Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, Robert Evans here and I wanted to let
Speaker 1: you know this is a compiletion episode. So every episode
Speaker 1: of the week that just happened is here in one
Speaker 1: convenient and with somewhat less ads package for you to
Speaker 1: listen to in a long stretch if you want. If
Speaker 1: you've been listening to the episodes every day this week,
Speaker 1: there's gonna be nothing new here for you, but you
Speaker 1: can make your own decisions. Welcome to it could happen
Speaker 1: here a podcast about things falling apart, and occasionally also
Speaker 1: about what you can do about it. And today we're
Speaker 1: doing We're we're going we're we're going completely full into
Speaker 1: it what you can do about an episode and specifically
Speaker 1: we're gonna be talking about unions, union organizing, the basics
Speaker 1: of what they are and also some of the history
Speaker 1: of it and to to talk with us about this.
Speaker 1: I I have brought. I have brought my good friend
Speaker 1: John Horonomus, who is a nurse steward with National Nurses
Speaker 1: United in Chicago. Hi, John, how are you? How are
Speaker 1: you doing? I'm doing good. Yeah. Esterday was my first
Speaker 1: full day back at work after being out on light
Speaker 1: duty from having COVID UH for this last year. And
Speaker 1: so I got home yesterday and was pretty tired because
Speaker 1: I haven't walked that much in a day. It's fine,
Speaker 1: but I mean it was a good day. I got
Speaker 1: lots of lugs from my coworkers. I didn't I didn't
Speaker 1: forget anyone's name, which I was terrified of, um, and
Speaker 1: didn't funk anything up. Um. And then when I got
Speaker 1: when I got home, I hopped on after I got
Speaker 1: my kids from school, I hopped on a union organizing
Speaker 1: call with twenty nurses from a hospital in the South.
Speaker 1: We're very excited about so um I was. It was.
Speaker 1: It was a big day that that rules. Oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess it's awesome. Do a do a very very
Speaker 1: brief long COVID check in because this is everything that
Speaker 1: I think people are talking about that is also like
Speaker 1: a huge labor issue, which is that yeah, like long
Speaker 1: COVID fucking sucks and like I know, like I know,
Speaker 1: like like like one of my cousins had it, and
Speaker 1: you know, they they've been in bad shape for a
Speaker 1: long time, like they still can't taste properly and like
Speaker 1: they I think you got from from what I remember,
Speaker 1: like pretty bad like in terms of yeah, sorry, if
Speaker 1: you don't have you don't want to, but oh I
Speaker 1: don't care. I mean I think people should like know
Speaker 1: that this is still going on, Like the pandemic is
Speaker 1: still happening. Um, people are still getting sick and some
Speaker 1: are still dying, which really sucks, and the long COVID
Speaker 1: thing is real. Um they I didn't get sick in
Speaker 1: the sense of showing up having to be in like
Speaker 1: a hospital or I see you or anything like that mine,
Speaker 1: but I got sick, and um, the recovery, like the
Speaker 1: the year or the month or so after I got
Speaker 1: sick was when things actually got bad because something happened
Speaker 1: with my um my nerves and my neuro I had
Speaker 1: a neuromuscular variant of like the long COVID symptoms, and
Speaker 1: that led me to having all its kinds of issues
Speaker 1: with basically just being exhausted from basic things. Anything more
Speaker 1: than just getting up and walking around. I would have
Speaker 1: to like lay in bed afterwards. And it would add
Speaker 1: multiple episodes of the past year where I would cross
Speaker 1: some invisible line in terms of like endurance and then
Speaker 1: be stuck in bed for a week. And so it's
Speaker 1: been a long thing. But I've been slowly getting better,
Speaker 1: and people who fall into that neuromuscular thing do slowly
Speaker 1: get better. I think that's the upshot people with heart problems,
Speaker 1: those tend to be permanent and aren't getting better, which sucks. Um,
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean it's just like I think that
Speaker 1: a lot of people. It's a very weird, surreal thing
Speaker 1: to watch what is effectively like a like a a
Speaker 1: global public health catastrophe get politicized the way it has
Speaker 1: and treated the way it has been by everybody involved.
Speaker 1: So um, anyway, I just I'm doing better with that,
Speaker 1: and it's shaped me over the last year, and it's
Speaker 1: shaped union organizing, and um, I'm glad that I would
Speaker 1: say this to people who are thinking about unions. I'm
Speaker 1: glad that I had the union kind of backing me up, um,
Speaker 1: even when I had to pull them a little bit
Speaker 1: in the direct the right direction. Uh. It's much better
Speaker 1: to have that kind of collective power behind you when
Speaker 1: you're dealing with those kind of problems. So that's actually
Speaker 1: a good way into looking at just sort of in
Speaker 1: general what a union is, because I think there's there's
Speaker 1: there's two things here. There is what a union is
Speaker 1: legally and what a union actually is in terms of
Speaker 1: just the people in it and the sort of power
Speaker 1: behind it. And so I was wondering if you could,
Speaker 1: well one, I mean, is on an incredibly basic level,
Speaker 1: explain what a union is like legally, like what is
Speaker 1: legally defined as doing, because I feel like that's also
Speaker 1: something that is not as well understood as it should be. Yeah,
Speaker 1: for sure. So in the United States, there's a series
Speaker 1: of laws that kind of regulates, UM, you know, the
Speaker 1: kind of collective UM bargaining UM and collective organization of
Speaker 1: workers at work UM. An important thing to understand is that, UM,
Speaker 1: those laws are mostly designed to constrain workers power to
Speaker 1: affect their their you know, working conditions UM. And so
Speaker 1: when you look at what a union legally is UM,
Speaker 1: unions are for the most part, UM, they're legal organizations
Speaker 1: that kind of like operate on a dues basis. So
Speaker 1: if you're in a union, you're paying dues out of
Speaker 1: your paycheck. UM. If you work at a unionized workplace,
Speaker 1: those dudes will get subtracted out regardless of your membership
Speaker 1: or activity within the union. UM. One thing that people
Speaker 1: don't understand is that you can if you don't want
Speaker 1: your dues to go to anything besides supporting organizing your
Speaker 1: particular workplace. You can request, unions are legally required to
Speaker 1: offer you that as an option. UM. And then those
Speaker 1: dudes get taken out of your paycheck and they get
Speaker 1: used to do things like rent a union hall um,
Speaker 1: pay staffers to help you with your organizing. UM. They
Speaker 1: get taken to do lobbying, various types of political activity.
Speaker 1: And so for a lot of people, unions will feel
Speaker 1: like a professional association that lobbies on their break behalf
Speaker 1: rather than a collective expression of the will of workers
Speaker 1: in a particular workplace. But UM, or it'll feel like
Speaker 1: patronage machine for you know, Democratic party, that sort of stuff. UM.
Speaker 1: But that being said, UM, unions all have by laws,
Speaker 1: they all have mechanisms by which there you know, theoretically
Speaker 1: democratically accountable to the membership UM. And there are oftentimes
Speaker 1: UM campaigns by workers to change how unions operate and UM.
Speaker 1: And then also you know, when you're setting up a union,
Speaker 1: if you're in a new if you're in a place
Speaker 1: that doesn't have a union and you're looking to get
Speaker 1: a union because you're fed up with not having any
Speaker 1: kind of power over your workplace, or you feel like
Speaker 1: people are getting discriminity against or bullied, UM, you feel
Speaker 1: like you haven't gotten a raise, um, those sorts of things.
Speaker 1: You can pick the union that you decide if you
Speaker 1: want to get up a collective bargaining agreement, which is
Speaker 1: a legal contract kind of like dictating how your workplace
Speaker 1: operates in a uniform way. You can pick the union
Speaker 1: that you want to organize with, and their unions that
Speaker 1: are better to organize with, that are more democratic and
Speaker 1: more collectively accountable. There are unions that are more organized
Speaker 1: or more focused on actually building the union power and
Speaker 1: organizing new workplaces. And then there are unions that are
Speaker 1: kind of like there, you know, and I'm gonna say
Speaker 1: that kind of blur. In the US, there's like a
Speaker 1: blurry line between rank and file unions and business unions
Speaker 1: because even rank and file unions are kind of constrained
Speaker 1: by the same pressures that business unions operate under. And
Speaker 1: I'll explain the difference. I'll sell any difference in a second,
Speaker 1: but I just want to say that, like when you're
Speaker 1: when you're getting a new union, it's really important for
Speaker 1: you to critically look at what you're options are and
Speaker 1: you're set and who you're organizing with, because unions have
Speaker 1: different cultures and different amounts of UM, different kinds of politics,
Speaker 1: and you should be aware of that before you and
Speaker 1: your coworkers decide to commit to working with one union
Speaker 1: while you're getting an or a union organized. UM. And
Speaker 1: then I can explain that next part if you want
Speaker 1: me to. All right, so yeah, so, And you know,
Speaker 1: if you get deep into union history and deep into
Speaker 1: organizing and figuring out like what unions are and what
Speaker 1: they do and how they've worked kind of in the past,
Speaker 1: you'll find that there's different types of unions. So American
Speaker 1: unions started as like kind of like craft guilds, where
Speaker 1: basically you would have a factory that might have like
Speaker 1: twenty different unions of each individual group of people UM
Speaker 1: in each individual skill set would be underneath the union,
Speaker 1: and it was used as a way to kind of
Speaker 1: control UM who was able to do the work and
Speaker 1: who was getting hired in to do the work. And
Speaker 1: a lot of times that would end up in the
Speaker 1: United States UM being segregated UM. And there would be
Speaker 1: these called union scamming where you would go in and
Speaker 1: do work against people who are striking because your union
Speaker 1: was fine, and you were cool with your boss and
Speaker 1: these other people, whatever their problem is, You're just going
Speaker 1: to keep doing the boss will offer you more money
Speaker 1: and you'll do the work right. So and a lot
Speaker 1: of that has kind of carried into we called trade
Speaker 1: unions in the US a specific, and trade unionism is
Speaker 1: particularly um prominent in uh in construction. So you'll have carpenters,
Speaker 1: and you'll have you know, mason's and you'll have you know,
Speaker 1: pipe fitters and iron workers, all these different guys and
Speaker 1: they all kind of come together and work as a
Speaker 1: crew for like a construction company, and oftentimes their union
Speaker 1: operates more like a contractor than like a collective like uh,
Speaker 1: expression of the power of those workers. So um, then
Speaker 1: there are more there are unions that are would be
Speaker 1: considered like industrial unions, so industrial unions. Industrial unionism was
Speaker 1: invented by a union a hundred years ago called the
Speaker 1: Industrial Workers of the World, and they were like, what
Speaker 1: if we got took all of the workers in an
Speaker 1: industry and got them into one big union, right, and
Speaker 1: then what if all those workers in those different industries
Speaker 1: were talking to each other and building their their power
Speaker 1: And the goal would be that you would become so
Speaker 1: powerful that you could basically take over industries as workers
Speaker 1: and run them on a democratic basis, so that you
Speaker 1: wouldn't have you kind of liquidate capital. And I want,
Speaker 1: I want to say that this briefly also like yeah,
Speaker 1: so the bosses did not like this. I mean the MW,
Speaker 1: Like the MW was so feared that like, like there's
Speaker 1: something the Everett massacre where it's like it got to
Speaker 1: a point in the early nighteen hundreds where just a
Speaker 1: group of IWW people showing up to a place was
Speaker 1: enough to get like the the the the entire like
Speaker 1: the entire city police force and like rounding up literally
Speaker 1: every right winger they could do and deputizing them and
Speaker 1: then just opening fire like into the crowd because like
Speaker 1: the IWW had showed up on a boat like this
Speaker 1: was these people were tired, Like people were terrified of them.
Speaker 1: And I think that the other thing I think was
Speaker 1: really interesting about the early ww's history is that is
Speaker 1: the so you know, part of the response to them
Speaker 1: is like they are just massive, and this is what
Speaker 1: the first red Scare was. Basically it was an anti
Speaker 1: IWW thing. And also you know, they shot people, they
Speaker 1: arrested people. They like they deported people. And but they
Speaker 1: also you know a lot of the things that I
Speaker 1: think we we have this tenants you look at as
Speaker 1: like a socialist reform where for example, like putting workers
Speaker 1: on corporate boards, right, or like like in internal democratic
Speaker 1: self management, but that's like, you know, that's still still
Speaker 1: sort of boss controlled, right, It's like, wow, Okay, you
Speaker 1: have like a council of people who can make recommendations
Speaker 1: or like even even down to you know, we're going
Speaker 1: to have our own internal like corporate unions like set
Speaker 1: up by the company, but you know that the corporate
Speaker 1: union gives you a workers council and the council can
Speaker 1: sort of control production. But you know, it's it's still
Speaker 1: it's still run by the bosses. Like all of these
Speaker 1: things were stuff that like the Rockefellers set up or
Speaker 1: like even even the early neer levels would set the
Speaker 1: stuffup because they were they were so scared of people,
Speaker 1: like they were so scared of people just taking over
Speaker 1: stuff democratically, just running it just literally through the union
Speaker 1: that they were like we will we will literally give
Speaker 1: you democracy in the workplace. We will give you like
Speaker 1: we will give you like workers on corporate boards literally
Speaker 1: just so long as you don't like take everything over. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that it's it's hard for people to imagine
Speaker 1: how intense like the struggle for getting any kind of
Speaker 1: rights in the workplace have been in the United States
Speaker 1: in particular. I think a lot of people think that,
Speaker 1: you know, uh, maybe not so much anymore. But when
Speaker 1: I was younger, you know, twenty years ago, people would
Speaker 1: be like, oh, you know, we're in America. We've got
Speaker 1: you know, like we've got all these things, like we've got,
Speaker 1: you know, an eight hour work day, and we've got
Speaker 1: like a weekend and all like. And the thing is
Speaker 1: is that literally people were murdered to win those things, right, like,
Speaker 1: if you like. The reason why we have an eight
Speaker 1: hour work day is because there was in Chicago a
Speaker 1: famous uh, a famous strike that um ended up with
Speaker 1: a massacre of um. It was like a police riot,
Speaker 1: and then they rounded up a bunch of union organizers,
Speaker 1: socialists and anarchists who were like involved in the labor
Speaker 1: movement at that time, and then the state of Illinois
Speaker 1: hung them. Um and so the wife of one of them,
Speaker 1: of one of those people who was murdered at the
Speaker 1: Haymarket or they called him the Haymarket murders. H Albert
Speaker 1: Parsons was one of them. Her or his wife, Lucy Parsons,
Speaker 1: who was I had a very veritable kind of like
Speaker 1: not quite sure what her background was, but we do
Speaker 1: know that she was probably a former slave. Uh. Albert
Speaker 1: Parsons was a former Confederate. They got married in the South,
Speaker 1: became Southern Republicans trying to like participate in radical reconstruction,
Speaker 1: and then they basically had to flee because they were
Speaker 1: um with their lives to the north. And uh. But
Speaker 1: after that whole trial and all that shook out, Lucy
Speaker 1: Parsons became a labor agitator across the United States fighting
Speaker 1: for the eight hour day. And and they memorialized the
Speaker 1: Haymarket Martyrs. And something that I think some of your
Speaker 1: listeners will know about. Maybe they won't, but you know,
Speaker 1: made a made a lot of people is like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's Russian or some foreign sort of thing. Now, that
Speaker 1: is an American labor tradition that started here, and it
Speaker 1: was because of a specific like the the labor movement
Speaker 1: in the movement for the eight hour day in the
Speaker 1: United States. So um, and that's kind of like once
Speaker 1: you go from the IWW and industrial unions as an idea,
Speaker 1: it got crushed in the twenties because it was so terrifying.
Speaker 1: There's a really good, uh, a really good essay on
Speaker 1: all that called the stop Watch and the Wooden Shoe
Speaker 1: by a guy named Mike Davis, who kind of explains
Speaker 1: how it is that IWW as the first union too
Speaker 1: not only um try and build workers organization, but to
Speaker 1: challenge workplace organization and to make those push back on
Speaker 1: how production was happening and fight something called this speed
Speaker 1: up where I think a lot of people who have
Speaker 1: worked have experienced this time where a boss will come
Speaker 1: in and say we're going to do things differently, and
Speaker 1: they'll either get rid of a worker and put all
Speaker 1: the extra work onto people who remain, or they'll change
Speaker 1: things so you're doing more with the same amount of time. Um,
Speaker 1: they got you know, they provoked a backlash. Um. There
Speaker 1: were like spectacular like general strikes, the first general strike
Speaker 1: in America in Seattle. There were i w W members
Speaker 1: who are key members of the Seattle Labor Council, which
Speaker 1: took craft unions and got their radicals together and coordinated
Speaker 1: a general strike which is where there's a lot of
Speaker 1: tweets about general strikes. But general strikes require a lot
Speaker 1: of organization and coordination. We can talk about that later
Speaker 1: if we want to, but key thing is the i
Speaker 1: w W was always pushing for the organization necessary to
Speaker 1: pull off a general strike, and they did it. And
Speaker 1: so amongst those different things and their mine wars in
Speaker 1: Colorado mine wars and Virginia West Virginia UM, they were
Speaker 1: the first union that was explicitly anti racist. UM. They
Speaker 1: they weren't perfect, but they were, but they organized multi
Speaker 1: racial unions in UM, Philadelphia, the Docks, and various other places.
Speaker 1: They were one of the few unions that really took
Speaker 1: the first steps into organizing in the South in the
Speaker 1: way that UM A lot of unions have kind of
Speaker 1: failed too since. And because they were so effective and
Speaker 1: so frightening, they got crushed. I mean. Also, what every
Speaker 1: thing I want I want to say about them is that, like,
Speaker 1: like the WW fought in the Mexican Revolution, because you
Speaker 1: know a lot of the WW members in California particular
Speaker 1: were like a lot of a lot of indigenous people,
Speaker 1: a lot of sort of voted Mexican immigrants. So yeah,
Speaker 1: they these huge ties and like they like they I think,
Speaker 1: I think to this day this is still true outside
Speaker 1: of Puerto Rico, Like they are the only leftist movement
Speaker 1: that has ever like taking control of an American city,
Speaker 1: like they they took to Lexico and Mexicality and like
Speaker 1: a bunch of the sort of the border area. Yeah.
Speaker 1: That that's that, that's you know, part of why it
Speaker 1: just escalates to everyone starts shooting them because well and
Speaker 1: and they were truly an international union because they were
Speaker 1: they focused on like longshoremen and organizing and docks that
Speaker 1: sort of thing. There were members of the i w
Speaker 1: W organizing basically everywhere in the world, and they were
Speaker 1: considered part of like what was like a global movement.
Speaker 1: You call them syndicalists, which is kind of like a
Speaker 1: an Italian term or French term um, which is this
Speaker 1: the you know, like like the Latin version of the
Speaker 1: Union of Syndicate uh and um. There were similar unions
Speaker 1: across the world up through the early twentieth century until
Speaker 1: right about the time when the Russians, the Russian Revolution happened,
Speaker 1: and then there were subsequent crackdowns. And because these people,
Speaker 1: who I mean, the IWW was a mix of native
Speaker 1: native born Americans and immigrants, and they were painted as
Speaker 1: this foreign sort of force. They were un American. That
Speaker 1: was like the whole nexus of un Americanism as like
Speaker 1: an idea, and the US state was able to mobilize
Speaker 1: after World War One to really put that down and
Speaker 1: so so there's a lot of history there in that.
Speaker 1: But the idea of the industrial union didn't go away, right.
Speaker 1: The union, the IWW was effectively dismembered and scattered. But
Speaker 1: a lot of people who had experience as IWW members
Speaker 1: who had been in those strikes, UM didn't like just disappear.
Speaker 1: They didn't all get deported or sent away. UM. A
Speaker 1: lot of them kind of tuck their heads down and
Speaker 1: went back to work, you know. And in the ninet
Speaker 1: thirties we saw the rise of another industrial the next
Speaker 1: step towards industrial unionism. So it's called the c i O,
Speaker 1: which is the Congress of Industrial Organizations. Now there were
Speaker 1: multiple at that point. There was the Communist Party USA,
Speaker 1: the Socialist Party of America, and UM, former members of
Speaker 1: the IWW and various like anarchists who were participants in
Speaker 1: kind of the organization of the c i O. And
Speaker 1: the thing about c i O was was that when
Speaker 1: they came together, UM, it was in the Great Depression
Speaker 1: had really kind of kicked off, and they were able
Speaker 1: to organize like really explosively across all these new industries.
Speaker 1: So they like the U a W. United Auto Workers
Speaker 1: was like part of the c i O. And they
Speaker 1: would they pioneered forms of strikes called sit down strike,
Speaker 1: which was basically a factory seizure. All the workers would
Speaker 1: just say we're not going to walk out, We're going
Speaker 1: to lock ourselves in and we're going to sit down
Speaker 1: and it's our factory now, and now you're going to
Speaker 1: have to negotiate with And it became this thing where
Speaker 1: it was like millions of people were like the I
Speaker 1: w W at any one time was like hundreds of
Speaker 1: thousands of people, and the c i O became a
Speaker 1: thing where it was millions of people and UM and
Speaker 1: at least at the beginning when they had there, when
Speaker 1: they had we're at the peak of their like power
Speaker 1: and militancy. UM, they were able to mobilize workers to
Speaker 1: take over factories, take over factories from some of the
Speaker 1: most powerful corporations on the earth on Earth. And you know,
Speaker 1: at the same time um. While they were doing this,
Speaker 1: the police and UH company UM company security and vigilantes
Speaker 1: which had never gone away from like the IW, we're
Speaker 1: doing the same sorts of things. So they would regularly
Speaker 1: beat strikers, would regularly there would be you know, regular
Speaker 1: labor massacres, um disappearances of various um of labor organizers
Speaker 1: or labor leaders or even just random workers that they
Speaker 1: thought were like, oh, you're a unionist, um, you know,
Speaker 1: get in the back of this uh, get in the
Speaker 1: back of this truck. And then they were never seen again. Um.
Speaker 1: And then laws started to be enacted, I believe out
Speaker 1: of fear that if this, if this movement didn't get
Speaker 1: somehow put under brought in under control, that there would
Speaker 1: be a revolution. And so uh so that's when we
Speaker 1: started to see the enactment of laws like the National
Speaker 1: Labor Relations Act, which made having a union like that
Speaker 1: was the first time when being any union was considered
Speaker 1: legal at the federal level. And that uh the FDR
Speaker 1: the New Deal Democrats basically attempted to broker something called
Speaker 1: labor peace where they would say, we're no longer going
Speaker 1: to mobilize the state against workers in the way that
Speaker 1: we have previously. Now local police would still side with
Speaker 1: bosses that sort of thing. But uh, and those sorts
Speaker 1: of massacres and that sort of stuff didn't really go
Speaker 1: away until like the forties. Um. But um, that was
Speaker 1: the beginning of because what you do see is unions
Speaker 1: get channeled into Once you have like a million people
Speaker 1: in the union, you have just enormous amounts of resources,
Speaker 1: all these dues coming in. You have the beginning of
Speaker 1: the labor bureaucracy. Whereas before it would be you know,
Speaker 1: there would be hired you know, paid labor organizers, but
Speaker 1: they were always shifting around, and they were they were
Speaker 1: brought up as communists or socialists, and they had ideological
Speaker 1: commitments to building the power of the union and the
Speaker 1: power of workers that you know, if you are just
Speaker 1: a you know, and someone with some ambition and decided
Speaker 1: you want to become like anyone at this point you know,
Speaker 1: who wants to become a paid union staffer. If you're
Speaker 1: like you know, if you care to and a lot
Speaker 1: of people, Um, then being a union staffer was a
Speaker 1: different thing than is now. It was. I think I'm
Speaker 1: trying to remember the name of the president. I think
Speaker 1: it's John Lewis. John Lewis, who was a Republican back
Speaker 1: in the day, said, you know, I think famously said
Speaker 1: at one point it's like, if you want to build
Speaker 1: a union, or if you want to build a house,
Speaker 1: you call a carpenter, if you want to build a union,
Speaker 1: you call communists, and so uh and so they would
Speaker 1: literally would go to like the the you know, the
Speaker 1: Communist Party and say we need organizers. And the Communist
Speaker 1: Party did a lot of work to training people to
Speaker 1: be organizers, and they were militant, they were ready to
Speaker 1: throw down because to them, they were looking at this
Speaker 1: as part of a you know, class struggle against you know,
Speaker 1: bosses and you know, a way of overthrown capital. Um.
Speaker 1: That kind of went through until World War two. And uh.
Speaker 1: When World War two hit, that's when the Soviet Union,
Speaker 1: which in many ways controlled what was happening with communists
Speaker 1: with CPUs A, basically said we need a labor piece
Speaker 1: because we need to support the war effort. And so
Speaker 1: that's when union started signing contracts with no strike clauses,
Speaker 1: and they started um agreeing that they would no longer
Speaker 1: strike um and and they started agreeing to things like
Speaker 1: speed ups. There used to be a time when uh,
Speaker 1: these mass industrial unions, the stewards would walk around with
Speaker 1: a whistle on their neck. They have a whistle on
Speaker 1: a lanyard and any time that workers decided that this
Speaker 1: is like an example of how powerful these unions were.
Speaker 1: Not just like as like an organization, but every day
Speaker 1: at your workplace, if you thought that something was not right,
Speaker 1: or you were not being treated fairly, or somehow the
Speaker 1: contract was in breach, you would go to your steward
Speaker 1: and your steward would pull out this whistle and would
Speaker 1: blow the whistle. It's called a whistle stop strike and
Speaker 1: everyone would set down their tools until management would come
Speaker 1: out and they would either agree to pay more or
Speaker 1: stop what was happening and fix it. And so um,
Speaker 1: there was a time when strikes would be you would
Speaker 1: have intermittent work stoppages. So you wouldn't go out like indefinitely.
Speaker 1: You would go out on strike for like three months.
Speaker 1: Though that happened. You wouldn't just and it wouldn't just
Speaker 1: be your factory. It would be hey, we're getting on
Speaker 1: the phone and we're calling our friends down the street
Speaker 1: at the next at your supplier. It's called a secondary strike.
Speaker 1: So if you're working at like a steel mill, and
Speaker 1: your steel mills dependent on coke from the next factory over.
Speaker 1: You're calling up your friends in the same union down
Speaker 1: the way, say stop sending coke, stop sending materials. Where
Speaker 1: these things to us, we're on strike. You as you
Speaker 1: all set your tools down, you go on strike. And
Speaker 1: it would and these strikes would like massively expand so
Speaker 1: you would see things instead of seeing you know, we
Speaker 1: just went through Striketober, right, yeah, and we just and
Speaker 1: so we saw like what we call a strike wave.
Speaker 1: But in and in some ways it was a strike wave.
Speaker 1: But I think that we still don't I think it's
Speaker 1: so far away from living memory of what a real
Speaker 1: strike wave is, where people would go on strike in
Speaker 1: one factory and then the next factory, in the next factory,
Speaker 1: the next very it literally would be a wave of
Speaker 1: people um going on strike. And this was all the
Speaker 1: result of all the organization that people had, in the
Speaker 1: militant attitude that people had about like how they were
Speaker 1: going to be treated at work. It's worth mentioning that
Speaker 1: one of the so the National Labor Relations Act, which
Speaker 1: is past nineteenturty five, which is like that you know,
Speaker 1: this is the beginning labor piece, Like you know, it's okay,
Speaker 1: we'll give you the right re union, but you cannot
Speaker 1: do secondary strikes like that, Like this is this is
Speaker 1: explicitly banned in this if I'm remembering this right, is
Speaker 1: that there's a specific thing that says you can't do
Speaker 1: secondary strikes anymore. And you know, and this was this
Speaker 1: was you know, the basis of this piece was that
Speaker 1: like yeah, as you sort of said before, it was like, well, okay,
Speaker 1: so the state will put their guns down, but the
Speaker 1: workers also essentially have to put their guns down. And yeah,
Speaker 1: and this this starts this whole process of you know,
Speaker 1: on once once you lose like that kind of consciousness
Speaker 1: and once you lose the practical experience of doing this stuff,
Speaker 1: it kind of it fades and and over time, you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: the atrophies and and the unions get weaker and weaker
Speaker 1: because you know, like with without like you know what,
Speaker 1: once you once you've set aside, right and you've decided
Speaker 1: that you're gonna essentially you know, okay, we're gonna we're
Speaker 1: gonna follow the laws, we're gonna sit down, we're gonna
Speaker 1: do this, We're gonna like negotiate in good faith, we're
Speaker 1: going to have all of this sort of um, you know,
Speaker 1: we're we're gonna go through the National LA Relations Board.
Speaker 1: It's like, well, at that point, people like people, people's
Speaker 1: willingness to pick the weapons back up that they put
Speaker 1: down just sort of continues to diminish. Well, I think
Speaker 1: what happens is I mean, And so there was like
Speaker 1: a ten year period. So first there was like the
Speaker 1: first five you know, five ten years of c I
Speaker 1: oh was when we see like this really like intense
Speaker 1: militancy within these unions. And halfway through like you know,
Speaker 1: the passage of that first long in the nineteen thirties, UM,
Speaker 1: that's when we started to see the erosion. And we
Speaker 1: constantly see I think I think that people don't understand
Speaker 1: is that our bosses are always trying to assert their
Speaker 1: control over work. And we'll see that like UM bosses
Speaker 1: will do all kinds of contortions as long as they
Speaker 1: get to stay in charge and that they're unquestioned. And
Speaker 1: I don't think we understand quite how long the long
Speaker 1: game is for UM, for management, for our bosses, and
Speaker 1: for capital. And so you know, it starts with the
Speaker 1: National Labor Relations Act and then it goes through uh, um,
Speaker 1: it goes through World War Two. In the World War Two,
Speaker 1: that's when the c i O goes from you know,
Speaker 1: you know, millions of people to like tens of millions,
Speaker 1: and it becomes like a thing where like that's when
Speaker 1: you know, like Americans are in a union, right, um,
Speaker 1: because I mean to the extent that that to the
Speaker 1: extent that um, there were those compromises happened. It didn't
Speaker 1: just compromise. It wasn't just like a failure of like, oh,
Speaker 1: like we're just going to start capitulating. It's like there
Speaker 1: were interests inside the union. They're looking at like, well,
Speaker 1: this is a lot of resources and power that we
Speaker 1: have now. But wait until like it's you know of
Speaker 1: America paying union dudes. And there were people inside the
Speaker 1: Democratic Party who were willing to trade um, that labor
Speaker 1: piece for that you would start to see, you know,
Speaker 1: that's when politicians would show up to UM two union
Speaker 1: hall to talk and try and get you know, and
Speaker 1: that's when you know, the Democratic Party, it would be
Speaker 1: it wouldn't be unusual to hear a Democratic politician, UM
Speaker 1: say things about like labor that you would like that
Speaker 1: no politician would say today. And now that doesn't mean
Speaker 1: that they were like on the side of the workers,
Speaker 1: but you know, you would have literally, um, President Eisenhower
Speaker 1: telling the president of U. S. Steel to get fucked
Speaker 1: over like a general, like you're you're trying to shut
Speaker 1: down like you know, this is like the the steel
Speaker 1: industry is a lifeblood of backbone of the American economy. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, and you're trying to shut this down, trying
Speaker 1: to kill the golden goose, like get back to work,
Speaker 1: let the pay these people what they're asking. Um. But
Speaker 1: you know, so you would see the people who kind
Speaker 1: of floated to the top of those uh unions trading
Speaker 1: their trading away their workers power and their workers well
Speaker 1: being for more and more month. First off, the would
Speaker 1: be more money, so you would you like, they would
Speaker 1: start getting raises that were really substantial, and it would
Speaker 1: boost up a union steel worker or a union auto
Speaker 1: worker into what we consider like the comfortable middle class
Speaker 1: where people could like buy a like a fishing cabin
Speaker 1: or something up on a lake, send their kids to college,
Speaker 1: all these sorts of things that were just kind of
Speaker 1: like unobtainable sorts of things. If you were the same
Speaker 1: in the same industry twenty years earlier. Yeah, and um,
Speaker 1: and that felt like wins, you know, two people. And
Speaker 1: also in the nineteen forties, after World War Two, they
Speaker 1: passed the Taff Hartley Act, which basically meant that they
Speaker 1: forced unions. Well they did, okay, they wrote into law
Speaker 1: that it was illegal to be a communist or an
Speaker 1: anarchist in uh in a union. And so they're literally
Speaker 1: still unions that still have language in their in their
Speaker 1: membership parts or they're like I declare, I'm I've never
Speaker 1: been a member of the Communist Party. I'm not an
Speaker 1: you know, an anarchist. Uh. I mean like I have
Speaker 1: friends who have pulled that out. Now it doesn't have
Speaker 1: any effect now, but that was they basically took all
Speaker 1: the people, you know, the people that uh that were
Speaker 1: you know, the people that you would have called to
Speaker 1: build the union twenty years later or before, we're getting
Speaker 1: thrown out of unions. And that didn't happen in every like.
