It Could Happen Here Weekly 56

could happen here. This is Sharene and today is going to be the start of a little series about Libya. Why Libya, you may ask, Well, I wanted to learn about Libya, so selfishly I thought, why not record myself learning about Libya and maybe y'all can learn along with me. Um. I think there are so many countries right now that are in a state of unrest or turmoil or instability, and it's really important to know how we got here, know what those countries went through to reach this state

of unpredictability and unease. So we're gonna start with Libya today. There are so many other countries I want to do this with, But I really love history and I love knowing the context of a country. So hopefully by the end of this will reach present day news about Libya and we'll have a foundation to talk about Libya in

the future from a place of knowing. Let's go to seventy four BC all the way back to seventy four b C. The Romans conquered Libya and held control until six forty three a D. In sixty three a D. I'm Ad been Alas conquered Libya and spread Islam across northern Africa. He was the Arab commander who led the Muslim conquest of Egypt and is regarded as one of the most important figures in the history of Egypt because

he introduced a Slam to the country. He also served as its governor in six forty to sixty six and again from six fifty eight to six sixty four a D. He founded a new city just north of the Roman fort of Babylon called Fostat. Today, the Mosque of Amas still marks the site of this city. He is a highly respected figure for Muslims. Now, let's fast forward to the sixteenth century, when Libya became part of the Ottoman Empire. At this point, the Ottoman Empire had accumulated a huge

amount of territory and continued to do so. In sixteen forty three a d. The Ottoman Empire was at its largest extent. Go look at a map. It is a lot. It's known as one of history's most powerful empires, and it grew from a Turkish stronghold in Anatolia into a vast state that at its peak reached as far north as Vienna, Austria, as far east as the Persian Gulf, as far west as Algeria, and as far south as Yemen. It is a huge swath of land, and the Ottoman

Empire on its own deserves many episodes. I think it's a very fascinating part of history, but we'll get there another time. Now, let's jump aheads centuries to the early nineteen hundreds at the start of World War One. So this whole time, all these centuries, between the sixteenth century in the early nineteen hundreds, the Ottoman Empire was in control of Libya and a lot of other territories surrounding it. But at the start of World War One, the Ottoman

Empire was already in decline. The Ottoman army met with a disastrous defeat in the Italio Turkish War, that was between nineteen eleven and nineteen twelve and the Balkan Wars between nineteen twelve and nineteen thirteen, and both of these defeats resulted in the Ottomans being driven out of North Africa and nearly out of all of Europe. The Ottoman Empire officially ended in nineteen twenty two when the title of Ottoman Sultan was eliminated. Again, this was only a

century ago, nWo. We think everything happened so long ago, but a century isn't that long. And uh, I feel like maybe the word empire makes something seem very far away, but it really wasn't. And maybe this is just a little prequel to me talking with the Ottoman Empire in a future episode. Who knows if that'll ever happened. Stay tuned,

I suppose anyway. Turkey was declared a republic on October twenty nine of nineteen twenty three, when Mustafa command out of Took, who was an army officer, founded the Independent Republic of Turkey. The Ottoman Empire deserves many episodes on its own, as I said, but let's go back to Libya for today. There was a stretch of time preceding the fall of the Ottoman Empire when Libya was under

Italian rule. It started between nineteen eleven and nineteen twelve when Italy sees Libya from the Ottomans and then began a twenty year insurgency against Italian rule. In the nineteen twenties, Libyan resistance grew as the Sanusi dynasty joined in alongside the Mata Campaign. Just a quick little thing about the

Sanusi dynasty. It was a Muslim political religious tatica which means a Sufi order and a clan in colonial Libya and the Sudan region, founded in Mecca in eighteen thirty seven by the Grand Sanusi a k A Sanusi a Kabid, the Algerian Muhammad ibn Ali A Sanusi. Sanusi was concerned with what he saw as both the decline of Islamic thought and spirituality and the weakening of Muslim political integrity.

I bring this up to note that by the nineteen twenties this dynasty had been around for nearly a century, and so when it joins the Libyan resistance alongside Mata Campaign, it seems very significant. But in ninety one, Italy broke the resistance. The recombination of major armed operations and concentration

camps for the rebel population is captured and executed. In nineteen thirty four, Italy united the provinces as the Colony of Libya and steps up Italian migration as part of an eventual plan for the incorporation of Libya into a greater Italy. In two the Allies oust Italians from Libya, which was then divided into three sections. There was Triplitania in the northwest, Fasan in the southwest, and Syrenica in the east. The French to control of Faysan and the

British to control of the remaining Syrenica and Tripolitania. In nineteen fifty one, Libya becomes a dependent under King Idris Elsa Nusi, and in fifty six it grants two American oil companies a concession of some fourteen million acres. In sixty one, King DRIs, who was now in power for a decade, opens a one hundred and four mile pipeline which links its important oil fields in the interior to the Mediterranean Sea, and this makes it possible to export

Libyan oil for the very first time. I don't know, but that last sentence of um being able to export Libyan oil for the time seems like the beginning of the end for me. Again, how do we get here? This is how? Anyway? Let's continue from the nineteen sixties, which introduced the good Daffi era. In nineteen sixty nine, King Idris was deposed in a military coup led by

Colonel mom Mudaga Daffi. He pursues a pan Arab agenda by attempting to form mergers with several Arab countries, and also introduces state socialism by nationalizing most economic activity, including the oil industry. In nineteen seventy, Libya orders the closure of a British air base in the Buk and the giant US Wheelis Air Force base in Tripoli. Property belonging

to Italian settlers is also nationalized. In nineteen seventy one, the national referendum approves the proposed Federation of Arab Republics the f a R, which was comprised of Libya, Egypt and Syria. However, the f a R never really takes off, and in seventy three, Colonel Gaddaffi's declaires a cultural revolution, which includes the formation of people's committees in schools, hospitals, universities, workplaces and administrative districts, and then Libyan forces proceed to

occupy the Auzu Strip a northern Chad. In nine Gaddafi writes and publishes the Greek Book, which was a short book setting out the political philosophy of You Guessed It Libyan leader mom Mugga Daffy. It is said to have been inspired in part by the Little Red Book a k A quotations from Chairman Mount Stung. An English translation was issued by the Libyan People's Committee, and a bilingual English slash Arabic edition was issued in London by Martin

Brian and O'Keefe in nineteen seventy six. During the Libyan Civil War, copies of this book were burned by anti che Daffi demonstrators in Libya. According to British author and former Greater London Council member George Tremlett, Libyan children spent two hours a week studying this book as part of their curriculum. Excerpts were broadcast every day on television and radio, and its slogans were also found on billboards and painted

on buildings in Libya. This book was everywhere and internationally by Lectures and seminars on the Green Book had been held at universities and colleges in France, Eastern Europe, Colombia, and Venezuela. On a state visit to Libya in two thousand and eight, Socialist Bolivian President Evo Morales cited the Green Book as a major influence on his political beliefs and policies. The Green Book rejects both capitalism and communism,

as well as representative democracy. Instead, it proposes a type of direct democracy overseen by the General People's Committee, which allows direct political participation for all adult citizens. It also talks about the crucial importance of complete freedom of speech. There's also a paragraph in the book about abolishing money that is simil learn to a paragraph and Frederick Engels

Principles of Communism. Goodophi wrote, the final step is when the new socialist society reaches the stage where profit and money disappear. It is through transforming society into a fully productive society and through reaching in production a level where the material needs of the members of society are satisfied. On that final stage, profit will automatically disappear and there will be no need for money. As far as the reception of this book goes, though it wasn't great he was.

Ambassador David Mack called the book quite jumbled, with various ideas, including quote a fair amount of xenophobia wrapped up in a strange mixture. When I told my mom I was researching Libya, she immediately mentioned this book to me, and she couldn't stop cracking up. She's still in disbelief that a leader wrote something like this and then forced his entire country to read it and basically praise him for it. So that was entertaining to watch, I will say that.

But anyway, five years later, in seventy seven, Goddaffi declares a people's revolution, changing the country's official name from the Libyan Arab Republic to the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamhadiya. He sets up revolutionary committees and this heralds the start of institutionalized chaos, economic decline, the abusive authoritarian power, and general arbitrary nous. This is a good place to take

a little break, so b RB okay, we're back. Before the break, we talked about Daffi declaring a people's revolution and how ultimately all of us led to a lot of chaos and decline and the abuse of authoritarian power. So three years later, in nineteen eighty, Libyan troops intervened in the civil war in northern Chad. This is where the U s decides to insert itself, because it always does. In nineteen eighty one, the Libyan army has a confrontation

with the US. The US shoots down to Libyan aircraft, which it said challenged its warplanes over the Gulf of Certa, which was claimed by Libya as its territorial water. In nine four, a British policewoman was shot dead outside the Libyan embassy in London while antich A Daffy protests were taking place. Because of this, the UK breaks off diplomatic relations with Libya entirely. But of course the United States

isn't finished yet. It never is. In nine six, the US bombs Libyan military facilities as well as residential areas of Tripoli and Benghazi, killing a hundred and one people. They also bombed Goddaffi's house, which killed his adopted daughter. The US said that these raids were in response to the alleged Libyan involvement in the bombing of a Berlin disco frequented by US military personnel. Just a small tangent about the reported killing of Goaddaffi's adopted daughter, Hannah Goddaffi.

This has been something that's drawn quite the controversy over the years. Apparently, Hannah may not have died, or the adoption may have been posthumous, or he may have adopted a second daughter and given her the same name after

the first one died. After the Goddaffi family residence, which was in the bab at Aaiza compound and Tripoli, was taken by rebels, The New York Times reported evidence, complete with photographs, of Hannah's life after her declared death, when she became a doctor and worked in a Tripoli hospital. Her passport was reported as showing a birth date of November eleven, making her six months old at the time

of the U S raid. In August afterwo thousand eleven, the Daily Telegraph reported on the finding of dental records relating to a Hannah Gaddaffi. This report, which also cites a spotting of Henna by Chinese officials, cites an unnamed Libyan government spokesman as stating that Gaddaffi had adopted a second daughter and named her Hannah in honor of the first one, who had been killed in the ninety six raid.

In September two thousand eleven, the claim that Hannah had been killed in the six bombing was further disputed when a video recorded in nine by Gaddaffi's cameraman Mohammad Adi, was obtained by The Daily Telegraph. In the video, Roncadaffi and other members of the Goddaffi family refer to her by her name while playing football at a campsite. Hannah is rumored to have fled to Algeria with her mother

and three siblings. That is some absurd shitt and I wanted to bring it up because it's such a crazy controversy that probably needs more digging into. But yeah, let's go back to Libya now. As I mentioned in six, the US bombed Libya and killed a hundred and one people, and again the United States said that these raids were in response to the alleged Libyan involvement in the bombing

of a Berlin disco frequented by US military personnel. This will become important later on, but anyway, this takes us to December and the Lockerbie plane bombing. Pan AM Flight one oh three was a regularly scheduled pan Am transatlantic flight from Frankfurt to Detroit via a stopover in London and another stopover in New York City on the SPY one.

While the aircraft wasn't flight over the Scottish town of Lockerbie, it was destroyed by a bomb that had been planted on board, killing all two hundred and forty three passengers and sixteen crew members and what became known as the Lockerby bombing. Large sections of the aircraft crashed into a residential street in Lockerbie, which killed eleven residents with a total of two hundred and seventy fatalities. It is the deadliest terrorist attack in the history of the United Kingdom.

This bombing, this terrorist attack will come into play later similar to the Disco bombing. So it's very significant and also just a terrible thing that happened. And I didn't know about this being the deadliest terrorist attack in the history of the UK. So just a good important history here. So in nine nine, Libya, Algeria, Morocco and Martania and Tunisia formed the Arab Mogreb Union or simply the Mograb Union in an effort to promote cooperation and economic integration

in a common market. It is a political union and economic union trade agreement aiming for economic and future political unity among Arab countries and states that are located primarily in the Mogreb in North Africa. It was envisioned initially by mon Mugga Duffy as a superstate. The Magreb is basically the name for Northwest Africa, which includes the western

part of North Africa and the Arab world. Following a three year joint investigation of the Locker rebombing by the FBI and the Dumfries and Galoway Constabulary a k a. The territorial police force responsible for Dumfries in Galloway, Scotland until April one, two thousand thirteen. After this joint investigation with them in the FBI, arrest warrants were issued for

two Libyan nationals in November of nine. In response to this, in Nino, the U N imposes sanctions on Libya in an effort to force it's a handover for trial two of its citizens that were suspected of involvement in the Locker be bombing. One of whom of these people was a government employee. More on this later as we go on. In nine four, Libya returns the always was stripped to Chad,

which they had been occupying since nineteen seventy three. In nine Godofi expels around thirty thousand Palestinians and protests of the Oslo Accords between the Palestinian Liberation Organization the PLO and Israel. A quick refresher here. There are two Osslo accords that make up the Asslo Accords. The first also accord was signed in Washington, the Sea, and the second

one was signed in Tabia, Egypt. They marked the start of the Oslo Process, which was a supposed peace process aimed at achieving a peace treaty based on Resolution two forty two and Resolution three three eight of the United Nations Security Council and fulfilling the quote right of the

Palestinian people to self determination. The Oslo Process began after secret negotiations in Oslo, Norway, and resulted in both the recognition of Israel by the PLO and the recognition by Israel of the p l O as the representative of the Palestinian people and as a partner in bilateral negotiations. The vast majority of Arabs and Arab countries disagreed with the Oslo Accords because they viewed it as defeat, as

a surrender. My mom explained to me that a lot of Arrows didn't like or trust Yasid Artifact, who was the PLO leader during the Oslo peace process. A lot of people still don't like him to be and much of this dislike stemmed from his signing of the Oslo Accords. He died in two thousand and four at the age of seventy. We'll talk more about good Daffi's relationship to Artifact and how this changed after the Oslo Accords in our next episode, but for now, I'm going to leave

you here. Have a have a good day. Goodbye, hello, and welcome back. It could happen here. It's me again, It's Sharene and we're going to continue our discussion of Libya that we started yesterday. And um, yeah, I hope it's been interesting and I hope it continues to be interesting because I'm not going to stop. Okay, we left off our last episode after we talked about the Aslo Accords about how a lot of people distrusted and didn't like Yasar Rat a fact, who was the PLO leader

during the Oslo Accords or the Oslo peace process. Rather mom Mud Gaddaffi was one of those people what disagreed with signing the accords because he viewed it as a surrender, as a defeat, and because of this, Gaddaffi expelled around thirty thousand Palestinians in protest at the Oslo Accords between the p l O a k A the Palestinian Liberation Organization in Israel. So I do think it's notable to mention that before Oslo Gaddaffi was on good terms without

a fact. Out of fact, was on a plane and route to Tunisia and he was accompanied by his bodyguards and some assistants. The flight was scheduled to land in the Karifa Oasis air fields southeast of Libya to refuel. However, intense sandstorms impeded the vision of the pilots, who were forced to adjust the flight route. One hour and forty minutes after takeoff, the control tower in the Libyan capital received the following message special flight to Khartoum to Tunists

cannot land, we fly on to Estada. We will attempt an emergency landing. Five minutes later, the plane disappeared from Libyan radar screens and wireless telecommunications were off. A state of emergency was declared. International media outlets immediately reported that out of Fats plane had disappeared in the Libyan desert. For approximately fifteen hours. It was thought that the plane

had crashed and that out of Fat had died. It turned out, however, that the plane hit a sand dune in the Libyan desert and out of Fat was thrown a distance of thirty meters. The two pilots and the mechanic perished in this accident, and all the passengers were found wounded but alive, including out of Fat. I bring this up only to mention that I found a photo of out of Fat recovering in a hospital after this crash, covered in bandages, and Gaddafi is at his bedside. They're

even holding hands in the photo. But that didn't matter to Gadaffi after OSLO, which he viewed again as a sort of betrayal to the Arab world. So back to when Gadaffi expels about thirty thousand Palestinians and protests of Auti Fat signing the OSLO accords, Gaddafi urged other Arab countries to follow his example and send home all Palestinians to expose what he said was Israel's plan to create

a Palestinian state in name only. Speaking at a makeshift camp in the desert near the border with Egypt, Ladafi told a crowd of thousands that his expulsion of thousands of Palestinians was the greatest service to the aims of establishing a Palestinian homeland. In the speech, he said, the Zionist plan is to create a Palestine without Palestinians, he said, adding that other Arab countries are taking part in the Zionist plan by allowing the Palestinians to stay in their land.

