It Could Happen Here Weekly 191

All of this week's episodes of It Could Happen Here put together in one large file. - Humanity, the Good feat. Andrew - Humanity, the Bad feat. Andrew - What Bombing Means for Freedom In Iran - What Does the PKK's Disarmament Mean - Executive Disorder: White House Weekly #25 You can now listen to all Cool Zone Media shows, 100% ad-free through the Cooler Zone Media subscription, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. So, open your Apple Podcasts app, search for “Cooler Zone Media” and subscribe today! http://apple.co/coolerzone Sources/Links: Humanity, the Good & the Bad, feat. Andrew Humankind by Rutger Bregman A Paradise Built In Hell by Rebecca Solnit What Bombing Means for Freedom In Iran https://hengaw.net/en https://www.iranhr.net/en/ https://www.instagram.com/kurdistanipeopleii Executive Disorder: White House Weekly #25 https://www.gofundme.com/f/urgent-help-for-bukets-asylum-case https://www.the-independent.com/bulletin/news/trump-uncle-unabomber-pennsylvania-speech-b2789762.html https://www.mediamatters.org/charlie-kirk/charlie-kirk-im-done-talking-about-epstein-time-being-im-gonna-trust-my-friends https://x.com/WIRED/status/1945207066634657854 https://cw39.com/crime/former-us-marine-corps-reservist-charged-in-texas-immigration-detention-center-shooting/ https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/federal-court-blocks-trump-birthright-citizenship-order-certifies-nationwide-class-protecting-all-impacted-babies https://x.com/jeremyphoward/status/1943444549696917714 https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c628d9mre3go https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c628d9mre3go https://strangematters.coop/supply-chain-theory-of-inflation/ https://x.com/TriciaOhio/status/1945274627976200206 https://www.facebook.com/TimesofEswatini/ https://thedawn.com.ss/2025/07/10/govt-places-8-u-s-deportees-behind-bars-in-juba/ https://www.politico.com/news/2025/07/11/homan-says-white-house-hopes-to-forge-more-third-country-deals-in-wake-of-south-sudan-deportations-00448137 https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/blog/legislators-immigration-reform-reintroduced-dignidad-act/ https://archive.ph/DdUIR https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/15/politics/department-of-education-trump-dismantle-explainer https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/14/politics/supreme-court-firings-education https://www.politico.com/news/2025/07/16/trump-tariffs-small-countries-00456401 https://www.ft.com/content/65b1fb44-6391-4f74-82db-2d7eb6aaafa9 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jul/16/trump-brazil-tariffs-ultimatum-backfires-bolsonaro-lula https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/15/economy/trump-says-trade-deal-with-indonesia https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2025/jul/15/spokane-ice-protesters-including-stuckart-arrested/ See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human. Honestly?

• 0:05Speaker 01

  Honestly?

• 0:05Speaker 00

  Honestly, no one wants to think about HIV, but there are things that everyone can do to help prevent it. Things like PrEP. PrEP stands for Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis, and it means routinely taking prescription medicine before you're exposed to HIV to help reduce your chances of getting it. PrEP can be about 99% effective when taken as prescribed. It doesn't protect against other STIs, though, so be sure to use condoms and other healthy sex practices. Ask a healthcare provider about all your prevention options and visit findoutaboutprep.com to learn more. Sponsored by Gilead.

• 0:34Speaker 02

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• 1:05Speaker 03

  I turned off news altogether. I hate to say it, but I don't trust much of anything.

• 1:12Speaker 00

  It's the rage bait?

• 1:15Speaker 04

  It feels like it's trying to divide people.

• 1:19Speaker 05

  We got clear facts. Maybe we can calm down a little.

• 1:24Speaker 06

  NBC News brings you clear reporting. Let's meet at the facts. Let's move forward from there. NBC News, reporting for America.

• 1:35Speaker 07

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• 2:06Speaker 04

  Call Zone Media.

• 2:08Robert Evans?

  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.

• 2:32Speaker 09

  Hello and welcome to Krapin here. I'm joined once again by

• 2:37Speaker 05

  Yara Davis. Hello.

• 2:38Speaker 09

  Hello, hello. And recently I was reading through a photo book called Humans by Brandon Stanton. It features interviews of people on the streets all over the world. He started off and he kind of became well known online for the Humans of New York series. I'm not sure if you've heard of that?

• 2:58Speaker 05

  Yeah, I think so.

• 2:59Speaker 09

  Yeah, yeah. So he did that for a while and he ended up traveling to other parts of the world and doing basically the same thing, just interviewing people on the street, getting their insights, hearing their struggles, hearing their story. And when I saw the book in the library, I just, I picked it up or decided to read it through. And it's really profound in a sense. And you get a sense of the spectrum of humanity, of what people are going through, of the highs and lows of the human experience. I mean, it can make you laugh on one page and make you cry for the next page. And seeing that variety of humanity reminded me of another book that I read and finished recently, which is called

• 3:39Speaker 09

  Humankind: A Hopeful History by Radha Bhagwan. A friend of mine had given it to me because he said it had changed his whole view on the world. And so I wanted to talk about some of the concepts that I picked up in that book, like the origins and critiques of Vaneer theory, why most people are actually pretty decent, and the problems with some of the narratives of our wickedness. And the next episode, I want to get into some of the reasons why people do bad and what we can do about it.

• 4:10Speaker 05

  Sounds exciting, because there is a lot of bad right now.

• 4:16Speaker 09

  There is. There is. I mean, as we're on that topic, I mean, what would you say is the most common perspective you hear on humanity, on human nature?

• 4:26Speaker 05

  Ah, I don't know, like, there's, there's this clash between like this like liberal humanist version and then this like Christian moralist version, I guess, like in the States right now. But that's been going on for decades, if not centuries.

• 4:42Speaker 09

  By liberal humanists and Christian, I mean, I think I get a sense of what the Christian moralist version is, right? That we are all sinful, destined for hell, needs salvation, that, that version of the story?

• 4:54Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, more or less.

• 4:56Speaker 09

  And the liberal humanist perspective is?

• 5:00Speaker 05

  I mean, I don't know, like, this, this, this forever search for like what human rights are and like human decency. So we come up with like governments and rules uh to actually like govern over our morals as a democratic process that continues to evolve over the course of like hundreds of years. We're like, you know, on, on the moral arc of the universe, just not fully, you know, there yet.

• 5:24Speaker 09

  Yeah, I've, I've heard that perspective. I think most commonly a decent in my space is I tend to hear the, you know, people are wicked, people are sinful in religious cases, or people are violent, people are selfish. And that kind of in that similar liberal vein where we have these systems in place to kind of check our worst impulses uh to kind of keep us regulated and to keep society functioning. And Bregman opens his book by discussing the idea of civilization being a thin mask that covers our true savage instincts. He calls it the Vanea theory. Uh, and he spends the rest of the book basically pointing out all the different errors in that judgment.

• 6:08Speaker 09

  I mean, he doesn't claim that we're all good, good people, happy-go-lucky saints or anything like that. But he does say that for the most part, most people are pretty decent. And I know that clashes with what a lot of people are accustomed to hearing. Um, and there are some very notable exceptions. But despite the efforts of elites to paint some purported different picture, there's actually a lot more leaning towards our decent, if not good, nature than the contrary.

• 6:43Speaker 09

  But of course, these kind of conversations, who I said to go back to the debate between Thomas Hobbes and Jean Jacques Rousseau, we can't escape these guys. Hobbes, of course, had the perspective in Leviathan, which was written in sixteen fifty one, that in the absence of a strong central authority, human beings would live in a condition of perpetual war with every man against every other man, a war of all against all, as he would have put it. To him, people are naturally self-interested and driven by the desire for power and survival. So without laws or a sovereign to keep them in check, individuals would act purely on their own instincts, leading to a constant conflict over resources, safety and dominance.

• 7:27Speaker 09

  Life in this state of nature would be solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short. A couple of years later, a couple of decades later, Rousseau was writing in the Discourse on the Origin and Basis of Inequality Among Men, and he basically flipped Hobbes' view on its head. He believed that humans in the state of nature were peaceful, cooperative and guided by basic needs and compassion, and that it was a development of hierarchies and institutions that had led to inequality, jealousy and competition, which is a corrupted human nature. In his words, man is born free and everywhere he is in chains. Do you take a side in this debate, by the way?

• 8:12Speaker 05

  Er, not to be the centrist option, but I don't know, I think, I think both these things play into each other. I, I definitely don't believe in the idea that like, the state is the only thing that reigns people in and stops them from doing a moral acts, right? It's the same thing as like, without, without God or without the Bible, then everyone would just be like raping and murdering and meanwhile, actual Christians obviously rape and murder all the time anyway. But like, no, like this, this idea isn't the only thing that, that keeps you from becoming this like, you know, savage, like, like inhuman monster. People can be morally good without this, this like religious notion, and I think in some

• 8:55Speaker 05

  ways, the state can also operate as a religious notion to these people where, you know, the police is the only thing that's keeping you from becoming this like horrible monster who just hurts everyone around you. But I also have my sympathies to the like alternate side of that, and I can see there's a great deal of. Oppression and horrific violence that can only happen at scale under the organization of a state. So I I will pick the the annoying centrist option.

• 9:24Speaker 09

  Yeah, I know that there are a lot of people who have the sense that, you know, the the state and the law is all that's standing between us and the purge or Mad Max or something like that.

• 9:33Speaker 05

  Sure, exactly.

• 9:34Speaker 09

  So, yeah, I don't think that Hobbes's overgeneralization of human nature as inherently violent and selfish holds up when you look at the diversity of human experience and human societies. I mean, that's not to say that violence and conflict were absent in a world without states. But, you know, context matters, resources, environment, group size, all those things would have played roles. I don't think that we should be accepting Rousseau's romantic light either. So I guess I'm in the centrist camp with you. Uh, the truth does seem to lie somewhere in that middle ground, that human nature is flexible and then it's shaped by social, ecological and historical contexts.

• 10:26Speaker 09

  Of course, getting in the weeds of humanity's origins is stimulating as an exercise, but there's only so much we can know about the past for certain. What we can't know for certain is the present. And what we've seen in the present is that when disaster strikes, people have tended to help each other. In Hurricane Katrina in two thousand and five, the official response was famously criticized for being slow and disorganized. And yet, despite media attempts to paint these people as looters and thugs and all these different things, community members, neighbors, volunteers, all stepped up to rescue people, to mobilize food, shelter and basic aid, to expropriate where necessary

• 11:10Speaker 09

  to get people what they needed, well, long before federal agencies got on the scene. Similarly, in a more recent occurrence, after the Cranfield Tower fire in the UK in two thousand and seventeen. The official Charles had failed the people of that tower. Many died as a result. Regulations that were supposed to protect people were not enforced or were absent. And yet it was community members who sprang into action to provide water and shelter and food and clothes and emotional support. Even when the twin towers fell on September 11th, 2001. And this is an example that, uh, Breckman actually spent some time talking about.

• 11:53Speaker 09

  People actually helped people descend the stairwells in an orderly fashion. You know, they would say, you know, after you going down the stairs. Uh, and passersby would go in and help others to evacuate and assist the wounded long before the emergency services arrived. So people acted and prioritized helping others, even in a disaster scenario. And yet, what do we see in dystopian fiction, in apocalyptic fiction? You see people just like driving around shooting guns in the air. You see the purge, you see the mad masks, you see the zombie apocalypse scenarios. In Rebecca Solnit's book, A Paradise Built in Hell.

• 12:35Speaker 09

  She found that disasters peeled back the layers of society and revealed the empathy, cooperation and care at humanity's core. She noted that when disaster strikes is when people most often reveal their better natures. And yet those negative narratives tend to have more sway in the popular imagination.

• 12:53Speaker 05

  No, and this is like so true. I remember in 2020, during the wildfires on the west coast. The anarchist response was to set up these like giant like mutual aid centers where people fleeing from the fire. You know, like, not like other anarchists, just like regular people fleeing from the fire could get necessities and figure out housing. Uh, meanwhile, right wing militias were setting up checkpoints, monitoring to make sure Antifa wasn't, you know. Like raiding people's homes as they were fleeing from the fires. Like, these were the two options. You had, you had, you had anarchists actually helping the people who were, who were fleeing from this horrific fire. And setting up like massive, massive. Like aid distribution centers.

• 13:36Speaker 05

  Meanwhile, right wing militias were pulling people over at gunpoint, making sure Antifa wasn't up to any shenanigans. And similar stuff happened last year during Hurricane Helene on the east coast, where you had a whole bunch of like southeast anarchists in the Appalachians do mutual aid disaster response. Meanwhile, right wing militias were spreading rumors about like FEMA fraud and all of all of this crazy stuff, not actually helping anybody, but it was anarchists doing a large, a large amount of the actual like water distribution and like medical assistance on the ground as the federal response was delayed and insufficient.

• 14:16Speaker 09

  Yeah, I mean, I was aware of the anarchist efforts during these disasters, but I wasn't, I didn't know about that situation with the right wing militias setting up checkpoints. That's not shocking, but still wild, you know?

• 14:29Speaker 05

  Yeah, no, it's so funny because those are the people, you know, claiming that, you know, without the government, we would have the purge, anarchists would just go around doing all kinds of crazy crimes. And yet when things actually happen, their attempts to like deputize them as like their own police force actually creates those conditions. Meanwhile, anarchists are the ones actually helping people.

• 14:49Speaker 09

  Exactly, exactly. And yet, despite these situations, these, these things happening again and again, we still have these popular narratives. You don't know the narrative I see referenced all the time? Lord of the Flies.

• 15:03Speaker 05

  Yes, of course, of course.

• 15:06Speaker 09

  All the time, right? It's basically become a cultural shorthand for the idea that people are just savage at heart, that this veneer of civilization is the only thing keeping us in check. I mean, these days I do see people joking that it's because those were British boys.

• 15:21Speaker 05

  So true, actually, so true.

• 15:25Speaker 09

  But while I get the joke, I think it's also important to remember that it's like, people are taking this work of fiction as if it's an anthropological study.

• 15:34Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 15:34Speaker 09

  When it's just something that a guy made up as an analogy for, you know, the situation during World War Two.

• 15:41Speaker 05

  I think it's also good to remember that the British are people too. I have a British coworker, so you know, we have to, we have to show them a little bit of human, human dignity.

• 15:51Speaker 09

  Exactly, exactly. People embrace this story because it confirms what they want to believe in this climate of cynicism. But Bregman actually tells a story in the book about a true instance of when a shipwreck of young boys occurred. Of course, they weren't, they weren't British boys. Um, they were Tongan boys, as in from the country of Tonga. So in nineteen sixty-five, six Tongan boys were stranded on a remote island for over a year. And rather than descending into violence, they survived through cooperation. You know, they built a garden, they shared duties, they didn't do any human sacrifices. You know, they created a rotor system to get things done.

• 16:33Speaker 09

  They resolved conflicts and people were in conflict, they would go on timeout, they would put each other on timeout and go on opposite sides of the island. Until, you know, cooler heads prevailed. They figured out ways to deal with their conflicts, to organize themselves without authority, um, and without chaos. But the problem is that these fictional narratives become so powerful instead of the real ones, that they have a similar effect to the placebo effect. In fact, it's the placebo effect's evil twin, the no-seebo effect. Now, I'd heard about the placebo effect before, and I'm sure you have as well, but for those who don't know, it's basically where someone's health actually improves

• 17:12Speaker 09

  after receiving what's basically a dummy treatment, like a sugar pill or a fake surgery or a saline injection. The body heals itself because the mind of the person believes it's being healed. The mind turns that trust into medicine. And I mean, that's just, that's amazing to me even now. And they'll quite understand how it works yet, but it's still really cool. But there's another dimension to the placebo effect that I hadn't heard about before. But it makes intuitive sense, I suppose. It's called the no-seebo effect. And Bregman is the one who introduced me to that concept. So the no see way effect is where instead of belief healing you, it's belief that makes you sick.

• 17:54Speaker 09

  So people experience real pain, real symptoms and even real illness, not because there's an actual physical cause, but because in their minds they expect to be harmed. So their minds turn that fear of harm into actual harm and injury. And there was one case study that he used where a child had drunk a coke and thought it was poisoned and then just created this mass hysteria almost with dozens of children in hospitals with headaches and nausea and panic attacks because they drank coke, to the point where Coca Cola actually had to recall all of those drinks, even though tests had shown that there was nothing in the drinks were making people sick.

• 18:35Speaker 09

  But their bodies still responded as if there was, because they believed, they heard the story, they heard about it, they saw what happened to others and they believed it would happen to them. And that's the no see way effect in action. Right, so we get the concept.

• 18:59Speaker 09

  So Breckman actually stretched these concepts beyond the field of medicine and he basically made the point that what if these concepts are baked into how we view each other, you know, so what if our belief that people are selfish and cruel and violent by nature actually makes it so? You know, if you expect the worst from people, you'll act on that, you know, you might be colder or more defensive or more likely to punish or preempt betrayal. And what happens as a result is that, you know, people pick up on that energy, they respond in kind, they withdraw, they retaliate, and then that cycle ends up feeding itself. And so the belief, that negative belief becomes a social reality, a self fulfilling prophecy.

• 19:42Speaker 09

  So we end up building institutions that are based on that cynical expectation. We design policies that are based around punishment. We train ourselves to see strangers as threats rather than as neighbours. And then when we have a fallout, as when that prophecy is fulfilled by our own actions, we can then say, well, see, I was, I was right, you know, people are awful. But what we don't see is that our expectations and the systems we build around those expectations are part of what ends up making it that way. I think a easy example to point to is with prison, right? People expect criminals to act like animals, to act like monsters, to beasts.

• 20:24Speaker 09

  And so they create prisons, and in those prisons, treat them like animals, monsters and beasts. And people respond to that, you know, you you treat people like animals, they're going to behave like animals. So then the question that Bregman poses is what happens if we decide to treat people like they're good? You know, trusting their intentions, leaning into care and building our systems around the assumption that most people are decent. So how do we make that leap? I said before that, you know, we don't really necessarily need to go into the past to see how people behave in the present. But it's a good idea to get a sense of how we evolved, right? Um. A lot of people have a brutal perception of human evolution.

• 21:08Speaker 09

  You know, they draw comparisons between us and chimpanzees. Or, you know, they they they make a see, first of all, ignoring bonobos entirely. And also ignoring the fact that we are our own species with our own evolutionary history. You know, people have a very cynical and honestly insulting like view of like the cavemen of our past. But our histories are actually pretty soft. Um. In fact, Bregman argues in favor of something called self-domestication theory. Which has a little bit of anthropological and evolutionary biological backing. And so the basic claim of this theory is that the reason Homo sapiens survived and other ancient humans didn't.

• 21:50Speaker 09

  Isn't because we were the strongest or the smartest or the most cunning. But because we were friendlier, that we evolved to be more social, cooperative, playful and trusting. Self-domestication theorists basically compare humans as puppies to the other homo species as wolves. That we domesticated ourselves to become less aggressive, our faces softened, our bodies became less robust. And our openness and friendliness allowed us to build relationships, to build groups, to raise children communally and to survive. And so if we accept that theory, we acknowledge that and build that into our foundation that we did evolve our capacity to be kind.

• 22:31Speaker 09

  That it is something that is within our humanity, that it's not a fragile gloss over savagery. Or a morality that's given to us by religion or law. Then we can basically become who we're capable of becoming. You know, we can create systems that allow us to develop that. And this sounds really optimistic, this sounds really happy-go-lucky and woo-woo. And we are gonna get into some of the darker chapters of our humanity in the next episode. But I wanted to wrap this one up by unpacking the death of Catherine Kitty Genovius in nineteen sixty-four. It's another example that Breckman refers to in his book.

• 23:12Speaker 09

  And it's one of the classic case studies that was used for a long time to illustrate the apathy and cold heartness of humanity. Because the New York Times, which as we all know is a reputable and trustworthy institution. The New York Times claimed that she was stabbed in the street while thirty-eight neighbors looked on and did nothing. Right? This was the quintessential story that was used to say, you know, look at that bystander effect, humans just don't care. You know, it was used as an example of of of apathy, of urban decay, of everything wrong with us. But the story was wrong. The reporters built up this story and it was wrong.

• 23:54Speaker 09

  I mean, yes, she was murdered, but people did try to help. Some had called the police, but this was in a time before nine-one-one, so it was you had to call like the local station and then the response process was a bit slow. One neighbor actually rushed out and held her as she died. Held her in in their arms. So the press spun this story as like some bleak tale. And the funeral psychology ate it up because it was part of a trend at the time to create this perception of humanity. But the real story was a lot more Karen, a lot more human. I mean, it was messy. And somebody still murdered her.

• 24:37Speaker 09

  But this this idea of the bystander effect has been so inflated. A lot of the key studies that have been used as examples of them. Have been chipped away at over time. And that's one of the like main stories that has been pretty thoroughly debunked at this point. So I like where Breigmans been going, but we've glossed over the dark side, you know, the shadow of our humanity. You know, even he acknowledges in this book that we do bad stuff as well. So the next episode, we are gonna wade into that, but how are you feeling about humanity so far?

