It Could Happen Here Weekly 224

Summary

Podcast Summary: It Could Happen Here Weekly 224 — March 21, 2026

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Main Theme

This episode is a wide-ranging, multi-segment dive into ongoing global and domestic collapse, with a special focus on three major topics:

• The privatization (and moral crisis) of maritime security during renewed conflict in the Strait of Hormuz
• Fault lines within Palestinian politics and the question of armed tactics amid the Gaza crisis
• The emergence of techno-capitalist “network states,” their global impact, and the rise of venture capital as a semi-sovereign imperial force

Throughout, hosts Robert Evans, Mia Wong, James Stout, and Garrison Davis—with additional reporting from Dana Elkhorn and guest Shanley—explore how these disparate events amount to a chronicle of system breakdown, authoritarian drift, and the challenge of building better futures.

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Private Maritime Security and The Strait of Hormuz Crisis

Discussion Overview

• Host(s): James Stout, Garrison Davis
• Timestamps: [02:40]–[42:04], [173:17] onward

Key Points

• Context: Renewed attacks by Iran on commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz threaten a global oil and trade choke point.
• Marines and PMCs (private military contractors) have become the real enforcers of maritime security, filling the vacuum left by retreating nation-states.
• Most commercial ships now have private armed contractors, a system with minimal legal oversight.
• International law is evaded with "flags of convenience"—vessels registered offshore for lax regulations, taxation, and safety standards.
• Major piracy incidents (like the Maersk Alabama hijacking) spurred the explosion of PMCs on vessels, but accountability remains virtually nonexistent, both for these and for labor abuses at sea.

Notable Quotes & Moments

• On the nature of private maritime security:

  "The reason we can have private security contractors, often with machine guns, on boats is the same reason that horrific labor abuses are perpetrated on boats daily." – James Stout [04:54]

• On flags of convenience:

  "Liberia is not going to be of much assistance.” – Garrison Davis [15:13] “Yeah, they're not coming. The Liberian Navy is not available to help you..." – James Stout [15:16]

• On the brutality of the industry:

  "Industry standards that the industry itself sets... Those have generally not been the best means of accountability." – James Stout [21:19]

• On current U.S. and Iranian naval capabilities:

  “The Iranians only have to make transiting the Strait of Hormuz uninsurable to succeed.” – James Stout [27:56]

Insights & Analysis

• Private security has become the de facto system for maritime law, with companies openly arming ships and facing virtually no oversight due to international legal loopholes.
• The idea that nations control the high seas is disproved daily—shipping companies and their private armies effectively run the show, and neoliberalism turns a blind eye as long as the "treats keep moving."
• The region’s instability and the vulnerability of critical global supply lines—oil, gas, trade goods—are such that private violence may be about to become even less regulated, with escalating risk to civilians.

  "It is wild that right now the solution of the global shipping industry seems to be: some of these people will die, but we will keep the oil moving and the treats moving. But that has been... the status of the shipping industry for most of the 21st century." – James Stout [41:33]

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Palestinian Politics: Disarmament and Debate in Gaza

Discussion Overview

• Host: Dana Elkhorn (Palestinian/Arab Politics Expert)
• Timestamps: [45:06]–[63:05]

Key Points

• Ceasefire & Humanitarian Situation: Despite supposed truce, Israel continues demolitions, attacks, and restricts humanitarian aid in Gaza.
• The debate over Hamas disarmament is front and center; the U.S. and Israel demand full demilitarization as a prerequisite for reconstruction.
• Divergent Palestinian Views:
  • Hamas: Any disarmament must come in the context of real self-defense guarantees; won't fully surrender arms unilaterally.
  • Fatah/PA: Argues for disarmament as the price of international legitimacy and future statehood; sees itself as the only party able to unite and govern.
  • Civil Society: Many Palestinians support neither party; call for real national consensus mechanisms and functional, revitalized institutions.
• Polling Data: Support is fragmented; neither Fatah nor Hamas commands a true mandate.
• Moral Self-Reflection: Intellectuals have debated both strategy and morality of armed resistance well before October 7; internal critique exists despite prevailing Western narratives.

Notable Quotes & Moments

• On disarmament as an "international demand":

  "How would Palestinians navigate this? ...Hamas should be more flexible on the weapons and disarmament issue, especially given the degree of people suffering and the need for reconstruction in Gaza." – Dana Elkhorn summarizing Mustafa Ibrahim

• On lack of consensus:

  "There is no national consensus and it’s not because Palestinians don’t know how to resolve these issues. It’s because they haven’t been given the space to do so." [52:00 approx.]

• On the wider lesson:

  "Disempowering Palestinians, ignoring their aspirations and ignoring the need for their input or blocking them from undergoing this essential process will only prolong the conflict and prolong the suffering." – Dana Elkhorn [62:40]

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The Techno-Fascist “Network State”: Global Venture Capitalism as Proto-Empire

Discussion Overview

• Host: Mia Wong with guest Shanley (VCinfodocs)
• Timestamps: [63:05]–[101:47] and [101:14]–[137:05]

Key Points

• The Problem: Popular focus on tech billionaires' personalities (Thiel, Altman, Yarvin) misses the reality—a vast, tightly networked ecosystem of “cartelized” venture capital that coordinates not just startups, but government policy, global finance, and even war.
• How VC Firms Operate:
  • Act as command hubs, coordinating trillions of dollars in capital.
  • Major firms (Andreessen Horowitz, Founders Fund, General Catalyst, Sequoia) are consolidating near-monopoly power.
  • VC is intertwined with defense (hundreds of new weapons contractors), crypto, and sovereign wealth from authoritarian states.
  • CIA (via In-Q-Tel), BlackRock, Wall Street, and Gulf dictatorships (especially Saudi Arabia) fund and co-own this machine.
• Crypto as a Parallel Sovereign System:
  • Crypto becomes the shadow banking system for VC, enabling extreme tax evasion, international law evasion, and providing financial rails for globally deregulated, untraceable capitalism.
• Network State as Strategy:
  • “Network states” are new private political entities carving out extralegal zones (special economic zones) worldwide, enabling deregulated medical, biotech, war-tech, and resource extraction activities.
  • Medical experimentation without oversight, neo-colonial mineral extraction, labor exploitation, and the active destabilization of countries (via compliant politicians like Bukele, Milei).
• Tech Fascism and Eugenics:
  • VC class increasingly adopts a self-conscious “civilizational” identity, aiming for selective breeding, hyper-productivity, and a form of engineered techno-eugenic “future race.”
  • Israel is seen as a model—an advanced technocratic (and militarist) state with high birth rates among its "elite."
  • Imperial ambitions butt up against Belt and Road and China, forming a new axis of global right-wing authoritarian competition.

Notable Quotes & Moments

• On the real structure of power:

  “VCs act as a central coordinator of this giant machinery of startups and technological development... It is a cartel that has a central financial backbone.” – Shanley [68:16]

• On the Network State's core pitch:

  “They want global deregulation, they want global suspension of taxes all over the world... They need to recolonize Latin America and Africa. Ultimately this all unfolds within a war with China.” – Shanley [100:00]

• On corporate colonialism:

  "When VC contacts these countries, it is transforming them, it's changing their politicians, it's changing their policies, it's changing their land, it's changing their financial system... over time that’s like a global tech fascist axis." – Shanley [115:12]

• On the scale of the threat:

  “They are so much more advanced in these projects than anyone has awareness of. Things are way beyond the emergency moment and we need global response... We need resistance.” – Shanley [129:48]

• On building resistance:

  “If we just let this go for an end, like, today is our best chance of stopping it… we need to be professional resistors and anti colonialists and anti fascists and take this as not just an ideological thing, but this is a tactical situation—we need to be figuring out strategies and tactics to take this down.” – Shanley [135:47]

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Domestic U.S. Collapse and News Roundup

Light-Hearted Start

• Hosts joke about “executive dysphonia” while lampooning their inability to report live from the Buffalo Wild Wings at SeaWorld. [137:29–140:18]

  “As a British person, the SeaWorld location in Orlando, Florida is our spiritual home.” – James Stout [139:52]

Key U.S. News

• Meta shuts down its VR Metaverse on June 15th [140:18]
• Election update: Kat Abu Ghazali’s strong but unsuccessful run in Evanston. [140:58]
• Columbian student Lika Cordilla released from ICE detention after a year [141:32]
• Cuba faces blackouts due to U.S. blockade and lack of Venezuelan imports [141:51]
• Ecuador bombs Colombia by mistake amid regional instability [142:36–143:04]
• White House seeks to end shutdown by cosmetic reforms to DHS; heavy skepticism follows [143:04–145:07]

ICE, Border Patrol, and Domestic Policing

• Gregory Bevino ("Greggy B.") retires early as Border Patrol leadership shifts in response to mounting deaths, scandals, and political shifts, possibly signaling broader re-evaluation of mass deportations. [145:07–148:28]
• Minneapolis resistance to ICE & Border Patrol noted as a rare people-victorious moment [148:28]

Gambling on War and News Integrity

• Polymarket (crypto prediction market) users harassed an Israeli journalist to try to manipulate payout after a rocket attack, highlighting how finance will warp even violent crises for speculative profit. [149:08–156:27]

  "Once people are putting fortunes on the line around stupid shit—like betting whether or not a missile made it through—the vested financial interest in going after people over stuff like this is going to become the norm." – Robert Evans [155:04]

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Antifa, Federal Trials, and New Legal Dangers

Discussion Overview

• Host: Garrison Davis, with Robert Evans
• Timestamps: [158:24]–[171:52]

Key Case: Prairieland Antifa Trial

• First mass antifa “terrorism” conviction: 8+ activists convicted on charges including riot, conspiracy to carry explosives (fireworks), and material support. Lead defendant convicted of attempted murder for firing at a police officer during a protest at an ICE facility.
• Federal prosecutors, aided by a hate group “expert,” constructed “Antifa” as a de facto terrorist organization, linking defendants through ideology and group chat evidence.
• Evidence included anarchist zines, black bloc clothing, and political affinity groups (SRA, John Brown Gun Club), now potentially criminalized as evidence of conspiracy.
• Use of broad statutes on "material support to terrorists" was broadened to criminalize protest organizing and mutual aid (e.g. zine distribution).

  "Just establishing someone is a member of 'antifa' is not really what they’re going after, but they're using 'antifa' this way to link the defendants through this ideological unity to show… conspiracy." – Garrison [172:05]

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The Iran War, Economy, and Global Unraveling

• Strait of Hormuz remains impassable; oil/natural gas infrastructure damaged
• G7+Netherlands can’t/don’t want to actually open the Strait
• Attacks, counterattacks:
  • Israel strikes Iran’s key gas field → Iran hits Qatar’s LNG processing (cuts 17% of Qatar’s export capacity for years), risking global supply crisis [173:17–181:31]
  • Brent crude passes $100/barrel; looming possibility of catastrophic $200/barrel scenarios.
  • U.S. deploys thousands of Marines & naval forces, but no military solution is apparent.

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Antisemitism, Resignations, and Domestic Fracture

• Joe Kent resigns as National Counter Terrorism Center chief, blaming American subservience to Israel in explicit antisemitic rhetoric; further exposes the resurgence of “red-brown” alliances and old-school antisemitism across both the far-right and sectors of the online left. [194:03–199:10]

  "His reason for retiring is, like, explicitly anti-Semitic." – James Stout [195:21]

• Hosts warn of normalization of ZOG, antisemitic tropes on both left and right.
• Cesar Chavez sexual abuse revelations receive brief mention.

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Calls to Action & Closing Thoughts

• Techno-fascism and VC extraction cannot be defeated by focusing on personalities—the struggle must be global, tactical, and rooted in structural, anti-capitalist, and anti-colonial analysis.

  “We need global emergency response and we need resistance. When venture capitalists show up to these areas, the people there don’t know what’s hitting them. And that’s even true in the U.S... We need global defense from this.” – Shanley [129:48]

• Hope grounded in history: The episode closes with reminders that collective struggle has, in the past, achieved the seemingly impossible, from anti-globalization summits to anti-colonial revolution.

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Notable Timestamps & Segments

• Private Maritime Security: [02:40]–[42:04]
• Gaza and Palestinian Politics: [45:06]–[63:05]
• Tech Fascism / Venture Capital: [63:05]–[101:47]; [101:14]–[137:05]
• U.S. Domestic News & Polymarket: [137:29]–[156:27]
• Federal Antifa Trial Analysis: [158:24]–[171:52]
• Iran, Oil, Global Economy: [173:17]–[194:03]
• Antisemitism Red-Brown Warning: [194:03]–[199:10]

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Tone

Conversational, critical, bleakly humorous, deeply analytical. Hosts shift comfortably between dense reporting, historical context, and moments of dark humor or exasperated banter. The voice is anti-authoritarian, explicitly anti-fascist, and committed to structural, systems-level understanding of ongoing collapse.

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Recommended Further Listening/Reading

• “The Outlaw Ocean” — Podcast on maritime labor abuses, recommended by James [22:02]
• VCinfodocs.com — For further info on the tech/VC/crypto/capitalist empire (per guest Shanley)
• Defector article: "Trump to World: Please Help Me Unshoot My Own Leg Off" — On the unresolvable Strait crisis

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For a full experience of the immersive, ever-worsening collapse—and the ways resistance is still possible—this episode is worth listening to in its entirety.

Transcript

[Shanley]

This is an iHeart podcast.

[Dana Elkhorn]

Guaranteed Human.

[James Stout]

The Bleacher Report app is your destination for sports right now. The NBA is heating up, March Madness is here, and MLB is almost back. Every day there's a new headline, a new highlight, a new moment you've got to see for yourself. That's why I stay locked in with the Bleacher Report app. For me, it's about staying connected to my sports. I can follow the teams I care about, get real time, scores, breaking news and highlights all in one place. Download the Bleacher Report app today so you never miss a moment.

[Shanley]

Then she says, have you seen a photo of my son? And I'm like, who is this person?

[Dana Elkhorn]

Welcome to the boys and Girls Podcast. Arranged marriage is basically a reality show and you're auditioning for your soulmate. And who's judging? Only your entire family. I sacrificed myself to this ancient tradition, hoping to find love the right way. And instead I found chaos, comedy, and a lot of cringe. Listen to boys and Girls on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Shanley]

This Women's History Month.

[Dana Elkhorn]

The podcast Keep It Positive Sweetie celebrates

[Shanley]

the power of women choosing healing, purpose and faith. Even when life gets messy, love is not a destination.

[James Stout]

You have to work on it every day.

[Dana Elkhorn]

Keep It Positive Sweetie creates space for

[Shanley]

honest conversations on self worth, love, growth, and navigating life with grace and grit, led by women who uplift, inspire, and

[Garrison Davis]

tell the truth out loud.

[Shanley]

I have several conversations with God and

[Garrison Davis]

I know why it took 20 years

[Shanley]

to hear this and more. Listen to Keep It Positive sweetie on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[James Stout]

It's the new me and it's the old them.

[Shanley]

This woman's History Month.

[Dana Elkhorn]

The podcast if youf Knew Better with

[Shanley]

Amber Grimes spotlights women who turn missteps into momentum and lessons into power.

[Dana Elkhorn]

My, like tunnel vision of like I got achieve this was off the strengths of like, I want to make a

[Shanley]

better life for us. If youf Knew Better brings real talk

[Dana Elkhorn]

from women who've lived it, unpacking, career

[Shanley]

pivots, relationship lessons, and the mindset shifts that changed everything.

[Dana Elkhorn]

Listen to if youf Knew Better with

[Shanley]

Amber grimes on the iHeartRadio app, Apple

[Dana Elkhorn]

Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Cool Zone Media.

[Robert Evans]

Hey everybody, Robert Evans here and I wanted to let you know this is a compilation episode. So every episode of the week that just happened is here in one convenient and with somewhat less ads package for you to listen to in a Long stretch if you want. If you've been listening to the episodes every day this week, there's going to be nothing new here for you. But you can make your own decisions.

[James Stout]

Hi, everyone, and welcome to It Could Happen Here. It's me, James, today and I am very lucky joined by Garrison. Hi, G. Hello. Hi, Garrison. I've summoned you here today to talk about boats, a topic that white men love, but we're not going to talk about like going out on the lake and looking for bass today. I've only done bass fishing once. It's not for me.

[Garrison Davis]

Do you hold up the fish for the picture? Do you do the picture?

[James Stout]

I wasn't blessed with a bass on that trip, but I did get to. It was very interesting because the guy had like a purple boat with gold flecks in it. It didn't represent who I thought he was as a person. Turned out actually that he had a boat sponsorship and he was going to sell it. But it was a cool boat. I got to drive that boat pretty, pretty fast, do some donuts and stuff. So that is another thing that calls to a part of my soul. I want to talk about private maritime security today. The reason why, of course, is that Iran is currently attacking boats in the Strait of Hormuz and elsewhere.

[Robert Evans]

Right.

[James Stout]

There's some. Some boats were attacked in port in Basra yesterday. We're recording this on Thursday. At the time of recording, they have attacked six boats. It's more likely than not that there will be more boats attacked by the time you are listening to this. It's been a really bad week for boat guys.

[Garrison Davis]

It's been a bad year for boats in general.

[James Stout]

Oh, Venezuela. Yeah. Yeah. Let's talk about private maritime security. So, like when these boats are transiting the Strait of Hormuz. Right. The United States has offered and then rescinded the offer to escort them through the Strait of Hormuz. It is very unlikely the United States is going to be able to sufficiently escort every boat that goes through the state of Hormuz. And this is a long standing issue. Right. I think probably lots of listeners won't be aware of the long history of private security on ships. Right. I'm only going to talk about this in the context of the 21st century, but this goes a lot further back. It's largely a consequence of the way the law governs the ocean. It's actually the same. Wow, Sorry, Daddy Long Legs. I don't know if there's. Is there an American word for that

[Garrison Davis]

that I don't know, Daddy Long legs.

[Robert Evans]

That's correct.

[Shanley]

Okay.

[James Stout]

Yeah. Absolute unit that's just entered my office space. I will let him be. The reason that we can have private security contractors, often with machine guns, et cetera, on boats is the same reason that horrific labor abuses are perpetrated on boats on a daily basis. Right. Perhaps the most well documented or among the most well documented are the ones off Thailand on fishing ships, which often involve Burmese refugees or people fleeing Myanmar right there, essentially enslaved on these boats or in sort of indentured servitude of trying to, quote, unquote, pay off their trip out of the country they were fleeing. Right. When we're talking about labor abuses today. But I want to talk more about private security. Most of the security provided to boats in the world in general is not provided by states. It is provided by private military contractors. Right. Earlier ON in the 20th century, the typical profile of one of these people would have been that they'd left the military in a state in the global North. They had found, let's say, life or employment in the civilian world to be difficult for them. And I've met a number of these people in a number of places. Many of them went to parts of Africa thinking that they were going to work protecting wildlife and then ending up protecting large container ships instead, or attempting to work for a company that would one day let them protect wildlife or something similar. Generally, the companies they end up working for are generally referred to as private Maritime Security Companies. PMSCs as opposed to PMC. Private Military Contractor.

[Garrison Davis]

Right.

[James Stout]

Although it is a version of the same thing. Generally these companies offer a shipping company, a sort of package that's not just armed security also includes stuff like intelligence, crisis response, potential intervention. I spoke to someone, for instance, who had worked for a shipping company, and his major job was to deal with when people were kidnapped off the boats. He would then either go and rescue the people or negotiate with the people who had kidnapped them.

[Garrison Davis]

These are like, on, like, cargo ships. Oil. Oil tankers. Like what. What kind of.