Speaker 1: There were attempts to do that in all kinds of countries.
Speaker 1: They tried to do it in the UK, and the
Speaker 1: unions in the UK told basically told the government to
Speaker 1: go fund themselves, and they you know, it's like but
Speaker 1: because the leadership of the of the c I O
Speaker 1: industrial unions began to see themselves more in alignment with
Speaker 1: are ruling class and are you know, like the Democratic Party,
Speaker 1: they decided that they were big enough that they didn't
Speaker 1: have to have militants involved anymore. And that's when you know, uh,
Speaker 1: people were literally would get fired out of did either
Speaker 1: either militants and staff would get fired or uh, they
Speaker 1: would get fired out of factories if you're like a
Speaker 1: ranking file worker. So um, and that's when we begin
Speaker 1: to see the rise of what we call business unionism.
Speaker 1: And that's where we would have union bureaucrats would and
Speaker 1: um would you know, would basically start making concessionary contracts.
Speaker 1: And this started you know back in you know, a
Speaker 1: lot of people are like, oh, you know, back in
Speaker 1: the fifties, unions are really powerful and they were powerful
Speaker 1: to get you know, like raises, but those raises came
Speaker 1: at the expense of control over the work process, came
Speaker 1: at the expense of the speed up um and as
Speaker 1: unions like because the rank and file workers, like you're saying,
Speaker 1: you know, ranking file workers, and they see their things
Speaker 1: there these tools getting put down and they were more
Speaker 1: reluctant to pick them up first off, is because of
Speaker 1: the amount of money that they're getting paid. And but
Speaker 1: they pushed back, they were like this is I mean, like,
Speaker 1: there's a really great book called The Next Shift UM
Speaker 1: by Gabriel win At. It's all about the shift from steel,
Speaker 1: the steel industry as like the center of the U.
Speaker 1: S economy to healthcare UM, and how unions basically started
Speaker 1: to erode away there like throw it, like hand over
Speaker 1: their power in exchange for money. And then when they
Speaker 1: were told like there was UM and attempts to get
Speaker 1: socialized medicine and the under the Truman administration, and when
Speaker 1: they were basically uh, they they hit a speed bump
Speaker 1: in there and it got shot down. They decided that
Speaker 1: instead of trying to win those uh those broad social
Speaker 1: reforms for everybody, they're like, well, we can use our
Speaker 1: our power to strike to get basically construct a private
Speaker 1: welfare date for our workers. And so that's when you
Speaker 1: begin to see UM things like uh, the they call
Speaker 1: them like the gold plated insurance plans for certain types
Speaker 1: of unionized workers, and those would kind of UM and
Speaker 1: those are kind of used as like a private welfare
Speaker 1: state for all those workers. And it was built with
Speaker 1: the assumption you're gonna have low cost workers basically doing
Speaker 1: all this care work UM, and oftentimes it would be
Speaker 1: women of color and UM. And through that you start
Speaker 1: to see this real sharp client from the sixties in
Speaker 1: like UH in union UM, militancy UM. And that's when factory,
Speaker 1: when capital starts moving factories out of city centers where
Speaker 1: it's very easy to organize a factory when everyone lives
Speaker 1: within walking distance the factory, and when they're done with
Speaker 1: their shift at the factory, they're all at the bar
Speaker 1: outside the outside the factory gates, and you can just
Speaker 1: like if you want to have a union meeting, if
Speaker 1: you want organized even a wildcat strike, all you have
Speaker 1: to do is show up at the right bar and
Speaker 1: that's where everyone is after they're done with their shift. UM.
Speaker 1: They started moving and dispersing the industrial capacity of the
Speaker 1: United of you know, the the US urban core out
Speaker 1: into suburbs. So that's now where you'll drive through rural
Speaker 1: Indiana and you'll pass like five factories and they're surrounded
Speaker 1: by nothing but corn fields. It's because it's a lot
Speaker 1: harder to organize auto workers when they all live thirty
Speaker 1: minute drive from each other, and none of them hang
Speaker 1: out at the same bar anymore. Uh, And then you
Speaker 1: start to see UM and all through that time, the
Speaker 1: commitments to anti racism are eroded. So you'll see UM
Speaker 1: jobs get start to get segregated out inside it's like
Speaker 1: steel mills and things like that. But then, you know,
Speaker 1: is also the rise of rank and file movements to
Speaker 1: push back. So UM, all the while we're talking about this,
Speaker 1: there's always workers who remember what these things were like
Speaker 1: and why, and the power that they used to have,
Speaker 1: and they would do the best that they could get
Speaker 1: organized and so UM. There's a really good UM documentary
Speaker 1: you can find a YouTube called Finally Got the News.
Speaker 1: It's about the Dodge Revolutionary Union movement in Detroit, which
Speaker 1: was a rank and file reform movement organized by UM
Speaker 1: by black auto workers. They got like a fair amount
Speaker 1: of support from white auto workers because they're basically there's
Speaker 1: you know, interviews with U a W bureaucrats and they're
Speaker 1: just like, you know, we're getting people these raises. Why
Speaker 1: are they upset that they're like getting named in the
Speaker 1: factory right, or why are they getting upset that you know,
Speaker 1: you know, black workers are constantly getting put into the
Speaker 1: shittiest jobs or the first to get laid off, that
Speaker 1: sort of thing. And that's a it's a really I
Speaker 1: suggest anyone has time. And that came out of like
Speaker 1: the I think that was immediately after the was getting
Speaker 1: organized after the assassination Martin Luther King and all the
Speaker 1: riots that were happening in the h in the sixties
Speaker 1: had like that late sixties period. Um, in the seventies,
Speaker 1: there was a teamster, the teamster rank and file rebellion.
Speaker 1: My grandpa was a teamster trucker. My grandma was a teamster.
Speaker 1: She was like a punch card operator. But yeah, sorry, yeah, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I mean like teams, these unions got so big and
Speaker 1: they have that's how you end up with like there's
Speaker 1: U a W teaching assistance now, right, Um, Like how
Speaker 1: do you end up with these huge like uh unions?
Speaker 1: And during teams are rebellion And my grandpa would tell
Speaker 1: these stories like we're going on there would be a
Speaker 1: wildcat strike and they call it out over the CB radios.
Speaker 1: And the way they would enforce the picket line wasn't
Speaker 1: just like oh, we're gonna like standing in the road
Speaker 1: or something. They would hang coke bottles full of rocks
Speaker 1: over the overpasses, just high enough up to like that
Speaker 1: cars wo pass underneath them, but if you hit one
Speaker 1: and you're in a truck, it's funk up your day. Um.
Speaker 1: And that was like a really um like a really
Speaker 1: kind of like powerful pushback by rank and file workers
Speaker 1: against what they saw was the erosion of their power.
Speaker 1: Because I think that I think there's this sometimes amongst
Speaker 1: people who consider themselves to be left or whatever, there's
Speaker 1: like this kind of doom and gloom like, oh, it's
Speaker 1: only like we're only losing, right. But and there's been
Speaker 1: a lot of as the seventies happened, and capital is
Speaker 1: kind of reconfiguring itself in the middle of all the
Speaker 1: economic upheaval inflation. Um, Basically, they got to the point
Speaker 1: where we can't maintain labor peace and maintain profits, right,
Speaker 1: so they could maintain labor piece and have something more
Speaker 1: like a socialist system, or they can maintain control over
Speaker 1: the work process and just do everything in their power
Speaker 1: to destroy the power of workers. And they decide to
Speaker 1: do that. Um. So I think we were coming out
Speaker 1: of this kind of era where you know, if you
Speaker 1: were in a union and working at a factory. Um,
Speaker 1: there was a real threat that they're like, well, we're
Speaker 1: just gonna shut this factory down, and you know, naft
Speaker 1: to get signed. Well, first it was the pet Go
Speaker 1: strike with Reagan. Reagan gets elected and air air traffic
Speaker 1: controllers decided they're going to go on strike and um,
Speaker 1: and they and Reagan decided he was going to break it,
Speaker 1: and they brought in they basically there was this bigg recession.
Speaker 1: It was like this huge mess where people were really
Speaker 1: desperate for work and um, you know, they said, we're
Speaker 1: going to hire anyone to be an air traffic controller
Speaker 1: and we're gonna break the strike. And that was the
Speaker 1: first real the first like that the beginning of the
Speaker 1: end of that final, like that big moment era of
Speaker 1: industry real unionism in the United States. And we went
Speaker 1: from a place where you know, U a W had millions,
Speaker 1: the United Auto Workers had millions and millions of workers
Speaker 1: and if you drove a car or a truck in
Speaker 1: his main America is made by union worker, to this
Speaker 1: point where now the AW is around fifty people. I
Speaker 1: was shocked when I heard that, literally like two weeks ago. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, we just have the big U, a W
Speaker 1: strike at John Deer, UM. And there's been and you know,
Speaker 1: all through this while this is going on, UM, there's
Speaker 1: various union corruption scandals. And that's again the cause of
Speaker 1: like when you kick out all the people who have
Speaker 1: an ideological commitment to improving the lives of working people
Speaker 1: and building the power of working people out of this
Speaker 1: organization that's only existence is to like build the power
Speaker 1: of working people. UM, then you then you end up
Speaker 1: with people who are basically criminals. Like you end up
Speaker 1: like there would be Uh. I think Reagan scat like
Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan and was h was a union member, but
Speaker 1: he was like the union member for like a corrupt
Speaker 1: like there was like there was like a battle between
Speaker 1: like the c I O controlled union in like Hollywood
Speaker 1: and like the corrupt like moss mobbed up union and
Speaker 1: the mobbed up union, like that was the side if
Speaker 1: I'm that that was a side that Raagant picked and
Speaker 1: uh and yeah, so it's like you could kind of
Speaker 1: and there was a lot of like media where they
Speaker 1: would be like you know, the Waterfront in various like
Speaker 1: movies and things talking about union corruption. And I think
Speaker 1: the union corruption is real and it's a it's when
Speaker 1: it happens, it's a huge problem. It shouldn't like it's
Speaker 1: in other countries like in like in Germany, if they
Speaker 1: found out like a union union official like misappropriated like
Speaker 1: two thousand euros, it would be a nationwide scandal like UM.
Speaker 1: Also in uh In like European countries, you pay union
Speaker 1: dues on a voluntary basis. Right in the US legally,
Speaker 1: since we're a close shop system, like once you're at
Speaker 1: a union UH union workplace, your dues get taken, whether
Speaker 1: you know whether you're happy with the union or not.
Speaker 1: Now there are people will say that's really important because
Speaker 1: unions need every penny they can to fight where they have.
Speaker 1: But when unions have to fight for membership and make
Speaker 1: sure that their membership knows that they're getting like what
Speaker 1: they're paying for, you get a little bit more responsiveness.
Speaker 1: So I think that's another thing that especially people are
Speaker 1: thinking about unions and thinking about joining a union are
Speaker 1: creating getting any of the workplace. Just understand what a
Speaker 1: union is and how they work and where your money
Speaker 1: is going to, and that if you're unhappy with that,
Speaker 1: the best thing to do is to get involved with
Speaker 1: your union to try and like get connected with your
Speaker 1: coworkers who have similar complaints and change the union. Because
Speaker 1: there's a saying it's like any union is better than
Speaker 1: no union. That's not always true, but it generally is
Speaker 1: there there there's like a very small chance that like
Speaker 1: you're like living in nineteen nine China and like your
Speaker 1: union is like is controlled by like a commodation of
Speaker 1: the K and T and like literally the Chinese heroine trade.
Speaker 1: But you know that that like, yeah, that like doesn't
Speaker 1: there there there are things where you'll have like there,
Speaker 1: my dad worked at a factory and there was it
Speaker 1: was a teamster organized factory, and like some of the
Speaker 1: stewards for bullies and literally like there were some people
Speaker 1: who were dealing drugs out of it, and they gave
Speaker 1: the the workers like try to bring in another union,
Speaker 1: and the and the management decided to offer to also
Speaker 1: try and desertify decertify the union at the same time,
Speaker 1: and the workers voted to desert. And the thing is
Speaker 1: is that now that factory shut down and gone um
Speaker 1: and I guess like the thing is is that you
Speaker 1: have to It's far better for workers to assert their
Speaker 1: rights within their union where they have some modicum of
Speaker 1: democratic control over what's going on than it is to
Speaker 1: just throw up your hands and like there's and do nothing.
Speaker 1: Because if you do nothing, the boss is always doing something. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like that's the thing is, like management is always organizing.
Speaker 1: They're always coming up with ways to like to undermine
Speaker 1: the control of workers at work, to pick people against
Speaker 1: each other. Um, we can get into it later, but like, uh,
Speaker 1: they want, they'll use racism and those sorts of things
Speaker 1: to dole out favors or curry favoritism and like you know,
Speaker 1: pit people against each other. So I think that it's
Speaker 1: important to just say that, like the union is going
Speaker 1: to be your only effective way to push back, well,
Speaker 1: the union or collective action, because I guess I also
Speaker 1: want to say that there are times when organizing union
Speaker 1: isn't the best solution to solving your problem at work. Ultimately,
Speaker 1: this is all about how do you solve problems at work? Right?
Speaker 1: And they're sometimes when you can do collective action that
Speaker 1: is protected as you know as labor organizing, but it's
Speaker 1: not done within a union. And so and because America
Speaker 1: is a really best of place and you have right
Speaker 1: to work states and places where like being in a
Speaker 1: union is like literally illegal. Um sometimes putting the time,
Speaker 1: you're like you can't get into a union, and therefore
Speaker 1: you have to come up with other solutions, or sometimes
Speaker 1: because of the nature of a workplace, like getting a
Speaker 1: union is like it's very hard or like basically impossible.
Speaker 1: That doesn't mean that you can't organize, And I think
Speaker 1: that that's the thing that everyone needs to understand. I
Speaker 1: think there's a lot of like boosterism of unions amongst
Speaker 1: younger workers because people just don't understand how they work
Speaker 1: or they haven't experienced in themselves. And I think that
Speaker 1: the main thing is is that you've got to be
Speaker 1: very careful with your time and understanding. Like building a
Speaker 1: union can take like ten years from the beginning of
Speaker 1: we're upset to now we have a collective bargaining agreement,
Speaker 1: or now we have a collective bargaining agreement. It could
Speaker 1: be another five or ten years before you actually get
Speaker 1: to the point where you're organized enough to go on strike.
Speaker 1: And people oftentimes think that that's like they look back
Speaker 1: at the history of things and they're like, oh, it's
Speaker 1: so easy. But back then people were taking all they mean,
Speaker 1: they it took them years to build the the US
Speaker 1: labor movement into what it was at its peak. It
Speaker 1: took decades, right, and I think that we are kind
Speaker 1: of used to this instant gratification kind of stuff. We
Speaker 1: have to understand it. It's like, if you're going to
Speaker 1: be in a workplace where you're there for enough time
Speaker 1: to build the trust and relationships and understanding of how
Speaker 1: the work workplace works and keep your job and be
Speaker 1: someone that people don't look at, is like a shirk
Speaker 1: or whatever. Not that I don't think that people should
Speaker 1: you know, people should work as hard as they can
Speaker 1: and not any more harder than that. But whatever. Um.
Speaker 1: But I think that you know, I'm anti work, but
Speaker 1: you know that's the whole other thing. Unions are the
Speaker 1: best way to limit the amount of work that you
Speaker 1: have to do. Um, if you're gonna if you're going
Speaker 1: to uh, you know, work as a wage labor um.
Speaker 1: But I'll just say that, it's like I think that
Speaker 1: people don't that. It's difficult sometimes to understand how much
Speaker 1: work goes into getting to the point of getting a union,
Speaker 1: but it's always worth putting the time in to get there.
Speaker 1: And you may not win the first try, but if
Speaker 1: you are if if the conditions are right and things like,
Speaker 1: you know, we make our history, but not in conditions
Speaker 1: of our choosing. Sometimes things don't work out, but not
Speaker 1: doing it is I think, a it's detrimental to you
Speaker 1: and your co workers. And even times like I've talked
Speaker 1: with people who have been involved in campaigns where they
Speaker 1: got fired but then all of a sudden conditions approved afterwards,
Speaker 1: and they look at that as like, oh, ship, we
Speaker 1: didn't get our union, but everyone got raises and they
Speaker 1: change some things at work, and that's actually a victory.
Speaker 1: So you know, I think that I think of each
Speaker 1: other as like collective building collective power, and the amount
Speaker 1: of time it takes to do that is daunting, but
Speaker 1: I think it's the sort of thing that we need
Speaker 1: to do if we're serious about changing how we can
Speaker 1: actually like how our lives work and how much power
Speaker 1: we have outside of work, because unions are also places
Speaker 1: where we do things that affect outside of our work
Speaker 1: as well. Um, George flayd uprising. You know, uh in
Speaker 1: Minneapolis there were nurses union nurses who walked out the
Speaker 1: door um to support uh, you know, people who were
Speaker 1: uh basically having an insurrection against like you know, police violence.
Speaker 1: In in Minneapolis when the when COVID pandemic hit off,
Speaker 1: year of everything going off, nurses nurses were going out
Speaker 1: and confronting UH. Union nurses were going out and confronting
Speaker 1: anti mass protesters. Like I was literally getting screamed at
Speaker 1: by like some Looney Tunes doctor holding a banner that
Speaker 1: said nurses are dying. Go home with like twenty other
Speaker 1: union nurses And we were the only people out there
Speaker 1: who are like together, who are you know, immediately impacted
Speaker 1: by this stuff and UM, And I think it made
Speaker 1: a difference, Like I think it's important, and so I
Speaker 1: think that UM some idea called social unionism. So if
Speaker 1: you get to the point where building a union and
Speaker 1: you're making progress, and you get to that point where
Speaker 1: you have a union, always be advocating for to the
Speaker 1: extent that you can that your union is engaged in
Speaker 1: the kind of UM, like connecting with your community around
Speaker 1: your workplace, figuring out the things that are impacting people's
Speaker 1: lives outside of unions. Because I think that's another thing
Speaker 1: that UM. For a long time, unions just ignored or
Speaker 1: let atrophy because they didn't think it was their problem anymore.
Speaker 1: Was you know, mutual aid helped build the labor movement.
Speaker 1: You know, workers would get would literally like in West
Speaker 1: Virginia and matuan Uh they had uh company police throwing
Speaker 1: people out of their apartments who are on strike, and
Speaker 1: the there were you know, all of a sudden, two
Speaker 1: thousand of your fellow workers showing up and throwing the
Speaker 1: police out of town and putting people's uh, you know,
Speaker 1: belonging to in their house or you know. And I
Speaker 1: believe we're getting back to that point where you know,
Speaker 1: teachers went on striking West Virginia and the union and
Speaker 1: the teachers did everything they could to support their students
Speaker 1: while they were out, because like, I think there's this
Speaker 1: idea that a lot of union workers at this point
Speaker 1: are you know, everyone is like, you know, the American
Speaker 1: workforce is so desperate and so and they've just been
Speaker 1: pushed around so much that you know, there was this
Speaker 1: idea for a time like in Wisconsin, what was or
Speaker 1: what was the Scott Walker consint Uprising just eleven, wasn't it?
Speaker 1: I think it was like right around occupy It wasn't
Speaker 1: around there, And like there was this idea that's like,
Speaker 1: oh you're a nurse, Oh you're a teacher, Like you
Speaker 1: should just be happy that your job has some kind
Speaker 1: of meaning to it, right, And it was a lot
Speaker 1: of like weird discourse around in the media of about
Speaker 1: like how dare these people? I think that they deserve anything?
Speaker 1: And the thing is is that how can you, like,
Speaker 1: as a nurse, how can I take care of my
Speaker 1: patients safely when I'm constantly having, um like, more and
Speaker 1: more work put on me, right, and that that immediately
Speaker 1: affects the people that I'm taken care of. So that
Speaker 1: when when we went on strike in twenty nineteen, it
Speaker 1: was around our safe staffing. UM and if I've seen
Speaker 1: management make decisions about staffing that kill people, and I've
Speaker 1: seen management make decisions that lead to my coworkers getting injured.
Speaker 1: Um I management made decisions that led to me getting
Speaker 1: COVID and messed me up for a year. And so
Speaker 1: when people in these kind of care worker roles, which
Speaker 1: I think has become a more prominent part of the U.
Speaker 1: S economy as people are getting older and they need
Speaker 1: more like care work, home care workers, nursing home workers,
Speaker 1: hospital workers. UM. Parents don't can't rely on family the
Speaker 1: way they used to to help take care kids. School
Speaker 1: has become like this really important, like uh institution for
Speaker 1: you know, working class survival. Um that you can't do
Speaker 1: those jobs as a worker if you don't have the resources.
Speaker 1: So like our our children were at the Chicago public
Speaker 1: schools and there that you know, the Chicago Teachers Union,
Speaker 1: which was taken over by the rank and file UM,
Speaker 1: I think in two thousand five or six by you know,
Speaker 1: a group of black women led by Karen Lewis. They
Speaker 1: set up a group called like a rank and file
Speaker 1: caucus called the Caucus of Rank and File Educators or
Speaker 1: Radical Educators. Cores might be messing up, but it's called CORE.
Speaker 1: They went out on strike in and and as a
Speaker 1: you know, as just this was before my kids were
Speaker 1: old not to be in those schools. I was out
Speaker 1: there still taking them coffee donuts, right because I knew
Speaker 1: that they're in there. Because things stuck. By the time
Speaker 1: my kids were old enough in nineteen for it to
Speaker 1: be a big thing, and the teachers when I'm striking
Speaker 1: in Chicago, it had gotten so it's so bad that
Speaker 1: Chicago teachers like Chicago Public schools have the the lowest
Speaker 1: number of staff two students of any school system in Illinois.
Speaker 1: It's not even like half right and um. And it's
Speaker 1: funny because the state had been constantly trying to erode
Speaker 1: the power of the union. They're making Chicago teachers like
Speaker 1: pay their for their own retirement basically in a way
Speaker 1: that no other like workers have to. Um. They were
Speaker 1: making it so that Chicago teachers could only go on
Speaker 1: strike over of the teachers voted to go on strike.
Speaker 1: UM so when so what that does is there's kind
Speaker 1: of like a a little bit of a flip where oh,
Speaker 1: we have to make of you know, people agree to
Speaker 1: go on strike. Well, let's organize so much that we
Speaker 1: get people to agree to go on strike, and then
Speaker 1: how powerful is our strikes? Our strikes is going to be.
Speaker 1: We're literally like one of the things I do as
Speaker 1: a steward is I connect with all the different unions
Speaker 1: and at the University Chicago where I work, through a
Speaker 1: labor council, we were going, as you know, university workers
Speaker 1: to all the picket lines of the public schools around
Speaker 1: our neighborhood and we're bringing out coffee, bringing out donuts,
Speaker 1: talking to people. Hey, I'm a nurse. We were on
Speaker 1: strike like six or like two or three months ago.
Speaker 1: What do you all need connecting with people. And then
Speaker 1: and then like at one point when the teachers were like,
Speaker 1: we're not getting what we want and this is LORI
Speaker 1: lightfoot is trash there, uh, we helped organized this mass
Speaker 1: march where multiple marches of teachers and school workers and
Speaker 1: we're all out in the streets dodging cop cars until
Speaker 1: we have this big convergence. And it was really beautiful,
Speaker 1: Like we had like multiple people with like multiple banners
Speaker 1: and different columns, each one saying we will win, going
Speaker 1: through the streets of our neighborhood UM and like messing
Speaker 1: up like the commercial traffic area in uh in our
Speaker 1: very bougie neighborhood. UM. But that was happening all over
Speaker 1: the city and it's just like when you see that happen,
Speaker 1: it's because we're literally in the support of the community
Speaker 1: for those strikes was so overwhelming because people knew that.
Speaker 1: It's like these people, aren't it. I mean, like, first off,
Speaker 1: it's a hard job. There's no reason why anyone doing
Speaker 1: that job shouldn't have like a materially comfortable life. That's
Speaker 1: how stressful it is and how much work they do.
Speaker 1: And I really like, I really need to emphasize this
Speaker 1: enough people. There's this whole thing is like, oh, teachers
Speaker 1: don't work over the summer, like, oh, but no, like
Speaker 1: their job sucks. They have to they have to deal
Speaker 1: with these kids all day. And the other thing is like,
Speaker 1: you know, the part of it that you don't see
Speaker 1: is they have to do all the lesson plans. They
Speaker 1: have to great all the stuff, have to do all
Speaker 1: this stuff like after the school day end, they have
Speaker 1: to do all the suff honestibly, all the time. This
Speaker 1: job is awful. It is extremely hard, and like they don't. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the conditions are extremely bad. I'll never forget when I'll
Speaker 1: never forget when I ran into my seventh grade science
Speaker 1: teacher on the summer she was waiting tables at a
Speaker 1: local restaurant, you know, I mean, And so I think
Speaker 1: that there's this assumption that like that, especially care workers
Speaker 1: get some sort of you can't you know, you can't
Speaker 1: cash in fulfillment right or prestige or whatever that doesn't
Speaker 1: pay the rent, that doesn't put you know, groceries on
Speaker 1: your table um that sort of thing. And so you know,
Speaker 1: I think we're beginning to see this thing resurgence. And
Speaker 1: it started with teachers and I know, for and teachers
Speaker 1: and nurses have been out fighting like hell for the
Speaker 1: past like five years, and it's beginning to kind of
Speaker 1: like spark other kinds of organizing outside of outside of
Speaker 1: the care work areas, and a lot of this stuff
Speaker 1: was It's funny how it was kind of like predicted
Speaker 1: by occupy and like revolt of the carrying classes. Someone
Speaker 1: who wrote a really cool book that just came out,
Speaker 1: David Graeber, who was talking about, like, why is it
Speaker 1: that we're seeing all these people who are out in
Speaker 1: the streets like during occupy, who are like social workers
Speaker 1: and nurses and teachers and all this stuff there There's
Speaker 1: something going on here, and I think that so you'll
Speaker 1: see places where organizing conditions are easier because the pressure
Speaker 1: on especially care workers right now is immense in a
Speaker 1: way that it isn't as immense other places. But look
Speaker 1: at for those like when you're thinking about unions and
Speaker 1: whether to do build a union at your workplace or
Speaker 1: do some sort of collective organizing your workplace, do you
Speaker 1: have the dynamics where you guys are can the boss
Speaker 1: shut down your, uh, your your workplace and move it
Speaker 1: like ten miles without completely destroying their like their business right,
Speaker 1: And so you know, we've seen strikes happen in grocery stores,
Speaker 1: um and uh Massachusetts there was a really like uh
Speaker 1: pretty well publicized grocery worker strike and apparently there was
Speaker 1: like internal documents got released to like shareholders about how
Speaker 1: that was like one of the most like it was
Speaker 1: like for a month in the winter or three weeks,
Speaker 1: and they said they lost like of customers refused across
Speaker 1: the picket line. I mean, and I think we're thinking
Speaker 1: it's like getting to the point where you can go
Speaker 1: on strike. It's a lot, it's a process, and it
Speaker 1: takes a lot of work, and I think that people
Speaker 1: underestimate what that looks like. Hence we see hashtag general
Speaker 1: strike things all the time. Um. But like when you
Speaker 1: get there, I think that we're at a point now
Speaker 1: where people have a lot more sympathy for workers, and
Speaker 1: workers have become more visible in the way that they
Speaker 1: weren't before. Like the essential workers over the past year
Speaker 1: and a half have been the only workers that sometimes
Speaker 1: people will see, right, So you'll see things also like
Speaker 1: you have you know, Amazonians United, which is a union
Speaker 1: that's organizing, but they're trying to organize something called a
Speaker 1: solidarity union. So they're not, you know, at least the
Speaker 1: ones here in Chicago, and I think some of them
Speaker 1: in New York. And this may be changing. Things are
Speaker 1: always shifting around. But for a long for a while,
Speaker 1: through like the pandemic, they were organizing on a like
Speaker 1: in contrast to the best sumer uh Amazon campaign. Sorry,
Speaker 1: there was a a business union tried to organize a
Speaker 1: union in Alabama, Investment Alabama at an Amazon warehouse, and
Speaker 1: there was a lot of like media attention to that.
Speaker 1: Democratic politicians, we're paying attention to it, you know, Joe
Speaker 1: Biden said, I support the right of workers to choose
Speaker 1: to have the choice. Stabby union some really milk toast
Speaker 1: bullshit and a lot of celebrities showing up. And what
Speaker 1: wasn't happening was you weren't seeing a lot of evidence
Speaker 1: that the workers themselves were very excited about the union.
Speaker 1: And it turned out that that campaign failed. Um, whereas
Speaker 1: workers at Amazonian's united up here, like in Chicago, and
Speaker 1: granted it's a very different organizing environment in Illinois than
Speaker 1: it is in Alabama. UM, they haven't been focusing on
Speaker 1: getting contract. They've been focusing on getting work changes like
Speaker 1: They're like, we want to have water, like we need
Speaker 1: water breaks, and so they would they have these stand
Speaker 1: up meetings at the beginning of every shift, and they
Speaker 1: had coordinated where you have you know, thirty of your
Speaker 1: co workers all say we're not starting until we get water.
