It Could Happen Here Weekly 115

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Cool 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 (00:27):
Bucket we Ball, all right, yeah, Bucket we Ball, Welcome
to it could happen here. We have a pretty sizable
panel today. I'm Garrison Davis. I have been forced to
watch many hours of daily Wire plus exclusive programming at gunpoint.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
Uh huh.

Speaker 3 (00:41):
My co hosts mostly Robert Evans, uh huh.

Speaker 4 (00:45):
We are joined by Mia Wong. I was not involved
in the kidnapping and what this is on the record.
We have a sports consultant, James Stout.

Speaker 1 (00:54):
Hello, Hi, I'm here to talk about sports.

Speaker 3 (00:57):
That's right. And we have our resident, a subject matter
ex for in basketball, Sophie Ray Lichterman.

Speaker 5 (01:03):
I'm so afraid, so so.

Speaker 3 (01:09):
How how many of you have seen it, at least
the trailer for Lady Ballers? Because I'm assuming I'm the
only one that's actually watched this movie.

Speaker 2 (01:17):
I tried to watch through the trailer of Lady Ballers,
and then I had a realization that my time on
this earth is finite and precious, and so instead I
went and looked at a cloud.

Speaker 3 (01:27):
Okay, anyone else I saw part of the trailer. Do
we want to watch a one minute trailer?

Speaker 1 (01:35):
Yeah? Absolutely, yep.

Speaker 2 (01:36):
Sure.

Speaker 1 (01:37):
I haven't taken on in aus troll this week. Let's
watch a one minute trailer.

Speaker 6 (01:41):
Gear.

Speaker 2 (01:41):
Okay, time to get black pilled. Let's do it.

Speaker 3 (01:44):
I'm gonna subject the panel here to the Ladyballer's trailer,
which then you'll hear their reaction, do you afterwards?

Speaker 2 (01:51):
Jesus Christ. So this was mostly an excuse for them
to like slow mo video of hitting women, right, Yeah,
that was the primary reason for doing this.

Speaker 5 (02:02):
Yeah, I didn't need to see that whole thing that
was really upsetting.

Speaker 1 (02:06):
The reason why I wanted to actually show you is
because I'll never get that minute back.

Speaker 3 (02:10):
As what I's it's not even like it's not even
like offensive or triggering, it's just it's just poorly made.
It's it's it's just not very good. And before we continue.
I want to actually talk about why we're talking about this,
because you know, whenever I say to my friends, Hey,
do you want to come over and watch Lady Ballers,
Everyone's like, why would you do that?

Speaker 1 (02:31):
And the reason, Garrison I.

Speaker 3 (02:35):
Saw this twice. The reason is is because I think
it is actually important to know what your enemy is
up to. It's important to see what they think. Good
media is it's important to see how they are they
are trying to shape the world around them, and I
think fiction gets a lot closer to the actual outlook
these people have than sometimes their nonfiction stuff like That's

(02:58):
why Robert has done deep dives on on Ben Shapiro's
books on Behind the Bastards for years. Whenever these guys
get the opportunity to make their own complete world, whenever
they get to play as God and create a thing
that reflects their soul, it's a lot more insightful than
like a two hour podcast of them ranting. So that's

(03:18):
why I decided to actually put a lot of work
into digging into this movie. So I have the structure
of this episode split up into three parts.

Speaker 5 (03:27):
Can you stop sharing your screen? It's very distracting image.

Speaker 1 (03:31):
Yeah, yeahs fascinating to see what Garrison gets recommended.

Speaker 5 (03:35):
There is a screenshot of like all the like grab
photos from a bunch of Daily Wire plus.

Speaker 3 (03:43):
Unfortunately, I do have some slides to show the class.

Speaker 1 (03:46):
I'm sure you do. Can you remove that one thing?

Speaker 2 (03:50):
You know, Sophie, Sophie, Just just to bring this up,
we have Garrison's address. We could swap them and put
it into this.

Speaker 1 (03:58):
I'm not gonna answer it. I'm not gonna answer that
on a podcast. Yeah, yeah, silence.

Speaker 3 (04:04):
I have this episode structured into three parts. The first one,
we're gonna go into just a very basic overview of
the plot so we have an understanding of what this
movie actually contains. Then we're gonna go into the production
of this movie because the actual behind the scenes a
development of this film is also incredibly insightful. And then
finally we're gonna go into jokes and ideology because these

(04:25):
two things go hand in hand. Both of them reveal
more about how the other operates. So first off, I
have I have the title card for Lady Ballers here
in the movie. It's not very good. And this movie
was written, directed, produced, and is starring the Daily Wire
CEO Jeremy Boring, So this is like, this is a wait,

(04:46):
this is guy. Yes, that is the CEO.

Speaker 1 (04:51):
Film to have himself in What is sad Man? We
start in two thousand and eight.

Speaker 3 (04:58):
He is he is incredibly boring, Sophie an excellent observation.

Speaker 5 (05:03):
And tries to make himself look like Jordan Peterson as
much as he possibly can, and it's quite disturbing.

Speaker 3 (05:08):
Well, Jordan Peterson is now his employee.

Speaker 2 (05:11):
So, my god.

Speaker 3 (05:13):
We start in two thousand and eight. Jeremy Boring has
a horrendous Tony Stark go tee which I'm currently showing
the class on my side.

Speaker 2 (05:21):
Oh no, no, that's that's a self harm level of
facial hair.

Speaker 1 (05:28):
Yeah, do you assume, man on, that's what's happening here.

Speaker 2 (05:31):
Ah, Jeremy, No, you have to not do that.

Speaker 5 (05:35):
Not good?

Speaker 1 (05:36):
Why does it stop? Why is her little break?

Speaker 3 (05:38):
I thought, that's not good, Like I said, a horrible
Tony Stark level go tee. He is the coach of
a high school basketball team who's about to lose the
Tennessee State championships. The coach gives an impassioned speech in
the locker room that ends with the team chanting the
coach's motto quote, winners are just losers who win.

Speaker 1 (05:55):
Unquote.

Speaker 3 (05:56):
You hear this line throughout the movie constantly. Winners are
just losers who win. This is a core part of
how this movie operates. Now, the team's able to pull
it together in the second half and coach Jeremy Bording
leads the team to victory, becoming three time state championships.
We then flash fifteen years later. Coach Jeremy is failing
to keep the attention of the new generation who are

(06:18):
too busy on their phones to learn basketball, and is
fired from his high school coaching job. To make matters worse,
he's recently divorced and his wife's new boyfriend is a
liberal who's brainwashing his daughter played by Matt Walsh, who
I have a screencap here as well.

Speaker 1 (06:35):
Okay, what the actual fuck do we know? The budget
for this movie, by the way.

Speaker 3 (06:41):
Not exactly, but it is not cheap based on how
much they paid for casting.

Speaker 1 (06:48):
This cost multiple.

Speaker 3 (06:49):
Hundreds of hundreds of thousands of dollars. I wouldn't be
surprised if they put a few million into this.

Speaker 1 (06:53):
Yeah, So it's very funny that the part of the
integral part of the play is one being angry about
Big Divorced and not at all telling that.

Speaker 3 (07:03):
Is a huge part of this movie is Big Divorce energy,
which actually will play into the ideology of the film
as well. So we have Matt wallsheer in a wig
with man bun. He's wearing like a like a like
like a burgundy button up dress, sitting on a manicured
lawn with like rainbows, flags and stuff. Anyway, so this
is this is who Jeremy was cucked to. Now Jeremy

(07:25):
gets a new job at a restaurant that happens to
be drag themed. No, there are no actual drag queens,
just men in ugly wigs and poor fitting clothing. Here
he meets the former star point guard of his basketball
team from fifteen years ago. The coach enters his former
player into a local track and field contest to win
five thousand dollars, but the men's events are full. Luckily,

(07:47):
the former basketball player is still wearing his wig from
the drag restaurant, and.

Speaker 1 (07:52):
The why queen's doing continue this. You cannot question the.

Speaker 6 (08:00):
Screen right, great, okay, good to know, thank you.

Speaker 3 (08:06):
But the woman at the sign up table is luckily
covered in trans pride pins and mistakes the former basketball
player for a trans woman and adds him to the
woman's division. With a little convincing and some fake boobs,
the coach gets the player to agree to compete in
the women's division. The guy easily wins every event in
the track and field match, as the women competitors just

(08:28):
scowl at him. This attracts the attention of a local
female reporter, the journalist character, who is weirdly horny for
Jeremy Boring, like uncomfortably horny for Jeremy Boring something. It's like, Oh, Jeremy, Jeremy,
you wrote, directed, and started this. You you created this
whole scenario. Yeah, very very interesting.

Speaker 1 (08:51):
What else would the the made woman character do then
be horny for Jeremy? Hoh the fuck?

Speaker 3 (09:02):
The journalist is seeze through the coaches scheme, but proposes
that they team up to create a national news story
by having trans women or people pretend to be trans
women compete in the US Open for the Global Games
by exploiting their new diversity and inclusion clause.

Speaker 1 (09:18):
Very funny that they think this is how this is
a real thing. This isn't a real thing. This is
they don't understand how journalism happens.

Speaker 7 (09:25):
You don't.

Speaker 8 (09:25):
You don't create the story like it is, very funny movie.
He despises journalists. Well, that is how they do. Yeah,
very it's very correct. They've revealed that they kind of
didn't take journalism one o one.

Speaker 3 (09:38):
No, the whole point of the Daily Wire is literally
creating new stories themselves.

Speaker 1 (09:44):
Yes, anyone what I've seen the next picture.

Speaker 3 (09:46):
But to play basketball once again, they first have to
put the old team back together. First, they recruit two
brothers who own a used car dealership, and then they
travel to Michigan to find another teammate who is living
ted K style in the woods after being traumatized by
an enemy team mascot as a teenager. None of us
is explained.

Speaker 1 (10:05):
They just wanted to do that trope. They just want
they just want okay, yeap.

Speaker 3 (10:10):
Needing one more team member, they recruit the desperately lonely
gay coded towel Boy, who now owns a mansion after
selling his tech company. After learning about the coach's plan
to play in the women's league, the team is initially upset,
but after another impassioned speech about winning from the coach,
the players agree to join the Lady Ballers. The coach's

(10:32):
daughter stops by to explain to gender identity concepts to
them that she learned in school, like how women can
have beards just like her art teacher in kindergarten. The
Lady Ballers easily win their first basketball game and skyrocket
into fame as the first all trans women's basketball team.
After their first taste of victory, they start competing in

(10:52):
all women's sports, obviously dominating every single one.

Speaker 5 (10:57):
Because these like burnout old dudes are going to be
better than every female at the encounter.

Speaker 6 (11:05):
Yes, yeah, that's the it's the it's the joke about
like I take the stage against Serena Williams, confident that
being a man will allow me to beat her her
past sales through my body and I die instantly.

Speaker 3 (11:18):
Yeah yeah, now, this, this whole winning all of the
sports section is conveyed through the classic cinematic technique of
the montage, which is just as bad as you can imagine.

Speaker 4 (11:30):
I have a clip from the montage here. It was
you really ashamed given that the montage was invented famously
by Soviet cinematographers.

Speaker 3 (11:38):
Is now this was this was definitely a reference to
this definitely definitely reference to Soviet era film. Absolutely voter.

Speaker 5 (11:47):
You're showing me fake Joe Biden sniffing this person.

Speaker 1 (11:50):
Yeah, it's like he's stiffing little Jonathan van Ness.

Speaker 3 (11:53):
So this is this is this is the gay coated
towel boy. Oh who was invited to the Houses International
Women's by God, and.

Speaker 5 (12:03):
We have jock and rubbing his shoulders.

Speaker 3 (12:11):
It's called the Washington rag magazine. Democracy dies in print,
very very.

Speaker 6 (12:17):
Clear, really scything with insightful.

Speaker 1 (12:23):
That's such a bomber garrison.

Speaker 3 (12:25):
After the Lady Baller's way of success, the coach's ex
wife confronts him about what he's doing and calls the
Ladyballers not real girls, to the shock of her new
woke boyfriend. Sorry, this is this is actually a really

(12:45):
important scene.

Speaker 2 (12:46):
Now.

Speaker 3 (12:46):
The coach's daughter expresses to him that she wants to
be a boy because she wants to be a winner
and because quote boys are better at everything unquote, which
the coach denies, but he does admit that are better
at all sports as well as quote driving, parking, most
of the stemfields, rock and roll, and opening pickle jars unquote.

(13:09):
This is not played as a joke. This is played
completely straight. The coach then explains to his daughter that
girls can be better at all sorts of things like quote,
being nurturing, sensitive, empathetic, being better at doing lots of
things at once, and caring for a lot of people
at once, being better at communicating and building community. And
they civilize men. It's the only reason we have a civilization.

(13:31):
No women, no world unquote, which is a deeply revealing
a line from Jeremy Boring.

Speaker 2 (13:39):
Yeah, I mean that's how these yeah yeah.

Speaker 1 (13:41):
He then God, He.

Speaker 5 (13:43):
Then explains, So that's so boring, it's such a lame take.

Speaker 3 (13:49):
He then explains to his daughter that the main thing
that women can do that men can't is give birth,
and that's the special gift from God. The coach goes
home after his talk with his The journalist is waiting
for him there. He's expressing concern about men competing in
women's sports, but she rants about how divorce is evil
and threatens to cancel him if he doesn't cooperate.

Speaker 5 (14:12):
Garrison, Garrison, sorry, why is only one person in this
screen cap wearing a wig?

Speaker 3 (14:20):
That's a great question, Sophie, that never gets never gets explained.

Speaker 1 (14:23):
Are you gonna show us some montage. I'm very excited
to see you.

Speaker 3 (14:26):
I'm not showing No, I'm not showing you my pirate
my pirated copy of Lady Follers listeners.

Speaker 5 (14:34):
There's like a screen cap from the movie and it's
the entire basketball team and all all the men are
not wearing wigs except one guy.

Speaker 3 (14:43):
This is actually a different basketball team, which I will
I will.

Speaker 1 (14:46):
Get you one person wearing a wig. Let Let let
me get to it.

Speaker 3 (14:50):
The people get to it. This is this is very
carefully structured plot, Sophie. You gotta understand that the genius
of Jeremy Boring is scripting requires time to digest. So
the Lady Ballers arrive at their final qualifying game, but
instead of finding a women's basketball team to play against,
the opposing team, the Cowgirls, is now suddenly all made
up of extremely large black men accompanied by this female journalist.

(15:14):
The Lady Ballers get absolutely smoked during the first half,
but during halftime, the coach has a change of heart.
He tells the team to man up and forfeit all
of their previous qualifying wins because they don't want their
legacy to be a racing women from women's sports.

Speaker 1 (15:31):
Jesus Christ.

Speaker 3 (15:33):
So this is the opposing team made up of I
think it's just it's it's some college basketball team in Nashville,
and oh yeah, only one of them is wearing a wig.
It's it's all, it's it's playedoff as a joke. It
is all kind of racist. The female journalist tries to
assassinate Jeremy Boring with a sniper rifle, but missings because
the coach happens to lean down to pick up a penny.

Speaker 1 (15:55):
What yeah, abnormal Italian normal thing.

Speaker 4 (15:59):
I mean this, this, this makes this this. This is
the second piece of media release in the last few
months where the lesson is always take a second shot.
This is also the plot of Barvel's Echo The journalist stay,
the journals got.

Speaker 3 (16:12):
Close, Then suddenly the first player to join the lady
Ballers comes out to the coach that they actually feel
like a woman, but the coach convinces them that they
are delusional and then assaults them in the genitals and
walks away.

Speaker 1 (16:29):
What the why? Sorry the next why are they like this?

Speaker 5 (16:35):
Every screencap just gets worse and worse.

Speaker 1 (16:39):
Yeah, that is a child. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (16:43):
Right, Before the second half of the game starts, the
coach replaces the Ladyballers with his daughter and her friends.
The other team then helps the little because because they
don't want their legacy to be replacing women in women's sports,
so instead they instead, the coach uses his daughter and
her friends to be like, look, women play girls playing sports.

(17:05):
It doesn't make very much sense. But the other team
helps the little girls play the game, but they ultimately
crushed the little girls four hundred and eighteen to six,
and this has played off as like a funny a
funny bit. We cut to nine months later, the brothers
used cardi. Theirship is now also a kid's sports center
where the coach is now teaching, and he has changed

(17:28):
his motto to quote winners are just losers who do
what's right. Unquote what true? What this this this is
the real ending of the movie.

Speaker 9 (17:39):
But but that doesn't make any sense. That doesn't make
any sense for the context of the movie. No, that's now,
this is we're not moving past that.

Speaker 2 (17:49):
What the fuck?

Speaker 1 (17:50):
That's that's nothing. I love have angreed this fucking tagline,
and they didn't take any time to make even even
coh like.

Speaker 3 (18:01):
Winners are just losers who do what's right because because
the Ladyballers are the real winners because they admitted to
losing its sports to do any right, which is to
not lie about being women. That I think that's what
they're trying to say, but it doesn't make very much sense.
It's all very convoluted.

Speaker 5 (18:17):
Yes, I mean, my my high school basketball coach told
me to cry on the inside like a winner after
my shoulder popped out of its socket.

Speaker 6 (18:26):
But that's just good advice, Sophie. That's what I tell
everybody on Garrison started getting traumatized by the Daily Wire.

Speaker 2 (18:35):
That's what I told you.

Speaker 1 (18:36):
My high school rugby coach just relocated my shoulder for
me and told me to get on with it. So
I'm glad that we both have shoulder trauma. This screen
cap is just wow. Sorry, Garrett, please continue.

Speaker 3 (18:47):
So after this what's played off as like a heartwarming ending,
we cut away to a car parked from across the
street looking at the kids playing basketball. Ominous music starts playing.
It's Matt Walsh's character holding a long lens camera taking
pictures of the scene. He takes his man bun Wig off,
and Matt Walsh says quote another sweet Daddy Walsh ad

(19:09):
venture comes to a satisfying conclusion, the camera zoom's back
to reveal Candice Owens sitting in the passenger seat. She remarks,
I don't understand how you did anything to help make
the situation any better, to which Walsh replies, don't you,
and then starts doing the most forced, unconvincing maniacal laughter
I've ever heard. The camera pans down to the car's
headlights and we cut to credits, and the most sonic

(19:32):
the hedgehog ass butt rock plays as the film closes.
So this is played as a reveal that Matt Walsh's
character was actually secretly Matt Walsh who was manipulating this
whole situation to show people that trans women in sports
is bad. That's what they're trying to play off as
the twist, ending that this was all a quote unquote

(19:52):
Daddy Walsh adventure.

Speaker 1 (19:54):
We do have a post credit.

Speaker 4 (19:55):
Actually said he actually yes, literally said another sweet Daddy Walsh.

Speaker 2 (20:02):
Was the phrase Daddy Walsh used at any point previously
in the movie.

Speaker 3 (20:06):
No, because okay, previously Walsh was playing a liberal boyfriend.
But we now reveal that was all that, that was
all part of his scheme. This was all part of
Matt Walsh's scheme.

Speaker 1 (20:18):
Actually, Garrison, I'm I'm gonna need you to cut the
audio for another Sweet Daddy Walsh ad venture because I
think that will be something we can use a lot.
That's that's closer, will I will?

Speaker 3 (20:27):
I will ad that.

Speaker 7 (20:28):
Here another Sweet Daddy Walsh Adventure comes to a satisfying conclusion.

Speaker 3 (20:33):
What are you talking about? I don't understand how anything
you did helped to make this situation better, don't you?
But we do have a post credit scene. In the
post credit scene, we see the basketball player that came
out as Trands to the coach in the climax of
the film, in conversion therapy, talking about their childhood to

(20:56):
none other than doctor Jordan B. Peterson.

Speaker 5 (21:00):
Fuck shake, Garrison, great, So why why are you doing
this to us?

Speaker 2 (21:06):
I'll say this.

Speaker 6 (21:07):
It sounds like a movie, does it?

Speaker 1 (21:11):
Does it?

Speaker 10 (21:11):
Really?

Speaker 1 (21:13):
Not a very good one?

Speaker 2 (21:15):
Yeah, not a good one. But do you.

Speaker 3 (21:17):
Know what is really good for all of us? Ad
break taking? I think taking a quick ad break to
digest and think about what we've all just experienced.

Speaker 5 (21:27):
I kind of stream into the void. But yeah, all right,
we are back. Wasn't that a fun?

Speaker 3 (21:45):
A fun recap of the Daily Wires hit new movie
Lady Ballers, streaming exclusively on The Daily Wire Plus. So
let's go into the actual production of this thing, because
this is also deeply revealing. So The Daily has a
sports podcast called Crane and Company, hosted by two brothers
who claimed to be former athletes. A few years back,

(22:08):
Ben Shapiro approached them with the idea of making a
documentary about them trying to join some women's sports leagues.
This idea, however, was quickly abandoned due to the obvious
fact that women's sports leagues don't allow men, and the
Daily Wire hosts apparently did not want to go through
the process of transitioning and the years of hormone are

(22:29):
was necessary to qualify for women's sports for a documentary
that would exclusively stream on The Daily Wire Plus.

Speaker 6 (22:35):
Man, I would have respected it if that had If
that had been what they did, though, that would have
been a different, different thing.

Speaker 3 (22:43):
I will actually insert this clip here just because it's
really useful to hear them say this, because they just
admit the quiet part out loud here.

Speaker 11 (22:52):
So you approached me and you said we should make
a fictional film about this topic, now'd be fair. I
think I'd actually suggested as the Grain Boys that they
do this as a doc.

Speaker 1 (23:04):
Yes.

Speaker 11 (23:04):
I originally went to them and I said, you guys
should like go try out for a bunch of ladies' leagues,
And that became not possible because, as it turns out,
most ladies leagues don't allow in actual men men, and
they weren't willing to go at the full distance in
terms of what it would require in order to you know,
the actual hormone treatments and everything to play in some
of the ladies' leagues.

Speaker 1 (23:23):
But in any case, it turned into this. So there
we go.

Speaker 3 (23:28):
A very clear admission from Ben Shapiro that this entire
premis is fake, that this I premis could never work,
And so after disproving their own premise, what's left to do?

Speaker 1 (23:40):
Well?

Speaker 3 (23:41):
The CEO of The Daily Wire and failed Hollywood producer
Jeremy Boring wanted to take this idea from Ben and
just do it as a fictional movie, because fiction's arguably
more powerful than reality. So for his directorial debut, Jeremy
wanted to make something reminiscent of early two thousands comedies,
and he was frequently rough frinst Dodgeball as aspiration for

(24:02):
this movie.

Speaker 2 (24:03):
Yeah, I'm not surprised.

Speaker 1 (24:05):
Which is it to be fair? Is it insults to Dodgeball?

Speaker 6 (24:08):
No, that's a that's an actual movie.

Speaker 1 (24:12):
Contains some genuinely funny scenes, characters.

Speaker 2 (24:17):
I think script like Vince Vaughan actually is a conservative,
but he's also an actor.

Speaker 3 (24:25):
I think Boring is definitely stuck in the early two
thousands as culture because that is when he tried to
break into Hollywood. So that's kind of what his idea
of what movies are is. Very much is trapped in
the early early two thousands. He has he has a
quote from that interview with Ben Shapiro, quote, There's not
been a true comedy made since Barack Obama became president.

(24:46):
Obama destroyed three things comedy, rock and roll, and America.
Other than that he was an average president.

Speaker 4 (24:55):
Fucking hell own strikes on every fucking rock band.

Speaker 1 (25:02):
That's it. Yeah, that's why he took a predictor drawing
to Linen skin. It's house.

Speaker 2 (25:08):
Only if only.

Speaker 3 (25:11):
Jeremy Boring also remarked, quote, it became impossible to tell
a joke in the Obama administration because Obama made a
pact with culture shapers that they should change the fundamental
understanding of themselves unquote, and he's talking about how comedy
became a way to progress social change instead of a
way to point out the absurdity in the world. So

(25:34):
Jeremy decided to move forward with the production of Lady
Ballers in mid March of twenty twenty three, which, if
you are good at math, you realize is less than
a year than when it came out. The script for
Lady Ballers was written in just two weeks.

Speaker 1 (25:51):
Sounds right, yep, well that I absolutely believe. Did they
use GBT? It is? It is?

Speaker 3 (25:59):
It is possible. The entire production had to be very rushed,
since Jeremy needed to be in Hungary in the beginning
of July to shoot the Daily Wires New Fantasy mini series.
But Jeremy says the biggest production hurdle wasn't budgetary or
the very tight pre production and shooting schedule. It was
the casting process. Every single actor they approached for every

(26:20):
single role. Is that is a direct quote? Said no.
Even the conservative actors who have said that they've want
to work with the Daily Wire have already worked with
the Daily Wire. Even canceled actors declined after hearing the
pitch for Lady Ballers Man, which isn't surprising because the
movie is not very good, So instead of hiring actual actors,

(26:45):
they just decided to use Daily Wire employees love this obviously.
Writer director and Daily Wire CEO Jeremy Boring stars as
coach rob I'm refusing to call him that. I'm just
gonna call him coach Jeremy because that's who he is.
The three hosts of the sports podcast The Crane and
Company are three of the Lady Wallers. Matt Walsh plays

(27:07):
the hippie husband of Robinson.

Speaker 5 (27:09):
They claim to have been like athletes, like high school
or college athletes.

Speaker 1 (27:14):
Yeah, this is a different thing.

Speaker 2 (27:20):
Yeah, I can imagine Ben Shapiro was used as a
football but as close as they.

