It Could Happen Here Weekly 53

happen here, a podcast about things falling apart. This week we have an episode that is in the vein of what my co host Garrison Davis and I like to call Here's a problem, goodbye episodes. UH. And the problem is that there has been a massive and as far as I can tell, unprecedented wave of swatting incidents against public schools and multiple states over the last couple of weeks. UH. And here with me to talk about that is the person who noticed it first, UH, anti fascist researcher UH

and community meeting note taker Molly Conjure. Molly, you are socialist dog Mom on Twitter, where you are a sensation with your delightful little pups um and also one of the best researchers that I know in the biz. Welcome to the show. Great to be here. So yeah, you want to start. Yeah. So this has been going on, I guess for two weeks. There's been this wave of swattings against schools across the country. UM, and I didn't notice it until it happened here. Um. We had to

restart this so many times. I feel like it's great though, you should because it happened here. I love it. We can say the name of the show and we finally get to do it. Yeah, but you know, you know, my attention is primarily local. So on Monday, when every cop in the region was dispatched to Charlttesville High School because there was a false report of an active shooter inside the school, Um, it was quickly determined to be a squatting right, so they dispatched everybody. They locked the

school down, they cleared the classrooms with guns. You know, kids reported being terrified of you know, because it was happy to them. They were just enjoying, you know, an afternoon in high school and all of a sudden, there's a man with a rifle in their classroom. Um, And it was quickly determined to have been a squatting, and I was listening over the scanner and by the time they were clearing the scene, that's what they were calling it.

So the police identified it as a swatting, like through over the Yeah, and I think that may have they may have arrived at that conclusion more quickly because a

dozen other districts had it at the same time. So across the state of Virginia, UM districts you know, from Hampton Roads to Arlington, Culpepper, Lynchburg, like tiny towns in Shenandoah County, like a town with four thousand people down you know, in the southern part of the state, we're hit almost exactly the same time with these hoax calls about you know, I gotta get somebody down to the school because there's somebody with a gun. Good lord. It's

so you know, it happened all over the place. All of these schools were quickly cleared. No one was hurt, thank god. UM. But as we think, you know, as the news was coming in, I was picking, you know, picking through trying to find the districts where this was happening. And I was pulling up these news articles and it wasn't just us, and it wasn't just that day, so it's I think the earliest I can find in this rash was what is that two weeks ago in Texas?

A bunch of districts in Texas were hit. Uh And the one in Houston I think is particularly grim because the caller, the caller said, you know, oh, ten students have already been shot there in the classroom. It's two guys with a rs and they gave this is one of the one of the ones that the best described in the media is that the caller gave a description

of the two shooters. And that's what scares me, right, is that the cops show up with a description in mind, they're going to act with extreme prejudice if they see someone who fits that description. There's a Hispanic guy in the parking lot that you know, it could be a risk. Well, and that's that's the first one. Like when I shared your early posts on this, people from Houston started showing up and saying like, hey, you know, we had something like this hit a couple of weeks go, and it

sounds like it's the same thing. And these are I mean, like number one, the scale of this, it feels unlikely that at some level. I know there's there's certainly possible, an extreme likelihood that some of these are copycats, some of these are people falling in. But the sheer number of them makes it seems it's hard to believe that this would all be unrelated, all of these calls would

be unrelated to each other. I think, you know, I don't know what the background level of normal slottings is, right like, I'm sure to a certain degree this is happening somewhere all the time. You know, people are saying, oh, it's just kids who don't want to take tests. Yeah,

fifteen schools in Minnesota where hit simultaneously yesterday. This isn't kids who don't want to take that right simultaneously, so many schools, And it's there is a point there, which is, you know, because people when I started sharing this and stuff,

people like, well, what are we supposed to do? And the first thing that occurs to me is actually not a preventative measure, but is purely just like, well, we should probably have some sort of least at a state level system in every state for letting people know how many fake swatting attempts agat schools are happening, How many like false reports of mass shootings at schools occur like it would be because otherwise we can't tell if this

is rising above the level of background. I think it's clear this is because neither of us can think of a time when there were this many in such a short period of time. But dozens a day, dozens a day, there should be some method of keeping track of that because it is. I thought, that's a lesson of nine

eleven rights that don't have inter agency communication. Like you know, on Monday, when it was hitting all these schools in Virginia, some of the early reports were, you know, quotes from local authorities saying we talked to the state police and this happened to to other people. It's like, well, I've already found ten other reports. Did the state police know about these? Yeah? And it's it's this is um. Obviously none of this is as bad as a single actual

mass shooting at a school. But this isn't like nothing either. It's not like you you file a false report about, I don't know, a break in and the cops drive around a neighborhood for a while, like this is kids getting guns pointed in their faces. This is children thinking that like their friends have been massacred. This is like parents thinking their kids might be dead. This is this. This is an act of violence, like doing this as an act of violence and it ripples. Right, the effects

of this are are compound and unfathomable. You know, I heard from friends in the community saying, you know, I got a text from my thirteen year old son saying, I don't know what's happening, but I love you. And even if, even if you know, thirty minutes later, the dangerous passed and everyone knows it was a false alarm. For that thirty minutes, those parents thought, I thought that their kids weren't going to come home. And you know,

it's a background fear the parents have every day. When they said that, but that's the text no parent wants to get right. You know, before we lost the recording earlier, I was telling you about a a surgeon here in Charletsville. She's a surgeon at EBA Hospital. So the hospital was alerted about a possible mass casualty incident so they could prepare their their operating rooms and swimming gets the mass casualty incident alert as she's scrubbing in for a scheduled surgery.

So she has to walk into that, She has to walk into that o R without her phone knowing that her child's school, to her knowledge in that moment, has a mass shooter inside of it. And so she doesn't know if when she walks out of that o R are her children going to be in there. That's horrific. That's horrific. And also like that could get somebody killed. And this is nothing care. It would not be surprising if she was less able to properly provide care in

that situation. That's just being a person. Um. So this is serious, very serious, and it um So yesterday a rash of them hit Minnesota, and some locals in Minnesota were saying that so one of the schools that was hit was East main Cato High School the day before, so the day before yesterday that at that high school, a student at that high school attempted suicide with a firearm in the parking lot. So kids came back to

school the day after this. You know, the students survived in his hospitalized, but you know they're coming to school hopefully to you know, access counseling resources and deal with the fact that one of their classmates shot himself in the parking lot and suddenly they're sheltering in place and there's cops with guns. Just there's a baseline reality for these students every day that gun violence is present, and this is just cruel to them. One of the things

that surprises me. We you and I you started what was it four days ago now, kind of reporting this on your Twitter, which is where you do. You're reporting on local news and the anti fascist reporting as well. Um, and so I started sharing your stuff and I we started chatting about doing an episode. And my suspicion, the thing I was expecting was that like, well, we'll probably get scooped on this, right, Like there's probably like vice or somebody is going to put out something because there's

just there's too damn many of these. Um it's Thursday now, the started Monday. I still haven't seen any coverage of this as a as a wave of swattings, and I'm kind of surprised by at there's a few, Like you know, regionally, people are putting together and doing these little quick hits about like, oh, this happened in a dozen districts in

our state. Yeah, but I'm not I'm not seeing anyone connect the dots nationally, and you know, and some of these local stories are saying the local authorities are talking to the FBI, but I don't know that there's a cohesive nationwide investigation into this as as a phenomenon. Regionally, there is some indication that, like these calls are connected. So I saw an article that just came out an hour ago in Minnesota that all of the Minnesota calls

came from the same IP address. Ah, So this that's I mean, that's what that's the proof we're looking for though, that's the evidence we're looking for that, like there's a significant degree degree to which this stuff is is coordinated. And when I because this is something that since you started talking about it, every researcher I know who covers extremism has been talking about at least a little bit

in like private conversation signal loops. And the thing that keeps coming up is like, is there some ship on Kiwi farms? Is there some ship on four chance? Is there some ship on like these these little spaces. I haven't seen anything nothing, So yeah, and you know, to some degree there is the possibility of social contagion, right, Like I found a few stories that don't fit the pattern. Specific cases like yesterday in Roanoke, a fourteen year old

girl was arrested for making one of these threats. She didn't make all of them, she made this one. Did she do this with what she inspired to do? So? Because of this? Was it unrelated? It's hard to say. So this at some point, even if it did originate in one incubator, it breaks containment. And I'm I am certain that's part of the intent, right, Like when you do the benefit of if you're thinking about because again,

we don't know who did this. We don't know what kind of ideology or whatever or why was behind it, but we know that a significant number of them like occurred from a single source, which means like something coordinated was happening at some stage of this. That's a reasonable conclusion to draw from the extent information um And I think it's just pure psychic terrorism, right because my first thought on Monday was, is this someone testing the fences?

Is this someone timing response times? Is someone watching local news coverage to see what kind of equipment the police have? That doesn't make sense at this scale. This isn't how you would do that, because this is going to draw too much attention, right, and like, why would you want to know the you know, the police capabilities in Emporia, Virginia, which is just like three truck stops in high school. No offense to the beautiful town of Emporia of Virginia.

It is Virginia's greatest speed trap. God bless them. Yeah, but like that, that theory immediately fell by the wayside for me because it doesn't make sense. But it is interesting. So I've been, you know, trying to compile follow ups on some of these reports because the initial reporting is vague and people use nine one one as shorthand sol They'll say a nine one one call, But was it

actually a nine one one call? Because that makes a huge difference here dialing nine one one is you know, I'm not a genius about how technology works, but if I done INLINEE one here of my living room, it hits my closest emergency communications center, right, it's my local nine one one. If these calls are being made from out of state, it takes a high degree of technical

ability to hit a dispatch center where you aren't. Yeah, right, so we know we're not dealing with someone who is capable of that Alternatively, we know perhaps that this person knows that making a false nine one one call is a separately prosecutable crime. Right, So like the articles that are specific will say that the call came in directly to police dispatch, or the call came in to the

front desk at the sheriff's office. So these people know well enough how to contact the you know, the front desk at the police department and the name of a school that's nearby right there. It's not it's not so vague as as to just be dialing random police stations and saying go to the high school. And that also again, because we we've just mentioned, I haven't seen any evidence of this in the places you would expect if this

was the way. It's a lot of these docks in campaigns have gone the way a lot of Kiwi farm stuff goes the way a lot of swatting happens, where like you have a shipload of people openly talking about and talking about bad things happening to a targeted person,

and then some of those people do swattings. Right, there's no evidence of that, And the way in which it seems like the bulk of these have gone doesn't seem like the way it would happen if you were just kind of targeting someone in a public area and hoping

that enough people made the decision independently to make these calls. Um. There's my other thought too, that you know, it's sort of a limpse of TikTok phenomenon, like they're targeting schools with you know, woke policies, CRT gender including they're not I mean, they get Lynchburg, Virginia, which is Jerry Folwell country. There's no demographic or political consistency to the district's being targeted well, and the right hasn't picked this up at all.

I haven't seen any kind of like very no one, very few people seem to have at this point. So this is just such a h if I were, if I were to guess where this is going down, it's some some sort of communications platform where people have a degree of privacy. Um. And I don't know, if it's not testing the fences, which at this point it seems too widespread to be, then it may just be kind

of pure. I mean, one thing that occurs to me is just like there's the pure accelerationist of value of of setting up this wave and hoping that that the copycat effect will just keep it going for a significant period of time, of shutting down dozens of schools around the country, of traumatizing kids, of continually making those schools

roll the dice. Because anytime you have a cop with an a R bust into a fucking school, hyped up thinking there's a shooting, there's a chance someone's going to get shot, right, So there's and that's that's I mean, there have been deaths from swattings, and that was that was But so it happened here two days in a row on Tuesday, happened in our middle school. And so like the second time they responded, they didn't respond. Is

hot and heavy. Uh. Yeah, anytime you get you know, cops charging into a scenario where they think they might get to or have to, depending on how you feel about it, use their guns, the risk of someone being shot by accident is pastronomical. Yeah, And I honestly, I'm kind of shocked that has it happened, especially in the cases where you know, the caller gives a specific suspect description that you know puts anybody who vaguely meets that description at great risk. But I think this is just

you know, joker mode nihilism. Yeah, that's that is if I were to like make a raw irresponsible like public guests. Um, not that I don't think this is actually that irresponsible, but like we just don't know. But that's that's what this that's the the mo this fits best so far is kind of raw. I want to disrupt the system, I want to scare people, and I want to do

so in a way. That's the problem with a mass shooting from the perspect of someone like this is that you're gonna die or get arrested doing it, right, That's the way all of them end, And so that limits the number of people who are going to be inspired

to carry out a mass shooting. If you can show that, yeah, people can can call in dozens of these fake reports and some of them you know, we're going to end violently, Uh, then maybe a bunch more people are willing to do that, and the overall level of disruption and chaos that you cause is substantially higher. Right, So it's a relatively low threshold for involvement. Right, you don't have to be ready

to die and maybe you won't get caught. Although I think because especially in the Minnesota case, they're going to catch somebody. Governor Tim Waltz's son goes to man Cato High School. No, I mean you you you upset the governor's son, You're gonna get Yeah, and you did it all from a single like and I have to suspect

the FBI is looking at this. They never I mean, it's policy, they're never going to confirm that until the point at which like it becomes there's it's a big enough story that they kind of have to for pr reasons. But I would be surprised if there was not an investigation at the moment. Every couple of days when one of these regional stories comes out, you know, they'll quote the local FBI field officing, you know, we're working with local authorities to help them investigate. But the FBI is

absolutely investigating this nationwide. There's no chance that they're not. Yeah, it's it's too it's too clear of a pattern. And it's not unprecedented, right that a couple of years ago there was that Adam Often swatting ring that those guys did go to prison for. So it doesn't have to be a lot of guys. This could just be a couple of people. So you know, we're saying we're not seeing this leak out anywhere. It's not being disgust anywhere. It could just be you know, three or four guys.

It could be for four people in a discord with some like auto dialing apps that they've they've either coded, are found somewhere on the internet. Um, which if they if they are using some sort of like program to do this, that's meant for I don't know, sketchy uh salesman or whatever, there's a decent chance that's what brings them down, um because all of that ship has terrible security, but um so does discord. I don't know, Like I,

it'll be interesting to see what happens here. I think one of the questions for from the perspective certainly of like people listening, what can be done here? Well, at a local level, one thing people can fight for and advocate for specialty, especially if you're involved in local government, is like I would like to know every year how many times the police go to a school over a false report of a shooting? Right? How many times are classrooms being cleared? How many times are the cops showing

up for this? Um? Because that's important information and and that also should taylor the way the police are being trained for this and the ways like the there's a number of things that you should be doing. If you know, hey, we had no mass shootings this year, but the cops showed up with guns drawn forty five times, right, that that should inform the way you do things in the future in order to minimize the trauma these kids go through. That's one thing that is an immediate thing people can

take and that you can do. People can add the cat for locally. But it's I mean, it's a tough line here, right because you know, I think every district is really eager not to be the next Ubal Day police of course, so showing up hot and heavy, they're going right in there, you knocking down doors and pointing guns and kids. You know that the video that came out from that classroom in Houston, they frisked several children

at gunpoint. I'm not sure why that they were sitting at their desks, they were obviously not committing a mass shooting. Or in Denver on Monday, they evacuated the whole school onto the football field with their hands in the air, like was not necessarily horror, right, and you know, even even as a police abolitionist and recognize that in the system in which we currently live, there is no response to a school shooting that does not involve the police.

That's right where we are. But are they Are they doing this smart? Yeah? As a as a rule, I think everyone can agree that, given the current realities of the world we live in, if a guy is shooting up a school or a lady, um, it's good for people with guns to come and stop them, and that that's realistically going to be the police in our current system.

But that doesn't mean we can't be like, well, okay, they came up fifty times falsely and traumatized all these kids by pointing guns at them on the fucking football field. We should change the way in which they're responding to

these like that should be the default. These are things people can lobby for at a local level that will have an impact on at least the quality of life for kids in the schools and for parents you know, like you know you all day there was the parent who you know slipped around the police line and got into the school and got her kid yesterday, no, two days, two days ago, in San Antonio, they had a you know,

a hoax call. Somebody called in swatch showed up, uh, and parents showed up because they got the emergency alert text. So the parking lot fills with parents. A father punched through a window, cut his arm up, and was hand looked, tackled, and handcuffed by the police because I just wanted this fucking kid. Of course this is going to keep playing out or here on Tuesday at the middle school, you know,

I was listening to my scanner. After the you know, the cleared buildings, the police left, and then a call came over the scanner and said, the school's requesting that the police come back to handle the parents because parents are angry. Of course they are. So how do we how do we navigate this tension of yes, we need police to respond if there is a school shooting, But how do we as community communities navigate this space where we also don't want them to point guns at our kids.

We don't we don't have a lot of trust and communication with our police department. So I don't know if that's a space we can navigate. This is a problem that has to be adapted to. Right there is the potential. You have this problem, right, which is that it is apparently easy to weaponize the reporting system for mass shootings. The problem that's compounded by the fact that you can't ignore the risk of a mass shooting because kids can die, people will get killed if you are wrong about that.