Speaker 1: And then management panics because they're not used to that
Speaker 1: kind of demand. They're used to We're going to have
Speaker 1: a campaign. Then we can you know, mess with votes
Speaker 1: and that sort of thing and make people afraid. Collective
Speaker 1: action overcomes fear, right, So when you have collective action,
Speaker 1: even through a regular like a more regular conventional union campaign,
Speaker 1: those collective actions are what needs to successful unions. So like, um, so,
Speaker 1: you know, they'd say, we aren't starting the shift until
Speaker 1: we get water, and then all of a sudden a
Speaker 1: manager disappears and then comes back with palates full of water, right,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, people are like, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: have the drink water before I start, like all together,
Speaker 1: and then they go off and do their thing, and
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, things like that build the power
Speaker 1: of the union to the point where they shut down
Speaker 1: that warehouse. But then Amazonian United popped up in the
Speaker 1: three new warehouses that they step in Chicago. So it's
Speaker 1: like when you build that kind of collective power and
Speaker 1: people feel like this is how you get things, then
Speaker 1: it's hard to repress. Right. It's one thing we're like,
Speaker 1: we lost an election, why did we even bother? It's
Speaker 1: another thing where like no, we wont like all this,
Speaker 1: like this, that, and the other thing like we got
Speaker 1: you know, like our regular schedules fixed. We got like
Speaker 1: water on our shifts. We got this. You know, that's
Speaker 1: what gets people into the mindset that they can change things.
Speaker 1: And I think this is the thing that a lot
Speaker 1: of people don't get. It's it's like, the difficult part
Speaker 1: isn't getting people to agree that things are fucked up
Speaker 1: at your workplace. Most people understand that things are sucked
Speaker 1: up in their workplace. Difficult part isn't saying that, like, well,
Speaker 1: this is a solution, right. The difficult part is getting
Speaker 1: people to understand that collective action is the only way
Speaker 1: to solve the problems, right even within unionized workplaces. Getting
Speaker 1: your coworkers to understand that if we don't do this
Speaker 1: as a collective, we will fail. And so like when
Speaker 1: there was a like the first successful private hospital union
Speaker 1: drive North Carolina popped off early. UM. Throughout that campaign,
Speaker 1: they were constantly like demonstrations of collective power. We're gonna
Speaker 1: do a vigil. How many people are gonna show up
Speaker 1: to the visual We're gonna all walk around stickers saying
Speaker 1: like safe staffing saves lives or like you know, um,
Speaker 1: patients over profits. That sort of stuff and building that
Speaker 1: kind of collective power together is what gets you. UM,
Speaker 1: It's what gets you a successful Like that's what builds
Speaker 1: a union. Fundamentally, union is UM. There's the legal thing
Speaker 1: and then there's the real thing, and the real thing
Speaker 1: is only as powerful as people are willing to fight
Speaker 1: for and build that kind of collective power together. When
Speaker 1: nurses were on straight and I talked a lot about
Speaker 1: nurses because I know a lot about nurses, but like
Speaker 1: you know, or like you know in um in Iowa,
Speaker 1: when the John Deere strike happened, people were out on
Speaker 1: the picket lines and people were ready to get hit
Speaker 1: by cars to like stop scabs from coming like crossing
Speaker 1: the picket line. And if you're not willing to do
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. And I'm not saying that you
Speaker 1: need to put your body on the line for things,
Speaker 1: but you do need to be willing to draw outside
Speaker 1: the lines. Right, there's the law and then there's what
Speaker 1: you can get people to do. And you will be
Speaker 1: surprised when people start moving. They move fast and they
Speaker 1: get really riled up, like this, funk, this, this is
Speaker 1: what we're gonna do. And sometimes unions try and like
Speaker 1: bottle that energy up um or you know, if you're
Speaker 1: in a good union, you use that energy to fix things.
Speaker 1: So I think that's kind of where land on all
Speaker 1: this stuff. It's like be aware of like the pitfalls
Speaker 1: of what organizing at work means. Everyone has a right
Speaker 1: to organize at work everywhere in this country. If you
Speaker 1: get fired for like for organizing, you can fight that
Speaker 1: that sort of thing. Yeah, it's federally protected, like it's
Speaker 1: this is this is a federal government thing, like you know,
Speaker 1: this is this is this is what we got in
Speaker 1: exchange for everything else is like like this is you know,
Speaker 1: like this this is what we got in exchange of
Speaker 1: putting our guns down. Is that Like yeah, the the
Speaker 1: the actual Feds will be like, no, you can't do this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean and sometimes that doesn't sound like fold consolation
Speaker 1: and it doesn't always work. But and I guess this
Speaker 1: is the other thing is there are people who are like,
Speaker 1: this is how we're gonna, you know, we're gonna when
Speaker 1: socialism is everyone's in the union. And I guess, like
Speaker 1: my take on it is is this is how we
Speaker 1: build all the networks and get the skills and all
Speaker 1: the necessary things to be prepared to do bigger stuff
Speaker 1: down the road. So when we when workers are talking
Speaker 1: to each other across like you know, at when Chicago,
Speaker 1: when Chicago teachers went on strike, they didn't just go
Speaker 1: on strike as the teachers. They also talked to the
Speaker 1: They lined up their strike to go out as the
Speaker 1: same as education like the school workers who are in
Speaker 1: s C I you and they went out at the
Speaker 1: same time, um, in order to incre improve the power
Speaker 1: of the strike, because the more workers who are out,
Speaker 1: less able the bosses are to like like to undermine
Speaker 1: the boss either with people scabbing on each other or whatever.
Speaker 1: And I think it's just like and like that's the
Speaker 1: point of our labor council is like when like the
Speaker 1: grad workers at Universe Chicago go on strike, we got
Speaker 1: teachers out or we got well, there were teachers from
Speaker 1: CTU out on those picket lines. There were nurses and
Speaker 1: anew on those picket lines, and we were doing everything
Speaker 1: we could to communicate to each other because like in
Speaker 1: my work, it doesn't matter that I'm a nurse and
Speaker 1: you're a secretary. We have the same boss. We have
Speaker 1: the same problems a lot of the times. And so
Speaker 1: I think people people want to do the thing, which
Speaker 1: is to all have the glorious general strike that like
Speaker 1: overthrows capitalism or whatever or fixes all the problems that
Speaker 1: your work. But you know, starting everyone forgets all the
Speaker 1: necessary intermediate steps to get to that point. And sometimes
Speaker 1: it means just get the union in the door in
Speaker 1: the first place, because like at a campaign I was
Speaker 1: a part of here in Chicago where my University Chicago
Speaker 1: bought a non union hospital that was out in the community.
Speaker 1: Just getting in there, they were able to expose like
Speaker 1: basically an entire hospital wide scheme of like racial racist
Speaker 1: like practices around raises and compensation. And that is like
Speaker 1: that first step and then fixing that right, because you
Speaker 1: don't want to have like white worse nurses making more
Speaker 1: than black nurses and black percent more than like did
Speaker 1: immigrant nurses like Filipino or like Mexican nurses, get everyone
Speaker 1: on the same page so that you're fighting together instead
Speaker 1: of fighting each other. And you know, those are those
Speaker 1: first steps that you take. And then and then you
Speaker 1: start reaching out to people on other other workplaces or
Speaker 1: other work areas and build that kind of militancy across
Speaker 1: unions so that you can support each other. So maybe
Speaker 1: a secondary strike is illegal right now, but that doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that you don't have, you know, teamsters who won't
Speaker 1: cross the picket line, right you know, how do you
Speaker 1: go out and make it or you can build that
Speaker 1: solidarity so that like in Buffalo and the UM the
Speaker 1: c w A nurses went on strike and they want
Speaker 1: pretty impressive things around staffing ratios. They literally had other
Speaker 1: unions going out and picketing board members of their hospitals
Speaker 1: businesses and like getting really really like aggressive with that
Speaker 1: sort of stuff. So I think that I think that
Speaker 1: people need to just big takeaway is is the biggest
Speaker 1: barrier to any of this stuff, is just getting people
Speaker 1: to believe that collective action is possible and they can
Speaker 1: get you wins, and then making sure that you take
Speaker 1: your time and be patient and understand that there's going
Speaker 1: to be losses. But in the grand scheme of things.
Speaker 1: Don't don't don't mistake what looks like a setback when
Speaker 1: it's actually a victory for like a victory like for
Speaker 1: a real like a defeat, and um, and talk with
Speaker 1: people like that's what they hate that, Like, bosses hate
Speaker 1: it when we're talking with each other and talk to
Speaker 1: people you're not comfortable with. That's the That's the other
Speaker 1: thing is that people are very nervous to talk to
Speaker 1: people like. It's always funny when you run into people
Speaker 1: who are ra ra like unions, ra ra like socialism,
Speaker 1: YadA YadA YadA, and they don't talk to their co workers, right,
Speaker 1: and your co workers are the people you're gonna be
Speaker 1: around for maybe some years, and that's where you spend
Speaker 1: a huge chunk of your time. And like, but you
Speaker 1: don't know what's going on, they're like, oh, they're all hostile.
Speaker 1: They don't want to know anything, they don't want to
Speaker 1: do anything. Funny thing is is that oftentimes the most
Speaker 1: people who seem very skeptical and anti union can be
Speaker 1: flipped and sometimes those people become the best, like the
Speaker 1: most dedicated people to the union. It also means that
Speaker 1: you're going to talk to people you disagree with. Like,
Speaker 1: there was a Trump dude who was on like the
Speaker 1: argating committee for the like our last strike. He fucking
Speaker 1: loved that thing. He was like, we're going on strike,
Speaker 1: but you know, it's also a union full of black women,
Speaker 1: and he shut the funk up when you know it
Speaker 1: wasn't like, you know, being racist and ship, but you
Speaker 1: know you're gonna be with those people. And part of
Speaker 1: the thing is is that it's about how we're all
Speaker 1: moving together rather than making sure everyone is on the
Speaker 1: same page for every single thing, because the biggest thing
Speaker 1: is the collective action and building that collective power, and
Speaker 1: hopefully the collective power is hopefully the collective power outweighs.
Speaker 1: It's if you stand firm on principles like anti racism
Speaker 1: and fighting against discrimination and misogyny that sort of thing,
Speaker 1: it actually builds the power of the union. I think
Speaker 1: that's the other thing is that people are like, oh,
Speaker 1: I don't you know, like, you know, working class people
Speaker 1: are all racist or reactionary or whatever. So I'm going
Speaker 1: to do that and that's how I'm gonna get that's
Speaker 1: my inn And it's like, I think there are a
Speaker 1: lot of people who like they really don't like, you know,
Speaker 1: they don't like being around loud, racist assholes or people
Speaker 1: who you know, say slurs, like especially if it's like,
Speaker 1: I mean, you can make the arguments like this is
Speaker 1: that's their way of dividing us. Our goal is to
Speaker 1: be together. And historically speaking, the one thing that's done
Speaker 1: the most too fight working class racism is union organizing. Yeah. So,
Speaker 1: And I think also, like you know, in terms of
Speaker 1: like building something that's actually you know, durable and powerful
Speaker 1: on top of sort of just the division. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, even when it becomes stuff like transphobia. Right,
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, if if you can convince people
Speaker 1: to fight like first like fight for the person next
Speaker 1: to them, right, you know, I mean this is this
Speaker 1: is the thing that people like said a lot during
Speaker 1: the Dreean the Burning campaign. But it was like, you know,
Speaker 1: if people like, yeah, like, if you can get someone
Speaker 1: to uh fight like fight for the person next to
Speaker 1: you in a concrete way in the workplace, in a
Speaker 1: way that's actually real for something that doesn't directly aff them,
Speaker 1: you think, you know a A it is just like
Speaker 1: the the amount of power that you've built there is incredible.
Speaker 1: And then be also Okay, I forgot where I was
Speaker 1: going with that, Daniel, please cut that. Hold on, hold on,
Speaker 1: I can kind of build off. Let me just say this,
Speaker 1: My personal experience is that queer women run the labor
Speaker 1: movement and that like and that if you think that
Speaker 1: people who have been bullied from the day they like
Speaker 1: stepped into like a into a kindergarten aren't going to
Speaker 1: be the people who are most equipped to fight bullshit,
Speaker 1: bullying from a boss or injustice or bullshit you're fucking like, like,
Speaker 1: just get the funk out because you haven't been in
Speaker 1: a union and you don't know what you know. I mean,
Speaker 1: you like the like people, unions are at their best
Speaker 1: when they incorporate, you know, all, like when they are
Speaker 1: fighting for everybody, because what a boss can get away
Speaker 1: with with the weakest person, that's what they'll do to
Speaker 1: all of us if they get the chance. And so
Speaker 1: I think that there's this idea that's like, oh, we're
Speaker 1: going to set we're not going to we're going to
Speaker 1: ignore this or that sort of thing. It's like, you know,
Speaker 1: that's when people like, you know, people will turn away
Speaker 1: from unions as they feel like they're not being listened
Speaker 1: to or taken seriously, and you don't know what people's
Speaker 1: like identities are just because you see how they look.
Speaker 1: And so I think that it's real important for us
Speaker 1: to understand that if we're going to fight these fights,
Speaker 1: we need to do so with the understanding that it's everybody,
Speaker 1: and that the working class is a giant, multi racial
Speaker 1: conglomeration of every identity in this country. Um, and that
Speaker 1: the more marginal your identity is, the more useful having
Speaker 1: a union is to like solving your problems. Like I said,
Speaker 1: like racist racist compensation practices, there was no way that
Speaker 1: was going to get fixed, Like it wasn't even uncovered.
Speaker 1: People didn't understand that it was happening until like the
Speaker 1: union got in. Doesn't mean there are other ways of fixing,
Speaker 1: but it's one of the one of the most powerful
Speaker 1: ways to fix things. I think that people just like
Speaker 1: don't understand because they don't have experience. Because they don't
Speaker 1: have an experience, they end up with they end up
Speaker 1: with misconceptions about what they're going to get into, and
Speaker 1: then they get disappointed. And I think the reality, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think that the reality is not as bad as
Speaker 1: sometimes it seems. But also you gotta go into all
Speaker 1: this ship with open eyes. And I think that there's
Speaker 1: and that's the other thing one of the fun things.
Speaker 1: Maybe this will make it into the podcast. I don't know,
Speaker 1: but um, one of the fun things is always like
Speaker 1: hanging out with like if you like every workplace has
Speaker 1: like its lefties just about, and like hanging out with
Speaker 1: the lefties who just can't get their brains wrapped around
Speaker 1: the ship that you need to have a union. I
Speaker 1: think that there's like this idea that's like, oh, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna talk to my friend. They're like they're like they
Speaker 1: say they're a communists, so that the and then that
Speaker 1: all those people do not always but they're they're sitting there.
Speaker 1: It's like talking a bunch of ship about like the union.
Speaker 1: They're a bunch of sellouts is or that, and it's
Speaker 1: like literally it's the only thing you're gonna do to
Speaker 1: get your like to fix the problem. And you're just like,
Speaker 1: we're just trying to get this problem fixed. Can we
Speaker 1: just set aside what you think needs to happen like
Speaker 1: that you guys talked about it. You're like Spartacus League
Speaker 1: meeting or whatever, like, oh, this isn't a real strike,
Speaker 1: Like we're not going out until like for like you know,
Speaker 1: three months. And it's like, you know, it's like the
Speaker 1: sort of thing where um sometimes or oftentimes, and I
Speaker 1: think it's because a lot of people kind of pick
Speaker 1: up their politics almost like an aesthetic as opposed to
Speaker 1: like a thing that like is about like fixing the
Speaker 1: problems in their lives. And sometimes even I'm like, you know,
Speaker 1: like this is the problem that I face is like
Speaker 1: like shit is real like for a lot of people,
Speaker 1: and you can sit there and talk about this or that,
Speaker 1: and like you're you know, you think that things. You know,
Speaker 1: you've got this perfect ideal vision of what things should be,
Speaker 1: and then you've got this kind of imperfect thing in
Speaker 1: front of you that is even though it's imperfect, it's
Speaker 1: basically what you've got. And so it's like you've got
Speaker 1: to kind of you've got to work with what you
Speaker 1: have and fix it up and make it the best
Speaker 1: that you think it can be. UM, but also understand,
Speaker 1: because it's an organization full of people, that it's not
Speaker 1: going to be perfect every time. And yeah, maybe your
Speaker 1: union is going to do some liberal ship, you know,
Speaker 1: and you're gonna and that's going to annoy you, but
Speaker 1: you know, like, um, those people are still going to
Speaker 1: show up on the picket line if you're like, if
Speaker 1: you're organized and you're good and like, you know, that's
Speaker 1: it's not the end of the world that your union
Speaker 1: isn't perfect. Um, but you've got to do everything you
Speaker 1: can to do your best to make it better because
Speaker 1: if you don't, then then liberals will do whatever they're
Speaker 1: gonna do, or conservatives will do whatever they're gonna do,
Speaker 1: and then they will like furtter away this thing. Like
Speaker 1: you can destroy a union if you aren't engaged. Like
Speaker 1: a union can be destroyed by people who think that
Speaker 1: you know, they're just like I just want to get
Speaker 1: my rays and like go home them and like, you know,
Speaker 1: if people's can main concern is like their healthcare or
Speaker 1: like you know, that hour of prep time before they
Speaker 1: start their shift or whatever should you know, start their
Speaker 1: school day or whatever. Um, you know, a union can
Speaker 1: like dissolve out from underneath you and people are like,
Speaker 1: why is no one showing up to this thing? It's
Speaker 1: because you didn't talk to people and find out what
Speaker 1: it is. I think that's the other thing. It's like listen,
Speaker 1: like there's this idea that you're gonna get up and
Speaker 1: give a big speech and get everyone really excited about
Speaker 1: your about like being in a union. But the main
Speaker 1: thing is listening to people and listening to people who
Speaker 1: are critics. You know, your coworkers who have complaints aren't
Speaker 1: like people that you should ignore. Those are people who
Speaker 1: need to listen to because those are people who they've
Speaker 1: got I mean, everyone's got legitimate problems with how you know,
Speaker 1: work is happening. And like just because someone's like, you know,
Speaker 1: union is like, you know, trash, Like then find out
Speaker 1: why they think it's trash and then try and be
Speaker 1: like I want to try and fix out what can
Speaker 1: we do to fix it together? That sort of thing.
Speaker 1: I remember when when I was working, So I worked
Speaker 1: at like maintenance and a county facility for a while,
Speaker 1: and you know, so I was like a like I
Speaker 1: was like I was like a summer higher basically, and
Speaker 1: so we we weren't in the union, but like everyone
Speaker 1: we were working for was in the union, and they
Speaker 1: all like, you know, these are old ex construction worker
Speaker 1: guys and you know, like they're in the union. But
Speaker 1: like I remember that we show these conversations that were
Speaker 1: like okay, so we have a union meeting this week,
Speaker 1: just like do you want to be the person who
Speaker 1: tries to talk about raising wages? And it was like
Speaker 1: everyone was just like no, and you know, people you know,
Speaker 1: like these guys are like very right wing and they
Speaker 1: were just sort of like piste off all the time.
Speaker 1: But it was interesting because the thing they were piste
Speaker 1: off all the time about was that, like, you know,
Speaker 1: their union didn't do anything like the union like they
Speaker 1: they're they they're like they they were. They were basically
Speaker 1: constantly annoyed that like the union didn't like the the
Speaker 1: the union wasn't fighting for pay raises us and wasn't
Speaker 1: sort of fighting And I think that was, you know,
Speaker 1: an example of how this stuff sort of just fails
Speaker 1: if if people aren't like if people don't feel like
Speaker 1: they can actually do something like itself. I mean, and
Speaker 1: they call it service unionism. There's this idea that like
Speaker 1: um or like like that a business union's job is
Speaker 1: to kind of serve you and you kind of like
Speaker 1: they do all the work. Like one of the complaints
Speaker 1: that some people who are not big fans of our
Speaker 1: union our hospital is that like, oh well, other other
Speaker 1: unions have lawyers negotiate the contract for you. And when
Speaker 1: we negotiate, we have a room full of nurses who
Speaker 1: are doing the who are doing the negotiations, and the
Speaker 1: goal is to have it be as transparent as possible,
Speaker 1: and like the idea that you're going to hand over
Speaker 1: negotiations to a lawyer and somehow get a better deal
Speaker 1: than than a room full of of the actual workers.
Speaker 1: And it's funny because we have our bargaining team and
Speaker 1: then like will periodically do something called open bargaining because
Speaker 1: it's the thing that bosses hate. It's like they want
Speaker 1: to make a deal like with a door shut right, um,
Speaker 1: But there's no reason why a union has to do that. Like,
Speaker 1: you can invite whoever you want to your bargaining. You
Speaker 1: can invite community members to your bargaining if you feel
Speaker 1: like you're man it could because management behind closed doors
Speaker 1: will say all kinds of things, and you know, they'll
Speaker 1: they'll trash talk everyone involved and they'll you know, and
Speaker 1: they will make absurd demands about you know, it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: you're all gonna take a pay cut, you know, on
Speaker 1: this contract, that sort of thing, and they hate it.
Speaker 1: They absolutely hate it when like workers actually show up
Speaker 1: to these things, and so, um, I think that understanding that, like,
Speaker 1: I think there's this idea that like some people are
Speaker 1: big on like we have to be kind of like
Speaker 1: secretive to like get the best deal, and like we
Speaker 1: shouldn't be like we shouldn't be transparent with everyone about
Speaker 1: what's going on because that's how like because then they'll
Speaker 1: figure out some way to counter us. But in my experience,
Speaker 1: my understanding is that the more transparent your union is,
Speaker 1: the more involved people get, and the more able people are,
Speaker 1: the more willing people are to put their time and
Speaker 1: energy into it. Because that's what comes down to is
Speaker 1: like people out to like everyone's working and busy and
Speaker 1: their life life is hard and sucks, and so like
Speaker 1: do you have time to dedicate to show up to
Speaker 1: like talk to like if you why would you go
Speaker 1: to a union meeting if when you raise the concern
Speaker 1: like we want higher wages, and like the union like
Speaker 1: staffer doesn't care if you get higher wages because they're
Speaker 1: like while we're getting our union dudes, and like what
Speaker 1: what then do we care? Right, that's like a huge problem.
Speaker 1: And the part of the thing is that those problems
Speaker 1: don't get solved if they if they exist, because they
Speaker 1: that definitely exists. And and a lot of unions, more unions,
Speaker 1: and uh than not if the workers don't get organized together.
Speaker 1: Like right, we just saw a an election within the
Speaker 1: Teamsters International where uh the halfa uh Jimmy Haffa Jr.
Speaker 1: One of the half a kids was like president of
Speaker 1: the union and was this like not doing a great
Speaker 1: job and um, and like there was a rank and
Speaker 1: file like push to get that guy uh unelected, you know,
Speaker 1: and put it replaced with a rank and file worker
Speaker 1: who wants to put actual time and resources into organizing.
Speaker 1: You know. Like there's nothing sadder than a than like
Speaker 1: watching a union campaign failed because the union clearly is
Speaker 1: phoning it in, Like that's happened. I've seen it happen,
Speaker 1: not inside my union, but in other unions. And uh
Speaker 1: and I mean like at my workplace, there's several unions
Speaker 1: and I've seen I've seen a failed campaign and it's
Speaker 1: like obvious, like there's uh, you know, I'm not I
Speaker 1: don't co sign everything that someone like Jaye mccavalary. I
Speaker 1: think that's a share McCay clary has to say. She wrote,
Speaker 1: like no shortcuts. Um, I don't sign off and everything
Speaker 1: she has to say, but she has some really insightful things.
Speaker 1: It's like if you're not organizing to win, like you'll fail,
Speaker 1: and like you have to take this so seriously. And
Speaker 1: that's where like I'll say that, like, if you've got
Speaker 1: a choice between I'm going to put time into a
Speaker 1: political political campaign versus a union campaign, You're going to
Speaker 1: get way more bang for your buck. You're gonna get
Speaker 1: so much more experience, You're gonna get like a durable
Speaker 1: organization that's going to be around for years if you
Speaker 1: put that time into a union campaign. Because like, imagine
Speaker 1: winning an election right, um, except the politician you're running
Speaker 1: against is the incumbent and they can um basically drag
Speaker 1: every one of their constituents into like a meeting and
Speaker 1: tell them how awful you are all the time and
Speaker 1: lie and say whatever they want, and then they can,
Speaker 1: you know, do all kinds of tricks to like basically
Speaker 1: dismantle your campaign. So I guess like the thing that
Speaker 1: I would say is that like if you if you
Speaker 1: do it the right way and you actually win one
Speaker 1: of those campaigns, you're going to come out way ahead
Speaker 1: and sort of understanding like you have to talk to people.
Speaker 1: You have to be super organized. You have to know
Speaker 1: what people's issues are in their different targeting units. UM.
Speaker 1: You have to find people like part of like it's
Speaker 1: successful campaigns. I've been part of literally going on a
Speaker 1: search to go find like the people that need to
Speaker 1: be like signing cards and stuff. And you just have
Speaker 1: to be a very good listener, ready to talk and
Speaker 1: listen and hear what people have to say, um, and
Speaker 1: then turn that um information into knowledge and knowledge and
Speaker 1: power um and UM. I think that if you pull
Speaker 1: it off, you have done something substantially harder than say,
Speaker 1: like winning a school board election or something like that.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's it really is. It's like taking
Speaker 1: like those kind of skills that you would use to
Speaker 1: like win some sort of small municipal election, and it's
Speaker 1: like exponentially more hard because the rules are just so
Speaker 1: tilted against you winning. So if you are serious about it,
Speaker 1: if you're serious about changing the world, if you can't
Speaker 1: like someone, uh yeah, I think Murray Buckschen once said,
Speaker 1: if you can't run for dog catcher, you probably shouldn't
Speaker 1: be talking about revolution, you know. But I think that
Speaker 1: probably more you know, more appropriate to be like if
Speaker 1: you can't win a union election, you probably shouldn't be
Speaker 1: talking about revolution because even if you want to do
Speaker 1: all the things, you need to have the ability, the skills,
Speaker 1: the ability I mediate conflict, getting everyone on board to
Speaker 1: do the collective action that like you would need to
Speaker 1: do to successfully kind of like carry out. Like you know,
Speaker 1: it's one thing to have the the grand insurrection. It's
Speaker 1: the other thing to carry it forward and keep carrying
Speaker 1: it to the point where you're over the line you've
Speaker 1: completely changed the world, right, So and I think that
Speaker 1: and so I just think that like UM and I
Speaker 1: think that's similar things go with, like you know, tenant organizing,
Speaker 1: community organizing. There's various types of organizing that use those
Speaker 1: similar skills that you get in like a union campaign. UM.
Speaker 1: And it's just a very different type of UM politics
Speaker 1: and organization and skills that you would get from you know,
Speaker 1: showing up for your local justice down and you know,
Speaker 1: like knocking on the doors of strangers you'll never you
Speaker 1: may never speak to you again. You know, when you're
Speaker 1: talking with your coworkers, those are your coworkers. They are
Speaker 1: going to be there until you're you know, you retire
Speaker 1: or you're fired. Or you quit. So anyway, that's I
Speaker 1: guess that's another good takeaway I think from all this.
Speaker 1: So one thing I wanted to make sure to get
Speaker 1: to is, so I think there's a lot of people
Speaker 1: who are listening to this who working non union workplaces
Speaker 1: and want to try to start this, and I wanted
Speaker 1: to know what would be your recommendations for them. You know, how,
Speaker 1: how how do you start this process? What does this
Speaker 1: look like? In what kinds of conversations should you be
Speaker 1: having with your coworkers? Yeah, for sure. So, um, I
Speaker 1: think one of the first things that I think a
Speaker 1: lot of people, a lot of people don't understand is
Speaker 1: that there's an amount of risk and stuff too organizing
Speaker 1: and that you're like, first off, like you should be
Speaker 1: chill and like not like running around telling everyone you
Speaker 1: want a union, because that's a great way to lose
Speaker 1: your job. Um. I think the thing is is that
Speaker 1: you build relationships and find out what's happening, like just
Speaker 1: like you know, take from your experience and figure out
Speaker 1: what's like in uh, like, man, it really sucks, like
Speaker 1: I got like I got screwed over on my vacation
Speaker 1: requests or like I you know, man, our raises were
Speaker 1: really shitty this year, and I heard like, you know,
Speaker 1: boss talking about like how much like like they've made
Speaker 1: so much money that sort of thing. Um, So I
Speaker 1: think that it comes down to you have to be
Speaker 1: it's kind of like a combination of like like an
Speaker 1: investigative reporter and like someone who is just really good
Speaker 1: at like talking to people and just kind of like
Speaker 1: understanding what's making them tick and understanding also that maybe
Speaker 1: you're not the person who's going to get everyone on board,
Speaker 1: but that finding other people who every like I think
Speaker 1: the big thing is like who's like the most respected
Speaker 1: person on like in your work area that sort of thing,
Speaker 1: who like they know that the unit, or they know
Speaker 1: the work area, they've been there the longest, they have
Speaker 1: like the most experience. People look up to them. There
Speaker 1: are the people who train other people that sort of thing.
Speaker 1: Those are the people who everyone looks to when it
Speaker 1: comes down to these sorts of things. And you know,
Speaker 1: just you don't have to be friends with everybody, but
Speaker 1: like doing it's I think it's really good to just
Speaker 1: like two be open to you listening to everybody that
Speaker 1: you work with and finding out what it is that's
Speaker 1: really going on. Yes, I've noticed like in a lot
Speaker 1: of places that I've worked, like the bosses often don't
Speaker 1: really know what's going on either, like they and I
Speaker 1: think that that that's something they can give you if
Speaker 1: you understand how the process works and who's doing what
Speaker 1: and what people like need, that gives you like a
Speaker 1: big advantage over the bosses who just have no idea
Speaker 1: what's going on. Which I think, yeah, I think it's
Speaker 1: very it's very normal for bosses to really not know
Speaker 1: what's happening, and there's always someone who does like figuring
Speaker 1: out the people who really know how things work are
Speaker 1: like those are like the those are the people who, um,
Speaker 1: you want to be talking with and figuring out like
Speaker 1: where they kind of stand on things, and um, you know,
Speaker 1: I think like the first step is like just having
Speaker 1: good relationships and people trusting you and you know, you know,
Speaker 1: if you know, Like, I don't think everyone needs to
Speaker 1: be a superstar workers sort of thing to be a
Speaker 1: good union organizer. But like they always say, it's like
Speaker 1: people who have the most problems oftentimes are people that
Speaker 1: aren't don't make great organizers because people don't see them
Speaker 1: as people to follow. But um, um, but I think
Speaker 1: that it's important to just like talk with your to
Speaker 1: like just figure out what's going on first. That's your
Speaker 1: first step. Figure out what's going on? What are the
Speaker 1: things I mean? And you can come around together in
Speaker 1: you know, and like and how do you get people
Speaker 1: outside of the workplace? So you talk like how do you,
Speaker 1: like do you have like a group chat or signal
Speaker 1: chat or like a What's app chat or Facebook group?
