It Could Happen Here Weekly 51

All of this week's episodes of It Could Happen Here put together in one large file.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, everybody, Robert Evans here, and I wanted to let
you know this is a compiletion 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 gonna be nothing new here for you, But you
can make your own decisions. Oh boy, it's nine eleven,

(00:29):
but a day after it's you will be listening to
this on nine twelve, after you have um finished whatever
it is that you do on nine eleven either either
be sad or uh tell jokes or nothing at all. Um,
it's all fine. There's no wrong thing to do when
you're thinking about a day where a really fucked up

(00:50):
thing happened. But that's actually untrue. There is one wrong
thing to do, and we're going to talk about the
wrong thing today because most people, I think, I think
back to the day after nine eleven as oh, everybody
was like out of their minds with like grief and
fear and saying some really fucked up shit and generating

(01:11):
a kind of fury that acted as propulsion and justification
for a lot of very very bad things. Um. And
it's not in general a time that we should look
back on with particular pride or or certainly what's the
word I'm looking for here? Um, nostalgia? Everyone that is,
except for Glenn Beck. Um. Now, James, we've got James

(01:34):
do out here. Chris, Hey, Chris, what do you what
do y'all know about Glenn Beck? Because James, you are
This is controversial to say, but I think we should
rip a vand aid off British. Um. And Chris, you're
very young, so I'm wondering how much do you know
about Mr? Beck? He was like the my memory of him,

(01:55):
he was kind of like the well, I don't know,
or is not quite the right word, but he was
like he was like like the guy in sort of
like right wing ship head like punditry for a while.
My memory of him, he was like he was like
a slightly more put together Alex Jones, Like he had
like the weird pinboards and ship and like it is

(02:18):
this the right guy? Yeah, he's Alex Jones with a
budget in terms of kind of the space he fills. Um, James,
did you know, did you catch much of him. No,
So my engagement with Glenn Beck is mostly through like
teaching American history classes and trying to explain like the
explosion in lies and bullshit and hate that immediately follows

(02:40):
nine eleven. Yeah, and so no, they've never really heard
his stuff. Yeah, Glenn Beck, he's he's doing radio, ship
and stuff before nine eleven. By the time he actually
comes on the scene, it's a few years after nine
eleven and he gets a show on Fox News. Um
and Glenn Is. You know, I watched him every night.

(03:01):
My parents always watched him. My dad considered him to
be like a really good historian um, which is bleak
um a lot, but he was. He was He was
a unique sounding figure. So when Glenn Beck comes onto
the stage, right, the biggest dude in right wing media
is still Rush Limbaugh. But rush Is has kind of
taken a back seat in the last couple of years,

(03:23):
especially right after nine eleven. Two guys like um, Sean
Hannity and Bill O'Riley, you know, and those are kind
they are kind of like they are powerhouses in right
wing media. And then you've got well those guys are
on TV. You've got this cast of people who are
like bargain Basement Discount Rush Limbaughs on the radio that
are all kind of waiting in the wings for their

(03:44):
chance to be the next big TV hero. UM. And
those guys include people like UM, UM, like Glenn Beck,
and also folks like Michael Savage. UM. There's a couple
of a lot of maniacs that you probably have not
heard of that we don't need to dredge up. But
Glenn Beck kind of sales out of the fever swamps
of the right wing media UM and gets a fucking

(04:05):
TV show on Fox News, and in very short order
he is the biggest fucking thing on the network. Fox
News is the most popular network in the country, and
Glenn Beck is their number one host. In two thousand nine,
he's pulling in something like three million viewers a night.
And yeah, he's he's he's very very influential. UM. And

(04:27):
this is the point in time and two thousand nine,
by the way, the other thing that's happened that's big
in right wing media circles is Barack Obama has been
elected president. Now, yeah, you've got Birtherism happening, But in general,
I think one good way to think about it is
that nine eleven super charges the right, but in a

(04:48):
very like populist way in a because there's this expectation,
like we talked about in the last episode, this expectation
that people are coming back to God because there's been
a big disaster, We're going to war, and war all
ways benefits you know, the conservatives in the in the
you know, the party, like we're gonna win this war
and that's gonna be huge for US. Um. And you
also have like just this this sense because Bush becomes

(05:10):
the most popular president anyone can remember having that the
type of history is with conservatism, you know, in the
immediate wake of nine eleven, and then that all goes
to ship because conservatives have terrible ideas for everything. Um
and they launched two disastrous wars, and by two thousand
and nine there's not a lot of people who are
gonna like admit in public, No, I think we both
those wars were good ideas that were handled well right.

(05:33):
Even the people who were who were real bullish about
that stuff are like, well, you know, they didn't do
this right or that right, or it's impossible to win
in that part of the world. And you know, it
was that's the I heard different versions of that from
from different family members and stuff. But there's this this
real sense of aggrievement and in the wake of Bush,

(05:54):
like it's it's kind of taken for granted because about
how disastrous his his presidency had been. At um he
was not. You know, it's not going to be a
Republican who won that election. Um. But the fact that
it is Barack Obama, a black guy, they lose their
goddamn minds. I think they've been ready for I think
even they would have been fine with Hillary Clinton. Obviously

(06:15):
they would have liked gone nuts on her like they
did on Bill, but like I think they would have,
I don't think that would have caused them to go
crazy the way that Obama did. Um. It is it
is not wrong to compare the impact to nine eleven
in a lot of ways, because it's this massive shock
that shakes the center of their world that they view
as an attack, as an assault on like white middle

(06:37):
class Americans, and the shock waves of that. I mean,
we're still dealing with them. But one of the things
that's that's happening here is that after nine eleven they
had this sense that history is with us, momentum is
with us. And after Obama gets elected, you see the
conservative movement get much more insular and much more conspiratorial

(06:58):
and much more focused on like grievance and anger and
revenge um because they know they're nothing's going to bring
back the people. So there's there's kind of nothing but
but vengeance um. And Beck is the guy who's going
to tap most effectively into this feeling, this feeling of
fear and this need to feel like you're like you

(07:20):
were right after nine eleven when it felt like everything
was surging forward in the rights direction. And so in
two thousand nine he launches what he calls the We
Surround Them campaign. Now, the we in this I think
is supposed to be conservatives and them is the government.
But I think you can assume other you know, if
you think about the urban rural divide in this country,

(07:41):
there's another meaning to that sort of thing. Um. Now,
this this is a series of segments and specials on
beck show that grew very popular, so popular, in fact,
that a lot of local right wing organizations start hosting
viewing parties. And this becomes like the earliest stirrings of
the Tea Party movement. Right all of these right wing
radio stations and stuff. These local talk radio stations and

(08:01):
other organizations are holding viewing parties for to watch Glenn
Beck talk about you know, his do his we surround
them act. And I'm gonna play a clip for you
now from one of these viewing parties. We're gonna play
a couple of clips. This is from one filmed by
a talk radio station in Fort Wayne, Georgia. Um and
uh yeah, it's it's it's something else, all right, So

(08:24):
I want to um, I want to play this for you.
I think it's a fascinating artifact. And how the radio
host chooses to introduce the event is noteworthy, as is
the man's appearance with six hundred six freaks watching Glenn
Beck on Fox News for nine project it's amazing. So well,
it's interesting to me. I think it's it's kind of

(08:47):
worth going over a couple of things there because that's
that doesn't seem like a lot. But the fact that
he he describes the guy the people in there is
sick freaks and and and then like we're sick freaks,
but like kind of taking pride, and that that's what
he assumes Brules would call them for watching Glenn Beck.
You can see a shade in this of a lot
of liberals because they're dumb. We're taken by surprise when
like Hillary Clinton called Trump supporters a basket of the plurables,

(09:10):
and they immediately adopted that name for themselves. Now you
see the stirrings of it here right like this is
this is what the movements turned into. Um, you're taking
pride in the fact that you're outnumbered and and despised.
Also the project I'm intrigued. Oh yes, that's that is
that is coming. We're we're building to that. Um. So anyway,

(09:32):
we get some rock and guitar licks, just just some
some of the best preloaded writes, free guitar music I've
ever heard. And then we pan into this very full
conference room. There's like six people in this thing and
they are, as far as I can tell, all white. Um,
it is certain that the only people they talk to
when they do like because you know, the camera goes
around to get people's statements on the event, the only

(09:55):
people who are featured on camera are white, like a
hundred percent of them. And I'm gonna play a clip
from that now, good by, and I'm glad you're doing this.
I'd like to get our constitution back. I love you,
You're doing it. We're all behind you. Thank you. Land.
We are Jackie and Bill Better. We're from Angle, Indiana

(10:16):
and we would like to thank you that you are
helping us, we the people, to take back our America.
Thanks you're the man, Glan. What you're doing is great
for America. You're and encouragement that all of us were
fed up with the federal government. Now they were like,
it's impossible. I know video I have not seen since

(10:40):
I was James. James might die. Yeah, there are a
couple of extinct kinds of white guy in that video.
The very last of them died to COVID when they
cut a hole in the middle of their mask and
went to a Luby's. It's missed. Now here's the thing

(11:04):
I want to acknowledge something that is impossible to deny,
which is that the fact that we are laughing at
them in this way is part of why they got
so angry and put Trump in office right, part of
why liberal tears is a thing, part of why there's
so much focus on this desire of hurting the enemy. Um.
But also they just all look like impossibly American, like

(11:27):
like these people I used to see in Barcelona. From
a hundred yards away, people would be like, how do
you know in American? And like my friends would be like,
first of all, you've come dressed as a fucking tree
yourself and this book these are some of the people
who raised me. Are are not? You know, I grew

(11:50):
up around these people. I grew up with these people.
I am. I am of these people. Um, I think
I wear better shirts. But but but it is like
you you see in this these people who feel like
and that's kind of the thing they're communicating. Something has
gone wrong with the country. And the thing that's gone
wrong is they are looking out and people don't look

(12:13):
like them, and in fact, people are looking at them
like they look weird, and people are making fun of
their ways and their customs, and this has taken them
by surprise, and they're extremely angry about it and seeing
a black man as president, which is the least anyone
could look like them, right, Barack Obama many flaws two
thousand nine. There was not many cooler looking dudes than

(12:34):
Barack who Obama like and that you have to understand,
like the bar is so low here that like a
reasonably well dressed person is like dropping a nuclear weapon
on like six cavemen. It is. Yeah, yeah, OK. So
the show ends with Beck because they're watching Glenn Beck

(12:55):
on a fucking projector, and it ends with him near tears.
He would cry on his show, consly telling everybody there
that they were all going to meet back together in
six months to find some ways in which they've managed
to to to add some nine twelve energy to their lives.
And we'll get to this more. But the thing he's
saying is that the day after nine eleven, we were
the best version of ourselves as a country. Everyone was

(13:15):
so godly and so loving and so united. And that's
the thing that we need to get to deal with
the horror of Barack Obama being the president um and
obviously the other thing happening. I shouldn't. I don't want
to be unfair here. It's not just that they're scared
about Barack Obama. This is two thousand nine. The economy
has just completely shadow fucking brick. The housing market is
through the goddamn floor. Some actually scary things are happening too.

(13:37):
It's just that they're kind of grafting all of them
onto the specter that is Obama. You know. Um anyway,
Uh yeah, So after this we pan out to widespread
applause in this very full room, and then we cut
two interviews. This time. I know everyone's gonna be really excited.
Here there's a baby. It's pretty cute. It's pretty it's

(13:58):
a pretty cute baby of the youngest Glenn Beck fans.
Look at that child has my reaction to this, it's
so funny. It's so funny. Look at this. Let's get
this baby's statement. Just shine it blinded with a light
until it weeps. Yeah, that's the good stuff. Okay, so

(14:23):
this this video has paused on a freeze frame of
a guy in a suit that when they talked to
this guy they call him the best dress. I'll just
play it, I will I will just play I wasn't
planning to play this, but I will play it. Sorry,
the best dress. Uh, guy here, did we have a
good time today? Why did you think of the presudation?

(14:45):
I thought it was nice and it's nice to get
together with great turnout. I know that so many people
still care, know that guy. Okay, that that that exact
kind of person was like the political class of like
the town I grew up in, Like these are the
people who were like like this is the guy? Yeah, yeah,
like the thing the things they get up to were

(15:06):
like like there was a guy who was taking money
from the sheriff's department to try to abolish the police
so that he could install the Sheriff's department as the
only law enforcement like division in this town. While he
tried to sell like, oh god, that that is a
kind of person night like he has he has some strong,
strong Republican city comptroller energy from for like a town,

(15:26):
for like a town of thirteen thousand people. Yeah, he's
dressed much like Ricky Gervais dressed in the original Office.
Yeah dump piece mean he is literally the guy Ricky
Gervais is making fun of. Yes, yeah he is. So.
Beck paired his message of government accountability, as he framed
it with and this is what we're talking about the
nine twelve project, which follows. We surround them with nine

(15:48):
principles and twelve values, which, if followed, would help bring
your heart back to the mythical nine twelve. This moment
in which America was was beautiful. This this we've gone
from the fifties, like there's this, there's this twenty twenty
year Golden Era to like, we had one great day
and if we could just get back to that, everything
will be fine. Um. So here's here's the nine value

(16:11):
or nine principles. Sorry, it's nine principles and twelve values.
I want you to hold me accountable if I fucked
this up in the future. The nine principles are Number one,
America is good. Number two, I believe in God and
he is the center of my life. Number three, I
must always try to be a more honest person than
I was yesterday. Number four. The family is sacred. My

(16:33):
spouse and I are the ultimate authority, not the government.
And I say this a lot, but in the Roman Empire,
the father of the family used to be able to
execute his wife and children. And you're a fool if
you think that's not what these people want things to
be like. Um. Well, and there's slaves too, that's also invariable,
and the slaves are a critical aspect of this. Yes. Uh.

(16:54):
Number five, if you break the law, you pay the penalty.
Justice is blind and no one is above it. This is,
by the way, confusingly a reference to all the people
who lost their homes in the house and crash. Um,
that's what he's talking about. That they didn't. They didn't.
You know, you can't like bail people out. Um. Number six,
I have a right to life, liberty in the pursuit
of happiness, but there is no guarantee of equal results.

(17:17):
Number seven. I work hard for what I have and
I will share it with who I want to. Government
cannot force me to be charitable. Number eight. It is
not un American for me to disagree with authority or
to share my personal opinion. And number nine, the government
works for me. I do not answer to them. They
answer to me. Now that's fun. There's there's some interesting

(17:37):
things they're including. The government can't force me to be charitable,
you know I will, which like the side of that.
That is something that actually happened on nine twelve is
a bunch of people showed up and volunteered to, like
at great personal cost because many of them got sick
and died, to help pull bodies out of the rubble
and try to save people. Right, And that the government

(17:58):
literally did not need to tell people to do that
because a bunch of cops actually refused to go do
anything at all, And and the like the government, the
government knew about like like that the when when the
government did do something, it was they they put a
bunch of firefighters like inside of the range. It was
the dusk was toxic and then just fucking got them killed,
which and then spent the next we had to have

(18:21):
John fucking Stewart fight for them to get some kind
of recompense from the federal government, which credit where it's
due is a legitimately cool thing that he helped do.
But like, why did it fall upon the Daily Show
guy to share that the guy who's doing transphobic bits
at the same time. Yeah, yeah, Like it's kind of
didn't Ted Cruz vote against healthcare benefits for these people? Yeah? Absolutely,

(18:45):
Which again it's very funny that like the government can't
force me to to to be charitable. It's like, well,
what that actually ends with is people actually volunteering and
risking their lives and then the government, the conservatives in
the government callous lea voting to let them die in
agony because like, well, why should I have to pay? Oh,
you do was rescue people during our country's darkst hour?

(19:07):
Why should I have to pay? Like it's this, it's amazing. Shit. Um,
now that I'm sure you're curious about those twelve values,
they're really boring, Like it's boy, It's like boy scout ship.
It's like honesty, reverence, thrift, courage, Like it's not worth
focusing on the thing this entire time think I've been
thinking about. This is the exact naming scheme that like,

(19:27):
like if you just walked up to someone on the
street and like asked it, what what what are what
are the nine principles and twelve values? Like this? This
sounds exactly like like that. This sounds exactly like what
like a like a a a mid level like a
mid level Chinese bureaucrat would name their campaign to like
make sure the water restoration is done properly. Like it

(19:51):
is the exact naming scheme of like like campaign style
stuff and like fucking like post post vours China, I
mean well ended. And Beck is Yeah, there's a lot
to say about that and about Glenn Beck. But um,
you know, so I got that list of twelve principles
from Glenn Beck dot com. What I find interesting is

(20:11):
that the principles as are up on his website right now,
because this is a thing he still gets into every
now and again. Are somewhat different from the ones that
he debuted on the episode of his show in which
he introduced the nine twelve Project. And I found the
way he worded point eight point eight is it's not
un American for me to disagree with authority or to
share my personal opinion. I found the way he actually
worded that in the show very interesting, And I want

(20:34):
to play that for you now because it's it's quite
a bit different. Do you agree with this. It's not
Unamerican for anyone to disagree with my opinion, but my
opinion or others opinions maybe anti American. Anti American rhetoric
would be anything that's destructive to the Constitution and our
country as the Founders understood it, unless you want to
change that. There it is, Yeah, there we go, There

(20:58):
we go. That's the real good grievance. Yeah, yeah, I respect.
You're right to say anything unless you're disrespecting the Founders,
of course, which which case, Yeah, like swat teams will
convince immediately, etcetera, etcetera. We were we are reading the
wrench Moobs. Now. After introducing those principles, he asks his
audience to mail him personal photographs so he can put

(21:20):
them together into a big we surround them graphic, which
you can find if you really want to. Um, it's yeah,
it's if you want to get an idea of like
the people who are listening to Glenn Beck, that will
give it to you. Now here's what happens. Immediately after
he gives the email address for people to send this
to calm all right, the climate change people are pulling

(21:42):
a page from nazis what are your kids learning at school?
Perfect moment in American television. Yeah, it's it's it's it's
really incredible, right, it's. It's also it's also thing like
you couldn't do this any word, not because you not

(22:03):
not not actually because you can't say that about climate change,
but because if you tried to say that about the
Hitler youth people will get mad at you. Oh yeah no, yeah,
you'll get in trouble. Oh yeah yeah, I hate the
youth defenders will be a day with very very pro environment.
I can hear Tucker Carlsson saying that, Yeah, it's it's
I just want to share with everyone that manned by

(22:23):
Number five by Bob the Builder hit the UK number
one spot on September twelve, two thousand and one. You
know what, you know what James never forget. And the
Queen was still alive, then she must have loved Mambo
number five. I bet there was a little bit of
Monica by her side, a little bit above the builder

(22:45):
in the queen, A little bit of Rita's all she needed,
um get it died very sad. So the nine twelve project,
as it kind of grew out of the weas around
Them campaign, if you kind of I don't know. I
found it written online. I can't exactly confirm this, but
it seems like it kind of started um when Beck

(23:05):
took a call on his talk radio show. And this
is a little bit of a couple of years earlier
from a guy named Ed in New Haven, Connecticut who
expressed feeling out numbered as a conservative on the American
political stage right. And that's that's really like what the
all of this kind of grew out of. It's this
response to the feeling like out numbered. Um. And I

(23:25):
think that's an important thing to understand if you're trying
to get to like the thing that the thing that
they want to go back to when they talk about
wanting to go back to nine isn't anything to do
with the actual terrorist attack. It's the fact that everyone
was so frightened that they unthinking Lee, uh, that they
unthinking Lee submitted to the right wing that was in
power at the time, right, Like like that it was.

