True Anon Truth Feed - DNC DAY THREE
Aired: 2024-08-22
Duration: 57:49


=== Holding Pattern for War (15:23) ===

[00:00:00]  Frankly, guys, I don't know what day it is.
[00:00:02]  It's day well, this is for day three.
[00:00:05]  Don't confuse me with one thing.
[00:00:06]  But it's day four.
[00:00:08]  But we're talking about day three.
[00:00:10]  But it's actually, we're in day four.
[00:00:13]  We don't need to tell them that.
[00:00:13]  What about Podcast Magic?
[00:00:15]  It's just true.
[00:00:16]  You know what, ladies and gentlemen?
[00:00:17]  Today is today, and I am me, Bryce Belden.
[00:00:20]  Of course, joined by my co-host.
[00:00:22]  No, we're not doing that yet.
[00:00:23]  We've got to drop the music.
[00:00:35]  Guys, I don't know what to tell you.
[00:00:36]  Who's the pro?
[00:00:37]  I don't know what to fucking tell you guys anymore.
[00:00:39]  I'm sorry.
[00:00:40]  I'm a fucking Democrat now.
[00:00:42]  They got me.
[00:00:44]  Kamala Harris is the kindest, gentlest presidential candidate I've ever seen in my life.
[00:00:49]  She's the most moral presidential candidate we've ever had on this motherfucking ballot.
[00:00:54]  I wish Tim Waltz was my coach.
[00:00:55]  I wish he and I were on a flight together and he sits next to me and I got scared and he puts his hand on my leg.
[00:01:00]  I hope he keeps that hand there forever.
[00:01:03]  My name is Bryce.
[00:01:04]  I'm Liz.
[00:01:05]  We are, of course, joined by producer Young Chomsky, Game and Dog.
[00:01:09]  Say hi.
[00:01:10]  Hello.
[00:01:11]  This is Truin on day three, DNC.
[00:01:15]  We are joined.
[00:01:16]  We are joined.
[00:01:17]  We are joined by lawyer, writer, or is it journalist?
[00:01:23]  Writer.
[00:01:24]  Writer?
[00:01:25]  You think there's a distinction there?
[00:01:26]  You think one's better?
[00:01:27]  I do.
[00:01:28]  Journalist is a little bit insulting.
[00:01:30]  I'll take it.
[00:01:30]  I'll take it.
[00:01:31]  It's the, but he's another J-word too.
[00:01:33]  Jewish, Palestinian, Christian.
[00:01:35]  Kind of, you really are multi.
[00:01:36]  You're the, you're an intersectional.
[00:01:40]  I was going to say that.
[00:01:40]  I'm extremely intersectional.
[00:01:41]  You're one of the most intersectional gentlemen I've ever had in a hotel room.
[00:01:45]  Interfaith?
[00:01:46]  Interfaith.
[00:01:48]  You're Mr. Interfaith.
[00:01:50]  We have, we have, we have, we've, of course, had Dylan on the show before to talk about Palestine.
[00:01:57]  And today we have you here in Chicago at the DNC greater DNC area to talk about it in a slightly different context.
[00:02:07]  And I think we should actually, instead of talking about what's been going on at the DNC yesterday, I think we should actually talk about maybe what's going on in Palestine today and this general time period.
[00:02:18]  So what's happening there?
[00:02:21]  So we are largely stuck in a holding pattern in Palestine.
[00:02:26]  Right now, there are ongoing negotiations that Hamas is actually not participating in, although they are awaiting what comes of it.
[00:02:39]  The negotiations are largely taking place between Israel and the United States and the mediators from Qatar and Egypt, purportedly to achieve a ceasefire deal and hostage exchange.
[00:02:55]  Now, the challenge is that nobody basically except the Americans believe the Israelis are participating in this in good faith.
[00:03:04]  And that includes the Israelis themselves, like other officials besides Netanyahu and the government and most of the Israeli public and the Palestinians recognize them as being entered into in bad faith.
[00:03:17]  But basically, I mean, we are at the precipice of the war that we were anticipating the last time I was on this on the podcast.
[00:03:26]  And since then, there have been major events intervening, notably the assassination of Ismail Haniya in Tehran, which has caused Iran to proclaim that it's going to retaliate against Israel for the violation of its sovereignty, and also the assassination of a top Hezbollah commander, Fawad Shukr, in Beirut, which has provoked Hezbollah to say that they're going to respond.
[00:03:56]  So that war that we had been talking about feels extremely imminent.
[00:04:02]  The cross-border fire across the northern border with Lebanon has really picked up pace.
[00:04:08]  The strikes are going deeper into Lebanon.
[00:04:13]  Right now, Hezbollah is kind of eerily silent.
[00:04:17]  They've declared that they're going to respond, but given no real indication of when that will be.
[00:04:24]  But there is a general understanding that something big is probably coming unless there is a genuine ceasefire, because this is what Hezbollah is saying.
[00:04:35]  This is what Iran is saying.
[00:04:36]  If there is a ceasefire, then we won't retaliate or we'll retaliate in a much smaller way because this is the off-ramp that people are looking for.
[00:04:45]  The problem is that a ceasefire that actually ends the war, a ceasefire, will eliminate Netanyahu.
[00:04:54]  I mean, it will just end his coalition.
[00:04:57]  This has been the long-standing problem.
[00:04:59]  And so we're in a small holding pattern.
[00:05:01]  That's part of the bigger holding pattern, which is that there can't actually be a deal that Netanyahu enters into voluntarily.
[00:05:09]  So what is he doing?
[00:05:10]  He's double or nothing.
[00:05:13]  This is his play.
[00:05:14]  Well, there also seems to be this tension within Israeli society that is a part of a kind of a long, long string of events, but was really emblematized in the riot over the rape concentration camp.
[00:05:32]  And this, like, this, this, it's, there's these tensions in Israeli civil society or just in Israeli society in general that I think a lot of people like to be like, it's going to be a civil war.
[00:05:41]  It's going to be a civil war.
[00:05:43]  Fingers motherfucking crossed.
[00:05:44]  Not so sure that's going to happen.
[00:05:47]  But it does show that like Netanyahu is in a very, and in Israel, sort of by extension, is in this very fragile state right now.
[00:05:56]  And it's so clear that if a ceasefire deal happens, that will take them over the precipice.
[00:06:02]  And like whatever civil society problems, uprisings, low simmering embers of civil war that might happen, I guess embers happens after, but you guys know what I'm saying, would be exacerbated by Netanyahu stepping down or getting voted out, which seems like it would happen with a ceasefire deal.
[00:06:20]  That seems to be his calculation.
[00:06:22]  And then on the other hand, on the other side of that, he has a mass fascist base that is really riled up, that feels existentially threatened and is primed for a larger confrontation that they don't fundamentally understand the consequences of.
[00:06:41]  And Netanyahu's in a position where if he can escalate the war, provoke a larger conflict, pull the United States in to support him, he's actually not in a terrible position politically.
[00:06:56]  He's actually regained a lot of the popular support that he had lost after October 7th.
[00:07:02]  And his poll numbers internally in Israel are some of the best that he's had in months, which is insane.
[00:07:10]  So long as he keeps it going.
[00:07:12]  So long as he keeps it going.
[00:07:13]  Exactly.
[00:07:14]  Exactly.
[00:07:14]  So that's the play he's making.
[00:07:16]  And on the Hamas side, you have, so Hania is assassinated.
[00:07:22]  Sinwar, who had been the de facto leader of Hamas insofar as he had the final say on the negotiations, he still has the final say on the negotiations.