He very publicly criticized atifats signing of the accords with Israel and handing over authority in the West Bank to the Palestinian authority. His speech continued saying, overnight they told us that Israel was no longer the enemy we knew, they said the Palestinian cause was over. And because Libya believes them, it has asked the Palestinians to return to

their home. So a little bit passive aggressive there, or maybe are really aggressive nonetheless, he disagreed with also accords and without effect, and a lot of other Arab countries did also. In Gadaffi handed over the two Lockerbie suspects for trial at campsized in the Netherlands after protracted negotiations and UN sanctions. The UN sanctions were suspended and diplomatic relations with the UK was restored after these suspects were

handed over for trial. In January two thousand and one, the Netherlands finds one of the two Libyans accused of the Lockerbie bombing and Marahi, guilty and sentences him to life imprisonment. He was freed in two thousand nine on compact I shouldn't release grounds before dying of cancer in two thousand and twelve. The other suspect, Bahima, is found

not guilty and freed after the trial. In January two thousand and two, Libya and the US say they held talks to mend relations after years of hostility over what the Americans termed as Libya's sponsorship of terrorism. A year later, in January two thousand and three, Libya is elected chairman of the UN Human Rights Commission, despite opposition from the US and Human rights groups in August up to thousand

and three. Seven months after this, Gaddafi accepted responsibility for the locker by bombing and a letter to the u N Security Council and Libya signed a deal worth two point seven billion dollars and paid compensation to the families of the victims, although he maintained that he had never given the order for the attack. Acceptance of responsibility was part of a series of requirements laid out by UN

resolution for sactions against Libya to be lifted. Libya said it had to accept responsibility due to Marati's status as a government employee. In September two thousand and three, a month later, the u N Security Council votes to lift sanctions, and in December of that same year, Libya said it

will abandon programs to develop weapons of mass destruction. At this point, Gaddaffi has been in power for many, many decades, and similar to other dictators, he developed a cult of personality and his pictures were seen all over the country with his quotes. Remember the Green Book, Yes, that book. He had been in power for so long and this book was still distributed and praised, and he stayed in power.

Like most dictators do. In March up two thousand and four, British Prime Minister Tony Blair visits Libya, and this is

the first such visit since nineteen forty three. Gaddafi was clearly working on a return to respectability for Libya, and in August after thousand and four, Libya agreed to pay thirty five million dollars to compensate the victims of the bombing in the Berlin nightclub in n We talked about this briefly in our previous episode when I mentioned that in eighty six the US bombed Libya and killed a hundred and one people and said that these raids were

in response to the alleged Libyan involvement of this bombing of a Berlin disco that was frequented by US military personnel. Fast forwarding to where we currently are two thousand and four, Libya has agreed to pay thirty five million to compensate these victims. This is a good place to take our first little break. Don't go anywhere, b RB. Okay, we're back.

We're now in January two thousand and five and Libya's first auction of oil and gas exploration licenses heralds the return of US energy companies for the first time in more than twenty years. In February of two thousand and six, at least ten people are killed in clashes with police in Benghazi and part of a wave of international protests by some Muslims who are angered by a Danish newspaper

risk cartoon depictions of the prophet Muhammad. Three months later, in May two thousand and six, the US says it is restoring full diplomatic ties with Libya, and in two thousand and eight, a lot of things happen. In two thousand and eight, first, Libya took over the one month rotating presidency of the UN Security Council, marking a huge step returning to respectability after decades as a pariah of

the West. Libya and the US also signed an agreement committing each side to compensate all victims of bombing attacks on the other citizens. Italian Prime Minister Sylvia Brosconi apologizes to Libya for damage inflicted by Italy during the colonial era, and they sign a five billion dollar investment deal by way of compensation. U S Secretary of State canti Is A Rice makes a historic visit in two thousand and eight, the highest level US official to visit Libya since nineteen

fifty three. Rice says relations between the West and Libya have entered quote a new phase. In February two thousand and nine, Gadaffi is elected Chairman of the African Union by leaders meeting in Ethiopia. He sets out the ambition of the United States of Africa, even embracing the Caribbean. In June of that year, a thousand and nine, Gaddafi pays his first state visit to Italy, Libya's former colonial ruler and trading partner. What a plot twist? Wow? Who

would have thought a century prior. In two thousand and ten, Russia agrees to sell Libya weapons in a deal worth one point eight billion dollars. The deal is thought to include fighter jets, tanks, and air defense systems. The European Union and Libya sign an agreement designed to slow illegal migration. That same year, British oil company BP confirms it is

about to begin drilling off of the Libyan coast. In two thousand eleven, you start to see the seeds of an anti Gadaffi uprising, and Libyans rose up against the rule of Gaddaffi. And many took up arms. You might know that two thousand eleven more the beginning of many Arab springs in many countries, including Libya, and I guess this is also a good time to remind you that Gaddafi was always a dictator and ruled with fear, as

dictators do. A lot happened in two thousand eleven. In February, inspired by revolt in other Arab countries, especially neighbor in Egypt and Tunisia, violent protests break out in Benghazi and spread to other cities, leading to escalating clashes between security forces and anti Goodaffi rebels. The government security forces responded by opening fire on the protesters. As an initially peaceful protest movement transformed into a fully fledged armed uprising against

his forty two year rule. Gaddafi pledged to chase down the cock roaches and the rats who had taken up arms against him quote inch by inch, room by room, home by home, alleyway by alleyway, person by person. A brutal conflict began, with pro Gaddafi forces and discriminately showing civilian areas, arresting thousands of protests, ers and other suspective of supporting the opposition, holding many in secret attention and

carrying out summary executions. In March two eleven, the U N Security Council authorizes a no fly zone over Libya and air strikes to protect civilians, over which NATO assumes command. In the months that follow, Libyan rebels initially captured territory, but are then forced back by better armed pro Gadaffi forces. In July, the International Contact Group on Libya formally recognizes the main opposition group, the National Transitional Council of the NTC,

as the legitimate government of Libya. In August of thousand eleven, Gaddafi goes into hiding after rebels swarm into his fortress compound in Tripoli. Let's take our second break here and we'll come back and talk more of what happened in thousand eleven, because it seems like it's the year that never ended, b RB, and we're back. So as I mentioned before the break in August, at two thousand eleven, Gaddaffi went into hiding after the bubbles swarmed his fortress

compound in Tripoli. In September, the African Union joins sixty countries which have recognized the NTC as the new Libyan authority. On October two thousand eleven, Gaddaffi is captured and killed as rebel fighters take his hometown of Serta after air burst bombs are fired from a NATO warplane, considerating dozens

of Goadaffi fighters. Gaddaffi and other survivors are nearby a walled villa compound and soon thereafter they try to escape through the fields and two drainage pipes underneath a major road nearby. That is where the mus Rata military has found them. Musurata is a city in Libya, by the way.

When militia fighters found good Daffi in his inner circle hiding next to the drainage pipes, one of his bodyguards threw a hand grenade at them, and this hand grenade bounced off the concrete wall and exploded in the midst of the leadership circle, killing Gaddaffi's defense minister of Ubucca Unus. Yes,

actually happened. You had to have been there. This explosion sprayed shrapnel that wounded Gaddaffi and others, according to the survivors of the incident whom the Human Rights Watch interviewed. Gaddafi was immediately set upon by mus Rata fighters, who literally wounded him with a bayonet in his butt and then began pummeling him with kicks and blows. By the time Gaddaffi was loaded into an ambulance and transported to Musrata,

his body appeared lifeless. It remains unclear whether he died from this violence, the shrapnel wounds, or from being shot later as some have claimed. Ultimately he died is the point. In that same morning of October, ms Ratta militia members separately apprehended mon Adoffi's son, must to him he was in charge of the military defensive Surta and had led the doomed convoy, and he tried to flee from the

scene of the fighting. Three days later, the NTC declared Libya to be officially liberated and the announced plans to hold elections within eight months. November thousand eleven, Saifa Islam, the fugitive son of former Libyan leader ron Moodgadafi, is captured, becoming the last key Gadaffi family member to be seized or killed. Between January and March of two thousand and twelve, clashes erupt between former rebel forces in Benghazi in a

sign of discontent with the NTC. The NTC again stands for a National Transitional Council, so when Ghazi based NTC officials campaign to re establish autonomy for the region, further increasing tension with the NTC in Tripoli. In August, this transitional government hands power to the General National Congress, which

was elected in July. There's still significant unrest amongst civilians during this time in regards to a net leadership, and in February, protests erupt in response to the General National Congress's refusal to disband after they decided upon mandate expires.

In May, the Libyan National Army renegade General Khalifa Hafta launches a military assault that includes air strikes against militant Islamist groups in Benghazi, and he tries to seize the parliament building, accusing the Prime minister at the time, Prime Minister Ahmed ma Teg, of being in thrall to Islamist groups. In June, Prime Minister mateg resigns after the Supreme Court

rules his appointment illegal. A new parliament is chosen in elections, but the election is marred by a low turnout attributed to security fears and boycotts and the Islamists suffer heavy defeat. Fighting breaks out between forces loyal to the outgoing g n C and a new parliament. In July, the u N staff pulls out and the embassy shut down and foreigners are evacuated as the security situation deteriorates. Among all of this fighting, the Tripoli International Airport is also largely destroyed.

Unsat As Shadiawa, which was a Solifus Islamist militia and al Qaeda aligned group that advocated for the implementation of sharia law across Libya see his control of most of Benghazi at this time. Later that year, in October, the u went on boy to Libya. Bernardina Leone proposed a National Unity government for Libya, and this new government was to be led by the Presidential Council of fayez As Sattage as prime Minister and three deputies from the country's eastern,

Western and southern regions, as well as two ministers. UN Security General ben key Moon visits Libya during this time to continue the u N broker talks between the new parliament and the government based in Tarbuk and Islamis Libya DA Militia's holding Tripoli. The UN says that hundreds of thousands of civilians are displaced by these clashes and this takes us to but I think we're going to stop for today because a lot happens in and Uh, I'd

rather not split it up into two episodes. So that's where I'm going to leave you guys for today, and UH you'll hear me tomorrow if you want to Foodbye, Hello, and welcome back to It could happen here. You are listening to Sharne and our last installment of our Little

Libya series. We're just gonna jump right back in. Our last episode ended off in and Libya when the U N Security General Van Ki Moon visited Libya to continue U N broker talks between the new parliament that was assigned and the government based in Torbrook and the Islamist Libya DON militias that were holding Tripoli at this time. The UN says that hundreds of thousands of civilians have

been displaced by clashes. The Islamic State extremist militia then seizes control of the port of Journa and eastern Libya in January of the Libyan army and Tripoli based Militia Alliance declare a partial ceasefire after U N sponsored talks in Geneva. In February of Egyptian jets bomb Islamic State targets in Derna. A day after the group they're released a video showing the beheading of twenty one Egyptian Christians. The Libyan army offensive to retake Derna in March of

that year fails to dislodge the group. The Islamic State establishes control over the poort city of Certa, which is halfway along the coast between Tripoli and Benghazi. In July, a TRIPLEI court sentences Gaddaffi's son say And Islam and eight other former officials to death for the crimes committed during the twenty eleven uprising against his father. He is later freed by an armed group. In January, the UN announces a new Tunisia based interim government, but neither Tobruck

nor Tripoli parliaments agree to recognize its authority. Libyan politician Fayez Sarage is now the Chairman of the Presidential Council of Libya and Prime Minister of the Government of National Accord. The Islamic State group attacks Rasla Nuth oil terminal and threatens to move on to Brega and Towbrook. In September of sixteen, the Libyan National Army of Ralifa Haftad, who was described as a renegade general, seizes key oil export

terminals in East Libya. Haftad is a Libyan American politician, military officer, and the commander of a Towbrook based Libyan National Army. A year and a half prior, on March second, he was appointed commander of the armed forces loyal to the elected legislative body, the Libyan House of Representatives. In December of pro government forces oust Islamic State militants from the coastal town of Surta, which they had seized eighteen

months previously. In July seventeen, the Islamic State is ejected from Benghazi after three years of fighting. A year later, in July, Khalifa Hadad claims that his forces are fully in control of Derna, the last Islamic stronghold in the East and the only city in the region thus far outside his control. In April of twenty nineteen, weh DoD, a Libyan National Army, advances on Tripoli, sparking clashes with the forces of the internationally recognized Government of National Accord.

