CZM Book Club: Cool Zone 2054: General Lichterman

Margaret interviews the one and only General Lichterman about her decades as a revolutionary icon.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Cool Zone Media.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
Hello, and welcome to cool Zone Media book Club. I
waited to do the chanting, so if you're ready to
do the chanting, I don't chant, just say it out
of time with me. Book Club, book Club, book Club.
There we go. That's the book club intro everyone wants.
So it's cool Zone Media book Club only this month,

(00:26):
as you probably are aware, instead of doing our regular
book club. What we got sent missives from the future
from cool Zone Media twenty fifty four, and so here
we are welcome to cool Zone Media twenty fifty four
Reports from the Dinah War, your source for everything World
War three point five. I'm your host, Margaret Kiljoy, and

(00:47):
today we've got something extra special for you. Today we
are talking to the Witch of Warcraft, the Mistress of Macnovia,
the Conquering Queen. She's either the Prince of Portland or
the Butcher of Beaverton, depending on who you ask. Today
we're talking to the one, the Only, General, Sophie Lickterman.

(01:07):
How are you today, Sophie?

Speaker 1 (01:09):
Well, all my dogs are good, so I'm good. All right.

Speaker 2 (01:12):
I've got a bunch of questions for you, some are
for me, some are listener recommended. And hey, if you
want to ask our guest questions, anyone with a service card,
civil or military can send them along to us using
the social media app of your choice. As always, we'll
pick the best ones to ask our guests. And no,
we don't sort by rank privates in generals, you're all

(01:32):
equal here, just like you are in all the best militaries.
But first you might be asking yourself, dear listener, what
if I haven't served in World War three point five yet?
What if you're looking for a way to get involved, Well,
look no further, because it wouldn't be a cool Zone
Media podcast in the year twenty fifty four if we
weren't brought to you by our biggest sponsor, Dino Cadence.

(01:56):
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(02:21):
twenty fifty four, Ride or Die. I told you years
ago that it would take until the twenty fifties before
I would do adreads. Before I get into it with
the questions, I've got to pretend like there isn't anyone
in the audience who might not have heard of you,
just in case you were born yesterday. General Sophie Lickterman is,
of course one of the most decorated commanders in the

(02:43):
Internationalist forces, and I believe the only person alive who
holds the rank of brigadier general in three different armies
four armies. Four.

Speaker 1 (02:53):
Yeah, the Freeqrumpy of Louisiana just promoted me after last.

Speaker 2 (02:56):
Week's campaign four Armies. The only person currently alive who
holds the rank of brigadier general in four armies. You
are the woman of the hour. It seems like jet
setting and organizing forces everywhere in the world. Whenever a
new internationalist force needs help getting up and off the ground,
you're there. You're still on the board here at cool

(03:17):
Zone Media, of course, which you've founded decades ago at
this point, but you've still got time to dog mom
two amazing pups. I think you've got more hours in
the day than the rest of us. But on to
the questions. You first rose to political prominence back in
twenty thirty six, during the whole Fight for the Future thing,
when you became a household name after a well televised arrest.

(03:40):
In your own words, what happened there?

Speaker 1 (03:43):
I mean most of you have seen it, but yeah,
so the Fight for the Future kicks off and recovering
it on a bunch of our shows. I didn't even
mean to get more directly involved. I'd had my own
podcast for a couple of years, but already given up
on it because I like getting stuff done behind this
sear I mean, always have. I love you all, but
someone's got to keep things organized, you know. Anyways, I

(04:07):
made this offhand comment February twenty fourth, twenty thirty six,
on It's Still Happening Here, That was our lead show
at the time, just a quick little I hope someone
kills that man.

Speaker 2 (04:19):
And then someone killed that man.

Speaker 1 (04:21):
Yeah, his own, a strange son killed him, And like,
how was I supposed to know that kid listened to
our shows.

Speaker 2 (04:30):
And so later that day you're just out shopping.

Speaker 1 (04:33):
I was just at the pet store the day after
that asshole died and Suddenly there's the camera crew there,
drones everywhere, plus two actual talking heads. Run from Fox
and run from that garbage man media. I think it
was that old right wing show that Jamie Loftus eventually
drove into relevance. So these two men are there, They're

(04:55):
sticking MIC's into my face and asking me about why
I did it or what I why I masterminded that assassination,
and I don't know. It's been a long day. I
just wanted to go home to the dogs, and they're all,
why do you hate innovation? And why does Antifa support
murder as a tactic? And tried to get out the door,
but they were both just there and they weren't small men,

(05:17):
and I don't know, And.

