WEBVTT - Dual Power Part 2 0:00:04.120 --> 0:00:06.240 It's been three months since you and your co workers 0:00:06.240 --> 0:00:09.479 took control of the hospital. Things aren't back to normal yet. 0:00:10.240 --> 0:00:13.159 You're not even really sure what normal is anymore, but 0:00:13.280 --> 0:00:16.480 the days have fallen into a kind of routine. It's Thursday, 0:00:16.520 --> 0:00:18.400 which means it's your turn to go report back to 0:00:18.480 --> 0:00:21.000 what a friend jokingly referred to as the Endless Meeting 0:00:21.040 --> 0:00:23.800 Assembly was now forever known as the e m A. 0:00:24.280 --> 0:00:26.520 The e m A is technically the closest thing left 0:00:26.560 --> 0:00:29.080 to a central government in Seattle. It was formed as 0:00:29.080 --> 0:00:32.400 a sort of coordinating council between the various organizations and 0:00:32.440 --> 0:00:35.600 workers councils that had emerged or simply emerged from the 0:00:35.600 --> 0:00:38.440 woodworks in the wake of the collapse of the police. 0:00:38.760 --> 0:00:42.680 Two things have become clear very quickly. One, there was 0:00:42.800 --> 0:00:45.320 need for some kind of coordinating committee between the different 0:00:45.320 --> 0:00:48.680 bodies to The only people who had any idea what 0:00:48.760 --> 0:00:50.760 was going on in their portion of the city or 0:00:50.800 --> 0:00:53.479 in their workplace were the members of the local council, 0:00:53.840 --> 0:00:55.800 which meant there was no way in hell any kind 0:00:55.840 --> 0:00:58.520 of central apparatus could dictate to them what actually needed 0:00:58.560 --> 0:01:00.800 to be done. They're just wasn't a way to move 0:01:00.800 --> 0:01:04.560 the information around the solution had been decentralization. Let the 0:01:04.600 --> 0:01:07.119 councils do their work, let them work out who they 0:01:07.120 --> 0:01:09.360 needed to talk to, but make sure there was some 0:01:09.440 --> 0:01:11.400 kind of daily council that people could show up to. 0:01:11.640 --> 0:01:13.800 Were the various groups we do report backs and what 0:01:13.840 --> 0:01:16.559 they were doing and what they needed. The structure was messy, 0:01:16.840 --> 0:01:19.520 but it mostly worked, and at least someone had had 0:01:19.560 --> 0:01:21.760 the idea to make sure if the delegate to the 0:01:21.800 --> 0:01:25.360 e m A rotated so one person wasn't stuck spending 0:01:25.360 --> 0:01:29.200 after life showing up every day. The problem really was 0:01:29.240 --> 0:01:31.759 the same problem you've been dealing with for months now. 0:01:32.480 --> 0:01:35.560 Even with the pooling of resources and people donating their 0:01:35.640 --> 0:01:39.679 last precious American dollars to paying people to import more supplies, 0:01:39.959 --> 0:01:43.000 the blockade was taking its toll. Nobody wanted to try 0:01:43.000 --> 0:01:45.759 to force their way through the blockades and the cascades. 0:01:46.280 --> 0:01:48.160 There's been some attempts to get in touch with groups 0:01:48.160 --> 0:01:51.120 in Portland, but the control map was so ugly there 0:01:51.200 --> 0:01:54.720 was no real chance of getting any assistance. Besides, the 0:01:54.800 --> 0:01:58.600 real problem was the port. When the cops had fled, 0:01:58.640 --> 0:02:02.040 the ships should simply stopped coming. They routed further south, 0:02:02.600 --> 0:02:05.560 many of them to Oakland, or so you'd heard. The 0:02:05.600 --> 0:02:08.400 logistics lines were collapsing faster than anyone could piece them 0:02:08.400 --> 0:02:11.480 back together. What the long term consequences would be no 0:02:11.520 --> 0:02:14.400 one knew, but something was going to have to change. 