan or sitting out that is what you explicitly support is thousands and thousands of dead civilians. Like that's the

only way this ends. And it is again and I hate keep that. We keep going back to Ukraine, but it's relevant because it's the the the it's the conflict that we're actually focusing on the people who are counter on on anti side, providing weapons to the Ukrainian military and make claims about corruption, which they could also make about the Armenian government, um, and claims about you know,

arms trafficking and all that stuff. But so far and Ukraine, by the way, is a country with a deeper history of corruption, significantly in the Armenian government even um, we haven't government is less corrupt than Ukraine's. Yeah, Um, you haven't seen a ton of that happening. What you have seen is the weapons that have been handed to them, blowing up invaders, tanks and aircraft. Um. And the sheer quantity that has been destroyed is evidence that that weaponry

has been used pretty responsibly. And when you were talking about a group of people facing annihilation, I'm simply not worried that they're going to sell their stingers to fucking Isis or wherever are we going to sell them to Turkey? In one side the Georgia, that's actually fine, like you know, and that's I think people are fucking gutless. Um, you saw this happen in February before they're in January, before the war in Ukraine started, when people like, oh, weapons

are only gonna make it worse. No, they're fucking not. You know what's worse than than an armed population defending itself is an unarmed one being murdered anyway. And we in case nobody paid attention, because they probably didn't, you can go back and look at the video footage of what happens to unarmed Armenians, and it's the same fucking ship Isis did to yuz S. It's the same fucking ship they did occurreds, and it's the same fucking ship that will happen again if we do not get what

we need to defend ourselves. And I don't give a funk if you don't like Russia. I don't fucking like Russia either. But it's the reality that we live in. If you're if you're fucking intelligent enough to realize the diplomacy and geopolitics of how Ukraine ended up in the war that they're in now, you should understand why we are in the situation that we are into. You cannot really sistickally believe we deserve what is happening unless you

also believe Ukraine deserves what's happening to them. It's impossible.

I don't know. This is obviously how could this not be like emotional and and and it is just feeling like I can't and it must be so much worse obviously just being there, but like this, this feeling of a fucking train coming at you, and people aren't gonna do ship because there's this fucking problem with optic And it's more complicated when we talk about I'm talking about we wanna talk about optics, I guess we're talking about discourse.

When it comes about like why politically the United States is unlikely to do anything like what we've suggested, It's more complicated than that, and a decent amount of it comes down to the fact that we have what is it, thirteen nuclear weapons stationed in Turkey right now, which land stolen from Armenians from the genocide. Great stuff, America, well done,

We really knocked that out of the park. What is it that people can do to help outside of you know, trying to become informed about the conflict, which I think we can talk about some sources at the end of this. Are there places, you know, Red Cross style things that people can donate to to help to the extent that that's kind of a thing is helpful. Yeah, Um, I mean, you know, generally crowdfunding for weapons systems is illegal unless

you're Ukraine nowadays, so I'm thinking more about medical. Um, the Armenian Red Cross is always a good option. They helped a lot, and they still help now we still have a ton of internally displaced people. Um. There's also the hind drum In Fund, which directly funds wounded servicemen because we really don't have a v A exactly here. Um. There's quite a few other ones, but the the Armenian Red Crosses of course the most reliable and easy to donate if you're in the West. For sure. You don't

have to navigate any confusing Armenian language website. It's because it's it's hard and mean, it isn't great with the internet, so like most of them don't have translations. Um, but you know it's yeah, I understand I'm a little bit more emotional than most people. Probably hear me on podcasts, but like, um, I'm mad, I'm mad, I'm fucking frustrated. Um, I don't know how much longer people can let this

kind of thing happen. Um, I hope the e use gas this winter is fucking worth it, because this is what you got. This is what that deal got us. So I hope you're nice and warm in the fucking winter because we probably won't have power or we'll have more dead or whatever. But real glad you pivoted away from Russian gas and sign a deal. Fucking as Jean,

you spineless fox. And it's a I mean, it goes it's the spinelessness is deeper than that, right, because the reason why the fucking gas crunch that led to that deal happened in the first place was among a number of things, years of seeding to Russian government aggression in places like Georgia, in the places like Ukraine, and you've got that, you know, here you have the invasion by a Zerbaijan almost like two years ago now, and then

there's that and and no pushback. Right, this is this is the thing is And this is not a popular kind of thing to go to talk about on the left, but but it's true. If you want to pay attention to why why that whole World War two situation got so goddamn bad, A big part of it is they're not being any kind of effective rules based international order to stop bigger countries or at least more aggressive ones,

from fucking with their neighbors. And one of the things we were supposed to have learned from that war is that you don't let people do that. It's bad and right. Yeah, yeah, like it shouldn't be that hard. I don't care what your politics is. I mean, everybody knows that we're both

very left wing. But when someone comes continuously fox with you, the only way to make them stop is by hitting them in the goddamn face until they realize it's not a good idea like this, Like diplomacy doesn't work when one side only wants you dead. You can't debate my right to live, or my neighbor's right to live, or these kids right to live. Very they're fucking schools bombed right now, there's no debate to be had. You have

to hit them until they fucking stop. There's like, I'm sorry, there's not gonna be any de escalation of fucking genocide. Like that's not how this works. People tend to get this in the immediate sense when you're talking about, you know, some fucking bigot in front of you everybody everybody loves, you know, cheering on a video of some guy, you know, dropping a racial slur and getting knocked to the ground. Obviously those are a lot of um. But the moral

is that if you let assholes. The actual moral of like why it's important to punch Nazis in the face when they're doing Nazi ship is that if you just let them do Nazi ship and you try to like appease them and calm them down, you'll often calm them down here and there, and they're like, back off, but they'll have gotten a little bit more, They'll have gotten a little bit of what they want, they'll have gotten a little bit further, and they just keep making shit

worse until somebody actually does fucking drop them. And it's the same with you know. And again I I we just talked about with the great lesson of World War two should have been and the thing that actually happens the generation that took power in the United States and in a lot of other Western countries after that, not exclusively the West, but I think we're talking about our our our people here, um immediately went and fucked around and carried out acts of aggression all over the world. Um,

but that doesn't mean the basic lesson is bad. The lesson is don't let pete. We should not have been allowed to do that, um, but we shouldn't like that should not be a thing that the world accepts, Like the you can't just sit back and be like, oh, all that countries gonna go do a genocide now, but it's far away, so there's nothing to be done other than continue to buy the oil of the people doing

the genocide and thereby fund the genocide. Right like it's it's fucking unconscionable, man like, and even if you want to look at this as like the West also fund around during the Couldar, which like, yeah, you know what, everybody did, you know, stop them? They didn't funk around so much in Southeast Asia after the US got punched in the fucking face in Vietnam, did that? That's right? Yeah, well it was a lot less. The shouldn't be this

fucking complicated. I don't I don't care what political ideology you subscribe to, Like it's self defense, like it's collective mutual self defense. When we need help, you give us fucking help. Like, yeah, it shouldn't be that fucking hard. I mean to be fair for for some people will never truly matter because they don't see countries like Armenia or countries like Azerbaijan is having agency to do their own things and thrown things. Um. And if that is you,

I hope to see your house on scene end one day. Um. But like you know that does there should be like that sounds like, um, like an old Russian curse, like me, your house beyond the sea, and I believe it's from yeah, yeah, but I can imagine yes, some little old ladies saying that to you. We we have the right to freedom as much as anyone else. And um, not only that we've achieved it. Like Armenia is a is a moderately progressive place. I mean, we're still working on some things.

We have the freest democracy in the region. Um, we have great standard of living for most people. Um, and it was only getting better. This is a place has freer and fairer elections, and virtually anyone else over here, to include Russia, to include fucking Ukraine, to include Turkey, to include all these places that people insists are worth defending. I'm just curious why we're not like, why are like why are Armenians less than what did we for fucking

do to deserve this? It's it's incredibly depressing. Um. And maybe we're not the right shade of white. I don't. I don't fucking know anymore man Like it's it's it's really weird to me. UM. Even like internationally geopolitically, you know, the Secretary of State Blincoln urged both sides of de escalate. Suck my fucking dick. What are we de escalating? They're

invading us? I would like to ask al Qaeda, would really like to ask the city of New York to de escalate when planes flew into the World Trade Center, like, get the funk out of here, Like, how do you de escalate this? They're bombing cities like it's it's maddening, um, And it's not gonna end. It's not gonna end until someone fucking ends it. We can't. We We just had a generationally destroying war two years ago that we have not recovered from. We have an entire society that's dealing

with various forms of PTSD. UM. We don't have the the institutions to take care of all of the victims from two years ago. UM. We didn't get any help that either, and we're not gonna get any help now. I uh yeah, you know, I think again, there's this, there's this tendency towards isolationism and the left brought on

by the Iraq War. But none of this, if nothing is done, if there's no international response to this, and if these areas aren't aren't stopped by you know, in auto cathonic resistance, um, then it won't stop with Armenia,

because violence of this sort never does. There's a there's a book I'm interested in your thoughts on it, actually, Joe, but I found it quite eliminating a number of years ago, An Inconvenient Genocide by Adam hoss Child, which is about the Armenian genocide and its influence on Hitler, making the point that even though hit there never was anywhere close to Armenia, neither were any fucking German troops for that matter, particularly close Imperial German troops were, Oh well, yeah, we're

we're very much in charge of a lot of different death squads. It's it's a it's a weird story. Hitler's Hitler's German. Of course, I apologize. I meant, I meant the Yeah. But the point that Hoschild was making was that Hitler was not engaged in the Armenian genocide, but he paid attention to it and the fact that the young Turks got away with it, um and and got to take that let take land that, as you pointed out,

is currently occupied by some US nuclear war heads. Um was was part of what emboldened him to do not just the Holocaust but everything he did in Europe. And there was a line specifically in reference to the Holocaust from Hitler, but it was during this table talk that was like essentially he was saying, well, of course we'll get away with it. Nobody remembers Armenians anymore. Yeah, it's

literally on the wall. Yeah. And that's the thing is like it goes back right, like everybody was saying, because I mean, I understand the politics behind our sock are messy for people who are not from this region, and I'm I don't have enough time to go into them.

