It Could Happen Here Weekly 102

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
A 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 got to be nothing new here for you, but

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

Speaker 2 (00:29):
Welcome to karapn Here. I am Andrew of THETU channel
Andrewism and today I'd like to take some time to
discuss nations, clonialism and the people that constitute them. That
is of course quite broad, but in the end I
hope that folks are able to come with a sense
of at least my version of the anarchist position on Nichans,

(00:50):
the impact of colonization, the pychees of individuals within nitions,
and the role of national liberation in social revolution. Today
I'm joined by me Mia.

Speaker 3 (01:01):
Who oh boy, it great topic. Interesting topic, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:07):
Indeed, indeed, indeed, I think part of what makes the
topic so interesting is because of how for lack of bets,
it's how wiggly some of these tombs are how hard
to pin down some of these definitions are. So it's
very important to be clear at the outset what you

(01:27):
mean by a nation, what you mean by national liberation,
that sort of thing. So what is a nation? What
comes to mind for you? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:42):
Oh god, yeah, I know I should have pre prepped
an answer to this. I have a very difficult time
conceiving of a nation is something that's separated from a state,
which I know is something a lot of people try
to do. For me, it's just been sort of permanently

(02:03):
welded to the nation state in a way that makes
it hard to sort of think about without conjoining the two.

Speaker 2 (02:11):
That's fair, That's fair. I think that that really is
part of what we're going to end up discussing. Because,
for one, you know, as we'll see, a lot of
nations were formed through the process of colonization and through
the process of incorporation into the global uh you know, superstructure,

(02:35):
global system. And secondly, it is seen to be the
ultimate aim of a nation, the greatest accomplishment of a nation,
to eventually establish their own state, to have a state
of their own. We call nations that don't have their

(02:55):
own state state less nations, the Kurds being one of
the most notable examples. But it really is commonly seen
that the ultimate accomplishment is for the braation of your people,
is that you establish a state to rule that people
for themselves. Of course, what for themselves actually means becomes

(03:19):
quite clear, as in many cases foreign rulers and the
practices of foreign rulers just take on a local face.

Speaker 3 (03:31):
Yeah, there's a there's a Curtis joke that goes roughly,
getting your own nation state means that you speak your
police towrdure you in your own language. Oh, that's fantastic,
that is.

Speaker 2 (03:45):
I like that. I like that. And language really is
one of the aspects of what it is to be
a nation, and it is not it's not necessarily the
only aspect or primary aspect, but it is one aspect.
For example, what is considered the Basque nation, those in
northern Spain and part of southern southwestern France. I believe

(04:11):
their identity is not entirely, but quite significantly tied to
their language, because it is a language that is completely
distinct from any other language found in Europe or really
anywhere else in the world. The language is just one
aspect the nation. A nation I mean not in the

(04:34):
sense of a state or a country or political constitution,
but in the sense of an imagined community of people.
An imagined community of people. I think that imagined aspect
of it is quite important as well. Student see, but
an imagine the community of people formed on the basis
of a common language, history, ancestry, society, or culture, who

(05:00):
are conscious of their autonomy. So it's not enough that
a group of people merely share a language, or share history,
or share ancestry, or share society or share culture. It's
important that firms we defined as a nation, that they
are conscious of the fact that they share those things
in common, and that they use that consciousness to develop

(05:22):
some sense of an imagine shared identity, of imagined community,
whether or not each individual in that community knows all
the other individuals in that community. Nations are not necessarily
geographically bound, like you know, certain conceptions of a nation maybe,
but rather often diasporic, and some nations even united under

(05:46):
a banner of nations, such as in the case of
pan Africanism, which is a form of nation movement or
pan nation movement that seeks to unite the thousands of
ethnic groups and also the diaspora of the continents of
Africa in response to the exploitation of outsiders. In fact,

(06:09):
the pan Afka nation is really a quintessential example of
how colonism creates nations while exploiting them. And although Native
America in populations retained slightly more of their heritage than
the displaced African population in North America, though this is

(06:30):
not to deny what was lost their force. Displacement also
created something of a shared ethnic identity, which is where
you see movements like Red Power popping up during the
height of Soviriety era. Prior to the process of colonization,
they were distinct in their cultural groupings. This group would

(06:53):
be Blackfoot, this group would be create, this group would.

Speaker 3 (06:58):
Be Sue or something right.

Speaker 2 (07:02):
This script would be Sue. But then as they had
the shared experience of colonization, they began to develop a
sense of shared identity against those who are colonize in them,
a sense of solidarity that transcended their previous cultural distinctions
and designations. Not that those designations don't still exist, but

(07:23):
many have adopted a sort of panoration above that as
a vehicle through which they can undertake their struggle. However,
mere opposition between a colonized group and a colonizing force
is not the only way that clonism creates new nations.
Also through social stratification, through hybridization, through the imposition of

(07:47):
new religions, through new education systems, new languages, and new
administrative boundaries. All of those are ways in which cluonism
can develop u nations. For example, the case of the Metis,
a cultural intermingling and intermarriage between two radically different groups

(08:08):
ended up with the birth of the new nation of
the Maties in the unique colonial history of Canada, and
as we've see in nations are often the targets of
subraction and of subjugation and Eurasia, African peoples were stolen
from the constant and thoroughly stripped of their languages, histories,

(08:29):
and cultures, and continues to be oppressed throughout much of
the so called New World. In the United States, African
Americans faced centuries of systemic racism. In Brazil, the afric
Brazilian population also faced similar historical discrimination. Similarly in Colombia
and so on and so on. Indigenous nations across the

(08:51):
world also continue to be denied their autonomy as minorities
within a domineerian state. Palestinians and Israel have faced a
long standing conflict due to the raisure of their self determination.
Colgin and Released, as I've mentioned, spread across several countries
and do not have a country of their own, so

(09:13):
they have historically sought independence or at least autonomy. Aboriginal
Australians have faced struggles related to land rights, cultural preservation
and self governance, and although New Zealand has made progress
in recognizing the rights of the diligious Maria people, Marian
New Zealand have also dealt with issues related to land

(09:33):
ownership and cultural preservation, whether be the Armenians under the
Ottoman Empire in the past, or the current subjugation of
Hawaiian Puerto Rico under the US, or the Tibetan population
still under the firm of the Chinese state. Really could
go on and on. I really could go on and on.
Across the world, struggles have been an rb and fought

(09:57):
by nations for the liberation and much of their suffering
a struggle is thanks to the process of colonization. Our
present national borders and demographics were largely shaped and dictated
by the colonization and conquest of a few nations from Europe.
But what is colonialism? Exactly? As one anthropologist Chris quote

(10:20):
Right put it, colonialism is the establishment and control of
a territory for an extended period of time by a
sovereign power over a subordinate and other people which are
segregated and separated from the rule and power. He goes
on to say that features the colonal situation and include
political and legal domination over the other society, relations of

(10:41):
economic and political dependence, and institutionalized racial and cultural inequalities
to impose their dominant physical force through raids, expropriation of
labor and resources, imprisonment and objective murders. Enslavement of both
the indigenous people and their land is the primary objective colonization.

(11:03):
Through colonization, native cultures must be destroyed either strict crushed, empty, subsumed, cooperated,
or dismantled. And since colonism relies on a dichotomy of
superiority and inferiority, the colonialists must impose their own culture
over the native population, from language to dressed to daily practice.

(11:25):
That culture, which by the way, becomes native through that
process of colonization, and that already gets into the whole
discussion of what makes something native, what makes a people native.
There are two definitions that I balance try and dance between,
one being indigeneity through land relationship and the other being

(11:49):
indignity through colonial relationship. And so I'm referring to the
indignacy through colonial relationship when I say that a culture
or people becomes native through that process of colonization, because
prior to colonial inclusions, there was no non native to
define themselves against. They just were. You'll need to define

(12:13):
yourself as native to a place when an outsider or
an invasive force is pushing you out of that place
or trying to dominate you within that place. The old
forms of colonization are largely over, but the spirit of
colonization still lingers. It is a specter in the spheres

(12:37):
of culture and politics and economics. The colonial complex created
the world we see today and left quite the impression
psychologically on both the colonized and the colonizer. French Tunisian
writer Albert Mami wrote what I guess it to be

(13:00):
a very essential work on the relationship between the colonizer
and the colonized. That work that book is called the
Colonized and the Colonized was published in nineteen fifty seven,
and it was written and of course in a very
important time, in a time when many national liberation movements
were quite active, and so this work is often held

(13:22):
up with other important works in that anti colonial milieu,
including France Phenons, The Direction of the Earth, Black Skin,
White Masks, and IMA's discourse on clonialism. In the book
The Colonized and the Colonized, now, he spent some time

(13:42):
discussing the psychology of both, and he splits the condition
psychological conditions the colonized and the colonized into four parts,
the colonizer who accepts, the colonizer who refuses, the colonized
who accepts, and the colonized who refuses. So first there's

(14:03):
the colonizer who accepts. I've called that colonizer Christopher for
obvious reasons, that being Columbus. And so the Christopher accepts
his role as a colonizer, he becomes a colonist. That
means he has to accept the fact that his position

(14:25):
of privilege is non legitimate. So the any way he
could really enjoy his position would be to absolve himself
of the conditions of the guilt of the conditions under
which he was attained. That's why Christopher forcifies history, creates
racist mythology, rewrites laws, and attempts to whitewash his legacy.
That's why he emphasizes his superiority while castness, persions, and

(14:47):
the colonized. He has to do whatever it takes to
justify his evils, to uplift himself to the skies while
grinding those below him underground. Deep down, Christopher knows all
of his master up, but he can't admit that to himself.
He has to keep degrading the colonized, and so, just
as the colonal situation manufactures the colonized, Christopher the colonialist

(15:09):
is also transformed. Now he chairs on torture, discrimination, and massacre.
He becomes a reactionary, a conservative, and a fascist. But
the condemnation that he carries in his heart can ever
truly be raised. It pisses him off that he relies
in the colonize to maintain the colony, even though he
came looking for profit and already has a homeland. But

(15:32):
he has to direct his anger somewhere. So becomes a racist,
and not just any racism, a racism. So fundamentally ingrained
in his personality. Racism built on three major components. One
there exists some major gulf between him and the colonized.
Two that he can exploit these differences to his benefit,

(15:53):
and three that these differences are absolute and cannot be changed. Therefore,
he's able to remain separate from the community the colonized
by holding any social mobility. And he's able to continue
to justify superiority because honestly, circular logic, right, these people
are inferior because they aren't at my level, and they
aren't at my level because I keep them in it

(16:14):
because I keep them in their inferior position, and on
and on and on. Added bonus, of course, he gets
to feel good about himself. While doing so, he becomes
a humanitarian. Surely the colonize needed him to bring the
light of civilization. Look at them, so stupid and sivile.

(16:35):
All this is natural and need to know, so he
has nothing to worry about. It is divine grace that
has brought him to this place. It is a manifest
destiny that he continues this tradition. And I mean if
he enjoys a couple of perks in his quest to
civilize them. Well, surely is just justice should be grateful Christopher,

(17:03):
benevolent master of the natural order, no question. And really
this is why missus there was right to say. The
colonization dehumanizes even the most civilized man. It inevitably tends
to change him who undertakes it that the colonizer, who,

(17:23):
in order to ease his conscience, gets into the habit
of seeing the other man as an animal, accustoms himself
to treating him like an animal, and tends objectively to
transform himself into an animal. No offense to animals, of course,
I'm just quotients.

Speaker 4 (17:40):
There.

Speaker 2 (17:45):
On the flip side of the coin is the colonizer
who refuses John. You see, not every colonizer becomes a
colingless John tries to just the role, but he is
still a colonizer. He tries to ignore his position of privilege,

(18:07):
but he kind of escaped mentally from a concrete situation.
He kind of refused the ideology of crinalism while continuing
to live with its actual relationships, while continuing to benefit
from the privileges he half heartedly denounces. See, colonial relations
can't be boiled down to individual feelings, so it doesn't

(18:29):
matter much materially. If John accepts or rejects it, it
doesn't matter if he feels guilty or not. His identity
is fundamentally defined in relation to colonization. He's still part
of the oppression group. He shares in their good fortune
and would likely share their faith. It makes it clear

(18:49):
that the truth is between colonizer and colonized. There is
only room for forced labor, intimidation, pressure, police, taxation, theft, rape,
upulsory crops, contempt, mistrust, arrogance, self complacency, swinishness, brainless elites,
degraded masses, no human contact, but relations of domination and submission.

(19:12):
Was sh the colonizing man into a classroom monitor, an
army sergeant, a prison guard, a slave driver, and the
indigenous man into an instrument of production. Even if John
is a leftist, a progressive trying his best to assist
the national liberation to colonize people's he's still in a
rough situation. Of course, not many colonizers have actually been

(19:37):
you know about it like that. But even if John
was to create a world or colonization, maybe hard for
him to picture his situation change in all that much
He's accustomed to privilege and so equality is probably going
to feel like oppression. You can't imagine not being who
he is with the comfortable domination of his culture and language,

(19:58):
he's ever had to accommodate others before, he's had to think,
oh wait, maybe I should try and learn their language,
try and incorporate elements of their cultural moriors. He still
holds the subtle vestiges of the racist ideology that his
country was built on, and he will have to fight

(20:18):
his own class interests and his own fellow colonizers. Revolution
would require the decimation of his current identity and the
rebooth of another. And that decision, that gargantuan task, maybe
too challenging for some people to undertake. So, miir, what

(20:40):
do you think of the position of the colonizer who
accepts and the colonizer who refuses.

Speaker 3 (20:49):
One of the things that I think is interesting about
this is that the original concept of privilege was something
that came out of like this specific kind of analysis
was about like like it was it was, it was
about French settlers in Algeria, and you know, it was,
it was, it was, it was. It was originally something

(21:09):
along basically along these similar lines where it's like it
doesn't really matter what your ideological beliefs are if you're
sort of like a French settler in Algeria, like you
just automatically have privilege that like other people didn't. And
this has been sort of like I don't know, I
like the original sort of context of what this analysis

(21:32):
was has been sort of worn down. But I think
I don't know, Like I think I think it is
colonizers like this is this is a structural position, right,
like you know, the the sort of you can't sort
of individualism your way out of a structural condition. Yeah,
And I think that's something people sort of have this
incredible capacity to sort of believe about themselves and it's

(21:53):
just not really true. And that's something that's very difficult
to sort of like actually substantively confront. But I think
it's why this analysis of stuff.

Speaker 2 (22:05):
Is useful exactly exactly. It's not enough to just say, oh, well,
I don't think this is right, I think this is wrong.
That doesn't change anything materially. It's when you act to
challenge the dismantle, to confront, and to act in cell

(22:26):
the arity with those facing those challenges in a material
way that any of it really matters. I think it
was particularly politin and of course Mami is writing this,
and Cesaire wrote in a time when colonization is really

(22:47):
at or rather the confrontation against colonizations really added to Zenith.
And so for those of us in the twenty first century,
in twenty twenty three now who are looking back, we're saying,
we might think, oh, well, surely this is a data analysis,
a dated way of looking at these relationships. But upon

(23:11):
through the inspection, it really continues to be quite topical
when you look at, for example, self proclaimed allies. Looking
at how Mami discusses the colonizer who refuses really gives
you a sense of I think, at least how far

(23:34):
you need to be willing to go in your allyship
versus how far most people have reached. Even today, we
can ask ourselves and those who maybe see themselves a
bit in the colonizer who refuses, ask yourself, how far

(23:55):
I mean you may recognize your privileges even while still
you know in enjoying them, but how far might you
be willing to go to see an end to this system?
We speak about how the loss of privilege can make
equality feel like oppression, but truly grappling with that. What

(24:19):
would it mean, for example, English to no longer be
the dominant language? You know, what would it mean for
us to get used to will in which we might
have to learn another language? And then I've been thinking
about recently, even while occupying the position of a colonized subject,

(24:45):
I speak English, and that is a privilege. I speak
English natively, and I mean I'm trying to learn another language.
I'm trying to learn Spanish, which is another colonized the language.

Speaker 3 (24:58):
Yeah, that's sort of one of the other things. It's like,
you know, for me, it's it's like, Okay, you have English,
it's this colonial language. You're a Chinese, which is like
also colonial language. And I learned some Spanish. It's like, well,
all right, and that's a third colonial language destruct the towers.

Speaker 2 (25:13):
Yeah exactly. And this when we get into this sort
of discussion about like actually postclualism and anti colonial struggle
and how you go about anti colualism, right, because there
is one of their different approaches. One could take different paths.
I suppose we could follow there's an anticlonial approach where

(25:36):
we could say, you know what, let's just try and
recreate pre colonial society. Right, So everybody tries to learn
the languages that they feel as though they might have
spoken if not under clonal system, if not, if Clonal's
history had not happened. And then we try to re

(25:59):
implement those languages, and reimpose those languages, and dismantle certain
institutions and structures and whatever the case may be, try
to basically erase the impact of colonization from history. And
then there's another path where we recognize, well, maybe we

(26:24):
cannot undo colonization, and truthfully we can't write. But going forward,
how do we intend to dismantle and to rework and
to create a new you know, taking from the past

(26:46):
to build the future, but not being bound to that past.
How do we, for example, let go of certain binds
on language, or certain ways of communicating, or certain ways

(27:10):
we organize systems, or certain customs and roles and obligations.
And I'm varying a bit from the intended topic of
psychology of colonization, but I do want us to think
about whether what role we regardless of what role we

(27:30):
see ourselves in this discussion, how do we pursue an
anti clar future. What does that look like? What paths
should we be taken, and how might that path chafe
against our current identity? How am that path chafe against
our current privileges, our current comforts. Yes, we are as workers,

(27:56):
all oppressed and exploited, but at the same time as
we recognize there are certain privileges that some have over others,
whether it be in the realm of race or gender,
or ability or language. And if we are going to
be pursuing a sequean so we have to ask ourselves,
how might those privileges be affected? And have we truly

(28:21):
confronted our comfort level with those privileges being affected. I
think that's part of the broader effort of decolonizing the mind.
And when I speak about it in my video and
why Revolutionary's therapy, the idea of like really truly breaking
down a lot of these ideas that we have about

(28:41):
ourselves and about the world and questioning all of it,
deconstructing and reconstructing all of it. But then when I
get too far, of course, sincere called the colonization thingification.
So let's turn our attention now to those things. Let's
discussed the situation of the colonized in this case, Candice,

(29:06):
and that defined by the images and myths that surround
them and tell them who they are. The colonized have
no way out of their condition within the colonial order.
They aren't free to choose between being colonized or not
being colonized. They just are colonized. And so Candace understands

(29:28):
this in her whole life, She's had to grapple with
the negative portraits of herself. They were created by the colonizer,
all the images that were used to support the clonal
situation that raised the colonizer and humbled the colonized. They
justified the colonizer as privilege, that painted the colonized as

(29:48):
inert and the colonizer as active. That made it seem
as though the colonizer, as the colonizer, was doing the
colonized a fever, that their labor was actually and the
employment was actually necessary, that it was charity that the
colonizer was bringing to their otherwise lazy masters. Being exposed

(30:16):
to that kind of message and from a young age,
really does a number on people, not just in the
realm of colonization, but in other spheres as well. We
see that with patriarchy, of course, how messages from an
early age affect how boys and girls and others perceive

(30:38):
themselves and perceive the world around them, and perceive others
in the cloning context. This means that some who are
colonized end up internalizing and accepting wholesale the messages that
they're receiving. So kind of thinks to herself. Perhaps the

(31:00):
colonizers right. Perhaps we are lazy, perhaps we are shifted,
perhaps we are timid and weak, and this degrading portrait
ends up being accepted. It's usually one of the final
steps of colonization, the colonization of the mind. Once the
colonize begins to tolerate rather than resist colonization, all they
can really look to do is attempt to assimilate, which

(31:24):
is impossible by a design. Does mean that Candice won't try.
She sheds the memories of her ancestors and the practices
institutions of her culture. She embraces the colonizers' will, and
all these institutions is right and just. The colonizers selve,
and the colonizers whip the colonizes God, and the colonizers' school.