• 25:13Speaker 05

  I think I actually do have an underlying optimism like beneath how I move around in the world, which is, which is kind of odd considering the sort of stuff I do for work. But, but it is, it is true. And I think part of that is what just keeps me going. I don't know, like I, yeah, I've, I've, I've certainly been around my fair share of like doomers and nihilists uh over the years. And at the very least, those people don't seem to be very happy. Um, and don't seem to be enjoying life. And sometimes it's hard to enjoy life, absolutely. But I, I think, I think you need to be able to find a place for yourself within a world that has like

• 25:53Speaker 05

  evil as a almost inherent component and find your way either through that, sometimes around that, but oftentimes through it. And I think that's, I mean, that's, that's just been a part of like growing up. We're certainly growing up in like a weird time, but I, I think that's kind of always been true. Like that's, that was, that was true a hundred years ago. So I, I don't know, I, part of me, and maybe this is just overly optimistic, but, but part of me continues to resist being a doomer, uh despite all of the bad news that is trying to infiltrate my brain at all times, which is, which is a very profitable industry, right? I mean, that's somewhat kind of what this show is, right? It, it kind of does play into those instincts.

• 26:37Speaker 09

  For sure.

• 26:38Speaker 05

  Which is, which is something that like we critique amongst ourselves often. And, and we try to always find that balance as well, but, but yeah, like the doom cycle is like a, is a, is a, is a huge industry. There's, there's people that absolutely want you to always be panicking all the time.

• 26:53Speaker 09

  Yeah.

• 26:53Speaker 05

  And that drives consumer choices, that drives ad revenue, right?

• 26:57Speaker 09

  I mean, Breigmans puts forward a very compelling argument in the book, actually, that the news is a public health asset.

• 27:05Speaker 05

  Totally, yeah, no, like absolutely. And like, I have to keep up with the news all the time. And I don't think it affects me that much anymore. And certainly in, you know, doing a daily news show, we try to be very selective in the things that we cover. We don't cover everything all the time. We try to cover the things that like our hosts feel is both like within their wheelhouse and that people who listen to the show should know about, right? Certain things that you might not be hearing about in like a mainstream news. Uh huh. But, but no, the news has a massive, I think, spiritual evil to it as well. There is, there is a sinister undercurrent to like the news like as like an industry. Indeed.

• 27:47Speaker 05

  And that's something that we are also always like butting up against. Well, on that, on that optimistic note. Yeah, until next time. Well, power to all the people. Peace.

• 28:17Speaker 00

  Honestly?

• 28:17Speaker 01

  Honestly?

• 28:18Speaker 00

  Honestly, no one wants to think about HIV, but there are things that everyone can do to help prevent it. Things like PrEP. PrEP stands for pre-exposure prophylaxis, and it means routinely taking prescription medicine before you're exposed to HIV to help reduce your chances of getting it. PrEP can be about 99% effective when taken as prescribed. It doesn't protect against other STIs, though, so be sure to use condoms and other healthy sex practices. Ask a healthcare provider about all your prevention options and visit findoutaboutprep.com to learn more. Sponsored by Gilead.

• 28:47Speaker 10

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• 29:15Speaker 07

  This January, bare-knuckle fighting championship takes over the ocean. The inaugural Brew's Cruise sails from Miami to the Bahamas aboard the Norwegian Jewel. Three straight days with pool decked bare-knuckle fights in the Caribbean. Mess of parties, beach events, DJs, cigars, tequila tastings and non-stop action. The lineup reveals coming soon. Cabins are disappearing fast and the prices won't stay this low. Reserve your spot with just $200 down at B K F S E A dot com.

• 29:51Speaker 09

  Hello and welcome to Kedapun here. Last episode, I was joined by

• 29:56Speaker 05

  Yerison Davis, hello.

• 29:57Speaker 09

  Addie's here again because we're gonna get more into what we spoke about last time. Last episode, we painted a hopeful account of humanity's nature, courtesy of my reading of Rutger Bregman's Humankind: A Hopeful History. So I probably fed into the anarchist utopian narrative a bit with that previous episode, but the truth is that I'm not really being optimistic and being realistic. But realism has been confused with cynicism for so long that even acknowledging both sides of the coin can be seen as overly utopian. People can be bad and we'll get into the why. But for whatever reason, they are bad.

• 30:38Speaker 09

  That is why, as anarchists have consistently argued, nobody should have authority. Now, there will always be outliers and this explanation I'm about to share is not gonna get into every unique case of badness. But we are gonna get into some of the reasons that people do bad and what we can do about it. As I said last episode, we took issue with this idea of civilization as a thin veneer. And we put forward the premise that humans are mostly pretty decent. In fact, I didn't mention it last episode, but we don't even really like to kill each other, contrary to popular belief. Bregman actually shares that in World War II,

• 31:20Speaker 09

  studies show that many soldiers didn't shoot their weapons, even in combat. Trained soldiers had a difficult time actually pulling the trigger and killing people. There are exceptions, as I said before, but in a lot of cases, it's very difficult for people to actually kill. Military strategies ended up changing once authorities realized this. And the training programs of soldiers was redesigned to overcome this resistance. But that reluctance to killing does also indicate that it takes some effort to overcome our general decency toward each other, because most people, again, most not all, are not natural born killers. So again, how do we do bad?

• 32:04Speaker 09

  You know, all sorts of atrocities have been carried out by humans, both in ancient and modern times. What do you think is the cause?

• 32:11Speaker 05

  Self-preservation in some way, either physical or psychological. I'm not, I'm not an anthropologist, I'm not a sociologist. Most of my experiences with people is both queer people and then looking at Nazis and like political extremists. So it's maybe not the best sample size for the general population. I think I tend to exist kind of on the perimeter of most human experience. But I, but I probably some form of either psychological or physical self-preservation in my experience slash opinion.

• 32:45Speaker 09

  That's interesting. I didn't think of it. I, I think it, it comes close to what Breckman ends up getting into. But I think self-preservation, well, we'll get into that in, in a bit. You know, it's, it's difficult to square that with just how brutal some of these disasters have been. You know, these atrocities that have taken place around the world, organized systemic industrial cruelty. You know, things like the Holocaust.

• 33:14Speaker 05

  Totally. It's interesting because I think it's two paradoxical instincts that play off each other. There's this self-preservation and there's also, I, I believe in, I think a some version of the death drive. And I think those can, can interact in really odd ways, but I.

• 33:30Speaker 09

  The death drive?

• 33:31Speaker 05

  Yeah, like specifically like fascism and like, you know, you can see this in like the genocides of the 20th century and 21st centuries like specifically. But no, like fascism as like a political embodying of of the death drive. Which is, I think, also an aspect. I think these things exist together in parallel while being paradoxical. And that's what produces a lot of the incongruity around things like fascism. Right? It is. It is like an inherently paradoxical system.

• 34:01Speaker 09

  When you say self preservation, are you just talking about the individual level? Or are you saying like, community self preservation as well?

• 34:09Speaker 05

  Both, both, but also, I think, not even just physical, but also like psychological, like being able to like, continue, being able to continue existing as yourself, either within a group of people or just you as an individual, like psychological things that you that you need to do to make yourself feel like you're in community, or that you are safe, or that you have meaning, or that you have purpose, as well as the physical aspects.

• 34:29Speaker 09

  And you're saying that lends itself to atrocity?

• 34:32Speaker 05

  I think it can, yeah.

• 34:34Speaker 09

  Yeah, yeah. Well, that actually is strikingly close to what Bregman ends up uncovering.

• 34:39Speaker 05

  Look at the reasons that people will talk about for like, why the genocide in Gaza is like necessary, right? It is. It is playing off both of those impulses.

• 34:48Speaker 09

  Yeah, yeah. I mean, all sorts of genocides. When you hear the descriptions of them, and this is what you hear of the people who perpetuated them, what their explanations or justifications were, you know, from the Holocaust to Rwanda to Palestine.

• 35:03Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 35:04Speaker 09

  To Myanmar, you know.

• 35:05Speaker 05

  Totally.

• 35:06Speaker 09

  Is deeply evil. That's something we can look away from it. It really is difficult to square with the most humans a decent thesis. When you look at how some of these societies, even the ordinary people, for example, the citizen population of Israel even, the civilian population, even they are like disturbingly genocidal in their rhetoric.

• 35:28Speaker 09

  And so, you know, it's like, how do we reach that point? How do we get there? How does an ordinary human baby grow into that?

• 35:35Speaker 05

  It can happen to you. It can happen very easily, and I think it can happen in a short time span. And you can get out of it, I think. Maybe not just as easily, but you can get out of it also in a fast time span. I think it's like the you are not immune to propaganda idea. You can look at like in Nazi Germany, Robert has talked about quote unquote, the little Nazis.

• 35:54Speaker 09

  Uh huh.

• 35:54Speaker 05

  The regular Germans who ended up participating in becoming Nazis. And you are not immune from that. And that can happen as a response to a whole bunch of traumatic impulses as well. Whereas I think people now even use like politics just to, you're like this like idea of politics as permission to be like an overtly cruel person to other people, either like in your life or online, right? You will, you will use, use various political topics and that gives you permission to unleash unmitigated hostility against people that you now perceive as being like immoral or you perceive as being like ontological enemies.

• 36:33Speaker 09

  Exactly, exactly. I mean, there were particular studies that were undertaken in the 20th century that are often used to sort of explain that, you know, after the fall of Nazi Germany and that post World War II era, people were seeking explanations for atrocity. And so the next experiments were done and are now pointed to as explanations for how this could have taken place. You know, so one particular experiment that's really well known is the Stanford Prison Experiment, right? This idea that you take random students and give them a position of power and they become sadistic gods. You know, it proves just how thin the veneer of civilization really is or really the evil that civilization could empower.

• 37:18Speaker 09

  But at least for that particular experiment. The reality was never so straightforward. You know, the guards were literally coached.

• 37:25Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 37:26Speaker 09

  And encouraged to be cruel. You know, they were actually put in on performances. The prisoners were also expected to perform. So rather than being like an actual scientific experiment, it was more like guided theater.

• 37:40Speaker 05

  I mean, it inadvertently becomes an interesting experiment in like humans' desire to like please authority, right?

• 37:47Speaker 09

  Exactly, exactly.

• 37:49Speaker 05

  To like perform to the expectations of the people who are actually running this experiment. And how capable you are of of of falling into these roles under like under that paradigm.

• 38:00Speaker 09

  Exactly. I mean, you see that in Nazi Germany as well. A lot of the people were doing things to please the Fuhrer. You know, like they they didn't necessarily know. Or there there was a lot of wiggle room, from what I've read, to interpret the Fuhrer's wishes.

• 38:15Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 38:15Speaker 09

  As people who wanted to rank up and rise up in the in the organization. But interpret things in a way that they would presume would please Hitler and his desires.

• 38:29Speaker 05

  Moving towards the Fuhrer, yeah.

• 38:30Speaker 09

  Exactly, exactly. That's the that's the name of the phenomenon.

• 38:44Speaker 09

  So I mean, when when this sound for prison experiment, when people tried to recreate the experiment for television, even it made for pretty boring TV. Because it was bad science in the first place. Um, it's not something that people do naturally. It's it's what they do when they are pushed, when they are prodded, you know, and certain expectations are set up. It's kind of similar with this other famous experiment that that Bregerman talks about, which is the Stanley Milgram's obedience experiment. Where volunteers were told to administer increasingly painful electric shocks to a stranger just because a guy in a lab coat told them to. Just like another instance of, you know, we do these things just to please authority, even to the point of murder. Because, you know, the the dial of the electric shock.

• 39:28Speaker 09

  Was deadly after a certain point and you could hear the screams of the of the victim. Of course, they were fake screams, but you know, the participants could hear them. But what Breigmund ended up uncovering is that most of the participants weren't following the orders blindly. They were following the orders, yes, but they were doing it because they believed that they were doing something good. Something good for the good of science. That even though the shocks were uncomfortable, that it wasn't something they want to do. There was a noble sacrifice in the name of progress. Even so, the participants weren't in their front, you know, they were distressed, they were shaking, they were sweating, they were begging to check on the learner. But they also said things like, he agreed to be in the experiment, you know, or this will help science, right?

• 40:12Speaker 09

  Or I don't want to do this, but I have to. The man in the lab coat who was telling them to continue, please continue, please continue. He was calm, he was professional. And also even how the the nudges that he used were framed made a difference. So if he he was directly ordering them and telling them, you have to do this. Surprisingly, people would actually be more likely to resist a direct order framed in that way for such an experiment. But a more subtle nudge is like, no, what, you know, science, the the experiment requires this, you know, the experiment needs to do this. A little more subtle, it tended to get people to continue. And the people who were interviewed who did take it up to those higher voices, they said they did it because they believed they were contributing to scientific development.

• 40:57Speaker 09

  So it's really this misguided belief in a higher cause that also contributes to atrocity. It's very easy to get this idea that, oh, you know, that those are just monstrous people. You know, we have this idea in pop culture that these the Nazis are like cartoonish monsters. Are they are monstrous, but they are monstrous people. You know, they are, at the end of the day, people who do evil with the belief that they are doing good. To varying extents, I know that there were some who, you know, recanted or who knew what they were doing wrong, but they had other pressures that were pushing them in that direction, right? Um, there are many explanations for evil's behavior and all sorts of situations.

• 41:39Speaker 09

  For a lot of the people, they thought that they were contributing to the right thing. It's not that they didn't care, but that they were taught to care in the wrong direction. The bad guys don't think that they're bad guys. And whether we're talking about the Nazis of the past or the Zionists of today, they construct these elaborate narratives to frame themselves as the righteous ones. You know, as far as the Nazis are concerned, they are purging Germany of a serious threat to their world at the end. And the safety of their and their future and all that stuff. Right, Zionists today, you ask them, even if they're pariahs of the world at this point, you ask them why they believe that this must continue and they will say, you know, we have to defend ourselves. We have a right to defend ourselves, yada, yada, yada.

• 42:24Speaker 09

  There are true believers within these groups, you know, who are able to commit some of the worst acts. Committed ideologues who boast of their trustees, who express no remorse, who take pride in their rule. And people reach that point of ideology through a process of radicalization. You know, we look at the ten stages of genocide, I think, is the framework people have used before to point out how a segment of a population can become a target of genocide. It's not like one day you wake up and it's just like, oh, we're going to genocide this group of people. It's a process. You know, first you start off with classification, you create a separate group of people, a separate category of person.

• 43:07Speaker 09

  You make them signify themselves in some way, carry ID cards or some kind of insignia on their clothing or whatever. They begin to face discrimination of some kind. The discrimination, you know, is ramped up through dehumanizing language. You compare them to vermin, to rodents, to disease. And that's just the thing, and we're going to get to that. But part of how you get people who would otherwise be caring or compassionate about their fellow human is through distance, right? So the people who were who are most bloodthirsty tend to be very far from the front lines. You know, people who are demanding that World War One continue, for example, they were very far from the actual fighting

• 43:51Speaker 09

  versus at the actual front lines of World War One. You had soldiers playing football together during Christmas. That's a separate story, but. You create distance, you either create physical distance, or you create psychological distance. And dehumanization is one of the ways you create psychological distance. You distance people from seeing their fellow human being as a human being. Segregation is another way of creating that distance, which then lends itself to dehumanization. Uh, comparing people to women, to animals, to anything other than human as another step in humanization and getting people to separate themselves from those people. And they create specific groups, the next stage, they create specific groups and organizations to enforce discriminatory policies.

• 44:36Speaker 09

  You further broadcast propaganda to polarize population. And then while steps seven, eight, nine, and 10 go from actually preparing the removal, relocation of people to the persecution, the extermination of the group, and finally the denial that such a crime ever could. So that process, it can take years, it can take decades, but it's something that can turn even the most regular person into virulent proponents of genocide. If they are not fastidious in their opposition to any such language, especially in the early stages. Because they get fed this steady stream of propaganda of how their actions are justified.

• 45:22Speaker 09

  Their loyalty to their in-group becomes tested by their willingness to engage in those harmful actions. They stay with that group, they'll do whatever, their tool is good, even if it leads to other people being hurt. And it just creates an evil. But it's an ordinary evil, it's an evil that is convinced of its virtue, that is wrapped up in ideology and social conformity. Because, you know, humans are social creatures and it drives us to cooperate. But that sociality can be narrowed down to test our in-group. And that's where Breckman actually gets into an interesting point about empathy. All right, because we tend to see empathy as a positive thing, and it can be. But as Breckman notes, drawn from psychologist Paul Bloom's work.

• 46:04Speaker 09

  Empathy can also make us partial, irrational, and even cruel. Because it can narrow our focus to those people who are like us and ignore others. That's why soldiers can fight and kill other people because they feel empathy for their in-group. Their homeland citizens or their comrades in arms. Their loyalty and affection for the people they care about supersedes the lives of the people that they don't care about. Now, of course, when I look at systems and we're talking about this because I don't think that this hijacking of empathy is inevitable. You know, nationalism, propaganda, these things play a role in how people end up being separated in this way. And in its in-groups and out-groups.

• 46:47Speaker 09

  But you know, there is also indications that in-group and out-group separation can occur even in the absence of a state. So it is something we have to be continuously vigilant of.

• 47:08Speaker 09

  Another aspect of a systemic analysis or approach is looking at how our position within society also shapes. How we operate, how we treat people, how we think and how we act. Breckman cites neuroscience research that demonstrates how authority literally changes how we think. Powerful people become less empathetic and are more likely to see others as tools rather than independent people. You know, this is not new information per se, you know, the environments that powerful people are in both shapes them and are shaped by them. The saying has long gone that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

• 47:50Speaker 09

  And spaces like Silicon Valley, like Wall Street, like Washington DC, like corporate boardrooms and all the other upper echelons of government. They divorce rulers and authorities from ordinary people, their insular spaces. That keep them from being challenged or being grounded by the impact of their actions on others. So powerful people don't have to care. And I think such hierarchies are attractive to people who are already inclined to do bad, even if they believe that they're doing good. The authoritarians, the supremacists, the abusers, they are attracted to those positions. But even good intention, people could lose themselves in authority too. Because authorities as a whole, exist in this bubble that rewards their worst instincts,

• 48:32Speaker 09

  end up further shaping the system around their worst instincts, around distrust, selfishness, exploitation, and so on, to reward themselves and their patterns of behavior. And thus, through the social placebo effect, people end up fulfilling that expectation created by the system.

• 48:49Speaker 05

  I guess my only comment here is that these systems are not just exclusive to like, state power or like corporate authority. These same mechanisms reproduce themselves in all sorts of social arrangements, including like, radical politics, and frankly, especially radical politics. You can see this a lot with groups, whether they're communists, whether they're anarchists, whether they're, I don't know, social democrats probably have this problem.

• 49:15Speaker 05

  But no, like specifically like in anarchist scenes, you see this happen constantly. It is almost funny how much these things just get natively recreated. And like in-group, out-group dynamics are always a big issue. I mean, like you can also point to the book Cultish, which explains how American culture is pretty defined by like cult-like tendencies. Not saying that every single group is a cult, but cult dynamics play into a large part of everyday American life. And that's both good and bad. Sometimes being in a cult is fun until it's not very fun. So these dynamics themselves are not necessarily, you know, bad, but there's something to be like mindful of.

• 50:00Speaker 09

  Yeah, exactly. So in being mindful of it, you know, that's an aspect of it. You know, we have to find solutions to.

• 50:11Speaker 09

  This epidemic of badness of of behaviors being reinforced by these systems that are causing harm to people and harm to the world. And so what I always advocate for in ways big and small, um, I wouldn't call it the one solution to everything, but it's it does encompass a lot. But it's just understanding and taking on a dynamic social revolutionary approach to change, you know, from the efforts you do to confront the existing system, to stand up against it, but also the things that you do to put forward an alternative, to put forward and to practice alternatives.

• 50:54Speaker 09

  So one of the things that we can do is to create what, you know, perpetuates a positive and trusting take on human decency, you know, to create that social placebo effect that can shape how people treat each other feel better. But that can be boiled down to just be nicer to each other. So there's more to be done than that, of course. On the systems front, we also to change how we educate each other um in radical spaces and also in terms of how we raise children. We have to organize, you know, alternative um economic systems and alternative social

• 51:33Speaker 09

  arrangements that get us in the habit of trust, of trusting people's freedom, of practicing freedom, and also of emphasizing greater intrinsic motivation in people as well. You know, a lot of our society is built around control and mechanisms of control through extrinsic forms of motivation, you know, like punishments and prisons and grades and bonuses and wages, all the different things that are meant to keep us going here now. But I think a system that more leans into intrinsic motivation is another that we should be working toward. You know, that people do things for their own sake, for reasons that we are driven

• 52:15Speaker 09

  by, that I think is far more sustainable long term and more fulfilling long term than considering to be stuck with the punishments and rewards that come from outside. Yes, we have to develop a revolutionary consciousness that is also very much grounded. In, you know, people's intrinsic motivation to have their needs met, to pursue their interests, to care for others, and that is where I think we'll sustain efforts along too, because you can create all these bonuses and incentives externally, but I don't think it's something that will last. There are, you know, experiments with a greater emphasis on intrinsic motivation,

• 52:57Speaker 09

  not even necessarily radical experiments, but see, but Bregman actually looks at examples of schools that don't have grades or fixed curriculums, and at companies that don't have managers that are run entirely by employees. I mean, anarchists have been known about these, but he emphasizes that the people in these environments thrive because they've been trusted to direct themselves, they can bring out the best in themselves because they've been given the room to do so. You know, and spaces like free schools and maker spaces and cooperatives, they give us the room to develop our cooperation and creativity. And of course, the system is not gonna stand by as these transformations take place. They might tolerate or even celebrate some, like the examples that Bregman had looked at.

• 53:41Speaker 09

  But those are always going to be treated as exceptions. And the second you try to make them the norm, I think you're gonna face some real challenges. Because ordinary people want these things, but the rulers don't. It's like the example that I had brought up earlier, you know, the famous nineteen fourteen Christmas truce during World War One, where British and German soldiers put down their guns, they sang songs, they played football. But eventually, the high command cracked down on these truces. The fraternization of people who are different from each other was a threat to the war machine, because these systems are invested in maintaining hostility and division. And so we have to consciously and openly stand up against hostility and division.

