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Speaker 1: Welcome. It could Happen Here podcast about things falling apart

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Speaker 1: and about how we can put them back together in

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Speaker 1: a way better than they originally were. And today we're

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Speaker 1: going to continue our interview with Janina Abrar from the

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Speaker 1: Common Humanity Collective. We've been talking about their work. We've

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Speaker 1: been talking about the origin of the mutual aid products.

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Speaker 1: We've been talking specifically about the political aspect of their

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Speaker 1: work and how they're reading this sort of anarchists. The

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Speaker 1: history of anarchist struggle in Spain and particularly vitual agree

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Speaker 1: in the Spanish Civil War helped impact and shape the

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Speaker 1: politics and work that they've been doing. One thing I

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Speaker 1: wanted I wanted to sort of circle back all the

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Speaker 1: way to from the beginning, was the stuff you've got

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Speaker 1: you were doing at the very beginning of the pandemic,

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Speaker 1: because I think that this is I've talked about this

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Speaker 1: before on here, but you know the difference between a

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Speaker 1: country like the US where what seven hundreds of people

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Speaker 1: are dead and places where that didn't happen, was that

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Speaker 1: your community mobilization. And I talked about this with the

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Speaker 1: Chinese example, is that, like yeah, I mean like that

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Speaker 1: the reason that China the pandemic sort of got contained there.

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Speaker 1: It wasn't because the state stepped in and was like,

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Speaker 1: we're going to do this. It was because hundreds of

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Speaker 1: thousands of ordinary people just took to the streets and

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Speaker 1: we're like, okay, we're doing a lockdown now. And you know,

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Speaker 1: and it takes a different form in China because you know,

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Speaker 1: there's there's a lot of different sort of things going

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Speaker 1: on there, but that kind of mass community mobilization in

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Speaker 1: the beginning of it's just like it it didn't happen

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Speaker 1: that much in the US. And I think, like, you know,

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Speaker 1: the world where we don't all die in the pandemic,

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Speaker 1: right is the one where the things that you all

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Speaker 1: were doing happen. I mean, one the way the things

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Speaker 1: I remember my sister is a bios grad student, and

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Speaker 1: she was telling me about how, you know, so so

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Speaker 1: the you know, one of one of the things, one

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Speaker 1: of the bottlenecks beginning of a pandemic, and it's still

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Speaker 1: kind of a bottleneck, was it was about being able

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Speaker 1: to be able to do COVID tests. And you know,

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Speaker 1: bio grad students can do PCR tests like it's easy.

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Speaker 1: This is you know, this is the only the first

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Speaker 1: things they teach you, and that capacity just was never used.

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Speaker 1: It just it was just sort of left and like

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Speaker 1: sat there and rotted. And it sat there and rotted

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Speaker 1: because you know, the actual pandemic response was run by

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Speaker 1: a state that just didn't care. Any bureaucracy that even

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Speaker 1: when it did care, was sort of you know, I

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Speaker 1: didn't have this capacity to mobilize. You know, it's it's

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Speaker 1: its entire existence is about making sure that sort of

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Speaker 1: the capacity for a honest moibilization never happens. And I

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Speaker 1: think that that was one of the most interesting and

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Speaker 1: powerful parts of what y'all were doing, was that you

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Speaker 1: just did it and it just it kept spreading. Yeah. No,

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Speaker 1: I think it's a that's a really good and important

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Speaker 1: point you're bringing up. And I should mention that before

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Speaker 1: we started doing any of this stuff with PPE, I

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Speaker 1: was actually you know, as word as as as the

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Speaker 1: um uh, the fear of the pandemic started spreading, and

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Speaker 1: we finally had a picture of what the US would

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Speaker 1: soon look like. I remember going to a union meeting

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Speaker 1: among my Spellow Grads student workers and talking some people

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Speaker 1: afterwards and saying like, hey, um, I don't think that

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Speaker 1: we have anywhere near the kind of testing infrastructure that

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Speaker 1: we're going to need to prevent the spread of this stuff, Like,

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Speaker 1: why don't we just is there any way that we

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Speaker 1: can just take pc art machines and set up these

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Speaker 1: little guerrilla operators and start testing people for free? And unfortunately,

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Speaker 1: one of the things I noticed was that people, you know,

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Speaker 1: we're just very confused by this idea. They had much

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Speaker 1: more faith in the state's ability to um assemble these infrastructures,

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Speaker 1: and I just realized that was not the way in

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Speaker 1: which I was going to be able to help out.

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Speaker 1: And so it's it's unfortunate, but a lot of people

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Speaker 1: have even though they have these instincts for sort of

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Speaker 1: mutual aid and for this kind of autonomous organized this

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Speaker 1: stuff lies just below the surface, often they don't feel

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Speaker 1: actually capable of it. And I think more than anything,

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Speaker 1: what we've done with this project is we've created a

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Speaker 1: context and atmosphere in which things which people typically feel

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Speaker 1: they cannot do they suddenly realize they can do. Again.

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Speaker 1: It's just to come back to that idea that most

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Speaker 1: of us, you know, we live our lives, we sell

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Speaker 1: our labor for wages. A few people who own the

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Speaker 1: means of production, you know, accumulate profits and use them

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Speaker 1: to manipulate the state for their own purposes. Um. And

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Speaker 1: this has an effect on us. I mean, this has

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Speaker 1: an effect on dulling our consciousness um. And it's an

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Speaker 1: extraordinary transformation in our social relations, in our sense of

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Speaker 1: our own individuality when we do realize in these moments

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Speaker 1: that we can be um subjects. And so unfortunately my

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Speaker 1: initial to try to stimulate some of this activity around

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Speaker 1: testing didn't work out. UM. But uh, yeah, it just

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Speaker 1: presents this recurring problem, which is that people are not

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Speaker 1: used to doing this kind of work. And Janine and

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Speaker 1: I have found many many times that you know, people

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Speaker 1: are willing to come and use their hands and build

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Speaker 1: something for a few hours. But then what we try

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Speaker 1: to do is get them involved. We say, come to

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Speaker 1: the meetings, you have decision making power. You can determine

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Speaker 1: the trajectory of this work. And that's always a very

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Speaker 1: very difficult thing to be doing now, given the way

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Speaker 1: that sort of people have been conditioned um right now.

