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Have you ever watched the Exorcist and wondered are demons real? What we interviewed a leading exorcist to find out and the truth was shocking Tell me who you are the one you won't get out the one you can't Levitations vomiting spitting at the priest with an uncanny marksmanship That has not been a movie for me Listen to the Exorcist files on the iHeart radio app Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts bridge water The hit fiction podcast is back a supernatural thriller presented an immersive 3D Binaural audio the bridge water triangle there is some kind of mystical force in this region that attracts monsters and Paranormal activity. There's something beyond our understanding going on here starring super naturals Misha Collins the walking deads Melissa Ponziow and Rogue One's Alan Tudyk written by Lauren Chippen and created by me Aaron Mankey listen to bridge water on the iHeart radio app or wherever you get your podcasts attention bachelor nation He's back the host of some of America's most dramatic TV moments returns with the most dramatic podcast ever with Chris Harrison During two decades in reality TV Chris saw it all and now he's telling all it's gonna be difficult at times It'll be funny. We'll push the envelope. We have a lot to talk about Listen to the most dramatic podcast ever with Chris Harrison on the iHeart radio app Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts Hey, everybody Robert Evans here, and I wanted to let you know This is a compilation episode so every episode of the week that just happened is here in one convenient and with somewhat less ads package for you to listen to in a long stretch if you want If you've been listening to the episodes every day this week, there's gonna be nothing new here for you But you can make your own decisions. Hey there listeners. This is producer DJ Dandel The following episode was recorded before the horrible events in Monare Park The team will release an episode addressing the situation once more details have emerged Thank you and enjoy It's literally years. Yeah, happy new years. It's it's it's the new year special. It's me Mia. I've got I've got Shereen with me Yeah, how are you doing? I guess I guess it's not the new year yet. Well, we're recording it But it will be by the time you hear this that counts that counts. Yeah, um I I'm good. I'm I got a cat recently and I called for bunny And then I learned later that this year is the year of the rabbit. So yeah, I feel really happy about that Oh, it's really the cats here for this year. Yeah, exactly. Oh So I'm good. I'm good. That's the that's an amazing having having new cat is an amazing way to start any year. Yes. Yes I agree. This is very exciting. Did you know what else is very exciting? Oh Transitions they pay me to do this. Yes For some reason All right with this this this year we're gonna talk about Chinese restaurant syndrome and the whole sort of anti-MSG craze Yes So that was always been so big. I don't know. I grew up in like a I don't know a diverse area in San Diego But we would always go to far like regularly and the no MSG was like all over the menu and everything It's like this thing that I mean in every restaurant I went to basically was just like come to us. There's no MSG So I'm really curious how it started because growing up I was like okay MSG's bad I guess you know what I mean so yeah, I feel like it wasn't it wasn't really it wasn't as intense where I was growing up But that was like I don't know it was it was a very white suburb But and people people were still freaked out about MSG But it wasn't but like that the the Asian restaurants didn't like talk about it ever Hmm. I don't know But it was still it was still very sort of like like I remember I would go to like eat dinner with like white families And they'd be talking about MSG and I was like yeah Okay for a good amount of time. Yeah Having now talked about MSG for a bit we should we should ask like what what is MSG? Yes And the answer okay, so MSG stands for mono sodium glutamate Which is it's just a salt basically salt with like glutamate in it How's a bunch of umami in it? I'm gonna read this thing from Kenji from serious eats because Every every every single article started to start about this has like this exact paragraph in it So I'm just gonna read it instead of try to rewrite this paragraph that I want to respect that I respect that MSG is a sodium salt of glutamic acid and a amino acid It was first isolated in 1908 by Japanese biochemist Kikueya ikita who was trying to discover what exactly gave Dashi the Japanese flavor broth with Koma Japanese giant sea kelp its strong savory character Turns out that Koma is packed with glutamic acid It was a kita who coined to the term umami which roughly translates to savory to describe the glutamic acid and other Seminole similar amino acids Until that point scientists had only discovered the other four flavors since by the tongue in the soft palate salty sweet Sour and bitter by 1909 Pure crystallite MSG extracted from the abundant kelp in the sea around Japan was being sold under the brand name Aginomoto roughly elemental flavor the company exists to this day Now keep that in mind. That's gonna be important to the last part of the story Mm-hmm, but you know in the meantime, you know around around around 19a. Wait. What once this is discovered that it turns into the sort of enormous industry Um, here's from a pretty good men's health article about it By the 1940s number of American companies are producing MSG domestically for the consumer the most famous being accent Okay, there's like it's spelled acts. It's accent, but it's spelled AC apostrophe CNT You see apostrophe that's not yeah No, no, that's I lost me. Yeah Accent Yeah, which was out of it's it's I Advertising is a bleak place That's that's a different episode. I think you will partial yes also partially this episode, but Yeah, the most famous one being accent which was advertised as pure monosodium glutamate that quote makes food flavors sing Various food magazines and community cookbooks featured the additive as an ingredient that alike Sofried chicken wings and barbecue sauce recipes by 1969 58 million pounds of MSG were being produced in the US per year Says food historian Ian Mosby PhD for an entire generation The ingredient was presented in a dizzying array of food products breakfast cereals TV dinners frozen vegetables Baby food and soup produced by beloved brands such as Campbell's and Swanson Which today offer foods products free of MSG additives And okay, if you think about this for a second. It's actually really weird That MSG started as a Chinese thing because like Okay, MSG all told has only been around for like a hundred years, right? Yeah, it's heavily used in the US for like 30 or 40 years Mm-hmm. Like it's not in It's not really in China for that much longer if it is in the US and it's used in just like a bunch of American food How did that start do we know how that association Started and continued yeah, well, we'll get it emotionally has to do with Like it has to do with restaurants and it specifically has to do with the part that we're getting to about this letter Which we are not I will say like there are a lot of Chinese families that Like just use MSG for like they're cooking Mm-hmm. Oh my my house never did it because we're lazy and most of our cooking Involved like as few ingredients and prep as possible. So we just like I think it's also really in Vietnamese food. I feel like uses it a lot too. Yeah, that was my first association with it So I just associate because I'm I was I don't know 14. I just was okay. This is Vietnamese But that's really interesting to just know like Well, it's really Japanese too like yeah, I mean it's Asian. Yeah, yeah Yeah, I don't know but like it is just it is just it's just interesting like the you like people in the US were just like I don't know it's like in it's it was in everything people in the US were also just using it to cook food This is also a thing that like people in China use a lot too So it's not that like Chinese people don't do it just that like Ever but like the moment everyone got it they were like oh my god. This makes our food taste better. Yeah She's more of it of course. I mean, I'm assuming once it got demonized It was like oh, this is a Chinese thing but I don't know for sure. Yeah. Yeah, I will be patient Yeah, so this is this is in fact the next thing So nobody really cared about it until 1968 rolled it round Wow, so for those 60 years MSG was like yeah, I want to use it. Nobody yeah Um, I'm forgetting where I'm gonna read apart from this journal article and I've forgotten to put in what journal is from because I'm a hack and a fraud I think it's a journal natural health 60% sure about that. That sounds right to me Yeah, sure is from is from some journals of doctors wrote it Quote in the spring of 1968 dr. Robert Homan gua Wrote to the new England Journal of Medicine asking the assistance of the journal's readership and invite in Identifying the source of the phenomenon that dr. gua labeled the Chinese restaurant syndrome crs Numbness of his back and neck palpitations and general weakness after he consumed meals in Chinese restaurants Dr. gua hypothesized that the source of his syndrome might be a reaction to the soy sauce the cooking wine The high sodium content of the food or to the flavor enhancing monosodium glutamate MSG Within two months the journal received a flurry of letters from readers who had noticed a similar phenomenon after eating restaurant-prepared Chinese food So this is the start of of this whole thing and there's one thing I need to point out right away That there is in almost every single article about this that is wrong which is that This this this article Says that he's talking about Chinese food, which is true But very specifically and this and this is this is going to be very important in about 10 minutes Well, I don't know tennis is any importance soon, which is he specifically has a thing about how this is about northern Chinese food Hmm And you know this something that something everyone everyone sort of misses the other thing that's interesting about this is that You know, he he says it could be MSG, but you know, he's treating MSG exactly like all of the rest of the other stuff That's in the that's in the food right he lists soy sauce. He lists cooking wine. Maybe there's he's like okay Maybe there's too much salt right like he's not really doing an MSG thing But everyone who reads this immediately focuses on the MSG Okay, so before I started researching this I had heard that this whole letter was actually fake And was actually a prank And you know this is this is a thing that's like it is it's kind of like Okay, so the the story behind this was that it was supposed to have been a prank by a white guy named Dr. Steele who made it up as a joke and this is the sort of like a folk it like okay So this story is not true the story about it is not true It turns out this letter is actually real, but there was there was basically a story that went around that it was this guy named Dr. Steele who had made it up as a way to get published in a journal for like a bet Because like Dr. Steele like claimed responsibility for it and that got out to researchers But it turns yeah, and so for a bit I've one was like oh my god this whole thing was started by a prank, but it turns out that's also not true So this American life figured out that Dr. Robert Homenko is a real guy Steele had pretended that he he made said that he made it up the name. It's not true. There's a real guy They talked to his family and his colleagues and all of them were like oh no good like we wrote this thing And interestingly there's a lot of racism here too because Dr. Steele had claimed that Homenko which is Okay, so this is where things get weird. Um, I'm saying goa because that's how you actually pronounce it Um It's spelled H-O-M-A-N-K-W-O-K Whoa Yeah, okay, so this is this is some That's not what I thought yeah, so this is a wedgiles bullshit the previous attempt to sort of romanize Chinese But this is think of wedgiles. I mean it is the bane of my existence. It's dog shit Hi, this is Mia in post. I made a mistake here KW-O-K is actually the standard cantony spelling of guat sorry about that I am a dipshit who does not speak Cantonese Yeah, enjoy the rest of the show They heard someone say guat and we're like this is KW. It's like no, no, it's not Please oh That's bad. It's literally the worst Like if you if you ever you know sometimes if you're if you're looking at Chinese like you'll see something that's just spelled really weirdly like or for example like the way that Chen Kai shek Is spelled is actually like Like is actually a wedgiles thing like that there's there's a whole bunch of like Things that are like that. Yeah, yeah, you can find um I don't know that that's I mean that explains a lot But yeah, it's what and part part of everything is happening to you here is that like So and then this is also going to be important later koi is a is a Cantonese last name mm-hmm But it's it gets really really confusing really quickly if you don't know what's going on because If if you if you're reading if you're reading a word that's in Chinese in the US It could either be in Mandarin or in Cantonese and it also could be either written with The terrible wage hours one or it could be in pinion, which is like the the one that's actually sort of usable Um But dr. Steele cuz again the the the the the way it's written is H.O.M.A. and KW. Okay And dr. Steele claims that he wrote it to be like human crock of shit like oh man crock. Yeah Excuse me People believe Yeah, well he's dead so fucking yeah, yeah, that's that's so disgusting. Yeah, like this is this is so racist and it's like Oh You know, but this you like people people believe this for a while because Yeah, I don't know But okay, so eventually people figure out that it's not true and I'm gonna read something from from the this American life piece Where they talk about how they figured out that it was actually like that Home and go was like actually a real guy Mm-hmm And when you read the original letter there are details that seem more likely to come from her father Which is uh, Quas father then from Howard Howard Steele's the doctor Like when he said he moved to the US which the real doctor good did and how he's very specific the syndrome happens with northern Chinese food In the 60s how many white guys in Philadelphia could have made that distinction also Oh, man cool is an actual Cantonese name. What are the odds that Dr. Steele threw together random sounding Chinese syllables to arrive at that So okay, I read that and I had a revelation I I cracked this case Why the fuck open I figured it out I figured out what was going on with this letter Okay, so excited for this I would hyper this up for like hours. I'm so excited So some BTS of this we have like a group chat essentially and I did it I wasn't sure if I can make this recording, but then Mia dropped that that bomb being like I have this big break Breakthrough and I was like I got to be there. I just got to be there and so I kicked James out because James couldn't make the time And so here I have I have I have I have not told Shereen what the breakthrough is like this is you're excited to hear yes, okay So Home and guo is Cantonese right and he specifies in this letter that this is about northern Chinese food My thesis right here right now is that this whole letter Is actually about is actually about Cantonese anti-Northal incensaments This is a whole last thing in China. So uh Canton or like the the region that was called Canton the west is like where Cantonese people are this is like this is the very South of China Right There is a whole last thing in China let like people from north people from the south hate each other Um, it's actually very weird. So my my family is like half from the north half from the south And like when my mom was growing up she like she would like get made fun of for how she like Rolled dumplings because people were like oh you rolled dumplings like a southerner. She's like It's a whole fucking thing. It's like people hate each other Yeah, I mean how else how would you know those intricacies? You know what I mean? Unless you were from there like had history there. Yeah, well, I mean I was just This is the thing is that that's persisted in the US too you still you still run into this stuff like There they're like there are definitely like Cantonese restaurants. We're like you probably shouldn't speak Mandarin They're like there's there's like this is this is still a thing. It's not really talked about very much because it's like It's it's kind of an internal Chinese thing, but you know The one place you actually really got to see this you got to see this from the Hong Kong in during the Hong Kong protest in both sides because Like okay, so there there there's a strain of this sort of like Like there's a strain of Chinese nationalism That's very sort of like it was doing this like really viral it sort of like anti-Southern racism From you know, you get this from a lot of the Chinese nationalists on the CCP side There's another faction of like the Hong Kong protesters who's like thing was like we're not actually Chinese because we're not like the Northerners You're communist and like evil which which is really funny because yeah like you know like okay the It if you if you if you run through the actual history of communism in China. It's like okay like The like what one of the one of the largest communist like strikes that ever happened was in Hong Kong like yeah sure fine, but you know But obviously like I'm simplifying all this enormously because it's very complicated There's a lot of regional shit that's going on here. Yeah, but so your your thesis is that the person that Started all this was like me like from the south or like just like yeah, I mean that is that is definite like that is that is like the like that is the most Cantonese Ask name I've ever heard like that guy that guy is definitely from something China and yeah my thesis is specifically It's this Cantonese guy going a fuck those northerners. I hate their I hate their asses. I hate their food their food Hitting makes me sick, but because because this is the US the the subtlety of this gets lost and everyone just runs with it Is like Chinese restaurant syndrome even though I but this is this is my theories This is this is like this is like kind of semi obscured like Chinese like internal grudge making like knowing the origin point makes a lot more sense now to be honest like why would this be some random like Why would he specify a region like a very specific region that that's just I don't know I don't know that that that that's my theory I I could be wrong about this, but all it fits with all of the details Yeah, it checks out it checks out I think Yeah, so okay All right, so so this this letter happens and there's like a flurry of letters rather people talking about this and Okay, I want to talk about why this got picked up the way it does I'm gonna be a bit more Yeah, this is this is 16 I'm gonna read from every single article in this also goes exactly the same way So I'm gonna read from the men's health version so you get this section of it before I talk about why it's I think like not sufficient to capture what was happening Most be describes the late 50s is a time of heightened anti-Chinese sentiment by the 1960s domestic and international politics had shifted towards a fairly clear anti-communist agenda In fact, he says during this time anti-Chinese sentiments was were so widespread and accepted that most Americans didn't consider their apprehension to be racial bias Now this is true as far as it goes But we need to go to ads and we're gonna come back from ads. I will tell everyone else was going on yeah Yeah, yeah All right, and we're back. We're back. We're talking about how this like letter to like a journal in New England suddenly became an entire like national American thing Okay, so the way this happened is that this got picked up by the news Mm-hmm now There's a huge New York Times article about this and that article is published on May 19th, 1968 now Shireen do you know what else was going on in May of 1968 I've heard a lot of shit went down the 60s. Yeah, so this is This is Right this is like smack dab in the middle of May, 1968 in France This is this is like one week after the night of the barricades Um Three days before this was published the situationists who are like these this like ultra-left student organization Who who at this point are occupying their sorboned like they have fully taken control of their campus They have run the cops out they have run the administration out um Three days before this is published The students at the sorbon reacting to a factory occupation that they heard about send out this famous communicate calling for the occupation of all factories in France and like if fucking happens Like the workers in France take control of like a huge portion of Francis factories like the brain all factories are under control of the workers um Like yeah, but by by this time like this is happening right the the police have like the police are fighting them, but they're losing um Two two days before this article is published uh the sorbon sends this to the Chinese consulate Quote shaken your boots bureaucrats the international power of the workers councils will soon wipe you out Humidity won't be happy until the last bureaucrat is hung with the guts of the last capitalist long live the factory occupations Long live the great shreddie's proletarian revolution of 1927 betrayed by the Stalinist bureaucrats It goes on and on like wow this is what they're sending to the Maoists right right like that that is that is how far left these people are like They're saying they are telling the Maoist shaken your boots bureaucrats the international power of workers councils will soon wipe you out like It is wild in France Yeah, I mean the fact that this is happening all during all that Yeah, it's not something good I don't know that's no one to know it's really important I have never read an article that actually puts us together and I just think it's not just that going on right like You know, you know if you look at the situation in France they are a week and a half out from De Gaulle who is the president Literally fleeing the country because he's so convinced that they're about to lose the country to communism Like well, I should say when I say communism by the way part of that message to the uh To the Maoist is down with the state I'm gonna revolutionary Marxism. So like that that these are these people are like these people have are Marxists who have gone like So far left they've essentially become anarchists. It's it's wild I mean, you know, and also what's happened like the the the Prague Spring is happening during the middle of this um This is also like this is a month after the holy week uprising in the US Which is so after MLK was killed there are these like Yeah, probably the most intense riots the US has ever seen like even like even more so than like the ones we saw in 2020 the holy week riot like they were like Like they were they were like like thousands of paratroopers We're being deployed to like kill rioters. Yeah, like Not yeah, like that was that was probably the closest Like some of the closest the US has ever had to just like actually having a revolution in the government losing control of the entire country And like and while this article is coming out like there are still even in May that the holy week uprisings in April But like even it like even in May there are still people on the streets fighting the cops like while while this article is being written And you know, and if you look at the there's something about 68 yeah, maybe I'm a person on that entire year. I mean, it's wild like six may 60 like that that year is just the year like the entire world And sure, I mean, there's like like like they like they I can't remember if they actually over through the government They'd like almost over through the government a Pakistan like a whole bunch of students get shot in Mexico because they were trying to bring down the government Like it's everywhere. There is all this stuff going on um And you know also the other thing that's happening is we're two years into the culture revolution And it's kind of interesting because but by 68 We're kind of into the backlash phase of the culture revolution where Most of what's happening is that the sort of various rebel factions that formed in 1967 and 1966 are just getting like slaughtered By the sort of like state factions and it's where it's it's it's the culture revolution. It's really complicated But like by by this point the sort of like revolution part of it has like Kind of calmed down and it's more the state in its sort of new form taking control But you know if you're living through this right it looks like the culture revolutions happens in in in In 1966 then a 67 and then suddenly there was a culture revolution happening literally everywhere And this is the context of the MSG scare like kicks off in right it it it starts in like right in the middle of arguably the two most radical months of the entire 20th century Wow Yeah, and and this is this is the kind of shit that starts like just an absolute mania in the American mind that is powerful enough That like 60 years later. It's still around I mean it feels like the It happening as such like a Manic time like people are probably already like kind of Feeling that energy right yeah, like every was directed everywhere even at this article Yeah, and I genuinely think if if this had happened two months later or two months earlier I don't think I don't think there would have been like a big scare about it like it might have been a thing a sucker round for a bit But I think the fact that the end the New York Times article have came out exactly like in the middle of May 68 and that like the original one comes out like right before the like the original article that gets sent to the thing comes out like a couple weeks before the Holy Week uprising I think it was the fact that it was exactly in this moment where Everyone on earth is if you're living through this like this is the capital or revolution like has come And you know and that that shattered everyone's brains like I don't know I want it like do people remember what it