The majority of Armenian population that was given to Azerbaijan by the Soviet Union with absolutely no process, and they attempted to vote to join Armenia while we were still in the Soviet Union, which is well within the rights according to the Soviet Unions constitution if such rights functionally existed, which they did not. Um, and that's what started the

first war. But in every war has been about that ever since, effectively, at least politically on its surface, because internationally is recognized as part of Azerbaijan, because they go off old Soviet maps for fucking reasons. I don't know. I mean, we can talk about Sikes Picaul, yeah exactly. Um, But like you know, in people were saying that, like, oh, if this will all end if Armenia simply gives up art Stock, which we don't claim art so nobody, I mean,

some some people do. The government does not. Um, we don't recognize it as an independent country either, which they themselves have declared themselves. It's it's messy, I understand, but um, it's it's not within the Republic of Armenia to negotiate the non existence of the Republic of Artsch that is their right to self determination. That is politically what the government believes. Now they were saying, well, now that these areas have been taken over by age by John, we

can finally move towards peace. There's fucking peace talks a week ago that the Prime Minister pashaon Yan met with Aliev. I believe in Belgium. I'm not entirely sure they literally met a week ago. Maybe it's two weeks ago, like it was very recent. But the thing is every time this peace process starts again, this happens because it's not about Arsa, it's not about Nagano Karaba, it's not about any of these. It's it's about our right, our fundamental

right to exist. They do not believe in it, like it's not just like it wasn't about um Jews being involved in business. It wasn't about Jews marrying Germans. It was about their fundamental right to exist. Like it's it's all it is. It's the same can be said for Palestinians. This is this isn't about Palestinian I mean, thinking of which fucking Israelis are just just placing Armenians in Palestine as well. Like it's it's not about it's not about

these these small little nibbles that they're taking. It's not about the freedom of movement. It's not about your right to date. Someone which came up recently is they made some Israelila against that you have to declare your romantic intentions before you go into the West Bank or whatever. Like, it's not about those things. Those are maybe that'll make maybe that'll make it easier to get the the American leftists on this one. Right, No, no guy, Israel is

the bad the bad guys here we can genocide. Yet that's not entirely. He probably would. But the thing is that it's not about these small nibbles. It's not about your right to do X or you're right to do why. It's not about art socks, right, the freedom, it's it's it's they don't believe you should exist, and they will take and take and take and take until you're fucking powerless and they can wipe you out. That is their goal.

I mean, you can see that in Palestine, you can see that, in Arsa, you can see that increasingly in Armenia. You can see That's what Russia's goal was in Ukraine, it was Russia's goal in Georgia. It's how imperialism fucking works. It doesn't have to have an American flag or British flag over it for that to be what it's called. It's genocidal imperialism. And like if if you're too dumb to fucking see that, I don't know what else to tell you, Like, I don't know how else do you

need me to draw and fucking crayon? Like yeah, And I I think we're both getting angry here, primarily at groups of people who I don't believe are the primary listeners that will have on this, not necessarily but but but I get it, Like no, it's it's this constant fucking thing you have whenever there's a war anywhere, And you are like, well, what is the solution, Well, the people who are the victims need to have access to weapons? Um. Yeah.

And if you're and if you're saying, which I agree with, sending in US or whatever troops to ex country usually it doesn't work out, then what are what is the option give them fucking weapons? Yeah? And honestly, like what would make the situation worse if we had American soldiers here? Like yeah, I mean I just don't I just don't think that's a thing that logistically the US military can do. Well. Um, but like yeah, like there's some situations where, yes, military

assistance could make a situation worse. Bad things will happen, You cannot deploy large amounts of weapons or soldiers to a specific area without there being some kind of negative effects. However, you have to realistically weigh the good and the bad. Yeah, the world military the Allies bombed Germany flat, but they

stopped the fucking holocaust. Yeah, we blew up a fair amount of people in the nineties, we stopped the genocide, like we blew up the ship out of Isis, And there was also some civilian casualties, which fucking sucked quite a few. You stop the Azite genocide with the assistance of the PKK and and the YPG and the y PJ, Like, you cannot unleash military power without the acceptance that innocent people are going to die. The way that you weigh that is more fucking people are going to die if

you don't. That's that's I think the key of it, and probably the point to close on is that it's not a decision do we do we bring violence to this situation or not the situation. The question is how how lopsided will the violence be. Will the violence be one state armed by its allies massacreing an under you know, equipped military, and then civilians until there's no one left of the people who inhabited that area. Um or will those people have the equipment to defend themselves? Like that?

That's the question. There's no, there's no the situation. The only way for the situation to not be violent is for Zerbaijan to not do what they're doing right now. Um And hey, if if some sort of fucking diplomatic pressure works, I will I will be unbelievably psyched to eat both of our words in this if the fucking blinken manages to I don't. I don't. Yeah, I have no idea, like how how you actually have an impact here? But that would be lovely. I just don't think it's likely. Yeah,

there's I mean, don't be wrong. There's a time for diplomacy in that time ends when troops attempt across the border or they start cluster bombing our cities. Like there's there's a time for diplomacy and not that you can do two things at once. And and to be completely clear, I'm not calling for like the hundred and first to fucking land in Yovan or whatever. Like, I don't want the American military to come here. We'll take care of ourselves,

but we need the tools to do so. And the fact remains is like you can be vehemently against war. I know I am. I fought in them. They fucking suck. I do not want war to happen to anybody, But when they when it comes, talking is over, or at least it it hits the back burner. Like there's negotiations going on in Ukraine and Russia that we don't hear about, but at the same time, Ukraine knows they have to

continue doing violence in the meantime, Like you can't. You can't just like whoa, guys, let's just hit the brakes and let's like have a fucking peace conference in Belgium or whatever. Like Sun is being bombed, Gorgious is being bought, like our Meenians are dying, Like there's no words that will fix that, but we'll fix it as fucking artillery system,

high mars, GPS, guided weapons, fucking body armor. We don't even have first aid kits, Like there's there's there's things that we need that can happen in addition to political pressure, because political pressure is great if we ever have it, but there needs to be something in the meantime, Like the Director of Doctors without borders. One time said, um, something that was incredibly controversial when he said, because he's a doctor and he runs you know, a charity. He said,

you can't stop a genocide with doctors. And he meant that you need to give people fucking weapons because you know there's like like we already said, and then I'll promise they'll stop talking. Um, there's two ways that this ends. We defend ourselves and we survive, or you sit by and you do nothing, and uh, there's thousands of more graves full of Armenians by the end of this. That's it. I mean, once upon a time the world said never again, and that ship has had a big fucking asterix next

to it ever since. And people need to prove themselves. You need to fucking prove the words actually mean things. If you want to defend democracies and ship like you do in Ukraine. I have a democracy for you to defend and we need weapons. Yeah. I think that's as good a note as I need to end on joke A sabian Um Host of Lions led by Donkeys, author of The Hooligans of Kandahar. You've got other bunch of

other books that have come out now. Yeah, I have the Victory of Death series out if you enjoy military sci fi. Uh, and I have another one coming out in October called The Frontier Corps. You can preorder it now. Um if you look on my Twitter, um, you can find a link to preorder it. It's free if you have um Kindle unlimited, so you know, if for the book. Um so yeah. Also if you don't feel like giving me money, that's that's great to donate to the Armenian

and Red Cross. They need it more than I do. Yeah. Um, all right, everybody, that's the episode. Um, alright, hey, welcome to it could happen here podcast. But things falling apart and putting them back together. And this is another Andrew episode. So hello Ulu, yes, greetings, we have we have we have Chris, we have James, we have myself, and we have Andrew obviously, who I'm going to hand the reins off to. Awesome, So hello again to another episode of

me talking about different stuff. Um and quite fittingly, considering to these the d that Queen Elizabeth has passed into the pits of hell. Um, we are we are deeply as as a citizen under the Commonwealth, we are deeply saddened by the lost colleagues have reached out to me

today and I am okay, guys, is so funny. Today we will be discussing a current member of the Commonwealth um one of quite a few twin island nations in the Caribbean, that being Antigua and Barbuda, and more specifically Barbuda. Barbuda is an example of African resilience. It's an example of a society in touch with this environment. It's an example of the capability of the commons as an institution, and it's an example of sticking it to the crown. To be quite honest as you, all right, I mean,

I'm excited to learn more about that. How how yes, So, I don't think many people know about Bobuda and its history. I doubt most people could place it on a map, but it's it. It represents quite the interesting story. So to begin, I should probably explain what what is a Bobuda. Barbuda is an island located in the Eastern Caribbean, forming part of the sovereign state of Antigua and Barbuda. It's located north of the island of Antigua and it's part

of the Leeward Islands for the West Indies. It comprises about sixty two square miles, so it is about sixty two square miles which is a hundred and sixty kilometers and it's one of the flattest islands in the Caribbean. It's soils are very shallow and in foods. Islands a very arid island with very little rainfall and very frequent routs. Its scrub willderness is roamed by day and pigs and descendants of the animals that early European traders and settlers

would have imported. It also has a pre settlement ever green woodland that consists of white cedar, turpentine and white wood, alongside columnar cactus and thorny shrubs and grassy glades and soils that have been another species that have grown up in soils that have been degraded by the clearance of charcoal burning and grazing and just general human activity. Most bob Udan's i would say engage in shifting cultivation, but

none of them are full time farmers. The countryside is mostly uninhabited because the law required that all barb Udans lived in or near the island's one village which is Quadrington and there, according to eleven census, there were roughly four people on the island. Of course, that has changed in recent times, and we'll get into that shortly. Barbuda is yet another example of a distinctive community emerging out

of the colonial era that swept through the Caribbean. I've mentioned the Maroons before, the different marine communities that have existed on the different Caribbean islands and in Guyana and Surnam. But I think Bobuda and their story represents really the diversity of how colonialism manifested um in the region. Barbula's people have a sense of identity and attachment to locality that is I think very distinctive and very unique among

people of the Caribbean. Not to say that the rest of us don't have a sense of identity or attachment locality, but their story and the tradition reaches back over two centuries of near independence and quite significant levels of autonomy, which was unheard of in most of the Caribbean due

to the legacy of slavery. Representing a very close knit and traditional community probably runs approach to using and student the resources reflects that long legacy of isolation, of ecological constraint being on such a small island, of familial closeness, having such a small population, and of social interdependence. Considering the series of administrators that they had dealt with, and how each of those administrators neglect did or ignored them.

