Speaker 1: Who Blue Blue Yep, that's how we start the episode.
Speaker 1: That's night had named the podcast just we can't start
Speaker 1: with because Santa Claus was murdered at the beginning of
Speaker 1: the first episode. He was He was murdered by Paul Schaefer,
Speaker 1: who just zoomed in to shoot him in a river
Speaker 1: with a bunch of kids watching Paul Schaefer. Um, the
Speaker 1: audience can't see what. I'm shaking my head disapprovingly at you,
Speaker 1: At Paul Shaffer. I don't know, but not the Paul
Speaker 1: Schaefer who had a Nazi colt in Chile. The Paul
Speaker 1: Schaefer who worked on who was Letterman's band leader for years.
Speaker 1: That's that's the one. Um. He shot Santa Claus two
Speaker 1: in a lake. Uh So, Margaret kill Joy, how are you?
Speaker 1: I'm good, You're good. How are you? How are you
Speaker 1: likeing the tupamarrows? Uh? You know, I'm like, I keep
Speaker 1: I'm really excited to see how it plays out. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're because they're endearing. Yeah yeah. But and then even
Speaker 1: like the fact that one of them ends up president.
Speaker 1: That's like both interesting interesting in so many complicated ways
Speaker 1: that I'm like, I want to see the steps that
Speaker 1: took them there. Yes, because this does not happen often.
Speaker 1: Sometimes guerilla and surgeons win their insurgency and then become
Speaker 1: the president or whatever. Sometimes guys who are like labor
Speaker 1: organizers or like leftist politicians get imprisoned by a dictatorship
Speaker 1: and then later become the president. Rarely is a guy
Speaker 1: robbing banks with a handgun and then gets democratically elected
Speaker 1: president of the country, like after spending years in a
Speaker 1: in a dictatorship's prison cells. That is not a common story.
Speaker 1: You don't run into that all the time. How much
Speaker 1: did he change? I don't know, you know, because that's
Speaker 1: all they're getting into. It's exciting, Yeah, I'm excited. So
Speaker 1: by nineteen seventy five, the military had successfully rolled over
Speaker 1: and destroyed the Tupamorrow nineteen seventy two. When the dictatorship
Speaker 1: comes into place is when they start like going hardcore,
Speaker 1: cracking down, and by any five, everybody's dead or in prison,
Speaker 1: mostly in prison. And one of the people who was
Speaker 1: thrown in prison was our friend in future president Jose Musica.
Speaker 1: He was actually captured several times, he was arrested. He
Speaker 1: was like imprisoned like four separate times. He broke out
Speaker 1: of prison at least once. Um. But like the type
Speaker 1: the thing he finally gets caught for is he's like
Speaker 1: drinking in a bar after you know, robbing a bank
Speaker 1: or something, and a cop who's there in plain clothes
Speaker 1: recognizes him and gets a bunch of other cops and
Speaker 1: they have a huge shootout in a bar and he
Speaker 1: gets shot six times and survives. So again, when we're
Speaker 1: saying when I when I say, this guy was like hardcore,
Speaker 1: Like you can't you can't be much more committed than
Speaker 1: getting shot six times in a gunfight with the police,
Speaker 1: um as a revolutionary cred to bring him down, you know,
Speaker 1: like I certainly can't. Yeah, um, yeah, yeah, yeah, same.
Speaker 1: But this is a little bit more hardcore than that. Um.
Speaker 1: And he is one of the last two Pomorrows who
Speaker 1: gets captured and locked up, and by the time he
Speaker 1: gets locked up, he's fairly high like in the organization,
Speaker 1: right is in Again he's kind of because in part
Speaker 1: because he's one of the last ones to get to
Speaker 1: get captured. Um. And so he's put in prison for
Speaker 1: well over a decade. And I'm gonna quote from a
Speaker 1: write up in the Guardian to describe like what his
Speaker 1: time in the dictatorship's prison is like. The poet novelist
Speaker 1: in playwright Mauricio Rosenkoff spent eleven years in a tiny
Speaker 1: cell next to Musica. For many years, Rosenkoff told me,
Speaker 1: the hostages could only communicate by tapping Morse code on
Speaker 1: their cell walls. Allowed to use the toilet just once
Speaker 1: a day, they urinated into their water bottles, allowing the
Speaker 1: sediment to settle and drinking the rest because water was
Speaker 1: also scarce. It was even worse for Musica, whose bullet
Speaker 1: wounds had seriously damaged his guts. Solitary confinement drove them
Speaker 1: half mad. Pepe became in That's Jose's nickname, became convinced
Speaker 1: that a bugging device was hidden in in the ceiling.
Speaker 1: It's imaginary static deafened him. He would put stones in
Speaker 1: his mouth to stop himself from screaming. Rosen Cough now
Speaker 1: eighty one told me Musica thought to obtain the one
Speaker 1: item he needed most, a potty. Hostages were allowed occasional
Speaker 1: family visits, so Donna Lucy bought it, brought him one,
Speaker 1: but the guards refused to give it to him. One
Speaker 1: day when his jailers held a party, Musica began to
Speaker 1: scream for it. The commandant, embarrassed in front of his guests, relented.
Speaker 1: Musica clung to his sole possession, a symbol of victory
Speaker 1: over his jailers. Each time they were moved to a
Speaker 1: new army camp, he refused to scrub it clean. Rosen
Speaker 1: Cooff recalled, we all have ticks left from that time.
Speaker 1: When Pepe came out, he came out with all that baggage.
Speaker 1: So he is, and some people, some sources, kind of
Speaker 1: frame him getting the toilet as like this victory, him
Speaker 1: being able to get the one thing he could, the
Speaker 1: one like way to exert his autonomy was to force
Speaker 1: them to give him his own toilet. Some people should
Speaker 1: frame it as him like losing his mind a little
Speaker 1: bit and just becoming obsessed with the idea of having
Speaker 1: a toilet. Both are probably true. Um, they don't need
Speaker 1: to those don't need to be in conflict with each other.
Speaker 1: There's no way I think you would have to go
Speaker 1: a little crazy in specific ways to survive fourteen years,
Speaker 1: which is what he spends in a prison like this,
Speaker 1: where you're tortured and beaten and starved regularly. Um, you don't.
Speaker 1: You don't survive that by not changing at all, you know,
Speaker 1: like that is um. Yeah, he does what he has
Speaker 1: to do do. He survives. He's imprisoned for fourteen years. If
Speaker 1: you're wondering how he stayed sane during that time in
Speaker 1: his own words, we have an interview conducted by someone
Speaker 1: from the site Upside Down World with Musica that sheds
Speaker 1: some light on how he claims he kept himself, saying, quote,
Speaker 1: I would come up with ideas for tools. I mentally
Speaker 1: invented farm implements that would be for this or that.
Speaker 1: I calculated them, manufactured them mentally, and so kept myself entertained.
Speaker 1: I walked several miles a day, more than I do today,
Speaker 1: for sure. And then the journalists asked in the hole,
Speaker 1: because he's in like this basically a dank hole, and
Speaker 1: he said, oh yes, three steps one way, three steps
Speaker 1: the other, three steps one way, three steps to the other,
Speaker 1: until my legs hurt. Like that's how he avoids losing
Speaker 1: his mind in in this prison. It was the early
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties when cracks finally started to form around the dictatorship.
Speaker 1: Some of the credit for this goes to the men
Speaker 1: and women on the legal left, the same people who
Speaker 1: formed the Frente Amplio. They continue to organize an agitate
Speaker 1: in In In nineteen eighty four, people took to the streets
Speaker 1: in mass um It protesting the dictatorship, and it was
Speaker 1: such a significant number of people that the dictatorship like
Speaker 1: backs down, basically realizes like, we were either are going
Speaker 1: to start killing people in mass in the street or
Speaker 1: we're not going to have a dictatorship anymore. And if
Speaker 1: we kill people in mass in the street, I'm not
Speaker 1: sure we'll win. And so I'm not going to gamble.