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Speaker 1: And I think that's something which is concerning because these

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Speaker 1: uh traits of subservience and sort of submission I think

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Speaker 1: are incompatible. If there were a moment of revolutionary rupture.

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Speaker 1: I'm not sure that that would necessarily lead to any

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Speaker 1: better sort of society. So I think this stuff is deeply,

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Speaker 1: deeply important to get people involved in this kind of work.

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Speaker 1: I just want to go back to one of the

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Speaker 1: things you said, Like you mentioned the community aspect and

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Speaker 1: like those relationships, and I think that I know I've

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Speaker 1: said this so many times, both in like my organizing

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Speaker 1: space and even on this podcast today, but I truly

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Speaker 1: have felt like building community is one of them most

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Speaker 1: powerful ways to organize. And I think so many people

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Speaker 1: in leftist spaces right now see organizing as like a

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Speaker 1: place where you just do work UM, and I actually

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Speaker 1: think that that's a really terrible way to organize. I

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Speaker 1: don't think that you're gonna have people come back right Like,

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Speaker 1: I don't think that um, anyone is going to feel empowered.

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Speaker 1: And you know, kind of through talking to a bra,

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Speaker 1: I've started reading this book on the Free Women of

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Speaker 1: Spain and like thinking more about this also, right and

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Speaker 1: thinking about how they're talking about community building and how

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Speaker 1: they're talking about like community is believing in each other

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Speaker 1: and like helping each other realize their full potential UM

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Speaker 1: and as a way to actually find equity and equality

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Speaker 1: through like horizontalist structures, through allowing people to reach their

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Speaker 1: full potential UM And I think, you know, these are

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Speaker 1: some of the politics that have informed what we're doing,

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Speaker 1: that have informed how we're trying to allow people to grow.

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Speaker 1: And so many people have come to us and said,

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Speaker 1: you know, these mass builds are these air purifier olds

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Speaker 1: are like the highlight of my week or the highlight

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Speaker 1: of my month UM or I'm thinking about the like

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Speaker 1: the way that you're structuring UM your distributions and thinking

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Speaker 1: about how I can implement that into the work that

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Speaker 1: we're doing UM And I think that those things are

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Speaker 1: so powerful when you're able to create these spaces again

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Speaker 1: where people care for each other, and like you're saying,

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Speaker 1: that goes a long way towards being able to mobilize

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Speaker 1: UM when there are disastrous to being able to mobilize

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Speaker 1: around protests, to being able to mobilize around these ruptures

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Speaker 1: because you have solidarity that's built through relationships and that

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Speaker 1: is allowing you to build power. One of the things

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Speaker 1: that that YouTube a sort of getting it is that

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Speaker 1: you know, there's it's hard in a lot of ways,

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Speaker 1: because yeah, I mean, the US has and you baked

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Speaker 1: into just to every single part of your life is

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Speaker 1: there's going to be some one who is above you,

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Speaker 1: who can order you and tell you what to do.

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Speaker 1: And that's you know, that's that's that's that's the defining

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Speaker 1: characteristic of life in the United States. And the second

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Speaker 1: defining characteristic is if you don't do what they tell you,

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Speaker 1: a person with the gun shows up and either just

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Speaker 1: beats you or haulds you away, it enslaves you. And

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Speaker 1: you know that that that has these enormous sort of

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Speaker 1: psychological consequences that you know, create creates this culture where

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Speaker 1: people you know, I mean, and that this goes along

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Speaker 1: with there's there's this whole the skilling process that that's

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Speaker 1: been a sort of part of the broad arch of

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Speaker 1: capitalism that you all trying to reverse. But even even yeah,

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Speaker 1: you know it's talking about even the people who have

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Speaker 1: the skills just don't sort of they don't believe in

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Speaker 1: their own autonomy in a way, and that and that

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Speaker 1: that becomes this incredibly powerful, you know, tool of of

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Speaker 1: keeping people in line. But when that breaks and when

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Speaker 1: when people start to see it, it can take time.

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Speaker 1: But yeah, you know that the the kinds of power

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Speaker 1: in the depth of the sort of organization that you

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Speaker 1: build isn't from that is incredible. And I think this

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Speaker 1: is the only other things about the Spanish example that

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Speaker 1: people tend to forget, which is that you know, okay,

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Speaker 1: so that the c n T, which is the sort

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Speaker 1: of giant cn T f ayes the giants, sort of

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Speaker 1: u annacrist union that's that's running a lot of this stuff.

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Speaker 1: You know, they're almost completely destroyed at the drink, like

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Speaker 1: over the course of the spanis civil war, and there

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Speaker 1: you know, to distruber the stalents, distruber the fascist and

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Speaker 1: at the end, by the end of the war, you

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Speaker 1: know that the fascist control Spain for about forty years.

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Speaker 1: But even that, you know, I mean, they kill hundreds

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Speaker 1: of thousands of people, they like, there's massacres is you know,

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Speaker 1: it turns into literally a fascist police state. But the

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Speaker 1: moment that, the moment the fascist a tatorship collapses, the

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Speaker 1: cnt reappears. And they even even in you know, in

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Speaker 1: seventies Spain, in a place that is in a lot

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Speaker 1: of ways the industrialized, they still almost overthrow the government

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Speaker 1: one more time. And you know, I mean they're they're

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Speaker 1: they're still around the sort of much reduced form to

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Speaker 1: this day. But I mean, once once you build that

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Speaker 1: kind of power, right, even you know, even forty years

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Speaker 1: a fascist a tatorship wasn't an to completely destroy it.

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Speaker 1: It was you know, it was it was it was

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Speaker 1: still there, sort of waiting underground, and then the moment

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Speaker 1: there was a rupture reappears. This is a really important

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Speaker 1: thing that you're bringing up, Chris, because I think it

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Speaker 1: has um a lot to do with how we just

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Speaker 1: measure and talk about success on the left. Um, what

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Speaker 1: you're describing, which you know, Spain is typically by many

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Speaker 1: people on the left described as kind of a failed experiment.

