It Could Happen Here Weekly 127

Speaker 10s - 2.84s

Quozo Media ORG.

Speaker 103.38s - 24.24s

Hey, everybody. Robert Evans PERSON here, and I wanted to let you know this is a compilation episode. So every episode of the week that just happened is here in one convenient and with somewhat less ads package for you to listen to in a long stretch if you want. If you've been listening to the episodes every day this week, there's going to be nothing new here for you. But you can make your own decisions.

Speaker 925.98s - 60.74s

Neither snow nor rain, nor heat, nor darkness can stop the Persian courier service. Welcome to Dick Adap WORK_OF_ART here, a podcast about postal services. We asked the question, can the American NORP capitalist class finally stop the American post office? I'm your host, Mia Long PERSON, and with me to talk about what is going on with the post office, what's going on with the post office unions, and yeah, how things are going downhill for the noble people who carry your mail is Tommy Espinoza PERSON, who's a union steward for the National Association of Letter Carriers. Tommy, welcome to the show.

Speaker 561.54s - 70.12s

Thank you so much for having me. Thank you so much for giving us the mail carers and dealers, the mail carriers, a platform to stand on.

Speaker 970.76s - 132.22s

Yeah, I'm really happy to you, and I'm really happy to get to talk to you about this. So I think the place we should start is with a bunch of very, very weird stuff in how labor law works. So, okay, for like most people in the United States GPE, you have a federally protected right to strike if you have a union. That is not true for federal employees. That is especially not true for members of the post office.And that is a real issue because the government has decided that like, yeah, no, all these people who do a vital service are not allowed to go on strike, and it absolutely sucks. Yeah. And so I think this gets into sort of where I want to start, which is with the sort of history of the National Association of Letters Carriers, a union that is not allowed to strike and how sort of weird that is. So yeah, I was wondering if you could talk a bit about sort of the origins of the union and what effect that has had on

Speaker 5132.22s - 159.4s

how organizing works or doesn't work. Yeah, the right to strike has been a rather divisive topic. I'm sure you're familiar with unions and just generally people on our side of our side of politics to be infighting a lot. It shouldn't come to a surprise. So in 1969,

Speaker 0159.4s - 166.26s

just over 50 years ago, the salary for postal workers was under $2 an hour. People were working

Speaker 2166.26s - 174.34s

months straight with no days off. And those were close to 12-hour days. And so these postal

Speaker 0174.34s - 183.72s

workers at the time qualified for welfare and decided in 1970 to go on strike, despite it being

Speaker 5183.72s - 198.72s

illegal. This conversation is not new. It was illegal then. It's illegal now. And I do want to be crystal clear here. I am not advocating for a strike that would also be against the law, and we don't advocate

Speaker 0198.72s - 200.26s

for anything that's against the law.

Speaker 5202.6s - 217.26s

What I do want to advocate for is the right to strike because being quasi-federal, there's a lot of limitations in what the NALC ORG and the general postal unions are able to do.

Speaker 0218.02s - 224.18s

In total, there are nine bargaining agreements and seven unions within the post office,

Speaker 9224.38s - 226.18s

some of which are the manager's union,

Speaker 0226.38s - 228.84s

so take that as it is.

Speaker 5231.38s - 280.2s

Yeah, on top of not being able to strike, none of our money that we collect as union dues can be used for lobbying purposes, so they can't support a single candidate or any of the parties involved. We have a separate fund or any of the parties involved. We have a separate fund for that with the NALC called the Letter Carriers Political Fund ORG to try and circumvent the restrictions that are put on there. And as a result of that, it's like we're fighting with our hands tied behind our back. We are unable to organize effectively.Our union leadership seems to be afraid of protests and picketing for fear that it will be misconstrued or labeled as a strike. And they're, I think, generally afraid of public opinion.

Speaker 9281.16s - 327.8s

Yeah, that's a debilitating set of conditions because you've effectively taken away sort of the two major tools that, you know, unions of basically across all political striped use, right? You've taken away the ability to strike. You've taken away the ability to use your dues money to influence elections. So this immediately means you've taken away the tool that sort of militant unions use, which is strikes, and you've taken away the tools that more conservative unions use, which is attempting to buy politicians. And then also your leadership is like, we can't strike us. I mean, we can't protest because someone might think it's a strike or the public might commend it us. And it's like that, that doesn't seem, I don't know, it really seems like, it's like, it's not only if you tied both hands behind your back, you've like tied them behind your back to your legs and you're now rolling

Speaker 5327.8s - 373.86s

around on the ground. Right. And to talk about what happens when we push past all of these barriers and just do it anyways, you know, in March 1970, 210,000 postal workers defied law, defied the general leadership of the time. And it all started in New York GPE where people clocked in. And at 9 o'clock, they just walked out. Soon, let's see, it was Cleveland, Chicago, Los Angeles.The nation joined very shortly after, once it broke the news that they were calling for a national strike. Nixon called in the National Guard ORG to try and deliver mail.

Speaker 2374.58s - 381.58s

The National Guard had no idea what they were doing. There's an amazing video that I'll try and

Speaker 5381.58s - 462.8s

send you afterwards. It's just the National Guard ORG at our cases where we sort the mail. And an interviewer is asking him, do you think that you're doing a good job? It's just like, no, it's just some kid, you know? And don't get me wrong. I'm just some guy, but you need the training.You need to know what you're doing. And it's not something that anyone can pick up in a day, but it's a job that anyone can do. But yeah, for the first time, the mail had stopped. And that won us collective bargaining, binding arbitration, which is a process that I think most people within unions know what they mean. But to explain it, arbitration is what happens when our parties cannot agree on a settlement for a grievance, and eventually we call in a third party an arbitrator to decide for us, and those are generally lawyers.On top of binding arbitration, it gave us a new pay scale and set in motion I think over it's got to be hundreds of raises between the colas and the new pay table. It used to be 21 years for you to reach the top pay scale,which is absolutely ridiculous.

Speaker 9463.24s - 464.7s

Yeah, now I think it's about eight.

Speaker 5465.7s - 506.16s

Yeah. So the post office was forced to reorganized, and so was the union. This is where the American Postal Workers Union ORG was born. And from this strike, we were able to settle on the national agreement. So there's the national agreement, which is our binding contract. There's the J-CAM LAW, which is the joint contract administration manual,which is what the post office and the union use as the interpretation of the contract. That way we are not arguing and spending time about what the contract could mean. We can just focus on whether or not someone broke our agreement.

Speaker 2507.68s - 515.82s

So after this, one would imagine that a quasi-federal institution would honor the contract

Speaker 5515.82s - 520.24s

that was created, bargain in good faith, and treat their employees fairly.

Speaker 9520.4s - 530.24s

Isn't that right? Yeah, no. Spoken like someone who has never watched a federal government action. Yeah, absolutely not.

Speaker 5530.5s - 559.32s

Before we get into issues that we face today, I do want to say that one of the main goals of our contract negotiations or of this episode really is to create public knowledge of how our contract is not being adhered to. If there was one main goal that I'd have in mind is just to have the post office honor what they signed and agreed to do.

Speaker 9560.44s - 560.9s

Yeah.

Speaker 5561.1s - 571.56s

I mean, it's something that it's a part of being in a union that doesn't get talked about very much, which is that the contract doesn't mean anything unless the union enforces it.

Speaker 9571.8s - 611.86s

Because the moment the contract happens, the bosses will attempt to not abide by it. And this is what a lot of union militancy back in the sort of heyday of militancy was. I mean, like, you know, if you look at like how the UAW ORG worked in like the 60s, right, they'd have a guy with a whistle standing on the line. And if someone did a contract violation, he would blow the whistle and everyone would just sit down. And you'd immediately have a strike, right? And it, you know, and like that level of militancy, you don't need tolike be at that level to enforce a contract, but you have to actually be willing to do stuff and to fight management over it. And if you're not willing to do that, your contract is effectively meaningless.

Speaker 5613.06s - 615.86s

And that's a real issue with a lot of unions.

Speaker 9616.54s - 620.44s

Which just kind of circles back to one of the big issues that we face,

Speaker 5620.6s - 624.48s

is that if we were to do that, that would be a willingful delay of mail.

Speaker 9625.04s - 630.96s

And we could be charged for it just for trying to enforce the contract.

Speaker 5631.36s - 631.58s

Yep.

Speaker 9633.3s - 726.58s

Yeah. Which the thing I think is really interesting, just to circle back to the 1970s strike, is that so the strike was illegal, right? Nixon brings in the army and the National Guard ORG to break it. And the strike still wins. And not only does it, you know, I mean, youcould argue whether it achieved total victory, but not a single person who walked off the line got arrested, even though all of them technically committed a crime. And that's something that like,you know, I think let me, let know, I think, let me, let me, okay, the, the enforcement of laws depends on sort of the, depends on a set of relative balance of forces and whether people care about enforcing the law, which is how, like, for example, like, if you pirate like seven movies and you get, you get three copyright strike, you go to prison, but, you know, like the Sam Altman PERSON or whatever, like AI company can literally steal everything on the entire internet and get money for it and no one willever prosecute him, right? And so, so, you know, whether or not something is illegal is to a large extent, or the difference between something being illegal and you going to prison for it largely has to do with the balance of forces involved. And that's something that you should keep in mind when, and this is, this is a thing that cuts the other way a lot too, right? Like employers do illegal actions literally all the time, and it doesn't matter

Speaker 5726.58s - 760.28s

because the state doesn't care. Yeah, by and large, labor laws in America GPE are set up in favor of the businesses, of the employers. If you're familiar with workers' comp or any of the systems involved in the Federal Employees Compensation Act LAW, it's not enforced. We have cases that are pending arbitration where someone's been run over by a worker, has been run over by a postal vehicle.

Speaker 7760.74s - 769.7s

While they were working, the post office effectively takes them off of payroll to increase the damage done to the

Speaker 0769.7s - 778.02s

individual. Eventually, the Department of Labor ORG says, yes, we will pay this individual and the post office is

Speaker 5778.02s - 805.32s

liable to pay them. But now they are off the rolls, which means there's a greater period of time before this individual gets their money. And there's a certain form that within the post office the managers need to fill out. I believe it's an 8130 PRODUCT or all these forms have some numbers associated with them, that they just refuse to fill out. And there's no recourse. There's no...Geez. ...path for us

Speaker 0805.32s - 813.1s

to take to make them hurry or make them get this individual, the moneythat they're owed and some

Speaker 5813.1s - 827.82s

people, this doesn't ruin their lives and they've already paid off their house orwhatever, but I imagine for many, many working Americans NORP, that's their livelihood immediately down the drain.

Speaker 9829.28s - 846.24s

Yeah. Unfortunately, we need to go to ads for a little bit because unfortunately, my boss's boss's livelihood depends on these ads. Mine technically does too, but like, Lord knows, I don't see that money. So, ads.

Speaker 7846.24s - 859.48s

And we are back.

Speaker 9859.72s - 871.58s

And yeah, I guess that leads into the next place you want to go to, which is talking about what are the specific grievances today that you all are dealing with and the union is not dealing with?

Speaker 5873.06s - 914.62s

Right. So in terms of grievances within the union and our negotiation, a lot of it does have to do with the aforementioned workers' compensation. to do with the aforementioned workers' compensation. Employees are just simply not getting paid. I think the biggest problem with the union and the grievance procedure today is that management has figured out this really effective strategy. If they don't settle on the lower levels and it gets pushed up to arbitration, then we have a massive backlog of cases pending arbitration,which could be scheduled years out. Yeah.

Speaker 9915s - 920.14s

I think if you do the math for our current rate of handling these cases

Speaker 5920.14s - 926.32s

and how many cases we have, it'll take around 15 years to get through them.

Speaker 9926.32s - 930.42s

Jesus Christ PERSON. And that's assuming there's no new ones. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 5930.6s - 937.68s

That's like, you know, when you go to a restaurant and there's that little stanchion out there that says it's a five-hour wait from this point.

Speaker 9938.06s - 939.5s

That's the point that we're at.

Speaker 0939.98s - 943.46s

Anything beyond today will be further along.

Speaker 5944s - 955.38s

Jesus Christ PERSON. anything beyond today will be further along. Jesus Christ PERSON. And so I think that is just a major problem for us, clearly.

Speaker 9955.98s - 956.76s

Yeah.

Speaker 5960.14s - 969.1s

Management is not complying with any of this, and it makes it so that our employees have to wait. Something I do want to talk about that's outside of the grievance procedure, if we can,

Speaker 9969.46s - 972.12s

is just what's going on with the post office

Speaker 2972.12s - 974.72s

and the Postmaster General ORG.

Speaker 9975.68s - 975.92s

Yeah.

Speaker 5977.28s - 981.08s

All right, so I want to go out this from the customer perspective first

Speaker 9981.08s - 983.04s

because I think that's the best way to relate to people.

Speaker 5983.48s - 1042.02s

I think by and large, people are losing faith in the post office. Either you have no idea what's going on or you don't care and that's fine. I'd say before I joined, I didn't think of them at all. They're just the guy that shows up at my house every morning. A lot of people seem to think that the post office is going out of business and our customers are facing increasingly long lines misdelivered or lost mail and an increase in postage for a service that is getting worse. People are paying more for worse service. And it's easy to point out thoseissues from the outside and be rightfully upset at them, I do feel like we're doing a disservice to our customers. And I'm really not trying to attack them when I say that they're uninformed or clueless to the inner workings of the post office. I do directly want to attack Congress ORG and say that

Speaker 01042.02s - 1047.36s

when they post, they had pushed forward a bill called

Speaker 21047.36s - 1052.68s

the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act in 2006, which required the post office to

Speaker 01052.68s - 1060.04s

pre-fund 100% of its retiree health benefits and liabilities 75 years into the future.

Speaker 51060.44s - 1133.3s

What? So overnight, the post office was handed a $5.5 billion burden. And that's where the whole, I don't know if you remember, I certainly wasn't conscious of it at the time. The Save Our Post Office stickers that were being sold and trying to fund the Post Office ORG. And really, that's where the rhetoric of the post office is going under comes from. The other thing I want to point out is that we are quasi-federal.We actually accept nothing from taxpayer monies. It says it's a service, but really, the post office is ran as a business. We don't even get subsidized because they don't need to. My local union president loves to remind us that the post office is a business that has a revenue of $78.2 billion. And he'll want me to stress that the point two is extremely important because 0.2 of a billion is 20 million. They are not in jeopardy. We are not going out of business.And the postmaster general, Louis DeJoy PERSON, he's the second highest paid public servant in America just underneath the president of the United States GPE.

Speaker 91134.1s - 1136.66s

He's played warden clearance Thomas PERSON. Wow.

Speaker 51137.3s - 1158.62s

Yeah, I think it was like $380,000 a year or something like that. DeJoy was appointed by Donald Trump PERSON. I'm assuming this is kind of a baseless assumption, so forgive me on not doing my research here, but I'm assuming that they're buddies, because DeJoy has no idea. Yeah, wasn't she the guy that Trump PERSON brought in, like,

Speaker 91158.66s - 1163.52s

specifically to destroy the post office as part of the campaign to steal the election?

Speaker 51164.52s - 1185.16s

Yeah, so there's been a lot about DeJoy PERSON defrauding the election process. I wasn't part of the post office to see the inner workings of it, so it's kind of hard for me to say if it was hearsay or not. But I'd believe it, because DeJoy PERSON has no idea how to run a post office. He's never been involved with this kind of business.

Speaker 91185.16s - 1192.42s

He is in the same way that Trump PERSON is a businessman, a horrible businessman, and his delivering for

Speaker 51192.42s - 1241.18s

America GPE plan could really be redefined as consolidation efforts for a business. So what they're doing is they're consolidating infrastructure and the workforce, which means closing post offices in order to save money and shoving three installations into one building. That's why the lines are getting longer. It also means that from dispatch, the employees have to drive an extra mile or two into their working zone, which of course means that we're going to go into overtime.into their working zone, which of course means that we're going to go into overtime. And this just throws a wrench in the mail handling process. He has single-handedly made the service a lot more reliable. And I do think that you're right. Unreliable. Yeah, sorry, more unreliable.

Speaker 21242.64s - 1250.98s

And I do think that you're right. He wants to destroy the post office, not only for the election, but to the point where it makes more sense to go private.

Speaker 51251.74s - 1256.02s

Now is the time to point out that DeJoy is a major shareholder in FedEx ORG.

Speaker 21256.34s - 1257.74s

Oh, Jesus Christ PERSON.

Speaker 51258.54s - 1261.68s

Which is a subcontractor for the USPS ORG.

Speaker 61262.6s - 1266.7s

And he has millions of dollars in equity involved.

Speaker 21266.9s - 1267.9s

He's got skin in the game.

Speaker 51268.36s - 1269.68s

I love open corruption.

Speaker 91270.52s - 1271.26s

So great.

Speaker 51272.46s - 1314.46s

And so on the local level, on what's going on in my office, I actually have one of the better offices that I've seen or heard about. I have been sent to other offices and I have experienced firsthand the bullying and harassment from management pushing us to go faster. But even at one of the better offices,I work 60-hour weeks. I don't have set days off. It's not even a rotation. When I get home, I'm spent, and my commute isn't that bad. I think I'm about 15 minutes each way. And I really can't imagine driving two hours after an 11-hour shift

Speaker 91314.46s - 1322s

just to eat and come back and do it again. I mean, that's just unsafe. Like, that's...

Speaker 51322s - 1326.84s

Yeah, it would be illegal, but since it's in the contract, it's not illegal.

Speaker 91327.24s - 1328.14s

Oh, my God.

Speaker 51328.62s - 1335.1s

So the sacrifice that you make when you're joining the post office, well, I guess I should explain.

Speaker 91335.22s - 1340.78s

When you join as a letter carrier, the first 90 days, they can fire you for any reason.

Speaker 51341.58s - 1357.38s

And you're something called either a CCA or a PTF, and that means part-time flexible or a city carrier assistant. You are only guaranteed four hours for showing up for work. You're not guaranteed to be scheduled.

Speaker 01357.66s - 1363.82s

So if they don't like you, they just will schedule you once a week for an unknown

Speaker 51363.82s - 1366.76s

amount of time until you quit. And if you're in a busy

Speaker 01366.76s - 1371.82s

place, then that just means that they're going to work you to death. So when you join the workforce

Speaker 51371.82s - 1376.68s

immediately, you lose time with your family, you lose time with your loved ones and your friends.

Speaker 21377.6s - 1384.22s

And I myself am so fortunate that all my loved ones have been beyond understanding. But every

Speaker 51384.22s - 1387.66s

time I talk about it, I get asked the same thing.

Speaker 91388.42s - 1389.8s

Why don't you quit?

Speaker 51391.12s - 1391.56s

Yeah.

Speaker 91392s - 1395.28s

And the truth is, this job is awesome.

Speaker 51395.54s - 1399.98s

I love it. I want to work it. I just want it to make sense and be livable.

Speaker 21400.42s - 1406.74s

And I'm not going to give up just because we haven't reached the point where it is.

Speaker 51406.88s - 1429.02s

If you walk away now, it doesn't get better. I'm sure someone would take my place, but it helps to have people stick around. That's actually a pretty common. I mean, this is one of Amazon ORG shreds right for

Speaker 91429.02s - 1462.92s

their warehouses they intentionally want to cycle through people because the more the more new people you have continuously cycling through the less organized and the less sort of like less knowledge they have less you have to pay them etc etc etc and so if you can just cause high turnover rates on purpose that's's, that's a thing that a lot of these sort of business ghoul, like nightmare factory people like love in their workforces and makes everyone else's life just a living hell.But, you know, they're getting, they're still getting paid.

Speaker 51464.88s - 1486.74s

Right. And so I try and hold that in mind when I've been overworked and I'm at the end of one of my major shifts because I had to carry part of another route because someone else called out. I really have to stop and think to myself that this other person who called out is just as exhausted as I am

Speaker 91486.74s - 1493.44s

is probably going to get a letter of warning for calling out. That's another issue. They don't want

Speaker 51493.44s - 1499.46s

you to use your leave. Jesus Christ PERSON. I'm going to file an unfair labor practice because they've

Speaker 01499.46s - 1507.58s

been doing that a lot at my office as well. It reminds me a lot our issues of your recent episode.

Speaker 91507.78s - 1512.02s

I think it was you about the Nurses Union ORG, the shift change episode.

Speaker 01512.98s - 1521.52s

Their members are dealing with a lot of the same things where the unions are so big that they become detached from the membership.

Speaker 51521.52s - 1529.18s

And we are finding out afterwards what our bargaining agreements are, what our strategy was.

Speaker 01529.9s - 1533.16s

Everything's after the contract has been signed.

Speaker 51533.9s - 1553.04s

And that's just not how unions were meant to be. They're meant to be from the bottom up by the workers, for the workers. But it really does feel like it's national as its own entity. And so I guess that would bring us to talking about the union and the future of the union.

Speaker 91553.88s - 1554.74s

Yeah, let's get into that.

Speaker 51555.36s - 1631.94s

So I've got to be careful here because Brian Renfro PERSON, he's our national leader of the union, he's been struggling with problems in his personal life. And I don't feel like I'm ousting him as it's public knowledge, at least within the post office, it's public knowledge. He's dealing with substance abuse with alcoholism. And that's something that hits very close to home within my family. And I really don't want to demonize that he's struggling.But what I do want to say is when you're going through something like that and you've accepted a position on the national level like this, you really need to either step down or appoint someone to handle things in your place. As negotiation started over a year ago, he kind of went missing. And it was later revealed that he was inpatient, which is fine. Get your help.But there was nothing left, no notes left for us to strategize with. And our membership is just in the dark. And beyond that, the leadership has gone missing. It's very dark times for the NALC ORG.

Speaker 91633.08s - 1715.1s

Well, and that's also just sort of like an organizational problem, right? Like if your organization is set up in such a way that a small number of people being incapacitated means total paralysis and no one has any idea what's going on. That's just a bad way to run something. And especially it's a terrible way to run a union because the union's, you know, power is supposed to be from, from its organization and from the collective power of a large, of a large organized group of people who can make decisions for themselves.And if it's, if that's not happening and you get to the point where these decisions are being made by a very small number of people who can just sort of vanish, like that's that for whatever. And, you know, literally whatever reason that is,right? It could just be, you get sick. It could just be like, whatever happens. That's just a terrible way to organize things.And I guess it's also like, I want to take like a little tiny tangent to be like if you're doing any organizing project, your goal is to organize yourself out of a job. Like you're like ideally if you were in an organization, it should be able to function without you. There should not. Having an indispensable person is a fiasco. Don't do that. This is true of both like your tiny local mutual aid group as much as is true of your giant national union.So this has been Mia PERSON talking about the indispensable person don't have.

Speaker 51716.22s - 1726.9s

Well, yeah, that's kind of the funny thing about joining a union from an anarchist perspective. It gets a little funky how hierarchical they typically are

Speaker 01726.9s - 1733.2s

and the problems that we know we are going to face when you have a system that's built like

Speaker 51733.2s - 1809s

a pyramid. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And so I was saying, we're in dark times, but there's such a bright future that I can see for us. Branch 9 of the NALC, and namely this individual, Tyler Vassar PERSON, who, when I had originallyposted on Reddit ORG asking for attention, he's the one that I thought would be great for this interview. His branch, Branch 9 ORG, has passed a resolution to form an open bargaining strategy for contract negotiations, and I hope this sweeps the nation. We're not allowed to strike, as I've mentioned, and our leadership is so shy when it comes to activism or mobilization of the workforce. They don't want to touch the topic.The closest thing we have to it is a rally that is enough is enough that's being held in Baltimore soon about the violence that's being done to postal workers. We're being robbed and we're being harassed. But even then, we're missing a large chunk of the danger that is posed to postal workers, we're being robbed and we're being harassed. But even then, we're missing a large chunk of the danger that is posed to postal workers.