(31:45):
Her children are sent to these schools built by the
colonizer to erase and replace a people's history, traditions, and language.
She and her kin are imbued with double consciousness. She's
trapped in the sunken place, performing for the colonizer in

(32:07):
a home country that don't feels foreign. Double consciousness is
a particularly useful concept, first coined by WB. Du Bois
in the Souls of Black Folk in nineteen oh three.
He was speaking specifically about African Americans, but the concept

(32:30):
does apply in the contexts as well. Double consciousness is
the dual self perception experienced by subordinate peoples in an
oppressive society. It is looking at yourself through your own
eyes and simultaneously looking at yourself through the eyes of
a racist society, looking at who you are, and also

(32:55):
looking at what the dominant society sees and thinks of
who you are. Of course, the voice concept was further
built upon, and you know, people speak about her things
such as triple consciousness, and in some ways the idea
of double consciousness is can't be tied with the conversation

(33:19):
of intersectionality. But they are those who experience that double consciousness,
and rather than reasserting their view of themselves and their people,
they accept the negative view held by the dominant society.
They surround themselves the language of that dominant society kindnesses

(33:44):
world from the street signs, the documents to the courts,
the bureaucracyeded industry, or use the colonizing language. While her
mother tongue, the one used tenderly by her ancestors, the
one that sustained in the most feelings, emotions and dreams,
is he valued and degraded. Candice loses far more than

(34:05):
she gains by history, a culture future. She rejects herself,
self love and liberation itself. She rejects herself self, love
and liberation itself. I tending to model herself after the colonizer,
or rather crush herself into conformity, she gains self hate, shame,

(34:26):
and alienation. She sees her own people through the eyes
the condonations and accusations of the colonizer. She's atomized and
estranged from her people and rejected by the colonizer, utterly defeated.
But when he offers another path, an alternative mindset in

(34:48):
the colonized who refuses. You see, like Candace, not knows
that there will never be emancipation within the colonial relationship.
But unlike Candace, they know that there is no liberty
in a similation revolt is the only way out. An
absolute condition requires an absolute solution, and there can be

(35:10):
no compromise. Deliberation is a process of self recovery and
autonomous dignity. They must shake off the force images and
boldly attack the institutions of oppression. But even in their
resistance that still bears the traces of colonization. They still
share some of the values, techniques, and methods of the colonizer.
They still speak the language the colonizer can understand. To

(35:33):
be truly emancipated, that must work to rebuild a new,
authentic and self assured identity for themselves and their people.
That must reclaim and transform that which the colonizers consider negative,
must take pride in all their wrinkles and moods, never
shying away from their colonization, but accepting it as a

(35:57):
fact of their experience, their history, and yet overcoming that colonization. However,
there is the risk of continuing to define yourself in
relation to protest, in relation to revolt, and in relation
to colonization. At some point, maybe not now, but at

(36:19):
some point not we'll need to move beyond that means.
The definition what that future looks like is anyone's guests
and also up to everyone to help build I hope
you appreciated this. Sometimes meander and dive into the minds

(36:42):
of the colonizer and the colonized. The fight is not over.
The psychological, political, and economic consequences of colonization are still
fell to this day. The mentalities and conditions that discussed
still exist in very extents today. Hopefully this helps us
to better understand client's impact on us, so that we

(37:02):
can deconstruct that Leviathan together to create a freer and
what diverse and more humane world. Next time, I'll be
discussing the role of national liberation in the struggle for
freedom and what precisely that would entail. As I didn't
have time to get into it in this part. Welcome

(37:41):
toake it happen Here. I am Andrew of theature channel
of Andrewism. Last time I spoke about clonalism's effect on
the psyche of the people within it, and today I
want to talk about how people under the thumb of
clonalism go about deliberation and how that struggle fits within
some version of anomic asnalysis. National liberation is a struggle

(38:04):
against the relationship of exploitation and domination inflicted upon a nation.
It's a struggle against the domination of one people by another,
often centered on questions of language, culture, welfare, equality, and land.
It has consequences, and it's not something where you can

(38:26):
just stand by mutually and ignore. In fact, ignoring national
liberation struggles would been sided with national oppression. There's no
centrist take here. There is no both sides to the
oppression of a people by another. Of course, that doesn't

(38:47):
mean that national liberation struggles are free of critique or
necessarily morally righteous. National libriation struggles are usually quite diverse.
Within them, their many tendencies at play, from the most
reactionary to the most revolutionary. I don't know if any
immediity come to mind. Fiumia.

Speaker 3 (39:09):
Oh god, yeah, there's I mean, you know, I think
I always think about right is like China's a well,
it kind of unique. I mean, there's there's a lot
of countries that you get multiple like national liberation movements.
China is kind of unique and that we had two
nominally left wing national liberation movements and like one of them,

(39:32):
one of them is the KMT who like the the
the the the end of their natlib arc is like
training a bunch of desk squads in El Salvador because
they've gotten so good at killing peasants that like, you know,
this is what they're doing with their life. And the
other one is CCP and it's like, well, okay, like great,
great job, guys, like liberated, We've liberated a lot of people.

(39:53):
We've like you know, I don't know, it's it's I
think I think there's sort of two ways of looking
at that, where it's like you have on the one hand,
you can look at it from the sort of like
worker's perspective, where it's like, well, yeah, okay, so both
you have your two national liberation movements and both of
them end up machine gunning about a million workers depending
on like you know, in offset from each other in

(40:17):
about forty years. But you know, you have the Shaghai
massacre and you have the cultural revolution. And then I
think the other thing that's important when you're looking at
like a gnatlib movement is like whose nation is being liberated?
And this is something you get with like Indonesia. Right,
you know, you have the national liberation movement, but then

(40:37):
you simultaneously have like the occupation of West Papua.

Speaker 2 (40:42):
Yeah, it's almost like a Russia nest egg of national oppression,
like the like Adonesia is being oppressed by the Dutch
and then Indonesia and sulf oppression if you for West
Papua and East Timor and all those different places.

Speaker 3 (40:58):
Yeah, and you see this a lot with like, you know,
I don't know. This is why, like I think I
keep coming back to like whose nation is being liberated
the thing because it's like, you know, you get this
with a lot of like the sort of pan Air
movements and it's like, well, okay, we're doing like resistance
to sort of like French or British colonialism, and then
like yes, this is this is okay if you are Arab,
like God help you. If you're a Curred or like

(41:20):
CD or like you know, so there's there's always these
sort of I don't know, you have to be careful
about who wins the national liberation.

Speaker 2 (41:30):
Movement exactly exactly, because not a whay a national liberations
struggle is happening. They're most likely minorities that are not
encapsulated in that you know, they're always going to be

(41:51):
populations of people who are not of that nation. Within
the territory of the national liberation struggle and then be
on that they're also within national liberation struggles other ongoing struggles,
including class struggle. While the oppressed classes might claim to
national liberation struggle in an effort to defend against foreign

(42:13):
subjugation and exploitation, the capitalist class is using that struggle
for national liberation to consolidate their own power and monopolize
their own exportation the working class. A lot of capitalists,
their whole investment in national liberation boils down to I
don't like the fact that I have to compete with
foreign capitalists. I want to compete with local capitalists so

(42:34):
I can come out on top. And yeah, that's not cool. Yeah,
And then I think. Another thing that gets conflated when
you start talking about national liberation the liberation of a
nation is the concept of nationalism.

Speaker 4 (42:51):
Right.

Speaker 2 (42:53):
Nationalism is a program that has been proposed, or rather
a suite of programs I've been proposed as the solutions
national libration struggles, because I can't even say that nationalism
is a single program. Nationalism itself is quite diverse, as
we'll soon see. But nationalism is only one response, one

(43:16):
possible response. It may be the most common response, but
it's only one possible response to the national liberation struggle.
And then it's also the terminology that gets modeled when
you start talking about nationalism, right because, as I defined,
national liberation is the struggle of an exploited people against

(43:36):
a dominating group or against their domination, just generally necessarily
against one specific group, could be multiple groups, but it's
the struggle of a people against their domination. However, when
you get into nationalism, there are forms of nationalism developed
by oppressive groups, developed by the oppressors. Sometimes they developed

(44:03):
on nationalism in order to more effectively oppress the people
they oppress it, and so, and you know, you can
even argue that there are cases where oppressed nations adopt
nationalism as strategy for their liberation and end up pursuing

(44:29):
a form of nationalism that is quite similar to that
which they were being oppressed under. There's one immediate example
that comes to mind, if you know what I mean.

Speaker 3 (44:43):
I have like nine so I'm not entirely sure what
you're pointing at or nine.

Speaker 2 (44:47):
Okay, okay, what are you thinking of?

Speaker 3 (44:50):
Okay, well, okay, I wanted to talk about this. I
think there's like a very there's like a kind of
Chinese nationalism that does this a lot, but this is
I think a kind of common thing of like they're
one of the sort of responses to colonization that's pretty common.
Is this really really this sort of like like quintupling

(45:13):
down on patriarchy where you know, you like because one
of the effects of colonization obviously is like the sort
of like one of the sort of psychological things is
is this sort of like you know, is this installation
of inferiority into the minds of the people who being colonized.
And so one of the ways people respond to this
is by being like, no, like the colonizers are wrong,

(45:34):
Like our men are actually really strong, and like our
men are actually incredibly manly, and like we have really
really like tight powerful controller of women. And you see
this fucking everywhere, right, This is why all of like
there's so many sort of like Chinese nationalists who are
so obsessed with like these videos of like like basically
indistinguishable from American right wing videos where they're just like
walking around with no shirts on and being like, look

(45:56):
at how strong I am. It's like you see you
see this thing with like hn do for people too,
where's like they do like exactly the same ship, Like
it's all over the fucking place. You can see you
can see the Taliban doing this now too, and it's
like it's it's like it's you know, it's it's they
very cool.

Speaker 2 (46:12):
They're seeing colonization as emasculating.

Speaker 3 (46:15):
Yeah, yeah, and and and that's you know, and I
think there's there's there's this mode of like reactionary anti
colonialism where it's like they see it as emasculating and
they see the problem with colonization was it stopped them
from being an empire. You see this a lot which
Chinese nationalism, where it's like, you know, like they're they're
they're their effective problem with like the century humiliation was
that they didn't get to keep being the Ching empire

(46:37):
and get to keep colonizing other people. And that's like
a very I don't know, I think that that that's
a very common sort of like thing that happens when
it's this is a very common sort of like ideological
basis for sort of the right wing of anti colonial well,
I don't know, even calling the anticolonial movement is kind
of like being a bit generous, but yeah, yeah, I

(47:00):
think it's a very common form of sort of right
wing nationalism that emerges as a reaction to colonization.

Speaker 2 (47:07):
What immediately came to mind to me, and what I
was thinking of was Zionism.

Speaker 3 (47:14):
Yeah, that too.

Speaker 2 (47:16):
Not to be fair, it was rather correct me if
I'm wrong. It was a movement that existed prior to
World War Two. No, yeah, yeah, right, And then you know,
the experiences of World War Two took place, and there
were different paths for the movement could have taken. And

(47:39):
I don't want to invalidate the beginnings of the movement,
considering the experiences of Jewish people for centuries in Europe
and the oppression and the programs and so they faced.
But what we've seen the fruit of one particular path

(47:59):
that that movement undertook, and that path has led to
another nation struggling for its liberation, and that being the Palestinians.
The common example of distinction used is that of the
distinction between white nationalism and black nationalism. White nationalism having

(48:25):
a very clear history of violent supremacy and clualism, while
black nationalism was established in response to that experience of
subjugation and clualism and with the desire for self determination.

(48:48):
The program nationalism specifically among oppressed nations has generally seen
the oppressed nation as a united bloc national liberation movements,
nationalist movements. Nationalists movements typically ignore class, they ignore gender,
they ignore religion, and they ignore other divisions for the
most part, in favor of the development of an independent state,

(49:12):
which is usually some form of capitalist either a state
capitalist welfare capitalists, or a neoliberal capitalist. A Nationalism is
often weaponized and promoted by the ruined class in orders
to unite the oppressed classes with their domestic oppressors, replacing
foreign capitalists local capitalists, foreign generals local generals, and foreign
government officials with local officials, in a word, to conceal

(49:32):
the importance of class struggle. You see often in the
cases of newly independent countries there's almost a brief haze
of rather, let me speak not generally but from my
own knowledge of my own history. Trying to Bago gain
independence in nineteen sixty two from the British. This was

(49:56):
after a very brief period where we experimented with a
West Indian Federation, West Indies being a designation of the
Caribbean by the British. The federation failed and so Trinidad
and Tobago struck out on their own, and so trying

(50:19):
Tobago became an independent country in nineteen sixty two, and
there was really a sense of you know, joy and
jubile and celebration because of that freedom. You know, it
finally broke the shackles to the British. However, it was
a very recently, a very constitutional independence. You know, it
wasn't an independence brought forth by violent struggle. You know,

(50:44):
it wasn't a situation like Algeria. It was more so
the British carefully groomed a generation of politicians and political
leaders that would and business leaders that would take on
the role that they were fulfilling in order to continue

(51:07):
that colonial situation in under new management essentially and the
more familiar management. And that very quickly became apparent to
the population, which is why we had the Black Power
Revolution in nineteen seventy. It was borne on to the
frustration that new management when everything was pretty much the same.

(51:31):
Many people who experienced the successes of independence and of
nationalism that often bears out independence, they actually come to
recognize that nationalism was not enough nationalism has repeatedly failed
to solve poverty, to solve oppression and exploitation and suffer it.

(51:51):
Or many states have become formally independent from their colonial
masters thanks nationalist movements, new columnalism persevers and yet in
spite of the continuation of oppression and suffering post independence,
you end up seeing some people's response to that being

(52:13):
greater nationalism rather than an exploration of other options. So
it is this result of nationalism that has led to
its criticism and opposition by anarchists. Again, there's a difference
between nationalism and national liberation. But in that criticism of nationalism,
I see some anarchists, while recognizing that they are class
divisions in the nation, end up ignoring national divisions in

(52:37):
a class in favor of some ideal and united working class.
The truth is that the oppressed classes of some nations
have benefited from the domination of the oppressed classes and
other nations, So let's not do class reductionism. Nations that
have had constant war waged against them for centuries tend

(52:57):
to turn to nationalism for the national liberation. That's obvious.
I think you know, you cut them some slack for
not thinking about the global working class when they are
literally under assault for the national identity. When you fighting
clonial administrators and foreign armies, you're not studying the class war,
which is why historically national liberation struggles use in nationalism

(53:20):
have ignored class divisions among the oppressed nation, but not always.
Black nationalism, for example, has always been a very diverse
political movement with several currents and opposing perspectives within it.
The common threat is of course, irresistance the predominance the
white supremisist system and the assolution of lacks of sovereignity,

(53:42):
recognizing that we have to free ourselves without wheat and
for permission, Recognizing we have to protect ourselves from the
continued assault of the empire of the empire, recognizing that
we can be proud of and love or bodies or
minds on our heritage, or rejection of your centrism. And
yet some manifestations of black nationalism have been reactionary, capitalistic, morphobic,

(54:06):
and patriarchal. Others have student stock opposition to those currents.
In particular, revolutionary black nationalism, unlike other forms of black nationalism,
has consistently stood in opposition to all forms of oppression,
including imperialism, white supremacy, and capitalism. In my view, and

(54:28):
as many other black anarchists have noted, revolutionary black nationalism
has a place in a struggle in conjunction with the
struggle against patriarchy, capitalism, and the state, as we aim
to prefigure world free of all forms of nomination. In
spite of our critiques of how nationalism tends to manifest,

(54:52):
it is not the only way to undertake national liberation.
We can incorpor rate other fights within that struggle. We
can recognize the importance of national liberation whilst staying true
to all principles. Anarchism is an internationalist movement. It aims

(55:14):
for an entirely new world, not just a pocket of
change here and there. But we cannot be so focused
on that international struggle that we ignore the very vital
local and regional struggles taking place. Internationalism and class struggle

(55:36):
are not in contradiction to national liberation struggle. I believe
a real internationalism has to stand in solidarity with the
working class and peasantry everywhere, including those of oppressed nationalities. However,
at the same time, we cannot uncritically support national liberation struggles.

(56:00):
We cannot afford to just write a blank check of support.
It is necessary to engage politically national liberation movements and
engage in dialogues with all of their complexities and contradictions,

(56:22):
engaging with and uplifting the progressive elements within those national
liberation struggles while criticizing the reactionary elements within those struggles.

