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now for family favorites. Hey

2:08

everybody, Robert Evans here, and I wanted

2:10

to let you know this is

2:12

a compilation episode. So every episode of

2:14

the week that just happened is

2:16

here in one convenient and with somewhat

2:18

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2:20

listen to in a long stretch if

2:22

you want. If you've been listening

2:24

to the episodes every day this week, there's got to be

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nothing new here for you, but you can make your

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own decisions. Welcome

2:32

to It Could Happen Here, a podcast that asks the

2:34

question, what happens when the people who are trying

2:36

to help put things back together are also being exploited

2:38

in the process? I am

2:40

your host, Mia Wong, and today

2:42

we are going to be talking about a

2:44

union that is attempting to do exactly

2:46

that. And with me to

2:48

discuss this are Jess and Jesus, who

2:51

are mentors for Friends of the Children

2:53

PDX and members of the Friends PDX

2:55

Union Network. Yeah, Jess, Jesus, welcome

2:57

to the show. Thank you so much

2:59

for having us. Yeah, thank you. Yeah,

3:01

I'm really happy to talk to you

3:03

both because I think this is a very,

3:05

very unique and interesting union, especially, you know,

3:07

talk about especially right now. But

3:09

to get people sort of rolling, can

3:12

you explain what Friends of the Children

3:14

is and what it is that

3:16

you two do? Yeah.

3:19

So Friends of the Children is,

3:21

it's a national organization, it's

3:23

a nonprofit, but they're

3:25

like... There are individual chapters

3:27

throughout different cities. We

3:29

work out of Portland, which is

3:31

the founding chapter and also the

3:33

largest one. Some of the

3:36

language I'll say that is like used from

3:38

the website and from like the mission statement that

3:40

really encompasses. what our

3:42

role is and also how it

3:44

is told to like our community

3:46

partnerships and the families and youth

3:48

that we work with is that

3:50

we are committing to youth when

3:53

they are typically around kindergarten age

3:55

level and they're being paired with

3:57

a mentor and they will have

3:59

a mentor until they graduate the program

4:01

so that usually ends up being

4:03

a total of 12 and a half

4:05

years. And that like

4:07

within that we were doing a lot

4:10

of like individualized care and support.

4:12

We work with them in the schools.

4:14

We work with them outside the

4:16

schools. We help them get into extracurriculars.

4:18

We help them with like social

4:20

emotional regulation, developing relationships with other youth

4:23

in the program. And really

4:25

just like being a consistently

4:27

reliable human being. And

4:29

one of the big like pillars of

4:31

our organization is the commitment to long

4:33

term, which sometimes can be an issue

4:35

when you are facing a lot of

4:37

high turnover as an organization. We

4:40

both have eight kids on

4:42

our roster as do most

4:45

mentors. And within that,

4:47

we have youth. I personally

4:49

have youth that have been assigned

4:51

to me that have just started

4:53

in the program, meaning that they

4:55

were like maybe first grade when

4:57

I was assigned to them. And

4:59

then I also have youth that

5:02

are middle school level that have

5:04

had several different mentors in the past.

5:06

some that have stayed there for maybe

5:08

a few years and like sometimes there's

5:11

ones that have been there for months. Yeah.

5:14

If I can add to that,

5:16

the kids we work

5:18

with, they're enrolled into

5:21

the program because they

5:23

have some risk factors in

5:25

their lives that would lead them to

5:27

needing a little bit of extra

5:29

support and help. So we work with

5:31

a lot of kids. that

5:34

come from immigrant families,

5:36

from families that have,

5:38

you know, single parent

5:41

households, foster care,

5:43

families and kids, kids

5:45

that like, unfortunately,

5:48

are likely to face some

5:50

challenges that our society and

5:52

the way it's built up

5:54

will deal to them. And

5:57

our goal is to help

5:59

them through those challenges just be

6:01

there for them so

6:03

that they have a

6:06

chance of, you know,

6:08

graduating high school or

6:10

entering adulthood without having,

6:12

you know, having had

6:14

kids or facing like

6:17

the justice system. It's

6:19

kids that we love

6:21

dearly that we

6:23

work with in a similar way

6:25

as like, you know, a program

6:27

like Big Brothers, Big Sisters. But

6:30

we are paid mentors,

6:32

which is the big difference,

6:35

right? We're not volunteer

6:37

based. We are employees, basically

6:39

social workers for all of

6:41

the families that we work with. It's

6:43

honestly like it's a great

6:45

job. And I think right

6:47

now, especially like super necessary

6:50

because things are falling apart. Yeah.

6:52

Yeah. And

6:54

yeah, just adding like

6:56

one. that made me think of how

6:59

within the work like I think

7:01

social work is a very apt choice

7:03

of words because we are paired

7:05

with the youth and it doesn't like

7:07

stop there like we work like

7:09

we work with the families we also

7:12

work with like the siblings too

7:14

because sometimes you'll have a youth that

7:16

maybe is the only child in

7:18

that family that for whatever reason got

7:20

a mentor and then you support all

7:22

I mean it's a choice but

7:25

But I would say that most mentors

7:27

definitely opt in to being there

7:29

for siblings and family members in the

7:31

household and making sure that they're

7:33

also showing up for the caregivers to

7:35

help them create a loving home. Yeah.

7:38

And I mean, you know, I think

7:40

that you can you can look at this

7:43

and see how it's supposed to work structurally. And,

7:45

you know, you were talking about like, I

7:47

mean, this is supposed to be a

7:50

like over a decade

7:52

long commitment to these kids. right

7:54

that ideally you're working with the same person

7:56

and you know you're forming really deep

7:58

emotional attachments because you can't not do that

8:01

if you're doing this kind

8:03

of work but then

8:05

also you know in order for that

8:07

to work and I think this is you know you

8:09

can see this to the outside is like in

8:11

order for this to work this has to be a

8:13

job that you could stay really do for a

8:15

decade, right? Yeah, which

8:21

I will say we do and I

8:23

want to do I want to give

8:25

so many props to one of our

8:27

mentors who has stayed for 12 years

8:29

and has graduated their youth. But

8:32

of all of our

8:34

co -workers, I believe it's only

8:36

one that has currently been able

8:38

to do that and has stayed

8:40

there as long as I have. Yeah.

8:43

And the truth of the fact, for any

8:45

job, 12 and a half years is

8:47

a really long time, right? I mean,

8:49

six years is a really long time.

8:53

with this job, we're like,

8:55

we're an emotional sponge

8:57

for a lot of

8:59

things, right? So our

9:01

kids go through everything

9:04

that you could imagine. And

9:06

within that, like everything good

9:08

and everything bad that you

9:10

could imagine. And our job,

9:12

a lot of times is

9:15

like, we can't solve the

9:17

things that are affecting these

9:19

kids, but we can

9:21

take in some of

9:23

those negative feelings and

9:25

that grief, that anger,

9:27

we can take it in

9:29

and almost dissolve it a

9:31

little bit, right? But within

9:34

that, it can affect

9:36

us so much. And

9:39

that's where, yeah, the sustainability

9:41

part of 12 a half

9:43

years in this job, that

9:45

is a lot. And we

9:47

need a lot for that

9:50

to... at all be

9:52

possible. Yeah, I

9:54

mean, there's this way

9:56

in which you're effectively... What

9:58

this job is, is you're

10:01

the person who is trying to

10:03

mitigate the impact of literally

10:05

all of the structural systems of

10:08

violence that exist in this entire

10:10

country, and how they're

10:12

just targeted down on these

10:14

kids, and your job is

10:16

to try to... protect them

10:18

as much as possible. And that's

10:20

unbelievable amount of physical

10:23

and emotional labor. And then

10:25

also, I don't

10:27

know, it seems pretty bad that there's

10:29

only been one co -worker who's been able

10:31

to graduate their kids. And

10:34

just to clarify for history,

10:36

that's been in our time there. Yeah, yeah.

10:38

There'll be other I don't know if

10:40

over the 30 years, I hope that other

10:42

people have. But yeah, in recent years,

10:44

it's only been the one. And

10:47

also, yeah, this is a

10:49

job where you are not necessarily

10:51

able to undo the systems

10:53

at play, but trying to support

10:55

them. And we,

10:57

as mentors, are

11:00

inevitably also facing those

11:02

systems against ourselves. And

11:04

one of the reasons that

11:06

I think people gravitate towards

11:08

this job. Is there empathy because

11:10

they have those shared experiences? One

11:13

of the things that is kind

11:15

of heavy in the culture of

11:17

friends is being asked your why

11:20

when you start. Like

11:22

why did you choose friends? And for

11:24

a lot of people it is because of

11:26

wanting to be the person that they

11:28

needed when they were going through those periods

11:30

of time. So there's bound

11:32

to be a lot of reactivation

11:34

of feelings inside yourself that I

11:36

think we all, I want to

11:39

say, every mentor I've worked with

11:41

has done an incredible job of

11:43

handling that and taking good care of

11:45

themselves. But it

11:47

is definitely something that takes

11:49

a lot of regulation. I

11:53

think empathy is one of the greatest

11:55

skills in this job, but it also, yeah,

11:58

it also then leads to us needing

12:00

greater needs of self -care and things like that.

12:02

Yeah. And like, I mean, I guess like to

12:04

put this in perspective for like people

12:06

listening to this is like, okay,

12:08

your job is to be the person

12:10

like in the friend group who

12:12

like manages like when someone's like having

12:14

an emotional crisis, like you have

12:16

to like help them and deal with

12:18

it. And that is your job

12:20

for like eight kids. feel

12:23

like the worst shit in the world. Like,

12:26

Jesus Christ. Oh,

12:29

good Lord. It's

12:31

honestly like hearing

12:33

this, it's always really helpful to

12:35

hear someone's outside perspective of our

12:37

job, right? Because we get... So,

12:39

so into it, so into the

12:41

muck of like what this job

12:43

can be. And I think like

12:45

overall, like, like social work, it's

12:47

not just like our job, but

12:49

like I'm sure other social workers

12:51

and people in care industries, like

12:53

we have like continuous like vicarious

12:55

trauma that makes us

12:57

forget like how How

13:01

our job is sometimes and then

13:03

it's helpful to hear other people

13:05

mention it because it's like yeah

13:07

Wow, our job is kind of

13:09

crazy and the work we do

13:11

is like really important and really

13:13

important for society and also Yeah, like

13:16

it's hard. It's

13:18

hard work It's it's hard

13:20

and it doesn't like really have an end point

13:22

like we have the hours we work with

13:24

kids and then We have

13:26

the hours we think about them and

13:28

the things going on in their lives And

13:30

sometimes it's like sweet things like a

13:32

lot of times it's sweet things where I'll

13:34

see something and be like oh my

13:36

gosh You know who would love that and

13:38

like things like that are like oh

13:40

great idea or oh, let's go see this

13:42

movie and a lot of times it's

13:44

like worrying though too and Knowing that there

13:47

is there is only so many things

13:49

we can control and some things

13:51

we just have to be the

13:53

person that's there as they have to go

13:56

through something. Which yeah,

13:58

it's hard because we also obviously

14:00

like develop such loving relationships

14:02

with these kids. It's hard to

14:04

see kids that you care

14:06

about so much that sometimes the

14:08

most you can do is

14:10

just be there. Yeah, it

14:12

definitely is a job that like

14:14

to some degree is sort of always

14:16

with you. Yeah, we have a

14:19

joke about this with this job where

14:21

it's like If you do what

14:23

you love and you'll never be free

14:25

for a single second of your

14:27

entire life, it's because you're just always

14:29

on. Yeah, it's

14:31

so true. Yeah, as

14:33

you say this, I worked till like 9 30

14:35

last night because I was like, you know what?

