It Could Happen Here Weekly 162

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
As media. Hey everybody, Robert Evans here, and I wanted
to let you know this is a compilation episode, So
every episode of the week that just happened is here
in one convenient and with somewhat less ads package for
you to listen to in a long stretch if you want.
If you've been listening to the episodes every day this week,
there's going to be nothing new here for you, but

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

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Hi, everyone, and welcome to it could happen here. It's
me James, and I'm joined today by Kevin McDonald, who
previously served as a senior officer in the Irish Defense
Forces with Special Forces experience and has significant experience working
all over the world after that with United Nations and
other organizations. And Kevin, welcome to the show. I'm glad
to be here. Thanks for having me. Yeah, hopefully I've

(00:48):
done a good job introducing you. I'm always terrible at that. Yeah,
what we thought we talked about today, Kevin is you
have significant experience in Lebanon with UNIPHIL and I think
obviously when we've spoken about this before, we've spoken about
it from a sort of looking at it from above,
strategic level. But what we've not spoken about is what
it looks like on the ground. So hopefully you can

(01:10):
give us some insight into that, especially having been there
both as like an enlisted soldier and as an officer.
I think ye, can you explain at first? I think
there's been a lot of the confusion or misinformation about
like how did these Irish If we look at the
Irish soldiers, that's the one you've obviously the most experienced with,

(01:31):
how do they end up deployed to Lebanon. Is it
a voluntary thing? Do they sort of say, put a
hand up a sat I want to do this, or
is it your units going so you're going, okay?

Speaker 3 (01:42):
Well, just I suppose as a brief reminder to your listeners,
UNIFIL is the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, and
it's been interim since nineteen seventy eight. What it started first,
the Irish were one of the first countries to sign
up to deploy a battalion there, and we had a
battalion in Lebanon nineteen seventy eight until two thousand and

(02:03):
In two thousand, the Israelis withdrew from what they called
a security zone about like a ten kilometer buffer zone
in southern Lebanon.

Speaker 2 (02:13):
So when they did that and.

Speaker 3 (02:14):
Retreat to the frontier between the two countries and a
part of its battalion, it left a few staff officers there,
but it didn't supply a battalion anymore. It was concentrating
on the missions in Syria and other places. And then
after the two thousand and six war they were asked
to come back with a battalion and we've been there
ever since with an infantry battalion. In relation to your

(02:35):
question about it, is it a volunteer mission, it is
for most people. However, there have been people who will
be what's known as mandatory selected if they have certain
skill sets, whether it be a doctor, whether it be whatever.

Speaker 2 (02:51):
Happens to be.

Speaker 3 (02:51):
If you know, if the army can't get sufficient volunteers,
then they will mandatory select. But generally speaking, certainly in
the early years, it was actually quite difficult to get
to become a volunteer for Leblon because so many people
wanted to go there because there is, you know, there's
a bit of a financial incentive to do that as well.
I deployed there as a private soldier in nineteen eighty four.

(03:14):
I wasn't even twelve months in the army at that stage,
and within two months I was made in acting corporate.
So then I went back as an officer in nineteen
ninety three where we had a seven day war operational accountability.
I was back in ninety ninety six as an officer
for another seven day war, operation Grapes of Wrath, and
I ended up there with my family as an unarmed

(03:34):
military observer in two thousand and six for a full
thirty four days of carnage. So yeah, Lebanon was always
well regarded by the Arish Defense forces because it did
the couple of things. It exposed troops to not just
new cultures and new areas, but it'll exposed them to
danger as well. And it also gave a chance for

(03:57):
young NCOs and young officers to to physically lead their
troops in a challenging environment, which you don't always get,
you know, when you're at home in Ireland or with
the UK or whatever, you don't always get that type
of leadership experience.

Speaker 2 (04:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (04:11):
Plus you're exposed to other cultures, whether it be the
Nordic countries or you know, you're exposed to different ways
of operating and yeah, all in all, it's been it's
been a positive experience. But I would find out that
since we started there, we've lost far to get troops
killed in Lebanon.

Speaker 2 (04:29):
Yeah, it's because not an insignificant amount, especially considering like
the Irish Defense Forces are much smaller when if people
are more familiar with the US military, right, which is
more than a million people, you know, forty eight is
a significant amount. You talked about how it exposes you
to look at other cultures, and obviously one of them
is like the Lebanese people. But it's a very international deployment, right,

(04:50):
It's you're not just sort of sitting there on your
Irish based with Irish Defense Forces. People are not interacting
with other military So can you explain like some of
the other country bees that have this long history there.

Speaker 3 (05:02):
When I went there in nineteen eighty four, there was
a battalion from Fiji, Finland, France, Ghana, ourselves, the Netherlands,
Norway and Senegal with a strength at the time of
about six thousand. When I was there as an unarm
Military Observer with UNSO, which is a different mission, the
strength had dropped to two thousand in two thousand and six,

(05:22):
which just two battalions, a Caname battalion and an Indian battalion.
And now essentially since after the war in two thousand
and six they started building up, there's probably about ten
thousand troops there at the moment. There recently huge interaction
at the battalion level between different nations. In other words,

(05:42):
a battalion will have its own area of responsibility, it's
responsible for patrolling.

Speaker 2 (05:46):
In that area.

Speaker 3 (05:47):
Now with the likes of unso that you're much more
exposed to other armies, other nationalities because essentially every time
you go patrolling, you can't, like two Irish officers couldn't
patrol together because if they see an infringement, whether it's
a firing clause, whether it's one side sending drowns into

(06:08):
Lebanon an the other side sending controcial rockets in Israel,
they are all violations. Yeah, but to record it as
a violation, you can't have two people from the same country,
So okay, you're you're much more exposed as as a
foreign nationalities.

Speaker 2 (06:21):
Yeah, yeah, and there's certainly a lot of national I know,
the Indonesians are there now and the contingent from India.
When people talk about UNIFIL now a lot you'll see
one of two accusations, right, You'll see that they're either
like they're as allies of Hezbollah in Lebanon, which is
not the case, or you'll see that they're there as
observers for the IDF or spies for the IDF. And like, obviously,

(06:45):
the fact that they're being accused of both probably suggests
that they are neither, because it would be fairly obvious
if they were. But can you explain the tripartite agreement?
It seems to me like that might make it difficult
to do the things that uniform is supposed to be doing.
Is that fair?

Speaker 3 (07:00):
It's I think it's I think it's a fair assessment.
And if you're if both sides are complaining about you,
as you say, it probably does indicate that you're you're at.

Speaker 2 (07:10):
Least doing something right.

Speaker 3 (07:12):
So UNIFIL, it's it's a peacekeeper mission and they're there
with the agreement of both parties. So, in other words,
the Lebanese government and the Israeli government have agreed that
UNIFIL be established in Lebanon. That's the first thing to
point out. The second thing, which is kind of contentious now,
especially with the extent of hes Budus Tunnels is being exposed.

(07:33):
Is that there's a lot of generally misinformed chatter about
what UNIFIL can and cannot do. So after the two
thousand and six War Resolution seventeen oh one was enforced
or was brought in to develop more thoroughly the mandate
for what UNIFIL can and cannot do, and one of

(07:53):
the stated paragraphs is that UNIFIL will assist the Lebanese
and forces in taking steps towards the establishment between the
Blue Line and the Latanian River of an area free
of any armed personnel, assets and weapons other than those
of the Government of Lebanon and of UNIFUL deployed in
this area. And this is one of the failings. But

(08:13):
it should be pointed out that it's the responsibility of
the LAUGH of the Lebanese armed forces to instigate it,
supported by uniform right, not UNIFIL going in looking for
arms and weapons supported by the LAUGH.

Speaker 2 (08:24):
It's the other way around.

Speaker 3 (08:25):
And one of the difficulties that you're always going to
have is that Lebanon has a divided society. It's an
extremely rich and significant society, and I've lived there quite
a lot and have great respect for the people and
their traditions. However, the sectarianism is kind of baked into
how the government works, and that kind of works its

(08:46):
way down. So the president has to be a Marianite
Christian speak of the House has to be Shia, and
the Prime Minister has to be Sunny. And that division
was based on the last time there was a census
in Lebanon, which was nineteen thirty two, and since then
the dynamics have changed. So Hesbela is not just a

(09:06):
military organization. It's a political organization, and it's a wealthier organization. Yeah,
I think a lot of people don't get that. And
it's Shia and the majority of the people in the
south are shere and you know a lot of them
get their schooling and their medication from Hesbulla. So it's
not just a military organization. And there's various estimates, but

(09:29):
you could be looking at them. But we say, prior
to the present conflict, maybe seventy thousand Hesbela in south
of Beyrootsa. We say, yeah, And some of them are
full time, some of them are part time, some of
them are just sympathizers, helpers, friends. You know, it's difficult
and another factor that has proven extremely difficult is so

(09:52):
when UNIFIM patrol with the Laugh, there is certain restrictions
that even the laugh have in terms of entering certain areas.
And what has Bullet have done is that they have
designated certain nature reserves and generally speaking, the laugh won't
go win there. And if the laugh won't go win,
Uniful can't go win. So the laugh for kind of

(10:14):
you know that they have a balancing act to do
in terms of retaining the trust of the people in
the South and also not causing a sectarian divide within.

Speaker 2 (10:23):
Their own ranks. Yeah, of course.

Speaker 3 (10:25):
And also they have another problem in terms of equipment.
They're sort of relying on other countries the UK, the US,
France to supply them with equipment. But like they have
no tanks, they have a few helicopters. They're very much
like there's no way they will take on.

Speaker 2 (10:42):
Has Bullet no way, right, yeah, or the idea and
Uniful itself.

Speaker 3 (10:46):
Is lightly armed, you know, it's not gone round in
tanks anything armored carriage.

Speaker 2 (10:50):
Yes.

Speaker 3 (10:51):
The only time the last time UNIFAL had tanks in
Lebanon was just after the war when the French deployed
with the La Clerq.

Speaker 2 (10:57):
Tanks, which did not please.

Speaker 3 (10:59):
The locals because the Clerk tanks driving up and down
the roads was nearly doing as much damage as the
Marcava tanks during the war, and plus Lebanon isn't a
very tank friendly area to be operation against what we.

Speaker 2 (11:14):
Say, right, Yeah, was that when the IDF came in
in then Macava tanks and the French like physically blocked
them with their own tanks. I can't remember when that was.

Speaker 3 (11:22):
And I'm not aware of that, but it could will
happen because I know certainly back in the nineties.

Speaker 2 (11:26):
That may have been.

Speaker 3 (11:27):
When it was when Israel was operating the security zone.
We the Irish and our colleagues from Finland and Norway
had had numerous standoffs with Israelis trying to enter certain villages.

Speaker 2 (11:39):
And yeah, but.

Speaker 3 (11:42):
Yeah, I saw the day before yesterday the two I
think two bulldozers in the Marcava or I said, yeah,
two d nines broke down a U and watchtower and
a un fence at the un had Unifild headquarters in
the Cura, which is a few k from the from
the frontier with with Israel. Yes, I should I note
as well for your listeners that Israel and Lebanon have

(12:03):
been at a state of war since nineteen forty eight.

Speaker 2 (12:05):
Yes, they've never had a seattler or a peace agreement,
and the Triparte Agreement is the only place where they
actually meet, right.

Speaker 3 (12:13):
Yeah, So there is a UNIFIL post a meeting normally
right at the frontier where you can cross between one
country and the other. And I keep using the word
frontier because it's not a border. It hasn't been officially demarketated.
The blue line which I mentioned earlier on simply verifies
that the IDEF have withdrawn into Israel, but it's.

Speaker 2 (12:34):
Not the border.

Speaker 3 (12:35):
Right However, going back to your point about the Tripartheid Agreement,
and that's where the senior Israeli officials senior Lebanese officials
under the chairmanship of UNIFIL meet and they discuss items
of concern that maybe UNIFIL can help or no between
the two of them. And in twenty twenty two they

(12:56):
managed to organize a maritime boundary okay between Lebanon and Israel,
which was kind of fascinating because on the western side
of Lebanon and the northwesterns coast of Israel, the huge
gas fields. Yeah, so the two countries actually they've agreed
their maritime boundary onto the auspices of UNIFORM. This is

(13:17):
still han't agree their land, but it's the first time
that a peacekeep mission has arranged and courage developed and
led successfully discussions about a maritime boundary. So the Uniform
does have some successes.

Speaker 2 (13:30):
Yeah, yeah, no, I think it would be wrong to
overlook these. We'll take a quick break for adverts, then
we'll come back. We're back and Kevin, you'd mentioned that
you were in Lebanon in two thousand and six. I

(13:51):
think you said you're an unarms observer at that time.
Is that right, Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 3 (13:54):
Yet, so one of the oldest missions in the world
is one so the United Nations True Supervisory Organization, and
that essentially was established I suppose after the forty eight war,
and it had well say, offices and observers in Egypt, Israel, Syria,
Jordan and Lebanon. You know that they were quite effective

(14:17):
in certain ways, Like certainly the eventual peace agreement between
Egypt and Israel was very much helped along by the
presence of Onso in Cairo and Shamer Shehak. The peace
agreement between Jordan and Israel again was very much assisted
by by Onso. So they have a kind of a
fairly good track record. And what they bring to the

(14:40):
table is that first of all, they're unarmed military observers,
which which takes some of the sting out of heaven.
You know, a heavily armed guy with a helmlets and
sunglasses walk around, you know that. And and some some armies,
as you know, can tend to be more intimidating than
others in how they how they carried themselves. So I

(15:02):
went there. I went to the region in two thousand
and five and I was working on the occupied Golden Heights,
living in the in Tiberias on the Sea of Galilee
with my wife and two kids who then were four
and five. And in February zero six, I was transferred
to Lebanon and we were living in the city of Tier.
The kids were going to a local English speaking Arab

(15:22):
school and Lebanon was absolutely thriving. It must happened. We
had the kids in bear Rouge, we had them in
a man doing what they run and my normal routine.
We had four observation posts along the frontier with Israel. Yeah,
Staft by five guys who spent a week seven days
up there, and then you come.

Speaker 2 (15:42):
Down for four or five and then go back up again.

Speaker 3 (15:45):
And each team had its specific area to operate with,
and we say a specific battalion that we would interact with.
And also quite importantly, we had liais and assistants who
were locals, like translations, but they're a lot more important
than that. And based on the sectarian nature of the area,

(16:05):
you know, you'd always have a Christian, you'd always have
a Shia, but you could have the Jews. If you
were further up to the north, you could have Sunneny.
And each team had four or five of these because
we used to send two patrols out each day. So
we had huge interaction with the locals and armor, with
the mayors and the mucktars, and we were very much
a force multiplier for UNIFIL because we could get information

(16:28):
from people. You know, we used to stop and have
lunch in some of the little restaurants, and we were
always talking to people, and you know, it was the
window down, waving out, having a chat, learning a bit
of Arabic. Whereas UNIFIL by its nature goes around the
armor cars and even if you stop and you get
out and you take off the sunglasses, people will just

(16:50):
react differently to two guys with a local that they
know in the car.

Speaker 2 (16:54):
Yeah, as about someone in full battle rattle again. Now,
we definitely were.

Speaker 3 (16:58):
But the or kicked off on the twelfth of July
two thousand and six and I was I had done
on patrol to pick up or Christian liaison assistant in
her village and literally we were heading off on patrol
and over the radio, all stations go to the nearest
uent position immediately. The nearest U went position tours at

(17:20):
the time was an Indian platoon position on top of
a hill. From my past experience, I had reckoned that
there was a bit of stuff going on either in
shape the farms, which is a disputed area in the
southeastern part of Lebanon, up in the mountains. So I
said to the guy that was with me, I said, look,
this could be over a couple of hours. Let's go

(17:40):
straight back to our patrol base. And you know, we
knew we had a food the facility, and we also
knew we had a good bunker in the place, so
we had it back at a fair age of nuts.
Shall we say, and normally when we would have two
patrols out, there'd be one guy left in the patrol
base and he'd be responsible for radio checks and all

(18:01):
that kind of stuff. But what we do is, when
we were about maybe a kilometer away, we would inform
our headquarters in the Kura that were closing down at
our final destination, which would give this guy time to
come out and unlock.

Speaker 2 (18:17):
The gate to let us in.

Speaker 3 (18:19):
Yeah, and just as I had transmitted that, he comes
up on the ear and said, don't come in, don't
come in, we're getting hit up. So we at that
stage we were restigate, and about maybe two kilometers away
there was a huge IDF position and they were just
banging with pine fives and gpmgs, not directly at us,
but kind of in the general area.

Speaker 2 (18:40):
Yeah, explain those weapons systems for people who aren't familiar,
Like what's a GPMG if as somebody is.

Speaker 3 (18:45):
Not, okay, sorry, So you've everyone's familied with, well, say
in AK forty seven or and M sixteen, which would
be known as small arms. In other words, that caliber
is five point five six or seven point six two.
Then you have medium machine guns, which are generally belt
fed and there are seven point six two and then
you have heavy machine guns again belt fed and they're

(19:08):
twelve point seven or fifty caliber. So we were getting
a fair bit. But it took us maybe an hour
of listening to various news channels both in Lebanon and
in Israel to realize that Hesbela had carried out a
cross border attack, hit up an idea of convoy, kidnapped
two who were seriously injured and subsequently died and killed

(19:29):
initially four and then against their own orders, and Israeli
Mcalva went into Lebanon to have a kind of commanding
view over where they thought that Hesbal, we're bringing these guys.
Hesbala knew that that's what they do, and big anti
tank mine and killed four guys inside the Murcava. So

(19:49):
Israel had lost eight and two kidnapped in the space
of maybe maybe an hour.

Speaker 2 (19:56):
So the reaction was was was fast and furious, and.

Speaker 3 (20:03):
Yeah, it took us nearly six days to get our
liais and assistant back back to her village. It took
the un nearly two and a half weeks too, have
actually with the families, because at that stage once it
was a family mission. And where I was, I could
see the jets dropping bombs into Tier, and my wife

(20:23):
could look up on the skyline, knowing where I was,
and see the same thing happening. I was sort of
used to being under fire, but it's a different thing
to see your family under fire as well. And eventually
when the charter the sort of a cruise bliner from
Cyprus to come over and stand offshore and sending its

(20:44):
lifeboats to bring the families out. So when this has
been planned and so had tried to organize that an
armored convoy would bring those onmos that were deployed on
the four posts down to Tier to say goodbye. But
where I was, we were getting hamored with artillery fire and
tank fire. So I was the only one with family
that couldn't get out. So when my wife and two

(21:06):
kids that were five and seven at that stage were
getting into the lifeboat to bring them out to the ship,
I rang her and I said, look, I'll say you
want to see you, which is not.

Speaker 2 (21:16):
A great way to end the family mission. Let me Retalia.

Speaker 3 (21:19):
And then in the space of the next three days,
we had a strength of fifty two officers and in
about three days we lost over ten percent. We had
one Italian captain shot in the back. He's now in
a wheel chair. We had another Australian captain seriously injured
when the convose she was in was I suppose target
It is probably the way to explain it. But she

(21:42):
she was thrown up against the inside of the armored
car and essentially her back was broken. She was evacuated
with my wife and kids. And then I think it
was the day later or two days later, the Israeli
dropped the Jadam, which is a bunker busted missile into
the post just up for me, killing four very good
friends of mine. So yeah, two thousand and six was

(22:04):
a bit rough.

Speaker 2 (22:05):
Yeah, if you're comfortable, could we talk about that last
one a little bit, because I think it's one of
the ones that, like, there's no mistaking that un position, right,
it's you don't and you don't accidentally disco dropping jadeams
left right in center all over the place. Like.

Speaker 3 (22:20):
The first thing I should say is that twenty one
years previously, that observation post was completely destroyed, but there
was no one in it at the time, so when
it was rebuilt, it had the best bunker in Lebanon
so that they dug down first and had like a
lot of the the bunkers currently in Lebanar are overgrown
to bunkers, but this this was dug down into the

(22:43):
into the rock essentially and it had its roof was
about a measure and a half of reinforced steel and concrete. Yeah,
with the two story concrete building on top of it. Now,
so without doubt it was the best bunker in Lebanon.

