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Hey everybody, Robert Evans here and I wanted to let you know this is a compilation episode. So every episode of the week that just happened is here in one convenient and with somewhat less ads package for you to listen to in a long stretch if you want. If you've been listening to the episodes every day this week, there's going to be nothing new here for you, but you can make your own decisions. Hi everyone, it's just me today, James again, and I'm talking today with my friend Billy, Billy Ford. Billy's a program officer for the Burma team at United States Institute of Peace. And do you want to say hello, Billy? Hey James, how are you doing? Hi, thanks for joining us. Thanks for joining us. Yeah, thanks for joining us. Was that a decent introduction? Have I summed up? That's right. What you do? Good. Good to know when I get that wrong. So people will have heard Billy before and or heard from Billy when we finished our last series on the MR, where we spoke about the funding that the PDFs are using and how they're using a lot of unique and really innovative methods to continue to support their revolution when they're not getting very much at all in the way of international support and certainly like nothing compared to countries like Ukraine. But what we wanted to talk a little bit about today was the SAC or the Hunters' attempts at kind of staging a sham election, which they've sort of backed off on. Can you explain a little bit about what they had proposed and then what they maybe were they're doing now? Right, yeah. So the expectation was upon inciting the coup February 1st, 2021 that the state of emergency would end on February 1st, 2023, which was two days ago, giving them six months after that that period to kind of undertake an election. And so the expectation was that before August 1st, 2023, there would be this sort of sham electoral process and the the Hunter would essentially structure the process in such a way that they their their their political party, the USDP would prevail and that the commander-in-chief, Min Online, who runs the SAC Huta, would ascend as he had dreamed to become the president of the country and kind of rule in a military dictatorship model, but under kind of these auspices of civilian governance. So that was the expectation, but things have changed as you kind of alluded to. Yeah, so they've they've said they've got to extend for another six months, is that right? That's right. So they said they would extend for another six months until August 1st, but then this morning they also announced a new political economic and social objectives, which includes a five-point road map, which for those of you who've been following the MR for some time is often the way that they frame their kind of sham and seclude us approaches to civilian governance. But that articulates a series of reforms for storing law and order, you know, social development, implementing a peace process and then holding elections. And this is I think indicates to most people that elections are very unlikely to occur any time in the near future. They did something almost identical in 2004, articulating a road map to democracy and that didn't really start until 2010, where when there were elections, and there were really meaningful ones until 2015. But this is kind of an indication to I think a lot of folks that elections are unlikely this year and that there's kind of a long road ahead. The interesting element of this will be to see how the the Hunta's kind of enablers in the international community, including Thailand, China, and India in particular, how they will respond in part because they were pushing the SIC very hard to undertake these elections as a potential off ramp to the horrifying violence that is resulted from the coup and all the atrocities that the SIC has committed. Maybe we could talk a little bit about the international support they have because it's still quite significant and like especially in terms of propping up their military force through the use of air power. They can they don't have domestic like fighter jet manufacturing, right? So can you talk a little bit about that? I think they received a couple more planes very recently, right? Yeah, from the Chinese. Yeah, they're kind of an interesting dynamic whereby you have an entire country of 53-ish million people fighting against a tiny military institution of about 500,000 or fewer if you include their families and all the medics. And that tiny institution is being supported by just a handful of countries. As I said, kind of China, Russia, to a certain degree Indian Thailand and a few others. And the vast majority of the world is kind of opposes this military takeover and the subsequent dictatorship and all the horrendous atrocities that they've committed. And so there is quite a lot of international actors who are providing kind of rhetorical support to the resistance and some support to civil society and humanitarian assistance and others. But on balance, the support that the Chinese Indians, Russians in particular have provided in terms of material assistance to the SAC as well as the diplomatic assistance that the Chinese provided the Security Council in particular, but also the ties provide with an ASEAN is, you know, for out ways the rhetorical and small material assistance at the West. And, you know, other supporters of the resistance movement have provided. So yes, to answer your question, the Chinese and Indians continue to provide material military assistance to the SAC. And, you know, my question is kind of what is their theory of change here and how will supporting the SAC militarily lead to anything like stabilization is just kind of perplexing to me when both countries are very interested in supporting a level of functional stability so they can undertake their economic and geopolitical objectives. Many of which go through Myanmar. I just don't really understand how they see kind of a military victory by the SAC as a pathway to stabilization when you have an entire nation that has risen up against the stictatorship and has wholly rejected it and demonstrated that they're willing to make the these incredible sacrifices to ensure that this coup does not succeed. Yeah, it's very perplexing because it's not in any sort of conventional sense like a consolidated regime and it nodes it to show any chance of being one, right? Like it doesn't even have territorial control over large sues of the country that it claims. Yeah, exactly. And you're even hearing this. There's been quite a bit of research contested research that shows the Hontah has less than 50% control. But even today, or day before yesterday, you heard from Min Online, the Hontah leader, that he's now admitting that they only have 60% control, which is a pretty segment analysis of what they control. It's probably much smaller than that. But them demonstrating that they do not have control over 40% of the country as a pretty staggering proposition and kind of indication to their allies that they just don't have the capacity to administer a country that's unwilling to be pacified. And so on top of that, there's very little, I just don't see a pathway in which they will capture more territory. I mean, they have constrained resources. They have, I think they had 22 entrants into the Defense Service Academy last year. I mean, there's just when there's casual teams on their front lines, you just, there's not a lot of replacement happening. They're not able to get spare parts for their Russian-made helicopters. You know, there's just major material constraints that the SACs military is facing. And it's just hard to imagine that they will ever regain much more than, you know, what they say is 60% territorial control. Yeah, it's very, then if we look at the PDFs by comparison, and I got banned from Twitter last week for posting a picture of them, but I, they're equipment compared to even a year ago is vastly improved. Like, I don't know if you saw the one group of guys with their action international rifle, but I have no idea where that came from, but it's very impressive that they have one. Yeah, yeah, it's kind of, honestly, the resilience of this movement is, is partly a testament to the ingenuity and innovation. I mean, we saw it in the beginning in the non-violent action demonstrating kind of deploying tactics that we've never seen before that have, you know, been lessons to other international non-violent movements around the world, just really creative fundraising tactics as you and I have discussed in the past. But, yeah, now it's the military ingenuity. I mean, essentially creating facilities for retrofitting drones for aerial attacks. One of the military's helicopters was taken down this morning. I haven't, I don't know exactly what weapons were used in that, but, you know, it's just kind of a level of innovation, given that these, you know, the PDFs and most of the arrows have very little access to very few kind of international, you know, arms markets. So the fact that they're able to sustain themselves at all and maintain this, you know, 40% which is probably much more of the territory is kind of an incredible testament to their innovation and ingenuity. Yeah, it's, I can't, there's a couple, obviously, of several PDF fighters who I keep in touch with and like they've spoken to me about, like, firstly, 3D printed guns, which we've spoken about extensively, but also tornakaze, night vision goggles, even processes like, like, limbs, people who have lost legs, right, to landmines and things. So like, it's amazing that they've set up all these things which normally require like a massive interaction with the state and with an international system and they've done it using, in this case, the internet and a $300 printer, they've gotten Ali Express or something. Yeah, yeah, it's incredible. Yeah, it's extremely sort of inspirational in that sense, but also very sad, like, I want to talk a little bit about the, the SAC seems to have, it's not fair to say they've pivoted to war crimes because it's been kind of integral to what they've done from the outset, but they seem to have given up on trying to make like targeted strikes against the military formations and it just pivoted to dropping bombs on civilians. Could you talk about a couple of those, like maybe we could talk about the Kachin music cultural festival that they bombed or one of the other examples of that? Yeah, there's definitely been a shift from a strategy of essentially augmenting or providing air support to kind of exposed frontline light infantry to a tactic of targeted air strikes against civilian targets and against armed organization headquarters, which had under previous negotiations been deemed like off limits, but it seems as if there is nothing off limits now. They bombed the Chin National Front's headquarters, which is right on the India Chin border on the western part of Myanmar, and there's pretty reliable accounts that there were bombs that landed in Indian territory. I mean, as you reference, there was a bombing in Kachin state on a festival killing at least 60 civilians. They've done something similar on ethnic armed organization headquarters in the southeast and current territories, including the RKAN Army's facilities in those areas. So there has been a shift in tactics to targeting headquarters, facilities, in that sense. And as you said, kind of civilian targets to, I don't know, this is just the modus operandi of an institution that is devoid of humanity and so alienated from society that they're willing to go to any ends to kind of protect themselves and their control of power, I think particularly now that they've seen that the public is against them and probably quite concerned that if they are unsuccessful in this military endeavor, that they'll be kind of strong up, you know. So it's, yeah, I think it's kind of a sign of desperation. And as you mentioned, kind of a tactical shift. Maybe we should explain the sort of four-cut strategy, which has been a long-term strategy even before the coup of the military and what that means and how that sort of provides, I guess, I don't know, like a moral framework, maybe this is wrong, but you know, it's not like they started doing this shit in February 1st, 2021, right? Like this is how they do stuff. Yeah, I mean, this is an institution that's been at war with its own people for 70 years. Yeah, I mean, there is an underlying philosophy of the Myanmar military, the sit-top that they essentially are the protectors of national sovereignty and to a certain degree, a protectors of the Burmare ethnic group and Burmare Buddhism in particular. And this is a deeply-entrenched philosophy within the military establishment. And it's been, to a certain degree, a fairly compelling narrative for retention and institutional solidarity, which is why in some part, I mean, it's one of the reasons there are a number why this, the SAC and the sit-top Myanmar military has been resilient to collapse despite, you know, being extremely incompetent and very isolated and virtually never having won a war despite being at war for 70 years and having structural and military advantages. And so this is kind of underlying the justification and the moral philosophy of this institution that is morally corrupted. But as you said, their tactical strategy is essentially one of social isolation, division, and ensuring as much human suffering as possible, so as to pacify a population and dissimission. And so essentially, the strategy is to kind of cut communications and food supply and connections between communities and these sorts of things, which is for a very long time, the military strategy has been one of divide and conquer in which they've attempted to exacerbate divisions between ethnic and religious minority communities to ensure that they would not face united front. And so the incredible challenge and opportunity of the current resistance movement is one in which the Myanmar military is no longer at the table in conversations with one another and they are trying to build cohesion with one another. And frankly, this is where there is unbelievable progress that I don't think gets enough attention and appreciation. There's meaningful changes in behavior in terms of the Bermar majority ethnic communities posture towards ethnic and religious minorities and communication and coordination across institutions that had historically been at odds and happy to go more into that. But yeah, this strategy of dividing conquer is really front and center. Yeah, and ironically by pushing that so high that they've done the complete opposite, which is force people to form like a popular front against them. Yeah, let's talk about that because I find it really fascinating how like even how like EIOs and PDFs are kind of vaguely underneath a unified command at this point. And so again, let's talk about how those barriers which existed for so long are sort of gradually breaking down now. Yeah. And rapidly, I guess. One of the ways in which there's been a meaningful shift has been just kind of the individual experiences of the military's atrocities. I mean, I think in your previous episode with Ko-on-Chall-Mo, he had indicated that public perception of Rohingya has shifted somewhat, although it's kind of questionable whether it's a durable shift and whether it's meaningful and all that. But he had attributed that shift in part to the fact that the Bermar majority Buddhist population is now experiencing, frankly, some of the forms of atrocity that the Rohingya had experienced in the 70s and the 90s and then in 2016-17 when things escalated to genocide. So I think this is one of the shifts is that the in the Burmese heartland and the area where the military recruits most of its soldiers, they are undertaking the most arguably the most extreme atrocities, burning villages to the ground. You know, just horrendous stuff that like I don't even want to say on the air, but just just an incredible campaign of terror in part because the people's defense forces and the resistance forces are extremely strong there and only strengthening and respond to these atrocities. So I think that's one of the dynamics is that there's been a shift in perception because of because of the the Hondas behavior. Another is that frankly, there's just a massive political shift at play. I mean, you have February 1st, the National League for Democracy, led government is deposed and they don't necessarily have arms or an experience of military combat, whereas the ethnic armed organizations have been fighting for 70 years against the central government, including the National League for Democracy, led government. And so there is a shift in power at that moment that, you know, it's just power from the Bermar Center to ethnic minority communities in a particular way. So that kind of opened space for greater humility and greater dialogue and, you know, willingness to make concessions through ethnic and religious minority communities. And that is, there's actually been tremendous progress there. So there's the the National Unity Consultative Council, which is, you know, probably the most important dialogue platform, but one that is very focused on big picture governance challenges and long term kind of national dialogue processes. But there's been some good progress there, but frankly, the most progress has been made in military and governance coordination platforms. So this includes the C3C, which is essentially a command and control platform that's between the National Unity government and ethnic armed organization leadership, where they're coordinating military strategy and tactics. So there's been considerable trust building through those sorts of operations. And similarly, there's been trust building in, you know, basic things like coordinating humanitarian assistance or local administration or policing these sorts of things, where there's, you know, there's a problem that's needed to be solved in the near term, and we can come together to solve it collaboratively. And in that process sort of build understanding and trust with one another. So there's been really meaningful differences I've seen in terms of cohesion across traditional lines of inter-communal division. Obviously a long way to go, but this is a lot of what, of what we're working on at the US Institute of Peace. And that the US government is supporting is trying to support the resistance capacity to chart a viable pathway to stabilization. And a lot of that relies upon building cohesion and trust among resistance groups. Yeah, everyone I spoke to, nearly not everyone I spoke to was Bermars and people were Karen and some of them were, some of the people we'd spoken to, like remotely were a ranger. All of them said that what has to come out of this is like a federalized democracy. Do you think that that's likely and what does that look like in the country that's been war with itself for most of this last century? Yeah, I mean, clearly this is a question that needs to be answered by the Myanmar people. And I think the National Union of the Consultative Council is a good platform for having this discussion. But there is a number of prerequisites for having that discussion is, and one of them is kind of new norms of dialogue based on trust and mutual respect. But yeah, I think that the only viable pathway to stability is, you know, is one that results in a federal democratic system in which subnational federal units have a degree of autonomy. And in which there is a baseline of equality, there is rule of law, independent judiciary, you know, just the basic fundamentals that ensure protections of minority populations. You know, another challenge being that even, you know, within states like Kachin state, where, you know, the Kachin ethnic community is a ethnic minority at the national level, but there are also subminorities that, you know, like the Shani population. And there's concerns that, you know, there may, there needs to be protections for the minorities within the minority states. So, you know, all of these things need to be sort of worked out. And this is of course like a, maybe a decade-long national dialogue process that will ultimately culminate in a new federal governance structure, a new security structure that, you know, maybe doesn't have a federal, you know, a union level military with level of autonomy or political involvement that, you know, has plagued this country for so long. But this is really like the key to long-term peace and stability in the country. And frankly, like, it felt a long way off under the NLD administration. I mean, they, they were making a lot of progress in a lot of ways, but, you know, building a just and inequitable governance structure in which ethnic and religious minorities had a voice and didn't feel oppressed by the dominant and barbarous population. Frankly, it was, it was quite a ways off. And this, you know, as horrible as the coup has been, it is definitely a shock to the system that may open up new pathways for dialogue, new opportunities for trust building, and, you know, the opportunity to, you know, think about a new model of governance that is, you know, more just, more equitable, more inclusive. Yeah, it's definitely brought in a whole generation of younger people who, like, aren't sort of, did it come