Speaker 2 (05:20):
So you pepper sprayed both of them.

Speaker 1 (05:22):
I pepper sprayed the shit out of both of them,
but the cameras caught it all and I was arrested
in the parking lot. They clearly planned the whole thing.
The cops wanted to hold me in jail until trial too.
Our words are more dangerous than a ghost gun, the
judge said, which is a compliment, I guess. But I
just wanted to go home see my dogs. And I

(05:44):
told the judge and the camera saw and yeah, I
guess people listen because Right for the Future laid siege
to the courthouse and they brought the cake mortar and
started kicking everyone trying to get in and out of
the building, and all the while everyone is standing around
with actual ar fifteen chanting let her see her dogs,
Let her see her dogs. It was a weird time.

(06:07):
Fight for the Future was a weird movement, still throwing
pies at people, but defending ourselves with guns.

Speaker 2 (06:13):
And so the cops they let you go.

Speaker 1 (06:16):
Yeah, turns out the whole power concedes nothing without a demand.
Thing is right. The state of Oregon decided they'd be
better off without a small army of protesters camped outside
the courthouse, and I got to go home that night
to see my dogs, and I agreed to come back
to trial, but with an escort of my choosing who
would make sure I wouldn't go to jail unless I

(06:37):
was convicted. And yeah, I don't know. It was a
whole big thing. They wanted to get me on terrorism charges.

Speaker 2 (06:43):
And I was at some of these protests. Jury of
your peers found you not guilty, much to the judge's consternation.
You lay low for a while, if you can call
running a large podcast network laying low, and then kind
of came back on the scene. During the war, well,
we used to call it the war, but now we're
in another one. I guess. So World War three twenty

(07:06):
forty four was wild. I mean, like a solid ten
percent of the Earth's population died. So there's that. But
we were all underground the first half of the year,
hiding out and broadcasting.

Speaker 1 (07:16):
Yeah, can't stop the signal.

Speaker 2 (07:17):
I don't think most of our listeners are old enough
to appreciate that reference.

Speaker 1 (07:21):
I'm sure the little don't call me AI robot in
their ears can help them get a firefly reference. Last,
of course, they're listening to this in one of the
shielded territories on vinyl.

Speaker 2 (07:30):
Hey, ad, pivots are my job, Well, then go ahead.
You know, sometimes I look around this world and think
to myself, the Industrial Revolution and its consequences might just
have been a disaster for the human race. We used
to be able to say at least it increased our
life expectancy, but in this era of war, we can't
even say that. It seems like the Industrial Revolution and

(07:52):
its consequences have destabilized society, have made life unfulfilling, have
subjected human beings to indignities, have led to why spread
psychological and physical suffering, and have inflicted severe damage on
the natural world. It seems like the continued development of
technology might just worsen the situation. When I'm thinking that way,

(08:13):
I just book myself a vacation in Helsenborg, Sweden, the
largest de electrified region in the world, with its Vishnu
shield always activated. You know for certain no one can
reach you because if you bring your phone into the city,
it'll be completely destroyed. Come on down to Helsenborg, where
the stars shine at night, Helsenborg, Come on over. Ironic

(08:36):
paraphrasing and industrial society and its future is not intended
to convey sympathy for the actions of Ted Kazinski. Do
not consider visiting a Vishnu shielded area if you rely
on a pacemaker or other electrical aids. All tourists, too
and temporary guests of the Scandinavian Federation are required to
spend at least six hours per week in a volunteer position.
Not all volunteers are able to pick their form of service.
Not all volunteer service is considered safe offline life within

(08:56):
an otherwise industrial world, not proven to mitigate climate change,
mental degradation, or human impact upon the ecosphere. There is
no such thing as a climate haven, and natural disaster
can strike anywhere in the world. This podcast is brought
to you by the Council for Unbroken Spaghetti. The Council
for Unbroken Spaghetti would like to remind you that you
should not break your spaghetti. You just put the spaghetti

(09:20):
into a boiling salted water, wait a few seconds, then
push the soft and spaghetti into the rest of the pot.
To do otherwise is an insult to the nearly two
hundred and fifty thousand Italians who have died already in
the Dino War, and there're so far successful fight to
keep their peninsula from falling once again into the hands
of fascists. In fact, Mussolini, the original fascist, banned pasta,

