It Could Happen Here Weekly 110

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Foll Zone Media.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
Hey everybody, Robert Evans 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 got to be nothing new here for you, but
you can make your own decisions. Oh man, welcome back

(00:31):
to it could happen here a podcast about it meaning
bad things happening here, meaning you know here. Obviously, here
at cool Zone, we have a little bit of a
habit of talking about colts. Some of you who have
been listening to Behind the Bastard since the beginning will
remember how we kind of started that series with several

(00:52):
long episodes about a guy named Keith Ranieri. And today
we're here to talk with a wonderful author and journalist,
Sarah Berman, who has written both about the next sim
cult and about a new cult that some of you
are probably familiar with if you if you caught the
recent Netflix documentary Prime has a documentary out too on

(01:14):
the Twin Flames cult, and so we're going to introduce
why this is such an interesting cult, why it's kind
of groundbreaking. But first, Sarah, welcome so much to the show. Graham, Hey, hey.

Speaker 1 (01:26):
So good to be here. Thank you for inviting me.

Speaker 2 (01:29):
Yeah, Sarah, your book is called don't call it a cult,
wonderful book about the next sim cult. And yeah, you were.
You are kind of the person who first I'm not
sure if you're the very first person to ever report
on twin Flames, but you're certainly the person who broke
the story in a in a meaningful and detailed way.
How did you well? First off, we shul probably start

(01:49):
with how would you describe twin Flames to people?

Speaker 1 (01:53):
Right?

Speaker 3 (01:54):
So, twin Flames Universe began as sort of a YouTube
channel and a Facebook group that was all about finding
true love. So this group promises not only that you
find your true love, but also that you will find
career fulfillment and enlightenment and basically everything good will happen
to you. Miracles will happen only if you spend thousands

(02:16):
of dollars on their coursework and keep up with their
sort of spiritual homework, which is a never ending treadmill.
And eventually it sort of becomes, you know, an all
powerful control over people's lives, where they go, who they
interact with, even their life partner, even their gender identity.

(02:37):
So yeah, lots of people calling it a matchmaking cult.

Speaker 2 (02:43):
Yeah, it's a matchmaking I mean. One of the things
that I think is interesting to me about the kind
of like rhetoric of the cult leaders, and this is
one that there do seem to be kind of two
people heading it up a couple, is the idea that
like they have the ability to see who someone's soulmate is,

(03:04):
and like that's a that's kind of a it both
sort of. I think the Appeals has speaks to, among
other things, kind of the deep loneliness that a lot
of younger people feel, you know, as we're dealing with
this kind of increasingly closed off, isolated nature of society,
especially since COVID, as well as kind of mixing that
with some of these you know, much longer standing older

(03:27):
cult traditions in a way that felt really really interesting
to me and also like something that could only exist now.

Speaker 3 (03:36):
Yeah, totally, Yeah, there's so much to impact there. So
in their early days in twenty fourteen, this couple Jeff
and Shelia. I mean Shellly is actually a Megan, but
Shellia is the name she arrived at through some conscious journeying. Sure,
they have these videos where they just met and they
are in love and they are making eyes at each other,

(03:57):
and this is something to attain. It was sort of
started as this, you know, romantic YouTuber content, and then
they start selling Yes, you can have this too. All
you have to do is buy our you know, coursework
and whatnot. And I think it does speak to, especially
during the pandemic, a sort of deep dark loneliness in

(04:18):
isolation that's happening where people are enticed by this couple
who they're just regular, you know, Michigan white people.

Speaker 1 (04:28):
They're making eyes at each other.

Speaker 3 (04:30):
Doesn't look like anything special to an outsider, but clearly,
you know, thousands of people have sort of.

Speaker 1 (04:36):
Lashed on to it.

Speaker 3 (04:37):
Have have, you know, hoped that this secret knowledge that
this group is giving them, you know, will bring them happiness.
And because it's sort of an all encompassing ideology where
if you even question the group, well then you are
definitely never going to see your life partner and we'll
probably see hell at some point.

Speaker 1 (04:57):
In your life.

Speaker 4 (04:57):
You know.

Speaker 3 (04:58):
It just creates this perverse incentive to just keep pouring
time and effort into this group in a way that yeah,
I don't think could exist in any other timeframe, especially
not through Zoom.

Speaker 1 (05:11):
Right, So most of these.

Speaker 3 (05:13):
Classes that they sell are happening on Zoom, just like
you and I are on today, So that you know,
Naxium could never achieve, right, this group has achieved a
level of you know, connection and I don't know, just
getting into people's brain stems through a laptop screen, which
is incredible for our time.

Speaker 2 (05:35):
Yeah, it's very I mean again, this is part of
what's so modern about it is that it appears to work
entirely like cults, and particularly cult leaders tend to be
such social phenomena. This is nearly always a thing that
involves person to person contact, and in fact, one of
the things any cult expert will tell you is a
hallmark of a cult is it's the focus it puts

(05:57):
on isolating members and perspective, members away from their friends
and their family and keeping them under the power of
the cult leader at all times. And this is very
People are not all together, they're not all living in
one area, They're geographically isolated. The dynamics that this reproduces
itself with our parasocial dynamics, the same dynamics podcast listeners

(06:18):
have with like like like you know, it's a more
extreme version of that, but it's part of this thing
we see with twitch streamers, we see it with like YouTubers,
this kind of And it solves one of the mysteries
because I've watched this stop with a couple of friends
who kept being like, well, these people don't seem charismatic,
they don't seem this doesn't seem like, it doesn't seem
like they could be attaining this.

Speaker 4 (06:38):
Degree of control over people.

Speaker 2 (06:40):
And I think part of what explains that is just like, well,
someone may not seem charismatic when you're watching little clips
of them in a documentary, but when they're in your
ears and you know, on calls with you and stuff
all day every day, your body builds up like they
get through your defenses that way. Like that's how parasocial

(07:00):
relationships kind of work.

Speaker 3 (07:02):
Absolutely, Yeah, you just have the binging quality of how
people consume media these days. And it's the same for
you know, YouTube rabbit holes that radicalize sort of right
wing white men. So it's the same process these folks
who I was speaking to, they were consuming up to

(07:22):
ten even fifteen hours of this content per day, and
they were feeling like they had to keep up with
that just to maintain their coaching title or what have you. So, yes,
they have Jeff inside their head at all times.

Speaker 1 (07:39):
They start speaking like him.

Speaker 3 (07:41):
You know, you can kind of tell when an still
involved member emails you that it sounds just like the leaders.
It is a yeah, fully saturating, indoctrinating process, and I guess, yeah,
you don't have to be particularly charismatic in person to

(08:04):
achieve that kind of saturation when you have the YouTube algorithm.

Speaker 1 (08:09):
You know.

Speaker 3 (08:09):
Unfortunately, my YouTube algorithm is also ruined, so up on
YouTube is looking pretty.

Speaker 1 (08:18):
It's yikes these days.

Speaker 2 (08:20):
No, I actually discovered a really effective method of for
my own research in various cults, which is I just
used my roommate's YouTube premium account, So I have ruined
his life. But it's not a problem for me. So
it's it's worked out really well, is what I'm saying.

Speaker 3 (08:37):
I mean, I might try that solution, but I live
with my you know, partners, so.

Speaker 1 (08:41):
You might not appreciate that. We'll see how it goes, though.

Speaker 2 (08:46):
I'm kind of curious, how did you get on this story,
Like what was what was your backstory there?

Speaker 3 (08:53):
Yeah, so I was in the depths still of reporting
on Nexium. I don't believe the sentencing for Keith Ranieri
had happened yet at that point. So this was late
twenty nineteen early twenty twenty. One of the mothers was
the first to reach out to me, and she had
two daughters who are featured in the Netflix series in

(09:13):
the group, and she had told me that she was
cut off from all contact, that the only contact she
did have with one of her daughters was when she
sent thousands of dollars. And so that to me right away,
like you said, you know, isolating people from their family
members who might you know, raise questions or you know,

(09:35):
want to know more about what's happening, asking for money
so blatantly, you know, in denying contact based on an
amount of money sent, that all sounded pretty bad to me,
and so I started looking into it. That mom pointed
me towards Elle, who is also featured in the Netflix series.

(09:58):
She's also Katie in the A Vanity Fair piece that
later came out after our reporting, and it just sort
of snowballed from there. I'll put me in touch with
I would say half a dozen ex members. At that point,
some different mothers started contacting me because they all were
sort of in a group chat trying to figure out

(10:20):
how they could re establish content contact with their mostly daughters.
That was my origin story. We put out a piece
fairly quickly. I tried to get it out within a
month or two of that first contact.

Speaker 2 (10:36):
Yeah, well that makes a lot of sense, and I
want to continue talking about this. We'll get into a
lot more, but first it's time for an ad break.
So here we go, ah, and we're back Mia. Did
you have anything you wanted to move into next?

Speaker 4 (10:52):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (10:53):
So there are some parts of this that are very
familiar in the sense of the combination of Christianity and
weird New Age spiritualism stuff I think is a pretty
old combination. I mean, the mood is very famously sort
of pioneered this thing, and you know, you can go
back to eight hundreds and find versions of it. The
thing that I think is interesting about it is the

(11:17):
way that they've effectively been doing conversion therapy on people,
and I don't know, this is something I haven't really
seen before. From a cult, and I guess, I guess
I think the way into this is talking about the
sort of divine masculine, divine feminine stuff.

Speaker 4 (11:39):
For sure.

Speaker 3 (11:39):
Yeah, I agree that this seemed new and you know,
sort of bizarre to me. And certainly I've already seen
on Twitter some right wing takes on it that give
me a lot of uncomfortable feelings because they're obviously taking
the wrong opposite lesson. You know, when I guess, when

(12:02):
I watched this, I see, see you can't tell someone
what their gender is. You know, it doesn't work, It
falls apart, it doesn't make sense. But I think, yeah,
something that's been taken away in some smaller circles is that,
oh see, you can coach someone to change their gender,

(12:23):
and that's you know, blame teachers, blame whoever for doing that.

Speaker 1 (12:29):
So this particular group does have.

Speaker 3 (12:32):
A divine masculine and divine feminine teaching that used to.

Speaker 1 (12:37):
Be a little more flimsy.

Speaker 3 (12:40):
So in the early days, they just said, if you're
in a queer couple, it just means one of you
has the more wearing pants vibe. You know, it wasn't
supposed to literally translate to a gender expression.

Speaker 1 (12:53):
Or gender identity.

Speaker 3 (12:56):
But later on, when you know, you had this growing
amount of you know, sis women who are.

Speaker 1 (13:06):
I mean, they're interested in finding.

Speaker 3 (13:08):
Their man, and that's not happening because, you know, the
group makes it very hard to actually meet outside people.
If you're on this constant treadmill of doing spiritual homework,
you don't have time to meet you.

Speaker 1 (13:23):
People, and maybe when you talk about it, it's pushing
people away.

Speaker 3 (13:28):
So eventually, in late twenty nineteen they started actually making
pairings and to get around the fact that you know,
folks said, well, that's not my you know, orientation, I'm
not attracted to women, they started actually telling people, well
that you're the divine masculine and actually, you know, you,

(13:49):
going back your whole life, probably knew this all along,
and we're just revealing something to you.

Speaker 1 (13:57):
And that sat the wrong way in.

Speaker 3 (14:00):
A lot of cases, and a lot of people left
around that time, but they successfully paired up I think
more than a dozen people around that time, and they
continued to do pairings into twenty twenty, and some folks
did come along on the journey.

Speaker 1 (14:20):
They did in.

Speaker 3 (14:21):
Some cases pursue top surgery and hormones and have changed
their names changed their pronouns.

Speaker 1 (14:29):
It's yeah, it's not.

Speaker 3 (14:33):
Obviously, there are moms who are just barely coming to
terms with this, and you know, they're not always using
the right language, and they're a little confused, you know,
and that confusion was often used as a reason to
cut off all contact, you know, say hey, mom, you're transphobic,
you know, and push them aside. And so I think

(14:54):
it is new in some sense, but it's also very
old in the sense that cults often create a brand
new identity for people, right, Like new names when you
join a cult is not a new thing. That that's
something that a lot of you know, and changing hair, right.

Speaker 4 (15:09):
Shaving your heads, that's like one of the things exactly.

Speaker 3 (15:13):
Yeah, So I mean this is I guess an updated
version where I mean it's kind of smart in a
way that like people might be afraid to question it, right,
Like you're hiding behind something that sounds very progressive and
very inclusive, and that's what a lot of cults do,
is they hide in very progressive spaces. But yeah, it's

(15:38):
a lot. It's a lot to take in, and I
definitely like to bring experts up to speed on this
and get their perspectives because I don't know everything, you know,
I can't possibly pretend to know what's in someone someone's
heart and mind and body, you know, at any time.
So everyone is just working through it. Like one of

(16:01):
the experts in the documentary says, you know, some of
these folks could have been transmit all along, but the
way that they're being told to do it is concerning
to say the least.

Speaker 5 (16:13):
Yeah, And I mean, I think there's some interesting stuff
with how they were able to do this, which is
even before they started force to be transitioning people, there
was this is I think the most trans people I've
ever seen in a cult like this, Like the number
of people who were trans going in was really high,
and I suspect that was how they were able to

(16:36):
sort of like like, you know, like one of the
people in the documentary was talking about how she was
like a transphoman. She was being basically like tokenized by
the group as this like hey, we're like trans inclusive thing.
And I wonder how much of the way they were
able to do this is from basically taking the firsthand
experience of like actual trans people and then like using

(17:00):
that to try to convince people of this really weird
sort of essentialist, like we've decided that you're the divide
and masculine, so you have to transition to be a
man now.

Speaker 4 (17:13):
Stuff.

Speaker 3 (17:14):
The origin story of it is you're right in reaching
out to LGBTQ type communities. So folks like our Celia
who you see in the documentary, and also Jesse who
you see in the Netflix documentary, they were sent out
recruiting in queer spaces, so any type of queer Facebook group, Twitter.

Speaker 1 (17:35):
User, you know, YouTuber.

Speaker 3 (17:37):
They were in the comments there talking about their twin
Flame journey and talking about how queer.

Speaker 1 (17:43):
Inclusive it was.

Speaker 3 (17:44):
So they were actively doing that and it's fascinating to see.
You know, you can go back through Twitter history and find,
you know, how they were phrasing these things. You know,
like that was their job basically to do outreach for
the group in queer space is they also did lots
of PTSD spaces, former military spaces. You know, they really

(18:08):
like tried to find any slice of a person who
might need a community, who might be lonely and sort
of feed them into the group. And you're right, I
think if you have a bunch of queer, open minded
people in a space, there's a lot you can do
with you know, suggestion, There's a lot you can do
with a deck of tarot cards. It seems a lot

(18:31):
of these, you know, gender conversions started with a tarot
reading where they would just hold up a card that
represented them or their supposed partner and you know, sort
of building off of that. So it is it's new
and old in so many ways because yeah, you're just
using the divine to basically just dictate any aspect of

(18:57):
someone's life. You know, what they eat, what they wear,
they go everything.

Speaker 2 (19:02):
Yeah, and I mean it's also we're talking about like
how how much of this kind of plays on loneliness,
the fact that people are desperate for companionship, that particularly
younger people are like dating less or more socially isolated,
and like, if you want to push that up to
the nth degree, you take a group of people who

(19:24):
is under siege right now and so particularly having trouble
like being safely out and around people right like, you
give them what looks like it's a safe, welcoming community
that's supportive of them, and if especially they have not
had that, Yeah, it's it's I mean, it's deeply insidious

(19:45):
and evil.

Speaker 3 (19:46):
I would say it's powerful stuff. I would say when
I go on the Facebook group. You know, I'm block now,
but when I could, it would you know, show folks
really deep into a fantasy, you know, like they want
a perfect life for themselves where they are openly welcomed
with open arms, where the people that they care about

(20:08):
care about them back, you know, and that's often not
actually the case in their home life, but it seems
to be real on this Facebook page, and they think,
you know, if I just put in the work, this
will happen for me. That straight guy who I'm into
is going to come around and see that we're twin flames.
And so yeah, it definitely also feeds into a bit

(20:31):
of fantasy and delusion. That's you know, I think maybe
a symptom of us being so isolated in our you know,
pandemic brain spaces.

Speaker 2 (20:43):
Speaking of isolated shit, well, it's an AD, it's an
AD break. I don't I don't know how anything it
goes with that, But here's some ads. Ah, and we're back. Sorry,
you've you've just encountered some of our classic incombatant AD transitions.
But what's not incompetent is your reporting on this subject

(21:05):
and I'm I'm curious as you realize how potentially a
lot of what's going on in this cult, with this
divine masculine divide feminine stuff, could, if not handled carefully,
play into some really pernicious culture war stuff that's going
on in the country right now. How do you kind of, like,

(21:26):
how consciously did you sort of work to avoid that?

Speaker 3 (21:32):
Yeah, that is definitely something I'm worried about, is that
this could feed into some sort of culture war talking point.
And you know, you're seeing the seeds of that. If
you search Twitter very deeply, you can find it. I
guess X, I'm calling it Twitter. It's still Twitter to me.

Speaker 2 (21:49):
Yeah, it's still Twitter.

Speaker 4 (21:51):
It's only acceptable dead naming.

Speaker 1 (21:55):
Speaking of dead naming.

Speaker 4 (21:56):
Yes, So.

Speaker 3 (21:58):
I definitely wanted to be as careful as possible, listen
to trans people as much as possible, you know.

Speaker 1 (22:04):
So that's why our Celia was one of.

Speaker 3 (22:06):
The first folks that I talked to, And you know,
she had just such an interesting understanding of this because she,
you know, had transitioned before she came into this group,
and she was able to witness so much of the
coaching that was happening. And I'm just so grateful for
someone who goes through that ringer and still is able

(22:28):
to articulate what happened afterwards, because you know, not everybody
comes around to understanding it as deeply as she did.
So that was my main, you know thing, was I
was going to listen to trans people and then yeah,
I guess just trying to sort out what was the

(22:48):
ideology of the group, how that was being you know,
I guess executed, and yeah, just trying to come from
this perspective that, yeah, nobody can tell you what your
gender is and this is actually an example of that.
It was hard to wrap my head around, and I

(23:09):
still worry about it. I'm still worrying about my words
kind of right now.

Speaker 5 (23:13):
Yeah, that was something in the documentary that like you
could see the filmmakers kind of like you can you
can see them kind of going back and forth between
wanting to use people getting top surgery as this kind
of like shock factor thing, but then also like at

(23:35):
the same time being like wait, hold on, like this
is you know, this is something that you can very
very easily like be a right wing transphobe and just
like take a clip of and put on the internet
and be like hey, like we need to stop gender
clinics from being able to do this.

Speaker 4 (23:52):
And I don't know. I think I.

Speaker 5 (23:55):
Think you've handled it pretty well, but I don't know,
like this is this is something that is like I
think like one of the important things is like this
cult is ran by SIS people and this is you
know what. I think it was a good decision for
you to talk about it in terms of conversion therapy,

(24:16):
because that's a lot closer to what's happening than people transitioning.
And you know, I mean like it's I don't know,
like I would say. The thing that's complicated about it,
right is you know you it's you can't talk. It's
really really it's almost impossible to like talk to the
people who are going through this and get an understanding

(24:38):
of what their sense of their gender is. I mean,
like I've I watched a couple of the videos that
they made and like, I don't know, it's it's it's
really difficult to like it's it's it's easy to play
arm tre psychologist with it, and I don't want to
do that. And so yeah, I think I think you've

(24:59):
been watch a difficult line, and yeah, I keep.

Speaker 1 (25:02):
My hands off that too.

Speaker 3 (25:04):
You know, like, I am not going to tell any
one of those folks, you know, Gabe Ray, what's going
on in their brains and bodies. I just do happen
to know about the systematic sort of coaching that they.

Speaker 1 (25:18):
Were, you know, exposed to.

Speaker 3 (25:20):
So you know, for in the case of Jesse Hersey,
she had months and months of coaching around letting go
of her entire life, her entire identity starting over, let
go of any image of what you think your twin
flame could be, right, and so if you're doing that,
you know, and eventually folks do sort of acquiesque. I

(25:42):
think it's similar in a gender conversion coaching situation. Some
people acquiesque, you know, they they get into a high
pressure situation, they're being told who they are, They're being
told there will be consequences if they.

Speaker 1 (25:56):
You know, go back to their normal queer selves.

Speaker 3 (26:00):
So that actually does get somebody to change, but in
a beer based situation, so.

Speaker 1 (26:07):
I can speak to the coaching.

Speaker 3 (26:09):
But yes, I'm never going to be a person telling
anyone what their gender.

Speaker 1 (26:13):
Is because we don't know.

Speaker 3 (26:16):
Hopefully, you know, they can break free of what I
think is you know, pretty manipulative coercive practices and then
they can tell us more about who they are.

Speaker 5 (26:27):
Yeah, And I mean I think the other thing I'll
say about that is like, well, I mean we know
just on a societal level, that it's possible to force
people to live as a gender that they're not and
to identify themselves as that gender by systematic social pressure.
And we know this because this is the story of
like every transperson who's ever lived, right and totally you know,
and like it sucks, like it really fucking sucks, like

(26:52):
having someone force a gender on you. And I really
hope that these people, like I hope these people.

Speaker 4 (26:59):
Find and.

Speaker 5 (27:01):
Find who they are and you know, whatever form that takes,
that they're not being coerced into it, because like, yeah,
and this is something I think that was in I
think it was in the Netflix documentary that people were
talking about. This is like, you know, in terms of
people who could understand what this is like, like I
think other trans people are probably some of the only

(27:25):
people in the world who actually do, like even sort
of understand what it's like to be forced to be
a gender if that you're not. And so yeah, I'm
hoping that this develops in a way like of solidarity
and not of weaponization by right wingers.

Speaker 2 (27:41):
But I mean, I think you guys have done all
you could reasonably do to avoid that, like the culture
war is going to do with the culture war does.
I wanted to get into Keith Ranieri a little bit
and kind of how what went on with the Nexium cult,
because he's a friend of the pod over here. We've

(28:01):
talked a lot about the details of what he got
up to. He's obviously probably the biggest recent cult in
the US, and like US popular culture at least, you know,
there's a couple other a little bit of other competition
for that title, but not a ton And yeah, I
wanted to talk to you a little bit about how
some of how people's awareness of that because like, obviously,

(28:25):
given the media environment, all the people getting pulled in
by the Twin Flames cult were aware to some extent
of cult dynamics and probably of this story of this
cult that is not unrelated.

Speaker 1 (28:39):
Definitely.

Speaker 3 (28:39):
Yeah, So there is a bit of stories colliding. When
you write about cults, there's only so many of them.
Inevitably stories start to cross over. So I was still, yeah,
covering Vnexium trial, and you know, folloout sentencings when this
story came across my desk, you know, and even the

(29:00):
first person who talked to me about it was like,
I think it's similar, you know, I think their practices
are similar. And sure enough, I go and look at
this mind alignment process and you're right, it's it's kind
of similar to auditing, and scientology is kind of similar
to you know, what Nexium was doing.

Speaker 1 (29:17):
So it's.

Speaker 3 (29:20):
Yeah, the tools of manipulation are common across many of
these groups. And I would say, you know, not just
ex members of Twin Flames, but even potentially the leaders
of Twin Flames have studied other groups, including Nexium. There
is the detail in the documentary that Jeff actually made folks.

Speaker 1 (29:42):
In the group write an essay about why Keith R.

Speaker 3 (29:45):
Nieri was a cult leader but why he was not one,
based on watching the vow inseduced. So that's just, yeah,
a world's colliding for me. But yeah, I think Nexium
has in some ways brought a certain underst standing. So
some of the sources I was talking to, yeah, had
an understanding of how that worked. And you know what

(30:08):
made that wrong, what made that coercion? Twin Flames doesn't
have as many of the aspects as nexiums, so they
don't have a blackmail program, right, there's no branding in
twin Flames Universe. And you know their diet plan was actually,
you know, load up on calories, right, So there's some.

Speaker 1 (30:31):
Various differences that.

Speaker 3 (30:34):
You know, maybe Jeff studied and thought he could fly
under the radar with that.

Speaker 1 (30:39):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (30:40):
I don't know Jeff's motivations. He has only sent me long,
rambling emails.

Speaker 1 (30:44):
He has never agreed to an interview.

Speaker 3 (30:46):
But yes, there's so much commonality, including the lawsuits that
came out of this. So when I reported on this
in twenty twenty, immediately after our first story, twin Flames
Universe sent a bunch of threatening letters to all of

(31:07):
who they suspected was cooperating with my reporting.

Speaker 1 (31:11):
So this was a group of some thirty five people.

Speaker 3 (31:15):
I definitely didn't interview all of them, but they were
suspected collaborators. And it basically said, if you do not
retract your story within twenty four hours and write a
public apology, we are going to publish very damning information
about you, and we might pursue a lawsuit. And this

(31:36):
letter was not signed by a lawyer, you know, sign legit. Yeah,
in reporting on it, which we did, and of course
nobody retracted. But sure enough, a couple months after that,
they did file a defamation suit against I want to say,

(31:57):
seven or eight members and one mom, and of course
that got thrown out. But that's the next you and
playbook is sue, sue folks until they don't speak to
anyone anymore. Right, So it's a silencing tactic and it worked.
It really shook people up. I definitely wanted to give

(32:17):
people space after that. Yeah, it was definitely deja vus.
I guess to see that many lawsuits because there were
two separate ones booth thrown out.

Speaker 2 (32:29):
Yeah, I mean, and that's like something I've had to
like coach some some younger journalists and stuff through too,
because it's a favorite tactic of a lot of terrible people,
like send out legal threats and like, this is not
legal advice. You should always consult a lawyer. But the
vast majority of threats like that that are sent out
cannot be backed up to any realistic extent. Again, don't

(32:51):
ever assume that always consult a lawyer about this sort
of thing. But like the fact that somebody sends you
a we're going to sue you or like a ease
and desist. Does not mean they can actually hurt you, right,
It just means like for a lot of people, that's
like a go to sort of thing.

Speaker 3 (33:08):
Yeah, but it does evoke emotions in the.

Speaker 2 (33:13):
Netflix stuff, and it does mean you've got to reach
out to a lawyer, which is scary, you know.

Speaker 3 (33:17):
Yes, yes, thankfully we had vice lawyers that on that one.

Speaker 1 (33:23):
But I don't know.

Speaker 3 (33:24):
In the Netflix documentary, Jeff actually names me, you know,
and tries to intimidate me by name. And that was
actually cut from a much longer video, And I have
to say, when it first came out, it did make
me want a cuke.

Speaker 1 (33:40):
Now when I see it in the series, it makes
me laugh.

Speaker 3 (33:43):
But it Yeah, you can really intimidate someone with that stuff.

Speaker 2 (33:47):
Sure, I think we should probably end on kind of
talking about where things are now, because again, if you've
watched the documentary, I think the thing that was brought
up to me by a couple of people I know
who watched it was like, so, wait, there's so just
out there doing it. You know, we're used to when
stuff like this gets covered, they're being some sort of
satisfying narrative arc. They've been charged, they're in you know, prison,

(34:09):
they're on the run, but this like they're just continuing
to do cult stuff. And I think part of like
one of the things that is unfortunate. It's just I'm
not a law expert, again, but just from what I'm
looked at, it's not clear to me that they've broken
a law in a way that's going to be easy
to come after them for.

Speaker 4 (34:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (34:28):
So this is the interesting thing about Twin Flames Universe
is it does sort of straddle this line between you know,
it's not nexium.

Speaker 1 (34:36):
They weren't clear up, they.

Speaker 4 (34:39):
Haven't abducted people, Yes, exactly.

Speaker 3 (34:42):
They haven't risen to that level. Although there are folks
who are in this group who believe they were trafficked,
which is an interesting perspective because they weren't able to
choose the person that they were having sexual contact.

Speaker 1 (34:57):
With, that they didn't even get.