At the same time, it is unreasonable to say that every single time one of these reports happens, if the ratio is hundreds of false reports to one actual shooting, every time it happens, you go and you stick guns in the face of a bunch of kids, and you trauma to as all these parents who wind up going

crazy for understandable reasons. There are a way, there are structures that can be built into the system to mitigate those harms at least, and I think that is, you know, from the perspective of who is doing this and how can they be stopped? That is a question that will be answered either by law enforcement or by independent researchers. But but that's that's a research problem, right, That's a cracking case problem. My fear is that the response to

this will be um putting more cops in schools. Right, it's you know, the company school doesn't stop the school shooting. We know that from you know, empirical evidence, or maybe in several of these cases, you know the news story says, you know, dispatch contact of the school resource officers who said, no,

I don't see anything. So is the solution going to be put a guy in there who can look Yeah, and he's not gonna do anything, but he's gonna Charlottsville, the city of Charlesville took ours, took school resource officers out of schools last year, two years ago. Time scaped now. So my my fear is that even people who a plauded that decision will at this point say, maybe we should put them back. Maybe we need a guy in there with a direct line to dispatch. Yeah, and I

and maybe we do. I don't don't think they need to have It needs to be a man with a gun who has the ability to arrest children, right having having a first responder on scene at every school who can be the yes, there actually is a shooting or no there's not. Maybe a se medical training is perhaps a different thing that could happen, rather than let's put more armed men in schools. Right like that. That's not

an inherently unreasonable proposition, but I don't know. I don't know that police are going to be receptive to the idea of let's ask some questions first, right, because as I was listening to the scanner again, you know, I have the most information about the two incidents is that were in my neighborhood. Um, I was listening to the scanner on Tuesday, and it takes time for cops to arrive at a scene, even in a relatively small town.

By the time they had dispatched this response to the scene, they had already spoken to the principle over the phone. They already knew this was not true. We'll see. And there's another solve problem because if you're if you're having guys with guns still show up because it's policy. When someone at the school has said no, there's not a shooting, well that's again, that is a problem that can be

altered or that can be fixed to mitigate harm. That seems pretty simple, which is be like, well, maybe if somebody at this, maybe if the school's principle says no, nothing is happening here, you don't send the gun guys. Maybe you still send a squad car to check it out for die hard purposes. I'm sure, we all remember what that movie has to say about these kinds of problems.

But um, you know, I I there's a lot that can be done with the information that this is a problem, And to a certain extent, I think I'm hopeful that once this kind of blows up, and I'm certain this well, I'm certain that maybe even by the time this launches, there will be some big national stories about this, because this is this is a really substantial problem. Very obviously

is a substantial problem. Um. I hope that one of the things that does is perhaps lead to the authorities taking swatting and threats of swatting and communities that engage in swatting much more seriously, because by god, they have not so far, and it's not the laws about it are not super consistent state to state that you know, there has been some attempts on the federal level to make you know, blanket legislation about this specific because you know,

it's it's illegal to make a false report to the police, it's illegal to make you know, a false nine one one call, but to specifically and intentionally weaponize an armed police response because you hope it will hurt someone. In most states, isn't its own crime, right, Like, and I think in California they have specific legislation that, like you can be charred, like financially responsible for whatever it costs to have that response. But like, there's not uniform agreement

that this is a separate crime. This is a separate harm that should be punished in a specific way. And maybe maybe we'll get that out of this. I don't know that that solves it, but again it will Like you were saying that this is a lower barrier to entry cry, but if you up the punishment, maybe the threshold to decide to do it goes up. Yeah. Yeah, Again, I think there's there's a variety of things that can be done now that we know this is a problem.

And one of the reasons why I think this is important for us to cover on a show like this is a lot of these are problems that can at

least be mitigated at the local level. Right, You do have power if you're involving yourself in local politics to do things like advocate for a system in which you track how often this is happening, to do things like advocate for changes in how the school handles this sort of thing like that is a thing that you that people can handle locally, um, and that is you'll get a faster response handling it locally as well than you will trying to advocate for some sort of big national

swatting law and you're gonna get You're going to get faster and better results changing local departmental policy than you will getting any law that changes how the police be highly unlikely. Yeah, and so I I think this is important.

I think it's important for people to win gauge with this from the perspective of, like, we don't know why this is happening or who is doing it yet, and it maybe a while before I'm certain we will find out at some point these people will get caught, but um, it almost doesn't matter because the system is so easy to weaponize. The solution is to try to find ways to make it less harmful without reducing the ability of people with guns to show up if they need to

to stop someone who's murdering kids. Right, those are the two things that need to be done, not reduced the efficacy of the system, which is not very good to be honest at stopping mass shootings. And and it's pissport at that. So it would be hard to make it worse. I will say when people talk about, well, what happens if they well, they're bad at it now. They're terrible

at it now. So it's not like I'm not worried about making a change to like mitigate the response of swattings, in this instance, harming kids, because as it is, the system almost never saves them when there is an actual mass shooting. So simple reducing the amount of time that kids have cops pull guns on them and these false reports, Um,

that's more of a priority to me than anything else. Um. Yeah, when when we're talking about the issue of swatting, and I think there again, there's just there's things that can be done there Molly, is there anything else you wanted to get to on this on this subject? No, I think that covers it. I just this is still happening. It's happening today like it's it is still ongoing. This phenomenon is ongoing, and I think it will continue to

build until it hits a breaking point. Like you said, I definitely think some of these people will be caught, but I don't know what that changes, right, Like, once this breaks containment, once people see that this is a thing that they could do. Yeah, yeah, do we do we deal with a wave of this before it gets under control that gets even bigger or is that what's actually happening right now? I don't know. And does this when does this, I don't know, desensitize people to the

idea of these threats. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. But no kids get shot. I hope no kids get shot. If you're a journalist and you're trying to you are trying to report on this in some sort of concerted way. Uh, you can find Molly on Twitter a socialist stuck mom, she's done, she's reading most of your article for you. You can stee like. But I think there are journalists

listening to this. I think it's important to tell them ask the right questions right, like when you're you know, when you're getting your three questions into the press conference with the local shriff's office, ask specifically, where did the call come in? What number was dialed by the caller? Right? Because I don't think these are nine one one calls.

I think people are using nine when one in shorthand, So asked where the call came from, the substance of the call because I think I imagine that some of these calls are verbatim and we just don't know that. I think some of them are probably identical, and we just don't have any way of It's hard to connect

the dots when the police won't tell us. So I think if you know, if journalists are listening, ask more questions than you got in the press release, that's critical because if there were if there was a if there was a Virginia State like repository where every time we get a false swatting attempt against the school, we report when it came in, who was called, and what was said over the call, right, Um, all of which are things that they could pretty easily get because this ship

is always recorded. Um. I don't know that that's true, though, and that's that's another sort of tactical nine one one calls. But if you call the front desk at the police station, it probably isn't. That is a fucking good point, um. In any case, that is another thing that could be dealt with, because then you would at least be able to see, Oh, there's forty swatting attempts in the state in the last five days, and thirty eight of them.

It was the exact same script. There's probably a single source of this that we should be like looking at, um, and that can help not just law enforcement who's generally bad at these sort of investigations, but people like you who are good at these sort of investigation aations and can maybe then start doing keyword searches and figure out where the funk this stuff is originating from, if it's

anywhere on the semi open internet. Um. Again, things, there's a lot to be done to respond to this problem that that doesn't start with like throwing more cops at it or or or whatever. Like. There's there's a number of different problems that this is revealed, um, so hopefully those get solved anyway, Molly, you got anything else to plug before we go? Oh, defund your local police department, subscribe your local newspaper. Sure, um, and uh yeah, if if you're at a school right now, good good luck

those kids. Yeah, they are really the kids these days are dealing with a lot. Um. I'm I'm I'm more grateful every year that my my childhood was as uneventful as it was, because boy, howdy, is it rough to be a student today. And they still have to take their tests and tests. Yeah, they have to go to school. They got to read The Great Gatsby while this is going on. Unbelievable. Um, sorry kids, it's it's it's it

could happen here. The podcast that we open sometimes, yes, this is, this is this is, this is how we do this job. Um it is. It is also a podcast that is very very often about strikes, and someone's presently this is this is an episode that is not about the Giant rail strike that everyone was focused on that didn't happen. Um. And the reason it's not about Okay, I mean, obviously it's not about that because it didn't happen.

But the other reason it's not about that is that there was another giant strike that was really I think ignored by both sort of the media and the people who normally would be following strikes that was happening at about the same time. And that is a massive fift person nurses strike up up up in Wisconsin. And to talk with us about that, Wait, did I say that Minnesota? Did I? Did I confuse Wisconsin and Minnesota? Oh my god, I'd always do this. They did treat a strike, you are, yeah,

I don't. There's some part of my brain that never quite like figured out which one was Wisconsin which one was Minnesota, and it just like flips them in my mind. They're just like they're just the state that's sort of over there from Illinois, which I don't I don't really have an excuse because like I'm from here, like i've I've I've lived not in the Midwest for like six months now. Wow, okay, like a year of my life when I was like unbelievably small child. Ye, but yeah,

it is. It is. Yeah, there's been only strikes in Minnesota. And with me to talk about the strikes that are not happening in Wisconsin is Danielle, who is a nurse at Methodist Hospital and a steward for the Minnesota Nurses Association. Danielle, Welcome to the show. Thank you, thank you for having me. Yeah,

thank you, thank you for coming on. Um. Okay, so I guess the first thing that I wanted to talk about is the kind of strike that you all were doing, because this is something that I've seen a lot with nurses strikes, but I don't think people who aren't in nurses unions like talking about very much, which is basically doing a three day strike or doing a strike that's for for for a set number of days, but it's not indefinite. UM. And I wanted to ask about that

specifically as a tactic a bit. Yeah. Absolutely, UM, it's not uncommon in the healthcare sector at all to do one day, two day, three day, five day, seven day strikes. UM. We usually leave like an open ended strike for kind of a lasted effort um to get the employer's attention. UM. So there's a lot to coordinate to compensate for a three day strike. UM. It affects everyone's job at the hospital and then after three days they have to flip

everything back. UM. That UM, that type of disruption in capital is UM has been really effective um across the nation. So we're hoping that they hear us loud and proud,

but it's challenging. They have a lot of money. Yeah. Yeah, And I think from from what I've talked to other nurses about this strike and also other people have done nurses strikes, is that like there's like a huge pool of scabs, which makes me really hard And is it is it the case that part of the reason why you do one of these limited strikes is that it's it's a lot harder for them to coordinate, like bringing in scas for limited amount of time that it would

be for like hiring them full time for an indefinite strike. Yeah, exactly, so travel nurses, I mean they are those strike nurses come in strictly just for those three days. They are oriented for you know, a few hours prior to starting at seven am on Monday. UM, so there's not a lot of time to learn the entire facility. And since we are gone, the only ones left to orientate our managers or any nurses that have to stay for whatever reason. We really didn't have money at all across the line. UM.

So it just compromises UM patient safety and care in general. Yeah. Yeah, there's no way to create teamwork with just three days of your nurses. UM. So just um the hospital is just more accountable for system airs. Um. They try to keep those issues as internal as possible and not disclose them to the public. But there's a lot that happened, you know. They it's funny all the media reports are like or we're just like straight up printing press releases

being like there's been no internal disruptions. Stomach, I don't believe that, Like there's no way, there's like it's just not true. They are just lying, so lying, and to prepare for us to go and strike. I mean, they try their hardest to discharge as many patients as possible Sunday prior to our strike, to empty out hospitals. The thing is like, you can't just you're not a magician. You can't make sick people go away. Um. There was

a lot of readmissions because of that. You're discharging people too quickly. Um. I know what the children's hospitals they actually um like shuttled forty four children out to other surrounding hospitals two because they couldn't get enough travelers to work. You can't get fifteen thousands travelers. So that's what they did to try to undermine us. It's a lot of moving things around, and I am hoping the public there's

an uproar with the public about this. That's I don't know who's paying for you know, the cost of shipping kids to different hospitals. Yeah, I assume the hospital is not going to pay for it. Yeah, God, So yeah, I guess we should move into like how we got to the point where fifteen thousand nurses or went on strike, which I think, I mean, certainly the largest nurses strike like in the in the private stactor I can remember, Like it's I think I think it's one of the

largest the US ever had. Yeah, yeah it is. Yeah. Can we talk about like I get and this this is there's also sort of a broader question here about like what the US healthcare system looks like in here two of this plague in the sector that's already been sort of just decimated by like incredibly veno profit seeking, greedy corporations. Yeah yeah, so what what what? What? What would have been the conditions that have been leading up to this strike that got this many people off of

the line. Um, I mean our health care system has been unstable, um for quite some time. Hospitals have been consolidating so much, like closing clinics and facilities, um, just to maximize profit. It's um like there their whole goal is kind of like how airlines overbooked for flights, they create like an artificial hospital that's shortage in order to maximize profit. So they've been doing that for a year and then also just buying up little hospitals to control

the market more. Um, They've also are starting their own insurance companies just to double dip into communities wallets. So that's been going on prior to the pandemic. Pandemic hit, they were not ready. They didn't have enough PPE at all, because it's not there's no UM, it's not financially incentivized

to have extra pp on and that's their logic. I remember in the beginning of the pandemic, like my aunt and uncle work for hospital, and like we were trying to get the masks and like we wound up like we were like doing contracts with like like my like literally my family in China was like I know a guy who knows a guy who could like who who like has a mass manufacturing thing. It was o god, it was so grim. It was Yeah, it was a mess, and we didn't have enough PPU. We had to reuse

stuff instantly UM. And we were never compensated for it either UM. We just were forced to work harder and longer UM for the same pay. And now hospitals are trying to normalize that staffing UM shortage and say, well that's it, that's you know, so you just have to work with what we're giving you. Um in this shortage is just it's causing unnecessary medical errors and deaths, and it's just a disservice to our community. Yeah, it's going

kind of down a dark path. So I think all of that During the pandemic, hospitals really showed their true colors. And I know the nurses really realized that the hospital is only there too, just like fat in their wallets. They're not there for us, They're not The goal is to make us all leave the bedside and just outsource

all of their employees. You would escape all liabilities if you have all travelers in place, there's um, there's no real incentive to hold the hospital accountable for institutional failures. Can you explain what travelers are for the audience people who may not know? Oh? Yeah, absolutely. UM. So travel nurses come across her like across the entire um nation,

and they are contracted through travel companies that work with hospitals. UM. So if there's a nursing shortage, UM, there will be open positions to apply for those contract positions that are like short terms, so either like a four week six week, or if it's like a strike, contract would be like three days, seven days, whatever. It might be UM, and

they're paid handsomely. I know for our three days strike, those travel nurses, those strike nurses specifically for three days, they ten k each for three days, and they didn't even know the facility. Some of them never even worked in a hospital. I don't I don't understand the requirements. Um. It's confusing. How Yeah, And I'm not trying to demonize travel nurses in any sort of way. There's amazing travel nurses. I've worked with some. They're great people, but they're UM.

It just undermines um, like our profession. Like it's it's hard to improve our profession when you have people that can replace you. Um, there's no real change we can make. It's just we're fighting each other. And travel nurses are independent contractors. Yeah, exactly, So the hospital doesn't pay them benefits. Um, they don't vacation, they don't call in six Um. They

save the employer a lot of money. UM because they don't have to like provide any hospital resources such as like employee health or workers compensation or anything like that. And they just have that six week contract that they focus on and they they're definitely paid their worth. There's less liability on the hospital too. If there's any medical errors, it's easier to like blame the travel nurse instead of blaming like institutional failures. Um, travel nurses, they just they

can't unionize. There's just not a way. There's not like a common area for them to come together and yeah, create a union. So that's the hospitals like that. Um. Also when you have more travel nurses that hospital, that's less funding that can go to our union. So like we pay union dues every month, UM, and if hospitals are hiring more travel nurses, our union gets less funny, less power. Sadly, Okay, do you do? You do? You know who else wants everyone to work as contract workers

so they can't unionize. Ever, it's it's the products and services that support the show. And we're back. So all right, I guess moving on from that, well, okay, I guess I guess before we fully move on to talking about how the striker was sort of organized, UM, can we talk a little bit more about what staffing shortages looks like and what what the effect that has on patients is?