was like Like when like when like the height of 2020 was happening Like just how sort of wild like it was just like a lot of I'm telling you there was like an energy. Yeah, yeah, it's like this collective Yeah, strange. I mean like obviously it's different than I was in 68 But I really do agree with you like if it happened in January I don't think it's big, you know, like yeah and you know I So The other thing that's interesting about about this whole sort of like Chinese restaurant syndrome is that You could actually track its spread Like across other countries by sort of like moments of like peak anti-Chinese like sentiment Mm-hmm. It also anti-Japanese sentiment to a lesser extent because that that that sort of replaces the anti-Chinese stuff by time you get to the 80s and 90s But while not replaces, but it's like it's like the the dominant mode of like we have a person We need to be afraid of a new stage right right right um But there's an interesting okay, so if if if you if you look up um like you're looking for you like medical stuff about Chinese restaurant syndrome One of the things you will find is a case report of the Indian Journal of critical medical care from 2017 Claiming that they were treating a patient who got Chinese restaurant syndrome and like couldn't speak because the the thing in the back of his throat had like inflamed and You know and they had this whole thing about like this this is like this is like a serious disorder and they they specifically cited that letter to the editor from 68 The power of that thing and you know what okay, so if you look what what was going on in in India in 2017 and it turns out the thing that's going on is like a giant rise in anti-Chinese sentiment colliding in the 2017 Indian Chinese border incidents Where did you remember when all those guys you're like beating each other to death in the mountains with sticks Yeah, I do Remember that I've been associated many times with my life and especially post pandemic my brain is broken But I do vaguely remember that I had kind of forgotten about it And then and then I slicked this article in solace in 2017. I was like wait hold on hold on wasn't that wasn't didn't that happened in 2017 It's funny because like yeah right is attention rise again suddenly Chinese restaurants and it reappears Wow It's it's really it's really incredible. It's it's yeah, it's an incredible set of brain worms um I just I mean this is definitely not on topic, I guess but even just seeing like COVID being blamed on China like there's always like a like a way for ignorant people just to point the finger at China, which is really fucking shitty. It's so yeah, it's yeah, I mean I think it's it's sort of like Like what one of the things you sort of need to have a national project Is that in order for you to be in order for you to be like a nation you have to have a not you have to have an other You have to have people aren't part of the nation Right The US does this pretty effectively they have they you know they can have the sort of rotating cast of people who like aren't yeah Like from the nation right yeah If you want to stay in there are people that need to stay out Yeah, but sometimes it's with Mexico. Sometimes you get it with sort of like like internal subversion from like black people Like indigenous people yeah, but yeah, you know they have this rotating cast China's always one of the ones that come back to you because it's just big And there's a lot of them and you know If we're going to reason people are easily feared by it like I think it's just like it's unknown and That maybe people don't understand it very well that don't look into it themselves and want to fucking be educated But forever reason people fear it so easily and it's so bizarre. It's so bizarre. Yeah, it it sucks Oh Yeah, okay, so we're I'm gonna do an ad break and then we're gonna talk about more of this stuff because it keeps going And we're back all right, so obviously we're dealing with sort of anti-Chinese sentiment and anti-Japanese sentiments as you know I think Japanese sentiment escalating as the 60s turned into like the 80s and 90s, but there's more going on here um Part of the reason, you know back back like this in theory could have been about like soy sauce, right? Like there's a lot of things that they could have picked out of that To be the sort they gave what they said about but they picked MSG and Part of the reason they picked MSG is that this is the period when people start like figuring out that food additives exist Mm-hmm And people don't get really sort of touchy about it and actually Ralph Nader I Remember that guy Yeah, so he's around in the 60s Oh, yeah, this is old as shit. Yeah, yeah, and he's you know, okay, so I give I give him credit for for like he has probably saved As many lives as like any other American single American you can name by being the guy who like Lobby to have seatbelts in cars being mandatory right yeah, I think that was not before because the US is a Like truly deranged country. Yeah, he wasn't half bad most of the time. Yeah, you know, he put But come on he's also one of the guys who's like the big pusher for getting the US government to study MSG And a lot of other food additives and like in 1969 So you know and like there's a bunch of other food additives that that they're studying the health effects of and on the one hand You like yeah, probably is good to study the effects of like food additives because like I don't know companies do stuff that sucks all the time and so it is good to study what's in your feet on the other hand But okay, it's gonna sound really ignorant. So I apologize what Where again If you already said this where was it found where was MSG found as it created in a lab like what's the what's the molecule? Yeah, it by by this point is basically created in the lab that the first time someone was able to distill it was they did this whole distillation process from seaweed Oh, yes, seaweed yeah, but by by by this point. It's a no worries. Yeah, I don't like it by by by by I mean even by like The early 1920s. I think it's it's mostly being produced artificially, which is right But like it's easy to Yeah, yeah, it makes it taste better, but like you know, it is something that like you like you can't find it Like in in Dashi like you can find it in like super awesome stuff like from there from seaweed. So it's it's not like I mean, I didn't know that I've known about MSG for most of my life, and I never like for every reason I Growing up we always associate it with sodium like salt salty. Yeah. Well, I mean it is right like it is a kind of salt Yeah, but like I don't know like people people people have this whole thing like how it's artificial? Like it like yeah, we make it artificially, but like it's not it's not like it's not a Thing that you can get out of plants. It's just a we don't do it that way because it's easier Yeah, I mean the source of it is not artificial, but also like you're gonna be a stickler on this one thing when you eat like I don't know so many other In drink so many other things like there was cocaine and coke Yeah, like it's just there's I every every every every American like in 1969 is like buy by their body volume drinking two pounds I'll let a year so like it's like The thing you're gonna stick. Yeah And you know, and this this this is sort of the problem with with what Ralph Nader is doing with the sort of like pushing the government investigation of it Is that like you know like I don't know how racist 1969 Ralph Nader was My my guess is that I like I I don't think that his big thing was we need to study this because it's the jury Dirty Chinese like salt or whatever I think I think he mostly just wanted to you wanted to think the study food additives I could be wrong about that. I don't know. I haven't I've looked into this exactly 0% But like you know the problem is that what like once this sort of racial panic is going like you can't put you can't put the sort of cork back in the bottle Right and you know, okay, so there's been a bunch of studies about this um and Like it but you know guys the problem with what's happening is that because of the way M.S. She's been sort of racialized like the studies don't matter Like it just does not matter what anyone actually sort of writes about it until you get national cultural change because the study science still like is irrelevant um They have the study to justify a bunch of things and that's the only study they care about Yeah, yeah, it's like it's like the like vect It's like to like the fake vect of vaccines cause autism shit like right no, it's they just believe this They have one paper that's literally a joke exactly and that's what they all do is it yeah, it that's like I can be 17 others that but disprove it but like no Yeah, there's like a million others like that but like that study I want to point this out the methodology of that study was they asked parents who thought their kids had developed autism Because of the vaccine if they thought their kids had developed autism because of the vaccine And then the parents said yes, and that's the study that's the study yeah, that's not a fucking study It's not a joke It's literally a Twitter poll that like got published and then retracted because of a Twitter poll right like this This is the scientific basis of all this bullshit What what qualifies as a fucking study then Like you can you can I don't know and you can you can publish fucking anything if you put your mind to it This is this is this is what I'm telling all of you like follow your dreams try to get something published They published this bullshit You know, I'm gonna do a study Yeah, well, there's a real problem here with like this is the specific thing with medical studies Because like you can have a medical study that you get published with a sample size of one Because it's you found a thing in a guy and you're like oh, I'm gonna publish this But you like medical studies like oh you can just like you could publish any bullshit and like Ah, it sucks, but okay, so All right like lots of so after this there are lots of studies by lots of people and Like mostly what they find is they can't find any okay, so there's some like initial studies that like find some alarming stuff in mice But the problem with these studies that what they're doing is okay Yeah, it turns out you take a mouse and you just like fill us a wrench with MSG and inject them with it. It's bad for them Oh, yeah, like oh, yeah, you would you ejected a mouse with pier salt and bad things happen like yes If you took a human being and you injected fucking a third of a cup of MSG directly into their veins It would probably be bad for them Yeah, I like it's like okay, you know right um and they found out the conclusion from that was basically like okay If someone ate like a third of a cup of MSG Raw having not eaten for like 48 hours. Uh-huh. It would probably do things that are not great for you Okay, you say that I've had a bunch of other fucking Yes, like I don't see if you didn't eat for 24 hours and ate a third of a cup of salt like that's probably that's not good for you Like don't do that So like you know, okay very very specific circumstances have to light up for you to have any reaction to MSG So there's a study from 2000 Where they they also this is also another empty stomach study by the way because it they've okay No one has ever been able to replicate Like any of these results With a person eating food that has MSG in it and everybody able to do it They've been able to get some results if you have people eat like basically pure MSG and have not eaten any food Like around it Yeah, it's like okay, that's useless because the The molecule at that point it probably interacts with other things and that you know what I mean like if it's just myself I'm not the actual I don't know yeah, I'm ever good at chemistry So I'm gonna all let the chemistry nerds argue about this I did I did fail AP chem so same great. Yeah Oof I I look I only have to take chemistry in so I just didn't take AP chem because I suck I took a chem like my fruit my freshman year now. It's like let's not do this again I can't do this I don't take physics The thing I wanted to be a psychiatrist for a really long time but failing AP chemistry and just experiencing chemistry I was like I can't do this. Yeah, it sucks. It's the worst But okay, so the reason I was talking about the like vaccines cause that is like autism shit is that there was another thing with MSG where people were claiming that was causing asthma and It no they had there so they had another looking incredibly elaborate pseudoscience bullshit about like MSG Like getting absorbed like getting absorbed improperly through like like fetal membranes. That's like completely nonsense Like it doesn't yeah People people like what what what people love to say that their diseases they've gotten from Fucking the fact that like they're they're the air in their house is 97% CO2 by volume and like and and Be because they've decided to run an entire country by just putting fucking trucking yards everywhere Yeah, okay A finger to point at right? Yeah The alcohol you know what I mean like I should point I should make this clear by the way What I what I when I when I say when I say that like autism is I'm not sorry when I say that asthma Specifically is is when I talk about the bad air is specifically talking about asthma I'm not talking about autism with that that that that is not what causes autism or whatever like Yeah, yeah, and it's cool and also fuck autism speaks Yes, yeah, but yeah, I want to put that on the record. That's what I mean I'm not saying that trucks cause autism. They don't like yeah, but yeah, so Okay, but there's a lot of like incredibly weird racial very dumb anti-scientific panic about it It's possible that there exists a group so visually it was about like like anyone who eats this will have these symptoms right and then over time the argument got sort of Fizz down to there might be a group of people who in the populate like a small group who are like specifically sensitive to it And that's probably plausible like there's some experimental evidence That shows that there could be a group of people for whom they're more sensitive to it than a regular person And I don't know sure people of allergies like whatever yeah exactly Yeah, it's soy yeah, yeah, like it's not like like yeah, it's it's not a thing to sort of like Yeah, I don't know like if you're a person who gets allergy reactions to shit like yeah, that's allergies, right? But like it's it's not the sort of like I don't know if the the the panic about it is utterly unjustified there may be of there may be a group of people Who it has some effect on because there are allergic to it or whatever but Yeah, imagine imagine demonizing peanuts because there's a group of people like can eat peanuts Yeah, I mean like that is that's so that's Why like why would you ever do that to be fair? I I am okay with demonizing peanuts specifically specifically if it gets people to stop fucking I wore worshipping that bastard Jimmy Carter who was a neoliberal ghoul and his reputation has been fucking I just like like his reputation has been saved entirely by the fact that every single person who came after him Was an utterly deranged war criminal and his war crime was like Wait, what are you pressing? Well, he was a peanut farmer. Oh, sorry. Yeah. Sorry. This is this is this is this is the this is this is the the the deep the deep Jimmy Carter lore Yeah, okay, but you know all right, so go going back I think so this was the kind of thing that like You know people avoiding MSG is just kind of had just kind of been like like a part of daily life Like it was just like a thing that existed in the world But it wasn't like at a certain point it became the kind of thing that people would talk about like in conversation And like they'll did you know you could just get people to do anti-MSG rants, but it wasn't Really is sort of like mainstream political issue In the way that it had been like in like 1969 where there's like well the other thing happened is in the 90s the FDA did a study about it The FDA was like It's fine. Like right don't don't eat 300 grams of it at one time Like as long as you're not sitting there like eating MSG raw out of the fucking like they would say the same thing about like high fructose corn syrup. Yeah, why yeah, and like by by volume high fructose corn syrup is killed way more people than MSG also awesome now now there's like a whole thing about like MSG causing obesity which I I don't know if that's true or not. I think their studies are fucking whack But you know, it's it's it might cause obesity like every other food that the US has made in the last 20 years exactly Yeah Yeah, and what one one day we will do a a episode about like the politics of anti-Fatness because it's fucked But yes today we're we're doing this episode and okay, so You know every once in a while the way the way this stuff sort of every once in a while there would be a sort of like Like a mainstream like Asian American figure would talk about it. So for example There's there's a Korean chef named David Chang who talks about it Um, and he he did some like he gave speeches about it and the sort of demonization of it But it didn't really get back to mainstream discourse until 2020 when our good friends Aginomoto the people who made the stuff in the first place hired a bunch of Asian American like celebrities to do a pro MSG campaign So they hired Eddie Huang who's like a writer and chef who's like probably most famous for like being the guy who refresh off the boat Mm-hmm, and so that they have this whole sort of campaign and this like takes off right like he he this is this is one of those things that was like Completely forgotten that happened in 2020 That no one now remembers because this happens like before COVID like before we had the lockdowns and before I mean I'm really honest. I it escapes my memory. Oh, I have no memory. This happened to either way. Apparently it did I don't know I was I think this was still while the I think this is while the election was still going on. So Yeah, I paid no attention to this time to do that. Yeah 2020 the year everything happens. Yeah But okay, so you know this campaign like takes off like like Eddie Huang's on NBC and did you like the talk show circuit with Jenny and my advocating for like so the their whole thing is that they wanted to remove Chinese restaurant syndrome from the dictionary And they had this whole like hashtag redefine CRS is like the redefine Chinese restaurant syndrome and this is like a whole thing And you know and there's there's something okay, but this was one of the things that sort of drew me to the story because if you look at the press For this right it's like activist pressure Mary and Webster and like That's kind of true Like it superficially it is kind of what happened and like yeah, I'm glad the dictionary changed the entry to say like this is like outdated and kind of bullshit, but like Okay Think about what actually happened here right a company that makes a product Hired a bunch of a bunch of sort of Asian-American like big celebrity people To do a marketing campaign for them in the name of anti-racism Which like yes, I I I I am glad we are addressing the racism around MSG. However, calm. I feel like it. It's a really sort of like It's a really literal example of the kind of like Vipidity and listlessness of like Asian-American identity and culture and politics like pre-COVID like this This is this is this has something like early January right so COVID is sort of like some disease in China like we haven't hit Full racism yet and again like This is not like an activist campaign You know, I mean like activists get on board with it. I guess but like activism is doing a ad campaign for a company that makes Salt Right. Yeah, it's not exactly grassroots and and You know, okay, and it works right like this This is a thing that like the Asian-American community like picks up right? I mean sort of I don't know I don't remember it But I when I look looking looking back on the articles and hashtags and stuff. It's like wow. They got lots of tweets But you know, I think I think the reason that this worked is Is because of the sort of self-conception of like Asian-Americanness as this like backstory of like like immigrants stepping off the boat and you start a restaurant and then your kids get an education So they enter the professional class and like there isn't like I don't know like the this is in fact This is literally like part of the reason I was doing is also like this is literally what happened to my family like they like they showed out from Taiwan they worked in a restaurant then they opened a restaurant and then like I don't know like every successive generation while okay I was gonna say every ever successive generation got more like professionally but Like I have a bunch of doctors and I like but then they also produced me who's a podcaster So I'm defying Asian-American stereotypes by being more dipshit than my parents Oh But you know like this has become like this single sort of cultural narrative of like what it is to be an Asian-American right like you see this in every Single story that Asian-American media like has produced in the last like 10 years it has one plot right There's a family in the US. They're trying to fit in They almost always have some kind of small business and then something appears that challenges their ability to like assimilate into American society Mm-hmm. This is and then you know they deal with it in that's the end right this is the plot of crazy rich Asians It's a plot of everything everywhere all at once the plot of fresh off the boat It's the part of the fucking CW Kung Fu show. It is the plot like literally everything That like we produce has one plot and it's this Yeah, and the reason why is it's you know, there's a reason why this is the only sort of like piece of media that that the The sort of Asian-American culture class have been able to produce this is the reason why all the fucking activism and ad campaigns are just like The fucking we got hired by a company and we're gonna talk about where racism is racism is bad so that this company can sell more product Like the reason it's this is because this is an incredibly marketable soft conception of Asian-Americanness like the conception of it as being restaurant owners Right is there because it's it's a form of culture that can be sold to white people right yeah It's hey look we're different we eat wacky food But you can eat it too and ultimately we're all in this for capitalism in the patriarchal family like just like you are Don't worry. It's gonna be fine and you know that That really depresses me because This this this is a moment that demands something else and I think that's why kind of Like I think that's why the sort of mainstream like Asian-American reaction to like you know like there was there was another I there was another Asian woman like you got stabbed to death like two weeks ago And there was like fucking no coverage of it like nobody gave a shit. It's just gotten to the point where like This happens like six people Report on it and then everyone is sort of moves on to their life Yeah, and I think the reason why The sort of like stop Asian hate shit has gotten to you know like it's gotten it's it gets gone through the sign cycle Where everyone like had the signs up and then they took them down right and so you know like and I think the reason why it was It turned into this sort of like like the organized and turned into this like incredibly vapid like put a sign in your store like To the hashtag stuff like is because of this is because what like What what it means to be sort of Asian-American has been hollowed out and hollowed out and sold and sold and sold for just decades and decades and decades and now You know like in in a time when it's actually sort of like You know when it when it's really in danger and it's called to action It hasn't been able to do much Right and well yeah Pointing out the film and TV thing is really important because I mean So many marginalized communities have this experience, but I think trying like Asian culture in particular. I think it really people If they're ignorant and they just see what's depicted on media They don't see them as three-dimensional beings, you know what I mean? What they have is like a very hollow version of a human and so I don't know It's it kind of upset me because I feel like media is the first thing people learn things from whether it's film or TV or whatever But yeah, well, and also I think it's I think it's part of the reason why like The way that those those depictions sort of obscure class Where you know because these things right like a lot of these families are poor, but they're still business owners Right, and that that's like like if if you are poor American, it's well as because you're a business You're like a sort of struggling like American entrepreneur and this obscures the fact that there is a massive Asian American Just underclass people who are like or delivery drivers or working warehouses or You know, I mean like they're who there are groups people who like come to the US from China who you know like live in like Basically completely isolated communities in part of China town where they're only speaking Chinese and they just fucking like There are people who have to do a bunch of like warehouse shit and then they leave and that's it right like and these these people This shit never you like you never actually get any kind of sort of class Analysis because the the way that media thinks about Asian Americans is like there's one of there were either one of three things They're a business owner They're like a rich professional sort of like a doctor or something or they're like the fucking people on bling where they're just like super rich Assles right and that that allows I think like a specific kind of anti-Asian politics To work that like Asian people are seeing this sort of like perpetual like foreign elite And it's like no, I don't know like It's just not you know, it's it's not true and it and it means that when you get like Asian American political movements Like the sort of sub-anti-Asian hate thing right like you have like the guy who founded door dash right? Mm-hmm is like is is is is an Asian is like a Chinese American guy right? He's like he used to use a tech billionaire He used to be like an