[00:07:32]  But he has taken over political leadership of the entire organization.
[00:07:37]  And that has, I think we can assume, based on what we're seeing, hardened the position of Hamas slightly.
[00:07:44]  So they took responsibility for a suicide attack in Israel, which is first time in over a decade that they've done that.
[00:07:54]  They have published an open letter to Hezbollah and the broader Axis that says, we don't think the Israelis are negotiating in good faith.
[00:08:04]  And the only thing that can end this is if you strike back, is actually initiate the escalation.
[00:08:13]  So they are calling on Hezbollah to say, the only thing that can end this is war.
[00:08:19]  So basically, and this is why the situation is so dire right now, is you have both sides of the negotiation saying the only way that this resolves is war.
[00:08:31]  And a kind of like a recognition that the only party that can stop this is the United States.
[00:08:40]  This is where ultimately we're going to get to.
[00:08:43]  The only party that can actually stop this by forcing a ceasefire deal is the United States, and they are fundamentally unwilling to do it.
[00:08:51]  And so this is, and when you have both sides of this, of this war going on right now resigning themselves to escalation, that's when it can kick off at any moment, right?
[00:09:06]  Because then you're thinking about, okay, first move for advantage, basically.
[00:09:09]  Well, I think that what's so interesting.
[00:09:11]  to kind of like pull back for a second is that that is the reality kind of outside the United States, right?
[00:09:17]  Of like what the context of why ceasefire is impossible and also necessary.
[00:09:26]  And then it's like you go inside the United States and the context for why there isn't a ceasefire or will there be a ceasefire and what a ceasefire would actually entail is like almost a complete opposite of what like the actual reality is internationally.
[00:09:44]  And so when you say that like the only party that can actually intervene and end this is the United States, I think, you know, the United States government and the media, Apparatch and everyone involved have done a really good job of basically selling the exact opposite of that to the American people, where they say, well, it's not exactly like the U.S. can do anything.
[00:10:05]  You know, this is, there's other countries involved.
[00:10:07]  We can't step in, blah, blah, blah.
[00:10:10]  And I want to kind of, you know, move us, you know, like you're saying, we're going to the U.S. now.
[00:10:15]  Like, why then has this been so impossible for the U.S.
[00:10:23]  Well, yeah, so you're absolutely right that the media basically wants to sell this as something that is totally apart from both the United States election and also the United States agency in the whole situation.
[00:10:38]  And there are, I think that part of the domestic disconnect that we're seeing is that you have some constituencies who realize what's going on, who realize that the United States can end this very easily and that there is an extreme amount of urgency.
[00:10:53]  And then you have people who view those people as just a distraction, as wreckers, as people trying to sabotage Kamala and who are missing the bigger picture here.
[00:11:02]  And that urgency element, I think, is really what people are failing to grasp here because it's not just, so, I mean, to clarify, yes, the U.S. could end this.
[00:11:14]  The U.S. can, you know, and I did, I did an interview with a former Department of Defense attorney recently with Tim Barker for Phenomenal World.
[00:11:25]  And we talked about what, okay, when we talk about arms embargo, like, what does that actually mean?
[00:11:30]  Well, what it means is that Israel regularly requests arms from the United States.
[00:11:37]  And this is part of their larger appropriation.
[00:11:38]  So when you hear like, okay, the U.S., You know, Congress has appropriated $3.5 billion to Israel for military support.
[00:11:48]  What that means, basically, when we send it to Israel, for different countries, it looks a little bit different sometimes, is that we basically just dump $3.5 billion into a checking account.
[00:11:57]  And what they can do is they just $3.5 billion in a checking account.
[00:12:01]  And they make a request.
[00:12:03]  Not even high-yield savings?
[00:12:04]  No, they want it to go.
[00:12:06]  These guys.
[00:12:07]  Not real Jews.
[00:12:09]  And so Israel makes a request and they say, okay, like this is, you know, these are the shells that we want.
[00:12:14]  These are the planes that we want.
[00:12:16]  What have you?
[00:12:17]  What's left?
[00:12:18]  What's available?
[00:12:19]  Yeah, yeah, what do you got?
[00:12:21]  And each time they make a request like that, it has to go through the White House.
[00:12:24]  And the White House has very broad discretion on what they want to say yes to, when they want to say yes to that.
[00:12:35]  And, you know, for requests above a certain monetary threshold, it's got to go to Congress.
[00:12:42]  But for any sub-threshold transfer, it's basically the White House.
[00:12:46]  And they're making decisions, right?
[00:12:47]  And they've got other people on the line too, right?
[00:12:49]  Zelensky also, you know.
[00:12:51]  Oh, no, there is a battle there.
[00:12:53]  There is a battle there to get the shot.
[00:12:55]  They got Zielinski, you know, he's on hold.
[00:12:57]  Yeah, yeah, they got him on hold there.
[00:12:59]  Yeah, they're sending him to some, you know, some little low guy.
[00:13:02]  Yeah, you know, I think we should get some clarity here, right?
[00:13:05]  Is because obviously one of the nicknames that has been bandied about for sleepy Joe Biden is Genocide Joe.
[00:13:13]  And there is this, there is this sort of rhetoric among many protesters that like Joe Biden has a direct hand in the genocide that's occurring in Gaza, right?
[00:13:23]  And I think that maybe some people sort of gloss over that like, oh, that's just like some shit that like these, you know, wokeys are fucking saying down on the street or whatever.
[00:13:31]  But there is a very real material difference that Joe Biden and the or the U.S. government has, which is headed by Joe Biden, the regime of Joe, has in directly transferring crucial armaments to Israel that furthers the continuation of the war.
[00:13:50]  And if those armaments were cut off, prosecuting this war and especially prosecuting any sort of wider conflict would be all but impossible.
[00:14:00]  That's exactly right.
[00:14:01]  And it goes beyond that too, because that's true.
[00:14:04]  It is the U.S. bombs that are being sent that Israel is using to do the genocide.
[00:14:09]  Yeah.
[00:14:11]  And without those arms supplies, no, they would not be able to wage this war.
[00:14:15]  But it is also the promise of future defense, right?
[00:14:19]  So the reason why Netanyahu feels comfortable escalating with countries that are much bigger than him, like Iran, big country.
[00:14:27]  Big country.
[00:14:28]  Big, strong country.
[00:14:29]  Big country.
[00:14:29]  Big boy.
[00:14:30]  Israel.
[00:14:30]  Little country.
[00:14:31]  Little country.
[00:14:32]  Tiny little country.
[00:14:33]  And yet, and yet, and yet, Dylan, you people want to destroy it.
[00:14:38]  It's just a little, it's just the size of the embrace.
[00:14:41]  It must be anti-Semitism, right?
[00:14:43]  Hezbollah, very, very powerful non-state actor, probably the most powerful in the history of the modern world, right?
[00:14:49]  The reason why Netanyahu feels confident picking a fight is because the United States is saying we will defend Israel no matter what happens, right?
[00:14:58]  Yes.
[00:14:58]  And we will, and, and realistically, what does that mean?
[00:15:01]  It means we will do that with overwhelming air power and airstrikes.
[00:15:04]  It means that we will, you know, we will hit military targets in all of these places.
[00:15:09]  And so that it gives him the confidence to escalate however he wants, in addition to, you know, giving him the power to perpetuate the genocide on the Palestinian people in Gaza.

=== U.S. Support and Israeli Escalation (15:25) ===

[00:15:23]  And the analogy that I like to draw is no one really has any qualms about putting the responsibility of the Soviet Shatilla massacres in 1982 on the Israelis, right?
