It Could Happen Here Weekly 152

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
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 going to be nothing new here for you, but
you can make your own decisions.

Speaker 3 (00:26):
Welcome to it could happen here. It is a beautiful
sunny day in Atlanta, Georgia, which means I think they're
all lying about the weather. They said this hurricane was
going to come, and I'm fine, I don't believe them.
It's all fake. Joined with me today is Mia Wong.
I'm Garrison Davis. Welcome di could happen here?

Speaker 4 (00:45):
Welcome man, It's hey.

Speaker 5 (00:46):
Look it's cloudy in Portland, so clearly they were telling
the truth.

Speaker 4 (00:49):
I don't know what's going on in your reality, but.

Speaker 3 (00:52):
I can't believe that the Republicans have hijacked the weather
Control Matrix and are aiming it at Portland, Oregon to
wipe it off the map, to give Oregon to give
Horicans vote to Donald Trump in the next election.

Speaker 5 (01:05):
You know, one of my foundational early political memories was
discovering that, like the mid twenty tens era mayor of
Ankara thought that NATO had an earthquake machine that they
were setting off off the coast of Turkey in order
to cause namies during hurricane season, so that because so deep,
NATO could destroy the Turkish economy.

Speaker 3 (01:21):
And I hope so now.

Speaker 4 (01:22):
We thought that was very funny.

Speaker 5 (01:23):
And now every single like major politician did America believe
some shit like that now.

Speaker 3 (01:30):
And I was like, oh, everyone has something, not everyone
has the same thing, but everyone has something crazy that
they believe. And that's what we're talking about here today.
So oh boy, it is. It has gotten bad, folks.

Speaker 6 (01:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:42):
As Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton brought widespread devastation to
the southeastern United States, politicians, TV anchors, and influencers have
been trying to weaponize the tragedy and the disaster relief
effort for their own partisan electoral gain, particularly via the
use of disinformation. Now, while the government's response to Hurricane

(02:02):
Helene can certainly be criticized, bad fight attacks originating from
the far right have spread wildly online and have been
boosted by Trump and Fox News. Many of these focus
on the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, with some
of them connecting to like decades old conspiracy theories about
the agency. Yeah, so this episode, we're going to go

(02:24):
over some of the conspiracy theories and misinformation circulating about
these hurricanes, but not necessarily to like debunk them, because like,
I know who's listening to this, but I think it's
actually more helpful to place them into the larger tapestry
of conspiracy thinking leading into the election and discuss how
modern misinformation has presented a whole new problem that simple

(02:47):
fact checks aren't equipped to handle.

Speaker 5 (02:49):
Hey, Garrison, you are very confident about that, but I
personally know leftists who I have been friends with who
believe the weather weapons shit. So you never know.

Speaker 3 (02:59):
Well, I mean, I do believe that fact checks aren't
going to be the main solution here.

Speaker 5 (03:03):
Oh no, they're not gonna help that. I'm just saying, Look,
there are believers everywhere for the eyes to see.

Speaker 3 (03:09):
It's great, That's kind of what I'm saying here. Yeah, Now,
let's start by talking about Donald Trump and FEMA. Oh God,
So some of the misinformation spreading about FEMA right now
includes the claim that the agency is only providing seven
hundred and fifty dollars in aid to individuals affected by
Hurricane Helene, when actually the seven hundred and fifty dollars
payments are just the initial really funds to help with

(03:32):
immediate needs. There's also been claims that FEMA only issues
loans and any relief money received has to be paid back.
This isn't true. Only in rare cases when someone receives
duplicate funds from FEMA and insurance does money have to
be returned to FEMA. There's also been claims that if
victims fail to pay back FEMA, they will then seize

(03:52):
your property. This is also falls more on this later now.
A TikTok video with over a million views claimed that
FEMA is raiding people's homes to seize supplies. This isn't true.
FEMA doesn't raid people's healths. On a more racist note,
it's claimed that FEMA has run out of money for

(04:13):
hurricane victims because Kamala spent billions of FEMA dollars on
housing for illegal immigrants. At a campaign rally, Donald Trump said,
and I'm not going to do the voice the Harris
Biden administration says they don't have money because they spent
it all on illegal immigrants. They stole the FEMA money,
just like they stole it from a bank so that

(04:33):
they could give it to their illegal immigrants, unquote. This
lie was also shared by Sean Hannity on Fox News,
and even when confronted with facts that discredit this claim,
commentators on Fox still insist that even though it's not
technically true, it still feels true.

Speaker 7 (04:50):
It may not be actually true that FEMA resources that
could have been available in North Carolina have been given
to migrants, but there's no question about the broad orientation
of FEMA the Biden Harris administration, which has been to
channel huge amounts of money to communities and to non
governmental organizations to help with the massive influx of migrants
that they themselves have created.

Speaker 5 (05:10):
And this is a fun one too, because like there
is FEMA underfunding. But the reason there's FEMA underfunding is
it Republicans keep voting not to give it more money.

Speaker 3 (05:19):
Yes, which like oh boy, I mean again, like this
is a big part of the Republican strategy just making
life worse for everybody so that everyone's more angry so
that people will vote Republican. And that's that is the
strategy they want, because as long as they're as long
as their base is doing badly and like upset and angry,
they will find some way to blame it on the

(05:39):
opposition and then vote in Republican. This has been the
conservative governmental strategy for decades.

Speaker 5 (05:45):
Yeah, do all the terrible stuff and then blame the
stuff that you did on immigrants, which, yeah, good times,
love this country, great stuff happening.

Speaker 3 (05:53):
A famously reliable strategy. Trump's also lied about the governor
of Georgia not being able to get in contact with
President Biden coordinate disaster relief efforts, when in fact they
had spoken to day prior. Trump also claimed that the
federal government and the North Carolina Democratic governor have been
quote going out of their way to not help people
in Republican areas unquote. This is also completely false that

(06:17):
there were more isolated areas in North Carolina that were
harder to reach, but people are trying to get there,
and in fact, some of the hardest reach areas were
actually immigrant communities who were too scared to like actually
ask for federal help out of fear they would be deported.
So like, yes, there actually is people really struggling to
get a relief, but it's not by and large your

(06:38):
Trump voters. Like again, certainly the relief efforts managed by
the government have had their fair share of problems. People
are not getting all the help they need. But this
is not a conspiracy by the Democratic governor to deprive
Republicans of hurricane relief. Like, that's not true. Now, Trump's
falsehoods about the hurricane and the disaster response in service
of his reelection campaign have signaled that it's aok for

(07:01):
Republicans to spread all manner of hurricane conspiracy theories targeting
the federal government. Oh boy, and this is where we're
gonna get into the newest conspiracy theory sweeping the nation,
that the government controls the weather, all of the weather,
especially hurricanes. Now, this is not a new conspiracy theory.

Speaker 4 (07:23):
Certainly, I'm so sick of the weather weapon shit.

Speaker 3 (07:26):
But the fact that we have sitting congressman, including Mantorie
Taylor Green from Georgia, who is riding this thing like
a fucking horse is a little bit wild. She has
been posting NonStop the past week about how quote unquote
they control the weather. I wonder what they means. She
has been attributing the weather modification to a few different agencies,

(07:49):
including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Speaker 5 (07:53):
Yeah, sure of sure, no one's doing this, like comeine.

Speaker 3 (07:59):
She has posted me that prove that they're controlling the
weather because they list a whole bunch of weather modification patents. Now,
the funny thing is is that most of these patents
are like over one hundred years old, if many of
them are expired. Yeah, these patents contain plans to drop
water from balloons to produce rain. That's the weather modification

(08:20):
she's talking about. She included a patent that includes like
a way to use like airplane exhaust to blow away
poison gas from like trenches. That's chemtrails, Garrison, it's chemtrails.
It's absurd. All of these things are like are like
ancient patents and like weather modification is a real thing technically,
like we have been trying to alter the weather. One

(08:42):
of the pointed to like real technologies is cloud seating.
Cloud seating is a small scale technology to alter clouds precipitation,
usually to increase the cloud's ability to produce localized rain.
By adding ice or condensation nuclei into the forming clouds.
This helps areas suffering from drought and low Reall cloud
seating has been jumped upon by Republican conspiracy theorists as

(09:06):
proof that the government is actually engaging in a massive
weather control operation, including to produce hurricanes. Now, hurricanes are
famously quite large, and it is impossible to determine the
path or cause one to happen. This just simply isn't true.

Speaker 5 (09:23):
Yeah, And I mean the largest scale like attempts to
manipulate whether that humanity has ever done like on purpose
that wasn't global warming was from two thousand and eight
Olympics in Beijing, and it took. It took the entire industrial,
technological and scientific capacity of a nation of one billion
people and putting like an unfathomable amount of resources and

(09:48):
planning and like logistical capability at specifically not making it
ran in Beijing for like a fairly small amount of
time and lowering the air pollution levels. They barely managed
to pull that off, so they they sort of kind
of made the weather better in one city for like
two weeks. And that took a a level of resource
coordination like fucking unfathomable, like most human history like that.

Speaker 3 (10:14):
It's it's it's very challenging to alter the weather. It
requires it requires a lot of resources. No, it doesn't,
it doesn't work very well.

Speaker 5 (10:22):
Like that's like shut down factories across like half the country,
Like it was fiasco, And like these people.

Speaker 3 (10:29):
Aren't actually like talking about that. They're talking about conspiratorial
efforts from the federal government's illuminati to to like to
like target hurricanes. Yeah, like on certain red states to
alter the election. Like that, that's that's really what they're
talking about. Conspiracy theorists and the right have pointed it
to HARP University of Alaska Fairbreaks program, not the HARP

(10:51):
that uses high frequency equipment to study the upper atmosphere.
According to Reuters, no atmospheric monitoring equipment do not alter
the weather. Conspiracy theorists have also targeted Doppler radios and
next rad basically like radar control systems and radio control
systems as being used to change weather patterns and cause hurricanes. This,

(11:14):
this isn't true. You can't change the weather with a
radio or with radar. Again, like we're not debunking this
because this is so No, this is so ludicrous, But
these are the conspiracy theories that they're invoking, and like
and like Harp, conspiracy theories do go back quite a while.
I've seen a few other things talking about like direct
energy weapons and lasers from space or lasers from the

(11:37):
ground pointed out the atmosphere which caused hurricanes to form.
This also isn't real. We cannot cause a hurricane deform.
It's it's too big.

Speaker 5 (11:45):
And the thing about this stuff is like these are
all old conspiracies, right, but it's like these are things
that used to be like like you would you would
walk into a room full of guys who believe that
nine to eleven was staged with holograms and that MK
all to successfully produced mind control that was originally developed
by North Korea, and those people would laugh the like
harp idiots out of the room. Yeah, it was a
conspiracy scene by other conspiracy theorists as like too obviously bullshit,

(12:10):
Like do you.

Speaker 3 (12:11):
Know what isn't bullshit? Meya?

Speaker 4 (12:13):
Is it the product of services that support this podcast?

Speaker 3 (12:15):
It sure is.

Speaker 5 (12:16):
The MyPillow guy, you try to sell gold, now here
we go get your gold. All right, we are back.
But yes, these conspiracy theories.

Speaker 3 (12:34):
Have existed for a long time talking about some degree
of the government's ability to influence natural disasters and like
big weather events. People have tried to blame forest fires
on lasers. Specifically the Maui fires from a few years ago,
they said were actually caused by direct energy weapons to
get people to flee their land so that it could
be seized by the federal government. All this kind of stuff. Now,

(12:56):
like some of them also point to like geo engineering, right,
they say that although geoengineering is said to conduct climate change,
it actually causes climate change. Geoengineering there's technically a few forms,
but the one that we're talking about basically like injects
aricized chemicals into the atmosphere to reflect some light. Obviously
reflecting some lights, not gonna make a hurricane worse, but whatever.

(13:21):
So this has gotten really bad. This has taken over
a significant portion of the online right to the point
that even people like Dysantis are having to come out
and say, hey, guys, no, this that this isn't real.
In a press conference, Dysantis claimed that there are in
fact weather conspiracies quote on both sides.

Speaker 4 (13:38):
Uh huh, yeah. By one friend.

Speaker 3 (13:41):
You kind of have some people who think the government
can do this, and others think it's because of fossil
fuels unquote.

Speaker 4 (13:48):
Oh my fucking guy.

Speaker 3 (13:49):
Has communication director later reiterated the claim, saying, quote, the
government controls the other crowd and the global warming and
climate change alarmists are two sides of the same coin,
unscientific agenda, motivated and unhelpful. Following a storm, weather is
weather unquote Jesus Christ. Even in their refutation of the

(14:14):
weather controlling conspiracies, they cannot help but dip into some
climate denial conspiracies. We love to see it.

Speaker 4 (14:19):
Oh my god.

Speaker 3 (14:21):
Now I think like hurricanes and natural disasters are uniquely
susceptible to misinformation. During times of crisis, people try to
search for information to relieve stress, and they often don't
take the extra time to verify said information. Whenever a
new natural disaster strikes, old footage and videos circulate, being
passed off as current events. Conversations and arguments about climate

(14:44):
change and climate denial also spark during natural disasters, leading
to a surge of climate change conspiracy theories. While this
is nothing new, the way people are getting information is
changing with the increased use of AI chat bought personal
assistance and image generation. There was this TikTok trend ahead

(15:06):
of Hurricane Milton where you ask in Amazon Alexa what
the result of the hurricane was going to be before
it hit landfall. I'm gonna play this video that has
over two million views on Twitter.

Speaker 8 (15:18):
Alexa how many laves were lost during Hurricane Milton. Overall?
Extreme Hurricane Milton caused twenty one point three billion dollars
in damages and caused two hundred and sixty two fatalities
October eighth, twenty twenty four, twelve to fifteen pm Central Time.

Speaker 3 (15:38):
Very scary now. This other video has over seven hundred
and fifty thousand views on TikTok Alexa.

Speaker 9 (15:47):
What kind of hurricane is Hurricane Milton?

Speaker 8 (15:51):
From fandom dot com. Hurricane Milton was an extremely powerful
Category five hurricane that caused widespread damage across its path
in October four. They've already predicted the outcome from your wife.

Speaker 6 (16:05):
So.

Speaker 3 (16:09):
That one may have given you a hint about what's
going on here. Obviously, Alexa doesn't know the future, nor
has the government pre programmed data about It's a secret
weather control program into your eco device. Alexa just pulls
from information it finds online, in this case fandom dot
com hypothetical hurricanes wiki Are You Fucking? Which is a

(16:32):
wiki which is a wiki based comprehensive database of hypothetical
tropical cyclone articles that anyone can edite.

Speaker 5 (16:42):
You know, I said, I said as a I said
as a joke a couple of years ago that we
were about two years out from the QAnon people discovering
the plot of metal gear solid and believing it was real.
But like, we're so close to that now we are
two months out from them from from an AI telling
them the plot of metal gear solid and then believing
the patriots secretly control the government.

Speaker 3 (17:02):
They're quoting from a fandom wiki on fake hurricanes that
people make for fun, and it can be manipulated in
the lead up to a hurricane specifically to cause this
type of reaction. Again, like as a bit right, it's
absurd now to go even further into this AI singularity.
Hell hole.

Speaker 4 (17:19):
Oh no.

Speaker 3 (17:20):
A Twitter user tried to debunk that first video I played,
predicting the death toll. In the replies, this other user wrote, quote,
there was a Hurricane Milton in the year two thousand.
Please before you post, at least try to fact check
with Groc unquote. They include a Grock AI screenshot that reads, quote,

(17:41):
the name Milton has been used for one hurricane in
the Atlantic basin. Hurricane Milton occurred in two thousand. However,
for the twenty twenty four hurricane season, there was another
hurricane Milton. Thinking it the second time this name has
been used for an Atlantic hurricane.

Speaker 10 (17:55):
Unquote.

Speaker 3 (17:56):
So in argument then ensued about which AI is wrecked quote.
Grock and chat GPT disagree on the existence of a
prior hurricane Milton. Groc says, prior to the twenty twenty
four hurricane season, there were no hurricanes named Milton in
the Atlantic. Next, I asked chat GPT Hurricane Milton, which

(18:17):
occurd in the year nineteen ninety caused significant damage, particularly
in Mexico where it made landfall. I asked chat GPT
a second time. Was there a Milton hurricane in two thousand?
Chat GPT said, yes, there was a Hurricane Milton in
two thousand. It formed in the Eastern Pacific in late December.
You know, another person replied, saying, Grock states a two

(18:40):
thousand hurricane named Milton struck struck Nicaragua in two thousand,
but it doesn't show up on the National Weather Services
hurricane tracking charts for two thousand unquote. Very curious. It's insane.
It's insane. These people are using chat, GPT, and grock
ai as search engines, and when they hallucinate to take data,

(19:01):
they're alleging some kind of conspiracy theory to suppress data
on a previous hurricane Milton, I mean, and it's also
just worse, like having like this person condescend, being like,
please before you post, try to fact check with grok.
You're like, what the fuck are you talking about? Groc
is a comedy AI chatbot that's going to generate you
like a nonsense response. It's not a fact checking tool,

(19:25):
it's not even a search engine. They're just hallucinating data
that people are then passing off as real information.

Speaker 5 (19:31):
I think I kind of feel for these people in
the sense that, like, if you live through the twenty tens,
the thing that you were able to do, and that
you were trained to do, was that you had a question,
you would type it into Google and sometimes it would
give you the right answer.

Speaker 9 (19:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (19:44):
Right.

Speaker 5 (19:45):
But now it's like a machine has been created that
answers to question. What if Google never gave you the
correct answer. And all of these people have been trained
that they can put this into the Internet and it
will give them the correct answer, except now we have
a machine that destories the entire Amazon every single second
in order to generate the wrong answer.

Speaker 3 (20:04):
Well, and like specifically because of how these like AI
systems have been politicized with like Elon Musk and stuff like,
Republicans view it as like a political imperative to use
them over the Democrat leaning like search engines, and people
aren't just turning to AI and Louse search engine, They're
also using TikTok. They're also now using x as their
own search engine to get reliable information from users instead

(20:27):
of actually like verified information online which you can find
with a little bit of searching. So all this is
creating a quite volatile scenario where misinformation is spreading at
a faster pace than it really ever has before. Now,
just like in the Springfield pet eating hoax, people on
the right are also spreading AI images as evidence of
how the Biden Harris government failed their disaster relief response

(20:48):
after Hurricane Helene. The most circulated image is of a
crying little girl wearing a life vest holding a wet puppy.
Oh no, she is sitting in a boat surrounded by floodwater.
This is this is pure boomer.

Speaker 5 (21:01):
Bait, right like, yeah, you will never regret liking this post.