(23:47):
That's what nine twelve is to them. Yeah, like it
it was. It was the last time conservatives were able
to like effectively cancel like mask cold, like they like
the only time cancel sulture has ever been real was
like the Dixie Chicks and could just do that like
if if you if you didn't start all of your concerts,
like if it's like my Miley Cyrus didn't go on
stage and like say something about the troops at the

(24:09):
beginning of a concert, like they would just destroy you
and you would never be heard from again. Yeah, it was.
It was literally, like legitimately scary to not be unthinkingly
pro America and like wildly so. And and that's what
they want to get back to, right, is that the
fear of actually questioning conservative hegemony. Um So, I want

(24:32):
to play a clip from the episode in which Glenn
Beck first introduces his nine twelve project to his audience
of millions on March fifteen, two thousand nine. Here's how
Here's how this introduction goes. Hello America, they're waiting. I'm
backstage right now at Fox. I'm getting ready to show

(24:54):
you that you are not alone. This Uh, this is
your country. You're still in control. But it seems today
like nobody gets it. Now that is a fascinatingly blatant
statement of white conservative supremacy. Right you, you're in charge,
but nobody gets it. They don't understand that you're supposed
to be running things right. Um, It's it's incredible how

(25:16):
blatant it is. But it also like you do have
to understand he's speaking to this real frustration. This is
like where we get Trump is these millions of people
are like, why don't they understand that we're supposed to
be in charge? Um, there's there's an incredibly I don't
know if you're going to get to this like later
there's the next video on the fucking YouTube thing is
from Vices. Glenn Beck is a conservative and exile. After

(25:37):
Trump chat a little bit about that at the end,
I'll do a whole Glenn Beck episode behind the Bastards,
But I really I want to keep digging into this
so I'm gonna I'm gonna press play again here. You know,
you've lived your while life in a responsible way. You
didn't take out a loan that didn't require any kind
of per proof of income, yet now you're being forced

(25:59):
to bail those people out. You've been concerned about this
country through the last administration and this administration. If you're
like most people both administrations, it's not about politics. You
actually believe in something, and you thought for a while
they're your politicians did as well, and now you kind
of realize, well, maybe maybe they don't. When you come
home after a hard day at work, all you want

(26:19):
to do is put your feet up. All you want
to do is just relax and just watch a little
television catch up with what's happening in the world. But
every time you turn that television on, it just seems
like the whole world is spinning out of control. The war,
Islamic extremism, Europe on the bring even pirates now closer

(26:41):
to home. Mexico isn't safe for vacations or kids anymore.
Six thousand were killed or be headed on our border
just last year, and Phoenix now has the second highest
rate of kidnapping in the world. So there's a lot
going on there. But I think the thing that is
most fascinating to me is that like the way he
just me is like cartel violence. It's a problem because

(27:01):
it's not safe for our kids to vacation in Mexico anymore.
Mexico only exists for spring break. That all problems are
at their root about Americans, right, Like that's that's what's
going on here. Well, the other thing that's interesting to
me is like that he throws into like Europe under
siege thing, which was like like one of like the

(27:22):
big like fascist things in like that period, like word
for word, Europe under siege, like fortress Europe Ship. Yeah,
this is when Andy andy No started his like no
ghost zone. Yeah exactly. I think so right around here,
maybe a little bit late, members of my family who
are extremely Caucasian living in some of those dog zones,
like I lived in Europe in this period. It's it's

(27:43):
just so ridiculous. Yeah, and it's it's incoherent, like if
you look at the specifics of everything. Because he's yelling
about the financial crash because he has to be angry
with it because half of his market is terrified and
losing money or has have lost jobs and stuff as
a result of the crash. Um, But you can't. You
can't portray it as a problem of like corporations rapaciously

(28:06):
destroying and hollowing out the middle class. So instead the
problem is that like foreign there's a line in there
about how like foreign corporations are just treating Americans like
a market, which is like, well, how do Americans treat
everything like? Of course they treat them like a market.
It's capitalism. Um, it's not very coherent, But like, what
is coherent is this sense of grievance, right that we
have been we as Americans have been specifically wronged. Um,

(28:30):
we're not and and we as When he says americans,
obviously he's only referring to a specific kind of American. Um.
But yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna press play again here.
The forgotten man is you the voice that no one
seems to hear, just quietly saying, enforce the law, take
responsibility for yourself. You can't have it all. And anybody

(28:52):
who promised you that was a liar. Cren economic downturn,
worst economic crisis, worst month of job loss, Like something
is happening in America. Paradigm's about to change your friends
and neighbors. Republicans, Democrats, Independence, They're all beginning to wake
up and wonder how did this happen to us? M hm.

(29:15):
So yeah, the words September two thousand and one just
hit the screen as soon as he finishes that. But
I mean, what you're seeing in that is like the
stirrings of what becomes Trump is um, you know, it's
it's very m h. And there's just like photos of
white people up on the left and right. Yeah, like
one of the most hideous like two columns I've ever

(29:38):
seen in a video. It's one and a half of
each king. Yeah, yeah, it's not done well. Their graphic
design was science had just simply had simply not advanced
to that level yet, like a people to understand this,
there are supposed to be three lines of pictures going
across the screen. The middle cut, Yeah, the middle line

(29:59):
is cut in half. The was half of one person's
face on each side of of of the screen. And
what they're what's being done here, What Beca is doing
here is he's trying to take the anger and like that.
People still felt about nine eleven and turn it kind
of towards in a different direction, right, because what it

(30:20):
actually happened on nine eleven was that a group of
terrorists had attacked the literal center of American capitalism UM
and of the American military industrial complex. Right. Those targets
were picked specifically because of what they were. UM. The
Twin Towers contained one tenth of all office space in Manhattan.
Their largest tenant was Morgan Stanley, which lost over eight

(30:43):
of its market value in the two thousand eight crash.
Worst yet in Beck size, the victims of the attacks
are all New Yorkers. Now, I don't know, if you're
not in the conservative media bubble, you may not get it,
but like New Yorkers, that was like a slur, Like
they literally like a slur to call somebody a New
Yorker values exactly. So Beck can't focus on the actual

(31:04):
victims of nine eleven because they are people that it
is in his best interest to train his audience to
to despise. So instead he focuses on how nine eleven
was basically an act of disrespect against the this forgotten man, right,
who's now kind of surging up like that's what he's
doing here, right, that's what you have to do if
you're Glenn Beck, because again, you can't actually focus on

(31:26):
the real victims of this, which is why it's not
incoherent ideologically for conservatives to talk the way they do
about nine twelve and then vote not to help people
who were first responders and had their fucking lungs filled
with poison. Um. Yeah, it's good stuff. So obviously, because
Beck has to thread this needle, he focuses instead on

(31:46):
how the attack hit American prestige and confidence. I remember
how picture perfect the day was. It wasn't a cloud
in the sky, and America seemed invincible, and yet in
the blink of an eye that airplane appeared to hit
a little bit down the building, around the fifty or
six floor. Again, it's struck flush. The skies were filled

(32:09):
with black clouds, and our hearts were full of terror
and fears absolute disaster. We realized for the first time
how fragile we really were. Then something happened. So now
in September twelve, and the first image we see after
disaster and destruction is a group of firefighters holding a

(32:29):
gigantic American flag with roughly the footprint of a school bus. Right,
And this is this is good, right, this is and
also it's a it's interesting that this is what he
chooses as like the image of America, like rebounding from
this great defeat, as opposed to like, I don't know,
firefighters pulling people out of the rubble and saving their lives.
Like no, they got a big flag and say, you know,
we're gonna be okay. It makes sense though, right, like

(32:53):
like the actual lives are unimportant. The thing that's important
to save is the image of America. It's the slag. Yeah,
this on the region. So yeah, well look yeah about us.
I'm gonna continue here. And we promised ourselves that we
would never forget on September twelfth, and for a short

(33:17):
time after that, we really promised ourselves that we would
focus on the things that were important our family, our friends,
the eternal principles that allowed America to become the world's
beacon of freedom. I can carry you out the arrested,
the wire and people are not the haling down. Well

(33:43):
here all of us now. I want to point out
here the choice of that clip. It's both because that
was a very famous speech that Bush gave that really
made his presidency in or at least the early part
of it. In a lot of ways, you could argue
that a significant amount of the the kind of the
political capital that he expended invading Iraq came from this

(34:06):
particular speech and generally how he handled the days after
the attacks. But it's interesting that they picked this because
it really is it's very much in line with this
this feeling and talking about the forgotten man, talking about
they're not listening to us, they don't know that we're
in trouble. What Bush is saying here is literal words
are um, I hear you, and the people who knocked
these towers down are going to hear you. Right you.

(34:27):
Your your anger will have a reaction in the world.
Right it will be met with fire and fury, right like?
That is that is the promise being made. And it's
this this undercurrent and everything Beck's doing here of the
thing that he is working with, the clay that he
is molding is the fact that these people don't feel
listened to and like and that they deserve to be

(34:49):
listened to, and that the when they're angry at something,
it should be hurt, right like. That's that's the undercurrent.
He's talking about family and togetherness, but like that's what
he's actually promising people. I'm really interested in this, Like,
like I don't this is probably like nine twelve or
wheneveryone he's getting this speech. I think I always come back.

(35:09):
It's weird given where conservatism has gone, right, and like
he's taken this in very much a clash of civilizations direction.
But like Bush was giving that, like Islam is the
fabric of America speeches that week he was speaking in
mosques and two Muslims and being like that, like this
is not a clash of civilizations. Obviously, fucking he even

(35:30):
went and fucking killed millions of Muslims, right, most of
them innocent symbidians who had nothing to do with nearly
all of them, right, But yeah, it's just interesting that
like he's Bush who was giving this like this isn't
a clash of civilizations thing, and it's become a clash
of civilizations thing like eight years later, Yeah, yeah, and
it's become but in a very different way. Right, Because

(35:53):
one of the things that I think is happening here
is the problems that Americans, regular Americans are facing in
two thousand nine, are this massive economic strife caused by
predatory lending, outright fraudulent business practices by major banks, the
fact that the legal system had been changed in order
to allow this massive con to go on, um, and
then it had been followed by this massive chrony capitalist

(36:14):
bailout that ignored regular working people. Glynn doesn't want his
viewers to focus on all of that, right, because those
are his backers, right. But what so instead, what he's
doing is he's taking they feel disrespected and vulnerable because
they have been right now, there's unreasonable aspects to that,
but they have been disrespected by the people who are
stealing like all of the money in the country and

(36:36):
fucking them over too, and leaving their homes hollowed out,
piledicted waste lands. Um. But you can't focus on that.
The cure is, the cure that Beck offers them is
not materially improving anyone's conditions. It's not altering the systems
that people cannot prey upon others that way. It's by
striking someone else. It's by striking back at that sense

(36:58):
of agreevement. Right, it's by this is what's going to
turn into owning the Libs, right, just hurting the left.
Conservatism now is purely about harming groups of people they
view as opposed to them. Um, that's part of why
trans people are so focused on by the right right now,
is that it's the symbol of liberalism to them, and
they want to hurt that symbol. Right. This is this

(37:19):
is the answer Beck is offering, and it's going to
be adopted by the thought leaders of conservatism. We don't
need to focus on doing any Nothing can be done right,
Nothing can be done. The grift is running out, collapses coming.
All that we can do is redirect the anger they
feel it being fucked by us towards hurting other people.
That's that's the magic that Beck is pulling off here.

(37:40):
It's pretty cool. It's interesting too, I hope pretty well.
Like it's interesting to compare this, I think to like
both Reagan and um, like Reagan and Nixon, because this
is very very similar to Nixon talking about like the
silent majority and the stuff. But it's like those people
have an actual political project, like like Reagan, Reagan is

(38:02):
to trying to completely annihilate the welfare state and like,
you know, dude, like they have stuff they're trying to do.
But like post Bush was like, but but Bush was
the time they tried to like do stuff, and it's
like like Bush is so hated by this point that
like like even Glenn Beck at the beginning of this
is being like, well, we had concerns about the last
administration too, and I was like, well, yeah, because he's

(38:24):
like just by by every conceivable metric, just completely like
annihilated the United States. But yeah, it's like it's it's
this interesting thing that like, yeah, it's like like this
is the first time they've talked like this, But the
level of nihilism is just like so much like the
politics has been emptied of content to like such a

(38:44):
greater extent, and I think I think part of it
to also what's happening here is that like there's like
the like the the only thing left like for sort
of like the capitalist who are backing back, like the
only thing left for them that they could possibly win
is getting rid of Social Security and they kind of
like Obama gave him the chance to do it, and
they kind of like blew it. But like they don't

(39:07):
like this is like the ages like they they actually have,
Like they're there's like there's there's tax racils, like there's
not actually anything for them really to do, but they
still have to sort of like maintain this constant vigilance
against anyone even remotely trying to make the world better
by taking away some of their power. And I think
that's like another angle of why all of this is

(39:27):
just sort of like this like incredibly empty nihilism, because
that's like that that's the only politics you can have
to defending group people who have won. Yep. Yeah, well
that's a good note to end on. Um. I hope
you have all enjoyed getting to meet Glenn Beck in
the nine twelve project. I know I've enjoyed it. Uh, goodbye.

(40:05):
So I'm here today with Aria and an Aria. She
lives at the Eden House over there in Kenya and
is the chair of the management board at trans To
Rescue and has over forty years of trans rights activism,
and they're going to explain today a little bit of
what trans Rescue is, what Eden Houses, and the threats

(40:28):
and attacks that they've been facing in the last couple
of days here and so preps and you could explain
what Eden House is. And I think I really liked
in the website where you explain the difference between like
a Heidie hole and a haven. So if you could
get into that, that that would be wonderful. Sure, um uh
Eden House is a uh there's a trans haven in

(40:51):
in Kenya. It's our primary mission is that we helped
trans people escape from dangerous places. That implies that we
help them go somewhere, because of course they have to
have a safe place to go too, which means we
often end up renting an apartment short term or doing

(41:13):
something like that while they get established in their new place.
The problem and of course that that was getting expensive
in Kenya where we can move a lot of people
because some areas of Kenya are quite dangerous, but the
major cities are not quite so dangerous, so we move
people into the major cities. But we were trying to

(41:37):
be efficient and save money and Uh we thought about
making a kind of temporary doss house or a place
with bunk beds to the ceiling and what have it.
But we realized that would still cost his money and
it wouldn't be a very positive experience or affirming ex

(42:00):
variance for the folks living in it. And we realized
for that we could instead do a trans haven that
is a place where a person could come and if
they chose never leave live there the rest of the
life if they want. So when someone comes to Eden

(42:21):
House and expect to receive help to find some income
producing activity, and as time goes on, they will eventually
be expected to contribute to the running of the house.
Our plan is we just started a month ago, but
our plan is by about the end of the year

(42:43):
to have the house no longer be requiring funds from us,
and then we can do it again. Yeah, we have
space freight people. When we get up to eight and
it doesn't look like it's going to bleed as dry,
we can do it again, and we can and in
the end we end up with something that I think
many trans people in any country would love to have,

(43:06):
because that's uh, you know, that's something as long as
I've been around, there have been many discussions of building
such places. Yeah, it's it's a very admirable project. And
I know Gary and I just used to be Tenacious
Unicorn Ranch I've been before, and it's really powerful to
see like how empowering those spaces are and how they

(43:28):
can help people. So I can see that you set
up in Kenya. Was there a reason that you picked Kenya?
It was that it was was a very large trans
community there or something that led you to uh frankly,
in in such places people often have um uh there

(43:49):
is the old queer Uh I know somebody who knows
somebody a lot uh system and people have kind of
webs of trust. And as a result, where we get
people coming from to ask us to move them, it's
very irregular. Uh. There are some countries we never hear from,

(44:12):
and we certainly know there are queer people there. We
know the conditions are bad and would you know, and
we'd be happy to move people, but we don't have
a lot of penetration. And others like Kenya, we're in
the network and people are telling giving each other, are
uh contact info. Um. Also we have some capabilities we

(44:36):
had built up kind of center there, so we decided
to focus on Kenya. Kenya is relatively easy to get
into as far as visas and so on, and so
um it's a place we can send people when they
when we might have trouble getting them into uh say
Europe or the United States. Um, we can with and

(45:01):
so we're perfectly happy to end up with. Lots of
folks would like to make the place attractive enough that
it's also a place that we even have people coming
who aren't particularly in immediate danger. We'd be We're working
from a philosophy of abundance that we want to grow

(45:25):
and we have a rule of we don't want to
make a place that we wouldn't want to live ourselves.
And honestly, Eden House is a nice place. It was
the personal home of of a rather wealthy family. It's
looks nice. Sorry, would you maybe like to describe for
us at your experience at the house, what it's like

(45:47):
and how places like this are important so that people
can understand. Maybe if you could start with how you
became aware of the Eden House and that that this
was an option that was available to you. Okay, So
um I met um um. We got in touch with
Anne ali this uh this year, yes, Alicia around February generally,

(46:11):
if I'm not wrong, so um we if that was
before Eden was formed. So we really had a long
discussion on us moving from where we are. Were at
the coast and things were really really brutal at the
coast side of Kenya, like we were going a lot
of stress, even lost to one of our friends, and
um yeah, it wasn't really good it was really bad.

(46:31):
So yeah, we had a discussion about moving to um
to Eden House and that it was a working progress.
So we took some time working on that. So eventually
it happened and so we came to Eden House and
it's a very beautiful place. I would agree with that. Um. Yeah,

(46:52):
and yeah, and also flew all the way to hear
because we were new here and there were some things
that we needed done. And yeah, we are three of
us currently in Eden House. UM. I got in touch
with Anne and the rest of the team. There was
dooris on board. Actually she's the person who was like

(47:15):
you know, responsible for the Malindi team. And yeah, the
two sisters that I have like okay, they're my sisters
because we've been through a lot of help together. So yeah, um,
we come all away from Malindi. Also we are here
together and so far. Um when we got here, UM,

(47:38):
the place it's very beautiful, but just needed a little
you know here and their decoration and you know, clarifications
and modifying and you know, precusuals were by you know
putting on security lights and the security wires. Yeah, still
some things need to be upgraded, but you know, um,

(48:00):
we still need to resource for a lot so that
we can have something's being done by So far, so good.
Everything is good. I'd interject that we're trying to foster
a spirit of self sufficiency and so we've been Um,

(48:21):
we've got everybody to make the furniture. Yeah, the furniture
in the house has been made by the residents. And
we're starting some various sort of fundraising, you know, our
income activities. We're we've made a chicken coop and we're
in the process of getting chickens, getting chickens and and

(48:45):
uh sewing machine. And one of our residents is a
talented artists. We're going to set her up to have
a place to sell her artwork. Ah, that's the kind
of things we're doing. Thank you. Um all. Yeah, I'm
really curious, kind of on a day to day basis,

(49:05):
what are the things that you and the other people
who are at the Eden House do in order to
like protect yourself, like when you're going about town, when
you're doing errands. Um, is there like a degree of
operational security that you have to keep in mind? Yeah, Actually,
we have a rule whereby we don't go anywhere without

(49:26):
letting each other know, especially if we're going to a
long distance UM. Putting in mind, we are very new
into this area, so we don't know a lot of places.
So currently we are just in the house trying to
get to understand a few things. Actually, we've been doing
um um the repairing we have. We have a chicken

(49:47):
coope at the back. It's kind of a small um
as a small place whereby we needed to fix some things.
So we've been working on that so that we have
the place ready for the chicken when they're ready to
come in and all. So for me, I've been um
going around to see at least allocate some few places
where by, you know, we can feel safe, like the hospitals.

(50:11):
I've been trying to get in touch with people like
around here. I haven't been easy, but at least now
I can say I can go to an hospital that
at least it's kind of familiar with me. Um. Yeah.
We also have a place where we buy what are
these things that the house supplies and all that stuff.

(50:31):
We're really trying as much as possible to like minimize
our moving around from places to places to draw attention.
So we're just trying to go with time and see
how people will accept us existing to these community, So
we don't want to bring any attentions whereby people who
start asking questions like you know, what's happening there? What's

(50:52):
not happening there? Yeah? Yeah, I noticed as well that
the house is to belong to a politician. It's right.
So I have some measures of sort of external physical
security as well, Yeah, which is good. Maybe we can
talk about I know, you can use a big country
and it differs vastly depending on where you are and
who you're with. How is the climate towards trans folks?