[James Stout]

Yeah, so mostly they're on large commercial vessels. Right. Cargo ships, oil tankers, things with an expensive cargo, although it is not unheard of for PMSCs. For instance, you may have a maritime security company to secure your large mega yacht. Right. Or another boat that you're worried about.

[Garrison Davis]

I mean, these happen on, like, cruise ships sometimes.

[James Stout]

Yes, there was a. There was a shootout in the early 2000s, or a shootout. It's probably a shootout. Private security characters on a. I think it was an Italian cruise ship fired at pirates who were Attempting to board the cruise ship.

[Mia Wong]

Huh.

[James Stout]

It's a lot less uncommon than you would think.

[Garrison Davis]

So when, when, when, when we're planning the 2028 Cool Zone media cruise, all, all access included, we're going to have to contract with one of these companies.

[James Stout]

I think we can probably bring that in house. I think that that would be the goal at that point. Right. Within the greater Iheart ecosystem. Garrison, we have so many automatic weapons. You don't, you don't listen to the like belt fed machine gun podcast, the I Hurt Militia. It's us and Ted Cruz and we're, we haven't really agreed on very much other than gun ownership. Maybe we should talk about when the real reason like PMSCS took off in the 21st century was the rise in piracy of Somalia. Right. Before this, piracy had existed mostly in Southeast Asia. Piracy has existed for as long as people going on boats has existed. Right. But specifically piracy of Southeast Asia had before this been more of a like a smash and grab kind of situation. Like turn up, take what you can, leave. What was distinct in this piracy that we began to see from like 2008 onwards was that pirates were either trying to seize the entire cargo of a vessel, the vessel itself, or to kidnap people from the vessel and hold them for ransom. I guess the most high profile case was called the Maersk Alabama. Are you familiar with this one?

[Garrison Davis]

No.

[James Stout]

Okay. This is, that's good because you get to hear a story.

[Garrison Davis]

I don't keep up with pirate news.org really.

[James Stout]

I can see you being like pirate curious. No. You're not interested in.

[Garrison Davis]

It's. I've always had kind of a love hate relationship with pirates.

[James Stout]

Okay.

[Garrison Davis]

You know, undeniably cool in some way. Also a little bit messy.

[James Stout]

They can be messy. Yeah, yeah. Lots of, lots of overlap between pirates and anarchism. I'm sure you've.

[Garrison Davis]

This is true. Yeah. Some of my same critiques there for, you know, both sides.

[James Stout]

Yeah, yeah. It can also be messy.

[Garrison Davis]

As soon as the pirates all start wearing matching black suits, then we can talk.

[James Stout]

I don't, I think that's inherently like a. The piracy isn't about that. Piracy is about self expression.

[Garrison Davis]

That's the thing. Yeah.

[James Stout]

Well, yeah. Agree to disagree. I like, I like a diverse pirate outfit personally. In this case, a small vessel. Right. I think they had four or five pirates. They had like pretty basic weaponry. Right. Like Kalashnikovs. I think they boarded the Maersk Alabama. The boat had a pirate alarm and they sounded the pirate alarm. In this, you have to struggle to repress your, like, 18th century, like, mind palace, right?

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[James Stout]

The crew sheltered in. They had, like, a safe room. Yeah, they went in this safe room where they captured the captain of the ship pretty quickly. The ship didn't have any means of defending itself other than it tried to, like, I'm not a massive boat understander. It tried to use its rudder to swamp the pirate ship as it was coming up.

[Garrison Davis]

Okay.

[James Stout]

So, like, kind of flick it, but that didn't work. Yeah. And one member of the ship's crew who hid himself with a knife and successfully subdued and captured the leader of the pirates. And the crew then attempted to trade this person for their captain. They tied up the. The pirate who they had captured, attempted to trade him for their captain. The pirates took the. The leader of the pirates and then never gave the crew their captain and then made off in a lifeboat with a large amount of cash and the captain. This resulted in a standoff. Now, the Maersk Alabama was a, I believe, a US Flagged ship. It may have been a US Dutch ship, but it was flagged to, like, a nation in the major in the global North. Right. This will become relevant later. The United States sent two boats which proceeded to engage in a standoff with the lifeboat for several days, where they first attempted to drop a sat phone and a mobile phone to the pirates in a lifeboat. The pirates threw those in the ocean because they thought that they were using them to communicate with the captains of the ship. At one point, the captain who they'd held hostage ended up in the ocean, but then he got back into the lifeboat. The situation was resolved eventually by the Navy seals shooting all the pirates. They were based on one of the US Ships and they used sniper rifles to shoot the pirates.

[Garrison Davis]

Really?

[James Stout]

Yep. They shot them all off the lifeboat while the captain of the ship was also in the lifeboat. Whoa. Yeah. No, I would be shocked if there's not a film about this or. I know the captain of the ship has written a book about his time being captured, but obviously this kind of rattled the world. Right. It scared a lot of people, specifically in the shipping industry, because this is a scary thing to happen. And specifically this change in the nature of piracy from taking stuff to potentially capturing people. And I believe the goal of the pirates here was to get the captain ashore where they could hide it more easily. Right. In Somalia. And then it becomes. It becomes an entirely different issue when you're trying to get US Troops into a completely different country to rescue someone.

[Garrison Davis]

A different land mass. Yeah.

[James Stout]

Yeah. And I think it's really important to talk about, like the jurisdictional issues here, but because they are what gives the PMSCS so much leeway, I think we'll take a little break talking about jurisdiction and then we will come back. All right, we're back. So to understand private maritime security companies, you've got to understand the world of flags of convenience first. Are you familiar with flags the convenience Garrison?

[Garrison Davis]

No.

[James Stout]

No. Ok, this is, this is good. This is. James gets to download shit that he reads at no. For no reason at like 11 o' clock at night. There are nations in the world states that allow vessels to register under their flag even if the owner of the vessel is not a citizen of that country. It's called an open registry. So if you hang out in the port, spend time looking at boats, look at the flags on the boats, you will often see flags of a few countries. The most common ones are Liberia, Panama and the Republic of the Marshall Islands. The reason that boat owners might choose, let's say you, Garrison, have a boat, right, or you a shipping company, Garrison Davis Boats Incorporated, and you don't want to register them in Canada or the United States, might be to avoid tax liability. Might be to avoid, like what you consider to be burdensome safety regulations.

[Robert Evans]

Okay.

[James Stout]

Might be to avoid the frustrating constraints of Canadian labour law, or it might be to avoid some ecological constraints on your boats which your flag nation might impose. And generally flags of convenience have very little in the way of taxation and regulation. Right. And so people might choose to flag their vessel in Liberia, Panama, Republic of Marshall Islands, Hong Kong instead to avoid some of those issues. Right. Now the issue comes when you, let's say you register your boat in Liberia and your boat is off on its way delivering things. And then some pirates seize your boat.

[Garrison Davis]

I'm guessing Liberia is not going to be of much assistance.

[James Stout]

Yeah, they're not coming. Yeah, yeah. The Liberian Navy is not available to help you in that instance right now because there tends to be very little constraint on flags of convenience. There's also very little constraint on what can happen on those boats. Right. So you could hire a private maritime security company and they could protect your boat. And the chances are the flag, a convenience country would not regulate anything that they did on your boat or the weaponry they held on your boat. Ah, the RMI does, the Marshall Islands does just regulate somewhat the weaponry that the Marshall Islands flagged boats could have. I think the reason there are so many boats flagged in the Marshall Islands, at least in part, is because half the world's tuna is caught In Marshall Islands waters. So. So a lot of those vessels will probably have. They'll choose for the. Have the Marshall Islands flag because it allows them to fish in territorial waters would be my guess. I've met some, some contractors on Marshallese boats. I met a guy who was a helicopter pilot for a tuna fishing boat in a bar once. I guess they. They fly the helicopter to look for the fish and then the boat comes and catches the fish, huh? Yeah. Fascinating world. I don't think it's a highly enjoyable job, but I think it's. People do it to get their flight hours up so they can do other things. So because of this legal. It's not really a legal gray area. It's just the fact that these people are not regulated in any way. Right. People can carry weapons on ships. Now in the case of piracy of Somalia specifically, the United nations did authorize military action against Somali pirates. And like between 20 and 40 boats were there at any given time in the next four years trying to police piracy. But that's not enough boats because every boat that is moving through that area is at risk for piracy. And pirates can use very small boats to board very big boats. Right. And unless that very big boat is somehow able to defend itself, all they need is a few weapons and the ability to get on board and they're hard to trot. Right. I've heard from people who did contracting in the pre 2008 era that basically they put barbed wire on the edge of the boat to stop people getting on. And then they had the lrad like the. Was that long range?

[Garrison Davis]

The sound weapon?

[James Stout]

Yeah, the sound weapon. I'm not sure that it was there as a weapon. I think it was there to notify other ships like, okay, get out the way, but that it could be weaponized. And then after that it was like big sticks and harsh words, I guess. So like when you have the guys who took over the mask, Alabama coming in with a few Kalashnikov, they have the balance of force on their side. Right. That is no longer the case anymore. Initially in 2009, groups like Blackwater tried to get in on this and they did it actually by more or less, I guess, like copying the Privateer model that we'd seen in the 19th century. They refitted commercial boats with weapons and offered them like for hire as, like a rental, like as an accompaniment.

[Garrison Davis]

They would like escort another ship.

[James Stout]

Yeah, they'd escort you through this dangerous area and then turn around and escort someone who was going the other way or. That was the idea.

[Garrison Davis]

Sure.

[James Stout]

It didn't really work. A, because it was expensive. Right. To run these vessels, and B, because you'd need so many of them. And so what they ended up doing instead was actually stationing people on the vessels. So, like, these security contractors will now live on the oil tanker or the container ship either for its whole journey or for the duration of the time. It's considered danger.

[Garrison Davis]

And also, I mean, if pirates try to get onto the big ship and all of the military guys are on a different ship a little bit behind, you have to get those guys onto the other ship.

[James Stout]

Right. And then now you're shooting at the ship that you're supposed to be protecting. And I can see that being.

[Garrison Davis]

That does just make it a little bit more complicated.

[James Stout]

Yeah, yeah. Unfortunately, the way. According to reports I've read, I should say the way they have got around this issue is by preemptively shooting at vessels that they consider to be a threat. Sure. There are plenty of allegations of that. And we'll get on to the lack of really any means of legal accountability at some point. What they do instead is they allow contractors to go on the ships. And these contractors then have to be armed. Right. The way they tend to be armed is depending on the flag of the ship and what regulations it has. Right. Generally, if they're entering into an area where they can't be armed, they have what are called floating armories. Those are what they sound like. You don't understand how long in my freelance career I spent trying to get onto one of these particular boats. It was a long time.

[Garrison Davis]

So is this just like a tiny boat on a string with a whole bunch of guns on?

[James Stout]

Could be. It could be an old oil platform.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

Okay.

[James Stout]

Could be a little boat. It could be a big boat. Sometimes the contractors themselves, or like, that's where the contractors will meet the big boat.

[Robert Evans]

Right.

[James Stout]

And they'll get on it there so they have like an area they can hang out. Like it has living facilities.

[Garrison Davis]

Huh.

[James Stout]

I've spoken to a few people in this world, but, you know, if you happen to be listening and you're a boat security guy. I know this just continues to fascinate me as an area where, like, the state doesn't exist and we have this like, post state private militarization.

[Garrison Davis]

It's like anarcho capitalism.

[James Stout]

Yeah, yeah, yes, yeah, yeah. Exactly. It is. It is a vision of the ancap future that I don't love. That is very interesting. Right. There were states that offered to have, like, vessel detachments. The Dutch did this. I believe they would be like, we will send you. I'm not familiar with the Dutch military, sorry, Dutch listeners, Dutch Marines, I imagine. Right. And you can have a few of them on your boat. But even Dutch companies or Dutch flag vessels weren't using it because it was. There was so much paperwork and the government couldn't keep up with their demands. They were like, no, we'll just get some guys, we'll just pay them, we're fine.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

The state has more or less completely removed itself from the sphere and removed itself from doing anything approaching accountability. And so, like, it is extremely hard for these people to be held accountable for things that they do in international waters. Right. There are like industry standards that the industry itself sets in the same way that there are standards for cops that the cops themselves set. And those have generally not been the best means of accountability. Right. In theory, anytime they engage someone, certainly if they kill someone, the ship's authorities should report that.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah, hopefully.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Cool.

[James Stout]

I'm sure they will. I'm sure they love to do the paperwork. But then who would they report it to? Right? Do they report it to the country they suspect the people they are shooting at their country? Do they report it to the flag of convenience country? Do they report it to the company they work for? Like, I'm sure there is some jurisdiction of maritime law which would give us an answer to that. But in practice, there appears to be very little mechanism for accountability in the same way that there is very little mechanism for accountability for labor law violations at sea. I would recommend if people haven't listened, there's a podcast called Outlaw Ocean. It's probably five or six years old at this point. I think it was a New York Times investigation along with someone else. It was a good podcast about labor violations at sea. And they specifically looked at some of these fishing vessels and the fact that they use people who are essentially an indentured servitude. But they also touched on private maritime security. These days we see a lot less piracy off Somalia. Right. Like it has reached its peak. I found this little chunk in an article I was reading on JSTOR this morning that I thought was interesting. Quote, maritime security companies have been consulted on Greenpeace Activists attempt to climb onto a Gazprom offshore platform in September 2013 to protest drilling in the Arctic and attacks against oil and gas installations by the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta. So I guess these people have a wide, a wide remit in which they operate. As I say, they're somewhat different from like land based PMCs, because land based private military contractors are generally operating either with backup from a state or as backup to a state. And so there is, like an accountability mechanism somewhat there. We saw in the global war on terror that we still lack accountability mechanisms for private military contractors on land, but that certainly remains the case on the ocean. Right?

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

So another thing we should consider here is the historical parallels, right? And the obvious historical parallel would be to look to 1987 and what's generally referred to as the Tanker War, Right. What the United States attempted to do was to open up a channel. The Strait of Formu is very narrow, as I said, Its narrowest point is just 21 miles. There are two channels, because obviously not the entire 21 miles is deep enough for ships to go through. There are two channels that are each about two miles wide. I think they're three kilometres wide. Still not very great at that conversion. So the United States attempted to open one channel and then run a convoy system. Right. Think about when you have roadworks and, you know, the cars go one way and then the cars go the other way and someone goes in front of you and they have, like a flashing light tell you to follow them or what have you. And the United States attempted to escort convoys of mostly reflagged Kuwaiti oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz.

[Robert Evans]

Right.

[James Stout]

The very first escort mission involved a Kuwaiti oil tanker that had been reflagged as an American tanker to become the Bridgerton. And it was the Bridgerton that struck an underwater mine on that very first mission. It didn't cause any casualties, it did cause damage to the ship. During that same operation, a United States ship also struck a mine. It was called the United States Samuel Roberts. Samuel B. Roberts. I believe it struck a mine while transiting international waters. It just goes to show that when there are mines in this area, in any area, it's very hard to know when they've all been removed. And it's very hard to know where they all are right now. During that same operation, a United States warship mistakenly shot down an Iranian civilian flight, killing all 290 people on board. This goes to show how crowded the space is around the Strait of Hormuz. And it goes to show how, I mean, even in a relatively modern war, the possibility for mistakes is very high. And that's before you even consider the fact that the Trump administration is willing to accept, even among administrations as United States, they are willing to accept a very high number of innocent deaths. I also want to talk about, because this is such a small strait, such a crowded Strait. The possibility of attack is not just limited to naval attack, Right. To boats. We know that the US Destroyed most of Iran's navy. And we're going to speak about how the IRGC navy is not the same as Iran's regular flag navy navy. Right. When we talk about the Iranian navy, big gray boats, yes. The US has destroyed many of those. With the irgc, we're looking at much smaller, fast attack vessels, Right. Sometimes civilian vessels with a machine gun mounted to them. Those have not all been destroyed. And it will be very hard for the United States to destroy those all from the air as it will be for the United States to destroy the ground attack capability that Iran has. Right. They have Hormuz missiles, they have Shaheed drones. They can use regular unguided rockets. A Shaheed drone from anywhere in the country of Iran, given its range, could hit a boat in the Strait of Hormuz. These Hormuz class missiles, they're called Hormuz missiles, they're launched from vehicles, right? It looks like a lorry and it comes out and it pops up its back, lifts up the missile and launches it. These are very easy to hide, Right. Lots of entities in this region use tunnels and caves to hide things. I'm sure the Iranian state does too. But you could hide one of these missile launches anywhere. In a city, in a cave, in a tunnel. It only needs to pop out, deliver its missile, and then it can be abandoned.

[Robert Evans]

Right.

[James Stout]

Or it can go back into its cave, whatever it wants. But the Iranians don't need to destroy every ship that transits the Strait of Hormuz to close the Strait of Hormuz. First of all, there are only two, three kilometer channels, Right. If there is a wrecked ship in one of those channels, the channel gets smaller and smaller, and therefore your chance of hitting the mines that are there gets higher and higher. Right. Because there's less way to go around them. The Iranians only have to make transiting the Strait of Hormuz uninsurable to succeed. Right. So what has happened with private maritime security contractors so far is that their presence has made transiting high risk areas, areas at high risk for piracy, an insurable effort because frequently you will hear that a ship with armed security has never been taken by pirates. That's really hard for us to confirm, Right? Like there's no independent data on that, but certainly it likely reduces the chance of them being taken by pirates, and that has made them insurable. The Iranians knocking out one or two tankers will make the Strait of Hormuz an uninsurable passage or it will make that insurance so costly that commercial entities will not be willing to undertake that journey. Right now, Donald Trump has said the United States will act as the insurer. I know, man. It will be a lot of tankers for us to buy if the Iranians keep, you know, they've knocked out two large vessels overnight. It seems unlikely. Donald Trump has said a lot of things, right. Not all of them are true. Very well. Even in the last few weeks, Donald Trump said a lot of things about the Strait of Hormuz that were not true. So we will see. But I wanted to explain some of those threats. Let's have a talk about the specific naval threat now that IRGC Navy. All right, so let's move on to discussing what exactly this means in the current era, right. When the United States is saying the Strait of Hormuz is open except for Iran shooting at ships. And Iran is radioing ships right now and telling them that they are not allowed to enter the Strait of Hormuz and then obviously threatening them if they do. So what we will see right now in the Strait of Hormuz is this situation where Iran has a few mechanisms for attacking these ships. Right. The one that's being talked about the most are mines. And the mines that Iran has to my understanding are just straight up World War II, like sea mines. Have you ever played Minesweeper Garrison?

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

So they look like that, right. They have these big contact fuses on them. That is what they are. Right. The way the current works in a Strait of Hormuz, they can kind of circulate around.

[Garrison Davis]

Okay.

[James Stout]

Which will make them, you know, you can't be like, okay, this area is mine. That area.

[Garrison Davis]

Like we're just going to avoid the mines.

[James Stout]

Yeah, right. Like this whole strait is mine now. And as we covered in ED on Friday, the US doesn't have a great capacity to remove those mines. But the thing which has been less discussed is that the IRGC has tons and if they don't have, if they run out, it's very easy to make more. Right. Of like civilian fast boats. Think of a little boat with a motor on the back and a belt fed machine gun in the front. Right. Like very easy to take those boats and swarm a large vessel. Right. Like even if that vessel has private security on board, the straightforward moves is 21 miles across. Like you could harass people if you had a jet ski.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah, you can have a little jet ski technical with just a. Yeah, yeah.

[James Stout]

With an RPG on the back. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The most dudes rock vessel that has ever taken to the seas. Yeah. I might have to hand it to the IRGC if they did that.

