It Could Happen Here Weekly 54

What a great title for a show. I love. I

love how snappy and remember and memorable. That is that. Look, look we can we we can, we can go, and we can go into a tiny bit of pulling back the curtain, which is that you can't do too many good intros because if you do too many good intros, and everyone expects you to constantly have a good intro, So every once in a while you have to just make you have you have to lower the overall quality of the intro so that when you are truly desperate, I have just been dragged out of bed at like

three am and you have to record a podcast, they're sort of atonal noises will be considered normal. That's why I script all my intros. But I'm just I'm just I'm just built. Yeah, different example that could happen here. What are we what are we doing here today, Chris um, we are talking about well, actually, admittedly we we had planned this episode before this happens. Yeah, we on this episode before the referendum in Cuba about the new family Code.

But yeah, we're we're gonna be talking about the kind of bleak but sort of gets better history of homo sexuality in Cuba and how things went from very bad to getting a lot better, and then also how a lot of American leftists like picked up a version of the history of this that is just sort of nonsense. And here here with us talk about this is Andre's Petira, who is well doing doing many things, one of which is studying for PhD in Latin American history at the

University of Wisconsin, Madison. On today's Welcome to the show. Oh, thanks so much for having me. It's great to be here. Yeah, like,

I'm excarted to talk to you about this. So Okay, I guess the place that I want to start is I want to go back to the sixties, and I want to go back to something that I I don't think a lot of people understand very well in terms of what happened in I just happened in various ways over a lot of sort of these new sort of revolutionary socialist states, which is that you get this attempt to like form of like a sort of like like a new revolutionary subject. Sometimes it's like, I mean, the

Soviet one was like the New Man. They're they're sort of different versions of this across the sort of areious social revolutionary states. I guess I wanted to ask you to talk about how this kind of got really really homophobic in Cuba, like pretty quickly. Yeah, So, I mean and and and one of the interesting parts about the story in Cuba is that it actually is look in part imported from the USSR and ideas in the USSR.

And that's actually one of the connections which in the literature isn't in the academic literature at least isn't always that well explored because Cuban is tend to be very insloyed. We don't really tend to learn Russian. I'm I'm kind of crazy. I actually am learning Russian. But but no

so so um. You know, there was obviously lots of homophobia, lots of you know, all like lots of bigotry against LGBT people before nine, not unlike the United States of the nineteen fifties, like you could live privately or maybe in certain safe spaces, you could live a kind of okay life. But you know, it was definitely very marginalized position, lots of bigotry and lots of personal danger in addition

to a lack of basic rights. Um. After nineteen fifty nine, Uh, you know, you have this jettison, jettisoning of the Catholic Church and kind of religious reasons for being bigoted with the coming of the revolution, which is a secular communist revolution. Um. But what what ends up happening is they And this is something that Abil Sierra Marero's recent book on on Um on these policies talks about a lot. Is this kind of attempt to remake human men into the demand

that's needed for this communist society in the future. And as part of this, they engage in a sort of social hygiene. We don't want people who are lazy, we don't want people who are degenerate, but you know bourgeois degeneracy by you know that kind of stuff. And within this, you know a persecution of people who were seen as either out, either as gay or at least as soft and they need to be made into real macho men for the revolution. And um, this started out in a

very series of isolated things, right. You would have like Virgilio Pinieta was who was a dramaturge. He was, um, he was jailed, uh, and he basically he was being targeted because people wanted his house and so if he was jailed and his belongings were separated from him, then like someone could get to keep his apartment. Like that seems to be why he was originally targeted. And he was detained twice for basically walking while gay. That's how

basically what the incident boils down. He was walking effeminately in people and he was detained by police and he was free because he had like he was an important person. He was you know, he had some protections. But then as the decade rolls on, as the nineteen sixties rolled on, that's like that's nineteen sixty one year after the revolution, you have the creation of a series of forced labor camps,

and there's not really any way to get around that. Um. We don't know exactly how many were sent there, um, but it seems to be in the thousands, maybe tens of thousands. We again, we don't know because the government hasn't classify that information. So it's still a conjecture. But it's not because people don't want to investigate the details. Um. And these are thousands and thousands of people who are

being sent for all sorts of reasons. Jehovah's witnesses um. Uh, people who listened to rock, people who are seeing as hippies uh lvi spleanos, so Elvis presleyan's so people who listened to Elvis Presley because that was seen as too effeminate and too yankee. Um and and so they were sent to the camps and to forced labor. But the

camps weren't just about forced labor. They were about remaking through labor, these men into your real men, because hard labor, proletarian labor, would you know, remake their spirits and their ethics. And aha, I mean it's kind of not unlike what we're seeing in the nineteen sixties in China. I think yeah, yeah, Yeah, there's a very explicit like one one of the things well yeah, well one of the things that is just

going on during the Cultural Revolution. Also, Yeah, it's like that they have that they have this sort of re education through labor. The thing that starts and it gets it does get. Yeah, Like I've seen conflicting accounts of the extent to which like people were directly targeted for

being gay. It definitely did happen. And there's yeah, and you get a lot of this sort of same thing of like if people are like spiritually unpear and like they have to be like re educated and they have to be sort of like turned into like proper like subjection. There's a lot of especially like there's a lot of sort of like there's a lot of people like being forced to hold science to say sodomite and ship yeah,

which is funnily enough. And the weird part about this is that like in the Chinese case, so the Cultural Revolution is like not a great time to be gay, but there's also this thing. There's this thing kind of like it's kind of like like Nies Berlin, where like there are there is some really bad stuff that happens, but there's also this sort of like there's a kind of general political chaos so you can get away with

some stuff. Two that there's actually there's another campaign in China and starts about three Yeah, it's called the Strike Hard Campaign. Interestingly, there's there's actually two Strike Hard campaign. So there's there's one of the eighties that's supposed to be this campaign against like crime and stuff, and so like they target a bunch of people who are like suppsed to be like social criminals, and then that winds up being a lot of like there's this there are

just mass arrest of gay people. They're in prison for a very very long time. Um yeah, under Although that one's also interesting because it's like you have very similar kind of reasoning, but it's like but it's in this sort of like dang like kind of revolutionary like phase where it's like instead of being instead of being a day to the revolution, they're like sort of a danger

to like traditional Chinese values, which is interesting and bleak. Yeah, well, because like this is one of the one of the

things happens in China. Write is it like in in you know, there there is an attempt to sort of do more egalitarian like gender relations during the Dan culture revolution between the sort of like revolutionary period and then when Dane takes power, part of this thing is like no, we're going back to traditional gender relations, like all of this egalitarian stuff was a mistake and like this is part this is part of whether when child policy comes from.

But then also you get a really homophobic crackdown in like eighty three, like like three or four years after sort of like he's actually, weirdly, almost exactly the same time that like the real sort of market reforms hit like like it's it's it's like a year later is when the package that's sort of like really brings the market back and trying to happens. Is I know, it's it's a very weird. Yeah, we we have gotten gotten very off topic, but it's it's a very weird and

interesting sort of like social flip that happens. Yeah, I'm sure, and that definitely makes me want to read more about

like China during this period. Yeah, well, I think it's interesting, Like everything you're talking about earlier that is interested, Like it's similar to me as I've talked to like people from Vietnam and they have a very similar story about like like, I mean, there was homophobia before, but they have a very similar story to the Cuban story about how like there is a sort of importation of like Soviet homophobia and how that made everything like when that did.

This starts out between the eighties and it gets just like significantly worse. Yeah, no, it's uh and in Cuba,

um what's it called? Like the whole idea that this is a form of bourgeois degeneracy and the gayness gayness is specifically bourgeois is like was really surprising to me as I dug into this, Like there's comics I in this thing I wrote, I include a couple of them, but it's basically like it's put up there with wanting to be in so leave it at like free society in the West, and so the West is it's it's almost like a factionary mean it is really, I mean

it's like it's it's like a very weird, weird mirror of like far right discourse because it's like the degeneracy of the West. Meanwhile, here we have masculine values. I mean, did you even see that type of rhetoric with we were talking about Alexander Dugan recently and he he is. I suppose there's a lot of that type of stuff as as as well as someone who is you know, a fascist writer who's pulled on some of the national

Bolshevik type stuff before. Um, yeah, you can attack attack gayness as it's like a sign of liberalism in the West as like this like almost like a bourgeois tendency. Yeah, I forget, I forget who it was. There was someone on Twitter who was talking about there's like it's it's very interesting thing like yeah like in in like in the US, like I don't know, like being like for

a very very long time. It's so kind of now you get this ross like like being gay like is is you know, like being queer as a sign of like you're a communist and you're like like a degenerate communists, et cetera. And then you go to like Vietnam and it's like, yeah, this prace is gay there. They're they're they're degenerate Western like kind of revolutionary and it's it's it's it's like it's always the same. The actual sort

of like homophobic thing is the same. It's just like the signs are flipped of like what the other is and who you can accuse them most sort of having the values of I wonder if the unifying factor here is and this is something I'm thinking of a lot, a lot because of Other's book, which is that I mean greatness as a disease, Yeah, an illness and so like that. So it allows you to glump onto it

anything you don't like from your own ideological prism. So I also wonder a lot about how nationalism plays into it, because that's one of the things that happens in a lot of these sort of revolutionary projects is like, yeah, like the sort of ideal of the new man is sort of like a communist thing, but it's also like very specifically something that you get with like with nationalist revolutions, where it's like, well, okay, so we like we we we have like like part of part of it, like

the basis of our national identity is like we are these like incredibly sort of masculine hard man or whatever. And then this like I don't know, it strikes me. It strikes me. It's interesting that like the further that sort of nationalism becomes entangled in like these revolution ary projects,

like the more you start to see this kind of stuff. Yeah, And and definitely part of this is nationalism because it's it's not just homophobia in Cuba in this context of the sixties, it's not just homophobia for the sake of homophobia. So there is that too, but it's it's also that I don't think Fiddel Castro is entirely lying when he says that it was part of the need to mobilize as much of society as possible for the economy. What's happening in Cuba in the nineteen sixties is basically the

economy is going into a meltdown. Um, the economic policies that they're enacting have not been working. They've earned through any surplus they had, including good will surpluses and a couple of respects. Uh. And I think that like some people point to like the new Man and people will work for moral incentives not material incentives, as just this naive thing. And then I think the most convincing counter

argument is they didn't have anything else to incentivize people with. Yeah, people people make this this this is a this is like basically it's an identical like argument that you get about the culture Revolution, where like you start to see these like incentives are like MAO will like give you a mango or something, or like you have these like

pins that you get and and like it. It's like, yeah, it's just it's it's very it's like the same thing of like you have these rewards that are sort of like yeah, they're sort of like spiritual almost or sort of like spiritual ideological rewards, and then eventually like kind of just stops working because it turns out that's not actually a very good basis for economic system. Uh. Do you guys know the old joke about Shake Givada when he was given a sign to become the Minister of

the Bank. I don't know the joke. I know the thing about like he was my my my vague memory is like the story that I hear was like he signed his name like really sloppy on it because he was piste off that like he had to put his face on money or something. But I have no idea that's that's that's that part's actually true. He did. He he hated money so much he refused to sign his actual name. He just signed his nickname as like just to show his disdain for for for economics. But at

a meeting the old jokeos. And this is something that Chap apparently like to tell as well, even if it's not necessarily true that at the meeting where they were deciding who's going to become the Minister of what, uh, they said, uh, who here is an economist And he raises his hand and everyone goes to chat. But you're a doctor, You're not an economist, he says, Oh, I thought you asked for a communist staff, Like, so yeah, no, I mean cha. And and I think I've heard arguments.

I'm not an expert on chat, but I've heard that he was retually pretty heavily influenced by China compared to the USS are closer to China. Yeah, that actually that

actually gets I make I think. I think I guess that kind of makes sense given his sort of like like the way his military strategy seems to have worked, which is very very much like a lot closer to sort of like nowas strategy than well, okay, I mean, I'm gonna put Soviet strategy and quotation marks because oh my god, is there like I have I have a very negative, a very dim view of of sort of the military strategy of people who are of like guerrilla

organizations who are taking their military trying directly from the Soviet Union. It's a lot of like we're gonna build up one giant I mean in a place and one day they're going to roll into the capital and it's like this, okay state, Yeah, yeah, yeah, that makes that makes sense. Um, okay, yeah, raining raining myself in a little bit. We have these basically labor camps that gay

people are getting put into. We have kind of a material basis for it, which is and this is one of the things that like people actually use as a defense of sort of like like, well, we had to put these people in these camps because of our material conditions, which I think, like I feel like that makes it worse.

Like I feel like in the fact that there's a there's a material basis for your homophobia like makes it harder to get rid of and makes it like a more entrenched part of the system, which I don't know, bizarre defense to me, But yeah, can we talk a bit about like how how did this actually end and to what extent did it end and did it sort of like have this like half life afterwards? Sure? So, so these last for a couple of years, This is not like a flash in the pan like oops are

bad kind of like you know, six months in. This is like a series of multiple work camps across the province of come Away, which is in central Cuba, and they last for three years, and there's pushback during this period, domestics back, international pushback, like people have been complaining about it for exactly what the definitive thing that got them the few mock closed specifically close or the UNI that is Meli, that is the IU, the Ala Prus young

military units to aid production. So the Umak themselves, which are open from nineteen sixty eight, they do eventually get close and sixty eight people are free, you know, like you know, the camps are closed and uh people are sent home and um there are varying stories. I have looked through like trades, trying to trace as many stories as I can get um uh and even even people who like we're participants have different stories. So like I remember Carlos Franki, who was one of a position figure.

He has one story that centers himself in the closure. Other stories say that it was the international pressure. Other stories say that it was the Right Writers and Artists Union, the official one the state on the NIAC, which filed enough complaints and that convinced Fidel to get it closed down. Um, that anecdote is actually from Maddie Glass Iglesias, Dad Josse Lexias,

who wrote about Yeah, his grandfather, his grands his communist grandfather. Um. But he who actual who wrote a book about the sixties. He's an interesting guy. But anyway, so the camps get closed one way or another, and I don't think we're gonna ever know the definitive answer until like there's actually

be classification. But they're closed. But the thing is, um, while the camps get closed, we have reports from different people, including some of the sources that are used as apologia for the MOP saying wait wait wait, social disgrace units he existing well into the early nineties seventies, and so we do have sporadic reports of things like this happening where seminarist or sense to religious people for for being atheists or started for not being atheists. Uh, you know,

gay people are being sent other people mighty wands. So people who spoke smoke pot, you know, anyone who's seen as like not conforming into this ideal new man, you're sent there and the labor is supposed to reform you. And that's that's a key part of this. It's not just labor as punishment's labor as ideological reform. There's even one of the people, some of the people who wouldn't camp, say that there was a sign that says work will make you men Jesus. Oh no, yeah, like work will

set you free. Yeah, it's uh so, so the camps do contain seem to continue and um, it's it definitely seems to be the case that, uh, you know, gay people do continue to be arrested for being gay, even though the intensity of this does die down by the night and seventies. There's something pretty bad that also happens in the nineteen seventies, but it's a slightly different project.

It's not as centered on force labor. So yeah, and I guess so the yeah, the the thing that you wrote this piece about that I actually probably mentioned that is one of the things we're talking about. Is you you wrote a very long piece about um called factually Based, which is about sort of the kind of mythology that developed in the US about like how these camps were closed and the sort of like apology around it. And a lot of this is based on Leslie Feinberg, which

is depressing in a lot. Leslie Feinberg, people who don't know, is like one of one of the most important like trans authors ever wrote Stone which Blues, which is like if you've ever been in like any sort of like queerer trand scene, you probably know about or possibly have read and she rout mm hmm, not a great account of this. Yeah, do you want to talk a bit about what what this was and how people have served

used it in different ways? Sure? So, Like for years I heard like arguments from this book and I didn't know they were from this. I just saw people sharing online online and thinking, where the hell are people getting this? This is not this is not true, And eventually I find out that it's It dates back to this book called Rainbow Solidarity and Defensive Cuba by Leslie Finberg, was written mid to late two thousand's. Um. Really, it's not

a book. It's a compilation of articles which Fineberg wrote for as part of the Lavender and Read series for This World's Workers World newspaper, which is like this Marci I sect which fine Birds have been a part of.

UM real real Weirdos like they those people like they have positions that are like bizarre even by the standards of like modern tankies, like they're they're like the these are people who are like hard line on defending the DIRG in Ethiopia, which is like stuff that's weird enough that like most most modern like idea like hardline ideological stalinists don't know what this is, don't even know what this is or won't defend it because it's like because

like most Ethiopian mark sister, like this was fucked, like it's it's Yeah. Also that this is every thing about these guys. So if you know about the PSL, the Party of Socialist Liberation, they emerged from a split with the WWP, Yeah, because the it was the w w P was too moderate or something. Yeah, my my my memory of it was it was a split about whether whether or not you should take money from North Korea.

I don't know, I don't know, I don't know if that's a percent of that that that's my memory of the last time I about it. So these are who these guys are. Yeah, no, no, I mean there's a reason that PSL and WWP seemed to have very similar lines. Um so so anyway, so I'm I finally get this book. I ordered second hand, so not giving anyone royalties. Um, and I get the book and it starts like arguing, you know, trying to you know, defend the track record

of the revolution. And really it's like, basically, it seems that this book and an article that came out before any of Finbers articles, an article by John Hilson in the early two thousands are kind of a response to how as the kind of like how LGBT rights were treated in the mainstream in like the United States was shifting. There was a like less homophobia movement towards more recognition of rights in the two thousands, and in that context, he was Cubist track record on LGBT rights, which is

pretty pretty add you know, was getting hammered. And so they're writing this as a response to that. And Feinberg Warrens in the introduction, don't expect a criticism of Cuba in this book. It's factually based, but you know, then I put it in quotes factually based, but uh, you know, it's it's factually based, but it's you know, where this is. It's basically meant his counter propaganda to the criticisms and the section that everyone quotes. I mean the book is

the book isn't that long. It thinks like a hundred pages. I have it over here. Um, it's like a hundred pages long. It's all these different articles. Um. The section that most people quote is actually like two or three pages. It's this very short section on the map, and Uh Feinberg talks about the MOP and sites basically three people

to talk about it. Basically, one one of those sources is Ignacio ramon It, who is this foreign journalist who interviews Fidel and gave Fidel the opportunity to give these explanations and defenses of his policies, where basically Fidel Uh, Basically, Fidel defends it as a part of the necessity of mobilizing the entire country in the face of the crisis that it felt that was facing in the nineteen sixties from the United States, so it needed to mobilize everyone.

It was part of the economic mobilization. And it was almost a favor to gay people because they couldn't go into the military because there was too much homophobian the military. So they almost did them a favor by giving them sending them off to do labor that wasn't with the military in these nice little you know, economic productive units, and then you know, oh there was some use, there

was some stuff, so we shut them down. Um. And this is before Fidel actually admitted that there was persecution of LGBT people in Cuba under his watch, which comes in like interview. So this is like his version of things right before then, and that's what Feinberg sites. Another of the sources is Cardinal and Nest Carnal, who I'm happy to expand on him. The short version is that into gard Danel is going around Cuba in nine and nine one for two short trips, and he's just basically

writing down everything and anything people tell him. Some of it's very critical, some of it's very supportive. He's not actually claiming anything is factual. He's saying, I am in Cuba. This is what people are telling me. Make up your own minds. Like that is his stense, but is presented as this, uh like it's not critically analyzed at all.