Speaker 1: And where do you just like start kind of like
Speaker 1: and you know, be very care be careful about who's
Speaker 1: involved and just kind of like low key, just like
Speaker 1: start talking with folks and identifying to people who who
Speaker 1: are outside of your work area, who know people Like
Speaker 1: sometimes it's you know, you'll talk to people and they're like,
Speaker 1: I don't want to talk about a union, but you
Speaker 1: can be like, do you know anyone who cares? Who
Speaker 1: who has said anything about unions before? And so talking
Speaker 1: to people to find out who they know. Like these
Speaker 1: are all this kind of like crucial first steps to
Speaker 1: like organizing. And I think the thing is is that,
Speaker 1: like there have been times where you'll have a non
Speaker 1: union workplace where if the people in a particular area
Speaker 1: of of like a of like a hospital or like
Speaker 1: a workplace wherever we'll do some collective thing that gets
Speaker 1: some sort of results. So I think it's always like
Speaker 1: it's like, let's get people to sign off on a
Speaker 1: petition about like you know, like if of your coworkers
Speaker 1: are unhappy with like races or something like that. Like
Speaker 1: the more people that are involved in those first steps,
Speaker 1: the more likely it is that it won't result in
Speaker 1: retaliation and like you'll end up getting some sort of victory. Um.
Speaker 1: So I guess like the thing that I would say
Speaker 1: is just like be be ready for like people to
Speaker 1: look at greet you a skepticism because like it's it's hard,
Speaker 1: it's a hard thing to do, and um, always just
Speaker 1: be finding out what is bothering people and then look
Speaker 1: at little things that you can do to kind of
Speaker 1: like flex power, like to like collectively flex your power.
Speaker 1: And um, it can be as small as like everyone
Speaker 1: bringing up the same issue at like a work meeting, right,
Speaker 1: Like if you and it could be like, hey, let's
Speaker 1: talk about this at this work meeting. This is and
Speaker 1: if we all say something together like we're going to
Speaker 1: be fine. Right. Um, So, like starting with those first steps,
Speaker 1: I think it is the first like thing Like the
Speaker 1: first thing is know what's going on, build relationships, be
Speaker 1: a trustworthy person, Like you can't be like the unit
Speaker 1: gossip or the the work a gossip that like knows
Speaker 1: that's in everyone's business or stirring up stuff and be
Speaker 1: successful at this UM. But if you are, you know,
Speaker 1: if you're someone that people like trust or look to
Speaker 1: or you know, like a person that people are like
Speaker 1: they help solve our problems, those are the people who
Speaker 1: I mean, you're going to be well set to begin
Speaker 1: to kind of take the steps on that and then
Speaker 1: you know, as you kind of build those kind of
Speaker 1: like build that organization step by step. No, no union
Speaker 1: UM is going to invest the time in a union
Speaker 1: campaign if it's just you and like to other people
Speaker 1: like you need like you need to get a room.
Speaker 1: They're always say like, well, if you get a room
Speaker 1: full of people together, I'm willing to talk to them.
Speaker 1: And that's kind of the thing. And you know, Zoom
Speaker 1: and stuff has actually made that a little bit easier UM,
Speaker 1: which in some ways can be a weakness because you
Speaker 1: end up with like it's a lot less commitment to
Speaker 1: show up to a Zoom meeting that it is to
Speaker 1: UM to show up at like a bar or a
Speaker 1: place to work UM or a church or wherever it's
Speaker 1: like a good like like neutral, safe place and people
Speaker 1: feel like they can be honest with each other about
Speaker 1: what's going on. UM. But at the same time, just
Speaker 1: like being the more the the more people you get
Speaker 1: on board with the thing, the more likely that it
Speaker 1: will succeed. You'll attract support from like an actual union
Speaker 1: that m is able to help you if you decide
Speaker 1: that that's how you want to do it, or if
Speaker 1: that makes sense in a legal context. And so I
Speaker 1: just like always like start small, figure out the small things,
Speaker 1: be willing to do like collective action to get little
Speaker 1: small victories. And that's a great way to get started,
Speaker 1: I think, and then like really do like sleuthing and research,
Speaker 1: like figure out how things actually work. UM. That's like
Speaker 1: you know, that was a problem with the best Market
Speaker 1: campaign down in uh down in Alabama with those Amazon
Speaker 1: workers is they didn't know how many people worked at
Speaker 1: that facility, and then all of a sudden, they're like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: we're going to include like an extra thousand people on
Speaker 1: this vote, you know, like six weeks out, and you know,
Speaker 1: like I don't want to I don't want to take
Speaker 1: a dump on the people who did that. But like,
Speaker 1: if you don't know that there's like another thousand people
Speaker 1: or you don't have like everyone on board, you're not
Speaker 1: going to succeed. So no, everything you can as you're
Speaker 1: going in and do everything you can to find out
Speaker 1: things or make buddies with the friends buddies of the
Speaker 1: people who are gonna you know, know these things and
Speaker 1: you know, and then support each other, like it means
Speaker 1: showing up and like someone. Sometimes what we do during
Speaker 1: these campaigns is someone will will have the contact for
Speaker 1: someone who's interested, and then your job is to go
Speaker 1: and find that person where they work and talk with
Speaker 1: them and then talk with them while they talk with
Speaker 1: their coworkers, or back up them while they're talking to
Speaker 1: the co workers, because they trust their their co workers,
Speaker 1: trust their coworker. You know, you're a random stranger, you know,
Speaker 1: And then like don't be afraid to say, I don't know,
Speaker 1: but I will find out. Right, there's like this there's
Speaker 1: this pressure I think to like have all the answers
Speaker 1: to like whatever people's questions are. And I think that
Speaker 1: it's like, um, I think that it's like I think
Speaker 1: that it's important to be honest when you don't understand,
Speaker 1: but then do the work of figuring out the answers
Speaker 1: for people. Um, and I think people respect that. And
Speaker 1: you know a lot of people who are vocally against
Speaker 1: these sorts of things up front, it's because they don't know.
Speaker 1: And if you you know, you're like, no, we've got
Speaker 1: a right to do this, or like, you know, the
Speaker 1: the you know, a management will say things like managion
Speaker 1: will say things like oh you will, um, you know,
Speaker 1: the union will get in between our relationship with you know,
Speaker 1: with you and us, right, And the point is is
Speaker 1: that like, well, the union is us where the cod
Speaker 1: where the people doing it, like everyone running. You can't
Speaker 1: run a union if you don't have a bunch of
Speaker 1: people involved from the workplace. And it's like and making
Speaker 1: sure that people who are um, those people who end
Speaker 1: up being kind of like spokespersons for everyone else, are
Speaker 1: people that folks trust and they have like a good
Speaker 1: like grasp of what everyone wants and yeah, so yeah,
Speaker 1: and then like you know, don't get bogged down in
Speaker 1: the legal ship. Like you know, collective action really is
Speaker 1: like your most powerful tool, um, all the other kind
Speaker 1: of like the grievances and that's some stuff. It's important
Speaker 1: and you can't let it go. But it's also like
Speaker 1: it's designed to kind of grind people down. So um,
Speaker 1: you know, the more collective action you take, like, the
Speaker 1: more likely it is that you're going to be successful
Speaker 1: and keep people engaged and excited. Yeah, going back to
Speaker 1: what you were saying earlier, this might mind up being
Speaker 1: last episode depending on where this breaks down time wise,
Speaker 1: But yeah, I think it's also it's just this is
Speaker 1: going to take time and a lot of work, and
Speaker 1: I think it's it's it's important age to understand going
Speaker 1: in that this is a long and difficult process. It's
Speaker 1: not gonna happen overnight and be that it's a lot
Speaker 1: of work, Like you have to there's there's a lot
Speaker 1: of things that you have to do. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of sort of logistics, there's a lot of talking, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of like negotiating, there's a lot of sort
Speaker 1: of I mean just just even I don't know, before
Speaker 1: anything gets off the ground, you have to spend enormous
Speaker 1: amounts of time and effort doing stuff. And that's that's
Speaker 1: that's like it's just the reality of it. So yeah,
Speaker 1: there's there's no there's there's no there's there's there's there's
Speaker 1: no magic bullet, like there's no sort of yeah, there's
Speaker 1: there's no just like one thing you can do that
Speaker 1: like magically makes a U need appear. It's a bunch
Speaker 1: of people coming together and like fighting for it for
Speaker 1: a long time. Yeah, I think that that's like the
Speaker 1: main thing is like you're it's it's a cliche, that's
Speaker 1: like it's a marathon not as prints. Um. Sometimes I
Speaker 1: hate when people say that ship, but it's true, like
Speaker 1: you you really do have like, um, you're in it
Speaker 1: for the long haul, and a lot of times it's
Speaker 1: like your people are ready to do these things when
Speaker 1: they're like this is like I don't want you know,
Speaker 1: it's one thing to pop up in a place and
Speaker 1: be there for like you know, six months, be like
Speaker 1: I need a we need a union, right, No one
Speaker 1: you know that works at that place, trust you. They
Speaker 1: don't know who you are, Like they're not going to
Speaker 1: follow you to do anything or you know, or take
Speaker 1: you you know, follow your lead. Um, it's the people
Speaker 1: who are like I'm gonna be here, this is my
Speaker 1: this is where I want to be, and you know,
Speaker 1: this is a I want to be here for the
Speaker 1: next two years and think of it as like a
Speaker 1: long term investment in the quality of your life and
Speaker 1: the quality of life at your workplace, because to win,
Speaker 1: you have to be sticking around, you know. And I
Speaker 1: think that's where it gets tough with people who are
Speaker 1: in like precarious types of employment or different types of
Speaker 1: and that's you have to start looking at alternate ways
Speaker 1: to organize because maybe you're a precarious worker who does
Speaker 1: maybe you drive, like for a rideshare service, or maybe
Speaker 1: you like do delivery or like you know, um for
Speaker 1: an app or whatever, you delivered for an app. And
Speaker 1: I think the thing is is like that sort of
Speaker 1: thing because of how and you know, these aren't like
Speaker 1: new forms of work. This is actually really old forms
Speaker 1: of work that are just like been like rebranded by
Speaker 1: tech bros who have decided like they're like they're like
Speaker 1: they're great geniuses like rebranding the kind of like precarious
Speaker 1: work that was really like prominent like throughout the nineteenth century.
Speaker 1: And it's like, so then what do you do is
Speaker 1: you come up with ways to organize people regardless of
Speaker 1: like oh, like I'm you know, I work for this,
Speaker 1: like I work for Lift or I work for Uber,
Speaker 1: and it kind of switches back and forth. Like the
Speaker 1: thing is, it's like that's when you start talking with
Speaker 1: you know, rideshare drivers across different like apps or whatever,
Speaker 1: and then you come up with a way to work
Speaker 1: collectively um to to change sorts of things. And sometimes
Speaker 1: that's it's gonna be it's gonna be tough, you know,
Speaker 1: And that's when I kind of look at those that
Speaker 1: sort of thing is like this is where it's a
Speaker 1: learning experience and maybe I don't get everything I want,
Speaker 1: but you know, it's really important. I mean, it's like
Speaker 1: building these networks that people who care about like what
Speaker 1: they're working conditions are like, and you can pull things
Speaker 1: off maybe unexpectedly that you didn't expect. We're going to
Speaker 1: be like the thing, you know, like you may start
Speaker 1: with something that looks like a union drive and then
Speaker 1: you end up with something that looks like very different.
Speaker 1: It could you know, could go in all sorts of
Speaker 1: different directions. So um you know there and look outside
Speaker 1: of the US, you know their countries where like in
Speaker 1: UM I think that there have been some pretty successful
Speaker 1: delivery app or going to organizing in London UM and
Speaker 1: you know, I think that to a certain extent, like
Speaker 1: formal extent, US unions have not been very successful in
Speaker 1: organizing those workers because it doesn't it's hard to do
Speaker 1: from the extant business union model, and so it's like
Speaker 1: it's one of those things where you know it used
Speaker 1: to be you know, they would have like you know,
Speaker 1: the fight would be instead of trying to get like
Speaker 1: workers are like a contract at a particular like work site,
Speaker 1: you'd set up a hiring hall, like the i w
Speaker 1: W would set up hiring halls UM and like you know,
Speaker 1: for lumberjacks and that sort of thing, and those workers
Speaker 1: are always precarious, right, but they would go trying set
Speaker 1: up so that like people would only take jobs out
Speaker 1: of the hiring hall, and that's how they would control
Speaker 1: their like their work. And I think that more unions needed.
Speaker 1: And part of this is like if there's any union
Speaker 1: people out there who are in staff and that sort
Speaker 1: of thing, is like there needs to be a serious
Speaker 1: examination of how we do unions in this country. And
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people inside unions understand that,
Speaker 1: but no one has quite done it yet in a
Speaker 1: way that's effective and I think that we really do
Speaker 1: need to kind of re evaluate that sort of stuff.
Speaker 1: So just you know, as someone who's going into like
Speaker 1: a new sort of organizing campaign, just understand that like
Speaker 1: getting the union contract isn't necessarily the end gold end
Speaker 1: goal is to try and get your boss to do
Speaker 1: things differently so that you're not like miserable at work.
Speaker 1: And that might look like a contract, or it might
Speaker 1: look like you know, a a one day like uh,
Speaker 1: you know, app strike or something like that. You know,
Speaker 1: you'll you'll figure you've got to figure out how it's
Speaker 1: going to work. Like with you know, in healthcare, you know,
Speaker 1: there's this idea that like, you know, there's the gold
Speaker 1: standard of the strike where you strike until we win
Speaker 1: and we're out for like you know, like two or
Speaker 1: three months. Well, the problem is that there's an industry
Speaker 1: of scab nurses and health care workers where at any
Speaker 1: point they can bring in people to replace enough of
Speaker 1: you that a hospital can maintain operations. And unless you're
Speaker 1: super organized like they were up in um Buffalo, uh
Speaker 1: with c W A like, and have a big network
Speaker 1: of people and you're ready to go to like you know,
Speaker 1: like picket board members houses and that sort of stuff. Um,
Speaker 1: those long term strikes can end and defeat where you
Speaker 1: end up with you know, you're all replaced with scabs,
Speaker 1: and and it sucks and it's happened, and then you
Speaker 1: gotta I guess you gotta learn from it, you know,
Speaker 1: like we've there was a famous strike in Minnesota with
Speaker 1: healthcare workers and they went out and they were out
Speaker 1: for months and months, and there are people on you know,
Speaker 1: going to the super kitchen to feed their kids and stuff,
Speaker 1: and they lost right. And so my union tends to
Speaker 1: do one day strikes, but instead of just being at
Speaker 1: one hospital, we organized multiple hospitals across the country so
Speaker 1: that it soaks up all the like the scat drives
Speaker 1: up right, scabs, and it really like that. I think
Speaker 1: ideas like intermittent strikes we're actually a really powerful tool.
Speaker 1: Back when you know, back when it was the c
Speaker 1: I oh, and it was like we're going to just
Speaker 1: stop working until you fix this problem. Um, And that's
Speaker 1: why they made them illegal. And it takes a lot
Speaker 1: of work to pull them off. But if you can't
Speaker 1: pull them off, that could be an effective way. And
Speaker 1: if you're not in a union, maybe getting people down
Speaker 1: for a one day like work stoppage at your work
Speaker 1: or even you know, maybe it's like we're not starting
Speaker 1: our shift, right. I've been in the room. I've been
Speaker 1: in the room where it's like, no, we're not going
Speaker 1: out to take that assignment until like we get our
Speaker 1: staff situation set up like fixed. And you know, sometimes
Speaker 1: it's just those collective actions are you know, it's not
Speaker 1: the end, Like there's no end. I'll be all one
Speaker 1: size fits all solution. Just be ready to kind of
Speaker 1: like explore what it means, get all the resources you can.
Speaker 1: There's groups like there's still like the Industrial Workers of
Speaker 1: the World, which has really good organizing trainings OT one
Speaker 1: on one one of too. I'll pitch that as a
Speaker 1: member of as a also a dual carding member of
Speaker 1: the i w w UM. But there's also Labor notes
Speaker 1: UM and other groups like Essential Workers Organizing Committee that's
Speaker 1: sort of things that like give you good like rundowns
Speaker 1: on how to do the organizing work. So just be careful,
Speaker 1: always be careful, to be aware that people are afraid.
Speaker 1: Bosses use fear um to scare you guys, to scare everybody,
Speaker 1: and like the the more people on board with a
Speaker 1: thing the less fear. Like it's amazing when you're running
Speaker 1: up into a strike and you're really firing on all
Speaker 1: cylinders and like everyone in your like work areas like
Speaker 1: we're getting together to take a picture, like getting ready
Speaker 1: to go on strike, and it's like literally, i mean
Speaker 1: when we went on strike, when our hospital went on strike,
Speaker 1: it was the first time where like there was like
Speaker 1: nurses on one places, the first time when all of
Speaker 1: us were in one place ever. And it's this massive,
Speaker 1: like coming together thing experience. It's and it's really hard
Speaker 1: to describe when you when because you know, we're always
Speaker 1: griping at each other about this or that thing's like,
Speaker 1: but when you're actually all out there together at the
Speaker 1: same time, when you pull it off, it's really amazing. Um.
Speaker 1: It's hard, it's it's hard to describe, um. But when
Speaker 1: you do it, it's like it's like the purest drug.
Speaker 1: And so I've I've heard some people who are union
Speaker 1: skeptical be like, well, you just experienced like the good ship,
Speaker 1: and like what about all the defeats, Like, well, get
Speaker 1: the little hits, get the little hits here and there,
Speaker 1: and get yourself to the point where you can do
Speaker 1: the big thing. You know, you're the whole thing is
Speaker 1: like getting people to do the thing is like the
Speaker 1: is it's like the perennial uh you know, curse of
Speaker 1: the left, can you do it? Or curse of you know,
Speaker 1: like the organizer activists or you know, whatever you wanna
Speaker 1: call it. You know, it's just but you know, if
Speaker 1: you don't do anything, nothing happens. You can all sit
Speaker 1: and complain and nothing changes. So you know, the only
Speaker 1: way to changes things just take those complaints and turn
Speaker 1: them into collective action. Yeah, I think I think that's
Speaker 1: that's that That that that that's that's a pretty good
Speaker 1: positive note to end on. Just go do thing. Go
Speaker 1: do the thing now. Stop tweet stop tweeting, stop tweeting
Speaker 1: about it, Go do the thing. Um yeah, I think
Speaker 1: that's I Like, I guess one last thing because I
Speaker 1: talked about social media and talk you know, I talked smack.
Speaker 1: I like, I've been off Twitter for some months now,
Speaker 1: is it really cleared my brain? But you know, um,
Speaker 1: being on finding the social media space where your your
Speaker 1: coworkers are at is really important and that might mean
Speaker 1: setting up like a discord or you know, what's app
Speaker 1: or a Facebook group you can set up secret Facebook
Speaker 1: groups that no one can see, and yeah, like you like,
Speaker 1: Facebook will periodically shut them down. But like our hospital
Speaker 1: has like a like a Facebook group with like two
Speaker 1: thousand nurses and we and that's where we really amped up.
Speaker 1: And it was a way for us to be talking
Speaker 1: with each other and talk each other through, um, the
Speaker 1: stress of setting up you know, this thing. And then
Speaker 1: also like you know, people workers can't organize like like
Speaker 1: people will do organizing even if like they don't have
Speaker 1: like that full support. So like some coworkers that coworkers,
Speaker 1: but members of my union went on strike at Coke
Speaker 1: County this year, and the whole thing was organized practically
Speaker 1: without like staff, right because the staff were barred from
Speaker 1: being in meetings, like in person meetings because of COVID
Speaker 1: and they couldn't go into the hospital because of COVID.
Speaker 1: So people were very pissed about how things have been
Speaker 1: going and they were talking to each other and we
Speaker 1: organized that strike. They organized that strike on their own practically, Um,
Speaker 1: you know, it lined up. They were off there. You know,
Speaker 1: they didn't have that no strike clause like operating at
Speaker 1: the time, and um, and they pulled off like a
Speaker 1: pretty like a significant victory UM from there one day
Speaker 1: strike and it really um really you know, like got
Speaker 1: them some big wins. But and they didn't they didn't
Speaker 1: need the union to do it for them. You know,
Speaker 1: the union was kind of like a facilitation tool rather
Speaker 1: than like the thing that got it done. I think
Speaker 1: that's the other thing is that there are people who
Speaker 1: think that like it's all dependent on like having like
Speaker 1: this hero staffer sort of thing situation, and at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, like if it's not the workers
Speaker 1: doing it themselves, nothing's going to happen. Yeah, yeah, right,
Speaker 1: the power. The power is with the working class itself,
Speaker 1: and if the working class doesn't use it, nothing will
Speaker 1: ever happen. Yeah, but if it does use it, I
Speaker 1: will trail off here. It sounds good. So, John, is
Speaker 1: is there any place that you want people to find
Speaker 1: things that you do? Like? Yea, I used to be
Speaker 1: on Twitter. Um periodically will show up on uh varn vlog,
Speaker 1: which is uh see Derek Varnes vlog on YouTube. Um
Speaker 1: there's I recommend people UH listen to. There's a group
Speaker 1: of podcasts called the Emancipatient Network. I really like their stuff,
Speaker 1: specially UM. There's a what's it called General Intellect Unit,
Speaker 1: which talks about like cybernetics and the left. UM. They
Speaker 1: have a lot of particularly cool stuff that's just come
Speaker 1: out recently about UM, about strategy that I think is
Speaker 1: really important for everyone to understand. UM. I was a
Speaker 1: founding member of the UH Libertarian Socialist Caucus at d
Speaker 1: s A. But I'm no longer in d s A.
Speaker 1: There's a but that group is still kind of kicking around.
Speaker 1: We're coming up with new things. Uh. Then then I guess, like, um,
Speaker 1: the University of Chicago Labor Council is a group that
Speaker 1: I spend a lot of time with. And there's also
Speaker 1: a tennency unit at Highe Park with Loan, which is
Speaker 1: a tenant union that you helped set up. And to hell. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you know, um, go out there and you know,
Speaker 1: don't don't listen to me or don't try and find
Speaker 1: follow me. Go like you go figure it out and
Speaker 1: you're our neighborhood and ye, and set up a mill,
Speaker 1: set up a million different you know, like labor councils
Speaker 1: and worker committees and tenant unions that yeah, like build
Speaker 1: build power. That's why I think I sometimes we are
Speaker 1: afraid of the term power. I think that power is
Speaker 1: that it's best when it's everybody. And so I guess
Speaker 1: I might say it's like, go out there and build
Speaker 1: community and worker power and um, don't be afraid because
Speaker 1: fear is the one thing that they've got to wave
Speaker 1: over our heads. And sometimes you just got to take
Speaker 1: that jump and do the thing. And uh and that's
Speaker 1: how we're hopefully going to win one day save the world.
Speaker 1: And you can do this just like all of these things,
Speaker 1: everything we've been talking about for the past like two hours,
Speaker 1: these were all just done by ordinary people. Like there's
Speaker 1: just there's there's it's all. It's all done by random people.
Speaker 1: And you know that random person can be you. You
Speaker 1: just have to go and do go to the thing. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So yeah, this that this has been it could happen here.
Speaker 1: You can find us on Twitter at Happened Here pod
Speaker 1: and also on Instagram there and uh yeah there's other
Speaker 1: cool zone stuff. Oh I guess yeah, well there's there's
Speaker 1: there's a new show called Mega Corp. That that we
Speaker 1: have that's about how corporations are bad, and the first
Speaker 1: seasons about Amazon. It's out now. Okay, he just doesn't
Speaker 1: have a Twitter, but Yeah, it's it's called Mega Corp.
Speaker 1: And you can find it wherever fine podcasts are distributed. Yes, okay, bye,
Speaker 1: m welcome everybody too. It could happen here. Um podcast
Speaker 1: about I don't know, how things are kind of kind
Speaker 1: of kind of crumbling and how we can maybe put it,
Speaker 1: put stuff, put stuff back together. And today I am
Speaker 1: excited to talk with a senior let's see what is
Speaker 1: what is what? What is the actual? What's actual term?
Speaker 1: I saw it A senior programs strategist at Wikimedia, Alex Stinson. Hello, greetings, Hi,
Speaker 1: it's so good to be here. I'm very excited about
Speaker 1: our talk today because I mean, this should this should
Speaker 1: surprise nobody that I used to I used to be
Speaker 1: a Wikipedia editor back in the day. Not not shocking
Speaker 1: at all, if if if you know me. Um, but yeah,
Speaker 1: we're gonna be talking about what kind of Wikipedia just itself,
Speaker 1: and then also climate misinformation and disinformation and how we
Speaker 1: can maybe create a better understanding of climate change in
Speaker 1: its effects across kind of the world and how digital
Speaker 1: information works. Those are all kind of topics we talk
Speaker 1: about often enough, but never within the actual context of
Speaker 1: like Wikipedia as an entity. Um, so I guess let's
Speaker 1: let's just start there with with Wikipedia. And like for
Speaker 1: those who don't, maybe maybe people like use website, but
Speaker 1: they're not quite sure what it is. Like how how
Speaker 1: do you actually describe what Wikipedia is? Because it is
Speaker 1: like an interesting kind of amorphous entity. It's so many things. Um,
Speaker 1: I think most people are used to thinking about Wikipedia
Speaker 1: is like the fact checking device. Like I have a
Speaker 1: bar argument with my friends and I pull out my
Speaker 1: phone and yeah, yeah website at me. Right, Um, it's
Speaker 1: a lot of things. It's three language Wikipedia's. Actually it's
Speaker 1: not just one. Each of these communities has its own
Speaker 1: editorial community. Um. At last I checked, it's like sixty
Speaker 1: million articles across the languages. It's it's really it's a
Speaker 1: lot of different content. Um. And a topic can be
Speaker 1: on each of those Wikipedia's right. Um. And this is
Speaker 1: important as we start talking about disinformation. Is like each
Speaker 1: Wikipedia because it's edited by people in that language, and
Speaker 1: it's written by that language community. Um. You know each
Speaker 1: article is different and have different perspectives. Um. Two d
Speaker 1: eighty thousand volunteers editing every month. Uh so this is
Speaker 1: a lot of people, right, But the bulk of that's
Speaker 1: happening on English, Wikipedia, and some of the larger languages
Speaker 1: that are spoken across multiple cultural context And then there's
Speaker 1: also a lot of other content sitting behind Wikipedia. So
Speaker 1: there's a media repository, um. And there's a we called
Speaker 1: Wikimedia Commons, and there's a database called wiki Data, which
Speaker 1: kind of powers those little knowledge graphs on the right
Speaker 1: side of Google and a whole bunch of other parts
Speaker 1: of the Internet. Wiki data shows up in Amazon, Alexa
Speaker 1: and all kinds of other places, right and and so
Speaker 1: it's it's we're not just like one website. It's many websites,
Speaker 1: lots of knowledge, lots of platforms, lots of context. Um.
Speaker 1: And we'll come back to that the more as we talked. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what really interesting part of it is like I don't
Speaker 1: know my my personal kind of social leanings. I generally
Speaker 1: kind of like things that are more decentralized in general. Um.
Speaker 1: Other other hosts in the podcast are generally kind of
Speaker 1: on like the progressive left libertarian spectrum. Um. And one
Speaker 1: thing I do really appreciate about Wikipedia is is it's
Speaker 1: more like it's It's not I I don't think it's
Speaker 1: like open source, but it's the way it has decentralized
Speaker 1: editing and all that kind of stuff. It's just a
Speaker 1: really interesting model of of like what if a lot
Speaker 1: more stuff worked this way? And I'm not sure like
Speaker 1: how how much like a decentralization focus is there, like
Speaker 1: consciously at people at the foundation and people who try
Speaker 1: to like actually like run it behind the scenes and stuff. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So Wikipedia grows out of the like open source movement
Speaker 1: and the kind of early days of the Internet. Right,
Speaker 1: this idea that like knowledge wants to be free, technology
Speaker 1: wants to be free, software wants to be free. Um,
Speaker 1: let's let's use the legal infrastructure to like create freedom,
Speaker 1: right uh in that sense. And then there's also the
Speaker 1: free as in like anyone can edit, and then the
Speaker 1: free to like do whatever you want out there in
Speaker 1: the world. Um. There there's people are like free as
Speaker 1: in beer and free as in speech, right uh, and
Speaker 1: those things are those things are also there's they're always
Speaker 1: intention uh and they're kind of working. And as you
Speaker 1: can imagine, especially when you get outside of kind of
Speaker 1: multicultural Internet spaces like English Wikipedia, um, it can get challenging.
Speaker 1: Like if you're in Croatia and everyone is speaking Croatian,
Speaker 1: there's a very small bubble in which to create that
Speaker 1: Wikipedia right, um. And so it's interesting in that sense. Um.
Speaker 1: I think there's also another part of Wikipedia that a
Speaker 1: lot of people don't see, which is the movement behind it.
Speaker 1: So there's the editorial communities. People show up and make edits. Um.
Speaker 1: But because there's this ideology that you're talking about, this
Speaker 1: like decentralized, like we need to share knowledge or culture
Speaker 1: or language on the Internet, there's also a whole social
Speaker 1: movement sitting behind the scenes. Uh. And there there's a
Speaker 1: podcast recently dot com The Wikipedia Story that kind of
Speaker 1: captured that the essence of that, um. And it's it's
Speaker 1: a lot of people like myself, So I started editing
Speaker 1: in high school. Yeah, yeah, one of those like, oh
Speaker 1: I know how to click the edit button and I
Speaker 1: figure out how to use the Internet and that kind
Speaker 1: of thing. But there's a lot of people that like
Speaker 1: the intuitiveness of clicking and edit button on a piece
Speaker 1: of open source software to create content is just not
Speaker 1: It's not clear, right, And so you have to organize
Speaker 1: and invite people in. And so we have a whole
Speaker 1: movement that does that too. That there's about a hundred
Speaker 1: organizations around the world that we organize events, work with
Speaker 1: libraries and museums and educational institutions, and so there's always
Speaker 1: this um kind of interesting dynamic where our values, which
Speaker 1: is this like open software platform stuff has also lived
Speaker 1: in our practice, in our outreach, like creating change through
Speaker 1: society by sharing knowledge and education. Um. And so I think, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's an interesting it's an interesting dynamic. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think that does create a really oftentimes beautiful reflection.