Because I think people like I think people this is something people like kind of conceptually understand but don't like viscerally get what it means to have a staffing shortage in a hospital mhm h UM. So with inadequate nursing UM staffing levels by experienced nurses, UM, there's an increased rate of patient falls, infections, medical errors UM, increase in deaths, increase in pressure ulcers UM, increase in readmission rates. So having to go back to the hospital because UM, you

weren't given like high quality care at the hospital. It is just kind of mediocre if nurses are kind of strapped with time and I have to divide their attention

between too many patients. So I don't know if you actually are legally allowed to say this, but like how many patients like per day roughly are like you are, like you are treating patients are retreating the day um Our hospital at Methodist has a out four beds and we've been at capacity so above a hundred percent, And you're probably wondering, well, how do you get above a

dent um? The e er will board patients, meaning a patient will stay on a cart and they'll be in a hallway and always will be lined up with patients that are just waiting for other patients and other units to be discharged so they can take that bed. UM, so they can wait in the e R for up to two to three days just waiting to be like

really admitted. UM. So we've been at capacity for a long time, and that is that is purposely done to maximize profit, just because of they've been consolidating, closing other hospitals UM and other neighborhoods. Like they're like they're they're charging all those people who are just like laying there in a hallway right absolutely, or even UM if people come in for surgery and they have to after surgery,

they go to recovery. They can sit in recovery for up to eight hours, which normally after surgery you only need to be there like a half hour to an hour kind of depending on how you will wake up from anesthesia, and then you go to your room. But we are just holding them in recovery because we're waiting on beds and rooms to be available. Because the hospital

does not plan an advance at all. That's not cost effective. Yeah. Well, I mean it's funny because it's like it's it really seems it's sort of one of those things where it's like literally this entire process would be enormously less expensive if you hired like four more people and didn't close every hospital around you. But like, you know, it's it's it's not it's not about efficiency. It's about like making sure you have as many dying people like sitting in

a hallway so you can charge them more. It's like exactly, it's people are profitable, not healthy people. Yeah, m hmm, yeah, I mean it's really it's like there's just something like sort of particularly venal and disgusting about here. It's like, you know, it's it's all of the same, like, Okay, well we we've we've we've built up a monopoly, and we're using your monopoly to force everyone to user services.

And then we're you know, we're we're using contract workers to a place to people who would normally do the job. But it's like, well, it's with health care, and it's like instead of just like every TV show being awful, it's here's a bunch of people who are getting sick and dying because we just don't have enough nurses exactly. And then the only thing the hospitals do, um is um they have all the managers go around and tell

nurses okay, today we gotta flex up. They'll use terminology like that that sounds like empowering and like strong man, we've gotta flex up today, meaning we want you to take more patients than you like safely can meeting. Like if you're if you work on a medical surgical unit, it's usually like fortified patients is what's recommended for one

nurse to have for twelve hours. They'll ask you to take six or seven Jesus, and they'll call it flexing up, and they're like, well, yeah, but Boble, there's flex up. Why aren't you flexing up? And it's just it's that type of like corporate speak and empowerment language um that

forces us to risk our license. Yeah, and I think one of the consequences of this that, I mean, it's really obvious if you've been following sector at all, is that Okay, Well, it turns out if you if you work a bunch of people like basically to death and you don't give them a free sources and you're making them take too many patients, it's that people just start quitting.

And yeah, can you talk a bit about sort of the shortage that's been happening because of that too, Because that's I think a really bleak like just in the long term too. It's just, uh, I don't know, like if you want to have an even vaguely functioning society, the fact that you can't keep people as nurses, yeah, really bad. Absolutely. Yeah. Pandemic hit and nurses realize that

they're just they're not being paid their worth. There's travel jobs that are you can make two under grant a year, three under grand a year, um, just doing travel nursing. And then they're kind of sold on the idea that you own your schedule and you can just kind of plan around vacations and other times off you need, and you just kind of book like a four week stint at a hospital. If you don't like it, you can leave. Um. So they kind of just sell our jobs back to us.

But it's not good healthcare. Yeah, it's just it's like you know, I've talked about this with like like people who work at Starbucks, for example, where it's like, well, okay, if if you're just constant moving people around and nobody's like actually stays at a place, and you never you never build up a community of people who are working with like your cares, you know, it's like, Okay, well you're not gonna get good stuff. It's like, yeah, like

this is like like this is people's lives. Yeah exactly. And those um travel travel nurses, I mean, their their goals are usually like financial freedom, like all of our goals um so, and their goals are always short term. You know, all I have to do is just deal with this hospital for four weeks and then I'm gone, Well, how is that going to fix any institutional area errors? I mean, are issues there? I mean, they never will

hold the employer accountable. Yeah, and especially like it seems like like you know, even even even if like everyone walking like I don't, I don't think you could have a functional hospital system if everyone was a travel nurse. But like at some point it feels like there's no way for there to be, like there's no way for people to like keep leaving hospitals to go be travel nurses. And also for travel nurse is pay to stay that high?

Yeah exactly. Eventually it'll get saturated, and that's kind of the goal of hospitals to push all of their UM permanent employees into traveling. So once that industry becomes saturated, then you can decrease wages, and we'd have to compete amongst each other, um, for certain jobs with certain hours that we need or whatever. We'll just be Um, it's just a race to the bottom. We're just gonna Yeah.

Then the employer will control the market. And it's yeah, um, And I can't imagine twenty years from now, um, trying to be a travel nurse. It's just going to be hard to compete with those younger people that are that could work harder and faster and longer than me for less money. It's not sustainable for a career. Yeah, it's it's just doesn't seem like a good way to do healthcare. Like yeah that also oh yeah, m hm, exactly. Yeah.

So I guess the next thing you want to talk about in terms of okay, so how do you make this better? Is about Yeah, this is a very large multi hospital strike across multiple cities, which is really impressive thing to pull off. And I was warning to talk about how how that happens. Yeah, you know, the pandemic really pushed a lot of nurses to want to fight for change. Um. And I think that it all started there. We all started coming together with the same issues and

problems and um, yeah, finally just started organizing more. Um. All these hospitals were currently unionized, but somewhere more like involved in their union than others. UM. I'd say now a lot of nurses are more involved in the union. And it's a lot of younger nurses too. UM, just because there people are finally realizing that we are the union. It's not a separate entity from us. It's something that we can control and be a part of and be

able to use it to balance power. UM. So it just yeah, it's our only way to fight um, this healthcare sector. I also want to ask about what the negotiation process has been like, because I mean five months is I mean, you know, okay like that you very rarely get fast contracts when you're dealing with bosses. But yeah, like the contract negotiation process seems to have been really bad, even by sort of like regular contract association standards. Yeah,

for sure. I mean our negotiations. We probably have negotiations like once a week, once every other week, um, and the hospital shows up with five of their like elites that just hied behind a corporate lawyer. It was just a union busting lawyer. And all they do is just gaslight and demonize us and say, well, the hospital staffing shortage is your fault because you guys are calling in sick too much or I mean, they just turn everything

around to blame the nurses. It's very demoralizing. It's um, we feel very just underappreciated, especially with everything we've gone through with the pandemic, and they've just been dismissive of what we're um, what our needs are and anything, especially like like the like the calling in sick too much, just like well, yeah, okay, maybe your nurses wouldn't be getting sick if you were making them work with no people,

like with PPE a pandemic, like Jesus Christ. Oh, It's just it's just comical the arguments as they have, I know, and like we don't we can't ever get vacation that we're asking for. I mean, one of one of our proposals is just to get a two week block vacation for every nurse in the hospital, guaranteed every year. Um, because we don't even get that. We we have a cap on our vacation hours and then we get denied our vacation constantly, people calling sick because we need a

day off. We need a break. Yeah, we're out. Like yeah, yeah, Like okay, like if you have vacation hours, but you can't use them, you don't actually have them, Like it's not how this works exactly. Yeah, it's it's a benefit they control. Yeah. One of the things that I've been

reading about that you've all been fighting for. That it's really interesting to me because it's something I've seen in a few other struggles kind of proposed, but never like really like put in the center of the thing is talking about like all right, like giving giving giving workers a role in staffing decisions. Yeah, yeah, you can you talk about that because that that's really interesting to me. Yeah, absolutely so. Um, I mean, currently we don't own our profession,

We have no say in staffing ratios. The hospitals decide um what is safe care, and they're doing it absolutely wrong. Um. So we want to be able to take that back and control that and to say this is what we need because our patients are sicker. Um, they're staying longer in the hospital, and in order to provide safer care, we you know, these need this many nurses for this many patients. Um. So what would that be on like a sort of like Okay, you like you have a negotiation.

You said, this is this is like the like this is just the ratio is just like a data this is an individual, day to day thing. Um. Yeah, I'm wondering how this would work. Yeah, right now, let's see. I know we are asking for like a committee that's made up of I mean administrative staff but also nurses. But we want the nurses to be able to have the power to implement policies and change um if they think it needs to be done. Yeah. So it would

be like a grid review. I think it's nearly as what we're asking for, um, but can be up to quarterly if need be. Kind of just depending on what we're hearing from other employees on other units. Um. So. I I think it's kind of like on a a week to week evaluation to see what's working in it's not. Um. I know. The hospital's argument for that is it would take nurses away from the bedside, but in reality that

doesn't make any sense. In reality, it would retain staff. Yeah. Well, and also okay, it's like, oh no, we've we've we've taken a nurse away from the bedside for one hour to go to a committee meeting where they say we could put more nurses in and like we watched this committee like made outside of UM like that like those nurses schedules, and then we also want them to be paid for their time. Hospital disagrees with all of that. They don't even want to pay nurses for their time

to create safe staffing ratios. It's hard. So like the people that are empowered, they're just a bunch of narcissists, that's all they are. UM, and that's the only way to remain in power is to have no empathy for your employees. So that is what we're up against. So every negotiation, I feel like I'm just arguing with a

two year old. Yeah, I mean it really like they really seem like a kind of people who you can only actually the only language they understand is power, and like the only way you can get invest them of anything is just like whacking them over the head with it. Which David Graper had this thing about UM. It was it him. I think he had this thing about how like the trying to think of how he actually phrased it.

It was basically like, Okay, if if you have a lot of like if you have like a large amount of actual physical power over someone, you don't need to like use eloquent arguments at all. You can just sort of like tell them what to do and they have to do it. And like, the less actual physical power you have, the more you have to sort of like use argumentation to convince people to do things. And this

really seems like the peak of cure. A bunch of people who have been so powerful for so long they don't even like they don't even know how to make

a compelling argument because I've never had to. All all they all they've ever had to do is use brute force, And it like sucks trying to use like logic and reason against people who like by design don't know and don't want to know how to do this because if if they if they're ever in a position where they have to, it means that their power has been diminished.

Mm hmm exactly. Well. And also nurses like we're natural people pleasers were like kind of a we can be a little more submissive, and we've been like that for years and we're finally standing up for ourselves. And they really don't have arguments. Yeah, I mean, it's like they're killing people, Like it's like they're they're killing people for money that there's not like there's not actual mortal destiny patients here exactly. I know. Yeah, it's just God, what

a terrible way to run a health care system. Like just oh I know, and um, I know a lot of hospitals are getting more into like creating executive care and executive hospitals executive clinics and which all that is is just a hospital that is just dedicated to exactly like the elites. And you would pay that hospital like a country club membership, so like to under granted or whatever it's. They're not going to take Medicare, they're not going to take Medicaid. Um, it'll be strictly out of pocket,

not insurance, out of pocket um money. And you can just get all of the care you need at that one facility. Um, it'll have all specialties, you can see them same day, you can text your doctor. It's just health care that's just on demand and readily available for

those people that can pay it. I know. I mean meanwhile, everyone else is like waiting seventeen hours with like a hole in them in a hallway exactly like fair View is one of the hospital chains in our UM in Minnesota and they're creating a thousand bad hospital for the ultra elite. They're going to be doing that soon. And then they're also bargaining with the nurses and saying that they don't have money to pay them raises, they don't have money to give them family leaves, they don't have

money to UM create better staffing models, you know. And one of the things I keep hearing about this is they're like, oh, like the rich hospitals will subsidize the ones that don't make money. It's like, no, they won't, Like, you're just gonna you're just going to keep all of that money and continue not funding the poorer hospitals, Like you won't you already do this. You can't actually fool anyone who has a bit more than two seconds like

looking at this works exactly. I know. I know they're going to prioritize those executive hospitals and just fuddle all their money and resources that direction. It'll for sure be non union and they will push so much non union propaganda. Athles abilities two mm hmmm, Yeah sucks, not suck it. It does suck, I know, And just a lot of people don't know about it. It's scary what we're what we're heading towards, and that's that's that's what we're fighting for,

our fighting against. And I mean, I mean, I will say like I do feel like a lot of the I don't know, I've been thinking about this a lot, with like what happened in and like why that kind of thing happens, And I think a lot of like, Okay, there is an extent to which people sort of don't care about violence. There's an extent to which people like

are able to sort of like rationalize it. But but I think there is an extent to which, like the average person on the street has no idea this is happening until there's like sitting in a hospital room, and then they don't understand why it's happening, and so I think, yeah,

like I I don't like this. This is not an acceptable state of affairs, and I think I don't know, like the one people starting to fight back, and then when people like actually know about what is happening, I think it's gonna be like hopefully it will become harder and harder for them to do this stuff, because you know, hey, like yeah, people are literally dying and being like previously

injured because the hospital refuses to pay more. Exactly. No, they just the hospitals just push that propaganda that they're underfunded, they can't afford stance, they can't afford this, and there's a nursing shortage and there's nothing they can do about it. And it's actually there's not a nursing shortage at all. There's a shorge and nurses that want to deal with this ship. Yeah, they're just leaving the bedside for better jobs.

I think the thing I wanted to sort of start closing on is about like, okay, like that there there is some negotiation going on about pay raises because hey, guess what inflation is happening, etcetera, etcetera. But like the extent to which the negotiations aren't about like a aren't about pay because this is something we've been seeing. I mean, this is a this is a thing with the with the rail strike that's temporarily been averted. This is the thing there has been a thing in a lot of places.

It's been a thing that's been driving people out of the workplace just everywhere. Is that. Yeah, like it's like this strike isn't really like if I think it's like I don't know, okay to tell me this is wrong. I don't think the strike would have happened if it had just been people not getting paid enough, like I I think if there was adequate staffing, and I think if there was like if people weren't paying for us to take more patients, like there wouldn't be a strike

right now or there wouldn't have been a strike. Yeah. Possibly, Yeah, for sure. I think, Um, we're definitely not paid our worth, but also that's not all we want. There's definitely way more to it. Um yeah, it's um, we just we want to reclaim our profession. Yeah. Like it seems like it really seems like they're like the stuff that's happening, and I think sort of broadly like is like it's

not just sort of about conversation. It's about the fact that for I mean my entire lifetime for like twenty five years, but like before that, like employers have had almost limited power and they've used are almost limited power

to just make everyone's lives absolutely living hell. And they've they've used it to sort of like just to force to force people to work hours that are like unbelievable, to force people to like, you know, like like force people to stand there with like like cans so they can pee into while they're still on an assembly line. Force people just like this, like unbelievably just sort of horrible and degrading stuff. That's like it's like, no, you

can't actually just fix this with higher wages. You actually have to change, like something actually has to change about how the workplace works, because otherwise people are just going to stop. Exactly, yeah, exactly, Um yeah, I know. One of our proposals, we want to work a max of three twelve hours shifts in a row because right now our contract says we can't work more than seven twelve hours shifts in a row, and we obviously that is way too much and that's something that would mean even

even three is like like, isn't it really? Like every single time I read one of these things, it's like okay, like hey, I like, yeah, okay, we we we we want for only one of our fingers to be cut off per shift instead of four, And it's like this is like, oh God, It's like the demands are incredibly reasonable considering being asked to do, Like Jesus, don't all, oh yeah, we want the hospitals to have six months of PPE on hand at all times. They've already declined that. Yeah.

I was like, oh, who who who needs PPE? Like really everyone in the splice She's like, oh who who needs to have? Who who needs to have? Like stories of critical spare parts? No one. This this will never come back to haunts. We will never be in any position where we said you don't have the spirit parts? Oh my god, yeah, I know. Um, we have a pandemic proposal we want, um, we want to pass and that's just to give the nurses the power to decide um what we need when another pandemic hits, um, to

provide SafeCare and like safety for ourselves. Um. Yeah. The hospital didn't include us on any decisions during the pandemic. It was yeah, we were just used and abused. Yeah, and we had to use our own stick time and vacation if we were exposed or if we had quarantines. So if we're diagnosed with COVID yeah, which also like, but did you get COVID? What is happening? Um, I've only had it once that I know of. Yeah, I

mean that okay oldly had it once. It's like I don't know anyone who worked as a nurse who didn't get COVID at least once, and most of them got it at least twice. Oh yeah, just god, I don't know. It's just so bleak, like I know, and it just depended on like your patient population. I'm in surgery, so I'm a little more like guarded from that um COVID population.

