Happy earth Day. And by happy earth Day, I mean the Earth is dying and people are killing it. Yeah, welcome, welcome. Did it happened here the Earth Day episode?
Now now, now, quick question me? What is Earth?
So?
The Earth is one of many, many, many planets in the universe. It was, it was, it's cagealed rock. There's some like melty ship in the middle of it. But on the outside there's a part of it that's nice to live on, and it'd be nice to continue to have it be that.
Ah. Okay, that's this is different than what I had been raised to believe. But but but i'll i'll humor you here, please continue.
Yes, and so okay, we were going to be talking today about on one of the many attempts to destroy the Earth. And also Garrison this year too.
Hello, yes, hi, I'm I'm I'm here also for the Earth for the Earth.
Yeah.
Yeah. And this is a special episode featuring a bombing, so it ah, I love a good bombing. Yeah, this is very exciting. Actually, tally speaking, it's two bombs. So it is near midnight on July tenth, nineteen eighty five, the crew of the Green peace boat Rainbow Warrior, which is docked in the harbor of Auckland, which is New Zealand's largest city. A thing that I learned Robb researching this episode.
Wait, really, that's the New Zealand's largest city.
Yeah, yeah, there's not. There's not a lot in New Zealand other than Hobbits and that one show about vampires.
A lot of cheese too that they make, make a lot of make a lot of milk. So they Yeah, the greenpiest boat is. It's docked in this harbor. Most of the crew is asleep or some of them are playing cards, and they are They are relaxing after having celebrated the birthday of one of their crews. Suddenly, a massive shock rips through the boat. Water starts flooding into
the ship. The lights go out, and the crew thinks they've been hit by a tug boat by accident that lasts a couple of minutes until a second explosion hits the boat.
Mister President, a second explosion has hit the boat.
Nine to eleven joke, Yes, very excellent, good work.
So the crew the light like the people fleeing nine to eleven. The crew flees the boat, but they realize that their photographer, a guy named Fernando Perieira is missing, and peri Era like hasn't quite realized that the boat is like under attack, and so he runs back to his cabin to grab his camera, and then the second explosion hits and the boat sinks so fast that he never has a chance to get back up and he
drowns to death. And the crew very quickly realizes that this is not an accident, and rescue divers discovered there are massive there's like massive holes in the ship from where it's been blown up from the outside, and they eventually determined that this boat, which is again a green piece boat that is doing non violence of with dis obedience, has been sunk by limpet mines.
Oh boy, oh, I love a good limp at mine. I'm so happy that we're getting limp at in this episode.
Yeah, yeah, we're getting We're getting limpet mines. We're getting there'll be some special Forces boats later or I say boats is one boat, but yeah, we're gonna we're going through all of the sort of naval combat plates here. Excellent, but this raises the question who would commit such an act of terrorism on the I can't actually say on the soil of New Zealand because it's technically in the water of New Zealand.
In the waters of New Zealand.
Yeah yeah, yeah, off the coast of New Zealand. Sure, yeah, we get it.
Yeah. But okay, So to answer this question, we need to talk about the anti nuclear movements. And you know, there's been a kind of rewriting of history about what the anti nuclear movement was actually about to basically like sort of purely focused on the anti nuclear movement as something it's just about nuclear power, but that was never true.
The movement was always way more larger than that, and a huge part of it was about opposing nuclear weapons, both in terms of like opposing nuclear tests and in terms of fighting for nuclear disarmament on the fairly simple principle that having weapons that can kill everyone on Earth around is a bad idea.
Well, I mean, the bad idea if you don't want to destroy the entire Earth.
But yeah, that's true.
Yeah, if you want to destroy the Earth, that's a pretty good idea.
Actually, unfortunately, I'm on a living kick right now, so I'm now destroying everything on Earth.
Yeah, it's it's good that you can admit your bias upfront though.
That's y Yeah, this is a very important thing in journalism.
Yeah.
So you know, okay, so when we were talking bit about nuclear testing, because it doesn't it doesn't happen anymore nuclear testing. Okay, So we used to just like detonate nuclear bombs like in the air.
