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The War on Terror CREATED ICE | Spencer Ackerman Interview | Luke Thomas Gets Political · Luke Thomas Gets Political (LTGP)

0:00
Spencer Akrian is an award-winning
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national security author and journalist.
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He has reported from the front lines of
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Afghanistan, Iraq, and Guantanamo Bay.
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He shared the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for
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Public Service Journalism for Edward
0:13
Snowden's NSA Leaks to the Guardian. One
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of his core ideas though and the reason
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why I'm speaking to him today is that he
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argues what ICE is doing is a lingering
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function of the war on terror with
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ISIS's uses of for example detention
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centers as quasi black sites like
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alligator Alcatraz and many others or
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the creation of extraleal justification
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for their behavior and many other
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factors. Acriman believes you cannot
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understand what ISIS is doing without
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realizing it's the US war on terror
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simply brought home. In this interview,
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we discuss the depths of the core thesis
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he puts forward, the racialized force of
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ISIS mission, and why none of this can
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actually be reformed. Here's Spencer
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Arian. Spencer Arian, thank you for
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joining me.
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>> Thanks so much for having me, Luke.
1:01
Spencer, I have so many questions about
1:04
the war on terror and how it relates to
1:06
what ICE is doing and we're going to
1:08
explore this and I know you've written
1:09
about it on your Substack Forever Wars,
1:12
but just as a sort of a way to start the
1:14
conversation, having watched what ICE
1:16
has become, what they're doing now in
1:18
Minnesota, they've not gone to New York,
1:20
but they've been here in DC and I I got
1:22
to witness firsthand what they were
1:24
doing. What What are your general
1:27
impressions of what you're looking at?
1:28
How what what are when you see all of
1:30
this, what are some of your major
1:31
takeaways about what it all is and what
1:34
it means?
1:35
>> Uh
1:37
harvest of a rotten fruit uh long sewn
1:41
uh within uh the cursed soil of the war
1:46
on terror. Um,
1:49
the major coming out party of ICE hasn't
1:54
been uh on the streets of Chicago or
1:58
Minneapolis or Charlotte or Washington
2:01
um or Los Angeles. Uh it was in New
2:05
Bedford, Massachusetts uh more than 15
2:09
nearly 20 years ago um on a series of
2:11
workplace raids that terrorized the
2:15
community there. uh then is now. Uh they
2:18
assaulted uh people uh who were just
2:23
trying to work to earn a living. It was
2:26
from the start aimed not at employers
2:30
who were exploiting undocumented labor
2:32
but undocumented labor itself. Uh we see
2:35
that uh today in Home Depot parking lots
2:39
um in you know from Minneapolis to to
2:43
Los Angeles. Um, this is not something
2:46
that's happened recently. This is not
2:48
something that metastasized recently.
2:51
It's something that from the very
2:55
beginnings of the war on terror sewed
2:58
the seed of the idea that the United
3:02
States uh requires for reasons of
3:05
national security an extremely invasive
3:09
internally focused deportation force.
3:12
That is something while not
3:15
unprecedented in American history,
3:18
certainly ideologically there's there's
3:20
been um a nivist current in the United
3:22
States since as long as there's been a
3:24
United States practically um but as a
3:27
mechanism
3:29
um as a uh license uh to perform
3:34
deportations
3:35
uh from deep internally into the country
3:38
uh for the criminalization
3:40
um of migration. That's something that
3:42
has a very recent vintage and it's not
3:46
something that we should accept as
3:49
eternal or necessary.
3:53
One thing I want to sort of use to
3:56
set the table for this conversation is
3:58
that you've argued that the war on
4:00
terror should be understood less as a
4:03
series of discrete uh overseas conflicts
4:07
and more as like a governing paradigm
4:09
and to way to how we can understand
4:11
certainly its its lasting impact in the
4:13
United States. Look, help me understand
4:16
why is that the case? Why why do you use
4:18
it through that analytical lens and
4:20
treat it as a broader set of policy
4:23
failures and uh rather than a historical
4:26
episode
4:27
>> first and foremost because it's not
4:29
ended. Uh the war in Afghanistan has
4:32
ended. Uh the war in Iraq has transmuted
4:36
uh so many different times uh that it
4:39
can be kind of dizzying to trace the
4:41
fact that you know there are you know
4:43
900 officially probably closer to
4:46
between 1500 and 2,000 uh US troops in
4:50
Syria because nearly 25 years ago uh a
4:54
group of uh fanatics uh hijacked planes
4:57
and flew them into the World Trade
4:58
Center in the Pentagon uh in an act of
5:01
mass murder. But nevertheless, uh these
5:04
things remain today. Um but they as well
5:08
always happened inside the United
5:11
States. Uh this was never something that
5:16
was always focused overseas. It was
5:19
something that always from the start uh
5:24
looked at uh people inside the United
5:27
States as an internal enemy. whether
5:30
that was Muslim communities uh around
5:34
the country, whether that was uh
5:37
immigrants, recent immigrants who were
5:39
treated as a security threat and rounded
5:42
up after 911 regardless of having no
5:46
connection uh to the attacks of 911. Um
5:50
and because the way that the new
5:53
authorities, institutions and operations
5:56
of the war on terror transformed the
5:59
relationship uh between freedom and
6:01
security in this country. to give just
6:03
one example. Um the uh a very important
6:08
law called the authorization for the use
6:11
of military force uh passed days after
6:14
9/11
6:15
um doesn't really work to uh empower the
6:21
president to address those who committed
6:25
911. It empowered the president to
6:28
define very expansively and exclusively
6:32
who could be conceivably targetable for
6:36
acts both on 911 or similar enough to or
6:41
uh a web of association emanating
6:44
outwards that became a transformation in
6:47
the powers of the presidency that has
6:50
never been repealed. It was a crucial
6:53
step to making the president, whether
6:55
Democratic or Republican, something
6:57
closer to an elected king in the United
7:00
States. And that's something that I feel
7:04
works better to understand as a paradigm
7:08
than as discrete actions taken after
7:12
911, institutions and created after 911
7:15
and authorities granted after 911 that
7:18
you know probably 75 to 80% of which
7:21
remain in force today.
7:24
>> It's interesting. I was 23 when we
7:26
invaded Iraq. I watched 911 from my
7:28
senior college dorm room. Um and um I
7:34
luckily never had to go because I was in
7:35
Marine Corps artillery and at the time
7:37
they didn't really need us and then I
7:39
got out in late ' 04 and so um I was
7:42
able to avoid the worst of it but I
7:44
certainly like essentially all my
7:45
friends uh had to were not nearly um
7:49
we're not nearly as lucky about this.