Speaker 1 (27:26):
Get, Bench Peary was the one on top of the
cheerleading tower. He's a little guy. He didn't been good
at it.

Speaker 3 (27:33):
Yeah, we have we have Matt Walsh playing the hippie,
woke husband. Daily Wire hosts Michael Knowles and Brett Cooper,
both of whom are failed actors, play newscasters. Then we
have Daily Wire hosts Ben Shapiro, cand of Sowans, Andrew
Clavin and Jordan Peterson all have Cameo Roles, so I
was able to excitedly point out all eleven Daily Wire

(27:53):
employees to my friend as they forced them to watch
this with me.

Speaker 1 (27:57):
Still, so the.

Speaker 2 (28:01):
Roder we have mental health care through the company, right, Yeah,
we might need to get a fifty one to fifty
on Garrison just for a couple of couple of couple
of three day cycles.

Speaker 6 (28:12):
Oh, they cleared this out of their heads.

Speaker 5 (28:14):
I was actually disassociating and thinking about how one day
I hope to cast all of us in a basketball movie.

Speaker 2 (28:23):
A movie you mean, a movie about the actual time
that I outshot Lebron James. Sure, yeah, that makes that
makes sense.

Speaker 1 (28:31):
So I've seen Robert send a pool ball about head
height across a crowded once. I am sure it would
be very similar.

Speaker 2 (28:38):
That was just a brief demonstration of my power. James.

Speaker 1 (28:42):
Yeah, now you redunked that pool balls. I mean Christmas
to see.

Speaker 5 (28:45):
I thought the worst basketball movie I saw was the
one on Disney Channel where they had two twins that
were basketball players but they weren't actually twins, and it
looked nothing alike and it was just really really poor
production and bad.

Speaker 1 (28:59):
But this is it.

Speaker 3 (29:01):
I thought there was basketball movie I've seen was Space
Jam two.

Speaker 1 (29:05):
But this this now, no, no, no, you loved that movie.
You talked about that movie for so long.

Speaker 3 (29:13):
It's not a good movie.

Speaker 1 (29:14):
So it is really bad.

Speaker 3 (29:18):
So Lady Ballers was shot in less than a month
under the fake name Coach Miracle Now. According to reporting
from the National Scene, background actors and crew were misled
about the production before signing on to the movie, just
being told it was a basketball comedy. The name The
Daily Wire was hidden in the contracts and extras had

(29:39):
to sign NDAs it appears, the production company went by
the name Bonfire Legend, which is also the production company
going forward with The Daily Wires Fantasy mini series and
a few other upcoming projects. So be on the watch
for anything called Bonfire Legend if you're signing up to
be a background extra for a movie in Nashville. Well,

(30:00):
I was able to locate the online casting sheet for
the movie and it has this description quote casting extras kids,
skilled sports.

Speaker 1 (30:09):
Sports is in parentheses.

Speaker 3 (30:11):
By the way it is, it doesn't make sense as
as a sentence. But casting extras kids, skilled sports and
background for a misfit Team inspired basketball comedy Misfit Team.

Speaker 2 (30:24):
Yeah sure, yeah, that's skilled.

Speaker 1 (30:27):
God. I found there. I found they like the recruiting
thing for the Coach Miracle project. Oh god, there's some
terrible shit in here. I guess they seemed to want
to start. It was supposed to be about t ball initially.
Well there is there is.

Speaker 3 (30:42):
There is a scene where when I see when the
athletes start entering all of the women's divisions, they they
do enter a t boll contest as well. That is
that is that is during the montage.

Speaker 2 (30:55):
I guess they just couldn't give up that great idea.

Speaker 3 (30:59):
Despite the on disclosure agreement, local background actors in Nashville
did come out and warn people about the production once
they figured out the Daily Wires involvement and the movie's
anti trans messaging. One extra, a trans man who unwittingly
signed onto the movie, said that Daily Wire fans from
around the country traveled to Nashville to be in the
film once they learned it was shooting in Tennessee, and

(31:19):
according to background actors, certain props and costuming were hid
on set to downplay the transphobia while shooting. After some
extras voiced concerns and objections to props and signs which
read stuff like baller Pride and various other kind of
like trans related jokes. To quote the Nashville scene quote.

(31:40):
During a break from filming, several actors voiced their objections
and were quote unquote screaming about the Daily Wires involvement
with the film before being escorted out of the building unquote.
Protests were held outside of filming locations for the duration
of the shoot. These protests also served to inform unaware
cast and crew about the movie's messaging. Filming was initially

(32:00):
supposed to take place at Belmont University, but that got
canceled as the Daily Wires deception regarding the production of
the film was made public. So good on everyone who
was coming out against this after they realized what was happening.
Good on everyone for protesting disrupting these sorts of things.
I think is a vital importance at the very least,
so that you can inform anyone who is signed on

(32:22):
to this that of like what this actually is, because
you know, if you're a transperson who signed up to
be a backward extra and you find yourself on a
Daily Wire set, that is a very dangerous place to be.
So that is extremely important. Ted Cruz, who was an
aspiring actor according to According to jervy Borg in his youth,

(32:44):
was asked to do a cameo.

Speaker 2 (32:45):
Oh God, oh that scans so much Jesus Christ. Every
one of these fucking guys.

Speaker 6 (32:52):
All of them were all aspiring movie like American in Hollywood.

Speaker 2 (32:57):
But they can't because they don't have any talent.

Speaker 1 (33:00):
Yeah, aspiring is generous. Failed would be a failed failed.

Speaker 4 (33:05):
We need like a public works jobs program for these
people or something to stop them from doing this stuff,
like have them I don't know.

Speaker 2 (33:13):
We need to integrate. We need to integrate Hollywood casting
agents with a system of suicide booths, and we need
to put a sign outside those suicide booths that says
Marvel Movie Backlot Casting or something like that. And when
these people fail out, we just send them into the
booth and tell them they got a great role. They're
going to be the new Spider Man or whatever.

Speaker 1 (33:35):
Describing Canadian Hollywood, you.

Speaker 3 (33:36):
Are describing Canadian Hollywood. After after Ted Cruz has shot
his cameo, he beat Jeremy Boring in a one on
one basketball game. So that's a fun fact for you, Sophie.

Speaker 1 (33:48):
It would be a comedy.

Speaker 3 (33:49):
Fact for me because you love basketball, Yeah, but nobody
needs That's.

Speaker 2 (33:54):
That's a real case of the stoppable force meeting the
movable object.

Speaker 1 (33:58):
Yeah, it's Did they have the like low hoops? Do
you think you know? The ones for children who can't
jump up to dunk on an adult size hoop yet? Is?

Speaker 3 (34:06):
There's a really good line from Jeremy in an interview
that went discussing the production of this film. After shooting
a wrestling scene with a professional stunt woman, Jeremy said
that he was driving in his car on his way
home and he thought to himself, quote, we're genuinely being
terrible to women in the making of this movie, unquote,
which is the most true thing he's ever said.

Speaker 2 (34:28):
Yeah, bro, but he tried to he tried.

Speaker 3 (34:31):
To justify it by saying, this is actually happening in
the actual world, referring to men injuring children and little
girls in sports games. Which isn't true. That that just
isn't true. Grown men are not entering little league and
assaulting little girls. That's just not happening.

Speaker 5 (34:50):
Jeremy of the Ted Cruz basketball game, because Ted Cruz
pass I have the ugliest jump shot that has ever existed.

Speaker 3 (34:58):
I don't think he can jump, Yeah, exactly, he has.
He has a one foot vertical at least I think,
but he.

Speaker 5 (35:06):
Definitely shoots like two hands like Jolty.

Speaker 3 (35:10):
It's it's it's weird how much Jeremy in interviews has
to like reassure himself that, like this quote, this movie
is absurd, but it's only as absurd as the real
world unquote, despite already admitting that the entire conceit of
this movie, that that men can fake being trans to
just win all of women's sports, is just divorced from reality.

Speaker 1 (35:31):
It's not true.

Speaker 3 (35:32):
Like you this, this doesn't happen. And now I will
do one one final quote from Jeremy that made me
really upset before we take a take another ad break,
where he's talking about the thematic similarities in this film.
Quote Tonally, the film is a lot like Dodgeball, but
thematically it's much less like Dodgeball. It's much more like

(35:53):
the Death of Stolid unquote, which is so absolutely good movie,
the Death of Stall and slaps the fact that Jermy
Boring is comparing his dog shit basketball movie to the
Death of Stalin's darring Steve Buscemi insulting.

Speaker 2 (36:09):
Yeah, you don't get to. You don't get. You don't
get to compare yourself to Armando Yanucci. If you've never
written a thing which you didn't This was not This
is not writing.

Speaker 1 (36:20):
Holy upsetting.

Speaker 5 (36:22):
I mean, I think the closest thing I can compare
it to is the Disney Channel original movie Double Team
to where the twins were not actually twins and the
plot was bad.

Speaker 1 (36:34):
Go ahead and don't google that Double Teamed.

Speaker 3 (36:38):
Let's have a capitalistic palette cleanser with these lovely products
and services that support my daily wire Plus addiction.

Speaker 1 (36:58):
All right, we are back.

Speaker 3 (36:59):
Oh my god, Sophie's showing me the picture from the
Disney Channel movie. It does not look good. No, I
will say it does look slightly better than lay, which
isn't insane carrying the bar which is lying on the ground.

Speaker 1 (37:12):
Lifetime's better.

Speaker 3 (37:14):
Let's get into some of the jokes and the and
the ideological underpinnings of this film. And I also just
have a few others random fun facts I have here
saved the the the the font choice for the opening
credits of this movie, which is not very good if
you if you look at the font for the Daily
Wired Plus presents a Jeremies movie which is another title

(37:37):
card is just a Jereimese movie, which isn't how you
do title.

Speaker 1 (37:40):
Cards for films. But whatever sentence.

Speaker 3 (37:43):
No, we have just one minute into the film there
is your mom incest joke between two brothers.

Speaker 1 (37:52):
Every time you say something, it just fucking comes out
of out of no way.

Speaker 3 (37:57):
There's actually a lot of incest oaks in this movie.
Why immediately we have like overexposed cinematography, the white circlip thing.
It doesn't look good. We have this joke in the
first few minutes with this gay coated uh TWL boy
who's sniffing the sweaty towels from the other teammates during

(38:20):
the during the opening credits montage, they put this horrible
film grain filter on this basketball footage. I have I
have a I have an example here. Just it doesn't
look good. It doesn't look good. That guy breakdancing, No,
that's that's that's him doing a foul I think.

Speaker 2 (38:38):
It's him doing a fucking Tim Robinson face.

Speaker 1 (38:42):
Yeah, he does kind of have a Tim Robinson ad face.

Speaker 2 (38:45):
Oh my god.

Speaker 3 (38:46):
And we also during the opening credits, we have the
great line introducing Jeremy Boring.

Speaker 1 (38:52):
Very fun.

Speaker 3 (38:53):
We have a we have a kids and their damn
phones joke.

Speaker 2 (38:57):
With with sure, oh, I'm certain.

Speaker 3 (39:00):
With phone notifications being used as a punchline during a
failed like impassioned speech. We have what was what was
first a funny joke, We have a stealing catalytic converter joke,
which is immediately ruined.

Speaker 5 (39:12):
Ah ah, come on, it's offensive to Robert.

Speaker 1 (39:18):
I will not stand for this.

Speaker 2 (39:20):
My culture is not a costume.

Speaker 6 (39:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (39:25):
The catalytic Converter jokes immediately ruined by turning racist by
having the one black kid in the class drop his
cordless reciprocating saw. The movie then acknowledges the racism by
having the coach receive a phone call from his boss
telling him that it's racist to tell teenage boys not
to steal, which the coach justifies by saying the Bible
says not to steal. In response, his boss fires him

(39:47):
because you can't teach the Bible in school.

Speaker 1 (39:49):
So that God, I wish it were. That is how.

Speaker 3 (39:52):
That is how coach Jeremy loses his job. When picking
up his daughter from school, the teacher standing outside is
inaudible because she's he was wearing like six COVID masks.
One of which says, quote, we say gay, and then
the teacher goes into a coughing fit because Jeremy does
not have a catalytic converter, and Jeremy just tells her
to smile and wear makeup. Jeremy asks his daughter what

(40:18):
they learned at school today, and she says that they
had a moment of silence for the workers exploited by
the capitalistic system when learning about the Cold War. His
eight year old daughter also informs him in class that
a girl showed her her penis in the bathroom. Jeremy's
upset at this, but his daughter accuses him of being
transphobic and says, okay, boomer, very very funny stuff. Jeremy

(40:46):
suggests that he might move his daughter to a private school,
to which his daughter replies, quote private schools reinforce white
patriarchal privilege.

Speaker 4 (40:53):
Unquote based base child, base child rile children hate you, yo, divorces.

Speaker 1 (41:01):
Just such a powerful day wild.

Speaker 3 (41:02):
Lot of the movies jokes are just Jereby Boring's fake
daughter saying like accurate, like academic level things, and that's
just the joke, is that she's like right, Jereby has
been coucked by a liberal hippie played by Matt Walsh,
as we've said, who refers to the coach as my
lover's former lover, which is which they play as an

(41:28):
ongoing joke, and liberal Matt Walsh talks about how he
likes eating bugs and vaccines to stay healthy. This is
this is coded as a joke that vaccines keep you healthy.

Speaker 1 (41:38):
Whal she's not a great actor.

Speaker 5 (41:40):
Eating bugs and vaccine to keep healthy? Yeah, I did
get that right, all right? Yeah, Now, while she's not
a good actor, he is. He is a black hole
of charisma. He can he can really only do deadpan delivery.
So watching him try to play like a sincere hippie
leftist is just like uncanny. But Jeremy plays the most

(42:02):
divorced man ever, which she pulls off fine.

Speaker 1 (42:04):
So is she acting in that role? I gotta give
him credit?

Speaker 6 (42:09):
Right?

Speaker 5 (42:09):
What you know?

Speaker 3 (42:10):
They say in front of Matt Walsh's house, we have
these like fake we have these fake yard signs which
I'm just gonna read quote in this house, we believe
crickets are delicious. Silence is violence. Speech is also violence.
No one is illegal, but Europeans coming to America was bad.
Guns don't kill people. White people kill people. Also, trans

(42:34):
rights are human rights feelings. Don't care about your facts.
Pride Month is every month. Social credit scores matter in
inclusive inclusion. The earth is literally going to burst into
flame any day.

Speaker 1 (42:46):
I like that he just kept rights or human rights
in there. Can't think of riff on it. It's just
like human rights.

Speaker 5 (42:55):
No one is illegal, but Europeans coming to America is bad.

Speaker 1 (43:00):
So true, so true. Yes, this isn't more base yard
side than the ones that like live people actually have. Yeah,
you could have just outside of my house. Yeah, it
wasn't very funny.

Speaker 2 (43:13):
They are if the fact that like twelve people in
this country eat cricket protein like it's it's such a
they're a baby thing to be scared of, like you
all eat lobster.

Speaker 6 (43:27):
Go on.

Speaker 5 (43:27):
I'm saying, you know, yard sides could be improved, is
what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (43:33):
They couldn't even get like a cab on that, Like
it seems like there's some really easy things.

Speaker 3 (43:38):
They don't really have anything related to police in this
movie at all.

Speaker 1 (43:41):
Maybe that's what I'm getting mad about.

Speaker 3 (43:43):
Jays at the Coach's new job at the drag themed
restaurant Jeremy Boring has to like put on drag and
then reflects on sexual harassment by saying, quote, I didn't
know men could be so handsy. He then sexually assaults
a female barkeep immediately after finishing that sentence, which I
guess is like played as a joke, but he like
he likes he like slaps of a female barkeep on

(44:05):
the butt after reflecting on sexual harassment. When reflecting on
his life since two thousand and eight, the coach says, quote,
I've stayed the same and the world has changed. One day,
it's all about winning. The next day, they want you
to lead from behind. Don't be so mean to kids,
don't push them so hard, don't make fun of losers.
How are you supposed to win that way? Unquote? It's

(44:27):
just an interesting look at Jeremy Boring saying like he
is trapped in two thousand and eight and the world
has moved on, but he is still there, which I
think is totally true. Him, Ben Shapiro, all of them
are trapped in two thousand and eight and the world
has moved on, and they are unwilling to learn and
grow and change. His people and this is just just
a really interesting admission of that fact.

Speaker 4 (44:50):
I think it's an interesting thing here too, with like
the way that this, this, this kind of like this
this has to do with also the like the why
they're so obsessed with college campuses, but the way that
they're like they're stuck in high school sports. Oh yeah,
it was just like this powerfully American thing, like no

(45:11):
one else in the fucking world cares about high school sports.

Speaker 2 (45:15):
Like no one, I mean, real people don't care about
any sports.

Speaker 3 (45:19):
Wrong, the core of my existence, it is it is
like a reactionary nostalgia like like it is it is.
It is a very like like a hontological reactionary conservative drive.

Speaker 5 (45:33):
I also want to point out that that laugh that
Robert just did, the little evil laugh he just said,
is what they were trying to go for at the
end of that movie.

Speaker 2 (45:40):
And I know, I know, look, look what they have
to do to mimic a fraction of my power.

Speaker 3 (45:46):
Spending millions of dollars the whole dog Shit Cast Dogship
Basketball movie.

Speaker 2 (45:54):
Mm hmm.

Speaker 3 (45:55):
So, like many of the Daily Wire Zone staff, the
the the cacharacter of the former high school basketball player
was also an aspiring actor, but wasn't able to succeed
because quote, it turns out white males of non exotic
sexualities is the only ethnic group not being cast by
Hollywood these days.

Speaker 1 (46:12):
Unquote.

Speaker 6 (46:13):
Yeah, man, I haven't seen a white guy in a
movie in forever. Nope, just go to La No white dudes.

Speaker 2 (46:20):
I love that.

Speaker 6 (46:21):
Like one of the wokest movies of last year, the
D and D movie still had a white guy as
the main character, Like it's they're all over the place.

Speaker 5 (46:30):
Not to mention a white guy sports movie, very uncommon, like, yeah,
come on.

Speaker 3 (46:37):
I just love the turn of phrase non exotic sexualities
and then referring to that as an ethnic group.

Speaker 1 (46:42):
Yes, that.

Speaker 2 (46:46):
Makes the sexuality exotic.

Speaker 3 (46:48):
We then have a joke quote I heard Disney was
going to make the new Snow White a neurodiversion black
lesbian unquote, which is just Jeremy being mad about the
new Snow White movie because he's trying to make his
own snow.

Speaker 1 (47:01):
Oh god, yeah, that is it about cocaine. Uh oh
probably mm hmm. I can see that. Divorced dad on
cocaine'll be it'll be great.

Speaker 3 (47:10):
Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (47:11):
Yeah. I hate my kids and I love cocaine. That's
the entire script.

Speaker 3 (47:16):
When referencing white men, Jeremy says, quote, it wasn't that
long ago when we were champions, winners.

Speaker 1 (47:22):
Unquote.

Speaker 2 (47:24):
I mean you never were, Jeremy.

Speaker 1 (47:27):
Just learn how to cry on the inside like a
winner like the rest.

Speaker 2 (47:30):
Yeah, Jeremy, Yeah, there's plenty of white men who are
champions at various things, just not you, because you're a
fundamentally disappointing person.

Speaker 3 (47:40):
When the coach is fighting with a woman at the
track and field sign up table, the woman threatens him
with a taser and says I will tase a white man.
When the former basketball player runs up to check on
the coach after he's tased, the woman says, holy crap,
I taste an ally, after which, after getting his player
listed in the woman's division, Jeremy says quote, I was

(48:01):
happy we could get this worked out without without having
to get social media involved, to which the woman at
this signup table, to which the woman at the signe
up table says, quote, please, I have a family and
a queer dog. It's very funny, very funny stuff.

Speaker 1 (48:16):
Fuck all right, well really upsetting me? Please?

Speaker 3 (48:20):
We then continue this is we have, we have, we have,
Jeremy saying lines like do you know how much faster
a man past his prime is than a female athlete
and not.

Speaker 1 (48:30):
Not faster, not like I'm sorry, I have been sorry.

Speaker 3 (48:38):
We also have high school boys could run faster than
world record of female sprinters on no, they can't stop. Like.

Speaker 1 (48:47):
Also for just say you hate women, just say you
hate women.

Speaker 3 (48:51):
This is yeah, Sophie, you were actually you were actually
stumbling across the actual ideological core of this movie, which
is just hating women.

Speaker 2 (48:59):
Yeah that makes sense.

Speaker 1 (49:00):
Hating women, hating trans women, just being hateful. Yeah, yeah
at sport and wishing you didn't suck at everything you
try and do.

Speaker 3 (49:09):
Yeah, they put they put a horrible digital video filter overall.

Speaker 2 (49:13):
By the way, the fastest female marathon runner tickets, Essepha
from Ethiopia, did it in two hours and eleven minutes,
in fifty three seconds.

Speaker 5 (49:24):
I will.

Speaker 6 (49:26):
Give you to throw some random high schoolers at that
record and see if they can beat it. I do.

Speaker 5 (49:33):
I do hope that somewhere on the internet there is
data of Ted Cruz is athletic.

Speaker 1 (49:40):
Uh, go ahead, I.

Speaker 2 (49:42):
Want to see Matt Walsh try to do a two
hour and eleven minute marathon because his heart will explode.

Speaker 5 (49:49):
But also I want to know Ted Cruz's times from
high school.

Speaker 1 (49:51):
That's got to be s yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (49:53):
What kind of fucking track runner were you?

Speaker 1 (49:55):
Yeah yep, yeah yeah yeah.

Speaker 2 (49:58):
And they're they're right that, like the fastest males are faster,
but the fastest male marathon is faster by like eight minutes,
nine minutes.

Speaker 3 (50:07):
Well, like testosterone is a massive performance enhancing druck.

Speaker 6 (50:11):
Yes, but it's not like the way they're saying. We're like, well,
any man could beat the best women. No, very few
people can do a two hour and eleven minute marathon.

Speaker 1 (50:20):
Yeah. Like, even when I spent most of my twenties
being paid to exercise, I trained all the time with
ladies who were also like paid to exercise right when
we were. When I was racing bikes, I trained with
women who are pro racers all the time. Women who
are very good at sports are just very fucking good
at sports. Like, even men who are professional athletes are

(50:41):
gonna be on their level.

Speaker 2 (50:43):
Most professional athletes can't do a two hour and eleven
minute marathon. Only like people who are really fucking good
at marathon.

Speaker 5 (50:50):
Make sure you could lap this guy that is high
school Ted Cruz, Yeah, magnificent.

Speaker 1 (50:57):
So we have.

Speaker 3 (50:58):
We have this reoccurring Joe with these two newscasters played
by two of the daily wirehouses. Throughout all of the
news footage, there's a horrible like fake like digital video
filter just overlaid on the footage. It looks really ugly,
and the newscasters keep saying brave and beautiful trans women,
as if they're being forced at gunpoint to acknowledge that

(51:20):
trans women exist. There is a few bud light jokes
in there. We have a joke about Jeremy stealing most
of the winnings from the track and field contest. When
the journalists character is called out for transphobia by the
coach when she accuses the athlete of faking being a woman,
she responds by saying, quote, save it. I'm a journalist.
I literally cannot be shamed, and then and then says

(51:42):
that you can only be a woman if you get
menstrual cramps, which is really funny because this is actually
one thing that happens. If you go on HRT for
long enough, you actually do start getting menstrual cramps. So
the actual line she has about only real women have
menstrual cramps is one of the things that HRT actually

(52:02):
does does give you, which is just kind of funny.

Speaker 1 (52:06):
I love the idea as well, Like before you enter
the women's basketball game, you have to provide evidence of
your menstrual cramps. In order to be able to compete,
you have to provide empirical proof of cramp. Cramp inspector
has arrived.

Speaker 3 (52:20):
The journalist also says quat men are stronger, faster, meaner.
Soon all of the best women will be men, cheating
low life men.

Speaker 1 (52:31):
But after after the.

Speaker 3 (52:33):
First meeting between the journalists and the coach where they
agree to work together, the journalist invites the coach home
and Jeremy gets them doombed. This is this is This
is a reoccurring bit in the movie that Jeremy gets
femdammed by this journalist. I'll believe that I have I
have a screenshot here Jeremy tied up in bed.

Speaker 1 (52:52):
This yeah Jesus Christ.

Speaker 2 (52:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (52:56):
When trying to get their old team back together, they
learned that the one black guy from their old team
was found dead with a hole in his head due
to a laser from space. I think this is a
Jewish space laser joke. It's not explained why. Yeah, wow,
what is.

Speaker 7 (53:13):
What?

Speaker 1 (53:14):
I don't know. I can't say it's a joke there, Yeah,
I have this information you do here? I can't. I can't.
Do you think I feel like they had to take
the anti Savaitines and Bucks need that a black man died?

Speaker 2 (53:26):
Is that literally the whole joke?

Speaker 3 (53:30):
And he was probably he probably got killed from a
from from a laser in space, And why that is
all the joke is?

Speaker 6 (53:37):
That's okay?

Speaker 5 (53:39):
Also, just looking at this screencap on this photo, why
is it decorated with like urban outfitters like lighting because
she's a journalist.

Speaker 1 (53:48):
Oh yeah, Seffie, you don't have an outfit's room in
your house. You didn't get one from the from the
journalists in Union, No I was. I was not provided
a Neon love light. Oh yeah, I got one of them.
He's on. On my return from Syria, I get another one.