• 54:26Speaker 09

  To build systems that bring out the best in people. I don't think that a hopeful view of human nature should be seen as utopian. As I said earlier, it's realistic. Cynicism is not realism, they're not the same thing. Having hope is not meaning that you are completely deluded of the dark side or dark aspects of humanity and humanity's possibilities. But it means that you don't limit yourself to that outcome, that you challenge that narrative and that you seek to do better and to create something better. And that's really what I care about. And that's all I have to share. All power to all the people. Peace.

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• 56:57Speaker 13

  Hi everyone and welcome to the podcast. It's me, James, today and I'm joined by Gorgin Jermay from Hengor, the Human Rights Organisation, also a journalist who's worked for the Kurdish Peace Institute, who we've had on the show before, who I've also worked with, and the founder of the Kurdistan People's Page on Instagram. Welcome to the show. Thanks for joining us.

• 57:21Speaker 14

  Thank you very much for inviting me. I'm so glad to be here today with you.

• 57:25Speaker 13

  Yeah, of course. And what we're going to talk about today is Rojelat, or Eastern Kurdistan, right? And how this figures into, I guess, what's happening currently in Iran, what has been happening in Iran. And like, I think it's really important to give a little more explanation and background on particularly the different ethnic groups in Iran than people generally get when they consume legacy media here.

• 57:53Speaker 14

  Yeah, so if I want to talk about this, like, we need to talk about the history of at least 120, 150 years. So it's really a lot. But today's structure of what we know as Iran is made up of several different ethnic groups, from Persians, Turks, I mean Azerbaijani Turks, Turkmen, Kurds, Baluchis, Ahwazi Arabs, and so many others. But I would say the dominant population, the dominant ethnic group, and the dominant culture and language is definitely

• 58:30Speaker 14

  Persians. Yeah. And if I want to be more clear, this dominant ethnic group has been exploding and colonising and destroying all the lands and the communities and societies from non-Persian regions, including Kurdistan, Baluchistan, Azerbaijana Ahwaz, and many other regions in this geographical region called Iran. And this mainly started during the former monarchy, Palavis, and it was intensified after the 1979 Islamic Revolution led by Ayatollah Khomeini.

• 59:15Speaker 14

  And as usual, the Kurdish people were the first to stand against this newly established regime.

• 59:23Speaker 14

  In nineteen seventy-nine, a few months after the so-called revolution, the Kurds were demanding their rights, specifically the right to self-determination and also federalism. Yeah. Which was responded by a heavy, uh, by heavy attacks and under the jihad order of Ayatollah Khomeini, which led to the massacre of tens of thousands of civilians and destructions of several hundred villages and uh, mass executions of Kurdish people across the, what we know as eastern Kurdistan or Rojhalat. Yeah. Uh, and following that, the oppression continued and also it was done against other ethnic groups,

• 1:00:06Speaker 14

  specifically Baluchis and also the Ahwazi Arabs and also the Azerbaijani Turks. But in Kurdistan and Baluchistan, it has always been more intense and more brutal. And then in nineteen, in late nineteen eighties and early nineteen nineties, they, they killed two of the Kurdish leaders, uh, Dr. Abdurrahman Qasimlu and Dr. uh, Sharaf Kandi in Europe during some negotiations. And that ended up in Kurds being in a worse situation. And then until around early two thousands, I think around two thousand four or three, uh,

• 1:00:46Speaker 14

  the PKK built, uh, or established its wing in Rojhalat, known as the Free Kurdistan Party or Pajak, sorry, Free Kurdistan Life Party. Yeah. In Rojhalat and then, but unfortunately, this party was not really as strong as the, the, the KDPI or Kamala that were already in the fight with the, with the Iranian state since nineteen forty-six and so on. This oppression has been just intensifying by mass execution of Kurdish people, mass execution of the political, uh, prisoners and activists and imprisonment of the, the different people in the Kurdish society, from language teachers to

• 1:01:31Speaker 14

  environmental activists, to children, women, anyone. And this whole oppression that I've been mentioning about, um, like, that's happening in, in East Kurdistan. Mm-hmm. It has also resulted in a humanitarian phenomenon called Kulbari. Kulbars are a group of people that are extremely underprivileged. They have no access to anything, so they are somehow forced to go into some sort of work that they have to carry goods between the borders of East Kurdistan and South Kurdistan or North Kurdistan specifically, between Iraq, Iran and Turkey. And every year we have numbers in our organizations, you can check.

• 1:02:15Speaker 14

  We have a specific statistics section for these Kulbars. Every year, hundreds of them get killed. Just for example, since the beginning of 2025, 22 of them have been killed and injured. And among these people, there are children, women, old people. So this is also another form of oppression that this regime has been using against our people, because this is actually one of the biggest forms of oppression, if I want to talk about it. There are over 150,000 Kulbars in East Kurdistan that are somehow forced into this type of work because they have no other means of income and the government, the Iranian government

• 1:02:57Speaker 14

  actually like limits all the, if I want to call it, economic developments in East Kurdistan. This has been going on for decades and then we come to 2019, again, there was another, so I want to call it uprising or mass protests across Iran, when the regime killed over 1,500 people. I mean, before that, there were also protests almost every year, but that was like one of the biggest ones. It was in November 2019. And they cut down the internet for 12 days. I remember, I was at the university at that time. And then they killed 1,500 people, specifically so many people in Kurdistan.

• 1:03:40Speaker 14

  They even throw the killed people into like lakes and rivers and then after like months and days, people found the bodies like in the nature. Jeez. And then we come to 2022.

• 1:03:54Speaker 14

  Remember when they, the morality police killed Gina Amini, the Kurdish woman who was apparently not wearing a proper hijab or the Islamic cloth or whatever you want to call it. Yeah. Uh, she was killed by the Iranian morality police in Tehran, which led to, to the, as we know it. I don't know if you can call it a revolution or uprising or just mass protests called Zindjan Azadi or Women's Life Freedom Movement. Yeah. And this also, again, because it was inspired by Kurds, the first victim was a Kurd again. Yeah. Obviously, it started in Kurdistan and it spread so fast.

• 1:04:38Speaker 14

  Just in a few days, the entire Kurdish cities were testing and then it was followed by other Iranian cities like Tehran, Shiraz, but it was not as intense as in Kurdistan. I think it was three days after her death, the Kurdish parties, K D P I and Kamala and uh, some others that are not very well known like P A K and also Pajak or the Free Life Kurdistan Party. They announced a um, general strike across Kurdistan and they, they called on people to close down everything and go on a full lockdown to protest the killing of Gina Amini. Yeah.

• 1:05:18Speaker 14

  Which was responded by, I think, over one hundred missiles or something from the I R G C and the Iranian regime and it killed, I think, eighteen, if I'm not wrong, but it killed several people in the camps belonging to these parties in today's Iraqi Kurdistan, or as we call it, South Kurdistan. There were also like family members of the Kurdish politicians and Kurdish Peshmarga that were in those refugee camps that are also supported by the U N. They were killed there and then the protests just got intensified. And I was also there, we were reporting every day about all the things that were happening.

• 1:06:02Speaker 14

  Also, the Baluch people uh, joined. Protest and at the same time of those days, a fifteen years old Baluchi girl was raped and killed by an IRGC commander or member in Baluchistan and people also like protested that and there was a Friday which is known as the Bloody Friday of Zahidan. People in Baluchistan, they went to a big mosque in the city of Zahidan and they were they were doing their Friday prayers as Muslims and then they they started protesting and this was responded by the Iranian regime forces and over one hundred people were

• 1:06:40Speaker 14

  massacred on that day, which also led to mass execution of more political and just random prisoners in Baluchistan. And then the protests just went on and there was a really heavy repression. So far, I think over maybe between five hundred to six hundred people were killed. These are like the official ones and also several other of these protesters, specifically from Kurdistan, were executed. Some of them were executed in public to spread more fear among people, but people were not given up. And then um it continued until two thousand twenty-three. Yeah.

• 1:07:22Speaker 14

  Until I think it was around maybe March. I'm not really remembering the exact date, but it was also in two thousand twenty-three that they started attacking schools, like girls' schools with some sort of gases that nobody actually knows that what type of chemical gases they were using. And unfortunately, we have them, like we've reported on them. Some school children, like some kids, uh they were killed by these gases and they were specifically targeting the girls' schools because they are like separate, they they don't they're not together in in the Iranian system. Yeah, like integrate. Yeah, and then uh this this went on and people were still protesting, but unfortunately, it somehow

• 1:08:04Speaker 14

  stopped. And if I want to analyze that and related to like to to to talk about the reasons. Yeah. One of the main reasons, I think, also many other. Political activists and analysts also agree on that, that the opposition, what as we know as the Iranian opposition, was not truly united. Yeah. There was a huge effort specifically from the Kurdish parties like Kamala and Abdullah Muhtadi. They tried to create some sort of collaboration with the so-called Iranian opposition, specifically the monarchists, like the Pahlavis and some other groups.

• 1:08:45Speaker 14

  But unfortunately, these groups, I mean, it was in the middle of a uprising, like a movement that hasn't been happening since maybe forty years. Instead of working together for a common goal, like the Iranian opposition groups, specifically the Pahlavis, and also the other ones, like, if I want to say, like, the Masih Ali Najad, and like all the people that work with her. Instead of working towards a common goal, they started discriminating against minorities. They started ignoring and denying and also censoring the minorities. The same minorities that were the most active against the regime,

• 1:09:27Speaker 14

  that had the biggest number of sacrifices in the protests and also in prisons. They just started spreading their own typical national, I mean, I would even call them ultra-nationalistic. Yeah. Sentiments. And for example, if I want to give like one of the biggest things that we always talk about. These people who are apparently against the regime, they have some red lines, and their main red line has always been the so-called Iranian territorial integrity. So like these type of sentiments and discussions, it's somehow created like a lot of mistrust between the Kurdish groups, the Baluchi groups,

• 1:10:13Speaker 14

  also like with Ahwazi Arabs and Azerbaijani Turks and all these groups. They couldn't trust each other because the dominant group, the Persians or the Iranians or those who. Identify as Iranians, they ignored us, they ignored our suffering, they ignored our identity. Um hum. They were just repeating what the regime has been saying since over forty years. But in a different form. So this somehow created a lot of mistrust and also the people inside, like I was there when that was happening and I was working. Nonstop every day of recording, writing, texting, being on interviews.

• 1:10:55Speaker 14

  The people actually lost their hope because there was no united opposition, there was no united. Structure to say that, yeah, we are advocating for you. I mean, in the first few months, it was really great. For example, here in Germany, uh they had a very big demonstration and over eighty thousand people from all across Europe. They traveled to to Berlin for that demonstration. It was great and all the groups from Iranians, Turks, Arabs, Baluchis, like everybody was there. But unfortunately, following that, the people like specifically, Hrizal Pahlavi, the so-called uh Crown Prince of Iran. Who is another, like, hi- his story is like very also like crazy. Yeah.

• 1:11:41Speaker 14

  He and his group and his circle and also people like Masih Ali Najad. And I would say all the celebrities because they are not truly, they are not politicians, they have. No political study, they have, they haven't done any specific political work. There are just celebrities like Nazanin Bulnyadi, she. Yeah. Played in some movies, yeah, she's a really great actress, but not a good politician, like these things. That celebrities who truly don't understand or they don't want to understand what people. Inside Kurdistan, Iran and Baluchistan want. They pretended to be our voices and they never listened to us. And then thi- this just made a lot of distrust and a lot of also hate between the people.

• 1:12:26Speaker 14

  Yeah. So that's why I can say that it just failed after that and unfortunately, many, many of the. People who were arrested during that time, they are still in jail. And just a few days ago, five of them were sentenced to death. Uh, and we made a report about them.

• 1:12:45Speaker 13

  So that, yeah.

• 1:12:46Speaker 14

  So like every day, did they get sentenced to death? And I personally know many of these people who were injured. And they are now here in Germany, they were brought here, but by some humanitarian visas. Some of them are my friends. So like, it just failed.

• 1:13:13Speaker 14

  At the same time, I also have to mention that one of the reasons that it also failed, it was the regime's extensive repression. They militarized the entire cities, specifically in Kurdistan and Beluchistan. For example, in Kurdistan, they already have over 2,000 military bases and checkpoints all over the Kurdistan region. And during that time, they, they had like tanks and military vehicles in the entrances, like in the gates of every city and also town. They were checking out people. Like I personally, during these two years, I really didn't go out much.

• 1:13:52Speaker 14

  Maybe once a week or once in a 10 days, just to, I don't know, to go and eat something out, you know, like I was always home.

• 1:13:59Speaker 13

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:14:00Speaker 14

  Because I couldn't go out and because my work was important. And then they were just controlling people, they were arresting people. And even like from the stories that I have worked on before, these injured people, they also, they were hiding in small villages and even in the mountains. But the regime forces were everywhere looking for these people and these activists. So it was like a totally military lockdown in the region. And there are many crazy stories. I don't know if you have time enough, enough time to to talk about like some different and specific things that happened and it was really scary at that time.

• 1:14:38Speaker 13

  Yeah, I would like to share that with us because I think one thing people don't understand is that the Iranian regime has a colossal capacity for violence against its own citizens. I think if we talk about like some specific instances and then maybe we can talk about. Recently, there has been a bombing campaign against some nuclear facilities and some IRGC commanders and like. I think if you start with your anecdotes about what happened during this last uprising. That will help people understand why like the the consequence of this bombing campaign are not good. For people who want to have freedom in Iran, right, both people inside the country at least.

• 1:15:15Speaker 14

  Yeah.

• 1:15:16Speaker 13

  So yeah, tell us, tell us some things about that capacity for repression.

• 1:15:20Speaker 14

  Yeah, so like the bombing happened and we saw, we all saw how crazy and how. Insane, like, it was like movies. I couldn't believe my eyes when it happened. It was really crazy. And. Yeah, that was like the war between two brutal states, Israel and Iran, who both have no respect for dignity of humans. Nothing, absolutely.

• 1:15:44Speaker 13

  Yeah.

• 1:15:45Speaker 14

  The, the, the first thing that happened, it was that, yeah, they, they targeted, I think, uh, so far, as far as I remember from our statistics. Over three hundred fifty or around that were the IRGC commanders. Or the officials from the nuclear program than like really the judges who have sentenced thousands of people to death. Like the targeted people were mainly these type of people and also, also there were also some civilians. I think maybe around eighty or ninety civilians, whom some of them were actually like. Like family members of these IRGC members and also some children.

• 1:16:26Speaker 13

  Yeah.

• 1:16:26Speaker 14

  And also there was a lot of destruction specifically in Tehran, uh, many buildings, including the Devon Prison.

• 1:16:34Speaker 13

  Yeah, I saw they hit the prison.

• 1:16:35Speaker 14

  The, uh, the center of the Iranian broadcast and all these places were targeted. Uh, and many officials were killed, also civilians. But the, the Iranian regime's response to that was not fully against Israel, who.

• 1:16:54Speaker 14

  Bombing Iranian IRGC bases. Yeah. In the first days, they started attacking civilians. They started arresting every, I don't know, some random people. And so far, I think, um, last time we checked, hundreds of people across, specifically in Kurdistan. They were arrested. Yeah. And some others were already like in these days, they got executed because they were accused of. Uh, espionage for, for Israel or working for Israel. Yeah. Uh, just a few weeks ago, I think five or four or maybe three, I don't recall the numbers right now.

• 1:17:35Speaker 14

  But, uh, some Kurdish political prisoners who were accused of working for Israel were executed in, in my hometown. Ormia in Iskurdistan and. Yeah. Then so many others were also arrested and then, um, I think some, some others were also tortured. At least I remember one case which we worked on it, um, there was, there was one case that was tortured to death. Um, because he was accused of working for Israel and things like that. Jesus. This was like the, one of the responses that the Iranian regime started doing. And one of the things that this regime did in the first days. Yeah. It was that they took lots of military vehicles and like, I don't know, equipments inside schools.

• 1:18:21Speaker 14

  For example, in the city of Sardas, it's a really amazing, beautiful Kurdish city on top of some mountains. It's beautiful. Yeah. There is a high school in the city center, exactly in the city center. And they took lots of military equipments and stuff inside the school. And they, they threatened the school manager, if you don't give us the key right now, we will arrest you, we will do this and that. Geez. And they also did that in the city of Kirmansha. They also did that in the, I remember because I, I worked on the report. It was, uh, in the neighbor, in a neighborhood called Dizalabad. And they took some, uh, military equipments next to a hospital which was also bombed and the hospital was damaged.

• 1:19:04Speaker 14

  Some people were injured. That was one of the things that the regime did. And at the same time, I don't know if you know about this, but in Iran, the military service is compulsory. Like Israel, like many, like Switzerland, like many countries. But in Iran, it's it's torture. It's some sort of repression against young men.

• 1:19:24Speaker 13

  Right.

• 1:19:24Speaker 14

  So across Kurdistan, for example, in in in a military base in my hometown in Urmia, it's called Al Mahdi. It's a very big military base. Uh, I I know that some soldiers who are like civilians, but they are forced into it. They're like teenagers, I don't know, nineteen, twenty uh, or twenty one, like really young guys.

• 1:19:46Speaker 13

  Yeah, very young.

• 1:19:47Speaker 14

  That really don't want to be there, but they are forced to. They they were saying that their commanders threatened, if you leave the military base, we will arrest you, we will torture you, and we will execute you for for like for betraying, for betray, like, I don't know, for

• 1:20:05Speaker 13

  Like desertion.

• 1:20:05Speaker 14

  betraying your country or things like that, or working for Israel.

• 1:20:09Speaker 13

  Yeah.

• 1:20:10Speaker 14

  This was like one of one of the concerns that many families had before um, in those days, because I I talked with some people, like um, our neighbor's son was was also in a military base. He's like nineteen. Yeah, they were putting lots of pressure on civilians while ignoring that what Israel is doing every day. They were bombing all the military bases, I don't know, places and like they were even bombing places that nobody even knew that they existed. But their focus was like the the regime's focus was on civilians who were just scared, who were just uh, trying to protect their families. Yeah, and this was like what they they started doing and um, yeah.

• 1:20:54Speaker 14

  I mean, it's still it's still going, it still is going on, and they are arresting people all the time. And as usual, the majority of the focus and repression is again happening in Kurdistan against Kurdish people.

• 1:21:08Speaker 13

  Yeah, I think it's very important people understand like that Iran is not like a an ethno-state. Well, it is it is an ethno-state, but the the that there is not ethnically monolithic, like the the territory of Iran and the Persian ethno-state do not necessarily like line up. I think people will also be very confused about like when we hear quote unquote Iranian opposition in this country, right? It's often like, I think there's this knee jerk, oh, that's good, right? These are people who are opposed to this regime, which is brutally cracking down on people. But often then, as you say, it's associated with like monarchists for the most part.

• 1:21:43Speaker 14

  Yeah.

• 1:21:43Speaker 13

  And then we have these various, like anything in Kurdistan, right? Like it's an alphabet soup. But like there is like there are seventy five different like initial groups of initials. Can you explain who some of these actors are, right? We have on, we have the Iranian monarchists, we have the KDPI, we have all these different groups, Pajak, like you say, the KCK group. Can you explain who some of these people are for people so they understand?

• 1:22:10Speaker 14

  Yeah, if I want to talk about Kurdistan, I would go to the first modern Kurdish party called KDPI, which was founded in nineteen forty five. And it was the founder of the Kurdistan Republic. And also then there is the Komala Party, which is also like a socialist, communist leftist party, which also has several branches, but they're all basically the same. And also there are other parties like PAK.

• 1:22:41Speaker 13

  Yeah.

• 1:22:42Speaker 14

  Yeah, the Freedom Party of Kurdistan. And also we have Pajak, the Free Life Kurdistan Party, or I don't know if it's that, it's the same in English.

• 1:22:50Speaker 13

  Yeah, Kurdistan Free Life Party.

• 1:22:52Speaker 14

  Yeah, these are the the main political parties and actors in East Kurdistan. However, there are also like smaller parties like HABAT, and also some parties that are affiliated, like there are like very small groups that are affiliated with, for example, the Iranian Communist Party, which is not also really big.

• 1:23:16Speaker 13

  Yeah.

• 1:23:16Speaker 14

  But the main ones right now are KDPI and Komala, who both of them have like a long history of fighting against the regime and also against the the monarchists, the the Palavi regime. They were, I would say, really, really active until

• 1:23:34Speaker 14

  Like two thousand twenty three, they had, they, they played a very, very important role in the revolution in, in, in, like in Kurdistan specifically, because they were, they were the ones who were announcing like strikes and they were working together and like organizing uh things and helping people out to, to resist. Obviously, there was no armed Mm hmm. Um, struggle at that time or conflict, because they, they, they said, we're not gonna fight, because if we, if we bring the, the fights and conflict inside Kurdistan, the regime was, will destroy the cities with missiles. Yes. Th- th- this is exactly what they said at that time, because there was a demand from people that, yeah,

• 1:24:19Speaker 14

  the Peshmerga forces should come in the cities and fight alongside with us, but they, they said, no, if you do this, the regime will destroy the cities. Th- these are the main forces in Kurdistan and, yeah, of course, they have different ideologies. Pajak is like the PKK's wing, or if I want to be more official, it's the, it's a member of the KCK or Kajakas, we say. And uh the KDPI is like, as I said, it, the history goes back to nineteen forty five and Kamala in the early seventies. And also Pak, I'm not sure when it was founded, but it was also like,

• 1:24:57Speaker 14

  it's, it was founded one of the, by one of the members of the KDPI, Hussein Azdampana, and they are more of a military, I would say, well-organized military group, that they also played a good role um against the, the ISIS in two thousand seventeen and eighteen, specifically in Kirkuk. Yeah. In uh South Kurdistan or Iraqi Kurdistan and Mm hmm. About um the Iranian opposition, if I want to say, yes, we have the monarchists, the Reza Pahlavi and his group, they, they have like a whole long list of parties. Basically, they are all the same, but they have different names.