Speaker 1: I think is kind of what happens right um and
Speaker 1: the Liberal the kind of the dictatorship's end is negotiated
Speaker 1: in large part by the leader of kind of the
Speaker 1: Liberal party, Julio Sanguinetti Um, who helps to negotiate an
Speaker 1: into the dictatorship, and he gets elected president next in
Speaker 1: a peaceful election, and one of his first decisions is
Speaker 1: to push for an amnesty that freeze imprisoned leftist radicals
Speaker 1: like Musica, will also providing amnesty to the military leaders
Speaker 1: who run the dictatorship. So san Quinetti is like, we're
Speaker 1: going to release all the two p Tomorrow's we're also
Speaker 1: not going to imprison the military, because I think the
Speaker 1: attitude is number one, you have to leave them. We're
Speaker 1: trying to get them to back down without mass bloodshed
Speaker 1: in the streets, so you have to leave them an
Speaker 1: exit plan. And I also think it's his the attitude
Speaker 1: is like, well, if we just imprison another group of people,
Speaker 1: then maybe we'll have a cycle where a new regime
Speaker 1: comes in it imprisons the old regime, and like that
Speaker 1: doesn't like, I don't know how much of it is
Speaker 1: like trying to give the military and out, and how
Speaker 1: much of it is trying to stop a cycle of reprisals.
Speaker 1: But that's what they decide to do. UM better than
Speaker 1: most you know, actually getting the political prisoners free, better
Speaker 1: than most movements, better than most like movements. And it
Speaker 1: it's it's I mean, obviously it's controversial not prosecuting the military.
Speaker 1: And actually they do start to prosecute and currently are
Speaker 1: to some extent some people who like the some of
Speaker 1: the worst people. But initially it's just like, yeah, let's
Speaker 1: amnesty kind of for everybody involved in that whole thing.
Speaker 1: Let's try to put it behind us. UM. Now, Sanguinetti,
Speaker 1: who's kind of the first post dictatorship president is also
Speaker 1: one of the people who blames the Tupamorrows for the
Speaker 1: coming of the dictatorship, one of the Uruguayans who does
Speaker 1: his claim for this. Like one of the things he
Speaker 1: says in an interview I found is that like the
Speaker 1: bullets that Musica and the other two Tomorrow's fired were
Speaker 1: shots against democracy because they led to the dictatorship. UM
Speaker 1: and he as Jose gets out of prison and gets
Speaker 1: into politics, he does not like Uh Musica. UM. I
Speaker 1: found some quotes from him in a Guardian article, and
Speaker 1: I think at least some of his issue with the
Speaker 1: Tupamorrows is that he's not a leftist. For one thing,
Speaker 1: he's kind of like more maybe center left, you could say,
Speaker 1: but he's not like, I don't think he's a far
Speaker 1: leftist UM. And I think some of his frustration comes
Speaker 1: from the fact that when the dictatorship ends UM and
Speaker 1: politics starts up again, the Frente Amplio comes back, UM
Speaker 1: and it starts siphoning votes away from the Liberal Colorado
Speaker 1: Party San Juanetti's party. UM. I'm not gonna spend a
Speaker 1: lot of time like digging into Uruguay and electoral politics
Speaker 1: because I don't understand them. Well, um again, I I
Speaker 1: cite two scholarly papers you can read that go into
Speaker 1: a lot of detail about Uruguay and electoral politics. I
Speaker 1: would recommend reading that if you want to know it better. Um.
Speaker 1: But it is interesting to me that um to kind
Speaker 1: of look into which groups of people had issues with
Speaker 1: the fact that Jose Musica, when he gets into politics,
Speaker 1: was a former tup Tomorrow and which people didn't because
Speaker 1: like Sanguinetti, this guy who to his credit helps into
Speaker 1: the dictatorship, dislikes Musica and the Tupamorrows and blames them
Speaker 1: for the coming of the dictatorship. You know who doesn't
Speaker 1: blame them, and who in fact votes for Musica when
Speaker 1: uh he wont when the presidency? Is it the products
Speaker 1: and services that support this show. No, it's not time
Speaker 1: for that. You remember how I read that story last
Speaker 1: episode about like that guy who as a kid with
Speaker 1: his like wheelchair bound sister, Jose like robbed the family
Speaker 1: to threaten to murder his dad. Yeah, he votes for
Speaker 1: him for president. Later he's like, yeah, we'll talk about
Speaker 1: that a little more. But he's like, yeah, I think
Speaker 1: he's he's probably a good candidate. I'm not angry at him,
Speaker 1: which is gave me my typewriter back that says something
Speaker 1: about how polite a robber you are if like later
Speaker 1: someone votes for you to be president, and imagine that
Speaker 1: being your backstory, like in the United States, being like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, when I was six, Joe Biden robbed my
Speaker 1: house at gunpoint and threatened to kill my stepdad. And
Speaker 1: Biden does all these other crimes that are far grosser,
Speaker 1: way grosser. Yeah, I mean, Musique was at least front
Speaker 1: and center whatever he was doing, you know. Um. So
Speaker 1: we talked earlier about how the tup Tomorrows are characterized
Speaker 1: by how flexible they are, how good they are at
Speaker 1: pivoting from different things and not really staying locked into
Speaker 1: things that one tendency or another would require of them
Speaker 1: kind of ideologically. Um, and they do this again, they don't.
Speaker 1: They get out of prison or at least you know,
Speaker 1: because some of them are just like underground hiding, but
Speaker 1: like they're able to be public again and they form
Speaker 1: a political party and join the front Amplio again. Um
Speaker 1: and so yeah, the old Tupermorrow start getting into electoral politics,
Speaker 1: and the Tupamarrow who was like at the forefront of
Speaker 1: pushing for the party to get into electoral politics is
Speaker 1: Jose Musica. Um and I'm gonna quote from the New
Speaker 1: Republic here. As the group readjusted to freedom, most of
Speaker 1: its members wanted to avoid returning to guerilla warfare, though
Speaker 1: what course to pursue instead was unclear. Right wingers still
Speaker 1: maintained control over much of the government. Musica argued for
Speaker 1: an entry into traditional party politics and staged public forums
Speaker 1: known as Mattea's Confabs, held in village squares over calabash
Speaker 1: gourds full of strong mate ti. He'd retained his childhood
Speaker 1: egalitarian passions, but prison had made him more philosophical and
Speaker 1: deepened his rough hewn physical allure. He rapidly developed a
Speaker 1: following among poorer workers and in the mid nineties entered parliament.
Speaker 1: Then in two thousand five he received an appointment as
Speaker 1: Agriculture Minister. It was in that post that Musica won
Speaker 1: national acclaim, speaking in almost biblical terms about how govern
Speaker 1: policies affected the common man. For post dictatorship Uruguay, his
Speaker 1: language was healing, a triumphant return to the country's traditional
Speaker 1: values of humility and shared responsibility. Bugica's biggest fight as
Speaker 1: agriculture minister was to ensure poor Uruguayans access to a sado,
Speaker 1: the traditional dish of beef rib grilled over an open fire,
Speaker 1: and able to afford the meat. The lower classes often
Speaker 1: ate less expensive cuts off the neck. Neck is unacceptable,
Speaker 1: Mujica told a reporter. When some butchers began selling more
Speaker 1: affordable asado, people lovelingly nicknamed it a sado del pepe A.
Speaker 1: Two thousand seven polls showed that he'd become far and
Speaker 1: away the country's most liked government official, and he decided
Speaker 1: to run for president. Like that is such a heartwark
Speaker 1: just being like, wait, poor Pia, Like this is our
Speaker 1: traditional dish that we I grew up eating, and you're
Speaker 1: telling me people are like eating using ship meat for it. Now,
Speaker 1: that is unfucking acceptable. Like poor people deserve to eat
Speaker 1: well too, And I'm gonna fight for that ship. Um.
Speaker 1: Obviously people loved him, Yeah, where's the catch? Well, we'll
Speaker 1: talk about that. It's not perfect, Like, it's not perfect, um,
Speaker 1: and we are going to I think, like primarily today
Speaker 1: we'll be talking about the catch and the degree to
Speaker 1: which he would have sold out or whatever, you want
Speaker 1: to talk about it, like we're yeah, well I'm excited.
Speaker 1: I'm excited to have a conversation about that with you. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So he ran for president in two thousand nine, and
Speaker 1: he immediately made a massive impact on Uruguay's urban poor Um,
Speaker 1: just because of the way he presented himself, not even
Speaker 1: in terms of policy yet, because the policy pact part
Speaker 1: is more debatable. But he has this big impact in
Speaker 1: fact part because he dresses. He's not in a suit,
Speaker 1: he's not dressing like a politician, he's not dressing like him.