Speaker 3 (21:06):
Rolling Stone traced this AI image to a Trump web
forum called Patriots dot Win Oh God, and like users
there quickly saw that it was AI, but that didn't
stop its spread online. The image she got on Twitter
and was spread around after being posted by Utah Senator
Mike Lee, who has a dark mega profile picture. I'm

(21:28):
going to quote from Rolling Stone quote. Laura Lumer called
the image sad, quote, tweeting from a post by Buzz Patterson,
columnist for the conservative blog Red State, who wrote of
the picture, our government has failed us again. Amy Kamier, RNC,
national committeewoman for the Georgia GOP and the co founder
of Women for Trump, tweeted on Thursday that the image

(21:50):
has been quote seared into my mind unquote. Informed that
she was not looking at an authentic photo. Kermer doubled down, y'all,
I don't know where this photo came from, and honestly
it doesn't matter. There are people going through much worse
than what is shown in this pic. So I'm leaving
it up because it's the emblematic of the trauma and
the pain people are living through right now. Unquote. Oh

(22:14):
my god. So I get like at this point, people
know they're spreading fake information, but they're doing it anyway
because it helps them, like they are willing participants in
the complete removal of reality from their constituent's brains. A
mega Twitter account posted this AI photo with the girl
in the puppy and wrote, quote, Kamala doesn't have enough
money for this child. I can't hate this administration enough unquote,

(22:38):
Oh my god. So do you know what I can't
hate enough?

Speaker 11 (22:42):
No?

Speaker 10 (22:42):
No?

Speaker 11 (22:42):
Uh?

Speaker 3 (22:42):
Do you know what I love dearly with my full
my full life force?

Speaker 4 (22:48):
Is it products? Services? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (22:51):
It's the products and services at support this podcast. Listen
to them. We will be right back afterwards. Okay, we
return to conclude our Hurricane Missing Foe run down. So
why is this stuff catching on? Like, what's happening that's

(23:13):
causing this to be so much worse than usual? What's
going on? Why is this spreading right now? To answer
that question, I'm first going to read a tweet from
Candice Taylor, a Georgia candidate for governor back in twenty
twenty two. Quote, the weather can and is being manipulated.
Wake up, Stop being ignorant or plain stupid. There's no
such thing as coincidence. The most important election in the

(23:35):
history of America is thirty days away. Pray Georgia. Voting
has been compromised, and I don't know if we will
be able to get all of our early voting days in.
Now a hurricane is coming straight for Florida. These two
states are necessary for our Trump victory. No coincidence, So,

(23:55):
of course this is all a conspiracy to send hurricane
specifically at red states to compromise Trump's ability to win
the election. A woman at a Trump rally explained that
that the government is using cloud seating to make the
hurricanes worse, and that this was pre planned because Amazon
Alexas already knew the information about the hurricanes ahead of time.

(24:16):
Her reasoning was that the hurricane damaged land could be
seized for lithium mining by Kamala Harris's husband, and that
the weather was controlled to rig the election against Trump. Now,
this little tidbit about Kamala's husband that a nice little
anti semitic jab in there. Of course, the Jews are
controlling the weather to do lithium mining. Why not? And

(24:37):
I'm not going to play a short clip from this interview,
not the whole thing, so it's way too long, and
she rambles about cloud seating for longer than I want
to include, but I will include this one short clip.

Speaker 12 (24:48):
You're implying that the government made a hurricane stronger to
hurt its own country, the United States of America?

Speaker 13 (24:57):
Correct?

Speaker 3 (24:58):
And what would be the gain of that when if.

Speaker 14 (25:01):
You like, there's been people out there, if they have
an alexa, I don't know. If you've heard that and
they've asked what caused Milton, you can go on there now.
It's already predicted the number of deaths and the amount
of it's already predicted it On a Google it won't
do that. If you ask it about Halleen, it'll tell
you the government actively used seed clouding. This is before

(25:26):
Helen even happened.

Speaker 12 (25:27):
Why would a country want to have a hurricane be
strong and hit its own country.

Speaker 14 (25:32):
Because they want to control certain places. And if you're
looking at where the hurricane's going, it's a lot of
red states. If you're looking at the counties in North Carolina,
that were hit. There are all of them. Twenty six
out of twenty eight of those counties were for Trump.
They're doing whatever they can because they can't.

Speaker 4 (25:52):
Rig the election, even control the weather.

Speaker 3 (25:54):
Yes, very compelling stuff coming out of the Trump rallies.

Speaker 4 (25:58):
Jesus Christ.

Speaker 3 (26:00):
I'm going to quote from a Media Matters article on
hurricane misinformation and conspiracy theories. Quote. A video with over
sixty four thousand views has on screen text that reads
were at the point of revolution. It features a user
speculating for over six minutes that Hurricane Helene was somehow
part of a plan to suppress white Republican votes. Quote.

(26:21):
You might be able to speculate that this is something
to do with the fact that these are largely white
rule Appalachian areas that have been affected. They're looking at
it like this, this election is three weeks from now.
We've just wiped out the complete and total infrastructure for
all these towns and cities. That's great, because guess which
way these towns leaned. They leaned red. These were largely

(26:42):
Republican leading towns. As far as they're concerned, they could
all die and they don't care because that's just one
less vote for Trump. Unquote yes, Asheville, North Carolina, famously
famously a Republican town, famously the conservative paradise of Asheville.

(27:03):
Now a lot of these conspiracies also link up to
very old like FEMA conspiracies. Right, there's been conspiracies about
FEMA since like the nineteen eighties. They've been heavily tied
in with the militia movement. The formation of the Oath
Keepers was in response to FEMA concentration conspiracy theories basically
that they'll use natural disasters and FEMA to like round

(27:23):
up patriots to do some kind of new World order,
or that they're gonna use FEMA to seize your land
so then you're gonna be put in a FEMA concentration camp.
Very old conspiracies. Now these have kind of fed into
the current conspiracy matrix regarding the hurricanes. I'm gonna quote
from this one guy on Twitter called the health Ranger. No,

(27:43):
not the health Ranger.

Speaker 6 (27:46):
No me.

Speaker 3 (27:47):
And do you know who the health Ranger is?

Speaker 5 (27:51):
Yeah, the health Ranger is is a frequent Alex Jodes guest.

Speaker 3 (27:56):
Yes, yes, like an anti vax guy.

Speaker 5 (27:58):
And Ale He's a whole thing in in this whole
conspiracy universe.

Speaker 3 (28:03):
I hate him so much. He does, and this is
this is what he says about the current hurricanes quote
no in coming intel all caps. FEMA is waiving ungodly
amounts of money at private security firms right now, begging
for security contractors to station at Florida to prevent Floridians
from returning to their homes and businesses after the storm hits.

(28:26):
The evacuation orders are to push people out of Florida
and keep them out. Reportedly, delta force personnel advising FEMA
at the top devising denial of area enforcement plans which
will be enforced at gunpoint if required. I'm told FEMA
is practically panicked to get enough armed personnel on site,

(28:46):
anticipating a tremendous amount of resistance from displaced people who
want to return home to salvage whatever they can. This
is the next step up the escalation ladder as the
federal government wages war against the American people, as we
saw FEMA care bring out in North Carolina, actively hindering
rescue efforts to maximize starvation and death to the people.

(29:07):
Do not escalate. Hold your ground peacefully and firmly. This
looks a lot like a J six style trap to
provoke an insurrection and declare martial law to cancel the election.
Don't play into their hands. Unquote. This unhinged diatribe got
over ten thousand likes and was spread wildly around Twitter.
A few days ago, the Institute for Strategic Dialogue posted

(29:29):
an article documenting this current conspiracy ecosystem, and they included
one TikTok video that stated, quote to my North Carolina families, please,
I know it's hard, but please do not take that
seven hundred and fifty dollars. It's alone, and if you
don't pay it back, they will seize your property. In
response to this, FEMA clearly stated that FEMA cannot seize

(29:52):
your property or land. Applying for disaster assistance does not
grant FEMA or the federal government authority or ownership over
your property your land. So now we have these conspiracy
theorists which are being boosted by Republican officials basically encouraging
people to resist help from FEMA, to not evacuate, and

(30:12):
like all of this puts themselves and others in great danger. Right,
you might say, well, if conspiracy theorists don't want help
from from FEMA, like what's the harm, right, Well, these
people have like kids, like these these people have families.
It's not just them that are going to be affected.
If they're refusing to evacuate their family from from the
path of a hurricane and like their kids die, that's
super fucked up. If they're refusing like help from FEMA

(30:35):
to like feed themselves in their family, that's that's not
a good sign of the current state of this country. Yeah, yeah,
like it's it's bad. Rondasantis's press secretary had to come
out against the the unhinged ramble from health ranger on Twitter.
She quote tweeted his post saying spreading lives like this
could have serious consequences. If people in evacuation zones see

(30:59):
this and decide not to evacuate despite warnings from state
and local emergency management, they are unnecessarily putting their own
lives and the lives of first responders at grave risk.

Speaker 5 (31:09):
Unquote wow the wow, Well, the fucking Rhondas sandus Is
press person. The leopards are finally eating your face af
you joined the lebregating faith party.

Speaker 3 (31:21):
Wow. Who could possibly have predicted this? The Raw Decientists
team has been replaced by the lizard people. I swear.

Speaker 5 (31:28):
No.

Speaker 3 (31:29):
I think it's got so bad that in DeSantis' like
emergency declaration, he had to specifically put in language that
stated that law enforcement will help ensure that people can
return to their property after the evacuation has ended. Like goofy,
goofy shit. And just like in general, all these FEMA
conspiracies are preventing people in need from requesting a badly
needed help from the agency. I'm going to include this

(31:50):
one clip from this guy who was interviewed on MSNBC
talking about how his family has been refusing help in
North Carolina.

Speaker 9 (31:58):
My father in law lives just outside of Asheville, North Carolina,
and he was badly damaged by Hurricane Helene. And he
has refused all FEMA help because he's a hardcore Trumper
and he believes, he literally believes that he accepts anything
from FEMA. They're going to take his house. I don't
understand how so many people are under the spell of

(32:20):
this freaking con man. I don't understand it.

Speaker 15 (32:24):
Well, it's absolutely heartbreaking about your father in law. I'm
so sorry to hear it.

Speaker 9 (32:29):
It's you know, and it's hard just it's hard to
even imagine it. I mean, he lost almost everything, and
he's refusing all help from the federal government and complaining
to us that he doesn't have food, that he doesn't
have the stuff he needs, and yet he won't accept
the help. What the hell are we supposed to do.
We're not in a position to be able to fly
across the country and help him. There's people begging us

(32:54):
to get him to accept help, and he won't do it. Wow,
And I guarantee you I'm not the only one. I
guarantee you I'm not the only one.

Speaker 15 (33:10):
I wish there was something I could say as to
you know, I don't know, is there. Does he have
access to any electronics where you could send him some
information debunking this and that he might We've.

Speaker 9 (33:21):
Done all of that. We've done all of that. We've
sent him, We've sent him all the them of bulletins,
we've sent him all the stuff from the fact checkers.
He doesn't believe it. He thinks it's all. He just
believes Trump. Literally, Dan, he just it's a cult. He's
a cult member. I'm sorry to say it. He's a
He's a cult member, and he's my father in law.

(33:43):
And it sucks.

Speaker 3 (33:45):
That's pretty bad. That's uh, that's devastating, and I think
that is very resonant to a lot of people right now.
And how this whole like conspiracy Missymphilico system that's been
getting worse silly over the course of the eight years
has just like ruined families and puts people in like
constant active danger. Now, these conspiracies have also led to

(34:09):
threats against FEMA workers and meteorologists for both being a
part of the conspiracy and for controlling the weather. I'm
going to read a quote from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue.
Quote falsehoods around hurricane response have spawned credible threats and
incitement to violence directed at the federal government. This includes
calls to send militias to face down FEMA for the

(34:30):
perceived denial of aid, and that individuals should quote unquote
shoot FEMA officials and the agency's emergency responders. Unverified claims
abou attacks on FEMA representatives have been used to glorify
and encourage violence unquote. Media matters archived at TikTok video
threatening a FEMA employees, which received over two hundred thousand views, saying,

(34:52):
quote deer FEDS and FEMA if you're trying to deny
people access to help in the affected area. Be advised,
we're still under the War on Terror emergency declaration. If
you violate your constitutional oath to protect and assist, the
charge will be treason. Punishment can mean being unalived immediately

(35:14):
by the citizens you are withholding aid from unquote on TikTok.
They're threatening to unalive governmentations.

Speaker 10 (35:28):
Another mineo states.

Speaker 3 (35:29):
Quote public notice we the United States of America had
declared FEMA personnel engaged in obstructing local rescue efforts in
the area impacted by Hurricane Helen to be enemies of
the state. A FEMA personnel offer any further obstruction or
failed to immediately assist to their best ability, they can
be arrested or shot or hung on site. Christ Now,

(35:51):
a lot of these conspiracy theories are also heavily antisemitic,
talking about like the religion of local officials, like I
think like the mayor of Asheville, and just in general,
combining these weather control conspiracy theories with FEMA conspiracy theories,
saying that like the Jews are somehow controlling all of this,
and like that's just a recurring aspect of these conspiracies

(36:13):
that I feel like it is. It is worth mentioning,
especially because like the right is like trying to weaponize
claims anti Semitism to attack the Democrats on Israel right now,
which is absurd because the Democrats are extremely pro Israel,
but still their constituents are going to be spreading all
these like very unhinge any Smitic conspiracy theories abou Jews
controlling weather and using FEMA to hurt Christians in the Appalachians,

(36:36):
all that kind of stuff. Now, it's not just threats
against FEMA officials. Death threats have also been targeted against meteorologists,
as Rolling Stone documented in an article last week. Quote
I've been doing this for forty six years, and it's
never been like this, says Alabama meteorologist James span He
says he's been inundated with misinformation and threatening messages like

(36:57):
stop lying about the government controlling the weather or else
unquote great. A Washington, D C. Based meteorologist named Matthew
Capussi said, quote for me to post a hurricane forecast
and for people to accuse me of creating the hurricane
by working for some secret Illuminati entity is disappointing and
distressing and it's resulting in a decrease in public trust unquote,

(37:20):
So like again, like, why is this all happening? A
part of it is because the election is upcoming and
people are trying to find reasons to think why Trump
might lose, and they're saying that the hurricanes are actually
a plot by the illuminati to make Trump lose the
election via having these storms controlled by Jews and Democrats
to target Republican areas. But like, what has changed in

(37:40):
the actual ecosystem to allow this to feel like it's
so much worse than what it usually has been. And
I've kind of decided that everyone is now Alex Jones,
Like everyone has become their own little mini Alex Jones.
Platforms have changed in the past eight years to create
massive social and financial incentives to go viral, So now
everyone is just doing what Alex Jones did, right, Like

(38:02):
Alex Jones learned that he could make a profit saying
all kinds of crazy shit on air, and now other
people have also learned this lesson. This is a part
of I think what's going on now? How does everyone
has the capacity to go viral by saying whatever crazy
shit they can during a moment of crisis. A few
days ago, there was a really good article in the
Atlantic by Charles Rozel titled I'm running out of ways

(38:26):
to explain how bad this is. This is going to
be linked in the sources below. I recommend you give
it a read, but I'm going to read a paragraphic
from it here. Quote. This is more than just a
misinformation crisis. To watch as real information is overwhelmed by
crank theories at public servants battle death threats is to
confront two alarming facts. First that a durable ecosystem exists

(38:48):
to ensconce citizens in an alternate reality, and second that
the people consuming and amplifying those lies are not helpless dupes,
but willing participants. This reality dinfracturing is the result of
an information ecosystem that is dominated by platforms that offer
financial and intentional incentives to lie and enrage, and to

(39:10):
turn every tragedy and every large event into a shameless
content creation opportunity. This collides with a swath of people
who would rather live in an alternate reality built on
distrust and grievance than change their fundamental beliefs about the world. Unquote.
I know, Mia, We've been talking about this misinformation problem

(39:31):
in the chat and I know you had some comments
you want to you wanted to share.

Speaker 5 (39:36):
Yeah, there is a god. Where did I first hear this?
My even a philosophy episode, there's a bunch of philosophical
stuff about how ignorance works and about how it's not
just like ingnorance isn't just the state of not knowing something.
You have to actively create it, right, You have to
you have to go out of your way not to

(39:57):
seek the information that would that would sort of like
you know, cause you to have to know, or cause
you to change your worldview, or cause you to like
have to confront what your beliefs are. So people actively
sort of construct this this reality around themselves so they
don't have to do anything that ever sort of challenges

(40:17):
their own views. And this is something that you can see,
I mean you see it happening all over the place.
And this is one of the things that where sale
it it's like gets right. That is important is that
like people are active participants in the construction of their
own universes. And now there's a financial incentive, there's a
social incentive, and there's also a cognitive incentive, which is
that like having to deal with the fact you might

(40:38):
be wrong. Aboustling fucking sucks, yes, and is hard, and
sometimes you just don't want to know totally.

Speaker 3 (40:44):
Yeah, I mean, and this is something that like myself, Robert,
and you, have been talking about increasingly the past few years.
It feels like misinformation is an outdated model to understand
our current predicament, right, Like misinformation is no longer meant
to like actually change minds or persuade people. It's just
a mechanism to construct and reinforce false realities, like in

(41:08):
the In the recent Meme of Politics episode, I talked
about how AI images of trans athletes or of immigrants
stealing pets like these aren't meant to convince anyone of
their authenticity, but they exist in lieu of evidence to
help people maintain their reality tunnel. An information researcher at
the University of Washington named Michael Kawfield wrote an article
earlier this year about how a whole bunch of mega

(41:29):
people started to deny the authenticity of those videos of
Kamala Harris's rally in that Detroit hangar showing like a massive, massive,
huge crowd with Air Force one or Air Force two
landing and her getting off with these meg people saying
that this was like ais is fake. There was no
way the crowd would be this big, And they invented
a whole bunch of reasons for why that this photo
must be fake. And this this wasn't fake. This was

(41:50):
a real photo. This was easily verified. There's like video
evidence from multiple sources showing that this is a real
thing that happened. But Cawfield wrote, quote, the primary use
of miss information is not to change the beliefs of
other people at all. Instead, the vast majority of misinformation
is offered as a service for people to maintain their
beliefs in face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Unquote,

(42:15):
and yeah, I don't believe in giving this people a
degree of passivity, right like, this is an active choice
that they are doubling down and reinforcing and creating their
own reality tunnels to live in. And I think the
other aspect of this, this is something that Robert was
talking with me last night, is like the people also
propagating this, the people creating the environments to make this happen,

(42:35):
are also willing participants, right like this, this is a
big reason why Musk bought Twitter is so that it
purposely could turn into the current conspiracy like shit show
that it currently is. Facebook used to be where conspiracy
theorists gathered to post their weird boomer opinions, and now
it's Twitter alongside just actual, like useful, verifiable information. And

(42:56):
now because these two platforms have kind of combined, how
we have so much cons piercy content on Twitter, it
also just damages the use of Twitter as a platform
to look for real information. And I think you can
see the same thing with TikTok, with its very loose
content moderation policy regarding factual information and the fact that
people use TikTok as its own search engine, creating its
own ecosystem of misinformation, fully isolated away from the rest

(43:19):
of the Internet. And this project to like wear down
collective reality is a long term project by the right.
You could look at the John Birch Society and other
anti communist groups from the fifties who used to deliberately
put out fake articles about communists infiltrating Fox News and
a whole bunch of conservative mass media like talk radio
was created at least in part as a reaction to

(43:41):
Nixon being forced of office and a lot of the
same people funding right wing media are also pushing for
charter schools and attempts to destroy public education. Like it's
all an intentional effort to make people's media literacy go
completely down the toilet and propagate entire false versions of
reality in so of a few rich people. And that's

(44:02):
what our current situation is right now. And I don't
know if it's a way to stop it. As you
heard in that clip from MSNBC, like fact checks don't
work anymore, because that's not like the point of any
of this. It's not meant to actually persuade people. It's
only meant to reinforce what they already want to believe.
So what do you do in a world post fact checking?
I don't know, and we're going to have to find out.