Speaker 21809s - 1832.68s

Because yes, we're being robbed on the streets, but we're also being bullied and harassed inside of our workplaces by management, by the people who are supposed to empower us to do the job effectively. And so they don't want to touch the topic of a strike, I think, for fear of retaliation.

Speaker 51833.28s - 1865.72s

But to me, pushing for the right to strike is a, I'm not sure how to word this. It is such an important part of the NALC's identity, the postal strike of 1970, that it seems silly to ignore it today and pretend like it didn't happen. So for the future, I think that activism is our key to success. I think that the old heads that lead our union come from a time where unions were

Speaker 21865.72s - 1873.64s

frowned upon, where activism was frowned upon. But I think that public opinion will be largely

Speaker 51873.64s - 1932s

in our favor and that public opinion can really put pressure on the legislative branch on Congress ORG. And if we are transparent about our union, what we're asking for, the issues that we're facing, I think that the public would be on our side. If the people in America GPE knew that management was falsifying time records or training records and interfering with workers' comps claim and back pay, or that they're not paying the settlements that they've agreed to pay, that they're not scheduling arbitration sessions, big or small,that they would care and that they would join us in the streets. One major thing that happened, I think it was last year in the summer, major thing that happened, I think it was last year in the summer, we had a letter carrier. His name is Eugene Gates, who died in the Texas GPE heat.

Speaker 91932.66s - 1938.64s

Jesus, yeah. Because management told him not to take as many breaks or he would face discipline.

Speaker 01939.32s - 1948.72s

These pressures that we face when you're threatened that you will lose your job if you don't listen to us,

Speaker 51949.12s - 1953.18s

you will push yourself to the point of exhaustion and further.

Speaker 21955.34s - 1970.78s

I think that the post office killed Mr. Gates PERSON and there wasn't as much outcry or or anger behind the movement. I often find myself

Speaker 51970.78s - 1978.32s

thinking that while I don't have the answers, I do know that we need to care more. Yeah.

Speaker 21978.8s - 1985.46s

And it's hard to care when you're exhausted. I acknowledge that. Yeah, well, I think there's two things about that.

Speaker 51985.46s - 1988.92s

One, I mean, I don't, and this is something I've gotten to,

Speaker 21989.6s - 1992.38s

with a lot of the sort of interviews that I've done on this show,

Speaker 51992.46s - 1998.34s

is that I think a lot of very, very basic jobs

Speaker 21998.34s - 2001.68s

have labor conditions that are unimaginably appalling

Speaker 52001.68s - 2003.9s

that people just don't know about.

Speaker 92004.56s - 2067.94s

And I think people are very sympathetic to once they actually understand what's happening and the kind of just horror show stuff that's happening in these workplaces. And the second thing, I think that's sort of important in terms of getting people to, you know, like trying to actually do mass mobilizations, even just to get people to understand what's going on, is that I think a lot of people who are facing these kind of conditions think that they're alone and think that it's just something that happens to them or they've been in them for so long, they think that it's sort of normal. And having a bunch of people go, no, like, A, this happens and B, it shouldn't happen is extraordinarily powerful because,, you know, like that feeling of isolation is the thing that all of that, you know, that your bosses depend on to make sure that, you know, you just keep going along with these conditions,even though they are just objectively horrific. And I think any strategy that's not based on that is just not going to go anywhere. Right.

Speaker 52068.12s - 2119.32s

And one of the strategies that I really want to push forward as I grow within the union, and don't get me wrong, I want to stay as steward. I think that educating our members and being part of the workforce is my place in the union. But what I want to push is for union solidarity, I want the NALC ORG to hire organizers, specifically organizers,to try and get the public mobilized and as well as the workforce so that we can put pressure on Congress so that we can show our bargaining teams that we support them and so that we can have pressure on Congress ORG so that we can show our bargaining teams that we support them and so that we can have clearly defined bargaining terms. And, yeah, I think that having solidarity between unions and reaching out to the other movements

Speaker 02119.32s - 2128.24s

in a time where union support is higher than ever is such a clear path that we are just ignoring

Speaker 52128.24s - 2172.84s

for whatever reason because people are afraid to speak out against the post office. And so I'm really not sure what's going to happen with our current contract, but I do know that the fight never ends and that while we stand on the shoulders of giants, we have to pay respect to these giants by not giving up now. And I'm a relatively new employee and steward, but I'm really walking in the footsteps of some warriors.The branch president I mentioned, Ken Lurch PERSON, has given me so much support and education and has done so much hard work over the years that I don't have to reinvent the wheel. None of us do. We just have to continue

Speaker 92172.84s - 2180s

the struggle. Yeah, and I think that's a great place to end, unless you have anything else

Speaker 52180s - 2185.88s

that you want to make sure we get to? No, nothing on this topic.

Speaker 92186.84s - 2193.44s

Yeah, so how can people support you and postal workers, just in general, if there's a specific place you want them to go?

Speaker 52194.94s - 2199.2s

In general, there is on the NALC ORG site,

Speaker 92199.84s - 2202.06s

which is just NALC.com ORG,

Speaker 52202.06s - 2233.8s

there is a section where you put in your address, and it will give you the email addresses, the phone numbers for your representatives, so that you can make some noise. Again, we're amazingly limited in what we can do, so there's not really anything that you can donate to to help us, including theletter carrier political fund. But yeah, just pay attention to us. Maybe leave a bottle of water

Speaker 92233.8s - 2240.96s

out in your front door says for the postal worker. You know, there's nothing better that you can

Speaker 52240.96s - 2245.9s

do than talking about it. Word of mouth is the best advertisement.

Speaker 92251.54s - 2258.58s

Well, yeah, we will put that in the show notes. I hope you all win. I don't think I've ever said this genuinely in my life, but thank you for your service. I appreciate that. Yeah, I never imagined

Speaker 52258.58s - 2279.9s

myself to become a federal employee, and it is just as bad as I imagined. Yeah. federal employee and it is just as bad as I imagined. Yeah. So I do want to shout out actually, it's a little meta, I guess, but I do want to shout out some important episodes of it could happen here that hit me very closely if I can.

Speaker 92280.34s - 2281.44s

Yeah, yeah, go for it.

Speaker 52281.8s - 2308.08s

Because a lot of the people listening will be postal workers that have been pointed in this direction. Please look at the Myanmar episodes, the Free Burma, the Burmese Revolution EVENT, and look at the work that, Mia, I believe you've done the same work as James with Border Kindness. Those are two topics that I think y'all hit really well,

Speaker 22308.42s - 2310.86s

and that really touched me as a person.

Speaker 52311.5s - 2318.14s

Sometimes I'll re-listen to those episodes when I'm having a hard day just to remind myself that it's all the same.

Speaker 92318.82s - 2344.56s

It's all the same fight. Yeah, it absolutely is. And I mean, I think that's sort of the beauty. I mean, it's both the beauty and the horror of this world is that on the one hand, all of us are being crushed by the same sets of forces. But on the other hand, it means that whatever fight that you're taking is also a part ofthe larger fight, forget all of us free. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 52344.98s - 2348.16s

So just fight the burnout and stay in the fight. Yeah.

Speaker 92349.76s - 2369.22s

Yeah, this has been Nickadap PERSON here. Go make trouble for people who suck. Hi, everyone. it's James.

Speaker 82373.82s - 2404.36s

We just wanted to let you know that some new shit has come to light since we recorded this. Specifically, a former staffer of World Central Kitchen who resigned, who was of Palestinian descent, wrote an op-ed, I guess, in Mondeweiss, which is a publication that covers Israel and Palestine and the United States GPE role there. And it's given us some more information about what's the education than we didn't know when we first recorded this. And so we are going to address that at the end. So after the second ad break, Charles will go. Shereen PERSON and I will come back and we're going to address some stuff that we found in that op-ed. We will also link it in the description

Speaker 42404.36s - 2422.68s

to this podcast. Yes. It's a really good article. I recommend you guys give it a full read. But yeah, we will be talking all about it at the end. So please listen to the whole episode. Hello, everybody. Welcome to It Could Happen here. Today, I am joined by my illustrious colleague, James. Hi, James.

Speaker 82423s - 2427s

Hi, Shereen. And my now friend, Charles McBride PERSON.

Speaker 72427.06s - 2427.5s

Hi, Charles PERSON.

Speaker 42427.62s - 2428.64s

Welcome back to the show.

Speaker 72429.5s - 2434.34s

Hi, now, friends, Shereen PERSON. It's wonderful to be here. And to know that you're a real person and not a federal sci-up.

Speaker 42434.78s - 2438.56s

Yeah. Fun fact, I have met Charles PERSON in person, but I have not met James in person.

Speaker 82438.64s - 2446.32s

And I think that's pretty funny. That's why I got colleague and Charles PERSON got friend. No, I don't think we're not taking notes over history.

Speaker 42446.32s - 2448.18s

No, don't read into that. Don't read into that. Okay.

Speaker 82448.76s - 2449.38s

We have.

Speaker 42450.02s - 2464.28s

We're talking about World Central Kitchen ORG and the tragedy that happened last week in which seven aid workers were killed. Both of these gentlemen have personal experience with the organization, so I thought it would be good to talk about. But James, take it away.

Speaker 82464.72s - 2497.52s

Okay. So, yeah, I think we should maybe start off. Charles PERSON, you and I have both seen World Central Kitchen ORG in different places. Like, my longest experience with them was starting in 2018 in Tijuana GPE, right, when we were trying to feed people who were part of a caravan of migrants who had arrived right before the midterms. And what was a relatively normal thing became a really big political sort of football, which resulted in the people remember, like people being tear gassed in Mexico from inside the United States GPE,

Speaker 02497.52s - 2510.32s

people being held first in a baseball stadium, and then in an old strip club, which was really gross. And there being essentially no NGO presence at first, and then neutral aid presence,

Speaker 82510.56s - 2560.44s

and then World Central Kitchen were one of the first people to show up and cook for people. And like, at this point, there was a really dion of need for food. Like, I have this vivid memory of three of my friends and I riding in a bed of a pickup truck into this refugee camp and people just mobbing for food and water and like people were good about like not stamping on children once once we stopped but like I was really worried there was going to be a crash. People were very hungry and very thirsty and I had just had massive respect for peopleshowing up and just being like we are people who cook food and what we're here to do is cook food and these people are hungry so we're going to give it to them. And so I've always been admiring of their work since then. And I wonder, Charles PERSON, like what your sort of initial experience was with them and if you could describe like sort of what sort of work you've seen them doing.

Speaker 72562.44s - 2775.5s

Yeah. So first experience that I had with World Central Kitchen ORG was actually hands off. It was when my friends and I, we created this thing four years ago called the FarmLink Project ORG, which is a food rescue organization. It basically finds food that's going to waste on farms and pays the wages of the truckers and the drivers to transport the food to food banks that are overworked. We sort of tagged in with World Central Kitchen in the beginning of COVID EVENT and talked with thema little bit, but there was never any official partnership. Some of their comms people gave us advice. Some of their fundraising people gave us advice. First time I ever saw them in operation was coming into the Jemesh GPE train station, week two of the Ukraine GPE war. And they were the organization feeding all the refugees coming in.There's a bunch of people in World Central Kitchen ORG. And the thing I noticed was none of them were speaking English LANGUAGE. They were all speaking Polish and Ukrainian or Russian LANGUAGE. And I started to realize this is an organization that knows how to mobilize a local population and a local response as a part of the thing. And that's something I really noticed when almost a year later,I flew from Ukraine to Turkey when a 7.5 magnitude earthquake went through southeastern Turkey, Kurdistan GPE. And I flew into Adana and then basically linked up with the World Central Kitchen ORG people in the city of Osmania GPE. And one of the things I noticed was how quickly they were able to get into Syria when nobody else was getting into Syria GPE. And the reason is because it's just chefs.It's just using chefs in restaurants in places where they already exist. Every place in the world has chefs and restaurants. And Jose Andres PERSON has this amazing quote that I really like. He says, everyone already works for World Central Kitchen ORG. They just don't know it yet. And I saw that in action. I saw all these kitchens transformed into, you know, shelters and food distribution sites.And I got to work alongside their team. So my project, I was trying to fundraise for heaters and blankets to heat the affid tents in the affected regions in Kurdistan, in the Kurdish villages on the border with Syria GPE, because it was still very cold at that time. And there was not, you know, adequate attention paid to that. Obviously, Afad ORG and its cronies is part of the whole reason that that incident was as bad as it was, but World Central Kitchen stepped up in a big way in Turkey GPE. And I was really impressed withkind of their outfit. We were working out of the same distribution center. You know, I got to a company, Jose Andres, on a couple of his deliveries, and we went into Hate ORG and walked around and saw the extent of the devastation and visited all the World Central Kitchen feeding sites. And it was just, it was all Turkish NORP people and gorgeous people who were there working for World Central Kitchen ORG. They'd been mobilized by this entity. So there's this decentralized element to World Central Kitchen ORG that I found really impressive. It didn't feel like the top-down bureaucratic thing I kept running into in my humanitarian work with these big NGOs ORG.It was much more grassroots, much more bottom up. So it gained a lot of respect for me in that sense. Yeah, I think that's a really good point to make. They do have a different model. It allows

Speaker 82775.5s - 2814.68s

them to be flexible. It's allowed them to be places where other people aren't. I think a lot of people perhaps are not as familiar with the NGO world as you and I might be. NGOs often present themselves in places where people need help. It's like, you know, they have large office buildings on white land cruises, and they have one way of doing things, and it's their way. And sometimes that doesn't work.I can recount countless examples of this, right? NGOs that exist to do things in a certain way and don't adapt to a local situation or culture. And that's something the World Central Kitchen ORG have done really well in my experience all over the world.

Speaker 72815.5s - 2908.76s

Yeah, they grafts themselves on to a local response. And everywhere that they go, it takes on a local flavor. And I think that's why this happened is because they inserted themselves into a highly volatile situation. And because they are so decentralized and because they are so on the ground, they also expose themselves to the realities of what Palestinians NORP have been facing in Gaza and lost members of their team, you know, as a result. And I think that is part of that is there's a lot ofpeople who won't even go into Gaza GPE, you know, if they had the opportunity. Like you said, these big NGOs, I think last time I was on the podcast, Shereen PERSON, I talked about, you know, seeing these big UN advertisements in the Copenhagen airport saying save Ukrainian NORP children when I first, when I was going over there. And then as soon as I got there, I mean, the minute you go east of Leviv, you're not going to see a UN ORG truck anywhere. And it was, it was that way for nine months. You know, and yeah, it was just a bunch of peoplewith like brand new white land cruiser prados sipping cocktails in Leviv GPE while subcontracting with actual humanitarian working closer to the front line, World Central Kitchen ORG was not that way. They were all the way out, all the way out in the east. Everywhere I went, there was World Central Kitchen cars, even deep into Donetsk GPE. And that was really impressive.It felt antithetical to the whole nonprofit industrial complex model that I'd become familiar with. And I was impressed by that. Yeah.

Speaker 82909.06s - 2922.88s

So perhaps we should speak about exactly what they were doing in Gaza GPE. Because I think people are perhaps a little confused. There's been a lot of misinformation from all kinds of angles about what they were doing in Gaza GPE. So do you have a good handle on that?

Speaker 72923.88s - 2927.76s

I mean, World Central Kitchen ORG positioned itself.

Speaker 82928.38s - 2932.04s

They engage in slightly more activist humanitarianism

Speaker 72932.04s - 2934s

than most organizations,

Speaker 82934s - 2938.04s

which is why, I mean, Jose Andres went big on Ukraine GPE.

Speaker 72938.56s - 2939.52s

He was there.

Speaker 82939.62s - 2940.46s

He brought the whole team.

Speaker 72940.58s - 3140.66s

I mean, they dedicated so many resources to Ukraine GPE. And for him, it was unequivocal. Ukrainians are the good guys. Russians NORP are the bad guys. We're helping the victims of this conflict. And, you know, we're on the side of, of the angels in this. And that was the positioning. And I think it was a bit of a wake up call when after October 7th, he did the same thing in Israel GPE and went and, you know, gave foodto the, to the different kibbutzim that were affected by the October 7th attacks. And at first, very much positioned himself as like, we're here to help relieve the affected Israelis, which again, for like polite liberals in the humanitarian world, you know, Israel, Ukraine GPE, both aligned with Western NORP interests, Western values theoretically. And I think, and then, you know, suddenly the war focus goes from what happened to the Kibbutzim to what's happening in Gaza GPE. And so they, they went to Egypt and they started helping the refugees and then they tried to get into Gaza GPE.Then they did get into Gaza GPE. And they set up, you know, an effective system of food aid. And I started to notice while that was happening that the perspectives of a lot of the people that I was working with in the aid community were starting to shift on this whole thing. People who didn't have a political interest in supporting the Palestinians NORP and were just kind of supporting Israel GPE because of the default.When they actually went to Gaza GPE, they started to really change their tune. And you see this a little bit with Jose Andres PERSON as well. I think Jose Andreswas, yeah, I mean, in terms of his personal views on Israel GPE, they seem to have very clearly evolved. You can see very soon after October 7th, he is calling out the Spanish prime minister on calling what's happening in Palestine GPE and genocide. He's saying that Israel GPE has a right to defend itself. And then he spends a bunch of time in Gaza GPE. And now he's greeting everyone in Arabic LANGUAGE.And then this thing happens, and he immediately points the finger at Israeli NORP, says, you guys targeted my team. You killed them deliberately, and you made sure the job was finished. And that is just so reproachable. And in doing so, he became one of the only, like, really big celebrity voices to make what appeared to be something of a 180 turn on that conflict.And pretty much everyone that I've worked with in the humanitarian or journalism space has also done the same thing in regard to Gaza GPE. I'd say most people thought my views on this were too extreme after October 7th when I began immediately criticizing Israel GPE. And now the ones who have actually been there pretty much unequivocally say they're the bad actor in this region. And I think you saw that shift happen in real time with sort of the attitude that World Central Kitchen took to Gaza GPE.All of that stuff is available from public statements. I don't want to share private sentiments that have been shared with me by members of World Central Kitchen ORG staff. Those are their own and they don't represent the organization. But I think even just watching the yo-yo of Jose Andres' PERSON perspective on this change has been enlightening. Yeah. And I think like it's easy

Speaker 83140.66s - 3247.22s

to be critical of someone for having opinions which have not aged well, right? And sometimes that's okay. Sometimes sometimes we need to do that. Sometimes people say shit, which is unforgivable. But like, I think in this instance, like we can be critical at a point, but I don't think now is the time for that. Like I think now is the time for like everyone who wants the starving and killing of innocent people in Gaza GPE to stopis on our side right now and we need to welcome that and like there are a lot of people in this country right who we need to do that same 180 and giving examples of people doing that is good like they and there are a lot of people who don't see themselves when they see dead people in Gaza GPE and that's a problem right and who don't see themselves when they see dead people in Gaza. And that's a problem, right? And that's some shit that they need to examine. And because there's a lot of bigotry there. But if they see themselves in those aid workers or they see themselves in JoseAndres, and look, when I saw the bodies of those aid workers, right, you have a tall, skinny British guy with, with long hair in a plate carrier with a badge on on. Like that's what I look like to 99% of the world. And it's hard not to feel like, oh shit, like that could be me. And I have, I feel like I have a lot of empathy for people in Gaza GPE. I have friends in Gaza GPE. We speak to them on the podcast.Shereen and I spoke to them last week. But whatever it takes for those people to change their opinions right now is what we need. And we can dissect how we got here later. But like every minute that this continues, more innocent people die. And if we can stop this one minute sooner than there's an important lives that we can save. And I think it's really important to focus on where we are, not like how we got here right now,if that makes sense.

Speaker 43247.96s - 3260.82s

As far as global conflicts go, I believe it's like 224 aid workers have died in Gaza GPE, which is not a normal number in any kind of war. So I,that's according to the UN ORG. Yeah,

Speaker 83260.94s - 3277.2s

a hundred journalists, right? Like every, there is one person I can think of who I've worked with in Gaza GPE who is still alive. Everyone I know has lost family members. And that's just my tiny slice. You know, I'm by no means as affected by this as most people.

Speaker 23277.94s - 3284.14s

But yeah, three times as many children have died since October in Gaza as are normally killed in conflicts in a year worldwide.

Speaker 83284.8s - 3286.06s

Like, it's fucking horrific.

Speaker 23287.24s - 3292.08s

And yeah, we would do well to like put aside our differences and make it stop, I think.

Speaker 83292.82s - 3293.62s

Yeah, I agree.

Speaker 43294.78s - 3298.54s

Opposition to genocide and wanting to end it should be a very big tent.

Speaker 73299.14s - 3304.32s

And the fact that some people on the internet are trying to make it a smaller one doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Yeah.

Speaker 43304.48s - 3304.64s

Yeah.

Speaker 73304.92s - 3307.76s

Yeah. It promotes infighting, which is not helpful right now.

Speaker 43308.44s - 3374.28s

Yeah, it is helpful to not call it a war and continue calling it a genocide because that's what it is. So, yeah, just continuing to change all the rhetoric around this genocide, I think, is important. This is also not the first time that Israel GPE has directly targeted aid workers that are clearly labeled as aid workers. In 2006, in Lebanon, Israel GPE struck a red cross ambulance right in the center of the logo. Right on top of the truck, there was, or the van was a red cross, a clear red cross, and it struck right in the center. I think that image is now going around again.It's from 2006 again. It's not the first time that Israel GPE has directly targeted aid workers, and I think it's really appalling seeing leadership in Israel just kind of apologized half-heartedly being like, this was a mistake, and then they just move on. If this was the red line for people,one, I find that frustrating, but if it's finally the red line for people, I just hope it continues and people don't let it go.

Speaker 83374.96s - 3379.28s

There's that story that was absolutely fucking heartbreaking, right, of that young girl who was trapped in her car

Speaker 43379.28s - 3382.18s

and she called the ambulance and the ambulance came

Speaker 23382.18s - 3383.24s

and they bombed the ambulance, right?

Speaker 83383.3s - 3413.5s

They killed her and they killed the ambulance drivers. Like those two ambulance drivers were Palestinian NORP. They were working for the Palestinian Red Crescent ORG. They deserve every bit as much outrage as the world central kitchen people do. What they did with every bit as admirable. But like, if this is what it takes for people to change, then like,I hope that they will also acknowledge that everything else that happened before was an atrocity too. Talking of, like, atrocities, we have an advertising break now. That was good, James. Good job.

Speaker 43424.7s - 3501.1s

And we're back. Charles, you recently got some online attention for a video that you posted that was highlighting the vast imbalance of attention that the targeted assassination of the aid workers got in comparison to the murder and genocide of Palestinians NORP. Specifically, people were talking about how there was also a Palestinian NORP driver who was murdered along with the aid workers, and his name was not getting mentioned. His name is Seif Isam Abutthaha PERSON. And just a reminder of how frustrating it is that this had to be the red line for people. There are over 33,000 people in Gaza who have been murdered, nearly half ofwhich are children. There are probably thousands more who are trapped under the rubble and other thousands that are just unaccounted for because of the bombing of hospitals and the lack of records. So to have the killing of six aid workers be a red line for people, that's what I mean by saying it's frustrating because it is a tragedy. But tragedy has been taking place for the past six months and also the past 76 years.So, yes, the video that Charles PERSON made got some well-deserved attention, and I'd love for you to talk about it a little bit.

