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- [00:00]
Bridget Todd
This is an iheart Podcast.
- [00:05]
Garrison Davis
Iheart presents the Big three Playoffs this Sunday.
- [00:07]
Andrew Sage
The remaining four teams battle to make.
- [00:09]
Garrison Davis
The championship in the most physical, fierce and competitive basketball league in the world.
- [00:13]
James Stout
The action starts with the big three.
- [00:15]
Bridget Todd
Monster Energy celebrity game, then Dwight Howard and his LA Riot take on Montrez.
- [00:18]
Garrison Davis
Harrell and Dr. J Chicago triplets.
- [00:20]
Bridget Todd
The finale will see popular Miami 305.
- [00:23]
Garrison Davis
With stars MVP Michael Beasley and Lance Stevenson take on Nancy Lieberman's Dallas power.
- [00:27]
James Stout
Who will make it to the big three championship.
- [00:29]
Garrison Davis
The no holds barred action starts Sunday.
- [00:31]
James Stout
At 3P Eastern, 12 Pacific only on CBS.
- [00:37]
Garrison Davis
There's a vile sickness in Amstown.
- [00:40]
Andrew Sage
You must excise it, dig into the deep earth and cut it out from.
- [00:47]
Garrison Davis
Iheart Podcasts and Grim and Mild from Aaron Manke. This is Havoc Town, a new fiction podcast set in the Bridgewater Audio universe starring Jewel State and Ray Wise. Listen to Havoc town on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [01:06]
Bridget Todd
Welcome to Pretty Private with Ebony, the podcast where silence is broken and stories are set free. I'm E and every Tuesday I'll be sharing all new anonymous stories that would challenge your perceptions and give you new insight on the people around you. Every Tuesday, make sure you listen to Pretty Private from the Black Effect Podcast Network. Tune in on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
- [01:34]
Garrison Davis
What would you do if one bad decision forced you to choose between a.
- [01:38]
Robert Evans
Maximum security prison or the most brutal.
- [01:41]
Garrison Davis
Boot camp designed to be hell on earth?
- [01:43]
Robert Evans
Unfortunately for Mark Lombardo, this was the choice he faced.
- [01:48]
Garrison Davis
He said you are a number, a New York State number and we own you. Listen to Shock Incarceration on the iHeartRadio, Apple Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [02:07]
Robert 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.
- [02:29]
Garrison Davis
Hey cadaver listeners, I wanted to flag that we have launched individual feeds for some of your favorite shows that currently run within the It Could Happen Here feed.
- [02:38]
Bridget Todd
We wanted to make these shows more.
- [02:39]
Garrison Davis
Accessible and easier to share.
- [02:41]
Bridget Todd
You can still listen to these shows.
- [02:42]
Garrison Davis
In the It Could Happen Here feed, but can also subscribe on an individual level. So check out Executive Disorder, White House Weekly Myanmar Printing the Revolution, Marshall Islands after the Bomb Dropped, Migrating to America, A Dream Worth Dying For, Stop Cop City to Defend a forest and Margaret Kiljoy's Coal Zone Media Book Club. Listen now on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is it could happen here. I'm Garrison Davis. One place that it is happening right now is Washington, D.C. where Trump has undergone a quasi military takeover of the city. And to discuss this, I'm joined by Bridget Todd, D.C. resident Gare so I.
- [03:33]
Bridget Todd
Was on the podcast a few months ago talking about Trump's history of threats to dc, and that has really all come to a head. So I'm really happy to be sitting down with you to talk about it. It has been a rough few days here in dc. I mean, if I am coming off like I sound tired or weird or stressed, it's because I do feel those things. It's been a lot of feelings. Mostly then I just hate watching Donald Trump get up in front of America and straight lie about my city and my home. A place like dc, that, you know, it's where I'm from, it's where I spent most of my life. It's, it's pretty difficult to have the national conversation be about what a bombed out shithole my home is. So I sort of wanted to get into the basics of what's going on and what I think it all means for everyone, not just people in dc. So by now you've probably seen that on Monday, the Trump administration announced that they were federalizing DC's police force, the Metropolitan Police Department, or MPD. They also announced that they'd be sending National Guard to D.C. because D.C. is not a state. Trump actually, and any president, would actually have authority over DC's National Guard. So despite not being a state, DC does have a National Guard. The authority over it is just in the hands of the President. So with a stroke of a pen, he can just deploy DC's National Guard whenever he wants. He's also sending in National Guard from other states to do this. Trump evoked what's called Section 740 of DC's Home Rule act, which allows for the President to take over MPD for 48 hours, with possible extensions up to 30 days in times of emergencies. I'm kind of putting emergency in quotes because the emergency that he is saying is crime. But we'll get into why that doesn't really hold water in a moment. So I really can't overstate, like, how unprecedented this is. No President has ever done this before.
- [05:25]
Garrison Davis
Yeah, no. I somewhat relate to your pain here of your city suddenly being thrust into national spotlight as Trump sends in, you know, military style police. I guess a, a, a version, although with, with very different methods of justifications, happened to my then city Portland, Oregon in 2020, which I'm sure most people listening are familiar with. It's very similar reporting on, on how it's burned to the ground. It is only, only a husk remains. There's just one massive bonfire where downtown used to be and of course it's fine, but the actual presence of, you know, groups like BORTAC actually create situations where there's massive amounts of violence being done by, by men in army fatigues. What's in D.C. is, is I think, notably different and a, like a semi extension of how he was testing out this type of thing in LA earlier this year, but with less of like an end point like LA's stuff was, was more about trying to push forward these deportations and renditions as quickly as possible. He's just like taking control of the whole city, like indefinitely. It seems now for D.C. in some.
- [06:40]
Bridget Todd
Ways, yes, to be clear, because D.C. is not a state. It is unique from any other place in the country in that the President kind of does have more authority over D.C. than he would in other places. And so yeah, he definitely, this is definitely a federalization of our police department department in terms of it being a larger takeover of D.C. we're not there yet. This is something that he has definitely threatened. This is something that he loves to talk about that would include the President taking over pretty much every aspect of life in D.C. so our public schools, our roads, our social services, all of that revoking home rule, that's what that would be. He definitely, that is definitely a threat. We should all be very aware of that. And it really makes clear why D.C. needs full statehood yesterday. Right. Like this is an issue that should have been solved forever ago, but right now we're talking about, you know, specifically law enforcement and the police, which on its own is, is like pretty bad.
- [07:39]
Garrison Davis
No, that's always the first step. Like as long as you take control of the enforcement mechanism, then no one really is able to stop you from doing other things. And that's why the first steps in all of these, like, you know, weird, weird, like far right Silicon Valley like plans for how they can fix, quote, unquote, fix the government being able to take total control over the law enforcement apparatus is always the first step because then you can kind of do whatever you want from there, and no one's going to stop you.
- [08:07]
Bridget Todd
Yeah. In order to revoke home rule, it would take an act of Congress, which this Congress seems more than willing to do whatever Trump wants. So that's something to keep in mind. Yeah, I think that for residents of D.C. i think the changes have been so stark in the last just couple of 48 hours that I think it's very important to keep in mind what could be coming down the pike and definitely be aware of it. But, you know, residents need to know what this means for them and us today. And I think that, like, it's just really important to, like, highlight that. I think that because of the nature of D.C. being the nation's capital, but also where more than half a million people live, I think it's really easy for people to forget that, like, the experience of, like, people who live here, like me, you know, and. And I think it's in this moment, the people that I'm talking to on the ground really are, like, focused on making sure that folks know what's going on, have resources, you know, understand their rights, understand that their rights have not changed just because of this act this week. And so, I mean, the thing that I am emotionally and personally struggling with is this smear of my city being this, like, dangerous hell hole. How did you manage that? What was the experience of going through that? Like, like the, the dissonance of, like, your experience every day, navigating the streets of this place where you live and then hearing the national conversation about it be so different from how you were experiencing it?
- [09:29]
Garrison Davis
I. I think eventually it is kind of became like a point of pride and more like an absurd aspect which keeps, like, unwanted tourism down. I don't think it really, in the end, bothered people in the long run. And the reason why people had a big problem with it specifically was because of federal law enforcement who were taking over blocks of the city. Like, that. That was the actual, like, like, crux. Like, Republicans constantly talk about how, you know, insert any city here is like, falling apart is.
- [10:02]
James Stout
Is.
- [10:02]
Garrison Davis
Is overridden by crime, is, you know, a fallen state. You can't go out and like, they just kind of pick a new one to put all the attention on, like, once a week. So we're. We're kind of like, used to this, to this rhetoric. It's. It's more so the actual, like, physical presence of law enforcement and how that changes the way that you're able to go throughout the city and the presence of, like, militarized federal law enforcement that yeah. Affects, like just regular people. It's not just rhetoric. It actually changes how you get to interact with your city. And I guess that, that, that's the thing that actually caused people in Portland to be much more upset, which results in tens of thousands of people going out into the streets and saying, no, we don't want you here. So I think more so than just like the rhetoric of. Of how X Y city is burned to the ground, it's more so the, like the actual physical daily life that produces the actual tension within. Within the city and how that gets changed and altered with federal law enforcement.
- [11:02]
Bridget Todd
Exactly. I mean, that's pretty much what's happening on my streets in D.C. so about 850 officers and agents took part in this what they called massive law enforcement surge across D.C. where they had between 100 and 200 soldiers out patrolling the streets, like beat cops at any given time. And so, you know, some of the things that we've seen in the last couple of days just simply, as a longtime resident, like, just simply do not make sense. Right. Having federal agents patrol places like Georgetown, which is very safe at 10 o' clock at night. That happened last night.
- [11:34]
Garrison Davis
Well, Georgetown actually might be the most dangerous place in the city.
- [11:38]
Bridget Todd
Well, in some ways. Right. If you're thinking about, like, the kind of crime they're talking tough about.
- [11:45]
Garrison Davis
Yeah. Yes.
- [11:45]
Bridget Todd
Or like the National Mall at 2pm on a weekday. Places where it's like, it don't even make sense for y' all to be posted up there. You know, there was a big display of force and arrest on my block just last night in the middle of the night, where we looked out the window and it was car after car after car of Border Patrol. They set up the lights, they made arrests. And my block is residential, so it's like places where it's like, it doesn't even seem to be making sense. And that's why we know it's really not about crime. All of the stuff that Trump said about crime and his presser, I mean, it was. It was all just lies. Like, not like, I guess I don't need to tell anybody listening to this, but, like, in case you are curious whether or not there's any credence to the fact. Well, like, oh, well, is crime going up in D.C. that is not true. Right.
- [12:32]
Garrison Davis
So violent crimes have been going down the past two years in D.C. consistently.
- [12:36]
Bridget Todd
Absolutely. So it is true that D.C. did have a spike in crime in 2023, but since then, crime is going down. If you watched that press conference, he threw out a lot of stats about how crime is going in the wrong direction by every measure. That's simply not true. He said that in 2023, the murder rate in D.C. reached the highest rate. This is him, he said, probably ever, going back 25 years, but that they don't know what that means because the data just only goes back 25 years. Saying basically that they didn't collect crime statistics way back then. Think about that for a second. 25 years ago was the year 2000. Do you really think that crime data was not being collected in the year 2000? It absolutely was. We absolutely know what crime in D.C. looked like in the year 2000 and beyond. And so if there's one thing people might know about DC, is that in the 80s and the 90s, we were hit hard by the crack epidemic. Crime was genuinely very high. The city's own crime statistics, which we did Collect from the 70s, 80s and 90s, when the population in D.C. was smaller, show that there was much more higher numbers of homicides and murders. So that's not just a lie. It's also a weird, obvious lie, and one that when I watched the presser, I almost didn't catch. It wasn't until I sat down and went through the notes that I was like, oh, this is not just a lie. This is like a weird, glaring lie. I can't believe I, like, I guess I say that to say there are so many lies being thrown out in a short amount of time when they're all washing over you, it's kind of hard to catch them one by one. But then when you actually sit down, you're like, wow, this was just bullshit.
- [14:06]
Garrison Davis
Yeah, that's the intention. That's the. What Steve Bannon calls, like, muzzle velocity. You have to shoot out these things constantly, one after another, so that it's impossible to actually hone in and, quote, unquote, debunk each and every one, because by the time you're doing that, they've already moved on to 15 new things. You can never keep up with it. And that's, like, the whole intention. That's, like, how they craft literally just, like, their sentences so that you can't just, like, debunk everything they say, because they just throw it all out there and it's. It creates this massive structure that even if you try chipping away at the sides, it doesn't actually make any effect and it doesn't matter at all. And, like, what's the. What's the real effect they're trying to do here with sending In National Guard, federalizing the police. It's to, like, scare black people, and it's to scare homeless people. And that's really what they actually mean when they say there's high crime. And I think D.C. is what, like, the. Has, like, the third. Third largest black population in the country.
- [14:59]
Bridget Todd
That's right. We formally called Chocolate City. We're more like a latte city today, but, yeah, we are. We have a heavily black and brown population here.
- [15:07]
Garrison Davis
Yeah. And that's. That's what Trump's actually, like, focusing on. That's actually what he's doing. I feel like that's. That should be pretty clear to anyone who's, like, familiar with, like, crime panic narratives and how they've been strategically deployed throughout the past 25 years and, you know, 30, 40 years of the country.
- [15:23]
Bridget Todd
Yeah. I mean, I don't see how somebody could see what's happening and see the way that he is clearly, like, even at that presser, the list of cities he was planning on going to next, Chicago, Baltimore, is like, okay, heavily black cities with black political leadership and black mayor.
- [15:38]
Garrison Davis
Oakland. Oakland.
- [15:39]
Bridget Todd
This is very clear what's going on.
- [15:40]
Garrison Davis
Yeah. Interesting. Interesting choice, buddy. Yeah.
- [15:43]
Bridget Todd
Like, what do all these places have in common? Right. One of the things I've seen people say is that this whole thing is about the attack on the former Doge staffer known as Big Balls.
- [16:03]
Garrison Davis
Big Balls. I think it's his. That's his technical term.
- [16:06]
Bridget Todd
Yes.
- [16:07]
Garrison Davis
Possibly to receive the Presidential Medal of, I think, freedom.
- [16:11]
Bridget Todd
I think he got a medal. I think it happened.
- [16:13]
Garrison Davis
It's quite possible. So we should show Big Balls some respect for his struggles, I guess. Yeah.
- [16:23]
Bridget Todd
I mean, it's. It's. I never thought I would see the day where I'd be, like, reporting on a story happening in the city and talking about somebody named Big Balls, but here we go.
- [16:30]
Garrison Davis
Really? You didn't see this coming? You didn't see.
- [16:32]
Bridget Todd
This wasn't on my bingo card, Gar. For a podcast that I host about local DC news and issues called citycast dc, I interviewed Mark C. Graves, who was like, a longtime D.C. reporter, and I said, oh, is there any truth to the idea that this attack on Big Balls is, like, what was the impetus to all this? That Elon Musk was like, trump, you need to federalize DC's police department because of what happened to my former staffer. And I understand why people like where that narrative is coming from, but he really pointed out something, which is that, you know, Trump has been talking about taking over DC's police department for A very long time. He referenced it during his first administration a little bit. A lot less than he did it the second time around. He really dialed it up in a second campaign. He began talking about it even in his first few months in office by threatening to take control over MPD if our mayor, Muriel Bowser, did not make certain concessions, like clearing homeless encampments near the White House and removing Black Lives Matter Plaza from outside the White House. He also threatened to take over MPD and DC in general when a former Trump administration staffer, Mike Gill, was shot and killed during a carjacking in D.C. back in February. So when that happened again, he was like, I'm taking over mpd. I'm taking over mpd. So while that Big Balls thing, alleged.
- [17:45]
Garrison Davis
Carjacking of Big Balls, I will say this.
- [17:48]
Bridget Todd
You know those stories where you're like, we're going to get more information about this, so it's best to just wait. I have a. I don't know anything. I don't have any special details. But, like, my senses is this is one of those situations where it's like, you know, first the story was, I was with a girlfriend in her car. We were carjacked by two unarmed teens. Then Elon Musk, super spreader of misinformation that he is, was like, oh, he was attacked while trying to rescue an elderly woman. Like, I just have seen enough about crime in D.C. i'm looking forward to hearing more information about what actually went down there. I'll just put it that way, if that makes sense.
- [18:24]
Garrison Davis
With Mr. Big Balls.
- [18:25]
Bridget Todd
With Mr. Big Balls.
- [18:27]
Garrison Davis
I guess Mr. Balls. I guess Big is the first name.
- [18:29]
Bridget Todd
Mr. Balls, please. Mr. Balls is my father. And so, yeah, like, I think the Big Balls thing might have been very convenient timing or, like, a good excuse to actually move forward. But I think narratives that Big Balls got attacked and now Trump is taking over mpd. Yeah, I think that, like, doesn't really tell the full story, which is that this has been a long time coming. This has been something that Trump has been, like, obsessed with for quite some time, even going back from before his second administration.
- [18:56]
Garrison Davis
And there's. There's been, like, a media campaign the past few months of specifically taking, like, public transit robbery videos and making them super viral of, like, teens who will, like, steal, like, designer clothes on public transit.
- [19:09]
Bridget Todd
Yeah.
- [19:09]
Garrison Davis
And. And turn turning this into, like, a national epidemic. And again, you can. You could look at, look at the, like, the shoplifting videos from, from a few years ago that even though crime was going down, there was videos Very visible videos of, of shoplifting that went super viral to help form this, this crime wave narrative that the statistics don't necessarily support. To the point where you have Republicans actually like, denying the FBI's own crime statistics. The FBI, famously soft on crime institution, the FBI. But Republicans saying that these, these stats have to be wrong because we all know that there's crime everywhere. And like, how do we know that? Because you're seeing like a TikTok video about it. And that's your proof is you've, you saw one or two videos of like people robbing an Apple store and now you think that crime must be statistically higher everywhere. Okay.
- [20:02]
Bridget Todd
Yeah. And I think that's why the big balls narrative continues to really be so sticky.
- [20:07]
Garrison Davis
Ooh, I don't like that.
- [20:08]
Bridget Todd
Yeah, I don't mean it how it sounds, but like, it doesn't matter if you have statistics from the FBI saying that crime is going down. Whatever, whatever. When you, if you have a visceral image of like a bloodied big balls beaten on the street. Right. Like. And so I think that it's really interesting how, I mean, I guess I'll just say it, how easily manipulated people are.
- [20:29]
Garrison Davis
Oh, yeah.
- [20:30]
Bridget Todd
And how they're able to go against the facts when they are confronted with an image of like teens robbing a CVS or like, oh, like, yeah, like a looted out cvs. Because that is so visceral. And so that's something I really struggled with is like, I don't know how to counter these emotionally charged visceral TikTok videos and images that present one thing with facts. Like, it's like, very difficult to be like, well, the data says this when people are being motivated by a different thing.
- [20:55]
Garrison Davis
No. And that's why it's almost kind of fruitless to go about that strategy at this point. And like, I don't know how to approach this. And I think it's also worth mentioning, like, you're. We are not immune to this either. We might get targeted with like, different narratives. Maybe, maybe a CVS robbery doesn't do it for us. But no, like, everyone's motivated by like, emotional reactions to things that we see as, like, bad or often horrific. And that does change the way that we understand, like, the physical aspects, like the, like the statistical patterns of the world very clearly. Like, we're, we're emotional creatures. That's what drives us. The fact that the emotional plight of big balls is driving the ruling party in the country right now is just a little bit more notable because it's one white guy named Big Balls.
- [21:40]
Bridget Todd
Yeah, it's true. And it almost doesn't even make sense to, like, combat the idea that this is about crime. But I know it's not about crime because one, the Trump administration recently made very drastic cuts to D.C. security funding. And so if he was really very invested in crime in dc, seems like something that his administration would not have done. Also, something that our mayor, who I do want to talk about, has said is that as you were sort of alluding to earlier, federal agents and military personnel are not the people who are going to be useful when it comes to dc, like street crime. These are people who probably aren't Even informed about DC's local ordinances and laws. Why would they be? Right? And so these are not people whose jobs it is to be out engaging with civilians about quality of life crimes like open containers or drinking on sidewalks. I saw a pretty viral video of the police going up and stopping somebody for, he says smoking a joint on his porch. In dc, you are allowed to possess marijuana. But he also was like, just so you know, Trump is cracking down on all of these quality of life crimes, so you can't drink a beer on your porch anymore. That's incorrect. In the District of Columbia, you absolutely can drink alcohol on your private property outside. And it's like, well, how, how would he know? He's not even from here. He's a federal agent. So, like, yeah, these are not people who are trained or skilled in combating the kind of civilian level street crime that we're seeing them do. This is just not an appropriate use of these people. And so the thing that kind of gets me is that for the amount of money that we are spending on having federal agents deal with low level street crime, like per MPD and per the DOJ's own statistics, the kind of crimes that they have been combating this week are things like open container, fair evasions was like, yeah, you needed, you needed an FBI agent to deal with this. What are you talking about? But the money that we're spending, we probably could house every single unhoused person in the District of Columbia with the money that we are spending on this nonsense. It's like, that's the thing that makes me so angry. I don't want to live in a city that is full of crime. Luckily, I don't, because crime is going down. But if you genuinely wanted to combat crime, there is a reasonable way to do this. And this is just a big show of force to freak everybody out and basically demonstrate that Trump can go into cities and do this.
