On The Ground In LA - podcast episode cover

On The Ground In LA

Jun 12, 202535 min
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Episode description

James talks to Robert about the LA protests after spending Monday night on the ground in DTLA covering the protests and police response.

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Transcript

Speaker 1

Alzon Media.

Speaker 2

I ain't coming that a big one. Are welcome back to it could happen here. A podcast that was originally about the theoretical possibility of mass civil conflict and coming militarized authoritarian regime and is now about the reality of that happening to different communities at different speeds all around the country, and right now Los Angeles is where we're

focused on. Yeah, as you've probably heard from the news or from the episode we did earlier this week, Los Angeles, California has been in a state of what the President declared insurrection, what most people would declare fairly small protests based on the overall size of the city, topping out at maybe four to six thousand people on Sunday, and the President is called a National Guard, He's called in the Marines, and we called in James Stout to head

up to Los Angeles and look at the scene. James, that's right, Yeah, me the alternative to the United States Marine Corps. Yeah, So I've just got back from LA I was there on Monday night, obviously covering the protests.

Speaker 3

I got there mid morning, I guess, but at that point the SEIU were having a rally. Yeah, the rally was for the release of David Huerta, who was released on bail. I believe after that, like not while the rally was going on, and from there, like I basically sort of started walking around downtown La. I guess there was this really weird kind of phenomenon where you'd like go down to a place and you'd see one hundred people shouting cops, fed troops, or some combination of the three.

Speaker 2

Right.

Speaker 3

Pretty often around the Federal building, it's weird. At the front entrance, like where the entrance was, you had like a initial presence of like the front line were National Guard with maybe it looked like it was maybe like NCOs or something. You had loaded service weapons, and then other soldiers had shields in it and like old school wooden button sticks, right, just just a long long ass stick.

Basically around the other side you had LAPD at the front and National Guard behind them, and then across the street from that you had California Highway Patrol and their riot squad. And then in another location, I think it was at City Hall, you had La Sheriff's so literally every agency that can claim any jurisdiction.

Speaker 2

Right.

Speaker 3

There was also a DHSRPF FPS, Like literally literally every every federal and local agency that could send cops sent cops. It wouldn't surprise me to hear that there were more than a thousand cops, Like maybe it was hundreds, But it was hard to get a handle on because every street you went down, every corner you turned, you ran into another wall of cops right of ten or fifteen

cars behind them. They were constantly driving around until you know, I stayed until about two in the morning, and it's protest obviously, like as I'll explain later, kind of escalated, I guess, and there's police violence escalated. In the evening, you'd see these convoys of cop cars just hauling ass through downtown periodically every hour or so, like running lights and sirens, like a dozen or so cop cars just

booking it through downtown. Yeah, so it's very hard to get a sense of like who they are, what they

were doing. They closed all the freeway entrances and exits, which like I took the I took a train up trying to be a mass transit enjoyer, and it made it a fucking nightmare to get anywhere, right, Yeah, that makes sense, Like anyone who lives or works in downtown LA will have experienced this already, but like it's and then throughout the fuck in the evening, right, you've got people coming up to you being like, Hey, I live

in little Tokyo. I can't get back because there's a wall of cops and they keep throwing tea, gescalades, any suggestions.

Speaker 2

Yeah, I can't get home.

Speaker 3

Yeah, like an unfortunately, like you know, not much we can suggest. And then on top of that, because it's southern California, you know the United States, really people who can't afford a place to live asleeping on the street and they're getting TS two and they're getting flashbag too.

I remember like we were up by LAPDHQ at one point and I seen this guy sleeping on a bench and the cops were pushing up the street and I was just trying to sort of take a position where I could take a photograph, you know, and I saw him sleeping and I was like, oh, should I wait, wake this guy? You know, I don't want him to get a nasty surprise and wake up to a wall

of robocops. And at that point the cops opened up with whatever they were shooting at that time, forty milimeter, thirty seven millimeter.

Speaker 2

Yeah, most of what I've heard is a mix of pepper balls and yeah forty milimeter yeah, yeah, grenades and rubber rounds, some foam, Yeah, some foam.

Speaker 3

I found some Safari Land thirty seven milimeter foam casings on the ground.

Speaker 2

Oh nice. Yeah, and yeah, mostly what it was.