In June of the u N back government drives forces out of Tarhuna, which was their last stronghold in the west of the country near Tripoli. At this point, Fayezes Saage had been Prime Minister of the Government of National Accord since its installment in as part of a u N led political agreement. Fighting was occurring between saage loyalists and those who opposed him, and Satage stated that he would be stepping down from his position by the end of October of This came after a month of protests

in Tripoli. On October thirty one, however, Al Sadaj rescinded his decision to resign, but after the Libyan Political Dialogue Forum, he transferred his powers. On March fifteenth of one, so in marshaw One Abduhmi and Biba took over as prime Minister of the g n A the u N backed

Government of National Accord in Tripoli. In the Libyan Political Dialogue Forum procedure for choosing a unified executive authority to lead into the December twenty one Libyan general election, Muhammad and Menphi ran on a joint ticket with abdud Hamiddiba as Prime Minister and Mussa Elkoni and Abdula Lafi as members of the Presidential Council. As Menphee serves as head

of State. Human Rights Watch reported that hundreds of residents in the Libyan town of Tahuna were abducted or reported missing between ten and twenty twenty after the local Elkanni militia known as the Kenayette, took control of the town. In residents reported that the militia off and abducted, detained, tortured, killed, and disappeared people who opposed them or were suspected of doing so. Some said that the militia also sees private

property and stole their money. After the armed conflict. In June, there was a discovery of mass graves in the town of Tarhuna. Libyan authorities said they had retrieved more than two hundred bodies from more than five hundred and fifty five mass graves as of October of last year. Additionally, as of October of last year, the International Organization for Migration the IOM, estimated there were almost four hundred thousand

internally displaced people in Libya. Including three hundred thousand people displaced since the beginning of the April twenty nineteen conflict in Tripoli and the surrounding areas. The displaced include many of the forty eight thousand former residents of the town of who in eleven were driven out by armed groups predominantly from z Rata because of their support for the

former Baffy government. The spite reconciliation agreements with ms RATA authorities, They have been deterred from returning by the massive and deliberate destruction of the town and infrastructure between twenty seventeen, predominantly by malicious from ms RATA, and the scarcity of public services by the g n A. To describe the election process in Libya as a clusterfunk would be an understatement, and as far as the most recent election or the

attempt for the most recent election in various postponements have resulted from disputes about fundamental rules governing the election, including the voting timetable, the eligibility of the main candidates, and the eventual powers of the next president and the parliament. Its registration for the presidential candidates opened on November seventh

of last year and lasted until November. In this time, several people registered their candidacy, including Zarifa Eslam Cal Daffi, the son of the former Libyan leader Momma Daffy, so Lifa Hafta, the commander of the Libyan National Army at F nine, the chairman of the La Libya party, and the current Prime Minister of Hamid de Baba. These men all register their candidacy in November of last year, and in total, ninety six men and two women registered as candidates.

A preliminary list of seventy three presidential candidates was released by the h n e C the High National Election Commission on November. Five candidates were disqualified from the election, including study for the La Daffy and a bunch of others that I'm not going to say their names because I haven't said them yet and you don't need to know, but ultimately, Ladafi and a bunch of other people were disqualified under Article ten seven of the Electoral Law for

having been convicted of a crime. Daffi was also disqualified under Article seve for not providing a certificate showing a clean criminal record. Another candidate, Zeidan, was disqualified under Article ten and two for having more than one nationality and under Article eleven for not having five thousand supporters. According to the electoral law, any appeals against the disqualifications are

to be decided by the judiciary. On November twenty eight, the Tripoli Appeals Court rejected the candidacy of current Prime Minister of de Haney Debaba after accepting two appeals against his bid. The first appeal was filed by three presidential candidates as well as to Libyan Political Dialogue Forum members, while the second appeal was filed by presidential candidate Fatty Basha.

On November thirty, Libyan Field Marshal a k a renegade General Khalifa haf Dad was disqualified from the presidential election. After these, a we A Court of First Instance accepted an appeal against his candidacy. On December one, four candidates were disqualified by the h n EC, including Debiba, and they were placed back on the ballot by a Tripoli

a Court of National Appeal. December two, Sayf and sm Go Daffy was placed back on the ballot after the subad Court of Appeal accepted his appeal against his qualification from the list of candidates. See clusterfuck understatement, and then on December six, Kadifata returned to the presidential election after the Tripoli Court of Appeal rejected in November thirty ruling by the Lower Zawea Court. Let's take our first break for the love of God h B r B and

we're back. And I don't believe in God, but anyway. Days before the first round was scheduled to take place, the election was already up in the air, with no official list of candidates presented to the public and no formal campaigning underway. On December twenty two, the Parliament of

Libya confirmed the postponement. The chairman of the Election committee said, after consulting the technical, judicial and security reports, we inform you of the impossibility of holding the elections on the day of providing for by the electoral law, and in

this statement he didn't give a new date. Foreign Policy summarized that the causes for the delay were that quote, the process was beleaguered by two interrelated issues, differences over the idea of holding a presidential election in the current context and the resulting failure to reach the required consensus on a framework for elections. The United Kingdom, France Germany, Italy and the United States urged Libya to set a

new date for the delayed presidential election quickly. The h n e C insisted that the House of Representatives is responsible for setting a new date. The Speaker of the House Representatives said the Election Committee responsible for overseeing elections must set a definitive date for postponed presidential and legislative polls by the end of January of two, like several

months ago. The UN Special Advisor on Libya, Stephanie Williams, who has pursued a new election date, told the AP that it was still quote very reasonable and possible for the country's two point eight million voters to cast their ballots by June of two, which would be in line with the U N brokered roadmap. On January twenty three, two, Interim Prime Minister Abdul Debaba called for constitution to be

established before holding the delayed presidential and parliamentary elections. A month later, on February two, Debaba announced a plan to hold the elections in June of two. He later proposed holding the elections at the end of two so he just keeps on postponing it, because why not. You're in power.

You don't want to give it up. Sure. In July of twenty two, the prime Minister, the interim Prime Minister Abiba made an unexpected alliance with his former enemy, the Eastern warlord renegade general Hadifa haf Dad, in a bid to cement a fragile ceasefire and end a month long oil blockade. Less than three years ago, half Dad self dialed Libyan National Army besieged Trivioli in a failed attempt

to capture the capital. But in this unexpected alliance, in a highly symbolic gesture, the Libyan National Army's Chief of Staff At Naduti, was invited to visit the city for talks.

The prospect of de Baiba and haf Dad varying their differences was really welcomed by the u N as it was struggling to maintain a ceasefire that had ended a previous six year civil war in However, barely a month later after this extended reconciliation, supposedly on August this year, deadly clashes occurred in Libya's capital between militias backed by two rival administrations pretending to a return to violence amid a long political stalemate In these clashes, at least twenty

three people were killed and more than a hundred and forty people were wounded in the fighting. According to the Health Ministry, six hospitals were hit and ambulances were unable to reach area affected by the clashes. And the ministry said that these effectively are war crimes and they condemned these actions. The escalation threatens to shatter the relative calm, relative calm taken out with a grain of salt, whatever you want that to mean, Libya has had for most

of the past two years. As we know after listening to me talking for all of these millions of minutes, Libya was sent into chaos after and NATO backed uprising that toppled and killed long time autocrat Rond Goaddaffi in Obviously Gadaffi was also bad, not saying that, but if things were or to chaotic during good Daffi and before Gaddaffi, taking him out in the way that he was taken out only led to more chaos, So the instability only

got worse. The clashes that are happening pitted the Tripoli Revolutionaries Brigade militia led by hathum To Judy against another militia allied with Abda Rani, who was an in famous war lord known as Raniwa. This is according to local media. Prime Minister Debaba's government, which is based in Tripoli, claimed that the clashes broke out when one militia fired at another.

The fighting, however, as highly likely part of an ongoing power struggle between INTERIMPM Debaba and his rival, Prime Minister Fati Bashaka, who is operating from the coast city of Surta. Both Baiba and Bashaka are backed by militias, and the latter was mobilizing in recent weeks to try to enter Tripoli to dislodge his rival. An attempt in May by Bashaka to install his government in Tripoli triggered clashes that

ended with his withdrawal from the capital. The US Ambassador to Libya, Richard Norland, urged for de escalation before quote things get worse, and he also urged for the Libyan parties to agree on an early date for elections. Prime Minister to Baba's hold on power is very precarious. In July of this year, protests erupted in nine cities against

corruption and power cuts. Debba was originally installed again as a temporary prime minister to run the country until the elections were due last December, but he hasn't given up that power because power is a disease, and when those elections were canceled amid constitutional arguments, he obviously decided to stay in power. And this is despite Libya's parliament demanding

that he stepped down. So, as we've learned in this brief history of this country, Libya has been racked with internal divisions and instrument civil war conflict since the armed uprising of eleven of the longtime dictator La Daffi, and while international efforts to bring rival administrations together in a unity government succeeded in early this only created a fragile piece.

The proliferation of weapons and autonomous militias, flourishing criminal networks, the interference of regional powers, and the presence of extremist groups have all contributed to the country's persistent lack of physical security. More than a decade of violence has displaced hundreds of thousands of people, and human rights conditions have

steadily deteriorated. The ceasefire I mentioned earlier was due to an occurrence in sixteen when forces loyal to Ralife Rail attempted Akutata against fayaz As Sage and the Presidential Council of the g NA. So in the Joint Libby and Military Commission that represented the l n A and the g n A, they reached a permanent ceasefire agreement in

all areas of Libya. The agreement was effective immediately and it required that all foreign fighters leave Libya within three months, while a joint police force would patrol disputed areas, and the first commercial flight between Tripoli and Benghazi took place that same day. On March tenth, and Interimmunity Government was formed and it was slated to be in power as we know until the president election. But it's still in

power now. So when when I'm talking about those peaceful quote unquote two years, I'm talking about this time between this permanent ceasefire in and now. And despite improvements following the ceasefire that was broken in October of political and military violence has remained common. Human rights violations are widespread and this includes unlawful killings and forced disappearances and arbitrary detentions.

These conditions are further affected by the presence of various armed groups thousands of foreign mercenaries, a large migrant population and mass internal displacement, and so Libya has been in a tumultuous state since the start of the Arab Spring related the Libyan Crisis. Of the crisis resulted in the collapse of the Libyan Arab Dheria and the killing of Rommdga Daffi amidst the First Civil War of Libya and

the foreign military intervention. The crisis was deepened by the fact sal violence in the aftermath at the First Civil War, and this resulted in the outbreak of the second Civil War that happened in the Control over the country is currently split between the House Representatives in Towbrook and the Government of National Unity in Tripoli and their respective supporters, as well as various jihaddest groups and tribal elements controlling

parts of the country. And as we've learned, the violent protests are continuing to go on today and the country remains in a state of unrest to say the least. But I think this information is a good foundation to serve as a starting point if we talk about Libya going forward to really understand how this country came to be so unstable, because like most countries that are experiencing upheaval.

It's usually because of a lot of different powers buying for control, international powers intervening, and just a lot of cluster fucking stuff that results in cluster fuck enus. So, Um, that's where we're going to end for today. I hope this was informative and I hope you appreciate some of the history. I definitely do. So. Yeah, until next time, go drink some water and stay hydrated and go head a dog. You should never say how I mistook one part.

You can send those on a recording, rubbit. It's okay. It's with a president, so we can't be there. M you shouldn't have done. That's Jimmy Cotton, dude. Well he's never recovered, man. Yeah, you can see it in his eyes when he tried to rebuild those houses. Welcome to It could happen here the podcast where one of us committed a crime against Jimmy Carter, former president of the United States. Um, that might actually get us in trouble with the Secret Service, but you know what it's happening.

It's happening, James. Well, they're gonna have to figure out which one it was. Yes, and that of course, second voice James Stout, who might wind up in Guantanamo for this because he's he's not a US citizen. But I feel pretty safe, and I feel like our guest for today is pretty safe. And I would like to introduce Stephen Manicelli. Uh. Stephen, you work for and are an

editor at Protein Magazine. You've written for The Rolling Stone, You've written for a bunch of people, Dallas Voice, a number of different UM news websites, magazines, and you have been spending a big chunk of the last year or so in the streets in Dallas reporting on the escalating series of well, hopefully not escalating. I guess time will

tell on that. But the series of right winging UM, I don't even want to I don't want to dignify them by calling them protests, but like right wing organized attempts to intimidate UH and spark violence at LGBT events in the DFW area, and some of the left wing protest counter against that, which has involved groups like the elm Fork John Brown Gun Club, who we've had on the show a few times, and has involved groups of armed leftists kind of UM in opposition to groups of

armed right wingers. UM. Now, Stephen, the specific reason we're talking today is you were just the other day part of a panel put on by the Cato Institute, which is a libertarian think tank, titled Domestic Extremism and Political Violence the Threat to Liberty UM. Your fellow panelists were Mike German Mike is a former FBI agent who went undercover against the far right UM and now works for

the Brennan Center. And Christopher Wiles, who is a professor of English and a director of American Studies at the Universe City of Connecticut and wrote the u s Anti Fascism Reader. UM. Now, this was interesting for a number of reasons. Kind of in the lead up to this event, the kate I Institute published a graphic that showed a

number of domestic armed organizations UM. And so in the same graphic you had groups like the Proud Boys and Patriot Front, as well as groups like Yellow Peril Tactical and the ELM Fork, John Brown Gun Club and the

Socialist Rifle Association. Prior to the event, this sparked a bit of frustration from the left and some people suspecting that this was going to be kind of geared towards attacking left wing armed groups and smearing them, you know, as violent extremists in the same way that the Proud Boys are. Uh, that is not what happened. Um, And I'm gonna open the floor up to you, Stephen, thank you for being on the show. Hey, thanks for having me.

