True Anon Truth Feed - Episode 172: NOlympics 2 Aired: 2021-08-02 Duration: 01:00:28 === Fair Trade and Wellness (03:45) === [00:00:04] You know what's a name you don't hear a lot of anymore? [00:00:06] Hortense. [00:00:08] Close. [00:00:10] What is it? [00:00:10] And you know what? [00:00:11] True. [00:00:12] You don't hear that very often. [00:00:13] I never hear that. [00:00:14] I was going to say herb. [00:00:15] Herb. [00:00:16] Yeah, you don't mean a lot of herbs. [00:00:17] You don't mean a lot of herbs. [00:00:19] Well, I think, I think a multifaceted name for that. [00:00:23] Oh, Herbie's classic. [00:00:24] Well, it's the diminutive, I feel like. [00:00:26] I don't know if that makes sense, but it does sound like the diminutive. [00:00:29] More and more people are naming their kids that version of a name that I'm not going to, you know, oh, 100. [00:00:34] Yeah. [00:00:34] They're just, it's like a shortcut straight through. [00:00:37] Baby doll, we are, we cannot get into what people are naming their kids these days. [00:00:40] No, no, I'm just saying they're going straight for the nickname. [00:00:44] I've had my real name. [00:00:46] This is my daughter, Sumatra. [00:00:48] I don't even want to. [00:00:49] No one is naming their kids Sumatra. [00:00:50] I mean, that's not after the country. [00:00:52] It's after the coffee. [00:00:53] Yeah. [00:00:54] No, no, that's like a 90s. [00:00:55] Oh, yeah, we work in Fair Trade Coffee. [00:00:57] Remember when everyone cared about Fair Trade? [00:00:59] Fair trade's fake. [00:01:00] I don't want, what am I going to do? [00:01:01] No, I'm trying to rip you off. [00:01:03] Listeners, if I ever message you and I'm like, hey, can I trade you something for this? [00:01:09] I'm trying to rip you off. [00:01:11] I want to get one. [00:01:12] Fair trade is the biggest crock of shit I've ever heard. [00:01:15] I think that's how Fair Trade works. [00:01:17] Because Fair Trade is just like, oh, like, all right, I'll give you. [00:01:20] Well, it's so stupid. [00:01:21] Cause like, okay, you get 50 of this for 50 of that. [00:01:24] That's stupid. [00:01:25] I'm trying to give you 49 of something for 60 of something of yours. [00:01:29] No, this isn't how any of that works. [00:01:31] I do, you know, one thing I do like about how fair with fair trade, I love a like fake seal of approval. [00:01:38] It's like when they certified things organic. [00:01:40] Oh, this is fake. [00:01:41] Or kosher. [00:01:42] Yeah, kosher's fake too. [00:01:43] Well, so I was thinking, all right, check this out. [00:01:47] I was talking to a couple of the guys the other day about, first of all, the other, the idea that they had, which I really appreciate, is a long COVID clinic, like a crystal healing clinic, which you can make a lot of money at. [00:01:57] My idea is to start. [00:02:00] Remember bone broth? [00:02:01] Like how people were like, remember, that's still going on, baby. [00:02:05] Never had it. [00:02:06] I mean, it's just, I was never unclear whether that was just regular broth. [00:02:09] Yeah. [00:02:10] Well, it's my idea. [00:02:13] Check this out, baby. [00:02:14] We're selling well water. [00:02:17] Well water. [00:02:18] Tell me. [00:02:18] How come all of your ideas sound extremely libertarian? [00:02:21] Tell me. [00:02:22] No, no, no, no. [00:02:23] Well, okay. [00:02:24] In that, all right, my neighbors are walking by, but which is fine with it being the recording. [00:02:28] I just don't want them to hear this idea. [00:02:31] You're telling me that like 90% of urban type people, like, you know, fucking like people who like podcasts and shit. [00:02:42] Yeah, exactly. [00:02:43] But it's the healthies you're after. [00:02:45] Yes. [00:02:46] So you're telling me at fucking goddamn fancy market in whatever town they're in, they're walking by. [00:02:52] There's a corner stand that's just glass bottles that just say well water on them. [00:02:58] And then maybe like, I know all natural. [00:03:00] It's not better branding. [00:03:01] Yeah. [00:03:02] No, well water social. [00:03:02] Well water can kill you. [00:03:04] Yeah, but people will think what wellness? [00:03:07] Like, here's the deal. [00:03:08] People are think, yeah, I see Young Chops is not in his head yet. [00:03:12] People will see well of that and they'll be like, oh, wellness. [00:03:15] Wellness actually just fucking insane. [00:03:20] I'm the prime customer, and I'm telling you, I reject- No, you are, because you're a- No, no. [00:03:25] Because I'm a what? [00:03:26] I'm not going to finish that, but that's why you're not the prime customer. [00:03:29] Because I'm a what? [00:03:30] I'm not going to say what you are, but you're not the prime. [00:03:34] Fine. [00:03:34] You're the 10% that I'm not talking about. [00:03:36] You'd be like, oh, well water has worms in it, which yes, it does. [00:03:40] But I am, I'm telling. [00:03:42] Okay, so you don't want to invest in this? [00:03:44] Absolutely not. [00:03:46] You don't want to invest in this. [00:03:47] Young Chopson, do you want to invest in this? === Why Discus Throwers Matter (15:26) === [00:03:49] Listeners, send. [00:03:51] I will put my personal PayPal link in the text of the what do you call it? [00:03:57] Yes, I will. [00:03:58] I do that every time, actually. [00:03:59] It's just in, I do it in white. [00:04:00] So you have to do that. [00:04:01] Hex code. [00:04:02] I made, yeah, an hex code. [00:04:05] If you want to invest in my well water company, I'm thinking of buying a farm outside of outside of Fresno and just fucking digging the shit out of that land and getting some water up there, selling that shit to Erewhon. [00:04:17] I'm going to be a billionaire. [00:04:42] Brace, are you watching the Olympics? [00:04:44] Yeah, I've been so enthralled. [00:04:47] I watched some of it. [00:04:49] Although, you know what? [00:04:50] Okay. [00:04:50] What? [00:04:51] Oh, great. [00:04:52] Real quick. [00:04:53] Grandma Moment. [00:04:54] The doubt it's going to be real quick, but let's get on with it. [00:04:57] It's really hard to watch the Olympics. [00:05:00] This is what I need. [00:05:01] This is all I need. [00:05:02] I need someone online where it's like, hey, this is the sports that we're showing. [00:05:07] This is the time that they're on on the channel they're on. [00:05:10] Just show that to me. [00:05:11] That's impossible to figure out. [00:05:13] Yeah, you can't even tell when anything's on. [00:05:15] What have you watched so far? [00:05:17] Unfortunately, the only thing I've been able to catch has been like extreme canoeing. [00:05:26] I don't think that's what it's called, but that's what it looks like. [00:05:28] The canoe is in the, is in the sport. [00:05:30] It could just be called canoeing. [00:05:32] I don't know. [00:05:32] But they're like on, it's almost like a rapids type course that they then have to kind of like loop-de-loop through. [00:05:39] Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:05:40] It's a race, I assume. [00:05:42] No, it's not a race. [00:05:43] Well, it's a race, yeah, individually. [00:05:45] Yeah. [00:05:45] But together. [00:05:47] It was pretty weird. [00:05:49] It was like just like kind of like a lazy river sped up with a guy in a canoe kind of just like an Olympics for it. [00:05:58] I don't know. [00:05:58] This is what I'm saying. [00:05:59] And like, you know, it's like, there's all these like, quote, sports that people do. [00:06:05] Like, and then, but nobody, like, if you tell, if I walk up to any given person on the street right now and I'm like, do you want to go watch some guys canoe with me? [00:06:15] They will mace me. [00:06:16] Yeah. [00:06:18] They will blow into a whistle. [00:06:19] They'll be like, get the fuck away from me. [00:06:22] Why would you ever say that to me? [00:06:23] But then suddenly, every four years, the goddamn, the big wig network executives go into your home and are like, hey, do you want to watch canoeing with me? [00:06:33] And people are like, yeah, I guess I will. [00:06:35] It's stupid. [00:06:36] The other thing I saw was three on three basketball, which absolutely should not be an Olympic sport. [00:06:42] You can't three on three, like half-court basketball. [00:06:46] Are you out of your mind? [00:06:47] What is that? [00:06:48] Come on. [00:06:49] I'll be honest. [00:06:49] Liz sent me a lot of text messages about that earlier. [00:06:52] It was offensive. [00:06:54] A fuselade of fusillade, but a lot of text messages about it. [00:06:58] Yeah. [00:06:59] I mean, listen, the deal with the deal with these fucking these sports are there should be, we've talked extensively about this in the past week about sort of our views of the Olympics. [00:07:09] I have a Yeah, if we were world dictator, this is how it would