Speaker 3 (34:59):
To control when or how that sexual contact happened. It
would take I think, you know, a very ambitious prosecutor
to take on that kind of case. But back in
twenty twenty, some of these moms were already calling you know,
the FBI and the local Farmington Hills Police Farmington Hills

(35:20):
has been like, this is not our jurisdiction. If anything, like,
go to the FBI. We haven't heard any particular updates
from that, you know case. Certainly folks have said things
to me that sound a bit like fraud. You know,
wire fraud is a very broad concept. I don't know
if that's actually the case. I am not a lawyer,

(35:41):
I'm not a prosecutor, but definitely I think the filmmakers
behind the Netflix documentary in particular, think that this is
up to the FBI. They should be taking action, and
they want their documentary to spur that action.

Speaker 1 (35:57):
So yeah, we'll see what happens.

Speaker 3 (36:02):
I you know, am as I said, not an expert,
not a lawyer, but certainly a lot of the things
that I've heard about sound very concerning and very similar.

Speaker 2 (36:13):
Yeah, I mean and I yeah, it's tough because like
I mean, I do I will say I would be
shocked if there's not an active FBI investigation, purely based
on how how popular the documentaries have been. Right like,
that doesn't mean anything will actually happen, but at this
point I would be shocked if they were not seriously

(36:35):
looking into it. Just because it's like they're probably getting
hassled by a bunch of people.

Speaker 3 (36:41):
Yes, and I mean it is a very culty thing
that they also collect everything, you know, video of everything
they've done.

Speaker 4 (36:51):
There's a lot to look into. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (36:53):
The Yes, the hard drive that one of the folks
in the documentary named Keeley collected was really called the
Holy Grail, right.

Speaker 1 (37:04):
Rynexium.

Speaker 3 (37:05):
For Keith Ranieri, his you know, damning evidence was called Studies.

Speaker 1 (37:10):
So I feel like this is the Studies hard drive.

Speaker 2 (37:12):
Yeah. In that case, Well, we'll continue to all look
into this and excited to kind of see hopefully eventually
some sort of justice being done, although that's always a
lot to ask for out of the world. Yeah. Well, Mia,
did you have anything else you wanted to get into.

Speaker 4 (37:35):
I think that's basically everything.

Speaker 2 (37:37):
Okay, And Sarah, did you have anything else you wanted
to make sure to mention?

Speaker 3 (37:43):
Well, I would just like to mention that, you know,
having a belief about something like a soulmate is not
necessarily a bad thing. I don't want people to feel
stupid for having weird beliefs. If you open your third
eye and you know, believe your partner has been you know,
in your dreams since birth.

Speaker 1 (38:02):
That's fine to me.

Speaker 3 (38:04):
I don't want to disparage that kind of persons. It's
the systematic coersion that, you know, I'm particularly concerned about
in my reporting.

Speaker 1 (38:13):
Yeah, but yeah.

Speaker 3 (38:15):
Maybe you could check out my book it's called Don't
Call It a Cult about the Nexium Case. You can
follow me on Twitter Sarah Burns b e r MS
not X I'm dead naming Twitter again. Yeah, yeah, that's
about it.

Speaker 2 (38:33):
All right, Well, everyone, that's been another episode of It
Could Happen Here? Until next time. Why don't you go
happen somewhere else?

Speaker 6 (38:58):
Welcome to It Could Happen Here? A podcast asked about
stuff falling apart and how it can maybe come back together.
I'm Garrison Davis. Joining me today is Mia Wong.

Speaker 4 (39:07):
Hello. Hello. So I don't know what this episode is about.
I have been told the words David Graeber, and that's
that's that's all I know.

Speaker 6 (39:18):
Gra Graber will will come up. So we've we've been
we've had a lot of you know, upsetting stuff that
that's been covered on the pod recently. It's it's it's
not a it's not it's not a great time in
the world. It's a lot of upsetting things happening, but
I thought we we might get a small reprieve from

(39:39):
all of the all of the uh real real world
chaos and mayhem to talk about some fake world chaos
and mayhem. And it's also the it's also you know,
it's we are We are vastly approaching the holiday season,
which means that I, I think next week am doing
my yearly bat Man Returns watch party, which I am

(40:02):
extremely excited about. Is it's gonna it's gonna be a
fun time, which is it's probably it's probably the best
Batman movie. Oh no, it's just the aesthetics. The aesthetics
are unparalleled.

Speaker 4 (40:16):
But I'm discovering what this episode is about.

Speaker 6 (40:18):
But there is another Batman movie that's also set during
winter time, which is also also very political, because Batman
Returns is weirdly political. We have the Penguin running for mayor.
It exposes the the corrupt core of our political system.
And there is another Batman movie, also set during winter

(40:39):
that tries to expose the corrupt core of the political system,
which is Christopher Nolans twenty twelves and Dark Knight Rises,
a not very good movie which which.

Speaker 4 (40:51):
I think we have.

Speaker 6 (40:52):
We have referenced before because there's this one essay by
one David Graber which really gets into the film which
we're gonna which we're gonna get to. But the reason
why I actually put together this episode, or I wanted
to do this, is because when I was at the
Ghost Conference earlier this year in Seaside, Oregon, as you
can listen to that two parter which came out last Halloween,

(41:14):
I got a whole bunch of old magazines from this
conspiracy talk radio host. Now I love collecting old magazines.
I find them endlessly fascinating. We have this one from
two thousand and three called Mkzine oh No. On the cover,

(41:34):
we have a mind control, ritual abuse and political implications,
the cult of National Insecurity. I've not flipped through this
one super in depth before because I'm more taken aback
by the other magazine I got from twenty twelve called
Paranoia the Conspiracy Reader. On this cover we have beyond

(41:56):
MK Ultra Satellite Terrorism in America, science fiction or space Faction,
oh No, And Dark Knight Kill Programming, which is obviously
the one we're going to be talking about here today.

Speaker 4 (42:11):
No is this the Sandy thing.

Speaker 6 (42:13):
No, no, this is this is this will briefly get
into the Aurora mass shooting because this comes up in
this in this article, I'm not going to get too
into that's actually not the focus.

Speaker 4 (42:24):
I think I'm realizing.

Speaker 6 (42:25):
I'm confusing my, I'm confusing your There's actually no twelve
mass shootings.

Speaker 4 (42:30):
No, there's that because there there is actually a Alex
Jones conspiracy that there was predictive programming in the Dark
Knight returns or the Dark Knight Rises.

Speaker 6 (42:39):
That's what this is going to be about. Oh okay, okay, okay, Yes,
this is by discount Alex Jones, Clyde Lewis, who lives
in power.

Speaker 4 (42:46):
God damn it.

Speaker 6 (42:49):
Uh. There's there's some pretty fun stuff in this issue,
which we might get too later at the end to
kind of close out all of our political mamba jomba
that we will actually get into as well. But I
I want to first look at how conspiracy theorists read
this movie and how they read the political aspects of
this movie, because this movie is obviously very political if
you've seen it. We will we will get into some

(43:11):
of some of the stuff, but I want to I
want to talk about how these conspiracy theorists saw this
movie because the way that they do political analysis of
media is very different from the way actual academics and
people who take this stuff seriously do political analysis of media.
And I think there's an interesting juxtaposition there. So this

(43:31):
is this is the cover page for this story.

Speaker 4 (43:34):
The storm is coming. Oh no, no, says one already
off from bands start.

Speaker 6 (43:42):
Yes, yes, all right, so I will read a little
bit from this magazine and then we can kind of
talk about it and then compare to uh. To our
our colleague David Graeber, As I was watching Christopher Nolans
The Dark Knight Rises, I didn't know the political substance
right away, which is a great way to start this
because the film is so obviously political.

Speaker 4 (44:02):
This this movie like real whoever? Like this movie like
starts with Bain literally saying he's going to occupy Wall
Street and.

Speaker 6 (44:10):
Like seizing below see this is Wall Street. This, this
is this is what we will soon be debated. But anyway,
I only saw it as a bit of predictive programming
and a believable scenario as to how it might all begin.
In The Dark Knight Rises, Catwoman as Slida Kyle and
Batman as Bruce Wayne, are dancing at a socialight gathering

(44:32):
when Selena purs in his ear. There's a storm coming,
mister Wayne. As it turns out, The Dark Knight Rises
is a damning indictment of the anti corporate movement and
the threat of social chaos it poses. Despite rallying people
around their deceased hero Harvey Dent, the rich are losing
their grip on Gotham City. Antagonist Baine played by Tom Hardy,

(44:53):
and his League of Shadows rise up against the bankers
and the elite billionaires like Bruce Wayne, and attack Walsh Street,
savagely beating the rich while promising the good people of
Gotham that tomorrow you claim what is rightfully yours. Bain's
organized violence against the wealthy evokes the reality of Occupy
Wall Street, but Bain is no Robin Hood. He is

(45:16):
plotting a massive transfer of wealth through stock exchange after
inciting civil unrest and taking control of cutting age weapons
technologies whose algorithm can be directly traced to Bruce Wayne,
software which will avail them from the fortunes of the rich.
As the war between the people and the police in
the Dark Knight rises indicates the predictive programming of statistical
data could very well undermine the one percent and send

(45:38):
them into the streets where the disgruntled will eat them.
Fraudulent practices will be exposed, identity theft, credit card fraud,
securities fraud, and a number of other practices that the
elite do in order to bilk the poor out of
their money. This is one interesting thing about these sorts
of kind of conspiracy radio guys, how they're both against
the elite but also fundamental also for the elite. Like

(46:01):
this film is celebrated as being you know, like it's
deriding the anti corporate occupy movement, which they hate because
they hate they would dislike, you know, a left wing
popular uprising.

Speaker 4 (46:12):
But in the end they.

Speaker 6 (46:13):
Actually prefer this corporate like illuminati to the actual alternative.

Speaker 4 (46:19):
Well, and it's it's it's interesting too, like the ways
that they think that like rich people exploit people is
through like credit card fraud is like that that's how
you think rich people get rich.

Speaker 6 (46:31):
Like really, like all right, we are almost at the
end here. Christopher Nolan's epic sounds the alarm of the
advent of an organized puppet master anarchy that plans to
topple the government by exposing and gutting the fortunes of
the elite. In real life, it might look like an
occupy in the streets, sands and evil drums soundtrack pounding

(46:52):
out the perennial battle between the haves and the have nots,
while the Dark Knight rises acknowledges the systemic inequality and justice.
It is not the rich, but anarchy that is the
bane of Gotham's existence.

Speaker 4 (47:05):
It get it.

Speaker 6 (47:07):
Nolan portrays the occupy anti hero Bane as a demagogue,
ultimately seeking to speculate on legitimate grievances. And when Baine
or hands the reigns of power over to the people,
they really won't know what to do with it, which
is something that never happens in the movie.

Speaker 4 (47:22):
By the way.

Speaker 6 (47:23):
Oh now this is at this point Clyde Lewis stops
talking to the movie and instead talks about this bit
of predictive programming in the movie, which has a few
kind of aspects. Then there is the intriguing subplot that
seemingly seeped into reality on the eve of The Dark
Knight Rice's release, that a software company takes its findings

(47:46):
to the Supreme court and exposes so called political heroes
which would lead to riots and marauding shooters creating mass casualties.
Imagine that intelligence is aware of the threat and issues
a declassified memo from the Department of Homeland Security warning
lawn Hosement that terrorists could be killing people in movie theaters.
All that is needed is the catalyzing event and immediately

(48:06):
the police estate is activated. Flash riots take place in cities,
civil unrest, bruise under the radar. Truth becomes stranger than
fiction as we examined the media stories surrounding the main
story of the so called brainwashed low nut James Holmes
opening fire in a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, on
July twentieth, twenty twelve, an allegedly killing twelve and injuring

(48:28):
fifty nine others. Interesting use of the word allegedly there
in regarding regarding the people that were killed.

Speaker 4 (48:37):
Oh boy.

Speaker 6 (48:38):
And then the next sentence is really where things pick up.
Not only is James Holmes connected to the neuroscience super
Soldier Peak Soldier performance experiments, but his father works for
a software company that analyzes fraud. So I'm not going
to actually read the next bit because it is just
the ramblings of conspiracy brained lunatic who think that because

(49:01):
the shooter's dad was a neuroscientist, that therefore his son
must have been this victim of a super soldier program
to brainwash you to activate the police state. Once you
receive a bit of predictive programming.

Speaker 4 (49:15):
And the other I will I will get to.

Speaker 6 (49:19):
One other paragraph and then will be done with this article,
because there's really not much more substance quote. The chilling
predictive programming looming behind the dark Knight Rises does not escape,
at least the unconscious of those watching. Bain, the leader
of the fictional anarchist mob, decides to plant bombs in

(49:39):
the Gotham underground, the final target being a stadium where
the Mayor of Gotham attends a sports event. A young
boy sings the national anthem with a British accent. Bain
pauses to listen to the distinct voice, then says, Nott
the Gerbers brigand after which the stadium is bombed and
the mayor is killed in his reserved viewing box. Now,

(50:04):
Clyde Lewis believes that this was a bit of predictive
programming in order to prepare people for a mash casualty
event at the London twenty twelve Olympics, which you might
you might know did not happen, was not was.

Speaker 4 (50:20):
Not a thing.

Speaker 6 (50:20):
But he is convinced that this is part of some
predictive programming to either trigger this event, or cover up
this event, or allude to this event again, an event
that did not happen. So that's, you know, as as
as we're going to be talking about, you know, how
people view mass uprising and political movements in media for
the for the rest of this episode, this is how

(50:41):
a certain sect of conservative does their own media analysis,
which I think is a really is a really fun,
really fun look into how their brains operate, sorting a
very political film into these into these predictive programming boxes.
But we will we will return to talk about the
Virgin David Graber and the chad Mark Fisher.

Speaker 4 (51:05):
After this ad break, we are back.

Speaker 6 (51:09):
I am I am waiting watching for the rich to be
thrown from their balconies as wealth as redistributed and a
man in a very fancy coat takes over a sporting event.
So I read almost every serious political analysis of the
Darknight Races that I could find from fascists, from conservatives,
from liberals, and from leftists and anarchists.

Speaker 4 (51:32):
Everyone agrees that.

Speaker 6 (51:33):
This film has some very very obvious occupy parallels. We're
going to get into how much of those are actually
kind of built into the film's production versus how much
of those are more or less coincidental. Now, unfortunately for me,
not actually unfortunately, because I actually do like Graber a lot,

(51:53):
but his analysis was by far the best out of
anybody else's in regards to this film, And unfortunately the schizoid,
acid fueled chaos magic of Mark Fisher kind of paled
in comparison to the precision of the anthropologist David Graeber
in terms of their analysis of this film, but both
of them had roughly the same opinion. Graber has just

(52:16):
went into a lot more depth about how kind of
this film actually politically operates. So I'll be mostly talking
about in quoting from Graber, with a few things from
Fisher kind of mixed in, and then we'll compare it
to some stuff in Breitbart and The Daily Caller and
a few other reactions from liberals who enjoyed the film
too much and are are unwilling to kind of seed

(52:39):
this conservative ground to Nolan's twenty twelve film, and I
think this is actually really interesting to talk about this
film this year after the release of Oppenheimer, which I
think is Nolan's probably most politically mature work.

Speaker 4 (52:51):
And he has definitely grown a.

Speaker 6 (52:53):
Lot in the past ten years as a filmmaker, at
least in terms of his his ability to get into
politics in a way that is not just purely reactionary,
where I think a lot of his early films are
kind of absorbed by this reactionariness. And I think I
think he has matured a decent bit, at least as
a as a political filmmaker. So we will start with

(53:16):
a paragraph from Graber quote Christopher Nolan's Batman, The Dark
Knight Rises Not the title of the film is really
a piece of anti occupy propaganda. Christopher Nolan, the director,
claims that the script was written before the movement even started,
and that the famous scenes of the occupation of New
York Gotham City were really inspired by Dickens's account of

(53:37):
the French Revolution. This is probably true, but it's disingenuous.
Everyone knows Hollywood scripts are continually rewritten while movies are
in production. And when it comes to messaging, even details
like precise wording or where a scene a shot can
make all the difference. Then there's the fact that the
villains actually do attack the stock exchange. Still, it's precisely
this ambition, the filmmaker's willingness to take on the great

(53:59):
issues of the day, that ruins the movie. So the
script was written well before Occupy started. Shooting for Dark
Knight rices ended two months after the start of Occupy.
Most of the shooting for the film took place before
Occupy even happened. And now in twenty eleven, it was
widely misreported that the movie was going to be filming

(54:22):
at Occupy itself, which started from like I think something
in the La Times which just got blown blown out
of proportion.

Speaker 4 (54:31):
Was not true.

Speaker 6 (54:31):
They did shoot in New York, but they did not
shoot at Occupy.

Speaker 4 (54:34):
Yap boblcause would have got run out.

Speaker 6 (54:37):
Probably now, leading up to twenty eleven, both Nolan and
what became Occupy were on very similar conceptual roads. They
were just leading to two very different places. The Dark
Knight released in the middle of the two thousand and
eight financial crisis, right after the two thousand and eight
writers strike, ended, So there were a lot of class
issues circling around in Nolan's bubble, so it made sense

(55:00):
that Nolan's next Batman flick would tackle these things that
rose to cultural prominence by the time he finished The
More Patriot Act inspired at The Dark Knight Now, Nolan
and other writers obviously saw economic inequality and corruption seating
people's anger and the rising possibility of civil unrest, and
that was put into the script and then it just
happened two months before they finished shooting Now. Nolan also

(55:23):
took a lot from the Tale of Two Cities. This
probably more than anything else. The Dark Knight Rises is
actually based on the Tale of Two Cities, a passage
of which is read at the end of the film,
and there's plenty of parallels to the French Revolution, including
the storming of Bastille. There's actually two prison breaks inside
The Dark Knight Rises. There is the release of Black Eight,
and then there's of course when Bruce Wayne escapes the

(55:47):
Giant Hole in the ground and frees the other prisoners
as well. So still, throughout all of these kind of
class issues that Nolan is talking about in this film,
he still shows a deep trust of populism or at
the very least feared how easily it could be subverted
in a charged financial climate. I'm going to read one

(56:07):
one quote from Fisher here. Quote when Nolan revived the
Batman franchise in two thousand and five, the setting Gotham
in the midst of an economic depression seemed like an
achronistic reference to the superheroes origins in the nineteen thirties.
Two thousand and eight to The Dark Knight was too
early to register the impact of the financial crisis. But
The Dark Knight Rises clearly attempts to respond to the
two thousand and eight situation. The film isn't this simple

(56:30):
conservative parable that the right wingers would like, but in
the end it is a reactionary vision, which I think
is the fairest way to look at this film. But
now we're going to go deep into Graver's analysis, which
is by far, probably one of the best write ups
on twentieth century superheroes and their role in American culture.

Speaker 5 (56:50):
It's my favorite by far. This is the one that
I always like push on people when people talk about Marvel.

Speaker 6 (56:54):
Because yes, no, absolutely, I mean this is this is
I say that you've referenced a lot on this show.
I've been I've been going into a bit of a
graver resurgence lately. I deeply enjoyed his essay on Puppets,
which I'm going to respond to by writing an essay
on why nihilists hate puppets and except the U and
except the adversarial framing of the police. But that is

(57:16):
a digression. Now we will we will get back to
Graber's essay in the New Inquiry titled superposition.

Speaker 5 (57:23):
Oh the thing, the thing I want to mention here
about this essays he wanted to Oh God, what was that?
He wanted to call it on Batman and the problem
of constituent power.

Speaker 4 (57:33):
But they wouldn't let him do it. So it's well
superposition instead.

Speaker 6 (57:36):
This is that is certainly what it's actually about, is
constituent power. Will we will get to that very shortly.

Speaker 4 (57:43):
So quote.

Speaker 6 (57:45):
Superheroes are a product of their historical origins. Superman is
a Depression era displaced to Iowa farm boy. Peter Parker,
a product of the sixties, is a smart ass, working
class kid from Queen's Batman. The billionaire play Boy is
the scion of the military industrial complex that was created
just as he was at the beginning of World War Two.
I will say the early origins of Batman are far

(58:07):
divorced from that, but that is certainly what Batman has
evolved into.

Speaker 4 (58:11):
Quote.

Speaker 6 (58:12):
These heroes are purely reactionary in a literal sense. They
have no projects of their own, at least not in
their roles as heroes. Almost never do superheroes make, create,
or build anything. The villains, in contrast, are endlessly creative.
They are full of plans and projects and ideas. Clearly,
we are supposed to, at first, without constently realizing it,
identify with the villains, after all, they're the ones having

(58:34):
all the fun. Then, of course we feel guilty about it,
re identify with the hero and have even more fun
watching the super ego clubbing the errant id back into submission.
This essay that Graber wrote is very Freudian. Craper makes
a lot of freud references in this. I am not
going to be getting into as much, but superheroes are

(58:56):
also very very Freudian.

Speaker 5 (58:58):
Yeah, I want to say, thinking about this specific passage,
or specifically the way that you're encouraged identify with the
hero and then like that gets like that gets subverted.

Speaker 4 (59:07):
You're supposed to come back to the hero.

Speaker 6 (59:09):
So this used to be a kind of so to
identify with the villain and then yeah, and then come
back back to the Yeah. So and this is this
works as like a conserv ave project of conservative ideology,
and this used to be like an implicit thing in
these movies. And then you get to Black Panther, which
is literally well literally they just like that. That is
just the like they stopped being subtle and we're like, hey,

(59:32):
here's a guy who's an anti imperial list and then
the ending reveal is, oh my god, he's actually evil.
In terms of Marvel, I would say yes, I would.
I think my two favorite superhero movies, which would be
Tim Burton's Batman and Batman Returns, do the reverse of
this where very obviously the villain is the main characters
of both of those and Batman is really just a
side character. And I think that was actually work better

(59:54):
for this medium so much more. Oh yeah, but when
it comes to Marvel, absolutely yeah, they're just like openly
doing this now. It's really sort of like, yeah, this
was what the second one's about.

Speaker 4 (01:00:04):
Two yes, yes, now.

Speaker 6 (01:00:06):
Grayber then talks about kind of what the project of
these comic books were originally supposed to be, and how
that kind of continues on today into pop culture.

Speaker 4 (01:00:16):
Quote.

Speaker 6 (01:00:17):
Politically speaking, superhero comic books can seem pretty innocuous. If
all a comic is trying to do is tell a
bunch of adolescent boys that everyone has a certain desire
for chaos and mayhem, but ultimately such desires need to
be controlled, the implications would not seem especially dire, especially
because the message still does carry a healthy dose of ambivalence.
After all, the heroes of even the most right leaning
action movies seem to spend much of their time smashing

(01:00:39):
up suburban shopping malls, something that many of us would
like to do at some point in our lives. In
the case of most comic book superheroes, however, the mayhem
has an extremely conservative political implication. This is where we
could start getting into God versus the people and using
both of these things as constructs. Right, neither of these
things really fully exist in a super material way. Both

(01:01:00):
of these things are constructs quote unquote God, quote unquote
the people. They both occupy a very similar ontological rule,
and this is something that Graper gets into quote any
power capable of creating a system of law cannot itself
be bound by them. In the Middle Ages, the solution
was simple. The legal order was created either directly or
indirectly by God. The English, American and French revolutions changed

(01:01:24):
all that when they created the notion of popular sovereignty,
declaring that the power once held by kings and by extension, God,
is now held by an entity called the people. The people, however,
are bound by the laws. They are able to create
the laws through those revolutions themselves. But of course revolutions

(01:01:44):
are acts of law breaking, so laws emerge from illegal activity.
This creates a fundamental incoherence and the very idea of
modern government, which assumes that the state has a monopoly
on the legitimate use of violence. It's okay for police
to use violence because they are enforcing a law. The
law is legitimate because it's rooted in the constitution. The
constitution is legitimate because it comes from the people. That

(01:02:06):
people create the constitution by acts of illegal violence. It
all circles back on itself.

Speaker 4 (01:02:10):
Quote.

Speaker 6 (01:02:11):
The obvious question, then, is how does one tell the
difference between the people and a mere rampaging mob, Which
is a question that comes up all the time across
the political spectrum from anarchists to fascists to liberals. This
is a debate that still goes on. Is without the law,
what is the difference between the people and just a
lynch mob. Now Graber doesn't really give an answer to this,

(01:02:35):
because this doesn't really have an answer. This is a
very vague question, and kind of, as Graber points out,
it's vague by design.

Speaker 4 (01:02:43):
Quote.

Speaker 6 (01:02:44):
The response by mainstream, respectable opinion is to push this
problem as far away as possible. The usual line is
that the age of revolutions is over. Now we can
change the constitution or legal standards by legal means, this
of course means that the basic structures will never change.

Speaker 4 (01:03:00):
Quote.

Speaker 6 (01:03:00):
And this is where kind of Graver talks about how
the role of tradition has totally taken over the legal
implications of our system. Here, how the US, which was
you know, at once progressive in its electoral college and
two party system, is now quite old fashioned compared to

(01:03:21):
a lot of other you know, popular democratic countries. There's
a good line quote we base the legitimacy of the
whole system on the consent of the people, despite the
fact that the only people who were ever really consulted
on the matter lived over two hundred years ago in
America at least, quote unquote, the people are long since dead.
So now we have this situation that we have this

(01:03:44):
idea of the legal order which comes from God, which
then came from armed revolution, and now it just comes
from this idea of sheer tradition. Now, there's obviously a
lot of American politicians who would want to give this
power back to God.

Speaker 5 (01:04:01):
But even then, I was like, it's really hard to
actually do that.

Speaker 4 (01:04:08):
Like, even even governments that are.

Speaker 5 (01:04:11):
Very explicitly theocratic, like for example, like Oron, it's like, well,
they still have elections and they still have this like
the the notion of popular sovereignty belonging to the people
is very hard to dislodge unless you're going to straight
up impose a monarchy. And even a lot of the
monarchies now are like, you know, they follow the European

(01:04:31):
thing of like claiming to like derive the authority from
the people or something.

Speaker 6 (01:04:35):
But we also we also have people like like Walsh
and Michael Knowles who are like Catholic monarchists. Yeah, a
lot of prominence in American culture.

Speaker 4 (01:04:48):
Yeah, it's it's it's a like. I don't know. I
wish them bad luck. Yes, that is, that's a little moderate.

Speaker 6 (01:04:57):
Thing I wish upon them. Back to Graber, quote for
the radical left and the authoritarian right, the problem of
constituent power is very much alive, but each takes dimetrically
opposite approaches to the fundamental question of violence unquote. Now,
I think this is something that has I'd be interested

(01:05:17):
to see Graber revisit this idea.

Speaker 3 (01:05:19):
Now.

Speaker 6 (01:05:19):
Unfortunately that cannot be the case, because this question of
violence has certainly evolved a lot in the ten years
in which he wrote this, both in terms of how
the alt right operates, but also in terms of how
the quote unquote left views violence as a necessary political tool.
But getting into his analysis of the twentieth century, I
think it is still fairly accurate.

Speaker 4 (01:05:38):
Quote.

Speaker 6 (01:05:39):
The left, chastised by the disasters of the twentieth century,
has largely moved away from its older celebration of revolutionary violence,
preferring non violent forms of resistance. Those who act in
the name of something higher than the law can do
so precisely because they don't act like a rampaging mob.
For the right, on the other hand, and this has
been true since the rise of fascism in the twenties.

(01:06:00):
The very idea that there is something special about revolutionary violence,
anything that makes it different from mere criminal violence, is
so much self righteous twaddle. Violence is violence, but that
doesn't mean a rampaging mob can't be the people, because
violence is the real source of law and political order.
This is why, as Walter Benjamin noted, we cannot help

(01:06:22):
but admire the great criminal, because, as so many movie
posters have put it, he makes his own law. After all,
any criminal organization does inevitably begin developing its own, often
quite elaborate set of internal laws. They have to as
a way of controlling what would otherwise be completely random violence.
From the right wing perspective, that's all law, ever is.