7:51
Have have you is the idea that the war
7:55
on terror as you best understand at
7:57
least in the initial the germination
7:58
stages so to speak was that the nation
8:01
wanted to respond to a series of what
8:03
they perceived to be attacks aggressions
8:06
threats more broadly and that they
8:08
didn't have as they again as they saw it
8:11
as Bush Wolawitz Cheney as they saw it
8:14
they didn't have the requisite tools to
8:16
respond so they got John U John John you
8:20
to write up authorization for torture in
8:22
Guantanamo Bay. Like they created like a
8:25
parallel system of both tactics and
8:29
explan explanations and legal
8:31
justifications
8:33
to enable them to have the kind of war
8:36
that the otherwise the existing laws or
8:39
whatever did not let them have. I would
8:42
say that uh there were people in the
8:45
Bush administration and allied with it
8:48
that saw 911 as an opportunity, an
8:51
opportunity to transform America and
8:53
move it more in the direction uh that
8:56
they thought it should move in uh with
8:59
national security um broadly understood
9:02
as the kind of heart of that new
9:05
compact. uh whether they could have done
9:08
this under existing authorities or not I
9:10
think kind of misses the point. I think
9:12
the point was this was a crisis that
9:16
elites of the time uh interpreted for
9:19
the country as something ethical and
9:22
something that required um one of the
9:25
most expansive military responses the
9:27
United States um has really ever
9:30
launched. Um, and for that reason, this
9:33
was less a matter of listening to the
9:37
demands of the American people than
9:39
interpreting for the American people
9:41
what they wanted those demands to be, if
9:43
that makes sense.
9:44
>> When you say the demands, I mean, this
9:46
is something I was looking at recently.
9:47
Early support for the Iraq war was at
9:49
like 80% and then of course it faded
9:51
quite dramatically. By the time 2005,
9:55
for example, was was happening. Support
9:57
had dramatically declined. So when you
9:59
say when you talk about the demands of
10:00
the American public specifically what
10:02
what do you mean in this context? I mean
10:05
in terms of a demand for response for
10:07
911 before you can get to that it was
10:11
like 60 it was like 70 80 uh% um support
10:17
uh invasion for the in supported the
10:19
invasion of Iraq um ahead of the
10:21
invasion in 2003 before that could
10:23
happen uh the political in this country
10:26
journalistic system in this country all
10:29
of the different kind of um elite
10:31
institutions that uh help shape, define,
10:35
interpret uh the outside world for
10:38
regular people
10:40
had
10:41
pushed toward the most militarized um
10:45
and the most expansive understanding of
10:48
a response to the war, a response to
10:52
9/11 that had as its central component
10:55
the idea that there must be a uh deeply
10:59
expansive war. launched out of this,
11:02
laughed at the idea uh that there was
11:05
any alternative response to that. um and
11:09
kind of sought what we would call today
11:12
cancellation of those who argued either
11:15
uh against it or uh pointed out that the
11:19
history of these sorts of imperial
11:21
adventures uh both is a history of
11:25
bloodshed and futility and also that
11:28
there is um a history behind 911 that
11:33
didn't start on 911 that starts with
11:36
decades of American in uh exploitation
11:41
um extractive foreign policy and support
11:44
um for repression uh in the Middle East
11:47
uh specifically in the Muslim world. Um
11:50
more generally the the paradmatic
11:52
example the the most famous example was
11:55
uh the widespread denunciation of uh the
11:59
distinguished American writer Susan
12:01
Sante who had the temerity two weeks
12:03
after 9/11 for saying that history had
12:06
not started uh when the twin towers fell
12:09
and that in fact while not justifying
12:12
the attack uh interpreted what was
12:14
coming as more of the same thing that
12:19
9/11 resulted from. After that, you
12:22
could have uh people like Cheney,
12:24
Wolawitz, and Rumsfeld argue that Iraq
12:29
argue deceitfully um Bush as well that
12:32
Iraq had something to do with 9/11, had
12:35
something to do with al-Qaeda. Um and
12:38
accordingly uh once people understood
12:42
Iraq as an extension of 9/11, as an
12:45
extension of an attack on of the
12:48
reprisal against al-Qaeda, that was
12:51
necessary uh for the creation of as you
12:54
point out uh the shallow but uh broad
12:58
political support uh that the invasion
13:01
of Iraq um uh relied on as fuel.
13:07
Have you given consideration to what um
13:11
I'm not going to say an alternate war on
13:12
terror because I don't think that that
13:14
would be the right way to frame it.
13:15
However, an alternate response to 911
13:19
that would have prevented uh the kind of
13:24
state repression that we're now
13:25
suffering under the vast. Was there a
13:28
response to 911 that was available to us
13:30
that prevents our current predicament
13:32
that did not pursue a global war on
13:34
terror that unleashed uh all kinds of
13:37
hell on the earth and now has returned
13:39
home? What and if so, what does that
13:41
look like? I I realize that it would
13:42
have been untenable in the moment given
13:44
the national mood, but have you given
13:46
consideration to how that would have
13:48
looked?
13:49
>> Yeah. um consideration. I would uh let's
13:52
let's take that first and then I want to
13:54
take up the claim that the national move
13:56
uh would have prevented that. Um you
13:59
would have had a response that targeted
14:02
just al-Qaeda, just the leadership of
14:06
al-Qaeda. It could have been uh in the
14:09
shape of taking up the Taliban's
14:13
offer to give Osama bin Laden to uh
14:17
either the United States or a proxy uh
14:19
that could try him uh for his complicity
14:22
in 911. Um would that have prevented uh
14:27
future attacks? Of course it would. It
14:29
would have decimated uh al-Qaeda as it
14:32
existed then. Um and it would have you
14:35
know as we as we have now seen there was
14:38
not really a follow-up wave of attack
14:42
that was in motion after 9/11. Uh the
14:45
security services like to argue that
14:46
they prevented one. Uh but there doesn't
14:49
really actually when you go through uh
14:51
the accounts um particularly like in
14:54
custody of people like college shake
14:57
Muhammad and Abu Zuba um and others that
15:01
really had that in motion. So, uh, it
15:03
reli the war on terror relied on the,
15:07
um, paranoid sense then justified as,
15:10
you know, what, uh, would come to be
15:12
known as the 1% doctrine, uh, a term
15:15
that, um, the writer Ron Suskind coined,
15:18
um, in response to what he saw as Dick
15:21
Cheny's preferred policies that if
15:24
there's a 1% chance of another attack
15:27
happening, that has to be treated as a
15:29
certainty. We know where that has lived,
15:31
right? Uh we will have to only imagine
15:35
an alternative at the time because
15:38
obviously it's a counterfactual
15:39
conditional. Um but it would have
15:42
addressed uh the necessary uh it would
15:45
have addressed uh actually what al-Qaeda
15:48
uh was looking to do and then there
15:50
would have been you know there ought to
15:51
have been a series of policy responses
15:54
more broadly to reconceptualize
15:56
uh demilitarize and kind of normalize um
16:00
America relationship with the Middle
16:02
East so that it wasn't simply uh uh
16:06
security guarantor and funer of repress
16:10
ressive states from Saudi Arabia to
16:12
Egypt to uh Israel. So, you know, it
16:16
would have looked something like that.
16:19
Um but what I really want to stress is
16:21
that the war on terror was not an
16:24
organic popular response to 9/11. The
16:28
war on terror was the essence of
16:31
manufactured consent. It was uh an
16:35
enterprise that relied uh on deceit of
16:39
the American people from the government
16:40
that relied on overwhelming secrecy um
16:44
and non-disclosure of what the actual
16:46
operations of the war on terror was
16:48
specifically uh the surveillance and
16:51
torture aspects um of the war on terror
16:54
and a political response um that might
16:59
have spared the US and the world so much
17:02
bloodshed and turmoil was very
17:04
deliberately prevented uh by both uh the
17:10
avarice of Republicans and the cowardice
17:13
of Democrats.