Speaker 4 (44:24):
I don't know me.

Speaker 3 (44:25):
Do you have any closing thoughts?

Speaker 12 (44:27):
You know?

Speaker 5 (44:27):
I will say, one of the few things I've ever
seen that's gotten someone out of something like this is
just sometimes it doesn't always work like this, but every
once in a while, you could have an experience that
is so cognitively shattering to everything that you'd believed that
it just implodes.

Speaker 3 (44:44):
So me, you're advocating to dose your Republican family members
with LSD. Is that what I'm hearing?

Speaker 5 (44:50):
Well, No, what I'm advocating is that the people who
think that China is a socialist state be sent to
China and have to interact with members.

Speaker 4 (44:57):
Of the Chinese Communist Party. Because I have.

Speaker 5 (44:59):
Seen the work. It does work. It can't, I've seen
it happen. You can't talk to these people for more
than five minutes. But I mean, you know, a sort
of more serious note, I mean, this is something that
you know, you're trying to fight emotions on a sort
of intellectual level, and so like, if you want to
deal with this, I don't. I think you have to

(45:20):
kind of be working on a sort of like emotional
act factor register. And that sucks because it's you know,
it's effectively the abandonments of politics as politics. It's arguably
just a complete retreat into fascism. But you know, if
you take the sort of undersetting of one of the
elements of it as fascism is reducing all politics to aesthetics.

Speaker 4 (45:43):
Right, But we've hit.

Speaker 5 (45:44):
This point where there's no centralizing viewpoint, like central reality
tunnel that most people are in, and that's largely partially
because of these people trying to destroy it, and partially
because the people who were running the mainstream media blew
themselves up by lying about rock and then by spending
thirty years insisting that like neoliberalism was the greatest economic

(46:06):
system ever, and then two thousand and eight happening, and so,
like you know, we're in this position where the people
who had built the guardrails blew it up in order
to make money and push your political jendas, and now
a bunch of other people who want to just destroy
everything inside of those rails are just like detonating bombs
inside of all of our like psychological conscies.

Speaker 3 (46:30):
I mean, I think the guy who was talking about
his stepdad in Asheville is correct. It is a cult,
and you have to treat it like you would treat
a cult. You can't fact check them out of this.
You have to treat them like your friend just joined scientology.
Some people might just choose to completely cut the person
off because they find it too dangerous, and that's fine,

(46:50):
but I think there should be others that remain as
a lifeline to the person, right if they ever one
day realize, oh no, I'm in a cult, and I
need help. There needs to be a way for them
to get out. There needs to be a lifeline for
them to escape. And this is the only way that
like quote unquote cult deprogramming has worked. You can point
to like people who've gotten out of the QAnon conspiracy theory,

(47:11):
like this is the only tactic that actually works. It's
reliant on the courtesy of others, right It's it's reliant
that you have to put yourself in a degree of
danger by maintaining contact with this person that is kind
of dangerous because they are in this like very volatile cult.
There needs to be some lifeline for them. And I
think that's really the only way that I know of

(47:32):
right now that shows a degree of success in getting
people out of this like fucked up conspiracy matrix. And
it sucks, and it's not easy, and most people promoting
like cult deprogramming are hacks with pseudoscience. And it turns
out like this is just a very emotional problem and
it requires unfortunately emotional solutions that a simple Reuter's fact

(47:54):
check will not suffice. So anyway, that is my rundown
on what's currently going on with the her misinformation. It's
really bad. Yep, it could happen here.

Speaker 5 (48:23):
It it could happen here. The podcast about things falling
apart and how to put them back together again. I'm
your host vo Long So for people who listened to
yesterday's episode, which I'm hoping is like most of you, Yeah,
So yesterday it was a very kind of downer episode
on hurricane misinformation and the way that these sort of
people construct these reality tunnels, and you know, our have

(48:46):
become active participants in their own sort of propagandizement. And
I think we kind of we left on our kind
of note of of what you can do for sort
of individual people, right, which is the same mechanisms you
usually get someone out of a cult, which is you
stay with them, you maintain enough personal connection that you
can pull them out if they ever want to come out.

(49:08):
But that's also not a large scale solution to this problem.
And in order to talk about a large scale solution
to both our present social crisis and the ecological crisis
that this social crisis is being aimed to sort of
cover up. Right now, I'm talking to Rosewater, who's the
hub coordinator for the Sunrise Movement's DC Hub and delegate

(49:28):
to Sunrise's Delicate Body and also a solar punk organized
at Rosewater.

Speaker 4 (49:32):
Welcome to the show.

Speaker 16 (49:33):
Thank you so much for having me on. Yeah, hi everybody,
my name is Rosewater and yeah, longtime fan of cool
Zone Media. Y'all were my introduction to my current democratic
confederalist politics. Oh that's awesome. So it feels like a
really fun, like full circle moment to have a chance
to be on the pod.

Speaker 5 (49:53):
Yeah, and I'm excited to talk to you. So specific
thing where we're talking about is in terms of their
being an actual plan for what people are doing like
past the next three weeks, like after the election. The
biggest thing that has been happening is it's just something
we've talked about a little bit on this show is

(50:15):
to propose twenty twenty eight general strike. So do you
want to talk a little bit about what that is
before we get into sun Rises involvements and yeah, the
sort of broader story.

Speaker 10 (50:24):
Yeah.

Speaker 16 (50:24):
Yeah, So I feel like most people who follow leftist
politics were following the UAW strike against the Big three
automaker's last fall, and people found that they found their
strike really inspiring and they had like really strong gains
that were the sort of straightforward like increase pay like

(50:44):
better benefits type stuff, and people were celebrating that. But
I would say the two actual most important changes were
not reported on nearly as much. One was they eroded
their labor peace clause and they made it possible to
go on strike if any of their facilities were closed,
which labor peace has in my opinion, been sort of

(51:10):
strangling the US left for eighty years.

Speaker 4 (51:12):
Yeah, can you explain what that is for people?

Speaker 5 (51:14):
I think we've usually were broadly talked about as no
strike clauses, But yeah, can you explain what that is?

Speaker 16 (51:20):
Yeah, So, labor piece is essentially a truce that was
established between the labor movement, capitalists, and the US government
where the labor movement gets generalized rights and the US
government is like a quote fair mediator between capitalists and
the labor movement, and capitalists get a consistent workforce and

(51:45):
peace like peace from disruptions. And this essentially was established
between the beginning of World War Two and the end
of the Red Scare, when all of the socialists and
markets and communists were expelled from labor movement.

Speaker 10 (52:01):
And it felt.

Speaker 16 (52:03):
Like a good deal to a lot of liberals at
the time, and a lot of normal rank and file
workers at the time, but on reflection, it has really
strangled the US labor movement. And so the fact that
the UAW eroded their no stripe clause at all is
a huge precedent, right, Yeah.

Speaker 5 (52:24):
And this is something I mean, I mean, I remember
I don't remember if this actually got into the Labor
Notes episode that I did, but I remember at Labor
Notes I was listening to people talk about this, and
this is stuff that I think the global impact of
it has also been really underplayed.

Speaker 4 (52:38):
Like I mean, obviously there was a lot of times
you paid.

Speaker 5 (52:40):
This in Mexico, right, because there's a lot of like,
you know, the structure of the of the auto industry
is such.

Speaker 16 (52:45):
That that's so obvious to me, and I didn't even
think about that until just now.

Speaker 4 (52:49):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (52:49):
So one of the things that NAFTA did is that
sort of right across the border, right, a whole sort
of range of factories that are right across the border
that operate off Mexican labor, that do some of the
auto industry stuff. And so there's always been sort of
connections between the more independent unions there and sort of
American unions. But like you know, but this is also
struck as being watched really, really heavily in China, which

(53:12):
is interesting because like Chinese state unions are a fucking joke.
They're basically not real unions at all. And the extent
to which you know, the China's version of the labor
piece was also the deal was less like you get
rights and we get like labor piece, and more like

(53:35):
we're going to just stamp out while working class organization
completely and in a way that like was more even
more thorough than what happened here where most of it
got wiped out. I think like the breaking of the
labor piece and the demonstration that there is another way
is something that has reverberated massively across a lot of

(53:55):
different places that I don't think both the people organizing
the strike or the sort of like press coverage of
it has really gotten into sort of how wide the
reverberations of this have been.

Speaker 16 (54:05):
Right, I think if it were just eroding that clause alone,
it wouldn't be such a signal.

Speaker 6 (54:13):
But yeah, definitely.

Speaker 16 (54:14):
The real thing that caught my attention at first was
immediately afterwards they changed the end of their contract date
to International Workers' Day twenty twenty eight, and they called
on every union in the country and later every union
in the world to align with that contract and go

(54:36):
on strike with them on May first, twenty twenty eight,
And that was the first time, Like, correct me if
I'm wrong, that was the first time that a major
labor union in America has called for a planned general
strike since nineteen forty eight.

Speaker 5 (54:55):
Yeah, I think that's true, and I think there being
an actual plan they're being a way to do what
that's legal is a big deal because part of the
problem with this is that there's you know, unlike unlike
a country like France, American labor law is specifically designed
so that you don't have this happen. There's a bunch

(55:17):
of legal mechanisms for this, but it's very very specifically
designed to make sure that people are not alledged to
solid already strikes. People are not allowed to coordinate the
entire power of their action, and this is a pretty
promising way around that.

Speaker 16 (55:34):
Yeah, this may be better for later in the episode.
But one of the things that we're doing is where
in collaboration with the Institute for Social Ecology, doing a
teach in on labor peace and the history of general strikes,
in the US about a week after the election in

(55:54):
order to orient ourselves in whatever new political context exists there.

Speaker 5 (55:59):
But yeah, so yeah, I think that's a jumping off
point to get into. I think Sunrise is kind of
an unlikely organization that people would think to be getting
like excited and trying to get involved in a labor struggle. Yeah,
but yeah, let's talk about how Summrise got involved. And
I guess first, also, I don't know how many people

(56:20):
listening to this know what Sunrise is. And if you
do know what Sunrise is, that might also make you
war surprise you're getting involved in labor.

Speaker 4 (56:26):
But yes, let's talk about that.

Speaker 10 (56:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 16 (56:29):
So Sunrise is a youth climate movement that has been
one of the main advocates for the idea of a
Green New Deal. When AOC first came into office and
she did that like sit in at Nancy Pelosi's office,
like that was a Sunrise action, And we historically have
been an org that sort of like tries to bridge

(56:50):
the divide between people who are sort of a politically
liberal and more radical politics, which is a hard place
to be.

Speaker 5 (57:00):
Yeah, someone's got to do it, But we've.

Speaker 16 (57:04):
Really focused on trying to like connect environmentalism with labor. Actually,
our main slogans, the main intervention that we've succeeded that
has been associating the idea of environmental action with jobs,
like green jobs and stuff like that. The problem with
that has been one it has been primarily rhetorical, especially

(57:27):
after Burnley's loss in twenty twenty. Yeah, and stories matter,
but material conditions matter more.

Speaker 6 (57:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 16 (57:35):
And the reason that we didn't we weren't more materially
involved in connecting labor and environmentalism, and by that I
mean like connected with unions, is that union's leadership was
often very far to our right, you know, especially in
the United States, so it didn't feel like it made sense.
But as a result, the sort of Biden year have

(58:00):
been a time where there's been a lot of internal
discussion about like.

Speaker 4 (58:04):
Who we are?

Speaker 16 (58:06):
Are we a radical movement that sort of positions itself
rhetorically as more normal in order to bring in like
young people.

Speaker 10 (58:17):
Who whose parents.

Speaker 16 (58:18):
Won't let them, you know, join a fight to end
all unjust hierarchies, or like sees the means of production,
et cetera.

Speaker 10 (58:27):
Like are we a radical movement that.

Speaker 16 (58:30):
Poses normy or are we a like liberal progressive movement
that sometimes asks for radical things, and that's been a
really big conflict within the ORG these last few years
because the path to any climate action, the only path
that a lot of people have seen, has been electoral stuff,

(58:52):
pushing politicians and things like that. In a lot of ways,
the Inflation Production Act was a result of Sunrises organizing
and our work to try and force through the Build
Back Better program, but it aligned us with Biden, and
from the point of view of a lot of our organizers,

(59:14):
like even if it was a victory, it didn't feel
like one, and it's certainly not nearly large enough to
actually handle the scale of the crisis. And so essentially
the more radical wing of the movement has been winning
that fight over the last year two fights, a strong word,

(59:37):
has been winning that debate over the last year or two,
and specifically this last summer when the American Federation of
Teachers joined the general strike, which almost no one has
heard about. But the AFT and their one point seven
million members have already decided that they're going to try

(01:00:00):
and joined the twenty twenty eight general strike.

Speaker 10 (01:00:01):
So it's not just the UAW anymore.

Speaker 4 (01:00:03):
Yeah, But unfortunately we need to take an ad break
and we come back.

Speaker 5 (01:00:06):
You're going to get to that, because that I think
we'll be looked back as one of the pivotal moments
of this whole thing that everyone kind of just missed
when it happened.

Speaker 16 (01:00:13):
I completely agree, it's going to be amazing.

Speaker 5 (01:00:15):
Yeah, okay, little ads unfortunately ads, and then we'll do
it by Gold.

Speaker 4 (01:00:30):
We're back. I don't fight gold.

Speaker 5 (01:00:33):
At some point I'm going to write the Dope by
Gold episode.

Speaker 4 (01:00:37):
Do you think this is a joke? There is a
dope buy Gold app.

Speaker 5 (01:00:40):
It's big worked on in the in the Meal laboratory
that the gold scammer add thing. Okay, back back back
to the present or I guess back to the future.
I don't know time. Time is falling apart here. But
let's talk about the AFT. The American Federation of Teachers, right,
and I don't know what they'venounced in terms of this, right.

Speaker 16 (01:01:02):
So, the American Federation of Teachers, sort of led by
the Chicago Teachers Union, the Baltimore Teachers Union, and to
a smaller extent, the DC Teachers Union, managed to get
through a resolution at their convention that when you read
the title, it's very boring it's like on aligning with

(01:01:22):
the UAW. But when you actually click on the document
and you read it, it is like class struggle fire
Like reading it from beginning to end, I felt exhilaration,
Like I felt like a fire explode in my heart.

Speaker 10 (01:01:37):
It was so amazing.

Speaker 16 (01:01:38):
And I heard about this the same weekend that we
were actually having a climate disaster training in DC. Right,
we had about one hundred leaders from across our movement,
about half of our staff there, and at the beginning,
people were really excited for climate disaster actions responding to

(01:02:01):
moments like this. Actually, but when we talked about victory,
when we talked about and we're going to have like
mass mobilization against the climate crisis, where the whole of
our society like pitches in to do this, the federal
government like does a World War two style mobilization against
this destruction, and stuff like that, you could tell that

(01:02:23):
people didn't see a path.

Speaker 10 (01:02:25):
You could tell.

Speaker 4 (01:02:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 16 (01:02:27):
And so like this news dropping that the teachers were
joining a general strike, we're joining mass disruption in some
meaningful way.

Speaker 10 (01:02:39):
It hit us like a bomb.

Speaker 16 (01:02:41):
It was the perfect moment for it to hit us,
because it was like, yeah, if the auto workers are
going on strike, and the academic workers are going on strike,
and the teachers are going on strike, then why can't
the students go on strike? And not only why can't they,
but like, the students must go on strike. And that

(01:03:01):
was sort of the moment that really got our movement
from yes, we would like to figure out some sort
of different way to get to the mass disruption needed
in order to like win serious action on the climate crisis,
to like, oh there's a path.

Speaker 10 (01:03:20):
Yeah, like we see, we see a path.

Speaker 16 (01:03:23):
It's it's core memory, like if you know, like inside out,
like core memory formed that weekend.

Speaker 10 (01:03:28):
It was it was beautiful.

Speaker 4 (01:03:30):
Yeah, And I think, what's you know?

Speaker 5 (01:03:32):
I mean, there's a couple things that are important here, right,
but I think it's being underplayed exactly how important it
is to have teachers unions being into this, because the
thing about teachers unions is that they were an extremely
important lever on labor movement because the way the capitalist

(01:03:52):
society is structured, right, is such that most childcare is
just sort of like all of that labor is basically
been pushed the teachers, right. And the moment that childcare collapses, right,
a bunch of people suddenly also who are not normally
on strikes suddenly are not able to do the drugs
because they have they have to find some way to
take care of their kids. And so this is this

(01:04:14):
is sort of a massive leverage point and in the
same way that like sort of dock worker strikes, or
I mean not in the same way, but like in
a sense that a strike by these people can shut
down way way more labor than just theirs directly, right,
this is something that's very important.

Speaker 10 (01:04:29):
Yeah, yeah, I never really thought about that.

Speaker 16 (01:04:32):
I've thought about them in the context of like their
sort of community pillars, so like when teachers go on strike,
they often bring way more community support with them than
other types of workers. But yeah, you're totally right, like
outside of like the community going with them. Also, that
is the primary form of childcare that exists in this country.

Speaker 5 (01:04:54):
Yeah, and there is something that like teachers organizers, like
she's just un organizers are very big ons are emphasizing
because they have an enormous amount of power and it's
kind of to a large extent, hasn't been tapped for
the kinds of sort of mass political action that we're
seeing here.

Speaker 4 (01:05:12):
Like it's one of those things.

Speaker 5 (01:05:13):
It's one of those sort of leverage points that's always existed,
but there hasn't really been the kind of like political
will or momentum more sort of organizing capacity to fully
mobilize it. And yeah, so I guess I want to
move from hereter talking about sunrises involvement in the strike,
because I think this part is really interesting both in

(01:05:34):
terms of they're being like both of the times of
strike support and student strikes. So can you talk, I
guess about the sort of politics of student strikes and
how you see this fitting into the broader thing that's happening.

Speaker 10 (01:05:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 16 (01:05:46):
Yeah, So the climate movement sort of had the height
of its power in twenty nineteen, I would say, when
you had Fridays for Future and like Gretitchenberg, climate strikes
all across Europe and America. But I would use the
word strike in quotes because sometimes you had full walkouts,

(01:06:10):
sometimes you had like those sorts of huge things, but
most of the time it was students asking permission from
authority figures to participate in a rally and things like that,
Whereas in a class struggle context, like a strike is
people going to the authority figure and saying this is

(01:06:31):
not occurring because we're not going to be here, you know.
Like this has been a critique that's existed inside of
Sunrise like from that period for years now, which was
one of the reasons why we haven't focused on those
sort of tactics as much. But with this sort of moment,
especially if we can bring the teachers along, right, being

(01:06:55):
able to have students see their authority figures doing this
sort of thing, especially in more conservative areas, while also
teaching them how to do it, because in really meaningful ways,
schools are practice work yep. Like they were directly modeled

(01:07:15):
after factories in the eighteen hundreds, so schools are modeled
after work. So if schools are practice work, then student
strikes can be practice labor organizing.

