podcast friday
Apr. 11th, 2025 07:41 am It's another tough week to decide, but I'm going to go with It Could Happen Here's "How ICE Kidnapped a Farmworker Union Organizer." Basically, in all the economic chaos that is fucking everyone in the entire world, we shouldn't forget that Trump has his own Gestapo and they're disappearing people. This focuses on one of the people who he tried to disappear, Familias Unidas por la Justicia organizer Alfredo “Lelo” Juarez.
The US has particularly screwed its own food supply long term, because no Americans will do the job that migrant farmworkers, many of them undocumented, do. It is trying to make up for that with prisoner and child labour, so I guess it's possible that they will throw tens of thousands of people in prison and use them to replace all the humans that they've deported to the concentration camp in El Salvador, but like. This actually requires skill. As in Canada, farmworkers don't have any of the labour protections that other workers have. Lelo is one of the brave souls who waded into this mess and for his bravery, was targeted by the Gestapo. This is the story of the work he was doing and the community's organizing to free him. As the guest, Mark Medina, puts it, you need to fight this not just because you care about this one guy but because it could happen to you next.
(By the way, and unrelated to the podcast, we really need to name and shame people who are turning in other humans to the Gestapo. I've been called a kapo a lot in my life, which is a historically ignorant insult, but when I see pieces of shit like StopAntisemitism and Betar openly bragging about reporting people to the goon squad, I feel like there has to be a directed response to these weak-minded little Nazis.)
The US has particularly screwed its own food supply long term, because no Americans will do the job that migrant farmworkers, many of them undocumented, do. It is trying to make up for that with prisoner and child labour, so I guess it's possible that they will throw tens of thousands of people in prison and use them to replace all the humans that they've deported to the concentration camp in El Salvador, but like. This actually requires skill. As in Canada, farmworkers don't have any of the labour protections that other workers have. Lelo is one of the brave souls who waded into this mess and for his bravery, was targeted by the Gestapo. This is the story of the work he was doing and the community's organizing to free him. As the guest, Mark Medina, puts it, you need to fight this not just because you care about this one guy but because it could happen to you next.
(By the way, and unrelated to the podcast, we really need to name and shame people who are turning in other humans to the Gestapo. I've been called a kapo a lot in my life, which is a historically ignorant insult, but when I see pieces of shit like StopAntisemitism and Betar openly bragging about reporting people to the goon squad, I feel like there has to be a directed response to these weak-minded little Nazis.)
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Date: 2025-04-11 12:47 pm (UTC)The word "Muskapo" comes to my mind regularly re: ICE and/or DOGE, although it turns out that's actually some family's name as I found out via Bluesky in the last couple of days.
*nervous twitching*
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Date: 2025-04-11 11:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-04-11 01:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-04-11 11:55 pm (UTC)These people shouldn't be able to go to the grocery store or out to dinner.
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Date: 2025-04-11 02:01 pm (UTC)The latter is a task that Jordy usually relishes...
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Date: 2025-04-11 11:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-04-11 08:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-04-11 11:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-04-12 07:08 am (UTC)"Moysrim" got right-wing co-opted, but I'm looking into other slang. Abraham Gancwajch must have had a lot of names.
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Date: 2025-04-12 10:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-04-12 07:41 pm (UTC)Looks like some of your options per ghetto Yiddish were shmaltzer for an informer, shmirer for the kind who'll take protection money, khapermentsh for the kind who'll just run you in, and batl-makher for the kind who'll do it with gratuitous violence. I am told you could get more localized slang depending on region and dialect, but any of those would have been generally recognized as squealers, stoolies, and collaborators.
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Date: 2025-04-12 08:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-04-12 08:10 pm (UTC)It's just so oleaginous.
Use it in good health and not theirs! I consulted
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Date: 2025-04-12 08:59 pm (UTC)Anyone who’s called you, of all people, a kapo needs their teeth removed with the business end of a Doc Marten
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Date: 2025-04-12 09:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-04-20 04:59 pm (UTC)Thanks as always for the podcast link. Adding this to my queue.
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Date: 2025-04-20 05:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-04-20 05:55 pm (UTC)