- [24:00]
Garrison Davis
It's not actually about lowering crime. The reason why they would never want to house people is because they don't actually want to. They don't want homeless people to live good lives. They want to exercise power. That's the primary motivator. And not only can bringing in out of state police be like inconvenient, it can have lethal consequences.
- [24:16]
Bridget Todd
Right?
- [24:17]
Garrison Davis
Because they do not know the areas that they're policing. They do not know the people in those areas. They, they don't understand what it's actually like. When I was at the Republican National Conference Committee, I don't know how, how do I know, how do I not know what the RNC is actually called? I think convention.
- [24:33]
Bridget Todd
It depends on if you're talking about the event or the like entity.
- [24:36]
Garrison Davis
The entity. When I was at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin last year, I responded to the scene of a police shooting where police from out of state who were brought in for the convention were policing outside of the area the convention, and shot and killed a homeless black man. Because they did not understand where the homeless people like have their encampments, how they solve disputes, how people can get into fights. But that does not mean like you have to kill people who are having a fight. So no, this has drastic consequences. Something that, that the police in Milwaukee would have, would have been aware of this encampment would have possibly been aware of the normal way that homeless people can get into fights with each other but are not going to kill each other. Instead you have an out of state cop from like Ohio or something get freaked out that two people are fighting and then shoot one of them and stuff like this is why like out of state police are so dangerous when they're being brought into communities that they really just don't understand exactly that.
- [25:42]
Bridget Todd
You know, I did an interview with a local community organizer in D.C. and they told me pretty much the same thing, that there is an aspect of trust and relationship building that goes into not just like solving crimes, but combating crimes before they start. Right. Like there is a level of deep relationship building and trust building that has to be in effect there. And that is what actually can sometimes make communities safer. When it comes to unhoused people and immigrants, these are not people who are committing crimes. These are people who are statistically more likely to be the victims of crimes. And so when you bring in outside forces who do not have trust, who do not, who have not built that relationship, and they're terrorizing the communities that are statistically More likely to be the victims of crime. That's going to be the thing that results in the opposite of crime going down. Right. Because you are damaging whatever trust and whatever relationship and whatever understandings have been built with this community and law enforcement going forward. Right. And so if we're genuinely interested in building safer communities, bringing in all of these outside military and federal personnel is simply not how you do it. That's how I know it's bullshit. They don't actually care about of this. And, like, it is. It is sort of crazy making. Because I feel like they want us spinning out about all of this stuff, all of this bullshit that they're spitting. Which fucking guilty as charged for me this week is all I've been doing. But, you know, it just is this. They're so effective at the spin and the manipulation.
- [27:02]
Garrison Davis
No, I'm one of the former Fox News hosts who somehow has a position in government.
- [27:08]
Bridget Todd
Hegseth.
- [27:09]
Garrison Davis
No, it was another. No, no, there is another. This is.
- [27:13]
Robert Evans
Which one?
- [27:16]
Garrison Davis
It was one of the ones who looks like your evil aunt.
- [27:20]
Bridget Todd
Oh, Denine Pierro.
- [27:22]
Garrison Davis
Yes.
- [27:22]
Bridget Todd
Oh, my God.
- [27:23]
Garrison Davis
I'm glad that we could figure that out based on that description.
- [27:26]
Bridget Todd
That's all you had to say.
- [27:29]
Garrison Davis
But she was specifically asked, like, what are you gonna do to address the root cause of crime? And she says, we don't want to. We're not going to. That's not what we're actually focusing on. We're focusing on just, like, eliminating crime.
- [27:42]
Bridget Todd
Yeah.
- [27:42]
Garrison Davis
Through, like, force, through intimidation. And not even actually eliminating crime. Just. Just. Just exercising power, which is what they're actually trying to say. And that's. That's the whole point of this.
- [27:53]
Bridget Todd
Yes. And it's not just crime writ large through force. It is crime in cities that are run by Democrats that have heavily black and brown populations. Because.
- [28:02]
Garrison Davis
Yeah.
- [28:02]
Bridget Todd
You don't see them going into white communities that have crime, which white communities do have crime. You don't see them going into, like, cities where they have Republican mayors where crime is also quite bad. No, that's not even. That's not even, like, part of the conversation. It is very clear what they are saying. This is an attack.
- [28:19]
Garrison Davis
It's about power.
- [28:20]
Bridget Todd
Yeah. This is a show of power to communities that we don't like. And I have to say something about this, which is that, you know, when this first happened, when I was interviewing that longtime reporter Mark See Graves, something that he told me that really scared me was that the administration is doing this entirely legally and by the book. He was like, oh, it's Clear that they are following every letter of the law to the point where the first statement out of our mayor's office was that they were not challenging this takeover of MPD because they did not feel like they had any kind of legal grounds to do so, which is grim. That really tells me that they have got their act together. There was a time where people were like, oh, they're just going to do things and see what sticks and see what, you know, see what gets challenged in court, see what they can get away with. It really tells me a lot that in this instance, they're like, we're doing this by the book, so that there is no legal challenge to what we are doing.
- [29:19]
Garrison Davis
What has the reaction been, like, from, like, city government?
- [29:23]
Bridget Todd
I mean, I will say I came on this podcast a while ago and I. I'll say, like, I don't want to say I defended our mayor, Muriel Bowser, but I did want to say, like, she is in a position that no other elected official in the country is in, where she has to sort play nice with a madman. I came on the show and I said that she had this strategy of appeasement and making concessions, which, you know, say what you will about it, I believe was grounded in an attempt to, like, work with Trump to avoid worse outcomes.
- [29:55]
Garrison Davis
To avoid this from happening.
- [29:57]
Bridget Todd
To avoid this from happening. So my point is now, I mean, it really shows you the futility of trying to make concessions with a fascist. Right.
- [30:05]
Garrison Davis
What's the point?
- [30:06]
Bridget Todd
Yeah, because the thing that we were trying to avoid, the thing that all of these little appeasements and concessions were meant to avoid, has happened.
- [30:13]
Garrison Davis
Yeah.
- [30:14]
Bridget Todd
To be clear, Trump has not taken over D.C. entirely and home rule still stands. And so the very worst outcome has not happened yet. But this is pretty damn bad. And so part of me is like, what did all those concessions get you? And, yeah, today, just this morning, she has totally flipped her tune on this. She actually flew to Mar a Lago to see Trump yesterday, and she came back saying, well, maybe having more law enforcement in communities in D.C. will make people safer. And I just cannot express to you how much it feels like I would speak for myself. It feels like we have been abandoned by leadership when we need it most. Right. In dc, we have the mayor, Mariel Bowser, who I just told you about. We have a Congressional representative, Eleanor Holmes Norton, who has a long time history of being a fighter and protector of DC's autonomy. However, she can't vote, so she doesn't really have a lot of power and a big conversation in D.C. has been the fact that she is really aging. She is like, I think, the second oldest member of Congress in the United States. And it just, we don't feel like we have anybody who can fight for us, who can speak up for us. And I will say this, like, I'm very disappointed in our mayor. I'm very disappointed in the fact that she has, seems to have really been behind Trump on this. She does have a not terrible relationship with Trump, which in some ways can be good or bad, depending on how you look at it. But I went into this having a sense that, oh, well, I think our mayor is going to fight for us. Our mayor's going to fight for DC's autonomy. And I'm coming out of it thinking, I don't think that she is fighting for us. Like, the way that I would want her to be positioning herself in this moment, I'm not seeing her do. And the reality is, unfortunately, the mayor of D.C. doesn't really have a lot of power and protection. She does. When you, when you compare that to somebody like Gavin Newsom, who, when Trump sent the National Guard into la, knows that he has, like the power of two senators behind him. Right. Like, our mayor doesn't have that. And it just really made clear when it comes to protecting dc, we're really on our own. We're really all we have. We don't really have a lot of power. We are really depending on folks like you, Gare, to get the word out to people who do have elected officials that they can call and advocate, because, like, there's really nobody to, to call. And I will say, I will say this. If the worst thing happens and DC's home rule is overturned, which would be a disaster, like, I should come on the show and talk about what that would look like. If that happens, D.C. will have no one. The only people who will be in charge of how DC is run is Trump and a small handful of people that he would personally appoint to be the commissioner of dc. So the last time that DC did not have home rule, it was the only people who were in charge were the president. And I think it was three commissioners that he personally appointed. None of these people lived in D.C. other than the president who lived in the White House. And so down to the smallest aspect of city life, I'm talking about social services, D.C. health link, unemployment, the streets, the schools, all of that would be run by President Trump. I cannot express to you what a disaster this would be. And the smallest thing getting done in dc, down to a pothole being repaved would take congressional oversight. So anybody who thinks that that is a reasonable way to run a city. Oh, my God, wake up.
- [33:32]
Garrison Davis
Well, I am not thrilled about the idea of Commissioner Big balls, because that would happen. You know that. I know. And it's funny you mentioned Newsom, and Newsom was another guy who was trying to make concessions with Trump, specifically around, like, trans sports.
- [33:45]
Bridget Todd
Oh, my God, don't even get me started.
- [33:47]
Garrison Davis
And he tried to, you know, make. Make those sort of, like, concessions and, like, roll back some aspects of supporting trans people in schools and trans kids. And then Trump's Department of Education still went after California schools. So, like, yeah, no matter what concessions you give, they will still go. Earlier you mentioned there was, like, arrest on your block last night. Like, how. How has this affected. Yeah, like, daily life for you and other. Other residents of, like, D.C. so far.
- [34:12]
Bridget Todd
It has been grim. You know, we've seen Border Patrol, ICE D, a FBI, National Guard, just walking the streets. And again, like, something about D.C. is that in August, pretty much everybody leaves town. So it's a bit of a ghost town. There is nothing that justifies the massive disruption in city services that has happened on my street. Last night they had a row of Border Patrol SUVs blocking traffic for genuinely no reason. Like, the level to which they are purposely disrupting the flow of city life cannot be overstated. And I want to make it clear also, this is, as you said, a real attack on the unhoused community in D.C. we have already seen very disturbing images of unhoused people being taken away by police. Yesterday, the White House said that they were going to be forcibly removing unhoused people, forcing them into shelters, hospitals, or jails. And if they didn't go, they would face fines. I mean, finding somebody who was living on the street, I mean, like, what are you doing?
- [35:13]
Garrison Davis
Yeah. Finding someone who has no money.
- [35:14]
Bridget Todd
Yeah. And D.C. has a long history of having an issue with the unhoused community. We do not have enough shelters to accommodate people. And even if we did, not, everybody's going to want to go to a shelter. And so this has been an issue long before Trump was ever in D.C. and it does take some complexity and thoughtfulness to solve it. Not just going in and removing people by brute force, like that is the absolute worst thing that you can be doing for this.
- [35:40]
Garrison Davis
No, I mean, that that relates to Trump's, like, anti vagrancy executive order from a few weeks ago where he wants to lock homeless people up in, like, mental hospitals and jails and like, like like, forcibly so. And change. Change the rules for how. How shelters work, how shelters can get funding, mandatory, like, drug treatments and. Yeah, really. Actually just trying to, like, involuntarily commit people into civil institutions.
- [36:08]
Bridget Todd
Exactly.
- [36:10]
Garrison Davis
I see parts of what he's doing in D.C. is trying to demonstrate his, like, plan for that and how he wants that to spread across the country and just. Yeah. Taking people off the street, but then locking them either in a jail or onto, like, a hospital bed.
- [36:25]
Bridget Todd
Yes. And there was also an ICE raid at the Home Depot out in Northeast this week, basically. I do think that, first and foremost, this is an attack on DC's black, brown, immigrant and unhoused community. But, you know, I see images of empty bars and empty restaurants where ICE and Border Patrol are inside the place.
- [36:48]
Garrison Davis
Yeah. Why would you want to go out if there's the fucking, like, the military parading around?
- [36:53]
Bridget Todd
Yes. It's fucking up the vibes. Right? Like, that's. I will say, like. So in addition to the attacks on these vulnerable communities, like, if you want to have a community where people feel safe to go out, they want to spend money, they want to, like, enjoy the city, the vibes are terrible. This is. This is just everything that makes D.C. great and a good place to live and a place that people want to come and spend time and start their families. This kind of show of force goes against that and threatens that. It really does threaten. Like, D.C. is a particular place. It's like, why? This is my home. This kind of stuff really threatens our way of life in ways that are just. It really is just sad.
- [37:28]
Garrison Davis
I'm not sure if you have, like, examples like, what people are trying to do to. To cope with this or try to, like, like, stand their ground in their community, I guess. But, like, how are people, like, channeling their frustration right now?
- [37:43]
Bridget Todd
Well, there was a very viral video of somebody throwing a sub sandwich at a military personnel on U Street, so.
- [37:49]
Garrison Davis
Well, that's a start. As long as we. If we can get 50,000 people with sub sandwiches, we might be onto something.
- [37:55]
Bridget Todd
The hero DC needs. So that's one.
- [37:58]
Garrison Davis
Literally, the hero DC needs.
- [38:00]
Bridget Todd
Yeah, I see what you did there. Yeah, I would say so. There are. I feel grateful that there are organizations in D.C. like, local organizations that were preparing for this, and so organizations like Free dc. I spoke to one of their representatives earlier this week about what they're doing, and they're really focused on giving residents resources. And so they're running cop watching trainings.
- [38:21]
Garrison Davis
That's good. That's good.
- [38:22]
Bridget Todd
They're making sure that folks know that their rights have not changed. Know their rights. If a. If an agent comes up to you to talk to you, they're, they're making sure people know what they do and don't have to say in those situations, which I think is important, people should definitely check out Free DC. They, they've been around since the 60s, so they have been protecting DC's autonomy for a very long time. One of the things that they were telling folks to do was, do you remember how in 2020, people would go outside and bang pots and pans to thank essential workers and medical personnel?
- [38:51]
Garrison Davis
Yes.
- [38:52]
Bridget Todd
They were telling folks, because the streets feel so militarized, not everybody's gonna feel like going out to a protest or going out to a march at 8 o' clock at night. Make as much noise as you can, whether it's from your open window or from your block or from your stoop, as a way to, like, demonstrate opposition to this. And so if you want more information about the kinds of, that kind of organizing that they're trying to provide for folks, definitely check out Free dc. But I do think, I mean, the vibes are rage, and I hate that that rage feels so impotent that we. That, like, this is just another of a million examples of why we need full statehood. We've needed it for so long because we are being disenfranchised. We have the possibility that people in power in D.C. could be people that nobody elected. Trump could appoint anybody as commissioner of dc, and big balls. Yeah, it could be big balls. Right. And so we are in a situation that is so grim, and I think that shows, you know, people. People are really feeling that. And I guess one thing I want to, I want to add is that I was talking earlier about how it's frustrating that I find that I'm often in this conversation, like, trying to combat Trump. And I feel. I feel like I'm in a stance that I hate, which is this reactive stance where he spews bullshit. And I feel like it's my job to debunk it. And it's like, well, it's bullshit. I could be doing other things. I hate that we have gotten this narrative that cities are bad, and that goes against our shared understanding of this country where cities are good. If you live in a city, don't let Trump turn you against city life. Don't let Trump turn you against cities. People want to be in cities. Cities are good. Cities are safe. Cities are cool to live in. People want to be in the city. If people didn't want to live in D.C. my rent wouldn't be so goddamn high. Right. People want to be here for a reason. When Trump got up on that presser and talked about how tourists come to D.C. this and that, he's right. If. If D.C. were truly a bombed out hellhole, tourists wouldn't want to bring their families here. Cities are good. And I don't think that we should let Trump rewrite the narrative that our cities are bad. Cities are good. They are good places to be. We don't have to get caught up in his fake bullshit narrative of demonizing cities.
- [41:02]
Garrison Davis
So that's why I think everyone should travel to D.C. let's all go to the Capitol, put on some. Put on some masks, wave some flags and just get in there to show we. We can take it over. We can take the city back. Joe Biden, 2028. Let's go.
- [41:19]
Bridget Todd
Yeah, I mean, I did see this interview on News Nation where I think it was Mehdi Hasan was talking to some shithead, and he was like, oh, if Trump cares about crime so much, why did he pardon a bunch of January 6th attackers who threatened and attacked law enforcement? And it's like, oh, he would.
- [41:34]
James Stout
The.
- [41:34]
Bridget Todd
The interviewer was just like, oh, come on.
- [41:36]
Garrison Davis
Come on.
- [41:36]
Bridget Todd
You won't talk about that. Come on. And it's like, okay. I thought, tough on crime, huh? Tough on crime. Okay.
- [41:42]
Garrison Davis
No, it's. It's. It's crime with three ellipses. Not the actual category of crime.
- [41:48]
Bridget Todd
Exactly.
- [41:49]
Garrison Davis
Crime. Wink, wink.
- [41:50]
Bridget Todd
Yeah, it's like, we know what they're. What they're trying to say, but honestly, just talking to you about this has made me feel a lot better. I've been raging all week, so this is the first time that I feel like I've actually, like, gotten it all out. So thank you for talking to me about it.
- [42:05]
Garrison Davis
Yeah, no, we will. We will certainly keep up with what's happening in D.C. with, you know, how long National Guard is going to be there, how long this. This federalization lasts. Maybe they'll eliminate all crime within 30 days and things will go back to normal. Who knows?
- [42:21]
Bridget Todd
I mean, the day that he took over, there was all of. There was a shooting like an hour or two later. So I was like, oh, I thought y' all were going to handle this.
- [42:27]
Garrison Davis
Well, I guess. But, no, we will. We will keep up with this as well as Trump's promises to go further and expand to five other cities. So thank you for sharing your thoughts and experiences as a resident of D.C. bridget, thank you for having me.
- [42:45]
Bridget Todd
And, yeah, like, if you're out there in dc, Stay safe, keep hope alive. We're all we got.
- [42:52]
Garrison Davis
Where else can people find you on the Internet, Bridget, besides, you know, on the. On the steps of the Capitol, waving an American flag.
- [43:00]
Bridget Todd
Yeah. In a mask.
- [43:02]
Garrison Davis
Yeah.
- [43:02]
Bridget Todd
You can find me at my podcasts. I have a podcast on iHeartRadio called There Are no girls on the Internet. I have a podcast about local DC news and issues called Citycast DC. You can also find me on Instagram @bridgetmarine DC, on TikTok @bridgetmaindc, or on YouTube @ there are no girls on the Internet.
- [43:18]
James Stout
Cheers.
- [43:36]
Garrison Davis
There's a vile sickness in Abbas town.
- [43:39]
Andrew Sage
You must excise it, dig into the deep earth and cut it out.
- [43:45]
Garrison Davis
Eventually, village is ravaged.
- [43:47]
James Stout
Entire families have been consumed. You know how waking up from a dream, a familiar place can look completely alien?
- [43:56]
Garrison Davis
Get back, everyone.
- [43:57]
James Stout
He's got knacks. And if you see the devil walking.
- [44:00]
Garrison Davis
Around inside of another man, you must.
- [44:02]
James Stout
Cut out the very heart of him, burn his body, and scatter the ashes.
- [44:07]
Garrison Davis
In the furthest corner of this town. As a warning from iHeart podcasts and grim and mild from Aaron Manke, this is Havoc Town, a new fiction podcast.
- [44:18]
Bridget Todd
Set in the Bridgewater audio universe, starring.
- [44:22]
Garrison Davis
Jewel State and Ray Wise. Listen to Havoc town on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [44:31]
Andrew Sage
The Devil walks in Abbostown.
- [44:35]
Bridget Todd
Welcome to Pretty Private with Ebony, the podcast where silence is broken and stories are set free. I'm Ebonae, and every Tuesday, I'll be sharing all new anonymous stories that would challenge your perceptions and give you new insight on the people around you. On Pretty Private, we'll explore the untold experiences of women of color who faced it all. Childhood trauma, addiction, abuse, incarceration, grief, mental health struggles, and more. And found the shop Shrimp to make it to the other side. My dad was shot and killed in his house. Yes, he was a drug dealer. Yes, he was a confidential informant. But he wasn't shot on a street corner. He wasn't shot in the middle of a drug deal. He was shot in his house, unarmed. Pretty Private isn't just a podcast. It's your personal guide for turning storylines into lifelines. Every Tuesday, make sure you listen to Pretty Private from the Black Effect podcast network. Tune in on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Sometimes it's hard to remember, but going.
- [45:43]
Garrison Davis
Through something like that is a traumatic experience. But it's also not the end of your life.
- [45:49]
Bridget Todd
That was my dad reminding me and so many others who need to hear it that our trauma is not our shame to carry and that we have big, bold and beautiful lives to live after what happened to us. I'm your host and co president of this organization, Dr. Lea Tritate. On my new podcast, the Unwanted Sorority, we wade through transformation to peel back healing and reveal what it actually looks like and sounds like in real time. Each week I sit down with people who've lived through harm, carried silence, and are now reshaping the systems that failed us. We're going to talk about the adultification of black girls mothering as resistance and the tools we use for healing.
- [46:25]
Michael Phillips
Healing.
- [46:25]
Bridget Todd
The Unwanted Sorority is a safe space, not a quiet space. So let's lock in. We're moving towards liberation together. Listen to the Unwanted Sorority. New episodes every Thursday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [46:42]
James Stout
Our iHeartRadio music festival, presented by Capital One, is coming back to Las Vegas.
- [46:48]
Robert Evans
Vegas September 19th and 20th, streaming live only on Hulu Ladies and gentlemen, Brian Adams, Ed Sheeran, Fade Glorilla, Jelly Roll, John Fogarty, Lil Wayne, LL Cool J, Mariah Carey, Maroon 5, Sammy Hagar, Tate McRae, the Offspring, Tim McGraw.
