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- [00:00]
Andrew Sage
This is an iHeart podcast.
- [00:05]
Garrison Davis
What's that sound?
- [00:06]
Andrew Sage
That's the sound of Downy Unstoppable scent beads going into your washing machine and giving your clothes freshness that lasts all day long.
- [00:13]
Michael Palberg
There it is again.
- [00:14]
Andrew Sage
It's like music to your ears. Or more like music to your nose. That freshness is irresistible.
- [00:21]
Elaine
Let's get a Downy Unstoppables bottle shake.
- [00:24]
Andrew Sage
And now a sniff solo.
- [00:28]
Finn
Nice.
- [00:28]
Andrew Sage
With Downy Unstoppables, you just toss wash. Wow.
- [00:32]
Elaine
For all day freshness, Johnny Knoxville here.
- [00:36]
Finn
Check out Crimeless Hillbilly Heist, my new.
- [00:38]
Elaine
True crime podcast from Smartless Media, Campside.
- [00:41]
Finn
Media and big money players. It's the true story of the almost perfect crime and the nimrods who almost pulled it off. It was kind of like the perfect.
- [00:50]
Michael Palberg
Storm in a sewer.
- [00:51]
Garrison Davis
That was dumb.
- [00:52]
Giselle Bryant
Do not follow my example.
- [00:56]
Finn
Listen to Crimeless Hillbilly Heist on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.
- [01:08]
Giselle Bryant
The murder of an 18 year old girl in Graves County, Kentucky went unsolved for years until a local housewife, a journalist and a handful of girls came forward with a story.
- [01:21]
Garrison Davis
America, y' all better wake the hell up. Bad things happens to good people and small towns.
- [01:33]
Giselle Bryant
Listen to Graves county on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to binge the entire season ad free, subscribe to Lava for Good plus on Apple Podcasts.
- [01:47]
Michael Palberg
Hey, I'm Kyle McLaughlin. You might know me as that guy.
- [01:50]
Garrison Davis
From Twin Peaks, Sex and the City.
- [01:52]
Andrew Sage
Or just the Internet stand.
- [01:53]
Michael Palberg
I have a new podcast called what.
- [01:56]
Garrison Davis
Are We Even Doing? Where I embark on a noble quest.
- [02:00]
Elaine
To understand the brilliant chaos of youth culture.
- [02:03]
Garrison Davis
Each week I invite someone fascinating to join me to talk about navigating this.
- [02:08]
James Stout
High speed rollercoaster we call reality.
- [02:11]
Garrison Davis
Join me and my delightful guests every Thursday and let's get weird together in a good way. Listen to what are we even doing on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [02:27]
James Stout
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 gonna be nothing new here for you, but you can make your own decisions.
- [02:52]
Garrison Davis
Hi everyone and welcome to It Could Happen Here. Uh, it's a very special roundtable podcast today where we're Going to discuss the United States ongoing campaign of bombing small boats in the Caribbean. I'm joined by Michael Palberg, an associate professor of political science at Virginia Commonwealth University and a fellow at the center for National Policy.
- [03:15]
James Stout
Hi, Michael.
- [03:15]
Garrison Davis
Thanks for joining us.
- [03:16]
Michael Palberg
Hi, thanks for having me.
- [03:18]
Garrison Davis
And Andrew is also here. Listeners of the show will be familiar with Andrew's work. He joins us very often, but in this instance, Andrew is talking as someone who is from Trinidad and Tobago, which of course is very much being impacted by this. Hey, Andrew.
- [03:33]
Andrew Sage
Hey. What's going on?
- [03:34]
Garrison Davis
Not much. Well, let's talk about what's going on because something quite substantial is going on. What's going on is that the United States is carrying out a campaign of drone strikes against small vessels in the Caribbean. As far as we know, There have been seven strikes. At least 32 people have been killed. Two people have been detained and then repatriated, and a number of vessels have been struck. The US it's bringing its war on terrorism logic to the Western Hemisphere. It's claiming that it's fighting narco terrorism and it's claiming that these boats are, for the most part carrying Venezuelan nationals coming out of Venezuela. We've heard from Colombia that one Colombian national has been killed. The two people who were detained were Ecuadorian and Colombian. Two Trinidadian or Trinidad and Tobago nationals have been killed as well. And this has sparked something of a. Well, it was a war of words. Now it seems to be a war of more than that, like tariffs and sanctions. And I believe Colombia has withdrawn their diplomats from D.C. as of today or yesterday. So it sparked significant political turmoil in the Western Hemisphere. I think we have a really good panel to talk about that. So to begin with, I guess we should start. Michael, can you explain the accusation here? Right. Is that these people are members of Trend Aragua or potentially some other cartels that the Trump administration likes to talk about. Look, we've talked about the prevalence of those groups, but can you explain very briefly what they are and I suppose the function that they have in Venezuela or what, what they're doing there versus what's being claimed that they're doing?
- [05:21]
Michael Palberg
Sure. I do research on organized crime in Latin America, and reindeeragua is a real organized criminal group in Venezuela and now all over Latin America. It is a street gang that started out as a prison gang. It does not primarily engage in international drug trafficking, moving large quantities of drugs across national borders or across oceans. It is primarily engaged in human trafficking and extortion rackets. And it primarily follows the Venezuelan diaspora, people who have left Venezuela. And at this point, it's an incredible 20% of the population over the last 10 years, over Maduro's presidency. So nearly 8 million people wherever they go. And they, they take advantage of them. They extort them for money. They will also take money to move them across borders. But they're not a cartel in the way that we traditionally think about cartels like the Sinalo cartel or some of the Colombian cartels that are engaged in international cocaine trafficking. And so it's highly unlikely that if the Trump administration is striking boats that they claim to be vessels transporting cocaine or fentanyl, which is not made in Venezuela, it's primarily made in Mexico using precursor chemicals from China. And increasingly it's actually made in the United States. Given that it's a entirely synthetic drug, that's possible. And Venezuela, of course, is not one of the countries where coca is grown and therefore cocaine comes from. If they are indeed striking drug boats, then they probably wouldn't be Trinidad agua. And if they're striking boats with Trinidad agua, they would be most likely striking migrant smuggling vessels, in which case the death count would likely be much higher.
- [07:10]
Garrison Davis
Yeah, yeah. So we should talk about the other Caribbean nations now, I guess want to talk about Trinidad and Tobago, but we should probably cover Colombia first. Right. Because we've seen significant pushback from Petro, President of Colombia, and then we've recently seen the President of the United States accuse Petro, who is again President of Colombia, of being a drug trafficker himself, which is fairly ludicrous claim on the face of it. But let's talk about Petro because he has some, some background in opposition to organized crime and drug smuggling, actually.
- [07:44]
James Stout
Right.
- [07:44]
Garrison Davis
Like he's, he's been in this for a while. Can you explain a little bit of his career and then his recent stances?
- [07:51]
Michael Palberg
Yeah. So Petro is a mercurial figure in Colombian politics, has been for a long time. He is known for starting his career as a guerrilla with a minor anti government guerrilla movement called the M19 movement. Now, this is the movement which, I don't know, maybe Western audiences are familiar with from the Netflix series Narcos, for having participated carried out the palace of justice siege at the Colombian Supreme Court, which was a major disaster in which the Colombian military went in guns blazing, to rescue hostages, Supreme Court justices and other people just employed in the palace of Justice. And most everyone died in a fire as a result. Petro was not involved in that operation. As far as anyone knows. He was not involved in innate violent confrontations. And this organization, unlike the FARC and the eln, never really got on the cocaine money train and therefore didn't last as long as those other organizations did. They did demobilize. They did turned to peaceful politics. And Petro began his political career at the local level, Mayor of Bogota, and then eventually reached the presidency. So he is someone with a long political career and does have a constituency, does have a base. And he is the first truly left wing leader of Colombia, a country that has been famously both ruled by the right and also very closely allied to the US. It's really the US's top ally in Latin America. Well, in South America, at least specifically on security, given Plan Colombia and a long history of the US giving as much as $10 billion over time to beef up Colombia's counterinsurgency and counter narcotics fights on our behalf.
- [09:44]
Garrison Davis
Yet to accuse the President of being a drug crafter is fairly ludicrous. Like he's been like even in his time as a senator. Right. He was like, I think he was chairing some investigations or committees that looked at drug smuggling, if I remember correctly.
- [09:59]
Finn
Yeah.
- [10:00]
Michael Palberg
And so I would say Petro has been very critical of the war on drugs approach generally, but he does still inherit this long standing deep relationship with the United States. And he's not exactly a full on peacenik when it comes to his own internal security. He did come it off as promising what he called total peace, a platform that was meant to put an end to all armed insurgencies in the country by making a deal with the remaining combatant groups, namely the eln, the dissident BAR guerrillas, those who did not agree to the peace deal signed by Santos in 2016. And what's in different terms called the Clan Del Golfo or the agc, the Guy Thomas Self Defense Forces, but one of the largest national narco paramilitary group that descends from the old auc. And he has failed in that. And talks have broken off with those other armed groups. Colombia has kind of gone back to war against them. The ELN has engaged in some pretty horrific violence, including a suicide car bombing, police barracks, and the distant FARC as well, taking down a, a helicopter and a drone attack. So there has been a return to fairly high level, you know, armed insurgency in, in Colombia, even if it's nowhere near the level it was from the late 90s and early 2000s.
- [11:31]
Garrison Davis
Right? Yeah. And all of this is happening in the Caribbean, which is not a, not a vast ocean.
- [11:37]
James Stout
Right.
- [11:38]
Garrison Davis
Like it's not a massive area of space. And Andrew and I were talking about before we recorded this has impacted other Caribbean nations, nations which, like, are not the target of the Trump administration's aggression, but nonetheless are being subjected to it. Do you want to talk, Andrew? Trinidad and Tobago is in a particularly. I don't know if interesting is the right word. It's not a great situation. Right. Because Trinidadian people are being killed. At least two.
- [12:06]
Andrew Sage
Indeed.
- [12:08]
Garrison Davis
And the government is apparently completely unconcerned with this.
- [12:12]
Andrew Sage
Yes, I suppose I should provide some context. So there have been seven strikes to date, and the fifth strike resulted in the deaths of two fishermen from the village of Las Cuevas in Tirana, Tobago, being claimed among the victims. The government of has not made a statement about it, and the families have not really been contacted or provided any sort of support. Now, for those who are listening, who may not know where Trinidad and Tobago is, it is an independent twin island republic in the Caribbean, and it's actually geographically an extension of South America. There's a gulf that separates it, but it's about 11 kilometers away from Venezuela itself. And our elections that took place this year led to the removal of the incumbent party and the return of the United National Congress, the political party led by Kamala Passad, possessor, claiming the government in a sweep, a landslide, really. But despite that landslide, it wasn't really the result of popular support for the United National Congress. It was more so the lack of support for the previous party, the People's National Movement, which lost, I believe 200,000 or so of their usual voters, just didn't show up to vote for them this election. So the opposition party came into power when the opposition party was in the opposition. They in many ways appeared to just oppose for opposing sake. They were in power previously from 2010 to 2015, but they were voted out due to, among other things, corruption. And since then, the party has further evolved into a sort of personality cult centered around kamalpasarba Sesso. And her politics have also evolved in that time to align further and further toward the United States position. She's become something of a Trump, Stan. You know, she was kind of toeing his line on a lot of issues. She supported Guaido, Juan Guaido, as the president of Venezuela and actually went so far while she was an opposition leader to call on the United States to sanction Trinidad and Tobago after the vice president of Venezuela had made a visit to the country to meet with the then Prime Minister, Keith Rowley. So she has made her pro Washington stance clear for a very long time. And as she's come into power, she has diverted Our alignment with our regional bloc, the Caribbean Community, caricom and their call for the Caribbean to remain a zone of peace. And emphasized her continued endorsement for the US Military's deployment outside of Venezuela's territorial waters. But still very much belligerent in her approach to this issue. You know, we have gone from a state that was respected as a non aligned entity that was able to approach various diplomatic partners from the US To China to the EU to India to Venezuela as well. And we've gone from that sort of diplomatic approach to a very clear pro west stance that has really alienated us from the rest of the region and really placed us almost in the position of being a satellite state for US Policy. You know, she's been inviting the US Military, if they want to base their operations out of Trinidad. She has opened our doors to that. She has called for the US to kill them all violently, extrajudicially, and stated that she is perfectly aligned with what the US Is doing in the region despite its flagrant violations of international law.
- [16:13]
Garrison Davis
Yeah, as you said earlier, the them in this instance includes at least two of her own citizens.
- [16:20]
Andrew Sage
Yeah. And I will say that this sort of zone of peace designation for the Caribbean, it is something that I would. This is my personal opinion consideration, more of a hopeful ideal rather than a reality. You know, the trafficking that takes place in the region does visit a lot of violence upon people is, you know, by no means in reality a zone of peace. Even before the U.S. s actions in the region. However, though we may not fit that postcard perfect perception of, you know, tropical paradise, it is still necessary, I think, for us to stand in solidarity as a region, to speak with one voice when it comes to these issues. Especially as our continued existence depends on the observation of international law, the respect for the UN Charter. As small islands, our safety is really in numbers. And for the Prime Minister to deviate from that solidarity in such a blatant way, it's really quite sad. But it shouldn't come as a surprise because there have been efforts by the US to divide Caricom in the past. During his first term, Trump had pulled some Caricom countries into the Lima Group, which was a US promoted coalition of right wing Kuffmonts that was pushing for regime change in Venezuela. And he's now doing the same thing with trying to get some Caricom governments to facilitate his actions toward Venezuela. They approached Grenada recently to try and get Grenada's assistance in basing a satellite there on the island. And it's really ironic that they would Approach Grenada, which is also quite close to Venezuela because Grenada was famously one of the countries that the United States invaded in October of 1983.
- [18:23]
Garrison Davis
Yeah, I think, I know I say this a lot, but if you've listened to the song Washington Bullets by the Clash and then you go to the border, you can kind of join up all the people from all the countries mentioned there and the outcome of US Policy and what that does to migration over time. We should talk about the Venezuelan opposition, I guess. Michael, would you give. I've done a pretty in depth discussion of Venezuela, a place where I have spent a decent amount of time. Like I, I wanted to, to see that revolution myself when I was like 19 and I was, you know, studying political science. I wanted to see what this, this, like Pink Tide was about. And I have reported a lot on Venezuelan migrants, people who are new to the show. I guess the series I did from the Darien camp would be where I would point you for my discussion of Venezuela and Venezuelan people. I still speak to people of Venezuela almost every day, but I think people could do, Michael, with like a, like a high level overview of the Venezuelan opposition. I guess we can talk about the Nobel Prize as well, which, despite what Donald Trump is saying, was not awarded to him this year.
- [19:40]
Michael Palberg
Yeah. So the big news is that Maria Corinne Machado, who is the leader of the Venezuelan opposition as we as we know it today, was awarded the Nobel Prize, which was a bit of a surprise. And from a very US Centric analysis, one idea that has been floated is that the Nobel Committee didn't want to award Trump the prize, but thought that maybe awarding it to an ally of Trump would be a way to mollify Trump also possibly to encourage him to take a more peaceful approach at a time that the US Is threatening armed intervention in some way in Venezuela, whether that is a counter narcotics operation or more likely a regime change operation of some kind, even though it's very unclear how they would get to regime change from blowing up votes or even blowing up people.
- [20:30]
Garrison Davis
Maybe we should pause and talk about regime change, actually, because I like. It's such a problematic idea.
- [20:36]
Andrew Sage
Right.
- [20:37]
Garrison Davis
We have attempted regime changes. My career for the last several years has been reporting on the United States failed attempts to facilitate regime change all over the world. Right. Like it's not something we're very good at. I don't think that the United States is going to invade. Maybe you think differently, but I think we probably agree that the United States is unlikely to do like an Iraq style invasion of Venezuela. Could you explain Why? I suppose just for people who think that that's what's happening in the Caribbean at the moment with this concentration of forces.
- [21:14]
Michael Palberg
Well, it's unlikely to happen because Vex was a very large country and it would take a lot more troops than what are currently deployed, which is approaching 10,000 now. But that's actually, that includes all sorts of logistical support. The actual fighting force, the Marine Expeditionary Unit is actually much smaller. I lived in Panama as a kid and I was not old enough to be there for the invasion, but I lived there some years after that. That's probably the closest analog to this, at least the way that the Trump administration is promoting this, which is to say a regime change operation that is disguised as a counternarcotics operation. Famously, Noriega was, it was not a war, it was an arrest of a foreign leader who was indeed involved in drug trafficking. And we knew that because he was literally a CIA asset whose drug trafficking was, was being protected as long as he was allied with the US against Cuban backed rebel groups in, in Central America. But at some point later he became too much of embarrassment for the US was genuinely a brutal guy, pulled off the torch of murder of Bugas Barapura, all sorts of nasty things. But the big difference is at that time and when I lived there, the US had multiple military bases in Panama. Panama was the headquarters of the U.S. southern Command, the Western hemisphere headquarters of the pentagon. We had 13,000 troops already there, ready to go. I think they doubled that for the invasion, which was officially termed Operation Just Cause, originally called Operation Blue Spoon, but they had to come up with a sexier name. And of course, Panama is a tiny country and Venezuela is 20 times larger than Panama.
- [22:57]
Garrison Davis
Yeah, it's fast, so it's very odd.
- [22:59]
Michael Palberg
It's obviously they have deployed many more troops and a much larger fleet than is necessary for a counternarcotics operation. Incidentally, it's the US Coast Guard that carries out counternarcotics interdictions and does it very effectively and incidentally does it with the cooperation of other countries which coordinate intelligence or just simply surveillance of suspicious ships or boats or planes and tip off the, the U.S. coast Guard. Even the Cuban government does that. In fact, it's the Coast Guard that is the US Agency that has the, the best relationships with Cuba. It's oftentimes diplomacy kind of starts with, with the Coast Guard's ties with Cuba. But anyway, that aside, it doesn't make sense from a counternarcotics standpoint because look, if you actually wanted to break up a cartel what do you do? I mean, if you are a prosecutor, investigator, right, you capture the smugglers, you seize the cargo, the contraband, which is evidence, then you try to flip them up for immunity for whoever your real targets are. Maybe your target is Maduro or someone else in the regime, but you can't do that when you kill everyone on the boat. Yeah, right. And I think the fact that in, I think the latest boat strike, they didn't manage to kill everyone and a couple of them got away. And then the US Rather than charge them with a crime, they just turn them back around.
- [24:24]
Garrison Davis
Yeah.
- [24:24]
Michael Palberg
And you would think that if the US Is so certain that the people on those boats are drug trafficking terrorists that they want to kill them, then you'd think they would have enough evidence to charge them, to prosecute them, but apparently not. So this is all to say the idea that this is a counternarcotics operation doesn't hold up. Clearly it is meant to be more of a regime change operation, but again, I don't see how the one leads to the other. I believe that Trump thinks that if he just saber rattles a little bit and possibly tries some decapitation strikes the way that the US did on Soleimani in Iran, that somehow the regime is going to collapse. And that does not make any sense. Maduro has surrounded himself with security, a lot of it, including Recubin advisors. He keeps his whereabouts very secret. Even if somehow they were to drone strike him, it's not as if the regime as a whole would fall because it is an extremely militarized regime that is upheld by the armed forces who are not going to break with him because they have a hand in every lucrative business, both legal and illegal, in Venezuela. They're not going to be paid off or directly swayed by a bounty that is currently, what, something like $50 million? I mean, there are people around Maduro that have made upwards of $1 billion in oil rents. So it's not like you can pay off people to betray him either.
- [25:55]
Garrison Davis
Yeah, and it's not. Nor is it like a cult of personality situation, like certainly not now. Chavez had something of a sort of charism leadership role, but Maduro is not that. So let's talk about the opposition in Venezuela in so much as, like, I guess, if we go back to the election last year. Right, let's start with the election and explain to people what happened there and the subsequent sort of avenues that are now open or the avenues of that opposition is now exploring, if that's okay.
- [26:26]
Michael Palberg
There was an election, quote, unquote that took place last year. It was brokered largely by the us. The US under the Biden administration, was pushing for some kind of negotiations between the opposition. The Venezuelan government. They convinced enough people in the opposition to stand for elections under what was called the Barbados Agreement in 2023. And this was meant to be an exchange of partial lifting the sectoral sanctions that have been in place on Venezuela for a long time, in which the Trump administration, the first Trump administration really tightened in exchange for the Maduro government agreeing to stand for elections. And those elections happened last year. It was pretty clear from pre electoral surveys and from exit polls and from the vote returns that were coming in at the time that the opposite to Canada was going to win by an enormous March, about a 35 point margin. The candidate was officially Edmundo Gonzalez, but he was candidate mostly because Maria Cornelia Machado, the now Nobel Prize laureate, was barred from running. So she gave her blessing to Gonzalez to be basically her proxy and people were more or less voting for both of them, so to speak, but both he and her are much more popular. Maduro, who by all accounts is an extremely unpopular leader, especially in contrast to, as you said, Hugo Chavez, who for all his faults was a genuinely charismatic leader. And you know, he did stand for elections and win them, you know, pretty convincingly. Incidentally, oil, the price of oil was about $100 a barrel when he was president and he was able to spend a lot on social programs. But that aside, yeah, that helps. Maduro is pretty, pretty unpopular at this point. He is pretty widely seen as both a tyrant and also quite incompetent at managing basic state services. So he was going to lose unless he stole the election, which he did. The, the cne, the, the Venezuelan Election board announced that he had won with just 51% of the vote, which is, I have to say, I give him credit for being subtle. I expected them to announce that he had won with like 99% of the vote.
- [28:35]
Garrison Davis
Yeah. And a sad margin.
- [28:37]
Michael Palberg
Yeah, yeah. No one believed it. And I have to say one of my critiques of the Biden administration is that I think the whole thing was rather naive. I think they calculated that somehow Maduro would let himself be voted out of office. Maduro is, we talked about, under a bounty, has a bounty on his head. Many people in the US politics in the us, Republicans in particular, have promised that they're going to send him to jail. So why would someone in that position, you know, give up power? I think, you know, he saw what happened to Gaddafi and he's you know, he doesn't want to be jailed or killed. And at the same time, the, the stick part of the Karaton stick mechanism was that they would simply go back to the sanctions that existed before, which was called a snapback. And these are sanctions that the Venezuelan government has weathered for many, many years. So it's not really that much of a disincentive. So anyway, everyone basically admits at this point that he stole the election, but what are you going to do about it? The opposition, for its part, has taken different approaches to how to confront him and is famously very divided. The Venezuelan opposition has never really been on the same page. They've never really had an uncontested leader. Maria Cornelia Machado is about the closest they have had, but she herself really represents more one wing of the opposition. The more, you might say hardline wing. For a long time, there was a hardline wing personified by Lopez, and there was a more, I don't know if you call it soft line or liberal or just more willing to talk to the regime wing led by Capriles, who ran against Maduro in the first election. And it's even within those factions there are. There are competing personalities. A lot of it really is more personal than ideological. But Marie Corne Machado, she is on the right politically. She styles herself after Margaret Thatcher. She is also, I will give her credit for this, a very good organizer. She has famously kind of gone into communities that have historically voted with the Chavista left and convinced many people to. To leave that coalition. And also to her credit, you know, I would say she is a very brave person. She has remained in the country at a time that many most opposition leaders, including Amado Gonzalez, have fled the country.
- [30:49]
Garrison Davis
Yeah.
- [30:50]
Michael Palberg
And she's been in hiding. She knows that the regime would arrest, if not kill her at its soonest opportunity. Yet she still shows up unannounced at events, at rallies and, and makes speeches. So she has achieved this kind of mythic figure. And this is something that obviously is only going to grow with the Nobel Prize. So then the question is, what will this Nobel do? I think that one calculation is that it'll simply keep her alive. You know, it'll be much harder for the Maduro government to kill her if, you know, if they would be killing a Nobel laureate. So that may buy her a little bit more time.
- [31:26]
Garrison Davis
The hunter and me and my trying to best them on the first one to kill a Nobel laureate, I guess.
- [31:31]
Michael Palberg
Right, right. Yeah. But will it bring peace? I'm not so sure because Mary Gordon Machado has also been very closely allied and supportive of the Trump administration, and her side of the opposition has been encouraging the military strikes, backing sanctions, even though the sanctions both have done nothing to dislodge Maduro and also contribute to a great deal of suffering for the Venezuelan people. And I have to say, look, I'm not Venezuelan. I have no right to give the Venezuelan opposition advice. I would say that if they have tried multiple elections, you know, at least two of which have been stolen, if they have tried, you know, you might say more democratic means, and nothing has happened, I can understand why many people would think that a more radical approach is the only option left on the table. However, that approach hasn't done anything either. You know, sanctions have not dislodged Maduro. Blowing up boats of possible drug traffickers, maybe just fishermen, has not done anything. I think that nothing appears likely to lead to regime change, but I can understand the desperation of people living under what is broadly acknowledged to be an extremely repressive regime.
- [32:42]
Garrison Davis
Yeah. And just the grinding poverty of everyday life in Venezuela is so, like, I've heard so many stories from so many people of such a difficult existence there. I can, I can understand people's desperation, Andrew. You know, it's spoken about like, like the, the gulf between the government of Trinidad and Tobago and the people of Trinidad and Tobago right now. And obviously the same is true in Venezuela. Right. Like, it's not. It's not the opposition figures living in Spain who suffer when we have these sanctions. Right. It's not opposition candidates who get blown up when they go fishing. It's regular working class Venezuelan people.
- [33:28]
Andrew Sage
Yeah.
- [33:29]
Garrison Davis
So do you want to talk about, like, I'm not even sure what we can do in, in by way of solidarity with either of these nations, but maybe you have some thoughts on that?
- [33:38]
Andrew Sage
I'm honestly at something of a loss myself. Speaking from a small island, I think the US's superpower status is almost akin to an eldritch horror. It feels like it's unfathomable how you could even go about approaching that at times. You know, I try to remind myself that people have fought and won. You know, people have resisted and won. You know, currently there isn't that much going on. There are mumas. There are mummers of fear, of disdain, of disagreement, of distrust in terms of grassroots efforts. There's a lot still to be done. The leader of the Movement for Social justice, which is a small, progressive political party in Trinidad and Tobago, is a guy named David Abdullah, and he has been part of this assembly of Caribbean people who have been signing and issuing a declaration reasserting our desire for peace. And that has been signed by various progressive organizations, social movements, and figures across the Caribbean. And there was also an effort last week, Thursday, that's October 16th, to organize a region wide day of action in defense of the Caribbean. And so different actions were taking place all over in 15 countries. We had press conferences, we had statements, and we had pickets at certain US embassies and public demonstrations. It was kind of in the middle of the day on a Thursday, so there wasn't that big of a turnout from what I saw when I had gone. But it shows that there is. And from the at least anecdotal experience, there is a desire to keep the US out of this situation. You know, despite the issues with the Venezuelan government, despite the issues with our own governments, we don't want intervention, you know, and right now all we can really, Levy, is our voices, you know, our words. And all we can really do, I think besides protest what is going on is prepare for the worst to ensure that we have, you know, certain support systems in place in case, you know, push comes to shove.
- [35:55]
Garrison Davis
Yeah, that's pretty bleak. Michael, do you have anything to add on, like how people can, can be in solidarity with the people of Venezuela currently?
- [36:04]
Michael Palberg
Well, I been calling for people broadly throughout the world to have solidarity more with people than with states, and certainly with the Venezuelan people as opposed to the Venezuelan state. I wrote something for the center for International Policy about this. And listen, you know, it's not my place to police the left, so to speak. But you know, as someone speaking personally, who comes from the labor movement, you know, comes from the Bernie allied left, so to speak. You know, I do think it's been a little bit uncomfortable to observe how certain elements of the global left have, have stood up for the Maduro regime, or at the very least been. The criticism of it has been taboo. And I think a lot of that is legacy of Chavez, Chavez having this strong personal charisma, but also that he was willing to confront the United States, the Bush administration, at a time of the Iraq War, especially low point in the US's global reputation. Also Venezuela's oil rents at the time, which were financing a lot of, not just social programs in Venezuela, but a lot of financial largesse to allied states and movements around the region. So a lot of left parties kind of reflexively defended Maduro even as his repression and mismanagement just ramped up. I will say that's fading. You know, we were Seeing this within Latin America, first of all, there's kind of a generational divide. And some of the older generation Latin American left, like Lula or like Petro, have not been overwhelmingly anti Maduro, but have expressed skepticism about the electoral results. But then there's a younger generation, such as Boric and Chile, Chile and are in Guatemala, who have been openly very critical of Maduro and want to just not let him or his camp, so to speak, define what it means to be on the left. And really, the only countries that have unquestionably backed him at this point are Bolivia and Cuba, but also outside of the region, Russia, Iran, China. So I think that we should ask ourselves, like, who do we think is a more credible arbiter of progressive values? Is it origin Chile or is it Putin? You know, even, even the Communist part of Venezuela? No longer.
