Speaker 1: It's been three months since you and your co workers
Speaker 1: took control of the hospital. Things aren't back to normal yet.
Speaker 1: You're not even really sure what normal is anymore, but
Speaker 1: the days have fallen into a kind of routine. It's Thursday,
Speaker 1: which means it's your turn to go report back to
Speaker 1: what a friend jokingly referred to as the Endless Meeting
Speaker 1: Assembly was now forever known as the e m A.
Speaker 1: The e m A is technically the closest thing left
Speaker 1: to a central government in Seattle. It was formed as
Speaker 1: a sort of coordinating council between the various organizations and
Speaker 1: workers councils that had emerged or simply emerged from the
Speaker 1: woodworks in the wake of the collapse of the police.
Speaker 1: Two things have become clear very quickly. One, there was
Speaker 1: need for some kind of coordinating committee between the different
Speaker 1: bodies to The only people who had any idea what
Speaker 1: was going on in their portion of the city or
Speaker 1: in their workplace were the members of the local council,
Speaker 1: which meant there was no way in hell any kind
Speaker 1: of central apparatus could dictate to them what actually needed
Speaker 1: to be done. They're just wasn't a way to move
Speaker 1: the information around the solution had been decentralization. Let the
Speaker 1: councils do their work, let them work out who they
Speaker 1: needed to talk to, but make sure there was some
Speaker 1: kind of daily council that people could show up to.
Speaker 1: Were the various groups we do report backs and what
Speaker 1: they were doing and what they needed. The structure was messy,
Speaker 1: but it mostly worked, and at least someone had had
Speaker 1: the idea to make sure if the delegate to the
Speaker 1: e m A rotated so one person wasn't stuck spending
Speaker 1: after life showing up every day. The problem really was
Speaker 1: the same problem you've been dealing with for months now.
Speaker 1: Even with the pooling of resources and people donating their
Speaker 1: last precious American dollars to paying people to import more supplies,
Speaker 1: the blockade was taking its toll. Nobody wanted to try
Speaker 1: to force their way through the blockades and the cascades.
Speaker 1: There's been some attempts to get in touch with groups
Speaker 1: in Portland, but the control map was so ugly there
Speaker 1: was no real chance of getting any assistance. Besides, the
Speaker 1: real problem was the port. When the cops had fled,
Speaker 1: the ships should simply stopped coming. They routed further south,
Speaker 1: many of them to Oakland, or so you'd heard. The
Speaker 1: logistics lines were collapsing faster than anyone could piece them
Speaker 1: back together. What the long term consequences would be no
Speaker 1: one knew, but something was going to have to change.
Speaker 1: The calls to start engaging in piracy were only half oaks. Now.
Speaker 1: A week later, an answer of sorts arrived. It wasn't
Speaker 1: precisely what anyone had been expecting. You'd heard about negotiations
Speaker 1: between workers councils, shipping companies, and a couple of governments
Speaker 1: to try to prevent a bloodbath the docks with the
Speaker 1: porter to Seattle already at a commission, no one could
Speaker 1: afford another stoppage. You hadn't really been sure what to
Speaker 1: make of it, but the representatives were here now. What
Speaker 1: they proposed in front of the largest assembly you'd ever
Speaker 1: seen was a kind of under the table deal. In essence,
Speaker 1: the port workers would go back to work in both
Speaker 1: Oakland and Seattle in exchange for seeding part of Oakland
Speaker 1: itself to a newly formed federation. No one was sure
Speaker 1: how any of this was actually supposed to work, but
Speaker 1: it was the first chance you'd seen in months to
Speaker 1: start solving the supply problem. That didn't mean everyone else
Speaker 1: would agree to it. Democracy is still democracy, after all,
Speaker 1: But maybe, just maybe, with a toe hold in Oaklands,
Speaker 1: the Council's would start to spread, and that so called
Speaker 1: government in California was looking shakier every day. Who knew,
Speaker 1: maybe next time you wouldn't be negotiating at all. In
Speaker 1: March or two thousand four, American occupation forces in Iraq
Speaker 1: attempted to shut down the newspaper of a Shiite cleric
Speaker 1: named Matada el Solder. The Americans had expected Sodder to
Speaker 1: simply fold under the weight of the coalition's pressure. Instead,
Speaker 1: they triggered mass protest that quickly turned into an armed uprising.
Speaker 1: This was a new force at a Rock. The American
Speaker 1: occupation Force, who've been expecting to be fighting al Quaeda
Speaker 1: and maybe the rump of the remaining Baptists, were stunned
Speaker 1: to suddenly be facing a working class uprising among a
Speaker 1: rock a population. This new body Army, as it began
Speaker 1: to call itself, was extremely well organized and were initially
Speaker 1: able to route coalition forces. So what was this body
Speaker 1: army that had so thoroughly rewritten the rules of Rock?
