Thinking of doing a Korean perm.
Okay, I'll bite. What's a Korean perm?
I don't know. It's just a berm, Like, it's just a berm. It's just like I think, you know, Korean women are like allergic to having the hair that they were born with, which is straight, and so am I and I want to mix it up and I think that in my heart of heart, I am like a curly haired person. Does that make sense? Like I know, I feel like curl is like fun. There's like fun, you know, like.
These Japanese people that gets dreadlocks.
Well, this is the thing about me. I used to be into jam bands. It was very sad because I could never my hair is too straight to dread Now it's like it's never gonna happen.
Oh so wait, a Korean perm is to take your straight hair and give it a little flair.
I mean, and that done by Koreans.
Oh but I don't know Korean as a modifier. I'm just like, oh, that shit probably bangs exactly exactly.
No, it does. It's like a it's like a wave perm. Like you don't go full eighties mom, you just go like.
My mom had this fucking.
Problem Asian mom right, Asian.
Curly as hair. What is this looking like wolverine or some shit? It was crazy. It was the way it was shape my mom had like it was almost like a flat because it was so curly.
Oh did she have rocked short hair with the curly.
It was like short long, but like the way I just remember always being like that was. That was a moment.
Yeah, I know my mom would do that and then it'd be like a big old side clip just like whoa. It was like the most.
Eighties Yeah, shout out a permanent Hello the Internet, and welcome to season three eighty two, episode two of The Daily's Eye Catcher production. If iHeartRadio, this is the podcast where we take a deep dive into America's sword did share consciousness? It is Tuesday, April second. Oh no, that was the worst April Fool's joke I could have done. And I will see my milk. It's April first, don't
fucking I don't know. I'm sure there's a bunch of corporate foolery going on in the Internet because they love to do dumb shit or like McDonald's just like you can now drink Ronald's blood in a milkshake.
Finally it's legal to do jokes on April first.
Yeah, exactly. Did you see that there's a headline about how.
We're asking every woman if she's pregnant today? Okay, I saw you have put on a little weight.
I see the thing that was like, oh white, this new season, the White Lotus is the first great piece of media in the post woke era, And I'm like, what the fuck are we talking about here? Anyway? I'm Myles Gray aka the Showgun with no Gun, the Lord of lancrasham out here trying to just scream into the void, and I'm thrilled to be joined by my guest co host. You already know her from many fantastic places, look the situation room. Uh. You probably know her from doing stand
up comedy, her activism and where you've seen her. You know her. She is a powerhouse. Please welcome my Calls of your.
Today aka Mirror Mirror on the Wall, who is the frantist of them all? Good to be here, Thank you for having me?
Who is the frandiest of the moment pressure Oh okay, I'm sorry.
No, I mean that's true if the Francescas would be me, but yeah, franchise is probably the franist friend.
But also, like we're not keeping score. She wasn't she running the Screen Actors Guild? She was? Yeah, Okay, anyway, that's not relevant. What is relevant is introducing our guest for today. We are very, very very lucky to have this fantastic journalist, someone who covers a lot of stories that don't get enough coverage. If you obviously listen to this show, there's probably a very good chance that you're already familiar with him from his work with Cool Zone Media.
It could happen here, et cetera. If not, maybe you know him from his work with places like The Wall Street Journal, National Geographic, et cetera. Uh. Not only is he a fantastic abbot cyclist, he's a polyglot and has a PhD in modern ear European history, where I merely know trivia from antiquity. Okay, so together we create one of the best trivia teams of all time. Please welcome to the Microphone James.
So Hey, that was great intro. I feel very hyped up on thank you. That was amazing. Yeah, if I ever die, if you could just do the like you know, the initial bait when they're coming into the funeral. I presume I will die here.
He is, Oh you think so?
Yeah, I think so. I didn't feel like I'm immortal.
I had a friend recently, like really confessed to me that they were so afraid of dying in like the most real way. And I was like, yeah, man, the thing about that is it's pretty automobile. Do it? Not much we can do. I would. I would try and sort of have a reckoning with a therapy. I don't know, however, you need to.
I mean, that's why people turn to religion, you know, for sure, for sure the idea that. But then then I started getting my head about living forever. I'm like, I don't want that either. I ever my friend that would suck me up as a kid, you know, when I was like thinking about that, This my.
Friend, he's like the sort of I don't know if like the old Ricky Gervais radio show with Carl Pilkington where you're just kind of a straight like he's just like a uniquely strange guy. And and he said it to me so earnestly. I just don't because he was I saw I hit some weird ass supplements and his kids What the fuck is this? He's like it's like assault. They're like your body absorbed. I'm like, what is that? Live forever guy? No, like he's he's he's getting a blood. Boy,
he's getting his head is turning that way. But he would never actually go through with it. He's just like healthy, Like it's never like.
But then he'll be also like not's not your friend is this? But it's very funny that sort of like in the genre of like like techie, billionaire, crypto fascists, whomever, whomever, who are like obsessed with being you know, like the most alpha male that they're like also trying to live forever, meaning they're just like pussy's about dying. Like okay, so you think you're so fucking hard and you're like.
Straight up brouck exactly.
Not up and die, yeah, sooner than later if you're elon.
No, like it's no. His is more like a childlike fear of like what happens after. It's not even like, bro, I'm too fucking hard to die, Like he's like what if? But then what happened? I'm like, Bro, you are forty years old and you just stop fooling with these supplements man, and I was like, did you you would really go through the act of seeing many people you know die over and over because you're immoral? He's like yeah yeah. I was like, okay, man, maybe you should read some
vampire books. They seem pretty fucked up and they can live forever, you know, just as like a primer. Anyway, James, thank you so much for joining us. I think we're gonna have a like. You have such a fantastic coverage of things that have happened everywhere from the Darien Gap and how much of a tumultuous journey that is for people who are you know, being displaced by our policies in the United States and how this is sort of being completely put out of our minds. Just how awful
this journey is for people. But also your coverage of what is happening in me and mar I think is really fantastic and also something that regrettably I only have just very superficial knowledge about in terms of what I've read headline whise and I go, yeah, coup and now civil war and it's bad and many other things. But most recently, there was a terrible seven point seven magnitude earthquake there that, you know, with an unfathomable death toll
that is still rising as we speak. So we'd love to just sort of have you offer us a bit of perspective on all of that, because there's a lot with me and mar that I think you also have drawn inspiration from, as probably you compare what is happening in the United States to a certain extent.