through the institutions that created the old regime that just came at this? It's like, I'm 17 and I'm fucking angry. And like, I'm going to make this better, you sort of, however I can. Yeah, they're really, I mean, obviously, very inspirational and, fascinated to talk to. I wonder, like, how do you see the end to this conflict? Because we're still a long way from like, either side having a definitive military victory, right? Certainly, all these big cities are still more or less controlled by the hunter. And there's, there's not an immediate way that I can foresee them not being that way. So if I could ask you to like, speculate a little bit or look at the way things are going, how do we get out of the situation where the hunter's bombing schools and music concerts and... Right. It's, yeah, this is honestly like, I think everyone is kind of lost in our attempts to make predictions of where this is going. Honestly, I don't know that there is a path to a military victory for either side here. I mean, it seems pretty unlikely that you'll see PDFs marching on, Nipidon, capturing the Ministry of Defense anytime soon. But equally unlikely that the SAC will consolidate, you know, control of the country. I mean, that's just, that's just not going to happen. So, I mean, the, a lot of our work is thinking through the best possible outcomes and increasing the problem, trying, doing the work to try to increase the probability of those outcomes. And I think the, this is where it's just like I have questions for a lot of the international actors that are supporting the SAC because I, I just don't know of any possible pathway to peace and stabilization that goes through a stronger SAC. It just seems unfathomable. But, you know, there are pathways to stabilization that go through a stronger resistance movement that either yields some radical transformation of the SAC's composition and then some sort of dialogue process. Or, you know, just a very, very extended conflict in which, you know, the resistance holds territory in some parts of the country. The SAC controls some other areas over an extended period. The ethnic armed organizations contain kind of act more and more autonomously. And you have areas in, you know, Kachin and Wau Kokong and the Chinese border, we're kind of state that just kind of gain a bit more autonomy and sort of act more independently of one another. So, like this sort of fragmentation process. And honestly, if, if there is an election, you know, a sham election by the SAC, it seems to increase the probability of this fragmentation scenario. You know, it, increases the probability that the SAC just maintains its presence in the, in the urban areas. And then, Rakhine state, Kachin state, Wau state. These kind of become more autonomous regions, Chin state. And they start to operate as semi-independent states. So, honestly, that's part of why I feel like support to the SAC. Not only is it, or the SAC for the elections, I should say, not only does it almost definitely increase violence because, you know, the elections are a target. But also, it increases the probability of national fragmentation. And it doesn't do anything to increase the probability of stability. So, I just don't, I don't really see that, that being a pathway to any form of stability or ending the SAC's bombings of schools. Yeah, I think it gives me this weird talking point. They're the Russian, for sham elections in the Donbass. Like, like, because we saw, like, I think it was a mobile PDF, like, I don't know if you saw this, but they did a drive by and shots and people who were polling for it, doing some kind of election stuff. And obviously, that gives them this kind of, oh, look, our election workers are being attacked. What terrible people, the PDFs are kind of, but you, you know, if you've spent more than 10 minutes your entire life reading about Myanmar, then you'll realize that that's the false claim. The international community just doesn't seem to care to a large degree about the trustees in Myanmar, about the revolution in Myanmar, about the KU in Myanmar. Certainly, it doesn't care in the same way that it cares about what's happening in Ukraine, right? It doesn't care with manpads and tanks and guns and training and all the things that could bring this water and much more quickly. Do you think that that will change or is just going to be Burmese people liberating Burmese people because the world doesn't care about them or doesn't care in a material fashion? Yeah, I think there's like, yeah, I think there's sort of like two dynamics. I'd play your one is that, yeah, people care a lot less than Ukraine or Taiwan or other geopolitical interests. They see this to a certain level as a domestic issue that doesn't have regional implications. Something that we're very focused on demonstrating is totally untrue. And the other thing is that people don't know what to do. And like, I mean, even the US Congress just passed the Burma Act, which is a piece of legislation that essentially signals congressional interest in Burma and more to be done alongside appropriations of resources to support it. The challenge now is figuring out what is the best use of resources. And I think that countries like Japan and honestly some U-states, you know, ASEAN states, it's more they are very uncomfortable with the engaging with revolutionary actors. And there's just not a lot of certain D as to how to help because there's like, okay, military assistance to the NUG. It's like there's a lot of concern that, you know, significant expansion of arms access in the countries. You have this mass proliferation of weapons. You have, you know, concerns about post-conflict war-lordism or weapons and resources getting into the hands of narcotraffickers. You know, there's just a lot of uncertainty. And so there's not an adequate given the first point that this is a kind of peripheral regional matter in the eyes of some. It yields a very low risk tolerance and uncertainty as to what to do. And so this kind of has resulted in a couple things. One being that the buck is just passed to multilateral institutions like ASEAN. I mean, I think China has done a very effective job of ensuring nothing happens in the international realm by pushing it to ASEAN, which it knows is incapable of doing anything meaningful. And so it's just relegated to multilateral platforms where nothing will happen. You always have a veto from Thailand, Cambodia, or Russia, and China at the Security Council. And so, you know, it's these combinations of factors that really challenge this thing. And even within the US government, there's like a very robust interagency debate about exactly what is the best form of assistance? What is the most ethical way of engaging and what are risks associated with different forms of assistance to the resistance movement? So I think that uncertainty plays a lot into it. And so a lot of what I think there's a lot of value that could be added if the resistance movement can come together essentially around a common set of requests from the international community, essentially saying this is what we need to be effective. And you know, you based on your risk tolerance, help us as you can. But we're demonstrating to you that we have, we're unified in these ways. We have these needs and, you know, help us however you feel is most appropriate given your risk tolerance. So I don't know, it's incredibly complicated. I think the having China, India, Bangladesh, Thailand, and Laos as your neighbors also makes this just incredibly challenging. You can't access the country in the way that you can for Ukraine. So just logistically, it's incredibly challenging. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, it does seem still like you're like you said, like in Ukraine, we also have deeply problematic groups who we are, who we are arming. It's ironic that their concern is spreading and preventing the proliferation in arms and what they've done is helped like a giant leap forward in, I don't know, artisanal homemade weapons technology that like we're probably only seeing the very tip of in like our reporting. Like I'm sure that's more stuff that we'll see as time goes on. And I wonder what can people do, people often ask if where they can donate, how they can help, right? Because obviously it is extremely difficult to see little kids getting shot in schools and what to do something. And I wonder what you would suggest for people who are looking to help. We've both spoken to people who are collecting money through click to donate, which is one thing people can do. But did you want to explain that? Actually, explain how people can and can participate and click to donate because I think that's cool. Yeah, I mean, there's been a number of really fascinating fundraising models. Yeah, the click to donate model is essentially the resistance leveraging what it has a comparative advantage in which is huge numbers of people on their side. And essentially, the resistance creates web pages or YouTube content or anything and just engages the advertisements on those pages, which increases the value of that ad space and then they can kind of generate revenue that way. The National Unity government has also done some really fascinating stuff, issuing bonds, conducting a lottery, selling off, you know, SAC military properties. I think they just sold the Minon Line's house and Yangon for a considerable amount. So it's kind of an incredible fundraising model and requiring tremendous innovation. They also created a financial technology called NUG Pay and a digital currency, DMMK. So yeah, it's kind of a remarkable innovation there. In terms of what kind of a listeners could do, I think, you know, I think engaging in some of the international kind of advocacy and awareness raising is really valuable. I think some of these things, like if you're a Congressperson acknowledges demand for this, then that can increase the pressure that they put on the State Department and DOD, National Security Council, and potentially increase the risk tolerance of the US government if there's just more pressure there. So those sorts of things, I think, honestly engaging with some of the content that's being created by the Resistance, learning about Myanmar, you know, just following the story. I mean, it's like, I don't know, you've probably experienced this doing your reporting, but it's just like the most unbelievable stories of human resilience and just like, I know, it's such like an honor to be nearby these people who are just risking so much for such an honorable cause that they truly believe in. It's just like the quintessential example of integrity and goodness. Yeah, it's amazing. It's stuff you couldn't make up and like, it's stories you couldn't sell as fiction almost. Yeah, their integrity, like, even there, like, one thing I find absolutely amazing, like you said, perspectives on ethnic groups have changed. On so many things that people, their willingness to be like, I've examined my stance on this and it was the wrong stance and I'm changing my stance on this. It's like, we spoke to so many young people who are like, yeah, I was fairly misogynist, like a February first 2021. And since then, like I fought alongside women, I've seen them do things that I'd been told that they weren't capable of and I've changed. I was wrong. Like, we need to not be a misogynist country going forward. Yeah. No, there was a, maybe you know this group, but I was engaging with armed organization that was it's led by kind of an activist, former activist. And he was kind of saying that they've essentially tried to eliminate all of the sort of misogyny in their training protocols, like even just using terms like man up or something, like wiped it from their approach because it's like that's a misogynistic kind of, you know, approach to thinking about strength and power. And so it's like, what you're saying is I'm feeling the same hearing the same things which is incredibly powerful given, particularly given the pressures and what they're all going through just having the wherewithal to kind of like their head ups and think about, you know, be reflective of themselves like imagine in the American political discourse people actually changing their minds for once. It's remarkable. Yeah. Yeah. No, it genuinely is. And it's refreshing in that sense to see people like wanting the right thing and not letting tiny differences like blow them into several thousand different pieces, right? Like broad-degreying on one thing. Yeah, exactly. And that's kind of the remark. I mean, the National Unity Consultative Council for example, you know, it's had its challenges as a dialogue platform, but it's still going. And that is like, people are still coming to the table. And frankly, it's remarkable because repeatedly in quote unquote, peace processes in Myanmar's history, they've collapsed because, you know, someone said something and, you know, another party left the table and didn't return. So the fact that these dialogues are continuing on is an incredible testament to people's willingness to kind of open up and be more humble and kind of consider the other's opinion and question their own, which is, you know, a lesson we could all learn. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Billy, where can people, like, where can people find you online? And where can they find more good information about Myanmar? I am, you know, if you search Billy Ford at usip.org, you can find the stuff I've written recently. And then I'm on Twitter at the ILLEE, the number four, the letter D. And good sources of information. I mean, there's great investigative work by Myanmar Witness, which is just an incredible group of researchers. There's been a couple of good reports recently by global witness and earth rights related to sanctions that just came out. USIP, you can check out some of our writing, my colleagues Jason Tower and Priscilla Klopp just published something related to how the conflict has regional consequences that could be of interest. And there's, I don't know, there's innumerable great Myanmar think tanks. The Chen Human Rights Organization has done some incredible research in reporting about military atrocities in Chen State. If you go on and on, but, um, yeah, if you, I don't know, check out my Twitter. I've tend to repost stuff that I find fascinating and there's there's a lot out there. Yeah, great. Well, thank you so much for giving us some of your time this afternoon. I really appreciate it. It's good to catch up. Yeah, thanks for having me, James. It's been great. No worries. With ever longer ingredient lists on beauty products, it's hard to tell what you're really buying. That's why Sephora is committed to cutting through the clutter and confusion, helping to push the industry forward by showing what's really in their products. At Sephora, their clean standards mean products formulated without paraben, sulfates, phallates, mineral oils, and more. So when you see the clean at Sephora seal, you know you're getting a clean you can count on. Learn more about their clean standards and shop clean at Sephora Beauty at Sephora.com. Isn't leisurely listening to some leisure podcasts just refreshing? But does it ever feel like you're missing something? Drinks maybe? Well, now you can listen and have your drinks with Drizly, the number one app for alcohol delivery. With Drizly, you can compare prices on the biggest selection of beer, wine, and spirits and get them all delivered to your door in under 60 minutes. So leisurely download the Drizly app or go to Drizly.com. That's dr-i-z-l-y.com today. The virus that causes shingles is sleeping in 99% of people over 50. It's lying dormant, waiting, and it could reactivate at any time. And while not everyone at risk will develop shingles, it strikes as a painful blistering rash that could last for weeks. Think you're not at risk for shingles? It's time to wake up because shingles could wake up in you. If you're over 50, talk to your dr-war pharmacist about shingles prevention. Hello and welcome to Edgar Hoppen here. Once again, posted by myself, Andrew, as we talk about whatever. We've entered a new year, so, you know, happy new year by the way James, I don't think I told you. Oh, yeah, happy new year, I do. Yeah. The whatever in question this time is kind of from some of the discussions we had in the previous year because time moves forward. And with time moving forward and hope is going on, it becomes increasingly necessary, very, very necessary to interrogate and to uproot a lot of the classical, cutless ideas embedded in our world. An ideology, for example, it just won't die, that idea of development. Despite as many critics over the past few decades, despite the colonizing and post-cleanation of people of those nations, you know, rallying against such projects of development, due to the harms, of course, socially and environmentally. Otherwise, this ideology, this idea of development just won't die. But here we are, 2023. And I think at least here in this podcast, among the audience of this podcast, we can agree that the time has come for some kind of alternative. Maybe some kind of alternative can happen here, you know, a different view, a new path you are currently have. Enter, stage right, when we're here. Are you familiar with the concept? I'm not actually no, we've done plan about it. All right, well, fantastic. So you can ask anything, any questions you have or as I go along. So a lot of the early concepts related to this idea of when we were arose in reaction to the classical economic development strategies that have ripped through communities in the environment. I'm talking of course about acts of enclosure, privatization, new liberalization, economic imperialisms and so forth. Capitalism in its element basically, government projects that line the pockets of politicians and bureaucrats, development banks, quote unquote, that really never seemed to fund the people directly. When we've been a draws from this heritage, a heritage of indigenous communities, particularly in South America. In some cultures, they have no concept analogous to the modern Western capitalist concept of development, of course, moderners and courts. There is no concept of a linear life, a linear time even with a former and subsequent state. And so the idea of underdevelopment and development of primitive and advanced just does not mesh with that ontology. All these concepts of wealth and poverty, no are they necessarily concepts of wealth and poverty as we understand them, are based on the accumulation or lack of material good. I've said when we're probably a dozen times by now, the question is what is when we're in the Latin America, the concept of when we're in the Latin America, or good life or good living, provides new alternatives to development. To very long situation, I feel like it's something that we should have been working on for a really long time. Me, please know the Aron and Watch You James, but I really care about GDP growth and increasing return on investment. I care about living a good life, I care about point of view. And so I think the name of the philosophy itself and the name of the concept itself, automatically gets you to ask the question, what is a good life? And the answer, the beauty of the answer is that you decide that, I decide that, we decide that, our communities decide that collaboratively. The good life is not some sort of policy proposal or government project or development initiative or imposition. The good life is a pluralistic concept. It's when orce contriveres is a different ways of living well together. It's not a single homogenous or unrealizable good life. It's not like this single homogenous pursuit of profit that our entire system has built around now. Now the good life when we're here is more about people living well together in a community in different communities living well together, and individuals in communities living well with nature. And at these concepts, I'm familiar, it's because you know you must have heard it from other places. It's a trend that we are starting to see around the world in this 21st century and even prior to that, these ideas are slowly getting one more steam as time goes on. You know, the ideas present in social ecology, the ideas present in various animist ontologies, and they're really being brought to the forefront in this time because we need them now more than ever. Despite efforts of Western forces, primarily to erase and to redact and to confine these ideas and these concepts to the realm of irrelevant or backwardness or superstition, they endure in sometimes new forms as with Wendt Vivier. Wendt Vivier is about quality of life, but also the idea that quality of life are well-being as individuals is only possible within a community, the community which, as I mentioned, includes the floor and floor that's around us. And there are many ways that can be interpreted, which is the real beauty of it. So as a concept, you can kind of look at Wendt Vivier, it's a two-word phrase and it's also a double barrel of a concept. It's a two-for-one package of both criticism of the classical Western capitalist notion of development and an alternative to that Eurocentric tradition, but also indigenous traditions plural. And so that two-for-one package within that and you can really unpack that package and see that you see the idea of the same sort of basis that degrowth is getting its critique from, the same sort of ideas being shared. And in terms of alternatives, when you look into Wendt Vivier, you sort of see the anarchic bent that has become ever more present in a new political imaginations over the past few years, or at least it feels that way to me that's that sort of community-oriented, autonomy-oriented, liberatory, decoding-oriented mindset is becoming more and more prevalent. Of course, I could be my own internet biases and algorithms presenting me what I want to see, but I would like to think that more and more people are exploring these ideas. Yeah, it is hard to say, Snake, because I feel the same way. Like am I seeing what I can see? Yeah, it's like, oh, there are these new institutes and initiatives and programs and move ones. It's all me, all these things are developing. And then you talk to somebody who is not in this fear and they haven't heard of any of it. Yeah. You know, it's like... Yeah, they don't think anarchism means throwing a brick through a window. I think that is the whole ideology. And yeah, I don't know. We can hope. We can hope. We can hope. I would like to think it's getting more provenance, but we can only hope. I just sound like anarchist, a two-key non-necessary submitting to an anarchist, some census, like a global anarchist, a census or something. But I would like to think that anarchic ideas, I mean, in all the exploration that I've done of various parts of the world, however, you know, shallow my exploration has been so far. I just see it could be my anarchist-tinted classes seeing anarchic principles and everything. But I see it in certain practices, in certain ideologies and certain ideas and ways of living. And I think when reverers are sort of a recognition of that in one sense. So there is no single when reverer, right? There is no single good life. You know, I might want, for example, my brain view might look like sailing the Caribbean Sea, you know, touching down in various islands and exploring the ecology therein. Or my good life might look like a more settled sort of homestead existence. Or sort of a fusion of urban, unruly-reliven sort of a good ending for the Saboos. Where you're able to live in a walkable sort of environment and community that is both not too far from, you know, the goings-horns of human social interaction, but also very much rooted and connected with what's happening in natural world. But I mean, what might your good life, your brain-revere look like, James? Yeah, that's interesting, isn't it? I think, you know, I grew up in a countryside, so it's slightly idea of living in a rural area and still having community and having, like, that being close to nature and still also being close to people who I care about and being able to look after each other. I think it's interesting how often, like, at least the sort of settled, like, colonial concept of rural life or the construct of rural life, I guess, in America. It's like, oh, rugged individualism being on your own when, in fact, like, living in a countryside, people have to look after one another. