A Revolutionary Act of Protest: Aaron Bushnell and the American empire – Ep 155

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Don: This is Fortress On A Hill, with Henri, Danny, Kaygan,

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Jo vonni, Shiloh, and Monisha

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Jovanni: Welcome everyone to Fortress On A Hill, a podcast about U.

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S.

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foreign policy, anti imperialism, skepticism, and the American way of war.

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I'm Jovanni, joined by Keegan.

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Thank you for being here.

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How are you doing, Keegan?.

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Keagan: Yes, indeed.

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It has.

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A lot of things been happening.

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Very very intense very sad, very tragic.

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A lot of things happening, a lot of things moving.

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Jovanni: Okay.

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So on Sunday, 25, February, a young man walked to the Israeli embassy in

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DC in his military uniform in front of the embassy, drinks himself in

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flammable fluid and igniting himself.

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On his way there, he was filming himself on his phone, carrying a water bottle

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container, and said, "I'm an active duty member of the US Air Force, and I

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will no longer be complicit to genocide.

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I'm about to engage in an extreme active protest.

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But compared to what people have been experiencing in Palestine

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at the hands of their colonizers, it is not extreme at all.

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This is what our ruling class has decided will be normal."

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His name is Aaron Bushnell.

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A native of Massachusetts, an active duty member of the United

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States Air Force Station in Lackland Air Force Base, San Antonio.

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Aaron Jones, Kwan Duk, a monk in 1963, Malachi Richter, musician in 2006,

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Charles Ingram, Navy vet in 2016.

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John Watts, Army Air Force vet, 2018, a woman in Atlanta who also

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committed self immolation in front of the Israeli consulate on December

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2023, and others in the United States.

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A woman in Atlanta who also committed self immolation in front of the

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Israeli consulate on December 2023.

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Names known and unknown.

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Tonight, we'll reflect on Aaron Bushnell and his martyrdom and

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what was his message to us in his final act of protest.

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Joining in the discussion, welcome back to the show, Jake Tucker and

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Rachel Tucker, and we'll extend our welcome to Ramon Mejia.

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Jake Tucker is a veteran of the United States Army from 2001 to 20.

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Jake's experience in the army led him to the anti war and

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anti imperialist movement.

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He is an organizer with oppressed revolutionaries for workers power in San

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Antonio and organizes around labor, anti imperialism, and oppressed communities.

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Rachel Tucker is a veteran of the U.

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S.

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Imperialist Army from 2002 to 2011.

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She is a Cuban American, born in Miami, and has lived in San

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Antonio for the last 17 years.

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Since leaving the military, Rachel has dedicated herself to building within

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her community around anti imperialism.

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Feminism, Building Socialism, and Education.

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She's also an organizer with the Press Revolutions for Workers Power.

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Ramon Mejia is a Marines veteran from 2001 through 2004.

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A native of Dallas, Texas, he's an antiwar veteran.

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And the Anti Militarism National Organizer at Grassroots Global Justice Alliance,

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where he supports members organizing to dismantle systems of violence to

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build healthy and thriving communities.

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Welcome to the show, guys.

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Thank you.

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Thanks for having us.

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So an interview like we said earlier, this is some intense, interesting moments.

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We're just five veterans given, having a discussion, reflecting on Aaron

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Bushnell, on Palestine, Palestinians.

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A person who gave his life for people, that he doesn't know

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personally and his message to us.

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Any of you start this is very informal.

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Who wants to go first?

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Your reflection on what happened on the 25th of February and Sunday

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when you first heard about this?

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And what was your first thought?

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Jake Tucker: My experience was in the army was very much defined by the Iraq war.

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I was studying Arabic at the time that The Iraq war was being pushed by

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the media, pushed by our politicians, pushed by basically the entire

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ruling class that Aaron spoke of.

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We actually had pretty robust discussions amongst the fellow trainees.

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And it wasn't as uniform, as you would think among the soldiers,

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there's a lot of people who are like, this is a terrible idea.

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Other people thinking it was whatever, a good idea, whatever.

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And then some people that just didn't care.

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But I was very much on the anti side basically that we should not go to

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war with Iraq side, but then as soon as the bombs started dropping during

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the shock and awe campaign any of the dissent basically seemed to dry

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up overnight and I became the lone dissenter everywhere I went after that.

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And it very much fueled a sense of isolation.

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I was very isolated and where I would share my opinions, people

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would act very hostilely towards me at times, not everybody by any

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stretch, but it was something that, that was definitely present there.

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Upon, reading about and learning about Aaron's, protest, I was struck in a number

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of ways, struck by his courage, and deep conviction to really, as he says, take

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such an extreme act of political protest.

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When I was in Iraq, that's when Chelsea Manning released documents to WikiLeaks.

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And that's another thing I thought of when I learned of Aaron Bushnell's

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protest was thought about Chelsea Manning.

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Chelsea Manning was someone I held in, hold in very high regard for her courage

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and the subsequent abuse and torture she underwent while incarcerated, and

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then was actually incarcerated again, Basically, because she was sharing

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documents that the world needed to know about now that we know about them.

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It makes it harder for people to look away at the crimes that this country commits.

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There's something there are acts of protest and acts of resistance that

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individuals take sometimes that are very easy to ignore, dismiss, and wipe

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away as just some disgruntled person, disgruntled military member, or as

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I would be called, like a shitbag or something like that while I was in.

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But I just think that any good faith person understands where

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Aaron Bushnell is coming from.

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And despite the ways that the media tries to spin who he was, what this protest

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was, or even ignore what the protest was about altogether, so as much as the

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media tries to move the discussion, move the narrative away from the genocide

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and the liberation of Palestine it's not really having the impact that they

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desire because we've been, we've all been watching, we've all been paying

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attention to this for months now.

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And the desperation behind Aaron's act, behind Aaron's act is very clear.

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It's very concise.

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He was concise about it.

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He was composed about it.

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And it makes us all pay attention in a way that typical protests by individuals,

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don't really reach that level.

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So I'll go ahead and stop there and see what other people think.

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Jovanni: Something that really frustrated me was just, yeah, as you mentioned,

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Jake the way that the media has been portraying Aaron's actions, some people

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are just not mentioning him at all.

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I think NPR also said his motives were unclear in their initial reporting.

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And I'm like, Listen to the last fucking thing he said come on.

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Those reporters said that he was echoing pro Palestinian protesters.

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As he was being influenced by some, I don't know, by bad influence, I

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don't know, peer pressure, it was so frustrating to just see that they didn't

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want to tackle the question, because of course not they're not paid to do but

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yeah, I just seeing the reaction around the world has been really interesting

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especially what Arab folks have been saying, very in support of him and

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saying he's a martyr with everyone else.

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No, and I thought that was really interesting to see

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some really cool solidarity.

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Rachell Tucker: Exactly.

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Even like President Maduro from Venezuela had a solidarity statement

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about Aaron Bushnell's sacrifice.

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It just speaks to the world because this same past week the U.

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S.

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vetoed for the third time a ceasefire resolution at the U.

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N.

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and it's definitely not a coincidence, where Bushnell's actions come

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in his very courageous actions.

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I first found out about it on Sunday and I was like, is this real?

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And then find out that, of course it is completely real and it, I was in

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just disbelief the mental preparation that it takes to do such a courageous

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act and to do it like y'all had been saying, so concisely precise.

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So that people can't be mistaken, even if they try to change the narrative, like

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he was very cautious about the words that he used that he would not be complicit

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in genocide and he identified as Air Force service member in his uniform very

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symbolic to, I don't want to say the rest of the military, but if millions have

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been hitting the streets since October 7th, and this government and many local

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governments have chosen not to not to pull funding, not to sign the ceasefire

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resolutions have deployed the police to, to be violent towards protesters.

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Have ignored genocide, have denied genocide from happening in Palestine.

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It is this very courageous and symbolic act of self immolation by Aaron Bushnell

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that has I think, taking, taking it to another level on top of the

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continued atrocities that are happening in Palestine with today, a hundred

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palestinians in Rafah being massacred for while they were getting aid.

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They were, they're starving and they're getting aid and Israel took

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the opportunity to massacre them.

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And so it's like these actions that are out of our control is what I think

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led him, of course to perform this.

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Very courageous and patriotic act, right?

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Ramon Mejia: No, I appreciate what everybody has said.