So yeah, I think that I.
Think I'm very much looking forward to picking your brain because we're like, I feel like everybody here's I'm not.
I enjoy not knowing is it? Is it sad? Sad? I don't want to know.
Is it gonna bum me out?
Yeah? I feel bad about that because like all the stuff I'm most proud of is shit that makes people cry on their drive to work, Like yeah, yeah, that is the genre of media I produce.
No, but I mean, like it's so on the other side of that coin, hearing like or hearing from journalists like you reading your work and hearing the way you speak about it, it's also very life affirming. I think it's very like the kind of journalism you do is very noble, especially in an era we live in now where people are just like being like uh huh, and do you want to have a third term? Okay, how
would you make that happen? Rather than be like it's unfucking constitutional, shut the fuck up, You're not gonna just shut up about it. So anyway, we will get to that. But first, James, we like to ask all of our guests, what's something from your search history that's revealing about who you are?
I was thinking about this, could you send me any about it? I think like this weekend, right, I was building for a friends, some like raised beds, like plant to boxes, you know, you can grow vegetables in, and I wanted to kill grass underneath because they didn't want a grass to grow up. But I I didn't want to like put plastic down because I wanted the roots
to go down. So I put cardboard down. And then I was like, because it's eventually it's kind of compost, it's kind of rot, right, And I was like, shit, have I invented this incredible life hack? And then I googled it and in terms of I didn't invent it, which is the story of my life. You know, you think you got something cool and someone's already done it on the internet.
Very yeah, that's like it's affirms I think maybe it's affirming, but I was like, I've innovated.
It doesn't matter if it's out there already and other people are enjoying it, Like that's better in a sense that I love.
I would love to think like that, like meaning like I don't think I'm the first, especially on that kind of stuff I love. I don't have that brain, but i'd love to have that brain. When I was little, I wanted to like invent stuff, and I would just take like a dead light bulb and like attach a show so you know, like go so so like it's fun though to be like, uh, innovating, especially with something with your hands or you're building something and that's just
so feeling. Yeah, And then but I never have the idea that like I'm the first to do this, So it says a lot about you.
Yeah, maybe not in a good way. Maybe I'm not like maybe I shouldn't assume that no one else would have on the ground.
That's the excitement though, you know what I mean, that's the that's the dragon we're chasing that we get bit by as children. Like it's so funny you say that franchise because I remember I got a hold of a soldering iron when I had like oh dah, and I was trying to I was trying to hack my PlayStation to play Japanese games too, and you had to like mod it yourself, and I had I had no business. Yeah, I had no business at thirteen opening up a PlayStation
and soldering ship onto a mother just fucking stupid. But then the childlike thing inside was like what if I could, Like what if I take my old boom box and like wire this thing to this other part. I didn't do ship, but I was like, this is gonna be whatever.
I love that.
Boom station combined.
Yeah, yeah, exactly. It has a CD drive. I mean basically the same thing I thought. Maybe.
Yeah. The closest I got was I had a very shit car who didn't have much money to buy a car when I was younger. And one other issues was it was the heater would always be stuck on the other one was stereo didn't work. So I dramled out that whole front panel with a heater and everything, and I duct taped a boom box in there. That was pretty sick. And then yeah, yeah, going to get back in there, You're going to go through the firewall from the front of the car.
Right, holy shit. Oh man, James, what is something you think is underrated? Underrated? You know what I think is underrated.
What I've been enjoying recently is like Burmese rock music from Memo. One of the sick things about the different resistance organizations, different groups in the revolution at MEMBA is that they make like theme tunes and they do a lot of like music videos, and some of them are really good. I've been enjoying them recently.
This reminds me is if you google me and Mark Who, one of the things that comes up is me and Mark who dance? Oh yeah, the lady what is the dance? And is it? It seems like obviously you're not talking about people who did the kup mongering, but but yeah, it seems like music and culture is very much a part of also the civil unrest there.
Yeah, I think people are just like a lot of the revolutionary music is that folks are just zoomers and they enjoy a TikTok dance and they're going to continue enjoying their life. Like not everything stops when the revolution happens. The lady who was doing I forget her name now, which is really bad. She's a pe teacher. She was like doing a why but I think like a dancer size,
Jazzus size maybe something like that. And she was doing it like as a live stream because at that time that there was a COVID lockdown, right, so you remember, people got really into that stuff where some everyone was doing workouts at home. She was doing that, and then behind her you can see all these APCs rolling in because they're they're doing a coup and she just could sold it on bravely. Yeah continue, true.
Entertainer, true, Yeah, show must go on. I was listening to some show recently and they had a fucking insanely good like sixties psych me and like Burmese rock band in it. But like it was interesting because it sent me down this rabbit hole where like so much of this stuff is not available digitally and like people have had to like painstakingly preserve a lot of this music, especially from the sixties and seventies that I listened to. Now, I'm like, Yo, this shit is fucking It's like, this
is amazing, really really cool stuff. What's something you think is overrated?
Change overrated? I'm thinking about it. So recently, I think it's skittles is the answer, you know, Yeah, yeah. I had an issue where like I like to go trail running on the weekends, like to run around listen to my Bermese rock music, and like, Jeremy, what I'll do,
And I'm now realizing this isn't the healthiest approach. Like I'll go to the store and buy whatever discount candy they have and then like when like seven or eight miles, you know whatever, I'll just open it and put it, put it all in my mouth and then chew it like a dip, like if you're like if you're chewing sugar, Yeah, you just pack it in there. So I was doing that one day, just enjoying my run, and I felt like a crunchy bit. I thought it's maybe like a
hard skittle, swallowed it, not a concern. It later transpired that that was a tooth. So I skiffled my tooth out.
Man, and then you swallowed it and then you found it in your poopoo.
I didn't. I was really debating this, like do I want a poop tooth back in my mouth?
Yeah, I'm sure the dentist will be like no, when that happens. It's for a reason, even.
If the body is rejecting it. The dentist straight up laughed at me. They I went in there and they were like, we've got on your notes lost tooth whilst eating skittles, And I was like, yeah, that's how it went down. Like that's that's more.
