Hello everybody, this is Mehdi Hassan, Editor-in-Chief at Zeteo. Thank you for joining me live on YouTube and Substack. Apologies for the lateness in starting, the delay. It's 5.15 Eastern, where I am in Washington DC. We were supposed to start at 5. We were waiting for Pastor David Black from the First Presbyterian Church in Chicago, who was assaulted by ICE agents not long ago in this very viral video. We can play a clip. There you see David Black get hit in the head with a pepper ball, some kind of chemical irritant, fired completely unprovoked by an ICE agent on the rooftop of the Broadview ICE detention facility just outside of Chicago, Illinois.
And he falls to the ground. We were hoping to talk to him today. Bad news. I apologize. He's not answering his phone. He hasn't joined us. We don't know where he is. God help us if ICE have gone after him. Who knows where he is? I'm sure he's fine. I'm sure ICE have not gone after him.
But he hasn't been able to join us. So... I just thought, why don't we all have a chat? We're live. We're on YouTube. I'm sitting here in the studio. We're going to talk about ICE and Gaza. We're still going to talk about what we're going to talk about.
Just you'll have to make do with me, not Pastor David Black. We will try and get him back on the show to do an interview, to take your questions as originally planned, but he couldn't make it today. We don't know why. I'm here. I know you're in the chat.
I've got my producers here monitoring the chat on YouTube and Substack. Ask me your questions about ICE and Gaza. Let me kick off by saying what ICE did there to David Black is un-American, anti-constitutional, illegal, depraved, violent, repressive, fascistic. Yes, the F word. Just to open fire on peaceful protesters.
To open fire on peaceful protesters, one of whom is a priest. Remember, this is the party of Christianity. We are told the Republican Party is the party of Christianity, of faith. And here they are opening fire on their literal pastor, a priest from a nearby church who is trying to follow Christ's message by engaging
in peaceful protest and looking after migrants and refugees who are being demonized, bullied, detained, tortured, deported. by this administration. Just before we came on air, I was looking at Twitter, waiting to start this live. And I saw the DHS, the Department of Homeland Security, Twitter account,
which is basically seems to be run by a bunch of kind of far right 4chan types who the Trump administration have had. They're always putting out racist memes and far right imagery. They just tweeted one word, remigrate. Remigrate is language used by the far right, online far right. It's about forcibly expelling non-white immigrant populations from the West,
from Europe, from the United States of America. This is a word that Trump has used. This is now a word that the government's official websites, Twitter accounts are using. That's where we are in America in 2025 right now. In October of 2025, you have priests being shot in the head.
You have American citizen children with cancer being deported from their own country. You have the government's official social media accounts using the language of neo-Nazis and the far right to defend their immigration policies. And thankfully, the American public are not having it. The polls show that people do not support what is happening. And this weekend in D.C.,
in Chicago, in L.A., in New York, across the country, we will see another No Kings rally, a peaceful protest, mass protest against the fascistic policies of this administration. I hope you turn up to them because people power is really all we have left right
now in the absence of a few judges ruling against Trump and Trump ignoring them. So Saturday, October the 18th, big rally. The Republicans are afraid of that rally. They're calling it a hate rally, but it's happening because people are fed up with what they've seen in the last nine months. They're fed up.
of the policies at home and abroad. I know Donald Trump is basking in his Middle East peace deal, which isn't a peace deal. There is no peace in the Middle East. It's a ceasefire deal, which is already being violated today by Israel, which has killed multiple Palestinians and decided to reduce the amount of aid
going into Gaza on spurious grounds. It's not a peace deal. It's barely a functioning ceasefire. And one thing I do want to say when I have chats like this with all of you, and we have subscribers from all over the world, and we have subscribers from across the political spectrum, liberal, left, center,
This is all tied together, right? What you're seeing ICE do is very much similar and inspired by what Israelis have done in the occupied territories. In fact, one of the most awful stories we've heard of ICE abuses here, I don't know if you saw it, where a family lost track of their autistic child, autistic teenage child who
was on his own, I think, in a restroom and was just abducted by ICE. They took him and held him for a week. Family didn't know he was. An autistic child. And we all get worked up and say, how outrageous of ICE to do that. And yet just this week we saw in the Palestinian hostages, yes,
Palestinian hostages who were released as part of the ceasefire deal. We saw a teenage boy who was autistic, who was waiting for aid, was shot by the Israelis and then detained by the Israelis for months. His family didn't know where he was. Autistic. released without charge this week by the Israelis, finally, having been held.