- [47:06]
Garrison Davis
Tickets are on sale now@axs.com get your.
- [47:10]
Robert Evans
Tickets today AXS.com.
- [47:17]
Michael Phillips
I'm Michael Phillips, an historian in the office of a book about racism in Dallas called White Metropolis and the co author of a recently published book about the eugenics movement in Texas called the Purifying Knife. And I'm Steven Monticelli. I'm an investigator reporter in Dallas where I contribute to a variety of publications as well as Cool Zone Media. I cover political extremism in Texas and beyond. Elon Musk has dominated the news since the 2024 presidential campaign and for a lot of reasons. There's a billionaire's flirtation with neo Nazi politics. There's his gutting of the social safety net through Doge. His soap opera estrangement from President Trump also grabbed much of the spotlight. In the past two years, Musk has resuscitated in two Texas communities one of the worst ideas from the robber baron age. In an effort to control his workers lives on and off the clock, Musk is bringing the company town back to life. On May 3rd of this year, on the south Texas coast of the Gulf of Mexico, people went to the voting booth on a peninsula called Boca Chica. They voted to turn their 1.5 square mile patch of unincorporated land into a city called Starbase. Almost all of the voters were employees of Musk's SpaceX rocket company. So are the candidates elected to govern Texas newest city. But Musk is clearly the power behind the throne. Meanwhile, in Bastrop county near Austin in central Texas, Musk gobbled up local real estate in loosely governed unincorporated lands. That's where, in addition to Starbase, he's working to create another company town he calls Snailbrook. Many Bastrop residents say Musk's businesses are poisoning the water, air and soil in their community. On this episode of It Could Happen Here, we'll discuss the unfortunate history of company towns in the United States, how company towns have always undermined democracy and workers rights, and what these Elon Musk company towns may mean for the future of United States capitalism. Speaking of capitalism, we'll be back after a few words from our sponsors. Roughly between 1880 and the mid-1930s, an astounding 2,500 company towns dotted the American landscape. A product of Gilded Age greed. At best, these corporate planned communities represented paternalistic experiments and mind control. At their worst, they became miniature police states. In Steinway Village in New York, where, not surprisingly, workers manufactured Steinway pianos Pullman, Illinois, where employees made train cars and Hershey's, Pennsylvania, which was, of course, a chocolate manufacturing center, Employers built the houses that the workers lived in, the stores where they shopped, the saloons where they drank, and the schools where their children learned. Chad Pearson is an historian of American labor at the University of North Texas, and he's the author of a noted book called Capitalism's Klansmen, Lawmen and Employers in the long 19th century. We talked to him about the rise and fall of company towns from the mid-1800s to the early 20th century. Could you explain how company towns got started in the United States and the motives of the businessmen who started them?
- [50:54]
Garrison Davis
Certainly. So really I think we can identify three periods, three phases. So the first phase would be we might associate with the so called Lowell.
- [51:02]
Michael Phillips
Girls in Lowell, Massachusetts, which began in.
- [51:05]
Garrison Davis
The 1820s and continued into the subsequent decades. These were young women, girls and basically.
- [51:14]
Michael Phillips
They lived on the campus, the town.
- [51:16]
Garrison Davis
The boss would decide when they would work and when they would eat and that sort of thing. After that we have another phase which we could identify with George Pullman and the Pullman company just outside of Chicago in the late 19th century. Really in the 1880s, again, these were very controlling environments in which the employer.
- [51:36]
Michael Phillips
Had all the say workers would live in company housing.
- [51:40]
Garrison Davis
Again, they'd go to the company church.
- [51:42]
Michael Phillips
And were really controlled both during and.
- [51:45]
Garrison Davis
After the workday and then we have.
- [51:47]
Michael Phillips
A whole bunch of them, mostly in.
- [51:48]
Garrison Davis
Mining and textile lumber communities. By 1939 there were 70 planned industrial settlements built after 1900, so quite a few. So whatever period we're talking about, these places were infamous for management's use of surveillance and power. This is designed really to fundamentally control folks, which found expression again in homes, workplaces and churches. You would have to sign contracts. So in a place like mining towns in West Virginia, you'd have to sign a contract that gave the boss the authority to evict labor activists or people workers who might be involved in trying to improve their conditions by fighting back, or they would be evicted for so called undesirable behavior. Again, that generally involved things like union organizing.
- [52:35]
Michael Phillips
Pearson described these company towns as mini dictatorships in which fighting for better conditions could result in harsh retaliation and in which ministers that were hired by the company at a church built by the company bosses fed workers a steady stream of propaganda.
- [52:52]
Garrison Davis
This happened in places like New England textile mills to coal mining areas in Alabama, West Virginia. What might happen, you'll say you're, you're.
- [53:01]
Michael Phillips
Active in a union or you're resisting your boss. Right.
- [53:04]
Garrison Davis
The boss or his underlings might send in mine guards and say, you and your family get out, throw the stock, their furniture on the street. And there would be no, no accountability, no way to, you know, address that, that, that problem. You'd also have company towns. You'd have a religious, you'd have preachers who would preach the company line as well. Right. So that kind of pro business, pro capitalist indoctrination was expressed both in the.
- [53:35]
Michael Phillips
Workplace and from the pulpit. A key way that company towns control workers was by not paying them in actual American dollars, but in paper certificates called scrip that could only be spent at company owned stores. This gave the company monopoly of power over what their workforce bought.
- [53:55]
Garrison Davis
A 25 pound sack of flour cost 250 at the company store. It costs only 190 elsewhere. Right. So this was a way for companies to sort of corner the market, if you will. Right. They could jack up prices. You're basically a slave to the system.
- [54:13]
Michael Phillips
George Pullman, who established the company that made luxury railroad cars, created a company town in Illinois in 1881. Pullman presented his experiment to the world as a utopia. The workers houses there had natural gas and running water, which was not the norm at the time. Some even had indoor plumbing. The town had retail shops and well supplied markets. And tourists visited it as a supposed ideal community of the future. In spite of the apparent shininess of Pullman, Illinois. The relationship between Pullman and his employees turned violent in 1894, as Dr. Pearson explains.
- [54:52]
Garrison Davis
So Pullman, George Pullman began creating this utopian community in 1880. Okay, that's shortly after this massive nationwide.
- [55:01]
Michael Phillips
Strike in 1877 of railroad workers. So a lot of bosses in the aftermath of these massive confrontations were like.
- [55:08]
Garrison Davis
Okay, we gotta do something, we gotta do something to solve what they called the labor problem, the labor question. And one way they did that was.
- [55:17]
Michael Phillips
Through welfare work, trying to be more benevolent.
- [55:21]
Garrison Davis
Right. Carrots, as opposed to only sticks. And so Pullman was established in 1884 just outside of Chicago, had about 12,000 residents, and it was at the time the largest, most famous company town in the nation. And he did, I mean, let's give credit where credit is due, some things.
- [55:38]
Michael Phillips
That did improve the conditions for employees.
- [55:41]
Garrison Davis
So he had a company doctor, he oversaw a good school system, funded athletic programs, a company band, and he modeled this on a company town outside of Bradford, England. So what we see is, you know, the company towns do not originate in the United States.
- [55:57]
Michael Phillips
There are sort of a phenomenon that we see across the industrialized world.
- [56:01]
Garrison Davis
But of course, there was also a darker side.
- [56:02]
Michael Phillips
He banned alcohol, he restricted tobacco use.
- [56:05]
Garrison Davis
He imposed a curfew. Right, so you want to go out, you know, it's five o' clock somewhere.
- [56:10]
Michael Phillips
No, it's not.
- [56:10]
Garrison Davis
Right. And so it's also pretty expensive to live there. Residents had to spend something like 30% of their money on rent. And when they saved enough money, an impossible thing to do. Often when they did save that money, they would, they would get out.
- [56:27]
Michael Phillips
Pullman's experiment in welfare capitalism came crashing down when the United States sank into an economic depression that lasted from 1893 to 1897. At 1.3 million people, or about 20% of the country's workforce, could not find jobs. Hunger and suicide became rampant as hard times dragged on and Pullman laid off hundreds of workers and slashed wages by 33%. During this time, residents of the company town in Illinois struggled to pay rent at the Pullman owned housing where management refused to lower prices. Eugene Debs, who would soon emerge as the leader of the Socialist Party of America and would serve five times as that party's presidential nominee, led the 150,000 member American Railway Union. The ARU staged a strike calling for a rollback in pay cuts and a reduction in rents at the company housing. The strikes spread nationwide with railroad workers refusing to handle trains carrying Pullman cars. President GROVER Cleveland dispatched 12,000 troops to crush the uprising and reopen the rail lines. Federal marshals shot two strikers to death in Kensington, Illinois, not far from Chicago, while authorities arrested Debs and put him in prison for defying the court order by continuing the strike. In a sop to workers, the House and Senate unanimously passed a bill creating what we now know today as Labor Day.
- [57:57]
Garrison Davis
Later on in jail, Eugene Debs becomes radicalized. Reading Marx runs for president a few times after that. Bottom line, Workers lost a strike. But Pullman's experiment soon ended. The Illinois Supreme Court ruled that George.
- [58:11]
Michael Phillips
Pullman's ownership of the community was in violation of its charter and dismantled the town in 1898.
- [58:19]
Garrison Davis
So, a dramatic period in U.S. history.
- [58:22]
Michael Phillips
One of the most important struggles in U.S. labor history.
- [58:26]
Garrison Davis
And it really showed the way in which bosses the state came together to really fight labor.
- [58:34]
Michael Phillips
By around the end of the 1800s, about 3% of the American population lived under the almost complete control of their corporate masters. Meanwhile, an extensive network of spies filled company towns. These corporate agents posed as fellow workers, bartenders, mailmen, or just another customer at the store. They reported to management any malcontent who complained about working hours or wages. Fired workers were often placed on a blacklist that was widely distributed among corporations and made landing a new job even more difficult. Some mining towns resemble prison camps. Armed guards surrounded the towns to keep out union organizers. And the corporate overlords in company towns use violent means to maintain tyrannical control. We asked Dr. Pearson to explain this. Now, Dr. Pearson, you titled one of your books Capitalism's Terrorist, and you were referring basically to the fact that corporations, including the ones that own company towns, often used private armies, armed militias, or they basically hired outside violent groups to control labor. Could you go into that a little bit more?
- [59:45]
Garrison Davis
Let me read you an anecdote from Vandergrift, Pennsylvania. Vandergrift, Pennsylvania, is a company town not far from Pittsburgh.
- [59:52]
Michael Phillips
It's a steel town.
- [59:54]
Garrison Davis
And In July of 1909, during a strike against the American Sheet and Tin Plate Company, the company's superintendent was a.
- [60:01]
Michael Phillips
Guy named Oscar Lindquist.
- [60:03]
Garrison Davis
He led a mob of hundreds to.
- [60:05]
Michael Phillips
A hotel in the nearby town of.
- [60:07]
Garrison Davis
Apollo, where the union organizers were staying. So there's an effort to build union.
- [60:12]
Michael Phillips
Membership in this company town.
- [60:14]
Garrison Davis
And Lindquist was so pissed about their presence, so he informed the organizers that they had an hour to leave town.
- [60:21]
Robert Evans
And that he would burn the building.
- [60:23]
Garrison Davis
Down if they refused to comply. When they protested, insisting that they have.
- [60:27]
Michael Phillips
Free speech and assembly rights, Lindquist claimed that, quote, his word was the Law.
- [60:32]
Garrison Davis
A local town official, reinforcing Lindquist's demand, gave the men until the next morning to leave. So we have threats of like burning places down, killing people, right?
- [60:43]
Michael Phillips
And ultimately no accountability.
- [60:46]
Garrison Davis
I think it's fair to call these people terrorists.
- [60:51]
Michael Phillips
The harshness of company towns inspired worker resistance, including what came to be known as the Colorado Coal Field War. We'll hear more about that. And a tragedy that came to be known as the Ludlow Massacre after this break, sponsored by some companies. One of the bloodiest confrontations between a company militia and striking workers in America, American history took place in Ludlow, Colorado in the early 20th century. The Colorado Fuel and Iron Company controlled several coal mines and it was owned by the world's richest man, John T. Rockefeller, who also owned the Standard Oil Company. The coal workers were unhappy with several things. They were working 12 hour days, six days a week, sometimes seven. Through their union, the United Mineworkers, they asked for a raise and for their workday to be no more than eight hours. They also demanded the right to live in housing that wasn't part of the company town controlled by Rockefeller, and to spend their hard earned money in stores that he didn't control. The relationship between the United Mine Workers and Rockefeller broke down when he refused to negotiate with them. Between September 1913 and December 1914, the coal miners and Ludlow staged strikes against the richest man on the planet at the time. Instead of negotiating, Rockefeller assembled a private army of local sheriffs, deputies and private detectives. The militia armed itself with a motorized Gatling gun that Rockefeller's goons named the Death Special. The nation recoiled in horror when on April 20, 1914, militia troops attacked company miners tent colony. They were living in the tent colony because they had been kicked out of company housing. During the armed assault, Rockefeller's troops killed 66 men, women and children. They doused the tents with kerosene, incinerating 11 hiding in a pit, including a pregnant woman. The folk singer Woody Guthrie immortalized the horrific scene at Ludlow in his ballad the Ludlow Massacre.
- [63:09]
Garrison Davis
You struck a match in the blaze, it stuck. You pulled the triggers of your Gatling guns. I made a run for the children, but a Firewall stopped me. Thirteen children died from your guns.
- [63:27]
Michael Phillips
About 200 people in all died in what came to be called the Colorado Coal Field War. So we asked Dr. Pearson about the long term impact of the Ludlow Massacre and what happened to company towns in the subsequent years.
- [63:41]
Garrison Davis
So basically, on the morning of April 20, 1914, National Guardsmen who were aligned with the Colorado Fuel And Iron Company, which is owned by John D. Rockefeller, attacked this camp of strikers, United Mine Workers strikers, ultimately killing 21 people, including 11 children. This brutality, this brutality lasted for 14 hours. The guards torched the colony. And this came in the midst of a strike that had been going on for months which started in September 1913. And so this was a real struggle. It was a terrible public relations disaster. From the vantage point of Rockefeller and the company, the pressure to do something was great. And so what we see is, we.
- [64:27]
Michael Phillips
See government officials meeting and discussing this event.
- [64:30]
Garrison Davis
There are these various gatherings of business.
- [64:33]
Michael Phillips
People and labor unions trying to resolve it.
- [64:36]
Garrison Davis
And in the aftermath of this, Rockefeller worked closely with what we might call.
- [64:41]
Michael Phillips
Industrial relations specialists and he became a.
- [64:45]
Garrison Davis
Champion of welfare capitalism.
- [64:47]
Michael Phillips
Welfare capitalism, like company unions, these sort.
- [64:50]
Garrison Davis
Of top down initiatives designed to win, as I pointed out, factory solidarity instead of class solidarity. And so how successful that was, probably not. These bosses continued to exploit, but they did so with smiley faces.
- [65:07]
Michael Phillips
As we mentioned at the beginning of the episode, company towns never completely died. And they're making a bit of a disturbing comeback via Rockefeller's successor as the world's richest man. South African native and Texas transplant, Elon Musk. Texas Governor Greg Abbott has been a big ally of Musk, at least until his nasty split with Trump over the President's tax and spending policies. But nonetheless, Musk is still popular in Texas and the state and local governments, for instance, have given Musk $64 million worth of tax breaks to establish his Tesla factory called Giga Texas in Travis county, not far from the state Capitol. COVID 19 restrictions in California during the pandemic enraged Musk, who for a time defied state law. He derided California as defined by, quote, over regulation, over litigation and over taxation. Poop on the sidewalk and scorn. In contrast, Texas stood out for its lax environmental and labor standards. As Abbott bragged to the Fox Business Channel, a need that Elon had was speed. He does everything fast. And this would have taken five, maybe 10 years to accomplish in California. I told him that Texas moves at the speed of business.
- [66:23]
James Stout
He was able to complete a mile.
- [66:25]
Michael Phillips
Long gigafactory in a year and a half. That is unheard of, probably not replicable in any other state. Whether Bastrop residents liked Musk or not, it soon became clear that he was making a very large local footprint. Bastrop county has always been famous for its beauty. This is how Bastrop sold itself to tourists, businesses and potential residents in the early 2000s.
- [66:51]
Garrison Davis
Next time you're on the way between Houston in Austin or points in between, you'll want to stop here in Bastrop. We've got a pretty little place here along the Colorado River, a place with.
- [67:02]
Andrew Sage
Charm and great natural beauty.
- [67:06]
Garrison Davis
We're the home of the lost pines, so cross the bridge into the old town and have a look. We've been growing here since 1832 and growing in a good way, a way that looks me to the future and that preserves the landmarks of the past. Bastrop has more than 120 homes and.
- [67:28]
Robert Evans
Other commercial and public buildings on the.
- [67:30]
Garrison Davis
National Register of Historic Places. Some people come here just to drive around town and see the pretty houses.
- [67:41]
Michael Phillips
There's a heavy price for moving at Greg Abbott's speed of business, however. Chap Ambrose, a landowner In Bastrop County, 33 miles southeast of Austin, said that he admired Musk for being a high tech titan. He was excited when the billionaire announced he was going to move part of his business empire to the small, mostly agricultural county. Ambrose describes his feelings about Musk's arrival in his YouTube series keep Bastrop Boring.
- [68:15]
Garrison Davis
The weird part here is I'm actually an Elon Musk fan. I have my Tesla cybertruck reservation here From November of 2019, and SpaceX's Starlink, their satellite service, I've also signed up for last year.
- [68:33]
Michael Phillips
All of Bastrop's natural and architectural splendor, however, is in danger. Since Musk came to town in Texas, counties have even less ability to protect the environment than do cities, and Musk has strategically placed his operation on land where he'll face lax local oversight. He used his fortune to buy about 35,000 acres of what was once farmland in Bastrop county, which is now headquarters for the Boring Company. The Boring Company plans to build tunnels Musk hopes one day will provide high speed underground alternatives to our current web of interstates. Musk has secured permits to dig six test tunnels in Bathrop county, which is now also officially the headquarters of his social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter. The Musk industrial complex also includes a 500,000 square foot warehouse where the Space Exploration Technologies Corporation, more commonly known as SpaceX, builds terminals for another Musk business venture, the satellite company Starlink Neuralink, which manufactures computer chips that have been experimentally implanted in test subjects brains and resulted in the deaths of many chimpanzees, is also nearby. The Tesla Gigafactory, which produces electronic cars, is just 13 miles west on an unincorporated land neighboring Travis County. I've seen it driving down the highway. It's an abomination. Construction has also begun on a company town Musk has named Snailbrook. Plans for snailbrook eventually include 110 single family rental homes actually owned by Musk. So far, fewer than 20 modular homes have been completed, according to Teen Vogue. Plans are that rent for these houses will start at about $800 a month for a two or three bedroom dwelling, which is well below the $1925 median rent. In Bastrop County, a Montessori school called Ad Astra, which from the Latin, which means to the stars, is open along with the Boring bodega, which the Austin American Statesman notes offers snacks, soda, coffee, beer, wine, a children's playground lounge space complete with video games and beanbag toss, a pickleball court that can be rented for a dollar an hour, and of course, a variety of boring company merchandise, such as a T shirt that says Tunnel Mars. This purported worker utopia already has a Gilded Age style catch. If workers get fired by Musk, long famous for his volatility and mass layoffs at his companies, they will only have a month to vacate their homes. And as with the Gilded Age, much under the Snailbrook, glitter is not gold. The town's playground, for instance, lacks shade from the broiling summertime Central Texas heat, and much of the equipment is broken and made of inferior materials. The Montessori school initially admitted 50 students, but the campus wasn't big enough. Only 16 actually attended when classes first opened because the facilities were too small. Musk once marketed himself as an environmental savior. His electric cars would supposedly save the planet from climate change. However, in Bastrop county, he's a major polluter. The Boring Company petitioned Texas for the right to pour 143,000 gallons of treated wastewater into the Colorado river every single day. Meanwhile, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to date has cited SpaceX and the Boring Company 13 times because of the unauthorized discharge of water used to clean concrete trucks. The company also failed to meet state standards regarding erosion control and the release of toxic chemicals in the soil. As Teen Vogue reported, however, the resulting fines represent mere pocket change for a man who earns an estimated $1,000 a second. The self professed Musk fan chap Ambrose, who we heard from earlier, said he's disappointed about all this.
- [72:40]
Garrison Davis
There's a culture of secrecy and it seems they're actively trying to obscure the truth, not just from neighbors, but but.
- [72:47]
James Stout
Also our county officials.
- [72:49]
Garrison Davis
If you're going to prototype the world's fastest tunneling machine in my neighborhood, then I expect the most innovative and transparent safety systems to go alongside it? Why do they refuse to give direct answers? And why won't they put their promises in writing? Why do they refuse to follow the very minimal restrictions we have in Texas for development?
- [73:10]
James Stout
And why do I have to go.
- [73:11]
Garrison Davis
To commissioner court so that they put in a legal septic system? It seems to me that they only follow the rules and behave when they're being watched.