I mean, skittles are do your teeth up? But okay, so what which tooth was it? How did was it not?
Po smoller back there.
I didn't really notice until like the blood, you know, you taste, but you taste the blood anyway when you're running in the cold, you know, you get that like blood in your mouth.
No, I don't because I'm not I'm have.
Terrible I'm what No, I do know that feeling because every every like you know, eighteen months, I'm like, maybe I run, maybe that's the thing I do. And then I get like, what not even a mile and I can feel blood in the lungs because you're like, lungs are pump and heavy. Yeah, it's a taste, It's a running taste. It kind of feels cool. I By the way, my whole reaction to the story was like, can believe
you fucking trail run for eight miles. Trail running looks like the most fun video game flash hardest thing you could possibly do.
Yeah, I think there are hot things, but like it's really fun. But you can't be looking at your phone. You can't be like checking the notifs. You're just in the zone and like you feel like a little antelope.
Yeah, you can't even check if that's a tooth in your mouth. I have fuck it, I just got it down.
Yeah, was unconcerned, but yeah, they pulled it right out. I left it for about six months to see. I guess I was wondering if a tooth would come back, or maybe the whole would heal, but that hasn't happened.
So you just put a skittle there and yeah, I done.
Good night. Yeah I could have plugged it with a skittle or like a candy corn I've always felt would fit. Well.
Oh yeah, I was gonna say because I just thought you were just saying skittles generally, because I do feel like they are like mostly bad flavors.
There's like I don't like the red ones.
I just yeah, I'm like, pink and red are good, Yellow and orange suck. I love lemons. Lemons.
I like orange flavor.
I don't like lemon or orange candy. It's the same starbirds like give me a blue, gimme a green. Skittles does have green, right, so it's yeah, but like the skittle's tropical. Now, I just want skittles tropical. Those are good as shit.
Those are good like those. That's a good except there's one with banana, and I'm like, fuck that. I don't Yeah, yes, simulated banana offensive And isn't that what bananas used to taste? Like?
This might be.
Legend, No, I remember something like this that that flavor is derived from what a banana used, Like bananas did taste like that.
Banana's had a different flavor before.
Woke and then uh woke take it away.
Yeah, let's see, there's there was a whole thing anyway. This is like the kind of stuff that would have been on crack dot com. That's where Jack would have said, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know. I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm pretty sure I heard him say that. That's the quality of information you can come to expect on this a second rate podcast. However, we are going to class up the joint. In one moment when we come back from this break with a very fantastic conversation with James
Stout right after this and we are back. So James, like, in the build up to having you on, I was like, Okay, I wish we talked about. You had many topics that you wanted to discuss. I think the one that absolutely is front of mine. I think, even if people don't realize or not, is Me and Mar because on Friday right there was a just devastating magnitude seven point seven earthquake. As of right now, the death toll has passed two thousand, and people say it's probably gonna be much higher, but
maybe even five times. And again for me, and I think a lot of people unless people you know who are very much like knowledgeable about it and keeping their eye on the story. To me, me and Mar has been this thing where it's like, Okay, there was a coup and since then there has been a civil war
and things have become very terrible. And I get drips and drabs to either like weird videos on Twitter when you see some of like the gorilla fighting or other just occasionally you'll see things about the workers in Me and Mar being like a huge force for change and
other many all kinds of stories. But I guess to take it from the earthquake, can you kind of just paint a picture of how sort of how destabilizing the civil war has beginned to to begin with, and now adding on top of that a catastrophic earthquake and what that means for the people living there.
Yeah, for sure, I like to conceptualize it in terms of a revolution, not a civil war.
Okay, good, I think, thank you, thank that's.
A word, and like reporting it because what happened right there was a coup in twenty twenty one where effectively, like it's not a direct one for one, but you can imagine like what if the US military supported the j sixth thing and then they stuck the landing on that right, like, an election happened. The election was not what I would call free and fair, like there were problems with the elections, but it was broadly the best
election that Miamar has had. Mianmar was moving towards a sort of neoliberal pacted democracy, and that democracy had some deep issues right, as we can see in the Hinda genocide, which we're going to circle back to. But what happened was that the military seized power in a rested most of the members of the National League for Democracy, which was the sort of pre eminent neoliberal party in Myanmar, and it began to rule like a in a military
hunter kind of way. Right, people went out into the streets when like fuck that, no, like, we're not having this because me and Marris has had military dictatorships for most of its independent history, right, and every generation there's this uprising for democracy and every time they get killed in the streets. So they came out, like a lot of people in this country came out in twenty twenty yere. They came out with science at first, and then the
cops tier gast them. So they came out with like hard hats and gas masks, which they learned about from folks in Hong Kong. And then they got shot with rubber bullets. So they came out with shields, and then they got shot with real bullets. And they at that point decided that like they weren't going to be then another generation that died in the streets, So they went to the mountains. And in the mountains there are ethnic resistance organizations. There are more than fifty different ethnic groups
in Myanmar. Many of them have been fighting against the majority group, the Bama, who dominate government and have done since ninety forty eight when the UK left or Britain left in the traditionally like the Burmese government and by extension, the Burmese military had used like a divide and rule strategy, just the way that other empires do, right, being like, oh, you, young Bama people can't be friends with the Koren because the Karen fucking hate you and will kill you, and
they're like savage, wild mountain people. I'm using heavy air quotes there for people who don't see me this podcast. But these young folks were like, well, fuck it you. The military is pretty savage. They're killing my friends. They went to the mountains and they of course found that these folks were perfectly accepting to them, or that they
shared a common enemy. Right. Since then, they've formed units called PDS People's Defense Forces, which are mainly composed of young people from the cities, and they fight alongside the ethnic revolutionary organizations. And they've been fighting the military since twenty twenty one, so we're four years into the revolution. More than half the country is now it's liberated, right, considered to be controlled by the erros or the PDFs. My friend Robert Evans and I have done a couple
of podcast series. We went over in twenty twenty two to meet some young people. One of the biggest hues they faced was that they didn't have any guns to fight back, right, so they told they all sold all their shit to try and buy guns. But guns are very expensive there. It's not like here, and so what they started doing was three D printing guns using just
like two hundred dollars three D printers. And the way we came across this story was that I found a guy on a reddit who was in the gun three D printing subreddit posting pictures and I was like, you're not in America, Like those pictures aren't in America. So I DM the guy and cay Man, I think you might maybe be in Mema, Like can I come hang out?