email like you know you would have these stop-Asian hate events We're like this fucking guy is is on there like is up on the stage talking about anti-Asian hate And it's like okay this guy has like brutally and horribly exploited like literally millions of Asian Americans But you know there's there's there's no so there's never gonna be reckoning with that yeah because You know successful and he's yeah Capitalist like he's I've achieved the capitalist dream or whatever the shit Yeah, and and I mean I mean because because because Asian American identity has been flattened in this way Like though those people are just completely invisible and it it sucks and I hate it and Yeah Yeah, I It's just I don't know there's nothing good. I can like anything I can say to make anything better, but I Think it's just I don't know Maybe we can do an episode one day about like film and and TV and stuff I think it really starts there unfortunately like it's silly, but People that don't know a Chinese person will see a Chinese person on their TV and be like X like that that's the only Chinese person I've ever seen in my life, but I'm gonna make assumptions about the whole race now But one one day I'm gonna do an episode that's entirely me shitting on Jackie Chan Oh, if you're gonna get really mad at me, but uh, and fuck that guy That's a hot take. He started his career as a fucking scab that was literally his first thing was he was a scab And he's yeah, he's the fucking home with a piece of shit. Fuck him. Uh, yeah, don't need your parable damage I doubt for this episode. Let's do it. Yeah, all right That will be a summer we are we are now just part of the episode where we are teasing you with subsequent episodes. Yes But yeah, but yeah, I don't know It is a little bit upsetting how these are really important movements are just like They play toe and they become like this vapid thing like you're saying like I think That gives people such an easy out of like quote quote being an ally or supporting because they think they're doing something By like holding up a sign or something without really internalizing Or spreading the awareness that is necessary and uh, I don't know I got I guess the the thing I want to end on also is me being pissed off at a bunch of Asian American kids in the 60s So one of the stories you will hear a lot if you're studying Asian American politics Like is the story that like the term Asian American was invented by These like activists who actually were like doing a bunch of stuff in 1968 Um, who were these like student act like this radical student activist and like that's true But the thing you have to understand about those people is that all of those people were like Like all all those people were basically like we're third worldists and Part of the reason this whole politics collapses well a part of the reason part of what happened was Like part of the demands of these students in 1968 or these sort of like radical student groups like You know, they're formed to sort of like support the sort of like black radical student groups into like advocate for themselves But like one of their big demands was they wanted cultural studies departments In American universities and they got them but you know, okay, so What what what what are those cultural studies Like departments they basically just became these giant traps for radicals Where instead of like overthrowing the government you like come do this cushy job in academia and like all of all of the sort of like old radicals Like from that era either like got regular jobs or became like a brachand academics, right? And the other thing that happened with this politics was the reason why it was completely unsustainable was that and this This has been a sort of a problem with the Asian American identity, right? Is that okay? Like What the fuck is an Asian American right? It's like anyone from like I don't know like is anyone from like the like the edge of the Pacific To like I don't know like how how far how far like I What's it called like how far how far west does that go the other direction like who knows it's like Because you're a swath of yeah, like I mean this is like billions and billions and billions of people with completely unrelated cultures and languages And the reason they were able to do this right was because They were mirroring their movement off of like the third world Right, but the problem that they ran into and this is the problem with all the third world movements was that Okay, so the third world movement like as a thing was It was based on a bunch different nationalist movements, right? Like it was based on that there was gonna be this like a lion's between like The sort of like the the the rising social powers in Africa and the rising social powers in Uh any stasia and they were gonna sort of like ally with like the rising sort of like Might know like the rising sort of like might already getting power in the US But okay, if you look at those nationalism's right you have Chinese nationalism, Kaboahian nationalism and Vietnamese nationalism all colliding with each other And you know if it turns out like what okay, so what what what happens if your movement is based on sort of like the the unity of Munchen-Nashis movements and they go to war with each other And you know what happened was when when when China when Vietnam invades Cambodia In and in Vietnam invades Cambodia and then China invades Vietnam in 1979, right that entire politics is fucked because what what he's supposed to do Like what's that who's who's side of yours supposed to take here, right? Like you can do the you know like And if if you're gonna be like a march like a march is Leninist like the probably the correct line of support Vietnam, right? But that's a mess because you know how many simpler Maoists, right? But you know if you're a Maoist and you're fucking people just invaded Vietnam like you know what are you supposed to do? Right and there was there were earlier tensions with this too where like like China with China was backing like a really shitty faction in Angola Who ended up being backed by the US and like South Africa and that caused a whole bunch of tensions between the sort of Chinese Maoists and a bunch of the sort of black radical groups because they were like what the fuck are you guys backing these people in Angola But you know and and this this whole thing became a problem because All of these nationalisms are competing nationalisms, right? There was never going to be one unified third world It was always it was always going to end with a bunch of nationalists fucking fighting each other And when that happens the Asian like the Asian American movement such as it was just fucking died And you know as a radical movement it was just over And so you know I think I think The the the the the lesson that I would take out of this is just that like Do not builds do not build your movement based off of someone else's nationalism Because those people are going to do things Because they're nationalists that are just fucked right they're gonna win they're gonna win Vian Nam like Can't like the like the Cambodia is gonna invade Vietnam with the Vietnam is gonna like you know like I like are you will be justifiably because they've been getting attacked and because they're fighting the Khmer Rouge But like you know they're these people are all gonna go to war with each other right like you're or you know you're gonna be stuck in the situation where like You're you're being forced to choose sides between like the Durg and the and like the the Marxist government Somalia because they've they've randomly gone to war with each other So don't do this. Um, this has been my rant that I wanted I wanted to do about this because yeah No, I'm glad you did. I'm glad that I was here for it too because I don't know it's good to know this is this stuff And I get to learn by listening to you Yeah, I I appreciate all the research that you did Thanks Yeah, and yeah, so I guess this has been a canaphanure yeah, yeah, yeah, so you can find us Happen here pod I'm a twittered instagram. I'm at it me chr3 Um, yeah, yeah, I'm a shero hero 666 on twitter and then on instagram just take it out the 666s But maybe I should add them because who cares Anyway, thanks bye Oh Levitations vomiting strange voices have you ever wondered if the stories about exorcism or true He definitely has something going on It's primal and if they are true how could one protect themselves from these dark forces It's still in there Really that things back I see it These are the questions we pose to renowned exorcist father Carlos Martins who agreed to open his case files to the public for the first time Tell me who you are the one you won't get out the one you can't My name is father Carlos Martins. I am an exorcist. I have seen things 473. Well with me very evil things No, I'm not sick Things that I wish were true I just need Forget what you think you know about exorcism Listen to the exorcist files on the iHeart radio app apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts The war on drugs impacts everyone whether or not you take America's public enemy number one is drug abuse This podcast is gonna show you the truth behind the war on drugs Twenty two hundred pounds tomorrow. Yeah, and they can do that without any drugs on the table with that Of course, yes, they can do that in on the prime example The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff stuff that'll piss you off The property is guilty exactly and it starts is guilty. It starts is guilty The cops why they just like looting I think just like pillaging they just have way better names for what they call like what we would call a jack Move or be in rob They call civil as if we're Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart radio app apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts Hey Hey, I'm Lance Bass host of the new iHeart podcast frosted tips with Lance bass the hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough or you're at the end of the road Okay, see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself what advice with Lance bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation If you do you've come to the right place because I'm here to help this I promise you oh god seriously I swear and you won't have to send an sos because I'll be there for you Oh, man, and so my husband Michael um, hey, that's me. Yep. We know that Michael and a different hot sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life step by step Not another one. Yeah, kids relationships life in general can get messy. You may be thinking this is the story of my life Just stop now if so tell everybody yeah everybody I'm about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never ever have to say bye bye bye Listen to frosted tips with Lance bass on the iHeart radio app apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts This is it could happen here. My name is Jake Hanran. I'm a journalist and Documentary filmmaker today. You're gonna hear me reporting from an undisclosed location in Europe where I met with anti-poutine Russian partisans So right now I'm heading into the forest somewhere on the edge of Europe There's snow absolutely everywhere. It's pitch black and it's very very cold I'm headed into the forest to meet with anti-government Russian partisans They've been launching attacks inside Russia against the Kremlin infrastructure They've been blowing up railway tracks and attacking military recruitment centers because they want to disrupt the continued Russian invasion of Ukraine these parties and attacks have been taking place all across Russia But obviously over there. There's a complete media blackout on this situation So this group of come over and I agreed to meet with me to tell me what's actually happening and to let people know that It's not everybody there that supports this and some people are even taking up arms Uh, taking massive risks to try and stop what Putin is up to When Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24th 2022 The Ukrainian people bravely mobilized to fight back against Putin's attack on their country Russia's so-called three-day special operation has turned into a grueling year-long battle Whether Ukrainian resistance has been highly effective The spite this chaos it seems that many people in Russia have come out in favor of this brutal war Even now with over 40,000 people killed and over 14 million displaced There's still large-scale support for Putin's attacks on Ukraine This much is fact The idea that every Russian is in favor of the war is not Russia is a huge place with a population of over 140 million Many people there do not support Putin or his war Some have even taken the risk to fight back As I mentioned there's a quiet but highly effective network of anti-poutine partisans that are fighting from within They're doing this by blowing up military railways sabotaging Kremlin's cell towers and burning down war recruitment centers All this in an effort to help Ukrainians from afar If caught by the Russian security forces they face torture and life in prison Despite the risks in the last 12 months There have been more than 80 confirmed attacks against the government inside Russia The attacks have taken place all across the country as well From Moscow in the west to Vladivostok in the Far East There are dozens of different partisans cells and lone wolves As is with real life the partisans have varying different political ideologies from far left to far right For the moment though they all share information with each other Recognizing their common enemy in Putin One of the most organized groups is made up of militant anarchists Then known as the anarcho-communist combat organization More commonly referred to by the Russian abbreviation Boak it's two fighters from Boak who I'd arranged to meet in a Russia border in forest of eastern europe Which spoken weeks before via encrypted email They told me which country to fly to and then sent me coordinates of where to meet them within a specific window of time I drove as far as I could abandon the car and took off into the forest Eventually a red torch like emerged through the trees cutting the silhouette of two figures As the two approached it was clear it was the Boak fighters They were both dressed head to toe in black and were both wearing balaclavas We confirmed things shook hands and set off to find a spot for the interview They let me through an underground tunnel to an area they felt comfortable with Just to watch the moment it sounds like To protect the identity of the Russian partisans we've scrambled their voice That voice you just heard that ulia she's a female and the other fighter the voice you'll hear that's juror He's a male can you explain the actions like what are the main things you've been doing to disrupt Putin's invasion? The assembled railways which leads to the artillery warehouse in the most original it delayed Supplies to the front so it gave to the Ukrainian people more time to prepare for the Uh control tracking the raven derailing trains in Russia is something the partisans specializing They've managed to knock several Kremlin cargo trains off their tracks Trains that were destined to deliver weapons to Russian soldiers as they continued to invade Ukraine We'll probably never know how helpful this was for Ukrainians But every second counts when battling for frontline positions in war For example if Russian soldiers were left waiting for a resupply which was delayed because of partisan attacks They might then be overrun by Ukrainians This would definitely be an effective blow for the partisans I asked the bow-back fighters why they felt the need to form such an organization We see that we need to create a partisan organization because in Russia the state operation is very hard So you can't use some uh, and all legal methods uh to do some step by step changes even if you do some uh so-called legal actions Anyway, you'll go to the jail We are attacking the state to make it uh weaker to show people that we can do it We as people people of Russia people of all the road we have this power in our hands and we Yeah, they are the state they are small and to be uh there's a lot of us And the second um direction which we are developing since then is a continuation of such kind of attack Partisan attacks all over the Russia recently we published I think maybe even more than then Attacks from many different regions Uh, we helped more partisans cells to find out how how to make attacks help them with supplies to help such as more Parasite groups increasing you think is here and they make and more and more serious attacks for example Not the long time ago they bombed some kind of need the rail road near the Ukrainian border. So He- he- our power is not uh in that one small group can do but uh that We have a lot of small groups and altogether we can change things. So you guys been around before the U-Ko more started or at least since the invasion started this year Um, but that's when you've got a lot more known I think online we see in that you guys are actually doing attacks inside Russia and in Belarus Very dangerous thing to do um, what is it the you know spurred you guys on why you doing this? Why are you taking such a risk to basically attack who in in his own country? Uh because it's not his country it's our country we can't do nothing Uh, we can't do legal things and uh these Partisan attacks can make military machine of Russian state we Got the supplies we can attack the military In the 19th century so uh the army became so we were And as it was very often in Russia and many others states history and uh state lose war There is a Window of possibilities opens for the people of this country Was Boak a pragmatic focus currently on the pressing issue of Putin's war on Ukraine They're also looking to carve out a space for themselves in what they believe will be a wild post Putin Russia When Putin dies there will be a vacuum where many other groups feel the same Boak in their minds are setting down foundations already For now though they concentrate on assisting the Ukrainians and in terms of like solidarity with Ukraine Are you doing this to help the Ukrainians as well or just for yourselves like are you in contact with You Ukrainians or is this just like a movement you guys doing yourselves? Of course we have contacts we can't of course Say what exactly contacts yes, but yes we have contacts means Different and history and not only am his organization in All ex-visors are and other countries also here as well We try to provide information for those other groups which Uh don't yet know how to do things and don't yet have funds enough for supplies because even gasoline costs money and they don't have money and as well near the start of war Our group organized a few attacks like on a mobile cell towers near Ukraine border As we've seen from the telegram channels the kind of underground is definitely a lot of attacks as you've said as you've been doing um how big is your organization because it's hard to tell how how prevalent are these attacks inside Russia? So that is about two or three Thousands of in-between groups and everyone has a different Number of members and what about geography As you know partisans ex from the Kaliningrad west over Russia to the uh what do you want to talk which is how is to Russia? Specifically being anarchist but being partisans is extremely extremely dangerous inside Russia You're taking a massive risk doing this kind of stuff Um some people are gonna see this and go like why why would you take that risk? If we won't take those risks now we won't have future at all Are you not worried you're not scared again cool? Okay uh we're not stupid enough though not be But it's much more scared to leave now is that you had chance to change something and you didn't Our people killing people of Ukraine and making a vote What was inverse every day, the dangers of nuclear war and so on Because if we do it now maybe we will not have the future at all not only in Russia but all over the world People on the internet they'll see what you guys are doing And they say are you guys as CIA operatives and stuff like this Um particularly like westerners that actually support Putin Now you know what it's like living there under Putin um you know what how would you address that? What would you say to those kind of accusations? I think if we would be a CIA we would act more effectively but We act with those forces with those resources which we have we're trying to Increase them but when we said it it's time it's a process from zero parties are not acts to the full party of war So if we were a CIA we would have a lot more resources and how Yeah we like we have homemade Bombs or anything we can get our hands on Oh even speaking about resources which we used when we Uh The sample railways we used simple instruments which we could be bought in hardware store So now we are showing people that they can just go to the store and buy those tools and do it themselves It's not just you know us Uh doing some stuff with some specific materials you can only get in the dark net Now let's be honest. It's likely the CIA are up to something in Russia considering their past history But personally I believe bowak when they say they're nothing to do with that I think it would be pretty unlikely that the CIA would help an anarcho communist group When there are ultra nationalist groups doing similar things. How do you get the information like how do you know which railway to blow up? We used to be kemapia service which provides this group so for each object on the map and every Everyone can contribute to it. So you just open it and you find okay military objects here It's doing something like that that is its photos and people who did They didn't do it for us There's a city because people don't have share this information and you just can take it and give it So they use wiki map here to help plot their attacks This I found quite funny. It's like the modern version of gorillas gathering intel from locals about the enemy Only the locals in this case don't even know they're doing it Scouting is also a big part of their sabotage preparations But of course we need to A lot of scouting Yeah Scouting Yeah Like you you check out the course Yeah of course We've got a lot of time before the attack I know the anarchists specifically in Russia have been tortured quite a lot if they're captured for anything What do you think would happen to you guys if you got caught? For sure we're going to be tortured as well If you will be if you will live from up because we Not willing to get caught and defend it Yeah We don't give any information on our comrades and when you approach it it's hard to say when you would or would not you break No no no How do you react to the torture? Yeah so it's worth to prevent this by dying fighting Does that mean you have firearms? If you want to go with evolution you can do it with that firearms Like why why are you doing this? Why are you giving us anything? Why do you want this this information to get out there? We think that it's important that people see us not as some internet warriors We want people to hear our voices and to hear what we have to say Don't want people to think that we are some shady organization But we want them to see that we are real people just like them Yeah And just like us they can do things that we do A lot of it is online but there's definitely a perception that all Russians agree with the invasion, the destruction of Ukraine, what Putin wants to do Obviously people like you very clearly you know a small but effective resistance against Putin's policies What do you think about that? How would you respond to that? Is it in the country or more people against it than it would seem or what? There are a lot more people against it than it seems Because propaganda shows only people who agree with Putin And many many people don't agree and many people just Just silent because they pray to the jobs If you will beat dog every day then some day it will think that You are live like that it's normal So as we see a lot of people Russia are also big teams of Putin's regime And the moment they just don't think that if they speak up they will change anything I think our main message is that people shouldn't just sit and wait that someone else is going to do anything for them They should take their lives in their own hands As we often repeat, if not to be then who? If not now that's why Thank you very much, good luck with everything It's very good to hear so much With that the two partisans from Boak vanished into the forest As Russia's war on Ukraine approaches its 12 months, Russian partisans like the ones I spoke to are continuing to disrupt Putin's war effort from within Organizations like Boak are fighting an uphill battle But still their attacks have definitely been effective As we said several military trains have been derailed And the word of the partisan underground is spreading Whilst there's next to no Russian state media coverage on this The Russian government is clearly aware of it Security around Russian train tracks has been tightened And the Russian quarters find the telegram app For allowing patterns and networks to share information there Not to mention the uptick in unexplained fires breaking out across the country Even though Putin's government acts like they can't see them They know the partisans are there If you want to watch the extended documentary version of this reporting Go to youtube.com slash popular front and look for the documentary Russia's anti-Putin underground Music in this episode of It Could Happen Here Was by Sam Blacksys music at SamBlackPF.com Reporting production editing was by me You can follow me at Jake underscore Hanran H-A-N-R-A-H-A-N Please do check out my platform independent grassroots conflict reporting www.popularfront.co Music Levitations, vomiting, strange voices Have you ever wondered if the story is about exorcism or true? He definitely has something going on, it's primal And if they are true, how could one protect themselves from these dark forces? It's still in there It's really that thing is back I see it These are the questions we posed to renowned exorcist father Carlos Martins Who agreed to open his case files to the public for the first time Tell me who you are, the one you won't get out The one you can't My name is father Carlos Martins, I am an exorcist I have seen things 473 miles with me Very evil things No, I'm not