(01:06:43):
It is a means of controlling the very violence that
it brings into being and through which it is ultimately enforced. Now,
I think this is also true of even certain aspects
of the left, where we have we don't call them laws,
we might call them like community guidelines or something, but
we often actually do this same process, especially in the
anarchist kind of formations that try to replicate gang formations

(01:07:05):
like purposefully, we get this same essence that is developed
in order to people might you know, reject these to
the word police, but at least, you know, make some
kind of structure that deems which violence is acceptable and
which violence isn't. But back to Graber quote. This makes
it easier to understand the often surprising affinity between criminals,

(01:07:26):
criminal gangs, right wing political movements, and the armed representatives
of the state. Ultimately, they speak the same language, they
create their own rules on the basis of force. As
a result, they typically share the same broad political sensibilities.
In Athens nowadays, there's an active collaboration between the crime
bosses in poor immigrant neighborhoods, fascist gangs, and the police.
In fact, in this case, it was clearly a political

(01:07:48):
strategy face with the prospect of popular uprisings against a
right wing government. The police first withdrew protection from neighborhoods
near the immigrant gangs, then started giving tacit support to
the fascists for the far right. Then it is in
that space where different violent forces operating outside of the
legal order interact that new forms of power and hence

(01:08:09):
of order can emerge. What does this have to do
with costume superheroes. Well, everything, because this is exactly the
space that superheroes and supervillains also inhabit. An inherently fascist
space inhabited only by gangsters would be dictators, police and thugs,
with endlessly blurring lines between them. Sometimes the cops are legalistic,

(01:08:29):
sometimes they're corrupt. Sometimes the police themselves slip into vigilanteism.
Sometimes they pursue the superheroes, sometimes they look the other way.
Sometimes they help. Villains and heroes occasionally team up. The
lines of force are always shifting. If anything new where
to emerge, it could only be through such shifting forces.
There's nothing else, since in the DC and Marvel universes,

(01:08:50):
neither God nor the people really exist. Now, I think
this is greater hitting on something that really actually does
hit at the core of this whole genre is that
this is the genre which is really only inhabited by
the uber manch as this like governing body. Right, There's
there really isn't the god in any kind of meaningful way.
There isn't the people in any kind of meaningful way.

(01:09:12):
There is just the super individual. The uber manch himself
is what inspired Joe Schuster and Jerry Siegel to create Superman.

Speaker 4 (01:09:18):
Like that.

Speaker 6 (01:09:19):
This is this is the origin of this entire genre.

Speaker 5 (01:09:22):
By the way, I want to I want to mention
some some comic book nerds are gonna get very angry
here and be like, Wow, there's some one above all.
It's like okay, like God, like there there are there
is technically God in this right, but like God is
the thing that you can beat the crap out of,
Like it's not God in the sense of like God.

Speaker 4 (01:09:38):
Ordained authority is blah blah blah blah. Like no, it's not.

Speaker 5 (01:09:40):
It's not the same thing this is. That's not what
we were talking about. Please don't be pedanic in the
comic cult.

Speaker 6 (01:09:45):
And I'm talking like as like a literary tradition. God
does not operate as a significant role in these pieces
of art like that that like that, like if you're
gonna be looking at the genre as art for twelve
year old boys, God does not operate specific crucial role
in in this world's ontology.

Speaker 5 (01:10:04):
And it's funny too, because one of the things that
happens after this is there's there's a thing called there's
a thing called Occupy Avengers, and they make this attempt
to bring the people.

Speaker 4 (01:10:13):
It's it's a shit show. It is awful it's so bad,
Like it's well, and it's interesting to you because like
anytime they try to so that, that was an attempt
to bring in like sort of the people as like
a left wing constitutive body, and that was a disaster.

Speaker 5 (01:10:28):
They tried to do it, Like they've tried to do
it again. But the people exist as this sort of
like very right wing like forced it is like they
as like this bob that's constantly on the edge of
sort of like destroying society whatever. And that's been like
the most attempts to do it.

Speaker 6 (01:10:47):
No, there're certainly attempts to bring in like the American
political system into various aspects of comics, whether that's like
Lex Luthor being president, whether it's stuff like the.

Speaker 4 (01:10:58):
I know this stuff and I think it's called the.

Speaker 6 (01:11:00):
Mortal Hulk has has has a lot of politics.

Speaker 4 (01:11:03):
But that one's Wilde's.

Speaker 6 (01:11:05):
I do think Raber's kind of point here is still
still still accurate.

Speaker 4 (01:11:09):
And rings true.

Speaker 6 (01:11:11):
I have one other paragraph from Graper then we'll kind
of get into a little bit more more discussion.

Speaker 4 (01:11:17):
Quote.

Speaker 6 (01:11:17):
Insofar as there is a potential for constituent power, then
it can only come from purveyors of violence. The super
villains and evil masterminds, when they are not merely indulging
in random acts of terror, are always scheming of imposing
a new world order of some kind or another. Surely,
if Red Skull King the Conqueror or Doctor Doom did
ever succeed in taking over the planet, there'd be lots

(01:11:38):
of new laws created very quickly.

Speaker 4 (01:11:40):
Yeah, and there was.

Speaker 5 (01:11:41):
Actually after he wrote this, there was an arc where
Doctor dun successfully conquered the entire universe, and he did
in fact do exactly that, which also one another w
for common David Graber w.

Speaker 6 (01:11:53):
Which also does not last very long, because if if
that happened for a while, it would make the story
incredibly boring. Yeah, things doing things always return to the
status quo. Which is also another crucial aspect of this genre,
that things have to return to the status quo, which
is something I will get to very shortly. Back to
Grabor quote, although their creator would doubtless not himself feel

(01:12:14):
bounded by them, superheroes resist this logic. They do not
wish to conquer the world. Now, this is where I'm
going to actually disagree slightly with Graber. He writes that
superheroes quote remain parasitical off the villains in the same
way that police remain parasitical off criminals. Without them, they'd
have no reason to exist. Now, I'd argue that the

(01:12:37):
police actually create the spectral category of criminals to justify
their own existence. Yeah, criminals didn't create the police. It's
the other way around, right, you can look at you
can look at like the way even the past few years,
police have been lying about inflated crime rates to justify
their own increased funding. And now, obviously people always broke
social norms, but if you're looking at the actual, like

(01:12:59):
the actual like political class of criminal and the political
class of police, this is like it's like everyone has
done a crime, right, Like police commit more crimes than
the average person, but they do not often get called
a criminal. I'm talking about like a very political class
that we call criminal, and this is something that the
police create. And curiously, in the same way, most superheroes

(01:13:23):
also pre date their respective supervillains, as it is the
presence of the superhero that often births the adversarial supervillain.
We see this across tons of superhero medias where they
use example of how the superhero predated the arrival of
these theatrical villains, and this is actually the superhero's fault, right.
Is this happens in Batman, this happens in Spider Man.

(01:13:45):
This is very, very common. We even see this in
something like The Boys or The Watchmen, both of which
target superheroes as a reactionary right wing tendency, which are
aligned with the police and military. We literally have Homelander
creating supervillain to justify his own existence, or super terrorists
in The Watchman, the actual team predates the arrival of

(01:14:07):
many super villains. So this, this is this is one
one small nitpick I might I might say with this article,
at least in terms of the like the the causality
loop between superheroes and villains and criminals and police. Do
you know what also pre dates all all of us,
every every single person listening.

Speaker 4 (01:14:27):
We're gonna have like someone who's one hundred and.

Speaker 6 (01:14:30):
The advertising industrial complex predates every single one of you fuckers.
The surrealists burst this hell hole of advertising, which tricks
your mind via predictive programming, the witch to buy this
fucking food box. Okay, we are we are back. We
have returned to the status quo of our podcast, speaking

(01:14:50):
speaking of which we're going to talk about returning to
the status quo. So what what superheroes and the police,
which are very ontologically similar roles in a lot of cases,
what their end project is is that they seek to
maintain what is and then seek out and destroy anything

(01:15:10):
that threatens to alter our civilizational fabric. They they fundamentally
are defenders of the status quo. That is, that is
the that is the role of the superhero across almost
all media. This is why if you had the powers
of Superman, why are you just saving cats from trees
and instead not fundamentally reshaping the world in something that

(01:15:31):
is better. Now, this is a question that gets tackled
by people like Grant Morrison and Alan Moore is to
they often give reasons for why someone shouldn't do that,
But still, this is this is a fundamental aspect of
this genre is that these guys never really have any
generative political project. They they are purely reactionary, and they
purely are are are made to to hold up the

(01:15:51):
status quo and always return to this single point from
which they emerged, Back to grayber quote, they remain defenders
of a legal and political system which itself seems to
have come out of nowhere, and which, however faulty or degraded,
must be defended because the only alternative is so much worse.
They aren't fascists, They're just ordinary, decent, super powerful people

(01:16:14):
who inhabit a world in which fascism is the only
political possibility. Why might we ask what a form of
entertainment premised on such a peculiar notion of politics emerge
in the early to mid twentieth century America at just
around the time that actual fascism was on the rise
in Europe? Was it some kind of fantasy American equivalent.

(01:16:35):
Not exactly. It's more that both fascism and superheroes were
products of a similar historical predicament. What is the foundation
of social order when one has exercised the very idea
of revolution, and above all, what happens to the political imagination?
So at this point Graver starts talking about how basically

(01:16:56):
all power goes to the individual, but the individual who
is embedded within a system. He discusses how the core
audience for superhero comics are adolescent or pre adolescent to
white boys. At least that was in the nineteen twenties
or thirties, and forties, and roughly is still the case.
It's that these comic books and now Marvel films, although
unfortunately Marvel films have a much broader audience, but they

(01:17:20):
are targeted to people who are at a point in
their lives where they're like where they're likely to be
both like the most imaginative and a little bit rebellious. Right,
this is like, this is the twelve year old white
boy is the thing that that this is targeting. So
they're both very imaginative, they're a little bit rebellious, but
they're also being groomed to take on positions of power

(01:17:41):
and authority in the world. Right, They're about to transition
to being fathers, share of small business owners, middle management.

Speaker 3 (01:17:48):
Right.

Speaker 6 (01:17:48):
So this is what this genre is targeted towards. So
what are they supposed to learn from these kind of
endlessly repeating stories that are all very much the same story.
One aspect is that imagination and rebellion will inevitably just
lead to violence, right, And then second is like imagination
and rebellion violence can actually be a lot of fun,

(01:18:11):
but ultimately violence must be directed back against any overflow
of imagination and rebellion, or else everything will kind of
go into chaos. These things have to be contained. So
this is why superheroes are only allowed. I'm gonna I'm
gonna quote from grayper again quote their imagination can only
be extended to the design of their clothes, their cars,
maybe their homes, and their very successories unquote. Basically all

(01:18:34):
of their imagination for the superhero is limited to commodities. Right,
This is this is the fundamental aspect where that's the
only acceptable outlet for your imagination. It's it's it's just
with these it's just with commodity fetishism like that. That's
that's the only possible way back to Graper quote. It's
in this sense that the logic of the superhero plot

(01:18:54):
is profoundly, deeply conservative. Ultimately, the division between left and
right sensibilities turns on one's attitude towards the imagination. For
the left, imagination, creativity and by extension, production, the power
to bring new things and new social arrangements into being
is always celebrated. It's the source of all real value
in the world. For the right, it's dangerous and ultimately evil.

(01:19:15):
The urge to create is also a destructive urge. But
this is also what separates conservatives from fascists. Both agree
that the imagination unleashed can only lead to violence and destruction.
Conservatives wish to defend us against this possibility. Fascists wish
to unleash it anyway they aspire to be, as Hitler
imagine himself, great artists painting with the minds, bloods, and

(01:19:36):
sinews of humanity. I think this is a really good
distinction between conservatives and fascists in terms of how they
view creative violence. And to get back to superheroes, I
think this medium, as Graver points out, has this kind
of built in essence of a guilty pleasure. It revels
in the absurdity of both the costumed heroes and villains,

(01:19:58):
all while still targeting and imagine which is too expansive
to outside the norm as being the ultimate crime. This
guilty pleasure aspect even applies to the great superhero satires
like The Watchmen and the Boys, which we applaud for
poking and prodding at the conservative superhero all while still
reveling and watching the outlandish antics on screen or on

(01:20:19):
the page. Now, Graver even applies this guilty pleasure aspect
into explaining the kind of the conservative backlash to superheroes
in the forties and fifties, particularly with the book Seduction
of the Innocent, which kind of viewed superheroes as this
weirdly fetishistic, kind of naughty impulse, which resulted in superheroes
getting very sanitized and much more much more silly, much

(01:20:44):
more campy, which which resulted in the fantastic nineteen sixty
six Batman Show. But still it kind of it kind
of points at this this this guilty pleasure aspect. There's
there's something inherently kind of naughty about about viewing this material.
All right, we are we are nearing the end of
Graber's analysis here. Quote if the message was that rebellious

(01:21:05):
imagination was okay as long as it was kept out
of politics and simply confined to consumer choices like clothes, cars,
and accessories, this had become the message that even executive
Hollywood producers could easily get behind, which results in stuff
like the nineteen sixty six Batman Show. And now leading
us back into Christopher Nolan, we get this really good,
really good paragraph from grab quote if the classic comic

(01:21:28):
book is intensively political about Madaman trying to take over
the world, but really psychological and personal about overcoming the
dangers of rebellious adolescents, but then ultimately political. After all,
then the new superhero movies are precisely the reverse. They
are sensibly psychological and personal, but really political, but ultimately

(01:21:50):
they go back to being psychological and personal. So this
is me just ripping. Now let's take Batman begins right.
We have Racial Gul who operates in this psychological role
of a second father for Bruce right after Bruce's training
initiation to the League of Shadows. Only then does Race
reveal his political goals to destroy Gotham and rid the

(01:22:10):
world of corruption. So this is like the psychological is
the first bit, then it's actually political, and then by
the end it actually it goes all the way back
into being truly psychological. Now I'm gonna I'm gonna read
one paragraph from Graver, which is only because it has
a very funny oh two word combination. In the ritual Kobis,

(01:22:36):
we learned that rayshal Ghoul, a character introduced telling Lee
In in nineteen seventy one, is in fact a zerzen
Esque primitivist and terrorist determined to restore the balance of
nature by reducing the earth's human population by roughly ninety
nine percent. None of the villains in any of the
three movies want to rule the world. They don't wish
to have power over others or to create new rules

(01:22:58):
of any sort, unquote. And I just really like the
term deservesi esque to describe the seventies racial ghoul, which
is a deeply, a deeply brain poisoned way to.

Speaker 4 (01:23:12):
Describe a comic book.

Speaker 6 (01:23:15):
Likeliar. John Zergen is an eco anarchist writer who certain
sects of kind of social anarchist theorists liked to make
fun of.

Speaker 1 (01:23:27):
Think.

Speaker 4 (01:23:27):
I think Great Graver's most devastating thing about the Primitivest
was calling them all Marxists, because they're the only people
on earth who say it's a program, not a critique.
It's very funny.

Speaker 5 (01:23:38):
I think like one of the things that's kind of
going on here is like everyone who's writing about superhero
movies is also trying to settle their own grudges a
little bit.

Speaker 4 (01:23:45):
And oh absolutely grudges in this is like one of
Graverer's grudges that he was like like he was tear gassed,
like very very close to a lot of where these
things were shot, like a month before, and his second
grudge is that he had to spend the whole fucking
nineties arguing with a bunch of primitivists. He's very annoying
it because yeah, so that those are his grudges going

(01:24:10):
into And.

Speaker 6 (01:24:12):
I do believe his his kind of framing of the
Nolan supervillains of not really having any desire to rule
the world as ringing true. They they really only want
to like wipe the slate clean. I think Graber correctly
identifies Nolan's supervillains as being primarily some form of anarchist,
just a very peculiar type that really only exists in

(01:24:33):
Nolan's imagination. Graber describes them as, quote, they are the
anarchists who believe that human nature is fundamentally evil and
corrupt unquote. I think this has taken to its most
obvious extent in The Dark Knight, with the Joker, who
openly claims affiliation with anarchy and fetishizes destruction. His sick
and twisted imagination is the real villain, even with the

(01:24:56):
backdrop of the film's kind of deceptive war on terror frame. Now,
between the production of The Dark Knight and The Dark
Knight rises.

Speaker 4 (01:25:04):
The funniest thing happened.

Speaker 6 (01:25:06):
The economy completely collapsed in two thousand and eight, and
it wasn't due to an eco terrorist cult or a
clown set on a total negation. Instead, it was bankers
and finance managers in Wall Street Bros. Who became the
obvious villains in their quest to maintain the lie of
endless growth. Millions of people lost their homes and source
of income. So in response, there was a whole bunch

(01:25:27):
of popular uprisings that took place all around the world.
Graver lists regimes being toppled in the Middle East and
people occupying squares everywhere from Cleveland to Karachi trying to
create new forms of democracy. So there's this resurgence of
constituent power, right, and this imagination driven kind of radical
and largely non violent form of resistance, at least here

(01:25:49):
in the States. And this is the sort of political
situation which superhero universes can never really fully tackle because
it can't exist within their own weird ptology. To quote
Graver or quote in Nolan's world, something like occupy could
only have been the product of some tiny group of
ingenious manipulators who are really pursuing some secret agenda. Why

(01:26:09):
does Bain wish to lead the people in a social
revolution if he's just gonna nukee them all in a
few weeks anyway, it's anyone's guess. He claims that before
you destroy someone first, he must give them hope. So
is the message that utopian dreams can only lead to
nihilistic violence. Presumably it's something like that, but it's singularly unconvincing,
since the plan to kill everyone came first and the
revolution was a decorative afterthought. In fact, what happens to

(01:26:31):
the city can only possibly make sense as a material
echo of what's been most important, what's happening in Bruce
Wayne's tortured brain.

Speaker 4 (01:26:42):
Yeah it's a good line, which.

Speaker 6 (01:26:44):
Yes, yeah, because in the end, Batman and the police
rise from the abyss. Literally in both cases, both of
them are trapped underground. They both rise from underground join
forces to battle the people occupying outside of the Gotham
City stock Exchange. Batman fix his own death by disposing
of this nuclear bomb, and Bruce Wayne gets to live

(01:27:06):
happily in Florence with the criminal Selina Kyle. And then
a new new phony martyr legend is born in the
role of Batman and people of Gotham are returned once
again to the status quo. I'm gonna read kind of
Graver's final kind of overview of the entirety of this message,
right like, of what this thing is really trying to convey,

(01:27:28):
right quote. If they're supposed to be a take home
message from all of this, it must run something like, yes,
the system is corrupt, but it's all we have anyway.
Figures of authority can be trusted if they've first been
chastised and endued terrible suffering. Normal police might let children
die on the bridges, but the police who've been buried
alive for weeks can employ violence. Legitimately, charity is much

(01:27:50):
better than addressing structural problems. Any attempts to address to
such structural problems, even through nonviolent civil disobedience, really is
a form of violence, because that's all it could possibly be.
Imaginative politics are inherently violent, and therefore there's nothing inappropriate
If police respond by smashing protesters' heads repeatedly against the
concrete as a response to occupy, this is nothing short

(01:28:11):
of pathetic. When The Dark Knight came out to this
in eight there was much discussion over whether the whole
thing was really just a vast metaphor for the War
on Terror? How far is it okay for the good
guys America? Obviously to adapt the bad guy's methods. The
filmmakers managed to respond to these issues and still produce
a good movie. This is because the War on Terror
actually was a battle of secret networks and manipulative spectacles.
It began with a bomb and ended with an assassination.

(01:28:33):
One can almost think of it as an attempt on
both sides to actually enact a comic book version of
the universe. Once real constituent power appeared on the scene,
the universe shriveled into incoherence. Revolutions were sweeping the Middle East,
and the US was still spending hundreds of billions of
dollars fighting a ragtag bunch of seminary students in Afghanistan. Unfortunately,

(01:28:55):
for Nolan, for all of his manipulative powers, the same
thing happened to his world when even the hint of
real popular power arrived in New York. So that that
is kind of the essence of Graber's view of this movie.
I think it's pretty good. This is a This is
a pretty a pretty solid take on this now there's
obviously people who have opinions that are less good than this.

Speaker 4 (01:29:20):
I'm gonna read.

Speaker 6 (01:29:21):
I'm gonna read this this right up from from these
two guys, Jeff Sprosse and Zach Buchamp, who argue that
Batman represents this symbolic defense of liberal democracy, which I
think is true. But the way that they go about
their analysis I think is heavily flawed, Because yes, I
do think he represents a defensive liberal democracy, I just

(01:29:44):
don't think that's necessarily.

Speaker 4 (01:29:45):
A good thing. Yeah.

Speaker 6 (01:29:47):
So they talk about how fear is the kind of
the core emotion across all of Nolan's Batman films. Right,
we have in Batman begins fear and as it takes
the form of Scarecrows, you know, one of the main villains.
But we also have this terror of there being a
powerful criminal underworld which overwhelms the power of political and

(01:30:09):
social intitutions that are meant to address such criminal underworlds.
We have Batman, in his role is to fight injustice
by turning quote fear against those who prey on the
fearful right Batman is this is this terrifying symbol meant
to restore the balance of fear between the anarchic private
underworld and the gutless public spear to quote Jeffinzax right

(01:30:32):
up quote. In The Dark Knight, Nolan continues his examination
of the terror of anarchy, as well as the potential
for the state and allied institutions to abuse their enormous power.
Bain and each of Nolan's other villains attempt to exploit
fear for ideological projects, revenge or simple fun. Batman aims
to channel it to make his opponents legitimate grievances subjects

(01:30:53):
for debate in an orderly system, rather than through violent resolution,
which is not what Batman does. That man punches people.
Were we watching the same movies quote to entrust Gotham
to heroes with a face, as he says in The
Dark Knight, and to democratize Batman as a symbol that

(01:31:15):
can be embodied by anyone. That it's not that Christopher
Nolan is taking a side in our political debates. He's
simply defending a particular system through which we address them,
which is nonsense of A writer from Forbes said that
this analysis is quote a beautiful rebuttal to those critics
who viewed the film as fascistic or as a critique

(01:31:37):
of left wing populism, Batman as the defender of liberal democracy,
not of conservatism or liberalism, but the system itself from
the forces of fear and chaos. Gotham as an examination
of the frailties and pressure points that make this system
weak in the face of the unexpected and uncontrollable. While
there is indeed both praise for the role of civil
society in these films, there's also a portrait of economic

(01:31:59):
inn quality that provides the brittleness needed for men like
Baying to truly succeed. This is not a critique of
the government or private sector as so much as it
is a critique of the frailty and fragility of our
system and its institutions, and the power of symbols to
combat this fragility, which is a deeply a deeply liberal analysis.

Speaker 5 (01:32:20):
It's not even good, Like I mean, this is the thing,
this is the thing that really pisses me off about this.
So the cadre of liberal intellectuals that we've gotten in
the last like twenty years, it's like, look, you don't
have to be like unable to form coherent and that
like it is it is not a precept of liberal

(01:32:41):
like of like liberal intellectualism, that you are unable to
form a coherent argument or do any piece of analizable
like they used to be able to do this, and
then at some point, like after the War on Terror,
they just stopped. Yea, Now all we have is like
matt Iglesias and it's like these I.

Speaker 6 (01:32:56):
Think, well, like this is what Greaver talks about when
there's like a fundamental incoherhearrance, And I think this is
really exemplified by like the structure of The Dark Knight.
Rices It's a very messy film. The pacing is bad,
the plot is very convoluted. It's it's so it's so plotting,
which is often Nolan's kind of biggest failure as a
as a filmmaker in my opinion, it's it's it's very

(01:33:17):
structurally just confusing, whereas The Dark Knight is actually pretty clear.
It still has a few of those weird plot like
super plotty elements, but overall it's it's it's it's much clearer.
But in the wake of the War on Terror and
then the financial crash, there's this fundamental incoherence that kind
of seeps into everything. I have two final takes to

(01:33:37):
read say. I know, I know we are getting along here,
but I think it's important to look at what the
conservatives and the fascist rite actually said about this movie,
beyond just the conspiracy rattled ramblings that we started this
episode with. This is from The Daily Caller twenty twelve.
The film is sympathetic to the concerns of the poor

(01:33:57):
and points out that some who achieve well don't earn
it legitimately. But these themes disappear as soon as the
hulking terrorist Baine takes over Gotham City. All that criminals
are released, rich people are executed in sham trials headed
up by Baines's lunatic friends, government officials and police officers
are killed or captured. Bain claims that he is solving

(01:34:18):
inequality by leveling the playing field, but his true plan
is to perpetuate mass murder by setting off a nuclear bomb.
In this way, viewers see a familiar story unfold, one
that's reminiscent of communist and fascist revolutions in Russia, Germany, Cambodia,
and North Korea. No matter how legitimate criticisms of the economic, political,

(01:34:38):
and social order may be, any revolution that shatters the
rule of law or eliminates the market entirely will necessarily
results in greater inequality, suffering, and death.

Speaker 5 (01:34:49):
It's so funny you can tell how on the defensive
they are, like in the way you've occupied because yes,
you have.

Speaker 4 (01:34:54):
These people going like wait, social inequality is real, but
if you try to do anything to.

Speaker 5 (01:34:58):
It, it's also so f This is this is the
interesting thing about like I think I think the fundamentally
incoherence of it politically is that they've tried to graft
the French Revolution onto Occupy because like, yes, yes, the
two things that Occupy resolutely refused to do was one
have a leader and two like do any kind of
mass violence, like arguably outside of Oakland, but that wasn't

(01:35:19):
even like but that was like ok, in Oakland.

Speaker 4 (01:35:20):
Sometimes they fought the cops, like in New York, Like now,
the only.

Speaker 5 (01:35:24):
Bank window in New York that was broken the entire
time was I think it was a Bank of America
window that was broken when a cop smash of protest
just head through it.

Speaker 6 (01:35:32):
Like that's it's that's why, that's why I really don't
think the darknet rices isn't about Occupy it just like
it just isn't It arose from similar conditions that Occupy
arose from. And then in its final two months of
filming they did some parallels to Occupy, but it is
much more about the French Revolution, especially in like beans
like a vanguard, like he is a leader of this

(01:35:54):
there is there's no but there's no such role in Occupy.

Speaker 4 (01:35:56):
Now.

Speaker 6 (01:35:57):
During during the editing and final production of the film,
obviously they realize that there is some obvious parallels here,
which they do, which they did indulge in. But I
mean most of the writing and the filming of this
took place before Occupy. I think it just came from
a very similar social place.

Speaker 3 (01:36:13):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:36:13):
Also, though even as a French Revolution thing, it's incoherent because.

Speaker 6 (01:36:15):
It's like it's not like rose Beer got in there
and was like this is all a secret plot executing beggars,
Like it doesn't make any sense. It's like that's why
it has that fundamental incoherence, right. Yeah, there's one other
paragraph from the from the Daily Caller. Then we will
read something from Breitbart, like the communist parties of real

(01:36:37):
authoritarian states, Baine and his Cohurtz represent a new ruling
class that pretends to care about equality and liberation, but
in practice resorts to oppression and extreme violence. The film's
good guys are Batman and the police officers of Gotham
who bravely go to war to prevent Baine's genocide.

Speaker 4 (01:37:00):
These guys have, These guys have never had more than
two thoughts like consecutively. It's purely impressive.

Speaker 6 (01:37:06):
If the political message of The Dark Knight Risis seems muddled,
which it does, it's because real life problems can't be
solved with Batman. There is no well funded superhero with
a glut of fancy gadgets and moral incruptibility. No, A
core part of these films is that Batman is morally corrupt.

Speaker 4 (01:37:24):
This is sorry.

Speaker 6 (01:37:26):
Nor are there villains in America as damning and transparently
evil as Bane. The film doesn't offer much. The film
doesn't offer much of a practical answer for what. The
film doesn't offer much of a practical answer for what
to do about inequality, social unrest or terrorism.

Speaker 4 (01:37:47):
Great great work, daily collar God. Now where do they
find these guys? I guess I find these guys from
failed actors. So makes sense.