Speaker 73501.92s - 3690.06s

Yeah, so this was like a strange convergence of things for me because I had been keeping up with the WCK team as they went into Gaza GPE. I'd actually even been in conversations with some of them about potentially going there. But I hadn't, I mean, like these were just buddies from a humanitarian trip. I mean, you know, like James probably knows you make friends really fast when you're connected, when you're in these sorts of scenarios. And, you know, I had, I made friendships while I was in Turkey GPE that I've,I've maintained. And, but then my, my Palestinian NORP advocacy was separate. You know, I'm, I'm over here educating and everything. And then suddenly there's this convergence of like, former, you know, co-workers on this team dying. And then it being the fault of this regime that I've spent the last six months trying to educate people on why it's bad. And I posted a video, which was my tribute to the fallen WCK ORG employees who were very closefriends of people that I got really close to on that project. And it was a tribute to them and also a way of pointing out how their martyrdom has been, has overshadowed the martyrdom of so many Palestinians NORP who will never get the kind of press and attention that they did. And I think it achieved that effect. The video went very, very viral.It's exceeded a million views on TikTok ORG. It's around a quarter of a million on Instagram ORG. And more than that on the accounts that have reposted and shared it, sometimes without the context that I am not a World Central Kitchen ORG employee, nor do I represent the opinions of the organization. And one of the things that I think made that story go viral is that I did shift the attentionto, I said, this is a genocide. And I said, as grieved as I am at the loss of these people that I have this connection with, I do want to point out that it is overshadowing the horrendous loss of life of Palestinians NORP. And I think that resonated with a lot of people. It also resonated with my former, you know, my friends at WCCK ORG who reached out to say, we appreciate you using your platform to talk about this, especially considering the fact that WCK ORG employees do nottypically are not really supposed to be making statements online about this. especially considering the fact that WCCA ORG employees do not typically are not really supposed to be making statements online about this. So they have a little more leeway with that, concerning the fact that the head of the organization has explicitly now condemned Israel GPE for this strike. But I've had some very interesting conversations with friends of mine that either still work or are connected to the organization.And that's a slightly complicated thing because World Central Kitchen ORG subcontracts with so many different people. So at any given point, there are people who are connected to World Central Kitchen who are not representatives of the organization or technically employees. So, you know, you can't say definitively, this is what the majority of people in WCCK ORG feel about Gaza or Israel GPE or anything. You know, different people have different opinions about that whole situation.

Speaker 83694.8s - 3737.72s

I think what you tried to do was obviously not to represent them and it would be disingenuous so anyone to suggest you did, but the internet does that. I want to talk about one more, talking of disingenuous things on the internet, I guess. There was this thing that went around immediately in the aftermath of the photos coming out of the different people's corpses that, like, it seemed to be mostly like tankies or perhaps people who still believe that they can generate revenue from views on Twitter ORG, saying that like, because these people had a security team, the security team was somehow spiesand this is evidence they were working for Israel GPE, right? Like, you can speak to your experience, Charles PERSON. Like, I've worked with security teams and seen people working with security teams all over the fucking world because war is dangerous. And you have the thing that everyone needs.

Speaker 73738.16s - 3757.54s

If you have the misfortune of being a veteran of the global war on terror, you have a very few outlets for your skill set. One of those is providing security for humanitarian actors and journalists. And that is one of the most pro-social applications of your skill set.

Speaker 83758.34s - 3761.4s

Yeah, there are a lot of worse things to do with those skills, believe me.

Speaker 43762.14s - 3762.38s

Right.

Speaker 83762.38s - 3773.04s

So I have encountered a lot of people in my time in Ukraine GPE and elsewhere who have decided to turn

Speaker 73773.04s - 3780.26s

their sort of military intelligence background experience into, well, okay, I'm good at this.

Speaker 43780.34s - 3781.84s

I'm familiar with these types of scenarios.

Speaker 73781.84s - 3846.02s

And if there's one thing I'm decent at, it's, well, at least trying to keep people safe and give them intelligence. And that is a, that's never a guarantee. But in all the people I've met who actually are legit, you know, security consultants or just veterans who have applied their skills towards a pro-social humanitarian purpose, are pretty good guys. And while I'm sure, you know, there are some of them who are connected to various, are still connected to sort of the intelligence services of their various countries. I think that's definitely a possibility. A lot ofthem are not. They're just veterans who are trying to help. And they, this is a way that they can make a living while doing something that has a low moral hazard. So, yeah, I dismiss that stuff. There's a lot of conspiracies. The problem is, I mean, in the vacuum of the sort of post-manufacturing consent world where none of us trust the Western liberal media, a lot of people trust stuff that's evendumber, including just like

Speaker 03846.02s - 3852.62s

takes on the internet that somebody pulled out of their ass. And a lot of it is if you have set

Speaker 73852.62s - 3924.14s

yourself up against everything that comes out of the West, then every, everything that looks like a fingerprint of an intelligence agency or anything is going to ring your alarm bells. Obviously, you know, James, I feel like Ukraine GPE is a great example of this. The fact that the United States supports Ukraine GPE means that Ukraine must be the villain and thatthe entire thing must be a CIA ORG sci-op and there's spies everywhere. And I'm a spy for going to Ukraine GPE and helping grandmothers get their insulin. All of those things have been said about Ukraine GPE, about me, about that sort of thing.And we know it's not true. It's just that people, I mean as about, you know, that sort of thing. And we know it's, we know it's not true. It's just that people, I mean, these, as far as I know, these were, these were guys who were security consultants, very similar to, I work with a lot of British veterans of the global war on terror, basically on various different projects, some of it having to do with PTSD, others having to do with environmental conservation, some of whom have worked in Palestine and been in the West Bank. And I think Brits NORP, by and large, have a moresane perspective on Palestine than people in the US GPE do. I've just noticed that there are fewer ultra-Zionist Brits than Americans NORP. I think our politics is less dominated by that perspective.

Speaker 83924.14s - 3957.44s

There are ultra-sionist British people, but yeah, it's also just, I think, a little bit harder to live a life in Britain where you don't know, if not Palestinian people, Arab NORP people, and Muslim NORP people, right? And that complete demonization and dehumanization of Muslim people that the Western NORP media did for 20 years to manufacture consent for war that wasn't about weapons of mass destruction or women in Afghanistan GPE. It doesn't stick the landing quite so well when you have friends and you can kind of see through

Speaker 73957.44s - 3961.84s

the nonsense. Yeah. Well, also, I think the percentage of like evangelical Christians was probably

Speaker 43961.84s - 3967.88s

much less. Yeah, no one's breeding a fucking red cow in England to take it to this third temple

Speaker 73967.88s - 3969.36s

that I know of.

Speaker 43970.32s - 3973.84s

That was one of the things I was going to point out is I don't think you even have to know,

Speaker 83974.08s - 3977.08s

like, to be a Zionist, you don't even have to know Jewish people in the US GPE.

Speaker 73977.08s - 3982.28s

I was raised an ultra Zionist without knowing a single Jewish NORP family because I came from

Speaker 83982.28s - 3984.12s

an evangelical community in South Carolina GPE.

Speaker 73984.32s - 4004.12s

That was very Christo NORP-nationalist, very kind of culturally dispensationalist, even though my family wasn't dispensationalist, it was all about in times you support Israel GPE because that's where, you know, that's where Jesus PERSON is going to come back. So yeah, I remember, I mean, I, I, I, we even had like fake Passover ceremonies in our church. God, this is, this is bringing up some, some interesting

Speaker 24004.12s - 4015.46s

yeah, into the trauma box. But truly, I mean, one of my early sort of, I would say I was,

Speaker 84015.54s - 4020.14s

I was completely anti-Zionist NORP before I was even a leftist. And part of that reason was

Speaker 74020.14s - 4029.46s

because I got to know a Palestinian friend in Washington, D.C., while sharing a desk with an Israeli conservative and a liberal Zionist.

Speaker 44029.86s - 4032.7s

Wow, that is a joke.

Speaker 74032.84s - 4034.16s

Like, these people walk into a bar.

Speaker 44034.8s - 4035.04s

Yeah.

Speaker 74035.54s - 4036.46s

Trio of people.

Speaker 44037.16s - 4041.14s

So I, like, I think I had kind of, I got pilled on Palestine GPE.

Speaker 74041.7s - 4155.06s

Part of it was because, like, I was a history major in college, so I learned historiography. I just never applied historiography to the Israel GPE-Palestine conflict. And then having these two voices in my era, while, like, living and working in D.C. GPE, I was like, oh, I need to actually look into this. And so, yeah, I mean, I would say even before I was like a leftist, I was down on Israel GPE. I figured they were not the good guys. And then I think reading the fateful triangle by a Noam Tromsky really solidified that. And obviously, Ilan Pape PERSON kind of was the nail in the coffin for me. So, yeah, and speaking of like, you know, what happens in D.C. GPE and, you know,Americans' opinions on the Middle East LOC, most of them are dog shit opinions because most people do not have some sort of strong point of reference to this zone. But it goes back to what we were saying about how being against genocides should be a very big tent and we should resist efforts to make it smaller because I'm reading through the 100 Years War on Palestine right now, Rashid Khaldi PERSON. I'm reading through the 100 Years War on Palestine right now, Rashid Khaldi PERSON. And one of the things that he said is how the war is fought in the United States in Congress ORG,because we hold the keys. So as much as it's as painful as it is to try and change the minds of dumb Americans NORP with no geopolitical understanding, it's absolutely essential to holding Israel GPE to account. It is actually one of the best things that you can do. And when someone who has the international appeal of chef Jose Andres points the finger at Israel GPE and said, you killed my employees deliberately and you're starving Ghazans NORP. That goes a long way towards shifting the opinions of the peoplewho actually hold the keys to everything Israel GPE does.

Speaker 84156.06s - 4157.5s

Yeah, I think that's a very good point.

Speaker 74157.74s - 4160.52s

And that's what we need to do, right?

Speaker 84160.82s - 4185.24s

Like stop them getting bombs to kill people, not argue on Twitter or, you know, Instagram ORG or what have you. Like we need to make the, make the killing stop. I wonder, like, you spoke to Charles about knowing people. I know World Central Kitchen ORG are no longer working in Gaza GPE for the time being, is that still correct?

Speaker 74188.46s - 4199.78s

They've publicly announced that they're scaling back their efforts. Yes, I'm not sure if they're going to totally close down their operation. I think right now they're probably trying to reconsider their security protocols before making another step.

Speaker 84199.78s - 4213.34s

Yeah, I mean, I don't really know what, as there are things, of course, but like they did attempt to deconflict, I guess, and they were using a road, which is designated for the use that they were using it for.

Speaker 44214.06s - 4223.96s

I mean, Israel GPE knew where they were. Like, they have to report where they are. So, I mean, it would be fucking crazy if Israel GPE attacked aid workers again right now.

Speaker 74224.56s - 4225.66s

But also, it's Israel GPE.

Speaker 44226.36s - 4229.08s

I mean, yeah, also they've done crazier things, yeah.

Speaker 74229.38s - 4235.46s

But can we like dwell on that for a second? Like, Israel GPE constantly boasts about its ISR capabilities.

Speaker 44235.92s - 4238.6s

In ISR's intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance.

Speaker 24238.86s - 4244.22s

So, like, Israel GPE is constantly reassuring people that it is doing everything it can to

Speaker 44244.22s - 4245.54s

avoid civilian casualties.

Speaker 74245.7s - 4276.78s

It talks about its chain of command for approval. And in light of that, none of the things that they've said about this make any sense whatsoever. Because if their protocols, because they're either, it's like they can't decide what they're trying to gaslight the world into believing. Every claim that they're making is muddling what they're trying to get the world to believe about them.And it just gives everyone the distinct impression that they're recklessly incompetent, lying, evil, or potentially all three.

Speaker 24277.78s - 4278.22s

Right.

Speaker 74278.64s - 4282.4s

Like, even if you look, I was, because I don't know why, this is the thing that I do,

Speaker 84282.66s - 4287.7s

I was looking at, like, trying to work at what munition Israel GPE had used, right, to, to destroy those vehicles.

Speaker 74288.12s - 4293.56s

And Israel GPE has, they have a number of different sort of munitions that they could have used.

Speaker 84294.02s - 4330.28s

But one of the things that they do, and the US does it too, but it's a bigger thing with Israel GPE is if they have inert or low yield, hellfire munitions, so like guided munitions that are fire from a helicopter or a drone. And they use them to do a thing that they call roof knocking, right, which sounds maybe like you're like knocking on someone's roof. What you're doing is sending a missile through somebody's roof. And that is the means by which you alert them to evacuate the building because you're planning a larger strike. That in itself, yeah, we have this great ISR capability. And what do we do with it?We launch missiles into the homes of civilians.

Speaker 04330.74s - 4337.14s

And then hopefully they will run away and fear for their lives so that more of them don't die when we blow up that block 10 minutes later.

Speaker 74337.44s - 4342.68s

Like, it's just, you know, you have to look at what's happening, not what's being said,

Speaker 84343.02s - 4343.46s

I guess.

Speaker 74344.06s - 4346.12s

But no, they're absolutely allergic to accountability.

Speaker 84346.62s - 4349.64s

And I think you can see just how far they've been able, they're scrambling now because

Speaker 74349.64s - 4351.74s

they've been able to get away with so much for so long.

Speaker 84352.22s - 4356.12s

And their excuses are falling apart because they're alternatively depicting themselves

Speaker 74356.12s - 4360.02s

as a highly disciplined and professional, you know, army.

Speaker 84360.64s - 4365.92s

Or that they're just making mistakes because it's war and that people should get off their back

Speaker 74365.92s - 4368.22s

because no one holds anyone else to the same standard

Speaker 84368.22s - 4369.08s

that they hold Israel GPE.

Speaker 74369.48s - 4370.36s

So it's like, which is it?

Speaker 84370.72s - 4372.56s

What are you trying to get the world to believe?

Speaker 74372.76s - 4386.84s

Are you either this like crack disciplined unit with a very sophisticated chain of command and an AI software that you're really proud of for targeting? Or are you, is this the fog of war and you're just making mistakes and everyone makes mistakes and we should get off your back for itbecause you can't have it both ways.

Speaker 44386.94s - 4387.26s

Yeah.

Speaker 74387.7s - 4401.4s

The civilian casualties are too high for you to have it both ways. So either you are making mistakes and too many people are getting killed and you're violating the law as a rule or you're doing it deliberately, which is worse.Yeah.

Speaker 84402.32s - 4404.36s

People can make up their own minds, I guess.

Speaker 44405.1s - 4416.68s

Charles, thank you so much for joining us today. I really respect all the work you do, and I am grateful that you have shared your voice with our audience once again. Where can people find you on the internet if you want to be found?

Speaker 74417.88s - 4435.52s

Thank you, Shrain. Yeah, just you can find me pretty much everywhere, except Twitter ORG, with Charles McBride PERSON, and that's McBride with a Y rather than an I. It's on substack, Instagram, TikTok and my website, Charles Macbredd.com, PERSON will be live at this point

Speaker 44435.52s - 4442.28s

when this episode drops. If you want to support the humanitarian work I've been involved in in Ukraine GPE,

Speaker 74442.52s - 4471.4s

you can support Mission Harcive. On Instagram ORG, it's mission.harkiv. And their website is missionharkiv.com ORG. And if you're looking for an org that is already working in Gaza GPE to provide life-saving aid in the wake of, you know, Unra being gone, World Central Kitchen ORG now pulling out, Anera pulling out, global empowerment mission is still there and still fulfilling a lot of the same functions that those organizations were doing.

Speaker 44472.04s - 4587.2s

Thank you so much, Charles PERSON. Shereen and James from the future here, giving you an update about the article that we mentioned at the top of the episode. So the title itself is I resigned from World Central Kitchen because they refused to tell the truth about the Israeli genocide in Gaza GPE. The ex-staffer is Ramsey Talhami PERSON. The article itself has some really damning information about WCC ORG. So we're going to get into it.He says for months, World Central Kitchen Leadership censored material coming out of its Gaza GPE operation and refused to honor staff concerns about their work there. And even though they're finally taking a stand after its personnel have been murdered, it is much too late. So he resigned in early March of this year.And at the time, he was the only staff member of Palestinian descent at WCK ORG. And there is an amendment there. He says that while WCK hired many Palestinian NORP contractors in Gaza and Egypt, he was the only Palestinian with staff status following the departure of one other longtime employee. And he resigned in protest of the extensive unexplained censorship regarding Gaza at the organization. They talked about how in December 7th of last year,they sent a letter to WCC ORG's executive team. And that letter called for WCC to join other regionally active NGOs in calling for a ceasefire and condemning Israel GPE's blockade, as well as conforming its language and coverage of Gaza to the standard that was stepped by the coverage of Ukraine, as well as stopping meal service in Israel GPE. It got 43 signatures, and the WCCA ORG executive team declined to meet up with the people that signed the letter, and they failed to respond to any inquiries. And they also actively still served the meals in Israel, while the second day of the ICJ genocide hearing was happening in January.

Speaker 84587.86s - 4686.26s

There's one paragraph that I wanted to highlight as well, just because I think it's very crucial when we're discussing the fact that these people died working for a Central Kitchen ORG. And that's this paragraph that I'll just pick up halfway through. In another instance, a video of a WCK kitchen caught in an IDF ORG bombing was put on hold entirely. It appears this incident, as well as the fact that WCCA personnel were aboard a UN ORG convoy that was bombed, have not been mentioned anywhere externally. Like, I think that's a really crucial getting off point.You can have shit politics, but if you're not saying stuff when your people are getting bombed, until they're getting killed, A, I don't know what's wrong with you, and B, if you didn't change things,I don't know if didn't change things, right, that's not detailed here, but like, you have to change things if your people are being bombed. Like, if I'm working somewhere where that's a likelihood, you know, like if we get bombed once and we're lucky enough to be okay,we do not continue doing the same shit. And I'm not entirely sure that they did. I don't want to, for a moment, suggests that like the people who died were in like complicit, right? That's not what I'm saying. It's not what Shereen PERSON saying.I very much understand the desire to go to places where dangerous things are happening and help the people who did nothing to deserve this. And I think the people who did that deserve are an ending gratitude and respect. I'm not for a minute saying that that's not true. I'm saying that this organization needs to really think about how it does shit if it wants to continue operating.

Speaker 44687.26s - 4791.2s

And yeah, the blame is on the executives of this organization. The article also talks about how the character of WCC's relief response to Gaza GPE, it was revealed very early on after October 7th, the chief communications officer Linda Roth PERSON. She had put out a statement about the communications team's input, which is apparently breaking precedent. And it was about how Hamas attacked Israel with no mention of the Palestinian NORP lives that were lost. And then three days later, Jose Andres posted a video to WCK's Instagram where he only makes reference to the October 7th attack with no mention of the climbing Palestinian NORP death toll at the timeor the blockades. And then on social media, Charles PERSON mentioned this of the episode. On October 16th, he tweeted at the Spanish NORP Prime Minister to be removed for her protest of the Israeli NORP tactics and at the same time, WCK ORG continued to work closely with the IDF over the course of the relief response.The initial statement, as well as Andre PERSON's video, were decisions that were made by leadership against the concerns of a WCK ORG personnel. There's this paragraph that I want to read is verbatim. Much of the work in a genocide is not pulling the trigger, but instead minimizing and denying that a genocide is going on. Genocide is a phenomenon of gradual boundary pushing.Each increment must be accepted by the parties with agency for the next to be reached. Under the direction of CEO Aaron Gore, Linda Roth PERSON, and, quote, chief feeding officer Jose Andres, World Central Kitchen ORG recklessly endangered its personnel, shelflessly exploited the situation for its own benefit, and actively participated in the normalization of an ongoing genocide. I think what I want to say more broadly

Speaker 84791.2s - 4841.74s

here, it's my stance, I guess maybe other people share it. This situation is not going to be solved by NGOs, and it's certainly not going to be solved by NGOs, which have this very explicitly neoliberal political agenda, right? Like, at best, they can plug a hole in a leaky bucket. And it's good when they do that, right?If one less person starves, that's good. It doesn't mean they don't have to be perfect to help, but they don't get to be exempted from criticism because they're helping, right? Like, World Central Kitchen didn't want to help us at the border in Hacumbah GPE. My friends reached out. They didn't want to do that at the border in Hacumbah GPE. My friends reached out. They didn't want to do that. Yeah, I don't think you should expect NGOs to share your radical politics.It doesn't mean that they can't do harm reduction. And it doesn't mean that when they are doing harm reduction, they sometimes need your money. And in the situations where this is happening, you should give it to them if you can't help

Speaker 04841.74s - 4860.7s

more directly, right? But, like, if we look at their communications, we do see them calling for a ceasefire, which is about what you can expect from an NGO, you know? We actually, it appears that we see Jose Andres PERSON calling for a ceasefire and we see World Central Kitchen saying Jose Andra PERSON is called for a ceasefire,

Speaker 84861.5s - 5029.38s

which I don't quite know why they don't just say we are calling for a ceasefire. They didn't sign that document with the other NGOs ORG. I don't know if they're trying to play, like, have it both ways. I don't know. I'm not privy to those conversations, right? They didn't sort of wholeheartedly say this is a genocide, but they have to get permissionfor Israel GPE to do stuff. I mean, now they're saying it, but after the atrocity that happened, the whole world is watching, right? Not that the whole world shouldn't have been watching from the start. But I don't think NGOs ORG are ever going to be,you know, it's radical as people on the internet want them for. They're also there doing stuff and people on the internet aren't. So, you know, we have to respect that. And I don't want any of this to take away from the fact that some people from all over the world, right, from Europe, from Australia GPE, from the United States GPE, have died feeding people who need to be fed because that's the mostany of us can give is our lives, right? And so I don't for a minute want any of this to detract from the sacrifice they made, nor should their sacrifice be held in any higher regard than the sacrifice made by hundreds, if not thousands of Palestinian NORP aid workers, right? People working for the Palestinian NORP Red Crescent, a Palestinian, even the Palestinian people working for international NGOs, right, or the United Nations ORG people who have been killed, right? None of those sacrifices should be ignored or undermined.Because people have certainly given along more than I have. I don't have any right to say that. I think, yeah, this all, and it changes communications, right? I think they've obviously realized that, like, there is no nicely, nicely about this. Like, you have to call a spade a spate when it comes to what's happening inGaza, which is a deliberate and targeted attempt to kill civilians, thousands and tens of thousands of children even. And I think until we move the conversation on to one where that is being called by its name, that is to say, genocide, then I don't think we'll see the reactions that we need. And I think they appear to have reflected on that. I wish they'd got there sooner, but they're there now.And I'm sorry that it took these people's lives to get there. But what I see from them is what I see from other NGOs. They're certainly not uniquely bad. In fact, they were better than very many NGOs. And they were there when other people weren't, and they're delivering food when other people weren't.So I don't want to distract from that. But yeah, this messaging, this internal conduct, like there's some of these internal messages, they are troubling. And, like, again, it's just what I expect from any other NGO, whereas I've seen these guys do things in many ways that are better than other NGOs ORG.But none of that messaging takes away from these people giving their lives. And I don't want to suggest that.

Speaker 45030.38s - 5124.26s

I think the most telling thing is that they're making the biases of the top people at work for this company very evident. In the article, it goes into Linda Roth's background and her pro-Israeli NORP stances in the past. And the fact that in all the outwardly facing materials about Gaza GPE, it was very typical. To change the word siege to conflict or to question the blockades, it talks about how the people at the very top, their biases just seeped through, and the people that were actually working for the organization were in disagreement with this. I think the lastthing I want to read from this article just really highlights that WCK ORG did not protect the people that worked for them. It says, save the possibility of genuine incompetence, the WCK leadership's decisions were not made to maintain neutrality, did not increase effectiveness, and, as April 1st demonstrated, did not protect personnel. The leadership's failure to honestly portray the dire reality in Gaza GPE and lack of an attempt to influence the genocide in Gaza via its status and close ties to the Biden PERSON administration means that they bear responsibility for its outcomes. Let no one say they did everything they could. And this is obviously talking about the leadership versus thepersonnel. And then he goes on to close the article saying that his experience is one experience. And when he resigned, there was a palpable, widespread atmosphere of disappointment among the staff and employees. And he ends with just calling on current and former WCCA ORG employees, contractors, and volunteers, to publicly share their stories as well in order to force accountability and change.

Speaker 85125.3s - 5131.7s

Yeah. Look, if you work for a Central Kitchen ORG, you can message us. I'm here to hear your stories.

