Episode 166

Jovanni reverse interview w/ Lia Tarachansky - Ep 166

Published on: 22nd January, 2025

Jovanni is in the spotlight by returning guest Lia Tarachansky for an interview recorded on November 6, 2024, just after the U.S. elections.  They explore Jovanni's political consciousness, connection to West Asia, and his military background. Topics range from American imperialism, partisan politics, and Trump’s presidency, to personal insights on organizing and activism.  Additionally, they discuss the role of being a parent and sharing their anti-imperialist beliefs with their children.

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Transcript
Don:

this is Fortress On A Hill, with Henri, Danny, Kaygan, Jo

Don:

vonni, Shiloh, Monisha , and Mike

Henri:

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

Henri:

S.

Henri:

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

Henri:

I'm Henri.

Henri:

Thank you for joining us today.

Henri:

, this is a non Henri episode I'm introducing here., in today's episode,

Henri:

revisiting a conversation between Jovanni and returning guest, Lia

Henri:

Tarachansky recorded on November 6, 2024, just a day after the U.

Henri:

S.

Henri:

elections.

Henri:

This time, Lia is taking the lead as the interviewer, and Jovanni has

Henri:

graciously offered to be the interviewee.

Henri:

Since this recording happened, the geopolitical landscape of our world

Henri:

has undergone significant changes.

Henri:

We witnessed Israel's failed attempt to invade southern Lebanon for the

Henri:

sixth time in its history, after 57 hard fought days of successful

Henri:

repelling from Hezbollah, followed by the collapse of the Syrian state after

Henri:

a decade of an international dirty war waged against it, which profoundly

Henri:

impacting the dynamics in West Asia and among coalition resistance members.

Henri:

A ceasefire has been implemented in Gaza, bringing a temporary

Henri:

respite to that conflict.

Henri:

We've also seen the inauguration of President Trump, and in a surprising move,

Henri:

The outgoing Biden administration's ban on the popular social media platform TikTok.

Henri:

To return to Gaza for just a moment, on January 19, 2025, a long awaited

Henri:

ceasefire in Gaza finally took effect, albeit after some initial delays

Henri:

and further Israeli aggression.

Henri:

This agreement aims to halt hostilities and facilitate the

Henri:

release of Israeli captives held by militants in Gaza, as well as

Henri:

Palestinians held captive by Israel.

Henri:

And finally, but certainly not minimally, on January 20th, which is the 22nd as I

Henri:

speak right now, on the 20th of January of this year, 2025, Donald Trump was

Henri:

sworn in as the 47th president of the US.

Henri:

This marked a return to power for Trump, who has promised swift action

Henri:

on various policy fronts, and that is what the news is filled with right now.

Henri:

So I'm sure we'll have more coming out on the podcast on this front

Henri:

in particular in the near future.

Henri:

for a little background on today's episode in this intimate conversation,

Henri:

Lia delves deep into Jovanni's personal political landscape, exploring the

Henri:

roots of his political consciousness, his profound connection to West Asia,

Henri:

his military background, and the intergenerational dialogue of anti

Henri:

imperialism he shares with his son.

Henri:

Through a nuanced and personal lens, Jovanni offers insights into how his

Henri:

experiences have shaped his understanding of global political dynamics.

Henri:

Without further ado, let's dive into this interview between Lia and Jovanni.

Henri:

Enjoy.

Henri:

Thanks, folks.

Jovanni:

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

Jovanni:

S.

Jovanni:

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

Jovanni:

I'm Jovanni, your host.

Jovanni:

Thank you for being with us today.

Jovanni:

Today, we're going to do something different.

Jovanni:

I'm excited to have a special guest with me.

Jovanni:

Returning guest, Lia is an acclaimed journalist and filmmaker known for

Jovanni:

her compelling narratives on complex issues, particularly surrounding

Jovanni:

the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Jovanni:

In this episode, Lia will guide our conversation diving into my

Jovanni:

thoughts and experiences while exploring her unique insights.

Jovanni:

As a returning guest, she'll bring a wealth of knowledge and perspective

Jovanni:

that I'm eager to share with you all.

Jovanni:

So without further ado, let's welcome Lia and see what this

Jovanni:

conversation will take us to.

Jovanni:

Lia, how are you today?

Lia Tarachansky:

I'm great, how are you?

Jovanni:

How about those elections?

Jovanni:

How did Canada receive them?

Lia Tarachansky:

For our listeners, today is the day after the American elections.

Lia Tarachansky:

I'm based in Toronto in Canada where the average Canadian is glued

Lia Tarachansky:

to the television watching what happens in your country because

Lia Tarachansky:

of course it impacts us very much.

Lia Tarachansky:

And I guess I just wanted to start with today and then

Lia Tarachansky:

we're going to go a little bit.

Lia Tarachansky:

Back in time.

Lia Tarachansky:

Tell me, I know that partisan politics is not exactly your focus when you say

Lia Tarachansky:

that you are a political person, but as an American, how does it feel to now

Lia Tarachansky:

live in the second Trump presidency?

Jovanni:

There's a lot of mixed feelings with it.

Jovanni:

I don't support neither of the parties, but we have a two party

Jovanni:

system that pretty much they're controlled by the same donors.

Jovanni:

Not too long ago the CEO of BlackRock, which is a financial firm here,

Jovanni:

a global financial firm openly stated that it doesn't matter who

Jovanni:

wins, nothing will change for them.

Jovanni:

And they're supporting both sides, both parties.

Jovanni:

So at the structural level things seems to be running the same at the

Jovanni:

domestic level there may be a lot of changes, most of the people that I

Jovanni:

talk to that I organize around fear a second Trump presidency with the issues

Jovanni:

Of migrant rights LGBTQ rights other marginalized people in the United States.

Jovanni:

However looking at how the Dems behaved the last four years when the

Jovanni:

students universities protested the genocide in Palestine, the Dems,

Jovanni:

behaved the same way that they're saying that Trump will behave.

Jovanni:

The police were sicced on them.

Jovanni:

There were pepper spray.

Jovanni:

There were beating.

Jovanni:

There were push out at the universities.

Jovanni:

People were blacklisted.

Jovanni:

The universities there were I personally know of people whose children went to

Jovanni:

university at UT and they graduated and because they protested, they held their

Jovanni:

degrees, and they were holding on to them because they were arrested in the

Jovanni:

protests and whatnot, so when it comes to realism, how real things happen in

Jovanni:

the world, in the United States, when We become a threat to establishments, we

Jovanni:

become a threat to profits and whatnot.

Jovanni:

Both parties will behave the same way, in my view.

Jovanni:

And because

Lia Tarachansky:

of that, you don't think that Trump winning

Lia Tarachansky:

is this huge catastrophic drop in democracy that people call it?

Jovanni:

No, because one of the things that people say about

Jovanni:

Trump is that, what you get.

Jovanni:

One of the first, when I was in high school, I was really radicalized by first

Jovanni:

reading about Malcolm X, malcolm X pretty much radicalized me in American politics.

Jovanni:

I came from Puerto Rico in the late eighties, early nineties,

Jovanni:

and then one of the things that was introduced to was Malcolm X.

Jovanni:

And one of the things he talked about the American elections, and this is very good.

Jovanni:

There's a very good speech that he made called the Battle of the Bullet, which I

Jovanni:

tend to listen to every election cycle.

Jovanni:

One of the things he talks about is, when he describes the Democrats

Jovanni:

and the Republicans, he states that the Republicans and the Democrats

Jovanni:

are like the wolves and the fox.

Jovanni:

The wolf are the Republicans, the fox are the Democrats, right?

Jovanni:

The wolf, when he shows you his teeth, he tells you what he's going

Jovanni:

to do, he tells you his intention.

Jovanni:

When he shows you his teeth, he's going to eat you.

Jovanni:

However, the fox wind and dine you first before he shows you his teeth,

Jovanni:

so that's really my approach on the partisan politics my thing is mostly

Jovanni:

on the ground is talking to people on the ground, organizing on the ground,

Jovanni:

education on the ground and yeah.

Lia Tarachansky:

So let's bring down those big ideological statements to

Lia Tarachansky:

the nitty gritty of everyday life.

Lia Tarachansky:

When you say, I'm organizing.

Lia Tarachansky:

Let's pretend that you're speaking to a person who doesn't know you

Lia Tarachansky:

and is not from the activist world.

Lia Tarachansky:

Can you tell us what exactly do you mean when you say I'm organizing?

Jovanni:

Mostly organizing getting people out some of the things that I've been

Jovanni:

involved here is it helped out in the housing issues with people here with

Jovanni:

affordable housing people, and pretty much getting people to come out, getting people

Jovanni:

to pressure their city council there's this housing unit nearby, in the city

Jovanni:

that they're trying to get people out.

Jovanni:

To get torn down because they want to build a baseball stadium, and it's one

Jovanni:

of the few affordable housing, mixed income housing areas in the city.

Jovanni:

So mainly we go around, talking to people, getting people to come out.

Jovanni:

Most people feel comfortable.

Jovanni:

They have no voice.

Jovanni:

They feel impotent.

Jovanni:

They feel that they can't do much about it.

Jovanni:

But, you start talking to people, you start networking with other people,

Jovanni:

you start educating people, flying, sending flowers and everything.

Jovanni:

Get more people out.

Jovanni:

Get people to call their city council.

Jovanni:

Get people to show up at the city council meetings and whatnot.

Jovanni:

We'll put pressure on it.

Jovanni:

Get the press out, the newspaper out, the local papers out.

Jovanni:

I started interviewing people and it brings out a lot of things out

Jovanni:

to light that the local politicians put pressure on local politicians

Jovanni:

that they can't really operate.

Jovanni:

They can't really operate.