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And yeah, I just both mourn Aaron's, and those that, that, that were closest to

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him that, are hurting at this moment.

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I think for me The initial, shock you go online.

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I don't even remember if it was something that I was, like, online and I saw a

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bulletin or if it was on social media, but the first thing that I thought

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was, like, I saw I heard I read self immolation, and, and Air Force veteran,

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I'm like, surprised, what happened what's the reasoning I didn't, you

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were getting pieces of information.

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I'm like, oh these were actually his last words and starting to put a little

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bit of information together then.

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So then, once I saw that Aaron sacrificed himself to raise the concern and the

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alarm around the genocide in Palestine.

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The immediately next thought that I had was, like, someone just Did that

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in Atlanta prior to before Christmas, so I'm like, that's just happened, I

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was like, that's when I was thinking wow, that's been two people thus far,

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and, just thinking, in the role that I work at at GDJ around the connection

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around extractive economy, dealing a lot with climate change, that, that

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aspect and working within that sector.

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I recall like learning about someone that had did self immolation on

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Earth Day as a result to raise alarm around climate change.

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And, this being like an anti war veteran, being like knowledgeable about the legacy

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and the history that self immolation has in the anti war movement in the broader

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global movement against Oppression and militarization and war and genocide

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and violence, that's, Aaron's a part of that legacy and, I agree just like how,

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fellow comrades have said he was precise In his words that he was engaging in an

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extreme act of protest but that compared to what the people were experiencing

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in Palestine is not extreme at all.

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Every day, Palestinians are being killed.

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Every day, Palestinians are being engulfed in the flame, just like

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Aaron got engulfed in the flame.

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And, the ruling class, as he's, as Aaron said, the ruling class has

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made this norm, like it's normal.

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I think it's like, The desensitization, it's bringing, it's raising an alarm

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around the desensitization of the violence and the militarized violence

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that both the police, the prisons, the military engages on a day in, day out

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and would become so desensitized that we don't even realize that it's happening.

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It's another person is dead, another, 200 they're just numbers to the wider public.

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I think I don't even think I've finished processing or even started to really

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process what what Aaron's self immolation and his sacrifice means for the wider

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movement, it's definitely It's really engaged, it's really galvanized and

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moved a lot of people and it's also brought forth like the need to like, we

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have to continue building deeper bonds and deeper community with one another

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to continue to strategize and seeing how best we can stop the violence and

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stop this genocide that's happening.

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Yeah, those, it's it's something that I think I'll continue to process as the days

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and the weeks go ahead because in this moment, it's like, how can we respond?

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How can we, answer the call that Aaron put out?

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Keagan: I think there's some good news on that front.

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I don't know if you guys saw, but the Michigan primary, over 100,

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000 people voted uncommitted.

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Which is 10 times what they were hoping, like the mayor of Dearborn once said

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that they were hoping to get 10, 000.

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And they got over 100, 000 people, which is like a 10 percent of people in all

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the counties to say that to make this statement and say we don't support this

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and we don't support what you're doing.

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I hope that, that shows people look.

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, you need to do something about this or else you're gonna lose.

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You'll lose Michigan.

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Jovanni: Yeah, absolutely.

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Yeah, I echo all of what you guys shared so far.

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Yeah, it was, I'm still processing as well, but at the same time, it's

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disturbing because It's disturbing in the sense that, there have been other

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ethnic cleansings before, there have been other genocides before, there

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have been there have been, fictitious or fictitious genocides that have been

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tried to, trying to weaponize to get people to, To get people worked up to,

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to consent a, some type of military interventions, I can think of several

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with, where ruling class just blow up things that to try to get consent from

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people like, for the minor thing, they're quick to call anything genocide, they're

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quick to call anything genocide genocide,

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the so called genocide in China, with Uyghurs with no proof whatsoever, the

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so called genocide in, even in Russia so they're quick to call genocide

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everything but when it comes to actual Ethnic cleansing, actual genocide, which

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is live streamed, which is everybody can see, everybody's witnessing, everybody's

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going around the world, everybody's seeing the images everyone is seeing it

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they'll go nope, this is not genocide, nope, technically, this is not genocide,

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and they just to make excuses for it, they do gymnastics, they do backflips,

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they do all kinds of stuff to deny What you're lying little eyes are seeing, are

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watching, you're not really seeing this, this is a fiction of your imagination.

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. When the first time I actually sat down and started thinking about conflict,

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war was with the Panamanian invasion.

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I was a teenager then and I was seeing how the whole media was, was working

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up the media and everything how it was necessary, how it was just in I was just

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so absolutely necessary to intervene in Panama because so much things, so much

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horrible things are happening in Panama.

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We just have to go.

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We just have to go, because Noriega is like the next is like a Hitler incarnated.

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He was actually, I think Bush called him Atilla the Hun.

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That's what Bush called him.

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Atilla the Hun so they worked up the whole mass population, right?

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We have to intervene.

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We have to intervene because so much horrible things is happening in Panama.

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And we saw the invasion in Panama.

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So that was the first time I actually sat down And think about, what this

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all means, what this, how they work people up, how the media work people

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up, how everything's just pretty much connected, and everybody's just pretty

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much joined at the hip, and everybody's just pretty much echoing the same

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messages, and whatnot, just to manipulate you supporting something, right?

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This It's the other way around.

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This is, they're downplaying things, they're downplaying it, they're using

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schematics, they're using, technicalities, they're using all these big words

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and everything, they're trying to manipulate you into Not seeing or telling

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you what you're seeing is not true.

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What you're seeing is Hamas propaganda, the way they say it, being

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deceived, that you're crazy, that you're not, go on with your life.

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Don't think about it.

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Nothing to see here, that's what's frustrating.

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And then when you bring it up, you're gaslighted as if

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it's you that's messed up.

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That's, it's you that's.

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That is wrong, why don't why don't you be like everybody else, just look the

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other way, just live your life, just turn on the TV, just, do whatever, don't

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look this way, nothing to see here.

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That's what's frustrating.

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Rachell Tucker: Absolutely frustrating and.

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It begs the question we go to protests we email and talk, go in person, talk to

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our politicians, the people that say they have the power that speak in our name but

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we're the the people are the ones with the power, and the people, every time we

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get together it is an impressive force.

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But what I really wanted to mention is that he was from San Antonio, not from San

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Antonio, but stationed in San Antonio like where we're at, where Jake and I are at.

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And yesterday we organized a little group of antiwar vets and we went and

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spoke before city council and it was it was pretty powerful because San Antonio

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is called Military City USA and it glorifies the military just the rest

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of the United States does, and the roll call where all of our previous ranks and

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last names were called and then Aaron's name was called three times And you

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look at the faces of the city council people who have been repeatedly, every

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week, people have been coming, every week people demanding that they pass an

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actual permanent ceasefire resolution.

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And, they were just shocked.

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They were shook.

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You could tell that they were paying attention.

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They were actually looking.

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One of them started to tear up.

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And so it's us vets carry, we carry the mirror up to the face of

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the people that always glorify the military and veterans and all of this.

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And we each basically told our, some parts of our story and our good friend Jules

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Vaquera sang part of a song that's called War Criminal from our own experience.

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And it was really powerful.

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And we do what we can and we'll continue to go out and protest but I think what

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Aaron really wanted us to do is continue the fight and call out the being gaslit,

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like you were talking about, Jovanni, and just continue organizing and bringing

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out people because this, we're witnessing the genocide, and even though they deny

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it, I looked at the Army Times just to see what they were talking about Aaron

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Bushnell, before we came into this this meeting, and essentially they just covered

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the facts, and then said some have said that Israel is committing genocide.

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So just leaving it up into the possibility that it's not, and it's just disgusting

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Jake Tucker: One, one kind of quick thought I wanted to, Come back to as I

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was listening to other folks talking.

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I think it's an open question right now, what's the response for other active

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duty military members going to be?

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I mentioned just a, when I opened up the impact that, that Chelsea

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Manning's courage and leaking of documents and all that had on me.

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I was already a dissenter by I remember thinking like actually Chelsea Manning

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worked a job that was not all that dissimilar from a job I was working.

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I was Intel as she was.

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It's just it opened my eyes up into like, how one can resist

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rather than just be so angry.

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And I'll just call it what it was for me, like nihilistic about everything.

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Like I was just hopeless and nihilistic.