Speaker 1: It could it can have some dark sides different once
Speaker 1: in a while, but it is it is really nice
Speaker 1: to have like kind of the ideology driving it being
Speaker 1: reflected in the actions of operating it and spreading it
Speaker 1: and that kind of thing. Um. So this is something
Speaker 1: we kind of briefly touched on already, but I think
Speaker 1: I'd like to move on to kind of why, like
Speaker 1: how climate change in broader like social issues are covered
Speaker 1: on Wikipedia, because you already mentioned like it's kind because
Speaker 1: there's not a Wikipedia, there's many based on different languages
Speaker 1: in places. It feels like to me, whenever social issues
Speaker 1: kind of get covered on Wikipedia, it's going to be
Speaker 1: in some part like a local reflection of whatever is
Speaker 1: in that area. You know, if if there's like a
Speaker 1: white liberal writing articles in New York, it's gonna be
Speaker 1: different than someone you know, halfway across the world writing
Speaker 1: them in you know, a much smaller country, let's say,
Speaker 1: like Belarus, who's under like what I would call a dictatorship.
Speaker 1: Um so that's gonna change kind of the nature of
Speaker 1: what people are making because of that kind of divide.
Speaker 1: So how how does that kind of crop up and
Speaker 1: is there any like solutions to that or because because
Speaker 1: the because of the decentralized thing, it's like, how much
Speaker 1: can we like impose like who like I'm I'm, I'm
Speaker 1: I'm not in Belarus? How much can I impose what
Speaker 1: I want their Wikipedia to look like? Yeah, there's kind
Speaker 1: of two or three dynamics you're you're touching on here.
Speaker 1: The first is because there's kind of an intention bias,
Speaker 1: Like something comes up in the news, and our Wikipedia community,
Speaker 1: like people are within minutes of breaking news stories are
Speaker 1: usually like editing the page, working to improve it. Right.
Speaker 1: Um So if things show up in the you know,
Speaker 1: European American press, it's very likely, especially something like English
Speaker 1: Wikipedia will pick up on it and immediately cover it.
Speaker 1: And because there are multiple perspectives in those press usually um,
Speaker 1: kind of the ideological uh kind of multi sided nice
Speaker 1: like works itself out because there's a lot of eyes
Speaker 1: and a lot of people who know how to edit there, right,
Speaker 1: um on in a kind of cultural linguistic geographic context
Speaker 1: where there's like one set of stories and there's not
Speaker 1: a lot of diversity. Um uh, this this happens. And
Speaker 1: and I'm going to refer to the creation Wikipedia because
Speaker 1: we we actually had an external researcher look at Croatian
Speaker 1: Wikipedia because part of it has been kind of caught
Speaker 1: by by folks with kind of very ideological leanings in
Speaker 1: a way that's excluding others. And this is not good, right.
Speaker 1: It creates a very one sided information environment and it
Speaker 1: really reflects um, kind of the news dynamic going on there.
Speaker 1: So when like breaking news happens, or when a topic
Speaker 1: like a social issue or not neces like climate change
Speaker 1: is not a social issue, right, this is a global
Speaker 1: like life threatening issue. Um. When when something becomes politicized,
Speaker 1: it's very easy for especially in smaller language wikipedias, for
Speaker 1: few people to kind of swing the whole perspective on that. Um. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's this breaking news issue and this is where are
Speaker 1: kind of organized communities are really important. So the example
Speaker 1: we when I point out of this working well UM
Speaker 1: is in medicine. So are our medical community during the
Speaker 1: all the outbreaks a few years back, UM in West Africa,
Speaker 1: we're able to organize both on English and then languages
Speaker 1: that were accessible for local communities, high quality coverage of
Speaker 1: the medical content because it's like has impact on people's lives,
Speaker 1: and so they recruited translators. They thought about, like what's
Speaker 1: a simple way to communicate the story UM in that context,
Speaker 1: and like what do the workers, the or the advocates
Speaker 1: or whoever on the ground who's working with that crisis,
Speaker 1: what knowledge do they need? Right? UM? And you see
Speaker 1: like other open technology movements do stuff like this, like
Speaker 1: humanitarian Open Streetmap has a similar kind of way of organizing.
Speaker 1: They're like, hey, there's a crisis happening, UM, let's pull
Speaker 1: people together from different parts of the world who have
Speaker 1: the right knowledge or skills and like address the knowledge gap. UM,
Speaker 1: so so you can solve it. It's just it's complicated. UM.
Speaker 1: And you know, we've been trying to address as a
Speaker 1: movement what we call the gender gap. So there's both
Speaker 1: less women editors as women's content on many of the wikis,
Speaker 1: and like, it's taken years, and it's very hard to organize,
Speaker 1: and even when there's investment in it, um, it's it's
Speaker 1: challenging to make substantial progress because there might be contextual
Speaker 1: issues around it too. And so you can't just like
Speaker 1: drop in on a Central Asian language with a like
Speaker 1: Western perspective and expect to like change the culture of
Speaker 1: the wiki overnight. You have to engage with it consistently
Speaker 1: and be persistent and work on it over and over
Speaker 1: and over again. We are going to take a short
Speaker 1: break to hear a message from our lovely lovely advertisers
Speaker 1: unless it's exomobile again, but we will be back shortly, Okay,
Speaker 1: and we're back. Um. One one thing that we cover
Speaker 1: decently part of my job and and and Robert Evans
Speaker 1: job is disinformation and misinformation and how that type of
Speaker 1: stuff spreads online, um, particularly you usually kind of linked
Speaker 1: to like political extremism um or conspiracy theories or you know,
Speaker 1: in that general kind of bubble um. And so, what
Speaker 1: what type of kind of climate misinformation has really been
Speaker 1: festering on various you know wikipedias across the world really
Speaker 1: because like we were just were talking about like these
Speaker 1: topics and how and how and like why it happens,
Speaker 1: but like what are the main types of misinformation or
Speaker 1: disinformation that is much more like prevalent. Yeah. Um, so
Speaker 1: the first is just kind of neglect of uh, content
Speaker 1: that's happening across the various things related to climate. Um.
Speaker 1: But we've identified on English Wikipedia over three thousand, seven
Speaker 1: hundred articles that are directly related to climate change. Uh.
Speaker 1: We don't have a very big editorial community in English
Speaker 1: on that topic. That's like interesting fluent in the science
Speaker 1: and fluent and the other stuff. And then you go
Speaker 1: out to the other languages and like some of the
Speaker 1: languages have like three thousand of them, some of them
Speaker 1: have like two hundred, right, um, And so there is
Speaker 1: both um and some of that content was like translated
Speaker 1: several years ago, right or five or ten years ago,
Speaker 1: and yeah, you know, and like the climate rhetoric has
Speaker 1: really changed it and like numbers and statistics all that
Speaker 1: stuff gets updated every year, and it's yeah, that is
Speaker 1: there is there's there's a lot to cap with and
Speaker 1: like reading the IPCC report or looking at any of
Speaker 1: the consensus science, there's like a lot of change that
Speaker 1: you have to be influent in, like science communication, you
Speaker 1: have to understand like where to look for the information. Um.
Speaker 1: And it's interesting. My partner is a Spanish language speaker
Speaker 1: and she was in a kind of workshop for journalists
Speaker 1: in Argentina for climate communication, and the work shop is like, oh,
Speaker 1: you should cite the Guardian, right, so even as to
Speaker 1: to kind of understand this climate stuff. So a lot
Speaker 1: of these local language contexts, there aren't even good sources,
Speaker 1: and the sources they do have are often citing like
Speaker 1: the dominant narrative that's going on and like the anglophone
Speaker 1: news cycle, right, because there's not a lot of climate
Speaker 1: communication going on, and so there's just a lot of
Speaker 1: complexity involved in updating that much content all the time. Um.
Speaker 1: And so the bulk of the stuff that kind of
Speaker 1: creeps in is like this neglect, right. It's like some
Speaker 1: dominant idea in the narrative just hasn't been updated and
Speaker 1: like we need someone to update it. Um. And that's
Speaker 1: like an organizing problem, right, that's uh, like we need
Speaker 1: more people who are science literate, who speak the local language,
Speaker 1: who understand how to edit Wikipedia. Um. And that's trainable,
Speaker 1: like we can do that. Yeah. The reason that matters,
Speaker 1: the neglect matters is it stops people from making decisions
Speaker 1: about climate change because they don't have like an accurate
Speaker 1: sense of what we need to do, right, which is
Speaker 1: cut the false fuels, increase increased resilience, do adaptation like
Speaker 1: actual political change, right. Um. And so so that that's
Speaker 1: just it's a problem. Um. The other stuff is a
Speaker 1: bit more it's a little bit more complicated. Um. One
Speaker 1: of the things that happens is that, as you know,
Speaker 1: there's quite a manipulation of narrative that has happened around
Speaker 1: climate change. There's this really great podcast by Amy Westervelt
Speaker 1: about how the fossil fuel industry like got its message
Speaker 1: into schools in the last three years in the US,
Speaker 1: and like that narrative is just so prevalent. And so
Speaker 1: one of the things about wikipedias that we try to
Speaker 1: do a balance of positions. If there are reputable sources
Speaker 1: kind of describing or analyzing a topic, and this is
Speaker 1: back to your polarization question too. If they're reputable sources
Speaker 1: describing on topic, we try to give them equal weight
Speaker 1: and balance across the article. The problem with climate is
Speaker 1: that some of the narratives that look like reputable sources
Speaker 1: are just pumped out of fossil fuel industry funded sink tanks, right,
Speaker 1: and these things are not truthful narratives, right. Um. And
Speaker 1: so the BBC ran an article, uh two weeks ago
Speaker 1: on kind of climate denial and some of these smaller languages,
Speaker 1: a smaller language Wikipedias, and what they found was a
Speaker 1: lot of these narratives being given equal weight with the
Speaker 1: climate science. Um. And I took a look our community
Speaker 1: after that BBC article came out, started looking across all
Speaker 1: the language Wikipedia articles about just the main climate change page,
Speaker 1: and they found thirty one Wikipedia's that had some of
Speaker 1: that like equal weight of bad climate science. Interesting, yeah, um.
Speaker 1: And you know the BBC article only found like five
Speaker 1: or ten, right, We found another lot a lot more
Speaker 1: yeah yeah yeah. And so it's it's like a it's
Speaker 1: a really like these narratives just seep in and you know, again,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go back to the Croatian example, like if
Speaker 1: your media environment has been locked down by a certain
Speaker 1: political rhetoric, too, those narratives might have traveled from like
Speaker 1: the Anglo sphere into these other spaces and then gotten stuck, right,
Speaker 1: and it's just like keeps getting recycled and so that
Speaker 1: causes delay. UM. And I was listening to your podcasts
Speaker 1: recently about soft climate denial, Like this is what's happening
Speaker 1: in other language environments, right, is people are rehearsing this misinformation.
Speaker 1: It's seems like a valid position because it's been rehearsed
Speaker 1: so many times by by folks. Some people who are
Speaker 1: championing that position are like doing so unknowingly, and then
Speaker 1: the process, we're kind of disconnecting it entirely from the
Speaker 1: source of the information, and that is just it's it's
Speaker 1: really bad. One interesting thing that I thought of when
Speaker 1: you were bringing up like sourcing, how sourcing itself coming
Speaker 1: an issue in like in the States. There's kind of
Speaker 1: like a joke that like wicked like when people use
Speaker 1: just Wikipedia as like as a source to be like
Speaker 1: they just they just link the article. But like that
Speaker 1: is the default for so many people when they begin
Speaker 1: begin a research project is like, Okay, what's the what's
Speaker 1: the what is what does Wikipedia have on it? What's
Speaker 1: the sources Wikipedia uses? Um and kind of branch off
Speaker 1: from there. It's a very common thing. So I'm not
Speaker 1: sure what like how different Internet culture will be different
Speaker 1: in in other countries. But if they do not, if
Speaker 1: they if they don't have like the bas sourcing necessary
Speaker 1: to create like a decent home page article, than just
Speaker 1: sourcing from Wikipedia in the first place becomes so much harder.
Speaker 1: Um because you like you were saying, like just use
Speaker 1: the Guardian is is like one of the things, like
Speaker 1: that's not horrible advice, But if it's only just from
Speaker 1: one thing, then that that's going to change the entire
Speaker 1: nature of like coverage and information on specific topics. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've had just be really interesting kind of thing that
Speaker 1: I never thought of before is how different countries wikipedias
Speaker 1: or like language with Wikipedia's will have will have like
Speaker 1: different sources. So then getting information from from the page
Speaker 1: it's just going to be so different. And like yeah,
Speaker 1: like like the whole, like the whole like teared of
Speaker 1: sourcing is just completely changed. Yeah. And and I think,
Speaker 1: like you know, in medicine and most medical practitioners expect
Speaker 1: most of the medical literature to be in a handful
Speaker 1: of languages like English and Chinese and that kind of stuff, right,
Speaker 1: and like part of your professional work and part of
Speaker 1: like saving people's lives is being able to use those sources.
Speaker 1: And so if a medical Wikipedia article has a translation
Speaker 1: from like an English article into another language, and you're
Speaker 1: distributing that to medical practitioners and they find the citation
Speaker 1: and it's in English and they can go follow the source,
Speaker 1: like that's not such a big deal. But with in
Speaker 1: a topic like climate UM, where the vast majority of
Speaker 1: the people that have to make decisions on this information
Speaker 1: do not have access to other languages. Maybe their access
Speaker 1: to English is through like machine translation, Google or something
Speaker 1: like that. Like having not having sources in your local
Speaker 1: language UM, or just having the sources that were translated
Speaker 1: from an English Wikipedia article, which happens a lot on
Speaker 1: these smaller language wikipedias, is kind of like not helpful
Speaker 1: for climate decision making UM. And this is where it's
Speaker 1: UM and it's easy for example, and a lot of
Speaker 1: these like Eastern European languages or Central Asian UH languages
Speaker 1: for like a politically spun news site opinion about something
Speaker 1: to kind of creep in at the same level of
Speaker 1: of kind of UH validity as as another as scientific
Speaker 1: research as the the you know, consensus understanding of the
Speaker 1: climate prices. So how how might I know we talked
Speaker 1: about like like trainings for like journalists and people to
Speaker 1: start editing Wikipedia's in their language. But like, how how
Speaker 1: do we kind of improve climate communication overall with open
Speaker 1: access to information and you know, creating more linguistic um
Speaker 1: diversity and stuff. Yeah, well, I think there's like a
Speaker 1: couple opportunities um in this, and then I there's some
Speaker 1: other misinformation I also want to talk about too, UM.
Speaker 1: But I think that this, the sourcing one, is a
Speaker 1: particularly challenging one. UM. We need like more basic science
Speaker 1: based climate communication and more languages. And I'm not saying
Speaker 1: like just the the like more languages, like the big
Speaker 1: un languages are the ones that are kind of colonial
Speaker 1: across cultural languages like Spanish or French or Arabic or
Speaker 1: you know, all these languages that have been used across cultures.
Speaker 1: We also need it in local languages, um. And we
Speaker 1: needed to be evidence based and we needed to be
Speaker 1: an audience based. Right, So if if someone is like
Speaker 1: searching online in Swahili about how like drought is happening
Speaker 1: in Kenya right or Tanzania or or the you know
Speaker 1: there's suddenly flooding or like I need to deal with X,
Speaker 1: Y and Z adaptation to the climate crisis, UM, which
Speaker 1: is by the way, what all of the global South
Speaker 1: is doing right now, right, Like, the global South is
Speaker 1: having to adapt to this crisis that polluting countries has
Speaker 1: have made, and we're not at actually giving them the
Speaker 1: resources to the to the problem that we've cost you. Well,
Speaker 1: it's not even like giving the research. We're not even
Speaker 1: like the people who are like, we want to adapt
Speaker 1: our society. We're not resourcing the folks on the ground
Speaker 1: who have the agency, who have the understanding, who know
Speaker 1: how to do the research in the context, who know
Speaker 1: how to do the communication in the context. Right, We're
Speaker 1: not even like bolstering their their request for help, right,
Speaker 1: Like the the the UN Climate Conference kind of failed
Speaker 1: on this adaptation funding, right, And uh, this is you know,
Speaker 1: this is where like a platform like Wikipedia and like
Speaker 1: kind of approaching this from a knowledge activist perspective where
Speaker 1: you're like, there are people who need this knowledge to
Speaker 1: address like understand what's happening around them so they can
Speaker 1: make decisions. That doesn't like you know, yeah, we need
Speaker 1: those kinds of information. We need open source knowledge, not
Speaker 1: just Wikipedia but one of the platforms UM. And and
Speaker 1: you know the you all do open source investigation, and
Speaker 1: you're used to like open source software communities, and I
Speaker 1: listen a couple of your podcasts and you're kind of
Speaker 1: constantly speaking back to those open communities that that come
Speaker 1: out of like anglophone software spaces, UM, and like we
Speaker 1: need to acknowledge that, Like we we figured out how
Speaker 1: to acknowledge, but we haven't given all those tools. We
Speaker 1: haven't transferred the knowledge on how to do it. We
Speaker 1: haven't adapted those tools to other parts of the world
Speaker 1: and other languages. UM. And so just like starting to
Speaker 1: look for these other communities, asking for the people, like
Speaker 1: who's ready to organize, like giving them money to go
Speaker 1: do it? Right? These things are like really practical, UM,
Speaker 1: And I think we're we're not We're not often not
Speaker 1: listening or we're not looking for that solution. And reinder
Speaker 1: like most of the people having to adapt UM are
Speaker 1: in the global South and speak other languages, Like we
Speaker 1: need to be there in that language if we want
Speaker 1: the climate crisis so like resolve itself without you know,
Speaker 1: destroying people's lives. Yeah, absolutely, UM. Yeah, That's that's the
Speaker 1: thing we try to bring up, is that the people
Speaker 1: is going to be initially worse affected are the people
Speaker 1: who are already kind of not in the greatest situation
Speaker 1: in the first place. That's like, how how like how
Speaker 1: like the areas that are gonna that are gonna experience
Speaker 1: the most flooding, the most extreme weather events, all this
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. It's it's it's not it's not starting
Speaker 1: with something like New York City. It's starting with areas
Speaker 1: that are already dealing with a lot of like local
Speaker 1: issues and now this is just something else on top.
Speaker 1: And yeah, fixing all of that is uh, I mean,
Speaker 1: fixing all of it's impossible. We can we can only
Speaker 1: take like small adaptive steps to like mitigate some of
Speaker 1: the worst as X And yeah, I mean that that's
Speaker 1: that's stuff that comes up a bunch. But you mentioned
Speaker 1: you wanted to at least briefly mentioned, um, some other
Speaker 1: forms of disinformation. Yeah, so we we've also witnessed a
Speaker 1: couple of times, um where something will hit like breaking
Speaker 1: news or become a political position in a context, and
Speaker 1: then like we will see bad actors show up on
Speaker 1: Wikipedia and try to manipulate it. Um. I have two
Speaker 1: examples of those. The first is about a year year ago, Uh,
Speaker 1: we found a group of accounts editing about some of
Speaker 1: the inter Amazonian highways that the Bolsonaro presidency is building
Speaker 1: through through the Amazon UM where they were trying to
Speaker 1: remove the environmental and indigenous people's UH impact assessments from
Speaker 1: the Wikipedia articles UH and so like basic human rights stuff,
Speaker 1: basic you know, healthy environment things that the government is
Speaker 1: like expected to follow through on. We're being like manipulated
Speaker 1: out of the articles for a more like pro economic
Speaker 1: growth narrative UM and so you know, it's we can't
Speaker 1: like the shift towards this like very extreme right like
Speaker 1: economic growth only version of reality UM does play out
Speaker 1: on the wiki. Now, we we were lucky that this
Speaker 1: was fairly trans like fairly easy to see once we
Speaker 1: found it, but we had to coordinate across UM, English,
Speaker 1: Spanish and Portuguese to like address the problem. So so
Speaker 1: we need like multi lingual communities who are kind of
Speaker 1: coordinating and talking to each other to address that. UM.
Speaker 1: The other thing we've seen is like, so did you
Speaker 1: I don't know how well you follow the climate movement? UM,
Speaker 1: but did you see when Disha Rabb got arrested and India?
Speaker 1: By chance? I don't think so. So she she's a
Speaker 1: youth climate activist that was part of Friday's for Future India,
Speaker 1: which is like a group kind of sister group of
Speaker 1: the group that formed in Europe around Greta Twinberg. Right
Speaker 1: um and uh she uh um. Her Gmail account got
Speaker 1: attached to a Google doc. Uh just seen active on
Speaker 1: a Google doc that was about sharing social media about
Speaker 1: the India the farmers protests in India, which have been
Speaker 1: like a real political sticking point issue. And I had
Speaker 1: written so I'm both a volunteer and a professional who
Speaker 1: organizes the community. And in my volunteer time, I had
Speaker 1: written the biography Adisha Rabbi like months before the Indian
Speaker 1: government kind of identified her with this social media tool kit.
Speaker 1: And um when she got arrested for something that's like
Speaker 1: just basic social organizing tactic social media, umu, the kind
Speaker 1: of Hindu nationalist social media environment like zoomed in on
Speaker 1: her Wikipedia article and on all these other social media
Speaker 1: presences she had, and they tried to silence it. Um
Speaker 1: be like okay, we need to leave this article. And
Speaker 1: uh Fortunately, like a group of us were watching the
Speaker 1: page and we caught it and we're able to stop that.
Speaker 1: But there's kind of the the the kind of flash
Speaker 1: mob situation that happens a lot now in social media,
Speaker 1: where it's that is, this thing has been polarized, now
Speaker 1: we need to go attack it. Um. And so you
Speaker 1: can imagine like English Wikipedia has a healthy immune system
Speaker 1: for this kind of stuff. It like sees it, but
Speaker 1: it has enough, it has enough people that it can
Speaker 1: do that. Yeah. Yeah, but you can imagine on a
Speaker 1: smaller wiki that the narrative could shift and stay permanently
Speaker 1: shifted quite quickly. Yeah, um if that happened. And so
Speaker 1: that that's another concern. Right, So there's like the subtle
Speaker 1: like a few accounts just like quietly removing things, and
Speaker 1: then like the act of political um kind of intervention
Speaker 1: that happens. And in terms of like disinformation, do you
Speaker 1: see the Wikipedia as being kind of susceptible to like
Speaker 1: intentional disinformation campaigns of people slowly kind of editing the
Speaker 1: ideology of of articles to to push kind of some agenda.
Speaker 1: What whether that be like individually and like like you know,
Speaker 1: more of like a crowd operation um or even like
Speaker 1: run by like people with political power, um. Like do
Speaker 1: do you how much of a risk do you see
Speaker 1: that with this kind of open source idea is that's
Speaker 1: of of like intentional slow dissemination of disinformation on like
Speaker 1: important articles and stuff. Well, so I think I might
Speaker 1: reframe your question a little bit like, uh, all open
Speaker 1: source kind of knowledge spaces are susceptible to that, right. Um.
Speaker 1: The question is to like what degree and how harmful
Speaker 1: is it going to be? Right? Um, like is it
Speaker 1: is it like very open to this and will it
Speaker 1: cause a lot of problems? Um, the bigger language wikipedias
Speaker 1: have healthy immune systems, but we we have a combination
Speaker 1: of kind of bots that are like AI generated that
Speaker 1: flag bag edits, and then we have a lot of
Speaker 1: community patrolling happening. And even in some of the smaller
Speaker 1: communities that have like medium sized editor communities, like Swedish Wikipedia,
Speaker 1: it doesn't take a lot for that local language community
Speaker 1: to patrol the pages and like be like oh okay, um,
Speaker 1: these changes are kind of weird. I can roll it back, Um,
Speaker 1: like this doesn't seem like it fits our culture of Wikipedia.
Speaker 1: The problem is when a language Wikipedia has very few
Speaker 1: editors and they're not active all the time. Um, And
Speaker 1: and so this is where we need kind of more
Speaker 1: eyes on the content, right because it's it's very easy
Speaker 1: for like a really small language community to kind of
Speaker 1: have a little bit of content but never see it maintained.
Speaker 1: Um And and this is where the like where where
Speaker 1: our communities are forming around these languages, like a lot
Speaker 1: of the West African languages for example, that our communities
Speaker 1: are are kind of organizing in we we like invest
Speaker 1: in those communities existing and like figuring out the governance
Speaker 1: and training people how to edit and getting access to
Speaker 1: the kind of technical skills to do this. Um. And
Speaker 1: you know, we have kind of systems that we're hoping
Speaker 1: over the next few years invest in that resilience, right,
Speaker 1: like building a code of conduct making it easier for
Speaker 1: communities to see this kind of stuff. But it is
Speaker 1: three languages, right, um yeah, And it is a volunteer
Speaker 1: built system, and you do need a healthy editatorial community
Speaker 1: in order to keep a wiki from like drifting too much. UM.
Speaker 1: So a good example of listening to get a reference
Speaker 1: creation because it's the one we've done research on, Like
Speaker 1: it was possible for a few people to push people
Speaker 1: who are more in consensus with the global position on
Speaker 1: various topics out of the wiki. Um. And that's just
Speaker 1: like we we have to find a balance between like
Speaker 1: local language. Uh and this is my personal opinion, right,
Speaker 1: we need to find a balance between kind of local
Speaker 1: language sovereignty on this stuff and also not like radicalizing
Speaker 1: its topical environment. And we and we see this particularly
Speaker 1: on impactful topics, right, like ones that directly affect like
Speaker 1: politics or in the kids climate crisis, like people's livelihoods
Speaker 1: and ability to function in society, right. Um And we
Speaker 1: just like we need to be cautious about that. But
Speaker 1: but you know, Wikipedia is a common resource. Uh. And
Speaker 1: I think this is really important. Like the way Wikipedia
Speaker 1: works is you know, the Wikimmunitia Foundation provides the servers,
Speaker 1: We fund our communities, we support them, we help them
Speaker 1: work through governance issues. But like the we need editorial
Speaker 1: communities to maintain it. That's what those two thousand people
Speaker 1: are doing as volunteers as they're building an editorial practice
Speaker 1: that makes the content work. Um. And and we we
Speaker 1: need that um. And so we need you know, like
Speaker 1: minded communities like the people for your podcasts who are like, oh,
Speaker 1: we need the Internet to be reliable and have accurate
Speaker 1: information a lot to show up um. Because if we
Speaker 1: don't do that, it's it's really like it's the common
Speaker 1: resource we we we have a decent international listening MACE
Speaker 1: as well. UM, and I'm thinking like, what would would
Speaker 1: you like recommend people you know in different countries or
Speaker 1: even people inside inside kind of like, uh, you know
Speaker 1: the States, America, Canada, the UK who are like multi langual,
Speaker 1: would you at least encourage them to browse other language
Speaker 1: wikipedias and maybe start making edits when they see this
Speaker 1: type of misinformation popping up. Yeah, so I to kind
Speaker 1: of perspectives on this one. Um, look for a local
Speaker 1: organized community. So we we have what's called Wikimedia Affiliates.
Speaker 1: These are fifty organizations around the world. They regularly run events,
Speaker 1: especially now that we're leaving COVID, increasingly more in person events.
Speaker 1: They trained folks like look for them in your context
Speaker 1: and if you need help finding, you know, find me
Speaker 1: on Twitter and I can connect you with those communities. Um.
Speaker 1: And the other part is small edits. So I think
Speaker 1: a lot of people look at Wikipedia and they think
Speaker 1: about like a traditional publishing platform, right like, oh, you
Speaker 1: know I have to write the whole whole article. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I have to be a master. And and the secret
Speaker 1: sauce to all of this is most people start with
Speaker 1: one citation, one comma, one type of fix, and they
Speaker 1: do a handful of those a month, and then they
Speaker 1: keep coming back. And as you do those small edits,
Speaker 1: you start reading the content more carefully and fixing the
Speaker 1: things you can fix. And so I recommend going in
Speaker 1: to like add one citation. Like if you go and
Speaker 1: add one citation today, that like makes life better, or
Speaker 1: you fix the communication on the sentence. UM. The other
Speaker 1: part of it is, you know, I said, there's these
Speaker 1: organized groups, uh for the climate in particular, I run
Speaker 1: this campaign called Wiki for Human Rights, which is focused
Speaker 1: on UM. We with it's a theme that we kind
Speaker 1: of identified with you and human rights on the right
Speaker 1: to a healthy environment, which is this new human right
Speaker 1: that has been acknowledged by the Human Rights Council. And
Speaker 1: we're we're organizing kind of writing contests and editor the
Speaker 1: fons and kind of train names for communities to go
Speaker 1: and look for the human dimension of the climate crisis.
Speaker 1: So I think when we think about climate communication, a
Speaker 1: lot of people are like science right there, like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is you know about how weather systems work and
Speaker 1: how the atmosphere it forms, and the kind of stuff
Speaker 1: and the content that's more impactful. Is this like human
Speaker 1: inflected stuff like how does the climate crisis in fact
Speaker 1: you as an individual and agriculture in the cities you
Speaker 1: live in, and the clothing you buy in the manufactured
Speaker 1: goods in mine around the corner that's producing water pollution
Speaker 1: that's gonna harm your children for the next thirty years, right, um,
Speaker 1: and and that is the kind of stuff that we're
Speaker 1: encouraging communities to pay attention to. Is it is more
Speaker 1: the like justice and human rights oriented perspective on these topics?
Speaker 1: And your cat is very cute. Every once in a
Speaker 1: while they love to love to take the camera. Um
Speaker 1: and so yeah. So, so if you follow me on Twitter,
Speaker 1: I will I can hook you up with that campaign
Speaker 1: as well. Yeah. Yeah. Where where can people find you
Speaker 1: online and to learn more information about, you know, the
Speaker 1: various kind of topics we've discussed today. So, um, search
Speaker 1: if you're interested in climate change stuff on Wikipedia English.
Speaker 1: Wikipedia has a wonderful wiki project climate change that has
Speaker 1: a little tab at the So if you search wiki
Speaker 1: project climate change on Google and you find there's a
Speaker 1: tab at the top that says get started with easy
Speaker 1: edits and that kind of can get you oriented to like,
Speaker 1: where can you affect English Wikipedia on this? And you know,
Speaker 1: once you find a gap on English, it's easy to
Speaker 1: find it on other languages. UM. For the kind of
Speaker 1: learning about Wiki free human rights, you can search for
Speaker 1: that um and or follow me on Twitter. UM s
Speaker 1: A D A D S sad ads on Twitter. Um. Uh.
Speaker 1: We also have a group called Wikimedians for Sustainable Development
Speaker 1: who's kind of communicating on Twitter, which is the group
Speaker 1: that's really focused on sustainability topics more generally. UM. And
Speaker 1: you know, the other way to look is find something
Speaker 1: you've been reading about about the climate crisis or sustainability
Speaker 1: issues in the news. Look it up on Wikipedia. See
Speaker 1: if it's missing. UM. If it's not, click that edit
Speaker 1: button at a sence. Right. UM. The good example of this,
Speaker 1: I learned about a park and uh the center of
Speaker 1: Nairobi that's being protested by environmental activists because some of
Speaker 1: the big trees were being cut down a Huru park. Right. Uh.