Lia Tarachansky:

So

Jovanni:

when you say

Lia Tarachansky:

you're organizing and presumably this is something

Lia Tarachansky:

you think other people should be doing with their free time.

Lia Tarachansky:

What you're saying is that you're involved in municipal politics,

Lia Tarachansky:

local politics, you're getting involved in the local media.

Lia Tarachansky:

Is that what you mean by organizing?

Jovanni:

Yes.

Lia Tarachansky:

Okay, so when we look at the two party system

Lia Tarachansky:

of America, obviously I'm not an American, but I had the opportunity

Lia Tarachansky:

to live in America in Washington, D.

Lia Tarachansky:

C.

Lia Tarachansky:

for almost a year and in Brooklyn for a long time, and in that time,

Lia Tarachansky:

I got to see America under George W.

Lia Tarachansky:

Bush and America under And that's the story of America.

Lia Tarachansky:

During the first Obama election.

Lia Tarachansky:

And what I noticed is that a Democratic president tends

Lia Tarachansky:

to pacify the American left.

Lia Tarachansky:

What do you think if this second Trump administration could light the

Lia Tarachansky:

fire under the feet of the kind of establishment American left, what

Lia Tarachansky:

do you think they should be doing?

Lia Tarachansky:

And what are the actions?

Lia Tarachansky:

In what way should they organize in order to fundamentally create the structural

Lia Tarachansky:

changes that you wish would happen?

Jovanni:

Yeah so I recall, I remember those days that you were talking about.

Jovanni:

I remember that during the Bush years, there were a lot of protests out.

Jovanni:

There were I think it was the largest protest.

Jovanni:

Of a war that hadn't really started yet, which was the Iraq war.

Jovanni:

There were like millions of people in the streets.

Jovanni:

They were, when they run up to the war back in 2002 and 2003.

Jovanni:

And they were constantly protesting bullshitting everything.

Jovanni:

But as soon as Obama came to power, everybody just went home.

Jovanni:

Everybody just went home and it was hard to get people out to protest the Iraq war,

Jovanni:

even though the Iraq war was still going.

Jovanni:

They were expanding.

Jovanni:

It was hard for people to get out because they didn't want

Jovanni:

to undermine Obama, right?

Jovanni:

And exactly that's the same thing.

Jovanni:

I saw the same thing now with this recent election now.

Jovanni:

Many of the people that were out there protesting, against the genocide in

Jovanni:

Palestine, as soon as we got close to the elections they went home and

Jovanni:

then they became to door knock for Kamala Harris, to go knocking, to

Jovanni:

try to get her elected and whatnot.

Jovanni:

So yeah that I don't know, it's very weird to me.

Jovanni:

It's very schizophrenic to me.

Jovanni:

But yeah, you're absolutely right.

Jovanni:

Usually when there's a Republican in power people tend to come

Jovanni:

out more, be more vocal.

Jovanni:

I remember when the last Trump presidency was here, when he issued

Jovanni:

the Muslim ban, I remember people would go into the airport, for example.

Jovanni:

They invaded the airport and they occupied the airport for a long time

Jovanni:

here in the city and everything.

Jovanni:

There were a lot of movements, a lot of actions, people in the streets.

Jovanni:

But yeah, you're absolutely right.

Jovanni:

And do

Lia Tarachansky:

you feel that those direct actions precipitated fundamental

Lia Tarachansky:

structural change in the country?

Jovanni:

I don't know, a side of me tells me that the ruling people

Jovanni:

or people of the ruling class don't really care, they ignore us, they

Jovanni:

continue doing what they're doing.

Jovanni:

Because you saw what happened here, because all this pressure,

Jovanni:

because coming up to this election, Despite, hearing that the policies

Jovanni:

in Palestine and Israel was going to harm the election, they didn't care.

Jovanni:

They continued going with it.

Jovanni:

They were told that this policy of, just giving open reins to

Jovanni:

Israel to do whatever it wants.

Jovanni:

Was going to harm their elections.

Jovanni:

They just didn't do a U turn.

Jovanni:

They continue going with it.

Jovanni:

They hope for the best, tells me that they just ignore.

Jovanni:

People, but even if

Lia Tarachansky:

people get organized, it doesn't necessarily

Lia Tarachansky:

mean that they cause change.

Lia Tarachansky:

What kind of change do you think needs to happen for there to be

Lia Tarachansky:

a fundamental restructuring of access to social justice and social

Lia Tarachansky:

securities in the United States?

Jovanni:

One of the big changes that has to be pushed is the fact

Jovanni:

that so much money influenced our elected leaders, right?

Jovanni:

And they're beholden more a donor class than their own constituent.

Jovanni:

They're willing to sacrifice their constituent in order to

Jovanni:

not to alienate their donors.

Jovanni:

That's one of the big things that needs to happen that to be a cap

Jovanni:

on how much money people could get.

Jovanni:

And there's always a way to get around it.

Jovanni:

But that's one of the big things that needs to change, Because like maybe

Jovanni:

Ronnie said, business are people too, or capital is for people as well.

Jovanni:

So their speech tends to be louder than the speech of the constituents.

Jovanni:

That's one of the big things that needs to change in order

Jovanni:

for anything else to change too.

Jovanni:

The imperial politics, most American activists that I speak to don't really

Jovanni:

think outside of the borders, right?

Jovanni:

We're talking about how people reacted to Trumps in Canada and whatnot.

Jovanni:

What happens in the United States affects the whole world.

Jovanni:

The elections in the United States do affect other people.

Jovanni:

A lot of activists that I speak to tend to not see beyond the

Jovanni:

borders of the United States.

Jovanni:

We have to have a more internationalist perspective.

Jovanni:

Juan Perón in Argentina said that the real politics are international politics.

Jovanni:

Everything else is administration.

Jovanni:

So in order to reel in, we have to reel in the imperial

Jovanni:

structure of this country, right?

Jovanni:

We have to, not spend so much money on wars.

Jovanni:

And on fun in this war,

Lia Tarachansky:

so reducing the defense budget, restructuring

Lia Tarachansky:

the way elections happen.

Lia Tarachansky:

Anything else that you think people could actually getting people involved

Lia Tarachansky:

in direct democracy like in Switzerland.

Lia Tarachansky:

You've been interviewing me about my films from Israel and

Lia Tarachansky:

Palestine for about a decade.

Lia Tarachansky:

You and I actually met when I was touring on the side of the road in Texas.

Lia Tarachansky:

And you talked about Israel and Palestine quite a lot today, and I

Lia Tarachansky:

was just wondering, considering what's going on in Bangladesh, considering

Lia Tarachansky:

what's going on in Saudi and in Sudan and Ukraine, why do you think Israel

Lia Tarachansky:

and Palestine is so central to you?

Lia Tarachansky:

And why do you think Americans have to center it?

Lia Tarachansky:

Why do you think Americans have to care about this particular place

Lia Tarachansky:

and this particular conflict?

Jovanni:

Because it's, one thing, it's in your face.

Jovanni:

It's been going on for a long time.

Jovanni:

For 75 years now the displacement of these people and today, it's so gross.

Jovanni:

It's in your face.

Jovanni:

It's right, right in front of you.

Jovanni:

And it seems that no matter, like you mentioned Bangladesh, the

Jovanni:

coup in Bangladesh recently.

Jovanni:

But this particular conflict is so gross.

Jovanni:

It's so obscene.

Jovanni:

It's so in your face.

Jovanni:

And the leadership that we have, just straight up lie in front of

Jovanni:

you, in the press conference and openly, they just don't care very

Jovanni:

disgracefully, very shamefully.

Jovanni:

That brings out, that internationalizes.

Jovanni:

This conflict, it's just not in one, it's not You could

Lia Tarachansky:

argue, but you could argue in the Congo, six million

Lia Tarachansky:

people have died in absolutely gross and very brutal ways.

Lia Tarachansky:

Six million people, right?

Lia Tarachansky:

All the people who died in Palestine put together on all the sides

Lia Tarachansky:

don't amount to 100, 000 people.

Lia Tarachansky:

So six million died in Congo and yet, why do you think Americans should

Lia Tarachansky:

care about Israel and Palestine as much as you care about it?

Jovanni:

Going back to how it's in front of you right now.

Jovanni:

You can open any social media.

Jovanni:

You see what's happening in Palestine.

Jovanni:

Most Americans don't see what's happening in the Congo.

Jovanni:

Don't see what's happening in Bangladesh.

Jovanni:

It's not that it's less just not as in your face as the

Jovanni:

situation in Palestine it is.

Jovanni:

So it's

Lia Tarachansky:

the hypocrisy that gets to you.

Jovanni:

Yeah.

Jovanni:

The hypocrisy behind it.

Lia Tarachansky:

I see, and speaking of hypocrisy, you are born in Puerto Rico.

Lia Tarachansky:

I think you're born in Brooklyn, I'm sorry, but you

Lia Tarachansky:

grew up in Puerto Rico, right?

Lia Tarachansky:

I am not an American.

Lia Tarachansky:

I don't know that much about American history, but when I first learned about

Lia Tarachansky:

Puerto Rico, it was one of the most shocking lessons of American history.

Lia Tarachansky:

What did you learn?

Lia Tarachansky:

What do you think Americans should know, the average continental American

Lia Tarachansky:

should know about Puerto Rico?

Lia Tarachansky:

Puerto Rico

Jovanni:

is a colony.

Jovanni:

It's a colony.

Jovanni:

They had a name change in 1952 to a commonwealth, but it's still a colony.

Jovanni:

People say commonwealth of Puerto Rico, but Australia is a commonwealth of the UK.

Jovanni:

And Virginia is also a commonwealth of Virginia.

Jovanni:

And Puerto Rico does not look like Virginia, it does not look like Australia.

Jovanni:

So you just dress it up with the name commonwealth, but what it is a colony.