- [73:20]
Michael Phillips
Transparency may have disappeared forever for residents of Musk's other company town. One of Musk's most lucrative companies, SpaceX, launches its rockets about 20 miles outside of Brownsville on the Texas Gulf coast near the Mexican border. Most of the residents near the launch site known as Boca Chica Village, or Tejanos, and many struggle economically. The wetlands and beaches are considered sacred by members of the Kerriozo Comicrudo tribe of Texas. The area residents were clearly invisible to Musk during a 2018 press conference when he spoke of how test flights such as those as he planned at the Boca Chica site were a necessary first step for exploration of the moon and Mars. The subsequent controversy was reported by a local TV station, krgv.
- [74:10]
James Stout
When asked how soon flights would be.
- [74:11]
Garrison Davis
Going to the moon or Mars, Musk.
- [74:13]
James Stout
Talked about the necessary test flights that would need to take place first.
- [74:17]
Garrison Davis
Most likely it's going to happen at our Brownsville location because we got a lot of land with nobody around, so if it blows up, it's cool.
- [74:26]
Michael Phillips
The people of Brownsville didn't agree that if a rocket ship blew up in their neighborhood, it would be, quote, cool.
- [74:32]
James Stout
His comment is not sitting well with Gail McConaughey.
- [74:35]
Garrison Davis
He's been out here before.
- [74:36]
James Stout
He damn sure ought to know that.
- [74:38]
Garrison Davis
He'S seen the village.
- [74:40]
Michael Phillips
You gotta know that it's not a ghost town.
- [74:42]
James Stout
McConaughey and his wife have been living at Boca Chica Village every winter for.
- [74:46]
Garrison Davis
The past 11 years. He says he's offended that he and the other residents are considered nobody. It also raises questions, he adds, about.
- [74:55]
James Stout
How safe the launches will be in a rocket that size or any size that would go up. And who knows what might happen. It might start tipping the wrong direction.
- [75:03]
Robert Evans
Who knows?
- [75:04]
Garrison Davis
If somebody, something happens to the engines and it explodes, that's cool when you're talking about there's lives here that's a.
- [75:10]
Robert Evans
Mile and a half away.
- [75:12]
Michael Phillips
McConaughey's words were prophetic. In subsequent years, Musk's rockets did blow up, such as in April 2023, when a SpaceX Special obliterated the concrete launch pad, leaving behind a massive crater. As Scientific American reported Quote Particulate debris, as well as concrete and steel shrapnel from the Bosch launch scattered far and wide across the surrounding landscape, igniting fires and slamming into protected habitats and public beaches. Ash, dust and sand grains hurled aloft by this first starship test rained down as far as Port Isabel, about five miles from the launch site. End quote. Another Musk rocket launch, this time from Boca Chica, exploded again this past June 19th, as reported by WTHR.
- [75:59]
James Stout
Whoa.
- [75:59]
Garrison Davis
In the skies over South Texas overnight, a massive fireball after a SpaceX rocket.
- [76:05]
James Stout
Exploded during a static rocket test, a ground test for an upcoming launch 36 just blew up.
- [76:12]
Bridget Todd
Ship 36 just blew up.
- [76:13]
Garrison Davis
SpaceX, led by Elon Musk, said the.
- [76:16]
Michael Phillips
Starship rocket experienced a major anomaly while.
- [76:19]
Garrison Davis
Preparing for its 10th flight test, adding that all personnel are safe and there.
- [76:24]
James Stout
Are no hazards to residents in surrounding communities. The explosion rattled nearby residents who posted videos on social media, one telling my San Antonio News quote, our whole neighborhood felt it. It shook all of our houses.
- [76:40]
Michael Phillips
In spite of this record of Mayhem, on Saturday, May 3, Boca Chica Village held an election on whether to incorporate as a city of Starbase. The proposal to create the state's newest city carried by a vote of 212 to 6. Nearly 2/3 of the electorate lived near SpaceX's launch site. Overwhelmingly, the voters were Musk employees. All three candidates elected to Starbase's new city commission ran unopposed and won without putting up a single campaign sign are hosting a single candidate forum. All three were employees of Musk and SpaceX. As the Texas Tribune has reported, the new city government increased control over the nearby public beach revered by local indigenous people. Some local residents feel the creation of the company town gives them even less power to protect what's seen as a local treasure.
- [77:32]
Bridget Todd
Starbase is only about one and a half square miles. It's, of course, the home of SpaceX, and the main goal is sending humans to Mars. According to the FAA, Starbase is aiming for 25 rocket launches a year. But this is all coming with a bit of controversy, especially over access to the population. Popular Boca chica Beach any SpaceX rocket launch or engine test requires closing a local highway to the beach, and some say Starbase is giving Musk too much control. People gathered at the beach Saturday night to protest.
- [78:05]
Garrison Davis
They're just tearing it up and doing whatever they want because they want to gentrify. They want to be a city by themselves. When you gentrify the land, you're gentrifying the soul of the people.
- [78:14]
Michael Phillips
Juan Macias, the protester. You just heard is a chair of the Carrizo Comecrudo tribe of Texas, he told the Texas Tribune. These hills are sacred to us. They don't know the history of the land and they're trying to erase that. Of course, Musk has a history as well, and is one characterized by labor abuses. Like the robber barons who ruled as emperors over their Gilded Age company towns, Musk has been accused of firing union organizers at his Austin gigafactory. Workers claim Musk either didn't pay them for overtime or shortchanged them. Those same workers charged that records were faked to document their safety training. And according to the Texas Observer, a publication I'm glad to contribute to, one worker said he was forced to work in a flooded part of the factory and had to work on a metal roof at night without lights. These are clear OSHA violations. It is highly unlikely the state of Texas will require Musk to provide any transparency about his business practices. Governor Abbott recently refused the request of a media outlet, the Texas Newsroom, to release emails between him and Musk, claiming the extensive communication between the pair was, quote, intimate and potentially, quote, embarrassing and therefore not a public interest. With so much of Musk enterprises in the state operating in company towns he politically controls or on county land with little oversight, Musk has become the Lone Star State's modern, unchecked robber baron extraordinaire. And with the aid of his on again, off again ally, Donald Trump, he has blazed the trail for other tech billionaires. When Trump ran for president last year, he floated a proposal to build what he called, quote, Freedom Cities across the country, pushed by oligarchs like Peter Thiel, Marc Andreessen, and Sam Altman, who ironically now has a bit of a fit and a fight with Elon Musk. They hate each other, and it's really funny. These proposed fiefdoms would function as libertarian oases. Coal miners were once paid in scrip, and the federal government banned scrip in 1938. But nevertheless, Jeff Bezos already uses something he calls swag bucks that are redeemable at Amazon to reward those in the company he deems his most productive workers. Workers in the Freedom Cities under discussion would not earn us Legal tender, but would get cryptocurrency instead, the historically stable store of value that has never ripped off thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people. In the municipal monstrosities imagined in the scheme, workers would be paid not in US Currency, but as I just said, this insane, highly volatile cryptocurrency, these corporate havens would operate with the barest nods to workplace safety, environmental protections and job security, and God forbid, might even scam their workers by trading in that same highly volatile cryptocurrency that they're paying them in. Back in Bastrop chap Ambrose thinks we can still embrace the future without surrendering a more old fashioned concept of community. He hopes that Musk one day sees the light.
- [81:31]
Garrison Davis
I truly hope the boring company succeeds and its efforts.
- [81:34]
Robert Evans
I think tunneling makes sense and if.
- [81:36]
Michael Phillips
They can improve traffic into Austin and.
- [81:38]
Robert Evans
Around it, that'd be great.
- [81:40]
Garrison Davis
But you have to be better neighbors. Texas has strong landowner rights and you can do pretty much what you want on your land. However, Texas law also says that we share the air and you share the groundwater with me and my one year old son. So if you're going to come to my neighborhood and build the fastest and, and most efficient tunneling operation, then I expect the most innovative and transparent safety systems to go alongside it.
- [82:08]
Michael Phillips
The struggle against the absolute power wielded by the rulers of the Gilded Ages, company towns, led to actual battles with literal casualties on American soil. Dr. Pearson reminded us that the hard life in the Gilded Era, the era of company towns, represented an American norm and rather than an exception. And because of Musk, Thiel and other modern robber barons, the battles fought in Pullman, Illinois and Ludlow, Colorado might have to be fought once again.
- [82:38]
Garrison Davis
Some of you folks may be aware of Jefferson Cowie and Nick Salvatore's book which he calls the Great Exception. And they argue that, you know, most.
- [82:46]
Michael Phillips
Of American history is like the Gilded Age.
- [82:48]
Garrison Davis
Yeah, we had a 40, 50 year period from, I don't know, the 30s, the 70s, when things were kind of better. Right. What Blue Magas and Red Magas alike like to celebrate. But the fact is things were pretty exploitative then as well. And so what kind of lessons can we learn from resistance to capitalism in its various forms? And I think the key one is to trust one another. There's no substitute for working class solidarity. Stop having illusions in the Democratic Party.
- [83:15]
Michael Phillips
They're not going to save you.
- [83:16]
Garrison Davis
And so to see, you know, where, where there are victories when, when workers.
- [83:22]
Michael Phillips
Are, are, are united and we see a little bit of that, you know, kicking ICE agents out of towns.
- [83:28]
Garrison Davis
Right. I mean that's, politicians aren't helping us there. That's, you know, collective action of, of, of working class people. It's not formal unions, but it's something.
- [83:35]
Michael Phillips
You know, I see hope, I see.
- [83:37]
Garrison Davis
Hope in the mass mobilization of, of working class people, irrespective of of race, gender, class and.
- [83:45]
Michael Phillips
I'm Michael Phillips. You can find me on substack at Dr. MPhilips 2001 on Blue sky and Facebook, Google my name and quote White Metropolis. And I'm Steven Monticelli. You can find me on Blue sky and I've got a Patreon and all those other things. Thank you for listening and we hope that you found this delightful topic about Elon Musk's desire to bring back Company Town's informative. Thanks for listening.
- [84:28]
James Stout
There's a vile sickness in Abbas Town.
- [84:31]
Andrew Sage
You must excise it, dig into the deep earth and cut it out.
- [84:37]
Garrison Davis
The village is ravaged.
- [84:39]
James Stout
Entire families have been consumed. You know how waking up from a dream, a familiar place can look completely alien?
- [84:48]
Andrew Sage
Get back everyone, and if you see.
- [84:51]
Garrison Davis
The devil walking around inside of another man, you must cut out the very.
- [84:55]
James Stout
Heart of him, burn his body and.
- [84:58]
Garrison Davis
Scatter the ashes in the furthest corner of this town. As a warning from iHeart podcasts and grim and mild from Aaron Manke, this is Havoc Town, a new fiction podcast.
- [85:11]
Bridget Todd
Set in the Bridgewater Audio universe starring.
- [85:14]
Garrison Davis
Jewel State and Ray Wise. Listen to Havoc town on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [85:23]
Andrew Sage
The Devil Walks in Abbostown.
- [85:27]
Bridget Todd
Welcome to Pretty Private with ebony, the podcast where silence is broken and stories are set free. I'm Ebony and every Tuesday I'll be sharing all new anonymous stories that would challenge your perceptions and give you new insight on the people around you. On Pretty Private, we'll explore the untold experiences of women of color who faced it all. Childhood trauma, addiction, abuse, incarceration, grief, mental health struggles and more. And found the strength to make it to the other side. My dad was shot and killed in his house. Yes, he was a drug dealer. Yes, he was a confidential informant. But he wasn't shot on street corner. He wasn't shot in the middle of a drug deal. He was shot in his house, unarmed. Pretty Private isn't just a podcast. It's your personal guide for turning storylines into lifelines. Every Tuesday, make sure you listen to Pretty Private from the Black Effect Podcast Network. Tune in on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
- [86:33]
Garrison Davis
A foot washed up, a shoe with some bones in it. They had no idea who it was.
- [86:38]
James Stout
Most everything was burned up pretty good from the fire that not a whole lot was salvageable.
- [86:43]
Bridget Todd
These are the coldest of cold cases. But everything is about to change. Every case that is a cold case that has DNA right now in A backlog will be identified in our lifetime. A small lab in Texas is cracking the code on DNA Using new scientific tools. They're finding clues in evidence so tiny you might just miss it. He never thought he was going to get caught.
- [87:08]
Garrison Davis
And I just looked at my computer screen. I was just like, ah, gotcha.
- [87:12]
Bridget Todd
On America's Crime Lab, we'll learn about victims and survivors, and you'll meet the team behind the scenes at othram, the Houston lab that takes on the most hopeless cases to finally solve the unsolvable. Listen to America's Crime Lab on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Sometimes it's hard to remember, but going.
- [87:35]
Michael Phillips
Through something like that is a traumatic.
- [87:37]
Garrison Davis
Experience, but it's also not the end of your life.
- [87:41]
Bridget Todd
That was my dad reminding me and so many others who need to hear it that our trauma is not our shame to carry and that we have big, bold and beautiful lives to live after what happened to us. I'm your host and co president of this organization, Dr. Lea Tritate. On my new podcast, the Unwanted Sorority, we wade through transformation to peel back healing and reveal what it actually looks like and sounds like in real time. Each week, I sit down with people who've lived through harm, carried silence, and are now reshaping the systems that failed us. We're going to talk about the adultification of black girls mothering as resistance, and the tools we use for healing. The Unwanted Sorority is a safe space, not a quiet space. So let's lock in. We're moving towards liberation together. Listen to the Unwanted Sorority. New episodes every Thursday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [88:37]
Andrew Sage
Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to It Could Happen Here. I'm Andrew Sage, otherwise known as Andrewism on YouTube, and I'm here with James.
- [88:47]
James Stout
Just James.
- [88:48]
Andrew Sage
Don't have a YouTube more than just James. I mean, I love talking to you, so you're more than just James to me.
- [88:54]
James Stout
Aw, thank you, Andrew. That's very sweet. I enjoy these two. These are fun for me.
- [88:59]
Andrew Sage
Yeah. So really, I'd like to get into one of the hotter topics as of late. Not the heat, though. That is a hot topic.
- [89:06]
James Stout
But yeah.
- [89:07]
Andrew Sage
AI, Artificial intelligence.
- [89:10]
James Stout
Oh, good. Yeah. My favorite thing.
- [89:13]
Andrew Sage
Yeah. And more specifically, the ways in which AI has contributed to and accentuated alienation under capitalism and the state in the 21st century. So that's a mouthful, but it's obviously very important.
- [89:25]
James Stout
Okay. Yeah, I like this a lot.
- [89:27]
Andrew Sage
In my opinion, alienation with all Its meanings really is one of those words that you can really use to describe the current zeitgeist. The experience of separation from yourself, from your work, from the products you work, from your community. All these things, both philosophical and material, get wrapped up into this concept of alienation. Because it's both an experience, it's something that people feel internally, it describes the way that they see their lives. And it's also just a fact of how people work in society. You're dispossessed of the products of your labor and you're disconnected from the process of your labor and the outcomes of your labor. And this is of course, all thanks to development of capitalism and industrialization and this development of a mass society, quote unquote, with all the apathy and loss of agency and weakened social fabric that generates.
- [90:27]
James Stout
Yeah, it's. I think alienation is like something we don't talk about enough. It's like the, the thing that ties together the despair, the loneliness. Like, loneliness is a. It's, is maybe like, it's a way that capitalism has come to talk about alienation without acknowledging that capitalism is creating alienation. Every sort of developed state in the colonial core have acknowledged that loneliness is a problem.
- [90:54]
Bridget Todd
Right.
- [90:54]
James Stout
I saw Gavin Newsom was, was launching a loneliness campaign. But like, the system is a problem. The alienation is created by the way that things are. And like, we can't fix it without changing the way those things are.
- [91:08]
Andrew Sage
Exactly, exactly. It comes down to conditions. I mean, in particular, I think we see alienation manifesting most in our relationships, of course, and in our work. And it's been an issue for some decades now. And what I'm really intrigued by is, you know, this has been an issue for a while, but how is AI interacting with these issues? How is AI impacting the alienation that we already experienced under the system?
- [91:40]
James Stout
Yeah, that's fascinating. I'm currently teaching a class at the community college. It's a class about pre1600 history. And like, I teach a little bit every year. Right.
- [91:52]
Bridget Todd
But.
- [91:52]
James Stout
And every year I've seen more AI use, but this year it's just fully black pilled me. Like, I, I don't quite know how to describe the feelings I'm experiencing, I guess. But for this class, I assign David Graber, I assign Jim Scott, I assigned Charles Tilley on state making and war making. Very basic left libertarian kind of text, which for many people will be the first time they encounter the concept of what if? No, state, what if, state bad. And I think they're all writing In a way that's very approachable to people who don't. Dense academic writing is annoying and pretentious, and I don't like it every time I do this course. It used to be the case that 30 to 40% of students would be like, holy fuck. Whether they like it or not, it's a new concept and it's cool. And they engage with it in a passionate way, a human way. Every year it's got worse. And now I can think of two students out of a hundred who are engaging with it in any human way. And I'm sure most of them, I would imagine they've either AI summarized the text or in many cases, they certainly have used AI to just respond and let my students respond in ways that they feel are appropriate. Right. So they could do videos or different things. If they wanted to make a video about it instead of doing an essay, that's fine with me. I don't care. I just want them to read the shit and think about it. But there's been no human reaction. And that's so sad to me. The reason I teach is to get young people to see the world differently. It certainly isn't for the fucking money. And that's just. I'm incapable of doing that now. Or like, I can't get through that alienation, that I can't get people to engage and think about it. Obviously, I got to work that shit out.
- [93:45]
Garrison Davis
Right.
- [93:45]
James Stout
This generation of people who went through high school when AI was a thing and detecting AI use in long form writing was not very well developed. So they were able to use it instead of doing long form writing and, and maybe even reading long form. And I have to work out how to get those people to engage. Not to be so sort of alienated from the concept of reading and absorbing big ideas. But I haven't fucking worked it out yet.
- [94:12]
Andrew Sage
Yeah, it's a really big issue, and it's only growing as AI expands. It's not so much the focus of this episode, but it is something that I wanted to touch on. You know, people used to be doing fine without it. Used to be able to function without it three years ago. And now you talk to them and they can't live without it. They have to run everything through AI. You know, people have offloaded most of their cognitive processes to AI.
- [94:41]
James Stout
Yeah, yeah.
- [94:42]
Andrew Sage
You know, and obviously, you know, we talk about the environmental impact of that, the way the data centers are damaging the environment, taking fresh water and taking vast amounts of energy from the system. So we all rely upon to live and, you know, we could, as you touched on, talk about how schools and the education systems pretty much fallen apart.
- [95:04]
James Stout
Yeah.
- [95:04]
Andrew Sage
I mean, I know you're one of those, you know, genuinely passionate professors, but what I've noticed is there's this whole fast now in many sections of the education system where you have students, AI summarizing material, if they're even doing that, you know, submitting AI generated essays or AI generated material, and the professors just AI create it.
- [95:31]
James Stout
Yeah, I've heard of this.
- [95:33]
Andrew Sage
So it's just one. One big puppet show. One. One big fuss.
- [95:38]
James Stout
God, yeah. Yeah, exactly. One big charade. Which, you know, to an extent, education has always just been that. Right. One big fuss.
- [95:46]
Bridget Todd
But.
- [95:46]
James Stout
But there are things that are redeemable about it. And I'm just talking about teaching now, and I'll stop in a minute. There's very little demand for in person classes compared to online classes anymore. So, like, that makes it harder for us to break through that alienation. Right. Like, there's something special about sitting in a room and talking. Just. Just fine. It's just like being like, we're gonna be here for 90 minutes. None of us are leaving.
- [96:13]
Andrew Sage
There's a dynamic.
- [96:14]
James Stout
Yeah. And it's an important dynamic. Like the function of the university is to fucking turn out people with STEM degrees who can go on and make shitty apps we don't need. It's to prepare us to be citizens in a community.
- [96:25]
Andrew Sage
Exactly.
- [96:26]
James Stout
And we are failing at that. And yet instead, I'm just grading chatgpt all day now.
- [96:32]
Andrew Sage
Yeah. And that's. That's a big piece of the puzzle that we end up missing because the. The way in which the sort of dynamics and the connections that you would get from the university classroom and beyond just social connections in general, it's lacking in the alienated world, and it's worsened by, you know, the introduction of AI. I managed to complete most of my education, most of my bachelor's degree. That is prior to the pandemic. Right. I was nearing the end of my third year, when lockdown, you know, came into force. And then I just. I did my entire fourth year online.
- [97:10]
Garrison Davis
Wow.