17:17
That being said, that brings us to our
17:18
present moment a little bit, which is to
17:22
what extent does the war on terror
17:25
explain
17:27
the rise of Trumpism?
17:29
There are competing theories around
17:31
this. One is that the war on terror has
17:33
enabled Trumpism to be more of what it
17:36
has designed on being rather than it
17:38
being a a cause of its ascension more
17:43
generally. Where do you come down on
17:45
this debate and the role in the war on
17:46
terror and its relationship to Trumpism
17:49
in our present moment? I think the war
17:51
on terror is a central and
17:53
underappreciated aspect of what gave
17:55
rise to Trump, what Trump was responding
17:58
to, and what most importantly uh
18:00
provided him both the extent
18:03
justifications and the tools to
18:06
accomplish his um so for instance, if
18:09
you remember 2015, Trump was talking
18:11
non-stop about ISIS. Um and he was using
18:15
the failure of American elites in the
18:17
Republican party first and then the
18:19
Democratic party um
18:22
who supported not just uh the war in
18:25
Iraq but the war on terror generally
18:27
that had led to so much futility as
18:29
engines of discrediting them and
18:31
displacing them um from uh uh whole
18:35
position uh that they occupied uh within
18:38
American politics. Um, furthermore, uh,
18:42
what gave Trump, uh, his first real, uh,
18:46
political, um,
18:49
uh,
18:50
I guess both platform isn't exactly the
18:53
right word, but, uh, his move from kind
18:55
of cultural prominence to political
18:57
prominence uh, came through him
18:59
championing uh, what we know as
19:02
birtherism. Uh, the idea that Barack
19:05
Obama was an illegitimate president
19:07
because he was not a citizen of the
19:09
United States. And we would see what
19:11
that meant in practice was implying that
19:14
he was secretly a Muslim and accordingly
19:17
was a national security threat to the
19:20
United States. This was always a
19:21
baseless lie, but it took root because
19:26
of at that point, you know, in 2011 when
19:28
Trump started going on Fox News and
19:30
championing birtherism, at that point 10
19:32
years of war on terror that had
19:35
portrayed Muslims in the United States
19:38
as a danger to America and as and also
19:43
treated um the champions of civil
19:47
rights, of the rule of law, of restraint
19:51
of the war on terror as little more than
19:53
the handmaidadens or collaborators uh
19:56
with people who sought to do America
19:57
harm. Um there are other things that
20:00
explain
20:02
um the great recession certainly, but
20:04
the war on terror is always there. It's
20:07
always there in very visible um and very
20:11
uh dramatic manifestations that give
20:14
Trump power and that Trump recognizes
20:17
and uses to both acquire more and cement
20:20
his place um in American politics.
20:24
the the the the turn that ICE has taken
20:28
more recently. To what extent do you
20:30
attribute that merely to the minations
20:32
and malice of Steven Miller versus the
20:35
broader kind of Trumpist
20:38
project?
20:40
>> Hard to disambiguate, I think. Um
20:44
I think there would always be a Steven
20:46
Miller. Uh there's always been a Steven
20:48
Miller throughout history, right? Uh
20:50
there's always been someone uh who sees
20:54
a pathway to political power uh by that
20:58
sees a pathway to political power uh
21:01
through the persecution of marginalized
21:04
entities and the presentation of them as
21:07
internal threats not only to the safety
21:10
um of the United States but to a white
21:14
supremacist understanding of what the
21:17
legitimate United States of America
21:19
America is um
21:23
I don't really know um how cynically uh
21:27
Trump has used this politics. I don't
21:29
care because it doesn't that that
21:31
question
21:33
doesn't impact any material
21:36
instantiation of what Trumpism is or how
21:39
ICE operates. um whether it would have
21:41
been Miller or someone else. Um you know
21:45
the the moving force behind child
21:49
separation during the first Trump
21:51
administration was not Steven Miller. It
21:54
was John Kelly who has now become, you
21:57
know, a moderate anti-Trumpist now that
22:00
it suits his needs. Uh, but Kelly was
22:03
someone uh who
22:06
uh
22:08
sought to use
22:10
the kidnapping of children as a way to
22:13
deter people from crossing the southern
22:16
border because he had a pedigree as the
22:20
senior military officer in charge of
22:24
operations in Latin and South America.
22:27
It is no accident that someone in that
22:30
position uh particularly someone uh like
22:34
Kelly uh whose trial by fire comes
22:38
through the war on terror, comes through
22:41
uh things like the Battle of Beluga,
22:44
comes through uh the um the Marine fight
22:49
uh in Helman Province uh where Kelly
22:52
loses his son uh who was a captain.
22:56
um commanding a company of Marines uh
22:59
during that time and interprets that uh
23:02
all of that sacrifice, that hardship,
23:04
that loss uh in a nivist way attributes
23:08
the loss not to the futility of the
23:10
enterprise, but to betrayal by political
23:13
elites at home, which is uh curious
23:16
given that most of them actually backed
23:18
the war uh not only in Iraq but
23:21
Afghanistan. Um and this becomes the
23:24
fertile soil through which not just
23:27
Trumpism develops but is the kind of uh
23:31
is the the the the engine that produces
23:35
many of Trump's deputies that become the
23:38
architects of what ICE becomes in not
23:42
just this uh current Trump presidency
23:44
but the first one. One of the key
23:47
features of your work, as best I
23:48
understand it, is trying to understand
23:50
the war on terror as a function of
23:52
continuity rather than these sort of
23:54
period distinct periods and ruptures and
23:56
in and how that has affected American
23:58
politics. With that in mind, such that
24:00
I've got uh that port portion correct,
24:03
>> do you see what ICE is doing as uh what
24:07
people on might call boomerang theory,
24:09
which is these practices deployed abroad
24:12
now being redeployed at home, or is it
24:14
immigration enforcement nominally
24:17
anyway, remixed with, you know, some
24:20
kind of counterinsurgency logic? How do
24:22
you how do you understand how ICE
24:24
operates in these terms? So something
24:27
that I I really try to impress upon in
24:31
my journalism is that there isn't, you
24:34
know, one United States of America that
24:36
operates at home and another United
24:38
States of America that operates abroad.
24:40
There's one United States of America.