- [38:21]
Garrison Davis
Yeah, yeah, that's one of my favorite facts.
- [38:23]
Michael Palberg
You know, like he has, he has had their, their militants killed, you know, allegedly as well. So it's just, it's not helpful to view the world in this campus lens. You know, I think that if people, whether they identify as on the left or, or whatever, want to show solidarity, I think it should be with the Venezuelan people, which means listening to voices within civil society. In Venezuela, there are a lot of NGOs, there are a lot of labor unions, there are a lot of human rights advocates that are not opposition parties that are not running for office. They're not necessarily calling for regime change, many of them very critical of sanctions, but they have tried to push for better changes, quality of life reforms that might lead to less repression, open up more space for civil society. And those things are necessary when people are really living day by day. And I think that if people on the left want to play the long game and understand, care about their prospects of the future, they need to understand that the Maduro regime is the worst model for them to be associated with. And this has already been taking place with electoral campaigns around Latin America where candidates on the right run against the boogeyman of chavismo, of a Maduro model. And it makes sense. And a lot of people on the left are very skeptical of Maria Corgi Machado. I have skepticism about some of her policy platforms of privatization and other neoliberal ideas. They also shouldn't be surprised if there's been a decade of people being told that this model of corruption, authoritarianism, state terror, criminal insecurity, that's what socialism is, then people are going to believe that, and then they're going to, then they're vote against whatever that is. And this model has provoked, you know, the greatest refugee crisis certainly in the region. 8 million people. They're all carrying with them stories about why they left. Right. And so if there ever were to be democratic elections in Venezuela, it's pretty clear the country would turn to the right. And I don't think we should be surprised by that. You know, and I think we should also recognize that many of the things that Maduro embodies, these strong man politics are things that are embodied by other strong men, not just on the left too. You know, I would just point out that at least according to some, Trump has privately expressed a lot of admiration for Maduro. I read John Bolton's book, former national security advisor. You know, maybe he has a lot of reasons to lie, but, you know, he did say that Trump privately expressed a lot of admiration for Maduro being, in his words, too smart and too tough to be overthrown. You know, was, was really happy to see him by what he called all these good looking generals. He disparaged Juan Guaido. Calling him the Beto o' Rourke of Venezuela means, you know, so I think that there is, there's something to be said about strong men recognizing strongmen. And a lot of these authoritarian lessons are not limited to one side of the ideological spectrum.
- [41:27]
Garrison Davis
Yeah, definitely. I find that tendency on the American left, on the sort of Internet left, to be massively frustrating. Like, as someone who went there to see the revolution, who like went there to understand it, and who spent masses of time with Venezuelan people in the Darien Gap in the border in Venezuela. Like, I'm very fond of Venezuelan people and I think, yeah, our solidarity should be with them, not with some strong man state. We saw this in, in Syria as well.
- [41:58]
Michael Palberg
Right.
- [41:58]
Garrison Davis
Like, it is heartbreaking, genuinely heartbreaking to explain to people how someone who identifies as a leftist is also denying that their children were gassed by chemical weapons in Syria. Right. This campus gray zone tendency on the American left specifically is incredibly toxic. And anybody who seriously considers themselves to be a leftist is massively undermining any credibility they have when they associate themselves with regimes which willingly murder their own people. I would like to see people stop doing that. Perhaps both of you could finish up by suggesting U.S. coverage of this has not been great. Right. It tends to focus on the United States very much and Venezuela kind of appears as a monolith ethic entity. Trinidad and Tobago rarely gets any coverage in the US Media. I did see, I think Reuters or AP had done a piece about how Fishermen are reluctant to go out. I would like to see more of that kind of reporting. Perhaps both of you could suggest a couple of. Of sources where people could. Could read about this.
- [43:03]
Andrew Sage
Sure. At least on my end, I suggest looking into our local news. Now, it's not the best source in terms of actual interrogation of the issues and the ways in which the. Some of the narratives just kind of get repeated uncritically. But you do get at least the occasional interview, the occasional quote from a non US State Department source. I would also suggest on Instagram there are a couple pages that bring a more radical, progressive voice from the Caribbean. There's a page called Vintage Caribbean and there's another page called Trinbago for Palestine. And both of those have been doing a lot of coverage on this particular incident lately. So you can look to those as well if you want to get a sort of a grassroots take on the situation.
- [43:57]
Michael Palberg
Yeah, I don't really have any. Go to sources on this. I would say that it's enough of an international incident that all the major news sources are covering it. So you can read really any news source in Latin America if you speak Spanish, Portuguese, and see how that recording is different. Also, incidentally, El Pais in Spain, you know, clone those on the side. They do pretty good reporting.
- [44:18]
James Stout
Yeah.
- [44:18]
Michael Palberg
And they've been doing pretty good reporting. And there's lots of blogs as well and, you know, newsletters that you can check out. I will say just made this. I'm biased because I focus a lot on crime. The site Insight Crime is pretty good in terms of looking into specific criminal groups like Renderagua and calling to question if, you know, if this really is something that is controlled by the puppet master from Miraflores like Maduro and some of these narratives that are justifying this. I'd also, just as a recommendation, I would say maybe we should be a little bit skeptical too, about the timing and the purposes of these things. I did point out in a piece that I wrote for the center for International Policy that the first boat strike happened on the same day that the House Judiciary Committee was releasing a redacted number of files related to the Jeffrey Epstein case. And I think that there are many reasons why this administration would like to use this confrontation as a convenient distraction from other things that they would rather not be talking about.
- [45:22]
Garrison Davis
Yeah, leak. I think it's probably a reasonable conclusion given where we're at. Where can people find both of you? If they want to follow you online on social media or find more of your writing? We'll start with you Andrew.
- [45:36]
Andrew Sage
Sure. Well you can find me on my YouTube channel, YouTube.com andrezone or you can just go to my website for all my other links. Andrewsage.org how about you Michael?
- [45:46]
Michael Palberg
I do have a website. You can look up my name and that should come up. I haven't updated it recently. I probably should. I'm also on Twitter X bluesky as my name. M P A A R L B E R G so you can look me up there.
- [46:02]
James Stout
Great.
- [46:03]
Garrison Davis
Well thank you very much Beth.
- [46:04]
Andrew Sage
You.
- [46:18]
Giselle Bryant
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- [47:20]
Finn
Out and I need to be rinsed.
- [47:23]
Andrew Sage
Tonight and I need it more.
- [47:27]
Garrison Davis
My kid went through that and the smell never leave.
- [47:32]
Finn
I don't know what to do.
- [47:33]
Andrew Sage
I'm always in the dark.
- [47:35]
Garrison Davis
The sweat in that short smells like a dark.
- [47:41]
Andrew Sage
Downey rinse. Fight stubborn odors in just one wash.
- [47:44]
Michael Palberg
When impossible odors get stuck in.
- [47:52]
James Stout
All I know is what I've been.
- [47:54]
Andrew Sage
Told and that to have truth is a whole lie.
- [47:57]
Giselle Bryant
For almost a decade, the murder of an 18 year old girl from a small town in Graves County, Kentucky went unsolved until a local home, a journalist and a handful of girls came forward with a story.
- [48:13]
Andrew Sage
I'm telling you we know Quincy killed her.
- [48:15]
Giselle Bryant
We know a story that law enforcement used to convict six people and that got the citizen investigator on national tv.
- [48:24]
Garrison Davis
Through sheer persistence and nerve, this Kentucky.
- [48:27]
James Stout
Housewife helped give justice to Jessica Curran.
- [48:31]
Giselle Bryant
My name is Maggie Freeling. I'm a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist producer and I wouldn't be here if the truth were that easy to find.
- [48:41]
Elaine
I did not know her And I did not kill her or rape or burn or any of that other stuff that y' all said.
- [48:47]
Giselle Bryant
They literally made me say that I.
- [48:48]
Andrew Sage
Took a match and struck and threw it on her.
- [48:50]
Giselle Bryant
They made me say that I poured gas on her from Lava For Good. This is Graves County, a show about just how far Arlene legal system will go in order to find someone to blame.
- [49:05]
Elaine
America, y' all better wake the hell up.
- [49:07]
Garrison Davis
Bad things happens to good people and small towns.
- [49:14]
Giselle Bryant
Listen to Graves county in the Bone Valley feed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts and to binge the entire season ad free. Subscribe to Lava for Good plus on Apple Podcasts. In early 1988, federal agents raced to.
- [49:41]
Elaine
Track down the gang they suspect of.
- [49:43]
Giselle Bryant
Importing millions of dollars worth of heroin into New York from Asia.
- [49:47]
Finn
We had 30 agents ready to go with shotguns and rifles and uniforms.
- [49:53]
Giselle Bryant
But what they find is not what they expected.
- [49:57]
Andrew Sage
Basically, your stay at home moms were.
- [49:59]
Finn
Picking up these large amounts of heroin.
- [50:01]
Andrew Sage
They go, is this your daughter?
- [50:02]
Garrison Davis
I said, yes.
- [50:03]
Andrew Sage
They go, oh, you may not see her for like 25 years.
- [50:10]
Giselle Bryant
Caught between a federal investigation and the violent gang who recruited them, the women must decide who they're willing to protect protect and who they dare to betray.
- [50:22]
Elaine
Once I saw the gun, I tried to take his hand and I saw the flash of light.
- [50:26]
Giselle Bryant
Listen to the Chinatown sting on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or anywhere you get your podcasts.
- [50:38]
Finn
Welcome to Ick it Happen here. A podcast reunion.
- [50:41]
James Stout
Good.
- [50:41]
Finn
And not everything that is called co op is good. Sometimes they're not actually really co ops. I am your host, Mia Wong, and today we are joined by the people struggling under the tyrannical fist of a co op. A thing that shouldn't be possible. And yet somehow.
- [51:04]
Andrew Sage
Yeah, yeah.
- [51:05]
Finn
So we're talking today with EZ and Finley, who are booksellers at the seminary co op in Chicago. And, yeah, we are welcoming the union back to the show. And dear God, what a disaster.
- [51:22]
Andrew Sage
What a year it has been.
- [51:24]
Giselle Bryant
Well, it's really great to meet back. I wish we were back with slightly better news or more movement since we were last here. Certainly.
- [51:32]
Finn
Yeah.
- [51:34]
Giselle Bryant
Because when we last spoke, we had just sort of theatrically announced to our management that we were an organized shop with the IWW and we were going to be bargaining with them for better wages and humane working conditions for us all. And they were like, yeah, you're a union. We so recognize that. And then they have sat on their hands ever since.
- [52:01]
Finn
Yeah. So let's roll back all the way to the beginning and explain a little bit about what the seminary co op is for people who weren' how many years ago was that now?
- [52:12]
Andrew Sage
That must have been last year.
- [52:14]
Finn
Yeah, yeah, it was a while ago. I don't know.
- [52:18]
Giselle Bryant
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the seminary co op is a set of two bookstores in Hyde Park. The seminary co op bookstore, which is a misnomer on two out of three counts. It's not a seminary anymore. It's not a co op anymore. It is still a bookstore, although it is a not for profit bookstore, which is. Is a mysterious category of business that doesn't exist anywhere else.
- [52:44]
James Stout
Baffling.
- [52:45]
Andrew Sage
Yeah. Briefly, just to interject, I do think when I would announce events and sort of give this exact breakdown for audiences, like I said, not for profit bookstore whose mission is book selling. Right. And when I was hired, like about three months before we announced we were unionizing, the way it was put to me was other not for profit bookstores, they do a lot with like family literacy or like specifically around women's issues. But that was just like acknowledgement of the reality that bookstores don't make a whole lot of money. And what we are providing is a not for profit bookstore is just the browsing experience. We kept books on shelves for too long. It seemed like a really romantic idea of bookselling that didn't have a whole lot of legs underneath it, so to speak. So it is nonsense, I would say, but that's me.
- [53:34]
Finn
It's just be a library. Like I. We have this. It's called libraries.
- [53:39]
Andrew Sage
They're a really big bookstore. Just. I don't know, it was vague. Yeah.
- [53:46]
Finn
Baffling. Baffling.
- [53:48]
Giselle Bryant
Yes.
- [53:48]
Elaine
Yeah.
- [53:49]
Finn
And then I guess the second part of it is, like when they say it's a co op, what does that mean?
- [53:55]
Giselle Bryant
It means truly and as can speak to this more that it was founded by Chicago Theological Seminary students. And there was a reason for that.
- [54:04]
Andrew Sage
Yeah, like they did want to buy horse books at the, at the prices that retailers got them wholesale. And so the thought was, I forget their names, but we have the pictures of them. It was like a Kavanaugh or something. But these two guys just, you know, if you were a student at Chicago Theological Seminary or even like a student at one of the other divinity seminaries nearby, you just, you put in an amount of money and you were part of, like, you got your course book cheaper, you know, and under like a specific manager who came like a couple decades after that, like, then it really became like, this is the neighborhood bookstore. This is part of like, as they say, like the intellectual and sort of cultural life of the university. But yeah, at one point it was a cooperative because like you, you were a member and you got your course books cheaper because you, you know, had a certain amount of shares in the books. But yeah, it was a think smarter, not harder kind of scheme.
- [54:56]
Giselle Bryant
And then when they dissolved the like, ownership shares and stopped being a co OP, that was 2019 when they organized as this not for profit. It's not a 501C3. They don't have nonprofit status. It's this slightly different thing. And so one of the one things that has happened in the past year is we had an interim director who got us like basically a nonprofit sponsor who lends its 501c3 status to other organizations and allows you to take tax deductible donations. But like, up to that point we couldn't do that because we were not a legitimate nonprofit. We were this other thing.
- [55:33]
Michael Palberg
Yeah.
- [55:35]
Giselle Bryant
So since 2019 it's been that. And then since 2024 it's been that. Plus Chicago's standalone unionized bookstore. For now, we're hoping that others follow.
- [55:47]
Andrew Sage
Inshallah, they will.
- [55:49]
Giselle Bryant
Yes.
- [55:50]
Finn
I feel like it is not a great sign of your business being well run when you, you are doing a thing that like rookie activist campaigns do when they're like, oh, we got a bunch of money, we need to borrow someone else's 501C3 status. Like, yeah, great, great job management, like, incredible stuff.
- [56:14]
Andrew Sage
And like, for me, part of what's been so like just mind boggling is like they, the not for profit bookstore whose mission is bookselling does sort of give this, you know, if we're like a 501C3, who often does it, they don't turn a profit or they do, they reinvest it back into the operations they're doing. But like part of. And we can talk more about this as we get into like the bargaining. But like store financials have been so obscured. And I hate from like truly, truly hate from a linguistic standpoint, just sort of the subtle like, oh, we must not be doing well. Because to. That feels like the rhetoric that really justifies the fact that I'm paid 1690 an hour and I have a master's of divinity from the seminary of the seminary co op.
- [56:55]
Finn
Yeah, well, and I think it's also worth noting that like, even from the perspective of capital, like all of the giant tech companies didn't make money for like decades and all those Motherfuckers were walking off with, like $100 billion payouts, you know, like, they only ever started making money when they started, like, reeling in a bunch of government contracts for, like, web services and, like, defense contracts and shit. And it's like, I don't know, like, this is, this is, I guess, on topic, but it's just something that makes you really mad where people talk about, like, running the government, like a business. And then like, you know, you get like the post office where it's like, oh, the post office doesn't run a profit. It's like, do you know it doesn't run a fucking profit. Uber literally has never run a profit.
- [57:36]
Garrison Davis
Ever.
- [57:37]
Finn
Not once.
- [57:39]
Garrison Davis
Not once.
- [57:40]
Finn
Right? Like, it's like, no, like, like, I'm sorry, welcome. Welcome to. Welcome. Welcome to fucking 2025 capitalism. Like, companies don't make profits. They either get contacts from the government or their entire existence is either conning some venture capitalist dipshits out of all of their money. Or it's like Peter Thiel has decided that your, like, surveillance camera company is ideologically important to him taking over the world. So he's going to give you $1 billion. And it's like, oh, no, I'm sorry. Like, her financials aren't good enough for you to pay you. It's like, motherfucker. Like, have you seen the rest of capitalism, like, eat shit, pay your workers?
- [58:17]
Andrew Sage
Like, yeah.
- [58:18]
Michael Palberg
Oh, yeah.
- [58:18]
Finn
God damn it.
- [58:19]
Giselle Bryant
Well, we keep using that one meme over and over that is like we're trying to balance the budget.
- [58:26]
Andrew Sage
It's the drill. The candles drill.
- [58:28]
Giselle Bryant
Thank you.
- [58:28]
Garrison Davis
Oh, the candles.
- [58:29]
Andrew Sage
Yeah, yeah.
- [58:31]
Giselle Bryant
Because our management is so infuriating. And they also, in the years since we've been bargaining, had an interim director and spent most of his tenure searching for an executive director to take over. That person is being paid $160,000 a year, to our knowledge.
- [58:52]
Andrew Sage
Jesus Christ.
- [58:53]
Giselle Bryant
And that's the offer that we know of. We have yet to get his contract, even though we did make a formal information request for it.
- [59:01]
Andrew Sage
Yeah.
- [59:01]
Finn
Which is fucked. And it's also like, yeah, like, every time these companies are like, oh, we don't have money. And it's like, okay, I can find like an unbelievable amount of money that you have given to someone to like, to give a random non specific example that has nothing to do with any company that is in any way related to this show.
- [59:26]
Giselle Bryant
Alive or dead.
- [59:29]
Finn
Buy a bored ape Yacht Club.
- [59:32]
Garrison Davis
NFT.
- [59:35]
Andrew Sage
Like, this is like they spent $300 on Google Home speakers for 57th street books. And I'm like, wow, my having that $300 would change my life. But also, like, you're paying that union busting lawyer thousands of dollars that you could be paying your reverse.
- [59:54]
James Stout
Yep.
- [59:54]
Andrew Sage
But that's. That's capitalism.
- [59:56]
Garrison Davis
Yeah.
- [59:56]
Finn
They have enough money to make your lives miserable, but they apparently never have enough money to, you know, like, make your lives not miserable. Because they have to spend that money on making your lives miserable.
- [60:08]
Andrew Sage
Yeah.
- [60:08]
Giselle Bryant
And it's so intentional because making us miserable means that they are wearing down the number of people that they have to deal with and making the people who are left so tired and so frustrated and so much less capable of fighting them.
- [60:24]
Finn
Yeah.
- [60:25]
Andrew Sage
And that feels like just, you know, Finn's leaving. We've also had a number of folks, like, our bargaining unit, like, last time y' all spoke last year was like, 25 people. Now we're down to 11. And they've refused to hire anybody part time or full time. Yeah, of course. But they've been giving seasonal workers sort of, like, extra hours, and that is. Someone's got to start counting. They have, like, if. Unless they work for 90 days, they don't have to. And because they're seasonal, you know, yada yada, they don't really join our union is kind of what. I understand why they are not considered eligible. But it's like, the booksellers are the heart of the store.
- [61:03]
Giselle Bryant
The classification of seasonal workers, and particularly of event runners, has been a point of contention throughout negotiations this whole time. Because obviously, from our perspective, we want anyone who's working in the store in any capacity to be involved in the union. We want them to not have this random scab force that they can deploy at will. And that has always been the point that gets revisited over and over again. Just when we think we've gotten them locked into being union members, they'll come back with their latest count. And it's like, actually, I think because of X, Y and Z, that we just changed. They're no longer eligible to join your union. But they did just hire, I think, think, three people that they were training at 57th street last week. But they've made no formal announcement to anyone that these people have been hired.
- [61:53]
Michael Palberg
Yeah.
- [61:54]
Giselle Bryant
I only know that they were, like, in the stores because one of them came to the co op by mistake instead of 57th street and was like, oh, I'm one of the new hires.
- [62:02]
Finn
Oh.
- [62:03]
Giselle Bryant
And so it's unclear if those are the seasonal workers or if those are new hires.
- [62:09]
Andrew Sage
Those are, I'll say, the most recent member, like, Part time, full time member of our staff who's not me. None of us knew she was hired and she just came up, took a book right off my cart and I was like, what? But she. But those, those were event. Those were the seasonal workers at the store the other day. Like I worked one of the Chicago Humanities events with them and it is like. Yeah. Then they just changed the, the qualification of who can be in the union.
- [62:34]
Giselle Bryant
Yeah, it's been very intentional and it's been just like over and over. They revisit and reclassify and whittle us down.
- [62:44]
Andrew Sage
Yeah, we've done I think too since you last spoke, like a couple of work stoppages and then picketed outside of our store as well. But that I don't know in terms of like sort of regressive bargaining through attrition that we're seeing and that like they refuse to hire other people even though they're kind of shooting themselves in the foot. But just like our direct action has I think worked against what they're thinking, which is that we're tired and that we're not going to fight back and that we are overwhelmed and we don't know what we're doing. But there are a lot of folks who do have experience with these sort of direct actions, like a work stoppage. And I think it's great that we're wobblies, but also like I do kind of like on the work stoppage how flustered and not like upset, but just how flustered and. Yeah, just awkward. Management feels it's empowering for. Yeah, but it's very much on purpose.
- [63:39]
Giselle Bryant
Well, and I think that's one of the benefits to just like a campaign in the broad sense of continuing direct actions during negotiations is it is that chance to connect with your co workers and re solidify that you're fighting for something intentional in the face of the fact that you will probably start being scheduled more sparsely, you will have fewer opportunities during the workday to talk to people and like that's just stuff that's going to happen while negotiations go on. But like making sure that you stay in touch with your union as best you can and like show up for all the direct things that you can helps you internally combat that, which is really helpful.
- [64:21]
Andrew Sage
Yeah.
- [64:22]
Finn
And I mean like, you know, like I sound like we ran into organizing here was we spent like, God, I think it was two years bargaining for our contract and they didn't have the capacity to literally force half the workforce to quit.
- [64:35]
Giselle Bryant
But like, don't worry, they don't have the capacity to lose. This many people are falling apart and they are fueling how few people they have.
- [64:43]
Finn
Yep. This whole thing is. It's just like a really, really common managerial tactic.
- [64:49]
Giselle Bryant
Yeah.
- [64:49]
Finn
Which is just like, we're going to make everything unlivable and try to get as many people as we can to quit and then just make everyone else's lives a living hell. Which is like, this is. I think I've said this before, but it's. It's like the extent to which the strategy is just the. The deliberate infliction of terror.
- [65:10]
Andrew Sage
Yeah.
- [65:11]
Giselle Bryant
Well, and the strategy is just tank your business, which seems incredibly counterintuitive from their perspective.
- [65:19]
Andrew Sage
And like, I. There have been events where, like, it's been a book about, like, Karl Marx labor organizing, whether it's a history or, like a sociology book. And folks are like, I waited to buy this book here because it's the union bookstore. And there is a way that us being a union bookstore could look, given that folks on our board are really progressive people like Adam Getachu, like State Senator Robert Peters, who's running on a pretty pro labor background. Us being unionized could be. We are already a tourist bookstore. Like, folks come from everywhere and they're like, this is such a famous bookstore. But, like, it does baffle me. It does make sense that it's a common tactic. But also, there's so much that could work in their favor if they were not just, like, so committed to busting this union.
- [66:06]
Finn
Wait, hold on. Sidebar.
- [66:08]
Garrison Davis
Adol Gritch.
- [66:09]
Finn
She was my professor.
- [66:11]
Andrew Sage
Yeah, I talked to her today. Wait, she's just part of the management team now?
- [66:14]
Michael Palberg
No, no, no.
- [66:15]
Giselle Bryant
There's.
- [66:15]
Andrew Sage
Okay, so this is part of.
- [66:16]
Finn
Or is this like a different thing? Okay, sorry, sorry.
- [66:18]
Andrew Sage
This is.
- [66:18]
Okay. No, no, no.
- [66:19]
James Stout
This is.
- [66:19]
Andrew Sage
This is where, like, us being a not for profit bookstore, but not actually, like, having any legal standing as a not for profit gets a little confusing. And like. Finn, you can probably speak more to how this has come up in the bargaining meeting, but when we. I don't know if this was around before the cooperative was dissolved and shares were basically, like, worthless at that point. But there is a board of directors, one of whom, like, is very, very famous and at least among the folks I know, for effectively union busting employees at experimental station on 61st and Blackstone when they try to unionize.
- [66:53]
Giselle Bryant
Right.
- [66:54]
James Stout
Oh, Jesus.
- [66:54]
Andrew Sage
And also, there are so many, like, Hyde park progressives like rjp, like Aiden Gettichu, Eve Ewing as well. And these are people I really respect. But like, because there's like this four cabinet, I think of folks who have been in and out of bargaining meetings when we've had employees at other labor unions who do have a connection to, like, for example, Robert Peters. It does very clear that like this governing board, which does govern, they have terms, but we're also a retail outfit, you know, usually like a not for profit. The board of a not for profit would be helping with like an annual fundraising campaign. It's unclear entirely what the board does in a retail outfit other than, at least in my experience, like giving advice, writing emails to try to bust this union, you know, before we unionized, albeit I had a very short tenure before we had unionized, none of these people, none of their names matter to me. But because, like, there's so much confusion about is management going to be representing folks in the bargaining meeting or is it going to be a board member representative and just who is accountable to disclose what financial information and when or just any information and when, like, yeah, Adam. Adam Getachu is not one of our. One of our bosses. But like, there is just a lot of confusion that I feel about what the board is responsible for in bargaining and with the man and what management feels they're responsible for.
- [68:18]
Giselle Bryant
And I can clear up a little bit of that because what we were told when we first unionized and when the management team was kind of shifting and reorganizing itself around the board was the board is there primarily to advise and supervise and hire the executive director for the stores. And so there is a financial contribution. Like they're all significant donors. That's part of the way that they secure their seats is making a large donation to the stores. But then, at least according to them, from that point forward, they have no managerial oversight over the operations of the store whatsoever. It is not their responsibility. They don't make any decisions about the budget. They don't get involved. They don't want to be involved. And they were embarrassed by having this attitude when previous management went off the rails and nearly drove the store into the ground by buying stock on credit cards.
- [69:21]
Garrison Davis
What.
- [69:23]
Giselle Bryant
But then it's a whole thing that we do not have. But that's.
- [69:31]
Andrew Sage
This is bonkers.
- [69:33]
Garrison Davis
Yeah.
- [69:33]
Andrew Sage
Oh, yeah.
- [69:34]
Giselle Bryant
That is to say that somehow that experience did not act as a wake up call for this board of directors. And they said, what we will do is hire the next white man we can find and take our hands back off the wheel.
- [69:47]
Finn
Jesus Christ. Is this an institution that people like it would be helpful to put pressure.
- [69:51]
Giselle Bryant
On or that's what it's hard to say because there's this. And I think I talked about it the last time we were on the podcast. But there's this responsibility carousel between management who will. In a bargaining session. Because the other thing is because we can't tell how involved the board is, because they tell us that they're not involved at all. And then they make decisions, and we hear about the decisions that they're making. We have asked repeatedly that they be involved in bargaining and that they send someone to represent them or they, like, participate and have an opinion on the way that the stores are run. And they have repeatedly refused those invitations, requests, demands, et cetera. It seems their involvement has been to recommend that our management hire Jenny Galtz to be their lawyer. And that is about as much as.
- [70:36]
Elaine
They want to do.
- [70:36]
Finn
Jesus Christ.
- [70:38]
Andrew Sage
Like, two things, too. And I think there was supposed to be a board member present at the next bargaining meeting, but because our meeting was contingent on having the full financial information that we requested literally a month ago, and when we requested that information the next day, a board member, the president of the board, said, okay, we'll get this to you. We got it. I think you might know more about the timing of this fifth, like, at the last possible minute.
- [71:03]
Giselle Bryant
We got it the day before the meeting.
- [71:06]
Andrew Sage
Yeah.
- [71:06]
Giselle Bryant
And it was half of what we asked for.
- [71:09]
Andrew Sage
Yeah.
- [71:09]
Giselle Bryant
And then when we said, this is not what we requested and we cannot meet because we said we couldn't meet without this full information, they were like, we're disappointed that you can't do that. And we were like, yeah, shocking.
- [71:20]
Andrew Sage
Yeah.