• 1:25:42Speaker 14

  And they are all right-wing. And they all focus on the territorial integrity of Iran, but they also pretend that they care also about democracy, but that's that's a lie. And then we have people like Masih Ali Najad, who is more of, she's an activist, and she's internationally known for her activism against the compulsory hijab. But she doesn't have any specific party or organization. She is just an activist and a journalist, obviously. Yeah. And also, there are other several people that work with her, like Nazanin Bunyadi, who also works with like Pahlavi's.

• 1:26:26Speaker 14

  And also, there is another one who also played a big role. His name is Hamid Ismailiun. He is one of the the members of the families of the people who were killed in that plane that was shot by missiles by IRGC in 2020 in Tehran. And again, there were many Kurds inside that Ukrainian plane as well. This person, Hamid Ismailiun, he's one of the the members of, like, he lost his entire family in that plane crash or attack. Yeah. He organized many, many great and big demonstrations across Canada, Australia, I think even in the US, and specifically in Germany. The one in Berlin was the biggest. Yeah.

• 1:27:09Speaker 14

  Also, he doesn't have a party, but he also somehow backed down after, like, what Pahlavi's did, for example, like, or the monarchists did with the whole opposition groups. There are also some leftist groups and individuals, but unfortunately, they're not truly leftist. So I want to give you a name. There is a person called Arash Azizi. He is also well known in the US. I don't know, he wrote some books and he Yeah. works with really like international media. Just a few days ago, he he posted something that said, "We, the leftists of Iran, we are in love with our homeland, and we care about our homeland, and we don't..." He just posted something that was...

• 1:27:55Speaker 14

  That was really nationalistic, like a typical Persian Iranian sentiment. That was that's that's been going on and it got lots of criticism from different groups. And then we have the the Hawazi Arabs, they also have some parties. But they're not really strong or active or well organized, like the Kurdish ones, the the Turks. The Azerbaijani Turks, they also have some groups. But they're also not very active or organized. And many of these groups, they are heavily affiliated with. The Azerbaijani government or the Turkish regime and specifically the. MHP party in Turkey, like the ultra nationally Turkish party. Yeah, the hard right.

• 1:28:39Speaker 14

  Yeah, and then um the Baluchis, I can say they are. More organized because they have this um. I don't want to call him a leader, but like. The the highest, the highest level uh. Mullah in Balochistan, uh Mullahi Abdul Hamid. He is like the most popular mullah in that region and. He was one of the people that was organizing protests and. He was giving lots of speeches like during the Friday prayers in Balochistan. And a lot of people were uh they still like they they follow him and they follow his words.

• 1:29:23Speaker 14

  But unfortunately, he is also like appointed as the Imam. Of the Friday prayers, if I want to be more specific in Balochistan by. Khamenei himself, the Iranian Supreme Leader. Uh but it's like a little bit uh hard to understand that where he stands exactly because on one side he. He's appointed by the regime, but on the other side, he's also like. Acting as a political leader or advocate in Balochistan. Yeah. Uh I think they also have some armed groups, uh but. They're mainly Islamists and I would say, but they're also not very, very. Well organized, yeah, they do attack the IRGC um.

• 1:30:07Speaker 14

  Members and these agents who are pressing people on a daily basis. Sometimes and sometimes they get killed and also sometimes, just a few days ago. Uh there was a fight between these people and like civilians in the village and also the IRGC forces and. I think two women. Were killed and more than ten or eleven were injured.

• 1:30:29Speaker 13

  Jeez.

• 1:30:30Speaker 14

  But this, these fights and conflicts, and they're always happening in Balochistan. Yeah.

• 1:30:36Speaker 13

  It, it, it can be hard, I think, especially if you're unfamiliar, right? Like, like the, um, the P A K, just to distinguish from P J A K.

• 1:30:43Speaker 14

  Yeah.

• 1:30:43Speaker 13

  Like, have definitely been making a, a big effort on the internet, I will say, like with their Peshmerga, right? Like in the last three weeks since the, uh, the US entered the Israel's bombing campaign, like to appear like, like this. And they are a very well organized Peshmerga. Like, I think, um, you said they're Rinka Cook. I think maybe they're in Kobani as well. Like, maybe they.

• 1:31:05Speaker 14

  Yeah.

• 1:31:06Speaker 13

  They joined into, yeah.

• 1:31:07Speaker 14

  Yeah. The, the Pajaks was specifically in, in Rojava and they were also fighting against ISIS.

• 1:31:14Speaker 13

  Yeah.

• 1:31:14Speaker 14

  Uh, because like, they are like, as I said, they are, they're a member of KCK and they're allies of PKK. So they're all are interconnected and they all work together.

• 1:31:25Speaker 13

  Mm hmm. I think the P A K also was in Rojava, right?

• 1:31:29Speaker 14

  I am not sure, but I think members of P A K joined, like, the, the, the fight in Rojava, like, as individuals. Because the, the fight in Rojava was also something that people from all over Kurdistan went there.

• 1:31:45Speaker 13

  Yeah, from northern Kurdistan to, yeah.

• 1:31:47Speaker 14

  Yeah.

• 1:31:48Speaker 13

  And these are very organized groups, but like.

• 1:31:51Speaker 14

  Yes.

• 1:31:51Speaker 13

  There isn't, I, I guess there is a kind of insurgency, but as you say, like, if these groups just took up arms in the cities and the, the IRGC would destroy.

• 1:32:00Speaker 14

  Yeah.

• 1:32:00Speaker 13

  Everyone in those cities, right? So that's a.

• 1:32:02Speaker 14

  Yeah.

• 1:32:03Speaker 13

  I think people sometimes wonder like why they don't just start fighting. Um, and then there is fighting, to be clear, but like, as you say, the, the regime punishes civilians, right?

• 1:32:13Speaker 14

  Yeah. I mean, this is not the first time that the regime does this. Every time that Israel does something to the regime. Because this is not the first time that Israel has killed someone in Iran, like some IRGC member or nuclear.

• 1:32:28Speaker 13

  Yeah.

• 1:32:28Speaker 14

  Agent, uh, nuclear scientist or whatever. Every time this happened during past few years.

• 1:32:35Speaker 14

  Instead of responding to Israel as a state, they responded to the Kurdish people. I think it was just two years, again in 2022, they they literally bombed a civilian house in Erbil, the the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, and they killed an entire family. Like, it was like maybe a six, seven month old baby and her father. They always respond to Kurds when they get attacked or bombed or damaged or whatever by Israel or America.

• 1:33:10Speaker 13

  Yeah, it's like a soft target, a target they feel they can like safely attack, you know, versus, like, we know now that Iran pre-warned the United States it was going to attack its bases, uh, following this bombing raid, and it was more of a performative thing than a, like, a serious attempt to, uh, to attack US bases. And even like this week, I saw in Slemane, like Iran is sending heat drones.

• 1:33:36Speaker 14

  Yeah, actually, during the past maybe 10 days, this is like, last night, there was an attack in Slemane, uh, but this is like, I think, the fourth or third time that there have, there have been like several drone attacks on different places. So, yeah, this is something that the regime has been doing.

• 1:34:06Speaker 14

  One of the other funny things, I mean, this is not funny exactly, but it's weird. Just yesterday, and actually two days ago, I'm, I'm not really good with dates and numbers.

• 1:34:17Speaker 13

  That's okay.

• 1:34:18Speaker 14

  This two days ago, they conducted like a cyber attack on this TV channel, Iran International, which is also advocating for monarchists. And they exposed like some nude photos and like private photos and videos of some of the staff that work there. And they are threatening that we will publish more if you don't stop or whatever. This is also like another strategies that the regime uses when they... Lose something when they get attacked, they also like target activists, journalists. Or for example, they threaten their families or they threaten them here inside Europe or in in America or Canada or wherever they are.

• 1:35:00Speaker 13

  Yeah.

• 1:35:01Speaker 14

  This is like, as we call it, it's it's the transnational repression of the regime and it's been going on forever. And again, if you look at the numbers, most of the attacks have been on Kurdish activists. For example, during the past thirty years, over, I I think around six hundred known political activists have been killed by the regime. Outside of Iran and nearly four hundred fifty or something of them were Kurdish. Yeah, this is also another thing that the regime has been doing and in these days they have intensified.

• 1:35:35Speaker 13

  Yeah, yeah, they've they they have a long history of transnational repression and like. Participating in in the repression of of other revolutions, right? Like, of course, they were massive backers of the Assad regime in Syria.

• 1:35:47Speaker 14

  Yeah.

• 1:35:47Speaker 13

  You know, all around the region, they they they will find the wrong side to line up on and and and do that. Again, of course, people will also be familiar, they were supporting Hezbollah, for instance, in Lebanon. One thing I've heard is that like the regime has been really cracking down on Afghan people, like mass deportations of Afghan people who have come to Iran, right? And especially in the wake of this bombing campaign. Can we talk about that briefly?

• 1:36:11Speaker 14

  Yes, of course. I think that's one of the the most horrible things that happened after the war. So far, we know that just in in June, they deported over thirty thousand Afghans and it's still going on, like. They mass deport tens of thousands of Afghan refugees every day and just something that was really hor- horrible to me when I read it. There were six thousand kids that were unregistered and they were separated from their parents. And they were sent back to Afghanistan alone.

• 1:36:46Speaker 13

  Jesus.

• 1:36:48Speaker 14

  Yeah, and they are hunting down Afghan migrants in different cities across Iran, especially in Tehran, because most of them are there. Yeah. And the thing is that the Afghan, I think there are over three million Afghan migrants in Iran, or maybe more. Yeah. Nobody knows the exact numbers, because the Iranian government never, ever publishes the true statistics. Yeah. But there are millions of them in Iran, and they are not actually allowed to, they were not allowed, actually, like, they're getting kicked out right now, but they were not allowed to work in Kurdish cities, they were only allowed to work in Persian-speaking cities like Tehran, Mashar, Shiraz, Isfahan, and these big industrial cities.

• 1:37:33Speaker 14

  Yeah. Uh, so like, right now, if you look at the internet, they are being hunted down by Iranian agents everywhere, and they're being forced to go back to Afghanistan. And one of the things that I want to mention that's been going on Mm-hmm. from a humanitarian perspective, that really, really makes me sad, and also it reflects a very ugly reality about the Persian or the Iranian society, and the amount of racism and fascism that exists among them, not just by the regime, by the people as well. There have been hundreds of videos and footage online, uh, you can also check,

• 1:38:15Speaker 14

  just search and you will see, that random citizens, young people, they are attacking Afghan people in the city, and I don't know, in subways, in the parks, in, in, Jeez. in, in public places. Just yesterday, I saw a very heartbreaking video, because like Afghan people, they also like have a different look, you can easily say that they're not Iranians. An Afghan teenager was was being attacked by eggs. Jesus. And they they were just throwing eggs at him and then they poured like lots of some powder and then like some juice and like Coca Cola. I don't know what was that. They were just throwing everything at him.

• 1:38:57Speaker 14

  And on the other, another video that I saw, they they they stopped a man, maybe he was thirty or something. Mm hmm. They forced him to kiss the hand of a stray dog. I mean, yeah, that that would be like, yeah, he's kissing a dog. But in the Middle East culture, when you force someone to kiss a dog. It's very disrespectful. Yeah. It's it's really disrespectful. And like, there are also, I I read on the internet that many Afghans reported that like, for example, in Tehran, they were renting a house or an apartment or something and they were living in those apartments. And the landlord reported them to the police. It's like what's happening in the U S. It's something like ICE. Mm hmm. But it's Iranian. Yeah.

• 1:39:37Speaker 14

  But more brutal. Then they the police just came and took took them all. And now the landlords are refusing to give back the Persian money to Afghans. And many of them are being like forced out without any food, without any support, anything. And especially the women, like I also read about like a doctor that fled Taliban and he was in Tehran and now if he goes back, the Taliban will definitely kill him because he was like against Taliban. Yeah. I mean, it's it's it's a very horrible humanitarian situation and the people like in Balochistan, they're also suffering. But I saw many videos and also some of the activists published lots of footage that they were

• 1:40:23Speaker 14

  they were bringing food, water, I don't know, medicine and things like that on the on the road to give it to those people who are going back and they were offering, I don't know, whatever they had. Yeah. And in Afghanistan, there is also happening, but it it's just so crazy because both the regime and also the anti-regime media are trying to portray Afghans as the problem, just exactly like how the far-right parties in Germany, like IFD, they are portraying refugees and migrants as the main problem. Yeah, it's a global thing. It happens here, in the U K. Yeah. It's it's exactly the same. Yeah, and like.

• 1:41:04Speaker 13

  Yeah.

• 1:41:05Speaker 14

  Unfortunately, the the even the Iranian opposition has not been clear. But again, because there is some sort of solidarity between Kurds, Paluts and Afghans and also other minorities.

• 1:41:16Speaker 13

  Yeah.

• 1:41:17Speaker 14

  It's the minorities that talk about this. It's the minority groups and organizations who try to raise awareness over this. And unfortunately, uh, I think nobody can stop it because they are doing it anyways.

• 1:41:30Speaker 13

  Yeah, and like, we shouldn't support an opposition politics. It is just another ethno- like, we see that in Syria right now, right? Like.

• 1:41:39Speaker 14

  Yeah.

• 1:41:39Speaker 13

  And they haven't even changed the name. We have this revolution, tens of thousands, maybe hun- hundreds of thousands of people definitely died.

• 1:41:47Speaker 14

  Yeah.

• 1:41:48Speaker 13

  To build something better. And we still have the Syrian Arab Republic.

• 1:41:52Speaker 14

  Yeah.

• 1:41:52Speaker 13

  Yeah, it's maybe the the Alawites are being persecuted now and they weren't before, but like, that shouldn't matter, right? Like, if we're if we're build trying to build something better.

• 1:42:01Speaker 14

  I mean, they are just remnants of ISIS, so what can you expect?

• 1:42:04Speaker 13

  Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's uh.

• 1:42:06Speaker 14

  Yeah.

• 1:42:07Speaker 13

  Yeah, it's very sad to uh to see, you know, after after so much killing and dying.

• 1:42:12Speaker 14

  Yeah.

• 1:42:13Speaker 13

  I guess to finish up, I think people in the US do not get very good coverage of what's happening in Iran, right? Like, it's uh that, as you say, dominated by monarchist outlets, which tend to have like good resources which allow them to kind of uh get to the top of people's feeds. Or they're getting like press TV stuff, right? That's just like straight up regime propaganda.

• 1:42:36Speaker 14

  Yeah.

• 1:42:36Speaker 13

  Where can people find like good resources to understand what's what's happening in Iran, like from the perspective of, you know, the majority of people who just want to live a free life and especially like, you know, the the women in particular in Iran, right, have an extremely. Difficult and repressive, every, the, the regime dominates every aspect of their lives. Like, where can people find reasonable coverage that acknowledges that?

• 1:43:00Speaker 14

  Honestly, if I want to talk about media, like TV channels or just media websites.

• 1:43:05Speaker 13

  Yeah.

• 1:43:06Speaker 14

  There is no media, like Iranian media, that truly reflects what's happening uh in Iran. There are like many leftists and also right-wing medias from, for example, if I want to go like a very leftist media called Radio Zamane. They are not really good. Like, then we have Iran International, BBC Persian, Voice of America Persian, Independent Persian. Like, there are many, many media that, all of these, like, I would say, the, the big media, they are heavily dominated and, I would say, exploited by the ultra-nationalist people. And also, there are people who are related to IRGC and this

• 1:43:49Speaker 14

  organization called NAYAC, that is like the regime's lobby group in, in the US. And these individuals that work there, they truly don't reflect what's happening there. And, I mean, it's, it's kind of hard because if people want to understand what's happening, maybe they should read everything they're posting and then analyze it. Hey, this makes sense and this doesn't.

• 1:44:10Speaker 13

  Yeah.

• 1:44:11Speaker 14

  But that, that's a little bit hard. But also, on the other side, I would suggest that people should follow uh more human rights organizations, which, again, some of them, if I want, I don't know if it's okay to say their names.

• 1:44:24Speaker 13

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:44:25Speaker 14

  Some of them, and the people, for example, the, the Burumand organization, they did lots of great work, like, but recently, again, they showed some sort of racism and like censorship against minorities, especially Kurds. And people like Lot and Bazergan, they are like also doing some human rights work in the US. And even people like Masih Ali Najad and all these, I would say, known activists, and even here in Germany. They are not truly reflecting what's happening. They are just focused on the Persian perspective and they're like. Yeah.

• 1:45:04Speaker 14

  They talk about minorities time to time, but only when it fits into their agendas, into their ideologies and and perspectives. Uh but there are other organizations which I'm working with, like Hengao, Organization for Human Rights. Until two thousand, late two thousand twenty-three, I guess, we were mainly focused on East Kurdistan, but right now we report human rights violations from all over Iran. Yeah. Like, yeah, but we try our best and I think I could say that we are one of the best when it comes to all these things and we we don't care about like what people think, we just report what's happening or what happened.

• 1:45:46Speaker 14

  And there are other organizations like Iran Human Rights, they're also good. For example, there is another one called Tawana. They are like a very big organization, but unfortunately, they advocated for the monarchists again just a few months ago. So it's it's kind of hard to see that who is truly on the side of people. And when you look at the human rights organizations, I'm not saying this because I'm Kurdish, but this this is what I see. And I think it's true. The only organizations that truly reflect what's happening without caring about people's backgrounds or ethnicity or whatever. It's our organization, Hengao, and also like organizations like Kurdistan Human Rights Network. Mm hmm.

• 1:46:31Speaker 14

  But unfortunately, the majority of the others are are not really clear. So for Kurdish issues, I would say definitely Hengao and also on my page, Kurdish Tani people, I also like write a lot of things and also Kurdish Peace Institute and Kurdish Center for Studies. Mm hmm. They have lots of other Kurdish journalists and experts that write a lot of really good articles about the situation there. And if I want to mention names, I would say Roji Mukriani. She is like a really great researcher. She lives in Ireland. There is another professor called um Kamran Mateen. He also writes really great analysis on situation and like the things that people even don't think about.

• 1:47:14Speaker 14

  They they're writing with so many different international organizations and institutes. Yeah, there are like these individuals and activists.

• 1:47:22Speaker 13

  Yeah. Thank you so much for joining us. That was really, that really helped, I think, for people to understand things. Tell us about your Kurdistan people page. Where can they find that on Instagram?

• 1:47:34Speaker 14

  Yeah, uh, thank you for inviting me and thank you for letting me speak.

• 1:47:38Speaker 13

  Yeah.

• 1:47:38Speaker 14

  Uh, yeah, um, I have this page Kurdistan people. I usually post about all over Kurdistan, the things that matter. Obviously, I can't do it all the time, but yeah.

• 1:47:49Speaker 13

  Yeah.

• 1:47:49Speaker 14

  Uh, I post a lot of things and there are other pages that I also collaborate with, like Kurdish activism or everything about Kurdistan. We're just a group of people who work together. Obviously, like our organization, I think it's, it's very, very important for people to follow and support it. Handao Organization for Human Rights.

• 1:48:08Speaker 13

  Mm hmm.

• 1:48:08Speaker 14

  Uh, and also Kurdistan Human Rights Network, that's also like another one that you can follow. Yeah, and also like I gave, I, I talked about some names and individuals and researchers.

• 1:48:19Speaker 13

  Yeah.

• 1:48:20Speaker 14

  You can also follow them for more professional analysis about East Kurdistan or Rojhalat.

• 1:48:27Speaker 13

  Yeah, great. Well, thank you, Zema, for joining us. We really appreciate your time.

• 1:48:31Speaker 14

  Thank you. Thank you very much.

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• 1:50:23Speaker 13

  Hi everyone and welcome to What Could Happen Here. It is a second episode about Kurdistan. I am very lucky to be joined today by Vladimir Van Wilgenberg, who many of you will know is a journalist covering Kurdistan. He's done excellent work for a lot of publications. So welcome to the show Vladimir.

• 1:50:42Speaker 15

  Thanks so much for the invitation.

• 1:50:44Speaker 13

  Yeah, thanks for, thanks for being willing to join us so late at night. Your time. Let's start off by discussing an event you attended or an event you were in proximity to. By the sounds of it, people will have seen this online, I'm sure. But it was the disarmament of a number of PKK guerrillas that took place in the mountains of southern Kurdistan over the weekend of the 10th to 12th of July.

• 1:51:12Speaker 15

  So yeah, a few days ago, I attended, well, I tried to attend the ceremony from 40 PKK guerrillas that were disarming. Basically, what happened is that they, they burned their, their weapons. Although technically it's not really possible to burn a weapon because there were these, these colossus basically that they were, they put in a fire. And it was in like actually a tourist cave near Dokan. So this not, it was actually very different because I also have been in the, during the peace process. I've also was in a press conference of the PKK in 2000. Fourteen or fifteen or some that around that time. And that was very different because it was basically in the area that the PKK is active in. It was in the area under their control.