[00:15:38]  But it was the Christian phalangists in Lebanon who actually were doing the killing.
[00:15:43]  It was the IDF soldiers who were guarding the doors, right?
[00:15:47]  And that's very clear to everyone that Israel bears responsibility for these massacres.
[00:15:51]  I think it's non-controversial.
[00:15:52]  Non-controversial, right?
[00:15:53]  And I think that that is basically, you know, on a much, much, much bigger scale, obviously, a similar role that the United States is playing with the Gaza genocide.
[00:16:02]  That is a good analogy because it is, I think, and not only the Gaza genocide, any further war that occurs.
[00:16:10]  I mean, there was an article that came out today about journalist Seamus Maleficent or whatever in Lebanon looking at seeing ads on Tinder saying that like America is, you know, like, you better not let Hezbollah do anything funky because America is going to back him up.
[00:16:28]  But it's true.
[00:16:29]  You know, we've deployed innumerable assets to surrounding countries in the Middle East, especially in the seas outside of there.
[00:16:37]  And if there is a wider conflict, especially not maybe the first stage of it, but like certainly the second and the third stage of any wider conflict, America would certainly get involved.
[00:16:46]  I mean, the defense of Israel from Iran or from Hezbollah's missiles, like that's going to come down also to not only just Israel's air defense system, but American anti-air assets that are around there too.
[00:16:58]  And so it's like we are basically lockstep in this with them, which is so absurd to me because that doesn't seem to be what anybody, well, not anybody, but that doesn't seem to be what most people would have voted for, right?
[00:17:09]  Or like, you know, if you could, if you could ask a lot of Americans, they'd be like, well, I don't understand why we might get in a war with a non-state actor in Lebanon.
[00:17:18]  They'd say, what's a non-state actor?
[00:17:20]  What's a non-state actor?
[00:17:21]  You mean Kate Hudson?
[00:17:24]  But yeah.
[00:17:26]  And so, I mean, that's like when people talk about Joe Biden bearing some actual responsibility for this stuff, I mean, it is a very real thing.
[00:17:35]  You know, I know you've done a lot of writing about arms transfers lately.
[00:17:39]  And I think like one thing that this cannot be drilled into our listeners' heads enough, and that sounded condescending.
[00:17:44]  That's not how I mean it.
[00:17:46]  But like the reality is, is like we are not in World War II.
[00:17:50]  We are not in like crazy production.
[00:17:52]  You know, we are not, we don't have like, you know, fucking, who's the, who's the chick?
[00:17:56]  Rosie the Riveter.
[00:17:57]  We don't have Rosie the Riveter out there anymore.
[00:17:59]  Like we actually do kind of almost like just-in-time arm in its supply now.
[00:18:04]  Literally.
[00:18:04]  Literally, yes.
[00:18:05]  Like, like there is not, I mean, and you've seen this with a ton of NATO countries, Germany, Germany especially, is like, there actually is not this massive, massive stockpile of, especially ammunition, especially shells and missiles and all this stuff.
[00:18:18]  That just, that does not exist.
[00:18:20]  Well, it exists for other people, but it does not exist for us.
[00:18:23]  Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:18:25]  But like, but like you said.
[00:18:26]  Some people have been doing a good job on their missile production programs.
[00:18:31]  But but you see, like you saw with this, like, this like sort of jockeying for arms between Zelensky and Israel, which, by the way, crazy.
[00:18:42]  How fucking ripped off you got to be.
[00:18:43]  And now we have Malay in there, but like, which he doesn't really, no disrespect, that does not count.
[00:18:50]  But like Zelensky, like Jewish head of state.
[00:18:52]  And it's like, oh, Israel's my main competition now for shells.
[00:18:56]  Great.
[00:18:58]  But like, we actually don't have this huge supply.
[00:19:01]  And like Israel does not have a huge supply of it either.
[00:19:04]  Like they need these specific bombs.
[00:19:07]  And so it's funny because, you know, when we talk about like a ceasefire, like we actually realize that like Joe Biden could be like, could press the no more arms button, which is a real button.
[00:19:19]  Even though people say that he cannot do that, like they literally can do that.
[00:19:24]  But what they seem to mean is that actually a ceasefire deal is a deal that they work out with Israel and present to Hamas, which Hamas will obviously say no to.
[00:19:36]  And then the war will continue.
[00:19:37]  And so they can hold up their hands and say, we tried, but nothing happened.
[00:19:41]  They tried tirelessly.
[00:19:42]  Tirelessly.
[00:19:43]  Tirelessly, they tried.
[00:19:44]  Yeah, because the deal that they that and and and and even if they even if they manage to mock up some agreement that Netanyahu then agrees to he only is going to agree to it if he knows if he thinks that Hamas is not going to accept it and if they do accept it which they did surprisingly To them in May, what is he going to do?
[00:20:04]  He's going to escalate, right?
[00:20:05]  Yeah.
[00:20:05]  He assassinated the negotiator.
[00:20:08]  That's the last time this happened.
[00:20:10]  That's what he did, right?
[00:20:11]  Because as you've correctly identified, his interest is in perpetuating the conflict, right?
[00:20:18]  And it's just this refusal to play hardball that is careening us over the edge into something that cannot be undone.
[00:20:25]  And this is where we have a really interesting moment in U.S. domestic politics where you have the left who really are the only adults in the room in this broader conversation.
[00:20:36]  For once, thank God.
[00:20:38]  And the reason why you know that is because you have whole segments of the left unified around a single demand.
[00:20:46]  When is that ever the case that you have the inside strategy, you have the nonprofits, and you have the street movements all saying we want this one really reasonable thing, which is, you know, U.S. follow its own laws with respect to arms transfers.
[00:20:59]  That's the other thing we haven't mentioned here.
[00:21:02]  It's not just that Biden could pick up the phone and say no more arms for Israel.
[00:21:08]  The U.S. has laws on the books that say you legally are not allowed to provide arms to military units that are committing human rights violations.
[00:21:17]  And there's another law that says it is illegal for the United States to provide military assistance to a country that is prohibiting U.S. humanitarian aid from reaching their population.
[00:21:30]  God, I was actually, I saw some like, it was like on Instagram or some shit like that.
[00:21:35]  I think it was a relative of one of the people from like the World Food, whatever that fucking thing is, World Food Kitchen.
[00:21:41]  And I saw a picture of that fucking Jeep again.
[00:21:44]  And it's like, oh my God, I forgot.
[00:21:46]  Like, yeah, they like fully targeted assassins and like some like NGO workers, American citizen NGO workers, and just like nothing happened.
[00:21:55]  In fact, we probably gave them some more bombs to replace the ones that they used on our citizens.
[00:21:59]  Well, the funny thing actually is that that was the closest moment to there being an arms embargo in that Nancy Pelosi after that happened because she's friends with that guy.
[00:22:11]  Yeah.
[00:22:11]  The head of that, the World Central Kitchen, Andres, whatever.
[00:22:14]  The like fancy chef.
[00:22:15]  The fancy chef guy.
[00:22:16]  Or hotelier or whatever.
[00:22:19]  Maybe a hotel chef.
[00:22:21]  Hotel chefier.
[00:22:24]  In, yeah, in, you know, because she pals around with him in DC or something, right?
[00:22:29]  She, she, she got all, you know, pissed off about that and made some headlines.
[00:22:35]  And what happened was Joe Biden made a phone call to Net Yahoo.
[00:22:39]  We don't know what was said on that phone call, but after that was the only time that Netanyahu actually did anything, which is he opened up more aid crossings in Tagaza.