And it's these two separate stories. One of them is that a hundred Communist youth members infiltrated the camps on hearing that there were abuses there, and they wrote reports saying that there were abuses, so the camps were shut down. And then there's the separate story, also source to Cardinal

by Feinberg, that Fidel personally infiltrates the camps incognito. And then there is this like guard who was going to like cut the cord on his hammock to wake him up and get him force him to work, and Fidel revealed him elf and and you know, almost almost like why dost thou persecute me? Saul? A kind of deal, like very it sounds like a very biblical story, so it's it's a good yard, but it's not doesn't sound very serious. And also the two stories kind to contradict

each other. Why does Fadel have to infiltrate if the hundred communist youth members have gone, you know, or vice versa,

you know, you don't. Yeah, it's really weird, like like why why would there be both like both of them, you can't present both of them as true at the same time, like they they're they're they're mutually contradictory accounts of how this happens, very very weird, exactly, and and and in in Cardinal, they're not even presented back to back the hundred Communist youth members is literally a dude he saw on the street who told him this. It's a paragraph and that's it, Like, we don't have any

other context. The other story that Fiddel infiltrating is shared is slight sounds slightly more credible if you really want to believe it, but then if you actually read into it, it's more like it doesn't. It also does no water. Yeah, it's like a guy heard from another guy. Like it's it's yeah, he's he he's a guard. It is a guard narrating this. But he like he talks about what he saw up until like half into the paragraph, and then the rest is clearly implied to be stopped stuff

he heard about but wasn't actually present for. And Fineberg presents him as a witness of both. So anyway, so that's that's Fineberg's whole defense, Like basically, Fidel had no idea that we're abuses, even though the very existence of the camps themselves were abuses, and then but they were shut down and everything's hunky dory, you know. That's that's

Fineberg's defense. And then of course the third thing is that she refers both citations to Hilson, which I can get into a second, but just I think part of the problem is that Finberg didn't actually read Cardinal. Yeah, so Hilson. Hilson is another activists. I'm not sure if he's LGBT and not like that that front of me list clear, but he was another activist. He died very early in the two thousands, I think um from from cancer.

He uh, but he wrote an article that cites card donal and cites both sections that Feinberg later sites and not more, not less. And I think what's what happened was that Fineberg basically goes to this article which basically makes more or less makes the kind of arguments that Fineberg is already making in her in her own work.

But m what what when when she sees things that seem to exculpat the Cuban government, she basically does copy paste and a little parenthesis to give credit to Hilson and then moves on right, she doesn't actually read Hilson. Hilsen even like treats it a little more cautiously than Fineberg, even though not sufficiently cautiously. And I think that that explains why and the least this is a generous interpretation.

Feinberg doesn't actually address the fact that in her your own exculpatory source, there's talk of other camps, like at the time Cardinal is like I am going to the camps. I'm visiting the camps. There are camps here, like you know, So it doesn't it doesn't make sense unless maybe Fineberg didn't read the book, like just like copied and paste and didn't really think about it, yeah, or or just like went and found the one session that that was

useful and then just read that part. Yeah, which yeah, not not a great way to do history, as it turns out. Yeah, yeah, I will do my one return to marks moment in this interview, which is to say, ruthless critique of all that exists, things that you generally support, because otherwise you wind up with this stuff. Yeah. Yeah, Oh my god, it's done the round. This thing has been going around around and around on the internet for

years and years. Yeah, and I guess we should also say that, like, yeah, this is this is the thing that happens with like any any like every one of these like every one of the social country you've been talking about, Like you will get people who basically are

like like, hey, look at this bad thing. We're gonna But people who are like, I don't know, you get yeah, you get like Cuban right wingers who are like also unbelievably homophobic who suddenly like discover a passion for gay rights because look at these abuses and it's like, yeah, it's I don't know, it sucks it, Yeah, I mean I think it genuinely is a part of the reason why this version becomes like a memory that like like this for these sort of versions of the story, which

like don't have are not like really credible, like become sort of entrenched in the sort of like socialist memory of of this period in the US because it's like, well, okay, so so on. On the one hand, you have a bunch of sort of like like incredible fanatical right wingers talking about what was going on, and then you have like, hey, here's another story from a socialists, like well, we're gonna

believe the socialist version. It's like, well, neither of these people like not like but both of these groups like have an incredibly clear agenda going into what they're doing, and so you have to sort of like actually sift through the stuff yourself. Otherwise you weird wind up with very very weird and distorted histories. Yeah, and and people just really want to believe it. I mean, I think

that's that's my conclusion. Like I when I was originally researching for this, I was I was pissed, Like I was like, this is these are just not true. How could someone publish this? You know, it's really angry. And I kept trying to write that like a piece or based on that, and I keep kept stopping and like this is not the right approach, This is not the right Like I kept stopping myself, and then I finally like, try to, okay, put my shelf self in Fineberg's shoes.

If I was you know, really loved you know, if I was like as enamored as Fineberg was everyone and everything involved in the Cuban Revolution, and at the same time one a member of a persecuted group, right, you know, and I really wanted to swear this circle like and I saw something to let me do that. I would probably also just glimb onto it and just not really try and not think about it too much for the same reason, right, you want, you know, our defenses are

a low one, it's something we want to believe. Yeah, this is there is an enormous amount of stuff that just sort of people, I mean just yeah, like everyone has a bunch of stuff that they believe because they wanted,

they want it to be true. Like it's it's not like like we're we're we're we're we're being hard on the socialist here, but like, I don't know, like this is why half of the people who believe Q shit believe it, right, Like it's it's it's, it's it's it's the thing they want to believe, and I think they sort of have to believe for the ideology to function. And so it's like it's not like I don't know,

like it's it's it's. It's not that much different than like and Paul Wolfowitz like still thinking the Iraq war works or something, right, Like it's it's it's, it's, it's it's the thing you have to believe in order to not like have to sort of process the complications of

what you're supporting. Yeah, so I think, yeah, everything I want to talk about sort of moving past this is about the stuff that's been happening recently and about how stuff got better in Cuba, because this is I like, this is this is one of the places where like things actually did genuinely get a lot better than like it was. And I want to talk a bit about like how that happened before we get to sort of the stuff that's been happening in the last week or so. Yeah,

and you know, I'm happy to get into happier terror. Yeah, it sucks, like, oh god, it's it's definitely dumer stuff to always think about the sixties of the um. So after the sixties, it did get pretty It was pretty bad in the nineteen seventies too. There was a purge of education and culture of anyone LGBT or suspective being LGBT, because the ideas that they would recruit and influence and

corrupt the miners. And but yeah, uh so, I can probably do an article comparing the Culture and Education Congress in seventy one in Cuba with with with policies in the United States right now. Um, But then things start to get better in the nineteen eighties a little bit

like the the throttles pulled back. It's not great, but it's you know, it's not terrible as terrible as it was, And then from the late nineteen eighties into the nineteen nineties we really see to see start to see a sea change, both in terms of popular culture and in terms of the of state policy. And of course they're intertwined because the who who who allows films to be put on in theaters the state, they owned all the theaters,

so um in terms of culture. Actually know one of the people who had a play played a key role in this, which is Seneta Bas And Seneta Bas is this writer from a small town in Cuba, small village, and he goes to heaven and he's he's a writer and artist, and he wrote this short story about this platonic relationship between a patriotic gay man and a patriotic human heterosexual member of the communist youth who develop a

respect for each other. And it's like, even though like the gay man is alienated from state policies because of the persecution of LGBT people, he actually knows a lot more about history and culturing Cuba than the heterosexual guy who's raw ra revolution but doesn't actually know like all these important writers and artists and and things like that

that are also important for Cuban national identity. That When that was first read in the Castable Samericas, which is like this huge building for human culture, people wept just openly. And then it was made into a movie called So Strawberry and Chocolate. I can explain the type people want, but basically it basically it's the same story. It's expanded a bit because the original was short story, and you can actually get it in the United States. I think

Paramount bought the rights for distribution. Fox maybe bought the rights. I don't know, but it was came out in and it was a big turning point for public public perception, right. Um. Actually have a friend of mine was who who knows who knows? The offer? He was stopped at his building and this the wife of a colonel who lives in this building says, my husband wants to see my friends, like would you what did I do? It goes up to the colonel's house. The colonel says that you want

coffe or anything? I said. My friends says no. The colonel says, explained to me this film that's come out recently, because the colonel wasn't gonna see it in theaters. Then my friend explains the movie and guy says no, no no, no explain everything. So basically my friend does a scene by seeing synopsis for memory, and after like an hour and change in this guy's house, the Colonel's just sitting

there not saying anything. He said, If I understood this and seeing this earlier, things might have been different, like like thank you. It's it's a huge turning point culturally, and then politically you also have Maria la castro So.

Maria la castro is daughter of Rool castro So, niece of Fidel, and she from within the government, using her position of privilege, really starts to push for better LGBT policies for resil GBP people in better know laws and runs and she at the head of the Sentesex, which is the National Center for Sex Education. She really starts to spearhead and improvement, and we start to see the nineteen nineties and two thousand's not just a pulling back

of persecution, at least official persecution. You know, you can

still have informal prosecute level of jobs. But you also start to see things like l trans people can have gender firming surgery backed by the state, you know, free of cost, Like all these sorts of different protections and policies like the SENTISEX will if there's like a homophobic incident to the school, they can send out somebody to give a talk and say, this is why persecuting someone for their gender identity or the sexual orientation is wrong. But but but you really see a shift in the

position of the state. And that's not just Mariella. I don't want to make it about Mariella, but behind her is of course all these other these LGBT people who would not be in the position to demand this for themselves. But she definitely spearheads this and I think she deserves

some merit for that. Yeah, it's interesting that they have like that they have a level of sort of buying from the state, because I think, like that doesn't happen in like China or Vietnam, and like you know, I mean like Vietnam, like there has actually been stuff there and the last like year where there's been a lot of real progress, but like they like literally one month ago the government was like we're going to declare almost axuality no longer like a mental illness, and like that's

sort of just like a month ago, yeah, yeah, yeah, and then there's only people like cool people have been fighting for in Vietnam for like a long time. But like and even then, like there's this whole thing there where like people like you get you get this because you talked to medical people in like you start to doctors, you get this thing where like, well, okay, so there's like real and the other thing, the thing that is

outlawed conversion therapy. But if you talk to doctors about the doctors are like, well, there are real gay gay people and there are fake gay people, and the real gay people you can't do conversion therapy on. But but this rule there, but these guys are like, this ruling only covers the real gay people, doesn't cover the fake gay people because the conversion therapy like it's it's a disaster, and like I I don't know, like it's and like

China also has been really bleak. Like I'm just gonna you're talking about a lot about sort of like the effect the media has on it. I'm gonna read this thing from the Chinese General Rules for Television Drama Content Production from ples and fifteen, which Okay, I've seen conflicting things, but I think this is still in effect. If it's not still in effect, it was only reversed in one,

but I think it's still in effect. And also there have been new sort of guidelines have been put out from movies that are about like I mean the specifically the stuff are like you you can't have gay men in movies. You can't have men they were to effeminate in movies, Like you can't have men that look like they're cross dressing in movies. I'm gonna read this thing from the TV code. Um so this is this is stuff that he says is explicitly is not to be shown.

Content which depicts or portrays unnatural sexual relations and actions such as incests, homosexuality, perversion, sexual harassment, sexual assault, sexual violence, etcetera. This is Vision Best Version two Rission three. Content which portrays and promulgates unhealthy perspectives on marriage and married loves such as extra marital love, one night stands, free love, etcetera.

Sorry try guys not allowed. Yeah no, like it's like it's oh god, yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna do a tray guys joke every episode for a down never never off the recording. The French are surely complaining that the ban on cheating on your wife is an imposition on their culture. Yeah, definitely, that's actually extremely racist against the French. The actually he said it doesn't mention I was gonna make up I was gonna make a French film pedophilia joke.

But it doesn't actually ban it bands incests, but it doesn't actually ban like that. I mean, I think the on I think I on pedophile I think I think it's a different section of the code that I didn't

coffee here. But yeah, and I think part of what was going on there was like like there wasn't like I mean, I think things have gotten like it the law that was being used to arrest like gay people in China like was dayballish in the nineties, but like and like there was a culture shift, but it didn't like the state decided it was going to do the same thing the US state which is doing, which is like do this sort of backlash to it, and it didn't. Like that kind of stuff didn't happen, which is I

think really bleak. But also like is genuinely is a thing that like like yeah, like the good good good for good for the Cuban people, good for Cuba, like glad, glad you all are doing this because like mador Win. Yeah, because because it because you know, like you can you can see what happens when like this doesn't happen, which is all of this bullshit that exists in a lot of the other sort of post Soviet like or post

communist countries. Yeah, I think that Cuba would have done it eventually, but I think that Mariela definitely just sped it along. Like there's there's definitely a problem of a cult of Mariella, where like abroad where it's like all all things be great, be due to Mariella. It's like completely cuts out all the people behind her, you know who something like please ask ask your uncle. That's for me. I gotta get married someday. But you know, but at the same time, I think we can't cut around of

the story either. Yeah, and that gets us to, well, I guess, I guess you're starting quitting that tea first. But yeah, there's the new family code that's passed. Which also I do want to mention this because I don't think like people don't even know this when I tell them about this, about neither China nor Vietnam is game in neither tryinga nor Vietnam is game marriage legal. And there's a lot of people who think that the repeal that happened in Vietnam legalized gay marriage, and that's not

what happens. Like the thing that it did is you will no longer be arrested for having your own unofficial marriage, which is a thing that could happen. But this is this, this is this is not this is not the thing that is happening in Cuba. Like I see those are people a lot where like something good will happen in Cuba and people will prorect it onto like China, and it's like that's no, like they're not the same place,

Like don't, don't, don't do this with this stuff. Don't project the Cuban medical system onto the Chinese medical system. They're not the same. Please stop. Yeah yeah, yeah, okay, but yeah, going on to stuff that's good and this stuff, but on also the sort of like yeah, so can we talk a bit about like what talk about like the nineteen referendum and the sort of like the stuff about sort of how do you like the story of

how the stuff that's happening now didn't happen in yeah happening. Yeah, so so when the in the Raoul Castro who who took over after fidel Um. He began using a bunch of referendums decide major things, major policy changes, and using referendums kind of just till like because like the because the Nationalist police basically reberen stamp committee like referendums really took to the four as a way to like channelize, channel support and you know, show popular acquiescence to major

changes among the constitution. So as part of the they did a draft constitution. They debated it their debase all around the country at local levels, in in in in neighborhoods and workplaces, and people gave feedback the um marriage equality and and and things connected to it, which we can get into in a second. These were part of for the most part, part of the twenty nineteen Constitution,

but there was a lot of pushback. Um, Like, obviously, if if the state has been repressing LGBT people for decades, that part of their coalition just doesn't stop overnight, does It doesn't just stop being bigoted overnight because of you know, a change in policy. So you know, it wasn't just that the religious right, like evangelicals, there are a lot of evangelicals in Cuba right now, there's a growing evangelical population, I'm sorry to say, yeah, backed by the joical money.

Uh no, please pressing the wrong people. And and then there's the Catholic right obviously you know, much more you know, discreetly but still very you know, against this. Uh. And there was enough pushback that the government was worried that I don't know if they were worried that the constitution the referendum would fail entirely, but it did seem like they were worried that it would lower the voting percentage in favor of the new constitution enough that it would

hurt the new constitution's legitimacy or something. So they decided to carve off the more controversial parts about the LGBT rights and basically carve them off, pushed them into a referendum on the family code with all the new laws based on the new constitution, all the new laws governing family law, and pump that down the road indefinitely. And so what's happening now that would just happened is the culmination of this red friendom that they punted down the

road in twenty nine. The original constitution stuition was passed with something like approval, uh, and and this was just kind of left it on the to do list. And then with the current crisis in Cuba, I mean like there's a couple of there's a couple of ways to read this, but I think one of the most obvious is that, uh, the Cuban government needed to win, and this was an easy win. They could actually deliver in

the age of extreme scarcity and rolling blackouts. It's like, we can just at least deliver on this promise, and they did. So Yeah, I guess, So can we talk a bit about like what what what what actually is in the new code and what like what what it does? Yeah? So it does. It does a bunch of pretty cool things.

It legalizes same sex marriage, which is great for a lot of people, not just because you know, not not just because of the principle of it, but also things like, Okay, you're separating from your partner, but everything is under your partner's name. You're not never need like Mary and what you're right, pop up up up us so you like for for separation for immigration, if you're trying to immigrate and you're not married to your spouse, you know, you know,

if you're trying to inheritance all these kinds of things. Yeah, this is gonna be. This is like important in concrete material ways. It legalizes adoption by same sex couples, which is also pretty cool. That was not allowed at all. Good it wasn't before. Glad, Glad, glad, glad. You can now do that. That that's good. Hopefully we can still continue to do that here for like you more years

at least. Like yeah, Um, it legalizes surrogacy and same scop sex couples can can benefit from can use surgacy now, although on a not for profit basis, and that's that's specific. I am not an expert on whether or not it is the best policy to have it as only not for profit. Um. I know that there's a lot of debate over it, but the law says not for profit only for surrogacy. But that's still another option for people. In addition to adoption. UH. It expands civil unions to

be much more inclusive. They're called uh in Spanish, so now they are much more inclusive. And also you know, you know, you you don't have to get married. You can get a civil union if you can we explain what that is, because that was a like there there was a whole thing in the US, like in the in the two thousand's about like oh, like you can do civil Like there was a period it was like there are a lot of places you can get civil unions, but you couldn't get married. So can you explain what

a civil union is? Because I think that's a thing that like a lot of our audience probably isn't gonna like remember when that was a thing anyone talked about. Sure, I mean, like I'm I'm not a lawyer. Yeah, My understanding is it is it is a way to recognize your basically partners. You have some rights, and it helps with some issues of like I think it also varies country to country, but it's basically like a step down

from the full commitment of marriage, is my understanding. Um, sorry, that's less No, Yeah, I know, like that that was that was by understanding of it. It was like like in the US, it was this whole thing of like, well, you can have still union, so you don't need to be married. And then people were like no, because he doesn't give you doesn't give you this sort of full suite of rights and stuff, but it gives you some things which I'm glad. I'm glad he was doing, Like no,

you could do both of these things. And then wasn't there something about like like yeah, there there were changes to like what like changes to what can be recognized as a family That is the part that I've seen the most, Like I have read a bunch about this, and I'm I still feel like this is something that's not it's not entirely clear what this is going to

look like in practice. So basically, in expect has the what the legal definition of what can constitute as a family unit uh to be more focused less focused on blood ties and more focused on affective ties so love, affection,

you know, caring for each other. Uh. So that for example, let's say, I think like the big hypothetical that was held up was like grandparents, so like if the parents aren't around, but in practice, these people are the ones that raise you, you know that you know, for for for legal stuff that has to do with kids in family law, like we can consider this a family unit,

is my understanding. It's still really murky and it's not really helping me feel like like the r things I've read on this also seem to be kind of like like, here's an explanation. I'm like that that doesn't really help me understand this at all. It is a little and and I've seen people running about this is like human government has abolished the family. Ray, I'm like, didn't. Yeah, And for everything everybody, it seems like it's a they

abolished the family. It's that they've allowed you to change what a family is in the like in the eyes of the state, which is not the same thing, right, Like it's it's like giving you more wiggle grew. Yeah, um, is my understanding. But again, it's one of those things where I feel like everyone who I've seen running with it has run with a completely different, very triumphilist explanation

that are sometimes mutually contradictory. And I'm like, I'd like to see what this actually looks like in practice and like seeing the effects better because it's it's an underdiscussed dynamic of it because like what most people abroad we're looking at was like same sex marriage, so like this so that was less discussed, But I mean it seems

to be positive. The thing that the thing that caused more controversy on the island was there was a shift to patio stad, which is uh father paternal rights basically parental rights right and um, Basically, the idea is to switch the child from nearly being a subject of their parents will in theory they have more rights and our subject on their own, even if they're just a kid that's trying, yeah, to like prevent things like corporal punishments and things like that you can't be your kids, which

also seems like a positive change. I would would would love more of that in the US to just like absolutely clobber the like parental rights people because oh my fucking they're they're going to kill us all yeah. And I mean the funny thing is like every time that there's a leftist movement, the thing is always there coming for your kids. And then like oh god, yeah anyway, sorry no, yeah, like it's right has one thing and it's the same thing every time. Yeah, those are the

kind of the big things reds. The only thing I wanted to talk about was like, I okay, so there was a thing of okay, so like obviously it passed with like sixt seven percent of the vote. I think, um, something like that, like basically two theories of the vote um, and I want to talk a bit about like, Okay, so something I saw Okay, so like, okay, so you have the people who voted against it because they're Christian and they suck um and the young people who are

just homophobic non Christian homophobes, non Christian homophobes. But then there was also like something that I saw that was like like people in opposition groups being like, we're going to vote against this as like a vote against the government, which, yeah, can we explain what that was about, because that's yeah, sure.