24:43
What it does abroad is a reflection of
24:45
what it does at home. And then what it
24:47
does at home is a laboratory for what it
24:49
does abroad. And then what it does
24:51
abroad is a laboratory for what it
24:53
brings back home. And these things
24:54
iterate upon one another. They influence
24:57
one another. They influence um you know
25:00
they influence how uh the development of
25:04
each uh comes into being and creates um
25:09
greater and greater injustices and
25:11
opportunities to inflict those
25:14
injustices both at home and abroad. Um,
25:17
I think like I I I do think uh that the
25:21
so-called imperial boomerang theory um
25:25
has a lot of merit. The only thing that
25:27
I I kind of don't I kind of caution
25:30
against is the idea that it's either
25:33
thrown abroad first or thrown at home
25:36
first. This is something that's thrown
25:38
kind of back and forth again and again
25:39
and it's hard to to kind of figure out
25:42
um what the origins of it are because of
25:45
this intertwined nature um of of how
25:49
America operates both at home and
25:51
abroad. Certainly there are innovations
25:54
that come to bear on it. Um the hysteria
25:58
against immigrants that happens after
26:01
9/11 is deeply influenced uh by the
26:05
decades that come before it. Um, in
26:07
particular, there's a demographic panic
26:10
in California in the 1990s,
26:14
uh, over how, um, and this is obviously
26:18
something absurd to consider, uh, for
26:21
anyone who knows the history of how
26:23
California became part of the United
26:25
States. um you know the the the idea uh
26:29
that California is importing Mexicans um
26:33
is uh kind of laughable uh to a student
26:36
of history. But nevertheless, uh that
26:38
was how it was perceived um amongst uh
26:42
reactionary currents uh in California in
26:45
the 1990s. And that um forms a great
26:48
deal of context for how uh immigration
26:53
in a post 911 era ought to be
26:56
understood. not understood as a process
26:59
of making more Americans, but understood
27:01
as a threat to both the security and the
27:04
political sovereignty of those Americans
27:06
who are already here.
27:09
>> One of the things that's interesting to
27:10
me is
27:12
or noteworthy anyway,
27:15
is how much immigration detention and
27:18
the the current ICE violence campaign
27:21
seems to operate in a place where
27:22
constitutional protections
27:25
thin out. might be the best way I can
27:27
describe that. Do you see ICE exploiting
27:30
these various what appear to be at least
27:32
I'm not sure exactly the legality of
27:33
some of them, but there appears to be a
27:34
fair degree of legal ambiguity or at a
27:36
bare minimum certainly legal impunity.
27:39
On the one hand, uh if if I told someone
27:42
about the connection between ICE and the
27:43
war on terror, there might be perhaps if
27:45
they don't know your work, there be a
27:47
little bit of apprehension about making
27:48
a connection. At the same time, it
27:49
almost seems like inevitable that they
27:51
ended up in this place given that they
27:55
the the war on terror created so many
27:57
sort of exceptions of law or or places
28:00
they could operate independent of normal
28:03
channels. Do you do you see that same
28:04
kind of connectivity particularly with
28:06
immigrant detention and some of the
28:08
lawlessness related therein?
28:09
>> Absolutely. You can see how in
28:12
immigration detention um the torture
28:17
that existed um in a different form in
28:20
the CIA's black sites uh is taking root.
28:23
Uh one of the things that I was very
28:26
struck by in a recent Amnesty
28:27
International report into alligator
28:30
Alcatraz is they use something multiple
28:34
uh detainees there described the use of
28:37
something uh called a confinement box.
28:39
They didn't use that term, but that's a
28:41
term that um I'm using because it was
28:44
how the thing operated in the CIA's uh
28:47
network of undisclosed um torture
28:50
prisons. Um it's a box barely bigger
28:53
than a coffin. You can't lie down. You
28:56
can't stand up. You have to be kept in a
28:58
very uncomfortable crouching position
29:00
for an extended period of time in a
29:03
claustrophobic environment. Um, this is
29:05
a mechanism not just of physical torture
29:08
but psychological torture and used in
29:11
alligator Alcatraz as punishment. Uh, if
29:14
you disobey uh whatever um uh the
29:19
Florida immigration authorities
29:21
operating alligator Alcatraz want you to
29:24
do, you will be taken uh into the box.
29:27
They didn't have apparently a kind of
29:29
solitary confinement hole. Um but uh
29:32
they had something that clearly
29:34
reflected uh familiarity
29:38
with the way torture operated during the
29:41
war on terror in which um the kind of
29:44
political anticcedants of the same
29:46
nivist cohort behind Trumpism eagerly
29:49
defended enthusiastically
29:52
uh defended and denounced opponents of
29:54
because they thought that this was uh a
29:58
just punishment for people that they
30:00
come to see as less than human. Um I
30:04
guess the best way of of perhaps putting
30:06
it um is uh the way that uh the
30:09
philosopher the Italian philosopher uh
30:11
Georgio Aam Ben put it um at the dawn of
30:15
the war on terror when he described it
30:17
as a state of exception. um he's
30:19
building on the work of a prior uh
30:22
frankly fascist philosopher named Carl
30:24
Schmidt um for understanding that uh
30:27
Schmidt uh who had said that sovereign
30:30
is he who defines the state of exception
30:32
might have taken that from Hobbes I
30:33
forget but the point is that um the
30:37
state of exception operates as a
30:39
carveout from the official rules. So
30:42
people who are not subject uh to the
30:44
degradations of the carve out of those
30:47
rules that kind of non-legal extralegal
30:50
space in which anything can be done uh
30:53
to those who fall under it can feel that
30:56
there is no disruption of normaly there
30:58
is no disruption in uh the uh that they
31:03
visibly seem enjoy but in fact is uh
31:07
this cancer that will expand and weigh
31:12
uh the institutional foundations of the
31:15
freedoms that those not subject to this
31:17
state of exception enjoy until we get to
31:20
a point where an ICE agent shoots
31:23
someone who is moderately
31:25
inconveniencing them multiple times
31:27
through the forehead and then calls her
31:29
a [ __ ] [ __ ]
31:31
Hm. Um, you have talked previously about
31:36
Timothy McVey, the Oklahoma City bomber,
31:38
and
31:40
ways in which that has connected that is
31:42
connected to the war on terror, but in
31:44
particular way, as I understand it,
31:45
namely what we as a country decided to
31:49
prosecute in terms of looking at his
31:51
reign of terror and doing essentially
31:54
nothing to stamp out the antecedent kind
31:57
of factors that brought that to bear.
32:00
But when it came to the global war on
32:02
terror, we're all too happy to unleash
32:04
violence abroad and now bring some of
32:06
that home in the form of ICE. I wonder
32:08
if you could help me understand and the
32:09
audience can understand more of the
32:11
connection. How does Timothy McVey
32:14
relate to the war on terror and then
32:15
more broadly bring it full circle if you
32:17
can and it brings us to the present
32:19
moment with ICE in terms of who gets
32:21
targeted and for what purposes by state
32:23
violence and who doesn't.