sick Things that I wish weren't true Oh God, that's it's me Forget what you think you know about exorcism Listen to the exorcist files on the iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts The war on drugs impacts everyone whether or not you take America's public enemy number one is drug abuse This podcast is going to show you the truth behind the war on drugs They told me that I would be charged for conspiracy to distribute a 20-200 pounds of marijuana Yeah, and they can do that without any drugs on the table With that again, we need drugs, of course, yes, they can do that And I'm applying example of that The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff Stuff that'll piss you off The property is guilty Exactly And it starts as guilty It starts as guilty The cops, why are they just like, looting I think they're just like pillaging They just have way better names for what they call Like what we would call a jackboo or being Rob They call it civilizif Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcast Promise you Oh God Seriously, I swear And you won't have to send an SOS Because I'll be there for you Oh man And so my husband, Michael Um, hey, that's me Yep, we know that, Michael And a different hot sexy teen crush boy bander Each week to guide you through life Step by step Not another one Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy You may be thinking This is the story of my life Oh, just stop now If so, tell everybody You're everybody about my new podcast And make sure to listen So we'll never ever have to say Bye bye bye Listen to frosted tips with the lands best On the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast Or wherever you listen to podcasts Welcome back to it could happen here A podcast that is today About it happening here Or more particularly in Atlanta So it's here If you happen to live in Atlanta, Georgia Otherwise it is still happening there And I don't actually know much about this Because like the rest of you I have been watching from the sidelines Since a forest defender was killed By the Georgia state police But someone who has been in Atlanta For most of the last week Is Garrison Davis Garrison Hello Hi How you doing It's been a long week Yeah, it sounds like it You had just gotten back from CES When all this happened And booked the next flight And blew out And we're on the ground During some of the immediate protests That followed News about the death Do you want to just kind of take it from here? Yeah, so We're going to be putting together Kind of a more in-depth thing Similar to my Similar to my On the ground At the Defend the Atlanta Forest episodes from last May That's that's going to come out But you know it'll take a little bit Because I'm doing a lot of interviews Doing a lot of on the ground Stuff here But this is important enough That I feel like it's worth That it was worth mentioning Something a bit sooner Which is why we're recording here Today just to kind of give a 101 On what's been going on Ever since Wednesday So Wednesday, January 18 There was a raid on the Wallani forest For the South River forest in Atlanta Where people have been currently Staying in encampments for the past Like year and a half In opposition Of this upcoming Proposed police training facility To be built on this same land So Wednesday morning there was this raid There's a few things different about this raid One, it seemed to be In some ways kind of led By the Georgia State Patrol This is a state run police That has not been in this forest before Other raids have been coordinated Between into Cab County police in Atlanta police So this SWAT team was unfamiliar with the forest They had not been in there before There was other police on site This was an interagency thing It does seem like there was Atlanta police here as well But this started at around 8am And then at around 9am We got word that a forest defender was shot and killed By, it seems like in a state patrol officer That they are not releasing the name of Nor are they releasing the name of one other officer Who was injured And Georgia State Patrol claims that they were shot During this raid as well Police by the decision Yes, police claim that they were shot By the person that the Georgia State Patrol killed There's very little information about this Nobody cameras They have said that there's nobody cam Which does seem consistent because Georgia State Patrol are not Are not required to wear body cam So that obviously hit a lot of people pretty hard Because this is To our knowledge the first like You know environmentalist protestor to be killed by police It's the first fatality that we've had in this movement here in Atlanta And for the record it is still deeply unclear what happened It's certainly not impossible that this person Fired first on the police officer But it's also incredibly important to note that There is no evidence of this that's been presented The only evidence that the police have presented is a photo Of a pistol on the ground And then they've made the very weaselly worded claim That Ballistics testing has shown that the bullet that struck the officer was consistent With the gun that they're saying With the individual they killed had And all that means is that it was 9 millimeter That it was just saying caliber Right A caliber for which there are tens of millions of guns in this country Most ballistic science is in terms of like identifying bullets to guns is actually nonsense There have been massive lawsuits about this The FBI has as this is a bigger topic Than then we can get into today But it's very shady And all that they actually said is the cop was shot with a 9 millimeter And hey look we found a 9 millimeter Not interestingly enough We have confirmed that this gun was fired Correct Very anyway So no one knows what's happened It's shady I mean so I've I got I got here like less than 24 hours later A lot of people on the ground have been kind of sharing their memories of the person that was killed So the person was named their their forest name was Tortugita Which means little turtle Their name that has been released is manual I'm just going to I'm going to call them Tortugita or Torch Sure, there's been a people you know spent a lot of the past few days talking about Torch remembering Torch Um the types of things that that they they advocated for the types of things that they would talk about So we'll we'll get into some of the more kind of specifics of that of that of that later Um But yeah, a number of other journalists have talked about their conversations with uh with Torch Including um the fact that they events to a pretty principled um and extensive commitment to nonviolence Um at least in interviews This is the something they had been quoted on by other journalists a number of times And this is something I've heard a lot of people bring up is that is that Torch was was a believer in In nonviolence and would and would talk about and advocate that the other the other kind of ankle to this And I'm not taking a position one way or another here But this is something that I think it's important to mention is that I also don't want to remove the agency of a person if they did decide to do if I if I did if they did decide to do this Because the other thing I've heard a lot about Torch Is that they always made thoughtful decisions in meaning that they they put thought into everything they did Um they were they they acted strategically They did not they did not put people in unnecessary danger They would not do something if they thought it would endanger other people they always acted with thought And that that that that could include if you feel like your life is under immediate threat Um what what actually happened Wednesday morning We will probably never know we will never know the exact series of events um and it's and in some ways Like that's we can we should respect Torch either way Um because they made a decision that they thought That was right in the moment or they were just Flat out murdered by police um so That's that's kind of the gist of of what happened Wednesday morning throughout the rest of the day They're police continued their raid on the forest The the last the last tree sitter was eventually taken down like 20 hours later after the raids That someone was stuck up in a tree for over 20 hours no food or water um police agitating them the entire time And many uh all all of all other people arrested I think it totaled around seven Got charged with domestic terrorism among other charges So that's pretty significant um um that is people that that and we will circle back to this to this point a little bit later So that is that is what happened on Wednesday uh You know the the first few hours after the shooting people were unsure of of who actually got killed It was so it was hard it was hard to say um other forest defenders who were in the area Did report from that what they heard there was a a pretty a pretty quick single firing of Of guns multiple guns going off in a pretty quick succession There was no like one shot and then seconds later a bunch of other shots It was all kind of one event. This is reports from people on the ground. This is what this is what what they've said Um a lot of a lot of people speculate that this could have been friendly fire If if this if this if this other patrol officer was was um, you know got shot they they they went to the hospital So It does it doesn't worry but the police officer had got a bullet inside of them. Yes But obviously There's a number of ways in which that could have occurred and and I I don't find it I certainly I don't think it's conspiratorial at all to it's conspiratorial at all to say they have not presented evidence It is certainly possible a bunch of cops wandering through the forest Somebody would have a negligent discharge, you know somebody would just pant you know there's enough So we just and again as you've stated we just we probably will never know precisely what happened. Yeah Um, and that's that that's the feeling on the ground A lot of people coming to terms with the fact that we will never know a lot of people, you know thinking that It you know very likely chance it was friendly fire other people you know trying to try to emphasize the fact that You know, we will never know it's we cannot say one way or another But it's also important not to minimize someone's autonomy Um, especially since they're no longer around to advocate for themselves or their actions Uh, yeah Let's go let's have let's have a an ad break and then we'll kind of continue on to what happened in the in the days after We're back garrison. Please continue to take it away So the late the day of the shooting there was a vigil but before we found out who it was there was a vigil set up at little five points in Atlanta And then the next two days there was uh, there was a vigil space created at entrenchment creek park or walani peoples park Uh, this is an area of the forest that's to that's on like the eastern side and this is the section that is currently um being sought as a A place to expand black hole movie studios So this is this is separate from the actual cop city element of this but it's still part of the defend the Atlanta forest side of this because this is all the same forest They're just kind of split um down the middle by this uh by this powerline cut So this section of the park is on a section of land that's contestedly owned by Ryan Millsap The guy who runs black hole studios I first arrived at at walani peoples park On friday for the for like the more public facing vigil and I just just kind of I want to talk a bit about the park because this is such a I think it's such a solid encapsulation of what's changed since last time I've been in Atlanta So last time I was in Atlanta there was um the miskogi creek people were traveling from my belief Oklahoma to Atlanta well what what is now Atlanta what what used to be miskogi land um and they were they were like giving talks and presentations about the forest inside the section of forest that that the defend the Atlanta forest stuff is about and I went to one of those events at interwink creek park It was now green trees all around there was a nice gazebo there was uh there was a piano inside the gazebo people handing out food A little like kitchen was set up pretty pretty picturesque it was it was Pretty it was pretty great So then when I pulled up to this same spot a few days ago It Was like apocalyptic The gazebo has been completely torn down and is laying in shambles in the front of the parking lot like it for everyone to see destroyed remains all of the all of like the uh the the concrete sidewalks and stuff have all been torn up and it's just scattered everywhere It's not it's just it's just a massive mud pit It's it's such a different place um and you know when you when you get there for a vigil the moods not cheery obviously um there was people you know sharing stories of torrent singing songs And you know building this like a almost like a vigil shrine um So That was like the first the first big thing friday night um so a lot of people talked about their memories of torrent And you know the different things they they contributed to not just the defend the lana forest stuff But stuff across the entire south they did mutual aid work um and stuff to secure housing for people in florida They helped defend drag shows in uh in tenisee They they did they did stuff all All across the south and you know they had they had allies and accomplices from across the south you know talking about How great torrent was to work with the types of solidarity that torrent would show to to many many different people So that was friday and everyone was kind of I you could kind of feel the almost calm before the storm in some ways people didn't people didn't really know what was gonna happen in the coming days but Now there was there was a sense of like eerie quietness and then Saturday happens Saturday There is this protest planned meeting in under grand Atlanta, which is a spot in downtown alana kind of on this outside I got there for this protest They're uh initially there was people from this like social service organization called psl they They tried to leave the march one way Um the crowd rejected their authority and was like no we're not gonna go to the federal district We're not gonna go to the cnn center Which are places in the torreous for getting kettled at um and they and people autonomously redirected the crowd Um north towards the and and north is also just so happens to be the direction of the Atlanta police foundation headquarters the pseudo union lobbying group that is that is behind the big push for for cop city Um before this march started there was Similarly, you know people giving speeches about torrent people not not speeches like people just sharing memories of torrent So people so that torrent can like live on um in some way so people can you know know about them now that they're no longer around You know people from a local medic collective talking about You know towards towards towards towards involvement in that and how much toward carried about you know helping other people So This this this march starts up Um it was funny there was A few blocks away from this march location There just so happened to be like a single police car in the street But like parked on the wrong side of the road and this police car sees this march coming and it's like kind of freaking out It doesn't know what to do it drives in reverse for like Like two blocks trying to find this box to turn around as the march is like increasingly getting closer Like you could as you could as you could just feel you could feel the the anxiety of the cop inside this car He'd they they do not want to get surrounded by a crowd Eventually they're able to back up enough to turn around and they they get out. They are they're zooming away He do not want to be anywhere near this and short shortly after People arrive at the Atlanta police foundation headquarters Windows spontaneously shatter Um as as is expected a few bank windows also get Um Get get broken Wells Fargo being one of them RIP yes RIP bank windows Wells Fargo being another one Wells Fargo is a major contributor to the Atlanta police foundation So this happens two cop cars that are just you know blocks away Um that are sitting completely empty get there get their uh windows smashed You know this peep there's there's fireworks going off around the crowd Um there's there's this one clip that I that I saw From some some some group that was live streaming um that there was there was a few a few officers like stationed Beside the Atlanta police foundation and as soon as they as soon as they heard fireworks They again similarly just like ran away as fast as they could they were not equipped to deal with Um to deal with us fire works with the main thing they seem to be scared of so To to to to cop cars get their windows smashed Um fireworks going around march continues goes for about a few more blocks and uh then uh uh uh uh uh uh corkers notice police police are starting to come uh police are approaching The approaching the crowd head on Uh police start rushing towards the crowd um one they they tackle tackle a few people holding a banner um I think They they people people scatter most of the crowd gets away most the the crowd splits up into into two groups The largest chunk is able to move away from police presence There's you know people chanting be water, you know all of all the stuff Uh so most most people do successfully get away the smaller smaller section of people split off in another direction cops follow They are able to tackle and arrest a few a few more people in this in this group in the end. It looks like there was six people arrested um Most most people got away after all these arrests are happening people start noticing something That in the background a few a few blocks previous to where people were marching Uh it looked there looks to be a glowing police car uh so we we we look back and Sure enough in in in a line of police car is up and flames um complete completely completely glowing huge huge flames so So as that happens more and more cops show up that this is where like the cops now are like taking over downtown um, you know cops with with a air 15 or a r-style rifles are are going around starting starting to do patrols So this is like the the night is over at this point Uh now it's time for like people to scatter and leave which is what people did The the aftermath of this is super fascinating and Unfortunate if not unexpected Uh, you know, there's been very little statements about the police killing of an of of of Tortiquita of you know an environmental activist um, the forest defender very very very very little statements addressing this this matter at all A huge flood of statements however Ext seeming to be extremely concerned that like a few windows were broken and that a cop car got torched This this is terrorism and you know this this is let this is less than a week after Martin Luther King day um This is You know this is The the the the big quote was that the the police chief a few hours later declared that Breaking windows and starting fires is terrorism Which is a wild thing for a police chief to say as the mayor stands behind Notting in agreement. It's one of the most fascist things that we've That has that has occurred in the United States like you cannot understate like the severity of yeah like this This the severity of this of this change in the types of Framing by the state. Yeah, just to describe civil disobedience to describe property destruction to describe vandalism as a form of of domestic terrorism is Is a appalling um I mean if if this if this holds up then in states where this is done There is effectively no longer any right to protest Yeah, and I mean and we'll get into some of the decals of this in in a bit even in this in this episode um, and I think the other side of this is that this is something that I've heard people talk about here on the ground is that If if breaking windows is terrorism right if if if if the destruction of inanimate objects is terrorism What what exactly is destroying an entire forest like This is this is like the juxtaposition that people are are dealing with on the ground right now so The end the result of this is that we got six people who not six people who were to be clear arrested completely at random This this this was very clear. Please for tackling anyone they could get their hands on they were not doing targeted arrests They were not going after specific individuals who they suspected of of like actually doing crimes um, they were they were tackling random people as is kind of usual for these sorts of things Yeah, but they have gotten a series of ridiculous charges um riot arson interviewing interfering with government property um, and also domestic terrorism and domestic so this is domestic terrorism not even for people that are like in the forest Just people protesting out on the street um, yeah, I'm the street when windows were broken when windows were broken There's no evidence of this uh the bail hearings were Today as of being recorded. This is this is Monday but bail hearings were today the judge the judge for the hearings Specifically said that these hearings are not to litigate the facts of the issue what actually Happened doesn't matter. There's there's obviously no evidence to support that any of these people arrested did any crimes There's there's no evidence that that shows that the specific people arrested did anything but beyond marchinging in the street And that does not matter that that simply does not matter the the brutality is the point in this case um, yeah to two people Have had their bail set at 355,000 dollars each so that's over $700,000 for just two people's bail the other four people arrested Were deemed to be from out of state by the judge and then thus a flight risk Including people that are just like less than 90 minutes away in Tennessee and again this this is like where people are born There's this there's this there's this there's this sense that like people no longer have freedom to choose where they live That people like no longer have any freedom of movement that they no longer have the autonomy to go to different places You know, this is off this is like in line with the outside agitator angle that's been Being pushed by governments and media ever since especially since 2020. This is in line with that sort of stuff But because these people were deemed non-local or a flight risk These people are not getting any bond at all these people are gonna be held in jail indefinitely indefinitely detention. Yeah, it could this this could literally be years the legal system is so slow and Like being held in prison or in jail for for years With no evidence presented that you did literally anything wrong um I've talked with a lot of people people from solidarity fund which will I guess I'll mention here at the end and and And you know just people around like what they're you know with people are getting arrested with no evidence and getting You know indefinite time in prison hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars to be released like the the the obvious abuse of power by the state um the the sheer audacity and uh, you know the extreme danger that if these if these are able to to to stick and hold Is incredibly frightening for any any kind of future um, it's meant to be any future civil rights movement at all like in this again You might say that it's the the the strategic use of terror in order to achieve a political What one might say that and I mean it's we're in it. Lainted the streets. They're marching on There's banners of martin Luther King hanging above us Like it's it's incredibly frustrating The solidarity fund which we interviewed on the show literally days before that what with the the episode released days before the killing of tortilla Um, but the last solidarity fund is providing both legal support and um and and and bail for people arrested for political actions The previous amount needed to bail out people was over a hundred thousand dollars, which is a lot of money And now just just for two people It's seven hundred thousand more dollars. So The Atlanta Solidarity Fund desperately needs funds to continue supporting people and to continue resisting state repression Um, we'll talk about this more once I have my deep tied up episodes out on this topic But it's it's crucial that that if if if anyone cares about people's right to protest to people's people's you know Ability to resist state violence Um, then it's it's absolutely crucial that that people support the Solidarity Fund right now Uh Just just today I went to another another kind of vigil um at Emory College Here in Atlanta more more people were sharing stories of tort Um, one person was reading out a letter that they sent to uh sent to their um comrades in Italy who are setting up a vigil as well There's been a good amount of international support as I've seen vigils from Germany Um from Italy. There's been there's been events demos rallies Um direct actions and vigils all across the United States Um About to defend the Atlanta forest and about the killing of torticita uh People people here absolutely do Appreciate the solidarity and the other thing people are saying is that I mean all of these tactics are meant to Discare people away from the idea of protesting and yeah people are still needed on the ground here This fight is not this fight is not over um This is this is not this is not the end You know tactics may have to change tactics may have to shift people may have to approach things from Um from um, you know different angles But it's not over and there's there's people have said that there's still a need Or you know for support rules for people on the ground For people to be in Atlanta because it's not done I mean, I think there's a lot of Sentiment on the left that what's happening in the Atlanta forest defense is probably the most important radical action going on in the country right now And I think there's a few reasons for that um not just the fact that The forest that is going to be torn down for cop city is a crucial part of the city of Atlanta's tree cover and That all of this ties into both the impossibility of actually combating climate change under the present system and the complicity of the police in in Making it impossible to combat that Um or even to mitigate in many cases But but I think what you've gotten to