Speaker 6 (01:37:57):
So you mentioned Bush as being an obvious villain well
Breight part disagrees, obviously bright part disagrees. Here is here's
our final take on The Dark Knight Rises. Quote Bain,
a hulk of a man burning with resentment against a
society whose only provocation is being prosperous, generous, welcoming, and

(01:38:19):
content instead of miserable like him. That's not Bain's gripes,
but anyway, in Gotham sewers, Bain recruits those like himself,
the insecure thumbsuckers, raging with a sense of entitlement, desperate
to justify their own laziness and failure, and to flaunt

(01:38:42):
a false sense of superiority through oppression, violence, terror, and
ultimately total and complete destruction. As expected, The Dark Knight
Rises is a love letter to Gotham City. It's flawed
but ultimately decent people. It's industry and generosity, all of
which are by products of liberty, free markets, and capitalism.

Speaker 4 (01:39:06):
In other words, watch this movie in other words.

Speaker 6 (01:39:09):
In other words, just as The Dark Knight was a
touching tribute to an embattled George W. Bush, who chose
to be seen as a villain in order to be
the hero, Rises is a love letter to an imperfect America,
that in the end always does the right thing. And
Nolan loves the American people, the wealthy producers who are

(01:39:32):
more often than not trickled down their hard earned winnings,
the workaday folks who keep our world turning a financial
system worth saving because it benefits it's all, and those
everyday warriors who offered their lives for the greater good
with every punch of a clock. Nolan's love for this
country is without qualifiers, and is symbolized in all of

(01:39:52):
its unqualified sincerity, in the form of a beautiful young
child sweetly singing a complete version of the Star Spangled Banner,
just before Occupy attempts to fulfill its horrific vision of
what equality really means. Nolan, Sorry, I can't.

Speaker 4 (01:40:11):
Like this.

Speaker 5 (01:40:12):
Is this one passage, this whole thing is. It's such
a great explanation if you weren't around for for how
the Trump guys just completely blew aside all of the
old George Bush coalition because all of the George Bush
guys were fucking like this. They all talked like this.
It was this like absolutely insufferable, like since it's completely

(01:40:34):
completely sincere nonsense, it's crazy. It's still all this ship
because it fundamentally misunderstands Nolan's a filmmaker. He's purposely juxtaposing
a British child that's singing the star spangled banner at
a sporting event with this destruction inherent to America. He's he's,
he is, He's making these things kind of combat each
other like this is this is actually pretty good framing

(01:40:57):
and this guy fundamentally must understands this. Nolan's genius is
a filmmakers well, Nolan's genius as a filmmaker is, without question,
the pacing, the editing, the performances, the humanity of the
duc Knight Rises will be talked about for decades, which
it doesn't. This is by far one of his worst films.
This is widely seen as one of one of his

(01:41:18):
worst films. The editing, pacing, performances are all heavily criticized.
This is actually like a bad movie. I do like
the juxtaposition of the star spangle banner at the sporting
event with this like spectacle of destruction. I think that
plays very.

Speaker 4 (01:41:32):
Well, but like that is this is come on, come on,
like these are.

Speaker 5 (01:41:38):
The people who and this is this is the thing,
this is this, this is why the sort of trumpest
like the sort of sort of like ironic detachment stuff
became so popular because these are the people who listen
to Born in the USA and are like this rules
this rue like this is this is this is about
how America is good. And it's just like like these people.

Speaker 4 (01:41:58):
They have nothing. There's nothing going on with them. There's
just just like there's nothing going on in their heads.

Speaker 5 (01:42:03):
They don't have any ideas whatsoever. They just have that
like they just have this like reflexive flag warship stuff
and that it's awful. It's it's like the whole fucking
American right was like this. It's just like, yeah, Soland.

Speaker 4 (01:42:17):
Trumpy has just destroyed them.

Speaker 6 (01:42:18):
Because this is a really good example of nothing of
the conservative political conditions that led to populace to takeover right.
We have all of these guys who are lampooning populism
and had this very like deeply sincere neo conservative outlook,
which then got all got decimated in three years by
Trump's very kind of basic childish rhetoric just just blew

(01:42:40):
this stuff out of out of the water. I think
this is all this stuff is a very fascinating snapshot
into the politics of ten years ago. I know there's
a lot of zoomers who listened to this who may not.
It's been this politically kind of engaged in twenty twelve.
All this stuff is a very good look at that.
And I know this is too long, but the final
final thing to just like that. We will return, as

(01:43:02):
as all good superhero stories do, return to the status
quo of my paranoia. Conspiracy Reader magazine, which also had
a review for The Cabin in the Woods movie Uh,
which it thinks is a secret Illuminati message about how
there's secretly control rooms that are that are like navigating
your entire life. There's like people in control rooms who

(01:43:23):
are like controlling every every spect of your life. The
Cabin in Woods was an ironic admission of this pretty good,
Pretty good. Our technic credit controllers and manipulators are crass
and evil pretenders, able to get off only spectacles of
pain and torture. Pretty funny. There's some quite racist stuff
in the middle, which is not not even gonna mention.

Speaker 4 (01:43:42):
Oh yeah, that's the everything. It was like people were
really racist. People are still really racist. People are still
quite racist.

Speaker 5 (01:43:47):
Shit that like like you could say, ship back, like
like people who are ostensibly liberals, would say shit back
then that like would get you like thrown off a building.

Speaker 6 (01:43:56):
Today we have an article by someone who says, quote,
my author worked with Jimmy Carter on the submarine one
Killer and chased flying saucers for Project Blue Book, which
is a fascinating article.

Speaker 4 (01:44:11):
Then it talks it also talks.

Speaker 6 (01:44:13):
About here that a cern is building a matrix, like
you know, like the movie The Matrix.

Speaker 5 (01:44:18):
Fucking god we have when you do an episode about
about the should what's the silliest thing we really should
do an episode about certain conspiracies, because yeah, they are
they are certainly quite amusing.

Speaker 6 (01:44:31):
There's one other aspect in this article that I wanted
to mention.

Speaker 7 (01:44:35):
Here's the serns to Oh here it is here?

Speaker 2 (01:44:37):
What it is?

Speaker 8 (01:44:38):
This?

Speaker 6 (01:44:38):
It is in the Alister Crowley section of the article. No, no,
you know, I I think we've actually suffered enough. I
will I will let you imagine what this guy what
this guy says about Alister Crowley, Hitler and beef Vendetta.
Oh no, so I'll let you imagine what that says.

(01:44:59):
Because we we've gone on too long. I'm happy you
were able to join us in our deep dive into
the twenty twelve disaster. The Dark Knight Rise is not
very good movie. And instead, if you want to watch
a Batman film about politics and Christmas, just watch Batman Returns.
That's what I'm doing this week, So get your friends together.
Watch Danny DeVito vomit black goo for two hours watching

(01:45:21):
Michelle Feifer's Catwoman in a latex suit. It is much
much better. So that does it for us today here
it could happen here. I hope we lead a little
bit something about constituent power police superheroes and how CERN
is building a matrix and this predictive programming targeting the

(01:45:41):
next Winter Olympics.

Speaker 9 (01:45:58):
Hello everyone, and welcome to it could have here podcasts
about the world falling apart and people putting it back together.
Today I'm lucky to be joined by Margaret Kildury. She
is the host of Live Up The World Is Dying,
a podcast what feels like the end Times? And we
are going to talk about bug out bags, don't me, Margaret.

Speaker 4 (01:46:16):
Woo bug out bags or bill bags? Yes? Or I
bet they have other names. Okay, wait, can I tell
you my favorite? Yeah? I hate me? Okay, the First Preppers.
I ever met were these like weird cool anarchists twenty
years ago they had oh shit gear or OSG in
their basement. I love that. But yeah, that's great.

Speaker 9 (01:46:35):
It's basically what you're talking about, Like, it's the it's
the thing that you go for when things are going
to shit.

Speaker 4 (01:46:41):
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 9 (01:46:42):
And I think the reason we're talking about this right
is A because it's entertaining. It's always fun to engage
in hypotheticals. B Because we've got Margaret here, because she's
very knowledgeable on this stuff, and that's what she covers
on If the World is Dying. If you haven't listened
to that podcast, you should.

Speaker 4 (01:46:56):
It's very good.

Speaker 9 (01:46:57):
It's got lots of like sensible preparedness focused content.

Speaker 4 (01:47:02):
It's a fair, fair summary. Muggret, I hope.

Speaker 8 (01:47:05):
So.

Speaker 3 (01:47:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:47:06):
Our whole thing is that we're basically trying to talk
about community prep I'm not the only host in one
of three hosts. Yes, we try to talk about community
preparedness rather than individual preparedness, or rather how the two
are not at odds with each other, like how what's
best for the individual is to be part of a
functioning community, and how like the bunker mentality will get
you killed. So one of my favorite things in the

(01:47:26):
world is talking shit on preparedness done wrong. And since
most of the preparedness space skews at best center right,
but also far right, there's lots of it done wrong
that we can talk shit on. Like, for example, this
is me setting you up for.

Speaker 9 (01:47:44):
Yeah, yeah, bug out bags there it is. Yeah, that's
like a layup and a dunk basketball, understand it.

Speaker 4 (01:47:51):
We're really good at it.

Speaker 9 (01:47:53):
Yeah, there's nothing that we like more than sportsball.

Speaker 4 (01:47:56):
Yeah, okay.

Speaker 9 (01:47:56):
So the reason we talk about this today is because
I have done a lot of time recently in refugee
camps helping out, helping people, feeding people, giving them blankets,
playing with their children, doing all the things. And obviously
everyone who who enters these camps comes with a bag, right,
They bring a bag with them. They can generally have
one sort of carry on size bag when they enter custody,
and that's generally all you can carry when you're moving

(01:48:18):
across the desert mountain ranges of Baja California and Serthern, California.
And I was spend the day there and it was cold,
and it was wet, it was miserable, and I was
trying to keep people warm, and I was trying to
build shelters all day, and I was trying to just
do things along with my friends. Obviously, this is by
no means a solo effort. It's a great group of
people who you've all heard about if you listen to

(01:48:40):
this podcast.

Speaker 4 (01:48:42):
We've been out there all day. And then I got
back and.

Speaker 9 (01:48:45):
Just because I hadn't you know, had a difficult enough day,
I lugged onto Twitter dot.

Speaker 4 (01:48:48):
Com at dot com day to get worse.

Speaker 9 (01:48:53):
Yeah, exactly, I thought, what can I do? Let's be
pissed off at a fucking stranger on the internet you
don't care about and you've never met, but you let
them make you angry anyway.

Speaker 4 (01:49:01):
That's why that's what I did.

Speaker 9 (01:49:03):
I loved on, and I loved on promptly to be
greeted by some prick with I guess not your fault.
I supposedly didn't be a prick whatever. Someone someone who
hadn't quite like, someone whose idea of preparedness was heavily
influenced by the film Red Dawn and not by reality,
which is like ninety percent of the people in that space.

(01:49:24):
But this person had, you know, this this kit with
a with a gas mask with a folding AR fifteen right,
with one of those law tactical folding things, so you
can like break the buffer tube with seven or eight
magazines of ammunition. Like just like it just the sort
of stuff that, yeah, sure you would need to do

(01:49:46):
like one sustained firefight and then then what are you
going to do? But like it just really struck me
that the the juxtaposition between these two things that I
have seen people have to quote unquote bug out or
oh shit or whatever. I myself have had to leave
a place where I was go to a refuge camp
for a few days a few years ago, and I've

(01:50:08):
never seen a situation where a folding assault right for
would be that useful to me. And I have seen
a lot of people who could really fucking use a
sleeping bag or coat or a toy for their child
because their child is crying, and bring any toys, you know,
and lots of people don't have any preparedness stuff at all.
That's fine, you know, we'll start somewhere, but like, if

(01:50:30):
you're going to do this, I want you to do
it in a way that might be useful to you.
And so that is why I have asked Margaret Kiljoy
to come and help me.

Speaker 4 (01:50:39):
And the right and the problem of course with the
scenario that we discussed is that instead of having a
folding ar, they should have a folding AK forty seven
because then there's no need to break a buffert.

Speaker 9 (01:50:50):
Yeah that's okay, Yeah, yeah no, and you can scavenge
ammunition from the Cubans. Yeah, I see what you're doing. Great, Yeah,
yeah no.

Speaker 4 (01:50:57):
And although actually, if I was gonna deep into gun
stuff and talk about how like people who are obsessed
with AK forty sevens while living in the United States
are also not doing preparedness right because anyway.

Speaker 9 (01:51:07):
Yeah yeah, and actually ak's break all the time. I
have personally seen that happen, and you cannot, in fact,
not maintain them at all.

Speaker 4 (01:51:13):
Yeah, and there's more parts available for a hares. But
the point is that most of the time you don't
need firearms for most crises. Many crises are made worse
by having a firearm. And Okay, so, like a lot
of your background is with refugee stuff, and you've had to,
you know, escape to a refugee center, and you work
in refugee situations all the time. One of my main
backgrounds is that I lived out of a backpack for

(01:51:35):
a long time when I was a crosspunk, right, I
was a homeless hitchhiker who you know, hopped freight trains
and slept under bridges and things like that. And I
come from more of a position of privilege than a
lot of people who do that. I chose to do
it as part of an activism lifestyle and stuff, you know.
And so I'm not trying to like get stolen valor here,
but I spent a very long time living outside. And

(01:51:55):
the people who live outside all the time, who have
only a backpack know what goes in the backpack really well.
And you don't see homeless people with guns, and it's
not because they're not legally allowed to have them. People.
I mean, well that's part of it in some situations, right,
it's you know, you don't have a safe place of
story and something. It is a lot more complicated, but

(01:52:18):
like you're even talking about a group of people who
often have to resort to violence to defend themselves and
largely not using firearms to do it, because in most
situations they're more trouble than they're worth. Because someone who's
living outside is going to have to deal with cops
all the time. Someone, And this is what you were
talking about when when we were talking about getting ready

(01:52:39):
for this episode. It's like, well, let's say you have
your ear ar and you approach the border.

Speaker 9 (01:52:45):
Yeah, you're getting engaged really fast by like seventy five
Border patrol guys who have been training their whole life
for this. Not saying that they're particularly like a well
trained or efficient, but they have been waiting for the
one person with an assault rifle who they can fire
at a very long time.

Speaker 4 (01:53:01):
Yeah. And the only purpose of having a firearm is
if it makes you and the people that you care
about more likely to survive.

Speaker 9 (01:53:09):
Yes, which is doesn't happen if the entire Border patrol
is shooting at you, Right, that's bad.

Speaker 4 (01:53:16):
That's a worse time. Yeah. No, It's like it's like
I always carried a legal knife, you know. Yeah, Like
wherever I was, I have a legal length knife and
that was fine. Yeah EF fishing.

Speaker 9 (01:53:29):
Yeah, look into knife flaws though before you before, like
a knife flows in America almost as complicated as gun laws.

Speaker 4 (01:53:35):
And we live in California. You can have a cane sword, yeah.

Speaker 9 (01:53:38):
That's right, but I can open carry a large machete
on my belt as long as I don't attempt to
conceal it.

Speaker 4 (01:53:43):
Oh yeah, regularly. I used to hitchhike with a machete.

Speaker 9 (01:53:47):
So yeah, yeah, yeah, I like there were times that
I've been doing stuff with a machete.

Speaker 4 (01:53:52):
Yeah, exactly, I needed. I was kind of a campaign
I did actually once get a.

Speaker 9 (01:53:56):
I think it's a part ranger of someone like I
was coming in from free diving and when you freedom
if you always have a.

Speaker 4 (01:54:00):
Knife, because I've experienced this.

Speaker 9 (01:54:02):
Actually when you dive and you get tangled in fishing
nets and your breathold diving.

Speaker 4 (01:54:08):
You need to get out so you don't die.

Speaker 9 (01:54:09):
Yeah, you have a knife and you cut yourself out.
You're supposed to have that knife. So yes, yes, I'm
supposed to have that knife. So yeah, you can open
carry a knife. It just depends on the county. You're
in a California, but in San Diego County, Okay.

Speaker 4 (01:54:22):
So to talk about bugout bags though, yes, what we
do want them for is going to be different person
a person. And what I recommend that any preparedness minded
person or any person I hope more people become preparedness minded,
is to think about the crises that could happen that
are likely, and think about what you would want and
how you would deal with them. And my argument up

(01:54:43):
front is that this can reduce anxiety if you do
it right, if you fixate on these things forever. Like
a lot of people don't engage withparedness because they don't
want to be anxious about it. They don't want to
think about a forest fire.

Speaker 2 (01:54:54):
Right.

Speaker 4 (01:54:56):
But if you I've said this before, maybe even on
this show, I'm not sure. It was like when I
lived in a cabin really in the woods, like I
currently live in a house in the woods, but there's
like a little bit of buffer. But I, you know,
built a twelve by twelve cabin and like in that,
I cut down two small trees and built a cabin, right,
And so I worried about forest fire, and so I
thought about what to do, which was make sure that

(01:55:19):
I always had like you know, some sort of radio
and or sell communication available to me, keep a bag
ready with all the stuff I need, keep make sure
that my car is half a tank of gas. And
that's it. That's all I was going to do to prepare.
There's more you can do. That's all I was going
to do, so I stopped worrying about forest fire, and

(01:55:40):
so I think, done right, a go bag or a
bug out bag or preparedness in general can reduce our anxiety.
And the thing that I think people get wrong is
that for most people, moving over land by yourself and
surviving in nature is not a likely reci response to crisis. Yes,

(01:56:02):
there are some times where that will be true, and
even like you're talking about, like working at you know,
in the border, where people are having to like build
shelters and things like that. But for most people, I
don't even say put a sleeping bag in your go
bag because size might be more important than that. Yeah,
having other warm stuff and emergency blankets and things like that,
I do absolutely advocate, you know, But then again, I

(01:56:24):
often make sure that I have a sleeping bag around
because I do live in the middle of the woods,
and if my cars were broken and there was a
bad thing, I would have to go over land ten
miles to get anywhere.

Speaker 9 (01:56:34):
You know, Yeah, because RS situation is not the same
as everything, and I think that's right.

Speaker 4 (01:56:38):
But for most people, I advocate that you think about
your bug out bag as your get out of town
for a weekend bag. It is the you live in
a hurricane area. It is a blizzard's coming. It is
your stalker X is in town and you don't want
to be around. It is a I decided all of
a sudden, I'm going to go visit my family and

(01:56:58):
I don't want to pack. You know, it is just
a it's you're more likely to spend a night in
your car on the road somewhere, like in a blizzard.
Let's say, you know, so, what do you need to
spend the night in the car in your car in
the snow, And the answer is not that much. You

(01:57:19):
need water and you need warmth. Food is like great, right,
yeah we can kind of. I mean, you should have
a little bit of snacks to so you why not
have snacks around?

Speaker 9 (01:57:29):
Yeah, it's in a stressful situation, having something to eat,
it helps, it calms you down, It helps you deal
with that stress.

Speaker 4 (01:57:35):
Yeah. And one of the other things that we were
talking about is we're talking about how you know, Okay,
so like the basic level that I advocate, I advocate
actually even more than having like your your bug out
bag is having a smaller pouch that is your emergency bag,
and that goes into whatever other backpack or purse or

(01:57:55):
anything else you're carrying around. And I actually like make
these and distribute them to my friends and stuff. Oh
here's a fun tip. If you're the prepper in your
family or friend group when it comes time to holiday presence,
if you give them preparedness stuff that has to be
on top of whatever else you give them. I guess
you can't just give them your weird niche stuff. Yeah,

(01:58:17):
like you have to give them what they want, as
well as the wind up radio, you know.

Speaker 9 (01:58:21):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's fair if sad and you can't
just recycle gear that you wanted to, try to just
give it to your aunt till sent thing.

Speaker 4 (01:58:31):
I mean you can you just also give other stuff.

Speaker 9 (01:58:33):
You can just each a bad nissoor nephew or whatever. Yeah,
non binary, try sibling.

Speaker 4 (01:58:41):
So. I say that these emergency kits are three different things.
They are a hygiene kit, because like the thing that
I need the most often when I'm suddenly didn't prepare
and I'm suddenly somewhere and I'm staying out late is
like a folding toothbrush, right, or like some wet wipes
in a packet, or you know, I don't know, like
nail clippers or something.

Speaker 9 (01:59:02):
Yeah, like if you I'm a person who used insulin, right,
So like I have a lot of bags insulin in
and there it's in most of my bags because I'm
up Shake Creek without it.

Speaker 4 (01:59:11):
Yeah, it is better to have it, you know. Yeah,
And I'm very lucky.

Speaker 9 (01:59:15):
To have access to inculin and even have some spend
what everyone does, because pharmaceutical industry is terrible.

Speaker 4 (01:59:20):
It is. Yeah, that's actually one of the hardest things
when talking to people about preparedness is like getting more
of your medication is very complicated, and a lot of
the methods that people should consider are not legal, and
I'm not going to advocate them.

Speaker 9 (01:59:35):
It is legal to buy medicine, I think for your
own personal usage in countries that are not the United
States when you're traveling there anyway.

Speaker 4 (01:59:40):
Yeah, that makes sense. Okay, So you want hygiene, you
want a basic first aid kit, like kind of on
the like booboo kit level, right, which is as if
it's like not important, but actually, like you just don't
want Infections can get real bad. So you just want
to make sure that you have the ability to clean
a small wound and treat it right and uh, what
is it. It's hygiene, it's medical, and then it's survival stuff.

(02:00:04):
And for me, this is just like tiniest amounts of
One of the cool things about preparedness is that the
little first things you do are so much more likely
to be useful than the complicated things later. Right, Like
having a big lighter is so much more likely to
be useful than flint and steel and fire starter and

(02:00:25):
all of the bells and whistles.

Speaker 9 (02:00:27):
Yeah, do you left my flint steel? But you're right,
it is, Oh, I exponentially more useful. Like I've been
so like I've been at the border a week, right,
people are called it's very windy. I have a flint
steel in my truck. I have used that zero times.
I have gone through an entire eight pack of big lighters.
I've refilled my Zippo twice, given away all my lighters. Yeah,

(02:00:48):
because yeah, when your code in fact, you're not inclined
to start shaving little pieces off a large metal rod.

Speaker 4 (02:00:54):
Yeah, exactly, And like I keep little bits of fire
starter and things like that in the emergency kits. Basically,
anything that is like light and cheap and useful goes
into these kids. For me, you know, but the stuff
that I prioritize is stuff like the first lighter is
more useful than the second one, you know. Yeah, yeah, Margaret.

Speaker 9 (02:01:13):
Do you know what's probably not light, certainly not cheap
and rarely useful gold?

Speaker 4 (02:01:19):
Gold.

Speaker 9 (02:01:20):
That's right yet gold, you've known it. But let's hear
about gold. All right, we're back. That was an apercentth
that you don't need. But Margaret was about to pivot,
I think, to telling you some more things that you
do need, right, So.

Speaker 4 (02:01:35):
Go ahead, Margaret. Okay, So tiny little emergency kit. You
just put it in everything, and it's just like it's
always useful, and it's like everyone I give these two
is always a little bit like, oh thanks, And then
about a year later they're like, oh I was at
this protest and someone cut themselves or just some really minor,
strange random thing. They're like, it always comes up that
it's really useful that I have this tiny little flashlight

(02:01:56):
in a bag always all right, yeah, your and and okay,
so there's that. And then if you want, you could
have a designated bug out bag and you keep it
in the front closet or you keep it under your bed,
or you keep it wherever is like kind of useful
to you. Some people might keep them in their vehicles.
That really depends on where you live. I wouldn't necessarily
advocate it in a lot of places because vehicles are

(02:02:18):
more broken into and also have more temperature fluctuations, and
things like advil and like over the counter medications aren't
like they don't do so great with like wild temperature fluctuations. Okay,
so you get yourself a bag, and what kind of
bag really depends on what you're talking about. Like we
were showing each other our bags before it.

Speaker 9 (02:02:39):
Yeah, that's what a little insight into our interactions off mic.

Speaker 4 (02:02:43):
Yeah, and uh, and I'll describe mine, then you describe yours.
I'll and I'll describe mine. You describe yours, and then
say why you have it, and then I'll say why
I have mine? Okay, you got this. I basically have
like a regular day pack computer bag. It just a
there's no waste bell, it's just it's designed hole the laptop.
That's my bug out bag. What I have is a mystery.

(02:03:07):
It's a thirty two liter bag.

Speaker 9 (02:03:09):
It's called a scree thirty two For those of you
who want to be just like me, and I have
it because I really like the carriage system. Mystery round
Us is just like a yoke, so it carries like
a frame backpack, but it isn't big and bulky.

Speaker 4 (02:03:22):
Yeah, and that's cool.

Speaker 9 (02:03:24):
I've used it, Like I think I've used this bag
on every continent in the world apart from the Antarctic.

Speaker 4 (02:03:28):
Like, it's just a.

Speaker 9 (02:03:29):
Bag that I can put stuff in that is a
size that it's not obnoxious, and it works for me
for almost everything. I day hike with it, I go
on urban nights with it. I use it as my
carry on on the plane. Yeah, it's just a useful
bag that is not covered in molly and multi caam
and such things. Yeah, and I know it works for me,

(02:03:50):
Like I've used it for a long time, and I
know that it's suitable for my body with heavyweights.

Speaker 4 (02:03:55):
Yeah no, And like I love I love bags, and
I will happily geek out about bags, and like that
bag is a me too. It's pretty nice. And this
is like my least favorite backpack, right, I have like
other backpacks, Like my day hiking bag is like a
twenty five leter you know, actually has a waste strap.
And I like really like it, but I keep it
packed with my day hiking stuff, you know, And so

(02:04:19):
you do a lot of outdoor sports, yes, yeah, yeah,
and so it really easily doubles as all of that, right.

Speaker 9 (02:04:28):
Yeah, exactly, Like I'm you know, most weekends, you know,
I try and sleep outside at least.

Speaker 4 (02:04:33):
Once a month.

Speaker 9 (02:04:34):
So yeah, you know, I just sort of have that
stuff anyway, because it's part of my day to day.

Speaker 4 (02:04:39):
Life and mine is designed from the period of my
life where I basically would go to whatever anarchist coffee
shop was in whatever town and just hang out there
and work all day, right yeah, and so like and
I was like, and I used to have a bug
out bag that was like a little bit bigger. It
was like a tactical bag. It was a three day
assault pack, you know, and I like perfect, And to

(02:05:01):
be fair, I lived in a cabin in the woods
and it was twenty twenty in the odds of major
military crisis were much higher, and you know, but like,
but right now, I'm just like, this is my bag
that comes with me when I go to my friend's
house or when I go see my family. And because
it's the important thing is that you have the bag

(02:05:21):
that is available, like it. The piece of gear that
you have is always better than the piece of gear
you don't have.

Speaker 9 (02:05:28):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you don't have to save up two
hundred bucks for you know, a mystery round you and
I'll spray bag.

Speaker 4 (02:05:33):
Right, But if your thing is being outside all the time,
like you know, you should have those things, right yeah,
And okay, so what I put in my the Everyone's
gonna have really different stuff in their bug out bag.
But some of the lists that I have as my
like kind of like core of it that I would

(02:05:55):
recommend that most people would want to have some version of.
And you should add things and we could talk about
these things. Your passport and print copies of any essential
records such as your animal's rabies vaccine card and medication
and things like that. This is the stuff to help
you ease bureaucracy as you move through the world. This

(02:06:15):
is actually a thing you need to be careful with
because then sometimes you don't want to bring your passport
everywhere you go, right, you don't want to lose.

Speaker 3 (02:06:21):
It, you know.

Speaker 4 (02:06:22):
But if it's your bug out bag that's waiting for
you in case of an emergency, I think that's a
decent place to keep it. Yes, I agree. You want
an encrypted USB stick with copies of all these important
documents such as your driver's license, your passport, house and
vehicle titles or rental agreements, insurance information, contact information for
family and friends, vaccination records for your animals, and the like.

(02:06:43):
It clearly shows that I have an animal and not kids.
I'm sure there's other stuff that you would Yeah.

Speaker 9 (02:06:49):
I mean, this is just making me think of I
ran into a guy the other day who had come
to the US with his dog or a patrol wouldn't
process him along his dog, so volunteers kind of looked
after his dog while he was protested and then returned
to his dog to him. Yeah, but now he's going
to have to go through the process of certifying the

(02:07:10):
dog's vaccinations.

Speaker 4 (02:07:11):
Maybe the dog will have to get them again.