- [71:30]
Finn
We are back. Let's get more formally into to, like, what the bargaining process has looked like. It sounds like it's been extremely chaotic. They've been not turning over information. It's deeply unclear who's making decisions, which all seem. And I can say this is my professional opinion, not good. This is a technical analysis, life assessment.
- [71:54]
Andrew Sage
Yeah.
- [71:55]
Finn
This is why they pay me the mediocre bucks.
- [71:57]
Garrison Davis
Wow.
- [71:58]
Giselle Bryant
I think you were just so well informed. Yes.
- [72:02]
Andrew Sage
Journalistic insight.
- [72:03]
Giselle Bryant
Yeah. So the way that we set it up on our end when we entered into negotiations was we had a core team of three people who were going to be our, like, core bargaining unit, who would attend every meeting. And then we had a small team of, like, three more people, including myself, that were, like, alternates in case something got scheduled out on day that one of the core team couldn't be there. And we made sure that we would always schedule one person who was not negotiating to be at the meeting and take notes so that, like, none of the people who were negotiating had to do that at the same time. And when we first started negotiating, the management team was sending Dan Meyer, the interim director, and Naeen Kano, who's our deputy director, who is basically the, like, one person on the management team who is not. She's not supposed to be a direct supervisor. She has not actually let go of the people that she was supervising. But she's, like, in that middle space between, like, supervising management and, like, director management. But she has since stepped down from negotiations because of the way that she's been involved in the rest of Soar operations. She was like, I can't come to the table anymore. And so the latest meeting that has been rescheduled is going to be with Kevin Bendel, who's the new executive director, and then one other name that I forget who is either a board member as. As. Thanks.
- [73:27]
Andrew Sage
Or I'm not sure who else she.
- [73:29]
Giselle Bryant
Would be, but it is.
- [73:31]
Andrew Sage
It is a board member I've. And I think it is Tierra Goldstein. Is her name Tira Goldston?
- [73:37]
Giselle Bryant
Yeah. Yeah. Every so often in negotiating sessions, Dan or Naive would make some reference to, like, a financial decision that we were trying to bargain about being, like, not their choice and being something that would be up to the board. And we'd be like, so take it to the board. And they would be like, okay. And then we would never hear anything about it ever again.
- [73:59]
Finn
Incredible, incredible work. Seems like a great tactic to never address anything you're supposed to be addressing.
- [74:08]
Giselle Bryant
And so the way that we were negotiating, we were trying to come to terms on things that didn't affect the finances of the store first so that we could land some easy wins and, like, feel like we were making progress and then address the stuff that we expected to be thornier later. But then what that ended up being, as meetings went on and on, was them asking us constantly, like, but what is it that you guys really are, like, prioritizing? Like, what is the thing that matters the most to you that, like, you have the least give on? And we're like, it's wages. You know, it's wages. It's been wages this whole time. And they're like, but, like, what if we were, like, asking you to give up all your benefits to get wages that you want? And we were like, okay, that's not how negotiating works. And then in an email that labeled it their best and final offer, which is language that they have yet to take back, they sent us a version of the contract Bargaining agreement that we a. Let me just back up for a second. When we first started negotiating, they asked us to draft the entire first draft of the collective bargaining agreement ourselves.
- [75:19]
Ryan
What?
- [75:20]
Giselle Bryant
Which is incredibly nonstandard. And we were like, that's fine, because that gives us a leg up in terms of like studying the initial terms. I guess we'll do it. But like, yeah, incredibly nonstandard. Super stupid. Not a thing that we should have had to do.
- [75:33]
Finn
Yeah, I've never heard of that before.
- [75:37]
Giselle Bryant
But so when we drafted it, we drafted a three year term collective bargaining agreement with a bunch of stuff about procedure and wages and benefits that we wanted done. And so zooming back forward to that best and final offer, suddenly the draft that they've sent us back of the collective bargaining agreement is a two year term. And up to this point, all of the offers that had gotten anything close to our ask on wages were in year three and everything in year one and two was still like 25 cents, 50 cent increases. And so suddenly year three, which was always the only year that made any improvements for us, is gone. And you did not improve any other parts of the contract to make up for that unilateral decision.
- [76:26]
Finn
So that's just regressive bargaining.
- [76:28]
Giselle Bryant
Yeah, it is, it is.
- [76:31]
Finn
Which by the way. Okay, do you want to explain to our dear listeners what regressive bargaining is and why you're not allowed to do it?
- [76:39]
Giselle Bryant
Yeah. Regressive bargaining is a dirty negotiation tactic where one side, without making any sort of give and take concessions like they should to balance a big move, just unilaterally decides to change a term, especially a large term like wages, contract, term, et cetera. And so it is taking something that has been tentatively agreed upon and like in good faith taken as a part of the contract that will stand and axing it.
- [77:13]
Finn
Yeah. And you are not allowed to do this is. This is under the. Under the terms. Under the terms of the National Labor Relations act, which, you know, who knows. But by the time this episode goes out, there is a small chance it won't exist anymore. A bunch of provisions of it are under attack right now. But like that is, we have two.
- [77:34]
Giselle Bryant
Unfair labor practices filed with the NLRB since the terms of negotiation have been in effect and they are not in fact progressive bargaining charges, but issues of status quo where they're trying to change the way that they do scheduling change the way that they do, like abstinence, discipline, which are topics that are covered in bargaining and should only be changed in bargaining while bargaining is active. But they're trying to change them and then say that these have been the policies all along. And so.
- [78:08]
Finn
God, literally gaslighting.
- [78:11]
Andrew Sage
Yeah. Oh, yeah.
- [78:12]
Finn
Like actual, actual straight up. You could pick up the gap, the psycho, the psychology textbook point to it.
- [78:18]
Andrew Sage
Like, oh yeah, just pick up that.
- [78:20]
Giselle Bryant
Whole lamp and we have their, their words in writing of every step of the way where you can see the language change and be like, no, you are the person who said before that it was this other thing. That was you.
- [78:33]
Andrew Sage
Yeah.
- [78:34]
Giselle Bryant
So we filed unfair labor practice about those things. And you can in fact not track them anymore because since the government shut down, you can find a little PDF that explains.
- [78:45]
Finn
Yep.
- [78:46]
Giselle Bryant
That all USPS are going to be pending indefinitely. And that is all you can find.
- [78:51]
Andrew Sage
Yeah.
- [78:52]
Finn
And it's also fun because Trump illegally fired one of the Democratic people on it. So they don't have a quorum. Any. On the board of the National Labor Relations Boards. They don't have a quorum anymore, which is a shit show. And making any nlrb, like attempt to get anything done to the NLRB really annoying.
- [79:08]
Andrew Sage
Yeah. Yeah. I think the direct action has been helpful where like just that reality would just. I think just. It would drive me crazy. And it is, it is gaslighting. This is traumatizing. If a boyfriend does it to you, it's a red flag. But when your boss does it to you, you know, it's like, yeah, the public's fine with it.
- [79:28]
James Stout
Business.
- [79:29]
Andrew Sage
Yeah. It's the cost of business. Yeah. It is just the continuous non stop onslaught of regressive bargaining tactics that like, from the minute we started, despite the fact that, like, I was sitting next to the director when we said reunionizing, it was a, like a spirit split second before she said, yep, we recognize it. And so our, our direct action at the work stoppage. I remember our first work stop as you sat for half an hour. Management was very cool with that. The second time we did it, we did it for an hour. We should have done our homework better because we didn't know that you can't like just like leaflet on store property because Chicago is our landlord. I'm kind of like store property. But I put on my clerical collar. I put on a T shirt that had like, give unto Caesar. What is Caesar's? And also like a little footnote about, you know, run me my money. You know, there's a more obvious instruction from Jesus out of Luke that's like, pay the worker their wages. But I was wearing my clerical. I set up the PA and I was loud. There was a Hyde Park Herald reporter who, you know, took my comment, who. I remember him walking over to Naim and I think asking her for her comment. I had a Bluetooth speaker that was Dan's right, playing Never, never fight a man with a perm by Idols. And I will not forget. I will not forget the way the deputy director approached me. She was like, okay, this is fine. This is all fine. I just want to let you know, this is fine, but can you please turn the music off? And it took me about 20 minutes to just turn the buttons down slowly. But like that, we were reprimanded.
- [80:59]
Giselle Bryant
Yeah, we got a very, very angry email the next day illustrating what the consequences would be if we tried to do a similar action again in that manner.
- [81:10]
Andrew Sage
And so we picketed outside their store. That was the next direct action that we did. But, like, I do think our most impactful direct actions have been the ones that have been noisy, that have been incredibly visible. Yeah, when we picketed last, it was on the first day of classes. We sell, like a lot of core, core course books for the college at the university. And so there were students like that.
- [81:33]
Giselle Bryant
We.
- [81:33]
Andrew Sage
We were like, hey, do you have the bookseller who sold you that book to have a living wage? And students like 19 year olds are so outraged by the amount of money I make as a grown person.
- [81:43]
Giselle Bryant
I heard so much eat the rich that day from Zillennials.
- [81:47]
Andrew Sage
Hell yeah. Hell yeah. But it is clear that when the public is made aware of what's happening at a store that a lot of people love just so much, like, it is a part of the community, and I think so much a part of people's. Even like my own, before I worked there, our experience of being in this tight knit, bizarre community and folks are upset, and I think rightfully so. And that's just. I think really the beauty of direct action is not just that it empowers us, but it really just, like, in a sort of spectacle way, says this is what they're doing. You want a place that you love to run this way and to treat people like this.
- [82:27]
Giselle Bryant
And I think they're really effective for that reason, especially because people are really, like, on our side when they talk to us, but they're also really surprised because, like, part of the instant recognition thing, part of the being cool with us having union buttons on the register, part of all of that is the fact that management is benefiting from the illusion that they're on good terms with us. And so, like, one of the reasons that we held that picket was to Be like, hey, just because they are not stopping us does not mean they have done anything to improve the material conditions that we have been organizing around this whole time.
- [83:04]
Finn
Yeah, well, and also to be incredibly clear about this, like, it's so obvious it has to actually directly be stated, which is that all of the things they are doing are union busting tactics. Because their, their strategy here is to do a recognition and then go for the second place where unions most commonly collapse, which is once you're recognized as a, as, as a bargaining unit, the second place they fail is getting the first contract. And that. That's what they're really obviously trying to do. And yeah, the fact that people don't understand that they're just running a thing that, like, I'm, I'm trying to think of how to even describe it was like, like that bookstore was like, like it was treated as like something that was, as an institution that was like part of the university. That's like the way it was, like, treated culturally was, this is like our thing, and these people are running it into the ground because they don't want to pay their workers, like, enough money to survive. It's just hideous.
- [84:01]
Giselle Bryant
And that's really all it comes down to when you look at what the facts on the ground are, is the decisions that they are making are directly tied to the fact that they feel like they have no money, which is directly to the fact that they are paying the executive director too much, which is directly tied to the fact that they want to have an excuse to not pay us anything.
- [84:22]
Andrew Sage
Yeah, yeah.
- [84:23]
Finn
It's like, oh, wow, we don't have enough money because we're spending like $160,000 on an executive director. Have you considered you can simply eliminate this entire expense by turning this into an actual co?
- [84:35]
Andrew Sage
Op?
- [84:35]
Finn
You could do it in like, one day and you suddenly would not have the administration expenses because those people wouldn't be there. You could do this really easily.
- [84:47]
Giselle Bryant
Well, and as the like movement in and out of that position over the past year demonstrates, it has no effect on the operations of the bookstore. The thing that has any effect on the operations of the bookstore is the fact that seven people have left, not been replaced, and all of their work has been redistributed across, like, increasingly siloed positions to the people who are left so that you have no help on your particular assigned tasks. That is now yours and yours alone. And you just feel terrible in your little hole by yourself. Yeah.
- [85:19]
Finn
Which this is something like, I know for a fact that like, multiple people on that board know what a speed up is?
- [85:27]
Elaine
Like, that's.
- [85:27]
Finn
That's a speed up. I know for a fact that you know what this is.
- [85:32]
Giselle Bryant
And most of them who know what it is have written against them.
- [85:38]
Andrew Sage
Yeah. Just kind of like expanding a bit larger. The staff at the Museum of Science and Industry has also unionized, and they were outside of their store threatening to strike. And so I loved on the picket line, I had a sign that said Fire Jenny. And I went to explain to the. Yeah, I went to explain to the UE employee who. Jenny was, the UE employee who worked at the Graduate Students United at UChicago. And she went, oh, I know who Jenny is.
- [86:06]
Giselle Bryant
And that's.
- [86:06]
Andrew Sage
I don't know.
- [86:07]
Giselle Bryant
Just.
- [86:08]
Andrew Sage
Yeah, it's sick that, like, somebody can make their living making my life worse. But A, that's. That's capitalism. And also B, like, I. She has been involved, that lawyer and, like, a number of, like, she busting you, trying to bust unions at UChicago unsuccessfully, and also representing Northwestern in a case where one of their employees accused them of sexual harassment and discrimination. You know, so it's like you're. You're really.
- [86:36]
Giselle Bryant
This.
- [86:36]
Andrew Sage
This is. This is the. The person that you're working with. This is the tool that you're using.
- [86:41]
Giselle Bryant
You know, this is who you would rather pay.
- [86:44]
Andrew Sage
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [86:45]
Finn
And it's also. It's like that.
- [86:46]
James Stout
That.
- [86:46]
Elaine
That.
- [86:47]
Finn
That's the thing where this. This whole metaphor of, like, the boss acting as an abusive partner is suddenly getting very literal in terms of who they're. Who the people that they are employing do for their other shit, which is def. Yeah, yeah. It's almost like there's a structural connection between management and patriarchy. Wow. Who could possibly have done this?
- [87:10]
Giselle Bryant
Between systems of abuse?
- [87:12]
Finn
Yeah. Like, who could possibly have written about this? Checks, notes, looks at the books that were written by the members of the board.
- [87:20]
Andrew Sage
Yeah, yeah.
- [87:21]
Finn
I'm so mad about this. Like, rulemaking after Empire is really good.
- [87:27]
Andrew Sage
It is.
- [87:28]
Giselle Bryant
Yeah.
- [87:28]
Andrew Sage
And I, like. I don't know how much I can, like, hold those individual board members responsible when it seems like so many of them are, like, just now finding out about it. Yeah, that's some abuse 101, is to make sure that the person that you are exploiting, that you are, you know, taking advantage of that. They don't feel like they can say to people who could help them, this is what's happening to me. And that, like, the people who would be sympathetic could, you know, go and take the initiative to help folks. And I'm grateful that we have a meeting with Robert Peters coming up soon. It was supposed to happen. That has not yet. And I appreciate how dedicated he is and his staff is to making sure that our union sits down and talks with him. But it is also, like, there's a.
- [88:12]
Giselle Bryant
Deep irony for him accepting an award from another union and rescheduling a meeting with ours to do it. Okay.
- [88:18]
Andrew Sage
No, no, no, no, no. It's because we have Jacob. I always say it incorrectly.
- [88:21]
Finn
Ask me afscme. Yeah.
- [88:23]
Andrew Sage
Yeah. The big end. But that's also, like, part of the other great community support. Like, I mentioned that UE employee, but, you know, there are other union employees who, just because they love the bookstore so much, will show up to every outreach event that we have. He was one of the first people to have a yard sign. And it's funny, he lives right next to this guy from my church who also has a window sign. And that's how I found out they were neighbors.
- [88:46]
Giselle Bryant
Yeah. It's really cute.
- [88:47]
Andrew Sage
But, like, I'm proud that we're wobblies because there is a really long tradition of, you know, being in Chicago, a lot of radical organizing that I think fits our spirit and also, like the seminary co op spirit. It has been hard that we don't have a lot of resources towards bargaining.
- [89:04]
Finn
Yeah.
- [89:04]
Andrew Sage
But, like, we're good at direct action. And we also have. I'll give the Ask me award. I'll give it a pass. Because Jacob's been so. And other community members have been so helpful in just giving their time and their skills and their expertise. So. Yeah.
- [89:18]
Giselle Bryant
Yeah. The MSI union, the grad students union in particular, have been incredible allies to us and have been. They were huge, like, presences on our picket because, like, because we did an open store running picket, we had only about half of our actual union members available because everyone else had to be on desks in the stores keeping them running. And so the majority of the people who were, like, collecting signatures to get Jenny Goltz fired and otherwise improve our gardening conditions were people from other unions who were just out there being wonderful. Awesome solidarity with us.
- [89:52]
Garrison Davis
Yeah.
- [89:52]
Finn
So my first picket line. I think I may have said this last episode, but my first picket line ever was the grad student picket line in 2019. This was the first time I was ever on a picket.
- [90:02]
Andrew Sage
And it rocked. Hell, yeah.
- [90:04]
Finn
Yeah. It makes me really happy to see that the whole base of sort of union organizing from that has, like, you know, it's this thing that, like, I remember when this was like, you know, Like, I was there in like one of the big pushes. Everyone, they finally won. And it's like they're still around helping people because workers, workers fucking fight together.
- [90:23]
Giselle Bryant
And well, and then they'll always be like, hey, one thing that we know about Jenny Gaultz is she likes to lose. And we're like, thank you. Thank you, Finn. It's not that she likes to use.
- [90:33]
Andrew Sage
The quote is she's very good at losing, which.
- [90:36]
Giselle Bryant
That's true.
- [90:38]
Andrew Sage
Even, Even better.
- [90:39]
Michael Palberg
Yeah.
- [90:41]
Andrew Sage
And like what you were saying about GSU, I don't remember what I think like 2008, 2007 was like when they said we starting organizing for unionizing the graduate students. I had a roommate who was like a 12 year PhD student who was around when that shit started. You can just count hanging out with your wife in Australia as field research, I guess.
- [91:04]
Finn
I love this.
- [91:05]
Elaine
What's this?
- [91:06]
Andrew Sage
Well, she's just doing postdocs. You're just hanging out. But they had a baby yesterday. Anyway. Yeah, like I was around, he came back to finish his PhD, like about the time like when the contract was ratified. And I just with, what is it? 16, 17 months of bargaining, no contract. In the name of my blessed Lord Jesus Christ. Like Jesus Christ. GSU has had like, has such a wealth of knowledge because they've been through just like heaps of. And it's years, it's like, okay, I.
- [91:39]
Finn
I want, I would like the fucking GSU thing. They had a whole thing when I was there like in like 2019. The whole, the whole thing was that. And like, genuinely, this is like one of the most admirable things I've ever seen a union do, which was they refused to take their, their case because the university was refusing to recognize them. And they, they refused to take their case to the NLRB because they knew that if they did it there was, there was a pretty good chance that the old Trump NLRB was going to like bust every single graduate school union in the country. So instead of trying to win for themselves, they fucking didn't do it. And just like fought on picket lines instead and it fucking rocked. It was like, that's rad as hell. They're, they, they rock.
- [92:21]
James Stout
They're.
- [92:22]
Finn
They're great. Like, yeah, yeah, shout out, Shout outs. Shout outs to gsu.
- [92:26]
Andrew Sage
Yeah, shout out to gsu.
- [92:27]
Giselle Bryant
Well, and they are a great, great, great example to us all in terms of like, how to persist on a fight through attrition. Because one of the things that like, you try so hard as a management team to do is just wait until everyone gets tired and leaves. And, like, it seems like grad students would be the perfect population to just wait out because they rotate out constantly. But, like, just the way that they have managed to maintain energy through generations and generations of organizers and get it over the line at long last is so encouraging.
- [93:04]
Andrew Sage
Yeah.
- [93:16]
Finn
There's a thing I remember from. I think the last place I read into it was, like, one of Mike Duncan's things about the French Revolution. Like, one of the things he talked about was, like, the ways in which part of what caused the French Revolution was that they spent a whole bunch of time teaching all of these kids these incredibly radical enlightenment ideas. And then they were like, wait, we live in the most absolute monarchy that has ever existed. What the fuck?
- [93:40]
Giselle Bryant
We hate this.
- [93:42]
Andrew Sage
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [93:43]
Finn
Like, wait, hold on. And it's like, there is obviously always sort of contradictions between, like, the, the, the. The. The number of people I have seen write books about labor resistance and then, like, go bust unions is pretty large. But there's a reason why everyone from, like, Pinochet through, like, the Trump administration, I mean, back through, like, the original Nazis, it's like one of the first places, you know, I mean, like, the Greek riot police had this thing where it was like, the first place you go when there's discontent is like, you must stop the workers from. From allying with the students. You must do this or you're fucked.
- [94:22]
Andrew Sage
Yeah.
- [94:22]
Giselle Bryant
But the workers and the students love each other. They're all kissing.
- [94:28]
Andrew Sage
And we're the same person sometimes, you know? Yeah.
- [94:32]
James Stout
So often.
- [94:33]
Finn
Yep, yep, yep.
- [94:35]
Andrew Sage
Give all my comrades a kiss on the forehead.
- [94:37]
Giselle Bryant
Yeah.
- [94:38]
Andrew Sage
Aw, yeah.
- [94:39]
Finn
Yeah. And I think, like, that is. I think, like, the positive element of all of this is, like, the. The way that one campaign winning can transform the lives of everyone else around you is so astonishing. And I've seen it happen in so many places where, like, one shop wins and suddenly everyone else is like, could be us. Could be us.
- [95:00]
Giselle Bryant
Yes, it's possible.
- [95:02]
Andrew Sage
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [95:03]
Giselle Bryant
Well, and I think that we're trying to capitalize on that and trying to make sure that we can be the next person to capitalize on GSU's win and help MSI do the same. But as much as we have really suffered from the at the table bargaining, negotiating process and been really sort of beaten down in the past year on that battleground, I think we have learned so much about the allies that surround us and the people who, like, want to do more than just email our board members, and we're like, we don't Know what else you can do? Because we don't know who makes these decisions for you to yell at, but we have so many people who have, like, signed up for an email list with us. So many people who are, like, ready to go as soon as we figure out what we need them to do.
- [95:55]
Andrew Sage
Yeah.
- [95:55]
Giselle Bryant
And that's been really encouraging and bolstering while management continues to, like, just not acknowledge us when they feel too cornered. Like, they simply never spoke of the picket because it happened outside, and so they couldn't be mad about it, so they didn't have to tell us off about it, but they also just didn't speak of it.
- [96:16]
Andrew Sage
Yeah. This is. Chicago is a motherfucking union town, and that's what. Yeah, I. I'll admit I'm angry. When I go into work, they don't care enough to get the mold and the dust remediated, you know, and the ducts, and I can't really breathe when I go into work. And I also don't have health insurance. Right.
- [96:36]
Finn
Oh, my God.
- [96:37]
Andrew Sage
Well, I do have health insurance, but I have to pay for, like, you know, I have to pay for my own premiums through a marketplace thing, and that's. That's not really affordable. And, yeah, like, as. As frustrated as I am, like, coming into work, it is. It's the people, you know, and I think that's for a lot of folks who have stayed at the bookstore. I don't know how much you relate to this, Finn. Like, it has been, like, other booksellers, the folks that we've gotten to know through the community who, like. Who do make a difference, at least for me, and whether or not I stay.
- [97:07]
Giselle Bryant
Oh, absolutely.
- [97:08]
Andrew Sage
Yeah. This is a good fight.
- [97:11]
Giselle Bryant
The union crew that we have is a incredibly worthwhile team to be on. It is a group of people that I feel very solid standing shoulder to shoulder with. I think that is, like, without question, one of the things that, like, keeps the stores a place that you can work, even if it's not a good place to work right now.
- [97:31]
Andrew Sage
Oh, yeah, yeah.
- [97:33]
Giselle Bryant
And honestly, I think that would have sustained me a lot longer if my commute were different, you know?
- [97:38]
Andrew Sage
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
- [97:39]
James Stout
Wait.
- [97:40]
Finn
Okay, sorry. Could we roll back to the part.
- [97:42]
Andrew Sage
Where you can't breathe?
- [97:44]
Finn
Because there's. I feel like. Because there's mold. Because I feel like you just dropped that very quickly. It was like, oh, yeah. That's, like, a normal part of the work.
- [97:51]
Garrison Davis
What the.
- [97:53]
Giselle Bryant
Well, so for a very long time, you've been allowed to request that you only work at the CO op. Because there is a known MO problem at 57th street that they can't afford to or can't get the landlord to ameliorate. But there is also, at least in our lung experience, some sort of growth issue in the venting at the seminary come up.
- [98:17]
Andrew Sage
Yeah, it's. It's very dusty, at least. And like, I. When I wear like a. Like a KN95 for a little bit, like, that helps a little. I take like 5 Benadryl usually, and then that.
- [98:28]
James Stout
Jesus.
- [98:29]
Andrew Sage
That kind of. That kind of helps. And that's more just, I think, like, I mean, not more. That is in part, like my own health. But if I had the resources to be able to take care of my health and get what I need, maybe I could withstand the mold and the dust and the ducts a little bit easier. But like that.
- [98:46]
Finn
Well, but also, like, like, as an employer, it is your responsibility to not have your workplace poison your employees. Like, I'm sorry, like that part.
- [98:53]
Andrew Sage
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [98:54]
Finn
And then also make them pay for the medical care to treat medical problems that they're having because you poisoned them with mold. Like, what?
- [99:02]
Garrison Davis
That's.
- [99:03]
Andrew Sage
Yeah.
- [99:04]
Elaine
What?
- [99:05]
Finn
Jesus Christ. That's so evil.
- [99:08]
Giselle Bryant
Well, and we had a couple of clauses in our first draft of the collective bargaining agreement that included demands regarding mold remediation at 57th Street. And I do believe those clauses have been struck in subsequent rounds.
- [99:25]
Finn
Yeah, I mean, I guess that's a thing that you could ask people to do, which is go ask people to complain about the mold. Like, it seems like a thing you could do.
- [99:36]
Andrew Sage
Yeah, it's. That might be a. Worth another direct action. I also noticed, like, people in the store, like, they cough when they enter.
- [99:42]
Garrison Davis
Yeah.
- [99:43]
James Stout
You know, and like, oh, God.
- [99:44]
Andrew Sage
This is where the. Like the snake eats its own tail. The wheel turns inside the wheel.
- [99:49]
Right.
- [99:50]
Because, like, maybe, like, if I'm giving them good faith, benefit of the doubt, management would have if they weren't overloaded with so many tasks that they have to take on, you know, sort of more supervisory management. If y' all didn't have to do all these tasks, maybe you would have time to. If there are more people hired in the bargaining unit, perhaps you could yourself have more time to improve the conditions for the store, not just for your workers, but also for the people who enter the stores. But because you will hire new workers until there's a contract. You are just so overworked and you can't. And it's just like this. This turns until the boss decides that it does it. And it's like this. This is their responsibility, too, to bargain in good faith and to treat their workers correctly. Like, this is an active decision that they could make that they are not making.
- [100:36]
Finn
So, yeah, I got to say that that might be the single wildest thing I ever heard. Like, an hour into an interview is, oh, yeah, they're poisoning us.
- [100:45]
Ryan
What?
- [100:47]
Andrew Sage
The mold.
- [100:48]
Giselle Bryant
Just the mold. Just also, like, proof that this is the craziest place to work. Because, like, that doesn't even land on our radar anymore because we've been just, like, banging our head against walls for a year.
- [100:59]
Andrew Sage
Yeah, yeah.
- [101:02]
Finn
Yeah. You know, I keep going back to the abusive relationship metaphor, but, like, that is one of the big things about abusive relationships is that because of the information control and because of the way that your world gets condensed down into a really, really tiny, narrow set of experiences where you're isolated and you're only interacting with, like, one person who was controlling everything about your life, it becomes really difficult to see things that are very, very obviously wrong the moment you start step out of it.
- [101:29]
Andrew Sage
Yeah.
- [101:30]
Finn
And, you know, I don't know, maybe it turns out having absolute hierarchical relationships with control is an extremely bad way to run literally anything, especially the thing that your livelihood depends on that you do most of your time.
- [101:41]
Andrew Sage
Just a thought.
- [101:42]
Giselle Bryant
Wow. Well, and it also just like, means that you are too busy to actually interface in any meaningful way with your workers. Like, yeah, if I tell you that it took me 2/3 of the day to schedule a 15 minute conversation with any of four managers who were on site to quit, I would not be lying.
- [102:05]
Finn
Jesus Christ, I can't even take your resignation.
- [102:12]
Giselle Bryant
They at one point tried to reschedule that conversation, which I was attempting to have on Friday to Monday, and I was like, I think you want to know this.
- [102:20]
Finn
Yeah. It's like, managers, you two are getting screwed over by understaffing. Oh, my God.
- [102:30]
Andrew Sage
I do think that's starting to take a toll too, on management, which is a little encouraging.
- [102:35]
Giselle Bryant
They're losing it. Yeah. They are not feeling well.