And you know, we chatted for a while and then it kind of worked out roughly the area they were, and I went over and we visited them and we talked to them about like what it was like to kind of they had no support from anyone, right, like all the governments of the world, the un the US, EU or these places where we talk about democracy, like, they didn't do shit when people were being killed in
the streets. On twenty fifth of April Armed Forces Day, one hundred and fifteen people were killed in a single day at a protest unarmed, right, not aggressive, not that it matters, they shouldn't be killed anyway, but that was kind of the big changing point for people, and they realized that, like, if they needed to fight back, they needed to fight back with guns, and the word wasn't going to give them to them, but so people on Reddit did, and so they went into the jungle with
their three D printers and set up these print farms in the jungle, and they started out with printer guns. Those guns allowed them to acquire better guns, and they fundraised.
The way they fundraised is fascinating too. They have these hued Telegram channels for the revolution right, and they use pay per click adverts, So they do YouTube videos or write stories with pay per click adverts in them and then direct like ten thousand, one hundred thousand people to go to the article and click the advert, and that they generate revenue.
All these yeah the guys like yeah gaming basically paid media, like for the Yeah.
Ye, selling mud coffee is like, well, I'm helping the mean Mar revolution. Uh no, that is why it's it's like the most gen Z revolution and and it's yeah, I mean I think that just thinking about how things got this way and just like watching like in preparation for this, watching like a quick little explainer and realizing, yeah, that the international community has been, despite a lot of cries from the UN, kind of a zero on this, and there's been no coordinated response, unlike the response to
you know, Russia during the invasion of Ukraine, you know, and on and on. It's like that me and Mar has largely been left to its own devices, and China and Russia are actually fueling the obviously the military side of it, and and so they've got plenty of weapons there. And what's crazy it's also learn about like the history is that the the army has representation in parliament like.
Y heats, which is just fucking like.
Any kind of like, you know, any kind of country trying to be a democracy, like that's wild. That's so terrifying.
Yeah, And like for years the US kind of boosted this kind of Enson Succi like way of transitioning to democracy. It's going to be the next growth economy in Asia. They called them tiger economies for a while, and the US really didn't demand inclusion for those different ethnic groups, right that they stood up and fort fit themselves. And I think in a sense, like it don't get me wrong, it fucking sucks how many people have died. Some of those people are people I really cared about, and it
was really hard to lose them. And like the revolution has been hard for a lot of people, right, like four years at war. It is not a joke. Like some of these people, you know, they're nineteen twenty now, they were sixteen years old when they started seeing people die every day, and that they shouldn't have to anyone. But like because they haven't had so much of this, like his aid from the United States, his aid from the European Union, and then you will have a nice
neoliberal democracy afterwards. Like they've done it themselves and they found their own way, and like that gives me a lot of hope because like nobody came to help them, right, they did it all by themselves, and they built something really beautiful as a result. That like isn't you know, I'm sure there's someone on Twitter dot com he thinks it's a fucking color revolution. But those people are done.
Like.
These people entirely from their own refusal to be like under the boot heel of the state, have created this beautiful revolution that's liberated half the country. And in the process they've like so to give an example, right, the Rahinja genocide happened in Mianda, and it happened largely because Facebook doesn't have any content moderation in Burmese, right yep, and that allowed for horrific Islamophobic lies to spread through the Hunter's botnet for a large part, right, the huge
network of bots. You can see them in their replies to my tweets. This happened less than a decade ago, right like in Islamophobia was like and there's a massively British nationalist movement in me Ammar which draws inspiration from groups of the English Defense League like right wing anti immigrant groups. And this was pretty much the population, with some notable exceptions from the anarchist, the punk movement and other groups who are posted in the genocide. Let it
happen right now. This earthquake that happened is sagang In on Friday, right seven point seven earthquake. It happened during Friday prayers, the day before Eid, right, Id being the festival at the end of Ramadan. If people aren't familiar, it's kind of like church at Easter for Christians. Right. So a lot of people are at mosques now because the country has fundamentally sort of aligned Buddhism with being Burmese for decades. Mosques haven't been allowed to build or
repair their structures since nineteen sixty two. So all the fucking mosques fell down right prayers and like, this is horrific. It would have been inconceivable five years ago for twenty three year old Bama Buddhist people to be like, hey man, this happened during Friday prayers and all the mosque had been destroyed, and like, what can we do to help
the Muslim community in these places? How can we reach out to solidarity groups from Muslim communities around the world, Like that would never have happened five years ago, right, And like that they've built that solidarity now and just from like sharing experiences, right and realizing that there's a lot more that unites them that divides them.
You know likewise, So that's happening now, that's a conversation in the wake of the Rohinga obviously genocide the Muslim minority and the fallout and the Hunter turning people against them. That now when this happens and these mosques are you know, disportionately so many Muslims have been killed, that like there's solidarity now because of their revolution and what it has built.
Yeah, because they began they were the same.
They were attacked by the Hunter the same way that Muslim people were, right, and they saw the Hunter doing the same shit and they realized, like, this is how
the state operates. It turns up against each other, so we don't turn against it and like not there are resistance groups which are still Islamophobic and will still like there's been there have been serious problems with killing of Hinja people and then the Hunter has trying to turn and co op the Rehinder people, Like it's absolutely insane that the people who did the genocide have now got Hinjia people fighting alongside them. Some of those people are
forcibly conscripted, but some of them are not. So like that, there are still definitely issues, but yeah, to have young Burma folks like messaging me concerned about Muslim people, and this has happened, Like this isn't just a Muslim Buddhist thing, right, Like you'll see it with for instance, women fighting on the front line now, which would have been inconceivable five or six years ago.
Right.
One of my friends told me a story that I like to repeat, where like in Burmese culture, it's really to boo for men to walk under a woman's like under garments. I guess like they would they would like lose their masculine energy if they did that, if they're like drying across the street. You know, have people tried to clo oh.
I was like, how would you walk on? Like you're violating it?
They yeah, you're doing the limbo underneath someone's skirt. Like what's happening?
Yeah, important context missing. It's taboo to do the limb like someone's skirt, I think in most parts.