Damn right, your goddamn right, we did.
Yeah, And it turns out this this kills enormous numbers of people. But the problem is that it kills them very slowly with increased cancer rates, which is very difficult to sort of track or like prove direct causality. And you know, this is aided by the fact that when countries are nuclear testing, they are almost always killing people.
Well they're almost always dropping this the yukes on indigenous land, which means that they're killing people who are the government and most of the countries just like does not care about. And you know, you can you can literally map colonialism and sort of the value that a given like a given state placed on people's lives by where they tested nuclear weapons. So, for example, the US tested nuclear bombs and places like the Bikinia Toll, the Marshall Islands, a
former tribal land in Nevada in New Mexico, and in Hatesburg, Mississippi. Okay, so Jesus ribs, all those are bad except except Mississippi. No, no, that was also bad because I guess, get guess, get guess what race the population of Hatesville, Mississippi was. Okay, all right, yeah, they got paid ten dollars to get real located quote unquote, yeah, this is this is this is not a white it's not a white city. They are blowing up with a nuclear bomb.
Not like it's not like a gated community for white men in their fifties or something.
No.
No, no. The only good nuclear testing we did was back in the day when they used to set off nukes right outside of Vegas and so all of the Vegas people would watch the nukes go off and then get irradiated. That was that was kind of funny. Yeah.
Also they also were radiated the area fifty one people one time, and that was also extremely fun.
They sure did. And there was that like guy, I think it was uranium. There was like one of the dudes who was on the Manhattan Project. There was this like dude who there was like an accident and he just sucked down a bunch of nuclear fuel and they had to like he could never work in a lab again after that, and he every for like decades afterwards. His breath tested positive for like radioactivity, but he loved to be like eighty something like it didn't it doesn't
seem to have heard him. He said it tasted kind of like like sour candy.
Okay, so he's tasted there forbidden nuclear water. Yeah, no one else has to. Now we know what it tastes like.
Yeah, oh oh yeah. Donald Donald Mastik was he was sprayed in the face with liquid plutonium chloride and swallowed some. But apparently that's fine, So there you go. Everybody drinks some plutonium, you'll live a long life.
So the US, I guess, I guess also tests it on their nuclear scientists. But yeah, so that those were the US. The USSR testa nukes and Kazakhstan, which there's an amazing story about Barria going where there's nobody. Nobody lives in this part. Nobody lives in Kazakstan, so we'll be fine.
Mm hmm.
It's like, okay, Baria, people, in fact you live there. China tests this nukes on a site called lop Nor, which is in shing John because of course it is, and the French do their test in the Sahara in Algeria until the Algerian Revolution forces them out, which good for them, death of betrayers, the Algerian Workers' councils, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But this means that the French now no longer being able to bomb like thesessions in
Algae area. Yeah, they they they start testing the nuclear weapons on particularly the Moreau. I don't know how to pronounce this summarily sorry, what is a toll in the in the south the South Pacific?
Yeah, I mean that sounds close enough.
Yeah, sure, Yeah, And so they they start these tests like in secret. So there are there are people on islands nearby who don't know that Theo's nukes going off, Like they don't even have bomb shelters. Right, it's really allowed these days.
Anybody notice how loud it's gotten here.
Yeah, it's like, you know, you could see the fucking mushroom cloud right Like these people, you know, the French military sciences are like, oh, it's fine, They're not going to be in the fall out. They're unbelievably in the fallout radius.
If anyone ever tells you you're not in a fallout radius. That's your first sign that you are, in fact in a fallout radius.
Yeah, it's never it's never a great it's never a great sign. I don't think that's happening.
I don't think anyone has ever assured a group of people that they're not going to be exposed to radiation and been telling the truth.
Here's the thing. Here's the thing. If if they had merely gone to these people and said you're not going to be exposed to radiation, it would have been better, because then then at least it would have had a chance. They just didn't tell these people at all. They were testing a news sure, they just blew it up great, and so they detonate like they detonate nukes all over Polynesia. In Actually a few years ago, there was a there was a thing called the Moreau Files, which was a
bunch of investigative journalist Scots together. They got a bunch of classified French military documents. They did they got some scientists together, and they did a whole thing about you know, the sort of influence that the effects of this nuclear testing has. And I'm just going to read from that quote.