0:02:14.560 --> 0:02:17.560 The calls to start engaging in piracy were only half oaks. Now. 0:02:18.320 --> 0:02:22.640 A week later, an answer of sorts arrived. It wasn't 0:02:22.639 --> 0:02:26.560 precisely what anyone had been expecting. You'd heard about negotiations 0:02:26.600 --> 0:02:31.120 between workers councils, shipping companies, and a couple of governments 0:02:31.639 --> 0:02:33.959 to try to prevent a bloodbath the docks with the 0:02:34.040 --> 0:02:36.799 porter to Seattle already at a commission, no one could 0:02:36.840 --> 0:02:39.760 afford another stoppage. You hadn't really been sure what to 0:02:39.800 --> 0:02:42.880 make of it, but the representatives were here now. What 0:02:43.000 --> 0:02:45.720 they proposed in front of the largest assembly you'd ever 0:02:45.760 --> 0:02:49.280 seen was a kind of under the table deal. In essence, 0:02:49.360 --> 0:02:51.399 the port workers would go back to work in both 0:02:51.400 --> 0:02:54.680 Oakland and Seattle in exchange for seeding part of Oakland 0:02:54.680 --> 0:02:57.560 itself to a newly formed federation. No one was sure 0:02:57.600 --> 0:02:59.800 how any of this was actually supposed to work, but 0:02:59.840 --> 0:03:01.639 it was the first chance you'd seen in months to 0:03:01.639 --> 0:03:04.880 start solving the supply problem. That didn't mean everyone else 0:03:04.880 --> 0:03:08.440 would agree to it. Democracy is still democracy, after all, 0:03:08.840 --> 0:03:12.840 But maybe, just maybe, with a toe hold in Oaklands, 0:03:12.960 --> 0:03:15.560 the Council's would start to spread, and that so called 0:03:15.600 --> 0:03:20.000 government in California was looking shakier every day. Who knew, 0:03:20.720 --> 0:03:28.840 maybe next time you wouldn't be negotiating at all. In 0:03:28.919 --> 0:03:32.440 March or two thousand four, American occupation forces in Iraq 0:03:32.520 --> 0:03:35.520 attempted to shut down the newspaper of a Shiite cleric 0:03:35.600 --> 0:03:39.360 named Matada el Solder. The Americans had expected Sodder to 0:03:39.400 --> 0:03:43.400 simply fold under the weight of the coalition's pressure. Instead, 0:03:43.720 --> 0:03:46.840 they triggered mass protest that quickly turned into an armed uprising. 0:03:47.240 --> 0:03:49.960 This was a new force at a Rock. The American 0:03:50.000 --> 0:03:53.440 occupation Force, who've been expecting to be fighting al Quaeda 0:03:53.840 --> 0:03:57.240 and maybe the rump of the remaining Baptists, were stunned 0:03:57.360 --> 0:04:00.360 to suddenly be facing a working class uprising among a 0:04:00.440 --> 0:04:04.840 rock a population. This new body Army, as it began 0:04:04.880 --> 0:04:08.760 to call itself, was extremely well organized and were initially 0:04:08.760 --> 0:04:11.600 able to route coalition forces. So what was this body 0:04:11.680 --> 0:04:14.280 army that had so thoroughly rewritten the rules of Rock? 0:04:14.840 --> 0:04:17.320 Shortly after the US to posted on musse in two 0:04:17.360 --> 0:04:21.320 thousand and three Booktato Sauder, the son of another famous 0:04:21.480 --> 0:04:24.520 Rocky shi At religious figure. Both Sauders had been famous 0:04:24.520 --> 0:04:27.800 for this support and care for the poor. So when 0:04:27.800 --> 0:04:30.520 Sauder returned to a Rock, he began to build a 0:04:30.520 --> 0:04:35.159 political base among the Rocks working class, particularly in Solder City, 0:04:35.400 --> 0:04:38.360 a working class suburb of Baghdad. He used his organization 0:04:38.400 --> 0:04:42.760 to redistribute wealth, providing form of welfare states in an 0:04:42.760 --> 0:04:45.880 almost completely shattered