be. [00:07:12] When the regime is in place, this is what's going to happen. [00:07:16] All right. [00:07:16] First of all, Olympics is only racing. [00:07:19] And now, don't get me wrong. [00:07:21] All of the athletes from these. [00:07:23] So yes, yes. [00:07:24] No, no, no, no. [00:07:24] I'm not behind this. [00:07:25] No, but it doesn't matter. [00:07:27] No, because we need like gymnastic super sport. [00:07:29] Let me tell you. [00:07:30] Let me tell you what's going to happen. [00:07:32] So all of the athletes from these other sports are going to participate. [00:07:37] So like you got your discus thrower. [00:07:38] We can put discus in there too. [00:07:40] So you got your, you know, you got your basketball players, you got your canoeers, you got your, you know, fucking curlers, all these people, but they don't play the sport that they've been training for. [00:07:49] They just have to race each other. [00:07:50] No, I don't like this. [00:07:52] Oh, no. [00:07:52] Yeah. [00:07:53] It's really good. [00:07:54] No, everyone gets their own little sport. [00:07:55] That's fine. [00:07:56] But no faco sports. [00:07:59] First of all, only everyone. [00:08:00] Let's do ancient real games. [00:08:03] New. [00:08:03] So, all right. [00:08:04] I'm Greeks. [00:08:06] Would you say they're Greek-style games? [00:08:09] Yeah, Greek-style games in one place every year, except, well, you know, every four years. [00:08:14] Well, we talked about this too: is that clearly the Olympics should just permanently be in Greece. [00:08:19] Yes. [00:08:20] Or in a location, you know, if you need a northern location for the winter games and a southern location or whatever. [00:08:27] I don't know, depending on the season. [00:08:28] Yeah, yeah. [00:08:28] I mean, I'm sure there's some snow in Greece somewhere. [00:08:31] You know, do it that way. [00:08:32] But, you know, single place games always. [00:08:36] Yeah. [00:08:36] Dunza. [00:08:37] That's it. [00:08:37] That's it. [00:08:38] You just build it one time. [00:08:39] Yeah. [00:08:40] That's nothing else. [00:08:41] Never again. [00:08:43] But they'll never do that. [00:08:44] They should also, they should let you, if you really want to do a sport, they should let you do it too. [00:08:50] Like, because sometimes I watch these people. [00:08:52] I'm like, dude, I could, like, I could do discus. [00:08:56] You know what I mean? [00:08:57] Like, what the fuck? [00:08:57] Are you fucking kidding me? [00:08:58] I couldn't. [00:08:59] You could not discus for the to save your life. [00:09:02] You hate me, dude. [00:09:05] You first, I love you, but you cannot discuss. [00:09:08] I hate you because you're mean to me. [00:09:11] I could do discus. [00:09:12] Why couldn't I do discus? [00:09:13] I'll throw something right now. [00:09:14] No, you can't just throw. [00:09:15] That's not discusing isn't just throwing. [00:09:17] It's not called throwing. [00:09:19] All the way across the room. [00:09:20] Literally, I couldn't go any further. [00:09:23] Yes, it is. [00:09:23] It's hurling. [00:09:24] I'm sorry, which is what I do whenever I see you fucking be mean to me. [00:09:29] Hello, everyone. [00:09:30] I'm Liz. [00:09:31] My name is I'm nervous. [00:09:39] I'm nervous. [00:09:41] I'm dropping out. [00:09:42] Just kidding. [00:09:42] I'm Brace. [00:09:43] We're joined by producer Young Chomsky, who has been banned for doping. [00:09:51] Banned from the podcast for doping. [00:09:53] Hey, that's the other thing. [00:09:55] What? [00:09:55] Doping should be legal. [00:09:57] Don't get me started. [00:09:59] Go on. [00:10:00] What is it? [00:10:01] What's up with the whole thing with the Russians is bullshit. [00:10:06] Yeah, they're not white. [00:10:07] No, I just mean the fact that they have to like that this whole thing about the doping scandal with the Russians and they can't like play the Russian anthem or like win under the flag. [00:10:17] And it's this like censored like Russian Olympic committee that they have to play under is so stupid. [00:10:22] The politics of this whole thing are so stupid. [00:10:25] It's ridiculous because first of all, everybody is doping. [00:10:29] Everybody is. [00:10:30] That's this is well the question. [00:10:32] Well, look, the line of what is doping and what isn't doping is, you know, a social construct. [00:10:38] I mean, it's like, you know, that's a political choice. [00:10:41] Yeah. [00:10:42] Well, I have made the political choice to dope several times in my life, and nobody ever gets mad at me. [00:10:46] The thing is, though, I'm saying this is, this is, this is, this is the same thing with like Barry Bonds. [00:10:52] When people were like, oh, man, get that man in the Hall of Fame. [00:10:55] That's something that I stand for. [00:10:56] Exactly. [00:10:57] You know, Barry Bonds. [00:10:58] That's my populist stance. [00:11:00] 100%. [00:11:01] Barry Bonds was a doper. [00:11:02] So were all these other fucking jackasses. [00:11:05] They were. [00:11:05] They were all fucking dope. [00:11:06] They were. [00:11:07] He just did it better than you, motherfucker. [00:11:09] Yeah, he was the best doper. [00:11:11] He's, well, I, okay. [00:11:13] Yeah. [00:11:14] Yes, he was. [00:11:15] He was baseball's best doper if we call him like that. [00:11:18] And you know what? [00:11:18] I loved watching those home runs when I was a kid. [00:11:21] Incredible. [00:11:22] Yeah. [00:11:22] Hometown hero. [00:11:23] Giants. [00:11:24] You're going to win the World Series this year. [00:11:26] Yeah, is that like... [00:11:28] Just throwing it out there. [00:11:30] We're sponsored by Bet DBI. [00:11:32] This is a sports podcast. [00:11:35] Yeah. [00:11:35] Oh, yeah. [00:11:36] People got mad at us for talking about music last week. [00:11:39] Which, by the way, let me address. [00:11:41] Let me let's let okay. [00:11:45] We talk real here. [00:11:46] Yes. [00:11:47] One thing. [00:11:47] First of all, we're here having some laughs. [00:11:51] We're here having some goofs. [00:11:53] It's Brace and Liz talking shit, saying things. [00:11:56] People are suddenly like, oh my God, I can't believe Liz thinks this about music. [00:12:00] I can't believe Brace believes that. [00:12:02] You don't know what I think. [00:12:03] No. [00:12:04] You don't know anything. [00:12:05] No. [00:12:08] This is the thing. [00:12:09] People are like, what? [00:12:11] Oh, Brace is. [00:12:14] How could they say this? [00:12:15] Listen, I'll tell you this. [00:12:18] I love, I'm not going to listen to your little bright eyes or your music like that. [00:12:23] I love the band Discharge. [00:12:27] Fantastic rock band. [00:12:29] And I don't care if I get pilloried by all these people, you know, blah, blah, blah, tap, tip, tap in away. [00:12:35] I love rock and roll. [00:12:36] You can't ever, you'll never change that about me. [00:12:39] Liz loves Electro Clash. [00:12:41] That's not true. [00:12:42] Liz, I don't know if you guys remember the swing revival, but Liz was one of the biggest hepcats in the entire Western seaboard right then. [00:12:50] Yeah, it's never, if you ever have any comment about our musical tastes or anything like that, I invite you to actually go into maybe your car, turn on the stereo. [00:13:01] No. [00:13:02] Also turn on the gas. [00:13:04] No, Turn down the garage. [00:13:06] Okay. [00:13:06] So, but you know, you know what I'm getting at here. [00:13:09] It's none of your business. [00:13:10] We're the kings of punk. [00:13:12] On that note, imagine if I just signed the podcast off. [00:13:16] I just realized that that's usually how I say that. [00:13:19] Yeah. [00:13:20] To intro the outro. [00:13:21] Keep running. [00:13:22] I'm not doing that. [00:13:23] Oh, no, we're good. [00:13:24] You got it. [00:13:24] No. [00:13:24] 10-minute podcast. [00:13:25] No, we've got more to the show. [00:13:27] I promise. [00:13:28] More to the show. [00:13:28] We are actually talking about the Olympics today. [00:13:31] Well, kind of the lack of them, but yeah, yeah. [00:13:33] Well, no, we're talking about the presence of them. [00:13:35] But yeah, we are interviewing a couple of people from No Olympics because of my me and Liz hate sports ball. [00:13:45] And so we want to see it banned from everywhere. [00:13:49] No, we're talking to a couple of people who really fucking hate the Olympics. [00:13:52] And let's play it now. [00:14:09] Hello, listeners. [00:14:10] This is my 15th time trying to do this. [00:14:12] I see, I should actually just do it again, but I'm not going. [00:14:15] I'm going to keep going. [00:14:16] This is my 15th time trying to do this intro. [00:14:18] I can't think of any sports that are in the Olympics. [00:14:20] I couldn't do a pithy intro. [00:14:23] This is us at our rawest, listeners, unable to come up