14:37

I'm enjoying this so much taking out with my

14:39

guys. So I'm just going to keep working. Yeah.

14:42

Yeah. So speaking of

14:44

keeping working, we need to go to ads

14:47

and then we will come back and

14:49

talk about. the ways in which this job

14:51

that requires an incredible amount of structural

14:53

support to keep people there for like over

14:55

a decade is failing to do that. And

15:07

we are back. So,

15:09

okay, now that we've sort

15:12

of talked about what

15:14

this is, let's talk about

15:16

the actual union. Yeah.

15:21

So can you talk about sort of how

15:23

did organizing for this union start and what

15:25

were the sort of issues that could have

15:27

brought everyone to be like, okay, we need

15:29

to do this? Yeah, for

15:31

sure. So we

15:33

first brought about

15:35

our petition to

15:38

unionize in March

15:40

of 2023. So

15:42

that was two years ago, a

15:45

long time ago, right? The

15:48

work for unionization, obviously the

15:50

organizing behind it started like

15:52

much before that when I

15:54

first joined friends, it was

15:56

in September of 22. And

15:59

I knew that the work

16:01

had already been like happening

16:03

the summer before. What

16:05

was the catalyst was

16:07

post COVID A, obviously a

16:09

lot of people left

16:11

given what COVID did to

16:14

a lot of industries

16:16

and especially care work. But

16:18

then likewise, a lot

16:20

of people were fired and

16:22

where many would say like

16:24

fired without like a full

16:26

on like deep process that

16:29

included a program manager. who

16:31

was really listening to

16:33

friends and advocating for

16:35

the mentor role. And

16:37

they were let go, which spurred a

16:40

lot of people to want to start

16:42

organizing some of the issues that we

16:44

face, like the pay obviously, like within

16:46

social work in general and nonprofit work,

16:48

like it's never going to match up

16:50

and never going to really be

16:53

as good as like the cost of

16:55

living, especially here in Portland, but the

16:57

pay compared to like all of the

16:59

emotional work and all the work that

17:01

we do was just not there and

17:03

not sustainable. It's why

17:05

people were not like able to

17:07

stick around because frankly, we

17:09

were looking at the same issues

17:11

that our families were facing

17:13

of like, you know, food insecurity

17:15

and needing to like get

17:18

food stamps or like

17:20

needing like rental and like housing

17:22

assistance because our pay was just

17:24

not up to par. Those are

17:26

a few of the issues. Jess,

17:28

I don't know if you have

17:30

other thoughts. Yeah, I

17:33

think you touched on a lot of them.

17:35

I think it's hard to stay in this

17:37

job. If you are looking to have a

17:39

family, there's been issues with pay, with insurance,

17:42

with other sorts of things that

17:44

have led to mentors leaving rather

17:46

than like staying there, even if

17:48

they like really wanted to

17:50

stay there just wouldn't necessarily

17:52

allow for them to have

17:54

maybe like the life they

17:56

wanted and also just honoring

17:58

I think with like bereavement

18:00

leave and critical issue leave

18:02

has been areas that haven't

18:04

really been addressed. We

18:07

have had very tragic

18:09

things happen in our

18:11

working community with the

18:13

families and that have

18:15

drastically affected Yeah,

18:17

the well -being of mentors and staff members

18:19

alike. Yeah, and I mean,

18:21

you know, this is a job

18:24

that structurally is designed to be

18:26

a kind of like, like

18:28

again, if the goal is to

18:30

have one person from like kindergarten to

18:32

tell they like like a graduating

18:34

high school, right? Like

18:36

that is something that requires

18:39

like 1950s, 1960s style

18:41

fortism. Like you have one

18:43

job for decades. And

18:45

the only way you can do

18:47

that is if people are incredibly well

18:49

supported. And it's like the fact

18:52

that it's like, okay, you're trying to

18:54

do this, but you're not paying

18:56

people enough money to fucking afford food.

18:58

Like, what the hell? Jesus

19:01

Christ. Oh

19:03

my God. Yeah,

19:05

or even, I mean, it's still

19:07

something that we're fighting, but like

19:10

our work. place doesn't provide health

19:12

insurance for dependents, which I think

19:14

is really ironic, giving how much

19:16

we care for kids. And then

19:18

some of our mentors and other

19:20

co -workers that have kids have

19:22

to spend so much money on

19:24

health insurance for their own personal

19:27

kids. Friends of some of the

19:29

kids, apparently. That's how this works.

19:32

The kids, they take. Yeah.

19:34

And honestly, big

19:37

picture thinking, the reason why

19:39

we Like started

19:41

this whole unionizing project was

19:43

because we care so

19:45

much about our kids, right?

19:48

Like I when I first started

19:50

working at friends like I I

19:53

think was the first mask mentor

19:55

to be hired in a fairly

19:57

long time after a lot of

19:59

firings of other mass mentors and

20:01

two of the youth that But

20:03

actually, it's more than two of

20:05

the youth, but the first two

20:08

youth that I was matched up

20:10

with, they hadn't had a mentor

20:12

for over two years, which

20:14

is a really long time.

20:16

Like when you are five,

20:18

six years old and you're

20:20

used to one person consistently

20:23

picking you up every single

20:25

week and hanging out with

20:27

you and spending time with

20:29

you for several hours, four,

20:32

six, over seven

20:34

years and then just like next

20:36

day, next week, maybe even

20:39

that same day you find out

20:41

like oh you no longer

20:43

have a mentor and you're not

20:45

going to have a mentor

20:47

for two more years because people

20:49

keep leaving, people aren't

20:51

wanting to apply for this job

20:53

because the pay isn't high enough,

20:55

right? That then like creates like

20:57

a lot of issues with the

21:00

kids that we're dealing with. It's

21:02

not like we are these like

21:04

saviors or like anything along those

21:06

lines, right? But when someone has

21:08

consistent support and then that support

21:10

is lost for a long time,

21:12

especially when you're a young kid

21:14

where it's been the majority of

21:16

your life you've been having that

21:18

consistent support, that then creates a

21:21

lot of trust issues and overall

21:23

attachment issues that youth could face. For

21:26

me that was the main

21:28

thing like working with these kids

21:30

and having to like regain

21:32

that trust was something that's like

21:34

still to this day is

21:36

like really emotionally like daunting and

21:38

I like I will keep

21:40

saying this I love my kids

21:42

so much like I like

21:44

can't stop thinking about them and

21:46

I want to be with

21:48

my kids until they graduate, which

21:51

would mean me staying at

21:53

this job for another eight years,

21:55

which it's a long time,

21:57

right? But I want to do

21:59

that. So I want to,

22:01

you know, get paid, have time

22:03

off when one of my, sadly,

22:06

this is something that did occur

22:08

where you've passed away that I worked

22:10

with and like didn't have time

22:12

off to like really grieve. Hard

22:15

stuff and I just want to

22:17

be able to stay there till they're

22:20

done with the program Just like

22:22

a litany of horrors. It's like one

22:24

it's like You know what when

22:26

there is like it's it's not you

22:28

know, like turnover in a normal

22:30

job sucks But this is like when

22:32

there's turnover because people can't afford

22:34

to live their lives It's like you're

22:36

just like ripping a hole in

22:38

these kids like the fabric of their

22:40

social lives and then also it's

22:42

like Yeah, one of these kids that

22:45

is literally your job to care

22:47

for dies. Did you just have to

22:49

fucking go to work the next

22:51

day? like it is

22:53

so hideous and it's just

22:55

like yeah, yeah Yeah, yeah,

22:57

no like it makes sense

22:59

that like Yeah, people are

23:01

organizing because it's like, you

23:03

know, like this organization is

23:05

just Systemically failing both the

23:07

people they're trying to help

23:09

and the people whose job

23:11

it is to like help

23:14

them and yeah Yeah Yeah,

23:16

I think one of the things

23:18

that is like hardest to

23:20

see while like working there is

23:22

the ways in which this

23:24

like job that you do like

23:26

that like I care so

23:29

much about and love doing but

23:31

like seeing this like institution

23:33

in a way be like part

23:35

be part of the problem

23:37

because if we aren't like having

23:39

it so that employees feel supported

23:42

in the way that they need

23:44

to like life happens sometimes people leave

23:46

and like move and get a

23:48

different job for various reasons but a

23:51

lot of the times it's it's

23:53

because it's not sustainable and it's really

23:55

hard to leave and like it's

23:57

a heartbreaking thing because I like I

23:59

want to graduate many of my

24:01

youth and it is something that I

24:03

think about of like how feasible

24:05

is that like I want to do

24:08

it and like also okay then

24:10

that means I got to be frugal

24:12

and all these other ways or

24:14

etc and Yeah, and working with youth

24:16

that have already kind of experienced

24:18

loss and wanting to continue to show

24:20

up for them the job itself

24:23

feels so sacred and like I feel

24:25

so lucky to be in these

24:27

kids lives and I think just a

24:29

lot of the turnover has been

24:31

out of like lack of sustainability for

24:33

Yourself like for your well -being. Um,

24:36

yeah Yeah, and I mean,

24:38

the turnover numbers were

24:40

pretty wild. I think one

24:42

time we calculated it

24:44

and mentors were, it was

24:46

like a 40 -something percent

24:48

turnover rate for mentors. Yeah,

24:51

and a lot of that

24:53

happened because in this two

24:56

-year time period where we've

24:58

been fighting for a contract, they

25:01

also froze

25:03

wage increases. I've

25:06

had the same wage for the past two

25:08

years, two and a half years that I've been

25:10

working here. And in

25:12

that same time period, inflation has

25:14

been pretty crazy and rent

25:17

for me has gone up times.

25:19

it's about to get worse. It's

25:21

about to get so much worse. Yeah.

25:25

Yeah. Which, which, you know, gladly

25:27

now we have this fight and we're

25:29

at the two year mark and

25:31

not at the zero year mark

25:33

and not looking forward to two more

25:35

years of doing this. But yeah,

25:37

it's been hard to sustain this

25:39

when everything is increasing in price and

25:42

our wages are completely stagnant. Yeah.

25:45

Yeah. So let's take one more ad

25:48

break and then we will come back

25:50

to talk about, yeah, how unionization efforts

25:52

are going and yeah. We

26:03

are back. Yes, let's talk

26:05

about how this campaign is

26:07

going. So you said you've

26:09

been in bargaining for like

26:11

two years? So

26:13

we had our petition

26:15

for recognition on

26:17

March 23rd, 2023. So

26:20

that was over

26:22

two years ago. And

26:24

then our employer

26:26

didn't formally recognize us.

26:28

But through the process

26:31

of like voting, we

26:33

got over 93%. Wow. That's

26:36

incredible. That's

26:38

incredible. It's super great.

26:40

And it's also like, wow, we all really

26:42

needed this. Yeah.

26:47

And there were some other barriers,

26:49

including not being formally recognized. We

26:51

also had management contest a

26:54

few positions that I believe

26:56

most, if not all,

26:58

we were able to successfully

27:00

have be part of our

27:02

unit. And then we didn't

27:04

have our first bargaining session

27:06

until September of 2023. So

27:08

almost six months, I think,

27:10

if I did the math

27:12

right, after we formally presented

27:14

our letter for recognition. Yeah. And

27:17

like throughout that process. So now it

27:19

has been like, Jesus is quite good

27:21

at keeping track of it. But I

27:23

think as of today, we're about at

27:27

580 days of bargaining God.