Speaker 9 (02:07:13):
Luckily, he and the dog are on a road trip
to their final home with the place where they want
to live, where they're meeting up with friends and families,
so that they're having a great trip across the country
right now. Like, yeah, that just having easing that transition
through bureaucracy by having those documents to hand, I'm sure
would have been great.

Speaker 4 (02:07:30):
Yeah, and like, Honestly, the more I read about people
dealing with refugee crisis and like, oh, I don't know
the right to return various places, the more you can
prove like the ownership of the stuff you own and
things like that. Yes, yeah, it can be very easy
to become like.

Speaker 9 (02:07:51):
I understand that lots of this bureocracy exists to make
people legible and therefore taxable by the state. Right, if
we're talking from an anarchist perspective, I understand why it exists,
James Scott a lot recently. If that fair enough there,
but I in a scenario where the state exists, which
is the one we are in, then there are advantages
to being legible and understendable by the state, and certain

(02:08:14):
disadvantages to being eligible to the state when you're trying
to get your house back.

Speaker 4 (02:08:19):
And even like again my time as a as a
krusty traveler my twenties and into my thirties, the single
most useful thing that I carried was my driver's license
without warrants, because I used to have my ID run
every single day. Because actually it's actually part of the
reason I have a stranger version to carrying a hiking

(02:08:39):
style backpack around often is because I learned when you
look like a punk and you have a travel like
a hiking backpack, you are now the cops main target. Yes, yeah,
yeah yeah, and so like whereas when I have like
a computer bag, I'm not the cops main target, and
that makes my life fasier, you know. Okay, small amounts

(02:09:04):
of emergency food, such as protein bars that you want
to like, swap out every couple of months. I recommend
putting in the ones that you don't like because otherwise
you'll eat them, because otherwise you'll be like, oh, I
could go tasty snack.

Speaker 9 (02:09:17):
Yeah, yeah, this is sorry. Just before we recorded a
bar from this bag that I've been showing you.

Speaker 4 (02:09:22):
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 9 (02:09:24):
There's a product called a Humanitarian Daily Ration, which is
a vegan emory.

Speaker 4 (02:09:28):
That they give to refugees. Oh wow, yeah, there's great.
Everyone can eat them.

Speaker 9 (02:09:33):
Yeah, They're very good to have, and I have those
for emergency food because if one can eat them, ready,
do I feel like I want to eat them?

Speaker 4 (02:09:39):
So yeah, I've been recently keeping I haven't eaten one yet.
I've been keeping these flavorless emergency ration bars, like the
lifeboat rations. Yeah, they're just like I think like oil
and sugar and flour or something. Oh sounds yeah, and
it's like, you know what, it's three days worth of
food at twelve hundred calories a day, barely three but whatever. Yeah, okay,

(02:10:02):
So I recommend having that and you know, making sure
to swap that out. Overall, I advocate not putting in
things that will go bad, because you are going to
forget about this until it becomes a habit for you
to check it every month or so. Yeah. Okay. A
travel hygiene kit with toothbrush, floss, toothpaste, moist tallets, foam
ear plugs for sleeping in noisy environments. That one is

(02:10:24):
like way more. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I am.

Speaker 9 (02:10:29):
And it's a time in my life when I was
mostly living in my car, traveling around France racing bicycles.
I got caught in a snowstorm along with a number
of other people who were traveling in various vehicles, and
some of them were traveling in order to make an
asylum claim, and we all got to this refugee camp
where basically we're sleeping on the floor of a large building.

Speaker 4 (02:10:49):
And I did not sleep for.

Speaker 9 (02:10:51):
Days because people had children and you know, it's loud,
and like, yeah, those air plugs would have been the
most important thing.

Speaker 4 (02:10:57):
Yeah yeah. And it was like I actually started carrying
them just because of going to shows when I used
to do that more. And then I was like, oh,
these are really useful in all kinds of situations. They
cost like nothing and they save your hearing. The bang
for your buck, the non bang for your buck is
very good. Yeah, the buck is great. Uh, nail clippers,

(02:11:19):
your daily wear, makeup, and anything else you might need
to goes in your hygiene kid, any prescription or over
the counter medications that you rely on. And one thing
that came up from a doctor friend of mine recommended.
When I was first started making these kids for my friends,
I was like buying bulk aspirin and putting it into
little drug baggies you know, yeah, smut. And my friend

(02:11:40):
was like, you need to put blister packs in instead
blister packs being the like little yeah, individually individually labeled ones. Yeah. Yeah,
to explain this thing, yeah, yeah, we're professionals. Yeah, because
the police have less cause for suspicion if you were
certain and this is clearly advil, it says, so it

(02:12:04):
is packaged in a way that is not convenient for
people to make their own packages. Yeah, and so and
actually it's funny is that of all the ones that
I put into people's things, the only thing I haven't
been able to get blister packed is caffeine. Because I
put caffeine into these things because a lot of people
are addicted to it, and also because it's useful to
be able to stay awake in certain environments. And so

(02:12:24):
I actually put in like different like caffeine powder drinks
or caffeine gum or other things. Yes, yeah, it's going
to say, get MRI caffeine gum. Yeah. And then also
and I give them to my friends who are about
to drive sleepy. Is like yes, And that's the main
use that I have had. It's amazing. I don't drink caffeine.
It's amazing how much caffeine I have on me at

(02:12:45):
any given time. Yeah, A change of socks and underwear,
and these should be like climate appropriate, especially like wool
socks are like the most useful thing in the world.
Just as a general rule, I think that a packable
range jacket and or poncho is incredibly useful here. A
lot of people like the ponchos that are sort of

(02:13:06):
a slightly more military style because you can use them
as a tarp and make a shelter if you need.
That might be overkill for your particular environment. You might
also just have, like your hiking rain jacket that goes
in there. A puffy packable warm top is a little
bit of a like bonus item. It's I think having
a warm upper layer is really important for a lot

(02:13:27):
of it's until you've slept outside without a sleeping bag,
you have no idea how cold it is in the
summer to sleep outside. Yeah, on the ground. Especially whenever
I'm watching movies or reading books and like the kid
runs away from home or they're like on the and
they go and they sleep in the woods, I'm like,
the fuck they did? They did not sleep that night? Yeah?

Speaker 9 (02:13:46):
Yeah, you lie on your side, holding yourself, wondering while
you made these choices in life.

Speaker 4 (02:13:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 9 (02:13:52):
Yeah, I might add that if you're going to have
a specific like a puffy jacket for this, and you
don't own a puffy jacket yet. A couple of things
to consider that generally, compressing down will help make it
lose some of its loft, so it will be less lofty. Yeah,
so you don't want to keep that stuff compressed for
a very long time or super compressed, right, don't cram
it into the smallest ball. Remember that when you buy

(02:14:15):
down jackets or the baffles which are the sewing lines
across it, like, those are areas that are not insulated, right,
So you don't actually want the ones with the with
one hundred little baffles going down them.

Speaker 4 (02:14:25):
Oh interesting, that makes sense.

Speaker 9 (02:14:26):
Yeah uh. And then synthetic insulation does a lot better
with with with with wetness. It retains some of its
insulating properties. And my final thing with down jackets, I
think a lot about down jackets. I'm sorry, is get
one that is a size bigger than you would normally
get for like, oh yeah, because you don't really want

(02:14:50):
to be taking stuff off when you're cold.

Speaker 4 (02:14:52):
You want a jacket that you.

Speaker 9 (02:14:53):
Can just put on over all your stuff. We call
it a ballet Parker in the in the in the
sort of mountaineering community. But it's like a static thing. Right,
So you're hiking your mount to climbing, you stop, you
immediately check that thing on over everything that keeps you
warm until you start moving again.

Speaker 4 (02:15:09):
That makes sense to me, I advocate personally, I advocate
for synthetic. I advocate because it's cheaper, you can leave
it compressed, and because it insulates better in the wet
and it is much heavier for its and larger for
its insulating value. But for me, like having spent a
lot of my life like sleeping and sleeping bags with

(02:15:31):
no tarp or whatever and just being like, I'll just
fucking deal whether it's not raining that hard, you know, like.

Speaker 9 (02:15:36):
Yeah, yeah, totally, Like I have fucked some really expensive
down sleeping bags, even the oil on your skin, and
will actually eventually closet that down to Yeah, like that
you really have to baby some ultra light down stuff,
which is fine.

Speaker 4 (02:15:50):
Like if I'm mountaineering.

Speaker 9 (02:15:51):
If I'm not that I will baby my bag because
I don't want to carry extra shit.

Speaker 4 (02:15:55):
But this is not that exactly, Like if you are
trying to do a through hike, you might look at
this very differently. And there's a version of the world
where your crisis might involve moving over the mountains in
winter to get out of a country that has just
elected a fascist who says that he wants to kill
all the communists or whatever. Yeah, I've spoken to those people. Yeah. Yeah,

(02:16:17):
and so like in that situation, get the mountaineer and shit,
you know. Yeah yeah, okay, other stuff to have in
this bag a heavy duty trash bag. You can put
all your stuff in it to keep it dry. Yeah. Yeah,
there's like all these like arguments about how to keep
your bag dry and overall. And I'm curious if this
has been your experience. People have been moving away from

(02:16:38):
like pack covers where you cover the pack and instead
just put everything inside the pack into something that's waterproof.

Speaker 9 (02:16:44):
Yeah, that's what I've done for a very long time.
You can spend a lot of money on stuff sacks
like the event ones that see. To some it make
it cool because they have a one way breathable fabric,
so you squeeze them and the egg goes rules, it
doesn't go back in.

Speaker 4 (02:16:57):
It's pretty cool.

Speaker 9 (02:16:58):
Yeah, But then you end up with these really hard
bricks of clothing or whatever that like you can't kind
of make them fill the space, right, They just end
up being like solid, so sometimes they don't pack as well.

Speaker 3 (02:17:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 9 (02:17:08):
I have used three milimeter contract great bin bags for years.
The amountain into the deserts. You can sleep in them,
you can make them into a poncho. You can fill
them with brush and make them into a sleeping pad.

Speaker 8 (02:17:22):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (02:17:22):
Great items, And it's sketchy, but a lot of people
who are stuck living outside in very cold environments will
wear them close to their skin for like a really
intensely heating insulating layer. But it's sketchy because then you
sweat like hell, and you can freeze to death if
you really careful. Yeah, that's some like that's some life

(02:17:42):
or death shit. Yeah exactly. I'm not telling you how
to do that on air here, you know, yeah.

Speaker 9 (02:17:49):
Google, But yeah, they have a lot of usage. You
get them to gather water too, I've done that before.

Speaker 4 (02:17:53):
Oh that makes sense. Cash. Cash is really useful. The
amount of cash you want to carry has to do
with the amount of actually you're willing to put into
a bag that just sits there if it does nothing. Yeah,
gold of course, Yeah, totally have so many thoughts about
Golden air. Yeah yeah, yeah. Anyway, that's beside the point.

(02:18:14):
That's where home prepping. Okay, you want to spare USB
battery and charging cables. I would advocate an octopus cable
that has like mini USBC and lightning charger all on
one cable so you don't have to keep track of
multiple cables for multiple devices.

Speaker 9 (02:18:28):
Yeah, right right here, I'm trying to look what the
brand is of mine, because I got one recently. When
I'm working in places that are conflict zones, especially places
where I think I might have to go like peace
out to a bomb shelter for a few hours, days whatever,
I like to have a little pouch with all my
charging and medical and essential stuff.

Speaker 4 (02:18:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 9 (02:18:50):
This is called a leave a cable and I found
it to be very handy because it's like stiff and
it doesn't cables get twisted and frayed a lot. Okay,
doesn't do that. Yeah, Yeah, a little buzz marketing for
you there.

Speaker 4 (02:19:03):
Yeah. Now, I'm gonna look into those later because I
as much as I'm like, oh fuck all the gadgets,
know what I'm trying to say, You don't need all
the gadgets, but they're kind of cool and like and
the size of extra battery you have is depending on
what you're doing. You know, like, if you're reasonably sure
you're gonna be around power, just have a little one
and because like you know what, you're gonna be the
one who saves the night. When everyone's drunk at the

(02:19:24):
bar and someone's phone is dead and they're the only
person who has uber set up right, and you know, yeah,
Like I've been trying to advocate that per snacks are
the best example of prepping and that everything that like
men are trying to do is like catching up with
the fact that like women are actually culturally in our
society like better at prepping. Yeah, but okay, uh, I

(02:19:48):
put a milar emergency blanket in. These are these like
you know, they seem almost gimmicky. They're these incredibly light
little plastic tarps.

Speaker 3 (02:19:57):
Right.

Speaker 4 (02:19:58):
Uh. One probably my life when I was thirty, like
on my like twelfth or thirteenth birthday, when I like
woke up getting hypothermia five miles from the road in
a wet tent. So I'm just like, yeah, no, eyes
are great, Like, yeah, they're great.

Speaker 9 (02:20:12):
They that you can do a hypothermia wrap with them,
use them for signing if you're in a different kind
of situation. We can't use them in the refuge count
and working because one of them floated into a transformer
and that oh wow that yeah, so yeah, that's your
that's your caveat there doing get some around high voltage power.
But yeah, there's things you're not going to get anything

(02:20:33):
warmer for that size. It's the size of a couple
of credit cards stacked on top of each other.

Speaker 4 (02:20:37):
Yeah, totally, And like in mind I have like a
slightly nicer one because I don't have a sleeping bag.
In mind, I have like an emergency bag. Sleeping bag.
I've never used it, I don't.

Speaker 9 (02:20:46):
Oh yeah, the there's a company called Survive Outdoors. Fuck,
I'm saying a little companies today by autu you have
a shit you want, don't care. There's company go Survive
Outdoors Longer that makes one that's like about the size
of a beer can.

Speaker 4 (02:20:58):
Yeah that's that's yeah, I think, Yeah those are great. Yeah,
I've sucked up.

Speaker 9 (02:21:02):
It's at night one of those when I was doing
like the like look how ultra light I could be stuff.

Speaker 4 (02:21:07):
It's not great, but like but here you are recording here.

Speaker 9 (02:21:11):
I am not defintely with my full set of digits,
so like I got really complain, you know, yeah exactly.
And those things won't float off into a power transform.
They're a bit heavier.

Speaker 4 (02:21:20):
Yeah yeah, yeah, no, that would be yeah, it would
be an advantage of it. Uh yeah, and the other side.

Speaker 9 (02:21:27):
So again people will see you, right, which a contrary
to what you might have seen on YouTube. You want
people to see you most of the time. Most crises
you're going to encounter, you're not going to be hiding.

Speaker 4 (02:21:37):
Right. Sometimes when you're like hitchhiking and shit, you do
have to not be seen. And then I get really
nice houp, right, all the tents are and so I
kind of want one of the like new bullshit Camo
ultra light tents. But yeah, that's I don't hitchhike. I
have a fucking truck. It's bullshit. I'm fine. A full
water bottle. I think it's always worth having a full
water bottle in your in your bag. This is the

(02:21:59):
heaviest thing in your bag. Water is just fucking wonderful
and you need way more of it than you think
you do when you're exerting yourself. I have been historically
advocating a single wall steel canteen so that the water
can be boiled in an emergency directly in it. But
a lot of people have a preference for lighter weight
and that makes a lot of sense, and also even

(02:22:20):
having something that just looks a little bit more civilian
also makes a lot of sense. The ultra light. I
actually think the ultra Lighters might be right on this one.
And they use the to use a brand name. They
all get those smart waters, but then they don't keep
drinking smart water. They drink one and then they clean
it and refill the bottle of tap water. Yeah, or
with the soil of filter fits on top of it,

(02:22:40):
which is very handy. Right. Yeah.

Speaker 9 (02:22:42):
The thing I do like about a single waves change
bottle a the smart water bottles. You fill them up
and then they freeze. They can break right and b
I like to do like the analogeen baby, you know
where you boil some water, put it in that thing
and then you are cold. That comes into bed with you. Yeah,
it's very pleasant experience.

Speaker 4 (02:23:02):
Yeah, no, that that makes sense to me.

Speaker 9 (02:23:06):
I don't know what happened to full water full full
steel water ball, that's true. Someone on the head with it. Yeah,
they're coming back from that. Even the guy with the
folding ar, he's not getting up. You give him a
couple with the well.

Speaker 4 (02:23:17):
And if we're going for cross punk, I also recommend
a lock attached to a chain. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, Well,
if you have a bicycle. True, that's true. Yeah, yeah,
areas of our interest. Yeah, okay, a buttane lighter, a
bit lighter, an emergency whistle. This is the most. Like

(02:23:37):
I was at a firearms training and we were talking
about a bunch of stuff and people were like, all right,
and this is how you like signal the following, you know,
like like range clear kind of stuff, like use a whistle,
bah blah blah blah. And everyone's like, I didn't bring
a whistle. I'm like I got three in my bag,
Like what are you doing?

Speaker 8 (02:23:53):
Yeah, amateurs, Yeah, if they're light and cheap and useful,
like the number of people who wouldn't have done in
the woods because if they had a whistle, like more
than anything else.

Speaker 4 (02:24:04):
Because people think that the solution to our problems is
fix it yourself. Usually the solution to problems is get help.

Speaker 9 (02:24:12):
Yes, yeah, yeah, And that's a great like you're going
to use a lot less energy whistlingly shouting.

Speaker 4 (02:24:17):
Yeah. Most if hiking backpacks.

Speaker 9 (02:24:20):
Will have a chest buckle that is also a whistle,
and if they don't, you can probably change it.

Speaker 4 (02:24:25):
Yeah, and that rules. That's the kind of shit I
like to see. Yeah, it's well thought out. It's cover. Yeah,
we love it. And when I when I lived on
a lab project, I made everyone put the hurricane whistles
by their door so that like we didn't always have
a good cell reception or whatever, and so that there's
an emergency, we can everyone has a whistle loud enough
to be heard by everyone else on the large products.

Speaker 9 (02:24:45):
Oh yeah, you know spot. Yeah, it's a lot less
money than a ham radio, which is something I've been.

Speaker 4 (02:24:50):
Right and like I'm not anti having like you know,
Miwaukie talkies and stuff, but yeah, yeah, sometimes you're just like, no,
I have a hurricane whistle, or even I just have
a regular whistle. Okay, a folding knife to print them?
What's that?

Speaker 9 (02:25:02):
You could three D print them pretty good ones. Oh
that's cool, like three to printing me give them out, now,
that's cool.

Speaker 4 (02:25:07):
That's awesome. I keep a folding knife in these bags.
I also usually just have one on me. But and
you know, the least weapon looking knife you can get
is going to be a bang for your buck in
terms of like being able to go with you lots
of places. Obviously, this isn't going to your carry on luggage. Yeah,
A rechargeable headlamp or flashlight, and then a basic first

(02:25:31):
aid kit. That's my you know, there's there's all kinds
of other stuff. If you're going to be hiking, if
you're and if I know I'm going to be like
in a lot of situations, one of the first things
I would add as a tarp and a sleeping bag.
That would be like, yeah, the next things to go
in sleeping bags are pretty big.

Speaker 9 (02:25:51):
Yeah, I definitely have that stuff in a general sense,
both for doing this and for Germany enjoying out all
this stuff. It really helps if you can have your
shit organized in stuff sacks and labeled so that you
know if if you should you need to leave your
house in an emergency, right, it's going to be more comfortable.
If you have a sleeping bag and inflightable pillow and

(02:26:12):
a top, you can grab them in ten seconds if
you've got them labeled right, and it's this will also
help you. Like I like to camp, the worst part
about camping is packing. So if I have all my stuff,
I can just be like, Okay, I've got a sleep system,
I got to cooking system. Yeah, twenty four hours of food,
I'm ready to rumble.

Speaker 3 (02:26:30):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (02:26:31):
No, it makes sense. But you know what, who else
is ready to rumble? Oh yeah, yeah, Reagan, they're ready
to fight at all times. Yep, here's an ad for fighting.

Speaker 9 (02:26:46):
We're back and we've now learned to fight thanks to
the adverts.

Speaker 4 (02:26:50):
Yeah yeah, so moy tyejj. Actually that's what's fun. Yeah yeah,
that's it's cool. Kraft Magar Yeah yeah, yeah, the the
Rag and Gold of martial arts. Yeah, okay, so what
do you Okay, so I have other stuff that I
keep in my ad my bag that is like more

(02:27:11):
fun or I think incredibly useful, but not in the
like dead basics that I keep. But what else do
you keep? Do you have any like fun stuff or
other stuff that I didn't mention? Yeah, a couple of
other things. I think.

Speaker 9 (02:27:25):
One of the things I use the most this is
my little bag that I have that if I have
to go to area, shelter or certain thing. It's very
very small. It's like, I don't know, it's the size
of a small paper book is would go into a
bigger bag. But one of the things that I use
I take on trips with me and I use everywhere
I go. This is like a quarter inch bit driver.
Oh nice, Yeah, and it spins, It spins, and it's

(02:27:48):
just a tiny screw driver with where you can change
the bits.

Speaker 4 (02:27:51):
Yeah, and then I have a set of bits. Yeah.

Speaker 9 (02:27:54):
So like I use this bad boy all the time, right,
I use it when I get water in my podcast equipment,
which is a thing that I am wont to do.

Speaker 3 (02:28:02):
Uh, you have to.

Speaker 9 (02:28:05):
This is my this is my this is my laddism. Right,
I'm breaking the frame of big podcast.

Speaker 4 (02:28:12):
Keep a sledgehammer specifically for breaking frames. Yeah, machine frames
if you run out. Yes, yeah, there's one thing I
fucking hate. It's a weaving machine. And I take them
down whenever I can.

Speaker 9 (02:28:25):
But this this guy is really useful, right, Like you know,
you could be staying with you could be There are
a million things right there. Your bed in your hotel
is loose and you need to tighten it. You need
to take a part of your podcasting machine. There is
you know that there's something wrong with your phone.

Speaker 4 (02:28:40):
Whatever.

Speaker 9 (02:28:40):
It is like a screwdriver and a few little bits,
super handy. You want to help your friend put together
to my kea furniture not a problem. So it's very
very small. It's you know the size of pretty the
size of a cigarette and then the sort of bits
and the size of another cigarette. Very easy to carry
around with you everywhere. I am an appreciator of sporks.

Speaker 4 (02:29:02):
Oh that's on my that was on my follow up
list too. Oh excellent. Good.

Speaker 9 (02:29:06):
Yeah, I'm a person who thinks about sporks a lot.
You guys can read my sport reviews at backpacking dot
com if you want to. Yeah, that's that's not a joke.
It's just a reflection on the sad person I am
so yeah a Okay, are.

Speaker 4 (02:29:20):
You a long handled spork or regular spork? See?

Speaker 9 (02:29:24):
The long handled spook is nice for when you're going
into an MRI type meal. How often you're going into
an MRI type meal compared to like the pocketability.

Speaker 4 (02:29:31):
Of a normal spork.

Speaker 9 (02:29:33):
Right now, that makes sense to me. Yeah, the mr
spoon is the best bargain eating device. It weighs six grams,
which is less than a titanium spork. You can dip
into hot water. It doesn't melt, it doesn't break like
a like a traditional plastic like. It's not like a
fast food plastic spoon. It's its best bang feed back
when it comes to spoons. Okay, when I a shape,

(02:29:55):
when I was when I was more of a crosspunk.

Speaker 4 (02:29:58):
Yeah. Always on my waist belt was a titanium spork
with a P thirty eight can opener keychain to it. Yes,
because no matter what, I could get into a can
of Amy's chili.

Speaker 9 (02:30:13):
The amount of people I've seen I took camping lots.
Sometimes I'll go with my trucks. Sometimes I go by
myself on my feet. The amount of humans I've seen
with very expensive overlanding setups trying to open a can
of food on a rock. It's a lot of humans. Like, Yeah,
a can opener is a very handy thing.

Speaker 6 (02:30:31):
No.

Speaker 4 (02:30:31):
And the P thirty eight or P fifty ones, these
are the tiny military ones. They weigh nothing. They're like
ten of them would fit on a credit card, you know.

Speaker 9 (02:30:41):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I have pretty six my truck. But yeah,
they're very small. In terms of other things I do,
like zip ties, zip tize, very small, very handy. Yeah,
you know, always fix it with zip ties. I'm just
looking at this bag in front of me and thinking
what else I have.

Speaker 4 (02:30:57):
That's remarkable. I save the day with zyptized when when
I was driving in the woods with my friend when
some part of her exhaust system fell off of her
van and oh yeah, and I was like dragging on
the ground. And I didn't normally carry ziptize, but my
dad had always been like, ziptize they're amazing, and I
was like, sure, dad, whatever, So like I had some

(02:31:17):
in my truck.

Speaker 9 (02:31:19):
Yeah, very hand Gyptized and duct tape certainly in your vehicle.
You can fix most stuff that wants fixing with ziptized
and duct tape. I just like to wrap the handles
of my stuff, Like I have a little bit lighter here,
and I just wrap that induct tape and then I
have the duct tape.

Speaker 4 (02:31:34):
Yeah, and I have the big lighter.

Speaker 9 (02:31:36):
Duct tape also is great tinder. You can start fire
with it, so okay, really has many many uses.

Speaker 4 (02:31:43):
You can use one lighter to light the other lighter
on fire. Yeah. Yeah. You could also take the tape
off your lighter if you wanted to avoid lighting your lighter.
All right.

Speaker 9 (02:31:50):
If you did light your lighter, you'll get a moment
of excitement when it goes poof, yeah, unless you're holding it,
which case you'll get a moment of pain.

Speaker 4 (02:31:58):
Which could be exciting.

Speaker 9 (02:32:00):
Yeah, it could be exciting. Hopefully you're close to a hospital. Yeah,
and yeah, I like to carry it like a little
pre made there's a I like to.

Speaker 8 (02:32:08):
I do.

Speaker 9 (02:32:08):
Like to vacuum seal stuff. It's the thing that I enjoy.
I recently got a vacuum sealer, been getting really into it,
so like I'll vacuum see your little packets of pills,
little little plasters, band aids for American listeners, yeah, inter
little packs and give them to people or keep them places.
It maybe helps them with aging a little bit. But
having a having a bag at that you could just

(02:32:30):
open in an emergency. It's super handy. The other thing
that I like, and largely this is just because I
go to places and I have these tiny little fishing
chem lights, like they're designed for certain fishing floats. They're
very good if you need to like see something and
so that's closed sticks for for the non tactical crowd yeah, yeah, yeah,

(02:32:53):
or silooms for the British tactical crowd.

Speaker 4 (02:32:57):
They're very handy.

Speaker 9 (02:32:58):
You need to mark something at night, right, They're not
going to be great for like I have flares in
my car. My car breaks down in the dark grown
and I don't want people to pile into the back
of it. But for smaller things. You're going around a
campsite and you want to be like, oh, like, you know,
there's a a piece of rebar sticking out the ground here, right,
you can crack one of those bad boys and light

(02:33:18):
it up.

Speaker 4 (02:33:19):
No, that makes sense. They're also just a way to
bamboozle young children.

Speaker 9 (02:33:24):
If you are around kids at night and you can
suddenly make light appear, just make sure they don't eat them.

Speaker 4 (02:33:30):
Okay, But see, this actually gets to something that you
brought up earlier. A lot of crisy situations, an awful
lot of them you're not alone, and then an awful
lot of them. Things like being able to entertain kids
and things like that is like, yeah, a genuine need,
like a very useful thing. And so like I know

(02:33:51):
people who keep you know, like I mean usually people
who have kids, but they keep a stuffed animal or
something like that in their bag.

Speaker 9 (02:33:58):
Yeah, Like I was, so there are a load of
children in these camps down the border, and that's very
fucked up. But like I realized didn't have any toys,
so I got loads of these tiny little stuffed animals
that someone had donated. Like they're about the size of
a golf ball. And it gave each child an animal right,
so they could play with the little animals, and animals
could be in community with each other.

Speaker 4 (02:34:17):
That's amazing. Yeah.

