It Could Happen Here Weekly 158

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Alsome Media. 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

(00:23):
you can make your own decisions.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
Hello, and welcome to It Can Happen Here podcast about
things falling apart and people putting them back together. I
am back after us for a lengthy court battle, have
been allowed to return to the podcast, which I'm very
grateful for. And I'm joined today by John and Haval,
two friends of mine who volunteer out here in Cucumber
a lot, a lot more than I do, and we're
going to explain some developments that have happened, give you

(00:51):
all an update on the situation here, and let you
know how you could help soon. Welcome to the show,
both of you.

Speaker 3 (00:55):
Hello, thank you, good to be back.

Speaker 2 (00:57):
Yeah, welcome back. If you'd like to just introduce yourself,
like your name, like whatever role you play out here,
pronouns and any affiliation with any organization you feel is relevant.

Speaker 4 (01:09):
So my name is John. I'm someone that lives in
the area. This situation just kind of showed up in
my backyard. I was kind of forced into it rather
than volunteered into it, and I've been dealing with it
NonStop since the beginning. Yeah, I'm one of the main
sets of boots on the ground.

Speaker 5 (01:29):
Have all I used, they them pronouns, and I organized
with Direct Action, Drumline and Zene Distro doing a lot
of mutual aid, which is how I got involved in
all this, and also with Alo Gelato helping out on
the ground since the beginning with John, pretty much just
a little after John started.

Speaker 2 (01:48):
So yeah, so that's what nearly six months if you're
not counting me. Yeah, yeah, wow yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:56):
So yeah, it started in May and then it stopped
during the summer time. It picked up again in September,
and we've been dealing with it NonStop.

Speaker 2 (02:03):
Since the people have heard briefly from John's father Sam
in our May episodes about Title forty two, which we did. Yeah,
it seems like forever ago. It also doesn't seem like
very long ago. It's just one big weird collapsing of time.
So last time we spoke, last time I spoke with Haval,

(02:23):
we had this situation where we had three distinct concrete
camps right adjacent to gaps in the wall, which volunteers
were servicing with food, water, warm blankets, were building shelters,
and we've heard a lot about those camps. Does one
of you guys want to explain how things have changed

(02:44):
since then, and really particularly in the last six weeks.

Speaker 6 (02:47):
So, yeah, it's changed quite radically.

Speaker 4 (02:50):
Actually, So between the months of September and December, we
were servicing these three camps kind of more or less
in our immediate area.

Speaker 6 (02:58):
It was pretty straightforward.

Speaker 4 (03:00):
Our routine would consist of stopping to each camp two
times a day and feeding people, providing them with all
of the different things that the US government was not
and I kind of wish things were simpler like they
were back then.

Speaker 6 (03:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (03:16):
So at the end of the month of December, Secretary
Blincoln made a visit to Mexico, and I suspect that
he pressured the Mexican government to police our border for US.

Speaker 6 (03:29):
One of the immediate changes.

Speaker 4 (03:31):
That we saw as a result of that was the
foundation of two Mexican National Guard camps at two of
the gaps that feed into those camps in our area,
and that has basically stopped any people coming through those areas.
This has not made any less people come into the country. Actually,

(03:52):
the numbers have been fairly consistent. It's just that people
have been forced to go in through other areas. So
there've been many many new oads that have popped up
west of us. We have to drive quite a bit
further into towards San Diego to go and service those areas,
the main one being Sliders, which we're seeing about two

(04:14):
hundred people come in sometimes in a night.

Speaker 6 (04:18):
It's it's not a good scene.

Speaker 4 (04:20):
Whereas those three ones that we were originally servicing had
dumpsters and porta potties at the very least.

Speaker 2 (04:27):
Yeah, they still do.

Speaker 6 (04:28):
They still still there exactly.

Speaker 2 (04:31):
Yeah, I'm moving at the speed of government.

Speaker 4 (04:33):
The new ones don't have that and people are having
to spend Well, how long were the people there most
during that crazy, crazy time, just like a few days ago.
I think they were up. They were there for up
to like nineteen hours.

Speaker 2 (04:47):
See it going on a day right now. Yeah, because
we first to back crack to people like we heard
from a member of the community that there have been
people seen held there right at sliders. And then we
went out there and we kept finding like warm fires,
like where people hopefully been there and built fires. We
could see where people have scavenged to brush, and a.

Speaker 3 (05:09):
Lot of documents ripped up around there.

Speaker 2 (05:11):
Yeah, the little hill signs, Yeah, yeah, all these signs,
And so we were able to use that to suppose
that was a place where people were and then I
guess was it. Eventually someone stayed the night there and
that was what allowed us we bumped into people there.
Someone bumped into people there.

Speaker 4 (05:25):
Well, we have an acquaintance that's been very helpful towards
the cause that lives just close by to there, and
he's kind.

Speaker 6 (05:32):
Of one of the one that sounded the alarm.

Speaker 2 (05:35):
And from there, it's like you said, it's a lot
more difficult, right, Like it's probably a thirty minute drive.
It's a steep off road, so like when it rains,
it's hard to get to, So that makes it more
difficult for us to provide stuff for people there. And like,
I guess people should realize that we didn't find out
about this because Border Patrol called us and said like, hey,
there are people here without food, water, or show they

(05:57):
don't do that. But yeah, that's not a thing that
they did.

Speaker 3 (05:58):
We actually did one.

Speaker 5 (06:00):
Another volunteer, Brendan and I were driving out and we.

Speaker 3 (06:03):
Stopped on the road.

Speaker 5 (06:04):
I don't think you were with us, John, but we
started talking to one of the agents because there was
two or a group of people from I think Egypt.
That was the day everyone did the mass exodus from
one seven seven. So we stopped and we're talking to
one of the agents and he did slip that there
was another camp. He didn't name it, didn't say where
it was, he just said it was that way. And
that was around the same time that Morgan had mentioned

(06:26):
it to us. So it's you know, we kind of
pulled it out of this agent because we were talking
very nonchalantly with him and he was being generally nice.

Speaker 3 (06:33):
But yeah, they don't tell us about this stuff.

Speaker 2 (06:37):
Yeah, and we have to find him myself. And what
I think that brings up is that there are potentially.

Speaker 6 (06:42):
More, right we think know for a fact there are.

Speaker 2 (06:44):
We know that there are more, and like I think
it's obviously people and people think of California and I
think of La and I think of San Diego and
they think of the beach and like pleasant weather. But
can you explain, like, it's been really cold out here.
I'm pretty miserable right with the wet weather we've been having.

Speaker 4 (07:00):
Pretty unknown part of southern California. You know, we're a
mountainous region just just east of San Diego, within San
Diego County. It's I mean it's not it's not crazy high.
It's you know, it's about on an average of three
thousand or four thousand feet above sea level. But yeah,
it gets very windy over here, gets very unpleasant. It
often drops down of freezing.

Speaker 2 (07:22):
Yeah, and that's if you're out there all night and
you have any shelter and any anyway to get warm
and you're potentially wet from crossing a river or crossing
a stream that often pops up in the desert. Can
be a really miserable situation. So, like, it's important that
these people receive help. And right now it's just through
word of mouth and the local community that we're able
to find them right and give them that help.

Speaker 6 (07:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (07:43):
Yeah, So going forward, like we've seen like this movement
of migration west, what does that mean for the ability
of volunteers to provide services to migrants, And what does
it mean for the safety Like you said that the
push factors haven't changed, right, So people are still coming here.

(08:03):
They still have things to get away from that lead
them to come here, but they're not coming the same
way where we could so easily help them in these
three concrete sites.

Speaker 4 (08:13):
So like, what does that mean, Well, it's uh, takes
a lot more time out of our day just to
drive there. For one, the main one, Sliders is up
a very shitty road.

Speaker 5 (08:24):
Yeah, so I think they call it sliders because it's
so muddy and slidy over there when you're trying to
be Yeah.

Speaker 2 (08:30):
I put someone's head into the roof of my trucks
driving that so long ago.

Speaker 4 (08:34):
Yeah, And uh, you know, we're not the only ones
that are displeased with this. It's more it makes the
life for the border patrol more difficult, makes life for
the emergency medical services more difficult, and of course it
makes life for the migrants more miserable. And the owner
of the property and the owners of the property in
which they're hosting these you know, detaining these migrants.

Speaker 2 (08:54):
Yeah, we I think every single one has been on
private property, so far right. And I think we spoke
to most of the property owners at this point and
it just seems to come out of the blue at them.
It's it's very.

Speaker 6 (09:04):
Strange, permission is never sought.

Speaker 2 (09:07):
Yeah, and I think one of them is suing the
Border Patrol for it, but fake months. But obviously it
does have an impact on a landscape as well. People
understand to be a coal so they're cutting down whatever
they can to burn to make shelter, to make their
experience a little bit less miserable.

Speaker 6 (09:22):
So that's the Yeah, that's that's kind of a.

Speaker 4 (09:25):
Bargaining tool that we try and use when trying to
convince the property owners to allow us to build shelters
over there. It's just to try and convince them that
it'll be good for them to have migrants not be
in a position to be forced to have to cut
down the vegetation on their land and trash their land.
And you know, by allowing us to build shelters on

(09:46):
their property and give firewood to the to the to
the migrants that are being held on their property, it's
better for them in the long run.

Speaker 6 (09:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (09:55):
And the first time we went out there, they had
created these shelters by just ripping brush and creating these
like semi circles that were maybe about a footage.

Speaker 6 (10:02):
Some of them are very impressive. Yeah, yeah, like.

Speaker 5 (10:04):
Two three feet high and it was nice, you know,
and enclosed, so they had some sort of shelter. But yeah,
they had to rip all that from the vegetation around
the area, which just ruins the ecosystem there, I'm sure.

Speaker 2 (10:15):
Yeah, and it must tear up your hands as well.
It goes slowly bushes and stuff. Yeah, yeah, it's not
desirable for anyone talking of things aren't desirable. We unfortunately
have to take an advertising break, so we will do that.
Hit some stuff that you don't need. All right, we're back.

(10:40):
Those are some products and services. Now we're going to
talk about the way John being very local to Kumba, right,
how it is like organizing in a rural community, and
the way that obviously you have people of very disparate
political leanings in the area, and like how you've managed
to like phrase what we're doing and to organize in

(11:04):
such a way that the very least people aren't like
actively pissed off at you.

Speaker 6 (11:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (11:08):
So, first of all, I'm a Quaker, come from a
Quaker family, and first and foremost, I am doing this
for religious reasons, and I like to try and remind
people of that. So when people try and come at
me with anti immigrants sentiment, I just try and remind
them that, you know, this is basically what you're supposed

(11:28):
to do according to the Bible, and you know, to
hate on any of these people is very Unchristian, and
when I do so, it's very hard for them to
come at me with any of that stuff. But still, yes,
for the most part, the community over here have not
been very helpful towards this. They have not been very
enthused with all these migrants coming in, and you know,

(11:52):
they've been very regrettably misinformed about it all. They're still
looking at various crazy sources for their new use, like
YouTube channels and stuff like that, and it's kind of
kind of hard to believe. It's like, you guys live
in the area. You can just drive straight out there.
You can talk to me a person that you guys know,
yet you still choose to look up all these various

(12:13):
whack jobs on YouTube.

Speaker 2 (12:15):
Yeah. Yeah, we've had something of a problem with the
YouTube people, right, Like, there's a whole info, a whole
ecosystem of right wing YouTubers that I think probably most
folks don't know about, even if you take an interest
in other like right wing conspiracy stuff, as a whole
ecosystem of right wing border YouTubers who have been I mean,
describe what you've seen.

Speaker 3 (12:33):
Right, We've had like a new right wing fascist out
every day.

Speaker 5 (12:37):
It seems there's Oreo Express, Anthony Aguero has been out here,
JLR Investigation JLR, Roger Ogden.

Speaker 2 (12:45):
Was out here the other day. Classic.

Speaker 4 (12:47):
It's kind of calmed down though in the last last
couple of days.

Speaker 6 (12:51):
But there was a period in late February where it
seemed like they were coming out every single day.

Speaker 2 (12:57):
Yeah, just a different guy in a different lifted jeep.

Speaker 5 (12:59):
Yeah, exactly, just after that whole border what was it that.

Speaker 2 (13:03):
Take back our Border?

Speaker 5 (13:05):
Yeah, yeah, I got them all raled up to come out.

Speaker 4 (13:08):
Actually, what really set them off to be aware of
all of this is when Fox did their big piece
out here and they were out here for multiple days.

Speaker 6 (13:14):
Yeah, that's what kind of like turned on the tap.

Speaker 2 (13:17):
Yeah, and that's very common anyway you go on the border, right,
like Fox has a border reporter Bill Malugan. People will
be familiar with Bill Malugan from publishing a story in
twenty twenty which suggested the police officer had a tampon
used tampon put in his Starbucks coffee, which was demonstrably
false and didn't really very much look like a tampon.

(13:38):
You can google more about that if that's interesting to you.
But like someone who preps should have lost a generalistic
credibility at that point, is now doing border reporting for Fox.
And this is when I speak to people all along
the border right here Arizona, Texas. Yeah, the stuff that
Fox puts out very strongly correlates with anti migrant sentiment,
both both locally and with like these these folks coming

(13:58):
in and streaming and they're always asking for donations, right,
Like it's not a then they're they're not like advert
funded or like publicly funded like that. They're funded by
donations for what.

Speaker 5 (14:10):
Yeah, well, I forget the channel that Aguero is on
that he's constantly asking for the nations and like.

Speaker 2 (14:14):
Oh, thank you, you just dropped ten dollars, thank you
for the five spot.

Speaker 7 (14:18):
Other of like they're.

Speaker 6 (14:19):
Sitting in his car ling'. That's what they're grifters.

Speaker 4 (14:22):
That's that's what they're out there for every it seems
like a third of their broadcast time is spent asking
for donations, right.

Speaker 2 (14:29):
Yeah, Yeah, it's like a like a charity stream excepted
so it's the opposite of charity, I guess exactly, So
pay me to do hateful things streams. Yeah, And I
think like that as we get, as we look between
now and November, I think it's really important that, like,
the border will be a topic that people who never
come to the border will argue about constantly between now

(14:50):
and November. Right, Fox News will have reporting on it,
NBC will have reporting on it, like, and both of
them will have reporting that isn't anchored on what we
see every single day out here, which is a whate
variety of people from whatever the world who are having
a very difficult time right here and need our help,

(15:10):
right and we're doing what we can to help them.
So I guess what, like, people who are listening to
this will in the next I don't know how long
it is to a November, what six months, seven eight months,
they'll have conversations with their family members, with their friends,
with people in bars, whatever regarding the border. What do

(15:31):
you think they should know about, like, what we're seeing,
and like because there's this whole border invasion narrative, right,
and like, this is not an invasion. We were just
out joking with some people and helping them get their
firewood prepped. Like these people are not a threat.

Speaker 4 (15:48):
I think people often make the mistake of considering this
issue to be a political issue. It really is just
a humanitarian issue. Vast majority of the people that I've
talked to have very legitimate reasons for needing to time
into this country, whether they're from Ecuador, you know, you
know the situation over there recently there were gangsters that
took over a TV station, Or in Guatemala, where I

(16:09):
spoke to a man who told me that his children
with college degrees can make enough family money to feed
their families, or even in Afghanistan where people have literally
had the Taliban threatened their families lives.

Speaker 3 (16:25):
The same with and the Iatola escaping.

Speaker 6 (16:28):
Kurdish people in Turkey. I mean, the list goes on.

Speaker 4 (16:31):
Or you know, climate refugees like the Mauritanians that we
just spoke with earlier. Yes, they're they're coming, and they
have really reasonable grounds for asylum over here.

Speaker 5 (16:43):
Yeah, and it wouldn't be such an quote unquote invasion
if they were just allowed to walk through the port
of entry. This it's this process is so silly because
they cross. They could just do this all at the
port of entry. They really could be safe. The policies
just choose not to do this. Yeah, that's the part
that really doesn't make sense. It's like we're letting them
in anyways. Why do we need to make their lives

(17:06):
so uncomfortable, you know and dangerous?

Speaker 6 (17:09):
Right? Dangerous?

Speaker 2 (17:10):
I mean, John, you and I were on a water
drop maybe two months ago now six weeks ago in
slightly west of here, right, do you remember? We were
driving down to where we're going to get off, and
we met that family from Guinea. There was like, do
you want to just describe what you saw because I
think it was like, at least for me, that was
like I've seen it a lot, but it still emotionally

(17:31):
affected me.

Speaker 4 (17:32):
So yeah, there was a there was a Guinean woman
and her kid. I think he might have been like
what four or something three three? Yeah, and there was
also a Nigerian woman and you know, Nigerian speak English
and Guineans speak French. They weren't really able to communicate
with one another, and yet they were still traveling side
by side because they they just teamed up because they

(17:55):
were in a desperate situation together. One of them was
was she and sandals.

Speaker 2 (18:01):
One of them didn't have shoes at all.

Speaker 6 (18:02):
Didn't have shoes at all.

Speaker 4 (18:03):
Right, yeah, yeah, it's six weeks is a long time,
you know what you're doing.

Speaker 2 (18:07):
Yeah, well, you see horrible things every day.

Speaker 4 (18:09):
Yeah, it's been a very eventful time. Yeah, every day
feels like a news story.

Speaker 2 (18:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (18:14):
Yeah. And they just kind of sat on the.

Speaker 4 (18:17):
Side of the road and uh, we're out of breath,
and they were just basically asking us to help them.

Speaker 2 (18:25):
Yeah. I remember the little girl because we were obviously
concerned with the lady who didn't have shoes and trying
to help like bandage her feet and stuff. But then
I remember the little girl just wasn't saying anything, and
I suddenly realized, oh, this little girl is probably very cold.
She was like, you know, early, like mildly hypothermic.

Speaker 6 (18:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (18:42):
So I had her wrapped up in a little mylaud
blanket with me to warm her up. And it's just,
I know, it's just for one reason or another, that
was a moment where I was like, why on earth
are we doing this to a three year old? Like
what what possible reason could there be this three year
old girl to have hypothermia here and like the country
in the world.

Speaker 4 (19:01):
Who could possibly agree that this is a good thing? Yes, yeah,
Or another experience I had in the beginning of February
where there was this Colombian man who was in tears,
who approached me and told me that his daughter was very,
very ill, and he dragged me over to a porta
potty and she was there, bundled up with like nine
blankets or something, not really responding to my questions. He

(19:24):
was trying to contact nine to one one, but the
responder on a nine to one to one or the
dispatcher didn't speak Spanish, so I had to communicate with
them and navigate the whole situation. Turns out she did
have hypothermia. Yeah, but the ambulance would not take him
along with the mother and the child to the hospital.

(19:44):
So again it's another case of family separation. Who knows
what might have happened. They would have gotten processed separately.
He could have ended up in Louisiana and she could
have ended up in Riverside or somewhere.

Speaker 2 (19:56):
Yeah, and at that point, once again, it's not the
government or your tax is it were paying for those
people to be reunified, right, that's work that's done by
NGOs and modern trey organizations exactly. Yeah, despite the massive
amount of money we spend on And we were just
talking the other day about how they like the architectural
marvel of sections of the border wall right where they've
poured concrete at like a forty five plus degree angle

(20:19):
and spent millions of dollars for every yard of that,
and we don't have enough money to give this three
year old girl a blanket or to get that family
back together.

Speaker 5 (20:29):
It's pathetic, it's it's yeah, it's mind boggling. Yeah, even
today with that dude from Brazil. He came up to
me when we first got here, they were starving, wanted food, water,
and he was like, I'm sick, I have a fever.
So I hooked him up with some cold medicine that
we had in our medkit, and then later when we
went back to do the second round of feeding, he
got more food and he was like, thank you so much.

Speaker 3 (20:48):
We're starving.

Speaker 5 (20:49):
We were told to when we were dropped off to
wait in the mountains at six pm to six am,
so they were just hadn't really I don't know if
they were on the American side yet or how that worked.
Didn't really describe it, but had to wait in the
mountains before crossing, and so people are getting sick out there.

Speaker 3 (21:05):
We ran into that dude with.

Speaker 5 (21:06):
The dog bite on at at one seven seven. He
was just so we we always go check this one
camp because there hasn't been out since Squaddi and SNL
have put their camp on the other side. There hadn't
been a whole lot of people crossing in this area,
but we go check it periodically. In one morning, yeah,
we saw this man hobbling towards us as we're driving
down the road with a stick and we're like, why
is he walking like this? Pulled over and he was

(21:27):
bitten by a dog. He said he went to take
a drink of water and some dogs attacked him, two dogs.

Speaker 6 (21:32):
I think.

Speaker 2 (21:33):
Yeah, he'd described it to the wolf, right, yeah.

Speaker 5 (21:36):
Yeah, So we called the MS and they picked them
up and took them to the hospitals.