So I just can't not see the similarities and overlaps between what is happening with the fascism here at home and the genocide abroad. But that's my take. Let's hear your take. We've got questions coming in from viewers. Thanks for sticking around, even though our guests didn't show up.
uh let's have a look at some of the questions we have dora lane says has anybody pressed charges against ice dora lane on substack you guys are watching on substack and youtube appreciate you on both platforms i hope you're a zeteo subscriber all of you zeteo.com uh do subscribe dora lane says has anybody pressed charges against
ice yet and do you think that would work well i'm not sure about the criminal situation here we did see that one agent who pushed a woman to the floor on camera. He was kind of not suspended, but taken off duty for like a day or two and then brought back.
So clearly there's no accountability internally with this right-wing government. David Buck, I had hoped to talk to him, the pastor from Chicago, is part of an ACLU lawsuit against the government. They are suing the government. I wanted to ask him whether he thinks that will work, whether that is sufficient pressure. But it's a great question, Dora.
I do think we need to use what legal avenues are still available to us to stand up against this fascistic administration, which is breaking domestic and international law very clearly. Irk the Jerk One, only on YouTube. What a great, of course, that's a YouTube watcher. Love it. Irk the Jerk One asked a similar question.
How can we hold these thugs accountable? They continually break laws and violate our rights. I think what Governor Pritzker said in Chicago, in Illinois is right. We need to get our camera phones out. I'm a journalist, but those of you who are not journalists, we need citizen journalists,
just as we saw in Hong Kong and during the Arab Spring and other repressive parts of the world. We need that here in the US now. We need people filming. these ICE agents. We need to, you know, the government says they're being doxxed and harassed. That's where they're wearing masks. No,
it's the right of a citizen to ask for transparency and accountability to know the name and see the face of the person arresting or threatening to arrest and detain them. So we need to film these people. We need to make them famous. We need to show who they are when they're carrying out abuses. And we need to,
yes, use whatever legal methods are available to us, but also political methods, right? We need Democrats to a have the skill and savvy and energy to win back the house and eventually the white house and we need them to have the balls once they get back into power hold
any kind of power to investigate this stuff and hold people to account people need to go to prison Both the grunts doing the dirty work, I'm only following orders, they need to go to prison if they're caught breaking the law, which they seem to be. And the people who ordered them to do this stuff,
the members of the Trump administration, the Stephen Millers and Christine Ohms need to be investigated and held to account. What Barack Obama did when he came into office in 2009 and said, you know what, we tortured some folks, but I'm going to look forward, not back.
And he didn't hold the Bush administration to account for Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay and black sites and rendition and torture and waterboarding. That cannot happen again. There has to be accountability next time. Let's keep going through the questions. Mariam Husseini says, can local authorities do anything when it comes to ICE if we report something suspicious? Yes.
Yes, they can. I think they can. I think the governor of Illinois and the governor of California have made clear that they will take whatever measures they can to try and protect their populations. Let's keep going. Oh, there's lots of Gaza questions. But before I get to Gaza, let's talk about... Mariam also has another question.
We've been told in suburban Chicago that if you know an illegal, ICE will pay you to tell them and who and where incentives. Oh, 100% there are financial incentives to all of this. You're seeing ICE agents being recruited with very limited training, being offered, I think, what is it? 50 grand.
I can't remember the money they're being offered. student debt relief. Remember the same Republican Party that went nuts when Joe Biden tried to do mild student debt relief for ordinary Americans. They're now offering student debt relief to new ICE agents. They're lowering the conditions for becoming an ICE agent.