You know, we only did surgery if if UM they really needed it done and if they were positive for COVID, so we kind of got to pick and choose a little bit. Um. But other nurses obviously they could not avoid COVID. Yeah, yeah, I don't It's just god, like, I can't just go like just this is just the

worst possible way you can run a medical system. And it is just I know, and I know, like I know in UM let see, Sandford is another big hospital, joint giant that's like in South Dakota, North Dakota, and I'm from South Dakota, so that's kind of all like really hits home for me. UM is they're hiring seven foreign nurses, like from Venezuela, Mexico wherever. Um as like they're pretty much using them as travel nurses um just

to avoid actual travel nurses here UM. They will bring them here um by and they'll sign like a three year contract UM. The hospital will provide housing for them, and they will drop wages significantly. In the nursing world, especially in South Dakota and North Dakota, they're definitely not going to be paid their worth. I know they're going

to be exploited more than we are. I had family like that actually did the antelocole is talking about who are doctors, Like, we're in North Dakota for a bit and they were just like this is the worst, and they like they left for like they left for a vast improvement and being in a hospital in Nebraska, which

is like yeah. And I also like I want to talk about this a little bit because this is like a this is interesting what the Philippines too, where like there's there's like there are a whole industries of like basically training people and then shipping them to the US

so they can be like just horribly exploited. Um. And then that's been like one of the things that's been like I don't know, like bolstering the profits of the medical sector for a long time is step usually just like import people and exploit them and yeah, and like the fact that they're like, oh god, this is some like the the fact that these people are gonna be like living in like houses that are owned by their

bosses is some real like yeah gilded age ship. Yeah, I mean, well, I mean the thing I think it most like this is this is like standard practice in China,

for example, and it's a disaster. Like I like, I don't I don't know if people have ever like actually seen pictures of what the inside of these dormitories look like, but like it is like these are you get a room that is like smaller from the college dorm room that doesn't have air conditioning that like I don't know, I I we talked about it on this show, like the h We talked about a worker like a couple of weeks ago who like died from the heat wave

because when he came home, I mean, keep people working a bunch of shifts and he had to work like he had to work a shift in like a hundred and four degrees like loading stuff onto a train, and he came back home there's no reconditioning, and he's in this tunty apartment and he died in his bed because you know, it was it was too hot, and like like this is the kind of stuff that happens, especially when you have like like when when when you're sleeping

in corporate dormatories and we're sleeping in a place that like your boss owns, Like this is the ship that happens, and it's really really bleak. And I hope these people are able to unionize and like fight their bosses, but like, yeah, I don't know it. Yeah, well, I mean fear of being exiled. I highly doubt they're going to be able

to unionize. Yeah, because yeah, because I mean guess everything, like like the way the visa process works, right, Like it's really easy to like if someone's here to work visa and then suddenly you're like, oh, hey, I want to unionize, it's like, well, nope, screw you. You don't have a job anymore. We're gonna get you deported. Yeah, exactly,

which I mean, I guess. It's it's it's you know, it's it's it's another one of those things where like like all of the different sort of disparate like fights people are having are connected like like this, this this wouldn't be happening, like if we didn't have the sort of border regime that we have right now, Like okay, if firmigration system wasn't just like you know and like and it just like if it wasn't just like a giant like torture machine for millions of people, the stuff

wouldn't be happening if you weren't in this sort of moments of like you know, if you if you weren't at a moment where the power of unions has been collapsing for decades, Like if you weren't, if you weren't in a place where like I mean even even even sort of like on on on the level of Obama going like we're not gonna like we're gonna make our healthcare system worse because it will cost insurance jobs if you make it any better, Like it's like uh yeah,

Like like I feel like I feel like the medical sector is like like people do working in healthcare is like it's one of these places where just like every possible it's it's kind of it's kind of like prisons where it's like like everything that's gone wrong in our society just like gets focused into like one nexus point and it's the point where people have to go where they die, I know. And the only thing that's holding hospitals accountable are unions in this country. Yeah, if there

was no unions, the wages would be much lower. And I don't even know where healthcare would be right now. Yeah,

I don't know. Not good. I mean, like I can't I can keep going back the China because it's like that's like the other healthcare system as a disaster that like I have family and and it's like, well, I mean, I guess the thing that's been happening in the U S two of like the increasing violence you can staff, but like China has a huge, a huge problem with basically riots breaking out because people like someone's family member dies because their their care was really bad, and so

they'll just be like riot and people will go tack the doctors and it's like yeah, it's like okay, like I get why they're doing this, but it's like it sucks. And this is this is a huge problem they've had with with retention because their numbers are like they're they're like their staff to patient ratios are unreal awful and yeah, and like you know, like that that that kind of

stuff makes health care systems fall apart. Absolutely, yeah. Yeah, and that's kind of like they've been doing that here. I mean, hospitals have been demonizing nurses instead of like actually saying that they do have institutional failures and it's their faults and we're only as strong as like the

safety protocols and policies that are in place. Yeah, and like I mean, like the best nurse in the world can't be three nurses, like yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah, and yeah, so if they kind of do this for a nursing deal, um, I mean South Dakota, North Dakota their right to work states, so they it's almost impossible to unionize. You can, but

it's it takes a lot of work. Uh. But when most your staff is already travelers, like I was told by another nurse, like in North Dakota, Sanford their staff is travelers, Well, how the help can you even attempt to unionize? And that's that's the goal of hospitals is just to create so much turnover where yeah, I mean, yes, just turning hospitals into Amazon, which the system meditoriously works great,

it's exactly. And travelers are less likely to speak up because they're just afraid of their contract being canceled or they're going to be blacklisted. And blacklisted just means like there's a um common website that all hospital as will go on just to look at travel nurses that are recommended um not to call or not to give a contract to Jesus yeah exactly so, and you can blacklist a nurse for any reason, um yeah, and the reasons they're not disclosed. It just says do not call next

to that name. Well, but completely ruins their travel career. Yeah, it's like it's amazing. It's so formalized. Like I know people have been blacklisted from other professions, but it was like very like it was kind of an under the table thing. This is just like not a not We're we were literally going to put your name on a list that everyone just has, Like oh god, yeah exactly.

So if there is, you know, think the issues at a hospital, those nurses are less likely to speak up and they're less likely to even you know, leave their contract because they're afraid of retaliation like that. It just incentivizes just a terrible care. Yeah okay, well well well we have now spent an enormous amount of time talking

about how unbelievably messed up. This whole system is, um, what can people do to a help this strike and be like, will help with contract negotiations and be like, just in general, try to fight for better health care for people. I know I've been asked that a lot too. UM. We do have a website with um M and a Minnesota nursing association where we do like to have people share their stories about surprise bills or firsthand experiences with understaffing, UM,

et cetera. UM. And that's something like we've just been kind of collecting stories, UM, just so we can kind of keep exposing UM the corruption. UM. Also, donating to our strike fund is always much appreciated. Yeah, yeah, we will put it out a link to that in the description. Yeah, that's how you create change, just this public pressure. Yeah. Do you do you have anywhere else anything else that you want to say? I don't think so. I don't think so. I feel like I covered a lot UM. Yeah,

I just wanted to bring awareness to this topic. Yeah, thank you so much for bringing on the show. I'm for talking to us about this because yeah, this is definitely something that people need to hear and I'm really glad you were able to join us. Thank you for having me appreciate it. Yeah, this has been NI could happen here a podcast by cools On Media, and I guess also my heart. Uh yeah, you can find us

in the usual places. Uh yeah, make make the world a better place for nurses in a worse place for hospital executives. Yes, it could happen here. It's not it's not October yet, but this is a preview of kind of how I'll be recording certain things when Halloween gets near. So I'm done with my work for the day. The rest of you didn't take over. Now, I guess that that's me high yep, it's me. It's Christopher. What is that? What is this episode about? Christopher? Is it about? No?

This is this is about a thing that did not happen somewhere else, which I guess is slightly off kilter for us. But yeah, it also with me is Garrison and Treen and Sophie and yeah, yeah, excellent. Alright, seems like the episodes started. Good work, everybody, all right, we did it. We got there. We've we've've gotten through the introduction.

Now we can get to a conspiracy theory. That's been like all over Twitter, but not kind of in the usual places where you'd expect a conspiracy theory to be on Twitter, and that is this whole thing where an enormous number of people were convinced that she Jumping had been ounced it in a coup and that he was being held by the army under house arrest. And okay,

so we're recording this earlier today. I think She Jumping like reappeared and it, you know, we had the final definitive proof that he had not in fact been like

disappeared by the Chinese Army. Yeah, yeah, I remember the way I encountered this was Twitter informingly that people were like discussing it, and I spent like three seconds looking at what accounts were saying that Jim Ping was being fucking coud, and it was all like, um, I don't know, uh anime tip Goblin four to three, like like analyzing satellite photos and stuff like, no, we don't I'm just gonna I'm just gonna wait to hear what's up with

this one? Great? Yeah, someone actually did like sorry, like a like a word cloud of like like a network map of who was spreading it, and it was it counts with names like that. Yeah, I mean, and it has spawned like articles from outer zera. It's way worse than that. It's way worse than that. Like okay, well, I always skip ahead a slight bit to uh. The place we were at two days ago was the Republic Media Network, which is like was one of the biggest

news networks in in India. I saw some I saw a source claiming they get a hundred and fifty five million views a week because literally in the world. They were literally running a China watcher's parody tweet, like like

he had they had a China watch. A guy had a thread that was like him making fun of it, that was like him walking to like red and empty places and being like this is a coup, and they like they st it up ran the like his tweets like as a news story about the coup, like unreal bullshit, Like I I know, oh boy, well, this is again a point we make regularly on on all of our shows.

But like you can't, you can't have that kind of fun anymore, Like it just immediately gets picked up and weaponized, like making making jokes about like fake oh yeah, idiots are spreading bullshit about a coup. I'm gonna make fakeku news. Well, congratulations, now you've convinced the third of India that there's a coup in China. Yeah, Like I think like the China watchers I think were like because okay, like and this is the thing where there there are there are very

specific China watch people. I am very mad at because when when when they were interviewed by the press, when they were writing about it, they were like, Wow, the coup could kind of be plausible, but it's not happen. It's like no, no, it's not, it is not. I'm sorry, Like it is a joke. Like any anyone who actually plausibly suggests that j Ping is going to get overthrown in a coup is not serious. This is not a

serious person. This kind of happened, like this is this is this is like this is like fucking like Steve Bannon is getting the death penalty ship Like it's actually less plausible than that, Like it's it's nonsense, Like there's and when you say because I'm not I'm not a China government now, or when you say it's impossible, is it just because like we have a long history of what happens when like people who are in power in the Chinese Communist Party lose power and it's not coup's well,

I mean here's the thing, right, so people will make a there's like there's like a whole big thing about how like Hu Jintao was like the first like successful like like non violent like like transition of power in Chinese history, and like that's kind of true like in the modern CCP because like so after Mao, there's another guy who takes power and he gets like fucked up by Dan Jo Ping and like his sort of minions.

But like, okay, so the first thing you have to understand about this, and this is something that's gonna come up later here is that the Chinese Army is not going to stage a coup. Like this is impossible. It is not going to happen. The Chinese Army is not a political faction that works like this. There has never been like that. The Chinese Army has never done a coup, like like the Army of the People's Liberation Army has never done into coup. That's not how this works. It

is it is like it is insane. It is like just bafflingly incomprehensible that anyone would think they could do this, because they can't. Like this, this is this is this is not what, this is not what the p l A is as an institution. Insofar as people get overthrown inside of the party, it's by other people in the party doing like factional maneuvering against them, and that can sort of happen. But like, okay, this is the year two.

She jumping has basically like clawbered everyone in the party who, like anyone who was actually going to present a serious challenge to him, like was claubed like ten years ago, so I mean ten tens probably slightly overseight, but like, you know, he he just finished part part of the background to the stories that he just finished purging like a few of his like last remaining like kind of seriously not even really serious, but like he's did another

one of anti corruption purges and he's like had a guide like executed for corruption, right, Like this isn't like that that that that's how stuff actually works in the party is someone gets arrested for corruption and then put in prison for a long time or killed like but like like you know, executed for like corruption like that that that's how this actually works. There's there's like there

are no cups. This is bullshit. I'm gonna yell at China watch her specifically who was talking about this like at the end of this episode, because I'm mad about it, um, like so like and obviously like right now like obviously today like singas we appeared in public, so like this is obviously bullshit. Uh, five days ago, if we turned back the clock, it was exactly as bullshit as it

was then. But there's there is some other contexts here, which is that So one of the reasons why anyone is even talking about this in the first place is that UM, on October six, which is like a bit over two weeks from now, uh, the CCP is going to have the National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party.

And this this is like the big one, right like every five years, like the whole party gets together, and it's where they choose the members of the Pullet Bureau, and it's where they choose the members of the absolutely terribly named Pullet Bureau Standing Committee of the Chinese Communist Party. And there's like another thing. There's like another like all this stuff is like it's it's based on like like this the structure of like this is based on the

party structure that the Bolsheviks set up. What would be the kind of comparison to this for American There really is there not not. I mean it's it's kind of like like the closest thing would be a presidential election. But imagine if a presidential election was like like I imagine if presidential election was one party got together and that chose the president. So it is it's it's a committee that kind of gets the different bureautic leaders of

different sectors. Well it's it's it's also much like so it's basically like it has all of the leader sort of like going down like the ranks of the party like that you have like like each like like city or whatever, like people will you send delegates to it? Like originally it was like like back in like the

like when the Bolsheviks. You're doing this in in like nineteen nineteen nineteen, right, Like it's okay, the like these are based off of like like the whole party, like like the bullshit party would have a congress and all of the sort of leading organizers and all like everyone like all the sort of like local party factions were like elected person and they would set a delegate to the thing and then they would all fight out and

figure out what their policy was going to be. Now it's like there's I mean, they're there are power striggles, I go on, but the whole like this is an actual representative of like a mass party thing is just

sort of gone. It's just this, this is this is sort of like what what what was actually gonna happen at this one is we're going to see exactly how much power like she j and Ping is gonna take because he's I mean, the big story that was talking about is like she'simping at the last one of these, like well not the last one of these. It was

it was, it was it was a different congress. But he he was able to like eliminate the two term limit on Chinese leaders that have been imposed sort of like after Mao because people were like maybe this is a bad idea. So she's gonna he's gonna get it, Like he's gonna get get a third term. There's a bunch of debate over like exactly how much power he's going to get and like what titles he's gonna get but like I don't know, I'll do an episode about

that after it happens. But basically there's there's this all there's all the sort of politic intrigue stuff swirling around because this is like this is like this is like the big political events like of of the sort of

like modern periods, um the other thing that was happening. Well, and this is also why he was like pershing some of his opponents because like, well, you know, so, I guess the everything we should we could talk about with this is like if people have listened to revolutions, like this is how Stalin took over the party, which is that you figured out that the like the way you take over those the state apparatus is by you you make yourself that like the head of the Pullit Buro,

and then you have enough you have like you you need. All you need to do is control like three people on the Pullit Bureau and you can just sort of like dictate policy down inline for the party and this gives you, this gives you control the states, like this is this is sort of this that's all like that's like the like ancestor of this. It's still a very

similar kind of structure sort of. Um. Mostly it's just like, yeah, there's an important political event going on and the other things that she Shouping was out of the country, so he was doing he was doing a tour of Central Asia for like, like he's doing one of those sort of like fluff tourious people do of like we're like reaffirming or like trade ties and stuff. So he was in samarcand and then he came back I think on the twenty first, and then he was just sort of

vanished for a few days. And the reason that he vanished was that he was in quarantine, which is the thing that like is real in China but everyone else has just like forgotten exists. And so he was actually doing the thing that like you're supposed to do because he was came back from an international trip. Yeah. Well and also like, well, I hate to say you've got to hand it to Zesi and pain, but I guess

you've got to hand it to him. That is there what you should do after getting back from an international trip. Like Jenny Winely, one of the few things that will say about is he has gotten COVID less times than Joe Biden. He has not gotten COVID right, like he

hasn't gotten it. And the reason he hasn't gotten is because they actually sort of like there are ways in which the way that they take COVID policy seriously is nuts, Like they are like anti lockdown riots happening right now because they locked like an entire like they locked on an entire town because one person got COVID, which like whatever, and you can you could argue with the COVID policy, but they he he doesn't have COVID. So my mind that no one was like this might be an option

of why he's not around. Well, every everyone who was like serious, like like anyone who liked you, Yeah, it was like it was all nonsense. People who were spreading it like it was all it was all random Twitter accounts.

I think what would kind of the missing piece here and what's actually happened is that so those of you who have followed my career, uh will know that there's a website called Belling Cat that I wrote at that has been in the news pretty continuously for the last almost ten years because they kind of helped invent the modern concept of open source research UM and open source intelligence, which has really had its biggest moments since the invasion

of Ukraine, because suddenly there's all this footage of tanks getting blown up, of of Russian soldiers doing this and doing that, and of you know, cities change inging hands and all this stuff, and people have been following the war through a lot of these big O SENT accounts. UM. Kind of the last huge moment in O SENT prior to the invasion of Ukraine was was January six UM, and that was another big moment for people understanding it.

And kind of one of the popular conceptions of open source intelligence is that random guys on the internet are getting better intel than you know, the CIA or whatever. Which there's a degree to which that that's true, because a lot of random people did become experts in stuff like, um, you know, different kind of munitions tracking and whatnot, and did a better job of tracing certain things than than state agencies were doing, which is why like some of

those people. UM. Anyway, it's a whole long story, but the problem is that it's led people to believe that the best intelligence often comes from random people on the Internet, and no one of the things if you if you're trying to evaluate someone who was claiming to provide o sent the most one of the most important things to do is number one, can you actually trace their work back?