(51:16):
I haven't been in Kenya for probably ten fifteen years.
How is the climate towards trans people? Have things? Have
it become like a big topic like a culture war
thing recently or is it sort of can you explain?
But I guess what it's like. You're saying. It seems
like it can be really just to go outside, which
is pretty sad. Yeah, yeah, it is. That is to

(51:38):
go outside, you know, um here and Kenya um in
different sides of kind of like at the coast, okay,
taking example at the coast side from where I come from.
It's um it's really bad for the trans community because
now they're they're very transphobic and homophobic people that like
most of the transphobic and homophobic people come at the
coast side. Because these are people that tend to keep

(52:03):
their culture and religious like you know, more of more
of a key thing in in someone's life, more of
like they use, They use the Quran and the Bible
to Prinsius to crititize the trans people and the gay community.
So being in that area it's very very bad and
very very risky for trans community. Comparing to the other

(52:24):
side of Kenya, I wouldn't say it's not risky, but um,
their level of understanding of the trans community and the
gay community, it's um, it's more of an it's more
of an away that they're kind of confused, not sure
where to understand. But it depends with also the air

(52:45):
that you are you might find you end up. For example,
now we're eating house is like for the few for
the man that we've been here. The feedback that I
can say I have from the community around here is
there like more of people that are come and more
of people who are you are more of used to

(53:06):
their own personal things. They don't like, you know, put
their nose into the to the things that they're not
involved with, if you get what I mean. Um, in
other towns having new people, people who like you want
to know why they're there and don't you know all
that stuff. But in this town that we have, we
are in eating house. It's it's kind of safe in

(53:26):
a way that people are not putting their nose in
into us, like more of wanting to know about us
rather than they're welcoming us. Moreover, you know, the landlord
is kind of friendly. I would say that, Um, the
cubander cubander, it's more of a small grocery shops. So
the cubanders around here, the small grocers the show are

(53:48):
the people who are selling the you know, the groceries
and other stuff. They're friendly. I haven't, Um, I haven't
in carred or you know, engaged or seeing any trans
abic or homophobic reaction towards demand that I've been here.
Most of the people here are much of welcoming. Like
I would say that. End up. Yeah, it's really different

(54:09):
from where I come from. Trust me, from the town
that I come from, you can't walk with makeup or
with anything that makes you look galish or anything that
makes you look resemble to the transgender or maybe gay
or something. It will be a bad thing for you
in the day. Yeah, a little bit of the geography
of Kenya. Remember that U on Kenus coast up in

(54:33):
the north uh is the border with Somalia and um,
so the culture naturally mixes over the border. And um
this is also an area where lots of folks are
coming over because of the political instability and Somalia, and
it's an area of al shabab uh terrorist activity. So

(54:59):
so makes particularly the north part of the coast rather
dangerous plighte Yeah, just if people are interested, I know,
like the State Department sort of has it do not
travel like north of Lama pretty much, so like people
can sit on the map, but yeah, there are certain
areas where risk would be higher. And fortunately talking of that,

(55:22):
like it it hasn't. There have been some attacks, right
threats against Eden House in the last couple of days.
So if either of you would like to explain exactly
what happened as far as you're comfortable, I think that
would be great. Yeah, let me explain, because I think
I'm the right person to explain that. So, um there, there,

(55:46):
there there, Okay, this happened when Amazon around here. Actually
we had an attack and now one of the windows.
People people breaked into their house, not inside the house,
but instide the compound and they tried getting in the house.
But yeah, thank god the place has secured doors and windows.

(56:08):
But they took off one of the glass from the
window and they tried to like they had a stick
that was was was holding um, yeah, a magnet on
the end. So they were trying to use the stick
with the magnet to pull out the keys so that
they can have and clear entrance into the house. But

(56:32):
thank god, we had removed the keys to where we
used we normally used to put and kept it to
somewhere else. So the kids that we are aware they
were targeting, they were only the keys to the meter
box and the fridge, so they took those and yeah,
I presume they later realized that they wouldn't go through
with those because we're not the right kids. So the

(56:52):
next thing we wake up in the morning, the magnet
was down on the floor and we noticed that the
window had the piece of last missing. So that was
the first incident that happened. So we reported that to um,
to the to the landlord, and previous day before that happened.

(57:13):
Those neighborhood came by and they said that someone tried
to break into their apartment and they are kind of
curious because they never knew if people moved into this
house or they just wanted to check in what was
going on, and that we can we kind of get
into like you know, know each other, and that they
kind of gave us a warning and that's why we
removed the kids. And the day when they came, they

(57:36):
couldn't get in. So yeah, after I left, Now this
is a recent incident. That then then the next night
they came back and found a couple of broken whendows
in the morning, like they tried to price some windows
out and ended up breaking glass and gave up. But
but yeah, that's so. At the time, I think we

(57:57):
all the start of this as ordinary, you know, theft activity,
but it's pretty unclear. But this maybe more targeted attack. Yeah,
and perhaps it's silly of me to even ask this,
but could you speak of it on what kind of
help you can expect from law enforcement? If any um,

(58:22):
I would say, if any I would say, like you
see the place where we are staying, from the law enforcement,
I would expect that they put some like you know,
the they have a name that they put that that
that the lights that normally the government's supposed to supply,
like you know, the what what do they call that
these lights that they normally have to support from the MS. Yes,

(58:45):
street lights. So the place that you're staying, there's no
street lights. So if if if, if if a police
was to ask me or you know, any security measures
that were to be put, like, I would say that
they put the street lights. Those would help at least
there will be more lights for like you know, that
should scare people away, even if those people are thieves

(59:07):
or anything. You see. So, yeah, that was that's what
I would say. Okay, yeah, and I know two people
were hurt in the most recent sort of active question right, yes, yes,
this was the day before yesterday. Okay, are they doing okay, yeah,
they're fine actually, and one of them I helped myself, yes,

(59:32):
and one of them I have my arm injured but
not really deep. The other one is asleep. She had
a really bad injured back stabbed and you know at
the arm also catched. Yeah eight teachers at the back
really bad. Yeah, sorry, yeah, that's not good at all. Okay,
So that that's not great, have you since the attack

(59:56):
is like an ongoing aggression against you and it's seems
like someone's targeting the inn house, right, Um, if you
ask me, I would say it's more of targeting the
eating house, because, um, I don't understand why we would
only be the only person, like the only people experiencing

(01:00:17):
the same the same incident over and over like the
next the next houses. They don't complain in such incidents
like you know, like this guy literally if um, I'm
just picturing the fact that we had to go out
and you know, turn on the machine and we saw
this guy and he just bumped into us with a
knife and catching us home. So I'm just picturing if

(01:00:39):
this guy was waiting for like I'm just seeing it,
if he was waiting for more people to come so
that they can attack coming inside the house. Why was
even standing there in the first place? Because we found
him there and he was like he came through me
because I was the one who was in the front.
So I just keep asking myself, like why was he
standing there? What was he waiting for? Yeah? Yeah, And

(01:01:02):
I point out that to get there, to get there,
he had to climb a high stone wall topped with
razor wire and get into position without triggering the motion detectors. Yeah,
which is you know, not impossible to do, but it it was,

(01:01:27):
but they keep coming back. Yeah. Yeah, So I'm sure
people listening will be upset by this. Is there a
way that people can like express the solidarity or support
you financially? Yes, we need funds to keep running the house.
And in fact, the guy escaped through a hole that
was left only because we ran out of razor wire.

(01:01:49):
We need funds to keep the project going. We need
funds to also to support our primary work. We're continuing
to get people out of places like Saudi Arabia. We
have people, we have people who are kind of who
are in mid travel right now, and we have other

(01:02:10):
people in the high de holes in dangerous countries, and
we want to move all those people, and we'd like
to start right now. We're not even taking new folks
on because we just have such a backlog. I'd very
much like to fix that situation. Um, So, for all
these reasons you know, we're doing. We're happy with what

(01:02:34):
we're doing, but but we do need funds at the moment.
Let's get into that a little bit. You know the
we here is trans Rescue, right, yeah, yes, Trans Rescue
is a nonprofit and you're based in Europe and you
move trans people out of dangerous situations. That's correct. We're

(01:02:54):
based in Um. We're based in the Netherlands. We're a
A sticking, which is the U in the US that
would be a five oh one C three. We're an
A n B I qualified sticking, which basically is a
five O one C three. Okay, And you were telling

(01:03:16):
us before we started the cool that you think it
costs you about euros to move each person? Is that right? Yeah,
that's the average. Um. The average is probably slightly going
down because of course, to move somebody into eden House
from the coast might be as cheap as uh eighty

(01:03:36):
bucks to send them a ticket and then a few
hundred dollars of settling them in eden House. On the
other hand, getting people out of Sawdy oftentimes means not
only flying of them, but sometimes flying our own personnel
in and out on UM often kind of crazy roots.

(01:04:01):
So a person might find themselves a long way from
either Saudi or where they're finally going to end up,
and as a result, and then so yeah, we end
up having to spend a lot on plane tickets and
then we also sometimes this takes months, we play paperwork games. Um,

(01:04:26):
we are not people smugglers, but but we certainly are
helping people get to a country where they can actually
claim asylum for the most part, which means, um, you
know and successfully claim this aylum. And that often means

(01:04:47):
manipulating edge cases in the international travel system. Yeah, yeah,
that makes it of sense. I can see whether it
would be expensive and complicated. Yes, So it's great that
people can do an h that is there anything like
I noticed you asking before for some mutual aid help
with your PR? Is that something you still need? Look
at the things people can do, maybe they don't have
the means today. We were a small organization, we're not

(01:05:10):
very large, and we actually are just cranking up our
PR operation. Um. We could use a press list, we
could use We could also use amplification from organizations with
more kind of online cloud. We're basically a little group

(01:05:30):
of people and for two years we operated as an
informal group of activists. We realized that was probably not
ideal for this very serious work we're doing, and so
last December we reorganized as a proper sticting, but yeah,
help with boosting our signal at the moment would be

(01:05:53):
very useful. Anyone who can, you know, can spread the
word of what's happened and now, so we would be
very much appreciative. Yeah, well we can definitely do that.
Hopefully every facts come to It's just so people can
find you. It's Trands Underscore Rescue on Twitter, It's trans

(01:06:14):
Underscore Rescue on twitsure, it's Trands Rescued or dot org
on the web. I will share that fundraising link when
when this comes out. Are how have things been for
you the last couple of days, Like I must be
pretty rough, I imagine, not not feeling safe at the house. Yeah. Actually,

(01:06:35):
actually the advice that we got from the landlord and
the neighbor. There's a neighbor here, a lady. She came
by and I have a NUMBI called her the day
we had an incident and she came in the morning
when he had a tough So she suggested that we
shouldn't be going out late night and by time we
make sure that all the doors are locked and yes,

(01:06:57):
and stay safe inside in case of anything. She asked
me to kla and also the landlord asked me if
in case of anything, if I hear any movement or
any suspicious thing happening outside the gates, I just give
them a call. It's good. It's good to people are
sticking up here in your commune. It's really good to
hear really good. Yeah. Yeah, we appreciate that, and on

(01:07:19):
their behalf, what y'all are doing is very important, and
we're you know, sorry that you're encountering this kind of resistance,
but we hope we can help at least get the
message out about what you were doing it. I'm much
appreciate it. Thank you, It's much appreciated. UM. I regret
that we spent most of the time on security. I'm

(01:07:39):
more I'm excited about, uh, many of the positive things
we're doing. We're you know, we're trying to set up
h a place where trans people can live their lives
and thrive and and have you know, normal lives. Uh yeah,

(01:08:01):
let's talk about that. Let's talk about like, how many
people do you have at the eating house right now?
If you're comfortable sharing that. Sure, we just opened, so
we've got three people, We've got one more person who
UM went back to settle kind of settle his affairs
and we'll be moving in UM. And we have UM

(01:08:26):
and we've got space for eight at the moment um.
We've had a couple of other people on choir but
but haven't like, aren't there yet. We're kind of excited
by the space we've got because there's actually room around
us to grow, So we're expecting to get to get bigger. Um. Yeah,

(01:08:48):
I hope you do. And how many peoples trying to
rescue you been able to help, like as an organization
overrule one way or the other, We've we've moved about
two dozen people. Of that, roughly a half have been
the serious kind of get people out of Saudi Arabia
type moves. The others have been folks that we helped

(01:09:12):
in sort of less dramatic ways. Okay, yeah, that's a
it's a very meaningful contribution to a lot of people's lives.
That is great. Yeah, I get you know, it's great. Uh,
at least one person lives locally, and it's great to
kind of occasionally have him over for dinner or you know,

(01:09:33):
and know that we got him out. Yeah, that must
be really nice. And I think, yeah, it's important not
to just center like hatred but also about success. Yeah. Absolutely, yeah,
I love that and it's cool that, like you have
plans to grow. I've seen that you have agricultural areas around,
so you're thinking of like growing some food around the house.
And actually we have brought some poles. We have some

(01:09:56):
vegetables like spinach, cabbage, to me, atoes, green paper. Yes,
did they did? The gardens survived the flood? Uh? We
Actually I was about to tell you that. Actually when
the water was coming in the old all the spinach

(01:10:18):
went and lied down, and we were kind of worried.
But when it stopped, when the water stopped flowing down,
the sun came out, they kind of started going straight.
So I was much worried about that. But it's kind
of freaking out because they all went down and were
like they're dead. We have a drainage problem in front

(01:10:38):
of the house and the recently there was a crrential
rain is hard to kill things. I did not know
about Kenya. It hails there. I did not expect. I
did not like sort of imagine hail, but but it
hailed several times while is there and everybody was cold

(01:11:04):
while I was walking around. The T shirt Yeah, yeah, yeah,
I can you add some of our best weather and
can you for sure? Yeah? And looking at these pictures,
it's great to see you guys are making your own
furniture and doing all these things and really enjoying your
time there as well as obviously we don't want to
just focus on the threat. So hopefully you can go
back to that. Hopefully people can support you. Area's onywhere

(01:11:27):
online people can find you. Do you have a Instagram
or Twitter or anything like that? Yeah? I do have
a treat to account. My tutor handle is at rams
hyphen area. How do you can you spell that out
for us? At MS? Okay then hyphen lower, hyphen underscore, Yeah, yeah,

(01:11:48):
underscore then are I guess? Okay? Great? Yeah? And it's
for for yourself and is it if it just trans
Rescue it's our personal one and thing else you'd like
to my mail if someone wants to contact me, is
Annie A N N I E at trans Rescue dot org. Okay, yeah,

(01:12:10):
hopefully And um we have a contact form on the
website as well if people are interested in talking with us. Um, okay, great.
Is there anything else you'd like to get to before
we finish up here? Yes, at on Fridays. We have
a m we have office hours. So if you're in

(01:12:33):
a country like the UK or the US and you
would just like some advice or to explore your options,
that's another service we offer as well. Are happy to
talk with you on video about that. When would those
be there? It's six pm Central European summertime, okay, which

(01:12:56):
I think works out to midday in the U s
okay some parts of the US. Yeah, and your fingers
primarily in English. Those are primarily in English. If you
speak Arabic and or Farsi or Urdu, contact us. We

(01:13:17):
can arrange to have somebody who speaks those languages talk
with you. We maintain a telegram group trans Rescue and
if you get on there you can use machine translation
and talk with us very well. And we have Arabic
speakers the monitor that. Yeah, hopefully people can take advance

(01:13:40):
to that if they need it. Thank you so much
for your time, Like our platform is here for you
if you want to share anything else, If anything else happens,
please let us know, and we really appreciate you taking
the time a hopefully thank you, Yeah, thank you, thank
you so much. Al Right, Okay, goodbye everyone, thank you
by thank you, Hey, welcome to it could happen here.

(01:14:17):
This is Robert Evans, and this is a podcast about
things calling apart. UH. And today we definitely have a
thing's well, I don't know, hopefully not falling apart, but
certainly getting fucked up episode for you. UM, this is
going to be better part of the world that probably
fairly few Americans spend much time thinking about. UM. It's
certainly a conflict that's kind of been lost in everything

(01:14:39):
that's happening in Ukraine right now. UM. But Armenia and Azerbaijan,
their neighbor have been at a state of more or
less regular war since UM since longer than that. But
this kind of latest wave of it started in UM.
It was over a breakaway real while what's often referred

(01:15:00):
to as a breakaway region that both countries claimed and
that stayed kind of independent for a very long time
until invasion by the Azeris in this area which is
majority Armenian UM. And it was kind of a military
disaster for the Armenian side. The war went very badly,
a lot of troops were killed, a lot of territory

(01:15:20):
was taken, and ever since the Azeri military has been
carrying out border strikes in and around areas that are
kind of near their shared border with Armenia. UM. Over
the last ten hours, as I record this, and and
I'm talking to you all on Monday UHT of September,
over the last about ten hours, UM, the Azeri military

(01:15:43):
has launched a fairly unprecedented set of strikes within Armenian territory. UM.
So not just kind of hitting border areas, and not
just hitting military targets, but hitting cities, hitting civilian areas,
trying to move troops across the border. There's video evidence
of this. UM. To talk about what's happening, what's been
happening in the past, over the last couple of years,
and what's happening now, UM, I'd like to welcome on

(01:16:06):
Joe Kasabian. Joe you will know from his podcast Lions
Led by Donkeys, from his book The Hooligans of Kandahar,
and a number of other books that I think we'll
talk about a little bit at the end here from
his appearances on the Behind the Bastard. Joe, you are
an American citizen, but you're also Armenian and you're currently
in our media. Yeah, UM, I moved here a couple

(01:16:27):
of months ago permanently, UM citizenship is we kind of
have like our own repatriation laws. But I'm still waiting
on that. UM. And so to to go off a
couple of things that you said, we've been at a
state of war effectively since the nineties when we first
gained independence from the Soviet Union. UM. Without going into
the incredibly complicated history of Nagano Karaba or Artsach Um

(01:16:52):
art so still exists. They did not take all of
it in UM. But Tony Tony was a military disaster
for Armenia unequivalably. So we lost over four thousand people. UM,
huge swaths of territory where UH their population became the
victims of a regional genocide. UM. There are no Armenians

(01:17:15):
that have been confirmed to still be alive within that territory. UM.
There's endless videos of a ZI troops beheading old men
and women and and destroying homes and cemeteries and churches. UM.
And ever since UH the war ended in a month
has not gone by where UM either art Saw or

(01:17:36):
Armenia itself has not been attacked. We've probably lost over
a hundred soldiers since then. UM. These are kids, their conscripts.
We have UM military mandatory service here. UM, so these
are eighteen nineteen year old kids doing their two years
of service. On top of the civilians that are currently
being bombed. We we don't know how many people are

(01:17:56):
dead at the moment um. And it's UM, it's truly aggravating.
I mean, Armenians live with this all the time. It's
a sort of hanging over our heads. When this is
going to happen. Um happened with unpress attended international support

(01:18:16):
and not only support, but willing willingly ignoring it. Um.
I mean NATO powers helped as er by Jean Doulas, UM,
Turkey and Israel Israel, Israeli drone designers literally test flew
as suicide drone into Armenian soldiers to sell it. Um.
I mean, it's it's it's honestly kind of I don't

(01:18:42):
know what what to say about it other than that's
it should be another thing that the world should be
united against and they never will. No. I mean, it's
it's so frustrating. One of the things that I have
had a lot of issue with because obviously I, as
you are, I'm supportive of Ukrainian people's attempts to so

(01:19:04):
far quite successful attempts to stop Russia from taking over
their homes. Um. But one of the things that's happened
alongside this is a kind of lionization of a specific
kind of Turkish drone, the bractar Um, which was particularly
effective in the opening stages of the war, and military
technology military equipment. Walks can argue as to whether that

(01:19:27):
was due to Russian kind of tactical failures and operational failures,
or whether it was due to new realities about how
drones function. But one of the things that was ignored
in all of this kind of fetishization of this drone
and people raising money to buy more of them, is
that the drones were really combat tested for the first time,
massacring Armenians. UM. Yeah, and it's I try not to

(01:19:49):
get too mad when I see stuff like that, because
I understand whether Ukrainians are happy, of course, and like, yeah,
I should point out unequivalently I support Ukraine's fight for independence,
just like I wish people um supported ours UM and
and the war. The wars effectively have the same kind
of propaganda angle. Um. Obviously, before Russia invaded Ukraine, they're

(01:20:13):
talking about you know, Denozi vacation or demilitarization. When when
you look at their speeches and the rhetoric, it's that
they believe that Ukraine does not have the right to
exist and that Ukrainians are either are Russian or they
also should not exist. And that's effectively what we're looking at. Two. UM,
this is why Armenians constantly compare what is happening now

(01:20:33):
to nine um. Ashba Jean continuously says they want art
Sah or the Nogana Karabak, they they want it back.
But that's not what they're attacking right now. UM. If
you look at the rhetoric of Aliev and his government
going all the way back to the nineties when his
dad was in charge and a few other people. Um,