is probably the most direct The most directly frightening Thing about what's going on in Atlanta and the thing that's most relevant to the future of any kind of resistance in this country which is um The the gloves are are coming off right the the this is this is not going to be the last time That state security forces You Use the fact that terrorism has a a special place in American law and that crimes that are deemed to be terrorism um Open up the ability of the government to act in ways that they normally are not supposed to be able to act Um like that is going to be it's not going to be just forest defenders that gets used on it's going to be Anyone who ever carries out any kind of act of protest that has a chance of upsetting the balance of power Uh in this country like that's that's where this is headed and um Yeah, it's a bummer. Do you want to talk a little bit about The the role of the media in this because that is uh something that is I'm certain going to be Of uh we just had a thing today where some weirdo lefties on uh at the truanon subreddit Decided and someone on twitter decided to accuse me of Getting a bunch of people in Atlanta arrested for terrorism because I interviewed the mont camber I've never interviewed anyone in Atlanta. I simply have never worked there Um, I'm not sure where the rumors started, but it's it's re-igniting this kind of debate about it seems it seems like tanky stuff It's it's it's it's it's nonsense, but it has re-ignited and I saw this on the it could happen here subreddit people talking about like Um, obviously, you know, this is nonsense, but it is a you know looking at these terrorism charges It's a simple fact that uh activists should never talk to press and Um, obviously a lot of these arrests had nothing to do with anyone talking to the media like Those folks were present at a riot and the cops were tackling folks. That's that's nobody but the cops is fault But there's a there's a there's a conversation to be had about What is the what is the smart balance in terms of Getting PR and getting press coverage and getting Word of mouth about a radical movement and the fact that doing that will inevitably ramp up pressure like that is that is a reality That yes when when radical activists get attention from the media the state cracks down now Does that mean that the media is responsible for the the the movement getting crackdown or does it simply mean that The cops judge whether or not something's a threat by the amount of press that it's getting You know the this is this is an ongoing like thing people are going to be talking about And in a lot of ways it's a continuation of conversations people are having in 2020 But I'm interested in because when you went over there We had a little a few hours of debate after it became clear that the cops had killed a forest defender over like Okay, what's the right thing to do should should garrison head over to Atlanta? Should we have some boots on the ground for this because you'd been covering it for so long and One of the things you pointed out is that there was a call for Media coverage from people who are on the ground in Atlanta. Yes. This is something I will get born into when I go In depth with this for an upcoming episode probably probably probably a two-parter That's this is a conversation that people are constantly having in Atlanta. This is a conversation I've been having with people non-stop ever since coming here ever since before coming here I know this is something I I don't want to just parachute into someone else's city I had conversations with multiple people before before coming over. There's a few aspects to this The amount of people doing stuff and you know how many people are in the forest Not a not a giant number of people. There's not hundreds of people living in the woods. There's not there's not there's not tons of people um A an intentional media strategy has been a part of this movement since the beginning um even among the insurrectionary anarchists who are here uh, this is this has been something that people have Have been you know working on as as a part of a decentralized movement having conversations about Uh, there's been a lot of there's been coverage in the rolling stone that people here seem to be pretty happy with Um, yeah, it was very and the guardian also published People have been like people have been pretty happy with people have been pretty happy with coverage from the guardian Um, there's a people have been pretty happy with some stuff from a j plus um, people have been uh decently happy with the the work that i've done on this but based on Many conversate dozens and dozens of conversations i have i've had with people here um Ultimately, I don't for what For what cops are doing in the forest. I don't think there seems to be a clear correlation between media coverage Happening of stuff of of you know the movement and cops respond to the forest There doesn't there doesn't there's no linked timeline there cops are doing stuff in the forest because they want the forest clearance They can build their police training for their police training facility From what i've talked with people the amount of a pressure that has been caused by media covering the forest has not only elongated the construction process And elongated the the amount that stuff that they're that they're able to do it's it has it has made it harder because This is this is not a very popular proposal even even before the encampments started It was estimated that like 70% of people in Atlanta. We're not for this we're we're not for the construction of this facility So i think people people people make a lot of intentional media choices that's not to say that there isn't also Intentionally harmful actors who are trying to frame this as Atlanta burning down Atlanta and disorder and teetha taking over sections of Atlanta that is absolutely another part of it But there's a very People here have a very clear distinction between between bad actors between people who are you know providing Accurate fair coverage of what's going on Um, and then you know people who are just out to profit, which is you know like a lot of like local TV channels Um, there's there I think a stuff that happened on the protest on Saturdays is a good example There's this far right account that i'm not gonna name um at least not yet I am I might I might talk about it in the future um who you know tries to collect information on on protesters They had there they have someone on the ground who films they also are really good aggregate of like random people's Instagram and tiktok's or snapchats of you know filming filming people from unfortunate angles um The local local TV like like the like the local fox news station You know tries to get as much sensational footage of crimes as possible And you know people people to the best their ability Well, you know try to try to block that off with like umbrella as if they see that happening But you know you can it's it's met There's definitely a clear intention that people in the movement do not want the median narratives around this To solely be decided by the state and be decided against people who are in clear opposition to them That is that is absolutely something that people are putting in putting attention in Uh, they they just that's because that that creates a lot of really really harmful scenarios because there's The state itself is already a pretty powerful propaganda machine Already a lot of local news just regurgitates state talking points. Right. This is the idea of the fourth estate There is does seem to be a pretty a distinction between stuff like the fourth estate then stuff like The derivative idea of the fifth estate of being more of like the people's voice for for for these for these sorts of movements Also in that vein there's stuff like the Atlanta people's press which is a like decentralized media collective Um run by a lot of like rad people who who who help to coordinate media coverage who help to coordinate Um stuff with mean they have they have worked with people they've worked with us on our on the uh On the history of the old Atlanta prison farm so I would say there's a lot of thought put into media strategy Um, and not like in like a liby like optics way but like actual effective media strategy that will improve material conditions and will help push The goals of the movement forward the goal being that the construction of cop city does does not continue So there's a lot of thought going into that and they and that is viewed as another like that is another wing of Of the effort right there's there's stuff like the encampments there's stuff like sabotage there's stuff like protests there's stuff like You know like a very above board stuff, you know that like very uh, you know like uh Of above ground organizations will do like you know right in campaigns calling campaigns and media strategy is another angle of this because To completely give up the public perception of what's going on to the state is seen as a bad thing So but this is this is absolutely a contentious topic I think people in Atlanta have a lot of nuanced conversations about this and Media stuff is handled with a lot more intention here than it has been in the Pacific Northwest Um, that is my that is my subjective opinion but Based on based on I mean it's a smaller community. So I think maybe it's easier. It does seem like there's more Yeah solidarity within the community and more shared vision. I would say that's true There is the community is forced to reinforce itself It is small enough that it cannot treat people as disposable Um, it needs to maintain the people that it has and so people work through problems people work through conflicts And ways to actually resolve it and keep going to build everyone up and make them stronger There's a shared community space which I've I've been to a few times Um, and I think even just something like that is is so is so useful in Being able to actually keep something that resembles a community you see a lot of like anarchists Talk about how like community isn't a real thing. There isn't actually community um, you know And in a lot of places I would say that's that's true a lot of places are just clicked driven um, you know The scene drama it it honestly gets towards or like interesting conflict if you don't use the word drama Um, whereas circular firing squad type shit. Yeah, whereas here There is such a feeling of actual community like that that actually is a thing here because people are forced to foster We're in the south we're surrounded You know you're you're surrounded by a lot of people who want to hurt you Um, Alan is the most surveilled city There's so many different police forces. There's a police force for Fulton County To police force for de cab county to police force for Atlanta. There's the Georgia State Patrol There's the Georgia Bureau of investigation. There's the Georgia Department of Homeland Security There's so many people so many agencies are involved in this. There's so much so much outwards um, threats to people That you really are forced to keep people uh keep people close and trust the people around you So Because the consequences are quite dire um, so people take things very seriously and they put a lot of thought into into a lot of into a lot of things Yeah, that makes sense. I mean that that also jels with my own experience in the south right it's it's Easier to find communities of people who are um Doing anything kind of radical because there's that that bunker mentality right you're under siege you're surrounded on all sides and um, you know that that's very different when you go to a place where There's kind of more like what would be in other places deviancy is more than norm um, and yeah, I guess that that is probably has a lot to do with the fact that This forest defense is so far been so successful in delaying The construction of this facility which it which it has the construction construction Deadlines continue to have been passed and been passed and been passed It has the very least showed that something this can be resisted and Significantly delayed and at at this point they're projecting construction won't be complete for about four more years and Again these deadlines keep getting pushed back and back and that is really what the movement is trying to do keep these deadlines getting pushed back and back Until they just give up on the project or try to put it somewhere else And if they try to put some and if they try to put it somewhere else then the forest was defended But then there's still the stop cop city aspect to being like yeah, you can go somewhere else But we we don't want it there at all and then at that point the movement would change You know very significantly But in terms of the defend the Atlanta forest aspect of this right the whole goal is to make to make this as unenticing as possible Um, and there's a multitude of strategies involved in that um, including stuff like propaganda, agit prop media strategy, sabotage, uh Direct action call in campaigns stuff about pressuring the construction agencies all all those sort of things That's so much more because what you're talking about is is what we call in sort of conflict studies a strategy of friction right um, and and so much there's so always so much focus on On kind of these like we had in Portland in 2020 these like grand moments that are very visually spectacular of resistance But what actually what actually wins because the state has the ability to take a lot of hits it is a it is a durable force And if you're going up against a durable force the only way to win victories is to be Durable yourself and to wear away at them. It's it's friction Um, and I think that's Like that's still the winning play is to keep up pressure It's just the kinds of pressure Especially now that they've cleared out the tree citters and stuff and now that We've seen what they're going to do to people who are arrested at demonstrations the kinds of friction That can be be applied have to change otherwise the movements going to get worn down before the state does in this fight Something that Tortugeta has said is that The state is very good at doing violence. We cannot we cannot beat the state at violence The states good the state will probably win that game that's that's that's the entire point of the state that it like the state has a monopoly on violence That is the entire point they will win that Um, but there if there are other ways where We can see successes and we have seen successes before um So It's not over it will probably grow and change um What actually happens will remain to be seen but I am um just I'm I'm prepping to go through a whole bunch of my audio files and uh I walk under that hell and and and and pieced and pieced together kind of a I've pretty a pretty succinct Uh deep dive that is it is a true a true successor to the to the original On the ground at the defending Lennon forest episodes that I did last May so well I look forward to that I'm sure I know everyone else is as well um thank you for going over there and uh and Being in the thick of it and um yeah, we'll uh we'll continue to cover this story uh as best we can But whatever comes in the future All right, I think that's an episode Levitations vomiting strange voices Have you ever wondered if the stories about exorcism or true? He definitely has something going on It's primal and if they are true how could one protect themselves from these dark forces I'm still in the Charlie that thing is back I see it These are the questions we pose to renowned exorcist father Carlos Martins who agreed to open his case files to the public for the first time Tell me who you are the one you won't get out The one who can't My name is father Carlos Martins. I am an exorcist. I have seen things 473 Very evil things Things that I wish were true Forget what you think you know about exorcism Listen to the exorcist files on the iHeart radio app apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts The war on drugs impacts everyone whether or not you take America's public enemy number one is drug abuse This podcast is going to show you the truth behind the war on drugs They told me that I would be charged for conspiracy to distribute a 2200 pounds a more one. Yeah, and they can do that without any drugs on the table With that again, of course, yes, they can do that in on the prime example The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff Stuff that'll piss you off the property is guilty exactly and it starts as guilty. It starts as guilty The cops why they just like looting I think just like pillaging they just have way better names for what they call like what we would call a jack Move or be in rob They call civil acid for Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart radio app apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast Hey I'm Lance bass host of the new iHeart podcast frosted tips with Lance bass the hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough or You're at the end of the road. Ah, okay. See what you're doing Do you ever think to yourself what advice with Lance bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation if you do You've come to the right place because I'm here to help this. I promise you oh god seriously I swear and you won't have to send an sos because I'll be there for you. Oh, man And so my husband Michael um, hey, that's me. Yep. We know that Michael and a different hot sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life Step by step. Oh, not another one Kids relationships life in general can get messy. You may be thinking this is the story of my life Just stop now if so tell everybody yeah everybody I'm about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never ever have to say bye bye bye Listen to frosted tips with Lance bass on the iHeart radio app apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts Welcome to dick it happened here a podcast about things falling apart and how to put them back together again Oh, I'm your host me a long and today I am returning to my roots of the CD criminal land or just hacker underground Which has gotten much less CD and somehow even more gay since I was last there haha And with with me to talk about this is my arson crime you who is most recently famous as the person who owned an airline so hard They got a copy of the fucking no fly list Yeah, just just first day things Yeah Yeah, so Maya how how are you how are you doing being del you just with One trillion interview requests and um So yeah, it's not my first time experiencing like a big new cycle But this is certainly the biggest one yet. It's I'm surprised that this is bigger than the one I've had before with other stories Yeah, but I feel like becoming a trans femme at the same time I'm like a national security new cycle going on probably helped of it I'm I'm I'm I'm very happy for weed cat like that that that cat got did like that every every single other thing that has happened to weed cat is like done that thing dirty But I'm happy for you Yeah, weed cat is now just like a hacking icon and I'm so here for it Did you see like like like just like Like 10 like 15 minutes before we got on call there's no like bingo meme from the scp foundation on my god The commissioned an artist to make an a Bingo like it has just turned into a thing now like that that's the one so good It's not even it's not even like the whole hacking story anymore. It's just the fact that I have a Bingo into a meme like how yeah, and especially that bingo turned into a meme because that started as a like discord intro like That's all it was and now it's the name of this cat Well, okay, so we should explain for for for people who don't know what this cat is. This is the Pokemon Sprigaro Is the sprigaro how do you? I spent yeah, I don't know how to properly pronounce it. Yeah, it's Italian. I I'm under no obligation to pronounce an Italian sounding thing correctly It's fine. Yeah, yeah, it's the wheat cat Like wheat cat and bingo are now the only two acceptable names for just Yeah, but in in in in the blog where you went through and talked about how you got the no-fly list by owning this thing You'd posted a picture of This is exactly yeah, yeah, I did actually like take that picture while I was like hacking this stuff And like talking in some like small friends discord about it And I just posted that together with like the phrase this aviation should get serious That's why that's also in the blog. I expected that to become the meme that blows up the this aviation should get serious because that's just so stupid Yeah But I guess bingo later is and that's funny because yeah, it was just an intro Nonsense word and now the entire world knows about it and it's like a trans fem thing it rolls but So I okay, I guess we should talk about what actually you did so I I am not a very technical person I'm out here to find like defying trans ghost area types by sucking asset coding um So my my understanding of what happened is you were browsing a list of servers that are cuckits of the internet that you can use through sort of like Various search engines that do this Exxon you stop you stumbled upon the server that belongs to commute air and then they just like had a bunch of hard coded privileges there and like Exactly It's still it's still funny to me how like I realized what it was because I so like there were the acres and stuff I was like wait that that reminds me of like mentor pilot youtube videos because of course I'm an autistic trans fem and binge watch mentor pilot while eating dinner Um, so so that is the only reason I clocked it as like an aviation thing and that's something I should dig into deeper because like You can imagine like while I'm going through these search results I'm looking at like hundreds of servers in a day and most of the stuff I decide is boring or it was too easy to hack So I'm not going further because I have ADHD So yeah, and in this case, I was like wait, that's an aviation word. I heard that before um, so I take the little deeper and There were just passwords there and and then like two minutes after I found that server I was looking at like a car's messages as in like messaging between ground stations and airplanes And that was just like yeah, this is a story and started tweeting about it looking for journalists to work with because With stories like this, I like to work with journals from the where you start because I want to make sure it doesn't get wiped under the rock When I report it to a company So I make sure that when I do reach out and get things fixed I reach out via journalists So that the company's know yeah, this is being reported on so they can't be like yeah We will fix it under the condition that you never tell anyone about our bad security Because like the whole point of what I'm doing is exposing like Security issues, but also exposing yeah with a political background at the end of the day Yeah, and I guess like another thing. I don't know how many people sort of Are aware of this but like another thing that has happened with people who have tried to go to companies and been like Hey, here's a security thing is like the company tries to like go after them criminally like immediately Which sucks ass and is the worst Yeah, so so so from that step on it doesn't even matter if I like do it like this or actually report it to them But this way I get to talk about it publicly and like that's important Not because I won't cloud like I I don't mind the cloud, but like yeah Yeah, and so okay, so I The there's been a lot of focus on the fact that you found the no fly list on there Which is very funny, but okay, why like okay What I think I'm trying to figure out why was there just why were there just messages from like ground crews to airplanes Just like sitting around on this random server. That's just like it's supposed to the internet Right, so the messages weren't directly on that server, but like it's a server where they like For testing purposes like I don't know how much I can tell this down really but where they like test the software automatically and and so there is all and Because of how they configure the server I would just have access to all the source out which included lots of passwords Hmm, for example for like the server that then had the a curse messages on it. Okay, okay, but yeah Or access credentials for apis that would have allowed me to update the crew on a flight or Yeah, or which like if you think about that's almost the bigger story Yeah, like at least theoretically could have been able to change crew crews because like That's the real terrorism risk Yeah, like if I'm just like if I'm just the light who spelled it out like that Like yeah, that's the dream of any Yeah, yeah, like I mean you know like I'm one of the things you were talking about when when you're writing about this Was that like journalist thought that you were the one who had like caused all of the flight delays? And it's like no that was just their computer breaking no, yeah, like that was just funny because I didn't even know the thing with Yes Yeah, it happened, but I was like tweeting about oh, I have a big aviation story any journalist interested It's like a security breach and people were like wait what did you tune to the FAA and I was like hot water FAA Oh, so that happened like I am so not up to date don't use anymore Yeah, I mean so for people who don't know what that story is so Basically the the federal aviation administration had a computer problem was the very very very short version They had a computer problem and this grounded like a shit ton of flights because the huge like computer bottlenecks Where if you know we saw this over like like a like last month when there was that when all of those flights got down by Southwestern because the computer system just went down right yeah, it's the same thing except U.S. wide Yeah, but it's just funny because yeah I first found the server like exactly the day after like That was literally a day after the FAA incident so people were rightly assuming that that was me Which it obviously wasn't but like It would have been cool. Yeah, but it's also like it is very disturbing to me that like this kind of stuff is just sitting there and like someone Yeah, I could just like theoretically go ahead and screw with all of this stuff Which is like and then also the fact that like there is just all of like the personal information of all of the pilots on there like what that hell Like that is yeah, that