And I'm glad that this is not sort of a critic criticism session that I'm gonna be sitting with y'all on In terms of yeah, my participation with a I hestitate to even use the word libertarian because of the historical definition of the term, but you know, conservative libertarian whatever, big L versus small L. I don't. Yeah, we could call them a right libertarian think to their rough bodies, right like literally founded by rough body. Yeah, they love

them some Rothbard. Um didn't they like excommunicate him or something though? At Okay, I couldn't. I don't. I'm not deep on the lower one thing. If you're doing my favorite meme with the two hands meeting in the middle middle, left libertarians and right libertarians have excommunicating members. Murray Rothbart is on an isle exile Murray Rothbart and Mary Books and united and cancelation. So yeah, I guess I'm not

being canceled, which is is good UM. And so yeah, they had reached out to me in stept Timber about being on this panel, and they had mentioned UM the other guests, and frankly I was intrigued because you know, if people want to pay attention to the growing threat

of fascism, I think that's pretty neat. And it seemed like an opportunity to do the thing that Glenn Greenwald claims that he does when he goes on Tucker Carlson, which is like reaching out to an audience that doesn't already agree with the things that I think UM, because he just goes on because their pals and they already

all agree. So UM, I digress. I thought it was maybe an interesting forum and and I was really interested to hear UM from the other panelists, in particular UM because I had looked at what Mike German had written after his service in UM the FBI and as well as the author of the Anti Fascist Handbook, and I thought, well, if if Kato has invited all three of us, it's it's not gonna go too off the rails and terms of UM, you know, sort of the false equivalency problems

or it just becoming a session to bash on groups that aren't really the part of the problem. Interestingly enough, the primary amount of bashing that went on was Mike German, former f by FBI h repeatedly viciously criticizing the police

and the FBI for their complicity with far right street movements. Yeah, Mike's been pretty consistent, I spoken for like a couple of years, and I'm sure you people are probably aware of his presence by now, but he's been pretty consistent on bashing defense for failing to act on white supremacy for decades. And it's very It's there's a number of reasons this is interesting that we'll we'll be getting back into, but I really do recommend people take a listen to

this conversation between y'all. Among other things, there's there's some good history in there. We'll talk about a couple of things that got introduced that I don't ad percent agree with. That there's some good history in there, and I think more to the point, you get a lot of updates from your report in Dallas and a lot of kind of summaries of that which I find very valuable and think will be valuable to people who have maybe been

following it less. And then also it's really interesting to get Mike's perspective as someone he was in It was late eighties, early nineties, he was doing a lot of undercover stuff on the West Coast and neo Nazi movements. UM, and so hearing him discuss the way in which the FBI s programs targeted at the far right work and don't work was really interesting to me. Oh. Absolutely, that was the sort of the side of the story that

I knew the least about. UM. Christopher Viles, the professor, the guy who wrote the handbook, UM, you know, I think he provided a very important set of historical information that kind of helped iron out some of the issues in terms of the framing craps. Yes, and some of the inconsistencies which I think we can dive into a little bit, or rather inaccuracies that kind of got slipped by UM and we weren't really able to address in

the course of the conversation. But hearing him just put it so bluntly kind of took the wind out of me in a good way where I was like, I don't I don't have anything else to add here, No, notes, um because he really made the point that yes, some of these organizations were cannon glove with police officers at the local level, even at the federal level. He's witnessed it.

He has a number of experiences that he cited where the FBI is basically saying, uh, do not talk about your case is involving white supremacists and these similar type of groups, because there are people in the agency who

are sympathetic. Um And I think that's kind of why I ended up on the panel because in part the story that I've been covering around here with this harassment campaign over the past few months of lgbt Q groups and events, part of the story is that policing has not really done anything to prevent uh you know, this

incitement and harassment from continuing and occasionally turning violent. Not in the sense of weapons being used other than bear me so far, but in the sense the physical violence and uh you know, slurs and violent threats being hurled

at people. UM. So, I I think that Mike's points for really timely and well said, and frankly, he's the kind of person that they needed to come from because otherwise they just kind of get smacked away as leftist talking point by people who probably have some internal biases or prejudices, prejudices that prevent them from engaging with it when it comes from the wrong person in the wrong way. And there were a number of interesting kind of discussions happening.

One of the thing that I was happy about is that, well, the initial framing, I think there was a lot of fear that all of these left wing groups, we're going to get lumped in with groups that have, to put

it bluntly, tried to overthrow democracy. Um. Right, we should point out that that's how the FBI does do it, right, like they for instance, the group white supremacists with like black identity groups, is racial identity extremists or statistics that way like that, That's that's how the FEDS see this. But yeah, they didn't, which is which is good. It's like a form of obfuscation to do so. And um,

you know, why would they do that. Well, maybe there's a few reasons they might do that, especially if you ask someone like Mike um, and you know, it's such a blind spot for obvious the ideological reasons for so

many people involved. Yeah, and it's it's Um, it was interesting because there was this bit in the middle of it where Mike, you know, being a former fed, walked through kind of like, well, it makes sense to me, given the fact that law enforcement is not able to be trusted in a lot of instances and often is working hand in glove with these far right groups that want to harm marginalize people, that they would seek to

arm themselves. Um. And that prompted from the the fellow who was actually um kind of the organizing the the event, Patrick Eddington, who's a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, him to point out and he was I would have to say broadly fair um. And generally he seemed a little bit kind of um uh. He he had this attitude you all, you get sometimes around libertarians where he was like there was a moment where he was like, well, I'm glad some on the left to finally started accepting

the Second Amendments and stuff like that. Um. But but he had a he had a moment where he expressed a concern, UM, which was his fear about the possibility that if you keep having these events, at some point you're going to have two groups of people who are armed shoot at each other, um, which is we have. We've been right up to that line. You have had

exchanges of fire, just thinking. In Portland, you had a moment where as a single right wing individual with a handgun fired into a group of people, thankfully didn't hit any two people in the anti fascist side fired back and forced him to flee. Um, you had a moment earlier this year in Portland where a right winger shot into a group of unarmed people doing traffic security, killed a sixty one year old woman, wounded I think five

other people, and then was shot and stopped by a leftist. Um, you obviously had Um a proud boy while a member of Patriot Prayer shot and killed during an altercation, but not an exchange of fire. The only person who fired was the person who killed that that individual. So none of those are quite two groups of people with guns exchanging fire, you know, in a sustained way. Uh, none of those even entirely approached kind of what happened at

like Greensville. But they're all on that spectrum. And while I think this guy there's a degree to which he's kind of spooked at seeing leftists with guns, I do think that that's a reasonable thing to be concerned with because when and if we hit that point, it's going to be an inflection moment for I think the entire country,

right right. I think the reality is that most normal people, whatever you want to use the word to describe them, people aren't brain poisoned and plugged into the internet and about all these things or or having to deal with them and are affected by them in real life. They might see these groups and just cast them all under

the same umbrella. You know, there's a good meme I chuckled at that came out afterwards, where it had had the slide showing on all of the groups, the right wing groups and the left and groups sort of armed groups in you know, the United States, and then replacing them all with just domestic cleaning products. Like, yes, they all have something in common. They have weapons, and they're armed to some degree, but beyond that, they all have

distinctions and we shouldn't drawn equivalency. And I think, you know, Mike did a very elegant job of drawing that distinctionaries as these people not only have a right to defend themselves, but they probably have a good reason to given all of these things. He was basically writing the lyrics to rage against the Machine song, and um, I was a little astonished by that, and he made a very clear point to say, like, yeah, there are people who are

aggressors and there are people who aren't. We can find a distinction in that. And if we're just now getting concerned about this violence, well maybe we should ask why we've had such a big blind spot for so long. And he got right to the core of it. It's these ideologies deeply baked into our institutions of white supremacist right supremacy, uh, basically all the way back to colonization, and you know, dealing with that is necessary for us

to deal with the broader problem. And I think he was very clear to say, like the things that were required to get to that point of like a potential

shootout would be a total breakdown in policing. And so he played place the blame at the feet of the police, practically said it's their goddamn fault that people feel the need to do this, because if they just focused on the crimes that Proud Boys commit in the Dallas area, uh, you know, basically minor assaults and stuff, they would trace it back to the people that are committing them, and they would cut down on these escalations because the same people are the ones that show up to these events

time and time again. It's worth rub you talk about like an inflection point, right, and and we spoke about like failures in policing too. I think part off there reason that we see things are super duper exceptional right now is the way that we teach history in schools here. And part of the things we don't teach are like that this has happened before, right, like the Battle of

Hayes Pond being a paramount example. If we look at the like the standoff at Wounded Knee or the second Battle of Wounded Knee, or whatever you want to call it, and throughout the civil rights movement, right there's a book by Rob Williams about a contemporary book about the use of firearms in the Civil rights movement that people can

read like all of this stuff did happen then. And this same tension that we're feeling now about like a society putting itself apart and when it leads to a civil war also happened then and people felt this then two and we we well, the progress was made at that time. We didn't fix everything, right, like that's why

we're having this discussion now. But like, I think the fact that we've removed so much of the specifically the violence and the use of guns from our discussion with the civil rights movement sometimes leads us to see what's happening now was like really particularly exceptional, and it's not like, yeah, it's always been the case of marginalized folks that have resorted to the same tools that he used to oppress

them to defend themselves. And why wouldn't they write, like like Mike said, like Steve said, there's a very good and clear reason for oppressed people to want to defend

themselves in their communities. The only analog that we were able to bring up in the conversation is like the pink pink panthers, pink panthers, which was, you know, something that a lot of people don't know about, And we did get a little bit of opportunity to discuss, you know, the black panthers and how community defense is a different set of reasons for arming yourself and having knowledge of

the Second Amendment and all those sorts of things. Then you know, going outside an event hosted by an organization you have no interest in belonging to wearing your guns on your body to send a message. That's a very

menacing form of free speed. And I think another good moment to bring up when we talk about this would be the Red Summer of nineteen nineteen, which was a series of race riots targeting black people in the United States that also involved large groups and communities, particularly in cities, of Black Americans taking up arms and defending themselves. Um and and was fairly enormous, and it's deftyal hundreds and hundreds of people were killed. Um It's it's really a

pretty nightmarish moment in history. But it's the thing when you have groups and we're about to have someone on from from Yellow Parel tactical, when you have groups that are specifically organizing and saying like we are organizing, we are teaching skills for people to become armed because we are afraid that we and people like us will be victimized. It's stuff like the Red Summer that they're directly looking at.

It's not theoretical, you know. Yeah, you're Frank carl Um from Arranged TV have some good videos about a lot of these different things. If people are interested in looking them up. Yeah, um, and I think probably we should bring on our next guest for tonight. Uh and and Stephen will be staying on as well. Snow from Yellow Peril Tactical. Snow, do you want to introduce yourself and your organization for folks who may not be as as

familiar with the stuff as we are. We we briefly covered y'all a little bit earlier in this but yeah, thanks for having me. My name is Snow. My pronouns the sheet or they, and I am one of the many members of Yellow Peril Tactical. We are a collective of leftist Asian Americans under the shared ideology of being anti authoritarian. Um. And we talk about all sorts of things, but particularly how to develop firearms skills and also community

defense and the occasional ship post and Uh. First questions, because we're talking about this Cato Institute things that Stephen was on. Have you had a chance to listen to that yet since y'all watched it twice and I have or paid notes? Yeah? Yeah, why why don't we start here? Yeah? Go off? You know, Okay, Like the chat was lit.

When we first saw that we were mentioned, we were like, Wow, we fucking made it because originally we started as a ship post account and then we were like, oh, people actually care, um, And this is just one of those moments where, uh, I don't know, it felt like really surreal that Kato would even give a funk about us, because we do all of this in our free time. You know, this is like nobody pays us right, um. And so we had a lot of skepticism going into it, um.

And in a sense, uh, we're a bit on the defensive kind of preparing for a lot of false equivalent rhetoric um and a lot of just like I don't know, maybe like orientalism as we all um, just given the history of how like Westerners have viewed Asian culture um. But ultimately, like the consensus has been that we were

pleasantly surprised of how balanced it was. I thought overall it was very intriguing, and I got some good some good quotes written down, But I don't know if you want to go into those now or later or what? Can we start with having I really want to like anchor this in having you explained what community defense means, like so people can understand why, and then we can

go from what people say to you yeah. Um, So earlier y'all were talking about, like, um, the nineteen nineteen riots and actually reminded me of like the Pacific Coast Race riots of nineteen seven, and a bunch of were like murdering and committing violence against Asian people, right, And nineteen o seven was not that long ago. Um. And in a sense, it never has gone away. Um. And you know, I think um Chris File said it put it nicely when he was like, you know, in the

backdrop of a lot of anti Asian violence. Um, it's just that it's been a lot more prevalent among Asians specifically. That doesn't stop you know, like Boba liberalism, identity politics from happening where there's not like a grand division of like what's going on at large. Um. But we know that like our communities are under attack and the cops don't give a funk about us, and if anything, they just make it worse most of the time. Uh. And so it's truly up to us because you know, cops

don't prevent crime. They come after and they funk it up. Um. And it's not something that has come easily to me personally. I've been in denial about it. For a lot of years around thinking like if I just avoid going out late at night, if I am always walking with a buddy, if I just you know, spend twenty minutes looking for a closer part working spot, it'll prevent me from being harmed. And ultimately, like that's just me being in denial, um.

And part of it another realization is like being strapped, I can seal carry every day. That's not going to deter someone from attacking me because of how I look without doxing myself. I just look alternative, right, um. And knowing that that puts me at risk has never deterred me from wanting to express myself with how I look. But I know the risks and that doesn't stop people from me. But part of it is like I'm not going down without a fucking fight, Like my ancestors have

come too fucking far. We kicked out the French, we kicked out the US, right, and now I'm in their turf. I've infiltrated the wire, but that doesn't mean but you know, it doesn't mean that it's going to stop them from harming us. Um. And you know, we know that we can't live in a fever dream where every single fascist on this planet will be gone. Um, but at the very least, like my life goal is to make them

think twice. And I'm scared a little bit. It's interesting because you you bring up sort of what I think is a really good point, which is that like, even if you're if you're in your day to day life, the fact that you're carrying a gun isn't going to stop somebody from starting, you know, an interaction with you that could turn violent because you just look the way

that you look. I do want to talk a little bit about what's kind of the opposite thing, and it is sort of part of why I think folks were a little on edge when this event got announced and you know that graphic came out that had as we've discussed, the Yellow Peril tactical alongside you know, these these these

other groups. And there's one of the things that kind of results from the way gun culture works is that there's a very recognizable kind of um uniform um that you see, particularly you've seen it with the Boogleoo Boys, you see it with groups like the Proud Boys. It's the it's the thing where you've got a plate carrier, a belt, you know, an a are some other kind of long gun helmets and and usually other tactical gear on it um. And this kind of this outfit so

to speak, has kind of evolved over time. It really is a result of the War on Terror, and it's both an aesthetic choice and there's a huge number of companies that exist, particularly on the right to provide people with aesthetic options for kind of having all of this gear that are are sort of ideologically simple simpatico with them um. But it's also just actually a practice. Well some of this stuff is less practical than others, but the basics of the of the get up exist because

it's what worked, right. There's one of the things people noted when the Taliban took back over in Afghanistan is that all of their special operations guys were dressed the same way that US fighters, just because it's just what works. You see the same outfits on Ukrainian and Russian spec

ops guys um. And one of the things when we when we're looking at kind of domestically, when you have people who are organizing and going out in the world armed as part of a public event, is that to people who are not familiar with what's going on, it can be hard to tell them about sometimes, and that is that strikes me the thing that the left particularly needs to deal with because both in kind of in the media and also out in the field, you don't

want to be mistaken for groups like the Proud Boys and Steve and I want to start kind of with you here because I think you're you're reporting has always done a really good job of kind of making that difference clear. If you kind of have any thoughts on that, and then we'll we'll go back to you snow. I think that's a really interesting problem, the proliferation of tactical um aesthetics and the ideological sort of turn in the