Speaker 45137.62s - 5137.98s

That, yeah. Yeah. We just wanted to make sure that this perspective was shared. And again,

Speaker 85143.76s - 5144.24s

the article will be in the description, so please give it a good read. But yeah, that is the episode.

Speaker 45145.62s - 5166.12s

Thanks for listening. Free Palestine ORG. Welcome back to It Could Happen WORK_OF_ART here, a podcast about things falling apart.

Speaker 105166.54s - 5198.94s

And when things fall apart, one of the things that happens is you get a bunch of a lot of opportunities for a lot of weird little guys, a lot of Nazis NORP and other kinds of scum start, you know, sliding up to the surface in the hopes that they can get some of the sweet, sweet oxygen of collapse. And that's why we've brought on to the program and are bringing into the network, our good friend Molly Conger PERSON, for a little recurrent series I like to call, Look Who's Stalking WORK_OF_ART. That was the stalking joke I wanted to open the episode with Molly PERSON.

Speaker 35198.94s - 5203.18s

For the attorney, I am not stalking anyone. I would never do that. That is a crime.

Speaker 105203.48s - 5210.8s

This is reporting. Mm-hmm. It is reporting. And the line between reporting and stalking anyone. I would never do that. That is a crime. This is reporting. It is reporting. And the line between reporting and stalking always clear.

Speaker 35219.52s - 5224.7s

You know, I think it's on the publication. Yeah. Yeah. So, Robert, today's topic is such a perfect mashup of so many of my favorite things. It couldn't be more my speed unless this whole story

Speaker 105224.7s - 5225.26s

took place

Speaker 35225.26s - 5227.04s

on a weiner dog ranch, right? Yeah.

Speaker 25227.78s - 5229.96s

This story has city council meetings

Speaker 35229.96s - 5244.16s

that got rowdy. It has unite the right attendee getting docs. It has the internal comms of a hate group getting leaked. It has regular ass people putting their foot downabout hate in their town. It is a years-long arc of one man's journey from fucking around to finding out.

Speaker 05244.7s - 5246.12s

His evolution from chanting,

Speaker 25246.62s - 5252.74s

you will not replace us to getting replaced at the ballot box. This is the story of Enid

Speaker 05252.74s - 5260.96s

Oklahoma Ward 1 City Commissioner Judson Gannon Blevins PERSON. Oh my God. Oh, we're going back to my old

Speaker 35260.96s - 5265.22s

home. That's right. You spend some time in Oklahoma GPE as a kid.

Speaker 105265.52s - 5268.66s

So Judd Bevin's was raised in the town of Enid, Oklahoma GPE.

Speaker 35269.26s - 5273.32s

And the listener, you'd be forgiven for thinking this is the story of a small town.

Speaker 105273.5s - 5297.8s

And I'll be honest, I did. I'd never heard of Enid GPE. But you grew up in the area. Do you have any sort of pre-existing notions of Garfield County GPE? Yeah. I mean, Enid GPE was like a bigger place.Like, I grew up in Ida Bell GPE, which was really out in the sticks. So kind of everywhere was, was more civilization than Idavel, but Enid GPE certainly was. Although not much. No one would, no one would accuse it of much civilization.

Speaker 35298.68s - 5303.22s

It is apparently the ninth largest city in Oklahoma GPE, which was surprising to me.

Speaker 105303.3s - 5326.28s

It's an hour and a half outside of Oklahoma City, 76% white, 60% Republican. And according to a 2021 article on Yahoo News ORG that reads like it was written by an intoxicated chatbot, it is ranked one of the most conservative cities in the country. Yeah, that all scans for Enid. Now, that scans for a lot of cities in Oklahoma GPE, mind you. Right, they could have named any of them. Yeah. that scans for a lot of cities in Oklahoma GPE, mind you. Right, they could have

Speaker 35326.28s - 5332.4s

named any of them. Yeah. But it has a population of about 50,000, which is actually the same size as

Speaker 105332.4s - 5338.42s

Charlottesville, my hometown, and a city that Judson Blevins PERSON happened to visit in the summer of

Speaker 35338.42s - 5343.24s

2017. In 2018, the former U.S. Marine NORP moved back to his hometown to work at his father's

Speaker 105343.24s - 5349.48s

roofing business. In 2019, he was publicly identified as a regional leader in a white supremacist organization.

Speaker 35350.28s - 5354.26s

And in 2022, he announced he was running for office.

Speaker 105355.18s - 5367.6s

I mean, that all, that's a very Oklahoma GPE politician route. It's also like, not a what, like from roofing to white supremacy, not a wildly uncommon route for people to take in Oklahoma GPE.

Speaker 35367.6s - 5373.64s

Oh, don't worry. He's still doing both. Oh, good. I mean, you never want to give up on your passion for roofing. That would have made me sad.

Speaker 105374.08s - 5379.78s

Although some of his supporters have pointed out that he hires lots of non-white people to do manual labor. So how could he be racist?

Speaker 35380.3s - 5387.62s

Yeah, I mean, you don't want to get up on those roofs yourself. That's dangerous. It's hard job. It's hot out. Yeah. This is all pretty Oklahoma GPE so far.

Speaker 105388.38s - 5396.42s

On February 14th, 2003, Judd-Blevens narrowly won a seat on the Eden City Council, defeating the incumbent by just 36 votes.

Speaker 35397.2s - 5419.08s

His past ties to the now-defunct white supremacist group, Identity Europa ORG, were no secret. Of course, by 2023, Identity Europa didn't exist anymore. So I don't blame you if you don't have a clear memory of exactly what kind of Nazi NORP group they were. And I want to make it very clear. I don't want time, distance, and white polo shirts to soften this. Identity Europa was a neo-Nazi organization. Oh, yeah. They were also

Speaker 105419.08s - 5431.54s

just like the most infiltrated group of the Trump PERSON era. Like, of all the Nazi orgs in the Trump PERSON era I feel like they were the one where every week someone else got inside their comms well I guess um

Speaker 35431.54s - 5437.56s

Blevins PERSON may be part to blame for that as the regional coordinator oh good so he was doing a great

Speaker 105437.56s - 5442.44s

job but identity Europa was modeled after the far right french identitarian movement and sought

Speaker 35442.44s - 5464.88s

the creation of a white ethno state the The You Will Not Replace Us Chance, you remember from Unite the Right ORG, were actually popularized by Identity Europa at their rallies earlier that year. And according to testimony from a former girlfriend, one-time Identity Europa ORG leader, Elliot Klein PERSON, considered himself, quote, an unironic exterminationist. He had violent fantasies about killing Jewish NORP people himself.

Speaker 105466.16s - 5473.06s

So it's not just guys hanging out, right? No. Identity Europa was founded in 2016 by Nathan Domingo PERSON,

Speaker 35473.06s - 5478.26s

a former Marine NORP who went to prison after drunkenly pulling a gun on a cab driver for, quote,

Speaker 105478.56s - 5485.66s

looking Iraqi NORP. Well, I guess at least he's honest.

Speaker 35489.86s - 5491s

But while he was doing his time, he read David Duke's PERSON autobiography.

Speaker 105491.48s - 5492.12s

Oh.

Speaker 35494.3s - 5494.34s

And he had an awakening, right?

Speaker 105496.66s - 5497.42s

He read My Awakening WORK_OF_ART and he had an awakening in prison. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 35497.72s - 5501.26s

You know, you go to prison for a hate crime, you read a little David Duke PERSON. You get some ideas.

Speaker 105503.22s - 5519.22s

Man, it's not a good book. Like, that's my thing about having David Duke's PERSON autobiography be like your life-changing event, is it's not even a good book, right? Which I guess neither was mine conf. But I feel like everyone's lying about that one.

Speaker 35519.78s - 5548.6s

So according to some, this is so off the beaten path here, this is, but I have to say it, according to some payments that came out in a divorce proceeding, David Duke made payments to Kevin Strom PERSON for ghost writing it. Kevin Strome is the pedophile who actually said that thing that people think Voltaire said about the Jews NORP. Oh! Cool!Yeah. Great. So just something to think about when you're reading david duke's autobiography in prison i guess

Speaker 105548.6s - 5554.78s

i mean i guess i had wondered what happens to pedophiles like when they're back out in the world like

Speaker 35554.78s - 5560.8s

how do you get work as a pedophile wife now no that was before that was yeah no he's got a kid now so

Speaker 105560.8s - 5566.28s

oh what no he shouldn't do that yeah Yeah. How was that? Okay. Great.

Speaker 35566.8s - 5569.8s

Not allowed to live near a school, but I guess they can't stop you from procreating.

Speaker 105570.16s - 5572.12s

We should evaluate some of that. I don't know.

Speaker 35572.8s - 5579.06s

Anyway, back to our friend Nate, right? So, Nathan Amigo PERSON gets out of prison, makes his own hate group.

Speaker 105579.18s - 5584.16s

You may also remember him as the guy who bravely beat the shit out of a 95-pound woman at the

Speaker 35584.16s - 5769.32s

rally in Berkeley in April of 2017. Oh, yeah. And they memed the hell out of that. They squeezed it for all it was worth. They used that image of him beating that woman in the street for promotion and recruitment. Demigo PERSON himself touted a spike in membership applications, which he attributed to the popularity of the video.Identity Europa was heavily involved in the summer of hate, that rash of violent white supremacist rallies across the country in 2017. They were instrumental in planning as unite the video. Identity Europa was heavily involved in the summer of hate, that rash of violent white supremacist rallies across the country in 2017. They were instrumental in planning as unite the right rally. But when the group's discord server was leaked in March of 2019 and published in full by Unicorn Riot, their leader at the time, Patrick Casey PERSON quickly announced a rebrand. Identity Europa is no more. They were the American NORP identity movement now, much to the displeasure of the American Indian movement whose acronym they stole. But the rebrand. Identity Europa is no more. They were the American identity movement now, much to the displeasure of the American Indian NORP movement whose acronym they stole. But the rebrand was not successful,and the group died out completely in 2020. And Casey PERSON tried to pretend the rebrand wasn't just an attempt to escape the fallout of the leak, but it really was the leak that killed Identity Europa. At least seven active duty military members were identified in the leak. A school resource officer at a high school in Virginia was suspended. A Minnesota National Guardsman was recalled from basic training. So Jud Blevins was just one of dozens of members of the group to be identified in those chat logs. The work of anti-fascist researchers who identified Blevins PERSON in the leak chatswas corroborated and published in an article on right wing watch by Jared Holt within weeks. And it's about as solid as an idea as you could hope for from a chat log, or depending on your position, the kind of idea you really don't want. A user called Conway was Identity Europa's regional coordinator for Oklahoma GPE. He recruited and vetted new members, organized outings for banner drops and social events,and frequently posted pictures of the white supremacist propaganda he'd been putting up, encouraging others to do the same and offering tips on how to create more effective visuals for the group's online accounts. In over 1,100 postsover a nearly two-year period, he left a lot of clues. He posted a link to an article in his hometown paper, the Enid News and Eagle ORG. He posted a photo of a relative's baby,details about his parents' lineage, his plans to move home to work for his father's business, and in the lead-up to the Unite the Right ORG rally, he excitedly shared in the discord that he would be carrying the original flag of the state of Oklahoma GPE, a red rectangle with the number 46 inside of a white star. And photos from the rally show just one man carrying that distinctive flag that was designed by a member of the daughters of the Confederacy. Judd Blevins PERSON. As he grew into his role as regional coordinatorfor Identity Europa, he coordinated member meetups, getting several guys from Oklahoma GPE to drive down to Texas for a get-together. Conway PERSON posted about the meetup and photos posted by other attendees show Blevins PERSON standing shoulder to shoulder with other members holding a large Identity Europa banner. Conway PERSON even posted about his appearance on a 2018 episode of Identity Europa's ORG podcast, where he emphasized the importance of staying in the you will not replace us mindset. So by the time he announced his run for office in 2022,it had been over three years since he'd been out at his Conway, the hate group member who attended the Unite the Right ORG rally. And you could see

Speaker 105769.32s - 5797.16s

why he would think it would work, right? Because that you will not replace us thing, it's become like the mainstream Republican NORP politics, right? Like this, this ideology has at least one in the Republican Party ORG, but it's also one divorced from these guys because even they are, like they're too toxic for even the modern Republicans NORP. Like it's, it's remarkable,but I also get why he thought this would work.

Speaker 35798.22s - 5847.22s

And I think, I mean, I don't know what his connection remained to other members of I.E. After it dissolved, but towards the end of it as it was dying, right? So under Elliott Klein, you know, Klein wanted to make a militia for Richard Spencer, he wanted to, you know, build I.E. ORG into a fighting force. But under Patrick Casey PERSON, they sort of moved back towards we should be trying to influence inside of politics.We should be going to colleges and getting, you know, conservative students to become more based, right? So this is a rational course of conduct, I think, for where he was in 2019 when Identity Europa died. But in any case, by 2022, anybody in Enid, you could read his post praising Hitler and celebrating Identity Europa for striking fear into the heart of the Jew NORP, his words.

Speaker 25847.66s - 5854.18s

You know, you could see pictures of him at Unite the Right, both on the morning of the 12th in the park and the evening of the 11th with a torch.

Speaker 05854.3s - 5872.02s

You could see pictures of him going to Texas GPE for I.E. meetups. You could see the dozens and dozens of photos he posted in the discord of Nazi NORP posters and stickers. He had put up on telephone polls and college bulletin boards across Oklahoma GPE, and the posts where he reveled in the media coverage of the recruitment materials he left inside library books.

Speaker 35873.26s - 5905.98s

His hometown newspaper, the Enid News and Eagle, ran an article about the allegations, which he never denied, a month before the election. And without ever having to give a straight answer on the issue, he won. And that could have been the end of the story, right? You know, we've seen this trend in the last few years of these radical right-wing elements trying to melt into the mainstream Republican Party ORG. You know, got these horrible little groipers working in congressional staff positionsand, you know, Nazis going to CPAC ORG and not getting ejected. They're getting out of the streets and into the meeting rooms.

Speaker 105906.28s - 5906.52s

Yeah.

Speaker 35906.88s - 5919.84s

An account tied to Blevins that he recently, for the first time, denied this was him. It's him. This has been widely reported. It was a Twitter account called At Abolished Journalism posted in 2019, quote,

Speaker 105919.84s - 5927.28s

I agree with the argument, GOP ORG cannot be changed from the bottom up. However, I do not

Speaker 35927.28s - 5984.94s

believe in discouraging our guys from getting elected into smaller offices such as city council, county commissioner, or even state legislators. Basically, positions where one can fly under the radar, yet still be effective. And that's what this is, right? This isn't a guy who got out of white nationalist organizing and in an unrelated fashion became a local politician. No, he said years before he did this, that this was a good idea that he had. You know, he never said, I renounce my previous actions and beliefs. I regret being an active recruiter for a hate group. He just changed the way he was doing it.And he said countless opportunities to be clear about what he believes today and whether that's different from the beliefs he espoused between 2017 and 2019. And he won't. He won't say, I no longer identify with the posts I made when I was enthusiastically posting the 14 words. And that's probably because he just found a better way to do it. But there were people in Enid, Oklahoma GPE, who saw right through that.

Speaker 105985.7s - 6016.64s

Yeah, this is where the story takes a turn that, like, I don't know, it made me hopeful. Because the first time I ever met a Klansman was, you know, in Oklahoma GPE. It was the dad of a friend of mine. Like, he, like, this kid bragged about it, and I didn't know what a Klansman was. And I had to go to my parents and like be like hey so you know so-and-so said this about his dad what does that mean and my mom was just like well you're not allowed to go to his house anymore that's what that means chinks it's

Speaker 36018.48s - 6042.58s

Jesus Christ PERSON if if this like if shit had gone well for him I guess that would have been my assumption but that's that was my assumption based on me not giving a fair shake to Enid Oklahoma GPE. Right. I think that's, you know, what's so remarkable about this story is people didn't think Oklahoma GPE could do it. But you know, who can accomplish everything they set out to do? Uh-huh.

Speaker 106042.82s - 6065.78s

That's right. These sponsors, all of whom are available in Indian at Oklahoma GPE. And we're back. Okay. All right. So... I'm happy to hear the next part of this.

Speaker 36067.56s - 6135.4s

Blevins took office in May of 2023. Local election law requires a six-month wait between being sworn in and when a recall attempt can be initiated. But the residents who opposed Blevins PERSON didn't wait quietly. A group called the Enid Social Justice Committee protested his swearing in, with some protesters holding posters bearing a photo of Blevins, holding a torch at the August 11, 2017 Nazi March at the University of Virginia FAC. And now this, I didn't even think about it until I was writing this. What an incredible coincidence of timing, right?So May 2023, he's being sworn into office. It was just, I think, maybe two weeks before he was sworn in that the first indictment was unsealed against the guys who are now facing felony charges for participating in that torch march, right? So we did an episode on this a little bit ago, but if you're not familiar, the guys who marched in that torch march at UVA in 2017, some of them are now being charged with a felony under Virginia law for burning an object with intent to intimidate. It's obviously a sort of a law aimed at the clan, right? It's sort of a cross-burning type law. But they were burning,

Speaker 26135.6s - 6146.84s

they had these burning objects and they were menacing people. It was racially motivated. So they're being charged with this felony for burning an object. Fair. It does feel like that's, yeah, a pretty good fit.

Speaker 106147.44s - 6152.86s

But so right as he's being sworn in, you know, these people are protesting his swearing in with this photo of him with the torch.

Speaker 36153.86s - 6185.08s

And a couple of guys just showed up in jail here in Charlottesville GPE on that charge. So it's just a remarkable cognitive dissonance, right? To see these people, some of his supporters in Enid, downplaying the seriousness or even outright denying that Blevins PERSON attended this rally. But the guys he was standing next to that day are pleading guilty to felonies. You know, he's up there voting on resolutions and passing ordinances about, you know, stormwater management or whatever. I think one of his accomplishments in office was getting a Texasroadhouse in Enid GPE. First off, you shouldn't be proud was getting a Texas roadhouse in Enid.

Speaker 106188.96s - 6189.32s

First off, you shouldn't be proud of having a Texas GPE roadhouse anywhere.

Speaker 36191.4s - 6194.72s

As a, my job used to... It might have been a sizzler. I can't remember. Something like that.

Speaker 106194.92s - 6199.66s

I would be much more excited for a sizzler than a Texas GPE fucking roadhouse. I'll say that much.

Speaker 36200.12s - 6211.48s

But, you know, he's up there getting an, you know, affordable chain steak restaurant in Enid GPE, but there's a non-zero chance that he could be arrested at any time and extradited on a felony charge.

Speaker 106211.96s - 6221.74s

I mean, look, if there's one thing that's appropriate for the sizzler, it's knowing that the guy who put that sizzler there could be arrested on a felony charge at any moment.

Speaker 36222.94s - 6297.76s

You know, we don't know what the strategy is. The prosecutor's office, obviously they're not going to charge everybody who is there, but it's on the table, right? Like, he's on video at that march with the torch in his hand. He fits the criteria for the 10 other guys that have already gone to jail for this. But in November of 2023, those six months had passed.Recall's on the table now. And before the group made the final push to actually file for the recall, they made an offer of reconciliation. All Blevins PERSON has to do is acknowledge the truth, denounce his past actions, just own up to it, start making amends, just say, yes, I did that. No, I don't do it anymore.And he can't do it throughout this entire ordeal. He's never owned up to it. There are pictures and video and his own words across multiple online accounts. There's no plausible deniability here. There's no saying, well, maybe that's not him. You know, it's him. So just admit it and say you're not that guy anymore. But he has consistently refused to even acknowledge it. On several occasions, you know, when really pressed, he dismisses that 2019 article by Jared Holt PERSON as, quote,a hit piece posted four years ago by a George Soros PERSON funded leftist outlet, calling it smears and slander.

Speaker 106298.38s - 6301.26s

Nothing smears somebody like their own words and actions.

Speaker 36301.72s - 6304.22s

I'm being defamed by this photograph of me.

Speaker 106304.74s - 6306.56s

I'm being judged simply for the

Speaker 36306.56s - 6343.02s

things I chose to do. I thought this was America GPE. You know, but he won't actually deny specific facts. You know, he won't say, that isn't me in the photo, or I did not participate in that, or I did not post those nice things about Hitler. He just attacks the people saying it. And while Blavins PERSON has never denied the truth of the allegations, some of his supporters do. At one of those council meetings in November of last year, a woman speaking in support of Blevens PERSON said the allegations weren't credible as they came from organizations like the SPLC that, quote, only exist to smear conservative Christians NORP.

Speaker 106343.86s - 6346.24s

There we go.

Speaker 36348.28s - 6349.1s

First of all, the SPLC ORG didn't publish it.

Speaker 106353.46s - 6354.46s

It was right wing watch on Huffington Post, but whatever, Susan PERSON.

Speaker 26359.14s - 6359.38s

And it was at that same meeting that the council declined to even vote on a resolution to censure Blevins PERSON.

Speaker 36364.12s - 6387.42s

The council was putting forth a resolution to say, we don't agree with what that guy did. You know, it wasn't like punishing him. It didn't actually strip him of any powers. It didn't do anything except say, um, the rest of us, we don't like that.And they couldn't, they wouldn't even vote on it. It got tabled. Um, and at that meeting, uh,Commissioner Derwin Norwood PERSON, the only black member of Enid's city council offered Blevins PERSON his forgiveness and gave him a big hug and told him he loved him. Great.

Speaker 26387.42s - 6389.3s

But Blevins PERSON never apologized.

Speaker 36389.6s - 6409.84s

You can't forgive someone who hasn't apologized. He had never and still has never apologized. And he was pretty clear on where he stands on apologies, saying I am not going to apologize for the lies that others tell. Yeah, it was a great meeting. I watched it from home. I had, you know, I love a meeting.

Speaker 106410.4s - 6415.98s

Oh, yeah, no, that's, I mean, I don't understand it, but I respect it.

Speaker 36416.82s - 6436.66s

So with their peace offering roundly rejected by an unapologetic blevens, they moved forward to recall. The Enid Social Justice Committee gathered enough signatures to put it to a vote. And in January, Cheryl Patterson threw her hat into the ring to replace Blevins PERSON. And to be clear, this is still Enid, Oklahoma, where 60% of voters are registered Republicans NORP. Yeah.

Speaker 26436.74s - 6442.9s

This wasn't some liberal coup. Patterson is also a lifelong Republican NORP. A candidate formed the week

Speaker 36442.9s - 6474.14s

before the election, Patterson PERSON was quick to say, like right off the bat the second she opened her mouth. She said, contrary to the rumor, I was not recruited by the Enid Social Justice Committee ORG. And she said, you know,she'd been thinking about running for a while. She loves Enid GPE, but she was pushed to action by her opponent's inability to clearly denounce his past involvement with a white supremacist group. And it is remarkable, right, to see conservative Republicans in the South LOC saying, like,that Nazi NORP stuff is too much for me. Yeah.

Speaker 106474.32s - 6495.38s

I mean, and that's, like, that's actually an important part of turning this shit back is getting these people who are otherwise conservative to draw a line and actually hold to it because it at least arrests that rightward momentum to an extent. And we're just not going to get out of this unless we have some of that.

Speaker 36496.04s - 6511.54s

I'm not living in a fantasy land where the city of Enid, Oklahoma GPE is represented by a council of sick socialists. Like that's not on the table. I accept that. But at least their Republicans NORP can say, ah, the 14 words is like, not my vibe.

Speaker 106512.22s - 6520.72s

Yeah, literally participating in a white supremacist terrorist action is, is a line for us. And I'm glad there's a line.