Speaker 3 (56:33):
I think it's it's incredibly important. I don't know if
intervene in them is the correct thing, is the best
way to put it, But like you know, from the
sort of like Eustasian perspective, it's like, yeah, so we
had we had three successful national liberation movements like next
to each other, and then after they won their national
liberation movements, instead of like continuing the war against the

(56:53):
US or whatever, they went to war with each other.

Speaker 5 (56:55):
So you know, you have to sort of like something something, something.

Speaker 3 (57:01):
Very clearly went wrong with our natlib movements when well,
I mean obviously, like okay, something went very wrong with
Kahmara Rouge, but.

Speaker 2 (57:10):
Like you know, that's that's understates and things.

Speaker 3 (57:13):
Yeah, yeah, you know that that's ity, but like you know,
they're they're like obviously that like that the Khmara Rouge
was fucked from the start. But you know the fact
that like the US and Vietnam, like the Vietnamese like
army finally defeats the American colonizers and then basically immediately
or invaded by China is a sign that like something

(57:36):
went terribly terribly wrong in the process of these struggles,
and that like, I don't know, if you're we're going
to do this properly, you have to make sure that
like this ship doesn't happen, because you know, it's it's
a just the product of this is just sort of

(57:57):
unfathomable human tragedy of a much of colonized people fucking
murdering each other for like nothing or you know, I
guess like China's obediate I don't know, geopolitical realignment with
the US and exchange for like industrial capital goods or
some shit. So you know, you gotta you gotta make

(58:19):
sure that doesn't happen.

Speaker 2 (58:21):
Yeah, Yeah, And that means intervening. Okay, like you said,
you don't want to say intervene in necessarily, but it
does require having these discussions rely on, like you don't
wait until after a preventable tragedy takes place to try
and prevent a tragedy. You know, if you're seeing signs

(58:42):
of that, the potential for that, you know, probably do
something about it. If one is so fragile that a
criticism of the way that it's structured, or a criticism
of an aspect of its ideology is enough to prevent
it from succeeding, or prevent it from collapsing into internal divisions,

(59:09):
whatever the case may be, then I don't think that
it is robust enough to handle the struggle, uh, for
a liberation.

Speaker 3 (59:24):
Yeah, that's that's like they're definitely you're definitely going to lose.

Speaker 2 (59:28):
Yeah, Like if it's easy for an ally to criticize
and you know, maybe call something out and that's enough
for everything to crumble, how easy do you think it's
gonna be for like your actual enemy is to like
come in and shake things up and like dismantle the
organization from the inside. You know, if you if you

(59:50):
don't have room for dissent from you know, your allies,
from your compatriots, then what about your what do you
think your enemies are going to try and capitalize on?
They're going to try and fuel and empower that dissent
and push it in different directions. So even further splinter

(01:00:11):
the movement. You know, it's it's it's complicated, it's it's difficult.
It's not something that I ever wanted to present myself
as having all the answers for. But you know, I
feel like certain things should be clear. You know, maybe

(01:00:33):
we should try and preventednessues from getting worse if you see, like,
for example, a cult of personality develop, and maybe do
something about it before that culture personality has you know,
guns on their side and the full power of the
state apparatus behind them. I mean that's just me though.

(01:00:58):
A truly internationalist position, in my view, recognizes that human
unity can only be achieved through mutual respect, solidarity, alliance,
and discourse among people. International revolution would require participation in
national struggle for self determination and human dignity against imputerist domination.

(01:01:22):
It will require shift, as I always say, in our powers,
in our drives, in our consciousness. I think you want
to have star tooth national liberation struggles. It really starts
in that realm. And then also I think there are
ways that we can as allies intervene into aspect of

(01:01:42):
that process, you know, in confrontation, lending you know, material
support to protests or occupations, in non cooperation, supporting strike funds,
in prefiguration, providing resources. You don't want these acts of
solidarity to get lost in NGOs or and organizations whatever

(01:02:04):
you're trying to get things. Actually, that's a whole tangent.
Let me just scratch that entirely. I'm going to go off.
I'll leave off by saying that if we oppose male
supremacy the patriarchy, we must support women's fight against it.
That doesn't mean blandly supporting, you know, bourgeois liberal curss feminism.

(01:02:30):
It means listening to, learning from and collaboratively developing the
revolutionary feminist project to liberate all women from patriarchal domination
and ultimately all people. If workers aside a former union
in many cases and existing union is pro capitalist and hierarchical,

(01:02:50):
I had despite the structural issues with many unions, we
still stand with the workers against the bosses, even as
we try to convince them of the need for our transformation.
Those unions of union militancy for position to bureaucracy in
order to fully liberate them from class domination. Instead of
merely engaged in dialogue with the oppressors, we can walk

(01:03:11):
on tewg them. At the same time as what I'm
trying to say, we can act in solidarity without being
subservient to what we may perceive to be something that
goes against our values. Solidarity, as I like to view it,
is a discourse between people's about how we determine our
own freedom. We may disagree with certain things. We can

(01:03:34):
critique certain things we've seen again and again, certain mistakes
being made over and over again, and movements, and we
can call them out. But you know, you can have
your principles. You can engage, and you should engage in
the complexity and contradictions and national liberation struggles, offering critique
where needs be, resistant reactionary, capitalist, patriarchal and status elements

(01:03:58):
when they manifest, and providing support in any way that
you are able in any way that they request that
you be. People on some monoliths, think for yourself, will
power to all the people, usual things. That's it for me.
You can support me on patuon dot com slash saying

(01:04:18):
true and follow me on YouTube at andreism. This has
been it grappen here with myself and Mia be something.

Speaker 3 (01:04:43):
It's it could happen here. The thing that's happening is
that shinzu Wabe is still dead. One year on. That
man has not gone back from the dead. He is
still absolutely the most assassinated man of twenty twenty three,
twenty two. That well, you know, honestly, given how assassinated
he is, we're giving him the credit for being the
most asassinated man of twenty twenty three. And what was

(01:05:04):
interesting about this assassination and we talked about I talked
about this really briefly in my sort of intro thing
to the last episode that we ran about the Abbe assassination.
But this has been maybe the most successful political assassination
not done by the CIA in the last like seventy years,
like absolutely stunningly incredibly successful political assassination because specifically of

(01:05:30):
the political impact that the assassination has had on the
Unification Church probably better known as the Moonies, and how
it's been forcing the sort of Unification Church aligned ruling
Liberal Democratic Party of Japan to like have a serious
of embarrassing scandals where they reveal their incredible intertwinement with

(01:05:51):
the church apparatus and all of the culture they've been doing.
And with me to talk about this is Alisa Majub
who's an ex Unification Church member who got out and
who works with Deprogramming Imperialism, which is a group that
tell us the sort of still untold story of how
the Unification Church has worked with the CIA and the
Korean CIA and enormous parts of the sort of the

(01:06:14):
apparatus of the American imperial war machine to cause untold
suffering on the world. Lisa, Welcome, Welcome to the show. Welcome,
welcome back.

Speaker 6 (01:06:23):
Thank you appreciate it. I'm glad to be back.

Speaker 3 (01:06:25):
Yeah, I'm excited to talk with you about this because
we didn't really There's been a lot of very very
interesting stuff happening in the last couple of months in Japan.
But in order to do that, I think we need
to sort of talk about what this assassination was actually about.
So the shooter, Tetsuya Yamagami, killed Abe because he couldn't

(01:06:49):
get to a He was trying to kill a high
ranking Unification Church guy and he like couldn't get to him.
And the reason he was trying to do this is
that his mom had had given they like seventy thousand
yen to the church. Co'm getting the number right, and
had basically like you know, like this is I yeah,
I wanted to talk to you a bit about this

(01:07:11):
before we go into more of the au bas stuff
about how the church's financial abuse works and how you know.

Speaker 5 (01:07:18):
Like how how how how.

Speaker 3 (01:07:20):
This person's mom was compelled to sort of like literally
give away all of their money to this cult.

Speaker 7 (01:07:28):
Right, Well, I would say it's sort of multi pronged
approach that they use. They'll basically, oh, gosh, okay. So
one of the main things that they'll do is they
will charge people for ancestor liberation.

Speaker 6 (01:07:41):
Basically is that they'll say that.

Speaker 7 (01:07:44):
Your ancestors are going to go to heaven if you
pay us this amount of money. And they'll have people
do that for like generations and generations back in order
to have their ancestors go to heaven.

Speaker 6 (01:07:59):
They do other spiritual sales, like the book.

Speaker 7 (01:08:02):
There was this one book from years ago that they
they they charged people exorbitant fees on just because it
was like some sort of like providential book of some sort.

Speaker 6 (01:08:14):
So spiritual sales are definitely like a main, a main
focal point of this.

Speaker 7 (01:08:18):
Another thing that will happen is that like they'll they'll
labor traffic people just straight up into like a lot
of the time they would do fundraising teams where they
would have people go out sell little trinkets and things
on the street or flowers, uh, and come back and
then give all that money to the coffers of the church.
Another thing that they do is tithes. You're expected to

(01:08:40):
give a certain amount of your income basically to the church,
and if you don't, it's like they're not going to
be like they're there. It's like certainly, you know, like
you need to do better because you're not you're not
doing enough for God kind of shit. So they have
like a myriad ways that they really push people into
spending money on them in their organizations, as well as

(01:09:04):
having a ton of very successful businesses and capital ventures
and whatnot. They make guns, you name it, and so
it all sort of comes together just to this like
very large wheelhouse of capital.

Speaker 3 (01:09:22):
Yeah, and Japan's so so I think I should probably
I'm realizing I'm probably assuming that everyone who's listening to
this has listened to the previous stuff we've done on
the Infocation Church, and I don't know, I don't know
how true that is. So I guess we should talk
a little bit we should back up a little bit
and talk about just what the Inifogation church is, and

(01:09:43):
I guess also the importance of Japan to it, because Yeah,
from everything that I've understood, Japan's like, you know, like
they have a bunch of sort of businesses that they
run in Korea, but Japan's kind of like their chief
financial nexus. Like the last thing I saw, I think
it was like like they e'rected like one hundred million dollars.
How did Japan in the last few years.

Speaker 6 (01:10:04):
Yeah, they they get, They get so much.

Speaker 7 (01:10:06):
That's their main it's their main financial powerhouse within the church.
And part of that is because the church claims that
because of the occupation of Korea that Japanese members have
to pay more indemnity monetarily, so everything with like you know,
all of the spiritual sales and stuff are just like
exorbitantly higher for those members, and that is just an

(01:10:30):
easy way for them to make a lot more money.

Speaker 3 (01:10:33):
Yeah, which which is always a part of this thing.
I thought is really interesting because you know, the church,
and we've talked about this sort of a length in
other places, but they are like hardcore right wing anti communists, yes,
and like you know, have backed a lot of I
mean just desk squads all over the world they backed

(01:10:55):
they like they wound up backing poll Pot because like
doing I Ran contrary twice wasn't enough for them. But
a bunch yeah, yeah, it's like on once you once, once,
you once you've once you've done a RAN contract multiple times,
like you've got to there are very few places you
can go other than like into polepot. But I think
I think there's there's an interesting kind of game they're

(01:11:17):
playing here because you know, on the one hand, so
the party they're allied with in Japan, I mean there's
like several parties they work with, but their biggest backer
in the government is is the Liberal Democratic Party. And
you know, if you want to hear me talk about
the Liberal Democratic Party for a long long time, go
listen to my Kishi episodes on Behind the Bastards, because

(01:11:39):
that guy did one. So No, Masuki Kishi is the
founder of the Liberal Democratic Party. He is a just
horrific war criminal. I did like mass enslavement stuff like that,
Like truly truly awful guy. He's like he's also the
guy who just was in charge of like running the
Japanese war machine dream World War two, and his grandson

(01:12:05):
is is U shinzo Abe. But there's this, I think
it's this interesting dynamic where you have, on the one hand,
the Moonies are allying with these right wing guys who
are either just straight up like like a lot of
these people they're allying with are straight up like Nanjing denialists, right,
they're like you know, they're they're they're people whose lines
on Japanese colonization or either that it was good or

(01:12:26):
we didn't do any crimes.

Speaker 6 (01:12:28):
Right, Yeah.

Speaker 7 (01:12:28):
Yeah, So it comes off pretty pretty you know, boldfaced
and ironic and just very obvious that this is a
money ploy.

Speaker 3 (01:12:35):
Yeah yeah. But but I think it's interesting kind of
politically too, because you know, like if you if you
on the one hand push denihilism, but then on the
other hand, you turn around and you're the only people
going like, hey, look at all these crimes your government did,
Like don't you owe like Korea so much? I feel
like that's like it's a really like terrible and like
it's just unbelievably cynical way of exploiting, like the exploiting

(01:12:59):
just the whole ord is of Japanese imperialism to get.

Speaker 7 (01:13:02):
Yeah, yeah, it's it's very underhanded, especially giving that I
feel like there is been some evidence that I mean
at least early church members, uh and those around them
may have been collaborators at the time as well. So yeah,
it's very disingenuine and a completely twisted way to go

(01:13:25):
about anything.

Speaker 6 (01:13:26):
But people people buy into it and heavily.

Speaker 3 (01:13:29):
So yeah, one of the ways they've they've sort of
done this is allying with with the Liberal Democratic Party.
So nobody Takishi, who again is Abbi's grandfather, like, is
the guy who brought the Unification Church into the party.
And this was kind of a controversial thing because okay
it was. It was kind of a controversial thing, not
because the Unification Church is a cult, but because the

(01:13:51):
Unification Church is Korean, which is like a dynamic that's
at play here and this whole thing, which is you
have this weird okay. So there's like two kinds of
people who are anti Unification Church in Japan. It's you
have like the leftists who are anti Unification Church because they're
a cults and because they're you know, like a sort
of Cat's Paul of American imperialism and then you have

(01:14:12):
like these ultra right wingers who are like, these people
are Koreans and so we hate them, which is like
a I don't know, truly terrifying Japan dynamic Buthi. Kish's
able to sort of overcome this and he okay. So
this is the part that I don't know if you
know more about this than I do. So every the

(01:14:33):
stuff that I've seen about this talks about the Unification
Church and the Yakuza kind of hammering out a deal
to allow the Unification Church to like do the specific
kinds of scams. And I've always assumed that Kishi broke
at this because No Basika Kishi also is very very
well connected with the Yakuza. He's been connected with the

(01:14:53):
yakuza since like the twenties and thirties, So I always
assumed that he brokeer this deal. But I'm not in
talking sure, I don't know. I don't know if you've
run into anything about it.

Speaker 7 (01:15:03):
So I know that some of it has to do
with Asami Kuboki, I believe, But I wouldn't be surprised
if initial links do come through Kishi, I wouldn't. I
would not be surprised about that I don't know where exactly, like,
you know, initially that would make sense.

Speaker 6 (01:15:24):
That would make sense.

Speaker 7 (01:15:24):
Honestly because like going back to the sort of end
of the Korean War and World War two, basically how
all these you know, prisoners that were Class A war
criminals got you know, they got let off the books
because they decided to work for America now.

Speaker 6 (01:15:46):
And and and basically.

Speaker 7 (01:15:49):
These guys were the first guys who started like funding
and financing and like supporting the church with like the
help of like MacArthur and stuff. And MacArthur of course
is the one who got Moon out of prison.

Speaker 3 (01:16:03):
So yeah, I mean there's a lot of sort of
there's a lot of very very the the the LDP
as a party is sort of directly like like directly
it is formed by the Dullest Brothers interviewing with the
sort of Japanese right and telling them like, you guys
all have to like, you guys all have to put
aside your differences and form this party so as to
stop like even like a vaguely centered left government from

(01:16:26):
coming to power.

Speaker 5 (01:16:27):
Right.

Speaker 3 (01:16:28):
Yeah, And the connections here are really deep. Like Kishi.

Speaker 5 (01:16:32):
Kishi literally sells.

Speaker 3 (01:16:34):
Unification Church their first building in Japan and that building
is like his residence, so they are they are even
deep and in it for the long haul.

Speaker 8 (01:16:44):
Yeah, and the multi generation yeah yeah, and this has
been you know, sort of going on for a very
long time, even after like Kishi's like specific kind of
like fascist corruption faction kind of eventually falls out of
favor in like the eighties because they they they kind
of a series of deals with the Americans that are like

(01:17:05):
too corrupt for the US that ends with like ends
with a fascist porn star I like dry attempting to
do a Kamakazi run.

Speaker 3 (01:17:17):
And a Yaka is a boss by flying a plane
into his house, which is which is a whole thing.
But you know, so that this kind of gets us
to many generations of LDP, which is the Liberal Democratic Party,
which has been the ruling party of Japan for most
of it's sort of modern history. Many generations did this
go by, and you know there's there's I think a

(01:17:39):
really incredible symbiosis here where like the LDP has like
consistently gotten them out of trouble of like stuff that
like like they're they're you know, there's a famous example
where Moon like shouldn't have been able to enter Japan
because he would have been convicted of a felony in
the US. And you know the and there's also like
there's been a series of investigations into the Church have

(01:18:00):
just gotten squashed because the LDPOLE know.

Speaker 7 (01:18:03):
Yeah, they're too powerful, They're they're in with the guys,
are running things.

Speaker 3 (01:18:10):
And I think this just kind of brings us to
the immediate Abbe stuff, which I think is really interesting,
which is that like Abbe, okay, so long ago, in
a galaxy, far far away dream Kishi's generation, the CIA
was like literally running LDP elections like this is the
CIA would go in with individual candidates and they would
go in to sort of play the vote. They would

(01:18:31):
go in and they would have like CIA assets doing
canvassing for them. And what I think is really interesting
is that like from what I what I've seen, it
seems like Abbe basically replaced the CIA with the Moonies
in the two thousands, where he was having the church
do exactly the same thing the CIA did of like
like hey, if you're ally with us, we will like
you know, we will like go district by district and

(01:18:52):
campaign for you and like use our influence networks.

Speaker 6 (01:18:56):
It's funny how that keeps happening.

Speaker 9 (01:18:58):
Yeah, hmmm, Yeah, it's really the sort of long arc
of But it's funny too because it's like like quite
frankly like at this point, like from the CIA's point
of view, like it's utterly unclear to me.

