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Hello, I'm Erica Kelly from the podcast Southern Fried True crime, and if you want to go from podcast fan to podcast host, do what I did and check out spreaker from iheart. I was working in accounting and hating it. Then after just 18 months of podcasting with Spreaker, I was able to quit my day job. Follow your podcasting dreams, let's break or handle the hosting, creation, distribution, and monetization of your podcast. Go to spreaker.com. That's spreaker.com. If you could completely remove one phrase from your vocabulary, which phrase would you choose? I don't know. Correct answer. No, I meant I don't know which phrase, and the best way to banish I don't know from your life is by cramming your brain full of stuff you should know. Join your host, Josh and Chuck on the Super Popular podcast packed with fascinating discussions on science, history, pop culture and more episodes that ask, was the lost city of Atlantis Real? I don't know. Is birth order important? I don't know. How does pizza work? Well, I do know. Bit about that see? You can know even more, because stuff you should know has over 1500 immensely interesting episodes for your brain to feast on. So what do you say? I don't want to miss the stuff you should know. Podcast you're learning already. Listen to stuff you should know on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey there, it's Ebony Monet, your Co host for the San Diego Zoo's Amazing Wildlife podcast, in this special episode. You're speaking with Doctor Jane Goodall about the fascinating journey that led to her social discoveries on chimpanzees. For four, oh, months, the chimps ran away from me. I mean, they take one look at this peculiar white ape and disappear into the vegetation. Listen to amazing wildlife on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Who? Oh Yep, that's how we start the episode. Great. That's gonna name the podcast just who to Badoo, Badoo. We can't start with O because Santa Claus was murdered at the beginning of the first episode. He was. He was murdered by Paul Shaffer, who just zoomed in to shoot him in a river with a bunch of kids watching. Paul Schaefer. The audience can't see, but I'm shaking my head disapprovingly at yes at Paul Shaffer. I don't know. But not the Paul Shaffer who had a Nazi cult in Chile. The Paul Shaffer who worked on who was Letterman's bandleader for years. Yeah, that's that's the one he he shot Santa Claus, too, in a lake. So, Margaret, Killjoy, how are you? I'm good. You good. How are you? How are you liking the Tupamaros? You know, I'm like, I keep. I'm really excited to see how it plays out. Yeah. Yeah. They're they're endearing. Yeah. Yeah. But then and then even like the fact that one of them ends up president, that's like both interest interesting in so many complicated ways that I like. I want to see. The steps that took them there? Yes, because this does not happen often. Sometimes guerrilla insurgents win their insurgency and then become the president or whatever. Sometimes guys who are like labor organizers or like leftist politicians get imprisoned by a dictatorship and then later become the president. Rarely is a guy robbing banks with a handgun and then gets democratically elected president of the country like after spending years in a in a dictatorship's prison cells. That is not a common story. You don't run into that all the time. How much did he change? I don't know. You know, that's all we're getting into. It's exciting. Yeah, I'm excited. So by 1975, the military had successfully rolled over and destroyed the Tupamaros. In 1972, when the dictatorship comes into place is when they start, like, going ******** cracking down. And by 75, everybody's dead or in prison, mostly in prison. And one of the people who was thrown in prison was our friend and a future President, Jose Mujica. He was actually captured several times. He was arrested. He was, like, imprisoned. Four separate times he broke out of prison at least once. But like the the, the thing he finally gets caught for is he's like drinking in a bar after, you know, robbing a bank or something. And a cop who's there in plainclothes recognizes him and gets a bunch of other cops and they have a huge shootout in a bar and he gets shot 6 times and survives. So again, when we say, when I when I say this guy was like ******** like you can't, you can't be much more committed than getting shot six times in a gunfight with the police. Yeah, as a revolutionary cred to bring him down, you know? No, you sell out like you certainly can't. Yeah, I got sober bullet once. Yeah, yeah, yeah, same. But this is a little bit more ******** than that. And he is one of the last two Camaros who gets captured and locked up. And by the time he gets locked up, he's fairly high, like in the organization, right? He's in again. He's kind of cause in part because he's one of the last ones to get to get captured, and so he's put in prison. For well over a decade and I'm gonna quote from a write up in the Guardian to describe like what his time in the dictatorships prison is like. The poet, novelist and playwright Mauricio Rosenoff spent 11 years in a tiny cell next to Musica. For many years, Rosenoff told me, the hostages could only communicate by tapping Morse code on their cell walls. Allowed to use the toilet just once a day, they urinated into their water bottles, allowing the sediment to settle and drinking the rest because water was also scarce. It was even worse for Mujica, whose bullet wounds had seriously damaged his guts. Solitary confinement drove them half mad. Pepe became, and that's Jose's nickname. Became convinced that a bugging. Face was hidden in the ceiling. It's imaginary static deafened him. He would put stones in his mouth to stop himself from screaming, Rosenhof, now 81, told me. Mushika fought to obtain the one item he needed most, a potty. Hostages were allowed occasional family visits, so Donna Lucy bought it, brought him one, but the guards refused to give it to him. One day, when his jailers held a party, Musica began to scream for it. The Commandant, embarrassed in front of his guests, relented. Musica clung to his sole possession, a symbol of victory over his jailers. Each time they were moved to a new Army camp, he refused to scrub it clean, Rosenhof recalled. We all have ticks left from that time. When Pepe came out, he came out with all that baggage. So he is. And some people, some sources, kind of frame him getting the toilet as like, this victory, him being able to get the one thing he could. The one like way to exert his autonomy was to force them to give him his own toilet. Some people should frame it as him, like losing his mind a little bit and just becoming obsessed with the idea of having a toilet. Both are probably true. They don't need to. Those don't need to be in conflict with each other. There's no way I think you would have to go a little crazy in specific ways to survive 14 years, which is what he spends in a prison like this, where you're tortured and beaten and starved regularly. You don't. You don't survive that by not changing at all. You know, like that is. Yeah, he does what he has to. He survives. He's imprisoned for 14 years. If you're wondering how he stayed sane during that time in his own. Words we have an interview conducted by someone from the site upside down world with Musica that sheds some light on how he claims he kept himself sane. Quote I would come up with ideas for tools I mentally invented, farm implements that would be for this or that. I calculated them, manufactured them mentally, and so kept myself entertained. I walked several miles a day more than I do today for sure. And then the journalist asked in the hole, because he's in like this, basically all dank hole. And he said, Oh yes, three steps one way, three steps the other three. Steps one way, three steps to the other until my legs hurt like that's how he. Avoids losing his mind in in this prison. It was the early 1980s when cracks finally started to form around the