32:25
>> Yeah, sure thing. So, I start out my
32:27
book, Reign of Terror, with not 9/11,
32:31
but the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that
32:34
Timothy McY perpetuates. Um, and I do so
32:37
to show how what was at the time the
32:40
worst terrorist attack in American
32:42
history, um, was treated as a marginal
32:47
event by the power structure once it was
32:51
determined that it was committed uh, by
32:54
a white man in uh, his uh, depraved
33:00
depiction of uh, restoration of the just
33:04
social position of the white man within
33:07
American society. Uh it was treated, in
33:09
other words, as a one-off event. It was
33:12
treated as something that uh prosecution
33:16
uh could very easily um rectify. There
33:21
was no need to transform the country
33:23
onto a wartime footing. There was no
33:26
need to connect uh what McVey did to uh
33:30
the broader white supremacist ideology
33:33
uh that he constructed. there was no
33:35
need to go looking at the broader
33:38
infrastructure in the United States of
33:40
white supremacist militancy uh that had
33:44
existed um for uh you know not just in
33:48
McVeyy's case the infrastructure that
33:50
that um comes to exist in the United
33:52
States uh after uh the passage of the
33:55
civil rights act of 1964 and the voting
33:58
rights act of 1965 which takes white
34:01
supremacy kind of a step um you know
34:04
this is a debatable step um out of power
34:07
uh but uh transforms the relationship um
34:11
between uh black citizens of the United
34:14
States um and uh the available uh the
34:18
and the availability of American
34:20
democracy uh to them in a way that uh
34:24
white supremacists didn't interpret it
34:26
um as illegitimate um ever since. Um nor
34:31
did uh anyone uh in uh journalism uh
34:36
feel the need to connect uh McVeyy's
34:39
actions and the murder of 169 people uh
34:43
168 people star uh pardon me including
34:45
19 children um to that ideology. Instead
34:49
uh more often than not they treated
34:51
Mcbay as a kind of curiosity. Uh there
34:55
were headlines in uh the Washington Post
34:57
and other newspapers that uh portrayed
35:00
McVey as uh the in like weirdo contexts
35:05
that talked about him as like the you
35:08
know an unfortunate child of divorce,
35:11
you know, would uh divorce theoretically
35:14
make more Timothy McBaz? No. white
35:16
supremacy um and its uh acceptability uh
35:21
within the United States is what makes
35:22
Timothy McVey and it's what frankly
35:24
makes Jonathan Ross. So, is there a way
35:27
to un obviously they're going after
35:29
immigrants, although that's not the only
35:31
part of what their draget grabs, but how
35:34
do you understand how race factored into
35:38
the war on terror and how it factors
35:40
into how that connects to ISIS
35:43
operations?
35:45
centrally uh you know we are looking at
35:48
you know the war on terror um only
35:52
applies to non-white people I think like
35:56
you know the Maybay example demonstrates
35:58
that um but more importantly uh the war
36:02
on terror itself created uh in its you
36:06
know early phases um and then persisting
36:09
throughout the 2010s um and now the
36:12
2020s an alternate system of quote
36:15
unquote justice that applies to Muslims,
36:19
not just in the United States, but also
36:20
abroad. Uh, it became acceptable. Um,
36:23
I'll give you, let me put it like this.
36:27
In 2016, I interviewed Pakistanis and
36:31
Yemenes who had been either survivors of
36:36
Obama's drone strikes or their relatives
36:40
had been killed by them. And to a man,
36:44
what they talked about was racism
36:48
driving those operations that they were
36:50
treated by the United States as subhuman
36:53
and backward, easily killed because of a
36:58
racial hierarchy uh that was somewhat
37:01
head spinning for me uh to to listen to
37:04
given that they were talking as they
37:06
knew about the first black president of
37:09
the United States. What each of them
37:11
went back to time and again was the fact
37:14
that the only time Obama named and
37:18
apologized for innocent people killed by
37:21
one of his drone strikes was when they
37:23
were white hostages of the so-called
37:25
Islamic State. Uh that was something
37:28
that incensed and inflamed people uh who
37:32
had no choice but to live with the
37:36
consequences of drone strikes that had
37:39
either they had barely survived or had
37:41
killed people that they loved. They
37:43
understood this as a sanction that no
37:46
white person would ever experience uh
37:49
from the the United States of America
37:52
without it being treated as a crucial
37:56
accident. Um, I think it would be I
37:59
think you know all you have to do is
38:01
look at the Department of Homeland
38:03
Security's social media which is filled
38:06
with white supremacist propaganda
38:09
encouraging the recruitment of people to
38:12
whom that propaganda resonates to join
38:15
ICE and CBP to sign up for the mass.
38:20
Even calling it deportation I feel like
38:23
is a sanitized euphemism. The United
38:26
States is sending people to include 170
38:29
US citizens, at least by ProPublica's
38:31
count,
38:33
not to their so-called countries of
38:35
origin, which is what we typically mean
38:37
by deportation, but to third countries,
38:41
whether it's SECOT uh in uh El Salvador,
38:46
uh whether it's South Sudan, uh or
38:50
elsewhere, uh that they have no
38:52
connection to at all. That's not a
38:54
deportation. That's something closer to
38:57
what we saw in the war on terror. a
38:59
rendition in which the United States
39:02
captures someone that it sends abroad
39:05
not for you know any criminal process or
39:08
face charges uh that uh they will have
39:12
to answer to um in a certain country but
39:17
to a completely unfamiliar place for a
39:21
far harsher set of treatment. Um this
39:25
has uh impacted, infected and is now
39:30
central to the operations of ICE in in a
39:35
manner that uh really ought to disturb
39:38
us in its resonance with the war on
39:41
terror, its its its its legacy from the
39:43
war on terror, but above all from the
39:47
simple fact that this enforces at
39:51
gunpoint in the most frightening ways
39:53
possible
39:55
hierarchy that I believe most Americans
39:57
do not actually want to see visited upon
40:01
them does not want to see uh their
40:04
themselves and their neighbors subject
40:06
to and instead something that they
40:08
consider rightfully something to
40:10
struggle against. We're recording this
40:11
on Martin Luther King Jr. day.
40:14
How could we possibly honor Martin
40:16
Luther King Jr. by having ICE march
40:19
through as an incipient death squad
40:21
Minnesota on a mission to round up
40:24
primarily black people. We're not
40:27
talking just about Somali migrants.
40:29
Thanks to Supreme Court Justice Brett
40:31
Kavanagh, racialing by law enforcement
40:35
and homeland security is
40:38
legal in the United States. And until
40:40
Kavanaaugh's ruling is overturned,
40:42
that's exactly how ICBP
40:45
uh affiliated agencies will practice
40:48
whether it be under a Democratic
40:50
administration as well as a Republican
40:52
admin until these institutions are
40:54
abolished, their authorities revoked,
40:57
and uh their uh politics discredited.
41:03
>> As a separate kind of question, I'm sure
41:05
the war on terror has a function here,
41:07
although this predates it. Namely, I'm
41:09
old enough to have grown up in a world
41:11
where Wayne Laierre was worried about
41:13
the government's jack booted thugs
41:16
um invading people's personal lives and
41:19
liberty and affecting it. And yet, we
41:20
get to a place now where the right is
41:23
cheerleaders of jack booted thugs from
41:25
the federal government doing exactly
41:27
that. It's kind of funny. I live in DC.