Speaker 2 (22:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (22:57):
So that on this this happened on the twenty fifth
of July, and on that particular day we'd already lost
the patrol base in Maruna Ras when when Roberto was
shot and they had to I have to say in fairness,
but on the are liais on branch that kind of
liaises between IDF and UNIFIL okay, and UNIFIL couldn't launch

(23:20):
one of the helicopters to do a medevac. So the
decision was made that the guys would get into an
armored land cruiser and follow Israeli tank tracks back into Israel.

Speaker 2 (23:30):
Where they couldn't decafflict the air space to launch it
or what was stopping them launching their helicopter to evacuate There.

Speaker 3 (23:37):
Was too much kinectic activity at that we wouldn't have
been able to land it like it was.

Speaker 2 (23:42):
It was a battle long ago, okay, Yeah.

Speaker 3 (23:44):
So they essentially followed Israeli tank tracks that had come
into Leblon. They followed those tank tracks back into Israel
where they were met by an Israeli patrol and Roberto
was flown through Rambam Hospital. But yeah, gone back to
going back tom on the twenty fifth of July, as
we were all taking a fair bit of incoming where

(24:05):
I was. It wasn't targeting. It was more sort of
harassment fire.

Speaker 2 (24:11):
Yeah, like that. The house next door.

Speaker 3 (24:15):
Took three direct tank rounds and it was five meters
away Jesus from our post, and our post was tiny. Yeah,
but in the guys in Kam were taken a coup
bit of artillery, but there was a lot of air
strikes coming in close. And again for your listeners, the
UN has a designation what it calls a firing close.

(24:39):
So we'll say a firing close from a sixteen is
I know, something like fifty meters or something like that.
Firing close from an artillery shell is five hundred meters,
and a firing close from an aerial bomb is a kilometer,
So if glands within a kilometer, it's officially designated as
a firing close and it's orders and you know, both

(25:01):
sides get you know, it's it's an official account of
of what's happening. So the guys who are getting the
you know, a good few firings close from area bombs
and there was three distinct weights of attack in the
general area. So naturally force commander uniful, chief of staff on.
So you and a quarters in New York were screaming

(25:23):
at the Israelis, you know, stop targeting disposition. Yeah, what
was there hes bull in the area? Of course there
was kemp Is a has been a stronghold. But eventually
that that evening the decision was made that the patrol
bus is going to be evacuated. But because of the
level of kinetic activity that evening, it was going to
be done at.

Speaker 2 (25:43):
First light the next morning.

Speaker 3 (25:45):
And since the war started, we had all been on
the twenty four to seven twenty minute radish, so every
twenty minutes you had to respond to a radio check.
So the last transmission from the post was from Canadian
friend of mine x special for horse is really really
cool and I could hear it in his voice. He
was requested a luck in time for a firing close.

(26:06):
It's danger close, it's danger close, get them to stop.
And that was the last transmission. So when they missed
the next radio check, we presumed another shell had come
in and blown all the aerials of the.

Speaker 2 (26:17):
Of the building.

Speaker 3 (26:18):
Yeah, so myself and an assie friend of mine requested
permission to take our armored land cruiser and try and
drive up and see what was happening.

Speaker 2 (26:27):
That was refused by UNIFILM.

Speaker 3 (26:29):
So they sent a patrol from the Indian battalion, which
was kind of in fairness that it was nearer. So
we switched on to their radio frequency to hear what
they were saying. And so they approached the base. They
had obviously had to break down the gate and said
the base had taken a direct hit by an aerial bomb.
And at that stage we were still thinking maybe they're
trapped under the rubble or something like that. And then

(26:49):
the one of the transmitters we have found the body
of a Chinese officer, so we knew the four guys
were were were killed. And the Indians found three bodies
that night and brought them to the Marchary in marja Un,
which is.

Speaker 2 (27:07):
A large Christian town.

Speaker 3 (27:09):
So the next morning there was I think five of
us tasked to open identify the bodies.

Speaker 2 (27:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (27:15):
So the first guy was Chinese, was over pressure killed him,
so that that was an easy one to identify. The
next guy had no arms, no legs, and we head
Jesus and where his head should have been was the
chain of a dog type and I went down into
his his body Paris, yeah, and the other guy yeah.

(27:37):
So yeah, it was a difficult different procedure, and then
we had to try and arrange to get the bodies
transferred into Israel to where you and colleagues from Jerusalem
so they could go to Rambam Hospital and have have
you know, a proper identification and all that sort of stuff.

Speaker 2 (27:55):
Yeah, eventually be returned to their families, I suppose.

Speaker 3 (27:59):
And that was a difficult procedure because where the IDEF
said they could meet us, there was a minefield in
front of us, and where we said we could meet them,
they thought it was too exposed. So eventually we went
into an old, small, tiny Indian platoon position and about
one hundred meters away there was a gate that the

(28:20):
Israelitis used to use to come in and out when
the security's own was there. But the area between the
UN position and the gate hadn't been mind swept in
six years. But we had no choice. We couldn't bring
the guys back to the marcher because it had resorted
to using refrigerated trucks to store.

Speaker 2 (28:36):
Bodies because the marcher was full. Yeah, so there.

Speaker 3 (28:38):
Was an IDEF company there under a I think it
was a full brigadier, and there's a war going on naturally, Yeah,
all the time, gunships and katouoscha's passing each other over
our heads. So when we had the three lads transfer
over to our colleagues from Jerusalem, I stood in front
of the IDF brigadier and I lined up all the

(28:58):
uent troops and it says, we're not and have a
minute silence and memory of our friends who were murdered
on the cause of peace, and no having a minute
silence them in the middle of a battle is not
a no experience. In fairness to this guy, he stood
to attention, and because I lived in Tiberias, I had
a small bit of Hebrew, and I went over afterwards

(29:19):
and thanked them for his respect. And we didn't find
the fourth body on the laughter sease fire Jesus.

Speaker 2 (29:27):
Yeah, yeah, that's rough. Sorry, that's terrible to think about.

Speaker 3 (29:31):
So the obvious question is, I know, what the one
you want to add? Why I should have said that
at the start? Anything I say here, it's it's my
personal opinion. So it can't be construed as being the
views of the Irish Defense Forces, yes, of course, are
certainly not the views of the Niger nations. Are my
personal views. So you know, people should just take it

(29:52):
that it's it's Kevin McDonald describing what happened to him
and what his personal views on it are. So why
did they do it?

Speaker 2 (29:59):
Well?

Speaker 3 (29:59):
I think there's a couple of things. Hubris is one.
I think at that stage they were like a schoolyard
bully who got better and wanted to lash out of
anything and everything. A second, probably more tactical reason is
that the village of kim Is on a ridge, would say,
at the end of the Redge Ridge, closest to Israel,
because it's only about four miles away, is where this

(30:20):
op was. And that's the reason that was there. And
between Kam and we say, the frontier with Israel is
the Hula Valley, which is the biggest maneuver space. If
you want to maneuver armor and stuff into Lebanon with
plenty of space, that's where you do it. In fact,
beside it is an old Vichy French airfield from the
Second World War, so it's low space and I think

(30:41):
they didn't want eyes on the ground seeing what they
were doing. And like one of the things.

Speaker 2 (30:46):
For mility observers is you observe in your report. That's
your task.

Speaker 3 (30:51):
So was there Hesbola in the area around the around
the op, Yes, there was, But as you probably know,
if you want to attack true in the open, you
use airburst artillery shells, which the Israeli is dated in
nineteen ninety six when they fired fifteen of them into
a UN battalion head quarters, killing one hundred and six
eleven these men, women and children. See Conceultu shelter in

(31:12):
the UN headquarters. Yeah, what you don't fire a bunk
or bust and missile into a UN post to attack Hesbulla.

Speaker 2 (31:19):
The's subtle difference. Yeah, there's a huge difference. Yeah. I
suppose what people will ask is like it's I think
it's important to explain this from the point of view
of someone on the ground, it is obviously un troops
are not there to fight, they're there to keep peace.
But they are an armed presence, and so they'll wonder
how or why the un can or can't defend itself

(31:42):
the uniform troops specifically in these positions. So, like, can
you explain how your rules of engagement and how that
works for from the sort of on the ground perspective.

Speaker 3 (31:54):
Okay, Well, the rules of engagement we said for a
peacekeeper mission, like we pack on so to onside because
they're unarmed, but for.

Speaker 2 (32:01):
A peacekeeping mission.

Speaker 3 (32:03):
So peacekeeping is generally based on three principles consent, impartiality,
and the use of force in self defense of the mandate.
So naturally, like the guys there at the moment aren't
going to try and take on through or former KAFA tanks.
First of all, they don't have the capability.

Speaker 2 (32:21):
To to it. Yeah, that's an interesting Do they not
have the guinances? That's fine? Do they have for instance,
javelin and things like that? Do they have those weapons
systems available?

Speaker 3 (32:32):
I'm not sure what they have currently. Certainly we didn't
have okay, and it wasn't ever going to be an
issue because that's kind of not our job.

Speaker 2 (32:42):
Like that.

Speaker 3 (32:42):
The sole responsibility to protect the people of Leblon is
the Lebanese government. Uniful is there to assist. It's not
there to say, okay, you step back, we stemmed up
and protect you. That's not what Uniful or any peacekeeping mission.
The only peacekeeping mission that eventually had enough offensive capability
built into its mandate was the mission that's now closing

(33:04):
down in the DRC, the Democratic Republic of the Congo
and it's MENUSCO, and they specifically changed the mandate to
include an offensive capability to go after them twenty three
rebels in the Kivus in sort of the northeast and
when they did it, like you know, attack helicopter special
forces a lot. Yeah, it was quite effective. But which

(33:26):
kind of brings me to another point because I just
last year I completed a Masters in Peace and Conflict
Studies and mandates was the evolution of mandates is what
I sort of looked at, and having wrote bus mandates
is all well and good, but the TCCs, the true
contriping countries have to have the ability, the capability of
the training and the will to carry out the robust

(33:46):
nature of the mandate. So you know, we were saying
in Ireland paper never refuses, inc. You can put whatever
you want into a mandate, but you have to be
able to effectively implement the mandate. Yeah, and I think
and that's that's the reason that that maybe people are
kind of broad in how mandates are written, but that's

(34:07):
that's that's for someone we're further up to food chain
the moon.

Speaker 2 (34:11):
Yeah, So for those like the people on the ground
then and now that's not a great deal. They can do, right,
They can attempt to ask the idea have to stop,
which they did, which has historically not work. And they

(34:33):
can take shelter in their bunkers, which they did, which
it's only helpful that they're not going to use bunker
busting missiles to to des try that bunker. So, like
it must be terrible. Like it's one thing to be
engaged in combat with someone, especially if you're a soldier,
bro it's another thing. And I found myself in this
situation last year to be effectively like I'm able to respond.

(34:55):
I'm thinking here of the Turkish drone bombing and fighter
jets and as in Syria where I was, but it's
a horrible thing to be in that situation, and is
it for those peacekeepers? It must be a really difficult
place to be.

Speaker 3 (35:09):
Well, it is, yeah, and of course you know that
they're all conscious of the fact that their families back
in Ireland are fully.

Speaker 2 (35:16):
Aware of what's going on.

Speaker 3 (35:17):
And yeah, shortly after the invasion, the IDEF decided that
they're told usually for the want of them out essentially,
and not just the Irish, but but what other nationalities
that were not going, you know, So the idea if
everywhere they go in Lebanon, the first vehicle is a
dena in Bolthozer because that is more robust than a

(35:40):
marcava and it can also very quickly throw up earth
and ramparts to sort of you know, protect from direct fire.

Speaker 2 (35:47):
Yeah, the idea of troops.

Speaker 3 (35:49):
So they decided that they would literally conjoin an IDEAF
position to the Irish position, hoping that they could intimidate
the Irish into leaving. And the position's name was six
ash five two, very close to the frontier. Ironically, when
the Israelis withdrew in two thousand, they recognized that this
particular area was what we in the minute would call

(36:10):
key terrain because that area overlooked a vulnerable part of
northern Israel, villages like Avavem and a few others. So
the idea to requested UNIFIL to put a position there
which would say stop has bulletin put in the position there,
and then suddenly they're up close and personal, trying to
intimidate the Irish and other nationalities as well. Yeah, so

(36:33):
it's one of the things, and I think one of
the reasons that they didn't want unifilled, and there's about
twenty small of these small positions, mainly close to the frontier.
I think one of the reasons that they and again
this is a personal point of view, I think one
of the reasons that they didn't want UNIFIL in any
of these positions was eighty turn it into a free

(36:55):
fire zone would be. One of the things that UNIFORD
is supposed to do is to monitor and report, monitor
and observe, and of course if you're not there, you
can't do it. That's actually one of the things that
the Uniform, even though they're hunkred in their bases, would
with very little mobility, they can still monitor and observe
what's happening in the general area.

Speaker 2 (37:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (37:15):
Now, I would say in the case of Disposition six
A five to two, if the ideas ultimately gain our
goal was to take a major has been a stronghold
which is called Binchabael, that's a good further north than disposition,
so that the focus of attention would move on from
with the our guys and go a wee bit further north.

Speaker 2 (37:36):
Yeah, So that's sort of where they find themselves now, right,
is these can you explain like you've got these positions
along the frontier and then you've got the headquarters that
you just mentioned two days ago have been infringed by
a bulldizer attacked, depends how you want to say it.

Speaker 3 (37:54):
Well, it makes a change from having a tankerun fired
into an op which they didn't yeah a few days previously.

Speaker 2 (38:01):
Yeah, and they've done consistently right for for a month
or so. Now is firing directly into these observing positions?
Are these positions that are now? Are they left isolated
as the idef wull advance passed and around them and
in addition to biring directly at.

Speaker 3 (38:17):
Them, there's somewhat isolated. Now all these positions would be
well stocked with water and emergency rations and stuff like that.
And as I mentioned before, UNIFIL do have a liaison
branch which I'm sure are talking to the idea IF
on an early basis, and they will coordinate the movements

(38:37):
of UNIFIL with say, supply their positions or I think
last week they had a convoy went into the city
of Tier, which is probably twelve k from the headquarters,
to distribute aid, especially medical aid, because tiers getting fairly weacked,
like all of the self, I suppose, so there is

(38:57):
engagement to make sure that these posts are like completely isolated,
that that there is a means of doing resupply.

Speaker 2 (39:06):
Yeah, it's real, stopped one of those at some point,
didn't it, Like was it a resupply and movement.

Speaker 3 (39:11):
The stop things that are on a regular basis. As
I said, there is interaction, like nothing happens in the vacuum,
like we said, Yeah, the Irish Italian headquarters would not
send a convoy to Sixtas five two without it being
communicated to the Israelis and saying we're going to go
on three vehicles that or seven hundred hours blah blah blah,

(39:33):
and and and get the confirmation back that yeah, that's okay,
because you know, they mentioned the foul the war, and
that that's all from the fairly real as you can
imagine yourself.

Speaker 2 (39:44):
It's a fairly real.

Speaker 3 (39:47):
Thing that happens, you know sometimes you know, yeah, instructions
don't get passed down, or sometimes instructions are ignored for
whatever reason. So it's it's a bit of a delicate,
delicate balancing act. But from what I understand, it's working well.

Speaker 2 (40:03):
That's good. Yeah, yeah, And I think it's working well
in terms of like what's happening in Lebanon is bad
and it'd be better if it wasn't. But it's not
at the same tier as it has been in Gaza.

Speaker 3 (40:16):
No, you're looking at maybe three and a half thousand
compared to forty three and a half thousand kild.

Speaker 2 (40:21):
Yeah, and so many of those being civilians, right, people
who absolutely no business targeting, and like that genocidal violence
that we've seen in Gaza hasn't come to Lebanon, and
in part I think we can attribute that to their
being observed. Is there is that fair to say? I
think it's a fair point.

Speaker 3 (40:40):
Of course, there's no real the UN footprint in Gaza.
My understanding is it's extremely extremely light. Yeah, and as
you know that would say banished genre, Yeah, whereas I
mean unifor the ten thousand troops in southern Lebanon. So
there's very much more, maybe a more consciousness, but they're

(41:02):
still flattin in the place. But it's in terms of
civilian casualties. As we said, it's not going on as
long as Gaza either, but on the we'ld say the
combat front, but not exactly having things the wrong way either.
They've been trying to take the village of Kian for
the last I think two weeks, and my understanding is

(41:23):
that haven't have destroyed it, right, but they haven't taken it.
And it was like in two thousand and six they
claimed that the town of ben Chebail was the Hesibla
capital of the South, which and suppose't the way it was,
but the turn of then draws me.

Speaker 2 (41:36):
But they never controlled it. They were still getting.

Speaker 3 (41:39):
Attacked, you know, days after they had seized it.

Speaker 1 (41:44):
Right.

Speaker 2 (41:44):
Yeah, they've never really established like control or like monopoly
and on violence in the area. And yeah, they've not
done that this time. And I think I suppose the
last thing I wanted to ask about is like we've
just talked about like why this mission is important, and
we've spoken about for like you had your family there
when they were being bombed, and like this investment in

(42:07):
being there in Lebanon, being alongside the Lebanese people in
your case with your own family, like it's it's one
that island has had for a long time. Ireland has historically,
amongst European nations, been much better on the rights of
Palestine and Palestinian people than most European nations. How is
this peacekeeping mission perceived in Ireland? Like, are people proud

(42:30):
that they're there?

Speaker 4 (42:32):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (42:32):
Yeah, oh, hugely proud.

Speaker 3 (42:34):
And and you know, the Irish have always been extremely
proud of what our defense forces have achieved, despite us
being a very small defense forces. Like I think at
the moment between the Navy, the Army and the Air
Corps were probably looking at in total.

Speaker 2 (42:53):
Total, well, yeah, very small.

Speaker 3 (42:55):
And then we're overseas in a lot of places as well,
so like the doc Dad from the nine, you're probably
down to eight. Yeah, but we do tend to punch
up over with internationally. We obviously had no colonial baggage,
which affects some other countries. Yes, and I think generally speaking,
we're seeing as a I'm not sure if annest Brooker

(43:15):
is the right word, but certainly not as threatening and not.

Speaker 2 (43:19):
Coming with an agenda, right yeah.

Speaker 3 (43:21):
Whereas other other countries might have a certain agenda for
whatever political reasons at home. And it's certainly in Ireland
s caes As I said, we were there from seventy
eight two thousand and now from two thousand and six
to present day, and a lot of it has been
in the same general area, so people would know Irish soldiers.

Speaker 2 (43:40):
Some Lebanese talk with an Irish accent. I've heard that. Yeah, yeah,
it's mad. Yeah, yeah, it's true.

Speaker 3 (43:47):
And depending on what part of Ireland the troops were from,
you could even go further down, like some of them
talk with a very broad Dublin accent. Some of them
would talk with a very broad Cork accent. Because of
that interaction. And I know one of the first big
projects the Irish did, certainly from the early yearies, was
to build an orphanage in a provincial capital coll tip name,

(44:10):
and they've been doing that even when we know troops there,
guys were still sending money and toys and everything. That's
been demolished last week.

Speaker 2 (44:19):
For Jesus An Orphanage. It's like storybook evil stuff, isn't it.

Speaker 3 (44:24):
Like, Yeah, well, you know, it's just there's a lot
of evil stuff going on in the Middle East at
the moment, unfortunately.

Speaker 2 (44:31):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean I've personally seen hospitals bombed
and all that kind of stuff myself, and it sometimes
doesn't even make the news. I mean that Orphanage evidently
didn't really make my news. Diet Kevin, thank you very
much for sharing some of your experiences over there, and
I'd love to have you on again to talk about
the things you've the work you've done in Africa and
the line after leven. And you've written a book right

(44:53):
about your experiences peacekeeping and other things. Where could people
find that?

Speaker 3 (44:58):
Okay, So this initially starting off as a lockdown project
during the COVID lockdown in the Central African Republican And
initially it was just from my wife and family. But
as it starts writing, you kind of started remembering and
it's not just your typical military guy tell us about
how Bravey was. I have a separate career in mountaineering
and a separate career in archaeology. As well, So it's

(45:19):
a kind of a much more different missimash of of
stuff going on. So that the book is called a
Lifeless Ordinary and it can be purchased online at male
Books Dot.

