Behind the Bastards / It Could Happen Here Weekly 205

Date: October 25, 2025
Podcast: Behind the Bastards (Cool Zone Media & iHeartPodcasts)
Episode: It Could Happen Here Weekly 205

Overview

This compilation episode brings together several recent episodes of the It Could Happen Here podcast, covering key issues of land ownership and resistance (with a deep dive into the history and politics of squatting in England), the current US-Israel-Gaza ceasefire deal and the so-called "20-point peace plan," the economic underpinnings of global steel tariffs (with a focus on China), updates from the US Borderlands under the second Trump administration, and the ongoing spiral into authoritarian and fascistic politics in the US. The tone, as always, is equal parts bleak analysis, dry humor, and dogged commitment to truth-telling—from anarchist, anti-authoritarian, and left-critical viewpoints.

Segment 1: Land Ownership, Squatting, and Resistance to Property ([02:52]–[33:34])

Speakers: Andrew Sage, James Stout, with comments from Robert Evans

Main Points

• The Housing Crisis Today:

  • Housing affordability and security have sharply declined, particularly for younger generations (millennials and Gen Z) ([03:04]).
  • Public spaces and community "hearths" have also been lost to privatization ([03:54]).
  • Ownership is often concentrated among rich elites, corporations, the state, and sometimes literal aristocracies ([03:54]).

• Historical Roots of Property and Domination:

  • Land ownership in its modern form is rooted in violence, conquest, colonialism, slavery, and repression—not peaceful agreement ([06:16]).
  • Laws, armies, and police serve to protect landlords, not ordinary people ([06:28]).
  • “Ownership today is just violence legitimized by law.” – Andrew Sage ([06:30])

• Resistance and Squatting—A Political Tool:

  • Squatting is the natural human impulse to stay and survive where possible, criminalized only relatively recently ([05:32]).
  • Resistance to enclosure and land theft has a long global history—referenced by anarchists and left theorists like Ricardo Flores Magón, Berkman, Kropotkin, Bakunin ([06:28]).

• Economic and Social Consequences:

  • Modern property structures cause massive inefficiencies, idle land, environmental damage, and perpetuate poverty and hunger ([14:03]).
  • Treating land as a speculative asset rather than a common resource leads directly to deprivation.

• History of Squatting as Resistance in England:

  • Examples stretching from resistance to Roman imperialism to the 17th-century Diggers massacred for reclaiming commons ([15:26]).
  • Post-WWII, a massive squatting movement among veterans and working-class families forced the British government to make concessions ([16:30]).
  • Key squatting movements by Bangladeshi immigrants and queer communities in the 1970s-80s, particularly in London (Brixton)—intersectional spaces for survival, solidarity, and organizing ([18:04]).
  • Gentrification and new laws eliminated the golden age of squatting, as neoliberal governments cracked down through the late 20th and early 21st centuries ([22:14]).

• Contemporary Lessons:

  • Squatting is both about material need and political imagination for a world without domination and “absentee landlordism.”
  • The practice exists globally today as a form of mutual aid, collective survival, and resistance—even as states criminalize it ([27:30], [29:11]).

Notable Quotes

• “What we call ownership today is just violence legitimized by law.” – Andrew Sage ([06:30])
• “Direct action solved an issue that their bureaucracy couldn't solve.” – Andrew Sage on postwar UK ([17:46])
• “It's envisioning another world, literally in the ruins of the old world.” – James Stout on Greek squats for migrants ([28:39])
• “The lesson of history is that in times of housing deprivation, people squat the empties.” ([29:11])
• “What is not allowed is still possible.” (Dutch squatting slogan, quoted by Sage) ([29:29])

Segment 2: The “20-Point Peace Plan” for Gaza—Critique and Context ([38:24]–[54:12])

Speaker: Dana Al Kurd

Main Points

• Outline of the Plan:

  • Trump administration, with Tony Blair and Jared Kushner, proposes a heavily US-and-Israel-controlled “peace plan.”
  • Calls for a “demilitarized” Gaza, international security force, and a technocratic Palestinian administration with almost no real authority.
  • "Board of Peace" (run by Trump, Blair, etc.) would oversee this government.
  • Statehood only possible if Palestinians behave, “redevelop,” and “reform” their PA in unspecified ways ([41:33]).