Is it possible to like follow their they're thinking and their conclusions to determine whether or not what they're saying is nonsense? And number two, do they have like a track record, because like, for example, Eric Toler and Elliot Higgins, who I worked with for a while, have like a ten year track record of being consistently right about things and breaking massive stories and doing stuff like uncovering Russian

g r U agent operations and stuff. Um and these were just random accounts that no one had ever heard of on Twitter claiming to have detailed, figured out detailed information about a coup in the Chinese government. There's there's nothing behind them. Yeah, well it's it's funny too because like, okay, so once once, like actual people, we're gonna get this a second. Like once actually people started picking it up.

Like if you just googled any of the people who were like writing about this, it's it takes like five seconds to figure out this person's just nuts. And but nobody did it because it's it's Twitter. And so instead of what happened is um so this thing starts like on Chinese Twitter, like it's it's people like like yeah, it starts on like like the Chinese speaking part of

like China Twitter. I'm gonna read a thing from the Indian News at first post, which like did a kind of clean up job of like hey, all of the other Indian heulets you're covering this, I've just have just completely lost their minds. Here's like what actually sort of happens.

Um quote. A Twitter account New Highland Vision, which has over followers, wrote on September that former Chinese President Hu Jintao and former Premier When Jaibao, had persuaded Song Ping, the former member of the Pull Up Euro Standing Committee, to take control of the Central Guard Bureau from she. So I don't My guess is that makes no sense to anyone on like anything. Yeah, so this is Jim Well, okay, so what this is? This is some like old school,

very very weird like old school Chinese inside baseball ship. Um. The first thing you should know about this is this is completely The first way you can tell this is nonsense is that Song Ping is not doing shit, and Song Ping is not doing ship because this man is a hundred and five five years old. This man was born in seventeen. Baby, it's his time, It's his turn, you know what. Credit to China. I thought we lived in a cliptocracy run by like an aging Ghougle cast.

But damn, hundreds of five the queen could have lived so much longer, like to be fair, to try to have this guy's like three generations out like this is okay. So the sort of like fantasy here is like kujent Tao like taking power, and hugent Tao is like he was one of the guys who came in like like when he kind of made his bones, like purging the people in the CCP who would like hadn't been hard enough on the Janaman protesters. But he's he's like he's

one of the sort of perform and opening guys. Um like song Ping is like one of the guys who like helped like kojent Tao advanced on them, like kojent Tau. It's like a guy from like the nineties, right, Like these are like like people who at one point we're genuinely powerful and are now like I don't know, I mean, there's persistent rumors they do stuff behind the scenes, but like it's it's I don't know. They are like unbelievably

and ferociously decrepit. H Okay, do you know what else is unbelievably and ferociously decrepit done, um, the gold company that's now advertising. Guys, listen, listeners, you're you're probably gonna hear some gold ads from very They're very silly ads. People do seem to be enjoying them. I'm gonna tell you two things. Number one, don't buy gold. The only precious medals you should invest if you're going to invest in precious medals, which I don't necessarily recommend, the only

ones you should invest in our lead, hand and brass. Yeah. Um, but yeah, I don't care about these. Like look when the fucking c i A or the FBI or the Washington State Highway Patrol is advertising on our show. We if those ads are moved, I don't care. You're not gonna buy gold. Don't buy gold, but we'll take their money and we'll use it to pay our salaries. It's fine, Like, enjoy it. We're back, boy. You know what, guys, I said what I just said there, and I just bought

a hundred and thirty seven thousand dollars in gold. I'm gonna I'm gonna go bury it right now. Actually exactly exactly. I can't even buy gold. I'm allergic to it for really yeah, I really really really yeah, I'm not going to be rich. I didn't know you could be allergic to gold. I also did I knew you could be allergic because like rings and stuff. Yeah, that makes me like the yeah, the metal. I'm not like like die if I touch it, but like, yeah, came up on

an allergy test, so it's like legit. I wonder if you're only allergic to like broke people gold, and if you're not a lerned maybe poor people gold. I love that there's poor people golden people. I know, I know. It's just very funny that that's and I'm sure that people advertising on our shows are selling like it's like asbestos bricks covered in goldlief. We should talk about this and not let's continue, Okay, So back back back to

another kind of incredibly bizarre fantasy. So like the there's there's a group of like people who are like like Chinese dissidents or whatever, but like whose thing is that? Like they think that like jumping is like an unreconstructed maoist and that like you know one day like that like the people from the reform period who like ended Maoism or wondering gonna like sweep him out of power.

Like this is nonsense, Like it's like the only equivalent I can think of this is like every once in a while you'll see some Russia expert ranting about how like Putin is like on the verge of being overthrown and like some like liberal no one has ever heard of the nineties is going to do the same ship. By the way, the fake Osan that comes out because it's all stuff like look, they've closed the streets in Moscow and like this street, you know, they've got military out,

and it's like, well, yeah, they're having a parade. It's like a pre announced parade. They do this every year. They hold this exact rate every year and they close the street down the same way. And you can find that if you look into it. But people can take like post a bunch of pictures on Twitter of like cleared streets and like soldiers blocking intersections, and it looks to somebody who doesn't know anything about Russia, like wow, these the ocean people have done it again. They've uncovered

another coup against Putin. Well, it's one thing, one thing, one thing. The other thing that I'll say about cus is because we we like in the last like maybe three or four years, have actually been a lot of coups. But the thing about a coup, right is it like one of the things that happens very quickly usually in

a coup. If if the coup plotters are winning, is that like they there's you'll you'll you'll you'll see a message from something called like the Government of National Salvation or some ship and they'll like start putting out statements. And if you don't see a statement from like the the United Liberation Army of National Salvation or whatever, like

it's not happening. That's what I'm gonna call mine. Wait, I'm just like, okay, I understand how it's spreads, Like I'm sure we're gonna get in to it, but I understand how it's spread to like people on the internet that wants something to latch onto. But if you're saying it got to like El Jazeera and all that stuff, like there wasn't like a journalist. It's the thing. Okay, So there there there's a couple. Yeah, we're gonna get to that. Like, so there's just two different kinds of

things happening, right. One of the things about this conspiracy is that there's a lot of people who see it and are like like like that there. I saw a guy who was like an Ultramaga account right like his things, like he was like nuclear Ultramaga who posted a picture that was like, oh my god, this is an explosion in Beijing and it was like, no, this is how much enging explosion jails and fifteen and they always they

only have I've ever seen this. The next day he was like, yeah, I'm sorry, that's actually not what I thought. It was like even those guys who at this supports to Nuclear Ultra Mega, it was just like people you know, normally expect to get bulled over by this stuff, and they were like, this is nonsense, Like what is happening? You know, I'm glad that we can rely on the journalistic credibility of Nuclear Ultra Maga and these uncertain times,

thank god. Well, Nuclear Ultra Maga was being more responsible than most of the mainstream Indian journalistic outlets, which is terrifying. So okay, so like like the thing about this, this the original version of this conspiracy though, is this is like this is gibberish. No, nobody knows what the Central Guard Bureau is, Like I had to look that up, Like apparently it's a it's a like the Sential Guard Bureaus, like this thing that's in charge of like protecting like

high level leaders or whatever. Like it's nonsense, like this is this is like pure inside baseball ship for like like people who are like really committed, like Chinese dissident what pads. However, what happens next is so people start kind of picking up on it, and in particular there's a person of Jennifer zang Zen, who has like two

hundred thousand Twitter followers. Um starts, she starts posting this video that claims to be p l A military vehicles heading to Beijing on September twenty two, and this is like ghost viral. Um. So yeah, I mean, let me give us three options. Once footge it's funished from the video game three you game, let's think, let's think you know, so, yes, I I actually think this is real military footage, and

I think it's actually kind of recent. It's just that like it's really easy in China to just like look at a road and see a military trip. Option three, it's footage of some fucking like tank on the road in China. I'm gonna take it. Was just like armored cars, which is like I think that, like like I just

moved troops around. I just did a road trip up to northern Washington for a parkour conference and nerd, I know, and we we we passed three military helicopters flying this guy we passed like we we we passed like two muh like a troop carriers. We passed a whole bunch of military equipment. I'm not gonna thill the and be like they're invading Oregon, like like what, No, like this

this is this is a thing. Like if you take one thing out of this episode, is that any time someone says that they are seeing troop movements, it is always alive that this is a Houston dream Hong Kong because everyone was like terrified the army was gonna show up, and like every two days there'll be another videos almost like there's an army confine moving into every It's always fake,

it's never real. It's like the only time it's ever real is if there's actual shooting, like if there's a literal war going on, maybe, well, and it's never real, you're gonna know when it's real. It's also if you want to look about at times, because there are times where people do osent on military movements and it's meaningful.

A good example would be the month that led up to the invasion of Ukraine, in which case you were able to clearly show here is satellite footage three months ago of this place from the air, and here is

it now, and there's like a million more guys. They're clearly something is going on, and we can show this pattern repeating in a bunch of areas, right, and this and this is this is a very different thing from the thing that goes viral on Twitter is someone will just post a video of it and if so, and if what's happening is they're posting a video of some military looking trucks, that person is and and that's all it is nine percent at the time that person is

full of ship. Yeah it's and this is this is like one of the most common patterns of just like weird bullshit conspiray stuff. Is this stuff people like love this again the thing that's happening to open source intelligence is the thing that happens to everything cool that comes on the end. You have this, you have this, This thing is figured out that is made possible because of

new technology. People do really rad ship and in the case of O Sin, it's like, prove that the Russian government shot down in h seventeen over fucking Ukraine, and um, you know, solve all of these war crimes being committed in different areas by figuring out exactly who the perpetrators were and where they were committed in all this ship based off of like sketchy video footage, and then the thing goes viral and elements of the aesthetics of it are taken by people who just want to spread bullshit

um or in some cases who think they're actually doing real research and they're just dumb, and you know, then then you you get to this point where kind of this thing that was pretty wild and pretty um pretty free for a while has to a degree to which it has to become professionalized so that people can know who is full of shit and who is not, and

like who has a track record and who doesn't. UM. And I'll go back to in terms of like how you can tell if something is real osent kind of the the earliest big case study of like ocent researchers breaking something is proving that the Russian government shot down MH seventeen, this Malaysian air flight over Ukraine when the Russians were blaming the Ukrainians for it. And the way they did it is there were pictures in the wreckage of the aircraft that were taken, numerous ones that showed

pieces of the missile. Some of those pictures had numbers on them. All weaponry, military grade weaponry has serial numbers and ship and using those serial numbers, people were able to track it back to the Buck missile battery that the mistil had been on. And because the Buck missile battery also has like numbers and ship, you can trace

its progress. They figured out what base had originated at, and then using a mix of like videos civilians had taken and like other stuff that were able to kind of trace the path of this Buck missile as it left Russia and entered Ukraine and then found it in a village like a video evidence that just some taxi driver was literally a guy who had like a fucking car camera on and he just uploaded footage from like

driving around town. You see in this town next to where the plane was shot down, the Buck missile launcher that has the missile that shot down MH seventeen. Driving through that town the day that the plane is shot down, It's like, oh, okay, well there you go, and and and again. It's the thing in terms of like how to tell if something is valid ocent. You can track all of that back. Every stage of it makes sense, every stage of it is repeatable to a lay person.

And um, and and if they're good, they're gonna demonstrate their work as they tell this, as they like show here's the steps that I took. Um, they're never gonna just say here's a video of two army vehicles. Look troop movements. You know. Yeah, okay, we're gonna be getting into who she is after these ads. O oh um. You know, when I'm thinking about shooting down civilian airliners,

I wish I had gold in my basement. I was wondering, Yeah, we're gonna be It came around next year we're launching our first tribute sche exclusively using Gold as the projectile and the the end the end mission, by the end is to set up next to the airport and shoot down as many planes as possible using the gold tribute. Wow, Garrison, Garrison Davis threatening international air travel. I hope your passport comes in soon, buddy, before about this in the State Department.

Here's here's the bads. I just got my my gold purchase flag. I don't know what's going on, but it's not letting me buy anymore, so I I think they're onto me. Wow. Um yeah, that's that's on. Listeners. We need you to just buy all of the gold you can and mail it to Garrison so that Garrison can fight climate change with his gold powered anti aircraft catapult. So, Chris,

how's it going? Okay? So okay. So the thing that also should include people in like that something was going wrong is if literally any of the people who were reachtween Jennifer Zing had like literally just googled her name because it's okay. So if you if you do this, what you find out is that she is a self proclaimed human rights activists and journalists who writes for like really weird right wing outlets in Japan and also writes

for the Epoch Times. Now, finally we could pull back the curtain and reveal what has been going on this entire time, which is that, and then this is yeah, what what's actually going on here is that Jennifer Zang is part of the Fallen Gong, which is like a

very very weird right wing Chinese cult. She was like like she like had to leave China because she went to write a book about them, like this, this whole thing has been a food on Falling Gong off the time there we go back, okay, good, so yeah, okay, so people who don't know what the call and going is there they were, okay, So it's the thing that kind of emerged out of a bunch of these sort

of like g meditation practices. But in late eighties and nineties, like the fall and Gong, it turns into this like this full scare will agist cult that's like and as as as a CCP like increasingly sort of represses them, they become like increasingly anti communist. Um you've they're they're like literally like you cannot be a Chinese person in the US and not running too these people fucking everywhere.

They're just like march through China town. I mean, there's billboards for their fucking music show thing like everywhere around fucking where I live, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah that they have they have a show called Shen You and like I'm betting mostly yeah that's yeah, that's the China before communism. Ye yeah, and everywhere everywhere it is. The actual show is wild. Yeah, yeah, they have. They have a huge network in the U. S. And like the actual thing that it is, it's like it's mostly like

China for companies and the actual things. This is weird combination, you know, like half asked Buddhism and Taoism and then like absolutely insane anti evolution ship like Christian Buddhism as well. It's like this, there's a whole bunch of weirds. It's not just like it's bigger, well, it's it's more Buddhist, but yeah, it's it's it's very it's very it's it's a very very weird cult thing and like Times, yeah,

the fascist newspaper. Yeah, although weirdly weirdly the Epoch Times. Okay, so this is this is a part of the story that's very odd, which is that I'm about sure at that original So so the original account that did this, that um that did the original conspiracy that the New Highland Vision thing. It was like a pretty new account and had a bunch of followers and it just vanished, and there were a bunch of other accounts, like tiny

accounts that were also New Highland Visions. I'm about eight to nine sure, but that that was a fall and Gong thing. But weirdly, the Epoch Times doesn't really touch this. It's it's it's it's it's very weird. Um. They're like, I'm gonna read a passage from from the Epoch Times and it's like epok Times in as so far as to talk about it, are citing x Indian officials talking

about it. But like here, here, here's a pack. Here's like a quote from a passage of like the thing they're writing about, like a potential like stuff like okay Yang noted in this article that Lee was promoted to Commander of Northern Theater Command in nineteen sorry in two thous seventeen by she and that Lee led the formation of flags in the military parade on the anniversary marking the CCPs takeover of China, which shows that she values him. Like this is just like the most boring asked China

watchers ship I've ever seen like that. The Epoch times didn't like cover this as like like they did. They didn't do the like the thing that all the rest of all long people were doing, which is this sort of like, oh my god, there's a coup like they just did. That kind of makes sense because if they're on the inside in any way, they kind of know it's billshit, so they don't want to kind of ruin some of their reputation, at least in like the far

right in the States. So it makes sense that they would only cover it in the extent of them quoting like other people, so that they're actually not actually giving their kind of definitive opinion on it. Yeah, it's interesting, and I think also because I mean think, I think the thing is that they also knew that this thing has limited shelf life because the moment that she should being reappears in public everyone knows is bullshit. Yep. But before then, So the new version of this of this

conspiracy cost is around like four things. One is the sort of military convoys going to Beijing thing there too, There's I guess there's five because there's also technically that there's there's the image of the explosion that they claim as in Beijing. That's like not in Beijing. It was from like seven years ago. Um, there's there's the they're the big The big one is there's this image going around that is like partially it's fake, and then people try to do on sand on it and it sucks.

Um is they there's this thing that that's like Beijing as canceled its flights and trains, and there's like there's the original pictures of it are fake, right, and then people try to go on flight trackers to like check if it's happening, but they don't know how to use flight trackers, so they look at the planes are like, oh my god, has been canceled. If you look at the actual map, there's just a bunch of planes over Beijing, which is the thing you would expect there to be happening.