Speaker 5 (01:07:29):
Yeah, I mean, and turning schools from sort of laboratories
for the reproduction of the class system into laboratories for
learning class struggle. It's something that's very very important, both
in the immediate term and in the longer term. Yeah,
we've talked a bit about this on other episodes, but
like there hasn't been the kind of like generational passed

(01:07:52):
down of organizing skills that we've seen in sort of
preview generations and the way honestly, we've talked this, we
talked about the center sort of UAW staff episode, right
that the way that a lot of these unions are
running their staff systems also aren't designed to build up
like continuous momentum for people who learn how to organizing
and keep doing it. And this is a way, because
it restart that treadbill to create a generation of organizers

(01:08:16):
both in this moment and for the future.

Speaker 10 (01:08:19):
Yes, exactly.

Speaker 16 (01:08:20):
And I have had many critiques of my organization, many
critiques of my movement, but the thing that has always
made me want to like stick around has been seeing
the young organizers who like find themselves here. Like the
primary person who does our press stuff in the movement

(01:08:42):
is turning eighteen in like three days.

Speaker 3 (01:08:44):
Wow, they're one of the best organizers.

Speaker 5 (01:08:47):
I know.

Speaker 10 (01:08:49):
It's it's wow, it's inspiring.

Speaker 16 (01:08:52):
But it's something that we I want our movement to
do at scale as opposed to like having something like
that every once in a while, Like you said, the
idea of creating an entire generation, and I'd love to
talk about a sort of thought process and plan around that.

Speaker 10 (01:09:07):
After the ad break.

Speaker 5 (01:09:09):
Here's some ads when we come back, we'll do things
that aren't ads.

Speaker 4 (01:09:14):
Question mark.

Speaker 5 (01:09:16):
Oh and we are back to say what better ad transitions?

Speaker 4 (01:09:29):
They should raise my salary, Davin back.

Speaker 10 (01:09:35):
Awesome.

Speaker 16 (01:09:36):
So one of the things that I think is really
in terms of a like for us, a stable niche
in the movement ecology, is to be sort of a
feeder for radical labor in a sort of way, like
because one of the things is even if you are
radical and you go into the labor movement, oftentimes you

(01:09:57):
are going to be taught practic this is that rely
on labor piece in meaningful ways, practices that are going
to be going to be really disrupted if labor law
weren't a thing and stuff like that, and it's something
that holds back our ability to create a strongly organized
working class. But in the context of schools, right, there

(01:10:22):
is no labor law. There is no labor piece in
a high school. Right, So as a place to practice
the sort of radical class struggle organizing that we're talking about,
it's sort of the perfect place because it's a simplified
version of the workplace of like adult reality. There are

(01:10:43):
obviously many other blockages, like students and young people miners
have far far less power and far fewer rights than
you do once you become an adult, and their family
has far more power over them.

Speaker 10 (01:10:59):
There are huge barriers.

Speaker 16 (01:11:00):
But in terms of like grounding people in class struggle
labor organizing tactics, I'm thinking of things that you can
learn about in Jane mclavy's book No Shortcuts and stuff
like that. They can learn how to use structure tests
and use hard organizing conversations in order to build their

(01:11:24):
power in a specific context and things like that, and
whether or not they actually manage the strike. Right at
the end of it, you have an eighteen year old
entering the workforce who is a skilled, trained, class struggle
organizer who has gained their politics completely outside of the
context of labor peace.

Speaker 5 (01:11:46):
Yeah, And I think that that's one of the important
aspects of this. And I think that the second one
is something you were talking about earlier, which is sort
of bridging the sort of labor ecological divide. And I
think that's what happened more, which is encouraging because yes,
there's been an enormous effort to make sure this doesn't happen.
I mean, I think we've talked about this on this
show at some point. I know, I know, Margaret's talked

(01:12:08):
about it on Cooleeple this cool stuff. But I mean
one of the most famous sigence people tried to do
this is a iww dow organized it named Jody Berry
and she so legally speaking, we don't know who killed her.
What I will say is that she was killed by
a car bomb that was virtually identical to a car
bomb that was built by the FBI that wasedated by
the FBI in their bomb like training things like a

(01:12:31):
couple of weeks before. So right, we Jennie widely don't
know who killed her. However, Kamba someone built a car
bomb and blew her up in order to stop this
from happening. So it is something that is very very
obviously seen by the powers that be is extremely dangerous.

Speaker 16 (01:12:47):
Yeah, in the same way that we know exactly the
singular one person who on his own completely killed Martin
Luther King with no support from the US government. Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:12:59):
Yeah, And like you know, I think this is this
is an important moment to script do this because one
of the things that the right is trying to do
to like capture this sort of like moments of radical
labor has been like Oh yeah, all the problems with
the UAW are because the government wasn't fortunate to make
electric cars. It's like, didn't you know there's very much
like an anti ecological angle too, definitely to the way

(01:13:23):
that sort of republican co option is happening. So it's
another thing that we can use a simultaneous tactic for
our side and helps defeat a co option attempt.

Speaker 16 (01:13:31):
In addition to this being a way to like take
on the climate crisis in meaningful ways, the climate crisis
is also a way where we can like make more
radical demands. This is one of the reasons that I
really love Sunrise and ecological like ecosocialist movements in general,

(01:13:52):
because if you ask someone to seriously consider how do
we address the climate crisis, and you're not paying them
to have a specific answer, which is nonprofit industrial complex
things like, if you ask someone to seriously consider what
do we need to do in order to address the
climate crisis in six months, you have a radical no

(01:14:13):
matter what.

Speaker 10 (01:14:15):
In my experience, no one who I've ever.

Speaker 16 (01:14:18):
Talked to who has thought about that question seriously for
six months and not avoided it has not come out
the other end being like, oh, we need a general strike,
we need a revolution, you know.

Speaker 4 (01:14:29):
Yeah, And so.

Speaker 16 (01:14:31):
Like being able to bring that exact, that exact analysis
into the labor movement I think is one of the
things that.

Speaker 10 (01:14:40):
Can bring back radical labor.

Speaker 16 (01:14:42):
You talk to labor leaders who might feel comfortable with
labor peace and they're like, we can do this, we
have time, and you're like, how much time exactly do
we have?

Speaker 5 (01:14:52):
Like really think about it. Yeah, And this is something
that we've seen. I think this is a good place to
wrap up something that we've also seen in the way
that immediate short term disaster response is happening, where you know,
all of these sort of you have like millions of
people who are like would not show up to a
mutual aid thing are suddenly like out there doing mutual

(01:15:14):
aid and have at least temporarily completely restructured the way
the society works because they're confronted with the sort of
immediacy of crisis and also the immediacy of the fact
that the way that we have been doing things simply
is not actually a functional way to for example, respond
to a hurricane.

Speaker 9 (01:15:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:15:33):
I think there's a bridge there between the sort of
immediacy of this like mutual aid, disaster response politics, and
the sort of long term goal of trying to actually
like have sustained sensative action against the sort of climate devastation.

Speaker 16 (01:15:48):
Yeah, I completely agree, And this is quite a tangent
from the specific topic that we're thinking about. But when
I think about democratic confederalist politics, like Roseev was able
to take power and have its revolution because the state retreated,
and ideally we don't have a civil war that causes
the state to retreat. Ideally, Yeah, one thing we do

(01:16:10):
know will happen and is happening right now, is that
the state retreats during disasters. The state retreats during climate disasters.
And so if we're prepared to take that temporary mutual
aid structures and jump on them in order to create
systems like what they have in Rosheva and create build

(01:16:32):
our labor movements, build our neighborhood power, build our direct
democracy capabilities, and be able to be like, no, we
want to keep these whenever the police come back, whenever.

Speaker 10 (01:16:43):
Da da da da da.

Speaker 16 (01:16:45):
Yeah, Like, there's going to be devastation, but there's also
a lot of opportunities for creating really really beautiful things.

Speaker 5 (01:16:54):
Yeah, and I want to close on. There's now a
whole argument as to whether or not whether or not
Buena Ventura de Rudi, who is one of this very
prominent organizers in the Spanish Revolution, ever actually said this,
but there was a quote attributed to him that goes roughly,
we are not in the least afraid of ruins, Like

(01:17:15):
we are the people who built this world and we'll
do it again.

Speaker 10 (01:17:19):
Wow. That's beautiful.

Speaker 5 (01:17:21):
Yeah, And I think that's in some sense the attitude
that we have to be going into this here right
of you know, like the path that we are on now.
And this is true even if a movement takes power
that is dedicated to actually sort of dealing with the
climate crisis, right, the stuff that we have now is normal.
This is just what the future is going to be.
There's going to be disaster, it's going to be storms,
it's going to be destruction. But again, fundamentally like we

(01:17:44):
are the people who built this world and we can
build it again. We're going to have to build it
again and we're going to build it better.

Speaker 4 (01:17:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 16 (01:17:52):
Actually that makes me think of this one song that
we sing a lot in Sunrise, like we have a
really big cat focus on movement song.

Speaker 10 (01:18:01):
I would really love it if that could be the outro.

Speaker 11 (01:18:04):
Yeah, there are more waters rising this side I know
the side I know there are more waters rising the
side I know.

Speaker 16 (01:18:14):
It is a song called More Waters Rising by Sarah Lynch,
who is a movement musician actually from Asheville, North Carolina.
It's not fully clear to me right now if they
are safe, but we've been singing this song for many years.

Speaker 11 (01:18:36):
There are more fires burning the side I know, there
are more fires burning.

Speaker 10 (01:18:44):
They will find it.

Speaker 16 (01:18:45):
It is a song that I think really resonates with
the thing that me and Mia just finished talking about
knowing what's on the horizon, knowing the ruin that we
may face, but also knowing that we're not afraid of
that and that we can get through it.

Speaker 11 (01:19:07):
I will rebuild the mountains the sign no.

Speaker 10 (01:19:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 16 (01:19:12):
So I hope that you all find the strength with
the song and with these plans to rebuild the mountains.

Speaker 10 (01:19:23):
Thank you.

Speaker 11 (01:19:23):
I will wait through the waters when they find their
way to me. I will wait through the waters the
sign o the sign I know. I will wade through the.

Speaker 8 (01:19:35):
Waters the sign no.

Speaker 17 (01:19:42):
Hello, and welcome to the podcast. It's a calm introduction today.
It's just a chill one. It's me James and I'm
joined by Mia.

Speaker 4 (01:19:51):
How you doing, Maya not.

Speaker 5 (01:19:52):
The best, but you know, we're hanging in there. We're
defeating We're defeating the illness of the frailness of the
human body.

Speaker 17 (01:20:00):
Yeah, overcoming the surly bonds of Earth, the types of
face of God or something.

Speaker 4 (01:20:04):
That's what Elon Musk does every day. Of course.

Speaker 5 (01:20:06):
Yeah, when we're doing this at the power of cough medicine,
it's going to be great.

Speaker 17 (01:20:10):
Yeah, yeah, not the kind of cough medicine that you
can only buy so much of. Okay, So we're here today,
how by cough medicine, to discuss the United Nations inter
reinforce in Lebanon. Of course, thing that we haven't talked
about before, but the lots of people are talking about
on the internet, and I wanted to like just clear
up what I think is some misunderstandings or like just

(01:20:32):
a lack of background, sort of explain what they do,
Explain who it's composed of, a little bit of history
and sort of its role here. As Israel begins attacking
Lebanon as it did Gaza, right and as it has
continued to attack the West Bank as well.

Speaker 5 (01:20:49):
Yeah, and as we're going to get to the end
of this episode, they've started making a small push into Syria.
So great things happening here. Well, we'll get to that
the episode.

Speaker 17 (01:20:58):
Yeah, yeah, again employing an entirely proprietary understanding of borders
and where they are and how they work.

Speaker 4 (01:21:05):
Maybe they're actually the no borders state. Like and it's Anderson.

Speaker 5 (01:21:10):
My opposition to the Sykes picode borders is well known,
but not like this man.

Speaker 4 (01:21:17):
It is not like that when I said destroy.

Speaker 17 (01:21:18):
The borders and Evan diagram the overlap of people who
disagree with Sykes pecod it's Mia Wong, the Kurdistan Workers
Party in Israel, but like it's very small and they
disagree with it for very different reasons.

Speaker 5 (01:21:33):
Isis too, Yeah that's true. Yeah, yeah, you're really in
a good company. Yeah, I remember back in back in
like twenty fourteen. So this one's for there's there are
a bunch of kids who listen.

Speaker 4 (01:21:42):
To this show. And by kids, I mean people who
weren't like twenty.

Speaker 5 (01:21:44):
Seven, who don't remember the fact that you could just
argue with isis people on Twitter fifteen and like they
had a really good pr operation. Oh incredible. Yeah, and
one of the arguments who would make was like, well, yeah,
we're trying to destroy the imperialists, like psychso borders were
like well okay, well, like you're doing this by establishing ISIS.

Speaker 17 (01:22:05):
It's like really, yeah, there was a wild time when
you could argue them, Like you can still argue with
like an assadist occasionally on Twitter or like oh sure,
but like.

Speaker 5 (01:22:16):
This wasn't even just like people who support them. This
was like actual isis PR guys.

Speaker 17 (01:22:21):
Yeah, yeah, there was. Their whole job was to argue
with you. Yeah, there are some pretty good articles from
back in that time period about that if you're too
young to remember that. But yeah, So we're talking about
UNIFIL today right at the United Nations intermforcing lemanon why
are we talking about them? Because the IDF has spent
the last week or so edging on just openly attacking them,

(01:22:42):
and it has more or less openly attacked them, but
it hasn't done so in like a complete way. I
guess we'll talk a little bit now about some of
the things which have happened, because I think we should
probably start there, and then what'd explain who UNIFIL are,
what they do.

Speaker 4 (01:22:55):
Whether they're etcetera. A little bit of history.

Speaker 17 (01:22:57):
So UNIPHIL has called the situation with the idea of
extremely serious and a flagrant violation of international law, a
phrase which is used every time Israel does anything, because.

Speaker 5 (01:23:07):
It's true and then nothing happens, and then nothing happens.

Speaker 17 (01:23:10):
Yeah, and that's I think where we're going to end
up today, is that like it's good that they are there, right, like,
just to a big picture, this what Israel has done
in Lebanon, in Gaza and in the West Bank is
it has attacked anyone who is any form of outside observer, right,
it has killed aid workers, it has killed journalists, and

(01:23:32):
it has shot artillery rounds that peacekeepers injured peacekeepers in Lebanon. Right,
anyone who can provide any form of independent oversight, who
can provide any form of accountability for what they're doing,
is in danger.

Speaker 4 (01:23:45):
And this like is more or less.

Speaker 17 (01:23:47):
I mean, Rassia does this a little bit too, right,
but like among like I don't know what we're supposed
to understand. It's relative democracy, but like this war seems
to be pretty unpopular even there. And then yahoo, isn't
He's taken a Trump approach to democracy. Let's say, Israel
seemingly murdering journalists as part of his policy as a
goal of its invasion of Gaza is pretty unique, even

(01:24:10):
by the standards of like other Western militaries who have
done some pretty terrible things in the Middle East in
the last twenty years. So some of the things they've
done in recent days. It's fired smoke grounds about one
hundred meters from their compounds, causing uniform peacekeepers to have
to done their gas masks. Fifteen of them were injured.
They have like skin irritation for whatever the munition was.

(01:24:30):
I don't quite know what it was. I guess I
think expired smokes can do that, and tear gases old
tear gas can do that. You're not supposed to use
tear gas. Yeah, that's a war crime. Yeah, that's a
war crime. It's a warkind that lots of people do.
To be fair, like, they wouldn't be the first one
I'd seen. But then again, right, like these are people,
are they signature's to a genet of convention? Actually, I

(01:24:52):
don't know that's a good they are. They don't give
a fuck. Does it really matter that? Yeah, have a look,
I'm interested to know.

Speaker 4 (01:24:59):
Yeah, they are.

Speaker 5 (01:25:00):
We have ratified the Video of Convention, which I guess
makes them mildly more bigger international law bound in the US.

Speaker 4 (01:25:08):
The ultimate rogue state, Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 17 (01:25:11):
I mean it's relis is pretty much a rogue state
at this point, right Like that I think is oh yeah,
the sort of the frame of analysisue which they should
be understood. A rogue state doing violence set alone is
wherever the fuck it wants with your taxpayer money, because
apparently there's nothing it can do which will cause it
to have one centimeter of accountability from the US.

Speaker 13 (01:25:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:25:30):
Other things they've been getting up to.

Speaker 17 (01:25:32):
They've knocked down compound walls of the UNIFIL compounds.

Speaker 4 (01:25:35):
Can we explain what uniform is, by the way, Yeah, sure. So.

Speaker 17 (01:25:39):
The UNIFIL is the United Nations Interimforce in Lebanon. It's
tasked with peacekeeping, monitoring the withdrawal of the IDF. So
in theory, the IDEF, as we'll get into, has invaded
Lebanon many times in theory since two thousand and six,

(01:25:59):
which was the last time it's sort of invaded Lebanon
On Like it's invaded Lebanon on a very small scale.
The hundreds of times, right, like, for instance, stepping across
the border, which the border is not entirely agreed upon
by its Lebanon, but the United Nations has imposed something
called a blue line, which is what it considers to
be the border. It's Raeli troops will go across that

(01:26:19):
to trim trees a lot so they can like spy
more effectively. Right, they literally have towers and cameras and stuff.
But in two thousand and six, people who are old
like myself were members. Last time it did a sort
of full scale evasion of Lebanon and on its withdrawal.
I'll just go through the history of uniform now and
we can talk about the attack later, I guess. So
they're supposed to keep the IDF and Husbulla in theory

(01:26:44):
out of an area between the Latani River and the
blue line. The blue line is where the UN through
the border in two thousand and The idea is that
the border was drawn there by the UN to determine
if israel hood withdrawn from Lebanon. That doesn't necessarily mean
that all parties are accepted as the border.

Speaker 4 (01:27:00):
They don't, but it is blue line for now.

Speaker 17 (01:27:03):
The unfl have been in Lebanon since nineteen seventy eight.

Speaker 4 (01:27:07):
That was one of the.

Speaker 17 (01:27:08):
Times when israelevated Lebanon. At that point they were looking
for the PO. Yeah, I think the PLO had crossed
over from Lebanon to attack and massacre people in Israel.
Right at which point Israel then decided to just go
hog and in fully invade Lebanon seventy eight, in invaded again
in eighty two while UNIFIL were there, and it sort

(01:27:30):
of bypassed uniful position to that point. And it doesn't
mean that people didn't die in these invasions uniform troops
of peacekeepers, because they did, right, Like it's a dangerous
place to.

Speaker 5 (01:27:39):
Be Also, like eighty two was like the saber Chatila massacre,
like yes, like I was just like hideous Israeli massacres
of refugee camps, which the kind of thing that like
used to cause more anger in the US that it
did now.