(01:20:55):
their ideology is that Armenia is not a real state.
They have claims over our capital Yerevan. They have they
have claims over the south where they're invading right now,
and everywhere those soldiers go they wipe out the local
population of Armenians. There are no Armenian survivors and Hadrud
or Shushi or any of these other places they took

(01:21:17):
in there, they do not exist. And ever since then,
they've been purposely going through and destroying any evidence that
Armenians ever lived there, which is ridiculous. Armenians have been
living in these places since before Rome was fucking established. Yeah, um,
I mean, and this is obviously we're talking about the
Armenian genocide, which occurred during kind of the in concurrent

(01:21:41):
to the kind of late stages of World War One. UM,
and uh was unrecognized by the United States until what
was that now, two years ago Joe yeah something finally
became the first president, first US president, to recognize it.
And and this is because we We've mentioned Turkey a
couple of times. There's a couple of reasons for this,

(01:22:02):
but most of them boiled down to not wanting to
piss up, piss off the Turkish government. Um. The Turkish
government has strong attitudes that essentially everybody in Anatolia is
Turkish and all. Yes, there were no Greeks, there were
no Kurds, there were no Army, and this has led to,
I mean, it's led to ethnic cleansings and genocides against

(01:22:22):
the Armenians and against the Kurds. One of the things
that was being done in ro Java, UM that I
found so compelling was was an attempt to educate, an
attempt to buy the Kurds there to educate people who
were joining the YPG about Kurdish complicity in the genocide
against Armenia because they recognize themselves as victims of the
same thing. You know, starting I think you know all

(01:22:45):
of the it's hard to say starting in right, because
we're trying to talk about concurrent conference. They all go back.
Everything's going back quite a while. You mentioned Ali of
a little bit ago, and I don't want to talk
about him. Um, we're talking about il Ham Aliev, who's
the current president of Azerbaijan, the worth uh and of
course the the son of the former leader, which is
always a recipe for a good functional des Also his

(01:23:08):
wife as vice president. Yeah, and his wife is vice president,
which is nice. It's just like it's just like house
of cars. Yeah, he's the Kevin spacey. Um. His his
attitude and rhetoric towards Armenian in general is eliminationists at best. Um,
like he's I mean, the country's put out stamps that

(01:23:30):
show Armenia being fumigated like dirt went during the height
of the pandemic, which like as a genocide scholar. You know, generally,
when I see a picture of a place being gassed,
I get suspicious. Um. Uh, they've talked, they've talked about
how it was a good thing that in the nineties
Armenians were driven from Buku and the Bukoprograms and a

(01:23:53):
few other places. Um, I mean weren't there like literally
like some of those drop these arms shows and stuff
like pieces of captured equipment with blood on it and stuff. Yeah,
and they also had, um honestly one of the weirdest,
like it's incredibly offensive and racist, uh, the these um

(01:24:14):
caricatures of our of Armenian soldiers who like, at the
same time they're like racist towards Armenians but also vaguely
anti Semitic, Like they looked like a character of a
Jewish person to come out of their sturmer um with
like you know, and I understand how stereotypically people think
Armenians look in like these racist art where we have

(01:24:34):
you know, big hooked noses and big eyebrows and things
like that, which admittedly I know I meet both of
those personally, but that's besides the point of Like if
you look at the pictures and they were taken down
because like even like Israel was like oh that's a
bit much, and like they help that happen. Um. But
like also to talk you can't talk about as by

(01:24:56):
genre without talking about Turkey because they have this ideology
that's like two people, one state. They do believe in
like pan Turranism, especially urd iwan Um. I mean he's
been ever ever since, he's gone like full fascist, That's
something he's been hammering the drum on and like this
is an extension of that. He's effectively a neo Ottomanist.

(01:25:18):
He wants to reunite the Oman Empire, which is fucking
insane but also has real life things, you know, but
also to bring us, you know, to the conflict that
Americans are more focusing on. As we've talked about before,
this is another similarity between what Russia is doing in
Ukraine and what is Erbajon and Turkey are doing in Armenia.
They're both these kind of um redemptionist dreams of people

(01:25:41):
who want to bring back some sort of lost imperial splendor,
right and are are utilizing kind of the tactics that
the technics of genocide in order to try to make
that happen. Yeah, I think for Turkey it's a lot
of this lost splendor, especially as their economy, it's itself
from mismanagement, and I think for Azerbaijan it's the other

(01:26:03):
way around. In the nineties, when we fought the first
car A bah War, Armenia one UM. I mean it
wasn't from being military's military, militarily superior, having more money.
It had to do with two largely unorganized forces in
the fallout of the Soviet Union, and Armenia end up winning. UM.

(01:26:25):
And ever since then, that loss has been something of
like national It's like it's kind of like the national
mythos of Azebaijan, because before then Azerbaijan is a national
identity simply didn't exist. It's relatively new UM. And that
loss in that war became the defining moment. That's where UM,
the lost Armenia was internalized and like it became school

(01:26:49):
curriculum that Armenians were the were at fault for everything.
We're sub human, we've been compared to cockroaches. Like for instance,
if you have, say my last name, you cannot legally
enter the country of Azebaijan. You cannot enter that country
with an Armenian last name, it's racism, and fascism is
state doctrine there. So when you know their oil production

(01:27:13):
kicked back up from after the war damages and after
the fallout of the Soviet Union, on top of military
reforms that have been lasting for thirty years, they're the
ones on the up swing now, not Turkey in my opinion,
and it also helps their fighting someone like Armenia, which
no Armenians that we have military history and everything, but
we have no fucking money, we have no natural resources,
we have no allies, we have no one's gonna air

(01:27:34):
drop palettes of fucking high Mars and Yerevan like nobody's
coming to help us. We have a k S that
fought in the First War, we have BMP ones that
have probably seen more combat than most people who are
still alive, an armored personnel carrier. Essentially we we have nothing. Um.
I'm not going to speak about the cape bills of
the Armenian military, but like you can imagine what a

(01:27:57):
small landlocked country with a small population, not lot of money,
can field. It's not a lot. Um, Yeah, it's not
a lot. And this kind of gets us to another
topic that has to be broached with this which is
kind of talking about the relationship of Russia to all
this because one of the things that's very frustrating about
this conflict is that Americans particularly tend to want things

(01:28:19):
very simply. So you hear you've got a Russian client state,
which is how it is, not what Armenia is. I'm
not saying that, Joe, obviously, but is how it's easy
to especially like kind of in the boil out, sort
of break things out as it's like, Okay, you've got
this state backed by Russia and then you've got this
other state fighting that that's backed by Turkey. Well, Turkey's
part of NATO, they're part of, you know, the fight

(01:28:40):
against Russia, so they must be the good guys. And
none of that's accurate. But I think it's I think
it's important to explain why. So, I mean, it's it's
really hard to explain Armenia and Russia's relationship other than imperialism. Um. Obviously,
Armenia has been conquered by countless countries throughout our fucking
long history, but the most recent one being the Soviet Union,

(01:29:00):
which we did not join willingly. Um. And then after
the fall of the Soviet Union, the Russian Federation. Um,
we're solidly within Russia's fear of influences by no active
choice of ours were members of the c tso were
members of the Eurasian Economic Union, and neither of those
were by choice. We were strong armed into it because
there's no there's nothing else, there's no other option. Um.

(01:29:22):
And as far as it goes, is is like the
brotherly relationship or this client state. It would be exactly
like someone blaming Ukraine for what happened in Maidan, or
blaming Ukraine for what happened in or what happened now
because they're trying to get away from that. I mean,
we can't. We don't have the resources to do it.

(01:29:45):
Just just for an example of how Armenia plays like
tight ropes, this ship never once if we voted in
favor of Russia during this war. We like they're like
our representatives to the U n our our Ministry of
Foreign Affairs are prime. This there is solidly neutral because
that's the best he can do. Um. Right, you know

(01:30:05):
he's either voted against, uh, he's voted uh, he's abstained.
He's never voted for to support Russia during this war
at all. Um, Now, Obviously, back in there was a
different Armenia. UM. We had a pro EU movement here
that was quite strong. This is before I lived here,
of course, UM that voted to declare our intentions to

(01:30:26):
want to join the EU. I believe this is under
President Sergisan UM and it passed overwhelmingly in the popular vote,
because unlike the people invading us, we are a free
and fair democracy with the freedom of speech and expression
and everything else that people like to claim they want
to defend, but they don't UM. And after a five

(01:30:47):
minute meeting with Putin, it was gone. There's no more referendum,
and we decided not to join the EU anymore. But
we I mean the president. After that we had our
Velvet Revolution which got rid of him UM and distance
ourselves from Russia as much as we realistically could so
inten I believe UH. For instance, Armenia UH kind of

(01:31:10):
slightly supported Russia when it came to annexing Crimea. And
now you can kind of see why the president was
a fucking stooge. That's not the case anymore. We now
have a parliamentary system and as much as I am
not the biggest fan of Prime Minister or passion Yon,
He's not that guy. That's not like the Armenia is
a different world. Um. And I know, like like you said,

(01:31:34):
people really like to simplify these things. They want this
to be a team sport. They want this to be
NATO versus Russia, and you know, people like Belarus or
whoever else. But there's a there's a pretty big fucking
difference here. We have not actively supported this war. There
has been anti war protests outside my fucking window since
the war has started. Ukrainians have flooded here by the

(01:31:57):
thousands and they have met nothing but Armenians who have
well come down with open arms. Russians have come too,
and we're not the biggest fans of them, but what
can you do about um. You know, like we're we're
solidly neutral in this and it's one of the things
that fucking and I mean granted neutral government wise, people wise. Absolutely,
we're not neutral. Um. And one of the things that

(01:32:19):
pisces me off the most is that people can see
the realities of the war in Ukraine where they can
see right through Russian propaganda when it's like demilitarization, denification, whatever,
and they can see on its face that's complete and
utter bullshit. But like when because you know, Ukraine is
fighting for their sovereignty, their independence, and the right to

(01:32:41):
exist that we all have, um, and when it comes
to us, we don't get that, like, oh, well, we're
calling for both sides a de escalate and maybe our
omnia shouldn't have started this. We haven't done anything. It
was fucking midnight last night and the South started being bombed.
What the fund is there to be de escalated? You
can't deescalate self defense. So you have what is a

(01:33:05):
really uncomfortable situation and one that a lot of people
don't like talking about the reality of because essentially, when
you have a country like Azerbaijan that is insisting on
repeatedly violating the territory of its neighbor um and that
has proven not just a willingness but an eagerness to
engage and engage in acts of ethnic cleansing and genocide,
you have two options for dealing with that other than

(01:33:27):
let them do it right. Option one is send in
peacekeepers to stop the aggression. Now Russia has troops that
were called peacekeepers in the area. Um. You know, there's
you could debate prior to the invasion of Ukraine. How
good they were at that job, um, but they certainly
are not capable of doing it now. Um. So then

(01:33:49):
the question is, okay, who else? Who? What? Who else
is peacekeepers are gonna come in? Right? And if that's
not a realistic solution and you don't want to let
Azerbaijan just do a genocide, then what you do issue
give them weapons Armenia weapons, not as people already doing
that part unfortunately the US. Yeah, indeed, um. And again

(01:34:11):
there's this we're all kind of in terms of like
the discourse around this in the United States living in
the shadow of the War on Terror, in which an
irresponsible quantity of weapons were handed out to an irresponsible
variety of groups. Um, and many of them went to
bad ends in bad places. Um. The reality is that,

(01:34:32):
you know, we're sitting on a fucking stockpile of weapons
here in the United States as tall as the sky
and handing over a tiny percent of that. When people
talk about like that we're giving this much aid Ukraine,
We're not spending that much cash straight on ad Ukraine.
We're picking up ship we have in mothballs and we'll
we're handing it to them because we've spent all of
our treasure on on a pile of guns larger than

(01:34:54):
you can conceive of in terms of its actual size
and weight. UM. And I don't know, like when when
I think about what is to be fucking done here realistically, UM,
I would like for our Menia to have access to javelins.
And I'm send some stingers. Even. One of the things
that pisses me off is like, like you said, there's
two options here, you do nothing, and you're complicit in

(01:35:16):
a genocide. That's what this hits like. It's it's like
being silent and you know, um and in ninet, it's
being silent, in nineteen fifteen, it's being silent Rwanda, we
were silent during most of those things, and we saw
how they were, Like, there's only one way this fucking
ends if we don't get guns, and that's with a
lot of dead Armenians. That that that and by supporting

(01:35:39):
Azerbaijan or sitting out that is what you explicitly support
is thousands and thousands of dead civilians. Like that's the
only way this ends. And it is again and I
hate keep that. We keep going back to Ukraine, but
it's relevant because it's the the the it's the conflict
that we're actually focusing on the people who are counter

(01:36:02):
on on anti side, providing weapons to the Ukrainian military
and make claims about corruption, which they could also make
about the Armenian government, um, and claims about you know,
arms trafficking and all that stuff. But so far and Ukraine,
by the way, is a country with a deeper history
of corruption, significantly in the Armenian government even um, we

(01:36:24):
haven't government is less corrupt than Ukraine's. Yeah, Um, you
haven't seen a ton of that happening. What you have
seen is the weapons that have been handed to them,
blowing up invaders, tanks and aircraft. Um. And the sheer
quantity that has been destroyed is evidence that that weaponry
has been used pretty responsibly. And when you were talking

(01:36:46):
about a group of people facing annihilation, I'm simply not
worried that they're going to sell their stingers to fucking
Isis or wherever are we going to sell them to Turkey?
In one side the Georgia, that's actually fine, like you know,
and that's I think people are fucking gutless. Um, you
saw this happen in February before they're in January, before

(01:37:09):
the war in Ukraine started, when people like, oh, weapons
are only gonna make it worse. No, they're fucking not.
You know what's worse than than an armed population defending
itself is an unarmed one being murdered anyway. And we
in case nobody paid attention, because they probably didn't, you
can go back and look at the video footage of
what happens to unarmed Armenians, and it's the same fucking

(01:37:31):
ship Isis did to yuz S. It's the same fucking
ship they did occurreds, and it's the same fucking ship
that will happen again if we do not get what
we need to defend ourselves. And I don't give a
funk if you don't like Russia. I don't fucking like
Russia either. But it's the reality that we live in.
If you're if you're fucking intelligent enough to realize the
diplomacy and geopolitics of how Ukraine ended up in the

(01:37:54):
war that they're in now, you should understand why we
are in the situation that we are into. You cannot
really sistickally believe we deserve what is happening unless you
also believe Ukraine deserves what's happening to them. It's impossible.
I don't know. This is obviously how could this not
be like emotional and and and it is just feeling

(01:38:18):
like I can't and it must be so much worse
obviously just being there, but like this, this feeling of
a fucking train coming at you, and people aren't gonna
do ship because there's this fucking problem with optic And
it's more complicated when we talk about I'm talking about
we wanna talk about optics, I guess we're talking about discourse.

(01:38:39):
When it comes about like why politically the United States
is unlikely to do anything like what we've suggested, It's
more complicated than that, and a decent amount of it
comes down to the fact that we have what is it,
thirteen nuclear weapons stationed in Turkey right now, which land
stolen from Armenians from the genocide. Great stuff, America, well done,

(01:39:00):
We really knocked that out of the park. What is
it that people can do to help outside of you know,
trying to become informed about the conflict, which I think
we can talk about some sources at the end of this.
Are there places, you know, Red Cross style things that
people can donate to to help to the extent that
that's kind of a thing is helpful. Yeah, Um, I mean,

(01:39:20):
you know, generally crowdfunding for weapons systems is illegal unless
you're Ukraine nowadays, so I'm thinking more about medical. Um,
the Armenian Red Cross is always a good option. They
helped a lot, and they still help now we still
have a ton of internally displaced people. Um. There's also
the hind drum In Fund, which directly funds wounded servicemen

(01:39:42):
because we really don't have a v A exactly here. Um.
There's quite a few other ones, but the the Armenian
Red Crosses of course the most reliable and easy to
donate if you're in the West. For sure. You don't
have to navigate any confusing Armenian language website. It's because
it's it's hard and mean, it isn't great with the internet,

(01:40:03):
so like most of them don't have translations. Um, but
you know it's yeah, I understand I'm a little bit
more emotional than most people. Probably hear me on podcasts,
but like, um, I'm mad, I'm mad, I'm fucking frustrated. Um,
I don't know how much longer people can let this

(01:40:24):
kind of thing happen. Um, I hope the e use
gas this winter is fucking worth it, because this is
what you got. This is what that deal got us.
So I hope you're nice and warm in the fucking
winter because we probably won't have power or we'll have
more dead or whatever. But real glad you pivoted away
from Russian gas and sign a deal. Fucking as Jean,

(01:40:45):
you spineless fox. And it's a I mean, it goes
it's the spinelessness is deeper than that, right, because the
reason why the fucking gas crunch that led to that
deal happened in the first place was among a number
of things, years of seeding to Russian government aggression in

(01:41:06):
places like Georgia, in the places like Ukraine, and you've
got that, you know, here you have the invasion by
a Zerbaijan almost like two years ago now, and then
there's that and and no pushback. Right, this is this
is the thing is And this is not a popular
kind of thing to go to talk about on the left,

(01:41:26):
but but it's true. If you want to pay attention
to why why that whole World War two situation got
so goddamn bad, A big part of it is they're
not being any kind of effective rules based international order
to stop bigger countries or at least more aggressive ones,
from fucking with their neighbors. And one of the things
we were supposed to have learned from that war is

(01:41:48):
that you don't let people do that. It's bad and right. Yeah, yeah,
like it shouldn't be that hard. I don't care what
your politics is. I mean, everybody knows that we're both
very left wing. But when someone comes continuously fox with you,
the only way to make them stop is by hitting
them in the goddamn face until they realize it's not

(01:42:10):
a good idea like this, Like diplomacy doesn't work when
one side only wants you dead. You can't debate my
right to live, or my neighbor's right to live, or
these kids right to live. Very they're fucking schools bombed
right now, there's no debate to be had. You have
to hit them until they fucking stop. There's like, I'm sorry,
there's not gonna be any de escalation of fucking genocide.

(01:42:33):
Like that's not how this works. People tend to get
this in the immediate sense when you're talking about, you know,
some fucking bigot in front of you everybody everybody loves,
you know, cheering on a video of some guy, you know,
dropping a racial slur and getting knocked to the ground.
Obviously those are a lot of um. But the moral

(01:42:55):
is that if you let assholes. The actual moral of
like why it's important to punch Nazis in the face
when they're doing Nazi ship is that if you just
let them do Nazi ship and you try to like
appease them and calm them down, you'll often calm them
down here and there, and they're like, back off, but
they'll have gotten a little bit more, They'll have gotten
a little bit of what they want, they'll have gotten
a little bit further, and they just keep making shit
worse until somebody actually does fucking drop them. And it's

(01:43:19):
the same with you know. And again I I we
just talked about with the great lesson of World War
two should have been and the thing that actually happens
the generation that took power in the United States and
in a lot of other Western countries after that, not
exclusively the West, but I think we're talking about our
our our people here, um immediately went and fucked around

(01:43:41):
and carried out acts of aggression all over the world. Um,
but that doesn't mean the basic lesson is bad. The
lesson is don't let pete. We should not have been
allowed to do that, um, but we shouldn't like that
should not be a thing that the world accepts, Like
the you can't just sit back and be like, oh,
all that countries gonna go do a genocide now, but

(01:44:03):
it's far away, so there's nothing to be done other
than continue to buy the oil of the people doing
the genocide and thereby fund the genocide. Right like it's
it's fucking unconscionable, man like, and even if you want
to look at this as like the West also fund
around during the Couldar, which like, yeah, you know what,
everybody did, you know, stop them? They didn't funk around

(01:44:24):
so much in Southeast Asia after the US got punched
in the fucking face in Vietnam, did that? That's right? Yeah,
well it was a lot less. The shouldn't be this
fucking complicated. I don't I don't care what political ideology
you subscribe to, Like it's self defense, like it's collective
mutual self defense. When we need help, you give us
fucking help. Like, yeah, it shouldn't be that fucking hard.