Jovanni:

It's there to extract, it's there to, as a military position to, it used to be

Jovanni:

called the Keys to the Americas, or the Keys to the Caribbean, because the ways,

Jovanni:

geographically, the ways it's out there.

Jovanni:

You fortified, the Spaniards fortified, and then the Americans fortified, and

Jovanni:

the Americans used it to safeguard the Panama Canal, for example, when they

Jovanni:

were building it, and to keep European competitors out from the Americas.

Jovanni:

So that's the value of Puerto Rico to American imperialists, is its

Jovanni:

military value, and the extraction.

Jovanni:

But yeah, it's a colony.

Jovanni:

And

Lia Tarachansky:

when you're a colony, you always get the short edge of the stick.

Lia Tarachansky:

Is this part of the reason why you are focused on Palestine

Lia Tarachansky:

because of the colonial connection?

Jovanni:

Yes.

Jovanni:

Can you

Lia Tarachansky:

elaborate on that?

Jovanni:

So both Palestine.

Jovanni:

And Puerto Rico similarities.

Jovanni:

Originally with the British, a colonial outpost for the British,

Jovanni:

a strategic military point for the British to safeguard the canal

Jovanni:

and also to have a foot in the Middle East or in West Asia for the

Jovanni:

British, puerto Rico is the same way.

Jovanni:

Because of the geographical situation, it became a funnel to

Jovanni:

control traffic from Europe into the Americas for the Americans, or before

Jovanni:

the Spaniards, then the Americans.

Jovanni:

When the Americans were building the canal, it was a safeguard to

Jovanni:

intercept any type of threat to the canal, particularly in the First

Jovanni:

World War, with the Germans, and then the Second World War and whatnot.

Jovanni:

So both of them have, military strategic points.

Jovanni:

For the Americans, Puerto Rico was a point to the Americas.

Jovanni:

They call the Caribbean the Mediterranean of the Americas,

Jovanni:

from Puerto Rico, they can control the Caribbean, they control South

Jovanni:

America, close to South America.

Jovanni:

From Palestine, the British able to, control the Red Sea, the traffic

Jovanni:

going in and out through the Canal, have foot in West Asia with all the

Jovanni:

resources that are in West Asia so that's the big connection of it.

Jovanni:

The

Lia Tarachansky:

colonial international trade.

Lia Tarachansky:

That's very big picture, but in what way specifically did American colonialism

Lia Tarachansky:

impact your life as a Puerto Rican?

Lia Tarachansky:

How did it impact your specific life in Puerto Rico for Puerto Ricans?

Jovanni:

We have a spiritual connection with the land.

Jovanni:

We have identity connection with the land.

Jovanni:

We identify as Puerto Ricans, even though we've been an

Jovanni:

American colony for 120 years now.

Jovanni:

But we still identify as Puerto Rican and we still have a

Jovanni:

connection with the rest of America.

Jovanni:

We feel more in more in common with our next door neighbor, the

Jovanni:

Dominican Republic and Cubans than we do with Anglo America, for example.

Lia Tarachansky:

Culturally.

Jovanni:

Yeah, culturally, linguistically, historically

Lia Tarachansky:

and economically, is there any difference between

Lia Tarachansky:

living in Puerto Rico and living in mainland America?

Jovanni:

Yes.

Jovanni:

Yes, there's a whole lot of difference.

Jovanni:

The wages are different in mainland America than it is in Puerto Rico.

Jovanni:

And it's interesting because Puerto Ricans also pay into Social Security

Jovanni:

just mainland Americans but they don't get the full benefits of Social

Jovanni:

Security like mainland Americans do.

Jovanni:

Even though Congress ultimately controls Puerto Rico, Congress controls all

Jovanni:

international territories or overseas territories of the United States, right?

Jovanni:

So we in the same status as Diego Garcia.

Jovanni:

Diego Garcia is an island in the Pacific, it doesn't have a population,

Jovanni:

it's just a military post there but we're in the same status in the sense

Jovanni:

that we are overseas territory, and we don't vote for the President of the

Jovanni:

United States, but we are impacted.

Jovanni:

By the decisions that are made here, for example we get recruited to go

Jovanni:

to wars as well, like Puerto Ricans, per capita died in the Vietnam War,

Jovanni:

and the Korean War, than any other ethnic group in the United States,

Lia Tarachansky:

and when we first met, I remember you were telling me about

Lia Tarachansky:

Puerto Rico, and I was so shocked by the hypocrisy of Puerto Rico being perceived

Lia Tarachansky:

in mainland America as just another state.

Lia Tarachansky:

And yet, your experience of moving from Puerto Rico to Texas, you were describing

Lia Tarachansky:

an experience that's very familiar for me, the experience of an immigrant.

Lia Tarachansky:

And I was just wondering if you wanted to talk a little bit about that, because it

Lia Tarachansky:

does seem like the average American does not see Puerto Rico as just another state.

Lia Tarachansky:

State or just another territory, but it's some kind of like exceptional

Lia Tarachansky:

place where for some reason it's okay that those people don't have

Lia Tarachansky:

the same rights as other Americans.

Jovanni:

Yeah.

Jovanni:

Yeah.

Jovanni:

So the most American, every American don't really realize don't realize

Jovanni:

that relationship that Puerto Ricans have with the United States.

Jovanni:

I still hear people asking us, asking Puerto Ricans if, if they

Jovanni:

have a green car, for example.

Jovanni:

They're, oh, they're how did you get here?

Jovanni:

Did you get a visa?

Jovanni:

So we still get comments like that.

Jovanni:

People don't really understand, don't really know the relationship

Jovanni:

of Puerto Rico because we're still seen as something foreign.

Jovanni:

There's

Lia Tarachansky:

a prevailing ignorance.

Jovanni:

Yeah, and we're seen as just a paradise.

Jovanni:

There's imagination.

Jovanni:

It's a tourist

Lia Tarachansky:

destination.

Lia Tarachansky:

Yeah, in

Jovanni:

the imaginations of most Americans is that we're just,

Jovanni:

oh, we're all about beaches.

Jovanni:

That's what we're all about.

Jovanni:

Beaches, just having just relaxing on the beach.

Jovanni:

That's all we do all day, but yeah, there is that chauvinism.

Jovanni:

On Puerto Ricans.

Jovanni:

But yeah, so there there's differences with, between the, Puerto Rican and

Jovanni:

population and Palestinian population is the fact we're not receiving the

Jovanni:

violence that Palestinians are getting.

Jovanni:

Right now we did at one point in the 1950s, we did get the colonial violence.

Jovanni:

Puerto Rico was bombed by the U.

Jovanni:

S.

Jovanni:

Air Force in the 1950s, the time of the fallujahs when we had an

Jovanni:

uprising then in 1950s but today we don't see the same violence

Jovanni:

that the Palestinians are getting.

Jovanni:

However there is the, one of the biggest difference that I've seen with

Jovanni:

Palestinians between Puerto Ricans and Puerto Ricans is that there are, there

Jovanni:

is a portion of Puerto Ricans who have adopted this Americanism identity.

Jovanni:

They feel more, more American than they do in Puerto Rico.

Jovanni:

And you see the estadistas, which is the statehooders.

Jovanni:

And that's one of the things that divide the Puerto Rican community,

Jovanni:

which is the pro statehooders.

Jovanni:

And the Independentista, which is the independence of people and whatnot.

Jovanni:

We just had an election, too, yesterday.

Jovanni:

And you can see the state voters just fly American flags everywhere in Puerto Rico.

Jovanni:

And they shunned this tent.

Jovanni:

When I was growing up in Puerto Rico, flying the Puerto Rican flag was

Jovanni:

shunned upon by them, because you're seen as, As a, what do you call it, a

Jovanni:

comunista, a communist, you're seen as a nacionalista, nationalist and people

Jovanni:

will say things like, you can't, Puerto Rico can't get independence because

Jovanni:

then we'll starve if we get independence from the United States, stuff like that.

Jovanni:

We can't run, we can't run anything here, we can't even run the post office,

Jovanni:

if we're going to run the post office, we'll never get packages, your comments.

Jovanni:

So

Lia Tarachansky:

if you are not, so if you're not an American imperialist,

Lia Tarachansky:

you're considered a separatist?

Jovanni:

Yes.

Lia Tarachansky:

And were you, are you, do you come from an imperialist

Lia Tarachansky:

family or separatist family?

Jovanni:

No, or do you not

Lia Tarachansky:

see it as so black and white?

Jovanni:

So my dad is Dominican from the Dominican Republic.

Jovanni:

My dad did survive an American invasion of his country in 1965.

Jovanni:

So he was a child.

Jovanni:

He was about 13 years old when the United States invaded the

Jovanni:

Dominican Republic in 1965.

Jovanni:

My mom, she's Puerto Rican and she's from the countryside.

Jovanni:

Mostly people from the countryside tend to be more, more attached to

Jovanni:

to Puerto Rico than people from more urban areas and whatnot,

Lia Tarachansky:

do you see yourself as indigenous to Puerto Rico?

Jovanni:

I consider myself descendant to indigeneity because we have the disconnect

Jovanni:

of, we have 400 years of colonialism.

Jovanni:

We have adopted Things in our culture, in our language that are indigenous, but

Jovanni:

most of us don't even know we have to do the research to know that what we've been

Jovanni:

saying all these years is actually the origins is indigenous, but we never knew,

Jovanni:

what we eat today from the Taino people were the indigenous people of Puerto

Jovanni:

Rico, but we never knew because we weren't really taught that, so this research

Jovanni:

is going on to recover that identity, but I consider myself a descendant.

Jovanni:

Of the Taino people and also descended of the Afro people

Jovanni:

that came to the island as well.

Lia Tarachansky:

You mean the Africans who were enslaved and dragged to the Americas?