dictatorship. Some of the credit for this goes to the men and women on the legal left, the same people who'd formed the Frente Amplio. They continued to organize and agitate, and in 1984 people took to the streets in mass it protesting the dictatorship. And it was such a a significant number of people that the dictatorship like backs down, basically realizes like we we either are going to start killing people. Mass in the street or we're not going to have a dictatorship anymore. And if we kill people in mass in the street, I'm not sure we'll win. And so I'm not gonna gamble. I think it's kind of what happens, right? And the liberal, the, the kind of the dictatorships end is negotiated in large part by the leader of kind of the Liberal Party, Julio Sanguinetti, who helps to negotiate an end to the dictatorship. And he gets elected president next in a peaceful election. And one of his first decisions is to push for an amnesty that frees imprisoned leftist. Radicals like Musica will also providing amnesty to the military leaders who run the dictatorship. So Sanguinetti is like, we're gonna release all the Tupamaros. We're also not going to imprison the military because I think the attitude is, number one, you have to leave them. We're trying to get them to back down without mass bloodshed in the streets. So you have to leave them an exit plan. And I also think it's his ad. The attitude is like, well, if we just imprison another group of people, then maybe we'll have a cycle where a new regime. Comes and it imprisons the old regime and like that doesn't like, I don't know how much of it is like trying to give the military in out and how much of it is trying to stop a cycle of reprisals. But that's what they decide to do better than most. You know actually getting the political prisoners freed, it's better than most movements, better than most like movements. And it it's it's, I mean obviously it's controversial not prosecuting the military and actually they do start to prosecute and currently are to some extent some people who like the some of the worst people. But initially it's just like, yeah. That's amnesty, kind of for everybody involved in that whole thing. Let's try to put it behind us. Now Sanguinetti, who's kind of the first post to dictatorship president is also one of the people who blames the Tupamaros for the coming of the dictatorship. One of the Uruguayans who does his claim for this like he. One of the things he says in interview I found is that like the bullets that Mujica and the other two Camaros fired were shots against democracy because they led to the dictatorship. And he as Jose gets out of prison and gets into politics he does not like, uh, mujika. I found some quotes from him in a Guardian article and I think at least some of his issue with the two. Marcos is that he's not a leftist. For one thing. He's kind of like more maybe center left, you could say, but he's not like, I don't think he's a far leftist. And I think some of his frustration comes from the fact that when the dictatorship ends and politics starts up again, the Frente Amplio comes back and it starts siphoning votes away from the liberal Colorado party sanguinetti's party. I'm not going to spend a lot of time like digging into Uruguayan electoral politics because I don't understand them well. Again, I I cite 2 scholarly papers you can read that go into a lot of detail about Uruguay and electoral politics. I would recommend reading that if you want to know it better. But it is interesting to me that to kind of look into which groups of people had issues with the fact that Jose Mujica, when he gets into politics, was a former Tupamaros and which people didn't. Because, like Sanguinetti, this guy who to his credit, helps into the dictatorship, dislikes mujika and the Tupamaros and blames them for the coming of the dictatorship. You know who doesn't blame them? And who in fact votes for Mujika when he won, wins the Presidency? Is that the products and services that support this show? No, it's not time for that. You remember how I read that story last episode about like that guy who has a kid with his, like wheelchair bound Sister Jose, like robbed the family, threatened to murder his dad? Yeah, he votes for him for president later. He's like, yeah, we'll talk about that a little more. But he's like, yeah, I think he's, he's probably a good candidate. I'm not angry at him, which is gave me my typewriter back that says something about how polite a robber. You are if, like, later, someone votes for you to be president and imagine that being your back story, like, you know, in the United States being like, yeah, you know, when I was six, Joe Biden robbed my house at gunpoint and threatened to kill my stepdad. No. Instead, Biden does all these other crimes that are far grosser. Way grosser. Yeah. I mean, Mujica was at least front and center with whatever he was doing, you know? So we talked earlier about how the Tupamaros are characterized by how flexible they are, how good they are at pivoting from different things and not really staying locked into things that one tendency or another would require of them kind of ideologically. And they do this again. They they they don't. They they they get out of prison, or at least, you know, because some of them are just like underground hiding, but like they're able to be public again and they form a political party and join the Frente Amplio again. And so, yeah, the old Tupamaros start getting into electoral politics. And the Tupamaros who was, like, at the forefront of pushing for the party to get into electoral politics? Is Jose Mujica, right? And I'm gonna quote from the New Republic here. As the group readjusted to freedom, most of its members wanted to avoid returning to guerrilla warfare, though what course to pursue instead was unclear. Right wingers still maintained control over much of the government. Musica argued for an entry into traditional party politics and staged public forums known as Matelas Khan fabs held in village squares over calabash. Boards full of strong matte tea, he'd retained his childhood egalitarian passions, but prison had made him more philosophical and deepened his rough hewn physical allure. He rapidly developed a following among poorer workers and in the mid 90s entered Parliament. Then, in 2005, he received an appointment as Agriculture Minister. It was in that post that Mujika won national acclaim. Speaking in almost biblical terms about how government policies affected the common man for post dictatorship, Uruguay, his language was healing, a triumphant return to the country's traditional. The use of humility and shared responsibility. Mujika's biggest fight as Agriculture minister was to ensure poor Uruguayans access to assado, the traditional dish of beef rib grilled over an open fire. Unable to afford the meat, the lower classes often ate less expensive cuts off the neck. Neck is unacceptable, Mujica told a reporter. When some butchers began selling more affordable asado people lovingly nicknamed it Assado del Pepe. A 2007 poll showed that he'd become far and away the country's most liked government official, and he decided to run for president. And, like, that is such a heart. Just being like, wait, porpy? Yeah, like, this is our traditional dish that we I grew up eating, and you're telling me people are, like, eating using **** meat for it? Now that is ********* acceptable. Like, poor people deserve to eat well, too, and I'm gonna fight for that ****. Obviously people loved him. Like, yeah, where's the catch? Well, we'll talk about that. It's not perfect. Like, it's not perfect. And we, we are going to, I think, like primarily today we'll be talking about the catch and the degree to which he, I mean what is sold out or whatever. You want to talk about it like we're. Yeah. Well, I I'm excited. I'm excited to have a conversation about that with you. Yeah. So he ran for president in 2009 and he immediately made a massive impact on Uruguay's urban poor just because of the way he presented himself, not even in terms