Speaker 3 (54:06):
The movie is full of stock footage and a lot
of royalty free music, and there was there was literally
a Jeremy's Razors commercial shoved in the middle of the movie,
alongside a whole which of the other Daily Wire product placement.
If you didn't know, Jeremy Boarding started his own razor
company after Harry's Razors dropped their ads on the on
the Daily Wire, so he started his own razor company.

(54:27):
He also started his own chocolate company, both of which
have product placement in the film. But Jeremy's Razors has
a whole like ad just edited into the middle of
this movie. I think this is like a Wayne's World reference,
but it's hard to say.

Speaker 1 (54:41):
Yeah, there is that. I think you're right there.

Speaker 3 (54:44):
There is a rape whistle joke, just a joke saying
that rape whistles exist, and that's the joke. And then
when the coach's daughter explains gender theory to the lady ballers,
we get a fantastic series of shots depicting a gender
conspiracy board red string connecting terms on a whiteboard such
as demi boy, demi girl, paraboy, which I I actually like, paraboy.

Speaker 1 (55:03):
That one's pood when you're a boy with a parachute,
L TB T Q I A plus A, B, C,
D E, F G, etcetera, et cetera.

Speaker 3 (55:11):
We have the word panda as a term. I don't
know what that means.

Speaker 2 (55:14):
F ten heard of that one, f T M mt f.

Speaker 3 (55:17):
A fab amab other non binary pan sexual saxo sexual,
I don't know what that is.

Speaker 2 (55:23):
They have one who just fox Anglo saxons.

Speaker 1 (55:26):
Because of saxophone, maybe a saxophone.

Speaker 4 (55:28):
I finally found a type of homophobia that I approve of.
They have saxo sexuals. Stop at the center of the
gender conspiracy board. They just have frogs, which is I
guess in Alex Jones joke. But here is the picture
of the gender conspiracy board.

Speaker 3 (55:44):
Lots of the lots of the red string on this
board just connected nothing, It's just red string.

Speaker 2 (55:50):
Yeah, that's a bad conspiracy board. I've made a lot
in my life and that one's not very good.

Speaker 1 (55:55):
Sod.

Speaker 6 (55:56):
Also, it's really lame to do it to make like
a whiteboard, your your board, like get cut out pictures
and bits of like text and stuff from from printouts
and nail it to the wall, you know, like actually
go the.

Speaker 1 (56:09):
Extra mile, basic ass whiteboard.

Speaker 6 (56:12):
That looks like something someone makes for a movie, not
something a crazy person makes in the throes of paranoia.

Speaker 3 (56:18):
Like come on, so I'm just going to speed run
the rest of these.

Speaker 1 (56:23):
Come on, hit me.

Speaker 4 (56:24):
We are we're getting we are getting a little log.

Speaker 2 (56:27):
Yes.

Speaker 3 (56:27):
When one player asks what is a woman, another response
by saying just shave your legs, tell each other how
brave you are for things that require absolutely no physical courage,
and don't be afraid to cry at work.

Speaker 1 (56:38):
Unquote, yeah, all things I do as man actually about
you are as I've established, crying the into like a winner.

Speaker 3 (56:46):
There is a part of a part of their ongoing
newscaster segment they get increasingly more racist costumes after being
forced to go on two weeks of sensitivity training. Michael
Knowles's character learns that they are quote a raging scoliosexual
and also one and two thousand and forty eight percent Dakota.
So he says, I know what it's like to overcome diversity,

(57:08):
and then the other newscaster says that her old name
is her slave name. She is a white woman. These
costumes only get more racist the more filmed on Jesus
goes on. As the lady ballers enter onto the court
for the first time, all of the seats are empty
because quote it's ladies basketball boys. Nobody watches during their
first game.

Speaker 1 (57:28):
That's the thing, right, I just say, all these people
who are suddenly so fucking concerned about women's sports manifestly
do not give a fuck about women's sports. Right, correct.
You weren't there when the prize money was shit. When
people are being secretly assaulted by their coaches, you don't
give a fuck. It's just a vehicle for transphobia and
just a behaicle teansphobia and how much they hate women.

Speaker 3 (57:48):
During their first game, the lady ballers keep whispering in
the ears of the players from the other team that
they're lesbians, some of whom are revolted, some of whom
are turned on by this. Referee Ben Shapiro, in a
cameo role, Oh good, says keep it clean, keep it
tucked to the players as they start their first game.
The game is full of constant fouls as the male

(58:08):
players just flagrantly assault the other team. The stands start
to fill up the longer the game goes on, and
someone in the audience says, this is great. It's just
like watching men's basketball. This is just a reoccurring bit.
Is that, like all of the footage of basketball with
like men versus women, it's just the men like assaulting
women during playing and just like doing like fowls. They're

(58:31):
not actually playing basketball, they're just like punching women and
stealing the ball and like that's that's how they play.
One of the ladyballers feel a little guilty after winning
their first game after seeing a woman on the other
team cry, and then in the locker room he says
to the boys, quote, aren't we just using our innate
strength and speed to wail on a bunch of girls
in a competition where we wouldn't stand a chance against

(58:52):
other men? But then he gets a notification that he
got a brand sponsorship and then changes his mind. The
other lady ballers gets invited to Nike commercials and to
speak at the White House on women's rights. The journalist
calls this the virtue economy. After their first win, the
journalist is about to fuck Jeremy Boring in the locker room,
but stops and says, the last thing I need is
another abortion this year, and says, do you know what

(59:13):
it's like to be a female field reporter in the
twenty ninth biggest media market? Which I don't understand how
that relates to the abortion. It's not very funny. Here's
a screenshot from the wrestling bit where you see, yeah,
totally a totally real weight class distinction between a guy
who's like over two hundred pounds and a woman who's
like one hundred and forty pounds. Totally how sports works.

Speaker 1 (59:33):
Oh sor the guy doesn't look very familiar with the
ways and means of wrestling.

Speaker 3 (59:37):
No, the two brothers enter a woman's shower together and
say one small step for dudes, one giant leap for lesbians.
The joke is that men are gonna sexually assault women,
I guess, which again is only more revealing about how
these guys think about women. During the victory montage, almost
all of the basketball gameplay is just the men assaulting women.

(59:58):
We have lots of fowls and slow motions, shots of
like men's dicks and crotches colliding with the female players faces.
That's that's most. That's most of the footage.

Speaker 2 (01:00:07):
Yeah, yeah, most of the footage that I'm sure boring
watched over and over again. In slow mom.

Speaker 3 (01:00:14):
We have a lot of dead naming jokes. We have
one transage joke about how the towel boy can now
relive childhood as a girl and compete in girls Little
League baseball, in which he gives the eight year old
picture a concussion. There's a joke about how girls have
sex with each other at sleepovers, which leads to an

(01:00:36):
incest orgy. That's that's just a reoccurring side plot, is
this incest orgy joke?

Speaker 1 (01:00:42):
Oh my god, Jeremy.

Speaker 3 (01:00:44):
Boring says to his ex wife when his ex wife
is complaining to him about all of his deception, he says,
my former lover the turf. And that's that's played as
a joke. Here's more of these increasingly racist costumes.

Speaker 1 (01:00:57):
My god from vocals and for sake and fucking stop,
oh my god, pretty man.

Speaker 8 (01:01:06):
Fuck So yeah, wow, Garrison look so embarrassed for these people.

Speaker 3 (01:01:15):
Yeah, they don't look like they're having fun.

Speaker 1 (01:01:17):
They just.

Speaker 3 (01:01:20):
Uh anyway, I have I have a few more of
the incest jokes written down, but I don't think I
need to read them.

Speaker 1 (01:01:24):
Yeah. The journalist character constant.

Speaker 3 (01:01:27):
All of the journalists throughout the film, including these two
newscasters and the main journalist character, constantly make fun of
and insult people who have kids. This is like the
Daily Wire making some point about how like journalists hate families.
I think it's.

Speaker 1 (01:01:41):
Kind of un because they pay us like shiit so
like we're all too poor to have children.

Speaker 3 (01:01:47):
So that's that's all the jokes. Now I'm gonna get
to like my actual end thesis on des No, but
I think I.

Speaker 5 (01:01:53):
Think you do have a good theory there that like
this is this might be set up to start like
a Matt wash some kind of like cinema.

Speaker 3 (01:02:01):
Because we have the final shot of Matt Walsh actually
orchestrating the whole thing. Anyway, So the actual ideology of
this film is that men are better at almost anything
that requires skill, but women are maybe better at like emotions,
and they can make babies, and that's the one benefit
to being a woman. This belief was paraphrased in the
movie itself by the journalists character saying, quote, boys and

(01:02:24):
girls are different, but at least girls can have babies.
In probably what's the most like extremely telling scene in
which many of the Daily Wire staff have referred to
as the heart of the movie, where the coach tells
his daughter, it's true that boys are better at all
sports as well as driving, parking, stem fields, rock and roll,
and opening pickle jars. Girls have one special gift that

(01:02:45):
boys can ever have, making babies. So to this type
of conservative women are just emotional baby making factories who
also serve to quote unquote civilized men it's the only
reason we have civilization, no women, no world. This is
how they view women. They view women as a civilizing
force thrust upon men and as a factory for reproduction.

(01:03:07):
That is the only utility that the Daily Wire sees
for being a woman. Now, this scene with Jeremy Boring
and his fake daughter is immediately followed up by another
very preachy scene in a way that really breaks from
the movie's pacing. The coach is talking to the journalists
character about his divorce and how he's worried that's really
starting to affect his daughter. The journalist then goes on

(01:03:29):
a very out of character rant about how, of course
the divorce is affecting his daughter. Quote, seventy percent of
people in prison come from broken families. Your daughter is
now twice as likely to do drugs twice, is likely
to drop out of school four times, is likely to
have trouble fitting in three times, is likely to end
up in therapy twice, is likely to commit suicide fifty
percent more likely to have health problems. Do people even
freaking do a Google search before deciding to blow up

(01:03:50):
the planet your kids live on? Unquote? So this is
the Daily Wire taking a break from the movie to
express their belief that divorce is the root cause of
sidal decay. This is the other, I think core part
of the movie's ideology, how the fact that women are
divorcing men is causing most of this of the societal
problems that we're seeing in America. And then the which

(01:04:12):
is probably the most frustrating scene where we have the
we have the first kind of ladyballer. Player comes out
to the coach as maybe feeling like they're actually trans
The coach then instructs them to ignore anyone in their
life who might be loving and accepting, like their family,
and instead just listen to Jeremy Boring, saying, quote, you're confused.

(01:04:33):
I get that. We're all confused sometimes. If you need help, buddy,
I'm gonna. I'm gonna. I'm gonna help you get it.
But you need to believe me when I tell you this.
You're not a woman. You're just a lost man in
a lost world with shitty parents and a shitty coach
who've all gone along with this lie. Instead of hurting
your feelings and telling you the truth, The player then
asks them how can the coach be so sure that

(01:04:54):
they're not a woman, to which Jeremy Boring then punches
the player in the genitals and walks away. He has
no a for that, right. Jerrby Boring has no answer
to someone who actually says no, I'm trans The only
answer to him is to assault them. This is this
points at the Daily Wire is the actual ideological core.
They want you to ignore everyone in your life who

(01:05:14):
loves you and accepts you and instead just listen to them.
To briefly paraphrase a review from Rollo Tony, this organization
is built around the phrase facts don't care about your feelings.
But they're telling the audience the exact opposite, to actually
just ignore everyone in your life who actually loves you,
ignore the facts of your actual sense of being, and
instead listen to The Daily Wire and pay a one

(01:05:36):
hundred dollars subscription service to the Daily Wire. Plus that's
the actual point of the movie, and I this film
doesn't even qualify as like a parody movie because a
parody comes from a place of appreciation that rehiffies the
actual original source material. This movie is too self invested
in the Daily Wire's own micro cosmatic world to actually

(01:05:56):
even succeed in any in any sense of parody, and
the moral of the film is that a healthy man
would never want to be a woman because women are
so much genetically worse than men. But because women are worse,
we should let them have their own fun, We should
let them have their own sports, because they have no
chance of ever competing with men in anything. This movie

(01:06:18):
can't fathom why someone who was born a man would
want to transition into a woman for any other reason
than fame and success, because women are so much just
like inferior. At the heart of this film lies a
deep hatred of women and a misogynistic core to its transphobia.
Misogyny operates as the film's own justification for its transphobia,
as the film spends most as The film spends most

(01:06:39):
of its time making fun of women and women's sports,
as it does the idea of trans people. There are
no actual trans characters in the movie. The film doesn't
even deal with trans issues. Besides, just like drag and
the word non binary being a joke, there isn't actual
any jokes. It's all about how women suck. That's the
actual point of the movie, and for all of that,

(01:07:02):
the actual attempts at humor just don't work because most
of the humor is just saying classically offensive things and
acting like that itself is a punchline, which doesn't work
as comedy because the people saying those lines also genuinely
believe the offensive things they're saying. It only works as
a joke if the conservative audience can imagine a liberal
audience getting triggered while watching, which isn't actually humor. And

(01:07:26):
the only other type of humor we have in the
film is anti intellectualism characters like Jeremy Boring's daughter saying
random like gender theory terms, and that being plays a
joke with no punchline, none of it actually works. I
mostly feel bad for all of the child actors who
got duped into this and all of the extras. That's
the actual end result of this film is that The

(01:07:46):
Daily Wire trick to a whole bunch of people in Nashville,
including like very innocent kids, into participating in this just
very low quality piece of propaganda that just deeply hates women.
And that is my actual thesis on how this movie operates,
and the core of the Daily Wire's own transphobia being
this misogynistic center and worldview that men are superior to women.

Speaker 4 (01:08:07):
I mean, I will say I think they've done a
good job in they've they've created a companion piece to
Whipping Girl, where if you need to explain to someone
what trans misogyny is, you just show them this movie.

Speaker 1 (01:08:19):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (01:08:20):
Yeah, all right, Well, yep, I think we've said enough
about it.

Speaker 3 (01:08:24):
Was that was a fun hour and fifteen minutes.

Speaker 1 (01:08:27):
Yeah, I have to talk about that again.

Speaker 5 (01:08:29):
Thanks for ruining my day, Garson.

Speaker 6 (01:08:31):
All right, everybody, enjoy the Daily Wire. I guess buckety ball.

Speaker 1 (01:08:52):
Hello, everyone, welcome, TA could happen here? Focusting. I'm enthusiastically
introducing for the third time because I've just sounded so
half fast the first two times that I've made myself
do it again. I'm joined by my friend and your friend,
Sharene Lannie Unis Hi, Serene Hi.

Speaker 10 (01:09:11):
That was lovely to witness.

Speaker 1 (01:09:13):
Yeah, wasn't it great that I really put on my
podcasting boots and you know, went back to the podcasting
pace to do another day in the podcast minds and
it's beautiful.

Speaker 10 (01:09:23):
Beautiful, Thank you for having me. Happy to be here. Yeah,
that's that's all I have to say.

Speaker 1 (01:09:31):
As you can tell too, content creators who are excited
to create content. I'm glad we're not on Twitch. We
would we would be uh, we'd be in the poorhouse.
Oh yeah, it's like eight hour streams can't do it
all right, So we're not here to talk about how
how have we been in the podcast minds for too long?
Today we are here to talk about clothing in the cold.

(01:09:52):
Why are we talking about this? Because right now it's
it's record cold all across the US. It's very, very cold.
Because I meant to spending a lot of time outside,
both helping drop water for migrants crossing the border, helping
out in cucumber, and a lot of days just like
doing my recreation stuff in the mountains. So I'd like
to do And I think that, like I guess education,

(01:10:17):
I guess a lot of people have been aggressively marketed
at about what to wear when they're outdoors, be that
people who are working or people who are recreating. And
I think it's good to have a little bit of
clarity around it, especially as we're entering like this might
be the worst winter of our lives, it might also
be the best winter of the rest of our lives. Right.

(01:10:37):
Climate change is making more and more people exposed to
more and more extreme weather all over the world. So
I want to talk a little bit about the stuff
I've learned in thirty something years of playing outside about
how to stay warm in the cold. So that's what
I'm going to do. I've got this broken down, Like
I think, the really important thing to think about when
you are picking your outfit it is obviously or your

(01:11:00):
colors match. It's very important, But more than that, it's
like thinking about thinking about outfit as a system rather
than as a series of individual things. And they think
this is where like the way outdoor companies market is
really bad. They'll be like, oh, yeah, this jacket is
bad ass, and it's warm, and it's waterproof and it's
wind proof and it's also breathable, and like that's you

(01:11:22):
probably would be much better off with three cheaper jackets
in one very very expensive jacket. Interesting specifically, I guess
I've seen a lot of people come a cropper when
their very single jacket gets wet, right, and then you're
either got one layer or you commit to wearing a
wet jacket. So we're going to talk about the different
parts of your clothing system, what you should look for

(01:11:45):
and why you should pick certain things. I'll try and
recommend things that are cheap as well, because I know
that money is hard to come by and the world
seems to be constantly trying to extract money from us.
So this is based on do you know who Mark
Twite is? Sreen?

Speaker 10 (01:12:03):
No, I don't know who Mark Twite is. But I'm
looking at the same document you are, and I read
his name maybe six times, and every time it was
Mark Twain, and I was so confused.

Speaker 1 (01:12:12):
Yeah, it's it's Mark legendary mountaineer. Mark Twain is equally
good for you know, if you're going on a boat
down the Mississippi River or climbing a mountain exactly.

Speaker 10 (01:12:23):
But no, I don't know who mister twit is.

Speaker 1 (01:12:26):
Mister twice. It's a famous mountaineer. He's good at climbing mountains.

Speaker 10 (01:12:29):
Oh that's cool. That's cool to be famous for that.

Speaker 1 (01:12:32):
Yeah, I know. Yeah, a boy can dream, like maybe
maybe in another life I'll not have to podcast, not
just be able to raise fluffy animals and climb climbing
a mountain sheep. Yeah, that is the dream, you know.
Every year, every time I don't want to sit down
and write my book and think about the amount of
livestock I could possibly purchase it, but lots of lots

(01:12:52):
of books. Dream Yeah, well one day talking me sheep,
Actually let's talk about basse layers because one of the
things they could be made out of, showing is wool
from sheep.

Speaker 10 (01:13:03):
Nice, that was good.

Speaker 1 (01:13:05):
Yeah, I know, I am a professional podcast guy. So
you basically there's the thing unx your skin right, and
a lot of people I think this is where like
people say, have you heard the phrase cotton kills? No? No, yeah,
you've not heard that.

Speaker 10 (01:13:23):
Okay, I have not heard that. I mean I'm glad
you're making an episode about this, cause like most of
the things I've learned about keeping warm have just been
like things i've heard, you know what I mean. I've
never like researched what actually will help me or what
will help other people, because I think like even like
when you provide when you are going to provide or
like cheaper options, that's a good thing to like donate

(01:13:45):
to people too, now you know what will actually help
them versus like something else.

Speaker 1 (01:13:49):
But yeah, totally, like I know, like for a lot
of un housed people, for instance, like you'll get donated
a lot of crappy cotton t shirts. But those are terrible, right,
the little gaps in the cotton, they get wet and
they stay wet, and it is much worse to be
cold and wet than it is just to be cold. Right,
And these the whole system of clothing designed by Mark Twhite,

(01:14:14):
Mark Twain's brother Mark White. The idea is not to
keep you dry. The idea is to let you dry
off quickly. Right, So you can get wet, you can sweat,
but it's much more preferential to be able to dry
off quickly. And that's all cotton doesn't do. And so
that's why cotton is considered to be like your worst
choice here. So if your base layer, you want to

(01:14:35):
go with the two options, I guess well, it's it's
like many things. It's a continuum, not a binary. And
so you've got wool on one end and you've got
synthetic on the other end. Wool is really nice because
it doesn't smell right, like if you have like athletic clothing.
Synthetic can get really stinky if you wear it for

(01:14:55):
a few days, it only gets stink here. Wool tends
to be much better for that. It also doesn't catch fire.
And melt to you, which if that's important in your
line of work, then then that's wool is naturally fire retardant.
Really where it's like, yeah, yeah, does everyone know this?
Clearly no, charene, but.

Speaker 10 (01:15:18):
Sheep are sheep fire proof?

Speaker 1 (01:15:21):
Yeah, I mean I think obviously high enough temperature would
still be fatal for them. But yeah yeah, yeah yeah,
when we don't respect the.

Speaker 10 (01:15:35):
Sheep enough, very powerful ability.

Speaker 1 (01:15:39):
Yeah yeah. There's not even a sheep pokemon that could
like Pokemon.

Speaker 10 (01:15:43):
As you said that, I was like, what a good defense?

Speaker 1 (01:15:45):
Well yeah, yeah, yeah. Someone send me a picture of
a sheep Pokemon that you've designed, and I will describe
it on the podcast. It's unfortunately not a visual medium,
but I'd still like to see your sheeps, right, so
will it's flame retarding. It's very useful in certain lines
of work. It's not so important for other people. But
I will say that, like even sitting around the campfire,

(01:16:06):
it is actually really shitty if your clothes melt to you.
I've had gloves melt on my hands and it was unpleasant. Wow,
that was only like a little bit. But again, I
can I can assure you that people sitting around campfires
do have their clothing catch on fire. This is not
like a thing. It's why all your tents have to
be treated with a flame retardant treatment. That's that stuff

(01:16:28):
that makes when your tent. You know, if you put
a tent away where it's wet and hot, you leave
it at the back of your truck, it gets really
sticky when you when you get out. That's a frame
retardant treatment on your tent. Oh, thenly lot about fire today.
So the problem with will though, is that you have
to treat it with care, like you don't want to
be tuble drying wool, right, and it can kind of
get misshapen. There are like hybrids, the thing called new yarn,

(01:16:52):
which I like a lot, which is like a wall
synthetic hybrid. I have lots of clus stuff made of that,
and then there are full synthetic things like a little
base layer. Here. Again this being mainly a podcast only
sharene can see this.

Speaker 10 (01:17:10):
Describing a piece of clothing.

Speaker 1 (01:17:14):
It looks like cloth, all right, We're going to be
fucked for the next hour or so.

Speaker 10 (01:17:22):
But what am I looking at it? It's like it
look kind of like textured or something.

Speaker 1 (01:17:26):
So it's like this, yes, yes, it's ribbed. Leave we've
just moved right past that. It's it's ribbed, and that's
to allow like the little bits that touch your skin
keep you warm. But then the channels allow for it
to breathe right from monastor to move away and walk
away from your body.

Speaker 10 (01:17:44):
So that's that's the synthetic hybrid or.

Speaker 1 (01:17:48):
This is synthetic. It's spandex and polyester. It's got this
like it's very thin, you can see through it, but
it's also very warm, by a company called Beyond Clothing.
I would caution people again, it's having too thick if
you're planning on actually hiking or being active or like,
you know, let's say you work in construction, you work
in agriculture. Maybe you just have a job you have

(01:18:09):
to go to remote places. You're a doctor who has
to treat people at remote places, or you win turbine engineer,
or you work on the railway lines or something. You know,
if you're going to be active, having too thick of
a base layer could be really annoying because if it
heats up, that's kind of your last option. And if
it's really thick and you've tried to rely on that
for most of your warmth. Then you're going to overheat.

(01:18:30):
And then when you overheat, you're going to sweat a lot.
Or when you sweat a lot, that sweat is saying
going to soak your layer, right, and then when it
gets cold, you're going to be wet and cold, and
that is bad. So consider if your base layer like
a lightweight or a midlight thing, and try and get
your warmth from something else. It's whatever suggest. I really
like the new yarm ones. Like I said, there's one

(01:18:51):
made by Black Diamond called a Rhythm T shirt, which
I really like. I've loaded those. They are often on sale.
You can get them really cheap. If you're looking for
something really cheap, I would say to just avoid cotton,
so you can look for things which are polyester or nylon,
and those are going to be a lot better than
just your cotton T shirt. They are going to smell,
they're going to get pretty stinky, but you can often

(01:19:14):
find them for around the same price. Right, and if
it's very cold, you may want basically your legs as well.
Good ones for those are hard to get cheap. I
like ones that zip all the way off, like like
like a you know, like like Chipendale style. Yeah, but
you want zips all the way down the side, Oh, zippers,
so they're up pull on? No, yeah, because then you

(01:19:36):
have to take your boots off.

Speaker 10 (01:19:37):
Right, So if you're oh, well you think of everything.

Speaker 1 (01:19:41):
Drop your trousers, put those on. Because taking your boots
off in the snow and then hopping around.

Speaker 10 (01:19:47):
No, I mean it sounds very impractical. So that's cool
they thought of that. That's very smart.