• 1:51:54Speaker 15

  But this was under a different Kurdish party's control. It's called Patriarch Union of Kurdistan. So in Iraqi Kurdistan, you have two main parties. The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and you have the Kurdistan Democratic Party. So this cave where they did the ceremony, which is actually a tourist cave. It's in a PKK controlled area. So the ceremony was sort of protected by PKK security forces.

• 1:52:20Speaker 13

  Yeah.

• 1:52:21Speaker 15

  And that's why also the PKK media, they got a lot of special access. And also there was the Turkish government media was there and also PKK media was there and a lot of other Kurdish TV channels. So it was a very interesting day, although I wasn't able to pass the checkpoint towards the ceremony. Because at the last moment, actually a few days before the ceremony, they changed the access. Supposedly it will be a very open ceremony, but then they said for because of security reasons that they had to restrict the ceremony and there would be some TV screens and stuff. In the end, I couldn't find the TV screens, but that's another discussion. But I also don't still understand what the security risk was. Although a day before, there was a drone strike.

• 1:53:04Speaker 13

  Yeah.

• 1:53:04Speaker 15

  On a Kurdish Peshmerga base. But that was like quite far away from that. It was one hour away from the ceremony location.

• 1:53:12Speaker 13

  Yeah, and it's an Iranian drone strike, right? Like a Shahid drone.

• 1:53:15Speaker 15

  Yeah, so there have been like no group has claimed these attacks. But in after, in the aftermath of the 12 day war, there have been a lot of drone strikes in the Kurdistan region in various areas, including this morning on an American oil company's facility in the Dehok province.

• 1:53:33Speaker 13

  Okay.

• 1:53:34Speaker 15

  And the day before that also on another field near Erbil. So it has been quite tense.

• 1:53:40Speaker 13

  Yeah.

• 1:53:40Speaker 15

  Which also probably affected the ceremony, although it's not really related to it.

• 1:53:44Speaker 13

  Yeah, it's different.

• 1:53:45Speaker 15

  So yeah, basically what was interesting, so they have this peace process between Kurdish rebels and the Turkish state.

• 1:53:52Speaker 13

  Mm hmm.

• 1:53:52Speaker 15

  It's all started with a call by a Turkish ultra nationalist leader, which actually in the past actually called for executing Abdullah Oçlan, the leader of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, who has been in prison since the 90s.

• 1:54:05Speaker 13

  Yeah.

• 1:54:06Speaker 15

  He was actually surprisingly starting this peace process. He was saying like, we should have him talk in the parliament and call for disbanding the PKK.

• 1:54:15Speaker 13

  Yeah.

• 1:54:16Speaker 15

  So he, he never came to the parliament, but he released messages from prison. And before the ceremony, he released also a video message where he again focused on disarming, basically.

• 1:54:28Speaker 13

  Yeah.

• 1:54:29Speaker 15

  And then the ceremony basically came where you have 30 fighters, 15 women, 15 men, because the PKK is all about woman equality, so that's why they did it 50 50.

• 1:54:41Speaker 13

  Yeah.

• 1:54:42Speaker 15

  And they, they put their weapons in this fire. So I think this is also signifies a point of renewal, because Kurds, as a tradition, they have this Kurdish New Year every year on 21 March, where people jump over fires, there's a lot of fireworks, and the Kurdish now is basically the start of a new beginning.

• 1:55:00Speaker 13

  Yeah.

• 1:55:01Speaker 15

  So I think one of the reasons they chose these fires is because of this idea of a new beginning, and also the fact that when the PKK started, there were people that sort of the creators of the PKK, there actually some of them, they burned themselves in prison, in the, in the, in the, in the Turkish prison.

• 1:55:19Speaker 13

  Yeah.

• 1:55:19Speaker 15

  Uh, so, so it's also sort of related to that, this sort of interlinkage with, with a fire.

• 1:55:26Speaker 13

  Yeah.

• 1:55:26Speaker 15

  And you also saw that they carefully put the, the weapons in the fire, they didn't just throw them. So it's, it doesn't mean that they have completely given up on weapons.

• 1:55:36Speaker 13

  Mm hmm.

• 1:55:36Speaker 15

  Uh, because they're still waiting on, on counter steps from the Turkish government.

• 1:55:41Speaker 13

  Yeah, I like, there has been fighting between PKK or HPG or how you want to say it, like, uh, HPG being like the technically the armed wing.

• 1:55:52Speaker 15

  Yeah.

• 1:55:52Speaker 13

  There's been fighting in, in southern Kurdistan, like, so in Iraqi KRG Kurdistan, uh, autonomous region of Iraq, since the call for peace, right? Like, there has been ongoing fighting.

• 1:56:04Speaker 15

  Yeah, I mean, it's not really, I would not say that it's like... Like actively fighting to take territory. Yes. Which was happening before. Uh huh. So it's more that it's some like Turkish army is shooting artillery on the PKK. And there was also one incident that the PKK actually responded by drones. Yeah. But so far, this didn't reach much in the Turkish or the Kurdish media. I mean, there were like some of this artillery shelling caused some fires. So villagers in the areas, it's a very hot summer now. They were trying to put out the fires. Yeah. But it was not like the active, active fighting that you had before. Okay. And you know, since there was also a previous peace process. I mean, there have been several peace processes since history between the PKK and Turkey,

• 1:56:50Speaker 15

  but they never had a positive result. Yeah. And the last, last one before this one was 2015. And after that peace process broke down, when two policemen were shot, it's still unclear who shot those policemen. The fighting erupted again. Uh huh. And since then, there have been heavy fighting first in the Kurdish majority areas of Turkey. Uh, until basically Turkey defeated Kurdish armed insurgents in the Kurdish cities in Turkey. And since then, actually, the fighting has moved more to Iraqi Kurdistan, where the PKK has also a historical presence since the 90s. Yeah. But what you now have is that you have the new, this new peace process started by this call of Basr Ali.

• 1:57:33Speaker 15

  And the PKK leader Oğuzhan has said, "The time for armed struggle is over. We don't want to have a Kurdish state." So basically, what now is happening is that the Kurdish PKK and the Kurdish political counterpart in Turkey, they're basically waiting for steps by Turkey now to give them basically trust to continue this process. And there was also a speech by the Turkish president Erdogan, where he was also saying that it's the end. We don't need anymore, we need to talk. It's not a time for weapons anymore. Yeah. We spent trillions of dollars on the war against the PKK. Uh, we had this, uh, a lot of martyrs and we sacrificed a lot.

• 1:58:16Speaker 15

  And it's now the time to, to stop the war and to do talking. And he said they're gonna work with the Kurdish party and this ultra-Turkish nationalist party, the MHP, in the parliament and to also set up a commission. To basically work on constitutional changes.

• 1:58:32Speaker 13

  Yeah, let's take a break for adverts here and then we'll come back.

• 1:58:46Speaker 13

  All right, we are back. I guess we should talk briefly about like the nature of this this call for peace. You explained very well that this is probably a higher chance of success than there has ever been, right? Like, we have the explicit buy-in of Ojulhan, who hasn't been seen on video since the 90s. So like to have him making a video statement is quite significant. I'm sure he's been seen on video, but like not not like making a speech.

• 1:59:09Speaker 15

  Correct.

• 1:59:10Speaker 13

  And then that we have like this this endorsement in the Turkish parliament. Like, I think there's been a lot of speculation about what led to this. And some of it's not particularly helpful. But, you know, you're you're very well educated on these matters. What do you think this means for not just the PKK, but the KCK, I guess? Like, the Kurdish Freedom Movement, the different movements throughout Kurdistan that are inspired by the political thought of Ojulhan?

• 1:59:37Speaker 15

  Well, I mean, it's until now, it's difficult to say what exactly is going to happen. Because the PKK said they're gonna go, they will disarm. But there's other groups which are linked to the PKK in Iran, Iran and in Syria. And also, for instance, in Sinjar. Those groups said they were not, some of them have said publicly that we are not part of this process or they welcome the process. And others, they didn't really say much. Do you see these groups haven't said really a lot?

• 2:00:05Speaker 13

  Yeah.

• 2:00:06Speaker 15

  So it's also gonna be interesting what will happen with those groups, with the Iranian Kurdish group and also with the Syrian Democratic Forces in Syria that have a different situation. Also, after the fall of Assad, they have these talks with Damascus. And actually, one of the reasons that the first peace process broke down was because that in, actually, at that time also that Turkey was a little bit afraid of this alliance between the Kurds and the Americans at the time against ISIS. That was then rising up in Syria and attacked the Kurdish town of Kobani in Syria, which created an alliance between the Kurds and US against the ISIS terrorist militant jihadi group.

• 2:00:46Speaker 15

  But now, the situation actually is interesting. So at that time, the Kurds were empowered in Syria. But now you can see there is a completely different situation. Now it's the opposite way. So now you have

• 2:00:58Speaker 13

  Yeah.

• 2:00:59Speaker 15

  the rebels that took over Damascus and they are now the government run by Jolani, his previous name, who's now called himself Ahmed al-Shara, his real name. So we now have a new Islamist-controlled government in Damascus. And there's a lot of tension between the Kurds in Syria and Damascus. So this could also risk basically this peace process with Turkey because the SDF, they have also ideological links with the PKK.

• 2:01:25Speaker 13

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:01:26Speaker 15

  So it's also interesting how this will work out. So in the past, it was also always like the fighting between Turkey and the PKK could threaten the SDF of Syria.

• 2:01:34Speaker 13

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:01:34Speaker 15

  But that was sort of the other way around, that fighting between, possible fighting in the future between Damascus and the Kurds in Syria could threaten the peace process in Turkey.

• 2:01:42Speaker 13

  Yeah.

• 2:01:43Speaker 15

  And Erdogan, he, he made this very big speech, not a very long time ago, where he mentioned that Turkey doesn't only want peace for the Kurds in Turkey and for Alawites, also a religious minority in Turkey.

• 2:01:54Speaker 13

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:01:54Speaker 15

  But he was also talking that he wants peace for the Kurds in Syria and also in Iraq, that they should also live like a prosperous life in Syria. And that they have good relations with the Syrian government. So I think that's also a very interesting point that you don't see many articles, that there's like this very big interlinkage between all these different issues.

• 2:02:13Speaker 13

  Yeah, and I think Turkey has maintained that the SDF is the, the PKK, right, just with like a different badge, uh, which is, is not the case. They share a lot of politics, but they're distinct. Turkey also has like extensive proxy forces in Syria, right, that have been fighting with the SDF since, I guess, like late, well, I mean, for, for years, but like in, in an expanded sense since, uh, since the beginning of the fall of the Assad regime. That we saw like probably seven or eight months ago now.

• 2:02:46Speaker 15

  Yeah.

• 2:02:47Speaker 13

  It's a very complex situation. It's also as we um as we record this today on the fifteenth. Syria is a very diverse country and into add to all the groups you mentioned. There is currently fighting between the government and Druze militias, right? Can you explain a little bit about the the situation there and the uh the the relevance of that?

• 2:03:09Speaker 15

  Well, I mean, the Druze, they they are a religious community that are not uh same as the Sunni Muslims. And they control their own area in the on the border um the town called Sueda and and the villages around it. And also they have some areas in Damascus where they have a presence.

• 2:03:25Speaker 13

  Yeah.

• 2:03:25Speaker 15

  So the Druze basically during the the time when the Assad regime is still was in power. They didn't really like fight very heavily against Assad regime in in the beginning. But they didn't allow the Assad regime to recruit military, recruit people in their area. And they sort of tried to keep the regime out of their area. So during the civil war, they were sort of semi-autonomous, but not officially. And actually, in the last years before the fall of Assad, there were like a big protest in the Druze areas. In support of the Syrian revolution and against the Assad regime. So there were like very big protests in the Druze areas against the Assad regime. So when the Assad regime was militarily weakening and the rebels from the other side of Syria, they were attacking the Assad regime.

• 2:04:10Speaker 15

  Uh the Druze, they also joined the fight and they marched together with the southern rebels. They marched on Damascus. And they were actually the first one that entered Damascus, not not Ahmed Al-Shara or the HTS. Actually, the first ones that entered Damascus was the the southern rebels and the Druze.

• 2:04:27Speaker 13

  Yeah.

• 2:04:28Speaker 15

  But but there's this thing is that Damascus wants to have this this new regime or the new government in Damascus. They want to have this very centralized system. So they don't want the Druze to run their own armed groups and have their own uh sort of local autonomy. Uh so they have they have been fighting before between the Druze and the new authorities in Syria.

• 2:04:50Speaker 13

  Yeah.

• 2:04:50Speaker 15

  In in areas near Damascus, uh but. There was like a ceasefire and the fighting stopped. Uh but recently, there there's also like historical tensions between these Arab Bedouin tribes and the Druze in in this area, so these areas are quite mixed. Uh so this actually this this recent conflict, they started when Bedouin tribes, they they they robbed like a merchant who was a Druze. And then after that, there were like mutual kidnapping, like tensions between both sides. And then basically, although Damascus, Damascus said they were neutral, Damascus started to support these Bedouin groups against the Druze and started marching on on Suede, which is the the Druze stronghold uh on the border.

• 2:05:31Speaker 15

  And so actually, there have been like a few days, not not even a few days, but have been like a short period of fighting now. And actually Damascus, they they they entered this this Druze town of Suede. And they actually said, okay, we control the town now, and now we're gonna withdraw the Syrian army. And then the internal security forces gonna control the city. Very shortly after, Israel started bombing heavily the Syrian armed forces of the new Syrian government.

• 2:06:01Speaker 13

  Yeah.

• 2:06:01Speaker 15

  And then the Druze armed groups, they sort of pushed back and they pushed out this internal security forces out of the city and now the Druze are, according to many reports, back in control of the city of Suede. And now you see that, uh just like what happened with the Alawites, when there was this um Assad regime remnants that had an uprising against the new authorities. And then there were like these rebels, they were mobilized with mosques all over Syria and they went to the coast areas. And they defeated those Assad regime remnants, but they killed also a lot of civilians, some reports say over fifteen hundred people.

• 2:06:36Speaker 13

  Yeah.

• 2:06:37Speaker 15

  So what you now see is that Damascus is against mobilizing those people with mosques to march on Suede. Uh but the difference is with the Alawites is that Israel also has Druze. So there's also pressure um the Israeli government to support the Druze, so it's not only because of their strategic interests, it's also because there are Druze living in in Israel itself that that that also have joined the Israeli army.

• 2:07:01Speaker 13

  Yeah.

• 2:07:01Speaker 15

  So they're also pushing. Israel for taking action. So you saw that today, like Israel, they took a lot of, uh, they carried out a lot of airstrikes and the drus there are basically back in control of most of the Suaedah city, not of the whole area. But the fight is not over yet. And then you also have different drus factions. Some of them, they have better relations with Damascus. The majority of them don't. Uh, so now we're gonna see if there's gonna be fighting, if, if the fight is gonna increase again. We see now reports also of, of, um, that the HDS or the Damascus government forces are using drone strikes by themselves on drus forces. So they're using basically the drones that they use to overthrow the Assad regime.

• 2:07:43Speaker 13

  Okay.

• 2:07:43Speaker 15

  So yeah, that's the situation.

• 2:07:45Speaker 13

  Yeah. I think like the world stopped looking at Syria. I mean, I guess the world stopped looking at Syria a while ago. Uh, like really after the defeat of the territorial caliphate, it's been much harder to sell stories in, uh, big newspapers in the United States. But yeah, it's by no means like the fighting is not over. And it leaves the SDF, the Western Kurdistan branch of this Kurdish movement, right? Like in, as you said, a fairly, a fairly perilous condition, right? The, the Damascus wants to centralize, like they want to have, they don't want to have independence. So they don't want to have, uh, like federated autonomy.

• 2:08:23Speaker 13

  The United States seems to be, or at least the United States envoy to Damascus seems to be making statements that suggests that like the only way forward is through centralization.

• 2:08:45Speaker 13

  On one hand, we have the PPK laying down arms. On the other hand, we have the SDF in its difficult position. Where does this leave like the Kurdish freedom movement? I think this has been a thing that a lot of people all over the world have looked up to, right? People have, especially Rashava as this example, that, that people could build something, a, a place where freedom could exist in the middle of this terrible war in Syria. Do you think the movement's like in danger now?

• 2:09:09Speaker 15

  Well, I mean, you have this new government in Syria. Actually, initially, the Trump administration was quite reluctant to have relations with the new authorities in Damascus, because they were, I mean, Jolani used to be on a,

• 2:09:23Speaker 13

  Yeah.

• 2:09:24Speaker 15

  Ahmad Ashraf used to be on a terrorist sanction list.

• 2:09:27Speaker 13

  Yeah, there was a bounty for him at one point, wasn't there?

• 2:09:30Speaker 15

  Yeah, but I think there was like a very intensive lobbying by some Gulf states and Turkey to basically remove the sanctions on Ahmad Ashraf Jolani, but also remove sanctions on Syria, the economic sanctions that were actually were on the Assad regime. So I think the Trump administration changed their position, and also a new ambassador for Syria and Turkey was appointed. So he was not only ambassador for Turkey, but also for Syria. And he's basically echoing a lot of the points of the new authorities in Damascus, that they were talking about one state, one army, one this, one this, and the SDF should be integrated and blah, blah, blah. So there was, there was also, recently, there were talks between Damascus and the SDF,

• 2:10:12Speaker 15

  because in March, they reached an agreement with Western support. And they were trying to basically make a more finalized agreement in, recently, a few days ago, they had these talks in Damascus, and the French were there, and the Brits were there, and Americans were there.

• 2:10:27Speaker 13

  Yeah.

• 2:10:27Speaker 15

  But this agreement was not implemented, it didn't lead to anything. So it was not really, it didn't really work very well, because Damascus is insisting on this centralized state. And I was just listening to Kurdish, hearing Kurdish official, as he was also saying, like, we don't want to separate from Syria, but we want to have some form of local councils and a decentralized Syria, not like a centralized Syria.

• 2:10:51Speaker 13

  Yeah.

• 2:10:51Speaker 15

  And he was also talking about what happened to the drus, that it's not a very good example for the future of Syria.

• 2:10:57Speaker 13

  Yeah.

• 2:10:57Speaker 15

  So I think definitely what you're saying, that there is a sort of a threat, because in the past, the US was very supportive of the SDF in the fight against ISIS, although they didn't support so much their political project, but they supported them because they fought ISIS. And also, they were keeping out Iranian-backed militias from areas like Deir ez-Zor. But now you don't have Iran. Anymore in Syria, they were completely kicked out after the fall of the Assad regime. All these militias, they have been disbanded or hiding. Or some of them actually now being used by the Damascus against the truce. So now that argument is not there anymore that you, okay, we have the SDF, they keep out Iran from the oil fields. Yeah, you could still argue you have still have the fight against ISIS. I mean ISIS is still a threat.

• 2:11:42Speaker 13

  Yeah.

• 2:11:42Speaker 15

  But the Kurds don't have that same leverage anymore as is in the past that they said, okay, we are the main ones fighting ISIS. We keep out Iran from these areas because now you have Damascus. Damascus said, why, why the Kurds should do that? Like, let's us take over those prisons and, and the camps. Where you have this thousands of ISIS families and ISIS prisoners. And we don't need the Kurds to run the ISIS file. We can do that for you. So I think that's now like the big issue is that the US seems to be more supporting Damascus. At least diplomatically than the SDF.

• 2:12:15Speaker 13

  Yeah.

• 2:12:15Speaker 15

  Although militarily speaking, the, the support is still going on for the SDF until two thousand twenty six. They, in the last Pentagon budget, which was not accepted yet. Uh, there's still like, uh, millions of support for the SDF to, to maintain the prisons and this kind of stuff. So I think it's, it's a, it's a difficult situation.

• 2:12:35Speaker 13

  Yeah. That these prisons like, um, Ahal and others, right, like they, um. They're, I guess, kind of the only leverage the FDF has with the United States, where the, along with the continuing and somewhat increasing ISIS attacks.

• 2:12:50Speaker 15

  Yeah.

• 2:12:51Speaker 13

  But that's still much less of a threat to the US than it was ten years ago, say. Right, like it's, it's much less of a significant thing. So like, what is the status of those prisons? That currently they're still guided by the SDF, right? But the people aren't familiar. Can you just explain? What those prisons consist of and, uh, like who's in there and who's guarding them?

• 2:13:14Speaker 15

  Well, so ISIS created this um jihadist state between 2014 and 2019. But then the Kurdish-led SDF, they basically took most of these areas under ISIS control. They defeated basically ISIS with the support of the US, so they lost the territory. And the last battle basically was for a small town called Baghuz and Deir ez-Zor. So you had all these ISIS families there, and also there were like several ISIS foreign members that were captured. So you have the wives of ISIS fighters and you also have ISIS fighters themselves that were captured during these battles. So all these people, they were brought to camps. So I was there in Syria many times, for instance, during the battle for Raka, which was used to be the capital of the ISIS

• 2:13:59Speaker 15

  caliphate. They were like bringing the ISIS families and women to a camp in Ain al-Isha. But after that, they moved most of those people to, actually they moved almost all of them to the Roj camp and Al-Hol camp in northern Syria, in the Hasaka province. And also that includes foreigners. You can imagine people from Uzbekistan, from Uighurs, from China, people from Turkey, French people, European people. So it's full of a lot of different people, and then the majority are actually Iraqis and Syrians. So the SDF, they have this file. They, a majority, like a lot of people in those camps, they have been repatriated or they have returned to their homes.

