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PANIC! at the Warehouse · Stuff Keeps Happening

0:00
Hello. I temporally shifted the release of this
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show. But stuff still happened. So what's up?
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Yeah, hi. Hello. Yeah, I shifted the release
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date of this show from Mondays to Thursdays.
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Cool. Ireland. is doing a lot. Ireland is no
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stranger to crisis and unrest and right now is
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no different. There have been large -scale protests
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in Ireland involving people taking heavy machinery
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to the streets to block roadways and oil ports
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and stuff like that. Grinding a lot of the country
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to a halt and causing a general ruckus. Just
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some general ruckus causing. Why are they doing
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this? Fuel. Prices. And a bunch of others. There's
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a lot. There's a lot here. Let's start to unpack.
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Fuel prices have been spiking in Ireland as they've
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been doing everywhere, but in Ireland they've
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also had some tax increases and then also now
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a carbon tax that's impending that's got people
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being like, hey, um, this is completely unaffordable.
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The war in Iran obviously has having an impact
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here, but also local tax policy is having an
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impact and people are basically trying to say,
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hey, like, everything's bad right now. AND you
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have too many taxes. Like, what are we doing
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about this? The history of Ireland is one of
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unrest, and meddling in general. You know, the
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UK famously was fucking around in Ireland and
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caused it to kind of become two of them, two
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ires per land. So you have a populace whose identity
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is rooted in not wanting to have foreign meddling
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again. There's also a housing crisis going on.
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Affordability of the housing market in Ireland
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is trash. Just like a lot of the EU, but in Ireland
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specifically, there was a period of massive growth
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between like 1995 and 2005. It was called the
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Celtic Tiger. During this time, the Irish government
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invested a whole lot in socially subsidized housing.
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People were getting houses and they were generally
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affordable. And then they stopped doing that.
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When the economy got real bad, there was this
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little thing called the financial crisis. It
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was a financial crisis. It happened in like mid
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late 2000s. Gotta fuck this up. And so the government
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of Ireland was like, how do we save money? I
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know, austerity. We're just gonna not do stuff
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and also increase taxes, but also, also, we're
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gonna switch to a private first housing market,
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just like the US. Famously affordable. And so
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Ireland went from building a bunch of socially
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subsidized housing to a primarily private market
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with requirements for builders to build subsidized
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housing, but subsidized housing dropped by like
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90 % after that. Shocker! When you switch to
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a for -profit housing model. It becomes expensive
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for the liver, the one living in the house. Here's
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a quote from Fortune magazine from 2024 regarding
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this situation. as an alternative to trying to
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buy a house because it's so unaffordable. And
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I will say that if you ask a real estate CEO,
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for example, the CEO of Remax, they'll blame
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the government saying that there's not affordable
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housing because it's too costly to build houses
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in Ireland because of permitting problems. Well,
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I bet there are some permitting problems, but
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I also have a hard time trusting the word of
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a real estate CEO on the topic of how to make
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real estate less expensive, especially when their
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solution is stop... regulating me. There's another
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angle of this too, and that's immigration. If
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you look around the world, you'll notice that
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there's a handful of massive humanitarian crises.
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Turns out having multiple massive humanitarian
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crises creates refugees, and immigrants, and
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then they go places. So a lot of European countries
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have been absorbing immigrants from various crises,
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and Ireland is no different. Ireland has taken
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in a lot. That's undeniable. And so here in Ireland,
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you've got unrest over the fuel prices and the
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taxes and whatnot, you've got a housing economy
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that is just unworkable for the average person,
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and then you have a ton of migration, and that
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creates a hotbed for right -wing opportunists
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to be like, hey! Those immigrants are causing
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your problems. I am NOT an Irish citizen. I am
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NOT an expert in the Irish economy. Everything
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that I have read from people who are experts
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in the Irish economy says that this was a problem
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long before the migration increase over the past
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years. So it is quite opportunistic to to finger
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point at the migrants for being the problem when
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that's not the problem. Could be making it worse?
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Not the root cause. And so there's several white
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nationalist and self -described neo -Nazi groups
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in Ireland vying for more political power during
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this moment using this crisis to get people on
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their side. It's gross, but thankfully Ireland
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is pretty resilient from having people in the
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most fringe areas of politics get lifted up into
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seats of power. Again, not an expert, but my
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understanding is that to get into the Irish Parliament,
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it takes a lot more than just getting enough
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votes. You actually have to get a certain percentage
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of votes within a geographical region to even
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have a chance of getting on the board. And on
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top of that, it's rank choice voting. So there's
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like multiple mechanisms in place to prevent
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extremely fringe ideology from being uplifted,
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especially by accident. By accident being like,
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oh the vote was split like seven ways and the
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person with the most votes with 26 % of the vote
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was John Racism of the Racism Party. At the end
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of the day, the people of Ireland are tired and
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they've got a right to be so. I think we're all
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pretty tired, but after spending Quite a bit
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of time reading up on Irish history. Y 'all definitely
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have the right to be tired. A recent column on
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the Irish Times talked about how there is a growing
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sense of disaffection in the country and people
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are just checked out emotionally from just crisis
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after crisis after crisis. It's gone from like,
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oh my God, we need to react to, oh, it's a crisis.