Speaker 2 (45:31):
I m a y orb Orchas. Yeah, I like that balance.
I've always thought that, like, I'll go somewhere and I'll
write about the worst things I saw there and the
worst days I had there, and that'll be my story.
But I've always wanted to write about the mountains of
Kurdistan are beautiful and I really loved being there, and

(45:52):
there are other places that people think of them as wars,
not countries, and I think it would be I'd love
to write about mountaineering back acting in these places where
often it's really sad that you don't get to share
that part. Read. I'll write about this in the book.

Speaker 3 (46:06):
I mean, like, I've lived a few times in Lebanon,
and I've lived and worked in Jerusalem a few times,
and it's a fascinating region. Oh yeah, and the people
on in both countries some I have some really good
friends in Israel and have some really good friends in Lebanon,
and I've been treated extremely well by people in both countries.

(46:27):
Certainly if you've an interest in archaeology to be else
could put ship not want to be? You know, like
the Phoenicians in Tier, and no matter where you go
in Tier, you can pick up Roman partially or you
can see all these amazing sights, whether it's from the Phoenicians,
from the Romans, from the Crusaders, it's just it's all

(46:47):
there in front of you.

Speaker 2 (46:48):
Yeah, yeah, cratile of civilization there. Well, thank you so
much for showing your experiences, Kevin, thanks so much. Okays,

(47:27):
about twenty years ago, maybe thirty, a circus fitted to Majoro,
the largest island on the Marjorro Atoll, in the capital
city of the Marshall Islands. They came to Majoro, as
almost everything that isn't breadfruit, pandanas or fish does on
a boat. After performing, they couldn't find a boat to
take them to the next destination, and so the resident

(47:50):
of this tiny island, which at times is no wider
than the single road which travels its whole length, decided
that they'd have to share the food that they themselves
had imported a great cost, and they set about gathering apples, bananas,
and anything else that they thought an elephant might like
to eat while it waited for a way off an island.
The belly has enough for im for his own people,

(48:10):
let alone the largest land animal on earth. The people
of the Marshall Islands, for whom hospitality is as natural
as the tides are to see, greet each other the
same way they do strangers, by saying your quay. The
word has several meanings, but I'll let David Kabua explain them.
He's the President of the Republic of the Marshal Islands,

(48:30):
so he seems like he'd be a good source.

Speaker 5 (48:32):
I would say the word yuppet, yuppe, our greating word yaguey.
There's a lot of several meanings, and you can't say
when you meet someone first time, you say yagoehe when
you greet someone, and when you also say goodbye, instead
of saying goodbye, you also say yape, so you can instead. Also,

(48:59):
like the weekend, there was a tournament, fishing tournament, and
if you were fishing and you got it. You have
a big fish on the land and you really you're
about to land the fish, but the land snap. So
what do you say?

Speaker 6 (49:16):
Say?

Speaker 5 (49:16):
Oh, yeah, way and hello to the fish.

Speaker 1 (49:20):
But you just say yeah, because you lost the big catch.

Speaker 5 (49:23):
So it can't be used that way, like when you
lose someone or someone passed away.

Speaker 7 (49:29):
You've missed that prison.

Speaker 5 (49:31):
Yup way, so and so he was here but no
one could hear, so we can said yeh way.

Speaker 1 (49:35):
So it has several meanings.

Speaker 5 (49:37):
But the deeper meaning of yuppay is you are beautiful
like the rainbow. Yeah means rainbow and ways, so we
combine the two words, you are a rainbow and you
are beautiful as a rainbow.

Speaker 2 (49:52):
On the map, the Marshall Islands looked like the little
dots that appear in my photos of the beach at Margie.
But unlike there's little of dust that managed to slink
their way onto my camera center, Marshall Islands belong here.
Here is a pretty vague turn. The twenty nine coral
atolls and five islands that allow fifty four thousand Marshalies

(50:13):
to live on one hundred and eighty two square kilometers
of land span an oceanic territory of two hundred thousand kilometers.
It's like you took a small American town and scattered
it across an area more than a half times the
size of Alaska. Even though the Rami is ninety eight
percent water, every inch of land is precious to the Marshalies,
whose matrilonial society ensures that land passes from mother to

(50:36):
daughter and ties families to the remote islands that make
up the low lying atolls of the Republic. It was
on one of the bigger chunks of land that I
recorded the music you heard a minute ago. Marjorro is
an atoll that's a coral ring that encircles the lagoon
and its biggest islands, about thirty miles long but often
less than one hundred yards wide. There's one road that

(50:59):
runs the length of it and sometimes also spans the
width of it. It's also home to about half the
Romised population. The highest point on the atoll lies just
three meters above sea level. If you want to get
higher than that, then you're only options are houses or
palm trees. From the top of the fifth floor of
the NAPA Auto Parts Store, which also houses the UNDP

(51:21):
and the Marshal Arwns Olympic Committee, you can see the
whole island for Marshallese people, these tiny pieces of paradise
that barely poke their heads out. From the top of
the ocean are everything. Their land and their ties to
it defined them. Without their place, they can't be themselves.
Even though many thousands of marshal Leise live in the

(51:42):
diasper of the United States, they're still important handicrafts made
from little shells and the outer islands and coconut husks.
Many of them come back to the islands to retire,
but slowly the ocean is taking those islands back. Rising
sea level and more extreme tidal surges have placed this
tiny Pacific nation on the front lines of climate change.

(52:06):
There isn't an exact estimate as to how long the
Marshall Islands have or what they can do to halt
the creeping advance of the ocean. They've always existed on
just a few square kilometers of land among millions of
square kilometers of ocean, and they depend on that ocean
for everything. But now it's threatening to take everything away
from them one day. They fear their islands will become uninhabitable.

(52:28):
A salt water invads of water table, and their trees die,
while storms bring more and more frequent floods that sweep
away their homes and their possessions. They don't want to leave,
but they can't stand alone against climate change either. But
the marshally Is are resilient people. They've weathered many storms
to get to where they are now. The tiny museum

(52:49):
in Madro hosts artifacts of several crises that would seem apocalyptic,
a nuclear bomb, the Second World War, but in the
end these did little decressing incredible kindness of the tenacity
of the Marshalise. The islands that make up the Rami
have been inhabited by indigenous people for thousands of years.

(53:10):
They've been variously ruled by the Spanish, German, Japanese and
United States governments before becoming an independent republic. Before they
were named by a British sailor, the islands had their
own name. I Let Jeff, a Marshal's renaissance man who
was at one s driver, the head of the World
Health Organization's EMT program on the islands, a registered nurse,

(53:33):
and the Custodi uns. An incredible collection of marshalse music
explained what they were called before that, or before he
used to call la la la larli like.

Speaker 8 (53:46):
L or l.

Speaker 9 (53:49):
N l o lpluck lap lap.

Speaker 2 (53:55):
That's before it turned out turns into Marsham. Does this
work Marshalls.

Speaker 9 (54:02):
Capes from this bad oh A found these islands.

Speaker 2 (54:07):
Captain Marshall undeniably, the Marshall Islands are not a bad
place to find yourself on a summer afternoon, and in
the time I spent there, I took several trips to
the smaller islands around my dro atoll. They look like
the Platonic idea of a tropical island, complete with coconut palms,
vibrant coral reefs, white sand, and turquoise water. I love

(54:30):
free diving and dropping down onto a wrecked aircraft and
dozens of brightly colored species of fish in almost infinite
visibility without even needing to put on a wet to
or a weight belt. Might be the closest I'll ever
get to flying. But I wasn't just here for a
dip in the ocean. I'm actually here to tell you
a story of incredible resilience. Much of America, both on

(54:51):
the left and on the right, spends much of its
time and money preparing for its own imagined version of
the crisis. For some, that's the unimaginable destruction of duke
a War. For others, it's the encroaching of the ocean
on it's a land and the resulting loss of places
to live and grow food, and for others, it's a
collapse of basic services like power and clean water that
we take for granted. These are all storms. So the

(55:14):
tiny island nation who hath already weathered, and it hasn't
done so in the atomized and individualistic way that so
many American preppers fantasize about online. It's done so as
an incredibly strong, optimistic, and welcoming community. There's a lot
we can learn from the people of the Marshall Islands
and their story, and so this week I'll be doing
my best to share the stories that they shared with me.

(55:39):
If you're familiar with the islands, it's likely because of
the history of one of the other atolls in the group,
Bikini Atoll. The name is the German bastardization of a
Marshal lease word pikini pick meaning plain surface, and knee
meaning coconut tree. It's a flat based where coconuts grere,
but you likely don't know the island for its coconuts,

(56:02):
and those aren't safe to eat anymore anyway. If you've
heard of Bikinia Toll, it's because of what the United
States did there after the Second World War. On the
eighteenth of July and nineteen forty seven, the Marshall Islands
were placed in a Strategic Trust Territory by the United Nations.
This territory was administered by the United States, which are
supposed to administer the islands in the best interest of

(56:23):
their inhabitants out of international peace and security. But a
year before the trust territory was created, the US began
nuclear testing and the lagoon at Bikinia Toll, a site
that would over the next fifteen years become the most
heavily bombed place on Earth, with some islands entirely removed
from the map and much of their population left dead, sick,

(56:45):
without the land that defines them and their ability to
thrive on these ti iny islands amidst the endless ocean.
As far as possible, I want to let the Marshal
Lease survivors of the nuclear tests and their families tell
their own stories. They call what happened and don Bikini
In and Awatakatoll the nuclear legacy of their country. Talking about
the nuclear legacy is a difficult topic for the Marshallese,

(57:08):
especially the time when none of them have been paid
the compensation they were allotted, and the US was negotiating
a new agreement with the Marshalise government. It was very
far from settled and the numbers of the US were
offering were very far from sufficient. I was very fortunate
to join a few other journalists on the tiny island
of boken bowten, a short boat right away from Mitro

(57:29):
and home to perhaps most beautiful coral reef I've ever seen.
We had lunch, walked around the island and then had
a talk on the nuclear legacy from descendants of some
of the survivors. I'll let them introduce themselves.

Speaker 10 (57:41):
My name is Zakabekibion. I'm from the Marshall Ellen. I
am a student at CMI College of the Marshall Ellen
and I am currently the president for the CMI Nuclear Club,
which we mostly work under National Nuclear Commission with with

(58:02):
our director Mary Sock and now our Commissioner Arianna.

Speaker 6 (58:07):
Allreat.

Speaker 5 (58:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 11 (58:08):
Well, once again, my name is Ariana. I work as
a Commissioner and Nuclear Justice Envoy for the RMI National
Nuclear Commission. Him once again, thank you very much for
having us this afternoon.

Speaker 12 (58:24):
Yael, Welcome to the Marshall Island.

Speaker 1 (58:27):
My name is Evlin Ralpho.

Speaker 11 (58:28):
I'm the director for Education and Public Awareness.

Speaker 12 (58:32):
Once again, welcome, enjoy the rese of your days here.
My name is sincerely in Pernet. I work with the
National Nuclear Commission as an headman and physical officer. I'm
not sure if it's necessary for me to come, but
since the post that we all go so important, support
the post go work on the same poet, Welcome to

(58:54):
the Partial Islands.

Speaker 11 (58:56):
She's from Mayatta, She's from Yeah. The three of us
are all descendants of nuclear survivors. They were exposed to
fall out. Her mother was exposed to fall out. Her mother,
Grace's mother was also exposed to the radioactive fallout, as
well as my great grandfather. I think that's what really

(59:19):
drives us to share this with you.

Speaker 2 (59:21):
Almost everyone in the RMI has a family member directly
impacted by the testing and the decades of mistreatment that
came after it. Although we know the name Bikini A Toll,
the entire Republic was impacted by nuclear fallout, including Mardro itself,
thanks to the elevised decision to drop bombs on a
day when the populated atolls were downwind of the test site.

(59:43):
In fact, right next to our hotel, showing the same
parking lot. There's the US Department of Energy office. Hou's, Jeff,
what that was doing there? Yeah? I saw there's a
diary office health office on the street here.

Speaker 9 (59:57):
The one in the next to the autel, that's the
office where they do the radiation testing. And there's the
one near the AMI. R. Marshall that's the planet for
those survivors. Now, the survivors, there's few of them, like
maybe less than fifty. Wow.

Speaker 2 (01:00:17):
The RMI is saw fighting in the Second World War.
It's memorialized in murals across Marjorro. In nineteen forty three
and early nineteen forty four, the USA bombed and then
fought the Imperial Japanese military who have been occupying the
island since nineteen fourteen. US soldiers and Marines, along with

(01:00:37):
marsh Lea's scouts, landed on Marjorro Quadulan in anywhere, took
on Higgins boats that were virtually identical to the boat
we took across the lagoon to Bocan Boten. The fighting
was fierce and the scale of the destruction was a mets. Overall,
the Americans lost six hundred and eleven men and suffered
two thy three hundred and forty one wounded, two hundred

(01:00:59):
and sixty one were missing. Meanwhile, the Japanese lost over
eleven thousand men and had three hundred and fifty eight captured. Today,
the Bikinia Toll Lagoon still holds the ghostly remains of
the ships and plains that fought that battle, alongside the Nagato,
the flagship of the Imperial Japanese Navy, and the ship

(01:01:20):
from whose bridge Admiral Yamamoto launched the attack on Pearl Harbor.
It was a shadow of this war that was evoked
in nineteen forty six when one hundred and sixty seven
of Bikini A Tolls inhabitants were forcibly relocated by the
United States. They initially accepted this settlement quote for the
good of mankind and to end all wars, in the

(01:01:41):
words of the US commandant at the time. Assisted by
US Navy seabees, they disassembled their church and moved to
different atolls. Nine of the eleven family heads from Bikini
elected to be transported one hundred and twenty five miles
to Rohngerikatoll, an island, with about one order of the
land mass of Bikinian. Many believed the island to be haunted.

(01:02:05):
By the time the navy left them with a few
weeks of water and food, they had every reason to
be afraid. I let Ariana explain what that removal process
was like.

Speaker 11 (01:02:14):
They had asked the people if they were willing to
give up their homelands for the good of mankind and
to end all wars. And because our people are people
of faith in Christianity, they the and they were very afraid.
They did not want to leave. But because of the
amount of power that the that the military showed up

(01:02:37):
with with their big ships compared to our small canoes,
and the amount of troops that were on that island
on that morning, it was very hard for them to,
you know, fight against what was being asked of them.
And if you have time to look through documentaries of

(01:02:59):
the nuclear like you will see a certain part where
the commander a commodore, his name was Ben Wyatt. He
was sitting down and asking the chief at that time,
can we use this island for the good of mankind?
And in response the people all respond in unison elman
which means okay. And from their testimonies they had to

(01:03:21):
take that shot over forty times to make sure that
you know, they all said mmin at the same time,
to get the best shot they could for you know,
maybe for reports to the UN, but it was a
very frustrating time for them.

Speaker 2 (01:03:36):
Following their removal, the testing began. The idea was to
test nuclear bombs on ships, so the US bought ninety
five ships fully loaded with weapons and fuel. At this time,
this would have ranked the navy of Bikinia Toll just
out there the top five biggest fleets in the world,
but those boats didn't stay afloat for long. Now. You

(01:04:00):
might think that, given the testing was on ships, the
atoll's navy would be some kind of mid century Mary Celeste,
but you'd be wrong. Three hundred and fifty experimental rats, goats,
and pigs died in the service as its strange nuclear experiment,
some of them after being subjected to the great indignity
of being covered in sunscreen, which bizarrely scientists thought might

(01:04:23):
be useful in alleviating the impact of radiation. It's rather
staggering that this research was being done three years after
the United States dropped nuclear bombs on whole cities full
of human beings. But as you've maybe already picked up
in this story. The possibility of unintended but entirely predictable
human suffering does not seem to have been top of

(01:04:43):
the priority list. The first test of the island somehow misfired.
The gathered press were disappointed, and many of them went home,
But the second code, named Baker didn't. Chemist Glen t Seborg,
the longest serving chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, called
the Baker test the world's first nuclear disaster. It drove

(01:05:05):
a two thousand foot wide pillar of water into the air,
It sunk the USS Arkansas, and released massive amounts of
radiation across the islands of the atoll, which at the
time the residents had been expecting to return to. Just
five days after the first bomb went off, Louis Road,
a French mechanical engineer who was working as manager of

(01:05:27):
his mother's lingerie shop in Paris, introduced a new swimsuit
designed named the Bikini after the atoll. It was one
wright equipped the atom bomb of fashion. The people of
the atoll, however, gained little from the outfit or the testing.
In January of nineteen forty eight, just two years after

(01:05:47):
their removal, doctor Leonard Mason visited the Bikinians on Rongerick
and was appalled to find the people there had almost
starved to death. We were dying, but they didn't listen
to us, one of them said to him. Mason, an
anthropologist at the University of WAYI asked that food and
water be bought immediately. The US built houses for Bikiniatol

(01:06:11):
residents on Ujilangatoll, but it decided to use these for
the residents of Aniwata Katol, where it was also about
to begin conducting nuclear experiments. Instead. The Bikini Islanders were
placed in tents alongside a runway before they eventually chose
Kille Island, a line of less than one square kilometer,

(01:06:31):
as their next home. Also evacuated were Anewatak, Wrongalap, and
Warthaw Islanders. They too, thought this was a temporary arrangement
and that they could go home in a short period
of time. They too, found out later that this was
not the case. Over the course of their exile, they've
been moved several more times, staffed half to death, cheated

(01:06:54):
of their compensation, and stripped of their ancestral homeland. For
the next twelve years, the United States would drop increasingly
large bombs, culminating in nineteen fifty four with the Bravo
Shot of Operation Castle, also known as Castle Bravo, the
biggest nuclear device that we know of the US ever deploying.

Speaker 11 (01:07:14):
Within those twelve years, there were sixty seven known devices
that were tested here. There could have been more, but
all we know of is sixty seven. One of them
was the Castle Bravo shat that yielded fifteen megatons, which,
when scientists calculated the equivalent of the Bravo shat, would

(01:07:34):
have required testing the Hiroshima bomb one and a half
times every single day for twelve years.

Speaker 2 (01:07:41):
That fifteen megaton Bravo shot yielded more than two point
five times the estimated six megaton explosion. When it was
detonated on an artificial island in the Bikinia Toll, the
device's mushroom cloud reached a height of forty seven thousand
feet which is fourteen hundred meters, and a dam of
seven miles or eleven kilometers in about one minute. Eventually

(01:08:04):
it reached a height of forty kilometers and a diameter
of one hundred kilometers. This took less than ten minutes,
traveled more than one hundred meters per second and covered
seven thousand kilometers of the Pacific Ocean and everything in
it with nuclear fallout. On the eve of the Bravo shot,
weather reports indicated that the quote conditions were getting less favorable,

(01:08:27):
but nonetheless the decision to go ahead with the first
test was taken by to Alvin C. Graves jointed task
for seven ships located thirty miles east of Bikini and
what was thought to be an Upwin position began detecting
high levels of radiation just two hours after the test.
Very soon after, they began traveling south at full speed

(01:08:49):
to avoid the fallout, but directly downwind of the blast
and unable to travel were wrong. Alap and a Lingene
Atolls Ariana explained the impacted to four there which residents
were not warned about. American service people there want to
stay inside, not eat or drink anything, but no such
warning was given to the local residents.

Speaker 11 (01:09:11):
Some said it looked like the guy was changing colors
from red to yellow to orange. It was just a
very very bright morning and then they started hearing like
thunderous roars a couple of minutes later, and it was
just like roars after Wars, and it was a very
frightening time because this was just not something you know,

(01:09:31):
does not happen every day. And then around ten am,
the fallout had started to arrive. And these are accounts
from ronlap at All, which is the closest to Bikini.
The fallout had started to arrive and they were not
sure what was going on. There was men out fishing.
There was also stories from these witnesses that prior to

(01:09:55):
this test, the military had gone to rout and they
had movie nights and they would show the community of
movies where it's snowing.

Speaker 2 (01:10:05):
Tomorrow we'll hear more about the consequences of the Bravo
show for the people who, despite never having any quarrel
with the USA, with the recipient of the largest nuclear
bomb it's ever decimated.