[Garrison Davis]

But under. Under very few circumstances.

[James Stout]

Under no circumstances. Yeah. Do you have to hand it to the. The Iranian state in any capacity. No, I'm, I'm shitting around. Like, I. I think the state of Iran is a terrible misogynist, violent and oppressive entity and shouldn't exist. Just to be like super duper clear. They also have what are called uncrewed surface vessels. I'm sure they use like the gender neutral framing, but they are think of a large. Think of a boat that doesn't have anyone driving it. Right. And it was uncrewed surface vessels that they used last night at the time of recording to explode a tanker in the port in Basra. Right.

[Garrison Davis]

Okay.

[James Stout]

Very hard for the United States to stop these uncrewed surface vessels. Right. They are like the Shahid drone of the ocean. This boat's not coming home. It's designed to eliminate another boat, but it can be steered. Right. It's not just like a torpedo. So what exactly are the options, I guess, for the United States? Trump has offered to secure shipping through the Strait of Four Moose. Right. He offered to accompany ships. The navy doesn't have the capacity to do that. To accompany the amount of the world's shipping that goes through the straight of Hormuz would require masses of ships to accompany them. Right. They'd have to travel at the same speed as these ships. Some of these ships are flagged to countries all over the world. Right. Including countries the US doesn't have the best relationship with, especially right now. The companies could hire more private maritime security, and I'm sure they will. But also, like, part of the role of private maritime security companies is to be like, don't do that. It's too dangerous. And going through a straightforward move right now is probably too dangerous. Right, sure. So I don't know how you would quickly equip a ship in a way that you could be like cast iron secure that it will be able to fend off like a swarm of little boats trying to attack it. Right. I don't think an RPG could sink one of these ships, but it could really fucking give it a bad day. Oh, you know, like, it's not a good situation when there's a hole in your boat, from what I understand. So, like, the other option would be for the US to put personnel on these ships, which would be problematic from a number of approaches. Right. It is a Liberian flagged ship and now you're asking what U.S. marines to risk their lives to defend the Liberian flagship so everyone can get their TEMU purchases and we cannot slow down global trade. There is not a good option here. The states of the world couldn't find a good option when we were dealing with piracy in 2009, 10, 11, 12. They felt better outsourcing the accountability for that to private companies. The states didn't want to have to wear the reputation damage for like this boat once again opened up with a belt fed on what turned out to be a fishing vessel or they felt like that liability was too much for them. Right. So they didn't want to do it and they would much rather have private companies do it. I don't really see an option here that makes the shipping safe. Going through this area.

[Garrison Davis]

You could not start a war with Iran.

[James Stout]

Yeah, yeah, that is a really good option. Actually one that. One that sadly, that ship has sailed. As they say Garrison. But yeah, it is. This industry is already problematic. Like even before the United States started bombing Venezuelan and Colombian fishing vessels or vessels that it accused of being drug traffickers, there has been a long history of a lack of accountability for people being killed at sea and for people being abused at sea through labor violations. I don't really see a way we come out of this without more damage to innocent lives either. The United States just decides that it's going to go scorched earth on any boat it sees in the straight of Hormuz isn't a big tanker. But even then, these vessels, they're not all US flagged. The US doesn't have a means to be like, okay, you can go now, you can't go now. Straightforward moves. It's not in the United States. It doesn't control that water. And so I don't really see a solution for this. Now one thing that the world of private maritime security shows us is that neoliberal globalism is willing to look the other way a great deal and allow a great deal of violence on behalf of corporations, not on behalf of the state. Right. When people are getting engaged by these vessels, it is to protect property. And granted, sometimes it is also to protect life. Like these pirates have killed people and kidnap people and such. But the state has been willing to cede its monopoly on violence at the high seas because it could find a good solution to this. And it's been willing to overlook a lot of loss of life. And I just don't see a way that this doesn't lead to more loss of Life. And that is probably what we have to look forward to. It may have already begun happening in the Strait of Hormuz between when we record this and when you hear it. But it is deeply concerning and pretty shit given that there are so many people just trying to make their way and live their lives in that area. Yeah, it's a happy one. Shout out to Greenpeace for also patronizing these companies.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah. You told me this was going to be a recording about pirates.

[James Stout]

There were pirates in it. There was a big. I know. If you're a pirate and you're listening, I would love to hear from more pirates.

[Garrison Davis]

Between the pirates, the private maritime contractors and the governments, it's like everyone here has their own issues. And all these issues are getting massively intensified by the conflict in Iran, obviously.

[James Stout]

Yeah. Before we even talk about the ecological crisis that we will see in the Gulf. Right. You start putting holes in oil tankers, that is going to be absolutely horrific for the environment again in an area where people are ready to struggling to make it by.

[Garrison Davis]

I mean, why don't they just pull a. Pull a fitzgeraldo. Why don't they just pull those ships up?

[James Stout]

Oh, God.

[Garrison Davis]

Just avoid the straight. Avoid the Strait altogether.

[James Stout]

Maybe people haven't seen this and this surfaces like every three days right now on Twitter. Like, why don't they just go across land? It turns out that mountain's big mountains. Hard water doesn't like going uphill. Quite a challenging terrain to transit. I think maybe people don't realize that 80%, I believe it's 80% of global trade still travels by boat. It is still the way that most things get to most places. And I think we are about to find out. The boat ignorers are about to find out. If this continues for weeks or months, then it will be incredibly detrimental.

[Garrison Davis]

Is this a good or a bad time to enter the private maritime contracting business?

[James Stout]

How much are you enjoying your life? Decently.

[Garrison Davis]

Well.

[James Stout]

Okay. Yeah. Probably stay out of it if I

[Garrison Davis]

was you because they got to be getting a lot of money, but also they're in one of the most high risk positions they've probably ever been in. So.

[James Stout]

Yeah, this was already an area of military contracting that people looked to get into and get out of. I would say, like the bulk of these folks now will be. The ones I've met have been Colombians. The Colombians provide a lot of military contractors around the world. Now the people who are able to get out of it will do business in other areas. Right. Like they'll do the private closed protection and stuff like that. There are protective details for journalists I know who are operating in Iraq right now. Sure, yeah. These people will be making a lot of money, I think, especially like probably consulting right now with global shipping. I was reading about the East India Company this morning. I was learning, for instance, that the value of a tea ship leaving China was be a billion dollars in 2024 money, which is how these private maritime security companies in another age were able to develop. Right. Because it was worth boat jacking, that boat pirating, whatever that's called because of the value of tea at that time. So it's not a new problem, but there was a relatively short period of time in global trade history in which the state attempted to advance any form of hegemony over the high seas. And it has completely retreated from that in the 21st century. And it will be very difficult for any state to try and regain that now. Like, I don't see. Even the United States doesn't really have the capacity to do that. Garrison looks ponderous.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah, well, I guess I'll cancel my TEMU orders.

[James Stout]

They'll come. Someone right now is strapping a belt fed machine gun to a boat to make sure that you get your TIMU orders. It is really kind of fucked that we're asking people to run a minefield. Right. And I understand global trade is not just TEMU orders, but certainly a lot of stuff is consumed in the global North. It doesn't need to be consumed. And it is wild that right now the solution of the global shipping industry seems to be some of these people will die, but we will keep the oil moving and the treats moving. But that has been as I hope I've illustrated here. Right. Like some people will die, but we will keep the treats moving. Has been pretty much the status of the shipping industry for most of the 21st century.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah, it's the status of the entire world at this point.

[James Stout]

Yeah, yeah. That is the capitalist logic. Right. It's just, it's like particularly, I think, particularly naked here. Yeah. Highly recommend. The Outlaw Ocean podcast. If you're interested in learning more about this, I will link to some of the JSTOR deep dive that I went on this morning. If you are able to get past the JSTOR paywall and would like to read that, I think that's about all we got. Anything else you want to say about boats, Garrison?

[Garrison Davis]

Now is the age of pirates.

[James Stout]

Yeah. Our flag means a complete lack of accountability.

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[Dana Elkhorn]

Hello everyone, and welcome to It Could Happen Here. My name is Dana Elkhorn. I'm an associate professor of Political science, a senior non resident faculty fellow at the Arab Center Washington, and I specialize in Palestinian and Arab politics. Although Gaza has sort of leaked off the headlines, what with everything going on domestically, there's still obviously a lot happening on the issue of Palestine. I feel like I've started the last few episodes like this, but it's worth repeating. So here's an update on what's been happening in Gaza specifically. Despite the ceasefire agreement, reports indicate ongoing demolition of homes in Gaza City and restricted entry of food, medical and humanitarian aid. Again, since the ceasefire started, more than 600 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire, with hundreds more injured. For some reason, these don't count as ceasefire violations. And according to the Gaza government media office, there's been over 1,600 violations by Israeli forces, including air attacks, shelling and direct shooting of the past 130some days of the ceasefire. Analysis shows attacks on 111 of them, at least. In a previous episode, I also talked about what the yellow line was, which was this kind of unilaterally imposed military boundary inside Gaza to make sure that Palestinians are sequestered into smaller spaces. And Israeli forces have continued to target individuals and structures across this yellow line, claiming that these actions are necessary to stop militants. And Al Jazeera reports, however, that Israeli backed gangs, armed gangs, are operating back and forth across the yellow line, so they're allowed now. Rafah crossing, which is at the southern tip of Gaza, has officially opened but is operating under intense Israeli security with some monitoring by the Palestinian Authority and EU officials. But reports indicate that only about 50 to 150 people are allowed to cross daily, which is far below the demand for the estimated 20,000 plus you know, sick or wounded Palestinians needing evacuation. And since it's opened, it's faced closures. There's been a lot of confusion about policy with many reporting harsh treatment, invasive searches and restrictions on personal belongings for those passing through. And that crossing is not functioning for commercial or humanitarian aid, which must go through other Israeli controlled crossings. At the Munich security conference that was held February 13, the top US appointed diplomat overseeing the ceasefire, Bulgarian diplomat Nikolay Mladinov, said, quote, continued violations of the agreement pose major obstacles to the Palestinian committee expected to oversee post war governance and reconstruction, end quote. And he was specifically talking about Hamas basically violating the agreement by not laying down its weapons, not disarming. And the Palestinian Foreign Minister, Varsan Shaheen, speaking at the Same panel focused on this idea that Gaza must not be severed from the west bank and that the Palestinian Authority, meaning the government in the west bank that she represents, will need to take control of governance at some point in Gaza so that Palestinians could maybe have a state in the future. Something, of course, the Israeli government has rejected outright. Which brings us to this issue of disarming Hamas. Now, this has been a condition of the US and its representatives on the Board of Peace. Here's Trump on this. A few days after the ceasefire was

[Shanley]

announced, how long will it take Hamas to disarm? And can you guarantee that is going to happen?

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How will you do that?

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I don't have to explain that to you. But if they don't disarm, we will disarm them. They know I'm not playing Games, okay?

[Dana Elkhorn]

On February 15, he announced on social media, his Truth Social, that he had gotten $5 billion pledged by members of his, quote, unquote, Board of Peace. As one article noted, reconstruction of Gaza is expected to cost $700 billion, according to United Nations, World bank, and European Union estimates, especially after more than two years of war. Trump has also claimed that countries had committed a bunch of troops to the international security force that's supposed to go into Gaza, secure Gaza, and disarm Hamas. He didn't name which of these countries had committed troops, but Indonesia did confirm that it will send 8,000 troops. And in that same Truth Social post, Trump again reiterated that, quote, very importantly, Hamas must uphold its commitment to full and immediate demilitarization, end quote. So back in December, in an interview with Israel's Channel 12, as reported by DropSite News, US Ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz said that the international security force was intended to disarm Hamas one way or the other. Specifically, he said, by all means necessary. And that, quote, obviously, it'll be a conversation with each country. Those rules of engagement are ongoing. I'll tell you this. President Trump has repeatedly said Hamas will disarm one way or another, the easy way or the hard way, end quote. Now, Hamas, for its part, claims it never agreed to disarm. In an interview with dropsite news in December 2025, senior Hamas leader Khaled Mishal said that while Hamas is open to freezing or storing its defensive weapons, it wouldn't disarm unless it was in the context of establishing a Palestinian army or security force capable of defending itself from Israeli aggression. Hamas has claimed that it only has a mandate to negotiate a ceasefire, an exchange of captives, and that every other issue needs to be handled through some sort of consensus process involving the other Palestinian political factions. And in that same interview, Mishal rejected the idea of an international security force disarming them, saying that, quote, we accept them on the borders as separation forces between the Palestinian side and the Israeli side, not as forces deployed inside Gaza as was intended for them, and as Netanyahu wants for them to clash with Palestinians and disarm them, end quote. So speaking at an Al Jazeera forum on February 8, the same person, Khalid Mishal, reiterated this argument, saying that the calls for Hamas's disarmament is not an international demand, but an Israeli dictate being pushed onto Washington. He also said that calls to disarm Palestinians while the occupation continues would, quote, leave Gaza defenseless against Israel's overwhelming military power and exterminationist agenda. As Job Site News reported on their social media, quote, michel acknowledged the need for a pragmatic post war framework to enable reconstruction and prevent a return to fighting, but explained that it could not be built on total disarmament. So with that as an introduction, I wanted to take this episode to talk about what Palestinians think of disarmament and broadly and more generally armed tactics. And when I say Palestinians, I hope it's clear I don't just mean Hamas. I know that comes as a shock to some, but Palestinians aren't monolithic. And there has been a great deal of debate since the October 7 attacks by Hamas on the role of armed tactics, armed groups, especially in the absence of national institutions or a functioning national liberation movement. In December of last year, 2025, the new Arab hosted a very interesting debate between different Palestinian representatives of Hamas, Fateh, the party of the Palestinian Authority, and a human rights activist and writer. And they hosted this in Gaza literally on the grounds of the bombed out Al Shifa hospital. And they've debated some key questions. For example, who has the right to decide war and peace for Palestinians? How can Palestinians understand October 7, does Hamas need to disarm? Who should govern Gaza? And you know what? This may come as a shock to both the American left and the American right, but the Palestinian speakers at this interview did not all agree with each other. So I'm going to give a brief rundown of what this panel discussed. The main Hamas spokesperson, Hazm Qasim, basically argued that decisions on war and peace should be made through national consensus within a unified Palestinian institution, not unilaterally by any faction, but that in the absence of functioning institutions, then Hamas is a part of the Palestinian body politic, has a right to engage in violence and defend Palestinians. He also argued that it wasn't Hamas's fault that there wasn't national consensus or functioning national institutions. His narrative was that Hamas consistently sought unity, first by entering into elections in 2006 and supporting election attempts that President Mohammad Abbas of the Fatah party and the Palestinian Authority ended up canceling. He also reiterated that Hamas doesn't mind handing over governance in Gaza to a technocratic body, which proves, from his perspective, that they aren't trying to govern alone. And on the question of disarmament, he said, Hamas would commit to ceasefire, they would commit to maybe storing their weapons, but they wouldn't disarm entirely, and they maintained that armed tactics are a legitimate right. He also emphasized that Israel alone was responsible for the destruction of Gaza and that no one could have anticipated the level of brutality Israel would unleash. Now. The fatehpaksprison. Mundar Hayek understandably disagreed with many of these points. He represents the opposing party, and from his perspective, the October 7 attacks were launched without national consensus, and that consensus could only operate through the Palestine Liberation Organization, the plo, which is the internationally recognized representative of the Palestinian people. Hayek also made the reasonable argument that even if everyone agrees armed resistance is a right, that those engaging in that tactic should consider the regional and international context as well as the impact of these kinds of tactics and the likelihood of their success. And in his view, because these things were not considered, October 7th led to very negative results for Palestinians and a lack of meaningful international support. He also admonished Hamas leadership for making what he thinks is a political decision of not negotiating a ceasefire earlier, accusing them of having been able to stop the war in the first six months and limit the bloodshed. And finally, he criticized Hamas for prolonging negotiations and refusing to put the PA in charge of Gaza. And he landed on the argument that there could be no future for Hamas, from his perspective, as part of a national liberation movement, unless it accepted the plo, it disarmed, it renounced violence and understood that the pa, the Palestinian Authority, was the only legitimate authority that could control both territories, the west bank and Gaza. And the way to quote, unify Palestinian geography is through the Palestinian Authority. And doing that would be the only way to get back to the state building project. I'm just summarizing here to be clear. His words, not mine. Now, the final panelist, Mustafa Ibrahim, is a writer and human rights activist in Gaza who took a critical position of both parties. He basically said that both Hamas and Fateh share the blame for the division in the Palestinian body politic and the fact that there was a lack of mechanism for collective Palestinian decision making and no functioning national institutions. He blamed both sides, and he accused both sides of not actually being serious about any of the dialogue sessions that were held between the two parties in the past in Cairo, Beirut and Beijing. But he agreed with the Fatah spokesperson that October 7th has not been allowed to be assessed properly and that Palestinians never got to decide if the consequences justified whatever October 7th was trying to do. And he blamed Hamas for that. So agreeing with the other panelists that the right to resist is legitimate, he also acknowledged that disarmament was an internationally demanded condition. So he posed the question, how would Palestinians navigate this? And from his perspective, Hamas should be more flexible on the weapons and disarmament issue, especially given the degree of people suffering and the need for reconstruction in Gaza. I summarize all of this for you, because this debate held in Gaza among people who had directly lived through the last two years of genocide should demonstrate that there is no national consensus and that it's not because Palestinians don't know how to resolve these issues. It's because they haven't been given the space to do so. There has been a lot of discussion about how to unify these different parties, about reviving the Palestine Liberation Organization, making it more inclusive and democratic, and therefore more legitimate as an actor, so that it could make decisions the Palestinian people would accept, and so that not one faction can do what it wants, can engage in tactics without considering the consequences. But none of these attempts, and there have been plenty like the Palestinian National Conference, have really been incorporated into discussions of post conflict processes or management by the international community. Perhaps I shouldn't be surprised when the idea we're going with is the, quote, Board of Peace basically functioning as a colonial oversight board and a club for authoritarian regimes. But I digress. I think it's also important to make two points here. First, that polling of the Palestinian people by the Palestinian center for Policy and Survey Research shows that most Palestinians are not supportive of either party, neither Fatah or Hamas. There is a degree of malaise and cynicism where both parties are seen as a part of an unacceptable status quo. For example, when asked about whether they would support a Hamas candidate or a Fatah candidate if elections were held for the presidency, 34% of Palestinians say they would vote for a Fatah candidate. 24% would say Hamas candidate, 9% would say they would keep President Mahmoud Abbas, and a whopping 32% would say they wouldn't even vote. And this non voting percentage goes up to 47% if the elections are just between Mahmoud Abbas and a Hamas candidate. And they also ask about direct support of political parties. So there's a more direct question in the latest poll from October 2025. Again it shows 24% support Fatah, hardly a majority, 35% support Hamas, again, hardly a majority, 9% support third parties and 32% either say they don't know or refuse to answer. So this is not a situation where either of these parties have a mandate. And it's clear that neither party is representing the Palestinian people right now, nor do their actions have majority support. Now some might wonder, is this debate emerging because of the sheer level of destruction in Gaza? We are talking over 70,000 people killed in Gaza that we can even confirm so far. Is it that in this context, this context of severe consequences from Israel, what prompted this debate and self reflection? Well, the short answer is no. Palestinians have always debated these issues and in the absence of a functioning national liberation movement with all of its institutions, they haven't been able to hold any particular party accountable for its actions. I could point to a lot in Palestinian history to demonstrate this, but I'll point out an essay by a Palestinian intellectual, Azmi Pshah, that he wrote and released within a month of October 7th. This essay, titled Moral Matters and Hard Times, again demonstrates that Palestinians have never shied away from this discussion and indeed made criticisms of these political parties very quickly following the attacks. Now, of course, Bashara lays the blame for civilian deaths on Israel, given that it targets Palestinian civilians, as he argues out of racism and as he argues to try to turn the population against armed tactics and armed resistance. And he quotes Israeli leaders directly here. So he talks about President Herzog saying there are no innocents in Gaza, and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant at the time calling people in Gaza human animals. And he also points out that Israeli society at the time was overwhelmingly supportive of cutting off food, water and medicine to Gaza. So although Bashara rejects this kind of absolute evil framing of the attacks and says we need to understand the context of a 17 year siege on Gaza, settlement expansion, incursions on the Al Aqsa Mosque and prisoner mistreatment, he also plainly argues that immoral acts committed during October 7th. So to him, documented instances of harm to civilians, theft, mistreatment, etc are not acts of resistance. And in fact from his perspective, they harm legitimate resistance. And he argues again a month within the attacks that the leadership of the, quote, unquote, resistance have a duty to clarify what happened and condemn those immoral acts. He says, quote, having recognized a people's right to resist occupation, can it be concluded that we are not permitted to judge the morality of acts of resistance to occupation? My answer is that, on the contrary, it is not only permissible but perhaps necessary, end quote. So he argues that the right to resist does not exempt these movements from moral judgment. And distinguishing between legitimate military operations and immoral acts against civilians is essential to maintaining the justice of the Palestinian cause, even as we can acknowledge and emphasize the, quote, moral depravity of the Israeli response, end quote. Now, whether you agree with him or not, whether you side with one of the panelists I mentioned from the interview or the other, what I want people to take away from this episode is that all of this clearly shows Palestinians have been taking seriously the strategic and moral implications of all of these tactics, arm tactics included, and that there isn't any one party that speaks for what Palestinians want right now. The only way to get national consensus is to allow the Palestinians to create or revive the institutions necessary for that to take place. Disempowering Palestinians, ignoring their aspirations and ignoring the need for their input or blocking them from undergoing this essential process will only prolong the conflict and prolong the suffering. That's it for me today. Thanks for listening.