So it's it's like it's like like like walking under a ladder seven years bad luck. But if you walk under a clothesline with panties.
Like you're nuts.
Yeah immediately, so your matro energy. So like they were, they had a barricade, right, and they had set some tires on fire and they were trying to stop the cops coming in, but the cops are still coming in. And then they were like, oh, ship, what about this taboo thing? And so the girls like picked off their ship put it on the washing line, right, and the cops didn't come in.
That's amazing. Yeah, use their own homophobia and misogyny against it.
Yeah, totally.
And like for like, you know, twenty year old guys that don't generally like the great at this but like to have like twenty year old guys being like and that's how sexism hurt to everyone.
Is like, yeah, you know, that's what I want to Sorry, Miles, I'm sure I just like wanted to ask because like the headline I woke up to today was that the government is has bombed the areas that were affected by the earthquakes. So every day really But okay, so can you just explain how since the earthquake the war hasn't stopped? I mean, yeah, well, and how is that turning people against them? Possibly?
Yeah, So the PDF, which is the mainly Bama sort of revolutionary forces that's slightly distinct in their command structure from the ethnic revolutionary organizations, and there was something called a National National Unity Government which was formed of the people who were elected and then deposed by the coup. Right, not everyone is fighting necessarily to install the ENUG, but ENUG and the p F declared the ceasefire for two
weeks after the earthquake. Some of them even offered to go into Hunter control territory to help a risk to their own.
Lives, right, because they were fighting each other.
They were no, the NUG and the PDF and the e ROS are fighting against the Hunter.
Right, but they they were like, we won't we'll start.
Yeah.
They're like, oh, we won't bring our weapons. We want to come help. That was denied. They So what the Hunter is dying response is continue to bomb civilian targets, right, which is something that it has done since the coup began. It's because they get their ass handed to them in like small arms combat. Right, Like if they're fighting, if two groups of soldiers are fighting, the Hunter soldiers are conscripts. Their weapons are absolutely shipped here, like I've never seen
worse maintained weapons. But they just rely heavily on drones, artillery and air strikes. Right, And they've continually as struck civilian targets. They as struck Karni Christians during Christmas celebrations, right, they as struck kitchen civilians during a Kagen music festival like Jesus. They like they are on some like a sad regime level shit, but the world just doesn't report on it, like or it doesn't get reported on it
as much. So, Yeah, they did continue air striking even when so it looked like in the day of the earthquake like that afternoon. I don't know if their runways were damaged. It seems like maybe not because they've been doing regular asteroiics since they used fucking paramotors.
Yeah, I saw you post about that.
Yeah ye yeah, like to drop bombs like they couldn't take a break like a half day on rhyming civilians. It continue to keep bombing shit. And now they're demanding international aid, right, Like, I think we need to be really careful that what they will do is holt that aid. They will use it against a revolution and they did this with cyclone nargets in two thousand and eight. Right, they have declined they won't let certain aid come in.
They didn't let a Taiwanese rescue team enter, Like they'll let Chinese, they'll let Russian, right, that's an Indian group, Vietnamese. They're fucking down with North Korea sometimes, but I don't think North koreole sending help. But like they get weapons from North Korea, they'll let those people come in, but they wouldn't let other international aid come in. And they did this with Nagats a US warship south of the coast, and they were like, no, we don't want the stuff
that you have. So like they will continue to use this as an opportunity. They don't care how many civilians for dying. It will be very hard for you to get accurate numbers on how many civilians have died a because they don't care, and be because they don't want to look bad, you know, they don't want to put that out there.
Are there estimates, I mean, are there entities that do kind of an estimates of the toll, that's all.
Yeah, I saw the US Geological Survey had said that a quake of that magnitude and that location would result in between ten and one hundred thousand death, which is obviously a pretty big number. We can expect to see the death toll go up I've heard from people in everyone's still sleeping outside and lots of places because of aftershocks.
People have left their neighborhood because of the smell of rotting bodies in the collapsed buildings, right, And they've been trying to get people out themselves, right, pulling stones off. The National Unity Government and the PDF have a large number of elephants that they liberated from the Hunter's timber camp. So they'd be, oh, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I love that you didn't mention that freed elephant. I love this.
They have an elephant unit. They have like an elephant. I'm hoping to go and spend some time with them, Like I feel like it's one of the last chances in human history for someone to ride an elephant to war, like put it on their resume. But also like, of course, the elephants are like a symbol of Burma, and they were being mistreated by the Hunter, right, and they didn't want them to fall into the black market, so they liberated these elephants. And they're living with a PLA now,
which is one of these registriance groups. But yeah, they use their elephants to clear the rebble. They've used whatever vehicles they have, but they desperately need international support and the Hunter's not going to let them get it. And as a result, way more people will die than need
to die. Plus you combine that with fucking we've cut USAID now, right, Yes, eighteen case officers I believe got laid off the day of the earthquake, like the I know, the World Food Program already scaled back operations in Myanmar because of this, like and globally there's kind of a reduction in funding for humanitarian aid, right, so that's it's like a double whammy. I know that, like when they
shut down USAID funding. You know, when Elon Musk and his little kids went into the USAIDA and shut it down. Like I'm aware that they literally turned off life support machines in some refugee camps. I'm aware of women having to give birth outside of like locked clinics.
Jesus Christ.
Yeah, it's it's a lot of Burmese refugees end up living just across the border in Thailand, and USAID has and this is wrong, Like it's institution itself kind of as the only provider in some of those cases, or it's like one of the main ways to get medical care. So when it pulled out, at least people really in a shit situation.
Well, let's take another quick break. I have a couple of questions and you know, and also a bit of optimism to offer, I think, James, because you do you do see that there is something inspiring about everything that's happening. So let's take a quick break and we'll come right back.
And we're back, James. I think first, one of the main things that I really think about in anything when we see people trying to liberate themselves and you know, engage in some kind of violent conflict in order to do that for the betterment of their own lives, is you see how media responds to it, especially in the United States, and like to your point, right, like, I've ingested so many headlines that I'm using the term civil war, and that's what I see constantly in every What is
the what does the earthquake mean for the civil war? What does the civil war? Or can you sort of just from your perspective, the importance of really describing this as a re and why sort of the coverage of sort of characterizing this as a civil war, it does a disservice to not only the reader, but the people that are actually struggling for liberation in MMR.