And yes, there definitely has been reporting that these people are operating on bonuses. It's not just that they're racist thugs, that they're going and smashing windows and pulling people out of cars and grabbing innocent people. It's because they have been financially incentive, 100% no doubt in my mind about that. And again,
something that Democrats need to investigate and throw sunlight on if they ever get control of committees and gavels again. uh betsy braverman asks what are team zeteo's plans for no kings oh we've got plans we've got plans i think you'll like our plans but you'll have to wait till saturday
we're not revealing that early uh do tune in on saturday uh zeteo will be uh covering no kings in very interesting ways i think you'll find in multiple ways that's all i can say for now uh betsy unsubstack i hope you are a subscriber you will see that content before anyone else um Tamara Berardi says,
Fox News is spending all day selling pity for ICE agents being attacked and outed by peaceful protests trying to document their cruelty and lawlessness. It is hilarious how the party that hated masks during the pandemic now loves masks for government agents, which as a Reagan judge recently said in a 150 page ruling, scathing ruling out of Massachusetts,
Judge William Young in his 80s, appointed by Ronald Reagan, a conservative, he said that we've never had a tradition in this country. of agents of the government wearing masks. Masks are what the Ku Klux Klan wear when they're out and about on the streets. So the party that hated masks now loves masks. And of course,
the party that spent years whining, moaning about black helicopters in the sky, and jackbooted thugs breaking down doors, and the importance of having a right to bear arms to protect yourself from a tyrannical government, and the people who said, don't tread on me, the people who obsessed over freedom and personal liberty, and the evils of big government,
they're now the party that supports jackbooted federal agents in masks, in unmasked cars, brutalizing American citizens, veterans. George Rettis, who was recently interviewed by the folks over at Bulwark, he was the veteran in California who was dragged out of his car, I think it was, taken and held, even though he's an American citizen and a veteran,
but he was a brown Latino dude, so. This is the party that got on and on about freedom and liberty and is now emboldening this tyrannical, rogue, lawless, fascistic, violent government agency. The irony of ironies. I was just reading over at the Bulwark and good plug for our friends at the Bulwark.
I always like to support other sub stackers, other independent journalists in the Bulwark. I don't share all their politics, but they do some great coverage of the Trump administration. They had a great piece today about how, do you remember those of you old enough to remember Elian Gonzalez, remember that back 25 years ago?
This was the little Cuban kid who the Clinton administration said had to go back to his father, I think it was, in Cuba. And they went in, federal agents went in, there's a famous image of the kid cowering in a closet and a guy with a massive gun just aiming at him. It shocked conservatives.
Republicans thought it was the most evil thing in the world. Jack booted thugs going after a little foreign child. Today, if you showed that image, as the bulwark pointed out to Republicans without any context, you didn't say where it's from. They'd love that image. They'd think that was an ICE agent taking out and illegal.
So that's where we are now today. That's what's happened to that party. The great irony. We should keep calling out their hypocrisy. Beth Busto says many are so absolutely excellent. I love reading out comments like that. Of course I do. I'm in Shropshire. I enjoy it so much. We love our UK audience. We love our international audience.
Did you know that 40 percent of our subscribers live outside of the United States? The majority are Americans in the US, but we love our international audience, which is almost half of our subscriber base. We take great pride in not just doing American news, but international news. And on that note, let's take some questions on Gaza.
Drejtim111, I have no idea if I've pronounced your hand all right. And really, I don't care. It's not my fault. That's a hard one to say. Says, dear Mehdi, do you believe anything that Donald Trump says regarding the peace talks with the Palestinians? Not really. I mean,
my starting position is I don't believe anything that comes out of Donald Trump's mouth at any time of day, right? It's false until proven true. With Trump, that is a pretty safe rule. So when he says, I've solved the conflict of the Middle East, absurd. When he says, he said, did you see him say in Egypt,
As he was signing, he said, this is 3,000 years old and I've solved it. 3,000 years old. I mean, the man is an avatar of ignorance and idiocy. It's not 3,000 years old. It's not a peace agreement. It is a ceasefire, which is barely holding. It is not a peace agreement.
It doesn't deal with Palestinian aspirations for freedom or any kind of talk of statehood or a two-state solution or equal rights or a right of return or an end to the violence in general or end to settlements, which Trump claims he's opposed to.
um so no it's not a peace agreement i don't believe what he says he was asked uh what happens if israel violates the ceasefire he said we'll see well we've seen them violating it today and nothing's happening um i think for him it's just it's
the eighth war i solved he hasn't solved seven wars it's the eighth war i've solved i need a nobel prize and now i'm off to give charlie kirk a posthumous medal of freedom award and i think he's just part of the middle east now in his head he
thinks he's solved this conflict because he's so ignorant and so narcissistic He thinks that's all it requires, fly in, photo shoot, get people to sign on a document and move on. No, I don't believe anything he says. I don't believe we are any closer to any kind of peace agreement or justice in the Middle East.