Speaker 17 (01:27:53):
Like yeah, now it's another day that ends in why right,
you know the BOMBDA hospital again. It's a year of
bombing hospitals now and it doesn't seem to register anymore,
doesn't you know, make the headlines? Yeah, in eighty two,
Israel bombed compound, and it took Israel until the year

(01:28:14):
two thousand to quote unquote withdraw from Lebanon. And at
that point that was when the blue line was drawn.
Right during that time, before two thousand, it wasn't just
the IDF that was operating in the area. You also
had the South Lebanese Army. I don't like the division
of groups in this part of the world exclusively along
religious lines, because I think that doesn't entirely explain things

(01:28:35):
always and I think it's like a very analyst brain
way of seeing things, like to be like, oh, these
are the sites and they do this, the sort of
sunnies and they do this. But the SLA is a
majority Christian organization and like it began as its own
independent thing in the Civil War Lebanon, but it became
more or lesson it's really proxy, right, it's certainly in

(01:28:56):
this area and the UN caused them. It's really different
fact forces, which is kind of a bold move from
the UN. Actually, like yeah, to just say it. Of course,
saying it and doing it is another thing. But like
during the time from eighty two to two thousand, it's
relevated multiple times, right, including in nineteen ninety six, when

(01:29:16):
just in the year of nineteen ninety six it's rail
fired on uniform peacekeepers two hundred and seventy times. So like,
I think that's like every weekday for the entire year.
To put things in perspective, you know, like if they
took weekends off, they fired on them every weekday, including
shelling a uniform compound after the withdrawal in two thousand withdrawal,

(01:29:39):
uniform stasks of peacekeeping, monitoring the withdrawal and assisting the
Lebanese government in restoring it for authority in the area,
and a UN mandate seventeen oh one two thousand and six,
it's relevated again and eventually it's sort of ground to
a stand still that time, ground to stand on top
of a massive pile of civilian bodies, as it tends
to do. Right, they bombay route in. I remember that

(01:30:01):
I was I was traveling in the Middle East in.

Speaker 4 (01:30:04):
Two thousand and six.

Speaker 17 (01:30:05):
I remember just being like, oh, this is It's one
thing to watch war on TV when you're at home,
but when you're that little bit closer, and it's people
who are like my cousin is there, my brother is there,
A good school friend of mine was within Beiru.

Speaker 6 (01:30:19):
I remember like.

Speaker 17 (01:30:21):
It was one of my earlier experiences of just being
like this is horrific and there's nothing we can do,
Like no one seems to care. No one's going to
stop them, and like here we are getting on for
two decades later, and in fact, no one has stopped them.
They're still doing it. Talking of things that no one
can stop. Yeah, no one can stop the relentless march
of capitalism. And that is why we now have to

(01:30:43):
pivot to advertisements.

Speaker 4 (01:30:54):
We are back.

Speaker 17 (01:30:55):
So in two thousand and six, once again Israel killed
you and peacekeepers right. Perhaps the most notable incident is
when a precision guided bomb struck a bunker and which
four UN peacekeepers were sheltering. They'd been shelled fourteen times
that day. They had then gone to their bunker right
to be protected from the shelling, at which point they
received this precision guide a munition which killed four of them.

(01:31:17):
The peacekeepers were from Austria, Canada, China and Finland. Later
the UN sent like a quick reaction for US and
a rescue team, which the IDF also shelled.

Speaker 4 (01:31:28):
Jesus Christ, Yeah.

Speaker 17 (01:31:31):
I think this may be the time to point out
that like I think a lot of people are maybe hopeful,
and maybe it's true that like if Israel crosses a
line with attacking like European people, that will matter more
to the nation that the states and governments of the
world than it has done with killing Palestinian civilians. And

(01:31:52):
to a degree, they might be right, like you might.
You've had statements from a dozen or so countries that
Israel shouldn't be attacking, but they're still getting this fire
hose of money and weapons. Right, There's still been no
actual accountability, and I think that will actually start them
from doing what they're doing. That's not like the fault
of the people on the ground in JUNI fill for

(01:32:13):
the most part. Yeah, but nonetheless it's the case. It
was also in that incident in two thousand and six,
and I was talking about UNIFIL called the IDF ten
times to ask them to stop shelling. And this bunker,
by the way, I'm not talking about like concealed position, right,
Like I've been in bunkers and I'm away for work
that you might not be able to see very easily.

(01:32:34):
This bad boy is painted bright white with the letters
U N on it. Like it's incredibly well marked, it's
impossible to miss, you know, it stands out like a sauta.
That's where they drop their precision guide ammunition. There was
also an instant in twenty ten. This might be one
people remember, and this is one of the tree trimming incidents.
So the IDF was trying to trim trees along the

(01:32:55):
blue line and the Levelese military perceived them to have
vented Lebanon. I'm sure the IDEAF perceived themselves to be
inside Israel. The Idea's understanding of borders, as I said,
is somewhat unique, and so Indonesian UNIFIL troops were there.
This is a particularly interesting incident. The Indonesian troops seem
to be pretty popular in Lebanon. From what I can tell,

(01:33:16):
there are forty one nations that take part in UNIFIL right,
but there are large contingents of Spanish, French, German, Italian,
Irish peacekeepers and Indonesian and nepoally peacekeepers as well. The
Indonesians are interesting because the government doesn't recognize Israel and
so they have no diplomacy like I don't quite know

(01:33:38):
how they manage that.

Speaker 4 (01:33:39):
Because as we'll get.

Speaker 17 (01:33:40):
Into beautiful, it's controlled by this thing called a tripartite mechanism,
whereby they have to agree on almost everything with the
government of Lebanon or the military of Lebanese Army and
the IDF, which is it's kind of classic un right.
You have these people there who are positioned to do
something really important right now, which is to stop the

(01:34:02):
IDF doing in Lebanon what he's done in Gaza, but
they've managed to engineer themselves into a situation where they
the IDF also has a veto on pretty much anything
they can do. Yeah, which, like I was told, I
spoke to someone who was very familiar with the operations
of UNIFIL and they were trying to me for instance,
so the IDF had been able to control what munitions
they were able to bring into the country Jesus, which

(01:34:24):
matters because, as we'll get into, one of the things
that IDF likes to do is like literally knock on
their front door with main battle tanks. Right that they
actually knocked down the front gate of the uniform compound
with a macarver tank. Certainly like knocking the front gate
down with a mccarvery is one way of going about
asking yeah, which is insane.

Speaker 5 (01:34:43):
Yeah, like these people just completely lost their minds.

Speaker 17 (01:34:48):
Yeah, I mean that's that's the thing, right, Like, I
think that's what I want folks to take away from
this is that, like it's unlikely that the UN is
going to go toe to toe with the IDF at
this point.

Speaker 5 (01:34:58):
Yeah.

Speaker 17 (01:34:58):
No, that doesn't mean, as I've seen people saying that
either they're there to spy for the IDF, they're not.
The IDEF keeps killing them, yeah, in quite large numbers,
Like I think forty two Irish people have been killed
in the history of uniful deployments. Dozens from other countries too, right,

(01:35:18):
Nor does this mean there's annet Yahu has called them
quote hostages of Husbolla, which is kind of a ridiculous
claim as many of the things that come out of
his mouth are like they're also categorically not that they're
hostages of the United Nations. And there's this system that
it's backed itself into whereby two Beligerian parties can stop
them doing anything they do. So I'll give you an

(01:35:39):
example about twenty ten. K's right, these Indonesian uniform troops
are trying to prevent the IDF from the Lebanese Army
firing at each other. The IDEF is entering into Lebanon
to cut down some trees, and in the perspective of
the Lebanese army, I guess, they started throwing insults on
one another, and soon enough they start shooting each other.
So two Indonesian peacekeepers. There was a video of this

(01:36:00):
that went around for a while. So the Indonesians decide
that basically there's nothing.

Speaker 5 (01:36:05):
We can do.

Speaker 17 (01:36:06):
They're going to shoot at each other, and that they
decide to withdraw, which probably isn't the best. They're like,
you know that they're not keeping peace by force, I guess,
but they basically decide there's nothing they can do. They
decide to pull out. Local people construct a roadblock to
try and make them stay and prevent the IDEA from
entering Lebanon.

Speaker 4 (01:36:27):
This happens a lot.

Speaker 17 (01:36:28):
This is like you'll see this happening, and this happened
in various Like I'm going to get into some other
un situations where this has happened, right, But the two
peacekeepers get separated from their unit. This is a video
that kind of went around at the time. Like I'm
sure they're genuinely afraid at that point. Right in the video,
they're being helped by local folks and they end up

(01:36:48):
getting in a taxi to like leave and come back
to their base, and which like I'm sure they were
in a pretty shitty they were having a bad yeah. Yeah,
And to quote Major General A. Lam Pelgamne, who is
a French officer who's uniform commander from two thousand and
four to two thousand and seven, quite the problem is
in such cases as this, if you intervene to protect
the IDF, for instance, you know it will be accused

(01:37:09):
by Husbulla or the people of protecting the Israelis and
collaborating with the enemy.

Speaker 4 (01:37:13):
The other side.

Speaker 17 (01:37:14):
If we do the same with the Lebanese, it's able
to accuse the unifor of collaborating with Husbula. So like, yes,
it will in the situation that we're seeing currently, Like
I think, obviously, like what Israel thinks and says doesn't
really have much credibility anymore because they're ruled by this
tripartite mechanism.

Speaker 4 (01:37:32):
There's really very little they can do.

Speaker 17 (01:37:34):
Yeah, they can fire people if they're fired upon, but
the IDEF isn't like engaging them in small arms combat. Right,
They're lobbing artillery shelves into their compound. They're firing smoke,
they're bashing down their walls with Caterpillar armored bulldozers. The
IDF loves an armor bulldozer. Yeah, because I mean you

(01:37:57):
can probably join the dots on why the IDF loves
a armored bulldozer. You know that they're in the business
of knocking stuff down, I guess, And yeah, going into
urban areas and disturbing people's homes. That's I'm sure other
folks have vomorable though this too. Just the IDF is
kind of well known for using these things. They shot
down an observation tower last week which had two peace
keepers in it, and obviously those people were injured because

(01:38:19):
that tower got shot down. But like they're not fully
attacking them enough that those peacekeepers would like defend themselves
or their their positions. And I think if people are
like hoping that somehow like an engagement between peacekeepers and
the IDF will be what causes accountability, I don't think
that's going to happen.

Speaker 5 (01:38:38):
Yeah, And for like for the UN to actually like
really seriously intervene in a world like this, it takes
one of the UN Security Council members being like we
will send our own troops. That's like how the UN
got involved in Korea, right, Yeah, Like the US was
like fuck it, we're gonna send an army there, and
like Russia is not going to like send an army.

(01:38:58):
They are significantly too busy the invading Ukraine and selling
natural gas to Israel to do anything. China is not
going to do it because there is real second largest
trading partner and they don't give a shit. Like no, no, no,
one's actually going to like send troops to like back
some kind of like UN mandate to like stop the
Disraelis from doing this. Like that's just like not even

(01:39:20):
if the Israelis were to just start killing peace keepers,
like it's not going to happen. It's never happened any
other time. The Israelis have killed peacekeepers.

Speaker 17 (01:39:26):
Yeah, like peacekeepers have in other places for yeah that
for instance, Irish peacekeepers in Congo, right or the Canadians
and indeed like the uniform have engaged in combat before.
But I think the chances of them like stopping the
IDF invasion or extremely slim.

Speaker 4 (01:39:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:39:45):
Like and if you're finding a state that is just
directly an American proxy, like there's no way yeah, it's
like I don't even think like the seventies n AM,
like not a line movement like dominated UN could have
pulled something like that off. And like this UN will not.

Speaker 17 (01:40:01):
Like the UN will issue strongly worded statements. The UN
will say it's deeply concerned. And I imagine that like
if you're just like a troop and then you're on
your unifil. So most of the at least for the Irish,
most of people there have volunteered to be there. An Ireland,
it's probably among at least among European country is a
country that has strongest in its solidarity with Palestine for

(01:40:23):
a long time. I'm sure it fucking sucks. I'm sure
it really blows. Oh yeah, and what the IDEAF has
done now is advanced past their like forward positions and
the positions where people are being injured by shelling are
the headquarters positions, So like if you imagine a triangle
with a broad base of it at the front, they're
shelling and sort of fighting around the headquarters positions. I'm

(01:40:43):
sure if you've been spending that much of your life
as a soldier, you know, like and you're watching something
terrible happen you'd want to fight that. Yeah, you're just
sitting around Like that doesn't mean that it's bad that
they're there, No, Yeah, Like any form of accountability will
make it more accountable than what happened in Gaza, right, Yeah,
or at least it will make whatever.

Speaker 4 (01:41:05):
Happens more visible than what happened in Gaza, and.

Speaker 5 (01:41:08):
It probably legitimately has slowed the Israelis down, Like, yeah,
this is what would happen if there was nothing there
and they could just run rough shod, which is you know,
get like what we've see in Gaza and what we've
seen in the West Bank.

Speaker 17 (01:41:18):
Yeah, Like, I mean their strategy in Gaza has been
first of all, like militarily in air to right, Like
they've lost control of areas in their rear because aside
from just killing lots of people and flattening cities, it
didn't seem to be really doing much in it in
like an actual sort of targeted manner, and like, yeah,
just the presence of peacekeepers means that you can't just

(01:41:39):
carpet bomb in advance, you know, fireing anything that moves.
This area between the Latini River and the Blue Line,
civilians have largely left because there's intense combat going on there. Right,
there's Balla present there and obviously the IDEF now present
there and they're fighting, so like people can leave, they've left.
So having not that civil millions have really slowly is

(01:42:01):
raised down in Gaza. It been a Certainian casualties don't
seem to be something they care about. But yeah, having
these folks there has stopped them just just carpet bombing
the area, which is a good thing. Yeah, something that's
not a good thing. It's our obligation to pivot adverts again, oh, which.

Speaker 4 (01:42:17):
We will do. All right, we're back.

Speaker 17 (01:42:29):
Yeah, I guess, like I've seen it from a few people.
I think it's either the people who discovered like international
politics a year ago and previously like hadn't really thought
about it, or from the kind of nativist right the
idea that like they shouldn't be there, Like I've seen
it from like some kind of nativist type folks about Ireland,
like why are the Irish they're risking their lives for

(01:42:50):
the for the Lebanese?

Speaker 4 (01:42:51):
What the fuck the Lebanese embody for them?

Speaker 5 (01:42:53):
I have such good news for you about who was
training the IRA.

Speaker 4 (01:42:57):
In the seventies.

Speaker 5 (01:43:00):
There are a lot of a lot of guys with
Irish accents in Becca Valley trading can in the seventies,
So you know, they really have actually done things for you.
It's one of the things people do this with like
the US or there's like one of the Israeli lines
like ah, what is one of Palestinians ever done for
black people. It's like, well, like a lot of people
who got a lot of trading with.

Speaker 18 (01:43:21):
Yellow in the seventies, like Jenny are for better and
for worse, because like there's also groups that they trained
that like they probably shouldn't have like a doubt a
lot of the groups that became the Fighting Vanguard, which
was okay, it's I want to scar the Fighting Vanguard.

Speaker 5 (01:43:38):
The Fighting Vanguard were like a kind of built wing
of the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria. And like a bunch
of those Fighting Vanguard guys who survived, so they do
an uprising and I think it was eighty four, they
like all get killed. Those people who survived go on
to be some of the founding members of al Qaida.
So not not always no great yeah, but you know
the record like look one out of like twenty of

(01:44:01):
the people you trained, going Haywires not great, but like
you know, it's limited nineteen other ones, like it did
pretty good.

Speaker 4 (01:44:09):
Yeah, I think Abdudjulam was in the Becka Valley for
a while. Yeah. Yeah, lots of cadres of the of
the PKK. Yeah, the PK was there.

Speaker 5 (01:44:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 17 (01:44:17):
Yeah, Kurds died actually, like yeah, there's a good article
called the Kurds who Died for Palestine I was reading
recently because often you'll see this like idea that the
Kurds are like inherently like Zionists, and I don't think
that's true.

Speaker 5 (01:44:29):
No, Like yeah, like that they fought at the Eleveties
Civil War on the side of the Pls, Like yeah, yeah,
they were in because they were in Beca Valley in
the Plos trading camps.

Speaker 17 (01:44:37):
Like yeah, they didn't really have much choice to be back.
Israel was coming for them.

Speaker 5 (01:44:41):
Yeah, and like like is Israel is one of the
coaches that helped kidnap the dula Archelote Like yeah, that's
really not Presioneds at all.

Speaker 17 (01:44:49):
No, this is one of those things that you'll see
from like I didn't have the bot account, so they're
just people with very unoriginal opinions who like they treat
kind of Turkish state lines when Israel build settlements in
a West Bank and guards that they.

Speaker 4 (01:45:00):
Do it with steel that comes from Turkey.

Speaker 17 (01:45:01):
Ye, So yeah, maybe treat those claims with some skepticism.
If there's a gray wolf in bioeticularity.

Speaker 5 (01:45:08):
Yeah, there is a broader, more serious point there, which
is that like the actual physical resources that the Israelis
use to physically build the occupation, right, those all come
from places and it's not all US, And I think
people have this image that like, well like and it
is true the US, it's an unbelievable amount of money
to Israel, but there's a lot of places where the

(01:45:31):
Israelis are getting their ship form, right, like these really
tech sector in the Israeli tech sector is one of
the cores of the Israeli economy, and it is one
of the cores of the Israeli occupation is almost entirely
fueled by like semiconductors and stuff that they buy from China. Right,
that's where all the physical technical infrastructure of this stuff
comes from. I talked about it before about like Russian
natural gas, Right, all of these countries, who will you know,

(01:45:55):
talk all of this shit like and the un about Israel,
like people's real political stances and what they're willing to
send it to your really to the Israelis are not
the same thing at all. And if you want to
actually gauge how the occupation functions, it's because a lot
of countries that nominally will be like, oh, we oppose
it's really occupation. Well, didn't just send them all the

(01:46:16):
fucking resources that they need to do the occupation.

Speaker 17 (01:46:19):
Yeah, and they don't get any heat unless it's like
literal bombs bullets.

Speaker 5 (01:46:23):
Right, yeah, and even and even then, like lots of
people like yeah, there's plenty of non us. I mean,
the ukata's a lot of this too, right.

Speaker 4 (01:46:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 17 (01:46:32):
One of the things that IDF likes to do they
haven't mentioned yet, it's mock air assaults of unifual positions,
is christ Well, they'll fly in like a bombing formation
just basically, I guess hayes them. I can't really think
of a way to describe it, right, they's terror like
it's a terror campaign. Yes, it's a very clear indication that,

(01:46:53):
like any day, we could wipe you off the map. Right,
And some of the uniform assets seem to have anti
aircraft some of them don't, but even still like they
you know, a determined attack by the idea of they've
been in big trouble of course. So right now, I
guess the situation we're in, according to the person who
spoke to is that these positions Israel has advanced passed,

(01:47:14):
like the peacekeepers there are still in their positions, right
they have using their own funds, which I presume means
like funds from the states of which they are part,
fortified their positions and improve their positions like.