27:29

Yeah Yeah, it's been

27:31

a long one and it

27:33

hasn't been it's been

27:35

like also a choppy journey

27:37

where there has been

27:39

delays in Scheduling delays in

27:41

just getting different articles

27:43

back in time one of

27:46

the biggest ones obviously

27:48

was compensation and I think

27:50

I can't quite remember

27:52

the period of time but

27:54

we presented it and

27:56

a year ago, I think

27:58

maybe. Oh my god.

28:00

I could be wrong. And

28:03

it took several, several,

28:05

several months for us to

28:07

get anything back from

28:09

management, which, yeah, was a

28:11

big bummer amongst other

28:13

things. It sucks. It

28:15

sucks. And obviously

28:18

that's the one that we have

28:20

yet to finalize as we're talking

28:22

right now. Yeah, it is. Insurance

28:24

and compensation are still our

28:26

last two articles left. Yeah.

28:29

And some of the

28:31

difficult things, I mean,

28:34

when you are working on

28:36

a project, I

28:38

wouldn't be surprised given really

28:41

when these conversations started, if

28:43

we're looking at over 900

28:45

or 1 ,000 days of really

28:47

talking about this, but then

28:49

when you're dealing with bargaining

28:52

for 580 days.

28:55

Like it's exhausting. It is so

28:57

exhausting. We have regular meetings

28:59

that we attend to that our

29:01

bargaining meetings were specifically scheduled

29:03

outside of work hours so that

29:05

like the people on our

29:07

bargaining team and other union members

29:09

would have to put in

29:11

the extra time outside of our

29:13

40 hour week. Yeah.

29:17

And within that, like

29:19

the hardest part

29:21

is when you directly

29:24

confront your managers and your

29:26

bosses about the rights

29:28

and the things that you

29:30

need. So much of

29:32

it boils down to respect,

29:34

right? And your respect is

29:36

like a worker and the value that you

29:38

have as a worker in your organization. And

29:41

when there is the pushback on

29:43

that, it honestly is

29:45

Like for me at

29:47

times was debilitating, right? When

29:50

you're doing this work

29:52

and your workplace is stretching

29:54

things out for so

29:56

long. And you're pouring your

29:58

heart out on your kids, like

30:00

really trying to do the best.

30:03

That response from our

30:05

supervisors and managers,

30:08

like it really was

30:10

hard. It was hard for me. It was

30:12

hard for other union organizers in our workplace. And

30:14

it was hard for all of our workers

30:16

where we started thinking like, dang, what

30:18

is the value that we have in this

30:20

workplace? What is the value that we intrinsically

30:22

have in the work that we're doing with

30:24

our kids? And

30:26

it's a lot when you're facing all

30:29

these systems that our kids are facing

30:31

and taking those things in and then

30:33

are trying to change those systems, finally

30:35

able to try to change those systems.

30:37

And we learned that, oh, wait, the

30:39

place that we're working is actually part

30:41

of these systems too. And it's

30:43

doing the same things that we're like

30:45

fighting to have our kids like have

30:47

better lives. Like we're facing it right

30:49

now from inside the house. Yeah.

30:52

Yeah. I wanted to add in

30:54

to, yeah, very much realizing that

30:56

like our management is also in

30:58

a way operating, you know, maybe

31:00

like a corporation, which isn't the

31:02

hope you would have for a

31:04

nonprofit. And one of the steps

31:07

we had to take as

31:09

a union was filing a

31:11

UOP, so unfair labor practice, which

31:14

cited, like I had mentioned

31:16

before, like delays in scheduling

31:18

and also regressive bargaining, which

31:20

just means that like the

31:22

way in which they were

31:24

presenting things would have lessened

31:27

our like quality of conditions.

31:29

So definitely not what you want to be getting, not

31:32

what you want to be handed

31:34

across from the bargaining table. Yeah.

31:37

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, within this

31:39

process, they were currently salaried

31:41

workers, but they tried to change

31:43

us to hourly workers. Oh

31:46

my God. Yeah. Which

31:48

again, like, we're always working, you

31:50

know, we're always working. So

31:53

unless you want to pay me for

31:55

24 hours. You

31:59

know, talking about like, yeah, that they're behaving like

32:01

a corporation is like, oh, yeah This is exactly

32:03

what like by employer did to me which is

32:05

like like one of like one of the largest

32:07

media companies in the world and they dragged out

32:09

negotiations for two years and Like, you know, you're

32:11

talking about this sort of like just like oh,

32:13

they're like the filling of disrespect where they're just

32:16

not getting stuff back to you And it's like

32:18

I remember, you know, like we'd be sitting there

32:20

for a bargaining meeting and they wouldn't and they

32:22

would be an hour late And they'd be an

32:24

hour late because they hadn't like bothered to beforehand

32:26

spend time drafting out what their responses were going

32:28

to be So they were frantically trying to get

32:30

it done before we were there. And we're all

32:32

just sitting there for literally an hour waiting for

32:34

them to show up. And it's like, okay, there

32:36

are people in this unit whose job is to

32:38

stand next to car bombs, like, and you can't

32:40

show up on time to here, to this, to

32:42

this meeting that you have known was going to

32:44

happen for weeks. Like, it's just,

32:46

I say this every single episode is

32:48

like, this is an incredibly common YouTube

32:50

listening tactic is draw out the first

32:52

contract because that's, that's like the second

32:54

point where unions fail after like the,

32:57

after you get like, recognition

32:59

votes is like here. Yeah, for sure.

33:01

You know, like, I mean, I think

33:03

there's something that we expect corporations to

33:05

do this. But it's like, okay, this

33:07

is an NGO that's like the point

33:09

of which is supposed to be like

33:11

helping underprivileged, underprivileged youth. And then

33:14

they're like, we're going to turn around and

33:16

we're going to screw over different underprivileged youth.

33:19

Yeah, it sucks. Yeah. And

33:21

I think that's like, for me, one of the

33:23

things that just like mess with my mind

33:25

the most is that like, We're

33:27

not selling a product, right?

33:29

We're not trying to like

33:31

get revenue or anything along

33:33

those lines, right? So like

33:35

our job is a job

33:37

that we actually like fully

33:39

love and like want to

33:41

stick around like not not

33:43

just for our own like

33:46

financial piece and our own

33:48

financial security, we want to

33:50

stick around this job because

33:52

we care about the job.

33:54

That's not to like other

33:56

businesses and other workplaces that

33:58

unionize. A lot of times

34:00

people want to do that

34:02

because they want financial security.

34:04

I think for a lot

34:06

of NGOs, nonprofits and care

34:08

work, we unionize because we

34:10

want to stick around both

34:12

because of financial security, right?

34:14

But also because we just

34:16

like care so much about

34:18

the work that we're doing

34:21

and to be faced with

34:23

actions by our workplace that,

34:25

you know, tried to dissuade

34:27

us from that, tried to

34:29

like, you know, in a

34:31

sense, like it felt like

34:33

stopping us from wanting to

34:35

stick around. Like that,

34:37

again, really hard, really hard. And I

34:39

think like a really like

34:41

psychologically hard part that comes

34:43

with unionizing in the care

34:45

work field in the like

34:47

nonprofit space. Yeah, like this

34:49

isn't a job that people

34:51

are going to take for

34:53

the money. But we do

34:55

need to be receiving like

34:57

equitable pay and benefits so

34:59

that we stay at this

35:01

job. Like this by all

35:03

means and like still like

35:06

this is the same way

35:08

I feel about it to

35:10

this day. I remember reading

35:12

the little job description for

35:14

this role and was like,

35:16

oh, this is, dude, this

35:18

is my dream job. This

35:20

is 100 % what I want

35:22

to spend my energy towards.

35:26

Yeah, I think that's a huge

35:28

part of why we were able

35:30

to get like that 93 % and

35:33

to have also like routine support

35:35

for different actions and stuff is

35:37

just because we have people that

35:39

care so much about wanting to

35:41

stick around. Yeah. And

35:44

that's the thing that NGOs, you know, and

35:46

you see this in abortion work, you see

35:48

this in like, you see this in nursing,

35:50

you see this in all of these different

35:52

fields, like that's the thing that these NGOs

35:54

use to exploit people. is, you

35:56

know, like, I mean, is the

35:59

basic human empathy and love and care

36:01

that we have for the people

36:03

who are caring for it. And these

36:05

people are like, aha, look at

36:07

this. Aha, these people, they care about

36:09

the thing that they're doing. We

36:11

can underpay them and overwork them. It's

36:13

like, why is there

36:15

just a work like this? What

36:19

a terrible way to

36:21

design an economic system. It's

36:23

just, good Lord. Oh,

36:26

let's talk a little bit about like, you know,

36:28

what kinds of organizing things you all have been able

36:30

to do and the kinds of things you've been

36:32

able to accomplish by, you know, working together even in

36:34

these really kind of like, I

36:36

don't know, structurally difficult conditions.

36:39

Yeah, we've had, um, we've

36:42

had a multitude of different actions

36:44

over the past, you know, over

36:46

the past 580 days. Um, I

36:48

think one of our One

36:51

of our biggest ones by far,

36:53

which was I think also was

36:55

just one of our most beautiful

36:57

in a way was November of

36:59

last year we did an info

37:01

picket and it was one of

37:03

those things too where it Was

37:05

very well planned out, but also

37:07

even with the best of planning

37:09

midway through it. We had a

37:11

shift location based off of just

37:13

changing information we were getting and

37:15

we had One of our

37:17

little bits is because our

37:19

union is called fun. A

37:21

lot of our posters

37:24

were SpongeBob themed, so

37:26

instead of imagination, it's

37:28

compensation. And

37:31

I think it's indicative of

37:34

also how much people that

37:36

work with us are playful

37:38

and sweet and are good

37:40

at our jobs of working

37:42

with kids. Yeah,

37:46

we had very high turnout.

37:48

I think we had 40 -something

37:50

people within our own organization

37:52

that showed up for that.

37:54

We've done smaller actions too

37:56

by just asking for community support.

37:59

We've had caregivers write letters

38:01

of support to different people

38:03

in management. We've also done

38:05

a few pack the rooms for

38:07

bargaining sessions, especially when there have

38:09

been times that have felt like there's

38:11

been some semblance of stalling. Yeah,

38:13

those are just some of them. Hey, Steve, chime

38:15

in with others. Yeah, within that.

38:17

And I think an interesting

38:19

thing about nonprofits, our revenue

38:21

comes from donors. So we have

38:23

to play this fun game of,

38:25

OK, how do we communicate with

38:27

our donors so that we make

38:29

sure that they know that you

38:32

know, this is part of like

38:34

what they're donating to, but then

38:37

within that also like, you know,

38:39

ask for money as well, right?

38:41

Because we do want, you know,

38:43

better pay and better benefits, right?

38:45

So we've contacted donors and we'll

38:47

still plan to do that

38:49

with both that ask of like support the union

38:51

and support our organization, right? Because the thing

38:54

that we care about the most is the work

38:56

that we do with our kids and for

38:58

that to happen. We want

39:00

our organization to like stay afloat,

39:02

truly, right? Yeah, some

39:04

of the wins that we've

39:06

gotten, I mentioned earlier

39:08

that they were trying to

39:10

have us be hourly workers.

39:13

And that was a big

39:15

campaign that we were fighting

39:17

back on for a long

39:19

time. It's also what

39:21

precipitated the ULP filing. I

39:24

made too many buttons.