Speaker 2 (21:40):
Right, but you hadn't been there. It's a long way
to walk with a dog bite in your.

Speaker 5 (21:43):
Leg Yeah, and who knows, Bordevite might not even even
if ems them out. They might have just tried to
process them with the dog bite.

Speaker 3 (21:49):
Yeah get it could have gotten infected or infect toward us.

Speaker 6 (21:52):
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (21:53):
But just to go back on the mutual aid question
that you had earlier, it hasn't all been negative. It's
actually been a really great experience in which I've met
really great people from all kinds of walks of life
who have just joined together because they see a problem
and know that they're the only they're the only ones

(22:14):
that can make a difference. And it is a sure
easy way to be really important and make a difference
in other people's lives. You don't really need to have
much more than a good heart and a willingness to work.

Speaker 2 (22:27):
Yeah, Like, I think we should talk about that more
because not that some of us had some prior life
experience right working with refugees or migration, but I think
most of us just were people who were like, yeah,
this isn't right, and I am able to help, and
so I'm going to help. So can you talk about
like how people can help? And then, like you said,
I think I've actually got a lot out of this

(22:47):
and that I feel more affirmed in my belief that
we can look out after each other without the need
to control each other, and like we don't necessarily need
people with guns and badges to create a society that
cares for people who need taking care of. So prep
you could describe like how people can help, and then
what it is that you've got out of this that
keeps you wanting to do this.

Speaker 6 (23:07):
Well, first of all, yeah, we don't.

Speaker 4 (23:09):
We don't have a clear structure of authoritative structure over here.
It's we take ideas as a collective. Different people have
contributed different things. There's a woman that really nailed down
the PB and J making system and we've all just
been following her lead.

Speaker 6 (23:26):
There.

Speaker 4 (23:27):
Some people came up with the idea of having a
cell phone charging station.

Speaker 6 (23:31):
That was you, And uh, it's just the list goes on.

Speaker 4 (23:36):
And if you wanted to help, you could just come
by to the border, come to one of these sites
and just start distributing food or teaming teaming up with
us somehow, or by donating to the GoFundMe.

Speaker 2 (23:50):
Yeah, what's the good fund Me?

Speaker 6 (23:51):
John?

Speaker 4 (23:52):
So it's a go fundme that was set up by
my by my dad I don't actually know what it's
titled Cucumba Migrant Aid.

Speaker 2 (24:00):
Go fund Me had Cumba Migrant eight.

Speaker 3 (24:01):
It comes up Samuel Schultz. I think is by Samuel.

Speaker 2 (24:04):
Schultz, so you'll know because it has like fifty thousand
dollars on it and like maybe seven woods as a description.
It's like Google because not much else is going down here,
I guess. But yeah, people can help that way, and
we've had people come who listened. We had two people
this morning right who'd heard about it on the podcast
and it come and helped. Yeah, and it made a
really really great difference.

Speaker 5 (24:25):
Yeah, they camped out at the Sliders and really held
it down, which is really important. I mean for some
of us, we you know, like John and I, we
kind of do like a morning shift where we get
up really early and make sure to do everything that
we need to do, prepping sandwiches, checking on all the camps.
But a lot of people come in in the middle
of the night. Sliders had people come in what at
midnight or one am?

Speaker 6 (24:45):
Oh yeah, all throughout.

Speaker 4 (24:47):
A group came at midnight, a group came at like
one am, and then there were also more that came
at four am.

Speaker 5 (24:52):
Yeah, so like having someone on site camping, you know,
making sure that people's needs are met and that if
any emergencies take place, that they're taken care of, and
it's just that smiling face when they get here.

Speaker 3 (25:04):
It makes a huge difference.

Speaker 5 (25:05):
Like that dude from Brazil, like earlier he was saying
to me, he was like, thank you so much, Like
this is like this is humanity right here, Like I'm
a human and I'm like, yes, we will treat you
like humans here.

Speaker 4 (25:16):
Like at the end of the day, you know, these
people coming through Central America and Mexico, they go through
so much, you know, extortion, people ripping them off, just
feeling unwelcome throughout that whole voyage. Yeah, just having a
group of people welcome them into the country and treat
them with dignity is worth more than any bottle of

(25:36):
water or sandwich that we can give them. And you know,
that's that's the main thing that we're doing.

Speaker 2 (25:41):
I would say, I want to emphasize that people can
help in so many ways that you can send us stuff,
you can send us money, or you can just show up.
If you just have a weekend that's totally fine, or
a day it's totally fine. Or if you just want

(26:02):
to come and make sandwiches, that's totally fine. Like like it,
We're a very diverse group of people, and some people
have had more time than others. But yeah, everyone I
think is valued, and like you said, I think like
we're the way that we organize without anyone, like we
organized horizontally has allowed us to be so much better.
Like do you remember the day there was a day

(26:24):
when we ran out of plates and we we were
like down in Willow and it was just it was
like chaos. And then someone who just arrived that day
was like, oh, what if we put the beans in
a sandwich bag and give people? That was actually Peter,
who's back now after going on rowing it for a while.
But yeah, like if we had been like, no, I'm

(26:45):
in charge, we've been doing this for longer, then those
people wouldn't have got fed, right, But because we were
like willing to listen, then the people got fed, and
like we were all happier because the people got fed, right,
Like it worked better that way. So like as things change,
because like border patrol have said explicitly that they're trying
to push people west, right, what do you think, like

(27:08):
what do we need going forward, what do you see
like the situation being, and like it would be good
to explain the context of like the changing seasons here
as well.

Speaker 4 (27:18):
Yes, so I think what we're going to see more
of is people that are crossing in unorthodox areas, more
people that are hopping the fence, more people that are
cutting holes in the walls, just popping up all over
the place.

Speaker 6 (27:33):
So, yeah, it would be great to have eyes.

Speaker 4 (27:36):
Along the border, people that are willing to travel up
and down along the border to find out where these
people are coming through, because for the most part, we
don't know a lot oftentimes where these people are coming through.
There are a couple of new oads open air detention
sites that are relatively close to us that we can't
find even.

Speaker 2 (27:54):
Right, Yeah, like maybe if we had a super fancy
drone we could find them, or just boots on the ground,
nice road vehicle. Yeah yeah, yeah, then these are all
things that cost money that we don't have. But like
we've all put lots of miles on our trucks and
lots of miles on our boots trying to trying to
help out.

Speaker 3 (28:11):
My exhaust is falling off all these bumps.

Speaker 2 (28:14):
Yeah, my transfer case to competing. But like, yeah, if
we had more people, some of us could focus on
feeding people here because there was how many people were
there when we just left now one hundred and twenty
something like that.

Speaker 4 (28:24):
Yeah, oh no, actually probably more if you count the
new group. I think you know what a conservative estimate.

Speaker 6 (28:30):
Would have been maybe one hundred and forty.

Speaker 2 (28:32):
Yeah, So that's we'd made one hundred and forty sandwiches
to feed them today, and we'd chopped firewood and taken
that out and we'd be given all that out right.
That was after the same thing at breakfast time. That
doesn't leave much time to go meander along the border
and look for another site. So if we had more people,
we could do that and that would be really valuable.

Speaker 3 (28:51):
Also, if you have connection to firewood.

Speaker 2 (28:54):
Yeah yeah, yeah, if you're a person who can bring
us a lot of firewood.

Speaker 5 (28:58):
We have one homie right now and breaking his back.

Speaker 2 (29:02):
For us.

Speaker 3 (29:02):
So yeah, that's a definite big need out here.

Speaker 6 (29:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (29:06):
Is there other stuff like that that people who maybe
aren't here but have connections to or they could they
could send that's particularly needed.

Speaker 3 (29:14):
A nice off road vehicle, got one lying around.

Speaker 4 (29:18):
Firewood is definitely a big thing. That's that's a huge need.

Speaker 5 (29:21):
Yeah, it's getting really cold up here, and especially in
like sliders too.

Speaker 3 (29:25):
I think it's higher in elevation, so.

Speaker 2 (29:27):
So exposed to there's nothing between you and the wind. Yeah. Yeah,
it's very cold out there.

Speaker 6 (29:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (29:33):
But and and just other things that are that are
easier for us to get, but we just constantly need,
such as breads, blankets, bread.

Speaker 2 (29:43):
Yeah, yeah, tents, all these things.

Speaker 7 (29:46):
Right.

Speaker 2 (29:46):
The wind and the sun destroys everything that we've stockpiled
after a while, and we have to keep rempanking the wheel.
And then sometimes borter patrol destroys our stuff as well,
or sometimes some some chubs come and destroy our stuff,
which oh, the chuts destroying our Yeah, we should talk
about the destruction of the shelters before we finish, I guess,
just to end on a sad note. We was happy,
not because we built them again and they're fine. So

(30:08):
there were some shelters I think mostly they were ones
that had been built. What they were ones that have
been built volunteers. Yeah, and what joh and you saw
what happened to those shelters.

Speaker 4 (30:17):
Right, Yeah, So we built some shelters at one of
the sites at one of the main sites. You know,
it was very simple just by having of plywood as
the frame holding it up and then nailing down some
tarps on it with batons. It was It was a

(30:37):
nice thing. It stood up to the heavy winds that
we have here very well.

Speaker 2 (30:41):
It's incomparably better to not having a shelter there.

Speaker 5 (30:44):
Oh yeah, it's a completely different They're instantly use once
people across and it's awesome to see, like adults that
are alone will get out and force family shelters like, yeah,
you get it first for sure.

Speaker 6 (30:57):
Yeah, and yeah, we built those. It was working out good.

Speaker 4 (31:00):
And then one day the Border Patrol showed up or
a company that was subcontracted by them and demolished them
all using skiploaders and bulldozers and such. We showed up
the following day we rebuilt all the shelters and we're
really happy about it.

Speaker 6 (31:16):
You know.

Speaker 4 (31:16):
It was kind of a big fuck you to them.
You can tear down our stuff, but we'll just come
back and build more.

Speaker 6 (31:21):
Yeah. But then what was it like a three four
days later.

Speaker 2 (31:26):
Or the next day maybe I'm not the day.

Speaker 6 (31:29):
Two days it was close.

Speaker 4 (31:30):
Ye, some guys just showed up and they tore it
all up with hammers.

Speaker 6 (31:36):
They are finishing a tiny little finishing.

Speaker 2 (31:39):
Yeah, luckily they didn't really come equipped, like maybe.

Speaker 6 (31:43):
With the tools, they didn't really know what they were doing.

Speaker 2 (31:46):
Yeah, I think it's fair to say that, but still
it's annoying when you've put the time into building it. Right,
and Border Patrol didn't destroy contractors didn't destroy the shelters. First,
we were like, oh, maybe they're not using this, but
there are one hundred and forty people there right now,
like in the shelters that got rebuilt for a third time.
So like, I guess even we do appreciate people donating,

(32:08):
and we understand that people's resources are scarce, and like
the economy is bad and the rent is too damn high,
et cetera. But like every time we build up enough stuff,
we have to like we're always running uphill because like
stuff just gets destroyed either by the weather or by
the Border patrol or by volunteer Border Patrol judge, Like

(32:31):
we could, I guess desperately need your help. And like
at some point the news cycle will move on from
the border, and that doesn't mean that we will be
able to move on from having people to help here, right, because,
like John said, there were people and people always deserve
to be treated with dignity. Is there anything else that
you guys think that people should know about the situation? Here?

(32:51):
We wrap ups kind of chill. It is really nice.
I like being here. Come here because it makes me happy,
and my friends are here.

Speaker 5 (33:02):
Yeah, And like the Slider's location is located in a
really awesome like you can see down just past the
border wall. There's like a nice little train track that
used to go from us into Mexico, I guess, and
just beyond that there's like sheep on a farm in
the distance, like rolling hills, the clouds come through, and
like say, it's a really beautiful place to be and

(33:23):
to hang out. And a lot of the locals that
don't hate what we're doing are very nice.

Speaker 3 (33:28):
The people at the hotel are very supportive.

Speaker 4 (33:30):
And yeah, we're a great group, really good people. It's
always really fun to do anything like this. People are
generally enamored by our project and want to be involved
and come back a second time. I mean we're kind
of like cowboys. I mean we're doing this all on
our own. We're driving up and down looking at the
sites looking around and all that whole responsibility is on

(33:51):
our shoulders.

Speaker 2 (33:52):
Yeah, it feels good to take responsibility.

Speaker 6 (33:54):
It definitely does.

Speaker 2 (33:55):
We're doing this.

Speaker 7 (33:56):
It's like no one else will, so yeah, just do it.

Speaker 2 (33:59):
Like that's fine. It's very like it reminds me of
the punk scene growing up, but like it's a big
important thing. Get Like you said, Fox, every national news
network has been down here, every drifting streamer has been
down here. But the end of the day, it's a
few dozen random people who are actually the ones making
sure that people don't die here. For all the government

(34:19):
attention and for all the millions of dollars spent, it's
just us.

Speaker 6 (34:23):
Yeah, working on a fraction of the butt.

Speaker 4 (34:24):
I mean, it costs them more to fly a helicopter
for a few hours than we've ever spent.

Speaker 2 (34:31):
In our entire GOFUNDB. Yeah, and yeah, like we get
it done. We're very efficient, I guess in that sense.
But yeah, we would love more people. People have come
because I listen to podcasts and that also like just
for me personally means the world to me. Like most
of the time we just talk into a microphone and
then you can't really see who you're talking to us
unless you go on like social media, and that's not

(34:52):
always the best reflection of humanity. So like, it really
means the world to me that someone like listens to
this when they're driving to work or you know, going
on a jog or whatever I'm doing, and it's like, no,
I will I will go and I will help, because
I think that is how we solve so many of
our problems. Like there is a massive problem with people
not being able to afford rent living on the street
in this country, and we solve it in the same

(35:14):
way by just showing up for each other.

Speaker 5 (35:16):
And there's also different ways to get plugged in, like
if the desert's not your thing, it doesn't I mean,
this is like where the process starts as far as
like the spectrum of the whole border crisis or not crisis,
but the whole border humanitarian situation.

Speaker 3 (35:30):
We have going on here. So this is what we're
doing out here. But there's also airport runs.

Speaker 5 (35:34):
A lot of them get ditched in the airports, so
I think we all we got SD and maybe m death.

Speaker 3 (35:40):
And at last center kind of hold down.

Speaker 5 (35:42):
They do airport runs, border patrol just I guess at
night they don't drop them off like after ten or something.
They don't drop them off at the IRIS station. They'll
just drop them straight off at the airport. So they
need help being fed. A lot of them don't have
plane tickets. They need to kind of some you know,
people need blankets because they have to sleep there. So
we all, I mean we all we got is great
for that. You can plug in with them, and I

(36:02):
think Alochlado and who else is it? M Deef as well,
that's doing the Irish street releases. So when the Border
Patrol just releases them on the street, like a lot
of people just getting a cab and go. They have
the resources they can do that, they're already planned. But
some people don't have any money or they got robbed
on the way here, so they have nothing. They need
a lot of help. They need to figure out where
to go, they need a place to stay. So there's

(36:24):
the street releases, there's the airport, there's I think that's
kind of.

Speaker 4 (36:28):
Or or by just helping with shelters and organizations in
whatever city you happen to be living in. You know,
the majority of the migro well not the majority, but
a very typical answer migrants give me when I ask
them where in the United States they're going to? Is
New York City or Chicago or any of these major cities.

Speaker 2 (36:46):
Yeah, Lincoln, Nebraska. Yeah, it's gonna be Idaho, have fun.

Speaker 6 (36:54):
Yeah, it was beautiful.

Speaker 2 (36:56):
It was a guy have on and I met from
a minority ethnic group in Russia. We met in September,
Like I remember one of those first really cold nights,
and I was talking to this person and they were
in Pennsylvania and I checked in with them a few
weeks ago and they're like happily living in Pennsylvania. Can't
understand a word anyone else is saying. It's nice to
see and yeah, you can help those people, lily in

(37:19):
whatever community you're in. And like, if you're further along
the border, there's Aarha Samaritans, there's no massive worth days,
there's humane borders, two Songsamaritans as well. Right, yeah, all
along the border, you know there are the there are
lots of good people in Texas, right, there's a sidewalk
school and Blainoso Matamoros, the people at the National Butterfly
Center who are very nice people who we've heard from before.

(37:41):
Like all along the border and like all around this country.
There are there are things you can do to help,
and I want to reinforce it. It's not like this
penurius thing we do that's miserable and we all get
together and cry every night. Like we do have a
nice time, even though we have seen some really stressful things.
Like we all look after one another and held space
when people do need help or extra time to process something.

(38:03):
But it's a very supportive community and we support each
other through lots of other things, like aside from this,
and I think a lot of people in general in
the twenty first century America struggle with isolation. And that's
a thing that capitalism does to people, right, it isolates
us from each other. And so hopefully, like I think

(38:23):
this is a solution for me this this has been
a really positive thing, but like generally my sense of
hope and.

Speaker 5 (38:29):
Yeah, and like what we're doing this kind of does
it's disaster humanitarian relief effort.

Speaker 3 (38:33):
It's kind of with the.

Speaker 5 (38:35):
Way the climate is going in the world in climate
climate are going to.

Speaker 2 (38:41):
Get less common.

Speaker 5 (38:42):
Yeah, this will just be getting more common, and like
this kind of like preparing and building community and like
this disaster scenario is going to Yeah, definitely be more
in commons.

Speaker 6 (38:52):
And it's not that easy to do. I mean, it's
not that hard to do.

Speaker 4 (38:56):
You know, you just got to have the intention and
then you just got to get together and that's all.
That's all you really need to do.

Speaker 2 (39:02):
Don't think that it's like this. If someone had said
to us, what plus or minus fifty thousand people probably
have come through, I have no idea on the numbers,
but somewhere around.

Speaker 6 (39:10):
There, yeah, probably more than that.

Speaker 2 (39:12):
Yeah, if we like I remember in May when we
cleaned up the first o ads when we were like
when I first met your mum and dad, John, we
were cleaning up the first o ads and we were like, Wow,
that was a horrible thing that happened. That was really fucked.
If someone had said, right, well, between now and next March,
fifty thousand people will come through here and it's mostly
going to be you guys who are here picking up trash,

(39:33):
and that's that's all. It's going to be. Like it's
on you, it would have been it would have seemed overwhelming, right,
But I don't think people should feel afraid to confront
these big problems because like, between the group of people
who we've assembled here we've been able to confront this
problem and make it survivable and treat people with dignity
and bring some dignity and humanity into a situation where

(39:53):
there wasn't any right.

Speaker 3 (39:55):
No, yeah, And there's a role for everybody.

Speaker 5 (39:57):
No matter what you do, you can find your niche
of what know you makes you feel good or something
that you're good at, you know. Yeah, it's finding the
little fascists that destroyed our things online and doing all
that online footwork, or it's building shelters, or it's making
PB and j's or.

Speaker 2 (40:15):
Our friends made a website and made a really good website.

Speaker 5 (40:17):
Website, yeah, or even yeah, just being someone that speaks
multiple languages is a huge need out here, especially I
mean Spanish is pretty common, but the harder languages, like
I mean Mandarin.

Speaker 2 (40:31):
Yeah. Yeah, if you speak Mandarin and then you reach
out to us and when we can call you, then
that would be huge.

Speaker 6 (40:36):
Right.

Speaker 2 (40:36):
That can be really in a medical emergency, that could
be a life or death thing. So there were there
are a ton of ways to help and re encourage
people to kind of go off to they can where
can people follow along with you? Two? Do you have
like social media or anything that you want to plug.

Speaker 6 (40:50):
I don't. I'm gonna keep minding.

Speaker 2 (40:54):
The world beautiful.

Speaker 7 (40:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (40:57):
One of the how I got involved in this is
through members of a drum line that I am part of,
So we show up for protests, have been since twenty twenty.

Speaker 3 (41:05):
Direct Action drum Line on Instagram.

Speaker 5 (41:07):
We post a lot of different stuff from organizing for
Palestine to you know, we were doing a lot of
Black Lives Matter stuff early in twenty twenty and now
it's you know, kind of cross mixed with border raide
since I've been out here. So we occasionally will make
posts so you.

Speaker 3 (41:23):
Can follow along there.

Speaker 5 (41:25):
Alo Gelato is a good one to follow on social media.
Income Paul Wellness on Instagram Borderlands Relief Collective. I'm sure
a lot of the people listening already follow a lot.

Speaker 3 (41:38):
Of these people.

Speaker 5 (41:38):
But yeah, there's a network through all of that, and
so once you start following one or the other, we
all tag each other and we share each other's stuff,
so you can get involved that way and figure out
what's going on. Yeah, and the is it bored? What's
the website for? That's a great resource.

Speaker 2 (41:52):
Border Rade don't get helped to IO. I think if
you give it a Google somewhere somewhere around that you'll
find it. It's a good website. And like if you
face seen similar issues in your community, wherever you are,
whatever it is, Like, we've definitely made a lot of
mistakes and we've learned a lot, and so we've tried
to document the things that we've learned so that you
guys don't have to reinvent the wheel somewhere else. Right,
Like you know, you can be an efficient PB and jamaker,

(42:14):
just like us.