with. [00:14:27] I thought crimping was a sport earlier, but I think I'm thinking of curling. [00:14:30] Or crumping. [00:14:31] Crumping. [00:14:32] Is that a sport too? [00:14:34] No. [00:14:34] Okay. [00:14:35] Well, my bad. [00:14:36] All right, assholes. [00:14:38] We have with us today Ann and Johnny from No Olympics Los Angeles. [00:14:43] Johnny is a returning guest from DOS years ago. [00:14:47] And Ann is, this is her first time on the show. [00:14:51] Welcome to you. [00:14:54] And of course, we have Richard Jewell staring over us, the patron saint of the Olympics. [00:14:58] How are you guys doing? [00:15:00] I think we're doing pretty good. [00:15:02] It's hot as hell outside, but you know. [00:15:05] Just like in Tokyo. [00:15:06] Just like in Tokyo. [00:15:07] It's disgusting here in LA. [00:15:09] A lot of bleak shit happened this week on the ground and the world is dying. [00:15:15] But we're hanging in there. [00:15:16] It's Friday. [00:15:18] We had a hard week, but we went to the beach yesterday. [00:15:21] We saw some cool sea bugs. [00:15:23] Oh, all right. [00:15:24] Yeah. [00:15:24] Yeah. [00:15:25] It justified the ridiculous cost of living that we've, you know, agreed to here. [00:15:30] So you guys fucking hate the Olympics. [00:15:33] Right? [00:15:33] Yes. [00:15:33] Yeah. [00:15:34] Correct. [00:15:34] Correct. [00:15:35] That's fair to say. [00:15:36] There's so many reasons. [00:15:37] It's kind of exhausting. [00:15:38] So many reasons. [00:15:39] We don't hate sports. [00:15:41] I feel like that's kind of like the standard caveat that we have to come in with is that we're not anti-sports. [00:15:46] We're anti-global capital. [00:15:49] We're anti-monopolies. [00:15:52] We're anti-displacement. [00:15:53] We're anti-gentrification. [00:15:54] We're anti-police militarization. [00:15:57] And, you know, I would say the Olympics are probably themselves more anti-sports and anti-athlete than we are. [00:16:04] For sure. [00:16:04] And they're not anti-fun. [00:16:06] We get that a lot. [00:16:06] Some of us like to have fun. [00:16:08] Some of us like to refrain from that. [00:16:10] But yeah. [00:16:11] Some of us are on the fence about fun. [00:16:12] Yeah, of course. [00:16:13] But yeah, the unifying factor, I think, is everyone's kind of anti-gentrification on the abolitionist tip, different leftist groups in our coalition, you know, and, you know, dealing with all the issues, unfortunately, which I'm sure we'll get into. [00:16:25] It just, and I think more and more people are getting aware of is just how deeply the Olympics tendrils get into your city, get into your country from areas you don't even expect, you know, or we're even surprised by in this cycle of just where it's hitting and how it's kind of falling apart. [00:16:45] Yeah, I was going to say all those issues you mentioned, some people might say, hey, what does that have to do with the Olympics? [00:16:51] But in fact, the Olympics has to do with all those things. [00:16:54] Yeah, basically, I mean, so the way that we've kind of come to understand the Olympics, both through, you know, talking to folks in other cities that have hosted the Olympics, talking to folks in LA who are present for the 84 Games, and then now experiencing for the last few years, being in a city that is preparing to host the Olympics is that's actually all the Olympics is about is about basically, you know, it's funny. [00:17:19] I was revisiting the host city candidature questionnaire and statement that LA had to prepare. [00:17:26] This was the one that was initially not successful when they like lost out on the first round to Boston. [00:17:31] But they're all basically the same. [00:17:32] Like I used to work in marketing for real estate developers and these brochures and these the bid books just sort of remind me of they have that sort of like glossy vapor wave, you know, imagery and these like renderings of buildings and the cities that are either they have no people in them or they kind of have these like faceless white people in them. [00:17:52] And that's kind of, and, you know, the Olympics are really all about how do we, how do we sort of put a timeline to transforming the city so that it, it matches the vision in this book, where it's just really like a bunch of empty buildings that can be sold to, you know, global real estate speculators. [00:18:12] And that takes, you know, in order to get there, that involves displacing people. [00:18:17] That involves moving all signs of visible poverty. [00:18:20] That involves getting rid of political dissent. [00:18:22] That involves creating like a hyper-militarized police force. [00:18:26] Relaxing all public space. [00:18:28] Yeah. [00:18:28] Yeah. [00:18:28] No more public space, like privatizing everything. [00:18:31] It also reminds me of, I don't, you know, if anyone's familiar with RoboCop 3, when they have all those like, those commercials for Delta City in the sequels, it's kind of like that vision of a city that's like, that's devoid of humanity. [00:18:44] That's just basically like completely privatized. [00:18:47] So like some kind of mothra emerging from the ocean and descending upon the innocent and unawares people of Japan, the Olympics have not seemed to have gone down well with the Japanese people. [00:19:02] You know, this is, they're currently happening at this moment. [00:19:05] I have, I have been watching with rapt attention 16, 20 hours a day, just live stream several monitors at once, like a video game streamer, just taking it all in. === Facial Recognition Protests (06:36) === [00:19:16] Are you using the Peacock app or NBC Sports? [00:19:19] Well, so I'm actually like, just like as a journalistic thing, like I actually am a pretty heavy investor in Peacock. [00:19:24] And so like we do use that, but I don't say that because of that. [00:19:27] Yeah, it's Peacock. [00:19:28] Liz named it. [00:19:31] But, you know, the Japanese people seem fairly unhappy with this. [00:19:36] I was reading statistics earlier, which I hate to do, but I was doing it. [00:19:40] It said something between like 79 and 83% of people polled in Japan do not want the Olympics happening for a variety of reasons. [00:19:49] Some people are like, it shouldn't happen in Japan at all or it shouldn't happen right now, but they are all united in saying that it should not, there should be no Olympics right now. [00:19:58] And they seem to, there seem to be pretty big protests there and a lot of discontent. [00:20:03] These stadiums are empty, which is just astounding to see. [00:20:08] I mean, and also, but you guys visited Japan, I think back in 2019. [00:20:17] So can you tell us a little about that? [00:20:19] Yeah, so we were there almost exactly two years ago. [00:20:23] Since we formed our campaign, I should say that, you know, when we started, we started under the sort of auspices and with the blessing of folks in New York and Chicago and Boston who had successfully kicked the bids out of their city, which is how we got stuck with it. [00:20:39] And that was just such a big central component of our organizing was this idea that this is not just about kicking it out of LA. [00:20:47] This is about kind of stopping this destruction everywhere. [00:20:51] And not just in a sort of like Pollyanna-ish, like, you know, we want to be nice to everybody. [00:20:56] It's also like we recognize the folks that we're up against are, they're organizing transnationally. [00:21:01] If we want to be effective, it's not going to actually help us in the long run if they're just being batted around from city to city. [00:21:08] So we started organizing with and talking to folks in other cities that had either already received the right to host or were kind of talking about it. [00:21:17] So that included Tokyo, folks in Paris, folks in Seoul and Pyeongchang in Korea, folks in Indonesia, folks in Italy. [00:21:26] You know, pretty, there were already a number of folks who had come to LA from Rio, who joined the Olympics pretty early on because they had seen and experienced firsthand the devastation that the games brought and the World Cup and the Pan Am Games. [00:21:42] And we should mention too, it's like these all kind of travel in a circus, all of these like, you know, mega sports events. [00:21:49] And so anyway, so we started talking to Hunger and Nokai in particular, who are the comrades in Tokyo, who are one of the main forces behind the opposition to the Tokyo Games and have been for many, many years. [00:22:02] And I can't remember exactly how or when it came up, but at one point we were talking about, you know, they were talking about doing some big actions around the one year to go event and kind of like press events that the IOC was going to have in Tokyo in July 2019. [00:22:19] And