Speaker 1: He refuses to wear a tie. Um. He has often
Speaker 1: seen at public events and sandals and like he would
Speaker 1: wear dirty jumpers, like at first his like he had
Speaker 1: they had to like kind of fight with him to
Speaker 1: get him to wear at least like okay, you can
Speaker 1: wear like just a shirt, but a clean one, right,
Speaker 1: Like and he's like dragging his around. Yeah, he's got
Speaker 1: his body with him. Um. He met poor people where
Speaker 1: they lived, and he was particularly famous for ask asking
Speaker 1: meaningful questions about their lives, like do you support this policy,
Speaker 1: but like asking like very pointed material questions about what
Speaker 1: they had access to and how they were doing. Um.
Speaker 1: He also ranted in his public speeches against consumerist capitalism,
Speaker 1: which he said wasted human strength on quote frivolities that
Speaker 1: have little to do with human happiness. Jose was elected
Speaker 1: president in two thousand nine, and on paper his term
Speaker 1: is a left liberal wet dream. Under his presidency, Uruguay
Speaker 1: legalized gay marriage, marijuana, and abortion, which is pretty good
Speaker 1: for four years, right, yeah, yeah, And it's not like
Speaker 1: a like a great I guess you could say, it's
Speaker 1: not like the ideal abortion policies, legalizing I think up
Speaker 1: to twelve weeks. But like from a point of this
Speaker 1: as a Catholic country and you can't do it, that's
Speaker 1: like a huge that's a big that's a that's a
Speaker 1: thing like that's worth celebrating. Um. And also just like
Speaker 1: being down with gay rights when he would talk about
Speaker 1: that the sixties revolutionary, we will talk about that. Not guaranteed,
Speaker 1: not a guarantee. Now these are the cliff notes of
Speaker 1: Jose's presidency, and so you can see what, like the
Speaker 1: Guardian says, it's the most radical president in the world. Now,
Speaker 1: when you get into the weeds a little bit, it
Speaker 1: is less radical, well in some ways less radical, seeing
Speaker 1: it's certainly in some ways, like it's more complicated, but
Speaker 1: I also think it's a lot more interesting if you
Speaker 1: look at like his motivations for things. Let's take gay marriage, right, Um,
Speaker 1: his support of gay rights, because a decent critical piece
Speaker 1: on Musik and I've read a number will note rightly
Speaker 1: that he should not be credited with bringing gay marriage
Speaker 1: to Uruguay because activists have been working for decades to
Speaker 1: get to that point, you know, which is always the
Speaker 1: case when gay marriage gets legalized. Right, that's the case
Speaker 1: with Obama too, Like I don't give him credit for it,
Speaker 1: other than the fact that he was the guy who
Speaker 1: decided not to fight it anymore. You know. Um, I
Speaker 1: think gets a little more credit than I would give
Speaker 1: Obama for this, maybe, um telling the press quote they
Speaker 1: fit about his like gay rights, marriage rights. They those
Speaker 1: rights fit our sense of freedom and human rights, but
Speaker 1: they don't solve the basic problem, which is the difference
Speaker 1: of class. And that's what will see is like, I'm
Speaker 1: happy to legalize gay rights. I don't think this solves
Speaker 1: the problem, which is primarily a class problem. He'll say
Speaker 1: a lot like look the issue, like it's important for
Speaker 1: people to have rights. I believe in people having freedom.
Speaker 1: But also if you look at it, rich people were
Speaker 1: always free to be gay. This is something he says
Speaker 1: like interviews, the number rich people have always been able
Speaker 1: to be gay and pretty much live life the way
Speaker 1: they wanted. It's if you're if you're a gay woman,
Speaker 1: a poor woman, um, you know, an indigenous gay person,
Speaker 1: like if you're not part of the upper class, that's
Speaker 1: when it becomes a problem. And so he sees gay
Speaker 1: rights as primarily part of the class struggle is the
Speaker 1: thing that he always emphasizes in his interviews. So it's
Speaker 1: interesting because he's not doing fulk class reductionism. No, he's
Speaker 1: actually tiny issues in he's actually doing better than a
Speaker 1: huge he really is. It's radical left at the moment.
Speaker 1: And it's interesting because when it comes to Jose's personal views.
Speaker 1: One Uruguayan sex health activist called him a bit chro
Speaker 1: magnan um, and he refers to when he refers to
Speaker 1: gay people, he calls them sexually ambivalent um, which you know,
Speaker 1: he was born in nineteen thirty five, right, Like you
Speaker 1: can call me sexually ambivalent, Like it's not offensive, it's
Speaker 1: just kind of weird. And it's clear he's just like
Speaker 1: I don't really get this, but like my default is
Speaker 1: that people should have more freedom. So yeah, let's let's
Speaker 1: do it, you know, Like I think that's kind of
Speaker 1: his attitudes, Like I don't understand this at all, but
Speaker 1: like it's a question of rights and people should always
Speaker 1: have more rights. Um, which is fine, And it is
Speaker 1: worth noting that the so before Musica gets elected, the
Speaker 1: Broadfront Alexa another president. The first president the broad Front
Speaker 1: Alex is a guy named Vasquez who is a very
Speaker 1: left wing dude in a lot of ways, and we'll
Speaker 1: talk about him a bit more, but he's also very
Speaker 1: Catholic and again like liberation theology and stuff. So he
Speaker 1: had despite being the lefty president right before Musica, he
Speaker 1: vetoed a lot of legalized gay marriage during his term.
Speaker 1: And so again an abortion to probably I don't I
Speaker 1: don't know as much about that, but I don't know
Speaker 1: if like the fight to legalist abortion was and enough
Speaker 1: of a point during his presidency where he could I'm
Speaker 1: not really sure, um, but I think you should say,
Speaker 1: don't give this guy all the credit. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of activists, but also the last guy who was on
Speaker 1: the left vetoed this, so it's not no credit that
Speaker 1: Musika gets. Especially I always give credit to like an
Speaker 1: old dude who clearly doesn't understand anything about it other
Speaker 1: than that people are being restricted from a thing. And
Speaker 1: it's like, well that's bad, Like there's an agree to
Speaker 1: which I just inherently respect a man who's willing to
Speaker 1: say I'm old. I don't understand things anymore, but my
Speaker 1: default has always give people more freedom. So that's where
Speaker 1: I land on this. That's a really good way to
Speaker 1: approach aging and not understanding issues, is just trying to
Speaker 1: be like, all right, well what about like where where?
Speaker 1: What is? Yeah? I think that's admirable. Um, you know
Speaker 1: what else is admirable, Margaret, No, I have no idea
Speaker 1: the products and services that support this podcast. Um, very
Speaker 1: admirable admiration will be available from everybody. Yeah, we're back.
Speaker 1: So Um. When it comes to how Musica talks about
Speaker 1: legalizing gay marriage, who he talks about, like how he
Speaker 1: deals with like when people like especially like foreign journalists
Speaker 1: credit him with this is really interesting and I want
Speaker 1: to read a quote from him on that subject, um
Speaker 1: and some other things from that Guardian article quote. All
Speaker 1: we are doing is recognizing something as old as humanity.
Speaker 1: Music has said the best thing is that people can
Speaker 1: live as they want to live. And that's his like
Speaker 1: attitude to like why did you, which is I think
Speaker 1: very admirable. He sees those twice punished by poverty and
Speaker 1: intolerance is the real victims. Those who are sexually ambivalent
Speaker 1: have a real problem if they are poor, if they
Speaker 1: are rich, they are tolerated. That sounds crude, but it's
Speaker 1: the truth as I see it, he said. And the
Speaker 1: women most discriminated against are those in poverty. Machismo hits
Speaker 1: hardest at the lowest level. Poor girls are not well
Speaker 1: treated by our society. There are women who end up
Speaker 1: abandoned with lots of children. For me, that is one
Speaker 1: of the most important battles for fairness. Um. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: and during his presidential campaign, he was caught complaining about
Speaker 1: quote intellectual women who think they are down trotting, but
Speaker 1: who talk about their companera or cleaning lady when she
Speaker 1: is really the servant. Which I love that he makes
Speaker 1: that distinction, whereas like, there's a lot of rich women
Speaker 1: complaining about like how they're not treated equally, who also
Speaker 1: have a lady who's basically their slave. Um, Like I
Speaker 1: don't think that's cool. He's he's it's hard to argue
Speaker 1: with the things he says. At least you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: goes out to a restaurant. We are Yeah, we're actually
Speaker 1: getting to that in a little bit. Um. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: the fact that Peppe is a quasi anarchist militant president
Speaker 1: who legalized pot might lead you to lead you to
Speaker 1: expect that, like he's does a lot of pot, he's
Speaker 1: never smoked marijuana. And I will believe that from a
Speaker 1: I who legalized it. Like a lot of times it's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: well you're probably just and he's like, no, he's fine
Speaker 1: with it being legal, he just doesn't want to do it. Um,
Speaker 1: he's he's heavily addicted to tobacco and he drinks a lot.