(09:45):
So eat pasta, respect pasta. Don't break your spaghetti. Remember,
only Nazis break noodles. And we're back, all right. So

(10:12):
take us back to World War three. It's the end
of May and the first schematics for the Vishnu Shield
are making the rounds. You and I are living with
a bunch of dogs and podcasters and jns's bunker. But
the Hunter Killer robots of the US counter Terrorism Force
are getting closer to our undisclosed location in eastern Washington.
Every week. You and me and Mia are binging old

(10:33):
reality TV shows, the two of you trying to explain
to me who Mecca Ariana Grande is and why she's
a sports figure now, while and are talking about how
they're going to start a machete cult once it's all over.

Speaker 1 (10:48):
Yeah, I wasn't the best. Once we got the plans
through Vish New Shield, we printed a few up on
our three D printer. We couldn't test them in the bunker,
of course, because we needed our electronics, so we started
sneaking out at night and testing them out in the woods.
Once we had them dialed in, we started telling everyone and.

Speaker 2 (11:05):
That's when you knew we couldn't stay underground anymore. Fuck
no people needed to know. AWP's were killing literally millions
of people. The only sides that mattered in that war
was people versus drone. If you ask me, I guess
all of this is in the history books. But we
did that walk from Castle Rock to Portland with all

(11:26):
the de factors. All these people have been quietly rebelling
in the rinks with tactical EMPs. First day there were
one hundred of us. A couple drones tried to take
us out, but we shut them down. Second day or
a thousand of us once people realized they wouldn't just
get Hunter killed. When we walked into Portland in June,
there were ten thousand people walking with us on bikes

(11:47):
and horses. And then you blew up Portland.

Speaker 1 (11:53):
Not how uh, it's not how I put it, but yeah, look,
don't cut yourself out of the story.

Speaker 2 (12:01):
Magpie, you were there too.

Speaker 1 (12:05):
We got together and talked it over with people from
all over the city, work with hospital crews to get
everyone who relied on electronics for life support to get
them out of the blast radius. Everyone had plenty of time.
It was all very coordinated, and yet twenty four hours
later we took out the power in Portland. We weren't
the only people doing it. It sounds so bad out

(12:26):
of context, and don't vish new unconsenting populations.

Speaker 2 (12:31):
And that's how I became a folk hero.

Speaker 1 (12:33):
I ever said I ought to be a folk hero.
I just think some of you all are so good
at organizing. I mean like someone had to get it done.

Speaker 2 (12:45):
And so we were the first major metropolitan area on
the west coast of the US to Vishnu. But we
weren't even one of the first hundred places in the
world to do it. And soon enough, another three thousand
places threw up shields cities to villages, to military bases
to actual battlefields. The war ground to a halt with

(13:06):
no machines to fight it. And yeah, people started calling
you the Prince of Portland. What was your like life?
After that? Two times? The folk hero Oh, I.

Speaker 1 (13:15):
Tried to return to podcasting. I even still do it sometimes,
nothing with my name or voice on it anymore, though,
because people just don't know how to handle themselves. I
kind of had a long, dark night of the soul
after the end of the war. The way people talked
about me, it was all too much. And after the war,
everywhere in the world it was like either the big

(13:36):
revolution kicked off right away or everything kind of went
into a funk for a while. The US went into
a funk after the armistice. We all thought this is it,
this is the revolution, like it was Palestine in Western
Africa and Scandinavia and China, but nope, not the US.
Everyone just went back to work. It was surreal. Yeah,

(13:57):
I was depressing.

Speaker 2 (13:58):
I was depressed.

Speaker 1 (14:00):
But then but then twenty forty eight happened. The Baltimore
Commune got going, and the Cooperative movement found its teeth.
The Maganese Stan's Appatitisa revolts stopped respecting national borders, and
the whole Southwest was on fire, not just metaphorically at
this point. It was one of those bad summers down
there for wildfire. So when the California Cooperative really got going,

(14:22):
I went back down to.

Speaker 2 (14:23):
Help, okay, And so that brings us up to right
around the start of World War three point five two
years ago. Now, you've been a major figure, both behind
the scenes and on Mike ever since. What was the
transition from folk Heiro to brigadier general?