Speaker 6 (42:16):
Learn Suirly's technique.

Speaker 2 (42:19):
All right, thank you so much, guys. I really appreciate
your time.

Speaker 3 (42:22):
Question, Thank you, jeers.

Speaker 7 (42:44):
Welcome to It could happen here, the show about how
a small group of people are trying to keep making
bad things happen, and we're going to tell you what
they are. I'm Garrison Davis and joined with me is
doctor James Stout. Hello, doctor, Hi Garrison. Thank you for
having me fitted some respect on my name.

Speaker 2 (43:01):
Appreciate it.

Speaker 7 (43:02):
So today we're going to be talking about something called
Agenda forty seven, and actually we're going to be talking
about this this whole week. We've gotten a lot of
quests to talk about the heritage Foundation's Project twenty twenty five,
which is a kind of an a road map for
how a Republican president could change the country if they
get elected next year. And although this proposal is scary

(43:24):
and quite big, it's a massive, massive book. Yeah, Trump
certainly listens to these types of guys, but he doesn't
always like really like them.

Speaker 3 (43:33):
Oa.

Speaker 2 (43:35):
He does what the fuck he wants. And again, no
one controlling Trump.

Speaker 7 (43:38):
He kind of does whatever he wants, right, Yeah, And
I mean there certainly are other people like in Congress,
including the Speaker, who are definitely pushing this Project twenty
twenty five. And I think we'll probably talk about this
on the show at some other point. But Trump actually
has his own plans for if he's gonna be elected
president again, and we're gonna be talking about that, and

(43:58):
that is called Agenda forty seven, which I believe is
a subtle reference to the forty seventh president, which will
be him if he gets elected.

Speaker 2 (44:07):
Yeah, also the forty fifth president. So yeah, sell more
merch that way.

Speaker 7 (44:14):
So the next the next next few episodes, we're gonna
be diving into Trump's plans for if he becomes the
forty seventh president of the United States called Agenda forty seven.
He has all of these listed on his website, and
one of my favorite parts is that to accompany each
one of these, like policy proposals, he has a video
of him like reading out something on a like a teleprompter,

(44:36):
and he very often will go off script, just completely
and just start talking, which which they include the entire
transcript for underneath each video, which is just fascinating to read,
totally divorced of like how he talks. It's just amazing. Also,
all of the videos are embedded on his website via Rumble,

(44:56):
which is just amazing, an amazing stuff happening.

Speaker 2 (45:01):
It's perfect.

Speaker 7 (45:02):
So that that's that's kind of the uh, the overview
of what we're gonna be doing this next week and
why and the reason why I have James here. James
you you you work in education, right I do?

Speaker 2 (45:13):
I do some educating.

Speaker 7 (45:14):
Yeah, so you have you have opinions on education, I
would assume.

Speaker 2 (45:19):
Yeah strong ones as a doctor, yeah yeah, a doctor
of mond European history. Just to be clear before anyone, yes,
pictures of their illnesses, please don't.

Speaker 7 (45:28):
So, I'm gonna be talking about Trump's plan for education,
and by the end we can see if it gets
the James Stout approval. As someone who works in education.

Speaker 2 (45:38):
Yeah yeah, I mean, I'm up in minded. Let's see
what he's got.

Speaker 7 (45:43):
So Trump, Now, the problem with us doing these episodes
is that all of these are like videos right for
his policy proposals. And I don't want to subject to you,
the listener, to just videos of Trump talking.

Speaker 6 (45:54):
I don't.

Speaker 7 (45:55):
You don't need to hear that. But there's a part
of me, just deep down, a shameful part of that
when I'm reading these quotes, I really want to like
slip into like a like a bad transgender Trump impression,
which I've tried to suppress. I've tried to suppress the surge,
but every once in a while, it just it just
sneaks out. So as I'm going through these quotes, I

(46:17):
cannot promise that that certain things might start happening. And
it's just it's just a part of the deal.

Speaker 2 (46:24):
You've been possessed by the spirit of Donald Trump.

Speaker 7 (46:26):
Oh God. So on this note, Trump opens his education
proposal with this line quote, our public schools have been
taken over by the radical left maniacs, which really sets
a tone for the rest of what we're gonna be
talking about today.

Speaker 2 (46:44):
I do want a highlight that I've been trying for
more than a decade, But obviously it's about people have
been more successful than me in that regard.

Speaker 7 (46:51):
So over these next like twenty five minutes, I'm gonna
try to explain what he calls his quote plan to
save American education and give power back to American parents
and the American parents line is going to be a
reoccurring trend here. So in kind of a broad overview,

(47:11):
Trump believes that regular public schools, as well as colleges
and universities are just so far gone to not only
require like massive, massive regressive changes, but also frankly whole
new alternatives are needed, which leads us to our first
policy proposal. So Trump says that Americans are horrified that

(47:34):
quote once respected universities express support for the savages and
jihattists who attacked Israel unquote. So that's obviously not great there.
It is savages, very very quick, just immediate, immediately getting
this sort of stuff. Despite spending more money on higher
education than any other country, schools are quote turning our

(47:56):
students into communists and terrorists and sympathize of many many
different dimensions. What does that even mean. They're sympathizing with
the alternate dimensions, you know, the oh I see the
near universe version. They're gaining too much sympathy. Yeah, as
well as turning into communists and terrorists.

Speaker 2 (48:18):
To be fair, he is right that like one of
the areas where you will find like the the few whole. No,
actually Twitter is the other area, unreconstructed Marxist leninists.

Speaker 7 (48:28):
He's in the Academy that it's there and on x
dot com formerly known as Twitter. So to combat this
communist and savage and g hottest incursion into universities, Trump
is proposing something quote unquote dramatically different. His plan is
to seize quote billions and billions unquote of dollars through taxes,

(48:50):
finds in lawsuits against quote excessively large private university endowments unquote,
and use that money to quote endow a new institution
called the American Academy unquote.

Speaker 2 (49:03):
That's already the American Academy's already. But is he spending
it with an E or or it's why? Like no,
it's why, Okay, So it's a place not like the institution.

Speaker 7 (49:14):
So the American Academy will seek to quote make a
truly world class education avaiable to every American free of charge,
without adding a single dime to the federal debt. And
then to do this, quote, the institution will gather an
entire universe of the highest quality educational content unquote. And

(49:34):
I love the phrase educational content.

Speaker 2 (49:37):
Yeah, this is this sounds like the short prayer you
videos that.

Speaker 7 (49:43):
Yeah, what are you like? You're starting to You're starting
to suspect certain things, right like, Yeah, what do you
think the American Academy is going to be here? Based
on the limited information you have?

Speaker 2 (49:53):
Yeah, it doesn't seem like a credible university, does it.
It seems to look like if you're.

Speaker 7 (49:58):
World made, that's education.

Speaker 2 (50:00):
Maybe it's what Barry Weiss is doing in Texas, you know,
maybe she's gonna be helming the American Academy. It sounds
like Jordan Peterston's Grift University.

Speaker 7 (50:10):
It's a world class education after you gather an entire
universe of the highest quality educational content. So this content,
Trump claims will quote cover the full spectrum of human
knowledge and skills and make that material available to every
American citizen online for free. Unquote that's just a library.

(50:32):
Where he's describing as a library, we already have those,
not quite the content. It's not just a library because
quote the Academy will utilize the latest breakthrough in computing unquote,
as well as study groups, mentors, and industry partners to
provide a truly quote top tier education option for the people.

(50:57):
For the next part, I have to do it in
the Trump voice, because otherwise the grammar won't make any sense.
Whether you want lectures or an ancient history, or an
introduction to financial accounting or a trading at a skilled trade,
the goal will be to deliver it and get it
done properly. I love the phrase whether you want lectures

(51:18):
or an ancient history?

Speaker 2 (51:20):
Yeah, yeah, Like you can give yourself a history, like
you could go back to Samaria and it'sert yourself.

Speaker 7 (51:26):
Whether you want lectures or an ancient history, or an
introduction to financial accounting or training in a skilled trade.
So you will be able to learn all of this
online for free, getting a truly topp tier education, which
sounds like okay, But Trump specified that your American Academy
education will be quote unquote strictly non political unquote.

Speaker 2 (51:51):
Good.

Speaker 7 (51:52):
I'm really excited to learn an ancient history from a
strictly non political standpoint. That's that's great.

Speaker 2 (52:00):
We can't discuss the formation of the state because there
will be a political stance.

Speaker 7 (52:05):
Furthermore, Donald Trump promised that at American Academy quote, there
will be no wokeness or jihadism allowed. None of that's
going to be allowed.

Speaker 2 (52:16):
How will I teach without jihadism? My personal jahad is
is to educate the youth of America, But now I
can't by taking it.

Speaker 7 (52:26):
Sorry, not allowed, not allowed, going to Trump, very sad,
very sad. So this plan also seeks to help the
forty million Americans who have some college education but no
complete degree, by granting credit for past course work at
quote unquote legacy institutions and giving Americans quote the chance
to complete your education at the American Academy for free

(52:47):
and much more quickly than is now possible or available unquote.
So now, if there weren't red flags going off already,
there certainly should be now with that last line, more
quickly that is now possible or available, which is which
is a classic tell of an online university scam. Now,
the exact details of how the American academy is supposed

(53:09):
to work. Are kind of unclear, probably because it hasn't
been figured out yet because it's bush and quite possibly
never will get figured out.

Speaker 2 (53:18):
Yeah, many such cases and Agenda forty seven as it
turns out.

Speaker 7 (53:21):
But Trump University founder Donald Trump did say that his
American Academy proposal does plan to quote compete directly with
existing and very costly four year university systems by granting
students degree credentials that the US government and all federal
contractors will henceforth recognize.

Speaker 2 (53:43):
The other, recognize them as fucking useless.

Speaker 7 (53:47):
Not degrees. Degree credentials. Yeah, degree credentials.

Speaker 2 (53:54):
Gonna put my degree credential up on my wall.

Speaker 7 (53:56):
This is just another Trump University, an uncredited scale that
Trump is hoping to prop up with the federal government,
this time instead of his business empire. It's it's not
it's it's not his entire thing, isn't it, Like, yes,
that is the whole thing. It's not real. It's not real.
He's he's framing this plan as a quote unquote revolution
in higher education that will provide life changing opportunities by

(54:19):
awarding American citizens with quote the full and complete equilovent
of a bachelor's degree.

Speaker 2 (54:29):
I love it when he just fucking sends it on
there's gonna be one in my in my episode, which
you're here later this week, when he just cannot say
the word film, and I love that he doesn't fucking try.
He just he just owns it.

Speaker 7 (54:42):
The full and complete equivalent. That's not neither. That's neither
full nor complete if it's an equivalent anyway. Trump Trump
ends this video with an eloquent quote, enjoy it, learn
from it, and thank you, which is just.

Speaker 2 (55:02):
I'm going to finish you on my legsures that way,
and then I'll do like a smoke puff and just disappear.

Speaker 7 (55:11):
So yeah, this is this is the first plan to
save American education. That sounds great. I cannot wait to
get a fully complete equivalent the bachelor's degree credential. Very
very cool.

Speaker 2 (55:25):
Yeah, wonderful stuff.

Speaker 7 (55:27):
But do you know what isn't a scam?

Speaker 3 (55:29):
James?

Speaker 2 (55:30):
Can we say that, like I we might be absolute sure.

Speaker 7 (55:34):
I trust my life on every single product and or
service that follows this musical sting we are back. Do not,
I repeat, do not send me any of the advertisers

(55:56):
that just aired. I don't care what they are. My
life is indebted. I don't care. I don't care.

Speaker 2 (56:01):
You can send them to you can send them to Sophie.
Her Twitter is at I right, okay.

Speaker 7 (56:06):
I write, okay, Senator Sophie.

Speaker 6 (56:08):
All right.

Speaker 7 (56:09):
So while this Trump University, too will remain uncredited. Donald Trump,
creator of the Donald Trump board game that did not
sell very well in nineteen eighty what, yeah, didn't you? Yeah,
creator of the Donald Trump board game.

Speaker 2 (56:23):
Yeah? Wow, okay, is it like monopoly? But you just
look lie and generate.

Speaker 5 (56:28):
I didn't.

Speaker 7 (56:29):
I didn't look too far into it for the bit.
I'm gonna be honest here.

Speaker 2 (56:32):
This is yah. Disappointed. I was ready to go to
deep dive.

Speaker 7 (56:36):
But Donald Trump also plans to attack the current accreditation
system for being run by a communist scourge, which leads
us to our second Agenda forty seven, topic titled quote
protecting students from the radical Left and Marxist maniacs infecting
educational institutions. But I believe he's talking about you, James.

Speaker 2 (56:58):
Yeah, which is ironic. I'm an akiss, not a Marxist.

Speaker 7 (57:01):
You're not an artist maniac?

Speaker 2 (57:03):
No, No, sadly, not many such cases, but I do
make them read the Communist Manifesto in my one oh
one class.

Speaker 7 (57:10):
It's okay, it's okay.

Speaker 2 (57:12):
You got to read it. You got to it. It's
something you should emerge from history education having read.

Speaker 7 (57:17):
So, Trump starts for talking about how quote unquote academics
are quote obsessed with indoctrinating America's youth at colleges and
universities while charging a ballooning tuition fee. Trump claims to
have a quote unquote secret weapon that he will use
to quote reclaim our once great educational institutions from the
radical left, the college accreditation system. It's called accreditation for

(57:42):
a reason. It's called accreditation for a reason. He never
extravolates on that. I genuinely don't. I can't fathom what
I think he means. That could go in so many directions.
There's no way to know. There's no way to know.

Speaker 2 (58:00):
It just leaves a hanging.

Speaker 7 (58:02):
So Trump explains that quote accreditors are supposed to ensure
that schools are not ripping off students and taxpayers, but
they have failed totally unquote, which is not really what
college accreditors do. Both government run and private accreditation organizations
exist to develop criteria and CONDUCTI valuations to ensure educational
quality and authorize if a school qualifies for student aid

(58:23):
programs from the Department of Education. That's generally what accreditation
institutions do. They don't look out for if students are
being ripped off, like that's not really their role, but whatever.
So upon returning to sixteen hundred Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, DC,
Donald Trump promised that he will quote fire the radical
left accreditors that have allowed our colleges to become dominated

(58:46):
by Marxist maniacs and lunatics. So he believes that there's
like communists that are running the accreditation system and that's
what's currently ruining colleges. That is his belief.

Speaker 2 (58:57):
They come in, they sit at the back, and this
is the right. The little book has to be read,
and then we have a criticism circle afterwards where they
check how many marked references you've made in your lecture.

Speaker 7 (59:10):
So after sending all these communists to the goolag, Trump
will then begin to quote accept applications for newer creditors.
Now it's unclear if he's talking about just like the
public or private sector here, but these newer creditors will
quote impose real standards and colleges once again, and once
and for all. Now what such standards you ask? Thank you?

(59:33):
James Wells. Trump gave us a handy little list which includes,
like some of the more average conservative to libertarian esque
positions like protecting free speech, eliminating wasteful administrative positions that
drive up costs, offering options for accelerated and low cost degrees,
providing meaningful job placement and career services, and implementing college

(59:54):
entrants and exit exams to prove that students are actually
learning or getting their money's worth, right, Which all that
sounds like kind of standard politician talk, right, It's like, okay, sure,
but Trumpe did mention a few other standards that will
be imposed once again by this new generation of accreditors,
which will also include quote defending the American tradition and
Western civilization and removing all Marxist diversity, equity and inclusion

(01:00:19):
be a regrets unquote. So i dei the right's new
favorite boogieyman that's responsible from everything from rising university costs
to botched surgeries, aviation incidents, and boat's malfunctioning in cladding
with bridges. It is it is the villain of the
of the conservative right at the moment, and so because

(01:00:41):
this has been a trending topic among conservatives, Trump's trying
to jump on this DEI train, which sounds incredibly dangerous
from their perspective because this term he probably never even
heard of before, like a year ago.

Speaker 2 (01:00:55):
Like, come on, no, I don't think he. I don't
think he implemented DII in his business institutions. I think
this is. Yeah, it's a word they say when they
can't say slurs. They think they've found a funny workaround
to saying slurs.

Speaker 7 (01:01:07):
I mean, that's this thing with like every time someone
says like like critical race theory, woke or DEI, they're
really just trying to say a slur. And if and if,
if you replace those three terms with just a slur,
their sentences make a lot more sense because the way
they use the word woke does not mean anything in
a lot of cases. But if you just replace it
for a racial slur, you're like, oh, now I can

(01:01:29):
understand what they're saying. It's it's it's a handy trick
that really is not fun to think about.

Speaker 2 (01:01:36):
Yeah, or subtle.

Speaker 7 (01:01:38):
As a part of this DEI frenzy. Trump has promised
to quote direct the Department of Education to pursue federal
civil rights cases against the schools they continue to engage
in racial discrimination unquote, which also kind of calls upon
like older, like affirmative action complaints that conservatives have been
talking about for years.

Speaker 2 (01:01:58):
Now, That's what I wanted he was going after.

Speaker 7 (01:02:01):
Yeah, it kind of it ties into that as well.
And and Trump added that this race based discrimination quote
includes discrimination against Asian Americans unquote, which is definitely invoking
that style of affirmative action conservative rhetoric from like, yeah, ten,
five years ago.

Speaker 2 (01:02:16):
Yeah, even more recent, when was that Supreme Court case?
Oh yeah, that was that was that was just like
last year Becky with the bad grades. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 7 (01:02:26):
So beyond just threatening to sick the DOJ on woke schools,
Trump also made the more specific promise that if schools
quote persist in explicit unlawful discrimination under the guise of
equity unquote, he will not only make sure that their
endowments be taxed, but also quote, through budget reconciliation, I

(01:02:46):
will advance to measure to have them find up to
the entire amount of their endowment. Quote.

Speaker 2 (01:02:52):
Did he realize that, no, no schools have endowments, Like I
teach you the community college, We ain't got an endowment.

Speaker 7 (01:02:58):
No, he's I'm sure that he's gonna go after like
the Harvard endowment. Yeah, that's gonna track. Yeah, I have
fun finding fifty billion dollars from Harvard. That's totally gonna happen.
But his plan after he seizes these endowments quote, a
portion of the seized funds will then be used as
restitution for victims of these illegal and unjust policies, policies

(01:03:22):
that hurt our country so badly. Colleges have gotten hundreds
of billions of dollars from hard working taxpayers, and now
we're gonna get this anti American insanity out of our
institutions once and for all. So that's cool, Like, okay, sure,
you're gonna use this to pay back white people who've

(01:03:42):
been if we've been denied college admission. Okay, cool, that
sounds like a winning electoral strategy.

Speaker 2 (01:03:49):
You have finally the reparations people.

Speaker 7 (01:03:52):
Yeah, exactly, exactly. You know who's had it too hard
for too long?

Speaker 2 (01:03:56):
Chance it's white people who didn't make it through college garrets.

Speaker 7 (01:04:00):
Uh, it's it's because they didn't get it's because they
didn't go to Yale. Now they have to go to Princeton.

Speaker 2 (01:04:04):
Yeah, embarrassing, right, why would you even bother?

Speaker 7 (01:04:08):
So it's but it's not just colleges. Trump also threatened
to quote cut federal funding for any school or program
publishing critical race theory, gender ideology, or other inappropriate racial, sexual,
or political content onto our children. We're not going to
allow it to happen, folks.

Speaker 2 (01:04:27):
Very cool, Great, Yeah, I used to teach a gender
sociology course forward to defund defund. Yeah, yeah, I know
we're going down fight together. We're gonna do that shit.
They will have to fight that way in don't say
that on air.

Speaker 7 (01:04:39):
You can't say that you're gonna turn your community college
into a you can't say that. So, yeah, he's gonna
go after school, regular schools, both colleges, universities, regular schools.
If there's doing any any CRT gender ideology, you can
tell that some of this was written like a year
and a half ago, because no, no one's talking about
critical race theory anymore.

Speaker 2 (01:04:59):
But yeah, yeah he missed it. But like, can you
imagine teaching a sociology course and just being like, yeah,
we're gonna skip past race and gender.

Speaker 7 (01:05:07):
Oh so politics past politics.

Speaker 2 (01:05:13):
Yeah, this is a man who himself went to Like,
did he go to Harvard or Yale?

Speaker 7 (01:05:18):
No, he did not go to either. He was sent
to a military school by his father when he was
thirteen for being annoying. Then he think he went to
a school in Pennsylvania, respect And then what other school
did he go to?

Speaker 2 (01:05:28):
Critical respect to his dad?

Speaker 7 (01:05:30):
He yeah, he went to the New York Military Academy.
That he went to Fordham University and then the University
of Pennsylvania's Wharton School.