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People with the strength and the courage to to move something forward and, I

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don't think you're necessarily going to see protests or whatever in the form

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of errands per se, but I do think, at least it's my hope I can't say for sure,

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but I do think the Armed forces, like members of the armed forces, are going

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to take, have already taken notice.

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It is impossible not to take notice.

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And many of them.

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Couldn't give you percentages, numbers, or anything like that, but , many

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of them are like having extremely complicated thoughts and feelings

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about what they are complicit in.

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And Aaron named it.

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Aaron named what we're complicit in, right?

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And then stood up and had the courage to do something about it.

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And so I do I just, I wonder what's going to come of this from other

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service members, vets too, as well.

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But I think The resistance coming from active duty people might be more more

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than we've seen since, say, Vietnam or something like that, and those were in

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the times of draft and, It's going to, it's going to limit, it's going to limit

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the legitimacy of command structures.

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It's going to limit limit the effectiveness the legitimacy of

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political leadership, and so on within the armed forces, I think.

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I'm not saying it's going to cripple it completely, but I'm not saying But

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I do wonder what the implications will be in the active duty armed forces.

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Jovanni: I was looking at the the Ken 5 San Antonio news

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channel when they reported it.

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The way they framed it like you said Rachel they stated the

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fact, this is what happened.

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And then they had a they quickly went to some air force spokesperson.

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Uniform.

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He was saying that he was telling us something about, this tragic this,

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that but they initially, but the way they moved this, the way they

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directed, the issue was towards suicide.

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You know how how there is a crisis, and I don't, you don't hear much, you

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don't hear much about it anymore, but I remember back, during the height of Iraq

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and when Iraq , was You know, dwindling down, they were talking about the crisis

00:23:28
of veteran suicide, 22 veterans take their lives a day, et cetera, right?

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So that's way, that's a way that the the news clip from Cane 5,

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started going towards suicide.

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And at the end the reporter, the person who was.

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Who was the only reporter.

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She talked about the suicide hotline, if you're having thoughts of harming

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yourself you're having thoughts of, this and that, call the suicide hotline.

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That's how she finished her report.

00:23:53
By, by gearing, by guiding the conversation toward suicide, pretty

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much It takes away from the intent of Aaron, what Aaron was intending.

00:24:03
It takes away and they shape it, they frame it as if Aaron was, was

00:24:08
dealing with some mental health issues versus what was the actual message

00:24:14
that Aaron was trying to convey.

00:24:18
I've seen in other posts saying that, that we're when I saw a post somewhere where it

00:24:25
was from an article, one of the articles I read about Aaron saying that, we're often

00:24:31
called heroes, when we go out, you know, And, to wars and, die and kill for some

00:24:38
military objective, we're called heroes.

00:24:40
But when we give up our life for a cause, when we give up our life for

00:24:43
for justice, our mental health is put in question, so some to that effect.

00:24:48
Ramon Mejia: I think it's that that someone cannot be radicalized to take

00:24:53
extreme action it's only ever seen as irrational when someone is taking

00:24:58
extreme action, when it's done on behalf of the government and its

00:25:04
foreign policy, it's seen as rational.

00:25:08
And I think Aaron's, and I said I think still processing is still thinking,

00:25:13
but it's important that for folks to acknowledge that, Aaron wore his uniform

00:25:18
not out of a sense of obligation to the military or in honoring of the

00:25:24
military , that was his resignation.

00:25:27
Not only was that his resignation, but because in U.

00:25:30
S.

00:25:30
society and because of the way that War is propagated and sold

00:25:34
to the public the public at large invisibilizes the harm done to black

00:25:41
and brown and poor people and, around the world and the wars that we wage.

00:25:45
So it's invisibilized.

00:25:47
Palestinians are being bombarded and sieges laid on them, and being killed

00:25:53
every single day and the public, goes on.

00:25:56
So I think that image of a, you don't have to know Aaron, but an

00:25:59
image of a young white American, troop you see the fatigues, you see

00:26:05
the uniforms, and they're in flames.

00:26:08
It's going to stop you and you're going to have to like assess and

00:26:11
process like what you're actually witnessing, because up until that point.

00:26:17
I don't know, like, how people that aren't politicized, but,

00:26:21
scrolling through social media, on the news, you're seeing the images.

00:26:25
Palestinians are showing you the image of the suffering that they're enduring

00:26:29
and people go on their day to day.

00:26:31
And I feel like the public that hasn't been acknowledging what's happening in

00:26:38
Palestine are now like paying attention.

00:26:41
So I think the goal like of us is to center what aaron was censoring was

00:26:46
like, was the genocide, to stop the genocide in Gaza and the complicity,

00:26:50
both like at the wider at large, but then also I think also like at the uniform,

00:26:54
and people in the military, confront

00:26:57
what you're a part of and readdress and recess your commitment to the ethos of

00:27:05
what America, what America sells you, like life, liberty, pursuit of happiness,

00:27:09
like justice it's all distorted for the U.

00:27:12
S.

00:27:12
military and the U.

00:27:12
S.

00:27:13
government, but those are still like values that on a personal level,

00:27:16
like you could Refrain to what they mean to you and, being a part of a

00:27:23
trillions and trillions of dollars, military machine doesn't bring liberty.

00:27:26
It brings pain and suffering.

00:27:28
And yeah, I think Aaron wanted us, jolt, people into action to stop the

00:27:33
weapons shipments to Israel, stop the diplomatic cover of of genocide, and

00:27:39
the occupation stop, the complicity and the actual material support

00:27:43
to the genocide that's happening.

00:27:44
Keagan: We're seeing in play out in Gaza and also in Ukraine just the fact that,

00:27:50
modern war is a meat grinder and it just eats people and material up and If

00:27:58
we're not if we don't take a step back to think about why we're doing this,

00:28:03
why it's happening, who benefits from it, then we're really doing everyone

00:28:08
that dies a disservice, I think.

00:28:10
And, it's just I do hope that, I hope what Aaron did is inspiring

00:28:17
conversations of people in the military.

00:28:19
I, like you, Jake, I was in the intelligence community.

00:28:22
And I felt like very alone, with a lot of my thoughts and the way that I felt.

00:28:28
I had a few friends luckily, that I could talk about things with,

00:28:31
but most of the time, you just have to do what you're a part of.

00:28:37
And I think it's, it's you.

00:28:39
When someone de decide makes a decision.

00:28:42
To stop doing that in such a visible and public way, it, like Ramón said you

00:28:48
have to take notice, you have to stop and think, and, we're really living in

00:28:53
a different world, now that things are different, things are totally different

00:28:56
now, because we have to think about what made this young man do this?

00:29:02
And a lot of people, like you said, that are not politicized have to think

00:29:05
about things and have to wrestle with, some cognitive dissonance and maybe some

00:29:11
uncomfortable feelings about what the military is and what we're supporting

00:29:17
with our dollars and our money.

00:29:19
And I just think that I do hope that it's sparked some people thinking

00:29:26
about doing something else or, finishing out their contract and

00:29:29
just being like, okay, I'm done.

00:29:31
Hopefully it does.

00:29:33
Jovanni: One of his posts on his social media stated Many of us

00:29:38
like to ask ourselves, What would I do if I was alive doing slavery?

00:29:44
Or Jim Crow South, or Apartheid.

00:29:47
What would I do if my country was committing genocide?

00:29:52
The answer is, you're doing it, right now.

00:29:55
Just like Jake was talking about how since October 7th, folks here in San

00:30:00
Antonio has been going to city council every Wednesday, bring it up to a city

00:30:07
council members, because just to give context of what Jake mentioned, San

00:30:11
Antonio is a sister city of Tel Aviv.

00:30:13
It's a friendship city of Tel Aviv.

00:30:16
We've been asking people here in Santa, we've been filling city council

00:30:20
every Wednesday with, with people, and just asking in every which way.

00:30:26
Upside down, left every which way, to our mayor, Ron Nirenberg, this

00:30:33
progressive, person from, supposed to always talked about San Antonio being a

00:30:38
compassionate city, and Etcetera etcetera.

00:30:41
So we've been going there every week every people taking off their time,

00:30:45
people getting off work early, just to go to City Council every day at five

00:30:49
every Wednesday at five it starts, to ask him every, any which way to drop

00:30:53
some, a simple act, just to drop the Friendship City status with Tel Aviv.