we started talking about like, what if we went out there? [00:22:22] And so then we, with members of these other groups in these other cities and countries, basically organized the first big transnational summit of anti-Olympics organizers. [00:22:33] There were folks from all of those cities. [00:22:34] Oh, I forgot to mention London. [00:22:36] So all the cities I mentioned earlier, plus London, plus a few others that are, oh, from Nagano, and got to learn from each other, got to hear about what we were experiencing in each of our cities in relation to the Olympics specifically, but then also kind of like how things looked just, you know, outside of the Olympics around gentrification, police militarization, you know, climate collapse. [00:23:03] And because something that I should also emphasize is like, we don't believe the Olympics cause these specific issues. [00:23:09] They're kind of like accelerants. [00:23:10] They're fuel on top of the fire. [00:23:12] They create just a very, you know, specific pretext for the people who are already pushing this sort of agenda to, you know, to justify it, to create a sort of a state of exception. [00:23:25] But instead of like a terrorist event, it's like, oh, we're going to have this huge party. [00:23:30] And so we have to do all these things that normally maybe like people wouldn't accept. [00:23:34] And so we got to see a lot of that firsthand, like happening on a day-to-day basis in Tokyo, seeing a lot of the security infrastructure that was being implemented. [00:23:42] They were doing all of these anti-riot drills in Tokyo. [00:23:47] They were sort of implementing a lot of like facial recognition surveillance. [00:23:51] Yeah, one of our, one of our colleagues, he wrote his like thesis on policy in Japan that changed in the last decade or RE surveillance and facial recognition and all that stuff. [00:24:02] And we're starting to see those things happen in LA right now. [00:24:04] Yeah. [00:24:05] And we're hearing like Casey Wasserman, who's the chair of the LA 28 organizing committee, is selling facial recognition as this like easy thing as, you know, your face will be your ticket for the LA 28 games. [00:24:18] As if I, I, the idea of that is always just so weird to me, like as if just pulling out a like credit card and paying for something isn't easy for someone like him. [00:24:27] Especially just like, because so many people get like lip fillers and shit here. [00:24:30] Like, what if their face changes drastically between the time they buy the ticket and the time they go into the game? [00:24:35] Loki, that's how you get around facial recognition. [00:24:38] You just get like total, you know, facial reconstruction. [00:24:42] Well, that's going to be much more. [00:24:45] Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:24:46] And we also, and we know too, obviously, the big thing is particularly when we think about that in the context of LA and the context of somewhere like SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, which is one of the main sites for the LA 28 Olympics or the proposed sites, is like, that's a predominantly black and Latinx neighborhood. [00:25:02] And what is it going to mean to install like a billion dollars worth of facial recognition security in a rapidly gentrifying like poor community of color? [00:25:10] Well, yeah, I mean, that's, that, that seems to be like, I mean, I remember that happened with London heavily as like just like working class neighborhoods sort of getting demolished and putting these stadiums that like never get used again. [00:25:21] That's that's a thing. [00:25:22] Like, I'll be honest with you, as a Jewish person, I am appalled by the way that these people treat these stadiums and they're useless. [00:25:31] Just I have a lot of financial ideas that I could give the IOC, but I will not for free on this podcast. [00:25:36] Well, here's the thing. [00:25:37] It's like the with the stadiums, I always, it's, um, you know, there's this idea of like they're going to waste, but it's, they're only going to waste if you accept the foundation, like the idea that the purpose is to host sporting venues. [00:25:50] The purpose of them is to get rid of poor people. === Fukushima's Resilient Recovery Narrative (16:03) === [00:25:53] And they're very effective at that. [00:25:55] And yeah, and to change the land value, to change the composition of a neighborhood. [00:25:59] It's like, that is the purpose. [00:26:00] And so that was one of the things. [00:26:02] I don't know if this comes up sometimes. [00:26:05] And I feel like I just saw a headline about it, you know, like Hudson Yards in New York that had like monstrosity. [00:26:10] That's a small thing. [00:26:11] That, yeah, that people are, you know, jumping off of all the time now. [00:26:14] And they refuse to put up any barriers. [00:26:18] But that is connected to the New York Olympic bid because when Bloomberg was, you know, part of the, was like pushing for the Olympics in New York, part of the, you know, the bid committee said, like, oh, we can't have a competitive build unless we're able to, you know, build new infrastructure, either permanent or temporary by the Hudson River. [00:26:38] Because there have, you know, there have been these restrictions on what can get built. [00:26:41] And so they changed those restrictions and then they dropped the bid when it became unpopular, but they never got rid of that exception. [00:26:48] And so it's like, that's always the purpose. [00:26:51] The purpose is just to sort of of these stadiums is really just to contextualize development as something that's necessary and to contextualize the displacement of poor people as something that's necessary and not actually. [00:27:03] So it's like, you know, there's always this sort of like. pernicious myth floating around that Olympic organizers are sloppy or they're just bad at their jobs, but they're doing a great job of like what they're trying to do, which is just permanently change the composition of cities so that it's more hospitable to development and tourism. [00:27:22] Well, that's, you know, and you really see that particularly well in the Japanese case because of the kind of development transformation that they're pushing around Fukushima. [00:27:32] I mean, that was really the big push. [00:27:34] And the, you know, these games were kind of, you know, they're sort of like billed or branded as the kind of like Japan's like recovery Olympics, which is a very weird thing to say. [00:27:44] That's situate, that's like situated around both Fukushima and the tsunami, but also like, I mean, you know, Japan's like 10 year long kind of like economic decline or stagnation and them kind of getting out of that. [00:27:58] And there being a really big kind of national IP push, which I think is a really interesting aspect of the Olympics that gets kind of unremarked upon a little bit. [00:28:08] But so, you know, a lot of there, you know, there's been a huge kind of push to redevelop Fukushima in the wake of that disaster. [00:28:20] Very unclear if it's hospitable to any of that kind of development, if that's even possible, what that the kind of cleanup that's been happening there, like how far it's really gone. [00:28:32] But that's really been a big, big push for these, for these games. [00:28:37] Yeah, absolutely. [00:28:38] And when we were in Japan, a handful of our comrades had the opportunity to go to Fukushima in person and see it. [00:28:46] And the, you know, what we heard back and saw in the footage and the, you know, the stories of the people who were there is like, it is absolutely not recovered. [00:28:56] And one thing, and, you know, people had asked us too at certain points, like, why, why make this big effort to go out to Tokyo? [00:29:04] And, you know, there are just certain things that like being there in person. [00:29:07] And I feel like actually in some ways, after a year of being on Zoom, people maybe appreciate being in person more than oh my God. [00:29:16] You also, there's no way to actually understand the like textures and contours of a place and the people that live in the context of that place without actually being there. [00:29:26] I mean, you just, any kind of like digital interaction is pales in comparison on like what you can, you're able to experience, particularly in a political context. [00:29:37] You know, definitely being together in person, you get to, I mean, the types of relationships that you can like form, the type of trust you can build. [00:29:46] And then, yeah, like you were saying, the sort of details that you can pick up on are that are really important. [00:29:52] Also, also because I think there are certain things that living in a city you take for granted. [00:29:55] So, when you're reporting