- [102:40]
Andrew Sage
And because, like, for me, I don't know, I'm not going to trust a boss. I gestated for three months in the 1997 UAW strike. That's. Oh, yeah, classes are canceled. Yeah. You know, I know how that ended. But I remember one of the supervisors who, who at one point in her, like, her previous career had been on a picket line for a very long time, had been on strike, and she, like, immediately took one of our little sabo cat reed pins, put it on her Backpack and is otherwise, like, as far as I can tell, generally supportive of the union. But also, man, lady, I wish you would make us stink.
- [103:17]
Giselle Bryant
Because here's the thing. I think she only talks to us. I feel like the other managers do not speak to her.
- [103:24]
Andrew Sage
Yeah.
- [103:24]
Giselle Bryant
Am I crazy?
- [103:26]
Andrew Sage
I could just talk about that for a very long time, and I don't think we have the time, so.
- [103:31]
Finn
Yeah. Yeah. Before we get into what can people do to help, is there anything else that you want to make sure that you get to.
- [103:38]
Giselle Bryant
I think the big thing that we should emphasize, too, is as much as we are complaining and frustrated about the process, we know that this is not impasse and that we are so sure that, like, there is still negotiating to be done, there is still conversation to be had, and that, like, we have been emphasizing that at every opportunity to management as we have to. But, like, just because we are tired and frustrated means nothing in terms of us giving up. Because this is a fight that is going to continue.
- [104:09]
Finn
Yeah.
- [104:09]
Andrew Sage
Yeah. And like, to that point, Finn, we're doing this because we love the stores. Like, I. The stores were a really important place for me, just putting down roots in the neighborhood. And I think when you love something a lot, like, you gotta be brave enough to wrestle with it and that our unionizing is the right thing. It is the thing that will, like, hopefully create an environment where the people who make that bookstore run, who sell the books, in the long run, it will make the institution healthier. I really do believe, and just that we've been talking about this metaphor as the boss of. As an abusive partner. I think for so many folks, when they are. Whether it's something like domestic violence or it's in a union campaign, or you're speaking out against your neighbors being abducted and shot and killed in the street, there is such an expectation that I have to sit by and be quiet while this happens. And part of that, I think what does prevent, and at least in my experience, experience as someone who survived, you know, particular kinds of violence, that, yeah, I. I wasn't sure I was doing the right thing. But us unionizing is absolutely the right thing. It is the right thing for the stores. It is the right thing for the community and for the workers. And I just. As much as I'm frustrated, like, yeah, I. I know myself and my. My fellow booksellers are doing this out of love. Like, it is absolutely love for the stores and the community we serve.
- [105:32]
Giselle Bryant
So, yeah, we're never gonna feel bad for continuing to fight for what is the right thing.
- [105:38]
Andrew Sage
To do.
- [105:39]
Finn
Yeah.
- [105:39]
Andrew Sage
I'm too broke to feel bad.
- [105:41]
Finn
Yeah. Don't be poisoned by mold every time you go to the bookstore to support the union.
- [105:50]
Michael Palberg
Yeah.
- [105:50]
Giselle Bryant
Wear your mask at Seminary Co op.
- [105:52]
Elaine
Yeah.
- [105:53]
Giselle Bryant
Take a stab of cat pim.
- [105:55]
Andrew Sage
Yeah. Ask to talk to a manager. Make it a long talk.
- [105:59]
Elaine
Yeah.
- [105:59]
Giselle Bryant
Honestly, see if you can get one on the floor. We'll help you.
- [106:02]
Finn
Yeah. So how can people help support y'?
- [106:04]
Michael Palberg
All?
- [106:04]
Finn
And do you have places where people can find more information about the campaign and follow updates?
- [106:10]
Andrew Sage
We have a change.org petition that I think if. If you can link it somewhere in the description.
- [106:16]
Garrison Davis
Yep.
- [106:17]
Finn
Yeah, we will link in the description.
- [106:19]
Andrew Sage
Yeah. So that, that does ask folks to sign off in support of the termination of Jenny Goltz, their union busting lawyer, as well as releasing like the full slate of financial information too. So there's a change.org petition. You can also follow us on Instagram. Uncoopooksellers Union. We've got the little icon with the sabo cat. Sign the petition. There are also some action items on some of the posts, such as emailing the board and management about the release of financial information and also the termination of Jenny Goltz's employment. You can also email those emails on that post about the mold too, if you want me to breathe at work.
- [106:58]
Finn
Yeah. I'm so mad about this. This is. I am going to lead the description with you. They are poisoning you because, like, I'm so angry about this.
- [107:10]
Andrew Sage
Thank you. I'm too tired to be angry about it.
- [107:12]
Giselle Bryant
I'm so glad that someone with a French perspective has remembered that the mold is totally bogus. Because I had forgotten this.
- [107:21]
Andrew Sage
It's crazy. Yeah.
- [107:22]
Giselle Bryant
It's so bogus.
- [107:24]
Andrew Sage
It's also like, it's in such plain sight. Like, if you're in 57th street books and you look to the right of the air conditioning unit and room one, you see that shit growing on the wall.
- [107:34]
Giselle Bryant
It's wild.
- [107:34]
Andrew Sage
And it's like. But I also feel like if I talk to management, which I tried about this, it just is not a priority. My breathing not a priority. Yeah, it is wild. Thank you for reminding me that someone.
- [107:49]
Finn
One day when you win, someone's going to write a paper about necropolitics in this or something like, good Lor.
- [107:55]
Andrew Sage
Jeez. Yeah, some shit. But yeah. Sign the petition. Follow us on Instagram, Help us make.
- [108:04]
Giselle Bryant
A ruckus and come talk to us and our managers at the bookstore because we love to talk to people while we sell them books.
- [108:12]
Andrew Sage
Yeah, yeah. We'll take any goodwill we can get.
- [108:15]
Giselle Bryant
So very much so.
- [108:17]
Elaine
Hell yeah.
- [108:18]
Finn
Well, thank you to both so much for coming on and just for doing this in I don't know, like a place that was really special to me when I was.
- [108:28]
Andrew Sage
Yeah.
- [108:28]
When I was there for a long time. Thanks for your help.
- [108:31]
Giselle Bryant
Thank you for following up with us.
- [108:33]
Andrew Sage
Of course.
- [108:33]
Giselle Bryant
It's really nice to have this platform every so often.
- [108:37]
James Stout
Yeah.
- [108:37]
Andrew Sage
Yeah, for sure. Hell yeah.
- [108:40]
Finn
Well, hopefully we will have you back on when you fucking win. And yeah.
- [108:44]
Giselle Bryant
Yes. Celebratory round.
- [108:48]
Andrew Sage
I'm buying. I'm personally buying the Cool Zone media team around at Jimmy's. When we win our contract.
- [108:58]
Giselle Bryant
I will come back down to Hyde park just for the celebration.
- [109:03]
Andrew Sage
Change everyone's oil while you're down too.
- [109:06]
Giselle Bryant
Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, don't take that long. I won't be ready for a second.
- [109:12]
Finn
Yeah, this. This is bit. It could happen here. And you too can resist both your abuser and your boss even when they're the same person.
- [109:20]
Giselle Bryant
And you should.
- [109:22]
Andrew Sage
Hey man.
- [109:23]
Get him.
- [109:37]
Giselle Bryant
Time for a sofa upgrade. Introducing Anabe sofas where designer style meets budget friendly prices.
- [109:44]
Finn
Every anibe sofa is modular allowing you.
- [109:46]
Giselle Bryant
To rearrange your space effortlessly. Perfect for both small and large spaces. Annabe is the only machine washable sofa inside and out. Say goodbye to stains and messes with liquid and stain resistant fabrics that make cleaning easy. Liquids simply slide right off. Designed for custom comfort, our high resilience foam lets you choose between a sink in feel or a supportive memory foam blend. Plus our pet friendly stain resistant fabrics ensure your sofa stays beautiful for years.
- [110:14]
Finn
Don't compromise quality for price.
- [110:16]
Giselle Bryant
Visit washablesofas.com to upgrade your living space. Today sofas start at just $699 with no risk returns and a 30 day money back guarantee. Get early access to Black Friday now the biggest sale of the year can save you up to 60% off plus free shipping and free returns. Shop now@washablesofas.com Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.
- [110:41]
James Stout
That's the sound of James adding long.
- [110:42]
Andrew Sage
Lasting gain scent boosters to his laundry this morning. Several hours later, James sniffs the irresistible scent of gain on his shirt. Gain.
- [110:53]
Michael Palberg
Several hours later James has even caught.
- [110:55]
James Stout
The attention of his mother in law.
- [110:56]
Elaine
And she never gives him attention.
- [110:59]
Andrew Sage
Smell amazing James.
- [111:01]
Oh thanks mom. I love you too.
- [111:03]
I never said that.
- [111:05]
Michael Palberg
Add gain scent boosters to your laundry.
- [111:07]
Finn
Add joy to your day.
- [111:11]
James Stout
All I know is what I've been.
- [111:13]
Andrew Sage
Told and that to half truth is a whole lie.
- [111:17]
Giselle Bryant
For almost a decade the murder of an 18 year old girl from a small town in Graves County, Kentucky went unsolved until a local homemaker, a journalist and a handful of girls came forward with a story.
- [111:32]
Andrew Sage
I'm telling you, we know Quincy killed her.
- [111:35]
Giselle Bryant
We know a story that law enforcement used to convict six people and that got the citizen investigator on national tv.
- [111:44]
Garrison Davis
Through sheer persistence and nerve, this Kentucky housewife helped give justice to Jessica Kerr.
- [111:51]
Giselle Bryant
My name is Maggie Freeling. I'm a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist producer, and I wouldn't be here if the truth were that easy to find.
- [112:01]
Elaine
I did not know her and I did not kill her or rape or burn or any of that other stuff that y' all said.
- [112:06]
Giselle Bryant
They literally made me say that I.
- [112:08]
Andrew Sage
Took a match and struck and threw it on her.
- [112:10]
Giselle Bryant
They made me say that I poured gas on her from Lava. For good. This is Graves County, a show about just how far our legal system will go in order to find someone to blame.
- [112:25]
Elaine
America, y' all better wake the hell up.
- [112:27]
Andrew Sage
Bad things happens to good people and small towns.
- [112:34]
Giselle Bryant
Listen to Graves county in the Bone Valley feed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to binge the entire season ad free. Subscribe to Lava for Good plus on Apple Podcasts.
- [112:55]
Elaine
I'm Jonathan Goldstein, and on the new season of Heavyweight, I help a centenarian mend a broken heart.
- [113:02]
Andrew Sage
How can 101-year-old woman fall in love again?
- [113:09]
Elaine
And I help a man atone for an armed robbery he committed at 14 years old. And so I pointed the gun at.
- [113:17]
Ryan
Him and said, this isn't a joke.
- [113:19]
Andrew Sage
And he got down.
- [113:20]
Elaine
And I remember feeling kind of a surge of like, okay, this is power. Plus. My old friend Gregor and his brother try to solve my problems through hypnotism.
- [113:30]
Finn
We could give you a whole brand.
- [113:31]
Andrew Sage
New thing where you're like, super charming.
- [113:32]
Garrison Davis
All the time, being more able to.
- [113:34]
Ryan
Look people in the eye, not always.
- [113:36]
Andrew Sage
Hide behind a microphone.
- [113:36]
Ryan
Microphone.
- [113:38]
Elaine
Listen to heavyweight on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [113:52]
Andrew Sage
Hello and welcome to It Could Happen Here. I'm Andrew sage. I run Andrewism over on YouTube, but I'm here on this podcast with the.
- [114:01]
Finn
One and only Mia Wong, who does this podcast most of the time.
- [114:07]
Andrew Sage
Exactly. Exactly. And I think you and I both have something in common, which is that we are people and we are two people. But the world has a lot more than just two people. This is a really convoluted way of saying that for this episode, we're going to be talking about population, how many of you people there are and how many of them there will or will not be in the future, and all the different conversations that end up happening.
- [114:36]
Finn
Around that, most of which suck. So it's a time. True, true, true, true.
- [114:42]
Andrew Sage
Yeah. I mean, every single one of us humans is a product of billions of years of reproduction. But for most of that reproduction, population growth was pretty slow. You know, the world's population is estimated at around 5 million in the year 8000 BC. So 5 million is like the population of New Zealand right now or Costa Rica or Ireland or Norway, but spread across the entire planet. Can you guess how many people were alive in the year 1 CE, though?
- [115:19]
Finn
30 million.
- [115:21]
Andrew Sage
That's actually an underestimate. It's 188 million.
- [115:25]
Finn
Geez.
- [115:26]
Andrew Sage
Right, so that's between the current population of Bangladesh and the current population of Brazil, which are at 169 million and 230 million, respectively. But that's spread across the entire planet. So, I mean, imagine that, you know, a whole world of people so spread out. I mean, they were concentrated in certain areas, of course, but you had all this vast forest, land and plains and entire continents that barely had people compared to today. And the reason the population grew so slowly was really because, I mean, humans have always been doing the do, you know, but death was kind of a very present phenomenon. You know, you had famines, you had plagues, you had the occasional war, and you especially had a lot of infant mortality.
- [116:20]
Finn
Yeah.
- [116:20]
Andrew Sage
And that's what really kept populations in check. You know, I remember hearing. I don't even remember who it was, but this one person had, like, 19 children, and only eight of them survived to adulthood.
- [116:36]
Finn
Yeah, they honestly did pretty good. Like, by those metrics, like, yeah, the infant mortality rate was unbelievably high.
- [116:45]
Andrew Sage
Yeah, yeah. So families had a lot of children, but only a few of them made it to adulthood. Thanks to early industrialization, things were able to change a bit. You know, we improved our agriculture, we invented refrigeration, we got better fertilizer. And most importantly, we developed advancements in sanitation. You know, doctors were actually washing their hands. You know, we developed vaccines so children weren't dying of measles and mumps. Hmm. Imagine that.
- [117:16]
Finn
Oh, good Lord.
- [117:17]
Andrew Sage
And we also had an overall improvement in medicine. You know, one of the greatest inventions of humanity, I think, is the vaccine. And it's such a wonderful thing that there's not this massive movement of people who challenge its very legitimacy in this day and age and threaten all of Our lives as a result. You know, imagine being in that world.
- [117:41]
Finn
Oh, God.
- [117:43]
Andrew Sage
So we eventually hit 1 billion in the year 1804, which is just below the current population of China. And things really began to accelerate from there. We end up creating something called a J curve of exponential population growth, thanks to, like I said, the decline in infant mortality and improvements in fertility and food production and any other billionaire milestones started rolling. By 1804, Haiti had just gained its independence, Napoleon I was crowned Emperor of France, and Lewis and Clark had begun their expedition across America in 1927. That's 123 years later. We hit 2 billion people. You know, by then we had Trotsky being expelled from the ussr, which had just been founded. We had Charles Lindenberg completing the first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean. And then also in 1927, we had the release of the first feature length film to feature synchronized sound for dialogue. Quite the time to be alive. You Fast forward to 33 years later, 1960, and we hit 3 billion people. By then, Nigeria had just gained its independence, JFK was in the White House, Ham the Chimpanzee went to space, and the FDA approved the first ever birth control pill. But the birth control pill didn't really kick in in terms of, you know, hampering our growth for some time. By 1974, 14 years later, we hit 4 billion people. By then, Nixon had resigned, Turkey had invaded Cyprus, Portugal overthrew its dictatorship, The Godfather Part 2 came out, and ABBA was still at the top of the charts. 1987, 13 years later, is when we got 5 billion people. That's when we had most of the major colonies around the world gaining their independence, or haven't already had gained their independence. You know, Thatcher was beginning her third term, and the Simpsons first appeared on TV. Twelve years later in 1999, we had the Y2K panic, the Clinton impeachment, the SpongeBob premiere, the introduction of the euro, and 6 billion people made their debut on planet Earth in 2011. Twelve years later, we hit 7 billion people. And that was in the midst of the Arab Spring, a tsunami hit in Japan, the Occupy movement, the premiere of Game of Thrones, and really the beginning of smartphones and social media taking over the world. Finally, by 2022, which is 11 years after 2011, we hit 8 billion people. Amidst Russia invading Ukraine, the growing popularity of TikTok, and Elon's purchase of Twitter. So from 1804 to 2022, we went from 1 billion people to 8 billion people. And the UN expects it to grow by about 1.9 billion between now and 2100. So we'll end up reaching from 8.2 billion people to 10.2 billion people. And population is projected to peak at 10.3 billion in 2084 and then declined to 10.2 billion through the end of the century. So with this rapid population growth, there has been a lot of fears surrounding overpopulation. Particularly in the late 20th century and early 2000s, there was a lot of conversation around, you know, this population bomb, this worry that there were too many people. Now, at least early on in the population boom, I think it makes some sense to have concerns. You know, there had never been this many people on the earth at any point in time prior. You know, if you're watching the numbers climb and climb and climb, you might have thought we were headed straight for a planet covered in cities and some kind of collapse. But even before we even hit a billion people, the idea of overpopulation being a significant problem wasn't new. In the late 1700s, Thomas Malthus argued that population would always outpace food supply. And his prediction was that there'd be too many people, not enough resources, and a decline into famine, disease, and mass death. Now, he was obviously proven wrong, but in 19th century Britain, Malthus ideas helped justify the harsh welfare policies that that government ended up implementing, like the spread of workhouses around the country. Also, we speak about famine as if it's this natural phenomenon that can't be helped, that is just almost like a hurricane or a tornado. But famines are usually not actually the result of not having enough food. You know, Amartya Sen found that famines usually happen despite food surpluses. The issue is usually distribution and not scarcity. You know, a famous example being, you know, during the Irish famine, Ireland was still exporting tons of food to feed its colonial overlord. So we Fast forward to 1968 and the biologist Paul Ehrlich publishes the population bomb. He describes visiting Delhi and feeling the crush of overpopulation, convinced that mass starvation was imminent in the 1970s. Now, I think that book that he published was one of the main influences in the widespread panic around overpopulation. You know, governments started to scramble about it. A lot of policies were born, likely from people reading that very book. You know, some of these policies were fairly benign. You know, you promote family planning, you improve access to contraceptives, you improve education for women especially. But other approaches were very harsh and brutal. You know, you had sterilization campaigns, forced sterilization campaigns taking place in India and Puerto Rico. And in the United States, China's one child policy also gets a lot of attention, but it was only one example of a widespread brutality around the impositions placed on women, especially in that time. The fear of too many people and that anxiety leading to the control of women and their bodies. And it's a scary prospect, especially if you were a minority in this time, if you were a cultural, racial or religious minority, because it made very ordinary human activity, things like moving around, having children, just existing made it seem like an existential threat to civilization, to humanity, that needed to be dealt with by any means necessary. So they had some positive outcomes of, quote, unquote, positive outcomes of the overpopulation concern. You know, you had pushers for men's empowerment. You had the proposal of improved urbanization to reduce the sprawl of human activity. You also had people proposing things like extraterrestrial settlement, which, you know, is not really realistic as a solution for a multitude of valid reasons. Yeah, I think it's really funny, you know, whenever people push that sort of. Yeah, humans are destined for the stars kind of narrative. You know, it's a story, a really powerful story coming out of science fiction. And it's good that it has inspired people to learn more about space and, you know, dedicate their lives to the study of the stars and that kind of thing. But this idea that we're going to be shipping off, like, millions of people off planet to settle on other planets, I think is pretty safely in the realm of science fiction.
- [126:04]
Finn
Yeah, that's a full, like, get back to me in a thousand years and we could maybe start talking about moving, like, thousands of people.
- [126:13]
Andrew Sage
Yeah, even thousands or hundreds of people. I mean, we don't have those. Those massive generation ships, and we can't even get those off the ground at this stage in our spacecraft. And we also have a lot of issues to resolve on Earth before we spread our problems across the galaxy, as far as I'm concerned. But beyond these solutions, the ideas and public discourses around overpopulation have also birthed a lot of conspiracy theories. You know, I'm sure you might have heard a few of them in your time.
- [126:44]
Finn
Oh, boy. Yep. This is one of the big Alex Jones things, for example. So he's convinced that there's, like a giant plot by the globalists to kill off an enormous part of the Cuban population to, like, stop overpopulation or something. It's. Yeah, yeah.
- [127:01]
Andrew Sage
Honestly, any combination of conspiracies, concern, hobby smushed together to fit that kind of narrative. And I could Talk about all the vaccines sterilizing people, the chemtrails, the 5G towers, the bill Gates microchips, the. Even the food supply, all these things allegedly being used to sterilize people. Not to say that there isn't validity to any claims of the things that we consume contributing to lower fertility, the fact that we clothe ourselves in, like, polyester, you know, we still don't have a full idea of the impact of microplastics on our bodies. You know, there's valid concerns about some of the consequences of the ultra processed foods that, you know, fill our grocery shelves. But that's the sad thing about conspiracy theories. You know, they have some kernels of truth mixed in to bolster their validity, but then they mix it up with a bunch of garbage about, you know, utter nonsense.
- [128:12]
Finn
Yeah.
- [128:13]
Andrew Sage
And then, of course, I mean, some of these conspiracy theories are kind of benign, you know, like, if you think it's 5G towers, I guess you'd put a, I don't know, a tinfoil hat on your junk.
- [128:24]
Finn
But I mean, to be fair, there was One of the 5G guys who did, like, blow himself up at a giant car bomb.
- [128:32]
Andrew Sage
I did not hear about that a.
- [128:33]
Finn
Couple of years ago.
- [128:34]
Andrew Sage
Damn.
- [128:35]
Finn
Oh, yeah. Luckily, he only killed himself. But. Giant. Giant car bomb in the middle of, I want to say, Memphis or something.
- [128:45]
Andrew Sage
Damn.
- [128:45]
Finn
Yeah, but, yeah, so like, every once in a while he gets a real oh, boy stuff from that.
- [128:52]
Andrew Sage
Yeah, yeah. I mean, honestly, people could take even the simplest things and turn it into a threat to themselves and others if they're not in the right headspace or they haven't been given the right support. Sad, really. And obviously, like, not all the conspiracies are benign. I mean, if you have people rejecting vaccines, you know, it's almost like we're in the world that I alluded to earlier, you know, where we have a resurgence in measles, for example.
- [129:22]
Finn
Yeah. Jim o', Neill, who's the Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services and the acting director for the cdc, literally on Monday called for splitting the MMR vaccine into multiple vaccines. Like, which is basically. Which is just straight up the Andrew Wakefield. I think, like I've said this on seven podcasts on this show now, but this is literally just straight up the Andrew Wakefield anti vaccine thing from the original giant anti vaccine panic in the 90s.
- [129:51]
Andrew Sage
That was the autism vaccine thing.
- [129:53]
Finn
Yeah, yeah. Like, and this is. This is. This is. The guy who's currently running the CDC is just being like, no, yeah, you should do this thing. That's again.
- [130:01]
Andrew Sage
Yeah, yeah, you guys are cooked.
- [130:03]
Finn
Yeah, again, this thing that was developed specifically so that Andrew Wakefield could sell his own vaccine.
- [130:09]
Andrew Sage
Yeah, yeah, I mean that's, that's the thing. If I was conspiracy brained, I would say that actually the popularization of vaccine conspiracies on social media sites contribute to exactly that kind of population control that those same conspiracy theorists fear monger about. But that's if I was conspiracy brained, which I'm not.
- [130:31]
Finn
God. So someone, someone believes that somewhere. Absolutely. There was someone who is like the anti vaxxers are a conspiracy to call the global population or something like.
- [130:42]
Andrew Sage
No, because I mean, we have this very straightforwardly effective human invention, one of the best in the history of humankind, and you're telling me that a couple people on Facebook are now responsible for the entire government rejecting the effectiveness of vaccines and you know, jeopardizing the health of the entire population? Come on.
- [131:09]
Finn
Yeah, I mean, unfortunately the true believers are in charge now.
- [131:17]
Andrew Sage
Indeed, indeed they are true believers. And of course people who stand to profit from the dip in the sales of paracetamol and whatever else. So there are those conspiracies about population and then there's the typical far right Nazi conspiracies about great replacements.
- [131:37]
Michael Palberg
Right.
- [131:37]
Andrew Sage
The idea that shadowy elites are orchestrating falling birth rates among white populations while encouraging immigration from the population booming global south. I mean, of course not all the global south is booming population wise. A lot of places are also experiencing decline. It's a global problem. But we're going to get to that. And connected of course, to those great replacement types. You have the eco fascia with their worries about the environmental impact of population and their twisted belief that environmental collapse could be solved by reducing the number of people, which usually ends up targeting marginalized groups. Which is exactly the kind of thinking that inspired real violence. Like with the Christchurch shooter in 2019.
- [132:22]
Finn
Yep.
- [132:22]
Andrew Sage
And of course the actual drivers of ecological collapse are not poor families in India or Africa having too many kids. It's the over consumption of the global North. You know, if you actually wanted to reduce consumption, reduce the impact of population on the planet, are you going to start with fewer people or are you going to start with fewer billionaires flying private jets? You know, it's not about the number of people, the head count, it's about the lifestyles and the systems that support those lifestyles. You know, blaming population is a very cheap, simplistic and cowardly get out of jail free card for the rich minority that drive this systemic crisis.
- [133:05]
Finn
Yep. The thing about this obviously is that if. If you believe that you need to reduce the human population, that it's your obligation to go first.
- [133:14]
Andrew Sage
Yes, well, we are going to talk about those types of people in the next episode. But, you know, speaking of the overpopulation, I think there's nowadays at least an opposite concern that is dominating the headline. You know, in wealthier, more developed countries, fertility tends to be lower. And that's tied to things like better education, more women working, urban living, greater choices, greater access to contraception, etc. But in less developed countries, fertility is usually higher because children are often seen as both helping hands and future caregivers, and education and access to birth control are more limited. But the global fertility rate is now steadily dropping due to that increasing development, greater access to birth control, greater education and women's rights. And there's a fear nowadays that there won't be enough people to support the system as it has been built. Remember, capitalism is predicated on endless growth. When its population starts to decline naturally, everything that it's building towards in terms of the amount of consumers, the amount of infrastructure, the amount of workers, those are not going to be there anymore, especially as more and more people end up dipping out of the workforce as they age. So in 2023, the global average had dropped to just 2.3 children per woman, which is less than half of what it was 60 years ago. According to the United Nations, Fertility will keep falling throughout this century. And by the year 2100, the global average is expected to dip below replacement level of 2.1 to about 1.8 children per woman. Now, some countries are already there. Japan sits at 1.2 children per woman. Italy, Spain and much of Eastern Europe are well below 1.5. South Korea is famously a demographic outlier at 0.7 children per woman, which is the lowest fertility rate in the world. And that means, obviously, that on average, Korean women are having less than one child each. For very valid reasons, I might add, considering the economic and cultural conditions in that country. Now, I don't live in Eastern Europe or Southern Europe or East Asia. I live in the Caribbean. I live in Trinidad and Tobago. But speaking anecdotally at least, which obviously is not representative of the full picture, I can count maybe on one hand the number of people I know my age who think that they'll be able to bring children into the world whether they want to or not. You know, very few people I know actually want children, or if they do want children, they don't think they'll be able to afford to have children, but maybe that's a selfishness. What do you think?
- [136:16]
Finn
I mean, I don't know, like I, I am not interacting with a representative sample of the population. But no. Yeah, I mean, it's a lot of people who are like, no, and it's too expensive, it sucks. I don't want to deal with this. But again, like not, not a representative sample here.
- [136:45]
Andrew Sage
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, you could just look at the economy. Things have been getting worse for my entire life. You know, there hasn't been any point in my life where anyone in my generation could look around honestly and say, yeah, you know, this is, we'd be cooking, you know, it's time to double, double it. You know, let's have a child. You know, the housing situation has gotten worse, the cost of living as a whole has gotten worse, childcare costs have gotten worse. And of course, outside of that economic stuff, there's also cultural attitude shifts. You know, people realizing, I don't need to have a child to be fulfilled to find meaning. You know, people are able to pursue higher education and also they're more educated about the process of childbearing in general, including the very valid medical concerns surrounding that whole process. I mean, if I were a woman, I would not want to have a child. You know, the consequences on their bodies, on their minds, on their health, the risks to their very life are not something that can be swept aside as it was previously. People are aware of it now, people are talking about it now, and they are empowered to make decisions that feel right for them. You know, a lot of people are also very much focused on their careers, either by choice or because they don't have any other choice but to focus on putting food on the table. You know, people are also getting married later and as a whole, we have shifted toward a more individual society. So, you know, in the past you did have the extended families, the close knit communities that made raising children a bit more manageable, but today it's a bit rarer to find and you tend to see a lot more nuclear families, even just individuals going at it alone, you know, with less support and more isolation. And so it makes it very difficult. And then there's the existential angst of it all. You know, I can't forget the fact that there are multiple wars waging around the world. You know, there's a lot of political instability in much of the world and of course the biggest issue of all, climate change, which makes it, honestly, it makes it feel irresponsible to even think about bringing a child into this mess. So a declining fertility, a decline in population, it has the governments panicking. You know, China went from having decades of a one child policy to now desperately trying to encourage people to have more babies. They're offering cash bonuses and housing perks and extended parental leave, but it's not really working. You know, as populations are aging, there's a lot more elderly people to care for and fewer working age people to support them. So that is, you know, a recipe for pension crises and labor shortages and spiraling healthcare costs. So some governments are even trying to raise the retirement age, which as France and their protests have shown, is not going to go over well with much of the population. Nobody wants to work an extra five years, an extra 10 years more when they've already put so much of their lives to these dead end, pointless and, you know, mentally and physically draining tasks that really just line the pockets of their bosses.