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Speaker 1: Oh it was nice, but it ultimately failed. So let's

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Speaker 1: look at Russia, you know. Um. But uh, some people

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Speaker 1: have argued, and I think very correctly, that you can't

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Speaker 1: put the genie back in the bottle. Once something like

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Speaker 1: this happens, it's there. Those energies are there, they are

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Speaker 1: not forgotten, they're not lost, and there's you know, a

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Speaker 1: very vigorous sort of left wing radical anarchist movement that's

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Speaker 1: resonant um uh and very sort of consistent with with

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Speaker 1: the earlier movement. During the thirties, and UM, I think

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Speaker 1: that's that's an extraordinarily important thing to think about. We

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Speaker 1: tend to measure these projects in these very sort of linear,

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Speaker 1: sort of status terms, and we discovered, especially when we

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Speaker 1: were doing work in d say, that a lot of

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Speaker 1: people were trying to frame our own project in that way.

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Speaker 1: You know, what are the demands that you're making, what

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Speaker 1: are the what pressure are you exerting on the state? Um?

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Speaker 1: And so there's these criteria that people use to evaluate

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Speaker 1: kind of the efficacy or success of projects like these,

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Speaker 1: And the Spanish example tells you, UM that the way

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Speaker 1: that these things work is in fact much more complicated

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Speaker 1: and much more interesting UM. And that by assembling these structures,

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Speaker 1: these organizations, even if at some time or another they

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Speaker 1: don't necessarily exist anymore, all of those people who participated

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Speaker 1: in them are transformed, and the people that they interact

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Speaker 1: with might then also be transformed. And so something like

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Speaker 1: the c n T, which is, you know, an extraordinary organization,

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Speaker 1: the f AI is what you know, really gave it

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Speaker 1: the kind of anarcho syndicalists content that defined the quality

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Speaker 1: of that revolution UM, that never got lost, that never

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Speaker 1: went away, even when it seems to have disappeared. Um.

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Speaker 1: And so I think we have to learn to think

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Speaker 1: about success and failure um. You know, as we very

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Speaker 1: simplistically use these terms very very um differently, and this

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Speaker 1: is something which informs our own work when we're asking

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Speaker 1: was this successful? Was this not successful? Um? I think

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Speaker 1: that's a much more difficult and complicated question than we

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Speaker 1: often make it out to be. Yeah, and I think

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Speaker 1: there's something very specific about you know, if we can

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Speaker 1: go into sort of d s A factional politics for

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Speaker 1: a little bit, but like I think like in some

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Speaker 1: ways you see the shallowness of a lot of the

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Speaker 1: approaches that was happening in the d S A where

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Speaker 1: you know, like if if you if you look at

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Speaker 1: a lot of how the sort of Medica for All

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Speaker 1: stuff went or a lot of how the sort of

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Speaker 1: Bernie campaigning stuff went, right, it was okay, you know,

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Speaker 1: you have these you have these organizations that are like

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Speaker 1: a mile wide and inch deep, and it's like, okay,

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Speaker 1: they're they're capable of mobilizing people to vote one time time,

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Speaker 1: but you know, then they lose the election and then

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Speaker 1: what right so that they don't they don't don't they

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Speaker 1: don't have you know, there's they're supposed to be this

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Speaker 1: whole thing of like Bernie being an organizer in chief

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Speaker 1: and this whole sort of plan to use the sort

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Speaker 1: of lists he developed as organized anthing. It's never happened,

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Speaker 1: and you know, it didn't happen in a lot of

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Speaker 1: ways because it was just sort of they they treated

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Speaker 1: the whole process of building power as essentially a bureacratic exercise. Right,

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Speaker 1: it's how many people are on this list, how many

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Speaker 1: people are showing up to stay, like, you know, and

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Speaker 1: like how how many how many? How many doors have

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Speaker 1: we knocked on? Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's it's just you know,

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Speaker 1: and that's the that's the other thing you're talking about

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Speaker 1: with the fact that organizing spaces have to be more

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Speaker 1: than just another just another place you go to work.

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Speaker 1: Right is if you know, if if all you're doing

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Speaker 1: is just replicating these sort of bereocratic things, you're you're

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Speaker 1: going to watch them fail exactly the same way the

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Speaker 1: burocracies do. Except you know, you're you're you're not the

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Speaker 1: American State, you're not the Democratic Party, you don't have

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Speaker 1: an infinite amount of money or the ability to sort

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Speaker 1: of you know, you don't. You don't have the ability

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Speaker 1: to call an arm to enforce what you need to do, right,

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Speaker 1: You don't. You don't have you do, you don't have

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Speaker 1: the fallback of bad methods of organizing, which is violence.

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Speaker 1: And when that happens, you know, and and suddenly and

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Speaker 1: you can't confront your own failures because you're stuck in this,

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Speaker 1: things just start to sort of implode, and you start

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Speaker 1: to lose people, and you start to sort of you know,

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Speaker 1: you see this sort of stagnation and decline that I think,

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Speaker 1: you know, talking about, Yeah, we're getting exactly too much

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Speaker 1: into what's going on in East Bay, Like that's that

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Speaker 1: that that's been everything I've seen out of it. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And I think to go kind of off of what

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Speaker 1: a bro was talking about to kind of put this

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Speaker 1: into terms of the work that we've been doing, right,

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Speaker 1: you know, through the Mask builds um as they were

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Speaker 1: winding down, we weren't quite sure what our next project was,

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Speaker 1: and you know, we talked a lot about like how

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Speaker 1: do we keep this energy going? Like we don't want

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Speaker 1: to just lose this. And I also felt, you know

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Speaker 1: a certain amount of social obligation to you know, keep

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Speaker 1: this community together that had formed during the pandemic, and

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Speaker 1: so we started a book group kind of in interim

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Speaker 1: reading How Europe Underdeveloped Africa by Walter Rodney, and you know,

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Speaker 1: had around thirty people show up to that. Um And

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Speaker 1: I think, as you know, you're talking about the importance

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Speaker 1: of once you know, these relationships are formed, once these

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Speaker 1: ideologies start to percolate, that they don't just go away, right.