them secondhand, there might be things that you wouldn't articulate. [00:30:01] And so, for us, being in Tokyo, there were certain things that we got to hear or see that people would, either we would witness or people would mention them offhand, you know, like in an offhanded way, that actually wound up being really important. [00:30:14] And for me, one of those things was hearing so the Fukushima nuclear disaster happened in 2011. [00:30:21] Someone mentioned at one of the events that we were at that the funding, the like recovery funding was set to expire in 2021. [00:30:29] And so, from that point, I was like, oh, yeah, it seems like it would be really convenient to hold a global spectacle announcing that Fukushima had recovered at the same exact time that all of the relief funds for the victims were set to expire and they might want to ask for more, particularly those people who are still displaced, of which there are tens of thousands of people who are still displaced. [00:30:51] There's an increasing number of kids who are being diagnosed with thyroid cancer that the government refuses to admit is connected to the nuclear disaster. [00:30:59] And so, the timing always felt very sort of convenient in terms of having the Olympics kind of set the stage for them saying, Well, great, we did it. [00:31:09] You know, that's the mission accomplished moment for Tokyo. [00:31:12] And surprisingly, because of all the other factors, and this even for me, I was surprised that mainstream media, at least in America and English language media, has really rejected that recovery narrative, like wholeheartedly. [00:31:24] Yeah, that's I've really noticed that. [00:31:26] Yeah, I think, yeah, the main challenge right now is, you know, on the one hand, it's I think it's very positive that media is rejecting the recovery narrative around Fukushima, rejecting the recovery narrative around COVID. [00:31:40] There's always like a little bit of a, I personally, I sort of can't help but interpret it as like a racist undertone or sort of xenophobic undertone of like, you know, there's this sort of like, yeah, this other country is handling it badly or just like they fucked up, like they couldn't get it together. [00:31:58] You know, and don't discount anti-nuclear. [00:32:01] Yeah, absolutely. [00:32:03] But yeah, there's this sort of narrative of like, yeah, Tokyo, like they, they couldn't get, they couldn't get the COVID recovery under control in the same way that, you know, like we in the United States really like knocked this one out of the park. [00:32:14] And so I think it's, it's always important when we're talking about these things just to, yeah, remember like how connected our struggles are. [00:32:21] And it's like, you know, again, the people who are leading the charge on all these fronts are the same people. [00:32:29] It's like the same in a lot of cases, it's like the same corporations, the same individuals who are invested, the same developers. [00:32:36] Like they're working transnationally. [00:32:38] This is not like a local event. [00:32:41] Yeah, a big example of that is the big, the big giant national Olympic stadium in Tokyo in the center of it for the big centerpiece where they did the opening ceremony. [00:32:50] That's built by ACOM. [00:32:51] That's the second most expensive stadium in the world. [00:32:53] And the first one is the one in Inglewood that they're building for the next Olympics. [00:32:56] And so it's the same, they're using the same practices and timelines in order to get these things built. [00:33:03] And so, yeah, it's jar, you know, it's like, it's obviously it's like, yeah, it's like 10 companies that are really doing the heavy lifting on both in any continent. [00:33:10] It doesn't matter. [00:33:10] It's, and that is the kind of globalist kind of design of the Olympics. [00:33:15] Yeah. [00:33:15] Well, that the thing too is that like the Olympics also bring in a shit ton of money, like not to the coast country, right? [00:33:22] Especially not if like there's no spectators, which seems to be a real fucking ripoff. [00:33:28] If, you know, because that's like the one sort of silver line is like, well, maybe we could sell out some hotels or something, but like there's ain't nobody fucking watching these tennis players, baby. [00:33:38] But, you know, it's, it's, it's, I said, I read somewhere that like Japan spent something like, I think it's 16 billion that they're saying, but likely like over 20, 21 billion, um, with a bunch of that being public money. [00:33:50] I think all but like six billion of it being public money. [00:33:52] I mean, this is, this is also at the time when, you know, Japan also is still trying to rebuild from from the tsunami from Fukushima. [00:34:00] Um, and and I think that people are really unhappy with that. [00:34:03] I mean, that that's that's sort of what struck me is that like the size of these protests and the size of the discontent in Japan. [00:34:08] I mean, you, you, you mentioned earlier, uh, you know, a state of emergency or a state of exception rather. [00:34:14] Um, I mean, the state of exception that accompanies the Olympics is also it's dovetailing with the state of exception that, that, that, that comes with COVID, too, right? [00:34:23] I mean, there are pretty heavy restrictions in Japan right now. [00:34:27] I mean, you cannot buy drinks after 8 p.m. [00:34:30] I think bars and restaurants close around them. [00:34:32] You're encouraged to stay home. [00:34:34] If you're a salary man, you can't get wasted and fall asleep on the sidewalk. [00:34:37] It's like, it is, I mean, it's, it's, it's pretty wild. [00:34:41] And like, I've seen a ton of interviews with people. [00:34:43] And these aren't just like, you know, like, I'm at the protest kind of people. [00:34:47] These are just like regular everyday people. [00:34:50] They are pissed about this. [00:34:52] I mean, it is, it is basically like a total imposition onto them with zero benefit. [00:34:58] I mean, you can't even pretend there's a benefit. [00:35:01] There's not even like a prestige benefit because everyone's like, oh, this is kind of weird that they're doing this. [00:35:05] You know, like it is, it's, and I, I, I, it, it's, it's, I don't know. [00:35:10] It's just shocking to me that like, I, I read somewhere there was a quote that the IOC said, like, well, we don't decide, uh, you know, uh, decisions about me, don't make decisions about the Olympics dependent on public opinion, um, which is, you know, which is true. [00:35:25] So I guess it's good that he said it, but it's sort of it's sort of shocking how bald that was. [00:35:31] And like that's, that's, that's sort of a question I had for you guys because you, you know, you're trying to prevent the Olympics from coming to Los Angeles. [00:35:39] That, like, you know, I don't have nearly as good a grasp on how the actual opposition looks like on the ground in Japan to the Olympics as you guys do, obviously. [00:35:50] But what, like, has this made you sort of reconsider how you're going to approach it? [00:35:55] Like, how are you feeling about this in the wake of like basically the total steamroll of the majority of Japanese public opinion? [00:36:02] I mean, that's, that's something we've always been aware of, right? [00:36:05] That like, you know, the people, this is a like resolutely undemocratic process. [00:36:12] You know, the people who made the decision to host the Olympics in LA, it was a handful of, you know, very wealthy, very powerful people. [00:36:21] So the Olympics have never relied on public support, you know, in terms of making the decision about where things happen. [00:36:28] The IOC has been on the record and members of the IOC have been on the record for years saying that they prefer to host the Olympics in cities where there isn't a lot of democratic input. [00:36:38] They like hosting the Olympics in more autocratic states because it just makes things easier for them. [00:36:44] And it's worth noting that LA and Paris, the two cities that got stuck with 24 and 28, were the last two cities in the running for 24 after every other city dropped out. [00:36:54] And the reason that LA and Paris didn't drop out is because they were the only two cities that didn't have any type of vote. [00:37:00] Every other type of city had some sort of vote or referendum except for LA and Paris. [00:37:04] And then after the votes, they dropped out because people didn't want them. [00:37:08] So I think, yeah, for us, you know, we're kind of in this interesting position where when we started, we formed in the spring of 2017, maybe like probably less than six months before the city council voted to authorize Eric Garcetti to sign the host city contract, you know, and maybe around the same amount of time