Speaker 3 (01:19:14):
If it matters at all whether the LDP or like
their absolutely identical opposition party like comes into power. But
there's still just this kind of like like the ghost
of the CIA from like when they actually had to
stop the communists in like the cifty sixties and seventies,
I guess a bit through the eighties. It's just sort
of still there and still doing like all of the

(01:19:34):
same things that Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know who else?
Actually I don't think they've ever advertised on this show,
but you know who probably wouldn't be that out of
place given the Reagan coin people. I don't know, it's
it's ads, it's we're doing them. I hope they don't

(01:19:57):
suck and we're back. Okay, So this is something I
wanted to ask you. How So, in the last few months,
there's been a lot of developments in terms of the
reaction to the Church in Japan and how the Church
has been reacting to the sort of swings in public
sentiment that have been happening. So yeah, I guess I
want to tesk you. So, how what's been happening inside

(01:20:20):
the Japanese government since all of the stufface sort of
been coming out?

Speaker 7 (01:20:27):
So uh, it seems to be that there has been
quite a kerfuffle because quite a few members of both
the LDP and other parties have ties to the Unification Church.
So I've got some stats here, and forgive me if
these are not the most current. I tried my best
to find the most current, the most current numbers out

(01:20:50):
here about this, but I was having a little bit
of trouble due to translations. So let's see, I've got
at least three hundred thirty four prefectural Assembly members in
Japan have had dealings with the Unification Church or its affiliates,
with over eighty percent of them belonging to the ruling LDP,

(01:21:11):
according to Kyoto News, So Prime Minister of Fumiyo Kushita
said that the government was in the final stage of
considering whether to seek a court order to dispand the
Unification Church. But also, you know his new cabinet, Well,
they've got some ties. Okay, at least four lawmakers who
admitted having ties to the church. The number of LVP

(01:21:33):
lawmakers was ties to the churches around one hundred and eighty.

Speaker 6 (01:21:36):
And the second Tenary General has.

Speaker 7 (01:21:40):
Said that one hundred and seventy nine of the three
hundred and seventy nine parliamentarians reported with links to the
church and related organizations. And these relationships have ranged from
attending church events to accepting donations and receiving elections support.

Speaker 6 (01:21:55):
And then at least.

Speaker 7 (01:21:56):
Three hundred and thirty four prefectural councils had contact with
the US seeing related words. So there's a lot going
on that basically is, there's a lot has come out
about who is involved. However, the u SEE is still
pretty much just denying everything. The pre trial proceedings for
Yamagami began on October thirteenth. It's going to be closed door,

(01:22:19):
so it'll probably be a while a little bit until
the information trickles out about that. Hopefully they'll have some
like I don't know if like what closed door means
in that specific situation, I still have journalists in there,
not hopefully, but yeah, a lot has been coming out
and people have been calling for a lot of change,
it seems, but how much is.

Speaker 6 (01:22:41):
Actually going to happen, especially.

Speaker 7 (01:22:43):
When they're saying now it's going to be like maybe
one to three years for the deliberation on the case
for dissolving the church, which means that the church will
have ample time to move all of its funds and
set up new new lines of money funneling.

Speaker 3 (01:23:00):
Basically, yeah, which I think, Yeah, I don't know, like
I I have, I have very little faith that even
even this sort of like outswing of public pressure is
going to like actually seriously cause a liberal Democratic party
to like really go after the church because, like I mean,
like Abe, like part of the reason Abe got assassinated

(01:23:21):
was that, like I think, like in twenty twenty two,
he he get he like he was like he like
said a video of of like of a speech like
to a like to a man Elaine Unification Church, Evette.
I think it was the same one that it might
have been the same one that Trump said it too.
Maybe it was it was a different event, but like yeah,
like that, I don't know. I have a difficult time,

(01:23:44):
I don't know, kind of like believing that they're the
like this, like even if this crackdown does come that's
going to be effective. I don't know what your thoughts
on that.

Speaker 7 (01:23:54):
I'm excited that there is some movement in that direction. However,
I do worry that it won't really make as much
of a dent into the functioning of the movement as
some people think it could, given that there seems to
be a lot of time for them to recuperate funds,
and they've been doing a lot of things it seems

(01:24:15):
to make up for funds, as well as the fact
that they already just have so much money and so
many funds in the first place. It's hard to say
how much they even have and how much this would
make a dent into it were.

Speaker 6 (01:24:29):
It to happen, So it's hard to say.

Speaker 7 (01:24:32):
And I also do worry that that'll just sort of
incentivize them to sort of further radicalize people in a
very dangerous far right direction and sort of going into that.
There have been some sort of recent developments within the
church since all of this has come out, basically, and
people are calling for some sort of justice and some

(01:24:56):
sort of understanding of what's going on, which you know,
the church continues to deny, but recently Hawk Jahan who
is now the leader of the Mainline Church, has been
meeting with the youth in multiple countries UH and recently
at Japan, she sat down and told them that they
are a Kamakazi group basically to save Japan in the world.

(01:25:20):
So I can't imagine it's ever really, it like, it
never has ended well when somebody says that to an
occult leader says that to their constituents, it never goes well.
And you know, acts of violence against oneself like self
emolation or other things murder have not been you know,

(01:25:40):
out of the realm of things that people in the
Unification of Church have done in the past. So it
does kind of worry me. And she's actually hot. Jahan
is actually going to be meeting I believe it's the
weekend of the seventh UH in Vegas with the Youth
of America. So I wonder if she's going to be

(01:26:02):
saying similar things at that event.

Speaker 3 (01:26:04):
Yeah, I mean, that wouldn't surprise me, it would.

Speaker 7 (01:26:08):
Seem I have a feeling it seems to be since
she's been going around and meeting, because she's also met
with the youth of Europe in the Middle East, that
there's like a concerted effort here to sort of get
youth engagement up, which leads me into a couple of
other things here. I know that for a couple of
years now, the Global Peace Foundation, which is under Preston Moon,

(01:26:31):
has been involved with like different like music festivals and
things with K pop artists and stuff. But recently there
was actually an event this year is supposed to happen
called twenty twenty three Korean Dream Festa for Korean United,
and then the original poster it was said that it
was Global Peace Foundation that was one of the groups

(01:26:53):
that was leading this. A lot of fans have soaken up,
and I know at least one of the groups has
pulled out, so clearly at least within that within that
prong of the U see that there's there's there's some
very active like trying to outreach to the youth, which
I think I think I would be able to say
is pretty across the board at this point. I think

(01:27:14):
they're all trying some new strategies because they see that
people are leaving, and especially with the number of people
that have been speaking up lately, they really want to
keep those numbers.

Speaker 6 (01:27:22):
And engage new people as well. Part of this also.

Speaker 7 (01:27:26):
Makes me think that might be why Sean Moon is
doing the sort of like Maga rapper thing.

Speaker 3 (01:27:31):
I don't know, yeah, you know, because he could he
could just be like it's possible, but yeah.

Speaker 7 (01:27:40):
But it does strike me as something that's like, hmm,
maybe this is a way to get kids into the movement,
you know, Like I don't really know. Part of me
is also wondered why if if that is part of
why Caleb Moppin has showed up at Mooney things now.

Speaker 10 (01:27:54):
Like yeah, just yeah, uh that guy, that guy, But like, yeah,
it just makes me wonder about like different onboarding ramps
that might be being tapped because there's potentially, you know,
like a little bit of a lull here and there's.

Speaker 6 (01:28:14):
Going to be a financial dip in this specific chain.
I don't really know. I can't claim to I have suspicions.

Speaker 3 (01:28:22):
Yeah, I mean I think it makes I think as
a theory, it makes sense, like you, I mean, the
ufcation churches, the Unification Church has always tried to sort
of stick itself into like different cultural trends, and I think, right,
I like for what I voted stood like, I don't
I don't think the last time they really tried the
U strategy worked very well, like in the late twenty
early twenty tens.

Speaker 7 (01:28:42):
Right, Yeah, no, it didn't. It didn't work particularly well.
I wonder, however, you know, times are changing. If they
happen to get one or two good strategists on board,
that could change everything, honestly, But I also don't necessarily
know that this is going to go well for them,
seeing is that they're deeply uncool. It's a real big issue,

(01:29:04):
like that's the main issue for like trying to get
youth engagement up. I feel like, you know, I don't know, Uh,
there's only so cool you can make it sound, which
is nothing like no.

Speaker 3 (01:29:17):
Yeah, And I mean it is interesting that they're kind
of like the mop in things specifically is really interesting
because it's it's it seems like, I don't know, it
seems like they're trying to tap into this like just
like whatever weird currents of like new right like stuff
they can get their hands on.

Speaker 7 (01:29:35):
Yeah, it seems like that honestly to me too. And
it's also specifically ironic considering that Caleb used to hit
me up for information on the Moonies a lot before I.

Speaker 6 (01:29:44):
Figured that was right. He was a creep.

Speaker 7 (01:29:46):
Yeah, yeah, and uh before I figured out he was
a creep and like not somebody I wanted to be
talking to.

Speaker 6 (01:29:51):
So he knows all this shit about them and.

Speaker 7 (01:29:53):
Continues and like willfully yeah, is engaging with them, which
to me is just like mm hmmm.

Speaker 3 (01:30:01):
Yeah. It's like if you if you're if you're gonna
sell out, like at least at least sell out into
a podcast, don't sell out to a fucking cult like
Jesus Christ.

Speaker 6 (01:30:09):
Come on, it's just ridiculous stuff.

Speaker 7 (01:30:13):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:30:13):
Yeah, it's really terrible.

Speaker 6 (01:30:15):
I don't know, like, yeah, it's the mashup we didn't need.

Speaker 3 (01:30:19):
And this I think this has been eased to something
else I wanted to ask about. So other than the
sort of like youth strategy stuff, has there been a
reaction from like the Rod of Iron ministry or like
the other sort of like uh, splinter fractions of the
church to the to the stuff that's been happening in
Japan like have and also ask the everything like as best,

(01:30:40):
like everything that I've seen seems suggest that the if
they were gonna like if they were gonna disband the church,
it would only be the main branch. Has there been like,
has the statement going after the other branches too, or.

Speaker 7 (01:30:54):
So in that respect, I am actually still kind of
unclear and have some research questions I need to on
that matter. As far as I've been aware, the other
branches have been reasonably quiet about it. It doesn't mean
that they're not internally doing things. I know that they
both have large populations in Japan as well of membership,

(01:31:15):
so it would make sense that they would be trying
to figure something out.

Speaker 6 (01:31:18):
However, I don't actually know if.

Speaker 7 (01:31:20):
Legally they are going to be gone after the same
way as the mainline church, and that's something I just
need to clear up myself. But honestly, they haven't been
speaking as much about it as I thought they might.

Speaker 6 (01:31:36):
That doesn't mean that they're not. It also just might
mean that they're not publishing it, you know.

Speaker 7 (01:31:40):
But part of me also wants to know if the
reason that you know, hak Jahan is coming to America
that certain weekend is because that's exact same weekend that
the Rod of Iron Freedom Festival is happening, and she
just doesn't want to get beheaded by her sons who
want to behead her. So yeah, because it's like, ah,
she knows they're they're doing that weekend. I mean, I
don't know, like that's it's just maybe silly speculation. But

(01:32:03):
at the same time, they have literally said that they
want to behead her.

Speaker 3 (01:32:05):
So yeah, I wouldn't be.

Speaker 6 (01:32:09):
From them if I were her.

Speaker 3 (01:32:11):
Yeah that that that that that entire fight is really
a like like no matter it's either a like the
eat pop or let them fight or the no matter
who wins, we lose kind of thing.

Speaker 6 (01:32:25):
Right, It's just quite a mess.

Speaker 7 (01:32:29):
Like I can say that I have a lot of
family drama, but nothing compared to this.

Speaker 3 (01:32:34):
Yeah, just wild. Yeah.

Speaker 7 (01:32:40):
So there was a show that was originally going to
be called The Devil's Whispers that was to be aired
in Japan, but of course the UC complained a little bit,
and they said that the program included a dramatization.

Speaker 6 (01:32:52):
They said that basically, they.

Speaker 7 (01:32:54):
They claimed that this dramatized program which was showing past
tense of the group to recruit believers, including uh hiding
the group's name in door to door sales taxics designs
disguised as charitable. First of all, in HK, the channel
that was going to air it, first of all, change
the name to Dangerous Whispers, instead of the Devil's Whispers,

(01:33:16):
But the church also tried to tried to make them
cancel like the show from happening and airing. As far
as I'm aware, I think it actually did air a
couple of nights ago though.

Speaker 3 (01:33:27):
Glad gle g glad they got it through. But like
the fact, yeah the name changed, like really.

Speaker 7 (01:33:33):
Yeah, I'm like, still, it's pretty ridiculous, Like maybe they
changed it, but I think what they had said it
was like sometimes in post production will change the name
for whatever reason or something like that. But it's like,
are you sure it's not because the church complained.

Speaker 3 (01:33:48):
Like yeah, yeah, so I don't really know. Well I guess,
I guess. I guess no. One more thing I wanted
to talk a bit about, which is that, And this
is something we've been seeing already, is people talking about like, oh,
you shouldn't spand the church on religious freedom grounds. And
that's something that the U see has been really really
successful at sort of hiding behind you when anyone tries

(01:34:10):
to go after them, like they did this in the
seventies and eighties, when there were campaigns to like prosecute
them for just the crimes they were doing. Was that
a bunch of sort of like like not just not
just right wing groups, but sort of like like like
civil libertarian groups, like like we're like, oh, you can't
do this because if you if if they go after
the UFI Gacia Church, they're going to be able to
go after like any religious groups. And that's just like

(01:34:31):
not true, Like it's just not true. These people are
not like whatever you're you know, in terms of sort
of whatever, like the crimes of like a normal religious
group group are like the church is not a normal
religious group. They have been funding desk squads for like

(01:34:51):
longer than most of the people listening to the show
have been alive. And yeah, I don't know. I just
want to sort of like like just make people aware
of it. They're going to try this shit again. And
it was it was bullshit less and he did it.

Speaker 6 (01:35:06):
It's bullshit now, yeah, one hundred percent. And that's that's
the thing that keeps annoying me. Well, it's not nothing.

Speaker 7 (01:35:16):
There are many things about this that annoy me and
make me very enraged, But one of them is that
the playbook doesn't change. Yeah, no, it's very very straightforward.
This is how it's going to work. I'm kind of
wondering also if the cult is going to sort of
like roll out new providential edicts that will like potentially
be like, oh no, this is going to be our

(01:35:36):
new country that we get the most money out of,
or this maybe or something like, you know, just something
that they're going to say that God has made it
this way so that like, yeah, you can change those.

Speaker 6 (01:35:48):
Money money funneling tunnels.

Speaker 3 (01:35:50):
Yeah, I don't know. The only prediction that I can
make and I'm absolutely sure of is that it's going
to be wild and it's going to suck.

Speaker 6 (01:35:58):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (01:35:59):
Yeah, I'm looking forward to how this is going to
play out, honestly, especially given all of the like Kamakazi
squad comments and stuff, makes me ill, It makes it
makes me scared, It makes me not feel confident about
the way that this is going to turn out.

Speaker 3 (01:36:15):
Yeah, I'm kind of of two minds of this because
like I'm hoping this will go well and this will
actually work and that like even if the church tries
to lash out, it's like doesn't work very well. I
do think also the way that this assassination has like
been turning just random like regular people in Japan who

(01:36:36):
don't really know anything about the Church against them has
been really really interesting and powerful in a way that
was I mean not the I don't know, so there's
I've been saying is like the top of the show
kind of as a joke, but like, this really has
been a very successful like political assassination in that it

(01:36:56):
hasn't like, it hasn't back it hasn't yet backfired in
a way that helps the church, and it seems to
have really don't know, it seems it seemed to have
very powerfully achieved this objective of getting people to go, wait,
hold on, who is this cult that is like not
I don't know, running is maybe too strong of a word,

(01:37:18):
but has like completely embedded itself in the in Japan's
ruling class.

Speaker 6 (01:37:23):
Right, yeah, yeah, people are asking questions.

Speaker 3 (01:37:27):
Now, yeah, which which I think is good. And I
don't know, I hope the other thing I'm hoping is
that this like people start doing this in like the
US and in Korea and in like all of the
other places that they've been doing shit like this, because
this isn't just.

Speaker 7 (01:37:45):
Yeah, because that's been global and there have been so
many people that have been victims of this group that
I know a lot of us in America have also
started speaking out about it, and the media here has
not been quite as interested in picking up, uh, what
we have to say. To a degree, they have been,

(01:38:05):
but it's usually you know, sensationalized.

Speaker 6 (01:38:08):
And made a little weird and just yeah, yeah the point,
oh sorry, yeah, go on, yeah, like there's.

Speaker 3 (01:38:16):
A there's a really this is something like I've read
a lot of sort of American coverage of this alongside
the Japanese coverage, and I mean, like I expect this
of the Japanese. Wow, Okay, I guess I expect this
of both, like parts of the coverage, but there is
there has been very very little, if any willingness to
like talk about the church's connection to the CIA, and

(01:38:39):
they're you know, people will talk about them like as
an anti communist group, but right like yeah, like the
don't take that extra step, yeah yeah, like you have
like it's they're not just in it. Like there there
there are lots of anti communist groups. I mean, there
are no anti communist groups that are good, right, but
like there are lots of anti communist groups that never
funded death squads in like not what was what was

(01:39:00):
the actual number like sixteen I had I had I
had a count at one point of the number of
countries they funded desk squads in. But like like most
most most most people haven't like like funded coups in
Bolivia and like you know, kept like allowed to ran
Contra to happen by keeping the Contras in the war,
or like sent weapons of the mousia Hadeen like yo,

(01:39:23):
like they they really they they really they've I don't know,
like I I mean, I like I guess, like you know,
in terms of the sort of like this is the
bourgeois press stuff it like it like it makes sense
ideologically why people don't want to talk about their connections
to the CIA and like the operations they pulled in
the US and all of the just imperials that they've

(01:39:45):
been doing. But it's it's really depressing because yeah, yeah,
I don't know.

Speaker 7 (01:39:52):
It feels demoralizing sometimes because people only want to tell
part of the story when it's like not too crazy
and out there sounding for them. It's like, no, I
tell you what, the actual story behind this group is
crazier and more out there than you could ever imagine.

Speaker 3 (01:40:05):
Like yeah, yeah, and I think I think that's that's
been an important I mean that's I think why the
work you're doing is really important because thank you, like
you have to actually make like you're you're one of
the few people like actually making these connections. And yeah,
I really I really appreciate it.