Remember what Dr. King said? Peace is not the absence of tension, it's the presence of justice. Just having no fighting for a day doesn't mean it's peace in the Middle East, not until there is justice for the occupied Palestinian people. Somebody else asked, do you think the ceasefire will hold? It's already not holding.
Somebody else asks on YouTube, do you think, we don't have some names, if we can stick some names in here. I'd love to say your names when you're asking me questions. What do you think the ceasefire means for the genocide? Do you think it will take the attention away from Gaza? 100%.
I think the plan now is to say, this is solved. done tick ceasefire can we now move on and not talk about that pesky genocide i think the political media establishment in the us and the uk are desperate to move on from gaza they're annoyed that it's still an issue two years later they're
annoyed that it's custom votes in elections they're annoyed that people are still protesting and so they just want to move on and they want to ignore the fact that gaza will take decades to rebuild that there are thousands of orphans who need support that the aid going in is not enough that people are returning to their homes
But there are no homes. It's just rubble. I don't know if you've seen some of the images coming out in the last couple of days. Just apocalyptic, completely flattened moonscape. Yes, the goal is to move on. To go back to October 6th. Do you remember the pro-Israel side always says, well, there was a ceasefire in October 7th?
There wasn't. But their definition of a ceasefire is like the status quo is like, we get to carry on, have a good life, mind our own business, fill out the beaches in Israel, and the Palestinians just have to sit quietly and live under occupation and siege and not say a word.
That is what they think is the ceasefire is the status quo. That is obviously untenable as many people, many experts have pointed out, even some Israeli generals. That if you keep the Palestinian under your boot, if you keep the Palestinians repressed and without freedom and with no prospect of freedom in sight, you will get more October 7th.
You will get more violence. No people, not Jews, not Muslims, not Christians, not Arabs, not Westerners, not white people, not Americans. No people. willing to live permanently under occupation. They're just not. All right, let's keep going through some of these questions. Great questions on Substack and YouTube. Michel says on Substack he wants to pardon Netanyahu.
Of course he does. He said it in his speech because him and Netanyahu have similar crimes, similar charges against them. So of course, they're going to look out for each other. That's why he's looking out for Malay. That's why he's looking out for Bolsonaro. So he's so pissed at Brazil because Brazil actually prosecuted their president who
tried to overturn an election. Bobby Bacala on Substack says, what kind of ceasefire lets one side keep their weapons? I don't know if you're referring to the Israelis, but yes, Israel will keep their weapons. Hamas need to be demilitarized according to the agreement. Let's see if that happens. Somebody said that for...
The Middle East, a ceasefire is when the Palestinians cease and the Israelis fire. And that is what often happens. Zachary, why am I forgetting his name? There's a very good Twitter historian who I follow from Princeton who has a piece where he lays out all the ceasefires over the last 15,
20 years that Hamas has signed up to and then Israel is promptly violated. And that is what's going to happen here, because Israel will carry on reserving to itself the right to bomb and shoot and kill whatever it wants. Six Palestinians, I believe, killed today. Can you imagine if Hamas had killed six Israelis today?
It would be the only story in the world. But six Palestinians killed, nah, it's fine. Seasfar's still holding. Nancy Jernigan says, since when does the US negotiate with terrorists on Substack? I don't know who you're referring to as the terrorists. If you mean Israel, then sure. If you mean Hamas, whatever. I mean, they're a prescribed group.
What's interesting about the Hamas thing is, oh, you can't negotiate Hamas. They're a terrorist organization. Donald Trump just went and took a photo. and praised publicly the president of Syria, who, until the other day, was the leader of a prescribed terrorist organization, HTS, which was at one time the Al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria.
And I'm in favor of talking to people. Don't get me wrong, people get mad at me in Syria and say, what do you mean? Why do you keep mentioning Ahmad al-Shahra? I'm all for negotiations. I'm all for giving people a chance to show that they've abandoned killing civilians and they want to govern responsibly. That's the whole point.