before the IOC held their session and kind of indicated they were going to give LA the right to host 28. [00:37:35] So we started in that sense a little bit late. [00:37:38] But then at the time, you know, that was the longest lead time between awarding the games and hosting, 11 years. [00:37:46] So the amount that we've been able to sort of accomplish in terms of traction, in terms of identifying where those weak points might be, the fact that there is this transnational opposition now, that people are paying attention in this particular way does provide a lot of opportunities that I think weren't present four years ago. [00:38:19] What is happening right now in L.A. in terms of development with moving forward with the Olympics? [00:38:26] Because I mean, Garcetti's term is coming up soon, right? [00:38:29] His term is actually, he's leaving before his term is over because he failed his way up into an ambassador position. [00:38:36] He's going to six. [00:38:37] So they're actually sending him straight to Kashmir. [00:38:40] He is going to be the chief negotiator. [00:38:43] And I'm really excited for it, honestly. [00:38:46] No, yeah, he's going to become. [00:38:47] I mean, I read it was somewhere. [00:38:48] It could be like next month that he's at. [00:38:51] That's little weasel. [00:38:53] I know. [00:38:53] It's incredible. [00:38:54] I mean, hopefully. [00:38:55] Emphasis on little, by the way. [00:38:57] Liz, the only silver line is we might get some Justin Trudeau type pictures of him like, you know, some kind of draped in like saffron or something. [00:39:07] But yeah, I mean, he is, he is out of here. [00:39:09] And I guarantee he will never come back. [00:39:11] Like he's gone. [00:39:12] Yeah. [00:39:13] There's something about that, you know, like Ann said, it's 11 years in advance, which is unusual. [00:39:18] Like seven or eight is usually how much time they need to get the hotels built, get the stadiums built. [00:39:24] Push all the people out. [00:39:25] Yeah. [00:39:25] And they try to spin it as that gives us four more years to for them to get their shit together. [00:39:30] But in our situation, it actually opens up a lot of opportunities for us because everyone was already going to be termed out that brought it in already. [00:39:37] That doesn't mean other worse people or similarly bad people can't take their place. [00:39:41] But, you know, Garcetti's gone. [00:39:44] There were 12 people in city council that voted for it unanimously. [00:39:48] We've turned a few since then. [00:39:50] A couple of them are in jail or one of them is in jail and one of them's awaiting a sentence around hotel corruption and Olympic related adjacent shit. [00:39:59] A couple more of them are involved in these different probes potentially. [00:40:03] A couple of them are deeply unpopular. [00:40:05] Like the head of the head of city council, this guy Herb Wesson, his name's Herb Wesson. [00:40:10] Anyway, he's also the former head of city council. [00:40:13] Sorry, the former head of city council. [00:40:14] He was running for a board of supervisors seat on a I brought the Olympics in campaign. [00:40:20] He literally had the Olympic cauldron in his logo. [00:40:22] He got his ass kicked. [00:40:24] I think he didn't even break 40 points. [00:40:27] So he's like out of the political situation now. [00:40:30] The capital behind the bid is still there, obviously, but like the people representing it and the next, the next election cycle opens up some other opportunities there that they didn't account for. [00:40:41] Like just political culture is different than it was four years ago. [00:40:43] There's a lot more movement and activity and democratic participation. [00:40:47] And there's like leftist media things and other ways that we've kind of penetrated the narrative that I think they didn't account for. [00:40:54] So it's a very unusual time right now. [00:40:57] Yeah. [00:40:57] And the calculus has changed in a lot of ways. [00:40:59] And I think will continue to shift in terms of like, for example, like with the folks who are on city council right now, we know that when they voted, like part of the reason they voted on this Olympic bid is not because they actually want the Olympics to come. [00:41:12] It was sort of like a, you know, a favor. [00:41:15] Like they did a favor for Garcetti. [00:41:17] And that's how our city council operates in a lot of ways. [00:41:19] And I'm sure a lot of cities are like this too, where for them it was a very low risk situation. [00:41:24] It's like you do this favor for Garcetti, vote on the Olympic bid when things, you know, when shit hits the fan, no one remembers that city council had any hand in it. [00:41:32] Now that there's vocal opposition, it's like people are starting to actually ask questions, push back on them. [00:41:38] And all of a sudden, it's like, you know, they have to do a very different calculation in terms of risk and reward of supporting the Olympics. [00:41:45] Well, I think too is, I mean, so the Olympic, you know, the international sort of politicking around the Olympics, I think sort of resembles the international politicking around a lot of these. === Summer's Impact on Security (10:57) === [00:41:56] How many times in a sentence can I say the word international? [00:41:59] These other international organizations, like sports organizations like FIFA, where they're basically like mafias, essentially. [00:42:06] I mean, absolutely. [00:42:07] Like the way, like, I encourage listeners to just look up some of the scandals that have plagued the IOC. [00:42:14] I mean, it is, it is shit that like, I mean, it's straight out of FIFA. [00:42:18] Well, EFA, and also just the recent move when they moved the Euro Cup, or excuse me, not the Euro Cup, when they moved Copa America to Brazil. [00:42:27] I mean, that was a huge, the Brazilian people were like begging the state not to do it. [00:42:32] It made absolutely no sense, particularly in the way that, you know, COVID was affecting the population there. [00:42:37] And it didn't matter. [00:42:38] It didn't fucking matter. [00:42:40] And it was a total disaster. [00:42:42] It was. [00:42:42] Yeah. [00:42:43] And I think, you know, one of the challenges is this is something I think we've seen with a lot of Olympic games too, is they become less popular as they get closer. [00:42:54] And one of the ways, this reminds me of just sort of the one of the challenges of organizing around displacement and gentrification is there's a very sort of like canny calculated move on the behalf of the folks who are pushing this to really only affect the people who are the most poor, the most vulnerable, the most marginalized. [00:43:16] Because then that makes a lot of these impacts more palatable to the general public because you're sacrificing the people who are sort of who a lot of, you know, more like middle class people in particular don't care about or don't like. [00:43:31] But what we see inevitably happen is that, you know, that circle of people who are harmed expands over time. [00:43:38] And I think in a lot of the case of a lot of other Olympics, it's just it takes longer or it's less obvious. [00:43:45] And now I think specifically with COVID, where everything is so accelerated, now you have people where it's like, yeah, if you're just a middle class person who has to go to work and all of a sudden there's a super spreader event happening in your city, like you're also being screwed too in a way that, you know, up until a certain point, it would have just been, you know, so I should mention a lot of the folks in Hungarian Nokai are unhoused. [00:44:06] And so like what we I think what we've seen in most cities too is like the people who are leading the campaigns against the Olympics are the folks who are being impacted first and the most directly and the most extremely. [00:44:16] And those are usually people who are the most poor. [00:44:19] Yeah. [00:44:20] And this week, too, it's just too on the nose, but we had a big vote in LA that basically criminalizes being poor outside in the majority of LA. [00:44:28] And we work with a lot of groups around these issues. [00:44:31] And it's really scary because we can feel it. [00:44:35] And I think people here on the ground in LA, maybe that were kind of skeptical of us a few years ago or weren't fully sure kind of to see it moving whether or not it's And I think what's interesting is that people aren't, it doesn't have to be explicitly like, oh, we're moving this for the Olympics at this point. [00:44:50] People know what the whole overall project is. [00:44:53] So, but at the same time, it's accelerating very quickly to the extent that like, you know, there's a lot of big questions of like what we're actually going to do, just like not just