And they were like and it was one of those normal things where like like the actual thing that was happening was there were there were some cancellations, but like that's because flights get canceled. Yeah, Like it was just completely normal flight cancelation stuff or like it wasn't even like asistically significant number of which is regular flight cancelations and then like planes that had landed but people were being like they were canceled. It's like no, like they

got there. Yeah, so that happened. There was a lot of people trying to like do research stuff and just failing. Um, there's there's this whole thing about she's being like missing this really important military meeting, which like he actually he genuinely wasn't there, but he wasn't there because he was quarantining and he like sent he sent like a message

to it. It was interesting because the like the Epoch Times actually reports on that like that that passages that I read about, like the weird the like people trying to figure out who's holding a flags you get promoted like that that that's about that meeting. Um. But yeah, and then then the last thing it's just like where is she jumping? Like blah blah blah blah. If he's fine,

why isn't he? And this stuff like it's it's especially the flights and the convoy stuff like starts spreading like wildfire, and the thing that happens that like this thing should have died, like there shouldn't have been enough stuff to keep it going, but it hit b JP Twitter, which is like so like so the b j P is is basically like it's it's the fascist party that controls India there like like really fanatical like Hindu extremists, right wingers, Um,

they hate Muslims. They suck there, Like I would, I would argue I think there's a decent argument for this that this is the closest thing to like a conventional twenty century fascist party that exists on Earth. We've talked about the and the and the epic times on here before, or at least on pastards. I I know, I've talked about them a decent amount of christ you have the Yeah, they're kind of they're kind of one of the one

of the recurring characters. Um. Yeah. But what what's what's interesting here is is is that one of their ops, like it just the op doesn't really go towards sort of like American right way Twitter. It goes towards Indian

right wing Twitter, which that which which is notable. Yeah. Yeah. Well, And and the reason I think this is a lot of this is happening is that, like, so do you have everyone remember a couple of years back when like a bunch of Indian and Chinese soldiers like be be each other to death in like the mountains with sticks.

It was pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah, so like this is like a thing that there's there's been border disputes between China and India like since India was created basically like um, they they fought like okay, the the war that people want to talk about the least in the nineties two Sino Indian War where Mao just kind of like invaded a bunch of India and just like absolutely kicked the

ship out of the Indian army. And this has been a sort of like there's this sort of like a recurring in like Indian nationalist like bug bear thing where like I mean when when border attentions flare up, like India people, you get a bunch of like really terribly animated things of like an Indian soldier with a giant staff like beating the shout of a dragon or something. This is just sort of like something that happens on

like Indian right wing Twitter and Jordan Peterson ship. Yeah. Literally, like it's it's really funny because you get two of the like absolutely funniest Like you get the sort of like the Chinese like wolf warrior like accounts and the like b JP people going at it and it's just unbelievably funny to watch because they're too like two of the most like absolutely psychotic, like insane nationalists in the world, and you just you just gonna watch them fight for

a bit and it's it's a good time. Unfortunately, like so these guys pick it up and it rapidly like okay, one of the things like that, there's there's right wing Indian astrologer was going to get overthrown stopping that's that's one of the words to this is ever Wait, that's kind of interesting to me. That's kind of interesting a

right wing Indian astrology. There's a lot of people who are into astrologya and specifically a lot of that is very influential in the rs S, which is kind of the Indian fascist movement that is backing Mody, who's the guy who runs the country right now, Who's yeah, it's it's not it's not weird that that that that's happened. Given the context of Indian policy, it's not surprising to put it sucks. It does suck. It's for sure sucks. We can say that for certain I wonder what sign

he is? Am I right? Guys fucking liberals? The energy actually so superbar in some swammy who was a guy? Who was this guy was a six term b JP MP, He was a he was a this man was a government minister. At one point starts tweeting about this whole thing and then like it just it's just like this thing just like goes through the actual Indian media sphere

like fucking wildfire. Um. The z News, which is an outlet founded by the deceased right wing media like in Indian media billionaire Supross Chandra, who are rest and pissed by the way, died in August, runs a story called China Coup Beijing hiding something big jij and ping in deep trouble what rumors suggest. Like The fucking Economic Times, this is the second largest English language business paper in the world, runs a story titled quote Chinese President ge

removed from power in a coup. Here's what we know so far is nuts. Like I mentioned this at the beginning, like what part of part of the reason this goes viral is that Republic media network like like like a probably India's largest TV network is just just runs with the fucking runs with it as a story and well

it's yeah, it's like it's like there. I guess the way I would describe it as like they don't like Fox News has like a really really elaborate like like systems, because they've been doing this for ages where they have a very very elaborate system for like running like running a dumb thing from Twitter like and turning it into like turning into like a package story. Uh that this is not what's happening here. They are just live like

live reporting from Twitter. And I think this is I don't know, like I think it's like it's it's it's it's a degree of laziness that like you see this in American journalism a lot too, where like people just literally report, like report Twitter like things that happened on Twitter like this. This this is how. This is how like gobblin mode became a thing. Like there's a lot of stories that are just it's just looking to Twitter

and they're basically doing this. And part of the everything that's going on here is that, like you know, so like Indian media has just become increasingly right wing over the past decade, and they've gotten like increasingly more fascists and when you and you know, the everything is like fascists are incompetent and like this is basically the result of the sort of hollowing out of the Indian media sphere, is that these like Matt, like these absolutely titanic like

cable and news networks are running this just like like stuff that is so bull ship that like like the fucking newsman, Like there was a news Max anchor, Grant stitching Field, which was a news Max host like has like a video about this, and the video both starts and ends with him going this is probably bullshit, and then in the middle there's like some incomprehensible thing that he like half read an Ebuk Times article didn't understand.

He starts ranting about like the general of the Northern War who has just been relieved of his duties as a direct quote, by the way, absolutely nonsense, Like yeah, but like even even those guys were kind of like this is whack, like we we can't run with this.

But that like the sort of like like the the sort of like Indian fascists people are like so incredibly desperate for just like any like like even more so than the American right and more are desperate for just like here's an anti China story we can just sort of like throw out because of the sort of increased tensions around the border, etc. This stuff just this stuff

just explodes. Um And eventually you get like that the Indian media outlets who are like still actual like outlets who are like, hey, guys, this is nonsense, like the Hindu stand Times and the Tribune and write stories that are like really, like are you guys kidding me? Like come on, this is like obviously fake. Um yeah, and and and and at certain point, like this whole thing is it's sort of like phase, but it has this

there's there's no there's. But then there's a sort of second wave of it, which is there are a bunch of people who are like weird like Chinese dissident quote unquote people but who aren't like who aren't following Gong, people who like looked at this and we're like, this is obviously a lie. I'm not going to jump in on this leave of the bulshit. But then we're like, okay,

I've got a second layer of this. Um there there there's there's someone Dr Lee Magnyan who's like she's like an old school like COVID bio, like bioweapon, like lab truther person um. She was like okay, okay, no, no, no, hold on, hold up, what's happening here? That this whole discourse was a she jumping op to distract everyone from the the alliance with Putin that he's going to announce at the party Conquerors. Yeah, and like like he needs to like secretly cover up the fact that he's going

to create an alliance to destroy the free world. It's just like it's it's it's a real it's a it's a real circus of just like like all like you you gotta see like this whole sort of second and third waves of media grifters like looking at this story of being like okay, how do we spin this out?

And it's I don't know, like I I feel like that this is a part of like this part of Twitter, like the sort of like it's just this kind of there's a kind of intersection of like weird Chinese cranks and like China Watch or Twitter where you get a

bunch of these very weird things. But yeah, I've talked about this, but like the thing's interesting to me is it's like the sent to which the right doesn't pick this up, like this is the kind of thing like you would expect like Alex Jones to be talking about, and especially I can tell like Alex Jones doesn't cover like fucking Bucky Barnes, like e talks about it like briefly, like on like but like while Alex has like walked out of the room, talks about it for like five

seconds and then stops, and I was like, really, like Alex Jones is gonna cover this, like uh, maybe it's It's possible I missed part of it. Paying is is if like less secure in power and can be overthrown by other elements in the Chinese government than China is kind of less scary that Alex Jones. Ten's Yeah, that's so that's might be part of it. Yeah, we'll give him some time. Maybe he'll get on this later. Yeah, I don't know. He's got a lot going on right now. Yeah.

Oh god, Okay, So the last thing I want to talk about is like, so I've been saying I'm talking about China watchers this whole time. There's like basically there's kind of a academic careers last profession like in the us. That's like being a China watcher. And so you get like some internationally degree, you get some like cultural studies degree, and you go to China for a bit and you come back and then like your job is to write

about like the inscrutable Oriental mind. And I they're like one or two of these people are like a couple of these people who are like have some respect for real at large. I literally cannot with these people. Um, well, so what did the Guardian writing an article about this later on? And they're like yeah, because this is not happening. But the guy they quote writes in a Twitter threat, I'm just gonna read this tweet because I Jesus Christ. A palace coup in a time of political pressuurization is

not implausible. Gorbachevan Yeltson were detained during the USSR Russia transition period. A coup is not an anathema to China either.

Emperor kuang Hu was arrested by dowager Empress Sishi when he attempted reforms that, by the way, the same the second thing he's talking about that is from like I think it's eighteen nine, is the last coup he can find, Like you can just say ship like there's a ti like you you would you could literally say whatever the funk you want, and people will be like, oh yeah, no, no, no,

this coup. That is literally two political there are there are two entire political systems that China has had between right now and the time that the emperor's regent like overthrew the the emperor to stop, like just just come on, like why why why why are people allowed to say this? Like why why are people allowed to go oh yeah,

Gorba Trough and Yelton got cooed. So that means that there can be a coup in China like this this this is one of the experts, Like I just like like one of these every single every single one of these articles has this passage where they're like, oh, well, part of the reason why this happening is because the Chinese government is so unbelievably not transparent, and I'm like, no, like, part of the reasons this is happening is because you

guys just literally will say bullshit, which means that people will just believe like literally you can just say anything about China. You can say it like it's all like it all comes down once again as every problem in the world does to the twenty far hour news cycle. Where is this bullshit? Sure, but like got to fill air time. It's happening right now. People are talking about it, so we get to talk about it. We don't have

to say it's true. We can just like talk about it and then we filled some airtime and uh, you know, we keep making money. It's good and now we're talking about it. Yeah. And it's like, if it's a topic that people are not like, I'm gonna say something, then add a caveat. If it's a topic that people are not very knowledgeable about, like the inner workings of Chinese politics, then they're going to be easier to believe it now

even now. Obviously the strategy can work even for topics that people are knowledgeable about sometimes um, but especially in something related to like foreign countries that most Americans know very little about, then yeah, that's super easy to believe. Like remember a few years ago when everyone convinced themselves that uh, Kim jongoon died. Yeah, yeah, because because people

because people are really to believe something. It's yeah, it's like like they're there, there's there's there's a thing I've been like I've run into a lot where like that there's there's a bunch of like there's a bunch of people in the American left who's like basically and I don't even really know how they came to believe this, because this isn't something that the CCP even says about itself, but like they've they've come to believe that China has

universal health care, which it doesn't. They used to have one and then they got rid of it, like they literally dismantled the universal health there system. Like there are people who believe that like like China has like a right to housing and that everyone in China just gets a house and and like like this is all of this ship that's like it just has like it's it's so completely uncoupled from reality that like I can't I can't even trace the source to where they got this stuff.

But it's really easy to spread because yeah, it's just like nobody knows any especially like yeah, it's it's a foreign country, nobody knows anything about it, and you can and like the actual people who are experts will just like start spouting shit about how it's plausible there could be a coup against Ji jimping because fucking emperor was overthrown a hundred, a hundred and twenty four years ago. Like it's it's it's endlessly frustrating. And yeah, anyway, so

don't don't use the internet, attack global communications infrastructure. Um and yeah, buy gold, buy some gold. And if you see something on Twitter or really anywhere online, instantly believe it no matter what it is. Yeah, live your life that way, it's it's fine. Also, should we plug our our lives our live show that Yeah, so we're doing a live virtual it could happen here and Q and A the entire squad will be there. You can get tickets from moment, dot ceo, slash I c h ah.

It's all over our socials if you're looking for it, and that will be on October that's six pm Pacific time. Mark your calendars, market calendars, calendar, dot ceo, slash I c h h. I feel that was beautiful. Good for you, Sophie, And I know we've had a lot of debate about what we're gonna be talking about, and I think one of the most important things in current events right now that kind of indicates the kind of collapse of American

society is all of the Try Guys discourse. So we are going to be preparing a two hour Try Guys two hours, two hour presentation on the evolution of the Try Guys discourse and what really happened behind the scenes and how it impacts American politics. Going spoilers, none of them were ever married. Bye, hello, and welcome to it could happen here. This is Sharine, and you are listening to the first of two parts of the little series.

I wanted to do about Yemen. I think, Um, I've been really interested in the history of countries that are currently in turmoil because understanding the history of how they got there is usually so important to understanding their present. So Yemen is one of those places I think that is always in the news as experiencing something horrific, and I wanted to know exactly how we got to where we are. So I wanted to focus on primarily modern

events in the last several years, for example. And so this first episode is going to cover everything up till two eighteen, and then our next episode will cover the years after that. But before we jump to the modern times, I wanted to do a chronology of some key events that had led up to uh the nineteen nineties essentially, So we're gonna rewind all the way back to the fifteen hundreds. I know, but still the stuff is interesting to me. I hope it is to YouTube. Let's get

into it. In the fifteen hundreds, the Ottomans absorbed part of Yemen into their empire, but they're expelled in the sixteen hundreds. Centuries later, in eighteen thirty nine, Aiden Yemen's capital comes under British rule, and then when the Suez Canal opens up in eighteen sixty nine, the city serves as a major refueling port. In eighteen forty nine, the

Ottomans returned to the north of Yemen. However, around World War One in nineteen eighteen, the Ottoman Empire dissolves and North Yemen gains independence and is ruled by Imam Yahiah. After thirty years in power, in nineteen forty eight, Yahya is assassinated. So many things happened in nineteen forty eight. I swear to God that years cursed. But anyway, after has assassinated, his son Ahmed fights off opponents of feudal rule and he succeeds his father. In sixty two, Imam

Ahmed dies and he succeeded by his son. However, army officers then sees power and they set up the Yemen Arab Republic and this sparks a civil war between royalists supported by Saudi Arabia and the Republicans. Essentially they are backed by Egypt. In nineteen sixty seven, Britain withdraws from the South of Yemen after years of a pro independence and surgency, and its former territories unite as the People's

Republic of Yemen. In nineteen sixty nine, a communist coup renamed the South of Yemen the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen and reorients it towards the Soviet Block. The Soviet Block a k a. The Eastern Bloc for those that

need a quick refresher like I did. It's also known as the Communist Block, the Socialist Bloc, and the Soviet Block, and it was the group of socialist states in Central and Eastern Europe, East Asia, Southeast Asia after cut in Latin America that was under the influence of the Soviet Union that existed during the Cold War. In nineteen seventy, Republican forces in Yemen triumph in the North Yemen Civil

War in seventy two. There are border classes between the two Yemen's the North and the South, and a ceasefire is broken by the Arab League. In nineteen seventy eight, Ali becomes President of North Yemen. He's gonna be popping up a lot in this history and also some modern times. So is a name that we should remember going forward. In seventy nine, a year after saw That becomes president,

there's new fighting that begins between the two Yemens. In eighty six, about seven years later, thousands die in a power struggle in the South, which effectively drives the first generation of leaders from office. Hight that Abubuk of Us then takes over and begins to work towards the unification of these two states in Yemen. However, this unification is pretty uneasy in the early years in the nineteen nineties.

After the reunification of Yemen in May of nineteen nine, transitions from President of North Yemen Opposed that he had held since nineteen seventy eight to the President of the Republic of Yemen. At the same time, the z d Shia group on Subtle Allah or the Hoothies gradually gained power, and the group's rise has at this point the tacit support of President saw That. At this point, the Soviet Bloc implodes the tension between these former states indoors, even

though they're technically supposed to be united. At this point, the former states of Yemen is what I'm talking about here, So we block is over, so a civil war begins. Just years after the reunification of Yemen, the unintegrated armies of the North and the South face off, resulting in a brief civil war that resulted in the defeat of

the Southern army and short up Yemen's reunification. In May of July of that year, President saw That declares a state of emergency and dismisses Vice President Alibad and other Southern officials who declare the secession of the South before being defeated by the National Army. A year later, Yemen and Ratria clash over the disputed Haniche Islands in the Red Sea. International arbitration awarded the bulk of these islands

later to Yemen. In this brings us to the two thousands, which introduces al Qaeda into Yemen, and I guess the rest of the world. But in two thousand, President saw That reaches a border demarcation agreement with Saudi Arabia which is known as the Treaty of Jedda, and he seeks to disarm the Hoothies, whom he had previously viewed as a useful weapon against Saudi interference in Yemen. In October of that year, the U S Naval vessel USS Coal

is damaged in an Alcada suicide attack in Aiden. Seventeen U S personnel are killed with this attack. In February two thousand and two, Yemen expels more than a hundred foreign Islam mcclaric's in a crackdown on al Qaeda. In October of that year, al Qaeda attacks and badly damages the oil supertanker m vy Limburgh in the Gulf of Aiden, and this kills one person and injures twelve other crew members, and it also costs Yemen a lot of money in

lost ports revenues. Between two thousand and four and two thousand and ten. Is the Hoothy Insurgency or the Hoothy Rebellion? Tensions run high at this point between Sauce government and the Hoofies. After Sawce border deal with Saudi Arabia. The Hoothies are led by Hussain Badadadana Hoothie at this time, and Houthi eventually leads a rebellion against the MNI government into thousand and four. In June through August of this year, hundreds die as troops battle the Shia insurgency that is

led by her Sanna Hoothi in the north. Starting in June of two tho four saw this government begins arresting hundreds of Hoothy members and issues a reward for her saying Baddan and Hoothies arrest the leader of the Huthie's. This fighting continues until al Huthi is killed in September of two thousand and four. In two thousand and five, between March and April, fighting between the Hoothies, which are now led by Hussain's brother Abdi Huthi, and government forces

surges and this leaves hundreds dead. More than two hundred people are killed in a resurgence of fighting between government forces and the supporters of the previously slain leader of the Hoothies, Hussan and Huthi, who had died before his brother had took power and this fighting ceases after the sides reach an agreement, resulting in the surrender of the Hoothies top military commander. Between two thousand and five thousand

and six. These sporadic clashes between the government and the Houthis continue, but in March two thousand and six President saw Grant's amnesty to six hundred Hoothie fighters. I think this is part of the reason that President saw That goes on to win the two thousand and six election and remains president. However, in early tw thousand and seven, the Hoothy rebels and Sluce government again find themselves at odds.