Speaker 1 (14:38):
Like, look, I'm the first shurtment. I was kind of
grandfather and in that's how I came out the gate
high rank. I started going to meetings of what became
the California Cooperative before we even picked the name, and
I was on the ground organizing support for Ta Tumash revolt.
So I was kind of like I said, grandfathered in.
But the council didn't just say, okay, you're an organizer,

(15:01):
you can be in charge of the military or anything.
Most people don't know. But I actually spent most of
twenty forty four to twenty forty eight studying military strategy
with the Democratic Confederalist International Like formally, I got a
master's in strategic studies. About half the classes were online
and half in person all over the world, And when

(15:22):
the California Cooperative got started, I started mentoring directly under
some internationalist revolutionary leaders in Mianmar and elsewhere. And still look,
I'm a general, that's true, but brigadier general is the
lowest rank of general.

Speaker 2 (15:36):
I heard you turned down three different promotions.

Speaker 1 (15:38):
That's true. I don't need the stress. I want to
spend more time with my dogs.

Speaker 2 (15:42):
I also heard you turned down a demotion.

Speaker 1 (15:44):
Yeah. The brass, well, the higher brass wasn't too happy
when we all refused orders in the spring of twenty
fifty one, the Fresno incident. They told me I was demoted.
I told them they could tell that to the troops.
They decided I wasn't demoted after all.

Speaker 2 (15:58):
Each shit, So his next question is from a listener
Rocky Road Rebel asks, Hi, Sophie, big fan, been following
you work since the Fight for the Future days, but
then the Corvallis offensive really saved me and my family's
asses in the fall of fifty two. I just wanted
to ask, there were towns falling left and right to
the Nine Angry Armies at the start of the war,

(16:21):
why'd you start with us in Corvallis. I mean, I'm
glad you did.

Speaker 1 (16:25):
Thanks for the question. Honestly, the biggest part of it
when Georgie Washington not its real name, but whatever set
fire to the Research Library and OSU, it just well,
it pissed a lot of people off the brick burning spectacle.
You just don't burn books, you know. We didn't have
the numbers up in Oregon yet for a major offensive,

(16:48):
not without a lot of risk. But if some assholes
get in a bunch of literal zombies to set a
bunch of books on fire in a public square, then
like we can recruit around that, we can coalition build.
There was a lot of folks, centrists, even right wringers,
who weren't going to take that lying down. And enough
of those folks had farm dinos and rifles. You had

(17:12):
old SCHOOLANTIFA members fighting side by side along the very
activists who fought for Prop eight ninety nine, writing those
uta rappers that were popular in the cities and farm
tractor segosaurus is alike. The Nine Armies didn't stand a chance.

Speaker 2 (17:27):
And that seems like as good a place as any
for us to go into our last ad break. This
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(17:48):
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(18:09):
that isn't with the enemy. Remember they're not off the hook,
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(18:32):
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(19:30):
This next question X Grendel X asks what's your favorite
comfort food when you get back home after a campaign.

Speaker 1 (19:37):
Honestly, just like a big bowl of popcorn and a
hard sider.

Speaker 2 (19:41):
Oh that makes sense. That's a good one. So this
next one, I don't think you're going to answer it.
Our lawyer has advised us that we shouldn't er any
answer to it anyway, But if I don't ask it,
people will never leave us alone. In the comments, six
different listeners have asked some form of the question, what's
going on with.

Speaker 1 (20:03):
That's my family? No comment? All right?

Speaker 2 (20:07):
And finally, look, this is the hardest question to ask.
I am not a hardball reporter and you're one of
my best friends. So I warned you I was going
to ask you this before we hit record. But it's
been three months without a comment from you, and people
want to know. In September of this year, you were
involved in the campaign in Poland. It didn't go well,
not for anyone. A cavalry unit of six hundred and

(20:29):
thirteen Pterosaur riders was dispatched to take out an entrenched
force of the new Soviet Red Army, who we will
continue to remind our listeners, is in fact a nationalist
force that has recuperated Soviet imagery for nationalists socialist purposes.
Four hundred and seventy three of those riders died to
Russian guns, only eighty four made it back. The other

(20:51):
survivors are currently held in pow camps if we're lucky,
But Russian propaganda films have begun to leak across the
web of riders being tortured and executed and then resurrected
to fight in the Army of the Dead. A lot
of people are comparing the whole thing to the Charge
of the Light Brigade, when in eighteen fifty four a
force of six hundred British cavalry received a miscommunicated order

(21:15):
and attacked a heavily fortified position. Lord Tennyson wrote a
poem called the Charge of the Light Brigade, and the
event has been a cultural touchstone of the futility of
war ever since. So what happened in Poland? I think
you actually wrote down this answer ahead of time for us.