Speaker 9 (02:34:18):
Yeah, they were so pumped. And it wasn't just that
the kids were like, yeah, I got a toy. The
parents were like thank fuck, like they are so bored, right,
or like I have a small finger puppet that I
was using the other day to entertain them. I didn't
where I found it. I found it in one of
the vans we were using. Yeah, it's like a seal
and something like that makes all the difference when you
have nothing to do with your kids. And I guess,

(02:34:41):
like along those lines, when I am bored, I have
a kind lap on my phone. I think it works
with all the phones obviously. Jeff Bezos is a bell end.
But like that's age.

Speaker 4 (02:34:51):
It's a British word. Yeah, yes, it's a British word.
We don't like beis. Yeah. It was the end of
a dick the Tumescent Park.

Speaker 9 (02:34:58):
Yeah yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, for those who weren't clear
in the audience, but yeah, Jeff bases a dick. But
the kindlap is nice. You can also have PDFs of
books on your phone. But it's again like I'm telling
you from personal experience, when you're sitting in a giant
warehouse with nothing to do for a few days. Somewhere,

(02:35:18):
I have a picture of building a fort with this
little you know, she's like three or four, you know,
and have folks who had come, folks were refugees and
we were just bored. We built a four out of
miler blankets. But someone had an inflatable ball which we
just played with for hours because you're so bored.

Speaker 2 (02:35:36):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (02:35:36):
So yeah, just having like.

Speaker 9 (02:35:39):
An app on your phone where you can read books,
it's probably going to be more useful to you than
that shore barrowed rifle that you had to pay two
hundred dollars tax stamp and that effects come into your
house for.

Speaker 4 (02:35:48):
Yeah, every every crosspunk, I know, you always carry what
you need, and then you carry something and you almost
like set your personality around this. Like like I knew
a guy who was not an ultra lighter and his
name was Pogo Dave and a fucking stick, Yeah, an
old metal like rusted pogo stick and I almost broke

(02:36:10):
my knee with that thing. Oh yeah, in the middle
of nowhere.

Speaker 9 (02:36:15):
Yeah, I don't know if younger listeners will be familiar
with the pogos. I think that's like, do you think
the zoom is in the audio?

Speaker 4 (02:36:21):
I have no idea there. They're probably looking up yeah
and yeah and so having something. And it's funny too,
because every like prepper manuals, like and a deck of
cards and this is like technically true, but I'll tell
you what. People actually plays hot dice, having some like
six sided dice to play this really annoying game called
hot dice, or like bring some D and D dice

(02:36:44):
and just start playing like role playing games with people.
You know, Like there's like having the entertainment things and
then the other thing. I think it's really worth considering
having a small musical instrument. I find that, like there's
a reason that cross punks play music everywhere they go. Yeah,
are you about to pull out harmonica?

Speaker 9 (02:37:04):
I have a harmonica in a pistol magazine pouch that
I take on the side of my bag when I
go to places. Hell yeah, yeah, we took me so
when rub It I did on the Amo Trape, but
I left my harmonica with the people who you're going
to hit singing at the start of our show. They
played their guitars and sung for us cool. I left
them the harmonica and they play it now, yes, harmonica,
and then go harmonica.

Speaker 4 (02:37:26):
The one thing that I have in my bug up
bag that's a little bit extra, but I swear by
I have a Nintendo Switch and a bunch of physical
game cartridges for it. Because when twenty twenty hit, I
lived in the cabin in the middle of nowhere. I
was off grid, I barely had any electricity. I basically
had to walk half a mile to my car and
like charge things in my car for a while until

(02:37:48):
I got together enough money to get some solar panels
and some batteries and stuff, right, because I had not
planned on having my cabin be suddenly where I lived
well like full time, not going anywhere else lived. And
the first thing I got was a little tiny it's
called a bit boy, and it is a like tiny

(02:38:08):
game boy that has every single Nintendo and Super Nintendo
and Psychogenesis game pirated onto it. Oh wow, and immediately
ordering that off to the podcast and it costs like
forty I don't know much they cost now, but they're
not expensive because they're little weird three D printed pirated
things and they like use almost no electricity and so

(02:38:33):
it uses way less electricity in a cell phone and
that saved my sanity. And then when I finally got
my shit together enough to get a Nintendo switch and
I could play Skyrim, like and it's not that I
had nothing to do. People are like, oh, you don't
need to entertain yourself in crisis because you're busy. It's like, look,
you can probably only physically work on building your house

(02:38:54):
to get it ready for the apocalypse. You think you're
living in for maybe fourteen hours a day, you know,
maybe ten to fourteen hours.

Speaker 9 (02:39:03):
Yeah, and if you don't do manual labor right now,
then it might be a little lesson.

Speaker 4 (02:39:06):
Yeah, Like you have downtime, not always in every situation,
but like injured need to sit around and do something
or you'll you know, like like entertainment is like actually
really useful. Yes, And if you bring a paperback, and
I recommend it, bring one that you've already read because

(02:39:31):
you know you like it. I like, normally don't reread
books all that much, but when I need to turn
my brain off, a book that you've already read, for
a lot of people is going to do better. And
if you haven't, So you should get a jump start
on this by reading.

Speaker 2 (02:39:46):
Eh.

Speaker 4 (02:39:47):
My book is Stay There in ceul Island a magnificent
All right, thanks? Yeah?

Speaker 9 (02:39:52):
Yeah, so so you can do the table tip roleplaying
game that we did.

Speaker 4 (02:39:55):
Yeah, yeah, there's an Escape from Insul Island tabletop roleplaying
game that's coming out next year. Well, there's this little
zen version of it that I think you can download now,
but it's going to be slightly better. Yeah, I could
keep that in your bag.

Speaker 9 (02:40:06):
The other thing I was going to plug that I
forgot about was download the Google Maps onto your phone
or whatever brand apps you want, maps you want, and
have a watch that that doesn't need a battery. I
think that's super handy. You can use the watch to
tell the direction of south, which what I'll seek if

(02:40:26):
you other compass directions if you really need to.

Speaker 4 (02:40:28):
But you can tell the time.

Speaker 9 (02:40:30):
You would again be surprised, how like people might imagine
that after X happens, say it needs to tell the times.
It won't matter. You probably will need to tell the
time in most of your crises, you know, even to
know if something has happened or it's not happened, right,
And so being able to do that is very handy,
and having a watch that powers itself is a way
to do that.

Speaker 4 (02:40:49):
No, that makes sense. I use one that doesn't power itself,
but it like lasts three weeks or so on. I'll
charge and like vaguely charges itself from the sun, but
not very efficiently. There's also and I know there's like
now we're getting into the weeds. Okay, here's the other pitch.
It's fun when besides doing the basics, you can nerd

(02:41:10):
out about it, and you can do it cheaply. Because
nerding out about it is free. You can find your
other friends that want to talk about this bullshit and
talk about with this bullshit. You don't have to go
out and buy fancy crazy shit. Sometimes you want the
fancy crazy shit, but most of the stuff we're talking
about is super cheap, and then you can have the

(02:41:30):
joy of talking about the shit and getting into the
weeds with it. But there's a there's an app I
think it's called Keywix, and it lets you download Wikipedia
and read it on your phone offline. Yeah, that would
be good.

Speaker 9 (02:41:45):
I've just remembered one more thing that Marker and I
talked about off Michael a while ago, because this is
the kind of people we are.

Speaker 4 (02:41:50):
Yeah, it's called bank line.

Speaker 9 (02:41:53):
Oh yeah, yeah, so the tactical crowd of very enter
power cord because it's a little bit stronger and you
pick out the inside lines and stuff. It's also very
shiny and could be annoying to not sometimes if you
get some bank line and you need to construct a shelter,
which is relatively unlikely, you can. If you need to
repair your clothes and you have a needle, you can

(02:42:14):
pick it apart and use it for that. But if
you're bored, like everyone should know a few knots, you know,
if you know how to do like a I guess
figure eight, not if you know how to do a
truck has hitched a bowl and knot and you're probably
pretty good if you could do those, honestly, Like, you
can do a lot of stuff to a justice prussic,

(02:42:34):
maybe another friction hitch.

Speaker 4 (02:42:36):
You can practice those when you're bought. It's fun.

Speaker 9 (02:42:38):
It's okay. It may not be as fun for you
as it is for me because I'm that kind of person.
But if you like to learn stuff and then you
can share that with someone else, right, it's fun to
teach people and then they can teach you a couple
I have taught and learned not from people from half
a dozen nationalities in the last month.

Speaker 4 (02:42:56):
And it's fun anyway. It's cool to share.

Speaker 9 (02:42:58):
It's also like when you're in a situation being like, huh,
having a moment where you're not thinking about the ship
situation instead of thinking about that's cool.

Speaker 4 (02:43:05):
I learned that not.

Speaker 9 (02:43:06):
Yeah, it's very nice actually and so yeah, like a
Brazilian rodeo guy taught me a couple of knots that's cool.
The other day, Yeah, it was sweet. We were helping
We had dumpster dive some tents that Susan g coheman
was throwing away, and so we were helping put those
up and in one case we had their fly sheet
but not the tent, so we were trying to work

(02:43:27):
out how to make them to the top. Did some
different knots.

Speaker 4 (02:43:30):
It was fun.

Speaker 9 (02:43:31):
And bank line is cheaper than para cord. Probably don't
need the paracord with a fishing line inside. In ninety
nine percent of circumstances to get some bank line number
thirty six bank line.

Speaker 4 (02:43:42):
Okay, and then the other the cross punk challenges. You
just start fixing your clothes at dental floss. Oh yeah,
the gloss is great for that. Yeah, yeah, yea.

Speaker 9 (02:43:51):
I get a sale needle and dental floss and you'll
smell minty fresh.

Speaker 4 (02:43:55):
Yeah. And when I make my emergency kits, I take
little they're sort of sewing new needle vials. I like
them better than the little slidey kits where everything gets
lost all the time. Yeah, And I just get these
little tiny vials. They're clear so everyone knows what's in it.
And I put safety pins, regular sewing needles, and leather
sewing needles into them. And then when you're sewing with leather.

(02:44:16):
The other thing that I recommend people carry it Okay,
Like in two thousand and three, if you are a crustpunk,
the things you need to have on you are at
all times. You need a folding knife, you need a headlamp,
you need a multi tool with pliers, and you need
a sleeping bag and like and a spork and a
can opener. Yeah, and that's kind of it in a

(02:44:38):
lot of ways.

Speaker 9 (02:44:39):
Yeah, don't combine those things, do it. Be the person
with the spark multi tool now, because you'll get beans
in your knife and fucking.

Speaker 4 (02:44:46):
Well, actually that's called a hobo tool. There actually are
multi tools that are but oh sorry, spork then it's
a spoon and a night it's a spoon and on
one side and for yeah, yeah, yeah, those suck. Don't
anything that folds. Anything that folds, you should keep it
away from food. Your folding knife is going to get
so gross. I mean, you'll do it anyway, but I

(02:45:09):
think we're kind of probably at time.

Speaker 9 (02:45:12):
Yeah, yeah, I could keep going. That's going to get tweezs.
But okay, yeah, this is enough stuff.

Speaker 4 (02:45:16):
Yeah, if you want to hear more of this kind
of content, yeah, Margot, just a whole other podcast. Oh
I was going to say to you that I'd trick
them into having me on to talk about this stuff more.

Speaker 9 (02:45:27):
But yeah, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll have you back.
We'll do a whole other one film. But Margaret also
has a whole other podcast which you should listen to.
What's it cool and where can people find it?

Speaker 4 (02:45:35):
Margaret? Well, okay, so the Prepper one is called Live
Like the World Is Dying. Your podcast whar it Feels
Like the End Times? It comes out every Friday. And
I also have a cool Zone Media podcast called cool
People It's Cool stuff where I talk about history and
about cool people who did cool stuff. And James has
been on both of these podcasts. So if you want
to hear us continue to banter about things, there's so

(02:45:57):
many more available options available to you.

Speaker 9 (02:46:01):
Yeah, maybe download them for those terrible times when you
when you just need the calming voice of Ma and
Margaret talking about bags.

Speaker 4 (02:46:08):
That's right, well, just to like just to like, it's okay,
you're going to get through this. I know that things
seem bad right now, and they are bad, but it's okay.
We'll just still an hour of that. Yeah, yeah, to
an hour of that. I'm proud of you.

Speaker 9 (02:46:26):
Yeah totally yeah, yeah yeah, we will be your anarchist affirmations.

Speaker 3 (02:46:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 9 (02:46:33):
That's another podcast. This has been it could happen here.
Thank you, Margaret.

Speaker 4 (02:46:37):
That was wonderful.

Speaker 7 (02:46:54):
Hello, it's Sharene. Welcome to the pod. I'm back to
talk about you guessed it Palestine because we need to
keep talking about it. There is still a ongoing genocide
happening in Gaza, and if you ask me, a slower
genocide that's been happening for the last seventy five years
in Palestine. And there are so many aspects of history

(02:47:20):
and of what's currently happening that are worth delving into. Today,
I wanted to focus on a new investigation by plus
nine seven to two magazine, and this is an investigation
that was confirmed by the Guardian, and it reveals that
Israel is deliberately killing large numbers of Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

(02:47:40):
Nita remind you that the Palestinian population in Gaza is
mostly women and children. Does it mean that palestine men
are disposable because they are not. That is something I
do reject about constantly saying women and children. It's only
because I think it reinforces the idea that every Palestinian
man could potentially be a terrorist. Really, they are the

(02:48:01):
ones pulling people out of the rubble and treating them
in the hospitals, and Palestinian men are incredible, so their
loss is just as tragic. My point is, though, that
I keep seeing Israeli officials on news outlets and everything
spewing lies and bullshit about how the IOF is trying

(02:48:24):
everything they can to avoid civilian death, and that is
just simply not true. And now there is definitive proof
that it's not true with this investigation. As of it's recording,
the death toll in Gaza has risen to over twenty
one thousand people. This number includes those who are presumed
to be dead underneath the rubble. At this point, the

(02:48:45):
number of killed and displaced Palestinians as higher than the
number of killed and displaced Palestinians during the Nekaba of
nineteen forty eight. Right now, almost one point nine million Palestinians,
which makes up about eighty of Gaza's entire population, have
been displaced. I really want you guys to absorb what

(02:49:07):
that means to eclipse the numbers of the Nekba in
nineteen forty eight, which is the catastrophe that coincides with
the establishment of the State of Israel, which up till
this point was the greatest act of terrorism against Palestinian people.
So the fact that we have eclipsed the numbers of
the Nekba, which amounts to about seven hundred and fifty

(02:49:30):
thousand Palestinians being displaced and about fifteen thousand people dead.
To have eclipsed those numbers in about two months is
truly horrific, and I hope that comes across when you
hear these numbers. Humanitarian organizations that once warned the world
of an impending catastrophe in Gaza, are now describing an apocalypse.

(02:49:50):
The UN Humanitarian Chief said the situation in Gaza is apocalyptic.
Israel's relentless bombing of Palestinian society has taken it past
the point of collapse. Bombs are still falling as winter
draws near, and millions of Palestinians are starving, dehydrated, sick,
and living in unsuitable and unsustainable conditions and shelters. In

(02:50:13):
addition to this, all cell service in northern Gaza is down.
Palestinians can't contact their loved ones and they can't share
the reality of what is going on on the ground.
Cutting internet access and service is a very deliberate act
on Israel's part to silence people the same way they've
been targeting and killing journalists. Israel does not want the

(02:50:34):
world to see the truth, and cutting internet access is
a great way for them to avoid this. Keep in
mind that news outlets are not allowed in Gaza, so
the Palestinian journalists on the ground, most of whom are
very young in their early twenties, they are the ones
being targeted because they're the ones showing the truth with
their photos and videos and activism and news. So I

(02:50:58):
want you guys to keep in mind how deliberate everything
Israel does is when it comes to cutting internet, food,
water from Gaza, it is deliberately starving and cutting off
these people. Nowhere in Gaza is safe. Israel is bombing everywhere,
including the areas they tell Palestinians to go to to
find safety from the bombs. So there are no safe zones.

(02:51:21):
Regardless of what Israeli officials are telling us. Everywhere is
unsafe because Israel is bombing everything, including the areas they're
supposed to go to for safety. Israel is not trying
in the slightest to avoid civilian casualties. And that's what
we're going to talk about today. So this investigation is

(02:51:41):
based on conversations with current and former members of the
Israeli intelligence community, as well as reports from Palestinians and
independent data. It explains how destroying Palestinian homes and society
and the process of killing Palaestinian civilians is very deliberate
as well. It explains the tactics Israel has used to
kill Palestinians at an accelerated rate during the past two months,

(02:52:04):
which amounts to a clear cutcase of genocide as well
as genocidal intent. I truly can't believe there are still
so many people in denial that what is going on
in Palestine is in fact a genocide, because I've heard
truly the most inane arguments as if to prove their
point this isn't a genocide, whether it's about population growth

(02:52:26):
or the fact that Israel hasn't killed enough people. But
I'll have to get into that later, only because I
will go on forever and just start ranting. But if
every genocidal scholar and Israeli historian I can think of
agrees this is a genocide, if humanitarian organizations are also
telling you this is in fact, the genocide is a genocide.

(02:52:47):
Genocide is about intent on the part of the person
committing the genocide or the entity commuting the genocide. It's
about intent and about the actions. It is not about
birth rate or whatever the as Ionists will try to
argue about. It's not about that, and what's happening is genocide,
whether you want to hear that or not. This investigation

(02:53:07):
also explains how Israel seeks out what it calls quote
unquote power targets to bomb power targets are non military
targets like homes and public buildings like schools and hospitals,
and Israel targets and bombs these for the direct purpose
of terrorizing Palestinian civilians and harming their society. Israel's deliberate
attacks on Palestinians and their society are illegal and inhumane,

(02:53:31):
to say the very least. Then again, something being illegal
truly means nothing at this point, because Israel has violated
international law for decades without any repercussions whatsoever. Something being
illegal means nothing, and the un feels useless because nothing
ever happens. This is not the first time Israel has

(02:53:52):
murdered Palestinians indiscriminately. It's not the first time they have
violated international law or committed war crimes. But nothing ever
happened before, so why would it happen now. Permissive air
strikes on non military targets and the use of an
artificial intelligence system have enabled the Israeli Army to carry
out the deadliest attack on Gaza. Ever, so, the Israeli

(02:54:13):
Army's expanded authorization for bombing non military targets, the loosening
of constraints regarding expected civilian casualties and the use of
an artificial intelligence system to generate more potential targets than
ever before. All of this has contributed to the destructive
nature in the deadliest military campaign against Palestinians since the
Nekpa of nineteen forty eight. As I mentioned. This investigation

(02:54:38):
by plus nine seven to two magazine and local call
is based on conversations with seven current and former members
of Israel's intelligence community, including military intelligence and air force personnel,
who were involved in Israeli operations in the besieged Gaza Strip.
In addition to this includes Palestinian testimonies, data and documentation

(02:54:58):
from the Gaza Strip, as well as official statements by
IOWS spokespeople and other Israeli state institutions. Compared to the
previous Israeli assaults on Gaza, the current attack, I will
never call it a war. This is not a war.
I have said this before. A war indicates both sides
are equal and have an army, but you literally can't

(02:55:19):
go to war with an entity you are occupying. Regardless,
compared to previous assaults on Gaza, what's happening now is unprecedented.
Israel has named the current attack on Gaza that is
happening now, the current genocide. It has named its actions
that have started in the wake of October seventh, after
the Hamas attack, Operation Iron Swords, and we've seen the

(02:55:42):
Israeli armies significantly expand its bombing of targets that are
not distinctly military in nature. This includes private residences as
well as public buildings, infrastructure, and high rise blocks, which
sources say the army defines as these power targets. Israel
seeks out these power targets to bomb. Power targets again,

(02:56:02):
are non military targets like homes in public buildings, and
Israel again targets and bombs these for the purpose of
terrorizing Palestinian civilians and harming their society. And this is
according to intelligence sources who had first hand experience with
this application in Gaza in the past, who confirmed that
not only is it mainly intended to harm Palestinian civil society,

(02:56:23):
but it's also meant to quote create a shock that,
among other things, will reverberate powerfully and lead civilians to
put pressure on Hamas, as one source put it. Several
sources spoke on the condition of anonymity, and they confirmed
that the Israeli Army has files of the vast majority
of potential targets in Gaza, including homes, which stipulate the

(02:56:44):
number of civilians who are likely to be killed in
an attack on a particular target. This number of casualties
is calculated and known in advance to the army's intelligence units,
who also know shortly before carrying out an attack roughly
how many civilians are certain to be killed. So the
Israeli Army knows just how many Palestinian civilians they'll kill

(02:57:04):
with each strike, and Israel kills them anyway, fully aware
of the number of civilian death that will ensue. In
one case discussed by these sources, the Israeli military command
knowingly approved the killing of hundreds of Palestinian civilians in
an attempt to assassinate a single top hamass military commander. Allegedly.

(02:57:26):
One source said the numbers increased from dozens of civilian
deaths permitted as collateral damage as part of an attack
on a senior official in previous operations two hundreds of
civilian deaths as collateral damage. Another source said nothing happens
by accident when a three year old girl is killed
in a home in Gaza. It's because someone in the
army decided it wasn't a big deal for her to

(02:57:48):
be killed, that it was a price worth paying in
order to hit another target. We are not Hamas. These
are not random rockets. Everything is intentional. We know exactly
how much collect damage there is in every home. The
investigation revealed that another reason for the overwhelming civilian death toll,
as well as a number of targets in Gaza, is

(02:58:10):
the widespread use of an AI system called Habsaora aka
the Gospel. The Gospel is largely built on artificial intelligence
and can generate targets almost automatically, at a rate that
far exceeds what was previously possible. This AI system, as
described by a former intelligence officer, essentially facilitates, in his words,

(02:58:32):
a mass assassination factory. Israeli sources said that the increasing
use of AI based systems like Habsora allow the army
to carry out strikes on residential homes where a single
Hamas member lives on a massive scale, But testimonies of
Palestinians argue that the army attacked many private residences where
there was no known or apparent member of Hamas anywhere

(02:58:54):
inside or any other militant group residing such strikes can
knowingly kill entire families in the process, and that is
exactly what has happened and keeps happening. In the majority
of cases, the sources said, military activity is not conducted
from these targeted homes. One of them said, I remember
thinking that it was like if Palestinian militants would bomb
all the private residences of our families when Israeli soldiers

(02:59:18):
go back to sleep at home on the weekend. The
source was apparently critical of this practice. He's still a
fucking soldier, so I don't give a shit. Another source
said that a senior intelligence officer told his officers after
October seventh that the criteria around harming Palestinian civilians were
significantly relaxed. As such, there are quote cases in which

(02:59:39):
we shall based on a wide cellular pinpointing of where
the target is killing civilians. This is done to save
time instead of doing a little more work to get
more accurate pinpointing, said the source. The result of these
policies is the staggering loss of human life in Gaza.
Since October seventh, over three hundred families have lost ten

(03:00:02):
or more family members in the Israeli bombings over the
past two months. That number is fifteen times higher the
figure from what was previously Israel's dead las war on
Gaza in twenty fourteen. One source said there is a
feeling that senior officials in the army are aware of
their failure on October seventh and are busy with the
question of how to provide the Israeli public with an

(03:00:24):
image of victory that will salvage the reputation. I just
think it's really pathetic that an entire army will bomb
and obliterate a piece of land with millions of people
on it because they're essentially embarrassed that they failed. It
really just makes you realize that humans are small, silly

(03:00:47):
creatures that are just too powerful for their own good.
Getting your ego slighted is not an excuse for committing
a genocide, and there's nothing you can say to make
me think otherwise. From the first moment after the October
seventh attack, politicians in Israel openly declared that the response
would be of a completely different magnitude to previous military

(03:01:08):
operations in Gaza. Idspokesperson Danielle Hagari on October ninth, said,
the emphasis is on damage and not on accuracy, and
the army swiftly translated these declarations into actions. Israeli intelligence
divides its targets in Gaza into four categories. The first

(03:01:28):
is tactical targets, which include standard military targets like armed
militant cells, weapon warehouses, rocket launchers, anti tank missile launchers,
launch pits, mortar bombs, military headquarters, observation posts, and so on.
The second is underground targets, mainly tunnels that Hamas has
dug under Gaza's neighborhoods, including under civilian homes. Aerial strikes

(03:01:52):
on these targets could lead to the collapse of the
homes above or near the tunnels. The third is what
we're talking about earlier power targets, which includes the high
rises and residential towers and the heart of cities, as
well as public buildings like universities, banks, and government offices.
The idea behind hitting such targets, say three intelligence sources

(03:02:13):
who were involved in planning or conducting strikes on power
targets in the past, say that a deliberate attack, devastation
and destruction of Palestinian society will exert civil pressure on Hamas.
The final category of targets are family homes. The stated
purpose of these attacks is to destroy private residences in

(03:02:33):
order to assassinate a single resident suspected of being a
Hamas member or an Islamic Jahad operative, but Palestinian testimonies
explained that most of the families that were killed did
not include any operatives from any organization. In the early
stages of the current genocide, the Israeli army appear to
have given particular attention to the third and fourth categories.

(03:02:55):
According to statements on October eleventh by the IOF spokesperson,
during the first five days of fighting, half the targets bombed,
which amounts to one thousand, three hundred and twenty nine
out of a total of two than six hundred and
eighty seven or deemed power targets. Just to loop in
the people that maybe don't know. But IOF is used
instead of IDF by a lot of Palacini activists because

(03:03:18):
they define it, and I define it as Israeli occupation
forces and not defense forces, because what they're doing has
never been defense. So you might see many people call
it IOF because that is what they're referring to. Israeli
occupation forces. One source said, we are asked to look
for high rise building with half a floor that can
be attributed to hamas. Sometimes it is a militant group's

(03:03:40):
spokesperson's office or a point where operatives meet. I understood
that the floor is an excuse that allows the army
to cause a lot of destruction in Gaza. That is
what they told us. If they would tell the whole
world that the Islamic stuh Hot offices on the tenth
floor are not important as a target, but that its
existence is justification to bring down the entire high rise

(03:04:02):
with the aim of pressuring civilian families who live in
it in order to put pressure on terrorist organizations. This
itself would be seen as terrorism, so they do not
say that. As expected. Testimonies and videos from Gaza, unsurprisingly
show that some of these targets that have been attacked
have been attacked without warning and without prior notice given

(03:04:24):
to their occupants, thus killing entire families as a result.
Let's take our first break here, because that's what we do,
and we are back you and data for the period
up until November eleventh, by which time Israel had killed
eleven thousand and seventy eight Palestinians in Gaza stated that
at least three hundred and twelve families have lost ten

(03:04:46):
or more people in Gaza. For the sake of comparison,
Operation Protective Edge in twenty fourteen, twenty families in Gaza
lost ten or more people twenty in comparison to over
three hundred now. In addition, according to the UN, at
least one hundred and eighty nine families have lost between

(03:05:07):
six and nine people, while five hundred and forty nine
families have lost between two and five people. According to
the UN, and this number is changing and unfortunately rising
even as we speak. One point nine million Palestinians, which
is the vast majority of the Strip's population, have been
displaced within Gaza since October seventh. The IOF claims that

(03:05:28):
the demand to evacuate the strips north was intended to
protect civilian lives. However, Palestinians and most of the world
see this for what it is that this mass displacement
is part of a new Nekba, an attempt to ethnically
cleanse part or all of the territory. And I'm not
just making up the phrase new Nekba because Israeli politicians

(03:05:49):
and officials have described what is happening right now as
a nekba, as well as stating genocidal intent in many
other ways. So Duve Waxman, the Directtion euro of UCLA's
Y and S. Nazarin Center for Israel Studies, talked a
little bit about this in a phone interview with NBC News.
Some of that rhetoric can be seen as potentially genocidal

(03:06:11):
from the way it dehumanizes Palestinian civilians. He noted that
the right wing ministers who made comments like this are
quote not in the war cabinet, so their awards can
only have so much impact on Israeli policy. But still,
hearing ministers of any kind in public, officials with millions
of followers and eyes on them, make suggestions like flattening

(03:06:32):
Gaza with a nuclear bomb should be concerning. Nonetheless, Agriculture
Minister Avi Dickter, a member of the right wing Lecud party,
told Israeli Channel twelve that the quote unquote war would
be Gaza's nekba, using this Arabic word for catastrophe that
we all use to describe the nineteen forty eight displacement

(03:06:53):
of Palestinians as well as their genocide. He said, from
an operational point of view, there is no way to
wage a war as the Israeli army seeks to do
in Gaza with masses between the tanks and the soldiers.
When Dictor was pressed on his use of the word
nekba to describe the situation in Gaza, he said again,

(03:07:13):
doubling down, Gaza nekba twenty twenty three, that's how it'll end.
A week before these comments were made, Israeli Heritage Minister
Amahai Iliyahu apologies from his pronouncing it, but also not
really sparked outcry after he suggested that dropping a nuclear
bomb on the Gaza strip was quote one of the

(03:07:34):
possibilities in the current conflict. Also, it's important to remember
that the increasingly hostile rhetoric from Israel's far right cabinet
ministers has not only centered on Gaza, but also the
occupied West Bank. An example of this is when Israeli
Finance Minister Bezialel Simotrik, who was a prominent settler advocist,

(03:07:54):
called for the creation of quote sterile zones in the
West Bank in a letter that he sent Anya who
and Yoov Galant, the Defense Minister, and this letter was
shared with Israeli media. Such sterile zones, he said, with
block Palestinians from entering certain areas and bar them from
harvesting olives close to Israeli settlements in the enclave. This

(03:08:16):
letter also came during the annual olive harvest, with ol
of farming being a primary source of income for many
Palestinian farmers in the West Bank. It also came during
a surge of settler violence against Palestinians in the area,
which has only increased since then. There was a law
that was passed a couple of years ago. I believe
that essentially allows Israeli soldiers to shoot unarmed Palestinians without

(03:08:38):
any legal repercussions, and we're seeing that happen in real
time in the West Bank. So as this genocide is
unfold Gangaza, keep in mind there's no Hamas in the
West Bank and they are still committing acts of terror.
There also a side note, if you guys want to
learn about the significance of olives and olive trees for Palestine,
I did an episode about that. You can look it up.