production of weaponry and accessories. I mean, there's like goddamn tactical eight franchises, which is making me lose my mind for a number of reasons. Um and that is a is a real distinct thing that I see all the time around here, and and I think there's subtle things that groups do to try to distinguish themselves. Obviously are patches, but in order to see a patch, you have to be close enough to someone in order to even find it legible. So then okay, you have flags, but then

you also have to know what these flags are. Something that some groups around here have done when they're you know, sort of protecting an LGBTQ event is still have um flags affiliated with the LGBTQ movement, but once again you have to know what those are. And one more people know what those are these days, so that's a way in order to distinguish themselves. But it still takes a second for you to see a group of armed people and then process you know, exactly all of these sort

of semiotic markers of who they are and what they're doing. Um, because if they have a different set of those things, it can be a very different set of conclusions that you can walk away from if you identify them. Uh. And in Texas, the right does love carrying these flags and wearing these patches, so it makes it very clear who has consistently shown up to these events. Um. But like the reaction of normal people, if a group of armed people are leading a protest is to kind of

be like, what the heck double take? Maybe they will start filming it because it's the craziest thing that they've

seen that week. Um. And ultimately you know they have to kind of know some contextual clues in order to even make these distinctions, particularly when you're talking about groups like um, you know, John Brown Clubs or Yellow Peril, where you're there's concerns around OP SACK or in PHO SAK, and you don't want to necessarily reveal your identities because you're already a part of a group that's facing violence at a disproportionate rate, and maybe you're you know, potentially

targeted by the FBI at a disproportionate rate. Like the former FBI officer interestingly noted during the conversation that, yeah, you may have an even harder time sort of distinguishing yourself and in making it known who you are. Um, So it's an interesting challenge. I don't know if I have uh, sort of any lessons from it other than that,

you know, these classic signifiers also seem to work. Sometimes they're kind of kitchy or um you know, seem ridiculous, but it's kind of the same thing, like you said about the spec ops, stuff like it's been used for centuries. Stuff like this has been used for a long time because it works because you immediately can comprehend is this person with a gun here? To kill me or to

protect me. Yeah. Yeah, that's that's really interesting because I obviously I have a complicated history with flags, but there's few better ways to to inform other people about what a group of folks is doing than having one. Um, yeah, as long as you're not conducting an ambush and that's an offensive maneuver. And then suddenly you know, it's like, as long as you're cool with being like, we're here and this is what we're doing, a flag is exactly

the thing that you might want. So no, one of the things I've I've always paid attention to and appreciated about yellow Perils the way and what's y'all social media and y'all's kind of forward face is both unapologetically focused on firearms, focused on training, and also feels completely different from any of the sort of right wing kind of groups that that focus on some of the state, even when you're doing stuff that's like videos of people shooting

and training, Um, do you want to talk? I mean, it's just anything in general on this subject that you've you've felt. But that's something I've always particularly noticed about y'all. Yes, oh, thank you. Um, we try really hard. You should see the group chet UM. But it's it's something that you know when historically Asian Asians represented in firearms culture tend to be conservative folks who fit within the norm or you know, proximity to whiteness. And that's something that we

are not at all interested in, UM. And we know that comes at a risk. That's why one of the reasons why are identifiable tattoos are clothing and our faces are always blurred one because we don't want cult of celebrity around individuals. UM. But too it's like part of that is a lot of folks generally, but especially on the right, will kind of have this very grandiose uh, I don't know, uh, buffers sense of legitimacy just because they have cool you know, video editing, they have like

the nicest guns, they have a lot of guns. UM. And our thing is like, you don't need all that. What you do need is to train with what you got and are target audience are folks who don't know ship about firearms or just getting into it and needs some more reputable to go. UM. And we take that very seriously, UM, because I only got into firearms like two years ago, UM, And so that is fresh in my memory, and I know very well what that's like, um,

and how intimidating it could be. So a lot of our work is to try to demystify it and really break it down to a way that like it doesn't like we don't make people feel like they have to be at a certain level already to even enter into the firearms world. Like we want to meet people where

they're at and encourage people. So like, you know, do our drill of the month and like tell us your score, and then do it next month and tell how to tell us how you did better, And so it's really encouraging people to get better on an individual basis, Um, we encourage people to go out with their friends, um. But we also try to throw in like community international solidarity with our fundraisers in there too, So we try

to do a lot of different things. But at the end of the day, like if we help just eapen a handful of shooters get better at defending themselves or their community, like it's all worth it. Thank you. I want to ask next and I'll ask you both again kind of same question. Where do you see the armed left moving? Particularly in this next year's We kind of get through our last or start go through our last blessed year before election? Um, what are some things that

that are on your radar? What are some things that you're sort of expecting to see? What are some things that you're worried about? Saying a lot, it's a big ques. I try to keep it to a year, right, Yeah, but yeah, you know, I like I worry a lot. I try not to get too caught up in it

because life will surprise you, you know. Um, But I think ultimately, like where I live, we are facing down a really tight governor race in which if the Republican candidate wins UM, a lot of work that has been put to, you know, codify abortion rights, workers rights, things

like that, will be reversed by this governor. Um. And it's something that a lot of people are worried about, myself included, and where I live, even within city limits, there are white supremacists flags, Confederate flags, even just like a couple of miles from my house, And so there's a lot of fear around that becoming even more emboldened.

Even though we managed to fight back a lot and deterred, it doesn't mean that they're not taking this moment the right, the fast right to restrategize and to recalibrate what they want to do next. Um. And so it kind of feels like we're in the calm before the storm. Oh man. Uh,

not like the J six storm. That's not what I mean, but like genuinely what it will actually look like, because I don't think it's gonna be I don't think there's gonna be like you know, we meet at the football field and we have like our drummers out and like our little pipe players out, and then we have a thought of that it's gonna be like urban like warfare, is what I think. Um. And a lot of other people think that too. And you just throw in climate change as a treat like we don't know what the

literal climate is going to be like. Um. And so it really just feels like there's multiple fronts right now. But it seems like climate change or the fascist will kill me before my smoking habit will And a lot of people think that too. Yeah, I mean, I I do anecdotally know a lot of people who justify their sick at use with Mike. Look, there's wildfires all around my house. I'm not worried about the Marboros. It is. It is October and the city of Portland is blanketed

and smoke. I don't know if the cigarettes are going to get me. Stephen, did you did you want to go next? Yeah? Well, I mean, you know, the fact that a ship posting account gained some traction, maybe there's hope yet. Um, I don't know, but ship posting will save us in the end. It's it's another one on the board for ship posting. Let's put it that way. So looking forward to what are we dealing with? Well,

Texas is uh deep in it right now. Um, we're one of the sort of laboratories of fascism in the United States at the moment, sort of a spear tip of a lot of really bad stuff really just like you know, codifying in the state, oppressive things, things that they just talk about in other states. Um. And so yeah, our governor's race, Uh, basically it doesn't either, you know, kind of split things because our lieutenant governor runs independently of the governor. And you know, the House is a

whole other thing. Yeah, if it goes far right, Um, which a ton of money has been spent, billions and billions from people in the industry that's primarily responsible for destroying the planet are um pushing that to make it happen, and so that all works their way, then yeah, we're probably going to get some uh seriously bad laws, really bad state sponsored violence, a variety of forms, and yeah, people are already thinking to themselves like do I want

to live in the state anymore? Um. But that's also basically what the extreme people on the right want is to either just get rid of these people one way or another. UM. And so some people don't want that. Obviously. Some people don't have a choice to leave because it's expensive to move and they may be tied to their

families and other sorts of things. So, uh, I don't like to predict the future because history is we keep pumping shells into it and it keeps getting back up, and uh, it's just gonna happen, And I don't really know exactly. I just I'm very thankful that there are people and groups in my state that are trying to protect vulnerable people UM, and people working to hopefully make it not super bad. UM. So I think like the optimistic view is that it won't be all totally terrible, horrible,

but it'll be still kind of same same. Um, you know, yes, yeah, that's kind of like how I see broad speaking, you know, the big projection cone. Otherwise, Um, I'm not sure. Yeah, ship is going to be fucked up, but at least we'll have friends. Hopefully it'll be wavy and it will be about the friends that we make along the way. Yeah, I'll listen to joke. Do either of you have anything else you'd like to talk about or or or bring up or say before we kind of bring this to

a close. I guess I'm just like I was kind of surprised how h decent that the panel went. Um, you know, the anti fascist coalition can be broad because it is a sort of anti thing. It's not necessarily positivist. But you know, maybe that's another episode to describe, you know, why it's important to also perhaps have a positivist message

along with what you're trying to do in response to fascism. Um. And you know, like more discussions like this hopefully will happen, and I think they could be improved by like not all four panelists being white dudes. That would probably be helpful. Um, as a thought, Yeah, well yeah, that that was actually the first thing I wrote on my my note page is that it was for I should have said that earlier,

so you know, I'm just playing. But I think one thing I want to add is like, similar to what you were saying, Stephen, was kind of like what is the pro positive thing? And ultimately, like to me, it's like the city that I live in, there's a lot of decentralized mutual A groups that got a lot of people through the pandemic and still provide daily relief to

people consistently. Like I'm in like a million fucking signal chats where people post a need and it gets met eventually, and it's like I'm pro that mutual aid and like it's something that I mean, maybe it's the only thing that will really get us through whatever is to come UM. And that's just like pro community building UM and coalition building, whatever that looks like in your community. Maybe if we want to talk about mutual aid you can. I know,

you guys do a lot of fundraises. I think that's a really cool thing certain distinguishes you from a lot of other gun clubs. So maybe you want to talk about a couple of those, maybe plug those, you know, I would plug our fontwork patches, but we just sold out of the second batch. It's a it is. We didn't think people would care that much, especially the first round, and so the second round we only ordered a hundred

and it's pulled out in a day. Those are supporting the resistance in Me and mar right, yes, yes, people are getting them by donating directly to Liberate Me and mar and then someone sends them a cool while word hatch um. And it's one of many fundraisers we've done. We recently have done a couple for folks in Ukraine. UM. We help them funds an ambulance out there. UM. I can't remember the Instagram handle right now. UM. We've also done a bunch for like a group in Portland, for example,

Black and Beyond the Binary. UM. I think we've done to actually for Liberate Me and Mar UM, but it's just something that you know, we don't do this for money, and we also want to support other groups doing things that we support, especially like popular fronts that are fighting

back against authoritarian regimes. UM and hoping that you know, if ship hits the fan here, that people will do that for us to UM because we really value international solidarity and you know, as corny as it is, we're you know, we're like we got us, you know, we fend us, not George Soros, but um, you know, it's something that brings us joy to be able to help and um, as mostly anarchists, we really believe that, like, we are all that we have and we can't wait

for someone else to to, you know, a benefactor to come and save us, because that ship is just not going to happen. Yeah, it's great. Where can folks find you on the interweb they want to follow along? We can find us on Instagram at Yellow dot Peril dot Practical. You have to spell it out, I think, because I think we're shadow band right now. Our Twitter, regrettably is y P T Actual. We also have a website just Yellow Peril Tactical dot com. We just took it so

no one else could. Um, but that's where you can mainly find us. We are primarily on Instagram, um, but most of our stuff is on Twitter. If you really want to see a ship post, go on Twitter. We recently got into it with this person and Oregon over

the gun control measure. Um, and let me tell you it was a hoot, but also a little like maddening because this guy, Yeah, this guy actually ties into how we opened the episode because he was he's a local liberal uh thought leader guy who uh saw two pictures of people with guns, one of them being fascists and one of them being one of y'all and was like, clearly these are the same thing. Um, it was a good time vote now on one fourteen in my opinion, uh,

if you're in the state of Oregon. But we'll talk about that at a later point. Stephen, Um, you want to plug you first off, obviously, really good work UM on the panel. I want to plug that for folks because I think it is really worth a listen. Um, as everyone is here said, there's a lot of good historical information in there and uh and and your contributions are invaluable. So folks can check that out. If you just google Cato Institute Domestic Extremism and Political Violence, you'll

find it. And how else can people find you? Stephen? You can also find me on Twitter. UM, I will make sure that my handle is there. It's at Steve van Zetti. Ste van Zetti as in the you know, one of the two that got killed by the state unjustly. Um. Because it's anti Italian discrimination. So um right, digress um, the you can find me there. Protean is obviously something that I work with, and I would say check that out as well. It's at prodi and mag. Uh that

has a website prodian mag dot com. Um, and anything else that you want to know about me you can either find on Twitter or Google. There's really only like two guys named Stephen Monta Chelli in the entire state United States, and the other ones like a C. P A in his sixties, so it's just not that one. Um, and yeah, you can find me there. Excellent. Um, well, I'm glad we got to end on a Saco and Vanzetti reference. And uh yeah, everybody go help somebody. Could

it happen here? I don't know, but I get paid whether or not we find an answer to that question. This has been the introduction to the podcast. I'm Robert Evans. Hello everyone else, Hello, Hello, good morning afternoon. This is Garrison. We have Sharene and we also have our friend prop from Hood Politics here. Hello. Greetings, y'all talk to me nice. I fully respect the transparency about like, well you get paid regardless, yeah, exactly, exactly when or not. We learned

if it could happen here. Here's the thing. When I used to teach high school, which believe it or not, I did taught ninth graders. We was like maybe eight years apart at the time, and uh uh there was at one point and I taught Inner City and it was it was at one point, I uh, I got this idea from one of my like uh like mentor teachers where I was like, okay, check this out. So I made you remember overhead transparencies. Yeah, I do for sure.

So I made one of my check It was like, I'm just gonna put this because I'm just gonna put this up here because like y'all can do your work or not. YO said, like I get paid either way. I care. That's why I show up and I try so hard, you know, but you're not hurting me by whatever bellion you're practicing here like this this is who ends at three o'clock. At three oh five, I forgot everything you said to me, you know, so you're not hurting me. Now. If you want to make me earn this,

then let's get busy, you know. And it was like, no man gonna earn this. I was like, all right, let's go to it. You know, I was a great teacher, do you know, I mean I may have turned off a few people, but I don't know that. Do you know what does hurt me proper? What hurt you? Oh? God, Garrett, the main streaming eventI semitic rhetoric. Um, you did a good job there, Garrison. Great? You know what, you know what put putting in for a commendation for you. You're

gonna get a little trophy from the company for that one. Hey, homie, that was Garrison. That was Yeah, so a varsity bro, was varsity fan. Unfortunately, today we're gonna be talking about Kanye West. There's a lot of elements to this topic of discussion between the media's coverage of what's happened, isn't it ye now Garrison? Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, okay.