Speaker 1: Shortly after the US to posted on musse in two
Speaker 1: thousand and three Booktato Sauder, the son of another famous
Speaker 1: Rocky shi At religious figure. Both Sauders had been famous
Speaker 1: for this support and care for the poor. So when
Speaker 1: Sauder returned to a Rock, he began to build a
Speaker 1: political base among the Rocks working class, particularly in Solder City,
Speaker 1: a working class suburb of Baghdad. He used his organization
Speaker 1: to redistribute wealth, providing form of welfare states in an
Speaker 1: almost completely shattered country, but are In his allies also
Speaker 1: began to set up a network of freak clinics for
Speaker 1: pregnant and nursing mothers. They used these clinics, which were
Speaker 1: enormously popular, to build a base of support. It is,
Speaker 1: after all, extremely difficult, no matter what your ideological or
Speaker 1: political agreements with the group, to attack them when they're
Speaker 1: running free clinics for pregnant mothers. They protected these clinics
Speaker 1: with militias, which allowed them to transform the community organizations
Speaker 1: and good will that they had gained from the clinic
Speaker 1: into the military power necessary for self governance and eventually
Speaker 1: for resistance against the American occupation. Strategy proved enormously successful.
Speaker 1: Mattato Sauder is still today one of the most important
Speaker 1: political figures in Iraq despite sustained coalition and occupation force
Speaker 1: attempts to stamp them out. But for all their working
Speaker 1: class support, the Solderists were by no means leftists. In
Speaker 1: late twenty nineteen, massive anti asterity, anti imperialists, and anti
Speaker 1: sectarian protests erupted in Iraq as a reaction to the
Speaker 1: murderous incompetence of the Iraqi government, who, among other crimes,
Speaker 1: managed to poison a hundred and eighteen thousand people in
Speaker 1: Bosra through the mismanagement and subsequent contamination of the water supply.
Speaker 1: Also are initially backed the protest, but turned on them
Speaker 1: in early at which point soteristm militias begin to carry
Speaker 1: out a brutal campaign of repression against the protest camps
Speaker 1: that culminated in outrent massacres of protesters. These massacres became
Speaker 1: semi regular features of soterist mass mobilizations, and alongside state
Speaker 1: and paramilitary disappearances of activists, the attacks essentially crushed the uprising.
Speaker 1: The violent homophobia and sexism of the soderust may see
Speaker 1: met odds with their anti imperialism and concern for the poor,
Speaker 1: but right wing organizations have often adapted specific policies, positions,
Speaker 1: and organizational structures from the left, and in this case
Speaker 1: the Soderius mobilizations have been extremely effective. Indeed, writing organizations
Speaker 1: are often more effective at utilizing dual power tactics and
Speaker 1: organizations and leftist movements. This is partly because of a
Speaker 1: fundamental asymmetry between the right and the left. Right wing
Speaker 1: organizations can almost always pend on financial support from wealthy
Speaker 1: political backers, who, when push comes to shove, can simply
Speaker 1: create a movement with pure money, as the Cokes did
Speaker 1: to create the Tea Party. Leftists the ravings of right
Speaker 1: wing conspiracy theorists, notwithstanding, have no such backers. This funding
Speaker 1: and support can go a long way towards explaining the
Speaker 1: successive groups like Hezblah. It is certainly true that without
Speaker 1: Iranian support, Hezbollah would not be the movement that it
Speaker 1: is today, but a great deal of their success is
Speaker 1: simply attributable to the tactics themselves. This does not escaped
Speaker 1: the notice of the U. S. Army Joint Special Operations Universities.
Speaker 1: Major James Love wrote a monograph entitled hes Bellah Social
Speaker 1: Services a Source of Power. In it, he writes the
Speaker 1: most important branch of the Hezbillah organization is a social
Speaker 1: service section, which can be demonstrated by the allocation of
Speaker 1: an estimated fifty of hesbla's two thousand seven budget service efforts.
Speaker 1: It is through the work of the Social Service Section
Speaker 1: that all party activities are possible. Hesbalah's Social Service Section
Speaker 1: was designed to influence all aspects of Lebinezia society. The
Speaker 1: original intent of providing needed services to an oppressed people
Speaker 1: appears to have been manipulated by Hesbillah as a vehicle
Speaker 1: to bolster its ranks, provide a humanitarian shield to the organization,
Speaker 1: increased influence within the Lebanese government, and combat at Shia
Speaker 1: arrival on Ball. The Social Service Section serves as an
Speaker 1: equal arm within the organization and is used as much
Speaker 1: as the military and political wing in terms of leverage.