of policy yet because the policy impact part is more debatable. But he has this big impact, in fact, part because he he dresses. He's not in a suit. He's not dressing like a politician. He's not dressing like him. He refuses to wear a tie. He is often seen at public events in sandals and, like, he would wear dirty jumpers like, at first his like he had. They had to, like, kind of fight with him to get him to wear at least, like, OK, you can wear like just a shirt, but a clean one, right? Like, and he's dragging his potty around. Yeah, he's got his body with him. Yeah. He met poor people where they lived and he was particularly famous. Ask asking meaningful questions about their lives and like, do you support this policy? But like, asking like, very pointed material questions about what they had access to and how they were doing. He also ranted in his public speeches against consumerist capitalism, which she said wasted human strength on, quote, frivolities that have little to do with human happiness. Jose was elected president in 2009 and on paper his term is a left liberal wet dream. Under his presidency, Uruguay legalized gay marriage. Marijuana and abortion, which is pretty good for 40 years, right? Yeah. Yeah. And it's not like a like a great, I guess you could say it's not like the ideal abortion policy. It's legalizing, I think up to 12 weeks. But like from a point of this is a Catholic country and you can't do it. That's like a huge, that's a big, that's a that's a thing like that's worth celebrating. And also just like being down with gay rights, when you talk about that, a 60s revolutionary we will talk about. You're not guaranteed, not a guarantee. Now, these are the Cliff notes of Jose's presidency. And so you can see what like the Guardian says, it's the most radical president in the world. Now when you get into the weeds a little bit, it is less radical. Well, in some ways less radical. Saying it's certainly in some ways like it's more complicated. But I also think it's a lot more interesting if you look at like his motivations for things. Let's take gay marriage, right, his support of gay rights because a a decent critical piece on music and I've read a number will note rightly, that he should not be credited with bringing gay marriage to Uruguay. Because activists have been working for decades to get to that point, you know, which is always the case when gay marriage gets legalized, right. That's the case with Obama too. Like I don't give him credit for it other than the fact that he was the guy who decided not to fight it anymore, right. You know, I think you could gets a little more credit than I would give Obama for this maybe telling the press quote, they fit about his like gay rights, marriage rights. They those rights fit our sense of freedom and human rights. But they don't solve the basic problem, which is the difference of class. And that's what you see is like, I'm happy to legalize. Gay rights, I don't think this solves the problem, which is primarily a class problem. He'll say a lot. Like, look the issue like, it's important for people to have rights. I believe in people having freedom. But also, if you look at it, rich people were always free to be gay. This is something he says. And, yeah, like interviews, number rich people have always been able to be gay and pretty much live life the way they wanted. It's if you're, if you're a gay woman, a poor woman, you know, an indigenous gay person. Like, if you're not part of the upper class, that's when it becomes a problem. And so he sees gay rights as primarily part of the class. Struggle is the thing that he always emphasizes in his interviews. So it's interesting because he's not doing full class reductionism. No, it's actually tiny issues in he's actually doing better than a huge chunk. He really is states radical left at the moment. And it's interesting because when it comes to Jose's personal views, one Uruguayan sex health activist called him a bit cromagnon and he refers to when he refers to gay people, he calls them sexually ambivalent, which, you know, he was born in 1935. Right. Like, yeah, you could call me sexually ambivalent. Yeah. Like, it's not offensive. It's just kind of weird. And it's clear. He's just like, I don't really get this, but like, my default is that people should have more freedom. So, yeah, let's let's do it. You know, like, I think that's kind of his attitudes. Like, I don't understand this at all, but like, it's a question of rights, and people should always have more rights. Which is fine, and it is worth noting that the so before Mujika gets elected, the broad front Alexa another press the credit. There's a lot of activists, but also the last guy who was on the left vetoed this, so it's not no credit that mujika gets. Especially, I always give credit to like an old dude who clearly doesn't understand. Anything about it other than that, people are being restricted from a thing and it's like, well, that's bad. Like, yeah, there's a degree to which I just inherently respect a man who's willing to say, I'm old, I don't understand things anymore, but my default is always give people more freedom. So that's where I land on this guy. All the credit. There's a lot of activists, but also the last guy who was on the left vetoed this. So it's not no credit that Mujika gets. Especially, I always give credit to, like, an old dude who clearly doesn't understand. Anything about it other than that people are being restricted from a thing and is like, well, that's bad. Like, yeah, there's a degree to which I just inherently respect a man who's willing to say I'm old, I don't understand things anymore, but my default is always give people more freedom. So that's where I land on this. That's a really good way to approach aging and not understanding issues is just trying to be like, alright, well what about like where, where, what is? Yeah, I I think that's admirable. You know what else is admirable, Margaret? No, I have no idea the products and services that support this podcast. Umm. Very admirable. Admiration will be available from everybody. Yeah, for 995. Mint Mobile offers premium wireless starting at just 15 bucks a month. And now for the plot twist. Nope, there isn't one. Mint Mobile just has premium wireless from 15 bucks a month. 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So when it comes to how mujika talks about legalizing gay marriage, we talks about, like, how he deals with, like when people like especially like foreign journalists credit him with. This is really interesting, and I want to read a quote from him on that subject and some other things from that Guardian article, quote, all we are doing is recognizing something as old as humanity, Mujika said. The best thing is that. People can live as they want to live, and that's his like attitude to like, why did you? Which is, I think, very admirable. He sees those twice punished by poverty and intolerance as the real victims. Those who are sexually ambivalent have a real problem. If they are poor, if they are rich, they are tolerated. That sounds crude, but it's the truth as I see it, he said. And the women most discriminated against are those in poverty. Machismo hits hardest at the lowest levels. Poor girls are not well treated by our society. There are women who end up abandoned, with lots of children. For me, that is one of the most important battles. Fairness. Yeah. And and during his presidential campaign, he was caught complaining about, quote, intellectual women who think they are down trotting but who talk about their companera or cleaning lady when she is really the servant, which I love that he makes that distinction. There's like, there's a lot of rich women complaining about, like, how they're not treated equally who also have a lady who's basically their slave. Like, I don't think that's cool. Yeah, he's he's. It's hard to argue with the things he says. At least, you know. Tips? Well, you know, yeah, it goes out to a restaurant, probably. Tips. Well, we are, yeah. We're actually getting to