Speaker 1: But I don't think he's he's ever smoked pot. He
Speaker 1: says he hasn't. Um but and and his he's not
Speaker 1: like pro weed culture. He just thinks prohibition has been
Speaker 1: a failure. And there's also a big element of like
Speaker 1: why he's legalizing pot is to take money away from
Speaker 1: drug cartels because there's a major it's essentially like a
Speaker 1: cocaine derivative problem in Uruguayan slums that his government was fighting,
Speaker 1: and so he is not anti the drug war entirely,
Speaker 1: and this is I think one of the areas in
Speaker 1: which I would disagree with him, because his attitude is,
Speaker 1: I think we should legalize the drugs that are not
Speaker 1: harmful in his view, um to deny Cartel's money and
Speaker 1: we should fight them selling what is basically crack um,
Speaker 1: which like, I'm not pro crack uh, it's pretty nasty stuff,
Speaker 1: but I don't think prohibition works there either. Again, it's
Speaker 1: not a perfect man um, but this is I think
Speaker 1: his attitude towards and I'm all so not an expert
Speaker 1: in Uruguay's crack cocaine problem, so I'm not gonna pontificate
Speaker 1: there either. Um In his attitude in general towards drug
Speaker 1: use seems to be that, at least from a user
Speaker 1: perspective people. One of the quotes he gave is, we
Speaker 1: want to take users out of hiding and create a
Speaker 1: situation where we can say you are overdoing it. You
Speaker 1: have to deal with that. So it's a very like
Speaker 1: Scandinavian attitude towards how drugs should be treated um, which
Speaker 1: of like the ways Western countries deal with drug use
Speaker 1: is the most reasonable. That kind of states tend to embrace. UM.
Speaker 1: So whatever you can think about that the way you do.
Speaker 1: But it's nuanced. It's not just like he's not just
Speaker 1: pro drugs, he's he is. He does support some kinds
Speaker 1: of drug war. UM. I think the place where Jose
Speaker 1: Mujica is most impressive isn't the ways in which he
Speaker 1: actually does live. Because it's one thing to say all
Speaker 1: this stuff. He really does live in concert with his values.
Speaker 1: For example, he speaks all the time about the plight
Speaker 1: of poor women. Um. And as president, he made like
Speaker 1: two d grand a year as president, and he donated
Speaker 1: his salary to single months. Um. And he's not getting
Speaker 1: into this as a rich guy, you know, Like he's
Speaker 1: not like a millionaire becoming the president. Um. He took
Speaker 1: enough to like live in the house that he'd occupied
Speaker 1: most of his life, um, and gave all of the
Speaker 1: rest to like single moms, um, which is dope. And
Speaker 1: he had he has like some land and a bunch
Speaker 1: of old people live on it and don't pay rent.
Speaker 1: Like he's he's a pretty Like he's everything about his
Speaker 1: life is very much in concert with the things that
Speaker 1: he's said. I want to not like him, and yeah,
Speaker 1: you're making it hard. It's hard not to even the
Speaker 1: people who are very critical of him like him personally.
Speaker 1: It's very hard not to like him personally. Despite being
Speaker 1: tortured in prison. He seems to generally support the amnesty
Speaker 1: for the military um, which I find really interesting. His
Speaker 1: attitude is that because a lot of people are very
Speaker 1: critical of this, and I'm not saying it's the right
Speaker 1: or the wrong policy. Obviously, people who like had friends
Speaker 1: murdered or tortured by the military have issues with the amnesty.
Speaker 1: I think I would um. Jose's attitude, as someone who
Speaker 1: was hurt as much as anybody by the military was
Speaker 1: that the men who harmed him, we're not doing it themselves.
Speaker 1: They were tools of a system, and that system was
Speaker 1: his actual enemy. Um. There also seems to be beyond
Speaker 1: his ideological justifications. I think a dimension of emotional pragmatism
Speaker 1: to this attitude. As he told the Economist in an interview,
Speaker 1: I do not hate. Do you know what a luxury
Speaker 1: it is to not hate? So I think there's an
Speaker 1: element of like, this is the only way I can
Speaker 1: continue as I have to not hate them, like I
Speaker 1: have to not hate them because otherwise it would destroy me. Um.
Speaker 1: And it's it's I'm now that I am out of prison,
Speaker 1: I have the luxury of not hating. It's the thing
Speaker 1: that I enjoy most about freedom is I don't have
Speaker 1: to hate anymore. Is I think kind of what he's saying,
Speaker 1: which is pretty profound, actually, I think, um it Also,
Speaker 1: I mean it's funny because then it's like, well, it's
Speaker 1: the anti Carcero thing is like you you the only
Speaker 1: defense for prison is to stop people from doing things right,
Speaker 1: and these people are no longer part of a system
Speaker 1: that is capable of doing these things, so they're no
Speaker 1: longer capable of committing the harm that they did commit.
Speaker 1: So in some ways, I don't see what would myself
Speaker 1: speaking of the president, Yeah, you know it makes sense
Speaker 1: to me. Yeah, it totally makes sense. Um, I could
Speaker 1: also understand other people. I don't think I would be
Speaker 1: as good a person as him in his situation. If
Speaker 1: I'd been locked up and tortured for fourteen years, I
Speaker 1: would want to be as good a person as he is. Um.
Speaker 1: But some Catholic and thereafter all, And it's interesting because
Speaker 1: there's a number of like there's one interview I found
Speaker 1: with him, where he talks about how not all the
Speaker 1: guards were terrible. A number of them would like smuggle
Speaker 1: in food for us, or like gifts for us, or
Speaker 1: like things to like make us more comfortably. So as
Speaker 1: much as the torture was a part of like that
Speaker 1: I blame like most of the crimes on the system,
Speaker 1: that I recognized that the people in it were also humans,
Speaker 1: and like I wouldn't want to just like paint them
Speaker 1: all with one brush. He's very nuanced when he talks
Speaker 1: about this stuff in a way that is impressive for
Speaker 1: someone who suffered so much under that regime. Um, you
Speaker 1: really get a sense of how different he is him
Speaker 1: like a normal politician when you read articles by journalists
Speaker 1: who actually meet with him. This passage from the Guardian
Speaker 1: is emblematic of the whole Mujika emerged from his tiny
Speaker 1: house dressed in a fawn fleece and gray trousers with
Speaker 1: sandals over socked feet. The fleeces and improvement, which can
Speaker 1: be credited to his two thousand nine campaign team, who
Speaker 1: weaned him off tattered jumpers age, has made his features
Speaker 1: both more pinched around the eyes and fleshier around the edges.
Speaker 1: His thick shock of graying hair was neatly brushed, another
Speaker 1: habit he acquired while running for President Manuela. A three
Speaker 1: legged mutt hopped gamely along the one story house lies
Speaker 1: half hidden by greenery. It's corrugated metal roof resting on
Speaker 1: pillars around a narrow cement walkway full of dusty crates
Speaker 1: and jars. Winter rain highlighted the patchy plaster work. Mind
Speaker 1: the mud, the president warned by way of greeting. The narrow,
Speaker 1: elongated front room contains a cheap office chair and desk, bookshelves,
Speaker 1: a small table with two uncomfortable wood backed chairs, a
Speaker 1: roaring log stove, and an ancient, immaculately restored Pugh Joe bicycle.