And I think that you also have of a division there between the people who are like, it's really against the government, but really it's against the change thought about like I think that even there it's a mixed bag of both. But um, basically, the idea was that by approving this, uh and voting in favor of something cooked up by the government, that they were giving credence to the government, legitimacy to the government. Uh. Ergo, the only

moral position was either extension or voting now uh. And so I mean, again a lot of it's mixed up with They also really as a rule, did not like the content of the law. I mean, the part of the thing is like it's the the the opposition is in this weird space right now where they have like the more historical branch, which is you have like a

historical branch that it's like rapidly far right. Uh. And then you have there's a lot of overlap with like default Catholic right in there uh and the Catholic of far rights in there as I'm sure you understand what that means. But but but then you also have a growing prominent liberal contingent um who speaks better not just that doesn't just put on a better face for international audiences,

but also puts on a better face for Cuban audiences. Um. And because like Cuba is not a far right wing society like for example, abortion, Like I spoke to a right wing Cuban who left who's like, yeah, I like Ben Shapira and a lot of what he says, but I don't get his obsession with abortion. That's a woman's right, Like that's just so weird to me. It's because like Cubans aren't aren't necessarily super religious as well, which is a big part of it. Uh and slimant to the

petis and all that. So the the so so that's so they're they're kind of like a but like it's like cats and dogs tied into a sack. So there's like you have these different opposition figures. And I think that the really right wing ones know that they can't be as openly homophobic as they used to be, and so they need to couch it in a different way. I think it's not just that I don't want to reduce everyone to that, but I do think that's a

huge part of that project. And then in addition to that, just people who are like anything that the government does is bad because they're accelerationists, which is another big part of the opposite. Know why is every why is everybody an acceleration is? Now? This is the worst I I I an acceleration I don't think. I wonder if it's material reality is a trick to that to the I

am going to take a time machine. I am going to hunt down nick Land, and I am going to stop the g RU from forming, and no one will ever know what acceleration is. Is that you know that's not true. Without nick Land, someone else would come up with with accelerationism. It's a very easy thing to think of to to to be fair to Nick Land, at at LEAs his version of accelerationism had to do with like at least there was everyone. Yeah, like the first

of accelerationism. We're like, like capitalism is the human machine that's also a god that only exists in but that it exists continuously in potential and all all of you, like the market being irresistible because because because because it's like the market itself is the thinking machine that this

is at least funny. Yeah, the moder stuff is, oh god, this is like they I longed for the days where there was an argument where people where people would do the modern accelerationist thing and like the land Ends were go, no, no, no, that's not what accelerationism is. It's just that I hate this reality. It's the worst. Yeah. So I mean, like, I think I think a good chunk of the opposition

movement can be described as alex accelerationist. It's not just it's not just accelerationists, but I do think a lot of them are in there. Any improvements to anything is helping the government. That's why the support the embargo. That's

why they don't want an improvement on any laws. They want things to be as dysfunctional as possible because they think that like the government is incapable of actually getting doing better, and to the extent that it becomes better and stronger, it's just going to be more repressive ergo. The solution is bring the country to a standstill so there will be a general strike and overthrow the government. That's their plan. I think that seems like a terrible plan.

I'm just gonna gonna throw that out there. That's that, Like I get at that at that point, Like why do why not just become a terrorist? Like I don't know, like because that's because that's more scary. Yeah, that's the actual reason. Yeah, It's like it's people. It's people, people who were too cowardly to like kill someone with their own bombs, so they kill people by trying to get sanctions due instead, which is like no, although there have

there happened, there happen terms there was the realist. He blew up a put a frag bomb in a few hotel until the Cuban an Italian tourist. Um. Yeah, actually, actually my dad was working on the extradition case to get an extraditeto vensquel over that he was yeah, he's He also committed the first act so a Cuban, a CIA trained Cuban exile committed the first act of terrorism

involving civil aviation in the Western Hemisphere. That's pretty late. Yeah, I mean maybe maybe it was just people were just doing it in and maybe it was just a European thing, and then the CIA was like, what if we bring this here. It's like, no, sure, surely this will work better for us that it worked for every other group who's hijacked a plane in the nineteen seventies. Oh god, this sucks. I hope, I hope those guys have a bad time and that. Yeah. Yeah, well at least kicked

it a couple of years ago. Oh thank god. Okay, rest rest in piss official official pot opinion doing. We're doing the crabs got these people suck um Yeah yeah, so yeah, I guess do you have anything else you want to talk about? Or I think that's it. Just thanks a lot for having me on. It was it was great to be on. Thank thanks for coming on. Yeah. Queer rights good, not doing them bad. Don't kill people with sanctions. Yeah, definitely. The embargo has been an utter failure.

Everything in human misery. Yeah, like all right, yeah, and I guess, um, yeah, but listening, do you do you have do you have stuff you want to plug? Oh? Sure, that's that's that's a very good and generous point. Um. So you can find me on Twitter at at a s R tier up Peas and Peter E r Teas and Tom I e r r A. I also have a podcast which is linked in my bio. I'm doing a history of Cuba um as an academic but spreading

for a poor popular audience. And we're going way when we start with the indigenous people, we don't just jump over them, and we're I'm currently working on Columbus and then uh, let's see. And I also have a sub stack called scene embargo s I N and then the word embargo, so yeah, yeah that that's without embargo. If I'm Spanish, is okay, yes, it means without embargo, but it also sounds like sit embargo, which is I feel like, yeah,

it would be a cool band theme. So yeah, yeah, well we will, we will, we will link to stuff and we will link to that in the description. And yeah, thank you for joining us. This this has been na could happen here? Um? Yeah, make bad things happen to homophopes and get good things to happen. Yeah, hello, and welcome to It could happen here today. It's just me because it's early and I live on the West Coast,

and today we are talking about America's drug problem. And I'm joined by David Mitchell from Patients for Affordable Drugs, and we're going to talk about the cost of medicines, why it's so astronomically high, why I sometimes go to Mexico to buy my instident, and why you probably know someone who can't afford the medicines they need to survive

or maybe thrive. So, David, can you explain a little bit about First of you like to introduce yourself and explain what Patients for Affordable Drugs does and the role that you play there. That would be wonderful. I am the founder and president of Patients for Affordable Drugs. Were the only national patient organization that focuses exclusively on policies to lower drug prices. We're independent, we're bipartisan. We don't take money from any organizations that profit from the development

or distribution of prescription drugs. We do two main things. We uh collect patients stories, and we amplify those stories to policymakers and elected officials so we can bring home the human impact of ridiculously high drug prices on the people in the United States. And the second thing is

that we recruit and train patients to be advocates. UH. We teach them about the policies, give them coaching on presentation, UH, and UH prepare them to go tell their story and deal directly we the people who set policy in this country. And so we've had patients testify in state legislatures all over the country. We've had patients to testify in Congress

on many occasions. Just last week, one of our patients, who happens to be a Type one diabetic, I introduced the President of the United States in the Rose Garden in a speech the President made talking about the New Inflation Reduction Act and how it's going to help lower drug prices and out of pocket costs for people. So that that's our work. I do this work because I'm a patient. I have an incurable blood cancer. It's called

multiple my looma. It's incurable. That's not good, but it's treatable for some period of time with very expensive drugs. Right now, my oncologists have me on a four drug combination that carries a list price of more than nine thousand dollars a year. Christ these drugs are literally keeping me alive, and I'm very grateful to have them, but they're wildly overpriced and the the drug industry. Drug companies exploit UH patients everywhere in the world, but especially here

in the United States. They use us as a piggy bank to hit their targets for executive bonuses, to trigger executive bonuses, and they hit profit targets for their shareholders. UH. And the unfairness is not acceptable. Anyway, When I got diagnosed and suddenly I found myself with a disease UH through no fault of my own, they required very expensive drugs, I began this journey, and the journey taught me a fundamental point, and that is drugs don't work if people

can't afford them. And so I retired and decided to devote myself as a patient UH to trying to change a system in this country there really is built to benefit the people who profit from it at the expense of the people that's supposed to serve. And I worked for free as a volunteer and I've been doing it for six years. That's great. Yeah, let's say, I'm sorry to hear about your own wealth, but I think it's a very admirable thing you've done. So, David, can you

explain because it does Yah. I think people sometimes maybe if they've only lived in the US, they might not realize, or perhaps they're extremely aware. Why are medicines so? Why can't I travel sixteen miles right, go across the border, flash my passport at someone, have a bunch of scans taken right, go through a bunch of machines, and then buy medicines for less than half the price on any

given day. Why Why is it like that? It's like that because we are the only developed nation in the world that lets drug companies dictate the prices a brand name drugs to the to their citizens. Every other developed country in the world negotiates on behalf of their citizens directly with the drug companies to get a better deal. Uh, And we don't do that. The net result is that Americans are paying almost four times what other wealthy nations

pay for the exact same brand name drugs. And the impact is that three out of ten Americans report that they are not able to take their medications as directed because of the cost. This has a direct impact on health. Uh. And you know, I understand that you are the type one and you're insulin dependent, and so you know the struggles and the high prices of insulin. But we've had five people confirmed dead because they tried to ration their

insulin in the United States of America. This happens because we grant the drug companies this incredible market power, and we let them dictate the prices to US, prices that are completely unjustified. Uh. And patients suffer financially and worse because of their health due to these high prices. Yeah, I think it's it's heartbreaking, the stuff like and I've known people have died from from lack of access to insulin,

and it's it's just it's pretty horrific stuff. And can you explain, because let's get into that lack of justification, and right, there's ways that a drug. The things that make up the cost of a drug would be the research and development of the drug, the distribution of the drug, and the marketing of the drug, and maybe something else I'm missing, But can you explain, like, how do we arrive at this insane price for insulin which was synthesized

in a lab more than a hundred years ago. Like, what what makes up that price structure and how much would it actually cost to produce that insulin if we stripped away some of those things. Well, you're asking a very intelligent question about what should exist but doesn't, and that is a framework to arrive at an appropriate price that will provide a reasonable return to the drug maker and ensure that drugs are affordable and accessible for the

people who need them. We don't have a system like that. The drug companies charge as much as they think they can get away with. Period. This was shown just last year when one of the drug companies named Biogen tried to bring a drug to market for Alzheimer's and proposed to sell it at fifty six thousand dollars, even though there was no proof it worked. And after it got big pushback and no one wanted to pay for it, the government private employers, uh, they cut the price to

twenty eight thousand dollars. Now was it worth fifty six thousand. If it wasn't, then why didn't you just price it at twenty eight thousand to begin with why because they thought they could get away with fifty six thousand dollars a year for this draw. Now, where insulin is concerned, it's very unfortunate. There is an insulin cartel. Three companies control of the global insulin market in the world and

here in the United States as well. And it's some people would say, correctly, you know, you have to call it correctly an alagopoly. A small number of producers and sellers who are controlling the market. Uh. At what happens as a result of that problem. Well, insulin costs roughly ten dollars of vile to produce. It sells for more than three hundred dollars of aisle. It has gone up in price more than six in the last twenty years because of this cartel that literally controls the insulin supply

in the world. I'll give you another example. I take a drug. It's called for my cancer. It's called palmer List. It's an oral drug that I get under Medicare Part D. Palmerlus costs less than one dollar capsule to make. It sells for almost one thousand dollars per capsule. J Christ, you cannot justify. You cannot tell me that there's justification

for a thousand percent margin. It's just ridiculous. But because we do not use our power, our market power to negotiate for a better deal, um, they can get away with it. And they do. And there there are many examples of this. Now all of that is about to change with some new legislation that has been enacted into law. It's about to start to change. I should be more precise, um uh, And we can talk about that. Yeah, let's talk about that. One thing I want to get into first,

I think is this. I think sometimes we have this impression, certainly with new and novel compounds, that there's this massive lab and it's entirely funded by the money that's made from selling other drugs. And in that lab people are just all day cooking up curious to the Boula virus or these various very deadly conditions. And so I wanted to explain. I wanted you to explain who pays for the R and D for the most part, and who decides what that R and D focuses on, because I

think those are both very important topics. Yeah. Well, it turns out that every single drug approved by the FDA from two thousand ten to two thousand nineteen was everyone was based on in some part on science paid for by taxpayers through the National Institutes of Health, another organization and the government called BARTER, and another organization in the government called DARPA darpas who invented the internet, for example,

and GPS. UM. UH. We pay taxpayers billions of dollars every year to finance basic scientific research that lays the foundation for all these drugs. And when a drug company sees the drug that has promised UH, it will try and acquire from the NIH or the other government agencies that do this work fund this work UH the intellectual property UH, and then they'll finish the job of running UM late stage clinical trials and going through the process of gaining FDA approval. I'm gonna say a couple of

things here that are critically important to understand. To try and illustrate this. The drug industry TIES tries to take credit for the m r n A vxans that were developed to fight COVID nineteen. And these are the vaccines that are marketed by Visor and its partner in Europe, by on Tech, and by Moderna here in the United States. UM. It turns out that in the eighties and nineties and early two thousand's, drug companies weren't investing in vaccines because

it didn't produce they didn't produce a big return. So the federal government invested through NIH, DARPA ambart to all of them. Two developed the technology that we now call m r n A so that when the virus hit, that technology was ready for MODERNA and Visor to run with. But they didn't make the big investment. We did, we being taxpayers, to get that technology ready to go. And

in the case of MODERNA, we paid for everything. And I'm not exaggerating, they had never produced a drug, so we stood up manufacturing capacity for them, We paid for their late stage clinical trials, and we signed advanced purchase agreements to completely de risk the enterprise. But they will tell you that they saved us, It's not true. We

saved ourselves. There's a reason that the president, who cares deeply about trying to reduce the death toll from cancer has to have this new organization called h which is going to be funded with billions of dollars to try and do something to accelerate cancer research. Why do why do we have to pay for that because the drug companies will not pay for the high risk early stage research. It goes into getting really breakthrough new drugs to market. So who who does this? Who pays for it? By

and large, taxpayers are underpinning all the basic science. Drug companies are taking drugs that show promise, acquiring the intellectual property, and then charging whatever they want for the drugs. Um. So that's our system in the United States of America. It's completely screwed up. Uh. We need to have a process more like what you described imposing this question, which is, well, shouldn't we look at what the government invested, what the

company invested? Uh? You know what would be what does it cost to manufactured the drug and distribute the drug and all of that, and then arrive at a price that provides a fair return for investment in risk to the drug company, but not any price they want to dictate. That's what we have now is they get the drug from us and they get to dictate the price. We

don't have a system like the one you referenced. Yeah, and it's it's much to a detriment, right, And I was that it's interesting you talked about how that this profit driven model tends to focus on certain conditions and not others. And I know that you focus mainly on the United States, but perhaps we could get into a little bit what that means for neglected diseases on a

global scale. Right, how looking at only patients who can afford to pay these inflated prices means that we're drug companies are sort of tacit lee saying, well, we're okay with people dying from conditions that people don't get in America. Are you comfortable talking about that a little bit? Well, we only work in the United States because that is

a big enough challenge for us. I will say that drug companies want to invest only in drugs that produce a big return their profit maximizers their corporations, and we don't have a way that we balance that out where we say yes, but but, but but taxpayers are are doing the foundational research that leads to these drugs, and and these are in that sense, public goods, and we need to figure out how, yeah, you can have a fair return, but we also make sure that they're priced

to maximize affordability and accessibility. And in this plays out overseas with neglected tropical diseases, which you reference, which you know, drug companies don't want to spend a lot of money on because those countries don't have a lot of money to pay for them. Because all the companies care about is honest to god, you know, they they want us to believe that they're all about looking after our well being. They are corporations, and corporations by law, have to maximize

profits for their shareholders shareholders, and that's what they do. Um. You know who invests in neglected tropical diseases. The Gates Foundation and other foundations that put the money out to do that early stage research that changes the pricing equation, should should change the pricing equation, um, so that we can still develop the drugs that people abroad would benefit from tremendously. Uh if if only we made the effort and made the investment, which they're not inclined to do.

You don't answer your question, yes very well, very well. I think people are like looking for evidence on this. They could look at the speed at which we started to develop ebola treatments of vaccines once became a threat to US vesse, once he became a threat to people in the global periphery. By the way, I will say one more thing. Of course, it's not the drug companies only hurt people in poorer countries in the world. It

is that drug companies insist on high prices everywhere. And for example, UM, the disease system fibrosis is incurable, and UM there are new drugs that help people live longer UH. They are marketed by Vertex. Interestingly, the gene that all of these UH drugs are built on, the genetic component, was identified by the former head of the ni H, Francis Collins, when he was doing research paid for by

the NIH at the University of Michigan. His his discoveries were min UH, but still the drug companies wouldn't invest. So the Cystic Fibrocess Foundation raised money from its community to do more early stage research, and when it showed promise, Vertex bought the intellectual property from them UH and UH brought these drugs that are built on that genetic discovery to market. But in countries that have said we can't afford the price you're demanding because we only have so

much money to pay for our citizens for healthcare. Because we provide healthcare to all our citizens, Vertex will let people kids because it generally affects kids and younger adults. Will let them die if the company, if the countries won't agree to the price that they are insisting on, literally let them die and say, look, you know, if you won't strike a deal that has high and the price for us, we're not going to sell the drug

in your in your country. So it isn't only the poor people, uh uh, you know the poorer countries around the world. It's patients who are stuck with a drug disease that requires a high cost drug and maybe they can't get access to it because it's not affordable for their country or them. Yeah, it's it's pretty pretty bleak stuff in that sense. Let's get onto a little bit then,

of how we can make this better. And I know that there are approaches that are incremental and their approaches that are more revolutionary or sort of making these big leaps. So let's let's start with talking about how this legislation that we've just seen, the Inflation Reduction Act, does that make a difference. How much of a difference does it make,

and how does it make that difference. The Inflation Reduction Act is really historic legislation that is going to save millions of people in America millions of dollars over time. It does for big things. It does manymore, but for big things. One, for the first time ever, Medicare is going to be able to use it it's purchasing power as the largest purchaser of drugs in this country to

UH negotiate lower prices for people on Medicare. For the first time ever, we are going to curb price gouging by forcing companies that raise prices faster than the rate of inflation to pay a rebate. U two Medicare. We're gonna that will curb their their price increases. H Third, we are going to limit the amount of out of pocket annually a Medicare patient can pay under the Medicare

Party Prescription Drug Benefit. Right now, there is annual lot of pocket limit I pay for that drug I described to you before to costs of almost a thousand dollars of capsule, I pay out of pocket more than sixteen thousand dollars a year. There will be a limit of two thousand dollars. No Medicare beneficiary will pay more than two thousand dollars out of pocket for Medicare Party drugs.