According to our calculations based on a scientific reassessment of the doses received, approximately one hundred and ten thousand people were infected, almost the entire Polynesian population at the time time. Good god, so they radiated like the entire population of Polynesia. This is this is great.
So I mean that's not ideal. That's not ideal. I'll give them that.
And Okay, so I obviously nuclear testing has negative effects on humans. I feel like I don't need to explain how nuclear testing has Dropping a nuclear bomb on a place has a negative effect on the environment, that seems sure. Are you sure?
Pretty obvious? I think we're all more or less caught up on nuking things being bad for them, except well, except for underwater aquatic lizards, which seem to do really well when exposed to nuclear tests.
Yeah they look, they can. They have atomic breath.
Now they've got absolutely yeah, big big. They get to star in a movie with a surprising number of members of the cast of Simpsons. Yeah, it's it's all, it's all upsee. Oh and that Ferris Buehler I think was in it. So that's pretty good. Yeah, did these people get to star in a movie with Ferris bueller, No.
They died of radiation poisons.
Yeah, that's unfortunate. That's unfortunate.
Yeah, and so these tests and some other tests of the US are doing. The Marshall Islands are the origin of Green Piece. So there there have been environmental groups like the Sierra Club have been involved in anti nuclear activism because again, bad, bad for the environment, dropping dukes. But okay, so the activism that the Sierra Club people are doing is based on bearing witness, and the Green Piece people rightly are like, fuck bury witness. They are
dropping nuclear bombs. We are going to try to stop these bastards.
The way you can beat a bad guy with the nuclear bomb is a good guy with the nuclear bomb. I'm introducing a new initiative to arm all Green Peace members. Okay, the personal, personal tactical nuke no da crocket.
This is this is I am not kidding. France's rationale for why they have nukes, which is that the thing is literally called like this like the weak deterring the strong or something. And it's like, ma'am, you are France, Like come on, okay, yeah, sure, France is acting for the protection of the week against the strong.
It's like, oh, my I mean, look, I would, if I had the option, I would keep a nuke in my basement, you know, just in case, Yeah, someone someone comes to my house. You know, we've got I've got the option then, right, like what what if? Because like right now, okay, say Pakistan decides to try to rob my house. I don't have a counter to their nuclear arsenal. But if I keep you know, and I'm not even talking about like six to ten megatons in my basement,
that's enough, I think to discourage aggression. Right or if like my neighbor decides to call the city on me, you know, I've got an option.
There's a problem with this plan, which to how are you getting the nuke from your apartment to Pakistan?
Well, I mean it's if they come to my house, right, that way I can I can nuke all of my stuff so they won't want it, and that way they won't rob me in the first place.
Right, This this makes about as much sense as actual nuclear actual nuclear doctrine. Yeah, it's it's worked.
For decades, miya, Like, I don't know what your problem is here. If it if it's worked for for all of these great powers, you know it can work for me. Or I could do what the British do and send you know, some of my some of my people out. I could send James or Garrison out underwater with a nuclear weapon and just have them always waiting in the sea to nuke my adversaries if somebody takes me out, much like the British nuclear fleet. See, we we as a.
U when race are really good at coming up with good ideas. We have our ideas. Our ideas are amazing, they rock. We never have any bad ones.
It is funny that there's just like some guys who are expected to like follow a dead man's orders at the end of the world for unclear reasons. Like there's just a letter and it's like, if all of your loved ones die, open this letter and do whatever it says. You are really funny when you think about them.
Yeah, so okay, So in the late sixties and EARI seventy there's people who are like, this is a terrible idea, we should not, in fact drop nuclear bombs. And these groups in the late sixties become green Peace in nineteen nineteen seventy two.
Okay, great for them, good for them.
