S1E90 - This Month in the Apocalypse: Sept. 2023

Episode Summary

This time on This Month in the Apocalypse, Brooke, Inmn, and Margaret talk about food insecurity, genocide in Armenia, a storm in Libya, battles for abortion care access, the government shut down, the state of water, and how everything can tie back to Lord of the Rings.

Host Info

Brooke can be found on Twitter or Mastodon @ogemakweBrooke. Inmn can be found on Instagram @shadowtail.artificery. Margaret can be found on twitter @magpiekilljoy or instagram at @margaretkilljoy.

Publisher Info

This show is published by Strangers in A Tangled Wilderness. We can be found at www.tangledwilderness.org, or on Twitter @TangledWild and Instagram @Tangled_Wilderness. You can support the show on Patreon at www.patreon.com/strangersinatangledwilderness.

Transcript

This Month in the Apocalypse: September, 2023

**Inmn ** 00:15 Hello and welcome to Live Like the World is Dying [Brooke cheers] and this is our extra fun This Month in the Apocalypse section in which we talk about, unfortunately, most of the horrible things that happened in the last month. I'm one of your hosts today, Inmn, and I have with me some other folks.

**Margaret ** 00:36 Hi.

**Brooke ** 00:36 The indomitable you.

**Margaret ** 00:40 Brooke is Brooke. I'm...I'm Out-mn [like Inmn, but out] Margaret,

**Brooke ** 00:45 I'll be Margaret, you be Out-mn.

**Margaret ** 00:49 The inverse of Inmn. [Brooke laughing] Or, I'll be Margaret. And then Inmn can be Brooke.

**Inmn ** 01:02 I don't know nearly enough about math to be Brooke, but I will try.

**Margaret ** 01:07 Okay, we'll just switch each other's scripts and so that we each read what the other has researched. And y'all can go with my shitty notes.

**Inmn ** 01:17 Yeah, right. You know, that sounds great. But before we get to all of that, we are a proud member of the Channel Zero Network of anarchists podcasts and here is a jingle from another show on that network. Bah doo boop doo [Singing the words like a simple melody]

**Inmn ** 02:21 And we're back. And, to start off the show, we have harped a lot on how horrible of a place Phoenix, Arizona is a lot this year.

**Brooke ** 02:38 Oh, I've definitely talked shit too, so...it's at least an "us" and not necessarily a "we."

**Margaret ** 02:42 I really appreciate you making this a "we" instead of me just talking shit on it.

**Inmn ** 02:48 Yeah, no, I mean, it's the place, famously, where propane tanks explode because it's too hot and people fall on the ground and get burned. And, where they're trying to build some giant super future city that Bill Gates wants to trap us all in...or something. But a listener got a hold of me and told me about the history of the name, Phoenix, because it got brought up on the show. And, what he had to tell me about it was that Phoenix is named so because it was built from the ashes of a Hohokam civilization that was literally burned to the ground by white settlers. [Brooke boos] And they wanted to inspiringly build a city in its ashes. [laughing in a horrified way] So yeah, the surprising but not too surprising history of Phoenix.

**Margaret ** 03:58 It's more like the spell Animate Dead where you bring someone back to life but as a mindless zombie who serves you instead of their original purpose.

**Inmn ** 04:04 Yeah, totally. Yeah.

**Margaret ** 04:08 Brooke, what were you gonna say? Sorry.

**Brooke ** 04:09 Oh, just that I think that, as an indigenous person, we should go ahead and re-Phoenix, Phoenix. [Everyone laughs] It's time.

**Margaret ** 04:18 This is just a terrible transitional state that I was in before...

**Brooke ** 04:21 I mean if it rises from the ashes, let's burn that motherfucker down and give it back to its proper people.

**Inmn ** 04:29 It might do that on its own. The way the city is running it, it might...that might happen regardless of intention.

**Brooke ** 04:38 Excellent. I'm glad to help, though. I will help the city towards that goal.

**Inmn ** 04:44 Yeah. But, in a hopeful note for Arizona, I did find out that other cities in Arizona, not Phoenix, do weirdly have a pretty robust aquifer system. Like the city of Tucson, for example, only relies on the Colorado River for like 5% of its water, and otherwise, it's all aquifer driven and there's a lot of cool programs in place for--this is me defending that Arizona is a fine place to live.

**Margaret ** 05:18 I know. And I'm going to talk about groundwater later [Laughing] and how aquifers are all drying up all over the country.

**Brooke ** 05:24 Thank God, because I was going to insert some shit about there right now. So, I'll leave that for you, Margaret.

**Inmn ** 05:28 Great. Well, to start us off today aside from Arizona...

**Brooke ** 05:36 Phoenix getting burned down.

**Inmn ** 05:36 ...Aside from Phoenix getting burned down. There are some bad things happening in the world. I know this is a shock to all of our listeners who came here for a list of joyful things about the apocalypse, right? But, so there's a new wave of activity in the Armenian Genocide from Azerbaijan. And, what's been happening is that on September 19th, Azerbaijan launched a full assault on Nagorno-Karabakh targeting mostly civilian infrastructure. There have been--you know, this was as of September 19th--200 casualties so far. But, there are 120,000 people who are completely cut off from any kind of external supplies or aid. Nagorno-Karabakh, it's been contested for a really long time. It's been the subject of a lot of past conflicts. And, both sides have--there's been a, you know, an unsteady..."peace" isn't the right word, but, you know, non-attacking-each-other time. And both sides are kind of accusing each other of a military buildup. And while there's a lot of physical evidence that shows Azerbaijan amassing troops and building military infrastructure, the same cannot be said of Armenia, who has--there's a local defense army in that area. Because, the area is sort of technically part of Azerbaijan, but is controlled by an ethnically Armenian population. And, so, part of this big military buildup is that there was this blockade put on, essentially, the only route in and out of this area, was just put on full military blockade. And there was a big humanitarian response to it because they're like, "You're cutting off 120,000 people from all external like food, and medical, and, you know, any kind of supplies, and, in some instances, water. And, there was this big mass starvation happening in this area. And, humanitarian aid convoys that were trying to go into the area were literally being shelled by Azerbaijan. Which eventually culminated in this full assault on September 19th. And, as it stands right now, there's...literally 120,000 people have gotten into their cars and are attempting to leave the area since the...

**Brooke ** 05:37 That's a lot of people

**Inmn ** 05:38 Yeah, yeah.

**Margaret ** 05:41 There was a ceasefire or something, right?

**Inmn ** 05:44 There was a ceasefire, which called for the unconditional surrender of the defense army. So, it's now a comp