Speaker 1 (01:19:53):
Yeah. Yeah, it's a nice Uh, it's a nice Yeah.
Technology has to give us many things. There's a company
called Couu who's chiefly hunting company, but they make a
really nice like side zip leg based layer, which I
think I would recommend for a lot of people if
it's really cold where you are with I guess trousers
generally they're a lot less complicated than upper layers, but

(01:20:15):
the things you want in the cold really are again
something that's not going to like cause you to sweat
a lot, So I wouldn't suggest everyone like going around
in waterproof sure others. I really like ones that have vents,
like mechanical vents so you can open up so you
can cool off these guys, right, Like the pockets are

(01:20:36):
mesh so if you open the pocket, not only can
you get your accessories out that you can also like
vent off the heat that way and so that way
you don't soak them out with sweat. Right, there's a
company called Beyond who makes every possible weight and size
of trouser. I really like their stuff. I use this
stuff a lot. You can get knee pad pockets as well,

(01:20:58):
which are super useful, not only if you're like like
you see them in military gear a lot, but if
you're working, saying, construction or carpentry or something like that,
you have to kneel a lot. It's really nice table
on kneepad. So those get a recommendation for that. For
a cheap one. The pro to make a parent called

(01:21:18):
the stretch zion, which I think is really nice. Climb
in them all the time. They can often be found
really cheap. Your next thing is your active insulation. So
that's you need to warm yourself when you're active. Right,
So there's two types of insulation. The system is active
and static. One is for when you're moving and the
other is for where you're stationary. And your active insulation

(01:21:41):
is people used to call this a mid layer, but
that was back when people wore like wool jumpers, and
you kind of had to keep it covered from the
world or it will get wet and stretched out and
very very heavy. But sometimes this will actually be outer layer,
so I don't think mid layers is a great term.
That's what they used to call it. People used to
use fleeces a lot. Are fine, but again they can

(01:22:02):
get very very heavy if they get wet. Some of
them don't breathe very well, and they can sort of
very quickly become too hot of your exercising, and they're
not very wind proof. They don't block the wind at all.
So much better choice is something called a grid fleece,
so like the base layer is talking to you about,
it has like a little grid pattern that allows for

(01:22:23):
moisture and air to move away from your body, so
like you're less likely to overheat. There's a really cool
fabric called Polotech Alpha, which you should look for rather
than like looking for a specific item. If you look
for Polartech alpha or Polotech Alpha direct, then you can
scat around for stuff that's some sale and find something
that's really nice. It kind of looks a bit fleecy,

(01:22:46):
but it's also a grid pattern. It's really warm and
it's very small. I have a few things that are
like made of that. I have one from a moot
called the Alpha sixty. So there are different weights, right,
sixty ninety one twenty sixty is the least. I think
ninety it's grams for square meter, But ninety grams for
square meter is pretty much a good mid zone for
almost everyone. So that's what to look for in those

(01:23:08):
if you're looking for a cheap midless or a cheap
way to stay warm while you're moving around. The US
military has this thing called a waffle top because inside
of it looks like a waffle right, I guess Grid was.
You know they like to give things baby names in
the US Army. O Luk, Suren's got one? Yeah like that. Yeah,
I love a waffle top. I'm always pulled all the time,

(01:23:29):
so I just I'm also a cold person. Yeah, I
do love a waffletop.

Speaker 3 (01:23:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:23:34):
But yeah, those waffle ups, you can get them super
cheap everywhere online. I would caution people against getting it
can be easy to find, like a thing where it's
got like a waffle back air and a soft shell
front and it's like your windshell, your rain shell. But
those are really warm, and they're really big and bulky,
and it's quite hard to wear them if you're actually
moving with any sort of intention. So that's where you

(01:23:58):
want to keep your things separate, so you can choose
choose what, like exactly how warm you are, rather than
being forced to be like a certain level of warm.
Talking of forcing people to do things, cherene, Wow, it's
time for us to force them to listen to some adverts.

Speaker 12 (01:24:15):
Let's do it.

Speaker 1 (01:24:27):
We're back, so Charene's voice, and we are talking now
about the other part of keeping yourself warm, which is
static insulation. This is the big warm jacket. Everyone likes
your happy jacket, the one that makes the cold go away. Right.
The deal here is that like a big puffy jacket

(01:24:48):
is pretty crappy to wear. Again, if you're moving with
any intention, right, like, unless it's seriously like arctic cold,
then it's hard to hike or climb in a big
puffy jacket. So what this guy is for is for
when you stop moving. So if you're hiking, that would
mean when you stop to regroup, or you stop to

(01:25:09):
have a snack or to put your camp together or whatever.
It's good to have like a really big jacket that
is warm that you can toss on immediately. Putting clothes
on once you are cold is generally not the deal.
The deal that is putting them on so you don't
get cold, because all you're doing with all these layers, right,

(01:25:32):
is trapping air against your body that is warm. That's
what the little the grid parts in the grid fleece do,
and that's what all the little feathers in the down
jacket do, right. They're just trapping pockets of air that
you heat up. So if you wait till you're really cold,
it's going to take you a lot longer to get
to get warm. The thing to do is once when
you're moving you're nice and warm, you stop, you're going

(01:25:53):
to get cold. So if you toss on that jacket
then you can stay cold. I say warm down jackets
are really complicated. If there are a couple of issues
with like cheap down jackets that make them probably best avoided.
One is that if you're not using ethically sourced down,
that the industry can be pretty abusive. Right that down

(01:26:17):
is comprised of feathers that come from ducks and geese.
It's not very nice to ducks and geese to kill
them and steal their feathers. And if you're going to
do it at all, if that's something that you choose
to do, you should at least try and find ethically
sourced down. In my opinion. The other thing is that down,
natural down, when it gets wet, it clumps up and

(01:26:38):
it doesn't work anymore. It doesn't insulate you, right, no,
like nicer downs modern more like modern downs are treated
with water repellent coating, so they don't tend to do
that as much. But the other thing was down is
like like a lot of numbers get thrown at you

(01:27:00):
when you're looking at a down jacket, Like if you
if you look at the money internet as all kinds
of information, some of that stuff is bullshit. The things
that are important are the fill power and the fill weight.
The feel power is it tells you how many cubic
inches of loft one ounce of that down will fill.
So a higher number is better, right, a higher number
is more puffy. And then your feel weight tells you

(01:27:22):
how much of that down is used in a jacket.
So a higher fill power jacket with a lower let's say,
a four hundred four power jacket with sixty grams of
feel weight would be as warm as an eight hundred
fold power jacket with thirty grams of feel weight. So
once you get your phil power and your feel weight,
then you get a pretty good idea of how warm

(01:27:45):
a jacket is going to be. So the other alternative
to natural down is synthetic down.

Speaker 7 (01:27:52):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:27:53):
Where that stands out is like it can get wet
and you can generally like baby it a bit less,
but some pack down as well, and it is tend
to be heavier and you don't get feel power, but
you do get feel weight. So if you're the jacket
I use is synthetic because like I like to shovel
in my bag and sometimes it's wet or like sometimes

(01:28:16):
it gets a bit wet, right, I just I don't
like to have to like try and baby it so much.
I also, for ethical reasons, prefer that. There's a company
called Prima Loft p r I m A. They make
synthetic insulation sort of very good and they say make
some from post consume recycled plastics and they have something

(01:28:36):
that to buy degradeable as well, So I really like cool. Yeah,
it's cool, right, Like I saw something a while ago
and how ducks and geese are treated forel like down
and it may be very I was like.

Speaker 10 (01:28:47):
I didn't really want to ask because I don't really
need to know more than I already do because I
don't buy that stuff anyway. But do they are there
birds that die exclusively for their feathers or at least
do they die for meat and their feathers?

Speaker 1 (01:29:03):
I think they die exclusively. I'm sure they are eaten,
but they are raised like the commercial product is the
feathers basically because they kill them much younger. Yeah, it's shitty.
There are like ethically sourced downs, which I think if
you know, if you're a consumer of animal products, For

(01:29:24):
the most part, I avoid than most of my wall
stuff I got before I vegan. But I think if
you're picking between wall and down, I think the down
industry is it's hard to be mean to sheep in
a way that people are mean to a poultry, because
sheep just on't having it. They'll die.

Speaker 10 (01:29:40):
Also, you're not like shearing wool is different than plucking feathers.

Speaker 1 (01:29:44):
Yeah, well yeah then killing an animal to Yeah, there's
a distinct thing going on there. So yeah, I prefer
not to have I have a few down jackets that
you know, but I keep them baby and look after,
but for the most part I use the Generally, these
are called ballet parkers, the sort of static insulation layer
because when you're balaying, when you're climbing, right, you don't

(01:30:07):
put them off for climbing, but then when when you're
on ballet, you're stationary, so you put them on. And
it's nice to have a hood on these two, right,
because you don't want to be like, oh, I've got
to get my beanie out, get my jacket on. You
want to just be able to put your one big
warm jacket on and then you're warm.

Speaker 10 (01:30:23):
So is it true that you can lose like heat
from your head and you're or like I've always heard
that like if you wear a beanie you can stay
warm better. Is that not true?

Speaker 1 (01:30:34):
Yeah, I mean you can lose heat from your head
and so it's a part of your body.

Speaker 10 (01:30:38):
I mean, okay, I know technically that makes sense. Yeah,
but yeah, it's like you lose mom thing to say
to their kids where it's just like cover your head,
don't go out when your hair as.

Speaker 1 (01:30:48):
We Yeah, you can lose heat from any sort of
exposed surface. Area right and insulated part of your body.
I think sometimes people overestimate their role played by your head.
Like you know, people say you lose ninety percent of
your heat from your head. This isn't true, right, This
is why we don't climb mounta into like fur hats
and speedos. Like you, you do want to cover your

(01:31:09):
head when it's cold, and it can make a big difference,
especially like your ears. You know, where the circulation is
close to the skin, they can get cold your nose right,
you can get frost nip your nose and in your ears.
So like you do want to cover those things having
like a kafa or snowed is that what it's called.

Speaker 10 (01:31:30):
I don't know. Okay, but that's enough.

Speaker 1 (01:31:33):
Yeah, okay, a buff is a trade name a buff
globle thunder.

Speaker 10 (01:31:42):
Yeah is a great suggestion. Good job?

Speaker 5 (01:31:46):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:31:46):
Yeah. I have a kafa that I've worn up and
down many mountains. It's really nice because if you tuck
it into the neck of your jacket kind of blocks
or the wind gaps, and then it's already warm because
it's it's been inside there. So when you go from
jacket to sleeping bag, you just wrap that guy around
your shoulders and then it's you're warm. Multi purpose I love.

(01:32:10):
And also if you have a kafia, you can use
it to prefilter water, right because you want to get
rid of the turbidity. So like if you're if you're
filtering from buddy water, you can put your kafa over
the lid of your bottom and then rub a b
down scoop. Yeah, yeah, many used to make a sling
out of it. I won't use it to hold gauze
on a leg wound that I had. Well, people lived

(01:32:33):
a wife, yeah, many of my krofias lived a life.
Just I'm just here for the ride. So that's your
your down jack if you do want like a down
animal down duck down jacket, the catalone ones are really
good for the money. The Cathline is a French sports
It's like French ARII or European ari It's huge in Europe,

(01:32:54):
not so big in America. But there's stuffs excellent value. Also,
if you want to get really dorky about down jackets
and warm jackets. The ultra light subreddit a place where
definitely go sometimes more times than I should, is you
can find like someone has made a spread cheet ranking
like the fill, power, fill weight, and price of different

(01:33:15):
down jackets. So if you want to get into it,
you can get really into it there. You can spend
a lot of your life on that subreddit if you
want to. So the next layer, and it kind of
plays into the the two insulation things. It's your wind layer.
So a lot of the way we experience cold as
humans is through wind, right, because the way that's why

(01:33:40):
we have the concept of wind chill, right, or the
air rushing past you, cause you a lot more than
that same temperature without the air rushing past you. And
this is often how we experience cold and the outdoors
especially right. So having something like active insulation is great,
but often, like that alpha fabric for instances you can
see through it. It can be very warm, but it

(01:34:01):
doesn't do anything to block the wind. And that's sort
of by design, right, because it's allowing vapor to move out,
which is what you want. But you do sometimes espectly
in windy conditions, need a layer to block the wind.
That's your wind layer. It also helps a lot in
not trashing your expensive insulation layers, like a very nice
down jacket will sometimes have a very low The Denny

(01:34:23):
account is like the thickness of the fabric. So a
nice down jacket will still can often have a low
Denny account. It's not really designed to be like it's
not like recently, I've been out in cucumber building shelters
for people, right, so I'm constantly carrying lumber and you know,
using tools and cutting stuff. And if you wear your fancy,
expensive super light down jacket, you're going to shred it

(01:34:46):
and then you're going to end up with little patches
of duct tape all over it. And now you're expensive
down jacket. It's not as warm as it used to be. Yeah,
sad time for you. So you can avoid this by
either just not wearing it for that or covering it
with a wind layer, which also helps because even those
down jackets often like the wind can get right through them,

(01:35:08):
So a wind layer is a really nice option for
a number of those reasons. Also, you can often just
worry above your base layer and even down to pretty
cold when you're moving trail running like people trail run
I'm sure they'll have already know this, but if you're hiking,
your trail running, if you're climbing, a wind layer can
really like increase the range of temperatures which you can

(01:35:30):
work in without getting too cold. And like a very
small mind is like the size of maybe a tennis
ball when I pack it down, but it makes you
a lot warmer. You don't want one that blocks all
of the wind because then you won't be able to
it won't be breathable, right, You want something that's a
little bit breathable. The one I have, I looked up

(01:35:53):
the one I like. It's called a mouth in hardware
core air shell, but core as spelled with a K.
How you know it's yeah, you got to you got
to get it in, got to get it in there
somewhere and then wear it is but like you know,
like like wearing clothes and so double puns on their spellings.
It's made of the stuff called pertext quantum are, which

(01:36:14):
is really cool. It feels like silky but it's a
synthetic fabric and it's really nice, and it's very small.
It's very light and like you could put it in
and you had, like if you're wearing like cargo trousers,
you know, you can put it in the side pocket
or cargo short if you're that kind of person. So
those if you're looking for a cheaper thing to block

(01:36:36):
the wind, Like you can find pretty cheap wind cheaters
right out there. You don't want something that's very plastic
y and then kind of clammy you're going to sweat
up in. You can get surplus British wind proof smocks
that are really nice. I use those all the time
when I'm working outside because uploads of pockets. They're nylon
cotton blends, so they're not all cotton, and they they're

(01:36:59):
very like robust. You know, they're not going to wear,
wear down or like get destroyed if you're carrying lumber
or rock climbing, right, if you're interclimbing, like a lot
of this stuff, will you need something with a thicker
face fabric otherwise you're going to destroy it when you're climbing,
especially if you're climbing somewhere like Joshua Tree, where like
the rock is like sandpaper and it eats your clothing.

(01:37:23):
The final layer is your waterproof, right, It's a final one,
because like you want to avoid wearing your waterproof really,
like I think far too many people where like they
rely on waterproof coats when it's not raining enough to
need one. The problem with waterproofs is if rain can't
come in, moisture can't really come out. Even fabrics like

(01:37:47):
gortex per text and that they say that they're breathable,
but I think anybody who's tried to exercise hard in
a gortex jacket will tell you that they're not. Like,
if you're hiking with a group and you'll put on
your gorate, then you need to move slower because you're
going to overheat, and then you're going to get wet
from the inside because you're sweating. Just not what you want.

(01:38:09):
So waterproof is important because when it's really wet and
you're outside, you don't want to get soaked, right, But
it's also not something you should be wearing most of
the time. What you want to look for in a
waterproof Again, there are like statistics numbers. One of them
is the it's the pressure resistance of the fabric, like

(01:38:33):
it's expressed in the as the height of a water
column in millimeters until it can push through the water
resistance of the fabric. Does that make sense?

Speaker 10 (01:38:42):
No, not at all, Thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:38:44):
For bet honesty. That's good. If you imagine like that,
like I have a tube, right, it's a linear tube
like a cylinder, and then I put it on my
waterproof fabric, right, I put my waterproof fabric at the
bottom of the tube, and then I put one milimeters
of water. It doesn't do anything. Two mil three meals
for adding until until it pushes through the fabric.

Speaker 10 (01:39:07):
So that's that's called like a pressure.

Speaker 1 (01:39:09):
What do you go, Yeah, that's a pressure. It's sometimes
expressed in pounds per square inch as well.

Speaker 10 (01:39:13):
Okay, cool.

Speaker 1 (01:39:14):
It's useful if you're like skiing or snowboarding, like safety
of your skiing or snowboarding badly and you're going to
spend a lot of time like sat in your ass then,
or you know, otherwise working in snow, like kneeling in snow.
That's very handy. There's also a statistic which is probably
more useful. It's the millimeters of rain in twenty four
hours before it like wets out and becomes permeable. So

(01:39:36):
if you live somewhere really wet, like Belgium or the UK,
Belgium just sticks out in my head as a place
where it rained all the time, but maybe that's just
my bitterness. You're looking for like something in the twenty
thousand range. That's a jacket that you can pretty much
wear all day in the wet and be fine. Gortex
Pro Fabric. I know it's twenty eight thousand, so that's
kind of your gold standard, but anything over twenty coupan

(01:40:00):
it's fine. And the breatheability is the last one moisture
vapor transfer rate, and again anything over twenty thousand is good.
The other thing to look for in a waterproof is
taped seams and you know the bits where it stitched together.
If there isn't tape behind those seams, then water can
get in through that stitching. And like I've seen people

(01:40:21):
get very expensive jackets which in explicably don't have tape seams.
I think it's like maybe a fashion jacket or something,
but I have like wet like down every seam, like
they take off their jacket.

Speaker 10 (01:40:34):
You with a group of like people just that are
wearing these kinds of clothing and just like you judging
them quietly.

Speaker 1 (01:40:42):
That's me every day, Serene, every day when you see me,
I'm judging people for their outdoor clothing. It just it
just happens inside my head. It's my inside voice. I'm
happy that people are outside, and I just want them
to have a comfortable, enjoyable experience.

Speaker 10 (01:40:56):
That's a good like thing to focus on if you
want to make sure it's like not a fashion jacket
versus like utilitary and whatever. You know, like is it
going to actually be helpful or are you just gonna
look cool?

Speaker 1 (01:41:08):
Or is it going to do both? Yeah, you can
do both, Like you should feel good in what you're wearing,
and wear things that make you feel happy about yourself
and your body. And however you want to appear is fine.
Like I don't give a fuck, just want you to
be comfortable and safe.

Speaker 10 (01:41:22):
But he will judge you.

Speaker 1 (01:41:25):
That won't judge you. I would judge you if you're
doing something that might put you in danger or someone
more accually, like you can put yourself in danger in it,
and I don't care. Like, if you want a free solo,
fucking have it, but don't put other people in danger
without their consent. I guess which you're doing if you
go outside, because someone has to come get you if
you get in trouble out there, and that's not a

(01:41:46):
risk free endeavor. Right, returning from my judgmental character to
waterproof jackets, you know, tue, you know what else? I
am judging how my voice sounds. I'm remaining a loof
from judgment. I would never but but I am judging
your products and services and support this show, and I'm

(01:42:08):
judging them poorly because gold is not a good way
to spend your money.

Speaker 10 (01:42:13):
But we still love our jobs.

Speaker 1 (01:42:16):
We do love our jobs, Yeah, we do. I do
enjoy my job. I like my job. I just I
want you to have nice jackets and not Rounald Reagan
commemorative coins. So here's some adverts. We're back, and yeah,

(01:42:40):
we're going to talk a little bit more about waterprop jackets.
I think it's important. The other thing you want to
look for, right, So your your tape seems are good.
And then I like to have mechanical venting, which.

Speaker 10 (01:42:53):
Is yeah you mentioned that earlier. What does that mean?

Speaker 1 (01:42:56):
So this is these vents that I can open where
as opposed to venting through the fabric, I want to
vent through a zip that I can open up. Right, So,
like I'm wearing a puffy jacket right now, that's a
mechanical vent, right. Why am I saying that jacket? Charene
can see me, No one else can. It's like the

(01:43:18):
sixth sense. I'm a dead person and Scharen is the
only person who can see me that.

Speaker 10 (01:43:23):
Is, can I just get that straight? So just unzipping
your jacket counts as mechanical venting.

Speaker 1 (01:43:28):
Yeah, so like if you have a nice waterproof jacket,
it will have pit zips.

Speaker 10 (01:43:33):
Okay, got it? Just what a fancy weight just to
say unzipping some.

Speaker 1 (01:43:37):
Well yeah yeah, okay, well because you but you want
like this, This is not right If I unzip and
it's a pocket inside, that's not mechanical venting because zipped.

Speaker 10 (01:43:46):
A chest pocket. For those listening, everyone.

Speaker 1 (01:43:48):
Yeah, welcome to the podcast. But I do stuff, and
Charene tells you what I do. Yes, pockets are not
mechanical vents. Right, but you went away. So you've got
pit zips. Some of them will have chest zips ways
to force that hot air out and allow breathe ability
to happen. Right, So I like that in raine jackets.

(01:44:10):
And then I also like a hood right because it's
having a wet head isn't fun. So this is this one.
I liked taber hood and the billet Parker. I like
to havebhood sometimes the wind jacket. I like taberhood. If
you're doing climbing and you're doing I never really wear
a hood when I'm cycling, but other helmet actively if
you're caving or canyoneering, might be a good idea to

(01:44:32):
check the hood situation with the helmet that you wear
for that activity. So like for climbing, you know, you
lots of people will say they have a helmet compatible hood,
but I don't know what helmet those people are wearing
because they don't fit over like even a pretty low
profile climbing helmet. So if you know, if you can
go to your loco outdoor shop, take take a helmet,

(01:44:53):
you know, don't don't be afraid of trying it on
with the helmet on. And you want these all really
to be cut to allow you to move right. Like
a lot of modern outdoor gear. It looks really nice
like when you're going about town, but it's cut kind
of too tight in the well, it looks very trendy.
It can inhibit your movement right, and so you want

(01:45:13):
to be aware of that. You may have to size up.
And it's not because you've got bigger, it's because close
I've got smaller.

Speaker 10 (01:45:19):
Also, if you're layering, that would make sense anyway.

Speaker 1 (01:45:21):
Right, yeah, definitely, And you want to have your water
proof cut. So it can go over your stuff, right,
because if it rains, you just want to chuck that
thing on. And likewise, you want to have that big
ballet Parker cut so that it can fit over your
other layers, right, because again you want to be able
to chuck it on as soon as you stop. And
your windproof jacket too, so you can use it to

(01:45:42):
protect your more expensive you can even I know people
who do the windproof jacket over the gortex just to
protect it. Right. I have two gortexes that like. I
have one that's very small and very thin, and that
I like, as an emergency, give it if I don't

(01:46:02):
expect it to rain or expect for it. But I'm
going on a week long trip. I'm not gonna, you know,
want to be completely fucked if it rains. So I
bring a little one. It's called the Mountain Hardware Minimizer,
and kind of the name gives away, but it's just
very small. It's made of gortex pac light, which is
like the lower tier of acceptable gortex. It's fine, you know,
Like I go outside a lot and I use it

(01:46:23):
and it's fine. It doesn't breathe quite as well, but
you can again overcome that rete with some with them
zips that don't zip, and then if it's going to
be red all day, I have a jacket that's a
bit heavier, thicker, packs bigger, But the one I have
is from a hunting company called four Low lo h.
It's really nice. Often for some reason, hunting stuff in

(01:46:46):
recent years has got a lot better, and outdoor stuff
kind of has used to Hunting stuff used to be shitty,
but it's it's kind of overtaken it for some reason.
And sometimes it's also nice to have stuff that isn't
bright orange and it isn't like a theory of why
that is because people have a metrics shit ton of
money and wealthy people have got into backcountry hunting because

(01:47:08):
they want to have a big dead thing. But these
are not people who maybe some people, some people are
sending it really fucking hard doing hunting and doing like
ten twelve day hunts, and they're hardcore outdoors people as well,
and they're very wealthy people. They like to be uncomfortable
and they will spend a lot of money on expensive jackets.
That's my theory. Yeah, thanks for coming to my ted talk.

(01:47:30):
Those are the two things that you really want with
any waterproof, you do need to take care of them.
I think with gor Tex everyone should be aware of
it has what are called forever plastics in it, and
they are really not good for the environment. And not
only are they not good for the environment when it's made.
And this isn't just Gortex, right, Gortex is a brand.

(01:47:50):
They make fabrics, and I'm not just saying it's with
all those those kinds of multi layer lament at waterproofs.
And it's not just when they're made, it's also when
water sluffs off them, right, Like so when it rains
on you and then that the rain you know, the
rain drop goes into the three and the stream goes
into the river, and the river goes into the ocean,
that little forever plastics are still there, and that's not good.

(01:48:15):
I would imagine, as with many things, it's more not
good than we know right now. So some brands like
fol Ravn won't use Gortex and this stuff for that reason.
They don't have any forever plastics. Instead they use waxes.
I think people are kind of maybe have forgotten or
like you don't see as much of it as you
used to. But wax jackets are really good. If it's

(01:48:35):
going to rain all day. If you're not so concerned
about weight, you can get like a waxed cotton jacket
or waxed canvas jacket like car Heart makes up right
or fils and have a nice Filson jacket that they
were a lot and it's way less fragile, but it
is much heavier, but it's also better for the planet.
So that's something. If you do have a gortex jacket,

(01:48:57):
like it's not something that I feel good like having
five gortext jackets, you know, and like buying new ones
every year, like you should try and take care of them.
And there's a product called nick Wax which is really good.
You should use nick Wax stuff when you're wa washing
any of your outdoor if you're washing down, you should
use nick Wax down wash or you're really fuck up
your expensive down and jacket. So I think that's a

(01:49:17):
good thing. And then yeah, wax, Like consider how often
you're really out in an absolute downpour and if that's
not very often, like maybe you're okay with a wind
layer or like just waxing the shoulders of your like
have a cotton jacket behind me that I just wax
the shoulders off, but like it's like a smock with

(01:49:38):
lots of pockets and I just put wax. I bought
some Greenland wax, which is which is a fear ratheran thing,
and wax the shoulders so the shoulders are impermeable to water.

Speaker 10 (01:49:48):
Does it look different like the Does it look like shiny?