Yeah, all right, so we've talked about the like the French having to move the nuclear program into into the Pacific. After being read out of Algeria, green Peace starts doing direct actions against French nuclear testing mm hm and so so. In nineteen seventy two, Dave mctagger's, one of the founders of Greenpeace, sails his boat into a French nuclear testing area. Now, okay, I I I have my issues sort of in principle with like nonviolence as you're like pure organizing political principle.
But if you are willing to sail your boat under a nuclear bomb to stop it from going off, that is that is pretty based.
Yeah, man, I have trouble. I have trouble like coming up with any any any critiques of that.
No, this rips and like the other thing is like, you know, this isn't This isn't a stunt, right, like they are they are actually prepared to get nuked.
Yeah, No, that's that seems like a pretty commitment.
Yeah, that it's it's sick. And so they refuse to leave and the French, the French Navy eventually gets so pissed off that a French Navy ship rams their boat like a fucking try ream in.
Where to get them alone.
So they're they're forced out because they're rammed by a triream I of us. We've all been there, so sometimes sometimes you just get you just get rammed. I don't know, it happens so true. So they they green Peace tries to go to the International Court of Justice to get a ruling to force France to stop the testing, and the French government steaks out what I I I claim is like the primary status political principle, which is that what is justice to a man holding a gun? And
they just absolutely ignore the International Court of Justice. So they in ninety seventy four, they're trying to do another set of nuclear tests and this time, you know, so green Peace is like, okay, well we're gonna we're gonna send like a flotilla of boats out this time.
Did you just say a flotilla?
Yeah? Is that a word? Yeah?
Yeah, Yeah, that's a group of boats.
Scarce, that's like a that's like a murder of crows thing.
No, yeah, but it's a very common name for a bunch of boats.
I've never I've never heard that before.
Now you have flotilla, Yeah. L Ron Hubbard had a flotilla of boats that he made Teenager's pilot and jump off of when he was angry at them.
You know, I was thinking about this. I think this is actually the first flotilla of boats that we've had on any of our shows that.
Is good, that's not that's not commanded by l Ron Hubbard.
Yeah, or like the Moodies, it's a it's a whole it's a whole sort of line of bad. But this is this is a good flotilla. But the Navy this time is like, Okay, we're not going to mess around with these people, like and you know, let them get inside the testing zone.
Uh.
They so they just bored mctabart's ship and just beat the shit out of him and his crew. And so the the the French Navy claims that like, oh, the Green Peace people just like turned around on their own, and uh, mctiggert, you know, Tiger's like very badly visibly hurt.
So he like shows up to the press and the French Navy goes, oh, I mean he's like mctiger is like he is he he is, but blind in one eye for several months, like he is very very badly beaten, and the French Navy claims that was actually the result of a fall, which I will allow you to draw your own conclusions. Adure. Yeah, I'll I'll let you draw your own conclusions. But parallels between the state and domestic abusers.
But yeah, Unfortunately for the French Navy, the green Peace crew have managed to like get the beatings on camera, and they're able to smuggle like the film canister off the boat and get it to the newspapers, and so the newspapers the next day just have a bunch of like pictures showing the French Navy just beating the shit out of these like random green piece people, and this
eventually actually works. Right, there's there's there's sort of there's I mean, there's there's a sort of political pressure campaign that Greenpeace is waging. There are these there are these campaigns in the French courts to get the government to stop, and eventually, in nineteen seventy four, the French government agrees to stop conducting atmospheric tests and nuclear weapons. Now, Robert, do you know who else stopped conducting atmospheric testing after
years of public pressure campaigns? The US and the USSR, Yes, but also the products and services.
Oh that supports this podcast. Yeah, no, I meant most of them. Most of them. Ah, we're back, and you know that I'm hearing now that we did have an ad from Blue Apron in there, who does continue like low earth orbit atmospheric nuclear weapons testing. But you know, it's the only way to get your food boxes to
you in a timely manner. They have to use the Orian drive, which is a special spacecraft engine that relies on popping nuclear weapons out of the back of a spaceship and using them to accelerate it to near light speed. It's actually that's a you can look that up. It's a pretty cool idea. We should do it.