Bob Dans, both whom and abroad, are still very much attached to their island because they have long held it in common. So we'll be diving into a brief history of exactly how they reached this point, what institutions they've developed for common ownership and community land use, and how emigration has played a role in that, and unfortunately, how the combination of Hurricane Irma and the doctrine and the

shock doctrine have contributed to their current situation. So for more than two hundred years, from the late seventeenth century, Barbuda was leased by the crown to one family, the Cardringtons, hence the name of the village being Quadringtons. The originally c was a guy named Christopher Cauldring and he was the governor of the Leeward Islands and his ears lived in England, so they pretty much neglected it. After year died,

Barbuda would have supplemented the lucrative sugar. States that Cardrickton had an antigua with timber and ground provisions and fish

and livestock and draft animals. Barbuda, being surrounded by coral reefs, often had ships wrecked near the island, and so they also salvage resources from lewder ships and so as late as in the eighteen fifties, the Carrington's were getting four thousand pounds a year from Barbuda and stock, and three hundred pounds a year from salvage in operations on the island. That's just over sixty three thousand pounds today per year.

And it just demonstrats, of course, and even though they were more independent than most other slave people, because the island wasn't as profitable, they were still being exploited. Initially, the island was only worked by a few indentured whites, but then when enslaved people were brought in from Africa, the enslave population began to rise, and they began to establish that sort of culture and community that received to

this day. Because they were neglected because the island was very little inhabited, they housed and they fed themselves through their own efforts, and we're basically spared of the rigors of the plantation regiment because of how unprofitable the island was because it's soils were so sandy and arid and unfertile.

So between eighteen hundred and eighty two, being free in many respects, probably this population was able to rise from three dred to five hundred, and they are able to a cohesive creole community whose solidarity was able to thwart the efforts of local overseers and absentee proprietors to try to get them to labor on anti unites states or to get them to be more quote and quote productive

um for their overseers. Because they had such a several hundred strong community on that island that had established itself for generations, no overseers, no manager, could just pull up in there and just say try and cooce them into doing what he wanted them to do. This is installed contrast to a lot of the other Criban islands, where managers and overseers had a lot more presence and a lot more power to destroy families, to split up communities,

to ferment divisions. Because the island just they basically neglected it and in that neglect, to advantage of that neglect, of the material conditions that created that neglect, to strengthen their community bonds and to strengthen their autonomy. As emancipation came around, car Drinton himself even was like, Wow, good for them pretty much because almost all of them, who were, like to quote him directly, one united family, so attached to bob Udell that force alone or extreme drought can

alone take them from that island. In other words, as an exploit as a displaced indigenous African people, they reforged the connection to the new land that they inhabited and rooted themselves in that land. One one particular tradition they have is the burial of ones in Biblical code on the island itself, and so that's been going on for generations. With a new child is born and the Embiblical code

is buried on the island. And so even Bobudens move abroad, they still have that strong tie to the island it's self. So after emancipation ruled around in eighteen three four, probably in life didn't change that much. That the transition from slavery to being free was not as abrupt or as consequential as it was in other parts of the Caribbean.

They didn't become landowners, they didn't necessarily get any political power automatically because probably there was still being assigned to crown leases which had certain um agreements and contracts in place with the Crown, that kind of thing. But they were I mean, they were still being exploited, but things were a bit easier for them to transition compared to

other places. In eighteen thirty five, agreements had secured probably the unemployment on conjuring turn empress enterprises at specific rates to pay. But after the contract had lapsed, it really revooted to a sort of relationship of of coersion. They wouldn't pay them, they wouldn't pay them their wages. They would take quote and quote ricalcutu and prob udans and transport them to Antigue and jails or plantations, and they

would continue to just siphon off of the island. One of the only exports really on the island at the time was cattle, mostly for Carrington's estates and Antigua cattle, sheep, and firewood. And the people themselves were engaged in cultivating provisions yams, potatoes, corn, and supplying their own farmer history.

They were including the necessities. So Abudans would continue with their different occupations, their hunting and they're fishing, their provision intending their cutting wood and put in charcoal and salvage and wrecks. Sometimes would they would be employed by proprietors with governments, but most times they either disregarded these authorities

or acted in open defiance. And so as the state would often complain about bob Uduans and their disregard for the crowns property and the estates property, they would often be accused of poaching Cortinon's cattle, and so they will There was one attempt in particular to seize all their

guns and send them off of the Ireland. And so when the government did step in and condemned Bobby Duns for you know, taking cattle when they wanted to take cattle, Bobby Duns basically pull an reverse card and demanded redress against interference with their livelihoods. They basically were like, I'll quote one petition that was written by Bob Dunces in eighteen we are deprived of the use of our firearms, where by most of us live in shooting any large fish,

tootill or wild birds. We are told to take old licenses, yet if we are seen with a gun, not even shooting, we're taken before the Mages Street of Antigua and severely punished, punished for it. Our little gardens are gone to waste. And if such as still in a little cultivation was to be injured by weather and we by sickness are not able to have the fences repaired directly, it has taken. And Bruin say, our intention is willing to catch the

wild beasts of Mr Cardrington's. Eventually, I guess the Cardring terms got tired of having to not profit as well as they could have, of having to deal with these independent people. Their relinquished on their least. In eighteen seventy they took all their horses and cattle of the island, leaving only the day and sheep because he currently round up day and sheep as effectively at that point, and

they basically they left um. And I always find it interested when Europeans bring like a bunch of European animals wherever they go. It's like, let me just go and set up an estate here in a middle of no way and introduce a bunch of deer and sheep and rabbits and stuff. I mean, I think it happened in Australia as well. They just let a bunch of rabbish school loose just for hunting. It's like, oh, let me like get a hobby that's not shooting animals. But anyway,

so because bubbly they were seen as unprofitable. Each lea see that you know, got their least from the Crown, got it its resources as much as they could and neglected its inhabitants. William and Robert Dougal of William and Robert Dougal's probably with the Island Company, never invested the annual one point five or one hundred pounds required by the least only seven hundred pounds rather than they promised.

Six thousand worth of stock were introduced with Bailey. With Bailey, a score Pubulans employed as craeziers, and even though they allegedly attempted to plant u swetten, coffee, coola, cuckoo another fruits, they neglected that too, and eventually a derelict. Probably theo was forfeited to the Crown for a non payment of friend when a government official visited the island, we found

the day were almost exterminated. The satin wood and log would be depleted, the cattle were famished, the fences would disrepair. They had four mens around up about on horses, ate a cattle and a bunch of cows, and the two products that existed on the island had long since become filthy and fariously overgrown, not only with bush but dense tickets. Dr Dougal's gunners also apparently had a really bad sense of aim because a lot of defences were just riddled

with bullets. And so because the island and the people were starbed and degraded by the dow calls Um, the Colonial Office had you know, revoked their lease and basically excuse the few villagers who were taken some of the

cattle for themselves. Babbulans had also protested the fact that whenever these leases would pull up on their island, they would always be taking their stock, closing their provision grounds, trying to evict them basically doing everything they could be hostile towards people on the island, and so only their own traditional hunting and farming and and stuff enabled Probbu Dans to survive of course, government being the government didn't really care what the people that much, so even though

the lease holders were gone, didn't really get much out of it the people that is stain. After determination lease, the Cluonial government, the Leeward Islands Cluonial governments and Antigua basically took over the island and they established the Government stock Farm one some cotton plots in nineteen three UM.

They gave some grants to pay for fencing and cutting wood and cotton experiments and cattle bud chases and mule breeding, and the Bobby runs took the government greens and lands with their own purposes and basically enclosed a portion of that land and left it for the government stock and left the rest of the pasture, the richest parts of the pasture for their own horses and cattle and donkeys.

So while the government had to deal with like this small portion of land with like some very weak, insufficient meadow, the rest of the community was able to flourish with a nice, rich pasture for their cattle. And still despite that the stock farm, the Government stock farm, still flourished with during sixty whoses a hundred eight cattle and five mules and then the cotton surprisingly also became profitable on the island. Um I called a crop that really didn't flourish.

They are told during slavery was now tating to pick up. In the beginning of the early twentie century. We began shipping caught note and employing a bunch of Barby Dan's and now Bobby there was being scheme is a superprofitable place. However, because of that cotton boom, Bobby Dan's were able to buy passage overseas, they were able to raise the standard of living, and it ended up causing a labor shortage

that led to conflict. After a shipwreck off the island, the island manager went to check out what was going on with the salvage and and he caught a bunch of Bubu Dans salvage in but salvage and for their own profits instead of his profits. And so in retaliation, in retaliation for him trying to stop them from salvage and for themselves, the Bobby Duns burnt his boat and his wagon, and so in retaliation for that, the governor of Antigo started to impose these previously uninforced rents and

cultivated plots. So like he wanted to charge like five shillings per equal per year, and he also doubled animal head taxes. And so by introducing these taxes, introducing these rents, the government's basically trying to get not just to punish the people for you know, daring to be free, but also trying to force them to work on their cotton plantation. Of course, Bob you Don's, having live so freely for so long, didn't want to work on these cotton plantations,

especially not after slavery um. And so the people petitioned the crown against this kind of semi intentioned suitude that the governor was trying to introduce. And it seems that mother nature was on their side because they want their case. Due to drought, all the crops were basically ruined by drought, cutting on cotton profits, um cutting on cattle profits, cuttling on crops on corn profits. And all this happened in nineteen six and then in Barbado was hit by a

hurricane more severe than they've ever seen before. And so that brief period where Barbido as seen as strike and google for the government came to an end, and bob Udans continued to cling on to their customary modes, subsistence, of self reliance, of survival of their plots and their livestock and their fishing grounds, of continuing to be their own masters, because two d and fifty years of experience had taught them how unreliable and exploitative all these other

alternatives that bosses non natives that the government was trying to introduce woo to them, and they learned that only ownership in common would guarantee their access and guarantee the protection of their island from environmental exploitation. As as we get to the interesting part, because they're already long thought to themselves as owners of the island, as possessing the island for themselves, even though on peep but it wasn't the case, even though on people they were being handled

between the Crown and the different leaseholders. That the Crown would introduce Barbuda to Barbudaans, being so small, being so homogeneous, having such meager soils, having such strong and type connections and bonds, they saw it as all of theirs collectively.