00:30:58
That's the simplest thing you can do, and people there,

00:31:02
People tell their narratives.

00:31:03
We have Palestinian people talking about, how people are

00:31:06
trapped in Gaza, they can't leave.

00:31:09
And, we have a Jewish person come up, there as well saying I'm a Jewish

00:31:13
person and, they can't do this in my name, and they're all They're they're

00:31:17
manipulating us and, we want you to end this friendship, just this friendship

00:31:21
sitting with Tel Aviv and every, and nope, that's his answer is no, he's supposed

00:31:26
to be this progressive icon here in San Antonio and he has refused so far and his

00:31:31
his statements are that that this is not, our friendship status is not politicized,

00:31:37
it's not political it's, People to people dialogue and blah, blah, this and that

00:31:41
but yeah so with that statement that he says there, that Aaron says there, what,

00:31:45
what would, what would people do, if, you ask yourself, what would you do if

00:31:49
you're doing, living doing slavery, you're doing, you're living, doing Jim Crow era,

00:31:54
if you're living, doing apartheid, what would you do, if you're living in, if you

00:31:57
could, if your government was, if your country was committing genocide, if you're

00:32:01
living in Nazi Germany, what would you do?

00:32:03
And the answer is right there.

00:32:05
I know what Aaron, I know what what Ron Nuremberg would do.

00:32:08
Ron Nuremberg would, would, would go with it.

00:32:11
Any

00:32:11
Ramon Mejia: thoughts on that?

00:32:13
Just real quick,

00:32:14
Jake Tucker: he would literally meet with Joe Biden

00:32:16
Ramon Mejia: today.

00:32:16
This was happening

00:32:17
Jake Tucker: literally today.

00:32:19
Ron Nuremberg's meeting with Joe Biden.

00:32:21
Genocide Joe and Ron Nuremberg together at last.

00:32:24
It's a little

00:32:26
Ramon Mejia: too perfect.

00:32:27
Yeah.

00:32:28
Go ahead, Rick.

00:32:30
No, go, you go.

00:32:32
No, I think I can't presume to know what I would do, in other

00:32:37
time periods and in other events I can imagine like what I would do.

00:32:42
And it's okay, I'm here.

00:32:45
What is like the most important thing that I can do today to

00:32:50
make the world a better place?

00:32:52
What is it that I can do within like my means and within my, my,

00:32:55
my individual power to, to address.

00:33:00
The harms that are being, committed in our society and the harms that

00:33:04
are being committed the extreme harms that are being committed, the genocide

00:33:08
that's being committed in Gaza.

00:33:10
But I'd want to, I'd want to say and try and answer that question that I would want

00:33:16
to do any and everything within my means.

00:33:19
To make it stop, right?

00:33:21
So it's don't know I agree and, and y'all, when y'all are sharing about every

00:33:24
Wednesday going to City Council, and it's happening here in Dallas too, I've sent

00:33:29
emails to specific council members, both veterans hey, I want to meet with y'all

00:33:35
we want to, there's a crew, a community of us that we want to meet, and I come

00:33:38
at it from I, in the emails and like in the outreach, like coming at it from

00:33:42
a very hey, like there's one council member, like his mother was a teacher.

00:33:47
I'm like, my mom was a teacher, a retired teacher and he's a representative of

00:33:52
the community that my mom was teaching.

00:33:54
So I'm like, I want to like, try and make that connection.

00:33:57
Same thing with another council member, like he's a Marine.

00:34:00
Like a veteran deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan, and I'm like, he's comes from

00:34:06
a very similar neighborhood that I come from, in Oak Cliff working class Latino

00:34:12
community and so on I want to bring that, try and make that connection of that

00:34:16
we're, we cut, that we're all like, very similar and more, we have more in common

00:34:23
than those that, Genuinely have the power and I feel I don't want to beat my head

00:34:29
against the door and being like, continue to go and do the same thing over and

00:34:33
over and over again and get no response.

00:34:36
I'd want to like.

00:34:38
Build collectively like a community and and find comrades and friends to

00:34:45
continue to strategize and restrategize the tactics that we're engaged in order

00:34:51
to, apply pressure to these folks and and these Folks in, in city governments

00:34:57
and local governments and, federal government, all that state, and this is,

00:35:01
what they understand is votes and money, and it's like, how can we go beyond

00:35:07
that and not say we're only not going to be, like, uncommitted, but we're,

00:35:10
like, we're withdrawing our consent to govern in that sense we're no longer

00:35:15
going to be, like, engaged in the system and that, so when I think about it at

00:35:18
the city council level, we're in the city, at the city level engaging other

00:35:21
organizations, do photo ops with them.

00:35:25
The electives and seeing going to them and maybe trying to appeal to them.

00:35:30
I feel like there's so many ways that we can continue to try.

00:35:34
And I know folks have been trying all different kinds of tactics and strategies.

00:35:38
And it's we have to continue figuring that out.

00:35:40
I think that's, we're at a position with no power.

00:35:44
And we have to create that power for our community.

00:35:46
And try and make way for them, for us.

00:35:50
Rachell Tucker: Yeah, no, exactly.

00:35:52
I think this question and and the quote by Bushnell is really good, right?

00:35:58
Because so many times, there's so many dystopian films, right?

00:36:03
During the Holocaust during massive fascists.

00:36:07
Oppression during all the bad things in the world, right?

00:36:13
And there's always like a group of people resisting.

00:36:15
So it's You know, it's something that, for some reason, is very hard for some,

00:36:25
especially politicians, but, forget them, but for some people to actually

00:36:30
see that connection, and so many people.

00:36:34
Especially politicians say like never again and like literally on

00:36:38
January 27th I think it was like International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

00:36:43
And this was, there was a genocide happening in Palestine.

00:36:49
And I think, essentially we can ask the question, like, where would

00:36:55
the same thing like where would we be during the Holocaust, right?

00:37:01
But in Jim Crow South and Apartheid there's a racial question too which

00:37:06
I think you mentioned earlier, Ramón that the racism, of course, comes

00:37:12
into this who is human and who is not, unfortunately and us that have been out

00:37:19
in the streets, that have been protesting, doing whatever we can know that.

00:37:25
That's a bunch of bullshit.

00:37:26
That's imperialism.

00:37:28
And so I think one of the, one of the things that is really important

00:37:33
about this question is to talk about agency and like you were talking about

00:37:38
Ramón, like the different ways that we can activate it and practice it.

00:37:43
Right?

00:37:43
Because I think like once, when somebody comes to consciousness.

00:37:48
And they're like, I need to do something.

00:37:52
I need to get involved.

00:37:54
They figured they try out all sorts of ways of getting involved

00:37:58
of protesting, of speaking out.

00:38:01
Many of us did it within the military.

00:38:03
We finally found our agency and fought back within it.

00:38:07
I think those on this call, we know what we would do,

00:38:10
because we're doing it, right?

00:38:12
And I think, essentially the power is in the people, and the more, that's

00:38:18
what we have to focus on is keep organizing the people, keep making those

00:38:22
connections of how essentially, the money that is used to drop bombs on our

00:38:31
brothers and sisters in Palestine and elsewhere You know, but mainly in the

00:38:36
genocide that's happening in Palestine right now is our tax dollars, right?

00:38:40
What can that be used for instead of that, right?

00:38:44
All the basic needs that we are lacking for here, and I don't want

00:38:49
to make it sound, like it's all about money, but it's essentially it's about

00:38:54
it's about like people power, right?

00:38:56
And how we're able to Together, collectively, use our agency to fight

00:39:02
for the things that we need and want and deserve, which is to stop, it's our duty

00:39:07
to end imperialism within the United States, within the Balearic Islands.

00:39:11
It's our duty to ensure that the rest of the country, self determines.

00:39:16
And the rest of the world self determines, and within the country as well.

00:39:21
And I just really love that question that Aaron left us with because

00:39:27
it pushes us to, to be better, to do better, and do more, and more

00:39:33
Jovanni: effectively.

00:39:35
So let me ask you something.

00:39:36
So the people I mentioned above all in the intro, minus, I believe, two people

00:39:43
all of them use Southern Malaysian as a form of protest in different eras.

00:39:48
The earliest one here in the list that I mentioned above was in the Vietnam era.

00:39:53
The other ones were doing the the wars in the Middle East.

00:39:57
What do you feel is the connection between Aaron's protests, the protests of the

00:40:06
people mentioned above, and the military?