Speaker 1 (01:49:51):
Yeah, it looks a little bit shiny, but like it's
not bad. And if you do it like better than me,
then then it won't look as shiny. But can you
can I can see that. No, it's not bad, it's
not it's kind of fun that maybe other people do
other things for fun, but I kind of like it.
You get a hair dryer and you grab the wax
on and then you melt it in with the haair dryer.

(01:50:12):
That's what I do on Saturday nights. Insight into my life.
So the last thing that I wanted to talk about
was extremities. Right, I have rainos where like oh really
yeah really rainos?

Speaker 10 (01:50:27):
Adone else that has it? Noah, like yellow right now?
I mean not yellow if I press them get yellow,
but like it's well, my feet and hands are always
cold all the time.

Speaker 1 (01:50:37):
Yeah yeah, yeah, same, And it's miserable. I hate having
cold hands.

Speaker 10 (01:50:43):
Literally, look at this. Wait, I just bought these recently.
These are electric hand warbers. Oh wow, trouble and I
keep them now. I just walk around with these all
the time.

Speaker 6 (01:50:55):
It's great.

Speaker 1 (01:50:56):
Yeah, it is nice to have warm hands. And if
you too, if you're a fellow hands cold, there there
are some things you can do. I think sometimes people
wear really thick gloves that stop the hands moving and
that doesn't really increase circulation, or they'll have cold wrists
and then it's kind of there's like a temperature. You
know that blood's getting cold or it's in your hands.

(01:51:18):
So I found like having a base layer or a midle,
a active insulation layer with thumb loops really helps. Then
thumb loops make sure that the sleeve goes all the
way into the glove. And I would encourage you, rather
than wearing one big ass pair of gloves, to have
like a glove. I know this sounds really dorky, but
like a glove system. So like a thin lacy glove

(01:51:40):
and then a shell glove which is either waterproof or
wind proof, and then if you want to, you can
then stack that with a mitten on top of that right. Yeah,
I love emittletons are so cute. Yeah, get your person
who sews in your life to say your parentmittans. Have
them join with a little strings so you can run
that through the sleeves of your jacket. You don't lose them.

(01:52:04):
I used to have those. Yeah, me too.

Speaker 10 (01:52:05):
I feel like or maybe I just imagined having one.

Speaker 5 (01:52:08):
I can't.

Speaker 10 (01:52:09):
You can't figure out what our memories and what are
memories anymore? But I love those kinds of mittens.

Speaker 1 (01:52:16):
Yeah, maybe I'll make gum that you'm shreen w James.

Speaker 10 (01:52:20):
Yeah, I can't believe you have How did you say
in British boys mittens? No reightouns rain rainers?

Speaker 1 (01:52:31):
How you say it reno? They're French. I'm guessing. Yeah, yeah,
I think mine. Maybe I don't know, Maybe it's just
from being naturally cold, but holding onto the handlebars of
a bicycle racing over cobbles has really fucked the circulation
and sensation in my hands. Yeah, the same thing that
happens if you work a jackhammer, wows get cold.

Speaker 4 (01:52:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:52:56):
It's good, not good, not good for the human and
body to do any think that much outdoor research make
a good glove system, but they only make it for
the military and they won't sell it to you, which
is lame. Yeah, there's a lot of like so one
of the reasons that some of this surplus clothing comes
up is because it's designed as a system, which is good. Right,

(01:53:18):
it's one piece designed to work with another piece, and like,
for instance, Patagonia makes a protective combat uniform for the army.
As much as they would like to not talk about it,
it's still true and I've written about it before, but
they make a really good system and it's great, and
stuff's got like they actually have like this little graphic

(01:53:38):
that's like if it's this cold, where this, If it's
this cold and wet, where this, If it's this cold
and windy, where this. And it's very handy for people,
especially people who may not have grown up or had
that kind of experience or just had the chance to
try different products because they're very expensive. Right, it's very
handy to be like, okay, this is and this, and
then you only need these five or six pieces that way,
as opposed to having dozens of jackets and dozens of

(01:54:00):
different things for different weathers. So like it it works
very well, and it frustrates me that they don't do
the same thing when selling to people who are not
in the military. So the other things I wanted to
do with extremity is real quick socks sucks. It goes
the same way as gloves that you don't want to

(01:54:20):
a sock system. Yeah, I'm glad that you're picking up
when I'm picking down at suren.

Speaker 10 (01:54:28):
I have a sock system, but it's not you're it's
not anything about this tell me about Yeah, well, my
feet are always called this is not a sock, but
I do wear this in my house.

Speaker 1 (01:54:39):
Oh wow, Charene is showing me. Uh, it looks like
it's kind of a moon boot but made of fluff.
It looks like a Yeti's foot.

Speaker 10 (01:54:48):
It's very more. I don't wear shoes in my house,
so I either always have those slippers on or socks.
But my sock system is these socks can never mingle.
I have outside socks, I have house socks, and I
have bed socks, and those socks remain in their sections.
An outdoor sock cannot come in my bed.

Speaker 1 (01:55:10):
Does that make sense? It does, And I'm fascinated to learn.
When we start recording, I'm going to inquire more about
Charine sock collection.

Speaker 10 (01:55:20):
Yeah, very interesting to me anyway. Yeah, that's eroticism. But
I think so the same thing with gloves, you're saying
like they should be layered.

Speaker 1 (01:55:28):
Yeah, I mean with socks, I think the big thing
is to like not always be trying to I think
people want to wear like a big thick wall sock
because it's cold, and then if you're kind of crammed
that into your same boot, you're going to restrict circulation.
You're not gonna be able to move your feet, right.
So what I would do instead is I either have

(01:55:48):
a couple of pair of thin socks or use a
warmer fabric, so like Olpaka wool is very warm for
its weight. The other nice thing about woll socks is
again the insulate when they're wet, right, So your feet
are gonna sweat you're moving, and so you want something
that's not going to get your feet cold, right, especially

(01:56:09):
if you a person who already gets cold feet. So
Marina wool is good, our Packer wool is very good.
But yeah, you don't want to restrict with like one
big fluffy sock. You can get insulated boots if it's
really cold, I right down until below freezing. I don't
like insulated boots because again I don't like my feet
to get sweaty.

Speaker 10 (01:56:29):
And well, you wear your feet for that kind of weather.

Speaker 1 (01:56:33):
They get really cold, just gor text boots and I
wear the same boots for almost everything unless it's like
jungly if you're going to get wet, like Goratex's boots
suck right because they take forever to dry. So like,
if you're in the jungle and the water is going
to come over your boots, then you shouldn't wear gortex
boots if you're not I have some. You like to

(01:56:53):
know exactly what boots I have? Sure?

Speaker 10 (01:56:56):
I mean we're not sponsored though maybe no?

Speaker 1 (01:56:59):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I get some of this ship for
free when I was working in the outdoor industry, but
no one's paying us to say this. I have Solomon
quest for D.

Speaker 10 (01:57:08):
I think I have Wait, I have those? No, which
ones do I have? I did like a bunch of
research a couple of years ago when I got my
new hiking boots. I feel like I have the Solomons
or those were the ones I no, no, no, I do
have the Solomons because I returned the other one that
everyone likes the witches. What's it called hokahs.

Speaker 1 (01:57:27):
The whole focus. Oh yeah, No, Hogas make lovely running shoes.
I'm not. I don't have a preference for I.

Speaker 10 (01:57:32):
Think there were. I mean I just didn't understand the hype.
So I remember switching over to or returning those and
getting the Solomons. Wow, look at us.

Speaker 1 (01:57:39):
Yeah yeah, Team Solomon over here, they're vegan too.

Speaker 10 (01:57:42):
Oh I didn't know that.

Speaker 1 (01:57:43):
Yeah, that's if you have leather boots, you can snow
seal them around this time of the year, but then
there'll be a bit less breathe, a bit more waterproof.
But yeah, consider not overcramming like thick socks into boots
of the same size. If you if you're going to
get a specific pair of winter get the assize bigger
and then you could wear a thicker sock. I would
probably do that before I went to an insulated boot.

(01:58:05):
Until it was really cold, like arctic stuff, you don't
need an insulated boot. Vask makes some nice insulated boots
that I have used. And then hats is the last one.
Hats again, like it depends a little bit on the temperature,
but I have a couple of wool beanies that I
got years and years and years ago, and they're very
good and they're very warm. And the only thing is

(01:58:27):
when they get wet, they kind of stretch out a bit,
so they don't love getting wet. You might want to
put a hood over yourself. Otherwise, a flea speanie is
really good. People are sleeping on the flea speanie, but
like a micro flee stretchy beanie, it's very nice. I
tend to take them when I travel because I'm a
cold person and planes are cold. So if I have

(01:58:48):
that and my little Kafa in my bag, then I
can kind of wrap myself up on the plane and
I probably look a bit weird to everyone else, but
I don't care because I am warm and planes are cold.
I think that it's the end of my ted talk
on warm clothing.

Speaker 10 (01:59:05):
We talk for an hour about cold serene.

Speaker 1 (01:59:08):
I didn't think we'd keep it under an hour. Wait really, yeah, No,
I've been draining my whole life for this shit. Like
I love. I used to like my whole job used
to be to tell people what to wear and take
with them when they go outside. Wait really, yeah? Outdoor
industry journalists who are years how I started my little
when I was little baby journals the expert here, little

(01:59:31):
baby journalist, I wrote, I don't think I'm an expert,
but I will say, well, I'll tell you what. There's
my other little soap box. You will read a lot
of reviews, and sometimes, like the reviews for Boots, did
they did Sharen in a good direction? Not everyone who's
writing those reviews is going outside very much, is what
I will say, or sending it very hard. Some of

(01:59:52):
them are, doubtedly are, but a lot of them are
trying to get you to click a link which will
return a certain percentage to the website that you're clicking
the from, so four or five percent back right, And
you may, for instance, some of the brands I've mentioned
here don't have that. It's called affiliate marketing. And if
brands don't have affiliate marketing, you generally can't put it

(02:00:12):
in articles for a lots of magazines about the outdoors.
This is something that I fucking loathe, and you can't
be honest and say this is my favorite thing. Everything's
designed to be seoed and to get you to click
something and to return some affiliate revenue to the website.
So it would take a lot of those reviews with
a pinch of salt. Also, just small brands struggle to

(02:00:36):
get into a lot of into a lot of magazines
because they don't have the marketing money to send piles
and piles of free stuff. So yeah, be cautious about
what you read. And if you look around, you know,
if you're looking at this shit like like, I absolutely
have jackets that got several hundred dollars that I got
for free or I made some employer pay for because

(02:00:58):
I was going somewhererifically in hospitable. Is a human life
like Alaska or Alaska's actually lovely. I'd like to live there.
That's the dream. Right one day I'll podcast my way
to a million dollars and raise sheep in Alaska.

Speaker 10 (02:01:10):
I was looking for tickets to Alaska yesterday. Actually, yah,
I want.

Speaker 1 (02:01:14):
To show we're talking about Alaska.

Speaker 10 (02:01:17):
Yeah yeah, we talk about lights.

Speaker 1 (02:01:20):
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, go get after it. But I
don't really support moving to Alaska and colonizing people's land
because I shouldn't do that. Don't don't do extra colonizing.
I'm already doing enough. Feel bad about it. But so yeah,
I would suggest people take those reviews with a pinch
of salt. There are websites like gear Trade where you
can find new stuff. eBay offer up a lot of

(02:01:43):
people buy outdoor stuff, go camping, wants, get cold, get wet,
get sad, slap it on the internet and sell it
for pennies versus what it's worth, so you don't have
to buy any of this stuff new. Most of these
companies also have bomber warranties, and I'm just going to
leave that there as to the combination of second hand
purchasing a warranties, but you can probably join the dots.

Speaker 10 (02:02:06):
Well, yeah, thanks for having me for this. I learned
a lot.

Speaker 1 (02:02:10):
Thanks for joining me, Sheriene and sharing with me your
sock system.

Speaker 10 (02:02:13):
I mean, yeah, that was really intimate. No, I think
this stuff is like underrated how important it is. I
feel like, I mean, like, unless you're always outdoors and
you're like you're an outdoorsy person, I think you wouldn't
know exactly the best way to keep warm. And it's
good to know, like what will actually help someone if
you want to, I don't know, donate stuff to them.

Speaker 1 (02:02:33):
So yeah, we have been plagued with donations of really
shitty blankets. For instance, it's no one's fault. I genuinely
understand that people care and like it. I'm so proud
that people want to help, and it makes me so
happy to see people taking the money that I know
none of us have enough of and buying stuff. But like,
for instance, a thick wall blanket is going to do
so much more than two or three very thin micro

(02:02:56):
lease blankets. You know, if you, if you're looking towards
your local unhoused community, right again, like think about things
that are durable and that we'll still insulate when they're
wet and well if you, if you do well, then
then that's a great choice for a lot of those things.
And but perhaps we can have one of my own
house friends on to talk about like effective donations. The

(02:03:17):
best way to help people who are unhoused is to
give them money and that they can buy the things
that they need because they know about the things that
point and so yeah, that, yeah, that's my last thing
for today. Give people who need things money so they
can buy them. All right, bye everyone, Bye.

Speaker 4 (02:03:50):
Elections. No, we're not talking about those elections. This is
it could happen here. We're talking about a bunch of
other elections and how fucking terribly they went. I'm hosts
me along with these James stout.

Speaker 1 (02:04:02):
Hi, Mayah, I'm stoked. I do love a good election.
It's great to vote for people.

Speaker 4 (02:04:08):
We are kind of talking about elections today, but the
thing that we're actually talking about is what has happened
to the left since twenty eleven.

Speaker 1 (02:04:19):
And anyone who was around eleven.

Speaker 4 (02:04:21):
Twenty thirteen, and like any time after that, one of
the arguments you got constantly was Okay, so twenty eleven,
you have occupy, you have to movement to the squares.
You have these mass millions of people like assembling in
squares and trying to do direct democratic stuff and you know,
figuring it out and making it work and not working,
and you know all the complicated and messy things that

(02:04:41):
happen when you have real political movement. And that entire time,
there was an entire chorus of dipshits whose only line was, well,
if you want to get serious about taking power, you
have to get into electoral politics. And these people got
their wish. And now we are, like almost a decade
and a half out. I think I think we are

(02:05:03):
finally in a position to objectively analyze how well this
shit went and oh boy, so join us as we
wander from disaster to apocal disaster and go over the
wreckage of all of these very, very once promising and
inspiring social movements to joy.

Speaker 1 (02:05:21):
I'm so excited. I'm so excited to hear yet another
attempt at making the world better than in fact failed.

Speaker 3 (02:05:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (02:05:28):
So, okay, there's actually two places we could start here,
So I'm gonna let you pick. Do you want to
start with Sars or do you want to start with Podemos.

Speaker 1 (02:05:37):
Let's start with Podemos.

Speaker 3 (02:05:38):
I do.

Speaker 1 (02:05:39):
I do enjoy a good Spain. It's been reading about
the another round of exhumations today, so I do love
a country that has banked into its constitution amnesty for
people who did fucking mass and Expain has more mass
graves in anywhere apart from is it rwand or Cambodia. Cambodia.
Cambodia is if you only beat Spae from Spain for

(02:06:02):
mass graves.

Speaker 2 (02:06:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:06:04):
A country which I cannot say enough has not finished
as civil war and remains a post dictatorship and will
until it recovers. Allows people whose fucking parents and grandparents
were murdered in the street to recover their remains and
grief for them. Sorry, I thank you for me to
my ted. No, no, this is good.

Speaker 4 (02:06:25):
Well and I mean, and part of the context of
this whole thing is that this is one of the
underlying things that causes the enormous uprisings in Spain twenty eleven.
They have one of the biggest I mean actually literally
One of the reasons occupy happens is that there are
specific people who are in like actually, we fucked up
with to Vicky Asiwell on the show about this, like

(02:06:45):
she was in Catalonia when this stuff started. There's there's
like a million like there are individual squares where there
are like a million people.

Speaker 1 (02:06:52):
Oh yeah, I was in Catalonia when this stuff started.

Speaker 4 (02:06:56):
Yeah, and like and that's one of the things that
that brings Occupied to the US is people who were
there for that being in the US and like being
in Siconti Park when occupy started, and so you know,
they have they have one of the largest and most powerful,
like anti sterity movements, like anywhere in the world, is
very well organized. But one of the things that happens
in this is very quickly there's an attempt to hijack

(02:07:18):
this because people see the number of people who are
in the streets. They see they see this as an
opportunity to you know, take electoral power, right, this is
the whole lines like we're serious about taking power, blah
blah blah blah blah. And Podamos in particular, is influenced
by like some of the people on earth who I
hate the most.

Speaker 1 (02:07:39):
They're they're they're.

Speaker 4 (02:07:41):
Influenced by like like they deliberately call themselves post Marxists,
like left populist philosophers. They're their model is Perhnism. It
is a shit show. It is a catastrophe. Like every
single party who's ever tried their strategy of taking power
has failed, Like left populism as an elect as specifically,

(02:08:03):
like this kind of left populace at a strategy has
a worse record for taking power in Europe. Then left
wing military coups like it's that.

Speaker 1 (02:08:12):
Bad to be fair, left wing mandatary case rarely succeed
at the ballot box.

Speaker 4 (02:08:17):
They means, they're they're they're a more effective way of
getting into power than this this fucking left electoralism shit.
So for people who don't really remember, Potamos was like
the like them and Sergi were like the thing in
like like post sort of like post occupier like and
in that moment of like, these are the like the
big like left like electoral successes. These are the things

(02:08:37):
they're gonna gonna take power, Podamos specifically. So the the
thing Podamos calls itself like their whole strategy is to
build build what they call the electoral war machine. Their
entire strategy is just to win elections.

Speaker 1 (02:08:49):
That's it.

Speaker 4 (02:08:50):
That's the whole thing. They're gonna pull together a bunch
of leftist groups, They're going to win elections. Did they
ever win a single election? No? Zero, The entire type
it has bid says I of Pootabos.

Speaker 1 (02:09:00):
It has been what like thirteen years.

Speaker 4 (02:09:05):
They have lost every single election in a row.

Speaker 1 (02:09:10):
They were in the they were in the Sanchez coalition
government with the Faciliyah.

Speaker 4 (02:09:14):
Yeah, well so this is this is the other interesting
thing is that put the thing that Potamos is like
thing right originally was well they had this whole sort
of one of the things that was very popular in
their early twenty tens was this whole like oh, we'll
have a political party, but it'll like take like it'll
it'll take its policy from these direct democratic assemblies. Those

(02:09:34):
assemblies have ever material that was all lie. Yet anytime
someone tells you that their political party is going to
take its direction from like assemblies in the street, they're
lying to you. They're trying to get you out of
the street. Don't believe them. So that that was all nonsense.
But the other big thing about about Potamos was that
they were supposed to be like the big like third
force in Spanish politics, right, they were going to be
like the new force that was going to come in.

(02:09:54):
They were going to wipe away all the cru politicians
and they specifically their big thing was that they refused
to enter coalition governments. Now for long fast forward to
losing like six straight elections, and now what is Potamos
podemos is the permanent minority government coalition partner with the
Spanish Socialist Party. And before you get excited about the

(02:10:14):
Spanish Socialist Party, like they suck, like they are shit.

Speaker 1 (02:10:21):
I will always stand anyone who digs up Franco's rotting
corpse and flies it across the country. That's those ritten.

Speaker 4 (02:10:28):
But they're also like that's mostly like they they're they're
they're they're also I mean, they they've they've kind of
been forced to go a bit to the left, like
by Podemos and like by the sort of transformations that happen.
But they're also just like a bunch of dealerble ships.
Like they're like, literally, this is one of the parties
that Podemos was formed to run out of power, and
now they're just you know, they're just a permanent like
minority coalition governments. Pablo and Gleasios, who is Potamos's like

(02:10:51):
great political strategist. He was like he was like their guy.
He was the guy he wore cool leather jackets and
ship like. He was the guy who was like in every.

Speaker 1 (02:10:59):
Day what you say a politician and left the jacket.
You fucking run, yeah, you run a mile peak. Dad's
trying to look cool energy.

Speaker 4 (02:11:08):
He he has retired from politics. It just abject failure
because nothing ever fucking worked. One of the one of
one of the big things that, you know, one of
the big recent things that Pidamos did was help the
Socialist Party crush the massive wave of metalworkers strikes that
swept Spain in twenty eleven.

Speaker 1 (02:11:23):
In twenty twenty.

Speaker 4 (02:11:24):
One, so great stuff happening there like they're you know,
they're not literally fascists, and that's that's their selling point.

Speaker 12 (02:11:32):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (02:11:32):
They fucking lose every election and they yeah, ran, ran,
ran the social movements into the ground.

Speaker 1 (02:11:38):
Yeah, it's a They literally had a thing, didn't they, Like, Yeah,
they're their men. Their initial manifesto was like to convert
indignation into political change, and like the movement that began
the occupation of the squares in Spain was called the
indignats or indignaos in Catalando Spanish. Like the whole thing
was like two channel this energy into a process which

(02:11:58):
is literally designed to stop shit changing.

Speaker 4 (02:12:01):
Yeah, and you know, guess what, it didn't fucking change.
They lost every election. They've never wanted an election. They're
never going to wait an election.

Speaker 1 (02:12:09):
Yeah, remain in the street to my Spanish friends and
Kathlan friends and Basque friends and Galician friends and other
friends in Iberia.

Speaker 3 (02:12:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (02:12:18):
So all right, moving on to so, you know, we
talked about how Spain had one of the biggest like
movement into the squares type things. Greece I think technically
gets the honor of having the first post two thousand
and eight uprising, which was actually not an economic thing.
It was the cops like murdered a fucking kid and
people just lit shit on fire like it was. It

(02:12:40):
was fucking wild.

Speaker 1 (02:12:41):
It was.

Speaker 4 (02:12:43):
There's a quote about like those first protests that I
always I was thinking about in like the height of
twenty twenty, when I was watching that guy in the
elbow mask with a molotov like, which is you know
that those first protests it was people. It wasn't It
wasn't a people were trying. People wen't try to build
a political movement. They just wanted destruction.

Speaker 1 (02:13:02):
Because yeah, yeah, they were angry and they wanted to
ben shit down.

Speaker 4 (02:13:05):
Abject abject fury at the cops just murdering this child,
and partially also they murdered this kid like in in Xarchia,
which is like Greece's anarchists like neighborhood. So yeah, terrible
idea by the police.

Speaker 1 (02:13:18):
Terrible thing.

Speaker 4 (02:13:19):
Greece has repeated massive protests. One of the reasons they're
having these protests is that Greece is forced to accept
these like crippling austerity measures by the Troika, which is
this group that was running the bailouts in Europe, composed
of the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and
the European Commission, which is basically the executive branch of

(02:13:39):
the European Union with reps from all of the EU countries.
And the product of this is that the only faction
that ever actually mattered in the Troika was just Germany. Effectively,
what was happening with Germany was imposing like a bunch
of economic sanctions on.

Speaker 1 (02:13:54):
Yeah, this is when like the European Union became like
what Germany says we do, especially from guide to this stuff.

Speaker 4 (02:14:02):
In the context of these massive protests, Greece elects Soresa,
which is supposedly this left wing party that is going
to you know, the specifically the mandate they were handed
was stop the austerity and literally they are in negotiationd
with the Troika. They have a plan in hand to
tell the Troika to fuck off and for Greece to

(02:14:24):
leave the European Union in to seat up capital controls
to start, like, you know, this is a process that
would have like the only way this could have function
is they start, you know, they start literally like seizing
property from like a bunch of fucking yacht owners. And
instead of doing that literally at the last second with
the plan in hand at the negotiating table, soresa folds.

(02:14:45):
Instead they cut a deal with the Troika, they impose
literally the exact same austerity measures they are put in
power to stop. And then you know, now, now having
done this, they're now facing their own giant anti sterity protests.
And the thing that Theresa does is ally with the
riot police. You, by the way, the things one of

(02:15:05):
the ways that Resa got people to support them was
specifically by running on basically completely rebuilding the Greek police force,
because Greece's police force, oh yeah, fuck me, just straight.

Speaker 1 (02:15:17):
Up a bunch of Nazis.

Speaker 4 (02:15:18):
And when I say that, I literally they vote. I
think it's ninety seven percent of their members voted for
the Golden Dawn, which is like the Greek neo Nazi Party. Yeah,
and like so many of these people vote for the
Golden Down that they can be considered like a significant
part of the total of the Golden Don's base.

Speaker 1 (02:15:36):
Yeah, perhaps more importantly of its like street fighting element
that yeah, that kills anti fascists, right.

Speaker 4 (02:15:43):
Those guys, like the Golden Down eventually comes apart because
they ordered the assassination of an anti fascist rapper from
parliament and then had the guy killed. Yeah, yeah, just
fucking batch it. And those are the people who the
Greek police are supporting. But Sarge Sarsa needs them because
they need the police to smash the anti serity movements
to stop people from like knocking off their governments and

(02:16:05):
stopping the austerity. And they do it. It works eventually,
after years and years and years and years of just
smashing these like smashing these protests with police, they're able
to you know, they're they're they're able to stamp out
the sort of the giant social movements. And the consequence
of this is that they turn over Greece to just
like a bunch of murderously far right, anti immigrant shitheads.

(02:16:28):
Who are the people who currently run Greece. They're unbelievable,
like just unbelievably right wing. These guys are so right
wing they were trying to find ways to claim credit
for getting it, like getting those like several hundred people
on that migrant ship earlier this year killed. Like, yeah,
that's that's who currently runs Greece, and that's who's the
reason like turned power over to because they literally did nothing,

(02:16:49):
it destroyed their own base.