39:27

That's it. Um,

39:29

you could never have to anybody

39:31

truly, um, that said I work

39:33

40 plus hours a week because

39:35

one of the people on the

39:37

bargaining team for management at the

39:39

bargaining table asked if we even

39:41

work 40 hours a week. Um,

39:44

while we were talking about this

39:46

and that's like one of those

39:48

instances that I mean, like, yeah,

39:50

wow, that's like a little disrespectful

39:52

and like really bites. So we

39:54

all were wearing these pins regularly. We,

39:57

you know, we signed a strike.

39:59

pledge where we had like 80

40:01

something percent of the unit say

40:03

that like if we came to

40:05

voting for a strike people would

40:07

strike and the big win was

40:09

like okay great we get to

40:11

stay a salaried workers because they

40:13

walk back on that on that

40:15

threat we are time off We

40:17

have a time off contract or

40:19

agreement now that like some of

40:22

my co -workers that have been around

40:24

a long time once the contract

40:26

gets ratified, they'll have like two

40:28

more weeks of time off. Hell

40:30

yeah. Hell yeah. Because they haven't,

40:32

they've been around for seven years

40:34

and they're still at the same

40:36

amount of time off basically that

40:38

I'm at and that I've been

40:40

at since the beginning. Yeah. And

40:42

when it comes to wages, like

40:44

we're still Figuring

40:46

that out, but some of the

40:48

gains that we are potentially looking

40:51

at is like incredible like I

40:53

looked at the numbers yesterday of

40:55

like what hopefully given like where

40:57

we're at right now in in

40:59

the agreements like well I would

41:01

hopefully get and I straight up.

41:04

like teared up looking at the

41:06

number because it felt like such

41:08

a big change in my financial

41:10

status right and yesterday like as

41:12

i said i worked on 9

41:14

30 pm with my kids probably

41:17

because i had this like massive

41:19

like weight of you know this

41:21

financial doom that i'm looking at

41:23

somewhat lifted at the hope of

41:25

the wins that we might get

41:28

from this contract. So

41:30

it's been incredibly hard, incredibly long,

41:32

way too long, and all

41:34

of it is going to be

41:36

so worth it, right? I

41:38

hope that's something that the

41:40

listeners really get, that this

41:42

is hard work, but in

41:44

the end, is the change

41:46

that we were hoping for.

41:49

Yeah. Recently,

41:52

one of the things that we did

41:54

do just like a run through of

41:56

just to kind of boost morale since

41:58

the bargaining has gone on for so

42:00

long was compile all the wins that

42:02

we have so far just through TAs.

42:04

So still tentative, but yeah, it did

42:06

map out a lot of huge things.

42:08

One of the things we do a

42:11

lot in this job is drive and

42:13

we don't have many things in policy

42:15

about. Cleaning or

42:17

repairs when something happens in your car

42:19

with the youth like say they

42:21

throw up It happens with kids like

42:23

that isn't necessarily something that would

42:25

have been like covered We would have

42:27

had to just pay for that

42:29

cleaning ourselves and like mileage is a

42:32

huge thing where one of our

42:34

Potential like big wins is that we'll

42:36

get like full mileage covered Rather

42:38

than having to like deduct time from

42:40

like this illusion of having an

42:42

office where we would have to minus

42:44

some mileage in whatever way

42:46

made sense with where our buildings

42:49

were located, despite even

42:51

if our kids were like totally somewhere

42:53

else where we were picking them up. It

42:55

definitely wasn't like the most sensical way

42:57

for us to be like being fully

43:00

reimbursed for what we were doing. And

43:02

those are all huge wins

43:04

that we do have. Like obviously,

43:07

compensation and insurance are two of

43:09

the biggest that we're still

43:11

working on. I think recently, almost

43:13

within this week, we've started

43:16

to tip in a way that

43:18

feels like we may be

43:20

close to having a contract soon,

43:22

which I do want to say, as

43:24

inspiration to everybody out there that

43:27

works for a non -profit, unionize

43:29

and you know what? It

43:31

might farewell for you. I have hope

43:33

for everybody. Right now,

43:35

I think a lot of our Like

43:38

a lot of my co -workers are starting

43:40

to have hope again, because I do

43:42

think, like you said, it is totally

43:44

a manipulation tool to have it drawn

43:46

out so long. And yeah, it is

43:48

exhausting to be basically stalled in your

43:50

wage for two and a half years.

43:53

But we are gaining some traction

43:55

again, which I do think is

43:57

something that we're still being cautious

43:59

with just because... now it does

44:02

feel like management is working with

44:04

us a little bit more, but

44:06

I also think that there are

44:08

Reasonings around that like we're about

44:10

to have in a few weeks

44:12

our biggest Fundraiser for our work

44:14

because like Hsu said we are

44:16

majority donor based and I do

44:18

think there's an appeal to management

44:20

to have a contract by then

44:22

Yeah, it adds to the whole

44:24

we're doing good work and we

44:26

treat our employees well. I hope

44:28

that that is something then that

44:30

is fulfilled by them in an

44:33

honest way, not just a superficial

44:35

way, because we are still pushing

44:37

for a little bit more right

44:39

now and have bargaining coming up

44:41

next week. I'm really

44:43

hoping that what they're showing us

44:45

isn't just performative, that we

44:47

really might be able to get

44:49

to a point where there

44:51

is something that is truly good

44:54

for us, because we're all

44:56

ready for a contract. Yeah,

44:59

as you know, as someone

45:01

who got our contract like it

45:03

doesn't it doesn't magically solve

45:05

everything but like my god It

45:07

is absolutely worth it. Yeah

45:09

Okay, so how can people support

45:11

y 'all both sort of locally

45:13

here and then just like

45:15

broader because most people are not

45:17

here Honestly, most of our

45:20

like People in like management positions

45:22

information is public if you

45:24

want to email them in support

45:26

go for it Also just

45:28

like encouraging either your workplace if

45:30

you work in kind of

45:32

a social work setting or like

45:34

you know if you know

45:36

people that are because this

45:38

whole field of work takes such

45:40

a toll on people and it is

45:42

the most necessary work. And I

45:44

think it's really easy to fall into

45:46

the mindset of I'm doing this

45:48

for the greater good, not, you know,

45:50

not for money, not for these

45:53

things, but like you also deserve to

45:55

feel okay and taken care of

45:57

and like have the things you need

45:59

to be saying. Yeah.

46:01

Hey, say something else. Do you want to

46:03

add? Yeah, I

46:05

mean, I We

46:08

would add that we have

46:10

an Instagram, right? That's friends,

46:12

pdx union network. It's a

46:14

mouthful, but we'll link the

46:16

inscription. Yeah, great. And

46:18

then within that, if

46:21

you're in Portland, make

46:23

sure to follow us and pay

46:25

attention to what we're posting because

46:27

hopefully we do not have to

46:29

get to a point in striking,

46:31

especially The place that

46:33

we're at right now with our contract

46:36

but in truth like we're looking

46:38

at 580 days and that is quite

46:40

a long time Yeah, and then

46:42

also like if if listeners do have

46:44

the ability to donate if they

46:46

could donate some funds for friends of

46:48

the children Portland and somehow in

46:51

their notes be like I support the

46:53

union like I think that could

46:55

also be a really interesting way to

46:57

show the support that like our Supporters

47:00

have like for both the work

47:02

that we're doing on the youth level,

47:05

but then also like in the

47:07

union side of things too. There's

47:09

been a lot of like communication of

47:11

like, oh, this is really going to impact

47:13

like. the development side

47:15

of our organization and like

47:17

all of the things that

47:19

like our fundraising team is

47:21

gonna have to do to

47:23

like meet these, which again,

47:26

I think that would be

47:28

more true if like

47:30

our executive director wasn't making

47:32

like. what like five

47:34

times as much money as I am.

47:37

Jesus Christ. Yeah. But

47:39

yeah, showing that support like it

47:41

doesn't have to be a lot,

47:43

but showing our our bosses just

47:45

how much like the populace like

47:47

is supporting our unionization efforts like

47:49

that power to really don't too.

47:51

And then also like it impacts

47:53

our kids like our kids like

47:55

that's the truth of it all

47:57

like I want my kids

47:59

to have the best life that they could

48:01

possibly have. And sadly, we

48:03

live in a world where

48:06

money really dictates that. Yeah.

48:10

Yeah. Yeah. So

48:12

we will have links in the

48:14

description to all of that. And

48:16

yeah, thank you to both so much

48:18

for coming on the show. And I

48:21

hope you win. And yeah, I hope

48:23

you get to go back to caring

48:25

for these kids and also while not

48:27

having to worry about like being able

48:29

to live your lives. Thank you so

48:31

much. Yeah. Yeah,

48:33

thank you so much for having us. Yeah,

48:36

of course. Honestly, it's been

48:38

great talking about the work because it

48:40

is it is really important work

48:42

and I'm happy we get to do

48:44

it. Yeah, it's it's wonderful. And

48:46

yeah, and so this is yeah, this

48:48

this is been a good happen here.

48:50

And yeah, I'd also go unionize your

48:53

workplace. You can do it. I guarantee

48:55

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no matter what the day holds, we

50:57

come to the Today Show for all

50:59

of it. When things are tough, we

51:01

talk about it. When there's something to

51:03

figure out, we dig into it. And

51:05

when there's joy, we celebrate it. Because

51:07

today is where it's all happening. We

51:09

get the best start to every

51:11

morning because we started together. Watch the

51:13

Today Show with Savannah Guthrie and

51:16

Craig Melvin weekdays at 7 a .m.

51:18

on NBC. Hello

51:24

and welcome to the show. It's

51:26

me, James, today, and I am

51:28

joined by Garrison Davis. Hi, Garrison.

51:30

Hello. Hello. Garrison has just said some

51:33

words about something that's happening on

51:35

social media that I don't understand. And

51:38

it's made me feel very old. This

51:40

was happening today in my world. It's

51:42

very sad. We're gathered

51:44

here today to talk about the

51:46

earthquake in Myanmar, right? I

51:48

think most of you will probably have

51:50

been made aware of the earthquake. It's

51:53

somewhat odd that Corporate media has really

51:55

not reported on the revolution in any

51:58

substantial way since 2021. But the earthquake

52:00

apparently justified a lot of networks sending

52:02

people to Myanmar for the first time.

52:04

Very amusingly, people DMing me on Blue

52:06

Sky and Twitter asking how to get

52:08

a visa from the Burmese Hunter, which

52:10

is not a thing I have ever

52:13

done. The last communication I had with

52:15

them came in the form of a

52:17

car bomb that they set off near

52:19

to a place where we were. If

52:22

you're not aware, the earthquake happened

52:25

on the 28th of March this year,

52:27

just before one in the afternoon. It

52:30

was the biggest earthquake in Myanmar

52:32

since 1912, and it registered 7

52:34

.7 on the Richter scale, which

52:36

is huge. Because it's very

52:38

hard for foreign journalists to get

52:40

a visa to enter Myanmar, I

52:42

love the initial reporting focused on

52:44

Bangkok and the damage done in

52:46

Thailand. But the episode

52:48

was in Sargang, which is near

52:50

Mandalay, Mandalay's second biggest city in

52:52

Myanmar. And that was

52:54

where the worst of the destruction

52:56

happened. Almost every street

52:58

in Mandalay has collapsed buildings.