And four for the first time. Starting next year, people who depend on insulin in Medicare will pay no more than thirty five dollars per prescription per month for their insulin um. These are all truly significant changes UH and begin to shift UH drug policy UH in this country, begin to uh break the dictator real pricing ability that

the drugs drug companies have. And I wanted to take a minute to explain why Medicare negotiation in itself is such a big breakthrough very quickly, when the Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit was enacted into law in two thousand three, the drug companies, in the dark of night got stuck into that law something called the non interference clause that said that the Secretary of Health and Human Services could

not negotiate directly with drug companies period. It got stuck in in the dark of night by a man named Billie Tausend, who was then share of the Energy and Commerce Committee in the US House of Representatives, And within months after doing that at the behest of the big drug companies, he went to work to run the big trade association for the drug companies it's called Pharma, at

a salary of two million dollars a year. In other words, they bought the prohibition on medicare being able to negotiate, and they have spent hundreds of millions of dollars to keep that prohibition in place ever since then, just in the last two years, in fighting to not let medicare negotiate over any drugs ever directly with the drug companies, they spent uh north of two hundred million dollars to

try and stop that legislation from passing. UM. So these are all big, significant, important changes, they are not enough. Uh if if if we wrote the world, we would have written legislation that negotiated over more drugs and the pricing for which extended into the private sector and to

people without insurance. But we had to do that. To extend it to the private sector and people without an assurance, we needed sixty votes in the Senate because of the filibuster rules, and we couldn't get one, not one Republican vote, So it had to be passed under a special procedure called reconciliation. The Democrats used it. They stood up the pharmah and they passed the bill. God bless him. Uh We in the course of it had um a vote trying to extend the thirty five dollar insulin monthly co

paid to the private sector. We could only get seven Republican votes um and so we couldn't take it all the way there. So there's much more work to do. But this breakthrough is truly historic. Yeah, it's good. It's it's good to see some progress because there hasn't been

progressed for a very long time. Let's talk about the difference in between a cost and a cope, because I think it's easy for politicians sometimes that you know, tweet insulin will cost you x and in fact it only costs you x if y and is that are true? So can you explain for folks what a copay is and why sometimes these claims are made about co patients those are not the same as costs. Well, the big

difference is the word price versus cost. In our system, we in order to lower out of pocket costs for people, we have to lower price. Why if you we're paying a hundred dollars out of pocket for your medicine and we zero that out said nothing, But we don't lower the price. The overall price that hundred dollars has to be paid for it by someone And what happens is patients wind up paying higher premiums or higher taxes, or

getting less money in their paychecks. You know, half of more than half of all Americans get their drug coverage and healthcare through their employers. So if that hundred dollars still has to be paid by somebody, then we wind up paying for it, either with higher premiums, higher taxes, or getting less money in our paycheck because someone needs to absorb that hundred bucks. This is very important for people to understand. There's no free lunch unless we lower prices.

That's why pharma will always say, the big drug companies will always say, well, what we need to do is we just need to lower everybody's out of pocket, make it zero and let them have all the drugs they want, and let us continue to charge any price we want. But that's not there's there's no free lunch. It would still have to be paid and um, so we fight very hard at pages for affordable drugs to help patients

and policymakers understand that we need to do both. We need to lower out of pocket costs for people and we need to lower the price in order to do that co payments. Co payments are what you pay when you go to UM the pharmacy counter and they tell you that your share of this prescription is five dollars or ten dollars or twenty dollars. And lots of times employers and the insurance companies they hire to run their programs will use co payments to try and steer you

to a less expensive drug at generic. Right, So if you want a brand, you're gonna have to pay fifty bucks, but if you'll take the generic, you pay five bucks. For example, they're trying to steer YouTube and equally effective drug. Generics are by definition the same exact drug, and they are trying to steer you to the less expensive but equally effective drug. The problem with our country big time is that sometimes they are not you for that purpose.

In my case, I have co payments on all my drugs, right, but I don't have a choice. I don't have a cheaper chain there. I gotta I gotta take the drugs they're telling me to take UM. And so when we misuse co payments like that, we are hurting patients. Uh. And it's how we also need to change. It points to how we also need to change our benefit design in this country. If if we can steer a patient to a healthier or as healthy least less expensive option.

That makes sense. But if you're charging me for something that I can't do anything about, that makes no sense at all. Uh. And so these are changes that we at P four a D work on, it will continue to work on in our benefit design in this country. Yeah, I can see that trying to give you a price incentive to what not buy you a drug and you so or be poor or or be sick because you can't afford it, which is not the function of the incentive, and it's silly. Can you explain how why does some

drugs have generic since some don't? So, boy, you're asking some really good questions. Um, you're going right to the heart of our system. A long time ago, in the eighties, eight three or eighty four, a bill was passed called the Hatch Waxman Bill, and since then everyone Affer refers

to a concept called the Hatch Waxman barbain. And the bargain is this, if you're a drug company and you bring a valuable new drug to market, you get a period of exclusivity along with your you have a patent already probably but upon approval we give you a period of exclusivity where for sure, no matter if your patent is old and only has a year left, we give you additional years of exclusivity where you have a monopoly on that drug. But at the end of that period

of exclusivity, generics and biosimilars. Biosimilars are the generic name or the name for generics. For biologic drugs, they're more complicated drugs. But at the end of that period of exclusivity, a generic I'm not a generic. Generics and biosimilars come to market, and we use the competition from the generics and biosimilars to drive down the price. When you have one generic that comes to compete, the price goes down about fifteen or two generics, the price goes down three generics.

You know, by the time you get five generics in the market, the price is roughly five to of the original brand name price. So the hatchwax On Argin was you got a good drug, you bring it to market. We give you a time where you you can charge whatever you want. You have exclusivity in the market, but at the end of that we have competition from generics and biosimilars to lower price. Why aren't there generics and biosimilars, That was your question for all drugs, while some drugs

are still in their period of exclusivity. But the drug companies don't let competition come to market. The brand drug companies they fight, They file additional patents. They they sign deals with generic companies not to bring a drug to market, a competitive to market, and pay them not to um uh. They make small changes in the drug and then file

additional patents. There is something called a patent thicket. Um Humorra, the best selling drug in the world, has like a hundred and thirty two patents, a hundred and thirty two which were filed after the drug came to market. What are they for, Well, they could be for the packaging, the instructions, the color of the capsule. They patent everything, and why because Generica buys some other competitor has to fight its way through all of them to bring a

drug to market. So we call them patent thickets. You know, if you grew up anywhere near you know a place where there were thickets, you know, it's very hard to get through a thicket. Um. And so in some cases there is no competitor because they're in the period of exclusivity, but in far too many cases there are no competitors to drive down the price because the drug companies are manipulating our system. And they're very good at manipulating our system. Yeah. Yes,

they are exceptionally good, and that has terrible results. Okay, So we've spoken about that, the way that they've manipulated this system, the way that maybe that's beginning to change. One thing that I'm interested in I've written about it a little bit is these ways that are perhaps more revolutionary, if not always as like a cast iron safe. And one of those is obviously people making their own medicines, which is something that will see unfortunately increasingly in this

country because of bands on access to reproductive healthcare. And I wonder how you think that has the potential to change this that we've seen, like the epic pencil, we've seen these homebrew abortion drugs, things like that. Do you think that has the capacity to change access? I remember I'm a patient, mm hmm, and um it scares the hell out of me. Yeah. The reason is there was a time in the United States and in most of the world when drug companies were not regulated. Uh, and

they brought patent medicines. Uh and uh, you know, mix it at home, bruise and sold them. And we had no way to make sure that those didn't hurt people. They killed people in some cases. Uh and then uh. In the twentieth century, the government realized and our Congress and our elected officials realized, we needed a way to regulate this industry, which would you know, sell poison in some cases, and they created what is now called the

Food and Drug Administration. Food and Drug Administration is charged with making sure drugs are safe and effective. I'm a patient. I want the Food and Drug Administration to do its job. I want drugs that are safe and effective. I do not like drugs that are not subjected to some scrutiny um to make sure that they do what those who are selling them claim they do. So remember, I'm not big on taking chances with my life. Uh. And I if the drugs don't work, I'll die. That's that simple.

I'll die of cancer. Not not to mention, I could drive to die from a drug that's no good. Some drugs cause harm, you know, even drugs approved by the FDA cause harms sometimes. So I am I am. I am not a fan of homebrew drugs. I'm a fan of a system that protects me and ensures the drugs

are safe and effective. But that's one man's perspective. Yeah, And I think it's reasonable to say that, like, we have a way to make drugs that are safe and effective, and it's the lord legislation or a system that's getting in between people and the life saving medicines that they need, and we should certainly struggle to fix that instead of looking for ways around it, even though I understand why, especially with things like reproductive healthcare, that doesn't seem like

it's getting fixed anytime soon. Sadly, No, it's it's terribly sad. It's heartbreaking. Yeah, this whole thing is extremely and I know you've obviously seen it too, but my previous life, I've worked with one of someone who works for you now in diabetes nonprofit and seen firsthand the consequences of this, and it's really heartbreaking stuff to look at, and I wish it just seems so unnecessary in the world where like these pharmaceutical companies make we should say, like billions

of dollars. Right, It's it's not as if these people are you driving to work in the second hand toyo to Corolla like they they are doing very well for themselves of this system, right yep. People will be familiar with like farmer Bro, Martin Screlly, the guy. Yeah. Yeah, but it's just one example of a very problematic industry. I think you've done an excellent job of explaining it. David, Is there anything else you'd like to get to before we finish up here? Just Martin, screw you. You call

to mind. I won't take you back to MODERNA and the m RNA vaccine. The fact that we not only developed the m r A technology to taxpayer money, but we brought the MODERNA vaccine to two people with taxpayer money, and in the course of doing that, we minted three new MODERNA billionaires. Um, you're talking about I'm not driving to work and uh, you know secondhand Toyota gorillas. Oh far from it. Yeah, these are the people whose yachts I've seen in the bay. I think that's disgusting. Three

new millionaires off the back of billionaires billionaires? God? Yeah, God, it's gross, isn't it. Yeah. It can't be said enough. Not only does the NAH fund their research, but often the taxpayers will fund the lab right. If it's at a university, you pay for it twice before before you try and pay for it again at sex. Yeah, it's a very broken system, David. How can people find p F A D. How can people find you? Is our website on Twitter? Facebook? Where should they go? Go to

our website Patients for Affordable Drugs dot org. Just like it sounds, you can leave your story if if you or someone you love care about has struggled with high drug prices, give us your email address. We don't ask patients for money, but the stories and email addresses are our power. Uh, They're the they're the currency we trade on to make sure that the voices of people in this country are heard, uh, to counter the propaganda ana

lies that are put out by the drug companies. Okay, yeah, that's that's very important stuff that people can hopefully do. Even if they are struggling sort of materially to afford their drugs, maybe they have some time. So that's great. It's four f O R right, not the number four. That's correct. All right, great, Thank you so much, David. It's been a pleasure. You've done excellent job of explaining a very convoluted and broken system. Thank you, James, your

your patient man. I try to be sometimes I'm very much not that, but yeah, I do appreciate your time on this Monday morning. Thank you very much, David, thank you. Welcome to it could happen here a podcast about things falling apart. I am Robert Evans, and today we're going to talk about a specific part of Eurasia where I don't know, things are kind of on the edge of of of falling apart and maybe becoming something else. As I'm sure most people are aware, Russia expanded its invasion

of Ukraine earlier this year. UM. It has not gone well, and the government has recently announced that they are doing a general mobilization and bringing in another three thousand soldiers into their armed forces. UH. The significant chunk, if not the bulk, of these recruitments are coming from areas away from the on the periphery of Russian power, you might say, UM, particularly different chunks of the Russian state, UM, where there are minority populations who have been UH dissident to the

to the Federation of Russia in the past. UM. Probably the most active of the is a place called Dagistan UM. Most Americans probably are not super well versed on this area. It is the furthest southern point in the Russian state. It borders Azerbaijan. UM, it's pretty close to Turkey and UH. This is a region that has a massive Muslim population and has been the side a whole lot of resistance

to the Russian state in the recent past. And today we're going to be talking about what that looks like now as the government is attempting to draft men from this part of the state and as sort of resistance has risen up significantly within dagistan UM. I'm going to be talking with Karina Avadisian. Karina is a PhD studying social movements in particularly in Russia. UM. Karina, welcome to the show. Thanks for helping me. UM. So, first off,

I'm not an expert on on Dagistan UM. What do you think is important for people to know about the relationship between this region and the Russian state. UM, it's the biggest republic in the North Caucasus, UM, and it has actually independent media still depe despite the really intense repression UM and the dozens of disappeared or murdered journalists from from the republic. UM kinship ties are strong in Dugistan.

So the announcement of mobilization and the kind of you know, the sort of the mobilization process um, really affects people because extended families are closed, So when someone has taken away to affects a lot of people. UM. So that UM in large part kind of explains the level of mobilization. The other thing I want to mention is that the North Caucasus region in general, but especially Dugistan and Chechnia

UM just kind of don't see themselves as part of Russia. UM. To be honest, Russians don't really care about what happens there either. I mean, you know, it's as if it's another country and there's this huge disconnect um. So there doesn't really exist this kind of civic Russian identity UM. And the concept of Russia as a country is to a large extent held together by sheer oppression and propagania. UM. Yeah.

That's kind of kind of why I try to focus on like this is a part of the Russian state rather than like these areas are Russian, because that's certainly not the way it feels on the ground or the people feel about themselves. Yeah, exactly, UM. And you can kind of see differences in the way police respond to these protests in Russian regions versus places like Dagistan Um. In Russian regions and by Russian region, I mean, you know,

places where you know, Russia, ethnic Russians are a majority. Um, you have people or you have police kind of arresting or detaining interresting protesters, whereas in Dakistan Um you know, the tactics of the arrest sing people. You know, her being kind of carted off is really significant because of the history of violence in the republic UM, so abductions, UM,

disappearances and murder is very common. UM. And this is something that I've heard Dakistani protest participants kind of expressed fear about, Like you know, people know that that might happen. You might get identified among the protesters, and you might not get detained interested like you would you know in Moscow for example, but you might get you know, identified and then kind of targeted later, which is yeah, I mean,

obviously very frightening. UM. One of the things that I had read kind of about part some of the origins of the conflict in the region right now is that it had been common for some time because the the economy in Dagistan. Dakistan is in the Caucusus, which is a mountainous region in southern Russia, and it's where a

great deal of the country's fuel comes from. Um. There are kind of folks who will say that the government of the Federation has like avoided utilizing that infrastructure to the most that it can to avoid providing jobs, and it's made a lot of young men join the military to become contract soldiers. In the past, that was a good way to provide for if you had a large family, you do a military contract, you're not going to get

sent outside of the region. It's pretty safe. But then of course Putin invades Ukraine and suddenly a lot of these people who had been doing this not because they wanted to support the Russian Federation because it was a job, are suddenly being sent to go fight and die in outside of kharkivor wherever. Yeah. The other thing is that's why there's so many security personnel kind of internally in the republic as well. So the Republic experiences high unemployment. UM.

That's mentioned poverty, UM. And it's almost my design rights. So many people just relying on this state for jobs and security UM services. It's one of the main UM sources of employment. But that also kind of has that double effect of UM, you know, being used as a

tool for repression. So anytime kind of descent comes up, even you know, when a large part of the grievances are about poverty and unemployment and just kind of having a future, you have UM a kind of excess of people who are ready to kind of suppress UM any expression of kind of descent that might lead to problems later. And it seems like a great deal of discent right now is coming from UM, the Muslim pop in, particularly

like the Muslim religious community within Dagastan. The reason that you and I are talking right now is you you shared and commented on a post um that someone was sharing a piece of protest art um that was referencing a recent comment by the Deputy Mufti of Dagastan UM and it's a stylized drawing of several mountains on a green background that says the invader doesn't become a martyr.

And if I'm interpreting that correctly, what what that's saying is it's it's a statement of protests from within the Islamic community of Dagastan saying, if you go to someone else's homeland to take part in an invasion and you die, you're not being martyred, You're not dying in a way that is that is, you know, uh, respected by a law essentially. Is that am I? Am I interpreting that correctly? Yeah? Absolutely, Yeah, that's exactly what it's saying. I found that remarkable, UM

for a couple of reasons. UM. The first is that descend in the region originally, so you know, after the collapse of the Soviet Union and then the First Church in War, there was descent, but it was mostly limited to ethno nationalist movements who were very narrow in their messaging. So their grievances were, you know, just about their one ethnic group and you know, whatever repression that they experienced.

So UM, they kind of missed out on broader support and political Islam became a channel for UM kind of representing oppositional identity. UM. And because of that cutting across the ethnic lines through selfism, which is U kind of a stricter interpretation of Islam, which is prone to radicalization. UM, that had much broader support and posed a significant threat to Moscow, And I want to kind of make a parallel here because UM, mosques and religious communities across the

world are actually really um interesting spaces for social movement mobilization. UM. Some of the earliest works on social movement mobilization talked about black churches in the US as being you know, key to the civil rights movement because you know, these spaces that are kind of away from the state, away from surveillance. Although in Legistan and lots of parts of Russian Muslim spaces are are up totally unfiltrated by the state or they're actually you know, state most these or

the state's eyes and ears are kind of there. But still there's these spaces, and I think that's a big, kind of, um significant key factor in how this movement has been able to mobilize and interested in Because obviously Chechnia is another part of Russia that has a large Muslim population. There was a horrible war, they're not all that long ago. That is really a prelude in a lot of waste to the kinds of violence and the kinds of oppressive tactics that are being used right now

by the Russian state. UM, what what sort of separates, like why didn't Dagastan kind of go the same way as czech Nia, Like how I'm kind of interested in in and that because it seems as if the Muftis there are much more willing to kind of act in resistance to the States. Still, is it just a factor of the violence that was unleached on Chechnya earlier? Is there more to it? Um? I think in large part it's yeah. I mean, it's the legacy of violence and

war um in Chechnia. But I think it's partly because of how this kind of historical view of touching as being um, you know, a threat a problem for the Russian Empire previously, and then so the Union and then you know independent Russia, you know, um, And it's really the rule of Ramsanka ditto, which plays a really suppressing role in the republic and his security services Chechnia has experienced post war. I would argue it's it's calmer and

in a in a strange way. I mean, I was when I was doing my field work in the North Cooxus, I visited Czechnia. I was in Cambodno Bolkaria, which is you know a couple of republics over Um it didn't experience war, but I remember at the time there were counter terrorists operations in Carbdna Bulkaria, where the security services would kind of lock down whole neighborhoods and kind of storm impartment buildings to go after someone who had been you know, identified as a problem and just kind of

you know, neutralize that person. They were rarely detained, they would just kind of kill, no questions us. Then going to Chechnia from that kind of context, that stuff doesn't happen, just because the security apparatus is so strong and so intense that that kind of thing doesn't happen. At the same time, you feel that tension, that kind of fear. Um. So I think that's the main reason why, um, you're

not seeing these sort of protests in Chechnia. When we talk about like what is it reasonable to hope for here? I wonder if you have any thoughts on that from Dagastan like in terms of resistance to both this kind of general conscription order and resistance in general to the to the increasing imperial aims of the Russian state. Yeah, I think it's revealing those tracks that I mentioned in the beginning about identity and then kind of this this

region not feeling like a part of Russia. And I think, um, the other thing is that it it it's unprecedented in many ways just in terms of its messaging, and your protest movements in general are seemed to kind of when you participate in a movement, UM, it's it's really transforming on an individual level. You feel like you're part of something.