Speaker 2 (01:05:37):
Oh yeah, Wharton Business School. Yeah, not a real graduate degree.

Speaker 7 (01:05:44):
So the reason why this is also evils because Trump
thinks that a lot of this stuff is basically forming
a new religion. All this woke stuff. Quote, the Marxism
being preached in our schools is totally hostile to Judeo
Christian teachings, and in many ways it resemblesablishing a new religion.
Can let that happen. I can't let that happen.

Speaker 2 (01:06:07):
One thing we take a big swing at is Judeo
Christian institutions.

Speaker 7 (01:06:11):
To combat this growing threat of religious Marxism.

Speaker 2 (01:06:15):
His administration, I'm sorry, I can't, I cannot wrote.

Speaker 7 (01:06:19):
Oh, his administration will quote aggressively pursue potential violations of
the establishment clause and the free exercise clause of the Constitution.
That's very simple.

Speaker 2 (01:06:32):
I think you quite understand before we met of that
that luckily we do Russian Orthodox Marxism at my university,
so we should say, god, yeah, well a lot of beards.

Speaker 7 (01:06:42):
So and then, in kind of like a laundry list
of policies and talking points, Trump pledged to quote veto
the sinister effort to weaponize civics education, we will keep
men out of women's sports and will create a new
credentialing body that'll be the gold standard anywhere in the
world to certified teachers who embrace patriotic values, support a

(01:07:05):
way of life, and understand that their job is not
to indoctrinate children, but very simply to educate them.

Speaker 2 (01:07:11):
No one's ever done. No one has ever created a
credentialing body for patriotic teachers who embrace quote our way
of life before, it's never been done.

Speaker 7 (01:07:20):
Their efforts to weaponize civics.

Speaker 2 (01:07:23):
Yeah, just imagine him looking for the Civics bill.

Speaker 7 (01:07:28):
Yeah, very funny, So probably distract him for a while.

Speaker 2 (01:07:30):
Stuff, I'm doing some actual terrible shit.

Speaker 7 (01:07:33):
A little bit with that last part was like indoctrinating children,
And this next little bit will kind of demonstrate how
stuff like QAnon didn't simply go away like some have postulated. Instead,
it's just been absorbed into the fabric of American politics.
No longer does the boogeyman have to be a DNC
pedophilic elite. Now it's been territorialized and destroyed and mutated

(01:07:54):
into just being any school teacher and or like every
trans person right or God forbid a transgender school, which
is like the prime evil of the current conservative society.
And Trump promises on day one of his new presidency
he will quote begin to find and remove the radicals, zealots,

(01:08:14):
and Marxists who have infiltrated the Department of Education, and
that also includes others. And you know who you are,
because we are not going to allow anyone to hurt
our children. You are, you know who you are. So
this is the weaponization of nearly eight years of QAnon rhetoric, right,

(01:08:34):
that is, that has grown past the ney to actually
invoke q and on plus the two years of the
Republican Party, The Daily wire and limbs of TikTok working
to shift q Andon's kind of disgrace and unfocused momentum
towards a manufactured continuation in the form of this transgender
groomer craze that's taking over American schools. Quote Joe Biden
has given these lunatics unchecked power. I will have them

(01:08:57):
fired and escorted from the building, and I will tell
Kung any appropriations bill I sign must reaffirm the president's
ability to remove defined employees from the job. It's all
about our children.

Speaker 2 (01:09:09):
Ute just imagining an executive order to remove someone from
their lecture.

Speaker 7 (01:09:16):
I am going to be signing an executive order on
this podcast. To go to another ad break, we are
back and thank you James Berg for reaffirming my ability
to remove defiant ads.

Speaker 2 (01:09:38):
Yeah, well, why you were all away that several federal
agents came in and in certain an ad break.

Speaker 7 (01:09:44):
In this last section here, we're going to return to
Trump's conception that entire alternatives are needed to America's broken,
woke school system, now focusing on the grade school side
rather than just the post secondary. So in this vein,
Trump is courting the growing now number of homeschooling families, though,
according to a Washington Post poll from last year, Republican

(01:10:05):
homeschoolers outnumbered Democrat ones two to one, so he kind
of already has the majority of that vote, but still
something he is going after. According to Trump, ever since
quote the China virus, America has seen an estimated thirty
percent increase in homeschool enrollment unquote. It's just a funny
term as homeschool in roll. Yeah, yeah, just going to

(01:10:25):
the homeschool to enroll. I'm going to be enrolling at homeschool.
Very funny an if elective president for a second time,
he will do everything to support quote parents who make
the courageous choice of homes school unquote. Again, the way
he uses home the word homeschool is unlike anyone else
has ever heard.

Speaker 2 (01:10:45):
Talk.

Speaker 7 (01:10:46):
It is a very odd use of the English language.

Speaker 2 (01:10:50):
Yeah, he doesn't seem to understand parts of speech like no,
just what won no.

Speaker 7 (01:10:54):
And Trump said he'll work to ensure that homeschoolers will
be entitled to all the benefits available to non homeschool students,
able to participate in athletic programs, clubs, after school activities,
educational trips, and more. He pledged that in his next term,
he will allow five to nine education savings accounts to
be used for quote costs associated with homeschool education. A

(01:11:15):
current five to nine savings accounts allow families to withdraw
up to ten thousand dollars a year to spend tax
free on tuition for private schools, which Trump called a
quote tremendous win for his school choice, very important school choice.
To remember that term unquote, that term never comes up
again in this video. Great, So Trump is pledging to

(01:11:38):
expand this tuition savings program to include homeschooling families as well,
with a very unknown system of checks and balances to
determine what exactly qualifies as costs related to homeschooling. And
often homeschooling is used by abusive parents to just have
kids do free labor around the house, and they try
to make it count as like education. And like if

(01:12:01):
you're now allowing parents to put money to a savings
account to remove ten thousand a year tax free spent
on education, like what does what does that mean? Does
that mean just curriculum? Does that mean like household supplies?
Because that's being put towards their homeschool because they're schooling
at home. Like very very unclear, and it's kind of
refers back to some of the general problems homeschooling, especially

(01:12:23):
in like conservative homeschooling or just as a large way
to abuse children, not in like the groomer way that
right wing people talk about. It's like, no, you're just
literally like limiting your kids' access to the outside world
because you think if they go outside they're going to
turn gay. So but even if oh sorry, there's there's
one one final quote from this homeschooling video, which are
just fucking phenomenal to every homeschool family. I will be

(01:12:49):
your champion. Do not vote Democrat. They're looking to destroy you.
If you don't mind me saying that Joe Biden can't
put two sentences together and yet he's looking to destroy you.
Do not vote Democrats. Do not vote for crooked Joe.
Vote for honest Donald, Thank you very much. It's funny

(01:13:12):
because in the video when he says vote for honest Donald,
he also starts to crack up because he knows how
ridiculousness is.

Speaker 1 (01:13:22):
God.

Speaker 7 (01:13:23):
Do not vote for crooked Joe, Vote for honest Dundald,
thank you very much, very very cool, looking to destroy you.
If you don't mind be saying.

Speaker 2 (01:13:33):
Yeah, if you don't mind me a man who rarely
asks permission to say the most extame shit.

Speaker 7 (01:13:39):
So, even if parents are not choosing to homeschool, Trump
wants to let voters know that he will fight for parents' rights.
Which isn't quite a dog whistle, but it does refer
to a very specific style of patriarchal rhetoric popularized by
hyper religious conservative think tanks. I propose an extremely narrow
version of how the American family should operate within society.
More on this later. But so, what can Trump do

(01:14:01):
to let right wing religious parents know that he will
be their champion even in like blue states or big cities.
As much as Trump might want to be a dictator,
he doesn't have unlimited power to impose his war on
wokeness in liberal cities. But Donald Trump, who was impeached
for trying to blackmail the president of Ukraine in summer
of twenty nineteen, does have a plan. He wants to
quote implement massive funding preferences and favorable treatment unquote for

(01:14:27):
states and school districts that make four specific quote historic
reforms and education that Trump has decreed. These four specific
reforms include abolishing tenure for K through twelve teachers so
that we can quote remove bad teachers and adopt merit
pay to reward good teachers. The second is to quote

(01:14:50):
drastically cut the blowed number of school administrators, including the
costly and divisive and unnecessary deibureaucracy. Third to ad to
parental bill of rights that includes complete curriculum transparency in
the form of universal school choice, and lastly, quote implement
the direct election of school principles by the parents. Trump

(01:15:12):
calls this last bit the ultimate form of local control,
something our country has never had, or at least has
not had for the last fifty years. So those are
his four reform plans, which is like, yeah, you know
who's had it too easy for too long, teachers. Let's
abolish ten year adopt merit pay a disaster of a system,

(01:15:32):
cut administrative roles to put more work on teachers, have
parents be able to fire fire principles by voting, and
a vote to elect their own principle, and universal school
choices is actually more of a dog whistle that it
just refers to a series of like very racist, like
urban planning policies to direct rich white people's funding into
a very few selected number of schools instead of where

(01:15:54):
they actually like live and instead of the actual district
they live in. So there's all of that, and like
what Trump keeps coming back to among all these quote
unquote reforms, it all kind of relates to complete parental dominance.
And part of this was the parental Bill of Rights,
which you've probably seen some conservatives talking about more these
past few years. And this is another quote from Trump here.

(01:16:17):
It's all about the parents for their children more than
anyone else. Parents know what their children need. And if
you haven't heard of a parental bill of rights directly,
you most certainly have heard of one by another name
that don't say gay bill, that was a parental rights bill,
a sensibly targeting education, but these bills often end up
giving parents just complete control over every aspect of the

(01:16:38):
child's life. They dictate how children are allowed to express themselves,
and allow parents to impose nearly any discipline or punishment.
They desire total control over what the child eats, what
they wear, what they read, what they watch, what they
see online, and what they're allowed to learn in school,
who they're allowed to socialize with. Some of these bills
that I read through for this also bar mandatory masking
policies and schools back when that was the thing, and

(01:17:00):
are often full of anti vax talking points and attempts
to ban sex ed and quote unquote gender politics. As
a part of these bills, teachers in school administration are
legally required to act as parental surveillance tools to report
how a child behaves, how they socialize, how they dress,
how they like to be referred to in who they
are friends with. This includes outing children as gay or

(01:17:20):
trands to parents if anyone in the school suspects that
the student has a non heterosexual sexual orientation or is
acting in any way inconsistent with their assigned gender at birth.
These types of bills often have other consequences as well.
In states where some of these bills have passed, like
North Carolina, due to legal risks, some elementary schools have
been unable to talk about or give out educational materials

(01:17:42):
on consent or how to identify when child sexual abuse
is taking place as a part of the Safe Touch programs.
These programs are basically unable to happen because teachers will
now be held personally legally liable if any parent objects
to this material so parental rights bills have been signed
into law in six states over the past two legislative years,
famously Florida, as well as Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Iowa, and

(01:18:06):
North Carolina. Since then, similar bills have been introduced in
more than twenty five states, many of which have passed
through at least one chamber. Some of them are still
in the process of either passing through a second chamber
or being signed by the governor. I'm gonna end with
two quotes here from Trump that kind of reiterate this
parental dominance thing that he's really pushing for. And also

(01:18:29):
people like Ronda Santis have been pushing for Ted Cruz
a lot of writing politicians quote as the saying goes,
personnel is policy. And at the end of the day,
if we have pink haired communists teaching our kids, we
have a major problem. When I'm president, we will put
parents back in charge and give them the finals say.
We will get back to teaching reading, writing, and math

(01:18:52):
called arithmetic, and we will kill our kids the high
quality pro American education they deserve. They're gonna teach you
math called arithmetic.

Speaker 2 (01:19:06):
Magnificent, amazing.

Speaker 7 (01:19:09):
We may spend the most. But we're going to be
tops in education no matter, no matter where you go
anywhere in the world, We're gonna be tops in education.

Speaker 2 (01:19:20):
There will be no bottoms in the American education system
going forward.

Speaker 7 (01:19:24):
So this is this is Donald Trump, the second host
of the TV show The Apprentice, who's run for public office.
This is his plan for education. Doctor James Stout, how
do you feel about about these education reform proposals.

Speaker 2 (01:19:39):
Yeah, it doesn't. It doesn't seem like a weird idea,
if I'm being honest, Having having listened to it, I
think perhaps he hasn't got the sharpest grasp on what's
going on in the education system. The reason we have
education is because your parents don't necessarily know what's best
for you, right, Like your.

Speaker 7 (01:19:57):
Parents can't be an expert in everything.

Speaker 2 (01:19:59):
Yes, so some of us go and get PhDs so
we can, and then we teach your people how the
important things about that like you, by definition, your parents
cannot fulfill all the roles in an education system fulfills and.

Speaker 7 (01:20:13):
Like unlike pink haired communists who have complete who have
complete total control over every aspect of what a child
should learn.

Speaker 2 (01:20:21):
It's one of the things when you enter the university,
you know, like they did a tuberculosis test and then
they pass you a pink hair dye and I mean
you get a nose piercing as well.

Speaker 7 (01:20:31):
A lot of this is very much reminiscent of like
the the fears of like communist education that you see
in like the nineteen thirties. How there's a lot of
political a lot of political tension trying to be raised
over the fear that there's communists teaching you in universities
and schools.

Speaker 2 (01:20:49):
Yeah, it's interesting because at the same time.

Speaker 7 (01:20:51):
Like Frankfurt school style stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:20:54):
Yeah, yeah, I've written a lot about like anarchist ideals,
educational ideals rights at the same time, they were anarchists
in Spain being like, you know, we should do we
should do all our classes in the forest. Let's just
go out into the forest. Or absolutely there was a
school by the sea where they talked kids like they
were just having this incredible utopian education dream, which in

(01:21:14):
many ways we still haven't adapted to some of the
things that that really could offer, and instead, yeah, we're
having this McCarthyism Part two.

Speaker 7 (01:21:25):
Well, great, that is Trump's plan for education. In case,
in case you didn't know, so watch out for those
pink cared communists. Keep an eye out for any parental
bill of rights being proposed in your state. And it
is probably has little little to do with actually protecting
children and more to do with making parents just complete

(01:21:47):
dominating force and controlling every aspect of their child's life.
And I mean the other sins we're thinking about this,
it's like it removes access to for kids to talk
about things that they may be upset.

Speaker 2 (01:21:58):
About, and access to mandated reporters, like exactly, a mandated
reporter like this seems to exactly it's away from that exactly.

Speaker 7 (01:22:06):
And and I mean the idea that that that schools
are going to be legally required to out a child
if he's if they're acting like perceived to be deviant
in some like gender sexual way. Like all of these
things are just ways to enable parental abuse in a
variety of like ways that are explicit and non explicit.

(01:22:27):
And it's it's it's it's it's quite it's quite upsetting.
And that's the that's the thing that conservatives are are
currently trying to push for. This is a big topic.
This stuff was talking about in the Republican primaries that
were completely useless, constantly stuff like this is something this
is referred to while invoking the sphere of like this
pink haired transgender communist teacher, which is currently like the
biggest threat to America according to most conservatives.

Speaker 2 (01:22:50):
Yeah, they're taking us down from the inside.

Speaker 7 (01:22:53):
That and jihadism, which are probably linked somehow.

Speaker 2 (01:22:56):
Yeah, yeah, I think, Well it's the pink head jahttiest famous.
Well that isn't for us today. What are we going
to be learning about next for Agenda forty seven games, Well,
we're going to be learning next about immigration. Don Donald
Trump's border policies. Many of you will be shocked to
hear that they're not very good. And well, I have

(01:23:17):
two classes this summer if you're if you're in San
Diego and you want to get in before they take
the Marxism out of the education system, you can but
strike now.

Speaker 7 (01:23:28):
I do love how I do love how much of
this is. Like do you know who's had it easy
for too long? Transgender teachers there?

Speaker 2 (01:23:35):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, the people who are so fucking
broke they have to have like go fundmes up for
their gender reassignment surgery.

Speaker 7 (01:23:42):
Great wonderful stuff. Yeah, all right, we will be back
tomorrow to talk about Trump's border policies. Things that will
probably be totally normal, totally chill.

Speaker 2 (01:23:51):
Yeah, it's very very similar to fucking Faddy. They are
similar to Biden's but that's a whole other just terpy.

Speaker 7 (01:23:56):
That's a whole other discussions. All right, See you are
the other side.

Speaker 8 (01:24:00):
Bye, Hello, and welcome back to It could happen here

(01:24:23):
in your daily dose of the horrors that are in
fact already happening all around us. I'm your occasional host,
Molly Conger, and I am delighted to be joined today
by the critically acclaimed author of Culture Warlords, journalist researcher,
sword enthusiast, Sandwich expert, and my friend Talia Lavid.

Speaker 2 (01:24:41):
Hello.

Speaker 9 (01:24:42):
Yeah, I once introduced myself at an event as a
Sandwich historian, which I think was the pinnacle of my
public speaking career. But this is a second pinnacle. Hey, Molly,
what's up?

Speaker 8 (01:24:55):
Thank you so much for coming on today to talk
with me about your new book, Wild Faith, is coming
out in just a few weeks October fifteenth.

Speaker 9 (01:25:03):
Right, Yeah, Wild Faith, How the Christian Right is taking
over America. Not the terrible b movie entitled Wild Faith.

Speaker 8 (01:25:11):
Yeah, the SEO is scrambled on that one. But the book, however,
is very good. I mean, first of all, I just
want to say, like I've been reading the gally copy
that you sent me, which I honestly made me feel
very fancy. I've never received a galley copy of a
book that's not out yet before, so I felt, you know,
kind of a kind of a broadcasting professional with my
special book.

Speaker 9 (01:25:31):
It's an exclusive club. You're one of like five people
thus read it.

Speaker 8 (01:25:35):
Oh my god, that is that's very exclusive.

Speaker 9 (01:25:38):
Yeah, well it's about to become a lot less exclusive,
so feel special while you can, right.

Speaker 8 (01:25:43):
But I realized while I was reading it, you know,
I have my little sticky tabs because I'm reading a
lot more books lately, regrettably not not big time book guy.
It's always reading. I read a lot of court documents,
but I'm reading a lot of books right now for
research for my show, and it's like my little sticky tabs.
And as in reading it, I realize I'm not marking
passages that I think would be useful for us to

(01:26:04):
talk about in this interview. I'm just putting my little
tabs on passages that just like punched me in the gut,
you know.

Speaker 9 (01:26:13):
Ah, sorry for punching you.

Speaker 8 (01:26:16):
No, but I mean, I mean with the way the
power of your words, because like a lot of what
I'm reading sucks. It's just right, Like I spent all
day yesterday reading like twenty five year old Issues of Resistance,
which was the quarterly magazine for a white power music label.
So this, I mean it's a real departure, So you know,

(01:26:38):
really just reveling in the richness of the pros and
the fact that it, you know, didn't want to kill me.

Speaker 6 (01:26:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 9 (01:26:46):
No, I also have experienced neo Nazi research fatigue, and
also just like the sort of relentless grimness of flowing
through these like fundamentally hostile texts, and also like academic texts,
which are difficult in their own way. I try to
write accessively or just like excitingly. I find that a

(01:27:07):
lot of especially nonfiction sort of journalism me books tend
to be a little dry, and I'm like, let's not
be dry. Let's be like spicy, and you know, like
form and function, Like you're more likely to be moved
by a message if you find the writing compelling.

Speaker 10 (01:27:27):
You know, it's just you have.

Speaker 8 (01:27:28):
Such a way with words. I mean, you know this,
You're a professional writer. I don't want to embarrass you
on the show.

Speaker 9 (01:27:34):
So I'm twirling my hair like, yes, but I do
write for a living.

Speaker 8 (01:27:40):
If you'll indulge me, if it's legal, if the publisher
will allow this. I just want to read this passage
from the introduction that I think is a good jumping
off point, and it was one of the first things
I marked because I was just like, oh, hell yeah,
we're getting into this. There's good words in here, okay.
The Christian Right is a force in American politics and
has been for decades, half a century to be precise,

(01:28:02):
during which it has steadily gained power. It started in
school rooms, continued in court rooms, and perseveres with the
aid of people who are perfectly willing to call in
bomb threats to hospitals and attempt to overturn elections. It
features self proclaimed prophets with a distinct interest in politics,
newly minted apostles with very definite ideas about spiritual battle
and its earthly components, and pastors eager to usher in

(01:28:24):
the end of the world. Its adherents have hymns and
devotionals and speaking tongues on occasion, and the showiest among
them are known to march their cities, blowing Ram's horns
in an effort to topple, as Joshua once did, the
wicked cities of the world. They have their own insular world,
their own media apparatus. They have legislators who could fire
in Brimstone's speeches from the badly carpeted rooms where laws

(01:28:45):
are made. They have lawyers too, And in case the
lawyers fail, there's always the promise of congregations that might
coalesce into mobs or arsonists whose burning holy zeal coalesces
into the tiny pinpoint of a molotop cocktail. And I
knew from the intro that we were in for a ride.