53:01

It's a little difficult for us to

53:03

get a sense of the exact

53:05

scale of the damage because the Hunter

53:07

refuses to allow... Some media has

53:10

been allowed in. The BBC, I saw,

53:12

like, sneaked somebody in. It's very

53:14

difficult for media to move and report

53:16

freely. In addition to

53:18

this, the hunter has continued his

53:20

practice of cutting off internet for

53:22

people in Myanmar, right? Even during

53:24

emergency situations? Yes, especially

53:26

during emergency. They've cut it off

53:28

as a response to this because I

53:30

guess they perceive it to be

53:32

something that makes them look weak. This

53:34

is a tendency that

53:37

the hunter has displayed before.

53:39

So in 2008, Cyclone

53:41

Nargis affected Myanmar and killed

53:43

over 130 ,000 people and

53:45

they blocked international aid. They

53:48

said that people didn't need

53:50

the quote chocolate bars that the

53:52

US and other countries were

53:54

trying to deliver and that they

53:56

could exist by like hunting

53:58

frogs and ditches was their suggestion.

54:01

I don't think people realize

54:03

like how far down

54:05

the North Korea scale that

54:07

the Burmese hunter is.

54:09

But they're very worried that

54:12

any interaction with the

54:14

outside world, specifically with, I

54:16

guess, Western neoliberal powers

54:18

will be damaging for their

54:20

ability to control the

54:23

population. So for

54:25

that reason, we

54:27

don't know how many people have died,

54:29

right? From what I've

54:31

heard on the ground, the death

54:33

toll is substantially higher than the 3

54:35

,600 number being reported. The US Geological

54:37

Survey estimated that an earthquake of

54:39

that magnitude in that region would kill

54:41

between 10 ,000 and 100 ,000 people. Obviously,

54:44

that's quite a big kind of delta there. What

54:47

I can tell you is that

54:49

I've heard firsthand that there are some

54:52

parts of Mandalay and Sagang where

54:54

the stench of rotting bodies is so

54:56

powerful that people have stopped returning

54:58

to their homes. There

55:00

have been so many aftershocks that people

55:02

are still sleeping in the street

55:04

because they're worried about the damage structures

55:06

falling down. The UN

55:09

has an estimate of 17

55:11

million people across 57 townships.

55:13

Townships are like the administrative

55:15

districts that are used in

55:17

Myanmar have been affected with

55:19

over 9 million people facing

55:21

severe hardship. And of

55:23

course, this is all compounded by the fact

55:25

that there were already 20 million people in

55:27

Myanmar who needed humanitarian assistance. And

55:29

there are about three and a half million

55:31

internally displaced people as a result of the fighting

55:33

that's happened after the revolution. So

55:35

it really came at a pretty

55:38

difficult time in a place where

55:40

the government is not willing to...

55:42

They said after the earthquake they

55:44

wanted international aid, but as we'll

55:46

see later in this script, they've

55:48

only accepted it from certain countries.

55:51

I spoke to a friend who has

55:53

family in Mandalay yesterday. He told

55:55

me that The way they're assessing the

55:57

damage is using like open source

55:59

intelligence. They're trying to look in

56:01

the backgrounds of people's videos on Facebook

56:03

to like work out if their childhood

56:05

homes failed out, right? They

56:07

were using satellite imaging software when I

56:09

spoke to them yesterday to try

56:11

and ascertain if their families were okay.

56:15

They told me Saigang has very famous

56:17

pagodas and the pagodas are all on

56:19

a hill and apparently a lot of

56:21

those pagodas have fallen down and even

56:23

the hill itself is like listing. So

56:25

there's been massive cultural damage

56:27

as well. Another

56:30

way in which the damage was

56:32

compounded by Myanmar's politics was the quake

56:34

strike, like I said, at 1

56:36

p .m. on a Friday, which is

56:38

Friday prayers. This happened during Ramadan, specifically

56:40

the day before Idul Fitta, which

56:42

is a very busy day for mosques,

56:44

if you're not aware. Successive

56:46

governments of Myanmar since the

56:49

1960s have refused to allow

56:51

even basic maintenance for mosques.

56:53

That means that these buildings

56:55

were in great states of

56:57

disrepair, right? Myanmar, there

56:59

is an ultra -nationalist Buddhist movement,

57:02

which has been embraced to a

57:04

great degree by the Hunter, but

57:06

also limited even like the National

57:08

League for Democracy, which was the

57:10

relatively neoliberal aligned party that had

57:12

previously been empowering Myanmar or somewhat

57:15

in power, I suppose. ultra

57:17

-nationalist Buddhist monks like Ashin Murathu

57:19

and his 969 movement have kind

57:21

of condemned anything that they did

57:23

as making a pro -Muslim. And they

57:25

have this, essentially they have a

57:27

great replacement theory, right, that Muslims

57:29

are trying to come in through

57:31

Bangladesh to replace Buddhists in Myanmar.

57:33

Yeah, lots of people

57:36

here have this like

57:38

very orientalist perspective of

57:40

like Buddhism, TM, as

57:42

this like, you know, like peaceful

57:44

blah, blah, blah, blah. And like,

57:46

you know, like Buddhism, like every religion has

57:48

a variety of sex. Yes. And

57:51

the Buddhist national sex can

57:53

be particularly nasty. Yeah. I mean,

57:55

as vicious as any other, people,

57:58

I'm sure, will be familiar with the

58:00

Rohingya genocide. And like, there are a lot

58:02

of monks that supported that, including where

58:04

Arthur is the most notable one, but there

58:06

are plenty more, right? And they're part

58:08

of that. I mean, he's literally explicitly expressed,

58:10

like, how much he looks up to

58:12

the English Defense League. Jesus. Yeah,

58:15

these are people who,

58:17

they are part of this

58:19

global nativist movement. People's

58:21

Orientalism, I think, sometimes stops them

58:23

seeing that or appreciating that this extends

58:25

outside of white global North countries. One

58:29

thing that I did think that

58:31

really touched me in the days

58:33

after the earthquake was young Buddhist

58:35

Bama people of the majority ethnicity

58:37

reaching out to me and being

58:40

like, hey, man, This happened

58:42

in Friday prayers during Ramadan, and

58:44

it has devastated the Muslim population. Thousands

58:47

of people, hundreds of mosques have gone, and thousands

58:49

of people are trapped in a rubble, and no one's

58:51

talking about it. Why is no one talking about

58:53

it? This is terrible. And

58:55

it would have been inconceivable

58:58

to hear young Bama Buddhist

59:00

people so concerned with the

59:02

well -being of their Muslim countrymen

59:04

before the coup in 2021.

59:06

This was a country that

59:08

had been manufacturing consent for

59:10

genocide against its Muslim minorities

59:12

for four or five years

59:14

by that point, right? Specifically

59:16

on Facebook, there's a behind -the -bastards episode

59:18

on this. You can also listen. If

59:21

you're new to the show, Robert and I

59:23

have made two scripted series about the revolution

59:25

in Myanmar, which we'll include in the show

59:27

notes. But that

59:29

change to... a

59:32

real genuine solidarity and care between these

59:34

two groups, which was really touching in

59:36

the moments after the earthquake and the

59:38

days after the earthquake. When

59:40

we come back, I want to talk a little bit

59:42

more about the revolution and I want to talk

59:44

about how the revolution has been responding to this and

59:46

the impact it's had on the revolution. We

59:58

are back. And of

1:00:00

course, The revolution hasn't stopped

1:00:02

because of the earthquake. The

1:00:04

conflict is still ongoing, and

1:00:06

the PDFs and their Allied

1:00:09

Ethnic Business Organisations are still

1:00:11

fighting against the Hunter. In

1:00:13

fact, within an hour of the

1:00:15

earthquake, the Hunter began using paramotors

1:00:17

to drop bombs on Hangu Village

1:00:19

in Sugai. This has

1:00:21

been a thing that they've started to

1:00:24

do recently. In a sense,

1:00:26

I guess it's a good sign because it

1:00:28

shows that maybe their jets and other aircraft

1:00:30

are in a poor state of repair, or

1:00:32

that they're struggling to keep enough of them

1:00:34

airborne. Initially, I wondered if

1:00:37

they were using the paramotors because

1:00:39

their runways had been damaged, but that

1:00:41

doesn't seem to be the case.

1:00:43

They've been air striking just as much

1:00:45

as they ever did, which is

1:00:47

unfortunate. Satellite images or reports

1:00:49

from my source on the ground suggest

1:00:51

that they're able to continue carrying out

1:00:54

bombing raids at a pretty similar rate

1:00:56

from when they did before. Despite

1:00:58

this, The national unity government, which

1:01:00

is kind of the shadow government, composed

1:01:02

mostly of people who were elected

1:01:05

and then deposed by the coup in

1:01:07

2021. And the PDF,

1:01:09

who in theory are commanded by

1:01:11

the national unity government, called a two

1:01:13

week ceasefire right after the earthquake

1:01:15

to allow for like a humanitarian pause.

1:01:18

The Three Brotherhood Alliance, which is

1:01:20

an alliance of the three most

1:01:22

powerful ethnic resistance organizations in Myanmar,

1:01:24

also called what they called a

1:01:26

humanitarian pause for a month. In

1:01:28

both cases, They said they wouldn't

1:01:30

undertake offensive operations, but they would defend

1:01:32

themselves, right? Because I think they had a

1:01:35

sense that the Hunter wasn't going to

1:01:37

stop attacking them. The Hunter

1:01:39

did declare its own ceasefire

1:01:41

on April 3rd, and the Kuchin

1:01:43

Independence Army, which is another

1:01:45

ethnic resistance organization, followed shortly thereafter.

1:01:48

Notably, that ceasefire from the Hunter came

1:01:50

the day after its troops fired

1:01:52

on a Chinese Red Cross convoy, which

1:01:55

is not a great look for them. No,

1:01:57

never loved to see that. Yeah, we don't love

1:01:59

to see people firing on the Red Cross. This

1:02:02

is especially bad for the Hunter because China

1:02:04

has been growing closer and closer to the

1:02:06

Hunter and supporting it. China's had

1:02:08

this weird back and forth relationship

1:02:10

with the revolution. At times it supported

1:02:12

the revolution, it seems like, specifically

1:02:14

supporting the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army,

1:02:17

which is a group that broke off

1:02:19

the Communist Party of Burma in the

1:02:21

1980s. Yeah, that makes sense. There's

1:02:23

also the United States Army, which isn't

1:02:25

part of the revolution, which is the which

1:02:28

has the strongest relationship with the PRC,

1:02:30

and they're just chilling. They haven't really entered

1:02:32

the conflict. It's called straight chilling, by

1:02:34

the way, James. Straight chilling? Yeah, there you

1:02:36

go. That's how they use it. I've

1:02:39

marked myself out yet again.