It is very funny to me that it's like, Okay, we have this incredibly convoluted drive that's powered by nuclear weapons and it gets you to around the speed of light.
Maybe it's it's not even convoluted. It's literally just the spaceship poops out of nuke and it makes it go faster. Yeah, it's a fun idea. I'm gonna be honest with you. I think it's a fun idea.
Is but like it can't even get you to like the next Solar System very fast.
Well, nothing probably ever can, which is why we're all doomed to die alone in the dark.
Yeah, very sad. Other thing that's sad, Okay, So the French government agrees to stop doing tests in the atmosphere, right, however, this is just atmospheric tests. I never agreed to stop doing like non atmospheric tests. So in nineteen eighty five, the French government is gearing up to do another round of nuclear testing, and green Peace is once again bringing
a flotilla to try to stop them. Now green Peace are already in nineteen eighty five, they've been involved in another anti nuclear well okay, really it's this, it's all the same anti nuclear campaign. But so the other people who are dropping nukes in the Pacific are the US. And when they they nuke the Marshall Islands, the people of this island called Runga Lap began suffering from radiation exposure, even though they were also once again told by the
American government that they were fine. And so the US is going to drop another nuke and they refuse to evacuate these people, and so green Peace like brings their boats, like brings the Rainbow Warrior, and so these people ask like green Peace for help. So green Peace like evacuates them all to another island and like brings like construction materials and supply so they can like set up on
a new island. And it's this really I don't know, it's it's a really sort of grim look into what, you know, like what this nucrot has that actually means, which is that a bunch of people who've been living in a place for hundreds of years are forced to flee for their lives, like you know, the state won't the state won't even like ethnically cleanse them, right, like they are forcibly relocated from their homes, but the state won't even do it because the state's like, no, it's fine,
you're just gonna die radiation poisoning. And so they have to get someone else to like move them, and it's, I don't know, it's really bleak. These people survive, which is good, but the US doing neucrotesting in the Marshall Islands, which I'm betting at least forty percent of you don't
know of the US control. Yeah, it sucks, so okay, So they get done with this evacuation, they're back in Auckland and then their flagship they're able to Worrior gets bombed, and Greenpeace talks later about how they actually got really lucky because you know, when I remember when I said earlier, there are people who were still awake, like playing cards. If those people had been in their cabins, a bunch of them basically would have drowned immediately because the cabins
got flooded instantly by the first bomb. So they got very lucky. Only one person died. I to this day, I do not understand why the people who did this thought they could do this without killing anyone. It's baffling to me. I don't know. At least they claim they weren't trying to kill anyone. So New Zealand police start investigating. You know, hey, there's been a like a terrorist attack on a boat in our harbor.
Sure, and that seems like a thing you'd look into. Yeah, I get that.
They get very, very lucky. And they get lucky because there are two people in this boating club who are like watching the harbor trying to see if it like trying to catch someone who's been stealing diving equipment. And in the middle of the night they see a man in a black wetsuit carrying a Zodiac inflatable speedboat ashore and get into a fan. Now, okay, so it's including me which bottle of Zodiac? This is for people not
familiar with boats. Zodiac makes something called the mill Pro, which is a a like it's an inflatable speedboat that is used by like most of the world's special forces units. And so these two guys are like, this is really sketchy. They and so they they're you know, they put two and two together when they realize that a boat's been blown up, and they're like, oh my god, it was
probably these guys. So they go to the police and they're able to get the license plate of the van, and so the staff at this like van depot have to like sit there and like stall the two people in the van and keep them from leaving long enough for the cops to show up with something. I really really desperately want a video of this just sounds really funny.
I do love the idea of like the average people who work at like a car rental company being asked like, hey, could you do like a little bit of counter terrorism for us today? Just like a sco SHIVI it in between denying people rentals because they don't have a credit card.
It's amazing and okay, So that the cops show up and they arrest these this couple who are claiming to be newly weds, but the New Zealand government quickly discovers that both these people have forged passports from Sweden, and so they discover their real names. And uh, by god, is that the mercies? That is a man with Get it is the French c I A. They have planted this bomb and there's the French.