Speaker 9 (01:29:08):
Yeah, it's like cast of characters, the worst people ever,
but like, let's write about it in an exciting way.
I think that one of the themes of the book
is really how these extra legal extremist movements like the
anti abortion terror movement, and the legal framework of a

(01:29:30):
movement work together. I actually initially heard about this from
a friend who was talking about how, like during the
gay rights movement, you had sort of the act up
built demonstrations, the diants and then you have the sort
of like more respectively coded like gay people who you know,
we're talking to the government and trying to get elected
and you know, really trying to influence research, and that

(01:29:52):
every movement needs sort of a radical outside and then
a respectable inside. And I'm like, oh, this works in
like the acratic movements too, where you have like this
you know, fringe that's burning down clinics, and then people
steadily working for fifty years to like ban abortion, and

(01:30:13):
they have the same DNA and they have the same goals.
They just go about it differently but complement each other.
And I think that's like a running theme in the book,
is that like you have lawyers and you have legislators,
and then you have mobs and they're sort of all
working towards the same goals. And that's really what we're seeing,

(01:30:33):
I think, on the Christian Right after decades of building power.

Speaker 8 (01:30:38):
Yeah, one of the notes that I wrote down in
that vein while I was reading was that you know,
the Christian Right drives its power across a spectrum, right
from the clinic bomber to the senator, but it's not
you know, you might say the two sides of the
same coin. But to me it looks like this isn't
two different spheres of power too sort of separate but
coexisting or comorbid ideologies. They're just different numbers on the

(01:31:01):
same dial, right, it's turning up and turning down.

Speaker 9 (01:31:04):
Yeah, it's like the hand that lights the torch and
the hand that puts it to the you know, pire.
They perform different functions, but they have really the same goals.
And if like me, you view stripping half the populace
of its bodily autonomy, imposing a theocracy, hounding queer people

(01:31:29):
out of public life, slash into death as fundamentally violent goals, Yeah,
I don't think there's like a respectable iteration necessarily. There's
just cosplaying respectability and right.

Speaker 8 (01:31:44):
You can say it with a tie on on the
Senate floor, but it's it's the same message.

Speaker 9 (01:31:48):
Yeah, And I think so much of our media apparatus
and governmental apparatus is really sort of views like again
this like four and function, right, Like if you are
if you say something politely, it doesn't really matter what
you're saying, Like if you say something with a suit

(01:32:09):
on in the register of like you know, in a
calm sort of Mike Pencian, Rush Limbaugh and decaf as
he called.

Speaker 10 (01:32:17):
Himself a boy, She says.

Speaker 9 (01:32:18):
Did he say that, Yeah, that's what he called himself
when he read it, did a like evangelical radio show. Yeah, no,
no matter what you say, as long as you are
like white and you say it politely, like this is
fundamentally sort of fine. And then if you look at
it from you know, a step or two back, and
you're like, no, actually, no matter how politely say it,

(01:32:39):
this is like a violent, deeply unpopular theocratic agenda that
like fundamentally is incompatible with multiracial democracy. I also think,
and I keep running into this, like well meaning liberals
being like, but isn't there a separation of church and state?
And I'm like, I don't know. Do you fucking think

(01:32:59):
there is a in Alabama? Do you think there is
in Arkansas? And all of these you know in Texas,
Like all of these figures are like, we're Christians, We're
making laws for Jesus, and.

Speaker 8 (01:33:12):
We have covenant marriages and we want you to too.

Speaker 9 (01:33:15):
Yeah, like we're gonna outlaw divorce because of God. And like,
you know, women dying of sepsis in hospital parking lots
is what Jesus wants and like, and I experienced this,
I think you probably have to when you like report
on you know, zealots and extremists, and people inevitably wind

(01:33:35):
up like measuring other people's weep by their own bushel.
In other words, they're like, they can't really believe this stuff,
and it's like, no, they really do. They can't really
have these goals. First of all, they do, but also
doesn't matter, right, I mean the question of like impact
versus intent. First of all, I think it's perfectly possible

(01:33:56):
to be both a grifter and a true believer at
the same time.

Speaker 8 (01:33:59):
That's just synergy.

Speaker 10 (01:34:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 9 (01:34:01):
And also fundamentally, this is a world premis done grievance,
where it's this idea that like the world has got
one oh, we're on you. And so in a sense,
grift is just like, well, you know, the world's corrupt
and I'm fighting a righteous cause, So what does it
matter the ethics that I sort of skip on along

(01:34:22):
the way.

Speaker 8 (01:34:23):
I mean, once you've amped the stakes up to we're
fighting the literal devil and everyone who's getting in my
way is animated by actual demons from hell. I mean
the steaks couldn't be higher, so you do what you
have to do.

Speaker 9 (01:34:36):
Exactly, and it's this theory of power. And so then
people sort of standing outside of that paradigm who are
not keyed into this idea of like we're in an
ethical spiritual battle, like and we must create like a
kingdom of Christ on earth in America to win against
the devil, and then people outside being like, you're hypocrites,

(01:34:56):
and it's like it's not a valid criticism to them
because they're like, first of all, you're not like a
Christian if you're a liberal, but also like you're not
on our level, like we're fighting Lucifer and you're probably
a stand like on his team if you oppose us. So,
you know, a multitude of apparent hypocrisies can be excused

(01:35:18):
by the idea that like this is a holy war
and in war there's like all kinds of avert behavior.

Speaker 8 (01:35:26):
That's doing holy war crimes.

Speaker 10 (01:35:29):
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 9 (01:35:30):
I mean this is why, for example, you see a
lot of like prominent female figures from Philish Lafley, you know,
in the seventies and eighties to like the trad wives now,
and it's like, how does this fit in with your
overall sort of idea that women should be chaste and
submissive and meek and silent. I mean, first of all,
tradwife stuff is often fetish.

Speaker 8 (01:35:50):
Spanish content, but yeh, I mean pilish laffy made a
living professionally saying that women shouldn't make a living professionally,
but that contradiction doesn't matter.

Speaker 9 (01:36:01):
Yeah, I mean I think I call them valkyries for
feminine submission in the book.

Speaker 10 (01:36:07):
Yeah, I mean, at the.

Speaker 9 (01:36:08):
End of the day, like if you believe that this
is your your calling, your mission, you know, your mission
field in the service of the Lord to undo the
demonic sort of influence of feminism, Like of course you're
going to.

Speaker 8 (01:36:21):
Speak, You've been moved by God to do so.

Speaker 9 (01:36:24):
Yeah, And of course, like female leaders with the evangelical community,
like sort of minority Republicans can be like knocked off
their pedestal quicker and easier, but like they still can
come out and exist and testify and Schlaughley throughout her
very long prolific and lucrative career, you know, was like

(01:36:45):
I'm a housewife with six kids, and that was her
that was how she defined herself even while being this
incredibly prominent figure and one of the sort of key
architects of the current Christian right coalition of like when Catholics,
she and Paul Leric and Leonard Leo and some other
right wing Catholics brought these Catholic values of being all

(01:37:09):
about abortion to the evangelical right, which prior to the
seventies is like, that's a weird Catholic thing.

Speaker 10 (01:37:16):
You don't really care I.

Speaker 8 (01:37:17):
Wanted to talk about that. So I'm not sure how
sort of common knowledge this is, but the Protestant Christian
community in the United States did not care about abortion
until the seventies. It was not an issue in their communities.
They were generally pro abortion. They were you know, the
Baptists were in favor of Roe V. Wade.

Speaker 9 (01:37:36):
Yeah, the fucking Southern Baptist Convention came out in like
seventy four, I think it was, and was like, yeah,
we approved of rov Wade.

Speaker 8 (01:37:44):
So it's not like, you know, opposition to abortion is
baked into Christianity. It is baked into the American Evangelical
Christianity of post nineteen seventy five or so.

Speaker 7 (01:37:55):
Because of this sort of conscious cynical political.

Speaker 8 (01:37:59):
Decision, and that I think is so interesting because you know,
you get into this conversation of well, what are their
deeply held beliefs and do they really believe it and
does that matter? But we can pin down the moment
they started believing this and we know why, and it's segregation.

Speaker 9 (01:38:16):
Yeah, I mean, first of all, I would say, like
people can still like this is like several generations later
of like constant barrages of extremely violent propaganda against abortions.

Speaker 8 (01:38:28):
So right, so the belief is sincere today, but you
could look at it where it was born. Yeah, exactly,
you should have been aborted, right, Yeah.

Speaker 10 (01:38:36):
No, it definitely should not have been carried to term.
But like it's it's crazy.

Speaker 9 (01:38:40):
And in addition, Tomah's book Randall Baumer does some really
good coverage of this. So the sort of general arc
is like three sort of nineteen seventies, you had this
like generally conservative population of Southern Baptists who we're like

(01:39:00):
on board with McCarthyism, hated the godless Reds, but kind
of viewed politics as like worldly and not really their
sphere and we're not particularly politically engaged. And then brown
versus a board of Education passes immediately the white Christian
populist just disinvests these from the public schools, leaving multiple

(01:39:24):
counties in the South without functionally any public education at all.
And this mushroom after rain, kind of like patch of
patches of parochial schools with church or Christian in the
name start popping up, and they're all white schools. Their
segregation academies is the sort of term of art for these,

(01:39:46):
and they're explicitly under a Christian agis they're religious schools.

Speaker 10 (01:39:52):
Their tax exempt as a result.

Speaker 9 (01:39:54):
And then in like the late sixties and seventies, the
government was like, you can't be tax exempt and like
considered a charitable organization if you are segregated and don't
have any black.

Speaker 10 (01:40:08):
Students or minority students.

Speaker 9 (01:40:11):
And that is what woke the sleeping dragon of the
Christian right really like, you know, get your filthy government
hands off our tax exemptions.

Speaker 10 (01:40:20):
Like they just went, you know nuts.

Speaker 9 (01:40:23):
They were really mobilized, you know, like these are the
people who are like growing tomatoes at Ruby Bridges, Like
you know, they're really politically motivated for the first time
because they're experiencing like a consequence for segregation.

Speaker 10 (01:40:39):
And so this is when like Jerry.

Speaker 9 (01:40:42):
Fowell and Ralph Reid and you know, James Dobson start
sort of coming forward and being more prominent. And then
by the sort of mid seventies to eighties, you had
these like savvy or political operators coming out and saying, hey, guys,
segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever. Is like, it's great

(01:41:05):
that it really fired y'all up, but it has sort
of a limited appeal.

Speaker 8 (01:41:10):
And they shot George Wallace. It's over.

Speaker 9 (01:41:12):
Yeah, Like there's gonna be a ceiling on that, and
a lot of people think you suck. So why don't
you get it on the ground on this new civil
rights struggle abortion, where you can fight for the unborn
who conveniently will never.

Speaker 8 (01:41:26):
Disagree with you, right, their voices don't have to be
centered here. We can speak for them.

Speaker 9 (01:41:31):
I mean, they're the most convenient political constituency in history.

Speaker 8 (01:41:35):
Right because they're so innocent and you can't milkshake duck
a fetus. He's not even here.

Speaker 9 (01:41:41):
Yeah, he can't talk, but he's not gonna say shit.
So I mean that's like the very capsule history. And
then of course becomes this idea of like the moral

(01:42:01):
majority and where the Guardians of America's soul and we're
gonna get really weird about sex.

Speaker 10 (01:42:07):
Also, it's just.

Speaker 8 (01:42:08):
Like if you strip it all the way down to
the studs, Like the core of this is women are
bleeding to death in hospital parking lots because Jerry Folwell
didn't want to pay his taxes or stop being racist. Yeah,
I mean that's not fair.

Speaker 9 (01:42:24):
No, people sometimes like are a little skeptical when I'm like,
all of the hatreds are interconnected. But then you look
at like concrete historical examples of like this world historical
wave of misogyny.

Speaker 10 (01:42:37):
I mean, it's not.

Speaker 9 (01:42:38):
That this population wasn't like weird about sex or weird
about women.

Speaker 7 (01:42:43):
Like to start with.

Speaker 8 (01:42:43):
I mean maybe they would have gotten here a different way,
but that's how we got here.

Speaker 9 (01:42:47):
Yeah, we got here by just like, no, we will
pay taxes on our segregation academies. Bob Jones University's inter
racial dating ban is perfectly great, and we're gonna mobilize
about it. And so what you have then now is
just like fifty years of political lock step because and

(01:43:09):
you see this in like.

Speaker 10 (01:43:10):
Other religious communities, I mean, like I know.

Speaker 9 (01:43:12):
Like it's sort of notorious how much corruption slides by
in New York because like the consident communities vote as
a block, Like it is very useful to have a
congregation that all votes the same way.

Speaker 10 (01:43:25):
It's politically useful.

Speaker 8 (01:43:27):
I mean, what other populations can you get together once
a week as a captive audience and speak to with
authority if you can mobilize those people. And that's what
Jerry Folwell saw, right, is like this is a great
way to get a lot of people to vote the
way I want them to vote.

Speaker 9 (01:43:41):
Yeah, And you know, the church has always been like
a really prominent institution in American civil society, especially as
the rest of sort of civil society has fallen away
and degraded. Like churches are some of the only social
outlets that Americans have. And what's interest when you talk
to evangelicals and next evangelicals is just like being a

(01:44:03):
Republican is like part of their religious identity in a
major way. It's like this is how you vote, and
this is you know, how you dress, and this is
how you go to church and so on. But like
the idea of being a democrat is like not only
you know, a little bit out of step with your community,
it's heretical.

Speaker 8 (01:44:23):
I mean, that's how the demons give in.

Speaker 9 (01:44:24):
Yeah, yeah, demoncrats, I mean, and like, yeah, it's stupid.
But it's also like half of the people saying demoncrats,
like literally mean democrats are aligned with Lucifer.

Speaker 8 (01:44:34):
And I think that's a point that I don't want
to get lost on the listener. This you know, this
idea that people literally have demons in them, that demons
are active in the world, that demons are motivating the
actions of their enemies. It's real for them. And I'm
not saying that to be derisive or you know, it's real.
It's real. It is an animating factor for a lot

(01:44:56):
of these people. And that's hard to wrap your mind around.
I mean, I struggle with the idea that that is
real for them. But like that's how you get things
like satanic panic, and we see echoes of satanic panic
in this idea of you know, groomers in kids' schools,
they really have this fundamental, like foundational belief in this,
you know, whether or not they're calling it demons, that

(01:45:18):
the existence of some sort of ontological evil that is
coming for their children. And like, once you arrive at
the place where like where you understand that that's real
for them, their actions make more sense, like they're not
behaving irrationally if you if you truly believe that these
things were happening, you'd act crazy too.

Speaker 9 (01:45:34):
Yeah, I mean it's really hard to get people to
step outside their own worldviews, and in both directions, right,
Like I don't believe that demons are you know, abroad
in the world and motivating like every element of political
action to someone who.

Speaker 8 (01:45:50):
I'm starting to see them some places, but generally no.

Speaker 9 (01:45:54):
To someone who does my viewpoint is incomprehensible and vice versa.
So I think part of I mean not that I'm
like one of those people that's like polarization is the
big problem, like you know, as opposed to anything with
like concrete policy, like you know where it's like the
big problem is we all don't like each other enough.
And I'm like, no, the big problem is like people

(01:46:14):
are espousing policies that will cause deaths, and like also
that people like believe their political enemies are like literally
agents of Satan, I would say, is like a bigger
problem than polarization and the abstract. But yeah, I mean
this this doctrine of sort of spiritual warfare, which if
you like google it it's just like, oh, this is
the mindset, and it's like you the listener to it

(01:46:36):
could happen here, like you've been drafted into the spirit
war from like birth.

Speaker 8 (01:46:40):
Congratulations, private, and.

Speaker 9 (01:46:42):
You're probably on the side of the devil, so good job.
I mean, I don't know, like a lot of Americans
believe in angels and demons, and that's fine, but it's
like when that starts impinging on the political sphere in
a very serious way, It's like, how far would you
go if you believed your opponent was under the thrall

(01:47:03):
of like Satan, you would go pretty damn far's.

Speaker 8 (01:47:07):
I mean, that's why you know clinic bombings were and
I guess are on the rise again, right, like these
arsins of clinics. It's not like other kinds of crime
in my mind, right, it's not a crime of passion
or an interpersonal dispute. It is people who have been
motivated by this belief that this is a place where
a genocide is happening, that there's a holocaust going on

(01:47:27):
in there, that people are ripping you know, actual living
babies limb from limb, and if you really did believe
that their actions make sense and that's why it happens
so often, right, because these people are motivated by this
belief that God commands them to take this action.

Speaker 9 (01:47:41):
Yeah, I mean there's your dual element to that. I mean,
first of all, absolutely yes, Like I've read some anti
abortion terror manuals speaking of extremely unpleasant research, and it's
just really like these people are murderers. It's mass murderers,
Like you're like killing Hitler, right.

Speaker 8 (01:47:58):
And wouldn't you wouldn't you kill baby Hitler?

Speaker 9 (01:48:00):
Exactly poetical about baby Hitler and like a countrywide scale
and when specific abortion doctors have been mentioned in right
wing media, those guys end up dead and that's not
a coincidence. So there's that element of it, which is
the majority of it.

Speaker 10 (01:48:17):
It's huge.

Speaker 9 (01:48:18):
But there's also this idea of demonic geography, where like
demons can possess sort of places like abortion clinics or
institutions like Planned parenthood or even the Democratic Party, which
you know, I read a lot of demonology books like
Taxonomies of Demons. Pigs in the Parlor was this really

(01:48:40):
big hit in like the seventies, and it's been like
reissued and reissued and millions of copies and it's just like,
on one level, it's really compelling because it's like, are
you tired, are you sad? Are you feeling clumsy? Do
you have like persistent stomach aches? It's demons and here's
how you deal with that. And like in a country
with shitty health care, I can totally see why someone

(01:49:03):
who's like really depressed might go to like an exorcist
or a deliverance minister, which is the Protestant.

Speaker 8 (01:49:10):
If you'll try anything, and this guy's going to do
it for free.

Speaker 9 (01:49:13):
I watch so many videos of deliverance ministers doing their thing,
and it's like freezy. It's like people you know, are
just like sitting there and they're like people praying over
them and screaming in their face, like and they wind
up vomiting and crying and it's all very like intense.
And you know, if you think about it from a
placebo effect perspective for like one second, you're like, obviously

(01:49:35):
this person would feel a weightlifted from them. They've had
this ecstatic experience. And this isn't the majority of it.
This is about fourteen percent of America identifies this as
white avengels. So many Protestants, it's still so many people,
because people keep asking me, like, how many people really
believe shit like this, and I'm like, well, about eighty

(01:49:57):
to ninety percent of like people who identify as white
evangel Protestants vows most of these beliefs.

Speaker 8 (01:50:02):
So that's like, that's like thirty million people.

Speaker 7 (01:50:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 10 (01:50:06):
Yeah. And then you add in the Catholic.

Speaker 8 (01:50:08):
Right, which is getting weirder every day.

Speaker 10 (01:50:10):
Yeah.

Speaker 9 (01:50:10):
Jd Vance, I hate women exist to reproduce, breathe you
filthy sow. But like, even beyond the adult Catholic convert
style weirdness, like right wing Catholics are an integral part
of the Christian right, like Amy Cony Barrett, you know,
antonin Scalia, that kind of thing. That's another bunch of millions.

(01:50:33):
So this reactionary force has like numerically significant constituency. On
the other hand, it definitely punches way above its weight
in terms of right.

Speaker 8 (01:50:44):
They have an outsized influence of both you know, on
the legislative floor and when it comes to you know,
who's racking up the most bodies.

Speaker 10 (01:50:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 9 (01:50:54):
And also even like the culture wars right, like the
sort of loudest culture warriors tend to at least come
from like a background of I'm speaking for God or
Christ is king or whatever it is, Like how many
times have you and I encountered that an extremist contacts
But also like the sort of more mainstream me.

Speaker 10 (01:51:16):
What the fuck the mainstream is? I don't know, it's
full of piss.

Speaker 9 (01:51:19):
But like the more mainstream me, like Christian grifter, right,
they come from this. I'm speaking from my faith. These
are my religious principles. But like it is with noting again,
just to rewind in our conversation, but like the whole
concept of religious liberty and religious freedom absolutely was like
an ad slogan coined in the seventies around segregation, right.

Speaker 8 (01:51:43):
Religious freedom to do what? I mean, it's like states rights,
states rights to do what?

Speaker 11 (01:51:48):
Right?

Speaker 7 (01:51:48):
Yeah, like you answer the question.

Speaker 9 (01:51:50):
Yeah, it's religious freedom to have segregated schools, is the
answer to that.