1:02:41

Straight chilling. United Water

1:02:43

State Army. Thank you,

1:02:45

Garrison. Actually,

1:02:48

I spoke to some cadres

1:02:50

from the... Burmese Communist Party

1:02:52

recently. The Communist Party of

1:02:54

Burma re -entered after 2021, and

1:02:57

they're not focusing on proselytizing

1:02:59

the Maoist gospel to people,

1:03:01

they're focusing on fighting the

1:03:03

Hunter and developing alliances. And

1:03:06

it's interesting to see where that

1:03:08

will go given Marxist -Leninist Maoism is

1:03:10

definitely not the majority of

1:03:12

the revolution. Most people are committed

1:03:14

to some form of federal democracy, which

1:03:16

when you speak to different fighters

1:03:19

varies from We want what you guys

1:03:21

have in the US to something

1:03:23

more akin to the democratic confederalism that

1:03:25

people might be familiar with in

1:03:27

Rishabha. China is competing with

1:03:29

Russia in Myanmar. So both

1:03:31

of them are interested in supporting

1:03:33

the Hunter, right? And obviously,

1:03:35

both their ideologies are far from

1:03:37

liberatory. They're interested in propping

1:03:39

up a totalitarian state. So

1:03:42

we have seen both Russia

1:03:44

and China send support. to

1:03:46

the hunters and like rescue

1:03:48

teams after the earthquake. Meanwhile,

1:03:50

the US offered $2 million,

1:03:53

which I was kind of surprised

1:03:55

they offered anything. That is

1:03:57

low key surprising considering Mark Rubio.

1:04:00

Right, yeah. Well, I think Rubio is

1:04:02

more of a like a slightly,

1:04:04

Rubio's a neocon. Yeah, I guess like

1:04:06

it makes sense. Mark Rubio, like

1:04:08

five years ago, it doesn't make sense,

1:04:10

like post like you say to

1:04:13

being gutted. They were like, oh, you're

1:04:15

still doing that kind of stuff,

1:04:17

huh? Yeah, there's like a weird like

1:04:19

mix of things because yes, like

1:04:21

a traditional neocon style rubio, this tracks,

1:04:23

but all of the movements that

1:04:25

the Trump administration's been doing more recently,

1:04:27

this seems like seems like a

1:04:30

Some kind of DEI shenanigans, if you

1:04:32

ask me. Yeah, actually they added

1:04:34

another seven million later. Nine million. Which

1:04:36

is, yeah, it's not a lot

1:04:38

of money compared to what we would

1:04:40

normally expect. And at the same

1:04:42

time they did it, three

1:04:44

USAID workers, at least three I should

1:04:46

say, three that I'm aware of,

1:04:48

were laid off like literally they received

1:04:51

emails telling them that they no

1:04:53

longer had a job while they were

1:04:55

on the ground assisting earthquake survivors.

1:04:57

Department of Government Efficiency strikes again. Highly

1:04:59

efficient. We'll send you the money

1:05:01

and then also pull out our own people who I guess

1:05:03

are supervising how the money is spent or would be. It

1:05:06

definitely shows a strategic shift

1:05:08

in the region. China and Russia,

1:05:11

China obviously is interested in

1:05:13

Myanmar because of its rare

1:05:15

earth metals because of jade. China

1:05:18

has originally had a lot of

1:05:20

jade trade with Myanmar and then because

1:05:23

it controls a large amount of sea

1:05:25

front, right? Which China wouldn't want to

1:05:27

fall into like what it would see

1:05:29

as like someone with adversarial interests. Russia

1:05:31

is still interested in just kind of

1:05:33

projecting itself as a global power even

1:05:35

as it continues to shrink every day

1:05:37

in terms of its global ability to

1:05:39

project power. But there definitely

1:05:41

are both Chinese and Russian

1:05:43

assistance helping the Myanmar Hunter now.

1:05:46

Meanwhile, the US doesn't seem to give

1:05:48

a shit what happens here now. Like

1:05:50

this is kind of Not that the

1:05:52

Biden administration was doing very much either,

1:05:54

but at least we had USAID and

1:05:57

like USIP was very invested in Myanmar

1:05:59

and actually did a really good job

1:06:01

of kind of almost like being the

1:06:03

foreign affairs, not branch, but like

1:06:05

they explained the revolution to the world. Like

1:06:07

whenever a journalist wanted to understand the

1:06:09

revolution in Myanmar was USIP they went to.

1:06:11

Obviously all the countries that have a

1:06:13

USIP have now been doged, which is a

1:06:15

shame. So despite the

1:06:17

ceasefire, Right. I said they

1:06:19

fired on these Chinese troops.

1:06:21

The Hunter has in fact

1:06:24

not stopped bombing earthquakes, drug

1:06:26

areas, since the earthquake. Madeleine

1:06:28

PDF, who I'm in contact with,

1:06:30

they're the revolutionary forces in the area that

1:06:32

was most affected by the earthquake. On April

1:06:34

7th, told me that they were aware of

1:06:36

10 airstrikes in their area of operations. Since

1:06:39

the earthquake, a three -month -old baby and

1:06:41

a 10 -year -old child were killed in

1:06:43

an air raid on Naikav village in

1:06:45

Papuntownship. that was in Korean state. On

1:06:48

April 10th, they bombed a school. It's

1:06:50

something that the hunter likes to do

1:06:52

a lot, and they dropped two 500

1:06:54

pound bombs on a food court. They

1:06:56

then circled back and dropped another bomb

1:06:58

on the people responding to and giving

1:07:00

aid to the people they'd initially bombed

1:07:02

in the food court. By food court

1:07:04

here, just to clarify, I'm not talking

1:07:06

about like at the shopping mall, I'm

1:07:09

talking about like a market where people

1:07:11

can buy like prepared food, right? They've

1:07:14

killed... best I

1:07:16

can collate from various sources at

1:07:18

least 72 people and injured

1:07:20

about 100 people in addition to

1:07:22

thousands who died after the

1:07:24

earthquake. There are also

1:07:26

reports that hunter quote unquote recruiters

1:07:28

here are engaging in forced conscription

1:07:30

in the disaster zone. I read

1:07:32

of at least one person who

1:07:34

was on a search and rescue

1:07:36

team that they were trained search

1:07:39

and rescue volunteer right so they

1:07:41

were moving rubble to rescue people

1:07:43

and they were forcibly conscripted while

1:07:45

they were doing that. Obviously that's

1:07:47

had a chilling effect on people

1:07:49

going out to help others right.

1:07:52

What the country is not doing

1:07:54

is rescuing its citizens the

1:07:56

military is. Detested in

1:07:58

most of me and my even the

1:08:00

areas that it controls and it's failure to

1:08:02

even try and track people rest you

1:08:04

the rubber won't help this there was a

1:08:06

video that went viral recently of hunter

1:08:08

troops like literally a line of soldiers rescuing

1:08:10

bricks. They've gone to a collapsed

1:08:12

building and they're they're inspecting the bricks to see

1:08:14

if the bricks are whole and then passing

1:08:16

them down the line and stacking them up don't

1:08:18

worry the bricks are safe yeah the bricks

1:08:20

are safe the people are not. It

1:08:23

was genuinely infuriating to see it.

1:08:25

I can't imagine for people who have

1:08:28

lost family members how it must

1:08:30

feel. Even rescue workers,

1:08:32

like I said, have been

1:08:34

forcibly conscripted. Equality Myanmar

1:08:36

has noted more than 100 cases

1:08:38

of forced conscription since the earthquake. Myanmar

1:08:41

has a conscription rule law, so anyone...

1:08:43

and now women between certain ages can

1:08:45

be forcibly conscripted into the Hunter's army.

1:08:47

So they're just finding people displaced from

1:08:49

the earthquake and forcing them. Yeah, it's

1:08:51

people who have been hiding in their

1:08:53

homes, right, who now don't have homes

1:08:55

to hide it. Yeah. Or people who

1:08:58

came out in order to save their

1:09:00

neighbors. And now they're forcing them to

1:09:02

be, to fight for them. Just

1:09:04

as the Hunter did with Cyclone

1:09:06

Nargis, they've also delayed and in

1:09:08

cases blocked aid. A team

1:09:10

came from France to assist in a

1:09:12

search and rescue. They spent

1:09:15

24 hours sitting in an airport

1:09:17

waiting for their visa to be

1:09:19

approved, and then they spent

1:09:21

one day working in search and rescue efforts

1:09:23

before being told that search and rescue

1:09:25

efforts had now finished and they were to

1:09:27

go home. They traveled around the entire

1:09:29

world and didn't save a single life. Abundance.

1:09:31

Yeah, it's great. Presumably

1:09:34

because the Hunter wanted to placate China,

1:09:36

a Taiwanese team was straight up refused

1:09:38

entry into Myanmar. that Taiwan

1:09:41

had a search and rescue team that they're

1:09:43

willing to send who could have saved people

1:09:45

lives and that they weren't allowed to enter.

1:09:47

All tourist visas have been suspended so it's

1:09:49

not like the hunter is overwhelmed with visa

1:09:51

applications but they're not allowing search and rescue

1:09:53

teams to enter from countries I guess they're

1:09:55

not politically aligned with. This kind

1:09:57

of horrific indifference to human suffering has

1:09:59

characterized the top of the door for decades

1:10:01

and it's really unlikely to change as

1:10:03

it grows even more desperate and it loses

1:10:05

even more territory, it's just going to

1:10:08

clamp down harder and harder on its people.

1:10:10

B1 in the liberated areas, aid

1:10:12

is being mobilized using the mutual aid structures

1:10:14

which have existed for decades in the absence of

1:10:16

the state. In significant and

1:10:18

growing parts of Myanmar, people

1:10:20

are relying on each other instead

1:10:22

of the government for aid, and

1:10:24

that has its benefit. People have

1:10:26

been out rescuing people from the

1:10:28

rubble, but they're also desperately short

1:10:30

of resources. I spoke to Mandalay

1:10:32

PDF rescue team at the first

1:10:34

week of April, and they

1:10:36

literally sent me, they have a notebook.

1:10:38

of a list of, like, we've run

1:10:41

out of gauze, we've run out of

1:10:43

tourniquets, we've run out of adhesive dressings,

1:10:45

we've run out of elastic bandages, right?

1:10:47

The literal nuts and bolts of saving

1:10:49

people's lives they run out of. We

1:10:51

did a fundraising campaign for them through

1:10:53

Behind the Bastards. We raised nearly $2 ,000,

1:10:55

which is great. So they're restocking their

1:10:57

supplies, which is fantastic, but that's just

1:10:59

one township all across the country. People

1:11:01

are struggling for the basic supplies that

1:11:03

they need to save lives. The

1:11:05

military has also blocked Ada Medicine from

1:11:07

entering their areas, right? So the military

1:11:10

controls a lot of roadblocks and it

1:11:12

uses its control of those roadblocks to

1:11:14

stop Ada Medicine. Often it's kind of

1:11:16

hoarding it in the capital city, which

1:11:18

is Napidore. People aren't familiar, Napidore is

1:11:20

a city that they've come to build

1:11:22

for itself to govern from, the seat

1:11:24

of kings. Also in

1:11:26

Napidore right now is the US

1:11:29

aid agency Samaritan's Purse. You familiar

1:11:31

with Samaritan's Purse, Garrison? I don't

1:11:33

think so. It sounds vaguely familiar,

1:11:35

but all of these humanitarian organizations

1:11:37

all have like the same like

1:11:39

four words that they shuffle around

1:11:41

in different ways, so... Yeah, yeah,

1:11:43

yeah. Samaritan's Purse, perhaps most famous

1:11:45

for being run by Franklin Graham.