- [140:09]
Finn
It is worth pointing out that last year there was a pretty massive race in the retirement age people in China that's being phased in a way where it's going to take over the course of 15 years. It goes up gradually to sort of like spread out the anger over it. But yeah, it is worth noting that China's is like significantly increased or is going to significantly increase over the course of the next 15 years.
- [140:35]
Elaine
Hmm.
- [140:36]
Andrew Sage
Yeah. And then on the other side of things, they're raising the retirement age now, but the young people who are working today are more than likely not going to get any kind of pension.
- [140:48]
Elaine
Yeah.
- [140:48]
Andrew Sage
You know, I'd rather the world of my 60s don't look like the world of my 20s. That would be my preference. So I would rather that we've reached a point as a society where pensions are not the necessary band aid that they are right now. But until then, you know, there's quite the powder keg.
- [141:11]
Finn
Yeah.
- [141:12]
Andrew Sage
We also have in Eastern Europe, you know, you have countries rolling out pro natalist policies that tie financial support directly to family size. I'm going to get a bit more into pronatalism in the next episode. But there's also the darker side of that pronatalist push in terms of the policies meant to reverse the population decline. Some governments, instead of making life better for potential parents, are criminalizing, they're turning to anti choice policies. They're restricting abortion, they're limiting reproductive rights, they're demonizing child free lifestyles. Russia actually recently criminalized what they called child free propaganda, you know.
- [141:57]
Finn
Yeah.
- [141:58]
Andrew Sage
And then this is also part of a broader conversation about population where you have the immigration concerns as a political flashpoint and because a lot of wealthy countries, because of their population decline, are starting to rely more on immigrants to keep their economies going. But as a flip side, that tends to fuel backlash from the far right groups who are able to frame it as a threat to national identity. And because the system or the state in capitalism is not interested in actually taking care of people, those immigrants become a very useful scapegoat. You know, obviously I'm in support of people moving and living wherever they want to move and live as they please. I don't believe in borders, especially as the climate consequences are hitting those of us in the Global south first. Yeah, but I also am not a fan of the way that some progressives end up talking about immigration where they act as if, you know, the Global south is like a population bank that wealthy countries could tap into and, you know, pull population from, regardless of the consequences on the home countries of these people. You know, it's like, let immigrants come. And I'm all for that. But then it's also like your government is destabilizing their governments, your system, your economic system, and the global economic system is making life in those countries unlivable. And I think the priority also needs to be on dealing with that issue and not just shrugging and saying, well, you know, at least immigrants are able to help our economy stay afloat even as their countries languish and suffer. So to kind of wrap things up, where does this all leave us? You know, for centuries we feared having too many people and now we're starting to fear having too few people. And both anxieties are shaping policy, fuelling conspiracy theories and sparking culture wars. And whether the future holds overcrowded cities or ghost towns really depends on the direction our politics, economy, culture and urban design take. On the next episode, I'm going to be talking about the ideas around population, the pro natalists and the antinatalists. But until then, I've been Andrew Sage here with Mia Wong on it could happen here. Peace.
- [144:32]
Giselle Bryant
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- [144:38]
Finn
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- [144:41]
Giselle Bryant
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- [145:08]
Finn
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- [145:10]
Giselle Bryant
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- [145:35]
James Stout
That's the sound of James adding long.
- [145:37]
Andrew Sage
Lasting gain scent boosters to his laundry this morning. Several hours later, James sniffs the irresistible scent of gain on his shirt Gain.
- [145:47]
Michael Palberg
Several hours later, James has even caught.
- [145:49]
James Stout
The attention of his mother in law.
- [145:51]
Elaine
And she never gives him attention.
- [145:54]
Andrew Sage
Smell amazing James.
- [145:55]
Oh thanks mom. I love you too.
- [145:58]
I never said that.
- [145:59]
Michael Palberg
Add Gain scent boosters to your laundry.
- [146:01]
Finn
Add joy to your day.
- [146:06]
Andrew Sage
All I know is what I've been.
- [146:08]
Told and that to half truth is a whole lie.
- [146:11]
Giselle Bryant
For almost a decade, the murder of an 18 year old girl from a small town in Graves County, Kentucky went unsolved until a local homemaker, a journalist and a handful of girls came forward with a story.
- [146:27]
Andrew Sage
I'm telling you, we know Quincy killed her.
- [146:29]
Giselle Bryant
We know a story that law enforcement used to convict six people and that got the citizen investigator on national tv.
- [146:38]
Garrison Davis
Through sheer persistence and nerve, this Kentucky housewife helped give justice to Jessica Curran.
- [146:45]
Giselle Bryant
My name is Maggie Freeling. I'm a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist producer and I wouldn't be here if the truth were that easy to find.
- [146:55]
Elaine
I did not know her and I did not kill her or rape or burn or any of that other stuff that y' all said.
- [147:01]
Giselle Bryant
They literally made me say that I.
- [147:02]
Andrew Sage
Took a match and struck and threw it on her.
- [147:04]
Giselle Bryant
They made me say that I poured gas on her from Lava For Good. This is Graves County, a show about just how far our legal system will go in order to find someone to blame.
- [147:19]
Garrison Davis
America, y' all better wake the hell up.
- [147:21]
Andrew Sage
Bad things happens to good people and small towns.
- [147:28]
Giselle Bryant
Listen to Graves county in the Bone Valley. Feed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast and to binge the entire season ad free. Subscribe to Lava for Good plus on Apple Podcasts. In early 1988, federal agents raced to.
- [147:55]
Elaine
Track down the gang they suspect of.
- [147:57]
Giselle Bryant
Importing millions of dollars worth of heroin into New York from Asia.
- [148:02]
Finn
We had 30 agents ready to go with shotguns and rifles and you name it.
- [148:07]
Giselle Bryant
But what they find is not what they expected.
- [148:11]
Andrew Sage
Basically your stay at home moms were picking up these large amounts of heroin.
- [148:15]
They go, is this your daughter?
- [148:16]
Garrison Davis
I said, yes.
- [148:17]
Andrew Sage
They go, oh, you may not see her for like 25 years.
- [148:24]
Caught between a federal investigation and the.
- [148:27]
Giselle Bryant
Violent gang who recruited them, the women must decide who they're willing to protect and who they dare to betray.
- [148:36]
Elaine
Once I saw the gun, I tried to take his hand and I saw the flash of light.
- [148:40]
Giselle Bryant
Listen to the Chinatown sting on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or anywhere you get your podcast.
- [148:59]
Elaine
Trick or treater. I heard Ah, hello. Welcome to It Could Happen Here, the Spooky Special. I'm your host, Garrison Davis. Once again, there has been far too many important world events taking precedence that we here at the show are unable to provide listeners with an entire spooky weeks worth of themed episodes. But I know how important Halloween is for many millennials. So I've taken it upon myself to produce two spooky episodes to bookend the holiday. This episode that you're listening to right now, as well as another that will release Monday morning or Sunday night. As the world is becoming an increasingly spooky, scary place, I needed to up the ante to exceed the weird and eerie fright that comes from living in America and the world in general in 2025. So last week I traveled from New York to Brussels, briefly caught up with my close personal friend and colleague Tintin, and then took the train to Germany. Very scary indeed. Once in Germany, I was confronted with seemingly occult words and symbols. People spoke in odd incantations. I came across a map that appeared via my black scrying mirror, the iPhone, which, upon deciphering, led me to an old power plant warehouse in East Berlin. I entered this dark, looming building and inside the air was thick with smoke and incense. Figures dressed in all black emerged from the fog. Witches, wizards, and magicians. I followed them into a candlelit room where hooded occultists conducted a ritual welcoming US to the 2025 OCCulture Conference. OCCulture is a bi yearly conference that's once every two years focusing on the intersection of occultism and culture, pop or otherwise. This is arguably the most prestigious occultism conference in the world. I have been wanting to attend years, and I was finally able to go this go round on the condition that I make four podcast episodes. The two that I'm releasing this week and next will cover some of the core magical and topical currents throughout the conference, mostly via a panel discussion between myself and three other attendees. And then before Christmas, I'll have two fully Scripted episodes interrogating these concepts further and discussing the use of occult practice in 2025. So to start, let's meet our panelists. I should introduce my magical travel team for this conference. Let's start with Delta, a Belgian magician and artist which I recruited to join me in this wacky adventure. Delta, say hi. Hello. What do you do, Delta? What's your magical specialty? I suppose.
- [152:11]
Andrew Sage
Well, it's kind of a mix of.
- [152:12]
Elaine
Into the microphone. It's kind of a mix of things where part of it is just into the microphone.
- [152:20]
Michael Palberg
I'm sorry.
- [152:22]
Elaine
You can get pretty close to it.
- [152:23]
Giselle Bryant
Okay.
- [152:25]
Ryan
It's a kind of a mix of.
- [152:27]
Elaine
Things really, between conventional chaos magic and more theoretical, like weird theory stuff like Mark Fisher and the ccru adjacent things. We talk a lot about Mark Fisher, some land stuff, metafiction theory, fiction, hyperstition. Delta and myself talk about magic through the Internet quite a bit and how it combines with cultural theory which is relevant to this conference. Let's move over to my left.
- [152:59]
Ryan
I've been recruited along on this magical journey. I'm Ryan. I practice the Vajrayana, a Greco Egyptian magical practice, and also am involved in a Haitian voodoo house. Prior to that, I was also an academic for a good period of time where I studied Renaissance rhetoric and political theory, philosophy and economics. So my contributions are going to be wide and varied.
- [153:25]
Elaine
We've been making a lot of Hegel jokes this weekend.
- [153:28]
Ryan
So many Hegel jokes.
- [153:30]
Elaine
Our last crew member, which people may have heard before on various shows.
- [153:35]
Andrew Sage
Hi, my name is Elaine and I make art and research a lot of Renaissance grimoric magic. And though most of the things I do are a lot of idiosyncratic practices and based on various folk magic and chaos magic and Vulcan folk magic.
- [153:57]
Elaine
Before we continue the conversation between myself and my three guests, let's start by discussing the word occulture, the namesake of the conference. Obviously, this is a combination of the word occult and culture, and it describes how the two influence and possibly undermine one another. To read a quote from the person who originated the term quote. A culture is a word that was inevitable during the hyperactive phase of the Temple of Psychic youth in the 1980s. We were casting around for an all embracing term to describe an approach to combining a unique demystified spiritual philosophy with a fervent insistence that all life and art are indivisible at any given moment. Our sensory environment is whispering to us, telling us hidden stories, revealing subliminal connections. This concealed dialogue between every level of popular cultural forms and magical conclusions is what we named A culture, unquote, that is from Genesis. B. Peorage, a musician, magician, artist, cult leader and hashtag slightly problematic, queer iconic. In the 70s, they started the band Throbbing Gristle, pioneered industrial music, and later started the Chaos Magic organization, the Temple of Psychic Youth, and its associated band, Psychic tv. Though a culture did not just describe this sort of personal spiritual movement, it carried a strong offensive element targeted against society and perceived systems of control. Through their many projects, including Throbbing Gristle, Psychic TV and the Temple of Psychic Youth, Peorage utilized art and magical practice to conduct a quote unquote war on culture. Similar to another figure that will soon get to William S. Burroughs, A culture describes a process of cultural osmosis. The occult bleeds into and morphs culture, affecting everything from pop culture to politics and philosophy. But as a part of this osmosis, the occult becomes increasingly commodified, knowable, safe territory, marketable. The hidden occult loses its very essence of being hidden, despite its use as a tool of attack against mainstream culture. Like most countercultural forms, the occult has been largely recuperated. Even creative works, which are genuine explorations into the occult, fall into this recuperation paradigm. They get turned into products consumed by a mostly secular audience, like the works of dueling wizards Alan Moore and Grant Morrison. Now some occultists rejoice, knowing that this wide exposure will influence more people to become interested in or adopt occult practices of their own, while others bemoan this dilution and commodification of what to them is an important spiritual practice. As the modern occult revival, along with a heavy helping hand of scientific advancement, deterritorialized Christian hegemonic religion. Now the occult itself has been re territorialized. Which is not to say that the occult is no longer a field of play, which is what this conference attempts to assert. Let's go back to the panel in.
- [157:32]
Ryan
Terms of the conference itself, as we'll get into later. The term occulture very specifically seems to be focused on the study of the interrelation of magical practice and the material aspects of occult culture and its influence and appropriation by wider society. So in terms of political projects or social projects, you can probably relate this. I think that it would be fair to say that it's something like culture jamming. If we're looking for some familiar concepts for people to map onto, that is to say, a focus away from simply solitary practice in the ways in which occult elements influence broader aspects of our society or are appropriated, whether that's through consumerist form forces or through various artistic practices, or even the production of for example, film, television movies. So I think that's a fair assessment of the impacts of a culture and.
- [158:33]
Elaine
Relevant to our discussion later its influence in the tech sector and the emergence of AI, which the current manifestation of has some heavily occult origins regarding around a whole bunch of people in the 90s who were writing about AI as this occult project. And then that influenced many a AI engineer and coder who are now building this stuff. And it's becoming an ever present part of our lives and the occultists now are trying to incorporate it into their own practice, which we will discuss in a sec. Any other notes on a culture as a concept or what this conference is doing with the concept?
- [159:11]
Andrew Sage
I think a culture as a concept is something that's basically been around as long as there's been magical practices. Just looking at so much of things like, you know, the concept of the British Empire being invented by John Dee because of conversations he was having with angels. So I think that naming it and calling it something is also very much felt like an attempt to sort of regain control over the ways that magical practice and greater society seem to influence each other as opposed to a more unintentional way that they have been going back and forth for hundreds if not thousands of years.
- [159:57]
Ryan
There may also be one other aspect that's important for our American audiences, given that we're recording this in Deutschland. This conference varies significantly from other American equivalents or something that might be an American equivalent, formerly Pantheon in and around in San Francisco and San Jose specifically, or Paganicon in the Twin Cities, which specifically has much more of a new age neo pagan Reconstructionist. And so most academic discussion is viewed with some suspicion. And I'm hesitant to say that there's an anti intellectual trend because I don't necessarily think that's true. However, there is a resistance to the kind of academic styling that we saw very prevalent at this conference to talk about the occult more generally as an area of study in addition to just idiosyncratic practice or part of a larger social neo pagan movement, which is again very much the focus of most US based conferences.
- [161:00]
Elaine
As an editorial note, when we're talking about magic, to clarify, we're not talking about stage magicians, we're referring to magic with a K, I.e. rituals and practices based on occult knowledge that seeks to cause change in accordance with will. Whether that's change within yourself or in our consensus reality. Occult magical practice can also serve as a form of spirituality, mysticism, an alternative religious practice, or an alternative to religion with its beliefs and praxis largely influenced by historical esoteric orders, mystery traditions, paganism, witchcraft, herbalism, astrology, hermetic philosophy, and alchemy. And all these things are influences. I'm not saying that the actual historic manifestations of these things are the same as the modern occult practices that are influenced by these things, because often these can be wildly varying, Especially when you talk about things like witchcraft and alchemy, which have been misinterpreted or reconstructed into completely new forms, than what the historical manifestation of them actually contained. But a lot of modern day occultism has manifested as an individually mediated spirituality containing some of the group ritual or ritual aspects of something like Catholicism, but with the individuality of Protestantism. Many conferences have an opening ceremony, and as I previously mentioned, a culture had an opening ritual. This accomplishes a very similar goal to any opening ceremony. To get attendees in a certain headspace, prepare them for the rest of the conference, and set a certain mood in which the rest of the events will kind of follow suit. The acculture opening ritual called upon the attendees demiurgic capacity, how they are part of creating the reality of what this conference is and how it will continue for the next few days. Back to the panel. The framing of the ritual was a blindfolded woman holding the scales of balance. And each person put a intention for the week or for the conference or for themselves into a stone which was handed out to each person who entered the ritual. And at a certain point, these stones were placed on to the scales of balance to create an equilibrium between the two sides of the scale, along with, you know, chanting, meditation, and a lot of incense.
- [163:34]
Ryan
A significant deal of incense, given that we were in a former German forge warehouse. The, you know, billowing smoke that existed throughout the conference, from fires to incense to various other inflammatory items, was rather impressive. But in terms of actual ritual design, it met several elements that I found to be rather impressive. One, it was encompassing of all of those elements that we would later expect to see in the actual body of the conference itself. In terms of, like, the artistic performances, the musical, you know, metal goth music that was played, but also a very practical and open approach to ritual. It was highly inclusive. Everyone who was there participated. It did an exceptional job, I felt, of actually bringing, setting, intention and, and adding to, I don't know, at risk of sounding too new age, the vibrations that we all felt as we engaged and were present. The theatrical quality, I have to say, was also very much dark and spooky. Dark and spooky, but something to be admired.
- [164:40]
Garrison Davis
They did.
- [164:40]
Ryan
They did a very Good job.
- [164:41]
Elaine
Definitely one of the more high effort rituals of the weekend in terms of the performative aspect, with there being little less than a dozen hooded cloaked figures stationed at different points, either holding specific positions in a meditative state for probably over half an hour, standing still in a position that would become uncomfortable, and swinging incense or holding torches or lights. Setting intention specifically is usually you talk to these people. The first step of any kind of magical working is setting your intention for what the work is supposed to do or accomplish in you or out into the world. Mirroring the opening ritual the Acculture 2025 little booklet has a few paragraphs on the concept for this conference, talking about the cosmic craftsman as the demiurge who shapes matter and spirit alike, who embodies creation and transformation, revealing both the light and the hidden, the shadowed face of the divine, as well as having cosmic balance and balancing destruction with creation and order and chaos and the hidden and the scene. The last paragraph in which I will read, I think relates specifically to this show and the cultural political aspects. Quote in the age of relentless acceleration, the craftsman becomes a figure of resistance. His patience and ritual discipline reclaim sacred time, restoring a rhythm beyond the acceleration of modern life. A culture 2025 invites us to dwell in this threshold where creation, intuition and the hidden divine converge. And with that we converge on an AD break. Welcome back to the It Could Happen Here spooky special on the Occulture Conference. The figure name dropped the most throughout this conference might surprise some people, because I'm assuming most do not consider him to be an occultist or really a serious occult figure. The most discussed individual, at least in my experience of the conference, was not Aleister Crowley, John Dee, someone like Helena Blavatsky, but in fact William S. Burroughs. And now we'll return to the panel to discuss the Berossian Current. Let's talk about what I would argue was the strongest current throughout this conference. I'm going to call the Berossian Current, relating to writer, beat poet and mystic and occultist in his own right, William S. Burroughs and the magical technology that he either invented or popularized in the second half of the 20th century and played a significant role in influencing successor movements such as Chaos, Magic, and even the work of the CCRU and Land and Fisher. The very first talk that we attended was specifically on Burroughs and Burroughs. Ghost haunted the remainder of the conference thereafter and introduced a few of the key tensions throughout the rest of the conference, which we will discuss specifically technology and AI.
- [168:12]
Ryan
So our first talk by Castro Obstrup, who I Believe was Swedish.
- [168:18]
Finn
One of those.
- [168:18]
Ryan
One of those.
- [168:19]
Elaine
He was working at the University of Copenhagen.
- [168:22]
Ryan
University of Copenhagen. Certainly Scandinavian of some flavor variety. Focused on William S. Burroughs and Brian Gyson. I think that it's important, and I appreciated this claim at the outset that they argued that both Gyson and Burroughs are actually closer to the late Surrealists rather than to the Beat poets generation, which we typically associate them with. Which, interestingly enough, I made both of these figures far more compelling to me, my understanding of them. I mean, despite my familiarity with the Cut up method and, you know, several of the things that Burroughs had written, I always considered them far more beat and therefore less. Less of interest to me specifically. But this proximity to the Surrealists, especially the latter Surrealists, I found particularly compelling. And I think that brings us to the real focus of this talk was Burroughs Cut Up Method and another book that he published on the Third Mind, which gave way to the latter discussions on artificial intelligence and large language models.
- [169:26]
Elaine
So Burroughs definitely popularized the Cut Up Method, which Geysen originated. But Burrows changed its different forms of manifestations to various mediums of art like the tape recorder and his own writings and just words and language. And I guess the reason why I think talking about this current is important to start this also revolves around this idea of magic as this form of resistance or this culture jamming practice which Burroughs framed his own work and his like, you know, work that we could. We could describe as like esoteric or inspired by esoterism or achieving esoteric goals is specifically for this cultural infusion to disrupt mainstream culture in some capacity to go against the one God universe. Sometimes in an anarchic way, sometimes in a libertarian way. There's a mix of like, motivations at play here. Same thing with like Robert Anton Wilson, which I'm sure you've heard Robert Evans talk about before. These were contemporaries, these guys were friends and operating under like similar goals of disrupting culture through these techniques which. Which they thought literally like disrupted the. The linear flow of culture or the mechanisms of control such as like language and linear time, which later gets developed on by land and fissure.
- [170:48]
Andrew Sage
Yeah, I think looking at some of my notes, some of the things that stuck out to me, especially in view of the fact that the other classes going on at the time began with Aleister Crowley, but were diving into a lot of more classical and historical magical traditions, was that language can shape reality. Which is something that would also be held up by a lot of the classical magical ideas that sound and image have occult power. Which is very true In a lot of magical traditions dating back to the Picatrix and more ancient texts. And that tech available at the time can be a magical instrument. Which the tech available currently and for William Burroughs is very different than classical tech, but is something that has been done for a very long time as well. What really changes is stepping out of the idea of a linear representation of it. And into something that could be edited, cut and reprogrammed, specifically using technology that allowed that. As opposed to something that you're trying to control solely through, say, more spiritual magical acts. It's something that you can do with a tape recorder.
- [172:03]
Elaine
And this is like, you know, based on forms like social engineering and the manipulation of the reproduction of reality, which Burrows believes language plays a key role in. Even though I might disagree with him in a few ways on, like, the nature of, like, a language as a. As a human concept versus this, like, alien concept which is, like, infected to human delta. You should explain what the Cut up method is. Yes. Well, the name itself kind of is self explanatory, but the idea being essentially to take any form of text or writing, cut up the words or pieces of sentences, jumble them up in a hat or a bucket or whatever, and then kind of play a jigsaw puzzle with language, reshifting sentences into new ideas and new forms of poetry especially, which.
- [172:59]
Andrew Sage
I'm just looking at my own cut ups right in front of me.
- [173:02]
Elaine
To force, like, randomized combinations of words that you would not choose to combine on your own volition. And seeing what sort of thought that generates, what kind of meaning can be constructed through that combination. Exactly.
- [173:16]
Andrew Sage
Weren't some of the first cutups done with books and just making holes, cutting out words and seeing the other words that would appear underneath. And if new meaning would arise through the surprise combinations.
- [173:29]
Elaine
Words from, like, the future or the past presenting themselves into a current present within the book. Yeah, I think one of the Burroughs.
- [173:36]
Ryan
Quotes is, when you cut into the.
- [173:37]
Elaine
Present, the future leaks out.
- [173:39]
Ryan
Which is related to the concept of time sorcery that was talked about towards the end of that discussion. I think another element to the Cut up method that's important, especially as it was framed in this occulture context, is as we quoted from the. Or as I wrote this quote down from the actual lecture itself. Reality is made of words, images and vibrations and sounds and images have occult power. And therefore these sounds and images and words can be marshaled or used, edited, cut through, rearranged for the purposes of reprogramming. It's fascinating because I think that this really is something that carries through to the whole conference. And not just the Burrows method, but what this Burroughs method or the Borough current of the conference. It seems that there was a problematic. I mean, we started basically with Derrida and we ended with Derrida with discussions of, like, critiques of the master narrative that we get from, you know, Deleuze and Lyotard and Baudrillard and these people. But the goal of this cut up method was to rewrite the master narrative. So again, back to that concept of culture jamming. As Ger said, this concept of the one God universe, this cut up method is meant to interrupt the linearity of words, of language. That is a process of control. So I take issue with this concept of language as a virus because that implies that it's a foreign body. And I mean true post structuralist, I guess, that I am. There is no outside to language. And I think that that's actually something that shines through in this third mind concept.
- [175:25]
Elaine
As two people work together on something, there's a composite mind that like, emerges and affects the work is the concept there.
- [175:34]
Ryan
So when two people collaborate, a third mind, or intelligence communicates with you through the revelation of the new that was already present. And I think that that's really important to point out because it's not as though there's this, this outside thing. The implication is from this method is that the new reveals itself through this process that's already present in language. Because this is a question that I had throughout, is that if language is this foreign entity that dominates us through control, and the method itself is language, then how are we not just reacting? I mean, I guess it's a kind of inoculation. If we have a, you know, a theory of language that is, you know, based in, you know, what do we call this? What is it that we all just got during COVID cabin fever? No, no, the things that we inject into our body that created the entire vaccines. There we go. That's the ticket. Inoculations.
- [176:30]
Elaine
Not all of us got vaccines.
- [176:32]
Andrew Sage
Yeah, okay, Gar.
- [176:35]
Ryan
You heard it here first. Vaccine denial. No. Yeah. Where was I going with this?
- [176:41]
Elaine
Okay, speaking of methods of control, I.
- [176:45]
Andrew Sage
Mean, a lot of it.
- [176:45]
Ryan
Hey, the new just came out there. Wait just one moment. Sorry, Elaine. I likened this to this process of dialectics, but that's because I couldn't shut up about Hegel the entire time we were there. Because I don't think enough occultists are talking about Hegel. Why is no one talking about Hegel? Everyone should Be talking about Hegel Bagel.
- [177:08]
Elaine
I mean, as fun as it is to think about this like third mind as like an egregore figure which we've mentioned before is like. It's like a group thought form, like a being or a force that is generated through multiple people believing in it. You make up an imaginary friend in a way that's more of a severator but true. Okay. In Egregore as a form of thought that gained its own like autonomy and becomes kind of like a little tiny God, I guess. Or they also combine the third mind idea to network consciousness. The one last thing I will say on this, before we get to the AI aspect, I guess on this culture jamming non linearity is the concept of the circuit jump, which was playing back words from politicians in different contexts as a sort of like a uno reverso psychic attack. Which I don't know if that actually works considering the current political situation. But this is certainly a tactic to which I have employed many such cases. And we see a lot of people attempt, attempt to do this. And I think there are certain figures who have their own very strong magical force field protecting them, which has been pretty evident through the past 10 years, including the President of the United States. But as a circuit jump, as it's playing something from the wrong time in a different context as a form of attack. The most famous version of this, which isn't necessarily for political ends, this was for personal ends. It's the Burroughs Cafe incident, which I've been a fan of for years, in which he was slighted by a cafe. So then he started recording.
- [179:00]
Andrew Sage
All that happened was they changed their menu and he couldn't order the one food that he ordered every day.
- [179:05]
Elaine
There's been some menus that have changed that I would consider using. Using this tactic where he recorded sounds from. From outside of like people talking or arguing or walking by or plates dropping and then played them back outside of the cafe for a series of months until the cafe closed. And this is the funniest form of this sort of magical obsession. Because this really is just a crazy guy playing loud sounds in front of a cafe until they close. I mean, it worked. Yeah. Playing back sounds of, you know, arguing, fighting, plates smashing, which would probably create a negative aura around this building. But that is the most funny Burrows circuit jump moment. Although Burrow's life is full of these humorous and sometimes worrying anecdotes, there's one.
- [179:59]
Andrew Sage
Other thing that stuck out to me, given what a lot of the other talks in that space ended up dealing with along with AI and stuff was really the speaker talking a lot about the fact that for Burrows and Gysen the reproduction of reality is how control occurs. And so the goal was to manipulate the reproduction of reality. Because if you can manipulate the reproduction of reality, you are also manipulating reality itself. Which I don't think anyone went into nearly as much but is something that we're seeing with say even the Republican Party releasing deep fake videos of Democratic politicians.