country, but are In his allies also 0:04:45.960 --> 0:04:48.200 began to set up a network of freak clinics for 0:04:48.279 --> 0:04:52.280 pregnant and nursing mothers. They used these clinics, which were 0:04:52.320 --> 0:04:55.159 enormously popular, to build a base of support. It is, 0:04:55.279 --> 0:04:59.279 after all, extremely difficult, no matter what your ideological or 0:04:59.320 --> 0:05:02.760 political agreements with the group, to attack them when they're 0:05:02.800 --> 0:05:06.359 running free clinics for pregnant mothers. They protected these clinics 0:05:06.360 --> 0:05:10.600 with militias, which allowed them to transform the community organizations 0:05:10.640 --> 0:05:12.920 and good will that they had gained from the clinic 0:05:13.279 --> 0:05:16.680 into the military power necessary for self governance and eventually 0:05:16.720 --> 0:05:21.600 for resistance against the American occupation. Strategy proved enormously successful. 0:05:22.000 --> 0:05:24.719 Mattato Sauder is still today one of the most important 0:05:24.720 --> 0:05:29.160 political figures in Iraq despite sustained coalition and occupation force 0:05:29.240 --> 0:05:32.000 attempts to stamp them out. But for all their working 0:05:32.000 --> 0:05:36.520 class support, the Solderists were by no means leftists. In 0:05:36.600 --> 0:05:40.760 late twenty nineteen, massive anti asterity, anti imperialists, and anti 0:05:40.839 --> 0:05:43.719 sectarian protests erupted in Iraq as a reaction to the 0:05:43.760 --> 0:05:48.520 murderous incompetence of the Iraqi government, who, among other crimes, 0:05:48.960 --> 0:05:51.599 managed to poison a hundred and eighteen thousand people in 0:05:51.680 --> 0:05:55.320 Bosra through the mismanagement and subsequent contamination of the water supply. 0:05:56.920 --> 0:06:00.120 Also are initially backed the protest, but turned on them 0:06:00.120 --> 0:06:03.760 in early at which point soteristm militias begin to carry 0:06:03.760 --> 0:06:06.760 out a brutal campaign of repression against the protest camps 0:06:07.960 --> 0:06:12.719 that culminated in outrent massacres of protesters. These massacres became 0:06:12.760 --> 0:06:17.200 semi regular features of soterist mass mobilizations, and alongside state 0:06:17.240 --> 0:06:22.520 and paramilitary disappearances of activists, the attacks essentially crushed the uprising. 0:06:22.880 --> 0:06:26.080 The violent homophobia and sexism of the soderust may see 0:06:26.120 --> 0:06:29.440 met odds with their anti imperialism and concern for the poor, 0:06:29.520 --> 0:06:34.680 but right wing organizations have often adapted specific policies, positions, 0:06:34.800 --> 0:06:37.720 and organizational structures from the left, and in this case 0:06:37.760 --> 0:06:42.159 the Soderius mobilizations have been extremely effective. Indeed, writing organizations 0:06:42.160 --> 0:06:45.080 are often more effective at utilizing dual power tactics and 0:06:45.200 --> 0:06:48.800 organizations and leftist movements. This is partly because of a 0:06:48.839 --> 0:06:52.440 fundamental asymmetry between the right and the left. Right wing 0:06:52.560 --> 0:06:55.960 organizations can almost always pend on financial support from wealthy 0:06:55.960 --> 0:07:00.279 political backers, who, when push comes to shove, can simply 0:07:00.400 --> 0:07:02.880 create a movement with pure money, as the Cokes did 0:07:03.080 --> 0:07:06.880 to create the Tea Party. Leftists the ravings of right 0:07:06.880 --> 0:07:21.280 wing conspiracy theorists, notwithstanding, have no such backers. This funding 0:07:21.280 --> 0:07:23.440 and support can go a long way towards explaining the 0:07:23.520 --> 0:07:26.760 successive groups like Hezblah. It is certainly true that without 0:07:26.760 --> 0:07:29.720 Iranian support, Hezbollah would not be the movement that it 0:07:29.800 --> 0:07:32.200 is today, but a great deal of their success is 0:07:32.240 --> 0:07:36.000 simply attributable to the tactics themselves. This does not escaped 0:07:36.040 --> 0:07:39.720 the notice of the U. S. Army Joint Special Operations Universities. 