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Speaker 1: These people that we you know, brought into d s

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Speaker 1: A and a lot of ways the d s A

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Speaker 1: came to join this book group and later came to

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Speaker 1: join the Air Purifier project despite the fact that it

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Speaker 1: was more outside of d s A. A lot of

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Speaker 1: these people, because of you know, what we had built

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Speaker 1: and what we had created, continued to be such a

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Speaker 1: huge part and take on incredible leadership roles um and

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Speaker 1: you know, facilitate this project in a way that it

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Speaker 1: would not at all look like what it does without,

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Speaker 1: you know, these people dedicating so much of their time

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Speaker 1: and energy to this project kind of throughout the process. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and Chris, I'm going back to what you're saying earlier.

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Speaker 1: I think, um M, I've I've seen a very interesting

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Speaker 1: um A kind of reflection come out of some of

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Speaker 1: these organizations, and you see these different splits and sort

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Speaker 1: of uh wings developing. But yeah, I mean I Janine

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Speaker 1: is a very sort of organic radical and revolutionary who

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Speaker 1: I've learned an enormous amount from. But I think my

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Speaker 1: own trajectory was much more characteristic of what you described earlier,

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Speaker 1: which is that you know, I put all my eggs

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Speaker 1: in this basket. I thought, Okay, Bernie Sanders, like, that's

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Speaker 1: that is that is the that is the beginning of

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Speaker 1: how we undergo a sort of democratic socialist transformation. And then,

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Speaker 1: you know, in a few snaps of the finger, even

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Speaker 1: though I had spent just like hundreds of hours just

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Speaker 1: knocking doors and promising all these things to people who

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Speaker 1: might you know, vote for him at their door, and

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Speaker 1: and all this stuff that and and and just sort

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Speaker 1: of regurgitating all these slogans and and talking, you know,

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Speaker 1: rapturously about these welfare programs. Um I saw all that

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Speaker 1: dissolved in a moment, and I realized that I didn't

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Speaker 1: leave anything behind. And there was you know, in D

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Speaker 1: S A and our chapter, you saw that there was

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Speaker 1: a large group of people who just wanted to keep

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Speaker 1: that flame burning and just say we'll do better next time,

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Speaker 1: you know, we'll do more work at the local level

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Speaker 1: to elect representatives. But then there was another group of

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Speaker 1: people it was much more disillusioned UM and really started

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Speaker 1: wondering is this what we should be doing, or at

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Speaker 1: least is this all that we should be doing UM.

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Speaker 1: And you see the same thing coming out of a

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Speaker 1: group like Sunrise, which whose primary sort of mandate is

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Speaker 1: to just put pressure onto Congress UM to urge the

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Speaker 1: necessity of a green new deal or whatever. And nevertheless,

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Speaker 1: out of Sunrise we've met people who, after the George

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Speaker 1: Floyd protests, after the dissolution of the Bernie campaign, have

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Speaker 1: been led down the same radical path as as some

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Speaker 1: of us UM found ourselves traveling UM in in East

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Speaker 1: by d s A. And they're the ones who have

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Speaker 1: now come to help our project, and you know, using

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Speaker 1: whatever autonomy they have at the sort of UM hub

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Speaker 1: level in Sunrise, because even though it's an organization with

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Speaker 1: sort of paid staff and something of this bureaucracy right

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Speaker 1: now in this moment, the individual little local hubs actually

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Speaker 1: have a surprising amount of autonomy and I really hope

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Speaker 1: they're going to fight for protect that autonomy. So they've

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Speaker 1: been able to use that autonomy to actually put a

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Speaker 1: lot of effort toward raise money thousands of dollars for

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Speaker 1: our work at c h C and come to our

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Speaker 1: organizer meetings, become a part of the effort, and urge

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Speaker 1: upon their own um friends and co organizers and and

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Speaker 1: people they know in Sunrise to shift the direction of

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Speaker 1: their work of their branches towards doing more work like this.

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Speaker 1: So there are these kind of interesting parent uh splinterings

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Speaker 1: that you see happening, which give me some hope that

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Speaker 1: we're not just going to keep running the same tape

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Speaker 1: over and over again. So one of the other interviews

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Speaker 1: we did on this show was with a bunch of

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Speaker 1: people who were working with the basically this giant effort

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Speaker 1: in Atlanta to stop this like just atrocious sort of

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Speaker 1: destruct this destruction of a bunch of forests to create

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Speaker 1: this like weird teaching cops how to do kinter terrorism,

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Speaker 1: enormous academy thing that's being funded by like a bunch

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Speaker 1: of the logic corporations in Atlanta. And they were describing

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Speaker 1: you know, they didn't talk about sort of the exacting

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Speaker 1: process of solution, but you know, you saw they were like,

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Speaker 1: you know, one of the people with the hair was

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Speaker 1: from Sunrise and they were also talking about how they

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Speaker 1: pulled together. That's just like enormous coalition of munch of

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Speaker 1: community groups that was, you know, and like the their

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Speaker 1: their initial goal was they're trying to pressure the city

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Speaker 1: council into stopping the into you know, not approving and

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Speaker 1: that doesn't work. But you know, you know, some of

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Speaker 1: some of the other groups that were that were involved

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Speaker 1: in this, we're talking about like, okay, well, you know

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Speaker 1: that they're planning is like if this fails, we're gonna

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Speaker 1: go stop it ourselves. And I think that pivot right

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Speaker 1: is one of the most crucial things that is happening

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Speaker 1: right now, because you know, okay, if if you, if you,

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Speaker 1: you know, if if you, if you, you you pull

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Speaker 1: out your like Polly, your policy like policy space diagrams

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Speaker 1: right like it's it's the United States. The policy that's

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Speaker 1: enacted is the one that is the policy is decided

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Speaker 1: about the sixtieth senator and it's like, okay, so you know,

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Speaker 1: even even if if even if you're gonna try to

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Speaker 1: do an electoral thing, right, you need six, you need

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Speaker 1: sixty votes in the Senate. There is one arguably socialist