It wasn't like and when I say strong connections, family bonds, I don't mean it in the sense that some of the other in lands in the Caribbean, and was sort of puzzled out because in the Caribbean there are lands that are held by certain families and it passes down the family and going on for generations. But it wasn't this idea that all these particular families owned the land. It was that all of them together wound the land

serious real communal land ownership. They'd used the land for generations, to raise ground provisions to hunt there and wild pigs, to keep goats and sheep, to keep cattle, to cut firewood, to fish, and so on. They had no documents and said that they had these collective rights on the island. And yet they all insisted with one voice the Barbuda was theirs. Healin no outsiders could tell them other wise.

And furthermore, they had proven again and again and again that outside proprietors were powerless in the face of their attempts to run the island for themselves, because they would continue to graze the cattle wherever they wanted to graze their cattle. They will continue to fish wherever they wanted to fish, salvage whatever they wanted to salvage, cultivate wherever they wanted to cultivate. Who's gonna stop them, you know,

clearly nobody. They couldn't even get outside. I couldn't even get like a rent out of prob you done so. In nineteen twenty Bobby Duns hadn't gotten legal entitlement roughly half of the island, and by three they controlled futually all of its resources, basically the facto unfortunately against their will. Honestly, Antigua and Barbuda were joined together by putting live in the strators, and so Antiguan Barbuda is the country that existity.

But one of the primary concerns of Abudan's we're that they were able whether they be able to maintain soul ownership, soul control, soul compunal control over the lands of Barbuda.

Land ownership has been an issue that bob Udon's have had with Antigua for a very very long time now, for decades now, and really all bob Udan's want is to maintain their common ownership for themselves alone, and so they have maintained that through the Barbudan Council defending the land and declaring that no land in Barbuda can be sold or developed without the permission of the Bubbudan Council.

And so now to explain basically how common land use works in Barbuda, there are two distinctive and useful moods of land use. Shifting cultivation for provision grounds and open range pastured for livestock. Because there's oil is so weak, shifting cultivation is a necessity. And so after one or two years of planting exhaustive soil, they move their fencing, they move their grounds of between half an acre to two or three acres, and plants they are sweet potatoes, yams,

me is, beans, pigeon ps, squash, peanuts, etcetera. Elsewhere. So the old land could you know, regenerate, but this constant cultivation is something that occurs. The grants really no permanent rights any one individual. You do have use rights. It is the principle of use of fruct over the area're cultivating, but you don't have permanent ownership over that piece of

land that you're cultivating. And they have that system in place because they recognize living on the island for the generations that bob ut As ecology is extremely fragile, extremely limited um its resources are limited, and so they have to safeguard there um, the as sustenance for generations to come. Yeah, it's fascinating, Actually, it's really I didn't know anything about that. Yeah, yeah,

it really is. Similarly with them with the slash and bloom cultivation, they also had the management of open range livestock being very much unrestricted. Um. They're actually feral cattle that exists on the island in addition to the more teamed and pen animals. Um. And so how they basically they allow all their animals, you know, mixed and mingo of different families and different individuals would have their specific cattle or horses or sheep or whatever a marked or branded.

But for the most part, they they've maintained this sort of open range husbandry because it helps to sustain their unity. It helps to maintain their strengthen their social bonds and their community solidarity, to basically ensure that everyone has taken care of in a place that is so scant resources. Lastly, through one of the ways that they maintain in the

balance of the island is through is through emigration. The population has basically stayed at that level because they've stayed within the limits of the resources they have on the island and so young, Bob, you don't have had to leave um the island, um while still maintaining their communal use rights to the land. And then eventually they would make remittances of money or resources and periodic returns that would help to introduce you know, healthcare resources and housing

resources and education resources to the island. Just another day, like completely isolated from the outside world, living in this sort of bubble. They do still have that exchange going on. Most of the immigrants live in three primary communities, seeing John's Antigua of course, seeing as it's the neighbor. Um. A lot of them are in New York City, I mean a lot of Korean people in general New York City,

but Bob Dan's are in New York City. And all of them also live in Britain in Leicester as part of the West Indian exodus that took place all the way back in the late nineteen fifties. Yeah, so sort of wrap things here. Um. Their communities and their solidarity have allowed them to cope with a harsh environment and to successfully navigate a succession of misinformed aloof sometimes actually

hostile and mostly incompetent proprietors managers and administrators. Being so unified and holding themselves in solidarity, they have managed to maintain their traditional resource ownership, their communal land tenure, and their fragile ecology completely and totally UM rejecting the assocutions that the economist carried hard and made about the tragedy of the commons, it has not been a tragedy for

what you've done. It has been a triumph until recently. Unfortunately, in September, how Urricane Uma damaged and destroyed of the islands buildings and infrastructure, and as a result, all of the island's inhabitants had to evacuate Antiguo, leaving Babbuda empty for the first time in hundreds of years wow, I mean two years later. By February, most of the residents have returned to the island. However, the Prime Minister of Antiguo, Gaston Alfonso Brown he's been leader since UM, has been

making moves essentially to privatize Barbuda. His background before entering politics was being a banker and a businessman, and he seems to be employing the shock doctor and tactic of using environmental catastrophe and social displacement. Two accelerate capitalism. Essentially, after you know, hurricaneum I swept through Um and posted residents became homeless, communication systems came went went down Um and taking Bobulda God relief pounds of relief for Barbuda Um.

That's not very much, not very much at all, Um. But it would take over a hundred million dollars to rebuild the homes in the infrastructure in barb udell Um, the old critical infrastructure that existed, the food supply, the medicine, the shelter, electricity, water, communications, waste management and as one person said, UM the directive take in Barbula's National Office of the Disaster Services film Melon. He said, in my twenty five years of disaster management, I've never seen something

like this. It is optimistic to think anything like this be rebuilt in six months. They have to rebuild entirely all of their public utilities UM. And so essentially what Prime Minister Gaston or funds who Brown is trying to do is revoke communal landownership, allow the residents to buy some land and use the rest to basically introduce UM resorts and who tells and other to risk attractions to help fund the rebuilding efforts, but of course we know the way that money is actually going to go. And

that's as far as I know about the situation. UM. Unfortunately, don't have any connections in Antihuan Barbuda yet. UM, But unfortunately that is what it's been going on in another example basically of disaster capitalism trying to cease and accumulates through violence and for exploitation as usual. I hope that you know, we've seen and been inspired by Barbula's efforts, and I hope that probably don't able to continue to

prove themselves resilient in the face of this disaster. That's fascinating. And do you know, like I'm interested in these like diasporic communities like you said, there's one in Lester and stuff. It's like, do they still have like a very strong community coherents like when they when they go elsewhere and to like did like you said, they tend to gather

in like certain spots. Be interested in like how those folks, I guess dealt with a very different life in like New York or Leicester or wherever right well, Um, like other Caribbean people who have emigrated, we do tend to concentrating cuittain places where we already have family connections. Um. I think most Scribbean people have at least a relative living abroad. Yeah, an uncle, a great uncle, second cousin, the cousin whatever. Um, And so it sort of builds

from there. And so you try and be that, you create like a piece of home and sort of settle and concentrate in those areas and live in those areas and support each other in those areas. Yeah, and that, I would say helps with the adjustment. Yeah, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah. Um. So you can find me on YouTube dot com slash andrewism on patre dot com slash scene true, and on Twitter dot com slash on discore scene true. If you are Bob, you done,

Please don't have you to reach out to me. I would love to learn more about the situation going on and wish all all the best solidarity. Who's dying today, it's Queen, it's the Queen. Well correction, she's not dying, she's she's dead. That ladies said. Yeah, very sad, obviously, very sad. Grieving punk us today brought to you by it could happen here. It's all of us. It's it's me, it's Get, it's Chris, it's Robert, and it's the ghost of the Queen. We're talking about the queen. She's dead,

what's up with that? Yeah, she's real dead. Um, I haven't seen. You know what I haven't seen that I'm disappointed of is a new version of the Monty Python Dead Parrot sketch involving her corpse. And it's and it's fancy casket. Um, but that's still time, still time we can change that. Now. My question is, James, is that legal in the UK? Now? Absolutely not. No, you will

get so arrested, not even arrested. This is the worst part people have just like I don't understand what the funk is wrong with people, but they have become volunteer cops to like defend a guy who's been credibly accused of peedophilia. I am disappointed in us. Do not be policing your fellow people for exercising some of the very few rights at the conservative well because everybody how taken away from them. Actually, but yeah, you've only let yourself down.