Speaker 1: I've that bicycle for sixty years, he said, proudly, recalling
Speaker 1: his days as an amateur racer. My my God, Musica
Speaker 1: could live in the Presidential Palace, a hundred year old
Speaker 1: mansion in the old money Prado district, but he would
Speaker 1: rather be here. We think of it as a way
Speaker 1: of fighting for our personal freedom, he said. If you
Speaker 1: complicate your life too much in the material sense, a
Speaker 1: big part of your time goes to tending that. That's
Speaker 1: why we still live today. As we did forty years
Speaker 1: ago in the same neighborhood, with the same people, in
Speaker 1: the same things. You don't stop being a common man
Speaker 1: just because you were a president. I think he might
Speaker 1: be incorrect about that ability to exert power. He's too nice,
Speaker 1: but yeah, but I appreciate the like, yeah, well, and
Speaker 1: one of the one of the criticisms we're getting to,
Speaker 1: like the critiques of him by the left, but one
Speaker 1: is that is he's bad at using power. He's too
Speaker 1: much of And that's part like he makes a lot
Speaker 1: of compromises with the neoliberals and with like the conservatives,
Speaker 1: especially in economic stuff, because he's not very authoritarian, Like
Speaker 1: he's not good at that. Like, that's one of the
Speaker 1: really trenchant criticisms of his time as president is he's
Speaker 1: like actually bad at forcing his way into things. He's
Speaker 1: too much of, like a little too much of an
Speaker 1: anarchist um. When foreign journalists interview Pepe about his past
Speaker 1: is a freedom fighter, he refuses to apologize for the
Speaker 1: violence that he took part in Musiki, even expresses scorn
Speaker 1: for what he calls beatific pacifism and added, the only
Speaker 1: things I regret are those I could have done but
Speaker 1: didn't just incredible flex. I wish I'd robbed I wish
Speaker 1: I'd robbed another couple of banks. You know, it's not
Speaker 1: too late. It's not too late, and no one's going
Speaker 1: to stop you at this point. In part one, I
Speaker 1: told you the story of two kids Musika held up
Speaker 1: at gunpoint when he was threatening to murder their dad.
Speaker 1: And again the young kid he held up Many's told
Speaker 1: The Guardian that he voted for Musika, saying I might
Speaker 1: be expected to feel better about him, but he's the
Speaker 1: only one who practices what he preaches. Yea, just like, yeah,
Speaker 1: he robbed me at gunpoint and trying to kill my stepdad,
Speaker 1: but he's an honest man. I mean, it's it is.
Speaker 1: It's adust to just actually exert that power as copared
Speaker 1: to like hiding behind this or that institution. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: never like had goons do ship for him. He was
Speaker 1: out there. Now, given that Jose Mujika has not in
Speaker 1: fact destroyed the state or the system he railed against
Speaker 1: as a young man, you will not be surprised to
Speaker 1: hear that his largest detractors and the most trenchant criticism
Speaker 1: against him comes from the left and the leftist to
Speaker 1: critique him have a lot of very fair points. I
Speaker 1: found a New Republic article by a journalist who traveled
Speaker 1: to Uruguay and talked with left wing organizers, political leaders,
Speaker 1: journalists and came up with a very critical article. He
Speaker 1: was kind of in response to the Guardians saying the
Speaker 1: most radical presidency, this New Republic journist is like, well,
Speaker 1: let's go see how radical it really is. Um, And
Speaker 1: the radicals in Uruguay says, not at all. Um. They
Speaker 1: all kind of seemed to agree that he's a very
Speaker 1: nice man. Nobody seems to believe that he's like lying
Speaker 1: and like hiding his life as a rich person. Um.
Speaker 1: But that that didn't make him an effective president. Um.
Speaker 1: They point out that most of the things that he
Speaker 1: was elected to do did not happen. He pushed for
Speaker 1: a massive educational expansion that would include a flood of
Speaker 1: new technical universities for poor kids, but actually making that
Speaker 1: happen meant ramming laws through the still very splintered and
Speaker 1: gridlocked Congress, and Musica, as a political outsider and is
Speaker 1: not good at being authoritarian, was unable to do that. Um.
Speaker 1: He did succeed in getting laptops for like Uruguayan school
Speaker 1: children UM, which is like one of the big things
Speaker 1: that his administration would brag about. But tests scores, I
Speaker 1: think mostly still continued declining during this period. The issues
Speaker 1: that Uruguayan public school system had had had didn't. He
Speaker 1: didn't fix the problem UM, even though that was like
Speaker 1: the main thing he harped on in his campaign and
Speaker 1: I'm gonna quote from the New Republic here. The story
Speaker 1: was the same on other policy fronts. Musico wanted Uruguay's
Speaker 1: public railway utility to operate under private sector rules to
Speaker 1: boost efficiency. Nothing happened. He tried to pass a new
Speaker 1: tax on the big landowners to help the poor, but
Speaker 1: failed to ensure that the legislation would be constitutional. The
Speaker 1: Uruguayan Supreme Court struck it down. If he had taken
Speaker 1: the opportunity to consult more specialists in law, he wouldn't
Speaker 1: have failed, said gar Say, the political scientist. But Mujika
Speaker 1: isn't too worried about the legal aspects of things. One morning,
Speaker 1: over coffee, I spoke to a former Rugika's staffer named
Speaker 1: Conrado Ramos, a budget wonk who looks like a sad
Speaker 1: Hue Grant. He had been in charge of an effort
Speaker 1: to reform the Uruguayan public sector. Mujika said he would
Speaker 1: make it a priority. Ramos recalled, but that was part
Speaker 1: of the problem. Mujica's pan enthusiasm placed everything and consequently nothing,
Speaker 1: at the top of his agenda. From time to time,
Speaker 1: Pepe would wheel unannounced into Ramos's office and get excited,
Speaker 1: unfurling beautiful language about the big changes needed, but he
Speaker 1: doesn't know how to plan. Mujika appointed as Ramos's boss,
Speaker 1: the disinterested son of a former top Tomorrow and appeared
Speaker 1: to forget the issue. After several fruitless years, Ramos quit
Speaker 1: in frustration, embarrassing the administration. And again it's like, I
Speaker 1: think it's a mix of he's probably a little a
Speaker 1: d h D and maybe little too much of an
Speaker 1: anarchist to be good at making things work in a system. Well,
Speaker 1: it's like it's in its way, it's almost brilliant critique
Speaker 1: of state and state power, because finally everyone's like, well,
Speaker 1: if you had the right person in charge, and so
Speaker 1: you finally have the right It doesn't get writer as
Speaker 1: presidents go, it doesn't get writer. And he can't do anything.
Speaker 1: I mean, he could do. He does things not being
Speaker 1: but by not being the right person anymore would be
Speaker 1: the ways that he would. So it's like this kind
Speaker 1: of interesting, this is what you all claim we need
Speaker 1: to do is get the no and the systems writing guy. Anyway. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's the it's the like everybody loves like. I think
Speaker 1: one of the things that endears a lot of people
Speaker 1: to Bernie Sanders. You see a picture of him in
Speaker 1: his house and he's got like the chair with crap
Speaker 1: stacked on it, which you never see a politician have,
Speaker 1: and it's like, oh, he's a human being. He's at
Speaker 1: least a person, and maybe if a person was president
Speaker 1: things would be better, and some things are I think
Speaker 1: the I think the left and especially this New Republic
Speaker 1: article goes too hard against him. For one thing. It's
Speaker 1: interesting I've talked a lot about what the kind of
Speaker 1: liberal and centrist sources leave out when they're reporting on
Speaker 1: this The New Republic, as they're critiquing him, and we're
Speaker 1: going to read more critiques, doesn't note that like unemployment
Speaker 1: dropped by half under him, um, and maybe that's maybe
Speaker 1: they're being fair that like, well that was there was
Speaker 1: it was an economic boom. You know, he doesn't get
Speaker 1: credit for like, like everything there's every time there's good
Speaker 1: stuff that happens, it's like, well, but he shouldn't get
Speaker 1: credit for that or this, But it's like, well, I
Speaker 1: think you're going a little far here, but still there.
Speaker 1: They have other trenchant critiques that I'm going to continue
Speaker 1: to read. So the progressives and leftists interviewed by The
Speaker 1: New Republic have two main arguments. Musica accomplished a few
Speaker 1: of his actual policy goals, and while he both lived
Speaker 1: very consistently to his values and he said wonderful things
Speaker 1: about anti consumerism the horrors of capitalism, he didn't stop
Speaker 1: them and he didn't try to stop them. In particular,
Speaker 1: the article quotes a journalist Mauricio R. Buffetti. I agree
Speaker 1: with absolutely everything Musica has to say about materialism. He
Speaker 1: told me. I believe inequality and consumerism are damaging to society.