- [180:40]
Elaine
Yeah, and this is something our materialist friend Mia does talk about is how there's a quote from some neocons about how Democrats just have to kind of react to reality versus the Republicans who generate it and they decide what reality is. And you can see this with all of the sort of moral panics which have spread across the United States and around the world the past few years. Whether that's gender ideology, whether that's immigration, whether that's this non existent crime wave where it is a genuine like creation of, of reality. And then this, this, this goes into. You know. Burrow's ideas later get developed by a group of academics and occultists that formed the ccru. This included Sadie Plant, Nick Land, who then turned to the dark side and the since past Mark Fisher who put a name to some of this sort of phenomenon called the hyperstition, which is Robert has talked about before on the show. But it is a self fulfilling prophecy. It is a fiction that becomes true through the creation of the fiction and the dissemination of this fiction. And this is part of how reality can get formed is through these falsehoods that through repetition and dissemination become self manifest. The thing about that though is the hyperstitutional model itself requires the acceptance of the idea that everything is a fiction. Yes, most things go through a process like this.
- [182:12]
Andrew Sage
Yes, yes, yes.
- [182:13]
Elaine
But doing such a thing intentionally and offensively, which is the idea that we're discussing here in a political context, is this offensive reality formation where you literally decide what is real and what isn't. And you know, if you have hundreds of millions of dollars in like a news company at your disposal, this can become easier.
- [182:36]
Andrew Sage
Are you saying that media companies are currently cutting up reality to shape it in the image of the people who fund them?
- [182:43]
Elaine
Yeah, yeah. I mean they are, they are much. It's funny because like occultists I think are the people who are often clips.
- [182:52]
Andrew Sage
Are you going to use from the conference?
- [182:56]
Elaine
I will later in my written work. But I think on that note, I think occultists are a class of people who are maybe the worst at doing Magic, because the people that are really good at this sort of thing are perhaps way better at the occult element of hiding their. Their, you know, awareness of what they are doing. Because a lot of the. A lot of them know what they're doing. They just actually keep it occurring, but more cultic. Whereas the magicians will not shut the fuck up because there's always a. There's always a new book to sell.
- [183:28]
Ryan
That was an excellent segue to an ad break, Elaine, thank you for that. And now a word from our sponsors. On this note, though, Gary, I agree with you completely as a former academic and just a healthy level of skepticism going into any magical conference. I sat down, I listened, and I've been to enough conferences listening to magicians attempt to map on rather poorly magic onto a cultural figure. And I think Burroughs is really unique here, but my academic pretense was to sit here and to listen and think about, you know, language as a pharmacon, think about Derrida, Deleuze, Baudrillard, Leotard, when they're discussing the master narrative or Rewri. The master narrative. But what's unique about Burroughs and why I gave up that, you know, academic mapping of philosophy and asking myself, why are we having this conversation? We could just go read these texts. They talk about similar things. But the point is, is that those texts talk about similar things. And what's unique about Burroughs is that he's actually doing.
- [184:38]
Elaine
He's a doer.
- [184:38]
Ryan
He's a doer. This is fundamentally the difference between the vita activa and the vita contemplativa. Like, I'm thinking in terms of philosophers. And it took me half of this talk to be like, no, he's actually doing shit. As soon as we get out to him actually standing out in front of the cafe and doing this, he's not just developing a method, but by virtue of the fact that he's inviting other artists. The slides upon slides that we saw of him working with new machines that he was creating and trying these things. He was actively involved in this practice, which again, makes him far more magical than most occultists. Don't come for me.
- [185:17]
Elaine
Absolutely. AI Specifically, we'll be discussing debates and uses of generative AI in this conference. Because the last acculture conference was in 2023, as these large language models and image generation platforms were just. Just starting to gain popularity. And now they have a stranglehold over the stock market and many people's imagination. The first, I guess, real debate around AI happened as the three of you stayed to Listen to a panel after the Willie Mas Burroughs panel, as well as a Austin Osmond spare panel, a proto chaos magician from the 20th century who's a contemporary of Aleister Crowley, I left to go listen to a mathematical thelemic ontology talk, which was probably less interesting than the panel. Like to hear you guys talk about the debates around AI and how they emerged in this panel and then also juxtaposing that to the different forms of like AI and discussions around AI that dominated a large part of the rest of the conference.
- [186:22]
Andrew Sage
Well, actually AI came up because the initial discussion question for the panel was what does it mean to talk about art as magic in the digital era? So everyone was very specifically being asked to discuss the differences between. And the creation process is magic when you can use AI, when you can use large language models to just generate things. And if the generative method using AI was at all related to say, the cut up method or other things. So that was the initial conversation that began that whole panel.
- [186:56]
Ryan
Well, and that was certainly a topic that was begged by the other two talks that we didn't really discuss. The authority, Austin Osmond Spare was about automatic drawing. So this conception and of, you know, this, this drawing that is coming from the outside, coming from the subconscious, coming from within, all within one line. All within one line. But more than that, it was a very traditional kind of European 1970s lecture. You, you, you know, you had a lovely Italian man who stood in the front that was ready to smoke a cigarette while trying to get through, you know, a very well formulated, well argued essay while a series of images presented to us behind him that covered an overview of artists that are doing very similar things or he argued, exist in a similar kind of vein. And the, the occurrences of not just magical tropes, but cultural influences that happen independently. So artists all over the world. The third talk by, I believe, Kate Lady. Yeah, the ritual transformation and hybridity in Leonora Carrington's Judith, which was a stage production which happened in Mexico City, I believe. So we had a few pictures of this. But Leonora Carrington's art very specifically has to do with this hybrid of animals and mythical figures and creatures. And the stage production was incredibly intense. I really appreciated this talk a lot. But then focus on talking about, you know, generative artificial intelligence and these large language models. And the role of art or what it means to do art in this era was related to this idea of the third mind of automatic drawing, of this concept of hybridity, of this like, transformative or this discovering of the new Through a synthetic putting together of different elements or images, words, sounds, costumery, these kinds of things. So it was a natural question to lead, but the audience members took it in a very strange direction that I would like you all to talk about.
- [189:03]
Andrew Sage
I mean the initial question was really that people started asking after the panel topic was proposed was so what did the panelists think about AI art? Do the panelists think AI art is magic? Do the panelists think that AI art is channeling? Do the panelists think that, you know, putting a prompt in a language model is the same as doing some sort of trance state automatic writing? There was a lot of variations on functionally that all of the panelists reaction was no, it's not. And a lot of them did not immediately really want to even dive into that topic and were very annoyed at the question.
- [189:43]
Ryan
That's actually not true because I got triggered almost immediately because it was our first speaker that responded not to that first question but to the second question. And the second question had to do with the role of technology and whether we see that there's a possibility for these tools as a technology, a techne in magical practice. And our first speaker's reaction was to sit back and give us a tentative.
- [190:10]
Andrew Sage
Yes, yes to the tech.
- [190:13]
Ryan
To the tech, that's correct.
- [190:14]
Andrew Sage
To AI. They were like they, their initial reaction was still also no.
- [190:18]
Ryan
But yes, they, they indeed got there. But it, it, it was unclear at first and I, I, I was a little raw about it given that seemed completely contrary to the talk that, or you know, that, that he had mentioned before. There was a question about NFTs. Do you remember this question?
- [190:35]
Giselle Bryant
Oh.
- [190:37]
Andrew Sage
I tried to put it immediately out of my head.
- [190:39]
Elaine
Yes, that was wise because of the.
- [190:40]
Andrew Sage
Fact that it started with like well, NFTs failed because people like weren't ready to embrace the blockchain as a generative idea for making art. As opposed to the fact that why would I own an NFT if I can screenshot the picture?
- [190:56]
Ryan
Yeah, well it was this idea that like NFTs themselves were part of this breaking up of the control process, the linearity of money and financial systems, that somehow it was related to the cut up method. It was one of those questions that was a narrative before it finally got to a question that really just invited the readers to respond. There were others that talked about this too and related their own personal experience to the generative AI process that they approach AI not with the expectation that will provide sense, but it'll almost have this oracular again this they related to the Third mind, they. This. This idea that, again, you and the AI come together and somehow reveal the new. Which I, at this point, was absolutely seething.
- [191:45]
Andrew Sage
Yeah, I think the closest actually that we had to some really, like someone even trying to approach it was asking about, if you're making this art, if you're generating these new things, does it matter that corporations are controlling the algorithm by which you're doing so? Which started to touch on some of the problems, but still was definitely relying on the base assumption that using a large language model to produce stories or art, that you're interacting with something else that's actually capable of creating at all.
- [192:18]
Ryan
And to her credit, my girl Kate, lady, who was talking about Leonora Carrington, the one that seemed to be kind of tangentially separate from other two, but the hybridity really made it, was the one that just gave us a great straight Marxist answer of like, no, this is bullshit. Let's actually look at the material implications as to where this is coming from and the environmental costs of running these programs of server farms, the destruction of space of, you know, livable areas throughout the United States, that these are questions that we need to ask and are not separate from these questions of magic. So I really shout out to her. I appreciated that response because it was instant and it was. It was heated.
- [193:01]
Elaine
It is also like. I mean, from my perspective, it's also a labor issue, right? Because these large language models and generative AI just scrape like, so much data that.
- [193:14]
Andrew Sage
That's like writing from real artists and create.
- [193:17]
Ryan
Created by real, like, painters and whatever.
- [193:21]
Elaine
And it is the appropriation of human.
- [193:25]
Andrew Sage
Labor to shit out some advertising, essentially.
- [193:30]
Elaine
That is like my main. Well, aside from all the ecological and the political issues with it, it's like very much that labor angle to it that frustrates me.
- [193:42]
Ryan
Well, in the context of the talk, it was really important to then ground. And this is the comment that I made that. That the panel broadly seemed to agree with, although I didn't really leave them much opportunity to disagree with me.
- [193:54]
Elaine
I mean, you're right.
- [193:56]
Ryan
Thank you. Go on. So Burroughs concept of the third mind, this book that he wrote, right. When two minds collaborate, a third mind, or intelligence, communicates with you. Again, not about creating the new, but about revealing itself in. In what was already present. Yes, but the con. But the idea is that you have to have two minds in order to get to this dialectical third mind that was inherent in the conditions, the situation, the language of the two. When one interacts with any form of large language model or ChatGPT I in my mind and with what I carry, sit in front of a computer and type my input. That's one mind. Can you tell me where the second is?
- [194:52]
Andrew Sage
Because even if you're cutting up a book, there's a mind in the book, there's a story, there's an actual thing there, there's a thing that you are interacting with that were thoughts that were produced by someone that you are cutting up. You are not just scraping the toilet bowl of human production.
- [195:12]
Ryan
But even if we're going to be generous and say that these large language models are the ones that are doing the cut up process and you are secondary or tertiary or even further down the line to it, I mean it doesn't involve a human intelligence at that point. So just in terms of the, you know, the Borough current, it's just not a third mind. It's the material conditions are such that it is not and cannot be a third mind.
- [195:42]
Elaine
Where I would like to take this discussion is actually the very next talk that I attended as part of a three talk series called the Politics of Tarot. And the specific one that I think continued on this line of thought and even stuff like automatic writing was From Icon to Index by Thomas the Generative Logic of Tarot in which he discussed. I will have to check his name later but discussed an author in the 80s who was trying to use Tarot as a way to remove the human element of writing. Try to create an automatic story using the tarot archetypes assembled in a randomized shuffling to generate a story based on the linkages between each of the cards and remove his own like agency in directing where the story goes except for trying to bridge each card of one to another. And the presenter was discussing if this bears any similarity to generative text models. The presenter said no, presenter said no. This actually is not like LLMs which purely operate on a people pleasing probabilistic capacity to follow one word after another in accordance with whatever the prompt of the word person who's operating the AI wants it to generate. Though the presenter stated that this author who was using Tarot probably would have loved using an LLM to try to accomplish this goal of his trying to access kind of like a form of automatic writing similar to Austin Osmond spare but without human input, the shuffling of the cards and forcing the human brain to make connections between these archetypes still contains a creative human process based on randomness in the shuffling of the deck versus the people pleasing probabilistic generative text that LLMs produce. This concludes the first episode of my Acculture 2025 coverage in part to releasing Sunday night. The panel will discuss digital technomancy, traditional magical practice and why people are doing occult practice us in 2025. See you on the other side.
- [198:05]
Giselle Bryant
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- [199:05]
Garrison Davis
What's that sound?
- [199:06]
Andrew Sage
That's the sound of Downy Unstoppable scent beads going into your washing machine and giving your clothes freshness that lasts all day long.
- [199:13]
Michael Palberg
There it is again.
- [199:14]
Andrew Sage
It's like music to your ears or more like music to your nose. That freshness is irresistible. Let's get a Downy Unstoppables bottle shake and now a sniff solo.
- [199:28]
Finn
Nice.
- [199:29]
Andrew Sage
With Downy Unstoppables you just toss wash wow.
- [199:33]
For all day freshness. All I know is what I've been.
- [199:40]
Told and that's a half truth is a whole lie.
- [199:43]
Giselle Bryant
For almost a decade, the murder of an 18 year old girl from a small town in Graves County, Kentucky went unsolved until a local homemaker, a journalist and a handful of girls came forward with a story.
- [199:59]
Andrew Sage
I'm telling you, we know Quincy killed her.
- [200:01]
Giselle Bryant
We know a story that law enforcement used to convict six and that got the citizen investigator on national tv.
- [200:10]
Garrison Davis
Through sheer persistence and nerve, this Kentucky housewife helped give justice to Jessica Curran.
- [200:17]
Giselle Bryant
My name is Maggie Freeling. I'm a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist producer and I wouldn't be here if the truth were that easy to find.
- [200:27]
Elaine
I did not know her and I did not kill her or rape or.
- [200:30]
Finn
Burn or any of that other stuff.
- [200:32]
Elaine
That y' all said.
- [200:33]
Giselle Bryant
They literally made me say that I.
- [200:34]
Andrew Sage
Took a match and struck and threw it on her.
- [200:36]
Giselle Bryant
They made me say that I poured gas on her from Lava For Good. This is Graves County, a show about just how far our legal system will go in order to find someone to blame.
- [200:51]
Garrison Davis
America, y' all better wake the hell up.
- [200:53]
Andrew Sage
Bad things happens to good people and small towns.
- [201:00]
Giselle Bryant
Listen to Graves county in the Black Bone Valley. Feed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to binge the entire season ad free, subscribe to Lava for Good plus on Apple Podcasts.
- [201:22]
Andrew Sage
You know the shade is always shadiest right here.
- [201:25]
Season six of the podcast Reasonably Shady.
- [201:28]
Elaine
With Gisele Bryant and Rob Robin Dixon is here dropping every Monday.
- [201:32]
Andrew Sage
As two of the founding members of.
- [201:33]
The Real Housewives Potomac, we're giving you.
- [201:36]
All the laughs, drama, and reality news you can handle. And, you know, we don't hold back.
- [201:42]
Elaine
So come be reasonable or shady with.
- [201:44]
Andrew Sage
Us each and every Monday, I was going through a walk in my neighborhood.
- [201:49]
Elaine
Out of the blue, I see this.
- [201:51]
Andrew Sage
Huge sign next to somebody's house.
- [201:55]
Finn
Okay.
- [201:55]
Andrew Sage
The sign says, my neighbor is a Karen.
- [202:03]
Finn
No way.
- [202:05]
Andrew Sage
I died laughing. I'm like, I have to know.
- [202:11]
You are lying.
- [202:12]
Finn
Humongous, y'.
- [202:13]
Andrew Sage
All. They had some time on their hands.
- [202:16]
Listen to Reasonably Shady from the Black.
- [202:17]
Effect podcast network on the I Heart.
- [202:20]
Radio radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.
- [202:33]
Elaine
No.
- [202:34]
James Stout
Yep, yep. It's. It's. It could happen here.
- [202:38]
Elaine
Electile disorder, Executive disorder, which is our weekly newscast, which we've been doing all year, so we should know what it's called by now.
- [202:49]
James Stout
Yeah, that's why I'm so good at doing it and naming it.
- [202:53]
Garrison Davis
Yep.
- [202:54]
Elaine
This show covers what's happening in the White House, the crumbling world, and what it means for you and me and everyone else. I'm Garrison Davis. This episode, I'm joined by Robert Evans, James Stout, and Mia Wong, and we are covering the week of October 22nd to October 30th.
- [203:09]
James Stout
Yep.
- [203:11]
Finn
So I think we should start off the bat by the same thing we started off last week with, which is.
- [203:16]
Elaine
That as you're listening to Halloween.
- [203:18]
Finn
Yeah. Well, that. So on the upside, Halloween.
- [203:21]
James Stout
Woo.
- [203:22]
Finn
Spooky. On the downside, like, 40 million people lose their SNAP benefits the next day on Saturday.
- [203:30]
James Stout
Yeah, but what's spookier than that? Look, one thing you can't say about the government is that they're not failing to celebrate the holiday.
- [203:39]
Garrison Davis
I am scared of the consequences.
- [203:42]
James Stout
Yeah.
- [203:43]
Elaine
Stock up on the trick or treater candy, I guess.
- [203:47]
James Stout
Steal as much candy as you can. You're gonna need it to stay alive.
- [203:51]
Garrison Davis
See a group of children, you run past them, take them.
- [203:54]
James Stout
Oh, they're kids. They can't stop you.
- [203:56]
Garrison Davis
Yep. Hold it above your head. They can't reach it.
- [203:58]
Elaine
No. It is. It is extremely grim. And there seems to be no indication from the Republicans of the Trump administration that they are going to work with the Democrats to resolve this without sacrificing healthcare for millions of Americans.
- [204:13]
Garrison Davis
Yeah. So Gavin Newsom, a friend of the show, has deployed the California National Guard to assist food banks in the state. Oh, my God. Yeah. Like, look, the thing is, when you participate in the largest crackdown on protected First Amendment speech in recent history, you don't get to show up and hand out snacks and feel good. And many food banks, including some in the Bay Area, have refused the help of National Guard members.
- [204:40]
Andrew Sage
Right.
- [204:41]
Garrison Davis
Because they have this very obvious concern that some people might be reluctant to go to places where the soldiers who are standing right next to all the different immigration agents in LA are now working. And so this will have the opposite of a positive effect in those instances. Right. People are afraid to go to food banks. They're going to remain hungry. The consequences of this will be negative. The issue, I don't think, is a lack of person power. The issue is a lack of funding. The state has mobilized $80 million in funds, but millions of Californians will be going hungry. And because of the failure of state authorities to stop federal authorities deploying the National Guard to LA and to other areas where immigration enforcement was happening, this stunt that Newsom is going for could have very negative consequences for food banks and for Californians who are hungry. Something sick and cool you can do if you have the means and the time is to pick up food from food banks for people who need it. A lot of people might be concerned.
- [205:42]
Elaine
One of the biggest problems is how much food banks get food. Also, through these programs.
- [205:49]
Garrison Davis
Food banks themselves are going to be struggling right now. So, like, I actually, I did a thread on Lib, on Blue Sky.
- [205:55]
Elaine
Where were you going to say live Twitter. And then corrected to Blue Sky.
- [206:00]
Garrison Davis
I was going to say Libsky. Yeah, Yeah. I fact checked myself. It's Blue Wave Sky.
- [206:08]
James Stout
There you go.
- [206:09]
Elaine
You cannot get that past me. I could pick up on what you were doing immediately.
- [206:13]
Garrison Davis
Garrison Davis, like a viper, struck. Yeah. The core of my thought process. Yeah. So if you're on. If you're on Skeeter, then you can. You can find a little thread I made. I'll link in the show notes with food banks that are looking for donations. And you can also use that to find a food bank in your area, if you're interested in that. But yeah, this is a serious problem. This is the. Should be the biggest news story. I'm thinking particularly of those folks in Alaska, right, who found themselves as climate refugees due to this storm. Right. Which flooded their villages. And now not only facing the loss of their villages and their homes, but also all their cached food. These are people who often would have hunted or fished or relied on storing food for the winter. And now finding themselves unable to access.
- [207:02]
James Stout
Federal benefits, doing the thing that like. There's a representative. Clay Higgins of Louisiana made a tweet today blaming SNAP recipients for not stockpiling a month's worth of food.
- [207:14]
Giselle Bryant
What the fuck?
- [207:15]
Garrison Davis
Does he understand how this works?
- [207:16]
James Stout
He said, try to get your head wrapped around how many pantries you can stock with $4,200, which is what people get on average per year. He says with SNAP benefits, improperly shopped groceries. Any American who's been receiving $4,200 per year of free groceries and does not have at least one month of grocery stock should never again receive SNAP because, wow, stop smoking crack.
- [207:35]
Elaine
That's inhumane.
- [207:36]
James Stout
Dealing with the shit that they talk about is almost pointless. Cuz they're all liars. But like, yeah, yeah. As like, what you said, like, people are on SNAP for a wide variety of reasons. They're largely employed. They're just not getting enough money to actually like, survive and feed their family. And like the $4,200 a year for a family is not, in fact, enough to stockpile a huge quantity of food.
- [208:04]
Garrison Davis
No, it's not like, it's remarkable how detached the people who make our laws are from.
- [208:09]
James Stout
Yeah.
- [208:10]
Garrison Davis
The working class experience.
- [208:12]
Finn
There is no way that guy knows how much a banana costs. No way. Zero.
- [208:16]
James Stout
No, he has no idea. That man hasn't shopped for himself in fucking 20 years.
- [208:20]
Garrison Davis
Yeah, yeah. That guy does not know how much it costs to buy Mac and cheese for your kids.
- [208:25]
James Stout
And obviously, you know, we here, we talk about storing food, about canning your own food. And there are things you can do even on a budget when you don't have much money to build a stockpile. And that's why I encourage people to pay attention to things like prices at the grocery store when things are a lot cheaper because they're in season. And learn how to do things like pressure can. Right. And pickle different foods and whatnot. Because there are ways that you can. And this is why. Right. It's not because you should be doing that or you're irresponsible. It's because even when it comes to the social safety net that we have what little of one that we have, you can't rely on it because at any given point it could become a fucking. Fucking football for Democrats and Republicans to fight over and go away. Right. Like, none of this stuff. Stuff is reliable. Which is why people ought to, if it's at all possible, be doing stuff like that. Right. Not because they should have to do that, but because you cannot rely on the government. Right. And I don't say that as like a critique of people or to like shit on people. It's just like, it's a. It's a fact. It's a fact that people need to increasingly accept because this is not going to be getting better in the long run.
- [209:35]
Garrison Davis
Yeah.
- [209:36]
James Stout
Let's talk about Graham Platner.
- [209:37]
Elaine
All right.
- [209:38]
Finn
Oh, God.
- [209:39]
Garrison Davis
All right, let's do it. Talking about a touch of politicians a.
- [209:42]
James Stout
Couple of weeks ago. Well, James brought up Graham Platner, who is running for Congress in Maine, and some ads that he had put out which were really. And I still think are really good ads, not good ads in terms of. They were effective objectively. He raised a lot of money. He was leading in the polls prior to, as we'll talk about a bunch of scandals coming out. He's no longer leading, but he was doing very well for a while. So his campaign, the strategy that he was following, which was largely a mix of talking about and really pushing investments in social programs and particularly health care and attacking the billionaire class in very stark terms. Talking about the need to effectively get. Get rid of that as a group of people, like tax them out of existence. That's a popular, you know, and a good thing to campaign on. And the success that he had early on is. Is evidence that there's a lot of legs to talking about that kind of stuff in the way that he did and he talked about in a very combative way. Right. This guy was a former Marine.
- [210:41]
Garrison Davis
Yeah.
- [210:42]
James Stout
Some sort of fisherman, I think, whatever kind of. He's like oyster farmer.
- [210:46]
Garrison Davis
Fisherman.
- [210:46]
James Stout
I think it's an oyster farmer or some shit. Whatever they have up that nonsense state.
- [210:50]
Garrison Davis
Sorry, Mainites, they're called maniacs, technically.
- [210:54]
Elaine
I think they're called Mainers.
- [210:56]
Garrison Davis
That can't be right. Garrison.
- [210:57]
James Stout
So he was coming across as a very, like, blue collar guy. Right. Like a very. And kind of crude, but crude in a. Like, I'm a straight talker sort of guy. And that worked. That was a. That was a good. Yeah.
- [211:08]
Garrison Davis
Campaign.
- [211:09]
James Stout
And we highlighted that because I think it struck. You know, James is the one who brought it to our attention, but I think it struck all of us as a. Oh, yeah, this is a guy who is kind of doing. Talking to voters in a way that we wish more Democrats were right. And then in the last couple of weeks, oh, God, so many scams come out about this guy. The most well known of them is that for the last 20 years of his life, he has had a Totenkopf tattooed over his pectoral. That is the death. Death's head. Now, it dates back before the Nazis. I don't know if this was the very first use of it, but the very first prominent use of it in military history was as the insignia for a unit called the Death's Head Hussars, which was an elite German cavalry unit. I mean, I'm sure. I think they did still exist in World War I, but that was well past their prime. And it was then adopted by the ss, and it was worn by a number by a lot of guys in the ss, but it was specifically the insignia of a unit called the Totenkopf ss, which existed to guard concentration camps and death camps. So having one tattooed on you bad.
- [212:15]
Garrison Davis
Yeah. Not cool.
- [212:16]
James Stout
Platner has said basically, it was a dumb tattoo I got when I was young and just joining the Marine Corps, and I didn't know what it meant. And I am willing to believe that, like, a 19 year old who joins the Marines would make a bad tattoo decision because I have a lot of friends that were in the Marines and they all have bad tattoos. Right. None of them. Them have death heads.
- [212:40]
Elaine
You got it while in, like, Croatia. While drunk.
- [212:43]
Garrison Davis
Shore leave. Yeah.
- [212:44]
Elaine
And.
- [212:44]
James Stout
Right. And he was. He was hammered.
- [212:46]
Elaine
And. Yeah. The probability of walking into a tattoo shop in Croatia and coming out with a Nazi tattoo is extremely high.
- [212:52]
Garrison Davis
Sure. Yeah.
- [212:54]
James Stout
It's. It's not. It's not low.
- [212:55]
Garrison Davis
Yeah, yeah. They're on the flash seat for Friday the 13th.
- [212:59]
Elaine
They probably are.
- [213:01]
James Stout
If it had just come out that he'd had this for some period of time, been like, yeah, I got, like. I was hammered in Croatia and I got a fucked up tattoo and realized it and got it covered, I'd have been like, not. Not a story. Right. Like, man gets bad tattoo is dumb kid. But number one, he kept it until he got it covered in, like, the last week or so.
- [213:21]
Garrison Davis
Let me tell you, that was a real piece of art that he coveted.
- [213:24]
James Stout
It with, which is a wild choice to just keep it for that long. But also, he claimed I had no idea until it, like, came out as a story, because I forget what outlet, but some news outlet found out that he had it and was going to publish it.
- [213:38]
Garrison Davis
I think his team told Pod Save America when he went on the Pod Save America.
- [213:43]
James Stout
Pod.
- [213:44]
Elaine
Yeah. Yeah. But he had heard that there was opposition research.
- [213:48]
Garrison Davis
Yeah, yeah.
- [213:48]
Finn
Because he had sent out to, like, another thing that he went on, like, a picture of him with his shirt off, and they were like, wait, what?
- [213:57]
James Stout
Like, there were a few of them floating around.
- [214:00]
Andrew Sage
Huh.
- [214:00]
Garrison Davis
If you've lived that kind of life, there's gonna be pictures of you with the shirt off.
- [214:05]
James Stout
You know, like, they're refusing to acknowledge. Yeah. I knew earlier in my life that it was a death's head. And, like, there's reports from people who knew him that he called it a Totenkopf and joked about it.
- [214:17]
Garrison Davis
I didn't know that.
- [214:18]
James Stout
Now, let me be clear. I don't actually think Graham is a secret Nazi sleeper agent. I really don't. I think he's a guy with really questionable judgment, which is reason, you know, to be very critical of his campaign. And, yeah, I take a lot of issue with how he's responded to this, because rather than, again, just kind of doing a mea culpa, he's gone on the this is my enemies in the Democratic Party trying to silence me thing, and a very weird coalition has propped up kind of around him, trying to argue that this is a circular firing squad kind of deal. Like, check. There was a Jacobin article being like, it's fucked up that people are going after Graham and the Pod Save guys are defending him. Like, it is a weird coalition that's circling around this fella.