[Mia Wong]

Welcome to It Could Happen Here, a podcast frequently about the horrifying tech ghouls, and in this case, venture capital ghouls, who are plotting to take over the United States and have already made your lives significantly worse. I am your host, Mia Wong, and with me today, I'm very, very excited about this. To talk about the forces of venture capital and how they're ruining our lives is Shane Lee, who was one of the people who puts together the website VCinfodocs, which I really cannot recommend enough. It is the most comprehensive compiled source of information on these venture capital firms and the network state and all the things that I've been talking about that I've ever encountered. It was a very significant source for the episodes that I did about abundance. Janley, welcome to the show.

[Shanley]

Thank you so much for having me. This is actually the first podcast I've ever done, so thank you.

[Mia Wong]

I feel very special, so that's great.

[Shanley]

It's good to be here with you.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. Do you want to talk a little bit about your work and about your time confronting the sort of Leviathan of venture capital.

[Shanley]

Yeah, absolutely. So I actually used to work in the tech industry. It feels like a lifetime ago, but I remember when I first started encountering venture capital, like, I knew in my body and my heart and my soul that something was terribly wrong with this situation. And so I started following that down, you know, over the course of years. And now I've been doing it for about 13 years. At different times, I've been more of an activist. I ran a tech critical magazine at one point. And now I really do a bunch of research and work with other researchers around the world to try to bring as much serious and material information about venture capital and what we're facing as possible and put it in people's hands who can do something about it.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. And those hands are, amazingly, you, the listener, you, dear listener, can be one of the people who helps end these people's reign over the world.

[Shanley]

Absolutely.

[Mia Wong]

So, all right. I think the place that we should start is, I think when people think about. And this is something that you have talked about, when people think about sort of venture capital and tech and the way that they're trying to take over the country, there is this myopic focus on Peter Thiel and Yarvin Curtis, because they are these sort of almost semi mythological at this point figures who have a bunch of really, really unhinged beliefs and love talking about them constantly.

[Shanley]

Yes, 100%. It almost turns into a circus. Like, look at these freaks. Like, look at these three freaks that then get sort of obsessively focused on. And Sam Altman is one of those. Peter Thiel is one of those. Curtis Yarvin is one of those. And it kind of ends up being people are looking at this through the lens of individuals, through the lens of sort of these cults of personalities that are being created. They're relating to this issue through sort of like individual players and the environment. And that's actually very limiting when we're talking about a system that consists of trillions of dollars, hundreds of venture capital firms, thousands and thousands and thousands of startups and all of the financial structures that are around them. So it has this effect of almost minimizing what's happening.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[Shanley]

And also kind of diverting something so serious into something that is kind of like, well, we can just make fun of them and that's gonna do something and that's activism. The reality is they think that we are lab rats.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[Shanley]

They do not care what we think about them. So having this very, like, we're gonna call them stupid. We're Gonna call them dumb, we're gonna make fun of them, we're gonna do whatever that becomes the dominant form of critique. And that takes us way off course of what's actually happening.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah, it's like it's a kind of like, great man theory of venture capital.

[Shanley]

Yes.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

And this isn't a situation where it's like, you know, you're looking at like, Napoleon, history on horseback stuff, and you, you're debating whether, okay, to what extent is this, like, the great man and to what extent this is like the structural forces of history. This is a situation where, like, we're looking at a structural force and everyone is, like, looking at the clown they've stuck on top of the structural force. And it's like, no, no, no, no, no. We got to understand the actual structures here, which I think you've done maybe the best job I've ever seen. And actually looking at what we're dealing with, which is these networks of hundreds of venture capital firms and startups and, yeah, this entire sort of ecosystem that has become a sort of force of history.

[Shanley]

Yes, 100%. And that's where the conversation needs to go is towards what are we actually dealing with, what are we actually facing, and what are the causes of that? I always like to start with talking about what are some of the core dynamics that are happening within venture capital. One of them is that venture capitalists act as a central coordinator of this giant machinery of startups and technological development and infrastructure. So one thing I often say is you might be looking at 15 different startups, and that's all the same thing. You're even looking at five different VC firms. That is all the same thing. It is our cartel that has a central financial backbone that is generating companies at an incredible speed with incredible efficiency. They are machines for turning out these startups, which they're then able to orchestrate, to work together. And that becomes just a profound force and a very efficient force in changing the world, in interacting with the world and as we increasingly see, impacting geopolitics.

[Mia Wong]

So for people like me who are fortunate enough to not sort of live inside one of these people's center of power, which is like places like the Bay or these places where these concentrations of tech capital have fundamentally reshaped the world to the extent that it feels just being in one of these places feels so different than being in a place that's not like a tech capital center. For those of us who, like, aren't living as much under the eye of the Panopticon, can You explain a little bit about what venture capital is.

[Shanley]

Yes.

[Mia Wong]

And then what the effect on sort of the tech sector that it's had has been.

[Shanley]

Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, venture capital, essentially what it does, it takes in capital from around the world. And one of the interesting things about venture capital is like, we do not have a lot of visibility into where their money is coming from. We know some things about them, but we do not get a list of like, here's everyone who's giving us money. So we have all this money coming in, and then on the outside of that, weapons companies are coming out.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[Shanley]

And crypto companies are coming out, and, you know, drone companies coming out, nuclear energy companies are coming out. So you sort of have this like. It's almost like a black box where unknown money goes in and then all of this shit comes out the other side. And that becomes really scary when you start to look at things like, we know that Israel is funding many venture capital firms in the US and those venture capital firms are turning out dozens and dozens of weapons companies. And then those weapons companies are going to Israel and being used in the genocide. So you have these very sort of complex relationships going on between, like, the investors, between other nations and what venture capital is doing.

[Mia Wong]

One of the things that this reminds me of is this is something we've talked about on this show to some extent, but one of the major forces that kind of reshaped the latter half of the 20th century was after the sort of oil shocks where you have all of these countries, you have countries like Saudi Arabia, like the Gulf monarchies, who are very intimately tied to all of these venture capital firms, are suddenly just flush with oil money. And they have this problem, which is that, okay, we have all of these piles of money, but this money is capital, right? And capital wants to be turned into more and increasing amounts of capital. But how do you do that? Where do you actually put this money in an economy where this is the context of the 70s, where output everywhere is decreasing and the returns on capital are falling, and, you know, the long range rate of returns collapsing. What do you do with it? And in the 70s, the thing that they did with it was they put it into like third world debt. And this is like why the term third world is a slur now when it used to be a political movement is that, you know, these countries took all of these, what were adjustable interest rate loans. And then when the interest rate went to like 200% or whatever, they got completely annihilated and some of that capital went to weapons, because weapons are, are a, a thing that you can put capital into that destroys capital. And also it lets, you know, it lets like Saudi, the Saudi like monarchy stay in power. But it's also a thing where like, you don't find a way to make money with that capital. You could just buy a bunch of like jet fighters in the US which do nothing. But you spent your money on something 100%.

[Shanley]

And I think to, to that point, some, specifically Saudi Arabia, one of the main reasons what's happening in venture capital now is because Saudi Arabia is trying to diversify its wealth outside of oil. And they want a globally competitive technology industry. So they're going to turn to the people who can give them that. And that is venture capital and that is tech companies in America. There's sort of this race happening all over the world of countries trying to make sure that they're able to compete or at least exist on the technological plane of what's being developed. And that makes venture capital almost like the crown jewel now that everyone is trying to get a hold of. So they, so now they have this, this huge leverage. And you hear them, they hang out with mbs. They sing the praises of mbs, you know, to the heavens. And they have done a lot of work to quote, unquote, repair the image of mbs, particularly after the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, who was a huge major journalist. And for a time that cooled relations between Saudi Arabia and venture capital, at least on the surface. Yeah, but, but they don't care about that stuff, you know.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. And, you know, and I think the other part of that campaign too, and this is just one of my MIA on the soapbox things, is that the other thing they were trying to get everyone to forget about was the hideous, hideous war that all of the Gulf states, particularly Saudi Arabia, but also the uae, has a massive part in this. We're fighting in Yemen where they, we literally don't know how many people they killed. Like, they tried, they tried to do a starvation genocide of the whole country because they couldn't win the war militarily. They were deploying Sudanese child soldiers as mercenaries who've been taken from the Jawala Deed. The group who's now like, doing a genocide in Sudan. They're also people who did the genocide in Dart 4 back in the 2000s. Like, this is like this the scale of atrocity that they're committing. You know, everyone's very focused on Chibal Khashoggi. It's like, yeah, it's very, very bad Obviously to like kill journalists and like cut them up with bone salt. But like, these are people who were doing airstrikes on school buses. These are people who were again deploying Sudanese, the child soldiers on battlefields. And these people are going, no, fuck it. Not only are we going to rehabilitate their image, we're going to take their money and we're going to build them fucking weapons forever.

[Shanley]

Yeah. You know, when you talk about like, what is a venture capitalist and one of the things that they really do is they are like constructing entire markets. They're not just.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[Shanley]

They're not just creating a startup, hoping it succeeds. And then the case of the military, you know, people focus on Enduro. They have hundreds of weapons companies now. Hundreds of weapons companies. And they have the big prime companies like Anduro that are really like the power houses that are supposed to be like Lockheed and Raytheon, but they also have weapons part manufacturers. They have drone companies for like all layers of earth, sea, you know, air, everything like that. They're doing hypersonic missiles. They've advocated for a new Manhattan Project. They're working on developing weapons of mass destruction. So when venture capital is going into these spaces, like they are going into win, they are going in with a fully envisioned picture of what the new age military looks like with AI technologies, with autonomous technologies, you know, with everything that they've been able to develop. And now they have a fully featured war platform that they have to try to get other countries to buy because it's ready.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[Shanley]

So they need wars, which is extremely

[Mia Wong]

bad news for everyone on Earth.

[Shanley]

Everybody. Yes, everyone on earth. And, you know, they have been so deeply complicit in the genocide of Palestinians. They are so incredibly enmeshed with Israel. Venture capitalists refer to Israel as a technocratic state and as sort of like the ideal state and a model for what they can be as a technocratic state. Because Israel, by proportion, the share of tech GDP in Israel is actually twice as much as in the us.

[Garrison Davis]

Jesus.

[Shanley]

And as parts of the Israeli economy have suffered as a result of the genocide, the tech industry is doing amazing.

[Dana Elkhorn]

Yeah.

[Shanley]

And venture capitalists are pouring money into it. And so you see that one of the immediate things that has come out of, you know, the Israel, American VC relationship is the genocide and is the ongoing development of themselves and of Israel's a technocratic state. It's awful.

[James Stout]

Yeah, yeah.

[Mia Wong]

So I, I think I want to zoom out a little bit. We've, we've talked a bit about, you know, what these companies do. Do you Want to talk about some of the major firms that are building all of these things and building all of these startups that people haven't heard about and need to know about?

[Shanley]

Yeah, 100%. So people have heard about Andreessen Horowitz but not enough about Andreessen Horowitz? Yeah, definitely not enough. If I had to put a firm that is the most responsible for what's going on, it is definitely Andreessen Horowitz. One of the things that's happening in the venture capital market, why this is happening is because a small number of firms is forming a monopoly on venture capital, and Andreessen Horowitz is right there. And in fact, in 2025, Driessen Horowitz raised over 18% of all venture capital dollars. Just that one firm. Okay, so now you start adding that up. The other firms that they work most closely with and are working on the exact same things and fund the exact same startups. Founders Fund, Peter Thiel's firm is one of those. General Catalyst is another one that's very, very important. And General Catalyst looks a lot like Andreessen Horowitz. They are very close. And you see this throughout. You're like, you have different names on your offices, but y' all are the same thing. Sequoia is another big one. They were one of the early venture capital firms. They did not make their first defense investment until 2023, but they were founded in 1972. So this is an example of how a giant VC firm has really been yoked to an agenda that started in sort of these other, like younger upstart players. And Andreessen Horowitz has talked about how ultimately venture capital will consist of four or five major firms and then basically no mid sized firms, and then some sort of boutique firms that are a little bit more specialized. So in that that kind of category, we have firms like Lux Capital. Lux Capital is one of the most bloodthirsty, sociopathic, Zionist, weird biotech shit, weird weapons, shit out and out, bloodthirsty extremists, like just openly, maybe one of the most in that sense, they're incredibly Zionist and they are a relatively small firm, but they're able to be in the mix because they have this sociopathy, this bloodlust that you actually see across all of these firms is that like they're sort of like outright sadistic at a certain point. You know, Andreessen Horowitz actually hired Daniel Pat Penny, who killed Jordan Neely, who was a 30 year old, you know, black homeless man. And this guy was not a venture capitalist and Marc Andreessen hired him. There's a degradation and morality and there's sort of this like welling up in the venture capital space of this like extremely depraved, like anti morality where they hired this murderer.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[Shanley]

You know, someone who killed a black man and made press releases about it. And they talk about what a great VC he is. And so they're immersed in this like this like culture of sort of, of, of war and like genocide and like killing. So super disturbing. So any, any great things happening here?

[Mia Wong]

Most powerful people in the world.

[Dana Elkhorn]

Yeah.

[Shanley]

Really bad. It's, it's a moral free fall for sure. So. So yeah, you have that type of stuff going on. But you know Lux Capital, you talked about that. You have Eric Schmidt, who's the Google CEO, he runs a number of sort of smaller scale venture capital firms. And then you have some of the major crypto firms like Rivet Capital, Paradigm Blockchain Capital and actually Blockchain Capital, which runs a crypto cartel, is an investor in Blue Sky. Oh, new things. So everyone who's thinking that, you know, Blue sky is this wonderful alternative like Blue sky is owned by venture capitalists who are running a crypto cartel. So those are some of those firms. And you know, you have Y Combinator, which is a smaller firm feeding in, then you have some other kind of pieces outside that one that's super important is. And this is always tough for me to talk about because people look at you like you're a conspiracy theorist if you say anything about the CIA, even if it's 100% true. But the CIA made a venture capital firm many, many years ago and that venture capital firm is called in Q Tel and they have funded over 800 startups.

[Mia Wong]

Amazing, incredible stuff. Also the fact that they called it in QTEL is just like, oh my God, come on. So yeah, we're going to put intel in the name of it, but we're going to put it in qtel because fudge you God, it's like cutesy spy bullshit.

[Shanley]

Yes, it's totally wild. And I always tell this story, you know, I worked at Startups and Slick and Valley. I worked in database startups, Internet infrastructure, APIs, like, you know, infrastructure, service, stuff like that. I went to a big data conference and like maybe like 2012 or something like that. I want to say I don't know for sure which one it was, but it was in New York. There was all, all these companies there. One of the keynote speakers was the chief technology officer of the CIA.

[James Stout]

She's.

[Mia Wong]

Christ.

[Shanley]

Yeah. So none of this has been a secret to people in the industry. The CIA operates openly in the industry. It invests openly in the industry.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[Shanley]

But he got on stage and he said, our goal is to collect all of the data in the world and save it forever.

[Mia Wong]

Yep.

[Shanley]

And I looked around me to see if anyone else was, was. And this was months before the, the Snowden revelations.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah.

[Shanley]

So the CIA was openly admitting to all, you know, all of this stuff anyways. But point being, you know, and in Q Tel has been so key to this because they have brought all of the venture capital startups into the government, into intelligence, and into defense. From the CIA's perspective, this has also given them a revenue source and a way to operate outside of just the government budget. And we can go back to this when we're talking about the network state, because what the CIA is really good at is couping other countries. And now you see the network state down in Latin America trying to kill governments down there. So there's been an incredible fusion of this CIA with venture capital that has, has transformed both of them. They are both changed by this.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah, it's like, it's like tech is the new, like running opium out of like Vietnam or whatever. It's like we replaced, we've replaced doing like really overt drug running shit to fuel our operations with. Oh, hey, we can just get on stage and like talk to all of these venture capital goals and get a bunch of money that way for like whatever weird shit we want to be up to.

[Shanley]

Yeah, it's, it's wild. So you have that. And then another piece of it is that venture capital has formed this incredibly close relationship with blackrock and Blackstone. So they have a traditional finance backing.

[Mia Wong]

Can you explain for people who are not familiar what BlackRock and Blackstone are and that I can tell my completely deranged Blackstone story.

[Shanley]

Okay, so yes, BlackRock is a giant, you know, financial beast, A monster monstrosity.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[Shanley]

I don't have the most up to date numbers on how much money that they manage, but as of 2025 it was over $12 trillion and assets under management.

[James Stout]

Jesus Christ.

[Shanley]

So you are talking about a absolutely, you know, huge, huge financial entity. So they have been one of the first to really back venture capital in the traditional finance world in crypto. So they are the ones that started bringing to market the ETFs that made it easy to invest in, in Bitcoin. They have ETFs that are, are trading. They also have one for Ethereum.

[Mia Wong]

Can you explain what an ETF is?

[Shanley]

Yes, what an ETF is, it's basically, you know, what it does for crypto is instead of having to buy and manage your own crypto assets, the financial institution basically takes on the administration and management of those underlying assets. So, you know, for investors who don't want to be on Coinbase, you know, buying from these like sketchy companies, these were ways to make these assets available to the investment market. And crypto really needed that. And BlackRock came in to do that and they partnered with Coinbase and they partnered with other, you know, venture capital things. So they did the VCs a big solid there. And then to our point, like they are very invested with the Saudis as well. Partnered with the Saudi sovereign wealth fund.