00:40:08
And I'll give you where I'm going with this, because I recall,

00:40:13
now we have social media, right?

00:40:14
And social media, like I said earlier, we're witnessing the first time,

00:40:19
the first genocide ethnic cleansing in history, where it's being live

00:40:23
streamed, where everybody can see it.

00:40:26
In the past, people Didn't have that luxury.

00:40:29
In the past, I remember when I would, when we deployed to Bosnia,

00:40:32
for example, we were the majority of the American population didn't know

00:40:36
what was going on in Yugoslavia.

00:40:38
We were briefed by our our I forgot, these the intel people came and

00:40:42
briefed us what was going on before we deployed, and that's what we relied on.

00:40:45
We, that's the only thing we relied on.

00:40:47
We relied on what was given to us, and that's how we made

00:40:49
sense of what was going on.

00:40:51
But Today we have the ability to catch them in their lies, which before we

00:40:55
didn't we'll find out years later that they lied to us, like the the

00:41:00
what happened in the Vietnam with, what was it, the Potempkin what was it

00:41:04
called, the Potempkin, the Potempkin.

00:41:06
What was it?

00:41:08
The Potempkin, yeah.

00:41:09
Yeah, the the, turned out it was a lie.

00:41:11
But now we can catch them in their lies in real time, what

00:41:14
is this doing to the military?

00:41:15
What do you think, what's affecting things going to the to the rank and

00:41:18
file of the military in your opinion?

00:41:21
Jake Tucker: Can I combine both the last topic and this one a little bit here?

00:41:24
Is that cool?

00:41:26
Alright, I'll just go for it.

00:41:27
Sure.

00:41:29
So I think there's an incredible amount of depth to the social media

00:41:33
posts that we were talking about.

00:41:35
While we met Aaron briefly, I don't know, I didn't know Aaron enough To

00:41:39
say exactly where he specifically was going with this, but if you look

00:41:44
at what he's talking about, right?

00:41:46
If you're alive during slavery, during Jim Crow, during apartheid during

00:41:50
a genocidal period of your if your country is committing genocide, right?

00:41:55
And you're doing it now, right?

00:41:57
The examples he lists out there are actually very long struggles.

00:42:00
For more UN videos visit www.

00:42:01
un.

00:42:02
org these are not struggles that we might get taught a little bit

00:42:07
in our books There's a thing called Jim Crow, and it was terrible, and

00:42:10
MLK came along, and boom then we had the Civil Rights Act, and now the U.

00:42:14
S.

00:42:14
is not racist or something, but we know that these are very long struggles,

00:42:19
and also we've never completely overcome these struggles either.

00:42:23
These struggles are still here with us today and, their legacy lives on.

00:42:29
of the struggles and of the oppressions of the horrors of these

00:42:32
oppressions live with us today.

00:42:34
And there's a broader question of okay, so how do we end these things?

00:42:37
And I, I do think, yeah, while social media moves, moves

00:42:43
information quicker, it also moves confusion quicker at the same time.

00:42:48
And, and I can't as we were talking about at the top don't believe

00:42:52
your, don't believe your lying eyes, believe the government, believe

00:42:55
the media, believe the, whatever, believe the social media posts,

00:42:58
believe this, that, the other thing.

00:43:00
And we, there's a podcast on Rania Khalek's Dispatches sometime last week or

00:43:07
the week before with guest Mateo Capasso.

00:43:13
I don't remember exactly what the name of the episode was, but

00:43:15
anyways, anyone can look it up.

00:43:17
And it was talking about one of the things that it was talking

00:43:21
about among many other things.

00:43:22
It's a great episode.

00:43:23
The guest Mateo was talking about The necessity of revolutionary patience, of

00:43:32
patience in building our movements, but not patience as in we sit back and just

00:43:37
chill, but the patience to build it.

00:43:40
movements capable, organizations capable of confronting power, of actually,

00:43:48
we can we're all seeing that we're building things, but our sources of

00:43:53
power are not responding to this.

00:43:55
And so he was speaking about it in the context of the axis of resistance.

00:44:00
Largely, and he instructs us, basically, to move at the

00:44:04
historical tempo of the South.

00:44:07
And so it's what does that mean, to move at the historical tempo of the South?

00:44:10
There's a couple things we can take out of that, right?

00:44:12
Like, when we think of the South, the global South, or as we're starting

00:44:16
to call it now, the global majority, but what we're talking about are the

00:44:20
colonized and oppressed peoples of the world over, basically since colonization

00:44:25
began like basically these are the people that white supremacy imperialism

00:44:31
under monarchical and then capitalist governments basically called too stupid.

00:44:38
to poor, to backwards, to uncivilized, whatever, to be able to organize

00:44:44
themselves for liberation.

00:44:45
To be able to even if they did organize themselves for liberation,

00:44:49
to be able to govern themselves and whatever other racist tropes exist.

00:44:54
existed and continue to exist until today, right?

00:44:58
You still have I think it was Joseph Burrell basically calling the global south

00:45:02
the jungle and Europe the garden, right?

00:45:04
He's the EU whatever head guy, but so these things still absolutely exist

00:45:10
with us and they imbue itself in the language of the genocide as literal.

00:45:15
Israeli, powerful figures call Palestinians human animals

00:45:22
and all this sort of stuff.

00:45:24
But what has happened is the global south, not not patience in the sense of Showing

00:45:32
out, but patience in the sense of like the struggle needs to always continue forward.

00:45:39
We need to build institutions that can move us forward.

00:45:42
And when we have a moment, we need to be able to to strike back for our liberation.

00:45:48
And what does it, I want to type into the, what does this have to do with the U.

00:45:52
S.

00:45:52
military, right?

00:45:53
The U.

00:45:54
S.

00:45:54
military is the tip of the spear, if you will.

00:45:57
It is the cutting edge of the US imperialism.

00:46:02
US imperialism means a lot of different things.

00:46:04
It means financial dom domination, it means dollar hegemony but the way that

00:46:10
most of us think of imperialism or the US is 800 military bases around the world.

00:46:15
It means the military.

00:46:16
Troops bombs, armaments, now drones, and all these different things, right?

00:46:22
But one thing that's very clear,

00:46:25
at least basically most of my basically my entire adult lifetime is that The U.

00:46:31
S.

00:46:32
can have every advantage in terms of monetary expenditure, in terms

00:46:37
of the highest forms of technology, in terms of being able to control,

00:46:43
control the narrative with Social media, mainstream media, and so on,

00:46:47
and all these different advantages.

00:46:49
But the thing that it cannot do is win wars.

00:46:52
And we've been at war in the larger theater of what's called the Middle

00:46:57
East, West Asia for decades on decades.

00:47:01
And In many of the sub theaters of that larger theater,

00:47:07
what we are seeing is the U.

00:47:09
S.

00:47:09
and their allies continue to lose, just continue to lose.

00:47:14
Look at who we, who the axis of resistance is.

00:47:19
The axis of resistance is Iran, who has been sanctioned For years on years and

00:47:24
on years basically has been like the U.

00:47:26
S.

00:47:26
has tried to isolate Iran since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, the axis of

00:47:33
resistance is Hezbollah which has existed since 1982, but since Since the first

00:47:39
decade of the 2000s, Israel has found it impossible to invade and occupy Hezbollah.

00:47:46
The Axis of Resistance are the popular mobilization units of Iraq

00:47:52
and Syria, which were initially stood up to fight ISIS, but are also anti

00:47:58
imperialist resistance organizations.

00:48:00
The axis of resistance is Hamas and Islamic resistance.

00:48:04
The axis of resistance is Ansar Allah in Yemen, who defeated Saudi Arabia with U.

00:48:10
S.

00:48:10
funding and support.

00:48:11
And every tool, intelligence and all that, every tool that the U.

00:48:14
S.

00:48:14
could give, the much stronger Saudi Arabia, they still were not

00:48:19
able to beat Ansar Allah in Yemen.

00:48:21
And so now Yemen is basically the ruling government of the

00:48:25
majority of peoples in Yemen.

00:48:27
And so what.

00:48:29
What this has to do with the U.

00:48:31
S.

00:48:31
military is that the war,

00:48:36
the war in the larger theater now has a singular focal point on the sub theater of

00:48:43
Palestine, where Liberation was announced.

00:48:48
Liberation was declared on October 7th.