(01:44:48):
I mean to be fair for for some people will
never truly matter because they don't see countries like Armenia
or countries like Azerbaijan is having agency to do their
own things and thrown things. Um. And if that is you,
I hope to see your house on scene end one day. Um.
But like you know that does there should be like

(01:45:09):
that sounds like, um, like an old Russian curse, like me,
your house beyond the sea, and I believe it's from yeah, yeah,
but I can imagine yes, some little old ladies saying
that to you. We we have the right to freedom
as much as anyone else. And um, not only that
we've achieved it. Like Armenia is a is a moderately

(01:45:29):
progressive place. I mean, we're still working on some things.
We have the freest democracy in the region. Um, we
have great standard of living for most people. Um, and
it was only getting better. This is a place has
freer and fairer elections, and virtually anyone else over here,
to include Russia, to include fucking Ukraine, to include Turkey,

(01:45:49):
to include all these places that people insists are worth defending.
I'm just curious why we're not like, why are like
why are Armenians less than what did we for fucking
do to deserve this? It's it's incredibly depressing. Um. And
maybe we're not the right shade of white. I don't.
I don't fucking know anymore man Like it's it's it's

(01:46:12):
really weird to me. UM. Even like internationally geopolitically, you know,
the Secretary of State Blincoln urged both sides of de escalate.
Suck my fucking dick. What are we de escalating? They're
invading us? I would like to ask al Qaeda, would
really like to ask the city of New York to

(01:46:33):
de escalate when planes flew into the World Trade Center, like,
get the funk out of here, Like, how do you
de escalate this? They're bombing cities like it's it's maddening, um,
And it's not gonna end. It's not gonna end until
someone fucking ends it. We can't. We We just had
a generationally destroying war two years ago that we have

(01:46:55):
not recovered from. We have an entire society that's dealing
with various forms of PTSD. UM. We don't have the
the institutions to take care of all of the victims
from two years ago. UM. We didn't get any help
that either, and we're not gonna get any help now.
I uh yeah, you know, I think again, there's this,

(01:47:20):
there's this tendency towards isolationism and the left brought on
by the Iraq War. But none of this, if nothing
is done, if there's no international response to this, and
if these areas aren't aren't stopped by you know, in
auto cathonic resistance, um, then it won't stop with Armenia,

(01:47:43):
because violence of this sort never does. There's a there's
a book I'm interested in your thoughts on it, actually, Joe,
but I found it quite eliminating a number of years ago,
An Inconvenient Genocide by Adam hoss Child, which is about
the Armenian genocide and its influence on Hitler, making the
point that even though hit there never was anywhere close
to Armenia, neither were any fucking German troops for that matter,

(01:48:05):
particularly close Imperial German troops were, Oh well, yeah, we're
we're very much in charge of a lot of different
death squads. It's it's a it's a weird story. Hitler's
Hitler's German. Of course, I apologize. I meant, I meant
the Yeah. But the point that Hoschild was making was

(01:48:26):
that Hitler was not engaged in the Armenian genocide, but
he paid attention to it and the fact that the
young Turks got away with it, um and and got
to take that let take land that, as you pointed out,
is currently occupied by some US nuclear war heads. Um
was was part of what emboldened him to do not

(01:48:47):
just the Holocaust but everything he did in Europe. And
there was a line specifically in reference to the Holocaust
from Hitler, but it was during this table talk that
was like essentially he was saying, well, of course we'll
get away with it. Nobody remembers Armenians anymore. Yeah, it's
literally on the wall. Yeah. And that's the thing is
like it goes back right, like everybody was saying, because

(01:49:09):
I mean, I understand the politics behind our sock are
messy for people who are not from this region, and
I'm I don't have enough time to go into them.
The majority of Armenian population that was given to Azerbaijan
by the Soviet Union with absolutely no process, and they
attempted to vote to join Armenia while we were still

(01:49:30):
in the Soviet Union, which is well within the rights
according to the Soviet Unions constitution if such rights functionally existed,
which they did not. Um, and that's what started the
first war. But in every war has been about that
ever since, effectively, at least politically on its surface, because
internationally is recognized as part of Azerbaijan, because they go

(01:49:53):
off old Soviet maps for fucking reasons. I don't know.
I mean, we can talk about Sikes Picaul, yeah exactly. Um,
But like you know, in people were saying that, like, oh,
if this will all end if Armenia simply gives up
art Stock, which we don't claim art so nobody, I mean,
some some people do. The government does not. Um, we

(01:50:16):
don't recognize it as an independent country either, which they
themselves have declared themselves. It's it's messy, I understand, but um,
it's it's not within the Republic of Armenia to negotiate
the non existence of the Republic of Artsch that is
their right to self determination. That is politically what the
government believes. Now they were saying, well, now that these

(01:50:38):
areas have been taken over by age by John, we
can finally move towards peace. There's fucking peace talks a
week ago that the Prime Minister pashaon Yan met with Aliev.
I believe in Belgium. I'm not entirely sure they literally
met a week ago. Maybe it's two weeks ago, like
it was very recent. But the thing is every time
this peace process starts again, this happens because it's not

(01:51:01):
about Arsa, it's not about Nagano Karaba, it's not about
any of these. It's it's about our right, our fundamental
right to exist. They do not believe in it, like
it's not just like it wasn't about um Jews being
involved in business. It wasn't about Jews marrying Germans. It
was about their fundamental right to exist. Like it's it's

(01:51:21):
all it is. It's the same can be said for Palestinians.
This is this isn't about Palestinian I mean, thinking of
which fucking Israelis are just just placing Armenians in Palestine
as well. Like it's it's not about it's not about
these these small little nibbles that they're taking. It's not
about the freedom of movement. It's not about your right

(01:51:42):
to date. Someone which came up recently is they made
some Israelila against that you have to declare your romantic
intentions before you go into the West Bank or whatever. Like,
it's not about those things. Those are maybe that'll make
maybe that'll make it easier to get the the American
leftists on this one. Right, No, no guy, Israel is
the bad the bad guys here we can genocide. Yet

(01:52:06):
that's not entirely. He probably would. But the thing is
that it's not about these small nibbles. It's not about
your right to do X or you're right to do why.
It's not about art socks, right, the freedom, it's it's
it's they don't believe you should exist, and they will
take and take and take and take until you're fucking
powerless and they can wipe you out. That is their goal.

(01:52:28):
I mean, you can see that in Palestine, you can
see that, in Arsa, you can see that increasingly in Armenia.
You can see That's what Russia's goal was in Ukraine,
it was Russia's goal in Georgia. It's how imperialism fucking works.
It doesn't have to have an American flag or British
flag over it for that to be what it's called.
It's genocidal imperialism. And like if if you're too dumb

(01:52:50):
to fucking see that, I don't know what else to
tell you, Like, I don't know how else do you
need me to draw and fucking crayon? Like yeah, And
I I think we're both getting angry here, primarily at
groups of people who I don't believe are the primary
listeners that will have on this, not necessarily but but
but I get it, Like no, it's it's this constant

(01:53:12):
fucking thing you have whenever there's a war anywhere, And
you are like, well, what is the solution, Well, the
people who are the victims need to have access to weapons? Um. Yeah.
And if you're and if you're saying, which I agree with,
sending in US or whatever troops to ex country usually
it doesn't work out, then what are what is the
option give them fucking weapons? Yeah? And honestly, like what

(01:53:34):
would make the situation worse if we had American soldiers here?
Like yeah, I mean I just don't I just don't
think that's a thing that logistically the US military can do. Well. Um,
but like yeah, like there's some situations where, yes, military
assistance could make a situation worse. Bad things will happen,

(01:53:57):
You cannot deploy large amounts of weapons or soldiers to
a specific area without there being some kind of negative effects. However,
you have to realistically weigh the good and the bad. Yeah,
the world military the Allies bombed Germany flat, but they
stopped the fucking holocaust. Yeah, we blew up a fair

(01:54:18):
amount of people in the nineties, we stopped the genocide,
like we blew up the ship out of Isis, And
there was also some civilian casualties, which fucking sucked quite
a few. You stop the Azite genocide with the assistance
of the PKK and and the YPG and the y PJ, Like,
you cannot unleash military power without the acceptance that innocent

(01:54:42):
people are going to die. The way that you weigh
that is more fucking people are going to die if
you don't. That's that's I think the key of it,
and probably the point to close on is that it's
not a decision do we do we bring violence to
this situation or not the situation. The question is how

(01:55:02):
how lopsided will the violence be. Will the violence be
one state armed by its allies massacreing an under you know,
equipped military, and then civilians until there's no one left
of the people who inhabited that area. Um or will
those people have the equipment to defend themselves? Like that?

(01:55:23):
That's the question. There's no, there's no the situation. The
only way for the situation to not be violent is
for Zerbaijan to not do what they're doing right now.
Um And hey, if if some sort of fucking diplomatic
pressure works, I will I will be unbelievably psyched to
eat both of our words in this if the fucking
blinken manages to I don't. I don't. Yeah, I have

(01:55:45):
no idea, like how how you actually have an impact here?
But that would be lovely. I just don't think it's likely. Yeah,
there's I mean, don't be wrong. There's a time for
diplomacy in that time ends when troops attempt across the
border or they start cluster bombing our cities. Like there's
there's a time for diplomacy and not that you can
do two things at once. And and to be completely clear,

(01:56:06):
I'm not calling for like the hundred and first to
fucking land in Yovan or whatever. Like, I don't want
the American military to come here. We'll take care of ourselves,
but we need the tools to do so. And the
fact remains is like you can be vehemently against war.
I know I am. I fought in them. They fucking suck.
I do not want war to happen to anybody, But

(01:56:27):
when they when it comes, talking is over, or at
least it it hits the back burner. Like there's negotiations
going on in Ukraine and Russia that we don't hear about,
but at the same time, Ukraine knows they have to
continue doing violence in the meantime, Like you can't. You
can't just like whoa, guys, let's just hit the brakes
and let's like have a fucking peace conference in Belgium

(01:56:49):
or whatever. Like Sun is being bombed, Gorgious is being bought,
like our Meenians are dying, Like there's no words that
will fix that, but we'll fix it as fucking artillery system,
high mars, GPS, guided weapons, fucking body armor. We don't
even have first aid kits, Like there's there's there's things
that we need that can happen in addition to political pressure,

(01:57:11):
because political pressure is great if we ever have it,
but there needs to be something in the meantime, Like
the Director of Doctors without borders. One time said, um,
something that was incredibly controversial when he said, because he's
a doctor and he runs you know, a charity. He said,
you can't stop a genocide with doctors. And he meant
that you need to give people fucking weapons because you

(01:57:33):
know there's like like we already said, and then I'll
promise they'll stop talking. Um, there's two ways that this ends.
We defend ourselves and we survive, or you sit by
and you do nothing, and uh, there's thousands of more
graves full of Armenians by the end of this. That's it.
I mean, once upon a time the world said never again,
and that ship has had a big fucking asterix next

(01:57:54):
to it ever since. And people need to prove themselves.
You need to fucking prove the words actually mean things.
If you want to defend democracies and ship like you
do in Ukraine. I have a democracy for you to
defend and we need weapons. Yeah. I think that's as
good a note as I need to end on joke
A sabian Um Host of Lions led by Donkeys, author

(01:58:16):
of The Hooligans of Kandahar. You've got other bunch of
other books that have come out now. Yeah, I have
the Victory of Death series out if you enjoy military
sci fi. Uh, and I have another one coming out
in October called The Frontier Corps. You can preorder it now.
Um if you look on my Twitter, um, you can
find a link to preorder it. It's free if you

(01:58:38):
have um Kindle unlimited, so you know, if for the book.
Um so yeah. Also if you don't feel like giving
me money, that's that's great to donate to the Armenian
and Red Cross. They need it more than I do. Yeah. Um,
all right, everybody, that's the episode. Um, alright, hey, welcome

(01:59:17):
to it could happen here podcast. But things falling apart
and putting them back together. And this is another Andrew episode.
So hello Ulu, yes, greetings, we have we have we
have Chris, we have James, we have myself, and we
have Andrew obviously, who I'm going to hand the reins

(01:59:38):
off to. Awesome, So hello again to another episode of
me talking about different stuff. Um and quite fittingly, considering
to these the d that Queen Elizabeth has passed into

(01:59:59):
the pits of hell. Um, we are we are deeply
as as a citizen under the Commonwealth, we are deeply
saddened by the lost colleagues have reached out to me
today and I am okay, guys, is so funny. Today
we will be discussing a current member of the Commonwealth

(02:00:24):
um one of quite a few twin island nations in
the Caribbean, that being Antigua and Barbuda, and more specifically Barbuda.
Barbuda is an example of African resilience. It's an example
of a society in touch with this environment. It's an

(02:00:44):
example of the capability of the commons as an institution,
and it's an example of sticking it to the crown.
To be quite honest as you, all right, I mean,
I'm excited to learn more about that. How how yes, So,

(02:01:05):
I don't think many people know about Bobuda and its history.
I doubt most people could place it on a map,
but it's it. It represents quite the interesting story. So
to begin, I should probably explain what what is a Bobuda.

(02:01:27):
Barbuda is an island located in the Eastern Caribbean, forming
part of the sovereign state of Antigua and Barbuda. It's
located north of the island of Antigua and it's part
of the Leeward Islands for the West Indies. It comprises
about sixty two square miles, so it is about sixty
two square miles which is a hundred and sixty kilometers

(02:01:49):
and it's one of the flattest islands in the Caribbean.
It's soils are very shallow and in foods. Islands a
very arid island with very little rainfall and very frequent routs.
Its scrub willderness is roamed by day and pigs and
descendants of the animals that early European traders and settlers

(02:02:12):
would have imported. It also has a pre settlement ever
green woodland that consists of white cedar, turpentine and white wood,
alongside columnar cactus and thorny shrubs and grassy glades and
soils that have been another species that have grown up
in soils that have been degraded by the clearance of

(02:02:37):
charcoal burning and grazing and just general human activity. Most
bob Udan's i would say engage in shifting cultivation, but
none of them are full time farmers. The countryside is
mostly uninhabited because the law required that all barb Udans
lived in or near the island's one village which is

(02:02:58):
Quadrington and there, according to eleven census, there were roughly
four people on the island. Of course, that has changed
in recent times, and we'll get into that shortly. Barbuda
is yet another example of a distinctive community emerging out

(02:03:20):
of the colonial era that swept through the Caribbean. I've
mentioned the Maroons before, the different marine communities that have
existed on the different Caribbean islands and in Guyana and Surnam.
But I think Bobuda and their story represents really the

(02:03:42):
diversity of how colonialism manifested um in the region. Barbula's
people have a sense of identity and attachment to locality
that is I think very distinctive and very unique among

(02:04:04):
people of the Caribbean. Not to say that the rest
of us don't have a sense of identity or attachment locality,
but their story and the tradition reaches back over two
centuries of near independence and quite significant levels of autonomy,

(02:04:27):
which was unheard of in most of the Caribbean due
to the legacy of slavery. Representing a very close knit
and traditional community probably runs approach to using and student
the resources reflects that long legacy of isolation, of ecological
constraint being on such a small island, of familial closeness,

(02:04:49):
having such a small population, and of social interdependence. Considering
the series of administrators that they had dealt with, and
how each of those administrators neglect did or ignored them.
Bob Dans, both whom and abroad, are still very much
attached to their island because they have long held it

(02:05:09):
in common. So we'll be diving into a brief history
of exactly how they reached this point, what institutions they've
developed for common ownership and community land use, and how
emigration has played a role in that, and unfortunately, how

(02:05:32):
the combination of Hurricane Irma and the doctrine and the
shock doctrine have contributed to their current situation. So for
more than two hundred years, from the late seventeenth century,
Barbuda was leased by the crown to one family, the Cardringtons,

(02:05:54):
hence the name of the village being Quadringtons. The originally
c was a guy named Christopher Cauldring and he was
the governor of the Leeward Islands and his ears lived
in England, so they pretty much neglected it. After year died,
Barbuda would have supplemented the lucrative sugar. States that Cardrickton

(02:06:19):
had an antigua with timber and ground provisions and fish
and livestock and draft animals. Barbuda, being surrounded by coral reefs,
often had ships wrecked near the island, and so they
also salvage resources from lewder ships and so as late
as in the eighteen fifties, the Carrington's were getting four

(02:06:40):
thousand pounds a year from Barbuda and stock, and three
hundred pounds a year from salvage in operations on the island.
That's just over sixty three thousand pounds today per year.
And it just demonstrats, of course, and even though they
were more independent than most other slave people, because the

(02:07:03):
island wasn't as profitable, they were still being exploited. Initially,
the island was only worked by a few indentured whites,
but then when enslaved people were brought in from Africa,
the enslave population began to rise, and they began to
establish that sort of culture and community that received to

(02:07:23):
this day. Because they were neglected because the island was
very little inhabited, they housed and they fed themselves through
their own efforts, and we're basically spared of the rigors
of the plantation regiment because of how unprofitable the island
was because it's soils were so sandy and arid and unfertile.

(02:07:50):
So between eighteen hundred and eighty two, being free in
many respects, probably this population was able to rise from
three dred to five hundred, and they are able to
a cohesive creole community whose solidarity was able to thwart
the efforts of local overseers and absentee proprietors to try

(02:08:14):
to get them to labor on anti unites states or
to get them to be more quote and quote productive
um for their overseers. Because they had such a several
hundred strong community on that island that had established itself
for generations, no overseers, no manager, could just pull up

(02:08:37):
in there and just say try and cooce them into
doing what he wanted them to do. This is installed
contrast to a lot of the other Criban islands, where
managers and overseers had a lot more presence and a
lot more power to destroy families, to split up communities,
to ferment divisions. Because the island just they basically neglected

(02:08:58):
it and in that neglect, to advantage of that neglect,
of the material conditions that created that neglect, to strengthen
their community bonds and to strengthen their autonomy. As emancipation
came around, car Drinton himself even was like, Wow, good
for them pretty much because almost all of them, who were,

(02:09:21):
like to quote him directly, one united family, so attached
to bob Udell that force alone or extreme drought can
alone take them from that island. In other words, as
an exploit as a displaced indigenous African people, they reforged
the connection to the new land that they inhabited and
rooted themselves in that land. One one particular tradition they

(02:09:44):
have is the burial of ones in Biblical code on
the island itself, and so that's been going on for generations.
With a new child is born and the Embiblical code
is buried on the island. And so even Bobudens move abroad,
they still have that strong tie to the island it's self.
So after emancipation ruled around in eighteen three four, probably

(02:10:06):
in life didn't change that much. That the transition from
slavery to being free was not as abrupt or as
consequential as it was in other parts of the Caribbean.
They didn't become landowners, they didn't necessarily get any political
power automatically because probably there was still being assigned to
crown leases which had certain um agreements and contracts in

(02:10:31):
place with the Crown, that kind of thing. But they
were I mean, they were still being exploited, but things
were a bit easier for them to transition compared to
other places. In eighteen thirty five, agreements had secured probably
the unemployment on conjuring turn empress enterprises at specific rates

(02:10:51):
to pay. But after the contract had lapsed, it really
revooted to a sort of relationship of of coersion. They
wouldn't pay them, they wouldn't pay them their wages. They
would take quote and quote ricalcutu and prob udans and
transport them to Antigue and jails or plantations, and they

(02:11:14):
would continue to just siphon off of the island. One
of the only exports really on the island at the
time was cattle, mostly for Carrington's estates and Antigua cattle, sheep,
and firewood. And the people themselves were engaged in cultivating
provisions yams, potatoes, corn, and supplying their own farmer history.