that in a little bit. Yeah. So the fact that Pepe is a quasi anarchist militant president who legalized pot might lead you, lead you to expect that, like, he's does a lot of pot. He's never smoked marijuana. And I will believe that from a guy who legalized it, like, a lot of times it's like, OK, well, you're probably just, he's like, no, he he's fine with it being legal. He just doesn't want to do it. He he's he's heavily addicted to tobacco and he drinks. A lot. But I don't think he's he's ever smoked pot he says he hasn't but and and his he's not like pro weed culture. He just thinks Prohibition has been a failure. And there's also a big element of like why he's legalizing pot is to take money away from drug cartels because there's a major it's essentially like a cocaine derivative problem in Uruguayan slums that his government was fighting. And so he is not anti the drug war entirely. And this is I think one of the areas in which I would disagree with him because his attitude is I think we should legalize the drugs that are not. Harmful in his view to deny cartel's money and we should fight them selling what is basically crack. Which, like, I'm not pro crack. It's pretty nasty stuff, but I I don't think Prohibition works there either. Again, it's not a perfect man. But this is, I think, his attitude towards it. I'm also not an expert on Uruguay's crack cocaine problem, so I'm not gonna pontificate there either. And his attitude in general towards drug use seems to be that, at least from a user perspective, people, one of the quotes he gave is we wanna take users out of hiding and create a situation where we can say you are overdoing it. You have to deal with that. So it's a very like Scandinavian attitude towards how drugs should be treated. Which of, like, the ways Western countries deal with drug use is the most reasonable that kind of states tend to embrace. So whatever you can think about the way you do, but it's nuanced. It's not just like he's not just pro drugs, he's he is. He does support some kinds of drug war. I think the place where Jose Mujica is most impressive isn't the ways in which he actually does live. Because it's one thing to say all this stuff he really does live in concert with his values. For example, he speaks all the time about the plight of poor. Women and as president he's he made like 200 grand a year as president and he donated 90% of his salary to single mothers. And he's not getting into this as a rich guy. You know, like he's not like a millionaire becoming the president. He took enough to like live in the house that he'd occupied most of his life and gave all of the rest to like single moms, which is dope. And he had he has like some land and a bunch of old people live on it and don't pay rent. Like he's he's he's a he's a pretty like he's yeah everything about his life is very much in concert with the things that he said. Yeah, I wanna not like him. And yeah, you're making it hard. It's hard not to. Even the people who are very critical of him like him personally, it's very hard not to like. Yeah, personally, despite being tortured in prison, he seems to generally support the amnesty for the military, which I find really interesting. His attitude is that because a lot of people are very critical of this and I'm not saying it's the right or the wrong policy. Obviously people who like had friends murdered or tortured by the military will have issues with the amnesty. I think I would right Jose's attitude as someone who was hurt. As much as anybody by the military was that the men who harmed him were not doing it themselves. They were tools of a system, and that system was his actual enemy. There also seems to be beyond his ideological justifications, I think a dimension of emotional pragmatism to this attitude, as he told The Economist in an interview, I do not hate. Do you know what a luxury it is to not hate? And so I think there's an element of like, I this is the only way I can continue as I have to not hate them. Yeah. Like I have to not hate them because otherwise it would destroy me. And it's it's I'm now that I'm out of prison. I have the luxury of not hating. It's the thing that I enjoy most about freedom is I don't have to hate anymore is I think kind of what he's saying, which is pretty profound actually. I think it also, I mean it's funny because then it's like, well it's the anti carceral thing is like. You you the only defense for prison is to stop people from doing things right. And these people are no longer part of a system that is capable of doing these things, so they are no longer capable of committing the harm that they did commit. So in some ways I I don't see what would myself Speaking of the president. So I that makes sense to me. Yeah, it it totally makes sense. I could also understand other people being ******* that. I don't think I would be as good a person as him in his situation. If I'd been locked up and tortured for 14 years. I wouldn't want to be as good a person as he is, yeah. But yeah, some Catholic in there, after all. And it's interesting because there's a number of like, there's one interview I found with him where he talks about how not all the guards were terrible. A number of them would, like, smuggle in food for us or like gifts for us or like things to like, make us more comfortable. So as much as the torture was a part of like, the I, I blame, like most of the crimes on the system, but I recognized that the people in it were also humans. And, like, I wouldn't wanna just, like, paint them all with one brush. He's very nuanced when he talks about this stuff in a way that is impressive for someone who suffered so much under that. Regime. You really get a sense of how different he is from like a normal politician when you read articles by journalists who actually meet with him. This passage from the Guardian is emblematic of the whole. Mujika emerged from his tiny house dressed in a fawn fleece and Gray trousers, with sandals over socked feet, the fleeces and improvement which can be credited to his 2009 campaign team, who weaned him off tattered jumpers. Age has made his features both more pinched around the eyes and fleshier around the edges. His thick shock of graying hair was neatly brushed, another habit he acquired while running for president. Manuela A3 Legged mutt hopped gamely along the one story house lies half hidden by greenery, its corrugated metal roof resting on pillars. On a narrow cement walkway full of dusty crates and jars, winter rain highlighted the patchy plaster work. Mind the mud, the president warned by way of greeting. The narrow, elongated front room contains a cheap office chair and desk bookshelves, a small table with two uncomfortable wood backed chairs, a roaring log stove, and an ancient, immaculately restored Peugeot bicycle. I've had that bicycle for 60 years, he said, proudly recalling his days as an amateur racer. Mike, my God, Musika could live in the presidential palace. 