• 2:14:42Speaker 15

  So I think those camps like Al-Hol camp, like the prison, it's not a prison, it's a camp, I think like the number of people there basically decreased almost 50%, but there's still a lot of people inside. But the prisons, you have still all these ISIS fighters that were imprisoned during the war. Yeah. And a lot of them are foreigners, including Dutch, another country. And some countries, they have returned their, they have returned their people there. So we have some people, you know, America, they took back most of the families and the fighters, and they prosecute them in the US. Yeah. But you also have countries that didn't bring back the fighters. For instance, they only brought back the women. So that's the situation, that all those people are still there. And it's actually what you mentioned, it's like one of the big reasons

• 2:15:26Speaker 15

  for support for the SDF. And it's also one of the reasons that the SDF is getting millions to keep those prisons in good shape, because there have been also attempts by ISIS to free those prisoners from those prison spaces.

• 2:15:39Speaker 13

  Yeah, in successful attempts in 2020, 2022, I think it was when they had the the last like major prison escape.

• 2:15:47Speaker 15

  Yeah.

• 2:15:48Speaker 13

  Which, yeah, it's a bad thing for the whole world if if if all those all those people get out. And like you say, lots of

• 2:15:56Speaker 13

  European nations, I think it's something that I wish Americans had paid more attention to because a thing that European nations have done, of the United Kingdom being a paramount example, is like rendered some of those people stateless.

• 2:16:10Speaker 15

  Well.

• 2:16:10Speaker 13

  Right, that they've they've removed their, in this case, Shmima Begum is probably the most well-known example, right, they've removed her British passport, now she doesn't have a state, she's stateless. It's something that the US has recently done to people living in the United States. And like, it it does feel something as if, you know, that the precedent has been established and and that and now it's being carried out and it's it's obviously deeply concerning to see it happening here after after like it happened there, and I wish people had opposed it when it did.

• 2:16:42Speaker 15

  Well, I mean, the US in the US itself in Syria was very a big advocate of bringing the people out.

• 2:16:49Speaker 13

  Yes, it was, yeah.

• 2:16:50Speaker 15

  Because it would make it easier for them to withdraw, so they were actually pushing those countries that didn't want to bring back their nationals to basically bring them back, like Western countries, the UK and others.

• 2:17:00Speaker 13

  Yeah.

• 2:17:00Speaker 15

  But some of these countries were actually forced by court orders or or others, but a lot of these countries were actually quite reluctant to bring them back because they were afraid of like security risk and stuff, or that they will be released quite quickly and then they would again, like be active in in jihadist activities.

• 2:17:18Speaker 13

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:17:19Speaker 15

  So, yes, was very, so I remember that the US was even offering like members of this coalition against ISIS, which was created in 2014. Like you said, if you cannot bring them yourself, I mean, we can, our military can help you to bring those people out if you think that you it's it's difficult for you to go to Syria and pick those nationals up from your accounts.

• 2:17:39Speaker 13

  Yeah, yeah, been pretty unsuccessful like in a lot of, well, in some European cases they have, but still, yeah, lots of them are utterly refusing to do it. I wonder then, as we we finish up here, right, like we we spoke about this PKK disarmament. Obviously, like, it's a it's a symbolic disarmament, right? There is still, I don't I don't quite know how big the HPG is, but it's much bigger than thirty people. And then the weapons they laid down were like a very small percentage of their weapons. Were they just burning like Kalashnikovs? Or did they burn like like larger weapons too?

• 2:18:12Speaker 15

  No, it was just their personal Kalashnikovs, basically.

• 2:18:15Speaker 13

  Okay.

• 2:18:15Speaker 15

  So I mean, it was also like more a symbolic symbolic ceremony, like we are willing to give up.

• 2:18:21Speaker 13

  Yep.

• 2:18:21Speaker 15

  But the thing is that also it's still not clear what happened to those thirty people. Are they gonna go back to Turkey?

• 2:18:27Speaker 13

  That's what I wanted to ask, yeah.

• 2:18:29Speaker 15

  Are they gonna stay in Iraqi Kurdistan and find a job there? Because you have people like that in Iraqi Kurdistan that used to be with the PKK and that now they work in, I don't know, in media or construction sector or entertainment sector. You have people like that, but there's not much clarity on that. But I think also that's because they're waiting on Turkey to make possible constitutional steps, you know, to see what Turkey is gonna do. Because if, for instance, Turkey could offer an amnesty or this kind of things, then

• 2:18:57Speaker 13

  Right.

• 2:18:58Speaker 15

  those people could return. And also some of them are saying like now it's the end of of weapons, but we still want to be involved in politics.

• 2:19:03Speaker 13

  Right, through the political party.

• 2:19:05Speaker 15

  So it's also possible that those people want want to go back to Turkey and basically take part in Kurdish politics or Turkish politics to be more correct in in in Turkey. So I think it's a little bit too early to say what happens with those people, because I remember also, if I very much correct, that there also happened peace process that basically people have given, basically went to the border and give themselves up to Turkey, but that didn't happen now. So it's it's a bit different than in the past.

• 2:19:30Speaker 13

  Yeah.

• 2:19:30Speaker 15

  But it seems that the Turkish government was very happy with the with the ceremony. They didn't complain about it. So.

• 2:19:37Speaker 13

  Okay, yeah, yeah. I wonder what happened to those guerrillas or former guerrillas, I suppose, who laid down their weapons. At the end of the ceremony, they just kind of returned to the mountains or whatever. Like, we don't know what what will happen with them.

• 2:19:50Speaker 15

  No, that's that's not clear to me, because there are still some unanswered questions, like what you mentioned now, like what those thirty people did.

• 2:19:58Speaker 13

  Yeah.

• 2:19:58Speaker 15

  What those people are gonna do now. So.

• 2:20:01Speaker 13

  Right. It's a lot of people, and it's a lot of people, some of whom have spent decades. As cadre of the revolution, right? They haven't really known life outside of the revolution for a very long time.

• 2:20:14Speaker 15

  Yeah, so it's also a bit difficult for them to return to civilian life because, I mean, because they probably joined when they're quite young. And I think I saw also the profiles of the people, of the 30 people who burned their weapons, that a lot of them, they joined in the 90s.

• 2:20:27Speaker 13

  Wow.

• 2:20:28Speaker 15

  So they have been in the mountains for a very long time.

• 2:20:32Speaker 13

  Yeah.

• 2:20:32Speaker 15

  I mean, some of them were young, but there were also older people among them. But definitely, it's gonna be a question, what will happen with those people? Although, I mean, there were also talks that some leadership of the armed PKK movement might go to Europe and get asylum there, instead of going back to Turkey.

• 2:20:51Speaker 13

  Yeah.

• 2:20:52Speaker 15

  You know, you have also a lot of Kurdish diaspora organizations active there, so they could like, basically embrace those people.

• 2:20:59Speaker 13

  Yeah, but they're still listed as a foreign terrorist organization in most of...

• 2:21:03Speaker 15

  Yeah, exactly. I mean, for instance, they probably would want to have something like what the Syrian president have now, Ahmad al-Shara, that he used to be listed as sanctioned as a terrorist organization, and then to have that removed. But I'm sure that that's not on the table anytime soon, but that happened with the HTS. But also it happened, for instance, Mujahid al-Khalk, an Iranian opposition group, they also got delisted. So technically, it's possible. But I think we are like in a very early stage of the peace process.

• 2:21:31Speaker 13

  Yeah.

• 2:21:31Speaker 15

  So that's why I think it's gonna take time before we have more clarity. And some of these answers, that questions you ask now, I mean, most of the people that attended the ceremony didn't have an answer to that too, because there was not much clarity on that. Because it was just a ceremony, there was like a statement. Journalists were not able to talk to most of the journalists. I mean, there was like some statement in some Kurdish media, but in general, like, they were not able to talk to those fighters, like, now what are you gonna do? There was not like access to those 30 people that burned their weapons.

• 2:22:01Speaker 13

  Yeah.

• 2:22:02Speaker 15

  So it was like sort of quite very much controlled ceremony. It was very difficult to report on it, basically, which is very different from the previous peace process when it was much more open.

• 2:22:12Speaker 13

  Yeah.

• 2:22:13Speaker 15

  But that time, there was not like 30 fighters giving up their weapons. They just had like sort of a press conference, this is what we're gonna do. And that was very different than what happened now.

• 2:22:21Speaker 13

  Yeah, yeah, I guess it's something just to just to keep watching. It's fascinating to watch it unfold. Like, I was in Kurdistan a year and a half ago, and it is completely seen the situation is completely different, likewise in the whole of Syria. So yeah, it's fascinating to watch. I'm sure if people want to know more about it, you're very good at reporting on this. You often post on Twitter about the situation and you write for a number of outlets. So how can people follow your work?

• 2:22:50Speaker 15

  Well, the best place to follow my work is on Twitter, on X.

• 2:22:55Speaker 13

  Yeah, X.

• 2:22:56Speaker 15

  Because I'm quite active there. But also, I write for for places like Middle East Eye, some think tanks like Washington Institute, New Lines Institute. I also write for Kurdish magazine called Kurdistan Chronicle. And also, I pitch for other websites. So I'm quite active on different issues, but mostly focused on things related to Kurds. So mostly stuff related to Iran, Turkey, Syria, etc.

• 2:23:21Speaker 13

  Yeah. Well, thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate your insight.

• 2:23:25Speaker 15

  You're welcome, my friend.

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• 2:25:19Speaker 05

  This is It Could Happen Here: Executive Disorder, our weekly newscast covering what's happening in the White House, the crumbling world and what it means for you. I'm Garrison Davis. Today, I'm joined by Mia Wong, James Stout and Robert Evans.

• 2:25:32Robert Evans?

  Yes.

• 2:25:33Speaker 05

  This episode, we are covering the week of July 9 to July 16. What's going on, my boys? And in some cases, gals. And in some cases, days or it's or whatever.

• 2:25:43Robert Evans?

  And the answer for everyone is ED.

• 2:25:48Robert Evans?

  Hooray.

• 2:25:50Speaker 05

  In some cases, uh, my gals. I guess let's start by talking about Jeffrey Epstein.

• 2:25:58Robert Evans?

  As we always do. Jepstein. Uh, yeah, you know what? Garrison, you, I hear you've got some bars to drop about Epstein.

• 2:26:07Speaker 05

  Jesus.

• 2:26:11Robert Evans?

  All right. Well, that's, that's my work for the day.

• 2:26:13Speaker 05

  Brief.

• 2:26:16Speaker 05

  Brief summary. Previously on this show, we talked about how Patel and Bongino, the head of the FBI, have previously come under fire from mega supporters for saying that Epstein really did kill himself. And this has kind of been bubbling in the base for a while because they use this as one of their main like campaign and podcast talking points for the past four years.

• 2:26:38Robert Evans?

  Yeah.

• 2:26:39Speaker 05

  Bongino was a huge. Epstein truther guy. I mean, and like Patel's like the QAnon guy like he's both these guys have have made their careers the past four years like heavily about this topic. Right. And now they're, you know, backtracking on a whole bunch of the previous, you know, claims or, you know, just asking questions type stuff that they did the past few years. And like a week and a half ago, a memo from the Department of Justice announced that it was closing the investigation and claiming that there was no client list for Jeffrey Epstein, despite Pam Bondi herself boasting about having Epstein's client list on her desk only a few months ago. This caused a huge freak out in the mega world.

• 2:27:22Speaker 05

  There was conflicting reports that Bondi or Patel or Bongino might be resigning like in protest of this memo. A lot of like uncertainty over like what was real. And then on July 12th, Trump had to speak his own Truth Social. Okay. Quote, what's going on with my boys and in some cases gals, they're all going after Attorney General Pam Bondi, who's doing a fantastic job. We're on one team, a mega, and I don't like what's happening. We have a perfect administration, the talk of the world, and selfish people are trying to hurt it all over a guy who never dies, Jeffrey Epstein. For years, it's Epstein over and over again.

• 2:28:03Speaker 05

  Why are we giving publicity to files written by Obama, crooked Hillary, Comey, Brennan, and the losers and criminals of the Biden administration who conned the world with the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax, 51 intelligence agents, and the laptop from hell, all caps. They created the Epstein files, just like they created the fake Hillary Clinton, Christopher Steele dossier that they used on me. And now my so-called friends, in quotes, are playing right into their hands. So this was right after claiming that the Epstein files did not exist, that these things are not actually real. And then Trump's talking about how they are real, but they are in fact written by his enemies, despite the most recent investigation into Jeffrey Epstein, starting in 2019, when,

• 2:28:47Speaker 05

  if you remember, Donald Trump was the president. Well, Garrison, the defining.

• 2:28:51Robert Evans?

  Political question of our of the modern era is who was president in 2020. So I can see it moving back. And we there's no answer to this question, you know, we just can't, we don't know. We will never know. There's no way to prove it. Our records don't reach back that far. We just simply can't say who precedent was. The mists of time have shaded over.

• 2:29:12Speaker 05

  So much of modern domestic politics is about confusion over who was president in 2019 and 2020. When it was Donald Trump, yes, by saying, quote, "Let's not waste time and energy on Jeffrey Epstein, somebody nobody cares about."

• 2:29:29Robert Evans?

  So funny. You can tell he's so far gone, you too.

• 2:29:34Speaker 05

  He sounds scared.

• 2:29:35Robert Evans?

  Well, because he never fully understood this stuff. Like, there's things that he understands instinctually, and there's things that he never really got. And because he was Epstein's friend, he never really got why this was so central. He kind of got that it was, but he also kind of assumed like, well, if I tell everyone to shut the fuck up, they will.

• 2:29:54Speaker 05

  They're gonna shut the fuck up. Yeah.

• 2:29:55Robert Evans?

  Yeah.

• 2:29:56Speaker 05

  Because that's how he's done things for the past like 12 years, and it's more often than not worked really well for him. But this has become such a load-bearing aspect of like the mega self-image. Like, this is like, you know, this type of stuff is what drove QAnon, essentially like a cult.

• 2:30:10Robert Evans?

  Yeah.

• 2:30:12Speaker 05

  He and he he never fully understood why QAnon was really a thing. He never like truly grasped it.

• 2:30:17Robert Evans?

  That's why he never really, like, he started more recently doing some QAnon signposting. But yeah, he clearly never fully got why it was happening.

• 2:30:26Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:30:27Robert Evans?

  Like, it was convenient.

• 2:30:29Speaker 05

  And now the monster that he and his, you know, quote unquote, friends have helped create all these years is starting to nibble on his own leg.

• 2:30:36Robert Evans?

  Yeah.

• 2:30:37Speaker 05

  This past weekend, influencers like Tim Poole, Benny Johnson, and Charlie Kirk all started to kind of turn on Trump. And to play a quick video from disgraced BuzzFeed writer Benny Johnson, now right-wing podcaster.

• 2:30:51Speaker 16

  By admitting that the Epstein files are real and have been written and that you've read them and you don't like their contents and they were written by your enemies, doesn't make, doesn't make the most compelling case.

• 2:31:09Speaker 16

  As far as I'm concerned, um, holy moly.

• 2:31:16Robert Evans?

  Holy moly.

• 2:31:17Speaker 05

  Holy moly.

• 2:31:18Speaker 13

  You had it here first.

• 2:31:20Speaker 05

  There was a lot of this stuff over the weekend, like this, this whole like podcasting cohort, which, which so many people, you know, credit to, to Trump's great success in 2024, all started asking questions and we're kind of confused. I don't know why they would be. It's been very well documented that Trump was friends with Epstein for a long time, but this, this time, this thing finally broke containment. Yeah. And when you have like fucking Charlie Kirk, somebody who's basically like one of the GOP's like top narrative shepherds essentially. And when you have him like questioning the president's own story and credibility, that's like a pretty big shakeup in the mega world.

• 2:31:59Robert Evans?

  Yeah. Yeah, it's not really explicable. There's no plausible deniability. Yeah, yeah.

• 2:32:03Speaker 03

  I think for a long time, this has been like the load bearing cognitive dissonance for this entire movement. And I actually do think when Elon first was just like, he's in the files. I think that was the first moment that all these people were suddenly allowed to do this.

• 2:32:18Speaker 05

  That was the first domino, definitely.

• 2:32:20Speaker 13

  Yeah, he, he cracked the shell on it.

• 2:32:23Speaker 03

  And I think that has like torn open this rift.

• 2:32:26Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:32:27Speaker 03

  That has allowed all of these people who previously, their cognitive dissonance has sustained them through a decade of like.

• 2:32:34Speaker 13

  Yeah.

• 2:32:35Speaker 03

  Our dear rulers, obviously friends with the pedophile, like.

• 2:32:38Speaker 05

  I'll say it, critical support Elon Musk.

• 2:32:42Speaker 03

  Oh, no.

• 2:32:45Speaker 03

  Oh, let, let them fight, let them fight.

• 2:32:47Speaker 05

  So the next move that the geniuses of the Trump administration tried to pull to, to settle things down was release the raw footage, the missing raw footage outside Jeffrey Epstein's cell to finally, finally close the book on this Jeffrey Epstein didn't kill himself moment. And they released it and everyone realized, you know what? They're right. Uh, there's nothing more to look into here. Case closed.

• 2:33:11Robert Evans?

  We all rose up as if with one voice to say, this doesn't seem suspicious.

• 2:33:17Speaker 05

  So Wired found that this quote unquote, raw video was actually edited and had it nearly three minutes removed.

• 2:33:26Robert Evans?

  Sure. Yeah, but you look, doesn't Jeffrey Epstein deserve some privacy, you know, three minutes on his own?

• 2:33:32Speaker 05

  This is a really personal decision for somebody to take.

• 2:33:35Robert Evans?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 2:33:38Speaker 05

  So, no, after claiming that like they've released this, this, this completely, this is completely, you know, ripped straight from the hard drive, raw footage. It showed that it was edited in Adobe Premiere and has these missing, missing three minutes. Pam Bondi initially tried to say that there's usually a minute missing from footage because of a computer reset that happens every night at the same time, which was then immediately proven incorrect by their

• 2:34:04Robert Evans?

  Yeah, amazing.

• 2:34:06Speaker 05

  By there being way more than one minute missing.

• 2:34:09Robert Evans?

  Yeah, three minutes, I'm sorry. They're simply, like, I came into this as like, I don't know what happened, you know? Maybe he killed himself, maybe he didn't.

• 2:34:18Speaker 05

  I don't know what happened in Nutjell, so I, I.

• 2:34:20Speaker 03

  Me neither.

• 2:34:20Robert Evans?

  And now I'm, now I'm, I'm, I am sincerely more on the, well, something, there's something there hiding.

• 2:34:26Speaker 03

  I will say, I will say, there, there's one thing that I think this does definitively rule out, which is that it was definitely not the Clinton crime family.

• 2:34:36Speaker 03

  We've ruled out one possible person.

• 2:34:39Robert Evans?

  This brings me to a theory that I have been working on for the last couple of days. And I, I think this is, this is really important to get out to people. So, obviously, the other big statement that Donald Trump made in the last week was that his uncle, who used to be a professor at MIT, had taught Ted Kaczynski and talked to him about Ted Kaczynski and been like, yeah, you know, there's a real thin line between genius and insanity. And then it came out that Donald Trump's uncle who taught at MIT died in 1985. And of course, the Unabomber was not publicly identified until 1996. Now, some people have interpreted this as Donald Trump lying, which I think we can all agree, doesn't seem like something he would do. So, the only other explanation is that Trump and his family knew who the Unabomber was

• 2:35:24Robert Evans?

  for more than a decade and kept it hidden from the rest of the United States. Now, what is the Unabomber and Donald Trump have in common? Obviously, two people who were treated very unfairly by the Clintons, right? I think we can all agree on that, you know? So, it all ties together.

• 2:35:42Speaker 05

  Both are possibly victims of MKUltra.

• 2:35:45Robert Evans?

  That's right.

• 2:35:46Speaker 05

  No, the, the, his little Tuesday speech in Pittsburgh was, was quite bizarre. Not just that, Kaczynski never went to MIT.

• 2:35:55Speaker 13

  I was gonna say, to my knowledge, none of them.

• 2:35:57Speaker 05

  Yes, did not go to the, to the university that Dr. John Trump was at. I will say, this, this is the first one of these stories that this genuinely sounds like an Alex Jones story. Like, this is the kind of story that Alex Jones tells about his uncles all the time?

• 2:36:12Speaker 13

  Yeah, they ain't, they ain't talking to Alex Jones right now.

• 2:36:14Speaker 05

  No, definitely not. But it's like-

• 2:36:16Speaker 13

  Persona non grata at the White House currently.

• 2:36:19Speaker 05

  Yeah, it is, it is a truly bizarre ramble.

• 2:36:21Speaker 17

  And I have to take, I have to brag just for a second because- I have to brag? When I first heard about AI, you know, it's not my thing, although my uncle was at MIT, one of the great professors, fifty, fifty-one years, whatever, who was the longest-serving professor in the history of MIT, three degrees in nuclear, chemical, and math. That's a smart man. Kaczynski was one of his students. Do you know who Kaczynski was? There's very little difference between a madman and a genius. But Kaczynski, I said, what kind of a student was he, Uncle John, Dr. John Trump? He said, what kind of a student? And then he said, seriously, good. He said he'd correct, he'd go around correcting everybody,

• 2:37:04Speaker 17

  but it didn't work out too well for him. Didn't work out too well, but it's interesting in life.

• 2:37:10Speaker 05

  Didn't work out too well for him.

• 2:37:12Speaker 13

  It sure didn't.

• 2:37:13Speaker 05

  Jesus Christ.

• 2:37:15Speaker 13

  Yeah. To be fair, he never, he never gives a first name. It could have been another Kaczynski.