So the thing is like it like at some point probably now I am I have refused to talk about same yeah you know, uh and specifically even covering it, you know, on the pod. But it's definitely time to be like, you know, whose man's is this? Yeah? You know, like come on, somebody can get somebody can get your

man's here. You know what I'm saying, um, yeah, there's a lot of different kind of parts of this between how the media has been covering it the past month, his own like history of like attention grabbing spectacle, the whole mental health side of things. There's religion has uptakeing the meta comments, and how the rights has been reacting.

There's there's there's a lot a lot of stuff based on you know, a few a few not not great statements, and a lot of interesting things have revolved around him. Just pick your favorite subversive artists from fifteen years ago and then picture that person doing this, just like on, come on, My favorite subversive artists from fifteen years ago might have been Dave Chappelle. You know, my my favorite subversive artist from fifteen years ago, it was probably Steve

from Blues Clues. Hey, Steve remains remains solid. He's yeah, he's a hero. Oh wait, no, I'm now seeing on Deadline that he has recently embraced white nationalism words tattooed on the back of his head next to the blue paw print. Oh dear, Steve is fine, he's kidding, that didn't happen, but yeah, absolutely, Because you're like and knowing all of it's it is, And I hope I'm not. I hope I'm not co opting this whole show, but

it's it is. The Tyra Banks clip from America's Top Model words like we we believe, we all believed in you, just furious, like we got damn it. We believed in you. You know yeah yeah. And as the perspective of like a younger person who wasn't really around for I guess when Kanye was better, this stuff has not been surprising to be because I've only been watching him the past decade,

and that's kind of what we're gonna talk about. I would it would probably be fair to call me like a casual knower of Kanye, but I'm I'm I'm much older than you, Garrison, And so I remember George Bush doesn't care about black people, which was like, that's the height of all that seems that seems accurate. That was the high water point when we were like he's for the generation, this is this is a new breed, because but what's what's what's ill is like it was obviously

a sign of his manicness. Looking in retrospect, it was like, oh, he was in a manic episode. I mean and the other thing is that he really just has a history of basic contrarianism, so he'll he'll he'll oppose George W. Bush because that's the contrarian thing to do. At the moment post on eleven, everyone was very pro Obama. Someone said he's gonna be pro Trump because he's gonna he's gonna try to be that some of and that's only been a pattern throughout his career. It just such to

see it go ahead. I'm not I'm not an expert on his music. I wasn't particularly a fan. But the thing I know that, like everyone talked about his motherfucker's sampled blood on the leaves, like and now that's a But also at the time it was like, wow, this is you know, he's he's he's he's trying to say something.

And now there's a degree to which it's like, well, was that just the most contrarians a move he could be making, right, Yeah, And like what you said, prop But like initially when this when the when the T shirt and stuff was happening at Paris Fashion Week, I really did not want to talk about this because I thought it was just another one of Kanye's publicity stunts kind of in line with his mega hat and Trump

appearances from a few years ago. And I didn't want to like play into the media cycle of just amplifying these stunts that Kanye does, which I think kind of

feeds into and encourages this kind of behavior. But then Kanye went on Tucker and started hosting on the Internet, and things have gotten a lot worse since then, And now I feel like it actually is we should now actually talk about this because there's some interesting things going on um and ideally we can talk about it in a way that's actually useful and that we can gain insights from and not just you know, highlighting the bigoted

and unhinged things that a public figure has said. So and I think kind of feigning with shock her surprisement at his recent actions and behavior and statements is mostly not useful, like as opposed to just like clearly condemning bigotry and anti semitism and doing like the platforming and also upon this, upon the news of the t shirt stunt and the pointless matter stuff and anti semitism, I was not actually really surprised because I kind of saw

this as a natural evolution of the logical progression of the type of bit that Kandie has been doing, particularly for the past five years, and that's kind of the angle that we're going to approach this with. I think we should probably start by talking about, well, the types of alignments Kanye has had over the course of his career towards Christianity and how that kind of reached the peak in so you can see the kind of earliest

tense of this type of thing. It's pretty dumb a song like Jesus Walks into Us and four um, and then he kind of does some cool stuff. We get to the album ease Us, which kind of revolves around self like deification. I never expected to hear you say Jesus awesome, okay, which is which is a pretty good album, and it kind of it's it's it's before he gets

actually into like Christ. It's it's more like God as like a spiritual force that you can interact with and you can like align can like align yourself with um can I can I fill in the can I fill in the absolutely walks area? Yeah? Like important important context about Kanye one is understanding how the South Side of Chicago is, you know, and it's like to be black. There's like, you're not. How do I say? This church is as normal as dinner with in in our community,

specifically in the South side of Chicago. Of course, of course, your daddy's a deacon. Of course, your mom teaches Sunday school. Of course, the most hardened of criminals will stop and talk to mother Johnson when they see her on the side of the road because she was your Sunday school teacher,

you know, so and you still come every Sunday. Like it's just such a part so the Christian idea, it's such a part, an integral part of our of our community, and of course of his because he's just one of us, you know, um that of course he's going to do a song called Jesus Walks, you know, um of course, and of course he actually probably the whole time, believed he was a Christian, you know, because of because we all are, you know, saying like and unless you come

from like the f ol I or like Nation Islam stuff situation like specifically just what black people were just we just went to church, you know. So in all of our all of our musicians, you take the greatest musicians of any of our times, they used to be choir singers, they used to be in the worship band, like we just it's just a part of our life, you know. So so for him to do that was not strange. What was strange was him thinking it was unique.

That was the part that was so weird about like why you think this is there's like, you know, there's the aspect of thinking that some of the gospel type of stuff he was doing was unique, which yeah, maybe it was unique for me on such such a large platform,

but it was not new. And the the the other thing that is different is that there is a difference between the type of the type of like black churches you're talking about and white Christian evangelical born again very different around conversion, which is what he starts getting into. And yeah, what he became, you know what I'm saying, But that's not that's why I was like, let me

give it. That's so that's why I like, at first, and I'm speaking as somebody who also came from like a very person of color experience and with Christianity and then finding you know, sort of white evangelicalism and thinking because we're using the same words that we're talking about the same thing, and then about five minutes sitting at that table, you're just like, oh oh, you just kind of like make the little piece outside and let me

slide out, because clearly we don't believe the same things. You know. I first found your music as I was kind of me and my family were exiting evangelicalism. Yeah, and that was a very useful kind of depth that was still using some familiar language, but it was like going in a better direction. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um. So I think that the next kind of notable thing is the more gospel esque album Life of Pablo, allegedly inspired

by the life of the biblical Paul. And there's the song Ultra Ultra light Beam, which features contemporary gospel superstar Kirk Franklin and Chance the Rapper, who is also a very open Christian. Yeah. Uh. Then he GANI has a few years of dealing with mental health stuff. He gets hospitalized, he comes out of the hospital, and then in April, he some somewhere around sixteen, he kind of endorses Trump

kind of um. But then but then in April West sends out a series of tweets expressing admiration for Trump, including that he felt he was his brother and they both have quote dragon energy. Um people like Trance of Rapper initially came to West defend saying that black people don't have to be Democrats, which he later apologized for, and a lot of tweets that were up that are

now gone. Yes, and then one of the kind of worst inclinations of where things are kind of going was a fucking TMZ interview which was supposed was which was supposed to be about Congye's support of Trump, but then he went on to make some pretty gross comments about black people choosing to be enslaved. I don't think people necessarily understand what happened last week with the Great America America great again? Hat What are you trying to do

with the message you're sending? Well, it was really just my subconscious It was a feeling I had, you know, like people were taught how to think, we're taught how to feel. We don't know how to think for ourselves. We don't know how to feel for ourselves. People say feel free, but they don't really want us to feel free. And uh, I felt a freedom and first of all, just doing something that everybody tells you not to do.

I just loved Trump. Do you hear about slavery for four hundred years, for four hundred years, that sounds like a choice, Like he was there for four hundred years, and it's all of y'all, you know, like it's like we're mentally in prison. I like the word prison because slavery goes to to direct to the idea of blacks. It's like slavery holocaust, Holocaust students, slavery is blacks. So prison is something that unites us as one race, blacks and whites being one race. Uh, that we're one were

the human race. And fun fact, like Van who stood up to him, I think to this day, especially among like black media figures, he's, as far as I can remember, like one of the only that confronted him in the moment boldly didn't mince his words. You could tell he was like almost weeping, because I mean that's the way I felt watching it, where it was just like oh

what do you what are you saying? Like it's just it's just so hurtful because you're like you can't believe, like come on, man, like drop the act, bro, Like now now we're all suffering. It's like it's almost like I get I get it. We get it looking back, Yeah, even college dropout, that record was just him being Now I used to think it was like revolutionary. No, it's just him being a contrarian. I don't know if you go to college, you know now I know, like, oh man,

it wasn't as deep as I thought it was. You know, so you're thinking, yeah, at the moment, you're like genius, Like dark Trested Fantasy was like the most amazing album I had ever heard up to that point, brilliant, and yeah, thats as you guys are talking. There's like sprinkles of religious stuff in that one, and then a lot of his stuff and he just takes it one stuff too far because I just remember thinking like, oh, this guy's a musical genius. And then when you see that genius

kind of turn on itself, it's just really disappointing. But yeah, shout out Van for like fronting him and directly saying you're wrong. This hurts and I can't believe you say that, and you owe your community and apology. That was pretty dopey.

So after that incident, he took to Twitter dot com to clarify, slash, defend, slash, double down on his slavery comments talking about being mentally enslaved and how it's we need to you know, this is just an example, like and how his comments were just an example of of free thought. It's just an idea, and once again I'm being attacked for presenting new ideas. And then he ended this kind of tweet thread with a fake Harriet Tubman quote saying I freed a thousand slaves. I could have

freed a thousand more. Offinitely they knew they were slaves, which is not not a real Harriet doubled quote. Now that that doesn't seem like a thing she would say at all, and all of all the tweets related deleted, but it was it was kind of doubling down on some of the same rhetoric. And then allegedly, um, some of the TMZ staffers have also now come out and said that he's said some andy semitic things during during

the interview that we're cut out. Now that's not verified and TMZ is obviously not a great source, um, but just an interesting note on him possibly saying some other things that people were thought were kind of weird and just thought that we may as well just cut this out because it doesn't seem super relevant at the time anyway.

So around the same time in eighteen, Kanye befriended someone named Candice Owens, who was at the time the communications director for the far right group Turning Point USA, led by man with face too small for his head, Charlie kirk Um. Kanye tweeted quote that he loved the way Candice Owens thinks. Um. Candace Owens basically makes all of her money by being paid by rich conservative white men

to say that racism isn't a problem anymore. Uh. Days after his candas owns tweet, when there was the mega hat wearing TMZ visit, he was accompanied by to TMZ by Candace Owen's. Uh. That's something that a lot of people miss is that Owens is Owens is a is a core vector point for all of the stuff around Kanye UM and much of Kanye's rhetoric in this vein of like slavery being thought to control, a lot of that directly comes from Owens. That that that's the talking points.

That Yeah, all of those talking points come directly from Owen's which come from her being paid by the Koch brothers. UM and then obviously West solidified his position in the pro Trump camp with the heavily publicized Whitehouse visit in late October eighteen where Kanye give like a ten minute long monologue while wearing the Mega hat. And that's fine. I love this guy right here. Let me get this guy. I love this guy right here. That's really, that's really

and that's from the heart. I didn't want to put you in that position, but that's from the heart. These are like the intersections that are being vector in this scenario in this thing is like like I said, like I didn't, I did not want to cover this, but now that it's like it's clearly necessary to do, just for even for this context. Like there's a certain I I save. I save the word coon, Like coon is not something you throw around like that's to me, it's

the yeah, it is. It's far as far as a black person or me as somebody who works in justice and stuff like that, it is the worst thing I can call you, you know what I'm saying, So like I save that term. And and it's because of the same reason why it's hard for the totality of our of the black community to ever really fully disavow somebody. It's because of our history of collective suffering, like are we've survived because of our communal protection of each other.

So even when somebody is losing it, it's just like baby, just come home, baby, Okay, listen, No he having a

bad day, you know. I mean, you just you want so much to protect them because you understand how much internalized like self hate and racism, how much you internalize that stuff, you know, so you just want so bad, so bad to be like okay, Candice, let's turn the cameras off, like you getting your money, right, that's this, this is what we're doing, right, you just come on, you can tell us, you just give you getting your money, just tell us, you know, it's like you know, no,

fam you don't really believe it's do you? You know? And and then we get to be like baby, don't get your money like that, like, don't don't get your money on based on our suffering like you because you're thinking that there's no there's no way, there's no way this is really you, you know, and so so so when you put those two together, it's like like why did it take us so long to disavow R? Kelly? Why did it take us so long to this. Why is Chris Brown still a star? You know what I'm saying,

It's because it's it's because of that. It's just you don't ever wanted like you gotta save you gotta save coon. You gotta save that for when you really mean it, you know what I mean? Uh, for me personally, I'm like, I just I don't pull that word out off in And then there's moments when you're just like, I don't know what else to call it, is like, I just you. If you if you are selling your own people out for the purpose of making money, that's coon, that's coonery.

Like I don't and it's it's just hard for me to say it. But anyway, go on, tell us more about Candice Owns, the girl that suited the girl that suited her school suit or school board for racism. She dead, Yeah, she sure dead. We'll get back to Owens in a bed.

By the time nineteen started, uh, you know, this is when Kanye went public about his born and in conversion to Christianity and kind of his full pivot towards the I guess mostly kind of untapped mainstream Christian rap market, which is kind of I'm going to try to frame some of his decisions here as being more monetarily driven, then would a lot of people assume because I can totally understand these as business choices, especially coming after the

Trump visit, his his his state of alignment with Trump and friendship with Canadace Owens handed him a partially alieneded fan base, accompanied by a new wave of fans from right wing Christian evangelicals to all right, you know, turning

point you was, say, daily wire type supporters. And then by the beginning of twenty nineteen, West kind of tamped down on some of his explicit Trumpian political persona type stuff, and in its place came this weekly pseudo Christian gathering known as the Sunday Service, just like a weekly mostly invite only, choir packed music gathering that changes locations every week. Sometimes that properties owned by Kanye sometimes that churches outdoors

all all around the country. Yes see. And this is this is where things get uncomfortably start to get uncomfortably culty. This is where things get quite culty. And it's like and and and and and don't get it, like, let me not, let me not cap They were objectively dope like as as music concerned, these are objective. And that's and that's the hard part about Kanye, where it's just like, look, you go back, you go back a couple of decades.