Speaker 6 (01:40:22):
Thank you.

Speaker 7 (01:40:22):
I appreciate that you appreciate it because it's sometimes it's it's.

Speaker 6 (01:40:27):
Weird work to do, Like I just read a lot
about horrible things, and.

Speaker 7 (01:40:33):
You know, I mean, like I was saying that I
can take a toll on you to a degree, and
sometimes I'll have to take breaks from it, but at
the end of the day, I'm always going to go
back to it because, like I think it's worth doing,
because the stuff needs to be talked about.

Speaker 3 (01:40:45):
Yeah, so, I guess do you have anything else that
you wanted to say.

Speaker 7 (01:40:48):
Before I'll just plug deprogramming, imperialism, those two words. I
think there's an underscore on our Instagram. Let me just
double check. If there's an underscore, we will.

Speaker 3 (01:41:00):
Put links to this in the description.

Speaker 6 (01:41:03):
Appreciate it.

Speaker 3 (01:41:04):
Yeah, thank you so much for coming on the show.
And yeah, fuck these.

Speaker 7 (01:41:08):
People, yeah for real, they've done some really bad stuff.

Speaker 3 (01:41:13):
So hopefully, hopefully this is finally after like so many
generations of terrible crimes they've been doing that. This is
finally the one that's going to fucking crush them.

Speaker 7 (01:41:23):
We can hope, you know, yeah, you can very much
hope though. And the more people are talking about it
the better. The more people understand, like the history behind
the movement, the better.

Speaker 6 (01:41:33):
So thanks for having me.

Speaker 3 (01:41:34):
Yeah, and yeah, this has been it can happen here.
You can find us assuming Twitter still exists, when this
goes up on Twitter, Instagram, haf in here pod. Yeah,
you can find sources of goals on media. Yeah, go
go into the world, destroy imperialism and crush the remains

(01:41:55):
of these dog shit ass cults.

Speaker 11 (01:41:59):
Yeah, okay, I am also going cool.

Speaker 1 (01:42:18):
Let's go, let's suck it up.

Speaker 5 (01:42:21):
Mm hmm. Maybe that should be our intro. Keep it Yeah,
you leave it all in Daniel. This is how.

Speaker 1 (01:42:29):
Fucking up my cool zone media.

Speaker 5 (01:42:33):
That's a great question, Robert, It's one we don't like
to answer. The answer is yeah, Reaganagan coins. Yeah, we've
got into it.

Speaker 1 (01:42:41):
Oh that's what's funding James. It's a common mistake mixing
those two words up.

Speaker 5 (01:42:46):
Okay, I see yeah, yeah, I thought it was because
we got to a dispute about who is going to
get the next gold coin that they send us, No,
every every month.

Speaker 1 (01:42:54):
Yeah, that's uh, that's that's what funds are. Incredible work,
your incredible work mostly over at the border.

Speaker 12 (01:43:00):
That's right.

Speaker 5 (01:43:01):
Yep. Before enough, very good, thank you, magic man.

Speaker 4 (01:43:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:43:05):
Right before and after I go, I dive like Scrooge
mc duck into my giant pile of gold coins. Yeah,
and it helps me recover. But yeah, talking of the border,
I am not the only one with a giant pile
of gold coins who has been going to the border
because friend of the show Elon Musk, has also been taking.

Speaker 1 (01:43:25):
Well you got to bring him into this.

Speaker 5 (01:43:27):
Yeah, well, certainly, Rubbert, he brought himself into this.

Speaker 1 (01:43:30):
Why he got to bring himself out?

Speaker 5 (01:43:32):
Yeah, really, this wasn't my believe me, buddy. I would
like nothing more than to never hear his name again,
but unfortunately addressed.

Speaker 1 (01:43:41):
I would like to hear it again, but specifically I
would like to hear the sentence from a news anchor
Elon Musk eaten by a crocodile. Yes, I was just
thinking crocodile in a failed motorcycle stunt in the Florida Keys.

Speaker 12 (01:43:55):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:43:55):
Yeah, I'd settle with like hippopotamus, crocodile.

Speaker 1 (01:43:59):
Any semi aquatic animal eating him would be pretty amusing.

Speaker 2 (01:44:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:44:03):
Yeah, if a managi ate him, I'd be fucking pumped.
We'd love to see it. Yeah, if any one carnivor
amanity yeah yeah, yeah, it's been training its whole life
for this. Yeah, that'll be in our next merch drop. Okay,
so yeah, Elmo in some kind of I don't know,
like punished woody cosplay.

Speaker 13 (01:44:26):
It was the very costumish, it was.

Speaker 1 (01:44:28):
Yeah, it was. We have a saying in Texas for
people who wear cowboy hats and cowboy boots when they shouldn't,
and it's all had no cattle, and that is he
is the definition of that.

Speaker 13 (01:44:41):
Classes I think really punched it up, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:44:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:44:46):
Yeah, he just looked like a balland like I can't
it's really remarkable that he can be that wealthy and
always looks so awkward and like you could just pay
someone to buy you clothes, bro, and like, at least
Jeff Bezos got your when he got really rich. Elon
must still looks like Humpty dumpty, not to like does
look Besis looks weirdest freaking like a plastic They.

Speaker 1 (01:45:10):
All look weird, and I don't care about the fact
that Elon Musk is. You know, he's not jagged or swollen,
but he's not a wildly abnormal body shape for a man.
And what is fucking fifty's like.

Speaker 5 (01:45:23):
Yeah, yeah, he's older than I imagine.

Speaker 1 (01:45:25):
I'm shit on him for playing at something he clearly
is not, because no man has ever been further from
being a cowboy.

Speaker 5 (01:45:32):
Yes, that is true, he has very few cattle. Yeah,
there's no shame in anyone's body shape. It's just funny
to mock Elon Musk, I guess.

Speaker 6 (01:45:41):
So.

Speaker 5 (01:45:42):
Yeah, Elon turned up at the border and he decided
that he was going to learn about the border, and
the way that he decided he was going to learn
about the border was by assembling a collection of cops
and one representative to lie to him about the border,
which many of you who follow things like Journalist and
will be aware that cops lie actually quite a lot,

(01:46:03):
and that is what happened here unsurprisingly. So I guess
I just want to take this chance to a update
everyone on what's been happening since we last upbated everyone
what's been happening at the border, and be just address
some of these myths.

Speaker 3 (01:46:18):
I know.

Speaker 5 (01:46:18):
Something we talked about over the break was like lots
of people between now and the end of the year
will be seeing family members who they might not see
very often, and they might not see them too now
in the next election. And there are a lot of
myths specifically about migration that we will maybe copy in
another episode. But I think there's some valuable stuff here
that people can address. If people in your circle have

(01:46:40):
been influenced by Elon Musk citizen journalism, then I think
it's really important to just point out that it's all
bullshit then so easily discoverably bullshit. Now, obviously not everyone
spends as much time at the southern border of the
United States as I do, and not everyone lives on
the border. Must doesn't live on the border either, and

(01:47:01):
he clearly thinks that people who do exist in some
kind of world West fantasia where people you know, wear
cowboy hats and cowboy boots. But like for most of us,
for many of us, it's is our day to day reality,
and so it's easy to go, I guess, and talk
to some cops and like wave at some people who
have been corralled up like like they like cattle or

(01:47:23):
some kind of animals, right, yeah, right, like not engaging
with them as people and throughout this right like, at
no point in his little border screed, which I don't
think you have to watch, by the way, if you
haven't watched it, like I'm very now.

Speaker 1 (01:47:37):
You're not you're not going to like benefit from it.

Speaker 5 (01:47:41):
No, you won't learn shit.

Speaker 13 (01:47:42):
But there is there is a clip I found that's
like a minute long on YouTube from the live stream
where the like maybe like most ninety percent of it
is him trying to flip the camera to.

Speaker 5 (01:47:53):
Yeah, that was that was very funny. Yeah that yes,
real iron man vibes from the guy who can't reverse
his camera and then he ends up just holding it
the way around in yeah this intellectual yeah no titan
Elil musk So. I think the first part is that

(01:48:14):
when he starts to well, first he says as an
immigrant myself, which is like, yeah, brock, I'm an immigrant
to the differences. I didn't have to walk across the
desert carrying my child and then be detained in open
air concentration camp while people around me got fucking hypothermia
and then questioned about the legitimacy of my travel and
right to be here, and then I'm able to work

(01:48:35):
for years. Migration experiences are different, different, and you don't
have a right to condescend to people who are often
among some of the least fortunate people in the world,
just because your mum was a Canadian citizen and you
came here to go to school, Like, it's not the
fucking same. And I say this as someone who came
here to go to school, right, Like, it's.

Speaker 1 (01:48:55):
The same as if like I were to take a
fucking flight from North Africa to Spain and be like, well,
having migrated to Spain from America, Like, it's really not
a dangerous journey. Yeah, it's a completely different situation.

Speaker 5 (01:49:08):
Yeah, yes, yeah, And you compare yourself to Amelia Heart
and the same, it's no different. So, yeah, like Elon
Musk came to this country in a very different circumstance
to many of these people. The first claim that's made
in this video, which is which is bullshit. It's this
quote unquote open border policy. Now, at no point do
any of these like old men in hats define what

(01:49:31):
they mean by open border policy. And that's because it
doesn't exist. It's not a thing. There is no open
border policy. There has never been an open border policy Biden's.
So I was in Tijuana at the Pedwest people know where.
That is so at that point in time that on
the day Biden was inaugurated, I was there, right. I

(01:49:51):
was there because a large group of migrants were waiting
to see if Joe Biden would change anything, and they
had been stuck in Tijuana for month years in some cases.
I spoke to people who had been sexually assaulted. I
spoke to people who had been robbed. I spoke to
people who lived in fear for their lives right, and
they were not safe in Mexico and wanted to come
to the United States. And they had seen the way

(01:50:13):
Biden campaigned, and they hoped that he would do something better.
Did he fuck know? He did not. For years, he
continued the same policies that Trump put in place in
COVID Biden Title forty two more people than Trump did. Right,
The Title forty two policy was in place for much
longer under Biden than it was under Trump. It's completely

(01:50:36):
untrue to suggest that Biden not, at any point in
his presidency opened up the border. What did happen in May.
As people will be aware, is that Title forty two ended.
It didn't end because Biden decided it had to end.
It ended because the emergency for COVID nineteen ended. And
Title forty two is not immigration law, its public health law.

(01:50:57):
And so with the end of this policy, that allowed
the government to do things that would not normally be
able to do because it was a quote unquote emergency,
they were not able to do this extraordinary and extraordinarily
cruel thing, which which was Title forty two. Right, That
wasn't a Biden choice, that that was an end, that
was a decision forced upon him. Indeed, the Biden administration

(01:51:19):
defended Title forty two in court. What has happened since
then is that migrant numbers have dropped. They have decreased
since the end of Title forty two. That's because lots
of people saw the harsh anti migration rhetoric that was
coming from the Biden White House, right, Mayorcus out there
spouting stuff about bands you'll be banned from seeking asylum

(01:51:40):
for five years if your court crossing between ports of entry,
and that led to people thinking they had to cross
before the end of Title forty two. Right now, what
Title forty two did do is create a massive backlog
of asylum applications because we weren't processing those applications and
we were bouncing people back to Mexico, where as I've
hopefully already illustrated, they were not safe. They didn't feel

(01:52:02):
that that was a safe third country for them, and
so in the months after Title forty two, those people
have tried to cross and to make their asylum applications right.
They're supposed to use app called CBP one. As we've
documented in very great detail, that app is completely unfit
for purpose. And people can listen to my title forty
two episodes, they can listen to the interview when it

(01:52:24):
did with Jake and Austin about CBP one. The issues
with it are many. The facial liveness scan that it
does doesn't work for people who have darker skin, It
requires Wi Fi, it requires Internet connectivity. These are things
that no long migrants have, and that the migrants who
do have tend to be richer and tend to be whiter,
so it facilitates a certain type of migrant. At one

(01:52:46):
point in I believe April of this year, forty percent
of the CBP one applications that were CBP one appointments
that were made for Sylum applications were made for people
who spoke Russian. If we spoke Russian on not forty
percent of the migrants that was in Tijuana. And I guess
what that means is that people who you know, especially

(01:53:08):
in my experience, people from African countries are unable to
apply for appointments using CBP one. Also, it's only available
in a couple of languages, or three languages I believe, English, Spanish,
and Haitian Creole. If you don't speak those languages is
going to be a lot harder. There are many other
issues with CBP one and other apps that DHS uses.
But what has happened since the end of title forty
two in May right is people have tried. This backlog

(01:53:30):
has begun to sort of people have started to try
and present their applications. And what's happening now is that
people are crossing in very large numbers. That's not untrue
that happens at this time of year. So the last
kind of quote unquote normal years we had were I
suppose twenty eighteen and twenty nineteen. If people cast their

(01:53:51):
minds back to the November of twenty eighteen. You remember
that was the Trump midterms, and you remember the quote
unquote migrant caravan that are Identijuana at that time with
thousands of people. The reason that people are always traveling
at this time of year is because it is easier
to travel in the months and I was hot, right,
So we will see more people arriving the next few months.
That's part of seasonal migrationments because of demand for work.

(01:54:15):
If you're working harvesting things right as a day laborer,
that happens at the end of the summer. This is
part of a normal and natural cycle. People have always
traveled since human beings have existed to take advantage of
different conditions, different access to resources. But the idea that
at some point Biden instituted an open border policy is nonsense.

(01:54:37):
Biden has closed that border, right, He's built walls through
Friendship Park, He's built walls in Texas, he's built walls
in California, He's funded DHS more. That border is certainly
not open. The large groups of people that you are
seeing going through the asylum process under US immigration law,

(01:54:58):
as they have under every other president. They come into
the United States, they do an initial interview and they're
released with a notice to appear in court. That's always
been the case. Now are those notices to appear for
dates at further in the future now, Absolutely, And that's
because our system is backlogged. Right, because we spent all

(01:55:18):
our fucking money on giving border patrol, the black Hawks,
giving our cops tanks, whatever it is that we spend
our money on, we haven't spent it on making it
easier and quicker for these people to get their asylum
claims adjudicated. One of the claims that they make in
the video I'm skipping out of the order that they
make them in is that the repute he speaking to

(01:55:38):
representative who's a representative for the Southern border region of Texas.
He's in Eagle Past, Texas, right, which is an area
which I've seen a lot of migration. The guy says
there's no repatriation here. Of course, there isn't any repatriation there.
That's not what happens in Eagle Pass right. People come,
some of them will be immediately repatriated if they are
found to be For instance, know that in May somebody

(01:56:01):
who was found to be on the United States terrorism
watch list tried to enter the country. That that person
wasn't released with a notice to appear right, that person
was immediately bounced into either return to their country or
more likely in their case, incarcerated. Some people will be
detained there. Some people will be repatriated there, but that's
because like Del Rio, Texas or Eagle Pass doesn't repatriate people.

(01:56:24):
That's not their role. The courts are the ones who
decide who is eligible for asylent right. And it's worth
noting that this fiscal year, so that's through August of
twenty twenty three, recording in October, but I couldn't find
September stats. Immigration judges have issued removal and voluntary departure
orders for thirty nine point four percent of completed cases,

(01:56:45):
totaling two hundred and twenty three thousand, five hundred and
seventy deportation orders. So it's absolutely ludicrous to say that
there's no repatriation. Nearly half of those cases when they
come to court result in repatriation. It's and then the
representative claims that he called the president of Guatemalan the
Guatemalan president said will take people back. Great, of course

(01:57:06):
they will. That that's how international law works. It's not
the Guatemalan president's job to decide who is decide who
is allowed asylum in the United States. That's the job
of the immigration courts. They are deeply flawed. But it's
ludicrous to suggests that these people are not being sent back,
because a deeply problematic number of them are being sent back,

(01:57:28):
often to very dangerous situations. And I think it's it's
deeply misleading and it's troubling to see like elected officials
making these claims. I know that elected officials just lie to,
you know, to to reinforce the narrative, but it's still troubling.
Another claim they were like he was really shocked that
people were playing golf next to the border. The US

(01:57:51):
border is thousands of miles long, like we live, like
for those of us, for whom it's not like an
oddity to come and cause play at it's where we live.
And of course we do stuff near the border because
it's our home. Like I was camping near the border
this week. I ride my bike near the border all
the time. There are other golf courses near the border,

(01:58:11):
there are parks near the border, and there's a Tommy
Hill figure discount store near the border in Santa Sedro, like, yeah,
it's our home.

Speaker 1 (01:58:20):
Yeah, yeah, it's This is something that when we were
at the Butterfly Sanctuary, a friend of ours who had
kind of lived on the border for forever, Marianna, brought
up a lot, which is that like prior to the
you know, September eleventh in particular, these were just like communities,
Like the fact that there was a border was more
theoretical than anything else. You would cross pretty free. I

(01:58:41):
have friends in southern California that go into Mexico for
the week and you didn't have a pass border or anything.
Like families you know, would cross to be with each
other and stuff like. It was, yeah, the way it is.

Speaker 5 (01:58:51):
Even post nine eleven. Like for those of us who
are fortunate enough to have Century, which is an expert,
you can skip the line basically because you've been pre cleared.
I go to Tijuana to have dinner pretty often, Like
I'll take the trolley down there and then walk through
with my bicycle and then ride my bike to the
gastropark or something, have dinner, have a couple of beers,
rid my back back, take the trolley back. It's nice evening.

Speaker 13 (01:59:14):
Yeah, I mean, I don't know how cold it is now,
but like a lot of like people that work like
nine to five retail jobs or whatever it is, they
would just like leave tou Wana and come back, like dad,
My dad had hired a bunch of those workers. Yeah,
and it was just like normal, was very normal to
do that.

Speaker 5 (01:59:30):
More so now because San Diego is less affordable than
it as it has been.

Speaker 13 (01:59:34):
Like, Yeah, I think the people that don't live near
a border or like believe the Rickulus claims me about it.
I think they imagine the border is like in this
barren wasteland and it's just like a chain link fence
or something. I don't think they understand what it actually is.

Speaker 1 (01:59:52):
They imagine like this desolate, yellow filtered scene from Breaking Bad. Yes, exactly,
like movies like fucking Sakaria right where it's this this
constant series of gunfights and like like violence occurs on
the border. It's the same thing. It's actually a version
of the same shit that's happened with like San Francisco
and Portland.