Speaker 1 (01:10:44):
Ho Ho, Merry Christmas. Robert Evans here, and we had
been planning to make a Newcome episode to give you
all a white Christmas this year. But you know what
I didn't wind up wanting to do right during the
holidays when we didn't have to work, is spend hours
researching some other weird Come conspiracies on the Internet. So

(01:11:06):
we're just going to play the old Come episode for
you as a rerun. I know that's not the most
effortful version of our job that I could have done
this year, but also it's been a real shitty year
for everybody. So let's just listen to an old Come
episode and pretend we gave you a new Come episode.
Merry Christmas, everybody, dearly beloved, Welcome to it could happen here.

(01:11:32):
We are gathered here today to get through this thing
called life. Electric word life. It's a thing that only
happens with the addition of a couple of ingredients, and
one of those ingredients is the subject of our episode today.
Oh yeah, you guys like that? Everybody really happy with that?

Speaker 2 (01:11:50):
I love that. Yeah, I'm feeling not at all like
I want to kind of shower.

Speaker 8 (01:11:54):
Okay, can you can you can hear the moment where
we're all simultaneously questioning every single decision.

Speaker 2 (01:11:59):
We higher lives.

Speaker 1 (01:12:02):
Now we're all bonded together. So how's everybody doing today?
We've got Miil Wong, Garrison Davis, James Stout, and I
should let people know I wasn't joking about the Come thing.
So those of you who are too online will know this.
Those of you who are not online enough. This is
one of the online things that you will want to

(01:12:24):
know because it's very funny. And the gist of it
is that like four days ago, doctor Jordan B. Peterson
got sent a link to a Twitter account that is
that purports to be spreading like hidden news about the
evils of the Chinese communist regime, and they put out
a video that was a segment from a British milking

(01:12:46):
fetish pornography video. Now, if you're not aware the milking,
as far as I can tell, I believe it kind
of descended from the long lineage of like rubber fetishists, right,
and there's like a lot of medical fetish stuff it
tied into it. But the idea is that men are
entirely wrapped up on hospital gurney's and giant pumps sucked
the sement out of them.

Speaker 2 (01:13:07):
So it's like a cow milka. The machine is very
like milk.

Speaker 1 (01:13:12):
This Twitter account put this up claiming that it was
the Chinese government stealing the semen of young men, and
Jordan Peterson shared it saying it was an unbelievable act
of evil and then everyone had the best day of
their lives and an hour of two later he deleted it.
Now I have been continuing.

Speaker 2 (01:13:34):
Coward, coward, coward. Yeah, so strange, so strange that he
left the world of pay reviewed academia.

Speaker 1 (01:13:41):
Yeah, it's wild that he's no longer professor. It's very funny.
We're continuing to give him shit for it online. But
it set us off down an interesting road. And because
some other stuff fell through, we're going to talk about
the wide world of weird right wing come conspiracies. Most
of them are leased, are going to be right. There's
a surprising number of semen based conspiracies. Everybody did research

(01:14:05):
on their own special thing. I wanted to start by
talking about this this Jordan Peterson cum video and given
kind of some of the some of the background on it,
so I believe it was. Last July, the Chinese Human
Sperm Bank of Shanghai announced that it was hosting a
competition for college students to find out whose semen was

(01:14:27):
the best in terms of, like, you know, a number
of modal sperm per milli leader I think is the
way that they judge it. And basically the idea was
that they were trying to find like people with sperm
concentration greater than sixty million per mili leader, and if
they visited a sperm bank a set number of times
in a six month period, they could receive a prize

(01:14:48):
that was equivalent to about twelve hundred dollars right now.
The reason this is happening is that China, for the
first time, as a result of a number of different policies,
had negative popular growth very recently, and this is a
thing that can cause a problem for a country for
a variety of reasons. So the government is trying to
shore up birth rates, and there are a lot of

(01:15:09):
couples in China that have had issues conceiving, and so
there's a huge amount of demand for sperm in the
country right now. So this is not a weird story.
It is actually a thing that happens all around the
world regularly. But right around the time that this happened,
a little bit after that, it came out that a

(01:15:31):
Japanese company started selling what is called in the articles
I Found an automatic sperm extractor to Chinese sperm banks.
Now this is I'm going to send you all the link.
I was hoping you would oh yes, good friends, thanks,

(01:15:52):
but yes, we're all going to see this. So the machines.
Price listing on ali Baba, where it sells for about
five to six thousand dollars, describes it as a device
that quote merges modern digital technology, automatic control technology, and
simulation technologies with seamen collection and premature ejaculation desensitization training function.

(01:16:12):
So it has a number of purposes including just to
help guys stop coming too early, which no shame. It's
funny that someone built a machine for it.

Speaker 2 (01:16:23):
It's extremely funny, and that you can buy on Ali Express.
It's like, I personally, I'm not attaching anything. I bought
an ali baba to sensitive part to my body makes
thousand dollars.

Speaker 1 (01:16:33):
It's not cheap. Now, the primary these are not being
used for people who are coming too quickly.

Speaker 2 (01:16:40):
Is like the worst every are to detwo this it is.

Speaker 1 (01:16:44):
It is weird.

Speaker 2 (01:16:44):
What's the orientation? Does it stand on the ground and
you just approach it? You you have to stand up? Yeah?
But what if you're a shot king.

Speaker 1 (01:16:53):
I say, I'm sure they have options. It has like
the rough shape of like by a handheld massage device,
but it's kind of like formed like almost an art
deco robot vagina And basically from what I've read. Kind
of the reasoning is that, like, hey, we need people
to donate sperm. Some people feel weird about just masturbating
in a clinic, and we hope this is a more

(01:17:14):
pleasant experience for them. So again this we're laughing because like, look,
a machine designed to capture semen is kind of a
funny thing. That's okay, no shame on anybody for that.
But the fact that you have both the government trying
to encourage people to donate sperm and this weird machine
kind of created fertile ground for a bunch of right

(01:17:34):
wing weirdos to start making the grounded, I know, fertile
ground to to make the completely un ungrounded claim that
like the government was trying to steal people's semen, right,
And that is the basis of doctor Jordan B. Peterson's
fun little freak out on the internet. And I will say,
you should try to find the videos of the automatic

(01:17:57):
sperm extractor, this amazing Japanese machine, because it is fun.
Its fascinating.

Speaker 13 (01:18:04):
On the cosign account, do they have to like like
like change like I assume.

Speaker 2 (01:18:07):
They yes, the chang Yeah, you can't clean that. If
you watch a video, there's like a there's a rebapod
that like, uh, comes out like let's see it.

Speaker 1 (01:18:19):
The thing that the penis goes in is also the
captured device, so it is removed with the sperm donation
when you take it out. So again this is you know,
funny because come, but there's nothing sinister here. It's just
in the same way that literally everything is. People have
like spun it up into a nonsense thing. But because

(01:18:40):
of this beautiful, beautiful story, which I hope we've all
gotten to enjoy, I got to do a lot of
work on the some of you. If you live, if
you've worked in agriculture, you're not going to be surprised
that stealing come is a massive industry, like it is
a There is a lot of money to be made
in stealing semen. There's enough money to be made in
stealing semen that there are two different official terms that

(01:19:01):
I have found for seamen theft. The first is sperm jacking.

Speaker 2 (01:19:09):
How could they get better? How could they get better
than that?

Speaker 1 (01:19:12):
It gets better because the second the second is spurgling.

Speaker 13 (01:19:23):
These are like professionals who like come up with these terms. Huh,
these are a genius.

Speaker 1 (01:19:29):
There actually is. I did find in my research there
is one actual Chinese based sperm conspiracy. It's just not
a very sinister one. There's this Chinese businessman, Jesse jabet Zoo,
who stole there. There's this I think it was a
Canadian company. It was a US company who had So

(01:19:51):
this is for like bull semen. And one of the
things that you want for bull semen is you don't
want if you're inciminating cows, you want all of the
babies to be female generally, right, because bulls are not
very with outside a certain specific If you're like trying
to make more breeders or whatever, if you're in industrial agriculture,
you don't want any of the boys, right. You just

(01:20:12):
want to keep making those sweet, sweet lady cows that
are you know, more useful to you in a financial sense.
So there's a US company that developed a method of
before insemination looking through the sperm and like sorting out
the sperm that will make female cows. And that is
apparently hard to do. I mean, it sounds like it

(01:20:33):
would be hard to do, right, And this this this
Chinese businessman was like reverse engineering there. It's kind of
actually it's basically the same story as Jurassic Park and anyway,
this guy has has gotten sued for a bunch of money.

Speaker 2 (01:20:49):
He got checked down.

Speaker 13 (01:20:50):
I hope, I hope it works out just as well
as Jurassic Park.

Speaker 1 (01:20:55):
Yeah, it's very funny. I will say there's a couple
of really wild lines from this the CBC story I found.
I'm just going to read one to you. Zoo's activities
could best be described as machiavellian. At various points he
outlined a plan to make x Y that's the American company.
Quote feel all the time, the sort of damocles is
on their heads and brag the law is strong, but

(01:21:17):
the outlaws are ten times stronger. Okay, look Jesse Jabez,
my hero, the sperm Bandit incredible sperm jacker, one of
the best spur layers in the business.

Speaker 2 (01:21:31):
This man lives on an island with his cow raptors.

Speaker 1 (01:21:34):
What a hero. There was also a case of a
Japanese man who illegally took wagyu cattle sperm to China
to try to give them sperm, and like the Chinese
government immediately caught him and was like, no, this is
actually incredibly dangerous, Like you're not allowed to just take
animal breeding material into the country. Without because you know,
there's a wide variety of reasons that that could be

(01:21:55):
in horribly so he got in a shipload of trouble.

Speaker 2 (01:21:58):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:21:58):
Anyway, that's my that's my stories. Everybody.

Speaker 2 (01:22:01):
Thank you for rob.

Speaker 1 (01:22:04):
Yeah, thank you, thank you for spurgling my knowledge. Garrison. Oh,
we're back, and James is here to talk to us
about the kind of sperm jacking that you do when
you don't jack. I'm talking about jacking your own sperm
by keeping it inside of you semen retention.

Speaker 2 (01:22:24):
Yeah, it's how is that Jims beautiful? Unscripted? Did you
just yeh didn't even write that, garrisons on the back
of his hand. He had a brain wave at two
in the morning and I got that down.

Speaker 1 (01:22:37):
But those are the kind of things you can do
when you've been podcasting as long.

Speaker 14 (01:22:40):
As I cum space for several years.

Speaker 1 (01:22:46):
I've been in those soggy trenches for a long time.

Speaker 2 (01:22:50):
Yeah. All right, we are, after all at work, so
let me continue. So I'm going to talk about what
happens when you keep your home inside you. Uh okay, yeah,
this is the thing. What are we doing today?

Speaker 1 (01:23:07):
This is this is critical journalisten.

Speaker 2 (01:23:10):
We are making content, doing talking of content. Let's talk
about the content of some Reddit posters. So the what's
called the seamen retention movement, and this will this will
shock many of you began on Reddit dot com.

Speaker 14 (01:23:29):
Oh my god, yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah yeah, like
so many one.

Speaker 1 (01:23:35):
I feel like on Reddit, I feel like if you
type that endo your phone, it would have finished the
sentence the same.

Speaker 2 (01:23:45):
What has auto directed to Reddit? Believe me, we're gonna
go there, Garrison, because when you google sperm retention, you
do indeed find some stuff on Reddit. So now they've
spun off from Reddit, right, they now have their own organization,
which is no FAP dot com uh and No fat
dot com is a community centered sexual health platform. I'm
I'm using, I'm allowing them to define themselves here, I

(01:24:07):
guess designed to help people overcome poor addiction and compulsive
sexual behavior, which is is not necessarily like like the
this isn't the like not all cemen retention, as we're
going to learn, is based in helping people become addiction
to porn, but so far as that is a thing
that that people actually have. And if someone was accusing

(01:24:28):
Robert of being addicted to porn on on his timeline,
this weekend.

Speaker 1 (01:24:33):
That would be because I eat ratio and Jordan Peterson
with the Yeah, the pornography video that he mistaking the
post that's correct.

Speaker 2 (01:24:41):
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:24:43):
I just want him to respond so I can ask him, Jordan,
tell me in your own words, what you thought was
happening in that video.

Speaker 2 (01:24:51):
I really hope he thinks it's like milking, Like they
have rfi D collars and they get fed based on
their production level. That would be great.

Speaker 1 (01:24:57):
Yeah. And what did you you're you're medical doctor, did
you think that cum actually worked that way? Just stick
a sucker.

Speaker 2 (01:25:07):
Anyway, Yeah, just get it out. Okay. So after after
this movement began, I read it dot com. It quickly
pivoted to kind of offering all kinds of weird physical
and mental health benefits, and that's where it was adopted
by friends of the podcast, The Proud Boys. Luckily, we
do have a bit of insight into why and into

(01:25:28):
the exact nature of the no fat fascism that the
Proud Boys practice thanks to Kyle Cheney, who's a Politico
reporter who was reporting on the trial of one of
the Proud Boys accused of tradition on January sixth, called
Zach Rell and that trial for reasons that I'm not
exactly clear on the proud boy. I guess it's like

(01:25:48):
the handbook like that, the kind of prowdboy Bible was
introduced and into the record.

Speaker 1 (01:25:54):
Yeah's in there.

Speaker 2 (01:25:55):
Yep, it's in the court record, buddy, because on the
lawyers decided that it was.

Speaker 1 (01:26:00):
To the case.

Speaker 2 (01:26:01):
So a proud boy may not ejaculate alone more than
once in every thirty days. That means he must abstained
from pornography during that time. And if he needs to ejaculate,
this is really weird, it must be within one yard
of a woman. Fascinatingly spec yeah, yeah right, And I
like that they've they've gone with imperial measurements with her consent,

(01:26:23):
so that's nice. The woman may not be a prostitute,
so that that's the proud poison nature. There no fat fairstuism.
But I think I think the way of understanding why
some people practice this perhaps best is to is to
go on to reddit dot com. So I found a
post by Reddit user u slash monk one nine one
eight one seven. It seems like a nice guy, and

(01:26:45):
there are four hundred, four hundred hy up votes on
What I did was I went to seaman retention and
I looked at you know, sorted by popular posts, found
this one from a bunch of numbers. And so this
guy has nine years of experience with semen retention. So
I'm just going to read I'm presuming oh.

Speaker 1 (01:27:04):
Boy, yeah yeah, yeah yeah, him and some months off
the coast of fucking lind Sparring.

Speaker 2 (01:27:13):
That cannot be healthy. Yeah no, I don't think it is.
There is I will get to this evidence that you
shouldn't do this. Uh So, in his nine years of experience,
he has experienced the following things. Semen, when retained in
our bodies, has healing, rejuvenating effects. Loss of seamen has
the opposite effects. This may not be scientifically proven, but

(01:27:33):
it's proven by experience. That's a red flag. That's interesting
getting Reddit medical advice. While attempting any task that demands
high physical, mental, or intellectual abilities, if we are semen
retention powered, we would actually enjoy the task, which would
otherwise seem dull. This is called sexual energy transmutation in
layman's terms.

Speaker 8 (01:27:53):
Oh no, wait, that's the layman's what's the non laymen term?

Speaker 2 (01:28:00):
It's got even more. I have no idea spermozoic fucking fission.
So for peak performance it's always necessary to be powered
by semen. It would be best to use semen only
for regenerating purposes, since nature originally intended it for regeneration,
and not use it for sexual purposes apart from the
create a child. If not serving that purpose, Master whatever

(01:28:23):
teach techniques are useful in not letting the seed out
while having sex. At the end of the day, don't
let your seed out like a worthless thing. There's more so,
just contain yourself great great, which is exactly the reason
why core religions are based on celibacy, because opposite of
regeneration is degeneration, which will cause a man to fall

(01:28:44):
into a lower state controlled by his lower nature, rather
than when he's subduing it. We should let semen retention
be part of our lives, not something that is done
for superpowers. For superpowers are in my experience, it's the
sudden ecstasy that we feel once we transition from the
degenerated to the regenerated state, and that will stabilize after
some time, similar to how a flight maintained stable altitude

(01:29:04):
after take off. Very very similar. Actually, yeah, that's that's
what you can hear when the when the engine are
spinning up. If just a do track really hard not
to nut and it makes that noise.

Speaker 13 (01:29:17):
So excited for the next Marvel film where the where
the superheroes.

Speaker 1 (01:29:24):
Not come so he can get tiny.

Speaker 2 (01:29:27):
No fat man. So yeah he didn't. I should add
that this person confesses to having lapsed at some point
in the nine years. Yeah it's.

Speaker 1 (01:29:40):
Armstrong was on steroids. It's just disappointing.

Speaker 2 (01:29:45):
No one would have seen it coming. See what I
did there. Okay, So this person then urges other posters
on the Semia retention subreddit to not use streaks to
outperform others or look better about ourselves or bring others down.
The battle with luster is a lifelong fight, and then
we get better at finding victories. Yeah yeah, buddy, finding

(01:30:06):
victories over internal battles, the better we become as high
valued men.

Speaker 1 (01:30:10):
Hell yeah, I've often wished that, you know, if the
if the pandemic hadn't been a thing, and I could
force you all to work in a central location, I
could have like a wall of murals where I put
under each of your faces a quote from an episode
that you've participated in, and James that that would be
your quote the battle it's lusts a lifelong struggle.

Speaker 2 (01:30:37):
Yeah that, I'll get some T shirts knocked up and
we can do a fund.

Speaker 13 (01:30:40):
Would we eventually get the cools on media offices? But
you have a portrait hanging on the wall if you
one quote underneath.

Speaker 2 (01:30:45):
Yeah yeah, yeah, on a plaque with a yeah, let
me get the cools.

Speaker 1 (01:30:51):
When we when we take over the meta offices three
weeks from now.

Speaker 2 (01:30:55):
Yeah, there is a marketing company that has been emailing
me for about six months telling me how cheap it
is to buy a billboard by the side of a
road and send a message to a loved one. So
maybe great, maybe doing bang array Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah,
Well there will be until I put my positive messages

(01:31:16):
about the controlling lust and holding semen inside our bodies
true and return men to their former glory. So a
lot of the a lot of the Reddit posts rely
on a couple of different studies, right, and one of
these studies measured participants. A lot of what they're doing
is are claiming to increase testosterone right right at the bat.
Testosterone does have Aslan's Armstrong can tell you some performance

(01:31:38):
enhancing benefits so yeah, you know, increases your muscle growth,
your your coverage from exercise, all that stuff. One of
the studies measured participates testosterone levels baseline before masturbation and
then in ten minute intervals after masturbation, right, And then
they were asked to abstain for three weeks and they

(01:31:59):
came back and they did the process again. Testosterone was
higher in the baseline measurement at the at the end
of the three weeks of abstinence, right, But the sample
size was pretty small, and there's some theorizing that the
boost was actually caused by the anticipated masturbation that they
were about to do. At the second it was so

(01:32:19):
ready to go. Yeah, yeah, he's guns. Yeah, you're just
ready to pop. After three weeks, the second study looked
at a forty five percent intury, so after a few
days seven days of abstinence. But even the study showed
this was a temporary peak that returned to normal even
with continuing abstinence. So there's there's just these two studies.

(01:32:40):
They're pretty they happened a long time ago. We'll post
them all in the show notes if you guys want
to read more about novap science. But we should just
point out that there is, in fact a multitude of
evidence this is a bad idea that having sex is
actually good for you. Having sex will toward trying not
to ejaculate. It's probably not for you, probably not good

(01:33:01):
for your relationship either. One would surmise, there are that whatever, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
well yeah, if that's your thing, you do you do you.
There was a study that investigated the motivation for semen
and retention among semen and retainers, and a lot of

(01:33:22):
it it seemed like it people were people who felt
that like either sex or masturbation was unhealthy or wrong
or sinful. And there is evidence to show that like
feeling like guilty about yourself or like living with stress
and self learning like that is bad for you, right,
and that will reduce your test asterone level. There's also
some evidence to suggest that not ejaculating can give you

(01:33:44):
prostate issues.

Speaker 1 (01:33:46):
Which yes, yeah, there's there's and this is like pretty debatable,
like most things that people talk about with in regards
to coming and health, like you can find some studies,
like the studies on testosterone. Some of them are kind
of sketchy anyway, Yeah, I don't think oh, come or
come either way, you know it's whatever, but if you

(01:34:12):
do have a chance to fuck one of those Ali
Baba robots, I recommend it keep out.