Speaker 1: This came by on my Twitter handle, Like I'm not
Speaker 1: connected to this at the moment, right, UM, But because
Speaker 1: I had news sources, I had three or four news sources,
Speaker 1: I could say really simply in two thousand one the
Speaker 1: park came under scrutiny for renovation that included removing old trees.
Speaker 1: That's a climate action, right uh. And I think you know,
Speaker 1: I am constantly overwhelmed by the climate crisis, as as
Speaker 1: a lot of people. Yeah yeah, And and like just
Speaker 1: being able to tell that little story, like hey, um,
Speaker 1: the decisions people are making are not productive here, right Um.
Speaker 1: Just just gathering that story is important. And what's important
Speaker 1: is Wikipedia plays institutional memory on this, right. I feel
Speaker 1: like you know, a lot of a lot of activists
Speaker 1: work is very temporal. It's very like in that moment,
Speaker 1: right um. And if it doesn't get documented on Wikipedia,
Speaker 1: the local news sources are gonna get lost in the
Speaker 1: wind of time. Um. And so I think you know,
Speaker 1: if you to do your little activist motion, like a
Speaker 1: sentence describing what happened in a moment where resistance was happening,
Speaker 1: is like a huge step forward, right um, because it
Speaker 1: connects the environmental crisis, climate crisis, human rights issues too,
Speaker 1: like daily lives. Like people look up this park probably
Speaker 1: on Google because they want to go there, right or
Speaker 1: they read about it because people are like when was
Speaker 1: it created? What was that protest that happened? There the
Speaker 1: other day. And if those sourcesn't there, um, then it
Speaker 1: doesn't really exist in their minds. Yeah, it doesn't exist
Speaker 1: in their minds. And I think that's like one of
Speaker 1: the big issues with climate crisis, and you know, amplified
Speaker 1: even worse in other languages, right, is that people aren't
Speaker 1: making that connection. They aren't seeing it around them, and
Speaker 1: they're not you know, kind of connecting action to how
Speaker 1: we address it. That. Uh, that is a really good
Speaker 1: that's a really good point. And yeah, I mean I
Speaker 1: will encourage everybody to to start making small leddits. That's
Speaker 1: what's what I did for a long time before I
Speaker 1: moved into like open source um journalism and reporting. It's
Speaker 1: a great way to get started, and it's a great
Speaker 1: way to get just start start disseminating small bits of
Speaker 1: information because the only thing that we can really do
Speaker 1: is people is small steps. We can have like an
Speaker 1: adaptive goal in mind, but you need to take small
Speaker 1: steps to get there. And that is a really great
Speaker 1: way to start influencing the way people think about climate
Speaker 1: and our situation. Um. Yeah, And and I think too,
Speaker 1: you know, your your podcast kind of appeals to folks
Speaker 1: who are interested in like finding the truth and reality, right,
Speaker 1: and that that's that's like that that investigation is what
Speaker 1: a Wikipedia article is. It is like one ten hundred
Speaker 1: editors out there in the world trying to go like,
Speaker 1: what the heck is this topic about? Right? How do
Speaker 1: I compile my notes? Uh in a way that helps
Speaker 1: other people? And I think in the face of the
Speaker 1: climate crisis, Dr Ianna Johnson says, like, find the thing
Speaker 1: you're good at, find the thing you're passionate about, and
Speaker 1: find the thing that like or that that makes you
Speaker 1: feel good and you're you're just rewarding, And find the
Speaker 1: thing that actually like helps affect the climate crisis. Right,
Speaker 1: And a small idn'ta on Wikipedia meets your kind of
Speaker 1: knowledge needs. It's very satisfying because people will read it
Speaker 1: and it is incriminal change in the right direction, right,
Speaker 1: people will make decisions on it. Uh. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: and I guess uh, I think that I think that
Speaker 1: probably closes this up today and let's see anything else
Speaker 1: to add. Um, I guess one more plug for your
Speaker 1: Twitter so we can get get more eyeballs on you.
Speaker 1: Um and the work that you're doing. Yeah, um so
Speaker 1: at S A D A D S. It's my long
Speaker 1: term handle on the internet and you you can find
Speaker 1: me Oliver Plate uh and I tweet about Wikipedia on
Speaker 1: the climate crisis. Will and we'll we'll link the Wikipedia
Speaker 1: wiki project climate change page in the description for people
Speaker 1: to find. Thank you so much for taking time to
Speaker 1: talk to us all about these topics. I'm really really great, uh,
Speaker 1: really grateful to have this type of knowledge readily accessible
Speaker 1: to more people. Also, you know, in the spirit of Wikipedia.
Speaker 1: Thanks so thank you so much. Um. You can follow
Speaker 1: us by subscribing to the feed and on Twitter, Instagram
Speaker 1: at Happened Here pod and cool Zone Media. See you
Speaker 1: on the other side, everybody. It's could happen Here? That's
Speaker 1: the podcast that this is. It's about things crumbling and uh,
Speaker 1: how to maybe uncrumble some of the things that are crumbling.
Speaker 1: And today when we think about the crumbles, when you
Speaker 1: start thinking about the hell world that that we're all
Speaker 1: increasingly inhappening, the scar y ship that is getting scarier
Speaker 1: day by day. Number one on a lot of people's
Speaker 1: list is going to be the cops um real cause
Speaker 1: of anxiety for a significant chunk of people listening to
Speaker 1: this podcast right now, including its hosts, Um Alexander you
Speaker 1: and I have chatted before on the air. Our guest
Speaker 1: today Alexander Williams, Um, you were a police officer in
Speaker 1: the past and you are not currently and you want
Speaker 1: to chat about Um the topic kind of the way
Speaker 1: you pitched it to us is there's a lot of
Speaker 1: aspects of police training that are very similar to what
Speaker 1: colts do to indoctrinate people, and you kind of wanted
Speaker 1: to speak on that. Yeah, there's a lot of there's
Speaker 1: a lot of cross sections. Um, so, yeah, I used
Speaker 1: to be a cop. I was in law enforcement for
Speaker 1: just shot at fifteen years until I woke up and
Speaker 1: got out luckily, and uh, all the stuff that's been
Speaker 1: going on over the last couple of years, and the
Speaker 1: craziness and really ingesting a lot of stuff around, you know, cults,
Speaker 1: and I started going down that the little checklist that
Speaker 1: you go down of like are you in a high
Speaker 1: control group? And man, they all just look just deinged
Speaker 1: in my head every single time of like, oh, this
Speaker 1: is exactly what it was like being a cop. Oh,
Speaker 1: this is exactly what it was like being a cop.
Speaker 1: And I'm curious, kind of before we get more into it,
Speaker 1: do you want to walk us through a little bit
Speaker 1: more kind of what was your process of UM, I know,
Speaker 1: de radicalization isn't exactly the right term, but I think
Speaker 1: you know what I'm getting. It's it's in the it's
Speaker 1: in the it's in the neighborhood shore. Yeah. Mine. So
Speaker 1: I was raising a cop family. My dad was a copy,
Speaker 1: went the whole nine yards, retirement, the whole thing. And
Speaker 1: when I got into it, just shy of twenty two
Speaker 1: years old, which that's young to be making these kinds
Speaker 1: of choices looking back on it. Um. We had talked
Speaker 1: on the last podcast of your season one, UM about
Speaker 1: when my brother got arrested and got beat by my
Speaker 1: own team, my my own crew, and the jail that
Speaker 1: I worked with, which is the jails is where I
Speaker 1: primarily spent most of my time. And I think that
Speaker 1: that was, uh, item number one kind of on my shelf,
Speaker 1: like people call it. That's that's that's a big one
Speaker 1: to right on the shelf. Um. And during my training,
Speaker 1: I've always been an obstinate little bastard and I've always
Speaker 1: had that kind of like authority defiance. And in training
Speaker 1: they say start telling you really early, like hey, you
Speaker 1: know what you know where your family we understand you,
Speaker 1: We're going to get you. And then like the language
Speaker 1: even then kind of flared red flags wrong for me.
Speaker 1: And whenever a group of people says we're your family,
Speaker 1: and so right, like that's what you like, we're your
Speaker 1: family and you can talk to us anytime. Fine, we're
Speaker 1: your family and I got your back. Fine, we're your family,
Speaker 1: and that's why you need to do this. Things have
Speaker 1: got to ride. It's it's it usually is where your
Speaker 1: family comma now? Yeah? Yeah? And yes. So that that
Speaker 1: was like literally day one, it was where your family now,
Speaker 1: where you're you know, they use all that language, the
Speaker 1: familiar language, where your brothers, your sisters. Yeah. And the
Speaker 1: one that kicked for me and my brain was they said,
Speaker 1: within a year, you're not gonna have any friends that
Speaker 1: aren't cops, Like all of your civilian friends are going
Speaker 1: to be gone because they're not gonna understand you and
Speaker 1: they're not going to be able to be around you
Speaker 1: and handle you. So within a year, you know, we're
Speaker 1: going to be everything you've got. And for me, that
Speaker 1: was like that was a line in the sand, and
Speaker 1: like part of my brain was screaming like nope, never
Speaker 1: letting that happen. I will not let my uh myself
Speaker 1: not have any non cop friends. Yeah, that's probably good
Speaker 1: because that's I mean, you have like when it it
Speaker 1: gets to it's the same thing that happens to anybody, right,
Speaker 1: like some people got like last year in Portland and
Speaker 1: Activist Brain where there was this all the people were
Speaker 1: spending time with other people were out protesting, and so
Speaker 1: we have this really intense bond and we also are
Speaker 1: kind of separated, increasingly separated from the people around us
Speaker 1: because we just can't communicate with anybody else. And that
Speaker 1: kind of going on for years and years, because this
Speaker 1: is your career for twenty something years, and it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that would you'd be, you'd be after a couple of
Speaker 1: years of that you were inhabiting a different planet. They
Speaker 1: really are. And it's the how you said that, like,
Speaker 1: you know, this is usually twenty to thirty years, you know,
Speaker 1: because you want to get that sweet retirement at the
Speaker 1: end after you've abused your mind and your body for
Speaker 1: three decades um. It was keyed off something that you
Speaker 1: and Garrison talked about in a previous episode of The
Speaker 1: Hiring Practices where the Washington Stay guys and they were
Speaker 1: they got busted because the therapist was showing tons of bias.
Speaker 1: And that brought up for me the hiring process because
Speaker 1: those psyche exams are the only time as a cop
Speaker 1: did you get a psych exam? That's the only time
Speaker 1: you ever talked to a therapist mandatorially. Yeah that's not great. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a really bad move. And there's a joke in
Speaker 1: cop culture of like, well, yeah, you gotta pass it
Speaker 1: before you get hired, because after you get hired, you're
Speaker 1: never going to pass that test. Mm hmm, because you know,
Speaker 1: being a cop is is micro dosing PTSD and your
Speaker 1: system the entire time. See, I guess one thing I'm
Speaker 1: wondering because you you were in it for fifteen years,
Speaker 1: so that's that's not an insignificant span of time. Has
Speaker 1: it gotten to be more that way? Because I knew
Speaker 1: about fifteen something years ago when I was like eighteen nineteen,
Speaker 1: just like I lived in the shitty little apartment complex,
Speaker 1: and like the dude who live below above me, and
Speaker 1: then like the dude who lived two doors down, we're
Speaker 1: both Dallas cops um, and I don't know, like I
Speaker 1: you know, I was not particularly political at that point,
Speaker 1: but I didn't. They didn't seem to have trouble relating,
Speaker 1: like they would hang out and ship after work, like
Speaker 1: just like not like like we would be like barbecuing
Speaker 1: outside and they would drop by and stuff, and it
Speaker 1: was never I never got the sense that they were
Speaker 1: living in a separate planet. But this is like fifteen
Speaker 1: years ago, and I'm wondering what to what extent do
Speaker 1: you think this is kind of increased in recent memory,
Speaker 1: Like this the kind of you don't really socialize with
Speaker 1: people outside of the family, so to speak. It is
Speaker 1: kind of like that. So, yeah, a lot of the
Speaker 1: language you're using is perfect because so what you're describing
Speaker 1: and what I remember from being a kid in the
Speaker 1: eighties and the nineties and stuff was um community policing.
Speaker 1: Like it's it's a literal style of policing, going back
Speaker 1: to more of like the professional police style before it
Speaker 1: went military, and in areas where people actively live in
Speaker 1: their community and engage with their community, there's a striking
Speaker 1: difference in the level of police violence that happens. But nowadays, uh,
Speaker 1: it's not the same thing because a lot of especially
Speaker 1: in bigger metropolitan areas, you're a cop there, you can't
Speaker 1: afford to live there. You're you're definitely not getting paid
Speaker 1: enough to live most of the time in the cities
Speaker 1: that you're supposed to be, you know, a part of.
Speaker 1: And it's gotten to the point where they actually teach
Speaker 1: this like method up methodically in academies. They'll be like, hey,
Speaker 1: if you want to be a cop in a big town,
Speaker 1: you need to start shopping around in the smaller cities
Speaker 1: around it to find a place to live, maybe like
Speaker 1: an hour away. Um. And then they also pitch it
Speaker 1: as a safety thing because it's all about, you know,
Speaker 1: the cheology Grossman, we're all under attack, so they'll teach people,
Speaker 1: you know what, it's it's safest to not live in
Speaker 1: the town where you're a cop now. So it's become intentional,
Speaker 1: and it's one of those things where because I don't
Speaker 1: want to breeze past this is not the episode world
Speaker 1: talk about community policing. There's very good criticisms of community policing,
Speaker 1: and there's a lot of things that doesn't solve. But
Speaker 1: I think it's yeah, yeah, absolutely, we're not trying to
Speaker 1: say like the solution is just to get cops, you know,
Speaker 1: to be members of their communities. But it it is
Speaker 1: worse when they're driving in from an hour out of
Speaker 1: town and see it as like I'm occupying almost this
Speaker 1: area like it does. Yeah, that language fits perfectly, especially
Speaker 1: with Grossman and all that. Yes, and we've got a
Speaker 1: two partner on David Grossman or Behind the Bastards if
Speaker 1: you want to check it out. But he's kind of
Speaker 1: the one of the big, one of the big individuals,
Speaker 1: who's who's done the most to like really push UM.
Speaker 1: I don't even like it's usually framed as militarized thinking,
Speaker 1: but I don't know a lot of soldiers who have
Speaker 1: been who were trained to think that way about ship.
Speaker 1: Like most of the people I know who we're getting
Speaker 1: shot at every day for years overseas, we're not thinking
Speaker 1: the way Grossman does. No, that's probably because he never
Speaker 1: actually wouldn't did anything. I think maybe we should probably Alexander,
Speaker 1: have you go start going through this um, this document
Speaker 1: you put together, kind of walking through UM and I
Speaker 1: wonder if you might start when you kind of started
Speaker 1: thinking about police training and the mindset inculcated inside police
Speaker 1: departments from like a cultic perspective, When did that really
Speaker 1: start to come together for you? Uh? It probably really
Speaker 1: started to come together. Um uh when actually when I
Speaker 1: got involved, I used to be an instructor. When I
Speaker 1: got you know, behind that part of the curtain, and
Speaker 1: I got involved in those things. Um and I started
Speaker 1: going to teaching, and I started teaching other departments that
Speaker 1: would come to us, and it was it was a
Speaker 1: joke in my head at first, was like, oh, we
Speaker 1: all speak the same language. And then that got my
Speaker 1: brain rolling on linguistics and how linguistics work and how
Speaker 1: that you know, the words we use change how we
Speaker 1: perceive reality. And then I clicked and I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: we're like a We're a subculture. We're we're like no
Speaker 1: matter where you go in the country, we are a
Speaker 1: little subculture. We are a little group. And uh, that's
Speaker 1: what started to kind of push me towards like it's
Speaker 1: like being in a cult because you know, you girl
Speaker 1: up around Central California and there's a lot of really
Speaker 1: religious people and you start seeing the intersectionality of it
Speaker 1: really fast. Yeah, and that's interesting because we've talked a
Speaker 1: few times on various shows I've done about how any
Speaker 1: good subculture, any really good party, has elements of like
Speaker 1: a cult. Right, there's there's little bits of that. There's
Speaker 1: bits of that in friendship and whatnot. Yeah, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: just a thing like cults are taking advantage, like pulling
Speaker 1: a bunch of things that people do together in order
Speaker 1: to manipulate human beings. Um, I'm wondering kind of where
Speaker 1: where you think? Where are some of the areas you
Speaker 1: think it kind of crosses the line with police from
Speaker 1: like this is you know a degree of like I'm
Speaker 1: sure firefighters have a degree of this. You know, Um,
Speaker 1: these are people that like I hang around with all
Speaker 1: the time and we wipe up in some intense situations together.
Speaker 1: That causes there are culti aspects that's always going to cause. Um,
Speaker 1: I'm wondering, kind of where where are the first areas
Speaker 1: you started to realize this this is crossing that line
Speaker 1: of Probably the first area is in how much the department,
Speaker 1: like and this was universal and lots of departments that
Speaker 1: I had contact with, is how much the department owns you?
Speaker 1: And I mean like they use that language. They they'll
Speaker 1: tell you like we own you like anything you do
Speaker 1: in your personal life. Your first thought needs to be
Speaker 1: how does this affect my department and my my sheriff,
Speaker 1: my chief, my whatever, Like every single thing you do
Speaker 1: is supposed to be potentially pr for the department. So
Speaker 1: they tell you flat out, in the forefront of your
Speaker 1: mind every waking moment, your own duty. You're you're, you're here,
Speaker 1: you're you, we own you. Um. And that that was
Speaker 1: the first one that was just like, oh man, Like, no,
Speaker 1: I punch out at the end of my shift and
Speaker 1: I go home. This isn't like, this isn't this is
Speaker 1: a job. It's not supposed to be a life. It's
Speaker 1: it's then that that was the first one that started
Speaker 1: going it. Um. Probably the second one that I really
Speaker 1: noticed was that you can tell anyone's a because they'll
Speaker 1: tell you within about five seconds of meeting them. But
Speaker 1: they're common. If you're at a bar, you're at a party,
Speaker 1: or at whatever, they'll be like, hi, my, my, mine's
Speaker 1: Alexander work for the search part Like it's it's gonna
Speaker 1: come out of their mouth in two seconds, because it is.
Speaker 1: It's their identity, it's their entire sense of self. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I wonder because one of the things we've seen in
Speaker 1: the last couple of years in particular, is aspects of
Speaker 1: that bleed out, like the thin blue line flags and stuff,
Speaker 1: and some of that's some of that's just you know, signpost.
Speaker 1: Some of that's just I know, people who were in uh,
Speaker 1: certain jobs where they transported things that were sketchy and
Speaker 1: had those flags. Is like, well maybe the cop won't
Speaker 1: search mer, you know, but like there and there's elements
Speaker 1: that they're just you know, I don't want the cops
Speaker 1: to stop me from you know, fucking with these people
Speaker 1: or whatever. But I think there's also elements of that.
Speaker 1: Um And I think probably television is to blame for
Speaker 1: aspects of this, but of kind of that sheep dog
Speaker 1: culture as as as grossman calls that are starting to
Speaker 1: bleed over into chunks of the civilian world. UM. And
Speaker 1: I guess I'm wondering kind of like, yeah, what that
Speaker 1: looks like as a as someone unlike the the deep
Speaker 1: inside of that as a police officer, Like what is it?
Speaker 1: I'm wondering, like to what extent where you kind of
Speaker 1: conscious of that aspect of society like filling out around you.
Speaker 1: Like some of these like the cult of the of
Speaker 1: the heroic police officer kind of spreading to be um
Speaker 1: something new, which which it really started doing from like
Speaker 1: two thousand and eighteen up to the present moment is
Speaker 1: when a lot of that shift seems to have happened
Speaker 1: based on kind of what I've saw. You No, that
Speaker 1: timeline fits perfectly because I remember when I first got hired,
Speaker 1: the thin blue line. It existed. It was a thing,
Speaker 1: but it was just it was just a matte black
Speaker 1: with a blue line and that was it. Uh. And
Speaker 1: you didn't really even in cop culture, like I didn't
Speaker 1: grow up seeing that thing in the eighties and the nineties,
Speaker 1: not much, not at all. And then when I was
Speaker 1: in the department in the in the in the two thousand's,
Speaker 1: you kind of saw it every now and again, someone
Speaker 1: might have a pelpin like in the department, but out
Speaker 1: in public, nobody had that stuff. No nobody, nobody had
Speaker 1: any of that rocking stuff. And it didn't It never
Speaker 1: really bothered me until it showed up on an American
Speaker 1: flag and then that was that was a big red
Speaker 1: flag of like, oh this m this is bad. I
Speaker 1: was like, this is this is nationalism, guys, this isn't good.
Speaker 1: And like my whole crew look to me and go
Speaker 1: what's nationalism? And I'm just like, fuck, is there this
Speaker 1: like sense that people are totying or is it this
Speaker 1: sense that like this is kind of the silent majority
Speaker 1: that backs us in doing whatever hard work we need
Speaker 1: to do. I think it started out as tody, it
Speaker 1: really did, and it's but it's now shifted into um
Speaker 1: this whole like, you know, you get those guys that
Speaker 1: are like, oh, if I see a cop getting in
Speaker 1: a fight, I'm gonna get out of my car and
Speaker 1: I'm gonna jump in there and I'm gonna back them
Speaker 1: up because they're like they're playing top. They really want
Speaker 1: that authority or that whatever, but for whatever reason they
Speaker 1: don't go do it. M Yeah, but this has been
Speaker 1: a way of like kind of they get to see
Speaker 1: themselves as being like a posse kind of a thing,
Speaker 1: like I'm in the I'm in the club. I'm not
Speaker 1: in the club, but like they're my buddies and is
Speaker 1: there I don't know, does that make being in the
Speaker 1: club cooler? The fact that there's these kind of posse's
Speaker 1: forming around it, these people kind of work worshiping the
Speaker 1: culture associated with it. I mean, there probably is now,
Speaker 1: but honestly, when I was in there freaked me the
Speaker 1: hell out. It really really creeped me out. I didn't
Speaker 1: like it at all. Yeah. I mean, you have to
Speaker 1: think about if you're if you're a reasonable person, how
Speaker 1: weird it would be to see your job turned into
Speaker 1: a cult like Garrison, you know that feeling, or you're
Speaker 1: you're going to learn when we when we make the cult. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: so I wanted to. I guess let's let's let's get
Speaker 1: back to this kind of list you put together, because
Speaker 1: you were sort of going through different hallmarks of what
Speaker 1: makes something a cult. One of them is the group
Speaker 1: displays and excessively zealous and unquestioning commitment to its eater
Speaker 1: and whether he is alive or dead, regards his belief system, ideology,
Speaker 1: in practices as the truth as law. Um. And I'll
Speaker 1: remind you we were not talking about my podcast. We're
Speaker 1: talking about cults here. Uh that's right. Um, Yes, stay quiet, Garrison.
Speaker 1: They're just smiling, silently staring at us through zoom. I
Speaker 1: see you. Okay, And you've written under this the law
Speaker 1: is the higher power. They grant control of their actions.
Speaker 1: Blind faith in the system frees them from having to
Speaker 1: consider their role in the system. It's my job to
Speaker 1: arrest in charge high let the court figure out the
Speaker 1: rest it sounds a lot like kill them all let
Speaker 1: and let God sort him out. In this case, the
Speaker 1: criminal justice system is a direct replacement for God. I think,
Speaker 1: I think this is this is a really good point.
Speaker 1: This is even this is the thing even when I
Speaker 1: was like a dumb kid and thought cops were fine,
Speaker 1: This was the one thing that even like just even
Speaker 1: still freaked me out about cops because every once in
Speaker 1: a while you would see a video of like the
Speaker 1: cot was randomly like a saulting somebody, and then other
Speaker 1: cops nearby just mindlessly join in, and I'm like, whoa,
Speaker 1: that's so such a weird kind of group dynamic of
Speaker 1: they see someone doing something and they just don't question
Speaker 1: it at all and immediately back it up, no matter
Speaker 1: what actually was happening. Because like I always tried to
Speaker 1: think things through more like logically, and that type of
Speaker 1: like mindlessness really freaked me out, and I think was
Speaker 1: maybe one of the first things that was like huh,
Speaker 1: maybe it was. It was one of the first cracks
Speaker 1: and like maybe cops actually aren't good. Um. I think, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think this is a really great point in terms
Speaker 1: of how this ties into like, yeah, it's my job
Speaker 1: to it's my job to arrest and charge. I don't
Speaker 1: sort out what happens afterwards, so it doesn't actually matter.
Speaker 1: Like it's like I'm not I'm not actually hurting these
Speaker 1: people because if if they did something wrong, it's gonna
Speaker 1: get figured out in the court system. I'm just doing
Speaker 1: this like preliminary task. It's it plays into a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of like weird psychological things that make you feel
Speaker 1: better about horrible actions you're doing because you have so
Speaker 1: much backing that's gonna make sure what you do actually
Speaker 1: isn't bad. Yeah, this is like this, you know, this arrest,
Speaker 1: which may be physical and ugly even if they're innocent later.
Speaker 1: It's just part of what you have to do to
Speaker 1: get to the point where you determine whether or not
Speaker 1: they're innocence. So I'm not doing anything bad. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: And actually, Garrison, I it's it's what you said. It's
Speaker 1: perfect because in the bottom of the thing where I
Speaker 1: was just spewing notes to myself, I literally put down
Speaker 1: here it's not a job to them, it's a central
Speaker 1: component of their sense of self. This is why they
Speaker 1: will do terrible things to validate their perceived reality and
Speaker 1: how these things. Yeah, they it's you might say, like
Speaker 1: imagine how like think about how hard it is to
Speaker 1: get people to admit they're wrong about a political belief
Speaker 1: on Twitter, especially when their name is attached to their account.
Speaker 1: Now imagine you have like imagine that's the thing being argued,
Speaker 1: is like the central thing around which you organize your life.
Speaker 1: And also you get to shoot people who make you angry.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it's it's a rough situ. It should to
Speaker 1: be it. It is, it is. It's crazy. And the
Speaker 1: part that I wrote of it's my job to arrest
Speaker 1: and charge high, I think that's that's a part of
Speaker 1: the mentality of it is like, yeah, I don't want
Speaker 1: to say it's like a game, but it almost is
Speaker 1: like a game. It's almost like they're trying to get points,
Speaker 1: like score high and talk to me about talk to
Speaker 1: me about when you say a rest and charge high
Speaker 1: kind of what is that? What does that sort of
Speaker 1: look like on the ground before we get into kind
Speaker 1: of why people do that. So, when when you're using
Speaker 1: your your powers of arrest, you're you're you're supposed to
Speaker 1: adhere to a penal code. But there is code and
Speaker 1: I'm only speaking to California, because that's where I got
Speaker 1: my trainer. Um, they don't expect cops to remember every
Speaker 1: single element of every single PC code because that's ridiculous.
Speaker 1: No one's going to be able to do that. Um.
Speaker 1: So there's there's wiggle room, there's play where I know
Speaker 1: you did this thing, and I know it's what they
Speaker 1: call a wobbler, Like I can go felony and go misdemeanor.
Speaker 1: They'll teach you in the academy. They're like, if it's
Speaker 1: a wabbler, always charge felony every single time, even if
Speaker 1: you don't think it's gonna work. Charge it felony, take
Speaker 1: it to the d A and let the d A
Speaker 1: c if they can make it stick. And if they don't, whatever,
Speaker 1: who cares. That's not part of our job anymore. And yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's one of those things where a lot of
Speaker 1: people I've had friends who got charged with felonies that
Speaker 1: got dropped. But like, you're still living under your You
Speaker 1: essentially have to live as like the diet version of
Speaker 1: a felon while that's hanging over your head um, which
Speaker 1: is not fun. No, And it's a big part of
Speaker 1: the whole criminal justice. I'm sure you guys are aware
Speaker 1: that d a's love to crack deals. They love to
Speaker 1: make their big may general backroom deals, and facilitating that
Speaker 1: is cops charging high. You're here in the room, you're
Speaker 1: facing felony charges, and the d A is gonna be like, oh, man,
Speaker 1: I can knock that down to him his demeanor. But
Speaker 1: that's because he knows he doesn't have a case. But
Speaker 1: he didn't get that opportunity without a cop charging the
Speaker 1: higher charge. Now you know who isn't going to charge
Speaker 1: high because their prices are incredibly low, very reasonable, very fair.
Speaker 1: The products and services that support our podcast. Uh, we're back.
Speaker 1: So the next thing you've got on here is kind
Speaker 1: of talking about cult characteristics. Questioning, doubt, and dissent are
Speaker 1: discouraged or even punished. And you've written academies are commonly paramilitary.
Speaker 1: They're working to break down and build up cadets. As
Speaker 1: discussed last season on my show, the FDO program is
Speaker 1: where fresh cadets meet salty veterans in the cycle of
Speaker 1: abuse starts. The paramilitary environment is usually casual and unnoticeable
Speaker 1: until somebody questions orders or tradition. Questioning order gets the
Speaker 1: that's an order threat. While questioning tradition and suggesting improvements
Speaker 1: gets that's how it's always been done. There is no
Speaker 1: forum for change your progress. Some places have these forums,
Speaker 1: but they're just for public relations. And this is the
Speaker 1: thing that I think people who are trying to engage
Speaker 1: with from a perspective of like reform or whatever, trying
Speaker 1: to change law enforcement, as a lot of people were
Speaker 1: last year, where things get jammed up a lot is
Speaker 1: the there's this attitude among civilians, so to speak, among
Speaker 1: most of us that like, well, anything the government does
Speaker 1: should be subject to like what we should watch out.
Speaker 1: We should look at it, we should see if it works.
Speaker 1: If it doesn't work, we should change it to make
Speaker 1: it work better. And that's how kind of everything should work.
Speaker 1: And that's what you're getting it here. Is interesting because
Speaker 1: it's the reticence to actual change among police as legendary.
Speaker 1: But I don't think there's a lot of discussion if
Speaker 1: the psychology behind it. Yeah, I mean it's that it
Speaker 1: goes back to that whole will do anything to reinforce
Speaker 1: our perception of reality thing. Um, like I said earlier,
Speaker 1: grew up in a cop family and it's specifically in
Speaker 1: the department that I worked at so you know, we
Speaker 1: were called like blue bloods or legacy kids, And no
Speaker 1: matter what was going on, like anything that you questioned,
Speaker 1: it was always, well, that's always it's that's the way
Speaker 1: it's always been done. That's the way it's always been done.
Speaker 1: And I grew to hate that answer, like with a passion,
Speaker 1: in my personal life everywhere. I refused to give that
Speaker 1: as an answer. When I became a sergeant, eventually, um,
Speaker 1: and yeah, they'll do anything. I mean they will, they
Speaker 1: will bend laws, they'll break laws because who's gonna charge them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because it's what they've always done always. My department famously
Speaker 1: had um our union got all of our union news
Speaker 1: embezzled by people in our brass and they got caught
Speaker 1: dead to rights. But that case never went anywhere. Nobody
Speaker 1: would touch it with a ten foot poll. Uh. And
Speaker 1: even if you go and google it and you try
Speaker 1: to look at archives from the local newspaper, it's gone.