1:11:47

Okay, yes, yes. do know what

1:11:50

this is and who this is,

1:11:52

yes. Yeah, having all their volunteers

1:11:54

sign like a statement of faith

1:11:56

and being extremely homophobic. For

1:11:58

some reason, Samaritan's Purse is establishing a

1:12:00

field hospital in Napidore right now. They're

1:12:02

going to force people to convert to

1:12:04

evangelical Christianity before they give services like

1:12:07

they do in some cases. Yeah. Or

1:12:09

just leave them like they did in

1:12:11

Afghanistan if they're not Christian. I cannot

1:12:13

work out for the life of me

1:12:15

what the fuck they're doing. Because

1:12:17

like the hunter has made a

1:12:19

consistent policy of bombing Christians in Myanmar,

1:12:21

right? In Korean and Korean estate,

1:12:23

there a lot of Christian people on

1:12:26

Christmas Day. The hunter bombed people

1:12:28

going to services because it knew that

1:12:30

Christians would be going to services

1:12:32

at churches, right? The Kareni

1:12:34

Christians this year, I saw celebrated

1:12:36

Christmas in caves because they

1:12:38

were so afraid of big bombed,

1:12:40

right? Like, I have no

1:12:42

idea what logical leap you have

1:12:44

to make. Bizarre. Yeah, it's...

1:12:47

And they're not even at the...

1:12:49

In Segang, the only people, the

1:12:51

only international aid I'm aware of that was able

1:12:53

to make it to Segang was a Malaysian team.

1:12:56

who were able to save some lives. Unfortunately,

1:13:00

there were really strong rains this week, and

1:13:02

that made all the collapse structures even more

1:13:04

unstable, and the Malaysian team I saw have

1:13:06

now returned home. We're going to take another

1:13:08

ad break here. When we come back, we

1:13:10

will talk about what you can do to

1:13:12

help. All

1:13:23

right, and we're back. First,

1:13:25

I want to, I guess, have some good news. Despite

1:13:28

everything, the military has still been taking

1:13:30

massive losses. The Orberma

1:13:32

Students' Democratic Front captured remaining

1:13:34

Hunter positions in Indore. The

1:13:37

Orberma Students' Democratic Front are a

1:13:39

group that's been around since 1988,

1:13:41

right? And they have armed up

1:13:43

and re -entered the revolution since

1:13:45

2021. One of the things

1:13:47

that they captured on Monday was

1:13:49

a underground Japanese field hospital from World

1:13:52

War II. which I guess had

1:13:54

been like an entrenched position. I

1:13:56

guess they're not covered technically by the

1:13:58

ceasefire, but there was a unit under

1:14:01

the National Unity Government's command that operated

1:14:03

with them. And from what I understand,

1:14:06

this began as a defensive

1:14:08

action. They'd surrounded the Hunter, I

1:14:10

think it's called Japan Cave Hill. They'd

1:14:12

surrounded them on Japan Cave Hill for a

1:14:15

long time, and then the Hunter obviously

1:14:17

seeing the earthquake and everything, thereafter decided that

1:14:19

now was the time for them to

1:14:21

break out. of this encirclement. They did not

1:14:23

break out, they took a fat L

1:14:25

and as a result, they've all been captured

1:14:27

now. Meanwhile, in

1:14:30

Chinland, if people haven't listened to

1:14:32

the episode I did a couple of weeks

1:14:34

ago with Azad from the anti -fascist internationalist

1:14:36

front, I would suggest going back and listening

1:14:38

to that to understand Chinland. But

1:14:40

the AIF and a lot of their

1:14:42

allied forces from the Chinland Defense Force

1:14:44

and the Chin Brotherhood had a significant

1:14:46

victory in capturing the rest of the

1:14:48

Hunter's positions in Phalaam last week. And

1:14:50

I think it's very much like on

1:14:52

the table that we will see the

1:14:55

whole of Chinlain liberated in the next

1:14:57

few months or by the end of

1:14:59

the year, which would be great to

1:15:01

see. So people are wondering

1:15:03

like what they can do to help,

1:15:05

right? And I think it's a very

1:15:07

valid question because I saw today that

1:15:09

the UN was meeting with the hunter

1:15:11

in Naipetor. And I just have no

1:15:13

faith that any money that goes to

1:15:16

the hunter is going to get to

1:15:18

people who need it. Yeah, no, absolutely

1:15:20

not. You cannot. They

1:15:22

want them to die. No,

1:15:25

they're like evil. Yeah,

1:15:27

yeah, they are literally genocide or

1:15:29

they have done a genocide that

1:15:32

has been prosecuted international criminal court.

1:15:34

I have no understanding why people

1:15:36

continue to, international organizations continue to

1:15:39

funnel money to them other than

1:15:41

because they have a status quo

1:15:43

bias, I guess. So don't be

1:15:45

doing that, but there are groups

1:15:47

who are making a really big

1:15:49

difference. And one of them that I wanted to highlight, and

1:15:52

Robert and I both very

1:15:54

familiar with their work from the

1:15:56

last time that we were

1:15:58

overreporting is community partners international. CPI

1:16:00

are really cool because they

1:16:02

work by empowering members of the

1:16:04

local community to be health

1:16:06

volunteers, as opposed to dropping in

1:16:09

some doctors from America or

1:16:11

doctors from... Kingdom or whatever. And

1:16:13

then when those people leave,

1:16:15

they take their skills with them.

1:16:17

CPI, the thing is to educate

1:16:19

folks within the community so that

1:16:21

they can take care of one

1:16:24

another. And it's sort of CPI

1:16:26

has a matching donations thing right now, which

1:16:28

is pretty cool. So like

1:16:30

if you donate, someone else will

1:16:32

match your donation and that will

1:16:34

double the amount that you receive.

1:16:37

Otherwise, I will provide a list of

1:16:39

mutual aid funds that have been shared

1:16:41

with me. Most of them are like

1:16:43

GoFundMe's or things like that. I'll put

1:16:45

it all in the show description. They've

1:16:48

all been vetted and like, I

1:16:50

know people are sometimes reluctant to give

1:16:52

to GoFundMe's and they'd rather give

1:16:54

to like a 501c3 or like an

1:16:57

organization which has a little bit

1:16:59

more, I guess like online presence. In

1:17:01

this case, you have to understand

1:17:03

that like a lot. of orgs just

1:17:05

aren't operating in the liberated areas.

1:17:07

The two that I'm aware of, CPI

1:17:09

and FreeBurma ranges. I spoke

1:17:11

to Dave from FreeBurma ranges. They're

1:17:13

trying to get to as many people as

1:17:15

they can as well. That would be another great

1:17:17

place to donate. I would include a list

1:17:19

of vetted GoFundMe's. If you want to have a

1:17:21

look through those and see if any of

1:17:23

them speaks to you more, you can

1:17:25

do that too. What this will

1:17:27

mean for the future of Myanmar, We

1:17:31

don't know yet, right? We

1:17:33

have really no sense of how

1:17:35

many people have died of

1:17:37

what it's done to the hunters

1:17:39

ability to control those areas.

1:17:41

But until the revolution has a

1:17:43

way to stop planes bombing

1:17:45

people, we will continue to see

1:17:47

the same dynamic of the

1:17:49

hunter losing terrain on the ground,

1:17:51

pulling back its soldiers, and

1:17:53

then bombing civilians in the areas that it's

1:17:55

lost. That is its

1:17:57

game plan. It's continuing

1:18:00

to get more drones from

1:18:02

China, it's getting aircraft

1:18:04

munitions and jet fuel from

1:18:06

China. And until there

1:18:08

is an embargo on jet fuel

1:18:10

and munitions to the Hunter, then we

1:18:12

will see this same pattern continue,

1:18:14

right? They lose terrain, they

1:18:16

bomb a school, they lose terrain, they bomb a

1:18:18

hospital. Again, it's the same stuff

1:18:21

that Israel is doing. And they, of

1:18:23

course, previously been armed by Israel as well.

1:18:25

But we don't see as much solidarity

1:18:27

for the people of Burma. If

1:18:30

you want to stay in touch with what's

1:18:32

happening on the ground, I think the Irawari,

1:18:35

I -R -R -A -W -A -D -D -Y does a

1:18:37

really good job of doing daily

1:18:39

summaries right now. So I would suggest

1:18:41

checking out what's happening there. And

1:18:43

of course, we'll keep you updated on

1:18:46

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and Craig Melvin weekdays at 7am

1:21:12

on NBC. This

1:21:17

is It Could Happen Here.

1:21:20

I am not going to El

1:21:22

Salvador. It's not going to

1:21:24

happen. No way. No thank you,

1:21:26

Mr. President. I'm

1:21:28

Garrison Davis. I'm joined by

1:21:31

James Stout. Hi Garrison. We're here

1:21:33

to talk about possibly the

1:21:35

most upsetting thing I've seen in

1:21:37

American politics in like the

1:21:39

past six months to maybe even,

1:21:42

I don't know, this really had hit

1:21:44

me for like the past few years.

1:21:46

Like, yeah, what happened on Monday in

1:21:48

the Oval Office was is kind of

1:21:50

the most black pill they've ever been,

1:21:52

which is not a great way to

1:21:54

start an episode. Yeah, like... It made

1:21:56

me feel like I found 2023 very

1:21:59

hard, like going out and seeing people

1:22:01

freezing in the desert and then coming

1:22:03

home and seeing Joe Biden the ice

1:22:05

cream on the timeline. But like this

1:22:07

was different. This was so like blatant.

1:22:09

There's like a level of like intentional

1:22:11

depravity that you're reminded of more blatantly. And

1:22:14

like Bukele's trolling

1:22:16

of everyone. So

1:22:19

we're gonna be talking about

1:22:21

an Oval Office meeting between President

1:22:23

Trump and El Salvador President

1:22:25

Bukele. I guess I could

1:22:27

learn his first name. Naib Bukele?

1:22:30

There you go. You know he's

1:22:32

Palestinian Salvadorian. Are you fucking serious?

1:22:34

No, his dad's an Imam. I

1:22:36

don't even have time for that. This

1:22:39

is just fucking... I'm

1:22:41

sorry if anyone's driving and

1:22:43

has had an accident

1:22:45

upon hearing that. So as

1:22:48

you probably know, Recently,

1:22:50

the United States government has

1:22:52

sent upwards of 300

1:22:54

people, immigrants, to

1:22:56

the El Salvador Terrorism

1:22:58

Confinement Center, this

1:23:00

prison black site that people

1:23:03

never return from. I

1:23:05

guess I could point to, for a

1:23:07

pop culture reference, which feels a little bit

1:23:09

in bad taste, but you

1:23:11

could point to like the prison in

1:23:13

the TV show Andor. as being a very

1:23:15

comfortable facility, frankly, except they turn off

1:23:17

the lights in Andorra. They do not turn

1:23:20

off the lights in Seacot. Lights run

1:23:22

all the time. They put 10

1:23:24

to 20 people per cell. It's

1:23:26

pretty bad. Jameson has done episodes

1:23:28

on Seacot in the past. We'll probably

1:23:30

keep doing more. The lights

1:23:32

thing, by the way, was

1:23:34

a specific policy change by Bukele.