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. We maintain this kind of this false idea that it's you against the elements and you know, crushing nature and subjecting it to your will and all this stuff. Yeah. And I think it's something interesting about, at least to be able to have spoken to, in various circles and stuff, when I asked them, you know, what is your ideal life? What is your good life? I don't necessarily say when we view it. I just ask them, you know, what do you want? And they get into it, you ask them a couple of brilliant questions and people, despite brain-revere being a pluralistic concept, people tend to generally want similar things. And so it sort of begs the question, like, why are we in this situation? Please, please. You know, because like everyone says, well, you know, I want like an involved community and I want like, I want to be able to like grow my plans and I also want to be able to do my art and, you know, enjoy my time of people and do a bit of travel and not work my whole life and that kind of thing. Yeah. People of course freeze it and frame it in certain ways. And so that's why I ask the prob probing questions. Because so I might initially say, oh, well, I want to retire early. I want you to really dig into what that means is like, I don't want to spend my whole life working. You know, or they might say something like, you know, I want to travel a lot. So I want to like start a business. When you ask them what kind of business they want to start, why they want to start a business early comes down to I want autonomy. I want flexibility in my labor. I want control of my own labor kind of thing. Like, yes, of course, there are people who have the good and good entrepreneur spirit who want to just be at the top of the food chain. But then I think most the entrepreneurs, they couldn't put entrepreneurs that I have met up in people who just like, oh, well, you know, I started selling candles because I really like making candles and I want to share them with people and I also need to make a living and I'm just passionate about it or whatever. That kind of thing is I didn't necessarily wanted to grow it or whatever. They just want to be able to sustain themselves doing something that they enjoy. Yeah, it's interesting because we're always sold like every new advanced in technology and in production that comes along. Like these concepts you're talking about, like, like working less, having community or these things are like always sold is what that's going to do, right? Like, but instead we end up working more or the same amount and instead just generating more income for a certain group of people. Like we don't get any of these good things. But yeah, there's there's always a carrot in whatever this kind of neoliberal capitalism that we have is, but we never get there. Exactly. That's the tragedy of it. Another aspect of the idea of the good life is that it's not a static concept. We come up with this good life. This Wendy Vier. We want for ourselves now. We etch it into stone tablets and pieced it here to them forever. I like the 10 Commandments. The good life is supposed to be flexible. Wendy Vier is what we're responding to your conditions, the conditions of your community, your ecology, etc. And really redefining what it means to live a good life continuously in response to change in circumstances because you know, changes life. Of course, no is this idea to cut life, quote unquote backward concepts. So problematic framing in and of itself, but sometimes you have to use problematic shortcuts to communicate effectively. But the idea of Wendy Vier is not like of invitation to return to some idea like past or I'd be like non-past, you know, like non-existent will that people have so immensely constructed as in the case of a lot of these romanticizations you see on social media. Wendy Vier is not like some kind of religion with its own rules and functions, but it's, I start also, it's not imposing that you must become a homesteader or a forerger or you must live in a rural community to live a good life. There's more possibilities yet unrealized and it should be something that is it should be considered something that is undergoing a constant construction and reproduction process. And that's I think we have the global potential that Wendy Vier lies. You know, that's where I think there's viral potential for it. I mean, of course, when you look at a lot of things that end up dominating the social media, new cycle, it's a lot of negativity, dominating current discourse right now I think is the topic of masculinity and particularly the prevalence of Andrew T. And you know, you also have the constantly bubbling under the surface existence of in cells. And so I don't know, you go on TikTok, I don't know if you go on TikTok James. I don't, that's the point at which I did it. I become old. It's just like I can't do this shit anymore. Yeah, I should have made that decision, but I mean, I kind of like TikTok because I don't know how other people are curious in their, their 40 pages, but my 40 pages. I'll please say enjoy being out of it too much, which is why I have like limits on my phone to prevent me from staying on TikTok for too long. But yeah, it's a place that I enjoy. And you see a lot of trends come and go on TikTok. Right now the big thing is like niche talk and quote, quote, which I know is probably great to you. Yes. But in that general vein, if you were to see what those trends were, I think you get a sense what I'm talking about. niche talk and quote, quote, quote, and then it's also, it seems to be an attempt to rebrand the idea of sigma. Oh, God. And the sigma meal. It started off as a very, you know, a patriarchal thing. And then I've seen a couple of different creators who did it in sort of an ironic or a post-ironic sense as a sort of a meme because it became a meme to make fun of people who take it seriously. And then from that, that sort of memeification of it, people said, reclean the tomb. And then it became a sort of, you see, you see like a video where a guy does something polite or something, you know, shiver or something kind. And the comments are like typical sigma, totally true sigma. This is what true sigma looks like. So I think it's just a natural aspect. They fluid it to you, the internet, the fake ones in the internet because I'm sure they're still they have a little bit of a sort of sigma. They still exist. But then there's also people who memes themselves into a brand of sigma that's kind of a weird pseudo positive masculinity. It's kind of interesting. I'll continue to do my TikTok and prological research and you know, discuss my findings as this situation develops. But in that same vein of, in that vein of communication and those other developments, I think there is a potential for when we've year to become a global phenomenon to have that global potential, to have that global reach because then there's something in it for the people. There's also an anti-wook current present in a lot of TikTok trends. So, you know, it's something to, and again, again, I say there's an anti-wook current in a lot of TikTok trends. But those are the TikTok trends I've been presented with. The post-ironic rebrandification or whatever sigma is something my foyp just given me. It's not necessarily reflective of the entirety of reality and that's the scary part of the internet, right? Like you're not seeing the full reality you're seeing an algorithmically produced version, skewed version of reality. Yeah, it's interesting to me how like most people I encounter in daily basis will not know what or where me and Murray's. And like if I look at my Twitter page right now, it's just all half of it is in Burmese, you know, and it's lots of people I follow and that's like my reality. But yeah, I sort of, then I get really frustrated when people don't have a clue what's going on there. Exactly. Exactly. It's kind of tricky. It's kind of tricky because you really, in times like these, you really get a sense of how, you know, in moments like those where you confront that in real life, it's like, okay, so like my perception of reality is like slightly skewed by the internet, you know? Yeah. In ways that I am aware and not aware of, in ways that other people are aware and not aware of. So that's interesting. But back to when we view, right? When we view, I think it's also like a path for decolonization, you know, so of a way to let go of other Western norms and imposition on speech and dress and people and lifestyle and knowledge and social norms and relationships and such. And adopt some ways of life that account for our cultures and conditions, free of those mental bind. So I think that is the power of when, to be here. Yeah. So I guess another question arises, who or where or when did the benefit of your come from. And so the radical question that birthed when we fear was when he'd possible within several indigenous traditions in South America, which as I said, culturally lacked certain concepts of developmental progress. And so the contribution of indigenous knowledge to brand-revere continues to be the sort of critical thread. You associated value using experiences and practices and world views of when to fear already existed in some form before the arrival of European conquistadors. But they were over the process of colonization, silence and marginalized and even openly opposed. When to fear is part of a long, like, say, long quest, a long pursuit of alternative lifestyles forged from the passionate battles of indigenous peoples and nations, seeking new ways of life, seeking freedom from the Latin America and the quintessential Latin American olicarical nation state, which is of course rooted in colonialism and neoliberalism. And so we are seeing through brand-revere within brand-revere outside of brand-revere adjacent to brand-revere utopias in the making, the imagination, the imagining of utopias, of the Andes and of the Amazon, that are shaping discourse, are shaping political projects, that are shaping social and cultural and economic practice. The good life for individuals, not something that is unique to Latin America, of course, has been practiced in many different epochs and regions of this earth. It's been known by many different names. The concept has been known by many different names. In Ecuador, it's known as Summa Kawase, which is a cultural wording for a fullness of life and community together with other persons in nature. And believe you, the IMARA concept for it is called Summa Kamana. In the Mapuche in Chile, in Guarani, in Paraguay, in the Kudan, in Panama, the Shua Narcua in Ecuadorian, Amazon, the Mayan, Guatemala, and Chiapas, Mexico. And of course, the African too, Ubuntu. And the Indian concept of Swaraj, there are all these sorts of threads of what a good life, good life and community, radical, ecological, democracy and community. All of these sort of concepts are sort of threaded within developing different, in different forms in different contexts. However, the concept has also been adopted in some sense by sitting states, most notably Bolivia and Ecuador. Recently Bolivia, you know, rewrote its constitution, establishing itself as a plurian national state. And they've taken it to, they call it, the Vitorbian. They're trying to basically propose an economic model that accommodates various type of cultural origins. In Ecuador, that conceptually freemant because of it different, they take one view in the use that is sort of, they discover as a set of rights, rights to shelter, to health, to education, to food, to the environment. So it's less of an ethical principle, more of a complex set of rights that are also found in western traditions, but also include, you know, the right to freedom, participation, to communities, to protection, and to nature. Part of that recognition of the right to nature and fundamental right of water has led to the banning of any form of privatization of water, and also the promotion of leaving crude oil in Ecuadorian Amazon, blue and ground. However, I feel like I need to point out that I don't believe the state is compatible with the essence of wind-veer, with the practice of wind-veer. And so the use of those concepts in state propaganda in state rebranding efforts, not necessarily encouraging to me, does not necessarily make such states the power gone, so they would pay in themselves to me because to me, wind-veer can only really be grassroots concepts. So I think we must be, you know, careful of forms, that trap of accepting, you know, state propaganda on the good life, you know, compromising the concept and allowing it to be co-opted or watered down. As I previously noted, I think there's a major overlap between conscious decarolth and the idea of wind-veer. I in both agree that one of the fundamental problems is, you know, this idea of this constant commercialization of societal fabric and of nature, of, you know, criticism of capitalism, this criticism of the way that progress felt when an economic growth understood and implemented. And so they almost, they sort of complement each other, right? Because I think of criticism people have of decarolth is that it's this destructive thing, it's this negative thing, it's negative framing. And so in a sense, wind-veer and decarolth can sort of be coupled decarolth as the, couldn't call it missile wood, destructive. Well, wind-veer is, you know, presenting a constructive alternative. As, you know, we attempt to progress, to move away from capitalism, to transition to new systems, there's a lot of saloon, we have a lot we can learn from various non-capital practices around the world. And I think wind-veer has a concept that really tries to look at the way as a way of harmoniously coexisted as human to non-environment. And the way is that, you know, the good life can be combined with decarolth efforts. There's also a measure of fluidity present in wind-veer that seeks balance socially, ecologically, politically, economically, and encompasses, and encompasses within that balance, people, plans and animals. There's not separate nature from society as found in classical western toolism. And that sort of perspective is necessary if we were to move beyond the exploitation of nature, for the people who are so accumulating capital that is really placed as in this mess. And even in that and recognise that we need to move beyond exploitation of nature, it makes sense that because we are part of nature, it's a recognition that we need to stop exploiting humans. That we need to recognise human beings as part of a community that we are not just admising individuals. That we are in communities that we must be part of communities that our communities are the people within them and the lands we are part of must cooperate in harmony. I think there's a challenge to going to the wind-veer. Of course, wind-veer is not restricted to the countryside, but it did originate there. I think the challenge to go into the wind-veer is to confront today's urban spaces where much of humanity's population lives. To find ways to deal with the environment respectfully and with solidarity in an urban setting to find, to conceptualise a good life for and in cities. We can't exactly expect everybody to move to the countryside, not should everybody. And so we need to find ways that city life, urbanised life can be reconstructed. One potential way that has manifested is through the transition towns movement, which you can look more into, something that interests you, where people are basically attempting to take control of their communities and to survive the challenge that is climate change and to create sustainable economies and ecologies where they find themselves. Movements can be found in many different countries. It might even find it in your area, in your country, look it up. It has a lot in common with the concepts of wind-veer. Like I said, I feel that there's something different, movements and ideas and philosophies in the same ideas that seem to be feel like they're on the rise. Ultimately, I believe wind-veer is highly subversive. I believe it looks not to return to the past or to get caught up in any kind of strict rules or in positions. It seeks a good life. It seeks to oppose cleanism and its consequences, to encourage new, more sustainable ways of living, drawn from old examples and modules, and to really create a horizontal society, which is a cooperative society, to develop self-management instead of new forms of top-down governance. One that rejects both the market and the state as solutions to our issues and looks to ourselves. The idea of development is an almost zombie category, and some writers have described it. It's supposed to be dead and yet it lives. And so wind-veer provides an opportunity to move away from development and look towards the future of the world. The recognises that all of me never creates a perfect life, we can create a good life. Thanks, Sarah. That was pretty interesting. You can find me on YouTube at Andrewism on Tutor.com, slash on his course, saying true. And if you're so inclined, you can support me on patreon.com slash saying true. This has been Andrew at Ikarapniha with James Saninof. With ever longer ingredient lists on beauty products, it's hard to tell what you're really buying. That's why Sephora is committed to cutting through the clutter and confusion, helping to push the industry forward by showing what's really in their products. At Sephora, their clean standards mean products formulated without paraben, sulfates, phallates, mineral oils and more. So when you see the clean at Sephora seal, you know you're getting a clean you can count on. Learn more about their clean standards and shop clean at Sephora Beauty at Sephora.com. In honor of Black History Month, raise a glass to Blackone brands. Driesley, the go-to app for alcohol delivery, has one of the largest selections of Blackone drinks to explore. From a top shop whiskey to an artisanal twist on a Caribbean classic, get these drinks delivered right to your door. Download the Driesley app or go to Driesley.com to find your new favorite. That's dr-i-z-l-y.com today. The virus that causes shingles is sleeping in 