[00:22:48]  Now, of course, that's all bullshit now because they started the Rafa invasion and all of those crossings are closed, but he stopped targeting Nancy Pelosi's friends.
[00:22:57]  And so no one cares anymore.
[00:22:58]  So what you're saying is we need Israel to target all of Nancy Pelosi's friends.
[00:23:02]  She really is the most powerful politician in America right now.
[00:23:06]  Yeah, it's made a list.
[00:23:09]  I mean, there is something to that that I actually want to talk about a little bit because I think that you would have to be living under a goddamn rock like a salamander to not have noticed that after Joe Biden agreed to step down as the presidential candidate and was replaced in a coup by Kamala Harris.
[00:23:29]  It seems like a lot of people who, as we've described in the show, were, I guess you could say, squishy on Palestine seemed almost like relieved.
[00:23:37]  Like, oh my God, like, it's like, it's some very similar way to how like BLM in November of 2020 was like, all right, we're done with that now.
[00:23:46]  We're done with that now.
[00:23:46]  Who's like, oh, now I don't have to deal with explaining to my friends why I'm voting for Genocide Joe.
[00:23:51]  Yeah, exactly.
[00:23:52]  And so like, it's Kamala Harris.
[00:23:54]  It's a clean slate.
[00:23:55]  And like, Kamala Harris has all of the good things that Joe Biden has done, right?
[00:24:00]  Like insulin capped at a certain price for people over 65.
[00:24:05]  But all of the bad things that Joe Biden has done, actually she had nothing to do with.
[00:24:09]  I mean, we were talking about this a little bit on the chat box last night.
[00:24:12]  Like it's, it's, I keep seeing this thing trotted out.
[00:24:14]  Like, oh, she didn't meet with Netanyahu at his congressional appearance when he came, which, by the way, so weird.
[00:24:21]  But actually not weird at all, but just really depressing.
[00:24:24]  But she met with him just like two days later, just in private, right?
[00:24:29]  I mean, because I think she realizes that that's more politically advantageous to her.
[00:24:33]  And like the Democrats.
[00:24:34]  They don't have a Photoshop with the guy and photo op with the guy.
[00:24:39]  I really think it boils down to like her not wanting to be seen like clapping or not clapping during a long-term speech.
[00:24:44]  I mean, I think that's just like a very basic political consensus.
[00:24:47]  I mean, FT had a very revealing piece that came out yesterday that was basically like, this whole thing is a massive foreign policy screw up for the Democrats and Kamala Harris should just not talk about it or even think about it.
[00:24:59]  Because it's just this.
[00:25:00]  And that's what they're doing and it's working.
[00:25:02]  It's working.
[00:25:02]  It's working.
[00:25:03]  But she's doing that also with every issue.
[00:25:05]  And it's working.
[00:25:05]  And it's working.
[00:25:06]  It is so funny.
[00:25:07]  We've talked about this on the show multiple times at this point, but it is crazy.
[00:25:11]  Like this is, this is, we are getting some like anti-politic politics going on right now.
[00:25:17]  Like there is nothing happening.
[00:25:19]  I mean, there's the vague economic, well, some specific, but mostly vague economic stuff that has been drotted out.
[00:25:24]  But like really, we have absolutely No idea, especially no clear idea of what Kamala Harris's outlook on Israel will be.
[00:25:32]  But the thing is, we can make educated guesses, right?
[00:25:35]  Or we can assume from what we've seen so far, at least what the current policy is, which the current policy seems to be stay the course with possibly slightly more public anti-Netanyahu rhetoric.
[00:25:45]  And that is something to drill in over and over and over again.
[00:25:49]  If ever there is a shift in Democratic opinion towards Israel, it will be aimed squarely at Netanyahu and not from the fucking, not from the place whence that came, right?
[00:26:02]  Yeah, I mean, I already see that now.
[00:26:04]  He's already become a very useful scapegoat for a certain kind of like middle-class Democrat that feels, doesn't know exactly how they want to.
[00:26:12]  Well, he's a Philadelphia thug, right?
[00:26:15]  You know, he's a Philly thug.
[00:26:16]  Well, you hear once we get Netanyahu out, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
[00:26:20]  It's kind of a classic move.
[00:26:21]  So, how do we put some of this in context for like in like Chicago context, right?
[00:26:28]  Because we're all here and this has been, you know, all of this has been kind of looming a bit over the convention.
[00:26:36]  How are, you know, how are politicians responding to the demands of the movement?
[00:26:43]  How is the movement going to show up at the convention?
[00:26:46]  This has all kind of been a big story leading up to Chicago.
[00:26:51]  And then, you know, as we've seen in the last week, there have been demands to have speakers at the convention where the DNC has been, has just outright denied.
[00:27:01]  There's been comments from AOC that a lot of people have been picking apart.
[00:27:05]  So I just, maybe we can kind of talk a little bit about what we've seen in the past week, specifically having to do with Palestine from the Democrats, and then we can talk a little bit about maybe what we might see tonight with Kamala.
[00:27:20]  Yeah.
[00:27:21]  I think that a lot of people have invested a lot in this moment, both within the party and in the kind of, you know, in the uncommitted movement and in the streets.
[00:27:33]  Right.
[00:27:34]  And part of the challenge is that nothing is actually happening here.
[00:27:39]  Like this whole thing is just pageantry.
[00:27:41]  Yeah.
[00:27:41]  Kamala was selected like 10 days ago, whatever, two weeks ago.
[00:27:45]  At a fucking Zoom meeting.
[00:27:46]  They did the roll call vote.
[00:27:47]  Like no actual like party politics are transpiring.
[00:27:53]  Yeah.
[00:27:53]  What it is, is it is an inflection point.
[00:27:58]  It is a venue for all of these contradictions that have been looming on the left and within the party to play out in the form of spectacle.
[00:28:08]  And everyone is like acting on the backdrop of 68 and all of these like images and stuff like that.
[00:28:14]  And so you have everyone's kind of like emotional and political investments spilling over.
[00:28:22]  And so there are, I mean, but there are, you know, kind of against that backdrop, like there are politics playing out.
[00:28:28]  So the uncommitted movement has gap, they have amassed delegates through the primary process.
[00:28:35]  So they do have access here and they do have cards with which they can negotiate with the party to extract some kind of concessions.
[00:28:47]  Now, because it's all pageantry, all they can extract is more visibility, like more kind of like centrality in the spectacle.
[00:28:58]  And so that's kind of like what the inside track of the quote-unquote movement is doing.
[00:29:05]  And the expectation, I think, would be that there is an outside track, that there are people who are taking the streets to exert pressure in the form of their anger and to elevate the demand of the arms embargo.
[00:29:25]  Again, because they're the segment of society that recognizes the urgency of this moment, that we actually do need to change policy if we don't want to cross this threshold into something that is we can't reverse back over.
[00:29:39]  I think broadly speaking, all of these things are playing out and people are experiencing frustration in that they're expecting a payoff.
[00:29:55]  They're expecting a thing to happen.
[00:29:57]  But we are really fighting for attention here.
[00:30:03]  And that's a hard, it's a really difficult place to be in when you care about this stuff, right?
[00:30:10]  Because I don't know.
[00:30:12]  It's been an opportunity kind of for me to reflect back on what we've achieved in the past 10 months of mobilizing.
[00:30:21]  And it is really incredible, right?
[00:30:22]  We have brought the Palestinian cause and also the issue of this genocide to the center of the national conversation.
[00:30:31]  And we've identified the appropriate remedy, right?
[00:30:34]  We've unified the left behind a single demand.
[00:30:37]  And whether, you know, even though the uncommitted folks on the inside, you know, they are not concretely making that demand by demanding a Palestinian American speaker, right?