0:07:40.320 --> 0:07:44.600 Major James Love wrote a monograph entitled hes Bellah Social 0:07:44.600 --> 0:07:48.280 Services a Source of Power. In it, he writes the 0:07:48.360 --> 0:07:51.520 most important branch of the Hezbillah organization is a social 0:07:51.560 --> 0:07:54.920 service section, which can be demonstrated by the allocation of 0:07:54.920 --> 0:07:59.840 an estimated fifty of hesbla's two thousand seven budget service efforts. 0:08:00.520 --> 0:08:02.720 It is through the work of the Social Service Section 0:08:03.200 --> 0:08:07.560 that all party activities are possible. Hesbalah's Social Service Section 0:08:07.920 --> 0:08:12.040 was designed to influence all aspects of Lebinezia society. The 0:08:12.080 --> 0:08:15.280 original intent of providing needed services to an oppressed people 0:08:15.320 --> 0:08:17.920 appears to have been manipulated by Hesbillah as a vehicle 0:08:17.960 --> 0:08:21.920 to bolster its ranks, provide a humanitarian shield to the organization, 0:08:22.440 --> 0:08:25.840 increased influence within the Lebanese government, and combat at Shia 0:08:25.960 --> 0:08:30.120 arrival on Ball. The Social Service Section serves as an 0:08:30.120 --> 0:08:33.719 equal arm within the organization and is used as much 0:08:33.760 --> 0:08:36.560 as the military and political wing in terms of leverage. 0:08:37.480 --> 0:08:41.600 Hesbilah's Deputy Secretary General describes the purpose and intent of 0:08:41.640 --> 0:08:45.520 the Social Service Section and the following passage. Hesbalah paid 0:08:45.520 --> 0:08:49.400 particular attention to social work. Not one aspect of aiding 0:08:49.440 --> 0:08:51.920 the poor was neglected, as the party work towards achieving 0:08:52.000 --> 0:08:57.320 joint social responsibility, answering their urgent needs, and introducing beneficial 0:08:57.360 --> 0:09:02.760 programs such work was policy considered party duty and concentrated 0:09:02.760 --> 0:09:07.680 effort towards raising funds and making available social service resources served. 0:09:07.720 --> 0:09:11.120 Towards achieving these goals, the party worked the best of 0:09:11.160 --> 0:09:15.720 its capacities, cooperating with official institutions to his bond societal needs. 0:09:16.480 --> 0:09:21.160 Has Blah's provided medical aid, reconstruction assistance, education programs, and 0:09:21.200 --> 0:09:25.680 particularly programs that take care of patrons and widows, which 0:09:25.720 --> 0:09:29.000 have served to solidify their base. These organizations were critical 0:09:29.040 --> 0:09:32.520 to has Belah's meteoric rise from a political nonentity to 0:09:32.640 --> 0:09:36.440 arguably the most powerful factuated side of Lebanese politics. Has 0:09:36.440 --> 0:09:39.640 Bela's state within a state, as it's become known, it's 0:09:39.679 --> 0:09:43.199 capable of even resisting the Israeli Army. Major Love's frustration 0:09:43.280 --> 0:09:46.079 with the inability of the American Army to either deny 0:09:46.160 --> 0:09:48.440 has Blah's own aid efforts or replicate them in a 0:09:48.480 --> 0:09:52.080 way that could strengthen American power are testaments the effectiveness 0:09:52.080 --> 0:09:55.080 of such a technique and the