Speaker 3

You know, LAPD have those green forty milimeters launchers with the eotex on top, and that was what.

Speaker 2

Yeah, it looks down the barrel of a few times.

Speaker 3

And so if the evening went on right, you'd get larger groups and they'd become like, you know, more vocal, I guess in their protesting. At one point, people having like a street dance party. Occasionally people would would throw a firework or set off a firework, and then sporadically and like without really any clear kind of signal, at some point clearly the whole area was declared an lawful assembly.

I'm guessing it's very hard to actually hear when they're saying stuff on the l RAD unless it's directly like

pointed at you. But I heard some signed kind of olt rad an awful assembly announcement at some point, and yeah, periodically you'd come around a three corner and be like one hundred, one hundred and fifty two hundred people protesting right and then the cops would toss a flashbang or a tear gas, loose off a few rounds, push thirty yards and then stop and then do that again ten, fifteen, twenty thirty minutes later, and they keep doing that, and

then they push people back past these various buildings which had cops like stationed in place like on the parapet of the building or on the courtyard outside, who would then also fire at them. So the protest never really got a chance to centralize. People didn't really get a chance to centralize in one place. And you know, like to have a sense of how many numbers of protesters there were was hard because every torny you turned, there were.

Speaker 2

More people and there were more cops. So like it was a bit broken apart.

Speaker 3

And I think that was the goal of the policing operation right to flood the city, was cops to shut it all down, to make it hard to get there, yep, and make it hard to gather there.

Speaker 2

I still don't get the sense, and this is what it sounds like from what You've said that most of what is being done effectively is not the National Guard and certainly not the Marines. It's the federal and local police and their game plan here is they assuming things calmed out in Los Angeles, which is probably the safe

bet right now. Every time they get over a certain threshold of protesters a couple of hundred one thousand or so in a city, you know, do the same thing, right, like deploy the military national or federalized the National Guard, get him out there, right, Like that's that's where they're headed.

Speaker 3

Yeah, I think so, Like I don't know if LA will back down, to be clear, Like La is a city of what like like four million people.

Speaker 2

And eighteen nineteen million in the greater Los Angeles metro area.

Speaker 3

Yeah, Like it's uh, I know right, Like I had these I had good conversations with a lot of people who are out there protesting. I want to go to to ad like it is that we were really well received by everyone, which was nice. Like it wasn't the same crowd as folks I've seen in twenty twenty, Like no one was in black block, right of course, and then it was very young people and like a number

of the approached. I was for a time. I was with Charles McBride and like some other oh yeah yeah colleagues and friends, like people have known fet years, right, we cover the same kind of shit. And people would come up to us and just be like, hey, it's

good that you guys are here. Thank you for staying here after we got fucking tear guests, like people should understand that what's happening, Like the unprompted people would would come and say thank you, which was nice, you know, and like we didn't really face any any hostility for

being there. But people when I spoke to them, like there was a lot of a lot of people I spoke to were very young, and they would say that they were the citizen kid of parents who either were you know, like permanent residents or visa holders or you know, they're veryous. I'm sure if some of them had undocumented parents.

I can't remember speaking to anyone who said that, but I'm sure that given the numbers of people and the number of times I heard like, I'm the citizen child, so I should be here showing up for my family and my community.

Speaker 2

Right, yeah, that makes sense.

Speaker 3

Yeah, And like it's gonna be hard to back those people down because they were fucking angry. Yeah, a real palpable sense of like fuck you was like very present throughout.

Speaker 2

People were also afraid.

Speaker 3

It's not people who are necessarily used to this, right, and like you said, the police response is an overwhelming.

Speaker 2

Use of violence, right, indiscriminately shooting it people from what what's the what's the furthest distance you were seeing them fire at people from.

Speaker 3

I mean I probably saw them taking one hundred meter shots, I'm guessing, like.

Speaker 2

Which is very long range for this sort of stuff.

Speaker 3

Yeah, I mean so at one point, when we've got pushed back past the LAPDHQ there, they had the whole sort of front face of it, and they led off a bunch of shots towards myself and some others. I just sort of got down behind some cover there and started filming. And then there was a group of young people who were in one of those kind of classic LA three corner open quad more things.

Speaker 2

Yeah.