I'm disappointed. Yeah, they they they really really hating anyone who is not thrilled about the monarchy. They're arresting people of having not my king signs. I see that Jetwood is taking it to the fascist state, which is great to see. But we're gonna be talking about the Queen

or former former queen. Um I do want to do want a note that you know, the day the Queen died, a big wave of condolences came in, including from Domino's Pizza UK, which which if you don't understand, the Queen had a very deep relationship with Dominoes, so this this does mean a lot um they were, they were, they

were lovers. Among those who posted their condolences was Hamilton's West End, the Britain the Britain r MT, which is like the British Railway unions their strike, which I think is the most pissed at coward thing I've ever seen. The union do. British Cycling suggested to people not go out for a bike ride during the time of the Queens. Are you fucking serious? My god? They're literally was deal

with the closing food. I think the funniest one was Labs Rob posted everyone is deeply saddened by the passing of her. Madnesty in the Queen and we offer our sincere conduleces to the royal family. We joined together with the people of the United Kingdom and all around the world and mourning her loss, which they then which they then deleted an hour later. If there's one thing that Mrs rob is about, it's about people all though for the world, mourning the loss of monarchy, it's the main

thing about it. So yeah, most of on Twitter was definitely was definitely split between these companies posting how they're so sad. That also a lot of people pretty pretty thrilled that the queen died, because it's kind of funny because we were all shocked by the nine year old woman who died. She was so young. It's she was. She was at an age that if you reversed her age and told me she had died, I still wouldn't

have been surprised. Like she was at an age where like even if you flip the numbers, she's still all. She still Yeah, it's great to see the Telegraph today running a headline five mile Q to view Elizabeth's second coffin. We'll see horrible stories of suffering. This is a country where she said, will not be able to heat their homes this winter. It's a country an explosion in food insecurity, and this is what we're doing. It's like like the British like, okay, so the Crown did not call directly

for a blood sacrifice. The British people are just bound and determined to have people die like they're like they're like they're lining up in the streets to sacrifice themselves for the dead. It is I mean, magical things don't do us all that way. There's some people sharing up with not my King signs and getting assaulted by mobs and people like regular as people. Yeah, yeah, most people are not that concerned. Most people are not like it's

just like the Turfs in Britain. There are like a small minority of people who do nothing but tweet right for the Guardian, who misrepresent the opinions of most British people who are not that concerned. But like a lot of these British people do show up in person and like shut down like yes, it's it is not It is not the case that like there isn't widespread support

for this kind of ship. It's just that it's it's not uniform and that's the people who do speak The people who do speak up also tend to get arrested, which its just like it's it's sort of amazing. It's like, okay, Britain got industrial capitalism before like any other country to Earth. Right, the boy Josie has one job. One job there. One job is to destroy feudalism. And they could even the British couldn't do it. They had they had the largest head start of any country on Earth, and they couldn't

do it. It's incredible, it's miraculous. They were co opted into these few elites through things like the Great Reform Acts, which which used property as a proxy for land or capital as a proxy for land, and it's worked remarkably well. And now we just do false consciousness ship like this, Like how good is your false consciousness game? When people who can't heat their homes are sleeping on the street to say goodbye to presumably a billionaire who never cared

about them. Yeah, it's like raculous. Yeah, you absolutely who was not equipped emotionally to have ever cared about them, who's soul would never have allowed her to care about them. Yeah, let's let's like you know, as as lots of people were romanticizing the monarchy and the queen and doing their like performative more nings. Obviously, there was a way of other people being like, hey, you know, the Royal family

is kind of kind of sucked up. You know, they've stolen billions of dollars and jewels from countries like India and across South Africa. Um, they're continuing to benefit from Britain's history of colonialism. The earlier earlier this year, during the during the during the Queen's jubilee celebration, an old Kenyan revolutionary fighter used the used the the occasion to call for an explanation from the Queen for why she hasn't been compensated after being tortured with axes by British troops.

Look at the Britain treated. We're stuff on this. I have stuff on this later for this episode. Actually, we're gonna be talking about that. Seventeen estimate found that the Royal family is estimated to be worth eighty eight billion dollars um. Yeah, and a lot of that's obviously not in straight cash, which is one of the ways like people are talking about, oh, Charles inherited half a billion, No, Charles billions of dollars. Like they own a lot of land, Yes,

they own a huge amount of land. Um. Charles has his own real estate empire that he like created while he was waiting for his mom to fucking croak um. And they also have like a fortune and a really actually uncountable like you have to think about their wealth like the Vatican, Like there's no actual way, Like it's functionally limitless money because so much of what they own is like priceless antiquities, many of which were stolen from other people. Yeah. An it's hard to put a tangible number.

And that's sort of their value and that sort of what if you want to go to celebrity status, Yes, what is that fucking diamond in the goddamn crown worth? Right? Like there's no real way to appraise that. Yeah. Well, and I want to point this out, like if they tried to sell the diamond, almost certainly what would happen is like the British people would give her three billion

dollars and they give her the diamond back they crowd funded. Yeah, they'd stopped doing the subsidies for heating that they've just started doing and buy the diamond back. Here, let's talk about let's let's let's talk about the heating thing briefly

because I think uh. An anchor on BBC was discussing how news of the Queen's passing basically interrupted all other news in the UK, UM including statements being given on the price increase in energy bills and the raising cost of living, um stating that that those topics, that the topics of cost of living and the rise of energy bills was quote insignificant. Now due to the gravity of this situation, we can we can insert this clip here I have I haven't saved for Daniel because it's just

it's wild. Doctors in Scotland were concerned about the Queen's health coming um as liszt Trust was making a rather important statement concerning um the future of energy bills UM that, of course insignificant now given the gravity of the situation we see to be experiencing. An old lady died. She was not a very nice old lady. I've known old ladies who were nice that died, and I was sad.

I've known old ladies who are night and not nice that died, and I didn't really care in any case, Like it's it's not it's not a big deal because old people like that's what human beings do when they reach ninety six is they die a lot of the time. And it's it's okay, Like it's okay. Queen would see it. Of everything about her, it's fine. Queen Elizabeth was the longest reigning monarch in the history of Britain. Yeah, probably close to the longest. And like maybe Ramsey is the

fucking second is up there, like sixty nine years. You don't run into a lot of competition in terms of length of two Yeah, And it's worth a lot of old ladies going to die in Britain this winter because of the okay, And it's also worth knowing you the queen tried to use a bunch of state poverty money that was earmorged for schools, hospitals and low income families to pay bucking camp houses heating bill. Oh wow, Uh yeah,

that's that's wild. That's great. Well, you wouldn't want an old woman like that to be out of out in the rain. Because I believe the Crown is States, and I'll have to check this real quickly. I believe the Crown of States did evict people during the COVID nineteen pandemic. Talking of old folks being kicked out into the rain and for for around two weeks after the queen's death, basically all of Britain kind of grinds to a halt um.

It's which which would honestly one of the base parts about this is that this does potentially cost the UK economy billions of dollars because they just shut down for two weeks um. So this is like the equivalent of the boat getting stuck in the canal, just the queen dying. I do want to I do want to make a quick note for everybody. The longest reigning, very refiable monarch, according to this Wikipedia page that I just skimmed is so Boosa, the second of Swaziland, which was a British

protectorate until nineteen sixty eight. He reigned from eighteen ninety nine to August of nineteen eighty two, two years. So you know what, Elizabeth, not that impressive. I am a Sabooza the second stand now absolute chad ship. The fact that he just snuffed it before he got to see a part tight end very yeah. That is m yeah, wow, yeah, it's just yeah. It's looking at some of the evictions of krown of states have done over the years. You

can look it's pretty heartbreaking. Ship. Well luck luckily, Uh, the Queen actually did not die in Buckingham Palace. She died in a castle in Scotland. That's great because Buckingham Palace is a hideous monument of trash like the castle she died. It looks pretty cool that most of the Yeah, one thing you're supposed to get with a monarchy is like really rad looking castles. It is like neat the castles are cool, except for Buckingham Palace, which looks like yeah.

So bucking a Palace is a building that dares you to go steal back all of the wealth if they stole from you to build it. So the plan for if the Queen died in this Scottish castle was called Operation Unicorn, which is wild. What is the unicorn? A ninety six year old woman dying is not a unicorn situation? Operations Squirrel or something more? How is this giving a couple of their third I don't get it, I I know, um, So the plan for this type of thing is so

the queen died on last Thursday afternoon. It was announced the Friday following Friday morning. After the queen dies, Uh, they call Operation unicorn. They then call, they send like my emergency alerts all the British leaders, um, no, the new Prime Minister who was incredibly funny, um, and you know, all of all these people are notified and then press press gets notified that next morning as as as they did. So staff members in the castles and palaces all got

sent home. Um. All parliamentary business gets postponed. Uh, every everything, everything shuts down, which means all of the stuff they were working on on energy bills gets shut down, like they were working on trying to figure out what the funk they're gonna do for this cost increase. All that

gets shut down until late September. Um. So that's that's cool. Um. But no, this is actually kind of a unique thing because because of how long Elizabeth reigned, the last death of a monarch was in the fifties, so it's it's been a while since this has happened, so everyone's kind of rusty, like, no, like if we aren't as prepared for this, if if it's okay, My my hope is that we get a couple of we get people get a lot of experience with dead British monarchs in the

next decade, King Charles the Third. I don't think we'll be around for too long. Yeah, I've seen that man's hands, and it's here's the thing. Every every time a monarch dies, it's kind of it's like a top down, rolling general strike. So if we get enough of them in a row, we can start doing serious damage to capital. By the way, quick quick note about the chad so Booza, the second of Swazi Land died, died with a thousand grandchildren. Oh

my god. Wow, man and always pictured shirtless Elizabeth cannot compete. No, I'm fine without not being the case. Actually, I don't want to see any competion. Yeah, and he probably wasn't racist to any of their partners with no actually you can say about the real families. Here's a neat thing. He and he took all control of all non or of all Swazi land and mineral rights from non Swazi interests that had gained control during colonialism and indigenized all

of that, which is dope. So there you go, So boost of the motherfucking second. Yeah, a god, king, I have to go and get injected with a small dose of a disease. Well, let's got everything, but injected in that Chris. Hey, Daniel's back, so let's take an ad break, um, and we'll be back to learn more about the Queen. You know what else will give you a small dose to a disease? That's right, that's right, Yes, these products and services. Yeah, I'll gonna say the Queen of England.