You see all these other people on the street, who are you agreeing with you in a context that's so authoritarian where and you don't you know, have that freedom to speak out there's no free media. Um. In general. Um it's it's it's transformative. And I think that's probably for me, at least as a social movement scholar, the most interesting aspects. I mean, we can't predict, We don't know what's going to happen. There might be in a

new wave of repression. UM, but it's it's revealing these cracks and um kind of almost providing this proof of the the lie of this you know, unified Russian state that that is being kept together by a repression in propaganda. UM. I think the messaging also reflects a change in identity in oppositional identity in the region. Um. Previously, protests in the region were directed at the local leadership, so at

the republican level. Right, so these are usually con who are installed by Moscow, not so much to govern, but more to manage UM and check and leader Ransankada is an extreme caste of this. And it was a practice common in Imperial Russia. Right, you install your own guy, but he's local, so it fits better with the population, even if they're only there to carry out policies that

are decided and um. So those protest movements were normally against the republican authorities, um, their excesses, their corruption, um, you know. And again the exception to that is philopism, which was targeting both Moscow and the local leadership. But here in this new wave of protest movement, the sentiment

the grievances against Putin and that's totally now. And I one of the things that is kind of remarkable is you've gotten in the wave of and these are not just in Dagistan, but Dagistan had a lot of the protest against this general mobilization order. You actually have what what looks to me and you're you're certainly certainly no more than I do. So tell me if you think

my analysis, if this is wrong. But looks to me like the regime blinking a little bit, because in the wake of the protests, you had both Putin and a number of different local leaders come out and say we because one of the things that was happening as soon as the mobilization started, as you saw a lot of these people, including like doctors, healthcare workers, other kinds of professionals and industries that are generally protected from this sort

of thing getting pulled in by state forces and effectively drafted on the spot along with protesters and um. The in the wake of the outcry against that, Putin himself and a number of other local leaders have come out and been like, this was a mistake. We're releasing a number of these people, these these certain certain you know, we're not supposed to be drafting people from these certain professions and whatnot. And to me that looked like, well, maybe that's a little bit of a blink. Um, But

I don't know if perhaps I'm being overly optimistic there. No, I agree, um, And it speaks to the level of mobilization that kind of un stended. Um Um. Levels of mobilization on the street and also speaks to the fact that you know, previously Moscow, I mean they didn't care as much when the protests were directed at the local authorities. I mean they did, but not like this. This is this is threatening UM. And I was listening to an

interview of a protest organizer from Augustan. He's exiled, like he's kind of you know, in touch with the people on the ground and he and he was talking about how he felt that the reason mobilization orders have been UM commissioned kind of to the Republican regional authorities is on purpose so that grievances UM aren't directed towards Moscow, because it's the regional authorities deciding on who's being mobilized. UM. And it's a kind of deflection of blame that he

thought was by design. And the interviewer asked him a couple of other questions. He was saying, oh, you know, we're hearing reports about the police being really brutal um. And again he was like, no, not really, or that's not the point, that's not the question to be asking. It's actually deflecting because again, the grievance is not to the local police. It's actually towards Moscow, who is you know, the origin of this whole problem, and I think that's

that's a threat. Do you have any kind of advice for people if they're looking as kind of things continue to develop in Dagistan as there are more protests, which I'm sure there will be. Are there actually like organizations over there that can be supported by people, um, including you mentioned independent media there. UM. I'm just wondering if you have any kind of particular advice for folks who might either want to learn more about the region what's going on, um, or who might want to try and

help the people who are protesting right now. UM. Unfortunately, there's um not much for outsiders to do a lot of the news, and I think it was kind of expecting that the answer. Yeah. Yeah, it's like it's kind of a denied context. So where I get the news is a couple of telegram channels that are only in Russian. UM, so that probably doesn't help your audience if they don't

speak Russian. There's a couple of Twitter accounts that I would recommend people follow, you know, UM, there's UM, I don't know, I can mention that or yeah, please, no, absolutely, let me quickly find the guide personally. When it comes to like where I'm able to get English language news about the region, Medusa is generally kind of like one of the places where I've gotten some. Medusa is a Russian news site that's or news organization that's banned in Russia.

In fact, if I'm not mistaken, a MEDUSA journalist just got arrested in Dagastan by the State Security Services. UM. But you can go to Medusa dot io and that's one place where I've come across news that's English language. UM. It's not the most detailed coverage, but it's kind of hard to find that in English about stuff going on in Dagistan. It is, it is hard to find it. I would echo that sentiment of Medusa being a good source for that. UM. There's a researcher on Twitter named

Harold Chambers. His handle is Chambers Harold eight, the number eight, and he is an analyst and he is posting kind of more detailed, you know, in the weeds, up to you know, up to date, day to day developments from from the region. UM. And is there anything like as as we I'm kind of closing out here UM that you wanted to particularly get into about what's happening over there about kind of um, the development of social movements in Dagistan right now that you you find particularly fascinating

that you'd like to kind of talk about to the audience. Yeah, I think, um, the context of the Russian war on terrorism in the North Caucasus praise a huge role here um.

And I mentioned, you know, the counter terrorists operations that that Russia used to use in the region as a repression tool um, so they didn't have to be sal office or kind of you know, seeing this extremists to be targeted and stuff like that, like secular Dakistani's and Chechens were absolutely targeted, and and that kind of in those um in in those um in that context of counter terrorism. And it's really the fact that your dungiesst

studies are really tired of the repression. People leave the republic and move abroad um because they've been labeled a terrorist and they don't want to die um. And when their families send them money um to support them abroad, they get um labeled as terrorists because they're helping you know, support a terrorists. So it's it's why It's also why the movement is leaderless um, because there's really no intelligencia

or leaders left in the republic um anywhere. Anyone who had any kind of critical standpoint um has either been killed or exiled. So we have to see the mobilization in Dungista is kind of you know, with that backdrop, people are tired of the repression um and and yeah, the protests are spontaneous, and the fact that it's horizontal is also unprecedented, and it obviously means that it's much harder to repress the movement and suppress it because there's

no individuals to kind of target. That's interesting because that's obviously a global trend that we've seen in protest movements, not just against the Russian state, that around the world, governments have gotten much better at note finding leaders in

protest movements, compromising them, going after them, targeting them, arresting them. Um. It's and I think this has been a part of why all over the world you've seen so many more horizontal movements leading street protests against different kinds of oppression, because it's really the only thing that can't be compromised easily by the security forces. Yeah, especially in an authoritarian contexts. Yeah. Well, um, Karina, is there anything else you wanted to say before we

close out? No, No, that's all right. Well why don't we talk a little bit about your plugs here, because you have a podcast that you're about to be starting, Yeah, starting a podcast. It is called obscurest Den Podcasts, where we'll talk about the bizarre and fucked up nature of the region of Eurasia. Um, but also more importantly how it got that way. Yeah, so that's what we're doing. I can think a few more topics, more important topics

for people, particularly people just where I live. To understand, so many people have been affected in in You know, we're looking at the energy crisis hitting the UK and and to a slightly lesser extent, continental Europe. Right now, we're looking at rising food prices in the United States, all of it tied to this conflict, which people wouldn't have been surprised by if they'd been paying attention to

Eurasian history and politics a little bit more. Um. So I I think that's a commendable effort and I'm excited to start listening. Um, thank you so much. Yes, can I mentioned one last things? And so I'm I'm sitting in Armenia and speaking to you from Armenia. So, UM, I would just encourage your listeners to find out about what's happening. We were recently attacked by I was pretty sure on and um we have some for n one

score kilometers that are currently occupied by OSSIANNY soldiers. So I would encourage people to learn about the conflict and kind of pay attention to what's happening here. Yeah. Absolutely, UM, we continue to be big advocates for folks paying attention

to that. Um. And uh, yeah, it's it's I don't know, you know, I had this brief period of like optimism when the White House started making statements and Pelosi visited that, like and we'll see maybe that I know there's like there's a vote coming up right now in Congress to stop selling weapons to these areas, which would be at

least a start. Um. But I mean, you know, it's the what's I think is necessary is for our Menia to have access to the kind of weapons that have been so successful at stopping for an aggression and other countries. Shall we say, Yeah, well all right, Karina, thank you so much for your time. That's gonna be our show for the day. Have a good one. Everybody keep paying attention to stuff he trying to conceive of it, girl Boss, noised, No,

I'm trying. There's trying to think of something that's about like Italian racism, um and how we should all be racist against Italians. Um because now it's important. Um oh hi, welcome to it could happen here the show where we're talking about anti Italian racism um and and also girl Bosses finally to two great tastes that go great together, like mixing peanut butter and piss. That's right, the piss

being Italians. Girl Boss. I usually don't say things that are that obvious, but yes, uh with me today is Chris James and Robert I'm Garrison, and we're talking about girl boss fascism today. Um and uh's are we gonna say Georgia? Is that how we're going to do it? Is that how we're gonna say her name? Georgia? But I don't know George Georgia Milani. Georgia Milani, Georgia Milani at Le's new prime Minister, Gia Milan. That's what I was waiting for. You put some Italian on it. Yeah,

we spice up that meat a ball. So since since she's been the head of the Brothers of Italy Party, which is funny because what I think of the Brothers of Italy, I just think of Mario and Luigi. Obviously that's there, That's what most people think. So but Marco and Luigi also fascists, so well they're monarchists. Yeah, there mona gusts. They specifically served princess. So so Bowser is Bowser is your standard issue left wing polit bureau chief

type leader. Whereas what Mario and Luigi are doing, like Mussolini is installing a royal in power, is taking its Essentially every Mario game is recreating the March on Rome. I have like ten pages to get through stool come into it. So it's fun importants for the head of the Brothers of Italy Party, a party with directlydiage from the fascist Italian Social Movement, and Melani herself has been on camera praising figures like Mussolini. Uh and until very

recently the Brothers of Italy Party. Besides being a very pro plumbing we're we're pretty on the we're pretty on the fridges of Italian volunteers. Just four years ago, the party one only four pres scent of the votes in the last election, and now it's become Italy's largest political party, claiming the greatest percentage of the vote in the last

month's election. So today we're gonna talk about who Millennia is, what what she believes, what she kind of what what her rhetoric is, and then also the types of how the types of ways that media has been framing her relation to fascism, because there's definitely been this perception that like liberal feminists and mainstream media have been kind of soft on Melanie because she's the first woman prime Minister of Italy UM and they have they've kind of framed

her ascension to power and like a girl boss go get it sort of way, and have been downplaying her more fascist views. So we're gonna talk about kind of where this perception comes from, the few ways where it's kind of correct, and some of the ways where it's I think a little off base. To start off with this, one of the kind of one of the biggest things that UH pushed this perception into the forefront was a tweet from Political Europe accompanying an article now that this

this tweet. Sorry, thank you, thank you. And because I hate basing our research off of things that are just on Twitter, this tweet has been referenced a lot on like television, UM, on like News, and like News TV has been using this tweet a lot as well. This is this is kind of shaped the way that discussions happening on a national stage even off Twitter. Um. But the tweet. The tweet reads in a fifteen year old school girl went to join her local branch of the

far right Youth Front in Rome. The all male group of radicals met her with amusement. Thirty years later, Georgia Milani is now on course to become Italy's first female prime minister. So the way that frameorworks is like, yeah, uh this this little girl wanted to join her Nazi club and it was and now she's finally private minister, the first one. And so yes, obviously this is very cringe e um, not not great framing a lot of good girl Hitler jokes. Even presidents listen, I'm no really,

I'm happy. Wow a girl president. How progressive and so takes venture brothers. Uh, no uncritical support, it's just just support to venture brothers. Um, so takes like like that, like what like what we just heard a dean of Ventures say kind of kind of spawned a big slew

of of comments. You know, I'm just gonna read, read, read some of the stuff that the people have been saying in response to stuff like that Political Europe a piece quote begging liberals to stop praising girl Bossolini for being brave enough to shatter the glass ceiling in the neo fascist parties she's joined, and like why is media treating this as a freaking girl boss story? The girl bossification of Georgia Miladi has been interesting to watch. Liberals

will literally stand anybody. So there's a lot of a lot of takes like that have been have been have

been going around. There's there's been extremely viral viral tweets getting hundreds of thousands of of likes, thousands of thousands three tweets and shares, stuff getting referenced on national TV all kind of about this, you know, people complaining the takes from Political Europe and and other other kind of various soft headlines emphasizing the girl boss nature being like the sweet little girl defies the odds and grows up to be the first female Mussolini. So like, some of

these jokes are pretty funny. I think I think they're they're funny. Um, they're fine. There is oh, probably the worst one of these takes that I found that still got hundreds of retweets and thousands of likes was quote the American right and the American Left. The aesthetics are different, but the effect is the same. Support for the rising tide of fascism. Communists are the only people now as in the past who truly opposed fascion far for fox sake.

True for those of you following along time, No, yeah, there was a terrible Megan McCain tweet, which is very funny because people definitely wish we'll talk about the Megan McCain can't wait I have, Yes, well, we'll talk about our good friend Megan McCain. But yeah, so you know Italy's Italy elected their first female Mussolini. Um in a remarkable victory for both girl power and diversity in politics

and people. People. Uh, people had some good japes. So the other the other kind of big thing that caused this perception that that like that like the liberals will literally stand anybody. The other big thing I kind of caused that was, uh, some viral quotes from Hillary Clinton, uh talking talking about the the role of of women in politics and referencing Milani. So some remarks from Hillary Clinton published in Italy last September. I think it was that.

I think it was that, like the Venice of Film Festival. Actually, um, so, some some quotes from an interview that she gave at the Venice Film Festival went viral. Um mostly because tweets included to two small clips of of these quotes when she was talking about both women in politics and uh, Georgie, George, Gia,

Georgia doing great, buddy. So multiple tweets circulated, mostly with two short quotes from Clinton getting the majority of attention, saying, quote, the election of the first woman prime minister in a country always represents a break with the past and is certainly a good thing unquote. And a second quote being every time a woman is elected to head of state or government, that is a step forward unquote. Um. Obviously, those takes in an of themselves not very good. I

don't think there's a good opinions. UM. Shocking, shocking that we are going to criticize the statement from Hillary Clinton. This is this is rare for us. Um, it's you know, it's it's I'm I'm surprised as well. But um, these kind of are slightly cherry picked from a larger section of this interview discussing women in government and how the far right is starting to use tokenized women to uphold

patriarchy and conservatism. So the first quote is taken from this from a translation of an interview that that that Clinton did at the Venice Film Festival in September, prior to Melanni's apparent victory in the Italian elections on September. So she do it in Italian Italian, you know, but it was only published in Italian, so we're translating from Italian back into English. Double translation. But the so in in a section of this interview talking about the increase

of women in governmental leadership Roles. A translation from her remarks in the larger section of this interview reads, quote, the election of the first woman prime minister in a country always represents a break with the past and is certainly a good thing. But then, as with any leader, woman or man, she must be judged by what she does. I never agreed with Margaret Thatcher, but I admired her determination. Clearly, then the ideas are voted for. I admired her determinating

stamp on the neck of the sucking class. Funck Off also doesn't Does she really oppose Margaret Thatcher's policies? Yeah, I don't know. I don't know if I believe that one that lady is dead in the world is better for it. Uh you Margaret Thatcher had girl power? Yes, of course. Do you think she effectively uti let girl power by funneling money to illegal paramilitary death squads in

Northern Ireland? I don't know about that. There's this thing that you get with like people talking about all of these schools where and it's specifically like a centrist thing where it's like, well, certain things are just admirable traits, no matter about who has them, and you can admire that trait. And it's like, no, it's it's not like. There were a lot of men in the s s who, you know, we're willing to do things that you would call brave, but it doesn't mean you have to consider

them admirable. I think you don't have to have respect for the you don't have to hand it to the Nazis. Exactly like just suck certain people. Yeah, yeah, the contribution to the world is bad. You can stop stop that, argre Thatcher being a good example. I have kind of the same thoughts on the inclusion of toadet inside the new Mario Kart games. It's just really it's it's just you're signifying it, but it's not actually a step forward

for the toad race. It's um so. In the next section of the interview, Clinton also Harrison's Garrison's come out against work Mario cut the next section, Clinton also acknowledges conservative women politicians role in upholding patriarchal government, saying, quote, women on the right are protected by patriarchy because they are often the first to support the fundamental pillars of male power and privilege. Today in America, the right wing

leaders are very much against abortion. Um So, she she did like it was part of this section talking about how women who are on the right and are running is concerned of politicians actually support all of the all the things that keep patriarchy alive and blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah. It's well, it's it's it's true centrism, right, It's half of a good taken half of a terrible exactly exact exactly so so yeah, so our snippets of her comments embarrassing rewomen being a break from the past,

always being a good thing. Yes, most certainly. M Are they taken out of context enough to change the scope of what's being said? I suppose that's the subjective. Um, But I just thought that's interesting that there was very select few quotes that were getting a whole bunch of traction, and her larger statements are actually slightly more interesting article don't don't do the Alex Jones ship of getting mad at a headline? Yeah six seconds, Like, come on, people,

you have to be better than this. And I think, still, you know, I see the same thing whenever I'm playing Mario Sunshine and there's the graffiti. Um, you can you can get mad at just saying it's the graffiti all over Definitely, no pasa, you can get mad about that. But once you actually start learning how Bowser Jr. Was

treated as a kid, it's it's there's actually more. There's more that you actually can understand about what's going on and what leads to that behavior from Bowser Jr. Very identifiable. Everybody understands those references. Garrison, good work. Yeah. I just want to say that there is only one square in Italy that matters, and that is Pie Saliretto and you

can you can google it. I just I love the juxtaposition of Garrison struggling over every single word that's in the in the neighborhood of Italy, and then James just perfectly saying, some fucking Italian ship. My Italian is bad, My Italian comes exclusively. Your Italian is much better than anyone else. Here's maybe I swear, I swear other managed bandix is. I know a couple of curse words from watching my uncle's playpool when I was a kid. But

that's about all I've got. I rely on that hand gesture, which works very well, and hand gestures are eight percent of Italian. Yeah, yes, it's true. Okay, So now, having now exhausted every conceivable Italian joke, we could proceed with the scrip. Oh I don't we keep receiving We can actually proceed with an ad break. Do you do you know what else is in support of anti Italian racism? Who won't kill miss Leny hang him upside down in

the square? I mean probably the current Prime Minister of Italy. Yeah, that's true. Also probably these advertisers, okay, and we are back. So there was there has been this kind of perception that the media kind of by and large dropped the ball on this one, and this sentiments was pretty widespread among leftists that the kind of there was a lot of emphasis on the the breaking the fascist glass of

ceiling and less on the fascist part. There was even people like the MSNBC hosts Meddi Hassan who ran a whole segment on his show about kind of mainstream liberal media, let's downplaying the fascistic elements of milani uh in headlines

in favor of the girl power angle. What's been so depressing it is to see so much of the quote unquote liberal media, the mainstream media, the m s M giving a pass to Maloney or playing down her and her party's fascist roots, focusing more on the fact that she's female and less on the fact that she's you know, fascistic. That has been deeply, deeply depressing to see. There was the Washington Post headline, Georgia Maloney could become Italy's first

female prime minister. Here's what to know. Now here's what you wouldn't know from that headline. You wouldn't know that she has ties to fascism. But hey, she's female. There was the headline in the Financial Times. We can pull that up as well. Likely victory for Italian right portends risks, but no lurch into extremism. Don't worry, no hurts to extremism, even though they just elected card carrying extremists. But still hers is a heartwarming tale, isn't it. I kid you not.