Speaker 3

So they're basically in a in a U shaped container, right with only one way in and one way out, and right there's glass stores around it like that, you know, there's all the shopping bits people go shopping and there's pill in the middle, and the cops are just unloading from a distance of maybe one hundred meters from labd HQ. I think into these people who are effectively like in a like fish in a barrel. Right, they're in a container where they is the only way I was the

direction the cops shooting from. There was a small outlet on the other side, which eventually they were able to take. That meant they had to cross across like a four lane road while being shot at by the cops. And the cops just kept shooting at them there like it

wasn't like they shot a couple of times. They clearly shot, reloaded, shot, reloaded, and I was filming from the other side, but you could see these projectiles whacking out like reinforced glass in the front of these businesses at head height, not breaking the glass and falling on the ground, punching a hole straight through. You know, they get coming with serious force

even at that distance. And like those people weren't presenting a threat twenty one right, they had retreated into that building after the cops shot their first volley, and the cubs just kept shooting at them.

Speaker 2

I saw a lot of that throughout the.

Speaker 3

Night, Like it didn't seem like, you know, anyone was like okay, now it's a time for you guys to fire, you know, like they just just sporadic shots throughout the evening.

Speaker 2

Yeah. Well, we're gonna continue talking about what's going on in Los Angeles and what we think is going to happen next. But first, here's some ads fuck and we're back. So, if you read like the manuals these people are supposed to follow, how they're supposed to utilize the riot control weapons that they use, there's a couple of things that you see. One of them is that they're supposed to be like a bladder of escalation before which they start

utilizing force a range. And the other is that there's certain ways they're supposed to use these munitions, like, for example, you're not supposed to shoot people with rubber bullets. You're supposed to bounce them off of the ground and into

people because otherwise they're not really less than lethal. Yeah. Yeah, we're seeing a lot of cases of people who've had at least several that I can count, I think three of people having surgically removed different like rubber and foam rounds, and it doesn't look like they're abiding by kind of any of the rules by which, per their own documentation, they're supposed to practice, right, I mean, yeah, that's what I saw.

Speaker 3

Some of them even have eotechs like on their launches, which I don't know why you'd want an eotech if

you were skipping it off the ground. I don't know, maybe there's a different rounds they're using, but like, yeah, yeah, the overwhelming what I saw was just like zero to one hundred, right, Like they push, they'd throw a ta gass or a flash bang, and then you just hear like pop pop pop pop pop pop pop. Yeahs, a bunch of them unloaded and like raising the forty milimeters launcher to his shoulder and pointing it to someone two feet away.

Speaker 2

Like I saw a lot of that.

Speaker 3

Yeah, you know, we'd be going down these streets trying to find a different angle, trying to find where we could stand and do our jobs as press right and come around the corner and just just get a forty milimeters pointed at you. I didn't see any skipping shit off the ground. Yeah, I did see businesses getting their windows punched out by things that the police were shooting at people like.

Speaker 2

Yeah, which I'm sure we're one getting blamed on protesters. Yeah, yeah, exactly right.

Speaker 3

I mean I saw CNN last night was picking up fucking phone button rounds and being like these are what they're throwing at the cops, Like yeah, it just remarkable. I mean I did see LASD and National Guard with rifles with magazines in the maguel and you know they had a round chamber doesn't matter, does it.

Speaker 2

No, you're a second away from chambering around, right, exactly.

Speaker 3

Yeah, the IDF carries with an empty chamber and it hasn't stopped them a whole lot of people, has it. The presence of lethal force was closer than I've seen before. Yeah, Like I'm familiar with seeing overwatch at these things, Right, someone would what you would colloquially referred to as a

sniper on a rooftop. But it's not overwatching if you're just in the back of a pickup truck with an M four right, look at an unmagnified optic, like you're not You're not over watching shit, you just have lethal force right there. And I saw that a number of times, right from the National Guard and then la SD. They did the whole l rad like go home. It's been declared an awful assembly thing. But then there wasn't that kind of scaled use of force that like you say, is supposed.

Speaker 2

To be there.

Speaker 3

There wasn't really much in the way of like we're going to start shooting now, and like, of course that means that if you're an unhused person, if you've arrived, if you're if you're a local person just trying to get home, it's very possible you can just walk past and get tear gas. Like at one point, right they were opening up, and like I'd been looking for a excuse of bathroom for a while because fucking southern California, right, like there are no public bathrooms, yes.