[00:30:47]  It is in the service of this demand.

=== Brought to the Center (02:12) ===

[00:30:48]  And there is actually not a, there's not a real, there may be a contradiction, but it's not so antagonistic between like the outside track and the inside track.
[00:30:58]  And so we've brought this issue to the center of the conversation and correctly identified a demand.
[00:31:06]  And it's frankly not even a very unpopular demand.
[00:31:11]  But nevertheless, we may lose.
[00:31:17]  And that, and like that is a, that is a, it is a heartbreaking thing, um, but it doesn't, it also doesn't diminish what's what's been accomplished.
[00:31:25]  And I think that that reality is what a lot of people are reckoning with on an emotional level.
[00:31:31]  And it's, and it's, uh, it's very difficult.
[00:31:33]  How do you mean?
[00:31:34]  I mean that there's a lot of frustration right now.
[00:31:36]  Yeah.
[00:31:37]  Um, I think that there's, you know, inter-movement frustration.
[00:31:40]  I think that there are people, you know, who are participating in street mobilizations who view what uncommitted is doing as a concession of sorts.
[00:31:48]  There are people on the inside track who view the out you know that the outside protests as disruptive, although kind of think that at least up until today, they haven't really been.
[00:32:00]  Yeah.
[00:32:01]  And I think that there's general frustration with that.
[00:32:05]  And, you know, there is the masses of people that have been moved to care about Palestine, but actually have not internalized the urgency of it.
[00:32:14]  And so are open to being satisfied by these kind of like rhetorical concessions.
[00:32:20]  Like when they see a politician with the same policies as Joe Biden sell them better, right?
[00:32:25]  And pay lip service to Palestinian humanity or just be a little softer around the edges that feels like progress because they can say, oh, look, you know, there's strong indications that Kamala Harris will be much better than Trump on Palestine should she take office or better than Joe Biden.
[00:32:41]  And we know that that's not good enough.
[00:32:45]  If there's a huge war, you know, that kicks off before she comes into office, like that counterfactual is not going to save any lives.
[00:32:53]  Well, I think the fact of the matter is, even if there's a huge war that kicks off after she comes into office, if she comes into office, I think really the end result will be the same.

=== People Isreal's Arab Vibe (09:23) ===

[00:33:00]  The security of Israel is non-negotiable.
[00:33:04]  That is not on the table, even I feel like a little bit, right?
[00:33:09]  Because we should condition that a bit because you can make a strong argument that the security of Israel mandates forcing a ceasefire deal now.
[00:33:24]  Yeah, well, absolutely.
[00:33:26]  You could.
[00:33:26]  I mean, the reality is, if the security of Israel was really the number one thing that people were looking for, the policies, internal policies, domestic policies, the policies of Israel towards Palestinians and other Arab states in Iran would be radically different.
[00:33:41]  But that's not really, I mean, that's not how these politics work, right?
[00:33:45]  Right, because the powerful interests in the United States are sipping from the same juice box as the delusional people in Israel who don't actually fundamentally recognize that they, by starting a war with Hezbollah, they are bringing on an existential threat to the state.
[00:34:04]  They don't realize.
[00:34:05]  I think they just want to, they're ready to go.
[00:34:09]  I think it's ready to go, like go down.
[00:34:12]  No, which is like no, no.
[00:34:15]  I just mean that they're like not just, I mean, I don't think that they are not clear-eyed about the stakes.
[00:34:24]  Yeah.
[00:34:24]  I just think they're ready to fucking play.
[00:34:26]  Like, you think you think you think there's the same sort of like there's like, they're like, there isn't another option.
[00:34:32]  Yeah.
[00:34:32]  Yeah.
[00:34:33]  There's no other road.
[00:34:34]  I do feel like that is like considering the politics of Israel.
[00:34:38]  Like that does seem to be the case.
[00:34:40]  I mean, there is no like sane counterbalance or like, you know, speaking in terms like a relative terms within domestic Israeli politics, like there isn't like a left or like a, you know, a sort of like a peaceknit camp because that has just almost been totally exiled from mainstream Israeli society.
[00:34:57]  Yeah.
[00:34:57]  But but to nuance that a bit, there are people in Israel who don't want a war.
[00:35:04]  Of course.
[00:35:04]  Yeah.
[00:35:05]  And probably the level-headed people in the Shinbet and Bossad and the, you know, the security establishment.
[00:35:12]  Well, that's the thing is like, yeah, like there are like, and it's funny because this is so often the case.
[00:35:16]  Like there are people whose job it will be to prosecute the war who probably have like a pretty clear idea of really what the actual stakes of that war will be and some of the consequences of pursuing that war will be.
[00:35:29]  But like I'm talking about in terms of like within the Knesset, right?
[00:35:32]  Yeah, it's the political people in both the U.S. and in Israel.
[00:35:35]  It's the political people who cannot stomach what it would mean to actually play hardball with that with that relationship because they understand the political consequences of that.
[00:35:44]  And it's the security people who are like, you guys, we are about to kick off something that is going to be extremely risky, extremely devastating, and could be the end of the project.
[00:35:53]  Like this could be the end of Zionism.
[00:35:55]  And I think, and so, you know, that's why you have the director of the CIA, Burns, out there.
[00:36:02]  I believe him.
[00:36:02]  I believe that he wants this deal and that it's Biden and Blinken who are who are preventing it because they are as ideologues, they are more committed to never standing up to Israel because that's, you know, that's something that can't be undone.
[00:36:21]  Right.
[00:36:22]  Yeah.
[00:36:22]  I mean, Burns has like been shacked up in like a long-term Airbnb for like fucking like six months.
[00:36:27]  He's been out there for so long.
[00:36:29]  He's so competitive.
[00:36:30]  He's just leaving on the squeakiest IP event in the world in motherfucking Cairo.
[00:36:36]  Yeah, you know, and it's, it's, it's, I mean, bring it back to the DNC a little bit, like, you know, our Knesset.
[00:36:43]  Well, part of our Knesset.
[00:36:44]  One's Knesset.
[00:36:45]  One's Knesset.
[00:36:46]  One of many Knessets in America.
[00:36:49]  Yeah, I mean, there is this, there is this sort of like funny tension between like they're like trying to pay this like the minimum viable lip service to Palestinians as human beings, not to like the concept of like a binational state, to maybe a two-state thing, but like to a, which I'm not, I'm not expecting the Democrats to have a guy be out there like, we need one secular socialist state.
[00:37:12]  Like it's not going to happen.
[00:37:15]  But you know, like they had AOC trot out there, right?
[00:37:19]  And lie to the American people and say that Kamala has been working tirelessly for a ceasefire deal.
[00:37:25]  I know that I think yesterday they had a couple of guys come out there, one wearing a kefia, who like said something about a ceasefire.
[00:37:34]  And it does.
[00:37:35]  Of course, parents of hostages.
[00:37:37]  And of course, the parents of hostages.
[00:37:39]  Yes, yeah, yeah.
[00:37:40]  Come out there.
[00:37:42]  I mean, that to me is like so, you know, when people talk about like, oh, there's not going to be like a Palestinian speaker.
[00:37:48]  It's not going to be a Palestinian speaker.
[00:37:50]  Like, you have to understand, like, I mean, no disrespect.
[00:37:53]  I mean, no disrespect to you.
[00:37:54]  You're Palestinian.
[00:37:57]  I'm just calling balls and strikes here.
[00:38:00]  You guys kind of rank a little lower.