99% of people over 50. It's lying dormant, waiting and it could reactivate at any time. And while not everyone at risk will develop shingles, it strikes as a painful blistering rash that could last for weeks. Think you're not at risk for shingles? It's time to wake up because shingles could wake up in you. If you're over 50, talk to your dr. War pharmacist about shingles prevention. Hello and welcome to a could happen here. This is Shrine and today I will be talking to you about the series of devastating earthquakes that have happened in Turkey and Syria this week. I am recording this the afternoon of Tuesday, February 7th. I am giving you that disclaimer because the numbers keep changing as far as the casualties and the death toll goes. So if the numbers are different by the time this comes out, which they probably will be, that is why. Unfortunately, that is the nature of disasters like this. So there's nothing much that we can do. But let's talk about the earthquakes themselves first. The initial earthquake was a magnitude of 7.8 and it happened in south eastern Turkey early on Monday morning their local time. And it was followed by a magnitude 7.5 earthquake only nine hours later amid several aftershocks. All aftershocks are individual earthquakes. But as long as they are not stronger than the original quake, they are considered aftershocks. But the 7.5 magnitude tremor that happened after the 7.81 only 0.3 of a difference, it was an unusually strong aftershock according to seismologists. Aftershocks are typically about 1.2 magnitude units lower than the original earthquake. So if there was a magnitude 8 earthquake, the aftershock would be a magnitude 7. So this was all a very rare disasterous occurrence. The second earthquake was a shock notable all on its own as well as in relation to the primary earthquake. As of Tuesday morning, according to the United States Geological Survey, at least 125 aftershocks measuring 4.0 or greater have occurred since the initial 7.81. The frequency and magnitude of the aftershocks are decreasing as is expected as we get further out from the time of the original earthquake. However, 5.0 and 6.0 aftershocks are still possible and they bring a risk of additional damage to structures that are compromised from the original earthquake. This brings a continued threat to rescue teams and survivors. The aftershocks stretch for more than 400 kilometers or about 250 miles along the fault zone that ruptured in southern Turkey. It stretches from the Mediterranean Sea off the northern coast of Syria up to the province of Malatia. The initial tremor was centered about 20 miles from a major city and provincial capital, Ghazi Antep. And seismologists said that this first earthquake was one of the largest ever recorded in Turkey's history. It was also the region's strongest earthquake in nearly a century. In 1939, an earthquake of the same magnitude killed 30,000 people. Earthquakes of this magnitude are rare, with fewer than 5 occurring each year on average anywhere in the world. Seven earthquakes with magnitude 7.0 or greater have struck Turkey in the past 25 years, but the one that occurred on Monday is the most powerful. The effects were also felt in the neighboring countries of Cyprus, Lebanon, Israel, and Egypt to name a few. But there's a reason why earthquakes are so frequent in Turkey. Turkey sits on fault lines, and these earthquakes in the region have caused deadly landslides in the past. Turkey is situated on two massive tectonic plates, the Arabian and the Eurasian, and these meet underneath Turkey's south-eastern provinces. Along this fault line, about 100 miles from one side or the other, the Earth slipped. Size-mologists refer to this event as a strike slip, where the plates are touching and all of a sudden they slide sideways. In a strike slip, the plates are moving horizontally rather than vertically. This matters because the buildings don't want to go back and forth, and then the secondary waves begin to go back and forth as well. Because of the nature of this seismic event, the aftershocks could last for weeks and months. I have had to update the death toll many, many times in preparing this episode. I am probably going to have to update it many, many more times before this comes out. But as of now, when I am recording this, the evening of Tuesday February 7th, the death toll is over 7,900 deaths in Turkey and Syria combined, and it is expected to rise significantly more in Syria as these days go by. The exact number that is being reported is 7,926 people. The Syrian Civil Defense, aka the White Helmets, said that the number of fatalities in rebel held areas in northwest Syria rose to 1,220 and the number of injured people rose to 2,600. And these figures are expected to rise significantly due to the presence of hundreds of families under the rubble. The White Helmets said, quote, our teams continue searching rescue operations in difficult circumstances, and they described a tally of more than 400 collapse buildings, and more than 1,300 partially collapsed buildings, and thousands of others that were damaged. Additionally, at least 812 deaths have been confirmed in government control parts of Syria. In Turkey, at least 5,894 people are dead, and 34,810 are injured. And this number is only going to continue to rise. I don't know when it will stop. Maybe a week from now, maybe a month. I don't know how many more people will be unaccounted for and not reported about, but this is what we have for now. You've probably seen pictures or videos of the devastation that is happening in all the destruction. There have been really disturbing images of the ground literally just opening up into. And as if you can see the core of the earth and other videos show the collapse buildings, and the rubble that rescuers are trying to dig underneath to find survivors. This is one story out of many, but a newborn baby was reportedly rescued from the rubble in Syria, and there is a video of this. A baby girl was rescued from the rubble of her home. Her embolical cord was still attached to her mother when she was found, and her mother is believed to have died after getting birth. One of the men that found her said, we heard a voice while we were digging. We cleared the dust and found the baby with the embolical cord intact, so we cut it and my cousin took her to the hospital. The girl is receiving treatment at a children's hospital, and as of now she is stable, but arrived with bruises, lacerations, and hypothermia. And she's the sole survivor of her immediate family. They lived in a five-story apartment building that was leveled by the quake. And again, this is one example of the stories of thousands of people. And I think what's important to remember is that even after someone is rescued, they're not exactly home-free. They can have many injuries or hypothermia because it's very cold over there right now, and their recovery is going to be brutal. And I feel like that's a good thing to keep in mind when you hear the word rescue, because the trauma doesn't stop there. Almost 6,000 buildings have been destroyed by this earthquake, and this includes residential buildings, hospitals, schools, and the damage is even more severe in northwestern Syria because it had been in the process of attempting to reconstruct itself since the Syrian war started in 2011. Thankfully, members of the international community have stepped up to coordinate relief efforts to Turkey and Syria after the powerful earthquakes. However, sending aid to Syria is going to be difficult because there is no central government to take care of the multi-sectorial response. The Turkish government said, quote, we do not know where the number of dead an injured can go. In Syria, rescue workers used headlamps and floodlights to work throughout the night. Many Syrian war refugees are also in the quake-stricken area of Turkey. Turkey has taken in 3.6 million Syrian refugees, more than any other country. And this is according to the UN Refugee Agency, which runs one of its largest operations in Ghazi and Tepp, where the first earthquake happened. And again, videos shared on social media from Turkey and across the border in Syria have showed destroyed buildings and rescue crews searching through piles of rubble for survivors. Some people fled their homes in the rain and took shelter in their cars. And governments around the world quickly responded to Turkey's requests for international assistance. Many of them deploying rescue teams and offers of aid, which I will get into in a bit. The World Health Organization warned that the number of casualties are likely to increase as much as 8 times, as rescuers are finding more victims in the rubble. Rescue workers have been combing through mountains of rubble and freezing and snowy conditions to find survivors. And these freezing conditions will leave many people without shelter, adding to the dangers. It is freezing over there. And that obviously only makes things more difficult and more painful and more complicated. And we always see the same thing with earthquakes unfortunately, which is that the initial reports of the numbers of people who have died or have been injured will increase quite significantly in the week that follows. The situation on the ground seems to be more disastrous in Syria. And this is according to the country director and Ghazi and Tepp for the Syrian American Medical Society Foundation. He said, it's a disastrous situation in both Turkey and Syria, although Syria is more disastrous. Over a decade of conflict in northern Syria has fostered a poor economic situation to say the least, making it very difficult to respond to the current crisis. In contrast, the situation in Turkey is coordinated through a very well settled government. And northern Syria, unfortunately, has no government that gives a shit about it. In northern Syria, most of the services and help are provided by NGOs. And this is due to a long-term lack of investments in early recovery and infrastructure. One of these groups, again, is the White Helmets. They were one of the main saviors or helpers ever since the Syrian Civil War started in 2011. They have been on the ground helping and they are made up of Syrian volunteers. And I think that's important to keep in mind because many Syrians have relied on each other and each other alone because they didn't receive help in the past. And I'm going to get into later how much the country's civil war has made things exponentially worse. Several parts in northwestern Syria, including the city of Idlib, are still controlled by anti-government rebels. This representative added that they evacuated two maternity hospitals because of the physical impact of the earthquake on the infrastructure. And so the question is, where are these people going to go? So there's no shelter. It is freezing and there's not enough aid to go around. And I'm hoping the countries that have said they will help are in the process of actually doing so. And I'm going to get into some of them in a moment because I'm grateful that there's help coming from somewhere. And amongst all this, there have been calls to ease the Syrian border restrictions and controls for countries to offer their aid. And again, the rebel held enclave in northwest Syria across the border from Turkey is among the areas that have been hit the worst by this disaster. International pledges, as I said, of emergency aid have poured in for Turkey in Syria, leading to calls for the international community to relax some of the political restrictions on aid entering northwest Syria. The Turkish President Erdogan, who was facing an election in only a few months, said that offers of aid to Turkey had come from 45 countries ranging from Kuwait to Israel, Russia, and the UK. Syria said it had received offers of help from China, Russia, Lebanon, Algeria, and the United Arab Emirates. Aid from around the world is thankfully heading toward Turkey in Syria, and some 70 countries and 14 international organizations have offered their assistance. Here's a roundup of some of the latest pledges. There is a Hungarian rescue team of 50 people, including five military doctors and two search dogs. South Korea plans to offer humanitarian aid worth 5 million to Turkey and send about 110 disaster relief workers and military personnel to support its search and rescue work. You may notice that I'm only saying they're sending aid to Turkey in a couple of these, and I will get into why in a little bit. But to continue, the Palestinian International Corporation Agency will deploy 70 experts to the Kuwait later this week, sending two crews comprised of the civil defense, ministry of health, and the Palestinian Red Cross, as well as doctors and engineers. There are also teams from the Palestinian Red Crescent, and they are carrying out earthquake rescue and relief operations in the Palestinian refugee camps and the surrounding areas in Syria. At least three Palestinian refugee camps in Syria were struck by the earthquake. Pakistan deployed two contingents of emergency services to Turkey. China said it will send about 5.9 million dollars worth of aid to Turkey, while also coordinating with Syria for emergency supplies and accelerating ongoing food aid projects. Two Israeli aid groups chartered a special flight to Gaza in tip on Tuesday to bring personnel and equipment to victims. Germany's federal agency for technical relief is sending a team of 50 recovery experts to Turkey. The Dalai Lama committed to sending rescue and relief efforts early today, and Taiwan increased its donation to Turkey from $200,000 to $2 million, and it dispatched about 130 rescue teams. Indonesia also supplied aid for Turkey. The Vice President of Indonesia highlighted the urgency of dispatching humanitarian aid to Turkey to return the support granted by the country to Indonesia during their times of need over natural disasters in the past. Canada also pledged $7.5 million to earthquake relief. Egypt offered relief assistance to Syria in the wake of this earthquake. Ukraine will send 87 emergency staff workers to Turkey to assist with the relief efforts, and not just countries, but also companies and nonprofits have offered their help this week. For example, Amazon announced that it will help the victims of the Turkey earthquake by donating food, medicine, and equipment from its Istanbul warehouse. Amazon has about 2,000 employees in Turkey, and in a statement on Monday, it said that it activated its quote, disaster relief capabilities, and was preparing to donate relief items, including blankets, tents, food, baby food, and medicines. Even here in the US, the Virginia Task Force 1 is sending a crew of 70-die members and six dogs to Turkey, and there are 78 members of the LA county fire department who left Monday evening to Turkey. And then there's Greece, who set aside tensions with Turkey to send aid, but helping Syria, they said, is more complicated. Despite its tensions with Turkey, Greece was among the countries that have dispatched help to the country, but conflict torn northwest Syria makes the same efforts more complicated, the Prime Minister said. Grace and Turkey, he said, are quote, neighbors who need to help each other through difficult times. This is not the first time earthquakes have struck our countries. This is a time to temporarily set aside our differences and try to address what is a very, very urgent situation. He continued to explain that in Syria, however, there is no official person or official from the government to have a dialogue with, and no assurance that aid will make it to the impacted area and people, and that makes relief efforts hard to pull off. No country on its own has the ability to actually make these sort of arrangements. That's why I think it is important that these negotiations could take place either through the UN or through the European Union by pulling resources. I would not feel confident having these sort of discussions at a bilateral level. He also added that he has not directly communicated with Damascus. He would on to say that, quote, I want to stress this. This is not about geopolitics. This is not about recognizing any sort of regime. This is about saving people in horrible conditions who desperately need our assistance. So the scale of aid being offered is going to require a large coordination effort, as well as delicate diplomatic maneuvers to supply aid to Syria, where the leadership of Bashar al-Assad is not recognized in the West. It's not recognized for me either, and many Syrians feel the same way, but that is the monster that we are currently dealing with, and there's not much we can do about that at this certain point in time. So as I mentioned, the Syrian side of the border is going to be a challenge since the worst affected areas contained hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees that are locked in a war zone and still facing attacks from Syrian government forces. Aid agencies reported that some of the roads from Turkey into Syria were blocked, including the main cross-border crossing used by international aid agencies. The White Helmets said hundreds of families were still trapped in the aftermath of the earthquake. They also added that terrible weather conditions, including freezing temperatures, had compounded the crisis. And their continuing rescue operations in Syria, despite great difficulties in aftershocks, they said. The White Helmets also urged the Assad regime in Russia to refrain from military activity in the affected areas in order to allow international groups to unify and help the people affected. A spokesperson from the White Helmets said, our teams responded and until now many families are under the rubble. Our teams are trying hard to find all the casualties. Northwest Syria is now a disaster area. We need help from everyone to save our people. I think this would be a moment to take a little break. I don't have the capacity or emotional bandwidth to think of a clever segue. So here are some ads. And we are back. We're talking about the difficulty sending aid to Syria along the Turkey Syrian border. Last month, actually, the UN Security Council agreed to allow aid into Northwest Syria from Turkey across one border crossing, Babel Hewa. Surprising no one, the Syrian regime has been resistant to allowing aid into a region, serving more than four million of its people because it regards the aid as undermining Syrian sovereignty and reducing its chances of winning back control of the region. Yes, that is correct. The Syrian government doesn't want to help more than four million of its own people because one day it wants to control them again. Are you fucking kidding me? I don't understand that malignant desire to rule over a land that you have destroyed and a people that you have murdered. I don't get the fucking point. But regardless, that is one of the many reasons why getting aid into Syria is going to be much more complicated than getting aid into Turkey. Additionally, Mark Lowcock, the former head of UN humanitarian affairs, said the areas worst affected by the earthquake inside Syria look to be run by the Turkish controlled opposition and not by the Syrian government. It is going to require Turkish acquiescence to aid in these areas. It is unlikely the Syrian government will do much to help. Yes, Mark, I think you're right. The Syrian government isn't going to do shit. If anything, Bashar al-Assad is probably happy seeing all these people die because that's his whole M.O. just to kill the Syrian people. Anyway, a video from a hospital posted by the Syrian American Medical Society showed that it was immensely crowded. They said our hospitals are overwhelmed with patients filling the hallways. There is an immediate need for trauma supplies and a comprehensive emergency response to save lives and treat the injured. Initial needs are for tens of thousands of tents, heaters for the tents, tens of thousands of blankets, thermal clothes, ready to eat food and basic first aid kits. A unicef representative in Aleppo said that the hospitals in Syria are absolutely overloaded. Hospitals are full of patients with trauma, broken bones and lacerations, and some people are going to the hospital to seek help for the mental trauma they endured after the earthquake struck. The unicef representative Angela Kerney said while hospitals are functioning, the task has been overwhelming. Describing the scene in Aleppo when the earthquake struck on Monday, Kerney said children who have already been traumatized by war or bewildered, they didn't know what was happening. Kerney said that on Monday morning when unicef began its work in the area, there were seven schools in Aleppo that are being used as shelters. By Tuesday morning, that number grew to 67 and currently it is nearly 200. In all of those schools that are partially damaged, there are families there who left their apartments, left their houses with just their pajamas, she said. She also added that while aid is starting to go into the affected areas, there is still a desperate need for blankets, food, clean water, medical care, and nutritional care. She said that water, sanitation, and nutrition needs are the most urgent. The aid is starting to go in but it is overwhelming. The needs are very great. There are discussions underway to open aid corridors from the government-controlled parts