Speaker 1: It was exciting and fascinating to me then that this
Speaker 1: man became our president. But he has done nothing. He
Speaker 1: later added, he's always saying he's a fighter. He's a fighter,
Speaker 1: so his failure is something that's very hard to understand
Speaker 1: and hard to forgive. And nickul cheek him by pointing out,
Speaker 1: like how much, how many more designers stores there are
Speaker 1: in monte Video, how much the fact that inequality has grown,
Speaker 1: the fact that people are increasingly obsessed with like Western
Speaker 1: like consumerist things, electronics and all this stuff, And like
Speaker 1: he didn't stop that, And it's like, yeah, he didn't.
Speaker 1: How could he? Yeah, Like like that is because it
Speaker 1: is like, yes, it is fair to say it's frustrating
Speaker 1: that this guy maybe didn't destroy the system when he
Speaker 1: talked about how the system clearly didn't need to keep existing.
Speaker 1: But also like what was he supposed to do? And
Speaker 1: this is I think one of the things if you're
Speaker 1: going to be really fair, you have to note he
Speaker 1: was elected president at age seventy four, after fourteen years
Speaker 1: in prison and getting shot six times. And I kind
Speaker 1: of think part of his editor is like, Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: a bunch of shut fucked up ship that I'm not
Speaker 1: going to be able to fix or do anything about,
Speaker 1: and I will talk about it as if it's bad,
Speaker 1: and then I will engage with the system because I
Speaker 1: am too old to be a gorilla and I'm going
Speaker 1: to try to help people. Um, And you can feel
Speaker 1: about that the way you want. You know, it's a compromise.
Speaker 1: For sure, and and it's a compromise made by a
Speaker 1: man who did uncompromising things for a very long time.
Speaker 1: And uh yeah, and I'm like, like I said, not
Speaker 1: in a good place to play any judgment on decisions.
Speaker 1: I think we can analyze it while saying like I
Speaker 1: would be willing to bet that virtually no one could
Speaker 1: go through what he did and not have his outcome
Speaker 1: be the best case scenario like that. That's kind of
Speaker 1: where I land on this and for where what it's worth.
Speaker 1: Musique addresses the fact that like, yeah, he didn't destroy
Speaker 1: how he didn't stop consumers, and he talks about that
Speaker 1: a lot. He talks about the the he like very
Speaker 1: openly in interviews, will address kind of the inconsistencies with
Speaker 1: his beliefs and what he's doing as president. And I'm
Speaker 1: gonna quote from that Guardian article again quote the man
Speaker 1: who inspired by Guavara once blew up actoris owned by foreigners,
Speaker 1: now offers them tax breaks. I need capitalism to work
Speaker 1: because I have to levy taxes to attend to the
Speaker 1: serious problems we have trying to overcome. At all too
Speaker 1: abruptly condemns the people you are fighting to suffering, so
Speaker 1: that instead of more bread, you have less bread. And
Speaker 1: he's like he he talks about like you know, because
Speaker 1: he's like he's been in a bunch of photos with
Speaker 1: Hugo Chavas and stuff, and he's like, but also, Venezuela
Speaker 1: system doesn't work very well. Um, And I don't think
Speaker 1: the U S system works very well either. I'm just
Speaker 1: trying to like, I'm not I was not elected to
Speaker 1: overthrow the government and destroy the system as it exists
Speaker 1: and build a new one. And I'm too old and
Speaker 1: tired to do it. So I'm just trying to help
Speaker 1: people have more bread because I feel like that's all
Speaker 1: I can do. Um. Not all the Tupamorrows have accompanied
Speaker 1: Musica on his journey to soft pragmatic socialism. They left
Speaker 1: their ideals in their prison cells. The former hostage, George
Speaker 1: Zabalza proclaimed recently, some old compagniros won't understand Musica. Said
Speaker 1: they don't see our battle against people's everyday problems. That
Speaker 1: life is not a utah be a and that's interesting.
Speaker 1: So there are former two p Tomorrows who are like,
Speaker 1: you're you fucking you, you sold out, you know, like
Speaker 1: we were supposed to overthrow the state and you became
Speaker 1: part of it, and you are willingly working with the capitalists,
Speaker 1: working with the conservatives, and like that was never the plan.
Speaker 1: And Euxica's response is, and that's that is a fair criticism.
Speaker 1: That is what happened, right, You can morally land wherever
Speaker 1: you want on that. That is objectively what happened. Um
Speaker 1: and musicas I guess, moral defense is like, yeah, that's true,
Speaker 1: and I get why you you're angry, but I can
Speaker 1: I think I can help people, and we're not living
Speaker 1: in a utopian situation. So I'm going to I'm gonna
Speaker 1: applow the ship, you know. I think that's kind of
Speaker 1: his attitude. And again, there's a number of ways to
Speaker 1: feel about that. I'm not going to tell you how
Speaker 1: to feel about that. I don't know how. I entirely
Speaker 1: feel like it's a complicated issue. But he's not he's
Speaker 1: not denying the inconsistencies. He's not pretending that he's the same. Um.
Speaker 1: He is acknowledging like, yeah, I kind of sold out
Speaker 1: because I thought I could do these good things, and
Speaker 1: I do you have to respect that to some extent,
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, yeah, I mean it's it's a I
Speaker 1: can see it. It's like it's one of those things
Speaker 1: where it's like, I don't, I don't imagine that's like
Speaker 1: what I would hope for someone, right, yea, but I
Speaker 1: I can see it, and it's a lot more interesting
Speaker 1: to me than the people who sell out by just
Speaker 1: entirely abandoning their values. Yeah, like the Christian cinema where
Speaker 1: you're like ending in black block at the w t
Speaker 1: O protests in two thousand eight and then voting for
Speaker 1: austerity with Joe Manchin. Yeah, yeah, he doesn't. He doesn't
Speaker 1: do that, um perfect. And you know who else doesn't
Speaker 1: vote with Joe Manchin? Ah? Oh gosh, some of the
Speaker 1: products and services that I was going to say, can't
Speaker 1: you really bear some of the products and services supporting
Speaker 1: our podcast? Do not vote alongside Joe Mansion. And that's
Speaker 1: about as good as you're gonna get. Guys, Look, come on,
Speaker 1: the real person. I thought Joe Mansion was like Joe
Speaker 1: the plumber, Joe who lives in the mansion. He took
Speaker 1: Joe Manchin very It is funny that like one of
Speaker 1: the men repeatedly holding back any attempts to address inequality
Speaker 1: in the United States is you could you could call
Speaker 1: him Joe Mansion. That is kind of funny. I didn't
Speaker 1: think about that. Um, all right, Oh, we're back, so
Speaker 1: continuing because we have actually a bit more kind of
Speaker 1: grinding through the different sides of how to look at
Speaker 1: this man to get through because I think he's fascinating
Speaker 1: and I think what he represents is fascinating, and I
Speaker 1: think it's incredibly important for leftists, especially leftists who like
Speaker 1: dream of some sort of revolution, to engage with the
Speaker 1: Tupamorrows and musica and the journey that they went on. Um.
Speaker 1: I think that's there's tremendous. It's tremendously important to at
Speaker 1: least try to understand it and come to your own
Speaker 1: conclusions about it because it's not a common situation and
Speaker 1: I think very worth studying as a result of that. Um,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna quote read another quote from a little bit
Speaker 1: later in that same article. Globalizations glaring failure Music has
Speaker 1: said is a lack of political oversight. It is bad
Speaker 1: because it is only governed by the market. It has
Speaker 1: no politics or government. National governments are only worried about
Speaker 1: their next next elections. But there are a series of
Speaker 1: global problems that no one deals with that does not
Speaker 1: mean capitalism has won outright. I don't think it inevitable
Speaker 1: that the world should live in capitalism. He told me.
Speaker 1: That is the same as not believing in man. And
Speaker 1: man is an animal with many defects, but also with
Speaker 1: many startling capabilities. Is interesting guy. Um yeah, Uh. That
Speaker 1: New Republic article critical Musica saves its most most trenchant
Speaker 1: criticism of the man for a passage in which it
Speaker 1: lays out the achievements of his predecessor, Vasquez, who also
Speaker 1: followed musicas you can't do subs. You can't do one
Speaker 1: term after the other. As president Vasquez is the president
Speaker 1: before Musica and the president after. I'm going to read
Speaker 1: a quote about him. And I think the New Republic,
Speaker 1: I don't know, the Catholic leftist, Yeah, the Catholic leftist,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Generally, I'm not super up on the
Speaker 1: New Republic. I think they're a little bit more state
Speaker 1: socialist kind of authority driven, uh than I am. My impression. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I'm not trying to Yeah, you get that in
Speaker 1: this quote because there they are critiquing and for the
Speaker 1: things that we've laid out. Um, and some you can
Speaker 1: read that. It's a good article. You should read it.