100 year old mansion in the old Money Prado district, but he would rather be here. We think of it as a way of fighting for our personal freedom, he said. If you complicate your life too much in the material sense, a big part of your time goes to tending that. That's why we still Live Today as we did 40 years ago, in the same neighborhood, with the same people, in the same things. You don't stop being a common man just because you are president. I think he might be incorrect about that. And yeah, the ability to exert power, he's too nice. But yeah, yeah. But I appreciate the like, yeah. Well, and one of the one of the criticisms we're getting to like the critiques of him by the left, but one is that he's he's bad at using power. He's too much of and that's part like he makes a lot of compromises with the neoliberals and with like the Conservatives and especially in economic stuff because he's not very authoritarian. Like, he's not good at that. Like that's one of the really. Trenchant criticisms of his time as president is he's like, actually bad at forcing his way into things. He's too much of like a little too much of an anarchist. When foreign journalists interviewed Pepe about his past as a freedom fighter, he refuses to apologize for the violence that he took part in. Mujika even expresses scorn for what he calls beatific pacifism and added. The only things I regret are those I could have done but didn't. Just like incredible flex. I wish I'd rob more, wish I'd robbed another couple of banks. You know, it's not too late. It's not too late, Jose. No one's gonna stop you at this point. In part one, I told you the story of two kids Mujika held up at gunpoint while he was threatening to murder their dad, and again, the young kid he held up. Manise told the Guardian that he voted for Mujika, saying I might be expected to feel better about him, but he's the only one who practices what he preaches. Yeah, just like, yeah, you robbed me at gunpoint and tried to kill my stepdad, but he's an honest man, you know? I mean, it's it, is it? It's almost to just actually exert that power as compared to like, hiding behind this or that institution. Yeah, he never, like, had goons do **** for him. He was out there. Now, given that Jose Mujica has not in fact destroyed the state or the system he railed against as a young man, you will not be surprised to hear that his largest detractors and the most trenchant criticism against him. Comes from the left and the left is to critique him. Have a lot of very fair points. I found a New Republic article by a journalist who travelled to Uruguay and talked with left wing organizers, political leaders, journalists and came up with a very critical article. His was kind of in response to the Guardian saying the most radical presidency, this New Republic journey is like, well, let's go see how radical it really is. And the radicals in Uruguay says not at all. They all kind of seem to agree that he's a very nice man. Nobody seems to believe that he's like lying and like hiding his like life as a rich person. But that that didn't make him an effective president. They point out that most of the things that he was elected to do did not happen. He pushed for a massive educational expansion that would include a flood of new technical universities for poor kids. But actually making that happen meant ramming laws through the still very splintered and gridlocked Congress and mujika, as a political outsider and is not good at being authoritarian, was unable to do that. He did succeed in getting laptops for, like, Uruguayan schoolchildren, which is like one of the big things there. His administration would brag about but test scores, I think mostly still continued declining during this. The issues that the Uruguayan public school system had had had didn't he didn't fix the problem, even though that was like the main thing he harped on in his campaign, and I'm going to quote from the New Republic here. The story was the same on other policy fronts. Mujika wanted Uruguay's public railway utility to operate under private sector rules to boost efficiency. Nothing happened. He tried to pass a new tax on the big land owners to help the poor, but failed to ensure that the legislation. To be constitutional, the Uruguayan Supreme Court struck it down. If he had taken the opportunity to consult more specialists in law, he wouldn't have failed, said Garces, the political scientist. But Mujika isn't too worried about the legal aspects of things. One morning over coffee, I spoke to a former Mujika staffer named Conrado Ramos, a budget wonk who looks like a sad Hugh Grant. He had been in charge of an effort to reform the Uruguayan public sector, Mujika said he would make it a priority, Ramos recalled. But that was part of the problem mujika's pan enthusiasm placed. Everything, and consequently nothing, at the top of his agenda. From time to time, Pepe would wheel unannounced into Ramos's office and get excited, unfurling beautiful language about the big changes needed. But he doesn't know how to plan. Mujika appointed as Ramos's boss, the disinterested son of a former 2 Camaro, and appeared to forget the issue. After several fruitless years, Ramos quit in frustration, embarrassing the administration. And again, it's like, I think it's a mix of he's probably a little ADHD and maybe a little too much of an anarchist to be good at making things work in a system. Well, it's like it's in in its way, it's it's almost, it's brilliant critique of state and state power because finally everyone's like, if you had the right person in charge and like, so you finally have the right person. This is it doesn't get writer as presidents go. It doesn't get writer, yeah. And he can't do anything. I mean, he could do he does things like not being, but by not being the right person anymore would be the ways that he would. So it's like this kind of interesting this is what you all claim we need to do is get the no and it the system bicycle riding guy. Anyway, yeah, it's the it's the like, everybody loves. Like, I think one of the things that endears a lot of people to Bernie Sanders, you see a picture of him in his house and he's got like, the chair with crap stacked on it, which you never see a politician have. And it's like, oh, he's a human being. He's at least a person. And maybe if a person was President, things would be better. And some things are, I think, the, I think the left, and especially this New Republic article goes too hard against him. For one thing, it's interesting. I've talked a lot about what the kind of liberal and centrist sources leave out when they're reporting on this. The New Republic, as they're critiquing him and we're gonna read more critiques, doesn't note that, like, unemployment dropped by half under him and maybe that's maybe they're being fair that, like, well, that was there was an economic boom. You know, he doesn't get credit for like, like everything. There's every time there's good stuff that happens, it's like, well, but he shouldn't get credit for that or this. But it's like, well, I think you're going a little far here, but still there. They have other trenchant critiques that I'm gonna continue to read. So the progressives and leftists interviewed by the New Republic have two main arguments mujika accomplished few of his actual policy. Goals and while he both lived very consistently to his values and he said wonderful things about anti consumerism, the horrors of capitalism, he didn't stop them and he didn't try to stop them. In particular the article quotes a journalist, Mauricio Rabou Fetti. I agree with absolutely everything Mujica has to say about materialism, he told me. I believe in equality and consumerism are damaging to society. It was exciting and fascinating to me then, that this man became our President, but he has done nothing, he later added. He's always saying he's a fighter, he's a fighter, so his failure is something that's very hard to understand and hard to forgive. And they could trick him by pointing out like how much how many more designers stores there are in Montevideo, how much the fact that inequality has grown, and the fact that people are increasingly obsessed with like. Western like consumerist things, electronics and all this stuff. And like, he didn't stop that and it's like, yeah, he didn't. How could he have like, like, that is right. Because it is like, yes, it is fair to say it's frustrating that this guy maybe didn't destroy the system when he talked about how the system clearly didn't need to keep existing, but also like. What was he supposed to do? And and this is, I think one of the things, if you're going to be really fair, you have to note he was elected president at age 74 after 14 years in prison and getting shot 6 times. And I kind of think part of his attitude is like, yeah, there's a bunch of **** ****** ** **** that I'm not going to be able to fix or do anything about. And I will talk about it as if it's bad and then I will engage with the system because I am too old to be a gorilla and I'm going to try to help people and you can feel about that the way you want, you know? It's a compromise for