our group, but in just in general in LA and it's really kind of an intense time. [00:45:07] Yeah. [00:45:07] And the uprising last summer also changed a lot. [00:45:09] I think before last summer, you know, police militarization has always been like the, you know, basically half of our platform in terms of in our analysis in terms of opposing the Olympics. [00:45:21] And for a long time, that was sort of the argument. [00:45:23] And when we would talk about what happened in 1984 in LA in terms of, you know, the expansion of policing and the acceleration of the militarization of the LAPD and how that affected in particular like East LA and South Central LA and other poor black and brown communities. [00:45:39] That was just a thing that like fell flat with a lot of middle class white audiences in particular and people we would talk to. [00:45:47] And when we would talk about police militarization in other cities, when we talk about Mexico 68 and the, you know, the student, the massacre of the students in Mexico City for the, you know, the 68 opening ceremony, there was just sort of this exceptionalist idea of like, well, that's not going to happen here or that's not what it's like now. [00:46:05] Or like the police and like they never, you know, people, a lot of people couldn't imagine that. [00:46:11] And then I think now they can not only imagine that, there's people who have like experienced that directly who may never have like witnessed that or imagined they would witness it. [00:46:19] And they've been on the receiving end of that. [00:46:22] And so I think that's just a much more real prospect. [00:46:24] So now when we, this is a thing that we knew before the uprising. [00:46:30] And then we would say, you know, the fact that the LAPD has announced several times that they plan on hiring 3,000 more officers for the Olympic Games at least. [00:46:38] And I should say that that number has gone up consistently from the time the bid was announced. [00:46:42] It'll probably be more. [00:46:43] It'll probably be 5,000 in another year. [00:46:46] And they've, you know, Johnny maybe can talk more about this, but they've said some more things publicly in the last couple of days. [00:46:54] And I think that those numbers and those statements have a very different meaning for a greater number of Angelinos now than it did a couple of years ago. [00:47:04] It doesn't feel like an issue that's just sort of relegated to particular communities, like the people seeing what happened at Echo Park Lake and this idea of like, no, they like the city will send 500 like heavily armed police officers into your community if they, you know, if they want to like remove poor people from it, I think is now like a much more real and vivid and present scenario. [00:47:28] And so when we talk about expanding that, about making it worse, about giving it more money, I think that that just has a lot more resonance. [00:47:36] Yeah, I think it scares the shit out of people. [00:47:37] The LAPD is asking for thousands more officers. [00:47:40] And what last summer did was kind of make the other side have to say what they're doing more openly. [00:47:45] You have the head of the LA police union going on Laura Ingram being like, Mayor Garcetti is a coward. [00:47:51] We can't defund. [00:47:51] We actually have to expand the police for the World Cup for the Olympics. [00:47:56] And, you know, LAPD is just one of over 80 law enforcement agencies in LA. [00:48:01] So the Sheriff's Department, who has gangs in them, they're asking for at least 500 more officers. [00:48:07] And these aren't just for the games. [00:48:08] Obviously, these are permanent forever. [00:48:12] Well, that's also the point of the state of exception, right? [00:48:15] That's the, you know, the whole point is that, you know, you get something in, you know, via this kind of like branding or whatever, but it's permanent. [00:48:24] It stays and the entire kind of chemistry has is forever altered. [00:48:29] Well, it's also crazy because like, I mean, at the at the Atlanta Games, like it wasn't even a cop who found that bomb. [00:48:34] It was actually just a security guard who then everyone blamed for it, which is to me, it's like just we need to hire more private security guys. [00:48:41] More security guards who like actually love their mother and stuff like that. [00:48:45] Yeah. [00:48:45] I mean, obviously that's the whole like, you know, paradox with defunding the police and, you know, like the rise of that. [00:48:50] In Tokyo, what we saw for the 64 Games, they built out their private security infrastructure with the two big companies, ALSOC and SACOM. [00:48:59] And those are the big, those are the big private security giants in Japan to this day. [00:49:03] And those are the big people doing security at the Olympics. [00:49:06] Today. [00:49:07] Yeah. [00:49:07] One of the things that we're trying to track more now and have been trying to wrap our head around in a more concrete way is, so in LA, obviously we have the same distinction that exists in every city of the weird overlaps of private security and then the actual police. [00:49:24] And then in LA too, because of how weird our, you know, municipal system is basically, where it's like, there's the county of Los Angeles and then you have these cities within the city of Los Angeles that are separate cities. [00:49:37] And so they kind of have their own police forces and their own jurisdictions and learning more about the ways that they contract with each other. [00:49:44] So like SoFi Stadium, which we've mentioned is in Inglewood, which is its own city. [00:49:50] So that's also like another interesting and fucked up thing is like, you know, so we talked about how undemocratic it was that the, you know, our city council voted in this incredibly rushed and undemocratic manner to authorize Garcett to sign this hasty, you know, bullshit contract with IRC, like really bad contract, really fucked up contract. [00:50:12] The Inglewood City Council didn't even vote. [00:50:15] They had like none of these other cities that are going to be on the hook for hosting that are like they didn't even, their city council didn't even vote. [00:50:23] And yeah, but it's like the SoFi Stadium is in Englewood, but I've seen things at various points talking about like the number of LAPB officers that are, even though Inglewood is not like they have their own police force. [00:50:34] And so we're trying to learn more about how those different, these different law enforcement agencies kind of contract with each other. [00:50:40] Like where does that money come from? [00:50:42] Like who is authorizing these contracts? [00:50:44] And yeah, and just to say too, yeah, it's just a jurisdictional fucking nightmare from our end of trying to understand what's going on. [00:50:50] Earlier this year, city council voted to approve what's called COPSIC, the California Olympic and Paralympic Policing Security Command Command. [00:50:59] And what that basically does is allows, is the entity that will execute the NSSE, which is the national special security event, which they have for like the DNC, the RNC, certain. [00:51:09] Like a fusion center. [00:51:11] Yeah, exactly. [00:51:12] They use fusion centers. [00:51:14] And so that's basically, so at a state, a city, a county, and all these like sub-city levels and the Fed. [00:51:21] So both, you know, DHS is going to be involved. [00:51:23] And that's really scary to people. [00:51:25] And LA is obviously the home to the largest undocumented population or mixed status populations, immigrants in general. [00:51:32] It's a nightmare. [00:51:33] And that's one of the things, parts of our campaign that when we started in 2017 with Trumping and was really high key and people were really buying that. [00:51:39] And that's kind of been a challenge for us is to keep that moving and to get more buy-in on, you know, the street vendors that are going to be swept up. [00:51:47] Sex workers, people, anyone who works in like informal economies who might be targeted by police is, you know, that's people are just, and yeah, and like you were saying before too, it's like this stuff doesn't go back in the box, right? [00:52:01] So it's like the connections, the level of access that, you know, the NSA and the Department of Homeland Security are going to have into the Sheriff's Department and LAPD into the, you know, and we know too already that the sheriffs and the police in LA collect so much data on people. [00:52:21] You know, it's like we know that the gang injunctions and gang databases have been something that our allies and partners have been organizing around for decades and just imagining like, you know, and we know that that like ICE and the Department of Homeland Security have also illegally