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Yeah, that's standard. What's for dinner? The
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good news is the Irish government has already
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responded a little bit. It hasn't quelled the
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protests and made everybody happy, but they're
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doing a little bit of work to be like, hey, we're
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going to... Tamp down on those taxes for a bit
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try to make things slightly more affordable.
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It's not enough Hopefully there will be more
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hang in there folks of Ireland solidarity some
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elections happened the headlining one was in
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Hungary That this is the big one Victor Orban
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was finally unseated as prime minister of Hungary
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after 16 years in power Ending what was effectively
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a dictatorial reign? The dude is like Hungarian
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Trump, basically. He just consolidated power,
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just put everybody around him as a yes man, and
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did everything he could to undermine free speech
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and media in Hungary. He is a darling of the
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American right. It's fucking weird. It's actually
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not fucking weird. Turns out Hungary has been
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bankrolling CPAC. The new presumed PM of Hungary
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came in and was like, hey, so we found records
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of transactions of Orban funding CPAC. Which
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explains a lot about why CPAC was having CPAC
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Hungary sessions. So, yeah, weird that there's
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a whole bunch of people on the American right
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that are like, wow, we just love Viktor Orban
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in Hungary. We just we love him for no reason
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whatsoever. We're going to send JD Vance over
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there to stump for him. And then when he loses,
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oh. Oh, Orban lost spectacularly. The incoming
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party is getting like two thirds of the seats
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in Parliament and they're not. not a conservative
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party. That said, the type of conservative party
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they are is more of like a let's have a stable
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country and communicate with our allies around
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us and have checks and balances. Not perfect
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by any means, but also not actively antagonizing
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the rest of NATO and the EU and supporting Russia
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and saying fuck you to Ukraine. It's a change.
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It's a meaningful change. In Canada, Prime Minister
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Mark Carney is sitting pretty, as his Liberal
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Party now has a majority in the Canadian government.
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In a parliamentary government, you're usually
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ruling by coalition. You've got a party that's
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the biggest, but not a majority, and they find
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a couple other parties to work with, and that
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group governs. This is just... the Liberals got
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it. Carney says this is a good thing because
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now they'll be able to pass legislation more
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quickly. He might have a point considering that
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Trump, who is not a legislator, somehow legislates
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by tweet from the toilet in the middle of the
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night. Might be useful to be able to respond
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to that relatively quickly. But in general, a
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parliamentary system is supposed to have more
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of a coalition going on to represent the people,
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in general. But the headlining thing here is
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that the Conservative Party of Canada got trounced
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more. Meanwhile, stateside, it's not elections.
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But, uh, a Democrat and a Republican both in
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Congress have resigned. For sex pest stuff. California
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Representative Eric Swalwell and Texas Representative
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Tony Gonzalez have both resigned. Like within
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24 hours of each other. Eric Swalwell, who was
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a hopeful for California governor, was here with
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a bunch of allegations of sexual assault and
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having affairs with his staffers, and he denied
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them at first, and then he pulled out of the
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California governor race and then he's resigning
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from Congress now. I wonder if the allegations
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were accurate. As for Tony Gonzalez, he is leaving
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Congress after previously saying he won't after
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it came out that he had an affair with a woman
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who later was reported to have died by suicide.
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So yeah, he's gone. Concept. Just spitballing.
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Don't sexually assault people. You can have that
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one for free. If you don't pay your employees
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enough to live, your warehouse burns down. That's
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history. Throughout the entirety of the labor
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movement in the United States and beyond, a lot
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of the progress that has been made to help make
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workers' lives better has been because of violent
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action. PBS has a wonderful article that documents
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a whole bunch of instances of real live -fire
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ammunition battles between workers and private
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security forces, and in some cases, public security
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forces, like the National Guard. They refer to
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them as labor wars, and that's a very accurate
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title. When the owning class gets to the point
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that they refuse to even negotiate with their
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workers, the ones who produce the value, and
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those workers are barely able to feed themselves,
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the workers are going to respond with the one
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thing they have, direct action. Anyway, a bunch
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of warehouses have been burned down in the U
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.S. recently. On April 7th, a Kimberly Clark
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Paper Products warehouse in California was set
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ablaze allegedly by an employee who posted a
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video allegedly saying, if you pay us enough
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to live, this wouldn't happen. Allegedly. Since
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then, we've seen a warehouse fire at least once
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a day. Like it's kind of wild. Here is a non
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-exhaustive list, and I will say, as I was trying
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to find a list of all the warehouse fires that
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have been going on around the US, there are some
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that I can actually confirm, and there's a lot
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that are just sourced from random social media
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posts. So stay frosty. That said, it's still
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a lot of warehouse fires. On April 7th, there
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was the one that started the whole shebang. On
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April 8th was a warehouse fire at an Amazon warehouse.