yeah It's terrifying Yeah, it is crazy how much stuff is just out there and like that's part of what I Try to show with my work. It's just Yeah, there is so much stuff out there and it's just waiting to be found and I both mean that in in terms of like Yeah, you can find shit if you try to but also in the sense of things are not secure like yeah Like all the systems are like entire life stipend on nowadays not none of those systems are really secure They're entirely dependent on like one system administrator who doesn't get paid enough I'm tired like computer systems dependent like a bunch of furries Yeah, being motivated enough to do their work So basically like the moral of this story is pay furries well enough Yeah, and this probably to look at everything though I was thinking about when I was looking at this which is like You know, okay, so like when when when I was like a teenager like one one one of the things I think I was the most wrong about that I believed was like I actually genuinely believed that Like automating cars was a good idea because humans are really really bad at driving And then and then I had to learn to program and I had to like see scientist code and I had to I I open I open a program and there's a section of it that no one knows how it works And I look I look at the notes and the notes say I don't I didn't write this I don't know how it works This is produced this is produced at 4 a.m. On like 700 milligrams of caffeine. That's like yeah, yeah On at least caffeine if not then yeah, well These are these were astronomers. So I think it was actually just a lot of caffeine in Yeah, like you know, then I had the realization the only single thing that we as humans are worse at at than driving is coding Exactly. Yeah, we are we are even worse at that and then the other thing we're also very bad at is labeling data Which is not the bull thing machine learning is dependent on like Because like the entire intelligence of like an automated car like a self-driving car is entirely dependent on how intelligent The like underpaid workers in in Kenya are yeah Yeah get paid like two bucks an hour to label things as car human and child and then make moral decisions of whether or not those should get run over Um like Yeah, like this is you know what what of one of my sort of political things that I'm coming to is I I I think the only person people who should be allowed to do machine learning are astronomers and no one else should be allowed to do it And even they anyway because they have like they have a legitimate reason which is that like they actually a they're doing a bunch of big date like most of astronomy Just big data analysis. Yeah, and then be like the the analysis itself doesn't really hurt anyone Uh, you you can't like just the telescopes, but like you're not you're not like Yeah, just like anything that involves humans probably yeah, I also involves AI in any way Terrible idea, but yeah, I guess okay circling back around to the point I was going to make and then forgot to track you talking about AI because Such as the world um Yeah, so you know it's really remarkable to me like how little technical skill you need to just like absolutely own enormous corporations and governments Yeah, and you know, but but the other thing that that's struck me about this that I've been thinking about for a while is that like Okay, on the one hand you have how easy hacking is like eat like this server stuff like easier even the stuff that I remember back in the day Which is a lot of like people like you You so someone somewhere long ago in a galaxy far far away wrote like a script and then you just copy and paste it into like every single text box on a webpage And like that's I think like that's probably maybe like more hackery quote-unquote than just like looking through lists of servers Yeah, but like even that is like the level test of technical sophistication is so low Or or you know, yeah, you don't need technical skill. It's just need to be stupid enough to pull it up like Yeah, but you know, but the thing that I realized about this not thinking about this was like on the one hand the level technical sophistication You for this is a stream below on the other hand One of the sort of like like one of the sort of trends of of the way capitalism has been Distributing digital technology, which is sort of by api get it like by by sorry which has been Hacking it into apps and these closed-guard and ecosystems and like putting uis in between you and like Well like you and what's actually happening on your computer has been you know, it's been designed in a way to make a quote-unquote consumer friendly but also It's been designed in a way such that like successive generations of computer users just have less and less knowledge of how their devices technology actually work Yeah, that's like like there's that whole thing of like about how how Like younger kids. Yeah, don't understand the concept of fault Yeah, because like that's completely abstracted away on like smartphones. Yeah, and Chromebook in particular which I I genuinely think we need to ban Chromebooks in schools The like just just like for for the sake of human Yeah, it's a big of a thing that isn't yeah, it's awful like oh god, they're the worst Yeah, I don't know like at the end of the day Well, I want to do say earlier, but like how easy is to hack all the big corporations and stuff and it's just like the answer as to why it's just Capitalism. Yeah, it's cheaper not to give a shit about cyber security It's cheaper to just pay when you get hacked than to like secure your shit up front Because like the only people that will really suffer is like your customers and your employees and they can forget Your shareholders are gonna be just fine You know and you look at the way the regulatory structure works is like okay, so what what happens if you get in trouble Something like this while the government takes a cut. That's it. Yeah, yeah, that's it like it's literally It's literally like you can butchered getting hacked there is cyber insurance now you can get it Against getting hacked like like It's just capitalism at work I feel like one of the things that one of the things that journalist has sort of I know and I understand why they focus on it But I feel like there's a lot of focus in in sort of jerk like in tech journalism and journalism on sort of On the hacking stuff in like the really big sophisticated like stunt next or I What was the what was the more recent one? Apparently like yeah, like they're the really sort of convoluted trawling program with things like you know Take the nation's a little resources and it's like well Yeah, you know, this was always the thing with like the with like the NSA to where it's like well, okay So the the the the the the the the on the one hand the NSA does have enough money to like spend like 50 million dollars Factoring one numbers like a break a bunch of encryption on the other hands like they can't just force us Yeah, and also they push us to get them access and also like I don't know They can get most of this information because like some server admin and like a farm in like the middle of world The brass girl like misconfigured a file like misconfigured a server. So like you know I don't know that's also what I find funny about the things I find because I like almost Exclusively go for like the low hanging fruit because like what why would I invest more effort when I can get a really big scoops Like this and also sometimes I do kind of think about how hey, you know like maybe I just cut off access to the CIA Maybe this was like how the CIA got this access maybe yeah, maybe the NSA was here Uh, obviously most likely not in most cases, but it's just a funny little thought of like who did I just cut access to? Yeah, well, I mean by reporting this I will say this like I can't imagine that there isn't someone at the NSA And there isn't someone at the CIA whose job it is to do exactly the same thing you do and like scroll to the server was every day I like absolutely like like like that that's why by now I use so my like for the search engines There's showdown, which is like the famous US one, which is why I still always say I find it on showdown Even though by now I use so much because showdown has like half of like all US IP censored and they have an artificial delay between finding the servers and showing them to you and I've really bad search and I'm pretty sure it's just because at one point the US government got upset because they kept getting high Yeah And so yeah, but like the Chinese are very willing to give me all the US IP's ever that they too censored a lot of Chinese IP's though But like I think a lot of that was so I was I was I was trying to figure out why that name was released But then I had this I remembered that there was a story where some researcher did like almost the exact same thing you did to a Chinese security company And found out that they were doing yeah, like guess what exactly the same shit the US government was doing which was using Using a bunch of ambulance cameras to spy on Muslims and it was like well This is great. Yeah, it's it's always like like it's always a pointing and doing the same thing behind the scenes like Yeah Okay, so we unfortunately gonna have to take an ad break I Yeah, but then once we return from capitalism we will go back to opposing Welcome to 2023 All right, and we're back nice. Yeah, so speaking of any capitals about that was another thing I wanted to sort of talk about which is that okay, so like long long long ago in a galaxy far far away Little little little baby 15-year-old Mia was radicalized like Back back back back back when I was overthrown trying to overthrow my first government. It was um A lot a lot of it was being in the same spheres a lot of sort of anarchist hackers that were in the sort of like loose anonymous fear But you know, but by like y'all's in 15 2016 like that stuff was kind of fallen apart like partially because of infighting partially because of fed infiltration partially because You know like everyone got arrested. Yeah, yeah point all the big players have been arrested like three years prior Yeah, and and you know and the other thing that was going on too. I think was like Anonymous like its politics were always really incoherent like you you had I don't know you're not just like effort well like you know like the thing I remember was there was a big split between like Basically the fascists the anarchists Between like like over Trump specifically like yeah, I think the wing roof anonymous It's just like the way it started. It started. It's just like a group of trolls. Yeah, I'm sure that it was like well Okay, don't be just say like I mean it makes sense that uh Is the way it is and has been the way it has been I think it's still like important that it exists and that it motivates people Like I have been involved with anonymous before There's the one thing I can talk about with like operation me on my where we did like support things um that was shortly before my indictment but Yeah, it's it's interesting like anonymous brings people together to do operations. Yeah um and that's what they do and they can do PR for stuff uh Yeah, I know who that like Talk down on that. Yeah, no, but I think like what I think especially like like when I was getting involved in like chosen 13 it was like Like it was It was a lot different like it was You know like it was like effing yeah, it was it was it was it was both like a thing and also it wasn't just like like It wasn't just that it was sort of like okay, we're like we're like trolling But we're trolling a government by like taking down their web pages or whatever like they were actually sort of there was like There was real coordination between like people like you know revolutionaries on the ground in like Egypt or in Like Brazil that's not like that that still happens. Yeah, that does still happen It's just less of a public thing like that's what we did in in in Yeah, as well as where we did communications with people on the ground where we helped them communicate among each other We helped them keep the internet up Even when the government tried to turn it off. It's really sick. Other fund other other function Anagas like that and also archival and that like just in case some kids that does decide to do those literally every web page in the country Which is mostly nonsensical, but like yeah But I knew find it interesting how like yeah, there is like the 2012 2014 generation that was mostly anonymous Don't dominate it and now we're in like this new generation where it's just small little groups. Yeah, and I want to talk about that because much more Decentralized I don't know it's weird to talk about it because At the end of the day I inspired a lot of it, which is really weird to say yeah, it's so weird to say that I like But yeah, I'm kind of part of what the revive activism and it sounds so so pretentious of me to just say that myself, but like Yeah, no, it is kind of what happened then like 2019 2020. Yeah, and like that that was what was interesting to me too because it was it was very like I don't know like the the the season 12 stuff was also like it was very very I guess media centered in a way where it was it was about drawing like drawing masses of people into things And then using it to sort of get media attention using it to sort of like I don't know Be be be this sort of like online like also this sort of like online social movements in a way that I think is very different than The modern stuff was this is my conception of it though because I've also been kind of like I don't know I I was off doing other stuff in 2019 that had nothing to do with this. So yeah, I'm curious Well, okay How do I put this so I I'm curious a like how how you see the politics of These new groups either sort of as different from what came before it I think it's hard for a lot of the groups is hard to like see what their politics are and some of them aren't even like there's Things like lapses that aren't specifically doing activism, but they're accidentally doing anti-corporate activism by just making everything Uh like uh, and that's like groups that are like in the way that they operate are very clear and inspired by my work That I used to do um and they're just not very like political yeah per se They but but I still call them activists because even if it might not be their intention they're doing activism and they're making corporations Anger and wasting corporate resources and in my book that counts as like yeah Activism and the fact that they in a way fight for like freedom of information even if they might not be the goal Uh, yeah, I don't know if you like that is the main unifying factor in now. It's just a fight for information because like They're currently like the single biggest active activist thing happening right now since like 2019 is just leaking the whole leg tovism thing that happened before as well, but like now that's like the main thing Before it was often a lot like just didossing and stuff, but now we're so focused on like getting documents getting software getting Yeah files getting like proof those things happened getting fucking no fly list. It's just It's just a very different environment where like the goals are probably about the same in a lot of ways At least for the people who do have an ideology. Yeah, but but like yeah I feel like it's just much more focused on like releasing information into the free which I find really great like that that is kind of my big fight That I tried to devote myself to Yeah, I wanted to ask also sort of just about your personal anarchism because I don't know I like talking about anarchism and Yeah, everyone has their own um, I Don't know It's it's a difficult question and I feel my answer to this question changes like every other thing Um, I especially found it hard because like I am like doing work in very specific focused Bit of like anarchist work and so I don't really want to look myself into like some sorry So so it's it's like very fluid. I'm just like we'll be speaking and states. I'm like I don't know It's it's hard No, no governments no shitties corporations and just like having fun with friends and being gay that is like This rules we take this is a good form of anarchism Yeah, I don't know just some form of like queer anarchism and yeah Being gay and doing crimes. It's a it's a good. It's a good thing I guess in a way like what kind of defines me and what keeps getting me into the spotlight is that I do just kind of have like a very strong moral Compass and I go by that rather by what's legal or not? Yeah, like sure I try to stay with him like some safe boundaries, especially now like post indictment um Given that they're definitely even more eyes on me now than before and this podcast is definitely being played at some At the eye. Oh yeah, there's there's there's oh yeah Oh So that's something to consider uh but like Yeah, I feel like I feel like that's kind of what I want to demonstrate this that like if you have morals You can't just stick by them like no one is stopping you from doing that They might try to but like you can't just stick with your morals Yeah, and I think it's worth mentioning even like you know, okay like a lot of people go to prison for doing stuff like this Some of them didn't like there's a like to the best of my knowledge There is at least still one low-set guy who's just in the wind who they never got Yeah, and like and low-sick like they they they they they had a fad mole in the group and one of these people still got away fuck Sabo yeah Yeah, just in general So really don't do set sabbos basically the guy that the the the feds flipped inside of low-sick who got it once at the prison Um like like fuck I do have to say I I kind of get why he flipped like he at that point already had a family and stuff Like I get that that is hard But still you gave up your friends. Yeah, simply do not say that and Like I don't know and the fact that he still like has some sort of image honestly I don't know that it's just it's just infosaclty I don't know it's it's interesting for sure But yeah, I can't comment too much on There are a lot of funny jokes to be made that I shouldn't yeah The fed suck I'm just gonna say that like oh god it's it's been it's it's been it's been a bad week of feds in the US too like Yeah, yeah, honestly just one thing again about the TSA like I am so curious what's gonna happen with the congressional Yeah, I don't know if you saw that yeah, I like that especially since like This means that they're republing and so gonna be exposed to my blog post presumably Uh, and I am so excited for all this lurch they can come up with It is going to be extremely funny. I'm also very excited for like the terps to be like this is terrorism See we've been right all along. Yeah. Yeah Yeah, I have gotten that before I have gotten terribly twice before on like articles about me where they were like see no women don't commit Cry so this is clear proof but it's just like what what are you talking about? Oh, this is this is my male jeans coming out. It's also like ma'am committing crime ma'am you are Disadish like do you do you do you know what people what what people did so you have right to vote like come on Yeah, that like that's the funny thing is that they at the same time also like fetishize the whole Shat thing yeah, I think no fucking clue what that movement yeah, it's like no no no suffrage yet What would what would whatever horse whip Rishi Sunak? I mean I'm not suffering. No turf whatever who is Rishi Sunak unlike Unlike the suffragettes who yeah Exactly, I don't know. It's silly. I'm surprised how little harassment I've got none to it there so far if we exclude the whole by lesbian discourse I am so sorry for restarting that this course. I think me talking about that single handedly restarted at this corner It just happens periodically like yeah, yeah, it's just funny because like I was just like yeah This is gonna get me some hate replies but like within five minutes. I had 21 private quotes. Yeah, I mean like my My I won't make an official statement on that which is that if you give a single shit about people calling themselves by lesbians like I Please let me know so I can trade lives with you Like you you seem to have like very few problems going on I would love to like have grown up in the world. We're like that's like that's the thing that you think like Patterson I don't know. I think it's I think it's funny how there's people who were like wanting to follow me wanting to interact with me as like and it hits Theory and kitten who like does Funny things to the US government, but then they draw the line at at the specific sexuality Really and like I then made like a post where I was like sorry I deleted that I didn't I don't have the energy to deal with people getting so upset over an innocent word And that has gotten so many many quotes. We'd sping like yeah And that innocent writing question was by lesbians. I say if I said like the end word or something like that was literally the kind of response I got and it's just like do you not have anything else to do like your day You know how many people the cops killed last week. Can you please do something like come on and all the things are happening here right now like Especially then when some of the people that come up with that are like non-binary lesbians Which if you know anything about this purity in discourse like half of the damn would also like from a decent They're a bit big because non-binary lesbians also can't exist and like it's Why are you why are you fighting for the TERFs like that? That is my one single question I have Through all the 14 year old queers on twitter.com. Yeah, also why did that why did that discourse ever escape tumblr like that was Well because it's because it's all the tumblr because all the tumblr refugees came to twitter Yeah, but they could have left a discourse there Yeah, but no the world I don't know twitter twitter twitter in the last like Like okay like Twitter's discourse has never been good, but like in the last No, obviously it's been it's just been getting said worse and it's it's yeah It's just the same side like it's it's not even that it's just bad discourse It's just the same discourse every week and I'm just tired of it And I guess now that I'm a bigger count. I have to have an opinion on everything. Yeah And also the fun part about being trans everyone is like Like absolutely razor focused for like the exact one word that you say wrong So they can act that so they can like like legitimately quote unquote be gentle back at you and it's like This is great like this is a great system that we've developed for yeah, I love with each other. I love it We could simply yeah, I do this Yeah, you can just say like the fact that literally like I was like I'm gonna see what happens if I say buy less Bein on an account with 24,000 followers And and the fact that it literally took seconds for people to tell me to tell all their mutuals to unfollow me because I'm a highly problematic Um was it was quite interesting and someone was just like this has completely shattered my world to be one I'm just like sorry if your world view gets shattered by my sexuality You have some soul seeking to do like yeah Yeah, like like like like like actually like Like I I grew up like like for some of the for some people Me saying the phrase by lesbian was genuinely like my milkshake dark moment. Yeah, it was like it was like a second a It's a second sexuality description has hit the towers like Yeah, it's so like god It was like 5 a.m. When I made that tweet. It was just like oh, I'm gonna get a little silly with it And and I I expected like a backlash, but not that much it was just too much and yeah Like I know it's not like backlash that matters and I just ignore it. It's just like So overwhelming Yeah, I guess do you have anything else that you want to say? I don't know. I think that's that covers like most of the things I have to talk about Uh, yeah, just like be gay to crime hack the planet Uh, oh my god I made it like genuinely it is one of my favorite things in the world that they made the movie hackers And it was the worst the picture hackers, but then also yeah, right like I It was like so I didn't watch that. I mean, okay. I watched it like Not for the first time like it wasn't like like Like I was I was like not that old when I watched it but it was after I like first ran into hackers And so it took me a while to figure out that like wait hold on no hack the planet is a thing that everyone says But that's actually because it's a joke for hackers Which I love see the I still find it funny how hackers is a movie that got hacking culture completely wrong and changed it forever Yeah, because like because like there is I don't know if you've ever seen that but from like defcon from 1996 Yeah, there's a page on the official defcon website talking about how bad hackers is and how it gets everything wrong and no one should watch this movie And now you look at this like 20 years later and that's just what hacking culture turned in yeah It's very funny the most incredible thing about hackers is that someone managed to get the clearest fucking movie ever made Uh Made by one of the biggest companies in Hollywood and also make it about hacking and like it's it's the best It's a piece of cinema ever and I stand by this like it fucking sucks in a lot of ways. Yeah, but it's just They just managed to make a movie where no one is cis Somehow yeah, it's actually in a shalee and yeah like It's pretty amazing That I will say the the the the two Asian characters are kind of whack but Yeah other than that. It's like yeah, it's a it's a like like it's it's a whack movie like Like like if you look at it objectively, it's a pretty bad movie Yeah, like like there's I know that there was shit like in a lot of ways stuff in the 90s is absolutely terrible But also like there was stuff you could just do in movies in the 90s that like you can't now yeah like like they okay What my way is I'm this is I may have said this on the podcast before but like they so they they they they did a like completely straight like modern-day live adaptation of of Romeo and Juliet That is like it's Romeo and Juliet. It's it's exactly the lines in Shakespeare But it's like with characters set in like The like modern times and they're shooting guns each other But like what one of these happens and that is there's just like a black eye doing