[Mia Wong]

Yep.

[Shanley]

You know, the leading to weapons deals. They're also doing a bunch of data centers in the UK and they've been operating in Israel for a really long time. So that, you know, this was a very natural partner, I would say, for venture capital, but it also gives venture capital a lot. Venture capital has gotten a lot out of this deal.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[Shanley]

So you, you have that start to happen. One question I've always asked is like, like to crypto people who have said, like, this is the way around the banks and blah, blah, blah, well, why is Wall street getting crypto before you?

[Mia Wong]

Yeah, really, truly not. It does not really seem to be doing that.

[Shanley]

It is not. It's just the math is not mathy in here.

[Mia Wong]

One of the things I think is interesting about what you've done is talking about what the relationship between crypto and these venture capital firms is and what purpose crypto serves for them.

[Shanley]

Yes.

[Mia Wong]

Can you get into that?

[Shanley]

Yeah. So crypto, one of my absolute favorite topics to talk about. There are a lot of ways of looking at this. One of the ones that I find most interesting is when the first sort of dot com bubble happened and when they first started making absolute fuck tons of money. So they have tons of money coming in, they're making tons of money and they are putting that money in banks they don't own and the financial infrastructure they don't own and they're paying a lot of taxes on it. So at some point the decision is made by that, like, why would you want to make so much money and then have that money going right out the door to a bunch of bankers who are going to take all your money. So at some point it occurs to them all of this money that's transacting not just through us, but over the Internet overall is something we can make a ton of money on. And one, you know, one of Marc Andreessen's first things was trying to get Internet credit card payments working over the browser, and then you have PayPal. So at the point that they sort of were like, we're going to do our own financial infrastructure. Okay. Now they have a financial infrastructure that is literally in competition with the sovereign financial system of the United States of America. And this, more than anything else, might be the source of the rupture between the American government and between venture capital. Because as soon as you start developing this ecosystem and people think that crypto is just like Bitcoin and like Dogecoin and like Ethereum. No, no, no, no. These people have a whole bunch of banks. They have banks, they are developing stock markets and stock exchanges. They have point of sale systems. They have betting markets.

[Mia Wong]

God, crypto betting markets.

[Shanley]

Oh, yeah, they've got me. They have, you know, they have loans, programs, they have savings, they have blah, blah, blah. Like, crypto is really a very fully featured financial system, and they need to get as much money out of the existing financial system moved into their financial system. So they are in this war essentially over that. And that's what we're looking at, is the global financial system being replaced with a financial system that is owned and controlled by venture capitalists. And that's a profound thing that has profound implications. We're going to talk about the network State more. But another reason why the network state has happened is because as the crypto market really kind of started to take off, they decided, we don't want to pay taxes on this. Yeah, we did this all by ourselves. And one of the things the network state is, it is a series of global tax shelters and tax evasion zones all over the world, because they knew that they were striking gold and they wanted to make sure they get it out of having to pay it to the IRS and having to pay it to the people in this country and other countries.

[Dana Elkhorn]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

And then, you know, like, the. The more control you can get over, like, what there is of the American state, the more you can just be like, hey, look, we're just gonna not ever look into the fact that there's all this tax evasion shit going on. We can just, like, use our control of, like, Vance and, you know, like, our control of the levers of the state to make sure that, like, we're just allowed to do this.

[Shanley]

Mm, yeah, 100%. You know, it also goes back to, like, what are the root sort of causes of things, of tech fascism or whatever you would like to call them. And one of the big reasons for that is because as venture capital itself is diversified and it's moving into finance and it's moving into medicine, and it's moving into land, and it's moving into energy, there are existing monopolies in every single part of those markets that they have to fight in order to get into them. And they've openly talked about this. So when they're entering these markets, they're going to war with existence existing monopolies in order to create their own monopolies. And that's forced them to these really like sort of extreme and perverse strategies, like we're gonna cure the U.S. government, like, yeah,

[Mia Wong]

God.

[Shanley]

And they've been really successful at that. So they work hard. Everyone's like, they're lazy, they don't do anything. They're not smart, blah, blah. I'm like, marc Andreessen works like the devil. He does not take a day off. He is not taking, unfortunately.

[Mia Wong]

So the story here I think is one of these companies getting heavily invested into the defense sector, heavily invested into building their own sort of financial system, to some extent building links with the major financial powers that already exist, and to some extent, you know, like combating the powers that they want that are like monopolizing the places where they want to expand into. But there's also a global strategy here that's all kind of like a part of this larger plan. And I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about that before we go much deeper into it next episode.

[Shanley]

Yes, absolutely. So, you know, I think what we have talked about so far is really looking at like kind of root causes, dynamics, new markets going into. And the next sort of stage of thinking about that is like what, what demands and what global program and strategy comes out of sort of their needs for capital, for returns, for expansion, for fighting monopolies, for tax evasion, everything like that. And what they've come up with and what we can already see is really like a global playbook for how they're going to do that. And this is about running everything in the world as venture capital firms and their startups, including the government. So what is happening in America is the venture capitalists are trying to replace the government with venture capital firms and their startups who are operating the state. That can be done everywhere. They want global deregulation, they want global suspension of taxes all over the world. They're going to bolster techno fascist aligned right wing politicians. We already See this with Bukele, with Milei, they're going to do the interference in elections, the lobbying, the bribery, social media manipulation, everything that they need to do to make sure they get politicians all over the place who are going to take their. Their orders. As we discuss, like replacing the global economic system with the crypto financial system and then these mega projects, the data centers, the new cities, in order to feed all of their data centers and all of their new factories and their new manufacturing, we're headed for a new age of resource extraction where they're literally already going all over the world with AI mining companies to find lithium uranium and cobalt. They need to rearm all of Europe. They need to recolonize Latin American Africa. They need to suppress leftism and communism globally. And you know, ultimately this all unfolds within a war with China because that's what's waiting for them at the end of this thing. And once you have all these things in place, you're looking at the rise of the techno fascist civilization, which is the network state, which we are going to talk about in our next episode, it sounds like.

[Garrison Davis]

Yep.

[Mia Wong]

So you could look forward to. Oh, God. The global systemic tech fascist state.

[Shanley]

Yes, tomorrow.

[Mia Wong]

Oh, God. Okay, Chadley, where can people find your work and more information about this?

[Shanley]

Yes, please check out the research site. It's VC Info docs.com and like, please help us get this information out there because people all over the world need to know stuff and to know what's hitting them particularly this affects other countries and, you know, we really need people who can activate around this information and make sure when we show up and we build our resistance that like, that resistance is not designed to take down Curtis Yarvin. Yeah, you know, it is designed to take down a capitalist system.

[Mia Wong]

Welcome to It Could Happen Here, the podcast where it's happening both here and everywhere else. I am your host, Wong, and today we're talking about the it being the fascist network state that the all of these venture capital tech ghouls are trying to set up. And with me once again to talk about this is Shane Lee, who is one of the contributors and people behind VC infodocs, which is one of the best resources about these bloodthirsty tyrants. Shailey, welcome to the show.

[Shanley]

Thank you. Thank you for having me again.

[Mia Wong]

I constantly have these moments where it's like, oh, great, I'm talking to people who are really cool and I really wish I was talking to them about literally anything else because oh my God, this stuff sucks. Like, please, please Cause the end of this system so I can talk to people about things that are good instead of things that are nightmarish.

[Shanley]

Yes. My dream is to not wake up every single morning. The first thing I think about is venture capital. I think about it every second of every day. And, and that's what I go to sleep thinking about. And then that is also sometimes what I dream about, which is unfortunate.

[Mia Wong]

You know, we've all been there.

[Shanley]

Yeah, we've all been there.

[Mia Wong]

Oh God. So speaking of, of things all being in places. Look, they, they, they, they paid me the mediocre bucks. If you want better transitions, pay me more. But you know, so let's get into what the network state actually is. Because I think this is something that is not understood particularly well.

[Shanley]

Yes, a hundred percent. So again, this kind of comes in where we were talking about last episode, that kind of people's ideas about what these projects are not necessarily like fully, fully formed. And I think a lot of people think that the network state is just kind of like them going to do weird shit. Which. Yes, that's, that's part of it. But I think something that, you know, people don't really see is how, how many purposes that the network state sites have for them. You know, the network state is basically creating zones around the world where they can execute their projects. So you know, some of these are more of the like ideological projects like maybe like Praxis or something like that. But you also see network sites that are very focused on being like industrial centers, manufacturing centers, you know, biotech and startup development, where they can get away from regulations, where they can sort of benefit from like co development on a campus. You know, you have sort of new city ideas like California Forever. You have network sites that the only thing they're doing right now is they're registering startups to operate in different countries in favorable terms. You have a whole sort of bunch of different versions of this. So it's a very like extensible concept for them. I think some other, you know, interesting properties of the network state is that it can become like a point of sort of negotiation with the, with the host country. Like one of the points of network state is to open up a country to the cryptocurrency markets, to mining markets, to you know, just the different biotech markets. This is a way of them getting into a country like kind of on their own terms, which I think is a big, big function of it. A lot of it has to do with crypto adoption because if they're going to make cryptocurrency work. They need it to be adopted around the world. And this is why Coinbase is making such extreme investments in the Network State, because this is a way to also, you know, get crypto into all of these markets, start entering into trade with other nation states where the points of negotiation are around regulation, are around taxation, around access to land and minerals.

[Mia Wong]

So can you describe kind of what does it look like inside one of these zones? Like, for example, like, how do these compare to, say, like a special economic zone, which is the kind of models of this that we've had traditionally.

[Shanley]

Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, the Network State is built using special economic zones, so it's really not functionally different on a lot of different levels. It's more about, like, who is using this special economic zone and what do they want to do with it. Yeah, and medical experimentation is actually a huge goal here because, you know, again, when we're talking about them getting into medical development, developing all of these biotech startups, they're facing existing monopolies in the US they're also facing the fda. The Network State book by Balaji Srinivasan, who's a Andreessen Horowitz, like, guy for life. Like, he's Andreessen Horowitz. One of the main motivations for the Network State is getting to a place where you can't have any medical regulations. And so in Honduras, they've been doing that. They've been doing unregulated clinical trials. The doctors in Honduras have been organizing to try to shut this down, and they haven't been able to. And they're going to have way worse problems now because Trump just installed a new president, installed a president there who is, is in support and is taking the steps to, you know, support this special economic zone called their za. But that's, that's one of the big reasons that they're doing it. Their medical offering is profound. They're doing clinical trials, drug development, activating clinical research sites. They're also involved in, like, insurance software, insurance marketplaces, ivf, longevity, anti aging, like, the whole thing. And this goes back to, like, when venture capital is entering a new market now, like, they come, like, locked and loaded with a full platform and getting more accelerated clinical trials is something that is going to move their project forward significantly. Network State is a way to accomplish that.

[Mia Wong]

So these sort of nodes that they're setting up of these Network State are places where they've been able to sort of carve out special economic zone status. That means that the traditional sort of Regulatory structure of the country simply does not apply. Yes, yeah, which is very, which is in a lot of ways. And this is a special economic zone thing in general. It's very sort of like fascist state of exception. We're like, oh yeah, no, we've just, you know, there's like a crisis and the crisis is that we can't do like human experimentation. And so we've now created this zone where just none of the laws apply. It's, it's like the kind of like evil mirror world universe version of like temporary autonomous zones, except it's like, what, what if we had a permanent zone of fascism where all the laws didn't apply and we could just do whatever we wanted 100%.

[Shanley]

It's also deeply concerning because the obsession with accelerating clinical innovation, drug innovation, like, whatever that is. Like at some point there is a, like what makes that stuff move the fastest. And it's human trials and human experiments and the more people that you can shove and the faster you can shove through medical development. And that's very concerning. So to me I see this as like a recipe for large scale medical abuse and disaster.

[Mia Wong]

Oh yeah.

[Shanley]

So yeah, when you, when you look at them doing these unregulated and unethical medical experiments and trials in Honduras and then you see in this other part of the world, in different countries in Africa, that the network is. State is also targeting that. You know, recently news came out about a very controversial and very unethical experiment in Guinea Buso to test the vaccine timing of hepatitis B on 14,000 infants. And the acting director of the CDC at the time that this was approved is Jim O'. Neill. And Jim O' Neill is from Peter Thiel's venture capital firm Mithril, and he is, he was also on the board of the Seasteading Institute, which is where a lot of this sort of network State stuff does come from. So this is a recipe for like mass scale medical abuse. And even if you look at like what World Coin, which is Sam Altman's like eyeball scanning thing, like that is a biotech thing like that starts to get into the, the realm of like medicine and stuff like that. So you see these sort of forces starting to converge in these areas. Like these are infants that they are doing, these babies that they're doing these on. And at the same time in, in that same country, a extremely well established executive in the network State is looking to build a network State City. So you know, getting these sites in there into different countries in Africa, they can go after the Precious minerals. They have a labor source there. They're already exploiting people there for the AI content moderation and tagging and like, all of that with disastrous effects. You also have the really cool concerning factor of like so many people in the top of the venture capital, like apparatus are South Africans. And when you just start to put all those pieces together, it's extremely worrying. One of the venture capital mining startups, because now they have multiple mining startups, discovered the largest discovery of copper in 10 years from computers in Berkeley and then they showed up in Zambia to start extracting the copper. So, you know, the network state opens up these countries to like this new era of like exploited labor, mineral harvesting, medical experiments, and the network state gives them a way to get into a country and start exploiting the fuck out of it.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah, it's corporate colonization.

[Shanley]

Yeah, period.

[Mia Wong]

You know, it's a bunch of these people going like, oh, the problem with the East India Company was that they actually had to like run the country, which is really expensive. So what if instead of that we just took over like the nodes that we wanted to use and then use that to push everything sort of further instead of like building a giant army and marching through India?

[Shanley]

No, 100%. And you know, the labor exploitation that is like developing some of this stuff that we're starting to see where like, you know, venture capital has a very close relationship with Bukele and El Salvador.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[Shanley]

Bukele is sitting on a prison full of people that haven't had due process and he's now using them for free labor, slave labor.

[Mia Wong]

This is the seacot person that you might remember. Like Trump had been deporting people here and this place is just unbelievably hideous abuses. Yeah, it's an entire facility that is just dedicated to like inflicting violence and suffering and humiliation on these people who have no trials, have no access to rights or legal system. And it's just this like nightmare black hole.

[Shanley]

Yes. You know, there's always lots of factors involved when I talk about stuff like I'm talking about the venture capital aspect and there are other like players involved. But one of the big things is like what happens when venture capital starts interacting with another country.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[Shanley]

And what we see in Latin America is that they make contact with Honduras, they set up a colony, they start terrorizing the people on the island, they become material actors in installing an illegitimate president with Trump's help. And then, you know, they make contact with El Salvador. And El Salvador becomes quote unquote bitcoin country. And El Salvador becomes a prison state and like a slave labor state.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[Shanley]

In Argentina, same things. The venture capitalists backed Malay to the absolute hilt. Malay is now gutted. The government deregulated everything he is putting these terrible labor abuse policies through. So when, when venture capital contacts these countries, it is transforming them, is changing them, it's changing their politicians, it's changing their policies, it's changing their land, it's changing their financial system. And that is really concerning. And you know, one of the things about the venture capital model, this goes back to even just the fact that like they have operated global IT systems, so they have servers everywhere in the world and all of the servers are exactly the same. And so when you look at what the network state is going to look like, it's going to be very similar. It's going to be the same thing everywhere. And those will be basically command and control nodes.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. And it seems like they've done a very, very good job of kind of either subverting or like allying with factions of the traditional sort of like right wing elite and then you know, propelling them to power and then using their power and influence. And the fact that they were able to get these people into power in the first place to sort of set up zones of extraction for them and increase their power inside of these states a thousand percent.

[Shanley]

And you know, if you look at how much they've been able to compromise the American government.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[Shanley]

And then these countries do not have the wealth, the infrastructure of that, you know, anything like that. They're so vulnerable to this type of attack. So if in order to get its global projects done, Venture Capital needs to install favorable politicians all over the world, they're offering packages to all of those politicians. They're offering the money, the social media attention and platform that they can give them. They're giving them an economic policy that they can go forward and say we're going to turn this country into like a technology industry and we're going to bring all this foreign investment in, blah, blah, blah. You know, they can really just like hand pick politicians and pretty easily like set them up with a guaranteed win. And over time that's like a global tech fascist axis.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. And one of the things that we know about sort of the way that fascist state construction works is that if you're constructing, you've constructed a bunch of these nodes of this sort of this fascist network state. But fascist states always need to sort of create an enemy for themselves and that enemy has been China. So do you want to talk about the way that they've been seeing Belt and Road and how they've turned this into a civilizational conflict, 100%.

[Shanley]

You know, if you listen to what venture capitalists say about who the enemy is, like, it is China. They talk literally constantly about China. Almost all of their startups in every single sector talk about China all of the time, but particularly in the weapons part of that. And the premise of their military build out, what they say is that this is about China and this is about fighting China and this is very serious to them. And the fundamental cause is like their technology competing with China's technology. And actually venture capitalists will admit that China is better technology than us and that they're ahead of us. So this is a crisis for them.

[Mia Wong]

This is all in some sense very silly to me. The girl who studies China a lot, because it's like all the tighties tech people you're competing against like, believe like 95% of the same shit you do. All of you could simply work together and make money forever, but instead you've decided to do this like. Oh God. This like unhinged genocidal military buildup because, like you needed a great enemy in order to like keep doing your fascist bullshit. Ugh, God.

[Dana Elkhorn]

Yeah.

[Shanley]

And like the absolute worst case scenario for the world would probably be like the top technocratic elite from China and the top technocratic elite from the US deciding they were going to work together and just literally everyone else in the world.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. And it's like, it's like they were like on the road to doing that. It was like, like, this is like, like China WTO integration. Like this was a thing. This, this was like a version of history they could have had where it's like, yeah, congratulations, you've created like permanent technocratic rule. But like, no, no, it's shit. We want to fight each other for obscure and nebulous ideological reasons is to generate the sort of fear necessary to do their projects. It's just like, oh my God.

[Shanley]

Yeah, a thousand percent. It's very, it's very strange. But you know, like Palmer Lucky who you know, and Palmer Looky, like people make fun of a lot of the tech people for being dumb. And like, Palmer Luckey is absolutely not dumb. He is a very, very smart person and he's spending every single moment of every single day figuring out how to defeat China. And that's the case for his entire company. But this is an issue for them. It's shaping sort of the dialectic. And so within this, where is the network seeing this well, China's Belt and Road initiative is creating infrastructure projects and nation state alliances across Latin America and across Africa for China. And you see the network state really investing in Latin America and Africa as well. So certainly one way to conceptualize this is as the network state is a counter to Belt and Road and it is part of their cold war with China, which is playing out across all of these regions.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah, and it's another thing where it's just like I have seen how both, how both of these groups treat the workers in Africa that they're employing. Like, both of you two believe the same shit. You're both fucking racist doing colonialism. But, like, you've decided to drag the entire fucking world into your. Like, oh, God. Okay, I'm going to tell one China racism story here because we've been getting an enormous amount of American racism. Like, like, this is, this is a country where like, like China is a country where like, you get soap ads where like, you have a black person and they, they like, rub their skin with soap and they like, turn white. This is like the kind of racism you're dealing with. One of the big ecological moments in China was there's, there's a documentary called under the Dome. Sorry, we're getting a little bit far afield here. But this, I think, matters a lot in terms of why this is happening. The CCP allowed this woman who'd been a state broadcaster, like a television personality, like, broadcaster for a long time. She had a kid, so she was taking time off. This is like the early 2000 and tens, like the height of air pollution in China. And she does this giant documentary about air pollution. It's allowed to stay on the Internet for a couple of days before it's taken down. And one of the big points of this is that part of the reason that pollution is so bad is that there are all of these cars in China that don't meet Chinese emission standards are being sold to the Chinese market. And the reason they're producing these cars is that they specifically have an entire class of cars that are like way, way, way more pollutant and shittier that they specifically designed to sell to Africa. Like, it's like that kind of like structure of racism, right? And it's like, you know, like this sort of horror show of like watching these two just like different versions of this sort of like nightmare colonialism entity where, you know, like, China is trying to find a way to reproduce its own capital as its growth rate, like, slows. And the network state people, you know, have also had this project of like, we want to sort of install our own version of fascism here. And they're just sort of like building these, like, parallel networks against each other. Just like. I don't know, it makes me so miserable that so many people are getting fucked by just like the global capitalist superpowers. And the way that, like, venture capital money has become a political force that can do their own unbelievably, like, probably more hideously fucked versions of what Chinese capital has been able to do.