00:48:52
But this is not a force that the Israelis can actually go toe to toe with.

00:48:57
That's been demonstrated as well.

00:48:59
Every time the Israelis try to come in and occupy Gaza, they

00:49:04
get kicked out every single time.

00:49:06
They cannot execute their goals there militarily.

00:49:09
And so just like the United States.

00:49:12
Just like the United States does in Iraq, Afghanistan, just like we did in Libya,

00:49:17
just like we've done in Syria, maybe to a little bit lesser of a degree, or

00:49:21
at least a less, I shouldn't say lesser degree, a less overt degree all the U.

00:49:27
S.

00:49:27
can really do.

00:49:28
They cannot execute their goals militarily.

00:49:31
All they can really do is terrorize, complete cause complete

00:49:36
devastation and basically just try to, we, we're accustomed in the U.

00:49:42
S.

00:49:42
to just talking about body counts, right?

00:49:44
What are body counts?

00:49:46
They are not an indication of you winning the war.

00:49:49
If you have to continuously climb the number of body counts, it

00:49:53
means that you are not winning.

00:49:55
You're not winning your political objectives, which are supposed to be

00:50:00
the basis of the war in the first place.

00:50:02
And Aaron has connected something that I don't know that is part of even

00:50:08
the discussions in the protests and the protest, like the organizations

00:50:13
organizing protests and whatever, at least I haven't heard it a ton.

00:50:16
But that it is like the genocide is.

00:50:20
Part of this broader theater of war, which has been raging for decades, and it's

00:50:26
one that is the uss, it's one that is Isra Israels, it's been Saudi Arabia's.

00:50:33
I don't want to go too far on this because I don't know, it seems Saudi

00:50:36
Arabia has at least removed itself from the hostilities at least to a certain

00:50:40
degree since it's ceasefire with Ansar law and its reproachment with Iran.

00:50:46
Not sure on that.

00:50:47
But anyways, this is part of a broader process.

00:50:51
And right now the focus is on, and as the axis of resistance

00:50:55
is focused upon liberation of Palestine for this particular time

00:50:59
of the broader theater of war.

00:51:01
And Aaron has connected something you Through this protest that I

00:51:06
think hasn't been spoken about or touched upon all that much.

00:51:10
And I, anyways I'll stop there because I'd love to see y

00:51:13
hear y'all's thoughts on that.

00:51:14
If you think there's coherence to what I'm saying here.

00:51:17
If you think I'm off base on all of this,

00:51:20
Jovanni: Ramon Romano, you have to leave in a few.

00:51:22
You wanna go while you gotta go at it and before you leave.

00:51:26
Ramon Mejia: Yeah.

00:51:26
What specifically?

00:51:27
I think.

00:51:28
Yeah, I don't I'm still trying to process a lot of the what Jake was saying, but

00:51:33
definitely feel like there's definitely like a focal point of being able to

00:51:38
pinpoint what's happening in Gaza and the wider connection that the U.

00:51:42
S.

00:51:42
and Israel and its allies wage war on.

00:51:45
And, around the world in other areas yeah, I don't know.

00:51:49
Just, I'm still thinking.

00:51:50
Yeah.

00:51:51
But definitely yeah, I definitely feel that point for sure.

00:51:55
Jovanni: Before you leave, you want to close out with anything?

00:51:58
Ramon Mejia: Oh, no, I can wait to hear a little bit.

00:52:00
I have five minutes or so.

00:52:01
But definitely just, yeah, I wanted to just real quickly appreciate, being

00:52:05
able to share space with you all and be able to think through and process

00:52:09
this moment and where we're at and being able to lift up Aaron's Life

00:52:13
and really stern politics and vision for what we needed to do into action.

00:52:18
And yeah, just look forward to continue like those combos and continues

00:52:21
Jovanni: to deepen for sure.

00:52:23
Anyone?

00:52:24
Thank you.

00:52:24
Ramón.

00:52:26
Anyone else want to comment on add to or comment on, on, on what Jake stated?

00:52:33
Rachell Tucker: I can go.

00:52:34
I think it's really since you put it like that where it's like Aaron was

00:52:39
hitting at something in terms of a bigger like macro look at the whole, like

00:52:44
the war and the genocide, and like the future, actually not future because it's

00:52:51
happening And aggressions on, on Yemen, on Hezbollah, on, on Syria, even on the U.

00:52:59
S.

00:53:00
bases that should not exist in Iraq.

00:53:02
Still but they do.

00:53:04
And so I think, I saw in the news that essentially he was also privy to

00:53:10
information and about deployments Air Force deployments to the Gaza Strip to

00:53:18
right in the tunnels or clear tunnels or whatever whatever they do, whatever

00:53:23
the Air Force can do in the area.

00:53:26
Thank you.

00:53:26
And I think there is a lot of things that, that we're, we as general public

00:53:31
are not privy to that the Pentagon decides and moves and shifts military

00:53:35
members like PONS for their goals or for their main access to the Middle East,

00:53:42
which is Israel their partner and so I think it's a bigger conversation, right?

00:53:50
And I think we, we can probably dedicate a whole show to that and it's important

00:53:55
because it is geopolitical politics and it will affect us all in so many ways.

00:54:01
I did want to mention obviously the military's been in a

00:54:04
recruitment crisis for some time.

00:54:06
And then also that the people the soldiers that have been deported, deployed to

00:54:13
the border are also struggling with that emotion that emotional And wait, right?

00:54:19
The moral injury that comes with a lot of soldiers being black and brown

00:54:24
where their parents, maybe their first generation immigrants and then, it's a,

00:54:30
I think one of the first time I noticed a big shift was when during the Black

00:54:35
Lives Matter protests, where the uprisings against police brutality happened in

00:54:40
2020 soldiers were used against our own ourselves against their own people.

00:54:45
And, More, I think more and more, the conflict between what the military is

00:54:54
supposed to do according to the ruling class and what they talk about that it is.

00:55:01
Is super duper exposed and more and more us working class people that join

00:55:07
the military are just like reaching a point that we, that it's impossible,

00:55:13
like the bribe doesn't work anymore, I think that's I hope that makes sense.

00:55:18
Ramon Mejia: Thanks so much, y'all.

00:55:19
I'm gonna jump out.

00:55:21
Appreciate y'all.

00:55:22
Jovanni: Thanks.

00:55:22
Ramón.

00:55:23
Thanks,

00:55:24
Jake Tucker: Ramón.

00:55:24
Thank you for your time.

00:55:26
Jovanni: I don't know.

00:55:28
Yeah, going back on what Jake was mentioning and the connection

00:55:30
that Aaron made with this whole ordeal I think you mentioned it.

00:55:35
Jake and I met Aaron briefly.

00:55:37
About two years ago, and he was at a we were actually at a rally.

00:55:41
I think Jake was leading it.

00:55:43
Weren't you organizing that rally for a local kid, I believe he was 16 years

00:55:48
old, that got shot by the police in McDonald's while he was having a hamburger

00:55:53
with his with his girlfriend, and the police just pulled him out of his car.

00:55:57
Because the day before, Eric Cantu, yeah, his name was Eric Cantu, the day

00:56:03
before something happened between him and that police officer, the police

00:56:07
officer recognized them in the McDonald's and decided to to, I don't know, arrest

00:56:12
them or whatnot and drag them out.

00:56:16
Tried to drag him out of his car and pulled his gun and shot him,

00:56:20
I think shot him several times actually, shot him and the girlfriend.

00:56:23
He survived.

00:56:24
But going back to the, so we did a so Jay, I think you were organizing

00:56:30
the the rally in front of the McDonald's where he was shot at, right?

00:56:34
And I was wearing my About Face shirt or IVAW shirt, can't

00:56:38
remember which shirt I was wearing.

00:56:40
I was, and we were just talking, we were wrapping up, was cleaning up,

00:56:44
was, wrapping up all the cables for the PA system that we're using and

00:56:47
everything, and then this kid showed up.

00:56:49
And started talking to us.

00:56:50
He by shirt caught his attention and he was talking to us and said he told

00:56:55
us that he was Air Force and he's been in San Antonio X amount of time.

00:56:59
He said, and then we just started talking, and he asked us

00:57:02
where's that, he liked our shirt.

00:57:04
I told him, yes, it's a it's a veterans organization shirt about

00:57:07
faith, veterans against the war.