(03:09:01):
But the olive harvest and olives and olive trees in
particular are very significant part of Palestinian life. One such
case of both increasing settler violence and targeting olives and
all of farmers in particular is in Balal Saleh, who
was killed while tending to his olive trees earlier this month.
An elderly couple were also attacked by settlers last month

(03:09:23):
without provocation while collecting olives in the West Bank. Comments
like those made by Simotrik only in bolden settlers to
attack Palestinians again. I want to mention here that it
is not against Israeli law for soldiers to shoot at
unarmed Palestinians. It is permissible and done all the time.
When that is the norm. Of course, you're going to

(03:09:44):
have hateful settlers adopting the same strategy when they're armed
with no repercussions. According to the Israeli Army, during the
first five days of fighting, it dropped six thousand bombs
on the Gaza Strip with a total weight of a
four thousand tons. Media outlets reported that the army had
wiped out entire neighborhoods. According to the Gaza based Elmizan

(03:10:08):
Center for Human Rights, these attacks led to the complete
destruction of residential neighborhoods, the destruction of infrastructure, and the
mass killing of residents, as documented by Ademizan and numerous
images coming out of Gaza. Israel bombed the Islamic University
of Gaza, as well as the palastinan Bar Association, a
un building for educational programs for outstanding students, a building

(03:10:31):
belonging to the Palestine Telecommunications Company, the Ministry of National Economy,
the Ministry of Culture, roads, and dozens of high rise
buildings and homes, especially in Gaza's northern neighborhoods, again striking
targets like these functions primarily as a means that allow
damage to civil society. That is a direct quote from

(03:10:51):
a source, and the sources understood, some explicitly and some implicitly,
that damage to civilians is the real purpose of these attacks.
In May twenty twenty one, Israel was heavily criticized for
bombing the El Jallah Tower, which housed prominent international media
outlets like Al Jazeera, AP and AFP. A source said,

(03:11:11):
the perception is that it really hurts Hamas when high
rise buildings are taken down because it creates a public
reaction in the Gaza Strip and scares the population. They
wanted to give the citizens of Gaza the feeling that
Hamas is not in control of the situation. Sometimes they
toppled buildings and sometimes postal service and government buildings. The
idea of causing mass devastation to civilian areas for strategic

(03:11:34):
purposes was formulated in previous military operations in Gaza, honed
in by the so called Dahiya doctrine from the Second
Lebanon War of two thousand and six. According to the
Dahiya doctrine developed by former iof's Chief of Staff Gadi Zenkot,
who was now a kanescant member and part of the
current war cabinet. According to him and this doctrine, in

(03:11:55):
a war against guerrilla groups such as Hamas or Husbandlah,
Israel thus use disproportionate and overwhelming force while targeting civilian
and government infrastructure in order to establish deterrence and force
a civilian population to pressure the groups to end their attacks.
The concept of power targets also seems to have been

(03:12:16):
emanated from this same logic. The first time the Israeli
Army publicly defined power targets in Gaza was at the
end of Operation Protective Edge in twenty fourteen, the army
bombed four buildings during the last four days of the war,
three residential multi story buildings in Gaza City and a
high rise in Rafa. The security establishment explained at the

(03:12:37):
time that the attacks were intended to convey to the
Palestinians in Gaza that quote, nothing is immune anymore, and
to put pressure on Hamas to agree to a cease fire.
An Amnesty report in late twenty fourteen stated, the evidence
we collected shows that a massive destruction of the buildings
was carried out deliberately without any military justification. Previous operations

(03:13:00):
have also shown how striking these targets is meant not
to only harm Palestinian morale, but also raised the morale
inside Israel. Herods revealed that during Operation Guardian of the
Walls in twenty twenty one, the IOF Spokesperson's unit conducted
a si off against Israeli citizens in order to boost
awareness of the iof's operation in Gaza and the damage

(03:13:21):
they caused to Palestinians. Soldiers using fake social media accounts
to conceal the campaign's origin, uploaded images and clips of
the army's strikes in Gaza to Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and
TikTok in order to demonstrate the army's prowess to the
Israeli public, which is, in my opinion, pathetic. During the
twenty twenty one assault, Israel struck nine targets that were

(03:13:43):
defined as power targets, all of them high rise buildings.
One security source said the goal was to collapse the
high rises so that the Israeli public would see a
victory image. The bottom line is that they knocked down
a high rise for the sake of knocking down a
high rise. Let's take our second break and we'll be

(03:14:04):
right back. We're back, okay. So not only are we
seeing Israel attack an unprecedented number of power targets, we're
also getting testimonies from Palestinian residents in Gaza that indicate
that since October seventh, Israel has attacked high rises with
their residents still inside without prior warning, which leads to
many civilian deaths. Such attacks obviously result in the killing

(03:14:28):
of entire families, and this was experienced in previous offenses.
According to an investigation by AP conducted after the twenty
fourteen war, about eighty nine percent of those killed in
the aerial bombings of family homes were unarmed residents, and
most of them were women and children. Sound familiar. Just

(03:14:49):
goes to show you that Israel has been doing this
for a long time without anything happening because international law
is bullshit. But really, think about that, eighty nine percent
of those killed in the aerial bombings in the twenty
fourteen war sasgenocide were innocent people who were unarmed, most
of them women and children. The exact same thing is

(03:15:11):
happening right now. Some examples of the current indiscriminate bombing
of residential buildings are the following. On October tenth, Israel
bombed the Babbel building in Gaza, and this is according
to the testimony of Belal Abuhatzira, who rescued bodies from
the ruins that night. Ten people were killed in the
attack on the building, including three journalists. On October twenty fifth,

(03:15:34):
the twelve story Eltage residential building in Gaza City was
bombed to the ground, killing the families living inside it
without warning. About one hundred and twenty people were buried
under the ruins of their apartments. According to the testimonies
of the residents, yusuf ahmud Shadaf, a resident of Eltaje,
wrote that thirty seven of his family members who lived

(03:15:55):
in the building were killed in the attack. He said,
my dear father and mother, my beloved wife, my sons,
and most of my brothers and their families were killed.
Residents stated that a lot of bombs were dropped that
resulted in damaging and destroying apartments in nearby buildings as well.
Six days later after this, on October thirty first, an

(03:16:17):
eight story building the Elmu had seen was bombed without warning.
Between thirty and forty five bodies were reportedly covered from
the ruins. On the first day. One baby was found
alive without his parents. I'm not sure if I mentioned
this in a previous episode, but I think it bears
repeating that children in Gaza are being admitted to hospitals
completely alone and with no surviving family members, and this

(03:16:40):
is happening so often that hospitals now have an abbreviation
for these children WCNSF Wounded child with no surviving family.
The ones that can't speak are marked as unknown. There
are many children and babies like this. Journalists estimated that

(03:17:00):
the attack killed over one hundred and fifty people, and
many are buried and remain under the rubble. The building
used to stand in Uzurat refugee camp south of Wadi Gaza,
in the supposed safe zone which Israel directed the Palestinians
who fled their homes in northern and central Gaza. It
therefore served as a temporary shelter for the displaced before

(03:17:23):
getting obliterated into smithereens and bombed to the ground, killing
hundreds of people. According to an investigation by Amnesty International,
on October ninth, Israel shelled at least three multi story buildings,
as well as an open flea market on a crowded
street in the Jebelier refugee camp, killing at least sixty
nine people. The father of a child who was killed said,

(03:17:47):
the bodies were burned. I didn't want to look. I
was scared of looking at Yamad's face. The bodies were
scattered on the floor. Everyone was looking for their children
in these piles. I recognized my son only by his trousers.
I wanted to bury him immediately, so I carried my
son and got him out. According to intelligence sources, Habsorah

(03:18:10):
aka the Gospel the Ai system we mentioned earlier. This
AI system generates, among other things, automatic recommendations for attacking
private residences where people suspected in bold suspected of being
Hamas or Islamic s Jahat operatives live. Israel then carries
out large scale assassination operations through the heavy shelling of

(03:18:33):
these residential homes. Haabsorah explained one of the sources processes
enormous amounts of data that quote tens of thousands of
intelligence officers could not process, as well as recommending bombing
sites in real time. I wanted to put in bolds
suspected because that is a crazy thing to do when
you don't know for sure what the fuck you're doing

(03:18:54):
and who the fuck you're killing. Just putting it out
there that it's at this point can't be any clearer
that it's not about Hamas. It's about the eradication of
the Palestinian people, which has been slowly happening for the
past seventy five years, and now it has accelerated. It's
not about Hamas because that is a crazy thing to
do if you're only targeting Hamas. One former intelligence officer

(03:19:16):
explained that the Hubsori system enables the army to run
a quote mass assassination factory, in which the quote emphasis
is on the quantity and not quality. A human eye
will quote go over the targets before each attack, but
it need not spend a lot of time on them.
In twenty nineteen, the Israeli Army created a new center

(03:19:37):
aimed at using AI to accelerate target generation. The Target's
Administrative Division is a unit that includes hundreds of officers
and soldiers and is based on AI capabilities. This is
according to the former IOF Chief of Staff, Aviv Coochavi,
and he gave an in depth interview about this earlier
this year. He said, this is a machine that, with

(03:19:59):
the help AI, processes a lot of data better and
faster than any human and translates it into targets for attack.
The result was that an operation Guardian of the Walls
in twenty twenty one, from the moment this machine was activated,
it generated one hundred new targets every day. You see
in the past there were times in Gaza when we

(03:20:21):
would create fifty targets per year, and here the machine
produced one hundred targets in one day. One of the
sources of the investigation by plus nine to seventy two
magazine said, we prepare the targets automatically and work according
to a checklist. This source also worked in the new
target's administrative division. They said, it really is like a factory.

(03:20:44):
We work quickly and there is no time to delve
deep into the target. The view is that we are
judged according to how many targets we managed to generate.
A senior military official in charge of the target bank
told Jerusalem Post earlier this year that thanks to the
army's AI systems, for the first time, the military can
generate new targets at a faster rate than it attacks.

(03:21:08):
One more time for emphasis, for the first time ever,
thanks to AI systems, the military generates new targets faster
than it can attack them. Another source said the drive
to automatically generate large numbers of targets is a realization
of the Dahia doctrine. The Dahia doctrine, as mentioned earlier,

(03:21:28):
is when Israel uses this proportionate and overwhelming force when
targeting civilian and government infrastructure in order to establish deterrence
and make the palasinging people cower and fear and admit
defeat essentially, and so this AI system is really helping
achieve this Dahia doctrine. In the process. Automated systems like

(03:21:51):
HPSURA have thus greatly facilitated the work of Israeli intelligence
officers and making decisions during military operations, including calculating potential casualties.
Five different sources confirmed that the number of civilians who
may be killed in attacks on private residences is known
in advance to Israeli intelligence and appears clearly in the

(03:22:12):
target file under the category quote collateral damage. According to
these sources, there are degrees of collateral damage according to
which the army determines whether it is possible to attack
a target inside of private residence. One of the sources said,
when the general directive becomes quote collateral damage five, that

(03:22:32):
means we are authorized to strike all targets that will
kill five or less civilians. We can act on all
target files that are five or less. A security official
who participated in attacking targets during previous operations said, in
the past, we did not regularly mark the homes of
junior Hamas members for bombing. In my time, if the

(03:22:54):
house I was working on was marked collateral damage five,
it would not always be approved for attack. Such approval,
he said, would only be received if a senior Hammas
commander was known to be living in the home. To
my understanding, today they can mark all the houses of
any Hammas military operative, regardless of rank or confirmation of membership.

(03:23:15):
The source added that is a lot of houses. Hamas
members who don't really matter for anything live in homes
all across Gaza, so they mark the home and bomb
the house and kill everyone there. On October twenty second,
the Israeli Air Force bombed the home of Palestinian journalist
Ahmad al Nahouch in the city of Der El Badach.

(03:23:37):
The strike on October twenty second collapsed blocks of concrete
onto Ahmed's entire family, killing his father, brothers, sisters, and
all of their children, including babies. Only his twelve year
old niece, Manak survived and remained in critical condition, her
body covered in burns. A few days later, Malak died.

(03:23:59):
Twenty one members of Ahmed's family were killed in total,
buried under their home. None of them were militants. The
youngest was two years old, the oldest his father, was
seventy five. Ahmed, who was now currently living in the UK,
is alone without his entire family. This part particularly gutted me.

(03:24:22):
But Ahmed's family WhatsApp group the group text thread that
he had with his family. It was titled better Together.
The last message that appears in this group was sent
by him a little after midnight on the night that
he lost his family. He sent this message someone let
me know that everything is fine. No one answered. He

(03:24:46):
fell asleep and woke up in a panic at four am,
drenched and swept, and he checked his phone again nothing,
and then he received a message from a friend with
the terrible news. Unfortunately Ahmed's. The case is very common
in Gaza these days. In interviews to the press, heads
of Gaza hospitals have been echoing the same description. Families

(03:25:09):
enter hospitals as a succession of corpses. A child, followed
by his father, followed by his grandfather. The bodies are
all covered in dirt and blood. The report does not
have data regarding the number of military operatives who were
indeed killed or wounded in aerial strikes on private residences
in the current genocide, but there is ample evidence that

(03:25:31):
in many, many cases, if not most, vast majority of
none of the people killed or military or political operatives
belonging to Hamas or Islamic Jihad, the bombing of family
homes where Hamas and Islamic Jihad operatives supposedly live. It
likely became a more concerted IOF policy during Operation Protective

(03:25:53):
Edge in twenty fourteen, and this is when Israel began
to systematically strike family homes from the air. Human rights
groups like Betstellem collected testimonies from Palestinians who survived these attacks.
The survivors said the homes collapsed in on themselves, glass
shards cut through the bodies of those inside, the debris
smelled of blood, and people were buried alive. A UN

(03:26:17):
report defined this in twenty fifteen as both a potential
war crime and a new pattern of action that led
to the death of entire families. And we're seeing this
pattern repeat in real time right now. In twenty fourteen,
ninety three babies were killed as a result of Israeli

(03:26:37):
bombings on family homes, of which thirteen were under one
year old. As of a month ago, two hundred and
eighty six babies aged one year under were identified as
having been killed in Gaza. And this is according to
a detailed idealist with the ages of victims published by
the Gaza Ministry of Health on October twenty six. This

(03:27:01):
number has likely doubled and tripled, if not more, at
this point. So in many cases, especially during the current
attacks on Gaza, the Israeli Army carries out attacks that
strike private residences even when there is no known or
clear military target. For example, according to the Committee to

(03:27:22):
Protect Journalists, by November twenty ninth, Israel had killed fifty
Palestinian journalists in Gaza, some of them in their homes
with their families. The murdering of these journalists, again, may
I remind you, is very deliberate as far as silencing
Palestine and people in Gaza from sharing the truth about
what's going on. Rosti Charage is one of these journalists

(03:27:44):
who was killed, who was thirty one, and a journalist
in Gaza who was born in Britain who founded a
media outlet in Gaza called Almidia. On October twenty second,
an Israeli bomb struck his parents' house where he was sleeping,
killing him. There's also journalists Salam Memma who similarly died
under the ruins of her home after it was bombed,

(03:28:06):
of her three young children. Hadi seven died while sham
Aged three has not been yet found. Under the rebel,
two other journalists, Dua Shutaff and Sema Makimad were killed
together with their children in their homes. As of this recording,
Israel has killed over sixty journalists since October seventh. That's

(03:28:28):
going to be the episode for today because that was
a lot, and I hope it was helpful. This investigative
report is extremely important, especially now that we're seeing these
Israeli officials and officers shamelessly saying that they're trying their
best to avoid civilian casualties, when here we have proof
that that is in fact a lie. So I want

(03:28:51):
to do this episode to counteract the argument that this
is about Hamas. It's not about Hamas, isn't Nothing can
justify this amount of murder and death of people, point blank.
Absolutely nothing justifies a genocide. Nothing. So I hope you

(03:29:16):
guys keep learning about Palestine and raising awareness about the
genocide and staying active in your communities and following Palestinian
journalists that are still alive and risking their lives to
share information. Motaz Azaiza is one of these journalists that
is consistently posting on his stories There's also Bisan who

(03:29:38):
is at Wizard Underscore Bisan one on Instagram. She's been
an incredible source and really just being so vulnerable and
sharing exactly what's going on. And I have no idea,
and I hope I never do. How hard it is
to not have time for grief. Palestinians do not have

(03:29:58):
time to grieve their day. They're too busy photographing them
and videoing them, so the world will even believe that
they're going through a genocide. Something I wanted to bring
up is that these journalists in Gaza are the ones
that are left. They've been posting these heartbreaking last messages
on social media. Be SAand posted on December second, I

(03:30:22):
no longer have any hope of survival like I had
at the beginning of this genocide, and I am certain
that I will die in the next few weeks or
maybe days. My message to the world, you are not
innocent of what is happening to us. You, as governments
or peoples that support Israel's annihilation of my people, we
will not forgive you. Humanity will not forgive you. Even

(03:30:44):
if we die. The history will never forget Motaz, also
on December second, said it's about life or death. Now
I did what I could. We are surrounded by Israeli tanks.
Gaza's strip is getting divided into three parts, the North
of Gaza, the Middle area and De La Baah and
Han Yunis and the Dafa. The movement is becoming nearly impossible,

(03:31:08):
and of course there is no safe place and people
just don't know where to go. It is hard to
keep up and watch, but it's truly the least you
can do. We are so privileged in one me making
a podcast and you listening to it, So the very
least we can do is use our privilege to help
those in need and be the mouthpiece that they so

(03:31:32):
desperately want and are begging for, and not letting their
stories be buried under the rubble with them just because
Israel is trying to cover it up. So with that,
I'll see you next time. Hello, This is Shreen and

(03:32:04):
I'm joined by James. There's no preamble here, We're just
gonna introduce ourselves.

Speaker 4 (03:32:10):
Yeah, yeah, we know fucking around here, serious business.

Speaker 7 (03:32:13):
I actually like every time I start recording, I genuinely
don't know how to start a podcast. I don't know
any like at any time this happens, I feel like
I am doing it for the first time.

Speaker 9 (03:32:24):
Me too.

Speaker 4 (03:32:24):
We could just do a thing like robot what we
just kind of making gay?

Speaker 7 (03:32:29):
Yeah exactly. Yeah, maybe next time I'll have to practice
that in the mirror a few times. But thank you
for joining me today. Essentially, today we're going to talk
about the rise in Islamophobia and how the demonization and
dehumanization of Muslims and Arabs leads people to be scared
of something like a scarf. The kaffeia is the black

(03:32:52):
and white checkered scarf you might have seen that's worn
by Palestinians and their supporters, and it's really symbolic and
corn to Palestinians, and especially after those three students in
Vermont were targeted because of the kafia, I thought it
was worth discussing what it is. If you hear noise
in the background, that is my cat and I apologize.
That's just texture for POD.

Speaker 4 (03:33:14):
So texture for pod, you know, that's what we give
you it.

Speaker 9 (03:33:17):
Yes, but yeah, we're going to talk about kafa, where
it comes from, what it means, why people do it.
The time that United Airlines and Rachel Ray joined the
forces of International jihad. It's going to be an interesting podcast.

Speaker 7 (03:33:33):
Yeah, I didn't know about that part, so I'm excited
for you to tell me about it.

Speaker 4 (03:33:36):
Yeah.

Speaker 9 (03:33:37):
I'm excited to talk about United Airlines like great, long
time supported to the Palestinian course.

Speaker 7 (03:33:44):
So first, before we start to talk about the Kaffia,
I want to talk about this uptick in anti Muslim,
anti Arab, anti Palestinian hate, because we've been seeing a
lot of supporters of Palestine lose their jobs. An agent
in CIA, a lawyer in England, numerous journalists and news anchors.
And this is an element of solomophobia that I don't
think we take seriously enough, because liking or sharing a

(03:34:09):
social media post denouncing genocide should only be seen as that,
just a post denouncing genocide. I think the meanings that
people push onto these things is really dangerous, and discussions
and meetings on the issue have been barred. People who
express any kind of sympathy for Palestine, even in old
social media posts, have been dismissed from their job. We're

(03:34:30):
seeing counter campaigns by pro Israel groups in the US
trying to globally shut down the voices of pro Palestinian
activists and to criminalize elements of Palestinian identity itself, for example,
like displaying the Palestinian flag or wearing the Caffea headdress
slash scarf. And this week, I think it's worth mentioning
that the House passed Resolution eight ninety four, which equates

(03:34:52):
criticizing Israel with being anti Semitic. Ninety five Democrats helped
the House GOP pass this extremely ingenuous and dangerous resolution,
and in their words, it's against anti Semitism, but it
is extremely dangerous for the Jewish community in and of
itself because condemning any criticism of the Israeli state should

(03:35:14):
only be taken for that. That's the thing that I understand.
People people project onto things.

Speaker 9 (03:35:18):
Yeah, anti signism. I wanted to like, when I'm studying
at UCSD, one of the professors who I was very
fond of, who was very informative from academic opinions and
the way I teach, especially with someone called Debrah Hurtz,
who's head of the Jewish Studies Department at UCSD. She
is one of dozens, it's not maybe maybe hundreds of
academics who signed something called the Jerusalem Declaration, which, like

(03:35:41):
I believe most of them are involved in Jewish studies
or Holocaust studies.

Speaker 4 (03:35:45):
It's throughout Palatini Middleat studies.

Speaker 9 (03:35:46):
Something like that, right, And like, I think it's useful
to have some clarity around these topics because, like, right now,
there are people who gave zero fucks about antisemitism when
there were literal mobs carrying tortures through the streets screaming
about Jewish people, right when when some of the people
listening to this podcast, and people are on this podcast

(03:36:08):
made every effort to call out what it was, when
large numbers of people in Congress didn't give a fuck,
weren't ready to call like literal genocidal fascism, genocidal fascism
in case it got some votes or money. Now now
they're ready to. Now they're ready to go hard as
fuck against Palestinian people. Which it does seem like there's
a whole lot of people in Congress who weren't given

(03:36:29):
a cudgel to beat Muslim people. Won't think about it
for more than five seconds, but I do want to.
I just want to read this part from the Jeruisdom Declaration,
the Jeruisom Declaration dot org.

Speaker 4 (03:36:39):
You can find yourself.

Speaker 9 (03:36:41):
Criticizing or opposing Zionism as the form of nationalism, or
arguing for a variety of constitutional arrangements for Jewish or
Palestinian people in the area between the Jordan River and
the Mediterranean. That's listed under things which are not on
the face of anti semitic. Right, it goes on, it
is not anti semitic to support arrangement so called full
of quality to all inhabitants between the river and the sea,

(03:37:02):
whether in two states are by national state, a unitary
democratic state, a federal state, or in whatever form. I
think that's pretty clear, right, Like obviously the variety of
options there, all of which are neither genocidal nor in
the face of it anti semitic. It's just like this
is just a canard, like I saw Scott Peters, who

(03:37:23):
is the congress person for Poway. Scott Peters, I think
it's pretty uncontroversial to say it's a giant piece of shit.
Scott Peters is the reason why my incidence still costs
lots of money. Fuck Scott Peters. But he was in
this case accusing UCSD students of being anti Semitic for
passing a BDS resolution. Another thing that Jewishalem Declaration which
again was signed by Deborah Hurtz, the head of Jewish

(03:37:44):
Studies at UCSD, specifically calls out as not being on
the face of anti Semitic right, like these people aren't
in some cases listening to what Jewish Studies scholars are saying,
And I think we need to be careful when obviously
all of us will call it anti semitism right. I've

(03:38:05):
been personally at the forefront of calling anti semitism in
the law enforcement apparatus in San Diego when our DA
used anti Semitic tropes in her twenty eighteen campaign that
seems to have been memory hold. But because this I
think is often simply being weaponized as another way to
suppress protest movements and specifically to justify Islamophobia, which we

(03:38:29):
should all stand against, like regardless of where we stand
on two states, one state, whatever, Like I think if
we can see people using something to the cudgel against
a group of people who have been victimized by this
state for a very long time, and they're continuing to
do it like this shit got us twenty years of war,

(03:38:50):
fucking tens of thousands of lives right ruined or last,
and we're going right back to it and like, if
you can't see why it's a problem, I don't know
if I have much more to say.

Speaker 4 (03:39:01):
Yeah, it's not great.

Speaker 7 (03:39:02):
Yeah, I think that's a big reason why I wanted
to bring up the resolution, because when you have pundits
and politicians pointing at a pro Palestinian protest and being like,
this is pro Hamas, and when the resolution specifically calls
out the from the River to the Sea chant, which
in theory should be protected by the First Amendment, but

(03:39:23):
that's not real. That's what really troubles me, because it's
vilifying the entire idea of supporting Palestine, and that includes
any kind of display of supporting Palestine. And you're right,
it almost cheapens the meaning of anti Semitism because it
almost makes us overlook true danger to the Jewish people.

(03:39:46):
And it also completely raises the identity of anti Zionist
Jewish people, which makes up a big part of the
Jewish community in my opinion, even though they want to
make it seem like they're the minority, but the majority
of Dinas country are actually even Jewish, So Zionism is yeah,
equated to Jewishness in the slightest I.

Speaker 9 (03:40:06):
Didn't think like we need to see to Congress a
group of people who, like I said, who have been
justifying or in the Middle East for twenty years when
it comes to defining what bigotry is, right, Like, we
a group of people who are like ruining over a
country that's built on stolen land by stolen people, Like,
we don't have to listen to them. They don't get
to tell us what it is and it's not these things,

(03:40:28):
and like, yeah, you fucking do not get to talk
about anti semitism when you said shit about Charlottesville, right, Like,
it's clearly two phased, it's bullshit, and it's just a
cultural with which to be a protest movement that they
see as woke or leftist or comprised of Muslims who
they think are less than and like it's obviously despicable

(03:40:49):
the people who did say shit about Charlottesville will make
common cause with these people who are very clearly doing
this in bad faith. Yeah, it's we can oppose anti Semitism,
and we should, and we can oppose Dlamophobia and we should.

Speaker 7 (03:41:01):
But opposing them goes hand in hand in my opinion,
because we are essentially the same people Like I don't
see a big separation. Obviously the hate is different, but
I think fighting both Islamophobia and anti Semitism it goes
hand in hand.

