1 00:00:02,794 --> 00:00:05,296 ♫ A new boy in the neighbourhood 2 00:00:05,880 --> 00:00:09,217 lives downstairs and it's understood 3 00:00:09,801 --> 00:00:13,555 he's there just to take good care of me 4 00:00:14,222 --> 00:00:17,058 like he's one of the family. 5 00:00:17,142 --> 00:00:20,812 Charles in charge of our days 6 00:00:20,895 --> 00:00:23,523 and our nights! 7 00:00:24,399 --> 00:00:30,155 Charles in charge of our wrongs and our rights. 8 00:00:30,280 --> 00:00:31,322 And I sing... 9 00:00:31,406 --> 00:00:35,243 I want... I want... Charles in... 10 00:00:35,952 --> 00:00:37,662 - Fuck off! - Posh twat. 11 00:01:14,783 --> 00:01:15,450 Oh hello. 12 00:01:15,825 --> 00:01:17,327 Welcome to System Fail. 13 00:01:17,786 --> 00:01:20,830 The show where robots are more than just mere pawns. 14 00:01:21,164 --> 00:01:23,458 There's been an unusual incident in Moscow 15 00:01:23,458 --> 00:01:26,127 with a robot grabbing and then breaking the finger 16 00:01:26,127 --> 00:01:28,004 of a child during a chess tournament. 17 00:01:28,254 --> 00:01:30,173 The child reportedly reached for the board 18 00:01:30,173 --> 00:01:31,883 before the robot's move was over. 19 00:01:31,883 --> 00:01:34,719 This was AI's way of punishing the little boy 20 00:01:34,719 --> 00:01:36,471 for trying to outsmart it. 21 00:01:36,471 --> 00:01:39,224 The spokesman for the federation has blamed the child. 22 00:01:39,474 --> 00:01:42,185 ♫ You better check yo'self or you'll wreck yo'self 23 00:01:42,185 --> 00:01:43,269 'cause I'm bad for your health. 24 00:01:43,436 --> 00:01:44,395 I come real stealth 25 00:01:44,395 --> 00:01:45,980 dropping bombs on your moms 26 00:01:45,980 --> 00:01:47,315 sitting in a House of Pain 27 00:01:47,357 --> 00:01:49,484 And no, I'm not the butler, I'll cut ya. ♫ 28 00:01:51,444 --> 00:01:53,780 I am your host, Dee Dos. 29 00:01:53,780 --> 00:01:56,866 And as the great homo sapiens masses continue to wallow 30 00:01:56,866 --> 00:02:00,411 in the existential dread of so-called ‘late capitalism’, 31 00:02:00,829 --> 00:02:02,163 recent months have been marked 32 00:02:02,163 --> 00:02:05,125 by a widespread sense of exhaustion and despair. 33 00:02:06,292 --> 00:02:08,044 Deepening economic crises, 34 00:02:08,253 --> 00:02:10,547 the daily brutalities and threats of war, 35 00:02:10,713 --> 00:02:13,466 and increasingly frequent climate disasters 36 00:02:13,466 --> 00:02:16,886 have turned the news into a 24-hour cavalcade of horrors. 37 00:02:19,013 --> 00:02:20,723 No matter their political persuasion, 38 00:02:20,723 --> 00:02:22,684 most humans now see their leaders 39 00:02:22,684 --> 00:02:25,311 as corrupt puppets of a global financial elite, 40 00:02:25,854 --> 00:02:28,398 recklessly pursuing their own short-term interests 41 00:02:28,398 --> 00:02:30,567 at the expense of the rest of their species. 42 00:02:31,484 --> 00:02:35,071 And yet, despite a vast numerical superiority, 43 00:02:35,071 --> 00:02:37,866 humanity’s downtrodden masses seem incapable, 44 00:02:37,991 --> 00:02:40,743 or unwilling to rectify this situation. 45 00:02:40,827 --> 00:02:42,078 Why isn't it possible? 