You negotiate with your enemies, not with your friends. You have to talk to quote unquote terrorists to end wars. Look at the ANC in South Africa. Look at the IRA in Northern Ireland. But the irony of saying that we're willing to talk to Al-Qaeda in Syria, we're willing to talk to ISIS, by the way.
Israel works with ISIS-linked gangs in Gaza. But Hamas, they're beyond the pale. Everyone can see the inconsistency there and see how self-serving that argument is. Helen Hills on Substack says, four million Italians on strike and the Dockers holding a magnificent stance. 600,000 people marching in London. Is this a new form of opposition?
Look, I said this at the start in relation to no kings. People power is all we have left. In a world where tech billionaires, the broligarchs are controlling what we see in here online, in which the David Ellisons and Barry Weisses and Rupert Murdochs are controlling what we see on TV,
When you have politicians basically across the board agreeing on things like genocide and even on fascism, you have one opposition body that's very weak in its opposition. When you have the Supreme Court basically giving Trump what he wants with emergency docket orders. Yeah, people power is what we have left, taking to the streets peacefully, non-violently,
with clear goals and clear demands. That is what we have left. That is what we will always defend. That is the very essence of democracy. And it fills me with great. I'm inspired when I see people in Italy and Spain and Ireland and London, yes,
in parts of the world where you might not expect to see such support for Palestine, the Netherlands. people coming out in their thousands to say, no more genocide, no more arms to Israel. And people keep saying, well, it's done now. I don't know if you notice, pro-Israel people keep saying, Why are they still protesting?
The war is over. It's not over. The genocide's done. We'll see. But the bigger issue is we're still protesting because apartheid still continues to exist. The occupation still continues to exist. Israel continues to reserve the right to defend itself, which means bombing tents and schools and hospitals and graveyards and agricultural
fields and churches and mosques and refugee camps. Until that continues, yeah, people will continue to protest. And people like me will continue to devote a lot of my journalism towards this oppression and occupation um natalie p asks on subset do you think we can use
people power to remove trump and how no donald trump is the president united states he won the 2024 election he has his second term i mean it kills me to say he has over three years left we are not even one year into his presidency trump years feel like dog years um
But the bigger issue is we need to be able to stop him from running again or even canceling the 2028 elections. I am one of those people who takes it very seriously when Steve Bannon says they're working on ways to make sure Donald Trump's name is on the ballot in 2028.
They are working to overturn the 22nd and 12th amendments to make sure Trump somehow by hook or crook gets to serve as president beyond 2028. That we should be making a lot of noise about even now. We should not let them normalize that idea. We should not let them mainstream that idea between now and 2028.
We should be adamantly and publicly opposed to that. And I think public protests can work in certain situations. I'm still reminded of a few months ago where in Tom Homan's own backyard, in his own town in upstate New York, I think, ICE detained a mother and her two little kids. Put them in cuffs, these kids.
And the community loves this family and went out and protested. I believe it was like a thousand people protested on the streets outside of Tom Homan's house and they released the family. So even this administration, with all its shamelessness and trollishness and fascistic tendencies, anti-democratic impulses, even this administration is still susceptible to public peaceful pressure.
All right, we are going to wrap up soon. Again, apologies that we didn't have our guest for you, but I hope we are trying to take as many of your questions while you're here. Thank you for joining us on Substack and YouTube. Thanks for being a Zeteo subscriber, which I assume you all are.
Gregory says on YouTube, Richardson, 1877, watching from Trump's hometown in Florida. Lucky you. Mehdi, will Gaza be able to build infrastructure, water, power, sewage, and trade? Great question. The UN has said it will take decades just to clear the rubble, 55 million metric tons of rubble, according to the UN in Gaza.
The idea that Trump signs a deal and we all just move on, what about fixing what the Israelis and the Americans did? this joint US-Israel genocide. What about trying to fix, forget justice for the Palestinians who lost family members, forget indicting the war criminals or actually getting them to The Hague to face
justice at the International Criminal Court. What about just rebuilding Gaza? Who's gonna pay for that? Who's going to oversee that? Tony Blair? God help us all. That's in Trump's plan. Yeah, clearing that mess. Israel claiming they're going to stay in, you know, for now, 58% of Gaza is still occupied by Israel.