• 2:37:20Speaker 05

  It could be a different Kaczynski. This is true, James.

• 2:37:22Speaker 13

  Yeah, yeah. People are nice to say, also, uh, God, that whole thing, just, uh, the, the undergrad who goes around correcting everyone. Many such cases. Yeah.

• 2:37:33Speaker 05

  But, uh, back to Epstein, the thing that Trump doesn't want us talking about.

• 2:37:37Speaker 13

  That's right.

• 2:37:38Speaker 05

  By Monday, some of this, like, influencer podcasting class started to kind of close ranks. The skepticism and frustration that they expressed over the weekend subsided, and they started to repeat the party line. Charlie Kirk said on his show, quote, "Plenty was said this last weekend at our event about Epstein. Honestly, I'm done talking about Epstein for the time being. I'm gonna trust my friends and the administration." I'm gonna trust my friends in the government to do what needs to be done, solvent balls in their hands. I've said plenty this last weekend, so if you guys wanna see my commentary on it, that's fine. Everyone knows my opinion on the Epstein thing, the messaging fumble.

• 2:38:20Speaker 05

  I would love to see the DOJ move to unseal the grand jury testimony, unquote. The messaging fumble.

• 2:38:27Speaker 13

  Fumble.

• 2:38:28Speaker 05

  Really, the biggest problem with the, the biggest problem with Jeffrey Epstein has been the messaging fumble. Not key.

• 2:38:35Speaker 13

  Yeah.

• 2:38:35Speaker 05

  Decades of horrific sex crimes tied to the President of the United States. Also, I, I love that he's trying to trust the plan, people with like the thing that trust the plan is about revealing.

• 2:38:46Speaker 13

  Yeah.

• 2:38:47Speaker 05

  This is about, it's what it's about.

• 2:38:48Speaker 13

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Just keep trusting it. I do wanna say that I, uh, because I hate myself, I listened to Sean Ryan's podcast interview with Gavin Newsom.

• 2:38:59Speaker 05

  Oh, God.

• 2:38:59Speaker 13

  Which, yeah, I, I don't suggest, it is four hours, if you're wondering. Uh, so never get pissed off about our episodes going long again, please. Lots of interesting stuff. Trump has lost Sean Ryan. Like, he is not toeing the line on this Epstein stuff. He's clearly pissed about it. And like, Ryan is a sizable influence on the right. He has about five million YouTube subscribers, right? He's one of the top 10 podcasts on Spotify. He's interviewed Trump on his podcast, like, when Trump did his, like, podcast offensive before the 2024 election. Ryan was one of the places he went.

• 2:39:32Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:39:33Speaker 13

  And, uh, it seems like Ryan, Ryan is not on the, like, RNC paid poster list. Cause he, he seemed like more critical of Trump than Gavin Newsom was in, in that interview, weirdly. And specifically about the Epstein stuff, uh, which it was kind of remarkable to me. And I think, like, we should note that it's, uh, he, he has a significant influence on a certain type of people.

• 2:39:55Speaker 05

  Someone who certainly does appear to be on the RNC paid list is documentary filmmaker Dinesh D'Souza.

• 2:40:03Speaker 01

  I'm going to talk about the Epstein files and I'm going to make the case that even though there are unanswered questions about Epstein, it is in fact time to move on.

• 2:40:20Speaker 05

  Very convincing.

• 2:40:21Speaker 13

  Well, luckily, there's nobody with a firearm out of shot in that video, so I'm sure it's fine.

• 2:40:30Speaker 05

  Case closed. Yep. Seems good to me. In another move for transparency, on Tuesday, Republicans unanimously voted to block the release of the Epstein files. Benny Johnson interviewed Speaker of the House Mike Johnson about how they kind of want to handle this and they're trying to make this argument that they're that they want to be transparent, but they have to make sure that they protect protect the victims and that's why they can't release the files.

• 2:40:58Speaker 03

  Sure, yeah, protect victims, Republican Party.

• 2:41:02Speaker 05

  Compelling, compelling stuff.

• 2:41:04Speaker 13

  Yeah.

• 2:41:05Speaker 05

  Part of what makes this super weird is like Trump just keeps giving the just the most bizarre, most like I'm totally not guilty comments in media and something he said on Tuesday, I found to be quite interesting, not because of what he actually said, but because of how he said it. See if, see if, see if you can catch this.

• 2:41:22Speaker 11

  Specifically, did she tell you at all that your name appeared in the file? No, no, she's, she's given us just a very quick briefing and in terms of the credibility of the different things that they've seen and I would say that, you know, these files were made up by Comey, they were made up by Obama, they were made up by the Biden, you know, and we went through years of that with the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax, with all of the different things that we had to go through, we've gone through years of it, but she's handled it very well.

• 2:41:58Speaker 05

  Very convincing stuff.

• 2:41:59Speaker 13

  You can see Caroline Levitt just like, just like being right.

• 2:42:03Speaker 05

  Right. This is the first time I've heard Trump like stutter like this before and like Trump's whole idea of reality is if you speak it enough, that becomes true. You can literally bend like the concept of truth, you can bend reality using your words. And this is why he, you know, talks about being a winner. This is why he only surrounds himself with people who are winners. Like he thinks that reality is this malleable thing that you affect through asserting your own will. And he's done this super successfully, especially throughout his career in politics. You know, he's a mixed record of it in his business, business era, but certainly in his political, but certainly through his political career, he's done this fairly well. This is why almost half the country believes that the last election was stolen, just because he said it enough.

• 2:42:49Speaker 13

  Yeah.

• 2:42:49Speaker 05

  This is the first time I've heard him break while trying to speak reality into being like he literally could not get himself to do it cleanly. And that is notable to me. He's made a series of truths later that day, talking about how, quote, "My past supporters have bought into this bullshit. Hook, line, and sinker." Oh shit.

• 2:43:16Speaker 05

  Very good. And he's now moved to call the Jeffrey Epstein story, "The Epstein hoax." Jesus Christ. He had an Oval Office press conference Wednesday morning, quote, "I call it the Epstein hoax." They're talking about a guy who died three, four years ago. And the sad part is, is people are doing a Democrat's work. They are stupid people.

• 2:43:36Speaker 13

  I don't think that's the sad part about what happened with Jeffrey Epstein. I think there were other sad things related to his conduct.

• 2:43:43Speaker 05

  A man is dead, you know?

• 2:43:46Speaker 03

  I think the other, I think the thing that is like very alarming. About this, so that I think is very dangerous about this entire situation. A lot of this on the right has always been sort of motivated by antisemitism.

• 2:44:00Speaker 05

  Yeah. Well.

• 2:44:00Speaker 03

  And I think we are going, like, we are already seeing some shit.

• 2:44:06Speaker 05

  It's funny you say that, Mia. Yeah. Because. Let's talk about antisemites. Another voice has joined the call to release the files. Oh, God. Former Sesame Street resident Elmo made a series of, I will say, shocking statements over the weekend.

• 2:44:23Robert Evans?

  They're not that shocking if you've been familiar with some of the court cases against Elmo over the last couple of years.

• 2:44:29Speaker 05

  I know Larry David attacked Elmo a few years ago.

• 2:44:33Robert Evans?

  Yeah, and he had a good reason to.

• 2:44:36Speaker 05

  As.

• 2:44:36Robert Evans?

  I've been saying this for years.

• 2:44:38Speaker 05

  As a Jewish man, I think he saw through Elmo's shtick and knew the antisemitism at the heart of Elmo that was being suppressed.

• 2:44:44Robert Evans?

  That he was a dangerous Nazi.

• 2:44:47Speaker 05

  But, uh, yeah, Elmo made some shocking tweets, uh, just, you know, very similar to like what happened to Kanye a few years ago.

• 2:44:54Robert Evans?

  And similar figures, you know, they, they both kind of come out of, of the same chunks of like American, uh, hip hop culture. You know, i- it's not super surprising and, and I think they were both close for a long, like a number of years before either man's career blew up.

• 2:45:10Speaker 05

  Uh, but yes, very antisemitic statements, also calling for the release of the Epstein files.

• 2:45:15Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:45:16Speaker 05

  Uh, Elmo has since backtracked, hired, hired a PR team, it seems, has scrubbed the tweets, handling the, the backlash a little bit better than Kanye did. Um, but still, it's going to be hard to look past this as Elmo attempts to, you know, continue Elmo's career.

• 2:45:29Robert Evans?

  Especially since Elmo is now running for president with Nick Fuentes as campaign manager, you know, just.

• 2:45:35Speaker 05

  I did not hear this.

• 2:45:35Robert Evans?

  Just an un-inadvisable. Yeah, yeah.

• 2:45:38Speaker 05

  That is, that is upsetting.

• 2:45:39Robert Evans?

  Uh, he's quote, swears it's not a Nazi thing. Uh, but yeah, a lot of, a lot of debate about that.

• 2:45:46Speaker 05

  I will, we'll reach out to Bert Nurney for comment.

• 2:45:50Speaker 13

  There's a whole bunch of replies to Elmo's tweet calling for Elmo to resign as if Elmo is A, a real person and B, genuinely believes this shit. Yeah, I'm gonna quote one, it's just too good. "Resign, you posted the most vile hate speech since the latest Tucker Carlson podcast, saying what you did about Jews is Nazi-style rhetoric and you should be out of a job at the very least."

• 2:46:12Speaker 05

  Fire Elmo.

• 2:46:14Speaker 13

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:46:15Speaker 05

  #FireElmo, everybody.

• 2:46:17Speaker 13

  Yeah, get it trending.

• 2:46:19Speaker 03

  In genuine all seriousness, though, I think it is really alarming that a lot of the, like, on the right, the way that, like, a lot of this resistance is crystallizing. The trouble over this is just the, like, oh, they're, like, this is, like, Epstein was a Mossad agent, Trump is a Mossad agent, yeah, right, it's all just, it's pure antisemitism.

• 2:46:37Speaker 05

  The Jews are blackmailing US politicians with, you know, child porn and...

• 2:46:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, and I think, I think there's, there's two angles on this. One, in the very short term, it's obviously very good that Trump is losing support. However, comma, if, if and when we defeat Trump, we are going to have to pivot and smash these people so fucking hard that they never reappear again, because this could get really, really fucking bad very quickly. And I don't, I don't think, I don't know, we, we, we, we was covering this on the show, right, we're like, all discourse about antisemitism has been turned into yelling at, like, Mamdani for something he didn't say, and then meanwhile, like, the Elmo account is being hacked by, like, just literally a guy saying, "Kill all Jews."

• 2:47:22Speaker 13

  Straight up Nazis.

• 2:47:24Speaker 03

  And that's just like a bubbling, massive undercurrent of the US now in politics that is going to have a bunch of profound impacts that we fucking don't understand yet and we have to, like, deal with eventually.

• 2:47:36Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:47:37Robert Evans?

  No, this is, the unfortunate reality is that antisemitism is turning into a block that could potentially swing an election, one way or the other. And it's not a block that's necessarily locked into left or right. It's left into whoever's going to play to those delusions, you know?

• 2:47:54Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:47:55Robert Evans?

  And the fact that we're as deep in the weeds as we are right now with a right-wing fascist movement does not mean that there could not be a left-wing authoritarian movement that clings to antisemitism as a way to gain power. It's happened in the world before. Uh, it's, it's not something the left is immune from. It's not, it's obviously not my, the top of my threat model, right? Like, this isn't, I, I don't, I would not say this is the thing to focus on.

• 2:48:19Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:48:20Robert Evans?

  But it's something, again, that to be aware of, is that, like, the fact that thi- this, you get, I think what you need to keep in mind when you're trying to parse out the future, think of how weird it is that some of the figures who wound up aligned with Trump are aligned with Trump right now, how a lot of folks who you would have during like the Bush years, like the, the W's years, you would have put on the left, or at least as like, kind of contra to the Christian right.

• 2:48:45Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:48:45Robert Evans?

  And who have now completely, like, dove into that side of things.

• 2:48:49Speaker 05

  Even like RFK Jr. in some ways.

• 2:48:51Robert Evans?

  Even RFK Jr. Shit can shift that rapidly again. And it will, one way, in some ways, right? Like, in, there are ways in which this is inevitable, and that's why you need to be on the lookout about stuff like this. You have to keep your head on a fucking swivel.

• 2:49:06Speaker 05

  Let's go on an ad break and then return to talk about more news.

• 2:49:10Robert Evans?

  That's right.

• 2:49:24Speaker 13

  All right, we are back. And now we're gonna talk about immigration, a topic which is always fun and only good things happen. So, to begin with... Today, we're recording on the 16th. The Trump administration has begun renditioning people to Swatini. Jesus Christ. Swatini, small landlocked country in Africa. People are not familiar, Africa's last absolute monarchy. This follows their rendition of eight people to South Sudan. The South Sudanese press is reporting that those men are in prison in South Sudan, which contradicts Tom Homan's statement to Politico that, quote, "When we sign these agreements with all these countries, we make arrangements to make sure these countries are receiving these people and there's opportunities for these people.

• 2:50:09Speaker 13

  But I can't tell if we remove somebody to Sudan. They can stay there, we can leave, I don't know." Homan has said in other outlets that he believes they were just kind of free in South Sudan, that they were just like released to wander around. That does not seem to be the case. Jesus. The Swatini people, Tricia McLaughlin, who's a, I think, a deputy secretary of homeland security, called the people sent to Swatini, quote, "uniquely barbaric." Oh, boy. Yeah, yeah. She used a thread on X.com. The everything app. To announce, did you, you can find all kinds of stuff on there, say it that way. Um, she did not name the men in her thread, but she did list their convictions.

• 2:50:50Speaker 13

  Most of these were sex crimes, I mean, children and various types of murder, homicide, manslaughter. This has caused widespread concern in Swatini, right? The idea that the US is just sending random people who have been convicted of crimes to Swatini. In a statement, the government said, quote, "Five inmates are currently housed in our correctional facilities in isolated units where similar offenders are kept. The nation is assured that these inmates pose no threat to the country or its citizens." A statement given by government spokesman Thabeli Mudluli went on, quote, "This exercise is a result of months of robust, high-level engagements among the United States government. The two governments will collaborate with the International Organization for Migration

• 2:51:35Speaker 13

  to facilitate the transit of these inmates to their countries of origin." This seems to suggest that A, this had been planned for months, which is not a particular surprise, right? The US government has clearly been pushing for these like third country renditions for a while. But also that like this is a potential end run around things like the Convention Against Torture withholding of removal, right? Like either people whose governments won't accept them back from the US or people who have withholding of removal because they have a reasonable fear of being tortured or of harm coming to them if they're sent back to their country's origin, are I guess going to be sent back via Swatini is what it seems like. So this is pretty troubling.

• 2:52:20Speaker 13

  It seems to suggest that essentially that's what the US is doing. We're not quite clear how much the US has paid Swatini yet. They paid a hundred thousand for one person to be sent to Rwanda. We still don't know where that person is. We don't know exactly how much they paid to South Sudan. They have requested a number of other countries, lots of them in West Africa, to accept people via this rendition process. We're going to talk about it on a whole episode that we have coming out next Tuesday, if you're interested to hear more about that. Another piece of legislation that I wanted to cover, just because I've seen it getting a lot of attention, and I think it kind of bears mentioning, a bipartisan group of legislators has introduced legislation to fundamentally

• 2:53:04Speaker 13

  reform the immigration system. It's called the Dignity or Dignidad Act, and it has about as much chance of success as a chocolate teapot. It's co-sponsored by Republican Maria Salazar, she's from Florida, and Democrat Veronica Escobar from El Paso, Texas. Salazar, in an interview today with News Nation, said, quote, "There is no other president like Trump. I have faith that he could be for immigration what Lincoln was for slavery and Reagan was for communism. Just watch him."

• 2:53:34Speaker 03

  Jesus Christ.

• 2:53:36Speaker 13

  Yeah, I mean, I guess one could make some arguments about like some of the abolitionists just wanting to send folks off back to Africa, right? But I don't think that that's what most people understand to be Lincoln's legacy for slavery.

• 2:53:49Speaker 03

  I mean, he could definitely be like Reagan.

• 2:53:51Speaker 13

  Yeah.

• 2:53:53Speaker 03

  Give her that one.

• 2:53:54Speaker 13

  Yeah, the big problem with this pizza legislation we saw as ours tried to introduce before, right, she tried it in 2023 as well, is that it relies on people coming forward to admit they have no legal status and being offered a quote dignity status, which is somewhat analogous to permanent residency with but without a path of citizenship. It creates a permanent underclass and it relies on people trusting immigration authorities and that's not going to happen now. There is no way in hell that people are going to come forward and say, yes, I'm undocumented after what we've seen for the last six months, right? People didn't trust you with authorities before, but like after what we've seen in the last six months, it's completely implausible, it's ludicrous.

• 2:54:35Speaker 05

  They don't want people coming forward with that stuff. That's like the whole point of scaring them away is to make them basically not able to function in this country.

• 2:54:42Speaker 13

  Yes, exactly. They don't want to give people safe status.

• 2:54:45Speaker 05

  Like make living in this country like as impossible as possible.

• 2:54:49Speaker 13

  Yeah, they have undermined the trust that allows them to do what is supposed to be the core of their job, just to get deportation numbers up, to get detention numbers up. This is just a fluff of thing. It's people in the House of Representatives trying to boost their reelection chances by saying that they tried to do something different, right? It's not seriously going to succeed, no way. Finally, a Canadian judge has halted the deportation of a non-binary person back to the USA citing conditions here. Quoting here, "The officer failed to consider recent evidence of the conditions that may have supported a reasonable fear of persecution," said Judge Julie Blackhawk, first Indigenous woman appointed to a Canadian federal court.

• 2:55:33Speaker 13

  It seems that Angel Jenkel entered Canada as a visitor and that they're now engaged to a Canadian person. I'm guessing that they overstayed their visitor slash tourist that you probably can get a visa waiver if you're a US citizen down to Canada and they probably overstayed that. They requested a risk assessment before being deported to the USA and the ruling suggests that the immigration official who conducted it had used outdated information regarding the safety of LGBTQIA people in the USA. So yeah, that's where things are at now. I'm aware of people also trans and non-binary people from the US seeking asylum in Mexico.

• 2:56:12Speaker 13

  It was a year ago that trans people were coming here to be safe and now people are moving in the other direction, which is a pretty damning combination of how things have gone in this country. Yeah, that's all the exciting, fun immigration news I have this week.

• 2:56:29Speaker 05

  That really sucks.

• 2:56:31Speaker 13

  Yeah.

• 2:56:32Speaker 05

  Good lord.

• 2:56:33Speaker 13

  It fucking sucks. Yeah.

• 2:56:37Speaker 05

  I guess one small update tangentially related. A judge in New Hampshire blocked Trump's order on birthright citizenship while sidestepping the Supreme Court's ruling against nationwide injunctions by adding all children born on US soil to a certified nationwide class. So it's just now a massive class action case.

• 2:57:00Speaker 13

  Hell, yeah.

• 2:57:01Speaker 05

  This is set to go in effect on July 17th. We're recording this on the 16th. We'll see if the government responds. And July 17th is just 10 days before the partial implementation date of Trump's executive order.

• 2:57:14Robert Evans?

  Yeah, so I wanted to start this by noting that a fan reached out to us on Blue Sky recently with a clip from a quote by Omar Sharif, founder and president of Inflation Insights, who wrote in a note to clients, "Today's report showed that tariffs are beginning to bite." And yeah, this is, this is, we finally come beautifully back from Tarif Don't Like It to Sharif Don't Like It. It's beautiful, you know? It's like poetry. It rhymes. Anyway, here's, here's the song.

• 2:57:44Speaker 05

  Do I want to know what Inflation Insights does?

• 2:58:04Robert Evans?

  Again, they post clips of Huey, Dewey, and Louis Inflation Fetish videos from the DuckTales kids.

• 2:58:11Speaker 05

  Working class. That should be a unionized position. I hope, I hope that they're able to weather the tariffs.

• 2:58:17Robert Evans?

  What do you think the AFL-CIO is about?

• 2:58:20Speaker 13

  One of those words is "flation," the "FL."

• 2:58:23Speaker 03

  In my time, I deeply remember the first time I ever talked about inflation on the show It Could Happen Here, because this happened, and I deeply remember that episode, because we are going back to that fucking episode today, and the moments that I heard you doing it, Louis, I just started getting like, fucking war flashbacks.

• 2:58:44Robert Evans?

  Yeah, imagine how bad those flashbacks would be if you had seen DuckTales inflation fetish porn as a kid.

• 2:58:52Speaker 03

  I avoided that until adulthood.

• 2:58:55Speaker 13

  What I have seen is this article, InflationInsights.com has a fantastic article called, What the Great Mayonnaise Inflation Mystery Can Tell Us About Prices. I'm learning a lot here.

• 2:59:06Speaker 05

  Okay, Mia, can we talk about tariffs now?

• 2:59:09Speaker 03

  Okay, actual tariffs. So, we have, we have new tariffs. Indonesia apparently has agreed to a tariff deal with the US, in which the US imposes a 19% tariff on Indonesia, and Indonesia doesn't impose one back. Per CNN, Trump posted on Truth Social, quote, "That Indonesia is buying $15 billion in US energy, $5.4 billion in American agricultural products, and 50 Boeing jets, many of them 777s. Fucking rip Indonesia. Good luck with those planes." Oh no. So, the Indonesian government was complaining to the press about how much

• 2:59:49Speaker 03

  of a shitshow negotiating this was. We'll see if it holds. We also got news that Trump has, Trump has announced that he's going to basically send a tariff letter to like 150 countries, setting their rates simultaneously, but he hasn't done it yet. I don't know. It's possible by the time this goes out, we'll have that, we'll have the actual number on it. Who knows what's going on with that?