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Speaker 1: senator and we've never elected another one, so you know,

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Speaker 1: and you're just looking at this right and it's like, okay,

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Speaker 1: like you know, we we elect like to maybe three

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Speaker 1: socialists in in the House every year, and if you know,

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Speaker 1: if you continue at the same rate, they'll be like

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Speaker 1: what like like two years if we have a majority there,

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Speaker 1: And it's like yeah, you know, and at a certain

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Speaker 1: points like yeah, I mean, we're like we're not gonna

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Speaker 1: be around because we'll be dead, but like most of

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Speaker 1: most most of the stuff on earth will also not

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Speaker 1: be around because it will have been obliteral black climate

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Speaker 1: change there, and you know, and and at some point

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Speaker 1: you have to get to we're gonna have to do

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Speaker 1: it ourselves because no one, no one else is going

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Speaker 1: to do it for us. And I think that the

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Speaker 1: work you two have been doing is just incredible, is

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Speaker 1: just an incredible example of how that can actually happen

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Speaker 1: and what what that looks like. Thank you. Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: think that it is so important. And I think that

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Speaker 1: that's one of the reasons that to me, it was

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Speaker 1: also so important to get all of these groups at

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Speaker 1: these air purifier pims because I think oftentimes organizing is

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Speaker 1: so siloed and it really frustrates me. And people seem

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Speaker 1: very like loyal at least I've found this in East

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Speaker 1: by d s A to like their particular organization, any

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Speaker 1: other organization they don't even really want to talk about

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Speaker 1: or they don't even know still exist UM. And to me, like,

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Speaker 1: if we can give people the tools to organize, I

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Speaker 1: don't care who their organizing, UM, but if we can

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Speaker 1: also like have these groups communicate with each other, right,

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Speaker 1: Like different groups are doing exactly the same thing. Right.

430
00:22:10,320 --> 00:22:14,240
Speaker 1: We have the Ecosocialist Group UM in d s A. Right,

431
00:22:14,240 --> 00:22:17,159
Speaker 1: you have Sunrise, you have the I w W, and

432
00:22:17,160 --> 00:22:18,879
Speaker 1: then you have the Labor Committee of d s A.

433
00:22:19,000 --> 00:22:21,760
Speaker 1: And it's like sometimes there is cross communication, right, But

434
00:22:21,800 --> 00:22:23,639
Speaker 1: to me, it never feels like it's quite enough. It

435
00:22:23,680 --> 00:22:26,399
Speaker 1: never feels like we're really all working on this or

436
00:22:26,400 --> 00:22:28,280
Speaker 1: we're really all in it together. And I think we

437
00:22:28,359 --> 00:22:31,440
Speaker 1: really should be, because, like you're saying, like there's kind

438
00:22:31,480 --> 00:22:33,879
Speaker 1: of a ticking cloth, we all have a certain amount

439
00:22:33,880 --> 00:22:35,880
Speaker 1: of time to actually make the changes that we want

440
00:22:35,920 --> 00:22:39,160
Speaker 1: to see. And when we're not willing to actually work

441
00:22:39,200 --> 00:22:42,360
Speaker 1: with each other and communicate with each other, things are

442
00:22:42,400 --> 00:22:45,200
Speaker 1: not going to happen as quickly, UM, and so being

443
00:22:45,240 --> 00:22:47,520
Speaker 1: able to have like, you know, a table of people

444
00:22:47,560 --> 00:22:52,159
Speaker 1: assembling purifiers from d S a Sunrise tank, right, and

445
00:22:52,200 --> 00:22:54,600
Speaker 1: they're all talking about the organizing work that they're doing

446
00:22:54,640 --> 00:22:57,880
Speaker 1: and sharing stories and strategies so that we're not all

447
00:22:57,960 --> 00:23:01,280
Speaker 1: constantly reinventing the wheel that I've really working together on.

448
00:23:01,320 --> 00:23:04,520
Speaker 1: This I think is so so valuable. And this is

449
00:23:04,520 --> 00:23:06,720
Speaker 1: something that we've seen. You know, one of our friends

450
00:23:06,800 --> 00:23:10,800
Speaker 1: who's helping lead one of the tank locals has come

451
00:23:10,800 --> 00:23:12,760
Speaker 1: to a number of our events and was telling us

452
00:23:12,760 --> 00:23:15,160
Speaker 1: how he's actually tried to bring things that he's seen

453
00:23:15,240 --> 00:23:18,080
Speaker 1: that we're doing into his own local and we've heard

454
00:23:18,119 --> 00:23:23,040
Speaker 1: this in other contexts as well. So things spread and

455
00:23:23,080 --> 00:23:26,199
Speaker 1: that's I think a really important thing that um, you know,

456
00:23:26,359 --> 00:23:32,720
Speaker 1: especially because of Janine's UM, you know, just just uh

457
00:23:32,760 --> 00:23:35,720
Speaker 1: attempts to try to get all these groups together into

458
00:23:35,760 --> 00:23:39,640
Speaker 1: one place to communicate, to build relationships. UM. We're now

459
00:23:39,720 --> 00:23:43,400
Speaker 1: seeing what we've built sort of emanating elsewhere. And we're

460
00:23:43,400 --> 00:23:46,280
Speaker 1: also learning a lot from all these different people in

461
00:23:46,320 --> 00:23:49,200
Speaker 1: groups who come to our builds and then become organizers

462
00:23:49,240 --> 00:23:52,480
Speaker 1: in the effort. And you know, to mention someone like

463
00:23:52,960 --> 00:23:55,760
Speaker 1: you know, Gerald, Jannine referred to earlier, who is this

464
00:23:56,080 --> 00:24:04,359
Speaker 1: uh wonderful um Can Tanker is h ex black panther,

465
00:24:04,680 --> 00:24:07,840
Speaker 1: you know, who has such an enormous history of experience.