[00:38:03]  I mean, there's no like world where the Democrats are putting a Palestinian on live television, live network television.
[00:38:10]  Like it's just not happening in this context.
[00:38:14]  They didn't even put that Atlantic Council guy on there.
[00:38:16]  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:38:17]  It was an Atlantic Council guy who was like, I'm trying to speak like one of those classic Barry Weiss fucking like hashlings who wants to go up and be like, you know what, neither Hamas nor Netanyahu, but like, but in the end, Netanyahu.
[00:38:31]  And like, you know, one of these motherfuckers that go up there.
[00:38:34]  They didn't even let that guy go up there, right?
[00:38:35]  Like the reality is, is like, actually, Arabs politically are fairly irrelevant, right?
[00:38:43]  Like, not irrelevant in terms of like, yeah, there are obviously like people who are maybe Arab voters in Michigan or something.
[00:38:49]  But like in the scheme of things, like, and not to sound like, whatever here, but I'm trying to do Cartman voice to get away with saying something that might be taken as angry.
[00:38:58]  Carmen?
[00:38:58]  Kartzman?
[00:38:59]  Oh.
[00:38:59]  Kartzman?
[00:39:01]  Like the opera.
[00:39:02]  Kartzmaking.
[00:39:04]  The opera?
[00:39:06]  What about the hip hop bra?
[00:39:08]  I can't, you don't want me doing hip-hop on this motherfucking podcast.
[00:39:12]  You think I should start rapping?
[00:39:13]  Hip hoper.
[00:39:14]  Hip hoper.
[00:39:14]  I know, but you think I should start rapping in Italian?
[00:39:18]  Anyways, the Arab is not doing great in terms of its position in the Democrat coalition and pro-Israel Jewish donors and voters as like a voting bloc.
[00:39:33]  You know, there is a very real, like, I think worry in the Democratic Party that they'll lose them to Trump, right?
[00:39:39]  But even like beyond that, I think that your point about it being a pageantry, like the pageantry and the spectacle of it is like, you know, it's to like go back to that, like, I think there's also like a please don't talk about the genocide at our party thing.
[00:39:53]  Yeah.
[00:39:54]  Which is like, we've got Oprah.
[00:39:56]  We've got balloons.
[00:39:57]  Yeah.
[00:39:58]  I'm wearing royal blue.
[00:39:59]  You're in hot pink.
[00:40:00]  We've got baubles.
[00:40:01]  My ombre is fresh.
[00:40:03]  Mindy Kaling is over there on the Peloton.
[00:40:05]  We are ready to fucking bounce.
[00:40:08]  Because it's all about vibes.
[00:40:09]  It's about vibes and it's brat and it's summer and like, please, we can't talk about the rape concentration camp.
[00:40:17]  I gotta be real.
[00:40:18]  Yeah, the Palestinians are kind of serving not so hot girls.
[00:40:21]  Hot girl walk, girl dinner.
[00:40:23]  So, okay, I totally agree.
[00:40:25]  And to put it in neutral terms, you're just not supposed to care that much about foreign policy as an American.
[00:40:30]  Yeah, that's true.
[00:40:31]  It is just a, you know, it is a like seventh, eighth tier issue.
[00:40:35]  That's historically how Americans view foreign policy.
[00:40:38]  It's like, okay, it doesn't really make that much of a difference between the two parties.
[00:40:41]  It's not really a thing that you vote on.
[00:40:43]  And that's part of the disconnect is they are, you know, you have the wonks in the parties saying, people don't actually care about this stuff.
[00:40:49]  Okay, maybe they think the genocide is bad, but it's the seventh or eighth thing that they care about.
[00:40:55]  So why, you know, why would we piss off all of these members of our constituency and they're powerful members, some powerful money to interest, right?
[00:41:05]  So it's really like there's not me.
[00:41:09]  The way that they do the calculation is low risk, sorry, high risk, low reward.
[00:41:15]  Right.
[00:41:16]  Exactly.
[00:41:16]  So you're not actually winning over that many.
[00:41:18]  This is their calculation.
[00:41:19]  Yeah.
[00:41:19]  You're not actually winning over that many new voters because this is not a top issue for the median voter.
[00:41:25]  And what you're doing is the high risk, right?
[00:41:27]  If you if you endorse an arms embargo, then you piss off one of the most powerful lobbies in the country.
[00:41:33]  And it fits within the same framing, right?
[00:41:36]  Because when AIPAC goes after you, they don't go after you for being anti-Israel.
[00:41:41]  No, no, no, they'll find anything, right?
[00:41:43]  Because they know how politics works too.
[00:41:45]  And they will try to hit you on something that will that will hurt.
[00:41:49]  They will go for something that they perceive people to care about.
[00:41:52]  So you have this disconnect where the party is saying, don't ruin our vibes.
[00:41:56]  And also, this is not a political, politically strategic play here because people don't actually care about this.
[00:42:02]  And then on the other side, you have people who very correctly say, well, actually, doing genocide is a number one moral issue.
[00:42:08]  Like there's you like on purely moral terms, there's like nothing more important than that.
[00:42:13]  But also you have people that are saying in very concrete terms, this is going to be an it may not be a top issue for you now, but if we are going to war, it will be a top issue.

=== Minimalist Demand Debate (14:49) ===

[00:42:24]  Right.
[00:42:24]  So like, like, this is, you know, again, this, I keep talking about the threshold, right?
[00:42:28]  Or like the cliff that we're, that we're careening towards.
[00:42:31]  And it's like, look, I wish people, I wish people cared about the genocide.
[00:42:34]  Obviously, I care about that very much.
[00:42:36]  Yeah.
[00:42:36]  But we are talking about a situation that is going to broaden the scope of the problem in ways that can affect the election in unpredictable ways.
[00:42:43]  Yeah.
[00:42:44]  I mean, this, this can get down to like, this will affect the price of eggs at the checkout counter, right?
[00:42:47]  Like it is, look, look, look at some of the effects of the Ukraine war, you know?
[00:42:52]  And this is, this is going to be, it's, who knows?
[00:42:55]  But, I mean, I'm no, what's like Adam Dues, but like, I'm not going to predict like all the, you know, Alfair.
[00:43:01]  Yeah, you're always talking about different kinds of polycrisis.
[00:43:03]  That's different.
[00:43:04]  That's so true.
[00:43:06]  And if you're listening to this Featherstone, if you're listening to this Featherstone, I would like you to come back to me.
[00:43:13]  But, You think, you know, you, you don't like your gas prices now.
[00:43:20]  I was about to say, I really hate on the dialogue.
[00:43:23]  Exactly.
[00:43:23]  Exactly.
[00:43:24]  Yeah.
[00:43:25]  It's just, and it's so frustrating to me.
[00:43:28]  But to bring it back a little bit, even to like the inside-outside stuff with the uncommitted voters, because last night we were at the bar.
[00:43:35]  And I think you told me, like, oh, there's a, well, maybe someone came up to us and was like, there's a, there's like a sit-in of uncommitted people.
[00:43:41]  Obviously, it is in an area that all of us cannot get into per se.
[00:43:46]  It's the security blanket.
[00:43:48]  It's within the security envelope.
[00:43:51]  But they were having a sit-in.
[00:43:54]  Today there's going to be a big protest.
[00:43:56]  And I do think that there is like almost, this war has been almost a year long, right?
[00:44:01]  Like it's the end of August, practically.
[00:44:04]  You know, we've got about a month and two weeks until the year anniversary of this, which is fucking crazy.
[00:44:11]  And I think a lot of people feel, like you were saying earlier, like this emotional response to that, where it's like, wow, it's been a year.