Yeah, definitely. So there's been war in Memma since nineteen forty eight, right since the British left and the Panglong Agreement, which is complicated and I won't describe here, ended up being dishonored. Basically in the Bama majority took control of the government and the military. What happened in twenty twenty
one is distinct from that. It is people rising up against the dictatorial government and choosing not to be swayed by violence, not to be pushed back, right, and to go and join into or join up with these ros. And at that point, like it stopped being a war between two different organizations and it became a revolution all over the country. Right, we didn't have different Like I think it's wrong to characterize the ethnic groups only fighting
for the independence of their ethnicity. They're not. They're fighting to do away with the dictatorial government in the Enma. So like when we see it as a civil war and there's been this, like you say in headlines, this consistent language. You see it a lot used by analysts too. I don't understand how you become an analyst. You just just bloviate and say shit, that isn't true, and you become richer than I am, which is not very rich.
And so like this language of civil war, I think it fits neatly into like the securitization kind of disclosed that people in the West one and like it. It's a lot easier to ignore a civil war than a revolution, right.
Like right, and they're like, ah, they're fighting amongst themselves again, Yeah, exactly. It's like, hold on, these people have had it with the treatment that the treatment that they receive under this government, and their response is this, and I think that yeah, probably seed some ideas that they don't want to really have out there.
I mean that's sort of what we see. And I feel like there is obviously it is in countries where there is a Muslim population, they're also there are brown people.
I mean, we saw it in you know, can't Assyrian civil War, right, which you know, I mean, I guess as the civil war is also a massive uprising was part of the Arab Spring initially, Yeah, and so there are some corollaries, but yeah, I guess I'm also curious on like, why aren't we covering this is it because there are these religious minorities, or is it because it's just seen as you know, yeah, like brown people on brown people crime, like you know, there's no outside invader.
It feels like it's all of that, right, It's like the narratives don't conform to what like a sort of like American imperialism wants out there, or there are people to be thinking about.
Really yeah, and like there's this whole thing like when Chomsky writes about manufacturing consent, like they don't tell you what to say because you know what they're going to say already, right, And like that is definitely true of a certain class of people who are editors of big
newspapers in this country. Like I've tried to picture to me, it's it's just a good story, Like it's a fucking great story, and they're not there's this idea that people aren't interested or they won't take the time to learn
all that background. But the people are interested actually, Like like I got my job at iHeart because I wanted to make podcasts about this, Like people are really interested and people who listen to our podcast who've done amazing things to show the solidarity, and so I think part of it is editors being like condescending and thinking that
their readers won't pay attention, which is bullshit. I think it doesn't fit with these kind of general narratives that we have, right, that we like to frame anything into.
And it's affirming to me at least, because like I was in Rajava in northern East Syria in twenty twenty three, and there was a message sent from the Karreni Nationalities Defense Force for one of these revolutionary organizations in Memba to the people of Rajava because at that time that I was there, we were being bombed heavily by Turkish drones, like expressing their solidarity with the people of Rajava. And then the people of Rajaba sent a message back expressing
their solidarity with people in Myanmar. There've also been statements from Memba in solidarity with Palestine and Ukraine. Like even if we're not paying attention to it, it doesn't mean that like the whole world isn't right. Yeah, yeah, so lots of people are that perhaps people who can understand what is to like, I mean, we're starting to learn what it is to live under a tyrannical state, I guess.
But you know, people who can take inspiration from people standing up to a state that doesn't care they live or die.
Well, that's sorry, Miles. I don't know if you have I just want to jump in there because when you talk about today, you know, I've been thinking about obviously the crack down here in the United States on actual free speech and the rounding up of people, deporting you know, innocent folks, all this, and you know, it is interesting that you see the breaking point of the people of me and mar being like, look, we've done military dictatorship. We've done putting our heads down. It doesn't work. So
the only option is to fight. And I see, you know, as you see both media, civil society, not everyone obviously, but like, I don't think that Americans are truly prepared for, you know, this anti fascist fight that we currently find ourselves in. And there is like a crossroads of okay, so what happens when they actually start really repressing, you know, And sadly, I think maybe what happens is people kind of stop resisting and you know, TBD on this, like,
you know, look, not is not a done deal. But you know, you talk to like, you know, some friends who are like, you know, Egyptian or folks where there is like a very you know, not complacent, but a very controlled society under a military dictatorship. That's just like we just don't resist, you know there, you know, And so that is that is an avenue versus you know, the one that me and mar has taken.
Yeah, and James, I know you said from just your time speaking with the people there and your coverage of it, that it does you are able to draw some kind of inspiration from them. Is do you look at that just in terms of globally of like what human beings are capable of, or do you also see that sort of in the context of just sort of spreading authoritarianism and what our human capacity is to sort of resist.
Yeah, well, I think all of us have this desire to like live free and not live under the boot of the state, right, And it's that desire that it is the most powerful resource for the people of Memmo. It's not like they have a great deal else, right, they don't have, you know. It's this isn't one of those revolutions which benefits from having access to oil, for instance, or any of those things. Right, Like, and I've watched a I've watched some change and grow, which is really cool.
I've watched people consider their opinions. I've watched you know, like young people consider their opinions on gender, consider their opinions on like LGBTQ people and be like, hey, I was wrong about that. These people are my comrades and the revolution and that's cool. It's really it's really beautiful to watch people grow. But it's been beautiful to watch them build something out of nothing based entirely on solidarity
and a refusal to give in. And like, I think we'd be really look, we should see ourselves in that more than I think we probably do. They have a long history of revolutionary organizing, right, Like if we look back to AAA, which was eighth of August nineteen eighty eight, when they had big Protomoxcy protests that were violently put down by the government. People were killed. Every generation have had these movements, and they will talk about that. We don't have that, right, but we do have a we
have a long history of street movement, right. We had the twenty twenty Uprising. We've seen like Act Up for HIV AIDS, right, the civil rights movement in this country. We have a real problem with how we teach about
the civil rights movement. I think we like we talk a lot about nonviolence, but like non violence does not encapitulate the entirety of the activism that they gave the one civil rights for black people in the United States, And I think we're kind of doing it a service to young people, or maybe we're doing a service to
the state by ignoring that. But we have a long history of people taking that is into their own hands and seizing rights back from the state, right, And I think if we see things in those terms, then we can take inspiration from the people of Myanmar, because they have that too, and they acted on it right, and they refused to comply, like you were saying, Francesco, that they didn't want to just go along with it and keep themselves down, like they've seen other people do that
for too long, and they'd seen where it got them and that they were done with it. And I think, like and the way they like they have so much joy in what they're doing makes me so happy, Like like you know, they make their music videos, they dance
like that, they that you know that like that. I think people like who report on conflicts sometimes we only focus on the sad stuff, and I get that, but like there's a sense of joy in these moments when you stand up to the state and you're like, now, fuck you, I'm not doing this anymore, and like and then you realize that like you can push them back.