• Deep Problems with the Plan:

  • Absolutely no meaningful Palestinian input.
  • “Reform” of the PA means installing someone acceptable to the US/Israel, not actually democratizing or representing Palestinians ([44:33]).
  • Sets up an “authoritarian conflict management” scenario: compliance, subordination, no rights or negotiation ([47:41]).

• International Law and Hypocrisy:

  • Israel’s leaders—explicitly accused by human rights groups of genocide—face no accountability under this US plan.
  • Massive contrast shown with international processes in Northern Ireland and Yugoslavia (where public buy-in, referendums, and at least partial accountability featured).
  • “A peace process where Palestinians aren't even allowed to participate; no one can be surprised when this doesn't last.” – Dana Al Kurd ([53:55])

Notable Quotes

• “In a fair and just world where international law meant something, there would be consequences for this. Instead, today I want to talk about this plan that's been proposed by the Trump administration…” ([38:38])
• “It looks like reforming the PA doesn't mean all Palestinians will be allowed to participate if limited elections are held…this is a dangerous game to play.” ([46:40])
• “Authoritarian conflict management…means Palestinians wouldn't get the rights they have under international law, the right to self-determination, and it means the occupation in some form doesn't end.” ([49:37])
• “A peace process where Palestinians aren't even allowed to participate; no one can be surprised when this doesn't last.” – Dana Al Kurd ([53:55])

Segment 3: The Political Economy of Global Steel Tariffs—Overcapacity, Blaming China, and Capitalist Crisis ([59:05]–[92:29])

Speaker: Mia Wong

Main Points

• Why All the Steel Tariff Drama?

  • Steel serves as the symbolic battleground for trade wars (US, EU, China).
  • Current and proposed tariffs are escalating (US and EU both talking 50–100%+ tariffs on steel).

• Is China to Blame? A Closer Look:

  • Multiple competing (and usually political/ideological) explanations for supposed “overcapacity” of Chinese steel ([68:14]).
    • Local government officials’ incentives in China lead to GDP-bloating overproduction.
    • Structural issues: wealth inequality reduces internal consumption in China (so less steel is needed productively).
    • Subsidization of state-owned enterprises is real but overemphasized by Western politicians ([68:14]).

• The Deeper Global Crisis:

  • Overcapacity and underconsumption aren’t just a China problem—they’re global, arising from the contradictions of capitalism itself (automation, declining wages, the “immiseration thesis”).
  • Surpluses are universal, not the fault of Chinese policy—a Marxist, systemic critique ([80:42]).
  • Nationalist scapegoating, protectionism, and deflection of blame for capitalism’s woes onto “the other" (e.g. China) is politically expedient but misleading.

• Conclusion:

  • No return to the past (“free trade”) will solve this—only a fundamental restructuring of economic relations, especially the wage relation between owners and workers, has a chance ([91:18]).

Notable Quotes

• “Ownership today is just violence legitimized by law.” – connecting the subjects of land, property, and the global capitalist system ([06:30], thematically echoed here)

• “It is a way of deflecting the blame from capitalism onto another country and using nationalism to paper over the actual economic contradictions of capitalism.” – Mia Wong ([90:58])

Segment 4: Borderlands and the Expansion of the Security State ([97:25]–[129:10])

Speakers: James Stout, Eric Meza (Sierra Club)

Main Points

• Current Border Wall Projects:

  • New stretches of border wall being planned in the Otay Mountain Wilderness and other remote areas of California and Arizona ([98:09]).
  • Massive environmental cost: blasting, destruction of rare ecosystems, barriers to wildlife (e.g., mule deer, mountain lions), desecration of indigenous sacred sites (e.g., Kuchoma/Tecate Mountain) ([100:15],[102:03]).
  • Community input is solicited as a formality; previous experience suggests little will change ([103:36]).

• Double Walls, System Attributes, and Ever-Expanding Militarization:

  • New funding includes plans for “secondary” walls, increased technology and roads—borderlands further militarized ([107:13]).
  • Displacement simply pushes migrants into deadlier, more remote areas, resulting in more deaths and greater environmental harm ([108:07], [109:31]).