[00:44:20]  And we like really, in the final analysis, like have not moved the needle, right?
[00:44:24]  We've moved the needle of public opinion, but like public opinion is essentially irrelevant in a liberal democracy when it comes to things like this.
[00:44:31]  And I think that like a lot of people understand that that is like crazy, right?
[00:44:38]  Like it seems like, especially for a while, it's definitely, and just, you know, balls and strikes here, it's fucking tamped down a lot.
[00:44:44]  Like you're seeing a lot less people at any given protest, not just the ones at the DNC.
[00:44:49]  And I think some of that has to do with this fatigue of like not wanting to get on the street, that knowing that nothing will change, right?
[00:44:56]  Knowing that like you, you know, going home and maybe viewing like all of these pictures of dead children in a row, you know, and which is the efficacy of doing that to yourself always is, I think, is debatable.
[00:45:09]  And I think some people might do it as like a form of self-flagellation.
[00:45:11]  And like, again, I'm not sure.
[00:45:13]  Yeah.
[00:45:13]  It's like a way to, and listen, as somebody who has seen a lot of dead bodies in real life, it's not something you really want to look at.
[00:45:20]  If you get the point, you get the point.
[00:45:21]  You know what I mean?
[00:45:23]  I think there's also like a basic, kind of a basic thing that feels shitty to say, but I think it's true, which is that people like to be on a winning team.
[00:45:30]  Yeah.
[00:45:31]  And so there's a kind of unspoken, like, let's just pause.
[00:45:35]  And then once we get through this, if Kamala gets in, then we kind of like restart the like there.
[00:45:41]  And I don't think that it's even like a conscious, like, it's that, you know, explicit or in like people's minds, but it's tough to be on the losing side of something for a year, right?
[00:45:55]  And if you, and if really, if you, if you're on the left, and if you're on the left, well, that's a whole different thing that hopefully people in the left.
[00:46:00]  Yeah, that's a part of coming to terms with being on the left.
[00:46:04]  For a lot of people that kind of are coming into the world, especially the young people who the young people are coming into this struggle, like that's it's difficult to keep finding the, you know, finding ways to keep your momentum going.
[00:46:17]  I think that there's, yeah, I totally agree.
[00:46:20]  And I am anticipating the kind of, you know, losing a lot of a lot of people who've been radicalized in this moment.
[00:46:26]  But I also think that people will be hardened.
[00:46:28]  And the reason I think that is because we are coming off a, you know, multiple cycles of struggle that achieved mass mobilizations and no results and no kind of concrete results.
[00:46:40]  And I'm thinking about Occupy and I'm thinking about BLM, moments where you had really large-scale mobilizations that didn't pan out in terms of any policy payout.
[00:46:54]  And but I think what's radicalizing about this moment is that the mainstream critique of those mobilizations was that the reason why they failed is because they didn't settle on a demand.
[00:47:04]  Yeah.
[00:47:05]  Right.
[00:47:05]  So, you know, Occupy had the slogan, but no demand.
[00:47:09]  It didn't pay out.
[00:47:09]  BLM had the slogan, but no demand.
[00:47:12]  And so it devolved into community policing, et cetera.
[00:47:16]  Right.
[00:47:16]  Yeah.
[00:47:17]  This time's different.
[00:47:19]  Right.
[00:47:19]  We have actually settled on a demand.
[00:47:22]  It's a really easy and implementable demand.
[00:47:25]  It's even a catchy demand.
[00:47:26]  It's a catchy demand and it's cross-factional.
[00:47:29]  It's not just what the, you know, the mainstream parts of the movement are pushing.
[00:47:33]  It's everyone recognizes it's what needs to happen.
[00:47:36]  And so when that, you know, I hope it doesn't fail.
[00:47:39]  I, you know, I want us to succeed.
[00:47:41]  And you're in.
[00:47:42]  Who knows?
[00:47:42]  Maybe Chicago will burn tonight and some crazy shit will happen.
[00:47:45]  Yeah.
[00:47:46]  Not that I would ever do that or condone any violations of the law.
[00:47:49]  Well, also that you're not that cow that kicked out that damn lantern.
[00:47:51]  That's right.
[00:47:54]  But it, you know, but in the event that we fail, I think that will be very radicalizing because no one will be able to say, you know, it was a lack of, it was a lack of demand.
[00:48:06]  People will be able to point at the exact structures that prevented it from happening.
[00:48:11]  And when shit hits the fan, it'll be really clear why.
[00:48:14]  Well, it's funny actually to contrast this with, well, more specifically with BLM, because Occupy had a host of, I mean, frankly, I actually just was not involved in anything to do with society during Occupy.
[00:48:27]  I was busy smoking crack.
[00:48:30]  But you and Mike Lindell.
[00:48:33]  Me and Mike Lindell.
[00:48:34]  America's two foremost white crackheads, not you at all.
[00:48:37]  I was not a crackhead, but I indulge once or twice, but obviously Hunter, Joe Biden, the president's son.
[00:48:43]  The king of cracks.
[00:48:43]  That's probably the problem.
[00:48:44]  Hunter and Mike Lindell having a like Zoomer YouTube humor style YouTube show.
[00:48:49]  No, which is so great.
[00:48:51]  God, dude.
[00:48:52]  Imagine them and Spotify staring at each other.
[00:48:55]  Yes.
[00:48:56]  Them and Steve are.
[00:48:58]  Crack eyes.
[00:48:59]  Oh, my God.
[00:49:01]  And I feel like they both have really bad veneers.
[00:49:03]  But yes, but actually, I bet Lindell doesn't have veniers.
[00:49:06]  I think that's the only thing that's not.
[00:49:07]  Okay, but if they have the show, they need to get matching.
[00:49:10]  They need to get matching veniers.
[00:49:11]  But like, I think something that I noticed that was happening during BLM is that like all of a sudden, it was really kind of extraordinary because you saw a lot of people who generally have politics that would be described, and again, balls and strikes objectively as like perhaps like reformist,
[00:49:26]  possibly social democratic, possibly just regular democratic politics, make these maximalist demands of like abolish the police, abolish prisons, like these demands that like, first of all, as somebody who holds extreme politics, I actually do not subscribe to because we're going to need a lot more police.
[00:49:42]  They're just going to be maybe under a different agency and some different people in the uniforms and with Sam Brown belts.
[00:49:49]  But like you had these like maximalist demands that were out there.
[00:49:52]  And I think the big contrast with this is actually this is a fairly like minimalist demand, right?
[00:49:57]  Or like it's not like, we're not like fucking bomb Israel.
[00:50:01]  You know, regime change.
[00:50:04]  Like we're not calling for regime change.
[00:50:05]  I mean, I am calling for regime change, but like that isn't a movement demand, right?
[00:50:09]  Like there are, there are obviously like aspects of the movement that are that are more, I guess you could say radical that like demand whatever, whatever, whatever.
[00:50:17]  But like the general, like the one big call coming from the Palestine movement is for a ceasefire, is for an arms embargo, right?
[00:50:24]  Yeah.
[00:50:25]  And it is not even, well, I guess an American arms embargo.
[00:50:30]  But and that seems to be the big difference.
[00:50:34]  But the interesting thing is I think a lot of the BLM stuff, even sometimes the abolish the police stuff was co-opted by the mainstream of the Democratic Party.
[00:50:42]  We had Nancy Pelosi kneeling in a kenta cloth.
[00:50:45]  We are not about to see Nancy Pelosi kneeling in a fucking kefir, right?
[00:50:49]  Yeah.
[00:50:51]  No, they have tried.