Speaker 2

Which is you know, increasingly every major city. He was an issue. People got, people get arrested by the fence for like being on federal property in Portland. Great when like there was really nowhere else to go.

Speaker 3

Yeah, yeah, exactly, and like some some kindly local guy invited us into his building and asked that, you know, let us use the bathroom. But yeah, then we stepped out and suddenly we're like confronted by cops again, Like you know, I could have been someone who was there just going to have to get a slice of pizza. Yeah, the force was like sporadic and unpredictable throughout the evening.

And then as were these convoys of vehicles that would just come hauling ass through downtown right obviously not you know, stopping at red lights, et cetera.

Speaker 2

It was weird.

Speaker 3

Sometimes a green light would happen, so the cars would start going like and then this cop convoy would come and some of them would turn right, and some of them would assume the cars would stop and go straight on. And so you had the situation where the cops were nearly hitting each other and it just like it seemed utterly chaotic, and I don't know what they were doing

other than driving around a high speed for fun. Once they did manage to kettle some groups of people right like they again folks maybe who haven't been at these events before will not be familiar with the way these things work. But like the police would move in from both sides and then suddenly you're like, oh shit, there's nowhere to go. And then I did and put up in a school bus to take presuably to detain those people and take them to process them. But yeah, the

tactics were like, I mean, it's their cops. Is what you expect that you know, we've both been doing this for a while. You expect them to use those weapons in the way they can inflict the most damage and harm to people, And unfortunately, like that does seem to be happening again.

Speaker 2

Yeah, well, in terms of where things are right now, yeah, you know, Gavin Newsom is trying to thread the needle. It looks like between letting the LAPD do whatever they and he, to be fair, I don't think he has any issue with people getting fucked up with right nations what to do well, also not seeding responsibility for security of his state to the federal government, which has been an interesting line for him to walk.

Speaker 3

Yeah, I mean his stance seems to be like the LAPD can fuck up these kids, just fine, we don't need your help, yes.

Speaker 2

Which I mean they literally can. Like I will say, yeah, that's not incorrect, right, I'm not talking at a moral level. I'm just saying like, yes, the LAPD has sufficient force for the protests that have been that have existed.

Speaker 3

Yeah, I mean the LAPD then the first Nights who were caught off guard.

Speaker 2

I think right, and so was ICE, And there was a lot of debate about because like you know, LAPD not coming in initially to support ICE when they got surrounded, like and that's those are the kind of things you get when the authorities are taken off balance. But if the numbers don't keep increasing, you know, and they have to increase pretty exponentially as they move in, you know, federal agents in the National Guard and mobilize the whole police force in a city like LA, then this situation

becomes basically impossible for protesters to regain the initiative. And I don't know if i'd say it's impossible right now, but unless there's some sort of like massive sea changes, what's happening that does seem kind of like where things are going to go. And to be clear, here we're talking about primarily Compton Paramount some protests, and then downtown Los Angeles some protests. There's a handful of city blocks

and one of the largest metro areas in the entire country. Yeah, this is not Los Angeles all collapsed.

Speaker 3

You know. Yeah, it's not like the rights to occurred after Rudney.

Speaker 2

King, right, right, right, not even a little bit.

Speaker 3

Yeah, no yet right like, yeah, I mean people are pissed off obviously, like and maybe that you know, you'll get that sort of thing you had important right where more people came as the protest continued, and there's more and more FEDS turned up, Like there were people who might not have showed up at first just being like upset at the presence of FEDS in this. I don't know, but yeah, it seems like right now that their move is to flood the city. I mean, crazy volumes of

cops shouting all the exits on the one ten today. Yeah, National Guard, like the National Guide folks were mostly around the Federal building from what I saw, but like just a huge volume of cobs and no particular plan other than a vast number of police and I guess you know, massive detentions, massive use of right at munitions, massive use

of violence to dissuade protest. But then I've seen like obviously it's interesting, right like, and I'm sure you've experienced this, Robert, Like you can be like nose to the grindstone in a conflict zone or at a protest and other clue what's happening, and I have to go on a Twitter or a Blue sky to work out what the fuck's going on, right, you.

Speaker 2

Can tell kind of what's happening in front of you, and even then you sometimes see something or you're looking left and the thing happens on the right, and you get three different stories about what happened totally.