sure. And and it's a compromise. Made by a man who did uncompromising things for a very long time. And yeah, and I'm like, like I said, not in a good place to lay any judgment on decisions that this man makes. I think we can analyze it while saying, like, I I would be willing to bet that virtually no one could go through what he did and not have his outcome be the best case scenario. Yeah. Like that that's kind of where I land on this. And for where it what it's worth mujika addresses the the the fact that, like, yeah, he didn't destroy. Yeah, he didn't stop consumerism. He had. He talks about that a lot. He talks about the the he's he, like very openly in interviews, will address kind of the inconsistencies with his beliefs and what he's doing as president. And I'm going to quote from that Guardian article again, quote the man who inspired by Guevara, once blew up factories owned by foreigners, now offers them tax breaks. I need capitalism to work because I have to levy taxes to attend to the serious problems we have, trying to overcome it all too abruptly condemns the people you are fighting to suffering so that instead of more. Red, you have less bread and he's like, he's he talks about like, you know, because he's like, he's been in a bunch of photos with Hugo Chavez and stuff and he's like, but also Venezuela system doesn't work very well. Yeah. And I don't think the US system works very well either. I'm just trying to like, I'm not, I was not elected to overthrow the government and destroy the the system as it exists and build a new one. And I'm too old and tired to do it. So I'm just trying to help people have more bread because I feel like that's all I can do. Not all the Tupamaros have accompanied Muzika on his journey to soft, pragmatic socialism. They left their ideals and their prison cells, the former hostage George Zavalza proclaimed recently. Some old companeros won't understand, Mujika said. They don't see our battle against people's everyday problems, that life is not a utopia. And that's interest. So there are former Tupamaros who are like, you, you ******* you, you sold out, you know, like, yeah, we were we were supposed to overthrow the state and you became part of it. And you are willingly working with the capitalist, working with the Conservatives. And like, that was never the plan. And Majika's response is and that's that is a fair criticism. That is what happened, right? You can morally land wherever you want on that. That is objectively what happened. And mujika, I guess moral defense is like, yeah, that's true. And I get. Why you you're angry. But I can. I think I can help people. And we're not living in a utopian situation, so I'm going to, I'm gonna plow the **** you know? I think that's kind of his attitude. And again, there's a number of ways to feel about that. I'm not going to tell you how to feel about that. I don't know how I entirely feel like it's a complicated issue, but he's not, he's not denying the inconsistencies. He's not pretending that he's the same. He is acknowledging like, yeah, I kind of sold out because I thought I could do these good things and I I do. You have to respect that to some extent, I think. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's it's a. OK, I can see it. It's like it's one of those things where it's like, I I don't. I don't imagine that's like, what I would hope for someone, right? Yeah. But I I can see it. And it's a lot more interesting to me than the people who sell out by, I don't know, just entirely abandoning their values. Yeah. Like the Christian cinema where you're landing in black bloc at the WTO protests in 2008 and then, yeah, voting for austerity with Joe Manchin. Yeah. Yeah, he doesn't. He doesn't do that. The perfect and you know who else doesn't vote with Joe Manchin? Oh, oh, gosh. Some of the products and services that. So I was gonna say, can you really verify this? Yeah. Some of the products and services supporting our broadcast do not vote alongside Joe Manchin. And that's about as good as you're going to get, guys. Look, come on, let's not a utopia. It's a real person. I thought Joe Manchin was like Joe the plumber. Joe who lives in a mansion, it took me. Joe Manchin was very funny, Margaret. That's it is funny that like one of the men repeatedly holding back any attempts to address inequality in the United States is you you could you could call him Joe Manchin. That is kind of funny. I didn't think about that. All right. Mint Mobile offers premium wireless starting at just 15 bucks a month. And now for the plot twist. Nope, there isn't one. Mint Mobile just has premium wireless from 15 bucks a month. There's no trapping you into a two year contract. You're opening the build to find all these nuts fees. 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So by now we imagine that you've seen the theories on tick tock. You maybe even heard the rumors, your friends and loved ones. But are any of the stories about government conspiracies and cover ups actually true? The answer is surprisingly or unsurprisingly, yes. For more than a decade, we here at stuff they don't want you to know have been seeking answers to these questions, sometimes their answers that people would rather us not explore. Now we're sharing this research with you for the first time ever in a book format, you can pre-order stuff they don't want you to know now. It's the new book from us, the creators of the podcast and video series. You can turn back now or read the stuff they don't want you to know. Available for pre-order now, it's stuff you should read books.com or wherever you find your favorite books. Ohh, we're back. So continuing because we have actually a bit more kind of grinding through the different sides of how to look at this man to get through. I think he's fascinating and I think what he represents is fascinating. And I think it's incredibly important for leftists, especially leftists who like dream of some sort of revolution, to engage with the Tupamaros and Mujika and the journey that they went on. I think that's there's tremendous. Tremendously important to at least try to understand it and come to your own conclusions about it, because it's not a common situation and I think very worth studying as a result of that. I'm going to quote read another quote from a little bit later in that same article. Globalization's glaring failure, Mujika said, is a lack of political oversight. It is bad because it is only governed by the market. It has no politics or government. National governments are only worried about their next next elections. But there are a series of global problems that no one deals with. That does not mean capitalism has won outright. I don't think it inevitable that the world should live in capitalism, he told me. That is the same as not believing in man. And man is an animal with many defects but also with many startling capabilities is interesting. OK, yeah. That New Republic article critical of Mujika saves its most, most trenchant criticism of the man for a passage in which it lays out the achievements of his predecessor Vasquez, who also followed Mujica. So you can't do, you can't do one term after the other as President Vasquez is the president before Mujika and the president after. I'm going to read a quote about him and I think the New Republic, I don't know. The Catholic leftist? Yeah, the Catholic leftist. I don't know. Generally, I'm not super up on the New Republic. I think they're a little bit more. State socialist kind of authority driven than I am my impression, yeah, but I I'm not trying to. Yeah, you you get that in this quote because they're they are critiquing. And for the things that we've laid out and some you can read that it's a good article. You should read it. I don't agree with everything in it, but it's a good article. And they contrast his failure to overcome a lot of gridlock with this guy Vasquez quote. In fact, there is a politician in Uruguay who accomplished some of the same kinds of goals people hoped Muzika could tackle. His name is Tabare