466
00:24:07,880 --> 00:24:10,919
Speaker 1: For him to give us that historical perspective for everything

467
00:24:10,960 --> 00:24:14,160
Speaker 1: that we're doing um has been an enormous boost of

468
00:24:14,359 --> 00:24:17,240
Speaker 1: confidence and it's allowed us to focus and you know,

469
00:24:17,600 --> 00:24:20,240
Speaker 1: just to reiterate what she said earlier, we were really

470
00:24:20,280 --> 00:24:22,359
Speaker 1: depressed when we went out and we were talking to

471
00:24:22,400 --> 00:24:24,960
Speaker 1: people in West Oakland and East Oakland, and everyone was

472
00:24:25,000 --> 00:24:27,160
Speaker 1: telling us we're gonna come, Yeah, we'll show up, we'll

473
00:24:27,200 --> 00:24:30,000
Speaker 1: be there. And then, you know, while many other people

474
00:24:30,080 --> 00:24:33,359
Speaker 1: showed up from Sunrise, DSA, c HD elsewhere, none of

475
00:24:33,359 --> 00:24:36,080
Speaker 1: those people showed up. And we said, Gerald, they're not coming.

476
00:24:36,160 --> 00:24:39,040
Speaker 1: What's going on? And he said, you know, keep going,

477
00:24:39,480 --> 00:24:43,239
Speaker 1: keep trying, keep doing it, do not give up. Do

478
00:24:43,320 --> 00:24:48,160
Speaker 1: not judge from that one experience. This is really hard work.

479
00:24:48,240 --> 00:24:51,200
Speaker 1: And these people have had the door shot on them

480
00:24:51,320 --> 00:24:54,439
Speaker 1: over and over and over again, and they're tired, and

481
00:24:54,440 --> 00:24:57,239
Speaker 1: it's the weekend. But you keep doing it and they

482
00:24:57,280 --> 00:24:59,520
Speaker 1: will come. And then next time they came, we may

483
00:24:59,520 --> 00:25:02,000
Speaker 1: not have gone on there again. Had it not been

484
00:25:02,040 --> 00:25:06,720
Speaker 1: for Gerald bringing in this enormous um breath of experience

485
00:25:06,800 --> 00:25:08,720
Speaker 1: to share with us. You know, at the end of

486
00:25:08,760 --> 00:25:22,240
Speaker 1: our previous bill, there's this there's this quote that I

487
00:25:22,280 --> 00:25:25,040
Speaker 1: remember from who it was. It was one of the

488
00:25:25,040 --> 00:25:26,560
Speaker 1: one of the people who've been heavily involved in the

489
00:25:26,560 --> 00:25:29,000
Speaker 1: Egyptian Revolution. She doesn't eleven had this quote and she's

490
00:25:29,040 --> 00:25:31,639
Speaker 1: talking about, you know, I should be doing this for decades, right,

491
00:25:31,680 --> 00:25:33,240
Speaker 1: And she's like, yeah, because you have a protest and

492
00:25:33,240 --> 00:25:36,399
Speaker 1: if if if a hundred people show up, you're happy,

493
00:25:36,400 --> 00:25:38,560
Speaker 1: and if a hundred people show up, you're depressed. And

494
00:25:38,560 --> 00:25:40,680
Speaker 1: then one day, eight hundred thousand people show up and

495
00:25:40,720 --> 00:25:44,000
Speaker 1: you kind of just forgot that could happen. And yeah,

496
00:25:44,040 --> 00:25:46,360
Speaker 1: I mean that that is something that you know, Yeah,

497
00:25:46,119 --> 00:25:50,120
Speaker 1: you like, organizing is not easy. You're you're gonna spend

498
00:25:50,119 --> 00:25:53,120
Speaker 1: a lot of time like not winning. You're gonna spend

499
00:25:53,160 --> 00:25:55,480
Speaker 1: a lot of time feeling like you're barely treading water.

500
00:25:55,520 --> 00:25:57,600
Speaker 1: There's gonna be a lot of time where you know,

501
00:25:57,840 --> 00:26:00,080
Speaker 1: nothing works and everything seems to be falling apart. But

502
00:26:01,560 --> 00:26:05,760
Speaker 1: you know, if you keep pushing, people show up and

503
00:26:05,880 --> 00:26:09,560
Speaker 1: you know, and suddenly the regime is like taking like

504
00:26:09,640 --> 00:26:11,359
Speaker 1: you know, trying trying to catch planes out of the

505
00:26:11,359 --> 00:26:14,560
Speaker 1: country and yeah, and you know, and you get to

506
00:26:14,560 --> 00:26:17,719
Speaker 1: that that CLR. James line about how the ruling classes

507
00:26:17,720 --> 00:26:20,040
Speaker 1: not defeeding until it's ruling, until it's running for its lives.

508
00:26:20,080 --> 00:26:22,159
Speaker 1: But you know they do run for their lives. This

509
00:26:22,240 --> 00:26:25,920
Speaker 1: is the thing that happens. Yeah, and you know if

510
00:26:25,920 --> 00:26:28,480
Speaker 1: if we do this together, we can get there totally.

511
00:26:28,640 --> 00:26:31,520
Speaker 1: And I think you know, what a bar saying is

512
00:26:31,560 --> 00:26:35,320
Speaker 1: so true. And we also, you know, in doing these distributions,

513
00:26:35,760 --> 00:26:38,040
Speaker 1: talk to people and I literally would say, like what

514
00:26:38,080 --> 00:26:41,040
Speaker 1: we'll get people to show up? Right, there's kind of

515
00:26:41,040 --> 00:26:44,640
Speaker 1: like honesty in these conversations of like you know, this

516
00:26:44,720 --> 00:26:47,840
Speaker 1: is what we're trying to do, Like there's a reciprocal

517
00:26:47,880 --> 00:26:51,840
Speaker 1: relationship here. Again, like help us understand also like what

518
00:26:51,880 --> 00:26:54,440
Speaker 1: we need to do in order to make sure that

519
00:26:54,640 --> 00:26:58,600
Speaker 1: the reciprocal relationship is actually realized and actually happening. Um.

520
00:26:58,640 --> 00:27:00,960
Speaker 1: And I think that that was kind of an exciting

521
00:27:01,000 --> 00:27:03,919
Speaker 1: moment of like having people have a some autonomy and

522
00:27:03,960 --> 00:27:06,240
Speaker 1: like say and like you know, they know this community

523
00:27:06,240 --> 00:27:08,960
Speaker 1: better than we do, right, they know like how people

524
00:27:09,000 --> 00:27:10,920
Speaker 1: are going to show up and how maybe they won't.