- [97:10]
Andrew Sage
And honestly, I'm so glad that I was able to do my classes in person, you know, and I'm so glad that I did my classes, you know, entirely on my own. In a time where, you know, AI was not a thing, you know, there were times where, you know, it probably feels like, oh, my God, this is so stressful. Like, but you just had to buckle down. Yeah, you had to buckle down. And Figure out a way to get it done. And of course, we could talk about the perverse incentives of breeding systems in schools and how that sort of pushes some students who, you know, may have learning difficulties or time management difficulties or whatever to actually do their stuff. They end up going down the AI route. But yeah, I mean, even just looking back at my experience, because lockdown hits during the semester, I had a writing class that I was a part of. And every time we went into class, it was so dynamic, it was so lively, it was so engaging. All the ideas were just bouncing off each other. Yeah, after the lockdown, that class completely fizzled out. Everything that we were getting from it was just absent because we were entirely online. And it's really a struggle. And I think social life, not just coming out of the education conversation, social life, community and connection all ends up lacking because of the alienated nature of the system, the way that things have been set up. But also AI is playing a major role too. AI, in a sense as a category is, you know, you can have a whole discussion about that, quibble over definitions. But in a sense, AI has already been playing a major role into how people socialize even before these large language models came to being. Because you have a sort of artificial intelligence in the algorithms that people interact with on social media. You know, people have the content they consume being curated by algorithms. They end up in these sort of echo chambers, these reinforcement loops and outrage bait and in dopamine loops. And all those things have lended to people spending more and more time online because, you know, it's hitting that part of the brain and everybody's hyper connected and always online. And more and more of life takes place on the Internet and that has left people feeling isolated. I think loneliness is obviously not entirely the result of social media and now AI, but the sort of irony is that loneliness has been a side effect of this digital hyper connection. Yeah, I mean, when you look at some of the factors that are contributing to this, this already isolated nature of our world. Right. You know, people don't have as much free time. You know, there's not as much public space as there used to be. Some people have no public space available to them. Public spaces that do exist are not open in the times when people are available to go to them. Libraries are a famous example. A lot of them are, you know, not open for working people pretty much. And then people who do want to go out and socialize and stuff, you know, you're dealing with a higher cost of living. So there's little Resources that you can use to, you know, go and put yourself out there because you have to spend money to go to places. And then you also just burnt out energy wise because of, you know, the long work week, the long work hours, just trying to make ends meet. Psychological toll of that.
- [100:39]
James Stout
Yeah.
- [100:40]
Andrew Sage
And so part of what AI has been doing is pushing these AI companions on people. And you know, I don't mean to fear Monger or anything because I know there are a lot of people who reject AI and who stand against AI and of course that could just be the bubble that I'm in. But yeah, I also know somebody in person, or rather I knew somebody in person who spoke to ChatGPT like their partner and therapist. Yeah, they list like. Yeah, that's, it's, I mean, it's sad. Yeah, it's as you said, almost kind of black pilling, you know, because these chatbots, they listen in a simulated sense, they respond in a simulated sense and they affirm what the person is dealing with, is going through, is venting about. They're almost like a hug box because you don't really see chatbots disagreeing with the people they're speaking to. Chatbots are very much like, yeah, you know, fawning. They try their best to affirm everything that a person is telling them. So you have this kind of cuddle box for people's egos, which in turn makes it even more difficult for them to connect to real people because, you know, real people are gonna call you out, you know, they're gonna disagree with you, you're gonna have friction and conflict.
- [102:05]
James Stout
Yeah.
- [102:06]
Andrew Sage
But there's also a lot of joy. It comes from interacting with real people. And unfortunately a lot of people, because they're not getting that, they're turning to this on demand affection, this on demand flirtation, this pseudo therapy. And it's, it's brutal. You know, loneliness is a, is a brutal experience. Relationships are very hard and therapy is extremely expensive for a lot of people. So I understand that, you know, you could only put so much blame on individual because the world is not really set up to support those kind of lasting connections. Yeah, people live very spread out. They have fewer and fewer opportunities to interact with each other. In fact, a lot of times the last time a person had extended exposure with other people was in school or in college. And outside of that, you're just kind of on your own.
- [103:07]
James Stout
Yeah.
- [103:09]
Andrew Sage
And places are increasingly not walkable, they're more car centric. The sort of spontaneity and friction and interaction that would have made relationships blossom naturally and made relationships possible, as messy and inconvenient as they can be. Sometimes those things are lacking now and unfortunately, some fraction of people, and I don't know what the actual number would be because I could imagine a lot of people will not admit that they turn to a chatbot for companionship. But it is a frightening omen of what direction we're going in. And I also worry about the potential outcomes of, you know, egoic behavior that might result from that sort of continuous interaction with something that is affirming your every belief and thought and conclusion. What kind of world are we going to be there first, you know?
- [104:06]
James Stout
Yeah. I mean, it's the world that super rich people already live in. One of the reasons that the gulf between the rest of us and the super rich, like the really, you know, incredibly wealthy people, part of that is that no one says no to a lot of those people and that's why they exclusively end up socializing with each other.
- [104:26]
Garrison Davis
Right?
- [104:26]
James Stout
Like they're. They're surrounded by nothing but affirmation.
- [104:31]
Andrew Sage
Right.
- [104:32]
James Stout
One of the things we see with Trump, right, is that, like, if there is a reality that he doesn't like, he manifests his own reality. He just speaks things and expects them to be accepted as truths. Right. Growing up, my dad worked for a lot of extremely wealthy people. And so I've interacted with them and like, there's a lot of people who just aren't used to hearing no or why, but not a lot. But there is a. There's a number of them. And like, I think when you see, I was just thinking about it, the behaviour that didn't Trump now asserting that the Epstein thing is like, it is made up, right? And it's a hoax. And just when we were talking about AI, it sort of reminds me of that, right, that like constant affirmation. Because what AI wants to do is to please you so that you spend more time on it, I assume. And there's some way that it attempts to monetize that, I'm sure. And it just wants you to keep interacting with it so it can get more information to take into its model, I guess.
- [105:22]
Andrew Sage
Yeah, the data called Rush.
- [105:24]
James Stout
Yeah. Right. And like people are doing the same with wealthy people, right? They just want to interact with them such that they can siphon off some of the resources that those people have accumulated. Like, it's not. Maybe it's not the same. I think that still humans interacting with wealthy people is distinct from an AI interacting with humans, but it sort of gives us a window into what the impact of that being most of your human interaction over time.
- [105:48]
Andrew Sage
Indeed. Indeed. And as we speak of wealthy people, I suppose we should look at the other way in which AI is intersecting with alienation, because the current narrative has been about AI has taken jobs. And before then it was about how automation was taking jobs. AI is a form of automation. And before that it was just innovations in general. Just steps in some technological direction would be eliminating jobs. What I always marvel at, stepping back and looking at the whole conversation about this is taking jobs. That is taking jobs is at the root of it is this dependence on employment, on jobs for people to have, you know, life, to be able to live, to have a quality of life. We have gotten more and more productive. And I mean, that productivity has helped people in some ways and has harmed the environment in a lot of ways. But we have a certain level of productivity now, and we've produced so much now that in some sectors we have more than enough for several decades to come. I think fashion is one of them, where we have, like, quite the excess of clothing for everybody.
- [107:02]
James Stout
Yeah.
- [107:03]
Andrew Sage
And of course, you could talk about how that level of productivity has done damage to our creativity or craftsmanship, but it's all the worse when you think about how even with all that productivity, the workers have hardly benefited. You know, more productivity doesn't necessarily mean more pay. And so even before AI came around, we were having issues with labor and alienation.
- [107:23]
Garrison Davis
Right.
- [107:23]
Andrew Sage
People disconnected from their work, from whether it be a service job, a factory job, a delivery job, whatever. Any of these jobs that you look at, it's structured at the end of the day, not around providing a product or providing a service, but around profit, around the power dynamic between the owner, the capitalist, and the worker. The worker who is not in control is alienated from their labor and from the products of their labor. And this is what Marx famously spoke about, but he wasn't the only one to speak about it. This sort of alienated labor that is compelled rather than creative, that has no control over work and where workers are treated as commodities on a labor market. Thankfully, I haven't had to look for a job in a while, but I've had to see my friends seeking jobs, and it's not a nice experience. And you have to spend weeks, months, sometimes looking for a job that you will most likely hate, but you need to survive.
- [108:27]
James Stout
Yeah.
- [108:27]
Andrew Sage
You know, and a lot of these jobs you end up looking for, end up getting into. And not even necessary jobs. There are a lot of bullshit jobs, and they don't contribute to a person's, you know, development, fulfillment, or the good of humanity in any way.
- [108:42]
James Stout
Yeah.
- [108:42]
Andrew Sage
And then a lot of the benefits that people have fought for, even for these jobs have either been eroded, you know, rolled back over time, or they've been loopholed out. So, you know, for example, you don't even get enough hours to qualify for benefits when you work at certain places.
- [109:00]
James Stout
Yeah.
- [109:01]
Andrew Sage
Or you are an independent contractor instead of an employee so that they can get away from giving you your due. Then in this environment, you have AI coming in now and taking certain roles, varying levels of quality and writing and in art and coding and administrative work. And I don't know, I think for one, AI does a lot of these jobs very poorly. But then there's also cases where I don't like copywriting, which is something I used to do. The AI copyrighted and the sort of copywriting that I had to write is back in the day is almost indistinguishable in terms of. It feels, you know, generic, pointless, you know, slop. Like, it's just. You're pumping this out to pollute the airwaves in a sense.
- [109:54]
James Stout
Yeah. It's very like. It has a very formulaic nature when a human does it. It's funny when I think about copywriting. Right. Like, you can see that people have identified the completely generic nature of it because occasionally you'll have like, brands who do it in a non formulaic way and briefly see success from it. Like just by. By having some element of humanity in it.
- [110:17]
Andrew Sage
Yeah. Like Wendy's, when they did that for a little while and.
- [110:21]
James Stout
Yeah.
- [110:22]
Andrew Sage
Then every brand copied that method and then it became steel.
- [110:25]
James Stout
Yeah, yeah. Someone will sometimes puncture it for a minute and then like you say, everyone will run after it, like. And a pit viper sunglasses is one. I guess they're very popular with like right wing bigots. Every time, like, bigots are pictured in their sunglasses, they'll like donate money to LGBTQ affirming causes or like gender affirming care stuff or whatever. Depends what the people are being bigoted about. And like, briefly, I saw them have success with that. Just because, like, people are so accustomed to brands being apolitical rather than just being like, no, fuck you. So, like, by doing the kind of basics of being a good person, it appears human and therefore not so generic and people briefly fall in love with it or whatever.
- [111:06]
Garrison Davis
Yeah.
- [111:06]
Andrew Sage
But I mean, at the end of the day, although corporations are not persons, there are people behind corporations.
- [111:13]
Michael Phillips
Yeah.
- [111:14]
Andrew Sage
And I guess I sort of wonder with these kind of Jobs that are now being filled in, at least in part by AI. What, what is the impact on a person's self worth.
- [111:26]
James Stout
Yeah.
- [111:27]
Andrew Sage
For their, their skill to be just sort of swapped out for a machine. You know, a lot of people have already felt like their work is non essential and then you have a sense of being replaceable and unneeded. And in some cases the difference is negligible because like I said, the work that was already being put out was the sort of generic stuff that sort of fills paper.
- [111:55]
James Stout
Yeah.
- [111:56]
Andrew Sage
And fills screens. But then you also have more necessary, the more creative worker. There's also just being sort of funneled out. You know, I'm seeing billboards all over the place that just have like this nasty, smooth looking, like AI generated pictures. Yeah, just a lot of slop, you know, slop content, slop ads, slop emails, you know, even on YouTube now like I like to listen to these sort of music mixes while I work sometimes and most of the channels being recommended for music mixes on YouTube nowadays, at least in the genres that I would listen to, it's just like, yeah, I generated jazz. Chill. The thing is, they don't title it that way. Yeah, you know, they title it some, some word and they probably haven't somewhat AI generated thumbnail and whatever. And then you just, you know, if you're unaware of the pattern of how those channels operate, you might click on it thinking, oh, it's just like a music mix. I can't really have the music mix. And then yeah, you listen to it for a while and listen to a few of them and you realize, oh, this is just like a machine made this. It has no flavor.
- [113:03]
James Stout
Yeah. Like no soul.
- [113:04]
Andrew Sage
There's also a lot of articles that just fill in the Internet. It's just like slop.
- [113:09]
James Stout
Yeah, yeah.
- [113:10]
Andrew Sage
You know, just AI generated articles that feed into the AI pool of references and so the AI almost eats itself.
- [113:17]
James Stout
Yeah.
- [113:18]
Andrew Sage
And it's sad, but I think it was like we were always going in this direction in a sense. Not to say that it was entirely inevitable, but this was the trajectory that we were pointing at. This actually could have been changed, but so now it hasn't been. So it's how we kind of got here. I don't know if it's just me, but I feel like there was a time when, or it may be, may still be true that a sleepless is not always a good thing. There's something to be said about the value that we imbue to things when they are a bit rarer, you know, when it's. You have to be more attentive and engaging with it. You know, I was actually thinking about it earlier today when I was a child and I was watching tv. You know, if they didn't have anything on the TV that I wanted to watch, I'd have to go and do something else.
- [114:11]
Garrison Davis
Right.
- [114:12]
James Stout
Yeah.
- [114:13]
Andrew Sage
And nowadays TV is pretty much unlimited because at any point in time you couldn't have access to anything that an algorithm could serve you up that is perfectly curated to your interests.
- [114:25]
James Stout
Yeah.
- [114:25]
Andrew Sage
And it's autoplay and everything. It's just one hit after the next in that excess. I just feel like we've lost the sort of attentive curation of your taste, curation of, and valuation of things, of the effort and energy and craft goes into making things. We just end up sort of taking things for granted and like, I think.
- [114:47]
James Stout
We kind of lower the standard that we will accept because it's just so much of it. There's so much volume of it. Yeah. Like, and you're not so attentive to it because it's always there. That like, slop becomes. Okay. It just kind of fills the gaps in this, this non stop stream of content.
- [115:04]
Andrew Sage
Yeah. It's just filling, filling the noise. I have to catch myself sometimes.
- [115:08]
Garrison Davis
Yeah.
- [115:08]
Andrew Sage
Because I'm just like, sometimes I just put something on.
- [115:11]
James Stout
Yeah.
- [115:12]
Andrew Sage
Because it was there, you know, and I'm just feeling noise. So sometimes I have to remind myself, yo, pause. Just be with your thoughts for a bit, you know?
- [115:20]
James Stout
Yeah. Yeah.
- [115:22]
Andrew Sage
And I try not to put too much blame on myself even as I try to work on it. Because all of this, once again, is by design.
- [115:31]
James Stout
Yeah.
- [115:32]
Andrew Sage
You know, these platforms, these algorithms have been set up to perfectly. They've perfectly honed their ability to exploit the little shortcuts and weaknesses in the human mind to engage us for as long as possible.
- [115:48]
Garrison Davis
Yeah.
- [115:49]
Andrew Sage
Like so. So even if you feel like, oh my gosh, I want to get off social media, I want to quit this, that or the other, it's hard.
- [115:55]
Garrison Davis
Yeah.
- [115:55]
Andrew Sage
You know, even when you, when you know in your mind that it's detrimental, that it's affecting you negatively, you still end up going back because again, it's, it's hacked into your brain in a sense. I'm just really frustrated by the way that AI has contributed to this sort of disconnect because I also think it makes the whole breadth of human creativity a lot less valued, practiced and supported. You know, instead of people actually respecting and, you know, supporting the craft and the effort that goes into, into things, it's just like, oh, scroll to the next thing. Scroll to the next thing. Or for some people who seem to love AI art, it's just, oh yeah, you're obsolete now. You could be replaced by this junk.
- [116:49]
James Stout
I was just thinking about art. I see it so often in. Even in revolutionary spaces. I'll see it. Right? I guess sometimes is what it is actually is AI accounts that have no idea what a revolution is. They're incapable of doing so because they're not human. But I just designed to monetize clicks. You'll see there's a bunch of fucking Israel stands with Kurdistan ads which will just like AI generate pictures of yeppiece women. Like the women who fight for the aanes, right. And like, it's just. I don't think that these are not again, people are actually part of the revolution. Right. There are people who just who want to, in a sense, objectify the revolution and the women who fought in it and continue to fight in it for financial benefit. But like it is the antithesis of the beautiful life that people are trying to build there.
- [117:40]
Garrison Davis
Right.
- [117:41]
James Stout
Like it is the opposite of everything that that revolution stands for.
- [117:45]
Andrew Sage
Seriously. And people are like AI generating these female fighters.
- [117:50]
James Stout
Yeah. Yes, exactly. And then using that for some either just straight because you get paid per. Click on. On X now, right? Or for some nefarious propaganda. But like it's. And then by contrast, my friends in Myanmar, there's a group called ArtStrike Collective who do these cool drawings of various individuals who have fought in the revolution. And like, one is a beautiful thing that shows your respect for these people, many of whom have given their life for this revolution. And another is just complete fucking slop that is actively harming the thing it's supposed to be supporting.
- [118:31]
Andrew Sage
Yeah, unfortunately, and it's a cliche at this point, but many such cases.
- [118:36]
James Stout
Yeah, yeah.
- [118:38]
Andrew Sage
I saw this short lecture on YouTube by a professor. I think professor's name was Jiang. It's just a short clip from. I'm assuming a longer lecture. He said the title of the video is really what captured me. It was something along the lines of consumerism as the perfection of slavery. And it was really speaking about how we are able to be so perfectly locked into our role as workers, as cogs in this machine, to become, you know, so docile because of just how good the consumeristic system has gotten at keeping us chasing that next, you know, dopamine hit, that next purchase, that next thing to consume, you know, so we're still being exploited. We are still wage slaves in a sense. But we are either unaware of it or we accept that rule just to chase after the next tie of consumption.
- [119:40]
James Stout
Yeah. When you think about Brave New World in 1984, these two dystopian novels, roughly, I mean, Brave New World came out before 1984. The difference is one is a boot stamping on the human face forever, which is 1984. And Huxley's dystopia is based on people being essentially bought off through pleasure.
- [120:00]
Garrison Davis
Right.
- [120:01]
Andrew Sage
Yeah. It's like unlimited cocaine for everyone.
- [120:04]
James Stout
Yeah, yeah, yeah. They call it. What's it called? Soma, I think.
- [120:07]
Andrew Sage
Right.
- [120:07]
James Stout
We're in the unlimited cocaine for everyone world. Right. Like, it's. It's stuff.
- [120:10]
Andrew Sage
I mean, I think we're in both. You know, it's simultaneously a Huxley and. And Orwellian.
- [120:15]
James Stout
Yeah.
- [120:15]
Andrew Sage
Dystopia, you know, worst of both worlds.
- [120:18]
James Stout
Yeah, you're right. I'm starting to read Jack London's dystopia the Iron Heel now. I've. I've decided I want to work out who was best calling the dystopia. But, yeah, we. Yeah, we have a little bit of both now. We have the. They'll get you at both ends, right? Like, they'll try and give you things to keep you placid and then also things to keep you afraid.
- [120:38]
Andrew Sage
Indeed.
- [120:39]
James Stout
Yeah.
- [120:40]
Andrew Sage
So, I mean, there's a lot of reasons to despair. You know, people just blindly embrace an AI and they don't see the problem with using AI and all these different things. There's also, as I like to end things on reason to hope. Right. There are people who are willing to boycott it, who are, you know, maintaining a stigma around it. You know, people are not taking it lying down. Artists are not taking it lying down.
- [121:05]
James Stout
Yeah.
- [121:05]
Andrew Sage
Writers are not taking it lying down. Designers are not taking it lying down. People are still craving the authenticity, connection and craft that comes from human labor. And although there is little any individual can do to resist the alienation of this society, whether it be at work or with relationships by themselves, you know, it's very hard. There are things we can do together in tandem to make things a little bit easier as we sort of try and strive toward social revolution. You know, there's the classic, you know, touch grass, you know, log off and try and find where people are. There's also the individualistic solution of reclaiming your agency by finding some version of digital minimalism that works for you. You know, taking a break, zoning out, limiting your screen time here and there. But really, it's going to take system change. It's going to take collective action. It's going to take us boycotting both. You know, of course, the AI products. There's a boycott already taking place with those, but then also just.
- [122:15]
Garrison Davis
Yeah.
- [122:16]
Andrew Sage
Striking at the pressure point of the system and prefiguring a better world for everyone.
- [122:23]
James Stout
Yeah.
- [122:24]
Andrew Sage
And, you know, I hope that everybody is able to do what they can to take steps in that direction and. Yeah. So please don't use AI.
- [122:35]
James Stout
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think I always like that Sucomandante Marcos quote where he says, like, it's not necessary to conquer the world, it's sufficient to build a new one. I like that approach to this AI stuff. The way we make it so people in our community don't turn to AI to talk about things they want to talk about is to be there for them to talk to. Right. To build community, to build real human interactions with each other so people don't have real human conversations with the computer.
- [123:03]
Andrew Sage
Absolutely. Agreed.
- [123:05]
James Stout
Yeah.
- [123:06]
Andrew Sage
And that's all I have for today. So all power to all the people. This has been. It could happen here. I've been Andrew, this has been James. And that's it.
- [123:17]
Bridget Todd
Yeah.
- [123:18]
James Stout
Thanks. There's a vile sickness in Abbas Town.
- [123:37]
Andrew Sage
You must excise it, dig into the deep earth and cut it out.
- [123:43]
Garrison Davis
The village is ravaged.
- [123:45]
James Stout
Entire families have been consumed. You know how waking up from a dream, a familiar place can look completely alien.
- [123:54]
Garrison Davis
Get back, everyone. Let's go.
- [123:55]
Andrew Sage
Dax.
- [123:57]
James Stout
And if you see the devil walking.
- [123:58]
Garrison Davis
Around inside of another man, you must cut out the very heart of any him, burn his body and scatter the ashes in the furthest corner of this town. As a warning from iHeart podcasts and grim and mild from Aaron Manke. This is Havoc Town, a new fiction podcast set in the Bridgewater audio universe.
- [124:19]
Bridget Todd
Starring Jewel State and Ray Wise.
- [124:22]
Garrison Davis
Listen to Havoc town on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [124:29]
Andrew Sage
The Devil walks in Abbostown.