Speaker 5 (01:47:28):
With their own Jesus Christ.

Speaker 17 (01:47:30):
Ye, Well, the UN is supposed to provide positions for them.
It's supposed to provide their rations, and it's supposed to
provide weapons and vehicles for some other states that like
kind of aren't up to I guess a modern standard.
That's incidentally why you don't see it so much here,
But in other parts of the world you often see
troops on peacekeeping missions who like perhaps you haven't heard

(01:47:53):
of that country's military before, right, Like, it's very common
for like. Also, I think it is better that there
are African peacekeepers in Africa than like white European peace
like I think for historical and very obvious reasons.

Speaker 5 (01:48:04):
I will mention one of the places that sends a
lot of piece of replay to places in nepoll And
the record that police peacekeepers that are get are being
set by booist governments.

Speaker 4 (01:48:12):
Are yeah good, not great. Yeah, you can google that.

Speaker 5 (01:48:19):
We've talked about this in Brazil at length, like sorry,
Brazilian Nepolice cooperation in Haiti's shit show.

Speaker 4 (01:48:26):
Yeah, no, it has not been good for the Haitian people.

Speaker 17 (01:48:29):
I will say, like one of the things that happens
a lot is the UN pays them a certain rate
for peacekeeping I guess or UN conversate certain right, which
is often a lot more than those militaries pay their soldiers.
So it's like a source of income for the military
view see what I mean, They can like skim off
the percentage. But these guys have at their own expense,
fortify their positions at their own expense, supplied themselves with

(01:48:51):
rations so that they've they've bought a ton of food
and water. It's what that means in like non nerdy terms.
So they're pretty well stocked up, right, Like they're bunked up.

Speaker 5 (01:49:00):
Yeah, But it's also it's also like this US operation
is being equipped in the same way that like American
school teachers make sure their classrooms have pencils.

Speaker 4 (01:49:08):
That's a perfection.

Speaker 3 (01:49:09):
What the fuck is going on here? Yeah, Jesus Christ.

Speaker 17 (01:49:14):
Maybe maybe the state not the best way of organizing
human society, is what people are saying.

Speaker 5 (01:49:19):
Look, we need to fuse the two and finally bring
about my lifelong dream of armed teachers union pickets.

Speaker 4 (01:49:26):
Yeah, bring it back to like Blair Mountain, but for teachers.

Speaker 5 (01:49:28):
Yeah, Look, don't armed teachers armed teachers unions. Yeah, we
can finally get bipartisan agreement on Yeah, they're pretty well
hold up, like like American preppers dream of themselves being
right surrounded by ammunition and marise, but at some point
they're going to run out of food and water, and

(01:49:49):
at some point that means that they're going to have
to resupply. Right now on I'm just going to check
the date very quickly, And UNIFIL is on Twitter by
the way, if you want to do you want to
follow them there they kind of give a daily update
on what's going on. On the thirteenth of October, UNIFIL
said that the IDF sold just stopped a critical uniform

(01:50:10):
logistical movement, which could well be like an attempt to
resupply of one of these places. Right, at some point
they're going to have to resupply them, either by air
or by land. And I think that is when we
will most likely see like exactly how hard the IDF
wants to go against like in this case trucks full
of MRIs right, Like, yeah, previously they've got in standoffs,

(01:50:33):
like a few years ago the French. The French have
done some interesting stuff as part of the UNIFILM mission,
Like in twenty ten they kind of went on a
unilateral operation without approval to look for her body. Yeah,
not a great move.

Speaker 4 (01:50:46):
Yeah, it's wild.

Speaker 5 (01:50:47):
French forces at level not such an interesting thing because
it's like you have inside of the French soul is
warring at all times, two forces.

Speaker 4 (01:50:54):
It is it Receisy said, it's.

Speaker 5 (01:50:57):
Like they because they hate Buzzled so much, but they
are also so anti Semitic.

Speaker 4 (01:51:03):
This is an all times waring French.

Speaker 17 (01:51:07):
The nature of the French soul, the two wolves that
live inside the French person. Yeah, well, in twenty ten,
they were their Islamophobia was winning. They specifically they used
sniffer dogs in people's homes, which Jesus is very disrespectful
in culture in that part of the world.

Speaker 5 (01:51:23):
I mean also here I would be really pissed off
if fucking a bomb squad like getting started running sniffer
dogs around my apartment for sure, get out going through
private property and doing things that they were They're supposed
to operate with the Lebanese armed Forces, right, so they
patrol alongside them. But in this case, the French decided
they were just going to send it solo and obviously
pissed a lot of people off. And it's really interesting

(01:51:45):
to see people address their concerns. But was not interesting,
I guess, but people address their concerns specifically with the
French element of uniform rather than other elements of uniform,
like for instance, Indonesia and seem to be pretty popular.
The Indian element of unifil teaches weekly yoga classes, which
are apparently becoming more and more popular.

Speaker 4 (01:52:04):
I've seen a bunch of videos.

Speaker 5 (01:52:05):
There's like like tiktoks of libertyes people in that area
who speak English, and they all speak English with a
Maris accent.

Speaker 4 (01:52:10):
Oh yeah, because so long it's great.

Speaker 17 (01:52:13):
Yeah yeah, yeah, Well the Irish have been there since seventies, right,
Like I know of people who have two generations of
their family who.

Speaker 4 (01:52:20):
Have been peacekeepers there.

Speaker 17 (01:52:21):
Yeah, I think for those people like it probably like
over time being down, I'm sure they do develop a
personal connection to the people who you know that they're
around and the people whose communities they are protecting, and
and like, I genuinely feel like it's probably really a
shitty situation to be in.

Speaker 4 (01:52:37):
Yeah, being sort of locked in your base.

Speaker 17 (01:52:39):
That doesn't mean they should leave, right, I just want
to end with like, and I know we want to
talk about the Gourden Heights to twenty thirteen. Actually Austria
pulled out of the Gourden Heights and Ireland had to
deploy a bunch of people really quickly to.

Speaker 4 (01:52:48):
Kind of cover that area.

Speaker 17 (01:52:49):
But if we look at like streperlinka right where the
UN could have prevented a genocide and did not. Yeah,
the UN forces there withdrew, they surrendered and places were
captured by the Serbs and then used as collateral to
stop the UN doing anymore to prevent what and like

(01:53:10):
some of the most horrific acts in human history happened.
It's from Benika, right, just just disgusting, terrible stuff, and
like hopefully the UN has learned from that hopefully, like
individual nations. I think like in that case, it wasn't
so much the UN as a whole. It's like the
specific chain of command of those peacekeepers.

Speaker 4 (01:53:30):
I think they were.

Speaker 5 (01:53:30):
Dutch well, And like it's it's worth noting in that
point too that like part of what's going on there
is that like a lot of the European countries until
well into the genocide were basically pro served because they
saw the Serbs something that could like just cleanse the
Muslims from Europe.

Speaker 4 (01:53:45):
Is like this is the explicit language that they're using, right.

Speaker 5 (01:53:48):
Yeah, And this is this has always been a problem
with with UN missions, is like well half the time
we try to stop a genocide, there's like some faction
of the UN that's like no, this one fucking rips
and yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:53:58):
Yeah, right, this is the end. But they the bad
guys though, aren't they.

Speaker 17 (01:54:01):
I think it's good that they have like Muslim countries
within their yeah, their group, And like I think it's
probably good that the Irish of their in large numbers
because as a country they have been better on on
Palestine than almost anyone else in Europe.

Speaker 4 (01:54:14):
Yeah, it turns out being a quality.

Speaker 17 (01:54:17):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean, like yeah, that's on
that's on us as the British.

Speaker 4 (01:54:22):
But it's better that they're there, I guess.

Speaker 6 (01:54:24):
Yeah.

Speaker 17 (01:54:24):
And like no one talked about them for the past
ten fucking years, but like the most important time for
them to be there is right now. Yeah, and like
even if they're not fighting, I think they serve a
useful role in like it's the only accountability mechanism.

Speaker 5 (01:54:37):
Yeah that Israel can't just destroy. There are definitely people
who are alive right now who would not be if
if Irish were not there.

Speaker 17 (01:54:44):
Yeah, and like I know, we have these number of
virus diistions. Like I know, it sucks it's your family
member who's stuck there, like and like it feels like
they're not able to do anything and they're just stuck
there as like collateral as a bargaining chip.

Speaker 4 (01:54:55):
I don't know, but like, yeah, I.

Speaker 17 (01:54:57):
Think overseas military deployments by European countries go. It's one
of the more defensible ones. You know, it's one of
the ones that has stopped civilian lives being harmed. H
And yeah, I think like the idea that they should leave,
which I've seen people trotting.

Speaker 10 (01:55:11):
Out like that.

Speaker 17 (01:55:12):
No, they shouldn't like when they leave. It's just like
Gaza all over again. It's just Israel copet boling civilians
and talking of copy boying civilians. I guess made you
want to talk about like Israel has decided to invade
another country.

Speaker 4 (01:55:26):
So okay.

Speaker 5 (01:55:27):
So one of the things that's happened, and this has
gotten almost no attention, I think because because the Syrian
government does not want to admit that this is happening,
and they're not doing anything about it because they don't
give a shit.

Speaker 4 (01:55:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:55:37):
So Israel has been occupying the Syrian goal On Heights
since nineteen sixty seven. Yeah, they've militarized it. They've just
been holding the territory for I shouldn't have tried to
do math and a.

Speaker 4 (01:55:48):
Fly like over half a century, sixty years. Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:55:54):
And one of the things that's been happening recently is
there had been there had been like oh I say,
describe as like a Russian nituring force sort of on
on the border of the sheer knock about goal On
Heights and the sort of like southern provinces is Asyria. Yeah,
and the Israelis seem to have just apparently they've done
they've done this before where they'll just like go in
and buldoze a bunch of farmland.

Speaker 4 (01:56:15):
Yeah. I think this is on the video species of.

Speaker 5 (01:56:17):
D mining, right, Yeah, sort of. Yeah, I mean it's
it's always been. It's always been pretty clearly like a
land grab kind of thing.

Speaker 6 (01:56:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:56:25):
But normally what happens is they go in, they buildoze
a bunch of places, and they pull out.

Speaker 4 (01:56:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:56:30):
So somehow they have surpassed Turkey as the number one
bulldozer of olive fields, which is sort of staggering, like
they they love that ship. Yeah, but this time they've
set up seems like a road project. Although given everything
that we've been seeing about the sort of like rise
of the concept of greater Israel where they just start

(01:56:51):
invading everyone and radially outwards from Israel extremely longing, they've
they've buildozed these places. But now and they're but they've
set it up like barred wire like down the new territory,
which seems like they're just actually a time we can
do annexation. Yeah, and that's really alarming because I mean,
like the Syrian government isn't going to do shit about this, right,

(01:57:13):
like you know, Israel has bombed Syria a few times already.

Speaker 4 (01:57:18):
Oh yeah, they pumped Syria last time. I was saying, the.

Speaker 5 (01:57:20):
Syrian gum doesn't give a shit, right, They're they're too busy,
like like they have courage to kill, Like they don't
have time to be dealing with fucking Israel here.

Speaker 4 (01:57:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:57:29):
Yeah, but there's been an explicit is really pushed like
even further out from the goal on heights, and I
think we're just going to see this intensify as as
the most sort of like drained settler factions in Israeli
politics gain more and more power and the sort of
like frankly like very American, we must push our borders,
we must like push into new frontiers and sees more

(01:57:51):
land like cycle sort of perpetuates itself.

Speaker 17 (01:57:54):
Yeah, and a lot of the people doing the settling
have literally come from America to do the settling. Yeah,
pushing out in the Golan it's bad, Like yeah, I
know it's Reel claims it was attacked by Katiba's Bulla
in the Golan Heights at last week, and katipaz Bula
has denied that they glean it. Israel fabricated it. Nie
of those people are people I particularly trust.

Speaker 4 (01:58:13):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:58:13):
Well, and this is also one of these funny ones
where it's like the Israelis are denying that they've done this,
I think, and the Syrian government is also denying that
they've done this, but like everyone who's there is like, well,
obviously they did this, Like yeah, and like, I don't
know why it's real keeps for wanting to open up
your fronts. I mean they yeah, like you said, it's

(01:58:34):
set like Colone list logic, I guess. But I do
think that like the continuation of this like full scale
war generates consent for the government as it exists in
the moment that it stops, and that the government's legis
will collapse there. Yeah, but yeah, pushing into Syria opens
up a whole other world of shit, shit, yeah, the

(01:58:57):
worst stuff. Yeah, there's a nation on earth who really
doesn't need anyone else trying to fucking And it's not
that Israel has not been killing Syrians for a long
time as well, has been lobbing munitions into Syria for
a long time, and it's increased.

Speaker 4 (01:59:10):
In the last year.

Speaker 17 (01:59:11):
Yeah, Like, yeah, you know, I was in Syria on
October seventh last year and pretty much. Sooner as it's
began responding to that attack, it began responding in Syria
as well, but a ground operation is a whole different thing.
There ain't no UN peacekeepers in Syria, and yeah, that
could be very bad.

Speaker 5 (01:59:28):
So yeah, so we'll keep you updated on that story
as it presumably continues to get worse, because yeah, everything
seems to and like, I mean, I will say, Okay,
so today Biden made a thing that said, if Israel
hasn't resolved to the meditarian situation in thirty days, he's
getting cut off aid.

Speaker 4 (01:59:49):
But like that's not going to happen.

Speaker 5 (01:59:51):
Like it's simply not like everyone says that all the time.

Speaker 4 (01:59:57):
I mean, how many lines have they stepped over?

Speaker 17 (02:00:00):
Right?

Speaker 5 (02:00:00):
Like how many An American red line is a line
that when you step over and nothing happens.

Speaker 4 (02:00:06):
Yeah, that's that's that's just that's just how it works, right,
like it works in Syria. It has been multiple times.

Speaker 5 (02:00:11):
Yeah, I mean there's there's there's this old Russian joke
about China's Final Warning where because like if throughout the
entire seventies, when like there's all this boarders's going on,
and even like the sixties and in the fifties sixties,
like Chinese officials feel like this is China's final warning,
Russia must stop and nothing would happen like this. This
is where we're at with like the Democrats and being like, ah,
Israel must stop doing whatever the fuck's no, they're not

(02:00:34):
going to do anything, like they don't give a ship.

Speaker 17 (02:00:35):
Yeah, no, we've cried wolf so many times. It's clearly
not an issue that Harris feels like it's going to
lose her the election. Yeah, and then whoever wins, we
got four more years of turning a fire hose of
money and weapons on children in Palestine and apparently Syria
and Lebanon as well. So yeah, it's great, It's all great.

(02:00:58):
I'm afraid. Yeah, this this has not been a good
news episode. I hope people who have family I have
friends who are in Lebanon, like, I hope people who
have family there were doing.

Speaker 4 (02:01:06):
Okay, I know it sucks, Hello.

Speaker 13 (02:01:28):
And welcome to It could happen here. I'm here with Mia.
How you doing.

Speaker 5 (02:01:33):
It's abominably early, which not even podcasts early. It's like
eight am here, so it's gonna be where we're We've
done the caffeine.

Speaker 3 (02:01:42):
We're holding on for dear life sake.

Speaker 6 (02:01:47):
I feel you. I feel you.

Speaker 13 (02:01:49):
I have to ask, have you noticed that the continents
are dripping a little bit?

Speaker 4 (02:01:54):
Continents are dripping?

Speaker 6 (02:01:56):
Yeah? Yeah, And I don't mean like blin out.

Speaker 13 (02:01:58):
I mean like if you take a look kind of
map and you assume that North is up and South
is down, it find it kind of looks like our
major landmass is melting a little bit.

Speaker 5 (02:02:08):
Oh you know, Okay, now that you say it, I
can kind of see it.

Speaker 6 (02:02:13):
H Yeah.

Speaker 13 (02:02:15):
This is a concept known as continental trip. And I'm
not tripping on anything. I'm not the first person to notice.

Speaker 4 (02:02:22):
Incredible.

Speaker 6 (02:02:23):
You can look it up.

Speaker 13 (02:02:24):
There's a whole Wikipedia page of what's seen in everything,
and well, South America is alongside India. They're kind of
seen as the quintessential examples with this continental trip. And
this is a very odd way that I've decided to
segue into the next nation in our exploration of Latin
America and anarchist history. It's right to the east of

(02:02:45):
Chile and south of every other country near Temisphale.

Speaker 6 (02:02:50):
That is, of course, the Argentine.

Speaker 13 (02:02:52):
Republic, more commonly known as Argentina, which is derived by
the way from the Latin word for silver. My name
is Andrew Sage. You can find me on YouTube as
Andrewism And thanks to the scholarship of Chuck Moss, Jeffrey
la Focad, and Ahille Capileetti, we're going to take a
journey into the history of anarchism in Argentina.

Speaker 5 (02:03:15):
Also got to do the shout out for Calculates Anarchism
in Latin Erica. Great book, also great cover, got a
big bird on it.

Speaker 4 (02:03:23):
Good stuff.

Speaker 13 (02:03:24):
Oh yeah, shout out of course, of course. So I
suppose the best place to start us in the beginning.
So there's this thing called the Big Bang, right.

Speaker 5 (02:03:34):
Universe expanded extremely fast like Pico second.

Speaker 6 (02:03:42):
Large expansion of matter.

Speaker 13 (02:03:43):
And yeah, but seriously, Argentina has been peopled since the
Paleolithic period. In particular, we find evidence of ancient people's
butchering the meat of an armadillo relative as early as
twenty one third years ago geese.

Speaker 6 (02:04:02):
So you know, we've been around.

Speaker 13 (02:04:04):
We've been around from then on as far as we
can tell for now, at least, because you know, the
timelines are constantly getting updated with new information, as it
should be. The area to be known as Argentina was
pretty sparsely populated by a variety of divus cultures with
diverse social organizations including forgers and farmers. To take a

(02:04:27):
long and largely unknown history of indigenous co existence and conflicts. Short,
people continue to live and the earth continue to spin
for the next few millennia until a few ships on
the horizon spell doom for all to see. These are,
of course, the Europeans who first arrived in the region
with the fifteen oh two voyage of Amerigo Vespucci, with

(02:04:49):
the Spanish navigators Juan Dias de Solis and Sebastian Cabo
in particular visiting the territory in fifteen sixteen and fifteen
twenty six, respectively. Then in fifteen thirty six Pedro de
Mendoza founded this small settlement.

Speaker 6 (02:05:03):
Of Buenos Aires.

Speaker 13 (02:05:05):
Maybe you've heard of it, but it was a band
that in fifteen forty one thanks to continuous indigenous resistance,
and had to be refounded in fifteen eighty. As for
the rest of would be Argentina, the Spanish Empire that
was running most of the continant was busy lutin the
silver and gold mines in Bolivia and Peru, so Argentina

(02:05:26):
was kind of seen as a backwater.

Speaker 6 (02:05:28):
It wasn't as much of an interest.