of Syria to the rebel-held areas. Muhammad Hamud, Syria country manager at the Norwegian Red Cross, said that he hopes with the help and efforts from humanitarian communities, this would happen in the coming days. And he said, currently, nothing has moved there. But there are discussions about moving aid and access to these areas. He continued to say after being asked if the Syrian government in Damascus has been helpful to these areas, he said they have stated that they are open to cross-line intervention, meaning from government-held areas to these non-government-held areas. They are open to it. They're not doing shit though, obviously. Earlier today, the head of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, which described itself as an independent and volunteer-based humanitarian organization, said that the organization is ready to immediately send aid convoys to rebel-held areas, including Idlib, through the UN. Hamud added that the humanitarian situation is worsening. He said, we are in a race against time. In describing the rescue and search operations, Hamud said that due to the lack of machinery, most of the work on clearing the rubble is done by hand, and the cold weather conditions are not helping. He also added that the buildings are already weakened because of 11 years of war. In addition to the thousands of people that have been lost to this tragedy, there are also some cultural sites that have been permanently damaged in both Turkey and Syria. UNESCO, the United Nations Cultural Organization, said it's going to provide assistance following the cultural site damage. UNESCO said that it is particularly concerned about the situation in the ancient city of Aleppo, which is on the list of world heritage in danger. It added that the citadel had significant damage. The old city wall has collapsed, and several buildings and the suks have been weakened. In the Turkish city of Diyad Bekid, UNESCO lamented the collapse of several buildings. The city is home to the world heritage site, the Diyabakad Fortress, and the Hefsel Gardens Cultural Landscape, which is an important center of the Roman, Sinacid, Byzantine, Islamic, and Ottoman periods. The organization says it is mobilizing experts to establish a precise inventory of the damage with the aim of rapidly securing and stabilizing these sites. Aleppo was also one of the city's worst damage by the Syrian regime. It is a beautiful, beautiful place. Everything that this regime has destroyed was a beautiful, beautiful place. Aleppo had a lot of history, though, and that region is just home to so much history, and it's just really heartbreaking to know the extent of the loss that doesn't just include lives. In talking to my mom and my family about this, the sentiment seems like it's the same that it's been for the past decade, essentially. Syrians don't have a government. There is no government. Assad and his regime doesn't care about the Syrian people. My mom literally said, we have no one. We've known this for years. No one helped us. Syrians are the ones supporting each other. The White Helmets is a great example of this. One of our family's friends on the ground in the city of Hamam, which is where my mom is from, was saying that it was absolute chaos. Everyone is in the streets, and no one is daring to go back inside their homes. Another person was telling us about his experience, and he said, I was asleep, and felt the earthquake start in my bed. My son was terrified, and I went to hug my son. I kept telling him it'll be over soon. It'll be over soon. And then the roof started crumbling on top of us. So then he ran outside, and he saw many people doing the same, just running outside their homes if they were able to make it out and watching their homes just crumble in front of them. Let's take a break. And when we come back, I want to set the scene of what Syrians have been going through even before this earthquake even happened, and how sanctions in particular have made the impact of this disaster exponentially worse. So we're back, and we're going to talk about how sanctions have only aided in the suffering of the Syrian people. Twelve years after the eruption of the Syrian uprising, and the 2011 subsequent conflict, the US's Syria policy has constrained political pressure on the Assad regime to broad economic sanctions. But, despite an expansive approach that targets entire economic sectors, these sanctions have had little to no effect in pushing the regime to offer political concessions, engage meaningfully in a peaceful settlement of the conflict, or improve its human rights record. All the while, conditions in Syria have steadily worsened, as sanctions, along with the destructive effects of 12 years of conflict, the economic crisis in neighboring Lebanon and the COVID-19 pandemic, all of this has fueled an economic collapse that has left more than 90% of the population in Syria living in poverty. In 1979, the United States listed Syria as a state sponsor of terrorism, and since then it has pursued sanctions as a primary tool in its policy towards Syria. The George Shelby Bush administration issued a series of sanctions under executive orders aiming to limit Syria's destabilizing influence in Iraq. However, after the 2011 uprising, the Barack Obama and Donald Trump administrations sanctioned the Assad regime on an unprecedented scale for its gross human rights violations against its people. These sanctions ultimately accumulated in the passing of the Caesar Act in 2019, and this allows primary and secondary sanctions targeting both those who commit the sanctionable offenses and those who enable them. Just three months ago, in November of 2022, a UN appointed independent human rights expert urged the United States to lift the unilateral sanctions against Syria, warning that they are perpetrating and exacerbating the destruction and trauma suffered by ordinary citizens since the brutal war began in 2011. This expert's name is Alana Dohan, and she said, I am struck by the pervasiveness of the human rights and humanitarian impact of the unilateral coercive measures imposed on Syria and the total economic and financial isolation of a country whose people are struggling to rebuild a life with dignity. In a statement that followed her 12-day visit to Syria, Dohan presented detailed information on the catastrophic effects that sanctions have had on all aspects of Syrian life. Currently, 90% of Syria's population is living below the poverty line, she said, pointing to their limited access to food, water, electricity, shelter, cooking and heating fuel, transportation and health care. Moreover, growing economic hardship threatens to trigger a massive brain drain in the country. She said, with more than half of the vital infrastructure either completely destroyed or severely damaged, the imposition of unilateral sanctions on key economic sectors, including oil, gas, electricity, trade, construction and engineering have quashed national income and they undermine efforts toward economic recovery and reconstruction. These sanctions have committed various human rights violations in their existence, including these serious shortages in medicines and specialized medical equipment. My family and I have direct experience with these repercussions of the lack of medicines and medical equipment. My cousin, a child, had brain cancer and it got worse and worse and the city they were in did not offer the treatment necessary or even chemo to help his condition. So his mother would drive to Damascus where at least some of the treatment options were available. But the road to Damascus, even though it shouldn't take more than a few hours, can sometimes take all day because there are so many checkpoints and road closures and just the regime making it so difficult to do anything. Ultimately, my cousin was suffering for the remainder of his very young life and he didn't get the treatment that he needed. And I really think these sanctions have a lot to do with the lack of access that my family and many families have in Syria. And that experience that my family went through is one of many that many Syrian families have endured because of these sanctions. So I want you guys to keep that in mind that numbers also contain individual lives and each one is devastating all on its own. And I know I say that often but I think it bears repeating every time. I don't want us to be numb to statistics and numbers when it comes to casualties and suffering and loss. And maybe it sounds obvious, but I just think we need to remember the value of human life and what it means to take it away. So that's what I'm going to say about that for now. Let's get back to the reports that Miss Dohan was showing the US back in November of 2022 about the effect of these sanctions. So including the impact that sanctions have had on the serious shortages and medicines and specialized medical equipment due to the unavailability of equipment spare parts, she warned that the rehabilitation and development of water distribution networks for drinking and irrigation has stalled with serious implications for public health and food security. 12 million Syrians are experiencing food insecurity. This is pre-earthquake. The number is probably much higher now. Dohan urged for the immediate lifting of all unilateral sanctions that severely harm human rights and prevent any efforts for early recovery, rebuilding, and reconstruction. She said, no reference to good objectives of unilateral sanctions justifies the violation of fundamental human rights. The international community has an obligation of solidarity and assistance to the Syrian people. I want to add something that UNICEF said about the children in Syria. Children in Syria continue to face one of the most complex humanitarian situations in the world. A worsening economic crisis continued localized hostilities after more than a decade of grinding conflict. Mass displacement and devastated public infrastructure have left two thirds of the population in need of assistance. Waterborne diseases pose another deadly threat to children and families affected. And all of this is again pre-earthquake. This is the life that Syrians have known for years now without any assistance. Sanctions have done nothing but contributed to the increase in the suffering of a Syrian people and now countries and organizations might have a hard time providing aid because of these sanctions. Sanctions have done nothing but contribute to the suffering and pain of the Syrian people. They didn't do anything they were supposedly meant to do. The Assad regime isn't going to change anything. It hasn't changed anything. It's still killing its people. I also want to mention that last year on May 31st, 2022, the EU extended its sanctions against the Syrian government for another year. Who knows if this will change, but for now, that's the reality. So I'm really hoping these sanctions get eventually lifted or else helping the Syrian people is going to be extremely difficult. And right now rescuers are still digging through thousands and thousands of flattened buildings in near freezing temperatures. The death toll is only going to continue to rise and everyone there needs all the help they can get. And I know at least for me it feels really helpless. I've felt pretty helpless for a long time when it comes to Syria. But if you're able to donate any money at all, I would really urge you to donate to a charity that you trust. I really like the white helmets because they're just on the ground and they've been doing the work for years. So if you're able to, I think help can go a long way. I want to end with something that Alana Dohan, the UN appointed independent human rights expert that gave the US this report about the sanctions in November of 2022. She quoted one view that she heard expressed many times. She said, I saw much suffering, but now I see the hope die. So that's where the Syrian people started. That's where they've been. Nearly 70% of the Syrian population was already in need of humanitarian aid before the earthquake even happened. And it's an issue that's only been compounded by the tragedy. Today, the UN said, quote, this tragedy will have a devastating impact on many vulnerable families who struggle to provide for their loved ones on a daily basis. The statement outlined the impact of Syria's 12 year war, describing a country as grappling with economic collapse, severe water, electricity, and fuel shortages. They issued an appeal to all donor partners to provide assistance necessary to alleviate the aid suffering. The UN and humanitarian partners say they are currently focusing on immediate needs, including food, shelter, and non-food items and medicine. And the devastation of this earthquake because of this is truly devastating. I cannot emphasize that enough. So again, if you're able to donate, I really urge you to. And if you can't just keep raising awareness because someone else might be able to donate. And that's all we really have for now. So that's the episode. I hope it was informative or eye opening in any way. Thank you for listening. I will talk to you later. With ever longer ingredient lists on beauty products, it's hard to tell what you're really buying. That's why Sephora is committed to cutting through the clutter and confusion, helping to push the industry forward by showing what's really in their products. At Sephora, their clean standards mean products formulated without paraben, sulfates, phallates, mineral oils, and more. So when you see the clean at Sephora seal, you know you're getting a clean you can count on. Learn more about their clean standards and shop clean at Sephora Beauty at Sephora.com. Isn't leisurely listening to some leisure podcasts just refreshing? But does it ever feel like you're missing something? Drinks maybe? Well, now you can listen and have your drinks with drizzly. The number one app for alcohol delivery. With drizzly, you can compare prices on the biggest selection of beer, wine, and spirits and get them all delivered to your door in under 60 minutes. So leisurely download the drizzly app or go to drizzly.com. That's dr-i-z-l-y.com today. The virus that causes shingles is sleeping in 99% of people over 50. It's lying dormant, waiting, and it could reactivate at any time. And while not everyone at risk will develop shingles, it strikes as a painful blistering rash that could last for weeks. Think you're not at risk for shingles? It's time to wake up because shingles could wake up in you. If you're over 50, talk to your doctor or pharmacist about shingles prevention. It seems like hardly a month goes by where we are not bombarded with horrific images of far-ride violence. Mass shootings that target synagogues, black churches and queer nightclubs, death threats to hospitals spurred by posts from online trolls, and a barrage of fascist groups attempting to intimidate everyone and everything from children's events, black lives matter protests, pride celebrations, and abortion clinics. Modern resistance is mobilized. People do push back. The media often frames these confrontations as a clash, simply between two sets of extremists. On today's show is the It's Going Down Crew once again takes over. It could happen here. We look at how far from being just confined to small sets of antifas super soldiers. Mass community self-defense is part and parcels to the DNA of grassroots movements for liberation in the so-called United States. We can see this throughout the ongoing history of a religious resistance to colonization and the fight against slavery in racial apartheid. Radical labor unions such as the IWW organized against the Ku Klux Klan, attention that even led to running gun battles, while militant organizers like Robert F Williams and groups such as the Deacons for Defense who helped inspire the Black Panthers, fought back against white racist mobs. In the book, this non-violent stuff will get you killed. Author Charles E. Cobb documents this history, discussing the wide use of arms and defending civil rights organizers from white supremacists. Groups like anti-racist action or ARA carried on this trajectory, working to set up chapters of organized anti-racist that confronted neo-Nazi groups, the Klan and participated in defense of abortion clinics. Once again, I'm Mike Andrews. Let's get into it. In 2005, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the levees surrounding New Orleans broke, flooding with working-class communities and homes. Those that could evacuate fled, while many, often pouring black, were stuck behind to fend for themselves. Stepping into this setting was a group of black liberation and anarchist activists who worked to set up mutual aid hubs in free clinics, dubbed common ground. But as these volunteers worked to feed people, restore people's homes, and provide free medical care, they quickly found that they weren't the only organized force on the streets of New Orleans. In this following interview, Sun Seer Ali Shakur discusses how the group came up against and defended themselves from a formation of armed, racist, white vigilante Chinese, who worked directly with local police and are suspected of carrying out multiple murders of unarmed black men. A warning, however, this interview is graphic in details death, racist violence, and anti-black racism. My name is Sun Seer Ali Shakur. I'm organized throughout Washington, DC. I went to New Orleans during Katrina, during the Katrina aftermath, and I helped form co-found common ground relief, and common ground was formed as a response to the calamity of Katrina, and common ground was also the brainchild of the Angola 3. So a lot of the base organizers of common ground were already in New Orleans organizing the Angola 3. So the Angola 3 was basically the godfather's of common ground relief. We lost a few of the elders out of white foxes and such, and we still got king, king, what is in everything. I know to our listeners, the Angola 3 referred to here is a group of formerly incarcerated black political prisoners and members of the black panther party. When the 1970s were imprisoned in the notorious Angola facility in Louisiana. This included Robert Hillary King, Albert Woodfox, and Herman Wallace. King was released in 2001, and along with another former black panther, Malik Rahim, became involved in mutual aid in disaster relief efforts in New Orleans following Katrina in 2005 under the banner of common ground. Wallace was released from prison on October 1, 2013, only to pass away sadly three days later, a day after being re-indicted by the state. Albert Woodfox was finally released in February of 2016 and passed on six years later due to complications from COVID-19. Tireless activists on both sides of the prison walls, together the Angola 3 endured a combined total of 114 years in solitary confinement. I spent 18 months there and children's free breakfast program. Anything in the community needed, you know, I provided my wife's a drive like 1400 miles a week taking supplies from New Orleans into different buy-us and different surrounding areas in New Orleans. That was my job. When I first got there, I ran into Malik Rahim, former black panther in New Orleans. Sticking his minister of defense. And when I touched down, he had told me that there were a group of white vigilantes up to 18 of them riding around and murdering black people. As they walk through these white communities and outgairs and outgair point, outgairs wasn't affected by water, but it did have a great deal of wind damage. Most of the houses was intact. It just wasn't no electricity and the water was also a problem. Well, what they would do, they would tie cans from one fence to another beginning of the neighborhood of the street. And if they were in their homes and you bumped it, you know, you try to get up under the cans and the cans started ringing. They were opened up windows and begin a fire. And they would jump in their pickup trucks and chase you down. And some, you know, some were murdered, you know, point blank. And those whom they wounded, they were throwing the back of the truck, take to a garage and pour gasoline over your wounds, put cigarettes out on you. And some didn't make it out that situation. They, like I said, they dropped about, portion of the information we got, they dropped 19 innocent black men. And the brothers in the community got tired of these guys. And they broke into a pawn shop and stole all the guns out the pawn shop. And there was about to be a major race war. And you got to understand too how tight this situation was because they're base, they're house of the, they, they hung out at their backyard connected with our backyard. So it was extremely tense. So when the brothers broke into the pawn shop and got the weapons out, just so happened in next day, the National Guard showed up. But the National Guard didn't show up the next day. It would have been extremely ugly out there and everything. And yeah, they used to patrol the streets and the pickup trucks. We would see them all the time. I would see them all the time. And they were cowards, man. You know, they were 10 to one. There's always 10 to one. You know, 10 vigilantes, the one black man on the heart, black man. But we noticed when they were drive by, we would come out with our weapons on our hips and let them know that this ain't no place to mess with. Keep