41:28
If I drive to more remote parts of
41:30
Virginia, I'll see don't tread on me
41:32
flags in their yards. And it just seems
41:35
to me and I I would love your impression
41:37
here. It just seems to me that the there
41:39
people have wondered how could there be
41:40
inong in congruity. The answer is I
41:42
don't think that there is there that
41:44
border of the jack booted thugs they're
41:46
worried about. It's to suppress the part
41:50
of American life that is not theirs. And
41:52
in fact that is why you can see them
41:55
wave a flag about liberty and then they
41:58
can do this. it's because it's designed
41:59
to drive um this kind of top- down
42:02
pressure to protect a certain class. No,
42:05
>> I completely agree. I think that what
42:07
we're not talking about, we're not
42:09
talking about hypocrisy, right? These
42:11
are not people with a blind spot. What
42:13
we're talking about is exceptionalism.
42:16
We're talking about a system in which
42:19
there are no uh restrictions that those
42:24
who wield it are bound to respect and
42:28
upon those uh that they target. Uh no
42:33
law can possibly protect. Uh we're
42:35
talking about a racial hierarchy um
42:39
enforced at the point of a gun uh with
42:42
the license of ICE CBP and their police
42:46
allies um as well as their political
42:48
allies, Republican and Democrat. I think
42:50
we make a a really important analytic
42:53
mistake when we say like, "Aha, but you
42:56
were saying don't tread on me and now
42:58
you were the ones doing the treading."
43:00
Anyone who's doing that is not making
43:04
some kind of like fundamental error of
43:07
inongruity or not connecting two things.
43:10
They mean both things simultaneously.
43:12
They mean that they are the ones who
43:15
must not be treaded on and their enemies
43:17
are the ones who must always be treaded.
43:21
I've spoken to historians about this and
43:23
it's something you've brought up about
43:25
how guys like McVey McVey is obviously a
43:28
standout example how they see themselves
43:31
as and you and to your point that you
43:33
referenced with the social media imagery
43:36
and language coming out of DHS where
43:38
they're talking about we're authentic
43:41
not merely restoration of American
43:43
identity but worth the authentic
43:46
representations of it and we're here to
43:48
reassert what has been lost. lost. It's
43:50
kind of funny though. I've been talking
43:51
to uh as I mentioned some historians
43:53
about it and one thing they kind of
43:54
point to is that the inability of the
43:58
United States to confront at the time in
44:00
the 19th century um both proper
44:03
reconstruction but really the the the
44:05
Confederacy obviously they won the war
44:07
but they didn't really stamp out the
44:09
societal elements that underpin it and
44:11
now we're still living with the
44:12
consequences. is the theory then that
44:14
those kinds of forces have weaved
44:17
themselves back into society as now not
44:20
merely not not not a Confederate
44:22
identity but as an authentic American
44:24
identity but what they really mean is
44:26
racial hierarchy with whites at the top
44:28
but that's the that's the through line
44:30
from the Confederacy onto McVey onto our
44:33
present moment. Do you see something
44:35
like that?
44:36
>> Yeah, absolutely. I and I would say that
44:39
um
44:40
you know uh I think it's Vietn who said
44:45
that every war is fought twice first on
44:47
the battle first on the battlefield and
44:49
then on the on the planes of men. Uh so
44:52
how our historical understanding um of
44:55
of these events uh develops is always
44:58
contested and is always political. Um,
45:01
and you know, I I would say that, you
45:04
know, something that we see from the
45:07
Supreme Court currently and from, you
45:09
know, right-wing legal theorists
45:11
currently, and you see this, you know,
45:13
probably uh most uh dramatically with,
45:18
uh, the push to end birthright
45:20
citizenship,
45:22
um, is a rejection of the Constitution
45:26
that comes into existence after 1865.
45:29
five that comes into existence with the
45:32
13th to 14th amendment that the idea
45:35
that uh what America is reshaped by
45:40
after the civil war is unamearing,
45:43
illegitimate and must be uh reversed.
45:45
This is what you know this is this is
45:47
what uh first the violence of redemption
45:51
um in the 1870s and 1880s was geared
45:55
after and when that attained uh greater
45:57
political power that became Jim Crow. Um
46:00
I would add to that um a really
46:03
important uh period that we haven't
46:07
talked about but ought to understand
46:08
this as uh is the cold war in which uh
46:12
the uh defense of capitalism
46:14
geopolitically
46:16
uh intertwined extremely neatly uh with
46:20
uh the way that Jim Crow organized uh
46:24
racial preferences. one of I think the
46:27
um organized racial hierarchy uh one of
46:30
the the crucial slogans uh that uh
46:34
people carried on placards um to oppose
46:38
desegregation
46:39
um after um uh after Brown v board of ed
46:43
read mixing is communism.
46:47
>> Now that's
46:50
just simply not what communism is. It's
46:52
not what socialism is. But nevertheless,
46:56
that was an extremely true statement
46:59
about how uh a certain uh kind of
47:03
politically empowered white supremacist
47:06
uh at a time in which that term was
47:08
respectable um enjoyed elite
47:11
respectability um as it hasn't in the
47:13
last several decades, but it sure you
47:15
know come come back right now. um
47:18
understood
47:20
uh the cold war and understood what the
47:22
purpose of the cold war was. Uh it was
47:25
for reinforcing that racial hierarchy uh
47:28
that was under challenge at home. This
47:30
is something that is so central um to
47:35
the United States, to its politics um
47:38
and to its society that it finds
47:41
different outlets at different points in
47:43
history, but also finds deep clashes
47:47
with other Americans who reject that uh
47:49
those understandings. And that's
47:50
something that we're also seeing um you
47:53
know, we're seeing right now in vertical
47:56
videos on our phones from Minnesota.
47:58
you have argued on your Substack that
48:01
>> Can I just actually say can I I'm sorry
48:03
to interrupt but it's my I have a
48:05
newsletter but it's not a Substack. Um
48:08
and I I I I uh I oppose the company of
48:11
Substack. Uh I uh I jook them uh with my
48:16
first year on Substack took their money
48:17
and left my uh and left Substack as soon
48:20
as my contract expired. I think Substack
48:22
is a reactionary company. I don't
48:24
support it and I just feel compelled uh
48:26
to say let's not turn Substack into a
48:29
synonym for newsletter. Uh it is not it
48:32
is not you know Q-Tips or anything like
48:34
that. I think newslettering uh is a cool
48:37
way of conducting journalism. Uh and you
48:40
don't need Substack to do it.
48:42
>> Fair enough. I appreciate the
48:43
correction. Yeah. Forever Wars is where
48:44
it was written. That's the name of your
48:46
newsletter. And in it you had argued
48:49
unambiguously that ICE should be
48:51
abolished and it cannot be reformed.
48:53
What is the central argument around that
48:55
power? Why why can't ICE be reformed
48:58
even with some substantial reforms?
49:01
>> There is no reforming something that
49:05
will look at as minor an inconvenience
49:09
and as minor a taunt as Renee Good
49:13
provided to Jonathan Ross with an
49:16
immediate and proud execution. We have
49:19
seen video after video from Minnesota
49:21
and those who are fighting on the front
49:23
lines in Minnesota for their neighbors
49:25
and themselves. Uh certainly don't need
49:27
me to tell them about this. Uh of ICE
49:30
officers after the murder of Renee Good
49:34
asking people who are protesting them,
49:36
haven't you learned your lesson yet?