Fighting continues for five months and many are killed or wounded in the clashes between security forces and Hoothy rebels in the north. This continues until rebel leader Omnica Hoothy accepts a cease fire agreement with saw There and this happens in June thou seven. With the help of the ceasefire had not turned a year old when even more

fighting breaks out between the government and the rebels. By July of two thousand and eight, are all declares an end to the fighting, and the Hoothy dominated Sada governorate in September of this year, an al Qaida attack on a US embassy in Sanna kills twelve people. Let's take our first little break before I forget, and we'll jump back in um see what happens next, and we're back.

We left off in September thousand and eight after an al Qaeda attack on a US embassy killed twelve people, and in November of that year, police fire warning shots at opposition rallies and Sanna. These demonstrators were demanding electoral reform and fresh polls. Between two thousand and nine two thousand and ten, as Operations Scorched Earth. In August of two thousand and nine, the MNY military launches Operations Scorched

Earth to crush the Hoothy Rebellion and SADA. At this point, Hoothy rebels begin fighting with Saudi forces and cross border clashes. Tens of thousands of people are displaced by the fighting. This fighting continues until after rounds of offers and counteroffers, SAWA's government agrees to a ceasefire with Opdoismatical Houthi and the rebels. In February thousand and ten. The MNI military simultaneously carries out Operation Blow to the head Yes Operation

Blow to the Head. This is a crackdown on both the rebels and al Qaeda and the Arabian Peninsula ch are known as a q a P. Thousands flee the government offensive against the separatists in the southern Chebwa province. In September of that year, government forces besiege the governorate of Chebua in southeast Yemen to root out the a q a P militants. By two thousand eleven, the Arab Spring reaches Yemen. In January, demonstrations calling for the end

of saw that thirty three year rule begin. Saw the offer some concessions, promising not to seek re election, but the protests spread security forces and saw the supporters launch a crackdown that eventually leaves between two hundred and two thousand people dead. There's such a huge discrepancy between the death toll because it's hard to know how many people are suffering, how many people die from these kinds of attacks, especially when there's not a lot of international interference or

international care. Essentially, In April two thousand eleven, saw General People's Congress the GPC agrees to a Golf Cooperation Council broker deal to hand over power, but the president refuses to sign on. This prompts the influential Hashid tribal Federation and several army commanders to back the opposition, after which clashes erupt in Senna. In June thousand eleven, President saw That seriously injured in a bombing and he travels to

Saudi Arabia for medical treatment. In September thousand eleven, saw That returns to the presidential palace amid renewed clashes. It is not until November thousand eleven that he signs a deal that states that his deputy, ad Abu Mansour al Hadi, assumed power and form a unity government. This unity government would include a prime minister from the opposition, and it's formed after months of protests. This same month, a U s born al Qaida leader in Yemen, an El Alacki,

is killed by US forces. In February had he is sworn in for a two year term as president after an election in which he stood unopposed. However, he is unable to counter the al Qaeda attacks in the capital as the year goes on. Thousand fourteen is was considered the years of the post Arab Spring, and in January, the National Dialogue Conference concludes after ten months of deliberations, agreeing to a document on which the new constitution of

Yemen would be based. In February, a presidential panel approves of a political transition plan that includes a draft federal constitution for Yemen that organizes the country into a federation of six regions. This was aimed to accommodate the Hoothie rebels and Southern grievances, but the Hoothie sees control of most of Senna in August of that year and they reject the deal. Following two weeks of anti government protests, President had He dissolves his cabinet and overturns a controversial

rise in fuel prices. By October thousand fourteen, the Hoothies take control of most of Yemen's capital, Senna. The following month, the rebels see used the Red Sea and the port of Kudaita. In January, after being placed under house arrest by the Hoothies, had He resigns as president. Despite previous attempts to craft a power sharing agreement between Haddie and the Hoofies, the two had continued to clash. The Hoothies later reject a draft constitution that was proposed by Haddie's government.

A month later, the Hoothies take control of the Yemeni government and appoint in Presidential Council to replace President Haddie, but this is a move that is swiftly denounced by the United Nations. President Haddie then flees the presidential palace and Sanna and he escapes to his southern stronghold of Aiden, and this is where he later rescinds his resignation, declaring himself the legitimate president and deems the Hoothie takeover a coup.

The month after that, in March thousand and five, the Islamic State claimed its first attacks in Yemen, which were two suicide bombings that targeted Shia Masks and Senna, the capital, and this resulted in a hund than thirty seven people being killed. The Hoothies start and offensive against government forces and advanced towards southern Yemen. President Haddie then flees Adn

and takes refuge instead in Saudi Arabia. Shortly thereafter, the Hoothies sees parts of ties, a city in southwestern Yemen, after repeated please from Haddie, who was still taking refuge in Saudi Arabia, a Saudi led coalition of Arab states, including the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Morocco, Jordan, Bahrain, Sudan, and Kuwait initiates Operation Decisive Storm in support of the

ousted president. The coalition launches air strikes against Hoothie targets, deploys small ground forces, and imposes a naval blockade in order to halt the Hoothie's advance on Aidan. The United States then announces its intention to aid in the coalition's efforts. In April. A month later, the coalition declares an end to Operation Decisive Storm. Saudi Arabia announces it would move

on to a phase described as Operation Restoring Hope. Despite the announcement, the Saudi leg Coalition continues to bomb Hoothy positions and the United States increases its arms sales for the Saudi campaign in Yemen. Let's take our second break and we will be right back to continue this little history. So b rb Okay, we're back, and we are still in April, when the Saudi leg coalition continues to bomb Hoothy positions and the United States increases its arms sales

for the Saudi campaign in Yemen. This is after Saudi Arabia announced that it would move on to a phase described as Operation Restoring Hope despite the bombing campaign that the Saudis are carrying out. The Hoothies capture the city of Oak, which is a small city and the capital of the Chebua government in Yemen. It's also southeast from Senna, and it's not that far. It's it only about four

hundred and fifty kilometers south of Santa. After three Saudi officials die in a Hoothy attack at the Saudi border, Saudi Arabia boosts its border security. The Hoothy fighters also condemn a u N Security Council resolution imposing an armed embargo on the group, calling the decision an act of aggression. A month later, Alia, the previous president had been accused of sighting previously with Hoothy rebels and support of Hattie's ouster and May Saw the Henyemni forces loyal to him,

announced a formal alliance with the Hoothies. The Saudis and the Hoothies then agree to a five day humanitarian ceasefire. US President Barack Obama convenes a g c C meeting the Gulf Corporation Council at Camp David to resolve the crisis in Yemen, but only two states send their leaders, which is very sad to me. A month later, we're in June and the leader of the al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the a q a P, Nassaid al Wahishi, is killed in a U S drone strike in Yemen.

A month after that, after months of fighting with Sunni tribesmen and a q a P militants, the Hoothies take control of the entire Cheboa government. The following month, President Haddie returns to Aidan after Saudi backed government forces and those loyal to Haddie recapture the port city from Hoothy forces. Introduces some foreign intervention, which always sounds like a good idea. In April of that year, the U n sponsors talks between the Haddie government and the coalition of Hoothies, as

well as former President saw this General People's Congress. Between October sixteen and May, both sides of the conflict allegedly break their ceasefires. The United Nations and others try to broker peace talks and political resolutions. The Hoothy his claim responsibility for firing missiles into Saudi Arabia, including the capital of Rial. Also in humanitarian agencies and watchdogs decry the Yemen crisis as one of the worst humanitarian emergencies in

the world. There are thousands of civilians dead and wounded at this point, and there's also an outbreak of cholera and a potential famine that would also leave thousands on the brink of starvation. In November seventeen, Saudi Arabia intercepts a missile fired towards its airport in the Real and blames the Hoothies Iran and Lebanon's has Belah for escalating the war. A month later, after saw they had reverse

course and sided with the Saudi led coalition. Fierce fighting in Senna between the Hoothies and the forces loyal to SA leave the former president dead. SAA has now dead. The Hoothies at this point are controlling much of northern Yemen, but they still face stiff opposition from the Saudi led coalition. President Handy, whose loyalist control much of South Yemen, has called for a popular uprising against who the the rule in the north. Son, who saw that the former president

that has now died. The son is Ahmed Ali, and he has vowed revenge against the Huthie's for his father's assassination. We're now in eighteen, and a lot happens in eighteen. That the last year we're going to talk about. But there's a lot of months in ten. So let's start with January. In January eighteen and a firefight the Southern Transitional Council the STC, the United Arab Emirates backed separatist movement. It seeks a revival of the formally independent South Yemen,

and it sees his control of Aiden. Aiden is Yemen's main southern city and government headquarters, and it was also the previous capital if you remember, all the way back went. By March of that year, twenty two million Yeminies require humanitarian aid. In February, Mary the u N appoints long time British diplomat Martin Griffiths as Special Envoy of the Secretary General for Yemen. Between March and May, after thousand and eighteen, fighting escalates along Yemen's western coast and dozens

are killed in Saudi air attacks and security raids. A Saudi led coalition drone strike kills Sachaliel Samad, who was president of Yemen's Supreme Political Council, making him the most senior Hoothy casualties since the coalition began its activities in International opposition to the coalition's operations grows. After an air raid kills more than twenty people at a wedding party in may Ua, e forces take over the island of Sakatra, occupying the airport and the seaport and causing tensions with

the Yemeni government officials. Between June and July, Yemeni President Adre Mansur Hadi meets with the UAE Crown Prince Muhammad bin Dad and Night, and by July, the coalition launches and offensive on the port of Kudeida. Between August and October, international outrage over the Saudi led coalitions war and Yemen grows. After an air raid strikes a school bus, killing forty Yemeni,

mostly children. Public opinion of US support for the war effort in the United States plummets as it is reported that the bomb that was used in the air raid was US supplied. In October, US resident and Washington Post columnists Jamaica Shogi is assassinated by Saudi agents in Istumble, and this raises additional questions about the U S support for Yad's war on Yemen U and efforts to mediate between the MNY government and the Hoothie rebels in Geneva,

Switzerland are fruitless. At the end of November and December, the US political establishment begins to have some unrest for withdrawing US support from the Saudi led coalition in Yemen. Former Obama administration officials, including the future Secretary of State Anthony B. Lincoln, the future UN Ambassador nominee Linda Thomas Greenfield, and the future National Security Advisor to President Joe Biden,

Jake Sullivan. They all sign an open letter expressing remorse for their support of the war and urging all sizes to end the fighting because a letter in thoughts and prayers is exactly what we need. In December of eighteen, the U S Senate for the first time, votes to invoke the War Powers Resolution to force the US military

to end its participation in the Yemen War. Later that month, after un mediated talks, the mn E government and the Hoothies signed the Stockholm Agreement that includes prisoner swaps, a mutual redeployment of forces away from the jode deport and a committee to discuss the contested city of Tayis. The ceasefire is set to take effect on December eighteenth, after thousand eighteen. Overall, the Stockholm Agreement fails to eachieve its goals,

and neither side agrees to withdraw from Hodeida. This is where I'm going to leave you for today. Um really uplifting point, huh. But tomorrow will continue on starting in twenty nineteen, and they'll take us to present day, where a lot of ship is still happening. But I hope this little history of Yemen has given you an idea of how exactly a country can keep having so much unrest because of constant leadership squabbles just to say the least, uh,

and coup attempts and fighting and international intervention. So that's all for today, and uh, you'll hear me tomorrow if you want to. Goodbye, Hello you beautiful people, Welcome back to it could happen here. This is Sharene again. If you listened to our previous episode from yesterday, you would know that we are today continuing and finishing up this

little two part series about the history of Yemen. Trying to understand how its history has led up to Yemen being in present day one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world. So, yeah, we're talking about the history, and last episode we talked about the history up until the end of and we're going to continue on from twenty nineteen because that's how time works. But I will say, I don't know why I feel like I need to

provide a disclaimer, but this is who I am. I feel like I sounded like a board professor in the previous episode, so I apologize if it sounded a bit flat. There are just so many dates and names that I feel like I need to get right, and I'm still trying to figure out how to talk about history in a fun and engaging way, if that's even possible. So bear with me. Hopefully there were some things you found interesting and we can continue on this journey together. Okay,

enough about me, please, let's continue on. In January twenty nineteen in Yemen, so the previous month, December, theem Andy government and the Hohothies had signed the Stockholm Agreement that included prisoner swaps, a mutual redeployment of forces away from Hoodet to port and a committee to discuss the contested city of Tais. The ceasefire was set to take effect on December, but overall this agreement fails to achieve its goals, and neither side agreed to withdraw from Hodeida. So as

we enter into twenty nineteen, the fighting is continuing. The Hoothies launched a drone attack on the air based north of Aden, and this injures dozens and also kills the head of Yemeny intelligence. Back over in Washington, the Secretary of Defense, James Mattis. He had resigned in December eighteen, but his resignation takes effect in February of twenty nineteen, and this marks an end to the Trump administration's efforts

to engage in the Yemen peace process. In April, Trump vetoed a bipartisan congressional measure that would force the US military to end its role in the Yemen War. By June. The U a E. Unilaterly scales back its military presence in Yemen while continuing to support the STC a k A the Southern Transitional Council, and the STC had sees at this point more power in Aiden. Meanwhile, the Hoothies step up their efforts to attack Saudi territory, including launching

missiles at oil installations and airports. The Saudi and Yemeni forces capture Abus Amma and Mohajid, who is the leader of the so called Islamic State Yemen Province the I s y P. In July, the Emirates or the UAE announces it has completed its troop draw down or minimization in Yemen, but by August the STC effectively assumes control of the southern governance of a den Aban and Shabwa. By the end of August, the forces conduct air raids against the yemen government forces that are headed to a

den to attempt to regain control. Also in August, the Hoothies launch Operation Victory from God against Saudi forces, and the Hoothies continue to escalate its attacks on Saudi oil installations. These operation names I will say poetic in a depressing sad way. In September, the Hoothies claimed to have used drones to bomb oil processing facilities in two cities in

eastern Saudi Arabia. The attacks result in Saudi Arabia losing about half its output capacity, and even though the Hoothies take credit for the bombings, The international community at large blames Iran because Iran was thought to have provided the technical expertise that was needed to carry out such attacks.

In November of twenty nineteen, in an effort to end the fighting between the coalition partners in Southern Yemen, Saudi Arabia and the U a E broker a power sharing agreement between their respective partners in the Yemen Government Forces and the STC. The Riad Agreement, which is what it was called, is signed in early November, but by December clashes resume between the two forces. Literally just a few

weeks after it was signed. In January of leading up to February, fighting between the Saudi leg coalition and the Hohothies picks up. Huthi forces carry out missile attacks on military training caps and in Saudi Arabia's southern provinces is Whothies claimed to quote unquote liberate roughly a thousand, five hundred square miles of territory from the Al Jeff and Mareb governance from Saudi led forces, but this is a

claim that the coalition denies. In March, remember when Huthi forces capture the strategic city of Husum in the edge Jeff offensive and the Saudi forces carried out a retaliatory air strike on Senna, the capital. March, if y'all remember, it's also when COVID officially made its big world debut. And I know the first cases happened in like late twenty nineteen, but I do think COVID really stole the show in March and has been the show ever since.