Speaker 5 (02:00:09):
Right.

Speaker 1 (02:00:09):
Yeah, you have like a riot on a block, or
you'll have like a store get robbed, and then people
develop this because it gets so hyped by the media
there's you can't go into these cities. They're death zones.

Speaker 2 (02:00:21):
You know.

Speaker 1 (02:00:22):
It was like no man, like a fucking most most
of its nature, right, like that's the fucking border.

Speaker 5 (02:00:30):
Yeah, it's just a place like it's it's not in
any way remarkable like that.

Speaker 1 (02:00:35):
And the primary danger is the fact that people are
stopped from having access to like things like water that
they need, yeah, by the state.

Speaker 5 (02:00:46):
So maybe it's a good time to talk about some
of the dangers that migrants are facing right now. In
the last couple of weeks, it's maybe since we last recorded,
I believe five migrants have been shot on the southern
side of the border. People. So like this week in
southern California, it's much colder. I know it's hot in
lots of parts of the country. It wasn't here. We
had rain. We're recording on like the first second of October.

(02:01:11):
But last weekend was very cold. I was in a
camp near Hakumba on Friday night through late Friday night
maybe into Saturday morning, and.

Speaker 3 (02:01:22):
It was cold. It was wet.

Speaker 5 (02:01:24):
Temperatures were getting like into the single digits celsius, into
the forties and fifties fahrenheit when it's wet, and it's
that kind of temperature that's when you start worrying about
people getting hypothermia, which is exactly what happened right. People
were sick, people had to be evacuated. On Friday night,
I was heating up milk for a baby, like a

(02:01:46):
tiny little baby in my camping stove, so that the
baby could have milk like not freezing temperatures. Right, it
gave someone my gortex jacket. I was there with James
and Jacqueline from Boarder Kindness and some other friends. I
know some of them listen to the podcast, and it
makes me really happy that people who listen to this

(02:02:08):
like take the time out of their busy lives to
show up and help other people. Like that's one of
the coolest things that about what we do.

Speaker 1 (02:02:15):
We're very proud of those people and everyone else, you know, Yeah,
pick up the slack, come on guys.

Speaker 5 (02:02:20):
Yeah, Like I know on that topic, like, there are
a relatively few of us. It's a very remote area
where we were. You know, you need a truck to
get to it. Maybe a decent clearance car would be fine,
but there were like six of us at one point.
It is not easy to do that. Day in and
day out. It really affects you to see someone's little

(02:02:43):
baby sleeping in the dirt and they're asking you, like,
you know, can I have a jacket and you've already
given someone your jacket? Can I have a sleeping bag
and you've given away all the sleeping bags you have? Like,
it's fucked. It's not good for you. And I know
it's taken a toll on those people, and it would
be great if more people could come. As James Jaqueline said,
we're vetting everyone because there are people who would like

(02:03:04):
to do harm to migrants and people who don't like migrants.
And so if you go back and listen to the
episode or the relevant links and email addresses to volunteer there,
even if you just send money, it's better to send
money then to send us stuff. We've had a ton
of I spent a decent chunk of Friday afternoon going
through donated stuff. Some of it's great, some of it
I'm afraid. Like, if a jacket is has giant holes

(02:03:25):
in it for you, it also has giant holes in
it for someone who's less rich than you, and it
doesn't keep them any warmer than it keeps you, so like,
you know, it's better if people send money, but that's
taken its toll on people. It's taking its toll on
the people in the camps too, not to say that
they're not in very good spirits. Like it's so I
was there at about ten o'clock at night when people

(02:03:46):
What happens, right is people walk around the gaps in
the wall, which again didn't come up in Elon Musk's video.
Right there are giant, yawning gaps in the wall because
they were trying to build as much of it as
possible before the twenty twenty election, and so they skipped
the hard parts. So people walk through where the wall stops,
they're met by border patrol. Border patrol then drives them.
I don't mean drive somebody like put them in the

(02:04:07):
back of the vehicle. I mean drive them like you
would drive cattle, by going behind them in a vehicle
and pushing them forward and walks them into the camp, right,
and then they arrive in the camp, and it's it's
they arrive and like I was going up to ascertained,
you know what sort of group it was? Were they
people who were in severe distress? Right, like hypothermic or

(02:04:29):
hurt or injured. I know someone came later in a
week who had a very bad injury, who had fallen
maybe trying to climb the wall. And so you're going
to kind of trite that group, right, And some people
were really start they're in America, like, and then they
wanted to give me like a hug or a fist
bump and be like, yeah, I'm here. Obviously some of
them weren't prepared. None of them were prepared for sleeping outside.

(02:04:50):
And then generally, like there have been large kind of
just shelters made out of cacti or brush or scrub
or whatever's there, which tend to be based around like
national groups, right, just people have their community so that
it's one for Colombian people, Brazilian people, punt Jabi, Sikh people.
There were Kurdish people, Turkish, a lot of Turkish people,

(02:05:13):
Afghan people, and so they kind of because they can
talk to each other, they'll be like, hey, come over here,
Afghan friend, like you know, we'll look after you. We've
got this shelter set out, we've got a fire going,
get yourself warm. And then those people can spend anywhere
from one to three days there before they're taken out right,
and so like, it's an extremely bad situation and it

(02:05:35):
will only get worse, So weather gets worse. Talking of
things which which are bad, should should we should we
take this opportunity to pivot to things that people don't
need to buy.

Speaker 1 (02:05:46):
Yeah, they definitely need to buy them, James, because pass anyway,
here's ads.

Speaker 5 (02:05:57):
All right, we're back, hopeful you have repleted. You're a
pile of goldgoyins. So I wanted to return to addressing
some words of disinformation that Elon Muskot from Men and
cowboy hats. One of the things they talked about a
lot was that they talk about numbers, right, They're like, oh,
there are two million, there are four million. At no

(02:06:19):
point do they say what these numbers represent. Are these
numbers net migration? Are they border crossings between ports of entry?
Are they the number of asylum cases? Are they the
number of encounters the border patrol has had? Because as
we know, right, an encounter doesn't necessarily mean individual. If
one person crosses two or three times, that's two or

(02:06:40):
three encounters, right, And they never talk about that because
they're just pulling this shit out their asses. If you
want information, these people are not people to get it from.
None of them are even working in border enforcement.

Speaker 3 (02:06:55):
Right.

Speaker 5 (02:06:55):
These were sheriffs that he spoke to. They talk a
lot about how there are quote unquote two million of them,
but the real number is four or five million because
of the quote unquote gotaways a people who have not
been processed at all. Right, They have entered between ports
of entry and then are undocumented. This is nonsense. People

(02:07:18):
don't want to be undocumented. People are here because they
believe they have a legitimate asylum claim. They are fleeing violence, right,
they have one of the We've been over to five
categories that you can get asylum for before on the podcast.
I won't read them out again, but I have seen people.
For instance, I saw one person who they were transported

(02:07:39):
to the hospital. The hospital let them out on the
street in San Diego. They took a cab back to
the border because they don't want to just be floating
around in the US with no papers and able to work,
worried that like a parking ticket or a traffic stock
could send them back to wherever they'd fled from. Right,
Because they've fled because they're afraid of something, and they
don't want to be sent back.

Speaker 13 (02:08:00):
I think something that really bothered me in the video
was how much they emphasize that, Like, remember, most of
these people that can be escaping prison, they're all in
they used to be incarcerated. And I'm just like, what, Like,
that's not it's just like this fear mongering tactic that's
so silly and trying to make people all believe that
there's everyone at the border are just like prison inmates essentially.

Speaker 7 (02:08:24):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:08:24):
The other side, all you often get is like, well,
they're all young men heading over, and a lot of
times of this like some of this is like racial panic,
they're gonna you know, take our women or whatever. Some
of this is like, you know, men are soldiers, you know,
it's military. The reality is that, like, especially when you're
talking about like the migrants who are crossing the fucking
dairy and gap, this is an incredibly dangerous journey. Young

(02:08:47):
men are generally a little more capable physically of it.
And also it's you know, especially given some realities of
a lot of you know, these cultures, that's who you
expect to go and make money and send it back
to their families like that that's just like it's they're
not invading you. You know, this is like, these are
the people who are going to work jobs and send

(02:09:09):
money back to their families.

Speaker 5 (02:09:11):
Yeah, like we live in a society which is both patriarchial,
patriarch and misogynist. Right, They're able to command a higher
wage and they can use that to keep their families alive.
I've spoken to lots of families for whom the young
men left the country there in first earned money somewhere else,
and then was able to raise enough money to get
the rest of their family smuggled out or to facilitate

(02:09:33):
their transport and then bring them to the US because
they thought it wasn't safe for them there. Also, like,
if you're a military aged male in some countries Russia
or lots of countries in the sahell, now you could
be forcibly drafted right into one of any number of
conflicts that you want no part of. And I wouldn't
want to do that either. I'd want to leave right

(02:09:55):
And I've spoken to people who have fled that kind
of situation this week. So Yeah, of the gender balance,
I don't know, it's very hard to get a sense
of the actual gender balance because border patrol tends to
process women and children first, and especially unaccompany children of
course first, but it's very hard to get into the
actual gender balance without like looking at border patrol statistics,

(02:10:18):
and they take a month or two to come out generally. Yeah,
they talk about people with tear drop tattoos. I would
estimate that I have seen tens, if not hundreds of
thousands of people at the southern border. I've never seen
anyone with the tear drop tattoo a leg. You'd have
to be all to have.

Speaker 13 (02:10:33):
They described these like hordes of people trying to get
into your home.

Speaker 5 (02:10:38):
Yes, I genuinely think that someone looked up I don't know,
like Latino gangster on Google images, like right before, like
racist Google images or whatever, like before they before they
went down to the border. Like, I've never seen anyone
with a tear drop tattoo. You'd have to be a
bit of a lemon to like present yourself for asylum
with obvious like stuff like that. They're asolutely going to

(02:11:00):
ask you about your tattoos, or they'll ask you about everything.
It's just laughable, it's ridiculous. It's all based in myth
and not in reality. And what troubles me the most
I think is I don't know how many people have
watched Elon Musk's live stream, right, and hopefully most of
them that did saw someone completely incapable of like asking
interrogated questions, or reversing the camera on his phone, or

(02:11:23):
look dressing like a cowboy. But there has been, to
my knowledge, no national network coverage of what's happening in
a cumber right. There has been limited local coverage of
what's happening in U Cumba. What that has has already
stopped because like it was a kind of one and
done situation for a lot of outlets, but it's not
one and done for the people who are volunteering, and

(02:11:45):
it's not one and done for the people who are
still arriving right like there are we're going to see
more of this in between now and twenty twenty four.
The border is clearly an area that both parties, I guess,
have decided that they can grandstand on and can show
himself as being quote unquote tough on migration, Like, no,
I don't want to live in a world where our

(02:12:06):
leaders are tough on little babies who just walked across
a desert like that's a fucked up thing to be
tough on. It could be tough on corporate corruption if
you want to like front up to someone. And I
think the Republicans are going to push on by iten
being weak on the border. There will be more migration
this year than we have seen a long time because
we created a backlog, right because climate change is worse

(02:12:28):
every single year, and like I think, as we've documented
extensively on our show, parts of the world are becoming
less and less survivable. I went to the Martial Landers
this summer. They are disappearing, So of course people are
going to want to come to somewhere where they feel safe.
There are record numbers of people crossing the Dairy and
Gap right now. That is something that will result in

(02:12:50):
record numbers of people showing up a border.

Speaker 1 (02:12:53):
And for every group of people who make it across
the Dairy and Gap, there's folks who don't like. Taking
that journey on foot without kind of access to modern
quality overlanding equipment is like putting a bullet in a
revolver and playing a game of Russian Roulette. Like it's
extremely dangerous.

Speaker 5 (02:13:12):
Yes, not to mention that you'll be preyed upon, like
all the way and they talked about the trains. Actually
that video as well, how the migrants control the trains
fuck off? Like I have seen people who have lost
limbs on trains, right like these that's an incredible jumping
on a moving train. It's not an advisable form of
transport and it's not a safe one. And the fact

(02:13:34):
that people feel they have to take it suggests that
what they are fleeing feels even less safe to them.

Speaker 4 (02:13:40):
Right.

Speaker 5 (02:13:41):
I don't have children, but like if I was to
take my kids and grab onto a moving train, I
would only do that if I thought that what I
was fleeing was less safe than that moving train. Yeah,
And to talk about the.

Speaker 13 (02:13:53):
Last resort literally, like that's how desperate you are to
better situation. It's not like I don't know, it just
makes me the rhet the rhetoric is all backwards about that.

Speaker 5 (02:14:04):
Yes, Like when you look at what some of these
people are fleeing, right, Like on Friday, I was helping
hand out water bottles and I was there was a
Punjabi man helping me, right Like he was one of
the volunteers who who was like helping us to distribute
food and helping us to communicate with people in the
language they could understand. Very nice guy. And I was

(02:14:25):
thinking about like the stuff that's happening in India right now,
right like and the way that that country is becoming
increasingly like monolithic. I guess Hindu nationalists. I guess you
could call it. And that's fair, right, Robert, Yeah, yeah,
like mod it's not getting any safer for them there,
and I've seen tons more seek people than I've ever
seen at the border before.

Speaker 1 (02:14:46):
No, there was a a I mean, fuck, it's it's
not necessarily safe in Canada, right where one of those
guys got murdered recently.

Speaker 4 (02:14:55):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (02:14:55):
Yeah, well they have been in America too, right, someone
shut up a good water thinking it was a mosque
because they fucking differentiate between different faiths and they sort
of turban.

Speaker 1 (02:15:03):
Yeah, I mean in Canada, I believe it was a
Sikh man who got assassinated at the behest of the
Modi government. Oh wow, Jesus Christ. Yeah, Western intelligence led
to Canada accusing India of SEK activists assassination. It's a
fella named I just want to make sure because this
is a story people should we may do some more

(02:15:25):
direct coverage on this, but yeah, there was a guy
named Hardeep Singh Nijar who was a Sikh separatist activist
and was gunned down by two mask men in British Columbia.
India denies that this was at their behest, but yeah,
like this is and this is by the way, it's
not just a thing that India does. Political assassinations from

(02:15:46):
authoritarian directed by authoritarian countries in Western countries have become
more and more common, right. A lot of this started
with with what Russia was doing, the poisoning, the Scarpol
poisonings and stuff. But like this is growing more calm,
and is this sort of like rules based international order
that I think to some extent we all kind of
tricked ourselves into thinking existed increasingly breaks down. But that's

(02:16:09):
all to say, there's a good reason why a lot
of Sikhs might be trying to come into the US
right now.

Speaker 5 (02:16:14):
Yeah, Yeah, there's a good reason why I'm seeing so
many of them on the border. There's a good reason
why I'm seeing a ton more people from Russia, right Yeah.
And they don't want to go on record, and that's
because they're very afraid, right, They've come from a totalitarian
state which can hunt them down, as Robert just illustrated,
anywhere in the world, and so they don't want to talk, right,
I'm seeing people coming from Columbia, Hondora, Squaff and Marla.

(02:16:37):
One of the things that Musk was shocked about was that, like,
not all of these people in Mexican. I don't know
how big he thinks Mexico is and what he believes
the population of Mexico to be, but at one minute
he it's two million a year. Does he think Mexico
is just like dwindling and there are like eight people left?
Like Mexico is a large country, but like it does

(02:16:59):
not provide us with millions of migrants a year, and
more of that like comically impossible narrative, right, Like whatever
I mean people and people are going to believe it.

Speaker 13 (02:17:11):
It's just part of the show.

Speaker 5 (02:17:14):
Yeah, And it confirms a lot of biases that always exist.
And I guess hopefully we've dismissed some of that nonsense.
And I think I don't. I think people who listen
to this generally have empathy anyway, But hopefully this has
given you some tools to talk about this to other people.
What they will say is like I'm not a big
representative caller. I called my representative to help with a

(02:17:35):
migration case for someone from Myanmar who asked for our help.
She was useless. But maybe this is an area where
like the federal government has water buffalos, right, big water containers,
it has MRIs. If these were American citizens and this
was a hurricane or an earthquake, that shit would be there.
It's not because they don't think that they matter as much.

(02:17:55):
San Diego County has declared emergency and so they can't
do anything. That's complete fucking nonsense. They again, they could
if these were American citizens, they would if these people
were like white wealthy people living in Lahoya. They're choosing
not to because they don't think it will hurt them
and like it. Maybe it won't, right, But I think

(02:18:17):
you can make a meaningful difference by donating your money,
because the only people who are helping are the dozen
or so folks right like who all convoyed out there
on Friday night down a dirt road in our trucks
and handed out the beans and rice and ritz crackers.
But you can make a difference of your money. The
border kindness links are put in the description. Again, you

(02:18:40):
can also make a difference, maybe by calling your representative
and shaming them, because this is a government created problem,
and the government like sticking its hands up in the
air and being like, oh no, what a surprise, we'd't
know how to do. Yes, they knew this was coming, right,
these people, many of them have walked from Colombia. We
knew these people were arriving. We've been putting this off

(02:19:03):
since COVID, for three years, since the start of the
COVID pandemic. I should say COVID is very much alive.
I've seen some people who like obviously weren't able to
rap a test everyone, but there are a lot of
sick people coughing right, There were people with scabies. There
were people who were very unwell. That again, if you
detained people in congregate settings and the only masks are

(02:19:25):
the ones that we bring as volunteers, and that's going
to happen, right, We'll probably get some infectious disease that
they'll get to share with Even if you don't care
about other people, Sure it'll come by you and the
arts eventually. Right when freaking chicken gun yod, that's not
vectored in that fashion, but you know, cholera or something
rocks up in America. So I would urge people to

(02:19:48):
do something because so few people are and the only
people who are helping our mutual aid groups who are
overstretched and stressed and tired and broke. And so if
you can help, you should, and well, like whatever that
looks like to you, if you want to volunteer, that's great.
I would urge you to go through the channels that

(02:20:08):
are set so you don't just show up and look
at yourself or someone else.

Speaker 3 (02:20:12):
In trouble.

Speaker 5 (02:20:14):
Or just make things harder. But yeah, there are meaningful
ways that people can help. Very few people are and
largely I think that's because the border exists as some
kind of World West fantasy for most people consuming media
in America. And hopefully, yeah, if you, if you encounter
someone who believes that this will help you, give you
a little bit of information, a little bit of some

(02:20:36):
tools to dismiss some of that stuff.