driving. You know, I'm saying you will be fired upon. You come here with that business. And I would have to set up patrols for our house at night. I was sleep in the hall where Milley's home would have now been a car being rife was dropped across my chest and a radio column. So I could keep in contact with the others who were unarmed but doing patrols, you know, watching the house. While the other 36 volunteers are slept intense in the backyard, you know, were asleep. Lucky for us, they were a bunch of cowards and they kept it moving. I would see them all the time. And they were afraid of me because they knew that I was not afraid of them and I was armed. And we all saw us when we had a few people back at the house that was armed as well. You could ride down certain streets and there will be dead bodies that were bloated from being left out in the sun. And those bodies were left by the vigilantes. The rumor was that the New Orleans Police Department told the vigilantes, well, gave the vigilantes a green light to do what they needed to do. And as far as the bodies just leave them near the gutter and they will come and collect them later, which they didn't. The bodies stayed out there. I would say up to two months. You know, you, you, I mean, they were like, you could see them all the time. And there were a lot of people at left. It wasn't a lot of people there because people had evacuated. A lot of stray dogs running around in packs of 30. And what we would have to do is get up early in the morning when the curfew was over. Take bed sheets from a link's mother's room and go out and wrap up the bodies with these sheets. Keep the dogs and ripping them open for fluid and food. Reporting in the nation and pro-publica, investigative journalist A.C. Thompson spent months speaking with survivors of Katrina about a racist militia that formed in the predominantly white neighborhood of Jair's point. He carried out a series of deadly shootings and even worked directly with local law enforcement. White residents told investigators that police had given them a green light to shoot anyone, quote, breaking into their property. And to quote, leave the bodies on the side of the road. Other spoke of a free-for-all of white against black where whites indulged in violence with impunity. Years later, several white vigilantes were found guilty, were sentenced to prison time of shootings and murder. And like many modern conspiracy theories pushed by the far-right about ANXYFA and BLM during the George Floyd uprising, the vigilantes and El Jair's point were largely animated by widespread racist rumors that were unfounded about looters. We were harassed a lot by the N.O.P.D. A lot of times at gunpoint they would come to our house sometimes, you know, 10 cars deep in O.P.D. Wood. And looking for Malink, one night they came through looking for Malink. And what we had heard is they were out to assassinate him and anybody with him. They came out looking for Malink one night about 10 cars deep and they had went through the house looking for him and they couldn't find him. And they pulled out this 14-year-old young man that we had befriended and lived on a back street from Malink. And they started beating him, saying that he has stole the cooler out. Somebody's yard. And mind you, you know, no one's there. So no one's really missing that cool. And the young man thought, you know, because we didn't have refrigeration and we hadn't put everything on ice. You know, ice was very important at that time and water was very important, you know, along with gasoline. But the young brother brought us a cooler and the police put shotguns and everybody's stomachs and they beat him in front of us. And dared us to do anything. As far as like with the environment, look like it was not. And I say this, it was not a rescue mission. This was, seemed like they were running a drill, a military drill, you know, like the St. Albert project. You know, look at the bridge and you will see continuous military cars going across the the Crescent City bridge. At nighttime in four corners of the community, you have black hawk helicopters, patrol, you know, they will follow you through the yard with spotlights. Also, we had Homeland Security, which included mercenaries. They were sometimes up to 25 cars, and if you were to violate the curfew, they would ride up on you and they had these little, and I used to have to interact with them because we had some some some young people there that thought their privilege from up north would translate into Orleans, which it did not. They seen any white person outside of New Orleans as a bunch of quote unquote nigger lovers. So I would have to negotiate with these Homeland Security people. You had to be very calm, very still, because you could see the pupils. Their pupils were dilated with small. Anybody that's been in war, like Vietnam and such, and there's a storm. They know when these people when the pupils are dilated like that, that means these people have killed several times. And the people my uncle used to call the 100 miles there. And you had to be very calm with these people because if you flinched, if you did anything that they didn't like, or they felt threatened in any type of way, they were open of fire on you. They were they had AR 15s, all of them had AR 15 and 9 millimeter strap to their legs. So it was more, you know, it seemed more like a military takeover like I said before, than a rescue. And further down the line and for the months, you had national guardsmen that opened fire on people. It's a busy traffic. You were found bodies in the seventh ward and the eighth ward in different houses with bullets in the back of their head, you know, execution style. And our investigating team will go out and witness this firsthand. And I was a part of that we investigated. Team never do a walk through the house where the body was at and was shot in the back of the head. And the rumor was, you know, we had some rogue national guardsmen executing, you know, people who didn't have homes or home, some homeless people, you know, they were left behind. Number one lesson I learned from Katrina was you may be a pacifist, but you might need to pass some fists. You may need to go out and get you firearms. Of course, we want you to get proper training. Of course, we don't want you to do anything illegal. Get your legal firearms and get some training. The second lesson was that human beings are incredible. We saw a lot of destruction, but we also saw a lot of beauty and a lot of love in my experience too. We were common ground people came together in days and we fell in love with each other within days because of the pressure of the situation. If we did love each other, if we didn't get along with one another, we had to, you know, in order for survival. Things were so bad that if your car had broken down on the side of the highway on the road, you had to call us and five different vehicles will be speeding to your location. You know, the people would get there first before home land security or a vigilante group would roll up on you. You can't rely on the state. 100% can't rely on the state. Stay with us. As it could happen here returns after this short break and a word from our sponsors. The same year that Sunsir was facing down to armed racist vigilantes in New Orleans, the stage was also set for an uprising to kick off in Toledo, Ohio. In our next interview, Tom tells us how a largely black community and anarchists affiliated with anti-racist action hit the streets against the national social movement for the NSN and participated in an uprising that exploded not just against the neo-Nazis but the police that were protecting them as well. The Toledo anti-racist and protests really began when a national socialist movement member who was living in a black neighborhood in Toledo pulled a gun on two black children that were playing in the alley behind his house. Those kids then went home and told their parents their parents then showed up at two's house with weapons. The guy pulled the gun on them and then called the national socialist movement who then showed up. And so they had been this is back when Bill White was still the head of NSM and NSM was actually starting to make some headway like they were growing really quickly. They targeted Ohio as a recruiting ground because they thought that they could gain a lot of membership there and so Toledo was kind of their first foray into trying to do stuff in Ohio. And so they announced a date and the organizers on the ground in Toledo did something really interesting that instead of organizing activists, they went and organized in the community directly. That they were going around the streets talking to people, street gangs were calling truces for the day. Right. And so when October 15th rolled around like everybody showed up. Like there were anarchists there but there were like tons of people from the neighborhood there. The whole protest didn't last very long. It was since this was October 15th 2005. They sort of NSM was there and they had their shields and people were hucking stuff at them but they were kind of too far away to really hit. So the cops started surrounding them and allowing them to march and as they were marching, they got within projectile range of people who then started pelting them with everything that they could think of. The cops then got them to run, got the Nazis to run so they could kind of try and get them out of the area. A group of people sort of cut back behind the school to try and cut them off and got tear gas. And when that tear gas flew, everything just got set off. There was rioting on and off for like three days in this neighborhood after this. A bar owned by a cop got looted and then burned to the ground. People tried to burn this Nazis house down. They had to declare state of emergency over this. And so there were number of things that were really important about that day I think for for us. One was it really did point to the effectiveness of community anti-fascist work. People that neighborhood were already mad but it was this sort of like mobilization work which was done by people in the neighborhood and also done by kind of anarchists that were down in the neighborhood working with people to really make that what it was. And it really showed what a community can do when a Nazi show up in their neighborhood and how much a community can reassert its ownership over their space when the police decide to protect the Nazis that are attacking their neighborhood. But the other thing that it really demonstrated that it really kind of created was it created a dynamic in Ohio which had been sort of building for a little while but you can kind of still feel the ramifications of it. So starting with the over the Ryan riots which I think we're in 2003 or 2001. In the Cincinnati police killed Timothy Thomas. There had kind of been this escalating series of you know tensions with with the state around this period of time. It was also the period of time that a lot of Ohio cities were sort of beginning their the real acute period of their decline that they had been sort of declining for a while but this is really when things got bad. It was starting in really like the early 2000s mid 2000s. The financial collapse in Cleveland for example was in 2006 but it had already been sort of going for a couple of years before that. And so there were these political conditions that were in place that facilitated this but this also kind of created a dynamic of confrontation with the state and created a mentality within anarchist communities about being really realistic about what those confrontations look like. That instead of being idealistic sort of like people were in the anti-war movement and sort of approaching police from a perspective of ideas and discourse. What we learned during those days is that we should probably approach the police as a logistical force and understand them as such. It was after that point that people really started researching police tactics in this area of the country and that has had really profound impacts over the last 15 years right. It really did create an entire culture of really digging into those kinds of things very carefully and doing it in a way which wasn't bombastic but was focused on actual research. The reason that that could happen was what went down on those days was so intense. It was the first time a lot of people had experienced like full blown major rioting before and like major large-scale urban rioting before. And it definitely changed a lot about the way that anarchists in this area of the country approach things. And you can still feel the ramifications, the ripple effects of that today. Stay with us. We're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back after these words from our sponsors. In our last segment we're going to speak to anti-fascist researcher and author Spencer Sunshine. But first let's rewind the clock to when Trump first came in as president in 2017 kicking off riots, walkouts and protests around the country. The angry protest soon spilled into airports is people in the tens of thousands took action to defeat the Muslim ban on February 2nd a massive riot kicked off at UC Berkeley against the far-right troll myelogianopolis shutting down his schedule talk. The far-right responded by holding a series of free speech rallies throughout the summer. In anti-fascist soon found themselves outflanked in the streets by a loose coalition of militia members, proud boys, neo-nazis and alt-right groups. Seeking to seize on this moment, the white national swing of the movement called for another free speech rally in Charlestown, Virginia. And the scene was set for historic and deadly showdown. It was pretty clear, especially as the run-up to it happened about how big it was going to be, how many different kinds of groups were going to be involved. And that for the first time, although there had been increasing mobilizations throughout the year, especially, it was the first one that was going to be led by open fascists. Some of the other ones fascists participated in them, but there were more a pan far-right. There were like pan far-right events, like what happened in Berkeley. But this one was going to be led by fascists and they were all as many different kinds of groups and they were coming out of the woodwork. We had old activists who had been around in the 80s, who stated they were going to come. And there was clearly a lot of energy behind it. And it seemed like it was the big bid. And there were some of the participants who were openly saying this. It was going to be the big bid for power and legitimacy of the alt-right. I believe it was Richard Spencer who said, or Matthew Heimich, I forget which one actually said, there's going to be before Charlottesville and after Charlottesville, which was true, but not in the way that they hoped for. I think it was a success for anti-fascists and other people who wanted the alt-right to wanted that inertia to stop and eventually end. But it was not a success. I think in the way that people wanted it to be or think about it as a success. It could have been a failure very easily after the event. The event itself was fairly neutral. I mean, there was all the fighting that is in people's minds that all happened before the rally was supposed to start. That was kind of a draw. It was certainly was not a success that anti-fascists stopped the rally. They did not stop people from entering into the rally grounds. The police dispersed it before the rally itself actually started. So that can be seen as a success. And then the car attack, of course, was well in some ways a failure for us. And I think at the very beginning, many of the fascists were excited about it. It really did add to their inertia. And the whole thing could have been forgotten about very quickly. In which case, I think it then would have been seen as a success for the fascists. If people remember, the first, when it happened, Trump immediately was like Nazi's bad. And then the next day, he made his very fine people on both sides comment. And this is what energized liberals essentially to condemn him and to jump on the bandwagon against him. If he hadn't said that, this could have just sort of passed out of the public eye very easily. And it be seen, at least by fascists, that anti-fascist were unable to mobilize enough people to stop them. You know, and the only stopping of them only happened because the police did it. So I think it could have easily been a draw or neutral or a failure without Trump's comments. It did end up being success because of this backlash against them. It did, for whatever reason, did finally bring it to the consciousness of people that this huge rise in the far right that Trump had engendered what it really meant, how violent it was really going to be, what a threat it really was. And it did motivate people to, and the aftermath in particular, unfortunately, just started to win away fairly quickly to take the streets. And it come out in big numbers and condemn the alt-right. And the fascist wing of the alt-right did collapse fairly soon afterwards by spring of the next year. Charlottesville's were interesting because people had been killed by the alt-right before it, but not in such a dramatic manner, not in public and not on video. And it was sort of like, I think, for people, and I've said this before, kind of, you remember the first murders. You remember the first blood. And in that sense, because afterwards a lot of people were killed during the Trump administration. Car attacks, I mean, I think a few dozen people were in the backlash matter demonstrations. It became almost rogue. We were like, oh, someone was killed at a demonstration again. But it was the shock of this at first, because this had not been seen for a very long time in the United States. It's someone to be murdered at a demonstration. And that really sort of stuck with people in and that way it became a symbol. You can even today still say Charlottesville, unless people are, you know, teenagers or something don't. Remember, people know what you're talking about Biden invoked it when he was running for president. So it's good. It remains as a symbol of how big the really, really far right, you know, the fascists can become quite quickly. And how violent and murderous they are. And so that remains as a symbol to people, I think. And frankly, that there can be resistance to it. Like people also saw there was real resistance and people were willing to fight them. And especially after one six like there's no more of this idiotic discourse benefits of Kate of Punch and Nazi. I really think most people do think it's okay now. You know, after they've seen what unfolded under the entire arc of Trump from Charlottesville to the Capitol takeover. If people had stayed home, if there wasn't a lot, the mobilization that did occur, oh, it would have been a total victory for them. They would have taken it as a total victory and then moved on to the next thing and tried something bigger. Absolutely. And if you held a demonstration and a thousand people came, you know, wouldn't you be any, did your thing? Wouldn't you be like, cool, like let's move on to the next thing. That was successful. Over the years, and I've done more and more activism, I come to realize what nothing succeeds as success means. Like once you start going, when something succeeds, more people come to it and you can move on and move on as a bigger thing and be able to do things you weren't able to do before. So this is why I always say we need to confront people. We have to break their movement. We can't let it jump from either success to success or just simply not a failure. Because if you're already moving and you hit something that's not a failure, you'll just go on to the next thing. Nothing will stop you and we need these things to stop. The night that Heather Hire was murdered, thousands hit the streets and cities across the United States, tearing down Confederate statues, and marching in solidarity. A few weeks later, when far-right activists tried to hold a rally in Boston, over 40,000 hit the streets to shut it down. A week later in San Francisco and Berkeley, tens of thousands marched to shut down more all-right rallies. In Berkeley, a black block of several hundred strong, marched information as part of a wider anti-racist coalition, pushing both far-right activists and heavily armed riot police out of a downtown park. Were only months before far-right activists had driven out anti-fascists. The events of the first eight months of the Trump administration showed that there was mass, militant opposition on the streets of the US against the far-right, which destabilized the Trump regime and made it backpedal. But more importantly, it showed millions of people across the country, the resistance, was possible. That is going to do it for us today. Follow IGD at it's going down.org and on Macedon at IGD underscore news. Thanks so much for tuning in. It'd be sure to come back next time, as it could happen here returns. We will continue to tread where we please, and to the fascist, no pasaran. With ever longer ingredient lists on beauty products, it's hard to tell what you're really buying. 