Speaker 1: I don't agree with everything in it, but it's a
Speaker 1: good article. Um And they contrast his failure to overcome
Speaker 1: a lot of gridlock with this guy Vasquez quote. In fact,
Speaker 1: there is a politician in Uruguay who accomplished some of
Speaker 1: the same kinds of goals people hoped Musica could tackle.
Speaker 1: His name is Tabare Vsquez, an oncologist. He proceeded Musika
Speaker 1: as president and will succeed him again come March. In
Speaker 1: two thousand five, he inaugurated the first left wing government
Speaker 1: since the country's dictatorship, and took great strides towards restoring
Speaker 1: the Uruguayan social safety net, rebooting Baze's national health care system,
Speaker 1: expanding welfare, and making Uruguay the first nation in the
Speaker 1: world to fully implement the one Laptop per Child program.
Speaker 1: He managed these successes thanks to a political persona as
Speaker 1: authoritarian and charmless as Musikas were, gaily, anarchic and alluring.
Speaker 1: With a ruff of silver hair, bassett hound eyes and
Speaker 1: a smile just on the wrong side of lascivious, Vesquez
Speaker 1: exudes the unsettling aura of a Mr. Rogers impersonator who
Speaker 1: performs in porn. He rarely consults others on political decisions
Speaker 1: and projects arrogance in his certitude. Faced with the same
Speaker 1: constraints all modern presidents face with their power, he just
Speaker 1: goes around them. When Vasquez decided to ban smoking in
Speaker 1: public buildings, something that was really important for him as
Speaker 1: an oncologist, Rabuffetti, the journalist, said he didn't involve Congress
Speaker 1: at first. Instead, he used Uruguay's version of an executive order.
Speaker 1: The unilateral move prompted a flurry of outrage about personal liberties,
Speaker 1: and the Uruguay and legislature could have subsequently overturned it,
Speaker 1: but ultimately the policy established a new status quo that
Speaker 1: its opponents decided they didn't want to waste time in
Speaker 1: political capital to fight again. It's um, you know, I
Speaker 1: think there's that. That's that's that's again not you can
Speaker 1: think about that whatever you want. I think it's probably
Speaker 1: factually a broadly accurate statement, and I get why, I
Speaker 1: get why that is a criticism, and it's probably it's
Speaker 1: worth saying that, like, yes, an authoritarian as president will
Speaker 1: get more done than a guy who's kind of more
Speaker 1: egalitarian and consensus driven, you know, obviously, and there's good
Speaker 1: things about that and bad things about that in part
Speaker 1: because like I you know, maybe this guy Esquez the
Speaker 1: executive order use and stuff, that's that's a precedent that
Speaker 1: could be bad when the Conservatives get back into power,
Speaker 1: and they got back into power in so like, you know,
Speaker 1: it's never none of this is I I simple, you know. Um.
Speaker 1: It's also worth noting that, like this article doesn't note
Speaker 1: that Vesquez veto to gay marriage bill um, and that
Speaker 1: that was something that happened because Pepe wasn't. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: believes that he should be able to do what he wants. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and like you know, it's like I don't want my
Speaker 1: government to dumb me, you know, Like, but it's all
Speaker 1: I think maybe if you want to engage with it
Speaker 1: even a little more nuanced. And again this is just
Speaker 1: something that maybe this is partially the case that like,
Speaker 1: if you're trying to change society, maybe it helps to
Speaker 1: have people who are broadly politically aligned and have an
Speaker 1: authoritarian and then a guy who's not authoritarian and kind
Speaker 1: of like so that you're not trending too hard in
Speaker 1: that direction and you can then like Pepe is better
Speaker 1: at building social consense. I don't know, maybe that's accurate.
Speaker 1: Maybe that's not. Um, it strikes me there's a benefit
Speaker 1: from Vasquez going to Pepe afterwards, like certainly within the
Speaker 1: matter of gay rights and some other issues. Um, because
Speaker 1: it's more different ratcheting system. Yeah, in the US we
Speaker 1: have a right word racheting system where they're against push
Speaker 1: things that Wright and the Democrats and ship and then
Speaker 1: and then I could I could see. Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't think anyone does know, but I think like
Speaker 1: that's something to maybe consider. It doesn't it doesn't seem
Speaker 1: to be worse than the way things have been going
Speaker 1: in the United States. Like if I'm comparing it to
Speaker 1: my government, this sounds all right, you know, by comparison
Speaker 1: this this like method of things is like, well that
Speaker 1: that's okay. You know, I wouldn't I would have probably
Speaker 1: I would definitely have more critiques where I living in Montevideo. Um,
Speaker 1: but that's always the case. Uh yeah. Um. And I
Speaker 1: will note that, like, in fairness to the author of
Speaker 1: that New Republic piece, in addition to being coming down
Speaker 1: very much on the sort of critical of Peppe Vasquez,
Speaker 1: is it was a better president. He also does some
Speaker 1: work in this article that I don't think a lesser
Speaker 1: journalist would have done in his position, um, because he
Speaker 1: actually went and spent a lot of time in like
Speaker 1: crippling lye poor neighborhoods in Uruguay after talking to these
Speaker 1: like leftist and again the guys that we've been quoting
Speaker 1: from so far, these journalists and these like I think
Speaker 1: they're mostly like middle class kind of and and upper
Speaker 1: like leftist sort of thought leaders. And he also spends
Speaker 1: time among the very poor. And what they tell this
Speaker 1: guy is very different from what kind of the activists
Speaker 1: he talked you told him quote. Of course he understands
Speaker 1: us better, Almron said, blinking perplexedly, as if my question
Speaker 1: itself whether Musika had been good for the poor was
Speaker 1: not even worth asking. She'd received me in a dark
Speaker 1: but startlingly pretty anti room and the shack she'd built,
Speaker 1: its floorboards mere planks, over the slums off liquid earth. Eagerly,
Speaker 1: she showed me painting she'd done on the shacks walls,
Speaker 1: stylized fairy images reminiscent of tinker Bell, and the new
Speaker 1: wardrobe and table in her bedroom, the wardrobe she'd recently
Speaker 1: been given through a work for Housing program sponsored by
Speaker 1: Musica's government, the table she'd subsequently made on her own.
Speaker 1: She gave Musika credit for both interventions. Living in elective
Speaker 1: poverty himself, he appreciates the importance of something seemingly as
Speaker 1: simple as a clean place to keep one clothes. Once
Speaker 1: Smusika had come to visit the neighborhood and seen Almron shack,
Speaker 1: he asked. He'd asked her a question that had stuck
Speaker 1: with her ever since, affecting how she thought of herself
Speaker 1: and her five boys and girls. Does every child of
Speaker 1: yours have a mattress of his own? Al Maron had
Speaker 1: never considered this. She works at a slaughter house and
Speaker 1: has barely enough to get by, But she explained, Musika
Speaker 1: thinks every kid has the right to privacy with his
Speaker 1: own fantasies. She had started saving for those beds. The
Speaker 1: policymakers and opinion setters I'd spoken to had been so
Speaker 1: spittingly certain that Mujika's presidency had failed Uruguay's poor, and
Speaker 1: four teachers I spoke with who work with them directly
Speaker 1: believe the opposite. I spent a couple of days touring
Speaker 1: lower income schools and neighborhoods, and the view of Musika,
Speaker 1: I encountered was as different as the view of a
Speaker 1: city from the street level versus looking down from atop
Speaker 1: of skyscraper. Everyone without exception believed Musika had improved their lives.
Speaker 1: Seeing a man who looked like them and lived like them,
Speaker 1: who even invited them to barbecues at his commune, supying
Speaker 1: the land's highest office, had made them feel human again
Speaker 1: by noticing them, by speaking to them rather than about them.