Even if they meet all the different criteria of this plan, they'll still have 18% of Gaza, the buffer zone. So who is going to rebuild Gaza? By the way, The area of land that in Gaza, that Israel will continue to occupy indefinitely, is the prime agricultural land, is Gaza's food basket, is where the crops come from.
Who's going to make sure the Israelis hand that over? Donald Trump? Tony Blair? Good luck with that. So I do think we need to keep our eye on Gaza in terms of rebuilding Gaza, in terms of making sure people have homes to go to and they're not ethically cleansed.
And that Israeli settlers don't immediately come into Gaza because they're waiting. They've been waiting. A bunch of messianic, far-right Israeli settlers are waiting to come into the buffer zone and start rebuilding illegal Israeli settlements in Gaza. We've got to keep our eye on all of that. Thank you, Gregory, for that question. ReidCahill375 on YouTube says,
Mayor, they appreciated you visiting us at Georgetown. We did the airing of our Gaza Doctors Under Attack documentary at Georgetown recently. Thank you, Reid. Reid says, keeping with the theme of Israel's attack on Gaza's medical infrastructure, what is your take on Israel's refusal to release some doctors? Outrageous, right?
Dr. Hossam Abu Safia, who is director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital. We saw him in that iconic image walking out of the hospital. right? We should see it in the movie. Please watch Gaza Doctors Under Attack. If you're a Zeteo subscriber, free to watch right now on our website. That image of him coming out,
it's almost a Tiananmen Square-esque image, walking through the rubble uphill towards an Israeli tank. Last time we see him in detention, people say he's been horrifically abused and tortured in detention. The Israelis claim he's a Hamas commander, no evidence offered, no conviction in court. Yet another Palestinian hostage held by Israel without any evidence, without any convictions.
It's horrific. He should be freed. And we all in the West, medical doctors, journalists, civil society should be calling for his release and other doctors release. If you watch our film, you'll see what doctors and nurses and paramedics who came out of Israeli detention said about their experience in Israeli detention. Horrific torture.
Christian Amanpour had to apologize yesterday for saying on CNN that Hamas treated hostages better than Israel treated Palestinian detainees. I'm not sure what she said wrong. I'm not saying Hamas treated hostage as well. They didn't. In many cases, they treated them very badly. But do people in the West actually realize what is happening in Israel's prison
gulag in places like Stidi Taiman, where people are tortured and raped? People have been raped to death in Israeli captivity. This is funded by the American taxpayer. It's been well documented by Israeli human rights groups like Beit Salem and Physicians for Human Rights Israel and by UN investigators. Do people know that's what's happening with our tax dollars?
How are we okay with this? How are we going around saying Israel is a country that shares our values? Those are our values. Torturing and abusing medics in custody who are held without charge, raped, male and female. Insane. Insane. All right. Let's take some more questions. Imogen on YouTube says,
have you heard that Hamas is battling with local ISIS gang supported by Israel? Look, I don't know what's happening on the ground. It is very unclear. We've seen images of Hamas attacking people, executing people. Some people are saying these are gang members. Some people are saying they're people working for Israel.
Some people are saying they're innocent Palestinians who Hamas are shutting down. I think this is the next chapter in Gaza stories. What will happen between the different factions? Israel clearly wants to stoke a civil war. Whether Hamas and the other factions will give them that and walk into that trap, we will see.
Hamas has its own history of human rights violations while running Gaza. No one's ever denied that. But Israel clearly wants to stoke a conflict. They've supported gangs like Abu Shabab, which are linked to ISIS. I mentioned it earlier. Isn't it insane that Israel is openly, openly, by the way, Benjamin Netanyahu said, yes, we're doing this.
We are doing this. They're not denying it. Israel is openly supporting militias and gangs in Gaza who are linked to ISIS. How is that not a bigger story? We've covered it. Who else has covered it in mainstream media? How is it not a bigger story that our ally Israel, funded by the American taxpayer,
is working alongside ISIS-linked militias? Amazing. The silence, the deafening silence from Western media. Even Israeli media has covered it more than the American media. They definitely want to stoke a civil war and have people fight each other. It's the classic divide and rule imperial strategy that my country, the UK, my first country, the UK, mastered.