Ci A called hold on, because we can't just say the French c I A.
It's the Directorate General for External Security or the g s E. That's a much worse much Definitely.
We're gonna we're gonna go back to calling it the French.
Yeah, I'm gonna read the secret police. I think we can all agree. Secret police need to have three letter acrons C I A, g R, U, F B I. Like, it just doesn't work with four. You need to have one kind of sinister sounding name, like the maccabaat but like the DGS. Oh my, I'm sorry that sounds like a bank. Yeah, I mean it is, the it's the Direction General.
Get it. Daggs absolutely trash.
You have been you have been suppressing people for so long, and you don't have a better secret police name than that. That's shameful.
Yeah. By the way, their address A six.
That's a great fucking name for your secret name.
Good, incredible or.
Am I five whatever the real one is.
Yeah. Anyways, if you if you ever want to go like take a visit to these people, they're at their headquarters is on one forty one Boulevard Mortier, Paris, France. It's at forty eight eighty seven forty four north to four oh six seven. Elude.
I don't need to go back to France. Yeah, go fuck with the DGSSE. I'm not that big a It's fine.
So they catch these agents whose names are I shit, you not Gene Camas and Jean Luke Kisstaire.
No, yeah, that makes sense.
No, So the police catch these two, there's like ten to other well, there's like eight other people involved. Two of them get I think like maybe two one or two of them get caught in Australia. But the Australian police aren't able to hold them long enough for the forensic evidence to come in, so they have to release them and they flee and there's this whole thing where like they flee at a yacht and then again on a submarine and the submarine shoots the yacht to sink it.
As it's a whole thing, and I actually, okay, it probably is worth mentioning here that as as as silly as the French CIA's name sound name sounds like, they have one of the most extensive networks of surveillance, the sabotage of any intelligence agency in the world. It never gets talked about, but they have people everywhere. They are lethal.
They absolutely suck. But yeah, so they get caught and the French order an investigation, and their first investigation concludes that like, well, we asked, well, okay, so these people are our spies, right, but we just asked them the spy on green Peace. We didn't ask them to do a bombing. And everyone's like okay, yeah, sure, French government. So the French yeah yeah, well no, okay, so you you you may have caught two of our spies dragging
a Zodiac boat. Well with a guy, a guy at a website dragged zodiac boat into a van, but doesn't mean he did the bombing. And the French media does their own investigation and like quickly concludes that like not not only did the French order the bombing, the bombing was personally signed off on by French Defensive Minister Charles Herdu and also quite possibly French President Frenchois Mitterrand.
And well, okay, at least Mitaarran's got a good name for an evil president.
Yeah, well, this is interesting, right because if you know your French history, for tho those of you who know your French history, you will note that Midiarran is a man to the French left. He's the prime minister, he's the president from the from France's Socialist party.
Right.
He has like, okay, he has a program of amnesty for Italian communist terrorists. Were like, if you're able to make it to France, they won't extradut you.
That's pretty cool.
The communists would never have a new killer bomb.
So it's very famously on Antonio Negri, who's the guy who writes a bunch of books that are very famous in the early two thousands, he's like, he's one of the founders of the Autonomists. He flees to he uses this to flee to France after the Italian government accused him of being the mastermind of the Red Brigades, who had just kidnapped and killed for more Prime Minister Alden Morrow.
So Negrid gets himself parliamentary immunity by getting elected as an MP and then flees to France, which is just very funny, and then Metaran refuses to extra d item. So okay. So on the one that you would think that midiran And is like, I don't know, kind of cool I.
I don't, I don't think so, I don't.