That was not untrue. If people's temple, they had great artists, they put on great music. That was a big part of their appeal. And and and Kanye for Sunday's Service hired a lot of extremely talented people to lead up those programs that yeah, a lot of a lot of like legendary gospel singers, you know, and very recognizable names. And again giving that that his history and context, and then the context is just Black people in general. Part of it felt like at the time, Okay, he's trying

to return to his roots. It's like this is what you grew up in, and you realized, like maybe you've gone too far. Maybe it's like I'm so far into this Hollywood world, you know, I'm starting to like So I'm like, I'm gonna do my best to like like anyone does, like, let me return back to what I know was the safest moment in my life, and it was Sunday Services. So it's like I gave him the benefit I am. I gave him the benefit of the doubt. Because it's like, that's what we all do. You return home,

you start praying again. You know what I'm saying, And just would I would totally believe that if it weren't for the fact that he tried to trademark the terms Sunday Services, right Like, once you start doing that, you're like, huh, I wonder what's actually going on a minute. Yeah, Like performers and attendees had to sign and D A S

and here to a strict address code that changed every week. Um. The service featured gospel inspired remixes of classic songs from different genres, and also strike choir led gospel tunes with the occasional biblical servant, often often given by like a white guy in his thirties or sometimes Kanye Yeah, it's it's.

It's probably mostly known for attracting celebrities to come and then also playing at Coachella in t Yeah, well there's nothing wrong with Coachella, so yeah nothing nothing ever bad's half of that Coachella there, and they're just normal booking promoters that are just looking at numbers and saying these people will buy tickets. So I know I showed this to you, Garrison prop have you ever seen the movie, Um, Marjo, No,

I have not. There's a couple of it's about the evangelical movement right at the start of the religious right, okay, the Fallwell Days and everything, And there's a couple of moments that show an early megachurch with a majority black congregation and incredible singers and incredible music acts and then a bunch of like old white people running things and taking all the money. Um, I don't know, Yeah, it

makes me think about that. I don't know entirely. The and the thing is like, like I said, you know, uh, obviously as a fan of the show, you know I'm familiar, you know, getting same with your your history and even you describing your history of church is just like that's just not my experience, Like that wasn't the church we were in, because I was just in a whole different tradition.

So when you when you come across and I like, I can't stress this enough, when you come across you know, the Nashville of it all, the like the CCM of it all, like in in and these bigger, you know, suburban, mega white churches like you again you think you're saying the same thing, like you you just it's this weird like and I know one of the things for me was like and then Oscar Grant happened, you know what

I mean. And then Mike Brown happened, and then I'm like and then you realize like, oh yeah, no, we're not, We're not. And then that begins. Then you start questioning your all background, like dude, well like well what did we believe? And we was kids, you know what I'm saying. And then looking at the Sunday looking at this Sunday service, I was like, yo, this is this is youth group. That's we did a youth group. You just you know, you get a good singer and they remix a Jodacye

song and just praise in it. You know what I'm saying. I'm like, oh, this is You're just singing up a pop song and you're just giving it Christian words. This isn't clever, Like you know, we've we've been doing this,

you know. And and but then like like yeah, like the same thing like once you exit that like you know that subculture and you start like breathing the air and you're just like, oh, so you so you're telling me Muslims don't have horns and aren't you know what I'm saying, going to immediately going to, well, it's not like that. It turns out there just wonderful human beings that believe beautiful things. Then you start looking back and you're going, damn, maybe I was kind of maybe I

did kind of drink that cool aid, you know. But yeah, and we're talking about, you know, when we're talking about how kind of the white suburban church can be sometimes saying the same words but also be very different. We'll be talking about Joel Osteen in a little bit. Oh yes, oh yes, yes, the smile and prata like I'm telling you dig like you just you just and then yeah, once you once, once the veil comes off and you realize like the way these people are talking to you.

And for me, it was like, oh shit, you use the same the same words you're using about my experience, you're using about the queer community, I'm using about the trans community. And then you start going, oh ship, oh okay, oh it's on now you know what I'm saying. Now you're like, okay, nah, I'm cool on all this. Let me let me go, let me go to Ethiopia, you know, just let me see what y'all think about this, you know.

But yeah, any anyway, yeah, that that that that aspect and then I mean, I'm I'm I'm rambling because it's such it's so close to home. This Kanye said, is so close to home that like, you're like, because I can see how you'd fall for it. It's what I'm trying to say. I can see how he'd fall for it, you know, kind of at the height of his Sunday Service stuff in twenty nine is when Kanye started openly

talking about his born again conversion to Christianity. I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna quote a Fox News article quote, Yeah, you must be born again. Kanye West and Kim Kardashian shared their Christian faith in a big way over this weekend. Adam Tyson, a pastor from the southern California, told Fox News recently that he's been leading West in a Bible study for months now and would quote teach from God's Word about how salvation is only by grace alone, through

faith alone, in Christ alone. Great cutting edge journalism. I also reformed Calvinist talk. Yeah, it is always interesting and I guess meaningless because they don't have to be consistent. But I can remember when Kanye said what he said about George Bush after Katrina and the degree to which Fox News treated him like a fucking ghoul, like like the incarnation. Some of the cruelest and most racist ship I ever saw on Fox News was focused around that.

But no, now he's now he's publicly praying, so like he's back on our side. We're all good. You know? That was that clip was It was around the time of like ring tones. It was my ring tone. I'm saying George Bush doesn't care about black people. That was my ring tone. One of those things. Fucking somebody needed to say it. Somebody needed to say it. Somebody needed

to say it. Yo. And then when you see like out of y'all remember this, but George George Bush did a post like presidential interview and they asked him like, what was your like lowest point in when your president? He was like when Kanye said I didn't care about black people, Like not the multiple invasions, not the two times you invaded foreign country, none of that, none of

a war crimes, none of that cool. When you said you won't care about black people, that is I I gotta say though, that's also kind of because I remember when he said that how happy everybody was, just because it was nice to see George Bush sad. But it's also kind of another harbinger of well, that's maybe too much cultural power for one man should have all that we got there. Yeah, because definitely added inside knew how to make guess it definitely added to Kanye's cash because

it was like, bro, you you did it. You took down a president. Yeah, you know the last rapper town the president. Yes, the last rapper to take down the president was easy and iced tea, like it took a long time before we could get somebody lay easy. We're talking about you know, the Jerry Curl juice dripping on the White House like that's that's eat, that's easy, you

know what I mean. And then you know with body counting cop killer from iced tea, like that was the last time anybody was able to take out a president, you know. So I'm like, you didn't you and the annals a history now, fam that's what we thought at least. Yeah, So I think I think stuff like that made him think. He's like he transcended blackness the same way thinks he has. You know what I mean. I think that mentality plays, in my opinion, a lot into the Messiah complex that

he clearly has. Yeah. After the Kim kar Ashian baptism and the Adam Tyson Bible study groups, Kanye started talking much more openly about the like the evangelical style born again conversion that he had in t While at the biggest mega church in the country based out of Houston, Texas, Kanye talked about his recent conversion to Christianity to the sixteen thousand people president at the churches regular Sunday service, Kanye declared that he no longer cares for fame and money,

but it's only in the service of God. And in conversation with the celebrity pastor Joel Osteen at the church, Kanye said, quote, the only superstar is Jesus, and I know that God has been calling me for a long time and the devil has been distracting me for the long time. Here's a pro tip. The only time you'll ever hear someone say I no longer care for money, it's because their riches God right as they have enough

of it. Yes, you have more than you could spend in a in a radio interview, Kanye into into detail about his conversion, saying that he began reading the Bible during his hospitalization for mental health issues and started a quote writing and copying out Bible versus which is not Listen, y'all. Like I don't want to be just like blatantly anti Bible, but if you're in the hospital for mental issues, they should let people they should not let you access any

religious text at all, like any any religious text. This is but like, like this whole the story is it is standard inner city church talk, like this is par for the course. You're like, look, dude, you know, you go up and you give you give your testimony and testimony service. You know, I was listen, I was outside, I was doing all the gangs. I was with all

the girls. And then one day I was high, you know, I was in nine gangs and I was and I was at a four day binger and I just looked up and I said, God, if you could get me out of this, you know. And then over in the corner I saw Bible like it's it's standard, you know. Yeah, yeah, it's there's so much about it that standard. Also, just to Evangela again, I brought up the whole. I no

longer care about money. But every one of these rich megachurch pastors who is making hundreds of millions of dollars a year will have speeches where they're like, I don't care the money means nothing to me. It's all for God everything, like is the only real star up here? Like it's it's it's all very again if you're I think this hit people like a brick who aren't familiar

having had experienced, particularly like strains of Southern Christianity. Yeah, but the way Kanye has been talking makes a lot of sense. But it's also I think that chunk of people were all flumeexed by the black Israelism stuff, which I'm guessing we're gonna talk. Yeah, that that's more North Beast. And yes, that the Hebrews were like stuff. All right,

let's go, so stay there A lot of thoughts. So around this time in nineteen is when Kanye announced that he's no longer making secular music, which is a term I heard a lot as a kid music music Absolutely not, no, no way, that's worldly, man worldly. When the last time I heard the phrase worldly, Yes, yeah's worldly. I'm in the world. That's right, that's right. So this led to his late twenty nineteen album Jesus Is King. It's objectively it's a good alfl um it is, but it's also

borderline Christian dominionist in some themes. Um. The very first words in the album are God is King, we are the Soldiers um, And that song ends with the Army of God and we are the Truth um. So you know that that goes into the entire ideas about like the Kingdom of God where the soldiers. So in this idea, there's there's like there's this battle between the antagonism against the godly community from the forces of spiritual darkness, and

you know, shout out and woo woo's in there. There's for every Christian rapper of the world who had this guy make one one record and then cover everybody's charts, so now no one cares about your how you've been serving at these like you know camp Canna cooks, you know, rap it in these twelve year old white kids and trying to get your trying to get your albums out, and then this will Kanye just cleans up your whole genre. He had the pretty funny song, in my opinion, closed

on Sunday. You might check fil A, which I think is funny. Now that is that's actually pretty good. But the man is talented. No one's arguing about it's also probably sincere because saw it ends with Jesus, listen and obey. So like it's you know, um no, it's it's it's a it's it's funny. It's funny that it is. There's this there's this like with hip hop, you know, as a rapper, there's this like fine line between clever bars and dad jokes like that it's you you you gotta

teeter on that. And I was like, yo, you are dancing on that on that border with this one, you know. So,

Evangelicals kind of embraced Kanye in this period. Some were obviously skeptical based on him being a black person and his in his general past, but overall a lot a lot of people were happy to have kind of to use him as a token figure almost um Kanye in in a In a Guardian piece titled Kanye West is spreading the Gospel of white evangelicals, Malika Habali writes, quote, like other black conservatives, the rapper and designer down plays

racism while promoting bootstrap virtue signaling while signifying black cultural and religious traditions. His album is peppered with samples of Black church staples like James Cleveland's God Is West advances

the gospel of white evangelicals. Although he has challenged conventions in nearly every aspect of his artistic life, Kanye West has been born again as a conservative, and that that whole article is a really good piece kind of going into how how specifically he's the type of thing he's engaging with is distinct from like the Black church tradition, and it's just like Joel Osteen shiit alut and then the hill all exactly exactly do you cover Hill? Are we gonna talk about Hill Song at all? I don't

have anything of Hill Song in this script. The script is already too long. It might it might need to be a two parter at this point. Will probably do Hill Song on bTB at some point. Hill Song was a big part of my childhood. Yea is a big part of the whole fascism. It's yeah, I really feel like I really feel like just as just secular, just just the idea of just like secular, like academia. Anybody

who studies culture. I feel like the effects of something like a hill song is always siloed into this like study of religion, you know what I mean, This is just this state, but like really the cultural societal impact global like of something like a hill song stretches so far past just a theological or religious thing. I think. I don't think people really understand like the influence something

like a hill song would have. And just like any other thing, it's like, you know, a sward in there, mess cool people there, you know what I'm saying, go on me, you know what I mean. There's some stuff that I was just like, all right, yeah, y'all weird those but you know, but generally it's like I mean, yeah, like you just be DMX went to Hillsong, New York, you know what I'm saying. Like, so this the type of influence over so much of the even just pop music.

It's like you'll understand like like top you know, number of Top forty pop songs were actually written by their worship band, like just stuff like that. Like that, the effects of something like a hill song, I feel like,

is grossly under under reported and underrated. Another interesting note um the University of Virginia professor Ashton Crawley wrote for NPR and saying, quote, Kanye West has used the concept of salvation to disallow thoughtful engagement with his politics because I think it's an interesting sidebar to kind of everything we've talked about, especially with his with his more evangelical

stuff coming directly after his Trump stuff. UM. Now, obviously I don't know what's going on inside Kanye's head, nor can I judge his sincerity of faith, but I can certainly see the business aspect of brownding yourself as basically the first like extremely mainstream Christian rap artist in twenty nineteen, I can totally I can see from a business perspective what happened in with his politics. I can I can see how this may have been a gamble that he took.

Um so throughout after his Sunday service can of era, Kanye was kind of running for president, but like not really. It mostly seems to be a publicity thing. Um. His campaign obviously did not result in him becoming naming president, but it did result in his wife divorcing him in favor of Pete Davidson. Uh. The most notable aspect of his campaign is in July, at a rally in North Charleston, South Carolina, Kanye broke down into here is as he as he claimed that him and his wife had discussed

aboarding their first child. UM. This allegedly at his wife mortified and quote deeply worried over Kanye's mental state, which eventually led to their divorce. Kanye continued and continues to focus on abortion. UM, but he continued to talk about that throughout his quote unquote campaign and in interviews. UM. Later that September, he said that God revealed to him, quote the black genocide that is abortion. Um. God revealed that to him. Is this the same line? Yeah, I'll

say this. I don't have a lot of nice things or a lot to say at all about Kim Kardashian, But one of the first thing I thought back when he got institutionalized during his mental health outbreak is like, oh, people actually care about him, Like he actually has people in his life who love him and are making him seek help. UM, which a lot of very famous people who have you know, psychotic episodes and stuff don't don't

have that. Right. No one around them is willing to be critical enough to be like, you need help, right, now, yeah, it does seem like she really tried to help. Yeah, it's crazy to think that, like like on you on our like bingo card, that the adult in the room was going to be Kim Kardashian. Yeah, he would have not predicted that, you know her, her actions in the marriage make sense to me. Yeah. So with all of that context, this finally leads us to our main topic

of discussion. We haven't got there yet. Recent actions cove and s leaked to white supremacy and anti Semitism. So this most recent circus started at the beginning of October during Paris Fashion Week, where Kanye literally hand in hand with far right media personality kendas Owen's debuted his new line of T shirts while wearing a long sleeve that

read White Lives Matter. Now this is this The slogan is obviously response to blm UM, but the more formal like White Lives Matter movement is is like an explicitly neo Nazi group tied to the area in resistance society, the National Socialist movement and the loyal white nights of the Ku Klux Kan. So it's like the the actual group is explicitly like Nazis, but obviously the slogan is not it's easy to coup with the slogan white Lives matter, Like it's not like that's not like where did he

get that from? Like? Come on? So Kanye's promotion of the slogan was obviously celebrated by many neo fascist online celebrities. Nick Fuentez of America first forwarded the post, saying that quote anti white racism and white Lives matter are now mainstream. This is an unambiguous win. Um and then A. Tucker was very quick to do a segment on his show where he wondered what the T shirt was really about.