525
00:27:11,560 --> 00:27:14,359
Speaker 1: But Chris, uh just to bring it back to what

526
00:27:14,400 --> 00:27:17,280
Speaker 1: you were saying, I think describing the kind of nonlinear

527
00:27:18,240 --> 00:27:23,720
Speaker 1: trajectory of uh popular movements in history is something that

528
00:27:23,760 --> 00:27:27,000
Speaker 1: we try to keep always in our minds. Um, things

529
00:27:27,040 --> 00:27:29,960
Speaker 1: may begin small, things may seem small, even when you

530
00:27:30,000 --> 00:27:33,480
Speaker 1: study the examples in Spain of sort of the groups

531
00:27:33,520 --> 00:27:36,240
Speaker 1: of people who formed sort of the early f AI

532
00:27:36,280 --> 00:27:38,720
Speaker 1: who were just sort of discussing these ideas around the

533
00:27:38,840 --> 00:27:41,480
Speaker 1: fire before they tried to sort of infiltrate the CNT,

534
00:27:41,840 --> 00:27:45,719
Speaker 1: and then this became the sort of predominant um mood

535
00:27:45,800 --> 00:27:49,359
Speaker 1: and sort of ideology that that that that characterized the CNT,

536
00:27:49,600 --> 00:27:52,400
Speaker 1: which then you know, spread out and sort of characterize

537
00:27:52,440 --> 00:27:56,760
Speaker 1: the Spanish Revolution at large and massive numbers millions of people,

538
00:27:57,040 --> 00:27:59,800
Speaker 1: you know, um, and and just seeing what happened with

539
00:27:59,840 --> 00:28:02,919
Speaker 1: the George Floyd protests, and studying the examples of you know,

540
00:28:03,040 --> 00:28:06,040
Speaker 1: Paris in where it at first just seems like small

541
00:28:06,080 --> 00:28:09,240
Speaker 1: groups of students and then you know, just a few

542
00:28:09,600 --> 00:28:13,080
Speaker 1: days and weeks later, you know there's thousands and thousands

543
00:28:13,119 --> 00:28:16,680
Speaker 1: and thousands and thousands of workers, um, you know, who

544
00:28:16,720 --> 00:28:21,120
Speaker 1: are out literally just pulling out cobblestones from the street,

545
00:28:21,280 --> 00:28:24,240
Speaker 1: you know, up against the police and and the way

546
00:28:24,240 --> 00:28:27,520
Speaker 1: that these things happen is very unpredictable. And I think

547
00:28:27,560 --> 00:28:30,480
Speaker 1: that's also a very important thing to keep in mind

548
00:28:30,720 --> 00:28:34,119
Speaker 1: as we're trying to evaluate, you know, what we're doing

549
00:28:34,160 --> 00:28:37,080
Speaker 1: in a given moment. Yeah, I think, I think I

550
00:28:37,119 --> 00:28:39,800
Speaker 1: think that's that's that's a very good note to end on. It's,

551
00:28:40,600 --> 00:28:43,840
Speaker 1: you know, every the the struggle we have embarked into

552
00:28:43,880 --> 00:28:46,880
Speaker 1: an incredibly difficult one, and we're not going to know

553
00:28:47,280 --> 00:28:52,520
Speaker 1: how it ends for a long long time. But that

554
00:28:52,600 --> 00:28:55,120
Speaker 1: doesn't Yeah, you know, that doesn't necessarily means it ends badly.

555
00:28:55,160 --> 00:28:57,880
Speaker 1: And the kind of resiliency we can build is incredibly

556
00:28:57,880 --> 00:29:01,640
Speaker 1: deep and incredibly powerful. Okay, plugs time, Where do you

557
00:29:01,760 --> 00:29:03,840
Speaker 1: too want people to go? What do you want people

558
00:29:03,880 --> 00:29:07,040
Speaker 1: to know? And yeah, we can. We can link stuff

559
00:29:07,080 --> 00:29:09,520
Speaker 1: if you want to send it to us in the

560
00:29:09,080 --> 00:29:12,560
Speaker 1: in the in the chat chat, we can. We can,

561
00:29:12,600 --> 00:29:15,040
Speaker 1: we can link stuff. We can, we can, we can

562
00:29:15,080 --> 00:29:17,760
Speaker 1: link stuff in the description of this episode. This is

563
00:29:17,800 --> 00:29:26,120
Speaker 1: why we have editors. Yeah, um, I think definitely like

564
00:29:26,200 --> 00:29:30,400
Speaker 1: our social media so Twitter and Instagram is see humanity,

565
00:29:30,480 --> 00:29:33,760
Speaker 1: see um for folks to be able to donate, um,

566
00:29:33,800 --> 00:29:36,959
Speaker 1: to visit our website, to be able to plug in.

567
00:29:37,000 --> 00:29:38,680
Speaker 1: If they are in the Bay Area and want to

568
00:29:38,680 --> 00:29:41,640
Speaker 1: get involved, they can find ways to do that through

569
00:29:41,640 --> 00:29:44,040
Speaker 1: those social media channels. You know, they can message us

570
00:29:44,480 --> 00:29:46,400
Speaker 1: um and then our fundraiser A Bar. I don't know

571
00:29:46,440 --> 00:29:48,200
Speaker 1: if we should just send the link or what The

572
00:29:48,240 --> 00:29:49,840
Speaker 1: best way to do that is if you go to

573
00:29:49,840 --> 00:29:53,200
Speaker 1: a Common Humanity Collective dot org, there's a donate button

574
00:29:53,280 --> 00:29:55,600
Speaker 1: which leads to the fundraisers. You can find it also

575
00:29:55,680 --> 00:29:57,120
Speaker 1: also if you if you go there, you can see

576
00:29:57,120 --> 00:29:59,040
Speaker 1: how they you can see instructions how to make the

577
00:29:59,080 --> 00:30:03,400
Speaker 1: fans and are so cool, like they're awesome, it's it's sweet,

578
00:30:03,480 --> 00:30:06,800
Speaker 1: it's so go do go do that too because it's sick.