Vasquez, an oncologist. He preceded Mujika as president and will succeed him again come March. In 2005, he inaugurated. First left wing government since the country's dictatorship, and took great strides towards restoring the Uruguayan social safety net, rebooting Bazis national healthcare system, expanding welfare, and making Uruguay the First Nation in the world to fully implement the one laptop per child program. He managed the these successes, thanks to a political persona as authoritarian and charmless as musicas, were gaily anarchic and alluring, with a rough of silver hair, Basset Hound eyes, and a smile just on the wrong side of lascivious Vasquez exudes the unsettling aura of a Mr. Rogers. Impersonator who performs in ****. He rarely consults others on political decisions and projects. Arrogance in his certitude. Faced with the same constraints all modern presidents faced with their power, he just goes around them. When Vasquez decided to ban smoking in public buildings, something that was really important for him as an oncologist, rabou fetti, the journalist, said he didn't involve Congress at 1st. Instead, he used Uruguay's version of an executive order. The unilateral move prompted a flurry of outrage about personal liberties, and the Uruguayan legislature could have subsequently overturned. But ultimately, the public policy established a new status quo that its opponents decided they didn't want to waste time and political capital to fight. So again. It's some, you know, I think there's that that's that's that's again not you can think about that whatever you want. I think it was probably factually a broadly accurate statement. Then I get wiped. I get why that is a criticism and it it's probably, it's worth saying that like yes, an authoritarian as President will get more done than a guy who's kind of more egalitarian and consensus driven, you know yeah obviously and there's good things about that and bad things about that in part because like. I, you know, maybe this guy Vasquez, the executive order use and stuff that sets a precedent that could be bad when the Conservatives get back into power and they got back into power in 2020. So, like, you know, it's never none of this is I I simple. You know, it's also worth noting that, like, this article doesn't note that Vasquez vetoed a gay marriage bill and that that was something that happened because Pepe wasn't because he's an authoritarian. And also, yeah, he believes that he should be able to do what he wants. Yeah. And like, you know, it's like. I don't want my government to dump me, you know, like, but it's all, I think maybe if you want to engage with it, even a little more nuanced. And again, this is just something, maybe this is partially the case that, like, if you're trying to change society, maybe it helps to have people who are broadly politically aligned and have an authoritarian and then a guy who's not authoritarian and kind of, like, so that you're not trending too hard in that direction. And you can then, like, Pepe is better at building social consensus. I don't know, maybe that's accurate. Maybe that's not. It strikes me there's a benefit from Vasquez going to Pepe afterwards, like, certainly within the the matter of gay rights and some other issues, because it's more of the mind ratcheting system. Yeah. And in the US we have a right word ratchet system where the Republicans push things to the right and the Democrats don't do **** and then repeat. And then I could, I could see. Yeah, I don't know. I don't think anyone does know I but I think like that's something to maybe consider it doesn't it doesn't seem to be worse than the way things have been going in the United States. No. Like if I'm comparing it to my government. This sounds alright. You know by comparison this this like method of things is like, well that that's OK you know. Right. I wouldn't. I would have probably. I would definitely have more critiques where I living in Montevideo. But that's always the case. Yeah. And I, I will note that like in fairness to the author of that New Republic piece, in addition to being coming down very much on these sort of critical of Pepe Vasquez was a better president. He also does some work in this article that I don't think a lesser journalist would have done in his position because he actually went and spent a lot of time in like cripplingly poor neighborhoods in Uruguay. After talking to these like leftist and again the the guys that we've been quoting from so far, these journalists and these like, I think they're mostly like middle class. Kinda and and upper like leftist sort of thought leaders. And he also spends time among the very poor. And what they tell this guy is very different from what kind of the activists he talked to told him quote. Of course he understands us better, Almiron said, blinking perplexedly, as if my question itself, whether Mujika had been good for the poor, was not even worth asking. She'd received me in a dark but startlingly pretty anti room in the shack she'd built its floorboards mere planks over the slums, off liquid Earth. Eagerly, she showed me paintings she'd done on the shacks walls, stylized fairy images reminiscent of Tinker Bell and the new wardrobe and table in her bedroom. The wardrobe she'd recently been given through a work for housing program sponsored by MUJIKA'S. Government the table she'd subsequently made on her own, she gave Mujika credit for both interventions. Living in elective poverty himself, he appreciates the importance of something seemingly as simple as a clean place to keep one's clothes. Once Mujika had come to visit the neighborhood and seen Almaron. Shaq? He asked. He'd asked her a question that had stuck with her ever since, affecting how she thought of herself and her five boys and girls. Does every child of yours have a mattress of his own? Almaron had never considered this. She works at a slaughterhouse. That has barely enough to get by, but, she explained, Mushika thinks every kid has the right to privacy with his own fantasies, she had started saving for those beds. The policymakers and opinion setters I'd spoken to had been so sportingly certain that Mujika's presidency had failed. Uruguay's poor, and four teachers I spoke with who work with them directly believe the opposite. I spent a couple of days touring lower income schools and neighborhoods, and the view of Mushika I encountered was as different as the view of a city from the street level versus looking down. Rheumatoid skyscraper everyone, without exception, believed Mujika had improved their lives. Seeing a man who looked like them and lived like them, who even invited them to barbecues at his commune, occupying the Land's highest office, had made them feel human again. By noticing them, by speaking to them rather than about them, Mujika had reincarnated them. We are a poor people, Al Moran told me with a note of defiance. But we are people at the end of the day. Yeah, **** yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm pretty pro this guy. Yeah, yeah, no, I I I mean, it's interesting because yeah, most of the critiques coming from the left are, oh, you're not good enough that use a wielding institutional power. And his whole thing is seems to be a little bit like that's not the thing he's trying to accomplish is wielding institutional power. That's. It's ******* interesting. It's very interesting. And I really recommend some of the the studies and articles that I've I've attached to this. Like, he's a fascinating person and like what his journey says about, yeah, everything about like radical politics is I think really important to to understand. And I also should note he took a bunch of people from Guantanamo Bay and like like welcomed them into Uruguay so that they wouldn't have to be in Guantanamo. Anymore, because there were people who, like, didn't have a state that was willing to take them. And then he went on a long rant about US torture and how, like, these people have, like, you destroyed these people for nothing and, like, this is ****** ** and