But yeah, and we're back. So yeah, it's been a while since since the monarch died. Last time this happened in the fifties, mourners wore black arm bands to show respect for King George. That's the one who was like a big fan of Nazis. Right, But I don't I don't think we're gonna see so I don't think that tradition is going to continue. I doubt we're gonna see a wave of black arm vants. If anyone was going

to do it, it would probably be the Anglos. Yeah, I I suppose so yeah, it's uh oh yeah, it was Edward, Edward the Eight who abdicated um and and then was replaced by the guy who you were talking about. Okay, that's the guy like Nazis, Edward the Eighth. So all all, all, all the UK flags are gonna be flown at at half masted until the day of the funeral, and then the day of the funeral is going to be a bank holiday as well. So that's pretty exciting. That's great.

I hope that the poor get to eat sweetmeats or something. No, no, again, they're just they're just closing down almost all almost all businesses, almost all businesses in the Okay will close. The Stock Exchange is going to close. Um like on on following present a prince is Diana's death in the late nineties, uh, Britain. Business owners in Britain quote felt that they were quote forced to close their shops or canceled sporting sporting events the day of the funeral lest they feel the rage

of the tear stained hordes outside unquote. Yeah, that's an incredible that is an incredibly funny way to talk about monarchist though, like, thank you, thank you, thank you the Guardian for that amazing quote. It's unbelievable, and at least with Diana, it was actually sad like she was a nice person who was badly treated in her life by the royal family and died tragically and young, as opposed to somebody who got everything they want from the day

they were born. And died at So then currently they are assembling the quote Ascension Council to formally declare Prince Charles the King, which he's he's already known as King Charles, but you know there's the whole separate formal process. Yeah, because he could pick another name. Still he says he's not. He says he's Oh, he's confirmed. That good because kings king's Charles have a good history in the UK, they

don't often get executed. So the Council will make the proclamation of ascension to be to be read on Proclamation Day will be which will be soon after the death um, and that'll be somewhere somewhere in a London. How did you still have all the ship? Like, there's so many weird rituals that they still do. Both houses of Parliament are suspended are suspended until after the official state funeral um and both and and all politicians have to wear

new allegiance to the to the newly ascended monarch. This is really like genuinely the world's most pathetic ruling class. Like, oh my god, Jesus Christ, it's pretty funny. You have one job. Well, but also like back in the day before we had monarchs and capitalism. Whenever you know, you had a new coronation, whenever there was something big that happened with the monarchy, the thing they would do is make sure everybody had a shipload of food and nice stuff.

The king would give it away. It's all over the world. Cultures would do this. Even you do. Yeah, it's what you do when you come to power. Because they were at least that scared of the people where it's like, all right, I gotta like do something to ring in this rain good so they don't start to wonder, why do we have a king now? So I'm gonna give him a bunch of fucking food and then they'll be like, oh, the king, he's the guy who gives us food every

now and then. That's dope. It's amazing now that in the UK it's just like, all right, we've got a new monarch and the old one died, so you guys, a lot of you don't get to eat for a while. So King Charlie seventy three is the oldest person in British history to become king, which is I think a great side, very unsabosed the second of him. And then

we're also getting a new queen. Technically, uh, the camella, the Duchess of Cornwall, which again all this sounds made up um is now is now the queen consort um. So that's exciting, that's thrilling. I'm I'm thrilled for a Queen Camilla. It is the Duchess of Cornwall or so and Queen Elizabeth's Queen Elizabeth's coffin is is being prepared to lie in state, meaning it will be presented from the public to view so they can cry on the coffin, which is pretty cool, or crying near the coffin. They

don't want the poorest to get too close. So Booza the second turned swasey Land into a major asbestos ex border, which Queen Elizabeth also never did. So wait, so when when? When when the Queen dies, do they like from like? Do they like preserve her from Aldehide or whatever? Do they fancy they've some fancy ass ship because they were probably embalminger while she was alive, says her limbs stopped working,

squirting some in. The Queen's body will lie in state until the day of the funeral, will then become a public holiday. There's at least a ten day morning period starting the day after her death, um, and then should be transported to win Westminster Abbey by gun carriage for the state funeral. And then after the funeral she'll be she'll be buried in the King George the Sixth Memorial Chapel.

I believe her the body of her late husband, Prince Philip, who died last year, will be moved from the vault that he's currently at to beneath the chapel to join here. So that's pretty funny. Yeah, um, I don't have nothing to say about that other than it's funny that they've just got that dude in a fucking freezer. It's really funny. The new coordination will cost billions of pounds. Oh that's a good because England's like doing great right now. They've

got plenty of money for all the necessities. You know, everything's been going well great, cost of livings really down, so it's it's a good idea to spend billions of dollars making a little death cult about this elderly woman that's just like the last like big royal wedding costs between one point two billion and six billion pounds, which is quite quite the quite the spectrum there one two to six billion. That's like, huh, I feel like at

that point all money's fake. Like the cost of the coronation is expected to be similar, if not a little bit higher. Right, Yeah, you gotta you gotta spend a lot of money on a coronation for fucking Charles. Uh, so that you can, because that's what real countries do. In two, that's very real country ship. Speaking of money, new currency is already being printed, and in fact that that'll be cheap though, and in fact, uh, portraits of

Charles have already been made on currency. There's like a reserve of money depicting the next king, just like it's being stored to like moving in from from when the queen died. It's like lots of this money saved. Just like how funny it would have been if, like six months before this happened, his seventy two year old ass had a heart attack. Have to like burn all that money. They're going to burn all that Charles bucks. He's not gonna be around long. Rice that Britain no longer has

the world's reserve currency. Can you imagine? No, we we took on on this network on our various shows, we we spend a lot of time digging into ugly aspects of American history and American culture. But let's all celebrate one thing that I'm legitimately proud of, which is that a long time ago people here were like that seems stupid to let those that family run everything. Why are we? Why are we doing that? Let's get those fuckers out

of here? Um, at least we did at although now a bunch of Americans are being fucking boot liquors too, and in Oregon and a bunch of other states, we're putting in these flags at half staff, which, like, you don't know why this country exists. This is the one based thing we did. Yeah. Like, like even the US, which I probably has the most murderous borgeoisie in human history, at least we did our burge Revolution, damnit. Like, at

least we destroyed feudalism. So now we're gonna move on to the next segment of the show, entitled an Incomplete List of the politicians, warmongers, generals and otherwise bastards who Queenlis put the second bestowed awards. So I have I have quite the collection of people here. Um, let's let's start with Palestine. So Shimon Perez served as Prime Minister of of of Israel. He got a Nobel Peace Prize in like the nineties for intern key steal that like failed in in the long run to turn into a

um for assassinated. No, I don't think. I don't think was the one who you could argue might have deserved an award. He's he. But Perez is kind of known as more of like, uh, a peaceable leader. He's like uh compared to some of his like colleagues, UM, you know, specifically with like the various ethnic cleansings that they do in Palestine. Perez is kind of seen as like the

the good guy UM. And then in the mid nineties he was facing a major right wing backlash UM in his home over over the peace deal with the Palestinians UM and in the middle of an election campaign which he was kind of losing. So during this time he unleashed Operation Grapes of Wrath, which caused four dred thousand Lebanese to flee their homes, with almost eight hundred of them fleeing into a United Nations base in uh Kawana.

I believe it's called UH in South and South Lebanon, and he didn't really stop there in order to kind of appease the right and Aldrezier calls it UH in an attempt to shore up his military credentials before a general election which he then lost to Benjamin Nett, not Yahoo. He ordered the army to strike this u n A shelter, killing a hundred and two civilians, mostly women and children. AH At the time of the attack, Peres said that in my opinion, everything was done according to clear logic

and in a responsible way. I am at peace. UM. Perez said that the compound had been hit due to an incorrect targeting based on erroneous data, but the United Nations investigations found it unlikely that the shelling was unintentional because they were severing the area heavily beforehand. So he did he didn't. He did this massacre, killed like a hundred a hundred people to boost his polls for the right wingers in this election. UM November two, as an eight,

Queen Elizabeth awarded him with an honorary knighthood. He as knighted in the Grand Cross of the Order of St. Michael and St. George, and during his knighthood. Like that day, Perez spoke to the Queen about the escalating Israeli Palestine conflict, saying that quote, the British learned from the Bible, and

we learned from the British democracy. Earlier that year, I d F launched Operation hot Winter, a military campaign targeting the Gaza Strip in response to a series of Homoss rockets that killed one forty seven year old Asraeli student um which that attack was in response to the I d S killing eight Home Mass members earlier that month. But during during the I d S Operation Hot Winter, one hundred and ten Palestinians were killed, fifty four of

them were children. Uh. And then a month, just one month after Perez was knighted, the two Essanate Gazo War broke out, also known as the Gaza Massacre, and that was started by the I d F, who called it Operation cast lead a three week large scale military campaign in the Gaza Strip. The massacre resulted in uh in like one thousand and four hundred Palestinian deaths and thirteen Israeli deaths, four from friendly fire. Um so it's just

a Massacreeah. Yeah. So that that that was like a few weeks after, after Queen Elizabeth knighted knighted the then President of of of of of Israel, who previously served as the Prime Minister, which is more of like a real rule. UM. Anyway, moving on to more fun people. Nineteen eighty nine, Queen Elizabeth awarded Ronald Reagan with an honorary knighthood. UM. Now, thankfully, the way honorary knight Knighthood's work is. You don't become a sir because sir is

a title reserved for people from Britain. I'm not mistaken. You can't hold office in the United States if you are a knight. Oh I wouldn't. I think it's an old rule we have. Yeah, I reading something about that. Yeah, yeah, No, I think isn't it No, it's not in the Constitution, but there's something about Yeah, but it's a it's a even though you know, you can't become a sir because you're not from Britain. Um you okay, here we go.