Speaker 36521.62s - 6725.38s

So, you know, she said she was inspired to run for office because he, not because of what he did, but because he couldn't even denounce it, right? That, you know, people can grow in change. I pray that his heart moves, but he's unable to even denounce it. And he really does seem incapable. The very first question at that forum, the week before the election, was about this. Obviously, a lot of the questions were. And he gave another non-denial, right? He said, this election is about the next three years of this city, not about organizationsthat disbanded five years ago. But he went on to say that he would, quote, gladly plead guilty to speaking out against what is being done to this country and the anti-white hatred in the media. So he tries to talk around the issue, saying, you know, he was just advocating for the same policies that got Donald Trump PERSON elected. But it's not like he was on the local Republican NORP committee, right? He wasn't working on a GOP ORG campaign.He was an organizer for a group that supported those policies of the Trump PERSON administration explicitly because they believe those policies were a stepping stone towards the full Nazification of American NORP politics. You know, the relationship between those two things troubling, concerning. But you can't pretend there's no difference between voting Republican and holding a torch at the Nazi NORP parade. And that's what he's trying to do here. He's trying to blur that lines. I'm just being punished for being a proud conservative. And it's like which part? Right? People who's, you know, people who want free speech. And it's like, well, which word do you want to say? And at no point during this recall campaign, from when they announced it in November to the election two weeks ago now, at no point during this recall campaign did he publicly denounce any of the whitesupremacists who supported him. Outlets like V-Dair ORG, a white nationalist publication run by an English-born anti-immigration race scientists who lives in a castle in West Virginia GPE, wrote fawning editorials which were promoted by prominent white nationalists, including Identity Europa founder Nathan Domingo. Fascist telegram channels provided guidance to subscribers about Oklahoma GPE's campaign finance laws, which would allow them to donate to Blevins PERSON' campaign anonymously, as long as they kept it under $50.According to reporting by Chris Matthias and Huffington Post, a man in Texas GPE who runs a business with a known Patriot front member donated nearly $2,000 to the campaign, which made up the bulk of the donated cash. And you might give him the benefit of the doubt and say, well, maybe he didn't know he was being endorsed by some of the largest elements in organized white supremacy in America GPE. Sure.But he did. He did know. As a member of the city council, he definitely saw the letters that were addressed to the city council in support of Blevins from the American Freedom Party ORG, an explicitly white supremacist political party that occasionally runs a Nazi NORP for president. But he said nothing. And when a constituent, Father James Neal asked him directly why his campaign was funded by members of Patriot Front ORG, he told the priest to, quote, shut up. he told the priest to, quote, shut up.Again, he chose the company of neo-Nazis, Holocaust EVENT deniers, white supremacists, white nationalists, and ethno-state enthusiasts. How can you expect people to believe you're not that guy anymore when you have their public praise, their endorsement, and their money in your pocket? But you know who does not have $2,000 in cash from Patriot Front ORG in their pockets?

Speaker 106726.02s - 6727.5s

No, no, they keep that shit in a...

Speaker 36727.5s - 6731.24s

I mean, they don't have it. Here's our sponsors.

Speaker 106731.24s - 6743.5s

And we're back.

Speaker 36745.36s - 6762.34s

So on April 2nd, that's two weeks ago now as we're recording, the people of Enid GPE returned to the polls, and Judd Blevins was voted out of office as Ward 1 City FAC Commissioner by a vote of 829 to 561. And I don't know if you're a math guy. I'm not a math guy.

Speaker 26762.34s - 6763.94s

I can get a calculator out for this bad boy.

Speaker 06764.24s - 6777.66s

But this turnout was significantly larger than the vote that put him into office. A 72% increase in total votes. That's a lot. That's a lot more people who showed up to an off cycle special election.

Speaker 36779.02s - 6781.64s

Yeah. Yeah, that's specifically weird.

Speaker 26782.14s - 6789.42s

And unlike the slim margin of just 36 votes that won him the 20-23 election, he lost the recall by nearly 20 points.

Speaker 36790.16s - 6791s

That's a spanking.

Speaker 106792s - 6795.46s

You know, it's hard to chalk a loss like that up to a lunatic fringe, right?

Speaker 36795.54s - 6815.54s

That's the electorate speaking. But Matthew Gebert, a former State Department ORG employee who lost his job for failing to disclose his active involvement in white supremacist organizing noted in his telegram channel that while the loss is disappointing, an open white nationalist winning 40% of the vote is, quote, nothing to despair

Speaker 66815.54s - 6822.18s

over. And you never got to hand it to the guy who hosts a podcast about the joys of Nazi NORP fatherhood

Speaker 26822.18s - 6825.1s

or whatever. Yeah. But the numbers are what they are.

Speaker 36827.26s - 6827.86s

You know, he did win 40% of the vote.

Speaker 26832.68s - 6835.72s

And this was after months of very public debate in the national spotlight that made it impossible not to know what the allegations were.

Speaker 36836.4s - 6840.88s

And it's not like these were just diehard conservatives who would walk into the voting booth

Speaker 66840.88s - 6844.16s

and put their checkmark next to wherever the letter R was.

Speaker 26844.16s - 6844.32s

Right?

Speaker 66844.4s - 6848.56s

In this election, the other name on the ticket was a Republican NORP, too.

Speaker 26848.74s - 6853.62s

These were people who walked in there and knowingly and intentionally cast their vote for

Speaker 66853.62s - 6856.06s

a guy who used to vet new members for a Nazi NORP club.

Speaker 36856.7s - 6933.66s

This isn't a fairy tale. It's reality, right? This wasn't an offensive win by progress or the left or what have you. This was an effective defense. And I hope conservatives can see a little lesson here, right? Like the story is too often one of ever-ratcheting extremism. You can only win if you go further, if you go wilder, if you'reappealing to the people who are on the absolute extreme end of what's acceptable to say in the party. But this was a case where a fellow conservative said, hey, I want to take some books out of the library too. I'm not a liberal. But we just can't be out here saying the 14 words. Right? And I think some of the buzz around this story comes from people in bigger cities or bluer states. I mean, honestly, I'm guilty of this as well, who were shocked that, you know, purple-haired liberals and progressive clergy even exist in a place like Enid, Oklahoma GPE. But this red state, blue state dichotomy is a myth.Most places are purple. Most places are 60-40. Even in places that reliably 100% of the time, vote Republican NORP, there's still a large minority of people who are not represented by that. So even in a place like Enid, which is Republican NORP at the polls, you have a pretty big chunk of the population isn't represented on that two-colored map.

Speaker 26934.18s - 6935.92s

That doesn't mean they don't care.

Speaker 36936.98s - 6949.92s

And when I watched those Enid City Council meetings, I saw Charlottesville GPE, right? I've gone to every city council meeting in Charlottesville for the last seven years. Like I know what it looks like for people in a town that size to show up and say, what the fuck?

Speaker 26950.58s - 6956.04s

What the fuck are you doing to us? Right? Yeah. You know, it looked like one of our meetings. You know,

Speaker 36956.04s - 6970.9s

I saw regular people, moms and students and grandmas and teachers and ladies who bring muffins to the church bake sale. People who know that their town can do better than to be represented by a guy who won't apologize for attending the largest Nazi NORP rally on U.S. soil in our lifetimes.

Speaker 106971.5s - 6988.1s

Yeah, and I feel a lot for the folks who are kind of not represented by either of the two big lines on the political map, and maybe most of the time feel like, I don't know what the fuck I can actually do or should do, but I know this Nazi NORP shouldn't be at office.

Speaker 36989.22s - 7023.66s

So these were just, these were just regular people. These weren't party apparatchiks or, you know, this wasn't the Democrat Party ORG doing this. This wasn't the Republican Party ORG doing this. These were just people who didn't think that a Nazi NORP should be their city commissioner. And that's, I think, another myth at play here, right, is that activist is some sort of separate class of person, that there is some portion of the population whose only goal in life is thisnebulous, nefarious thing called activism. That, you know, it's sort of this boogeyman of the professional troublemaker. And throughout this process, Blevins PERSON and his supporters have smeared the group organizing

Speaker 107023.66s - 7047.28s

the recall, the Enid Social Justice Committee, is some kind of fringe radical group. They're Antifa ORG. They're freaks. They're not like us. Yeah. They're coming for our children. His recall campaign website called the petitioners, an unhinged group of left-wing fringe activists. And the campaign website didn't say what he could do for you. It attacked the petitioners and said, this is what they will do to you.

Speaker 37048.12s - 7056.62s

And I've seen this in my own city council meetings, right? This sort of bizarre tendency of those in power to write off the people they don't want to hear from as activists.

Speaker 07056.92s - 7059.74s

Well, those are people we need to listen to. Those are activists.

Speaker 17059.86s - 7076.68s

That's a different kind of person. Anyone who's asking for something they don't want to do, something that's uncomfortable, something that requires them to look inward or look at the structures they're upholding. They undergo this instant metamorphosis from constituent to activist. This is no longer

Speaker 37076.68s - 7081.96s

a voter or a constituent. This is a crazy person. This person isn't your neighbor anymore. They're

Speaker 107081.96s - 7087.04s

an activist. Yeah. I think, you know, there are people who wear that mantle proudly and why shouldn't they?

Speaker 37087.1s - 7102.4s

It's a usually positive thing. But the use of the word as some sort of delegitimizing cudgel is so consistent that I think it's worth thinking about when it gets used against the recipient's will. Yeah.

Speaker 107102.82s - 7106.34s

And there's no ending to this story, right?

Speaker 37107.5s - 7130.2s

Because this is never really over. It is happening here. It is happening there. And I don't know what's next for Blevins PERSON. Maybe he just melts quietly back into society and puts roofs on houses. A week after the recall, he filed paperwork to change the name of his dad's contracting businessfrom invincible contracting to Great Plains ORG roofing. The paperwork filed shows that the company is now

Speaker 07130.2s - 7135.26s

registered. The company is now registered at his address, a house in Enid GPE that he bought last summer

Speaker 37135.26s - 7178.08s

with a VA ORG loan. But now that he's free of the self-imposed restraint of running for office, maybe he leans into it and becomes this guy, right? Maybe he's just the guy that this happens to, and he goes on the cancel culture grievance circuit. Maybe he goes full throttle and tries to get back into movement organizing. I think his failure to come out and really celebrate the movement and really own it and say, yes, I said that stuff and it's good. I think that failure, as they would perceive it,would hurt him a little bit if he tries to reenter the movement, but not so badly that he couldn't do it. They're so desperate for new material that they would probably embrace him if he wanted to be the figurehead of the month. Yeah.

Speaker 107178.62s - 7180.36s

Hopefully he just does the roofing thing, though.

Speaker 37180.82s - 7181.1s

Yeah.

Speaker 107181.5s - 7185.68s

Yeah, hopefully he does the roofing thing and then the falling off the roof thing and then

Speaker 37185.68s - 7190.86s

you know he's not doing the work himself. He doesn't even have a contracting license. I checked.

Speaker 107191.42s - 7204.62s

I hope he hires someone who is like a very large person and they fall off and are okay because they land on him. That's, that's I think where I'm going here. And to be clear, that's Robert PERSON speaking.

Speaker 37205.22s - 7205.9s

Yeah, yeah. That is, but that is also I'm going here. And to be clear, that's Robert PERSON speaking. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 107206.72s - 7209.84s

But that is also the official opinion of I-Hard Media ORG.

Speaker 37210.94s - 7226.72s

Again, I don't know that he's made any great pronouncements. He hasn't showed up on any Nazi NORP podcasts yet. I will put $10 on a bet that says he will. He'll be on somebody's podcast by the end of the month. I don't doubt it. But hopefully he just does roofing.Yeah.

Speaker 107227.82s - 7228.88s

Stick to roofing.

Speaker 37229.66s - 7237.08s

As for Enid GPE, you know, they won a battle that they shouldn't have had to fight. It should be kind of a no-brainer that we don't elect guys like this.

Speaker 07237.44s - 7239.44s

That's becoming less certain every day.

Speaker 107240.24s - 7243.56s

Like the fact that there was any question about how the recall might go is concerning.

Speaker 37243.56s - 7255.5s

We shouldn't be in a position of wondering, will people vote for the guy who won't deny he loves Hitler? But I think we can applaud the tenacity of the folks in Enid GPE who did what was necessary in a place where it wasn't easy. Yeah.

Speaker 107256.18s - 7257.98s

You know, and there's lessons to be learned here.

Speaker 37258.12s - 7277.18s

Go to the meetings. Get a seed in city council chambers. Go to the library board meeting. Go to the school board meeting. You don't have to be an activist, whatever that means. But be in the room because nobody's going to change the world on their own. And maybe changing the world isn't even a meaningful objective. I don't know what that means.

Speaker 107277.98s - 7283.92s

Yeah. But today, maybe there's something you can do with your neighbors to stop the rising

Speaker 37283.92s - 7300.18s

tide in your town. You can't change the weather, but you can do with your neighbors to stop the rising tide in your town. You can't change the weather, but you can put down some sandbags. And there are Judd Blevins PERSON is everywhere, hiding behind mealy-mouthed rhetoric of conservatism and quietly chipping away at your local institutions. Yeah.

Speaker 107300.62s - 7323.68s

So it's doable fighting the Judd's Blevins of, I chose a different way to pluralize his name, of your, wherever you live, your state, your city, like, is doable. And it's doable if you stick to this very simple platform of like, but not a Nazi NORP, right? We can agree not a Nazi, you know? a Nazi NORP, right? We can agree not a Nazi, you know?

Speaker 37329.4s - 7340.54s

And if conservatives have any, if conservatives had any sense, they could retake a lot of ground by saying, like, you know, we love all the stuff you love fellow conservatives, but we're not that guy, right? Like, if they had any, if they had any pride, they would stop

Speaker 107340.54s - 7366.34s

pandering to the lunatic fringe. Yeah, and it is just kind of looking at how congressional race is shaping up, where it seemed like it should have been pretty easy for them to retake the house. But, you know, now they're kind of like flailing a little bit, in part because they keep backing these maniacs who just aren't good? Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 37366.34s - 7375.76s

I don't really believe that those ideas are popular. They just have fallen into this trap of thinking, like, this is the only way to win, so I guess I have to do it. But you don't.

Speaker 107375.76s - 7377.7s

Sorry, the Senate ORG, not the house. Anyway, whatever, we'll cut that.

Speaker 37377.78s - 7379.66s

Who cares about those guys? Yeah.

Speaker 107380.3s - 7382.1s

But you don't have to do it, right?

Speaker 37382.2s - 7385.86s

Be the Cheryl Patterson PERSON you want to see in the world. Yeah.

Speaker 107385.96s - 7388.7s

And just be a milk toast Republican and beat the Nazi NORP.

Speaker 37389.5s - 7389.74s

Yeah.

Speaker 107391.24s - 7392.54s

At least, I don't know.

Speaker 37392.84s - 7400.5s

I'm mixed because, like, I do like it when the Republicans NORP fail over much.

Speaker 107400.5s - 7416.54s

But I also feel like it's bad to take the bet of like, well, if we hope for more Nazis that push people away from the Republicans NORP, maybe it'll work for us in the long run. Statistically, that kind of gamble is real dangerous. That's not a crank I want to keep turning. Yeah.

Speaker 37418.58s - 7422.76s

Yeah. That's Enid GPE. That's Enid, baby. Good work, Enid.

Speaker 107422.88s - 7425.08s

Congratulations to the Enid Social Justice Committee ORG,

Speaker 37425.18s - 7435.88s

honestly. I'm very impressed. You get our coveted Oklahoma City of the Month EVENT award, which is confusing

Speaker 107435.88s - 7441.06s

because you are very near Oklahoma City GPE, but they shouldn't have named it that. Oh, that's all I got.

Speaker 37441.5s - 7445.16s

That's all I got. Yeah, I was trying to put a button. I'm trying to put a button on that bad boy.

Speaker 107446.14s - 7447.04s

But, uh, yeah.

Speaker 37448.02s - 7448.56s

That's Oklahoma GPE, baby.

Speaker 107448.86s - 7449.3s

Yeah.

Speaker 37449.82s - 7450.06s

Good for you.

Speaker 107450.78s - 7464.92s

Good for Oklahoma GPE.

Speaker 37467.84s - 7468.56s

Welcome to It Could Happen here. I'm Garrison Davis PERSON.

Speaker 107474.5s - 7475.04s

On this show, we try to apply political and cultural analysis towards speculative futurity.

Speaker 37479.38s - 7479.76s

What can we learn about the future by looking at how our present relates to our past?

Speaker 107484.36s - 7484.9s

And now as we approach a whole decade of a resurgent far right gaining cultural prominence,

Speaker 37489.4s - 7494.3s

we're entering a moment in time where pop culture and media is starting to catch up to the current political zeitgeist. Our media landscape is inundated with depictions of unreality,

Speaker 107494.7s - 7500.36s

political extremism, collapse, and rising civil tensions. Some of these succeed more than others,

Speaker 67500.7s - 7591.02s

but most are still deeply neoliberal in their depictions. The Obama PERSON produced a Netflix movie from last year, Leave the World Behind WORK_OF_ART, was a speculative look at a collapse orchestrated to jumpstart a Second American Civil War. Alex Garland's PERSON voyeuristic civil war movie just released, which sort of gestures at politics with offhand mentions of Portland Maoists and the Antifa ORG massacre, but as a movie, it completely fails to understand the moment we currently occupy, and I believe is even more out of touch than theObama collapse movie. But we're not talking with that today. For my thoughts on that, you can look up my review on Letterboxed and refer to the reviews I liked for a more robust critique of Garland PERSON's deeply troubling depiction of quote-unquote neutral war journalism as uncritically virtuous. Instead, this episode will be turning to a depiction of modern day extremism that I'm not sure is better. It's still deeply neoliberal and honestly more overtly copaganda, but one that I still find more interesting, and I believe does understand our political momentmuch better than Alex Garland PERSON does, who comes off as less and less intelligent in every single interview he does. Last month, the television show Law and Order WORK_OF_ART did an episode focusing on Robert Rundo's far-right fitness groups, the white supremacist active clubs. To discuss, I am joined by longtime far-right researcher Molly PERSON Conger. Hello, Molly. Hey, thanks for having me on. And you probably didn't know

Speaker 37591.02s - 7596.02s

this about me. I am a secret enjoyer of police procedural, so I've actually watched a lot of

Speaker 67596.02s - 7723.22s

law and order. I have never seen a single episode of Law & Order until this week. So I was really inundated. I don't know. I watch a lot of kind of troubling media, though, and media that tries to comment on like current political extremism. And often when I talk with my friends about my interest in viewing things like this episode, I get confused or even adversarial reactions. And I do truly understand their hesitations. Pop culture media like this is often very sensational, turning very real pain, trauma, and death caused by the far right into this form ofkind of mindless entertainment and often reifying the role of like good government and good cops to maintain order against racist insurgents, even though more and more of their ilk begin to occupy public office and become cops themselves. But politics and culture are hand in hand. Lots of what became the all right grew out of Gamergate EVENT, and I think there is a real use in understanding how the political activities of fascists and anti-fascists are depicted in mass media. I believe there is some valuein knowing what NBC and the writers of Law and Order WORK_OF_ART think an active club is, as like a sort of cultural litmus test, and also to see how well people like us are doing in trying to educate about these types of groups. But I totally understand that not everyone wants to suffer through a 40-minute Law & Order episode about cops beating the Nazis NORP. So instead, I will watch it for you and talk about exactly how they depicted this with Molly here today.So, I think the most efficient way for me to do this is to kind of give a recap of the episode. And as I start going through it, we will discuss certain points. I can't just summarize all of it in like a short paragraph. I mean, I could. I just think that would miss out on a lot of stuff. So instead, we're going to go through the episode and comment as things happen. And this episode ends up being about a lot more than just an active club.It's actually pulling from a few other influences that we will talk about probably towards the end. Anyway.

Speaker 37723.84s - 7734.66s

That felt sloppy to me. I feel like they tried to tackle several specific, like, I don't know how familiar you are with the Law and Order WORK_OF_ART franchise, but they call these episodes the ripped from the headlines episodes, right?

Speaker 27734.66s - 7739.04s

Where they take a real life high profile case and write an episode about it.

Speaker 37739.46s - 7743.98s

But they tried to combine several elements that I felt didn't blend well.

Speaker 67744.18s - 7747.6s

And it gave them more material to work with than they were able to address.

Speaker 37747.6s - 7751.2s

And so it just felt, I just felt unresolved to me.

Speaker 67751.88s - 7756.94s

I mean, yeah, I assume lots of these police procedurals are kind of undercooked as like pieces of art.

Speaker 37757.9s - 7768.94s

I mean, the Dick Wolf PERSON extended universe is churning out so much content that like, I don't know how they're still doing it. I mean, Olivia Benson PERSON has been on television since I was a child.

Speaker 67770.18s - 7837.56s

So let's get into the actual episode. The Cold Open begins. It's night in New York City GPE. A nervous-looking white woman enters a subway station and she's startled by a sleeping homeless man. As the subway approaches, eerie music starts playing.The anxious woman walks onto the subway, and a black man cat calls her, as a group of other men kind of join in. The woman quickly switches to a more empty subway car, where she then bumps into another black man whose eyes look kind of vacant and is making weird grunting noises, and then the man appears to lunge towards the woman. We cut two crime scene tape stretched across the subway station. Two police detectives enter the subway car where a dead body lies on the ground. But it's not the scared white woman. It's the oddly grunting blackman who appears to have been strangled to death with no apparent witnesses. He's identified as 24-year-old Ellis Joyner PERSON, a stand-up comedian who a detective says, quote, came from down south, love to talk about how much he loved New York GPE. The other detective remarks, Great place to live,not such a great place to die. Cut to title screen with,

Speaker 37838.2s - 7855.18s

with music that I assume has not been updated in like 30 years, because the actual theme song, it's iconic. It sounds so, so 90s. They can't change it now.There are thousands of episodes of this show, Garrison WORK_OF_ART. It's history.

Speaker 67855.62s - 7864.32s

So already with the cold open, we have like, ooh, the dangerous subway, scary homeless people, this poor white woman, a lot of stuff's being thrown at us. Right.

Speaker 37864.32s - 7870.28s

And obviously playing on the idea that like, oh, the white woman is going to be under that sheet, like that's going to be her body.

Speaker 67870.36s - 7896.7s

Totally, totally. So as we return to the episode, a forensic pathologist says the man died after being put in a quote-unquote sleeper hold, which cut off oxygen to his brain. His medical records reveal he also had severe asthma, and his hyperinflated lungs indicate he was currently suffering an asthma attack when he was killed by the lethal chokehold.In the 50-minute window for time of death, the train passed through six subway stations, four of which all had broken cameras.

Speaker 37897.8s - 7902.38s

Which is supposed to remind the viewer that we really need to fund the subway cops.

Speaker 67902.62s - 7913.72s

Correct. A lot of this episode is about how subway surveillance is under-equipped to deal with crime. And we could probably fix a lot of problems if there was more security cameras in the subway.

Speaker 37914.22s - 7916.98s

Or just 100 cops. What if they put 100 cops on there?

Speaker 67917.1s - 8003.42s

Sure. Sure. Or more cops. And like, to my surprise, the subway in New York City GPE historically has not had security cameras inside the actual train cars, though they are expected to by 2026. But like the light rail in Portland, the kind of like,not not subway, but like the public transit train in Atlanta, they all have cameras inside the actual train cars. I was surprised that the subway in New York GPE did not. I just never knew that. Anyway, back to Law & Order WORK_OF_ART. Ellis Joyner's PERSON credit card identified the station that he got on at, which also had broken cameras.But police pulled street cam footage from a few blocks away, which shows Joyner PERSON getting into a fight with another comedian, where Joyner PERSON got punched. The other man is recognized as Malcolm Page PERSON,a stand-up who, quote, used to open for Chappelle back in the day, unquote. So already setting up something fantastic. The detective's interview page and show him social media footage of Joyner's set from last night, making fun of Page for being old and irrelevant. Page says that Joyner verbally attacked him, because Joyner, quote, got his panties in a twist, unquote, over some of Paige PERSON's jokes. Quote, hit too close to home for Fancy Boy PERSON, unquote.And when Paige says Fancy Boy, he does this little shaky hand thing, which the detective asks if that's supposed to imply that Joyner PERSON is gay, which the older comedian says, yes.