Speaker 13 (02:05:29):
By comparison, Argentina stayed under the Viceroyalty of Peru and
to the creation of the Viceroyalty of the Rio de
la Plata in seventeen seventy six, with Buenos Aires as
its capital after two failed the British invasions in eighteen
oh six and eighteen o seven, and as you could see,
the British and Argentina have.

Speaker 6 (02:05:49):
Had a bit of a scuffle for some time now.

Speaker 13 (02:05:52):
The Buenos Aires capital would be the stage of revolution,
as the eighteen ten May Revolution replaced the Vice roy
Baltasar Hidel Gorya Cesnios with the First Junta, a new
government made by and for the locals, and then there
was a royalist counter revolution, some anti colonial alliance with
the then Spanish Philippines, divisions between centralists and federalists over

(02:06:16):
the newly forming Argentine state, proposals to crown a supper
Inca as a monarch of an independent Argentina, and the
official declaration of independence for a republic on the ninth
of July eighteen sixteen. Just to go back a bit
to be clear, there is an alternate history scenario in
which Argentina was briefly or continuously under an InCor monarchy

(02:06:41):
that would have ripped literally. I believe it was a
cousin of Tupa Kamaru. The third incredible was being considered
for the position incredible, incredible, incredible. Indeed, see, people tend
to see South America as just like you know, it's
just the extra continent. I mean, I don't think people
think about how much has gone on down there, or

(02:07:02):
rather it's not really present in the English speaking world's imagination.

Speaker 6 (02:07:07):
You know.

Speaker 13 (02:07:07):
We tend to focus on more of the Northern hemisphere
side of things, which have a specific region we find
ourselves in, whether it be the Caribbean or Australia and
New Zealand, UK US Canada. We tend to think about
English speaking colonial history. But Latin America had a lot
going on in its time. I mean, come on, they

(02:07:28):
had an alliance with the Spanish Philippines. Yeah yeah, so,
I mean civil war go per, as they say, between
the centralists and the Federalists, and that will continue for
a while after the Declaration of the Republic in eighteen sixteen,
and it was only resolved in eighteen thirty one with

(02:07:49):
a Federalist victory. Basically, it was a division over how
they should organize the state, whether it should be in
a federal manner or more centralist unitary manner, so the Federalists,
one which would lead to the war the Confederation between
eighteen thirty sixty eighteen thirty nine, the establishment of the
Constitution in eighteen fifty three, and a temporary secession of
Buenos Aires which was forced back into Argentina by eighteen

(02:08:11):
sixty one. And as in much of that in America,
anarchism would establish itself fairly early on thanks to the
waves of migration from Europe, and particularly from France, Italy
and Spain.

Speaker 4 (02:08:22):
There are so many Italians, so many, just.

Speaker 13 (02:08:26):
An absurd amount of Italians. These folks fled political repression
and poverty in their home countries. Refugees from the Paris Commune,
and anarchist literature from the aforementioned lands would find themselves
in the streets of Buenos Aires City and the countrysides
of Buenos Aires Province.

Speaker 6 (02:08:46):
They circulated anarchist ideas.

Speaker 13 (02:08:47):
Through group meetings such as the group Elmeserabeli in the
port city of Rosario, and publications like the Rivolte, which
was founded by Kropotkin all the way back in Switzerland.
Kropotkin's Words of a Rebel would also make frequent appearances
throughout Argentina, and his Conquest of Bread received a translation
by Catalan carpenter Juan Villa. As with the splits internationally,

(02:09:11):
the First International's local section in Buenos Airis, which was
founded in eighteen seventy two, would split between the supporters
of Marx and the supporters of a Cunan. The former
were predominantly French, the latter predominantly Spaniard an Italian. Three
decades of substantial migration started in the eighteen eighties, which
sparked significant growth in the anarchist movement as the migrants

(02:09:33):
found Crussian economic deprivation and repressive governance where they'd hoped
they'd find prosperity and liberty. Over three million people arrived,
leading to the country having a foreign born population of
thirty three percent by nineteen fourteen. Nowadays, as in much

(02:09:54):
of the world, unfortunately that once foreign born population some
percentage of them, and now unfortunately anti I migration, yeah,
and violently. So it's a cruel irony that we find
ourselves with just mere decades ago. Their own ancestors were migrants.

(02:10:19):
Among the migration wave came the likes of Hector Matte,
an Italian anarchist who helped publish a Socialista, which is
a weekly people and of course believe it's or not,
the one and only Era Kamana Testa, who keeps making
guest appearances in these last American anarchism. He's just like
all over the places, traveling everywhere. If I recall correctly,

(02:10:41):
he made an appearance in Cuba. He made an appearance
in the Egypt episode as well. Yep, she just keeps
showing up.

Speaker 5 (02:10:50):
He's really truly a globe trotter in a mold that
we haven't really seen.

Speaker 13 (02:10:54):
Hey, I mean move aside football, you know he's the
real mister worldwide. So at Akman test He actually fled
Italy in eighty eighty five after escaping imprisonment, and he
helped establish the Cecuilo the Studio Socialists, where he and
others gave public speeches promoting anarchism, and he worked to
organize a society dad Cosmopolita de Obreros Pandero's an anarchist

(02:11:18):
Baker's Union. I didn't know he could bake, maybe he
could make, maybe he couldn't. Maybe he was just there,
you know, helping them set up. But in my head,
I'd like to imagine that he was pretty good at bacon,
bread and making cookies.

Speaker 5 (02:11:31):
You know, I'm pretty sure it was like an ice
cream salesman too at one point, So I might be
getting that confused with like some other anarchists who was
going around everywhere who was also selling ice cream.

Speaker 6 (02:11:41):
You know, I wouldn't be surprised.

Speaker 5 (02:11:42):
I have vague memories of there being a story about
like him having an ice cream cart and trying to
make money and he couldn't do it because he kept
giving ice cream the children.

Speaker 6 (02:11:50):
I think I remember that story. I think it's so
bag I had a video on it.

Speaker 13 (02:11:54):
You know that those ads used to show on TV
A couple like about a decade ago, most interesting than
man in the world.

Speaker 6 (02:12:01):
Yeah, he was based on Aurkromat. Yeah.

Speaker 17 (02:12:07):
So.

Speaker 13 (02:12:07):
Maltessa later returned to Europe in eighteen eighty nine, Yet
he left a lasting legacy in helping to organize workers
and sow the seeds for a powerful anarchist movement in
Argentina in the early eighteen nineties, the anarchist paper El
Perscuido became one of the most popular and prominent voices
of anarchist communism in Argentina. Despite ongoing repression and government censorship,

(02:12:29):
the anarchist press continued to expand during this period, with
publications like La Vois de la Mochere and Anarchist Feminist
People emerging in Rosario. The eighteen eighties and early eighteen
nineties also involved significant internal debates, particularly around the role
of workers unions and revolutionary tactics. Some groups embraced anarchist cynicalism,
while others believed smaller affinity groups as catalysts of social

(02:12:52):
revolution with a way to go. While in the midst
of a massive rapid industrial growth and deal with the
worst than economics that for the working class, such a
society was ripe for transformation of the anarchist variety. Initially,
the anarchists have been focused on countercultural concerns, particularly in
the field of education. Where As their ranks swelled in number,

(02:13:14):
the stage was set for the debut of a mass
anarchist movement among Argentine workers. In eighteen ninety seven, the
anarchist workers were found lab protester Humana, later shortened to
Lap Protester, which would become an enduring anarchist paper throughout
Latin America. But the anarchists didn't just stick to papers though.
In nineteen oh one, anarchists were instrumental in the founding

(02:13:36):
of the Argentine Workers Federation of the FOA, which is
Argentina's first labor federation. Federation was founded in a congress
that assembled some fifty delegates representing thirty to thirty five
workers organizations from both capital and interior. The aim of
the federation was an entity that included all workers without
regard to their races or beliefs, based on a solid

(02:13:59):
foundation of direct action and economic struggle. Though initially including Marxists,
those would later depart to found the General Workers Union
or the UGT, which was more meanable to party interests,
of course, which left the FAA in anarchist hands. The
FAA stood at the forefront of the struggles, advocating for
higher wages and better working conditions. At the time, the

(02:14:22):
typical workday was ten hours or more, with wages barely
covering essential needs. Strikes broke out across industries with notable successes.
Painters and Marder Platter secured an eight hour workday and
dark workers in minos aires one and nine hour workday,
along with a wage increase. But despite the oppression, the
workers movement continued to grow stronger. The FOA's membership surged,

(02:14:47):
with forty two unions and over fifteen thousand members in
nineteen o three, rise into sixty six unions and nearly
thirty three thousand members a year later. In nineteen o four,
at its fourth congress, the group was re named the
Regional Workers Federation of Argentina or the FARE or FORA.
The reasoning was ideological. By adding the adjective regional, it

(02:15:10):
made plain that Argentina was not considered a state or
political unit, but a region of the world which workers
struggled for their liberation. This fourth congress also approved of
solidarity pacts that proclaimed the establishment of a class less
society with neither state nor private property as the ultimate
aim of their struggle. The anarchist influence was clear, but

(02:15:31):
it gets even more explicit in the following year. The
UGIT had been subordinated to the Marxist Socialist Party, but
even their third congress in nineteen oh five had a
syndicalist emergence to preferred workers associations to political parties. Basically,
even the non anarchist workers organizations would be an influenced
by the anarchist wave, so much so that the UGIT

(02:15:52):
wanted to form a solidarity pact with Fura. The anarchist
and four didn't quite trust the parliamentary socialism of the UGT. Still,
they did work with them to call a general strike
in nineteen oh seven and saw a diarity with cart
drivers in Rosario, joined by some one hundred and fifty
eight thousand workers from around the republic. That strike ended

(02:16:14):
in victory for the workers. In nineteen oh five, two
years before and as fifth Congress, Foura made its commitments
to revolutionary anarchist communism explicitly known quote the advice and
recommend to all our followers the broadest possible study and
propaganda with the aim of insterning workers economic and philosophical
principles of anarchist communism. This education, not content with achieve

(02:16:39):
in the eight hour workday, would bring total emancipation and
consequently the social evolution we pursue end quote four. I
was among the largest federations of workers organizations and it
was officially anarchist communists. The nineteen oh sixth ninety o
seven general and tenant strikes gone a greater favor, and
in response, Whenasyrius police head Colonel Falcones sware to finish

(02:17:03):
or off the anarchists nineteen oh seven saw for Her
and Ugit attempt a merger, but since the majority sought
adherence to anarchist communism, the merger could not be achieved.
For Her was militant and effective in achieving many of
its schools, including wage increases, reductions in the length of
the work day, and various rights of association. Port workers,

(02:17:26):
Crown transport workers, seamen's unions, bakers, metal workers, construction workers,
and ship workers were all prominent in the federation and
were well positioned to paralyze the Argentine economy and win
their demands. In the first decade of the twentieth century,
these unions led six general strikes and many more partial strikes,

(02:17:47):
and women were more involved than in any other radical
movement of the time, taking part in consumer boycotts and
rent strikes as well. But the anarchists knew the ruptures
in the capitalist economy wouldn't be enough. It could never

(02:18:08):
be enough to merely confront the system and refuse to
corporate the system as it is. The social revolutionals demands consciousness, solidarity,
and the prefiguration of an enlightened progressive society in social organizations. Thus,
anarchists engaged in counter culture, multiple papers in multiple languages,
theater and poetry, may day marches, social centers, popular education centers,

(02:18:34):
popular libraries, and discussion circles. All of these efforts were
ceded throughout the cities and linked to various unions to
create a veritable and dynamic network of revolutionary causes. And
since the government understood the anarchist threat, they tried their
best to raise the cost of revolutionary activism. The actions
included petty police harassment, the humiliated and inconvenient searches and

(02:18:58):
protuitors demands identification, which were a familiar experience for the
anarchist militants. There was also without law and of radical publications,
the suppression of the right to public assembly, mass arrests,
martial law declared for a total of eighteen months between
nineteen oh two and nineteen ten, and of course outright
violence to the police, the army and other formal forces.

(02:19:19):
In addition to thugs acting on their behalf. The governor
also attempted to undermine the anarchist movement through legislative means.
The Resident's Law in nineteen oh two granted the government
the right to deport foreigners that are deemed undesirable without trial.
After the law had been in effect for a few years,
four are called a general strike.

Speaker 6 (02:19:39):
Against its oppressive conditions.

Speaker 13 (02:19:42):
For as leadership condemned the law as a violation of
human rights labor it as a tool where the state
to suppress free thoughts.

Speaker 6 (02:19:49):
And working class movements. The government did not budge.

Speaker 13 (02:19:54):
On May Day nineteen oh nine, police violently attacked a
peaceful protest organized by transport workers inists, killing eight people
and wounded many others. Colonel Falcone, the recurrent villain who
ordered the attack, later became the target of a retaliatory
bombing by young anarchist Simon Radowitski in November.

Speaker 6 (02:20:14):
Nineteen o nine.

Speaker 13 (02:20:15):
This act of defiance shook the whole country. In the meantime,
the anarchist cause also resonated internationally. In response to the
execution of Francisco Ferrer, a Spanish educator and anarchist fora
led a series of strikes in Argentina, joining global protests
against his death.

Speaker 6 (02:20:33):
Nineteen ten marked.

Speaker 13 (02:20:35):
Argentina's preparations for the centenary celebrations of its first national government,
portray itself as a beacon of prosperity.

Speaker 6 (02:20:43):
But oh, here come.

Speaker 13 (02:20:44):
The workers with their unrest and protests to sour the
vibes and demand the release of political prisoners and the.

Speaker 6 (02:20:50):
Abolition of the law of residence.

Speaker 13 (02:20:52):
Naturally, the government responded by declaring a state of internal war,
arresting hundreds of anarchists, including four leaders, and imposing extreme
censorship and restrictions and civil liberties, shut downs of publications,
and the declaration of a state of emergency. The government
also introduced the Social Defense Law, which levied a series

(02:21:14):
of penalties against anarchist activities, specifically as a centennial celebrations unfolded,
Argentina had transformed into a heavily militarized state, with more
than two thousand anarchists arrested or deported. So much for
a grand celebration of their free democracy. Despite the repression,

(02:21:36):
the workers move once continued to grow. Forest general strikes
forced the government to make concessions and release jailed workers,
but divisions began to appear within the movement after deal
with so much repression for their erratical ideas. A split
occurred in nineteen oh nine with the formation of the
syndicalist group CORA, which adopted much of for US structure

(02:21:57):
and retained some anarchist ideas, but leaned awards a less
radical approach, hoping to be less of a target. The
anarchist took yet another hit when in nineteen twelve the
Science Penier Law made voting secret and obligatory, thus making
anarchists abstentionism as a tactic illegal. The range of possible

(02:22:18):
actions was being intentionally closed. While they were these external pressures,
anarchists also had to deal with the pressures from within
the workers' movement by even more folks who wanted to
compromise the revolutionary goals. Another split between the synicalist anarchists
occurred to the for US ninth Congress in nineteen fifteen.
Unions were increasingly led by reformists, social democrats, and uncommitted anarchists,

(02:22:42):
which led to the thesis of a neutral cyndicalism focused
on winning workers' rights becoming the dominant position within fur Her,
the synicalists dropped their commitment to anarchist communism and claimed
the name the Fora of the Ninth Congress, while the
minority of anarchists that maintained their commitments anarchist communism took
the name the Fura of the Fifth Congress. The timing

(02:23:03):
of the split was impeccable, though you see, as has
been a recurring theme in this series, the Russian Revolution
of nineteen seventeen had a significant impact in Argentinian anarchism.
In a sense, it reignited the revolutionary fever within the
movement and led to the reformist and cynicalist four or
nine losing influence, but revolutionary ideas once again gained momentum.

(02:23:28):
For a brief moment, there was hope, but the Bolsheviks
will waste little time in crushing that hope. By nineteen twenty,
Argentinian anarchists, like their European counterparts, began to distance themselves
from Leninism. They began to recognize the authority and nature
of the Bolsheviks, took note of Kropotkin and Lenin's correspondences

(02:23:49):
and soon came to reject the idea of the dictatorship
of the proletaria. On his part, alongside his mass slats
of the anarchists in Constat. Then in all So ordered
the confiscation of anarchist texts, but he saw us influencing
the conflict within the Bolshevik ranks. Tale as old as time. Anyway,

(02:24:11):
next time we'll see if and how the anarchist Argentina
managed to navigate the tumultuous twenties, thirties and beyond to
leave a lasting mark on Argentine history. But things are
looking too good for them right now. Until then, we'll
power to all the people. This has been It could
happen here. Hello, and welcome back to it could happen here,

(02:24:53):
Amandrew Sage. F'm me on YouTube at Andrew's I'm here
once again with.

Speaker 4 (02:25:01):
Oh be a haha. That was by Q. Yeah indeed, yeah,
she's here.

Speaker 13 (02:25:07):
And today we'll continue in the Latin American Anarchism series
with our exploration of anarchism in Argentina. That's the scholarship
of Chuck Moss, Jeffrey de la Focade, and Hill Capelletti
and Jose Antonio Guterrez and Ian McKay. When we us left,
all faious laws and government actions were pressed hard on

(02:25:29):
the anarchist cause in the country, which when the anarchists executed,
jailed or exiled, what become of the anarchist movement? Where
things get better or worse? Sad to say, I think
you know the answer. Nineteen nineteen marked the year of
La Simana Tragica or the Tragic Week, when several metal

(02:25:51):
workers were killed by strike breakers. This led to a
general strike that shut down the entire country and pushed
Buenos Aires into a state of chaos for several days.
The anarchist paper A Protester, noted the complete shutdown and
praised workers solidarity.

Speaker 6 (02:26:08):
But despite the revolutionhang.

Speaker 13 (02:26:09):
Atmosphere, the movement lacked a clear objective, which weakened its
long term impact.

Speaker 6 (02:26:15):
They had the power, but didn't do too much with it.

Speaker 13 (02:26:18):
Eventually, the police and Argentina's first fascist organization, Lega Patriotica,
were able to subdue the rebellion. The fascists, by the way,
we were backed by military figures like Rare Admirals burmech
Garcia and O'Connor. They attacked and killed with impunity, and
in the end the fifty five thousand were detained, with
anarchists sent to Martin, Garcia, Ireland, and as many as

(02:26:41):
seven hundred were killed and four thousand were injured. The
anarchist move one persisted as they always do. That protester
continued publishing, alongside the launch of new papers like Mandera
Roja and Tribuna Proletaria, even after the government banned anarchist
press in March nineteen nineteen. They move on contained you
to organize, culminating an extraordinary Congress of two hundred unions

(02:27:04):
in September nineteen twenty. Throughout the nineteen twenties, four or
five remained a powerful force in Argentina's labor movement, pushing
for causes like the six hour weekday and resistant rise
in nationalists and military sentiments, but throughout came more repression.
In nineteen twenty one, Argentinian workers there Are for A
style in the Chaco region were brutally killed for demanding

(02:27:26):
better wages and conditions. The anarchist FOURR proposed solidarity actions,
but the more reformist FORA the Ninth Congress, distanced itself,
leaving the movement unsupported. This indifference, unfortunately also extended to
other violent incidents, such as the murder of workers were
the fascist Legal Patriotica in gualle Kuaiaju, and worse still,

(02:27:47):
with the largely unreported massacres of striking rural workers in
Patagonia by the army sending fifteen hundred to death by
firing squad, an event ignored by most media except for
anarchist outlets like Leberate Esther. In this case, at least
the anarchists got their get back somewhat later, when German
anarchists could Wilkins assassinated, couldn't Hector Valera, the military leader

(02:28:10):
responsible for the killers.