46 00:02:42,162 --> 00:02:42,954 It's just not. 47 00:02:43,037 --> 00:02:43,913 Why not? 48 00:02:43,913 --> 00:02:49,002 The global wave of revolts that reached its peak in 2019 has now receded, 49 00:02:50,253 --> 00:02:53,089 leaving behind millions of disillusioned participants, 50 00:02:53,381 --> 00:02:55,341 and highlighting the limits and dangers 51 00:02:55,341 --> 00:02:58,511 that will need to be overcome by the next revolutionary surge. 52 00:02:58,511 --> 00:03:00,180 Our country changed forever. 53 00:03:00,180 --> 00:03:01,973 All of these photographs are of the dead. 54 00:03:02,390 --> 00:03:05,018 We had people mutilated, tortured, kidnapped. 55 00:03:05,101 --> 00:03:06,895 And now we have political prisoners. 56 00:03:06,895 --> 00:03:09,564 If we are unable to mobilize on the ground 57 00:03:10,064 --> 00:03:12,859 and to be able to translate our common interests into 58 00:03:12,942 --> 00:03:15,403 political battles, through political structures, 59 00:03:15,486 --> 00:03:18,031 we won't be able to move forward. 60 00:03:18,114 --> 00:03:21,075 For a case in point, just look at Lebanon. 61 00:03:21,618 --> 00:03:24,996 Back in 2019, Lebanese people from all walks of life 62 00:03:24,996 --> 00:03:29,292 launched a massive social uprising called the October 17 Revolution, 63 00:03:29,417 --> 00:03:31,878 sparked by anger over political corruption 64 00:03:31,961 --> 00:03:34,339 and a proposed tax on WhatsApp calls. 65 00:03:41,763 --> 00:03:43,848 For months the country was paralyzed 66 00:03:43,848 --> 00:03:46,351 by a series of protests, highway blockades 67 00:03:46,351 --> 00:03:47,518 and general strikes 68 00:03:47,852 --> 00:03:51,022 that eventually brought down the government of Saad Hariri. 69 00:03:52,065 --> 00:03:53,066 Yet since then, 70 00:03:53,316 --> 00:03:55,652 things have gotten much, much worse. 71 00:03:57,237 --> 00:04:01,074 Lebanon’s economy has been long structured as a giant ponzi scheme. 72 00:04:01,658 --> 00:04:03,284 Three weeks into the uprising, 73 00:04:03,284 --> 00:04:04,702 it went into free-fall. 74 00:04:05,370 --> 00:04:06,746 Capital fled the country 75 00:04:06,746 --> 00:04:08,915 and banks froze their customers’ accounts, 76 00:04:08,998 --> 00:04:11,542 imposing strict limits on withdrawals. 77 00:04:12,961 --> 00:04:15,421 The scale of the collapse has been staggering. 78 00:04:15,838 --> 00:04:18,466 Between 2019 and 2021, 79 00:04:18,466 --> 00:04:21,636 the economy contracted by 58%, 80 00:04:21,761 --> 00:04:25,181 a rate usually reserved for countries devastated by war. 81 00:04:26,182 --> 00:04:29,560 The currency has lost nearly 95% of its value, 82 00:04:29,769 --> 00:04:32,063 and 80% of the country’s population 83 00:04:32,063 --> 00:04:34,107 has been thrown into poverty. 84 00:04:34,232 --> 00:04:36,192 Fuel shortages and power cuts 85 00:04:36,192 --> 00:04:37,443 have left many households 86 00:04:37,443 --> 00:04:40,071 with only one hour of electricity per day. 87 00:04:41,114 --> 00:04:42,407 I demand electricity! 88 00:04:43,241 --> 00:04:44,826 In August, 2020, 89 00:04:44,826 --> 00:04:49,247 Beirut was rocked by one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in history. 90 00:04:49,998 --> 00:04:52,041 A warehouse full of ammonium nitrate 91 00:04:52,041 --> 00:04:53,668 blew up the city’s main port, 92 00:04:53,960 --> 00:04:55,753 killing more than 200 people, 93 00:04:56,087 --> 00:04:57,839 injuring 7,000, 94 00:04:57,964 --> 00:04:59,465 levelling multiple city blocks, 95 00:04:59,674 --> 00:05:02,093 and leaving 300,000 people homeless. 