[Shanley]

Yeah. I think, you know, at the end of the day, that's where. Where we need to come back to is like, this is about capitalism. Like, this is about colonialism, this is about, like, imperialism. And like, we fight this at that level, at the level of structural analysis, of historical analysis, of like full analysis, of unflinching analysis. And that, that. That is the only way to get out of this situation that we're in.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. Is to understand what is actually happening at a structural level and understand the actual forces that are operating instead of the big flashy name people who the spotlight has been on.

[Shanley]

That is one of the few things that makes me excited about venture capital because like, like here is a lens where we can actually see capitalism in a live, moving, active, dynamic, destructive, very much visible. You can see this, you can see it happening. And that is like such an opportunity. To wrap up the network state stuff. So, you know, a lot, A lot is sort of said about this being their own state, which it absolutely is. It leads to that. But once you add up these, these pieces of them having land and them having cities and then their racism. So they think that they're better than everyone and they're. They're like misogyny and like their wealth and them being sort of in their own kind of category, which also has all of the different sort of pieces of civilization. Like, out of that they derive both an identity and like a drive for civilization building. And so one thing that people talk about a lot is eugenics and like, eugenics beliefs sort of in the tech class. But we are so far beyond that and into an actual eugenics project where venture capitalists are encouraging the tech class to create more and more babies. They are creating a dizzying number of fertility startups, ivf, genetic screening, engineering of the genome, like all of these different areas. And they see Israel as the example of that because the Israeli fertility rate is really high despite it being a technocratic. This is their words, not mine. Yeah, yeah. Just to be clear, this is what they say. They say Israel is Aspirational because it's a technocratic state where they have a really high birth rate and, and that, that is what they want to emulate, you know, through the network state. And they want to, you know, selectively breed and they want to use these technologies to breed and hyper breed. And one of the tech philosophers that should actually get way more attention than Curtis Yarvin but doesn't is Nick Land and Nick Land basically. Yeah, but Nick Land's one of his main thing is that ace small elite will use eugenics technology to rapidly outpace the rest of the world to such an extent that it creates basically like a new species. And in that sense I see, you know, ideology being something that emerges out of all of this other things that they're doing. They do all of this crazy shit. They have all this economic stuff going on, you know, they have all this medical stuff going on. And then what comes out of that is this is our civilization. We are going to breed to populate this civilization and we are going to surpass the rest of humanity, which we loathe and which we see as lab rats and guinea pigs and vermin and scum.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. And, and it's the situation where like, like this is like a thing that a lot of like the worst right wingers have believed for a long time, but these people control vast sections of the global economy. And because they do that whatever like unhinged like racist eugenic breeding project thing they want to do, they could just do it because they have the capital to like actually create these things. It's like well like obviously they're not going to be able to successfully like create a super race or whatever because like that's just genics doesn't work right. Like, but like it's, you know, but like it doesn't matter. They have achieved a level of power and a level of capital where like the actual quote behind the reality based community thing where for the Bush administration where like the thing that got into like the media was like calling their bulls to reality based community. The actual quote is about how liberals observe reality and conservatives create it. And so they're trying to sort of just hammer reality into, into their preferred shape through this just combination of wealth and violence. And because of that, yeah, they can just fucking do this. All of this like eugenic shit that people just talk about. They can just attempt to do it.

[Shanley]

Yeah. You know, it's. They're telling their workers to have more children. They're doing their own school programs, elite schools for these kids. They've Talked about having their children being able to work at a startup by the age of 15.

[Mia Wong]

Jesus Christ.

[Shanley]

Yeah, it's really wild. This is very much a reality. It's something that is already happening now. And so one of the main messages that I have for people is like, they are so much more advanced in these projects than anyone has awareness of. Like, things are way beyond the emergency moment and we need global response, and we need global emergency response and we need resistance. When venture capitalists show up to these areas, the people there don't know what's hitting them. And that's even true in the US where, where these venture capitalists came from. Like people did not know that they were about to take the presidency in other countries. They definitely don't know. We need global defense from this.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Shanley]

Everywhere they fucking go, they should be met not only by people there who have been told and have the access to the information, but also to a global coalition that's ready to stand by. These are invasions of countries. These are invasions of sovereign nations and of communities. And that's what we need to fight back. And I think my research and other researchers and what's on VC info docs, like, leads to that conclusion of like, that that is how we're going to have to fight this.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. And I think that's something that right now feels unimaginable. But also, unless you are really, really young, you have lived in a period where something like that existed. You know, to a large extent, this is what the global justice movement was. It has a bunch of different names, but like the, the original anti globalization movements, like the one that was born out of the 90s, the one that was born out of the Zapatistas rebellion against nafta. The Zapatistas brought together hundreds and hundreds of groups from all over the world to these giant convergences. And they planned an international strategy to resist these sort of, these free trade proposals. And were they able to defeat capitalism and retake the globe? No, but they were successful in killing basically all new free trade agreements. Like in, in the period after that. And this is where you get like the Battle of Seattle and like the whole giant, like all the protests at all of the summits and like Genoa. And like this is the process that built the modern left. Right. Like the, the modern American left comes out of Occupy, which is a bunch of the veterans of that movement, like doing this.

[Shanley]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

And, and, and like you all, like everyone listening to this, unless you were born in like the 2010s have lived in a world where People did this. It's kind of a parallel movement. But one of the things that, like, happens in this period, in your lifetimes, almost certainly is that a bunch of people, like, took the city of oaxaca in, like, 2006. Like, we have taken major North American cities from them in your lifetime. We can do this. We just have to be willing to work together and fight.

[Shanley]

Yes, 100%. And as much as I, like, live in this issue and look at this, and I'm like, what the fuck are we going to do? It's over. It's over. I also am like, this is a chance. Because what's happening in venture capital is one of the fastest moving parts of capitalism, one of the most dynamic, one of the most powerful, one of them that has the most infrastructure. What if we got. Got all the computers back?

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[Shanley]

What if we could use the computers for, you know, this is a chance, and I think there's a possibility, and I hope to. To build a global resistance around this. And. And that's why I'm here. And that's why I say in this, because this sucks. And there's not a lot of community support. It's isolating. Da, da, da. But I think this is. I think this is a fight we can win if we're all, all willing to get on board about what is happening and do the work of building that. So I'm excited for that. I think it can happen.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. And I think this is something that it's really, really easy to look into the world in despair. And I think one of the things that helps with that is remembering that people have faced odds that were so much worse than this. Right. Like, if you look at, like, the origin of Pan Africanism, right? And like, you look at like, Clr James and a bunch of, like, his friends are like, meeting in these rooms in, like, London. And, you know, they're looking out at it across entire continents that are colonized. And 15 to 20 years later, literally, like, the people who are his friends, who are there have liberated Africa. Right. Like, you know, we're talking about, like, this. This what looked like a. Just a group of just like random people facing within a completely impossible project of defeating colonialism. Suddenly, you know, again, like 20 years later, it's like Julius Nyerere is, like, running Tanzania.

[Shanley]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

Right. And the odds that they faced are so much longer than the odds that we faced. And were they able to create exactly the world that they wanted?

[James Stout]

No.

[Mia Wong]

But the world that they left after them was one where entire continents were no longer literally Directly ruled by colonizers.

[Shanley]

Yes.

[Mia Wong]

And, yeah, like, that is probably the kind of response that this requires. But I don't know. People have done it before and it can be done again.

[Shanley]

It can be done again. And, you know, if you people who are interested in that reach out and like, let's get it moving because this is, like, this is a chance. This is a chance and we need to take it. Because if. If we just let this go for an end, like, today is our best chance of stopping it.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[Shanley]

You know, today is our best chance. So if we can hop on this and be professional in the sense of, like, being professional resistors and anti colonialists and anti fascists and take this as not just an ideological thing, but this is a tactical situation, we need to be figuring out strategies and tactics to take this down.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. And I think on that note, where. Where can people go to find your work and find more information about this and start this process?

[Shanley]

Yeah, absolutely. VC Info Docs is at www.vcinfo docs.com. there's a contact email address on that page. Would love to hear from you. We give presentations also or happy to just talk to any other organizers. And I am on social media. I'm on Blue sky and Twitter and I have a [e-mail] so any of those. But definitely want to hear from people who are serious about building a movement around this.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Shanley]

And thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you for being my first podcast.

[Mia Wong]

Thank you so much for doing this. And I don't know, I hope we can help contribute to the start of something that changes the state of things 100%.

[Robert Evans]

Welcome to Executive Dysphonia, a podcast about people who are in executive positions but can't hear well. Right. Isn't that what the show we're doing is?

[Garrison Davis]

This is. It could happen here. Executive disorder.

[Robert Evans]

Oh, I guess I have Executive Dysphonia,

[Garrison Davis]

our weekly newscast covering what's happening in the White House, the crumbling world, and what it means for you. I'm Garrison Davis. That was Robert Evans, also joined by James Stout with a segment later on by Mia Wong. This episode, we are covering the week of March 11 to March 18.

[Robert Evans]

And I was wrong about Dysphonia. That's just hoarseness.

[James Stout]

Okay, well, yeah, there probably are people in the executive branch who are. Who are hoarse.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah. Horse. And wearing shoes too big for their feet.

[Garrison Davis]

We have to start by issuing an apology.

[Robert Evans]

That's right, a serious apology.

[Garrison Davis]

We have both failed you, the audience, and our ourselves as an outlet by neglecting to cover a story the way that it deserves to. Last week we reported on the Buffalo Wild Wings Espresso Protini.

[Robert Evans]

That's right.

[Garrison Davis]

And promised an in depth report on the drink upon delivery this past weekend, which was National Espresso Martini Day. And there I was, Sunday, March 15, on my phone, googling to find the closest Buffalo Wild Wings, when I discovered that the Espresso Protini was in fact, only to be served in five cities.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

In Tennessee, Illinois, Georgia, Texas, and the SeaWorld location in Orlando, Florida. And I failed myself and you by not traveling specifically to the SeaWorld location to try the Espresso Protini, which would have been the correct choice.

[Robert Evans]

That would have been the right move

[Garrison Davis]

to deliver the sort of coverage that you expect out of us and deserve. It's going to take a while to win your trust back. And we understand this, and we are. We are hoping to be able to demonstrate that to you in the coming. In the coming weeks.

[Robert Evans]

Gar, this isn't all your fault, you know. I knew years ago that we should have moved the entire production team to the Buffalo wild wings at SeaWorld. This was a foreseeable mistake, you know, Sophie and I are to blame for this as well, is all I'm saying, and we apologize.

[James Stout]

Then, obviously, as a British person, the SeaWorld location in Orlando, Florida is our spiritual home. So that really should have been at the very center of my beat.

[Robert Evans]

Just imagine how much more sunburnt you could be every single day we record this podcast, James.

[James Stout]

Yeah, you could be. I'm wearing a red shirt right now for listeners, but you could probably never tell if I lived in Orlando, Florida, if I was wearing a red shirt or just had excessive sunburns. Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

So, yeah, let's go over some small news items. Meta is shutting down its VR metaverse Horizon Worlds on June 15th.

[Robert Evans]

And they're just stuck being named Meta, huh?

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

The Horizon World will continue to exist as a mobile phone only application. The Ametaverse portion is going to be sunsetted. Like I said, on the 15th of June.

[James Stout]

I'll be on there on June 14, right up till midnight, just enjoying my final moments of beauty. Is there a SeaWorld Orlando that I can visit in the Metaverse?

[Robert Evans]

I bet there was.

[Garrison Davis]

Too soon, James. Too soon. In the 9th district of Illinois, Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss beat Kat Abu Ghazali and Laura Fine. Bis won over 35,000 votes. Kat won over 31,000 votes. And fine, the APAC backed candidate, got 24,000.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, you know, it's, it was a, it was a really impressive first campaign from Kat, who's a friend of the show. We're proud of, you know, her and her whole team and yeah, that's politics, baby. On to the next thing, I guess.

[Garrison Davis]

Columbia student Lika Cordilla was released from ICE custody after over a year in detention after government lawyers declined to appeal a judge's third release order. Her name was one of the four on the list that Mehram Donny gave to Trump during their last meeting.

[James Stout]

Cuba is facing another blackout amidst its aging infrastructure and a United States enforced blockade on the country. It has been running largely on thermoelectric solar and natural gas sources, electricity. As imports from Venezuela have ceased, the United States has threatened to tariff anybody sending oil to Cuba. But on Sunday, Claudia Scheinenbaum, president of Mexico, did say that Mexico would continue to send aid to the Caribbean nation. Also checking in on the Shield of the Americas, which we mentioned last week, Gustavo Petro, president of Colombia, has responded to what appears to be an Ecuadorian bomb falling on Colombia. So we are a couple of weeks into this and Ecuador's already bombed the wrong country.

[Robert Evans]

Oh good.

[James Stout]

Not great. It was in an area very close to the border. But Petro Posted today on X.com, the Everything website, I'm blighted by the fact that Grok thinks it can speak Spanish better than me. So I'm just going to read whatever this is shitty translation is, I suppose. It has been confirmed that the bomb in Colombian territory belongs to the Ecuadorian army. The investigation continues and a diplomatic protest note will be sent. So yeah, that's Ecuador playing with fire there.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

Finally PBS is reporting today that an offer is on the table from the White House to end the shutdown. I'm just going to read I guess the, the terms that have been offered by the White House. So the first one would be the expansion in the use of body worn cameras by DHS law enforcement. And they will increase congressional oversight by requiring retention of body worn camera footage. The next one, they would limit civil immigration enforcement at certain sensitive locations. They go on to say sensitive locations include places like hospitals and schools, which is currently practice. There were other places that were considered sensitive locations previously known to be churches. Right. But that, that is not a definitive list and I don't. Does it mean they will return to the old sensitive places doctrine? It's a little unclear.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

They talk again about increasing congressional oversight, particularly by creating mandatory review and compliance reporting from the inspector general of dhs. They talk about visible officer identification. And the administration would require officers to clearly verbalize their agency and identification upon request when engaging in official duties. And then finally, they will adhere to existing practices of law and practice of not deporting US Citizens. And then they go on to say they'd only detain them if a crime has taken place. Some of these appear like concessions, but they kind of only matter in so much as you trust them. But they've always got, like. Even the sensitive places has an exemption for like a. A terrorist threat, given that, for instance, it was suggested very shortly after Alex Pretty was killed that he was a terrorist attempting to kill officers, et cetera. Like. Like, yeah, none of this matters. And, like, it's still going to be. This is. We are policing ourselves. Right. So perhaps we should move on. Talking of dhs, let's talk about friend of the podcast, Gregory Bevino.

[Robert Evans]

Oh, Greg. Oh, Greg.

[James Stout]

Greggy B. Yeah, he's been a frequent Cool zone all across the cool zone universe. Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Friend of the pod. But nothing gold can stay, you know.

[James Stout]

Nope. And sadly, Greg cannot stay at his job.

[Robert Evans]

To be fair, even before Trump took office, he was talking about retiring in like, two years. Like, he's been talking about that for a while. So this is not, like, super weird, but the timing of it is earlier than he'd previously talk about wanting to do. And I think Pretty undeniably connected to, you know, him being made the sacrificial pawn of the regime.

[James Stout]

Yeah. And the fact that he. He, for instance, said shortly after Alex Pretty was killed by CBP agents, Pretty was planning to, quote, massacre agents. We have seen no evidence that that is true. Right. He's currently the chief patrol agent of the El Centro sector. Previously, he was CBP's commander at large of its interior enforcement operations, but he was removed from that job in late January. He gave an exclusive interview to Breitbart News. Breitbart have a former Border Patrol agent who writes for them. So I'm guessing that's why saying, quote, watching these agents out there giving it their all in some of the most dangerous of environments we have ever faced was humbling. Cool. He will be retiring just a few days after his 56th birthday. The agency's mandatory requirement age is 57. And I've seen a lot of places citing that that applies to officers hired after the middle of 2008. Pavino was hired in 1996, but at 55, with 30 years of service, he would be eligible for optional retirement under the fers. He hasn't reached the minimum Retirement age. So I think that would impact the amount of retirement he gets.

[Garrison Davis]

Oh, interesting.

[Robert Evans]

Oh yeah, yeah, it usually does. Unless they make a special exception for him or something.

[James Stout]

Yeah, because previously.

[Garrison Davis]

Right.

[James Stout]

Like previously Border Patrol agents were essentially hired as like federal employees or civil servants. It was only after 2008 that their hiring, I guess came slightly more in line with people in the armed services, for instance, or police. And so like under first you'd have to do the 30 years plus reach the minimum retirement age versus under the newer system when they have a mandatory retirement of 57. I do feel like this, plus gnome, plus the stuff that you've mentioned up top Garrison, it suggests that the tides are perhaps turning. Plus this. We've seen Republican sheriffs in Florida opposing mass deportations this week. Right. We've seen Republican Congress people making public statements about this. We are probably beginning to see the beginning of the end of the right being in lock step behind mass deportations. I don't think that means we're going to see the end of ICE raids. I don't think that means we're going to see the end.

[Shanley]

No.

[James Stout]

Of massive detention and of massive deportation. But it, it's clearly, as we are looking towards the midterms, something that some parts of the Republican Party want to distance themselves from.

[Garrison Davis]

And there's movement on this and it shows that these forces are fluid and can actually be changed through taking like agency, like through, through, through imparting yourself upon the world. Like what, what's happened in Minneapolis for those, for those weeks to, to, you know, months showed that the world actually can be changed through, through mass action.

[James Stout]

Yeah, like, like Border Patrol and ICE went to Minneapolis to fight and it seems like they came off worse. Right. Like they were not able to subdue the city in a meaningful way and it has resulted in most of their leadership being removed. Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Well, I wanted to talk a little bit about something that's happened this week that I kind of, I felt a deep sense of foreboding reading this article. It's going to sound like this is another piece of kind of Israel Palestine reporting, but it's really not. I mean that's where this particular story is, is set. But we're talking about something that's going to be an increasing factor in the lives of everyone gathering news and everybody consuming it, which is poly market our gamble on everything happening in the world app that apparently the world needed for some reason. So on Tuesday, March 10, 2026, as you know, hostilities continued between Iran and Israel. A ballistic missile got past Israel's Defense systems and landed in near the city of Beit Shemesh just outside of Jerusalem. It did not land near anything, but it looks like trees. You can see there was video captured of the explosion and posted by a journalist named Emmanuel Fabian.