[00:50:52]  So the way that they have tried, that's absolutely correct.
[00:50:55]  The way that they have tried to co-opt it is by this move that we were talking about earlier of playing lip service to the idea of a ceasefire.
[00:51:01]  Yeah.
[00:51:02]  Of saying, well, we support the thing that you're asking for, even though we are doing absolutely nothing.
[00:51:07]  I wish we could do something about it.
[00:51:09]  Yeah, exactly.
[00:51:10]  Yeah.
[00:51:11]  And that's the AOC working tirelessly line.
[00:51:13]  Combo's working tirelessly for a ceasefire, doing everything except the only thing that will work.
[00:51:19]  Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
[00:51:21]  And so like, I think that like, and I don't, I think I, again, not to get, I'm not trying to draw you into some like, talking about the left in this metaway, but I think that like a lot of people on the left never expect to win, right?
[00:51:35]  Like in the same way that like there are the people who are like really attracted to winning, even if that like is, what is it?
[00:51:41]  You'd rather you want, they want the power.
[00:51:43]  They don't want to go to the critique, the power or whatever it is.
[00:51:45]  Sorry, I love, I love YouTubers.
[00:51:48]  But I think there are also people who really are addicted to being like, I am like, whatever position is happening, I need to be on the losing side, which is often the most ultra-left, like extreme side.
[00:52:01]  But like the reality is, is like, I actually like, oh, I do want to win.
[00:52:05]  Like, I really, really want to win.
[00:52:07]  I don't want to just win on this.
[00:52:08]  I want to win on everything.
[00:52:09]  Like, and I really, really, really want that.
[00:52:13]  And I think that like the fact of the matter is, is, look at me.
[00:52:18]  I'm like delaying how to finish this.
[00:52:20]  What I think is that none of this is ever going to happen unless there is like one party that people belong to.
[00:52:27]  That is the only, that is the only mechanism I think that has actually been able to affect change of the kind that like people want who generally subscribe to ideas that you could call the left is been the party form.
[00:52:41]  And like we just don't have that in America.
[00:52:43]  Like there isn't anything even approaching that.
[00:52:46]  But that's a little bit of a tangent.
[00:52:49]  That's why you have that RFK hat.
[00:52:51]  That's why I have the RFK hat.
[00:52:52]  And you know what?
[00:52:53]  He's fucking selling.
[00:52:54]  He's a motherfucking Quizley because I wanted to do the most based party ever.
[00:52:59]  We call that the based party.
[00:53:01]  The based party.
[00:53:02]  That's Brace's new political formation.
[00:53:04]  Yeah, the Crypto Workers Party.
[00:53:07]  But yeah, it just, you know, I think the thing that is so, I think, emotional about this for me is that like Palestine is an issue that I have cared about for a long time.
[00:53:18]  That has been a large part of just like my general political experience, I guess you could say.
[00:53:24]  And this is like the closest it's ever been to being at all in like really the mainstream of like the pro-Palestine position being in the mainstream.
[00:53:32]  And I think that the frustrating thing is like that still gets us fucking nothing.
[00:53:37]  Yeah.
[00:53:37]  Yeah.
[00:53:38]  Still gets us nothing.
[00:53:40]  I think I want to just comment on one thing that you said, which is that the ceasefire demand is a minimalist demand.
[00:53:47]  And I think that is correct.
[00:53:49]  But I also think, and this was true, I guess, so ceasefire, the arms embargo demand is a minimalist.
[00:53:55]  Follow the law.
[00:53:56]  Follow the law.
[00:53:57]  Follow the law is extremely minimalist demand.
[00:53:59]  Don't abolish the police.
[00:54:00]  Follow the damn law.
[00:54:01]  Follow the law.
[00:54:03]  The tricky part about it, and also in some ways, the amazing part about it is that the consequence of October 7th is that that minimalist demand has maximalist implications.
[00:54:20]  And that's what people, that's what our enemies realize.
[00:54:25]  And I think I said this last time I was on the show, is that ceasefire is also quite a minimal demand.
[00:54:31]  And yet, if there was a ceasefire in November, it would have been interpreted correctly as Hamas military victory.
[00:54:38]  Now, I don't think that that argument holds today, but it is a, you know, arms embargo, if imposed against Israel, is, it is both required by law and has really profound political consequences.
[00:54:58]  And That is the, that is the contradiction that the Palestinian resistance has, has surfaced.
[00:55:04]  Yeah.
[00:55:05]  Is that there is this, there is this opportunity and it is the opportunity strategically that they were counting on.
[00:55:10]  And, and we may fail and it may fail, right?
[00:55:14]  And, you know, there's, you know, there's, there's all kinds of bad timelines from here, basically.
[00:55:20]  But we do have this opportunity to make a profound political change with a minimalist demand.
[00:55:30]  Well, we got to get out of here because we got a protest to get to.
[00:55:32]  We're going to get to this damn thing.
[00:55:33]  I got to take off my shirt and get all the cameras on.
[00:55:35]  You know how like every protest is like the burning trash can thing.
[00:55:39]  They all go around the camera.
[00:55:40]  I'm just going to take my shirt off and be like glaring at like the photographers with a long lens.
[00:55:44]  Like, how come they're not all fucking around?
[00:55:45]  Like one of the, you're going to do the Pepsi can thing, but with just your shirt off.
[00:55:50]  Did you see those like anime style people at the protests with like the national Bolshevik flag and like the maid uniform and shit?
[00:55:56]  No.
[00:55:57]  No.
[00:55:57]  It was some shit.
[00:55:58]  Every like at the all the protests, there's been like some like goofies, like internet psychotic people who've like come and like, like there was like a like a Nazi girl the other day who was like there was someone like with a big n-word sign.
[00:56:13]  I know.
[00:56:14]  If I see these people, I'm just going to set them on fire.
[00:56:16]  Just suck a punch on.
[00:56:17]  Yeah.
[00:56:17]  I'm just like, why does anyone just hit these people?
[00:56:19]  Like, you press charges on you?
[00:56:21]  You're just in a fucking made uniform in an anime wig, bro.
[00:56:24]  I'll kill your parents.
[00:56:26]  What are you talking about?
[00:56:28]  You press charges against me.
[00:56:30]  I'm going to press you down until you stop breathing.
[00:56:33]  But no, but it's all love.
[00:56:34]  Like, I'll hug.
[00:56:35]  It's a hug.
[00:56:36]  That's what it is.
[00:56:37]  I'm one of the top huggers in Chicago.
[00:56:39]  But you hug so tight, they die.
[00:56:42]  Love and love and hate are the same thing, baby.
[00:56:45]  One knuckle tattoo, the other knuckle tattoo.
[00:56:47]  And they come together around your neck.
[00:56:49]  That's annoying.
[00:56:51]  I have a knuckle tattoo.
[00:56:53]  Someone thought this was a butt plug the other day.
[00:56:57]  Can you believe that?
[00:56:59]  How crazy is your life that you don't recognize a fucking spade and you think it's a fucking butt plug?
[00:57:04]  That is a different experience than me.
[00:57:07]  I would need one one time because sometimes with this cheese they got out here, but that's neither here nor there.

=== Top Huggers of Chicago (00:35) ===

[00:57:13]  Dylan, thank you for coming on the show.
[00:57:15]  Thanks, y'all.
[00:57:17]  My name is I'm just going to say it, Rice.
[00:57:20]  I'm Liz.
[00:57:21]  We're, of course, joined by producer Young Chomsky, and this has been Truanon.
[00:57:27]  We'll see you next time.
[00:57:28]  Bye-bye.
[00:57:49]  Come in.