Speaker 8 (01:51:55):
And you still see echoes of that with either still
religious schools that can't accept federal grant money because they
don't let students be gay, right, Like it's not racial
segregation anymore, but they are, you know, refusing to admit
gay students, and that is a violation of federal civil
rights law.

Speaker 9 (01:52:12):
Yeah, but that's where I mean that's where that slogan started,
and then it's blossomed to include basically like a gay
person came into my shop, except they didn't, right, I know,
there's no standing, right, Like that whole case was built
a lie.

Speaker 7 (01:52:26):
Whatever.

Speaker 9 (01:52:26):
That's yeah, it's like and the standing in the Supreme
Court is so ridiculous. This, I mean, in many ways,
this Supreme Court is the culmination and embodiment and a
botheosis of like Christian right theocracy, because you have these
like absolutely bat shit religious zealous I mean Amy Cony
Barrett is like from a cult, and in this unaccountable body,

(01:52:48):
they're passing unpopular theocratic principles that the majority of the
American public disagrees with. But like specifically what they are
trying to enact and what they are what they are
enacting is this theogratic agenda, where like the government is
in your bedroom, the government is in your doctor's office,
like the government is sniffing your panties, and it's it's

(01:53:11):
gross and it's upsetting and fundamentally like theocracies are just
very famously all up in your junk, like they're obsessed
with like controlling and censoring sexuality of all kinds of
a particularly female sexuality and queer sexuality, like sniff those out.
And so that's part of the reason why so many

(01:53:33):
abortion arguments, Like, first of all, you have the like
the you're murdering this cluster of cells, which is a
full human baby. Like do you remember that article in
The Guardian a couple of years ago that like showed
the actual size of like fetuses at various stages of development,
and it was like you were just like so little,
like these little like little fingernails.

Speaker 8 (01:53:53):
Yeah, and it doesn't look like a tiny baby doll.

Speaker 7 (01:53:56):
That's just very small.

Speaker 9 (01:53:57):
Yeah, exactly, it's not like a mini baby like it
like tides of gore. It's like literally like a tiny
cluster of cells. So the anti abortion propaganda, like you
are not immune to propaganda. It has like wormed its
way into the popular consciousness just by virtue of its
ubiquity and constant repetition being the key to successful propaganda.

(01:54:20):
But so many of these arguments, in addition to this
abortion is murder, staff is also just like you should
have kept your legs closed.

Speaker 8 (01:54:27):
Right, this is a this is a consequence God did
this to you.

Speaker 9 (01:54:31):
Yeah, like sex for your sins immortal sin and sex
should be punished, and.

Speaker 8 (01:54:36):
I think must be doing it wrong.

Speaker 9 (01:54:38):
Like, I'm like, why do you want sex to have
consequences and be punished? The like intensity of the misogyny
around purity culture is so intense.

Speaker 8 (01:55:00):
Ask you, you know, about the experience of writing the book, right,
So you know, your first book, Culture Warlords, was traumatizing
for you to craft, right, because you had to spend
so much time in these digital spaces in some in
some cases physical spaces with you know, neo Nazis, four
Chan guys, you know, aspiring terrorists, and so that's traumatic

(01:55:20):
to experience, you know, But largely that experience was alone,
like at your computer screen, sort of consuming this content
that was eroding your soul. But the second half of
this book is about child abuse, right, And like you
interviewed people who grew up in this movement about their lives,
about their husband's raping them and their parents beating them

(01:55:43):
as children, and like how did those experiences compare? And
like what was that?

Speaker 6 (01:55:52):
How?

Speaker 8 (01:55:52):
I mean, how did you prepare to do that? I
don't know even know how it would begin to do
that with care.

Speaker 9 (01:55:58):
I mean, I think my goal going in is like
I'm not going to betray you. Like that was my
guiding ethos of just like I view like your trust
in me as a sacred thing, not like sacred in
any formal religious sense, but just like you know, I
view your trust in me as something that I hold
very dearly.

Speaker 10 (01:56:19):
It's very important.

Speaker 9 (01:56:20):
I'm going to treat your pain with as much gentleness
and respect as I can. And like I interviewed over
one hundred people, largely about their experiences with experiencing child
abuse in an evangelical milieu, as is laid out with
pain steaking instructions, and like all of these parenting manuals. Actually,
like I think reading the parenting manuals was even more

(01:56:41):
disturbing than talking to people, because like people were like
this fucked me up and it was wrong. And then
these books are like, no, you must beat your toddler
because Jesus says so, and like here's exactly how to
beat your toddler, and here's what you should use to
beat your toddler, and here's the like supremely fucked up,
like weird ritual that we prescribe. And then like reading

(01:57:04):
those in tandem with like like the accounts of people
who were like this specific thing like sucked me up
for life and really messed up my ability to have
like intimacy or self confidence or whatever all of that stuff.

Speaker 10 (01:57:16):
I mean, it was tough.

Speaker 9 (01:57:17):
I definitely took more time. Like I wrote Culture Warlords
in nine months, so I was like totally immersed constantly.
It just like didn't come up for ayer, yeah at all.
And this one I was like, I need a little
more time, guys, Like I wrote it over you know,
almost three years. I also pretentiously started calling this philosophy
Guarding your Heart because I really got lost in the

(01:57:39):
sauce with Culture Warlords, Like I was in a dark
place while I was writing it, and afterwards I was
also the like it came out in mid COVID, so
that didn't help either. But uh, it was a really
really rough experience with this. I was like, I'm going
to keep writing. I'm gonna write about sandwiches all the
way through. I'm gonna like make sure I have friendships
and stuff that's grounding me. And I think consciously having

(01:58:04):
that at the forefront of my mind really helped.

Speaker 6 (01:58:06):
That.

Speaker 9 (01:58:06):
Being said, like, what was really encouraging was all of
these people who had experienced this sort of child abuse
industrial complex in the evangelical community, where like we really
value that someone wants to hear what we have to say,
and also that it's someone from outside the community is
like paying attention and thinks this is important, which is

(01:58:29):
not to denigrate like expangelical voices, but more to say that, like,
I guess there's a certain validation when someone who's like
not didn't grow up in your corner of religiosity, dark corner.

Speaker 8 (01:58:41):
And sort of bringing it to an outside audience too.
I think a lot of expangelicals their audience is largely
their fellow expangelicals exactly.

Speaker 10 (01:58:48):
And I'm someone who, like I grew up as a Jew,
and I'm like, yeah, this sucked. This is terrible.

Speaker 9 (01:58:54):
I'm like appalled reading like to Train Up a Child
by The Pearls or The Strong Willed Child by jam Stobson, which,
like to be clear, the strong willed child is a
bad thing.

Speaker 10 (01:59:05):
It's a bad thing to have a child with us.

Speaker 8 (01:59:07):
You have to beat it out of them, sure, literally,
And I'm ring into this in the wild recently. I
don't know if you have come across this guy online.
Do you know the nineties movie The Little Rascals.

Speaker 9 (01:59:17):
Oh my god, alf from The Little Rascals turns out
to be able Salfa.

Speaker 7 (01:59:21):
The guy who played Alfalfa's name is Bug Hall.

Speaker 8 (01:59:24):
He like, really like I don't got into a sort
of main character situation over some posts about how he
beats his infants. He beats infants because that's I guess,
a good way to raise a baby.

Speaker 10 (01:59:37):
Yeah. Also I think he's homeless.

Speaker 7 (01:59:40):
No, he's a surf.

Speaker 8 (01:59:42):
Oh he's a voluntary serfdom arrangement.

Speaker 9 (01:59:47):
Oh my god. Okay, well he sounds like a big rascal. Yeah,
he's continued that trajectory of Rascal theom But don't be
your kids.

Speaker 10 (01:59:59):
I mean, I will also say the.

Speaker 9 (02:00:00):
Reason why this book focuses so much on child abuse, which,
like I encountered some haters and losers and doubters along
the way who were like, why are you focused so
much on child abuse? And I was like, there are
a lot of different theories about like how authoritarianism develops,
but one of the big ones is focusing on the
pedagogy in authoritarian societies. The societies that become authoritarian, you know,

(02:00:26):
evolve from democracy to authoritarianism and beating the shit out
of people from when they're in infancy, and particularly when
they display disobedience or ask why, or you know, just
deviate from expectations.

Speaker 8 (02:00:44):
It's a great way to make an obedient brown shirt.

Speaker 9 (02:00:46):
Yeah, exactly, Like this is a recipe for future authoritarians.
Like the people I spoke to had sort of broken
away largely from this culture, but many of the sort
of most obedient soldiers in the armies, Army of God
like are that way. Because again, I can't overemphasize how
much these parenting manuals, which spanned from like nineteen seventy

(02:01:08):
to twenty fifteen, these texts, you know, the dates that
they were published, emphasize having an obedient child. What you
want is not like a child who's kind or curious
or thoughtful or smart. It's obedient, instantly obedient. Don't make
me count to three is the title of one of
the books. And like, what you're creating is a culture

(02:01:31):
of people who a like empathize with the aggressor at
all times. So hence this admiration for strength and even
admiration for cruelty. People who are trained to obey and
obey without question, and people who are very acclimated to
the use of violence.

Speaker 8 (02:01:47):
I mean, you're doing fascism in the home right.

Speaker 9 (02:01:50):
So the the author, like Alice Miller, the the author
of the book For Your Own Good, lays out a
pretty she was also a Holocaust survivor. She lays out
a pretty strong case for like, you know, early twentieth
century Germany having this poisonous pedagogy that also involved beating
the shit out of your kids until I was like
illegal to love your children, yeah, to obey you, and

(02:02:13):
how basically this is how you make a torture.

Speaker 10 (02:02:15):
And the book is called for.

Speaker 9 (02:02:16):
Your Own Good and yeah, I mean I really think
it is like under valued in politics, Like how much
this culture of corporal punishment, which is yeah, Americans have
like moved away from universal approval of corporal punishment, we're
still like a lot higher than other Western democracies in

(02:02:39):
that regard. And like on a national level, we're the
only country in the world that hasn't ratified the UN
Conventions on the Rights of a Child, which include like
having a name and like not being beaten and not
being thrown into like juvie solitary.

Speaker 8 (02:02:55):
Oh well, that's why America can't touch that. We need
to incarcerate the children.

Speaker 10 (02:03:00):
Yeah, the children yearn for the cells.

Speaker 9 (02:03:03):
But it's also just like a lot of it actually
was like worries that like evangelicals like would sort of
object to the the interference in there.

Speaker 8 (02:03:13):
It's an infringement on their religious freedom to be the
shit out of babies.

Speaker 10 (02:03:17):
Yeah, and their parental rights, which is another buzzword of this.

Speaker 8 (02:03:21):
This movement pnal rights is a red flag for me.

Speaker 9 (02:03:25):
Oh yeah, no, I hear parental rights and I think
you want to beat the shit out of your kids.

Speaker 8 (02:03:30):
You don't want your children to learn science.

Speaker 9 (02:03:31):
Yeah, you at a homeschool and under educate your kids
or miseducate.

Speaker 8 (02:03:37):
You want to cause a Measle's outbreak exactly.

Speaker 9 (02:03:41):
But that's like for us because we're weirdos. We're like
obsessively clued into this stuff. If you're not, Like parental
rights is like religious freedom is, like it sounds good, Yeah,
it's an effective marketing slogan, but like what it means
is like we're going to show up at the school
board and yell about how I mean.

Speaker 10 (02:03:59):
And Trump is like bought.

Speaker 9 (02:04:00):
Into this obviously because he knows where his bread is buttered.
He has savvy, Like he's like you guys do the policy.
But like his current parental rights based his biggest like
policy that he's advocating is like denying federal funding to
any school with any vaccine a mandate, which is basically
just like make measles great again, like bring back diphtheria.

(02:04:24):
I think, like, yes, the Maga movement, ister of the
the efflorescence, the apotheosis of this steadily building power, but
like there's also just like fifty years of power building
behind it. And like even if Trump was defeated at
the federal level, which like I profoundly hope he is
sorry to come out as like a you know, partisan
a voter, like a hashtag a voter, but like I

(02:04:48):
think it would be just a nauseatingly it's a horrifying
thought that he I mean, first of all, you would
absolutely enact every item in this theocratic agenda, starting with
a national abortion band like that would happen in the
first hundred days, I think, which would just functionally plunge
American women into like a very very dark septocemic nightmare.

Speaker 7 (02:05:14):
Yeah, the dark place that we're going as a coffin.

Speaker 9 (02:05:17):
Yeah yeah, yeah. But even should he lose, which you know, hope.
There's still twenty two states where abortion is outlawed or
severely restricted, and these places are becoming care deserts.

Speaker 10 (02:05:33):
Like medical residents.

Speaker 9 (02:05:34):
My extremely sexy partner is a medical residen so I
know more about the state of medicine than I otherwise would.
But like residents don't want to do their residencies in
states with abortion restrictions.

Speaker 10 (02:05:47):
They're like, right, given.

Speaker 8 (02:05:49):
A choice, gynecological providers just aren't practicing there anymore. Like
even if you know, even your primary focus is not abortions,
or even if your primary focus is you know, pregnancy care,
they just don't want to They just don't want to
work there.

Speaker 9 (02:06:04):
Well, also, first of all that, but second of all,
it's like, if you're in the er, you're going to
experience pregnancy loss because it happens in one in five pregnancy.

Speaker 8 (02:06:11):
Right, So they're choosing to work in states where they're
not going to go to jail for doing medicine.

Speaker 9 (02:06:15):
Yeah, Like they don't want to incur the moral injury
of not being able to apply the standard of care
to patients in extremely common situations such as incomplete miscarriage
and you know, pregnancy loss, whether you know self induced
or just like miscarriage is super common and nobody talks
about it.

Speaker 8 (02:06:34):
It's more common than we an Ectopic pregnancy is so
much more common than people realize. Like there are so
many things that your body can do to betray you
that you need a doctor's help with just ordinary pregnancy.
And then after the baby is born, then your lustrous
hair all falls out.

Speaker 9 (02:06:48):
Yeah, like ordinary pregnancy is so fraught with like weird
body horror like, but anyway, that's besides the point.

Speaker 10 (02:06:56):
Whatever.

Speaker 9 (02:06:57):
The point is someone presents with abdominal pain and er
and it turns out to be an a topic pregnancy,
and like you can't do standard of care like dilation
and cure tash procedures without checking with the hospital lawyer.
Like that is a really bad position for a care
provider to be in. So when you have these fundamentally

(02:07:19):
unscientific laws, right that are produced by people who don't
know anything about pregnancy and are like very intentionally ambiguous
so that cautious institutions will sort of interpret them at
maximally interpret them. Like the life of the mother, how
dead does she have to be?

Speaker 6 (02:07:39):
First?

Speaker 9 (02:07:39):
Yeah, she has to be almost dead, right, and then
sometimes she winds up dying because almost dead is tough
to judge, Like, it just winds up this grotesque sort
of farce of medicine and very directly, like residents don't
want to train, doctors don't want to practice in these places,
and so, you.

Speaker 8 (02:07:58):
Know, right, so this ends up killing more people than
just the ones hemorrhaging in the parking lot. There are
people who have completely unrelated problems who are now unable
to access unrelated kinds of care because the doctors just
aren't there.

Speaker 9 (02:08:11):
Yeah, Or people who have ordinary wanted pregnancies who can't
access neonatal care, who have to drive hours and hours
and hours to like get checkups, like you know, I mean,
human reproduction is like a pretty major part of like life.

Speaker 7 (02:08:25):
And a lot of people are doing it.

Speaker 9 (02:08:28):
Yeah, like it's sort of how you know, it's just
people do it all the time, and like not being
able to access medical care around like the entire spectrum
of like reproduction is pretty catastrophic. But yeah, it also
impacts all the people not engaging in reproduction at this
moment in time, like doctors who are just like fuck this,

(02:08:48):
I'm not wearing out a dar in Tennessee, you know,
because I want to be able to treat patients.

Speaker 7 (02:08:52):
Without a lawyer in the room.

Speaker 10 (02:08:54):
Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 9 (02:08:55):
I mean, and then there are doctors who are bigots
and doctors who are happily on board with with abortion bands.
But like, do you want that to be the only
doctor in your county? I don't think so, you know,
it's just it's a really grim situation. And I just like,
I'm such an absolutist about bodily autonomy. It's like, if
you don't own your body, you are not a full citizen, period,

(02:09:16):
end of story. Like if if a major organ in
your body is treated as a controlled substance, like you
are not a full and equal citizen with rights, which
I would like to be.

Speaker 8 (02:09:28):
I aspire to it. Yeah, So I want to ask
you one more question about your book and I will
let you go. I told you that I wouldn't keep
you very long, and I lied.

Speaker 9 (02:09:37):
But it's like, it's just because I like talking to you.

Speaker 10 (02:09:41):
So it's I think I've done the majority of the topics.

Speaker 3 (02:09:45):
You can't.

Speaker 9 (02:09:45):
You can't be like, oh, it's about your book, which
you should buy listeners.

Speaker 8 (02:09:53):
Pre order it now wherever you buy a books.

Speaker 9 (02:09:55):
And if you like the delcent tones of my voice,
which are I shouldn't have had you to I rate
in my audience books.

Speaker 10 (02:10:01):
You brush that passage.

Speaker 8 (02:10:02):
I'm a professional talker now, yeah.

Speaker 9 (02:10:04):
Yeah, well I narrated the audio book and then was like,
why did I write such complicated sentences?

Speaker 10 (02:10:09):
Afterwards?

Speaker 8 (02:10:11):
So now that I read my own writing like on
a regular basis out loud, which is new for me. Right,
so you know, I have my podcast and I'm writing
my little scripts and then I'm reading into a little microphone.
Now that I struggle with that. I noticed while I
was reading your book that oh I wouldn't be able
to read this out loud. Where would I breathe? I
know it was because I write like that too, and

(02:10:32):
it's something I'm like really grappling with right now.

Speaker 10 (02:10:34):
She's like call me ten clubs.

Speaker 9 (02:10:36):
I'm like, ah, fuck, this sentence is this paragraph? This
sentence is a paragraph. Stop it.

Speaker 8 (02:10:41):
Like I really really lost, really lost momentum on that one.

Speaker 9 (02:10:44):
Yeah, I know, but like I managed to get through it.
And if you if you enjoy the dulcage sounds of
my voice, you can hear it for like I don't know,
eight hours or whatever. I as so weird being like
listen to my voice, but you know, invite me into
your mind. Yeah, but I do think it's nice as
an author to read your audiobook because I can like

(02:11:05):
get mad and like, you know, emphasize stuff that I
think is important.

Speaker 10 (02:11:09):
And also I'm a.

Speaker 9 (02:11:11):
Theater kid, like, like, I don't have many opportunities to perform,
and it is a performance and it's it's fun.

Speaker 8 (02:11:19):
But yeah, and that comes out at the same time
as the physical book.

Speaker 9 (02:11:23):
Yes, it comes out audio ebook, physical book with a
cool snake on it.

Speaker 8 (02:11:29):
Oh yeah, Oh, I guess this is an audio medium.
The listener can't see that I'm showing the cool cover.

Speaker 9 (02:11:35):
Yeah, it's got a cool snake, a red and black
snake on the cover. I've named him Rocco. He has
a cross for a tongue. If you're looking for a
book to give to the metal head in your life,
oh yeah, it's metal heads, atheists, degenerates.

Speaker 10 (02:11:52):
Everyone is going to love this book.

Speaker 8 (02:11:54):
It's perfect for everyone.

Speaker 10 (02:11:56):
And if you're light on cash flow want it.

Speaker 9 (02:11:59):
For supporting the authors is ask your library to stock
it or your local bookstore, because library orders are really
important and you can just like put in a request
in your library system and that is super helpful.

Speaker 8 (02:12:12):
Hell yeah, everybody go to your library's website right now
and request that they purchase a copy of Wild Faith
by Talia Lavin. Yeah, tallywhere else can people find you online?

Speaker 9 (02:12:23):
So I have a newsletter. It's on button down. I
left Substack because they were like, we're never going to
censor Nazis, but we will sensor porn. And I was like,
I don't like your priorities, so I left for button down.
So it's buttondown dot com. Slash the Sword in the Sandwich,
or if you just google, the Sword in the Sandwich
comes up. Most Tuesdays I write about like the horrific

(02:12:44):
state of politics, et cetera. And then Fridays I write
an essay about a different sandwich on Wikipedia's list of
notable sandwiches, and so far I've written one hundred and
eleven sandwiches.

Speaker 8 (02:12:59):
The sandwich content alone is worth the price of admission.
You need to find out about these sandwiches.

Speaker 9 (02:13:04):
I mean it just and I get really deep into
like the history and the provenance and like like ah,
the shifting of people's led to this sandwich. But so
I get really deep into it, and then you can
also find me on Blue Sky, where I most of
the time now because Twitter is just like robots and
Nazis and Nazi robots. Where I'm at Swords Jew. I'm

(02:13:28):
still on Vishy Twitter as Mobi Dick Energy, and you know,
if you want to say hi or invite me to
speak at your synagogue or bookstore, I'm at Tealill even
writes at gmail dot com.