Speaker 1: Mujika had reincarnated them. We are a poor people, Almran
Speaker 1: told me, with a note of defiance, But we are
Speaker 1: people at the end of the day. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: So I'm pretty pro this guy. Yeah, no, I mean
Speaker 1: it's interesting because, yeah, most of the critiques coming from
Speaker 1: the left are, oh, you're not good enough, that use
Speaker 1: wielding institutional power, and his whole thing is seems to
Speaker 1: be a little bit like that's not the thing he's
Speaker 1: trying to accomplish is wielding institutional power. That's It's fucking interesting.
Speaker 1: It's very interesting, and I really recommend some of the
Speaker 1: studies and articles that i've I've attached to this, Like
Speaker 1: he's a fascinating person and like what his journey says
Speaker 1: about yeah, everything about like radical politics is I think
Speaker 1: really important to understand. And um, I also should note, uh,
Speaker 1: he took a bunch of people from Guantanamo Bay, um
Speaker 1: and like like welcomed them into Uruguay so that they
Speaker 1: wouldn't have to be in Guantanamo anymore because they were
Speaker 1: people who like didn't have a state that was willing
Speaker 1: to take them. Um. And then he went on a
Speaker 1: long rant about US torture and how like these people
Speaker 1: have like you destroyed these people for nothing, and like
Speaker 1: this is fucked up and wasn't just like talking about
Speaker 1: how bad Guantana was. Was like, yeah, of course my
Speaker 1: country will take some of these people, bring them here.
Speaker 1: I killed Dan the Strangler. Of course I killed Dan
Speaker 1: the Strangler. Of course I'm going to take prisoners from Guantanamo.
Speaker 1: Do you know me? Again? I and I hope nothing
Speaker 1: we've come across in talking about the criticism of him
Speaker 1: is dismissive. Of those criticisms, I don't agree with all
Speaker 1: of them, and I think the thing that is most
Speaker 1: admirable about him is that number when he never pretends
Speaker 1: to be perfect or entirely ideologically consistent. And neither were
Speaker 1: the two Tomorrows, you know. Um, But he's like he
Speaker 1: is pretty ideologically consistent. Like he's not just going to
Speaker 1: talk about the plight of single mothers. He's going to
Speaker 1: give them all of his money. He's not just going
Speaker 1: to talk about how Guantanamo is bad. He's going to
Speaker 1: make his country take people from Guantanamo and and and
Speaker 1: re home them. Um he's he's, uh, he's pretty good
Speaker 1: at that kind of ship. Um. Yeah, he follows his
Speaker 1: ethical guidelines of ideological guidelines, and that's kind of interesting
Speaker 1: to me. Yeah, And I've read some quotes about the
Speaker 1: Tupamrrows now because like especially in twenty like a more
Speaker 1: conservative government was elected, there's a lot of like uncertainty
Speaker 1: about what's going to happen to the education system. Like
Speaker 1: I'm not getting into that as much as like I've
Speaker 1: just got up to speed on like the broad strokes
Speaker 1: of Uruguay and political history. I don't want to like
Speaker 1: pretend to be any kind of an expert, but um,
Speaker 1: I've read some quotes about the Tupamrrows where it's like, yes,
Speaker 1: they're in politics now, they also still have guns, and
Speaker 1: they're like like they're they're flexible, like they're ready to go.
Speaker 1: But if they have to they'll go back and like
Speaker 1: do the thing that they were doing. Like you know,
Speaker 1: they they're not they're they're they're never like we're add
Speaker 1: percent for electoralism, like when they were terrorists there now
Speaker 1: they weren't a hundred percent for terrorism. Like they're real
Speaker 1: good at kind of flowing in making ethical exceptions and stuff,
Speaker 1: which I think makes them very interesting to me. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I had no idea what to expect with any of this,
Speaker 1: So this is Yeah, I think it's broadly Again, Uruguay
Speaker 1: still has plenty of problems. This is an ongoing story. Um,
Speaker 1: but I think the sweep why this is a Christmas
Speaker 1: non Bastards episode is the sweep of this history is
Speaker 1: um a pretty inspiring may not be exactly the right word,
Speaker 1: but like hopeful, yeah, because it's it's actually slow work
Speaker 1: to change society, and people think it's slow work, like
Speaker 1: sees power and then excuse the fact they've taken power.
Speaker 1: Of course it takes forever we have to hold on
Speaker 1: the power. But instead the like slow work of like
Speaker 1: just trying to be good in all of the situations
Speaker 1: that you put yourself into and realizing that what it
Speaker 1: means to be good by your own standards might change
Speaker 1: depending on Sometimes it means there's you know, sometimes it
Speaker 1: means robbing people some yes. Sometimes it may mean assassinating
Speaker 1: a CIA torture. Sometimes it may mean giving documents you
Speaker 1: stole to a prosecutor who you trust agrees with you
Speaker 1: on that single issue at least, um, you know, like
Speaker 1: that's what they did. Yeah, and it's it's a it's
Speaker 1: complicated again, like you should feel about this however you
Speaker 1: feel about this, but maybe think about it because it's
Speaker 1: it's there's some stuff in here that's worth thinking about,
Speaker 1: Like I think for the left trying to find its
Speaker 1: way at this present point in time where things are
Speaker 1: very scattered and fragmented in ugly sharp ways, and um,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of ideological in fighting at a time
Speaker 1: when we're all kind of staring extermination and the face,
Speaker 1: these are probably some people to look at and be like, well,
Speaker 1: maybe we should learn some stuff from them, right, Not
Speaker 1: not that you should ever just say, whole hog, these
Speaker 1: guys were perfect and we'll do exactly what they did,
Speaker 1: but like, let's let's maybe learn some lessons here, because
Speaker 1: I think there are some lessons here, right, Yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: one of the lessons is, no one ever knows whether
Speaker 1: or not violent revolution is going to make things better
Speaker 1: or worse. It seems, including including both mass huge uprisings
Speaker 1: and like target assassinations is a total craft, complete fucking
Speaker 1: roll of the dice. Um, And anyone who pretends otherwise
Speaker 1: is probably dangerously unhinged. Yeah. Yeah, Like anyone who pretends
Speaker 1: this will obviously happen if we do this is a
Speaker 1: lunatic and you should be scared of them. Um, you know, um,
Speaker 1: But yeah, I don't know. Cool dude. I think who
Speaker 1: said he as? As an individual person, he's like my
Speaker 1: favorite of our people since probably Wallenberg, because he's just
Speaker 1: he's very He's very caring to all of the people
Speaker 1: around him, and I think that's good. He's a nice man. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: And my god, do I love the idea of a
Speaker 1: president who bicycles to work wearing socks and sandals. And
Speaker 1: it's like, and I want to be around authentic people
Speaker 1: more than a specifically want to be around people who
Speaker 1: agree with everything that I'm because then you can actually
Speaker 1: model your decisions based on well, I expect this person
Speaker 1: to be morally consistent to their own values, not to
Speaker 1: my values, but their values. Yeah, you know, like yeah, no,
Speaker 1: that's yeah, yeah, yeah, all right, well that's that's behind
Speaker 1: the bastards. Um, having merry Christmas, have a happy New Year. Um,
Speaker 1: have a uh dancing tet. I don't I don't know
Speaker 1: enough about tet, but have a good one of that too.
Speaker 1: If if you're in Vietnam, you know, have have a
Speaker 1: good whatever holiday is your next holiday that you're looking
Speaker 1: forward to enjoy it? Um? Yep, no, wait, ship, I
Speaker 1: forgot to ask you to plug your plugables market you
Speaker 1: got any pluggables to plug? Yeah. You can find me
Speaker 1: on the internet on Twitter at Magpie kill Joy. I'm
Speaker 1: on Instagram at Margaret Killjoy. And I have a new book.
Speaker 1: It's actually an old book rereleased called A Country Ghost
Speaker 1: that just came out that answers the question of well,
Speaker 1: it presents one of the many, many different answers to
Speaker 1: the question of what could a society without authority look like?
Speaker 1: And how could it function? And um, but more than
Speaker 1: that's actually just a story about going to go fight
Speaker 1: people and fun plot things in an adventure. Excellent. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it it is great and also a good companion
Speaker 1: to this piece. Um, because this is I mean, this
Speaker 1: actually happened, but it is kind of one way of
Speaker 1: imagining what happens when anarchists get some of their way, uh,
Speaker 1: little bits of it, pieces of it. Um, I don't
Speaker 1: know door, I'll just rang. Oh okay, well you go
Speaker 1: do that and everybody else go home. You're drunk, my
Speaker 1: h