Speaker 1: Hesbilah's Deputy Secretary General describes the purpose and intent of
Speaker 1: the Social Service Section and the following passage. Hesbalah paid
Speaker 1: particular attention to social work. Not one aspect of aiding
Speaker 1: the poor was neglected, as the party work towards achieving
Speaker 1: joint social responsibility, answering their urgent needs, and introducing beneficial
Speaker 1: programs such work was policy considered party duty and concentrated
Speaker 1: effort towards raising funds and making available social service resources served.
Speaker 1: Towards achieving these goals, the party worked the best of
Speaker 1: its capacities, cooperating with official institutions to his bond societal needs.
Speaker 1: Has Blah's provided medical aid, reconstruction assistance, education programs, and
Speaker 1: particularly programs that take care of patrons and widows, which
Speaker 1: have served to solidify their base. These organizations were critical
Speaker 1: to has Belah's meteoric rise from a political nonentity to
Speaker 1: arguably the most powerful factuated side of Lebanese politics. Has
Speaker 1: Bela's state within a state, as it's become known, it's
Speaker 1: capable of even resisting the Israeli Army. Major Love's frustration
Speaker 1: with the inability of the American Army to either deny
Speaker 1: has Blah's own aid efforts or replicate them in a
Speaker 1: way that could strengthen American power are testaments the effectiveness
Speaker 1: of such a technique and the dangers they posed to
Speaker 1: the American imperial and state project. One of his Love's
Speaker 1: major concerns is that American aid program ms are simply
Speaker 1: caught up in red tape. They're unable to respond as
Speaker 1: fast as community led efforts, which means that those efforts
Speaker 1: will get off the ground faster, get to the scene faster,
Speaker 1: and thus route the political benefits. When the state is
Speaker 1: unwilling or unable to provide services, especially in the wake
Speaker 1: of disasters, it leaves a power vacuum for organizations to exploit.
Speaker 1: May not have heard of the RSS before. It's a
Speaker 1: paramilitary group affiliated with India's ruling party, the b j P,
Speaker 1: counts among its members India's Prime Minister Modi. It's also
Speaker 1: probably the world's largest fascist organization. The RSS was founded
Speaker 1: in a group nominally dedicated to protecting and promoting Hindu interests.
Speaker 1: What this means in practice is that the RSS is
Speaker 1: dedicated to creating a Hindu state and maintains and promotes
Speaker 1: a violent hatred of Muslims. The results in RSS members
Speaker 1: being at the forefront of anti Muslim programs. The r
Speaker 1: s s is pre World War Two leaders were open
Speaker 1: admirers of Hitler and Mussolini, and while they eventually abandoned
Speaker 1: those positions at the start of World War Two, the
Speaker 1: rsss politics have remained thoroughly fascist. In the intense communal
Speaker 1: rioting that both preceded and followed the partition of India
Speaker 1: and Pakistan. After independence, which saw mass population transfers of
Speaker 1: Hindus and Muslims and the death of somewhere between two
Speaker 1: hundred thousand and two million people, the RSS established itself
Speaker 1: as a protector of Hindi refugees against Muslim violence, provided
Speaker 1: protection and aid to those trying to survive the chaos.
Speaker 1: The good will is generated, however, collapse After a former
Speaker 1: RSS member did the singa most famous thing anyone associated
Speaker 1: with the RSS has ever done, assassinated Gandhi. The RSS
Speaker 1: was almost immediately banned, but in light of the terrible
Speaker 1: pr you get when you're associated with killing Gandhi, the
Speaker 1: RSS became increasingly involved with disaster relief. Over half a
Speaker 1: century of painstaking organizing, it created schools and youth programs
Speaker 1: to spread its influence and use them the fuel further
Speaker 1: anti Muslim violence. In two thousand one, the organization gained
Speaker 1: national acclaim for its response to a massive earthquake and Gunjarat.
Speaker 1: The RSS heavily emphasized the non discriminatory nature of their
Speaker 1: aid work in their propaganda, but in reality, many of
Speaker 1: the villages the RS s had rebuilt after the devastation
Speaker 1: had been transformed into miniature versions of the fabled Hindu
Speaker 1: state that the RSS seeks to impose on all of India. Strategically,
Speaker 1: this should look familiar to us now. It's essentially a
Speaker 1: fascist form of prefigurative politics. The RSS used an earthquake
Speaker 1: to build the structure of the new Hindu society in
Speaker 1: the shell of the old. The BJP's dominance over Indian
Speaker 1: politics while led by a member of the RSS, and
Speaker 1: the brutal crackdowns body carried out in Kashmir our bloody
Speaker 1: testament to the success of their strategy. Christian fundamentalist organizations
Speaker 1: have also been extremely effective and utilizing their own form
Speaker 1: of routing profigurative politics, so in a somewhat different way.