Speaker 10 (02:13:42):
Or church if you're like cool.

Speaker 8 (02:13:44):
Yeah, if it's like a cool church, Yeah, you show
up and they pass you a snake.

Speaker 2 (02:13:50):
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 10 (02:13:51):
Oh God, I didn't do enough speaking of times for
this book.

Speaker 8 (02:13:55):
Well, Telly, thank you so much for coming on today again.
The book is Wild Faith by Talia Lavin, and you
can pre order it now wherever books are sold, and
you should request it from your library.

Speaker 9 (02:14:07):
Yeah, we stand civic services, and I'm a huge fan
of public libraries and also of Molly Conger.

Speaker 10 (02:14:15):
So thanks for having me on and take care, Bye.

Speaker 1 (02:14:19):
Bye, Welcome back to It Could Happen Here and our

(02:14:44):
special two part series Irregular Naval Warfare and You, where
James and I teach you how you too can challenge
the US Navy's dominance of the seas, or at least
the coasts for fun and profit. Actually, today, last episode
we talked about people challenging the US Navy's coastal dominance.

(02:15:04):
Today we're talking about doing the same thing for the
Russian Navy. So that's gonna be fun. And of course
the Navy of mianmar which is a bit of a
different class from the US and Russian Navy, but no
less interesting.

Speaker 2 (02:15:17):
Yeah, still fun. I'd love to see a boat lose.

Speaker 1 (02:15:19):
Yeah, Well, I just like boats going down, you know,
I just hate a boat.

Speaker 2 (02:15:22):
Yeah, yeah, US, the jocas many many such cases.

Speaker 1 (02:15:27):
I'm going to start with Ukraine, and then we're going
to throw to James to talk about our friends in
Myanmar and how they have repurposed civilian technology and stolen
weapons to counter a navy without really having one of
their own. But first Ukraine. In twenty fourteen, when the
Russian Army invaded eastern Ukraine and took Crimea, Ukraine lost

(02:15:47):
a significant portion of it's already not that impressive navy.
Most of their boats were just taken by Russia, along
with a number of sailors who defected, a lot of
other sailors fled the region, leaving behind their homes and
cities like Sebastopol to continue serving their country in a
war that a decade later is still ongoing. One of
these sailors, who is a Sebastopol native and had to

(02:16:08):
flee his home, possibly forever, in order to continue serving
his country, is the current commander of Ukraine's navy, Admiral Nazpapa.
He leads a navy that is almost without manned ships,
and on paper, it is utterly incapable of challenging Russia's
legendary Black Sea Fleet. Since the age of the Czars,
the Black Sea Fleet has been infamous as a pillar

(02:16:29):
of Russian military power. However, also since the age of
the Tsars, it's had a nasty tendency to get utterly
housed by enemies that should have been able to beat.

Speaker 2 (02:16:38):
It, right, Yeah, yeah, yeah, not the first time it's
taken an unexpected loot.

Speaker 6 (02:16:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:16:44):
It has a legendary history that doesn't mean good.

Speaker 2 (02:16:46):
There's bad legends out there, you know. Yeah, it's well known. Yeah,
today that.

Speaker 1 (02:16:53):
Enemy is Ukraine. Since the expanded Russian invasion in twenty
twenty two, just two years, Ukraine has destroyed or badly
damaged more than a third of the Black Sea fleet,
despite having no battleships or destroyers in the sea to
counter Russian naval power, they have done enough damage to
reopen Odessa and at least one other port on the
Black Sea to international commerce, which has provided Ukraine with

(02:17:16):
a crucial economic and strategic lifeline. And that's a remarkable achievement,
sinking a third of the Black Sea fleet. And basically
when you reopen a port, that means that you have
taken away naval dominance from a country that has a
navy and you don't. That's pretty good, pretty good stuff.
Over the last two years, Ukraine had damaged, irreparably or

(02:17:37):
sunk seven active landing ships and one to seven active
landing ships and one landing vessel. I don't know the difference.
They've fucked up a lot of boats. They have destroyed
a submarine with seed to ground capability that was docked
for repairs. They have sunk a cruiser, the capital ship
of the entire Black Sea fleet.

Speaker 2 (02:17:55):
The Moskva.

Speaker 1 (02:17:56):
They've also sunk a supply vessel and a handful of
patrol boats and missile bow and a number of other
boats have been damaged. That's a significant rate of casualties,
especially when you consider that every actually destroyed vessel, we're
looking at a year's multiple years lead time to replace.
You cannot make naval vessels very quickly anymore. Back during

(02:18:16):
the big dub dub dose, the US did, but nobody
really does that anymore, not with the big ones at least.

Speaker 2 (02:18:24):
You just roll through that.

Speaker 1 (02:18:26):
We were just we were just yeating aircraft carriers into.

Speaker 2 (02:18:29):
The sea, just just flotting them out. Yeah, don't take
them out a week. Yeah, it's because it's because Rosy
de Riveto was really riveting at a high speed.

Speaker 1 (02:18:39):
She was, she was, she was quite a riveter. So
at the start of hostilities, Turkey, which controls access to
the Black Sea forbade any additional military vessels, or at
least military vessels of significant size, from entering the area.
What this means this has a significant impact on how
well Ukraine strikes work, because even if Russia can replace
the losses physically, they can can't actually get replacements into

(02:19:01):
the Black Sea easily. They can't sail new shit past
the Turks. The Turks are not allowing that right now.
So again this is a situation that has kind of
favored the way in which Ukraine has adapted to countering
Russian naval dominance. It is possible that at the present
rate of attrition, the Black Sea Fleet could be rendered
inoperable in less than two years. Like if they keep

(02:19:22):
going at this rates, like eighteen months or something before,
there's not really much of a fleet anymore now. If
Ukraine had accomplished this task with a traditional navy using
standard naval tactics, this would have been an impressive victory
given the disparity in resources between the two nations. But
they have done all this with a mix of cruise missiles,
many of which are produced in country, aerial drones, and
new bespoke locally produced suicide drone boats. This irregular naval

(02:19:47):
warfare has been successful enough that one Rand Corporation engineer
and analyst, Scott Savatz, described the Black Sea Fleet as
a fleet in being quote, it represents a potential threat
that needs to be vigilantly guarded against, but one that
remains in checks for now. And I'm going to quote
from a New York Times article on the topic. It
brought a little more context. Ukraine has effectively turned around

(02:20:08):
ten thousand square miles in the western Black Sea off
its southern coast, into what the military calls a gray zone,
where neither side can sail without the threat of attack.
James Heapy, Britain's Armed Forces minister, told a recent security
conference in Warsaw that Russia's Black Sea fleet had suffered
a functional defeat, and contended that the liberation of Ukraine's
coastal waters in the Black Sea was every bit as
important as the successful counter offensives on land and Cersona

(02:20:31):
and Kharkiv last year. The classical approach that we studied
at military maritime academies does not work now, Admiral Nese
Papas said. Therefore, we have to be as flexible as
possible and change approaches to planning and implementing work as
much as possible, not at articles about a year old
or so.

Speaker 6 (02:20:46):
So.

Speaker 1 (02:20:46):
The Neptune anti ship missile is one of the prides
of Ukraine's Nascon arms industry. Neptune missiles are credited with
destroying the Moskva in April of twenty twenty two. Ukraine
also has access to several Western anti ship missiles, including
these storm Shadow and Scalp missiles. I believe the storm
Shadow comes from your your folks, right, James, Yeah, yeah, yeah,

(02:21:07):
and these seem to be pretty effective missiles. These obviously
much more advanced, and these are modern naval weapons, right,
These are much more advanced than, for example, the weapons
to who these have. These are the kind of things
that can counter to some extent modern anti missile technology.
For an example of kind of how that tends to work,
they used a barrage of I believe it was mostly
storm shadows to rain death on the crime import of Sebastopol. Recently,

(02:21:30):
seven out of eighteen of the missiles fired made it
through Russian air defenses, and these damaged or destroyed four
landing ships in a single strike. And these are sizeable
naval vessels. This is the most recent attack, although as
after I wrote this, there was another attack on the
Kirch Bridge. I'm not really sure how that took place
yet that seems to have shut it down again. But
that gives you an idea of like what you actually

(02:21:51):
have to do. How much of these missiles you have
to put in the air to get some through? And
that's not too bad, right, eighteen missiles seven get through
four ships down. That's a really good rate of return.

Speaker 2 (02:22:01):
Especially when you consider that, like you know, we were
talking in our first episode about how the US is
spending significant resources on maintaining its defending its carriers, right,
Russia does not have the same ability to keep good
lord saying munitions no, and so like that's a finite resource, right,
they're their means of defining that. Defending their ships and

(02:22:22):
defending really anything against missiles are a finite resource. So
any time you can even if the ship doesn't get sunk,
if the ship has to deploy one of these missiles,
which it doesn't, which the whole country doesn't have very
many of, that they're still a win.

Speaker 1 (02:22:36):
Now, this is we are talking about irregular naval warfare.
And then this is not This is not what most
people would have considered a traditional naval conflict prior to
the expansion of hostilities in Ukraine. However, we are talking
this is very different than the case of the Huthies.
Ukraine is a state. It doesn't have a massive arms industry,
but it has one, and it has the support of
nations with sizable arms industries. Right, so we are not

(02:22:58):
talking about this. We are going to talk about the
aspects of Ukrainian a regular naval warfare. That are some
guys that are hobbyists building shit. Yeah, this is not
that part yet, but I think this information is kind
of significant and that it shows the tactical use of
anti ship cruise missiles and their ability to significantly shape
an operational environment even when the country using them has

(02:23:19):
minimal conventional naval assets of their own. It is largely
through the use of these missiles that Ukraine has been
able to reopen their black Sea ports. That matters to
people seeking to understand both this conflict and the future
of unconventional naval warfare. I mean, I guess you could
say this is the future of conventional naval warfare, but
I think we're still leaning on the unconventional side at
the moment, at least in terms of how doctrine is

(02:23:41):
changing as a result of this. So maybe I should
update how we're defining this. But for our purposes as
people unlikely to have access to cruise missiles but significantly
likely to find ourselves waging an unconventional war than having
cruise missiles, it's more relevant to look at the new
weapons systems Ukraine has developed that have helped them lock
down the Black Sea fleet using civilian hobbyists, And this

(02:24:01):
is where we get to drones. Ukraine's conventional aerial drones
are a mix of actual military hardware. I'm talking about
stuff like the Bairaktar, the Turkish drone, which is like
kind of like the Predator A right, it's like an
actual military product. But the majority in terms of numbers
of drones that Ukraine is fielding are civilian drones, or
at least drones that started out a civilian technology. A

(02:24:25):
lot of these are now built to be military, but
they're still based on these designs that started with people
hacking and cobbling together civilian drones and outside of naval stuff.
Prior to the war, there had been a lot of
veterans and hobbyists who were veterans trying to convince the
Ukrainian military that it needed to adopt drone warfare on
a large scale, the kind of drone warfare that you
can do with these less expensive drones, and they received

(02:24:48):
a lot of pushback until the war started and these
guys just took to the field and started fucking murking
Russian armed units and infantry and killing generals and shit.
And now Ukraine has integrated in a way that everyone
is going to follow, like Ukrainian like battalions have like
companies now that are drone assault companies, and like line battalions, and.

Speaker 2 (02:25:07):
Within infantry you have people used artillery eating transit forward observers.

Speaker 6 (02:25:12):
Yes, all over.

Speaker 1 (02:25:13):
They have set a goal for this year producing at
least a million and ideally more like two million drones
and at least from what I read, that looks like
very plausible. And most of these are quite small, right,
but that doesn't mean obviously ineffective.

Speaker 2 (02:25:24):
I know they buy a lot of their drones in
the UK because the UK has consistently kicked itself in
the nuts when it comes to like Brexit, and so
the pound is significantly weaker, and so they're able to
get the drones at a cheaper price and then drive
them all the way across. Yeah, you know people who've
done that. I was going to go join them, but
never worked it out.

Speaker 1 (02:25:42):
Yeah, And you know there are a number of different
like these. These drones earlier in the war had an
easier time being effective and causing casualties on the Russians
then later This is something that you know, kind of
the hooplaw and support, which I think is necessary that Ukraine.
It's lead some people to discount the degree to which

(02:26:03):
Russian forces have adapted and gotten smarter. And one of
the ways in which they've adapted and gotten smarter is
in blocking drones and using drones of their own. You know,
one of the stories the last couple of weeks is
that Russia has succeeded in carrying out strikes on advanced
weapons systems like samsites deep in Ukrainian territory. They've extended
their kill chain beyond what they used to be capable of,

(02:26:24):
and that's because they've adapted. They're also adapted with less
efficacy at blocking drones. In attacks on naval vessels, some
of this has been kind of funny. I want to
read a quote from a Business Insider article here. Russia
is painting silhouettes on naval vessels on land to try
and trick Ukraine, which keeps destroying its warships. In an
intelligence update on Wednesday, the UK Ministry of Defense said

(02:26:44):
that silhouettes of vessels have also been painted on the
side of ks, probably to confuse the uncrude aerial vehicle operators.
They showed there's some images of this. They don't seem
convincing to me. I don't know if I think this
is working.

Speaker 2 (02:26:59):
This is great these I love this, like they have
a cardboard navy next. Yeah, it's very bugs bunny. Yes,
they're not working as well as bugs would. They've a
hole in the side of the cliff face and crushing
into it, keeps throwing. It's very funny.

Speaker 1 (02:27:15):
I mean obviously they just Ukraine just sank like or
damn it badly damaged four boats. So I don't think
this is I haven't seen evidence that this is working well.
Their actual like jamming efforts have been much more successful.

Speaker 2 (02:27:26):
Right, Yeah, they always will be on civilian One of
the thing that's really interesting compared to Mianma is that
Ukraine tends to rely on modified off the shelf civilian drones. Right,
your dji is that kind of thing in Meanma because
of where a lot of the PDFs are. Because but
they increasingly do control the borders, but they haven't always.

(02:27:47):
They have been making their own drones. The group called
Federal Wings you can find them on telegram, who make
their own drones, and I think those seem to be
less the jammers that the essays that the Tamado has
uh Chinese made that Jamma rifles you see them all
the time in captured weapon cashes, but they don't seem

(02:28:07):
to be having as much impact on these homemade drones,
which is really interesting.

Speaker 1 (02:28:12):
Yeah, yeah, and it's you know, I've mentioned a couple
of times we're doing this in part because the odds
that people listening might be involved in an a regular
conflict are not zero.

Speaker 6 (02:28:23):
You Know.

Speaker 1 (02:28:23):
What I think about when I say that is not
that there's high odds for any individual person fighting themselves
in that situation.

Speaker 6 (02:28:30):
But there is.

Speaker 1 (02:28:31):
Given the number of people who listened to this podcast,
probably someone who is not currently involved in a conflict
that will find themselves that way in the future. And
I base that in part on the fact that all
of our friends in Myanmar who are currently fighting a
war were a couple of years ago delivery drivers and
you know, playing pubg online and not really thinking they
would wind up as insurgents.

Speaker 2 (02:28:50):
Now I've spoken to a number of people who are
currently fighting not in Mianma, who have listened to our
Meanma podcast and realized the capacity of three D printing, yeah,
to be very useful and and so like, even in
that sense, it's already happening. But yeah, don't no one
in the IMA, Like many of them said that their
entire combat experience is playing pubg Yeah, now they're lurking ships.

Speaker 6 (02:29:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:29:12):
So anyway, it bears thinking about this stuff. And this
brings me back to Ukraine's irregular drone warfare units, which
again a lot of these guys started out as civilian
enthusiasts who expanded responded to the outbreak or at least
expansion of hostilities by expanding their hobby into a real
world military effort that had a real world effect. Civilian
drones were crucial in the Battle of Kiev, allowing Ukraine

(02:29:34):
to do severe damage to that massive Russian armored column
heading towards the city and providing intel that led to
the assassination of multiple general level officers. So it is
perhaps not surprising that Ukraine looked to the same group
of volunteer hobbyists when it came time to expand their
naval arsenal. And there's a really good article I found
in CNN by Sebastian Shukla, Alex Marcott and Daria Tarasova.

(02:29:55):
And I actually want to give you the title of
this article. Yeah, I'll try to thriller into the show.
Notes is exclusive rare access to Ukraine's sea drones part
of Ukraine's fight back in the Black Sea. Haven't really
seen the word fight back use that way, but there
you go. So I'm going to read a quote from
that article. A government linked Ukrainian fundraising organization called United
twenty four has sourced money from companies and individuals all

(02:30:16):
around the world, pooling funds to disperse it to a
variety of developers and initiatives from defense to soccer matches.
The entire outfit is very security conscious, insisting on strict
guidelines on filming and revealing identities. Those who seen and
met with declined to give their full names or even
their ranks within Ukraine's armed forces. On a creaky wooden jetty,
a camouflaged sea drone pilot says he wants to go
by shark. In front of him is a long, black

(02:30:37):
hard show briefcase. He unveils a bespoke multi screened mission control,
essentially an elaborate gaming center combined complete with levers, joysticks,
a monitor, and buttons that have covers over switches that
shouldn't accidentally be knocked with labels like blast. The developer
of the drone who asked to remain anonymous, said their
work on sea drones only began once the war started.
It was very important because we did not have many

(02:30:57):
forces to resist the maritime state Russia, and we needed
to develop something of our own because we didn't have
the existing capabilities. So again, these are hobbyist design I mean,
this guy's not really a hobbyist any more, but that's
how he started. He's only not a hobbyist because the
military recognized the value of what he was doing. And
the current iterations of this sea drone weigh a little

(02:31:18):
over two thousand pounds with an explosive six hundred and
sixty one pound payload, a five hundred mile range and
a max speed of fifty miles per hour. That is
a significant weapons system. Yeah, multiple sea drones have been
used to strike Russian assets in the Black Sea, and
drones were involved in a successful attack that severely damaged
the Kirch Bridge last July, rendering it impassable since until September.

(02:31:41):
So these have had a real battlefield effect and they
probably will continue to do so. The developer of these
drones told CNN these drones are a completely Ukrainian production.
They are designed drawn and tested here. It's our own
production of holes, electronics and software. More than fifty percent
of the production of equipment is here in Ukraine. And
that's really significant because you know, I think we're all
aware of the difficulty Ukraine has had getting weaponry lately

(02:32:04):
from the West as a result of fucking around in Congress,
and so it is a necessity for them to be
able to develop weapon systems like this that can interdict
and counteract more advanced and expensive weapon systems and can
be produced indigenously. You know, I don't think we have
seen a mass suicide boat attack. I'm interested in what
happens when we do, like with more significant numbers than

(02:32:27):
we've seen deployed. I kind of wonder the degree to
which the Russians have gotten good at spotting this stuff.
I've come across at least a couple of stories of
these boats likely destroyed on approach. So they certainly don't
always work even a majority of the time. But given
the cost of these things they don't have to get
through the majority of the time, very much worth it
right now. In that interview with The New York Times,

(02:32:49):
Admiral Najpapa caution that Ukraine is still outgunned in the
Black Sea. Even though the Russians no longer have supremacy,
they still have air superiority. They are still able to
lunch from the sea long range missiles at Ukrainian targets,
including civilian targets. So this is not again a situation
that should be portrayed as them having their own way.

(02:33:10):
Their ability to kind of interdict the sea has been
The primary effects of it have been number one, the
reopening of trade in the Black Sea, and earlier in
the war, by locking down the ability of these landing
ships to put more troops on ground and by doing
damage to the Kurch Bridge, they were able to slow
Russian reinforcements in Russian materiel from entering the war zone
in order to this aided in some of the advances,

(02:33:33):
particularly in areas like Carson. At this moment, the situation
has changed because again the Russians aren't just kind of
like sitting around doing the same thing over again, or
at least not always. And we don't tend to talk
as much about successes on the Russian side of things,
but that is an important part of the story and
one of the things the Russians have done is kind
of acknowledged that the Black Sea Fleet may not be

(02:33:54):
a fleet in being forever and certainly cannot be relied
upon to handle everything they initially thought it would handle.
And so Russian engineers spent a significant period of time
building a sizeable new railroad that connects Rostov and southern
Russia to Mariopol and occupied southern Ukraine. This has allowed
them to get high volume shipments into the area and

(02:34:15):
supply troops to the area along Ukraine's southern front without
relying on that bridge or relying on naval landings.

Speaker 6 (02:34:23):
Right.

Speaker 1 (02:34:24):
So, the fact that Ukraine has been able to take
out for landing ships recently is good. That's a wind
for Ukraine. It reduces Russian capability, but it is not
half the same effect that it would have had, for example,
two years earlier. Right, Yeah, because Russia has also evolved,
and among other things, railroads are a lot easier or
a lot harder to destroy to take out.