But regardless, the Whosi's capturing the city of a Husum and the Saudi forces striking back with an air strike on Senna, this all happens in the midst of the beginnings of the COVID pandemic. The United Nations urges both sides to maintain the cease fire in order to prevent

the pandemic from spreading in Yemen. This doesn't happen spoiler alert, But fearing that the hoothy rebels would control any incoming financial aid, the Trump administration announced as a freeze on seventy three million dollars in humanitarian aid to Yemen, which is a very big number, like objectively, but it's a huge number as far as what Yemen needs, as far as food and shelter and money like that. Makes a huge difference for a country that is in deep need

of assistance, but Trump sucking sucks okay. In April, Saudi Arabia initiates a unilateral two weeks ceasefire to mitigate the risks of the new coronavirus pandemic. Days later, Yemen records its first known case of COVID nineteen. Despite the ceasefire, the Hoothies and the Saudi Look Coalition are both accused of carrying out attacks In the south. The st SEE once again demands self rule and it breaks its agreement

with the national government. In June, the Southern Transitional Council deposes the recognized government in Skatra, with government supporters decrying the move as a coutata. The following month, the STC says that it has renounced its claim to self rule and will return to the previously agreed upon power sharing structure. Like not even two months, not even two months after the STC demanded self rule, It's like, actually, I was

just kidding. I want to go back to the power sharing structure from before, and a lot of back and forth like this always seems to be happening in Yemen, but it also happens if you just keep in mind and so many nations that haven't necessarily maintained their roots long enough for something to grow, and I think Yemen has been in this soil stage for a really long time. If you just want to go with me with this metaphor, please. In October twenty the warring sides and Yemen carry out

the conflict's largest prisoner swap. The following month, Saudi Arabia and the Hoothies have reportedly initiated back channel talks. From the saudiast side. Saudi officials indicated their willingness to sign a ceasefire and deal and end the Saudi air and sea blockade in exchange for the creation of a buffer zone between Hohothi controlled territory and Yemen and the Kingdom's borders. The Hohothies later claimed to have fired a missile at

the coastal Saudi city of Judda. December, the STC and the Haddy government they formalize a new power sharing agreement in Aden. Prime Minister main Amadic Said is reappointed as head of the Hatty government's new cabinet, with the seats also going to both the STC and Yemen's Islaw party.

Just weeks later, the new cabinet arrives in aid and from Saudi Arabia and an attack on the airport kills at least two dozen people, but no none of the ministers, the Hatty government, and the STC and much of the international community. They blame the Hoothies for the attack, and Saudi warplanes conduct a retaliatory air raid on Senna January.

The Trump administration uses the December attack to justify designating the Hoothies as a foreign Terrorist organization or an f t O. The Hoothies are still able to consolidate control over about seventy of the empty population, and they threatened my Rib, which is a stronghold near the northeast corner of their control zone. My Rib is going to come up a bit, so ma Rib is a stronghold just beyond the threshold of the Hoothies control And then you

guessed it. February. President Biden now enters the arena and he decides to take a new path. He announced his changes to the US policy towards Yemen, and this includes revoking the Hoothy FTO designation. So we'revoking the designation that the Hoothies are forced terrorist organization, and Biden also declares an end to the US support for the Saudi led coalitions offensive operations in the conflict. He appoints Timothy Lender

King as the Special Envoy for Yemen. Biden shows his support in the UN lad peace process and he provides assurances to Saudi Arabia regarding the defense of its territory. Let's take our first little break here. I don't have a witty little segway to go to an ad break, but you know the drill. Just listen to the ads or press skip or whatever you do, and we will were back. We're back. This is Sharne. You probably need that.

So okay, we left off with Biden showing support in the UN peace process and he's providing assurances to Saudi Arabia regarding the defense of its territory. But it also is after he declares an end to US support for the Saudi's offensive operations in the Yemen conflict. So after this, the Hoothy rebels launched an offensive in Marib City. Mari again is the final stronghold for government forces in the north. The city is also very significant because of its location.

It is located very close to some of northern Yemen's richest oil fields. Marib also hosts nearly one million internally displaced persons, and intense clashes are expected to displace thousands more. By Marche, the conflict between the Hattie government and the Hoothies escalates in Marib. The fighting coincides with ongoing Hoothie missile and drone attacks against Saudi oil facilities, airports and air bases. Saudi Arabia retaliates with air strikes, particularly in

the capital of Senna. The US then condemns the Hoothies actions riyad Ak Saudi arab Yeah. They propose a ceasefire, and this ceasefire would include the reopening of the Judaida Seaport and the Senna Airport. Who's these reject this proposal on the grounds that a full lifting of the ongoing blockade is a prerequisite for any such agreement. Between April and May one, strikes and counter strikes continue and they escalate.

Both the U N Security Council and Ron's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zadiv they voiced their support for the ceasefire between the various Yemeni forces. A discussion takes place between the Saudi Crown Prince mohammedd bsen Man and the us IS Special Envoy for Yemen, Tim Lender King. Lender King pushes for the Saudi Live Coalition to loosen the blockade

on Jodeida and Senna. The u N Special Envoy for Yemen is Martin Griffiths at this point, and he's a British diplomat, so the us IS Special Envoy is Lender King. The u N s is Griffiths, and the Hoothies refused to meet with the u N Special Envoy to discuss any kind of the escalation of the conflict. We're now in auguste and a Hoothie attack wounds eight civilians on

Saudi soil and it damages a commercial airliner. Amid continued attacks like this from the Hoothy rebels, the Biden administration withdraws and removes its most advanced missile defense systems from Saudi Arabia. Also by August of last year, nearly twenty million people, or two thirds of Yemen's entire population, are

dependent on humanitarian aid for their daily needs. This includes very basic things like water and food and shelter, electricity, medical care, Martin Griffiths says that five million Yemenis are quote one step away from succumbing to famine and the diseases that go with it. As Hoothies continue to gain ground against Taddi government forces in Marib. The kind Tree of Oman It's also officially called the Sultanate of Oman. It's an Arabian country located in southwestern Asia at the

Persian Gulf. So a Man attempts to broker a peace deal between Saudi Arabia and the Hoothies. Hoothy negotiators refused to meet with the newly appointed UN Special Envoy for Yemen, Hans Gruenberg, before the Saudi led coalition commits to the full lifting of the blockade on Jodda and Senna. After a very fleeting lull in hostilities in September of last year, the Hoothie rebels renew their offensive in the Marib government.

The habit is a key district in the south of the city of Marib, and government forces had previously recaptured the habit from Hoothie control in July one, but in September the Hoothy rebels capture it again, and they continue their offensive in the Battle for Marib City. At this point in the timeline, the MNY people are taking to the streets and testing over the collapse of Yemen's currency

and the inaccessibility for basic daily necessities. Government security forces forcefully respond to these widespread protests across southern Yemen, and this at the time kills three protesters. On September eight one, the WHO the execute nine people on charges of involvement in the Saudi like Coalition air strike of April twousand eighteen. This strike had killed Salva highly A Cement, who was

the Who's the aligned de facto president of Yemen. A week or so later, on September seven of last year, a U s official delegation is formed and it includes the National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, the Special Envoy to Yemen, Timothy Lender King in the National Security Council's Coordinator for

the Middle East and North Africa, Brett McGurk. This delegation goes to meet with Saudi Arabia's Mahamanisman as well as Saudi Arabia's Deputy Defense Minister, and this is done in an attempt for a diplomatic solution for the Yemen conflict.

By October one, the U N Human Rights Council votes against renewing the mandate for the Group of Eminent International and Regional Experts on the Yemen a k A. This is called the g e e UM and it had previously been the only independent body that was monitoring all parties to the conflict. An investigation in reported possible war crimes committed by all parties in Saudi Arabia had been

accused of attempting to shut down the investigation. Clashes are continuing in Marib at this point between the Haddi government forces and the Houthies. By October seventeenth of last year, the Hoothies gained control of three districts in the Chebua government as well as two districts of the Marib government. Basically, they're slowly capturing district after districts in their efforts to have full control. In Nomber of One, the Hoothies sees the former site of the U. S Embassy in Senna

and it detains its local employees. United States calls for the immediate release of these employees and it demands that the Hoothies vacate the premises, who the spokesperson announces the capture of two more districts in Marib, after already taking two other ones the month prior. Government forces prepared to defend their last remaining northern stronghold a k A Marib City and some two million civilians at this point are

now trapped in the Marib governorate. Coalition aligned forces abandoned their position in the port city of Hohodeida, and this allows the rebels to retake the city. A ceasefire agreement had prohibited fighting between the two sides, and the government forces state that they are withdrawing troops from Houdeida to send them to reinforce the front lines. Okay, last year

I break, here we go, but m we're back. Okay, we're wrapping out one and in December of last year, due to following international funding, the World Food Program the WFP cuts food aid tm in In November one, the WFP had targeted eleven point one million dollars for food assistance, but as the humanitarian situation deteriorates, the cost of food

dramatically increases and becomes even harder to access. In the early months of January and February, the Hoothie rebels launched a series of unprecedented attacks against the UAE and Saudi Arabia. This included air attacks across the border and the seizing of a u A E vessel in the Red Sea. The Saudi Let Coalition response to these attacks with a bombing campaign and senna an attack on a northern prison

and a strike on a telecomps facility in Hoodeta. This results in a four day internet blackout across the country and at this point ua E backed forces regained control of some areas near marib On February twenty three of this year, the U S Treasury Department announced new sanctions against individuals involved in a funding network for the Hoothies.

During this time, the u N Security Council renewed for one year it's arms embargo on Yemen and continue to travel band and asset freeze on actors who threatened the piece. The Council condemns the Hoothie attacks on Saudi Arabia and the UAE that struck civilians and civilian infrastructure. Four countries in the u N abstained from this u N Security Council decision, and those four countries are Mexico, Ireland, Norway

and Russia. On March six, the Hoothies reach an agreement with the United Nations to address the issue of an abandoned oil tanker in the Red Sea, the fs O Safer that pose a threat of a massive oil spill. The World Food Program declares that the humanitarian situation in Yemen is worsening because of the Russian war on Ukraine and the Whothies continue their attacks against Saudi oil facilities while the coalition continues its strikes against Senna and Judeida.

Talks that are sponsored by the Gulf Corporation Council in the Yard begin between various parties to the Yemen conflict. The who these declined to participate in this, stating that these talks should be held in a neutral country. That same day, Sadi Arabia announces the secession of all military operations and Yemen as of March of this year. In April, the U n brokered a two month truce between the warring parties that was to start with the holy month

of Ramadan for Muslims. The agreement was a notable step toward peace, as the last nationwide coordinated sensation of hostilities was during the peace talks in As these peace efforts gained traction with a two month cease fire exile, President menso had He transfers powers to a new Presidential Leadership Council. This council is led by a Shad E lalami Uh and members of the council were selected at a g

c C sponsored talk in Ryab. It also includes those associated with the secessionist Southern Transitional Council, as well as those that were formerly part of the government under Haddie. Hadd He fires Vice President Daili Mussain e Lahmar, who has long been resented by the Hoothies, and Haddi delegates his powers to the Presidential Council. After the transfer of power is announced, Saudi Arabia and the U a E say they will provide three billion dollars to support Yemen's

decimated economy. Despite a two month troops Hoothy forces resume attacks on the front lines of the battle from Marib, which had previously been static since February, and this happens after the U a E backed forces is pushed the Hoothies out of the center of one of the districts in my Rib, the Hareb District. It's during this time that the Hoothies also signed a action plan to prevent the recruitment and the use of children in the armed conflict.

A senior Hoothy military official had said in that the group inducted eighteen thousand child soldiers into its army, some of whom were as young as ten years old. That's a that's a baby. Oh my gosh, it's really My heart hurts all the time. Okay, we're getting close to modern times here. In August of this year, the head of Yemen's Presidential Leadership Council, Alalami, he ordered the UAE back separatists to stop military operations in the Yemen's South.

This notice was issued to the head of the STC and it was seen as an attempt by Alami to step in and stop an STC campaign against the rival factions within the government umbrella, and this would include Yemen's ISLAP Party. He said that all military operations should be stopped until the implementation of a troop redeployment in Yemen's South, and this was something that was stipulated in a power sharing agreement from twenty nineteen, and he wanted this to

be fully implemented before they moved forward. These divisions within the Council really exposed its precarious nature because all the members are often ideologically opposed and they're only united by the opposition that they have to the Iran allied Hohothies as well as the support that they have from the

Saudi led military coalition. In the southern Cheboa Governorate, which is a very resource rich area, the STC has made gains against the Slab Party and it's said in September, which is right now, that it had launched a quote anti terror operation in Chebwa's neighboring governorate of A Bienne.

This operation, according to them, would quote cleanse of Bienne of terrorist organizations, which would include al Qaeda, while also securing Yemen's temporary capital of Aden and other southern governorates. After the Hoothies kind of invaded this governor. In the STC and other pro ua E factions, they blamed the Isla party for allowing the Hoothy advance. The removal of an ISLA aligned governor Mohammad Sawado in December of last year.

This cemented the ascendancy of pro UAE forces, but the instability in the south of Yemen really complicates any kind of u and effort for a permanent ceasefire or an attempt to pave the way for political negotiations to end the war. The u N broker ceasefire agreement that we talked about being implemented in April this year a k Ramadan. It has drastically reduced the fighting between the two sides, but the outbreaks of violence still continue. This month, al

Qaeda attacks killed at least thirty sold errs. The STC, which again is Yemen's main southern separatist group, is backed by the UAE and last month it expanded its presence throughout the Southern Abian province and what it described as a move to quote combat terrorist organizations and it's singling out al Qaeda. In a series of tweets, the STC dominated Security Belt said that six al Qaeda fighters were killed after the group launched a quote terrorist attack on

its forces in the Ahua district in Ebion. It also added that yas said Nassai Shai, who was a commander belonging to the Security Belt quote anti terror brigade. It said that he was killed in the attack along with a number of his companions. I just wanted to bring in that little news because it just kind of happened this month, and obviously things are continuing to happen and it changes month after month, as you can tell. I'm

laughing because it's said. Ut. Hopefully this gives some context to why Yemen is struggling so much, and I want to read some of the stuff, some of the statistics about Yemen really quick, because the scale of this is so immense. So this is from the World Food Program's website. The w FPS emergency response in Yemen is our largest anywhere in the world. The current level of hunger and Yemen is unprecedented and is causing severe hardship for millions

of people. Despite ongoing commanitarian assistance, seventeen point four million Yeminies are food and secure. The number of food and secure people is projected to go up to nineteen million by December. The rate of child malnutrition is one of the highest in the world, and the nutrition situation continues to deteriorate. A recent survey showed that almost one third of families have gaps in their diets and hardly ever sumed foods like vegetables, fruit, dairy products, or meat or

pulses a k a. Beans, peas, and lagoons. Malnutrition rates among women and children and Yemen remain among the highest in the world, with one point three million pregnant or breastfeeding women and two point two million children under five requiring treatment for acute malnutrition. Sometimes I think we can forget how many people is in a little statistic millions of people were talking. Two point two million children, one point three million pregnant or breastfeeding women. Just that number

is so immense I can't comprehend it. And the fact that this is protected to go up by nineteen million in general for all yemen ease by December is devastating. And I think remembering how big numbers are, as elementary as that sounds, is pretty important for time to time, because I think at this point we are kind of unphased by numbers. But let me continue from the World Food Programs website really quick and wrap this all up.

The humanitarian situation in Yemen is extremely fragile, and any disruption of the pipeline of critical supplies such as food, fuel, and medicines has the potential to bring millions of people closer to starvation and death. The WFP calls for unimpeded access to reach those most in need and avert famine. So here we are in a quick bury depressing submarine. Since twenty sixteen, a food in security crisis has been ongoing in Yemen, and this began during the Yemeni Civil War.

The current level of hunger and Yemen is unprecedented and is causing severe hardship for millions of people. And despite ongoing humanitarian assistance, seventeen point four million Yemenis at this point in time our food instcut year, and this number of food and secure people is projected to go up

by nineteen million by December. Maybe I'm being repetitive, but I think it's important to comprehend the crisis in Yemen is one of the most dire crises in the world, and this is brought on by protracted conflict, droughts, floods that are intensified by the climate crisis, COVID nineteen and other diseases. And despite all of this tragedy that we've been talking about, despite this humanitarian criminal thing that is happening, Yemen has failed to attract adequate support from donors for

years and now it risks slipping further into oblivion. What a terrible depressing way to end this podcast, but I really do hope that these episodes at least gave you more awareness about what's going on in Yemen and just how dire the situation is. And there are so many

com it's in the world. There are so many causes that deserve our attention, obviously, but I do think it's important from time to time to think about the causes that you may not be affected by and remember that everyone is human just like you and the privilege that you have um if you choose to engage with your privilege and use it for good, can make a huge

difference to people that need assistance. At this point, I'm going to start rambling, so before I do that, I just want to thank you for paying attention to my PROFESSORI talk and saying that office hours are now closed. Good eye. Hey. We'll be back Monday with more episodes every week from now until the heat death of the universe. It could happen. Here is a production of cool Zone Media.

For more podcasts and cool Zone Media, visit our website cool zone media dot com, or check us out on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast Us, 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.