Speaker 2 (01:34:18):
Let's talk about cum demons.

Speaker 13 (01:34:20):
Hell yeah, wait, okay, okay, hard, hard pivot here from THESS.

Speaker 8 (01:34:26):
So, okay, we we are not going as far afield
from the no fat.

Speaker 2 (01:34:32):
People as as as as you would think.

Speaker 8 (01:34:35):
Okay, but all right, now, the year is twenty twenty.
Everyone on Earth has collectively gone insane. This is this
is this is the summer. This is the summer of
twenty twenty. So this is the part of twenty twenty
where fun stuff is happening. This is like late July, oh, Garrison,
that's when we met.

Speaker 13 (01:34:53):
So yeah, we were getting just incredibly poisoned.

Speaker 1 (01:34:57):
Yeah yeah, we sure we're that'll be fun in like
twenty years.

Speaker 2 (01:35:03):
Well.

Speaker 15 (01:35:04):
Well, while life or death struggle for the sort of
the life for death struggle for the fate of the
United States and whether or not people are going to
be conducing murdered by the cops is being waged in
the streets.

Speaker 8 (01:35:14):
Uh, Donald Trump, but Donald J. Trumpron, Donald J. Trump, Wow,
Donald Trump Junior. That one, that's that's that's the Trump
little Trump here. Yeah, Trump we're you know, looking for
looking looking for their their their their curre to COVID
nineteen on Twitter. And okay, so as we probably all remember, right,
the thing that they found was hydroxy. Okay, so one

(01:35:35):
of the first ones that they found before before I've
remact him, this is, this is before we found much.

Speaker 2 (01:35:40):
Yeah, was it inside of them all along?

Speaker 8 (01:35:42):
Mayn No, this is this is this is hydrogy chlorically
the thing that was probable.

Speaker 2 (01:35:46):
I hope they weren't full of hydrocic I thought it was. No.

Speaker 8 (01:35:50):
No, Well we'll get to that where there there's a
The road is long, but it ends with cum demons.
We first must walk the road. So the road here
is Donald Donald Trump Junior posts to tweet saying like this,
saying this is necessary watching about this video from this

(01:36:11):
doctor named doctor Stella Emmanue. Now, okay, who is this person?
She she is part of ah okay, I say part of.
She runs this thing called Firepower Ministries, which so you're
going great, she's also part.

Speaker 1 (01:36:30):
Of I know, broadly Yeah, okay, cool.

Speaker 8 (01:36:34):
She's also part of America's frontline doctors who are yeah, yeah,
I've forgotten. Yeah, these dipshits, Oh my god, Okay, so
this is this is very very very much in the
same vein as architect nine to eleven Truths. They found
a bunch of people who technically have medical degrees or
like nurses who were like, no, no vaccines are bad

(01:36:58):
and hydroxychloricalleine contractor corn clean is we'll covid cork with
that one. Yeah, it's it's, it's been, it's it's been
a long day. I've slept for eight hours, but in
like several distinct parts of the day that were not continuous.

Speaker 2 (01:37:14):
It's been.

Speaker 8 (01:37:15):
Things are going, things are going great.

Speaker 2 (01:37:17):
Fact, if you've taken some horse medicine first.

Speaker 8 (01:37:20):
Quite possibly, I mean it's not like it could have
gone worse, all right, right, So so that this person's
from the very sketchy doctors who are trying to sell
like a bunch of random ship to to cure covid.
And okay, so who actually is this person? She is

(01:37:40):
from camera Rooon and doctor Stella. Meant Immanue was caught
up in uh, the unbelievably sort of like i mean right,
like yes, objectively right wing, also very very weird wave
of Pentecostalism and charismatic Christianity that been sweeping across that

(01:38:01):
part of Africa and as part of sort of a
you know, sort of like a very sort of long
range of coordinated effort by by right when Christian missionaries.
So okay, So for for people who don't know your
Christianity very well, the Pentecostals and the charismatic Christians are
like firmly in the very very weird camp of Christians.

(01:38:23):
Like these are these are the people who do faith healing.
One of the very common sort of Pentecostal things is
this belief that like like you just you talk to God,
like God's in your head and you just have conversations
with Him. Now, unfortunately for like all of us, and
this is you know what a thing that is a
non insignificant contributing factor to why the last I don't
know ten years have been so bat shit is that

(01:38:44):
like this originally was kind of an isolated Pentecostal thing,
and like the broader evangelicals were like, no, no, no, God
only talks to me like your pastor like it's probably
not like you're you're not like having a conversation in
your head with but like change that's changed. Yeah, this
shit has, this shit has fucking taken over everywhere. It's
really bad. And these people believe a lot of very

(01:39:06):
very weird stuff. So well, I mean, okay, so, like,
you know, she she has like some of the sort
of standard like really really hardline like David iike shit,
Like she believes that the world's being run by aliens
and like reptiles, and like the vaccine has like alien
DNA in it to like take over your data.

Speaker 16 (01:39:27):
You know.

Speaker 8 (01:39:27):
It's just like sort of kind of Facebook moments Alex Jones, Shit,
yeah right, okay, but okay, I'm gonna read this quote
from will Sumner. This is a quote from one of
her her sermons. They, which is, demons are responsible for
serious guynecological problems. And Manuel said, we call them all
kinds of names, and Tromesus and Travisius, we call them

(01:39:49):
molar pregnancies, we call them fibroids, we call them cysts,
but most of them were evil deposits from spirit husband.

Speaker 2 (01:40:00):
God.

Speaker 6 (01:40:01):
Yeah.

Speaker 8 (01:40:01):
No, they are responsible for miscarriage's impotence men that can't
get it up.

Speaker 2 (01:40:07):
So all right, immediately we we have like we have
there are.

Speaker 8 (01:40:10):
Several kinds of cum demons here that we're dealing with.
So there are like there, there's, there's there's Okay. So
a lot of this is drawn from what is a
very like a genu widely.

Speaker 2 (01:40:22):
Unbelievably dubious piece of theology.

Speaker 8 (01:40:25):
So when I was researching this, right, I saw, I saw,
I saw someone there there was there was like a
religious scholar who was writing this. He was like, oh,
I immediately recognized the theology of this. This is from
this is from Genesis six.

Speaker 2 (01:40:38):
So okay.

Speaker 8 (01:40:39):
So I was like, Okay, what what the fuck are
they talking about? So I went back and I read. Okay,
So I went back and I read the Genesis, and
I'm going to read the two this is. This is
from Genesis chapter six, verses one and two, and I
am just going to read these two sentences, and I'm
going to see if you two can produce cum demons
from this.

Speaker 2 (01:40:56):
Okay, happy, I.

Speaker 1 (01:40:59):
Mean I could produce com demons from almost anything. That
is that is the power.

Speaker 2 (01:41:05):
With the right machinery.

Speaker 1 (01:41:08):
You know what, I think we know exactly what the
right machinery is.

Speaker 8 (01:41:12):
Look, we know that we can produce com demons mechanically.
Our challenge here is to produce them theologically. Okay, try
I will, I will use all of all of.

Speaker 2 (01:41:22):
My claim knowledge.

Speaker 1 (01:41:23):
We must we must find a way to evacuate the
vast deference of the soul.

Speaker 8 (01:41:30):
Okay, so I'm using I'm using the King James translation
because that's the translation that all these psychos use. And
it came to pass when men began to multiply on
the face of the earth and daughters were born onto them,
that the sons of God saw the daughters of man
that they were fair, and they took them wives of
all which they chose. Okay, so I I do know

(01:41:51):
where they're I do know what they are doing. So
the sons of God those would be what like fallen
angels that have been procreating with women.

Speaker 1 (01:41:58):
Yeah, yeah, I think.

Speaker 13 (01:42:01):
This ties into like the Book of Enoch stuff, which
was made a little bit like after Genesis but kind
of like retconned a lot of like the creation story.
So I can see where they're they're pulling cum demons from.
But it is it is a bit of a stretch.

Speaker 1 (01:42:17):
Yeah, they're kind of you could say cum demons in
the way that like God seed. Yeah, you could see it. Yeah,
it's that's it is a stretch.

Speaker 2 (01:42:25):
Now.

Speaker 8 (01:42:25):
Okay, my my my analysis, because I I think I
I think they're pulling this out of their ass.

Speaker 2 (01:42:30):
And I think they're pulling this out of their ass.
It's also about cum demons. So yeah, okay.

Speaker 8 (01:42:39):
Like I I I have it is well known for
people who follow me on Twitter that I have an
immense and powerful disrespect for theology. But what what part
of the sons of God? What what part of that
gets you to demons?

Speaker 2 (01:42:55):
And not?

Speaker 6 (01:42:55):
Like?

Speaker 8 (01:42:55):
Because again, isn't the whole point of Christianity that we
are all God's children? Like, isn't it?

Speaker 2 (01:43:01):
Is this not a thing that they tell you in
every single fucking sir?

Speaker 8 (01:43:04):
How do you read that and not think they're talking
about people and immediately jump to come to you a
bit like, here's what's going on?

Speaker 13 (01:43:12):
I could, I could explain this because this is the
King James version. So this was made in a post
Book of Enoch world. Around the around the alleged birth
of Jesus, the Book of Enoch got very popular and
this this introduced the idea of a fallen angel. The
fallow fallen angel isn't really in the Bible at all,
It's only it's only in like non biblical Abrahamic texts.

(01:43:32):
So this this idea then kind of got planted into
a lot of like Catholic mythology as well. So when
they're there caused they have a distinction between like the
like the sons of like the sons of God versus
what was the what was the thing they used to
refer to the daughters.

Speaker 8 (01:43:49):
The sons are the daughters of men exactly, So the
daughters are human, where the the the sons are like
came from God.

Speaker 13 (01:43:57):
So that is some type of fallen angel that has
been asked down to earth. They are doing a specific thing,
but it's it's it's it's a result of a whole
bunch of like mistranslations and a whole bunch of various
various like Christian and Gnostic texts that been that have
been misinterpreted for thousands of years by the Catholic Church,
and it creates a really weird theology that is indistinguishable

(01:44:18):
from like Castlevania.

Speaker 8 (01:44:19):
So yeah, I blame I blamed Martin lud This is
Martin Luther's fault, like like, here's.

Speaker 2 (01:44:27):
The thing, here's the thing. Keep it in high latins, understand.

Speaker 8 (01:44:32):
This, this is this is this is what Martin Luther.
I'm specifically because okay. So this was already happy. The
cath the Church was already doing this right. But Martin
Luther had a chance to fix this ship. And she
was like, do you know what I'm gonna do and say,
is that I am going to I am going to
turn against the peasant revolts and I'm going to do
a lot. I'm going to bring about a level of
anti Semitism that is going to allow me to outflank

(01:44:52):
the Inquisition on the right. She could have been fixing
this bullshit no anti seven is I gotta keep my
patron lords and down he was.

Speaker 1 (01:45:03):
He was German, like, there's only so much you can ask.

Speaker 2 (01:45:07):
That's true.

Speaker 13 (01:45:08):
Yeah, well I'm happy that we can all go to
sleep at night worrying about the sons of God implanting semen.

Speaker 2 (01:45:15):
There's okay.

Speaker 8 (01:45:16):
So that that's that's com demon type type one, right,
That is okay. So though those are those are the
demons that like they they have they have sex with
women and they produce nephilim from or sometimes also nephelin.
There's there's a lot of sort of conflicting sort of theology.

Speaker 13 (01:45:32):
All that stuff comes from the Book of Enoch, All
that stuff is non canon to the modern Bible, but
it's where it's where it comes from.

Speaker 1 (01:45:38):
Sucking Council of nicea.

Speaker 8 (01:45:42):
Okay, but there's also there's also a second there's also
the second kind of cum demon, right, which is these
are the these are well okay, so so succuby and
incuby are based here.

Speaker 2 (01:45:51):
We go, I do it.

Speaker 8 (01:45:52):
I was it was counting down the the other kind
of of demon. So you have your incub by, right,
who are another type of sex demon, and the incuby
fuck men so they can steal their semen and they're
they're they're you know, there's some statements are reasons that.
There's another thing that she talks about, which is that
there are witches who have like astral spirit sex with

(01:46:14):
men in their sleep. And if you're like having a
sex stream, it's because you're having actual spirit sex.

Speaker 4 (01:46:19):
No.

Speaker 1 (01:46:19):
No, yeah, I mean like I like Bill Murray, I've
I've experienced that. Oh no, that was Bill Murray. Sorry,
my mistake.

Speaker 8 (01:46:28):
Oh wait, yes, okay, okay, the cloud the fog is clearing.
I've I've had I've had sex with too many sex demons.
It's it's a real issue.

Speaker 2 (01:46:38):
Okay. So, so all right.

Speaker 8 (01:46:38):
So we have the sex demons who are like trying
to pregnant. You have the sex demons, you're trying to
steal your cump. We also have the actual we have
the actual projecting projecting witches, right, and the actual projecting
witches are trying to steal people's come as part of
an Illuminati plot to create like an even more powerful witch.
And the even more powerful witch is going to use
gay marriage and children's toys to like destroy the fabric

(01:47:00):
of Western civilization. That does bring about sort of jen
general new World order, ETCA have heard this.

Speaker 1 (01:47:06):
Honestly, Lan Witch meetings, Yeah, it is not as far
from the backstory to Warhammer forty thousand as it should be.

Speaker 8 (01:47:15):
That's very sadly true.

Speaker 2 (01:47:18):
I didn't want Warhammer forty thousands coming to our com
episode if I'm honahed, No, it's.

Speaker 1 (01:47:24):
I mean, look, there's a lot of people who are
interested in both Semen Retention and Warhammer forty thousand.

Speaker 2 (01:47:32):
That's a tight vendram.

Speaker 1 (01:47:34):
Yeah, yeah, they all play Ultra Marines. That was ah,
that's yeah, pretty good Warhammer forty thousand joke for those
of you who play.

Speaker 8 (01:47:43):
I also learned a couple of days ago that I
one of the many crimes of the Emperor forty K
was passing off in a Miri Bakara quote as his own.

Speaker 1 (01:47:51):
Oh yeah, that that is that was That was a
good bit. That was a really good bit. It's little
pieces like that that let you know that Dan Abnetz
pretty bass. That was my favorite part of the book.

Speaker 2 (01:48:07):
So funny. That's like, that's literally cannon.

Speaker 13 (01:48:10):
I do have like three pages written on Tanning. So yeah,
little bit. That's that's that's the end of the same
stems go off. Well, okay, I The one thing I'll
add on is that one of the more funny modern
versions of these, if you go on the betted drill
subreddit the recreational pedetul subreddit, you can fight pop who
try to take enough beta drill to have sex with

(01:48:33):
the hat man, which is another.

Speaker 2 (01:48:37):
Another form of trying to sum a shadow people. Maybe
you have to you have.

Speaker 1 (01:48:43):
To explain your terms for people here.

Speaker 2 (01:48:45):
Yeah, I'm a man.

Speaker 1 (01:48:47):
The man is a tall, thin man wearing a hat
who appears when you take hallucinogenic doses of ben a
drill because you can't afford better drugs because you're seventeen.

Speaker 2 (01:48:57):
Yes, we're younger, and there's some people the hat man.

Speaker 13 (01:49:00):
Some people find the hat man extremely attractive, or some
of like the female shadow people variants and they try
to I have read multiple reports of people explaining their
sexual experiences with shadow people.

Speaker 8 (01:49:13):
Anyways, the President of the United States and his son
were promoting this, so this is great.

Speaker 2 (01:49:19):
This website, by the way, absolute adventures on here. I'm
just reading about how to use Christ's blood as a weapon. Amazing.

Speaker 1 (01:49:27):
Oh that's good.

Speaker 2 (01:49:28):
Yeah, yeah, no problems here. Yeah. Do you know who
won't steal your semen? Everybody?

Speaker 1 (01:49:34):
We can't promise that.

Speaker 2 (01:49:35):
I can.

Speaker 13 (01:49:36):
I can promise any advertiser on this show. I've personally
approved to make sure they will not come into your
bedroom and steal your semen.

Speaker 2 (01:49:43):
Wow, how do you do? How's the approval? Press work
is out of interest. I cannot divulge privately.

Speaker 1 (01:49:50):
Since Garrison for.

Speaker 13 (01:49:55):
We are we are going to close off by talking
about a an testosterone, two of our favorite topics for
this episode. For some reason, about a year ago, a
trailer on Fox News dropped for a new batch of
Tucker Carlson originals, titled The End of Men. It opens

(01:50:17):
with the text that reads, in the current year.

Speaker 1 (01:50:21):
The cycle continues.

Speaker 17 (01:50:26):
Once a society collapses, then if you're in hard times, well,
hard iron sharpens iron, as they'd say, and those hard
times inevitably produce men who are tough, men, who are
resource for, men who are strong enough to survive, and
then they go on to re establish order, and so

(01:50:47):
the cycle begins again.

Speaker 13 (01:50:53):
Now there's a few funny things about this video, from
the ripped shirtless dudes milking cows, to wrestling each other
and shooting bottles of canola oil. There's had a hundred
inche that is shooting like ten bottles of canola oil
for some reason.

Speaker 2 (01:51:10):
Maybe the Mussolini's leg there into the Mussolini staff.

Speaker 13 (01:51:15):
He was bye by far the most bizarre.

Speaker 1 (01:51:18):
I suspect they're shooting the canola because it's like a
seed oil thing. They think that like a right wing thing.
Oils are like sucking out your testosterone.

Speaker 13 (01:51:28):
Anyway, it's something very silly, but by far the most
bizarre thing in this trailer is a shot of a
naked man with outstretched arms like Jesus on the Cross
of style, standing in front of a lake at dusk,
with a white machine shining a glowing red light on
his Dick. What and again powerful image at the clibax

(01:51:51):
of the music from two thousand and one Space Odyssey. Uh,
there's this there's this man facing balls first in front
of this large red light at the end of this trailer.

Speaker 1 (01:52:01):
I there should never have been any cause on our
podcast or on Fox News for anyone to save the
line after the end of the climax of the music
from two thousand and one a Space odysty.

Speaker 8 (01:52:15):
Oh, that's the thing we're objecting to from this episode,
that's the line.

Speaker 2 (01:52:20):
Yeah, yeah, because it shouldn't a climax. It lost its
power in that moment. Considering both like the No.

Speaker 1 (01:52:27):
One second James, that was a very good joke.

Speaker 2 (01:52:30):
Thank you, thank you, thank you for seeing me, buddy.

Speaker 13 (01:52:34):
Yeah, So considering both like the text at the beginning
and then some of the narration that we just heard
in the trailer, they're kind of doing this weird like
Cali yoga thing, right that is that is a bit
of a bit of what's going on here.

Speaker 1 (01:52:46):
Because again you can listen to our episodes on Savitri
Devi for a little more information about this. But it's
like this weird right wing con like quasi apocalyptic concept
that evolved during an in between some of the early
Nazis and some of the people who are currently behind
the present leader of India. It's it's way too esoteric

(01:53:09):
and weird to get into, but it's one of the
things that.

Speaker 2 (01:53:11):
Like, yeah, it's the real fun like it. We're not
going to get into it too much. But I think
the previous.

Speaker 1 (01:53:21):
Wound up adjacent to at Tucker Carlson episode because it's
some like weird esoteric Nazi wizard ship.

Speaker 13 (01:53:27):
Yes, and that previous November, Joe Rogan posted a Cali
Yuga meme which went viral. It's it's about how hard
times creates strong men, which create good times, which lead
to weak men, which create hard times. It's a fucking
silly his, his, his, the h The accompanying text on
the Instagram post that that Rogan did said, civilizations move

(01:53:49):
in predictable cycles. We are in the Kali Yuga, the
age of conflict. All of the chaos we're seeing right
now is predicted in Hinduism thousands of years ago. Rogan
was probably just like parroting something that he heard from
one of his many Fashy or new ag friends, which,
considering Rogan's social circle, that could very well, just be

(01:54:10):
the same person.

Speaker 1 (01:54:10):
Yes, yeah, yeah, one of his fucking sparring buddies is
either friends with the Nazi or just stumbled upon a
fucking the wrong podcast and then told him that when
they were smoking weed. And you know, yes, I mean
that's honestly to it's problematic because of his platform, but
that's how I learned. Everything about esoterica that I learned
when I was in my twenties was some I was

(01:54:31):
smoking weed with some sketchy dude who was going places
I shouldn't have been on the internet.