Speaker 6 (02:34:44):
Right.

Speaker 1 (02:34:44):
It's easy to damage a railroad, but they're easy to fix.
It doesn't take a lot to get some guys over
to fix a damage sunk of railroad, fixing a bridge
that's been blown up, or a sunk boat is a
lot harder.

Speaker 2 (02:34:55):
Yeah, absolutely, I mean, and there are people within Russia
even who are sabotaging railways say it's like it's very
high stakes for them, and it's relatively low cost for
the Russian state to fix that stuff, so like it's
not as effective.

Speaker 1 (02:35:10):
Yeah, but I think this gives you an idea of
kind of like what we're looking at when we look
at this kind of ongoing A regular conflict is the
side that does not have access to a functional navy,
not able to interdict or destroy fleets, but able to
stop them from dominating the coast. And when you can
stop them from dominating the coast, you have effectively denied
them terrain that they can act in without being countered,

(02:35:33):
and you have also denied them from stopping you from
acting in that same terrain, even if you don't have
total safety in that area. That opens up the operational
possibilities substantially. And this is something that I kind of
don't think is going to get put back in the bag.
Even if some of these Star Wars ass weapons systems
do come out in the near future, you know, maybe

(02:35:54):
that'll have an impact in the immediate term on people
like the houthies. But I don't think think that it
really will on you know, for example, what Ukraine's doing right, Yes, Russia.

Speaker 2 (02:36:06):
Can't keep up with getting decent small arms, body armor,
grenades and ship legs. There's no way it's going to
implement some kind of massive star Wars system over its navy.
Not right now, not in the middle of a conflict.
That's it's struggling to supply.

Speaker 1 (02:36:20):
Yep, you know what, here's an ad break.

Speaker 2 (02:36:33):
All right, we're back and we are traveling around the world.
Spend your little globe in your head and look for Meanma,
which is of course in Asia. Now I'm talking about
two different I guess anti ship sabotage or attack or
two different ways ships have been sunk in the EMMA.
I'll start with the first one, which is undoubtedly the flashiest,

(02:36:55):
just because it's fun. So a ship in the port
of Yeah, about about a month ago, so we're recording
on a twenty. It's about the first of March. It
was in the river, in the river in yangon right,
and it was carrying allegedly carrying jet fuel. Now, if
you follow Burmese activists, people in the Burmese Freedom Movement,

(02:37:15):
they will. One of their demands for a long time
has been to stop supplying the Hunter with jet fuel,
which would in turn stop it being able to bomb villages, schools, civilians,
PDF formations, just about anyone in the country. It's bombed
at some point in the last couple of years. And
they haven't been exactly right. They haven't been able to

(02:37:36):
stop the supply of jet fuel coming to the Hunter.
So they've taken it into their own hands. And what
they did on the first of March was that they
snuck onto a boat. So two this is the story
from the Burmese National Unity Government's Ministry of Defense. Anyway,
combat divers snuck onto this boat planted a kilogram of

(02:37:58):
TNT or a charge equivalent to kilogram of TNT. Robert
and I've both spoken to people who make explosives in memrs.

Speaker 10 (02:38:04):
We do.

Speaker 2 (02:38:04):
We definitely know the PDF has access to a range
of explosives. They said it on a five hour fuse
and it blew up in the middle of the night,
and there's definitely footage of the ship on fire having
blown up. Now, this is pretty remarkable for never real
like this is like why the United States has units
like the Navy seals right, like the higher speed guys,

(02:38:26):
because it is not easy to scuba dive across a harbor,
climb onto a ship, send an explosive charge without being detected,
and then leave that ship and have the charge go
off and sink the ship without you being compromised, without
the charge itself being like compromised, and the ship being saved. Right,
this is some like this is some classic like this

(02:38:49):
is why they are a special units within the US military.

Speaker 6 (02:38:52):
Now.

Speaker 2 (02:38:54):
The PDF very obviously did not have combat dives. Two
years ago, I was looking into hobby scuba diving in Yangon.
The rivers in that area are extremely muddy and visibility
is very low, So the people who you find diving
in that area are not so much like hobby scuba
divers or free divers. But there's salvage divers and there's

(02:39:15):
a whole little industry of people. And these people are
diving in equipment that I would not consider safe or reliable.
It's clamping an air hose in between your teeth and
diving down and trying to find there's a large deposit
of coal in one of the rivers in Yangon because
of a ship that's sunk. There was a coarse copper

(02:39:35):
which everyone all around the world, including the bigcong in Santia,
are stealing copper. There's iron, right, So these people are
diving down and trying to collect scrap and sell that
for whatever minimal amount they can.

Speaker 7 (02:39:48):
Right.

Speaker 2 (02:39:48):
It's an extremely dangerous and extremely low income. It's one
of the sort of really high risk, low reward jobs
that you get in economies where people are struggling to
make ends meet. Right, So those are the only divers
I can find evidence of in Yangon. I don't think
it was them who did this, because you have to

(02:40:09):
have a boat above you with a pump if you're
diving with a rubber hose in your teeth, right, So
it seems like somebody in within the They said it
was a Yangon PDF, that's what they attribute it to,
so that would be one of these. It would likely
be an underground group within the PDF, right, some people
living in the city who were able to sneak onto

(02:40:30):
this boat, set a charge and blow it up, and
they would also had to have intelligence at the boat
where it was, what it was carrying, et cetera. It's
a pretty pretty daring mission that this is the first
one like this we've seen and we haven't seen anything since.
But it's of course possible that this is a story
that we're being told. In fact, they had like someone
undercover on the ship, right or like they had some

(02:40:53):
other means of getting this charge onto the ship, but
one way or another they managed to blow up this
ship carrying few, which is a significant detrimu Yeah, right,
that's how they get most of their shit. It's not
over land, especially with more the.

Speaker 1 (02:41:08):
Terrain there is just absolutely, like even with modern technology,
difficult to get significant amounts of shit through.

Speaker 2 (02:41:14):
They're resupplying some of their outposts that are ten miles
from a town with helicopters right now, like a the
terrain is burly, and b they don't have the PDF
has denied them access that any time they send out
a convoy, it gets attacked, so sending out plus you
know that their land border crossings are increasingly falling into

(02:41:37):
the hands of the PDFs and the ROS, So getting
stuff through the ocean is one of the ways that
they can still get stuff. And if this keeps happening,
then they will make that more expensive for them. And
they're not exactly a wealthy hunter even though, I guess
Minna Lung just made himself an air Force one recently.
I was just looking at it. Today's good. He's got
himself too luxury. Yeah, they called it dictators like he's

(02:42:01):
upgraded from president class. Nice. Yeah, yeah, yes, he has
in many ways. So yeah, that's one way that the
PDF has been blowing up ships in the Yangon, Robert,
do you know who else has been blowing up ships
in the yang in Yangon?

Speaker 1 (02:42:17):
Well, we are sponsored entirely by the British Navy circa
the mid eighteen hundreds, so I would guess them, that's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah yeah. Lots of repressed, repressed feelings and growing up
a lot of cabin boys with deep trauma. Anyway, here's
the ass.

Speaker 12 (02:42:36):
Yeah, all right, we beca We hope you enjoyed that.

Speaker 2 (02:42:49):
That pivot one of our best ones yet. And we're
talking about the Arakan Army now. So the Arakan Army
not to be confused with the Rakhan Range of Salvation Army,
different group. Arakan is a name of what is now
a Rakaine state before it was colonized by the Burmese.
That was I think Arakan was a king before it
was colonized by the Burmese, so that that's where that

(02:43:10):
refers to. It's a geographical appellation rather than like necessarily
an ethnic one. The Rakaine would be the ethnic group.
So what the AA have done is sunk I think
at least four Hunter ships now, and most of these
ships are kind of they're like the They look like
big Higgins boats. They're like landing craft or like car ferries,

(02:43:32):
like flat bottom with a bow that goes down. Right.
I rode around a lot in the Marshall Islands in
little landing craft like that because they can get them in.
They don't have like docks, so they can just ride
that right up to the beach and then drop the
front and off you go. And they use them a lot.
The Hunter doesn't have like per se marines that they
don't have maritime infantry, but they use them to transport

(02:43:53):
their regular army around, right, and they use them to
transport them up river. They also use them a lot
in Rakaine State to shell AA positions and any townships
that they've decided they want to wipe off the map
and kill all the people in right. So these these
boats have been a real like thorn in the side
of the Aracan Army after Operation ten twenty seven, when

(02:44:15):
they joined with two other groups to form the Three
Brotherhood Alliance, A launch attacks on the Hunter all over VMA,
and so what they've been doing, it appears, is using
underwater mines to sink these ships, which is interesting, right, Like,
I guess the mines are like a very old technology, right,

(02:44:36):
it's probably one hundred years plus underwater mines have existed.
It seems the way that, like, the reason they're able
to get away with using what is the relatively dated
technology is because the Hunter doesn't expect to encounter anything, right,
and so has not equipped its ships as such, Like
they do have stuff like submarines, but that's not what's
getting sunk. What's getting sun to these big kind of

(02:44:58):
landing craft riverboats. And it seems that they're using mines
and then once they disabled the ship, they're then attacking
it with small boats, small arms like indirect fire mortars
and stuff. I saw one post that suggested they'd use
which is pretty cool if they did. The Burmese military
has these like tank destroyers. It's a tank, it's what

(02:45:19):
it is. And they've captured the AA has captured a
number of these, right, And I've seen suggestions that they're
using some of these on like they just set up
an ambush along the banks of the river, right and
as the ship comes in they can they can maybe
disable it with a mine and then attack it with those.
But there are videos online you can find them of
the AA sinking these ships, and then they've done some

(02:45:39):
amazing drone photography of like they obviously they then like
staged their units on the ships, like all saluting the
drone and they had the Arakan Army flags and they're
actually really cool photos of them taking these ships. But again,
like I think this might be the first sinking of
a Burmese naval ship since since independence from Britain. Like,

(02:46:03):
I can't think that they were. They really haven't played
much of a role at all in its conflicts with
the Eros, aside as from like basically kind of just
shelling places when they want to do that. But there's
never really been any significant opposition to them, and that's
changed now they have to obviously, just like everywhere else,
watch out for drones, right, drones have been used to
a massive extent in Myanmar, and like the AA doesn't

(02:46:28):
have as many like associated PDFs. I haven't seen them
doing as much of the drone stuff as the PDFs.
The pdf tend to be like the more urban folks, right,
the younger folks and the gen Z folks that we've
spoken about before, and a lot of them have been
very savvy with their use of drones. Like I said,
you can look up Federal Wings and you can see
them dropping bombs with drones on all kinds of stuff

(02:46:51):
with their heavy metal soundtracks that they like. But that
it wasn't even drone here. It's pretty simple. It was
just mine so things they love, mines and mead mines
all over that country. But in this case, these I guess,
massive what mines in the rivers. Given that the Hunter
is the only only entity sending big boats up and down,

(02:47:12):
you could set them at a certain depth where these
small boats wouldn't hit them, and eventually one of the
Hunter boats is going to hit them, I guess. And
so it's pretty basic technology, but it's still a massive
step forward in terms of like a place where the
state had complete impunity, it now doesn't. Right, they can't
just cruise up and down these rivers shelling people. They
were actually using some of the ships to evacuate soldiers

(02:47:33):
and their families from a position. The soldiers they were
trying to like, rather than surrendering, they were trying to
evacuate them and move them to somewhere else. The AA
asked them to surrender, and they didn't. They tried to
evacuate them, so then they mined the ships and took
those out. I think the hunters like tried to spin
this as like the AA is attacking civilians, but I

(02:47:54):
think a Burmese Navy ship with a Burmese Navy flag,
when those ships have just been shelling you, seems like
a legit fro the target. To me, I think it's
very hard. It's you know, it's a hunter, but children
on one of their naval ships rather than the AA
who attacked the ship because it had children. You can
hear in one of the things you can hear the
AA are like attacking the ship in small boats and

(02:48:14):
they're shouting like there are children on board, and you
can hear them acknowledging it. And there are videos of
the AA rescuing people who jumped overboard, rescuing them from
the river, and then like, I guess they've just held
us POWs cool. Yeah, it's cool, it's interesting. Obviously, not
many of us have access to underwater minds, but you know,

(02:48:37):
maybe in a fictional future we might. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:48:40):
Well, there you go, folks. This has been irregular naval warfare.
And you a podcast about a regular naval warfare, and you.

Speaker 2 (02:48:51):
Yeah, send us to your videos of yourselves in a
regular naval war.

Speaker 4 (02:48:55):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:48:55):
Absolutely, go out there.

Speaker 1 (02:48:56):
Look how about this, Every listener, go out and sing
one naval vessel, you know, doesn't matter who's.

Speaker 2 (02:49:03):
Just any boat.

Speaker 1 (02:49:04):
Any go sink a boat, any boat, take out, superyot,
knock it out. You see a dinghy, take that fucker out,
people kayaking, fuck them up, you know.

Speaker 2 (02:49:14):
On a boat?

Speaker 1 (02:49:15):
Absolutely, a banana boat for sure. One of those weird
duck boat car things that they have in some city.
Oh yeah, actually, you know what, you don't need to
do anything with that that'll kill everybody on board on it.

Speaker 2 (02:49:27):
Those things are traps. Just pray for those.

Speaker 6 (02:49:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:49:32):
Any other boat. Yeah, you see a doughnut, you know,
behind being behind a speedboat?

Speaker 1 (02:49:36):
Oh yeah, murk it anyway, everybody go away.

Speaker 11 (02:50:01):
Welcome to dick it app and here a podcast about
things falling apart and putting it back together again. I'm
Mia Wong, I'm with Garrison, and it is my singular
honor and pleasure to introduce our guest, doctor Julia Serrano.
She is the author of many books including Excluded, Making
Feminist and core movements more inclusive, Sex Stop, How Society

(02:50:22):
Sexualizes Us, and How We Can Fight Back, Outspoken, A
Decade of Transgender Activism and Transfeminism, and most famously, Whipping Girl,
a new edition of which is coming out in March.
Doctor Serrano, welcome to the show.

Speaker 13 (02:50:36):
Hi, thanks for having me.

Speaker 11 (02:50:38):
I'm really really I'm really happy you can join us.
So okay. Whipping Girl, I think is really one of
the one of quietly the most influential books of the
twenty first century, to the extent that in kind of
classic trans woman fashion. I don't think I don't think
people realize that the ideas that it introduced have an origin.

(02:50:59):
So so for people who haven't read the book, and
you should, this book is great. I guarantee you have
seen its influence. If you've ever heard someone like who's
not trans referred to as sis like, that's that's from
this book. The concept of misgendering is also from this book.
The word trans misogyny like also from this book, and

(02:51:21):
this I think gets at something from the twenty fifteen
second edition preface that you wrote, which is something I've
been wondering about, is what is it like to sort
of experience writing a book and have it just like
ripple across society like this.

Speaker 13 (02:51:38):
Yeah, it's uh.

Speaker 14 (02:51:40):
I was very much hoping, and you know, as I
was writing it, I was hoping that I thought that
it would resonate with a lot of trans female and
trans feminine people, and I hope trans communities more generally,
and the book. This is something that a lot of
times people who pick up the book now and like
the twenty twenties don't necessarily realize, is that he was

(02:52:00):
reading anything about trans people outside of feminists and LGBTQ
plus communities, and so I was basically just speaking to
those groups, and I thought it would resonate with some people.
But yeah, definitely it kind of went out into the
world and did a bunch of stuff that I wasn't
necessarily expecting. And I'm very glad that the book has

(02:52:24):
kind of touched a lot of people's lives and changed,
you know, kind of societal understanding and quote unquote discourses
about trans people.

Speaker 7 (02:52:34):
So yeah, it must be kind of bizarre, like being
twenty years ago writing about you know, caniche term like
cis and now the richest man in the world thinks
it's like the most evil word.

Speaker 14 (02:52:50):
Yeah, it's quite bizarre, and I do want to definitely
kind of clear this up, but I kind of make
this clear in the preface. So I didn't in vet
like sis versus trans like a that's like a prefix
that has existed a long time, and I've since seen
other people like point out, oh, this person was using
it in nineteen ninety something, or some German writer like

(02:53:14):
coined cis vestism or something like back a million years ago.
So what I will say is that when I when
I put out the book, I was inspired by Emi Koyama,
who was and is an awesome activist, intersex activist who's
written a lot of really influential trans related essays over
the years. And it was from her blog post that

(02:53:36):
was the first time I saw sis and trans and
the idea of cis sexism. And at the time, it
was while I was writing the book, and it really
I was like, oh my god, this is kind of
the overall idea I was talking about all these different
facets of basically double standards between trans and non trans people,
and so I kind of grabbed on to it, and
I was really worried about it actually because nobody, almost

(02:53:59):
nobody was using those terms. It was very niche at
the time, and so the book popularized that language. And
so now it is kind of funny every once in
a while seeing yes, over reactions by SIS people to
the idea of SIS being a slur or whatever. So yeah,
and so yeah, so that's definitely something that is kind

(02:54:22):
of is the one thing I one thing I did
coin in the book that has kind of also taken
a life on its own is trans misogyny. So that
is something that kind of originated with this book and
particularly a chap book that I wrote in two thousand
and five that some of those essays became chapters of
the book. And yeah, and so there are other ideas
that kind of are out there, Like I think it

(02:54:44):
was one of the first. I think it was the
first book to talk about like the idea of SIS
privilege misgendering is an idea was out there, but I
kind of dove into it a little bit deeper. So yeah,
So there are definitely things I was doing at the
time that I didn't know whether be to abstract or
how they'd be taken up, And so yes, it's been

(02:55:04):
very interesting.

Speaker 11 (02:55:06):
Yeah, I wanted to talk about misgendering a bit because
I think it's become this word that just means not
saying someone's pronouns correctly, and I think that's, at the
very best, like an incredibly reductionist and simplified version of
the analysis that you were presenting. So I guess I
have two questions here. One, can you briefly sort of

(02:55:27):
talk about what you were trying to get at when
you sort of did your analysis of the process of gendering,
and too, what do you think about the way that
it's kind of become flattened into this I don't know,
kind of weirdly narrow thing in modern discourse.

Speaker 14 (02:55:44):
Sure, and a lot of the miss gendering definitely dovetails
with the idea of passing, and a lot of my
kind of diving into it in a particular way came
from critiques that I had and other trans people had
as well, but I kind of, you know, put them
together in a particularly in the dismantling I think it's

(02:56:04):
dismantling Sexual Privileged chapter where I kind of go through
all these steps that lead to miss gendering, because I
think people talk about trans people passing and also the
people will talk about other marginalized groups passing is whatever
dominant majority group. The term obviously had long been used
with regards to people of color passing is white and

(02:56:27):
in kind of white racist, you know, us and other societies.
So it's an old term, and a big problem with
it is that it makes it sound like we're doing
something active, that trans people are actively trying to deceive
other people, with huge scare quotes around the word deceive.
And I really wanted to highlight to people that actually

(02:56:50):
all of us very unconsciously and very compulsively gender every
single person we meet, or at least that's how we're
socialized to be.

Speaker 13 (02:56:59):
And you know, you can work towards.

Speaker 14 (02:57:01):
Getting you know, overcoming that, but I wanted to really
highlight the fact that we see people, we automatically gender them,
and that puts people who do not quite who your
presumptions are wrong about. It puts us in difficult situations.
It's a double bind, where do you reveal what you

(02:57:23):
supposedly really are, or do you just allow people to
read you that way? And it works out very differently,
for instance, between trans and say CIS gay people, because
when cis gay people talk about passing is straight, their
passing is something that they know that they are not,
whereas for a lot of trans people, people read me

(02:57:43):
as a woman and I understand myself.

Speaker 13 (02:57:46):
To be a woman.

Speaker 14 (02:57:47):
There's it's a very different dynamic because it's not like
I'm not hiding anything, but people are presuming what I'm
really passing as is I'm passing a CIS gender and
people are assuming I'm sis gender when the trans is
the thing that I might need to or feel like
I need to clear up or other people might put

(02:58:08):
pressure on me to either tell them that I'm trans
or be accused of deceiving them. So that's a little
bit of kind of how I was approaching it when
I started working on that idea and really stressing the
idea of you can't understand miss gendering unless you understand
that we make assumptions all the time, We gender people

(02:58:30):
very actively, and you know, so trans people are often
just reacting to that and dealing with that double bind.

Speaker 11 (02:58:40):
Yeah, and this is something that I think is interestingly
discussed in the book about like kind of this this
issue with some of the sort of prevailing gender theories
which thought of which think about sort of like femininity
and gender is pure performance. But and this is I think,

(02:59:01):
like the argument that you were making that I think
is really interesting is that something that I think is
is very obvious to trans people is that so much
of gender is how people perceive you and how you
know and stuff that like you don't have any control over.
It's how people sort of gender you. It's how people
like construct a gender around you in ways that you

(02:59:21):

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