Jovanni:

Yes.

Lia Tarachansky:

When we first met, you told me something that absolutely

Lia Tarachansky:

shook me to the core when I was asking you and your partner about Indigeneity

Lia Tarachansky:

in Puerto Rico, you said the indigenous people now only live in our genes.

Jovanni:

Yes.

Jovanni:

I was wondering if

Lia Tarachansky:

you could elaborate on that.

Jovanni:

There was a study that was done saying that 60 percent of

Jovanni:

Puerto Ricans, carry the chromosome, the genes of the Taino people.

Jovanni:

60%.

Jovanni:

But the

Lia Tarachansky:

Taino people don't exist in Puerto Rico anymore.

Jovanni:

Yeah, I guess they exist in us.

Jovanni:

So

Lia Tarachansky:

they were basically genocided.

Jovanni:

Exactly.

Lia Tarachansky:

And their genocide for you, I'm assuming this is part of why you

Lia Tarachansky:

are so personally implicated and implicate yourself in anti genocidal movements.

Jovanni:

Yes, that sounds right, correct.

Lia Tarachansky:

So you are an anti imperialist, you're against

Lia Tarachansky:

indigenous genocide, you grow up reading Malcolm X, and you have this

Lia Tarachansky:

history of enslavement in your family.

Lia Tarachansky:

How do you end up in the American military?

Jovanni:

My dad was in the military.

Jovanni:

Like I said, my dad came to the United States in the 70s.

Jovanni:

He was, I think he was like 18 when he came.

Jovanni:

He was after the revolution in 65.

Jovanni:

His oldest sister was a domestic at a wealthy family, wealthy Dominican family.

Jovanni:

And at a time in 19 after the revolution, a lot of the wealthy, the bourgeoisie

Jovanni:

and Dominican public thought that the Dominican public would go the way of Cuba.

Jovanni:

We have a Cuban revolution and just like revolution, et cetera.

Jovanni:

So many of the middle class and wealthy just packed and left.

Jovanni:

Went to New York, and my aunt went with the family.

Jovanni:

She was a domestic in that family, and they took her to New York,

Jovanni:

and that was in the late 60s.

Jovanni:

Then when my aunt got her documents and everything, she facilitated my

Jovanni:

father to come to the United States.

Jovanni:

He's the youngest of the siblings, so it was easier for her to do

Jovanni:

because she was the youngest.

Jovanni:

He was in New York in the seventies and did a lot of job.

Jovanni:

He went to factories.

Jovanni:

He met my mom.

Jovanni:

He worked in the taxi he was a mechanic, et cetera.

Jovanni:

Then he joined the National Guard and afterwards, moved to Puerto Rico.

Jovanni:

He was in the National Guard in Puerto Rico for a while,

Jovanni:

and then he joined active duty.

Jovanni:

So we ended up going different places.

Jovanni:

And then we went back to Puerto Rico, then we went to Virginia, in Virginia

Jovanni:

that's one of the things that got me interested in war and conflicts, because

Jovanni:

when I got to Virginia, it was in 19 89, I got to Virginia and that year,

Jovanni:

we used to live in a military base.

Jovanni:

And that year was the invasion of Panama.

Jovanni:

So I got to see all the soldiers leave to Panama, to the invasion of Panama

Jovanni:

from that base and then come back.

Jovanni:

Then 18 months later, that's when the war against Iraq started in 1990.

Jovanni:

These same soldiers are all left.

Jovanni:

And went to the Gulf and then came back.

Jovanni:

So that pretty much intrigued me about conflicts and following

Jovanni:

wars and stuff like that.

Jovanni:

So ever since that, pretty much left an impression in me.

Lia Tarachansky:

In my country, in Israel, being part of the

Lia Tarachansky:

military, it's mandatory.

Lia Tarachansky:

And some people they don't, they decide not to go for political or personal

Lia Tarachansky:

reasons so much that they are willing to go to jail to not go to the Israeli army.

Lia Tarachansky:

But you don't see Palestinians almost.

Lia Tarachansky:

Almost non existent for Palestinians to join the Israeli army.

Lia Tarachansky:

However, Bedouins in the south of what is today Israel do join

Lia Tarachansky:

the Israeli army to some extent.

Lia Tarachansky:

How do you explain this as a victim of American imperialism being a Puerto Rico?

Lia Tarachansky:

How do you explain to the rest of the world why victims of American

Lia Tarachansky:

imperialism would then go and join the American imperialist army?

Jovanni:

That's something that was intriguing me as well because in the

Jovanni:

military I've seen a lot of people that were the people in the military, though,

Jovanni:

I had an instructor at one point, he was Vietnamese, he was one of my instructors,

Jovanni:

so I've seen a lot of people, I see a lot of Koreans, I see a lot of people

Jovanni:

that were, that has felt The other end of the muzzle, the other end of the

Jovanni:

rifle of the American imperialism get destroyed and then join the military.

Jovanni:

I've seen a lot of, there's a lot of Arabs in the military, a lot of, I've seen

Jovanni:

Iraqis join the American military, and their countries got destroyed, so that's

Jovanni:

something that's always intrigued me.

Jovanni:

I don't really understand that.

Lia Tarachansky:

You joined.

Lia Tarachansky:

Why did you join?

Jovanni:

I joined because as a teen, that was most of my,

Jovanni:

I lived in a military base.

Jovanni:

Most of my friends were soldiers and that's something

Jovanni:

everybody did after high school.

Lia Tarachansky:

And you met your partner in the army.

Jovanni:

Yes.

Lia Tarachansky:

Is she also a child of American soldiers?

Jovanni:

Oh, no she left.

Jovanni:

She joined from Puerto Rico.

Jovanni:

That was the first time leaving Puerto Rico, actually.

Lia Tarachansky:

So she knew she wanted to be part of the army.

Jovanni:

No, it was just, she was in college actually at the time and

Jovanni:

then she just, it's something, a recruiter came up and sweetened a

Jovanni:

deal and whatnot and she was young and she just joined the military.

Lia Tarachansky:

Do you see any cultural difference between the American military

Lia Tarachansky:

and the average American citizenry?

Jovanni:

I do.

Jovanni:

What is the cultural difference?

Jovanni:

I see a sort of caste, a military caste.

Jovanni:

In the United States, and it's an esceptic cast because the average

Jovanni:

American get propagandized on how awesome the military is and how much

Jovanni:

you have to respect the military.

Jovanni:

And every football game parades of jets flying over, over the stadium and in

Jovanni:

every sports arena military people.

Jovanni:

So we're given this persona.

Jovanni:

We're beyond reproach, and then we're just like a super citizen, this image that you

Jovanni:

have to look at us in awe, so I see this division between the Arab civilian, the

Jovanni:

military only makes about 1 percent of the population in the United States, and it's

Jovanni:

320 million people in the United States, only 1 percent are in the military so you

Jovanni:

have the majority of Americans are not in the military and, They're fed with this

Jovanni:

culture, this awesomeness of militarism, and every time you tell someone that,

Jovanni:

you're a veteran and whatnot, the first thing, reflexively, they tell you is,

Jovanni:

thank you for your service, that happened with the Iraq War, because before it

Jovanni:

wasn't like that, but then during the Iraq War, everybody, tell them you're in the

Jovanni:

military or you're veteran reflexively tell you thank you for your service.

Jovanni:

So I see that.

Lia Tarachansky:

Did you serve in Iraq?

Jovanni:

Did I serve in Iraq?

Jovanni:

No, I refused.

Lia Tarachansky:

So how does it feel for you to be thanked for your service?

Jovanni:

It feels weird because I know that I didn't serve, for example, I

Jovanni:

think about when people say thank you for your service, for serving in Iraq.

Jovanni:

And my thought is, how, in what way did Iraq threaten you?

Jovanni:

In what way would your freedoms would be, which freedom did you defend?

Jovanni:

Or would have been taken away from you if we haven't invaded Iraq, in the service

Lia Tarachansky:

of what?

Jovanni:

Yeah, what are we serving?

Jovanni:

Yeah.

Lia Tarachansky:

So you said you refused to go to the Iraq

Lia Tarachansky:

war, so what were you doing?

Lia Tarachansky:

Why did you decide to refuse?

Lia Tarachansky:

Because,

Jovanni:

the reason I refused, because when I left the military,

Jovanni:

I was already a careerist.

Jovanni:

What does

Lia Tarachansky:

that mean?

Jovanni:

That when you're in the military, you can retire with 20 years.

Jovanni:

And you get a pension, I did 12 years.

Jovanni:

I was already careerist.

Jovanni:

And I could have just waited out the last seven years and would have pension.

Jovanni:

And your

Lia Tarachansky:

partner, did she serve in Iraq?

Jovanni:

No, she only did three years.

Jovanni:

She did three years and she got out.

Jovanni:

And how would you feel if

Lia Tarachansky:

your son decided to go to the American army?

Jovanni:

How do I feel?

Jovanni:

I'll be disappointed.

Jovanni:

Why?

Jovanni:

It's the choice

Lia Tarachansky:

you made.

Jovanni:

Yeah, I'll be disappointed.

Jovanni:

Yeah, he has a little bit more education as far as the military than I did.

Jovanni:

When I joined, we were considered like a peacetime military, and this country

Jovanni:

has been at war his entire life, and it's funny, I did deploy to Bosnia

Jovanni:

when the destruction of Yugoslavia.

Jovanni:

And I was a young man and our unit was actually the first units that put boots

Jovanni:

on the ground in Bosnia and Croatia.

Jovanni:

And it wasn't until years later.

Jovanni:

That I started reading and analyzing, what happened in

Jovanni:

Yugoslavia, why we're in Yugoslavia.

Jovanni:

And I feel that most soldiers, most people that join the military don't have that

Jovanni:

analysis, don't understand, what happens.