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We are trying to give you that warning ahead of time. Discourse. Discourse. Discourse is about pod- I don't know. It could happen here! Is the podcast that you're listening to? If you came here looking for another podcast, then you fucked up in a good way because that podcast was trash. Thank you for being here with us today. Who's here? Who are you people? We're a little unsure. Yeah, I'm Mia Wong. I'm here. Wow. I'm James. I'm a little unsure about who I am beyond that, but that's who I am. It's okay. I'm Garrison Davis, and I'm here to engage in discourse. There's nothing I love more than discourse. Speaking of discourse, today we're going to be talking about well, I don't know, it's not really discourse, but today we're going to be talking about the reaction to the video of the Memphis police murdering Tyrene Nichols. In particularly, we're going to be talking about the way in which kind of the left responded to this, both online and kind of public channels and actually in the streets. Because I think there's some interesting stuff here. I think it's worth analyzing outside of the broader conversation about police violence and that sort of thing. Because I think there's some interesting tactical stuff to talk about here. And yeah, that's what we're going to be doing today. In case you've been kind of stuck under a rock, you should probably be aware that on January 7, 2023, police from the Memphis PD Scorpion unit, which was a unit with a very sinister name that existed to effectively over police, a chunk of the city of Memphis. Yeah, pulled over Tyrene Nichols, a 29-year-old black man. Tyrene was an amateur photographer. He liked skating. He had Crohn's disease. He was just driving around that night and the encounter, as we would later see on the video, went pretty much immediately violent on behalf of the police. Nichols was beaten very badly and he died in the hospital three days later. And for the first few days after the killing, obviously, this happened. The police did this and then rumors started kind of spreading in the immediate wake of the beating. But very little was known for certain about what had happened about why this had gotten escalated so quickly. One of the first signs that this was going to become a thing on the national, uh, uh, in terms of like the national attention span was when the Tennessee Bureau of investigation and the U.S. Department of Justice independently opened investigations into the beating. Um, after reviewing body camera footage from multiple officers on scene, five Memphis PD officers were dismissed on January 20, three days later, an autopsy commissioned by Tyrene's family, found extensive bleeding caused by a severe beating. Outrage around the killing grew rapidly, and it was announced by the Memphis police that body camera footage of the stop and of the beating would be released to the public. Uh, this started the rumor mill really churning up. There was kind of a couple of leaks from people who had seen the footage. I think who were close to the case. And they all sort of described it as uniquely bad. The term that I heard a lot was that it's worse than the Rodney King beating. Um, this is just the way in which people started talking about it. And as more details filtered out, there were conversations around the country, particularly folks on the activist left who started talking about the need to prepare for what they suspected would be the aftermath of the video's release. Um, and one of the things that was kind of kind of worth discussing here is that in the immediate, like, immediately before the video came out, a lot of the conversations that people on the left were having and that people in law enforcement were having kind of focused around the same expectations, uh, which was that there would be widespread protests and rioting as a result of the release of this video. Um, police departments around the country entered high alert, riot squads were prepped, um, and then kind of on the other side of things and sort of open channels on Twitter and mastodon and in person in a number of of different cases leftists and people, you know, who claim to be that online, talked about their expectations too. I heard variations of the phrase, you know, it's going to be a really hot year. This is going to like lead into a particularly aggressive summer on the ground. People are going to make the burning of that precinct in Minneapolis, look tame, you know, get your gear together, check in with your friends, everything's about to go off. Um, there was a lot of chatter kind of along those lines and I don't know. I didn't really speak up too much about this, but my kind of thinking as folks were sort of anticipating the reaction to this was I suspected that the actual reaction on a mass scale to the video's release was going to be more muted and law abiding than than people were expecting at the time. And I guess the primary reason that I felt this way was simply that kind of the vibes were off. It just didn't feel like folks were ready for that kind of a response. Um, but I do kind of have a fact-based reason for why I was anticipating that as well. Um, on January 26th, two days before the video's release, five Memphis PD officers were arrested and charged with murder, kidnapping, assault, a bevy of very serious charges. Immediately after that, three firefighters, two EMTs and a police lieutenant, who'd been on scene after the beating were fired for failing to assess and provide emergency care to Nichols on scene. And there's a couple of ways to view what happened here. I think the less optimistic one is that the state simply made a pragmatic decision to throw these guys onto the bus. That's definitely what happened. Uh, the more optimistic way to look at this is that because people had rioted so hard for so long in the wake of George Floyd's murder, the state felt like it had to throw these guys under the bus, uh, rather than, you know, risk another year of rage. And this is also correct. And I think both of these things are pretty accurate ways to look at what happened. The idea that the release of the footage of Tyree's murder would lead to massive protests was not quite universal. But I did notice that a lot of the people who felt similarly to me expressed the belief that if people didn't riot over what had happened to Tyree, that was due to a mix of liberal cowardice and racism since most of the officers who beat Tyree to death were themselves black. And I think this is kind of a short-sighted and unfair take. And I'll talk about why shortly. On January 27th of Friday, the Tyree Nichols videos were released by the Memphis Police Department. Along with a lot of you, I watched them all immediately. And you can find there's a description on my Twitter page. It's turned currently pinned to my profile of the video if you haven't seen it, but want to know what happened there. To kind of summarize it in brief, it's very ugly. Tyree is immediately calm as he's pulled over and taken from his car. The police are not calm. He attempts to deescalate them. They accuse him falsely of resisting. Then they mace him and themselves. I think in general that the inciting incident for the beating was the incompetent use of mace by these officers. They hurt themselves. They got pissed and then they beat Tyree because they were angry at themselves for macing themselves. It's also worth noting that a white officer who since been fired as well also deployed his taser on the young man. There's been some kind of this was kind of left out of a lot of the initial summaries of what had happened. That guy has now been fired. And yeah, it's bad. The video is very unpleasant and very brutal. I think the thing that struck me most was how much like a normal traffic stop a lot of this was. I think that if they had gone a little bit less hard and beaten him a little less badly and he had survived, they probably would have charged him with resisting arrest and assault on a police officer. And who knows how the case would have gone. You can hear the police preparing for this eventuality in the footage. One officer claims that Tyree went for his gun. There's no evidence of this in the footage. And you can kind of hear them all working to get their stories straight after they beat Tyree for the inevitable court case. More officers and emergency personnel arrive on scene as he's just kind of laying there. And none of them seem to find what's happened peculiar or noteworthy, which is interesting because immediately prior to the video's release, police departments around the country all issued statements that were basically identical, condemning the officers who had beaten Nichols, saying basically this behavior is unacceptable. These men are bad apples. This is like an extreme example that does not represent policing values. And there's a couple of things that are interesting about this. One of them is that the actual way in which emergency responders on scene treated the beating kind of puts the light to that because nobody acts as if anything outside of the normal has occurred. And the other thing that is noteworthy is the uniformity of these messages by police departments around the country. I have not actually seen that happen before. There was kind of a version of this that occurred in the wake of the George Floyd video, but it was much more cohesive prior to the release of the Tyree Nichols video. That said, there were no widespread riots or acts of property destruction after the video was released. There were protests in a number of cities, most notably in Memphis. But compared to 2020, things were very subdued. There was not kind of widespread property destruction or rioting in Portland, which was obviously the site of intense radical street actions in 2020. There were two fairly small marches. I'm not going to delve into this in tremendous detail, but there were kind of allegations from one of the marches that the larger and less radical of the two was an op designed to take numbers and energy away from the radical march. There were confrontations between members of both groups. And while the overall story again is not worth spending time on, the gist of it is that very little happened. Now, this is not kind of limited to Portland. Atlanta, Georgia is probably the city in the US today that's been the center of the most effective radical protests against law enforcement. And the history of attempts to stop and sabotage the construction of cop city, which is obviously a massive police training compound in Atlanta's largest urban forest has been well documented by by Garrison Davis, as well as a number of other reporters. I do think it's worth noting that days before the Nichols video was released, Atlanta police shot and killed a forest defender, Torqueguita, and a moderately large protest followed where protesters smashing windows and lighting one cop car on fire. This was the kind of action that I think most of the activists I observed expected in the wake of the Nichols video as well. But we simply didn't see that. I'm just going to put in here for a little bit and you'll yeah, you'll hear more about that riots slash protest in Atlanta. Yeah. Next week, I'm putting together a series on it that'll be out soon. But definitely one of the things that was talked about a lot in Atlanta was the upcoming release of this video and the potentiality of this video getting released shortly after the death of Torqueguita at the hands of police. Kind of both of these things feeding off each other into a similar like 2020 level uprising. And this was like no one was like for sure about this. Like no one was like saying this is absolutely definitely going to happen. But it was something that was definitely thought about. It was something that was definitely considered. I think honestly, if the video was set to come out originally on like the Monday or Tuesday following the big downtown protest in Atlanta, it was supposed to come out just a few days later. And that didn't happen. It was delayed once again for further further into the week. I think if it came out sooner, I think that could have fed off momentum in a pretty considerable way. I think a few things happened both in Atlanta that in the next few days that kind of stunted possible for the protest. National Guard was deployed. Police in Savannah were ordered to start arresting people and shutting down gatherings of over 15, specifically for like including vigils. And in Atlanta, obviously, there was people getting really pretty inflated high level felonies and domestic terrorism charges simply for being present at a protest. So I think those things kind of all in all impacted people's ability to like prepare for you know, a sequence of protests, which there was some in there was some in LA for like a day or two. The ones in Memphis were pretty big. But I think the timeline in which they released the video is definitely should be considered in terms of when they chose to release it. Yeah. In terms of like the state's goal of preventing, you know, large scale protests. But that was definitely something that was talked about a lot during during like the little over a week that I was that I was in Atlanta's because everyone was getting ready for this like everyone heard that this is going to be like the worst video that we've seen since Rodney King like that that that was the way it was. It was thought up of like on the ground, you know, just like word on most being being passed. And people were definitely like preparing for like preparing themselves for it. Like like like thinking like thinking about like what's going to happen if this is like if this really is the most horrific thing, what is the appropriate response to that? And this is kind of a lot of what I wanted to talk around because you have sort of Georgia law enforcement. There's this this riot and the response to that as well as the response for the tree set is a series of domestic terrorism charges. And then this video comes out and there's not a mass like radical street response to it. And it seems to me and garrison you can correct me if I'm wrong. The big part of that is people in Atlanta were kind of not willing to throw more lives and bodies at the police without kind of more of a cohesive plan of what to do given the severity of the repression that was being engaged in. I mean, I obviously can't comment on people's yeah, motivations or like plans for for for stuff because that's not something that I would be would be privy to. Yeah. Um, so I I don't know. There's there's there's a lot of stuff. I mean, like I think a big part of why I heard a lot about it in Atlanta was one because of friend of a lot of people who were involved in the forced in the forced offense got killed by police a few days earlier and two Memphis is only a few hours away from Atlanta. Like it's it's not it's it's it's not that far and it like a big part of the stuff in Atlanta is like solidarity with struggles that are not just in your immediate vicinity. And you could argue that Memphis really is in the immediate vicinity of Georgia. Um, but like that that type of a cross cross state solidarity is is a big part. Um, but yeah, I can I could I could not comment on on on why why people did or did not choose to do specific things. I think that that's that's up for people themselves. Yeah. I wouldn't want to put words into anyone's mouth, but it was kind of interesting because I I paid attention a lot to the reaction and there were a lot of folks talking about how disheartening it was that there were not more of the kind of radical actions that they wanted to see in the wake of the video coming out. And I'm that's kind of the thing I wanted sort of to talk most around because I feel very mixed around this. But broadly speaking, I guess I'm glad that we didn't see a repeat of the part of 2020 that was folks standing up in front of cop shops until riot police came in and getting charges against them because I just don't think that that works right now. I don't think it works is functional anymore. Um, I don't think it actually hurts the state because the the reaction like there was a period of time early in 2020 those first couple of months in particular where you can see the police were off balance obviously and like manyapolis with the burning of the third precinct was was this kind of sea change moment. Um, but you can see it in a number of cities that like they didn't really know what was going on and they were themselves concerned with how out of control the situation had gotten. And then it kind of morphed later in the year to I think a situation they could control very well where there were these acts of fairly minor property destruction and then a bunch of people would get picked up and charged. And I think that while I understand like the desire to react that way and to do something kind of very firm and and radical in response to state violence like this. I'm also like deeply concerned about people not throwing away months and years of their lives fighting charges. Yeah, I mean a big part of it is is people learning that treating protesters as disposable meat bags to throw against the wall of the state is kind of a bad idea. Um, yeah. And there's I think this is something that that that that was talked about in conversations just just like regarding like hey this video is going to come out. What do you think it's going to happen? Like there's just a lot of like casual conversations. But like there was a lot to make 2020 happened. A lot of things contributed to the intensity and the length of those protests. I think COVID being a pretty big part. This was a few months into the pandemic. People have been stuck in their homes now for a few months and not really like prepared for that. Like at this point, we're kind of we're all kind of used to being in our house a lot more now. But back then it was it was new for a lot of people. So I think the opportunity to get out of the house for what seemed like an important reason, I think was a really big part of 2020. People being out of a lot of work was a really big part of 2020 because a lot of people did did not have the types of jobs that they might have now. Did not have the jobs they had in like the months before. It's maybe because I can't really think of another example like this from history. Obviously a lot of uprisings occur when people are suddenly out of work. But this was a mix of people are suddenly out of work and they all have cash. Which contributed in a lot of ways because like that was I think what funded a lot of people bringing in food and people bringing in like pallets of water and getting gas masks and stuff as they had these sort of checks for you know as a result of like COVID relief. Which was an interesting situation as well that hasn't been replicated since. I think there's another very important factor of this that doesn't get talked about that much which is just the weather. Like if you if you if you go back and look at when the largest police like largest anti-police protests in the US have happened right they either start like late spring early fall or just the middle of the summer and the reason yeah it like then this is I think another this is this is the thing up in Chicago right was it was just really fucking cold and I mean this this affects actually circles too but it's like you can't get the critical mass of just regular people in the streets when it's like 20 fucking degrees. I think the other side of that is just summer vacation of a lot of a lot of the people who go the hardest at these protests are people in high school and during winter fall spring kids kids are in school during during summer people have people under the age of 18 have a lot more free time on their hands so I think that is another contributing factor and I think there's there's one other aspect which is it's very sinister and but I think is worth talking about in terms of how of how the state may have been trying to frame this to like to frame the release of this video to kind of like curtail the the the the the intensity of any type of like of protest revolter uprising now obviously there was like the fucked up nature of like making this feel like a world premiere of like a snuff film yeah yeah it was it was it was like a weird based on a weird aspect which I think it encouraged the video to be to be something that is consumed versus something that's actually like watched and like oh this is a fucked up thing that we that we need to do something about instead it turned it into this like element of consumption and the other aspect for this in terms of a lot of hardcore activists like like people who have thrown down in the streets before people who have who have who have seen fucked up shit that the intensity what was the violence depicted on this video was framed as being extremely horrific being being a very a very unusual a very like uncommon but but but horrifying display of violence and display of brutality by the police this is this is what police departments were bringing it as this is what the president of the United States was framing this as like this this is a case of a few of a few bad actors who who did an egregious but you know uncommon thing and I think when a lot of people who've thrown down watched this video it just reminded you of stuff that you've seen before like it did yeah they saw a thing they had seen it wasn't it was