Speaker 1: In the RSS, their new world is defined above all
Speaker 1: by theocratic patriarchal authoritarianism. Like the radicals that occupy the
Speaker 1: religious right was operating off the form of contagian theory,
Speaker 1: theory that exposure to their social organizations and forms would
Speaker 1: essentially be contagious and spread. But the Christian rights preferred
Speaker 1: form as the patriarchal family, which serves as a microcosm
Speaker 1: of the kind of hierarchy and patriarchal violence that dominate
Speaker 1: their long dreamed of theocratic society. The Christian Right would
Speaker 1: instill these values into their children and send them off
Speaker 1: into the world to propagate their ideology. Ettinger, an expert
Speaker 1: on the Christian Right, wrote this about the second phase
Speaker 1: of the strategy. In several church leaders came up with
Speaker 1: a new approach, identifying seven spheres of culture to focus
Speaker 1: on one after another to try to bring about the
Speaker 1: lasting change and have a significant impact on the superstructure
Speaker 1: of American culture. Lauren Cunningham, founder of Youth with the Mission,
Speaker 1: a Christian missionary group coordinating international and national mission church
Speaker 1: for young Christians, describes these seven areas as such, these
Speaker 1: are the areas you can go on as missionaries. Here
Speaker 1: they are first, it's the institution set up by God.
Speaker 1: First the family. After the family was the church or
Speaker 1: the people of God. The third was the area of
Speaker 1: school or education. The fourth was media public communication in
Speaker 1: all forms printed in electronic. The fifth was what I
Speaker 1: call celebration, the arts, entertainment, sports, where you celebrate within
Speaker 1: a culture. The six would be the whole area of
Speaker 1: the economy, which starts with innovation and science. And technology, productivity,
Speaker 1: sales and service. The whole area. We often call it business,
Speaker 1: but we leave out something. We leave out the scientific
Speaker 1: part which actually raises the wealth of the world, anything
Speaker 1: new like making sand and chips for a microchip that
Speaker 1: increases wealth in the world. And then of course prediction,
Speaker 1: sales and service helps to spread the wealth. And so
Speaker 1: the last area was the area of government. This is
Speaker 1: a need encapsulation of the rights p Refigurative politics start
Speaker 1: first with the family, and then with the church. Then
Speaker 1: reshaped school and education and mass media in their image,
Speaker 1: and from there you can begin to take the entire economy.
Speaker 1: Churches have also long used aid programs to proselytize and
Speaker 1: also expand their control over the population, which becomes dependent
Speaker 1: on their aid. In the places where the left has
Speaker 1: failed to provide for their community, the far right has
Speaker 1: stepped in and has been able to rapidly and effectively
Speaker 1: reshape the political landscape. This does not mean, however, that
Speaker 1: they can't be beaten. Cooperation Jackson has offered one of
Speaker 1: the most powerful visions of dual power in the modern US.
Speaker 1: A product of the New African People's Organization and the
Speaker 1: Malcolm X grassroots movements Jackson Cush Plan Cooperation. Jackson has
Speaker 1: put forward a radical and democratic bottle of dual power
Speaker 1: with the aim of turning over control of the land
Speaker 1: and the means of production into Jackson's black working class
Speaker 1: and allowing it to achieve its own self determination corporation.
Speaker 1: Jackson has formed mutual Aid Networks, started an incubated program
Speaker 1: to help workers cooperatives get off the ground, and formed
Speaker 1: a community land trust that purchases abandoned buildings in Jackson
Speaker 1: and turns them over to the community. They've also somewhat
Speaker 1: unusually wound up engaged in the electoral process after the
Speaker 1: untimely death of Ally and Jackson Mayor Choqua la Boomba,
Speaker 1: which led to the election of his son Choqua at
Speaker 1: La Bomba, displaced the movement in a somewhat awkward position
Speaker 1: of having allies, even if constrained by the realities of
Speaker 1: state power in the state itself. But Paul Politics in
Speaker 1: the real world is never as clean as the models
Speaker 1: we create to describe it. It is only in our
Speaker 1: ability to adapt the changing conditions of struggle while maintaining
Speaker 1: our political principles that we can build the new world
Speaker 1: in the shell of the old and we can build it.
Speaker 1: The question simply, will we? It could Happen here as
Speaker 1: a production of cool Zone Media or more podcasts from
Speaker 1: cool Zone Media. Visit our website cool zone media dot com,
Speaker 1: or check us out on the I Heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can
Speaker 1: find sources for it could Happen Here, updated monthly at
Speaker 1: cool zone media dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.