been collaborating for a while. [00:52:37] But it's like, what happens when you sort of make that legal? [00:52:40] We know that that's not, they're not just going to like shake hands and like change passwords the day after the Paralympics are over. [00:52:46] Like that sort of introduces a new normal of collaboration that would, yeah, is really, really scary. === Casey Wasserman's Olympic Empire (04:11) === [00:52:53] Yeah. [00:52:53] And in 2002 was the first Olympics on American soil after 9-11. [00:52:58] And an NSA whistleblower came forward a few years ago. [00:53:00] It was like, oh, we were doing blanket surveillance over everyone in Salt Lake City area. [00:53:05] The media picked up on that, but maybe not enough. [00:53:07] And we've heard from like kind of people, you know, whispering to us that like Cisco is doing a similar version of that in Japan, like the last couple of years. [00:53:13] And we're still trying to follow up on that. [00:53:15] So it's like every worst case scenario you can possibly fucking imagine. [00:53:19] Yeah, just handing over billions and billions of dollars to these agencies and giving them the keys to everyone's, you know, computers and databases. [00:53:26] Like what could go wrong? [00:53:27] Like, have fun. [00:53:28] Yeah. [00:53:28] Fingers crossed. [00:53:42] Well, thank you. [00:53:42] That was, damn, I am reconsidering my bid to become a Olympic amateur wrestler. [00:53:50] Your bid to host the Olympics. [00:53:52] Yeah. [00:53:53] I mean, God, I thought, you know, I got like a, like an okay apartment, but I, you know, this seems like a whole lot to deal with. [00:54:01] One, one thing that we touched on the last time we talked to you a couple of years ago was Casey Wasserman, and he is still in the game. [00:54:07] And you said you, you said you had a couple updates for us on the guy. [00:54:11] Yeah, so Casey Wasserman is the money man behind LA28. [00:54:14] When we came on last time, we just, and he's someone who's very publicly been on the Epstein flight longs, flogs, Epstein flight logs multiple times. [00:54:23] Flight vlogs. [00:54:24] Yeah, he's on the flight vlogs. [00:54:25] He's on, he was on one of the Chris Tucker, Kevin Spacey, and Bill Clinton flights. [00:54:29] But for some reason, that is not repeated a lot when that comes up. [00:54:32] For some reason, Chris Tucker is more remembered culturally than Casey Wasserman. [00:54:36] Casey has been, we've been tracking a lot of Casey's money in general because that's really what tells the Olympic story, whether it's LAPD and whatnot. [00:54:44] But I think a few things that I think your listeners might like to know is that the last public photo of Ghelane was at a cash and rocket event that Casey's wife was involved. [00:54:53] And they're a charity, ironically, for human trafficking victims. [00:54:58] You're talking about the one in San Marino, I think it was? [00:55:01] Is that like in the background of Paris Hilton? [00:55:05] Right. [00:55:05] Yeah. [00:55:07] So Casey's wife, Laura, I think former music supervisor is a Hollywood person is and also notably the granddaughter of Paul Zifrin, who was another. [00:55:16] So Casey Wasserman's grandfather, Louis Wasserman, was on the LA 84 organizing committee, as was Paul Zifrin. [00:55:22] So they're kind of like an Olympic dynasty, the two of them. [00:55:27] Yeah, and we've been following a lot of other Casey's money and we found a lot of Glenn Dubin connections figures, a lot of it. [00:55:35] Casey's also had his money. [00:55:37] He dumped a bunch of stock in Activision a few months ago. [00:55:40] I don't know if you've been paying attention to what's happening there and that kind of abuse harassment stuff. [00:55:44] Also involved in it's called Action Network, a big gambling online gambling company. [00:55:51] Okay, let's not get ahead of ourselves. [00:55:52] Something, you know, gambling is totally legal and fine to do. [00:55:56] And actually, sometimes you can make a lot of money at it. [00:55:59] Very legal, very cool. [00:56:00] It's normal and cool, and everyone's doing it. [00:56:02] Like it's like the mid-2000s, and he's trying to change policy in California in advance of 2028 for that. [00:56:09] And we've just been, you know, kind of there'll be some stuff coming out in the media soon. [00:56:13] We just wanted to tease that and just let you know that he's in Tokyo this last week. [00:56:17] He's kind of partying at the opening ceremony, you know, and he's like with Robert Kraft and all these assholes. [00:56:23] And if you're out there, Casey, you know, we're thinking of you. [00:56:27] He, oh, he, it was two years ago exactly that he locked down his social media account when we were in Tokyo, when the first Epstein suicide attempt happened. [00:56:35] And since then, all of his socials have still been locked down because we've been screaming that. [00:56:39] And he's made very few public experience, like very few public appearances with the exception of he did a big press conference with Donald Trump and Chad Wolf in February 2020 talking about where, you know, to get back to the like NSSE and the terror of that, where they said that we're going to, you know, clean up the Department of Homeland Security is going to help clean up homelessness and immigration in time for the 2028 Olympics. === Synchronized Splits (03:23) === [00:57:04] Yeah. [00:57:05] Well, I can't wait. [00:57:08] Yeah, it is going to be a shit show. [00:57:10] I mean, come on, LA, the place is falling apart. [00:57:14] It'll be incredible. [00:57:15] I mean, these people are sick. [00:57:18] Anyways, guys, thank you so much for joining us. [00:57:21] I am fully convinced I'm withdrawing my bid to host the Olympics. [00:57:26] And yeah, we will hopefully see you before 2028. [00:57:31] Great. [00:57:32] Thanks so much for having us on. [00:57:48] So the new thing that I'm going to start is that Simone Biles has Havana syndrome. [00:57:54] Oh, she's been getting mind-blasted. [00:57:56] Yeah, she got mind-blasted by the Chinese or the Russians, depending on who I'm feeding the story to. [00:58:06] Technically, it's the Russian Olympic Committee that's doing it. [00:58:09] It's not the actual Russians. [00:58:10] No, Mr. Putin himself. [00:58:12] Beware, pew. [00:58:14] They should have tapped me in for that shit. [00:58:15] I could have done all that shit. [00:58:17] What, Ray Gun? [00:58:18] No. [00:58:18] Or gymnastics. [00:58:19] Like jumping bullshit? [00:58:21] No, you can't do that. [00:58:22] I could, dude. [00:58:23] I was tumble. [00:58:26] No, just do the splits. [00:58:28] This is a little behind the scenes. [00:58:29] You can't do the splits. [00:58:30] I can do the splits. [00:58:32] Yes, I can. [00:58:33] No, you can't. [00:58:33] It's my port right now. [00:58:35] Unplugged. [00:58:37] No, I can't. [00:58:38] Fix the camera. [00:58:38] I want to see it right now. [00:58:40] I am doing it right now. [00:58:41] No, you're. [00:58:43] Oh, sorry. [00:58:44] I'm doing it. [00:58:44] No, I'm wearing, I'm wearing really tight. [00:58:46] Do you know what the splits are? [00:58:48] Yeah, it's where you put one leg this side, one leg that side. [00:58:50] And then the girls of the party are like. [00:58:52] When I was a synchronized swimmer, I did a lot of splits. [00:58:55] Oh, cool. [00:58:56] When I was a fucking, when I was a professional fucking wiffle ball player, I could too. [00:59:02] You were a synchronized swimmer? [00:59:04] Yeah. [00:59:06] That's too much. [00:59:08] How have you never told me that before? [00:59:10] You didn't know that? [00:59:11] No. [00:59:12] No. [00:59:12] Really? [00:59:12] I've never talked about this? [00:59:13] You've never talked about this? [00:59:15] Oh, yeah. [00:59:15] I was a competitive synchronized swimmer when I was a kid. [00:59:18] What the fuck? [00:59:20] Yeah. [00:59:21] It's crazy, too. [00:59:23] And I mean, the whole thing was really weird too, because like the costumes you have to wear, it's like, you know, they use like Nox gelatin to hold your hair up and you have to wear like underwater makeup and all the whole thing. [00:59:35] What? [00:59:35] It's very like my pre-woke phase as a synchronized swimmer. [00:59:39] Damn, that's crazy. [00:59:40] Well, when I was a kid, I was often damp and shivering and forced to wear makeup. [00:59:46] So it's sort of pretty similar to that. [00:59:49] And it won a lot of contests too. [00:59:51] Well, anyway, so that is the end of the episode. [00:59:55] Let's keep talking. [00:59:57] No, let's not. [00:59:58] I'm Liz. [00:59:59] My name is Brace. [01:00:00] We are joined by producer Young Chomsky. [01:00:03] Make doping legal. [01:00:05] The podcast is called True and On. [01:00:07] We'll see you next time. [01:00:08] Bye-bye. [01:00:27] Come in.