dangers they posed to 0:09:55.080 --> 0:09:58.000 the American imperial and state project. One of his Love's 0:09:58.000 --> 0:10:00.600 major concerns is that American aid program ms are simply 0:10:00.640 --> 0:10:02.880 caught up in red tape. They're unable to respond as 0:10:02.960 --> 0:10:06.640 fast as community led efforts, which means that those efforts 0:10:06.679 --> 0:10:09.720 will get off the ground faster, get to the scene faster, 0:10:10.920 --> 0:10:13.679 and thus route the political benefits. When the state is 0:10:13.760 --> 0:10:16.920 unwilling or unable to provide services, especially in the wake 0:10:16.960 --> 0:10:20.760 of disasters, it leaves a power vacuum for organizations to exploit. 0:10:20.960 --> 0:10:23.640 May not have heard of the RSS before. It's a 0:10:23.640 --> 0:10:27.280 paramilitary group affiliated with India's ruling party, the b j P, 0:10:28.240 --> 0:10:32.840 counts among its members India's Prime Minister Modi. It's also 0:10:32.880 --> 0:10:37.080 probably the world's largest fascist organization. The RSS was founded 0:10:37.120 --> 0:10:42.480 in a group nominally dedicated to protecting and promoting Hindu interests. 0:10:43.000 --> 0:10:45.719 What this means in practice is that the RSS is 0:10:45.760 --> 0:10:48.840 dedicated to creating a Hindu state and maintains and promotes 0:10:48.880 --> 0:10:52.920 a violent hatred of Muslims. The results in RSS members 0:10:52.920 --> 0:10:55.880 being at the forefront of anti Muslim programs. The r 0:10:56.040 --> 0:10:58.200 s s is pre World War Two leaders were open 0:10:58.240 --> 0:11:01.800 admirers of Hitler and Mussolini, and while they eventually abandoned 0:11:01.800 --> 0:11:04.520 those positions at the start of World War Two, the 0:11:04.640 --> 0:11:08.679 rsss politics have remained thoroughly fascist. In the intense communal 0:11:08.800 --> 0:11:11.800 rioting that both preceded and followed the partition of India 0:11:11.800 --> 0:11:16.439 and Pakistan. After independence, which saw mass population transfers of 0:11:16.520 --> 0:11:19.000 Hindus and Muslims and the death of somewhere between two 0:11:19.080 --> 0:11:23.120 hundred thousand and two million people, the RSS established itself 0:11:23.160 --> 0:11:26.680 as a protector of Hindi refugees against Muslim violence, provided 0:11:26.720 --> 0:11:29.560 protection and aid to those trying to survive the chaos. 0:11:30.320 --> 0:11:33.880 The good will is generated, however, collapse After a former 0:11:33.960 --> 0:11:36.960 RSS member did the singa most famous thing anyone associated 0:11:37.000 --> 0:11:42.120 with the RSS has ever done, assassinated Gandhi. The RSS 0:11:42.240 --> 0:11:45.440 was almost immediately banned, but in light of the terrible 0:11:45.480 --> 0:11:48.920 pr you get when you're associated with killing Gandhi, the 0:11:49.040 --> 0:11:53.520 RSS became increasingly involved with disaster relief. Over half a 0:11:53.559 --> 0:11:58.319 century of painstaking organizing, it created schools and youth programs 0:11:58.320 --> 0:12:01.120 to spread its influence and use them the fuel further 0:12:01.200 --> 0:12:05.280 anti Muslim violence. In two thousand one, the organization gained 0:12:05.360 --> 0:12:08.559 national acclaim for its response to a massive earthquake and Gunjarat. 