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They say that that was caused by a solar panel
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malfunction and not arson. April 9th, warehouse
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fire in New Jersey, it's not announced what the
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actual cause is, but the arson unit is investigating.
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April 10th, warehouse fire in New York and another
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fire in California, actually in the same place
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as the original fire. The one in New York is
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under investigation, the one in California is
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actually arson. They've already said this is
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a copycat. The idea here is to inflict pain on
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the employers for not treating workers fairly
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for so long. It's also a last resort. It's not
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like a normal person in a good mood of sound
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mind and body with their needs being met. is
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going to just go burn down a warehouse. This
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is the breaking point. I've seen a common response
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from a lot of people who are concerned about
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the other workers of the warehouses. Like, oh,
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well, what about the other workers? Now they're
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out of a job. Ha ha! You didn't really do workers'
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rights. I understand the impulse to be like,
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no, don't do the violence. That's bad. I get
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it. I truly do. I would again point to the very,
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very long, well -documented history of having
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to hold these people to the fire. sometimes literally,
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in order to actually make progress. We didn't
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get the weekend from good graces. Hundreds of
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people died across the country fighting the National
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Guard. Also that we could have a five day work
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week and two day weekend with eight hour work
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days. That was the compromise. A warehouse doesn't
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have a whole lot of staff. If it's not a logistics
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hub and it's just like a storage and shipping
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warehouse, it's not going to have a ton of people
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working there. This warehouse fire is not going
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to put half the town out of business, but it
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sure as hell makes a statement. All right, quick
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update on Iran. The U .S. and Israel war on Iran
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and Lebanon is still doing the thing. It's just
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still happening. Still doesn't need to be happening.
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Iran has been blockading the Strait of Hormuz
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and now in response to their blockade, the U
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.S. is blockading the Strait of Hormuz. So what's
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actually happening here? I want to explain this
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because it does sound ridiculous, but I would
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say it makes sense, but it still doesn't make
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sense. These aren't literal... physical blockades.
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There's not a line of ships preventing ships
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from crossing through. What's happening is the
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space is being monitored. Ships have... GPS and
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like tracking devices, and there are logs for
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where ships are coming from, going to, what country
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they're flagged in, all that stuff. So as ships
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are going through the strait, they're being monitored,
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and if they are coming from a place or going
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to a place that is not liked by either Iran or
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the US, that respective military is gonna jump
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on that ship and be like, stop it! So it's like
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a blockade by threat. more or less. It's like
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we are in position to blockade, we are in position
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to intercept, and it may happen. It's probably
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gonna happen before I post this video, but that's
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what these blockades are. But while we have this
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sort of water polo standoff, Israel has been
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pounding Lebanon with hundreds of airstrikes.
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At least 800 ,000 people in Lebanon have been
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displaced as Israel continues to invade. There
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have been reports of more use of white phosphorus
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bombs over residential areas by Israel, which
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is what we've seen before when they went into
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Lebanon and what we've been seeing in Gaza this
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whole time. The white phosphorus can cause widespread
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fires. It can destroy farmland for years. So
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I'm not particularly shocked that they're doing
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this again in Lebanon. It has become increasingly
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clear that Iran is like, hey, U .S., if you want
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this ceasefire to hold, they got to stop this
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shit. Israel is not particularly interested in
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stopping, considering they were the ones that
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goaded the US into being a part of this in the
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first place. As of now, talks continue. There's
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not really any major progress towards the end
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of this war, aside from Trump saying every other
14:31
day that either the war is about to end or Iran's
14:34
about to end. So, see you next week on that!
14:38
Lightning round! The Artemis 2 moon mission landed
14:40
back down on Earth safe and sound. All the astronauts
14:43
are home and with their various families and
14:45
dogs. That's sweet. Citing his literal years
14:49
of spreading Nazi propaganda and like releasing
14:52
a song literally titled Hail Hitler last year,
14:55
the UK prevented Kanye West from coming to headline
14:58
a music festival. A former employee at Facebook
15:00
wrote a script that downloaded 30 ,000 private
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user images from their services undetected. Facebook
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has super fired him and said that they're going
15:08
to alert the people who were affected. And he's
15:11
also being investigated. Hey, don't do that.
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And finally, for today, Eric Adams, the former
15:15
mayor of New York City, got himself Albanian
15:18
citizenship and an Albanian passport. Because!
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Thank you so much for listening to today's episode
15:24
of Stuff Keeps Happening. Head to SKH .News for
15:27
sources, bonus content, and the paperwork to
15:30
get your own Albanian citizenship. My name is
15:33
Endeavorance. We'll talk again soon. Take care
15:34
and be well.