Speaker 3

And so like, you know, you know, we found out David Twist had been released when me I sent a message saying that, like right, and then likewise, folks for finding out that they're protests in other areas of the country, which you know is always I think gives a little morale boost. And yeah, so like there's a chance I'm seeing more and more I sort of big protest in New York tonight. They can't deploy the Marines everywhere. I mean, right there there are a lot of marines, but not that many.

Speaker 1

I know.

Speaker 3

It's in one sense, like and I know that this is maybe a strange opinion or stance or what have you, but like, in a sense, it gives me hope to see these things like at a protest or you know, like a big action like that, Like I always feel kind of very cared for and in a strange way because like the only thing that matters is taking care of each other, right, and trying trying not to get hurt, and then for folks who are in the street to try and remain there, right, And like it's quite a

like you have this kind of disaster community, right, the same thing that you sometimes find in conflict zones or after natural disasters, and like, right, it's always beautiful to see that, right, Like you know, I'm vegan and I could not find any fucking vegan food for a while, and like people were bringing me snacks and I thought that was really sweet, and like, you know, I saw people taking care of strangers when they got tear gass, or taking care of strangers when they get shot, or

like just folks who have bought snacks and like wanted to give them to one house people who were there, right. So all that stuff is just a reminder that like you know, like actually, you know, if you were consuming this thorugh of fucking New York Times, right, you'd think that people were looting and burning the city. And like, I didn't see anyone to steal shit. I did see people take care of one another. Yeah, and that's a

beautiful thing. And you know, maybe people need to be in the streets to find one another right now, because you know, every every year, people it gets harder to go outside and easier to stay on the internet.

Speaker 2

Right, people get more adomized.

Speaker 3

Yeah, and like it was cool to see like young Mexican folks, young Salvadorean folks, uateateml and you know, people have different extractions who are now Americans and in addition obviously to their i think identities and backgrounds showing up and then like young black folks showing up with them and being like yeah, you know, like fuck the police, and like it was cool to see maybe folks who are a little bit more liberal, like I definitely had

folks who are like, oh, we're not here for the riot. We're just here for the peaceful protest in so much as you know, and no one wants to get shot in the face with a forty millimeter, right, no one.

Speaker 2

No one's there to it, No, absolutely not.

Speaker 3

And so it's cool to see those people making those connections. And we need to make those connections now, right, We need to talk to people and talk to each other. I didn't see people beefing with each other. I didn't really see the like optics police, right, if you were again if you were consuming this on the fucking Blue Guy, which can be intolerably libs sometimes, like seeing people being like, you know, because I personally disagree with the optics of

this one person's decision, the whole protest is therefore flawed. Yeah, the whole protest as fun and let's just let I steal their fucking children. Like, yeah, people will let people be and and deal with the consequences their own actions instead of being condescending.

Speaker 2

Now, and I mean, I'm looking at Twitter right now where half of the comments are about someone who drove through a crowd in LA and people either this is what happens when America gets fed up? Or what other option did he have? You know, you're getting a mix of that sort of thing. Yeah, shit, are people okay? Like I'm not aware of any like serious injuries or fatalities, certainly, but yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3

That was the other weird thing, Like vehicles throughout the means LA everyone's driving all the time, but there were vehicles like constantly just moving through.

Speaker 2

Yep.

Speaker 3

Yeah, it's LA raising people coming out to do their donuts stuff. But like it is a risk, like if someone we've shared a cob bomb, bro, But yeah, oh yeah, we sure did. I've seen a few car bombs. It always freaks me out. We need a big crowd like that. And then you've got these cars around like the potential for vehicular violence.

Speaker 2

Yeah, it's not great.

Speaker 3

Yeah again, Right, we have the quote unquote public safety forces deployed in massive numbers, and no one's no one's stopping that.

Speaker 2

No. And you know, also just a note to people, the only realistic way to stop cars in this situation is with a barrier made of other cars. Right, is you block off the route of march with vehicles. There's no other realistic tool at your disposal as somebody who's a part of a protest to stop a full ass vehicle. We're going to talk a little bit more with a couple of updates from the ground and then close out. But first here's our last but ads.

Speaker 1

Oh not forgot.

Speaker 2

Yes it's gonna be no not not not say no, baby's gonna been taken away like not no. That's so we're back in James. While you were leaving, the Mayor of Los Angeles declared a curfew in place from eight pm to six a m. For the one ten to the west I five to the east. Uh yeah, one ten to south, I five and one ten to north. This is from the public safety alert texted out to people in Los Angeles. So people are allowed to travel to and from work, to seek or to give emergency care.