0:12:09.400 --> 0:12:12.959 The RSS heavily emphasized the non discriminatory nature of their 0:12:12.960 --> 0:12:16.720 aid work in their propaganda, but in reality, many of 0:12:16.760 --> 0:12:20.400 the villages the RS s had rebuilt after the devastation 0:12:21.520 --> 0:12:24.440 had been transformed into miniature versions of the fabled Hindu 0:12:24.520 --> 0:12:28.920 state that the RSS seeks to impose on all of India. Strategically, 0:12:29.360 --> 0:12:32.160 this should look familiar to us now. It's essentially a 0:12:32.200 --> 0:12:36.720 fascist form of prefigurative politics. The RSS used an earthquake 0:12:37.480 --> 0:12:39.840 to build the structure of the new Hindu society in 0:12:39.840 --> 0:12:43.160 the shell of the old. The BJP's dominance over Indian 0:12:43.200 --> 0:12:46.280 politics while led by a member of the RSS, and 0:12:46.320 --> 0:12:50.120 the brutal crackdowns body carried out in Kashmir our bloody 0:12:50.160 --> 0:12:54.920 testament to the success of their strategy. Christian fundamentalist organizations 0:12:55.360 --> 0:12:58.360 have also been extremely effective and utilizing their own form 0:12:58.400 --> 0:13:02.240 of routing profigurative politics, so in a somewhat different way. 0:13:02.320 --> 0:13:05.600 In the RSS, their new world is defined above all 0:13:05.679 --> 0:13:20.280 by theocratic patriarchal authoritarianism. Like the radicals that occupy the 0:13:20.320 --> 0:13:23.120 religious right was operating off the form of contagian theory, 0:13:23.480 --> 0:13:26.800 theory that exposure to their social organizations and forms would 0:13:26.840 --> 0:13:30.400 essentially be contagious and spread. But the Christian rights preferred 0:13:30.440 --> 0:13:35.320 form as the patriarchal family, which serves as a microcosm 0:13:35.320 --> 0:13:39.680 of the kind of hierarchy and patriarchal violence that dominate 0:13:39.920 --> 0:13:44.040 their long dreamed of theocratic society. The Christian Right would 0:13:44.080 --> 0:13:46.439 instill these values into their children and send them off 0:13:46.480 --> 0:13:50.000 into the world to propagate their ideology. Ettinger, an expert 0:13:50.000 --> 0:13:52.800 on the Christian Right, wrote this about the second phase 0:13:52.840 --> 0:13:57.719 of the strategy. In several church leaders came up with 0:13:57.760 --> 0:14:01.400 a new approach, identifying seven spheres of culture to focus 0:14:01.400 --> 0:14:04.120 on one after another to try to bring about the 0:14:04.200 --> 0:14:07.679 lasting change and have a significant impact on the superstructure 0:14:07.679 --> 0:14:12.439 of American culture. Lauren Cunningham, founder of Youth with the Mission, 0:14:13.240 --> 0:14:16.920 a Christian missionary group coordinating international and national mission church 0:14:17.040 --> 0:14:21.760 for young Christians, describes these seven areas as such, these 0:14:21.800 --> 0:14:24.640 are the areas you can go on as missionaries. Here 0:14:24.680 --> 0:14:28.320 they are first, it's the institution set up by God. 0:14:28.400 --> 0:14:33.240 First the family. After the family was the church or 0:14:33.280 --> 0:14:36.240 the people of God. The third was the area of 0:14:36.280 --> 0:14:41.480 school or education. The fourth was media public communication in 0:14:41.520 --> 0:14:45.000 all forms printed in electronic. The fifth was what I 0:14:45.040 --> 0:14:49.920 call celebration, the arts, entertainment, sports, where you celebrate within 0:14:49.960 --> 0:14:52.840 a culture. The six would be the whole area of 0:14:52.880 --> 0:14:57.359 the economy, which starts with innovation and science. And technology, productivity, 0:14:57.560 --> 0:15:02.160 sales and service. The whole area. We often call it business, 0:15:03.120 --> 0:15:06.119 but we leave out something. We leave out the scientific 0:15:06.160 --> 0:15:09.760 part which actually raises the wealth of the world, anything 0:15:09.800 --> 0:15:13.000 new like making sand and chips for a microchip that 0:15:13.080 --> 