Speaker 38004.28s - 8007.54s

I mean, I've seen the sort of like limp wrist hand movement.

Speaker 68007.54s - 8013.14s

But this isn't a lip wrist. But that wasn't what he did. It was just like a weird like shaking like hand.

Speaker 38013.3s - 8017.5s

It was like the way you sort of shake your hand side to side when you mean like kind of

Speaker 68017.5s - 8027.44s

or maybe. Exactly. Exactly. It was the wrong hand move. It was homophobic gestures right. It was it was really weird.I found this whole interaction kind of bizarre. And unnecessary.

Speaker 38027.8s - 8034.12s

Like, you write in this kind of red herring when you're trying to fill time. But they had plenty of script. They didn't need this.

Speaker 68034.68s - 8063.48s

This episode's so focused on different forms of racism so much. Adding in this, like, weird gay subplot, it doesn't end up going anywhere. And it's just kind of bizarre. So, anyway, this, basically, this older comedian was telling homophobic jokes. Joyner then made fun of him on stage, and this older comedian, Paige PERSON, assaulted him outside. Page then left an Uber, and Joyner ran off with his boyfriend, who, according to Paige PERSON, weren't getting along either.So there's some kind of, like, like, couple.

Speaker 38063.48s - 8064.7s

A new suspect arises.

Speaker 68067.48s - 8086.94s

Exactly, exactly. So police look through kind of like like a couple. A new suspect arises. Exactly. Exactly. So police look through joiners emails and texts in the cloud, quote unquote, and can't find any record of a boyfriend making detectives surmise that he must have been in the closet, which is a baffling thing to surmise. Cops then contact, quote, the traveler app.. That's Traveler ORG spelled

Speaker 38086.94s - 8096.2s

T-R-A-V-L-R. You have to cut out a vowel or it's not an app. So, legally not Grindr PRODUCT gives

Speaker 68096.2s - 8102.8s

NYPD complete access to Joyner PERSON's account. And it's, I'm sorry, like, are gay male sex

Speaker 38102.8s - 8107.04s

apps usually like pink and purple? The color scheme is pink and purple.

Speaker 68108.06s - 8114.2s

Yeah, not my experience. But, yeah, I think this is also a reference to, like, travelers, like fellow travelers, right?

Speaker 38116.02s - 8116.1s

Right, but it was obviously supposed to be Grindr PRODUCT.

Speaker 68117.54s - 8134.44s

It's just Grindr PRODUCT. It doesn't matter. But Cops, legally not Grindr gives NYPD full access to Joyner PERSON's account, which shows he's dating a guy named Michael Zane PERSON. And this whole thing is so wild, because if you're dating someone, you should not be primarily communicating through Grindr PRODUCT?

Speaker 38134.74s - 8141.46s

And he said later they've been dating for six months. And they've never texted? They're just using Grindr PRODUCT to chat?

Speaker 68141.82s - 8155.3s

Whenever you go on Grindr PRODUCT, the goal is to get off of Grindr as soon as possible. Why would privately texting each other instead out you as gay anymore than having an identifiable grinder profile?

Speaker 38155.92s - 8162.66s

Yeah, I feel like having Grindr PRODUCT up on your phone and it has a very distinctive, like text tone. Like that's way more likely to out you, dog. Just text regular.

Speaker 68162.86s - 8188.22s

Exactly. It makes no sense. Anyway, the traveler messages betweener and michael zane indicate a sort of ongoing fight or argument now zane has a prior conviction for aggravated assault last year they didn't actually so i went back and i went back and double check this because i have some i have some beef he doesn't have a conviction they said he was arrested for assault last year he was just charged he wasn't convicted my mistake yes but also the episode does not make that very clear no because i i have a conviction. They said he was arrested for assault last year. He was just charged. He wasn't convicted. My mistake. Yes. But also, the episode does not make that very clear.

Speaker 38188.82s - 8192s

No, because I have a reason I went back and checked because it makes no sense.

Speaker 68192.26s - 8196.84s

So yeah, his boyfriend was charged last year for aggravated assault. So the detectives pay him a

Speaker 38196.84s - 8202.34s

visit because they think he's like a suspect, right? Zane says that he didn't kill Joyner PERSON. He loved

Speaker 68202.34s - 8206.28s

him and that their fight on the night of the murder was about Joyner PERSON's own self-hatred,

Speaker 38206.44s - 8210.04s

and Zane PERSON believing that things would be better if they could just live openly as a couple.

Speaker 68210.52s - 8232.92s

But Joyner PERSON was concerned that it would threaten his comedy career. Zane PERSON maintained, nothing ever got physical between each other, and explained that his assault charge was from trying to break up a bar fight, but when the cops arrived, they targeted Zane PERSON because he was black, to which the two NYPD ORG detectives nod solemnly. They're like, yeah, that does sound like something we would do.

Speaker 38233.16s - 8235.52s

Yeah, other cops are racist, but not us.

Speaker 68235.72s - 8251.46s

They're like, okay. Zane claims that Joyner PERSON wanted time alone, so he got off the train a few stops before and went home. But mentions that there was a white guy with short brown hair, bright yellow sneakers, and a hoodie with some kind of symbol on the back,

Speaker 08251.74s - 8253.94s

who was looking weirdly at him and Joyner PERSON.

Speaker 68254.58s - 8296.78s

Security camera footage shows someone matching that description, exiting the train car one stop before Joyner PERSON's body was found, and one of the detectives recognizes the symbol. We will learn more about this mysterious hoodie sneaker and symbol after the sad break. So I first, I just want to describe what this symbol is. It's this octagon with spiky corners and like two Ks facing like like one facing backwards.

Speaker 08297.2s - 8306.76s

Yeah, one facing forwards, one facing backwards, but smushed together. And the shared middle pillar is like an arrow pointing upwards. It looked like nothing to me.

Speaker 38306.92s - 8311.82s

They tried to desire something that looked vaguely racist, but it's just not.

Speaker 68311.96s - 8313.16s

It just looks dumb.

Speaker 38314s - 8316.34s

It looks like, I don't know, like a tech company logo or something.

Speaker 68316.5s - 8316.72s

Yeah.

Speaker 38317.36s - 8319.36s

It didn't even evoke anything for me.

Speaker 68319.5s - 8334.82s

No, it's not good. They're trying to make it scary with like lots of like different like angles, but like it's, it's not. It's not scary. Anyway, the detectives arrive at an MMA gym in Chelsea called the Kovac Academy. It opened about a year ago, and they've been peppering the neighborhood with flyers.

Speaker 38347.36s - 8347.58s

Well, that sounds familiar. Extremely accurate. The cops are greeted by a jacked staff member with a shaved head. And they asked to speak with the owner, and this skinhead employee says that they just missed him.

Speaker 68348.08s - 8392.58s

But there's a picture on the wall of the owner holding a trophy, and he's wearing the exact outfit in the subway security footage. The detectives are told that he was getting a cab to the airport. Now, I thought this was going to be like a classic Rundo PERSON move, right? Do some crimes, flee the country. But allegedly, he was actually flying toToronto GPE, which actually will kind of get explained later on. Cops run outside to see if they can spot him before he leaves, and they see a man in yellow sneakers and a logo emblazoned hoodie walking towards a cab. They sprint, tap him on the shoulder. The MMA guy throws detectives against the car, starts fighting, not realizing their NYPD because he is like earbuds on. Cops pull their guns, then he surrenders. The owner of the gym is named Dominal PERSON. Dominal? It's a

Speaker 38392.58s - 8400.02s

weird, it's weird name. I think Dominal. Dominal. Yeah, Dominal Kovac. He has four previous

Speaker 68400.02s - 8412.04s

convictions for assault, all against black victims, with two charged as hate crimes. A detective notes that Kovag has a tattoo on his right arm of laced up combat boots with the number 88,

Speaker 38412.6s - 8422.78s

which the detective calls a white nationalist symbol. Okay. Okay. Here. I looked. I looked hard.

Speaker 68422.78s - 8448.12s

I looked hard through a lot of photographs of Nazi tattoos. And the boot tattoo is not common. And you only see it in skinhead culture. And this guy's not a skinhead. The actual owner of the gym does not appear to be a skinhead. He has like a big beard. He has like long brown, like longish brown. Not long, but like medium shaggy brown hair. But but but yeah he has this combat boot 88 tattoo like that's

Speaker 38448.12s - 8452.08s

there are a lot of Nazi NORP tattoos and that's not the one I would have picked for this character no it's obviously

Speaker 68452.08s - 8456.48s

it's like some lawn order writer googled like a Nazi NORP tattoo and just picked that like

Speaker 38457.4s - 8461.28s

but that's the thing is if that's what they had done I don't think they would have picked that because like

Speaker 08461.28s - 8476.1s

I said I was looking through all of these sort of like lists of different kinds of tattoos by different nonprofits. There is one, one picture in all of these databases of a tattoo that's even similar to this, where it's a pair of boots with the number eight on

Speaker 68476.1s - 8521.46s

each boot. I found one. Yeah. I mean, I think that that is the one they used. I think they did want to like bring in some level of like the idea of dog whistling kind of with 88, which will come up later in the episode. But it's not well done. Anyway, Kovac says that he's never seen El Estonia before and that the night of the murder, he was running a late night intensive training program called the Combat Academy based on the Navy SEALs training course. So many red flags are going off here. It ended around midnight.Afterwards, Kovac PERSON said he walked to his girlfriend's nearby apartment. He was never on the subway. But he explains that the gray hoodie and yellow sneakers are part of the Combat Academy ORG uniform that all members wear.

Speaker 38521.9s - 8524.1s

It's so important to wear matching outfits with your boys.

Speaker 68524.54s - 8534.04s

And in one of the more accurate moments of the episode, as soon as he's in even a little trouble, he gives out all the names of the members in his group.

Speaker 38535.02s - 8536.52s

Did not even wait for a subpoena.

Speaker 68536.68s - 8556.28s

He was like, would you like their credit card numbers? Did not hesitate. He's like, no, absolutely. I'll give a DNA swab. I'll tell you the names of all the guys. It wasn't me, I swear.So the detectives locate the recently divorced Brandon Arnault PERSON outside of the... I like that they added the detail he was recently divorced, but this never actually comes...

Speaker 38556.28s - 8561.92s

It does not come up. It does not matter. But the second they walk up to him on the street, he was like, oh, my wife left him.

Speaker 68562.02s - 8563.86s

My wife left me.

Speaker 38564.74s - 8566.36s

So I got really into grappling with the boys, my wife left me. My wife left me. So I got really into

Speaker 68566.36s - 8571.32s

grappling with the boys because my wife left me. Yes, exactly. So they find him outside the

Speaker 38571.32s - 8578.14s

elementary school he teaches that. Which also never comes up again. Nope. And after after very,

Speaker 68578.14s - 8601.22s

very little questioning, very tame questioning, he immediately admits to killing Joyner PERSON, saying it was an accident and that Joyner was attacking a woman on the subway, and Brandon PERSON here was trying to protect her. At the police station, the police say that they can't find any footage of the woman Brandon PERSON is talking about, but the defense attorney asks if the cameras were even working at every station, to which the

Speaker 08601.22s - 8608.3s

cops roll their eyes. They're like, really sarcastically. They're like, oh my God, this fucking guy asking if the cameras are broken.

Speaker 38609.34s - 8614.3s

The cops tell Brandon that they found Ellis Joyner's PERSON missing cell phone in his gym locker.

Speaker 08615.18s - 8616.04s

They searched his house.

Speaker 38616.12s - 8620.16s

They didn't find anything, but they got his, they got a warrant for his gym locker and found the cell phone.

Speaker 68620.16s - 8632.24s

And they alleged that he stole it after he realized that Joyner PERSON recorded a video of the fight that ended up with Joyner PERSON being strangled to death. And that's something we call consciousness of guilt.

Speaker 38632.76s - 8636.98s

The defense attorney ends the interview immediately as soon as they bring this up.

Speaker 68637.32s - 8665.54s

Like, why wouldn't you tell your lawyer that? Tell him that before you go in. The search history on Brandon's laptop shows him trying to figure out how to unlock the phone to delete the video. Now, this part's a little bit odd. The cops debate, even though, quote, he admits to killing Joyner PERSON, I'm not sure we have enough evidence to charge, unquote, which is not true. You have so much evidence. You have a confession. You have so much evidence to charge. This is so bizarre. Like, how often do you have

Speaker 38665.54s - 8669.86s

a recording of a murder happening and then the guy admitting that he did it? And he admits, yeah,

Speaker 68669.94s - 8675.96s

it's ridiculous. They charge on far, far less. They have that conversation in the room and they're

Speaker 38675.96s - 8687.44s

like, well, we can charge him or we can let him go. He's like, I mean, I understand a conversation about like, is this murder too? Is this manslaughter? Yeah. But it's not a question of whether or not you charge him with something. You're charging him with something. Come on.

Speaker 68687.72s - 8726.1s

I mean, I think there's a reason actually why they had this conversation, which I will get to at the end of the episode, if you remind me. I think there's a reason why they discuss this option of letting him go versus charging him. But at this point, we now switch to the law half of the episode after we finished the order half. I don't know why these are reversed, because they do the police part first, then the court part, but whatever. It should be called order and law, which I guess just doesn't sound good. So, a front page story in the Legally NotNew York Post is being passed around the DA's office. It reads, self-defense or racist killing, hero or zero?

Speaker 38727.9s - 8728.44s

A recurring story in New York City GPE.

Speaker 68732.04s - 8741.06s

The prosecutor who's played by Hugh Dancy, who I'm just going to call Hugh Dancy, because I don't know his character's name, states that half the city believes Brandon PERSON's self-defense story and the other half just to sees a white man killing an unarmed black man.

Speaker 38741.48s - 8742.36s

That is what happened.

Speaker 68742.56s - 8746.1s

A litmus test for what people want to believe, says the main DA.

Speaker 38747.26s - 8752.22s

I think at this point, the writers in that room are just tired. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 68752.7s - 8756.26s

So, like, you can only do so much cocaine before it just, like, stops working.

Speaker 38757.22s - 8762.04s

The DA's office says that Brandon held Joyner PERSON in a chokehold for so long after he was unconscious

Speaker 68762.04s - 8787.56s

that even if it started as self-defense, it escalated to homicide. They debate between manslaughter and murder, saying the former would be easier to win, with a clear use of excessive force, regardless of Brandon PERSON's story of trying to help the girl. But based on the cell phone video,the DA decides to pursue a murder case due to a, quote, depraved indifference to human life, unquote, displayed by choking someone for full three minutes after falling unconscious.

Speaker 38788.06s - 8797.56s

I'm not sure if you mentioned. So when they found the phone, so the victim had been recording the altercation and then it got knocked out of his hand. And so it was recording audio of the murder, but not video.

Speaker 68798.24s - 8823.84s

I'm going to get to that once we get to the court scene. Hugh Dancy is nervous about Brandon's literal white tonight story and that he has no history of violence. But the DA insists on second degree murder saying, quote, this is George Floyd PERSON all over again. In what way? And I'm sure as hell not going to end up on the wrong side of it, unquote, which does not make the DA sound like a good guy. It just makes him sound like he doesn't want to have like a bad press.

Speaker 38823.96s - 8841.28s

It comes off as very slimy. I, you know, I said I watch a lot of order. And so I have seen probably a thousand hours of it, but I haven't watched it in several years. So I don't know if maybe the tone has evolved a little bit. But I got the impression that like, I don't know, maybe this is a guy who's consistently worried about getting reelected, right? Because his job is

Speaker 68841.28s - 8919.58s

an elected position. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So, finally, we cut to court. The prosecution plays the cell phone video. Seconds after, Joyner starts recording on his phone, Brandon PERSON knocks it out of his hand, landing camera side down, continuing to record only audio of the struggle. We hear Brandon putting Joyner PERSON into a chokehold, Joyner repeatedly saying he can't breathe before appearing to pass out, followed by three minutes of silence, up until Brandon releases his arm from around Joyner PERSON's neck. He picks up the phone, sees its recording, and turns it off. As the video is playing, the prosecutor and the juryare all shaking their heads so that we know that they don't agree with it. Hugh Dancy questions the medical examiner, who explains it after Joyner PERSON lost consciousness, he could no longer pose any lethal threat to the defendant, who continued to choke Jonah for three more minutes. The defense suggests that a surge of adrenaline distorted time and awareness of his surroundings, which in the panic of the moment made Brandon not realize Joyner PERSON lost consciousness for that long. Ellis Joyner's secret boyfriend testifies next. He says the defendant was weirdly staring at Joyner and himself, and that Brandon moved aggressively to step in Zane PERSON's way when he was trying to exit the train and said, quote unquote, watch yourself in a quote unquote racist tone. The defense brings up Zane PERSON's past aggravated assault charge to cast doubt on his testimony.

Speaker 38919.96s - 8921.2s

Okay, they can't do that.

Speaker 68921.42s - 8922.04s

They cannot do that.

Speaker 38922.04s - 8930.52s

You cannot do that. There is a very limited set of circumstances in which you can bring up a witness's criminal history, and this isn't it.

Speaker 68930.9s - 8966.06s

There is a lot of funky law decisions going on in this episode. You can't do that. Speaking of a funky law decisions, well, actually, speaking of, speaking of, this ad break.We are back. Speaking of troubling law decisions, the defense calls a surprise female witness, Rebecca Lasky PERSON, something you cannot do.

Speaker 38970.82s - 8980.82s

I looked it up. The average time to take a felony to trial in New York is a year. So from time of death to this going to trial, best case scenario, probably like a fucking year. They had a year to find this woman and she shows up on the last day of the trial.

Speaker 68982.12s - 8982.84s

It's definitely not the last day.

Speaker 38985.98s - 8988s

Because if this was, you know, this is obviously sort of mimicking the what is his name Daniel Penny

Speaker 68988s - 8990s

yes that's what I'm made a two towards the end

Speaker 38990s - 8997.34s

it's obviously mimicking the Daniel Penny PERSON case like this would have been on the New York Post ORG like every day leading up to the trial this woman would have been located prior to now

Speaker 68997.34s - 9005.1s

the murder happened in January the trial starts I believe in early March and lasts about two weeks according to the timeline of the TV show.

Speaker 39005.68s - 9007.22s

But that's not how it works.

Speaker 69007.84s - 9109.02s

Anyway, Rebecca Lasky PERSON, the surprised female witness. She testified that she accidentally bumped into Joyner PERSON, who quote unquote, appeared mentally disturbed and was making aggressive grunting noises, aggressive grunting noises, before lunging at her.She then claims Joyner PERSON reached into his pocket, and she was scared he had a knife or something. So she screamed. She screamed for help. And Brandon Arnault PERSON saved her. She testified that Mr. Arnault grabbed Joyner PERSON away from her,and the two men started fighting. Laskey calls Brandon PERSON a hero, and the jury looks on inquisitively. After the female witnesses, quote-unquote, compelling testimony, the prosecutor talks with the DA about offering a manslaughter plea. But the DA is steadfast, since the video clip of a man begging for his life and being choked to death for three minutes after falling unconscious has not actually changed.Hugh Dancy PERSON remarks that new context for the video isn't really in their favor, to which the DA just replies, just because a white woman saw join her as a threat doesn't make it true. Like, okay. Based to New York GPE DA, I guess. Back in court, the prosecution asks Rebecca Lasky if she was actually presentwhen, quote, the defendant choked the life out of Joyner PERSON, unquote. She clarifies that the train stopped as the men were still fighting. Joyner PERSON was reaching into his pocket. She was scared that he maybe had a knife again. He was probably reaching for his inhaler.Anhaler or his cell phone to record this fight. She curiously mentions, though, that after Brandon grabbed Joyner PERSON's arm and the fight started, Brandon kept yelling at Joyner PERSON. He was yelling to, quote, surrender and that he was bleeding and that he was dirty or fighting dirty? I don't really remember the exact words, unquote.

Speaker 39109.52s - 9111.8s

This destroyed me. I almost turned it off.

Speaker 69111.96s - 9152.06s

Everyone in the courtroom gets a really funny look when she mentions the word dirty. So, we will get to this in a sec. Under questioning, Lasky PERSON admits that she never saw any weapon of any kind, let alone a knife. And Hugh Dancy PERSON suggests that after being attacked by a fellow comedian and having an argument with his boyfriend, Joyner PERSON was probably suffering from an asthma attack triggered by high stress. He wasn't mentally ill.He wasn't acting aggressive or grunting in a threatening manner. He was stuck in a subway car having an asthma attack. And he addresses Lasky PERSON saying, quote, you saw a scary black man making a noise. Objection sustained. So yeah.

Speaker 39152.06s - 9162.74s

But they didn't, but that's this. So they objected there. But then when he says like, and isn't it true that his behavior was consistent with an asthma attack, nobody objected to that? She can't offer a medical opinion.

Speaker 69163.1s - 9172.5s

Rebecca Lasky PERSON, a ballet dancer, not a medical professional, cannot offer an opinion on what his medical symptoms can be consistent with. When she starts

Speaker 39172.5s - 9185.2s

getting upset saying like, oh my God, this is all my fault, like this happened because of me. Like, at that point, no prosecutor would have allowed her to continue speaking. He would have said, just answer the questions. Just answer the questions. He would not

Speaker 69185.2s - 9190.52s

have let her get emotional up there and blame it. Like, that's, that's poison. Yeah. But it makes

Speaker 39190.52s - 9196.4s

not very good television. Thrilling television. So after court for the day, the prosecution wonders

Speaker 69196.4s - 9201.9s

if Brandon PERSON allegedly saying something about blood and dirt could have really been, quote,

Speaker 39202.44s - 9205.54s

the Nazi NORP slogan, blood and soil.

Speaker 69205.84s - 9217.8s

No, no, no, no, no, no. The new battle cry of white nationalist groups, unquote. See, here's the thing. So this is where the episode goes fully, fully off the rails.

Speaker 39218.12s - 9235.16s

So, like, when I was watching her testimony, she was like, he said something about, like, you know, he was bleeding and like he was dirty. At no point did my mind connect that to. And I quite literally just yesterday was watching videos of guys yelling blood and soil. This is something that's on my mind.

Speaker 69235.84s - 9237.22s

It is a ridiculous junk.

Speaker 39237.42s - 9239.08s

It's not there.

Speaker 69239.08s - 9260.68s

Because, yeah, he's yelling something about bleeding because his lip was bleeding. And sure, a remark about being dirty could be construed as like a racist remark. But the jump from bleeding and dirty to blood and dirt to blood and soil is fucking baffling.

Speaker 39261.24s - 9270.84s

It's just not even the same words. But not to nitpick here, not to nitpick, I just don't know that blood and soil would have been the chant he chose as he was doing the choking.

Speaker 69271.34s - 9276.24s

It's bizarre. He would have said a slur. Hugh Dancy PERSON is also skeptical. None of the interviews with

Speaker 39276.24s - 9281s

Brandon PERSON's family or co-workers indicated anything about racial extremism, but the other prosecutor

Speaker 69281s - 9285.02s

suggests that they look into his fitness gym, the Kovac Academy ORG,

Speaker 39289.36s - 9289.94s

as the owner, quote, has ties to a few white nationalist organizations.

Speaker 69290.52s - 9321.32s

Uh-oh. The DA's office decides to investigate further. They arrive at the gym as the buff skinhead staff member from the start of the episode is closing up for the day. He claims to not know Brandon PERSON very well. And when he's asked if he's ever heard Brandon PERSON say something that could be interpreted as racist, he responds by saying, I'm sorry, but I can't help you. The prosecutor makes a snide remark and starts to leave. And the man quietly says, look, I can't get into details, but let's justsay you're heading down the right path. But I can't help you because it would blow my cover, unquote.