Speaker 1 (02:16:51):
Yeah, it's probably worth like stopping to note here that
like fearmongering around migrants has been the thing that has
moved like straight up fascists into power in much of
southern Europe, right like Italy and Greece, and like even
if you're not a person who lives at the border,
like this ship is absolutely like the playbook that the

(02:17:13):
fire right is using all over the world, absolutely using
here right now. And we have an election. You're here,
and like you owe it to the world to correct
that bullshit differformation whenever you can. Now that we're talking
about Greece, can we just briefly mention the Archer of Syntagma,
the biggest chad ever to walk the earth? Yeah, sorry,
I can't do it. I got you an episode without

(02:17:34):
this guy. If you are not familiar with Yannis mikkeladis
this absolutely legend dude who took a bow and arrow
to the protests, given a thirteen year sentence and then
escape from prison I think was recaptured and then it
went on hunger straight for a while. Just just this
series of experts that they're truly legendary, incredible.

Speaker 4 (02:17:56):
They replace this with fucking h just being another party
that imposed Austeria.

Speaker 1 (02:18:05):
Yeah, like, no, no one's replaced that guy. He's still
h he's still but as.

Speaker 4 (02:18:10):
As as they replaced the political movement that produced this guy, yeah,
with like just just genuinely the greatest glowdown in human history.
Just terrible stuff.

Speaker 1 (02:18:22):
Yeah, it's it's very sad. It could have been a
wonderful thing. There are still like Greece has still a
very strong and and and uh like a respectable anarchist movement.
I'm trying to get over there to they squat large
areas of housing for migrants to like allow microslip in it.
And it's extremely based and I'm trying to get spend
some time forgot to mention this.

Speaker 4 (02:18:41):
So they also do this in Spain, and so I've
talked about this on the show before, but I actually
mentioned it here since we're doing this. Uh So, one
of podemos is like regional allies as Barcelona and Camu.
First thing that Barcelona and Camu did upon taking power
was a victim immigrant squat because they knew it wouldn't
have enough defenses to stop the police and victim.

Speaker 1 (02:18:58):
So fuck these people.

Speaker 4 (02:18:59):
Those people used to be anarchists, they're traders.

Speaker 1 (02:19:01):
Fuck them yeah, and this happens constantly, right, like the
Senate entered into government in nineteen thirty six with the
Spanish Socialist Party and getting and got completely owned by
Moscow and extremely predictable fashion, and all their friends got
in some cases literally flayed alive. Perhaps consider not doing
that next time.

Speaker 4 (02:19:19):
Yeah, So, speaking of being played alive, do you know
do you know who else will flay you alive? You
don't buy buy their stuff?

Speaker 1 (02:19:26):
Is it their products and services? I support this podcast again,
isn't it? They're fucking they're all over that shit. We
can't say that, can we just bleep?

Speaker 7 (02:19:33):
It?

Speaker 1 (02:19:33):
Mean?

Speaker 12 (02:19:44):
All right?

Speaker 2 (02:19:45):
We're back?

Speaker 4 (02:19:45):
So all right, we need to talk about two other
places where this kind of stuff happened. We're leaving Europe.
We're gonna go We're going to go to briefly, we're
going to go to the Anglophone world now, a deeply
cursed place. In the US, all of these same people
gained power. Their giant political project, and their only real

(02:20:06):
political project, was attempting to elect Bernie Sanders. Bernie Sanders
lost two consecutive elections, first to Hillary Clinton, the most
unpopular Democratic presidential candidate in modern history, and then lost
a second election to Joe Biden de Manso. See now
he forgot what president he served as VP under. And
I'm only mentioning this because these are these are the
people who spend all of their time talking about how

(02:20:26):
serious they are about taking power, and they got their
rass kicked by again Hillary Clinton, the most unpopular candidate
in the entire history, like the bordered history of the
Democratic Party, and Joe fucking bited a man like I
just okay, And instead the one guy they did run
and managed to actually like get into power was one

(02:20:47):
John Fetterman.

Speaker 1 (02:20:49):
Oh yeah, yeah, Look he's had some banging tweets, but
he's been a complete fucking turd in his time in office.

Speaker 4 (02:20:55):
I'm pissed about this because from the very beginning, I
was like, this guy sucks ass. He's a Zionist, anti immigrants'
he fucking sees.

Speaker 1 (02:21:02):
Anti trousers, he opposes said anything below the knee, And
no one fucking believed me this. His campaign was run
by a bunch of fucking DSA people, and instead they
elected John fucking Fetterman, who hates everyone who fucking worked
with him, is just screaming like the same fascist, anti
immigrant borders. He's also in the pocket of big egg.

(02:21:24):
He's made he's introduced a bill to not allow people
to go vegan ex substitutes egg.

Speaker 4 (02:21:30):
But he's not even in like the pocket of like
good big egg. Like he's not in the pocket of
like big people who haven't realized that they're trans yet.

Speaker 1 (02:21:39):
No.

Speaker 4 (02:21:39):
No, he's in the pocket of bad big egg.

Speaker 1 (02:21:41):
I think that's an act of solidarity. Like as a
as a man with a giant ball dome, he somewhat
resembles an egg, so he feels like communion with other eggs.
I think that's what he says. Yeah, so okay, that
that's the US.

Speaker 4 (02:21:52):
At some point, we're gonna do another episode about that
all of the just fucking absolute dipshits that they elected
in the elected in LA who've been doing like just
sweeping homeless camps. So fuck them. But that's that's not today.
We're we're in segonna move to Corbin. So all right,
So the British last in the beginning of I know

(02:22:13):
it's this is like impossible to imagine now, but in
the beginning of the twenty tens that Britain had a
vibrant and expanding left they had a bunch of straight movements,
They had the student protests, they had a bunch of riots,
and all of that energy and all of those fucking people,
you know, got got sucked up by Corbinism, and Corbin
lost an election to Boris fucking Johnson, a man who

(02:22:34):
was ousted by his own party and replaced by Liz
shorter term than a cabbage trust, like you know, and
all of these people, all these people I've I've had
to talk to these people for fucking years and years
and years, right, and their whole thing was like, well, okay, like,
but the media read the election against us, and the
Labor Party was trying to stablish just like yeah, no shit,
what the what the fuck did you expect was going

(02:22:55):
to happen? Did you seriously think if you even like
just remotely wanted to challenge capital at all? Did you
seriously expect that the poorgeoisie were gonna play by the rules?

Speaker 1 (02:23:06):
What the fuck did you think was gonna happen?

Speaker 4 (02:23:09):
Did you think they were just gonna fucking sit there
and let you take power because your ideas were somewhat popular, Like, no,
of course they fucking were. Of course they were going
to say what taut you and the whole fucking thing
about the media. It's like, well, yeah, of course, you know, like, yeah,
obviously the media in Britain is run by the fucking Burdox.
Their press isn't unbelievably insanely right wing. Sure, however, coma,
you guys are the ones who decided to pick an

(02:23:30):
arena where your candidate and your entire political project can
be sunk by negative press attention. You picked that arena
to fight, and then on top of that, you ran
a completely conventional political campaign. Right, Literally, all you did
was fucking campus, You ran a completely conventional political campaign,
and that everyone's fucking Pikachu facing that they had like
one of the worst labor losses in modern history, right,

(02:23:50):
Like okay, what what the fuck did you think was
going to happen?

Speaker 1 (02:23:55):
Right?

Speaker 7 (02:23:56):
Then?

Speaker 4 (02:23:56):
This this is again, this is one of the reasons
why electoralism doesn't work, because if you're in a field
that is entirely about the popularity of one person, and
there's an entire apparatus that is able, that is better
able than you to directly communicate to the entire population
to tell them that that one person is fucking bad.
Of course, you're gonna fucking lose, Like what did you
think was gonna happen? And now you know the Labor

(02:24:19):
Party is run by Cure Starmer, who is like the
most right wing labor candidate since like Tony Blair.

Speaker 1 (02:24:24):
He prosecuted the people who were in the streets in
twenty ten. Right, Like that that is where we've got
to now. It's like we have a choice between like
Ricci like send gunboats into the channel to smink sink
the small ship Sunak and the guy who wants to
look you up for taking a bottle of water from
boots in twenty ten.

Speaker 4 (02:24:44):
Like it's yeah, it's not a choice. And that's and
like the corporate left has been basically completely liquidated. The
only thing that's left if you are these media organizations
who are all attacking right as fast as they can
possibly fucking move because that's where the fucking money is
and because you know Starmar actually used to be a
trotsky Ie and all of these people. No, but the
way you actually if if you were on the left
and you want to take electoral power in Britain, the
way you do it has become a conservative and it

(02:25:06):
will work.

Speaker 1 (02:25:06):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, look, look look at Tony Blair, right,
he was extremely successful in like criminalizing being a teenager
and these insanely right wing policies. Again, people aren't familiar
with anti social behavior orders in Britain. They should, they
should look them up. And oh my god, machines that
make noise to keep young people out of public space,
like to fully yeah, like the shit he was doing

(02:25:29):
was insane. And but if youople continue to well, look
Britain's electoral system. If you think America's electoral system as fucked,
check out first past the Post, like fully insane. One
of the areas I lived when I was a kid, Like,
you just didn't have an option. There was some like
someone named Giles or a similar kind of like Giles
vibing name, or a token Lib DEM candidate, and like,

(02:25:53):
you know, Marmaduke was your only choice really, like like,
which is why I did not engage in the practice
of voting in the United Kingdom. But yeah, it is
a funck system.

Speaker 4 (02:26:02):
Yeah, And again it's like, well, yeah, you chose a
rigged system to participate in in the first place. And
then it's like, well you lost, well yeah, it was like, yes,
you can complain that it was rigged against you. But
you should have known that going in, if you were
genuinely serious about taking power, you had to know that,
and you fucking didn't, And now your entire country has
been absolutely destroyed. So that's the UK, and we're going down.

(02:26:26):
And so from there we're going to pivot to Latin America,
where there is a very very long history. In fact,
a lot of the Latin America parties we'll be talking
about mostly aren't even parties that took over from the
momentum of twenty eleven like uprisings. They're from like the
two thousand and one movements, people who hijacked like two
generations back of social movements by this point.

Speaker 1 (02:26:47):
And I think that the post twenty eleven stuff was
inspired by the pink wave stuff in Latin America, right,
like it goes around in the circle.

Speaker 4 (02:26:53):
Yeah, So so now we're going to check in on
how the pink tide's doing. The answer is absolutely dog shit.
So we're gonna go to Ecuador first. So, okay, Ecuador
is right now a complete fucking disaster. It shouldn't be
like this though. In theory, Correa is like the is
the guy and he's like the leftist guy in Ecuador.
He's like he is their guy who came out of

(02:27:15):
the pink tide, and in theory, his party should win
like basically every Ecuadorian election from now to the end
of time. They should, in theory have the easiest job
of like every every any electoralers we're talking about, in
this party, they have had. They had a decade in
power to just completely destroy all of their political oppositions
and you know, to completely rebuild the economy and political

(02:27:37):
landshape in a way that would have made the right
taking power impossible. Instead, his party is completely unelectable and
have an out of power for eight fucking years. After
Lennon Moreno, who is the guy that they literally the
hand picked guy that they picked to run their own
party purge them all, tried to have Correa arrested and
spent the entire rest of his career being a right winger. Now,

(02:28:01):
even after even after they got purged for their own
party by the guy that they handpicked to put into
power decks after they would turned out to be a
right winger, even after that happened, they still should have
been able to win like every fucking election. However, KMA
Korea instead of like doing normal leftist stuff, spent like
his entire career sending riot police to beat the shit

(02:28:21):
out of the digitus eychological protesters who didn't want them
drinking water to be poisoned by minds, which means there
were a huge number of like indigenous leftists who should
be part of like the left wing base, who Wilma,
under any circumstances vote for Korea even if he was
running against literally the devil, because he fucking beat the
shit out of them, like fuck you like and you know,

(02:28:44):
and this one I should briefly explain, like, Okay, this
is this is obviously a very very simplified this is yes,
a political I mean, I'm gonna do a political compass
thing that's very simplified, but I think gets across one
of the major kind of like breaks in a lot

(02:29:04):
of Latin American countries that have real lefts and also
whose economies are largely based on resource extraction, which is
that Okay, so you know, you have you have your
kind of political compass like you would in the US,
you have a let you have a left right axis,
but in a lot of these countries, the updown access
isn't like statist anti status. The updown access is on

(02:29:25):
the one hand you have like developmental extractivists and on
the other hand you have ecological anti extractivists.

Speaker 1 (02:29:32):
So what this means in.

Speaker 4 (02:29:34):
Practice is there's this giant divide over whether or not
you should do drilling on indigenous land. So for example,
you have the current right wing Ecuadorian government which is
extractivist in right wing, and this means they think you
should drill on indigenous land and you should take all
of the money you get from that and give it
the rich people. There is you know, Korea's government was

(02:29:54):
extractivist and left wing, which means that you know, you
you do, you do all the mining on indigenous land,
then you take the money and you give it to
a welfare state. And then opposed to him was a
bunch of anti extractivists, indigenous ecological groups who want redistribution,
but they don't want like they don't want people poisoning
their water with minds, so they oppost Korea because they

(02:30:17):
don't want their shit mind And then there's also Krea
is also opposed by these like liberal environmental NGOs who
like don't want the Amazon destroyed, but also like poor
people can go fuck themselves. And this this has made
the way the consolation of these things have worked out
means that like that what should be like a pretty
normal left right political alignment thing has gone completely nuts.

(02:30:41):
There's a bunch of like there's a bunch of sort
of like econological indigenous groups who have gone hard, who
have like swung right because the right wingers are the
only people who will support them against Korea. Meanwhile, the
actual like indigenous electoral opposition in his various forms is
a complete fucking disaster. Patrick Cutik, which is like the
this is the like the big sort of like indigenous
electoral alliance. They keep running this guy named yaku Perez,

(02:31:04):
who is like he's like the only person in the
entirety of Ecuador who's more unelectable than Korea. Is like
nobody fucking even even the additions opposition to Korea like
doesn't like him. So and and then you know, eventually
Jakuperez like left the party, but it doesn't really matter
because they still just lose every single election. The the

(02:31:27):
left just there's completely dysfunctional, and you know there's there's
other like things going on here. Too, which is that like,
for example, Korea is like has an unbelievably hardline anti
abortion stance, Like he he threatened to resign if his
party tried to pass legislation that would allow abortion in
the case of rape. Like that's how anti abortioned this
guy is. Fucking that's bad. This is like like, okay, yes,

(02:31:50):
this is this is this is a very very Catholic country, right.

Speaker 1 (02:31:54):
Even by that standards, that's fucking nuts, Like yeah, Jesus Christ, Yeah,
that that's rough. You know.

Speaker 4 (02:32:01):
So the product of this is that a a country
that has a like a decently centered left electoral like
electorate in theory.

Speaker 1 (02:32:09):
Has produced three straight conservative governments.

Speaker 8 (02:32:12):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (02:32:12):
These governments have absolutely annihilated the Ecuadorian economy and the
welfare state and left it prey to like to organize crime.
Who you know, unlike the just completely dysfunctional electorian state
can at least provide like a semi stable income. But
the downside of this is that they're organized crime, so
you know, not things going very badly. You've probably seen

(02:32:34):
some of the like absolutely wild videos of stuff of
like people storming like like armed groups just like storming
like TV stations. They assassinate. They'vessassinated actually several presidential candidates.

Speaker 1 (02:32:46):
Now, yeah, that was it's been there on a wild one. Yeah,
it's it's really bad. On Christmas Eve, if I was
talking to a family from Ecuador who's gone to the
US to get some medical treatment for the son who
very manifestly needed help, and they were telling me like
just of their life experiences and like it was bad.

(02:33:08):
It was like I've been to some places where violence
it happens, and like the stuff that they were telling
me was shocking.

Speaker 4 (02:33:15):
It's gotten really, really bad since basically between twenty fifteen
and twenty seventeen, and it's just progressively gotten worse. As
He's right, when governments have stayed in power, and you know,
right now, right now, there hasn't been an alternative to
them because the electoralists toured again. The people who are
supposed to be serious about taking power are just a

(02:33:36):
complete fucking disaster and can't do anything.

Speaker 1 (02:33:39):
Yeah, Career can't literally can't go back to Ecuador now, right,
I think he might be. I think he can go back.

Speaker 7 (02:33:45):
Now.

Speaker 4 (02:33:46):
There was a while where there was a war and
out for his arrest. I think he's back now, Okay, yeah,
but the ray.

Speaker 1 (02:33:54):
Of lighte for ecuadors.

Speaker 4 (02:33:54):
The Ecuador still has a lot of very like of
very militant street movement who have been winning, have actually
been like winning concessions from governments when they go when
they go into the streets. So that's good inter law.
One day the electorals get the fuck out of their
way and they win. But hasn't happened yet. Things are

(02:34:15):
really bleak. On that note. Do you know what's not really.

Speaker 1 (02:34:18):
Bleak the possibility of buying gold coins. Yeah, to insulate
ourselves against inflation. Yep. You'd be stoked if you had
a ton of gold, neck kudo, wouldn't you? Currency has
gone to ship sitting on your pile of gold like
Scrooge McDuck, you'd be you'd be living the dream.

Speaker 4 (02:34:48):
All right, And we're back. So all right, we're gonna
take a couple of other take a few other places
that the electoral left has won in uh Chavismo is
dead as door nail. Maduro's slashing pensions, alarizing the economies,
cutting a bunch of deals with American oil companies, and
has arrested leadership the Venezuelan Commnist Party again.

Speaker 1 (02:35:09):
Keeps doing this.

Speaker 4 (02:35:11):
So, you know, things things going great, like obviously not
helped by the blockade, which is very bad, but like,
you know, not great Marina, which we're not going to
talk an enormous At some point we're gonna like actually
do a thing like actually go talk to the Zapatistas.
But things are not good there right now. So the

(02:35:35):
left in theory kind of has taken power in Mexico. Unfortunately,
the moment they took power, they immediately tacked right, handed
control of vast swaths of the country over to the military,
built a train through a bunch of indigenous land and
then gave that to the military.

Speaker 1 (02:35:50):
Yeah, switched to a bunch of military come ons around
because they like claimed that the old guys were corrupt.

Speaker 4 (02:35:57):
Yeah, And then you know, and one of the other
things that is really bleak about it was that, like
the whole premise of Omlo like coming into power was
like he ran in the campaign hugs not bullets, right,
His whole thing was he was supposed to be ending
the war on drugs.

Speaker 1 (02:36:10):
Did he end the war on drugs? Absolutely? Not of
power to the military. People still getting fucking slaughtered. Yeah,
I don't know. I definitely saw a bunch of dudes
in ski mask with a fifty cow chilling just the
other side of the border, yeah, by the government two
days ago.

Speaker 4 (02:36:26):
And and and instead of doing that, he's also been
like continuing to like escalating the war against his appatistas
who have been getting just like people getting fucking murdered
by a bunch of these government backed para militaries. It's
really fucking bleak out.

Speaker 1 (02:36:41):
There right now.

Speaker 12 (02:36:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:36:43):
So that that that's been, that's been.

Speaker 4 (02:36:44):
The legacy of Omlo finally winning a Mexican election is
the most bright winging possible. Omlo governments, like I will
say they're better on trans stuff than everyone, like the
other parties who were all completely nuts, but that's about
the only bright spot.

Speaker 1 (02:37:00):
Yeah. I mean, like they were in bilfteral negotiations with
the US, and like when the US clicked its fingers
and said shut down these gaps in the border, they
sent a bunch of National guards. So I'll just to
sit right at the gap in the border war.

Speaker 4 (02:37:12):
They've been They been doing a bunch of just like
horrific anti border shit. Imil was also just like pretty
friendly with Trump, which.

Speaker 1 (02:37:20):
Yeah, there was a populist thing there.

Speaker 4 (02:37:22):
Yeah, so that fucking sucks. And so we're going to
close on the maas Oh boy. So there's been a
bunch of stuff happening in Bolivia that I don't I
don't think most Americans have heard much about. So the

(02:37:42):
Maasment movement for socialism, there's some other shit, but yeah,
they are well okay, So for most of the time
they've existed, it's been even more Alse's party. However, Comma
it was always kind of a weird coalition because the
MAS is this coalition between like the social movements, and

(02:38:05):
in this context, like people say social movements, this includes
like you know, like giant like movement groups, but also
like unions and stuff. So it was a coalition of
these unions and these like developmentalist capitalists who are well
together by evil morallies and some of his allies, and
you know, the sort of common ground of forging a
like quote unquote indigenous Florid national state that's based on

(02:38:28):
like based on forging a welfare state, based on like
mining and extractive stuff and like oil drilling and stuff,
and also based on the emersions of this new sort
of indigenous middle class. Right now, it has split in
two between an Evil Morales faction and who was the
foreign president, was president for a very very long time,

(02:38:49):
and Luis Octre, who was the who is the current
president Oblivia, but has been kicked out of the MS
by EVO and his faction.

Speaker 1 (02:38:58):
So this is a disaster.

Speaker 4 (02:39:00):
They both of them, both Okra and Evil Morales, have
these they have a lot of personal alliances within the
social movements, and this means it's been a very very
messy split.

Speaker 1 (02:39:11):
And you know, this is not okay.

Speaker 4 (02:39:14):
If you look at these two people, you would expect
it to be an ideological split because acres from like
the developmentalist right of the party. Like he was he
was a banker, he's been in charge of the Bolivian
Central Bank for a long time. He was like finance minister,
so he's from like the center right, like developmentalist faction
of the party. Evo technically speaking, has been the representative

(02:39:36):
of like the the sort of like the social movement
faction of the party. He has a lot of allies
in a lot of coca growers union stuff like that.
But it hasn't broken like that because this isn't an
ideological fight. This is just these two guys, both want
to be presidents and so they've they've literally torn the

(02:39:56):
entire Bolivian left in two over over this fucking bullshit.

Speaker 1 (02:40:01):
Yeah, never before happened on the left. Two dudes wanting
to be in charge.

Speaker 4 (02:40:04):
Yeah, and this is this has been really really messy,
and it's not breaking down the way. It's not breaking
cleanly politically down because there's a lot of like people
from the anti extractivist left of the party who are
pissed off of the way that EVO has like personally
tried to seize control of what are supposed to be
independent social movements. And I know people hear that and
are like, wait, what's what's the problem with like social

(02:40:26):
movements being integrated with the state, because like we don't.
The US doesn't have social movements, like not not in
the way that like that Latin America has them. Like
DLM is the closest thing that we have to that.
But imagine if like BLM was like an actual leftist group,
like the actual like organization Black Lives Matter, Yeah, like

(02:40:46):
capitalism Yeah, yeah, it was like it was like it
was like a leftist group that would like lead protests
and strikes and ship like we do. We don't have that.
That's like not a thing here, and so mostly when
when people hear about the stuff, they're like, wait, what
what does that mean? Like why why are we com
planning that like these that social movements are being like
folded into the state or like folded into this bureaucratic apparatus.
So I'm gonna run through an example of what that

(02:41:08):
looks like in practice. So we're gonna we're gonna talk
about the could briefly talk about the Confederation of Indigenous
Peoples of Bolivia.

Speaker 1 (02:41:15):
So yeah, based, yeah, so we follow flag.

Speaker 4 (02:41:19):
I didn't have anything in there on it. It is
very funny, given given what we're about to talk about.
It is very funny that all of the pro am
as people in in in the US had that as
their flag, as like they had that flag as their
profile picture when this coup was going on.

Speaker 1 (02:41:34):
It's one of the cool oft flags out there. It rips,
it does rip.

Speaker 4 (02:41:39):
So so back in twenty eleven, this is like, this
is like eight years before the coup, the Confederation of
Indigenous People of Bolivia opposed building this road through projected
indigenous territory that the government was trying to force through.
So they opposed it. Their opposition didn't do anything. They
you know, they joined in this enormous protest movement against
this road construction, even when his supporters had the confederation's

(02:42:03):
offices stormed by riot police and tried to replace his
leadership with loyalists. This failed initially, and the you know,
so the the Confederation of Indigenous People's Oblivia had been
part of the like of the mas's like formal alliance,
right and after that they were like fuck you man,
we're out.

Speaker 1 (02:42:20):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (02:42:21):
They left, and then the confederation split between the groups
who were pro EVO and everyone else. So another faction
of the confederation split from the regular confederation and went
back and joined and calling themselves the same thing, and
went back and joined the MS again. So like this
is a shit show, right, and a lot of it
is like you know, it's it's it's comes down to
these sort of like loyalty testings, like are you willing

(02:42:43):
to back every single thing that EVO wants to do
And if you're not, like they're going to their faction.
And this is the thing that like this happens in
the fucking DSA all the time, right, Like everyone in
the DSA is constantly trying to purge every other faction
to install their loyalists, like in charge of whatever fucking
working group. Right, but you know this is happening in
a place where the left actually has power, which means

(02:43:03):
that instead of like you know a series of weird
elections and like purging people from positions, you're storming their
offices of riot police. Yeah, this is why a lot
of sort of groups so you would expect to be
backing evil Art and are backing Okra instead. But really, truly,
this is just two guys having a Dick Waven contest.

(02:43:23):
By this is what happens when you do electoralism. Yeah,
but you know it's also worth mentioning the reason we're
in this situation in the first place is that Evo
refused to, just like in twenty nineteen, refuse to just
let someone else in his party run, Like if literally
anyone else had run, the MAAS would have just trivially
easily won the election. There wouldn't have been a coup,

(02:43:45):
it wouldn't have even been the potential to do one.
But he refused because he wants to personally be in power,
and this is what allows the twenty nineteen coup to happen.
And the second, the second reason that we're here now
is that in twenty twenty one, and I.