[James Stout]

Oh, yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Who wrote with his post. No injuries are reported. In Iran's latest ballistic missile attack on Israel, the fourth today. One missile struck an open area just outside Beit Shemesh, first responders say, and footage shows. And the footage does indeed show a ballistic missile impact. There is an explosion. This does not look like fragments of a missile that were taken down. You know, based on what I know of ballistic missiles and based on what people who I know know more than me know about ballistic missiles, this was an intact ballistic missile hitting. It didn't hit a target that was valuable. It didn't hurt anybody, as far as we're aware. But it got through the missile shield and it hit in Israeli territory. Normally you would wonder, like, why does this.

[James Stout]

This.

[Robert Evans]

I mean, this matters, you know, if you're a local reporter, obviously, but why would anyone else care? Well, the day after Manny Fabian posted this video, in this brief bit of reporting, he started receiving emails, weird emails, mostly in Hebrew. And like, here's one example from a Times of Israel piece that he wrote. Sorry for reaching out without a prior introduction, but I assume we will get to know each other. Well, I have an urgent request regarding the accuracy of your report on the missile attack on March 10th. I would really appreciate a response if possible. There is an inaccurate report from you about the missile attack on March 10, and it's causing a chain of errors. If you could reply to me tonight, you would be helping me, many others, and of course, the state of Israel. And along the way, you would gain a good source. So that's really weird.

[James Stout]

Yeah. What the fuck is going.

[Robert Evans]

If you're this guy, all you did was post, oh, hey, a rocket hit, but it didn't hit anything. Yeah, like, not a big deal, you know, given the state of the war. And he starts getting spammed with a bunch of similar emails like this. And in addition to that, he's got people, like, on Twitter responding, saying, like, hey, one person responded to one of his posts saying, there are people saying they've received word from you that the missile strike in beit Shemesh on March 10 was, in fact, intercepted. Is this true? Or did no such interaction occur? So people start posting and sharing in other places that, oh, I reached out to this guy and he said the missile was actually intercepted and it was just a piece that fell and he reported it wrong, which is not at all what this guy had reported. So he's really confused. He has, like, why are all these people bugging me about this very minor story? And why are they spreading disinformation, claiming that I debunked my own story when I didn't? Well, the obvious reason why is that people that day on Polymarket on March 10 were gambling on when Iran would strike Israel. There were $14 million wagered that there would be a strike on March 10th. The rules of the bet per polymarket stated this market will resolve to yes if Iran initiates a drone, missile or airstrike on Israel's soil on the listed date in Israel, time GMT plus 2. Otherwise this market will resolve. No. Missiles or drones that are intercepted will not be sufficient for a yes resolution. Right. So that's why $14 million was in the air.

[Garrison Davis]

It's people who had a lot of money on this event.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yes, specifically. And these people don't care if anyone was hurt. They don't care that a missile was fired. All they care about is whether or not the missile made it through the defense network intact. Right. Because these were people who, I guess, had bet against that because they didn't want that to be the case.

[James Stout]

Right, Right.

[Robert Evans]

He initially ignores these weird emails and they start getting more and more aggressive and people are like, when are you gonna update the article, Daniel? Daniel, update the article. You have to update the article. You know you were wrong. And after the weekend, he starts getting messages like, you have exactly half an hour to correct your attempted influence. Despite the fact that you received countless inquiries, you insist on leaving it this way. If you do not correct this by 1am Israel time today, March 15, you are bringing upon yourself damage you have never imagined you would suffer.

[James Stout]

That's a Reddit user if I've ever seen one.

[Robert Evans]

And like, there's a bunch of shit like this. Someone said, after you make us lose $900,000, we will invest no less than that to finish you.

[Garrison Davis]

Like, this is insane.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, but it's inevitable if you think about how polymarket works, right? That once people are putting fortunes on the line around stupid shit, you know, like betting whether or not, oh, does the missile make it through or not on this? That is dumb, right? Missiles and stuff, that's very serious to a lot of people who live in the region. But betting on it this way is fundamentally stupid. Yeah, but it's all Polymarket's all stupid bets like this and they are going to increasingly come after People, once they realize, hey, maybe I can actually change and get a winning resolution or whatever if I harass the journalist on the ground. There's a vested financial interest in going after people over stuff like this. So this is. This particular story is happening in Israel involves the reporting of an Israeli journalist. This isn't gonna stay limited to that conflict or to that region of the world. This is going to be things that journalists all over the world increasingly deal with. This is an important story and one that I think says some pretty bleak shit about the immediate future of news gathering in this country.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

So that's cool. On the upside, polymarket is about to open a splashy new bar in Washington D.C. called the Situation Room. And I found Polymarket made a post on their substack in which they announced this saying the world's first bar dedicated to monitoring the situation. Imagine a sports bar, but just for situation monitoring. Live X feeds, flight radar, Bloomberg terminals and polymarket screenshots. Grand opening this Friday. Imagine the first response.

[Garrison Davis]

This is every bar in Washington D.C.

[Robert Evans]

the first response is just someone saying, drink your way through World War Three. Which is also every bar in Washington D.C. yeah. Someone else says, this seems awful, but I guess that perfectly aligns with your company in general.

[James Stout]

Good on that person. Cool. Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

So I love polymarket. It's good that this is what. But we've turned society into. No notes.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

I'll just add this to the list of things that prediction markets will destabilize geopolitically.

[James Stout]

Yeah. Great.

[Garrison Davis]

Not just the insider trading problems of people with beforehand knowledge of military strikes or certain world events, but trying to influence the reporting of events to sway polymarket or Kalshi's decision on whether the market was correctly fulfilled. Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting.

[Robert Evans]

Yep. Interesting. And yeah, foreboding.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Anyway, so, yeah, here's some ads. You filthy animals. We're back. Here's some. James. You filthy animals.

[James Stout]

Yeah, lucky you. First, I want to talk about the Supreme Court. And then I'm going to throw to Garrison to talk about some other court stuff. This is our court segment. The Supreme Court has scheduled cases for the tps. That's temporary protected status pertaining to Syria and Haiti for April, meaning these statuses will remain in effect likely until the end of June or July. The justices didn't alter the position of the New York and D.C. judges who indefinitely postponed the termination of the TPS. The Trump administration has hustled really hard to get this to the Supreme Court. They first tried to get the Supreme Court to let them remove people while it waited to weigh in on the case. And then they tried to get the Supreme Court to take the case before the 2nd Circuit had a chance to weigh in. This is called certiori before judgment and it's how the case got to the Supreme Court. This, I should note, is different from the Venezuela case where the TPS was terminated because the numbers are much smaller and therefore it's going to be HARDER for the U.S. government to show harm. Right. It pertains to 30, 40,000 people, if I had to guess. By contrast, it's very easy for people to show potential harm in Haiti or Syria. Right. Just to give an example of Syria, there has been violence directed against Alevites, Druze people and Kurds, largely unimpeded by the government since Assad fell last year. And Syria remains on the State Department's Do Not Travel list. Yeah, you had some stuff about Prairieland. Do you want to share? I know, yes.

[Garrison Davis]

Let's talk about the Prairieland trial.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

We're going to be doing a more in depth episode next week, the start of next week on Prairie Land. It's about double the length of today's summary. But I do want to go over some essential information about the trial that concluded last week. So. Yep, Last week the Trump administration got their first conviction in an antifa terrorism case. On Friday, March 13, a people were convicted by a federal grand jury on charges of riot, conspiracy to use and carry an explosive, and providing material support to terrorists. One of the defendants was convicted of attempted murder of a police officer and another person was convicted on two accounts of concealing documents, bringing the total number of federal defendants to nine. This case stemmed from what the defense argued was a noise demonstration protest outside of an ICE detention facility in Prairieland, Texas last summer. On the night of July 4, after protesters threw fireworks and vandalized property, DHS personnel called local police for a system. One officer arrived, drew his handgun and yelled stop. At a person in all black clothes who was running away. One of the defendants, named Benjamin Song, then yelled, get to the rifles before firing toward the officer with an AR15, hitting him in the neck. A week into the trial, U.S. district Court Judge Mark Pittman ruled that defense attorneys could not argue that the defendants, including the accused shooter, were acting in self defense or the defense of others against unlawful force just because the officer had already drawn and pointed his handgun before Song fired. Prosecutors compared this to Waco. Judge Pittman ruled that the officer drawing and pointing his handgun at a fleeing suspect is not, quote, unquote, excessive as A matter of law because the officer did not actually use deadly force or shoot first. And he listed three federal precedents for this. Uh huh. Let's get into this action and the role of Antifa in the court case. This action was originally planned on the encrypted messaging app signal and via an in person, quote, unquote gear check meeting. The day before the action, Benjamin Song advertised the action in a larger group chat of dozens of quote unquote trusted individuals. When asked about bringing firearms during action planning, Song repeatedly stated, I'm not going back to prison, I'm not getting arrested, I'm bringing guns, unquote. Throughout the trial, Song was characterized as the de facto leader of the antifa cell, or affinity group, but he did not have a close relationship with all fellow defendants. At the gear check meeting on July 3, Song proposed to free detainees using quote unquote suppressive fire. But this idea was shot down by other meeting attendees. Some of the defendants attended a daytime protest outside the ICE facility earlier that day on July 4, after which they reported back to fellow defendants details regarding the facility's security prior to the nighttime action. Two defendants were neither in these planning chats nor attended the gear check meeting. But all the defendants that attended the Protest carpooled in two vehicles, bringing a total of 11 firearms, body armor, ifax, and all wore black blocks, which were all presented as government evidence exhibits. The government argued that the defendants were members of a quote unquote North Texas antifa cell. The indictment describes Antifa as a, quote, militant enterprise made up of networks of individuals and small groups primarily ascribing to a revolutionary anarchist or autonomous Marxist ideology which explicitly calls for the overthrow of the United States government, law enforcement authorities and the system of law, unquote. Prosecution argued that this cell was linked through a triple Venn diagram of the Socialist Rifle association, the John Brown Gun Club and the Emma Goldman Book Club, which is a local zine distro group that also put on community events. Prosecution said that this Venn diagram converged on, quote, unquote, direct militant action. The government called on David Kyle Sheeter as an expert witness to testify about Antifa. Sheeter is a member of the center for Security Policy, an SPLC designated hate group. Defense tried to object to this witness's expertise, but the judge informed the defense that they missed the deadline for such objections, which would have been in a pre trial motion. Much of this case was spent arguing over whether the defendants were, quote unquote antifa, what that even means, and if it's relevant to the charges, according to Prairieland Support Committee court notes. Judge Pittman asked the prosecution, quote, is it necessary to prove this stuff about antifa? The prosecution responded that antifa ideology, particularly Black bloc, was how the group operated. The judge pressed, whether it's antifa or the Methodist Women's Auxiliary, why does it matter? The prosecution argued they took direct action against the ICE facility. The prosecution argued Black block and antifa ideology were central to how the alleged attack was carried out, unquote. The government described Black bloc for the purposes of this case as, quote, dark clothing with head and face coverings that concealed their identities, designed to hide each individual's identity, but also aid and abet those members engaged in illegal acts by making members indistinguishable from one another to law enforcement, unquote. Now, all of this raises the question whether this prosecution is against the defendant's political ideology or the specific criminal acts of of throwing fireworks or shooting at a police officer rather than being convicted of being members of antifa, the terrorist group, something that still doesn't really have legal precedent. Prosecutors argued that the antifa ideology, like left wing anti authoritarianism, played a role in inspiring defendants formed the basis of political affinity that brought the collection of individuals together and relates to a collection of security practices, subcultural practices and associated tactics which were employed before, during and after the criminal acts related to the noise. Demo protest. There's been a lot of reporting on people being convicted for possessing zines. These are short political pamphlets, usually with some kind of radical political ideology. There's a lot of anarchist zines out there. Now, zines did play a role in this trial, a two part rule. Prosecution argued that the presence of insurrectionary zines is indicative of an alignment with antifa, even if possession of these zines itself is not a crime. The other relevancy of zines to this case relates to the concealing documents charges against Daniel Ronaldo Sanchez Estrada and his wife Marisela Rueda, based on transporting a box of political zines from his wife's house to a friend's house in Denton, Texas. The government claimed that Raida called Sanchez Estrada from jail on July 6, instructing him to conceal evidence by telling her husband to tow her vehicle, which was at the action staging site. Quote, tow it. My phone is in the back. Do what you got to do, just tow it, Unquote. The defense claimed that she was worried about her car being repoed. Sanchez Estrada never got to the car or the phone. But Raeda also said, quote, move whatever you need to move in the house. Unquote Centrist Estrada mentioned already being at the house and replied, we're good, quote unquote in reference to moving stuff from the house. Prosecution argued this meant moving evidence. Defense noted that Rada was talking about her pets at the time. According to support committee notes, Sanchez Estrada and his wife Rueda were found guilty of conspiracy to conceal documents and other objects that would implicate Rueda in the riot and shooting at the Prairieland facility. Nine of the counts, count one, two, four and five through 10, cited Pinkerton vs. United States States, 1946. The judge explained to the jury that a defendant can be criminally liable for the offenses committed by another co conspirator if the offense was, quote, reasonably foreseeable and committed in furtherance of the conspiracy, unquote. From very early on in the trial, prosecution argued that Song firing on the officers was, quote, unquote, quote reasonably foreseeable based on the planning of the protest and previous statements made by Song. The jury found all defendants charged guilty of counts one, two, three and four. That's riot material support, terrorists and explosives charges, but did not find other defendants besides Song guilty of attempted murder or discharging a firearm using this Pinkerton co conspirator liability. Lastly, let's discuss two charges which now could carry worrying potential to be used against protesters in the future based on this case's precedent. First, conspiracy to use and carry an explosive, and using and carrying an explosive during a riot. The only explosives used were fireworks. And even the judge confirmed in this case that it was established that the fireworks caused no damage to the ICE facility. Yet Stephen Brennaman, an ATS explosives special agent, testified that fireworks still meet the statutory definition of explosives under 18 USC section 844ij because they contain gunpowder as defined in the statute. Me and Robert have been to and reported on a fourth of July protest also in front of a government building back in 2020, where people launched a lot of fireworks up at that federal

[Robert Evans]

courthouse, a lot of fireworks and other places.

[Garrison Davis]

And this was a very similar event with the launching of fireworks at federal property, which now under this precedent, could be charged as a crime. Finally, let's talk about providing material support to terrorists. That's 18 USC 2339. This statute has two sections. One relates to material support provided to a designated foreign terrorist organization. This is not what the defendants were charged under. They're not saying that Antifa qualifies as one of these designated foreign terrorist organizations. That's. That's not what's being argued here. The defendants were charged under section A, alleging they provided and attempted to provide material support and resources, including property that can be money, services, training, communications, equipment, like walkie talkies, weapons, explosives, personnel, including themselves and transportation, knowing and intending that they were to be used in preparation for and in carrying out an offense identified as a federal crime of terrorism or in carrying out the concealment of an escape from said offense. The statute lists at least 28 possible terrorism offenses. Relevant to this case are 3.18usc844f. It's maliciously attempting to damage government property by means of fire or an explosive fireworks count. 18 USC 1361, willful depredation against any property of the United States exceeding a thousand dollars. This is property damage by other means exceeding that $1,000 threshold and 18 USC 114, killing or attempting to kill any officer or employee of the United States. The government accused the defendants of providing material support to terrorists in these three different ways. But to convict, the jury only had to decide there was proof beyond reasonable doubt on one of these ways. They didn't need all three. To quote the jury instructions. Quote, if a defendant's speech, expression or associations were made with intent to knowingly provide material support or resources to be used to prepare for or carry out a violation of federal law or to carry out the concealment of an escape from such violation, then the First Amendment would not provide a defense to that conduct. Unquote. Benjamin Song now faces a minimum penalty of 20 years and a maximum of life imprisonment. Other defendants at Prairieland face sentences ranging from a minimum of 10 years to up to 60 years in federal prison. And the husband convicted of concealing documents faces up to 40 years in federal prison.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. This is a very bleak case and I don't really have much to add. It's very sad.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah. No, and it's worth understanding the specific way they're using this material support statute.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

Just establishing someone is a member of quote, unquote, antifa is not really what they're going after. But they're using antifa this way to link the defendants through this ideological unity to show that there's a conspiracy, some kind of like political conspiracy that then could be tied to offenses that are terrorism, like damaging government property with the intent to influence or intimidate government policy. Right. That's the sort of framing that was used in the guilty pleas for some other former defendants of this case. And that's what the government's trying to argue here. We're gonna go on a break and return for one final segment touching on the economy and Iran,

[Mia Wong]

Let's check in with the Strait of Hormuz, where things are going extremely poorly for the U.S. israel, and every country in the world that relies on oil and liquefied natural gas, as well as helium, fertilizer and a whole bunch of other exports. All attempts to actually open the Strait have failed. Now, Iran has still been shipping a decent amount of oil out to some extent. They've been able to send their own tankers through, and the US And Israel have not attacked them thus far. Now, there has been some developments in terms of attempts to open the Strait. Israel claimed they would help reopen the Strait. We also got a report in Reuters that Britain, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Japan have agreed to help open the Strait. This is a kind of weird group of countries. It is the G7, which is the good group of seven, which is a very sort of influential group of American allies, but it's the G7 minus Canada with the Netherlands in its place, which is sort of odd. Now, this is not going to do anything to actually open the Straits. There are two reasons for this. One is that none of these countries have actually committed to do anything other than, quote, to contribute to appropriate efforts to ensure safe passage through the Strait and start, quote, preparatory planning, which means absolutely nothing. And the second reason is that if all of these countries, you know, put every single naval asset at their disposal for some reason, all of them in the street of Hormuz, it wouldn't do anything to actually open the Strait. There's a good piece in Defector about this called Trump to World. Please help me unshoot my own leg off. Where the author Albert Bernecho points out, and I think this is a very useful way of understanding the problem here, that these oil tankers are the size of skyscrapers. They're not. They're not getting oil takers to the street as long as they're run. To do this, I. Every week I say this, and every week a bunch of people go, oh, they're gonna open the straight. Ooh, there's all these press cycles and like the stock market and oil prices go down and the stock market goes up, and then everyone collectively realizes it's not true. And then the herd animals go back to raising the stock prices. So this leaves us in the same situation we were before, except everything has gotten significantly worse because on Wednesday, Israel hit the largest natural gas field in the world when they attacked Iran's South Pars gas field. Now, as Politico points out, these are the fields that fueled Iran's domestic energy grid, which means any hit to them is extremely painful because it means that people lose like heat and power. Now Trump did very quickly make an extremely funny post that is sadly too long to read here, begging Iran not to attack Cotter, saying the US didn't know anything about it and that Carter didn't have anything to do with the strike. There's been a bunch of contradictory information. Netanyahu has claimed publicly now that the US didn't know anything about the strike and Israel did it unilaterally. There's also been reports that the US knew it was going to happen. This whole the US didn't know anything about it. Please don't hit Qatar seems to be a kind of PR strategy on their part. It didn't work. Iran ignored it and retaliated on Thursday by hitting Cotter's massive liquid natural gas processing facility. This is one of the largest facilities in the world for liquid natural gas, of which Cotter is one of the world's largest suppliers. I think they're the second largest of liquid natural gas. I'm going to read this from Reuters because this is what the straight laced analysts are saying now. Quote, we are now well on the road to the doomsday gas crisis scenario, said Saul Kovonek, an energy analyst at MST Financial. Even once the war ends, the disruption to liquid natural gas supply could last for months or even years. Reuters got some statements from Carter State natural gas firm saying that they had lost 17% of their total export capacity and that that was destroyed for three to five years. That is catastrophic for significant parts of the economy worldwide. As we are going to talk about in a second. All of this is also happening in the context of Trump's threat to destroy Kharg island, which is where 90% of Iran's oil imports flow through, which would likewise be absolutely catastrophic for the Iranian economy because it would take a significant amount of time to repair. However, comma, these are all kind of empty threats. Well, when I say empty threats, I don't mean that the US or Israel won't do it. I mean that it doesn't solve the problem. Because the problem with any threat you can make against Iran is like you already killed the Ayatollah. Like what? What else are you going to do? Right? You could completely destroy Iran's economic capacity for snake significant period of time. But if you do that, then the Iranian government is still just going to not open the strait, right? The more you attack them, the more incentive they have to continue to retaliate. And that's what's going to happen if you continue this campaign, which it seems like the US and Israel are determined to do there just hold this. All this talk about like we've entered a new phase of the war and the war is going to now last like several months longer. And again, the problem here is that the more that you attack critical infrastructure inside Iran, the more that the Iranian government gives less of a shit about again destroying significant portions of the world's natural gas supply or hitting more oil facilities or you know, and this is the one that I really haven't seen any talk about but is a thing that Iran could do if they decided that, you know, this is like the end for our people is starting to hit desalinization plants in places like the UAE and Qatar which are, I mean, infrastructure that will make the countries uninhabitable. And right now there haven't been any attacks on them because that's a really hideous thing to do. And it's also the sort of absolute last resort. But it's a thing that like, you know, if you keep hitting them, they're going to keep hitting more and more targets that are going to significantly impact the lives of everyone in the region and around the world. Now on the sort of economics end, we've been kind of in this little bouncing up and down Stace's lock. A little bit of this has been broken because of again we're now seeing instead of just the already very, very bad damage of nothing can get through the strait, we're now starting to see permanent damage to oil infrastructure. Right. And by the way, it's also worth noting, Reuters reports that the estimated damage, I think both from revenue lost and from to actually repair the facility that Cotter State Run Gas Company is talking about, they're talking about $20 billion of damage. This has finally caused a sort of tank in the Asian markets which are down like around 3% in a lot of places. We're seeing like somewhere between 2 to 3% for things like the decay in Japan. We're seeing like 1% down in Shanghai. And you know, this is because a lot of these countries, particularly in Asia use a large quantity of not just oil but also natural gas from the Gulf, which means that these are the countries that are on the front lines of this crisis. Now the Brent crude index, which is your sort of base mark for oil prices is over $100. Now it's staying over $100. Experts are saying it's only going to increase, which yes, no shit, of course it's only going to increase. There's just going to be continued to be more tax. I have seen some reporting saying that, like, worst case scenario, we could see it at $200. $200 is like a nightmare, like the $9 gasoline. Unbelievable, hideous nightmare. I'm not going to weigh in on whether we're going to get to that point before Trump bails out of this war. But it's going to continue to go up as both the actual global oil supply is reduced and also as the capacity for a rebound once if this war ends, is decreased by the continued destruction of oil infrastructure. So, all in all, things continue to be extremely bad. And the outlook for the global economy is very bad. The outlook for the people of Iran is very bad. The outlook for people across the world is not good.