EMS people are exempt. No one else is exempt as far as i'm a but yeah, that's that's the situation. So part of why Mayor Karen bass Is issued a curfew is that it gives the police extra kind of freedom to take people into custody. Right yeah, Oh, credential media are exempt. Yeah, that's what I was told. Yeah, people to and from work, credential media, emergency and medical personnel, law enforcement are the limited exemptions. So that's that's what we've got going on right now. Yeah.

Speaker 3

And if you are at there working as a journalists, like it's important to carry your press pass right oh yeah, yeah, we'll stop you from getting shot with impact munitions because they've done that to a lot of people.

Speaker 2

Yeah yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3

Yeah, And like you know, I had a large blue press badge on my plate carrier like I always do, and like, yeah, it's not doesn't.

Speaker 2

Make you bulletproof.

Speaker 3

Now, yeah, there's a curfew tonight, which, like you say, just gives them the means to use more coercive force and to charge people more harshly. They'll continue doing that helicopter shit, right, They had probably four or five helicopters.

Speaker 2

They really love putting them out in LA and especially now that they got the military.

Speaker 3

Yeah, and then it had a real kind of blade run a vibe to be in this like dark city at night with these helicopter circling spotlighting people from above, and like little fires happening across the city and then occasional clouds of like spicy air floating towards you. I have seen some speculation that they were using some kind of other chemical irritant instead of tear gas. I think that the most likely explanation is just they were using tear gas that was older.

Speaker 2

Yeah, it tastes different when it's older. The shit the FEDS US is often different from the shit state or local police use, Like yeah, you know, you get different sort of mixes. But I'm not aware, like it's I'm certain it's just tear gas, right, Yeah, Yeah, I think it's just a bit different.

Speaker 3

Different variants in ages of tear gas, and sometimes they take on different appearances too, and they weren't really fogging the tear gas, not that I saw. They were just tossing, tossing out the grenades. You didn't get that like wall of tear gas that you guys are familiar with in Portland. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but it took on like the protest effectic, Like I didn't see as many people with half masks or hard

hats or goggles any event stuff. So like, yeah, and in one sense, people it's it's great to see people coming out and like engating their right to protest. Yeah, and coming from where they are, as they are showing up to show out for something.

Speaker 2

Leaving work or whatever. Yeah, yeah, it makes me worried for them.

Speaker 3

Yeah, Like you know, I'm there around the block a few times, and I'm worried if people are going to get fucked up.

Speaker 2

So, yeah, it's curfew tonight. It's curfew tonight. There's still marine numbers are still at around seven hundred. There's about four thousand National Guard troops, so the number of military deployed significantly outnumbers demonstrators at this point. Mayer care and Bass has stated that or or sorry. The Pentagon has stated that it's costing about one hundred and thirty four million dollars this deployment, so esus man, Yeah, it's it's it's like i'd say, it's it's not a pointless escalation.

The point of the escalation is that they want to keep using the military, right, Yeah, definitely.

Speaker 3

Yeah, and to sort of establish a precedent that domestic unrest can be dealt with by the military, which, to be clear, like by my reading, it's completely in contradiction of the constitution. Yeah, but a lot of things that are in constitution of the constitution happen, especially with policing all the fucking time, right, Like, yeah, Like it is important not to normalize this again, Like you don't have to be like a blue head ANTIFA to be like

this is fucked up. And I think I definitely spoke to a few people, like folks who have come out of church and stuff and just like, yeah, we had they had sent the Marines here, so we just came on down because that's not okay, and that's good to see. Yeah, And like those are conversations that people who are invested in not living in a country where your first memorizes don't matter anymore because you can get shot by an eighteen year old marine who hasn't had the time to

really morally and ethically consider that decision. Yeah, like it's important to have those talks with people now because like it is very concerning. Yeah, you know, you and I have attended a few civil wars. I don't want to be like this country spinning towards civil wars that you know, I think we have a long way from that.

Speaker 2

I mean, when the President stands in front of a bunch of enlisted men at Fort Bragg and talks about how they're using the military to restore order to an American city that's been invaded, there's no longer an argument that those comparisons are an escalation or exaggeration, right, like yeah, hyperbolic, like yeah, like we're in the ship right now, folks.