Days ago, during Action Week in Paris, West, accompanied by his friend Candice Owens, unveiled a T shirt that read simply white Lives Matter. The response from the fashion industry in international media was instantaneous and uniform shock, horror rage. There was no excuse for this, thundered The New York Times. West is legitimizing extremism, shrieked Rolling Stone, etcetera, etcetera. What was strikingly missing from the coverage, whoever, was any explanation

for why West did this? What was the T shirt about? No one seemed to think to ask him, much less to listen to what he had to say. Instead, the enemies of his ideas dismissed West, as they have for years, as mentally ill, too crazy to take seriously. Look away, ignore him. He's a mental patient. There's nothing to see here. I don't know who's who's to say, who who's to say? Really surprised all the all Lives Matter people weren't in

such an uproar about that. Yeah. The next Monday, Kanye wrote on Instagram, quote everyone knows that Black Lives Matter was a scam. Now it's over your welcome unquote. This is this is this is right. This is like direct Candace Owen's ship in a way that will explain later.

Um but so, a few days after Kanye and models for his new uh Easy lineup don the White Lives Matter t shirts at Paris Fashion Week, he himself made an appearance, um to quote Rolling Stone on the show Where White Lives Matter the Most, Tucker Carlson's Fox News show, Tuck Across It Tonight. Honestly, solid, solid turn of phrase. Yeah, that's that's a good way to write that. Good. Thank thank you, comrade rolling Stone. So you made reference to the white Lives Matter T shirt she brought out at

Paris Fashion Week. Why did you do that? And what did it mean? You know, I did I do certain things from a feeling. I like, I just I just channeled the energy. It just feels right. It's using a gut instinct, a connection with God and just brilliance. You know, because if you ask, like Tanya Harding how she did the triple flip or the triple spin, she was in so much practice that when it was time for her to skate in a in a competitive format, it just happened.

Like it happened outside of practice, that happened in the real format. And that's what happened. That's what's happening. Is God is like preparing us for the real for the real battles, and we are we are in a battle with the media, like the majority of the media has a godless agenda. Oh that's a brilliant so uh. In the cliff, he talks about this idea coming to him as like a feeling. Um. This is basically the same explanation that he gave for wearing the Mega hat. It's

like a spontaneous gut instinct or feeling. The spontaneous decision to make model and sell over priced printed T shirts that about like wearing a kilt. I remember for one of the records, he said he had that feeling over that he was going to do it in Chicago because he wanted to set young black man free. So he's gonna wear a kilt. Uh. He also said when he was going to run for president that it just happened in the shower and he just started laughing and he

was like, I'm gonnaround for president. I'm gonna be the president. I don't like not believe him that these exact like come this way like exactly, Like, yeah, that probably, but it's it's funny to frame the decision to like do these very planned out things as just a single, like gut gut moment of spontaneous instinct, because making and producing

T shirts takes like it's like a process. And he talked about as if he decided to do this like right before going on stage at Paris Fashion Week, which like, no, like this was like a decision that you made and you then took steps to execute um. So in then in that section of the interview, Kanye did go on to dismiss the assertion that his behavior is a result

of any mental health issues. Um. Then, in a segment talking about Lizzo and body positivity, Tucker and Kanye had this exchange referencing body weight being demonic and a part of quote, black genocide. It's actually clinically unhealthy and for people to owe to promote that. Um, it's said it's demonic. You know what would I ask you? I've noticed this? Also, why do you think they would want to promote unhealthiness among the population. It's a genocide of the black race.

They want to kill us in any way they can. Kanye then goes on to talk about like abortion also being black genocide, which he has been talking a lot about in the past few weeks. Um, Yeah, that Lizzo clip, Like, man, it's that was like just like I mean like I can only wait, I can only think of like vulgar phrases to describe it where it's just like it just it just kicked me in my balls, dude, like we're

already on the ground. Just that's what if it's just felt like a ball stomp or it's just like you don't have to come on, man, you're a you're down, bad bro. Like, really, I got nothing, man, Like, why are you going to I'm gonna like, it's exhausting. Yeah, that's what I'm trying to say. It's exhausting. Were just like, yeah, all of all of the coverage is exhausting, and feeding in and like, the feeding into it as media spectacle only encourages this type of like unhealthy behavior and it

does not help. Like it it doesn't help to be a regular person on social media having like strangers interact with you in a weird way, let alone, if if you're one of the most famous people in the world, like,

it's it's not it's not healthy. I'm going to quote from New Republic, and this is kind of about his White Lives Matter shirt and his initial Tucker Carlson appearance quote little more than a troll, another tiresome and mediocre provocation to stirrup attention by using a contrarian slogan that until now was mostly associated with far right white supremacists. West has in recent years made more waves with his efforts to trigger the libs than he has with his music.

White Lives Matters is still gonna associated with hate groups, but he got what he sought attention and amplification from Republicans and right wing media, West earned to sit down with Fox News on Tucker Carlson Tonight to talk about his boy Trump and the response he has received his overall negaification. Carlson was hardly alone and celebrating West for not only rejecting Black Lives matter, but promoting the same sense of white grievance and victimization that he has trumpeted

on his Fox News program for years. The Republican House Judiciary Committee Twitter account spent hours slabbing over the interview, taking a victory lap of sorts for It's a new generation of edge Lords and the A tweet from the the Judiciary gop account is still up that just reads Kanye period elon period Trump period, which my god, if that's the state of the of the Republican Party, like

this your king yah ah. So at first, Kanye appeared to relish in the T shirt controversy, writing on Instagram that my one T shirt took all the attention. After the T shirt incident, Adidas said that they were placing

its lucrative sneaker deal under review. The previous month, Kanye exited his deal with the Gap, and you know several contemporaries of Kanye did push back on this ship that he was pulling um, including a rapper Sean Diddy Combs who Can, who condemned the design in a video on Instagram and said, don't wear the shirt, don't buy the shirt, don't play with the shirt. This is not a joke. Um. And what happened next took things to a new level

of grotesqueness. West spent the next few days spewing anti Semitic vitriol online, first on on Instagram, where Kanye posted screenshots from a private message exchange between him and Combs where he suggested that Combs was being controlled by Jewish people, saying, I'm gonna use you as an example to show the Jewish people that told you to call me that no one can threaten or influence me. So obviously not great, playing at being influenced by yes bye bye, like by

fossil fuel billionaires essentially. Um, but yeah, obviously not playing not great, playing right into the kind of ideas that Jewish people like control into the entertainment industry and like have direct influence on what people say, you know, basic

anti Semitism stuff. Um. So soon after this, his Instagram account was suspended, and then after he was locked out of his account, Kandie decided to re join Twitter dot com after a two year hiatus, and it was welcomed back by Elon Musk saying well, welcome back friend um. Minutes minutes later, minutes after elon is welcoming of Elon of of of minutes minutes later after after Elon's welcoming of of of Kanye West, Cannie tweeted, I'm a bit sleepy tonight, which is a weird way to open this tweet.

By the way, I'm a bit sleepy tonight. Okay, but what but when I wake up, I'm going death con three on Jewish people, Jewish jew Jewish people in all caps. The funny thing is is that I can't actually be anti Semitic because black people are actually jew Also, you guys, I don't say the whole word jewey. That was a

that was a TV joke. That wasn't Garrison being You guys have twyted with me and tried to black ball anyone who are whoever opposes your agenda, with the follow up tweet saying, who do you think created cancel culture? Which so that's also Okay, I I do want to stop at that. That is a much deeper Nazi reference than you might guess. There's a called the culture of Critique.

There was a deep understanding among the gi Nazis back in the twenties and thirties that literary criticism that like the idea of sort of cultural criticism, that these were all Jewish plots in order to like, you know, it's actually similar to a lot of what the rights is today, in order to like make white people feel bad and shamed about their culture um Nazis. Today, there's a book called a culture of the Culture of Critique or a culture of Critique that's about the same thing. This is

actually a really deep idea. And Robert, are you saying that the cultural Marxists at the Frankfurt School invented political correctness to undermine Western civilization? Now I'm saying that, yes, But I'm also saying in a deeper sense that the Jews invented the concept of feeling bad about bad things in order to make white people feel bad about conquering the world, which was the original. That's that's that's the

o G ship. Before we water this ship down, before before it becomes cultural Marxism back when it's good old fashioned cultural Bolshevism. Yes, cultur So that's the one version. Yeah, yeah, exactly, that's the that's the I don't know the iPhone, you know what I'm saying. You want you want a BlackBerry racism? Yeah,

that's right. So this is basically a lot of like textbook anti semitism um mixed in with some black Hebrew Israelite shit um about you know, being the true chosen people of God, kind of akin to like the if people listen to the show, they'll they might be familiar with like the Nazi Christian identity idea of white Christians being the real Israelites. Here, Yeah, it started, so we get the start of black Israelism in the Northeast into

the Midwest. I think it's Kansas and New York City are two of the big early cities in the eighteen nineties, and it's like it's number one anti Semitic from the start. An awful lot of it is based around like a hatred of Jewish people, um. But it's also this like idea that there's X number thirteen lost is tribes of Israel and then the black people are the lost tribes of Israel, and so there would be mixes of like taking actual elements of like Hebrew religious worship and uh

mixing them in with kind of weirder stuff. Anyway, it's it's it's has a long history. It is concentrated. Like the part of this like if you have ever spent time in like New York, like Philly or whatever, you have run into black israel Lites on the street like there, it's it's a thing that you will encounter. Um, there's not a ton of them. I think most essens like twenty or thirty thousand, but they're they're very vocal. Yeah. The phrase now with like most of the Hebrew reals lights.

It's like the two children in Israel are the black Latino and this so called Native American or this. Yeah, so it's this this idea and here's where here's where it gets tantalizing and complicated in I'm saying this as a black man. You know, is you open your Bible and at the back of every bible got a map, and you're looking at it and you're going, well, is where the ship take place? Right? So you're like, well, how come y'all only teaching us about Europeans. You only

talking about every painting got these white people. Everybody. You're just like, no, this don't this ship don't make sense, this can't be it. And then I'm getting I'm getting deep cuts here. It's like you. And then you get into the Book of Acts, where it's supposed to be

the Bible, like where the gospel spreads. And the first time they leave, the first time they leave Israel is Stephen meeting in Ethiopian, just meeting the Ethiopian Unich, and the Ethiopian goes to where where was Moses when Moses? Others back in the Exitus story, where was Moses? Where did Moses go when he fled? When he fled Egypt,

he went to Midian, he went to Ethiopia. So you're like, this ship took place in Africa, right, and at the time, we you still believe like the Sinai Peninsula as North Africa, you know, so you're like, these are brown skin people. Why is your narrative and everything you tell me about

white people? So if you still believe, if you were still sort of like in all of the story and the person thislike this subversive you know, socialist, you know, anti imperialistic, ampi, anti empire character of Jesus that you know you're Arab and Muslim friends still understand as as you know, as he says like a person, then you're like, yo, we might be talking about the same man here, and

he was as brown as us. So and if you're like and if you're like the God, you're like, dude, the gospel with South we hit, we hit in Ethiopia, there's accident the first Christian city, like at some point you like, the ship didn't go north until four years later.

So you you just draw this conclusion that like, if you're gonna box me out, my only response, if you're gonna box me out of all of the clear history that took place among brown skinned people, then I'm gonna be like, I have no choice but to be like, well, fuck y'all, not a true Israel over here. And if you read again, if you you can't not possibly be black and read the book of Exodus and be like, well, ship, that's us. You know what I'm saying. You can't like,

how do you not see it? You know? So so it's it's so alluring, especially again when you go to the when the white pass are talking about like, well, your poverty is your choice, and hey, well you know, and your reform Calvinist person was like, well that was the Lord's divine will. You were you know, you were divinely ordained, you know, to be suffering people. And at least at least you got the Gospel because you were

a slave. Maybe God was solving. You're like, fuck that that can't possibly be to God I'm reading about in this book, you know, so you're like, Okay, well I guess you know what I'm saying. And then it's like I'm I'm I'm ranting on this because I feel like like it's especially for this audience to really understand that context. You this this street in a lot of ways, like it became like this street religion. It gives these young

men dignity, you know what I'm saying. You're you're offering them a sense of history and importance and dignity and and and order that we you usually just get from the streets. You know what I'm saying. It's not happening in the Sunday school because at church that's just oh black, that's just old women singing these hymns in the big hats, it's like I'm not getting that sort of like that that masculine hit, if you will, you know what I'm saying.

So like this a lot of this faith like it really it attracts young men because it's like it's like we it's like we needed that order, We needed somebody to like come and like be a little more military about us. But then tied this longer history. Because if the only history you hear about yourself is your oppression for somebody to be like, no, you've chosen people to God, you're gonna be like, well, hell yeah, you know. And

then again, I can't stress this enough. Part of this is in reaction to what white evangelical did by trying to erase brown people from the history. You know what I'm saying. It's like I'm I can't. I'm like, that's clear he clearly your picture is Michael Angelo's booth thing of of that's that's an Italian man like that can't

possibly be the dude in these books, you know. So you like, I mean he was Jesus was black, Like I would like you just that's your only conclusion, and you like and these people are saying, yeah, you're right, absolutely, and you're like, well, well, shoot, I'll rock with y'all, you know, and it's it's it's definitely unclear what the extent of Kanye's belief and stuff around black Israelite type

stuff is. He's still has a lot of the evangelical type stuff going on and what he's saying, so he could have just picked up these types of things from cultural osmosis. We'll hear a little bit more about what he has to say about this in the next episode, but we're gonna have to I'm gonna have to call it there. That's going to be a day and join us after the weekend for a special special part two on on on the Feed talking about more of the same,

more of the same thing, but getting slightly worse. Um. And it turns out when you get kicked out Twitter that that doesn't stop you from saying bad things. You just start saying that other places. Um. So anyway, yeah, that's that. I very impressed, Garrison. 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.