[James Stout]

Thank you, Mia. And for a final segment, I'm going to talk about the ongoing war against Iran, which I guess we're still deciding if it's a war or not. Earlier this week, Donald Trump denied the existence of uncrewed surface vessels, something Garrison and I talked about in the podcast that came out earlier this week. I'm just gonna pay you the clip.

[Mia Wong]

So they put out photo the kamikaze boats. The kamikaze boats don't exist. They're fake. And you can almost see that when you look at them. It looks great. Yeah. Because if they did exist, we'd hit them just like we hit other boats all over the place. But they don't exist. In fact, some of the people saying, where are the pilots? How come nobody's seen this? You know why? Because it's AI generated. It's fake. And I found. I didn't realize this before we started, but Iran is known for a lot of fake news, and they deal with our fake news. And I actually think it's pretty criminal because our media companies, who have no credibility whatsoever, are putting out information that they know.

[James Stout]

Yeah. So uncrewed surface vessels are real?

[Robert Evans]

Yes, they sure are. They've been used massively in Ukraine, among other places.

[James Stout]

Yeah. In fact, Robert, would you like to hear about CENTCOM Commander Admiral Brad Cooper talking about uncrewed surface vessels?

[Robert Evans]

I will always listen to someone named Brad James. You know that about me.

[James Stout]

Okay. Yep. Here you see a photo from March 1 of a naval drone storage facility

[Mia Wong]

located near the Strait of Hormuz.

[James Stout]

So, as you can see, naval drones, uncrewed surface vessels. This is going to be an issue in this conflict and many others going forward. People are going to deny any reality that they don't want to engage with by saying that it is AI.

[Robert Evans]

Yep.

[James Stout]

And that's deeply troubling. So let's talk about what has been happening since we last spoke. Cog island and island in the Persian Gulf that is replete with oil infrastructure and storage facilities. It's the island through which a large amount of Iran's oil exports travel.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. There's a. Basically. So the most of the coast of Iran is too shallow for the huge vessels that are necessary to actually move crude oil. And Kharg island is like a very rare deep water port, basically. So it's kind of the hub.

[James Stout]

Yeah, yeah. It was struck by the United States last week in a raid. The claim that the raid only hit oil infrastructure on Kharg Island. It's very hard to get any independent information from Iran currently because of blackouts, because of the lack of connectivity and because of regime oppression. Right. So we, we just. It's quite possible that what the US Is saying is not true. It's also quite possible what the Iranian state is saying is not true. We can confirm that there were strikes there using all kinds of information. Right. Satellite imagery, open source flight tracking, et cetera. That flight strikes definitely happened. Strikes this week by the IDF also killed Ali Larajani and Basieh unit commander Hola Mareza Soleimani. Shortly after these claims first surfaced, a note was published in Laranjani's handwriting. But it is fairly certain now that he is dead. Laranjani's assassination, I guess, or killing, whatever you want to call it, by the IDF is notable because he's one of the people who would have had the sway in the regime to negotiate with the United States. You could make a case that the IDF killing him is a way for a negotiated piece to be even harder. Right. For this conflict to continue even more. He is also a person who is responsible for massive crimes against the citizens of Iran. Right. Including the violent, murderous clampdown on protests that we saw in January of this year. The United States is also deploying the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit to the Middle east as part of an amphibious response group that includes the USS Tripoli. In fact, it's approximately 2,500 Marines who will be deployed. This is the closest we've seen to any official communication of United States boots on the ground in the region. There's a number of things that a Marine Expeditionary Unit could do. One of them is to do search and rescue or provide evacuations for people on vessels in the Strait of Hormuz that are struck.

[Robert Evans]

Right.

[James Stout]

Another of them is to assault or take. Take islands where Iran may have based its military infrastructure. So to do things that are either not possible or not easy with airstrikes. Another one is to add more air power that's closer to the region. The Tripoli can carry their F35 lightnings. So it could be that another one is for these 2,500 Marines to invade Iran. Right. And to begin a land war, to attempt to. They could also be training Iranian opposition groups. Right. That. That's possible. It wouldn't. It's not like a core Marine Corps mission. That's a Special Forces mission, but there's a number of things they could be doing. There are also a number of more Marine Expeditionary Units and other forces that could be moved to the region. It's interesting to see this just a few months after we saw that national Security Strategy, which focused heavily on the Western Hemisphere here. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. The US Isn't going to involve itself in forever wars in the Middle east anymore.

[Garrison Davis]

I can't believe it.

[James Stout]

Yeah. Shocking.

[Garrison Davis]

What's the status of these Marines right now?

[James Stout]

I believe they are motoring.

[Garrison Davis]

Okay.

[James Stout]

To the region. Right. So the Tripoli Tripoli is a big boat. It's called an amphibious assault boat. But, like, that makes it sound like it's like a Higgins boat. Yeah, yeah. Like, this is not the boat that you see in the D Day movies. In fact, I don't think it can actually. This particular one, if I understand correctly, doesn't carry those kinds of boats. Like. Like, it's not set up for doing, like, a beach landing and amphibious assault. But these Marine Expeditionary Units are like the. Like the first response, I guess. Like, they. They have their own air power. They have helicopters.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

Obviously, they come on a boat. They can move quite quickly. They have the Marines who are capable of doing infantry stuff. So, like, it makes sense that this would be what they would send. Talking of US forces in the region, a US KC135 aircraft crashed over Iraq last week. This is not a combat aircraft. Right. It's not a fighter bomber. But to my knowledge, the only way out of these planes is bailing. And all six crew members on board are confirmed to have died. The United States, CENTCOM says, has flown over 6,000 sorties since OEF began.

[Garrison Davis]

OEF is Operation EPIC Fury.

[James Stout]

Yeah. It's great because Operation Enduring Freedom had the same acronym, and I'm sure that's not a mistake. But, yeah, this is Operation Epic Fury. It's a very high tempo.

[Garrison Davis]

Right.

[James Stout]

And it's a very crowded airspace.

[Garrison Davis]

The 6000 sorties.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah, that's a lot.

[James Stout]

Yeah. Accidents like this will happen, right? Not everybody who dies in warfare dies in combat. And sadly, this means that another six people are coming home from Iraq in coffins, as they have been since before many of our listeners were born. And of course, a lot of people in Iraq who have no quarrel with anyone will also be innocent victims of this. It's. I don't mean by any means to suggest it's only US Service people who are the victims here. I want to talk about the conflict between the United States and Hashd Al Shaabi. The US has carried out a series of airstrikes against PMF groups. So these are popular mobilization forces. Right. Shia groups in Iran fought the the Islamic State. A strike on a house in Baghdad killed the leader of Khatib Hezbollah in Iraq. The strike was confirmed on Sabrine News. Sabrine News is like their telegram outlet. It's like an aligned telegram news outlet for the group. Yeah, for the pmf.

[Garrison Davis]

Okay.

[James Stout]

And they made the statement, quote, we announced you the martyrdom of Hajj Abu Ali Al Askari. In the days since his killing, we have seen many attacks on United States facilities in Iraq. The embassy's C ram. C RAM is counter rocket, artillery and mortar. When you see videos of drones being shot down, you. When you see like a. You hear like a. And then you see a burst of like tracer fire and the drone explodes. It's normally the C ram. So the embassy C ram engaged and has destroyed a drone. But other footage posted online shows an FPV drone. That's a first person view drone. FPV drone. It looks like you're flying as opposed to like you're looking directly down, flying over the embassy compound for almost two minutes. I'm guessing it was a fiber optic controlled drone. Right. So there's, there's no means of like jamming the signal. But this is still a monumental failure for security. Right. At the same time, we saw two drones at least enter and explode in the Victory Base, which is near Baghdad Airport. The videos from those are bizarre. It seems like the drone gets into the base and then it's just like, whoa, what the hell? Like, it didn't seem like they had a clear target. It kind of flies around and like, seems so shocked that it was able to like, penetrate this supposedly impenetrable area.

[Garrison Davis]

How much of these security systems are designed to counter drones versus originally designed to counter older types of like, aerial threats?

[James Stout]

Yeah, drones is a broad category, I guess. So you have like your Shahid drone Which kind of blurs the line between a drone and a missile. Right. It's like a missile that can take a, a more varied flight path.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah, yeah.

[James Stout]

It doesn't just go in the arc like ballistically in those cases there are things, there are things that you can do to shoot them down. Right. You can have your Patriot missiles, you can use your cram, you can shoot them down with various weapon systems, aircraft. If we group FPV and like dropper drones as commercial off the shelf drones. This is the thing.

[Robert Evans]

Right.

[James Stout]

You know the United States has been supporting Ukraine since 20. Well since before 2022, but it's including since 2022 with the full scale invasion. It has not been supporting the revolution in Myanmar. But clearly they have not learned enough from those two conflicts. Right. In terms of the use of these small commercial off the shelf drones. And this is now showing up as a weakness in their, in their defense strategy. Like this is a serious thing for, for the US Government for someone to be. Yeah. And for them to just fly a recon drone over the embassy like you know, they obviously they now know where everything is.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

And for them to publish that footage is like a public, somewhat like humiliation. Right. Of the sort of security infrastructure. So finally I guess a couple more things. Iran is now militarizing the area of Kurdistan between the Iranian and Iraqi states. So that's the Iran Iraq border in Kurdistan. Right. It seems to have issued orders preventing people moving around the region as they habitually would. People move around because they've always moved around. People move around with their animals. Right. Rate the Iranian government appears to have ordered its troops to shoot people who it perceives to be moving around without permission. People often gather near the border with Iraq to access cell signal and the government forces appear to have left their bases in the region in favor of occupying the mountains as well as local educational institutions and sports facilities. Right. So, so that means that people in towns are now at threat and hangar has some, some incidents where people have, have been shot by security forces in that region. Finally then, I want to talk about the resignation of the director of the National Counter Terrorism Center, Joe Kent. Kent resigned this week saying quote Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation. It does seem that that is where a lot of people stopped reading anything Kent said. Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

Or people who did not know who Joe Kent is is Right.

[James Stout]

And don't have access to Google for reasons that I don't understand. Yeah, yeah. Some really incredibly shitty reporting on this. Kent went on in his note to among other things, talk about the death of his wife, which is genuinely tragic. Kent has some disgusting views. Right. Like, but it does seem like the death of his wife was kind of a, I guess, a turning point. Is that fair to say gay? Like, you've looked at Kent a lot, like, in his politics.

[Garrison Davis]

He talks about it a lot.

[James Stout]

Yeah, yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

It's, it's very load bearing for him.

[James Stout]

Yeah. So his just. If people aren't aware. His wife Shannon was a cryptologist and linguist attached to the ISA Intelligence Support Activity, sometimes called Task Force Orange. She was in MIJ in Syria when she was killed by an Islamic State suicide bomber. She was in the buffer zone that was like the buffer zone that Turkey had had forced to exist. He calls that in his resignation statement, quote, a war manufactured by Israel. And he also seems to suggest that Trump was conned by Israel into starting the war with Iran. Far too much reporting has missed this context. So he's essentially using what, what, on the face of it is an anti Semitic, like, saying.

[Garrison Davis]

I mean, yeah, he, he, he, like is, he is, he is like an anti Semitic fascist.

[James Stout]

Yes. His reason for retiring is, like explicitly anti Semitic.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah. This is the same justification that someone like Nick Fuentes uses to oppose the war in Iran. Not out of, you know, principled solidarity.

[James Stout]

These people don't care about civilians dying in Iran.

[Garrison Davis]

No. And it's not actually about any sort of, like, notion of anti imperialism.

[James Stout]

No, it's anti Semitism.

[Garrison Davis]

They believe that this is a Zionist occupied government.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

In the zog meaning of the term, like, there's like literally, Literally, like a total Jewish control over all state operations, not linked to actual lobbying groups that lobby for Israel within the United States, but a conspiratorial framework invoking anti Semitic tropes and stereotypes. This is the sort of environment that Joe Kent comes out of. As we are recording this, Joe Kent has an interview dropping with Tucker Carlson.

[James Stout]

Yes.

[Garrison Davis]

Where he's going to expound on this.

[Robert Evans]

Oh, good.

[Garrison Davis]

Carlson has similarly voiced these sorts of objections based on. If any intelligent person, you know, reads into it based on anti Semitism, not actually based on, again, principled solidarity with oppressed peoples or anti imperialism.

[James Stout]

Yeah. And I think if you're reading news sources that are like, oh, wow, Trump is beginning to lose people and they haven't mentioned any of this. Really. Consider if you want to be reading those news sources, I'll just say that, I guess Caroline Levitt responded with a post on X saying, quote, the Commander in Chief determines what does and does not constitute a threat because he is the only One constitutionally empowered to do so. And because the American people went to the ballot box and entrusted him and him alone to make such final judgments. That is a remarkable statement for those of us who lived through the whole Iraq has WMDs era.

[Garrison Davis]

But the United States has long history of involvement in the Middle east and the extent to which we are partnering with Israel is often in support of our other objectives in the Middle east and our ability to use Israel as like a proxy state. That's why the United States government has such a large interest in Israel is we have other. Other reasons for wanting to be active and control parts of the region or influence the region.

[James Stout]

Yeah. Often the priorities of Israel, not always. Right. Like in the first time the United States invaded the Persian Gulf. That often. And they are fighting alongside each other because they have similar interests, not because of any nefarious Jewish conspiracy. Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Yep.

[Garrison Davis]

Which very frustrating that that continues to be something that needs to be reiterated.

[James Stout]

Yeah. Even on the left. But it does.

[Robert Evans]

And the first time I started seeing people who had previously been doing other campus shit start using the phrase zog, I was like, okay, we've come full circle. Everything's where it all it was always going to be. Be beautiful.

[Garrison Davis]

The normalization of ZOG and like goy across parts of the online left is

[Robert Evans]

from Anna Kasparian of the New Turks, the Young Turks, whatever the fuck they tyt.

[Garrison Davis]

They call themselves the Young Turks Fall.

[James Stout]

Yeah, well, yeah, let's be honest. Choosing that name didn't predispose them to be anti genocide.

[Robert Evans]

She has always been like, she's sucked for a while. But just seeing her use the phrase the word goy like that was like, whoa.

[James Stout]

Oh, wow. Yeah, I haven't seen that.

[Robert Evans]

Okay.

[James Stout]

I used to have to go to

[Robert Evans]

Telegram to see people posted like that.

[James Stout]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's sort of shit you would hear like ham radio. Like it's. It's like old school racism. Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

No, there, there is. There is this interesting emergence of like a red brown alliance specifically targeting like Israel or people's notions of Israel's global influence.

[James Stout]

Yeah. Yeah. Not great. Not great stuff at all.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. So we should just say since this is gonna be one of the big news stories this week and coming into next week, the New York Times has published an article with very extensive sourcing, including from people very close to Assessor Chavez, who reported that he sexually assaulted, raped, molested and abused a mix of girls and women, including a lot of girls. Preteen girls. Started grooming them as young as 8 or 9 in some cases there's evidence of molestation of girls as young as like 12, 13. And then Dolores Huerta, who was his very famously one of his organizing partners for quite a long time came out and said that he sexually assaulted her on at least raped her on at least two occasions, which led to pregnancies. So that is all coming out now and it's all pretty horrific. But yeah, I like. There's not much more to say. You can read the article.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

And should.

[James Stout]

Yeah. We'll link to in the show notes. If you'd like to email us, you can send a message to coolzonetipson Me.

[Garrison Davis]

That's for tips. That's for news gathering tips.

[James Stout]

Yes, it is for. It is not for you to pitch your boss to come on Robert's podcast. It is not for you to tell us about your. Your new book. It is not for you to share how much you enjoy a podcast. That's very sweet. If you want to send that kind of stuff, you can do it to cool zone media. Iheartmedia.com if you as a public relations company send a large number of emails to our tips list, I will block you.

[Robert Evans]

I will find you.

[James Stout]

Yeah, I'm. Believe me, buddy, we're gonna. If people keep trying this shit, we're gonna have a list and we're gonna read it at the end of every. And I will give them your email address.

[Robert Evans]

I will do anti advertising. I will accuse your boss that you want to go on my podcast of various crimes. And thanks to my understanding of libel laws in the United States, I should be fine.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Or is that slander? I always forget.

[James Stout]

Yeah, I don't know. We'll.

[Robert Evans]

I'll do both. It'll be fine.

[James Stout]

Yeah, we'll write it, we'll say it, we'll post it. We.

[Garrison Davis]

We. We reported the news.

[James Stout]

We reported the news.

[Robert Evans]

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

[Dana Elkhorn]

It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, Visit our website coolzonemedia.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can now find sources for It Could Happen here listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening. This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.