00:57:08
I gave him a little, I told him to look us up online.

00:57:12
And there's just a few of us here in San Antonio, etc.

00:57:14
And that was it.

00:57:15
That was that was a little a stretch of a conversation.

00:57:17
We didn't we never saw him again after that, but that was like two years ago.

00:57:21
And I was reminded by that, actually, this when was it?

00:57:24
Tuesday.

00:57:24
When we met Tuesday Rachel reminded us of that brief encounter that we had with him.

00:57:32
Yeah going back to what Jake was saying, I think Jake, you are correct

00:57:35
the Israel and the United States, both Israel, because this is not an Israeli

00:57:40
genocide, this is an American Israeli genocide, because Israel would not

00:57:43
be able to do what it does without the financial support, without the

00:57:48
diplomatic support, without the political support of the United States, Israel

00:57:52
is a country, I think it's about six million people Israeli citizens, right?

00:57:56
There are more people that live in Israel, right?

00:57:57
But the Palestinians that live in Israel or the Palestinian

00:58:01
that lives in Palestine, Nagapai, Palestine, which Israel control

00:58:05
they're not Israeli citizens, right?

00:58:06
So Israel control their lives.

00:58:09
There are about 5 million.

00:58:11
Of them and Israel control their lives, but they have no citizen rights.

00:58:15
That's why Israel is an apartheid state, but Israel is losing.

00:58:18
It's losing credibility, it's losing tactically on the ground.

00:58:22
It's losing diplomatically around the world.

00:58:24
The, they used to, Beat us on the head with telling us that, for criticizing

00:58:30
Israel, we're anti Semitic they used to, but that's not working anymore.

00:58:33
It's not working anymore.

00:58:34
So they're getting more aggressive.

00:58:36
They're getting more aggressive in, on, on media, they're getting more

00:58:39
aggressive on Shabbat Shalom on the media on attacking the protests and

00:58:43
everything because they're, because the old saying is, the emperor has no clothes.

00:58:47
They're in it naked right now.

00:58:48
Both Israel and the United States and Great Britain and the EU.

00:58:52
The whole West right now, it's in a, it's in a nude right now.

00:58:55
Everyone can see for what they are.

00:58:57
The West has been dictating to the global majority for years now.

00:59:02
You need to do this.

00:59:03
You need to do that.

00:59:03
Human rights, this, human rights, that and this and that and blah, blah,

00:59:07
blah, blah, this and that, right?

00:59:08
But right now they have nothing to fall on.

00:59:12
Right now, everyone is seeing this.

00:59:14
Everyone is seeing what's happening.

00:59:16
And everyone is seeing that the West is going, is getting out of their way

00:59:21
to justify what Israel is doing, to protect Israel, to criminalize those

00:59:26
who attempt to, to bring that out or who protested what Israel is doing.

00:59:30
People have lost their jobs.

00:59:32
People have been fired.

00:59:33
I think there are laws in, they have laws in Germany and France

00:59:36
where they made it illegal to display Israeli Palestinian flags.

00:59:40
We're passing the symbols.

00:59:41
I think you get fined.

00:59:42
I think it was in Great Britain where people or the UK where people were

00:59:45
using parachutes, little parachute figures and stuff like that to, to,

00:59:49
and they were getting fined for that, because they're, because they were.

00:59:53
Quote unquote supporting tourism for flashing those things, so the world is

00:59:57
seeing how repressive the West can get once its credibility is put on trial,

01:00:02
you gotta PM MP, an MP, a minister of parliament in, in, in Spain that called

01:00:08
out Israel and called out to sanction Israel and she got relieved, she got, she

01:00:11
had to step down, from her post, so we're seeing that, And the, and what Jake said

01:00:19
about American empire, so American empire, an empire is a system that we live in.

01:00:24
It's not a particular state, it's a system that we're living

01:00:27
that is led by the United States.

01:00:28
And we're seeing it's in retreat.

01:00:30
It's been in retreat from at least 2000 and beyond.

01:00:33
It's been in retreat since then, at least.

01:00:36
And as they're retreating, they're becoming more and more

01:00:38
Jake Tucker: aggressive.

01:00:38
Just one second, I don't know if I'd say retreat, decay, maybe.

01:00:42
Decay more than retreat.

01:00:44
They're getting more aggressive.

01:00:45
Jovanni: They're getting more aggressive, yes.

01:00:47
Jake Tucker: Anyways, I just wanted to make that.

01:00:50
Jovanni: With the retreat comes the decay.

01:00:52
Oh, with the decay comes the retreat.

01:00:55
Okay yeah Rachel talked about the bases that are still left.

01:00:59
And in Iraq, and right now Iraq parliament voted in Iraq a few years

01:01:04
ago that those bases got to go.

01:01:06
The bases are still there, and right now they're doing it again, they're telling

01:01:09
parliament in Iraq saying, you have to leave, you have to pack and leave.

01:01:13
They're illegally, the American bases are illegally occupying Syria.

01:01:17
We just saw the saw a few weeks ago with three American

01:01:20
soldiers were killed in Syria.

01:01:21
They said it was in Jordan, but there was in Syria, that they were killed

01:01:25
because they're not supposed to be there.

01:01:26
But yeah so we've seen all this chaos happening.

01:01:29
And like I said, like Israel Jay pointed out Israel tactically.

01:01:33
Militarily, they're not getting what they want, they're losing a lot of guys,

01:01:37
they're losing a lot of people, and they're losing credibility politically,

01:01:40
chaos, there's protests in Israel right now they're, against Netanyahu by the

01:01:44
families of those who have been captive, they're saying that, they're saying

01:01:48
that the Israeli government are using their family member as chips, they're

01:01:51
using their family member as fodder, and they're protesting they're blocking

01:01:55
streets and everything, it's chaotic.

01:01:56
It's chaotic.

01:01:57
It's chaotic.

01:01:58
If there's any, if there's any silver lining to this by the end of the day,

01:02:01
the, the Zionist state of Israel will be in the bin of history just like

01:02:05
Apartheid Africa is today, but yeah we can go on talking about this, forever.

01:02:12
I just wanted to share something else also that, you know, from Australian

01:02:16
journalist, Caitlyn Johnston.

01:02:18
She commented I believe it was yesterday.

01:02:20
And a newsletter say, Aaron Bushnell wasn't addressing Israeli government

01:02:25
with his soldiering message.

01:02:28
He wasn't even addressing his own government.

01:02:30
He was addressing you, each of us.

01:02:32
His goal was to get us all open our eyes to the horrors of what's happening

01:02:37
and spur us to action to end it.

01:02:41
It's been 45 days.

01:02:43
Since the ethnic cleansing commenced in Israel, or in Palestine, I want to stop

01:02:47
saying Israel, Occupy Palestine it's been 45 days since the ethnic cleansing

01:02:51
and genocide has been happening in both Gaza and the West Bank and Jerusalem 48.

01:02:57
What, what are you guys seeing in the global, what

01:02:59
are you guys seeing with this?

01:03:00
What are you guys feelings on this and where do you guys think we're heading?

01:03:05
Keagan: I think I've been watching a lot of YouTube and I have this guy that I like

01:03:10
that did a really good video on, he called it, it's called the era of war crime

01:03:15
influencers and they're talking about.

01:03:18
The Israeli soldiers that are going on social media and posting everything

01:03:22
that they're doing, and the it would, it got so bad that the IDF had to

01:03:28
say, the commander had to say stop posting these videos, but, the problem

01:03:33
isn't just the videos alone, right?

01:03:36
It's the attitude that lets them think that kind of stuff is normal and okay,

01:03:41
and The video does a good job of going into that about the fact that like the

01:03:46
realm of acceptable behavior is like for the IDF has always been big like

01:03:54
way it's always been like dehumanizing for the people and so it's just these

01:04:00
videos are just evidence of that.

01:04:03
And it just, it makes me really sad to see that the fact that they don't, I don't

01:04:09
think that they don't see the civilians or they make the calculation that if we

01:04:14
kill one person that we think is Hamas and 25, 50 civilians, It doesn't matter

01:04:19
because we got the person that we got.

01:04:22
And I think that's just I don't know.

01:04:24
I don't know why they continue to do it, but but showing these videos and showing

01:04:29
what they're doing is, hopefully getting more people to realize wait a minute.

01:04:34
They don't see what they're doing is wrong.