Speaker 1 (02:43:56):
Don't think I don't think most American left is like
know about this. I think people know about the coup.

Speaker 4 (02:44:00):
I don't think people know about the stuff that happened
in twenty twenty one, which is that there was this
massive series of there was this massive series of like
barricades that went up to bring down the coup government.
So this is the thing that happens periodically in Bolivia.
This is like, this is how the social movements took
power in the first place, is that they you know, Bolivia,
because of the way the terrain works, very very mountainous country,

(02:44:23):
very narrow roads, not many roads into a place.

Speaker 1 (02:44:25):
You could just block all of the roads.

Speaker 4 (02:44:27):
That go into the capitol, and you can you can
shut down the entire country's economy by just doing these roadblocks.
They very nearly this is actually like again the origin
of the NIS is that they very nearly like completely
destroyed the belief in government with this in two thousand
and six, and then Evo pulled his people off the
barricades and was like, no, we're gonna do an election.
He easily wins the election because he's you know, he's
doing the things we've been talking about this whole episode,

(02:44:48):
which is harnessing the power of the social movements in
order to get elected. And it works, like he becomes president.
But you know, in twenty twenty one, it happens again,
and the these groups are getting very close. They've they've
they've done enough damage that they forced the coup government
to like actually have elections, which they didn't want to have.
But they're on the verge of like actually knocking the

(02:45:12):
government out of power. And Evo once again pulls all
of his people off the barricades because he doesn't want
the barricades to like disrupt his chance of winning the election.
And so instead of like bringing down this government and
like ushering in like sweeping like left ering reforms whatever
on like the back of a revolutionary seizure of power,
we have the Maas split between two dipshits. And yeah,

(02:45:39):
these are these are very very serious about taking power.
You can tell this because they've split the party over
personal bullshit.

Speaker 1 (02:45:47):
Yeah every time, right, Like leaderism is the curse of
the left, and it, yeah, it stops us doing things
because it's always just dude chest some being each other.

Speaker 4 (02:45:58):
Yeah, and and and this is the second part about it,
is that this is a product of leaving the streets.
And we're gonna close on Chile. We did a very
optimistic episode in the protests in Chile a couple of
years ago because it looked like they were actually winning.
That's not true anymore, after the whole Okay, so Chile
and twenty nineteen has these massive, massive treat protests. They

(02:46:18):
successfully forced the government to call a constitutional convention to
like replace their Pinochet constitution. But that got everyone off
the streets. And because it got anyone off the streets,
both successive attempts to have a constitution have failed. It's
deeply unclear what the fox had happened with the constitution. It's
possible they're gonna end up with a constitution that is

(02:46:38):
even more right wing than the current one because they've
blown literally their moment of opportunity by pulling anyone out
of the streets. And now the rights resurgence, it's a
complete fiasco. Yeah, the repression of invidious people has continued
unabated under the new quote unquote left wing government. So yeah,
it's it's a complete fiasco. And that that is today's lesson,

(02:46:59):
which is venue when when when people tell you that
they are the ones who are serious about taking your
wielding power and they want you to go vote for them.
We have they have failed everywhere for a decade. Do
not let them do this to you again. Don't leave
the streets. Yeah, Instead, don't leave the streets. Don't give
someone else fucking power, take it for yourself. That's that's, that's,

(02:47:20):
that's all I've got.

Speaker 1 (02:47:21):
Yeah, that's a good place to end, I think. Yeah,
don't uh, don't infantilize yourself by electing some Instagram brick
to make decisions for you.

Speaker 12 (02:47:44):
Welcome, Sie could happened here. I'm Andrew sach to the
true channel Andraism and one of the last times I
was on here I was discussed in political Colds, generally
drawn from the work of Dennis Tourist and Tim Willforth
in their book On the Edge Political Colts, and after
we learned about the roller coaster emotional ride the individual's
experience during cult recruitment, where their feelings and ideas are

(02:48:07):
manipulated and they are drawn into an exclusive and isolating group,
we explore the common techniques used by political cults, including
creating rigid belief systems, immunity to falsification, authoritarianism, arbitrary leadership,
deification of leaders, intense activism, and the use of loaded language.
We also heed to the contradictory positions often held by

(02:48:28):
members of political cults, so as advocating for liberty while
supporting totalitarianism, believe in equality alongside late leaders, accumulating privileges,
promoting sexual morality while exploiting members, and demanding free speech
rights while suppressing dissent within the group. And we also
examined Robert Lifton's eight conditions that indicate the presence of

(02:48:48):
ideological totalism within cults, which include miliu control, mystical manipulation,
the demand for purity, the cult of confession, the sacred science, loading,
the language, doctrine of a person, and it is by
civil existence. If you want the details on all of that,
you can check out the first episode in Political Cult series,
or you could pick up the book on political cults yourself.

(02:49:10):
As I said on the Edge Political Cults Left and
Right by Dennis Turish and Tim Wolforth, I also had
an episode where I spoke about the Trotskyist turned right
wing cult of Lyndon Laroche, which was primarily based in
USA but today joined by Garrison. I want to take
a look at the deadly cult that arose from the
Japanese student movement, the United Red Army.

Speaker 1 (02:49:35):
Very exciting stuff.

Speaker 12 (02:49:36):
If my research for this episode, I looked at dead
Bodies and Living Guns by Yoshikuni Karashi, the Japanese Women's
Liberation Movement, the United Red Army by set Sushiya Matsu,
and Hijackers, Bombers and bank Robbers by Patricia G. Steinhoff.
So let's get into it, and to do so, we're
going to need some historical context, not necessarily as in

(02:49:57):
depth as digging into the evolution of postwater pas, which
is such a deep and complex period in history that
it really deserves and has given special attention by historians
that I have not the knowledge to buster. We do, however,
need to take a look more specifically at what the
conditions were like in the country in the late sixties
and early seventies. After the war, Japan was transitioned into

(02:50:20):
something of a liberal democracy with all of that entails.
The US rolled in and occupied Japan and forced all
these changes and reforms and so by the late sixties
and seventies, you have post war children who were now
adults and had gone through and witnessed these systems full
his hand. They saw the limits of democracy and capitalism.

(02:50:41):
Japanese society was firmly under the thumb of the US
as well, which created its own grievances amongst population. The
Japanese government had become a key supporter of US imperialism
in the Cold War era. Both the Korean War and
the Vietnam War were facilitated through the US's military bases
in Japan, and the Japanese left did not like that
at all. Naturally, in response, the state would crush them,

(02:51:05):
as states are apt to do. When the Japanese were
taken to the streets and solidarity, the state increased their surveillance, repression,
and incarceration. Some on the Japanese left would come to
see Japan as a police state with US back in,
but that wasn't the left's only issue with Japanese society.
Japan's economic success post war thanks to the US, had

(02:51:27):
brought the establishment of a mass consumer society that gave
the population, even in rural areas and among poor factory workers,
greater access to information and consumer goods, and that ended
up posing an issue for the left in Japan because
many of the organizations were struggling to adjust to the
shift in times. To quote Yoshikui Igarashi directly, the new

(02:51:50):
left critique of post war society had long been too
rigid to address the rapidly changing social conditions of Japan.
Each person was complicit with the plaical and economic mechanisms
that produced social injustice insofar as he or she took
advantage of them. It was simply impossible to undo the
effects of the system when many in society cherished their

(02:52:12):
newly found agency as consumers. So the left in Japan
was fixated on this very romanticized image of the ruggeted
workers and not really engaging with what the workers themselves
thought about and wanted to see transformed in their circumstances, Like, yeah,
it's understandable that workers, despite being exploited, would also cling

(02:52:32):
to some of the comforts they've gained even under those
poor circumstances, And these left organizations weren't adequately engaging with that.
They were engagement the fact that yeah, this poor factory
workers poor and suffering, but they also appreciate the fact
that they have access to all these new technologies and

(02:52:53):
all this new entertainment media and all that stuff. They
were still stuck in this very late nineteenth to early
twentieth century of understanding. Yeah, so they were kind of
ideologically stuck and disconnected. They had this one vision of
the struggle and it wasn't really being updated with the
changing times. So it's no surprise really what we're resulved

(02:53:13):
from this late sixties status co. First, I think we
should stop I understanding the various associations of Seki Gun,
which is the Red Army. There were three major related
groups under the label of Psekagoon that shared a very
particular vision, to quote Britisher Gi stein Off. One, we
have the original group led by Shiamita Kaya, which began

(02:53:37):
as the Pseki gunha of a major student organization in
nineteen sixty eight and dropped the K designation, becoming Psecic
Gun sometime after it became independent in mid nineteen sixty nine. Nice. Two,
you had a remnant of the original Psychicgoon, which in
nineteen seventy one joined with another group to become Rengo

(02:53:58):
Psaki Gun United Red Army and remember that because of
the focus of today, and they became under the leadership
of the Seka Gun head Mori Sunyo. And then three lastly,
he had a group that developed in Lebanon beginning in
nineteen seventy one under the leadership of Okidaira Takeshi and
Psaki Gun member Chigaenaubu Fusako and formally broke with Rango Psycakun.

(02:54:25):
And this group formally broke with Rango Zseka Gun the
United Red Army in nineteen seventy two, they were called
the Japanese Red Army. So you have the Red Army
faction Psychic Gun her which dropped the high designation and
became Psychic Gun, and you had a remnant from the
original Psychic Gun which joined with another group to become
Rango Psychagun the United Red Army. And then you had

(02:54:46):
a group that broke away from the United Red Army
and became the Japanese Red Army. Very classic Marxist Leninist
party splating practices. So in the early days Psaki Guna
the parent Revolutionary all of the later two groups beckoned
Japan's brightest students, the children of many elites. And when

(02:55:07):
I say elites, I mean these youths would have been
regular degular academics, doctors, bureaucrats, and corporate careerists if not
for them joining this organization, having passed their entrance exams,
immersed in the anti mainstream culture of the universities at
the time, they seize that freedom to create organizations against
mainstream Japanese society. The Red Army Sekukuna had split from

(02:55:30):
its parent group, a national student organization called the Communist League,
informally bunned over a quote unresolvable policy dispute, and the
bund itself had come out of the first major factionals
split in nineteen fifty eight in the postwar Japanese national
student organization known as Sengakuin, which was formed by folks
who had been expelled from or left the Japanese Communist Party. So,

(02:55:54):
just to bring out the speed, there you have the
Japanese Communist Party, and then some people who were expelled
from that party created their own organization known as Anger Couldn't,
and then that zenger Kurdin organization split.

Speaker 3 (02:56:07):
Do you know what else could benefit from a split?
Right now? It's this episode with this ad break.

Speaker 1 (02:56:23):
And we're back.

Speaker 12 (02:56:24):
One of the splits that came out to that was
the Communist League, which we came known as the Bund,
and the Bund had a split within it that boothed
the Red Army, and the Red Army had its own splits.

Speaker 1 (02:56:37):
Yes, as.

Speaker 3 (02:56:39):
As all these groups love to do.

Speaker 12 (02:56:43):
Yes, let's of split it. And according to sign Off,
Bund actually had a really remarkable history of internal factional splits.
In fact, even for its own cohort is quite exceptional.
That generated over fifty separate groups, in addition to Psychic,
which had become Psychic Goon dropping the ha as I said,

(02:57:04):
after it became independent from BOND in nineteen sixty nine.
Again nice. And then after the split, Pecigo immediately copied
the already outdated communist party setup that BUND had initially
inherited from its own parent organization. I mean everything from
the Central Committee to the Politbrew, to the Secretariat to
the former representation from regional and local units, though a

(02:57:26):
lot of these structures mainly existed on paper according to
former members. So what was psechigoing doing well? The members
were already experienced in orchestrating mass activities typical of the
era's student movement. They excel in producing and disseminating political publications,

(02:57:47):
organizing meetings, and coordinating street demonstrations, but eventually they realized
this stuff just isn't working. They need something bolder. The
group aimed for innovative action rather than organizational innovation, adopted
the Red Army moncle and aligned themselves as soldiers within
a loosely structured central committee. And despite being a legal

(02:58:11):
entity in post war Japan, Sekigoon quickly found itself at
art of the state due to its provocative intentions and actions.
The group openly declared its intention to ecagie in legal
activities no can upset whatsoever, triggering intense police surveillance and
a confrontational relationship from the outset. Their journey transitions swiftly

(02:58:33):
from public legal events to clandestine and unlawful activities such
as weapon making, hijackings, bombings, weapon theft, and bank robberies,
and with that unfamiliar territory came many mistakes and much realing.

Speaker 3 (02:58:48):
In so they went from having meetings and making the
zines to doing other stuff. Is what I is, what
I take it for translated to a modern politically active audience.

Speaker 12 (02:59:03):
They went from doing like peaceful protests, you know, peaceful marches,
sit ins, that sort of thing, to like vankrobberies, embomments. Yeah,
and on top of that, they really had the they
had the inflated sense of self to grandiously label their
attempted uprisings as the Tokyo War, the Osaker War. Sure, sure,

(02:59:27):
Kyoto War. I mean the actions in a sense it
is some urban guerrilla warfare that they might have been
engaging in with some of these actions very glad to sign,
very direct and violence and stuff, and there was a
state response.

Speaker 3 (02:59:46):
A lot of a lot of like more of these
like extremely violent militant insurrectory type can kind of get
that inflated sense of what they're doing. And even though
I don't think ted Kay is an insurructionist, but still
it's it kind of it's like, did he think that
blowing someone's fingers off every five years was going to

(03:00:07):
trigger the collapse of industrial civilization? And you're like, maybe,
maybe not, but that doesn't seem like a really great plan. Yeah,
if you're just taking someone's fingers off, yet you think
you're like the only one who's standing in the way
between industrial society and the future of a desolate earth.

(03:00:28):
But I don't know it. It is a complicated things
some dives. Yeah, yeah, it's always hard to gauge the
successfulness of your own actions.

Speaker 12 (03:00:38):
Indeed, indeed, but I mean in this case, I think
we can't gauge the success because well, first of all,
the actions of all eventually led to police raids, harassed
in indictments. Sure, and also we could measure success based
on the achievement of particular goals, and all of their
attempted uprisings were made with the aim of global revolution

(03:01:00):
based on Trotsky's ideas. Okay, yeah, So they were trying
to build an army that would not only lead in
revolution in Japan but also eid in revolutionary activities worldwide.
So some of their members even sought support and training
from groups like the Popular Front for the Liberation of
Palestine huh Yeah. And eventually they tried to organize guerrilla

(03:01:20):
training with intent to attack the Prime Minister's residents, but
a police raid foiled their plans and arrested fifty three
of their members, which led to the core of the
organization psychagun to go underground. And then while they were underground,
their style of organization had to evolve. Initially they resembled

(03:01:41):
the sort of cumbersome bureaucracy of a communist party, but
eventually they reinvented themselves to become similar rather to the
Japanese managerial styles of the time period. In short, because
I'm really trying to get to the juicy bits of
what was happening, the communication who so they faced Due

(03:02:01):
to that underground police surveillance led to a sophisticated telephone
network managed by Lea's wives and girlfriends. Organizational decision making
went from ecalitian debates to hierarchical orders, and after any
activities they engage in evaluations so like quarterly reports and
like a corporate office, to refine their approach for next time.

(03:02:23):
So given all that history and context, what happens next
relation be all too surprising. In December nineteen seventy one,
the few remaining not arrested or dead members of Psakagun's
underground Army joined forces with another group in a similar
situation called Kakome Saha or Revolutionary Left, to form the
United Red Army aka Rengo Sekigun, which established themselves in

(03:02:45):
a remote cabin in the Japanese Alps in the dead
of winter in Guma Prefecture and tried to work out
the ideological and organizational differences that came from uniting the
two organizations. The new group was led by the Red
Mani faction leader Sunyo Muri and second in commanded by
Heroku Nagata, the leader of the Revolutionary Left. And quick,

(03:03:10):
quick digression, it's actually a big deal. Nagata was a woman,
and that was sort of a win in a sense.
I mean a win, not in a broader sense, probably
not a win considering what happens next, but a win
in the sense that at the time there was a
big issue with the Japanese New Left and its patriarchal nature,

(03:03:32):
where women typically only had any kind of say or
authority in relation to their male partners. So it was
kind of nice to see Nagata get elevated to a
position where she didn't have to be connected to a
male figure in the movement in order to have any

(03:03:55):
kind of say or any kind of political sway, of course,
what she did with that say, what she did with
that close way, was not all too hot, but yeah,
I digress. Under the direction of Mari and Gelbasnagata, about
twenty five United Red Army members underwent revolutionary training to
prepare for armed struggle against the state. At this point, though,

(03:04:18):
you have to wonder what exactly they were hoping to achieve.
They weren't even connected any legism workers struggles in the country.
They weren't organizing their communities. They has created these revolutionary
cells where they would hold film to their rigid political
aims and refuse to engage in reality. To quote Yoshikuni

(03:04:38):
Igarashi directly, from the earliest days of the New Left,
confrontations with the police were endowed with performative value. By
taking the beatens of police batons on their heads and
being sprayed with tea gas, Raleigh participants presented themselves both
as victims of the state repressive power and as agents
of resistance against it. However, by the early nineteen seventy

(03:05:00):
it became obvious that their performances were not enough to
break through the statuscope. It was also apparent that popular
support for the movements had aoracious limit and was starting
to wane. As new Left organizations began to see the
futility of trying to build widespread support. The acts of
violence lost their performative aspect. Rather than presenting themselves as
both victims and agents of resistance as they had done before,

(03:05:22):
many organizations, including the Red Army and the Revolutionary Left,
began to escalate their violence. The activists engaged in this
increasingly brutal struggle became a sort of self appointed revolutionary elite,
a group that demanded of its members a stepped up
bodily commitment in the form of an ever intensifying regimen
of physical training and corporeal deprivation, and a willingness to

(03:05:46):
die for the cause. The United Red Armies revolutionary struggles
at the mountain Bases demonstrated the process through which violence
came to dominate the lives of its members. At another
point in the general article, he says that while the
partomatic shift caused by Japan's high growth economy demanded a
new theory and practice of political engagement, United Red Army

(03:06:07):
members merely wish to undo the effects of economic development,
literally seeking to establish a critical purchase outside of the
existence system. Aspiring to transform themselves into a revolutionary elite,
they physically distanced themselves in mountain bases while vole rising
violence as a means to achieve alternative political conditions. Their
two stage strategy of exiting and then striking back of

(03:06:29):
the system, however, proved completely inadequate. At one point, early on,
two members in this mountain cabin in the Japanese Alps
decided that they wanted to piece out of the United
Red Army probably go back to live in a normal life.
So in retaliation, Nagata organized their assassination with the help
of United Red Army members. Yeah, like, how dare you leave?

Speaker 1 (03:06:55):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (03:06:56):
I mean, this whole Red Art saga is a really
great example of how an extremely militant leftist force really
really does mirror so many, so many cult dynamics. And
like I I the stakes are high.

Speaker 1 (03:07:13):
I get it.

Speaker 3 (03:07:13):
Like you have a lot of like intense shared experiences
with people, it can produce a whole bunch of emotional,
volatile reactions. I'm sure what they all went through. I
can I can barely even begin to understand with with
my like with my background and more like a like
anarchist instructionary action. But yeah, you know, it's the whole

(03:07:39):
Hitman squad for whenever members like age out in their
late twenties. This is certainly an interesting move.

Speaker 12 (03:07:48):
Indeed, and if I wasn't bad enough, it gets worse.
So clearly, the fact that people want to leave means
that the character of their members are not good enough.
So the United Red Army wanted to improve the character
of its members, so under Maury and Nagata's directives, they

(03:08:09):
underwent a purge through a process of collective and individual
self criticism. It's always self criticism of these people, so
before long, self criticism became this sort of high stakes
test of each member's revolutionary commitment, call into question everything
from their engagement and romantic relationships to their appreciation of

(03:08:30):
material possessions. Any such attachments were seen as evidence that
these members were not committed enough to the cause. In fact,
they were the worst thing you could possibly be, a
counter revolutionary and then things got worse. So just to clarify,
and this is according to Patricia G. Steinoff, who studied

(03:08:51):
the organizational structure of these groups. When the United Red
Army came together, they engaged in standard consensus decision making procedures,
which is how they came into agreement that the members
needed to be tough, fund into revolutionaries capable of fighting
the police. But despite engagement and consensus from time to time.
The organization was very strictly vertical. The central committee had

(03:09:14):
a separate room from everyone else in the cabin and
the internet conditions made it easier to stand out if
you weren't cooperating with directives. To quote one section of
the article, When the top leaders introduced violence in order
to speed up the transformation of the weakest members, no
one was able to confront leadership to stop it. Those
who disagreed tended to use traditional Japanese methods of indirection,

(03:09:36):
expressed in opposition by silence and withdrawal. And given the
purpose of the group's activity and the expectation of full
participation that is built into the ground rules of consensus
decision making, silence and withdrawal were interpreted as unrevolutionary weakness
and participating in violence against others were soon defined as
evidence of one's own sincere commitment to become a better revolutionary.

(03:10:00):
Those who failed to participate energetically in the violence against
others became the next victims of the purge.

Speaker 1 (03:10:08):
Yeah that all makes perfect sense to me. Actually, yeah, I.

Speaker 12 (03:10:14):
When they deemed somebody to be a counter revolutionary, the
others would be ordered to punish them through beatens, torture,
and exposure to the elements without food or shelter. As
you can imagine, people died. So when the first victims died,
the leaders said that they had died of defeatism because
they couldn't overcome their own weakness. Six weeks later, in

(03:10:39):
February nineteen seventy two, twelve of the twenty five members
were dead. One sign off points out that ironically, in
between bouts of the purge, the United Red Army members
were able to break into work groups and carry out
tasks like building a new cabin, planning the next attack,
and burying the bodies of the dead. Comrades watching that

(03:11:00):
you like jump in between these pooge sessions and like
building a cabin with your buds.

Speaker 3 (03:11:07):
Honestly, I don't doubt it. Like I this this all
does make a sort of weird sense to me. Like
I've seen I've seen radical groups kind of fall apart
in not ways that lead to like mass purging, as
in like murder, but I've seen groups fall apart in
similar ways to this. You'll you'll have like a smaller
insular click who tries to remain really active and like

(03:11:28):
keep going and doing stuff while also spending all their
extra time towards continually purifying their member base. Because once
you once you start that like purification and process like,
you can't stop. You have to keep the spotlight on
someone else, so then it's not on you, Like you
have to be proactive in constantly purifying the member group,

(03:11:52):
or else someone's gonna set their target on you like
it has. I can, I can totally see how this
would have this would have gone down, and I think
smaller versions of this still remain to be a massive
problem among radical organization structures, even structures that claim to
be horizontal, they still have like an insular a clique

(03:12:13):
of like the people who are like the cool group,
who's going to replicate a lot of these same things,
And how even though it's not technically vertical in practice,
they still are able to do a lot of these
same like top down and overwriting decision making processes.

Speaker 12 (03:12:33):
Yeah, it's it's And this is really what sort of
motivated me to start to talk about political cults a
bit more. I mean, not on reading the book, looking
at this case and reading the book, because I really
I want people to recognize that it's not like this

(03:12:53):
strange out to this wild thing that could nevolative place
in your postal life. Like it's very easy for any
political organization to become a cult, and there's no ideology
that's immune to that. And so through these case studies
and through the breakdown to the various components and elements

(03:13:15):
of cult cults and cult behavior, cult tactics, all people
to be able to recognize the signs. Because what I
really hate the most, and this is why I focused
mostly on left wing cults not as much right wing cults,
is to see people who have so much potential to
contribute meaningfully to like revolutionary change, and then they just

(03:13:36):
get all their energies redirected into self criticism sessions and
purification rituals and revolutionary lop in.

Speaker 3 (03:13:48):
Let's take an ad break here and we'll be right
back to continue talking about the body count of the
Red Army.

Speaker 1 (03:14:06):
Okay, we are.

Speaker 12 (03:14:06):
Back, So twelve bodies dead and buried.

Speaker 3 (03:14:12):
But on the upside, they have a new cabin so true,
come on, you know, it's it's a small price to pay.

Speaker 12 (03:14:24):
So eventually the leaders Maury and the Gata left, which
gave each of the United Red Army members a chance
to escape before they too succumbed to the fate of death.
So I find really interesting is that all of them
wanted to leave, but they didn't find it in themselves
to leave until after the leadership left.

Speaker 3 (03:14:43):
They were all too scared of each other.

Speaker 12 (03:14:47):
Yeah, and so they want They took that opportunity to
escape before they two died, and of course the police
were hot on all of their tails. Mary and the
Guta got arrested, and eventually there were only five members
left and they were armed to the teeth. They ended
up hiding in a mountain lodge and managed to capture

(03:15:10):
a hostage, which was the wife of the owner of
the mountain lodge, and Setsu Shigematsu described very succinctly what
came next. Quote. Between nineteenth and twenty eighth of February,
these five remaining members of the United Red Army held
off over fifteen hundred riot police at the lodge, which

(03:15:30):
was called Asama Sansu, and this armed standoff and hostage
taken incident became an unprecedented television spectacle. Television news coverage
of the incident began in nineteenth February, with hundreds of
media staff on site to work the story. On the
twenty eighth of February, continuous live televised news coverage lasted

(03:15:50):
for ten hours and forty minutes. This constituted an unprecedented
broadcasting event in Japan. This constituted an unprecedented broadcasting event
in Japan's media history that has never been surpassed in
terms of its duration and ratings. At the climax the
police operation in twenty February, with eighty nine point seven

(03:16:10):
percent view of ratings according to the National Broadcasting Corporation,
almost the entire country was watching the same thing on TV.
The United Red Army's form of smaller scale insurgency against
the state was thus rendered hyper visible, and this drew
unprecedented attention to this due left sect. So after the
remaining members were captured, between the interrogations, media interviews and autobiographies,

(03:16:35):
the whole of Japan and the world got to hear
what really went on. Immediately after the hostage situation, Despite
their rather fringe style, the United Red Army actually had
some public sympathy until the truth of how bad things
were came to light. They even made a movie about it.
The news of the purge practically devastated not only the

(03:16:57):
broader Secagoon organization, but also transformed the course of the
radical left in Japan and beyond. Remember, they did have
a branch in Lebanon, which thankfully did not make the
same pursiing mistakes. Still, though many in Japan lost hope
in revolution as a result of the publicity of those actions.