1:23:36

There was a particularly violent

1:23:38

weekend in El Salvador. And

1:23:41

as a result, He stopped letting people

1:23:43

who were detained for gang crimes go outside

1:23:45

and stopped building windows into the prison

1:23:47

and just put the lights on. Like there's

1:23:49

a way of punishing, I guess, the

1:23:51

gangs by punishing the people who were detained

1:23:53

there. Yeah, they can't go outside. They

1:23:55

stay in their cell for almost 24 hours

1:23:57

a day. They might occasionally get 30

1:23:59

minutes outside, but that's not even confirmed because

1:24:01

no one's even allowed inside to see

1:24:04

what's going on in there. And

1:24:06

we've sent upwards of 300

1:24:08

immigrants there. The vast majority

1:24:10

of which have no criminal

1:24:13

record, even if you do

1:24:15

have a criminal record, being

1:24:17

renditioned to a foreign prison

1:24:19

camp is still bad. But

1:24:21

this is something that Trump

1:24:23

hopes to expand on greatly, and

1:24:26

they are currently defending their ability to

1:24:28

do so in the courts. Since it

1:24:30

has been learned that a few people

1:24:32

sent there may have been partially sent

1:24:34

by accident, but the Trump

1:24:36

administration is refusing to return these

1:24:38

people and is instead still trying

1:24:40

to convince the public that these

1:24:42

are dangerous terrorists that deserve to

1:24:44

be disappeared. So let's

1:24:46

kind of start with that

1:24:48

main case. The case

1:24:51

that's receiving the most public

1:24:53

attention right now is of

1:24:55

a Maryland man named Kilmer

1:24:57

Abrego Garcia, who's a subject of

1:24:59

a district court case that has been

1:25:01

sent up to the Supreme Court and

1:25:03

then sent back to the district court

1:25:05

on whether this man can be returned

1:25:07

home to his US citizen wife and

1:25:09

child. And then on

1:25:11

Monday, April 14th, in the Oval Office

1:25:13

meeting, President Bukele said

1:25:15

that he will not return this

1:25:17

Maryland immigrant with protected legal status

1:25:19

back to the United States, who

1:25:22

ICE admits was sent to CCOT

1:25:24

based on a quote, unquote, administrative

1:25:26

error. Bukele said, quote,

1:25:28

how can I smuggle a terrorist into the

1:25:30

United States? Of course I'm not going to

1:25:32

do it. The question is preposterous, unquote. The

1:25:35

El Salvador president also bulked at

1:25:37

the idea of releasing Garcia from

1:25:39

CCOT since he can't have a

1:25:41

quote -unquote terrorist free in his

1:25:43

country. Lying about Garcia

1:25:45

being a criminal. I

1:25:47

am gonna play a few clips in this

1:25:50

episode because I think it is necessary to

1:25:52

listen to these people actually say the words

1:25:54

that they are saying in the tone that

1:25:56

they're saying them and the exact phrasing on

1:25:58

these I think is actually pretty important right

1:26:00

now. So unfortunately you are gonna have to

1:26:02

hear the voices of a few people who

1:26:04

you might not rather hear from, including the

1:26:07

president of El Salvador. So I'll play this

1:26:09

first clip. Can

1:26:12

President Bukele weigh in on this? Do you

1:26:14

plan to return him? Well, I guess. I'm

1:26:16

supposed to have suggested that I smuggle terrorists

1:26:18

into the United States, right? How can I

1:26:20

smuggle? How can I return him to the

1:26:22

United States? It's like, could I smuggle him

1:26:25

into the United States? Or what do I

1:26:27

do? Of course, I'm not going to do

1:26:29

it. It's like, I mean,

1:26:31

the question is for busters. How can

1:26:33

I smuggle a terrorist into the United States?

1:26:35

I don't have the power to return

1:26:37

him to the United States. It's

1:27:05

just insane. like the whole pretense

1:27:07

of any serious engagement with reality there.

1:27:10

It's just gone. Yeah, and they're

1:27:12

both like miming that neither of them

1:27:14

have the ability to make any

1:27:16

kind of deal between each other, to

1:27:18

send people back, even though they

1:27:20

have the ability to make a deal

1:27:22

to send people there. Yeah, as

1:27:24

they sit in the same room. The

1:27:26

whole time Bacala is talking, Trump

1:27:28

has like this growing smirk on his

1:27:31

face. Yeah. But Kaley is talking

1:27:33

about this this preposterous notion of smuggling

1:27:35

a US immigrant back into the

1:27:37

United States Despite a Supreme Court order

1:27:39

to facilitate the return of this

1:27:41

immigrant back into the country The whole

1:27:43

smuggling framing is is obviously absurd

1:27:45

with him saying like I don't have

1:27:47

the power to return him to

1:27:49

the United States All he needs to

1:27:52

do is release him from Seacaw

1:27:54

and the US can fly him back

1:27:56

right just as we flew him

1:27:58

to El Salvador Like the two

1:28:00

heads of state are sitting right next

1:28:02

to each other. They could agree to

1:28:04

do this at any time. But now

1:28:06

everyone's pretending that suddenly they don't have

1:28:08

the power to undo what they seemingly

1:28:10

had the power to do in the

1:28:12

first place. Like Bukele has ruled and

1:28:14

we're going to do a whole episode

1:28:17

of Bukele and like his rise to

1:28:19

power and then his use of power.

1:28:21

But like he's ruled under a state

1:28:23

of exception for years in El Salvador,

1:28:25

which allows them to detain people without

1:28:27

warrants, without trials, right? And like It's

1:28:29

that state of exception that is now

1:28:31

the norm there. And that's kind of

1:28:33

what he seems to be referring to,

1:28:35

right? Like, we just

1:28:37

get to lock people up. Why

1:28:39

would I not do that? In effect,

1:28:41

they are arguing that every single

1:28:44

human being that is sent to sea

1:28:46

caught by the United States is

1:28:48

unable to ever leave the prison alive.

1:28:51

That's basically what they're saying. They're saying both

1:28:53

parties, both Trump and Bukele, are unable. to

1:28:55

have someone who's been sent there to

1:28:57

return. So they're just saying no one's able

1:28:59

to do anything. They're just stuck there

1:29:01

until they die. And this is part of

1:29:03

the design of Seacot. The

1:29:05

person who runs the Seacot security has

1:29:07

said that they do not intend

1:29:10

in any person ever being released from

1:29:12

Seacot. You are not designed to

1:29:14

get out. You are stuck there forever.

1:29:16

No one's ever left there. It's

1:29:19

just where you get disappeared. And

1:29:21

that's all that it is. And I

1:29:23

think part of why... They're so unwilling

1:29:25

to send Garcia back because then you

1:29:27

have someone like the first person who's

1:29:29

ever gotten out and can talk about

1:29:31

what it's actually like in there when

1:29:33

you don't have like Christina and propaganda

1:29:35

cameras pointed at at the prison bars.

1:29:37

Yeah. Bukele is very resistant

1:29:40

to release anyone for that reason. And

1:29:42

like there are plenty of allegations and

1:29:44

like I think time magazine has published

1:29:46

this. It's not usually controversial that he

1:29:48

made deals with gangs in the past

1:29:50

in El Salvador to get them to

1:29:52

reduce the murder rate. And like,

1:29:54

he certainly wouldn't like to hear

1:29:56

that testified to certainly not in the

1:29:59

United States Court, right? So like,

1:30:01

he doesn't want people to be released

1:30:03

from there either. Like you

1:30:05

say, they don't want anyone to be able

1:30:07

to go to any international human rights courts

1:30:09

and testify as to what happened to them

1:30:11

there. So it's kind of in his interest

1:30:13

to never have anyone be released. It's

1:30:15

not just also, I guess, like in

1:30:17

his interest, he's also being paid, right? $20

1:30:19

,000 per detainee per year by the United

1:30:21

States right now. So he also has

1:30:23

a financial interest in keeping people in there.

1:30:25

Even this per year deal makes, now

1:30:27

kind of makes zero sense because both of

1:30:29

them are arguing that there's no way

1:30:31

to send anyone back. Right. So like, it's

1:30:33

not that it's even like, oh, they're

1:30:35

only going to be there for one year.

1:30:37

It's like, they're just, they're

1:30:40

just there. And like, who

1:30:42

knows if they're going to like still

1:30:44

be alive. by the time that some

1:30:46

of these people would be able to

1:30:48

get out, whether that's through the miraculous

1:30:50

Donald Trump impeachment of 2026, which will

1:30:52

never happen. Or like, however, like these

1:30:54

people are they they are to stuck

1:30:56

there because he's not going to release

1:30:58

them into his country. We

1:31:00

are seemingly unable to take

1:31:02

anyone back from there. I

1:31:05

think unwilling, right? Like the

1:31:07

US is theoretically able. It's argued

1:31:09

that we're unable as as

1:31:11

as as people get into more

1:31:13

after this. bad break. Okay,

1:31:25

we are back. One

1:31:27

thing that we've seen across the

1:31:29

Trump administration the past 80 days

1:31:31

or so, something that we saw

1:31:33

very evident in this meeting, is

1:31:36

that whenever a single person is

1:31:38

asked a question about the outrageous,

1:31:40

possibly illegal possibly not but just

1:31:42

immoral or evil things that are

1:31:44

being done. The first instinct is

1:31:46

always to pass the bell count to someone else.

1:31:48

We saw this a lot with SignalGate, how it

1:31:50

was always someone else's faults. No

1:31:53

single person could get hammered down of being like,

1:31:55

okay, you are the person that's gonna be accountable

1:31:57

for this. And throughout this Oval

1:31:59

Office meeting, eventually they started taking questions

1:32:01

from journalists and reporters and propagandists who

1:32:03

were in the room. And you saw

1:32:05

this trend of... if someone asks Trump

1:32:07

about what's going on, he passes the

1:32:09

buck to Stephen Miller, who passes the

1:32:12

buck to Bukele, who then passes the

1:32:14

buck to Mark Rubio. And it's

1:32:16

like this big circle of like, everyone's just

1:32:18

talking around each other because no one really has

1:32:20

the authority to speak on what's going on

1:32:22

or how to fix this problem because they don't

1:32:24

see it as a problem. So instead, they

1:32:26

just talk in a circle. And I

1:32:28

think Miller was one of the most

1:32:30

effective at this. And unfortunately, we're going to

1:32:32

play the longest clip in

1:32:34

this episode, just under two minutes

1:32:36

from Stephen Miller, where he lays out

1:32:39

the Trump admin thought process and

1:32:41

strategy behind what they are doing. And

1:32:43

I apologize for this, but

1:32:45

it is useful to hear

1:32:47

from Himmler too. So

1:32:50

here we go. With

1:32:52

respect to you, he's a

1:32:54

citizen of El Salvador. So...

1:32:56

very arrogant even for American media to

1:32:58

suggest that we would even tell El

1:33:00

Salvador how to handle their own citizens

1:33:02

as a starting point. As two immigration

1:33:04

courts found that he was a member

1:33:06

of MS -13, when President

1:33:09

Trump declared MS -13 to be a

1:33:11

foreign terrorist organization, that

1:33:13

meant that he was no longer eligible under federal

1:33:15

law, which I'm sure you know, you're very

1:33:17

familiar with the INA, that he was

1:33:19

no longer eligible for any form of immigration

1:33:21

relief in the United States. So he

1:33:23

had a deportation order that

1:33:25

was valid which meant that under our

1:33:27

law he's not even allowed to be

1:33:30

present in the United States and had

1:33:32

to be returned because of the foreign

1:33:34

terrorist designation. This issue was

1:33:36

then by a district court judge

1:33:38

completely inverted and a district court

1:33:40

judge tried to tell the administration

1:33:42

that they had to kidnap a

1:33:45

citizen of El Salvador and fly

1:33:47

back here. That issue was raised

1:33:49

to the Supreme Court and the

1:33:51

Supreme Court said the district court

1:33:53

order was unlawful and its main

1:33:55

components were reversed 90 unanimously, stating

1:33:58

clearly that neither Secretary of State

1:34:00

nor the President could be compelled

1:34:02

by anybody to forcibly retrieve a

1:34:04

citizen of El Salvador from El

1:34:06

Salvador, who again is a member

1:34:08

of MS -13, which as

1:34:10

I'm sure you understand, rapes little girls, murders

1:34:13