0:15:16.600 increases wealth in the world. And then of course prediction, 0:15:16.680 --> 0:15:20.200 sales and service helps to spread the wealth. And so 0:15:20.240 --> 0:15:24.600 the last area was the area of government. This is 0:15:24.640 --> 0:15:28.440 a need encapsulation of the rights p Refigurative politics start 0:15:28.480 --> 0:15:32.000 first with the family, and then with the church. Then 0:15:32.120 --> 0:15:35.440 reshaped school and education and mass media in their image, 0:15:35.600 --> 0:15:38.000 and from there you can begin to take the entire economy. 0:15:38.200 --> 0:15:42.640 Churches have also long used aid programs to proselytize and 0:15:42.680 --> 0:15:46.360 also expand their control over the population, which becomes dependent 0:15:46.440 --> 0:15:48.720 on their aid. In the places where the left has 0:15:48.720 --> 0:15:51.840 failed to provide for their community, the far right has 0:15:51.880 --> 0:15:54.720 stepped in and has been able to rapidly and effectively 0:15:54.800 --> 0:15:59.520 reshape the political landscape. This does not mean, however, that 0:15:59.600 --> 0:16:02.920 they can't be beaten. Cooperation Jackson has offered one of 0:16:02.920 --> 0:16:06.080 the most powerful visions of dual power in the modern US. 0:16:07.040 --> 0:16:09.840 A product of the New African People's Organization and the 0:16:09.880 --> 0:16:14.600 Malcolm X grassroots movements Jackson Cush Plan Cooperation. Jackson has 0:16:14.640 --> 0:16:17.520 put forward a radical and democratic bottle of dual power 0:16:17.560 --> 0:16:20.120 with the aim of turning over control of the land 0:16:20.160 --> 0:16:22.840 and the means of production into Jackson's black working class 0:16:22.840 --> 0:16:26.720 and allowing it to achieve its own self determination corporation. 0:16:26.840 --> 0:16:30.400 Jackson has formed mutual Aid Networks, started an incubated program 0:16:30.440 --> 0:16:33.240 to help workers cooperatives get off the ground, and formed 0:16:33.240 --> 0:16:36.320 a community land trust that purchases abandoned buildings in Jackson 0:16:36.320 --> 0:16:39.160 and turns them over to the community. They've also somewhat 0:16:39.200 --> 0:16:42.640 unusually wound up engaged in the electoral process after the 0:16:42.720 --> 0:16:46.239 untimely death of Ally and Jackson Mayor Choqua la Boomba, 0:16:46.320 --> 0:16:48.800 which led to the election of his son Choqua at 0:16:48.960 --> 0:16:52.400 La Bomba, displaced the movement in a somewhat awkward position 0:16:52.400 --> 0:16:55.320 of having allies, even if constrained by the realities of 0:16:55.360 --> 0:17:00.520 state power in the state itself. But Paul Politics in 0:17:00.520 --> 0:17:03.040 the real world is never as clean as the models 0:17:03.080 --> 0:17:06.199 we create to describe it. It is only in our 0:17:06.240 --> 0:17:10.080 ability to adapt the changing conditions of struggle while maintaining 0:17:10.080 --> 0:17:13.240 our political principles that we can build the new world 0:17:13.320 --> 0:17:16.480 in the shell of the old and we can build it. 0:17:17.560 --> 0:17:25.359 The question simply, will we? It could Happen here as 0:17:25.400 --> 0:17:28.080 a production of cool Zone Media or more podcasts from 0:17:28.119 --> 0:17:31.080 cool Zone Media. Visit our website cool zone media dot com, 0:17:31.160 --> 0:17:32.920 or check us out on the I Heart Radio app, 0:17:32.960 --> 0:17:36.320 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can 0:17:36.320 --> 0:17:39.040 find sources for it could Happen Here, updated monthly at 0:17:39.040 --> 0:17:42.320 cool zone media dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.