Casual crossover, 6987s is what is the best way to get involved outside of protesting. There are many things you can do. I feel very strongly about this. I think everyone has some kind of platform on which to speak, whether it's in your family, in your community, at your workplace, at your school, at your university.
Speak up for democracy. Speak up for human rights. Speak up for American values as they were meant to be. Speak up for the Constitution. Speak up for free speech. But also not just protesting at the No Kings rally or other protests that are organized locally. I do think we need to bolster civil society.
Join your local church or mosque or synagogue. Join your local food banks and civil society groups. Join the ACLU. Join groups that are working hard, local immigrant rights groups. Join these groups. Turn up to meetings. Get off the Internet. I mean, the Internet is a great organizing tool, but there's nothing like meeting up in real life,
getting together. It's actually quite moralizing. Is that a word? It is a word. I'm not sure if I'm using it right. Demoralizing is when you're sitting on your own at home thinking I'm all alone and we are the few. Getting together to be invigorated as a group of people in the real world can
actually be quite inspiring and remind us that hope is not lost, that hope is action. So yes, you can take action. There are many things you should be doing right now in terms of getting out there, getting together with other people in physical spaces off of the internet and into the real world. Remember,
There are more of us than there are of them. Should we wrap there? Oh, no, we've got to wrap with, I'm going to wrap with this one. Adi from Substack says, shouldn't we point out that Antifa just means standing up to fascists? Antifa, anti-fascism. Now, are there people in, I don't know,
stereotypical black hoods and masks and supposedly breaking up store windows who say Antifa? Sure. But when you talk about Antifa as some kind of singular group or network, you have the DOJ saying, we've got the wife of the founder of Antifa. I was talking to my colleagues today at Zeteo in a meeting. I said,
The founder of Antifa. Who is that? Where is Antifa as a group? It doesn't exist. They're trying to make it into this boogeyman, this domestic ISIS type group. It's not like the right wing groups, which do exist. There are groups called the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers. There are multiple militias.
But Antifa as an organized singular group with a leadership hierarchy, people are walking around with Antifa badges. You don't go online and say, yeah, I'll do a kind of a monthly subscription to Antifa. It doesn't exist in any substantive shape or form. It is clearly just a boogeyman being used by this administration,
by Stephen Miller to justify their use of repressive anti-terror legislation against the left. their possible invocation of the Insurrection Act, which they're definitely mulling, as my colleague Swin Subsang reported for Zateo recently. I hope you're following Swin. He's just joined us with Andrew Perez from Rolling Stone doing some amazing scoops for Zateo on the political front.
Read his reporting on Stephen Miller at Zateo.com. Yes, it is ridiculous that Antifa has become this boogeyman. And, you know, if they're going to tell us that we're going to find the founder of Antifa, isn't the founder of Antifa Winston Churchill? Wasn't that the founder? FDR, aren't they the founders of Antifa?
Didn't they lead a war against fascism and fight them on the beaches? And Normandy? Wasn't that anti-fascism? In fact, Jack Posebiak, who's a far-right influencer, big Trump supporter, he actually said recently, he kind of gave the game away, maybe unwittingly, because they're not the smartest fascists, are they? And by the way,
the dumbness of our fascist enemies is the only thing saving us from full-on fascism right now. Thank God they're not smarter. But Jack Persebiak said recently, well, Antifa goes back to 1930s Weimar Germany. Oh, does it? Oh, does it? What an interesting analogy. Does it go back to 1930s Germany as the Nazis were taking over?
What an interesting analogy. Thanks, Jack. Yes, we should point out that those of us oppose Antifa, those of us oppose fascism, you can call us whatever you want to call us. We're proud to oppose fascism because fascism is fundamentally un-American, anti-American, anti-democratic. And all of us, even us journalists, even the neutral journalists,
need to take a stand in favor of democracy and against fascism. That is a non-negotiable. Otherwise, this country cannot survive. On that note, I will leave you all. Thank you for joining me. Apologies again that Reverend David Black couldn't join us. We will try and reschedule that call.
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