- [124:33]
Bridget Todd
Welcome to Pretty Private with ebony, the podcast where silence is broken and stories are set free. I'm Ebony and every Tuesday I'll be sharing all new anonymous stories that would challenge your perceptions and give you new insight on the people around you. On Pretty Private, we'll explore the untold experience, experiences of women of color who faced it all. Childhood trauma, addiction, abuse, incarceration, grief, mental health struggles and more. And found the strength to make it to the other side. My dad was shot and killed in his house. Yes, he was a drug dealer. Yes, he was a confidential informant. But he wasn't shot on street corner. He wasn't shot in the middle of a drug deal. He was shot in his house, unarmed. Pretty Private isn't just a podcast. It's your personal guide for turning storylines into lifelines. Every Tuesday, make sure you listen to Pretty Private from the Black Effect podcast network. Tune in on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Sometimes it's hard to remember, but going.
- [125:41]
Garrison Davis
Through something like that is a traumatic experience. But it's also not the end of your life.
- [125:47]
Bridget Todd
That was my dad reminding me and so many others who need to hear it that our trauma is not our shame to carry and that we have big, bold and beautiful lives to live after what happened to us. I'm your host and co president of this organization, Dr. Lea Tritate. On my new podcast, the Unwanted Sorority, we wade through transformation to peel back healing and reveal what it actually looks like and sounds like in real time. Each week, I sit down with people who've lived through harm, carried silence, and are now reshaping the systems that failed us. We're going to talk about the adultification of black girls mothering as resistance and the tools we use for healing. The Unwanted Sorority is a safe space, not a quiet space. So let's lock in. We're moving towards liberation together. Listen to the Unwanted Sorority. New episodes every Thursday on the iHeartRadio app app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [126:41]
James Stout
Hola, it's honey German and my podcast.
- [126:43]
Garrison Davis
Gracias, Come Again is back.
- [126:45]
Bridget Todd
This season we're going even deeper into the world of music and entertainment with raw and honest conversations with some of your favorite Latin artists and celebrities.
- [126:53]
Garrison Davis
You didn't have to audition? No, I didn't audition. I haven't auditioned in, like, over 25 years. Oh, wow. That's a real G talk right there.
- [127:00]
James Stout
Oh, yeah.
- [127:01]
Bridget Todd
We've got some of the biggest actors.
- [127:03]
Garrison Davis
Musicians, content creators and culture shifters sharing.
- [127:06]
Bridget Todd
Their real stories of failure and success. You were destined to be a star.
- [127:15]
Garrison Davis
We talk all about what's viral and.
- [127:17]
Bridget Todd
Trending with a little bit of Cheeseman, a lot of laughs, and those amazing vibras you've come to expect. And of course, we'll explore deeper topics.
- [127:24]
Garrison Davis
Dealing with identity struggles and all the issues affecting our life and community.
- [127:28]
Bridget Todd
You feel like you get a little.
- [127:29]
Garrison Davis
Whitewashed because you have to do the code switching.
- [127:32]
Bridget Todd
I won't say whitewashed because at the end of the day, you know, I'm me.
- [127:34]
Garrison Davis
Yeah.
- [127:35]
James Stout
But the whole pretending and co, you know, it takes a toll on you.
- [127:38]
Bridget Todd
Listen to the new Season of Gracias. Come again as part of Michael Tura.
- [127:41]
Garrison Davis
Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple.
- [127:44]
Bridget Todd
Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.
- [127:50]
James Stout
We had a very funny introduction.
- [127:52]
Robert Evans
It was really good.
- [127:54]
James Stout
Yeah.
- [127:54]
Robert Evans
It referenced our company sexual harassment protocols. It was hilarious. You're never gonna hear it. We weren't recording.
- [128:01]
Garrison Davis
I was recording. So you can hear my section.
- [128:03]
James Stout
Okay.
- [128:03]
Robert Evans
Yeah.
- [128:04]
James Stout
If you could just accept what Garrison said without context and we'll open with that, that would be great.
- [128:10]
Robert Evans
Yeah.
- [128:14]
Garrison Davis
That is a classic Robert Evans intro. You just did it. I feel like I don't always comes from inside.
- [128:21]
Robert Evans
Welcome to It Could Happen Here. A podcast about journalistic objectivity.
- [128:25]
James Stout
That's right.
- [128:26]
Robert Evans
A thing that we've just demonstrated perfectly.
- [128:30]
James Stout
Yeah, yeah. The professional media class. So let's have a little talk about media objectivity. Right. It's been a major tenet of traditional legacy media that they must remain unbiased. This hasn't always been the case in the United States. Right. Used to have explicitly partisan news sources, which we have now with Fox News, I guess. But that's why you have newspapers like, I think St. Louis has a St. Louis Democrat or the so and so Republican. Like, that they would be very explicitly a partisan newspaper. It's only really when journalism sort of took on this strong professional, and I mean professional here in terms of, like, the professions. Right. Like law, accounting, jobs that are associated with university education and a class identity, that it started to assert this kind of. It's an attempt to appear rational and scientific in its methodologies. Right. And one of the ways that journalism did this was to talk about objectivity. I should indicate here that objectivity is supposed to be a means of verifying information that is like, that we should objectively check that what we have written is correct.
- [129:38]
Robert Evans
The example I always give is that if I'm in a protest scene where there's a clash between proud boys and, you know, a group of leftists and, you know, someone on the left pulls out a can of Mace and sprays it first, that's objectively what happened. Now, that doesn't mean that that's the only thing I report. For example, if the person they maced is somebody who has been, like, harassing those individuals online for weeks or has been doxing them or assaulted them at previous. Like, all of that is, like, relevant context, but it doesn't change what objectively happened in that instant.
- [130:09]
James Stout
Right.
- [130:09]
Robert Evans
Like, I. It's not on me to pretend that I think these sides are equal, but it is on me to accurately report, like, what happens Y and I think one of the. One of the areas in which a lot of people, especially when we were talking about, like, you know, situations like this, a lot of folks in kind of legacy media get stuff wrong is they think that all that matters is what happens in that moment. Right, yeah. And what happened previously, what's happened in other engagements, what's happened, like, over you know, the last two or three years of however long the conflict's been going on, that city is immaterial. Where all that matters is what happened in that second when that reporter was on scene. And if you're thinking that way, you're going to miss more than someone who comes in with just an outright bias, you know?
- [130:54]
James Stout
Yeah. And like, I think very often it's seen as kind of, instead of being like a value of the outlet and the way it verifies information, it's seen as being a personal kind of like, quality that journalists should have in every aspect of their lives. Yeah. Like, I'm aware that some of the big legacy broadsheets in the US like, you can't attend a protest unless you are covering the protest.
- [131:17]
Robert Evans
Right. And there's even that famous case of that journalist being like, I don't vote. Cause I think that that would be a violation of like, my objectivity.
- [131:24]
James Stout
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I remember that. Got it forgotten about that one.
- [131:26]
Robert Evans
Like, you're allowed to have opinions. That's just not supposed to be the entire basis of your reporting, you know?
- [131:32]
James Stout
Yes, exactly. Yeah. Like, and I think sometimes, because people always do have opinions. Right. But the opinions that are conceived of as neutral and the ones that are conceived of as being subjective are very telling. Right. Like, the media for a long time has been the domain of educated older white men. Like, people like me, I guess I'm not old, but getting that way. And it also has been the domain of capital in the state. Right. Like, Jeffrey Bezos owns several newspapers. Pro market biases, pro capitalism biases, pro state biases. Those are not. Not really investigated much in the media in the way that other biases might be. Right. It's also created this idea that the media always needs to shoot for the middle in any given discussion, which I kind of want to investigate a bit. When Donald Trump says something which is overt, like, Donald Trump has said things which are nativist. Right. Nativism is a form of racism. Donald Trump therefore, has said racism shit. The way that this is far too often treated in the legacy media is. Is the racist shit that Donald Trump said correct? Or like, maybe we should consider this Racist thing that so and so has said. Right. Rather than this shit is racist, Donald Trump has said some shit that it's racist or other members of the Republican Party. All this serves to do is when we have a topic and the people in Congress anchor themselves on the very far right, what is acceptable discourse. The media then moves discourse to the right, such that that position is in the center.
- [133:10]
Robert Evans
Right.
- [133:10]
James Stout
It serves to ratchet the Overton window to the right. I'm demonstrating this for my colleagues with hand signals, which, of course, only two of the hundreds of thousands of people listening to me will be able to see.
- [133:21]
Robert Evans
It's the right way to podcast.
- [133:23]
James Stout
Yeah.
- [133:24]
Garrison Davis
It was a very compelling mime of a ratchet. It looked like he. It looked like you basically were doing it. I could not tell.
- [133:32]
Robert Evans
I couldn't tell the difference.
- [133:34]
James Stout
No.
- [133:34]
Robert Evans
That's why we call you Ratchet Strap Stout.
- [133:39]
James Stout
Call me Ratchet Jimmy. Yeah. This podcast is sponsored by Invisible Ratchet. Now it's time to pivot to ads. It's not time to pivot to ads yet. I think we should talk about the way other professions concerned with the truth deal with this topic. Right. Because journalism is pretty much unique in considering objectivity, something that we as individuals have to embody in every action that we take. And I guess the most relevant one will be academia, which is something else I am unfortunate enough to have participated in for far too much of my adult life. So academia, still not great. But we have accepted that everyone is biased in academia. Right. We rely on, among many other things, something called standpoint theory. Right. Which is a cornerstone of modern feminist thought. Most of you will be aware of it even if you're not aware of it. Basically, it holds that we see the world differently based on where we see it from. Our gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, experience, age, and a million other things impact the truths we know in the world we experience. And standpoint theory posits that perhaps people not from a certain setting may have valuable insights into it.
- [134:47]
Robert Evans
Right.
- [134:47]
James Stout
So sometimes the outsider perspective is a valuable one. But also people from that setting may see things outsiders may not see. And we have to acknowledge those biases. Right. And then continue to tell the truth. How do we tell the truth? In academia, we do something called peer review. Peer review is bad. Peer review strongly reinforces the status quo. Right. I will give one example. I once had a journal article, right? For a history journal killed in peer review. The piece was about the 1909 tour of Catalonia. That was a bicycle competition. For those of you who aren't familiar, it was Killed because my media analysis didn't mention television coverage. The television was kind of crudely invented in the 1920s and didn't become widely available until the 1940s. Right. Like this is not a reasonable objection. Nonetheless, someone was able to kill my piece because of it, because that's how peer review worked. Right. The people who are established people who are in positions of power can kill your shit if they want to, and they can give the most ludicrous region. That is how peer review, among other things, reinforces status quo. Right. The other thing that we do in academia is we declare our conflicts of interest. This is something we don't do in journalism. Right. Outlets may have a conflict of interest policy, but again, conflicts of interest aren't explicitly declared in a piece you wouldn't see. Sometimes NPR does, essentially.
- [136:14]
Robert Evans
Yeah. I mean, a number of outlets do declare, for example, this outlet is owned by someone who has a financial interest in the company we're reporting on or something like that.
- [136:24]
James Stout
Yeah.
- [136:24]
Garrison Davis
If the Washington Post is doing a story about Jeff Bezos or Amazon, usually they will say in the bottom or the top that the paper is owned by said figure.
- [136:36]
James Stout
Yeah. Where it becomes more murky is like, sometimes people have a financial interest or like if something is your beat. Right. You may have other financial interests within that beat.
- [136:46]
Robert Evans
Well, and there's the very common case of people, especially now within kind of the substack journalism, being like friends and social with people that they are reporting on and not disclosing to their wider audience.
- [136:59]
James Stout
Yeah. Like access journalism more generally. Right. Yeah. Like, the way I got this piece was by being invited to the drinks party. And if I say anything unkind about this person, I won't be invited to the drinks party.
- [137:09]
Robert Evans
Yeah.
- [137:10]
James Stout
Or simply the conflict of interest that is presented by the more ludicrous my headline, the more people will click on this website and the more time they will spend on the page and the more ad revenue they might generate.
- [137:20]
Robert Evans
Yeah. And that's really the largest issue with modern journalism is that that kind of determines almost everything for an outlet is like, what's going to get clicks, what's going to rile people up as much as possible. And that doesn't count as financial interest. Right. Like, the fact that the outlet has a vested financial interest in keeping you on the page is often and as long as possible doesn't count as like a conflict of interest in any way. And that's kind of one of the fundamental issues. Whereas, like, a lot of times, a lot of outlets won't let, for example, a Black journalist report on a black man being murdered by the police. Right. Because they see that as, like, an inherent conflict of interest. And the gap between those two things is where a lot of the real problems, a lot of the worst problems in modern journalism arise.
- [138:06]
James Stout
Yeah. Talking of problems, we need to pay for ads. Sure. All right, we are back. Part of this also manifests in, like, journalists being supposed to not have any individual opinions about anything, even if it's irrelevant to their beat. This has been the case for a lot of people regarding the genocide of Palestinian people. Right? Like, you could be the weekend editor, you could write about brunch, and if you work at certain outlets, you are, like, under pain of losing your job, not allowed to post. What is happening in Gaza is a genocide to take a stance on these issues. Right. And that is bad. Like, journalists are human beings too. And it's ridiculous to suggest that we shouldn't or can't have opinions on these things and still do good reporting.
- [139:06]
Bridget Todd
Right.
- [139:06]
James Stout
We can. We just have to make sure that the reporting itself is accurate. Sometimes what this leads to is like, I guess, another, like. Robert, you spoke about it that, like, the. The inherent conflict of interest that, like, traffic on a website presents for journalism. Another, like, inherent issue is that, like, every source is seen as biased. Right. Like you said, like, black folks might not be allowed to report on black men being shot by the cops, except state sources, which are far too often seen as speaking the verbatim truth. Right.
- [139:38]
Robert Evans
Well, this is what the police said.
- [139:40]
James Stout
Yes. Yeah. That is how we get, I guess, a pretty good example of this. I'll link to it in the show notes is a piece I wrote five years ago, I think, about police officers overdosing on fentanyl. Some of you will be familiar with this, some of you will not. But it is not possible to overdose on fentanyl just from being in its presence, like in an outdoor area next to a thing that has fentanyl in it. The piece I wrote dealt with the San Diego Union Tribune, who. This was a spectacular instance, I guess, of journalists serving as police sonographers. What happened here is that the police had produced an edited video with like, music and shit of this supposed overdose, right, of a. Of a young cop who was like. I don't know what they call it. He's like, apprentice with. With an older cop, like, or with a more experienced cop. And they were going around doing cop stuff. They found some stuff. They tested it for fentanyl, and this guy collapses. The younger cop, the older cop gives him several narcans he's not just waste some.
- [140:45]
Garrison Davis
Yeah, no, just like, I think there.
- [140:47]
James Stout
Was one incident where someone received seven Narcans, which like. Oh man. Like that's a threat to your nasal integrity if nothing else. Yeah. If Narcan doesn't work the first time.
- [140:59]
Robert Evans
Like it, I mean, people do sometimes. Often it's not especially like with serious ODs, they'll often put people like in the hospital on drips. But you would have to take a massive dose, not just be near fucking fentanyl.
- [141:11]
James Stout
Yeah, yeah. To like be like, I think this instance, like they were outside testing it in like the boot of a car. Like it's, it's ludicrous to think that you and like, it would be good if they familiarize themselves with some of the. What an overdose looks like. Right.
- [141:25]
Robert Evans
Yeah. And I'm, I'm mixed. If, if they weren't cops, I'd respect the desire to like time theft from work because I think that's what a lot of this is, is like, oh, shit, if I have an overdose, like I, I get to stay out of work a couple of days.
- [141:40]
James Stout
With Faye, that's a, that's a, that's a framing I'm amenable to, unfortunately. They are gods. Faye.
- [141:46]
Bridget Todd
Yeah.
- [141:46]
James Stout
If you're a reporter though, like it is absolutely on you to, oh, this person having an overdose. What are the symptoms of an overdose? What does an overdose look like? Should I talk to a medical professional? Or you could just ask the police information officer who shared this with you. How did you verify this was an overdose? With whom did you discuss the toxicology report in this case? That information wasn't available. Right. The way I was able to obtain that just to do, I guess clarity is first of all, I saw the publication where they didn't mention any fact checking that they'd done. You can also pra the emails to the police as well as from the police. Right. So you can see if other reporters have done fact checking that way or have asked any follow up questions that way.
- [142:32]
Robert Evans
Had they done that, they would have.
- [142:33]
James Stout
Found out, like you say, that you can't overdose from fentanyl this way. They didn't even try. And like both sides this, I guess like sometimes you'll see outlets doing that now like this cop overdose from fentanyl, but doctors say they can't, which I still think is an absolutely ludicrous practice. Right. That's like saying this person tried to fly, but people say gravity will make them fall to the ground. What are these things we know to be True. So I guess what I would propose we do instead of this ludicrous practice of pretending to be objective about everything all the time, is that we, we are honest about our biases, we're honest about our conflict of interest, we're honest about our standpoint. And then we do reporting, which is obviously verifiable. And that means you'll see that at the end of these episodes, we share our sources that we used. Often we'll try and communicate where we got information from and how we got it. And I think we should strive for moral clarity in the way we say things instead of striving for this middle ground. So what do I mean by moral clarity? I mean saying the cops killed someone, not officer involved shooting. Right. If you work with fucking words and you find yourself writing something as convoluted as officer involved shooting, then you have strayed from the foundational reason for journalism existing.
- [143:58]
Robert Evans
Yeah. You have gone beyond God's light.
- [144:01]
James Stout
Yeah. You live in the darkness. There is, I think, a place for fact checkers. I think people got a bit carried away with fact checking. I don't quite know how to phrase this correctly. I had an experience once where I'd written a piece. The fact checking of that piece centered on the fact that I had used the noun beach chair to refer to this chair. Yes. The fact checker believed that it was a lawn chair. This to me, did not impact the overall thrust of the piece of.
- [144:35]
Robert Evans
Right.
- [144:36]
James Stout
Like the nature of the chair. Unfortunately, that ended up killing the story. We ran out of time to go over the court documents because of the nature of the chair discussion. And I'm not sure that's what we need to do.
- [144:47]
Robert Evans
No, I mean. And I think the other and probably larger problem with fact checking is fact checking is an end in and of itself is. Haha. I showed that they were wrong. I checked the fact where it's like, yeah, but what they wrote got out to 30 million people and your fact check got out to like 60.
- [145:03]
James Stout
Yeah.
- [145:03]
Robert Evans
So what you did didn't really matter. And what we should probably be doing is looking at an intervention higher up on the line to stop the bullshit from getting out, rather than being obsessed with. Well, I fact checked it like, well, but that didn't really help, you know.
- [145:17]
James Stout
Yeah.
- [145:17]
Robert Evans
Right. At what point do we give that up as pointless?
- [145:21]
James Stout
Yeah, you are like, not even a footnote to this other thing that this person.
- [145:26]
Robert Evans
No, we need to. The intervention needs to be happening earlier because the bullshit is still getting out.
- [145:32]
James Stout
Yeah, absolutely. And this happens like we're in this bizarre situation where, like, right wing outlets can say what the fuck they want. Right. Like, we have whole massive media empires going in on this idea that the 2020 election was stolen. Then we have, like, centrist outlets instead of being like, no, the election wasn't stolen. That's bullshit. Constantly trying to, like, investigate those claims as if they were credible and useful, rather than illustrating why they should be dismissed and then moving on. Right. Like, instead of investigating why this conspiracy is so important. We see that a lot with immigration right now, but we saw it a ton in the presidential debates. Right. Like, it's a good example of what you were saying. J.D. vance can just lie. And even Donald Trump actually can lie about people eating dogs and cats. It doesn't hugely matter if an hour later a news outlet tweets, oh, we fact check him, and it's not okay. Right. You still broadcast to millions of people that Haitian migrants eat dogs and cats, and that's not true. And I think we need to strive for something that is closer to the truth and it's closer to fairness and gives us moral clarity. Because what we're all doing right now, what the legacy media is doing right now, is woefully inadequate to meet the moment.
- [146:54]
Robert Evans
Yeah, I mean, I agree. I think where I don't actually know how to solve things is the incentive structure is so broken. And. And to an extent, all of this talk about objectivity. And I. When I say that, I mean, like, the talk that outlets and editors have about objectivity. Is there more than anything to obscure the fact that the economics of journalism make it almost impossible for it to be anything but a willing agent of disinformation? That's the real issue, is you can have the Washington Post and you can have the New York Times host good reporting, but a huge amount of their income will always come from having columnists whose entire job is to piss people off.
- [147:40]
James Stout
Yeah.
- [147:41]
Robert Evans
Or to stoke the egos of people in power. And I don't know that the good work those outlets does outweighs the crap that they spill into the public discourse, because that.
- [147:55]
Bridget Todd
That's.
- [147:55]
Robert Evans
That's what's incentivized. And so I. I think, to an extent, there's almost no point in actually engaging with the objectivity debate with the people who are pushing it, because they're not pushing it. Honestly. They're pushing it as a way to obscure the fact that they make their money the same way Mark Zuckerberg makes his money, which is by spreading fear, anger, and doubt.