• Grassroots and Community Organizing:

  • Resistance and hope persist: community action can at times stop bad projects (e.g., the Arizona shipping container barrier) ([110:51]).
  • Direct action, cross-group solidarity, and local organizing are ways forward.
  • The importance of shifting the “sacrifice zone” narrative about the borderlands and seeing their intrinsic value and beauty ([115:25], [118:25]).

Notable Quotes

• “The loses are much more than the win sometimes. So that can be disheartening. But there have been some glimpses of hope.” – Eric Meza ([110:36])
• “[They] spent $200 million of taxpayers money to build this border wall. We showed up... and those shipping containers are gone right now.” ([111:01])

Segment 5: Executive Disorder Weekly News—Shutdown, ICE, and the Mainstreaming of Fascism ([133:24]–[197:27])

Speakers: Rotating panel—Garrison Davis, Robert Evans, Mia Wong, James Stout

Selected Highlights

Government Shutdown and Food Insecurity ([136:46]–[139:43])

• SNAP benefits for ~40 million Americans set to run out due to ongoing government shutdown.
• Crisis will deepen hunger and may spark instability (“bread riots”) if prolonged ([137:57], [139:09]).

  “If you're looking at predictors of violent instability in countries, mass starvation is top of the list.” – Robert Evans ([139:09])

ICE & Weaponization of Immigration Agencies ([141:41]–[148:24])

• Viral claim that ICE is buying “guided missiles” and “chemical weapons” debunked; mislabeling of equipment contracts (flashbangs, pepper spray).
• Main danger is the swelling of budgets and further militarization of ICE and Border Patrol, not fantasy armaments ([147:54]).

Propaganda, Infiltration, and Authoritarian Crackdown ([164:53]–[170:28])

• White House hosts “antifa roundtable” with figures like Jack Posobiec and Andy Ngo—continuing to frame all dissent as “domestic terrorism.”
• Real risk is ramped-up surveillance, infiltration, and criminalization of ordinary activism and left-wing organizing.
• “Be aware that anything said at something like this...is going to be used to try and destroy people's lives.” – Robert Evans ([166:46])

Young Republican Fascism and the Reaction of GOP Leadership ([187:08]–[192:11])

• Leak exposes New York Young Republicans group chat full of Nazi/fascist rhetoric; Vice President Vance (and many on the online right) downplay or excuse.
• Matt Walsh (Daily Wire): “The right doesn’t stick together. That’s our biggest problem by far...we need to band together in the wake of Charlie's death.” ([190:18])
• Shapiro splits from Walsh over antisemitism, but the fascist entryism into the GOP is clear: “These are just Nazis. And every time one of these group chats comes out, it looks like this.” – Mia Wong ([192:56])

News in Brief: Tariffs, Marines’ 250th, Plutocrats & Nuclear Power, Alaska Disaster Relief ([154:13] forward)

• Trade war updates: tit-for-tat tariffs on China, rare earth metal export bans, port fee hikes, and spiraling instability in global trade.
• Marines’ 250th celebration features meme music and artillery accident.
• Alaska Native villages devastated by climate disaster; direct action funds are needed ([194:40]).

  “It's an example of decades of ignoring the voices of indigenous people...when they tell us that the climate crisis is real and that it's already here.” ([195:13])

Conclusion & Overall Themes

• The episode weaves together economic, historical, and political themes: land and home as the foundation of life; squatting, mutual aid, collective struggle against dispossession; the dangers of endemic capitalist crisis and how nationalism is used to obscure them; and the escalating dangers of white supremacist authoritarianism undermining democracy and civil society.
• The hosts continually point out the necessity of community solidarity, bottom-up organizing, and direct action in the face of deepening crisis and state repression.

Additional Notable Quotes

• “The housing crisis...is particularly generational...for our generation compared to the previous generation in terms of housing security.” – James Stout ([03:24])
• “Slavery may have been formally abolished, but we still find it in the prison system. Serfdom may have been formally abolished, but we still find it in...the way that people are tied down by debt.” – Andrew Sage ([09:41])
• “People lack a right to land they don't use. Absentee landlordism...can be rejected outright.” – Andrew Sage ([31:04])

Links & Resources

• Border Wall Resistance and Sierra Club Borderlands
• [Alaska Native Village Recovery Fund – see show notes for link]
• Crimethink: Article on Squatting

For detailed segment timestamps and speaker attributions, see within each section above. This summary omits advertisements and non-content materials.