(02:11:39):
They were including the necessities. So Abudans would continue with
their different occupations, their hunting and they're fishing, their provision
intending their cutting wood and put in charcoal and salvage
and wrecks. Sometimes would they would be employed by proprietors
with governments, but most times they either disregarded these authorities

(02:11:59):
or acted in open defiance. And so as the state
would often complain about bob Uduans and their disregard for
the crowns property and the estates property, they would often
be accused of poaching Cortinon's cattle, and so they will
There was one attempt in particular to seize all their

(02:12:21):
guns and send them off of the Ireland. And so
when the government did step in and condemned Bobby Duns
for you know, taking cattle when they wanted to take cattle,
Bobby Duns basically pull an reverse card and demanded redress
against interference with their livelihoods. They basically were like, I'll

(02:12:46):
quote one petition that was written by Bob Dunces in
eighteen we are deprived of the use of our firearms,
where by most of us live in shooting any large fish,
tootill or wild birds. We are told to take old licenses,
yet if we are seen with a gun, not even shooting,
we're taken before the Mages Street of Antigua and severely punished,

(02:13:08):
punished for it. Our little gardens are gone to waste.
And if such as still in a little cultivation was
to be injured by weather and we by sickness are
not able to have the fences repaired directly, it has taken.
And Bruin say, our intention is willing to catch the
wild beasts of Mr Cardrington's. Eventually, I guess the Cardring

(02:13:29):
terms got tired of having to not profit as well
as they could have, of having to deal with these
independent people. Their relinquished on their least. In eighteen seventy
they took all their horses and cattle of the island,
leaving only the day and sheep because he currently round
up day and sheep as effectively at that point, and

(02:13:51):
they basically they left um. And I always find it
interested when Europeans bring like a bunch of European animals
wherever they go. It's like, let me just go and
set up an estate here in a middle of no
way and introduce a bunch of deer and sheep and
rabbits and stuff. I mean, I think it happened in
Australia as well. They just let a bunch of rabbish
school loose just for hunting. It's like, oh, let me

(02:14:12):
like get a hobby that's not shooting animals. But anyway,
so because bubbly they were seen as unprofitable. Each lea
see that you know, got their least from the Crown,
got it its resources as much as they could and
neglected its inhabitants. William and Robert Dougal of William and

(02:14:37):
Robert Dougal's probably with the Island Company, never invested the
annual one point five or one hundred pounds required by
the least only seven hundred pounds rather than they promised.
Six thousand worth of stock were introduced with Bailey. With Bailey,
a score Pubulans employed as craeziers, and even though they
allegedly attempted to plant u swetten, coffee, coola, cuckoo another fruits,

(02:15:05):
they neglected that too, and eventually a derelict. Probably theo
was forfeited to the Crown for a non payment of
friend when a government official visited the island, we found
the day were almost exterminated. The satin wood and log
would be depleted, the cattle were famished, the fences would disrepair.

(02:15:26):
They had four mens around up about on horses, ate
a cattle and a bunch of cows, and the two
products that existed on the island had long since become
filthy and fariously overgrown, not only with bush but dense tickets.
Dr Dougal's gunners also apparently had a really bad sense
of aim because a lot of defences were just riddled

(02:15:48):
with bullets. And so because the island and the people
were starbed and degraded by the dow calls Um, the
Colonial Office had you know, revoked their lease and basically
excuse the few villagers who were taken some of the
cattle for themselves. Babbulans had also protested the fact that

(02:16:12):
whenever these leases would pull up on their island, they
would always be taking their stock, closing their provision grounds,
trying to evict them basically doing everything they could be
hostile towards people on the island, and so only their
own traditional hunting and farming and and stuff enabled Probbu

(02:16:35):
Dans to survive of course, government being the government didn't
really care what the people that much, so even though
the lease holders were gone, didn't really get much out
of it the people that is stain. After determination lease,
the Cluonial government, the Leeward Islands Cluonial governments and Antigua

(02:16:57):
basically took over the island and they established the Government
stock Farm one some cotton plots in nineteen three UM.
They gave some grants to pay for fencing and cutting
wood and cotton experiments and cattle bud chases and mule breeding,
and the Bobby runs took the government greens and lands

(02:17:18):
with their own purposes and basically enclosed a portion of
that land and left it for the government stock and
left the rest of the pasture, the richest parts of
the pasture for their own horses and cattle and donkeys.
So while the government had to deal with like this

(02:17:40):
small portion of land with like some very weak, insufficient meadow,
the rest of the community was able to flourish with
a nice, rich pasture for their cattle. And still despite
that the stock farm, the Government stock farm, still flourished
with during sixty whoses a hundred eight cattle and five

(02:18:02):
mules and then the cotton surprisingly also became profitable on
the island. Um I called a crop that really didn't flourish.
They are told during slavery was now tating to pick up.
In the beginning of the early twentie century. We began
shipping caught note and employing a bunch of Barby Dan's

(02:18:25):
and now Bobby there was being scheme is a superprofitable place. However,
because of that cotton boom, Bobby Dan's were able to
buy passage overseas, they were able to raise the standard
of living, and it ended up causing a labor shortage

(02:18:46):
that led to conflict. After a shipwreck off the island,
the island manager went to check out what was going
on with the salvage and and he caught a bunch
of Bubu Dans salvage in but salvage and for their

(02:19:08):
own profits instead of his profits. And so in retaliation,
in retaliation for him trying to stop them from salvage
and for themselves, the Bobby Duns burnt his boat and
his wagon, and so in retaliation for that, the governor
of Antigo started to impose these previously uninforced rents and

(02:19:28):
cultivated plots. So like he wanted to charge like five
shillings per equal per year, and he also doubled animal
head taxes. And so by introducing these taxes, introducing these rents,
the government's basically trying to get not just to punish
the people for you know, daring to be free, but

(02:19:52):
also trying to force them to work on their cotton plantation.
Of course, Bob you Don's, having live so freely for
so long, didn't want to work on these cotton plantations,
especially not after slavery um. And so the people petitioned

(02:20:12):
the crown against this kind of semi intentioned suitude that
the governor was trying to introduce. And it seems that
mother nature was on their side because they want their case.
Due to drought, all the crops were basically ruined by drought,

(02:20:33):
cutting on cotton profits, um cutting on cattle profits, cuttling
on crops on corn profits. And all this happened in
nineteen six and then in Barbado was hit by a
hurricane more severe than they've ever seen before. And so

(02:20:58):
that brief period where Barbido as seen as strike and
google for the government came to an end, and bob
Udans continued to cling on to their customary modes, subsistence,
of self reliance, of survival of their plots and their
livestock and their fishing grounds, of continuing to be their
own masters, because two d and fifty years of experience

(02:21:21):
had taught them how unreliable and exploitative all these other
alternatives that bosses non natives that the government was trying
to introduce woo to them, and they learned that only
ownership in common would guarantee their access and guarantee the

(02:21:41):
protection of their island from environmental exploitation. As as we
get to the interesting part, because they're already long thought
to themselves as owners of the island, as possessing the
island for themselves, even though on peep but it wasn't
the case, even though on people they were being handled

(02:22:04):
between the Crown and the different leaseholders. That the Crown
would introduce Barbuda to Barbudaans, being so small, being so homogeneous,
having such meager soils, having such strong and type connections
and bonds, they saw it as all of theirs collectively.

(02:22:32):
It wasn't like and when I say strong connections, family bonds,
I don't mean it in the sense that some of
the other in lands in the Caribbean, and was sort
of puzzled out because in the Caribbean there are lands
that are held by certain families and it passes down
the family and going on for generations. But it wasn't

(02:22:56):
this idea that all these particular families owned the land.
It was that all of them together wound the land
serious real communal land ownership. They'd used the land for generations,
to raise ground provisions to hunt there and wild pigs,

(02:23:22):
to keep goats and sheep, to keep cattle, to cut firewood,
to fish, and so on. They had no documents and
said that they had these collective rights on the island.
And yet they all insisted with one voice the Barbuda
was theirs. Healin no outsiders could tell them other wise.
And furthermore, they had proven again and again and again

(02:23:48):
that outside proprietors were powerless in the face of their
attempts to run the island for themselves, because they would
continue to graze the cattle wherever they wanted to graze
their cattle. They will continue to fish wherever they wanted
to fish, salvage whatever they wanted to salvage, cultivate wherever
they wanted to cultivate. Who's gonna stop them, you know,

(02:24:13):
clearly nobody. They couldn't even get outside. I couldn't even
get like a rent out of prob you done so.
In nineteen twenty Bobby Duns hadn't gotten legal entitlement roughly
half of the island, and by three they controlled futually

(02:24:35):
all of its resources, basically the facto unfortunately against their will. Honestly,
Antigua and Barbuda were joined together by putting live in
the strators, and so Antiguan Barbuda is the country that existity.
But one of the primary concerns of Abudan's we're that

(02:25:00):
they were able whether they be able to maintain soul ownership,
soul control, soul compunal control over the lands of Barbuda.
Land ownership has been an issue that bob Udon's have
had with Antigua for a very very long time now,
for decades now, and really all bob Udan's want is

(02:25:23):
to maintain their common ownership for themselves alone, and so
they have maintained that through the Barbudan Council defending the
land and declaring that no land in Barbuda can be
sold or developed without the permission of the Bubbudan Council.

(02:25:43):
And so now to explain basically how common land use
works in Barbuda, there are two distinctive and useful moods
of land use. Shifting cultivation for provision grounds and open
range pastured for livestock. Because there's oil is so weak,
shifting cultivation is a necessity. And so after one or

(02:26:05):
two years of planting exhaustive soil, they move their fencing,
they move their grounds of between half an acre to
two or three acres, and plants they are sweet potatoes, yams,
me is, beans, pigeon ps, squash, peanuts, etcetera. Elsewhere. So
the old land could you know, regenerate, but this constant

(02:26:31):
cultivation is something that occurs. The grants really no permanent
rights any one individual. You do have use rights. It
is the principle of use of fruct over the area're cultivating,
but you don't have permanent ownership over that piece of

(02:26:52):
land that you're cultivating. And they have that system in
place because they recognize living on the island for the
generations that bob ut As ecology is extremely fragile, extremely
limited um its resources are limited, and so they have
to safeguard there um, the as sustenance for generations to come. Yeah,

(02:27:18):
it's fascinating, Actually, it's really I didn't know anything about that. Yeah, yeah,
it really is. Similarly with them with the slash and
bloom cultivation, they also had the management of open range
livestock being very much unrestricted. Um. They're actually feral cattle

(02:27:40):
that exists on the island in addition to the more
teamed and pen animals. Um. And so how they basically
they allow all their animals, you know, mixed and mingo
of different families and different individuals would have their specific
cattle or horses or sheep or whatever a marked or branded.
But for the most part, they they've maintained this sort

(02:28:04):
of open range husbandry because it helps to sustain their unity.
It helps to maintain their strengthen their social bonds and
their community solidarity, to basically ensure that everyone has taken
care of in a place that is so scant resources. Lastly,

(02:28:29):
through one of the ways that they maintain in the
balance of the island is through is through emigration. The
population has basically stayed at that level because they've stayed
within the limits of the resources they have on the
island and so young, Bob, you don't have had to

(02:28:49):
leave um the island, um while still maintaining their communal
use rights to the land. And then eventually they would
make remittances of money or resources and periodic returns that
would help to introduce you know, healthcare resources and housing

(02:29:14):
resources and education resources to the island. Just another day,
like completely isolated from the outside world, living in this
sort of bubble. They do still have that exchange going on.
Most of the immigrants live in three primary communities, seeing
John's Antigua of course, seeing as it's the neighbor. Um.

(02:29:34):
A lot of them are in New York City, I
mean a lot of Korean people in general New York City,
but Bob Dan's are in New York City. And all
of them also live in Britain in Leicester as part
of the West Indian exodus that took place all the
way back in the late nineteen fifties. Yeah, so sort

(02:29:58):
of wrap things here. Um. Their communities and their solidarity
have allowed them to cope with a harsh environment and
to successfully navigate a succession of misinformed aloof sometimes actually
hostile and mostly incompetent proprietors managers and administrators. Being so

(02:30:23):
unified and holding themselves in solidarity, they have managed to
maintain their traditional resource ownership, their communal land tenure, and
their fragile ecology completely and totally UM rejecting the assocutions
that the economist carried hard and made about the tragedy

(02:30:46):
of the commons, it has not been a tragedy for
what you've done. It has been a triumph until recently. Unfortunately,
in September, how Urricane Uma damaged and destroyed of the
islands buildings and infrastructure, and as a result, all of

(02:31:10):
the island's inhabitants had to evacuate Antiguo, leaving Babbuda empty
for the first time in hundreds of years wow, I
mean two years later. By February, most of the residents
have returned to the island. However, the Prime Minister of Antiguo,

(02:31:31):
Gaston Alfonso Brown he's been leader since UM, has been
making moves essentially to privatize Barbuda. His background before entering
politics was being a banker and a businessman, and he

(02:31:52):
seems to be employing the shock doctor and tactic of
using environmental catastrophe and social displacement. Two accelerate capitalism. Essentially,
after you know, hurricaneum I swept through Um and posted
residents became homeless, communication systems came went went down Um

(02:32:20):
and taking Bobulda God relief pounds of relief for Barbuda Um.
That's not very much, not very much at all, Um.
But it would take over a hundred million dollars to

(02:32:40):
rebuild the homes in the infrastructure in barb udell Um,
the old critical infrastructure that existed, the food supply, the medicine,
the shelter, electricity, water, communications, waste management and as one
person said, UM the directive take in Barbula's National Office

(02:33:01):
of the Disaster Services film Melon. He said, in my
twenty five years of disaster management, I've never seen something
like this. It is optimistic to think anything like this
be rebuilt in six months. They have to rebuild entirely
all of their public utilities UM. And so essentially what

(02:33:22):
Prime Minister Gaston or funds who Brown is trying to
do is revoke communal landownership, allow the residents to buy
some land and use the rest to basically introduce UM

(02:33:43):
resorts and who tells and other to risk attractions to
help fund the rebuilding efforts, but of course we know
the way that money is actually going to go. And
that's as far as I know about the situation. UM. Unfortunately,

(02:34:05):
don't have any connections in Antihuan Barbuda yet. UM, But
unfortunately that is what it's been going on in another
example basically of disaster capitalism trying to cease and accumulates
through violence and for exploitation as usual. I hope that

(02:34:34):
you know, we've seen and been inspired by Barbula's efforts,
and I hope that probably don't able to continue to
prove themselves resilient in the face of this disaster. That's fascinating.
And do you know, like I'm interested in these like
diasporic communities like you said, there's one in Lester and stuff.

(02:34:57):
It's like, do they still have like a very strong
community coherents like when they when they go elsewhere and
to like did like you said, they tend to gather
in like certain spots. Be interested in like how those folks,
I guess dealt with a very different life in like
New York or Leicester or wherever right well, Um, like

(02:35:20):
other Caribbean people who have emigrated, we do tend to
concentrating cuittain places where we already have family connections. Um.
I think most Scribbean people have at least a relative
living abroad. Yeah, an uncle, a great uncle, second cousin,

(02:35:42):
the cousin whatever. Um, And so it sort of builds
from there. And so you try and be that, you
create like a piece of home and sort of settle
and concentrate in those areas and live in those areas
and support each other in those areas. Yeah, and that,
I would say helps with the adjustment. Yeah, yeah, that

(02:36:06):
makes a lot of sense. Yeah. Um. So you can
find me on YouTube dot com slash andrewism on patre
dot com slash scene true, and on Twitter dot com
slash on discore scene true. If you are Bob, you done,
Please don't have you to reach out to me. I
would love to learn more about the situation going on
and wish all all the best solidarity. Who's dying today,

(02:36:46):
it's Queen, it's the Queen. Well correction, she's not dying,
she's she's dead. That ladies said. Yeah, very sad, obviously,
very sad. Grieving punk us today brought to you by
it could happen here. It's all of us. It's it's me,
it's Get, it's Chris, it's Robert, and it's the ghost

(02:37:08):
of the Queen. We're talking about the queen. She's dead,
what's up with that? Yeah, she's real dead. Um, I
haven't seen. You know what I haven't seen that I'm
disappointed of is a new version of the Monty Python
Dead Parrot sketch involving her corpse. And it's and it's
fancy casket. Um, but that's still time, still time we

(02:37:29):
can change that. Now. My question is, James, is that
legal in the UK? Now? Absolutely not. No, you will
get so arrested, not even arrested. This is the worst
part people have just like I don't understand what the
funk is wrong with people, but they have become volunteer
cops to like defend a guy who's been credibly accused
of peedophilia. I am disappointed in us. Do not be

(02:37:53):
policing your fellow people for exercising some of the very
few rights at the conservative well because everybody how taken
away from them. Actually, but yeah, you've only let yourself down.
I'm disappointed. Yeah, they they they really really hating anyone
who is not thrilled about the monarchy. They're arresting people

(02:38:14):
of having not my king signs. I see that Jetwood
is taking it to the fascist state, which is great
to see. But we're gonna be talking about the Queen
or former former queen. Um I do want to do
want a note that you know, the day the Queen died,
a big wave of condolences came in, including from Domino's

(02:38:36):
Pizza UK, which which if you don't understand, the Queen
had a very deep relationship with Dominoes, so this this
does mean a lot um they were, they were, they
were lovers. Among those who posted their condolences was Hamilton's
West End, the Britain the Britain r MT, which is

(02:38:58):
like the British Railway unions their strike, which I think
is the most pissed at coward thing I've ever seen.
The union do. British Cycling suggested to people not go
out for a bike ride during the time of the Queens.
Are you fucking serious? My god? They're literally was deal

(02:39:19):
with the closing food. I think the funniest one was
Labs Rob posted everyone is deeply saddened by the passing
of her. Madnesty in the Queen and we offer our
sincere conduleces to the royal family. We joined together with
the people of the United Kingdom and all around the
world and mourning her loss, which they then which they
then deleted an hour later. If there's one thing that

(02:39:41):
Mrs rob is about, it's about people all though for
the world, mourning the loss of monarchy, it's the main
thing about it. So yeah, most of on Twitter was
definitely was definitely split between these companies posting how they're
so sad. That also a lot of people pretty pretty
thrilled that the queen died, because it's kind of funny

(02:40:02):
because we were all shocked by the nine year old
woman who died. She was so young. It's she was.
She was at an age that if you reversed her
age and told me she had died, I still wouldn't
have been surprised. Like she was at an age where
like even if you flip the numbers, she's still all.

(02:40:24):
She still Yeah, it's great to see the Telegraph today
running a headline five mile Q to view Elizabeth's second coffin.
We'll see horrible stories of suffering. This is a country
where she said, will not be able to heat their
homes this winter. It's a country an explosion in food insecurity,

(02:40:46):
and this is what we're doing. It's like like the
British like, okay, so the Crown did not call directly
for a blood sacrifice. The British people are just bound
and determined to have people die like they're like they're
like they're lining up in the streets to sacrifice themselves
for the dead. It is I mean, magical things don't

(02:41:07):
do us all that way. There's some people sharing up
with not my King signs and getting assaulted by mobs
and people like regular as people. Yeah, yeah, most people
are not that concerned. Most people are not like it's
just like the Turfs in Britain. There are like a
small minority of people who do nothing but tweet right

(02:41:29):
for the Guardian, who misrepresent the opinions of most British
people who are not that concerned. But like a lot
of these British people do show up in person and
like shut down like yes, it's it is not It
is not the case that like there isn't widespread support
for this kind of ship. It's just that it's it's
not uniform and that's the people who do speak The
people who do speak up also tend to get arrested,

(02:41:52):
which its just like it's it's sort of amazing. It's like, okay,
Britain got industrial capitalism before like any other country to Earth. Right,
the boy Josie has one job. One job there. One
job is to destroy feudalism. And they could even the
British couldn't do it. They had they had the largest
head start of any country on Earth, and they couldn't

(02:42:12):
do it. It's incredible, it's miraculous. They were co opted
into these few elites through things like the Great Reform Acts,
which which used property as a proxy for land or
capital as a proxy for land, and it's worked remarkably well.
And now we just do false consciousness ship like this,
Like how good is your false consciousness game? When people

(02:42:32):
who can't heat their homes are sleeping on the street
to say goodbye to presumably a billionaire who never cared
about them. Yeah, it's like raculous. Yeah, you absolutely who
was not equipped emotionally to have ever cared about them,
who's soul would never have allowed her to care about them. Yeah,

(02:42:53):
let's let's like you know, as as lots of people
were romanticizing the monarchy and the queen and doing their
like performative more nings. Obviously, there was a way of
other people being like, hey, you know, the Royal family
is kind of kind of sucked up. You know, they've
stolen billions of dollars and jewels from countries like India
and across South Africa. Um, they're continuing to benefit from

(02:43:17):
Britain's history of colonialism. The earlier earlier this year, during
the during the during the Queen's jubilee celebration, an old
Kenyan revolutionary fighter used the used the the occasion to
call for an explanation from the Queen for why she
hasn't been compensated after being tortured with axes by British troops.