not shocking in the same way that it was getting framed as because what separates this from most of the arrests that happened in Portland during 2020 is very little like one or two punches that were that were thrown just a little bit too hard is all that separates this from most like violent police arrests like this was not an uncommon display of violence this was an ordinary an ordinary encounter that just a few things were pushed just barely over the edge and I think a lot of people watched like my first reaction was like oh like this this is not as bad is what I thought like this and that that that should be like a contamination of the police actions like that's why I think one of the most important things to watch is how the other cops who were not present for the beating but who show up immediately after or at the end because some of them did watch the others beat him how they react because they're just kind of like surprise on their showing yeah I don't even remember to them even the EMT's right who turn up oh yeah this has happened well we we do a standback when this happens yeah it's like the people on the ground were not concerned like it was not a you can you you could slowly watch because like a lot of this video was not of the actual beating it was it was of the aftermath yeah and you you could you could watch these cops slowly start to realize that maybe they went a little too hard they're just very slowly over the course of like 30 minutes but for all most of the time they're on the ground they're like making jokes they are talking about how fun like how fun it was to beat up this person that is that is amazing each other yeah that is most of the video I think it's worth noting like a couple things one like it's extremely long like I'm not in the way that the George Floyd video like fits into the attention span of stuff we consume on our telephones at a time we consume it but it's been at versus it minutes versus like an hour of footage right yeah if Tyree Nichols had just been seriously disabled have life altering injuries been charged with resisting arrest all the things that very plausibly could have happened if a couple of punches at a hand in different place this body camera footage would have been denied under the investigative exemption right that have said no we're investigating his resistance of arrest you can't you can't see it and none of this shit would have happened and like the yeah the the normal sea of so much other than the outcome I don't know that that strict some of the rage away but it it's important context I think a few things I mean and this is again one of the things that I think you can see from this that is evidence of sort of a positive long term result to and it's it's a very mixed bag when I say it's positive but that is kind of a a positive sign is that they acted so quickly to throw all of these guys they they are firing and charging a lot of city employees over this it's going to be between all of the people fired and all of the people charged more than a dozen people by the time this is all done which I can't think of another time when that has happened this quickly over an incident of police violence and they did that not because it's the right thing to do but because they were scared and get and again I do I want to emphasize here the thing that they're scared of is not that like radical left wing protesters will take to the street it's that liberals and more or less people that have been taken to the street. Yeah they know that the consequence of the cops beating someone to death is that like a someone soccerman will fucking abandon her minivan is swing a sledgehammer into your cop shop if you don't fucking do this do like give a scapegoat right like do the fair the bad minimum and so the positive the thing that I can say that is probably positive about this is that it does show there's still some fear there on their behalf the thing that's negative is that like well it it worked because I I will say on an immoral level I think a wide variety of radical actions are morally justified by what was done to tie re-nickles now that said like back to sort of the point we were making at the start of this I don't particularly urge or encourage that just because like I don't like seeing people get arrested and charged and spend years of their life fighting shit in court for the chance to like let's say carry out minor acts of property destruction on a cop shop I don't think like that sort of activism works right now it certainly doesn't work without the without the critical mass of like liberals sort of behind it without enough people saying like we again you look at like the fact that the burning of the third precinct in Minneapolis is still one of the most popular things in modern American politics but that was the product of a fairly unique moment and I just don't I see some positives in like the lingering fear of that moment but I also don't see the material conditions that make me think it something like that is coming again in the immediate future and especially because this the situation around this video demonstrates how much more effort the states putting into trying to prevent things from happening before they start like there was a lot of like interagency work put into having all of these local police departments release statements having the FBI release statements having a president yeah like having having the president release statements and it's it it is all made slightly more bizarre considering that the contents of the video are not the on the level of like uncommon or like rare rare displays of violence that the police do like this is this is this is relatively standard and that that kind of one thing I've been thinking about is like why did they choose this video like why did they why did they make this one like what were they afraid of like for this video because like other other other videos have come out in the past few years like other like other police killings have happened like this police killings all the fucking time but they they they did a lot of work on this one specifically and it it's kind it's kind of interesting that like why why they chose this specific video to to dedicate all of this work into because not not only did they like you know deny and stuff but they also they like they like hyped it up they're like you using this as like an example yeah like like using this as an example like here this is what bad cops look like watch us punish these bad cops well but I think I think I think there's a rate I think there's a huge racial aspect of this right which is that like you know like the cops who are getting prosecuted are only the black cops who are involved in this right and I and I think that's a huge part of this entire strategy I think that's why they framed this as exceptional violence is to play on people's racism right I think I think that's why I think this is allowed to happen which was that yeah you can it is it like even inside the police it is a lot easier to throw black cops under the bus and it is throw white cops under the bus that's just how the system works and it doesn't trigger that same like visceral response right that that we all had to sing the George Floyd video I don't think quite like like and there is a jaw tradition of white men doing violence to black men on behalf of the state and I think also it's it's also easier politically inside of the police departments because I think I think there would have been a lot more pushback from in like the police department like there hasn't been much that I've seen like internal pushback like from inside of police departments against I think if it had been five white cops I think there's would be a huge fight and I think you would have had like the fucking police union like calling Biden like an anti cop like whatever but I I think I think these were people who they were like we could totally see plunder the bus and it doesn't fucking matter because who cares yeah sort of guarantees and that for them I think those are I mean that's certainly like a significant aspect of why like this was the one they focused on but I also think a major aspect of it is that it shows and records the reaction of other city employees to this and you can see in real time the police putting together that yeah that story like it's it there's I think a few things about this that are are really unique but um even I don't know the it's relatively unusual to have an angle which is not like the body camera right which really I think the violence in this was was captured and depicted in a way which was more explicit than you would get for many individual cops body camera and like the fact that they most of the time when cops kill people they do it with guns right or maybe with a taser or something like that the fact that they took minutes you know don't like a several minutes to be a man to death is it is just I should we've we've said like how this isn't unusual and it's not but it doesn't mean it's not repulsive no no no it's not fucking disgusted by it's it's nightmareish yeah it's it's it's even more nightmareish considering how common this is because yes they did spend a few minutes doing this but it was really only I think one or two punches that threw it right over the edge like it wasn't just a bunch is the thing that I think one of the things that I saw that I think was probably critical and why he the baton died no it was when they tackled him his head bounced against the ground with a significant amount of force there's a number of like a perfect storm of factors right that went into making this the incident that they talked about and like this the infant that didn't start 2020 part two I guess I guess it's no one particular thing it's all these things that led to it and I do think also like we have Joe Biden as president right like a lot of the same bullshit still happening that we've covered right like we're talking about the cops talking about the border talking about all this stuff but it's not being shoved in people's faces by like legacy media outlets liberal folks have not been getting gradually angry or more upset at like the appearance of vulgarity from the White House and yeah and that's also a big aspect of why things went the way they did in 2020 is you had four years of pent up frustration on the behalf of the vote of a large group of liberals as well although I do again I don't like pushing kind of the simple narrative here because I see that on the left a lot that like oh the libs they stopped coming out because Biden won and they never really care about it and I think that like that's there's certainly like a decent chunk of people who who showed up because it was the thing to do and were not committed but I also think the folks who were just like you know people stopped coming out because they suck that's a that's a little bit of a of a reductive summary of the take but I think that that that broad idea leaves out a lot one of the things that leaves out is that a lot of those those libs and moderates who showed up in 2020 got the shit beaten out of them and got pretty traumatized and are probably would be willing to get back out again but are going to need to feel like there's a an actual chance of doing something because they understand the consequences of showing up in the street better and they're like well I don't want to do the same thing that I just got my ass kicked and there's still cops there is a decent amount of evidence that for kind of the long term positive impact of getting all those people out in the street and of the fact that so many more people in 2020 witnessed police violence with their own eyes. There's a couple of places you can go to look at this but I was I was watch going through a recent ABC news Washington Post poll that showed that from 2014 to 2023 confidence that police street black and white people equally fell from 52% where it wasn't 2014 to 39% among Americans and confidence that poll yeah and confidence that police it's certainly too high but that's a significant change and confidence that police were adequately trained to avoid use of excessive force fell from 54% to 41% and like and confidence in both of these things fell twice as fast from 2020 to 2023 as it did from 2014 to 2020 and that like 30 something percent number is just that is also just like close to like the number of people who are like active like like actively hardcore racist about 40% of the country are bigots yeah yeah I don't think the election was real think that yeah I wanted quickly mention that like some of those liberal folks as well like I don't like this is not if we don't do like shitting on the lips or whatever it's useless and it doesn't help but like a lot of those folks have been out doing other shit too like I've seen folks so I haven't seen since 2020 like trying to protect trans kids trying to stop bigots shout and get little children going to the pantomime shit like they've been doing stuff and that contributes of course to people being you know fatigue from other actions yeah a large part of what I'm seeing people not being willing to do anymore is like the same shit that they did in 2020 that stopped working right it didn't continue to be effective yeah yeah and I and I think also like and this this also you know the sunspectives like the way that like the stuff that was happening in the very very like the first week where like I don't know like the cops lost control of like the city that the center of Chicago right like that the the kind of people who did that stuff like aren't really like that the though those aren't those those that was not being done by people who are sort of like political liberals or whatever that was being done by people who like had like very various tiny very tiny was connection to politics at all under normal circumstances and you know like eventually eventually you'll get will see something like that again I don't know I mean it took like six six five or six years between like Ferguson and 2020 yeah yeah like that that will happen again but that kind of that that kind of stuff doesn't happen that like those those like the kind of people who actually write very significantly who are not in the sort of like cadre of like hardcore left work and I just like they don't throw in that often and a lot of political conditions have to like converge exactly correctly for it to happen and it's just not going to happen most of the time and that's the pressing in a lot of ways but like you like that's just that's just what reality is yeah I don't think there's been enough time between cycles in order for things to really pick up because yeah it has required a lot of people to forget the forget the brutality of what the cops did to people and like and and and and and just like material conditions and like recovering from burnout and it creates it like one thing that's been so incredible about Atlanta is the level of resiliency because they've not they've not really stopped since 2020 like they've like they've they've kind of they've they've they've kept going in a very particular way that both like encourages people to like take care of themselves and not to be treated as disposable and I think a big part of that is having like a multi-pronged movement like the movement isn't it's not built around a singular thing like going out and breaking windows or even even just like camping in the forest like the the movement isn't just those things there's a lot of other various aspects so when you're exhausted from one single thing you can move on to one of the other many aspects and like do that as like as your recovery and and have having that I think it's contributed to the level of resiliency that we've seen but I don't think the rest of the states has those types of practices like people in Portland are definitely still extremely burnt out from from 2020 Jesus and I assume a lot of a lot of other cities are dealing with similar levels of fatigue one thing I do want to address really quickly is the horseshit framing of this by legacy media again like yeah the very fucking people who like on the day that Derek Shovon went to jail retweeted that initial statement where Minneapolis PD like basically said George Floyd died of a heart attack I think we had a cardiac condition or something um the very same people who retweeted that statement said never again are we going to be calm by this shit and now out there fucking just carrying water for the cops like CNN saying that Tyre Nichols had an encounter with the police like I don't understand what it fucking takes for these people to understand like I've been like I was on NBC this year trying to persuade other NBC journalists to to maybe critically assess the claims of the police and like here we are again doing the same shit again and we should we should probably close out here soon but one kind of final thought that I've had is the other another kind of crucial difference between how this was treated as opposed to the George Floyd videos that the person who recorded the George Floyd video was like a bystander like they were just there and they posted that on their own accord and it was able to grow to it was able to grow traction over the course of a few weeks kind of slowly in like underground like in like underground communities like you know people who are much more aware of police violence and then that's the least deep down to the mainstream I think there's a difference in having that type of natural growth of people learning about like hey did you see this fucked up thing that my friends sent me of like right did you like like there's that level of like oh we found this thing that is really fucked up and people need to care about this versus the framing of the police and how they used this as like a world premiere of this like of this of this like snuff film it's like there was like a fucking countdown to to to to to to to watch the video and that that immediately frames this as something to be consumed that that immediately frames this as something like the way to engage with this is to sit down and watch it and then you're done like that that that is the way like they're they're they're framing this the same way that you would watch like a movie or like a music video drop like that is that is the style of engagement because this video is being published by the police like they are they are they are they are different from the very start they're controlling the way that information is distributed they're controlling what information is distributed it like creates this scenario where the consumption of the video itself like is the event as opposed to any type of like follow up action or protest or direct action that instead of that being like the action event the action event is just the consumption of the video based on how it was hyped up as as this thing that was to be like officially released and you like count down for it and then you watch it and you're like okay that was it that was the thing and I think that does just really impact it when it's like this like sanctioned premiere versus this thing that's spread by regular people um yeah I think you're right I think it kind of became active penance like you watch the video you say holy fuck that's disgusting and then like the thing is already done it right like the cops already fired so you just do your penance you go through the painful thing rather than the George Floyd thing which was like nothing has been done about this I've got this organically for my friend I'm fucking furious yeah yeah I think you're right I think it's very different yep all right well I think that's probably gonna do it for us today um until next time uh I don't know don't don't let your city name a police elite unit scorpion uh or or anything else uh yeah yeah you can tell this stuff yeah yeah yeah don't have special police no no no it's what if no yeah I would prefer no cops if you're going to have a special police unit maybe call it like the Barney 5 battalion or something like that um at least at least try not to hype them up to be scorpions yeah um anyway that that that that yeah yeah the fuck hi everyone it's James again bookending the episode uh and I'm just here to ask you again to donate if you have the means if you're able to uh to relief for people in Syria who are obviously experiencing terrible consequences from this earthquake the new cycle kind of moves on but people's lives don't and they still need your help so a couple of places you can donate uh the white helmets that's white helmets dot org slash EN for English Syrian American Medical Society Foundation that's S-A-M-S-S-H-A dot net uh medsonson faanthier doctors without borders um yes doctors without borders dot org and the Kurdish Requestion uh H-E-Y-V-A-S-O-R-U-K dot O-R-G those are all great places and we'd love it if you could spare your money to help people out thanks bye hey we'll be back Monday with more episodes every week from now until the heat death of the universe it could happen here is 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 day two of my exclusively adult virgin voyage i've come to discover an amazing new use for my phone shaking it to have champagne delivered to me anywhere on board tomorrow it's bubbly in the bubbles that's a nautical 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