49:38
Haven't you learned that? That is that's
49:41
how a death squad develops. uh they are
49:44
recruiting from uh white nationalist
49:46
elements who want to be there. There's
49:49
no retraining this. Once a security
49:53
agency sees part of its own population
49:57
as a threat,
49:59
it will continue to go after that
50:02
population. Immigration you know
50:05
deportation
50:06
um and immigration enforcement is a
50:08
pretext here and we have to understand
50:10
that. We have to understand where we are
50:13
kind of in in the course of history
50:15
here.
50:17
ICE is a new creation. It create it was
50:20
created in the emergency of the war on
50:22
terror on the premise that I don't think
50:26
is a supportable premise that
50:28
immigration uh crimes in the interior of
50:31
the United States are now uh worse than
50:36
non worse than crimes committed by
50:38
citizens. It relies on a bed of
50:40
statistical lies. Uh first and foremost,
50:43
that immigrants are more likely to
50:45
commit crimes, particularly the
50:47
undocumented who would prefer to simply
50:49
stay out of people's way. Um that they
50:52
operate differently than previous eras
50:55
of American immigration. Uh particularly
50:57
during times that white people came here
51:00
through f, you know, through through
51:01
what were essenti open borders because
51:03
of the necessity of importing a labor
51:06
force into the United States. I'm not
51:07
talking about uh enslaved labor. I'm
51:10
talking about what comes uh afterwards.
51:12
Um
51:13
and the idea that it is pol that it
51:16
ought to be politically acceptable to
51:18
keep an interior deportation force in
51:21
the United States as if uh crimes
51:25
committed uh by undocumented people
51:28
could not be uh similarly addressed by
51:31
normal law enforcement. There's no way
51:34
of separating the politics of nivism
51:37
from ICE, from such an interior uh
51:41
deportation force any more than there is
51:44
separating the nivist politics of the
51:46
war on terror from the operations of the
51:49
war on terror. Despite how often the
51:52
Biden administration and before the
51:54
Obama administration attempted to do
51:56
precisely that, we have so much
51:58
experience over the last 25 years that I
52:03
don't think we really can afford to fool
52:05
ourselves that there's some kind of
52:07
retraining that could happen here that
52:10
wouldn't just simply result in a more
52:13
efficient death squad. The politics of
52:16
ICE are inseparable from ICE itself. If
52:18
you wish to stop this from happening,
52:21
you have to break ICE. You have to take
52:24
away its authorities. You have to take
52:26
away uh its uh institutional existence.
52:30
You have to spread it to the winds. And
52:32
very importantly, you have to prosecute
52:34
those who have committed crimes not just
52:36
on the streets of uh the cities in which
52:39
we've seen ICE deployed over the last
52:41
several years, but in the jails where
52:43
they have tortured, brutalized, and now
52:45
we have seen homicide cases. We've seen
52:47
at least seven people, I believe, uh,
52:49
dead in ICE jails over the last, uh,
52:52
year alone. This is a metastasis that's
52:55
happened here. The only way to address
52:57
this metastasis is to cut it off at the
53:00
root of ICE has to be abolished. CBP at
53:04
the very, very least. I recognize that,
53:07
you know, for some people the idea of a
53:08
border patrol uh, is uh, both, you know,
53:12
necessary and legitimate. I wonder if
53:15
however uh people understand that after
53:18
the war on terror CBP interprets the
53:20
border as anywhere within a 100 miles of
53:23
any point of entry. That basically makes
53:26
the interior of the country the border
53:29
and the border is the zone of this
53:31
country in which anyone citizen or
53:33
non-citizen has the fewest rights that
53:36
they enjoy anywhere in the United
53:37
States. You've ever been pulled out of
53:39
that line at TSA? You know how true that
53:41
is.
53:42
We're We're past the point in which
53:45
reform could be metasticized. I'm sorry.
53:49
We're past the point at which reform
53:50
could be metabolized by ICE. Uh people
53:54
who believe that are either in positions
53:57
of power are either deliluding
53:59
themselves or lying to you.
54:02
>> How do you understand the Democratic
54:03
Party in its relationship to the global
54:05
war on terror? And what I mean by that
54:06
is uh certainly in the Iraq war for
54:09
example there was at least early
54:11
obviously broad bipartisan consensus to
54:14
get this going. There were there were
54:15
some voices certainly out there Barack
54:17
Obama famously opposed the the war on
54:19
Iraq. But in general there was enough of
54:21
it where it was bipartisan enough to
54:23
make it work. That soured over time and
54:25
here you have but a Republican
54:26
president. We have another one of those.
54:28
But now you are getting some folks like
54:30
Senator Ggo out of Arizona or Senator Cy
54:33
Booker out of New Jersey who are saying,
54:35
"Well, okay, ICE is a problem, but we
54:36
have to reform it." But they won't make
54:38
the they won't go to the place that I
54:41
think you quite rightly argue, which is
54:42
that this is not a reformable
54:44
institution. How do you understand them
54:46
as an opposition party and what role
54:47
they played in the war on terrorists
54:49
escalation and frankly its continuation?
54:52
I think that it's very disturbing to see
54:56
elected Democrats and rich consultants,
54:59
people who make money off the business
55:02
of politics, um who, you know, are
55:05
within the Democratic party, um treat
55:08
the job that they uh have now not as
55:12
stopping ICE from uh killing people and
55:16
kidnapping people, but to discipline the
55:18
people who have taken to the streets to
55:22
defend themselves and their neighbors uh
55:24
to discipline the left. Uh we saw this
55:26
throughout the war on terror where they
55:28
rejected uh anti-war and other
55:31
abolitionist approaches in order
55:35
uh bring the war on terror in line with
55:38
American values and exceptionalize the
55:41
quote unquote abuses as beyond the
55:44
standard practice of acceptable
55:46
behavior. All of this is nonsense. It's
55:48
cowardice. Um and I think that it
55:54
misreads the moment in a very
55:56
fundamental way. Um what we are seeing
56:00
uh with the explosive growth in support
56:04
of abolishing ICE is the result of what
56:07
ICE is doing on the streets that people
56:10
are coming into contact with. people who
56:12
never thought uh that they would ever
56:15
you know obviously people who have lived
56:18
you know under the repression of
56:20
America's racial hierarchy this is very
56:22
very familiar for them uh this is very
56:25
very familiar for people um who have
56:27
always been treated as conditional
56:28
Americans rather than full citizens to a
56:31
lot of those people who have been
56:32
treated as full citizens this is a
56:34
shocking moment that exposes reality
56:38
of what ICE is and where it will go
56:42
next. And they're having their leaders,
56:45
particularly in the Democratic party,
56:48
tell them that they're seeing no such
56:50
thing and they should just go back home
56:53
and vote for the Democrat, give money
56:56
for the Democrat who's going to like
56:58
retrain ICE or constrain them from doing
57:00
certain things, but can continue the
57:03
roundups, can continue the child
57:05
separations, can continue the
57:07
renditions. Um, this is a moment in
57:11
which I think the traditional politics
57:14
of safety and security are going to be
57:16
redefined and redefined in a way that
57:19
those who are seeking to practice them
57:21
um are going to find we're down to their
57:23
detriment uh politically because people
57:26
are seeing that they're the number one
57:28
threat to them to their safety, their
57:30
security, their freedom, uh their
57:33
prosperity, their uh their ability to
57:35
enjoy what they understood um as the
57:38
American dream. Not the immigrant, it's
57:42
ICE. It's the security agencies
57:44
predicated on repressing the quote
57:47
unquote criminal alien. And I think it's
57:50
a short step to understanding how
57:53
accepting those politics in any form is
57:57
going to reproduce ICE, is going to
57:59
reproduce what we're seeing in Minnesota
58:02
and beyond. And that's a politics that
58:04
frankly just simply has to be confronted
58:06
and defeated politically. Um the
58:08
Democratic Party, the more it sides with
58:11
ICE against the people, exposes itself,
58:14
frankly, as an enemy of those people. Is
58:17
that the position it wishes to be in?