(02:43:40):
Look at the Britain treated. We're stuff on this. I
have stuff on this later for this episode. Actually, we're
gonna be talking about that. Seventeen estimate found that the
Royal family is estimated to be worth eighty eight billion
dollars um. Yeah, and a lot of that's obviously not
in straight cash, which is one of the ways like

(02:44:01):
people are talking about, oh, Charles inherited half a billion, No,
Charles billions of dollars. Like they own a lot of land, Yes,
they own a huge amount of land. Um. Charles has
his own real estate empire that he like created while
he was waiting for his mom to fucking croak um.
And they also have like a fortune and a really

(02:44:24):
actually uncountable like you have to think about their wealth
like the Vatican, Like there's no actual way, Like it's
functionally limitless money because so much of what they own
is like priceless antiquities, many of which were stolen from
other people. Yeah. An it's hard to put a tangible number.
And that's sort of their value and that sort of
what if you want to go to celebrity status, Yes,

(02:44:45):
what is that fucking diamond in the goddamn crown worth? Right?
Like there's no real way to appraise that. Yeah. Well,
and I want to point this out, like if they
tried to sell the diamond, almost certainly what would happen
is like the British people would give her three billion
dollars and they give her the diamond back they crowd funded. Yeah,
they'd stopped doing the subsidies for heating that they've just
started doing and buy the diamond back. Here, let's talk
about let's let's let's talk about the heating thing briefly

(02:45:08):
because I think uh. An anchor on BBC was discussing
how news of the Queen's passing basically interrupted all other
news in the UK, UM including statements being given on
the price increase in energy bills and the raising cost
of living, um stating that that those topics, that the

(02:45:30):
topics of cost of living and the rise of energy
bills was quote insignificant. Now due to the gravity of
this situation, we can we can insert this clip here
I have I haven't saved for Daniel because it's just
it's wild. Doctors in Scotland were concerned about the Queen's
health coming um as liszt Trust was making a rather

(02:45:50):
important statement concerning um the future of energy bills UM that,
of course insignificant now given the gravity of the situation
we see to be experiencing. An old lady died. She
was not a very nice old lady. I've known old
ladies who were nice that died, and I was sad.
I've known old ladies who are night and not nice

(02:46:11):
that died, and I didn't really care in any case,
Like it's it's not it's not a big deal because
old people like that's what human beings do when they
reach ninety six is they die a lot of the time.
And it's it's okay, Like it's okay. Queen would see it.
Of everything about her, it's fine. Queen Elizabeth was the
longest reigning monarch in the history of Britain. Yeah, probably

(02:46:35):
close to the longest. And like maybe Ramsey is the
fucking second is up there, like sixty nine years. You
don't run into a lot of competition in terms of
length of two Yeah, And it's worth a lot of
old ladies going to die in Britain this winter because

(02:46:55):
of the okay, And it's also worth knowing you the
queen tried to use a bunch of state poverty money
that was earmorged for schools, hospitals and low income families
to pay bucking camp houses heating bill. Oh wow, Uh yeah,
that's that's wild. That's great. Well, you wouldn't want an
old woman like that to be out of out in
the rain. Because I believe the Crown is States, and

(02:47:21):
I'll have to check this real quickly. I believe the
Crown of States did evict people during the COVID nineteen pandemic.
Talking of old folks being kicked out into the rain
and for for around two weeks after the queen's death,
basically all of Britain kind of grinds to a halt um.
It's which which would honestly one of the base parts
about this is that this does potentially cost the UK

(02:47:43):
economy billions of dollars because they just shut down for
two weeks um. So this is like the equivalent of
the boat getting stuck in the canal, just the queen dying.
I do want to I do want to make a
quick note for everybody. The longest reigning, very refiable monarch,
according to this Wikipedia page that I just skimmed is

(02:48:05):
so Boosa, the second of Swaziland, which was a British
protectorate until nineteen sixty eight. He reigned from eighteen ninety
nine to August of nineteen eighty two, two years. So
you know what, Elizabeth, not that impressive. I am a
Sabooza the second stand now absolute chad ship. The fact

(02:48:27):
that he just snuffed it before he got to see
a part tight end very yeah. That is m yeah, wow, yeah,
it's just yeah. It's looking at some of the evictions
of krown of states have done over the years. You
can look it's pretty heartbreaking. Ship. Well luck luckily, Uh,
the Queen actually did not die in Buckingham Palace. She

(02:48:48):
died in a castle in Scotland. That's great because Buckingham
Palace is a hideous monument of trash like the castle
she died. It looks pretty cool that most of the Yeah,
one thing you're supposed to get with a monarchy is
like really rad looking castles. It is like neat the

(02:49:08):
castles are cool, except for Buckingham Palace, which looks like yeah.
So bucking a Palace is a building that dares you
to go steal back all of the wealth if they
stole from you to build it. So the plan for
if the Queen died in this Scottish castle was called
Operation Unicorn, which is wild. What is the unicorn? A

(02:49:32):
ninety six year old woman dying is not a unicorn situation?
Operations Squirrel or something more? How is this giving a
couple of their third I don't get it, I I know, um,
So the plan for this type of thing is so
the queen died on last Thursday afternoon. It was announced
the Friday following Friday morning. After the queen dies, Uh,

(02:49:55):
they call Operation unicorn. They then call, they send like
my emergency alerts all the British leaders, um, no, the
new Prime Minister who was incredibly funny, um, and you know,
all of all these people are notified and then press
press gets notified that next morning as as as they did.

(02:50:18):
So staff members in the castles and palaces all got
sent home. Um. All parliamentary business gets postponed. Uh, every everything,
everything shuts down, which means all of the stuff they
were working on on energy bills gets shut down, like
they were working on trying to figure out what the

(02:50:38):
funk they're gonna do for this cost increase. All that
gets shut down until late September. Um. So that's that's cool. Um.
But no, this is actually kind of a unique thing
because because of how long Elizabeth reigned, the last death
of a monarch was in the fifties, so it's it's
been a while since this has happened, so everyone's kind

(02:50:58):
of rusty, like, no, like if we aren't as prepared
for this, if if it's okay, My my hope is
that we get a couple of we get people get
a lot of experience with dead British monarchs in the
next decade, King Charles the Third. I don't think we'll
be around for too long. Yeah, I've seen that man's hands,
and it's here's the thing. Every every time a monarch dies,

(02:51:22):
it's kind of it's like a top down, rolling general strike.
So if we get enough of them in a row,
we can start doing serious damage to capital. By the way,
quick quick note about the chad so Booza, the second
of Swazi Land died, died with a thousand grandchildren. Oh
my god. Wow, man and always pictured shirtless Elizabeth cannot compete. No,

(02:51:51):
I'm fine without not being the case. Actually, I don't
want to see any competion. Yeah, and he probably wasn't
racist to any of their partners with no actually you
can say about the real families. Here's a neat thing.
He and he took all control of all non or
of all Swazi land and mineral rights from non Swazi
interests that had gained control during colonialism and indigenized all

(02:52:13):
of that, which is dope. So there you go, So
boost of the motherfucking second. Yeah, a god, king, I
have to go and get injected with a small dose
of a disease. Well, let's got everything, but injected in
that Chris. Hey, Daniel's back, so let's take an ad break, um,
and we'll be back to learn more about the Queen.
You know what else will give you a small dose

(02:52:34):
to a disease? That's right, that's right, Yes, these products
and services. Yeah, I'll gonna say the Queen of England.
But yeah, and we're back. So yeah, it's been a
while since since the monarch died. Last time this happened
in the fifties, mourners wore black arm bands to show
respect for King George. That's the one who was like

(02:52:59):
a big fan of Nazis. Right, But I don't I
don't think we're gonna see so I don't think that
tradition is going to continue. I doubt we're gonna see
a wave of black arm vants. If anyone was going
to do it, it would probably be the Anglos. Yeah,
I I suppose so yeah, it's uh oh yeah, it
was Edward, Edward the Eight who abdicated um and and

(02:53:22):
then was replaced by the guy who you were talking about. Okay,
that's the guy like Nazis, Edward the Eighth. So all all, all,
all the UK flags are gonna be flown at at
half masted until the day of the funeral, and then
the day of the funeral is going to be a
bank holiday as well. So that's pretty exciting. That's great.
I hope that the poor get to eat sweetmeats or something. No, no, again,

(02:53:47):
they're just they're just closing down almost all almost all businesses,
almost all businesses in the Okay will close. The Stock
Exchange is going to close. Um like on on following
present a prince is Diana's death in the late nineties, uh, Britain.
Business owners in Britain quote felt that they were quote

(02:54:07):
forced to close their shops or canceled sporting sporting events
the day of the funeral lest they feel the rage
of the tear stained hordes outside unquote. Yeah, that's an
incredible that is an incredibly funny way to talk about
monarchist though, like, thank you, thank you, thank you the
Guardian for that amazing quote. It's unbelievable, and at least

(02:54:29):
with Diana, it was actually sad like she was a
nice person who was badly treated in her life by
the royal family and died tragically and young, as opposed
to somebody who got everything they want from the day
they were born. And died at So then currently they
are assembling the quote Ascension Council to formally declare Prince

(02:54:52):
Charles the King, which he's he's already known as King Charles,
but you know there's the whole separate formal process. Yeah,
because he could pick another name. Still he says he's not.
He says he's Oh, he's confirmed. That good because kings
king's Charles have a good history in the UK, they
don't often get executed. So the Council will make the

(02:55:14):
proclamation of ascension to be to be read on Proclamation
Day will be which will be soon after the death um,
and that'll be somewhere somewhere in a London. How did
you still have all the ship? Like, there's so many
weird rituals that they still do. Both houses of Parliament
are suspended are suspended until after the official state funeral

(02:55:39):
um and both and and all politicians have to wear
new allegiance to the to the newly ascended monarch. This
is really like genuinely the world's most pathetic ruling class. Like,
oh my god, Jesus Christ, it's pretty funny. You have
one job. Well, but also like back in the day

(02:56:01):
before we had monarchs and capitalism. Whenever you know, you
had a new coronation, whenever there was something big that
happened with the monarchy, the thing they would do is
make sure everybody had a shipload of food and nice stuff.
The king would give it away. It's all over the world.
Cultures would do this. Even you do. Yeah, it's what
you do when you come to power. Because they were

(02:56:21):
at least that scared of the people where it's like,
all right, I gotta like do something to ring in
this rain good so they don't start to wonder, why
do we have a king now? So I'm gonna give
him a bunch of fucking food and then they'll be like, oh,
the king, he's the guy who gives us food every
now and then. That's dope. It's amazing now that in
the UK it's just like, all right, we've got a
new monarch and the old one died, so you guys,

(02:56:42):
a lot of you don't get to eat for a while.
So King Charlie seventy three is the oldest person in
British history to become king, which is I think a
great side, very unsabosed the second of him. And then
we're also getting a new queen. Technically, uh, the camella,
the Duchess of Cornwall, which again all this sounds made

(02:57:04):
up um is now is now the queen consort um.
So that's exciting, that's thrilling. I'm I'm thrilled for a
Queen Camilla. It is the Duchess of Cornwall or so
and Queen Elizabeth's Queen Elizabeth's coffin is is being prepared

(02:57:27):
to lie in state, meaning it will be presented from
the public to view so they can cry on the coffin,
which is pretty cool, or crying near the coffin. They
don't want the poorest to get too close. So Booza
the second turned swasey Land into a major asbestos ex border,
which Queen Elizabeth also never did. So wait, so when when?

(02:57:52):
When when the Queen dies, do they like from like?
Do they like preserve her from Aldehide or whatever? Do
they fancy they've some fancy ass ship because they were
probably embalminger while she was alive, says her limbs stopped working,
squirting some in. The Queen's body will lie in state
until the day of the funeral, will then become a
public holiday. There's at least a ten day morning period

(02:58:15):
starting the day after her death, um, and then should
be transported to win Westminster Abbey by gun carriage for
the state funeral. And then after the funeral she'll be
she'll be buried in the King George the Sixth Memorial Chapel.
I believe her the body of her late husband, Prince Philip,

(02:58:37):
who died last year, will be moved from the vault
that he's currently at to beneath the chapel to join here.
So that's pretty funny. Yeah, um, I don't have nothing
to say about that other than it's funny that they've
just got that dude in a fucking freezer. It's really funny.
The new coordination will cost billions of pounds. Oh that's

(02:58:59):
a good because England's like doing great right now. They've
got plenty of money for all the necessities. You know,
everything's been going well great, cost of livings really down,
so it's it's a good idea to spend billions of
dollars making a little death cult about this elderly woman
that's just like the last like big royal wedding costs
between one point two billion and six billion pounds, which

(02:59:22):
is quite quite the quite the spectrum there one two
to six billion. That's like, huh, I feel like at
that point all money's fake. Like the cost of the
coronation is expected to be similar, if not a little
bit higher. Right, Yeah, you gotta you gotta spend a
lot of money on a coronation for fucking Charles. Uh,

(02:59:43):
so that you can, because that's what real countries do.
In two, that's very real country ship. Speaking of money,
new currency is already being printed, and in fact that
that'll be cheap though, and in fact, uh, portraits of
Charles have already been made on currency. There's like a
reserve of money depicting the next king, just like it's

(03:00:07):
being stored to like moving in from from when the
queen died. It's like lots of this money saved. Just
like how funny it would have been if, like six
months before this happened, his seventy two year old ass
had a heart attack. Have to like burn all that money.
They're going to burn all that Charles bucks. He's not
gonna be around long. Rice that Britain no longer has

(03:00:30):
the world's reserve currency. Can you imagine? No, we we
took on on this network on our various shows, we
we spend a lot of time digging into ugly aspects
of American history and American culture. But let's all celebrate
one thing that I'm legitimately proud of, which is that
a long time ago people here were like that seems

(03:00:51):
stupid to let those that family run everything. Why are we?
Why are we doing that? Let's get those fuckers out
of here? Um, at least we did at although now
a bunch of Americans are being fucking boot liquors too,
and in Oregon and a bunch of other states, we're
putting in these flags at half staff, which, like, you
don't know why this country exists. This is the one
based thing we did. Yeah. Like, like even the US,

(03:01:13):
which I probably has the most murderous borgeoisie in human history,
at least we did our burge Revolution, damnit. Like, at
least we destroyed feudalism. So now we're gonna move on
to the next segment of the show, entitled an Incomplete
List of the politicians, warmongers, generals and otherwise bastards who
Queenlis put the second bestowed awards. So I have I

(03:01:37):
have quite the collection of people here. Um, let's let's
start with Palestine. So Shimon Perez served as Prime Minister
of of of Israel. He got a Nobel Peace Prize
in like the nineties for intern key steal that like
failed in in the long run to turn into a
um for assassinated. No, I don't think. I don't think

(03:02:04):
was the one who you could argue might have deserved
an award. He's he. But Perez is kind of known
as more of like, uh, a peaceable leader. He's like
uh compared to some of his like colleagues, UM, you know,
specifically with like the various ethnic cleansings that they do
in Palestine. Perez is kind of seen as like the

(03:02:25):
the good guy UM. And then in the mid nineties
he was facing a major right wing backlash UM in
his home over over the peace deal with the Palestinians
UM and in the middle of an election campaign which
he was kind of losing. So during this time he
unleashed Operation Grapes of Wrath, which caused four dred thousand
Lebanese to flee their homes, with almost eight hundred of

(03:02:48):
them fleeing into a United Nations base in uh Kawana.
I believe it's called UH in South and South Lebanon,
and he didn't really stop there in order to kind
of appease the right and Aldrezier calls it UH in
an attempt to shore up his military credentials before a

(03:03:08):
general election which he then lost to Benjamin Nett, not Yahoo.
He ordered the army to strike this u n A shelter,
killing a hundred and two civilians, mostly women and children.
AH At the time of the attack, Peres said that
in my opinion, everything was done according to clear logic
and in a responsible way. I am at peace. UM.

(03:03:29):
Perez said that the compound had been hit due to
an incorrect targeting based on erroneous data, but the United
Nations investigations found it unlikely that the shelling was unintentional
because they were severing the area heavily beforehand. So he
did he didn't. He did this massacre, killed like a
hundred a hundred people to boost his polls for the

(03:03:50):
right wingers in this election. UM November two, as an eight,
Queen Elizabeth awarded him with an honorary knighthood. He as
knighted in the Grand Cross of the Order of St.
Michael and St. George, and during his knighthood. Like that day,
Perez spoke to the Queen about the escalating Israeli Palestine conflict,

(03:04:13):
saying that quote, the British learned from the Bible, and
we learned from the British democracy. Earlier that year, I
d F launched Operation hot Winter, a military campaign targeting
the Gaza Strip in response to a series of Homoss
rockets that killed one forty seven year old Asraeli student
um which that attack was in response to the I

(03:04:35):
d S killing eight Home Mass members earlier that month.
But during during the I d S Operation Hot Winter,
one hundred and ten Palestinians were killed, fifty four of
them were children. Uh. And then a month, just one
month after Perez was knighted, the two Essanate Gazo War
broke out, also known as the Gaza Massacre, and that
was started by the I d F, who called it

(03:04:56):
Operation cast lead a three week large scale military campaign
in the Gaza Strip. The massacre resulted in uh in
like one thousand and four hundred Palestinian deaths and thirteen
Israeli deaths, four from friendly fire. Um so it's just
a Massacreeah. Yeah. So that that that was like a

(03:05:20):
few weeks after, after Queen Elizabeth knighted knighted the then
President of of of of of Israel, who previously served
as the Prime Minister, which is more of like a
real rule. UM. Anyway, moving on to more fun people.
Nineteen eighty nine, Queen Elizabeth awarded Ronald Reagan with an
honorary knighthood. UM. Now, thankfully, the way honorary knight Knighthood's

(03:05:45):
work is. You don't become a sir because sir is
a title reserved for people from Britain. I'm not mistaken.
You can't hold office in the United States if you
are a knight. Oh I wouldn't. I think it's an
old rule we have. Yeah, I reading something about that. Yeah, yeah, No,
I think isn't it No, it's not in the Constitution,
but there's something about Yeah, but it's a it's a

(03:06:10):
even though you know, you can't become a sir because
you're not from Britain. Um you okay, here we go.
No title of nobility. This is Article one, Section nine
closet of the Constitution is no constitution Yeah, no title
of nobility shall be granted by the United States, and
no person holding any office of profit or trust under
them shall without the consent of the Congress, except of
any present emolument, office, or title of any kind whatsoever,

(03:06:32):
from any King, prince, or foreign state. Fascinating. Yeah, So,
like again, the people who made this country, for all
of their flaws, looked at the British monarchy and we're like,
that's fucking nuts. Well, because because because Reagan was was
night was received on airy nighthood. The one benefit he

(03:06:55):
does get is that at dinner parties, Reagan was able
to sit closer to the queen than the unknighted former presidents.
That's good. I'm glad that we have to. Like, honestly,
look again, I hate like like America flex shit, but
I feel like any president of the US should be

(03:07:16):
able to pull up Ryker style, flip a chair around,
sit down next to you you, and say, look, we've been
pulling your ass out of the fire for the last century. Like,
you don't get to fucking make me sit somewhere. I'm
the president of the United States and you're a doddering
old queen of a fucking third rate power. Um. I
hate that. I just went like, full fucking whatever they're
But honestly, that's fucking ridiculous. It's like like maybe maybe

(03:07:41):
maybe the only country ever that the US gets moral superiority.
It's like, is the British Empire? Like don't you don't
like what? Seriously, lady, unbelievable. One other president who was
knighted was George H. W. Bush, who was knighted into
the Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath. Well,

(03:08:04):
he did look like he could use one a lot
of the time, where a rarely awarded top order of knighthoods.
I'm glad he got that. British officials said that the
knighthood marked the close relationship between the Republican president and
Britain's conservative government, particularly during the Gulf War. Um. Yeah,

(03:08:27):
that was a real moment of of of trial and
tragedy for the British royal family. They had they had
to sit there and watch they were burned, conscripts alive,
and they were really at risk there. I'm gonna quote
from the book Royal Babylon by English poet and activist
Heathcote Williams quote the fact that each US president's record,