Speaker 13 (01:54:36):
So a few months after Rogan posted this meme, we
have Tucker Carlson making this whole mini series surrounding this
Hard Times Creates Strong Men kind of trend. It's taking
cues from the online manosphere, and Tucker posited that weak,
unmanly men are leading to the collapse of civilization and

(01:54:56):
a hardening of men is necessary to save it. According
to according to Tucker, one of the one of the
threats to manhood is a quote unquote total collapse in
testosterone levels amongst men in recent years. And the solution
goes beyond just your typical like anti soy crusading that
Tucker has done in the past. Now, Tucker has turned

(01:55:18):
to the cutting edge science of bromiopathic medicine as advocates.

Speaker 18 (01:55:25):
God damn it, as advocated for by a quote unquote
fitness professional named Andrew McGovern who touts that infrared light
and testical tanning is this disex marketa for plummeting tea
levels in men.

Speaker 4 (01:55:44):
So obviously half the viewers right now are like, what,
that's testical tanning.

Speaker 2 (01:55:47):
That's crazy.

Speaker 4 (01:55:49):
But my view is, Okay, testosterone levels crash and nobody
says anything about it. That's crazy, So why is it
crazy to seek solutions?

Speaker 2 (01:55:58):
It's not crazy to seek solutions.

Speaker 7 (01:56:00):
And I think I was recently exposed to a term
called bromeopathy, and I think there's a lot of people
out there right now that are don't trust the mainstream information.

Speaker 13 (01:56:11):
This TV special is constantly referred to as a documentary,
so surely you would expect Tucker to try and like
interview scientists or like anyone with expertise on this topic.
Of course, not actually not the case. Andrew McGovern are
our bromeopathic hero. Works as a personal trader at Lifetime

(01:56:36):
Fitness in Columbus, Ohio, and he hasn't even been a
trader for very long. About a decade ago. About a
decade ago, he was the manager of an Abercrobie and
Fitch store in Miami.

Speaker 1 (01:56:51):
Perfect now descriptions from works at the Grumby and Finish store.

Speaker 2 (01:57:01):
Wait, but in Miami.

Speaker 1 (01:57:06):
Hey, if you want to get trim that's where you
get trimmed.

Speaker 2 (01:57:09):
Yeah, that is That type of dude is emerging here.
As of twenty seventeen, he was the director of operations
for Petland retail stores.

Speaker 6 (01:57:22):
He's getting funnier.

Speaker 2 (01:57:24):
But this guy's resume is finally amusing.

Speaker 13 (01:57:27):
But Tucker, being a competent journalist, did not just interview
one person. However, Kid Rock was brought on to be
the sole voice of reasons.

Speaker 1 (01:57:37):
You know, Garrison, you left, But Kid Rock is the
other person. I've gotten prescription drugs from so.

Speaker 2 (01:57:44):
Real bastion. In the platonic cave of men stands Kid
Rock and a guy from Abercrombie and Fitch. We must
only beat their shadows.

Speaker 16 (01:57:51):
Dude, stop testicle Danny, come on, I mean, yeah, I
haven't heard anything, Bobby. I'm starting a punk rock band
and it's called Testical Tanning.

Speaker 2 (01:58:03):
That's the end of it.

Speaker 4 (01:58:04):
I mean, don't you think at this point, when so
many of the therapies, the paths they've told us to take,
have turned out to be dead ends that have really
hurt people, why wouldn't open minded people seek new solutions.

Speaker 2 (01:58:17):
I don't know what the hell is going on in
this world. I'm not even sure if I understood that question.
But some days I just want to stop this planet,
let me off.

Speaker 13 (01:58:25):
Like Kid Rock was not did not buy into testical
tanning the same way Tucker seems to.

Speaker 1 (01:58:31):
How, oh God is kid.

Speaker 8 (01:58:35):
What I said?

Speaker 2 (01:58:36):
I said he was brought out to be the sole
but we thought you were joking because it's Kid.

Speaker 1 (01:58:42):
You were joking.

Speaker 2 (01:58:44):
No, he's the only kid Rock stands with science.

Speaker 1 (01:58:50):
It is indeed sweet Home, Alabama all summer long.

Speaker 13 (01:58:55):
Tucker was not the first person to advocate for testicular
tanning as the solution to an allegedly problematic dip in
testosterone levels. Dating back to twenty fifteen, you can find
articles online such as quote former MLB player Gabe Kapler
says men who want to get stronger should tan their
testicles from complex and quote I put a giant red

(01:59:15):
light on my balls to triple white testosterone levels from
a Men's Health twenty seventeen.

Speaker 2 (01:59:20):
Is that written by Ben Greenfield Benny Johns because he
normally pops up with these things, which one the Men's
health one.

Speaker 13 (01:59:28):
Me Let me see a guy who injected to have
a dick to make it bigger. I have it in
my show notes here. This was written by someone named
Ben Greenfield.

Speaker 2 (01:59:38):
Pot this balland has one games.

Speaker 1 (01:59:42):
So proud of you today, buddy.

Speaker 2 (01:59:44):
I'm so happy we have you on our team.

Speaker 1 (01:59:47):
Dates are you taking? Are you taking performance enhancing drugs?
For this podcast?

Speaker 2 (01:59:54):
Should be Robert I'm not. This is so funny. We
have stepped into a gold mind of contact with Ben Greenfield,
the guy who injected his own dick with stem cells
to make it bigger. That's so funny. Then you compel you.
If you have any free time in your day, just
google Ben Greenfield penis. There will be several articles. It's

(02:00:16):
supposedly reptible outlets. It will just fucking make you unwell. Well,
that's that is great to hear it.

Speaker 13 (02:00:22):
But despite not being the first person to talk about
testicular tanning, Tucker was certainly the most impactful. After the
airing of the End of Men testicular tanning showed a
seven thousand increase in relative search interest on Google and
thirty five thousand increase in tweets on the topic. Now,

(02:00:42):
surely some of these things are stuff like making fun
of it right some weeks, I'm sure, yeah, but a
lot of it also a lot of it's also people
who are just talking about it genuinely. To quote a
study published in j M I R, a dermatology publication, quote,
the promotion of testicular tanning generated significant public interest in

(02:01:03):
an evidence lacking and potentially dangerous health trend. Dermatologists and
other healthcare professionals should be aware of these new viral
health trends to best consultations and combat health misinformation unquote.
So like in terms of actual data, a twenty seventeen
meta analysis of studies on sperm counts found that in
North America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand, men's sperm counts

(02:01:26):
have declined by about fifty percent between nineteen seventy three
and twenty eleven. Now, these results have not been enough
to really cause broad concern unless you're like a right
wing influencer for men, because there doesn't really seem to
be an equal drop in testosterone levels compared.

Speaker 1 (02:01:42):
To previt problems mankind has had on the whole, not
enough seamen comshot.

Speaker 13 (02:01:47):
It's not one of the yes and like compared to
previous decades. There is this maybe like a twenty percent
decrease in total testosterone levels amongst adolescent and young adult males,
but that's highly fluxtual and it's packed it heavily by diet.
It's suspected that pollution environmental degradation are also suspected of

(02:02:08):
being contributing factors, with plastics like a thighlight being known
to interfere with the production of hormones like distosterone. But
this area of research is still heavily contested. But still
that has not stopped fitness YouTubers and conservative influencers from
tying this to like the soy boy feminization of men
and drumming up panic to grow their social media followings,

(02:02:30):
sell their supplements and advertise affiliate products. The krem Dela
creme of red lights for testicular tanning is the Juve
Light A Light. Juve is a light therapy panel company
which sells these LEDs. They're like this, They're like this
upscale wellness brand. The smallest model they have costs over

(02:02:53):
one thousand dollars, with the full body ones going for
around ten grand.

Speaker 2 (02:02:59):
This is when you know it's a grift. If someone
is telling you that they need to sell you sunlight,
they are having a fucking laugh.

Speaker 13 (02:03:06):
Our friend Ben Greenfield advocates a quote that advocates that
you spend the big bucks on juve lest do you
quote fry your balls to a crisp with a cheap
knock off.

Speaker 1 (02:03:20):
You wouldn't want to do that, would you.

Speaker 2 (02:03:23):
Wise, Yeah, it seems like it's maybe a bad idea.

Speaker 1 (02:03:26):
I can teach you how to how to how to
cook your balls safely without spending any money at all.
Get a pair of double A batteries, take them right
out of your out of your uh, your your your
your remote control. You stick the active in in a
bottle of water, and then you put your hand on
your testicles and you're a it'll it'll complete the circuit

(02:03:47):
and power your testicles up with electricity, which you can
then ejaculate instead of come.

Speaker 2 (02:03:52):
They'll probably give you superpowers too.

Speaker 1 (02:03:55):
Almost certainly, Garrison.

Speaker 8 (02:03:56):
Legally, this is not a recommendation to do this. If
you do this, that shit's not on us. You did
that your olation yet, please do not connect batteries to.

Speaker 13 (02:04:05):
You dick to quote that JMR study evaluating the public's
interest into secular tanning quote. The interest in this topic
may be partially explained by the men's attention and advertising
men's of sexual health on hormone replacement or homone enhancing
therapies receive in the US. Although subsequent media coverage largely
disfavored testicular tanning due to lacking evidence and potential dangers,

(02:04:27):
other health influencers came to defend and encourage the practice
of testicular tanning, specifically by using UV light as an unquote.
As an example, here is a clip from fitness YouTuber
Elliott Hulsey's Strength Camp with one point seven million followers.

Speaker 19 (02:04:45):
Blast your balls with sunshine to increase the stosterone. Now,
you can drop your draws and let your balls get
kissed by the sun, or you can try one of
these light panels to roast my nuts and be more manly.
Nineteen thirty nine studies suggests that you UV light exposure
to your testicles increases testosterone by two hundred percent. If

(02:05:05):
you want to join me in this experiment, you can
find one of these bad boys a Hoseyhealth dot com.
Then just go to personal labs dot com, get your
blood tested, get your testosterone. Then after eight to twelve weeks,
check it again and find out if the nut rusting
really works.

Speaker 13 (02:05:20):
So this whole idea goes back to this one nineteen
thirty nine. Studies eighteen thirty nine.

Speaker 2 (02:05:27):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now let's of goot schied to nineteen
thirty nine. Man.

Speaker 13 (02:05:31):
And if there's one thing I trust, it's science from
nineteen thirty nine.

Speaker 2 (02:05:35):
Yep, got any comments on or on race in this study.

Speaker 13 (02:05:39):
So this study was published in the journal ender Chronology,
and it found that frequent UV irritation to the genitals
increased urinary and drostererone, a metabolite of testosterone. It increases
levels by nearly two hundred percent quote unquote. Now you'll
be shocked to learn that there may be problems with
this study. Guess how many test subjects were included in

(02:06:02):
this In this study.

Speaker 2 (02:06:04):
I'm gonna be generous and say eight. So Mia says eight.
James and Green failed just one. One. You say one, Robert,
how many? How many do you think you're in the study?

Speaker 1 (02:06:14):
Geez I think like seven was sacred to the Nazis.

Speaker 13 (02:06:16):
So I'm going to say that five, a grand total
of five people are in the study.

Speaker 2 (02:06:21):
Wow, I give the too much credit.

Speaker 1 (02:06:23):
They had to pick this sacred discordion number. Bullshit.

Speaker 13 (02:06:26):
Three of them are fifty four years old and have
manic depressive psychosis.

Speaker 2 (02:06:33):
The other two are twenty.

Speaker 1 (02:06:37):
Honestly not a bad apparently representative sample for Tucker's audience.

Speaker 2 (02:06:42):
I was about to say the same thing, is actually
who watches his show?

Speaker 13 (02:06:46):
The other two are twenty eight and forty five and
have a quote psychopathia with depressive features.

Speaker 2 (02:06:52):
Which is a very old timey term everyone on Twitter,
et cetera, et cetera.

Speaker 13 (02:06:58):
But I think what actually and is I think they
did this study at an asylum. I just found people
with depressive psychosis to do the study on it. It's
just these five, these five rand people. No, no individual
graft results were produced. It only showed the quote unquote
typical reaction and there wasn't even a control group for
the study. That not to mention, there's many problems with

(02:07:25):
like measuring distosterone in the first place, because it changes
broadly day to day and by age, and it's very
kind of unreliable to quote the JMIR study again. Quote
Beyond this questionable study, research has shown that exposure to
UV radiation may increase sex steroid hormone levels. However, these
studies either do not include human participants or do not

(02:07:46):
specifically evaluate UV radiation exposure to the genitals. There is
there is not a single other study since then that
has done anything resembling like peer reviewed science.

Speaker 1 (02:07:59):
You know what why everybody go to go to go
fund me, help cool zone determine whether or not testical
tanning works and we'll get that control group.

Speaker 8 (02:08:12):
Okay, so what my my other question about this, aren't
aren't all these people getting fucking ball cancer?

Speaker 2 (02:08:17):
We are? We are. Okay, we are about to get
to that.

Speaker 13 (02:08:23):
Because yes, you may think that shining you for you
lights on your balls might have some long term problems.

Speaker 2 (02:08:28):
Yeah, it's great, a lot of sound. Sturt's come back
to the episode again.

Speaker 13 (02:08:32):
So uh Vice interviewed Seth Cohen, a urologist and the
director of the sexual Dysfunction Program at n y U
Langdon Health.

Speaker 2 (02:08:41):
Quote.

Speaker 13 (02:08:41):
I'm not aware of any science or data or any
journal publications proving that red light therapy improves male testosterone.
End quote, we change recommendations on medical therapies based on
a double blind, placebo controlled randomized trials, large studies with
thousands of patients. That's where you'll find if there's any
really cistical significance between red light therapy and a placebo

(02:09:03):
Could these men who underwent red light therapy and came
out and felt stronger and more manly, could that have
been a placebo effect?

Speaker 2 (02:09:09):
Of course it could.

Speaker 13 (02:09:10):
Unquote so and as Mia mentioned, we have not really
even gotten into the potential dangers yet. Close direct heat
to your testicles actually damages sperm count on top of
the risk of giving yourself ball cancer by blasting concentrated
UV light on your genitals for twenty minutes a day,
every day of the week, which is what is recommended

(02:09:34):
to quote that study one last time quote research shows
that excessive exposure to UV radiation may lead to higher
rates of genital tumor formation and decreased sperm counts, as
spermo to genesis is temperature dependent. Thus, given the current
obsession with optimizing mail hormone levels, the high cost of

(02:09:56):
red light therapy, and misleading information labeling of testicular tan
by prominent influencers, there may be an increase in men
exposing themselves to UV radiation and developing associated complications. Unquote
great heroic, So guys, almost done here. But man, it's
pretty it's pretty funny that all of the worst people
you know are going to get ball cancer.

Speaker 2 (02:10:18):
Yeah, don't stop them.

Speaker 1 (02:10:21):
Yeah, I you know, there was a period of time
in my life when I said where I will never
rich cancer on anybody. But if you are deliberately exposing
your testicles for the sun, to the sun and the
hope of getting superpowers because of Nazi science, it's okay.
It's it's okay, Like I'm not going to warn that.

Speaker 2 (02:10:39):
To be fair, the nineteen thirty nine study was from
the United States, so it.

Speaker 1 (02:10:46):
Be talking about the other Nazi science.

Speaker 13 (02:10:50):
Yes, yeah, yeah, well yeah, And I think I think
a part of this whole narrative of like the total
collapse of men's to stosterone levels, as as Tucker puts it, man,
I fucking wish.

Speaker 2 (02:11:03):
Yeah, it's so much easier.

Speaker 13 (02:11:06):
But I think this is more about men in power
feeling that their position of assumed superiority is being threatened. Really,
all of our quack science and conspiracy theory stories today
all revolve around this like subliminal dog whistle. It's no
mistake that Tucker titled his program the End of Men.
In all the stories we're covering today, it is the
fear of emasculation that is the hook used to drum

(02:11:29):
up fear and anger about how liberal feminism is eroding manhood.
It targets some of young men's sexual insecurities while promoting
this like anti woke return to the old ways of
rugged masculinity.

Speaker 1 (02:11:42):
Yeah, I might add, because I think you're missing one
aspect of it. I think you're identifying what he's signaling
to his listeners and what they get out of it.
But I also think that what he and the other
folks who are kind of in positions of power and
influence in the right get out of this because they're
not they don't believe this, they're not actually motivated by that.

(02:12:02):
Now what this is, and because we do not know
specifically why, like testosterone rates, maybe lower white sperm counts
are definitely lower, but it likely has to do with
a massive variety of industrial pollutants in the environment, and
with the fact that industrial agriculture and the process nature
of a lot of our foods is having a negative

(02:12:23):
impact on all these things, like it's consequences of capitalism, right,
and because the consequences are getting increasingly hard to ignore,
the thing that people like that need to do is
find either a cure for them or another way to
blame or another thing to blame them on.

Speaker 6 (02:12:40):
Right.

Speaker 1 (02:12:40):
And so if the aspect the things that are horribly
unhealthy about the society that we have built is causing
men to suffer consequences in their bodies, the thing to
do on the right is to blame that shit on
the liberals and masculating men. And the solution is whatever
kind of shit we can sell you, right, Like, that's
what's going on here, that's the motivation, and it happens

(02:13:03):
outside of like manshit too, Like that's all the right
has anymore, Like their economic theories have been proven disastrously wrong.
They have no actual ability to govern in a meaningful
way other than by causing harm to people. So it's
entirely about taking the consequences of the world that they
advocate and blaming them on someone else and selling you

(02:13:24):
snake oil to deal with it.

Speaker 13 (02:13:27):
Yeah, exactly, and so is that is most of the
of the Testicular Tanning Fund that I got into.

Speaker 2 (02:13:35):
We haven't covered all the things that bank Greenfelt did
to his dact in twenty seventeen.

Speaker 1 (02:13:41):
We'll get back on this subject, but it is time
for us to end. This is already over an hour,
so I want to leave you all, all of you,
all of you beautiful. First, I want to thank all
of our beautiful correspondence for their research, and I want
to leave all of you with this simple piece of advice.
If you feel like your testicles aren't getting enough solar radiation,
simply purchase a glass cutter in an old microwave, cut

(02:14:04):
a circular hole in the microwave, and you bag it
while it's on. You'll be okay. That is our legally
binding health advice. That's the end of the episode. Welcome

(02:14:29):
back to It could happen here the podcast. That's happening
here in your ear. And one of the things that
we love talking about here is a critical ingredient towards
creeping authoritarianism, towards growing corporate control and surveillance over all
of our lives, which is of course technology that makes
it even easier to monitor you than it already is.

(02:14:53):
We're not talking primarily about like the government monitoring you
because they can, you know, do stuff like just pull
your phone data from a uh you know what which
cell towers is pinged. We're talking about the kind of
stuff that allows basically whoever can get an app on
your phone to track and stalk you. And uh, yeah,
I'm gonna first introduce Mia Wong Miya. Welcome to the

(02:15:16):
show that you also host.

Speaker 2 (02:15:17):
Yes, I'm here.

Speaker 1 (02:15:20):
So what are we what are we talking about today?
And who are we talking with?

Speaker 20 (02:15:24):
Yeah?

Speaker 8 (02:15:24):
So we are talking about stalker wear, which is the
sort of broad name for the category of software that
Robert's been talking about. And we are talking about someone
who hacked well a stalker where stalker Yeah, one of
the stockerware companies my arison Crime, the Fame Hacker, the
No Fly List, yed returning guests, always happy to.

Speaker 6 (02:15:46):
Have you on, Yeah, always happy to be on. Yeah.

Speaker 8 (02:15:53):
So I think I think, I don't know. I think
there's a real tendency among and I see this among
leftists a lot, for kind of good reasons and kind
of not good reasons, to really only focus on state
and like large corporate actors in terms of surveillance. And

(02:16:14):
that's a mistake. Yeah, totally yeah, and so I guess
I guess the place where I want to start before
we get into the specific company that you do do.

Speaker 1 (02:16:24):
Is it still called owned?

Speaker 2 (02:16:27):
I kin't.