- [148:19]
James Stout
Yeah, yeah. There's the, like the bad op ed industrial complex. Like I've, I've been guilty of that, right? You see a headline on social media and you're like, that's. And then you click and read, right? I used to, like when I was little baby journalists engage with this and be like, that's because. And either try and write about it somewhere or post it on social media. But I have come to realize that in doing that, I'm doing exactly what they want me to do, which is continue sending people to their website to click on adverts to make them money. So I think it is better that we do not do that. But yeah, that is the fundamental conceit of journalism right now. How it pays the bills is keeping you on that page and the way it keeps you on that page is making you angry. There is like a model, I think then you see this like in community, small community newspapers right now, like, I guess outlets like Left Coast Right Watch in California and Oregon where like people genuinely, by building trust and telling the truth, gain the support of their communities and are financed by them. But I mean the orders of magnitude and income difference are like, they're not making Washington Post money over at Left Coast Right Watch. I know this should be true. So yeah, pretty fucked. And it will only get worse, I think, like as we, as we continue to slide into like the post truth fascism world, I can't really see our legacy outlets doing much about it. If all they ever gonna do is strive for the middle ground on this.
- [149:52]
Robert Evans
Well, all right. Okay everybody. All right, go have a good day in that world.
- [150:14]
Garrison Davis
There's a vile sickness in Abbas town.
- [150:17]
Andrew Sage
You must excise it. Dig into the deep earth and cut it out.
- [150:24]
Garrison Davis
The village is ravaged.
- [150:25]
James Stout
Entire families have been consumed. You know how waking up from a dream, a familiar place can look completely alien.
- [150:34]
Garrison Davis
Get back, everyone.
- [150:35]
James Stout
He's got knacks. And if you, if you see the.
- [150:38]
Garrison Davis
Devil walking around inside of another man, you must cut out the very heart.
- [150:42]
James Stout
Of him, burn his body and scatter.
- [150:45]
Garrison Davis
The ashes in the furthest corner of this town. As a warning from iHeart podcasts and grim and Mild from Aaron Manke, this is Havoc Town, a new fiction podcast.
- [150:57]
Bridget Todd
Set in the Bridgewater audio universe, starring.
- [151:00]
Garrison Davis
Jewel State and Ray Wise. Let's listen to Havoc town on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [151:09]
Andrew Sage
The Devil Walks in Amistown.
- [151:14]
Bridget Todd
Welcome to Pretty Private with ebony, the podcast where silence is broken and stories are set free. I'm Ebony and every Tuesday I'll be sharing all New anonymous stories that would challenge your perceptions and give you new insight on the people around you. On Pretty Private, we'll explore the untold experiences of women of color who faced it all. Childhood trauma, addiction, abuse, incarceration, grief, mental health struggles and more. And found the strength to make it to the other side. My dad was shot and killed in his house. Yes, he was a drug dealer. Yes, he was a confidential informant. But he wasn't shot on street corner. He wasn't shot in the middle of a drug deal. He was shot in his house, unarmed. Pretty Private isn't just a podcast. It's your personal guide for turning storylines into lifelines. Every Tuesday, make sure you listen to Pretty Private from the Black Effect podcast network. Tune in on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
- [152:20]
James Stout
Hola, it's Honey German and my podcast.
- [152:22]
Garrison Davis
Gracias Come Again is back.
- [152:24]
Bridget Todd
This season we're going even deeper into the world of music and entertainment with raw and honest conversations with some of your favorite Latin artists and celebrities.
- [152:32]
Garrison Davis
You didn't have to audition. No, I didn't audition. I haven't auditioned like over 25 years. Oh, wow. That's a real G talk right there. Oh, yeah.
- [152:40]
Bridget Todd
We've got some of the biggest actors.
- [152:41]
Garrison Davis
Musicians, content creators and culture shifters sharing.
- [152:45]
Bridget Todd
Their real stories of failure and success. You were destined to be a star.
- [152:53]
Garrison Davis
We talk all about what's viral and.
- [152:55]
Bridget Todd
Trending with a little bit of cheeseme, a lot of laughs and those amazing vivas you've come to expect. And of course, we'll explore deeper topics.
- [153:02]
Garrison Davis
Dealing with identity struggles and all the issues affecting our Latin community.
- [153:07]
Bridget Todd
You feel like you get a little.
- [153:08]
Garrison Davis
Whitewashed because you have to do the code switching.
- [153:10]
Bridget Todd
I won't say whitewashed cuz at the end of the day, you know, I'm me. Yeah, but the whole pretend and co.
- [153:15]
James Stout
You know, it takes a toll on you.
- [153:17]
Bridget Todd
Listen to the new season of Gracias. Come again as part of Michael Tura podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.
- [153:26]
Garrison Davis
What would you do if one bad.
- [153:28]
Robert Evans
Decision forced you to choose between a maximum security prison or the most brutal.
- [153:33]
Garrison Davis
Boot camp designed to be hell on earth?
- [153:35]
Robert Evans
Unfortunately for Mark Lombardo, this was the choice he faced. He said, you, you are a number.
- [153:42]
Garrison Davis
A New York state number, and we own you. Shock incarceration, also known as boot camps.
- [153:48]
Robert Evans
Are short term, highly regimented correctional programs that mimic military basic training.
- [153:54]
Garrison Davis
These programs aim to provide a shock.
- [153:57]
Robert Evans
Of prison life, emphasizing strict discipline, physical training, hard labor and rehabilitation programs.
- [154:04]
Garrison Davis
Mark had one chance to complete this program and had no idea of the.
- [154:08]
Robert Evans
Hell awaiting him the next six months. The first night was overwhelming and you.
- [154:14]
Bridget Todd
Don'T know who's next to you and.
- [154:15]
Garrison Davis
We didn't know what to expect. In the morning, nobody tells you anything. Listen to shock incarceration on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. This is it could happen here. Exactly. Executive Disorder, our weekly newscast covering what's happening, the White House, the crumbling world, what it means for you. I'm Garrison Davis. This episode, I'm joined by Robert Evans, James Stout and Sophie Lichterman. Maybe, maybe Sophie will decide to comment on some of this important, important news.
- [154:50]
James Stout
We have today to bless us.
- [154:52]
Robert Evans
And maybe Robert will decide to forgive you for jumping into giving the title of this show and not letting me say electile dysfunction or something like that. I have not gotten over living. Let's talk about a pedophile.
- [155:07]
James Stout
It's time for your Friday Pedophile update.
- [155:09]
Robert Evans
Yeah, we call it the Frida File minute.
- [155:12]
Garrison Davis
I don't like that.
- [155:14]
James Stout
Neither does Frida kahlo.
- [155:16]
Robert Evans
So on August 15, 2025 at 08:36 Anno Meridian, that means in the morning, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Office of Public Information put up a press release with the title 8 Child Sex Predators arrested during undercover Operations. Now this was a report on a multi agency operation going after child sex predators that was headed by the Nevada Internet Crimes against Children or ICAC organization, which is a joint operation that involves a mix of, there's some detectives from the Las Vegas Metropolitan to police, there's some folks from the FBI Child Exploitation Task Force and then I guess the ICAC has its own task force. I've never heard of this group before, but there's, there's a number of other law enforcement agents involved, including North Las Vegas Police, Henderson police who actually posted declaration of arrest for the person that we'll be talking about, that's the Henderson, Nevada Police, Homeland Security investigations and the Nevada Attorney General's office. This was your standard sting to try and catch people who are attempting to have sex with kids where you have undercover agents who are online. In this case, they were using an app called pure and on WhatsApp, it looks like as a general rule, these guys met the person that they thought was a minor on Pure and then took the conversation to WhatsApp to plan for an in person meeting where they then they, you know, the whole, what's that guy who used to do The TV show where he would, he would bust pedophiles and there were some ethical problems with Chris Hansen. They'd have their Chris Hansen moment.
- [156:48]
Garrison Davis
Right.
- [156:48]
James Stout
I'm not familiar with this.
- [156:50]
Robert Evans
Oh, man, it, it didn't go well. So the story that people have been hearing and that kind of went viral out of this is that one of these eight people arrested was Tom Artyom Alexandrovich, who was a high ranking cybersecurity official. He was the director of one of the divisions of Israel's top cybersecurity agency. So, you know, an Israeli government official working in cybersecurity is one of the guys arrested. He was in town in Las Vegas for the Black Hat convention, which is like a hacking convention. And like a lot of hacking conventions, over time it has turned from a bunch of guys who do not like the feds to just feds. Right. Like, I think that's, that's why the guy from Israel's cybersecurity agency is at this thing hitting on allegedly 15 year olds. So this guy is arrested and then he posts bail at ten grand and he flies back to Israel, which gets a lot of people in an uproar. Obviously, anything involving officials of the Israeli government is receiving heightened scrutiny right now, what with the genocide. And also for a long time, there's a lot of evidence of special treatment being given to agents of the government of Israel by the United States government. And so people are like, is that what's going on here? Because this seems pretty fucked up. And I guess the first thing I should say is that it doesn't seem like he's being treated differently from anyone else in this sting. This is, per statements made by the local government and by the Attorney General's office, this is the standard bail amount for this crime. And when people post bail for this crime, which is the standard amount is 10 grand, there aren't conditions usually on the bail, which means it would not be standard to stop him from traveling or returning home. He's due to return to the United States in several weeks for the court proceedings to go on. So the short answer to this seems to be that, like, no, this is just kind of how the system works. And that might not be great, but he doesn't seem to have been given special treatment because he was an official of the Israeli government. Now, does that mean that that's going to prove to be what happens in the long run?
- [158:54]
Garrison Davis
No.
- [158:54]
Robert Evans
Because among other things, he might just not come back to the U.S. and if the Israeli government is a party to that and like, there isn't any kind of like action taken to like force him to return to go through the legal process, then I'd say, yeah, there's something to be particularly upset about here. But I think the broader thing to maybe be upset about here is that guys can get caught for this and then have a no condition bail that allows them to flee the country, which might be a flaw in the system. Right. I am a big innocent until proven guilty guy. I'm a big reasonable bail guy. But I'm also a big. I don't know, man. Maybe if the agent of a foreign government gets caught trying to fuck a child, they shouldn't be able to fly back home immediately after they bail out.
- [159:33]
Garrison Davis
I don't know.
- [159:34]
James Stout
Does seem that it's a reasonable objection.
- [159:36]
Robert Evans
Yeah. So, you know, this is a classic case of you've got the story what actually happened here, then you've got how it's being interpreted online, and then you've got how it's being interpreted online by the stupidest person on the world. On the planet. In the planet. And in that.
- [159:52]
Garrison Davis
In the planet.
- [159:53]
Robert Evans
That didn't work.
- [159:54]
James Stout
Oh, it'd be good if he was, wouldn't it? In the molten core.
- [159:57]
Robert Evans
Yeah, that would be nice. You've got how this story is being interpreted by particularly bad journalists. Let's say that. That's the nice way to put it. And I'm talking about Michael Tracy. If you're not familiar with Michael Tracy, he is ostensibly a leftist, an anti authoritarian. He's the kind of guy who just sort of reflexively, if the US is involved, whatever is the worst case scenario for the US doing something is what's happening. During the invasion of Ukraine, he alleged that the US was sending troops into Ukraine. I think because he saw some guys outside of an embassy in Poland, some.
- [160:30]
James Stout
American soldiers, Marine detail, some Marine detail.
- [160:33]
Robert Evans
It was like, we're getting ready to invade. That did not happen. Now, Michael Tracy has a substack, of.
- [160:42]
Garrison Davis
Course, many such cases.
- [160:43]
Robert Evans
And he published an article titled was an Israeli pedophile really allowed to flee the United States? And I can't tell. He starts with like a whole paragraph about Jeffrey Epstein. And I can't actually tell what his stance is on this. And I don't really want. He's talking about how people are eager to prove him wrong about Jeffrey Epstein. I have no desire to know what this guy thinks about Jeffrey Epstein.
- [161:03]
Garrison Davis
This is probably a. Jeffrey Epstein was a secret Mossad agent type thing.
- [161:08]
Robert Evans
Well, except for his whole argument here is that there's people are being incredibly unreasonable to think that this guy is guilty or to think that he probably did anything wrong. And the reason Michael Tracy suggests that Tom Alexandrovich probably didn't do anything wrong is that the terms of the app, Pure, which is where the authorities say he first got in contact with the officer. Pretending to be a child requires you to be 18 years or older. And in this substack, there you go.
- [161:36]
James Stout
He posts the post the terms of.
- [161:38]
Robert Evans
Service to be like, See, there is even what appears to be a rigorous age verification process to ensure that no minor gains access to the app. Government issued documents must be submitted to ensure that only persons at least 18 years of old are allowed on the app. And then he's like, does this mean the government was faking documents, was pretending to be a child to this app?
- [161:58]
James Stout
Yes, that's what they were doing. Well, they were pretending to be a trial, generally.
- [162:02]
Robert Evans
Yeah, that's probably what they were doing. And the other thing, what's really funny about this is like, that's his whole point, is that the app requires them to be 18. So it's, you know, the authorities must have been doing something fucked up and lying to the app for this to have happened at all. And this is just an example of Michael Tracy not reading the declaration of arrest, which he links in his article. Because the declaration of arrest does say that, yes, this person got in contact with the undercover agent during the peer up. And then the same sentence says, and later WhatsApp with phone number and says that on WhatsApp, this is where they talked about the person in this case being a minor. And this is where they set up, like to arrange a meeting. This Israeli cybersecurity official was going to take them to Cirque du Soleil and had them bring a condom. Like, that's all in the declaration of arrest. Now, obviously, Alexandrovich maintains his innocence, maintains he thought this person was 18 all the entire time. All I've got here is the declaration of arrest. I don't have hard evidence, but per the source that, that Michael Tracy cites, like, this is not just happening on Pure. This is, as is often the case, by the way, when pedophiles go after kids, they meet them on whatever app and then take them to a second digital location, Right? Like, that's just the way these things work. And that's really all I have to say about this. You know, this is the kind. I mean, maybe keep an eye on this in case this guy doesn't go back and the Israeli government does hide him but it's entirely possible that this will go the way court cases and this sort of thing are supposed to go. There is one other funny thing, considering this guy is a high ranking Israeli cybersecurity official. There's just like a list of, you know, statements about, like what Alexandrovich said to detectives when he was being interrogated. You know, the stuff. Like Alexandrovich stated he did not know the numbers for the Israeli government. Alexandrovich stated his family was in Israel. Alexandrovitch stated it was important he get numbers for his flight. And then Alexandrovich stated his phone does not have a password, but uses his right thumbprint.
- [163:56]
Garrison Davis
Oh, no. A biometric user.
- [163:59]
Robert Evans
Cybersecurity expert for the Israeli government.
- [164:03]
James Stout
They're not sending their best people. Oh my God.
- [164:06]
Robert Evans
Your fucking thumbprint, dude. Your fucking thumbprint.
- [164:10]
James Stout
Okay, yeah, the famous most secure possible access code.
- [164:16]
Robert Evans
Anyway, that's all I've got for pedafriday. Tune in next week, we'll have another pedophile for you, I'm sure of it. Oh yeah, here's ads.
- [164:35]
James Stout
All right, we're back. And it is a pedophile free world. We can't guarantee that, I suppose, but we're hoping. Peter Free zone from here on in. Talking of things which are incontrovertibly crimes, Israel has deliberately murdered four Al Jazeera journalists in Gaza. Among them was Anas Al Sharif, a prominent correspondent for the network in Gaza. The IDF also killed correspondent Mohammed Karika, cameraman Ibrahim Zaya, and driver and cameraman Mohammed Nufal. Al Jazeera has named all of these people. The strike also killed two freelancers. One of them was Mahal and Al Sharif's nephew, who was a student studying journalism for weeks before the deliberate and premeditated war crime to war crime under the Rome Statute and also a violation of the Geneva Conventions because journalists are also civilians. The IDF engaged in manufacturing consent for the strike. They did this through a unit that 972 Magazine has reported on called the quote, Legitimization Cell. You're always doing great when you have a unit called the Legitimization Cell.
- [165:45]
Robert Evans
Yeah, that's.
- [165:46]
James Stout
Yeah, it's pretty fucked. To quote from the piece which I'll link below, it has been assigned to identify Gaza based journalists it could portray as undercover Hamas operatives in an effort to blunt growing global outrage over Israel's killing of reporters. You should read this article like it goes through instances where they have a very clear confirmation bias, right? And the case of Al Sharif is a pretty good example of how ridiculous this can be. They released this document, they tweeted it actually claiming he was in Hamas from 2013 to 2017. The document clearly wasn't original document. Like, it, like, it was a PDF done up with like a navy blue background and stuff. Like, it's laughable to think that they, like captured this PDF somehow. It just doesn't line up. Even if we take that to be true, right? That he had been a member of Hamas till 2017. That was eight years ago. Like, isn't the whole point of the thing that they're saying that they want people to stop being in Hamas, like, killing them because they want to do that? And I don't believe them. It still doesn't make sense, right? They've done this in other cases with other jurists, specifically other Al Jazeera journalists. In July of this year, the cpj, that's a committee to protect journalists, if you're not familiar, warned that they were worried about an attack on Al Sharif due to the increasingly detached from reality smear campaign being pursued against him by IDF spokesman Avice Adre. For example, on 20 July, Adre accused him of being, quote, part of a, quote, false Hamas campaign on starvation as he played footage of Al Sharif crying after seeing a woman collapse from hunger on camera. Speaking about the campaign, Al Sharif said, it is not only a media threat or an image destruction, it is a real life threat. He said this in his interview with cpj. He also said, I live with the feeling that I could be bombed and martyred any moment. My family is also in danger and his, his nephew was killed with him, right, in the airstrike. When I think about, like, I have colleagues who I've worked with who are Palestinian who work in Gaza, right? I remember 2023, October 10, 2023, I was in Syria, in Rojava specifically, and I was sitting in a tea shop because the WI fi at my hotel was nonexistent and I wanted to check in on my friends, right, who work there. And I remember this guy helping me translate one of these videos in which, like, you see a dead person in the blue press vest, right? And I was concerned that it might be someone I've worked with before. So I was trying to work out it was them. And he was saying in this video at the funeral, people were saying that another journalist would take up the dead journalist camera and the flak jacket and keep reporting, which is very touching for me. But journalists in Gaza have been targeted by the IDF for a very long time. And this is One of many examples and it's disgusting and reprehensible. That's about all I have to say on it. Should we turn to immigration for something equally despondent and sad?
- [168:44]
Robert Evans
Yeah.
- [168:46]
Garrison Davis
All right.
- [168:47]
James Stout
USCIS, U.S. citizenship and Immigration Services has issued a new guidance material to instruct officers in cases where they can use their discretion to look at whether the person has, quote, endorsed, promoted or supported or otherwise espoused the views of a terrorist organization or group. Group including those who support or promote anti American ideologies and activities. Antisemitic terrorism. I'm skipping a bit here. And anti Semitic ideologies. This discretion can be used in extension of stay cases, change of status cases, reinstatement of f or M, non immigrant status and certain employment authorization requests, they say in the memo. The USCIS policy manual also lists other instances where discretion could be used. These include tps, Temporary protected status, humanitarian parole, petition to classify an alien as a fiance of a U.S. citizen, asylum and refugee status. So I looked up what the quote anti American activities were. There's a footnote, Right. The Footnote links to INA 313A Immigration Naturalization Act. Most of the anti American activities are things which already had a bar to naturalization and most of those pertain directly to being a member of the communist party. Like a literal card carrying member of the literal communist party. Right. Capital C, capital P. The US has had a bar on naturalization for people who are members of the communist party for some time. I believe they still have a bar on naturalization for people who were members of the Nazi party. Pre visa waiver, I should say not actually a visa. When people from Europe were coming to the United States, you'd have to answer a short questionnaire. One of the questions was about whether you or anyone related to you had been a member of the Nazi party. I remember like once meeting some German people in Europe and they were telling me they'd had to answer this question entering the United States. So the anti American activities is the one that's been getting the most attention. But it does specifically footnote to the communist stuff, which is again something that has been U. S. Policy for a while. What I'm more worried about is stuff about anti Semitic terrorism.
- [170:57]
Garrison Davis
Yeah. Because that means what? You've shared a pro Palestine post on social media.
- [171:03]
James Stout
Yeah. You said genocide badge.
- [171:05]
Garrison Davis
Yeah. That can mean so many things as we've already seen. Like we've seen some of this stuff already be enforced. This is new guidance material, but we've seen reports coming from people trying to enter the country or trying to get visas that show that this is happening for like months, ever since, like, you know, like March, I started to see a lot of stuff regarding either pro Palestinian statements or like posts or campus protests, that sort of stuff.
- [171:30]
James Stout
Yeah. The F visa I mentioned, there is a non immigrant student visa. Right. For full time students. So, like, that is the one where we've seen students having to turn over their social media handles or social media can't be locked. It's very easy to see how these two things line up. Yeah. And as Geoff said, like people, they have always been able to use their discretion. This is just guidance on how they should use it. But they have been using it for some time. The administration has also moved the goalpost for naturalization. So naturalization is becoming a citizen of the United States. Right. There is a requirement that people who naturalize as citizens have a, quote, good moral character. Previously, the way they did this was there were bars for certain crimes. Right. Murder, genocide, something called aggravated felony, which is something only exists in immigration law. Going forward, they're changing to, I guess, a more holistic idea of what a good moral character might be. I'm going to quote again going forward. USCIS officers must account for an alien's positive attributes and not simply the absence of misconduct in evaluating whether or not an alien has met the requirement for establishing gmc. That's good moral character. The officer must take a holistic approach in evaluating whether or not an alien seeking naturalization has affirmatively established that he or she has met their burden of establishing that they are worthy of assuming the rights and responsibilities of United States citizenship. The worthy.