This was the tweet from Police to CO Europe. That's pull up the tweet from Politico Europe. In July, fifteen year old school girl rang the doorbell at a local branch of the Youth Front, a far right movement in Rome, and asked to be let in this weekend, that same school girl could become Italy's next prime minister. Wow, forget the fascism, forget the fascism, focus on the inspiration there. Then there was this op ed in the New York Times,

Georgia Maloney is extreme, but she's no tyrant. Well that's all right, then, at least she's not a tyrant. There was this OpEd in the Atlantic which argued that the most immediate concern about Italy's new government. Is not any threat to the country's democratic institution, still less a return to fascism. Did you notice a trend? Yet it's not

as bad as you think. This isn't really fascism. So we'll we'll talk a bit more about media coverage of Milani's election in a bit and how I think some people are kind of desperate to see the stupid Democrat Libs shill for fascism trope, especially with the whole girl boss thing that they actually kind of miss how the framing of Milanni's fascist ties has been perceived on a broad scale. But first I want to get into who she actually is, what her views are, and what her

election means. So it least a home. Italy is home to sixty million people, well with Robin, and it's continental Europe's third largest economy. When it comes to the actual election, the right wing coalition that Melani led one around of the vote, with Melani's Brothers of Italy Party getting around

for the Senate race. So in all around three out of four voters did not vote for Melani and one in three didn't even vote at all, No surprise there, But overall that means like only one in six Italian adults voted for the Brothers of Italy party and that that does, that does make them the biggest party in the new parliament, but it's long term legitimacy is still kind of in question because she was leading a larger right wing block but the but the actual party that

she's in and leads got the boat, so it's it's right, it's I think that's an important perspective on like how long she'll actually stay in power. Italian politics are kind of known for their kind of residing government not lasting very long. There's there's usually a pretty high like turnover rate,

so we'll see. Um, yeah, they it's an interesting composition right of like like moderate moderate ish right wing people and then like some more hardcore like no that it's to people who used to be the League of the North, I think of the second largest party, so it's not like a homogeneous block that she's in. Job would be

kind of interesting to see how they hold together. Yeah, and I think Melani can be an example of what political scientists called gender washing, when when female politicians adopt a non threatening image to blunt the force of their extremism. I think you can see this as well with Daisy inside Mario Kart for the for the Wei. Extremely brutal character play style, very brawley, but you know she acts very nice and that. Yeah, she's just like just powers

through other other carts on the track. Um and it's it's. It leads to this slightly warped perception of what Daisy actually does. Um So and Melanie's signature look involves flowing outfits and pastel shades, kind of like Princess Peach Um and two uninformed Foreigners. Her a sthetic could look like female empowerment. She poses as like a defender of women, even though her party has rolled back women's rights, just

like in uh the Two. As in six Princess Peach Game, she was a did brutal suppression of protests around the Mushroom Kingdom. So David Broader, author of Mussolini's Grandchildren, Fascism and Contemporary Italy, wrote in Political Europe Get funny. It's very different take from Political Europe and this one uh quote. Milani owes much more to the moderate forces in what

Italians call the center right Alliance. They've allowed her the opportunity to present herself as part of the main stream, not just because she's been softening her policies, at least in presentation, but also because the center right politicians jumping on her bandwag and has given her of an ear

of respectability and credibility. Um. You can see this in Super Passionate Most Brawl, when Warrio shows up a biker outfit, not wearing the regular Italian uniform and they just let him play like Mario Luigi are wearing their proper outfit and Warrior just like showed up in like like a leather jacket and like ripped shorts. That's not okay, but it gave him the veneer of respectability because others allowed it to take place. Kind of the kind of the

same thing here with Milani. At the same time, attempts by the main like center left rivals to make the election about this kind of ghost of fascism uh spreading again through Milani, have proved unsuccessful. Voters by enlarged and did not buy the narrative kind of that that the left was trying to push that Melani was this reincarnation of fascism. They just it just that that they were not. They were not convinced enough to affect the election results

in an in any meaningful way. Um same way, Nintendo is not convinced that putting Walluiji in the new Smash Bros. Will actually lead to more people buying the game. Italian essayist Roberto Slavinio wrote, quote, the far right can succeed in Italy because the left has failed, exactly as in much of the world, to offer credible visions or strategies.

The left asks people to vote against the right, but it lacks the political vision or an economic alternative of And I think these are all the kind of factors that actually led Milani to win this election. Should we talk a little bit about the sort of democratic party like five Star Alliance things that happen. Sure, if you can want to do like TLDR on that that would

be great. So alright, long ago, in a galaxy far far away, Italy had a very very large and powerful left um and then when the Soviet Union fell so that they had the Communist Party. The Comunist Party was like one of the most powerful comunist parties in the world. That wasn't like a sort of like dicutorial ruling party.

But when the Soviet like when the USSR felt it like voted dissolve itself basically became the Democratic Party and all of their sort of militants, like much of the militants basically turned into Libs and you know, I mean and the Italian left like how together for kind of a long time after that because they had you know, there's there's a very long tradition to sort of an extra parliamentary left and like tartically an anarchist left in Italy, but like the modern I don't know, it's kind of

a ship show, like in terms of actual party politics, Like there's a there was this thing called the Five Stars Movements, which was like kind of like basically Astro Turf by Abilionaire. It was just like very weird, very like early two thousand tens party that was like doing the whole sort of like we're going to do direct democracy by like online polls things. It has just like

really weird mishmasch like the main social Democratic for us. Yeah, well it's also sort of but like they're very weird, like like I don't know, you'll get things from them like okay, we want like like they're they're not a normal social democratic party right there, closing to like the

Pirate Party, but like way weirder. Like so you you'll you'll you'll get people in this party who are like you know, who who were who are like you know, sort of like old school like like leftist militants, because this is where sort of like the energy was going right, but also like there's like anti vaxers in it. It was just it was just really weird iological like sort

of mishmash. And then when they sort of got into power, like none of these people have ever been in politics before, and so like you know, you'd at someone who was like the head of garbage collection, right, who's from this party and they have no fucking idea how to collect garbage, right, And it was it's it's this real ship show because like you know, and then you have the Democratic Party, which are basically sort of just like lib hacks at

this point. And this meant that, like you know, and they eventually sort of aligned with each other to try to keep like other like fascist basically like right wing groups out of power. But they like they also they also like had an alliance for a little bit with one of the right wing parties. It's it's an incredibly like bizarre story ends like honestly like deserves like its own episode one day. But yeah, yeah, they're they're very weird. They're not in effective left thing at all. They're just

very very sort of like mishmash confused populist thing. And it didn't like they yeah, like they definitely did not sort of like succeed in preventing an alternative, etcetera, etcetera. It was, I don't know, kind of a disaster. Yeah, Italy's like it's worth noting as well. I think that like anti fascism is is sort of baked into the myth of the Italian Republic, right, like the that's what the republic rests are, that's where it comes from. That's

creation myth. But like much in the same way as people living in the United States will be familiar with how these creation miss kind of lose all relevancy apart from some kind of totemic, meaning like their repetition has some kind of linked to that, but they don't really have any any value in the contemporary discourse in terms

of animating and the way people act. I think you could say that that's happened in Italy, right, like people talk about people in institutions talk about anti fascism as where they come from and as foundational to it, LEAs democracy, but it's been so subsumed into structures of power that it that institutional discussion of anti fascism has lost its relevance from like the street fighting like anti fascism that created the republic in the first place, So that concept

is kind of defanct along with like, Italian liberals have always walked hand in hand with like business interests and the right wing right, like from even previous to fascism, like there was a quote unquote liberal monarchy, right, So Italian liberalism isn't necessarily this anti authoritarian force. It was briefly like it got made to be briefly by the organized working class movement, but it hasn't been and it's

going back to not being. Yeah, I mean, I think I now think we should may as well get into milanni Is actual like views and what she actually believes in the pauses, which you mean, what she actually believes in the bass is maybe slightly different things. Um, but

we'll we'll, we'll at least at least start. So Milani's party, the Brothers of Italy party, was formed to quote carry forth the spirit and legacy unquote of the Italian Social Movement or the m s I the end, and the the m s I is the descendant of Mussolini's National Just Party. It's it's it's like a has a direct lineage. They even have the flame, right, they are still using the same logo, which is the flame on his tomb.

I think that's where it comes from, right, Yeah, So, uh Melani has said that quote LGBT lobbies are out there to harm the women and and they're and they're attacking the family by destroying gender identity. Um. She's made statements about George Soros, calling him an international speculator. More on more on that. In the Saco uh he says that that that Soros finances global mass immigration, that thrends

a great replacement of white, native born Italians. Um Melani shows affinity for other kind of authoritarian strong men, like the the the marine Lee pen who's the leader of the of the National Rally Party in France. Strong and that's an it's part of this section on strong men like political political strong men. She's she's she's previously supported as Joe Rogan taught me, Garrison strong times mega hard men and also what I've learned from Matt Well, she's

what is a woman? So yeah, strong man. But like Milanni's previously supported Putin, although she's kind of lowered that enthusiasm since the invasion of Ukraine. She has she does have a pro Ukraine position on that publicly. Um but she's expressed kind of affinity for the types of other fascist leaders across Europe. We've see in Sweden, we've see in Poland, we've seen in Hungary. She's kind of aligned aligned herself with some of some of that kind of

trend inside of Europe. Milanni wants to ban same sex couples from adopting children, and possibly dissolve the same sex couples legal parentage over the children that they've already adopted. Her party has sought to ban a cartoon featuring a bear with two mothers, arguing that kids should not be seeing same sex adoption as natural or normal because it's not. Um so basic kind of right wing censorship of materials that they don't like. I don't think children should be

allowed to watch cartoons with bears in them. Okay, good for you. It is going to reduce their readiness when it becomes time to fight the bears. But Milanni also wants to ban gay Italians from traveling elsewhere for like surrogacy. Um so like so like they can't they can't leave the country to get to get like to have them become parents and return less. Like it's it's this, it's this, it's this whole whole thing. I'm gonna read a quote from Ruth bend Guite, a professor of history and Italian

studies at New York University. Quote. Since twenty seventeen, she has tweeted repeatedly that Italian identity is being deliberately erased by globalists such as Soros and European Union officials, who have conspired to unleash quote uncontrollable mass migration. Um. So normal normal stuff there and more on so so in in a in a speech, in a few speeches, and repeatedly, she refers to financial speculators and has called people like

George Soros an international speculator. Um. And you know when when she says, uh, financial speculators, I don't think she actually means just people who speculated about finances. I think she means something slightly different. Michael bench Laws, who is kind of history political person who works for NBC MSNBC PPS, had a really good, uh thread on on this, and I think it's important like this, this is a mainstream media guy, like this is not coming from antifa one

six one on Twitter. This is like coming from like like in terms of like mainstream media actually talking about this. Uh quote the new Italian Prime Minister says that quote we will never be slaves at the mercy of financial speculators sounds just like nineteen thirties in Italy and Germany. Uh No, thanks for the memories Mussolini enjoyed publicly referring to Jewish people as financial speculators who needed to be controlled.

When a fascist leader speaks, whether it be in Europe or America, never brush aside what you are hearing as meaningless rhetoric. Do not fail to learn from the history of the nineteen thirties. History of the nineteen shows us that fascist leaders in the United States have been very eager to link US and pool resources, often in secret, with fascist leaders in Europe. Monitor carefully and beware, and

please never take it at face value. When and if fascist leaders in America and Europe tell you that they have no personal or political animists towards Jews or other minority groups in society. Too many examples in history tells us the opposite, unquote. So that is like you know, regular MSNBC NBC people being like, hey, when she says

this thing, she needs Jews should should should. We also talk about like the way parts of like the left on Twitter reacted to this, and also the sort of history of like how some people were like, oh wow,

she's calling out the capitalists. That's not a lot of this is like you guys are maybe the dogs people who have ever lived Like she immediately like acts the I know she like this is the same thing we see with people like like Dugan even right what she's saying, she she's not saying that, you know, international capital is bad because it hurts the poor people or workers. She's she's mad about it because it's because it's a threat

to traditional identities. It's it's it's it's a threat to the way that you want, the the idea of the family, it's the way it's it's it's it's threatening all of these things that are about your like God, family, country, brotherhood, ship. It's not about actual poor people, working class people at all. That's not that's not what it is. It's it's not a good criticism of capitalist modernity, just to just to propose another form of more like authoritarian capitalist modernity. It's

it's it's it's not. It's not good. Um. The original fascists in Italy did the same thing when they denounced like British um placrats. It's just it's it's not, it's not the it's not a good critique of capitalists. So well, and we should point out to that. Like like so Mateo Savini, who was like the former like basically until the selection, he was like the guy he was in charge of the right wing. Like he he's a guy who got like arrested basically for trying to sink a

migrant boat. Like so that's actually these guys he sucks um and but she she do this like more explicitly he would, you know, like specifically used Marxist terminology to

push right wing stuff. So he he had a speech where he talked about like the reserve army of labor, which is this concept of Marxism that's about like basically Mark Marx is arguing that like like capitalism inherently produces this like quote unquote like reserve army of labor, like industrial army of labor, which is like an enormous mass of people who are unemployed. You've been spit out of the labor process, and you know, okay, and like and and and and like Mark Marx is like Marx is

pro these people, which is a very important thing. He's like, these people are part of the poletariat, but they've been spit out of like like the capital wage relation to spit them out, and they're, yeah, they're they're they're they're to sort of like regulate like wages stuff happens. But also there people who have just been sort of like disenfranchised, et etcetera. Salvini when he talks about the reserve army of labor specifically, is like, there is a reserve army

of labor. Uh. These people are immigrants to North Africa and like the like the elites are like shipping these people into Italy to like destroy your jobs. And it is it is again very very important that you understand. This is what he like when he's using the marks term, he is using it. He is using it marks racism and not like Mark's anti capitalism, and you need to be able to tell what difference between these two things, because yeah, like especially in time Poults like this, this

is the thing that happens. Like people people will use like even literally explicitly stuff that is from Marx but they will use it to be like we need to like machine gun every like boat of small children trying to free Libya. Like it's like cherry yeah, cherry picking these these bits of Marxism and the arranging them into a racist as fun college that you used to justify your bagotry. It's fashion. It did that the first time, it's doing it again then. And the other thing that

kind of that's that's notable. In case people have not have not seen it, There's been h lots of video going around of of Melani openly praising um Mussolini, saying, quote, I believe Musolini was a good politician. Everything he did he did for Italy and there have been no other politicians like him in the past fifty years that now these interviews all come from the mid nineties. She has since said that her opinions on Mussolini have changed. She has nuts she has not said what her opinions have

changed to she changed, but this was. This was. These interviews all come from when she was when she was a young plucky girl getting into the Boy's Nazi club of and leading the youth wing of a fascist party

founded by veterans of Musolini's dictatorship. UM. Since since her her own modern party, the Brothers of Italy, which was again started emerged from the fascist National Alliance, which grew out of the Italian Social Movement, which was founded by Mussolini regime officials UM, and she still uses the same

logo for her current Mario Luigian Sorry, Brothers of Belief Party. UM. So yeah, let's have let's have one more ad break and then we'll talk about how mainstream media has been talking about the new girl Boss Mussolini and we are back. Oh I'm so excited. I'm so excited. So we're actually

gonna talk. I'm first gonna read some stuff from the intercept, just not I would not say is actually a mainstream media It's a little bit outside of that, but it sets a good stage for the rest of the stuff that we will be talking about, which actually is dealing with how mainstream media has been framing UM. Milanni's election.

So quote, the media got this right much of the time, giving predominant building to Melanie's fall right nationalism, but numerous English language headlines focused solely on her being Italy's first woman prime minister. Is tempting to say that her position as a woman leader should be considered irrelevant given her and her party's vile anti immigrant, nationalist, racist, anti LGBT e Q plus policies, but ignoring her womanhood misses some

crucial points about her political ideology. Being a woman, a white woman that is, is not in conflict with Milanni's fascism. White supremacy has always relied on active enforcement by white women, especially when it comes to upholding racist, po nationalist narratives. So yeah, I think that that's that's that's a good stage for kind of how every other headline and article we're going to talk about here. Let's start with The Guardian.

The Guardian ran a piece saying, quote, the election of Italy's fascist adjacent Georgia Milani is a public reminder that women can be just as awful as men. That's a good headline. And this was was this was the Guardian US, the Guardian UK. This was Guardian UK. Yeah, fashionis and this and this article and this, this article is actually directly in opposition to Australia's a sky News headline Georgia

Milani is not a fascist. Um this is this is just directly in opposition to this Sky News article, which is kind of funny. Um uh NPRS Morning edition went with quote a far right group with neo fascist roots

wins big in Italy's election. Um A CBS Mornings host said, Milani rejects the label of fascism while embracing its symbols, just its symbols, just you know, like they were specifally talking about like the actual like iconography that they directly left like this, like the slogans like brotherhood, God, country type things, and like like the logo and it's it was part actually part of a larger thing around around fascism. Look, we'll actually get a bit more into that on our

Tucker Carlson's section. Oh good. The Washington Post headlined quote, the mainstreaming of the West's far right is complete, and then opened article was saying in the land that invented fascism, the far right is back in power. Milani has a lengthy record of extremist rhetoric, has embraced the white supremacist narrative of the great Replacement theory, and has engaged in

frequent dog whistling to a radical base. The Atlantic had a good piece titled the Return of Fascism in Italy um saying that the Brothers of Italy, which Milanni has led sin has an underlying and sinister familiarity. The party formed a decade ago to carry on the spirit and legacy of the extreme right in Italy, which dates back to the Italian Social Movement, the party that formed in place of the National Fascist Party, which was banned after

World War Two. Now, just weeks before the one hundredth anniversary of the March on Rome, the October nineteen event that put Musolini in power, Italy may have a former Italian Social Movement activist for its prime minister and a government rooted in fascism. So that's like overall, there was a lot of really good Like most of the of the extremely reference or viral kind of articles on this had decent headlines and decent content actually emphasizing the fascist nature.

Now it's funny because the Atlantic had this return of Fascism in Italy one, but The Atlantic also ran an op ed piece titled Melanie's election win is not a vote for Fascism, which later changed its title to Italians didn't exactly vote for fascism Um, which to its credit, still discusses uh Melani's links to fascism, but it questioned how much power she actually will have to enact said

fascism um. But so there was there was some like both sides and going on on some A lot of these news outlets, they'll put one up, they'll put one piece out that's actually very good about centering the fascist rhetoric, another one being like she may be a fascist, but it's not like she could do much and she's a woman. Yeah, I think this is kind of like I think, I think it's just kind of a post J six thing. Like I I think if this had happened in I don't think the LA media would have been like as

willing to just do this. Absolutely that is that is undoubtedly true. Um. I think I think they kind of, like like liberals in general, kind of were shaking out of their complacency when they're sort of like beautiful symbols were under like finally actually came under attack and not just like US. Routers ran a confusing headline titled nationalist Milani set to smash Italy's glass Sea leg and become premier,

which is really it just sounds super weird. Nationalist Milandy smashes glass Sea like it's just like it's like, yeah, I guess the cos it's it's what. That was one of the weirder headlines because it still has nationalists in it, but it has the whole glass stealing bit, which is just like I There was another Guardian UK piece uh that had the headline uh at Italy's Georgia Melani is no Mussolini, but she may be a Trump, which is

an interesting article. Um it It has some a lot of it's actually pretty reasonable h and it emphasizes her more recent comments trying to align herself more with the modern US Republican Party rather than any kind of form of nineteen thirties style fascism. Quote hawkish on foreign policies, orthodox on economic policies, nostalgic nationalists, and inimical to civil liberties.

This right wing politics is illiberal at heart, but it would aim for respectability in what used to be called the establishment, including by not undermining the rule of law in the way that Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban has

done unquote. So there's it kind of I do like the there is some things that are worth we're thinking about in terms of how she has a lot in the past year tried to align herself more with the Modern Republican Party in the States, which still is as we discussed the show, a lot is kind of getting more fashion I would say, so, so I will say it is has I don't know if you're gonna talk

about this, but it has been very funny. She managed to sort of like lose like the like really hardline like American right wingers because she did some sort of like pronato ee things and so now there's like like so like like Snovich and a whole bunch of other people like that were posting about how like she's like an op and she was part of some I don't remember. I don't even I don't. I don't even think even

believes that because I don't, I don't. I've seen much more people be very enthusiastic about her than people being critical of her who are on the fashionst rite in

the States. Yeah, I mean, I don't know, like there's there's definitely was especially like there's a whole thing about her being like remember the Aspen Institute, but I think was happening for like I don't know, may maybe that maybe that's just a thing like right after she got like I don't I don't know, I mean on kind of on this note of of her trying to align

more with like modern United States conservatism. UM. In one of their newsletters, Politico included that Milani has appeared at see Pack this past year on the National Prayer Breakfast and uh and it did did join the Aspen Institute in but she and Steve Bannon were films strategizing together as far back and Bannon instead of her back then quote you put a reasonable face on right wing populism, you will get elected. Um. So her and Bannon have

been strategizing for years. She's at Sepack. Uh. This past year, she gave a speech there that Tucker was very enthusiastic about. In his segment about her. That political newsletter that included the bits about Bannon and Spack also had I think this line, which sums up some of my thoughts on this quote you've already read and in dozens of headlines that Milani will be Italy's most far right leader since Miscellani.

But don't fall for the trap of reducing this far right firebrand too simple labels like the Italian Donald Trump, or Victor or band or Marine le pen global takeaway. Right wing populism is getting smarter. It could have died off with Trump selection lass or Boris Johnson's humiliating ejection from Downing Street, but that isn't happening. So I have I have a few more of a few more things here which will lead into kind of how the right has been talking about this um. There was a scene.