58:19
That's the choice that the Ruben Gyos,
58:22
the Cy Bookers, the you know it, you
58:24
know, on down the line really ought to
58:27
have to confront.
58:30
>> Last one for me. What is the national
58:36
what is the media ecosystem getting
58:39
wrong about ICE coverage and what would
58:41
be a better way for them to to cover it
58:44
from here on out?
58:46
>> Well, I think the mainstream media um
58:49
and you know, I speak as someone who's
58:52
worked in mainstream newsrooms for most
58:54
of my career.
58:56
Um
58:59
it's in that spot. uh it has for frankly
59:04
justifiable reasons lost a whole lot of
59:07
the trust of the American people. I
59:10
don't just mean you know uh people on
59:12
the right. I mean people on the left. I
59:13
mean people who are um very skeptical of
59:18
what they see because of how often the
59:20
media has manufactured consent for
59:22
atrocities. Um, and we see them doing
59:24
that to this day to exceptionalize
59:27
what ICE has done to Renee Good to not
59:31
put it in a context that starts in the
59:33
war on terror that starts in the New
59:36
Bedford, Massachusetts workplace raids,
59:39
uh, that continues through child
59:41
separation and has taken um a different
59:45
uh uh and has now taken a kind of um
59:49
different course uh over the last year
59:52
and a have is to you know fundamentally
59:55
treat uh this circumstance
59:58
um
1:00:00
outside of reality outside of history
1:00:02
outside I think that's a very dangerous
1:00:05
thing um for people like myself who
1:00:08
claim to be uh in the business of
1:00:12
revealing reality for people who uh
1:00:15
don't have the luxury of digging into
1:00:17
this stuff um you know professionally um
1:00:21
I think we're also seeing new media
1:00:24
institutions
1:00:26
that don't feel beholden to false
1:00:29
concepts of objectivity
1:00:31
uh to uh positions like the so-called
1:00:35
view from nowhere that's been hegemonic
1:00:36
in journalism forever. Uh that doesn't
1:00:40
uh seek to look its uh look out the
1:00:44
window to tell you if it's raining, but
1:00:45
just to interview a bunch of people who
1:00:47
are inside as to whether or not it's
1:00:49
raining. Um, and instead we're seeing,
1:00:53
you know, Status Coup, LA Taco, Drop
1:00:57
Site News, Sateo, where I'm proud to be
1:01:00
a contributor. Um, on and on and on. Uh,
1:01:04
you know, platforms like your own. um
1:01:07
people who may not have, you know,
1:01:11
journalistic training and certainly not
1:01:13
the elite respectability of mainstream
1:01:15
journalism, but are nevertheless doing
1:01:18
the hard work of covering what these
1:01:20
operations are out on the streets
1:01:22
without euphemism. uh and without uh
1:01:26
sanitizing them uh for the benefit of an
1:01:32
existing power structure in which
1:01:34
journalism feels it is only talking um
1:01:38
from one elite position to another. And
1:01:41
I think that's, you know, I do I love it
1:01:45
that an alternative media structure has
1:01:49
been necessary to create uh rather than
1:01:52
using uh the very large legacy platforms
1:01:55
that currently exist. I don't but it's
1:01:57
necessary um until and unless those
1:02:01
institutions are finally ready. I don't
1:02:04
want to say all of them and paint with a
1:02:05
broad brush. There are many uh legacy
1:02:07
institutions that are doing uh great
1:02:09
work right now. Wired magazine for
1:02:11
instance um I think has done exceptional
1:02:13
work. Uh ProPublica
1:02:16
um on you know I we could we could be
1:02:18
here all day. I don't I just don't want
1:02:19
to paint with too broad a brush but
1:02:20
nevertheless I think you know we are
1:02:22
seeing a new in a new media ecosystem
1:02:26
uh take shape that's fighting both a
1:02:29
legacy media ecosystem and also uh the
1:02:33
oligarchic capture um that's
1:02:36
accelerating so rapidly um in recent
1:02:39
days CBS you know for instance uh a real
1:02:42
prime example um after Trump permitted
1:02:45
Skyance to purchase Paramount and Now
1:02:48
Skydance is is returning the favor to
1:02:50
Trump by transforming CBS News into
1:02:53
essentially a mouthpiece uh for the
1:02:55
administration.
1:02:57
I think this EOS this ecosystem is not
1:03:00
sustainable um to people who are
1:03:02
interested in ground truth to people who
1:03:04
are interested in justice and to people
1:03:07
who are interested um in approaching the
1:03:09
world skeptically and uh treating an
1:03:13
illegitimate power structure uh with the
1:03:15
skepticism that it deserves. So it's
1:03:18
natural uh that such an ecosystem uh
1:03:22
develop. I worry about ability to scale
1:03:25
but that at the same time is also a
1:03:28
function of the same um oligarchic
1:03:31
capture that we're seeing um you know
1:03:34
take hold that you know the social media
1:03:37
platforms you know owned by uh very very
1:03:40
few companies you know with you know
1:03:42
this week we're going to see skyance
1:03:44
basically take over Tik Tok. Um, we're
1:03:46
going to see a whole lot of how uh when
1:03:49
a new media ecosystem catering uh to uh
1:03:53
this unserved um community of readers
1:03:56
and viewers and listeners uh quickly
1:03:58
gets suppressed. What's going to come
1:04:00
after that? What what are we going to
1:04:02
transition to uh beyond uh beyond that
1:04:06
that can still scale, that can still
1:04:08
inform people, and that can still give
1:04:10
people the information necessary to
1:04:12
remain safe and free? I don't have any I
1:04:14
don't really have any answers to that.
1:04:16
>> I guess I suppose I don't either.
1:04:18
However, what I can recommend to the
1:04:20
viewers and the listeners, Reign of
1:04:21
Terror is the book by Spencer Arian as
1:04:24
well as Forever Wars is the newsletter.
1:04:26
Uh Spencer Acriman, you've been very
1:04:28
generous with your time. I greatly
1:04:30
greatly appreciate and admire your work.
1:04:32
Thank you so much.
1:04:33
>> Hey, thank you so much, Luke. I really
1:04:34
appreciate you having me on and you also
1:04:36
asked some really fantastic questions.
1:04:37
So, I'm really grateful for the
1:04:39
conversation today.
1:04:40
>> Thank you.