No title of nobility. This is Article one, Section nine closet of the Constitution is no constitution Yeah, no title of nobility shall be granted by the United States, and no person holding any office of profit or trust under them shall without the consent of the Congress, except of any present emolument, office, or title of any kind whatsoever,

from any King, prince, or foreign state. Fascinating. Yeah, So, like again, the people who made this country, for all of their flaws, looked at the British monarchy and we're like, that's fucking nuts. Well, because because because Reagan was was night was received on airy nighthood. The one benefit he does get is that at dinner parties, Reagan was able to sit closer to the queen than the unknighted former presidents.

That's good. I'm glad that we have to. Like, honestly, look again, I hate like like America flex shit, but I feel like any president of the US should be able to pull up Ryker style, flip a chair around, sit down next to you you, and say, look, we've been pulling your ass out of the fire for the last century. Like, you don't get to fucking make me sit somewhere. I'm the president of the United States and you're a doddering old queen of a fucking third rate power. Um. I

hate that. I just went like, full fucking whatever they're But honestly, that's fucking ridiculous. It's like like maybe maybe maybe the only country ever that the US gets moral superiority. It's like, is the British Empire? Like don't you don't like what? Seriously, lady, unbelievable. One other president who was knighted was George H. W. Bush, who was knighted into

the Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath. Well, he did look like he could use one a lot of the time, where a rarely awarded top order of knighthoods. I'm glad he got that. British officials said that the knighthood marked the close relationship between the Republican president and Britain's conservative government, particularly during the Gulf War. Um. Yeah, that was a real moment of of of trial and

tragedy for the British royal family. They had they had to sit there and watch they were burned, conscripts alive, and they were really at risk there. I'm gonna quote from the book Royal Babylon by English poet and activist Heathcote Williams quote the fact that each US president's record, without exception, would earn them seats on the dock at Nuremberg or at the International Criminal Court on genocide charges

doesn't deter the royal family from honoring them. For by an ironic twist, each US president morphs into George the Third, against whom their forebearers fought. Which is a nice and nice and nice little quote by by this this this English, this English writer and the pretty good book Royal Babylon if you want to if you want to learn about how fucked up the monarchy is, uh, this is a pretty a pretty fun book. Um, let's see who else who else should be? Uh, who else should be? Let's

let's talk about Norman schwartz and Covs Schwartzkof. Norman Schwartzkof, he was the head of the He was the guy who actually like ran the Desert Storm campaign. Yes, he said that the dead iraqis quote warn't worth counting and among like casualties of war and that quote, I want

every Iraqi soldier bleeding from every orifice. Yeah, it's uh, I mean, you know, Schwartzkof was a guy who fought in Vietnam and took the loss hard, and I think he a big part of why, big part of what was going on with Desert Storm was a desire to quote unquote reclaim like our military pride by beating the ship out of a smaller country. Um, which is not to say that like I don't believe there was Like Iraq had invaded a neighbor and occupied it. That's bad,

something should have been done. But the whole, the whole like masturbatory. I want all of their fucking conscript soldiers, these like teenage kids to die. Is is like sick lunacy, as was the masturbation over the anywhere whatever. We don't need to talk about the Gulf War here. He was anyway, he was. He also received a knighthood after all of that stuff, which is fun. Also, Elizabeth gave a knighthood to Colin Powell, Um, who facilitated, covered up, and justified

many US war crimes in Vietnam. Hey hey, Garrison facilitated cover ups. Yes, yeah, most famously my Lie. Yes, the my Lie massacre is the biggest thing that he was that he was involved in. There were others. He also like that guy. I think he's like like the thing. I think it'sportant. He is probably the one person on earth in the Bush administration who could have stopped the Iraq war if he wanted to and he didn't like he he he knew that it was all bullshit, and

he's like, nah, fuck it, let's do this. I'm gonna go lie to the U N. Quoting Powell, we burned down the thatched huts, starting the blaze with ronson and zippo lighters. Why were we torching houses and destroying crops? Ho Chi Ming said that his people were like the sea in which guerrillas swarm. We tried to solve the problem by making the whole sea uninhabitable. In the hard logic of war, what difference does it make if you shot your enemy or starved him to death? So anyway,

best night, night night, Colin Powell. So true, So true, Buddy um probably the least problematic person among this list. In the Queen approved on an airing right hood to a former U. S Secretary of State. Uh with Henry kiss kiss Ainger Kissing Kissinger. Yeah, he was. He was just kind of a functionary, very not not a big deal. We should probably, I think, I think that's how it's pronounced.

He was. He was appointed an Honoring Night Commander in the Most Distinguished Order of St. Michael and St. George. This is Christ's so funny. We must applaud the British for for for for honoring the most popular American in China. It's a very progressive decision for her. Yes Kissinger. Uh, I think a few of Kissinger's assistants also got unknighted. Uh Brent Scrollcroft scout Croft scout Croft, Um, he got he got knighted. Uh. I think people from the Iron

contra drugs and arms affair stuff got knighted. H. There was a lot of like war criminal dudes got knighted in this in this like late nineties period. I wonder what was going on there also, Uh, j Edgar Hoover was was was knighted of, which is pretty funny. And then uh the the economic uh financier who endorsed uh really bad derivatives to make the housing bubble kind of blow up. Alan Greenspan another American. Oh he also green Span Like he's a horrible person. That that man, that

man has killed more people than most generals. Like he has Oh boy, yeah he is. He is pretty bad. Um. I think I think we can do an ad break and then James is going to join us again. Uh to finish up by talking about Ireland and Kenya. Um, because there's a lot of stuff in Ireland and Kenya. So anyway, do you know who won't receive a knighthood by Queen Elizabeth? That's these products and services Because I was going to say Queen Elizabeth because she's too dead

to take that's a joke. She can't give them a nighthead because she's dead. Here's the adds, very funny. Ah, we're back, and you know I need to keep the audience informed about important network business for cool Zone, so

I want to let you all know that. As he was coming back from getting his shot, James texted us, all, Okay, I'll be on in one sex and there's a lot of jokes that we could make about that as as a network, and I'm not going to make them, but I'm gonna urge you to make them yourself in your own heart and head and then tweet them to James. James is at, James is At, I write okay on Twitter, that's my Twitter handle. I wrote, okay, you can see a picture of me. That's anyway. Uh So we're not

gonna talk about mainly me. Two places where British colonialism and imperialism had devastating effects under Queen Elizabeth and a few a few uh, pretty pretty evil people that that Elizabeth then also united. Uh who were doing who were like directly doing this British colonialism. Uh, let's talk about Kenya a little bit. So during the nineteen fifties, British tried to get control of lands in Kenya that they that they had violently. They were trying to trying to

keep keep control of land that they had previously stolen. Um. Native Kenyans fought back in the Mau Mau uprising. Now has we've historians Historians have documented widespread torture by British forces, including crushing of testicles with pliers um and the internment of up to three d and twenty thousand people in concentration camps where they then endured slavery, starvation, murder and rape,

rape with blunt objects. Um. Meanwhile, one point five lean Kenyans were confined to a network of detention camps and heavily patrolled villages, as documented by a historian Caroline Elkins in her Pulitzer wise winning Britain's gulog. So this this, this was all overseen by the Queen as the head of state and by the way, she was thirty one. At this point, you don't you don't get to say, well, she just come and you know, I was just listening

to her advisors. At thirty one years old. You are young, but you are old enough to not be complicit in a genocide. Yeah, especially when you're the head of state. Like, come on, as the Queen of England, she had some leverage. She is not like, oh, you came at you worked, You were a tax collector in fucking South fucking Shire, England, and you happened to be in doing that job when

the Mau Mau we're being suppressed. No, no, no, she was and she she she knew about stuff was going on, was heavily involved because she was giving out like she was working with people who were doing the like, agreed

to things um. According to Kenya's biggest newspaper, The Daily Nation, a British policeman named Ian Henderson was known in Kenya as the torturer in chief and was the kind of the the guy behind preparing a whole bunch of bogus evidence in the nineteen fifty three trial where six leading Mao Mao Uprising figures were convicted UM, including the future first president of independent Kenya now Queenlis but the second honored Ian Henderson again the Torturer in Chief, with the

George Medal, Britain's highest civilian award, in September of nineteen fifty four for his work in Kenya. Because this is important, Like he wasn't military, he was just a policeman, which is why he gets a civilian award. Um. But like she knew what was going on was giving out individual police officers awards for their roles in crushing the crushing these uh independent uprisings. You know who never would have

done that is supposed of the second absolute clown. I I do not know enough of the second I don't know how he acquired one thousand grandchildren. I'm not look to be fair, there's probably some shady ship and so boost of the seconds rain. But the main thing he was known for was taking back control of Swaziland's indigenous industries, being a good neighbor to the other African countries once they gained their independence, and of course exporting a shipload

of asbestos. So and any any other notes on on Kenya. Yeah, so just before I do want to like just briefly raised that, like elkins um it was that was a very unconventional and a very good book for young academic and she deserved a credit for writing it. In the process of writing that book and then trying to write her second book, obviously she dealt with a lot of backlash from rank her first book, she uncovered that Britain had hidden, classified, destroyed and refused to disclose a mountain

of records about its colonial crimes in Kenya. And this is like an ongoing issue that goes on into the twenty teams that there were public records court cases about this. And it's so like we we can see that, like it's wrong to say that this is like a just a relic of another era, Right, Britain is has continued into this era. Like the ideology of the government from them to now is actually indistinguishable. Right, it's it's near liberal conservatives. They have continued to hide rather than face

justice for these crimes. Right, rather than say sorry, rather than say what we did was wrong, they've tried to cover up this ship. And like we we need to remember that when we talk about like this is not a crime of the past, these are ongoing acts of genocide. And genocide denial that we keep doing. Yeah, as you mention, so I think we're talking on Operation Legacy als. Also there are a bunch of different instances of the British

government like destroying other records. One of the other fun things they were covered they seen to have and cover ing up and we don't we don't know exactly what was in those records because again they were just like they were destroyed. Um. But one of the other things that was in this record is about a second time that that the UK put a bunch of people in concentration camps while Queen Elizabeth was president, which was they did this. They also did this in Malaysia. They put

a million president. They did this. They did this in a film. Sorry she was while she was clown president, which is to say, just to say, Queen, we're gonna actually be talking about Malaysia in justice sac that was an emergency on awards. Yeah, so so uh Ian Henderson, the torture in chief who received this award obviously had to leave Kenya shortly after the fifties because things happened, um and then he got he got moved to Bahrain um and during a wave of pro independence revolts in Bahrain.