And I've seen it in Rajavre and I've seen it here, Like like there's a sense of joy that people get when they liberate themselves, like in that moment, and it's really beautiful. And like, I think if more people here could understand and experience that, maybe they'd be a little more confident or a little less despairing that, like, there are things that we can do and it doesn't we don't need fucking predator drones and ten billion dollars or
whatever like that. There are things that that people have done all over the world to stand up to Turney.
Well, that's really kind of my other question, just sort of geopolitically, like can this revolution win is so long as China, Russia, so long as the hunter gets this funding and or do they need some kind of international support and what does that look like in a country at a time when let's say the United States, which again, if it had any shred of good faith internationalism left. I mean it's like that's kind of flying into the
win now. But I mean, you know, I always like to think sort of in the future, like foreign policy wise, like what should we be advocating for. I don't know what. Yeah, what are your thoughts on that?
Yeah, Like there's internationalism that supports Mema. Right, it comes from people not from the States, So they're volunteers who fought in Russia, but who are fighting in Meama. Now get a dictatorship there. Right, the revolution has succeeded that the will the revolution succeed in cities? Right? And that's a different question because is ay urban more throws a different thing. But they have taken big cities. The three major cities would be Napid or Yangon and mandal A. Right,
mandal haven't just been devastated by the earthquake. A lot of that would depend on their ability to shoot down aircraft and like the states of the world have been very reticent to give non state actors anti aircraft missiles for for a long time. Right, it would make your holiday in Thailand a lot Let's say, if people just running it, running around the whole area with anti aircraft systems, So like, some of it depends on how can they
do that? But there are other ways to achieve that, right, Like, if the Hunter can't get jet fuel, it can't fight it's aircraft if it can't get weapons to drop from its aircraft. Israel has also supplied the Hunter with weapons.
That's pretable.
Yeah, yeah, I didn't. I didn't include that one better little nugget included during the range of genocide, So like, can we stop them getting jet fuel another way? Right, that's something that like the neoliberal countries could do real easy. Right now, if Russia and China want to keep supplying them, then that becomes a different question. It's it's how quickly can the revolution scale up its capacities to deal with that?
Right?
What they have done so far is like US drone civilian over the counter drones to drop bombs on aircraft for they're hanging out at their fields. Right, they have a couple of surface to wear missiles. They shut down a helicopter, but to my note, they have shot down some fast yets, but only one or two. So like
that is an important question. But if in the answer to can succeed like the answer is yes, right, Like, eventually all those jets have pilots, and those pilots aren't bulletproof, but like they.
Were also in a really interesting moment with the sorry interrupt, but like, you know, this massive earthquake and your government is still bombing people.
Yeah, what are we doing exactly?
Like, I mean, people know that their government is shipped for the most part in me, right, but it's I think that that's the other thing, right, most people support the revuls, even people with family in the military to support the revolution, right, And so like the Hunter's morale,
it's military morale is so low. You have these mass surrenderings of thousands of troops, right wow, and often these troops that they'll bargain them back, so the Hunter will get them back and they'll deploy these guys again and
they'll get captured for a second time. Right, Like you know, like morale is not high, and so I think it can win because you can only go on for so far with this with this morale, right Like, and over time, one of the ways that they've armed themselves is people from the Hunter defecting and so like they can continue to get armaments, including anti air capability. That way, China has kind of flipped and flocked on the revolution, but there's a possibility of China continuing to support it if
it gets more mad with the Hunter. There's a whole issue of scam compounds, which we haven't talked about, but you know, when you get those text messages so like hey, we mean for lunch, it's Karen or whatever.
Yeah, yeah, when are we playing golf? I saw a tex thread of someone really kind of being like are you okay? And all this other information came out from something like that.
Yeah, it's Chinese nationals or other foreign nationals who have been kidnapped and they are in these scam compounds along the Burmese borders, and they yeah, they It started in COVID when the casinos sort of used to be like casinos kind of operated outside of the rule of Burmese law there, and Chinese nationals would go imagine like kind of Las Vegas on steroids, right, like, I mean seriously,
on steroids, you've got like white tigers and shit. But and COVID people didn't want to go to casinos, so they started running these scams. They called it pig butchering. They like fatten up the pig and then butcher it. They develop their relationship with you and then scam you.
So a lot of Chinese nationals are basically enslaved in these compounds right doing this scamming work, and that that has been a major issue between China and the Hunter because the Hunter has done nothing about it, and most of the groups it's that run those scam compounds support the Hunter or at least rely on it to sort of give them sovereignty in those areas. So there's this whole other and like you can even see them from from the Tai side, like across in reality in that area.
And thousands of people they a number a number of them just released thousands of people because a famous Chinese actor was scammed. So they'll put like a job posting like hey come this tech job interview. It's really well paying, the benefits are great, and then kidnapped people and force them to do these these pig butchering schemes.
And the money is going where.
To the people who run scam compounds that these that they're making. I think I saw it. It's like in the in the order of tens of billions of dollars. Yes, yeah, it's a massive. They'll actually let you. So they're like, hey, I'm starting a business, can you loan me a thousand dollars? And the person loans them a grand and they'll pay them back and then they'll be like, hey, can you get twenty.
Oh that's fun.
Yeah, yeah, it's it's a very well thought out thing.
There's so many scams like that using you know, fake jobs and crypto and people having to pay to unlock more payments and they're like, well, I got a little bit of money from when I started.
And then it's you till you're confident, and then you really find exactly.