wasn't just, like, talking about how bad Guantanamo was. Like, yeah, of course my country will take some of these people. Bring them here. I killed Dan the strangler, of course. Yeah, I killed Dan the strangler. Of course I'm gonna take prisoners from Guantanamo. Do you know me? Yeah. Again, that's the thing. Like, again, I and I I hope nothing we've come across. And talking about the criticism of him is dismissive of those criticisms. I don't agree with all of them. And I think the thing that is most admirable about him is that, number one, he never pretends to be perfect or entirely ideologically consistent, and neither were the Tupamaros, you know? But he's like, he is pretty ideologically consistent, like he's not just going to talk about the plight of single mothers, he's gonna give them all of his money. He's not just going to talk about how Guantanamo's bad. He's going to make his country take people from Guantanamo and and and rehome them. He's he's a he's pretty good at that kind of ****. Yeah. He follows his ethical guidelines instead of ideological guidelines. And that's kind of interesting to me. Yeah. And I've read some quotes about the Tupamaros now because, like, especially in 2020, like, a more Conservative government was elected, there's a lot of, like, uncertainty about what's gonna happen to the education system. Like, I'm not getting into that as much as, like, I'm I've just got up to speed on, like, the broad strokes of Uruguay and political history. I don't wanna, like, pretend to be any kind of an expert, but I've read some quotes about the Tupamaros where it's like, yes, they're in politics now. They also still have guns. And they're like. It's like they're they're flexible, like they're ready to go, but if they have to, they'll go back and like, do the thing that they were doing. Like, you know, they they're not. They're they're they're never like, we're 100% for electoralism just like when they were terrorists. They're not they weren't 100% for terrorism. Like, they're real good at kind of flowing and making ethical exceptions and stuff, which I think makes them very interesting to me. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's. Yeah, I had no idea what to expect with any of this. So this is yeah, I think it's broadly. Again, Raguay still has plenty of problems. This is a an ongoing story, yeah, but I think the sweep why this is a Christmas non ******** episode is the sweep of this history is. A pretty inspiring may not be exactly the right word, but like hopeful. Yeah, because it's it's actually slow work to change society. And people think it's slow work, like seize power and then excuse the fact that you've taken power. Yeah, same. Of course it's takes forever. We have to hold on to power, but instead they're like slow work of like, just. Trying to be good in all of the situations that you put yourself into and and realizing that what it means to be good by your own standards might change depending on sometimes it means there's you know, sometimes it means robbing people, some yes. Sometimes it may mean assassinating a CIA torture. Sometimes it may mean giving documents you stole to a prosecutor who you trust agrees with you on that single issue, at least. You know, like. That's what they did, yeah, and it's. It's a it's complicated again, like, you you should feel about this however you feel about this, but maybe think about it because it's it's there's some stuff in here that's worth thinking about. Like, yeah, I think for the left trying to find its way at this present point in time, where things are very scattered and fragmented in ugly, sharp ways, and there's a lot of ideological infighting at a time when we're all kind of staring extermination in the face. These are probably some people. You look at and be like, well, maybe we should learn some stuff from them, right? Not. Not that you should ever just say whole hog. These guys were perfect and we'll do exactly what they did. But like, let's let's maybe learn some lessons here, because I think there are some lessons here, right? Yeah. Well, one of the lessons is no one ever knows whether or not violent revolution is going to make things better or worse, it seems, including including both mass huge uprisings and, like, targeted assassinations. It's a total crapshoot. Complete ******* roll of the dice and anyone who pretends. Otherwise, is probably dangerously unhinged. Yeah, rightly, yeah. Like anyone who pretends this will obviously happen if we do, this is a is a lunatic and you should be scared of them. You know, but yeah. I don't know, cool, dude. I think who's saying Mookie as as an individual person, he's like my favorite of our people since probably, uh, Wallenberg. Because he's just, he's very, yeah, he's very caring to all of the people around him and I think that's good. He's authentic. That's a nice man. Yeah. And my God, do I love the idea of a president who bicycles to work wearing socks and sandals. And it's like, and I I want to be around authentic people more than I even specifically want to be around people who agree with everything that I'm. Yeah. You. Because then you can actually model your decisions based on, well, I expect this person to be morally consistent to their own values. Not to my values, but to their values. Yeah. You know, like. Yeah, no, that's. Talk. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Alright, well, that's that's behind the ********. Have a Merry Christmas. Have a happy New Year. Of. Dancing tet. I don't. I don't know enough about Tet, but have a good one of that too. If if you're in Vietnam, you know, have have a good whatever holiday is your next holiday that you're looking forward to enjoy it. Yep. No wait **** I forgot to ask you to plug your plugable smart crit. You got any pluggable to plug? Yeah, you can find me on the Internet. I'm on Twitter at Magpie. Killjoy. I'm on Instagram at Margaret Killjoy, and I have a a new book that's actually an old book re released called a Country Ghost that just came out that answers the question of, well, presents. One of the many, many different answers to the question of what could a society without authority look like and how could it function? And but more than that, it's actually just a story about going to go fight people and fun plot things and adventure. Excellent, yeah, and it it is great and also a good companion to this piece. Because this is, I mean, this actually happened, but it is kind of one way of imagining what happens when anarchists get some of their way. Bits of it, pieces of it. I don't know. Doorbell just rang. Ohh OK well you go do that and everybody else go home. You're drunk. Hi. Hello, I'm Erica Kelly from the podcast Southern Fried True crime, and if you want to go from podcast fan to podcast host, do what I did and check out spreaker from iheart. I was working in accounting and hating it. Then after just 18 months of podcasting with Spreaker, I was able to quit my day job. Follow your podcasting dreams. Let's break your handle the hosting, creation, distribution, and monetization of your podcast. Go to spreaker.com. That's SP. RE aker.com wanna say I don't know less? Listen to stuff you should know more. Join host Josh and Chuck on the podcast packed with fascinating discussions about science, history, pop culture, and more episodes. Dive into topics like was the lost city of Atlantis Real? And how does pizza work? Say goodbye to I don't know, because after listening to stuff you should know you will listen to stuff you should know on the iHeartRadio. Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey there, it's Ebony Monet, your Co host for the San Diego Zoo's Amazing Wildlife podcast. In this special episode, we're speaking with Doctor Jane Goodall about the fascinating journey that led to her impactful behavioral discoveries on chimpanzees. It wasn't until one of the chimpanzees began to lose his fear of me, but I began to really make discoveries that actually shook the scientific world. Life on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.