Jovanni:

Like I said, they don't know what happened.

Jovanni:

They don't know what's beyond their borders.

Jovanni:

Most people, most young kids don't really know.

Jovanni:

They just, they're sold that, you can get ahead, you get college money.

Jovanni:

You'd be respected in the community, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Jovanni:

It's depoliticized.

Jovanni:

Your participation in the military, it's more about you,

Jovanni:

it's more about your advancement, your career and stuff like that.

Jovanni:

Whereas in Israel, I believe, I've never been to Israel, but I believe

Jovanni:

that the Israeli young soldier know what they're getting into.

Jovanni:

They know that their country is in a state of war.

Lia Tarachansky:

The average Israeli, first of all, Doesn't think about

Lia Tarachansky:

not going to the army because it's virtually unheard of, at least in

Lia Tarachansky:

my, I grew up in a settlement, every single person went to the army.

Lia Tarachansky:

Not going to the army is considered so radical outside of the norm of society.

Lia Tarachansky:

And, You say anybody pulls up social media, they can see

Lia Tarachansky:

what's going on in Palestine.

Lia Tarachansky:

You're seeing little bits of what's going on in Gaza and in the West Bank.

Lia Tarachansky:

But when you grow up in Israel, you don't see anything at all.

Lia Tarachansky:

And the soldiers who perpetrate war crimes don't tend to talk about those things.

Lia Tarachansky:

They're considered taboo.

Lia Tarachansky:

So every generation of soldiers thinks that they're going out there.

Lia Tarachansky:

to defend from this like sea of hostile enemies and you know the average person

Lia Tarachansky:

at least my age grew up during the second intifada when a lot of people

Lia Tarachansky:

were getting blown up at cafes and killed on the bus and terrorism was a very

Lia Tarachansky:

big part of daily violence for us and so it became like of course I'm going

Lia Tarachansky:

to grow up and I'm going to go defend my homeland against these people who

Lia Tarachansky:

are trying to kill us and once they get trained and they get the weapons and

Lia Tarachansky:

they learn how to use them and they get sent It takes years before they actually

Lia Tarachansky:

understand, Oh God, we are the aggressors.

Lia Tarachansky:

And that's only if they understand that.

Lia Tarachansky:

Most people finish the army, they do horrific things and they try

Lia Tarachansky:

to never think about it again.

Lia Tarachansky:

And it takes a total fundamental foundational disruption for a person to

Lia Tarachansky:

understand that actually we're not the victims or we're not just the victims of

Lia Tarachansky:

this reality, we're also its co creators.

Lia Tarachansky:

And I'm wondering like right now During the George W.

Lia Tarachansky:

Bush years, the war in Iraq and Afghanistan was such a central

Lia Tarachansky:

part of American politics.

Lia Tarachansky:

What wars are you fighting right now?

Jovanni:

The war in Palestine, not an American war, the war in Ukraine as

Jovanni:

American war is the Western War at.

Jovanni:

You mentioned the conflict in the Congo, for example, a lot of those militias

Jovanni:

are getting support from the West that's happening in the Congo, right?

Jovanni:

I think you also know that Israel also supports a lot of the militias

Jovanni:

and whatnot, in Africa as well.

Jovanni:

On both

Lia Tarachansky:

sides.

Jovanni:

Yeah, both sides.

Jovanni:

Yes, so all these wars, all these wars, and then you have the buildup

Jovanni:

of hostility in Taiwan now, Taiwan is being armed up to the teeth now.

Jovanni:

It's a focal point now, it's a tinderbox for conflict there as well.

Jovanni:

So all these wars, see what happened is with the Iraq war.

Jovanni:

With the Iraq war, it was a show of force.

Jovanni:

It wasn't just, it wasn't about Iraq.

Jovanni:

It was a show of force to show the awesomeness.

Jovanni:

Of the American military.

Jovanni:

That was the idea and the way it was sold to

Lia Tarachansky:

establish dominance, as the Israeli army calls it.

Jovanni:

Yeah.

Jovanni:

And we call it, they call it here the full specter dominance.

Jovanni:

The Americans wanted to do full specter dominance of air, land, sea space,

Jovanni:

outer space, cyber, and all that.

Jovanni:

They wanted to show the awesomeness of the American military.

Jovanni:

And then the fact that the planes hit.

Jovanni:

The towers and that was a humiliation that was seen as the United States had

Jovanni:

to show that can never happen again.

Jovanni:

It was like slave time.

Jovanni:

If there was a slave that rebelled against the plantation owner and stuff like that.

Jovanni:

He was made an example of, right?

Jovanni:

He was all the other slaves had to come out and have to view and have

Jovanni:

to witness the punishment of this particular slave and punish him in some

Jovanni:

gruesome way, and so everyone can see.

Jovanni:

So no one could dare do that again.

Jovanni:

And that was the thing about the U.

Jovanni:

S.

Jovanni:

military when they invaded Iraq and Afghanistan.

Jovanni:

And in both situations, they were defeated.

Jovanni:

They were defeated in Afghanistan for 20 years, and they were defeated in

Jovanni:

Iraq as well, the military, right?

Jovanni:

After that, Obama came with the policy of leading from behind.

Jovanni:

No longer would the American people tolerate boots on the ground and

Jovanni:

having all these casualties coming in boxes and stuff like that with

Jovanni:

the media and stuff like that.

Jovanni:

So now we sacrifice other people.

Jovanni:

So you do proxy wars.

Jovanni:

So right now you want, we want to attack Russia, but we don't want to

Jovanni:

attack Russia in front to attack Russia.

Jovanni:

So we use Ukraine to attack Russia.

Jovanni:

We want to attack China, but won't engage in China.

Jovanni:

We use Taiwan to attack China, stuff like that.

Jovanni:

So it's more about.

Jovanni:

It's more and then we'll send this assets because there is assets, there is military

Jovanni:

assets in Israel right now, special forces people and they're using Crete to to

Jovanni:

supply the Israeli army and stuff like that, but you won't see a big bulk of

Jovanni:

military people boots on the ground for a long time because the American people.

Jovanni:

Won't support, having their young kids coming back in boxes, because of

Jovanni:

the Iraq war and the Afghanistan war.

Lia Tarachansky:

If Kamala were to win the presidency, being a woman,

Lia Tarachansky:

first and foremost, she would have had to illustrate to her opponents

Lia Tarachansky:

that she is a militaristically minded person who is willing to do whatever

Lia Tarachansky:

it takes to drag America out of its global reputation now as a has been.

Lia Tarachansky:

And of course, it's not a very big leap to know that if she was elected,

Lia Tarachansky:

she would have had to start at least some kind of a war, most likely in

Lia Tarachansky:

the Middle East, or significantly increase American presence, let's say,

Lia Tarachansky:

in Palestine or Lebanon or in Taiwan.

Lia Tarachansky:

Considering she didn't win the election, what do you think a Trump presidency, what

Lia Tarachansky:

kind of effect do you think it's going to have on American global imperialism?

Jovanni:

I think there's very little change.

Jovanni:

The United States right now with One of the changes that could happen

Jovanni:

with Trump the defunding of and the closing out of the war in Ukraine.

Jovanni:

That could be a possibility of a political settlement there.

Jovanni:

And that could come to a close, either a frozen conflict

Jovanni:

would just come to a close.

Jovanni:

Right now the Democrats wasn't allowing and the British wasn't allowing.

Jovanni:

For the violence in Ukraine and between Ukraine and Russia to stop because

Jovanni:

their idea was to weaken Russia.

Jovanni:

That's what they want, weaken Russia and they were willing to sacrifice.

Jovanni:

Whole lots of Ukrainians to do I think Trump can deescalate, has the potential

Jovanni:

to deescalate the situation in Ukraine.

Jovanni:

But with the situation in, in, in West Asia, it's a little bit different

Jovanni:

because one of the constituents of the Trump administration are

Jovanni:

evangelical Christians as well.

Jovanni:

And the evangelical Christians in the United States have this

Jovanni:

personal attachment to, or this emotional attachment to Israel.

Jovanni:

And that's one of the huge constituents.

Jovanni:

Religious

Lia Tarachansky:

attachment.

Jovanni:

And also here in the United States, we've been culturated to always

Jovanni:

give Israel the benefit of the doubt.

Jovanni:

And we're attached to the Holocaust and all that.

Jovanni:

And then Iran's this big boogeyman that wants to kill us all.

Jovanni:

I think with that situation and the United States has been resistant because

Jovanni:

I know that's one of the policies of Bin Netanyahu to dry in the West United

Jovanni:

States to confront Iran for a long time.

Jovanni:

That, that's been one of the policies to try to dry in, to take Iran out

Jovanni:

as a competitor or as a threat, as to Israel dominance in the area.

Jovanni:

And when Biden sent all those warships to the Mediterranean and stuff like

Jovanni:

that, but they've been resisting.

Jovanni:

Kamala probably depending how the situation with the WR goes down,

Jovanni:

I know R'S talking about reacting to the recent bombings that the

Jovanni:

recent incursion that the Israel conducted, I think was 1st of October.

Jovanni:

They're talking about retaliating, depending on what goes down there

Jovanni:

would've been a possibility that the Kamala would've

Jovanni:

authorized boots the ground.

Jovanni:

It, depends how much of a threat Israel finds itself with the

Jovanni:

Iranian retaliation, I believe.

Jovanni:

But there is boots on the ground.

Jovanni:

It sounds

Lia Tarachansky:

like in a zero sum way of thinking, your understanding is that

Lia Tarachansky:

a Trump presidency is actually good for reducing American imperialism globally.

Jovanni:

I think it needs Europe.

Jovanni:

I think with Iran in West Asia the potential is still there.

Jovanni:

It's a tinderbox.