- [215:05]
Elaine
What do you think the Joe Rogan of the left meant? Vibes? Essays.
- [215:11]
Garrison Davis
We wanted a guy who took loads of steroids and didn't have problematic opinions.
- [215:16]
James Stout
I'm never gonna say this in any other instance about Joe Rogan, but he wouldn't have gotten that tattoo because he knows what a death sentence.
- [215:24]
Elaine
I don't know if he knew in, like, 2007 or whatever. I think there's a very strong alternate world where 2007 Joe Rogan is traveling in Croatia, accidentally gets a Totenkov tattoo.
- [215:37]
James Stout
It's not impossible. You're right. You're right. I guess I'm just assuming he's watched enough World War II documentaries to know.
- [215:44]
Elaine
Yeah, but watching those while, like, smoking weed so he doesn't remember anything. Anything.
- [215:49]
James Stout
That's fair. These are fair points you're making, Garrison. So a couple of surprising Things about this. And this is not the only scandal that's kind of come out about him recently. But number one, it did not immediately take a strong hit to his polling. This seems to be primarily just because a lot of voters aren't aware of it, because in polls where they. At where they inform people that he had a Nazi tattoo, his support drops dramatically by like, 30 points. That said, he was leading until like two or three days ago, I think was the most recent poll that came out that had a main governor, Janet Mills, in the lead above him. We're not talking about the. The main race yet. This is. We're still in the. The primary. Right. So he's challenging Janet Mills for the primary. And yeah, at present, according to SoCal Strategies, who did a poll very recently, I think this is the most recent poll, Mills has 41% from likely voters and. And Platner has 36%, although about a fifth of respondents are undecided. And yeah, this is a pretty dramatic upset because prior to the whole Nazi tattoo news coming out, Platner was leading mills by about 34 points. So this has gone from Platner looked to have it in the bag to it's pretty close. Mills is ahead not by a lead that's so commanding that it's a definite thing. You know, a standard polling error could have them basically be neck and neck. And we all should know at this point how frequently that kind of stuff happens.
- [217:15]
Garrison Davis
Yeah, polling never wrong.
- [217:18]
James Stout
But yeah. So I don't know. It's one of those. Somebody got angry at us on the subreddit, being like, I can't believe they're hiding that, like, this has happened, you know, with this guy that they endorse, like, never. We didn't endorse him. And number two, like, this shit was breaking when we were recording the ED last week. We made, like, a reference about it, but not much had come out. And there certainly hadn't been time for us to really look into what was going on here. And it's not. This is a main Senate primary. This is not like, the very top of our list of crucial things to hit the second it happens. We can wait on something like this to see how stuff's shaking out a little bit. No one's voting yet, so it's not like we're influencing the election by not coming out or whatever.
- [218:01]
Garrison Davis
Yeah, like, we only get to cover so much. We have one hour of, like, news roundup show a week. And the blue sky Twitter drama about Graham Platner is not as important. There's the fact that millions of people are losing their food this week.
- [218:14]
James Stout
No, one thing that is interesting, and I do think this is an important race just because of kind of what it says about what sort of strategies are working now and igniting the base and what kind of stuff does matter in terms of scandals. I think there are some things that are really relevant here. One thing that is interesting to me is that according to a poll, a very recent poll, the article came out on October 26, 2025, majority of young Democrats still back Graham Platner even after the whole tattoo thing. And this is really interesting to me because the data shows that in general, among likely voters, his, his potential support plummets when people are made aware that he had the tattoo. But young Democrats are by far the group most likely to have become aware of it as soon as the story broke because young people are much more online than older people.
- [219:00]
Garrison Davis
Sure. Yeah.
- [219:00]
James Stout
And among young people, he's still well ahead, which I really just do think speaks more than anything to the strength of.
- [219:07]
Elaine
It's the rhetoric he has been using.
- [219:10]
James Stout
That he came out the gate with. And the rhetoric. Right. His combative rhetoric is really attractive to young voters especially.
- [219:16]
Garrison Davis
Explain your generation to us. Garrison, why are you like this?
- [219:19]
Elaine
I mean, there's a lot of stuff that the Zoron campaign kind of like ignited around.
- [219:24]
Garrison Davis
Yeah, no, you're right.
- [219:25]
James Stout
Exactly. Absolutely. Rhetoric.
- [219:27]
Elaine
And then Sanders and AOC had their anti oligarchy tour, which, I mean, we don't need to debate the use of that term. But no, there is a huge frustration at the geriatric Democratic Party. And this sort of populist rhetoric is very popular among young people as it, as it has been since the Sanders campaign in 2016. Like, this isn't like new or revolutionary information. The fact that this guy has gotten to this point, has gotten either past scandals or is navigating through it, despite his, like, you know, very questionable background. Military and military, private contracting, his like, misogynistic Reddit posts which were unearthed as, as like an attack against him, which I think he actually handled that scandal fairly well, using it as a parallel to chart his like, own political journey. So, yeah, I can understand why a whole bunch of young people who are reading about this aren't gonna actually care at all about any of these stories and still vote for him because of what he's saying.
- [220:32]
Andrew Sage
Yeah.
- [220:33]
James Stout
And I, I want to be clear. I didn't bring this up because it gets bad, even that like, young people are still supporting him. I think this is something that People, especially in the Democratic Party, who care about winning. And I think it's people on the left who are trying to look at what can we do to get more progressive and combative candidates who are going to do something both about the right and about the billionaire class. What can we do to actually, like, win? You should be paying attention to this because this, this rhetoric works.
- [221:04]
Giselle Bryant
Yeah.
- [221:05]
Elaine
And because surely there's one other guy who can say these things.
- [221:08]
Garrison Davis
Yeah.
- [221:09]
James Stout
There's gotta be another guy without a Nazi tattoo.
- [221:12]
Elaine
I can say this stuff. You can find one person who could use rhetoric is good on camera and has not had a Totenkov tattooed on their chest for almost 20 years. Yeah.
- [221:23]
Finn
And also the most wild part about this, I don't even think, is that it's that this guy, he was in Blackwater. Like, so technically it's constellous, but he calls it Blackwater.
- [221:35]
James Stout
He was. Yeah, that's the other scandal. Please, let's, let's.
- [221:39]
Finn
Yeah, he deployed to Afghanistan for Blackwater in 2018.
- [221:46]
Andrew Sage
First Trump administration.
- [221:49]
Finn
No one at any point in this process went. Hold on, wait. This guy went to fight in Afghanistan, like, in 2018?
- [221:58]
Garrison Davis
Like, they prosecuted the guys from Nisar Square.
- [222:03]
James Stout
Yeah.
- [222:04]
Finn
From the Nasore Square massacre. Yeah. After the square. Like, those people got prosecuted four years before that. And he joined Blackwater in 2018.
- [222:13]
James Stout
And to be clear, because this is something James brought up when we talked about this in our chat previously, he didn't technically join Blackwater because Blackwater has changed its name and I think merged with a couple of countries. It was a different name.
- [222:25]
Garrison Davis
But to be fair to Mia. Yeah.
- [222:27]
James Stout
He called it Blackwater. He said I worked for Blackwater.
- [222:33]
Garrison Davis
There's a way in which, like, I'm okay with people fucking up if they acknowledge they fucked up. Right. Like, I'm okay with him saying, I did this and it was wrong, so I left and I regret doing it.
- [222:44]
Elaine
I mean, that is what he's saying, though. It was specifically after this deployment.
- [222:48]
Garrison Davis
Yes.
- [222:49]
Elaine
That this is where he says that, like, this marked his, like, political quote unquote or like, during the path of. Like, how he viewed his life in politics specifically was negative experiences during this deployment.
- [223:00]
Garrison Davis
Yeah.
- [223:01]
James Stout
Yeah. And I. I guess that is something I have really complicated opinions on because I'm. I'm not. And I. I really have a lot of issues with folks on the left who are, like, anyone who was ever in the military is forever baby killer and deeply unseen. Like, I think that's. Yeah. Deeply, deeply unserious and incredibly counterproductive. And I Don't. I think that, like, it's good that someone can do something as fucked up as join Blackwater and realize that they did a horrible thing and change. Maybe doing it in 2018 is too recently for me to want him in Congress as a progressive. I don't know.
- [223:39]
Finn
Yeah, it was like, that was. It was like a decade after. Like, he was one of the. So he wasn't one of the, like, the torture guards, but, like, when he was a Marine, he guard. He was like, one of the guys who was, like, assigned to guard Abu G. Yeah, technically, after the torture scandal.
- [223:54]
Elaine
But it's.
- [223:55]
Finn
It's like it took you. It took you like, a decade after that.
- [223:58]
James Stout
Yeah.
- [223:59]
Finn
That maybe the thing I'm doing is bad. Like, I just.
- [224:01]
Elaine
I just.
- [224:01]
Finn
Oh, God.
- [224:02]
James Stout
Well, yeah, and that's. That's kind of like the. Because I don't. You know, I don't think having been stationed to guard a place where horrible thing, like, war crimes were committed necessarily damns you forever because, like, you don't choose where you're stationed to guard. Who knows when he became aware what was going on in the place he was guarding, but at some point he did, and that wasn't like, the moment where he was like, ah, fuck. You know, And I. Again, I have a lot of friends. I have friends who were with the very first infantry unit into Iraq. One of whom, as they were invading, was like, you know, this is criminal, guys, right? You know, we're breaking. You know, this is fucked up. You know, this. This war's bullshit. Pat Tillman was saying that, right?
- [224:45]
Finn
Like, during the invasion, this guy shipped out in 2016. That's like. It took him.
- [224:54]
Elaine
I wouldn't.
- [224:54]
James Stout
It took a minute. It took a minute.
- [224:56]
Finn
Reasonably long time. And also when you read his interviews about it, he's like, I did it because it was fun. Which is just like.
- [225:01]
Andrew Sage
That's.
- [225:01]
James Stout
That's honest.
- [225:01]
Finn
Yeah, it's honest. It makes me insane.
- [225:05]
James Stout
Look, I mean, that's why people join the Marines is they, like, money and. Or their adrenaline junkies. Right.
- [225:12]
Garrison Davis
I'd rather he was honest about that shit, actually. Like, I. Yeah, but it's just, like, distressing.
- [225:18]
James Stout
I actually like that. And again, I do kind of like. Because there's not a perfect answer as to like, well, when should you have had a change of heart about something like this before you can, like, like, be trusted as a political leader on the left. And I. I actually don't really know. I think I would be inclined to be, like, give him the benefit of the doubt on that. Stuff more if it weren't for the Nazi tattoo.
- [225:46]
Michael Palberg
Yeah.
- [225:47]
Finn
If not to tattoo pleas shipped out with Blackwater 2018.
- [225:51]
James Stout
Yeah. Those things together are kind of sketchy.
- [225:55]
Finn
Maybe do a couple of tours. Is a dog catcher first.
- [225:58]
James Stout
Like, you know, I'm seeing a lot of. Because there's a whole lot of, like, well, no one else who has a chance of winning in Maine is supporting the progressive policies he is. You know, you can't have it all be perfect or whatever. He's, you know, we should at least hope that he gets in and he does the things he's saying and I guess, like, if he does get elected and it's not the most likely thing right now, but it's certainly not impossible. I guess I hope he does the good stuff he says that he's done. I just have a lot less faith in that, given both what's come out and his reaction to it. Right.
- [226:32]
Garrison Davis
It's his reaction to it that was really disqualifying for me.
- [226:34]
James Stout
Right.
- [226:34]
Garrison Davis
Like.
- [226:35]
James Stout
Right.
- [226:35]
Garrison Davis
There's a world, I guess I didn't know that he told people it was a totem cough. That's pretty fucking incriminating. But, yeah.
- [226:41]
Elaine
There's reports from people who've said that it's unclear.
- [226:44]
Garrison Davis
Okay.
- [226:44]
James Stout
There's reports.
- [226:45]
Garrison Davis
Got it.
- [226:46]
James Stout
We don't know objectively, but people have talked to the press who knew him and said that he described it as a Houghton cough to them several years ago.
- [226:52]
Garrison Davis
Okay. Yeah. If his response had been like, oh, I didn't know. Let me get that covered up immediately. His response was so bad. To defend it and to be like, there's a conspiracy against it was really bad. It's that fail. And it also just shows, like, a lack of judgment and a lack of ability to, like, be critical of his own actions, which is worrying.
- [227:15]
James Stout
It shows the kind of Trumpian fancifulness that really worries me.
- [227:21]
Garrison Davis
Yeah. Demagoguery kind of thing.
- [227:23]
Elaine
A lot of populists are like this. Like, this is. This is a part of populism.
- [227:27]
James Stout
Like, this is. Yes.
- [227:28]
Elaine
I don't think you can fully decouple it.
- [227:30]
James Stout
Yeah. Yeah, that's probably true, Garrison. Yeah, that's probably true. But I. I don't know. I'm not going to tell you how to vote. I've made a habit of never telling people how to vote. So if you're in Maine, enjoy your McLobster and do whatever your heart tells you is the right thing to do, my friend. But also, please don't eat a McLobster, though. It's clearly poisoned. You know, avoid McLobsters at all costs.
- [227:57]
Garrison Davis
Yeah. Buy an oyster instead.
- [227:59]
Elaine
The strongest endorsement Robert Evans can make.
- [228:02]
Garrison Davis
Yeah.
- [228:03]
Ryan
Is it not buy a McLobster.
- [228:05]
Garrison Davis
God damn it.
- [228:06]
James Stout
Avoid a McLobster at all costs.
- [228:08]
Garrison Davis
Yeah. If you're on the west coast, avoid shellfishing and some months at all costs us because you can get paralytic shellfish poisoning.
- [228:14]
James Stout
Oh, yeah. I mean, some people that's just basically getting free muscle relaxers. James.
- [228:20]
Andrew Sage
Let's.
- [228:20]
Elaine
Let's do it.
- [228:20]
Garrison Davis
Ad break for muscle relaxers. Okay.
- [228:37]
Elaine
All right, we are back. Can I do my Halloween ice Nazi?
- [228:43]
Garrison Davis
Sure.
- [228:44]
Elaine
Bavino segment? Is that how you say his name? Bavino?
- [228:47]
Garrison Davis
Gregory. Yeah, Gregory.
- [228:50]
Elaine
It looks like a Bavino to me.
- [228:51]
James Stout
Sure, why not?
- [228:52]
Elaine
So we're going to talk about him playing dress up and how border patrol disrupted a Halloween parade. So last weekend, while conducting an immigration enforcement raid, Border patrol disrupted the route of a children's Halloween parade in old Irving park park in Chicago, using tear gas and arresting several people, including two U. S. Citizens. A crowd gathered around after border patrol arrested a 35 year old construction worker who has lived in Chicago since he was four years old.
- [229:21]
Andrew Sage
Jesus.
- [229:22]
Elaine
Neighborhood residents said that federal agents then deployed tear gas without warning. That following Tuesday, the architect of operation Midway blitz, Greg Bevino, appeared in federal court as a part of a lawsuit alleging excessive force and violations of a TRO restricting the use of tear gas and crowd control munitions. Bavino seems to be flagrantly violating this TRO as he was photographed personally throwing a tear gas canister into a crowd on October 22nd during a raid on a laundromat and home Depot. The DHS says that protesters were throwing rocks and border patrol issued warnings, though this account is contradicted by video of the incident. US District judge Sarah Ellis told the border patrol chief, quote, kids dressed in Halloween costumes walking to a parade do not pose an immediate threat to the safety of law enforcement officers. They just don't. And you can't use riot control weapons against them, unquote. This TRO requires that crowd controlled munitions may only be used if someone poses an immediate, immediate threat to law enforcement. With agents instructed to give two verbal warnings before tear gas, pepper spray can be deployed and to wear body cams, badges or visible IDs. This order was issued on October 9th. And to get an idea of how closely this is being followed, Vino himself still does not wear a body cam and told judge Ellis, quote, I have not received a body worn camera nor the training, unquote.
- [230:52]
Garrison Davis
Yeah. So border patrol agents have Generally, just to give some context here, not worn, body worn cameras for a number of reasons. Firstly, they just don't want to. Secondly, no one is making them. Thirdly, they believe that it is possible for people to detect the Bluetooth signal that the camera gives out and thus find them. This is something that is theoretically possible, as best my research can tell. You can make your own judgment as to which of those factors is weighing most heavily on their choice not to wear them. But they have never been required, like as a group to wear body worn cameras all the time.
- [231:29]
Elaine
No, this judge is trying to force them to. They're just refusing to follow the order despite Bavina saying that 99% of agents have these cameras, which is bizarrely specific claim.
- [231:43]
James Stout
Yeah.
- [231:44]
Garrison Davis
Like.
- [231:45]
Finn
Yeah. Is he the 1%? Like, I guess he's just so obviously lying. It's just, just.
- [231:54]
Elaine
Oh God.
- [231:55]
James Stout
Yeah, it's just. It's lying. I think that should be enough to say.
- [231:59]
Garrison Davis
Yeah. I don't know if I said they never wear them. To be clear, they have gone forward and back on wearing them. But it was earlier this year. The specific security risk.
- [232:09]
Elaine
They have access to the cameras.
- [232:11]
Garrison Davis
Yes. Yes.
- [232:11]
Elaine
They're just refusing to follow this order.
- [232:13]
Garrison Davis
Yep.
- [232:14]
James Stout
Yep.
- [232:14]
Elaine
Now, the same complaint that alleged that Vivino threw a canister with a justification into this crowd also details an incident from the next day, October 23rd, where agents, without wearing identification, as required by the order, shot a protester in the neck with a pepper ball from five feet away and while driving away pointed a pepper ball gun. And I'm going to read from the complaint, quote, and then a real gun at declarant Chris Gentry, a combat veteran who was lawfully standing on the side of the road voicing his opposition as agents were driving by in their vehicle. Officials, the agent who pointed the real gun at Mr. Gentry's face said, quote, bang, bang, you're dead. Liberal, unquote.
- [232:54]
James Stout
Great.
- [232:55]
Garrison Davis
Cool.
- [232:57]
Elaine
Anyway, plaintiffs have requested body cam footage of this incident which has yet to be provided.
- [233:03]
Finn
Yeah. And I think it's worth noting that they. I mean, they do this every single time there is any kind of protest. They do stuff like this. They've been pointing guns at people the entire time they've been here.
- [233:12]
Elaine
They've been putting a lot of guns the past few months, as we have reported. They have shot people.
- [233:18]
Finn
Two people.
- [233:19]
Garrison Davis
They've shot more than two people. Yeah, yeah.
- [233:22]
Elaine
Saying something like this is insane.
- [233:25]
Garrison Davis
Yeah, no, yeah. It shows obviously like a complete lack of concern for accountability. Right. No, absolutely no. Thought that you could be held accountable for this.
- [233:34]
Finn
Yeah.
- [233:35]
James Stout
No. It also shows a desire to kill liberals.
- [233:38]
Giselle Bryant
Yes.
- [233:38]
Garrison Davis
Yes.
- [233:39]
James Stout
Which liberals need to be aware of.
- [233:41]
Elaine
I mean. Yeah.
- [233:41]
Finn
Yeah.
- [233:42]
James Stout
You can't let this organization continue to exist, nor can you let the people doing this stay free if you ever take power again. There has to be accountability and there has to be an end to their ability to the ability of any law enforcement agency to exist, knowing that they are unaccountable and cannot be punished for the violence that they do to civilians.
- [234:09]
Garrison Davis
Yeah. I guess I'll take this point to mention that we have covered CBP and DHS's previous shootings in previous years and that the. The internal review process they have for those. Which has led to a lack of accountability even when compared to other law enforcement officers. Yeah.
- [234:27]
Elaine
During this hearing this last Tuesday, the judge declined to alter the TRO to ban the use of tear gas completely saying that she believes. But Vino, quote, understands where I'm coming from and, quote, I don't know that we're gonna see a whole lot of tear gas being deployed over the next week. Unquote.
- [234:48]
Garrison Davis
Cool. Great.
- [234:50]
Elaine
Amazing, Amazing stuff coming out of our judiciary.
- [234:53]
Garrison Davis
Greg's picking up on the vibe, so we should be fine now.
- [234:56]
Elaine
Yeah. This Bonvito guy seems incredibly trustworthy, though. Judge Ellis did instruct Pavino to meet with her every weekday evening throughout Operation Midway Blitz till the next hearing in November to provide instant briefings on use of force. Though just one day later, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals blocked Judge Ellis's order requiring these daily reports in some other Bovino moves. Earlier this week, news broke that top. Top ICE field office chiefs are set to be reassigned and replaced by senior Border Patrol and CBP officials with the goal of netting more arrests to boost deportation numbers.
- [235:41]
Garrison Davis
Yeah. So the role of Border Patrol generally is to patrol the physical border and to do enforcement in that 100 mile border zone. Right. The role of ICE, the majority of ICE agents are not. Not the people that you see out there jumping out of cars and doing these smash and grabs. Right. The majority of vice agents, people who work in office who will check in with migrants through their intensive supervision program, which is one of their alternatives to detention. Right. Both of these agencies are relatively aligned with what I'll call Donald Trump's agenda. But Border Patrol particularly has made a name for itself. Bevino himself and other Border Patrol chiefs were. There was a time when it looked like they were going to force Bevino to retire, and that time was 2023, a briefing against the Biden administration. Right. Bovino has been kind of Particularly emblematic of this new Border Patrol approach. And it is particularly BP that has been aligned just with a lot of things that, you know, they had issues getting people vaccinated. Right. Like with this whole kind of political social milieu that is representative of the modern right we see with ICE agents. Like some of these people, I'm not going to say they joined looking to help make the world a happy place, but they are reasonable civil servants. I've talked to plenty of migrants who have gone to there and you'll hear from some of them in a scripted series next month. Gone to their ICE check. INS have been like, that was fine. That person was professional. They seemed genuinely concerned for things I'm facing and I was not unduly harassed, made to feel uncomfortable, etc. Etc.
- [237:25]
Elaine
No, the Border Patrol agents are like, particularly brutal.
- [237:29]
Garrison Davis
I have not heard that same. That was a reasonable professional about Border Patrol agents from migrants. Border Patrol also has a pretty high churn. Right. So they have a lot of people who have joined since, let's say, the first Trump Admin.
- [237:44]
James Stout
Yeah. And that may kind of change things because those people are joining specifically because they want to fuck with migrants. And while that's always been a thing for Border Patrol, a lot of people joined Border Patrol because it's the easiest way to become technically a federal agent.
- [238:01]
Garrison Davis
Yeah.
- [238:02]
James Stout
And it can be a path to becoming a better kind of federal agent.
- [238:06]
Garrison Davis
Sure. You can be.
- [238:07]
James Stout
It's a career thing. Which is why. Part of why there's so much churn.
- [238:10]
Garrison Davis
Part of why bp, just to like, characterize some of the issues the organization has had. Right. Has consistently offered waivers for, like, the academic qualifications that other agencies would not offer waivers for. They have a problem, a serious problem, with sexual assault, not just of migrants, but of women in the Border Patrol. They call the women in the Border patrol the fierce 5%. Because this is an agency that has not succeeded in getting more than 5% of its agents to be women. Like, it is an agency that has, I guess, for want of a better term, radicalized even. Even, you know, within DHS agencies.
- [238:44]
Giselle Bryant
Yeah.
- [238:45]
Elaine
I mean, all of the most brutal incidents of use of force in, like, Portland in 2020 that came from feds was Border Patrol.
- [238:52]
James Stout
That was Bortech. Yeah.
- [238:53]
Elaine
Bortak.
- [238:54]
Garrison Davis
Yeah. I would encourage people, if they want to get a sense of how Border Patrol sees itself, to go to the social media page that Bavino curates and has curated for a while to look. And again, he was, my understanding, like, hemmed up for his social media posts in the biden administration. He's obviously not being restrained in that way. Now go and look at, I think it's called Border Patrol Special Operations Command or DHS Special Operations Command, which includes bortac. Go and look at their pages. Right. Like these guys, they see themselves in the realm of like a military branch or a paramilitary police.
- [239:28]
James Stout
Yeah.
- [239:29]
Garrison Davis
And that is what they're doing in Chicago.
- [239:32]
Andrew Sage
Yeah.
- [239:33]
Elaine
NBC is reporting that the White House has approved the reassignment of at least a dozen directors of ICE field offices, with sources telling Fox News that the cities will include Los Angeles, Phoenix, Denver, Philadelphia, El Paso, San Diego, Seattle, Portland and New Orleans. This is almost half of the ICE field offices in the country. This turnover is being orchestrated by DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and DHS Senior advisor Corey Lewandowski, with some of the replacements being hand picked by Bavino. This is like Bavino be able to shape ICE how he sees fit using his Border Patrol like background. And these changes are reportedly motivated on differing views on tactics across agency leadership with the ICE strategy and like the Tom Homan strategy of focusing on targeted removal of known criminals or immigrants with pre existing deportation orders versus the Border Patrol tactic of doing these large sweeps and roundups around places like Home Depots, laundromats, restaurants, neighborhoods, urban centers.
- [240:39]
Garrison Davis
So Bevino like has been on this for a minute.
- [240:41]
James Stout
Right.
- [240:41]
Garrison Davis
Like, and I, I, I'm now realizing we need to cover his, his career in more detail depth. But like I've seen this oh, where did Bavino come from Stuff in 2010 when he was out of the Blythe Border Patrol station, I believe Blythe California. For those not familiar, Bavino was part of a raid on, on bus and train stations in Las Vegas. Right. Like these, these broader kind of dragnets have been something that he seems to have, they've been a characteristic of, of his career.
- [241:08]
James Stout
Right.
- [241:08]
Garrison Davis
So that would make sense for him to be the guy advocating for this.
- [241:12]
Elaine
Now the official statement made by DHS Assistant Secretary Trisha McLaughlin at this point says, quote, while we have no personnel changes to announce at this time, the Trump administration remains laser focused on delivering results and removing violent criminal illegal aliens from this country. She followed up this statement with a tweet naming a whole bunch of people involved in all of these news stories, including Bavino and like praising them for their patriotism. Let's take a look at two pictures of Bovito here for his courtroom attire. Who wants to describe what Bovito is wearing here?
- [241:49]
Garrison Davis
It looks like a statue of Stalin.
- [241:51]
James Stout
He looks like a guy in the SS is dressing as a guy in the SS for Halloween.
- [241:57]
Elaine
I don't think it's very Stalin. I think it's very German.
- [242:01]
Finn
Actually.
- [242:01]
James Stout
That is an SS lookin coat. I'm sorry.
- [242:05]
Elaine
It's intense. He has his little stars on his collar and yeah, this, this like boxy wool trench coat. It's very. With the like shaved sides of his head. It's very clear what he is trying to evoke. This is a little bit coy but like, come on. Come on, dude. And to follow this up, like DHS is really. Is really pushing Bavino now as like the face of this, this mass deportation push. And they're making fucking like fash wave face flash wave hype edit reels of.
- [242:40]
Garrison Davis
Of show. It goes.
- [242:42]
Elaine
It's mad of Vivino. And I, I will. I'll play the whole thing but really it's the first two seconds that demonstrate what's. What's going on here.
- [242:49]
Garrison Davis
This will be linked in the notes. I didn't realize it was Hammer to Dance Coldplay on the soundtrack. Like I had never listened to that.
- [243:06]
James Stout
Yeah, that's a choice.
- [243:08]
Elaine
We're not going to play much of that audio, Garrison.
- [243:10]
Garrison Davis
We're going to play all of that audio.
- [243:12]
Elaine
We are not playing 30 seconds of copyrighted audio. But just the, the. The first, literally the first like two seconds of him doing what is very clearly a SE Kyle and then transferring it into like military hand signals. But like, come on, dude.
- [243:29]
James Stout
Yeah.
- [243:29]
Elaine
And then throughout, throughout this, the rest of the little fash wave edit. It's like pictures of him and his like, you know, tactical gear and then pictures of him in what you. I would describe as an SS inspired military dress uniform with the little, you know, the stars, the trench coat. It's like very clear what he's doing. The DHS Twitter account has been doing these little cute Nazi posts for a long time now. They know what they're doing. It's.
- [243:56]
James Stout
Yeah.
- [243:57]
Elaine
But specifically this now being like the, the. The new kind of face of this. Of this whole operation. Both by playing a hand in restructuring the leadership of ICE and deploying to the forefront of places like Chicago as he leads and orchestrates the mass deportation operation. Yeah, like Operation Midway Blitz. Like blitz. Really blitz.
- [244:17]
Garrison Davis
Yeah. Yeah.
- [244:18]
Andrew Sage
Interest.