Yeah, so Miniran I okay. So in terms of sort of being sympathetic, Midran is like a is a kind of different kind of neoliberal than the kind that we that we sort of know. So I would classify in terms of sort of neoliberal like neoliberal politicians right, like neoliberal heads of countries. I think there's sort of like three kinds of them. There are sort of the right
wing hardliners people like Thatcher, like Pinochet and Reagan. The Reagan's weirdly, Reagan is slightly less hardline than like Thatcher is. But yeah, so okay, so there's no there's those people. There's the sort of like third way neoliberals like Clinton, and Tony Blair, who are like I guess like liberals in the American sense, but are still sort of like
real hardliners on economics. And then there's a group of people I would call like the the quote unquote socialist neoliberals, like Midrans and Italy's longtime Socialist Party prime minister Betino, Like I don't know if I can actually call him the most corrupt man in Italian politics, but like he's like at least in the top five, but he's prime minister for like twenty years, and he's also like this, So these are these are people who are nominally socialist
and we'll talk about like doing socialism, but then are also like implementing neoliberalism. And you know, I think the closest thing to this in the US is like if Carter had beaten Reagan, we still would have gotten neoliberalism, but it would have been sort of like softer than it was under Reagan. So you know, you have your sort of kinder, gentular form of neoliberalism. And do you know who else advocates for a kinder, ingentular form of neoliberalism?
Oh not Blue Apron No, they support going right back to the old days. We're talking like East India Trading Company. In fact, as we speak, Blue Aprons flotilla is on the coast of India right now, ready ready to try their hand at making another raj in Calcutta.
I wish you could all see Garrison's face.
It's amazing, It's fine, it's fine.
Ah, we're back.
So all right. The consequence of this is that, you know, despite the fact that Midaran is like nominally a socialist, he is completely committed to nuclear testing as part of his nuclear deterrence program.
Funny funny, How that funny? How that always happens?
Yeah, you know. Now, supporting colonialism is not out of character for veteran who is part of a previous coalition government in the fifties had presided over the guillotining of Algerian rebels. But his his reaction to his government and possibly also him personally bombing the Rainbow Warrior is not good. Yeah, that's nice to hear, at least not a not a
great look, buddy. Yeah. So so, because French people are extremely normal, the reaction in the French public about their government carrying out a terrorist attack is that there's a giant nationalist upswell, and people get really angry because they're demanding that the two French intelligence agents who again are serving ten year manslaughter sentences in New Zealand for bombing a ship involved in non violent civil disobedience in the harbor of a country that France is not at war with.
People are mad that they are like being held in prison and they're demanding they be released.
That makes sense from like the French nationalists sides.
It's the French far right.
They're pretty pretty far right, like like again like they lots like lots of just like non far right people in France get involved in this, and they had this whole thing about the way they talk about it is amazing that they talk about it in terms of liberating them. It's like they just murdered a guy with a bomb, like the multiple but they used two bines to blow this ship up. Like And so the Minigan's government's response is they start putting sanctions on New Zealand's exports.
That's funny, that's funny.
And this is this is a huge deal for New Zealand because there they have a you know, New Zealand's economy is like in large part in agricultural based export economy, and they export just an enormous amount of cheese to France.
I did not know that.
Yeah, well, so I New Zealand is like one of the words leading dairy producers.
Yeah.
I thought they mostly just made those like elfin Dwarf and Wizard movies.
But oh yeah, I mean they do make a lot of money producing limbus cakes, which which can keep you going for an entire week.
You know, I'm realizing, I'm realizing now I'm not gared. Do you know the story of how of how New Zealand was like dragged into supporting the Iraq war and sending troops to a rock? No, okay, okay, I need to tell the stories. I'm realizing there's some of our listeners who might not have heard this a lot time I told the story. Okay, So in the Wiki leaks papers,
it comes out that New Zealand. New Zealand sent troops to a rock because so New Zealand had had a milk for oil program where they would trade milk to a rock for oil, and the US threatened that after the after they invaded a Rock, they were going to cut off the milk for oil deal. And this was
this was like Fonterra. They're like the giant, Like milk Cooperative in in New Zealand was so powerful, and the New Zealand government was like, fine, don't don't don't cut off our dairy, our milk for oil program, we will go to war. So yet New ze New Zealand. New Zealand did not go to war from oil. And New Zealand went to war for the milk market.
And and that's why we called it a coalition of the willing yep. New Zealand is a truly a cursive place. And and you know, and the it is. I don't think New Zealand's the cursed one, and that is true.