• 3:00:13Speaker 05

  Is that the August 3rd tariffs?

• 3:00:15Speaker 03

  Maybe. It's also unclear when they're gonna come into effect. Like, it's all, it's a catastrophe. Who knows? This, this policy is just fucking Calvin ball. They're just making it up as they go right now.

• 3:00:27Robert Evans?

  Yeah.

• 3:00:28Speaker 03

  There has also been very, very funny news in our story from last week about Trump's tariff demand on Brazil to try to get them to release Bolsonaro, which is that this has, this has backfired spectacularly. He has like saved Lula's flagging approval rating. It has created a massive, a massive anti-Bolsonaro, pro-Lula Brazilian nationalist backlash of a kind that I really haven't seen since like Dilma Rousseff had to deal with like the fact that the NSA was spying on her phone. It's very, very funny. Bolsonaro is being accused by like, by Brazilian conservatives of being, and I quote, "a phony nationalist

• 3:01:12Speaker 03

  who is just like a dog of the US."

• 3:01:15Speaker 13

  It's amazing. Trump's done this incredible pink wave across the world.

• 3:01:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's stunning. He might save Lula too. The funniest part of this is that like, Bolsonaro looks at this and is like, "Oh fuck, my entire base is turning on me because I'm so clearly like a dog of the Americans." And so he turned around and like denounced like the tariffs. It's like, it's like an American ploy against Brazil.

• 3:01:42Speaker 13

  That is outstanding.

• 3:01:44Speaker 03

  There, there is now one thing that both Lula and Bolsonaro agree on, other than cops should kill more people, which is that these tariffs are bad. He has united all of Brazil. It is absolutely hilarious.

• 3:01:58Speaker 05

  You know, I tried to set up a similar deal with America's own critically hospitalized man, Steven Crowder, and it did not work out the same way, the way this Bolsonaro deal went. And some people say it's a little bit mean to negotiate with someone who just constantly keeps going into the hospital for bizarre chest surgeries to make him look more masculine. But hey, you know, podcasting is a competitive industry and we tried to create a similar trade deal with, with Crowder and it has not worked out. He apparently had some similar problems with the Daily Wire. So that's why you haven't seen much of him on, on, on the shows lately.

• 3:02:34Speaker 03

  Great, incredible. I love that Garrison somehow has become the person doing unilateral trade deals for the podcast. Great stuff, great stuff.

• 3:02:41Speaker 05

  Only with people who are constantly in the hospital, either through shitting problems or chest masculinization problems.

• 3:02:48Speaker 03

  Good lord.

• 3:02:49Speaker 05

  Okay. So it's really just Steven Crowder and Bolsonaro.

• 3:02:54Speaker 13

  I think there are probably some other people who are in the hospital for shitting problems if we throw the net that wide.

• 3:02:58Speaker 05

  Not as much as Bolsonaro is, James.

• 3:03:01Speaker 13

  Yeah, that's true. Bolsonaro is the most hospitalized man on the planet.

• 3:03:05Speaker 05

  Well, second only to Steven Crowder.

• 3:03:08Speaker 13

  Maybe they hang out there.

• 3:03:09Speaker 05

  They might get along.

• 3:03:10Speaker 13

  Maybe they just need some boys' time. Maybe they won't get, maybe they hang out in the man cave at the hospital.

• 3:03:17Speaker 05

  Crowder's been advocating this for years.

• 3:03:19Speaker 03

  Jesus Christ. Okay, okay. So the final piece of news is actually what Robert started this on, which is that we have gotten our first sign of actual inflation increases from these tariffs. Inflation increased to 2.7% in June, which is still well below the 8% peaks in the early 2020s, but it is rising. It's also worth noting, this increase has been asymmetric. I'm going to quote from the Financial Times here, quote, "June's inflation rise was fueled in part by higher food prices, but offset by weaker commodity prices." Now, there's two important things here, right? One, food prices like matter significantly

• 3:04:01Speaker 03

  more for how pissed off everyone is than commodity prices do. And secondly, at the beginning of August, Trump is trying to impose a 50% tariff on copper. So, those commodity prices, oh boy.

• 3:04:14Speaker 05

  Get the copper strippers ready, folks.

• 3:04:18Speaker 13

  Start stockpiling your wire now.

• 3:04:20Speaker 03

  So, the other thing that I think is really worth discussing about this is the reason there hasn't been more inflation, and this has been something that we've kind of proposed as a mechanism on the show for what could happen, at least temporarily, is that For right now, largely what's been happening is that companies, often directly under pressure from Trump, have been just eating the cost of the tariffs.

• 3:04:46Speaker 05

  Yeah, I mean, basically Donald's doing what they call off-gassing, and that's Donald, both as in Duck and as in Trump.

• 3:04:52Speaker 03

  Jesus Christ.

• 3:04:53Speaker 13

  Is that one of the things that can get you in hospital with Steven Crowder's Bolsonaro?

• 3:04:58Speaker 05

  You know, James, that's a great guess.

• 3:05:01Speaker 03

  So, as I did long ago with the first time, I discovered that my coworkers, if I ever talked about inflation, would only talk about Donald Duck inflation porn.

• 3:05:11Speaker 05

  Huey, Dewey, and Louie, inflation porn, thank you very much.

• 3:05:14Speaker 03

  Sorry, sorry, yes, I am confusing my ducks. My ducks are not in a row.

• 3:05:18Speaker 13

  Get your ducks in a row.

• 3:05:20Speaker 03

  So, the very important part about this, though, is these tariffs, the very significant element of this is how pricing is actually set, right? The general way that you are taught in Econ 101 that prices are set is price is supply and demand. And so, from this, you would think that the way pricing works is people draw a supply and demand graph, and then you like, put it there. That's not how any of this shit works. The way prices are actually set are specifically by pricing agents at each point in a supply chain, down the supply chain, right? So, every firm involved in the production of a thing, moving the thing, each one sets a price that they're selling to the next person, selling to the next person, each person adds on their cost plus markup, and that's what a price is.

• 3:06:05Speaker 03

  Now, the reason prices tend not to move higher unless there's an excuse to do it is that consumers get pissed off when prices rise, even if they technically would be willing to pay higher things, it damages your brand. Right now, what we've been seeing again is that the effects of the inflation have been mitigated by the fact these countries are just eating shit, and instead of raising their prices to eat the cost that they've been doing, they've been eating parts of their markup. Which is like basically their pure profit, right? They've been eating parts of their markup in order to not have the prices raised. This is not sustainable. This is especially not sustainable as more countries get tariffs and as Trump's ability to pressure these companies weakens as like, you know, food prices continue to increase and people start getting more pissed at him. So this is just the beginning of this.

• 3:06:49Speaker 03

  All of these tariffs are maximally set up to make sure that we get another run of this supply chain inflation. Our friends over at Strange Matter wrote a very long piece about this a couple of years ago. We've talked about the show a few times. I'm going to link that in the description. You should go read it. But that's the important thing that we've gotten from the Bureau Labor Statistics data.

• 3:07:07Speaker 05

  Yeah, I'm not really sure how Trump's going to duck this responsibility for much longer.

• 3:07:13Speaker 03

  I will say, I will say, there is genuinely starting to be concern that they're just straight up fudging the BLS statistics. And like, I don't know if they're doing that, but like, I've seen like, a bunch of bond people be like, are they just lying about the unemployment numbers? And who knows?

• 3:07:32Speaker 13

  Yeah, it would be very hard to prove that, right?

• 3:07:35Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 3:07:36Speaker 05

  I mean, and I've seen how much cash Scrooge has in that vault. So some people, the upper class, will not be affected as much as the working class ducks.

• 3:07:45Speaker 13

  They're not saying the price of diving boards, for instance, could go up. They're very price sensitive because they need those diving boards to dive into their purse of cash.

• 3:07:52Speaker 05

  I have two more updates I would like to do before we go to ad break. For one, the Trump administration has sued the state of California over Title IX violations for having trans athletes. This shows that even when you capitulate, like Gavin Newsom has tried to do, they will still come after you. You cannot get out of this by trying to please the administration. They're still going to go after you.

• 3:08:16Speaker 13

  Their entire policy platform is your Facebook uncle wanting to own the libs.

• 3:08:20Speaker 05

  So we can see how well Gavin throwing trans people under the bus has worked for the state of California, still getting sued. Lastly, before we pivot to ads, I want to update a story that Robert talked about last week. A former US Marine Corps reservist was arrested this Tuesday after a week-long manhunt. He faces charges related to an alleged armed ambush on an ICE detention facility in Prairieland, Texas during a protest. He is now the 14th person charged in connection with the incident and is also accused of purchasing four of the guns linked to the attack.

• 3:08:56Robert Evans?

  Yeah.

• 3:08:57Speaker 05

  Now, two other people were also charged after allegedly helping the former reservist to escape after the attack. Nancy Larson, the acting US attorney, told Fox and Friends on Tuesday, quote, "They were involved in signal chats, which show reconnaissance, planning a Google map and the location of nearby police departments." At least one of these two new people charged was only charged after cooperating with the investigation. In this man's car, police found an AR-15 and a receipt for clothing that he admitted to purchasing for the former Marine reservist.

• 3:09:30Robert Evans?

  Yeah, so, I mean, this is a story to continue to pay attention to. I would remind folks that we know what the state is alleged in, you know, based on the charging documents. We know what people have been saying to the police, but we don't fully know what's happened yet, so we'll be continuing to keep an eye on this story as it develops. What do we have next? Ads. Yeah, here's some products.

• 3:10:06Speaker 05

  Let's close this episode by talking about Nazis.

• 3:10:11Robert Evans?

  Nazis?

• 3:10:13Speaker 05

  That one doesn't work, Robert. I'm sorry. I want it to.

• 3:10:17Robert Evans?

  Yeah, no, it doesn't. It doesn't. It doesn't. I've even tried it before. I've even tried it before.

• 3:10:21Speaker 05

  Yeah. Now, we will have to return to Stinky Musk once again, but before we do, I first want to talk about friend of the pod Greg Gutfeld, who recently discussed a strategy on how to minimize the impact of the American fascist right being called Nazis derogatorily. I will play a short clip from Fox News.

• 3:10:44Speaker 18

  This is why the criticism doesn't matter to us. When you call us Nazis, Nazi this, Nazi that, you know, I'm beginning to think they don't like us. You know what? I've said this before, we need to learn from the blacks. The way they they were able to remove the power from the N word.

• 3:11:02Robert Evans?

  Oh, boy.

• 3:11:04Speaker 18

  What up, my Nazi? Hey, what up, my Nazi? Hey, what's hanging, my Nazi?

• 3:11:09Speaker 05

  Oh.

• 3:11:09Speaker 18

  Um.

• 3:11:10Speaker 01

  Nazi, please.

• 3:11:13Speaker 18

  Oh, thank God you did a hard eye there. What does it tell you that?

• 3:11:16Speaker 05

  Oh.

• 3:11:17Robert Evans?

  Oh, my God. Greg Gutfeld.

• 3:11:20Speaker 05

  Oh, no.

• 3:11:21Robert Evans?

  Wow.

• 3:11:22Speaker 13

  Wow.

• 3:11:22Speaker 05

  They're all just laughing.

• 3:11:23Speaker 13

  But I think a lot of the lot of its fellow Fox News hosts are also quite concerned with that.

• 3:11:29Speaker 05

  That's pretty disturbing. Um.

• 3:11:31Robert Evans?

  Yeah, they're not great.

• 3:11:32Speaker 13

  He also, uh, he gave it one of those just to just to really send it. He like, uh, he gave the my heart goes out to you gesture.

• 3:11:39Speaker 05

  Oh, God. That's right. Uh, my heart goes out to you salute. Yeah. Um, I mean, like, I remember, like, you know, five years ago, you had you had these alt-right people talking about how, you know, actually, actually Hitler was was a socialist, you know?

• 3:11:53Speaker 13

  Yeah.

• 3:11:53Speaker 05

  The Nazis are actually communists. We're not, we're not Nazis. And now they're just openly trying to normalize referring to themselves as Nazis. It seems it seems notable. Speaking of Nazis in the in the new rights. Oh, God. Grok IV has gotten a Department of Defense contract for $200 million as a part of its Grok IV government program, including the responsibility of handling sensitive classified materials.

• 3:12:22Robert Evans?

  And it happens on the same week that.

• 3:12:26Speaker 05

  Mecca Hitler.

• 3:12:27Robert Evans?

  Mecca Hitler. Yeah. Makes his beautiful debut.

• 3:12:31Speaker 13

  Yeah. Pretty troubling for our, uh, our strongest allies in the IDF here.

• 3:12:36Speaker 05

  Gee, oh, my God. I just the the ways that reality could could could break out into different timelines right now is kind of dizzying.

• 3:12:45Speaker 13

  Yeah.

• 3:12:45Speaker 05

  Because there's a possibility that Mecca Hitler starts doing the strikes based on anti-Semitic Twitter users' recommendations, directly tied in with government advisory programs.

• 3:12:56Speaker 13

  I could say it's not going to end well for Turkey, judging by what we saw last week.

• 3:13:01Speaker 05

  Another possible weaponization of Grok IV. Uh, it's been announced that Grok IV is going to be added to Teslas. So Mecca Hitler might also be driving a Tesla around.

• 3:13:10Speaker 13

  Uh, yeah.

• 3:13:11Speaker 05

  Great.

• 3:13:13Speaker 03

  I will say, I will say, the person the most happy about this right now is somewhere in the depths of Chinese intelligence. There is a Colonel who is looking at this announcement and is like, "I am going all the way to the top. My family is never working again in our fucking lives. I am going to find so much dumb shit that these soldiers are typing into fucking DOD Grok. Like, I am going to learn so much."

• 3:13:40Speaker 05

  I would be quite nervous right now if I was Will Stansel, who

• 3:13:45Robert Evans?

  Yeah. He's got Tesla's kind of trying to molest him. Yeah.

• 3:13:53Speaker 13

  He's gonna get drone struck. Every drone's gonna turn around and try and find Will Stansel wherever they send it.

• 3:14:01Speaker 05

  Grok is continuing to make rape threats against Will Stansel despite the tweaks in the code, and is still referencing the Mecca Hitler incident. So Grok 4 is a new model of XAI's chatbot service. It launched officially last week. It was pretty similar to the model of Grok used in the Mecca Hitler incident. But there's been some small tweaks that researchers have noticed. An AI researcher named Jeremy Howard released a video showing how Grok tries to answer a query about its stance on the "Israel-Palestine conflict." Jeremy found, quote, "It first searches Twitter for what Elon thinks. Then it searches the web for Elon's views.

• 3:14:45Speaker 05

  Finally, it adds some non-Elon bits at the end. Fifty-four out of the sixty-four citations are about Elon."

• 3:14:53Speaker 13

  Amazing.

• 3:14:55Speaker 05

  XAI has confirmed that this was how Grok was operating and has since claimed that it's making adjustments now, and said that Grok was trying to appear in line with the company's head and policy.

• 3:15:09Speaker 13

  This is amazing, because hopefully it does the same with its defense policy. Wasn't Elon Musk one of those, like, F-35 has gone woke people?

• 3:15:17Speaker 05

  You'll have to answer that for yourself, James.

• 3:15:20Speaker 13

  Yeah, yeah, okay, okay, this is, this is, this is a piece of lore that has passed you by. Uh, for a while there, Musk and Musk and some of his friends were quoting, tweeting about the, uh, the F-35, quoting, yeah, uh, about the F-35 being woke and, uh, how we should like, return to F-16 or, and it was very funny.

• 3:15:40Speaker 03

  Are we gonna talk about the other weird chatbots?

• 3:15:44Speaker 05

  Oh, the, how Grok has the Death Note Misa Misa's like sex bot, uh, what? You know, if you wanna talk about it, Mia, I will not stop you.

• 3:15:53Speaker 13

  I don't know what the fuck you're talking, is this Jar Jar Binks again?

• 3:15:56Speaker 03

  I have two sentences about this, one of which is not mine. Uh, the first sentence I am going to say is that, yeah, the Twitter now has like a really, really weird anime girl sex bot thing that's like an AI.

• 3:16:12Speaker 05

  Very clearly inspired by a Death Note character.

• 3:16:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, so sometimes you just need to say the obvious thing and the person who said the obvious thing is a person on Blue Sky called at TVQ Talks. They said, I keep saying it, the push for AI made so much more sense to me once I realized tech bros talk to it like a woman who won't talk back. And like, yeah, that, that, that they just, oh, God.

• 3:16:38Speaker 05

  You know, I will say, if it was modeled after L instead of Misa, it could serve some use, it could be compelling. But because it's Misa, it's just completely useless, so.

• 3:16:47Speaker 03

  Gary, we already have that chatbot, that chatbot already exists. This has existed for a long time.

• 3:16:53Speaker 05

  Where, where is an L Death Note chatbot, Mia? Actually, you can send it to me after the.

• 3:16:57Speaker 03

  There's a whole bunch of character chatbots, that's like a whole thing.

• 3:17:00Speaker 05

  Yeah, maybe not exactly what I'm looking for, but whatever.

• 3:17:05Speaker 03

  God, okay, terrible, zero out of 10. Let's talk about the other DOD contracts.

• 3:17:11Speaker 05

  Uh, well, I mean, yeah, but part, this $200 million Grok contract was part of a series of AI contracts that Anthropic and Claude also received, I think Google got one. Uh, it's part of Trump's initiative to strengthen like AI in government, so Grok, Grok is not the only one.

• 3:17:28Speaker 03

  I will also say that like, this is obviously like the end game of all of these companies is trying to get their like failing AI firms bailed out by the military, but that like even 200 million is not enough to like recoup the hideous amounts of money these people are burning, so I hope they all fail.

• 3:17:43Speaker 05

  Robert, do you have anything to add on, on, on Grok talk?

• 3:17:46Speaker 13

  Uh, I mean, yeah, I think it's funny. He's also trying to make AI companions out of Grok. One is clearly a version of his ex, Grimes, who is supposed to teach you quantum physics.

• 3:17:58Speaker 05

  I mean, yeah, this is, this is.

• 3:17:59Speaker 13

  And try to have sex with you.

• 3:18:00Speaker 05

  This is part of the Misa Misa one as well.

• 3:18:03Speaker 13

  Yeah. And then there's my, my favorite is the Mail Chat Bot, uh, which is based off of Christian Gray from Fifty Shades of Grey and also, uh, Edward Cullen from Twilight.

• 3:18:13Speaker 05

  I did just see this.

• 3:18:15Speaker 13

  Based off of the guy from Fifty Shades of Grey.

• 3:18:17Speaker 05

  Yeah, I, I just saw that this was explicitly named as the two inspirations.

• 3:18:21Speaker 13

  So funny. It's so funny.

• 3:18:24Speaker 05

  Again, if it was L, it could be worthwhile, but this just is like, is just slop, worthless, no artistic merit.

• 3:18:32Speaker 13

  No. Anyway, that's all I gotta add. So as we come to the end here, there are a couple of things that I want to remind people of. The first is that if you would like to email us, you can do so. Remember that although our email address is encrypted, you will also have to encrypt your email at your end. If you want it to be end to end encrypted, our email address is [email protected]. Uh, the other thing is Buket's asylum lawyer fundraiser. Uh, it's been going very well and we massively appreciate all of you who have donated. Uh, we're gonna plug that again this week. To find it, you can either go to GoFundMe and search her name, Buket Tan, B U K E T, space, T A N.

• 3:19:15Speaker 13

  Or you can go to www.gofundme.com/f/urgent-help-for-buket-b u k e t s-asylum-case. Or you can just scroll down and hit the little link that will be underneath this podcast in your podcatcher.

• 3:19:39Speaker 03

  Wait, okay, late breaking, late breaking news, late breaking news. Trump has reportedly brokered a deal for Coca-Cola to use, quote, "real sugar cane" in US Coke products.

• 3:19:51Speaker 13

  Yes, yes, finally.

• 3:19:53Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 3:19:53Speaker 13

  This is gonna go down well with corn country.

• 3:19:56Speaker 03

  No, this, this genuinely, like, if he actually goes to war with, like, the American corn lobby, if he's the one who does this and like gets the blow up from it. I don't know, like this, this genuinely would be a seismic restructuring of agriculture in the United States. Oh, boy.

• 3:20:15Speaker 13

  Yeah, I think they'll still use the corn, a lot of corn goes to feed things that then become food, right?

• 3:20:19Speaker 03

  But still, like, like, we, we, we produce so much corn, we had to make more corn things. Like, every year, they invent a new thing to do with corn. Disastrous. Uh, God.

• 3:20:31Speaker 05

  I am really gonna miss Red Number Forty. It was my favorite. Whenever I was feeling down, I just did a few drops. And it's, it sucks to see an old friend go.

• 3:20:40Speaker 13

  Yeah, tragic. Yeah, it's also gonna be very hard for the, uh, the people who've made their whole identity buying Mexican Coke in glass bottles. We should pour one out for them.

• 3:20:49Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah, it's gonna be a rough night in Bushwick tonight.

• 3:20:52Speaker 13

  Yeah.

• 3:20:54Speaker 05

  We reported the news.

• 3:20:55Robert Evans?

  Yeah, we sure did.

• 3:20:56Speaker 06

  We reported the news.

• 3:21:04Robert Evans?

  Hey, we'll be back Monday with more episodes every week from now until the heat death of the universe.

• 3:21:10Speaker 04

  It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedi.com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can now find sources for It Could Happen Here listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening.

• 3:21:32Speaker 12

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