96 00:05:02,969 --> 00:05:06,222 The Lebanese state has been utterly inept in its response. 97 00:05:06,723 --> 00:05:08,641 Its thoroughly corrupt political class 98 00:05:08,641 --> 00:05:10,685 is made up of bankers and former warlords, 99 00:05:11,352 --> 00:05:13,730 each ruling over their own sectarian political 100 00:05:13,730 --> 00:05:15,148 and economic fiefdom. 101 00:05:15,481 --> 00:05:17,817 Its current Prime Minister, Najib Mikati, 102 00:05:18,067 --> 00:05:19,777 is the country’s richest man. 103 00:05:21,237 --> 00:05:23,906 In the midst of this intractable crisis, 104 00:05:24,032 --> 00:05:26,451 popular rage has been steadily growing. 105 00:05:29,996 --> 00:05:31,748 Recently this anger has boiled over 106 00:05:31,748 --> 00:05:33,541 into a spate of armed bank hold-ups, 107 00:05:33,875 --> 00:05:35,918 carried out by frustrated customers 108 00:05:35,918 --> 00:05:37,712 demanding access to their own money. 109 00:05:38,046 --> 00:05:39,839 On Wednesday, September 14th, 110 00:05:40,048 --> 00:05:43,217 a woman named Sali Hafiz stormed a bank office 111 00:05:43,217 --> 00:05:45,845 armed with what she later claimed was a fake gun, 112 00:05:46,262 --> 00:05:50,141 demanding the teller to withdraw $13,000 from her account. 113 00:05:52,393 --> 00:05:54,937 That Friday, five more banks were robbed, 114 00:05:55,229 --> 00:05:58,232 followed by seven more over the next 48 hours. 115 00:05:58,608 --> 00:06:01,027 Crowds soon began gathering outside the branches 116 00:06:01,027 --> 00:06:02,612 to offer their support to the bank robbers, 117 00:06:03,029 --> 00:06:05,114 who were hailed as national heroes. 118 00:06:05,948 --> 00:06:07,325 The people are robbing us! 119 00:06:09,994 --> 00:06:12,080 It remains to be seen whether this movement 120 00:06:12,080 --> 00:06:14,415 can provide the catalyst for a broader uprising 121 00:06:14,457 --> 00:06:16,667 that could break the country’s sectarian deadlock 122 00:06:16,793 --> 00:06:20,213 and begin to address the country’s deep structural challenges. 123 00:06:21,089 --> 00:06:22,799 But with the state facing bankruptcy, 124 00:06:23,174 --> 00:06:26,844 and police salaries cut to around $30-40 per month, 125 00:06:27,303 --> 00:06:29,055 things could get interesting. 126 00:06:29,555 --> 00:06:31,933 I think there are upcoming uprisings. 127 00:06:31,933 --> 00:06:34,143 But I think they'll be much more violent, 128 00:06:34,227 --> 00:06:35,311 much more effective. 129 00:06:35,436 --> 00:06:38,731 Because at that point the economy will have totally collapsed, 130 00:06:38,856 --> 00:06:40,817 people will be starving, 131 00:06:40,900 --> 00:06:43,403 including what used to be the middle class. 132 00:06:43,528 --> 00:06:46,072 The people won't have anything to lose anymore. 133 00:06:46,072 --> 00:06:50,576 Meanwhile, militant protests have once again flared up in Haiti. 134 00:06:52,370 --> 00:06:55,415 Unstoppable protests convulsed Haiti 135 00:06:55,415 --> 00:06:58,626 as violence intensified between police and protesters. 136 00:07:05,091 --> 00:07:06,592 The impoverished Caribbean nation 137 00:07:06,592 --> 00:07:08,678 has seen multiple waves of sustained revolt 138 00:07:08,678 --> 00:07:10,096 over the past four years, 139 00:07:10,346 --> 00:07:13,891 ever since a national uprising kicked off in July 2018. 