579
00:30:06,840 --> 00:30:08,920
Speaker 1: And there's also instructions for how you can make them

580
00:30:08,960 --> 00:30:12,920
Speaker 1: as well. And we hope people do this elsewhere. Please

581
00:30:12,960 --> 00:30:15,440
Speaker 1: reach out to us. We want to not be the

582
00:30:15,480 --> 00:30:19,000
Speaker 1: only ones doing and so this is why we've tried

583
00:30:19,040 --> 00:30:22,880
Speaker 1: to just put everything online that others can replicate this model.

584
00:30:22,880 --> 00:30:24,400
Speaker 1: And this is why we're coming on a show like

585
00:30:24,440 --> 00:30:27,680
Speaker 1: this and going into so much detail into our history

586
00:30:27,800 --> 00:30:30,720
Speaker 1: just that uh, you know, we don't have to keep

587
00:30:30,720 --> 00:30:33,800
Speaker 1: reinventing the wheel. I think you know, A Bar and

588
00:30:33,840 --> 00:30:36,560
Speaker 1: I have learned so much from this project, UM, and

589
00:30:36,600 --> 00:30:39,040
Speaker 1: a lot of it really did feel like reinventing the wheel,

590
00:30:39,040 --> 00:30:41,000
Speaker 1: which is unfortunate because I know that, you know, mutually

591
00:30:41,000 --> 00:30:43,960
Speaker 1: aid has been done elsewhere, but with the organizers that

592
00:30:44,000 --> 00:30:45,680
Speaker 1: we were talking to, a lot of the things that

593
00:30:45,720 --> 00:30:47,760
Speaker 1: we were doing, we were having to kind of start

594
00:30:47,800 --> 00:30:50,560
Speaker 1: from scratch, and at least my goal is like we're

595
00:30:50,560 --> 00:30:53,800
Speaker 1: both very accessible people, like if there are questions, you know,

596
00:30:53,840 --> 00:30:55,520
Speaker 1: to be able to reach out so that we can

597
00:30:55,800 --> 00:30:59,000
Speaker 1: you know, explain our experience to other folks, UM and

598
00:30:59,080 --> 00:31:01,920
Speaker 1: talk through you know, our relationship with Sunrise started because

599
00:31:01,960 --> 00:31:03,760
Speaker 1: they heard about the mutual aid work that we were

600
00:31:03,800 --> 00:31:05,640
Speaker 1: doing and they said, we want to do that also,

601
00:31:05,720 --> 00:31:07,719
Speaker 1: and we're like great, and you know a Bra are

602
00:31:07,760 --> 00:31:10,680
Speaker 1: co organizer, Joe and I and this woman from Sunrise

603
00:31:10,760 --> 00:31:13,560
Speaker 1: met in a park and eat dinner and just talked

604
00:31:13,560 --> 00:31:17,080
Speaker 1: about mutulate, you know, the pitfalls that had happened and

605
00:31:17,080 --> 00:31:18,640
Speaker 1: what went well and how we could do it in

606
00:31:18,680 --> 00:31:22,000
Speaker 1: the future. And then like this beautiful collaboration began, like

607
00:31:22,040 --> 00:31:24,640
Speaker 1: a Bra was talking about so UM, I think, you know,

608
00:31:24,640 --> 00:31:27,560
Speaker 1: we're really happy to talk about where things have gone

609
00:31:27,560 --> 00:31:30,600
Speaker 1: awry and what we've learned from this project and thankfully

610
00:31:30,600 --> 00:31:35,000
Speaker 1: at this point to like what successes we've had. So yeah,

611
00:31:35,080 --> 00:31:38,520
Speaker 1: go go everyone, go go go go find them, go

612
00:31:38,560 --> 00:31:41,720
Speaker 1: out of your communities, go do this theirselves. And yeah,

613
00:31:41,840 --> 00:31:44,880
Speaker 1: go go go get us another Spanish revolution. We need

614
00:31:44,920 --> 00:31:48,760
Speaker 1: another one. Yeah, thank you, thank thank you to you

615
00:31:48,880 --> 00:31:51,760
Speaker 1: so much for joining us. I said a great Chris,

616
00:31:51,840 --> 00:31:56,200
Speaker 1: this has been such an huge pleasure for talking to you.

617
00:31:56,520 --> 00:31:58,920
Speaker 1: We've we've been covered by a lot of places, but

618
00:31:59,040 --> 00:32:02,440
Speaker 1: never quite Yeah. Just thank you so much for doing

619
00:32:02,440 --> 00:32:04,600
Speaker 1: this and thank you such an honor to be here

620
00:32:04,640 --> 00:32:06,520
Speaker 1: and so much fun to talk with you both. Thank

621
00:32:06,520 --> 00:32:09,760
Speaker 1: you so much for having us. Yea and yeah, so

622
00:32:09,840 --> 00:32:11,560
Speaker 1: this is this has been It could Happen Here Pod.

623
00:32:11,960 --> 00:32:15,440
Speaker 1: You can find us at Happened Here Pod on Twitter, Instagram,

624
00:32:15,480 --> 00:32:18,480
Speaker 1: and at cool Zone for just the rest of the

625
00:32:18,520 --> 00:32:26,880
Speaker 1: stuff that we do. All right by everyone. It Could

626
00:32:26,920 --> 00:32:29,360
Speaker 1: Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media. Well

627
00:32:29,400 --> 00:32:32,120
Speaker 1: more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website pool

628
00:32:32,200 --> 00:32:34,160
Speaker 1: zone Media dot com, or check us out on the

629
00:32:34,160 --> 00:32:36,880
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen

630
00:32:36,920 --> 00:32:39,840
Speaker 1: to podcasts. You can find sources for It could Happen Here,

631
00:32:39,920 --> 00:32:43,360
Speaker 1: updated monthly at cool Zone Media dot com slash sources

632
00:32:43,600 --> 00:32:44,400
Speaker 1: thanks for listening.