Speaker 13 (02:20:40):
Yeah, dismiss and demystify really, because it's just thingless, imaginary,
big bad wolf that no one really understands.

Speaker 5 (02:20:48):
Yeah, totally, Like it's nonsense that everyone in America's a migrant.
They are indigenous people here now and they always have been,
but a lot of people have some kind of migration story.
And like, I don't give a fuck if your great
grandpa came here quote unquote legally the barriers were not
in place yet. There wasn't a wall when your me
mar came from wherever she came from. But like in

(02:21:11):
all of our communities, like this country doesn't work with
that the labor of recently arrived for migrants. And like
I think, if you look at the news, I go
to places where wars are happening, right, That's part of
my job, so does Robert, you know. And then I
see those people at the border. The reason they're here
is because they're fleeing something worse, and I think, like

(02:21:34):
maybe grounding it in that, I don't think anyone would
want a little baby to be sleeping in there. I
know some pretty conservative people who were pretty outraged by
what happened in May, and it's worse now. And yeah,
no one in their right mind wants a little baby
to be shivering out in the desert. You know, no
one in their right mind wants a mother to be

(02:21:55):
breastfeeding and sleeping underneath a cardboard box because that's all
she has you know, like the it's not even if
you believe in it's very liberal construct to America as
a welcoming nation and they shouldn't be who we are
and shouldn't be.

Speaker 3 (02:22:06):
How we treat people.

Speaker 5 (02:22:06):
And if you believe that nation shouldn't exist in borders
of bullshit, then no one should be treated like that,
and it's on all of us to help. I guess yes, yeah,
anything else, guys, No, I think that's about it. Magic. Okay,
thank you for joining me for this heartwarming episode.

Speaker 1 (02:22:27):
Yeah, all right, everybody that's going to do it for
us here at It could happen here until next time.

Speaker 14 (02:22:35):
You know, stuff, welcome to it could happen here. I'm

(02:22:56):
Garrison Davis. This is going to be another episode which
we're discussing the Defend the Forest and Stop Copcity movement
in Atlanta, Georgia. This struggle has always tied together a
lot of the aspects that we focus on on this show,
between the collapsing climate, political escalation, and how everything just

(02:23:19):
feels like it's kind of getting worse. But through that
there's people who respond to this crisis of neoliberalism and
band together and figure out how to sort through all
of this shit and all that is continuing as the
City of Atlanta and State of Georgia unveil new state
repression tactics to chill any resistance to the construction of

(02:23:42):
this ninety million dollar police training facility that we have
covered in depth in this show the past few years.
A few months ago there was another three part series
about the sixth Week of Action in June, but new
things have happened since then. The referendum has been submitted,
so that is all in process. But the same day

(02:24:03):
the construction was scheduled to begin, the State of Georgia
indicted sixty one people on RICO charges. RICO is an
acronym referring to the Racketeer, Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.
This specific act is meant to legally target organizations, and
organizations can relate to anything between you know, traditional incorporated

(02:24:24):
organizations or something as loose as like a pickup basketball team,
which is how the state is able to paint whole
communities of people who are just connected by similar values
as being a quote unquote organization. The RICO Act in practice,
is basically a way to criminalize a whole community. Now
I'm not a lawyer, but I do know lawyers, so

(02:24:47):
for this episode, I brought on Mo Cohen, a lawyer
specializing in state repression. So without further ado, here is
my conversation with them. Mo, Hello, thank you for joining
me today.

Speaker 4 (02:25:00):
No grab lim, It's my pleasure.

Speaker 14 (02:25:02):
So in late August, the Fulton County District Attorney and
other kind of legal entities with the State of Georgia
unveiled a whole bunch of RICO charges against I believe
sixty one people relating to the Stop Coop City quote
unquote movement. It's part of, like like I said, it's

(02:25:22):
an ongoing kind of campaign of repression that we've talked
about pretty in depth before.

Speaker 5 (02:25:26):
But before we get into the actual like rico.

Speaker 14 (02:25:28):
Charges, I first want to kind of talk about the
raid that happened against the Atlanta Solidarity Fund earlier this year,
and a whole bunch of like financial crime charges that
they've been trying to use to suppress the bail fund organizing.
I think we've talked about this kind of briefly on
the show before, but we've never really gotten very much

(02:25:49):
in depth about it, and from my perspective, a lot
of these reco charges are very much related to the
repression of the Solidarity Fund mode. I assume you're familiar
with the Solidarity Fund raid and the charges against against
the Network for Strong Communities.

Speaker 4 (02:26:07):
I am.

Speaker 5 (02:26:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 14 (02:26:09):
Do we talk a little bit about that event. I
think that that happened in May of this year, I believe, so.

Speaker 4 (02:26:20):
It wasn't a huge surprise. It wasn't, in my opinion,
a very well grounded or legally warranted indictment.

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

Speaker 4 (02:26:31):
And certainly the way that the way that law enforcement
went in to retrieve those three people who were indicted
was a little extra particularly given the nature of the allegations.
I think people who are accused of financial crimes don't
typically get taken out with a SWAT team. But I

(02:26:52):
don't think it was a huge surprise that the district
attorney brought those charges, because this kind of rego indictment
was anticipated. Yes, and those kinds of financial charges or
allegations of financial misconduct are sort of the predicate for

(02:27:16):
bringing this kind of sweeping rego indictment.

Speaker 5 (02:27:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 14 (02:27:21):
And I think like in like the weeks and months
prior to the SWAT raid against the Solidarity Fund in May,
people at the Solidarity Fund were basically warning that they were.
They were like suspecting that they would that there would
be some form of reco charges used against the movement,
and everyone was kind of like preparing for that. That
was definitely that was definitely talked about as like as

(02:27:42):
a potential like a tactic of of suppression. You know
when you say that the types of like financial crime
like fraud charges that that were brought against this the
sole Fund people, how they seem kind of unwarranted. That
is something that the judge in the bond hearing kind
of agreed with. The judge was unimpressed, Yes that I

(02:28:06):
I I I I listened to the uh I listened
to the hearing, and the judge is very skeptical of
the prosecution's claims and basically told the prosecution like, if
you like actually want this to like succeed like in
actual like court, you know, once once this progresses, you're
you're gonna have to have a much much stronger case
because this all seems kind of like nonsense. But you

(02:28:26):
know that that didn't stop the prosecutors and the uh
I believe it's the Attorney General Office as well of
Georgia of using using kind of some stuff from this
from this raid against the Solidarity Fund and trying to
kind of tie together this grand conspiracy narrative that we.

Speaker 5 (02:28:44):
Now see in this uh in this Rico indictment.

Speaker 14 (02:28:47):
So let's I guess, let's let's talk a little bit
about the Rico indictment at this At this point, So,
Rico is a very like scary word, right, Like this
is like I feel like everyone kind of knows about
like rico, like like a pop culture like it's like
geist sense. But do I actually like talk about like
what these types of rico charges actually are because like

(02:29:07):
you know, most people, even if they charged with the crime, right,
most people don't ever like have to deal with like
rico as like a concept.

Speaker 5 (02:29:15):
So do it?

Speaker 14 (02:29:15):
You know, if if you're like a resident of protest
to get like you know, pedestrian in roadway, there's like
a litany of other kind of basic charges that cops
will throw at you. Rico is a bit more serious,
Like it's kind of it's kind of like a scary ordeal,
you know, same thing with like the domestic terrorism charges
that that that have been used the past year.

Speaker 4 (02:29:32):
So yes, what is a lot more serious.

Speaker 5 (02:29:36):
Yeah, So what exactly is rico?

Speaker 4 (02:29:40):
Rico is uh. While it was initially a federal law
that was passed in an effort to target specifically organized crime,
because federal prosecutors were having a difficult time prosecuting these
sort of individual offenses that were being committed by dispersed
groups of individuals who are all acting, maybe not in concert,

(02:30:04):
but in the service of a larger criminal enterprise. There's
a couple of important things that I want to say
just upfront.

Speaker 3 (02:30:14):
Sure.

Speaker 4 (02:30:16):
The first thing is this is not the first time
that RICO has been used against movement people. The second
thing I want to say is that all prosecutions are
political prosecutions, and RICO is no different. Although federal RICO
and ostensibly Georgia State RICO were developed and passed in

(02:30:37):
an effort to target organized crime, that is not how
they've been primarily used. And I think it is really
significant to note that after a lot of the people
of color solidarity movements like the Black Panthers, the Black
Liberation Army, AIM, the Brown Berets, the Young Lords, these

(02:30:59):
groups were all really weakened by Cohen Telpro and the
community groups that remained were then labeled as gangs and
prosecuted under RICO and so I just you know, everything
that happens in this conversation, we have to sort of

(02:31:20):
hold in our minds that this particular movement is not
the first movement and not the first community who has
had rego leveled against it as a form of state repression.

Speaker 14 (02:31:34):
Yeah, and specifically Fultland County. It looks like the the
batche of indictments that we're using these reco charges. It
looks like this was at least according to the to
the Atlantic Constitution Journal people this this was the same
grand jury that did the ricodictments against former President Donald
Trump as well for this, for this, for this batch

(02:31:55):
of charges. And they've used they've used reco charges against
like young black wrappers in the past. This is a
thing that the Fulton County Office has has done before. Yes,
and as like we have like Rico's this is like
a criminal racketeering thing against the mob. In terms of
like what RICO actually is, Like is it its own
separate charge or is it like is it a way

(02:32:16):
to like apply other felony charges, Like you know, can
can you just be charged with RICO or is there
have to be like other other crimes that you're accused
of for them to actually like use this use this
charge against these activists.

Speaker 4 (02:32:28):
RICO is its own criminal offense, but it relies upon
there having been other criminal offenses committed in the service
of a larger criminal enterprise or a conspiracy to try
to do crimes in the service of a larger criminal enterprise.
And one of the reasons that it is.

Speaker 15 (02:32:49):
So broad in sweep, I mean, federal RICO is already
very broad in SWEEP and Georgia Rica in particular is
notorious for being even broader.

Speaker 4 (02:33:02):
One of the reasons it is so attractive to prosecutors
is precisely because it can capture these large groups of
people with very little actual criminal conduct.

Speaker 14 (02:33:18):
Okay, so yeah, that's kind of one of the things
that we want to talk about is I read the
indictment as soon as it came out, as soon as
it was made public. It is it is a long document.
The first patch of it is just like it's almost
like a really bad like Wikipedia article on like like
what anarchism is is how it is. How the document starts,

(02:33:42):
and then it gets into all these like alleged alleged
like offenses that are not necessarily criminal nature, but they're
all in the service of pushing forward this conspiracy to
stop the construction of this police training facility. So there's
a lot of like kind of like a like random
almost asked and I and stuff in there that that
they're that they're eluding is is a quote unquote an

(02:34:04):
overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy. You know, anything
from like buying glue or buying like food supplies, and
they're they're including or or things like like like writing
your name.

Speaker 5 (02:34:16):
As A C, A, B.

Speaker 14 (02:34:17):
They're they're they're including that as as as as an
as an overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy, which
is kind of silly, it doesn't make very much sense.
But like these also these is this is like a
very serious case as well though, because this is like
you know, the people people, you know, facing twenty years
in prison on top of like the domestic terrorism charges. Well, uh,
do you know what else is a overt act in

(02:34:38):
furtherance of a conspiracy? It is the the uh, the
advertising that allows us to continue this show. It's all,
it's all, it's all all part of the plan. So yes,
every every single ad is a co conspirator. So take that, uh,
Ronald Reikan coin. Okay, we are we are back. We
could talk about a bit more about the actual indictment,

(02:34:58):
uh in a sec I do kind of want to
first talk about who are facing these charges, right, because
these are these are sixty one people, and it looks
like for when I was looking through, one of the
first things that you noticed is like, oh, they're mostly
charging people who have already been charged before. There's not
so many new people added to this case. It's mostly

(02:35:19):
people who've already been arrested and charged. Can you kind
of like talk about the scope of these sixty one
people who are included in this indictment.

Speaker 4 (02:35:27):
Yes, so, as I was saying, the scope of Georgia
Rico is extremely broad, and some of the criminal acts
that can serve as a predicate for charging Rico are
these extremely unremarkable acts that we would typically think of
as being very normal protest related behavior, and some of

(02:35:52):
them are things like domestic terrorism. And so I don't
think it is an accident that all of those people
were charged with domestic terrorism in the beginning months of
this of this sort of push to overcharge the stock
Cup City activists, And in fact, I think one of

(02:36:14):
the things that tipped us off at that point that
Rico was in the pipeline was that people were being
charged with domestic terrorism, which is one of the predicate
offenses for Rico, and so many of the people who
are on this indictment are the people who are already
charged with domestic terrorism. They were overcharged with domestic terrorism.

(02:36:36):
In my opinion, they were overcharged. I think the opinion
of most attorneys. They were overcharged. They were charged in
that manner, not because the allegations against them are serious.
In fact, if you look at the allegations in those
domestic terrorism indictments or they're not even indictments yet, most

(02:36:59):
of them in those domestic terrorism charges, in the documents
that are associated with those arrests, the allegations are, you know,
as I said, these absolutely unremarkable, garden variety sort of
criminal trespass allegations, by and large, the allegations against people,

(02:37:20):
and they include things that are absolutely lawful, like having
mud on your like having on your knees. Yes, yeah,
so a lot of the allegations. One of the things
that's remarkable about Rico, and frankly about the domestic terrorism stuff,
is that both of those statutes allow for the sort

(02:37:40):
of bootstrapping of one offense into a much more serious
offense if certain conditions are met with respect to the
domestic terrorism Statute. A very large number of garden variety
offens is like criminal trespassing, can be transformed into domestic

(02:38:05):
terrorism if they are perceived to be essentially politically motivated.
In the case of So, what we have here is
a situation where a bunch of people got charged with
domestic terrorism, not because they were doing something really dramatic
or violent, but because whatever it was they were doing
was perceived as being an effort to influence public policy.

(02:38:27):
So we transformed a very minor offense into a very
serious offense. That serious offense then became the predicate offense
for Rico, which is an even more serious offense.

Speaker 14 (02:38:41):
Yeah, And from my understanding at least in terms of
a lot of the people in the sixty one indictments
are the Sexton One people in the indictment is from
the arrests that happened at the music festival last Menstrue,
and a lot of these people were only charged with
domestic terrorism, which is interesting because usually domestic terrorism in

(02:39:02):
Georgia is like an enhancement charge, but lots of the
people weren't actually charged with any of the other other
charges yet the prosecutors just argued, because we're charging with
the domestic terrorism, it's like inferred that they must have
done some other crimes that we haven't yet specified. But
in the way that works for the for the Rico indictments,
because I think you need to have already had like
like I think there's like a prerequisitive like two other

(02:39:25):
like felonious charges. What they did in the in these
reco charges is go back to the music festival and
break down every single thing that happened there that they're
alleging these people did as separate instances like like planning
to go to the place, you know, marching to the place,
being at the place, Like they broke it down to
have all these separate things so that they could like

(02:39:46):
shoehorn it into this Rico indictment. So there's a lot
of like a you know, revisionist history going on here,
very kind of different arguments than what the actual like
domestic terrorism of bond hearings had in like a previous months.

Speaker 5 (02:40:01):
But yeah, there is at least at least one.

Speaker 14 (02:40:05):
Person in the indictments who is newly I think I
I think possibly a few others, but I haven't quite checked,
but there at least one person, which is a very
interesting case. It's this, it's this guy who worked at
the uh the Flock camera company who I saw that
who they are alleging was was passing off information about

(02:40:25):
where cameras were were we're located. And this is an
extremely interesting case because he is he is not included
in any other previous charges, but that is at least
one of the people who who are kind of new
additions to this indictment. One thing I didn't want to
mention because you've you've said, you've you've kind of mentioned
a few times that these are these are state level

(02:40:47):
reco charges. Those are kind of different than federal reco charges.
Do you want to kind of get into like the
difference between state and federal charges and specifically how kind
of the ones in Georgia work versus the the the
federal rego that you know, kind of inspired different states
to kind of add their own style of rico.

Speaker 4 (02:41:06):
The big difference between the federal RICO statute, which is
already extremely vague. I think Scalia said something like Scalia,
who is notoriously not far left activist. Right, I'm not
a supporter of leftists in any meaningful way. I think

(02:41:31):
described the federal Rico Statute I think is intolerably vague.
So the Federal Rico Statute is already very broad in
its scope. It already does this thing that we were
discussing of pulling in many, many people by associating them with,
you know, this criminal enterprise. The Georgia Ricos Statute is

(02:41:55):
even more broad. The Georgia Ricos Statute uses a lot
of the same terms, right, a pattern of racketeering activity. Right,
It uses a lot of the same concepts, but it
defines those concepts in ways that are even broader, even
easier to apply. So I think the thing that is

(02:42:15):
significant about Rico is that, similar to like what we
would see with conspiracy, where you know, not every person
involved in a conspiracy needs to have been participating in
every single criminal instance of criminal conduct in order to

(02:42:38):
be implicated.

Speaker 14 (02:42:40):
They don't even need to like know the other co
conspirators necessarily.

Speaker 4 (02:42:44):
So that's the case in this indictment. Yes, yes, And
that is sometimes the case with maybe other reco indictments.
We certainly have seen some stuff like gang prosecutions where
the people involved don't know each other. Typically, I wouldn't
actually expect to see something that broad. When a prosecutor

(02:43:06):
wants to indict someone for engaging in criminal conduct, they
need to have individualized probable cause that that individual did
the crime one of the things, and you can't attribute
one person's behavior to another person. Rico offers a way

(02:43:29):
around that. To use Rico in the way that the
prosecutors in Georgia are doing, among other things, enables them
to engage in a sort of collective punishment of people
who they perceive as holding certain ideologies. And those people

(02:43:52):
can be engaged in lawful behavior and even in constitutionally
protected behavior, but if they can and characterize any of
that behavior as having been an overt act in furtherance
of the conspiracy, the fact that this person bought glue
and was reimbursed for the glue, yeah, can function to

(02:44:17):
allow the prosecutor to attribute all of this other criminal
conduct to the person who bought glue.