drag and it's just like a thing Like nobody comments on it like it's just like a thing and he's having a good time and you could not like Like people people people would show up to yeah like people people which people like yeah I mean like I won't be on Tucker Carlson like yeah like like the people people yeah You'd have like mobs showing up in front of your house like it's yeah. Yeah Like I don't know like yeah if hackers came out now we we would have like Tucker Carlson complaining about the woke mob trying to get kids and to gay activists. Yeah like I don't know I love the movie so much not not because it's good but because it's culturally important. Yes and And yeah, and the characters are like great like they made everyone queer somehow and I'm still not sure whether that was intentional or not I don't know but I lean towards they didn't know what they were doing and that makes it even funnier Yeah, it makes it so much better. I know so the fact that it's like got passed like producers and everything and it was made Yeah, the queer's piece of like Hollywood media. I have ever seen that wasn't meant to be queer Yeah, it's just like yeah Yeah, cool that we weren't on this tangent because yeah, we love we we we we we simply love to see it be gay do crimes hack the planet Yes, it's not legally for the FBI. This is not legally actionable. This is a joke Yeah, this is so clearly famous catchphrases. Yes from the movie hackers, which you can watch The hackers. Yeah in places Yeah, you can watch it very legally on the internet. I actually don't know if it's on any streaming platform. I don't think I watched it I think it is because I watched it with my family kind of recently, which was a wild time Oh, it's probably streaming. Oh, it's it's an Apple TV apparently Yeah, so it's there you can find it there you can find it in other places. It can it can find it somewhere both legally and illegally yes, if I'm allowed to endorse like uh piracy on your podcast. It's we we did an entire episode about how to pirate stuff. So oh, yeah So yeah, you can find it both legally and illegally and if you're lucky, I'm the one seeding the torrent Oh, and then oh actually, okay, the other thing I actually should be for you if people want to find you where can they find you I'm on twitter at underscore nine crime you and in case twitter suspends me once again for the sixth time I have a website mya dot crime you dot gay it rules. It's so good. It yes Yeah, it's like the reason I'm famous now. It's just because my website is pink It's great Yeah, so this has been make it happen here you can find us at happen here pod at twitter instagram um Yeah, I guess I am at it me chr3 Uh Yeah, go in go in crime Levitations vomiting strange voices have you ever wondered if the stories about exorcism or true? He definitely has something going on. It's primal and if they are true How could one protect themselves from these dark forces That's still in there Really that thing is back. I see it These are the questions we posed to renowned exorcist father Carlos Martins who agreed to open his case files to the public for the first time Tell me who you are the one you won't get out The one that can't My name is father Carlos Martins. I am an exorcist. I have seen things Very evil things Things that I wish were true Forget what you think you know about exorcism Listen to the exorcist files on the iHeart radio app apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts The warren drugs impacts everyone whether or not you take America's public enemy number one is drug abuse This podcast is going to show you the truth behind the warren drugs They told me that I would be charged for conspiracy to distribute uh 2200 pounds tomorrow Yeah, and they can do that without any drugs on the table with that of that You know, of course, yes, they can do that in on the prime example of that warren drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with Absolutely insane stuff stuff out of his she-off the property is guilty exactly and it starts his guilt It starts his guilty cops why they just like looting I think just like pillaging I just have way better names for what they call like what we would call a jack move or being Rob He calls civil acid for it Be sure to listen to the warren drugs on the iHeart radio app apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts Hey, I'm Lance Bass host of the new iHeart podcast frosted tips with Lance Bass The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough or you're at the end of the road Ah, okay, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation If you do you've come to the right place because I'm here to help this I promise you oh god Seriously, I swear and you won't have to send an sos because I'll be there for you Oh, man, and so my husband Michael um, hey, that's me. Yeah, we know that Michael and a different hot sexy teen crush boy band Or each week to guide you through life step by step. Oh, not another one. Yeah kids relationships life in general can get messy You may be thinking this is the story of my life. Oh, just stop now if so tell everybody yeah everybody About my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never ever have to say bye bye bye I listen to frosted tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart Radio app Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts Welcome back once again, this is the crew from it's going down squatting the airwaves of it could happen here on today's show We're going to look at the growing crisis around homelessness and how the state has moved to address it with brutal sweeps and new laws that target the poor in The wake of the global COVID-19 pandemic the US housing crisis deepened and homelessness grew Following the George Floyd rebellion Republicans pointed to a rising murder rate during the 2022 election cycle Along with growing encampments of the houseless as examples of rampant democratic mismanagement and the supposed in result of Defunding the police in reality two years after the uprising Both funding for the police has only increased along with the number of people killed per year by law enforcement While growing police budgets have had no impact on crime Meanwhile both parties have embraced a draconian crackdown on the houseless As a slew of new laws target sleeping outside and police move against encampments even in the midst of extreme weather But a new wave of resistance is also materializing as communities mobilized to provide mutual aid Fight for access to housing and resist sweeps of encampments on today's episode We investigate the history of these struggles and how these tactics ranging from squatting to encampment defense are spreading across the social terrain As the current crisis deepens can more people find themselves out in the cold But to kick things off let's talk about state strategy just why are they carrying out these sweeps I think one of the first things that comes to mind for me is how this behavior from like the Democrats or like liberals or progressives Isn't an anomaly that they are you know that their role is facilitating a capitalist state just with slightly different tactics Then the Republicans but basically they're trying to do that what they're doing which is basically demonizing Unhoused people and sort of pushes the blame of What's going on of the failings basically of our culture onto these individuals that are unhoused rather than on their failures as like Mairs of democratic cities or whatever And the kind of logical outcome of class-based capitalist extractive society And when they can just make it that instead of it being like a social problem that people are unhoused they can make it these bad homeless people and their dirty and crime or whatever And just kind of try and eliminate that to protect their image But I think it's just the way of like scapegoating a built-in problem with how they operate And actually it's something amazing especially thinking about San Francisco in terms of like precedence for this It makes me think about the ugly laws which For anyone who doesn't know that was something kind of in the 1800s San Francisco implemented in 1867 Which was a law Forbidding people who were kind of like unsightly according to this law To not be seen in the street So if people were physically disabled or they were begging or even limping There were laws targeting them and part of it even says that anything that's triggering like discussed or guilt They like to not be seen and I feel like it's a really similar thing that's happening now and so yeah Progressively as they do this I'm glad that you brought up ableism because I think that's this ties in real real well into that So we live in essentially like an extremely able society that says if you don't work you die And I think Criminalizing homeless people is a huge part of that. So I mean really think about it We have to rent our bodies to corporations So we can get money to pay rent to landlords Essentially we're being paid a tax to live But how do you force people how else can get people to do the drudgery that we have to do at work if you don't like show them the consequences of that So like if they were nice to homeless people if they were like oh here's a free home They're not created president stuff like oh You cannot work and have a home so like they don't want to do that So I mean I think one thing that people don't talk about like homelessness is existing I think it's like a way to like scare us Into essentially doing these things that we don't want to do to live because you're constantly reminding us of like oh You want a quiet clan? You want to go on a strike? This is what your life could be you're gonna be homeless and not only that We're gonna make it so that you can't exist as a homeless person in this society Because if people like if you go to New York right now all these uh brunchy folks they eat on the sidewalk They have all these like houses built up on this sidewalk people and drinking the Moses, but you can't have a tan But what are these makeshift things? I mean it goes to show you like it's not even like the idea of taking public space It's like who's taking public space and if it's somebody who's not serving capitalism you can't take a public space The housing question to really understand the connection with Democrats and Capitalists understates of housing we have to think about how housing You know property structure space right how capitalism structures space And so you know when I was thinking about this before we're recording I keep going back to James Scott seeing like a state which is you know an amazing book of people haven't read it Absolutely pick up a copy, but in the first you know a couple of chapters one of the things they talked about is landic closure And he's talking about this structure specifically in France in which Sort of towards the end of monarchism There was an attempt to actually create a tax regime where individuals were taxed and to do that individuals had to exist legally What they didn't at that point they existed as communities within feudalism they pay taxes as communities they held land as communities When the French government went to these towns to figure out who owned what What they found was that every single community broke up their understanding of land differently And that it wasn't really based on ownership is based on use And so they had to standardize all of them to do that they'd a fragment to comments They just sit there and go you own this piece of land and you own this piece of land They did that they made maps and they went back two years later They realized nobody was following the maps But what they did was they started charging taxes based on the maps And so people had to start making money on the land to pay the taxes based on the maps and nothing to do with their lives Right and what that was was the creation of property Right Because when we think about property you know there's this fiction of you know stateless capitalism You have like Murray Rothbard I'm grand types who were talking about you know capitalism can exist without the same Really we can see the fallacy of that when we look at the at the question a property right the question of Exclusion from property or exclusion from space Not only is it fragmenting public space, but we start to look at Um the way that all of a sudden property has to exist right and and so in the rust belt for example after the the financial crisis Cities Cleveland Buffalo Detroit got all this money from the federal government to tear houses down And they were tearing down like 50 houses a day in these cities right for years on end And these are cities that have people that don't have housing And so you you sit there and you go well why are they tearing houses down When there are people that don't have housing right when there's more vacant houses than there are people without housing How can you justify tearing the house's down and the answer was we need to create a real estate market to go Because if you allow people to just squat there's no reason to pay for housing If there's no reason to pay for housing housing ceases to be a commodity right like this is actually the important part That capitalism has to function through that exclusion of access Otherwise, commodities can't have the scarcity necessary to allow them to be priced right there can't be a Supply that is lower than a demand for example unless you artificially limit supply right and so when we really see this We can really see not just the way that capitalism sort of atomizes us right creates Um us as people who live in individual housing units as opposed to as people who can see themselves as living in communities Um, but it also really comes to highlight the relationship between the state and the police and capital and how we have to understand capital as A content of the state it is a definition of life that is imposed through policing period And can't exist outside of that right. It's the fallacy of quote-unquote anarcho capitalism Which isn't the thing that really exists for this exact reason right and so when we're looking at why our Democrats engaging in techniques That involve pushing people off the streets. This is exactly why the it's a capitalist political party They're trying to maintain property They're trying to maintain property value right and this is why you see this happen in cities where gentrification is really horrible At a much at a much faster clip than you see it in cities where there is like open housing stock That really makes me think about the beginning of like uh work houses in England in the 1830s and the poor law reforms And it goes back to what you were saying more about um Just that making it really undesirable to be poor, you know Like just needing a group of people who are in that position and that work houses was something that were introduced by liberals Progressors, you know like this as a form of like changing this or poor release system So instead of giving people money so they could be supported and stay with their families or whatever People were put into these institutions where they're separated from their kids from their husbands and wives or whatever And it's meant to be so undesirable that you would only seek it if you were sort of desperately needed it or whatever Um as a way to like save on taxes for like money Basically is really fucked up and it's like this was part of this or social reform progressive like project And I think we see echoes of that in this the other thing that I wanted to bring up is like you talked about atomizing and isolating and like How capitalism does that one thing that I think about specifically in New York is that almost and campments Do offer this radical idea of like what it looks like to take back a public space and to collectively like meet together You know, and like that's the other thing that I was thinking about last night when I was high This whole idea of what happens if we just allow homeless encampments to spread and take over Then people who are not homeless start interacting with homeless people as we do like people in the city do Then you form these connections and these relationships and then it becomes perfectly normal for people to take over public spaces And then what does that mean then we have to provide services and public spaces like bathrooms and showers because the public would Start requesting and like asking for these things and more of a relationship. They form with homeless folks So I think part of the the cleaning which is with the term Eric Adams is used which is absolutely disgusting in terms of like moving homeless people The whole I think a huge part of it is also just like destroying the notion that we own public spaces like you do not own a public space And we want to let you know that and we want you out Um, so I think that really and and the addition aspect of that too is like when you look at homeless is in New York like a huge chunk of it I don't like black people too, so there's like a racial component of it too when you really want to add it This whole idea of like black people are not allowed to take up space and then specifically your homeless You're not allowed to take up public space. I wanted to bring that in it's like very much related to work But also just related to the idea that the government owns everything and corporations own everything including the spaces that we exist done While speaking of corporations owning everything here's some words from our sponsors Across the US and large cities often controlled by Democrats a war on the poor and specifically on encampments of houses people Has been increasingly waged over the past year in San Francisco the city's mayor London breed recently declared it was time to quote the less tolerant of all the bullshit that has destroyed our city and effort to ramp up police harassment of the poor and unhoused In Portland city officials openly toyed with the idea of forcing quote up to 3,000 homeless people into massive temporary shelter staff by the Oregon National Guard on California The Democratic governor Gavin Newsom has pushed for quote Care courts which threaten to place those who do not complete state directives under involuntary hospitalization A policy which mirrors efforts already underway in New York bands against camping Panhandling sleeping in one's car have also proliferated last spring for instance Tennessee made it a felony to camp on public owned land in Missouri those caught sleeping on state property Could now get jail time and fines under a new law that just went into effect on January 1st Other new laws outlaw on cammants in LA next to schools and forbid houses folks from sleeping on public transit in New York In the progressive bastion of the Asheville North Carolina over a dozen mutual aid organizers also now face trumped up charges of felony Littering for supporting protest against sweeps of encampments This shift in many liberal cities to criminalize attack and banning campments shows just how much the Democratic Party has continued to move to the right While embracing Republicans line on combating rising crime instead of mobilizing the state's forces to house people and meet their most basic needs in a period of mass pandemic and a growing housing crisis Liberal governments across the country have instead Mobilize their forces to attack some of the most vulnerable When you know more about what's driving these ongoing attacks on the houseless and how it relates to the housing crisis itself We sat down with Gifford Hartman a long-time radical organizer in the Bay Area in a former squatter Movements arise like say the George Floyd uprising and there's some changes. There's some Movement towards reforms to police brutality and things like that And then there's kind of a backlash and I think right now we're kind of suffering through a backlash And I think that's kind of a pattern that happens is There's pushback kind of penal reform trying to reign the police in a little bit And then the kind of the backlash means just the police have more power and they have more power to really kind of brutalize on house people And I think we're living through that right now. I think the trends go you know like back and forth and the pendulum has swung in the direction Where right now in San Francisco there's constant sweeps of tents and how and how's people living on the streets There's a lot of media support given to that and it's kind of like as I said the tail lags the dog and then they start doing all this stuff And the pushback hasn't really activism hasn't really been able to kind of stand up to that and stop it or even challenge it right now At least what I see gooms happen in property values go up and vacancies go to almost zero The cops crack down harder and I think there have been periods at least in my lifetime Here in the Bay Area where there's kind of a law that there's a bottom of the trough when maybe there's more vacancies a little bit more wiggle room The cops quite aren't quite so brutal but when things are peaking or when the economy is you know It's dynamic kind of high points That's where I see the repression is the worst because there's more people to complain There's more people who's you know values are tied to property and who are more willing to push the cops to brutalize on house people and But you know right now it's kind of framed because there's a lot of tech layoffs yet the agenda of sweeping Tense and unhoused people off the streets is kind of still kind of a rapid pace. So I don't know how much longer to last but right now it's at a pretty high point as we speak the weather's awful And the sweeps haven't really stopped and there aren't enough shelter beds to house although under house folks So it's really a crisis. It's not only just the you know a human crisis, but it's a health crisis because people out in the cold rain Are more vulnerable to getting sick and dying and it's it should be the time where we're doing the opposite We're making sure everybody's housed and it just certainly isn't happening Even though San Francisco the mayors have been Democrats. I believe since the mid 60s The Democrats are to model it and they're not all progressive and even the progressive ones aren't that good But the ones that are in power now like one mayor I'm London Brea are moderates and they really are more believe in the police more and they believe in using police for social crimes And when they're not moderates, it's little less bad, but it's not better. It's just less bad I don't know if that really makes sense. I because I don't think there's ever been a political regime in San Francisco that wasn't pro cop You know everybody loves the cops everybody sees the cops is Um ways to enforce the social values of society which have private property and all that and it just never stops It just depends how brutal they are and again, as I said earlier It goes through waves and presently we're in a brutal way and the only alternative that is a less brutal way And so my opinion there's never a time when the cops don't you know run rapid But just right now they're actually at the high point that they've been in a long time And now we speak with Javier from the national coalition on homelessness in San Francisco We talk about the current wave of attacks against houseless people in big cities and how they mirror historic attempts to policing and repressing the poor The income that you need to rent a two bedroom apartment by the city's own estimation You need an hour week wage of about 6150 to have an apartment like that. So the The income gap is becoming more evident than ever nowadays There's a 9% increase in homelessness for every $100 increase in rent. So it's like if healthcare housing education All gets more expensive, but wages don't go up people are gonna lose their housing So I think people need to understand and how similar we are to the unhoused population How important it is to recognize that we should have solidarity with each other because if we're finding against each other then Guess who's when a millionaire is in the book We're suing the city because when they do these sweeps they're taking people's belongings Which is a legal search and seizure and cruel and unusual punishment because the shelter that they're offering a lot of times It isn't adequate for the folks Who are being swept we're looking for permanent supportive housing for folks And it's not there and if we're telling people that they have to move across the street Every day in the morning Then it kind of shows I think a social and kind of cultural understanding that Mirrors the the other was people had in place especially in America for a long time Which is homeless people are not supposed to be seen and they're supposed to be criminalized And speaking of things that probably shouldn't be seen again some words from our sponsors From resisting sweeps setting up autonomous warming centers to taking over vacant buildings Over the past few years there's been a wide array of expressions of solidarity direct action And mutual aid in the face of attempts by the state to displace and destroy the lives of houses people across the US But these projects and actions haven't come out of nowhere Building on the radical history of groups in the Bay Area such as the Diggers and the White Panthers Who set up free stores grocery programs and squatted buildings starting in the 1980s out of the Antinuclear movement peace activists began sharing free vegan food in a protest of the US war budget under the banner food not bombs On the late 1980s food not bombs in San Francisco faced over 1000 arrests for sharing free food publicly and taking part in demonstrations Soon another group homes on jails evolved out the same scene and began to open up and squat vacant housing Part of a wave of other houses activist groups that sprouted nationwide following the economic recession of the 1980s chapters of homes not jails work to open squats weekly to covertly house people all also organizing public housing takeovers Which thrust squatting into the spotlight of the mass media again. Here's Gifford Hartman talking about squatting in the 1990s There's been a wave of really successful squats in the 1970s One group was called the White Panthers that did it in the lower hate neighborhood And they were modeled on the black Panthers so they actually slaughtered but actually created community programs for things like who distribution They defended their squats they fortify their squats and that was