Speaker 1: It never happened. And Yeah, that's interesting to me because
Speaker 1: that's like cops getting screwed over by cops. Why how
Speaker 1: is that? How is that? How was it? Like? What
Speaker 1: what what is the impulse to defend the hat Well,
Speaker 1: because so there's a division in in cop culture of
Speaker 1: like like ranks and a cult. Once you get to
Speaker 1: what they called brass your your lieutenant, captain or higher,
Speaker 1: they don't look at us the same way they don't
Speaker 1: look at the grunts, the line workers, the guys doing
Speaker 1: the twelve hour shifts were all that family talk goes
Speaker 1: out the window and it's like, well, we're mom and
Speaker 1: dad now, and they change their role in that world,
Speaker 1: and again to maintain that power and authority, they'll do
Speaker 1: whatever they have to do. Yeah, that's um. I mean.
Speaker 1: It also kind of feeds into this this idea that
Speaker 1: like there used to be less restrictions. There used to
Speaker 1: be like we used to really be able to like
Speaker 1: do this and do that, Like we like a lot
Speaker 1: of violence get justified that way. But it also it
Speaker 1: provides an opportunity I think for like police who are
Speaker 1: trying to engage with reformers to do some sneaky ship
Speaker 1: because often this like community policing is referred to like yeah,
Speaker 1: we need to go back to the old methods of policing.
Speaker 1: It's like, well, but there were probed do you remember
Speaker 1: the fire houses being used to black people during the
Speaker 1: Civil rights movement, Like there were issues back before we
Speaker 1: got militarized. It's and I mean, and that was the
Speaker 1: stuff they were doing outside. Um, the jail I worked in.
Speaker 1: Because you bring up fire hoses, this is where I'm going. Um,
Speaker 1: they we had big cotton fire hoses up on the
Speaker 1: floors in this jail and there was actually built out
Speaker 1: of old parts of the Texas prison. And you know,
Speaker 1: everyone talks about the good old days when we could
Speaker 1: really do stuff. And the story that always went around
Speaker 1: was that when the inmates were getting rowdy, they would
Speaker 1: just walk down the tier with the hose and just
Speaker 1: name them. And then Jesus Christ put it back because again,
Speaker 1: who who's gonna who's gonna tell on me? Who's gonna
Speaker 1: believe these guys? Yeah, and that was back in like
Speaker 1: seventies era. You know, that's the that's the big fish
Speaker 1: story that guys used to always tell. But I'm like,
Speaker 1: I have no reason to not believe that story. It
Speaker 1: sounds very I mean worre stuff happens in prisons today. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm not surprised. All right, moving on down your list,
Speaker 1: This one's really interesting to me and I'm I'm curious
Speaker 1: from some detail on this, because this is not something
Speaker 1: I ever really thought about. Um. Mind altering practices such
Speaker 1: as meditation, chanting, speaking in tongues, denunciation sessions, or debilitating
Speaker 1: work routines are used in excess and served to suppress
Speaker 1: doubts about the group and its leaders. And you've written
Speaker 1: cop talk briefings, evails are always negative, and the work
Speaker 1: routine is abusive. It is paired with hyper vigilance. Um.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm extremely interested in that and kind of like
Speaker 1: how it how it sounds like the kind of language
Speaker 1: that you're talking about people using among each other when
Speaker 1: they're doing this, So I you know almost, I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm not even almost in kind of a PTSD response.
Speaker 1: I've blocked out like a lot of my memories from
Speaker 1: those years, Like I'll talk to that make sense. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll talk to X cops and they're like, hey, remember
Speaker 1: blah blah blah, and I'm like no, Um, So cop
Speaker 1: talk is mostly slang. It's like it's the ten code stuff. Um.
Speaker 1: But it gets stuck in your head and you start
Speaker 1: and it's it's one of those things where they talk
Speaker 1: about how you're not gonna have friends outside of work
Speaker 1: because you're gonna start talking in this language. You will say,
Speaker 1: you know, what's your twenty You know, I'm code for
Speaker 1: if you see someone who's acting a certain way, like
Speaker 1: out of the ordinary, maybe a mentally ill person, you'll
Speaker 1: say like, oh, that's a jay cat. Like you'll use
Speaker 1: this jailhouse slang, and it just it permeates your brain.
Speaker 1: And like we said before, your words manipulate how you
Speaker 1: for see reality and you just start seeing everything that way. Um.
Speaker 1: The big one is the hyper vigilance cycle. Is the
Speaker 1: is the abusive part. That's that's the part that really
Speaker 1: got me thinking of cults of how they'll you know,
Speaker 1: deny your food, sleep, make you work crazy hours and
Speaker 1: do all these things. Um. And that's that's that's the
Speaker 1: one that really keep the whole calb aspect for me
Speaker 1: was the hyper vigilance cycle. The studies that have gone
Speaker 1: into it. UM. I learned about it from a book
Speaker 1: this little guy right here. It's called Emotional Survival for
Speaker 1: Law Enforcement. It's by Kevin M. Gil Martin, PhD. He's
Speaker 1: an X cop who kind of PhD in neuroscience and
Speaker 1: studies studied cops brains and got to see how they function.
Speaker 1: And he's the one that kind of coined this whole
Speaker 1: hyper vigilance cycle of you're always edging at this parasympathetic
Speaker 1: fight flight or freeze response time when you're on duty. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it just stays up there the entire time. I'm sure
Speaker 1: soldiers about the same thing, funk. I'm sure you had
Speaker 1: the same thing, Robert when you were doing your war
Speaker 1: journalism stuff, man, or fuck just being in Portland last year. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it keeps you at that edge, that cresting peak, and
Speaker 1: then you crash and you get back up and boom,
Speaker 1: you peek up again and then you crash, And it's
Speaker 1: almost like a drug. Your brain becomes addicted to that
Speaker 1: peeked out feeling that you get from the hyper vigilance
Speaker 1: because you do here a little better, you see a
Speaker 1: little brother better, your brains moving a little faster because
Speaker 1: there's that high the amount of adrenaline just constantly dripping
Speaker 1: into your system, and then you crash. And when you
Speaker 1: crash is when you're not at work, So you start
Speaker 1: associating not being at work with feeling bad and being
Speaker 1: at work feels good. Yeah, I mean, the same thing happened.
Speaker 1: I'm sure Garrison, it happened like during the riots where
Speaker 1: you would feel shitty when you weren't out there. Um, yes,
Speaker 1: some days I would go out, not even to just
Speaker 1: to cover it, just to kind of just stand there
Speaker 1: like a block away because there was nothing else to do.
Speaker 1: Like it was, there's like I could sit at home
Speaker 1: and rest, but I'll just be watching whatever is happening,
Speaker 1: not doing anything else. You just it it feels it
Speaker 1: would feel more relaxing just to stand on a street
Speaker 1: corner and watch people throws stuff over events, because that
Speaker 1: that that's just that's more relaxing than laying down. It
Speaker 1: was like it's that a very a very weird disassociate
Speaker 1: of like feeling that. Yeah, Like my my brain is
Speaker 1: it's accustomed to this environy it now, so this is
Speaker 1: the environment I'm gonna be in. Right, And look how
Speaker 1: fast your brain got into that groove now, you know,
Speaker 1: imagine doing it for thirty years, yeah, instead of like
Speaker 1: six months or even though it's it's it's started only
Speaker 1: after like two months, right, and or even even in
Speaker 1: some cases like a month. Yeah, it sets in fast. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: all right, so I wanted to get into the kind
Speaker 1: of the next thing here. Um, the leadership dictates sometimes
Speaker 1: in great detail how members should think, act and feel.
Speaker 1: E g. Members must get permission to date, change jobs,
Speaker 1: are married or Leaders prescribe what to wear, where to live,
Speaker 1: whether to have children, how to discipline children, and so forth. Um,
Speaker 1: very classic cult ship, right, like the nut really of
Speaker 1: what I had. We had all all that stuff when
Speaker 1: I was a kid. Yeah, I would guess that, like
Speaker 1: the time, if you ask someone for a quick definition
Speaker 1: of a cult, this is what they're gonna say something
Speaker 1: or there. This this is the kind of ship they're
Speaker 1: going to highlight. Um. And I'm interes did in Yeah,
Speaker 1: just talk because you already chatted a bit about about this.
Speaker 1: Just the fact that, like the way in which police
Speaker 1: policy works kind of restructures how you function off duty,
Speaker 1: which I think is something that people everyone understands elements
Speaker 1: of it, right, Like if you're a fucking dishwasher for
Speaker 1: a living, you will wash dishes differently forever, right Like
Speaker 1: if you if you bag your like bagsh it at
Speaker 1: a grocery store, like that's something that you'll always kind
Speaker 1: of know how to do. Like these bits and pieces
Speaker 1: of this, but it's not quite the same as what
Speaker 1: you're talking about. And I want to get kind of
Speaker 1: into why. Yeah, it's kind of like when you're when
Speaker 1: you're as an adult, you do something that you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: I used to do that at my first job and
Speaker 1: I was like fifteen, But yeah, it does stick with
Speaker 1: you the muscle. The muscle memory sticks in those narrow
Speaker 1: pathways that your brain gets carved unless you get the
Speaker 1: right kinds of mushrooms to fix that. So and then
Speaker 1: you just throw ship in the bad suck it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: smooth out those curves. Um. But yeah, the leadership he
Speaker 1: does dictate. I mean some of them are some of
Speaker 1: them you can foy and some of the republic you can.
Speaker 1: You can pull up policies and procedures, standard operating procedures,
Speaker 1: and you can look at like there's a ton of
Speaker 1: policies that literally dictate what you are and are not
Speaker 1: allowed to do in your personal life. Things you're allowed
Speaker 1: to post on social media, places, you're allowed to go
Speaker 1: in uniform. And it all just starts like tinking away
Speaker 1: at your armor of that that sense of identity, that
Speaker 1: sense of self, and that's how the job becomes your identity. Again.
Speaker 1: It permeates every corner of your life if you let it. Um,
Speaker 1: if you don't have, like the I don't know the
Speaker 1: mental strength to kind of resist that. It washes over
Speaker 1: your real fast. Because while that's all going on, especially
Speaker 1: as a young cop, you feel great. You're you're special. Now,
Speaker 1: you're you're in this, You're in the magic club. You
Speaker 1: you have the the symbol on your chest and the
Speaker 1: gun on your hip, and it's really easy to let
Speaker 1: that slip and just become everything about you. Um yeah,
Speaker 1: remember permissions like so, permission to date and things like
Speaker 1: that might sound a little weird, but there are times
Speaker 1: where like, my wife and I don't dress like the
Speaker 1: typical conservative Central Valley person. Uh, and at out of
Speaker 1: work functions I would get I would get comments from
Speaker 1: people being like, hey, maybe, yeah, your your wife has
Speaker 1: a lot of really colorful hair, like maybe she should
Speaker 1: tone that down Jesus for again. That was another one
Speaker 1: where I'm like, what, No, that's my wife. She can
Speaker 1: do whatever she damn well wants. Yeah, I mean that's
Speaker 1: that's that's the kind of talking that should get somebody
Speaker 1: slapped upside the head. Yeah yeah. Um. The uh. The
Speaker 1: next thing you have here is the group is elitist,
Speaker 1: claiming a special exalted status for itself, it's leader and
Speaker 1: it's members. The leader is And I'm interested in kind
Speaker 1: of because you you have you have elements of this
Speaker 1: right um with it, like the sheep dog thing. We're
Speaker 1: kind of like the cop is the center of the
Speaker 1: cult for people who are not cop coults. I don't know,
Speaker 1: like does this exist, Like I don't see like cult,
Speaker 1: a cult leader sort of within this this thing. I
Speaker 1: think it's it's almost more nebulous than that, where this
Speaker 1: idea of the agent of the law is kind of
Speaker 1: the center of the cult that the people who are
Speaker 1: agents of the law buy into as well as folks
Speaker 1: outside of it. You know, I don't know. This is
Speaker 1: probably deserve any I mean, I'm interested in your thoughts
Speaker 1: on this. This probably deserves significantly more analysis than we're
Speaker 1: going to give it today. But I think it's a
Speaker 1: fascinating thing to think about. Right. It's kind of like
Speaker 1: how I when I put earlier that the criminal justice
Speaker 1: system is the direct substitute for God. It is God,
Speaker 1: the law is God. I mean, how many times have
Speaker 1: you gotten into a debate with someone where they'll be like, well,
Speaker 1: it's ethically fine because it's legal, and you're like, well, No,
Speaker 1: legality does not equal you know, ethical or moral and there.
Speaker 1: But there's these people in America who are just like, no,
Speaker 1: if it's legal, it's legal, that means it's okay. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And the elitism, Yeah, it's obvious. I mean if you've
Speaker 1: met it's kind of a religious belief though that like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's illegal, so it's bad. She there were a criminal,
Speaker 1: so they deserved X. Like making a making a homebrewed
Speaker 1: cleric that believed in the law for D and D
Speaker 1: was pretty easy, uh, to be like, yeah, this is
Speaker 1: a church, this is a religion. Um, yeah it is.
Speaker 1: It is the sheep dog 'm on on sheep and
Speaker 1: the you know, it's us against the wolves and blah
Speaker 1: blah blah. And then we have a guy's name in
Speaker 1: here that I won't say for anonymity. But we had
Speaker 1: we had a Braska a lieutenant that would give us
Speaker 1: these prepared speeches whenever he thought someone's morale was getting low,
Speaker 1: where he would talk about how and he was wrong
Speaker 1: that the word sheriff comes from uh like Sanskrit or
Speaker 1: Arabic sharif, which is not true. It comes from shire Reeve.
Speaker 1: It's old English, just squished because English is a hideous
Speaker 1: l which Um, but he had to. I mean, I
Speaker 1: can't count how many times he told me that exact
Speaker 1: same speech to my face, over and over again, as
Speaker 1: if it was the first time I was hearing the story.
Speaker 1: And it's to me that was another thing to click
Speaker 1: where I'm like, God, it's like talking, It's like a
Speaker 1: call and response when you're in church. Sometimes. Yeah, any
Speaker 1: time you confront a religious person, they just to have
Speaker 1: that that that that dogmatic skeew that regurgitates and just like, well,
Speaker 1: here's my opinion that I was told by someone who
Speaker 1: told me. Okay, So Alexander, UM, we've got more to say.
Speaker 1: You've got a lot more that you've written here. Um,
Speaker 1: we're gonna we've gone kind of a little over the
Speaker 1: time we had here. So I want to have you
Speaker 1: back on tomorrow for part two of this. Before we
Speaker 1: roll out, do you have anything you'd like to plug?
Speaker 1: Maybe the Washington State Patrol? No, Um, No, I don't
Speaker 1: really have anything to plug. I'm I'm never say die
Speaker 1: where all the easier threes because I'm that elder nerd
Speaker 1: from the ninety Yeah, and uh saw hackers in the theater.
Speaker 1: I it's claimed to fame on Twitter if you want
Speaker 1: to come see me. How are your hips doing? I
Speaker 1: talk about that. It's okay, Garrison's never seen Wayne's World.
Speaker 1: Oh I know that's true. That's true. Too young. I
Speaker 1: tried to show Wayne's World to my brother, who's still
Speaker 1: like five years older than Garrison, and did not take.
Speaker 1: Didn't take. It's it's a it's a time thing. My
Speaker 1: oldest is about four years younger than Garrison, and they've
Speaker 1: seen Wayne's World. I'm just wow. Okay, uh oh where
Speaker 1: it's us? The podcast that we are. It could happen
Speaker 1: here behind the podcast bad stuff. It could happen here,
Speaker 1: it is, it could happen here. Okay. Well, Part two
Speaker 1: of Why Police Are Occult? Thanks Garrison, Thanks for doing
Speaker 1: the job that is one of our jobs, certainly, but
Speaker 1: apparently not mine. Alexander Williams back again, Um, Alexander? How
Speaker 1: are you? How are you feeling good? Is your life
Speaker 1: in a radically different place now than it was when
Speaker 1: we ended part one? Oh? Yeah? Like no, Well that's
Speaker 1: for the best, because anything that would change in about
Speaker 1: the thirty seconds between these episodes probably would not have
Speaker 1: been a positive change. You're letting the magic out. People
Speaker 1: are gonna know. Yeah, they should know already. Uh So
Speaker 1: the next thing you've got here in terms of cult
Speaker 1: characteristics that you saw inside the police is the group
Speaker 1: has a polarized us versus them mentality, which may cause
Speaker 1: conflict with the wider society. Um yeah, And I think
Speaker 1: this is the one that like, yeah, we've all we
Speaker 1: all kind of saw that one. Actually, are you sure
Speaker 1: about that one? I'm not convinced. Yeah, it was a
Speaker 1: Eureka moment, right Yeah. Um, I do think it's probably
Speaker 1: worth a little bit of exploration about like what it
Speaker 1: means emotionally to be told like I want to defund
Speaker 1: or even abolish the police as a police officer, Like
Speaker 1: that's that's a um yeah. Yeah. I remember the first
Speaker 1: time that I heard that, the concept of it when
Speaker 1: I was a cop. I think I was about five
Speaker 1: years away from getting out, um, and it blew my mind.
Speaker 1: It was it was like I'm like, you don't know,
Speaker 1: we don't have enough funding, Like how how in the world?
Speaker 1: But we can't do our job because you know, in
Speaker 1: our in my head, we're we're the thing holding society up.
Speaker 1: If we're not here, everything falls apart and crumbles. Um.
Speaker 1: So the idea of being told like we need to
Speaker 1: defund the police. For cops, it's it's an attack on
Speaker 1: your values and your role in the world. It's also
Speaker 1: attack on like your personal life because because your life
Speaker 1: is police as well, right, and and and it's and
Speaker 1: it's like you're you've you've been talking a lot about
Speaker 1: how the job becomes such a central part of your
Speaker 1: identity that it's not even just attacking like your paycheck,
Speaker 1: but it's attacking like your essence now as a person.
Speaker 1: It is it's like if you've ever had a debate
Speaker 1: with with an extremely like evangelical religious person, it's the
Speaker 1: same as trying to tell a cop like, hey, you
Speaker 1: don't actually hold society up. You're not exactly as important
Speaker 1: as you think you are. Um And like I said, like,
Speaker 1: we don't get we don't get paid very much. Health
Speaker 1: insurance usually isn't that good um our our unions that
Speaker 1: we toad as being the best, we're usually pretty corrupt um.
Speaker 1: And they don't really go to bat for us and
Speaker 1: get us the good health insurance and get us the
Speaker 1: good pay. They get us just enough. And so when
Speaker 1: a cop here's like, hey, we defund the police, it's
Speaker 1: like from our perspective, we think what we're hearing is
Speaker 1: we don't appreciate you. We already think you get paid
Speaker 1: too much. We we think of it less about like
Speaker 1: the structure of law enforcement, and we think it personally
Speaker 1: of like, oh, you don't think my kids should have dinner? Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's uh, I mean, yeah, of course that has
Speaker 1: like of course it ends the way that we saw
Speaker 1: it in you know, or at least it continues the
Speaker 1: way we saw it and continue last year, right, And
Speaker 1: and it's I think it could help like people like
Speaker 1: us are on one side of the line and you know,
Speaker 1: the other people are on the other side of the
Speaker 1: line still, and I think it could help people on
Speaker 1: our side of the of the of the barricades to
Speaker 1: understand just how willing these guys are to do things
Speaker 1: and things that they wouldn't normally do, things that you
Speaker 1: would never consider doing on your own, but for the
Speaker 1: job and as an order, they'll do it because again,
Speaker 1: it's part of their identity, and it's it's there. You know,
Speaker 1: you're attacking me, You're also attacking my family, You're you're
Speaker 1: it goes back to that grossman thing of being told
Speaker 1: a lot of Um, no matter what you do, you
Speaker 1: go home tonight. So no matter what I do on
Speaker 1: my shift, I go home tonight. It's better to be
Speaker 1: judged by twelve and carried by six. Yeah that one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like I'm thinking of like the police of the riot line,
Speaker 1: and yeah, you can see them being like middle aged
Speaker 1: conservative dudes, like look at all these like fucking like
Speaker 1: gay queer teenagers throwing suffet me. Right, it's like the
Speaker 1: specific thing you're like, oh you you like I'm getting
Speaker 1: attacked by like the lowest of the low society. I'm
Speaker 1: being attacked by like did like degenerates and like this
Speaker 1: weird kind of scum. I'm actually what society should be.
Speaker 1: The people that are fighting against me are like this
Speaker 1: weird anti so sual thing, right, That's that's how it
Speaker 1: is from their perspective. Um, when almost an actuality. I've
Speaker 1: been I've been slowly kind of appropriating that type of
Speaker 1: language for when I see a cop do something horrible,
Speaker 1: I'm like, wow, look at that, like anti social, violent freak.
Speaker 1: Because you can look at that language because it flips
Speaker 1: the way we usually view like aesthetics. When you know,
Speaker 1: because like when you see someone do something horribly horribly violent,
Speaker 1: but they addressed in a uniform. It is it has
Speaker 1: the appearance of being proper, but like, no, that actually
Speaker 1: still is anti social and extremely violent. So I think
Speaker 1: I've been playing around with like flip flipping that language,
Speaker 1: but you can definitely see it on the cops faces
Speaker 1: when a whole bunch of like young queer as fun
Speaker 1: people are throwing water bottles at them. Oh yeah, you can't.
Speaker 1: And and the thing that to the thing to remember
Speaker 1: about most cops is they're there. Their ego is paper thin,
Speaker 1: their skin. They cannot take a joke, they cannot take
Speaker 1: an insult. The the number of cops that I would see,
Speaker 1: and I would argue that I saw some of the
Speaker 1: worst worst behavior than on the streets, because because inside
Speaker 1: the jail you're you know, you're in your own little world.
Speaker 1: You're inside these walls. The public can't see you unless
Speaker 1: you're on camera and prebody cameras, you know where all
Speaker 1: the cameras are. And I the the amount of guys
Speaker 1: that like an inmate would call them like the f
Speaker 1: slur or any other slur, and the cop would just snap,
Speaker 1: we just lose their mind. And me and another couple
Speaker 1: other guys being the only kind of cops that would
Speaker 1: get in the guy's way and be like no. And
Speaker 1: it was never we couldn't say no, that's wrong, don't
Speaker 1: do that. It was always no, it's not worth it,
Speaker 1: or no, you're gonna get in trouble, or no, you
Speaker 1: know if you do that, he wins man, because if
Speaker 1: we said don't do that, it's wrong, we may have
Speaker 1: we may have stopped that bad thing from happening, but
Speaker 1: we have now marked ourselves as being, you know, potential
Speaker 1: apostates against the close. Um. So yeah, that's yeah, calling
Speaker 1: them names works. Six and stones do breaktops bones, Like,
Speaker 1: oh boy, it does work. Like in terms of if
Speaker 1: if the goal is make them extremely angry, yes, it
Speaker 1: doesn't work. It's yeah. Obviously the next one you've got
Speaker 1: is the leader. The leader is not accountable to any authorities, um,
Speaker 1: which the police regulate and investigate themselves. That's one of
Speaker 1: the most basic ones. But it does it kind of,
Speaker 1: It does lead to this, like it is interesting to
Speaker 1: think about the way the Church of Scientology handles uh
Speaker 1: misbehavior from its agents and the way that like a
Speaker 1: police department does. Because there's not a ton of daylight
Speaker 1: betwixt the two, there's not listening to you the l
Speaker 1: Ron episodes. Anyone who hasn't listened to them, go back
Speaker 1: and listen to them. They're fantastic. One of my favorites.
Speaker 1: Um yeah, listening to that. And the way that they're
Speaker 1: a little internalized security system was structured was very, very
Speaker 1: analog to exactly what happens in law enforcement when they're
Speaker 1: sowing so policing themselves b s because god they don't.
Speaker 1: They'll do every little thing to manipulate the situation to
Speaker 1: have the cop come out on top and not be
Speaker 1: in trouble because who's gonna all them responsible? That my
Speaker 1: own guy at my own department's interviewing me. We've known
Speaker 1: each other since you were kids, or I've known his dad,
Speaker 1: or his dad's known me, or or he's you know,
Speaker 1: related or whatever. It never works when the you know,
Speaker 1: the watchmen are watching themselves. It doesn't work. I don't
Speaker 1: know how. We don't, well I do, you know how,
Speaker 1: But I really wish there was if we do have
Speaker 1: to still have law enforcement, civilian oversight with actual power,
Speaker 1: actual authority to do. Yeah, that's that's the thing is
Speaker 1: that everywhere and a lot of the times that's been
Speaker 1: try to put into legislator. It doesn't. It's always like neutered,
Speaker 1: It's always like and I'm like, I've I've seen version
Speaker 1: of it pop up in Portland and it just never
Speaker 1: does anything. Yeah, And that's I mean, obviously the whole
Speaker 1: the question of is to what extent can increasing civilian
Speaker 1: oversight UH solve problems? To what extent is it like
Speaker 1: papering over them? Those are all things worth discussing. UM.
Speaker 1: I think I want to kind of keep us focused
Speaker 1: on the mindset that that inflcates, because that that's the
Speaker 1: thing that I don't think people get in part because
Speaker 1: like most people who are part of these abolitionous movements,
Speaker 1: most people who are are on the sides that we
Speaker 1: are on this um either probably don't know a police
Speaker 1: officer very well apart and certainly almost most of them
Speaker 1: have not been police officers. And I'm kind of wondering,
Speaker 1: what are you actually scared of doing as a police officer,
Speaker 1: Like what what what are you actually scared of in
Speaker 1: terms of like the blowback, the fault, Like, what what
Speaker 1: is it you actually get worried about if it's not
Speaker 1: pissing off everyone else in the city who wasn't a cop,
Speaker 1: you know. So Yeah, what it comes down to is, uh,
Speaker 1: you know that the the church of law, the Church
Speaker 1: of criminal justice, and what they're scared of is so
Speaker 1: if I get a dirty cop who's not blatantly doing
Speaker 1: something bad, like he just he hit a guy too
Speaker 1: hard or something, it's something that hasn't hit the news yet. Um,
Speaker 1: but I have to morally, like ethically, on paper, I'm
Speaker 1: required to have an I A division investigate these people.
Speaker 1: The reason that in my head when I was there
Speaker 1: and being interviewed for these things, it's because you have
Speaker 1: to hold up the infallibility of the law. It doesn't
Speaker 1: matter what really happened. All that matters is what's in
Speaker 1: black and white on paper in our files. If we
Speaker 1: ever get audited by a federal body and we can say, look,
Speaker 1: a bad thing happened, Yes we investigated it, here's what
Speaker 1: Here were the results. And it's all about holding up
Speaker 1: the infallibility of the law, because if it really gets
Speaker 1: out and cops really get in trouble for stuff like
Speaker 1: some of the stuff that's been happening where cops are
Speaker 1: actually being convicted finally for doing terrible things, it erodes
Speaker 1: the blind faith that the masses have in law enforcement.
Speaker 1: Because I've heard people here in Utah, which is a
Speaker 1: very conservative place, look at some of those shootings that
Speaker 1: have happened where the cops have actually been found guilty
Speaker 1: and they've actually been like, oh wow, like I never
Speaker 1: once thought a cop would do this, And it doesn't
Speaker 1: sound like much, but in their head, that's that's a
Speaker 1: seed that's setting in their consciousness. And that's that's the
Speaker 1: whole point of the blue wall of silence and keeping
Speaker 1: everything in the house is if everybody realizes that we're
Speaker 1: just a little weird man behind a curtain, you know,
Speaker 1: the Wizard of Oz doesn't work anymore. We have to
Speaker 1: maintain this false image that we are infallible and we
Speaker 1: know we know exactly what we're doing, and we are
Speaker 1: taking care of you. You have to believe that. So
Speaker 1: they'll do anything to maintain the lie. Wow. Yeah that
Speaker 1: makes sense. It's bleak, but it makes sense. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: felt bleeping in there. This ties into kind of the
Speaker 1: the role of like lying right and and and the
Speaker 1: kind of the cult thing you're tying this into is
Speaker 1: that like colts will often talk about how the things
Speaker 1: the cult is doing are so important that you can
Speaker 1: do terrible things to achieve them. Right. You see this
Speaker 1: in the Church of Scientology and their dirty tricks programs.
Speaker 1: Sent and On had its its version of this. Um
Speaker 1: and you you've written here we are taught to lie
Speaker 1: to get what we need. It's only true if it's
Speaker 1: on tape or written down. As long as it looks good,
Speaker 1: it is good. Um and I uh, I mean it.
Speaker 1: It made me think, among other things, of a guy
Speaker 1: I used to know who became a local prosecutor. Um
Speaker 1: and eventually quick it because he kept being assured by
Speaker 1: police officers that like something that they had put in
Speaker 1: like the charging document was true, and then being unable
Speaker 1: to prove it in court. Um and it it pissed
Speaker 1: him off after a period of time. Um And I'm interested,
Speaker 1: like in the I'm sure like obviously some fraction of
Speaker 1: people doing it are just like just literally don't give
Speaker 1: a ship. But how does someone who actually does have
Speaker 1: a moral compass and believe in the law. How does
Speaker 1: someone who really believes justify lying to screw somebody over. Um.
Speaker 1: So as the guy who was there, who had morals,
Speaker 1: which is why I'm not there anymore, I couldn't all right,
Speaker 1: And I actually got in trouble on a couple of
Speaker 1: instances of everybody was going one way on a story
Speaker 1: and I was going in the opposite direction, and without
Speaker 1: using blatant terms, they use all the like the little
Speaker 1: you know, legal legal fuckory terms to not say what
Speaker 1: they're trying to say, but implying and getting it across
Speaker 1: to you of like you need to get on the
Speaker 1: same page, you need to tow the line, you need
Speaker 1: to you need to get in here. And I could
Speaker 1: never do it. I just I don't know, it's just
Speaker 1: my moral fiber won't let me do that kind of thing. Um.
Speaker 1: I once was told by a lieutenant that I had
Speaker 1: my moral fiber was too high, Like he literally told me,
Speaker 1: because you can't expect everyone else to live up to
Speaker 1: your moral standards. And I'm like, dude, we're we're supposed
Speaker 1: to be like a little bit above the typical moral standard.
Speaker 1: We're supposed to be the example of how you know,
Speaker 1: our civilians, our citizens are supposed to act. But it
Speaker 1: wasn't the truth. Yeah, I mean, my first I think
Speaker 1: kind of radicalizing thing very early on was just like
Speaker 1: the fake drug scandal in Dallas, was realizing that like
Speaker 1: on a significant scale. Uh, local police had been planting
Speaker 1: ship on people in order to charge them. People have
Speaker 1: gone to prison, which happens other places too. But like, yeah, um,
Speaker 1: and I'm the bulk of the work making something like
Speaker 1: that happen, isn't the people who are planting the fake drugs?