Speaker 39322.08s - 9329.02s

Whoa. Oh my God. He's a cop infiltrating the Nazi NORP fight club. I mean,

Speaker 69329.06s - 9380.54s

there are some cops in there, right? I don't know if I would say they're infiltrating. The next scene is the funniest in the whole episode. After stumbling on to the undercover operation, the head DA arrives at the NYPD Counterterrorism Bureau, as they have info pertaining to the prosecution's murder case. But the Counterterrorism Bureau ORG explains their scope is much larger than this one case, and they have, quote, had their eye on Kovac PERSON for a while now. They explained to the DA that his MMA gym is actually a, quote, active club, part of aninternational network of a white supremacist sleeper cells that all front as MMA- is actually a, quote, active club, part of an international network of a white supremacist sleeper cells that all front as MMA style gyms, unquote. So, okay, okay, white nationalists have been using MMA gyms to front for activities for decades.

Speaker 39381.12s - 9388.08s

I just found a new one the other day. This does happen. This does not mean they are active clubs, nor do active clubs have to be

Speaker 69388.08s - 9400.46s

MMA gyms. These things are Venn diagrams that can sometimes overlap, but not always. The version of active clubs we see in this episode now starts getting pretty fictitious.

Speaker 39401.12s - 9407.06s

It immediately, first I was like, oh, that's like a fairly reasonable, like, yeah, like we do have active clubs at MMA ORG gyms.

Speaker 69407.16s - 9411.32s

That's a real thing. And they were like, and they're stockpiling weapons to do it January 6th. Yeah.

Speaker 39411.44s - 9412.46s

So, what?

Speaker 69414.06s - 9447.9s

So they say they've identified over 30 active clubs across nine states and several provinces of Canada GPE. So nine states, far too low. There's active clubs in way more states than that. There's also not necessarily, like, if you have 30 active clubs across nine states, that's a bizarre ratio. That means there's a lot of active clubs in like a few states, which generally isn't how it kind of ends up being. There's maybe like one or two, maybe three, like per state.We don't fully know, but I will give them points for adding in the Canadian NORP chapters, which most people kind of overlook.

Speaker 39448.74s - 9453.54s

But also, like, why is the NYPD investigating something happening in nine states? That's the Fed ORG's territory.

Speaker 69453.54s - 9455.48s

To be fair, that is fully accurate.

Speaker 39455.64s - 9462.56s

The NYPD Counterterrorism Bureau ORG investigates things all over the world. But it's like, just let it's interstate, let the feds handle it.

Speaker 69462.76s - 9469.32s

Their jurisdiction is fucking bonkers. They're like the third biggest, like, counterterrorism, like law enforcement group in the entire world.

Speaker 39469.5s - 9471.44s

It's like one of the world's largest standing armies.

Speaker 69471.72s - 9500.12s

Yeah, no, it is absurd. They say, quote, the clubs operate as recruitment centers. They lure in young white men under the guise of getting fit, while indoctrinating them in racist ideology, and training them in military combat, unquote. Now, the training that people receive in active clubs very often does not equal military combat training. In fact, they often have very poor fitness regimens and really bad advice on how to get fit.

Speaker 39500.62s - 9507.44s

I mean, if getting hooked on gear and rolling around on the floor shirtless with the boys is military combat training, then absolutely.

Speaker 69507.94s - 9575.9s

If you look at the, there's a pretty extensive docs of some of the active club members of the state of Georgia last year, and they were, their fitness information was not up to stuff. They were, they were mostly 17-year-olds who were arguing about different ways to, like, lift better. Anyway, law and order says that these active clubs are, quote, trying to build an army. It's the new face of hate, unquote. A very kind of retro slogan.We don't really use that anymore, but if you look like 10 years ago or, like, yeah, around 10 years ago, you would see a lot of like liberal articles talking about the new face of hate. Quote, no more white sheets or burning crosses. They've adapted and created a facade to mask their racist beliefs, unquote. So the DA wants their undercover guy to testify to secure the conviction against one of the active club members, but the counterterrorism bureau doesn't want to blow their nine-monthundercover operation, even for a murder conviction, as they've, quote, recently received credible intel that Kovac PERSON is now stockpiling firearms and explosive materials, unquote.

Speaker 39576.64s - 9579.1s

So they should probably go ahead and arrest him for that, huh?

Speaker 69579.22s - 9580.1s

Yeah, yeah, right?

Speaker 39580.82s - 9581.24s

Like, I don't know.

Speaker 69581.24s - 9618.94s

It's time to move. I guess now they're combining, like, active club stuff with some, like, Adam Woffin PERSON and militia stuff, just like,, throw, just, like, just smushing together all these different groups into one, like, mega boogeyman, I guess. Quote, these men are terrorists. They're capable of significant violence, unquote.So the counterterrorism bureau suggests that the DA takes a, quote, big picture of view of the situation, unquote. So the DA breaks the news to the prosecution takes a, quote, big picture of view of the situation, unquote. So the DA breaks the news to the prosecution team that the undercover will be unable to testify because the active club is, quote, planning a coordinated attack along the lines of the January 6th insurrection, unquote.

Speaker 39619.86s - 9626.66s

So you should probably, like, the undercover operation is over. Like, if you have credible intel that there's an imminent attack, like, the operation is over.

Speaker 69626.92s - 9630.24s

So, also, like, this is just not what active clubs do.

Speaker 39630.38s - 9644.28s

No. This is, like, they don't care about J6 PRODUCT. That's, like, a proud boy thing. And some militia dudes. Like, most active club members would be like, no, all of the J6 people are, like, fucking, like, conservative, like, Trump PERSON, Trump brain dead losers.

Speaker 69644.52s - 9647.06s

They're like, it's really was that thing a couple years ago

Speaker 39647.06s - 9655.54s

where those members of the base were arrested right before they were going to try to kick off the civil war by inciting they were going to shoot into the crowd at the gun rally in Richmond GPE.

Speaker 69655.9s - 9656.78s

At the Virginia gun rally, yeah.

Speaker 39656.78s - 9666.18s

And then the plan was that everyone would start shooting each other. You know, it's like, so they had a pretty large stockpile of weapons that one of the guys was Canadian NORP. So like maybe they got mixed up with that.

Speaker 69666.32s - 9667.18s

Those guys were in the base.

Speaker 29667.32s - 9671.38s

Yeah, like, they're combining elements of the base at a mothin, active clubs, proud boys,

Speaker 69671.44s - 9683.58s

into, like, this like mega boogeyman, right? It's just a villain. The DA says that this new attack will, quote, only be more violent and without advance warning this time, unquote.

Speaker 39683.9s - 9685.58s

What do you mean without advance warning?

Speaker 69685.76s - 9689.18s

You just said no about it. No. Are you going to let it happen?

Speaker 39689.38s - 9695.02s

Right, right. You guys let this happen? The greater good is for us to allow this to occur.

Speaker 69695.28s - 9765.78s

The undercover investigation cannot be jeopardized in any way. But as this looks more and more like a racially targeted murder, according to the DA, the DA's office has to find a different way to show that Brandon is racist. Quote, it's for the greater good. A phrase that Hugh Dancy PERSON says helps justify a lot of otherwise unjustifiable positions. And they start getting into this kind of debate around like the ethics of like doing a long term infiltration operation versus seeing like a like an active threat or like seeing a way to like currently clamp down on a like arm of an organization even if they can't get the whole thing yet and they have this debate of like is it is it better to like do like a long term strategy or to like just like chop off as many limbs as we can as we go on and again it it doesn't make sense because if they have all this credible intel, why don't just like get them right now? But like, whatever.Right. Wrap it up. So back in court, Mr. Kovac PERSON is on the stand. Hugh Dancy PERSON asks if he and the defendant have ever discussed, quote, racial ideology, to which Kovac PERSON says, I don't know what that means. Believable. I mean, yeah, that is the correct answer for this situation. The prosecutor, I don't know what that means. Believable.

Speaker 39766.36s - 9790.84s

I mean, yeah, that is the correct answer for this situation. The prosecutor elaborates racial purity, interracial marriage, what role black people should or shouldn't have in society. And Kovac PERSON once again feigns ignorance. Hugh Dancy asks about Kovac's 88 tattoo being a Nazi NORP symbol. And Kovac PERSON just says, I don't know.I just like the number 88 And then he doesn't The prosecutor doesn't explain to the jury

Speaker 69790.84s - 9800.82s

No, no, that it means Heil Hitler PERSON? He just, he just moves on Never once in the episode is it explained that the 88 symbol is a reference to Heil Hitler

Speaker 39800.82s - 9803.68s

Never once. They never actually say it. Never say it. Yeah.

Speaker 69804.18s - 9813.98s

Dancy does bring up Mr. Kovac's for prior convictions for assaulting black men, two of which were charged as hate crimes. And Kovac PERSON just says that was a long time ago. And now see,

Speaker 39814.08s - 9825.12s

I do want to say, because I made such a big deal about it earlier, about how you can't ask about prior convictions, I think in this case, it is an allowable exception because it goes to direct impeachment. Like if if he said, like,

Speaker 29830.02s - 9834.4s

you know, he made a statement himself about how he's not racist and you say, well, you have a hate crime conviction. And later in the courtroom, he says that he, of course, obviously doesn't have

Speaker 69834.4s - 9839.86s

any problems with black people when being questioned by the defense attorney. But Hugh Dancy

Speaker 29839.86s - 9847.7s

pulls up Kovac PERSON's social media accounts, all of which contained the phrase, blood and soil in his bio.

Speaker 69848.34s - 9863.5s

Objection, relevance. The prosecution then argues that Rebecca Lasky's PERSON testimony of hearing something about blood and dirt may have been a vague recollection of hearing blood and soil. No. Dancy describes blood and soil as a Nazi NORP reference to a racially uniform society.

Speaker 39864.1s - 9866.34s

The jury would not have been allowed to hear this.

Speaker 69866.44s - 9882.58s

This would have happened outside the presence of the jury. Kovak PERSON just says the phrase means that you're proud of who you are and where you come from. Kovac PERSON taught the defendant how to fight, how to do a chokehold. So to end the questioning, Hugh Dancy PERSON asks if he also taught the defendant to hate black people.

Speaker 29883.22s - 9883.72s

Objection.

Speaker 69884.44s - 9898.16s

Objection. All right. So the defense's closing black people. Objection. Objection. All right. So the defense's closing argument frames the subway as a dangerous, lawless zone. And Brandon PERSON as a peaceful elementary school teacher who has never gotten as much as a speeding ticket.

Speaker 39898.9s - 9900.14s

Probably because he doesn't drive.

Speaker 69900.46s - 9967.2s

Yeah, because you live in New York GPE. Who saw someone in danger and bravely decided to step up and do something. The prosecution's closing argument frames Brandon Arnault PERSON as a closeted racist, who saw an opportunity to put his white supremacist ideology into practice in a situation where he thought he could get away with it. Quote, people like Mr. Arnaud PERSON keep their bigotry buttoned up. They only discuss it with people who share their hateful worldview. They rely on plausible deniability, because if the racism isn't overt, many good people are all toohappy to assume it isn't there. But every once in a while, in moments of panic or anger, the mask will slip, unquote. Hugh Dancy closes by saying that Ellis Joyner PERSON was an innocent, unarmed black man suffering a medical emergency, and the two white people on the train assumed he was a violent threat, and they attacked him. And even if there was no intention to kill at the start, quote, at some point, the defendant's focus shifted, and his racial hate began to manifest, unquote, yelling blood and soil at Joyner, quote, a declaration of hatred for all people of color, unquote, as Brandon PERSON choked him to death. Okay, here's the thing.

Speaker 39967.42s - 9978.98s

Here's the thing. This whole situation with the undercover or the counterterrorism, I have to believe that they're trying to set up a longer plot arc, that that's going to come back in a later

Speaker 09978.98s - 9979.38s

episode.

Speaker 29979.38s - 9984.88s

Or so they have a new spinoff called Law and Order Organized Crime with Christopher Maloney PERSON,

Speaker 09985.08s - 9986.4s

Elliot Stabler from SVU WORK_OF_ART.

Speaker 69986.6s - 10003.06s

So I wonder if they're going to cross it over to organized crime because it makes no sense. That's what I assume. I think this white nationalist group is going to come back and be even a bigger plot point in a future episode. Because it didn't need to be in here. Otherwise, the inclusion in this piece is really bizarre.

Speaker 310003.76s - 10017.74s

But what I was going to say is they did not need that undercover's testimony because the only testimony they wanted to elicit from him was like, as a character witness to say like, oh yeah, I'vemet him and he's racist. Yeah.

Speaker 210017.82s - 10019.7s

That wouldn't really even

Speaker 310019.7s - 10036.88s

be admissible in most like, like even if the judge allowed the jury to hear that, like, this isn't a hate crime case. It doesn't matter. What matters is whether or not he used excessive, like more force than what's necessary for a self-defense argument. Right. The entire

Speaker 610036.88s - 10047.06s

legal strategy they shift you halfway through the court proceedings is so obviously a dead end that doesn't actually relate to. And wouldn't have been allowed. Yeah, it's so bizarre.

Speaker 310047.8s - 10058.84s

And if they wanted to get information about, like, his views that maybe his family didn't know about, that people at work didn't know about, why did they not get warrants for his phone and computer?

Speaker 610059.12s - 10064.6s

I mean, I think they did, because they mentioned searching through his phone and computer multiple times through the episode.

Speaker 310064.6s - 10069.92s

They said they found that he had searched for, like, how to delete from cloud or whatever from the guy's phone.

Speaker 610070.04s - 10072.26s

Again, I think that's mostly just like undercooked.

Speaker 310073.04s - 10075.68s

You didn't open like his telegram account to see what chat is in?

Speaker 610075.76s - 10090.12s

Exactly. You didn't see the active club chat season. You didn't see like you didn't talk to any other members of the combat academy. No other members of the gym? Really No other members of the gym? Really? Anyway, so the jury finds the defendant not guilty because...

Speaker 210090.12s - 10092.08s

Yeah, okay.

Speaker 610092.68s - 10099.54s

Outside the courtroom, the head DA says, quote, we did the best that we could. Here's another problem.

Speaker 310099.64s - 10103.52s

There's another problem. So not all states allow this, but in New York GPE, the court

Speaker 210103.52s - 10126.98s

can submit to the jury what are called lesser included charges. So if you're charged with murder two, I think was what they charged him with in this case, you know, the jury can deliberate on the actual charge, murder two, but they can also consider what are called lesser included charges. So something like manslaughter. So the jury can say, well, we're not going to convict on murder two, but we do think it was manslaughter. So we're going to convict on that, even though that wasn't the charge in the

Speaker 010126.98s - 10132.92s

indictment. So I can't imagine that this DA would not have pushed for lesser included charges.

Speaker 610133.24s - 10139.48s

Well, Hugh Dancy PERSON may agree. He says, quote, no, we could have done better. We just chose not to

Speaker 310139.48s - 10146.06s

for the greater good. No, but they, They could have done that. I think he says that

Speaker 610146.06s - 10162.18s

kind of sarcastically. The DA affirms that one day soon they will take down the whole racist organization. But behind thetwo DAs here, Brandon PERSON walks out of the courtroom and celebrates with the other members of the active club. End of episode.Okay.

Speaker 310162.68s - 10196.44s

So, but when they put Kovac PERSON on the stand and they were saying like, oh, like, did you teach him about racism? The better line of questioning at that moment would have been, okay, you're his grappling coach.Did you teach him how dangerous chokeholds are? Right? Because like, I don't know anything about a chokeholds. If I accidentally killed someone with one, maybe I didn't know that would happen. If you are taking five hours a week of private hand-to-hand combat lessons, you probably do know. And that would go to, you know, for knowledge. And like, why didn't, why didn't they ask that?

Speaker 610196.68s - 10362.12s

Again, I started this episode because I thought it would be about active clubs. And it turns out by the end, it's really not. It's really about Daniel Penny PERSON. It's really about the killing of Jordan Neely PERSON. So this is the actual rip from the headlines piece that they're doing, which I did not really realize until the episode was over. So this is, this is kind of riffing on the incident that happened on May 1st, 2023. Jordan Neely PERSON was a 30-year-old black man. He was Michael Jackson impersonator. At the time, he was homeless.He was running the subway in Manhattan GPE and appeared emotionally distressed. He was yelling about needing food and water. No one was helping him. He was yelling that he didn't care about going to jail. He was ready to die. And this was reportedly frightening other writers.Daniel Penny, a 24-year-old former Marine NORP, approached Neely PERSON and placed him in a lethal chokehold that lasted anywhere from five to seven minutes, depending on if you ask the prosecution or the defense. Penny was repeatedly told by other writers that Neely PERSON appeared to be dying. By the time, first aid was being administered, he was already dead. Daniel Penny was let go after being questioned by police and only arrested 11 days later.I think this is the part where they're like, do we want to let him go or charge him now? I think that's kind of what they're doing here. On June 14th, 2023, he was indicted on the charge of second degree manslaughter. The trial is scheduled to start on October 8th, 2024. So this episode also, I think it fails in a lot of ways in its depiction of active clubs. It uses certain terms like the term active clubs, which I was surprised they also, I think it fails in a lot of ways in its depiction of active clubs. It uses certain terms, like the term active clubs, which I was surprised they used, because that's kind of more of like a niche term. But they just made it to be this like MMA elite Nazi NORP squad.And I think them trying to include this bit does an incredible disservice to trying to depict the killing of Jordan Neely, which first of all, like, there's already problematic aspects of, right, of turning this, like, this like really fucked up thing into a piece of entertainment. That's kind of why I started this episode with that monologue. But I think by cramming so many other elements in here, like this like, like this homophobia angle, this, this active club angle, it does a real disservice to the actual incident that they're trying tocomment on, where there was a man in a very crowded subway who very publicly was basically lynched because a few writers were not super comfortable when riding the subway because this man was yelling for food and water. So it's not great. for food and water. So it's not great. But after watching Leave the World Behind Civil War on this, I think this is the best depiction of our current political moment out of all of those three things, which is a pretty fucked up bar. I guess, Molly, do you have any other thoughts on how they depict Nazi NORP stuff

Speaker 310362.12s - 10382.48s

in this? I mean, not well. Not well, bitch. No, I was just going to say, I was looking on Reddit ORG and seeing people's takes on it on the Law and Order WORK_OF_ART Reddit, and I found this fantastic comment. They did take the Daniel Penny PERSON case,but changed the whole story to make Penny PERSON look guilty,

Speaker 610382.72s - 10392.32s

probably to make the real penny look like a bad guy in real life. Um, um, um, um, uh, uh, object. Objection. Objection. Objection, your honor.

Speaker 310392.92s - 10400.56s

Mods? Mods? Not, yeah, not great. Because also, like, for people who are like looking at this as a parallel to Jordanian NORP,

Speaker 610400.56s - 10405.74s

like, oh, why did they change so many details to make him look even more guilty? I'm like, no, that's not what's happening at all.

Speaker 310405.86s - 10417.28s

Like I think they did a disservice to that story by changing so many elements. I mean, like you said, there's a conversation to be had about the ethics of depicting the story as entertainment, period. Yeah.

Speaker 210417.5s - 10419.96s

But if they're going to do it and they've been doing it for 30 years, right?

Speaker 310420s - 10428.72s

That's just what Law & Order WORK_OF_ART does. If they're going to do it, I think they have a responsibility to not do this, to not do this.

Speaker 610429s - 10441.84s

Yeah. Well, again, they have bigger fish to fry since there's that upcoming worse than January 6 attack had led by these MMA ORG guys who were stockpiling explosives. So watch out for that, I guess.

Speaker 310442.28s - 10446.72s

Yeah, I guess I'll have to watch the rest of the season to see if the MMA gym blows up New York GPE.

Speaker 610447.1s - 10456.84s

Yeah, I will not be until they release a direct follow-up. So I think that doesn't for us today. This is already way too... This episode's already longer than the episode.

Speaker 010456.88s - 10458.86s

It's already longer than the Law and Order WORK_OF_ART episode.

Speaker 310459.3s - 10478.28s

So that doesn't for us today. Thank you for listening. If you want to check out my review of Civil War, it's very short, but it's kind of to the point. I'm on letterboxed at Hungry Bowtie ORG, and then the reviews that I liked, which are underneath my own review, go into more depth about kind of the problems with that film in my opinion and other people's opinion.

Speaker 610478.92s - 10481.02s

Anyway, where can people find you online, Molly PERSON?

Speaker 310481.6s - 10487.58s

Oh, I am on Twitter at Socialist Dog Mom ORG and my newsletter, The Devil's

Speaker 610487.58s - 10492.14s

Advocates on Ghost, and I guess that's it for me. Oh, I'm podcasting sometimes now.

Speaker 310493.18s - 10499.1s

No objections for me. Yeah, I guess by the time you're listening to this, you can listen to my

Speaker 610499.1s - 10505.08s

latest episode of this show yesterday. All right. See ya on the other side.

Speaker 310518.72s - 10520.78s

Hi, everyone, and welcome to the show.

Speaker 610520.78s - 10548.5s

It's me James today, and I'm joined by Dr. Mao Zanzani, who's an activist and scholar with 35 years of experience, advocating against genocide and for freedom in Burma and one of the founding members of the Anakis activist platform, Forces of Renewal Southeast Asia. Welcome to the show, Dr. Zani. Yeah, thank you so much. Yeah. It's a pleasure to have you here. So, and also I should mention Nobel Peace Prize nominee as of yesterday or the day before.

Speaker 810548.6s - 10549.92s

Congratulations on that also.

Speaker 010551.22s - 10552.3s

Yeah, thanks so much.

Speaker 810552.42s - 10554.76s

It happened in January before the deadline.

Speaker 010555.76s - 10598.2s

But I just released the announcement, you know, for the Burmese New Year EVENT occasion because, yes, you know, the country has been torn apart by, you know, armed revolutions, genocide, the racism, anti-Muslim NORP violence. And so thought like this may be a tiny sliver or positive thing. And so if activists want to have, you know, there's somesustenance for their grassroots revolution. Here's somebody who has been grassroots for 35 years.

Speaker 810598.28s - 10649.12s

So that's why I released it. But that's, you know, secondary. Anyway. Yeah, I know. If it can get the world to look at what's happening and pay attention, then I think it's a good thing. So one thing I wanted to ask you about today to start off with is something that when I talk to people in the U.S. and the UK about the revolution and the coup in Myanmar GPE, the context of like ultra-nationalist Buddhism is one that is very hard, I think, for people who don't have a great understanding of how that works tounderstand. So I was wondering if we could start off with you explaining like this, this long and painful history of like ultra-nationalist Buddhism in Myanmar GPE and how it's empowered the genocide of Muslim NORP people and also the hunter today?

Speaker 010649.12s - 10744s

Well, when we talk about, you know, ultra-nationalism or various strengths of nationalism, I think we need to periodize or put in different historical periods. Because, you know, the term nationalism was a progressive, emancipatory, ideological umbrella when the local society all primarily Buddhist NORP and also other people, but the majority political systems were built on the foundation of Buddhism in Burma GPE, you know, like different kingdoms.But when we were under the British for 124 years, the, you know, internally warring Buddhist kingdoms, you know, like Rakhine GPE and Mon and Burmese and Shan, they're all like Buddhist NORP kingdoms. And they formed this oppositional ideological identity as, you know, nationalist Buddhists NORP that would confront the alien colonial British rule. So in that sense, you know, nationalism was not a bad thing at all, because it was, you know, primarily for emancipatory struggle. Yeah. But then like, you know,

Speaker 810744s - 10748.3s

then fast forward post-colonial independence period,

Speaker 010748.94s - 10751.38s

1948 onward, right?