(03:08:48):
without exception, would earn them seats on the dock at
Nuremberg or at the International Criminal Court on genocide charges
doesn't deter the royal family from honoring them. For by
an ironic twist, each US president morphs into George the Third,
against whom their forebearers fought. Which is a nice and
nice and nice little quote by by this this this English,

(03:09:10):
this English writer and the pretty good book Royal Babylon
if you want to if you want to learn about
how fucked up the monarchy is, uh, this is a
pretty a pretty fun book. Um, let's see who else
who else should be? Uh, who else should be? Let's
let's talk about Norman schwartz and Covs Schwartzkof. Norman Schwartzkof,

(03:09:32):
he was the head of the He was the guy
who actually like ran the Desert Storm campaign. Yes, he
said that the dead iraqis quote warn't worth counting and
among like casualties of war and that quote, I want
every Iraqi soldier bleeding from every orifice. Yeah, it's uh,
I mean, you know, Schwartzkof was a guy who fought

(03:09:53):
in Vietnam and took the loss hard, and I think
he a big part of why, big part of what
was going on with Desert Storm was a desire to
quote unquote reclaim like our military pride by beating the
ship out of a smaller country. Um, which is not
to say that like I don't believe there was Like
Iraq had invaded a neighbor and occupied it. That's bad,

(03:10:15):
something should have been done. But the whole, the whole
like masturbatory. I want all of their fucking conscript soldiers,
these like teenage kids to die. Is is like sick lunacy,
as was the masturbation over the anywhere whatever. We don't
need to talk about the Gulf War here. He was anyway,
he was. He also received a knighthood after all of
that stuff, which is fun. Also, Elizabeth gave a knighthood

(03:10:40):
to Colin Powell, Um, who facilitated, covered up, and justified
many US war crimes in Vietnam. Hey hey, Garrison facilitated
cover ups. Yes, yeah, most famously my Lie. Yes, the
my Lie massacre is the biggest thing that he was
that he was involved in. There were others. He also

(03:11:03):
like that guy. I think he's like like the thing.
I think it'sportant. He is probably the one person on
earth in the Bush administration who could have stopped the
Iraq war if he wanted to and he didn't like
he he he knew that it was all bullshit, and
he's like, nah, fuck it, let's do this. I'm gonna
go lie to the U N. Quoting Powell, we burned

(03:11:24):
down the thatched huts, starting the blaze with ronson and
zippo lighters. Why were we torching houses and destroying crops?
Ho Chi Ming said that his people were like the
sea in which guerrillas swarm. We tried to solve the
problem by making the whole sea uninhabitable. In the hard
logic of war, what difference does it make if you
shot your enemy or starved him to death? So anyway,

(03:11:47):
best night, night night, Colin Powell. So true, So true,
Buddy um probably the least problematic person among this list.
In the Queen approved on an airing right hood to
a former U. S Secretary of State. Uh with Henry
kiss kiss Ainger Kissing Kissinger. Yeah, he was. He was

(03:12:09):
just kind of a functionary, very not not a big deal.
We should probably, I think, I think that's how it's pronounced.
He was. He was appointed an Honoring Night Commander in
the Most Distinguished Order of St. Michael and St. George.
This is Christ's so funny. We must applaud the British

(03:12:31):
for for for for honoring the most popular American in China.
It's a very progressive decision for her. Yes Kissinger. Uh,
I think a few of Kissinger's assistants also got unknighted.
Uh Brent Scrollcroft scout Croft scout Croft, Um, he got

(03:12:53):
he got knighted. Uh. I think people from the Iron
contra drugs and arms affair stuff got knighted. H. There
was a lot of like war criminal dudes got knighted
in this in this like late nineties period. I wonder
what was going on there also, Uh, j Edgar Hoover
was was was knighted of, which is pretty funny. And

(03:13:20):
then uh the the economic uh financier who endorsed uh
really bad derivatives to make the housing bubble kind of
blow up. Alan Greenspan another American. Oh he also green
Span Like he's a horrible person. That that man, that
man has killed more people than most generals. Like he

(03:13:42):
has Oh boy, yeah he is. He is pretty bad. Um.
I think I think we can do an ad break
and then James is going to join us again. Uh
to finish up by talking about Ireland and Kenya. Um,
because there's a lot of stuff in Ireland and Kenya.

(03:14:02):
So anyway, do you know who won't receive a knighthood
by Queen Elizabeth? That's these products and services Because I
was going to say Queen Elizabeth because she's too dead
to take that's a joke. She can't give them a
nighthead because she's dead. Here's the adds, very funny. Ah,
we're back, and you know I need to keep the
audience informed about important network business for cool Zone, so

(03:14:26):
I want to let you all know that. As he
was coming back from getting his shot, James texted us, all, Okay,
I'll be on in one sex and there's a lot
of jokes that we could make about that as as
a network, and I'm not going to make them, but
I'm gonna urge you to make them yourself in your
own heart and head and then tweet them to James.

(03:14:46):
James is at, James is At, I write okay on Twitter,
that's my Twitter handle. I wrote, okay, you can see
a picture of me. That's anyway. Uh So we're not
gonna talk about mainly me. Two places where British colonialism
and imperialism had devastating effects under Queen Elizabeth and a

(03:15:07):
few a few uh, pretty pretty evil people that that
Elizabeth then also united. Uh who were doing who were
like directly doing this British colonialism. Uh, let's talk about
Kenya a little bit. So during the nineteen fifties, British
tried to get control of lands in Kenya that they
that they had violently. They were trying to trying to

(03:15:28):
keep keep control of land that they had previously stolen. Um.
Native Kenyans fought back in the Mau Mau uprising. Now
has we've historians Historians have documented widespread torture by British forces,
including crushing of testicles with pliers um and the internment
of up to three d and twenty thousand people in

(03:15:49):
concentration camps where they then endured slavery, starvation, murder and rape,
rape with blunt objects. Um. Meanwhile, one point five lean
Kenyans were confined to a network of detention camps and
heavily patrolled villages, as documented by a historian Caroline Elkins

(03:16:10):
in her Pulitzer wise winning Britain's gulog. So this this,
this was all overseen by the Queen as the head
of state and by the way, she was thirty one.
At this point, you don't you don't get to say, well,
she just come and you know, I was just listening
to her advisors. At thirty one years old. You are young,
but you are old enough to not be complicit in

(03:16:33):
a genocide. Yeah, especially when you're the head of state. Like,
come on, as the Queen of England, she had some leverage.
She is not like, oh, you came at you worked,
You were a tax collector in fucking South fucking Shire, England,
and you happened to be in doing that job when
the Mau Mau we're being suppressed. No, no, no, she
was and she she she knew about stuff was going on,

(03:16:54):
was heavily involved because she was giving out like she
was working with people who were doing the like, agreed
to things um. According to Kenya's biggest newspaper, The Daily Nation,
a British policeman named Ian Henderson was known in Kenya
as the torturer in chief and was the kind of

(03:17:14):
the the guy behind preparing a whole bunch of bogus
evidence in the nineteen fifty three trial where six leading
Mao Mao Uprising figures were convicted UM, including the future
first president of independent Kenya now Queenlis but the second
honored Ian Henderson again the Torturer in Chief, with the
George Medal, Britain's highest civilian award, in September of nineteen

(03:17:39):
fifty four for his work in Kenya. Because this is important,
Like he wasn't military, he was just a policeman, which
is why he gets a civilian award. Um. But like
she knew what was going on was giving out individual
police officers awards for their roles in crushing the crushing
these uh independent uprisings. You know who never would have

(03:17:59):
done that is supposed of the second absolute clown. I
I do not know enough of the second I don't
know how he acquired one thousand grandchildren. I'm not look
to be fair, there's probably some shady ship and so
boost of the seconds rain. But the main thing he
was known for was taking back control of Swaziland's indigenous industries,

(03:18:21):
being a good neighbor to the other African countries once
they gained their independence, and of course exporting a shipload
of asbestos. So and any any other notes on on Kenya. Yeah,
so just before I do want to like just briefly
raised that, like elkins um it was that was a
very unconventional and a very good book for young academic

(03:18:43):
and she deserved a credit for writing it. In the
process of writing that book and then trying to write
her second book, obviously she dealt with a lot of
backlash from rank her first book, she uncovered that Britain
had hidden, classified, destroyed and refused to disclose a mountain
of records about its colonial crimes in Kenya. And this

(03:19:05):
is like an ongoing issue that goes on into the
twenty teams that there were public records court cases about this.
And it's so like we we can see that, like
it's wrong to say that this is like a just
a relic of another era, Right, Britain is has continued
into this era. Like the ideology of the government from
them to now is actually indistinguishable. Right, it's it's near

(03:19:27):
liberal conservatives. They have continued to hide rather than face
justice for these crimes. Right, rather than say sorry, rather
than say what we did was wrong, they've tried to
cover up this ship. And like we we need to
remember that when we talk about like this is not
a crime of the past, these are ongoing acts of genocide.

(03:19:47):
And genocide denial that we keep doing. Yeah, as you mention,
so I think we're talking on Operation Legacy als. Also
there are a bunch of different instances of the British
government like destroying other records. One of the other fun
things they were covered they seen to have and cover
ing up and we don't we don't know exactly what
was in those records because again they were just like
they were destroyed. Um. But one of the other things
that was in this record is about a second time

(03:20:09):
that that the UK put a bunch of people in
concentration camps while Queen Elizabeth was president, which was they
did this. They also did this in Malaysia. They put
a million president. They did this. They did this in
a film. Sorry she was while she was clown president,
which is to say, just to say, Queen, we're gonna
actually be talking about Malaysia in justice sac that was

(03:20:31):
an emergency on awards. Yeah, so so uh Ian Henderson,
the torture in chief who received this award obviously had
to leave Kenya shortly after the fifties because things happened,
um and then he got he got moved to Bahrain
um and during a wave of pro independence revolts in Bahrain.

(03:20:55):
In nineteen eight, h Henderson was appointed the head of
the Secret Police and served as so until um and
over the course of his tenure he became known as
the Butcher of Bahrain, quoting the Guardian quote. During his time,
his men allegedly detained and tortured thousands of anti government activists.

(03:21:19):
Their activities are said to have included the ransacking of villages,
sadistic sexual abuse, and using power drills to name prisoners.
On many accasions, there have said to detain children without
informing their parents, only to return them months later in
body bags unquote. Yeah, and and the Barraine stuff. It's
also worth mentioning like that never stopped like no, I

(03:21:42):
mean it stopped being him in charge, but like like
it only stopped him being in charge. Yeah, yeah, And
and like in two thousand eleven there's another revolution against
like the Bahraini barony like monarchy, and I mean it
ended essentially with the Saudia's role tanks across the border.
But one of the things that happened was that the
British helped like the Bahraini government like hunt down dissidence.

(03:22:03):
I just busted out my lecture on this hand slot
park stuff. If we want to talk more about there
were fifteen miles of files that they found hidden. I
mean this that was That was also the case in Ireland,
which we're going to talk about later, the odd file.
I lose emails all the time. That's similar to fifteen
miles of paperwork. So in nineteen four, Ian Henderson was

(03:22:27):
awarded by Queen Elizabeth with a CBE for services to
British interests in Bahrain and uh he also received a
knighthood in the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire.
So this this was after he was already known as
the Butcher of Bahrain. This this is this, he's well
into his tenure. He is torturing children, killing them, kidnapping them,

(03:22:51):
maiming people. And that's when he gets knighthooded uh for
his services to the British interests in Bahrain. UM. So yeah,
that that's Ian Henderson. UM. Now. During Henderson's time in Kenya, UH,
he was just a part of the small team that
was developing a new form of counterinsurgency pseudo gangster tactics,

(03:23:13):
UH kind of weaponizing like gang gang warfare for British interests. UH.
The other person who was kind of running this operation
was an Englishman named Frank Kinson. Um so he in
uh he was also serving in Kenya UM and then
on New Year's in nineteen fifty five, Kinson was awarded

(03:23:35):
the British Military Cross in recognition of galleant and distinguished
services in Kenya UM and three years later he gained
a bar to that battle for his work in the
UH Malaysian emergency quote unquote. So during Britain's brutal rule
brutal war in Malaysia, um he he he played he

(03:23:57):
played a part in the con tration camps which Chris mentioned.
The process was known as vigilization as they forced people
into these concentration camps all over the course of a famine.
And they were invading Glasia to fund Britain's kind of
post war reconstruction. Uh so he he was in Kenya Malaysia.

(03:24:21):
He also went to Bahrain, just like Henderson did. He
went to Yemen, Aiden and Cyprus, all places where the
British state is uh known for doing the widespread use
of torture. Um and then he went to North He
went to Northern Ireland. Uh in not shocking turn of events,
um he then was the professional head of the British

(03:24:44):
Army during the Iraq War. Described Kinson as quote the
sun around which the planets revolved, saying that quote he
very much set the tone for the operational style in
Belfast um the budd the notorious military Reaction Force the
m r F, which was accused of being behind a

(03:25:08):
string of illegal shootings of Catholic teenagers in the early seventies,
was based at Kitson's headquarters outside Belfast, and one of
the units under his command was nicknamed Kitson's Private Army UH.
Its official name was one Pea. And these were the
people that did bloody Sunday um So in nineteen seventy

(03:25:31):
two in Dairy, fifteen thousand people gathered outside to protest
against detention without trial. At ten past four, British paratroopers
opened fire. Twenty eight people were shot, some in the
back as they fled. Fourteen people were killed, seven of
whom were teenagers, and it was Kitson's Private Army who

(03:25:51):
fired all one d and eight shots UH in Dairy
during winter of nineteen seventy two UH. One of the
victims are the first teenager UH named Kevin. Seventeen years
old he was shot from behind while trying to crawl
to safety. Um. Yeah, anyway, Murphy massacre was at the
same time as well. Like it's worth, people like these

(03:26:14):
are very well documented things, so people that people can
read about that we don't need to describe the detail.
But so England in England Bad Elizabeth Queen. In nineteen
seventy two, frank Kinson was knighted again same same year
as the massacre, was knighted by the Queen for Galley
into distinguished service in Northern Ireland and was promoted to

(03:26:35):
Commander of the Order of the British Empire UM. A
few years later he became a major general and the
quote night Commander of the Order of the Bath again
what is it? What is it? Is nice that he
and former head of the CIA, George H. W. Bush
got to hang out in their fancy club though these
people are so fucked up. So later later Kitson serned

(03:26:59):
as Commander in Chief of the UK Land Forces from
nineteen eighty two to nineteen eighty five and was the
Aide the Look was the Aide de camp general to
Queen Elizabeth direct directly to Queen Elizabeth from nineteen eighty
three to nineteen eighty five. So yeah, that's uh, that's fun.

(03:27:20):
It's worth noting that the Order of the Bath is
like a I believe that some of those other honors,
that queen's honors that you've talked about, like I was
selected by committee your pressper government. I'm not quite sure.
The Order of the Bath is supposed to be like
the personal the Queen's like specific selection. Yeah, yeah, and
the sovereign is head of the Order of the Bath
like it's like yours. It's the big it's the big

(03:27:43):
diamond shape mail. You're tortured so dreadfully well, I'd love
to give you this fancy award for jamming screwdrivers into
children turning the ball. Who do you do? Go off
to go breed another coal. That's the ghost of the
queen you have promised you at the start of the episode.

(03:28:05):
So through throughout the two thousands, Kinson remained a key
advisor on U S military strategy during the wars in
Iraq and Afghanistan. There it's much that the US has
done which is also wore crimes in torture in those wars.
And we should also mention, Okay, there's there's a thing
you'll get from insurgency nerds who were talking about the
Mala like emergency quote unquote is like the one successful

(03:28:27):
kind of insurgency, and that's just not true. Like they
started again after they stopped in seconds. You can tell
how well this went by the fact that that guy
also was helping the U. S do a rock and
Afghanistan and the only thing he's ever managed to accomplish
is killing an enormous number of people. He doesn't it
was just that he had dubs there. Yeah, he was
in all those countries. He was heavily involved in Aiden

(03:28:48):
and Yemen, which led to two thousand deaths between nineteen
sixty two and nineteen seventy UM and and today British
armies still continue the same This this the same process
of of overseeing the bombing of Yemen. Um. So it's
this isn't like me. There's definitely no one that US

(03:29:10):
is innocent of. Just oh no, we're the ones arming
h We need to Saudi coalition whatever you wanna call it.
That's murdering people in Yemen. But I think doesn't have
the capacity to to make as many bombs as the
US is standing to Yemen. I would doubt. But all
of these processes and all of these people are still
continuing the same colonialism and the same yes, all of

(03:29:33):
the same oppression. Like this isn't like this isn't like
the past. It's it's an ongoing thing that the monarchy
awards and perpetuates. They've had to downsize it a little
bit because you know, it just doesn't work as well
as it used to. And so the thing they decided
to do to downsize it was stopped paying off the
populace um and just start policing them harder. And but
but the money has kept flowing to the royals. Yes, yeah,

(03:29:57):
So anyway, in the Malay emergency, that Britain did pioneer
the use of agent orange. So that's another gift that
we've given to the people of the United States. Ah well,
thank you James for that. Yeah, welcome anytime. It's that.
It's t Cosey's with the Queen on It's stuff coolgies.
You know. I wanna suggest if you are looking for
a way to properly mourn Queen Elizabeth Um, maybe check

(03:30:21):
out the film Churchill The Hollywood Years, a truly exceptional movie.
If you just type it into Google and look around
on YouTube you can find a full copy of it. Um.
It features Christian Slater as Winston Churchill and Nev Campbell
as the recently deceased Queen UM and I don't know
who it is that they got to play her father,
the former king, but he's he's basically a portrayed as

(03:30:42):
like a drunk and also like every time there's a
big fancy party, he's just constantly staring at everyone's drinks
because he's angry that they're drinking is champagne because he's
a big fucking uh spinthrift. Very funny, very good send
up of the royal family. Um. Also, Heinrich Himler condu
it's a Satanic wedding and by replacing a crucifix with

(03:31:03):
a chicken, it's It's a good movie watch in real life,
just like in real life. I'll also recommend you check
out the book Royal Babylon. I was able to get
it a free copy online through great methods. Um So anyway,
yeah that if you want a nice, like poetic history
of how the queen is sucked up and the monarchy sucks,
Royal Babylon is a nice easy read. Did you get

(03:31:25):
into the balls lion sisters as well. Did you do that? Now?
These two people who were disabled, they are the Queen's cousins.
They the royal family basically announced they were dead, but
they weren't dead. And they lived in an institutional home
for I think it was it was called the Royal
Earth word Institution for Mental Defectives. Great. They lived there

(03:31:48):
more or less anonymously, completely discerned by the family on
a very small stipend until they died. And that is
not a nice way to treat your cousins. Well, yeah,
it's only sentence my opinion that monarchy is bad, bad
something about FUCO and boomerangs and colonialism. Abolish the monarchy.

(03:32:11):
It's always okay to celebrate the death of a king
or queen. Um, doesn't matter who they are, doesn't matter
how it happens. Um, it's bad for the concept of
monarchy is the only thing more toxic than the concept
of inherited wealth. Um. And both are deeply tied to
each other. Uh. Fuck the Queen and fun all of

(03:32:33):
her relatives, except for the ones who give up their
their positions in power. Those people are are cool. Yeah,
don't turn police people whose parents were killed by colonial
regimes on Yeah yeah, and over overthrow the government of Britain. Yeah. Look,
we always this podcast from the beginning has been directly

(03:32:55):
in favor of an insurrection against the crown. The one
thing that you do have to hand it to the
for is seeing Liz Trust as Prime Minister and immediately dying,
which is an appropriate response. I commute ritual suicide. And
you know again, King Sebuto the second did destroy democracy

(03:33:15):
in Swaziland, but then he replaced it with something that
kind of sounds like democracy. And that's more than Queen
Elizabeth did. We just started at point B something that
kind of sounds I know, I know what King, I'm
gonna stand in the future. All right, but well that's
a T shirt I'll be getting you for Christmas. Thank you,

(03:33:37):
short short lived King Charles the Third. Hey, We'll be
back Monday with more episodes every week from now until
the heat death of the universe. It could happen here
as a production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts
from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool zone media
dot com, or check us out on the I Heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

(03:34:00):
You can find sources for it could happen here. Updated
monthly at cool Zone Media dot com Slash sources. Thanks
for listening.