Speaker 14 (02:44:25):
Basically, there, people can you know, be hit with charges
that are being you know, alleged against actions of other people,
but they're all getting like roped up together and they're
all facing these charges together, that's right.

Speaker 4 (02:44:39):
So you can like, the allegation that there is a
criminal enterprise allows the prosecutors to associate various people and
various acts, even lawful acts, even constitutionally protected acts, with

(02:44:59):
a tempting to further that criminal enterprise. And so the
allegation that this criminal enterprise exists is the fundamental core
of this indictment. Now you read the indictment and it's
you know, it's laughable. They're making these claims that, you know,

(02:45:23):
if it weren't so serious, if this weren't so serious,
we'd all be rolling on the floor. The idea that
mutual aid is sinister. It really to me when I
read this indictment, I thought, wow, this is just fascinating,
because what's happening here is that Georgia is saying the

(02:45:44):
quiet part out loud. We all know state repression is real.
We all know that the American legal system functions to
repressed assent, to impose prior restraints on first amend and
protected behavior, to chill speech, to frighten people into submission. Right,

(02:46:06):
we understand that it is this coercive system, but there
is at least a sort of set of rules that
purport to prioritize fairness, that purport to value concepts of
due process, and the Rico Statute, and in particular, the
Reco Statute as it is being used here, really functions

(02:46:31):
so explicitly to circumvent those rules that we can that
they're just they're not even trying anymore. They're not even
trying to pretend that they care about individual probable cause,
about the First Amendment, and I would say, most frighteningly
about the sixth Amendment, which is the right to counsel,

(02:46:51):
because they have gone way beyond the pale in alleging
that things like accessing legal help, or accessing bail, or
having legal observers or you know, providing anti repression trainings
are in some manner sinister acts in furtherance of the conspiracy.

(02:47:16):
And I am really I don't know what will happen here.
I really can't begin to guess, because I feel like
it is no longer possible for me to be surprised
by the nonsense that is coming out of this jurisdiction.
I don't know what will happen, but I am very,

(02:47:40):
very curious to see how the bench, how the judges
in Georgia respond to these allegations that involve making it
part of a criminal conspiracy to prove legal assistance. You know,

(02:48:03):
this is to me like one of the most concerning
aspects of this of this indictment, because as absurd as
it is, this could have very serious consequences.

Speaker 14 (02:48:15):
Yeah, I mean, that's something people have been talking about
with Atlanta for a while now. Is that because of
how many you know, criminal cases there is around the
top top city of like movement, whatever kind of the
result of those cases is going to be is going
to set a very influential precedent for future for future
kind of eco defense campaigns, future like any anything relating

(02:48:37):
to like like civil rights, you know, uh, police abolition,
or even even even things it's like benign is like
police reform, like any any kind of like any kind
of like grassroots activist, whatever kind of movement that's going
to happen in the future is going to be affected
by how these cases go. Because not only is you know,
as as you mentioned, the you know, Act to Bail

(02:49:00):
Fund being being in like access to to to lawyers
and so and legal support is being used in these
reco charges, they were also alleging that by having a
you know, a bail fund number on your arm, that
was like, you know, that was evidence that that that's
that this person intended to do crimes. And then you know,
as as evident in support of these domestic terrorism charges,

(02:49:21):
which is you know, an extremely dangerously legal claim to
to to be to be talking about. And we've been
dealing with that in Atlanta for months now, and it's
you know, it's created this really chilling effect on the
ground that you know, you can you can be you know,
doing something as simple as marching in the street and
now have not only to like terrorism charges, having reco
charges for stuff that is very clearly like First Amendment activity.

Speaker 4 (02:49:45):
Yeah, I think it is really fascinating to me that
the law enforcement apparatus in Georgia is basically engaging and
really concerted state repression against this movement, which is highly

(02:50:05):
visible and highly legible as state repression. And then when
people respond appropriately by anticipating that they may be subject
to state repression by writing the jail support number on
their arm, not because they believe that they intend to
go out and do crimes, but because they know that

(02:50:28):
unremarkable acts of First Amendment protected conduct may result in
intense state repression. The law enforcement apparatus then responds by
rationalizing their repression further. I mean, it's just we can
see the sort of post hoc fallacy at work in

(02:50:50):
real time. It's not clear to me how much of
the hypocrisy is self aware. Sure, you know who else
doesn't talk to cops?

Speaker 5 (02:51:04):
Product? I cannot guarantee that.

Speaker 14 (02:51:07):
I'm not sure these companies have the same.

Speaker 5 (02:51:10):
Standards that you and I have.

Speaker 4 (02:51:12):
They don't have shared values.

Speaker 5 (02:51:14):
In terms of our willingness to to to talk with
the police.

Speaker 4 (02:51:21):
But they probably has good defense lawyers.

Speaker 14 (02:51:25):
Oh yes, all of all of these products and services
that support this podcast definitely do have good defense lawyers.

Speaker 12 (02:51:30):
That is true.

Speaker 14 (02:51:31):
So listen, listen to their important messages.

Speaker 4 (02:51:35):
There is actually a part of this indictment that I
think deserves some very serious attention.

Speaker 5 (02:51:42):
Yeah. Absolutely So.

Speaker 4 (02:51:46):
Typically when we're thinking about RICO, we're thinking about like
white collar crime, and we're thinking about the use of
GO to target groups that are doing unlawful things in
order to profit. This indictment seems to allege that stop

(02:52:08):
Coop City activists are raising money to do crime, which
is sort of the opposite right, and as as we said,
the crime that they're alleging, by and large is really petty.
And there does seem to be one major act of

(02:52:29):
violence that is alleged in this indictment, and I think
we need to talk about it for a second because
that one alleged act of violence involves the claim that
Manuel torteguita Tehran who was murdered by police, was firing
upon officers, and that is an incredibly central claim in

(02:52:55):
this indictment. That really is I think the hook on
which they're hanging a lot of the seriousness of the allegations,
and it is an incredibly disingenuous claim and it's an
incredibly dangerous claim. The evidence that they're using to support

(02:53:17):
that claim is the statement of a third party who
was not present. It's a regrettable statement that they've dug
up from some group balance you know, you know, thousands
of miles away from the Atlanta Forest and there's no
reason to credit that statement, but they are using it

(02:53:41):
to support this claim. That is, as I said, it's
it's critical to their argument, and it is extremely disingenuous
and it's extremely dangerous for for the office of a
prosecutor which you know, for what it's worth, is supposed

(02:54:02):
to pursue justice and not convictions. It is just intolerable
to me that that somebody thought this was an acceptable
thing to put into a legal document.

Speaker 5 (02:54:16):
And like you you were talking about how you know,
they're using statements from the scenes dot no Block subsite,
which anyone can submit to. There's no barrier of evidence
for submitting to. And one interesting aspect that I didn't
want to mention is that for many of the kind
of the little like you know, accounts that they that
they have in their indictment, it's it's just referencing people,

(02:54:36):
you know, claiming that they did crimes on on on
this website. But they're they're attributing the the either like
co authorship of these claims to the people at the
Solidary count, which they've laid out no evidence in supporting that.
That's it's it's one of the more bizarre aspects of
this indictment because they make every they claim that every

(02:54:57):
single post on scenes is somehow the solid Different people
are in part responsible for it, which is absolutely absurd
that there's there's They've they've produced nothing, no piece of
evidence in support of this claim. But that is one
of the core parts of their indictment because much much
of what they're filling this indictment with, you know, they're
talking about how there's people do you know, doing crimes

(02:55:18):
in San Francisco, in in Portland, in like Minneapolis, like
all across like in New York, all across the country. Right,
this is part of like the criminal conspiracy angle, which
were very clearly from my perspective, this is, you know,
people all across the country who care about a cause,
and so they're doing something in their own city. It's
there's there's no there's no conspiracy to it. It's it's
people taking their own individual action. But they're they're trying,

(02:55:41):
they're trying to tie this into the solidarity fund in
a very bizarre way. You know, I'll be.

Speaker 14 (02:55:47):
Curious to see if they ever try to produce evidence
to support that claim in court. But it's it's it's
so laughable on the face. So you're like, how can
how can three people with with a bail fund be
be connected to these direct actions happening all across the country.

Speaker 4 (02:56:01):
Well, that's not literally what they're claiming, though, right, And
I think this is this is where we see this
difference of perspective mattering a lot. The kind of distributed
network of autonomous solidarity that exists in this instance is

(02:56:25):
something that is totally foreign two people who are very
used to having hierarchy in their lives. And you know,
I think i've I've talked about this before, I think
on this show about the fact that when the far
right organizes, they organize in ways that are familiar to

(02:56:48):
police and prosecutors. Right. They organize in these very martial,
hierarchical ways where there's a clear chain of command. Now,
often their chain of command is very still and involves
people having titles like dragons and wizards. But it's legible, right,
It's legible to law enforcement. They understand there's someone in charge,

(02:57:10):
and there's someone who answers to the person in charge.
Having a situation where we have a website that is unmoderated,
hosted by or supported by some group and totally open
is something that I think, you know, police and prosecutors

(02:57:32):
might have a little bit of difficulty understanding, right, because
it's inconceivable to them that there is not a hierarchy,
that there's not a chain of command. It's like, you know,
I've actually had to drop footnotes in federal court filings
to explain to judges and to explain to opposing counsel

(02:57:52):
that Antifa is like a set of practices and not
a membership organization. Yes, right, and that trying to trying
to address Antifa as though it were an organization is
similar to trying to address the world of Batman fans, right,

(02:58:15):
Like these are all people who might self identify in
some way, but you couldn't really identify them as a group,
and they don't know each other and they're not so
identifying in any way for each other.

Speaker 3 (02:58:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 14 (02:58:29):
Well, and as that relates to the no Blogs website,
like it's they have they have not laid out any
evidence of who is running this website at like who
who is who's operating it, who's hosting the servers, none
of that. None of that information is included in the indictment.
So the fact that they're trying to tie this to
Solidarity Fund in some ways is very is very bizarre,

(02:58:49):
just because there was like a link on this website
to donate to the Solidarity Fund, but any anyone could
put a link there like that's like I've put links
to the Solidarity Fund in the show notes of this podcast, right,
I'm I'm not I'm not connected to them in any
in any other way. So just just having having that
be this this kind of aspect and even even if

(02:59:10):
somehow Solidarity Fund were running running running this whole website,
which there's no evidence they are, this feels like would
also relate to like a section two thirty case where
people who host content are not responsible for the actual
like like they're they're not like the I'm not a
super big lob person, but this usually applies to like
social media sites and other places that host user generated content,

(02:59:31):
that the actual site itself is not responsible for the
user generated content that is that is that is on
this site. So it's anyway, there's a whole bunch of
you know, various various aspects of this claim that don't
don't make any sense to me. But it's verically that
they're trying to wrap all of these no blogs posts
in because that's the most that's most like the evidence
they have, which is extremely weak, you know, it's it's

(02:59:53):
it's in some ways a good sign that all they
have are these anonymous posts on this website with no
actual you know, idea of who made them or if
they're true or not. But that's the kind of that's
the that's a lot of a lot of what a
lot of what they are going off or are just
these website posts which well, a lot of these things.

Speaker 4 (03:00:13):
I don't even know if they could make them admissible
or under what theory, because you know, we don't. I
don't know how they would attribute them, right, I mean,
look their public statements. I suppose they can bring them
in just as public statements that have been made. But

(03:00:37):
the indictment is a mess, and it is full of
baffling claims and unsupported claims and claims that are demonstrably untrue.
And nevertheless, I am concerned that they may get some

(03:01:00):
I don't know. I don't practice in that jurisdiction. I'm
not familiar. You know, I've never defended a RICO case.
Just to be clear, you know, my my wheelhouse is
state repression. This is clearly that. But I'm not tremendously
familiar with litigating rico, and I'm not you know, I

(03:01:29):
would like to have some faith in the legal system,
but that faith has been worn rather thin, and it
has particularly been worn thin after watching you know, all
of the abuses that have taken place in this particular case. So,

(03:01:49):
you know, I am really concerned. I'm really concerned about
the constitutionality of this statute and of the domestic Terrorism Statute.
I am concerned about what will happen in the courts
if this proceeds. That said, it is entirely possible that

(03:02:16):
this is like many many criminal cases that are brought
in the context of protest movements. It is entirely possible
that the primary thing motivating these cases is an effort
to fractionate and drain and distract and criminalize, in the

(03:02:37):
popular imagination, the movement to stop cop City. They may
be more interested in doing those things than they are
in obtaining any convictions or proceeding to trial, and they
may well succeed. You know, Look, prosecution is a very

(03:02:57):
very effective way to to undermine movement solidarity, and it's
a very effective way to undermine popular support, and it's
a very effective way to make it impossible for people
to actually focus on their movement goals because they have
to spend all of their time doing court support and

(03:03:20):
hiring lawyers and talking to me.

Speaker 5 (03:03:22):
Right, And.

Speaker 4 (03:03:24):
When you're talking to me, you're probably not doing a
lot of public education or signature gathering or forest defense. Right, So,
you know, I guess what I would say is like,
this is a very clear example of state repression. It
is extremely disruptive. I'm sure that the people who are
included on this indictment have good reason to be quite anxious.

(03:03:49):
But that said, as I frequently remind people, state repression
is not new. It exists all of the time, whether
or not we can see it. Right, even if we
didn't have this indictment, there would be other things happening.
And the most powerful weapon that the state has to

(03:04:10):
quell social movements is fear. And so the solution to
state repression is not self censorship. It is not staying home.
It is courage.

Speaker 14 (03:04:21):
I think that's one of the more you know, interesting
things about what's been happening in Atlanta the past two
years is that every time the state has kind of
unveiled a new suppression tactic, right, it's whether it's like
you know, increased raids and domesti terrorism charges, you know,
all of this, the Solidarity fund raid, you know, trying
to compromise people's ability to access bail funds. Every time

(03:04:43):
there's been this this kind of new attempt. It has
not caused people to back down. It's caused them to
actually like strengthen their solidarity with each other and keep
on and keep on going. I think that's because all
of these things have been seen from the start as
very clear tactics of state repression. It is actually like
catalyze people to actually like care for each other more

(03:05:03):
and and and and recognize what is going on so
they can respond appropriately and and and not let all
of these all of these very like chilling tactics, but
consciously make sure that you recognize that so that you
don't let it really like you know, affect your ability
to continue continue doing the work that you feel is
so important. And that's absolutely been one of the things
that's been very unique to watch in Atlanta. I think, uh,

(03:05:28):
I think we've kind of covered lots of lots of
what I wanted to get into. In case you have
any other kind of things of note or any like
any like a resources you want to you want.

Speaker 5 (03:05:37):
To point people towards.

Speaker 14 (03:05:39):
I think I think we'll be kind of close to
wrapping up here.

Speaker 4 (03:05:42):
I do not do social media, so I have nothing
to plug. I think the best resources that are out
there are The Center for Constitutional Rights has uh zine
called if an Agent knox YEP and the Electronic Frontier

(03:06:09):
Foundation has a website called Surveillance Self Defense. And I
would recommend everyone familiarize themselves with both of those things,
and for the love of God, encrypt your phone and
use signal.

Speaker 5 (03:06:27):
Yes, absolutely, I love the things about that indictment that
was so.

Speaker 4 (03:06:34):
That just made me roll my eyes until they popped
out the back of my head. Was this casting of
the use of encrypted technology as being extremely sinister, and
I thought, my god. You know, privacy is good actually, and.

Speaker 12 (03:06:55):
It's literally in the Constitution like it is in fact
the case that the government is not entitled to all
information about us, which is why we have curtains and doors.

Speaker 14 (03:07:10):
Yes, no, there's certainly many many funny aspects of the
Reco case. Hopefully, you know, people, this will all, you know,
turn out to be not very legally viable and in
ten years we can just laugh about it. But I mean,
you know, it's people have been talking about, you know,
the increased possibility for these types of grand juries. You

(03:07:30):
know this this was a grand jury in the case
of these Reco indictments, where they used Special Agent Ryan
Long of the GBI is their only witness.

Speaker 4 (03:07:39):
I was noticing this. I thought, my god, you only
had one witness for all of these allegations. Well, no,
wonder your indictment reads like it was. All right, Yes,
I'm gonna stop talking shit about their indictment.

Speaker 14 (03:07:57):
While recognizing this is state oppression, there's still like, you know,
an ongoing fear of grand juries and like further indicts
in Atlanta, because you have to this is very like
life and death work, and this is a very life
and death situation, so you know, very there's very very
clear uh practices like like using signal and shutting the
fuck up, which are very important when you know when

(03:08:19):
you're when you when you're doing this sort of thing.
One other thing is that, uh, for for a while
after the Solidarity Fund was rated, they were not you know,
taking in donations. They they were outsourcing it to the net,
to the National Bill Fund. I believe they are they
are back this. The Solidarity Fund website is now once
again taking taking donations to help people who are facing

(03:08:40):
this repression, for legal support, for counsel, all all these
sorts of things. And because this case just keeps on growing,
you know, they're they're always kind of needing, needing, needing
more resources to get people lawyers, to get people out
of jail, all of these sorts of things. So you
can you can once again donate at the at the
at L solidarity site. So that is that is also

(03:09:02):
kind of new news as of as of the past few,
uh few weeks. Thank you mom for talking about this. Uh,
this is very enlightening.

Speaker 4 (03:09:13):
It's my pleasure. And I guess the last thing I'll
say is I do as always want to remind all
of your listeners that there is never ever a compelling
reason to speak to police or answer their questions before
you talk to a lawyer. And so if please start

(03:09:34):
asking you questions, the one and only thing you need
to say is I am going to remain silent and
I want to speak with my attorney. And if they
knock on your door or call you on the phone,
you can say I am represented by counsel. Please leave
your name and number and my lawyer will call you.

Speaker 2 (03:09:54):
Yep.

Speaker 14 (03:09:56):
You can print up the little sheet that tells you
what to say, put it, put it next to your
or join the join the number of punk houses that
have that have the.

Speaker 5 (03:10:04):
Sheet next to their next to their front door.

Speaker 3 (03:10:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 14 (03:10:09):
Absolutely, well again, thank you Byra, Thank you for listening
for everybody.

Speaker 5 (03:10:14):
Uh yeah, do not do not talk to cops.

Speaker 1 (03:10:19):
Hey, We'll be back Monday with more episodes every week
from now until the heat death of the universe.

Speaker 6 (03:10:25):
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.

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