Speaker 1 (21:32):
Right, yeah, And I've been silent on it because I'm
not a media spokesperson. I'm a heartbroken old soldier I've
had a lot to say about the charge of the
Light Brigade. I'll take it as a name. It was
a horrible mistake made by all of us, including soldiers themselves,
who adjust as much information as the rest of us
and agreed to the offensive. Think about a doctor. A

(21:57):
doctor makes decisions every single day that saves live and
they make decisions all the time that.

Speaker 2 (22:02):
Get people killed.

Speaker 1 (22:03):
Their job is life and death, and there is no
perfect with a war. It's just the whole other level
beyond that. I'm a brigadier general responsible on any given
day for about five thousand people's lives. Yeah, we've got
a lot more flattening of hierarchy and militaries than we
used to. At the end of the day, when a

(22:24):
quick call needs to be made by someone or a
group of people, it gets people killed. On a good day,
I get dozens or hundreds of people I care about killed.
I accept that it's not easy, but I accept that.
What I don't accept is any position that the war
is futile. What is the futility of war? If I'm
walking down the street with my friends and someone runs

(22:46):
up and attacks one of us, is it futile? If
I intervene, or if I'm attacked, if I fight back,
because the other option here is just letting someone attack
my friends or me. The majority of Poland is currently
a free country. It's free because hundreds of thousands of
people have fought to keep it that way, because tens
of thousands of people have died, were suffered fates still

(23:07):
worse to keep it that way. Their deaths have not
been futile, even if sometimes an individual death might look
futile if you zoom all the way in, you've got
to zoom out. The life brigand attack was a fiasco,
but there wasn't a miscommunication about orders. Accounts of Poland
felt it was necessary to attack that position, which best

(23:28):
available information suggested would only be moderately defended. Our terror team,
as they called themselves, volunteered. They knew the risks, and
they thought it would be hard and bloody fight and
they'd come out on top. And the Polish Army, like
many internationalist armies, every soldier at every level can refuse
any mission until they've committed. Once they've committed, they are

(23:51):
not free to say, for example, show fear in the
face of enemy. As far as I'm concerned, every one
of those riders is a hero, and fuck everyone who
says otherwise. You know what, Fuck everyone who tries to
take their agency away from them by blaming me and
other generals too.

Speaker 2 (24:06):
That all makes sense to me. I mean, the point
of Russia releasing those videos is to make us give
up hope.

Speaker 1 (24:13):
Morale's a terrainer struggle. I know it. You know it.
Cool Zone media knows it. The enemy, the nationalists, the fascists,
the necromancers, they want us to give up. Why because
they know that when we organize and we fight all together,
not one off attacks here and there. When we fight,
we win. We're winning all over the globe. There's never

(24:34):
been a worldwide civil war because there's never been a
worldwide revolution, and worldwide revolution has always been our best
chance at building a better world. We're building that world
right now. Are we building it out of bones?

Speaker 2 (24:45):
Yeah? We are.

Speaker 1 (24:46):
But one day all of the dead will just be
composts in memories, two of the most valuable things in
the world. That's all any of us will end up
as composts and memories. That's what we use to build
a better world. There are free territories everywhere now, and
there are going to be more until everyone is free.

Speaker 2 (25:08):
Well, it'd be hard to follow that up with like
some lighthearted question about your favorite color. So I want
to thank you for your time and thank you for
breaking the silence on that for sure. Anyway, thank you
so much for coming on the show. Of course. Do
you have anything you want to plug?

Speaker 1 (25:27):
Yeah, just don't follow for a nationalist from papaganda and
put your dog or diner or whatever animal keeps you company.
Also support your local mu Julia groups.

Speaker 2 (25:34):
All right, thank you so much. That has been general
Sophie Lichterman.

Speaker 1 (25:38):
It could Happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
cool zonemedia dot com or check us out on the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
You can find sources for It Could Happen Here, updated
monthly at cool zonemedia dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.