In nineteen eight, h Henderson was appointed the head of the Secret Police and served as so until um and over the course of his tenure he became known as the Butcher of Bahrain, quoting the Guardian quote. During his time, his men allegedly detained and tortured thousands of anti government activists. Their activities are said to have included the ransacking of villages, sadistic sexual abuse, and using power drills to name prisoners.

On many accasions, there have said to detain children without informing their parents, only to return them months later in body bags unquote. Yeah, and and the Barraine stuff. It's also worth mentioning like that never stopped like no, I mean it stopped being him in charge, but like like

it only stopped him being in charge. Yeah, yeah, And and like in two thousand eleven there's another revolution against like the Bahraini barony like monarchy, and I mean it ended essentially with the Saudia's role tanks across the border. But one of the things that happened was that the British helped like the Bahraini government like hunt down dissidence. I just busted out my lecture on this hand slot park stuff. If we want to talk more about there

were fifteen miles of files that they found hidden. I mean this that was That was also the case in Ireland, which we're going to talk about later, the odd file. I lose emails all the time. That's similar to fifteen miles of paperwork. So in nineteen four, Ian Henderson was awarded by Queen Elizabeth with a CBE for services to British interests in Bahrain and uh he also received a knighthood in the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire. So this this was after he was already known as

the Butcher of Bahrain. This this is this, he's well into his tenure. He is torturing children, killing them, kidnapping them, maiming people. And that's when he gets knighthooded uh for his services to the British interests in Bahrain. UM. So yeah, that that's Ian Henderson. UM. Now. During Henderson's time in Kenya, UH, he was just a part of the small team that was developing a new form of counterinsurgency pseudo gangster tactics,

UH kind of weaponizing like gang gang warfare for British interests. UH. The other person who was kind of running this operation was an Englishman named Frank Kinson. Um so he in uh he was also serving in Kenya UM and then on New Year's in nineteen fifty five, Kinson was awarded the British Military Cross in recognition of galleant and distinguished services in Kenya UM and three years later he gained a bar to that battle for his work in the

UH Malaysian emergency quote unquote. So during Britain's brutal rule brutal war in Malaysia, um he he he played he played a part in the con tration camps which Chris mentioned. The process was known as vigilization as they forced people into these concentration camps all over the course of a famine. And they were invading Glasia to fund Britain's kind of post war reconstruction. Uh so he he was in Kenya Malaysia.

He also went to Bahrain, just like Henderson did. He went to Yemen, Aiden and Cyprus, all places where the British state is uh known for doing the widespread use of torture. Um and then he went to North He went to Northern Ireland. Uh in not shocking turn of events, um he then was the professional head of the British

Army during the Iraq War. Described Kinson as quote the sun around which the planets revolved, saying that quote he very much set the tone for the operational style in Belfast um the budd the notorious military Reaction Force the m r F, which was accused of being behind a string of illegal shootings of Catholic teenagers in the early seventies, was based at Kitson's headquarters outside Belfast, and one of the units under his command was nicknamed Kitson's Private Army UH.

Its official name was one Pea. And these were the people that did bloody Sunday um So in nineteen seventy two in Dairy, fifteen thousand people gathered outside to protest against detention without trial. At ten past four, British paratroopers opened fire. Twenty eight people were shot, some in the back as they fled. Fourteen people were killed, seven of whom were teenagers, and it was Kitson's Private Army who fired all one d and eight shots UH in Dairy

during winter of nineteen seventy two UH. One of the victims are the first teenager UH named Kevin. Seventeen years old he was shot from behind while trying to crawl to safety. Um. Yeah, anyway, Murphy massacre was at the same time as well. Like it's worth, people like these are very well documented things, so people that people can read about that we don't need to describe the detail.

But so England in England Bad Elizabeth Queen. In nineteen seventy two, frank Kinson was knighted again same same year as the massacre, was knighted by the Queen for Galley into distinguished service in Northern Ireland and was promoted to Commander of the Order of the British Empire UM. A few years later he became a major general and the quote night Commander of the Order of the Bath again

what is it? What is it? Is nice that he and former head of the CIA, George H. W. Bush got to hang out in their fancy club though these people are so fucked up. So later later Kitson serned as Commander in Chief of the UK Land Forces from nineteen eighty two to nineteen eighty five and was the Aide the Look was the Aide de camp general to Queen Elizabeth direct directly to Queen Elizabeth from nineteen eighty three to nineteen eighty five. So yeah, that's uh, that's fun.

It's worth noting that the Order of the Bath is like a I believe that some of those other honors, that queen's honors that you've talked about, like I was selected by committee your pressper government. I'm not quite sure. The Order of the Bath is supposed to be like the personal the Queen's like specific selection. Yeah, yeah, and the sovereign is head of the Order of the Bath like it's like yours. It's the big it's the big

diamond shape mail. You're tortured so dreadfully well, I'd love to give you this fancy award for jamming screwdrivers into children turning the ball. Who do you do? Go off to go breed another coal. That's the ghost of the queen you have promised you at the start of the episode. So through throughout the two thousands, Kinson remained a key advisor on U S military strategy during the wars in

Iraq and Afghanistan. There it's much that the US has done which is also wore crimes in torture in those wars. And we should also mention, Okay, there's there's a thing you'll get from insurgency nerds who were talking about the Mala like emergency quote unquote is like the one successful kind of insurgency, and that's just not true. Like they

started again after they stopped in seconds. You can tell how well this went by the fact that that guy also was helping the U. S do a rock and Afghanistan and the only thing he's ever managed to accomplish is killing an enormous number of people. He doesn't it was just that he had dubs there. Yeah, he was

in all those countries. He was heavily involved in Aiden and Yemen, which led to two thousand deaths between nineteen sixty two and nineteen seventy UM and and today British armies still continue the same This this the same process of of overseeing the bombing of Yemen. Um. So it's this isn't like me. There's definitely no one that US is innocent of. Just oh no, we're the ones arming h We need to Saudi coalition whatever you wanna call it.

That's murdering people in Yemen. But I think doesn't have the capacity to to make as many bombs as the US is standing to Yemen. I would doubt. But all of these processes and all of these people are still continuing the same colonialism and the same yes, all of the same oppression. Like this isn't like this isn't like the past. It's it's an ongoing thing that the monarchy awards and perpetuates. They've had to downsize it a little bit because you know, it just doesn't work as well

as it used to. And so the thing they decided to do to downsize it was stopped paying off the populace um and just start policing them harder. And but but the money has kept flowing to the royals. Yes, yeah, So anyway, in the Malay emergency, that Britain did pioneer the use of agent orange. So that's another gift that we've given to the people of the United States. Ah well, thank you James for that. Yeah, welcome anytime. It's that. It's t Cosey's with the Queen on It's stuff coolgies.

You know. I wanna suggest if you are looking for a way to properly mourn Queen Elizabeth Um, maybe check out the film Churchill The Hollywood Years, a truly exceptional movie. If you just type it into Google and look around

on YouTube you can find a full copy of it. Um. It features Christian Slater as Winston Churchill and Nev Campbell as the recently deceased Queen UM and I don't know who it is that they got to play her father, the former king, but he's he's basically a portrayed as like a drunk and also like every time there's a big fancy party, he's just constantly staring at everyone's drinks because he's angry that they're drinking is champagne because he's

a big fucking uh spinthrift. Very funny, very good send up of the royal family. Um. Also, Heinrich Himler condu it's a Satanic wedding and by replacing a crucifix with a chicken, it's It's a good movie watch in real life, just like in real life. I'll also recommend you check out the book Royal Babylon. I was able to get it a free copy online through great methods. Um So anyway, yeah that if you want a nice, like poetic history of how the queen is sucked up and the monarchy sucks,

Royal Babylon is a nice easy read. Did you get into the balls lion sisters as well. Did you do that? Now? These two people who were disabled, they are the Queen's cousins. They the royal family basically announced they were dead, but they weren't dead. And they lived in an institutional home for I think it was it was called the Royal Earth word Institution for Mental Defectives. Great. They lived there more or less anonymously, completely discerned by the family on

a very small stipend until they died. And that is not a nice way to treat your cousins. Well, yeah, it's only sentence my opinion that monarchy is bad, bad something about FUCO and boomerangs and colonialism. Abolish the monarchy. It's always okay to celebrate the death of a king or queen. Um, doesn't matter who they are, doesn't matter how it happens. Um, it's bad for the concept of monarchy is the only thing more toxic than the concept of inherited wealth. Um. And both are deeply tied to

each other. Uh. Fuck the Queen and fun all of her relatives, except for the ones who give up their their positions in power. Those people are are cool. Yeah, don't turn police people whose parents were killed by colonial regimes on Yeah yeah, and over overthrow the government of Britain. Yeah. Look, we always this podcast from the beginning has been directly

in favor of an insurrection against the crown. The one thing that you do have to hand it to the for is seeing Liz Trust as Prime Minister and immediately dying, which is an appropriate response. I commute ritual suicide. And you know again, King Sebuto the second did destroy democracy in Swaziland, but then he replaced it with something that kind of sounds like democracy. And that's more than Queen

Elizabeth did. We just started at point B something that kind of sounds I know, I know what King, I'm gonna stand in the future. All right, but well that's a T shirt I'll be getting you for Christmas. Thank you, short short lived King Charles the Third. Hey, We'll be back Monday with more episodes every week from now until the heat death of the universe. It could happen here

as 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.