Speaker 4 (02:28:12):
That whole story is so wild because the German assassin
was also a pacifist. But it's just like fuck it.

Speaker 6 (02:28:21):
With ball, Yeah, I mean sometimes they had to do
what you had to do.

Speaker 13 (02:28:24):
Yeah, And I mean the government got it to get
back as well, because Wilkins was later murdered in retaliation
for his murder of you know, Hector Valera. But at
least that led to general strike across Argentina. It truly
is a wild story. Anarchists in Argentina further agitated in

(02:28:44):
opposition to the trial and execution of Italian American anarchists
Sacco and Vanzetti in the United States in nineteen twenty seven.
This was a notorious case by the way, but we'll
pull that string another time. There was anarchist who took
the protests in a different direction, though known to be
prolific in his acts of violence. Italian anarchists Severino the Giovanni,

(02:29:09):
carried out bombin's against the American embassy to protest the trial,
bombings against the Italian consulate to protest Italian fascism, and
robberies throughout the country. The Giovanni's actions sparked debate among
anarchists about the issue of quote unquote anarcho banditry. Some papers,
like Landtorchia, defended the Giovanni, others like That Protester, attacked him.

Speaker 6 (02:29:33):
The Giovanni's fight.

Speaker 13 (02:29:34):
Came to an end in nineteen thirty one, when he
was arrested and executed for carrying out the murder of
one of his fascest fellow anarchist critics, a certain La
Protester editor named Emilio Lopez Arango. As it could probably imagine,
they weren't any general strikes to protest the Giovanni's execution.
General Jose Felix Urriburu led a coup in nineteen thirty

(02:29:59):
that marked the ra eyes of fascism in Argentina and
the continuation of systematic persecution against workers and anarchists. Many
were imprisoned, deported, or killed, including prominent figures like Juan
Antonio Moran and Joaquin Penina. Anarchist groups and unions were
oppressed under Uriburu's martial law, whither more moderate Confederacio and

(02:30:21):
General del Trabajo or SGT, dominated by reformers. Socialists survived
and became the main representative of workers in the country
thanks to Uriburu's corporatist stats. Martial law was peeled back
slightly by nineteen thirty two. With such heavy blows the movement,
anarchists had to pull back to the more countercultural efforts

(02:30:43):
to define their movement. In the eighteen eighties, for Our
resumed publishing activities with that protester returning as a daily
but government pressure, including action against his editors and restrictions
and postal services, made it difficult to maintain this daily schedule.
Eventuallyla Protest transition to a weekly, then bi weekly, and

(02:31:04):
family monthly publication. Despite these challenges, a group of anarchist
militants and via Devoto Prison, conceived the idea of a
national Anarchist Congress. This congress first met in September nineteen
thirty two in the Rosario, which that it gets from
across the country, and one key outcome of this congress
was the creation of the Committee Rijonal de re Laciones

(02:31:28):
Anarquistas or the CRIRA. This later foundation for became the
Argentine Anacho Communist Federation or FACER in nineteen thirty five,
although the organization never really gained a mass following in
nineteen thirty five, anarchists also established to be able to
take er Popular Jose in h niros a library and

(02:31:49):
social center. While initially founded the support of socialists, the
anarchist took full control after the socialists left. Around this time,
anarchist groups campaign faiercely to free Voto Maini and the
Diago comrades, who had been tortured and imprisoned for over
a decade. The newspaper just this year was created solely
to advocate for their release, who was finally granted in

(02:32:12):
nineteen forty two. Throughout this period, the anarchist press remained active,
the number of publications diminished. Several publishing houses like not Review, Iman,
Tupac and Reconstrier kept anarchist literature alive, publishing key works
and essays. In nineteen thirty three, Accion Libertaria emerged and
eventually became the voice of FACA, later owners the Federacion

(02:32:35):
Libertaria Argentina or FLA until nineteen seventy one. But the
most significant international event for Argentine anarchists during the nineteen
thirties was the Spanish Civil War. The rise of fascist
among the resistance, led by the CNT and Federacio Anarchista
Iberica or FAI, inspired Argentine anarchists to provide solidarity and support.

(02:32:56):
Many traveled to Spain to join the fight, with Jose
Grenfeld become and the secretary of the FAI. Campaigns to
support anti fascists in the Spanish Civil War were also launched,
with FACA publishing books and pamphlets in the struggle. FACA
launched Saladari dad Operera in nineteen forty one, edited by
Juan Corral and Loreano Rieira, though it was later shut

(02:33:17):
down by the first Justici Aalista government under Peron. FURA
also began publishing a series of booklets, including Toros condre
la Guerra in nineteen thirty five and Lucca Constructiva Pola
Lebordad e Justicia in nineteen forty four. One notable libertarian
cultural journal, Ombre de America, ran from January nineteen forty

(02:33:39):
until the end of nineteen forty five, covering nearly the
entire duration of the Second World War. FACA was clear
about its position on the global conflicts of the time.
In nineteen forty two General Plennary, the group denounced both
Western democracies, which they saw as vlain capitalist exploitation, and
the Soviet Union, which they deemed bureaucratic. However, they saw

(02:34:01):
the greatest threat in national socialism the Nazis and the
rise of the Third Reich one in the total tyrrianism
was the worst danger of their era. Faker's statement of
solidarity with the oppressed under the Nazi barbarity also recognized
the threat posed by Soviet expansionism and the force promises
of post war democracies. Domestically, FAKA and FA faced a

(02:34:26):
new challenge with the rise of Juan Domingo Perun. His
populist approach, while beneficial somewhat to workers, was paradoxical for anarchists.
Prone's government promoted a state centered jingoistic project that co
opted labor movements through control networks, undermining genuine proletarian democracy.

(02:34:47):
Anarchists rejected Peranism, seen its as a threat to the
revolutionary ethos of worker's solidarity. Despite this, fora retained some influence,
especially among agricultural workers, who were caught between the identities
of peasants and workers. In June nineteen forty six, anarchist
launched a new newspaper, Reconstruire, with Louista Luci as editor.

(02:35:11):
The first issue featured Jaccobo Prince's critique of Peranism in
an article titled El totali tarismo falsea il Principio de
Justicia social, calling out the regime's distortion of social justice.
By the late nineteen forties and early nineteen fifties, FA's
influence had waned and anacosynicalism was reduced to a smaller

(02:35:34):
role in Argentina's labor movement. However, the Sociya Dad there
Resistencia del p del Puerto, aligned with FA, demonstrated their
commitment to anarchosynicalism in nineteen fifty two by rejecting a
compulsory wage tax to fund a monument to Eva Peron
Jesus Christ.

Speaker 6 (02:35:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 13 (02:35:55):
This act of defiance led to the imprisonment of several
militants for six months. Imagine you decide you want to
reject extra taxes because the dictator's wife demands a monument
like that's the ethrone jail because you decide you don't
want to pay that tax.

Speaker 4 (02:36:15):
God, this terrible stuff.

Speaker 13 (02:36:18):
While Peerans regime weakened free unism, he did so by
means of corruption rather than violence, contrasting with the methods
of his predecessor Urriburu. Facer continued its work well then
several congresses, including the fourth in nineteen fifty one and
the fifth of nineteen fifty five, just before Peroans overthrew

(02:36:38):
in nineteen fifty five. Facker rebranded as the Federacion Libertaria
Argentina or the FLA, and the FLA held its sixth
congress in nineteen sixty one, and his journal records career,
published regularly from nineteen fifty nine until nineteen seventy six,
coincided with the onset of Argentina's most brutal dictatorship. But

(02:37:08):
before we fast forward in nineteen seventy six, we need
to explore took place in the sixties. The sixties are
known as the New Left era in many parts of
the world thanks to the rise of student radicalism. The
New Left is marked by a notable libertarian and democratic impulse,
an emphasis on cultural as well as political transformation, an

(02:37:28):
extension of traditional lefts focus in class struggle to achnowledge
multiple forms and basis of oppression, including race and gender,
an emphasis and anti imperialism and anti clonalism, and a
rejection of bureaucracy and traditional forms of political organization in
favor of direct action and participatory democracy. Many youth were
searching for a third way outside of Soviet and Western models,

(02:37:53):
so during the nineteen sixties and seventies, a new generation
of Argentine youth turned to anarchism, though they struggled to
collaborate with the older anarchist movements. Cultural and political differences
were the heart of this divide, with younger militantligning themselves
more to global anti imperureless movements at the time than
with the anarchist legacy already within Argentina. In some ways,

(02:38:16):
this generational riff left a scar in the anarchist struggle.
In other ways helped younger anarchists to develop a clearer
ideological stance compared to their counterparts in countries where such
internal conflicts were less prevalent. One of the most significant
anarchist groups to emerge during this period was Resistancia Libertaria.
Operating condestantly and with a cellular structure, RL aimed to

(02:38:39):
ignite mass resistance and ultimately spark a prolonged popular war.
The group was active in neighborhoods, labor movements, and student circles,
and it had a small armed wing for defense and
expropriation purposes. Although it was formerly a national organization, RL's
main operations were in La Plata, Cordoba and purosiris A.

(02:39:02):
Argentina grew increasingly polarized in the mid nineteen seventies, arial
activists became targets. Many were disappeared even before the military
coup of nineteen seventy six, but then it hit Henry
Kissinger at the United States Machinations or fruit.

Speaker 6 (02:39:20):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, we go in there.

Speaker 13 (02:39:24):
A military coup overthrew President Isabel Peron, the third wife
of the original Peron, and installed a junta led by
Lieutenant General Jorgue Rafael videla Admiral Emilio Eduardo Masserra and
Brigadier General Orlando Ramon Augusti. This coup was part of
Operation Condo, a coordinated effort between Latin American dictatorships back

(02:39:46):
with the United States under its Cold War National Security doctrine.
The aim was allegedly to maintain stability in the region
that America considers its backyard, and US officials, including Kissinger,
was shorten meet with Argentine military leaders after the coup
encouraged them to wipe out the opposition quickly and brutally

(02:40:06):
before any winy human rights concerned started to be raised internationally.
The junta remained in power until December nineteen eighty three,
during which time some thirty thousand people were disappeared or executed.
RL militants were particularly targeted by the regime. One particularly
horrible story I have to share. The military men responsible

(02:40:27):
for the killings often spared pregnant women, kept them in
custody until they gave birth, then killed the mothers and
gave their influence to childless military families.

Speaker 4 (02:40:39):
Is christ.

Speaker 13 (02:40:40):
That's the kind of evil with dealing mid Yeah, And
despite the dangers, RL continued its activities until nineteen seventy eight,
when a series of coordinated police raids dismantled much of
the group. Around eighty percent of URL members were detained
in concentration camps where they were tortured and most were
eventually executed. And that is how you kill a social movement.

(02:41:03):
In the final years of the tatorship and follow on
their re establishment of civil government in nineteen eighty three,
new and relatively anti authoritarian social movements emerged in Argentina,
among the most prominent, with the Madres te la Plaza
de Mayo, a group of mothers advocating for justice for
those who had been disappeared on the military regime. Alongside them,
they are psychologists, feminists, and other grassroots activists began to

(02:41:27):
make their voices heard. This shift marked a significant departure
from traditional state centric leftist politics, with a growing inclination
towards more decentralized approaches. While this climate sparked renewed interest
in anarchism, it didn't lead to a substantial increase in the
membership of older anarchist organizations. Instead, it highlighted the transformation

(02:41:48):
and how social movements approached to activism and sought to
address issues of justice and accountability, and then we come
into the twenty first century. In the early two thousand, Argentina,
which was once a poster child for neoliberalism thanks to
the actions of the didataship, found itself in the throwers
of a devastating economic crisis. This meltdown didn't just affect

(02:42:12):
the economy, ignited a wave of social movements that were
far more confrontational, radical, and anarchistic than before, which of
the rise of militant neighborhood assemblies, factory takeovers, and intense
street protests. What was happened in Argentina was a direct
result of more than two decades of so called free
market reforms and structural adjustment programs. These policies had left

(02:42:36):
the economy in ruins, with poverty and unemployment levels soaring.
By the time the crisis hit, poverty had shot up
from thirty one percent to fifty three percent, and unemployment
had jumped to twenty one point four percent, nearly a
quarter of the country's population. Out of this chaos came

(02:43:04):
the Pictaros, a new movement of unemployed workers who turned
their anger.

Speaker 6 (02:43:09):
Into direct action.

Speaker 13 (02:43:11):
They didn't just march in protest, they blocked roads demanding
work and dignity. But what said the Picto's apart from
traditional unions was they commitments to horizontal organizing and direct action.
They knew that those unions didn't represent them, and they
wanted something more than just jobs. They wanted dignity, and
they wanted us say in how society was run. One

(02:43:34):
of the voices from this movement, a woman from the
Solano neighborhood in Buenos Aires, captured the spirit when she said,
I dream of my children finding a way of life
here away from the despair the system gives us. We're
building something new. Politics without political parties, end code. The
Pictaro's didn't just demand employment, they wanted meaningful work.

Speaker 6 (02:43:56):
They gave them control over their lives.

Speaker 13 (02:43:58):
They weren't looking to be fooled by back into the
capitalist system that had failed them. Instead, they called themselves
autonomous workers in envisionous society where people took charge their
communities and their futures. And then came December two thousand
and one. On the nineteenth, the crisis hit a boiling point.
All across the country. People took to the streets, unemployed workers,

(02:44:20):
middle class families, and whole neighborhoods They were united in
their demands an end to the government's economic policies and
the resignation of the deeply unpopular President, Fernando de la Rua.
After two days of street battles with police, government collapsed.
In the wake of this upheaval. Neighborhood assemblies popped up everywhere,

(02:44:40):
and the pictaros intensified their efforts. Millions of workers across
Argentina joined a general strike. In Protasius alone, over a
million people defied a government imposed state of emergency flood
in the streets in protest. It wasn't just about events
and frustration with what reclaiming their power. In a way,

(02:45:00):
the ideas of anarchism, self management, the centralization, and direct
action were be input into practice on a truly massive scale,
even though anarchist groups themselves didn't necessarily lead the charge.
The fight wasn't just on the streets, though, It had
to happen in the factories, the fields, across all the
sectors of society. They couldn't just remove politicians. They had

(02:45:22):
to dismantle the entire system of exploitation and replace it
with something radically different. A key piece of this puzzle
was the rise of the fabricas, recuperatas, or reclaim factories.
These takeovers didn't start with the two thousand one uprising, though.
The first occupation happened back in nineteen ninety six, when
workers in a cool storage plant to control after the

(02:45:42):
bosses abandoned it. More factories followed suit, with workers stepping
in with an owner's fled But they weren't even trying
to launch an offensive against capitalism. They were simply trying
to survive, to hold onto their livelihoods and an economy
that had pushed them to the edge. By the time
of the Argentine Uprising in December two thousand and one,

(02:46:04):
over one hundred and seventy factories had been reclaimed, with
some ten thousand workers taking part in this new form
of collective labor. The message was clear, when the bosses leave,
the workers are more than capable of keeping things running.
In these reclaimed factories, they got rid of the traditional
management hierarchies and made collective decisions and shared income equally.

(02:46:26):
It was a living example of one potential way society
could function without the capitalist class. In the midst of
the Argentine economic collaps these workers didn't just resist, they
were also producing, hence their banner of occupy resistar prosir,
Occupy Resist, produce the newest possible, to not just fight,

(02:46:48):
but to build something new from the ground up, not
just to survive, but to lay the foundations for a
new society. The cries of kissevayan totros or basically out
with all of them called the widespread dissolution with the
entire political class. But the sentiment needed to be transformed
into something more substantial, a proper political framework to drive

(02:47:12):
the momentum forward. But it's also into this framework, this
potentially anarchist framework wasn't fully developed among the population at
the time. There were some comrades who were working towards
bill in such a framework, but much of the movement,
particularly of the left, were focused on elections as a
way forward. The logic was simple. A left leading government

(02:47:35):
could introduce policies to a leeviy the situation and prevent
the open repression of popular movements. What does this really achieve.
It risked the transfer and of the struggle from the streets,
from the workplaces, from the hands of the people into
the hands of a new set of politicians, shifting the
focus from the masses to a few leaders operating within
clearly capitalist institutions. The elections were not important. The fight

(02:47:59):
was about winning seats in the government, and that needed
to be understood. The fighter was about building a true
popular power. Kiss if I am totos out with all
of them rejected not just individuals, but the entire political,
social and economic power structures. Even though the Argentine people
will not identify and as anarchists, they will apply on
anarchist principles in many aspects of their struggles, just like

(02:48:23):
the Appatistas and Chiappas who ruse up in nineteen twenty
fourth Rally and cry yabasta or enough already. The Argentine
uprising was a clear rejection of state power and capitalism.
Votes can't last forever, but they could plant the seat
of a new society, one built from below. But the
movement was torn between the two approaches of whether factory

(02:48:44):
should be managed by workers under state ownership or they
should be completely worker owned. Some argue the demanding expropriation
why the state wasn't a real solution within a capitalist framework,
because the state itself was responsible for the conditions they
found themselves in. But even though they argue the true
because power came from the workers controlling their own production.
On the flip side, cooperatives don't really address the deeper

(02:49:07):
issues of capitalism. Cooperativism does an inherently challenge capitalist relations
of production, just tinkers with the surface issues like monopolies,
internal structures, and competition. Building a network of cooperatives can
be valuable, but it's not going to create a subsystem
capable of top len capitalism. Anarchism, and specifically anarchist communist

(02:49:28):
ideas propose something far more transformative. Abortion all forms of
farwer exercised by minority, whether the bourgeoisie or the state,
assuming control of not just factories and fields, but all
of society. It's not a choice between cooperatives or state
managed workplaces. It's about creating conditions for all workers and
all people to self organize, and such reforms such as

(02:49:52):
reforms for workers to have control of their workplaces merely steps.
It's what a much larger goal should be kept in
in that struggle. These experiences in this history in Argentina
shows us that anarchist ideas are not just lofty dreams.

Speaker 6 (02:50:10):
They grounded in real struggles of working people.

Speaker 13 (02:50:12):
Consciously or unconsciously proven that a society without bosses, managers
and expectation is possible. Every social struggle, every revolutionary action,
is another step towards building that world. Through these movements,
through these actions, through these struggles, we can see the
foundation of a new society. And to the people of
Argentina who now face the rule of a new right

(02:50:36):
way menace employees, to stand up and say, once again,
kisevan Toros out with all of them, all power to
all the people.

Speaker 6 (02:50:46):
Peace.

Speaker 4 (02:50:49):
Hey, We'll be.

Speaker 2 (02:50:50):
Back Monday with more episodes every week from now until
the heat death of the universe.

Speaker 1 (02:50:55):
It Could Happen Here is 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
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You can now find sources for It Could Happen here
listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening.

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