- [172:54]
Garrison Davis
What does that mean? You have to prove to an officer that you're a good person.
- [172:58]
James Stout
Yeah.
- [172:59]
Garrison Davis
How so?
- [173:00]
Robert Evans
Yes. By the officer's definition, I'm assuming.
- [173:03]
James Stout
Yeah.
- [173:04]
Garrison Davis
Yeah. I mean, this is. This is guys for like discretionary enforcement. So I don't like the word holistic here. I don't.
- [173:13]
James Stout
Yeah, I mean, there's literally asking them to take into account everything they know about this person and then just make a call. Is this somewhere you want to have as your neighbor? You know, like, I don't know what the. I mean, I can guess how this might be manifested. It's worth noting that as DHS goes, USCIS officers tend to be the least right wing. Right. Cbp. And ICE has a much higher proportion of people who, like, for instance, they had some issues with getting people vaccinated and cbp, that kind of stuff. Right. Indicators that people might be sort of down this conspiracy pipeline. We also learned this week that Todd Blanche directed federal cops to arrest Mayor Ras Baraka outside of a detention center in New Jersey in May. We noticed because of body cam footage. We don't have the footage, but the footage is reported on in court documents. In the footage, a DHS official says, quote, we are arresting the mayor right now, per the Deputy Attorney General of the United States. Anyone that gets in our way, I need you guys to give me a perimeter so I can cuff him. So the agent talked on the phone and then gave this statement. Right. So it seems that the Deputy AG there was the one who gave the order to arrest Ras Baraka. Right. ICE has also arrested a cop. This is. This is our little moment of, like.
- [174:25]
Garrison Davis
Cop on cop violence.
- [174:26]
James Stout
Cop on cop violence, yeah. John Luke Evans was a reserve officer for the old Orchard Beach Police Department in Maine. The police chief of Orchard beach, who's called Elise Chard, said that the department had used E VERIFY to check if he could work legally. Right. Which is the thing that you are supposed to do. E Verify is a database run by the Department of Homeland Security. I think it's also in combination with another department that allows you to verify if somebody can work legally in the United states. Right. Trisha McLaughlin characterized this as reckless, which is weird because DHS, who she's speaking on behalf of, are the ones who put that information into a database. It's possible that someone entered something in wrong at some point. Right. Someone put in a wrong number, they switched an O for a zero, something like that. This came to light because Evans attempted to make a firearm purchase and he filled out his 4473. And the ATF then notified ICE that a non citizen who wasn't eligible for firearms ownership had attempted to purchase firearms, and that was how ICE came to detain him. He is being allowed to leave the USA voluntarily. He's not being deported. He's not being charged with attempting to make the firearm purchase, which he could be charged with. And the city of Orchard beach is going pretty hard in his defense. They've released some elements of his personnel file, but none of them that pertain to his immigration status. They're sticking by their claim that they believe he was eligible to work in the usa. ICE are claiming, or I guess DHS now are claiming, that his visa expired in 2023, which was years before he began working at the police department. He was a seasonal reserve officer, and he had been working since earlier this year.
- [176:20]
Garrison Davis
Before we go on break, I want to do a quick update on the Texas Democrats who fled the state to delay or prevent the gerrymandering. And after their two week walkout, the Texas House has now reached quorum once again. And a vote on the new redistricting map, which would add five Republican congressional seats, is slated for Wednesday, August 20, which is the day that we are recording. After Democrats returned to the Capitol from their walkout, they were subject to 24. 7 surveillance by the Texas Department of Public Safety. And in order to leave the House chamber, they had to sign what the Democrats are calling, quote, unquote, permission slips agreeing to surveillance in their just everyday life. Is that why? I think it was Collier slept at her desk. One person, I think a state senator, refused to sign the slip and stayed in the Capitol overnight. Fair enough. The Texas House minority leader, Gene Wu, made a statement saying, quote, we killed the corrupt special session, withstood unprecedented surveillance and intimidation, and rallied Democrats nationwide to join this extension fight for fair representation, reshaping the entire 2026 landscape, unquote. There's a very celebratory tone here, which is slightly odd to me, because this vote is still probably going through.
- [177:44]
James Stout
Yeah, they're gonna lose.
- [177:46]
Garrison Davis
This is gonna get voted in.
- [177:47]
James Stout
Yeah.
- [177:47]
Garrison Davis
Now, Wu has said that the Democrats are going to challenge the redistricting maps in court, even if they are able to pass through this House vote. And as we know, the courts are the last bastion for democracy and will save us all. We suspected that this whole walkout is more performative than anything else and would not actually lead to them killing this map. And instead of remaining out of the state longer for an, like, undeterminate amount of time, possibly until November, they. They have. They have returned and quorum is in the chamber. So.
- [178:23]
Robert Evans
Yeah, it's. It's like. It's not nothing, but it's like the next. Just. It's one step up from nothing.
- [178:29]
Garrison Davis
It's the most Democrat thing to do.
- [178:31]
Robert Evans
Yes.
- [178:32]
James Stout
Yeah.
- [178:32]
Garrison Davis
But why. Why only do half of what was necessary?
- [178:36]
James Stout
Yeah.
- [178:37]
Robert Evans
Sophie, you. You're asking this question because you didn't grow up in Texas.
- [178:42]
Garrison Davis
I went to the Democratic National Convention. I understand the half effort.
- [178:47]
Robert Evans
Here's the reality. Texas Democratic Party exists to disappoint you. That's why. That's why all this is happening.
- [178:55]
Garrison Davis
I just feel like the entire Texas Democratic Party is just like a Beto o'. Rourke. Like the. Not. Not literally, but the concept of Beto o'.
- [179:05]
Bridget Todd
Rourke.
- [179:05]
James Stout
Yeah. Not wrong. Yeah.
- [179:08]
Robert Evans
It's all. It's all there. Never. Never put your faith in Texas and any part of Texas, and you. You'll be disappointed. Less. I've been telling people this for a long time.
- [179:17]
Garrison Davis
Yeah, it's like the second thing you told me.
- [179:20]
Robert Evans
Every year, Democrats in other parts of the country every couple of years get like excited. It's the Charlie Brown symptom where they're like, oh my God, Texas might be about to flip or something. Otherwise good. Ted Cruz is going to get forced out. We're finally going to have something good happen in Texas politics. And every time, every time that football gets pulled away.
- [179:41]
Garrison Davis
Yeah. So it's, it feels not great that the minority leader is kind of patting themselves on the back for taking basically a two week vacation to Illinois and California and then returning and having this go through. So I don't know, we'll, we'll see this develops. The California is, is promising to do their own redistricting to equal out the amount of like, map changes. Both, both adding five more seats for the respective parties. It's annoying. It's just annoying. It's just annoying.
- [180:15]
James Stout
Like, yeah, yeah, nice piece of performance, I guess.
- [180:19]
Garrison Davis
You know what else is annoying?
- [180:21]
James Stout
These ads.
- [180:22]
Garrison Davis
I don't think they're annoying at all. I value each and every advertiser.
- [180:25]
James Stout
Garrison actually personally vets all of our advertisers so you can reach out to them on social media.
- [180:32]
Garrison Davis
That was unconditional.
- [180:35]
Robert Evans
No, no, no. I, I, I agree. This is canon now.
- [180:38]
Garrison Davis
Yeah.
- [180:39]
Robert Evans
If you're ever unhappy with an advertiser, find Garrison's personal phone number and, and hit him up.
- [180:45]
James Stout
No, no, no, no.
- [180:48]
Garrison Davis
Oh, God. Yeah. Time to go in a block. All right, we are back. Putin, I guess Putin's a guy that's actually, that's actually how I would describe the meeting between Trump and Putin in Alaska.
- [181:12]
Bridget Todd
Putin, I guess.
- [181:15]
Garrison Davis
Yeah, that's pretty much how it went. They had, they had a little meeting. There are some insane conspiracy theories that he sent a body double.
- [181:23]
James Stout
Oh, wow.
- [181:23]
Garrison Davis
Yeah, yeah, it's one of my favorite things. There's always, always insane conspiracy theories reported from BBC News, actually, which I find funny. Yeah, I'm glad that BBC is on the, is on the pulse of, of theory spreading online.
- [181:38]
James Stout
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [181:39]
Robert Evans
And, and people are just now figuring out again that whenever world leaders travel to foreign countries for summits at this level, they take their poop back with them. And yeah, I saw an article being like, is it true? Did Putin really take his poop back? And yes, they all do because they don't want it to get analyzed to find evidence of health issues. Like, the President has his poop taken home every time he goes overseas.
- [182:01]
Garrison Davis
This is Just the way things are, frankly. I think if we're able to get the Putin poop, you can make a clone of Putin and then that could be the body that we use.
- [182:11]
James Stout
Call it poop tin.
- [182:12]
Garrison Davis
Yeah, yeah, Vladimir Stuff that If, like the 50s, the CIA still existed, as.
- [182:20]
Robert Evans
If they still had that juice. It'd be a lot more fun would be doing.
- [182:24]
James Stout
We would get Hoover back up in there.
- [182:27]
Garrison Davis
Really unethical human cloning project where you have this like, shambling, like, undead corpse of that we can profit. Christ. But that's basically how the meeting went. Sorry for derailing. My bad. No, because the meeting is kind of a nothing burger at this point. There was reports that Putin basically ranted to Trump about how Ukraine always has been a part of Russia. And the meeting didn't really go anywhere. Putin ignored a question on if he would, quote, stop killing civilians. So, yeah, that's basically how the whole, how the whole debacle went. And I think it's really indicative that like a day or two after this happened, Trump had The Zelensky Meeting 2.0 in the White House, which went much better than the previous Zelensky meeting. And Trump was a lot more friendly with Zelensky this time around.
- [183:18]
Robert Evans
Apparently Zelinsky's been going around other European leaders getting advice on how to, like, talk with Trump.
- [183:23]
Garrison Davis
Yeah, he gave him. Gave him a letter, which, Which Trump, Trump really appreciates and likes. He started by thanking. Thanking the first lady for a letter as well. So there's always, like, little polite gestures that Trump really enjoys.
- [183:38]
James Stout
Yeah, he likes to be, like, honored and venerated. Yeah.
- [183:42]
Garrison Davis
So Zelinsky indulged in that. Wore a fairly, A fairly spiffy, all black suit. I liked it. It's a good. It was a good suit. So it's. But it is, it is very indicative if you look at, like, how the last Zelensky meeting went. And then after Trump was around Putin for, like, a few hours, how, how. How Trump's mood was noticeably different around Zelensky this time around. So we'll see. I don't think we're gonna have any conclusion to the conflict in Ukraine anytime soon based on how these two meetings went. There was. There was reporting that they were trying to set up a meeting between Putin and Zelensky, though that has since been denied. It sits this constant, like, back and forth, like, like it has been the past, like, two, three, four years.
- [184:25]
Robert Evans
But Trump is going to bring an end to the war. He's the peace president. Gonna get a Nobel Prize.
- [184:29]
James Stout
Yeah. Yeah.
- [184:30]
Garrison Davis
Did you Know that Trump's ended six wars. Six or seven. Six or seven.
- [184:34]
Robert Evans
Wow. Wow.
- [184:37]
James Stout
It's.
- [184:37]
Robert Evans
I love it. I love it when you can't keep track of how many wars you ended.
- [184:43]
Garrison Davis
I got one other story I would like to discuss. I'm sure James will have some comments on this as well, on a series of unfortunate ICE actions, including the first incident that I'm aware of where federal agents have shot their firearms during an enforcement operation, at least as of, like the Trump administration 2.0. On Saturday morning, August 16, in San Bernardino, a family was pulled over by masked federal agents in what DHS has since claimed was a, quote, unquote, targeted enforcement operation. As Customs and Border Protection approached the vehicle, the family inside started recording on their cell phones and asked for identification. When the family refused to roll down the windows of the car, federal agents smashed windows on both sides of the vehicle and reached inside. Inside. At this point, the driver pulled the car forward and federal agents shot at the vehicle three times before the car sped away. I'll. I'll play the video here for posterity.
- [185:43]
James Stout
Yeah.
- [185:44]
Garrison Davis
What do you want? What do you want? Identification.
- [186:02]
James Stout
Hey, you can't do that.
- [186:07]
Garrison Davis
So those three pops at the end were the three gunshots?
- [186:10]
James Stout
Yeah. This is a wild one.
- [186:12]
Garrison Davis
The driver told NBC Los Angeles, quote, I had to protect my life and my family, unquote.
- [186:19]
James Stout
Yeah. It's worth noting, I guess, these agents, like, they're more uniform than some.
- [186:25]
Garrison Davis
Yeah. They have badges visible on plate carriers.
- [186:29]
James Stout
Yeah.
- [186:29]
Garrison Davis
They did not establish much communication between themselves and the family as they approach the vehicle. There's a lot of, like, yelling back and forth.
- [186:38]
James Stout
Yeah. You can hear the man telling his son that don't open it.
- [186:41]
Garrison Davis
Yeah. The father is telling his kids in the car not to roll down the windows, not to open the doors as the federal agents ask for the car to be opened, and then they initiate force.
- [186:50]
James Stout
Yeah.
- [186:50]
Garrison Davis
The man here has lived in the US for 23 years and does not have legal status. His two adult sons who are in the vehicle are both US citizens. According to Javier Hernandez, the executive director of the Inland Coalition for Immigrant justice, who has spoken about this incident on behalf of the family to local press.
- [187:10]
James Stout
Yeah.
- [187:11]
Garrison Davis
DHS gave a statement to NBC Los Angeles, quote, in the course of the incident, the suspect drove his car at the officers and struck two customs and voter protection officers with his vehicle, unquote, saying that because the driver tried to, quote, unquote, run down the agents, CPB officer was forced to, quote, discharge his firearm in self defense, unquote.
- [187:36]
James Stout
Yeah.
- [187:37]
Garrison Davis
So that is the justification that they are using is that this vehicle was moving in the direction of officers and officers acted in self defense by shooting at the car.
- [187:47]
James Stout
That doesn't seem to line up with the video that we just saw.
- [187:50]
Garrison Davis
No, the cell phone footage from inside does not show officers being hit by the vehicle. It could be the case that you can see that one of the officers reaching into the car, you can see if the car was pulling away. His, his arm may have the door. Like the officers are standing next to the car in the video. It's not clear that there's any officers placed in front of the vehicle.
- [188:13]
James Stout
So yeah, his foot could have got run over. Maybe if he's like leaning, standing that.
- [188:18]
Garrison Davis
Close to the car, the car may have bumped officers. It does not appear like this man was trying to, quote, unquote, run over the police.
- [188:26]
James Stout
In fact, he was driving away from them.
- [188:28]
Garrison Davis
Yes. The family says that federal agents refused to identify themselves and did not provide a judicial warrant. DHS has refused to answer whether agents had warrants. After the shooting, the driver called the San Bernardino Police Department to report that masked man pulled his car over, broke windows and shot at him and his family. Police came to his house and spoke with the driver, but did not arrest the man because California police cannot legally assist federal agents with immigration enforcement. According to a statement from the police department, DHS made a statement criticizing the police for not taking the driver into custody. Quote, this reckless decision came despite the subject's outright refusal to comply and his wounding of two federal officers.
- [189:10]
Robert Evans
Okay.
- [189:11]
Garrison Davis
Another tragic example of California's pro sanctuary policies that shield criminals instead of protecting communities, unquote.
- [189:19]
Robert Evans
This is what we're calling wounding, huh?
- [189:21]
James Stout
Yeah.
- [189:22]
Garrison Davis
The. The severity of the two officers alleged woundings has not been specified. Now police later returns to the home along with ICE and Homeland Security investigations, but the family did not let them enter as they did not have a warrant. Though police made one non immigration related arrest outside of the home as community members rallied together in support of the family. As of two days ago, the DHS has said that, quote, the suspect remains at large. Jesus Christ.
- [189:53]
James Stout
This is a needless escalation that put people in danger.
- [189:56]
Robert Evans
Like, yeah, what else is there to say though? Like, it's bullshit. This is not an excuse to discharge a weapon. This isn't count as wounding. These people should never have been pulled over in the first place. But you know, we are where we are. This is the way ICE works.
- [190:15]
James Stout
Yeah. Then this will probably happen again, I guess. Like, I'm mildly surprised that San Bernardino police did not Detain the man on suspicion of assaulting a federal agent. Which is something that they could detain him for. Right. It's not an immigration crime.
- [190:29]
Garrison Davis
Yeah.
- [190:29]
James Stout
And that is an extremely broad offense. One doesn't have to know the person is a federal agent, for example. So I guess like rare.
- [190:40]
Garrison Davis
We'll see how this develops.
- [190:41]
James Stout
Yeah.
- [190:41]
Garrison Davis
It's still unclear what's going to happen to this man. Yeah, I'll check for an update next week. A few days before, on Thursday, August 14, a man fleeing an ICE raid at a Home Depot in Monrovia, California was hit in killed while attempting to cross the 210 freeway on foot. Local activists say that during the same raid, ICE hit someone in the leg with one of their vehicles and that person was taken into custody.
- [191:10]
James Stout
This is tragic, right?
- [191:11]
Garrison Davis
Yeah.
- [191:12]
James Stout
The reckless use of vehicles in LA was remarkable and I've covered a good deal of protests in a good deal of places. The use of vehicles in an extremely dangerous way by police was notable. When I was up there covering the protests, I think it was in June, it was something that, it certainly was like very concerning to me. So it would not shock me if people had been hit by an ICE vehicle. But yeah, this is a tragedy. And again like because the stakes are taking everything in someone's life away from them, we are going to see this happen more often, right?
- [191:50]
Garrison Davis
No, it can cause people to do brash or unsafe things like attempt to cross a busy freeway.
- [191:56]
James Stout
Yeah, the 210 is a very busy freeway. Always.
- [191:58]
Garrison Davis
No, it's extremely tragic.
- [192:00]
James Stout
Yeah. This is really sad. So Ed source are reporting that a student out of California, Benjamin Guerrero Cruz, who had just turned 18, just began his senior year of high school, was detained by immigration authorities from walking his daughter dog. One of his former teachers visited him and mentioned that he had overheard. He had told her that he had overheard ICE agents talking about receiving a $1500 bounty for making his arrest.
- [192:30]
Garrison Davis
Yeah, well, like in some promotional videos from DHS and ice, they've been boasting about bonuses not only for, for signing on for this big recruitment drive that they're doing, but also like cash bonuses for immigrants getting arrested and deported. And there's been multiple clips of, of agents like talking about this or like, you know, talking about, I wonder how much of a bonus we're gonna get for these batch of arrests. So this is, this has been something noticed in, in multiple states. I've heard of this in Florida. And this sounds like it's in California you said?
- [192:59]
James Stout
Yeah, California. Yeah.
- [193:01]
Garrison Davis
Yeah. So this is, this is a pattern. And it's not even very glorified bounty hunting, because it's not really glorified, but it's essentially. Essentially bounty hunting.
- [193:10]
Bridget Todd
Yeah.
- [193:10]
James Stout
That might be why we're seeing some of these, like, insane arrests, Right. Of people who would never normally expect to see.
- [193:18]
Garrison Davis
We reported the news, Gar. We reported the news.
- [193:22]
Bridget Todd
We reported the news.
- [193:29]
Robert Evans
Hey, we'll be back Monday with more episodes every week from now until the heat death of the universe.
- [193:35]
Garrison Davis
It Could Happen. Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, Visit our website coolzonemedia.com or check us out on the 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. Iheart presents the Big three Playoffs this Sunday.
- [194:00]
Andrew Sage
The remaining four teams battle to make.
- [194:02]
Garrison Davis
The championship in the most physical, fierce and competitive basketball league in the world.
- [194:05]
James Stout
The action starts with the Big Three.
- [194:07]
Bridget Todd
Monster Energy Celebrity Games.
- [194:08]
Garrison Davis
Then Dwight Howard and his LA Riot take on Montrez Harrell and Dr. J Chicago Triplets.
- [194:13]
Bridget Todd
The finale will see popular Miami 305.
- [194:15]
Garrison Davis
With stars MVP Michael Beasley and Lance Stevenson take on Nancy Lieberman's Dallas Power.
- [194:20]
James Stout
Who will make it to the Big Three championship.
- [194:22]
Garrison Davis
The no holds barred action starts Sunday.
- [194:24]
James Stout
At 3pm Eastern, 12 Pacific only on CBS. There's a viral sickness in AMPAS town.
- [194:33]
Andrew Sage
You must excise it, dig into the deep earth and cut it out from.
- [194:40]
Garrison Davis
Iheart Podcasts and Grim and Mild from Aaron Manke. This is Havoc Town, a new fiction podcast set in the Bridgewater audio universe starring Jewel State and Ray Wise. Listen to Havoc town on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [194:58]
Bridget Todd
Welcome to Pretty Private with Ebony, the podcast where every silence is broken and stories are set free. I'm Ebony and every Tuesday I'll be sharing all new anonymous stories that would challenge your perceptions and give you new insight on the people around you. Every Tuesday, make sure you listen to Pretty Private from the Black Effect Podcast network. Tune in on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. If you're looking for another heavy podcast about trauma, this ain't it. This is for the ones who had to survive and still show up as brilliant, loud, soft and whole. The unwanted sorority is where black women, femmes and gender expansive survivors of sexual violence rewrite the rules on healing, support and what happens after. And I'm your host and co president of this organization, Dr. Lea Tritate. Listen to the unwanted sorority. New episodes every Thursday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart podcast.