Yeah, you've given it all the way. Well, James Stout, thank you so much for joining us on the dailies. I guess eye opening is probably the understatement of the year. I would say for this conversation, where do people find you? Follow you, read your work, hear you all of that good stuff? Yeah?
Cool, so I do. It could happen here with my colleagues there. We make a podcast five days a week, and so that's a lot of content. If you're not getting enough here, you can find us anywhere. That could podcast given away for free. I have a Patreon. It's just my name you can search it and I write there, write a lot about Memm. That's where I started writing
about Memma. Those are two big things. You can also find me doing mutual aid at the Southern Boarder of the United States, So if you want to come help out, you can, and I would encourage you to do so.
Yeah, oh yeah, oh. I was going to ask you what is a piece of media? And I know when we were asking you, like, is it okay if it's not in English? I said, absolutely, put us onto something different, please, please, What does the work of media that you've been enjoying?
So I enjoy a lot of stuff from me and try and keep up to date with that. Recently, I've just been going back to the music I listened to, like when I was a lot younger. I've been listening to like early stereophonics and Manatory Preachers shit. When I was like sixteen, I volunteered in an orphanage for your diversity kids in Romania and we had like a boom box and two CDs, you know, and so like that takes me back to that time in my life.
Jeez, it been lifelong on this. It's so dope too. Yeah, finally actually meet you. I've been listening to your pod oh for a while now, so cool.
Thank you. Yeah, it's nice, but of course very weird to meet people who listen because you do. I know.
It always is like I'm always I always think people are lying when they're like, yell yeah, I mean yeah. I get into my closet and I yell for yeah, and then I don't know. I mean, I know, I see that people do listen, but.
It's as if that's not what the intention of our shows is.
Howay, what are you the cops? You're like what, I don't know? I'm a fan? What the fuck? Oh? My bad man? Sorry, I'm on it. I'm on it. I'm on it. Uh. Francisco, thank you so much for joining me. Where do people find you? Follow you here you see all of the.
Great work Situation Room podcast and come see me and Matt Leeb live in San Francisco on Wednesday, May seventh, that Cops Comedy tickets. Fan Jessica Fioranndini dot com.
Boom boom boom. Is there a work of media that you've been enjoyed? Shit, it better be in a foreign language.
I forgot to prepare.
Something in Catalan. I saw James James Beak Catalan.
Yeah, I do. My PhD was in I write about the anti fascist Olympics. Oh my god, yeah, I've written done by my book. By the way, this is the beast time you hey, someone say it's not a podcast. I've written a book about that. It's very of a price. It's an academic book. I wouldn't pay for it by it's too much money. Just so just go to the library if you want to read about that. And awsin too awesome to get it.
There you go.
I don't know if this is old or not, but there is a video of somebody or I think it's a TikTok of somebody trying to get into a an LA fitness with a fish using the scanning the fish, and someone just put it brought into my attention because they retweeted it with a like, you know how I'm going to get into all the like anti trans you know, gems or whatever. But it doesn't whatever, it doesn't matter. But it's the fucking funniest video. And she's like, that is not an LA fitness, that is a fish.
He just goes up to the thing and goes bbee. I don't know I don't know, maybe.
I'm gonna get in with this cod She's like, I'm calling the cops. The fucking funniest I've ever seen.
Okay, first piece of media like is from at Jeremy Kappoliz dot com. It's on Blue Sky. It's the like quote like a clearly a tweet from over there, the shitty website, and it says it has like a picture of sunglasses where it's like looking down the street, but through the lenses it looks like sort of gibbly esque through the lenses of like the city scape. And it says, could we have Apple, Google and open Ai working together to give us Google Glass tech with a jibly switch please?
And then Jeremy quote t too that said getting hit by a bus because I think it's a big fuzzy cat with fucked up hands sounds yeah, that's how that would end. There's no such thing as a mecal bus. Also at Victor winstout dot psky dot social posted I bought Twitter for forty four billion and sold it back to myself for thirty three billion. I have forty three kids and no friends. Everything I make explodes, Yeah.
Because Elon sold himself or Grock bought tweets, sold yeah to Xai and then said, but we bought it at thirty three billion, So now that means the price is that's what it costs.
Now.
It's so.
It's there used to be laws.
There used to be fucking laws, and this is clearly just self dealing in order to help your stock price so you can avoid your debts. Anyway, guys, let's all strive to be a billionaire as we haven't say something.
James, No, I'm not a billion arrow dog.
Yeah, well one day. Yeah, you're not sweating on your what time do you wake up? James?
Sorry?
And I didn't.
I didn't you know, I didn't even duct take my fucking mouth.
So yeah, exactly, I was gonna say, you didn't enter this with a nose strip and a duct tape and then emerging from an ice bucket of Saratoga Springs ice water. Okay, I'm ready.
Yeah, maybe I need to get on my grind set and do that. Yeah, you'd be very painful. I feel like I've got like facial hair.
In the d tail. Yeah yeah, but that's how you know you're on your grizzy. Okay, So yeah, I worried about that, you know. Yeah, you can find me at Miles of Gray pretty much everywhere they have at Symbols, you can find me and Jack talking about basketball Miles and Jack. I'm Boosti's I also talk about ninety day Fiance on four to twenty Day Fiance my escape from talking about the news and everything else. So check me out there. You can also find us at Daily Zeitgeist
on Twitter, at the Daily Zeitgeist on Instagram. We're also at Daily zeis Geist on Blue Sky everywhere. You can also if you're listening to this episode, just check out the little notes section where you can find all the links to this show. It's also called the Photos Thank You, as well as a song We're Gonna Ride Out on. We're Gonna Go Out on a track from LA's very Own Georgia and Muldreau. She's like one of those like avant garde musicians who has been in the scene like forever.
Like if you went to Low End Theory, you're probably familiar with her. She's now signed to Flying Lotus's Brain Feeder label. This track is called Woo Punk. It's very dope heer. She's just like, she's just so talented. She's like a producer musician, so she does it all in This track is just so bidy and nice, nice to just kick back to. So this is Woo Punk by Georgia and Muldreau and that's it. You can find us pretty much everywhere on you wherever they give away the
podcast for free. As James said, that's going to do it for us today. We will be back later on to tell you what is trending. So until then we will see you. Be safe. Bye bye bye heye