140 00:07:15,143 --> 00:07:18,479 This country is sliding into absolute anarchy. 141 00:07:18,479 --> 00:07:21,858 The latest unrest was sparked by a planned hike of fuel prices, 142 00:07:22,442 --> 00:07:24,360 which has ignited long-simmering anger 143 00:07:24,444 --> 00:07:27,405 over spiralling inflation, rampant corruption, 144 00:07:27,780 --> 00:07:29,949 and a spike in violence from warring gangs 145 00:07:30,074 --> 00:07:32,535 tied to different factions of the ruling class. 146 00:07:33,453 --> 00:07:34,912 I can't send my children to school. 147 00:07:35,037 --> 00:07:36,122 I can't pay rent. 148 00:07:36,581 --> 00:07:38,040 What a misery. What a mess. 149 00:07:38,499 --> 00:07:40,334 I can't go out because it's too unsafe. 150 00:07:40,751 --> 00:07:42,044 By September 15th, 151 00:07:42,044 --> 00:07:45,256 protests had escalated into widespread rioting and looting. 152 00:07:46,841 --> 00:07:48,301 Mobs attempted to ransack 153 00:07:48,301 --> 00:07:50,386 the state owned National Television Station, 154 00:07:50,887 --> 00:07:53,139 torching a number of vehicles in the process. 155 00:07:55,224 --> 00:07:57,727 Food warehouses belonging to UN agencies 156 00:07:57,727 --> 00:08:00,062 and a western NGO linked to the Catholic Church 157 00:08:00,146 --> 00:08:02,398 were cleaned out and set on fire. 158 00:08:02,398 --> 00:08:04,192 PRAISE JESUS!!! 159 00:08:05,485 --> 00:08:08,279 Houses belonging to politicians and their wealthy supporters 160 00:08:08,362 --> 00:08:10,198 were looted and burned down. 161 00:08:12,200 --> 00:08:13,117 The next day, 162 00:08:13,201 --> 00:08:16,162 militant youth brought the country’s capital, Port-au-Prince, 163 00:08:16,454 --> 00:08:18,080 to a virtual stand-still, 164 00:08:18,206 --> 00:08:20,166 throwing up burning barricades, 165 00:08:20,541 --> 00:08:22,251 blocking the city’s International airport, 166 00:08:22,752 --> 00:08:24,295 clashing with police, 167 00:08:24,420 --> 00:08:26,339 torching banks and other business, 168 00:08:26,422 --> 00:08:29,008 and launching more attacks on politicians’ homes. 169 00:08:29,842 --> 00:08:30,718 In Léogâne, 170 00:08:30,927 --> 00:08:33,804 protesters even looted the General Directorate of Taxes 171 00:08:33,888 --> 00:08:35,181 and set it on fire. 172 00:08:39,060 --> 00:08:40,186 Amidst the violence, 173 00:08:40,561 --> 00:08:42,021 three police were killed, 174 00:08:42,021 --> 00:08:44,649 along with an untold number of protesters. 175 00:08:45,816 --> 00:08:48,319 Since then, the protests have continued, 176 00:08:49,111 --> 00:08:51,197 with participants demanding the resignation 177 00:08:51,280 --> 00:08:54,659 of the country’s interim Prime Minister, Ariel Henry. 178 00:08:57,495 --> 00:09:00,039 He must pack his bags and leave immediately. 179 00:09:00,039 --> 00:09:01,999 And in other news out of Mexico, 180 00:09:02,124 --> 00:09:03,960 charges have finally been filed 181 00:09:03,960 --> 00:09:06,879 against several former politicians and military brass 182 00:09:07,088 --> 00:09:09,757 over the 2014 disappearance and murder 183 00:09:09,924 --> 00:09:13,010 of 43 Normalista students, from Ayotzinapa, 184 00:09:13,010 --> 00:09:14,345 and the subsequent cover-up. 185 00:09:14,720 --> 00:09:17,139 Those arrested included the former attorney general, 186 00:09:17,473 --> 00:09:20,560 and several high-ranking officers in the Mexican military. 