a tradition that kind of preceded my period of squatting But so they were both looking at the squatting in Europe But also the previous generations doing it here in San Francisco I moved to the Bay Area in 1986 I would have been Berkeley for most of the beginning of the years. I was here from the end of World War II In the 1940s the population San Francisco peak in the mid-20th century and then it went down population decreased by a hundred thousand in the late 80s There were still a lot of cracks in the surface of housing And there was a lot of empty units There was a lot of abandoned units and it was a lot a lot of ability to people to find squats And I was part of that at the various times where I either was a working or had a part-time job And I chose as a political act of squat and I began doing that in late 80s the most of My success in squatting was in the early 90s But then I kind of ran up against the contradiction or groups like Homestatch ails were founded in 1992 I'd already been squatting But then there was another wave of repression so in 1992 The former chief of police in San Francisco Frank Jordan got elected mayor and by 1993 He was doing something called the matrix program and the matrix program was very much like what Giuliani did in New York with his zero tolerance for broken windows was just cops would get tough on quality of life crimes Which means like broken windows and graffiti But it also included food and not bombs feedings were attacked by the police and squatters We're even myself included were attacked and cleared out even in a way that was not legal When I succeeded we've squatted covertly and when we didn't succeed often we were aligned with groups that like Homestatch ails Where they were a high profile group for a media savvy Well video savvy might be an overstatement It were kind of had a media focus and the media focus was often a double-edged sword It brought popular understanding of the conditions of the housing stock But also it was a way for the police to be telegraphed exactly what we're doing in to come down and crack down on our squats Holmes done jails wouldn't be the last group to take over vacant homes for housing and mid-2000s take back the land Based out of Miami, Florida work to block evictions and move unhoused families into four closed homes In the present period various grassroots groups have organized to stop the sweeping of houses and camels Cruz and Olympia Washington and Austin, Texas have been successful in organizing broad campaigns in Minneapolis Groups have mobilized mass numbers to at times all evictions in the following interview We speak with Christian and post from anyapolis on the ongoing battle with the city government and police the stop at tax and sweeps on their houseless neighbors In the summer of 2020 when George Floyd was murdered by Minneapolis police It raised a lot of people's awareness as to the way that our systems and practices in our city aren't really serving us I think there was there was a lot of work happening in Minneapolis in particular before that in regard to policing and the way that our Systems do or do not serve people And then in 2020 the awareness just grew exponentially and because that foundational Path had been laid already we had something to go with And we can see the direct line between What happened to George Floyd and to the community at George Floyd square and the way that that also shows up in other spaces in our community Such as with our on-house neighbors We we know that the majority of people that are living at encampments in Minneapolis are indigenous Immigrant populations or Black Americans and so we can see that there is you know a specific need and also a real You know a disparity between and a direct through line to all of the oppression that that 2020 kind of through in the face of of every you know, I mean person with a heart Yeah, absolutely and I think to start practicing a lot of mutual aid More like much bigger than we ever have historically in the summer of 2020 We saw lots of people getting involved that were encampments Throughout the city as there was for some time because of COVID um People were able to stay outside and couldn't be evicted as easily At that time and we saw lots of community getting involved in doing mutual aid Um, and that really helped build I think uh A movement that is you know sort of beautifully disorganized in many ways because lots of people from lots of different walks of life coming together and showing up for each other I mean, I think people started to become aware of the way that we are all connected to each other and that When when we're taking care of each other, we're all happier. We're all safer. We're actually able to meet needs and the resources are there It's a matter of the will I cannot over emphasize enough how terrible the uh the boy mayor Frey has been since he took power here and so called Minneapolis You know he ran on ending houselessness and was in majority funded by uh developers during his campaign and we've seen what ending houselessness means to democrats It basically means ending visible poverty and ending the In lives of houseless people but frankly, I mean the number of evictions over the course of the last few years has just skyrocketed And you know our so-called progressive politicians love to give some money to the non-profit industrial complex and do their private public Partnership and then when there are people who are quote-unquote Resistance to service. That's that's the phrase they love to use. They Have all of their excuses lined up so that they can just pull those people houses and kick them out of the roots That are keeping them warm and dry and it's just been a really eye-opening thing for a lot of people I think to see How our progressive quote-unquote establishment here has just fully committed to jack boot thuggery all in the name of clearing the streets and making it so that people in their Kind of poor story mixed use condos can can have a A beautiful view without having to see the poverty that that lifestyle is effective You know in the summer of 2020 there were several counsel at the time counsel members who committed to Defunding the police however that did not come to fruition Since that time there's been Increases in the budget to policing in Minneapolis. No decreases only increases That police haven't been able to spend their whole budget and yet the city continues to pour more money into them And what we're seeing happen is unhoused people come together To keep on another safe and also so community is able to stay Connected with them and you know will be in an encampment and then Various levels of discover of government will come in and displace them and so the people don't have anywhere else to go So they need to move to a new space together So what's happening is not housing? What's happening is not even laying a foundation for somebody to be able to get the The services or support that they may want or need what's happening is displacement when somebody hears about an eviction potentially happening It becomes a situation that's it's almost it's almost kind of magical that people come together and it Is kind of chaotic, but it always comes together and we end up having whether it's people that are doing cop watch or are just neighbors Like we had neighbors show up on the first day of the day that the glory was planned to be evicted on December 28th I can't tell you how many different people that just live in that area We're coming up and asking questions and we're appalled at the response from the city Because really that the quarry encampment was in a space that You could barely see it you wouldn't know it was there if you didn't know it was there, you know And we're talking about by the last day the day that it was evicted There were eight people there and over 150 police officers it was bonkers and that extreme response is something that When you see it you can't unsee it and so we come together in what you know You get in where you fit in with whatever skills you have whatever gifts you have whatever time you have You know and a lot of us show up because we are people who have experienced other forms of trauma or have Exceined and experienced other forms of oppression too. You can't unsee it once you do In the last few years You shall aid an autonomous disaster relief efforts have informed projects like heater block the squadron of land for people displaced by climate change Shield fires and the setting up of autonomous warming centers in the middle of winter and the winter of 2021 Autonomous groups across Texas also mobilize when the state's electrical grid failed and hundreds of people tragically died due to lack of heat Autonomous groups have also worked to directly house people in the Los Angeles area This is looked like houses folks taking over homes owned by Cal trans and various groups in the Pacific Northwest Occupying and demanding access to hotels in the dead of winter and fill a delphium 2020 housing activist squatted and then won the keys to homes for upwards of 50 unhoused families in the midst of the George Floyd rebellion and there have been other success stories as well And boys the Idaho after months of ongoing protests by houseless folks and their supporters The city was pushed to green light the building of hundreds of housing units in Berkeley, California last summer People once again tore down the fences surrounding people's park and destroyed machines stopping the destruction of the autonomous enclave once again In Sacramento, California Houseless people and their supporters beat back into fiction attempt at camp resolution A parking lot which is home to people living in their vehicles and RVs Here's to camp resolution residents Sharon and satara who speak on the deadly impact of sweeps I think that the biggest thing is like being treated inhumanly You know what I mean or or Rubely or like you're an animus. They're very mean to people You know what I mean when they sweep you they they take people's stuff and just throw it out No, don't matter if it matters to them or you know what I mean or you know, which you know creates mental health issues for some people because people get traumatized from stuff like that You know, I mean you just coming in and the only place that they have that they can call home or a place of shelter and You know stormy times like this, you know, they come and even now while it's raining and make them move and tell them you know They got to go throw their things out or you know, I mean Make them leave without it whatever day, you know, I mean whatever Mental matter is important to them or not, you know, I mean Like I think that's the most messed up part because like I have a friend out here who who lost, you know Her child's ashes, you know, I mean Half of the half of the people that were at we was contact with and every time they sweep that's another half And they're just diminishing people where people are that where are people going? They're just disappearing The further you know people who do need like Other help with other things help things and stuff like that the harm reduction people and stuff like that that come out And you know, give people things they need, you know, I mean they'll they'll move you around They can't be found people can die like nasty services and people die like that all the time Especially, you know when they move us around sometimes we got to go to areas that are not necessarily safe Especially the women, you know, I mean women die out here all the time as separate as Camp resolution was formed because This lot that we're on was part of the original siding plan and they spent $617,000 on this for offense and parking lot And promised folks that they would that they were going to get them into little tiny houses or trailers So they can get back on their feet and get housing They swept them off the lot as soon as they were finished with this they came well They came and viciously swept them off as the proper the side of the property we're on and put offense up and promised those people and they got nothing and then didn't even bother to contact them or anything And just left those people hanging after they signed up for all the services and were denied and my sister-in-law was one of those people And she's a quadrically sick and she's still waiting for housing And we weren't going to have another winter of her being down and on the county side in the weather in the water So that's why we started it and it's we're here for safety So we can get back up on our feet or human beings not to mention like half more than half the camp You know a majority of the camp it there are males that live here So please don't get me wrong, but this is a camp of majority women You know what I mean? Who out here who live out here and you know a lot of us, you know, we're homeless But we're not we're not vums, you know what I mean like we're not um we have regular lives like everyone else We have family we have friends, you know We and we take care of each other, you know what I'm saying like and a lot of us have been camping right here for So last six years some of us years up against the county and city You know what I'm saying But for every success sweeps remain a daily constant United States and many attempts to push back by houses folks and their supporters Are met with extreme resistance from law enforcement. So I'm curious what you all think How can communities continue to organize for change in the face of this brutality something that comes to mind is just kind of More of some things that have already been happening basically And I'm thinking of ecopark that you brought up and the in cabinet. I go Was really interesting to me because um It was for that that's a neighborhood in Uh LA and it grew to maybe sort of two to three hundred people living there Um and as it went on it kind of like a sense of community develops pretty strongly there um with support from people in the neighborhood to Um and people have set up like a garden a community kitchen. There were like meetings Even showers near the end like um it was actually kind of thriving I was like doing well and people were like pretty like Uh, I know politicized are like aware of like what's going on and talking about it and sharing with each other um, and yeah people coming together to resist sweeps and like threats of sweeps of of the park um and The response to it was one of the most like heavy-handed sort of disproportionate seeming things that I'd ever seen um Where they had been threatening the city had been threatening that they were gonna do a sweep and they were saying they were gonna get Everyone into housing. It's like this humanitarian Um offer of secure housing to people um that they came with like 400 cops and like all the rest of like LAPDs for forcing them with the helicopters and just like everything they blocked Um entrances into echo park to stop supporters coming from out of the neighborhood um and basically Yeah evicted people fought with people resisting um and then put a fence up very quickly like during this whole thing Um and close the park off and that fence is still up and that's like and then what is it now a year and a half or something These years um that our fence has been up um and something I think it's like interesting about this example is I really think that the reason that response was so heavy-handed is because the very existence of it was disrupting This logic of like rent and landlord systems of like people were reclaiming the comments basically like reclaiming public space Using it to meet their needs and this was incredibly threatening to the city and they needed to shut it down and sort of turn the park back into recreation middle class people basically Um and I think you know what we've talked about already like Um, Tom what you were talking about with like enclosure and stuff like I really see that these sweeps like this is such as just a continuation of this and echo park Um in a really big way and what you were saying more about just like what happens when we challenge that logic being the most like threatening thing to them You know, I'm just like what happens if it was just like this home is calm survives and then another encampment another encampment and it basically disrupts Everything we know about property and rent and everything anyway, so I think just uh more of that Yeah, I mean, I would yeah, I go with you so bathing. It's like more of what's happened like currently in New York There's still sweeps happening like um deitas department of homo services puts up these like um sweet notices And the way it works is that when these two sweeps notices go up like there's a group of people who let each other know that a Sweep is about to happen people show up to the people who are about to be swept. I hate that word swept Oh my gosh, that's so disgusting. What can we use instead of swept um suited badly by evil air cadams? I don't know maybe we could use that um, but anyways, so like um, so people will go and talk to the people who are in the encampment We're going to be swept and asked them like what type of support would you like like do you want us to help you us move your stuff Do you want us to send you know When the cops and like so the sanitation department comes usually during these cleanups and like throws away people's things and I said because you know if you don't serve capitalism Your stuff you don't matter. So definitely your stuff doesn't matter One thing that has been happening is that people have been showing up for people who are about to be um Have their things thrown out and even moving the things for them or supporting them or standing in the way from in front of the police or like Documenting it and I think that's like a huge way to just like show up right now If you can you sickly block out time on your calendar work If you know something happening down the street like this is like something like you could do now And I think that's really important like this is solidarity that we should show and we should show up for our comrades because They are on the ground of fighting for us having housing as a human right and that's why we should show up for them and to support them Another item that I wanted to bring up. I don't know if you all heard about anarchy rope which happened last year Where like SRT which is a strategic response group showed up. This is a counterterrorism group y'all showed up to Get people out of a uh an encampment in Tomkin square which was deemed anarchy right? I think it was like five people five people brought in SRG or counterterrorism groups It just goes to show you the extent to which like Houses people taking a public space is a threat to the idea of property as we know it is a threat to capitalists And as a threat to landlords like Eric Adams Eric Adams is a landlord I don't know if you all know that this the new York the New York City mayor is a landlord If you need to know anything up to us to why they're sweeping homeless people landlords run everything and they have wrapped like Eric Adams Because he had rats and he was supposed to pay a fine and he didn't pay a fine because he's a landlord I guess just going back to that is like yeah show up for people now like the need now is like when sweeps are happening For people to show up in place for people and the other part of it I want to say this and this is a wild idea But I've been thinking about it for a while. What if we all stop paying rent? What if we all did what if he got together with all our friends and stop paying rent? And I know this is wild and I know some people might be like oh no mercella We're gonna get evicted but what if we paid rent and we all thought the cops and they're trying to pay us When when when they're trying to evict all of us So like that's another part of it is like showing off to people's evictions Trying to come up together to come up with a long strategy because Houses people right now are fighting for us to like have housing as a human right We can meet them on the other end and say actually we're not gonna pay rent as long as you're doing this because we're that's like solidarity When I'm thinking about how to resist displacement, you know what I go back to is squad are movements that existed in Europe right like the social center movements in the 70s and 80s But also squatting that happened in the rust belt in the 2000s, right? And like what was unique about those situations like others have have existed obviously but What was unique about those situations is that squatting became about more than just space It also became about autonomy and self-defense, right? So in those situations what would happen is in these rust belt squats people would like lock down a whole street and take over a house And then just that was just their space You know and the cops just couldn't get back there or didn't want to get back there And some of those squats held out for years like years and years and years And we see that in Europe too and so what that does though is it It accomplishes something really important which I think we have to sort of shift in our discussions of this question Which is that the question isn't just about housing the questions about space, right? And very specifically how we understand space so currently We talk about a neighborhood or when city politicians talk about a neighborhood They don't mean what I think a lot of us mean like a lot of us we talk about our neighborhoods You mean like our neighbors, right? The people that live around the corner the old lady up the street that feeds the cats like whatever it happens to be You know like you have a community that you live in at least where I live when city politicians talk about a neighborhood What they mean is real estate They mean this fragmented Space of commodified housing where individual houses can just be slotted in and slotted out new residents could just be slotted in and slotted out And the space becomes reduced down to its physical form Right and within all capitalist understandings of space that is what happens Space gets reduced down to the commodification of that space, right? And so when we're talking about that inscription into our spaces, you know, I was saying earlier That doesn't occur without the ability to get arrested for trespassing And so this becomes a fight against the police as much as it's a fight against housing because at the end of the day The enforcement of that structuring of space comes through the projection of police force into that space, right? Whether that's passive things like surveillance, whether that's active things like sending a counterterrorism team to affect five people from a park in Manhattan And so as we're kind of like looking through this we can take some interesting Sort of examples. I mean the Paris commune had a whole discourse that talked just about how they were going to rebuild the city Like what is the city going to look like without property? How are we going to restructure our uses space who gets to decide how to use these big public spaces, right? These were the big discussions that were happening the situation center national had a whole discourse on building Conceptual cities and avant-garde cities and you know graffiti was a big part of that because what is graffiti graffiti is the marking of people's presence in space Why do cities crack down on graffiti so hard every single time someone puts a tag up that's a gap in police coverage is being marked literally every single time Right, and so when we're talking about these questions, we have to push this into a question of capitalism in general, but that makes it a question of the state We can't talk about capitalism nice relation from that and so we have to really talk about How our spaces are fragmented and the ways that things like even encampments or squats or things like this That are defended that are able to be sort of Preserved isn't the right word are able to maintain their autonomy those become sort of the models of different ways to live in some ways, right? These become the places where people are experimenting with different types of living whether it's by choice or not But these are the spaces that get eliminated because of that specific dynamic, right? That they are Fundamentally violating the entire concept of property in their very exist And that's why we see the crackdowns happening the way they are Democrats who just as You know complicit in that as Republicans are it's it's functionally no different especially After the George Floyd uprising where you really see in a lot of Democratic cities them hiring a lot more cops giving them a lot more guns Like doing the same stuff that that happened in more conservative cities, right? The gap is almost nonexistent That's gonna do it for us once again. This has been the it's going down crew squatting the offices of it could happen here Thanks again for listening and we will see you soon 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 coolzonemedia.com or check us out on the iHeart radio app Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts You can find sources for it could happen here updated monthly at coolzonemedia.com slash sources. Thanks for listening In 2018 it was reported there was a dramatic rise in the number of cases of demonic possession For many of the most disturbing cases father Carlos Martins was often summoned. I have seen things Very evil things. I wanted you to go in the name of crack. I'm not leaving We've been together too long Listen to the exorcist files on the iHeart radio app Apple podcasts But wherever you get your podcasts hey, I'm Lance Bass host of the new iHeart podcast frosted tips with Lance bass Do everything to yourself what advice with Lance bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation If you do you've come to the right place because I'm here to help and a different hot sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life Tell everybody yet everybody About my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never ever have to say bye bye bye I listen to frosted tips with Lance bass on the iHeart radio app Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts attention bachelor nation He's back the host of some of America's most dramatic TV moments returns with the most dramatic podcast ever with Chris Harrison During two decades in reality TV Chris saw it all and now he's telling all it's gonna be difficult at times It'll be funny. 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