There was a scene an article on the victory that headlined the conditions are perfect for a populist resurgence in Europe, which also referenced the anti immigration Sweden Democrats, who are expected to play a major role in the new government after winning the second largest share of seats in the general election last month. The party has been now mainstreamed and initially had its roots in very strict neo Nazism. Over All, I was less happy with some of the

New York Times headlines relating to Milanni's election. There was there was the the cheeky headline Georgia Milani is extreme, but she's no tyrant, which is of again a weird way to frame a headline. Um but even that peace still opens with this line saying, quote, it happened here again. Nearly one hundred years since the March on Rome, Italy on Sunday voted in a right wing coalition headed by

a party directly descended from Mussolini's fascist regime. Mrs Milani is the first post fascist leader to win a national election in Italy after World War Two, and her party is the heir to the Italian Social Movement, the reincarnation of the long dissolved and constitutionally banned Fascist party. So weird headline still it includes stuff in the article. But in the age of social media and honestly on news media,

headlines are way more important. Unfortunately, um and there was an actual New York Times article, not just not just opinion piece have the headline Milani wins voting in Italy and breakthrough for Europe's hard right. Another Times piece read Europe looks at Italy's Milani with caution and trepidation. Uh Milani posed to be the country's first far right leader. Since Mussolini, so still not the worst, not the best from the New York Times, which you mean, no no

shockers there. Um now on to kind of the right. So the right had a really big mix of reactions based on how the left was talking and liberals were talking about this. There was a lot of enthusiasm coming from the right. A lot of people on the right questioning the fascist framing, being like, I can't believe Megan. I mean we can talk about the Magan Bcayan tweet. Everyone wants a woman in power until it's the conservative power.

This one right bart reporter said quote calling her most Salini just because she's Italian is racist, which is one of the best, one of the best tweets about this. Laverne Spicer said, so everyone calls Melania fascist? Can anyone offer proof of that? And most most of people just replied with videos of her praising Missolini. Um, yeah, will bang you for picture. Lauren Bobbert had the extremely bad tweet This month, Sweden voted for a right wing government.

Now Italy voted for a strong right wing government. The entire world is beginning to understand that the woke left does nothing but destroy November eight, November eight is coming and the USA will fix our House and Senate. Let freedom rain Um, great, great prose there um just shouting at Cloud. But I I it is rush. It is actually super messed up to be praising Sweden's new wing

government because they're pretty pretty bad. The Wall Street Journal had the great headline Milani is no fascist, but can she revive Italy's economy? Um? Yeah, that's that is perfect, That's that's the classic. Well, I'm very I'm very excited in about eight months when the Italian economy is like it makes the British economy look fucking great when the

West there turnaround like can some other random persons save Italy? Yeah, like somebody further to the right, and they'll just continue to be like, well, maybe it's good for the economy. The economy I have running in my Super Mario RPG game is better than the current UK economy. So again, it's not saying more on that, right. A Fox News headline in the lead up to the election read Italy on track to elect first right wing prime minister since

World War Two, first female to hold office. So I really, I really do that. This is one thing I really need to get keep people on, like, is fucking Sylvia Berlisconi a joke to you? Like the answer should be yes, but also like come on man like forever. A few days later, another Fox headline read Milani's Italian election win renews spotlight on Europe's continued migrant woes. Great, great, great heading there, that's definitely what we should be focusing on.

And so now onto a friend of the pod, Tucker Carlson. So on September twenty six, Tucker Carlson ran a fifteen minute segment titled we live in a fake democracy and there will be a revolution like Italy. So the segment was on the election of Milanni and how she's daring to address the issues that voters really care about but aren't allowed to talk about, like the attacks on the family, immigration, the unpopular climate change policies that are ruining the economy,

aren't allowed to talk about. Bill Muscodi has literally been saying whatever the funk comes into his brain for like thirty years at this point. That was that was a big thing of the Tucker segment was that voters have all these issues they care about, but they're not allowed to talk about it. It's actually illegal in some places to talk about this. That's an actual quote from what

he's there. Um And obviously Tucker offiscated her lings to Mussolini style fascism while still praising the fascist rhetoric that to Melania espouses. Here is a clip from the segment. She's not the first person to say this, people have said it before, but she's just been rewarded for saying it. That's the point. The population likes it. This is what they actually want. They're not that worried about global warming. They don't want open borders. They think the woke stuff

is absurd. They want to say what they think. And now it's obvious because she just won. And so even in this country, the people running and benefiting from a deeply corrupt and doom system are hysterical. Watch the reaction to that. I want to start today by talking about a politician on the right who we should all be worried about, who's on the rise today, A politician who was brushed off accusations of fascism. What separates us from

let's say, Italy who elected a fascist. She is from fascist Fruits, a far right political party whose roots go back to post World War two neo fascist party that has its roots in Italian fascism. It's roots in Italian fascism. Define that for us if you would. Joe Scarboro, sorry, you're an idiot, you can't. But the point is fascist means unacceptable. Whatever this chick is saying you're not allowed

to agree with. They're very worried that that many Italians do agree with it, So she has to be completely unacceptable. Don't read further. She's a fascist. So yeah, that's that sucks, That's not great. Um I don't need to waste any more time talking about Tucker's segment because it's it's typical Tucker Carlson stuff, pretty fascistic, pretty awfu Durremberg at the end of every time. Anyway, um So yeah. Kind of the reaction was as one might expect. American right wing

operatives have celebrated her rise to power. For example, Keith Robert's, head of the Heritage Foundation, drew on some of the familiar kind of language in terms of and I'll just I'll just say this. This is what he said about her victory on Twitter. This can be a trend. Conservatives everywhere need to define the choice as to what it is us versus them, everyday people versus globalst elites shown

they hate us, so familiar dog whistles and ship. But to kind of close this up, I'm actually gonna do uh, I'm gonna do a Guy Debord quote, one of our favorite philosophers on this. Can we put a little French on it? Can we have Giva guid Bor quote? Yeah? So he he wrote the situations The Situation's phosopher wrote this in nineteen eight. Italy sums up the social contradictions of the entire world as such. It is a laboratory for international counter revolution. Um. So hilariously they held out

longer than the French did. So well, what what What he's trying to say there is that it's a way to try out social change and try out the suppression of like progressive social change. Um. And it's like a model for the rest of Europe. Um. Like it's like it's it's this owns like miniature model that you can try out things and see how they'll react on a

on a grounder European political scale. Um And kind of rough in in the in the vein of that, I'm actually gonna do a quote from one of the Washington post articles about what what what one of the better articles about Melani to kind of finish up the types of stuff that I wanted to talk about. So, if there's been one dominant story in Western politics over the past decade, it's that the far right is no longer

beyond the pale. Indeed, it has taken over the right wing mainstream in many countries, including and arguably most significantly, the United States. In France, the far right has long been the leading force of the opposition. In Spain, it's also gained ground in Sweden, a party originally founded by Neo Nazis and other right wing extremists will now be the second largest faction in parliament. In Hungary and Poland,

the far right is already in power. So just in terms of this overall trend of how people are trying to mainstream far right things and how they're getting more normalized across Europe in the United States here, and the types of asthetics that they're using to gain such ground.

Because the Italian voters were not convinced by the left attempts to paint Melani as a reincarnation of Mussolini, the way that she wrapped her fascism in contemporary US style conservatism was convincing, and the left did not offer any viable alternatives to fix the problems that the country's facing. So she got the vote, which was enough to get

a majority. So yeah, that's that's kind of That's most of the stuff I have on the Girl Boss Mussolini, Um any any other any other uh comments on how the rights been talking about this, how the liberals have been talking about this, how media has or any anything at all. Before we close up, no, I wish her the best of getting strung up in the street. It's very funny to turn pictures of her upisode down. People will tell you, Whi's not funny. It is funny, you know.

I like the seed to be turning into the nant twenties, but like tragedy is farce version of it. But this means we can do it funnier. We can. We can do it funnier. We can all go to Italy wearing Mario costumes. That's right, we can we can do it. We can do it funnier. It's always possible to be more funny. M hmm, that's what we striful. So yeah, I'm still laughing about the Brothers of Italy thing. That's wow,

that's pretty funny. Anyway, go have fun fighting anthropomorphic lizards who steal the princess and hang her in a cage and go race around the mushroom Kingdom on your way to save her with your brother. Is how I spend most of my free time in the mushroom Kingdom. In the mushroom Kingdom, jumping on lizards. Yeah, let's let's a go Hello and welcome to It could happen here a podcast about how everything is falling apart, and today we are talking about how the United Kingdom of Great Britain

Northern Ireland is continuing to fall apart. And James, can I say, great job, nailed it, Thank you buddy, out of the park. You absolutely just stunning work introducing this podcast. Yeah, I've bought the level of commitment that British people have brought to governing half of the world for centuries. I have my coffee cup that says fuck it and that that's where we're at with this one. That's exactly what

we wanted from you. Yeah, I'm incredibly sad about the plight of my home country and continue to be so that I'm going to explain the reason for my sadness to Garrison and Chris and Robert today one of one of the reasons for my sadness. Okay, so what I want to talk about today is Elizabeth trust list Trust. I want to talk about the British cost of living crisis, and I think more broadly, I want to talk about, like how we consent to be governed by people who

do not give a single funk about our well being. Well, now, James, that's an experience that only the British have, So that's correct. Yeah, it's known to be not something that much of the colonial periphery experience for centuries, which he thought the monarchy away beat beat the monarchy Garrison. That's a bold we garrison from a Canadian. Yeah, that's right. Your people trying to stop it. Yeah, that's all we did was invade you a couple of times. I don't think you can

sneak in there. And then the ambiguity of accents by us passport is on the way, on the way, on the way. Yeah, so was the Queen of England's Yeah, trust going to take that away, King Charles, it's going to make it not allowed. I do have to get a new Canadian passport with the king on it now, which sucks. That was the most I guess we all learned a lot because it's been so long since you had a change of monarch. But the fact that everyone has to stop using the money and everyone has to

skip is fucking absurd. This is the worst political system I've ever heard of. Just wait, because it's gonna get even more kind of Okay, Chris, you live in Chicago. Yeah, but here's here's the thing. Here's the thing right in Chicago, right, everyone everyone like like too, and in the core of their being they know that the people who ruled him are robbing them. Everyone in Britain actually genuinely like wants

to be like this. No one in Chicago wants any of the people in Chicago who rule us to be ruling us. Right. Everyone in Britain is like pro like they want to have to throw all their money away because some fucking ninety year old in a hat died. Is an incomprehensible level of just outstanding. Yeah, it's a marvelous country. There's nothing wrong with it. It will continue

to be marvelous. And the lowest ten percent of income people in Britain now enjoy a quality of life which is substantially lower than that same income bracket in Slovenia, which looking at the economic powerhouse of Slovenia, I just want to say, we do not deserve a better quality of living than the people of Slovenia actually rules. Yeah, it does great places. Yeah, it's a really nice place. She takes about two hours to cross. But it's a great country. Right, you can ride your bike across it.

But that's great, that's what you want to do. What's what's happening here is that Maoice Liz Trust is like very slowly returning all the brids of the countryside. She yeah, she's she's doing a cultural revolution. And let's talk about Mauice Liz Trust. So her parents are actually a long way to her left. There was a thing a little while ago where her dad refused to campaign for her when she ran for a seat as a Conservative, which

is based critical support for liszt Us his dad. Her mom also ran as a lib dem which is not exactly like the Liberal Democrats are not exactly like the party that are going to liberate the working class through glorious revolution. But it's still pretty funny to have your mom running for a different party than you and objectively amusing. She was born in Oxford. Her parents her mother's a teacher, her dad is an academic. I think it leads her dad's he's a mathematician. What a nerd? God damn it.

Her dad is not the nerd here. Her dad is the best. Trust as far as I can tell, it's it's Liz who were worried about. She described her parents as being to the left of labor, which is not hard. Labor just exists to kind of these days really to have the pretensive opposition right. They've deliberately purged the left from labor after two thousand and nineteen, and they exist for Keir Starmer to say I broadly support this terrible

nearliberal policy but and then say something completely ineffectual. And I'm sure he will be Prime Minister soon and nothing will change. And I think that Liz Trust has done and is doing, will be walked back because Britain doesn't have an effective left opposition in Parliament. It does in society and in the streets. And we'll see there are

lots of movements. Our parliament is a fast and continues to be a fast and it's lots of dudes who went to the same education institutions making this funny kind of noise that there are more diverse people in parliament. But I'm sure people have seen videos of the British Parliament right and everyone was like when someone sounds just like that, yeah that thanks Danial Americans who don't understand

entirely how British educational culture works. The fancy schools that they go to, they're like Hogwarts if you replaced like the magic with kids beating each other in the shower and yeah yeah, with the repressed sexuality and yeah yeah, violence, bullying and being picked on because you're the poorest kid in a school ful. So actually it is. It is a like Harry Potters, quite a bit like Harry Yeah yeah, yeah,

there are still turfs. It's very disappointing. So, talking of educational institutions, trust went to ox It right, she went to Merchant. I went to talk to two. I didn't get to Merchant. That's a better off college. I went to college which is renowned for being poor. For what that's worth. Within Oxford colleges which were all full of rich people doing rich people's stuff. She read Ppe Politics philosophy and economics, which I don't think you can really

do as a degree in the US. Right, what is that politics, philosophy and economic Yeah, yeah, it's called PP three made up things? Well, what do you say? Other other degrees, on the other hand, are real and tangible and of course in the physical space where you can touch them. Everyone knows that. Yeah, it's true. Apart from pp PP is so like I went to talk for two. I took Modern History and Politics, which is way cooler and better in every way. But the PPE kids such

so that people understand. A vast number of British prime ministers have taken PP as as their undergraduate degree. It's like the Kingmaker of degrees and you take it because you're an insufferable, fucking dorc who wants to be prime minister or like work for the British government in some way, right, Like it is this like kingo maker one of the prime minister It looks like such a good job. Yeah,

they last a long time. They have universally great approval ratings and to be fair, they do just go on to grift to share a ton of money like it's not and they don't have to do it for like a fixed period of time, like American presidents do. So that's nice. They can just have a bunch of parties for their friends in the lockdown and their leave, which

is more or less what Boris Johnson did. And I don't I don't expect Liz to be Prime Minister for long, but it's what she's doing and what she has already sort of done that I think it's of interest here. Certainly, she was also president before we get off her university time at the Oxford University Liberal Democrats and so oh yeah, yeah, great stuff. The so like she's gradually drifted to the right, which you know, what are we? What we she's grifted

to the right. You know, the lib Dems were a little bit more left then, but Labor was very neoliberal in the nineties right when she was in when she was in Parliament, so sometimes the Lib Dems provided something of a left opposition if you remember, like Tony Blair New Labor. It was just kind of bold neoliberal, like shameless near liberalism. Right now, Tony Blair is the one who was played by Hugh Grant, right is he the

one of his He the inspiration for love? Actually, I was assuming because Tony Blair was the only British politician I could name as a child. Okay, must have been right, because Tony Blair is completely devoid of charisma, and the one thing that that Hugh Grant character has is charisma, So maybe maybe he does kind of. I mean, they're all pint men. They are a white man that is

a very white movie. He looks like him. But then that's not exactly a remarkable thing, is it in sort of homogeneous British ruling class that we have so trust has gone through like being Secretary of State for Justice, through being Lord Chancellor, through being Foreign Secretary. Okay, Lord Chancellors are pretty cool sounding title. I gotta give it to him first. That's like Star Wars ship did you do?

They have a shadow Lord Chancellor to the thing that is, they pick the terms to make it all sound cool, like when whenever one of like your parliamentary coalitions collapse, they're like the government has fallen. It just makes it all sound like it's so much cooler than it is.

It does lend an air of shakespeare An epic where it's one of these is these seventeen people who all went to the same schools and read the same Telegraph newspaper columnists have disagree with each other from minor point and will shortly be reconstituting their alliance in a slightly different way. Yeah, but it sounds like people are fighting each other with machetes. It has a game of thrones beheading via Maybe that's where this is heading. Who knows?

She I think if people had heard of Lives Trust until she became Prime Minister, it was probably from her really wonderful pork market speech, which if you haven't watched the pork market speech, it is a study and when you should and shouldn't pause for applause, Robert, have you seen this pork markets? No? Okay, what is a fucking pork market? It's so funny. In December, I'll be in Beijing opening up new pork markets. What the fund is

this ship? She's not a real person, she's it's it's reminiscent of like when you take a fish out of water and it moves its lips but makes no coherent noise, an alien trying to pretend to be humid. Yeah, it's it's this is this is a great leader of our people, and it's the uncanny value of post craft Ian and it's in its unsettling nous. Yeah yeah, what's what's what's happening here. What we're seeing is that this is this is the this is the final result of affirmative action

from white people. Yes, we're going to get into that. This is why, this is why she has this job. She she she benefited from affermative action from white people. Other examples of this include Destiny and yeah, yeah, you get the same kind of person every single time, same same right, like Destiny and the Prime Minister of the UK and yeah, so like she becomes prime minister. And it's worth noting that, like, the way you become prime minister in the UK is different to the way you

become president in the US. Right, you are the leader of the majority party in parliament, or of the coalition that controls the majority of the votes in parliament. So she becomes prime Minister not through a vote of the people, but through a vote of the members of the Conservative Party. And you can understand as like people whose dogs have girls names and whose daughters have dogs names. I think

that is I think that's a trash future bit. I don't know where it came from, but it explains some perfectly. So these people got together and they she ran against Richie Sunac right and who is eminently more capable of doing the fashion neoliberal ship that they want to do, as are many other people of color within their party. But above all things, they are racist, right above even doing this kind of speed run extraction from the British economy,

they are still racists. They're they're they're fine with having people of color in in positions in the hierarchy, right, there's something that Britain established through hundreds of years of empire. But the idea, the idea of having someone in a leadership position is is fundamentally anathema to the Conservative Party. So instead they picked kind of Liz Trust to just flap her lips around and talk about pork markets. Right, So that's how we get Liz Trust as Prime Minister.

So no one per se votes for Lizz Trust. No one even per se votes for like the Liz Trust a genda that we're seeing now, right, and I think that's really important. And in her acceptance speech she talks to Boris Johnson. She said, you're you're admired from Kiev to Carlisle. Yeah, she says, yeah, okay, first of all, bizz Absolutely, the thing I know about Boris Johnson is that he looks like Donald Trump. If Trump didn't have

his ship quite so together, Yes, yeah, Donald Trump. His mom didn't tell him to comb his hair and tuck his shirt and before he went to school. Yeah, if Donald Trump couldn't have paid paid a half people like check him before he walks out the door, that's how he would look. Yeah, yes, exactly. If he fell over in a wind tunnel, he would look like Boris Johnson. Boris Johnson a guy so fucking rich he's never had

to comb his hair. Stop being prime minister because of these scandals, right, these sleeve scandals about them having teas during lockdown. More or less, that was what destroyed him, not any of his terrible policies, his bigoted bullshit. Him writing up ed saying that the problem with us was not that we were in charge of Africa, but that we're not anymore. God, Yeah, this is a type of guy who exists and can become Prime minister. Like people

don't understand. I think, um, British, the British right is very different from the American right, and I think we're going to get into that. And also a guy who famously just like pulverized a small child on a trip to Japan. Play You don't need to say the things that he did that are rad He he did finally discover the actual third world British politics, which is that if you have fun in a way that someone else

can't have fun, they will destroy you. Yes, the mere British person, but your act of a British person seeing another person having any joy whatsoever, like just like the so a switch flips in their brain and they just turned into like Brits but worse. This is yes, so this is like there are basically two ways that a British political party can be right. One is that they enjoy themselves while they're plundering the institution to still remain

in the United Kingdom. And the other one is that they are like magnastically abstemious while they're doing it right. And Labor tend to be the obstnious ones, uh, and the Tories tend to be the ones who drink the poor and have the lockdown parties and have like literal karaoke events when they're asking people not to go to their grandparents funerals and labor tend to be the ones who wring their hands to go oh no and then

fundamentally do the same ship. Right, that that is a different Chris is entirely correct that that is the thing that irritates British people most, right, And maybe we'll just

talk about this right now. It's increasingly like it's not the material conditions that bring down British governments, because material conditions are getting worse and have been getting worse since we started this this austerity stuff in it's these stupid scandals, right, these these personal scandals which yes, normally involve them having too much fun when they're supposed to be pretending to be serious while they steal all the all the things that still remain in Britain. And I want to talk

about a little later. So yeah, she said Boris Johnson was amoved from Keith to Carlole. He's not. That's why he's not Prime minister anymore. Everyone hates him. And also I don't think she's been to Carlos because I got family who lived there and not everyone loves Borrows Johnson there, and I'm sure not in Kiev either. But so the UK has been having this cost of living crisis since the economy reopened in one right, since the end of lockdown.