(03:17:20):
Political activism had already been on a decline in the
late sixties and early seventies, but the shock of the
Purge was like a nail in the coffin. A lot
of people literally distanced themselves from their own leftist movements
because of how staggering that news was. The Purge literally
purged leftism as a major force in Japanese society. And

(03:17:40):
it's only recently, with writers like Gohaisato that Marxism has
started to gain some attention again.

Speaker 3 (03:17:47):
And this is like around what this is like the
are we like the sixties seventies?

Speaker 12 (03:17:54):
Yeah? Yeah, all this took place in the The Purge
took place between December nineteen seventy one and February nineteen
seventy two.

Speaker 3 (03:18:03):
Really really the last dying breath of the militant truskyeser.

Speaker 12 (03:18:09):
Yes, indeed, indeed, if we look at the techniques used
by political cults, rigid belief systems check you know, immunity
to falsification, check, authoritarianism, check, arbitrary leadership, check deification of leaders.

(03:18:31):
Most likely out I didn't seeing the evidence of that specifically,
I wouldn't be surprised. Intense activism, check, use of loaded language.
I'm sure.

Speaker 1 (03:18:43):
Yeah, I bet.

Speaker 12 (03:18:46):
You see basically all of those tactics employed in this organization,
and you just see the result of it. And I
think it's stories ideas that need to be known so
that such mistakes can be of in the future. So, yeah,
that's the story of the Unit's Red Army. This has

(03:19:08):
been it could happen here.

Speaker 3 (03:19:09):
It certainly could happen. No, I think it is a
It is a really good example. Now it doesn't map
on one to one because I don't think many many
people are are doing exactly what the Red Army did
in terms of their their style of militant struggle. But
there's there's there's smaller scale versions, and there's still the

(03:19:32):
kind of insular group dynamics, whether that's like just an
affinity group, whether that's like a larger collective. I think
there's a lot of a lot of lessons to learn
from the Red Army, and it'd be wrong just to
dismiss this whole example as being a little bit too
far fetched or just like two different because it is.

(03:19:53):
It is a really tragic story, and I feel like
people could learn learn more from this than what they
initially think.

Speaker 12 (03:20:00):
Indeed, I agree, So don't go out there and start
to unite your Red Army folks, try and avoid that.

Speaker 3 (03:20:10):
If you want to build a CAVIN, you can do
it without burying twelve of your friends anyway, Thank you,
Thank you for that.

Speaker 12 (03:20:20):
And true the problem?

Speaker 3 (03:20:23):
Where can the fine listeners find you on the internet?

Speaker 12 (03:20:29):
YouTube dot com, slash andrewism and nowhere else own I
guess also Patreon dot com slash saying true. But other
than that, I can't be found on the internet. I
don't exist.

Speaker 3 (03:20:42):
Good for you, Good for you, just like the Red
Army who doesn't exist anymore.

Speaker 2 (03:21:00):
Hey, everybody, Robert Evans here, Welcome back to It Could
Happen Here, a podcast about things falling apart and coping
with dystopia. And one of the first signs of our
dystopia coming to be was the establishment of the TSA
and the Department of Homeland Security more broadly. Obviously DHS
much more problematic than just the TSA. We did a

(03:21:23):
couple of episodes on them with Behind the Bastards back
in the day. But you know, the TSA came to
be right after nine to eleven, and both its establishment,
you know, the seeming necessity of it, and the kind
of impositions into personal privacy that it made commonplace. We're
both harbingers of the very fucked up era we find

(03:21:44):
ourselves in now. And the TSA is an interesting law
enforcement agency to me from the perspective of a normal person.
I think they're kind of the least objectionable of our
federal law enforcement agencies, right They at least, I should say,
of all of the cops that we have in this country,
they're the ones you're least likely to have a serious
problem with, right Like, they're not real cops in the

(03:22:06):
way that most cops are. They don't like ticket or
arrest you generally, unless you're one of the startling number
of Americans who gets caught with a loaded handgun trying
to go through airport security. Mostly, and I've flown way
more often than I want to remember, mostly My experience
with TSA agents is they check your ID, you know,
they stare at an X ray machine where your shit

(03:22:27):
goes through it. Sometimes they alert and swab some stuff.
But you know, for me, it's usually not that big
a deal. For most people, I know, it's not that
big a deal. Obviously, you know, the degree to which
it's a problem is going to vary widely depending on
whether or not you're a white dude. But that said,
still less potential for things going horribly violently wrong and

(03:22:48):
with a lot of police interactions. So I'll give them that.
And it's interesting to me that kind of given this fact,
the TSA is so hated, not by I think most Americans.
I think we're all kind of frustrated by them. We know,
you know, they're not great at their jobs. They get
caught in tests, letting shit through all the time. It's

(03:23:09):
kind of a pain in the butt. But there's a
chunk of Americans who fucking hate the TSA, and they
hate it because of how invasive it is. And it's
a little weird if you're a regular person, because going
through airport security is still less invasive than like applying
for an apartment, which a lot of people do more
regularly than they fly, or taking a trip to the DMV,

(03:23:29):
which again a lot of people do more regularly than
they fly. But people, you know, with money, upper middle
class and rich people, that's where you really get most
of the hate from the TSA. Now, obviously there's some
from principled libertarians, and I tend to think they have
a point there, but there's a lot of people who
really hate the TSA specifically because it's kind of the

(03:23:50):
only law enforcement friction they deal with on a day
to day basis. You know, they live in a neighborhood
where they're not getting pulled over. You know, the cops
their job is not to fuck with with the people
who have money. So the only time they're going to
get padded down and deal with that thing that is
a pretty common experience for Americans and a lot of
cities is when they go through the airport when they fly,

(03:24:11):
and they also fly often because they have more money.
So I find myself in this interesting position when reporting
on the TSA, of there's real abuses there, there's a
lot of real threats there. The fact that they do
get so much up in our business and that we've normalized,
it is an issue, and at the same time, like
I always know when I do something like this, the

(03:24:31):
people who get angriest about whatever I write about the
TSA are going to be the worst pieces of shit
in the country. So it's a fun balancing act.

Speaker 1 (03:24:38):
Now.

Speaker 2 (03:24:39):
Obviously, as I'm trying not to gloss over, there are
some really good reasons to be pissed at the TSA,
like this twenty fifteen story from Denver of several agents
who were caught running a groping scam. Basically, one female
crew member would point out the men that she found attractive,
and a colleague would signal that person out for a
pat down, and they basically say, like, oh, it's alerting

(03:25:00):
something around your growing or inner thighs, so that like
she could bottle them. Essentially, Now these people got fired.
The TSA went after them when they got caught, but
who knows how many people they groped in the interim period.
Video in twenty twenty three caught TSA agents at Miami
International Airport stealing from passenger bags in the security lines.

(03:25:21):
There's like footage of it. Obviously, the people who do
this are going to be very, very stupid, because, like
you know is a TSA agent. There's cameras all over
the place. You're in the fucking TSA, and the video
is just this guy like reaching his hand into a
bag pulling out cash. It's not hard to find headlines
that are similar, though, going back about as long as

(03:25:42):
the TSA has existed, what interests me more are the
massive violations of privacy and the potential involvement the TSA
and their normalization of those invasions of privacy has in
the expansion of the surveillance state. So this year at
CEES twenty twenty four, when we found out the TSA
had a booth and they were there to talk about

(03:26:02):
their new facial recognition scanners, Garrison and I had to
go check it out, and the interview that we conducted
is going to kind of be the heart of this episode,
but I wanted to get over a little bit more
of a preamble first. So the TSA started testing facial
recognition scanners on a voluntary basis at sixteen domestic airports,

(03:26:22):
and I think twenty twenty two they expanded it to
twenty five airports or so last year twenty twenty three,
they are in twenty seven now, according to what we
were told by a representative, and the goal is for
this technology to go nationwide. Obviously, not everyone is thrilled
with that idea. And I'm going to quote from a
June twenty twenty three article on CBS News. Five US

(03:26:46):
senators sent a letter demanding the TSA halt the program.
You don't have to compromise people's biometric security in order
to provide physical security at airports, said Senator ed Marky Pokowski,
who is the TSA representative, says he agrees with senators
and that he wants to protect privacy for every passenger.
I want to deploy technology that's accurate and doesn't disadvantage anybody.

(03:27:08):
Privacy advocates worry about the lack of regulations around facial
recognition and its tendency to be less accurate with people
of color. Most images are deleted after use, but some
information is encrypted and retained for up to twenty four
months as part of the ongoing review of how the
technology performs. What's left out of that article is that
the TSA is also allowed to maintain biometric data taken

(03:27:30):
from non citizens, people entering the country from foreign countries, migrants,
and the like, and they're able to keep that and
share it. It's kind of unclear the extent of that,
but they're not bound by the same rules with those
people that they are for citizens. And there are other
issues as well, as we'll get into. So Garrison and
I were with excited to have a chance to chat
with a TSA representative. This guy was less excited to

(03:27:52):
see us, and we will get into that story, but
before we do, it's time foreign ad break and we're back.
So Garrison and I show up at the CES booth

(03:28:15):
and it's kind of a small one. You might imagine
it's about the size of like three normal office cubicles.
Maybe there's a couple of tables. There's like a little
podium thing in the front that's got their logo on it.
They have some stickers, including one that's like it's like,
peanut butter is a liquid and it's a cartoon of
peanut butter, which I was informed when I commented on

(03:28:37):
it by one of the TSA people that yes, peanut
butter is a liquid, which is one of those things
that it's both absurd and also like, well, actually, I
don't know how else you'd categorize peanut butter if you're
the TSA, so I guess it's something.

Speaker 6 (03:28:49):
I can't have much of an issue with cream. But
is a cream different from a liquid?

Speaker 2 (03:28:54):
I don't know. That's for the philosophers to decide. So
Garrison and I come up to this booth and there's
a guy standing behind the pode. I mean, the way
stuff works at CEES is you have generally a mix
of actual officers from the company. Sometimes it'll be like
a CEO or an executive in the case of a
smaller company. Other times it'll be regular employees or like

(03:29:16):
engineers and stuff who can answer technical questions, and then
a bunch of Most of the people that you talk
to are like PR reps. I don't know who the
guy was that was at the booth when we first
showed up, because as soon as we said we wanted
to talk about their facial recognition cameras, he saw we
were media and he instantly did the PR equivalent of
throwing his buddy on a grenade. He like backed off,

(03:29:37):
He was like, let me get something for you. He
pulled his coworker over and then he fucking vanished. And
I'm going to play you a little bit of audio
of that, we're interested in what you have here in
terms of facial recognition.

Speaker 1 (03:29:49):
It's the cat too right over there.

Speaker 6 (03:29:51):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, what are you saying, because I know
right now, like if you've got pre check or oh gosh,
what's the other one? The independent company that we I'm
on a live interview now, I thought, so, I mean
we came up to ask to talk to a TSA.

Speaker 7 (03:30:05):
Okay, sure, yeah, sure, hang on just a second.

Speaker 2 (03:30:09):
So the guy we found ourselves in front of was
our Carter Langston, who is actually the Press secretary of
the TSA, and by god, I don't know if I've
ever seen a man less happy to see me. Eventually
we started talking, and I have to give Carter credit
for professionalism. His eyes said I despise you both on principle,
and I am enraged to be doing this, but his

(03:30:30):
voice remained calm, even and his responses were to be
quite honest, pretty polished.

Speaker 6 (03:30:37):
I'm kind of interested in sort of how you see
this altering the way we do air travel over the
next five ten years, right, because obviously right now people
are using facial recognition if they have pre check or
they have I'm spacing the name, but you know, the
independent company that does get you to pass the line
and stuff like they do, like facial recognition when you

(03:30:57):
are in the airport. Is this something that you is
coming more broadly to like everybody going through security in the.

Speaker 1 (03:31:04):
Future, eventually, eventually.

Speaker 7 (03:31:09):
So right now it's at twenty seven participating airports, and
it's not at every single we call them travel.

Speaker 2 (03:31:16):
Document checker podiums.

Speaker 1 (03:31:18):
It's not at every.

Speaker 7 (03:31:19):
Single checker travel Document checkerdum TDC, for sure, but it
is growing and becoming We're deploying more and more as
as funding becomes available for we're using facial recognition to

(03:31:42):
identify passengers. It's a it's a significant improvement over the
previous way we were identifying passengers just with the human
interaction looking at an ID credential and looking at it
based on what that individual knows about the fifty states

(03:32:02):
and territories.

Speaker 1 (03:32:05):
And how they could what their credentials look like.

Speaker 7 (03:32:09):
The technology actually takes that over and does a much
better job of validating the authenticity of that idea. And
then the facial recognition component with a picture still image
taking a picture of the passenger standing in front of
the travel document check or podium and then matching that

(03:32:35):
picture of that person standing there live against the credential
photo and making a match that way, so we know
that the credential is valid, it's true, it's accurate. We
know that the person standing there is also the person

(03:32:55):
on the credential. We can verify the boarding status and
the screening status of that individual and can provide them with.

Speaker 1 (03:33:07):
Where they should go.

Speaker 7 (03:33:08):
Next for their screening because the officer is able to
discern based on all of the information provided at the
back end of the monitor that they reviewed. They can
see all of those items have been checked, there's a
boarding status, and there's a screening status, and then just

(03:33:30):
tells the passenger where to go to follow up for screening.

Speaker 6 (03:33:34):
So I'm interested in how how someone becomes basically enrolled
in this right, because my assumption is at this point,
just the picture you get when you're getting your driver's
license or your state ID for the DMV is not
sufficient for a facial recognition system, right, simply having the
picture in the government space. You need to have somebody
to like get their face scanned, their irises scanned or

(03:33:57):
something like that.

Speaker 2 (03:33:57):
In order to have them in the system, right, not in.

Speaker 6 (03:34:00):
The system at all.

Speaker 7 (03:34:02):
So with the way we're rolling these out at airports
and check brains is once a passenger has been identified
and that and goes into screening, all of the information.

Speaker 1 (03:34:17):
That was captured is gone.

Speaker 7 (03:34:21):
We don't store any of the pictures participation right now,
it's completely volative.

Speaker 3 (03:34:27):
UH.

Speaker 7 (03:34:27):
Their signage right there at the checker podium UH to
indicate that passengers can opt out, they don't have to
participate and all that. All it happens at that point
is the same officer will UH will turn basically over

(03:34:54):
to the alternative process, review the ID, review the boarding
pass and allow the passenger.

Speaker 1 (03:35:03):
To continue too easy.

Speaker 7 (03:35:06):
So if you don't lose their place in line, and
they don't, they're not delayed in any way from getting
screen But.

Speaker 2 (03:35:14):
I'm in terms of like the people who choose to
use it.

Speaker 6 (03:35:17):
Right, So if you if you're in this system, is
it literally just comparing your face to the face on
the I D. You're not like en roll separately the
way you are if you are in like pree checkers.

Speaker 1 (03:35:28):
No, okay, no it's not.

Speaker 7 (03:35:31):
There's not a database associated BABS and so no, that's
that's not our use.

Speaker 1 (03:35:38):
Now.

Speaker 7 (03:35:40):
Some of the airlines have partnered with US. They saw
a benefit in it, and they're using similar technology for
backdrop for their Frequent Flyer Miles program participants. So that
is there's a database associated with that obvious, and so

(03:36:02):
those passengers are company have an entirely different experience. Yeah,
but the way that we're using it at the checkpoint
is as I just said, for identity verification.

Speaker 2 (03:36:19):
Got you caught that right? How he says participation is
voluntary right now? Well, I hadn't come across this information
at the time, but afterwards I read a fascinating Washington
Post article from last summer about Portland Senator Jeff Murkley.
Jeff Merkley says that when he was trying to make
a flight at Reagan International Airport, he was told that

(03:36:39):
if he didn't verify his ID via face scanner, he
would face a significant delay. Quote from the article. There
was no delay, the spokeswoman said. The senator showed his
photo ID to the TSA agent in cleared security.

Speaker 6 (03:36:51):
So basically he was lied to.

Speaker 2 (03:36:53):
Somebody lied and said you're going to if you don't
want to like be delayed and maybe miss your flight,
you have to submit to a face scan which is
one of the things that privacy advocates were worried about
from the beginning. But you know what, privacy advocates aren't
worried about the products and services that support this podcast,

(03:37:21):
and we're back. So I think when it gets right
down to it, the silliest part of all of this
to me is that the TSA isn't even claiming they
need to run faces through like some futuristic database of terrorists,
right like they want to scan our faces so they
know if this like bad guy they're tracking is in
the airport in Disgui, it's using a fake passport or
something that's not actually what it does. Facial recognition the

(03:37:44):
TSA is using right now, at least, just takes the
place of the TSA guy. You hand your ID before
you go put your shit in bins, right like, you know,
you go up and before you can go take your
stuff out of your bags and put it in those bins.
You hand a guy your license times your license and
boarding pass. He looks at it in your face. If
you wear at a mask, he tells you to take
it down for a second and then he lets you

(03:38:06):
go in. Right, That's what the facial recognition scanners are
actually doing here. That Washington Post article also cites an
anti facial recognition activist, Tauana Petty, who says that she
was told by a TSA agent at the same airport, Reagan,
that undergoing facial recognition scanning was not optional. So people
are already being told this is a requirement. And obviously,

(03:38:27):
as a spoiler for where this goes, the bigger, deeper
question is like how long is that going to be
the case?

Speaker 1 (03:38:34):
Right?

Speaker 2 (03:38:35):
So you know that's kind of the big concern, right,
is that they're saying it's optional now, it obviously won't
be forever, and some people are just going to be
told they don't have a choice, Like that's kind of bullying,
strong arming people, threatening that they'll miss their flight if
they don't submit to it, which makes me extra suspicious
about their data retention, right, And that is the question
we asked as the interview went on, where is the TSAs,

(03:38:58):
But where is the TSA's byometric data or really where
is passenger biometric data actually going to go once the
TSA has it?

Speaker 3 (03:39:07):
In terms of the information storage is is there? I
know I've been seeing more of these like signs the
more that I travel. It's I do a decent bit
of traveling for these for these sorts of systems. And
I'm curious with how this works for non US citizens
if because I know there's there's certain at least in
some of the technology that's being used by customers of

(03:39:29):
border patrol, they do store images captured of non US
citizens for a certain time period.

Speaker 1 (03:39:35):
They do take pictures of.

Speaker 3 (03:39:36):
US citizens when entering the country at.

Speaker 1 (03:39:38):
Lots of lots of airports.

Speaker 3 (03:39:40):
Are there are these two systems interacting at all? Or
is the TSA system and not customers about customs and
voter patrol system more separated?

Speaker 7 (03:39:49):
Well, first of all, I can't speak for customs and
border protection, but I can tell you that where you
we have two very different use cases. So in their
use cases very much oriented in the customs arena, and
then ours is as I just mentioned, at the checkpoint
and solely for the identity verification. And if an international

(03:40:15):
passenger comes in with a credential that identifies them, then
the unit would obviously accept that credential. It's a photo,
it's a photo credential. So again all that the system
would do is validate that that person on that credential

(03:40:38):
is also the same person that's standing right there in
front of the travel document checker.

Speaker 2 (03:40:43):
Okay, most of you are probably aware of this, but
the TSA actually does not have a good record of
protecting private data. Now this is not old man Robert
being a libertarian, it's just documented history. The TSA initially
claimed their full body scanners, which took what are essentially
naked pictures, never stored photos and couldn't transmit them. But
in twenty ten this was revealed to be a lie

(03:41:06):
when we gained access to documents that included technical specifications
and vendor contracts which indicated the TSA required vendors of
these scanners to provide equipment that can store and send
images of screen passengers. Now this was supposed to only
be in testing mode, but if it can store and
send images of screened passengers, it can store and send
images of screened passengers. In twenty twelve, a former TSA

(03:41:29):
agent accused his coworkers of saving nude body images of
passengers from the body scanner and making fun of them
in back rooms. He said that safeguards were put in
place to ensure the agents manning the scanners never saw
the people they were scanning outside of the scanner, but
that these policies were frequently violated. Basically, every privacy policy
they had was frequently violated by agents so that they

(03:41:51):
could make fun of people's dicks, Right, that's the story.
The TSA retired its old scanners the next year, replacing
them with a device that showed less detail, particularly provided
agents with less clear looks at people's dongs. In twenty
twenty one, a TSA agent in Minneapolis was accused by
airport police of taking dozens of photos of young women
going through flight screening. The TSA's record here, both in

(03:42:13):
terms of the agency itself and in terms of its employees,
is certainly not worse than numerous police departments right or
the FBI. This is something to keep in mind. As
frustrating as all this stuff is, literally every local and
city law enforcement agency has worse cases, and by gods,
so do the FEDS could make a case that, as

(03:42:34):
frustrating as a lot of this is, the TSA is
less of a threat to privacy than most other federal
law enforcement agencies. But that's beside the point. For one thing,
normalizing facial recognition technology in the airports is a step
towards normalizing it everywhere, the data that is gathered will
not always be deleted, and more to the point, there's

(03:42:54):
no way to know that the system isn't going to
expand in directions that we all find deeply uncomfortable as
it goes on. That's why you kind of have to
nip this stuff in the bud, especially since they're not
really promising extra security here. When you look at the
scandals of the TSA, a lot of it has to
do with the fact that they'll be getting tested by
some other law enforcement agency to see if they can

(03:43:15):
like sneak shit through, right, and the TSAO led a
bunch of guns or a fake bomb or whatever through
because people aren't paying attention. Facial scanners aren't going to
catch that, and it's kind of unclear to me what
they are going to catch. My other bigger issue is
that even though they say they're going to throw away
biometric data, they're not going to keep it more than
twenty four hours outside of special situations, which they do

(03:43:38):
kind of leave themselves an end there. The fact that
they say they're deleting this stuff doesn't mean they are
going to delete that stuff. And I brought up this
troubling history of like lack of respect for privacy, violations
of privacy by TSA agents in the past within the
context of this new system. And I want to play
Carter's answer for you. I am curious.

Speaker 6 (03:43:57):
You know, there were a couple of last mic or
six years, a couple of cases stories that grew up
of pictures, images of passengers who were on the body
scanners being shared, right like that said they were before,
a couple of scandals about that, and that influenced your
attitudes on the data attention policy that should exist for

(03:44:19):
the facial recognitions.

Speaker 7 (03:44:21):
So let me first tell you that we follow the
National Institute of National Institute of Standards and Technology their
guidelines and standards to a t. Not only that we
publish online our privacy impact assessments, so there are we're

(03:44:47):
very transparent in our use of this technology, how we're
using it, what we're using it for. And again it's
completely voluntary, nothing.

Speaker 2 (03:44:57):
Is stored and similar and it's simply.

Speaker 1 (03:45:04):
Which is really the.

Speaker 7 (03:45:05):
Lynch transportation security. Yeah, I mean we've got to know
that was who we're I guess going live into the
secure area of an airport is in fact it's a
person that.

Speaker 2 (03:45:20):
They say that so yeah, that's more or less how
the conversation ended. Carter was very happy to see us go,
and I don't think Garrison or I were particularly surprised
by anything we heard, but I did find it interesting
that he kind of confirmed the goal is eventually for
this to not just be everywhere, but be something that

(03:45:40):
you can't opt out of. And I do partly wonder
how much of that is them looking for a way
to get more data on people, maybe even to share
to other law enforcement agencies, and how much of that
is kind of the same reason a lot of you know,
AI style technology and kind of facial recognition does sort

(03:46:01):
of fall under that umbrella. If you're going to have
a general intelligence, one thing it has to be able
to do is recognize people's faces. So it is a
piece of that and I think that, just like a
lot of other applications of that kind of technology are
inevitably used to cut workforces. That's kind of probably the
chief thing the TSA is looking to use it to do. Right,
if you can replace the guy who has to look

(03:46:22):
at your ID, or at least most of them, with
facial recognition scanners that do the same thing, then you
can save on your budget right now. The downside of that,
maybe to us. The upside is it could be faster.
The downside, of course, is there's a really good chance
it won't be. The robot will be even more racist
than Asa age it might be. You know, it's one
less chance to deal with a human with whom you

(03:46:42):
might be able to talk something through. Anyway, Well, I'll
see where this goes, but for today, this has been
It Could Happen here, and I have been Robert Evans. Hey,
We'll be back Monday with more episodes every week from
now until the heat death of the Universe.

Speaker 1 (03:47:00):
It Could Happen Here as a production of cool Zone Media.

Speaker 5 (03:47:02):
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
Coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can
find sources for It Could Happen Here, updated monthly at
Coolzonmedia dot com slash sources.

Speaker 1 (03:47:17):
Thanks for listening.