Speaker 6 (02:16:27):
It's fine to call it owned or pond or whatever.
I still do that sometimes people get confused.

Speaker 8 (02:16:34):
But yeah, yeah, But before we get into that, I
want to I want to ask you a bit because
you've done a lot of sort of I guess you
could call it research, both actual research wise and then
in terms of poking around their servers.

Speaker 6 (02:16:50):
Research and journalism and whatever you want to call it.

Speaker 8 (02:16:53):
Yeah, yeah, So I wanted to just start off by
asking if you can give sort of like a brief
summary of what stalkerwaar is.

Speaker 19 (02:17:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (02:17:04):
So stalkerware, like as a category, encompasses like a number
of different types of apps. Most of them, like on
the service, advertise themselves as like parental control software, which is.

Speaker 2 (02:17:14):
Already bad enough.

Speaker 6 (02:17:16):
Just to be clear that there's like advertised for like
spying on your children's phone, like seeing their location in
real time, seeing their messages that they receive, any photo
they take. Ostensibly this is to like prevent bullying and
help with them when they get depressed because they don't
trust you. And talk to you for whatever reason. But

(02:17:36):
obviously a lot of these are then furthermore, because that's
like that, sure, that's a like target audience, that's a
demographic you can advertise too. But then there's this even
bigger potential target demographic of people who are insecure in
their relationship, mostly men, not only men, but who are
then solved this idea that they can use software like
this for stalking their partner, for finding out if they

(02:17:59):
are eating on you, things like that, which is obviously
an even bigger problem, which once again not to discount
the problems that's spying on your children's already like bad enough,
But yeah, this lead, this leads to this whole like
big industry of these apps being used by partners against
each other, like also just by people, like against anyone
in the in their surroundings that they suspect might be

(02:18:23):
doing something shady, might be like talking behind their backs.
It often kind of turns into like it obviously turns
into this obsessive thing, especially if you solve this idea
that this this app can magically solve like interpersonal issues
like with anything that sells you this magic idea of
being able to solve any problem that these people start
kind of spying on everyone in their like circles. To

(02:18:46):
some of them like not everyone. Most like a lot
of people only spying like their partner or like their
child or whatever. But it often like spirals out of
control into this like controlling everyone in their surroundings, knowing
what everyone is up to where they are, and spend
like hundreds of dollars a month on doing so.

Speaker 2 (02:19:03):
And yeah, that's pretty fucked up if you ask me.

Speaker 1 (02:19:06):
Yeah, yeah, one of the things that's interesting too. It's
also in a lot of cases illegal. This is going
to vary, you know, from country to country, in state
to state, but in the US there are states like California,
which gets pointed out in the very good tech Crunch
investigation on truth Spy, where there are really strict laws
that journalists like you have to abide bias to when
you can record someone that these these apps absolutely break.

Speaker 6 (02:19:29):
Yes, it's specifically a thing that doesn't. Most of these
app will have like a disclaimer at the bond that
it is like this might be legal in your jurisdiction
and please ask for consent before doing this, And then
they have lots of tutorials on how to install this
in someone's device with out there. Yeah, but it's like
always like a we do not take andy like we
we it's not our fault if you break the law basically,

(02:19:50):
which obviously, like it's so far not a lot of
this has been challenged in court, but I don't think
this would hold up too long. But I think just
saying we make a product to do crimes with, if
you do crimes of it, it's not I mean, it
works for the gun industry, so yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:20:08):
The difference is that, like the with the gun industry,
it's a product where there is a legal and an illegal,
like clear way to do it.

Speaker 6 (02:20:16):
The thing with Stocker we are as well is that
like a lot of them will also explicitly say the
only real use of this we allow you to to
use it for is to surveill your child, which unfortunately
is legal in most jurisdictions because children are property of
their parents.

Speaker 2 (02:20:31):
Yeah quo, it's because I do not agree with that.

Speaker 1 (02:20:33):
But yeah, it's one of those things where people using it,
like someone installing an app on their exes or their
their partner's phone or whatever without consent, could very easily
would lose any court case, whether or not the company
would get in trouble. I think is going to rely
a lot on the stuff the videos they're posting about,
like how to put how to get these apps on

(02:20:54):
people's phones without them knowing, but like they do have
that out with like no, it's just for surveilling children.

Speaker 6 (02:21:00):
Is green for anyone else you need consent or whatever.
But I think it is important, yeah, to point this
out very early for anyone who's listening to this because
they think they might have stock Aware on their phones,
or because they know they have stock Aware on their phones.
You can use this in a domestic abuse case. This
will immediately this is explicit proof that abuse is happening
and no matter anything else, because like that's the thing

(02:21:22):
generally with domestic abuse cases, it's really hard to prove
abuses happening. Stalkerware and any other type of spying device
like also physical GPS device trackers and stuff that is
immediate proof that there is a there's controlling behavior going on,
that you are being spined on. This it cannot only
be used and it is explicit admissible evidence. This is

(02:21:44):
also usually like makes cases worse, like not for you,
like it just yeah, it like can potentially add charges
and make it more serious, and that it can help
making cops give a shit about like abuse, which yeah,
I hate that I need to say that, but yeah,
it's like it makes it more serious because there's like

(02:22:05):
spyware and whatever.

Speaker 1 (02:22:06):
It's easy evidence first off, like you can prove they're
spying on you, and second, if you are in one
of the states where that violates the law, then you
can immediately say this person is breaking the law like
this is we don't have to debate whether or not
they've they've crossed the line.

Speaker 6 (02:22:20):
Yeah, and even if it doesn't directly break the law
to spy on someone on a partner like it, depending
on the on the on the region, it can be
kind of a hazy like thing, especially if it's a
device you might co own, if it's like a state
where you were with like cod possession or whatever. In
the US, I do not know US law very much
around this, but yeah, there's like laws like that. But

(02:22:41):
usually still the fact that you're being spied on can
be used as proof for other abuse things you might
be alleging because it's like hard proof that something is happening.
And also usually these companies will somewhat have to respond
to some point us, so they will have to give
out like who the account on there is behind like
the spine on your phone. For some of them, we

(02:23:01):
can also there's also tools that help you find out
who is spying on you, or there's like someone with
forensic background can.

Speaker 1 (02:23:08):
Help, yeah, and I think people. One thing we should
note is that if you're kind of curious, has my
device been infected by some of these tools, the one
that we've been talking about most truth spy. If you
go to that tech Crunch article.

Speaker 6 (02:23:23):
Or to my article that also has a link yet.

Speaker 1 (02:23:25):
Or to you to your article on your website, there's
a tool you can use where you it'll tell you
how to get your IMSI I think, I am I yeah,
which you just dial a thing on your phone and
it gives you that number. It's basically how you identify
specific bones and you plug that in. It will let
you know if your device has been compromised.

Speaker 6 (02:23:46):
Now like December last year, up until there is the
data and if you yeah, it can pretty much tell
you if you've been spying on using this specific tool
until then. For other stuff, there's also guides, usually on
tech Crunch and otherwise also on Stop stockerwear dot ARC,
which is the US coalition against stocker where and also
just generally, I think a lot of like more local

(02:24:08):
anti stocking, anti abuse works are not as informed yet
as they should be, but there's still a good like
point also to reach out to or like.

Speaker 1 (02:24:16):
Yeah, yeah. One of my questions about truth Spy that
I'm hoping you can answer is, I know that you
can like text messages get transferred via it, your call records,
all that kind of stuff, get and who you were calling.
Does that include messages for like encrypted apps like Signal
or is that not accessible through this?

Speaker 6 (02:24:36):
It depends, Like for some of these, it will like
get signal messages, what's the messages and everything, generally by
reading the notification content because like from notifications, you know,
like what messages are have been like received. Sometimes it
will only then have the received messages and not the
send messages. Often these also include like a key logger
component that maps messages then sent back as well. Depends

(02:25:00):
a lot what these apps collect, but for most of them,
also the collection for other texting apps is usually kind
of broken. None of these apps are really well maintained.
They're mostly just quick cash graps. Yeah, are there to
maintain features usually don't really work.

Speaker 1 (02:25:15):
And it seems like based on that, one thing people
can do outside of checking to see if their device
has been compromised, is do stuff like turn off notifications
for apps sling signal, right, like, and that's that's actually
just generally good advice. Notifications are a compromise of the
security that that signal offers. Don't have them enabled, you know, yeah, or.

Speaker 6 (02:25:39):
At the very least disabled them on the lock screen
on Anthros. Yeah, I don't know how. I think that's
also possible on iOS, but I think I doesn't show
message content on the lock screen anyways. I'm not sure anymore,
but yeah, it's just also small things like that. And also,
like one of the key tells that someone probably tampered
with your phone, especially for Android, is if Google play
Protect is the disabled and you do not remember disabling

(02:26:02):
it for something else, it was almost definitely disabled because
someone installed something on your phone. Just try re enabling it.
Then they will probably tell you something. The thing also
to keep in mind, if you find starckaware on your phone,
please get professional help. Do not just delete it. Do
not like necessarily confront whoever you think might be your
abuser about it unless you're very sure that that's the

(02:26:24):
situation you can handle, because like, yeah, that is one
of those things that like bringing it up or just
deleting it can very quickly lead to like yeah, yeah,
complicating the situation a lot.

Speaker 8 (02:26:38):
You know what else complicates the situation These ads and
we are back.

Speaker 1 (02:26:55):
So when it comes to the actual fight against this stuff,
obviously what you're doing is a big part of it.
Getting inside these companies and finding out like what they're
doing and their capabilities is huge for in terms of
like what regular people are people who are interested in
becoming activists about this can do? What is the what
is the struggle to actually fight this stuff? Look like?

(02:27:17):
Like how do we how do we put a bullet
in this industry's head?

Speaker 6 (02:27:21):
I think one of the biggest things. And also like
why I do the work I do with like hacking
and with encouraging others to like send me data, be
that insiders from these companies sending it I do to
me or like tech Crunch specifically currently because like me
and tech Crunch are like the only people really doing
like journalism on this like regularly. And the important thing
with like journalism and all of this is like awareness.

(02:27:44):
It's very important to create awareness about this. That's also
why I do the media work with like being on
this podcast and things like that. I think the most
important thing is to make people aware, like talk about
this in your feminist circles or whatever, things like that,
especially bring it up just also in general info things
about abuse or how to detect abuse. I think the

(02:28:04):
most important thing to do against s soccer whereas demastify it,
because most people don't even know that this is a thing,
that this is, like that there's just commercially available spyware
anyone can install on your phone. It's as important to
not like give in to some sort of paranoia as
with any of these things. It's just important to like, yeah,
generate awareness, talk about it and like spread these articles,

(02:28:27):
let friends know that this is a potential thing, and
then yeah, I I The hard thing with this is that, like,
obviously it should will probably help if there was some
sort of legislation against some of this, It's going to
be very hard to get any proper legislation that ends
this industry because in most Western countries, which are the
only countries which unfortunately they would have enough power to

(02:28:50):
like actually get these apps shut down, because that's the
world we live in. But the problem there is usually
that like this notion that children are owned by their
parents is too strong to really make a full case
against these apps. And at the very best what I can,
like the very best time kind of hoping for from
from legislators is just a ban on advertising these apps

(02:29:13):
on use against other adults, which would be big already,
but that doesn't really solve the issue because there's still
going to be enough people who know of their use
for use against adults, and there's going to be enough
people on like credit threads talking about, hey, well yeah,
you oh you're not sure if your government is cheating
on you, look you can just use this app, you know.
That's also how most of this marketing for this works.

(02:29:36):
It's just yeah, at the end of the day, this
is like a patriarchal issue. So yeah, I think that's
also why like I am so focused on like the
hacking and the like blowing these companies up and showing
like who's behind them. It's because at the end of
the day, the most effective thing we have against these
companies is like the grassroots movement of making them too

(02:29:57):
scared to run in this business, making it not profitable
enough because as I said, most of this is like
quick cash grabs from like web design studios and outsourcing companies. Yeah,
that a're just making a quick buck from this because
otherwise they don't get paid enough. Like that's the sad
thing really is how much of this industry is in
all of these countries. Western companies outsource their IT too,

(02:30:21):
because there's lots of IT companies there and they are
entirely reliant on like Western companies giving them very underpaid tasks.
And you have this problem that you now have a
bunch of employees and not enough money to always pay them.
And what do you do, You like find some weird
niche of like a tech product you can quickly build. Yeah,
and this is like one of those easy niches. It's

(02:30:42):
like always the scummy stuff and like yeah, it's that's
also why like so many of these companies are like
based out of Vietnam, out of Iran and whatever. It's
just companies that already have it hard enough to do
business globally, where the IT industry is like falling apart
because there's not enough like local customers and anything that's

(02:31:03):
international you're just the cheap workforce, right, So yeah, it's
it's once again also like a class problem. I don't
like most people working in this industry know that they're
working in a like scummy industry.

Speaker 2 (02:31:15):
Yeah, of course, but like, yeah, you got to get
paid and that's yeah.

Speaker 6 (02:31:20):
And that's like why I think making it more scary
to operate in this industry is like, yes, the way
to go, because like with just like these like four
hacks that have happened against these companies over the last
like half a year or so, two of them, three
of them, three of them have shut down completely. Others
seem to be slowly moving towards just building other software primarily. Yeah,

(02:31:44):
it's just like, yeah, it's it's it's like with any
other like shady industry that the best we can do
is just do not make it profitable to run the software,
because at the very best, anything else we will get
it's just pushing them more into the shadows, which is
not going to solve the issue at all.

Speaker 2 (02:32:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:32:03):
I think a lot about like strategic thinking, which I
do believe is kind of often in part because of
how rightfully negative most people on the left think about
the military. There's a tendency to ignore some of like
the theory around how to actually win a conflict and
all of it all strategy really when you're talking about

(02:32:24):
like defeating an opponent, revolves around denying and taking operational
area from them, right, And that's what you're talking about
when you talk about, well, we need to stop this,
you know, one of the first things we can do
as part of fighting this is to stop them from
being able to advertise certain places.

Speaker 2 (02:32:39):
Right.

Speaker 1 (02:32:40):
It's making sure that they're not able to operate without
being seen. It's basically cutting down their area, their space
to maneuver, their ability to profit, which cuts down their money,
their access to people, their ability to actually operate.

Speaker 2 (02:32:55):
Right.

Speaker 1 (02:32:55):
Like, that's what we're looking at in terms of how
do you kill this stuff. It's not one single really.
I use the comparison of like a bullet, but it's
never going to be one bullet. These things are too durable.
There's too many countries in lay to do that.

Speaker 6 (02:33:07):
Yeah, that's also why I put so much emphasis on
doing media work about this and getting more people to
talk about this and getting more awareness of this out there,
to the point where I'm willing to work with more
conservative newspapers on this because everyone needs to know about this.
At the end of the day, this is how we
like stop people from falling victims to this. Most people

(02:33:28):
who are a victim of stocker apps have never heard
of stocker apps before, and I think that's like one
of the biggest ways to tackle this. And on the
other hand, we also have I think another big leverage
point with how many of these are getting hacked because
none of these apps are very secure. That's another thing
is this can also be leveraged against like the abusers

(02:33:48):
in this scenario. I think just pointing out to them
that all of these apps get hacked all the time
and that this is how they get found out, that
that this is how their data of them as abusers
ends up landing on the internet. I think it's also
like a very important angle at the end of the day.
It's just to make it clear like yeah, no, not
even you are like secure from this having consequences for

(02:34:10):
your life, like beyond like direct interpersonal or legal consequences.
This can and in the past has result in like
your email adders being on a list of people who
have du abuse to people online. You don't want to
be on such a list. I think that's also important
just to like point out there isn't one stock of
a app that's not eventually going to get hacked. There

(02:34:32):
is a big war against these apps. They're all like
there's so many different hacking groups that keep sending me
data from these Like I'm already working on another article
that already once again affects like the data of like
I think like eighty thousand more like abusers, and it's
just the abuser data this time. But I'm still going
to report on it, like it's it's it's this is

(02:34:53):
not going to stop. It's even also not going to
stop when I stop reporting on this myself, like I've
that there's been work before me downe on this. I
also the first time I got involved in finding stockover
was back in twenty twenty. People have been hacking these
apps forever and will keep hacking them, Like just look
at the Wikipedia page for Stockover. There's an ever growing

(02:35:15):
list of these apps that have been hacked, and I
think at this point that like official count being kept
by one of the people at TechCrunch is at like
thirteen apps, a few of which have been hacked two
or three times. Yeah, these are not these are not
secure apps for any.

Speaker 1 (02:35:33):
No, no, no, of course not. Yeah, and they yeah,
I mean it makes sense that like an app dedicated
to violating people's privacy for money would also basically violate
the privacy of the people using it.

Speaker 6 (02:35:46):
Yeah, and also they don't care. Like I said, of
course it's a cash crap. It's nothing else. There's a
few apps that are like a little more than a
cash crap, but it's usually just because they're made, Like
there's still a cash grap, but they're like more well made.
But it's because they're a cash graph from a company
that has better developers or more money to do the

(02:36:06):
initial investment. The thing is also like most of these
companies don't have a lot of initial investment, And I
think the important thing to consider as well. Here is
one big area of this that I have not yet
started tackling, but I do want to like look into more. Sometimes.
Is a big reason this industry is so big and
most of these apps have a lot of users despite

(02:36:28):
there being so many of them, is the affiliate marketing industry.
Once again, our very beloved friend. Yeah, all of these
apps are parts of various affiliate marketing networks. Some of
them started by stocker Ware company, and some of them
just other like things to advertise all the shady things
like all those phone number locator apps or whatever that's

(02:36:49):
also part of those same affiliate marketing networks. And there's
lots of money flowing here, and there's lots of money
flowing to very big tech YouTube channels, and I might
soon have some proof for some of that. But that's
how these are advertised. It's everyone who advertises stock Aware
to you, who has a big platform, is doing that
because they're getting money, not for any other reason.

Speaker 8 (02:37:12):
We need to do more ads. We will be back shortly,
and we are back.

Speaker 1 (02:37:30):
Well that's all I had, Miya, What do you got?

Speaker 2 (02:37:33):
Yeah, I guess there's there's another thing I wanted.

Speaker 8 (02:37:36):
To ask a little bit about, which Zach Whitaker, who's
been one of the journal journalists at tech Crunch doing
a lot of the research, is great. One of the
things that he brings up that I think is another
I don't know. It's kind of a plane with fire
angle on them. But one of the issues that these
companies seem to have is payment platforms, because a lot

(02:37:58):
of payment platforms look at this and go wait, hold on. Yeah,
so that's yeah, we've talked about that a little bit.

Speaker 6 (02:38:05):
That's an angle. We've also been fighting on a lot.
Like me and Sick, we work on most of these
stories together. Like it's kind of funny. We both got
each other into the stockow thing back in twenty twenty.
As I mentioned, that was the first time I stumbled
into a stockerware app with a security issue. I reached
out to some random journalists that tech Crunch about it.
And now he is the only one talking about this

(02:38:27):
forever because I reached out to him that one time
and he got sucked into this horrible, horrible world of spying.
But yeah, Like one of the things we focus on
a lot is reporting these companies to their payment providers,
to their server hosters, to the point where sometimes like
for weeks, Sack will just wait for them to switch
to a new provider after we got them taken them

(02:38:48):
from like PayPal, and then from their other PayPal account
where they're just using like the checkout experience from one
of their completely unrelated software projects, which they will later
claim is not related at all the different companies and whatever.
But then like eventually they get taken down from that
as well, and usually we can get them taken them
from most like Western hosters, like especially US housters, will

(02:39:09):
immediately take them down. You do not want to risk
being the company hosting spuywire on US grounds.