Jovanni:

The potential is still there for Trump to engage in frontal conflict with Iran.

Jovanni:

You got to think about Iran.

Jovanni:

Trump assassinated one of the top general, General Soleimani, right?

Jovanni:

It was because of Iranian restraint that we didn't go into

Jovanni:

an actual conflict with Iran.

Jovanni:

They retaliated to a couple of American bases in Iraq, and that was it.

Jovanni:

But it was a huge thing, assassinating a top general, right?

Jovanni:

It could have been a potential war with Iran.

Jovanni:

But yeah, stuff like that, recklessness like that, Trump

Jovanni:

would have got us into a conflict.

Jovanni:

There's a frozen conflict in the Korean peninsula.

Jovanni:

It's been over over the world by 60 years now, with North Korea.

Jovanni:

And there were gestures in the first Trump administration to

Jovanni:

bring that conflict to a close.

Jovanni:

There's a frozen conflict, a tinderbox as well nuclear armament involved.

Jovanni:

And there some gestures to bring it to a close.

Jovanni:

Trump met the North Korean lead, I think twice.

Jovanni:

He was sabotaged by his own people in his cabinet, Mike Pompeo and

Jovanni:

John Bolton which his own appointees and by the Democratic Party.

Jovanni:

And he didn't go anywhere.

Jovanni:

He didn't lead.

Jovanni:

Yeah, I'm thinking East Asia for

Lia Tarachansky:

sure.

Lia Tarachansky:

And do you think the, sorry, go ahead.

Lia Tarachansky:

I

Jovanni:

think East Asia East Europe for sure, there's a huge potential

Jovanni:

that Trump wind that conflict down.

Jovanni:

But in West Asia.

Lia Tarachansky:

In terms of the global chess board, the bursky type

Lia Tarachansky:

of idea of the global chess board, you do see a Trump administration

Lia Tarachansky:

as less destructive to the world.

Jovanni:

With Russia, yes.

Lia Tarachansky:

And what do you think is the impact of this second

Lia Tarachansky:

Trump administration on Puerto Rico?

Jovanni:

If you recall, Puerto Rico right now is, we've lost about a

Jovanni:

half a million people in the last 10 to 20 years to migration to the

Jovanni:

United States because of the economic depression in Puerto Rico, right?

Jovanni:

You go to, last time I was in Puerto Rico, you see a lot of dilapidated

Jovanni:

buildings even though they're trying to restore it for tourism and whatnot,

Jovanni:

but you see a lot of empty buildings, you see a lot of people leaving the

Jovanni:

island because of the economic hardship.

Jovanni:

But at the same time, you see a lot of Americans, wealthy Americans moving

Jovanni:

into Puerto Rico, buying up land.

Jovanni:

Building, buying up stuff like that.

Jovanni:

It's just speculating.

Jovanni:

Speculating in capital and stuff like that over there.

Jovanni:

The Bitcoin people going over there and whatnot.

Jovanni:

And we had, during the Trump era, we had Hurricane Maria, which

Jovanni:

was a devastating hurricane.

Jovanni:

We haven't had a hurricane like that since 1901, 1903, something like that, right?

Jovanni:

Which is Hurricane San Ciriaco, and it's estimated about 3, 000

Jovanni:

people perished in that hurricane.

Jovanni:

Puerto Ricans and whatnot.

Lia Tarachansky:

And what was Trump's, he was president at the time.

Lia Tarachansky:

What was his reaction to Hurricane Maria?

Jovanni:

His response was very delayed, very mild, there were people that went

Jovanni:

through a whole year without power.

Jovanni:

Without electrical power, the aid trickled after he got pressured to

Jovanni:

put aid and one of his comments was, because at the same time there was a

Jovanni:

hurricane here in Texas as well, I think it was Harvey or something like that.

Jovanni:

And he said that Harvey, that Texas, Harvey was a more priority because

Jovanni:

they voted for him, not Puerto Ricans.

Jovanni:

That's one of the things that he said openly.

Jovanni:

And also we have the Jones Act.

Jovanni:

The Jones Act is a 19th century act on Puerto Rico that only allows foreign

Jovanni:

ships can't dock in Puerto Rico.

Jovanni:

They have to go to Florida first, and then they have to be unloaded

Jovanni:

and put in American ship and then brought to Puerto Rico.

Jovanni:

So there were countries that tried to bring aid to Puerto Rico.

Jovanni:

They weren't allowed to dock in Puerto Rico to bring aid.

Jovanni:

You had to be pressured to lift the Jones for about 10 days, I

Jovanni:

believe, or something like that.

Jovanni:

So he lifted it for 10 days, to let the bring in supply and whatnot.

Jovanni:

But yeah, so it was very destructive and it's funny you say that because in Puerto

Jovanni:

Rico, there's a lot of single fans, a lot of Trump single fans in Puerto Rico too.

Jovanni:

Those stakeholders I was telling you about, like there,

Jovanni:

there's a lot of single fans.

Jovanni:

The governor, the one that got elected yesterday as governor,

Jovanni:

her name is Jennifer Gonzalez.

Jovanni:

She's a Trump single fan.

Jovanni:

So it's funny that the amnesia of people,

Lia Tarachansky:

are you a Trump fan?

Jovanni:

Oh, no.

Jovanni:

So

Lia Tarachansky:

what.

Lia Tarachansky:

I'm asking that facetiously because I feel that in my circle of friends,

Lia Tarachansky:

I can't talk about my feelings on Trump because obviously I see him as a

Lia Tarachansky:

buffoon, I see him as a sexist, I see him as a racist, or at least he acts

Lia Tarachansky:

in ways that support racism and sexism.

Lia Tarachansky:

But as a person who is an Israeli and pro Palestinian to that extent

Lia Tarachansky:

that I've dedicated my life to ending Israeli colonialism, I

Lia Tarachansky:

do see that Trump is a buffoon.

Lia Tarachansky:

would be less destructive to us than Kamala, even though I

Lia Tarachansky:

have a lot of empathy for his antisocial policies in America.

Lia Tarachansky:

I'm so terrified of yet another American war in the Middle East

Lia Tarachansky:

because every American little political game costs the Middle East

Lia Tarachansky:

hundreds of thousands of people.

Lia Tarachansky:

And yet here you are, a man of the left, a man who has read all the

Lia Tarachansky:

ideological forefathers that self respected leftists should read.

Lia Tarachansky:

Here you are saying basically that even from inside America, that

Lia Tarachansky:

you see things in a similar way.

Lia Tarachansky:

And, I teach some university courses and my students don't,

Lia Tarachansky:

They don't read those texts.

Lia Tarachansky:

They don't do the research.

Lia Tarachansky:

They don't get inspired.

Lia Tarachansky:

They maybe watch a biographical movie about MLK, but they would never

Lia Tarachansky:

sit down and read, the biography of Malcolm X as written by Alex

Lia Tarachansky:

Haley, for example, there's a real bend in the new generation, an anti

Lia Tarachansky:

ideological bend, a desire to dismiss.

Lia Tarachansky:

Those big ideological struggles of Marxism, Leninism, Socialism,

Lia Tarachansky:

Capitalism, because in this late stage capitalist postmodern world that

Lia Tarachansky:

we live in, it doesn't even matter.

Lia Tarachansky:

Has your son read the books that you read?

Lia Tarachansky:

And if he has?

Lia Tarachansky:

What kind of conversations do you have at home about the political ideologies

Lia Tarachansky:

that drive your political dedications?

Jovanni:

No, he hasn't, unfortunately.

Jovanni:

I try to get him to read certain books, and it's very hard, like you said,

Jovanni:

because there's So much that his kids do, and there's so much influence

Jovanni:

that there is out there, he's more of the TikTok generation, where most

Jovanni:

of his information comes from TikTok unfortunately and going back to the

Jovanni:

generation you're talking about the generation is very impatient it takes a

Jovanni:

lot of patience to sit down and read a book from cover to cover, it takes a lot

Jovanni:

of dedication to do that, and discipline to do that We have a generation that's

Jovanni:

like a microwave generations everything has to be instant gratification.

Jovanni:

It's hard for people to sit down and absorb all that.

Jovanni:

So a quick fix is a bio, a biographer movie or a TikTok video and that seems to

Jovanni:

be story for a lot of these young people.

Lia Tarachansky:

Let's operate with data.

Lia Tarachansky:

Let's say you are teaching a course to this new generation.

Lia Tarachansky:

What do you think in a TikTok way, what do you think would

Lia Tarachansky:

be the legacy of someone like.

Lia Tarachansky:

Malcolm X or Fred Hampton.

Lia Tarachansky:

What do you think they would say?

Lia Tarachansky:

What would you think Satya Shakur want to say?

Lia Tarachansky:

What would be the people who really formed your ideological positions

Lia Tarachansky:

that moved you to dedicate your entire adult life to political organizing?

Lia Tarachansky:

What do you think those great thinkers, what would they say?

Lia Tarachansky:

What would be their legacy?

Lia Tarachansky:

What would you say is the essence, the distilled version of their message

Lia Tarachansky:

to the young generation, to your son?

Jovanni:

That's a it'll have, from an educational perspective, in order

Jovanni:

to instill that, I think it has to be brought into, in a conversational

Jovanni:

way, bring those young people you're talking about in a conversational way

Jovanni:

And have them participate in their own learning, their own exploration.

Jovanni:

Ask more of a Socratic questionings and try, I don't know, Lia.

Jovanni:

It's just difficult.

Jovanni:

Yeah,

Lia Tarachansky:

it's tough.

Lia Tarachansky:

We deal with it constantly.

Lia Tarachansky:

How do you keep attention?

Lia Tarachansky:

I find that to me, I don't see the new generation as being impatient.