01:04:36
And in fact, they're celebrating it.

01:04:38
And they're celebrating the fact that they feel like, oh we're going

01:04:41
to turn Goblin into a parking lot.

01:04:43
We're going to, sweep away all these buildings and people come settle here.

01:04:47
That's people have said that.

01:04:49
And I just don't understand why more people in America aren't mad about that.

01:04:55
They aren't mad that, this, that this is being done with our money.

01:05:00
And if we wanted to, we could turn off the tap to right now.

01:05:04
And then they wouldn't be able to do anything.

01:05:05
Like you said, Jovanni, they wouldn't be able to do anything.

01:05:09
And there just has to be more people calling for a ceasefire,

01:05:13
calling for us to stop funding this.

01:05:16
Jake Tucker: Yeah.

01:05:17
So Aaron stated, this is what our ruling class has decided will be normal.

01:05:22
I don't find anything controversial with that statement whatsoever.

01:05:25
I agree with it 100%.

01:05:27
And then Caitlin asks in what you just read, Jovanni or not asked, but basically

01:05:32
states His goal was to get us all to open our eyes to the horror of what's

01:05:36
happening and spur us to action to end it.

01:05:40
And I think the difficulty is that we don't know where

01:05:45
the bottom is to this thing.

01:05:47
We don't know where, we don't know where like, how depraved,

01:05:54
like, how depraved does our country have to become?

01:05:58
How undemocratic does it have to become in the face of overwhelming

01:06:06
opposition to anything?

01:06:08
This too the funding of genocide too, the support of genocide, the Everything

01:06:14
but just anything that, that any working class people want like the, this is such

01:06:21
a sham of democracy and everyone knows it.

01:06:23
I don't have the numbers in front of me, but presidents never have support

01:06:27
over 40 percent anymore, really except for maybe the day after they're elected.

01:06:31
Congress can win.

01:06:32
Consistently what like has 10 to 15 percent legitimacy

01:06:37
among the American people.

01:06:39
We do not believe in our alleged democratic institutions from people that

01:06:44
basically tell us we're the greatest democracy in the history of the world.

01:06:47
Studies show that people like the opinion of the people has no

01:06:52
bearing on policy in this country.

01:06:54
So we don't know where the bottom of this barrel is.

01:06:58
We don't know how far down this all goes Caitlyn's comment, Caitlyn's

01:07:02
statement, spur us to action to end it.

01:07:05
We don't know what this takes, and I don't think Aaron had a clue what this takes.

01:07:09
I think Aaron got frustrated and fed up with trying to figure out the

01:07:13
bottom, and says Fuck, I don't know.

01:07:17
Will this matter?

01:07:18
I hope it matter.

01:07:19
It better fucking matter because this is everything I have.

01:07:22
This is literally everything I have.

01:07:24
We've set the parameters from literally doing nothing or

01:07:28
whatever to giving everything.

01:07:32
Literally giving everything and being clear and concise in what you're giving.

01:07:38
I, and I don't think I know the answer to the spurs to action to end it.

01:07:45
It's such a, it's such an, it's such an interesting statement.

01:07:49
I don't know what action will end this, but I do know we have

01:07:52
a historical responsibility.

01:07:54
We have a responsibility to the world in the belly of the beast, as we like to

01:07:59
say in the core of the of imperialism, the core of the violence that is

01:08:06
inflicting the entirety of the world.

01:08:09
Have a responsibility to collectively build, with courage and and with

01:08:15
resilience to we figure it out, figure out exactly how far we have to

01:08:21
take this shit to make this all end.

01:08:25
I don't know how far that goes, but it's our responsibility, living in this

01:08:30
society, that speaks in our name, that we know for a fact, that even the people

01:08:36
that we're not seeing in the streets at Palestine Actions, and so on, we know they

01:08:42
don't think this shit's legitimate either.

01:08:44
The ruling class's own polling says it, the voting numbers say it.

01:08:48
In San Antonio, you might get anywhere from 7 to 15 percent of people voting

01:08:52
in a local election, the people, regardless of what media, regardless

01:08:57
of what politicians, regardless of what any nonprofits tell us,

01:09:00
the people know that this thing, this whole thing is illegitimate.

01:09:05
So how do we build something that, that puts the pressure on to make sure that

01:09:10
that we end such horrors abroad and help ourselves at the exact same time?

01:09:15
Because that's literally what this is.

01:09:16
The more that they feel emboldened to oppress people elsewhere,

01:09:20
the more they feel emboldened to oppress us here at home.

01:09:23
Our futures are completely intertwined.

01:09:26
And the more that we can come to that recognition, start organizing around

01:09:32
shared struggles in our workplace, in our neighborhoods, in our cities,

01:09:37
in our counties, states, nations, and internationally, the better off

01:09:42
we're going to be and the stronger movements we're going to have.

01:09:46
We're going to be able to build and put pressure on exactly those things that

01:09:51
both Aaron was calling out and that Caitlin's calling out in this statement.

01:09:56
Rachell Tucker: Go ahead.

01:09:57
No, I was just going to say awesome.

01:09:59
No I like agree completely.

01:10:01
And I was going to say a lot of those things, cause I wrote down like the

01:10:04
question, what goes into ending it?

01:10:07
Just like you were talking about Jake.

01:10:09
And I wanted to bring up the quote, right?

01:10:12
If Gaza dies, we all die and the whole chant by the millions, by the billions,

01:10:17
we're all Palestinians, it's, it is our interconnected struggle, right?

01:10:22
And Jake was saying, the legitimacy of the United States worldwide has

01:10:28
plummeted, has been plummeting for Decades, and especially now and so what

01:10:36
does that mean for the United States?

01:10:37
And it means it's a it's a beast that's lashing out and it's lashing

01:10:42
out internationally and it's lashing out towards its own people by

01:10:47
basically using all of our resources.

01:10:50
To maintain it, the little legitimacy it has around the world through war.

01:10:55
And and it's, here in San Antonio half of, more than half of the

01:10:59
city budget is going to SAPD and just quote unquote, public safety.

01:11:04
And while the actual safety nets of our people have been erased portable

01:11:09
housing, healthcare, all the basic needs, and where I see it going is, and,

01:11:16
thanks to Aaron and his great sacrifice is You know, putting all of the issues

01:11:23
that, organizations and groups have against each other on the left and in

01:11:29
all the spectrums away and uniting to actually fight this fight that we need

01:11:36
to be united to fight because It's against the, like we were just talking

01:11:41
about, the belly of the beast, right?

01:11:43
It's against an insane world power that all it uses is violence.

01:11:48
And the more united that we are in this collective struggle, because

01:11:52
it's, it, the people of Palestine have showed us every day their courage.

01:11:56
They've shown us every day, even though their loved ones have been dying.

01:12:01
I've been murdered for decades they've been showing us the way to victory, right?

01:12:07
And we have to learn from them, we have to learn how to organize.

01:12:12
And have to learn how to be self sufficient and push forward and

01:12:19
be bold with our actions, right?

01:12:22
March 2nd, there's gonna, it's an international day of solidarity with Rafa.

01:12:27
Find your protest on March 2nd, join it join organizations

01:12:33
and just do all that you can.

01:12:36
To, not just for for Palestine, but to end imperialism once and for all.

01:12:43
Jovanni: And Rafah is that just for listeners, I know Rafah is southern Gaza

01:12:49
that borders with the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt, where the Israeli early on

01:12:53
said, told the Palestinian people to go because that would be a safe zone.

01:12:58
For them to abandon the north, to abandon the center, and just go to

01:13:03
Rafa, which is roughly almost 2 million people there right now in Ten City,

01:13:07
and now the Israelis are threatening to invade it, to invade Rafa as well.

01:13:11
So yes.

01:13:13
On that note, I think this is a good place for us to wrap up for tonight.

01:13:17
Thank you so much for your, for coming to the show and sharing

01:13:19
your time and thoughts with us.

01:13:21
Any last comments before we depart?

01:13:24
Rachell Tucker: Thank you so much for having us and keep housing.

01:13:27
Jake Tucker: Be Palestine.

01:13:29
Keagan: Thank you so much for having us.

01:13:32
Thanks.

01:13:33
Be Palestine.

01:13:34
Jovanni: Be Palestine.

01:13:36
All right, thank you all for joining us tonight.

01:13:39
I hope to see you guys again.

01:13:40
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