Speaker 3

Yeah, man, Like, show me a thing that Asad wouldn't have said today, right, right, right? And what you don't have is an actual insurrection going on. What you don't have is anyone actually fighting the government. You have people who are like angry and yelling and some folks who throw through rocks. You do not have a militant uprising against federal power. They're just kind of acting like it. Yeah, like if you have an insurrection in this country. This

country has a shit ton of guns. You all know if there's an insurrection, because people will be using them.

Speaker 2

Like that's not happening.

Speaker 3

Yeah, it's young people in the street waving flags and shouting and like saying fuck the police. Is a constitutionally protected right in this country, Like, yes it is. You should not get hurt for exercising your first amendment right right, Yeah, man, Like I'm I'm proud of all those people who showed up. I'm proud of them for taking care of each other. Yeah, And I hope that they they stay there, and I hope that they you know, as they stay there, they become more more astute.

Speaker 2

Yeah, they learned some stuff.

Speaker 3

I saw a lot of running two hundred yards away from the cops in a very straight line, straight down a straight street.

Speaker 2

Yeah, Like, which is not not the move right, Like you want to be? You want to be. I'm up, he sees me, I'm down. Yeah. Serpentine, serpentine, you do the worm, That's that's how you get him. Yeah. There is some polling out early polling. This is from g Elliot Morris, formerly of five point thirty eight but conducted June tenth by you Gov of four thy three hundred

and nine adults. Do you approve a disapprove of deploying National Guard soldiers to the Los Angeles area to respond to protests over the federal government's immigration enforcement Thirty eight percent of food approved, forty five percent disapprove, and nineteen percent are not sure. Do you approve or disapprove of deploying marines to the Los Angeles area? Thirty four percent approve,

forty seven percent disapprove, nineteen percent not sure. So you know, these aren't popular measures, although they're also not as unpopular as you would hope.

Speaker 3

Yeah, that's that's not great. I'd like to see you more. I mean, yeah, you got Tom Cotton doing is for getting to Wall Street. You're on the Washington postped right, sent in the troops for real?

Speaker 2

This time? Was that? I thought that was the times time I think I forget exactly.

Speaker 3

Yeah, somewhat indistinguishable these days quickly in net OpEd pages, you're right, robate was at times No, No, that's a twenty twenty OpEd twenty five op edwards in the Wall Streets Choir, he.

Speaker 2

Got a new one.

Speaker 3

Okay, yeah, he wrote in twenty twenty rubber he wrote send in the Troops. In twenty twenty five, he wrote send in the troops Comma for.

Speaker 2

Real, for real? Okay, Well he got it, yep, Yeah, I mean he got what he wanted. Well done.

Speaker 3

Ranger Tom, guy who lied about being an army ranger.

Speaker 2

Yes, not a ranger, Tom, Yeah, not a ranger Tom. Yeah.

Speaker 3

I mean you see this in the UK a lot. I'm very familiar with this kind of also the powers. Yeah, maybe that's a good place for us to end. If you were in the US military or the National Guard, if you were someone you love is in the military of the National Guard. Now it's a good time to read up about Bloody Sunday, Yeah, happened in Ireland. And now is a good time to look at what's currently happening, what has been happening to those soldiers, because it took

a long time for those people to stand trial. And it's not officers who were standing trial, right, it's soldiers. It's paratroopers in this case, because those are always going to be the fingers on the trigger, right. Yeah, And so you know, no one, no one knows which direction history is moving in. But like things don't feel morally right.

You know, there are things that the DII writes hotline, but I think people should be aware what happens when countries use their militaries to oppress protest and what has happened to some of the soldiers who have been ordered to do that.

Speaker 2

Yeah, well look up Bloody Sunday, folks. Maybe we'll cover that in the not too distant future, because yeah, that's just going to get more relevant. Don't listen to you two if you can avoid it, but just look it up. Yeah, avoid you two, not the song Sunday or Bloody Sunday. But yeah, all right, everybody, Well this has been It Could Happen here. We will be back tomorrow. We'll see if Gavin Newsom has been arrested yet. All right, thanks James, Yeah, thanks for that's an episode by.

Speaker 1

It Could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website Coolzonmedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can now find sources for It Could Happen Here listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening,

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