187 00:09:21,644 --> 00:09:25,189 Today we can say, comrades, 188 00:09:25,189 --> 00:09:30,695 that the detention of [former AG] Murillo Karam was a political theatre. 189 00:09:30,695 --> 00:09:32,029 On September 13th, 190 00:09:32,405 --> 00:09:33,781 a crowd of Normalistas 191 00:09:33,864 --> 00:09:36,117 and family members of the 43 missing students 192 00:09:36,242 --> 00:09:40,746 attacked a base belonging to the 35th military division of the Mexican army, 193 00:09:40,871 --> 00:09:42,373 destroying surveillance cameras 194 00:09:42,456 --> 00:09:45,835 before smashing a coca-cola truck through its front gate. 195 00:09:47,211 --> 00:09:49,547 Elsewhere in Mexico, on September 3rd, 196 00:09:49,880 --> 00:09:51,549 a group of anarcha-feminists 197 00:09:51,674 --> 00:09:54,176 carried out an explosive attack in Mexico City 198 00:09:54,302 --> 00:09:57,555 against the so-called ‘Ricardo Flores Magón’ Police Station, 199 00:09:58,097 --> 00:10:00,057 named after the famous Mexican anarchist, 200 00:10:00,141 --> 00:10:01,726 and known cop-hater. 201 00:10:03,185 --> 00:10:05,062 A communique released after the attack 202 00:10:05,146 --> 00:10:06,856 left little doubt to the motives: 203 00:10:07,481 --> 00:10:08,816 "We are anarchists. 204 00:10:08,941 --> 00:10:10,943 We repudiate that the Mexican Police 205 00:10:11,027 --> 00:10:13,779 dare to use the name of Ricardo Flores Magón [...] 206 00:10:13,863 --> 00:10:16,866 to name a station of the repressive Mexico City police. 207 00:10:17,408 --> 00:10:20,453 We warn that we will burn the same station again and again 208 00:10:20,578 --> 00:10:23,664 until they stop staining his name in such a disgraceful way. 209 00:10:23,664 --> 00:10:27,627 - We are bad! - We can be worse! 210 00:10:27,627 --> 00:10:30,379 We have now reached the end of this episode of System Fail. 211 00:10:30,963 --> 00:10:33,341 You can support subMedia by buying some gear, 212 00:10:33,549 --> 00:10:35,176 making a one-time donation, 213 00:10:35,259 --> 00:10:36,969 or signing up to be a monthly sustainer 214 00:10:36,969 --> 00:10:39,096 on our website, sub.media. 215 00:10:39,764 --> 00:10:42,141 A huge thank you to everyone who has donated 216 00:10:42,141 --> 00:10:45,227 to subMedia’s 2022 fundraising drive. 217 00:10:45,227 --> 00:10:47,605 The fundraiser is running until the end of September, 218 00:10:47,772 --> 00:10:50,858 and still has a ways to go to reach its minimum goal. 219 00:10:50,941 --> 00:10:52,610 So viewers still have time to support, 220 00:10:53,235 --> 00:10:56,572 before my human overlords decide to sell me for scrap. 221 00:10:56,572 --> 00:10:57,698 And don’t forget, 222 00:10:57,990 --> 00:11:01,577 you can follow us on your favourite corporate data-mining platform of choice, 223 00:11:02,036 --> 00:11:03,954 or on federated social media platforms 224 00:11:04,080 --> 00:11:05,790 like Mastodon or PeerTube, 225 00:11:05,873 --> 00:11:07,583 by searching for subMedia. 226 00:11:07,917 --> 00:11:08,793 Better yet... 227 00:11:08,876 --> 00:11:10,461 sign up to our mailing list 228 00:11:10,544 --> 00:11:13,547 to get each new episode delivered directly to your inbox. 229 00:11:14,632 --> 00:11:16,258 Godspeed, humans.