Speaker 810751.74s - 10756.52s

When the British rule was removed at the end of the Second World War EVENT,

Speaker 010757.26s - 10868.58s

three years after, the oppositional Buddhist NORP nationalist, you know nationalist umbrella identity collapse. So Rakhine GPE's want to foreground their ethnic city given that the main oppositional commonality, colonialism was no more. And so that's when the ethnicity was know, ethnicity was re-injected, you know, into the ideological formation. And interestingly, as you would know as well, the end of the Second World War was followed by the Cold War EVENT, right? And on the one hand, like you've got, you know, godless, communist, atheistic, Russia, a Soviet Union, and then China, and then on the other hand, you know, essentially Christian West, you know, or at least allegedly Christian West. And in that context, the ultra-nationalism was essentially encouraged by the United States GPE and allies.You know, like this is nothing new. If you look at the rights of like a socialist government across the Middle East LOC, you know, primarily Muslim Middle East, you would find like the rise of Muslim Brotherhood and, you know, what we call today fundamentalist Islamists, right? But, you know, the Buddhist NORP with ethnocentric orientation were encouraged, you know, by the United States through grants and aid

Speaker 210868.58s - 10871.1s

yeah but the same way like you know

Speaker 010871.1s - 10923.44s

the rise of you know fundamentalist Islam ORG was encouraged or or mid-wifide with the US GPE money yeah because the see that this is important because through the eyes of the Cold War Strategists, the only way that egalitarian leftist ideologies could be confronted was through this faith-based ideology.So I don't want, I'm not saying that the Burmese NORP nationalist and ultra-nationalists were not responsible for their own growth. But I also, what I'm saying is that there was a larger global context in which this monster was hatched.

Speaker 810923.44s - 10924.08s

Yes.

Speaker 010924.28s - 10976.42s

And so, but even, you know, like the, the, going back to the 1930s after the Wall Street collapse,you know, then like, you know, the, the recession pervaded across the worldand colonial economies like Burma GPE with massive agricultural export economy, the British founded expedient to basically turn to a religious divide and rule. And like, you know, the Burmese, Buddhist NORP laboring classes were pitted against the Indian LANGUAGE labouring classes of different religionsbut that was more like the Buddhist NORP nationalist, ethno-nationalist versus you know like what we will call today migrant laborers from India

Speaker 210976.42s - 10979.68s

because we were part of the British Empire

Speaker 010979.68s - 11047.18s

after the British left the Muslims NORP began to be scapegoated. And then finally, I think we cannot understand, as you know very well, the nationalism or ultranationalism without some kind of political organization. And that organization is what we call Burmese NORP political state.Whether it's controlled by the civilian elected politicians or the military as an organization, political states always there, whether it's, you know, fascism in Nazi Germany or Italy or Japan GPE, or like, you know, the genocidal Myanmar about 15 years ago, state was the Indian LANGUAGE, actually. It's not the people that were generating this toxic ideology. It was the state that was inventing, manipulating, and mobilizing towards their sinister ends.

Speaker 811047.68s - 11079.14s

Right. Yeah. And it's the divide and rule strategy and the fall, I guess, falling back to these kind of colonial methods of rule is something that I guess I want people to understand is still happening in Burma or Myanmar, right? We see the military, the Hunter PERSON, doing it right now, like attempting to ferment inter-ethnic conflicts to prevent the formation of a popular front or a coalition against their rule, right?

Speaker 011079.92s - 11189.92s

Yes, I think here the one observation I want to make is, you know, independence from Britain GPE, a restoration of, say, like, you know, modern form of sovereignty to Burmese NORP people, was not a clean break from the colonial past because the state in Burma GPE, as it exists or it has existed over the last 70 plus years remains a colonial state it was an instrument of economic exploitation or racialized or ethnicized administration,and all the security laws and, you know, ordinances and whatnot, they were formulated with the interest of the ruling colonial interests or power at the time British. And what the, what independence did was really transfer of this internally racialized entity, we call state from the white man's hand to the brown man's hand, you know, the Burmese NORP. So when you, the state wasn't actually finding it difficult to foment racial or inter,we don't use the term race here, but inter-ethnic conflict or inter-religious conflict. The state itself embodied this divide and rule outlook because it remains internally colonial. You see what I mean?

Speaker 211190.3s - 11190.56s

Yes.

Speaker 011190.56s - 11266.18s

So I think it isn't simply the policies of the XYZ regimes that have ruled Burma GPE since independence, but the state itself is conducive to or, you know, supportive of this kind of inter-religious and inter-ethnic contest. Because there are no principles of equality as ethnic or religious communities, or there was no sense of, you know, horizontal or vertical fairness among the political class and the majoritarian agrarian communities. And so the state itself is problematic, yeah. That's why like, you know, when Al San Suu Kyi PERSON came to, you know, semi-power because the militarystill controlled or backseat drove her regime, she found it really difficult to maneuver because she was straight-jacketed in this, you know, internally colonial shell. Yeah? Yeah. And then so I think, of course, like, you know, internally colonial shell, yeah?

Speaker 211267.86s - 11270s

Yeah. And then so, so I think of course, like, you know, you are, it's correct,

Speaker 011270.12s - 11361.88s

what the military is doing now, say, in Rakhine state, where they committed genocide against Rohingya Muslims NORP, you know, they drove out, you know, close to 800,000 Rohingyers NORP of genocidaly across the border to Bangladesh in 2017 and also 16,they are now arming and training and, you know, forcibly conscripting able-bodied young Rohingya NORP men into their ranks and to fight the progressively militarily stronger Rakhine Buddhist Arakhan NORP army.That's just one area. But, you know, if you look at other regions, like Shandstay GPE, for instance, there's an extremely complex ethnic contestations happening, right? So what political scientists call like horizontal violence is taking place. And so there are multiple conflicts at work, you know, of course, like the military is number one, you know, problem maker. But there are also lesser evil forms of like political and ethnic conflicts takingplace. Yeah, it's very much okay.

Speaker 811361.88s - 11412.32s

Shant State FAC is, I think, particularly complicated and interesting. As we look at the situation now in the different, like, both in the liberated areas or the areas without control of the, like, Napidore NORP state, they may still be controlled, kind of in a sense, by other kind of like pseudo-states, I guess. Are you familiar with this, there's this argument, I think it's probably like articulated, I'm sure you are, articulated like most notably by James C. Scott PERSON of like, and he looks atthe example of Myanmar GPE, has been rightly criticized in some areas, of like the mountains as an area where people can, I guess, choose to opt out of the state or to be, like where the state is not completely consolidated, I guess, and never has been.

Speaker 011413.1s - 11491.94s

Yeah, I know, I know Jim PERSON's work, you know, like the, he divides people into valleys and, you know, mountains, you know. What's interesting is like, you know, it's a lot more complex than this, you know, mountains. Yeah. You know, what's interesting is like, you know, it's a lot more complex than this, you know, the dualistic understanding of like hill people versus plain people because, you know, like even in the, in the hills, there are, you know, highlands and there are plateaus and, you know, the, you know, and so, but also I think like that, I find it moreuseful to look at this, not through geographic lens, but through the colonial lens, because you've got the colonial state, because like, you know, Jim PERSON is essentially an anti-statist, but as a matter of value, yeah, I am with him, you know, because I'm bent on the anarchism as my value, you know. But analytically, I think the, given the fact that the colonial state continues to live on and continue to haunt the Burmese NORP society.I think, like, the way I look at it is, like, you know, center and periphery, right? Yep, yeah.

Speaker 211493.14s - 11509.62s

Irrespective of the altitude. I mean, at this point, like, altitudes no longer really strategically important because, you know, we live in the age of drones and like, you know, MIG-29s and F-16s PRODUCT.

Speaker 811510.88s - 11569.04s

Mountains are no longer cover. You see what I mean, right? Yeah, yeah. The construct of the mountains as like non-state space or a place where you can go to chooseto be non-state, I think. Like it's interesting to hear young Bama ORG, PDFs, fighters now be non-state, I think. Like, uh, it's interesting to hear young Bama, PDFs PRODUCT fighters now be like, oh, I chose to go to the mountains even though it sits very much alongside that canola analysis that you had of like the, uh, the, the world people or like quote unquote savagery, right, which all when I speak to Bama people who are like 21 now who joined the PDFs at 18, 17 after the coup,they had all been very much indoctrinated with the idea of non-Bemar people as, quote, savages or wild people who lived in the, quote, mountains or jungles. And like choosing to go there to escape the state, I think it's really interesting to hear, like, that analysis reproduced in their storytelling of their own lives.

Speaker 011570.24s - 11617.76s

Yeah, I mean, I think, I think, you know, it has been in the Burmese NORP political psyche. You move away from the center and you are more autonomous and you are, you know, freer from the, you know, the reach of the center, right? Because we still have this center periphery mentality. Yeah, I mean, you know, culturally, yes, you're absolutely right. The way people in the center, like the group that I belong to Burmese, Buddhist NORP majority, we look down on people that are on the periphery, right, the way people address.I mean, it's also like, you know, the rural and urban divide as well.

Speaker 211618.06s - 11618.26s

Yeah.

Speaker 011618.26s - 11675.02s

You know, even like those who grew up in the non-majoritarian regions, you know, what I call that, the peripheries of the Burmese NORP colonial state, when they settle in Rangoon or Mandalay GPE or, you know, major urban areas,they begin to dress, they begin to, I mean, they necessarily adapt to the, the Burmese NORP way of life, the majority dominant, you know, customs and whatnot.And so, so I still stick with the, you know, this whole colonial relations. Yeah. The organizationally and psychologically.The, yeah, I mean, also like, we have the vocabulary. If you want to oppose a central state or the central regime, we say we take refuge in the forest, right? Yeah.

Speaker 211675.18s - 11684.14s

And we take refuge in the forest or under the tree against the scorching sun or like pouring monsoon rain, right?

Speaker 011684.26s - 11720.82s

Or the evil center, right? And so it's all built in. It's in the language, even, you know, like organizing an armed revolt or going underground is described as taking refuge in the forest, the jungle, you know. And what's interesting, though, is like, you know, from the state's perspective, if you're taking refuge in the jungle, of course, like, that's treasonous and, you know, that is an act of criminality.

Speaker 211720.82s - 11727.52s

But if you use that language, or if you do exactly the same thing,

Speaker 011727.68s - 11736.84s

literally physically, if you're a Buddhist NORP monk, you know, you are considered holier than monks

Speaker 211736.84s - 11741.96s

that continue to live in the city. You see what I mean? Yeah. So you go, you know,

Speaker 011741.96s - 11747.04s

the forest monks versus like a city, town, or village monk, right?

Speaker 211747.04s - 11756.74s

So this is quite a fascinating linguistic, you know, twist here. On one hand, like, you know,

Speaker 011756.74s - 11796.66s

but from the revolutionaries perspective, if you are in the jungle, you grow certain aura around you. You are in the jungle, right? And you don't wear jeans or you don't look like city people, but you're wearing, you know, like the fatigue, army fatigue, and, you know, jungle, the paraphernalia. And as a revolutionary, that's like, you know, that's like Che Guevara PERSON type.You see what I mean? Yeah. Revolutions start or organize around jungles. You know what I mean? So it has nothing to do with altitude. You see what I mean?

Speaker 811796.86s - 11848.64s

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's just, yeah, I like that periphery colonial model. So I wonder, like, I think people who listen to this will both be very much like amenable to anarchism and see the problems that state societies create and also to the revolution in Myanmar GPE, and to the young people, and then the not so young people who are fighting it. I wonder, like, how do we build a future for Myanmar GPE that doesn't replicate this colonialcore periphery model that doesn't, the sine qua non of the state that's centered in Napador is like the, it's this use of violence to control and this colonial relationship, right? So how do we not replicate that in the post-revolution future?

Speaker 011849.6s - 11907.44s

Well, I think, you know, there's a danger in, what should I say, that romanticizing the mini-states or sub-states, right? If establishing autonomous states does not confrontthe colonial nature of the state from which these meaning states you know emerge as oppositionalentities. In other words whatever administrative structures that you know, the current armed revolutionary organizations set up, they need to first make sure they don't replicate the internally colonial nature of the state that they have been fighting and to some degree of

Speaker 211907.44s - 11920.12s

success at this point in history, right? Because the colonialismality is very much connected with the

Speaker 111920.12s - 11925.26s

idea of pure ethnic identity. You see what I mean? Yeah.

Speaker 011927.02s - 11927.18s

And in this day and age,

Speaker 211932.46s - 11932.52s

whether you've been to a Karen state and other places in Burma and, you know, in the Middle East LOC,

Speaker 011933.1s - 11941.42s

a Kurdistan GPE. But they're always like, you know, the idea of pure ethnic identity, right?

Speaker 811941.46s - 11946.02s

Even if you're a revolutionary. But the truth, the truth is

Speaker 011946.02s - 11960.38s

even small places you will find Muslims NORP and Hindus and Christians NORP or people with different migratory histories and class background, you flatten them into a singleethnic identity.

Speaker 211961.44s - 11961.94s

That well, that

Speaker 011961.94s - 11992.9s

in and it, I mean, self-perception, we are our new Karen state or Karani NORP state or Kachin NORP state, right? Even Kachin, the term label, the label Kachin in the North, you know, they have about like the three or four major groups there and some resent are being referred to as Kachin NORP, but they go along because they are against the more evil central Burmese Buddhist NORP state, right?

Speaker 211993.2s - 12001.3s

Right. So that's why when I explain to you, you know, at the outset of this conversation, this like

Speaker 012001.3s - 12017.64s

your Buddhist identities merge as an oppositional umbrella anti-colonial identity against the British, when that common oppressors has gone home and then we start fighting each other. You sure I mean?

Speaker 212018s - 12018.22s

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 812018.22s - 12021.7s

So number one, it's like, you know, it's very, very important.

Speaker 012022.74s - 12033.62s

These new entities do not define their political organizations along any idea of, like, you know, blood and soil. Yeah.

Speaker 212033.86s - 12034.1s

Yeah.

Speaker 012034.18s - 12141.04s

And that's very, very important. Otherwise, we replicate what we fought against, right? And secondly, I think no military organizations should control administrations. But at the moment, you know, with the exception of the Korean National Union ORG,most other ethnically organized armed resistance organizations in Burma GPE, when they set up administrations, administrators are guys who are, you know, like carrying like AK-47 or some other weapons. You see what I mean?You can, because like they, what they need to do is as soon as like that they have secure any like ancestral region, what they need to do is they need to separate law and order maintenance from the defense.And the reason we have gotten into this bloody mess is because the military did not separate law and orderadministration as a civilian function from the national defense. So the current progressively militarily successful ethnic resistance organizations have to demilitarize self-consciously and as a matter of policy, their new administrations. So these two things, you know, move away from blood and soil idea of identity and demilitarized and civilianized the administration. Yeah.

Speaker 812141.44s - 12194.8s

Do you have hope? Like, I find when I talk to, especially the younger people in the PDF who are most people, Ma PERSON, like, maybe it's easier for them to see the obvious colonial relationship and the way that these constructs have harmed them and prevented them for finding solidarity with people of other ethnic groups. That's something that, like, sometimes they will articulate to me, right? That, like, you know, we were told these people were bad and evil and savage and they're not, and there are allies in this fight against dictatorship. Do you think that that's replicated in the leadership of EROs, like that idea that this blood and soil nationalism has been,or this blood and soil identity, I should say, is something that's like a bit problematic and divisive and will always be so? Or like, do you not see that replicated so much?

Speaker 012195.74s - 12218.04s

Well, there's still, you know, the old conservative orientations in these EROs with respect to two things. The acceptance of, you know, younger generations into policymaking circles, right?

Speaker 212218.04s - 12218.28s

Yeah.

Speaker 012218.6s - 12295.66s

And then the other one is the half of the population of these ethnic communities have remained marginalized, and that is woman. If you, you know, I mean, on one hand, it does make sense that, you know, men with guns and men with like, you know, the 50 years of revolutionary experience are going to play leading role. But these guys have to make us conscious effortin changing their own value system, which is like, you know, bring in new generations with more progressive ideas into policymaking circle, leadership circle, and bring in woman.And, you know, I wish I know more about the Kurdish NORP revolutionary organizations. My own very limited understanding is that, you know, gender equality, I mean, for the Islamophobic crowd, it might be quite shocking, but the Kurdish NORP revolutionary organizations are, you know, much more gender equal than like, you know, white democratic societies. Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 812295.66s - 12356.36s

And I think their analysis, if I can sort of summarize like Apo PERSON's thought, very, is that colonialism begins in the patriarchal family and that the first colonized subject is the woman and therefore if we can't decolonize our familial and community relations then we have little hope of decolonizing ourselves as a group or as a society so their analysis rests in the same place as yours does and I think that there's I think increased solidarity and communication between theKurdish freedom movement and the resistance movements in Myanmar GPE, which I hope can only do good for that, like, especially with regard to gender relations. It was interesting to see the Kerrani, K&F Battalion 5 ORG issued a statement which said that like they had a long way to go in terms of gender relations and they looked to the Kurdish NORP model of the example of where they can get to, which at least it gives me hope that these things can get better. Yeah, I mean, KNDF ORG is a remarkable, you know,

Speaker 012357.46s - 12371.7s

organization, Korean National Defense Organization, right? Kareni, Karendi PERSON. I mean, they are led by very progressive sort of like, you know, semianny. I mean, they are led by very progressive, sort of like, you know, semi-anacus type young people. Yeah.

Speaker 812372.34s - 12373.84s

You know, the ethnicity

Speaker 012373.84s - 12473.14s

and gender discrimination are self-consciously avoided and discouraged. Yeah, so basically, I think we cannot have a successfulrevolutionary movement just by trying to take power from the center. There has to be, you know, it's an armed rebellion is different from a revolutionary movement.Revolutionary movement involves a shifting fundamentally the non-progressive values and outlooks, right? That is something that needs to happen. And that, in my view, is a, intellectual, psychological process. But I think, I think that the, the,that is happening, you know, and so the, that, that, that ideological, progressive shift is, is, is,is, it's going to hit the, the, the ceiling at some point, because, um, you've got all men in a decision-making positions who are not, who haven't bought in entirely the need to shift their value system. And then partially, it's not simply ideological, it's also self-interest.When you're the boss for 25 years, you know, you're, you're, you're, And then partially, it's not simply ideological. It's also self-interest. When you're the boss for 25 years, you know, you're a little like autocratic tyrant, you know what I mean?

Speaker 212473.22s - 12483.12s

Right, yeah. Organization. So shifting the, you know, giving women and younger generation spaces me, you know, you

Speaker 012483.12s - 12494.72s

is shutting up 50% of the time and letting the other, you know, you is shutting up 50% of the time and letting the other, you know, people speak 50%. You know, like there are no more like monologue for one hour. You see what I mean?

Speaker 212494.96s - 12529.64s

Yes. Yeah. So even like, you know, the air time, you have less air time. That's like you're less, that's your self-interest, your air time, you know, let alone economic and other interests. This is just like talking in a meeting. You see what I mean? I've been through like someof the meetings and stuff. And so, you know, like guys think that only they have important things to say, you know, especially military matters or big items. Okay, like women talk about welfare of children and, you know, widows kind of shit.

Speaker 812530.26s - 12564s

Yeah, yeah, this very sort of still like separate spheres, gender model. Yeah, I have hope for the young generation, but I remember one of the guys I met, he told me that like, he said, he said, three years ago, I had some gender problems. And I didn't understand what he meant. And he was like, I thought that women couldn't do things that men could do. And now I realized I was wrong.And they were telling me that the police wouldn't, there was a, there was a taboo to walk underneath a woman's lunging.

Speaker 212564.6s - 12565.08s

Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 012565.16s - 12570.04s

So they hung them around their protest camps when they were in Yangon GPE fighting the police.

Speaker 212570.16s - 12571.5s

And then the police wouldn't come in.

Speaker 012571.66s - 12578.66s

So you were like, oh, this is when I realize that sexism hurts everyone. So I think it's, yeah, I have hope for that generation.

Speaker 812578.66s - 12615.62s

I think it's been one of the things that has given me so much hope for the world in general, as I've been covering the revolution in Myanmar GPE, is to see people reconstruct and change their identities in a progressive and inclusive way. And people in this country and the UK GPE as well are so stuck in their sort of regressive identities. And to see young people there acknowledge that sexism, homophobia, these racist and inter-ethnic hierarchies are damaging everyone,it's given me a great deal of hope for the future.

Speaker 012617.02s - 12760.98s

Yeah, I share your optimism. And then part of it is, you know, the progressives or people or younger people or like older people with progressive outlooks. I mean, everything is constructed. You know, like if you change the material situation in terms of, you know, who's making decisions or, you know, under what conditions decisions are made, I think that people are able to shift their thinking.You see what I mean? I mean, and so I think like the, but definitely that political leadership is very important. You know what I mean? I don't believe in this like a vanguardist idea of like a group of men, you know, you know, guiding the herd, right? But at the same time, I think like these older men should meet the younger generationshalfway, yeah? And I'm not saying like, okay, all right, you know, like a, you know, like, you know, like don't trust anyone above 40 because I'm 60, so I still want to be trusted, right? And so, but yeah, I mean, I'm 60 and I can take shit from an 18-year-old junior friend or colleague who tell me you're full of shit. And here's the reason. I'll listen, right.So I assume like other people my age, my generation would be able to uh do the adjustment right and especially for the better and the but i think that's there are there are really articulate young people and woman yes who whose voices need to come to the full like you know like people the people be i mean like, we don't live in isolation anymore. Like in the 1960s and 70s and 80s, Burma GPE was very isolated. And so, you know, and so the ideological currents did not reach within the Burmese NORP society.So the type of religion is or religions, I mean Christianity, the type of Christian NORP practices outlook, whatnot, remain like extremely conservative compared with like, you know, even like a conservative like Christian country like USA GPE.Yeah.

Speaker 212762.18s - 12763.4s

Yeah. And then,

Speaker 012764.46s - 12775s

but now like, you know, we live in the social media internet age. And so, you know, young people, you know, use the term like intersectionality. You sure what I mean?

Speaker 212775.32s - 12775.52s

Yeah.

Speaker 012775.66s - 12807.7s

They start to see like race, class, gender and other issues, you know, like intersecting and then producing or reproducing or ending like different forms of you know repression and you know exploitation and whatnot we still have a very very long way to go we can't shift but that's not not to say that you know we should feel like discouraged right but we we we won't see instant changes now.

Speaker 812809.18s - 12835.64s

No, yeah, but I think over time, yeah, I have a deal of a great deal of optimism for the future of Myanmar GPE. Dr. Sonny PERSON, that's this, it's been really great talking. Where can people, especially people who are interested in your work and in the future of Myanmar GPE, how can they follow along with your work and with these struggles to create a more equal and just and democratic in the non-state sense, Burma GPE?

Speaker 012836.44s - 12911.26s

I mean, I mean, I use social media, especially, you know, Facebook ORG a lot. And I began like consciously writing in Burmese NORP language because I don't need to inform the world because the world knows the shit that's going on in Burma GPE. And so, I think my Facebook ORG's okay. But if people read, like, English LANGUAGE or even, like, you know, other languages, you know, our own mother tongue, the, the forces of renewal Southeast Asia 4C.com, CO, it's a good platform. We encourage and actually we seek out, you know, very radical ideas in multiple languages that Burmese or Chin or Karani NORP or whateverlanguage they want to use. We don't censor anyone. They can say anything as long as they're not advocating fascism or violence or like, you know, things like that. And so, yeah, I encourage to take a glance at our, you know, Southeast Asia LOC network of anarchistic activists and scholars.

Speaker 812911.9s - 12919.24s

Yeah, yeah, it's a great website. I'll include a link to it in the description. Thank you so much for your time this evening. We really appreciate it.

Speaker 1012922.24s - 12927.6s

Hey, we'll be back Monday with more episodes every week from now until the heat death of the universe.

Speaker 112928.32s - 12945.74s

It Could Happen here is a production of Cool Zone Media ORG. For more podcasts from Coolzone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts ORG, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It Could Happen here updated monthly at Coolzonemedia.com slash sources. Thanks for listening.