But they also like, this is the this is the second time that New Zealand is going to capitulate to like through the demands of a violating perialists in order to save their cheese market.
I mean, that's that's like a fair criticism of New Zealand. But as an American, I do feel like I don't really have much room to like talk shit on this particular.
It is our fault that this is happening.
Yeah, I just am not gonna blame New Zealand for this, Okay, that's fair.
That's fair. I will kind of blame them for this one. This is also France's fault. So what what they're able to do is they're able to well, okay partially also so like eight of the other people who are involved in this bombing like are just got out free, and so New Zealand is like, hey, will you guys like send us these people so we can try them in fact like no, absolutely not, in fact, we will impost
sanctions on you. And what they're able to do is they're able to force New Zealand to like enter youn arbitration even though again they've already arrested and convicted these two guys right because they obviously did it, and the un and typical un fashion goes okay, So France is powerful and New Zealand isn't, so fuck them, and they negotiate a deal where like these two French officers are gonna be like released and stationed in this like tiny
island at the French control for three years. And so the French doesn't they don't even do that. They pull these guys out in less than two years. So New Zealand is doesn't. It doesn't go great I mean, I don't know. I say it doesn't go great for them in the short term, they suffer a series of catastrophic defeats.
In the mid term. The French eventually get ordered to pay eight point one million dollars to Greenpeace, who use the money to make another boat called a Rable Warrior two and continue to like sale fleets to stop French nuclear testing. And I'm gonna I'm gonna read some green Peace's website quote. In nineteen ninety five, the Rainbow Warrior two was bordered by French com as it led further
protests against nuclear testing Amia Toll. When green Peace activists were asked for their names, they only gave one, Fernando Perieira, which is the name of the guy who the French had killed earlier. So they have their I'm Spartacus moments, and you know, eventually it takes a very very long time, but they win. In nineteen ninety six, France and China do like one last nuclear test and then signed the
Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Indian and Pakistan do a pair test each in nineteen eighty nine, but since then no country has tested a nuclear weapon except North Korea who does it all the time. But you know, I don't know what Greenpeace is supposed to do about North Korea testing nuclear weapons.
Yeah, I mean, look, you can't and it is I will say this, like from a real politique point of view, you know, there's an argument to be made that, like, yeah, the the kind of balance of nuclear power certainly provides a degree of protection to some countries. But my argument would be not having tested your weapons makes them more frightening. If you're France and you're like, look, man, anyone who tests us. We don't know what's gonna happen when we
fire these things. We don't know if they're going to go to the right place. We have no idea what will happen when we fire our nukes. So come on and fuck with us, but literally anything could happen. That just seems like a better threat to me.
I'm not going to advocate that one, but.
I think that's the stance. I think that's the stance. You know, build increasingly large weapons and never test them so that we just know if shit goes down, we could all die.
You know, Okay, well it doesn't it doesn't involve nuclear testing. So I'm coming around to this.
Position, never never test them. Just build increasingly large doomsday devices and be like, no one knows what'll happen if we have a war. Why not, maybe none of them work. We all get to really think about what we've been doing, you know.
I in all seriously though, this is a massive victory. There are there are millions upon millions of people across the world, and millions of people who have yet to be born who are going to live their lives free of the effect of radiation poisoning because people stood up and fought nuclear testing.
Yeah, and you know.
This is the message that I want to sort of end Earth Day with with, which is the people who are destroying this world are incredibly powerful, and they are willing to kill protesters in order to keep their power and keep made me the world further. But if you just keep fighting them, no matter what that throw you, if you just every every single time they hit you, if you just come back and keep fighting them again, you can win. And this is this is the way that it happens.
All right. Well, that's that's a good that's a nice that's a nice note to end on. So everybody get out there.
And getting nuked once and then everything's fine.
Yeah.
Yeah, get nuked once and you'll be okay. Like that science to drink the plutonium. It's surprisingly easy to not die when you get exposed to unbelievable quantities of radiation. That seems like a responsible note to end on.
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