Speaker 9 (03:41:16):
Yeah, with that, we should mention also that like consistently
missing an American discourse to seek sick people.

Speaker 7 (03:41:21):
There's something I want to get into in a little bit.
I want to get into how there's a huge rise
in Islamophobic attacks and specifically there was a Sikh person
who was attacked because he was presumed to be Muslim.
Because the anti Arab dehumanizing language that we hear in
the media, it emboldens like hateful terrorists to commit hate

(03:41:43):
crimes against Arab Muslim people or people who are just
perceived to be Arab and Muslim. And I remember this
the tweet that Biden tweeted a couple of weeks ago
when he was trying to cover his ass and be like,
we hate Slamophobia too, but he said people perceied to
be Muslim and wrongfully, no, wrongfully perceived to be Muslim
was the wording, as if it was like a bad

(03:42:07):
thing to be perceived Muslim. So you do you ever
that tweet at all?

Speaker 4 (03:42:11):
Yeah? I didn't know.

Speaker 9 (03:42:12):
I try not to look at President Biden's sweets, because
it's really a source of joy in my life.

Speaker 4 (03:42:16):
But that's great.

Speaker 9 (03:42:18):
Look the dude sitting here while little children and pregnant
ladies and old folks are sleeping out in the dirt
in the board of a third nine in a row,
like I give a fuck about what he thinks. He again, right,
that guy doesn't get to legislate morality for me because
he has none. And word, I simply don't give a
fuck what he says.

Speaker 7 (03:42:34):
Word. I like that approach. I like that approach. But
Muslims and Arabs did pay attention to that word wrongfully,
and it just kind of reinforced the sentiment in the
country when it comes to Arab and Muslim people or
those perceived to be Arab and Muslim and The Council
on American Islamic Relations said it received seven hundred and

(03:42:56):
seventy four requests for help and reports of bias incidents
from Muslims in the US between the sixteen days of
October seventh to October twenty fourth, which is a one
hundred and eighty two percent jump from any given sixteen
days stretch last year. Because on average of twenty twenty two,
that number was two hundred and seventy four complaints, and

(03:43:19):
Corey Saylor, the research and advocacy director, said, we're working
seven days a week around the clock fielding incoming complaints.
I have only ever seen that twice in my career,
right after nine to eleven and in December twenty fifteen,
after that announcement by Trump of his plan to ban
Muslims from the country.

Speaker 4 (03:43:38):
Oh yeah, yeah, that was a good time in history.

Speaker 9 (03:43:42):
Yeah, that the attacks and sek people are like a
classic post nine to eleven, absolute like islamophobic mania. Yeah, right,
Like it's something that like I'm consistently afraid of now,
right when I'm at the border, when there are Muslim
people there every day, and there is people there every day,
and there are also Jewish people there, right because literally

(03:44:04):
someone yesterday we were trying to get some candles for
a hannaka minora, Right, But it doesn't matter. People who
are hateful have access to hurt those people. And that's
something I've become extremely concerned with recently, like and with
half of Congress or more whipping up this kind of hysteria, right,
which obviously you know, like George W. Bush benefited very

(03:44:26):
greatly from although if you look at the stuff George W.
Bush says, and this is not like yas George W.
Bush like he is outflanked large number of the Democrat
Party and his to the left in his acceptance, like
Islam is a fabric of America's speech, Like it's wild
how far we've come in a bad direction. But San,
do you know what else is leading our listeners in

(03:44:48):
a bad direction?

Speaker 4 (03:44:50):
Please exactly more?

Speaker 9 (03:44:53):
Yeah, it's this advert for Ronald Reagan memorabilia. Hopefully we
get a Kissinger one soon. In Challa, we will get
a Henry kissingcher gold coin advert in this episode.

Speaker 7 (03:45:05):
We're back. I think it's worth mentioning some incidents that
have happened when it comes to harassment and physical violence
against Muslims and Arabs. On October fifteenth, he probably heard
that a six year old was stabbed to death with
Dia l Fueimi. He was stabbed twenty six times and
his mother was also attacked and was in critical condition.
He was killed by his landlord who was spouting anti

(03:45:29):
Muslim rhetoric. There's also a man in Illinois who was
charged with a hate crime after he demanded two Muslim
men to get out of the country and threaten to
shoot them. And as we said, actual Muslims aren't the
only ones at risk from Islamophobia, anyone perceived to be Muslim,
including Arabs who belong to other faith groups and seeks.
For example, our target. On October fifteenth, a nineteen year

(03:45:51):
old sixteen was attacked on a New York City bus
by an assailant who tried to remove his turban. And
I think we should all remember that for palace Onions
and more generally Arabs and brown people, this isn't a
new thing. We've always been demonized and using the humanizing
language has deadly consequences, often not only for Palestinians here,
but those in Gaza and any person of color around

(03:46:13):
the world. I want to also point out that he
Jabbi women are easily identifiable as Muslim and they're particularly
easy targets for people that are terrorist and filled with hate.
A Muslim pediatrician, a Hijabi woman was killed after being
stabbed multiple times while sitting outside her apartment complex last month.

Speaker 9 (03:46:33):
Yeah, and to tell the community that's just been bereaved
to not you know, like be afraid, it's like again,
it's a great time to say nothing.

Speaker 4 (03:46:42):
If that's your opinion.

Speaker 7 (03:46:43):
Yeah, I think it's we're not really considering how afraid
the community is and they're.

Speaker 9 (03:46:49):
I don't want to minimize, like Jewish people feel afraid
to Like there are realist in se anti Semitism, Like
there are definitely right wing shit bags anti Semitic who
are trying to hijack the Palestinia Liberation movement for their
own ends, and they suck and they are terrible, and
we should all denounce that. The same force to do

(03:47:09):
with almophobia, Like that's not a controversial statement, I think
for anyone who's not a complete herd.

Speaker 7 (03:47:15):
Yeah, both communities are rightfully fearful, and that fear is
valid for both communities. The last thing I want to
say about this rise in Salmophobia is that ex Obama
advisor Stuart Seldowitz who was harassing and saying the most
heinous things to this uh oh yeah, calal cart Vendor

(03:47:36):
in New York. He was at one point the US
State Department's director of the Office of Israel and Palestinian Affairs,
which I think should tell you all you need to
know about how our country feels about Palestine. Because he
was saying truly abhorrent things like not enough children have
died yet.

Speaker 9 (03:47:54):
You know, to be fair, that guy represents the shit bag. No,
I'm not again, this is not a like pro state
Department statement like that. There are definitely people within the
State Department who are upset, Like people have left the
State Department because of the way that and obviously those
people have felt that their voices are being marginalized because
they've chosen to leave, right that they haven't been listened to.

Speaker 7 (03:48:14):
But I guess I wanted to bring that up because
someone with that much hate was in charge of some
decisions that affected Palestine, and he has so much and
when you watch these videos that are taken on multiple days,
which indicates that he was stalking this person, you see
this man smiling and like almost hannibal lectory, and he's
filled with so much hate it is like spewing out

(03:48:36):
of him.

Speaker 4 (03:48:37):
Yeah, it's genuinely disturbing.

Speaker 7 (03:48:38):
Yeah, it's disturbing.

Speaker 9 (03:48:40):
Yeah, it's disturbing. Like I kept saying that for weeks
to no one punched him in the face.

Speaker 3 (03:48:44):
But it's.

Speaker 4 (03:48:45):
Yeah, a better world, yeah, one day.

Speaker 7 (03:48:49):
But essentially I wanted to just go over that really quickly.
About how the rise in Slamophobia and anti Palestinian, anti
Arab sentiment makes it even more important to continue to
say end up for Palestine and their people and their
fight for liberation, and wearing the kaffia itself has been
a symbol of this struggle for Palestine liberation and so
we wanted to tell you guys about its history. James

(03:49:12):
is wearing one right now. Good job.

Speaker 4 (03:49:14):
Yeah, because he's cold.

Speaker 7 (03:49:18):
Visual prop for a podcast.

Speaker 4 (03:49:20):
Yeah, I love to do it.

Speaker 9 (03:49:22):
It's a it's a little secret between us.

Speaker 7 (03:49:24):
Yeah, yeah, well not anymore. Sorry, no name, no thanks, Serene.
But what is the kaffia? Just go over the basics.
It's a cotton square shaped headdress with a distinctive checkered
pattern that is worn in many parts of the Arab world.
The black and white one is known to be worn
in Palestine. And I didn't know this to be completely honest,

(03:49:45):
but apparently it dates back to Sumerians and Babylonians and
Mesopotamia and thirty one hundred BC. It's been called other
words as well. I think the most common one other
than kaffia is the hata. It's also said that the
prophet Muhammad war One as well, so it has a
long history and it was used as the symbol of
high rank and honor among priests. When you move forward

(03:50:08):
in history, the kaffea was adopted by peasants who wore
it while they were working on the land to protect
them from the sun and the sand, that seems obvious.
And it was in the winter to protect them from
the cold. A very multifunctional piece of clothing.

Speaker 9 (03:50:21):
Yeah, you see, like everyone in this region has some
kind of thing, Like Kuldish people have their own different versions, right,
everyone behind me, the Kurdish refuge gave to me the
other day, which is very kind. But like even when
you saw the United States troops fighting in the Middle East, right,
they adopted like their like tactical version that was like
a green bass. But like it's a very practical garment

(03:50:44):
that people in this part of the world have worn
full Like even before Islamic people wore these things so
like cover their faces.

Speaker 4 (03:50:51):
And because it made sense practically, like it's just yeah,
for the climate, very handy. Yeah yeah, And this.

Speaker 7 (03:50:59):
Is not very commonly known, but the patterns on the
kaffia is known to symbolize different aspects of Palestinian life.
So there are some bold black stripes on the edges
that are meant to symbolize the historical trade routes that
used to go through Palestine. There's a fishnet like design
that represents Palestinian fishermen and the Palestine connection to the
Mediterranean Sea. And then there are some curvy lines that

(03:51:21):
resemble olive trees, which are a major point of pride
for Palestinians, with the pattern representing perseverance, strength and resilience.
So it's an extremely symbolic, important symbol for Palestine. It
hasn't always been, and that's what we're going to be
going through because at this point, Palestinians view it as
a symbol of their cultural and national identity, and unfortunately

(03:51:43):
others view it as a threat because, as I mentioned,
those students that got shot in Vermont, where two of
them are wearing a caffea, it's said that they were
speaking in Arabic and one of these students is now
paralyzed from the chest down. So it really is important
to deconstruct what the scarf is and why on earth
it would spark that kind of fear and anybody, because
it's not about fear or hate, it's about Palestinian pride

(03:52:08):
and culture and history. As long as Palestinians are oppressed,
then even something as simple as a traditional scarf can
turn into something bigger than just cultural pride, because now
it's a political statement, and I want everyone to realize
that it's not something to be feared or something to
get nervous around if you see it out in the open.

(03:52:29):
So let's go back in history. Are you ready to
go back in history?

Speaker 3 (03:52:31):
James?

Speaker 9 (03:52:33):
I am, yeah, that's an We can we do a
sound machine, Daniel, like, like a try and Travel sound.

Speaker 7 (03:52:40):
Do you guys ever play Mario's Time Machine? I was
obsessed with that game PC.

Speaker 4 (03:52:44):
It did help.

Speaker 7 (03:52:45):
Maybe you don't find that sound. So the kaffea evolved
out of the common headdress, as we're saying that men
in the Middle East war to protect themselves from the elements.
It was specifically worn by nomadic and Bedouin community, from
villagers to city people and townspeople. And while the kaffea
was often associated with peasants, the bus or the red

(03:53:08):
felt hat that is like a cylinder shape that you
might see people wear that was often worn by more urban,
middle and upper class Palestinians. I wanted to point out
here that the word like peasants is a little bit
extreme because the word in Arabic is pH lahin and
fe laheen. I guess is more villager type, but it's
not really used in a very condescending way because a

(03:53:28):
lot of things are considered for lahi, Like the one
of my favorite dishes in the Middle East is judada,
which is just lentils and rice, and that's considered a
falahei dish. So I just wanted to put that out
there that it's not like a dis per se in
Arabic to say, to call them peasants, it is like
an indication that they are of lower class because jud

(03:53:49):
dada is cheap to make, for example. But it's not
exactly this like surf word. Does that make sense?

Speaker 9 (03:53:55):
Yeah, yeah, like humble, not like yeah yeah, like I said, yes, exactly.

Speaker 1 (03:54:02):
So.

Speaker 7 (03:54:02):
In nineteen thirty six, though, things started to change in
the Arab Revolt when there was an uprising against British
rule and occupation of Palestine, and this included demands for
independence and an end to Jewish immigration. The armed Palestinian
rebel groups were largely made up of poorer men, so
in this way, whether it was intentional or not. In
the beginning, the kaffia basically was their uniform because these

(03:54:26):
rebel groups were made up of poorer men and that
was what they wore, and that made it easier for
the British to target them when they were in urban areas.
So as the fighting escalated, rebel leaders urged Palestinian men,
all Palestinian men to ditch the tarbush and don the
kaffia instead, and so when Palestinians did this, it allowed
fighters to blend in and evade British troops. At that time,

(03:54:50):
the majority of the armed resistance was taking place in
the villages, and the fighters used kafia to hide their features,
helping it to become associated with the revolution. So it
was only a strategic success to do this on the
rebels part, but it was a breakthrough for the lower
class as well, who basically forced their clothing onto the elites,
and this catapulted the kafa as something that crossed classes

(03:55:13):
and became a prominent national symbol.

Speaker 9 (03:55:16):
This is like perfectly timed as well to coincide with
like the rise of nations to nationalism in the early
nineteenth and like a late nineteenth thirty twentieth century, right
like the Yeah, when religion and religion stops having this
universal claim on truth and we see the client and
monarchy at the same time, the rise in more like

(03:55:37):
at first like middle class democracies, right got them Sometimes
bosche Our revolutions like the nation came to be the
way one could argue that the working class were kind
of being tricked into supporting this bolshour project or however
you want to see it. But yeah, nations arose well
around the world this time, and they all took on symbols,
so like this was perfectly timed to sort of slide

(03:55:59):
into that pos totally.

Speaker 7 (03:56:01):
That's a really good point. So as the revolt came
to an end, some elites, Palestinian elites, discarded the kaffia
and they turned back to the tabus. But at that
point it was already too late because the cafe had
already been established as this emblem for Palestinian resistance, and
this made Palestinine men also just start wearing it for

(03:56:21):
an expression of their national identity. In the nineteen sixties,
we saw it become even more unifying because women started
to get included into the picture. Leila Khalid is a
Palestine activist and a former militant who, fun fact, was
the first woman to ever hijack a plane. Yeah feminism,

(03:56:42):
after she took part in hijacking a plane flying from
Rome to Tel Aviv in nineteen sixty nine. Just to
a disclaimer that no one was injured in this hijacking,
that wasn't the point of it. But a journal was
captured a photo of Khalid holding her rifle while styling
a kafia like a woman's head scarf, and this image
became so popular it helped cement Leila Kylote's status as

(03:57:04):
an icon in the Palestine resistance movement. I think Leilah
Skala deserves an episode all on her own because she's
an extremely fascinating woman and she's still alive, so maybe
one day. But her choice to wear the kaffia was
viewed as a feminist move on her part, and it
ushered in this idea that Palestinian women were part of
the Palestinian rebellion and a part of activism, part of

(03:57:24):
the resistance, and because they had largely been excluded in
some way or regulated to other roles in the resistance,
and so by making the statement and putting the kaffea
over her head. She was also acknowledging cultural norms of
Palestinians and using a men's scarf to do it. But
at the time I think it was really revolutionary. And

(03:57:47):
first when you see the kaffia break classes, now you
see it break genders. And now it's becoming even more
acceptable for more people to wear it. And so she
continued to wear the caffea, often around her neck, and
it inspired many Palatine way to do the same. But
at the same time that hijacking she took part in
drew international attention and many people in the West started

(03:58:08):
associating Palestine resistance with terrorism, and unfortunately this meant the
caffee would also come to mean something else in the
Western world. The Alstar Arafat almost did not go anywhere
without a caffee. He was the chairman of the PLO
from nineteen sixty nine to two thousand and four, and
he helped popularize the image of wearing a caffea around

(03:58:29):
the world by again almost always wearing one in public,
and many non Palestine activists at this time, especially those
who participated in anti colonial, anti war, and other social
justice protests, they began to recognize the scarf as a
symbol of resistance and wear it to express the solidarity
with Palestinians. But at this point Israel had labeled Arafat

(03:58:51):
to terrorist and the United States designated the PLO as
a terrorist organization. And so again. While some people identified
this scarf with the Palestinian struggle, others viewed it as
controversial and even a violent symbol. Many other global leaders
around the world started wearing the kaffea as well. Even
Nelson Mandela at one point was photographed wearing one. I

(03:59:14):
think something especially humorous in modern times is how the
kaffia has entered the fashion world, and its meaning is
kind of completely erased when this happens. Some clothing brands
took the scarf's widespread appeal and co opted it, and
it sanitized its meaning, and it erased its relationship with

(03:59:35):
the Palestinian cause. I think it's important to bring up
here that Palestinians and supporters of Palestine encourage everyone to
wear the scarf. It's not appropriating it when you wear
it in solidarity. It's appropriating it if you co opt
it and make it into something. It's not like a
skirt or I saw a version of one that had

(03:59:55):
like intricate stars of David in there to be worn
by Israelis. I think that's appropriation. But when it comes
to solidarity and being in protests and showing that you
care about the Palestinian cause, it's encouraged to wear it.
And so I feel like a lot of people are
afraid of cultural appropriation.

Speaker 4 (04:00:13):
But it's not.

Speaker 7 (04:00:15):
When it comes to the Kaffea, it's not about that.
It's about solidarity more so than the act of wearing
something that is from Palestine.

Speaker 9 (04:00:23):
Yeah, it's not the same as wearing a plane Sdian
headdress for example, or known sink for child. Very abbrupritive.
And you should listen to the people who'se things you're
wearing before you wear them.

Speaker 4 (04:00:37):
That's a rule. Oh yeah, before you make them into
your mini skirt line. Yeah.

Speaker 7 (04:00:42):
And when capitalism enters the picture, that's when we cross
into appropriation territory usually and the symbolic meaning goes away.
In twenty sixteen, for example, an Israeli fashion designer Dodo
Baro use the kaffia to create a range of dresses
and miniskirts and she receives a lot of backlash for this.

(04:01:03):
I think Israel. Doing this is especially ironic only because
what haven't they stolen is my question? Land the food
and now the clothing. I think it's pretty yeah sad.

Speaker 9 (04:01:15):
Yeah, that's right up there with like the Washington football
team having a racist sass name or like, yes, exactly,
it's very appropriate and almost genocidal right to like suggest that,
like these people have a long history here kind of
like that's actually your history, and like take it and make.

Speaker 7 (04:01:32):
Exactly it's like really insiduous. It's it's like a cruel
to co opt a struggle that people are just like
trying to their people are having tried to survive for
so long, and to make it into something silly, to
make it into something that it's not, is really hurtful
and really pathetic.

Speaker 4 (04:01:52):
Yeah, it's not respectful.

Speaker 9 (04:01:53):
It's not like it doesn't show a good faith effort
to come to a solution in which both people are respected.

Speaker 4 (04:01:57):
Right exactly.

Speaker 7 (04:01:59):
The last example to make, as far as fashion quoe
unquote goes, is that in two thousand and seven, Urban
Outfitters sold a coffea that came in many different colors,
but they simply promoted it as a anti war scarf,
and unsurprisingly controversy ensued and they eventually pulled the item
from its shelves. But I do remember this really brief

(04:02:20):
moment in time where this happened, and it was so
bizarre I just had to mention it. But let's take
for a second break.

Speaker 9 (04:02:29):
And then we'll come back with a story about that scarff. Yeah,
this is hopefully does not have for United Airlines famous
kafia enjoys. All right, we're back, and we're back to
discuss famous supporter of the palatini caused Rachel Ray Because
for those of you who are blessed to be thus
far unaware of this. In two thousand and eight, Rachel

(04:02:53):
Ray wore a kaffia, or as she actually wore the
Urban Outfitters model, which is like a silk scarf.

Speaker 4 (04:03:00):
It's a little different.

Speaker 9 (04:03:01):
Kafirs are normally like a thick kind of cotton. She
wore it in a Dunkin Donuts dunkin Donuts is no
g dunkin Donuts advert and Michelle Malkin, who's one in
along line of crazy right wing people, accused her of
wearing quote worrying the symbol of murderous palestin jin Jahad,

(04:03:23):
which is which is a real insight into where we
were there at the end of the of the Bush
presidency as a nation. Absolutely batch it insane. That was
when I moved to America.

Speaker 4 (04:03:34):
Good times.

Speaker 9 (04:03:34):
Actually, that was when I moved to America wearing a
kafir on the plane because it was idea it's my
thing that I worried a gift from someone who are
very close with and we used to weard more the
time at protests. That was a time when its Lamophobia
was like very present in the UK and so like
it was kind of a way a way I guess
to show sort of arity or invite confrontation, depending on

(04:03:58):
if it was me or not. I think I was
probably Column B as well as Column MAY. But it
was just the thing that I wore, you know. And
it was at that point the movement for a free
Palestine with I think, much more established in the UK
than it was in the US and among obviously like
white folks such to himself. I immediately got sent to
like a secondary inspection when I arrived in the United States.

(04:04:21):
I got off the plane, I had my little badge
with the Palestinian flag, I have my little cafea and
the guy was just like go in the room, and
then yeah, we had a great talk about the stuff
I had from Cuba, which at the time was obviously
not a place that Americans were able to go. I
think I still can't. So yeah, it was great, It's good.
It was a wonderful start. They asked me what I
was doing for my PhD. I told them I was
studying anarchism. That went down like a sack of shit,

(04:04:43):
and you know, from there it began along and enjoyable
relationship with our friends who keep us safe at our borders.

Speaker 7 (04:04:52):
Wow, still has an orgin story. I suppose.

Speaker 4 (04:04:58):
Before that I was just a lib not true. Any
interesting Saturday nights.

Speaker 7 (04:05:07):
No, thank you for sharing that. I didn't know about
the Racheal raything until you told me about it, because
I mean, way to go dunkin Donuts, I guess it's like.

Speaker 9 (04:05:15):
Yeah, Unfortunately they pulled the advert like still it's a
shame in theory. Yeah still yeah, yeah, Dunky donut stands
with Palestine. It's okay, it's okay to put a donut
on your kaffir because donuts are a friend of the
Palestinian people.

Speaker 7 (04:05:30):
That's the takeaway. Correct.

Speaker 9 (04:05:33):
Throughout we had donuts the I was, I was covering
a protest the other day outside of your own manifacturing facility.
Someone bought donuts. Doughnuts can continue to stand alongside the
Palestinian people.

Speaker 7 (04:05:42):
Well powerful. Yeah, I wanted to mention really quick, how
I mean, in addition to capitalism, just like being a disease,
A lot of kaffeas nowadays are being sold, like in
mass because the Palestinian cause is getting more popular. But
there's only one fact three left in Palestine that actually
makes them more than five decades ago, there were about

(04:06:05):
thirty across Palestine, and now there is one in Hebron, Hitterbowie.
It's the only caffe manufacturer left and it's been seeing
a huge uptick that is, in their words, unparalleled ever
before in their sales. Apparently they sold eighteen thousand of
them in October and now they're in high demand all
the like. It's sold out everywhere. And this is the

(04:06:27):
authentic coffe. So one I have, Yeah, you have one
from Putter Wawi, which is great.

Speaker 4 (04:06:33):
It's very nice.

Speaker 9 (04:06:34):
Actually, yeah, don't be buying like an Abby Express one
because they're thinner and like it's when it's very nice.

Speaker 7 (04:06:40):
You can tell when it's authentic because it's good quality,
has a weight to it. And just aside from that,
supporting Palestine companies is important. And they're not the only
ones that sell Palestine coffeas they have some websites that
they that they share on their website that you can
get their kaffeas through. But I think it's important to
realize that there's only one place left in all of

(04:07:01):
Palestine that still makes the kaffita.

Speaker 9 (04:07:03):
Yeah, it's a good gift in the holiday season by one.

Speaker 7 (04:07:08):
Yeah, go add yourself to their email lissigns and they
notify you when it's available for pre order. So I
think supporting that factory is really important, especially now. And
it's heartbreaking that it's the last one.

Speaker 9 (04:07:22):
But makes a great slink too. One time I broke
my arm and used his guy to tie it off.
It was works like a chap nice. So it's got
my endorsement.

Speaker 7 (04:07:32):
Yeah, multiple functions still to this day.

Speaker 4 (04:07:35):
Yep.

Speaker 9 (04:07:35):
Now you can do all kinds of things. The blankets
a sling. You can filter water through it because it's
like a cotton fabric. You have some turbid water. So yeah,
many uses exactly are you familiar with Dick hebdigger. No, no, no, okay,
head Big is academic right about punk. But in his
work on punk, he talked about how subcultures become commodified

(04:07:57):
and then they just become aesthetics. And that's like the
point in which happens to punk is when you can
buy like a battle jacket, or look that jacket with
safety pinsil down the arms a gap right like that,
It's no longer punk, is it if you got it
from fucking gap? Like the whole point of punk is
to do it yourself. And I think this is in
danger of happening again, as it kind of did in

(04:08:17):
the early two thousands. So it just becomes an aesthetic.

Speaker 7 (04:08:20):
I don't want it to undermine the Palestinian narrative for liberation,
you know what I mean. That's the thing that I
hope does not happen. I don't think it is right now.
I think so far people are wearing it in solidarity,
and I personally really like when I see someone wearing
it because I don't want I want it to be normalized.
I don't want it to be something that people look
at and are afraid of or are afraid of wearing.

(04:08:41):
Because after the shooting, that happened in Vermont. A lot
of people were afraid of even wearing a kafir of course.

Speaker 9 (04:08:47):
Yeah, I think it's the solidarity thing you can do, right, Like,
you know, you can wear this, You're not only showing
your solidarity. Maybe you can invite conversations, you know, Yeah, exactly,
you can educate folks and like also, yeah, if people
are being targeted, like you can choose to stand with
them or not right and by doing that, you know,

(04:09:08):
hopefully they can't shoot all of us. One would help,
you know America, they fucking they've been trying. So, yeah,
you can do it in the sense of solidarity. And yeah,
maybe maybe you can spark some conversations which can be beneficial.

Speaker 4 (04:09:22):
You can educate some people.

Speaker 9 (04:09:24):
Yeah, if they call you, if they call it the
scarff of Islamic murderists you had or whatever that Michelle
Malkin called it, and probably know the conversation that will end. Well,
then you can destroy a donut at that person.

Speaker 7 (04:09:36):
Yeah, it's up to us to take actions that change
how people perceive.

Speaker 4 (04:09:41):
Things in the world.

Speaker 7 (04:09:42):
And that's just a great example.

Speaker 4 (04:09:43):
Of one thing.

Speaker 7 (04:09:44):
But I guess we've talked about in this episode how
the coffea is part of the Palestinian past, present, and future.
It's a historical artifact that documents the history of a people,
and it's a living symbol that inspires hope. And it's
interesting that a piece of cloth can have such strong
emotions tied to it, but it's really inspiring that it's

(04:10:08):
a prevailing symbol of freedom. And yeah, I love it.
I feel pride wearing it. The Caffeia has become a
way for Palestinians to visualize their land, visualize their home,
and visualize Palestine as an entity that can exist in
themselves as well as outside on their clothed bodies. So

(04:10:32):
that's the episode. Uh Free Palestine. Bye Hey.

Speaker 2 (04:10:38):
We'll be back Monday, with more episodes every week from
now until the heat death of the universe.

Speaker 7 (04:10:44):
It Could Happen Here as a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
cool zonemedia dot com or check us out on the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
You can find sources for It Could Happen Here, updated
monthly at cool zonemedia dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening,

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Behind the Bastards News

Follow Us On

Host

Robert Evans

Show Links

Popular Podcasts

Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang

40s and Free Agents: NFL Draft Season

Crime Junkie

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}It Could Happen Here Weekly 110