Lia Tarachansky:

What I see is that the new generation doesn't see the reason

Lia Tarachansky:

for why they should do this.

Lia Tarachansky:

Like for me, I was reading, I was picking up those books because I felt at their

Lia Tarachansky:

age that I was being lied to, that my world was not the real world, that I

Lia Tarachansky:

was being represented the world through a set of ideologies that are not true.

Lia Tarachansky:

And when I started to pick at that a lot of the foundations for what

Lia Tarachansky:

I thought was true started to fall apart, and that was so unnerving,

Lia Tarachansky:

I had to find my own answers.

Lia Tarachansky:

Whereas the new generation grows up in a world where there's truth

Lia Tarachansky:

and there's not truth, that there's not truths and it's a post factual

Lia Tarachansky:

world that doesn't really matter.

Lia Tarachansky:

Yeah, it doesn't matter what you grew up believing is true or not

Lia Tarachansky:

true, because nothing really matters.

Lia Tarachansky:

And they don't see the real reason for why they should educate

Lia Tarachansky:

themselves outside of the real world.

Lia Tarachansky:

Whatever degree is going to give them a job that's going to pay for their bills.

Lia Tarachansky:

What is for a lot of my students, and of course, my students are just

Lia Tarachansky:

as curious as we were at their age.

Lia Tarachansky:

They're just as motivated to make the world a better

Lia Tarachansky:

place as we were at their age.

Lia Tarachansky:

But they don't see the point of why they should sit down and read some guy

Lia Tarachansky:

who wrote some stuff about stuff that's no longer relevant to their lives.

Lia Tarachansky:

50 years ago.

Lia Tarachansky:

So who do you think are the thinkers of today that young people could read that

Lia Tarachansky:

would make sense to their lives today?

Lia Tarachansky:

Who do you go to when you try to understand what's going on today?

Jovanni:

I go to the old texts.

Jovanni:

I read for example, when it comes to Latin America, I read Galeano.

Jovanni:

We wrote about Latin America, the La Vena Sabieta, América Latina,

Jovanni:

Open Bases of Latin America, I read Fidel's writings to the old text.

Jovanni:

I'm starting read to the Foundations I just started to

Jovanni:

read alien Puppet about Israel.

Lia Tarachansky:

And have you had a chance to read Tenah Hase

Lia Tarachansky:

Coates's new book about Palestine?

Jovanni:

No, but I saw the whole controversy about it,

Jovanni:

so I'm curious, have you,

Lia Tarachansky:

I haven't read the book, but I heard him talk about

Lia Tarachansky:

it in various lengthy interviews, especially one made by Trevor Noah.

Lia Tarachansky:

Very good interview because Trevor Noah actually lets him speak and actually

Lia Tarachansky:

asks him questions that motivate him to speak about what he wrote about and why.

Lia Tarachansky:

And yeah, Alice Walker has done this in the past, Angelo Davis has

Lia Tarachansky:

done this in the past, and here, Tanya Hasecox, very incredible

Lia Tarachansky:

writer, thinker, connects the dots.

Lia Tarachansky:

Connects the apartheid of America to apartheid in Israel Palestine in a

Lia Tarachansky:

way that I think it's very necessary and speaks from a very personal

Lia Tarachansky:

place as a Black American, what it's like to experience apartheid

Lia Tarachansky:

with that's so visibly violent.

Lia Tarachansky:

Here in Canada, we have You might call the OG apartheid, the apartheid

Lia Tarachansky:

that informed the South African apartheid and later Israeli apartheid.

Lia Tarachansky:

When it comes to the dual system, there's the set of laws that

Lia Tarachansky:

apply to Canadian citizens.

Lia Tarachansky:

And then there's the set of laws known as the Indian Act and other legal structures

Lia Tarachansky:

that apply to the Native Americans.

Lia Tarachansky:

And there are two different legal systems that by and large has

Lia Tarachansky:

been incredibly destructive and genocidal to the indigenous people.

Lia Tarachansky:

And the system that those two systems created included very violent

Lia Tarachansky:

manifestations such as going out and killing people on preserve not

Lia Tarachansky:

fixing issues like access to clean water not connecting people to basic

Lia Tarachansky:

Things like, the grid and internet and accessible supply of resources.

Lia Tarachansky:

And then also genocide in terms of residential schools and the forbidding of

Lia Tarachansky:

cultural practices, languages, and so on.

Lia Tarachansky:

That system exists here and listening to Ta Nehisi Coates talk about what it's

Lia Tarachansky:

like to be a Black American in Palestine.

Lia Tarachansky:

To see apartheid manifest there resonated with me very well because I'm an Israeli

Lia Tarachansky:

in Canada and I'm seeing, both situations, and what that manifestation looks like.

Lia Tarachansky:

And I imagine for you as a person who grows up in Puerto Rico, and has

Lia Tarachansky:

these Very dedicated anti imperialist ideas that have inspired your

Lia Tarachansky:

entire creation for your whole life.

Lia Tarachansky:

Reading something that some, white academic wrote about settler

Lia Tarachansky:

colonialism is not as impactful as reading someone like Ta Nehisi

Lia Tarachansky:

Coates, who's writing from the same foundational texts you're talking about.

Lia Tarachansky:

And B is writing from personal experience.

Jovanni:

Yeah.

Jovanni:

It's funny you say about Trevor Nora and you mentioned my son.

Jovanni:

He did read that book about him growing up in South Africa and

Jovanni:

he had a and Trevor Nora, right?

Jovanni:

The Trevor, no, yeah, the late night show host.

Jovanni:

So my son did have a lot of questions and a lot of and inspired him to

Jovanni:

look up South Africa and whatnot.

Lia Tarachansky:

That's amazing.

Jovanni:

Yeah.

Jovanni:

So he needs to

Lia Tarachansky:

find his own Malcolm X.

Lia Tarachansky:

His own Alex Haley.

Jovanni:

Yeah.

Lia Tarachansky:

I actually, I discovered Trevor Noah on a

Lia Tarachansky:

midnight bus between Durban and Pietermaritzburg in South Africa.

Lia Tarachansky:

It was a bus I took between those two cities and they were playing

Lia Tarachansky:

the 2011 Trevor Noah special.

Lia Tarachansky:

This was in 2011.

Lia Tarachansky:

And at the time, the whole bus.

Lia Tarachansky:

was in stitches because he was making fun of Zuma the president

Lia Tarachansky:

of South Africa at the time.

Lia Tarachansky:

And I remember thinking my God, this guy's hilarious.

Lia Tarachansky:

And also seeing a whole bunch of people at three o'clock in

Lia Tarachansky:

the morning, just in stitches.

Lia Tarachansky:

I was like, this guy's a great comedian.

Lia Tarachansky:

And then a few years later, he came to America.

Lia Tarachansky:

He's a really interesting thinker because he thinks quickly on his feet.

Lia Tarachansky:

He applies his personal biographical experience of apartheid to

Lia Tarachansky:

understanding the world.

Lia Tarachansky:

And because he speaks from different, completely different life experiences

Lia Tarachansky:

in different parts of the world, he's able to understand people in a way

Lia Tarachansky:

that a lot of other hosts are not.

Lia Tarachansky:

And to conclude.

Lia Tarachansky:

The questions I had for you, you set out to make this podcast, you set out to

Lia Tarachansky:

make these videos, these media project.

Lia Tarachansky:

And I was wondering, you have a very similar thing in terms of a

Lia Tarachansky:

lot of personal experience of the implication of the policies that

Lia Tarachansky:

you critique on your personal life.

Lia Tarachansky:

What is the project?

Lia Tarachansky:

What is your objective?

Lia Tarachansky:

What do you hope to achieve with this podcast that you created

Lia Tarachansky:

and all these people that you have interviewed over the years?

Jovanni:

At this point right now

Jovanni:

it's communication right now.

Jovanni:

I've only done this podcast two years now.

Jovanni:

This podcast has been going on for about five years, I believe, and I

Jovanni:

was invited in later on, and about two years now I think I'm going on.

Jovanni:

But it's offering perspective and offering conversations and, through conversation,

Jovanni:

people, you hope to educate people, hope to, like you said, open up windows

Jovanni:

and people not be so tunnel vision in one thing and just open up more and

Jovanni:

see other perspectives and whatnot.

Jovanni:

Just like you mentioned about Travis Noah, I grew up in different worlds.

Jovanni:

I grew up, here between the United States and Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic.

Jovanni:

I was in the military.

Jovanni:

I lived in Germany and Korea.

Jovanni:

I lived a year in Saudi Arabia.

Jovanni:

So I got different angles of different things.

Jovanni:

And while I was in those places, I always talked to local people and talked

Jovanni:

to people and it helped me a lot to see a lot of things in perspective.

Jovanni:

And hopefully one of the things that I set myself out also to open up perspective is

Jovanni:

as well, and people not be so focused on.

Jovanni:

On the, just their own lives, other things but the same token, one of the interviews

Jovanni:

I did here is how, I brought in a person, a totally depolitical person's not

Jovanni:

really, and it's just a person that, that goes to work day in and day out and is

Jovanni:

struggling through, because of the lack of healthcare that is here, and this person

Jovanni:

is actually is going through some rough time because of the lack of healthcare

Jovanni:

that's in this country, so I brought this person in to tell their story.

Jovanni:

And the connection that I try to do here is how much the fact that

Jovanni:

there's so much billions of dollars go overseas and to these war projects

Jovanni:

that it's hollowing out this country.

Jovanni:

And then just the average person, the average American just get left

Jovanni:

behind, so that's one of the things I like to connect, try to connect

Jovanni:

people, in this anti, anti imperialist journey I'm in is to connect the.

Jovanni:

The policies, the foreign policy with the domestic policy, bring it together and

Jovanni:

see how each, each influence the other.

Lia Tarachansky:

Excellent.