What this cost of living crisis is, what cost of living goes DoD is generally is that when the goods that you need to buy to exist arising more quickly than the wages you get paid for working. Now, some of these causes a globe or Right, we have this inflation issue in the US too, but the UK has compounded this by leaving the European Union, that creating massive labor labor shortages and these repeated bumps in the energy price cap? Right, which is the limit that an average

family should pay for their energy consumption. It's not it's not a hard stop. It's not a limit on how much you definitely will pay, but it's a limit on how much the average family should pay. Right, and so trust comes to power in the context of skyrocketing energy rates for British consumers. Gas is used for heating most homes in the UK, and it's increased in price since

before the coronavirus times. Despite the fact that most British people don't pay spot prices for gas and pay the going market rate for gas, there's a serious crisis and affordability. Now it was looking like the gas bills are going to go up, into the average gas bill for the average British person is going to go up more than it now is because Trust has has announced some capping of spot rates. We're going to get into why that isn't as great as its sound. The big issue here

is that Britain doesn't have a nationalized provider, right. It's privatized its energy. Great, it's privatized its energy generation, and it ends up with this bizarre situation where one of the one of the people you can buy energy off and often you don't have a choice, right depending on where you are, is the French national energy company. That makes sense, Yeah, it makes perfect sense, right, it's it's great and one of the notables consequent to this is

a gas price who've gone up. France caps the prices that consumers can pay Britain allows them to charge a lot more so British people at this it's as a rule one thing that Britain. You would telling me that France finally won that long year and saying that we have been owned by the French. And if that doesn't bring down the Conservative government, I don't know what will because there's one thing British people dislike its French people.

And and so yeah, Britain is now subsidizing energy rates for French consumers, which is great having just left the European Union, because we are incredibly xenophobic as a nation as it turns out. And people may have seen this UK TV show called This Morning where they did a wheel of Fortune type thing where you could win a thousand pounds or or they will pay your energy bills. Yeah, but for like three or four months, right, months, four

months of energy bills. And the bloke they're doing it in it's just like it's this side of relief when he gets energy bills, right, He's like, oh massive, Like I'm gonna have my energy bills pay for four months. It's such a relief. And this guy is one of four million people in the UK who uses what's called a pre payment meter, which I'm reliably informed that Americans don't have. So do you do you all? Are you

familiar with the concept of pre payment meters? Uh? No, okay, so maybe people are familiar with like pay as you go phones right where you go to the shop. Yeah, if you if you're like selling drugs, or your you engaged in anti government extremism. Yeah you want to want a phone like that? Sure? Yeah yeah yeah, Or if you're doing journalism, you might want journalism reasons. It's the same as one of the others. Yeah, yes, true. Yeah.

Here at cool Zone Media. You know, you know, you know who won't use a prepaid cell phone to sell you drugs because they're not Wait yeah they would, you think so? I think they just got enough money they would just use a regular phone bill and have a lawyer. Just you know, I think I think they're deep into boost Mobile for the only thing even John laugh. They're fucking back. Okay, So you know who has to go to Walmut to buy more credit to their phone so

they can sell you some weed. It's the advertisers who support this show. Okay, we're back and we are talking about prepaid energy meters, a scintillating topic. So the prepaid energy meter, you have to go out, you have to pay for energy, so if your rate to go. The reason for these overwhelmingly is like there's an agreement by which stenergy supplies won't just cut you off. In the UK, like if you have old people in your house, you have children in your house, like they have to do this.

The appearance of caring is this thing that we're going to see is really important in lots of these policies. Right, so they can't cut you off, but if they have it, if you have a meter and you can't prepay for the electricity, then your de facto cut off. Right And the best states I could find about this was in seventeen were roughly a hundred and forty tho households of the of those that had pre payment meters self disconnected.

Self disconnected the euphemism for they couldn't pay right for gas or electricity in they couldn't afford to our credit to their meter right and they didn't have the credit, so they couldn't get the electricity, so they end up disconnecting. And if you add to this that the British houses are made out of cheese. Our houses are very poorly

insulated for the most part. Right that they're often single brick, so it's expensive to heat them and they get cold in the winter and they get hot in the summer. We're not we don't have houses are designed to deal with the extremes in temperature which we are now experiencing because we have ruined the climate. So people are spending more and more, using more and more electricity and gas

to heat their homes. It's costing more and more and increasingly they can't afford to pay it, right, and this will lead to people dying. So if we look at like what the average pensioner in the UK, right, I looked at some statistics on the Office of National Statistic Here, the average pensioner in the UK has on a fixed income. It's making seventeen thousand pounds a year, which I guess pounds of what though the gold rubber gold? You take your pounds to the Bank of England and they give

you golden return, Okay, not anymore. That actually, interestingly was, if we go on a side note for a minute, one of the ways Britain achieved greater democratization when the middle class for excluded but landowners were in did was the middle class had cash money and the landowners had

wealth in the form of property. Right, so in the middle class threatened to tank the entire Bank of England by taking all their pound notes and asking to have them converted to to the gold that they that they were supposedly pegged to and there was not enough goal to actually to do that for the entire money supplies, so they could have tanked the Bank of England. So yeah, a bit of Reform Act history. They're no longer they're decoupled now from that, so you can't do that, sadly.

But seventeen tho pounds is not a lot of money, right. Trust has just announced that the energy bill for an average family is going to be KEPPT at two thousand, five hundred pound a year, which is a decent chunk

of your income, right if you're making seventeen thousand. Before that, the previous planned limit had been three thousand, five hundred forty nine pounds for an average family based on average consumption, which is a very significant chunk of your seventeen thousand pound yet, right, especially if if if you're renting on top of that, Right, the cost of housing, the cost of rental housing has gone up in the UK, and so and this is arise again. The capital already been

risen in April. Right, it's not a price cap, right, This doesn't mean that you as a family are guaranteed that you will not pay more than this two thousand found number. What is It's a unit cost limit. So not all families are typical, not all homes are typical, but the cost is for those who interesting tenpence per killer for gas, steady fourpence per killer for electricity. So what this means is that, like, we've capped a little bit of the cost and in response, like, and this

is pretty this is pretty typical of what the conservatives do. Right. They'll do this thing where they give the appearance of caring and then at the same time they bundle it in with a bunch of incredibly like uh, just like the best way to understand these people is that they've you the free market as a religion, right, So, and they believe that like the only way out of anything

is to cut taxes. Whether they actually believe that because they think it will genuinely make the situation better, or they're just trying to get as much as they can

for them and theirs. I think it's probably I'm leaning towards the second one, right, But so she bundles this with the UK is gonna gonna lift it ban on fracking, right, Um, the UK band fracking after a series of earth tremors near Blackpool, which like, there's a lot of cursed things about Britain, but until recently we hadn't added earthquakes to

that list, and so thank you Liz. They it's very funny work Business School published to study in pointing out it is widely widely recognized that the open and liberal nature of the UK's gas market means that the market price the national Baltic point is unlikely to be influenced by shell gas development. So shell gas is fracking right in the UK. So the UK is going to start fracking,

which is great. And she also proposed removing the top tier of income tax, which is reducing the amount of tax paid by people who earn more than a hundred and fifty thousand pounds a year right now they pay

tax above that. This announcement caused a pound to fall to a historic low against the dollar and for Trust to find herself in open beef with the Wokes Golds at the i m F. So the i m F said new economic measures laid out by the UK government will likely increase inequality, and they added that the i m F does not recommend large and untargeted fiscal packages

at this juncture. So she also during this like she she promised that she was going to cancel a planned rise on corporate tax and scrap a proposed cap on bankers bonuses. This has been one of her big policy things, along with Simon Clark, who declared a new age of austerity at the time they announced this. Right, but there's this constant like everything Britain does is only one way in which conservative governments to move can move, and that is taxing the other people who went to the same

schools and universities as them less. So I kind of want to take a step back here and talk about the ideology that underpins a lot of what Trust is doing. And and it's that she and Chance to the execut Quasi Quieting and pretty Patel and Dominic rob who are all in her cabinet, I think a part of this free enterprise group within the Conservative Party. And much like you have caucuses in the American Senate, in Britain, we have these groups. And they wrote this book called Britannia Unchained,

which I don't know if people are probably not familiar with. Right, I've heard of it, but I know very little about it. Yeah, it's just like a it's a series of short essays, just like doing a Milton freedoman, like an unreconstructed free

market fundamentalism. That it's it's very different to what the because the American right likes to talk about markets and libertarianism and stuff, right, but like in general their entire politics, it's just kind of owning the lips, right, like these socio cultural a greevances, and then when they get in power, they they they're spending is largely just about one might argue staying in power, right, Whereas the Conservatives in Britain

are genuinely committed to slashing government, including slashing services, including slashing any kind of social safety. Now right, it does have these amusing consequences sometimes, like Britain continually cuts the number of police it has, which is great. It's genuinely really funny. Yeah, it's it's very funny. It's very funny that like our most right wing party, and I guess not our most writing party if you've got some proper nutters, but we've defunded the police just by not wanting to

spend money on them. It is also okay, and by by funny, you have the incredibly depressing that like like Corby Corbin was running on adding more cops, which is like the most cursed, Like the British left like always like they've always find a way to destroy themselves. That they've been doing this for like two hundred years. It's really impressive stuff. Yeah, yeah, it's incredibly it's incredibly depressing to watch, Like, yes, the British left just tear itself

to piece. Not that the American left doesn't tear itself to pieces, right, it seems to be a thing on the left. But yeah, when the British left had a serious run and making a serious difference in instead, we decided to just absolutely like tear each other to shreds. And here we are, right here we are with the number of children in poverty going up by six hundred thousand in since with the number of twelve The number of children who rely on food banks for their food

security has tripled. By the end of this year, their National Health Service, the National Health Curve, which is our nationalize socialized medicine system, right, the IDA, will have been cut by compared to that's despite the fact that we just went through a pandemic. The poorer socio economic groups in the UK are experiencing a full in life expectancy for the first like we we have life expectancy. It is pretty much continually trucked up since the Industrial Revolution,

but we're now finally slashing that down again. Well I wonder, I wonder why. Yeah, there's no way of explaining it that there's it's just happening. The only solution is a free market, a free market, a freeer market. He had to pump more things into the area. Yes, ye, well here I'm going to take a puff from my inhaler because my lungs are dying. Yeah. Well that's because one is outrageous right now, you're not getting fracked hard enough

in the Pacific. More fracking will fix money. And the fact that people are literally dying, yeah, younger than their their parents did. And the Tories don't they have these like what's very important to them. It's the performance of patrician care, right like we saw this with Theresa May's burning injustices, which of course remain burning injustices because you're

doing anything about them. Boris Johnson's leveling up agenda of people familiar with his God, I can't believe you have a minister, you have a shadow minister of leveling up. I just like, at what point do you just go none of this is real, and like if they start sending cops, you just keep beating them up until everyone else is forced to concede that they're like, no, there is not in fact a shadow a shadow minister of

leveling up. Yeah, I don't know. That is the big The big question that I want to ask is at what point do we realize that there is not a shadow Minister of leveling up and that we don't have to open new pork markets, and that maybe that isn't a solution to us dying younger than our parents, and that we don't have to do what these people say when they are just very blatantly like Trust is very obviously doing an extractive speed run on the British economy

right there. And I'll tell you what, you know, who else will do an expected steed run on the British economy? Is that the products and services that yeah, the show it is sadly yeah, alright, we're talking about extractors speed runs. We're back. So with Johnson and even with Theresa May right who was a Prime minister before him, there was this important performance of of caring right, being like, Oh, we're gonna make life better for the poorer socioeconomic groups,

the poorer people in the UK. I think what's changed is it like the nature of consent from the governed is is this thing that maybe we need to elucidate more, right, Like in Britain, there was this kind of consensus that like the the governing party will pretend to care and we'll pretend to do things, and sometimes they would let you have nice thing, write little treats and trinkets, and that in return you would largely not kick them out right,

like either physically or electorally, although it's very hard to keep them out electorally because of Britain's asked backwards electoral system, which is another relic of a previous era. Now they don't seem to be bothering to pretend to care, right, Like when you're looking at a system in which, when trust came to power, old people were going to die.

We we were looking at a system in which people are dying younger than their parents, and old people were going to die in the cold this winter, like I've got friends. I remember this was years ago, but it was when the utility brices maybe started going up. When my grandfather passed, my grandmother lived on her own and her being really afraid to heat the house because of

how much it costs. Right, And I've got friends who have spoken to this time who were like, well, we're preparing to have our grand come and live with us so that we can we can heat the house, or like if we just move into the downstairs parts of the house then we can keep those warm, right, or like you know, we're going to go back to having fires and we'll just google warm our house with a wood fire, right, lots of how does in the UK still have fireplaces that are functional? Yeah, my my house

growing up was heat with a wood fire. It's great. It's good for their lungs. It's gives them a good coating that they can then use in the rest of your life to repel other pollutants. Coal fires are great

inside the home, highly encouraged. So like people were really making these like it's it's it's the sort of stuff you you associate maybe with like like the hard times in the Soviet Union, right, like like sort of being like, well, we're going to go to the food bank and we'll line up and get food and then we'll we'll all huddling one room to stay warm. But these are the plans that people were making like this this summer, looking

to this winter. And Liz Trust responded to that with like, Okay, well, the way to fix this is lower taxes for high earners and no cap, but removing the cap on bankers bonuses so that the financial services industry will relocate to the UK, which it aren't because the UK has left the European Union, right, and it's now kind of a pariah in that sense. So like, I don't really understand how the UK, how the British government at obtains consent

from the government anymore. And I'm partially interested to see how this goes, and partially obviously like a pall to see the costs of this. Like they're not even trying to care, they're not even pretending anymore. They're just going to take what they can and then presumably bounced to some tax island where they can they can survive and thrive while the rest of us freeze our asses off

over the winter. So what I wanna, I guess, finish up with is this idea that like, so in America, you have six terms of elections, right, so every we're we're having a mid terms next month and then we'll have the presidential in Britain. We don't write in Britain the government has to lose a vote from no confidence, which is when the majority of MP's vote they no longer have confidence in the government or the Prime minister

have to warr in theory the monarch castic corner election. Right, So I guess King Charles could just because they didn't let King Charles go to the climate summit recently, which is another amazing thing that Live Trusts managed to do within like a month of being in office. She's already like openly in beef with the monarchy, which is the one thing that conservative people might like more than white

people who tax rich people less. She wouldn't let King Charles go to a climate summit because conservatives are more or less climate change deniers or at least sort of climate change don't give a fuck because we need to extract more money, and so like at some point, like

I don't know what the withdrawal of consent looks like anymore. Right, it's the people who British politicians see themselves like see themselves as governing for like their constituents are seemingly like columnists in the Telegraph, and the people who are the CEOs of these big companies in London which have grown and grown and grown and grown, bay on this endless supply of free money that is now drying up, right, So instead of dealing with the record of that, they're

going to try and look at other ways for those people to continue to grow and extract finance. And I don't know what that means for the rest of British people, like I don't know what the withdrawal of consent from a system which so obviously doesn't care about the material conditions you live in looks like. But if we want to talk about collapse, and collapse is a thing that gradually happens rather than the thing that kind of we

click our fingers and it's there. I think some of this is what it looks like, like people refusing to pay their power bills is becoming a thing in UK right. I should mention the energy companies are recording record profits

throughout this time period. Maybe it looks like protests in the street that Britain has had these like they had big tuition feeth protests, and we had the quote unquote London riots right, which were incredibly harshly put down and people went to jail for a long time for like

stealing a bottle of water from Motesco. So, like, I think it's worth watching for people who are not in the UK, Like, what does it look like when you're governing elite stop pretending to care about you And what is the withdrawal of legitimacy or the withdrawal of consent look like? And like I said, I don't know, it's it's looked different every time it's happened, right, looked different in the Soviet Union too, uh, the way it looked in Like I'm trying to think of other regime collapses

in South America. And but like we say that, ay, we say that a regime is consolidated when the rules of the game are more important than the outcome of the game. And I think we're getting to a point in Britain where maybe the outcome of the game is going to be more important than the rules of the game. So that might mean some serious change, it might not.

It might just mean, you know, we put a new dude on our on our coins and everyone puts bunting up industry, and we do nothing fundamentally different and just acquiescent and living conditions getting worse and worse and worse, and more and more people are dying because their poor. I don't know, but yeah, Garrison is just nodding, bet, Yeah, I think that last one is going to be the

one that happens. Yeah, maybe we'll do it Olympics, and we'll spend the next what was London twelve, the next decade just reminiscing about how great that was, and and then we'll just not notice that, you know, our grandparents are dying unnecessarily because distrust his friends have to make

more money. I have. I have an enormous amount of faith in the British people to just do nothing like they they they have, they have an unbelievable ability to just be like things are getting worse, like I don't know who cares, like We're still British, like they like they can't even really effectively do imperialism anymore. But it's like everyone so wedded to the like imperialism machine that everyone that like, you know, everyone, every everyone will constantly

vote against their class interests. Everyone will constantly act agains a class interests, everyone will constantly just sort of like literally let hundreds of thousands of people die around them. Yeah yeah, because flags and sports. I think Corbin has and energized a lot of people into realizing their class interests, perhaps more than they were before, because there was briefly a parliamentary alternative, but right now there isn't Like kiss

Downer is not Jeremy Corbyn. But then you know, but it's also the British right, like it's like well okay, so they sort of reconsolidated or left it did nothing, got owned and then imploded and now it's being split between like just complete pure like people arguing that Star Wars doing socialism like like pure labor party hacks, and then like a bunch of people just doing nothing because

it's the UK and it fundamentally never gets any better. Yeah. Yeah, there was like I take a little bit of hope from like have you seen the the where people are to be deported from the UK and then they were like mass mobilizations to pretend that happening. Yeah, that gives

me some hope. Right, that's a lot of people willing to give up the Saturday or the Sunday to shower immigration offices, and like, that's something that didn't happen by and large in the in the US right, even with the like gross abuses of the immigration system under Donald Trump, people people didn't stop that happening. So some of that it did happen in places like there are a lot

of flights that got blocked and stuff. Yeah, I guess, I guess, yeah, yeah it happened then, Yeah, in a different way, some people here did, Like I think there was an icing and barrier logan and it got run out of town. So I shouldn't say that, but that

gives me hope. It gives me hope that maybe some people will realize that, like, the solution is not to vote harder, right, and the solution is to is to organize and to do things in extra parliamentary fashion and not trust the people who are participating in your exploitation to live you from your exploitation, which has maybe been our mistake for too long. Yeah, we we Everyone in England needs to take a page from the Harry Potter books and arm the children to murder or government officials.

If I'm remembering how those folks ended for for for form a gorilla army of you and your friends and attempt to overthrow the government. Probably. Yeah, let's let's say that's that's that's the plot of the Order of the Phoenix. Okay, yeah, I remember it now when they when they do a cobbum. Yeah, that's it. That's that's. That's our message to you today, read Harry pot To do a cobbum. There we go, There we go. That's our legally binding message for you today,

non actionable threat. Hey, We'll be back Monday with more episodes every week from now until the heat death of the universe. It Could Happen Here is a production of cool zone Media. For more podcasts from cool zone Media, visit our website cool zone media dot com, or check us out on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It Could Happen Here, updated monthly at cool zone Media dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.