Speaker 2 (02:39:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (02:39:16):
Yeah, it's just like same with EO hosters. Like the
few companies that we've seen that were on Headsnerd, they
immediately react because it's like yeah no, like under EULO,
you don't want to like risk that, and also just
because you don't want to host that, like there's no
reason for you to host shit like that. It will
have like image consequences, and that's an important thing that

(02:39:39):
is maybe also something you can do as more like
a grassroots thing. It's also like if you find one
of these apps and if you see, oh they're using
like PayPal or whatever, just reach out. I think PayPal
is even harder to reach as like just an average
LA person. Don't expect them to reply. They might still
take action. You will have to manually check PayPal doesn't
really reply. Two things ever, but yeah, same as like

(02:40:02):
hosting company. If it's either hosted on like a European
or American hosting company, I just just reach out and
be like, hey, there's someone running spyware on your thing.
Also use the word spyware, not stocker, where they will
not know what that is, and it is spyware. So yeah,
and that can usually get them taken down. And often
they don't have proper backups and we'll have a few

(02:40:24):
months of data missing and it's like, yeah, that's how
you slowly grind them to a halt. Yeah. And also
once again, like if you have tips about any of
these companies, be it having found a vulnerability just or
insider info especially I'm always very happy about the insider info.
You can reach out to either me or Sack White.
We're both very happy to talk about this.

Speaker 2 (02:40:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 8 (02:40:47):
Yeah, that's something that's been used really effectively by right
wingers to target sex workers.

Speaker 2 (02:40:52):
There's been a huge.

Speaker 8 (02:40:53):
Thing, there's been a bunch of campaigns to get platform
companies and yeah, so it's.

Speaker 6 (02:41:00):
It's interesting that for once we can use the very
restrictive and conservative rules of payment providers for our good.

Speaker 2 (02:41:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (02:41:08):
But yeah, basically, any of the big payment providers will
not respect something like this. Some of the small regional
odd ones probably won't really give a shit. They have
no reason to. It's like revenue for them. But yeah,
it's generally worth trying. And I'm always glad like if
someone just reaches out to these companies and we don't
have to do that ourselves. I think me and second

(02:41:30):
to few other people like actively working on this are
doing more than enough work currently. But yeah, just if
you find one of these things that don't go digging
too deep. It's a depressing world. But if you stumble
upon one of these somewhere or whatever, just just report them.
It's it's it's going to disrupt their operations and if
it happens often enough, they.

Speaker 2 (02:41:50):
Might just give up.

Speaker 6 (02:41:51):
Yeah, And I mean, like in cases like the truths by,
they are willing to do extreme amounts of fraud to
get to money easily because they like started with like
mostly just in like with the market they could get
with their Vietnamese payment providers, right, Eventually they realized, well,
the US is like this really big market, right, but

(02:42:13):
for really easy like US stuff, we need like a
paypoal thing, right, So they might like over twelve fake
American identities with fake passports and fake addresses and sign
up to PayPal a whole bunch of times and had
various employees that the company move money around. Yeah, that's
obviously not a thing the US government will like if

(02:42:34):
you do that. Generally speaking, they moved like millions like that,
so yeah, which is pretty crazy like that. The amount
of money that's moving in this industry is crazy. Like yeah, actually,
like most of these app apps will be half broken,
which no one ever complains about because like it's shady,
like you don't expect like if you go online and

(02:42:56):
you search for something shady like anything like be it
piracy or whatever, you don't expect it to be the
best experience ever. Like you know, you're getting some weird
service and it's probably going to be half broken. But yeah,
like most of these talkover apps started like forty dollars
a month and more, and in some days for more
features you pay like up to sixty or seventy or so,

(02:43:16):
and then all of these have like tens of thousands
of users, sometimes hundreds of thousands of users. Yeah, you
can do them at yourself. It's crazy. This is a
really big industry, which makes it so crazy to me
that it's like not a thing that's talked about more,
especially in like feminist spaces and things like that, because
this is such a big angle of like modern tech

(02:43:38):
enabled abuse that they really think should should be more
of a topic, especially on the left, like this this
is bad.

Speaker 1 (02:43:46):
Yeah, no, this is like critically bad. I agree entirely.

Speaker 6 (02:43:49):
And also like that the whole thing with like all
of this data being so easily accept your data can
end up getting sold on some dark web forum. You're
both as the abuser and that's the target, right and
the corter government can find these like I have no
like this. This is not me making a statement of
that's a thing that's happening, but there's nothing preventing from

(02:44:10):
hacking these companies and getting yeah, like like I sometimes
like when whenever I get these data sets, and it's
always hard to work with data sets that include like
non consent essentially collect the data of people, right, Yes,
but like I do always like do some due diligence checks,
like mostly trying to find if the government is using
a specific app. Sometimes yes, there's always like the odd

(02:44:31):
correction law of facility officer who has signed up for
one or two of these apps or like education people
and whatever. But then I also only search through the
text message just for just some code words and the
amount of people moving drugs have stockerware on their phones.
It's you know, yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:44:51):
And it's it's one of those things where there are laws,
Like technically, if I if my understanding of the laws
around this are correct, it is illegal for an organization
like the FBI to utilize these apps.

Speaker 6 (02:45:03):
But yes, but we have an organized and called the
NSA who.

Speaker 1 (02:45:09):
And it is it is on paper illegal for them
to do this with a third party app. But one
thing that often gets done, particularly by the FBI, but
but you know, not just by them, is it's not
illegal for law enforcement agencies to contract with private agencies.
And if those agencies you don't you just don't check
in on what they're doing, you know, what they're using.

Speaker 6 (02:45:32):
But like, yeah, or like if an inform or like
if an informant like sends you to state that, like
you're not going to say.

Speaker 2 (02:45:38):
No exactly exactly.

Speaker 6 (02:45:40):
And also you don't really need to disclose that because
it's information from an informant. You do not need to
disclose an informant in court ever.

Speaker 2 (02:45:47):
So yeah, it's.

Speaker 1 (02:45:49):
It's it's very there are there are ways around you know,
the laws that we put up, not that we shouldn't
continue to extend those laws, but you shouldn't like just
because well they're not allowed to use this doesn't mean
they can't get access to the info.

Speaker 2 (02:46:02):
Yeah yeah.

Speaker 6 (02:46:03):
And also there's all this important thing like there's more
like also globally, like there's other governments that can just
be using this. Like for one of the apps I.

Speaker 1 (02:46:10):
Got, the government, the Russian government doesn't give a ship.

Speaker 6 (02:46:14):
That was also like another thing where I's like for
one of the apps I got data for. There was
some indication that at some point the Colombian National Police
did a bigger evaluation of using commercials spyware for their use.
Because you're in the country with not that big of
a like police budget in comparison, you cannot afford like
all the coolest Raeli tools everyone else has. So what

(02:46:36):
do you do? You just look for random apps you
can find, you know, yeah, you find the Walmart, the Kirkland,
the wish to conversion, I guess.

Speaker 1 (02:46:45):
Yeah, yeah yeah yeah Ali baba spyware, right, yeah.

Speaker 6 (02:46:49):
I don't think most of them moved forward with this
because these apps fucking suck, Like they're bad, Like that's
that's the other thing, Like they don't even really do
their jump. Well, they're bad, and you don't know who
is behind them. You cannot even go up to someone
and be like, yo, don't do this. You also kind
of go to the cops and be like, this company
is scamming me, because yeah, I assume some people have

(02:47:10):
probably done that before, but it does involve admitting to
a crime. So yeah, it's like, yeah, these companies just
get away with not giving a shit about their product
because like.

Speaker 1 (02:47:21):
Yeah, yeah, well I think that's that's all we had.
Thank you Maya for both the work you're doing and
for talking to us. Yeah always, is there anything you
wanted to plug before we roll out here?

Speaker 6 (02:47:34):
Just just my blog I think where we're like, I
do this journalistic work and also more, there's about to
be another cool investigative piece out soon which tincantually involves
more tracking and whatever and also involves like Hollywood and more.
It's it's it's it's a crazy big story. I promise
that will be out like hopefully in a month or so.

(02:47:54):
But yeah, my blog at Maya dot CRIMEU dot gay crime,
you as in crime w yeah and kay yes and
gay yeah yeah. Just check out my blog At the
bottom of the blog, there's all my links to my
social media for anyone who's like listening to this and
has been wondering where I am. I am back on
Twitter as well.

Speaker 1 (02:48:14):
Yeah for now, for now, that's for all of us
these days.

Speaker 2 (02:48:19):
That's always like now this point.

Speaker 6 (02:48:22):
But yeah, I am back on twether. I'm posting there
sometimes yeah m hmm.

Speaker 1 (02:48:28):
All right, well, thank you and thank you all for listening.
We will be back tomorrow, unless this comes out on
a Friday, in which case we'll be back at some
other point but soon.

Speaker 2 (02:48:59):
Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh.

Speaker 21 (02:49:05):
If Robert can do his atonal shreaks, then I can
sing off key yo, I'm back. Help me all up
in your feed. Wat these raps get all up in
your feed. That's a wu tang reference again to the
Black delegation. Shout out y'all showing up on the in
the subreddit. You feel me, Black folks showing up and
showing out. I appreciate y'all.

Speaker 20 (02:49:26):
I was wrong. It's more than five of us. I
shout out to you, man.

Speaker 2 (02:49:29):
I love y'all.

Speaker 21 (02:49:30):
Thanks for showing up, and shout out all the Latinos
who tapped into and le puez.

Speaker 20 (02:49:34):
Hey, gontodo me hint ben at guy When.

Speaker 21 (02:49:38):
Valilo listen, we gotta really invite our Latino brothers and sisters,
our Theos and diaz and also our Asian black people,
the penoise and pen eyes, our athes and Quias. You're
all a part of our delegation here, all of our usos.
We love y'all, the whole diaspora of people who seizing
their chicken and wash their legs. I love y'all, and

(02:50:00):
to this whole delegation. Once we add it all together,
it is about twenty of us to you. I say,
y'all want something from the gas station. I got you
so today. I don't want to ruin your breakfast. I
don't want to ruin your coffee. I'm just gonna ruin
your music. This is about the death of the music festival.

(02:50:22):
It already happened here all right now, y'all know I'll
be playing. I'm playing about all this like I'm only
talking to the melanated folks.

Speaker 2 (02:50:31):
Y'all.

Speaker 20 (02:50:31):
Y'all know I'm playing right.

Speaker 21 (02:50:33):
I mean, this is why I while I slowly wink
at brown folk, I'm just playing, y'all. I'm sorry, I'm
messing around. It's called opening. You know, you guys got
a great sit to you right here, all right, let's
get to it. Festivals, like, am I right? You know,
if you're anywhere within a five to ten mile radius
of my age, I mean, festivals is like these are

(02:50:55):
like a write of passage. You know, I am not
only a goer but a festival performer and as an artist,
it was like festivals were kind of in a lot
of ways how I marked the years. There were people
that I really only saw like once a year when
I was at that festival, whether it was other acts,
other bands, or even a lot of times the volunteers

(02:51:16):
or the people that like put the event together, like
you believe it or not, you kind of make friends,
you know. And he's again these people, You're like, dang,
I can't believe it was a whole year, you know.
And it was a good way to make sure as
an artist that you were making new music and had
something new to perform. Oh and make sure you had
some new merch because you know, if you played your
cards right, if you've listened to my show, I've talked
a lot about, like, you know, the science of festivals

(02:51:39):
and as a performer of like this could either be
a complete waste of time and money, if you're on
at like the main stage at like twelve noon when
it's like a trillion degrees outside, you know, but if
you can get that right as the sun set, like
if you're not the headliner, if you could get that
right at sunset, right where the sun just breaks the
horizon line coming down on that golden hour set. The

(02:52:02):
crowd isn't shitfaced yet, you know, they're at the top
of their MOLLI you feel you're riding the high. It
is just settled in or whatever drugs that these people
are on. They've kind of just settled in right there.
They're relaxed, they're willing to sing along. Nobody's getting trample jet.

(02:52:23):
It's not like the frenzy that kind of happens at
the headliner situation, where like somebody might die. Shout out
astro world. I say that not as a joke. I'm
saying things can go wrong, but oh the experience. Man, Like,
I don't know how old you are, and obviously you
can't answer me. Do you remember the last like big
festival you went to, you know, back when your knees

(02:52:43):
were good and it was okay for you to stand
for twelve hours and there's somebody, you know, having sexual
intercourse in the porter potty. You know, you're stepping over
barf right, and you just paid thirty dollars for a
bottle of water, you know that you could stuff into
your clear backpack because you weren't allowed to.

Speaker 20 (02:52:59):
Bring anything else in there.

Speaker 21 (02:53:01):
But man, that's probably a euphoria, especially if it's a
group or a band that you really like that you
saved up all year to go see. You know, some
people were like festival operas, like that's their thing. They
spend their summer going to music festivals. Since twenty twelve
up to twenty fourteen, like the music fest has been guys,
we've kind of been on borrow time. We've we lived

(02:53:22):
through a music festival renaissance. According to NPR, since twenty thirteen,
everything sold out, the four mega giants, right, so, Coachello, Bataru,
Lolla Palooza in Chicago, Austin City Limits Music Festival in Texas.

Speaker 2 (02:53:37):
It was like this never.

Speaker 21 (02:53:40):
Ending flow of amazing, amazing events, and you know what,
they were kind of affordable. In the next five years,
you had things taken forth like Pitchfork in Chicago, Hangout
Music Festival on the Beach, and the Gulf Shores, Outside Lands,
Bali Music Mount o Asis Electronic Music.

Speaker 2 (02:53:59):
Festival, Forecastle Festival.

Speaker 21 (02:54:01):
Right, and I'm even gonna add in this before all
this for hip hop stuff.

Speaker 2 (02:54:06):
Dude, we had rock the bells.

Speaker 21 (02:54:08):
Like we lived in a time where you could see
all of your favorite artists in the most epic locations.
You'd see people who if you were to try to
buy their tour ticket, it would cost the same amount
if they were headlining the thing. But you could see
all your favorite acts. Part of this was because we
listened to radio, you were exposed to more things. And

(02:54:32):
it was probably the fun part about a lot of
times about music festivals because you probably saw that act,
your favorite band, your favorite rapper, you saw them at
a Hole in the Wall five years ago, which was
like ten bucks to get in, and you might have
snuck in or got on the list because you knew
somebody that knew the DJ. And now you're like, I
followed this crew from when they were like playing a

(02:54:54):
hole in the wall with ten people, where there was
more staff at the bar than on this and now
you're like, dude, you feel like you were a part
of their evolution, Like you saw Chance at the subterranean.
Now he's headline at Bonnarou. What a feeling. You're part
of the story. Well, that's probably a relic of the past,
and let's talk about it. So festivals for most of

(02:55:16):
the last decade have been everywhere, like, whatever type of
music you like, whatever subgenre, whatever part of the world
you want to go to, there's a music festival that
you can show up at.

Speaker 2 (02:55:27):
Now.

Speaker 21 (02:55:28):
In twenty twenty four, more than half of them across
the world were canceled. I lost count on this page.
I'm about to read to y'all from musicfestival wizard dot com.
Festival's canceled so far in twenty twenty four. Okay, you're
ready for this. Shindig twenty twenty four, Melt twenty twenty four,
Sideways Festival, Nostock, Field Maneuvers, Tower z The Quintinine, Big Slap,

(02:55:51):
Electric Zoo, Peach twenty twenty four. All the Music Festival
Life Is Beautiful Festival, Country Thunder Florida, Swanee Roots Festival,
edc China, Lucidity Festival in Santa Barbara, Desert Days in
Lake Paris, Pinefest in the UK, Good Vibes Festival in
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Siattra Nevada World Music Festival in Booneville,

(02:56:14):
El Dorado Music Festival in the UK, Sudden Little Thrills
in Pittsburgh, Big Ridge Rock Fest in Virginia, Lollapalooza, Paris
Music Midtown Atlanta, Lovers and Friends Fest in Las Vegas,
which I was really sad about. Riverside Festival, Glasgow in
Where Glasgow, Soul Bloom Sacramento tw Classic twenty twenty four

(02:56:35):
in Belgium, Kaylamijas in kay Lamijas, Spain, Caldoora Music Festival
in Queensland, Made an America Festival Philadelphia, Oblivion Access Austin, Texas,
Meadows in the Mountains twenty twenty four in Bulgaria, Imagine
Festival in Rome, Georgia. Splendor on the Grass in Byron Boy, Australia.
Body and Soul Festival in Ireland, Moon Rose Festival. I'm

(02:56:59):
tired of I'm not even done yet, I'm not even
halfway through this thing. Festivals died in twenty twenty four.
Digital News reports that sixty festivals in.

Speaker 2 (02:57:09):
The UK alone canceled.

Speaker 21 (02:57:11):
Ashley King wrote this article on August twenty third, twenty
twenty four for Digital Music News, and in that she
says the United Kingdom has lost one hundred and ninety
two music festivals since twenty nineteen, according to the Association
of Independent Festivals the AIF, which is a not for
profit trade festival association that represents the interest of over

(02:57:32):
two hundred independent UK music festivals that range from five
hundred to eighty thousand people. The AIF estimates that the
UK lost ninety six events during the COVID pandemic, thirty
six festivals and in twenty twenty three, more than sixty
to date in twenty twenty four. That brings the total
number of festival closures either due to cancelation or postponement

(02:57:55):
up to one hundred and ninety two since twenty nineteen,
one hundred in ninety two festivals. Some may argue that, well, damn,
you shouldn't have had that many festivals, Coachella, Lollapalooza, and
of course the infamous Burning Man with the most on
brand people that go that call themselves Burners. Now, I

(02:58:17):
don't want to sit here and make fun of you burners,
because I'm pretty sure a lot of y'all listen to
this show.

Speaker 20 (02:58:22):
Number one and number two.

Speaker 21 (02:58:24):
I don't know if there's anybody more free, anybody more
comfortable in their own skin. Listen, this might sound like
a joke, Okay, I'm dead serious. It's like the white
guy with dreadlocks. I mean, white people with dreads are
just most of the time. Okay, Like this may sound
like a joke, I'm deadly serious. They be so okay

(02:58:47):
with themselves and will do whatever they got to do
to continue to stay present and be cool with themselves.
No notes, it's the guy doing hypostatic breath work, freestyling
for way too long and the digital do section. You
know what I'm saying, Like he's super okay with himself anyway.
Burning Man, for the first time since twenty and eleven

(02:59:09):
did not sell out for the first time, And the
tickets are usually released in tears and some go on
sale in the beginning of the year, and then this
part I'm getting from the Guardian, but the main starting
in April right, which typically gets snapped up in minutes,
like Burning Man sells out in minutes. Seventy three thousand
people are able to attend Burning Man, but this first

(02:59:32):
time since twenty eleven, they did not sell out. Coachella,
saying they saw a fifteen percent decline in tickets. It's
the biggest festival in North America. Coachella is fifteen percent
ticket decline. Festivals were a way for you to discover
new music, to meet new friends.

Speaker 20 (02:59:49):
It's like camp for like your twenties.

Speaker 21 (02:59:51):
You know, you get to wear your dumb ass outfits, right,
You get to stand out in the sun, You get
to drink, you get to day drink, and you get
just lose your mind for a little bit.

Speaker 2 (03:00:02):
This might be the end, the endling.

Speaker 21 (03:00:05):
You may have attended your last music festival as we
know it. So the question is why who killed the
music festival? Why is the festival not festiving? Why is
it not festive? Why can't y'all sell no tickets? Do
we not like music anymore? Do you like music still?
I thought I still like Do you like music still?

(03:00:26):
What the hell happened in y'all?

Speaker 2 (03:00:28):
Oh oh oh oh oh oh.

Speaker 21 (03:00:42):
Weird back back back back yack back uh uh. To
understand the future as to what the hell happened, we
have to ask ourselves how we.

Speaker 20 (03:00:55):
Even got here such a nerd?

Speaker 1 (03:00:57):
I am.

Speaker 21 (03:00:59):
I don't think I need to tell you what a
music festival is because I mean, I think you know
what it is. It's an incredibly overpriced concert that features
maybe four groups that you like. Where you are going
to stand outdoors somewhere brave the weather day, drink and
then get to lose your mind for the last like

(03:01:19):
three hours and just really enjoy, you know, a moment
that you'll really never forget. Depending on how nasty and
ratchet you are, how outside you are, you might look up.

Speaker 20 (03:01:29):
You know what I'm saying. I don't look.

Speaker 21 (03:01:31):
It's none of my business. I suggest you don't. That's
just me being an old head. But either way, man,
they're a great time. But please understand that festivals. Music
festivals go like back to get this five eighty two
b C. At least according to white people's history, because
you know, silly you, nothing happened anywhere else except for Europe.

(03:01:54):
There was no music festivals in Africa, Central South America, Asia,
no nowhere els

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