Lia Tarachansky:

Thank you so much, Jovanni.

Lia Tarachansky:

I I'm so glad I had a chance to get to know you even better.

Lia Tarachansky:

It was very fascinating to get to know you.

Lia Tarachansky:

I have a lot more questions about you as a person, but I think that maybe this

Lia Tarachansky:

is good for this very, very post Trump election day, very traumatic day as it is.

Jovanni:

Thank No, thank you for, I know, thank you for for taking the time and and

Jovanni:

interviewing me and bringing me those, those very insightful questions of yours.

Jovanni:

There was times you put me there you got me thinking that

Jovanni:

hard . But but I appreciate it.

Jovanni:

I appreciate you.

Lia Tarachansky:

It's called Revenge

Jovanni:

I appreciate it though.

Jovanni:

Thank you.

Jovanni:

Thank you for putting me in a spot and making me think.

Jovanni:

And it is very, it's very intellectually stimulating, when people, because not

Jovanni:

too often people ask you questions about you, and a lot of, the thoughts, you

Jovanni:

have it in your own mind, you don't have no one to share with, or you share with

Jovanni:

just in conversation, you write it down or whatever, but it's easier, but it's

Jovanni:

not often that you get people to ask you, you have to, you start grabbing, in

Jovanni:

your mind, try to put everything in some coherent word, and communicate, yeah.

Jovanni:

Yeah.

Lia Tarachansky:

It's like you said it's what you hope people would do is

Jovanni:

ask questions.

Jovanni:

Thank you, Lia.

Jovanni:

Thank you.

Jovanni:

And Lia, so before we leave what are you working on?

Jovanni:

And we're

Lia Tarachansky:

right now I'm just trying to not make a big mess out of

Lia Tarachansky:

my new teaching position at the Toronto Metropolitan University, but I'm

Lia Tarachansky:

trying to finish a documentary that's been a kind of my big white whale.

Lia Tarachansky:

It's a film that I started In 2017, about following a group of rabbis

Lia Tarachansky:

who have been trying very hard to transform the Israeli conflict from a

Lia Tarachansky:

political conflict to a religious one.

Lia Tarachansky:

And it's co directed with the incredible Dr.

Lia Tarachansky:

Rachel Feldman, who's a professor in America.

Lia Tarachansky:

And she actually wrote a book that got released this year about the topic.

Lia Tarachansky:

And over the course of these years, we followed these rabbis, we spent

Lia Tarachansky:

a lot of time interviewing them, spending time with their beliefs.

Lia Tarachansky:

They are what people might call the fundamentalist of the Jewish far and over

Lia Tarachansky:

the years, they went from the margins to the mainstream of Israeli society and

Lia Tarachansky:

ended up becoming members of parliament and rising all the way to the top.

Lia Tarachansky:

And as we are covering their big project in the most fragile part of the Middle

Lia Tarachansky:

East, or at least of Israel and Palestine, which is the Haram Aqsa, compound the

Lia Tarachansky:

Temple Mount, they have been trying to agitate and to provoke a religious

Lia Tarachansky:

war, and in the service of what they perceive to be an end of time prophecy.

Lia Tarachansky:

And what's going on today is a direct result of their struggles

Lia Tarachansky:

to agitate the public, the Palestinian public, into a conflict.

Lia Tarachansky:

And October 7th massacre that Hamas perpetrated in southern Israel was called

Lia Tarachansky:

the Al Aqsa flood because it is a direct response to what these rabbis have been

Lia Tarachansky:

doing at Al Aqsa at the Temple Mount.

Lia Tarachansky:

Basically it's a film about a movement of Jewish extremists that are trying

Lia Tarachansky:

to bring back biblical Judaism.

Lia Tarachansky:

And along the story of how we followed them and their project in Israel

Lia Tarachansky:

and Palestine, we actually ended up discovering that they have a global

Lia Tarachansky:

project and that took us to Mexico and the Philippines, and they're

Lia Tarachansky:

very active in Cameroon and in India.

Lia Tarachansky:

And I'm trying to get that film picked up by a producer and picked up by a

Lia Tarachansky:

broadcaster, but we got a bit of support in the beginning from The Guardian, but

Lia Tarachansky:

when the story grew and evolved into what it is it outgrew the short, the kind of

Lia Tarachansky:

shorts that The Guardian does, and so I've been trying to find a home for this film

Lia Tarachansky:

that is now halfway through production, It's such a complex piece and it's such a

Lia Tarachansky:

fire starter to talk about these things that it's been a real

Lia Tarachansky:

struggle to get this place a home.

Lia Tarachansky:

To supplement that, I've been working on a very cute project, a very small

Lia Tarachansky:

film with the co director Mary Bunch about these two elderly women in

Lia Tarachansky:

Quebec and Canada who are spending their retirement as former elementary

Lia Tarachansky:

school teachers planting 10, 000 trees.

Lia Tarachansky:

And so that's been a huge relief from all of these conflict driven film and genocide

Lia Tarachansky:

driven films to do a film about these two lovely women in their 80s who are spending

Lia Tarachansky:

every free minute planting 10, 000 trees.

Jovanni:

So cool.

Jovanni:

That's so cool.

Jovanni:

Oh thank you.

Jovanni:

Yeah, where can people find you?

Jovanni:

Where can people, follow your work?

Lia Tarachansky:

I'm at Liatorachansky.

Lia Tarachansky:

com.

Lia Tarachansky:

What about you?

Lia Tarachansky:

Where can people find you?

Lia Tarachansky:

What are you working on?

Lia Tarachansky:

Where can people find your work?

Jovanni:

I guess you can hear us portraits on the Hill podcast.

Jovanni:

You can see us in YouTube X Telegram whatever you can hear

Jovanni:

wherever you get podcasts from.

Jovanni:

Occasionally I write an article here and there.

Jovanni:

I just wrote an article recently.

Jovanni:

I posted a local paper about the upcoming veterans Day holiday,

Jovanni:

which is the 11th of November.

Jovanni:

And I wrote a quick article on it, where the Veterans Day come from,

Jovanni:

used to be Armistice Day and then how it was changed from Armistice Day to

Jovanni:

Veterans Day in the 1950s and the impact of it now, where people just really

Jovanni:

don't really think about the wars.

Jovanni:

Originally, it was to reflect on the First World War.

Jovanni:

But now people don't think about war.

Jovanni:

People just think about, the holiday specials and, time off and thanking

Jovanni:

a random veteran in the street.

Jovanni:

But, so it depoliticized the day, so that was, that's what the article is about.

Jovanni:

Yeah, so every now and then you can see my, I write an article every now and then.

Jovanni:

I haven't been as, I haven't been as active writing as I used

Jovanni:

to be, as I was before, though.

Lia Tarachansky:

I'm glad that article exists.

Jovanni:

Thank you and I'll thank everyone to, who joined us.

Jovanni:

And like I say, you can find us on YouTube, Ask the Telegram

Jovanni:

whatever you hear, podcasts like us share us with a friend.

Jovanni:

Yeah, please share us and stay tuned for our next episode.

Jovanni:

Take care.

Henri:

Money is tight these days for everyone, penny pinching to

Henri:

make it through the month often doesn't give people the funds to

Henri:

contribute to a creator they support.

Henri:

So we consider it the highest honor that folks help us fund the podcast

Henri:

in any dollar amount they're able.

Henri:

Patreon is the main place to do that.

Henri:

In addition, any support we receive makes sure we can continue to provide

Henri:

our main episodes free for everyone.

Henri:

And for supporters who can donate $10 a month or more, they will be listed

Henri:

right here as an honorary producer.

Henri:

Like these fine folks.

Henri:

Fahim's Everyone Dream, Eric Phillips, Paul Appel, Julie Dupree, Thomas Benson,

Henri:

Janet Hanson, Ren jacob, and Helge Berg.

Henri:

However, if Patreon isn't your style, you can contribute directly through PayPal

Henri:

at PayPal dot me forward slash Fortress on hill, or please check out our store on

Henri:

Spreadshirt for some great Fortress merch.

Henri:

We're on Twitter and @facebook.com at Fortress On A Hill.

Henri:

You can find our full collection of episodes at www dot

Henri:

Fortress On A Hill dot com.

Henri:

Skepticism is one's best armor.

Henri:

Never forget it.

Henri:

We'll see you next time.

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About the Podcast

Fortress On A Hill (FOH) Podcast
Clearing away the BS around U.S. foreign policy, anti-imperialism, skepticism, and the American way of war
The United States has become synonymous with empire and endless war, American troops sit in 70% of the world's countries, and yet, most Americans don't know that. The military is joined disproportionately by a 'warrior caste’ whom carry this enormous burden, making a less diverse force and ensuring most of society doesn't see their sacrifice. And American tax dollars, funding hundreds of billions in unnecessary spending on global hegemony, are robbed from the domestic needs of ordinary Americans. We aim to change that. Join Henri, Keagan, Jovanni, Shiloh, and Monisha, six leftist US military veterans, as they discuss how to turn the tide against endless war and repair the damage America has caused abroad.

About your host

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Christopher Henrikson

Chris ‘Henri’ Henrikson is an Iraq war veteran from Portland, OR. He deployed in support of
Operation Noble Eagle at the Pentagon following 9/11 and served two tours in Iraq in
support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. A former MP team leader, Henri also served two years
as a CID drug investigator. Now a journalist, podcaster, writer, and anti-war activist, Henri
no longer supports the lies of imperialism or the PR spin of the politicians, wherever the
source. He seeks to make common cause with anyone tired of jingoistic-driven death
from the American war machine and a desire to protect the innocents of the earth, no
matter their origin. Except Alex Jones. Fuck that guy. Follow him on Twitter at
@henrihateswar. Email him at henri@fortressonahill.com.