- [244:18]
Elaine
Interesting. Interesting. Unfucking believable that the fact that this guy was not canned by any previous Democrat administration like, like, about like abolishing ICE is, is obviously like not enough here because as we're talking about the way that like Border patrol has actually been the ones leading the most brutal of these raids. I. I think, like, there is a specific focus on, like, ice, because that's like, a safer target. I get, like, it feels like, because, like, people know what you're talking about.
- [244:49]
James Stout
All of dhs, we need to get rid of.
- [244:52]
Finn
Yeah. The fact that this guy wasn't fired is going to be looked back upon in the same way that, like, Allende promoting Pinochet is looked back on. Just.
- [245:03]
Garrison Davis
Yeah, yeah. It's.
- [245:05]
James Stout
It's.
- [245:05]
Garrison Davis
Yeah.
- [245:07]
James Stout
How else do you describe it?
- [245:08]
Finn
Yeah. Like, if there was going to be a free country, all of this shit, all of the DHS agencies, all of this needs to cease to exist as a minimum. And these people need to be, like, hauled in front of a Nuremberg tribunal. And that's. That's the minimum viable. There might be a democracy after that.
- [245:24]
James Stout
We need so many Nurembergs. Yeah, yeah.
- [245:29]
Garrison Davis
And, like, it's not. I don't want to, you know, gloat about this. It's not hard to have seen this coming. We have talked about this for years. Right? Like, yeah, this began in the 1990s with Operation Gatekeeper, Operation hold the Line. And we've documented this extensively. We've documented the fact that under the Biden administration, there was virtually no oversight.
- [245:51]
James Stout
Right.
- [245:51]
Garrison Davis
That they were able to detain people outdoors without food, water or shelter and deny that those people were detained. This is all stuff that we've covered. If it wasn't in your news diet, then you should question the news sources that you were using. But, like, it was very easy to see this coming. And as Mia said, very little was done to prevent it during the last four years.
- [246:14]
James Stout
Yep. In somewhat more amusing news, during the ongoing trial over the different federal agents deployed to Portland and the necessity of that federal deployment and potentially the mobilization of National Guard troops in Oregon being sent to Portland, which is still being fought over in the courts, Portland police were brought up on the stand and testified that during one night out at ice, federal officers gassed Portland police and fired pepper balls at one officer. And when Portland police confronted federal. Not ice. Sorry, but these are. These are federal FPS agents outside of the ICE building. Yeah. And when Portland police confronted the FBS agents afterwards, they responded, help or get out of the way. And this is simply. There's no actual. There's no. There's no rules of engagement. Right. Rules of engagement for, you know, soldiers and the like are supposed to be stuff like you don't fire until a certain standard of danger exists. Right. You don't. You. There are rules at which point you are allowed to engage with which Kinds of weapons. Right. Your ROE may say one thing about using a night stick or mace and it will say something else about using tear gas or whatever. There's no actual ROE for these guys. They're allowed to just kind of fire whenever they want. And they're not well trained. They're not very good at what they do. Most of them have not actually had the kind of training they've been supposed to have with these weapon systems they're using. And they're just kind of firing willy nilly, which is why they've been hitting cops repeatedly.
- [247:50]
Garrison Davis
Most FPS agents are contractors. They're not. They're not full time law enforcement officers.
- [247:55]
James Stout
Right.
- [247:56]
Garrison Davis
Talking of things that it would have been easy to see coming, I want to talk about ICE's facial recognition app. So I've seen a piece in 404 Media. 404 Media is the most annoying outlet to read pieces in because they will send you 17 emails a day. 404 Media suggests that ice is claiming a facial recognition match in its app. Mobile Fortify is a definitive determination of somebody's status. They're quoting here the ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee, Benny G. Thompson, as saying, quote, mobile Fortify is a dangerous tool in the hands of ICE and it puts American citizens at risk of detention and even deportation. He also said that ICE officials have told us that an apparent biometric match by Mobile Fortify is a definitive determination of a person's status and that an ICE officer may ignore evidence of American citizenship, including a birth certificate, if the app says the person is an alien. ICE using a mobile biometrics app in this way, in ways its developers at CBP never intended or tested, is a frightening, repugnant and unconstitutional attack on Americans rights and freedoms. Thompson is misguided if he thinks that like this is new. It is new in that it's that it's impacted U.S. citizens. Yes. This article, for reasons I cannot explain, does not mention CBP1.
- [249:23]
James Stout
Right.
- [249:23]
Garrison Davis
As is often the case on immigration reporting that we see now, it's completely lacking in context. The Context here is CBP1 is an app developed in the first Trump administration. It's often referred to as a Biden app because the definitive political question of our time is who was president in 2020.
- [249:43]
Elaine
There's just no way to know.
- [249:44]
James Stout
It's impossible to say. You can't data on anything happening that far back back.
- [249:50]
Garrison Davis
Unfortunately, I have a new one which is more recent which we're going to talk about next.
- [249:53]
Elaine
Grock Grok is this is this real.
- [249:56]
Garrison Davis
Yeah. But CBP1 was effectively determinative for migrants. Right. We've covered this in great detail here. There were some public records about CBP1 that, that I've looked at extensively. There's sort of too long didn't read version is the app did not work well on Android phones, especially previous generation Android phones, which are very common among people coming from the global South. The facial liveness scan. So what the facial liveness scan does is that let's say Robert is. Is coming to the U.S. right. They wanted to check that the phone is being held by Robert, that it's not been held. Someone's not holding up a photograph of Robert in front of the camera.
- [250:35]
Andrew Sage
Right.
- [250:36]
Garrison Davis
So. So you sort of move it around and it determines that It's a real 3D face, not. Not a. Not a photograph. It really struggled with black faces. I've seen this firsthand.
- [250:47]
James Stout
I've. All this stuff does. It's the same thing with like how there have been like motion activated faucets and stuff that wouldn't recognize dark skin. Yeah.
- [250:56]
Garrison Davis
It's a data set that they put in. Right. To my understanding, the results of those scans were determinative for migrants.
- [251:03]
James Stout
Right.
- [251:03]
Garrison Davis
It could determine their ability to make an asylum appointment and therefore to enter the US and make a claim for asylum. This caused people to remain in various very dangerous situations. It has probably led to people dying, saying it's another example of why we have to pay attention to the border if we want to know what's coming down the pipe domestically. And talking of shit that is coming down the pipe from the border domestically. I want to talk about public lands again because Utah Senator Mike Lee is back on his bullshit. This time he has another bill people will remember that Mike Lee tried to insert in the budget reconciliation bill a massive sell off off of public lands. Right. And what Lee does is he uses whatever terminology he thinks will make people support this crusade he has against lands owned by the public. For if we want to access. The last time he tried to wrap it up in language about affordable housing, if you read the bill, you would have seen that it wasn't going to result in any affordable housing. This time he's wrapping it up in the language of border security. And this is where I'm. This is where we're going to return to the defining political question of our time. Who is president? Because Lee, who introduced the bill in October of 2025, said, and I quote, biden's open border chaos is destroying Americans crown jewels. Families who want to enjoy A safe hike or camp out are instead finding trash piles, burned landscapes and trails closed because rangers are stuck clearing up the fallout. Cartels are exploiting the disorder, using these lands as cover for their operation. This bill gives land managers and border agents the tools to restore order and protect these places for the people they were meant to serv observe. Diligent observers will notice that Biden is no longer the President of the United States. And further diligent observers will notice that many people currently working for the federal government on public lands are being laid off or furloughed due to the government shutdown. What Lee's bill would do is allow DHS to identify illegal roads in public land areas and then to upgrade them to navigable roads. This is important because the 1964 Wilderness act doesn't allow motorized access to wilderness areas. And what Lee is proposing is that they would identify these illegal roads within 100 mile zone. But he is proposing a blanket change to the 1964 Wilderness act to allow the construction of roads, which would completely change the nature of wilderness in the United States. And like sometimes a slippery slope argument, can also be a fallacy. But in this case, building roads into the wilderness will permanently change the nature of that wilderness and will lead to other losses of protection on public land. Lee makes the argument that it's important for search and rescue and for border access. There is already mechanized access for search and rescue, like of search and rescue helicopters, for instance, can access wilderness areas that they have agreements in place with land management agencies which allow them to do this already when there is a risk to human life. The bill also talks about removing invasive species and reducing fire risk by removing fire fuels down by the border. Again, I'm guessing what this would do would be this. This would. I mean, if you fire fuels, like look at the southern border near where I live, right? Like think of the California sagebrush chaparral. Like clearing fire fuels there would completely change that landscape forever. It would remove much of the value that this wilderness has. Not as untouched.
- [254:44]
James Stout
Right.
- [254:45]
Garrison Davis
People have lived in this area for tens of thousands of years and that they have touched that nature and they have lived alongside it and worked with it. But it is an area that is significantly less damaged than most of the United States. Right. The bill would also inventory fires and damage to wilderness caused by migrants. I guess this is just an attempt to say another bad thing about migrants. It also prohibits any housing of migrants on federal lands unless it is in a prison. It's Lee taking this borderhawk stuff and strapping it onto this Crusade that he has been on for a long time to deprive of people in the United States and people visiting the United States of access to their public lands and eventually to sell those lands off to the highest bidder. He introduced it on October 2nd. It's in the committee stage right now. This probably is one of the things that folks could call a representative about and suggest it's a very bad idea. Talking of bad ideas, Maduro has announced the formation of an international brigade to defend his incredibly corrupt regime in Venezuela. I say this as someone who has been to Venezuela and written a PhD about the Spanish Civil War. This is a very bad idea. Don't do this. This is. Maduro does not need your help. Fuck that guy. Talking of things that don't need your help, here are some advertising.
- [256:25]
Elaine
I can't believe you're throwing the People's Republic of Venezuela under the bus like that as they're facing down war with the United States of America right now.
- [256:34]
Garrison Davis
Standing in the breach against imperialism. Yeah, I read all about it.
- [256:37]
Elaine
What happened is hashtag solidarity.
- [256:39]
Garrison Davis
James, I'm sorry. I read about it on the Gray Zone, and I'm changing my opinions, having spent more time than, I'm sure, half the staff of the Gray zone in Venezuela.
- [256:49]
Finn
Speaking of spooky, the shit Trump's getting is part of tariff negotiations. All right, so as we talked about last week, Trump has been in East Asia to do a bunch of meetings for conferences already happening, and this is where tariff negotiations have been being handled. This has been being held in South Korea. South Korean President Lee Jae Myung presented Trump with South Korea's highest honor and also gave him a giant golden crown. Have you all seen the giant golden crown?
- [257:37]
Elaine
It's that easy, folks. All you gotta do is. All you gotta do is just these little stupid things and then he loves you.
- [257:45]
Finn
Giant gilded crown.
- [257:47]
Garrison Davis
I haven't seen the crown. I'm gonna look at the crown right now.
- [257:50]
Finn
Look up the crown. I, I, I am beseeching you all. Yeah, I, I. However big you think this crown is, it is way larger than that. It is.
- [257:59]
Garrison Davis
Oh, wow. Yeah.
- [258:01]
James Stout
No, it's.
- [258:03]
Garrison Davis
Jesus. Wow.
- [258:06]
Finn
It's like the size of a fire hydrant.
- [258:08]
Garrison Davis
Yeah, maybe they directly. They directly took the one that they took from Prince Andre Nonce and melted it down or something.
- [258:18]
Finn
It's really something. Now, now Lee Jae Myung is a name you might recognize because he's the guy who was famous for that video of climbing over the fence to stop the coup last year. And one year later, he's Giving Trump what I think might be the largest crown I have ever seen. Now this crown is being described as quote, a gilded replica. So I don't know how much of this is actually, actually gold. I suspect it's gold paint or whatever. I don't know. I do not have confirmation on it. But you know, great, great things happening in, in, in sort of like a revolutionary anti coup movement which has ended with giving Trump the giant golden crown. Yeah. And apparently they, and they got like a kind of favorable sort of okay, ish kind of trade deal out of, out of, out of giving the President of the United States giant golden crown. So in terms of tariff news, while, while in, in China, Trump had his long awaited meeting with Xi Jinping, they struck a deal. Trump decreased the, the quote, unquote fentanyl tariffs to 10% which leaves the tariff rate for all Chinese goods at 47% down from its previous 57%. China has agreed to not do rare earth mineral restrictions that we talked about last week. Week and has also pledged to buy US Soybeans. Again, it's deeply unclear how much of this is actually going to happen. I think my, my guess is that they probably won't do the harshest of the rare mineral restrictions, but I will believe the soybean purchases when I see it and I haven't seen it yet. There's also been some interesting news out of the Senate where there's been a couple of symbolic votes against some sets of tariffs. The Senate voted 50 to 46 to end the state of emergency that supposedly allows Trump to do the Canada tariffs and also voted to block tariffs against Brazil. The, the four people who voted against both of these who voted with the, the Democrats are Mitch McConnell, Rand Paul, Susan Collins and Lisa Morowski. Which it kind of makes sense because Collins and Morowski are supposed to lead the two moderates. Rand Paul is like just hates tariffs.
- [260:25]
Garrison Davis
Yeah.
- [260:26]
Finn
He's a free trade hardliner who whenever I talk about this I will say he has had as much as all of this is his fault. He has had one great light ever which is I have a trade deficit with my grocery store. Actually really good.
- [260:41]
Elaine
Is he like an Austrian, like economist, like libertarian type? Like, like I know he's like a libertarian guy. I'm just trying to figure out what specific flavor.
- [260:49]
Finn
Yeah, he's, he's like an, he's like one of the Austrian like gold standards, but also like those people are still free trade people. Like really hard line.
- [260:56]
Elaine
Last time I heard Charlie Kirk talk in person, he was debating like five Austrian economists.
- [261:03]
Andrew Sage
Wow.
- [261:04]
Finn
The most annoying people in the entire world.
- [261:06]
James Stout
Honestly, I wouldn't wish that on anyone. That sounds like.
- [261:11]
Garrison Davis
That sounds like.
- [261:12]
James Stout
Why would you agree to do that, especially if you're already rich? I don't understand it. I don't understand it.
- [261:20]
Finn
Now. Okay. It's also worth noting, though, that despite these votes, none of this is going to take effect because the House right now effectively does not exist as a legislative body.
- [261:28]
James Stout
It sure doesn't.
- [261:30]
Giselle Bryant
Yeah.
- [261:30]
Finn
It doesn't exist in general because they keep not calling sessions, because every time they try to call a session, the Democrats. That's in the one political theater thing that, like, is kind of a good idea, but they're still bad at it. They keep being like, you have to release the Epstein files. And the Republicans keep being like, no, so we kind of don't have a House of Representatives.
- [261:49]
James Stout
I keep thinking about that one scene from Mars Attacks where the President's like, you've still got two out of three branches of government, and that ain't bad. Yeah.
- [261:58]
Elaine
Except in case we basically have one branch of government.
- [262:02]
James Stout
We have one branch of government.
- [262:04]
Finn
We have one branch of governments. And like.
- [262:05]
James Stout
But that doesn't work as a Mars Attacks joke.
- [262:08]
Finn
Yeah, but. And also, it's worth noting the House voted to not allow any tariff legislation until March 2026. A thing that it could apparently do. It is totally normal.
- [262:18]
James Stout
Sure.
- [262:18]
Garrison Davis
Oh, wow.
- [262:19]
Michael Palberg
Yeah.
- [262:19]
Finn
You know, so speaking of things that are totally normal, we're going to close this with Trump getting mad at Canada because he saw an ad they were running.
- [262:27]
Elaine
Oh, my God. Yeah.
- [262:28]
Finn
Series.
- [262:29]
Garrison Davis
Yeah.
- [262:29]
Finn
That was good.
- [262:31]
Andrew Sage
God.
- [262:31]
Finn
It was.
- [262:31]
Elaine
It was.
- [262:32]
Finn
It was a bunch of clips of Ronald Reagan being like, tariffs bad. Because Reagan. Reagan's domestic protectionism took the form of currency devaluations and not tariffs, et cetera, et cetera. But, like. Yeah, so.
- [262:44]
Elaine
And.
- [262:44]
James Stout
And.
- [262:44]
Finn
And Trump saw this, lost his mind, said that it was AI. There's a whole saga here about him claiming that it was like, also unauthorized usage of footage, which is a fiasco. And then also all of the tariff negotiations that have been happening between the U.S. and Canada have been called off, and he just put another 10% tariff on them because he was mad about it.
- [263:05]
Elaine
Go J's.
- [263:06]
Finn
Which. Yeah, totally. You know, I. Totally. Absolutely. A thing that, like, an elected head of government does and not a guy who just received a massive golden crown. Oh, Garrison, that's not a Blue Jays hat.
- [263:22]
Elaine
But, you know, this is a Blue Jays hat. Mia. How. How fucking dare you try to shesplain my own.
- [263:30]
Finn
My own country to myself.
- [263:32]
James Stout
Yeah, it's Toronto's team, right?
- [263:34]
Garrison Davis
Garrison's wearing a hat. For those who are not working for Cool Zone Media.
- [263:38]
Elaine
Yes, it's the Toronto Blue Jays. Oh, my God.
- [263:40]
Finn
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [263:41]
James Stout
Toronto Blue Jays. I thought it was the Toronto Blue Jays.
- [263:43]
Garrison Davis
Yeah, but there's not a J on it. Why?
- [263:45]
Elaine
Well, no, it just has the maple.
- [263:47]
Garrison Davis
Leaf, but it's only three points. It's not a traditional maple leaf either.
- [263:51]
Elaine
James, are you going to she splain my own country to me?
- [263:55]
Garrison Davis
Garrison, when it comes to birds and.
- [263:58]
Finn
Leaves, I am going to Canada's play. To you, it rocks. Oh, yeah, but that's fun. That's just how tariff policy is set. Now is you pissed off the king and he decided to put a tariff. This is. I don't know. I don't really know how to do analysis of the fact that we just have a child king setting tariff policies. It's. It's great.
- [264:23]
Elaine
Look here. Quick fact check. Do you read? Can you read this?
- [264:26]
Finn
Oh, wow. It does say Blue Jays to read this.
- [264:30]
Elaine
Genuine MLB merchandise. Okay.
- [264:33]
Garrison Davis
Wow.
- [264:33]
James Stout
Wow.
- [264:34]
Elaine
Right?
- [264:35]
James Stout
Yeah, they. No one would ever put that in fake MLB merchandise. Wouldn't be allowed.
- [264:41]
Garrison Davis
Yeah, I've never seen any genuine MLB merchandise in markets in Iraq, for example.
- [264:46]
James Stout
Yeah. Hey, hey. I'm the owner of a proud fix and gan shirt that I bought at a market in their milk.
- [264:55]
Elaine
All right, all right, everybody. Okay. I think it's politically important for the Blue Jays to win the World Series and contribute to the American century of humiliation.
- [265:06]
James Stout
James, I still have my tumberland boots that I bought in Syria.
- [265:10]
Garrison Davis
Yeah, I know. I have a 5.1.1 jacket.
- [265:15]
James Stout
Oh, and I got a great adota strike tracksuit when I was in Istanbul.
- [265:19]
Andrew Sage
James, do we.
- [265:19]
Elaine
Do you want to do this Fed election monitoring right now or next year?
- [265:23]
Garrison Davis
Yeah, let's do it now. Let's talk about talking of things which are not as they seem. California Attorney General. Look at that, Garrison.
- [265:31]
Elaine
That is why they pay me the medium bugs.
- [265:34]
Garrison Davis
California Attorney General Rob Bonter is warning.
- [265:38]
James Stout
That's such a fake ass name. I'm sorry. Sorry. Continue.
- [265:43]
Garrison Davis
Garrison is wearing that hat. For those not watching this podcast on top of their head. In the fashion of affairs, California Attorney General Rob Bunter is warning about election interference by the federal government. The federal government has sent monitors to California to a number of different counties in California in order to monitor the elections that are happening here on the 4th of November. To be clear, federal monitoring is not uncommon. The Biden administration did it in more than 80 places in 2024. For example. But Bonta seems convinced its monitoring is going to lead to election denial, election interference. Here's Gavin Newsom talking on X about this.
- [266:24]
Michael Palberg
So today the Trump administration announced they're sending election monitors to five specific counties here in the state of California. They have no business doing that. They have no basis to do that. In fact, we have a state wide election for a statewide constitution. This is about voter intimidation. This is about voter suppression, period, full stop. And it's a pattern, isn't it? It's consistent with what they've done with.
- [266:49]
James Stout
The federalization of the National Guard and.
- [266:51]
Michael Palberg
The intimidation and the chill that that's created. They'll do that right around election day as well. Same thing with ICE and border patrol mass men watch that space, showing up in and around, pulling booths and voting places. But this is a bridge too far. And I hope people understand it's a bridge that they're trying to build the scaffolding for all across this country in next November's election. They do not believe in fair and free elections. Our republic, our democracy is on the line. We all need to wake up.
- [267:21]
Garrison Davis
I'm actually a lot more concerned with the stuff around. I think he's probably right that we will see like more federal agents around polling places in election time. What California is doing in response is assigning monitors to monitor the federal monitors, which will be interesting. And it seems unusual. Right, for the federal monitors to be monitoring things that one of the things that's on the ballot this year is Prop 50. Right. Which would redistrict California. It's gerrymandering. So gerrymandering proposition to.
- [267:51]
James Stout
It's revenge gerrymandering. To be clear. It's gerrymandering. The bill is specifically. We, We. Not we're going to do this, but we're going to do this if the. There's redistricting in Texas.
- [268:02]
Garrison Davis
Yeah, yeah. It's. Yes. It's an attempt to. To rectify the very obvious gerrymandering in Texas.
- [268:08]
James Stout
It's kind of mad. Mutually assured destruction is applied to gerrymander.
- [268:13]
Garrison Davis
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Neither of these things are great. That's.
- [268:18]
James Stout
Here we are.
- [268:19]
Garrison Davis
I think that's all I had on this, actually.
- [268:21]
James Stout
Cool.
- [268:22]
Garrison Davis
Yep. I think that that's, that is. That's where we're at.
- [268:26]
James Stout
All right, everybody. Well, until.
- [268:29]
Elaine
Breaking. Breaking autism news.
- [268:31]
James Stout
Oh, God.
- [268:33]
Elaine
Texas is suing Tylenol, specifically a pharmaceutical company, Johnson and Johnson, for marketing Tylenol to pregnant women and failing to disclose what Attorney General Ken Paxton calls, quote, a significantly increased risk of autism and Other disorders, unquote.
- [268:45]
Garrison Davis
They don't market it to pregnant women.
- [268:47]
James Stout
Like, generally, they says, if I'm not mistaken, it says on the bottles, don't take. If you're nursing, you're pregnant.
- [268:54]
Garrison Davis
Probably. We covered this in a previous episode. But, like, generally, drugs are not. Very few drugs are marketed to pregnant people. Right. Be they women or otherwise.
- [269:03]
James Stout
Yeah. No. The only thing you're supposed to take as a pregnant woman is cocaine. And you got to make sure it's pure.
- [269:08]
Finn
Non binary people tell you can take anything.
- [269:09]
Garrison Davis
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [269:11]
James Stout
If you're not pregnant, it's okay to do whatever.
- [269:13]
Garrison Davis
Yeah. If you are pregnant, not a woman, it's okay. Okay, go right ahead.
- [269:16]
James Stout
Oh, yeah, yeah, sure. Wait, no, I don't think that that's how it works.
- [269:22]
Finn
Transvastate double.
- [269:23]
Garrison Davis
Yeah, yeah, yeah. True.
- [269:24]
James Stout
I think if you have a fetus gestating in you, you're only supposed to do cocaine.
- [269:29]
Elaine
Definitely the least autistic group of people. Non binary people. Yeah, definitely. Definitely. They can just take whatever or do or do. Take whatever.
- [269:38]
Giselle Bryant
Yeah.
- [269:38]
Garrison Davis
Too many drugs. Like, they'll say that you should consult with your doctor.
- [269:41]
Elaine
Consult a doctor.
- [269:42]
Garrison Davis
Yeah. And none of them are risk free. But it's a cost benefit. Benefit analysis. Right.
- [269:46]
Elaine
We covered this, the autism and Tylenol, like correlation versus causation based on that one Swedish.
- [269:53]
Garrison Davis
Swedish study. Yeah.
- [269:54]
Elaine
This is. I'm interested to see how Johnson Johnson argues this in court and if that will have effects across, you know, the rest of the Trump administration's anti Tylenol push if they're able to successfully defend their product against Ken Paxton. So critical support to Tylenol, I guess.
- [270:11]
James Stout
Welcome to the resistance, Big pharma.
- [270:14]
Michael Palberg
Yeah.
- [270:15]
Garrison Davis
Jesus. Yeah. If people want to listen to more on that, we can go back and find our previous episode.
- [270:20]
James Stout
All right, everybody, until next time, try not to be on a fishing boat anywhere south of the US Southern border. It's not safe right now.
- [270:32]
Elaine
Good luck. Trick or treating. Happy Halloween.
- [270:34]
Garrison Davis
Yeah.
- [270:34]
James Stout
Trick or treating. It's not safe right now.
- [270:37]
Garrison Davis
Oh, yeah. Don't be trick or treating in a boat. This year we reported the news.
- [270:42]
Elaine
That sucks.
- [270:43]
Garrison Davis
Yeah, we reported the news.
- [270:50]
James Stout
Hey, we'll be back Monday with more episodes every week from now until the heat death of the universe.
- [270:56]
Giselle Bryant
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.
- [271:04]
Elaine
Out on the iHeartrade radio app, Apple.
- [271:06]
Giselle Bryant
Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts, you can now find sources for. It could Happen here listed directly in episode descriptions.
- [271:13]
Andrew Sage
Thanks for listening.
- [271:17]
This is the story of the 1. As a maintenance supervisor at a manufacturing facility, he knows keeping the line up and running is a top priority. That's why he chooses Grainger.
- [271:28]
Michael Palberg
Because when a drive belt gets damaged.
- [271:30]
Andrew Sage
Grainger makes it easy easy to find the exact specs for the replacement product he needs and next day delivery helps ensure he'll have everything in place and running like clockwork. Call 1-800-GRAINGER click granger.com or just stop by Granger for the ones who get it done.
- [271:48]
Finn
Hello, America's sweetheart.
- [271:50]
Elaine
Johnny Knoxville here. I want to tell you about my.
- [271:53]
Finn
New true crime podcast, Crimeless Hillbilly Heist from Smartless Media, Campside Media and Big Money Players. It's a wild tale about a gang.
- [272:03]
Elaine
Of high functioning nitwits who somehow pulled.
- [272:06]
Finn
Off America's third largest cash heist.
- [272:09]
Michael Palberg
Kind of like Robin Hood, except for the part where he steals from the.
- [272:13]
Elaine
Rich and gives to the poor.
- [272:15]
Garrison Davis
I'm not that generous.
- [272:17]
Finn
It's a damn near inspiring true story for anyone out there who's ever shot.
- [272:22]
Elaine
For the moon, then just totally muffed up the landing. They stole $17 million and had not.
- [272:28]
Michael Palberg
Bought a ticket to help him escape.
- [272:30]
Garrison Davis
So we're sitting like, oh God, what do we do?
- [272:32]
Michael Palberg
What do we do?
- [272:33]
Garrison Davis
That was dumb. People, do not follow my example.
- [272:38]
Finn
Listen to Crimeless Hillbilly Heist on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast.
- [272:50]
Giselle Bryant
The murder of an 18 year old girl in Graves County, Kentucky went unsolved for years until a local housewife, a journalist and a handful of girls came forward with a story.
- [273:03]
Garrison Davis
America, y' all better wake the hell up. Bad things happens to good people in small towns.
- [273:16]
Giselle Bryant
Listen to Graves county on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And to binge the entire season ad free. Subscribe to Lava for Good plus on Apple Podcasts.
- [273:29]
Michael Palberg
Hey, I'm Kyle McLaughlin. You might know me as that guy.
- [273:32]
Garrison Davis
From Twin Peaks, Sex and the City.
- [273:34]
James Stout
Or just the Internet Stand.
- [273:36]
Michael Palberg
I have a new podcast called what.
- [273:38]
Garrison Davis
Are We Even Doing? Where I embark on a noble quest.
- [273:42]
Elaine
To un understand the brilliant chaos of youth culture.
- [273:46]
Garrison Davis
Each week I invite someone fascinating to join me to talk about navigating this.
- [273:51]
James Stout
High speed roller coaster we call reality.
- [273:53]
Garrison Davis
Join me and my delightful guests every Thursday and let's get weird together in a good way. Listen to what Are We Even doing on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [274:06]
Andrew Sage
This is an iHeart podcast.