Speaker 1: The people who realize that the department will look bad
Speaker 1: if it gets out and then dedicate themselves to stopping
Speaker 1: it from getting out even beyond because you have you know,
Speaker 1: X number of people are willing to plant plant fake
Speaker 1: drugs on a guy, but a much larger number of
Speaker 1: people are willing to try to cover that up. So
Speaker 1: it's not a problem. That's That's the thing I really
Speaker 1: appreciate about, Alex. You're framing of this in terms of
Speaker 1: like their main or not one of the main motivations
Speaker 1: is not, you know, actually doing the job itself. It's
Speaker 1: about it's about making sure that their reality and by extension,
Speaker 1: what they want everyone else as a reality to be,
Speaker 1: to stay the same. Like they all of the effort
Speaker 1: into whether that be lying for supposedly in their view,
Speaker 1: like moral reasons and all, that's kind of work. It's
Speaker 1: it's it's it's to maintain the specific version of reality.
Speaker 1: It's not it's not actually for like like it's it's
Speaker 1: it's not for like actually promoting what is like the
Speaker 1: law and the books by any means. It's it's it's
Speaker 1: it's the it's the thing like in hot fuzz, it's
Speaker 1: for the greater good. That's that's what that is. That
Speaker 1: is what they're trying to That's what they're trying to do.
Speaker 1: So even if they like, as long as their reality
Speaker 1: is maintained, then you know, we have some semblance of
Speaker 1: like order in the world, whether that be you know,
Speaker 1: this nostalgic, semi like proto militaristic nationalist version of order.
Speaker 1: But that's that's that's the thing that wants to be maintained.
Speaker 1: So every every task, everything that they're doing isn't just
Speaker 1: a simple task. It's all in the overall effort of
Speaker 1: maintaining this like this perception um and and that's a
Speaker 1: a much more I think interesting way to think about police. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it really is. Uh, these guys in like in pill talk,
Speaker 1: these guys would take the blue pill and a heartbeat
Speaker 1: and then they don't rest Morpheus for trying to deal drugs.
Speaker 1: Like that's how dedicated. These guys are too staying inside
Speaker 1: this version of their reality. Now, um, I kind of
Speaker 1: let's move on next to um, the next kind of
Speaker 1: cult aspect, the leadership induces feelings of shame and or
Speaker 1: guilt in order to influence and control members. And you're
Speaker 1: talking you've litten down here, toxic masculinity and the warrior mindset. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: do you have any kind of like case examples of
Speaker 1: how that that actually looks of like kind of using
Speaker 1: shame or guilt to people who aren't kind of in
Speaker 1: the this quote quote unquote warrior mindset. H Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean it happened a lot. Um, there was a lot
Speaker 1: of Monday night quarterbacking that would happen, especially with the
Speaker 1: advent of like cameras and things becoming more popular. Uh
Speaker 1: I love my body camera. That was my little best friend.
Speaker 1: But we would go you know, you go back and
Speaker 1: you'd watch videos of incidents and things, and if somebody
Speaker 1: wasn't like engaging fast enough, they would get real did
Speaker 1: hard like haze and you know, made fun of and
Speaker 1: mocked it. And when you were in this, you know,
Speaker 1: we're a family mindset, and you're you know, we're we
Speaker 1: got each other's backs and we only understand each other,
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden, you're on the outside
Speaker 1: because you dared to have even a remotely moderate to
Speaker 1: liberal position on anything, or you didn't jump in on
Speaker 1: the you know, the the ass beating on something to
Speaker 1: fast enough, they turn on you fast. Like. The only
Speaker 1: thing I could compare it to is like you know
Speaker 1: every eighties and like nineties military movie or or you
Speaker 1: know nerds movie where people just haze the ship out
Speaker 1: of each other, and it's that that dude brow everyone's
Speaker 1: got a our wire sun tattoo on their bicep, just
Speaker 1: rampant everywhere. I mean, it permeated the whole place. That
Speaker 1: drove me that that was one of the things that
Speaker 1: really drove me next, because I've never been that kind
Speaker 1: of guy. I've always been a a more of a
Speaker 1: a de escalation person and a book reader. And then
Speaker 1: I think it helps explain a lot why you see
Speaker 1: some of these videos where it's just like why did
Speaker 1: they go to zero to ten from zero to tend
Speaker 1: so fast with well, because somebody's gonna make fun of
Speaker 1: them and call them names if they don't go hard enough,
Speaker 1: fast enough on somebody when they do certain things like
Speaker 1: and yeah, the zero to a hundred thing also ties
Speaker 1: into that whole, that whole hyper vigilance thing that always
Speaker 1: being um a compressed spring, and then it ties back
Speaker 1: into that warrior mindset of like they tell you flat
Speaker 1: out like if anyone ever attacks you, they're trying to
Speaker 1: kill you. It's it's there's there's no offens or, but
Speaker 1: you need to act like they're trying to kill you,
Speaker 1: because it goes back to the whole I'm going home
Speaker 1: at the end of the shift kind of thing. And
Speaker 1: once once that's ingrained itself into like your muscle memory,
Speaker 1: and that becomes the reflex, that becomes the thought that
Speaker 1: passes in front of your mind when a critical incident happens,
Speaker 1: then that's how you're gonna act, and you're gonna do
Speaker 1: and you're gonna go from zero to a hundred because
Speaker 1: you're going to assume that any little furtive movement movement,
Speaker 1: which god, there's that language furtive movement UM, any little
Speaker 1: movement that someone makes, like that's that's a green light.
Speaker 1: That's an excuse that I can end whatever interaction I'm
Speaker 1: having with this person with violence because they flinched enough
Speaker 1: where I think, Okay, I got this, Yeah, Jesus. Now
Speaker 1: one of the next ones you have here is talking
Speaker 1: about recruitment, which obviously COLT STU, but also like it's
Speaker 1: a job and jobs do this constantly recruiting. I'm kind
Speaker 1: of wondering because you've you've listed here things like Explorer programs,
Speaker 1: which are like r OTC or the Boy Scouts kind
Speaker 1: of these different one of which Kyle Rittenhouse did like
Speaker 1: ways in which kind of people get onboarded. I'm wondering
Speaker 1: sort of what how you see how you see police
Speaker 1: recruitment as kind of different in a fundamentally cult your way.
Speaker 1: Then you know, every job has to bring in new people, right, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's it didn't used to be this way. But
Speaker 1: I think in the in the two thousands, especially when
Speaker 1: numbers staffing numbers really started to drop because it's I
Speaker 1: don't know if they've just realized it isn't worth it
Speaker 1: or they found somewhere better to get paid. But employment's
Speaker 1: gone down for law enforcement, and so recruitment goes up
Speaker 1: in response. But now they have a more active role
Speaker 1: in most places where it's almost on part of the military.
Speaker 1: They'll go to job fairs they go to high school
Speaker 1: career days. Um, they didn't used to do that stuff.
Speaker 1: And when they do, they'll they'll find someone to like
Speaker 1: pull stuff out of the pulp cultures thatitgeist what we know?
Speaker 1: What cool? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, what can we what can
Speaker 1: we cash in on to try and draw these kids in,
Speaker 1: because just like the military, cops are looking to pull
Speaker 1: in disenfranchised kids who probably aren't going to go to college,
Speaker 1: don't think it's an option. And here's this job. All
Speaker 1: you need is a high school diploma. Here's the health insurance.
Speaker 1: Here's the retirement package, which is trash. But you're seventeen.
Speaker 1: You don't know that, you don't know how to read
Speaker 1: all this, but it looks real. Goal Yeah yeah, um yeah,
Speaker 1: they explore stuff. I mean you're familiar with that. So
Speaker 1: but yeah, they get little kids to go out and
Speaker 1: you know, the little baby cops and it's I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's one of those things like some of this
Speaker 1: is so much deeper than even the the individual departments
Speaker 1: or any choice made by the police. Because like, as
Speaker 1: a kid, some of the first toys I had were
Speaker 1: cop toys, right, like everything every boy, I think, like, yes,
Speaker 1: some of the first what you're gonna get badge a gun,
Speaker 1: you're gonna play detective. You're gonna be watching cops shows,
Speaker 1: You're gonna be watching movies where cops are the And
Speaker 1: that's I mean that that's a bigger subject than today.
Speaker 1: But like, yeah, no, that is like what the one
Speaker 1: of the most prevalent forms of media that's instilled in
Speaker 1: young uh boys, I guess yeah. You know what else
Speaker 1: is instilled in young boys the love of capitalism and
Speaker 1: products and specifically products and services. Find a child and
Speaker 1: whisper the names of our sponsor into their ears, preferably
Speaker 1: a child that's yours. Hopefully know any child, any child
Speaker 1: throw something so there, parents look away and then leaned
Speaker 1: down and whisper better. You only counts if you get caught.
Speaker 1: We're back, um. And your next point was the group
Speaker 1: is preoccupied with making money, which is a huge thing
Speaker 1: for cults. Um, not all of them. There are some,
Speaker 1: like you know, there there are some cults that were
Speaker 1: shall we say pure um, but they're nearly We're like
Speaker 1: hey man Manson, just it was all about the music
Speaker 1: and the Heaven's Gate was a pure cult. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: Heaven's Gate. It certainly wasn't just the money for Heaven's
Speaker 1: But yes, cops. Cops have civil acids forfeiture, which they
Speaker 1: just took a hundred thousand dollars from someone in Dallas. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and the person did not get charged with anything, um,
Speaker 1: which is usually the case. Yeah. But but I mean yeah,
Speaker 1: like you have written here that like the main the
Speaker 1: main ways just increasing their budget as much as possible,
Speaker 1: which you have. Most police departments right now have the
Speaker 1: biggest budget they've ever had. UM. Specifically in like main
Speaker 1: cities we have, they're they're the most funded department, um
Speaker 1: in in for the whole city. There's there's this there's
Speaker 1: this great gag in the opening episode of a show
Speaker 1: called Ugly Americans that's about trying to rere financialize the
Speaker 1: city's budget. And they have like like a social spending
Speaker 1: and cop budget and they take like all of social
Speaker 1: spending and move it over and leave this one tiny
Speaker 1: sliver and they're like, oh there, that's better. That will
Speaker 1: solve all the problems. Um. It's it is a better
Speaker 1: sketch than what I explaining it just like this sounds
Speaker 1: not funny, but the sketch is actually pretty good. But yes,
Speaker 1: and and it is and it is relatively accurate in
Speaker 1: terms of just moving all the funding from social programs
Speaker 1: over into law enforcement. Yeah. So there's uh there, you know,
Speaker 1: there's everyone gets their financing different ways. There's county, there's stayed,
Speaker 1: there's their city. But a common thing that would happen
Speaker 1: was the uh law enforcement agencies would try to take
Speaker 1: anything that they could under the umbrella of law enforcement.
Speaker 1: So if it was like, hey, we want to have more,
Speaker 1: you know, security equipment at the high school, and then
Speaker 1: the cops will be like, no, no no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: give us that money. We'll give you another another officer
Speaker 1: on campus. Or they want to hire something for the part,
Speaker 1: you know, and we want to install lights the city
Speaker 1: park to increase security. No no no, no, no, no, no no,
Speaker 1: you just give us that money. We'll make sure our
Speaker 1: guys patrol it more. Mm hmm. So they actively try
Speaker 1: to just like coach money from everybody else. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: and you you can see this in a lot of
Speaker 1: towns where like the number one use of public funds
Speaker 1: is the police. I mean, it's it's all over the
Speaker 1: country at this point. Um, yeah, that makes sense. Uh.
Speaker 1: So members are expected to devote inordinate amounts of time
Speaker 1: to the group and group related activities. Um, yeah, because
Speaker 1: you have written here four years with no days off,
Speaker 1: but scored a satisfactor told to put in more time
Speaker 1: outside of work. Yeah. So, like I said, our emails
Speaker 1: were always sounds so much like MLM shit it is.
Speaker 1: It is they they every time you're going for an evail,
Speaker 1: they negg you, like no matter what are Our scoring
Speaker 1: system was one to ten. Um, nobody ever got higher
Speaker 1: than a six. Maybe I think I saw like one
Speaker 1: or two sevens in my entire time there. And when
Speaker 1: I became a supervisor, I asked the brass I'm like, hey,
Speaker 1: I want to give this guy this this upper grade
Speaker 1: of like an eight or nine, and he told me flat,
Speaker 1: because no, we don't do that, Like, no one's allowed
Speaker 1: to get higher than a seven. And if you want
Speaker 1: a seven, you're gonna have to like write a novel
Speaker 1: about how great this person is to get them this rating. Um,
Speaker 1: it was just yeah, it was. It was consistently just
Speaker 1: pinning you down. The four years no dated off. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I did h four years straight without calling in sick once,
Speaker 1: like I took vacations. But um, when I went in
Speaker 1: from my email and he slides me a thing that says.
Speaker 1: It says attendance satisfactory. And I was like, what are
Speaker 1: you talking about? I was like, I haven't taken a
Speaker 1: day a sick day in four years. You know, I
Speaker 1: have three kids. How do you think I managed that?
Speaker 1: Like I've sacrificed to be here that much. And his
Speaker 1: response was well like, yeah, but I never see you
Speaker 1: at barbecues, I never see you at the union meetings.
Speaker 1: I never see you at the fundraisers for the sheriff's reelection,
Speaker 1: even though it's blatantly against policy and illegal to do.
Speaker 1: And I told him that in his response was, what
Speaker 1: are you gonna do? Tell on me? Are you're gonna
Speaker 1: tell Jesus? Yeah? That makes sense? Yeah, yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: who are you going to tell that? Who are to? Yeah?
Speaker 1: And it is it's also just like this. It isolates
Speaker 1: you from other people. It stops you from knowing folks
Speaker 1: that aren't cops. And it's yeah, it's a lot like
Speaker 1: what your up line is gonna tell you if you're
Speaker 1: selling mary kay that that that that ties into the
Speaker 1: that ties into the next point. Members are encouraged to
Speaker 1: or required to live and or socialize only with other
Speaker 1: group of members um and you say this is like
Speaker 1: part of the hyper vigilance isolate isolation cycle. But I
Speaker 1: also see this in terms of like something I uh
Speaker 1: get into for fun, is I join like a wife
Speaker 1: of cops um Facebook groups just because it's fast just
Speaker 1: to have all of just to have all of these
Speaker 1: like cops spouses in a Facebook group, and it's super Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like it's it's a really interesting like culture of like
Speaker 1: just associating with other people on the job. You know,
Speaker 1: there's like cop barbecues like you mentioned and all this
Speaker 1: kind of stuff where it's like we're the only ones
Speaker 1: that can understand you. So we're gonna build like this
Speaker 1: like you know, force field around all of us and
Speaker 1: we can be together as a family and keep out
Speaker 1: everyone else because we're the ones that really know what's up. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it seems uh, I mean for some people who are
Speaker 1: really into it, I guess that is you know, that's
Speaker 1: how humans socialize in some ways. So like, you know,
Speaker 1: for people who think being cops are good and quote
Speaker 1: unquote enjoy it, I'm sure they have a decent time
Speaker 1: hanging out with their cop buddies, right, Um, And I'm
Speaker 1: sure the cops spouse facebook groups I'm sure they have
Speaker 1: a good time laughing about whatever viral video there is
Speaker 1: of someone using too much force, you know who, who
Speaker 1: knows what? Like how how they actually think about those
Speaker 1: types of very isolated environments, because you know, it's it's
Speaker 1: about fend find you know, it's it's almost like it's
Speaker 1: it's extending out into like fandom rules where you're associating
Speaker 1: with other people the same way fandoms work, which is
Speaker 1: very just very similar to to how cults work. Um so, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's an armed, militant fandom. And your last point here,
Speaker 1: the most loyal members, the true believers, feel there can
Speaker 1: be no life outside the context of the group. They
Speaker 1: believe there is no other way to be, and often
Speaker 1: fear reprisals to themselves or others if they leave or
Speaker 1: even consider leaving the group. Yeah, so I put in
Speaker 1: the note of just self expantiory. But yeah, it's me
Speaker 1: quit was weird. I knew I needed to do it,
Speaker 1: but I I had a massive existential crisis of identity
Speaker 1: and of of logistical things, but a lot of it
Speaker 1: was it was tied to my identity, and it was
Speaker 1: it was letting go of something that was like a
Speaker 1: core pillar of my personality and it really freaked me out.
Speaker 1: And I think that if I was more inside the group,
Speaker 1: and I was more like one of the guys, a
Speaker 1: golden boy or something like, I probably would have never left.
Speaker 1: If I was, if I was getting that constant reinforcement
Speaker 1: of the good boy feelings, I don't think I would
Speaker 1: have quit. Um. But after I did quit, that actually
Speaker 1: kicked off a cascade of people around my same age
Speaker 1: and within my same seniority level in looking at their
Speaker 1: job and looking at what it was doing to them
Speaker 1: psychologically and physically and with their families, and thinking to themselves,
Speaker 1: I can and leave that. That is how cult, How
Speaker 1: that is how leaving cults work. Yeah. Yeah. And so
Speaker 1: once I left, a bunch of other guys were like, oh,
Speaker 1: I don't have to do this until I'm fifty five.
Speaker 1: I can I can go start another career somewhere else.
Speaker 1: I can go start another retirement plan at a different place.
Speaker 1: And I just it felt great to see other people
Speaker 1: tear away and do that. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: I know for some of that it hurt mhm really
Speaker 1: bad to leave that behind. Because once you're once you
Speaker 1: are out, UM, you are kind of out. Even if
Speaker 1: you leave amicably like hey, I just want to go
Speaker 1: do something else with my life, you're no longer in
Speaker 1: those people's minds anymore because you're not part of the team,
Speaker 1: you're not in the club, you're not in the family anymore.
Speaker 1: You're that guy that used to be here. And I
Speaker 1: guess kind of at the conclusion of this and this
Speaker 1: is you know, when you when the question is like,
Speaker 1: how do you de radicalize get people out of colts?
Speaker 1: How do you like, no one has good answer to that,
Speaker 1: So I don't think we should expect you to suddenly
Speaker 1: have like here's how to here's how to convince everybody
Speaker 1: to stop doing this, because we can't do that for
Speaker 1: fucking Q and on, like de radicalization of the people
Speaker 1: who say they're involved in it are fucking drifting, like
Speaker 1: it's it's it's a big mess of a of a
Speaker 1: fucking field in the first place. But I am wondering,
Speaker 1: do you have some insights into like, yeah, how then
Speaker 1: do we de radicalize these people? Uh? Like I don't
Speaker 1: think there is Like I don't think there is a
Speaker 1: cookie cutter answer for like pulling people out. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: we can't bag them in a white vand and take
Speaker 1: them to a hotel. Uh. The only thing I can
Speaker 1: think of that would actually change the culture is a
Speaker 1: huge shift in our national culture around like mental health
Speaker 1: and toxic masculinity and you know, wrapping your identity into
Speaker 1: into your job because it's not just cops that do this'
Speaker 1: it's it's it's it's like that is that is America now?
Speaker 1: Is that is like hustle culture and that is what
Speaker 1: the idea of a career is my name and I
Speaker 1: am a blank Like that career career comes from the
Speaker 1: word that means like careening, Like you are going full
Speaker 1: force into this thing that is that is what you
Speaker 1: are doing now. That is your existence, is your career.
Speaker 1: You're going at it um that is that is what
Speaker 1: this whole country is built on. Uh. So getting out
Speaker 1: of that for a lot of people, for just regular jobs,
Speaker 1: it's difficult. Now adding on the idea that you are
Speaker 1: the thing that holds society together, that is that that
Speaker 1: has a whole other level of complexity, like psychologically for
Speaker 1: the person inside it um. Because I'm sure like telemarketers,
Speaker 1: if you can get really into it and make money,
Speaker 1: sure that can be a career. But you know, you're
Speaker 1: not holding society together and like that's not that's not
Speaker 1: that's not a delusion that you have and nobody outside
Speaker 1: shares has There's there's no there, there is there's no
Speaker 1: thin telemarketing line of supporting you. So it is it
Speaker 1: is different for like police specifically, even more so than
Speaker 1: like firefighters or like E. M. T. S. UM. This
Speaker 1: particular fandom that's developed around police and and and like
Speaker 1: the the incredible self importance that they is that is
Speaker 1: cultivated um to. Yeah, like the idea of I'm doing
Speaker 1: this to maintain reality is like a very like big
Speaker 1: thing to tell yourself and get getting out of that
Speaker 1: seems uh challenging. Yeah, it really is. It's like it's
Speaker 1: almost it's almost worse than most like churches in a
Speaker 1: sense because in this version it's so it's so materialized.
Speaker 1: It's it's it is, Yeah, it's it's it's right in
Speaker 1: front of you. I can reach out and touch it
Speaker 1: because I'm part of society. But if I'm not here
Speaker 1: and we're not here, you know, anarchy the bad guy
Speaker 1: that the way people think the word means, you know,
Speaker 1: everything's gonna catch fire, and the only reason people are
Speaker 1: good to each other is because the law makes them
Speaker 1: be that way and all that kind of toxic bs.
Speaker 1: So the only thing I can think of to be
Speaker 1: like to help de radicalize people is it's almost like
Speaker 1: treating someone in your family that listens to too much
Speaker 1: Q and on is to you know, if you know
Speaker 1: a cop or you have a friend that used to
Speaker 1: be a cop, and he ever like reaches out to you,
Speaker 1: maybe with like kid gloves, kind of be like, hey,
Speaker 1: how you doing just small things because that could maybe
Speaker 1: lead to him putting them putting something on their shelf.
Speaker 1: Just like when people get out of religions and things,
Speaker 1: they'll often reach out to people and be like, hey,
Speaker 1: this is such a fucking it kind of means something
Speaker 1: if he's going outside of the group. And so yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe recognize that, like you have an opportunity. Yeah, if
Speaker 1: if a cop reaches out to you, it's just like
Speaker 1: someone in a religious institution. They're reaching out to you
Speaker 1: because they feel safe talking to you because you're not
Speaker 1: going to turn them in your It's not gonna have
Speaker 1: any uh immediate impact on their life right now. Yeah
Speaker 1: that makes sense. Um, All right, well, Alexander, anything else
Speaker 1: you wanted to get into I mean I could talk
Speaker 1: about this kind of stuff for days and days and
Speaker 1: hours and hours, the whole hyper vigilance cycle, and like
Speaker 1: I said, I've read a bunch of books on it.
Speaker 1: I really tried to get training on just the hyper
Speaker 1: vigilance cycle. Like well, if you ask most cops about
Speaker 1: hyper vigilance, they would just look at you and be like,
Speaker 1: I don't even know what that means what you're talking about,
Speaker 1: which is why I used to I used to give
Speaker 1: this book, the Emotional Survival Bout for law enforcement. I
Speaker 1: would I gave it to new hires, and some of
Speaker 1: those new hires didn't come back, and I'm fine with that.
Speaker 1: Yeah that's good. Yeah. Some of them looked at it
Speaker 1: and we're like, no, I'm not signing up for this
Speaker 1: because you you really don't know what you're signing up
Speaker 1: for the real stuff that you're signing up for until
Speaker 1: you're in it. Yeah. Yeah, I mean also like a
Speaker 1: cult um Yeah yeah, well all right, uh, Alexander, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for coming on and for sharing this
Speaker 1: with us. I think it's a useful look behind the
Speaker 1: curtain um that that folks need um and this has
Speaker 1: been it could happen here you can find Garrison on
Speaker 1: the internet. Go go, go track down Garrison's fake Facebook account.
Speaker 1: You know what goes do that you can't? You can?
Speaker 1: I I have, I have made up possible specifically for
Speaker 1: this reason, a cop wife group with Harrison joined me
Speaker 1: and Vanessa so we could discuss our husband's careers. Hey,
Speaker 1: for all you know, you may cause the de radicalization
Speaker 1: of the cop Yeah. That, or Garrison just gets really
Speaker 1: weirdly into role playing as the wife of like a
Speaker 1: career episode is over. We are done. This is I
Speaker 1: am pulling the plug. Harrison starts the episode. I don't
Speaker 1: trust Robbert to me, you want me to start, I
Speaker 1: don't trust Robbert. Today. It's time, Garrison, it's time for
Speaker 1: you to learn. Wow, my advice is a tonal shrieking.
Speaker 1: I am not doing that. Everyone's gonna be like, oh,
Speaker 1: Garrison's just copying Robert's tone and cadence. You mean you
Speaker 1: mean they're making sounds with my mouth. Yeah, that's that's
Speaker 1: how that's how, that's how communication works. Start the episode
Speaker 1: with that and trigger everybody like me. You use a microphone,
Speaker 1: it's very real. Yeah, you Steve, we're a recording. Let's
Speaker 1: let's do this Hey, time for stories we love We
Speaker 1: love stories here Attika Happen here pod the podcast about
Speaker 1: how things are kind of falling apart and too maybe
Speaker 1: some ways to put them back together. Um, I'm Garrison.
Speaker 1: I'm starting this episode today. I'm not sure why hungover
Speaker 1: Robert is real hungry because I didn't trust Robert to
Speaker 1: do his job today. But I trust you, Garrison. You
Speaker 1: didn't really not trust me to do my job. I
Speaker 1: know that's that's fun. Um. We also we also have
Speaker 1: Christopher here, hey, and and we have uh writer Rebecca Campbell. Hello, hey,
Speaker 1: and uh, what why don't you briefly explain who who
Speaker 1: you are and what what's what's going on today? Okay,
Speaker 1: while I'm a Canadian writer and sometimes I'm a teacher,
Speaker 1: but mostly I just write really sad stories about climate
Speaker 1: change and coasts and aies and near future stuff like that. Um.
Speaker 1: This story I'm reading is called thank You from Your Patients.
Speaker 1: It came out and reckoning for I guess last year.
Speaker 1: And uh, it's based on my partner's time when he
Speaker 1: was working in a call center and the kind of
Speaker 1: nightmares stories that I heard from them every time he
Speaker 1: came home from work. But It's also about me being
Speaker 1: on the other side of the country from the part
Speaker 1: of the world that I love the most, which is
Speaker 1: the Pacific Northwest. Um. And you know, watching Fukushima a
Speaker 1: few years ago, and watching wildfires a few weeks ago,
Speaker 1: and um, being separated from the things that are important
Speaker 1: to you, um as they're all falling apart. Well, I'm
Speaker 1: just excited that this podcast is now two fifths Canadian,
Speaker 1: So that's that's the main thing I'm excited about. Uh no,
Speaker 1: oh my god, I just Tim Horton's cup just appeared
Speaker 1: next to me. It's terrible donut I have. I do
Speaker 1: have a Tim Hortons kept in my kitchen. Um do. Anyway,
Speaker 1: let's uh, let's let's let's start at this. Start this, uh,
Speaker 1: start this reading. Let's eat this popsicle stand as they
Speaker 1: say a thing, Let's continue, Let's let's eat this. Okay,
Speaker 1: thank you for your patients. I'm lucky because they replaced
Speaker 1: a bunch of chairs last month and I got a
Speaker 1: new one. A good chair is important when you spend
Speaker 1: ten hours a day in a cubicle talking to strangers
Speaker 1: about their problems. I've been here three years and worked
Speaker 1: on most of Western Morgan's Services, which means I can,
Speaker 1: with no thought, help Grandma set up her WiFi, or
Speaker 1: troubleshoot banking software, or set up your cell phone plan,
Speaker 1: or help you with some app designed to find your
Speaker 1: soulmate that nevertheless fills you with hopelessness. I can't help
Speaker 1: you with the hopelessness. It's nonstandard. But I'm Western Morgan's floater,
Speaker 1: and Jordi or Kirsty just dropped me where the calls
Speaker 1: are heavy or turnover as high. On Twitter, I can
Speaker 1: answer questions within five seconds of some asshole in Toronto
Speaker 1: saying what the fuck my TV doesn't see the house network,
Speaker 1: and I respond, I'm sorry to hear that Toronto asshole.
Speaker 1: Let's see if I can help. I'm impossible to rile
Speaker 1: because I've heard everything, every possible stupid question, every strange
Speaker 1: request regarding lapsed policies and mispayments, every paranoid rand, every
Speaker 1: sort of impotent rage. The management is shitty and the
Speaker 1: customers are irritable. But there's beauty and problem solving. The
Speaker 1: really bad stuff started at the end of last month,
Speaker 1: when I had to do on one on one majority
Speaker 1: team lead for the floor. I've been fielding a bunch
Speaker 1: of questions regarding a recent patch that had broken everything.
Speaker 1: I had this rhythm, hitting my thirty second age t
Speaker 1: and typing without thinking, Mark here, how can I help you?
Speaker 1: But one on one is mandated interruptions. So I listened
Speaker 1: to Geordy brainstorm about improving morale. They stopped having barbecues
Speaker 1: because it was too expensive, even when the burgers were
Speaker 1: sawdust and soy. Also, no one wanted to be outside
Speaker 1: because Detroit was still burning, and the PPM up to
Speaker 1: something like Beijing. Listen to this Western Morrigan idol. Jordi
Speaker 1: told me we judge three of the top right calls,
Speaker 1: and we have a thing, and someone walks away with
Speaker 1: a Timmy's gift card like fifty bucks. Jordy said that
Speaker 1: like it was a good thing. What about a key fob?
Speaker 1: I asked, we can't get out with what without one?
Speaker 1: After hours? But only management could hold or the winner
Speaker 1: gets to wear Jane's or keep their phone for a shift.
Speaker 1: That didn't rate an answer. The most frustrating thing about
Speaker 1: Western Morrigan is that team leads have to hold your
Speaker 1: phone like you're an untrusted teenager who's been grounded. I
Speaker 1: feel like I'm lost in a cave or a space station.
Speaker 1: When I do a lot of overtime, I arrived when
Speaker 1: it's dark, and I leave when it's dark. And while
Speaker 1: sometimes I go around the corner for coffee or McNuggets,
Speaker 1: it always feels like I'm just visiting the world. I
Speaker 1: don't know what's happened, if a government's fall on or
Speaker 1: if an ice shelf has collapsed, if Detroit is burning again,
Speaker 1: or maybe California or the Great Lakes are dying at
Speaker 1: a slightly faster rate than they were before I left
Speaker 1: for work, never knowing what's going on outside. I sit
Speaker 1: in my good chair and say that sounds frustrating to everyone,
Speaker 1: no matter who's talking or what they want. Let me
Speaker 1: see if I understand your problem, you could judge, Jordy,
Speaker 1: Stead said, still talking about Morrel. You're impartial. You hate everyone.
Speaker 1: I don't hate everyone, Geordy, I said, reflexively, though, to
Speaker 1: be fair, I hate a lot of people here. After
Speaker 1: my mandated fifteen minutes with Jority, I saw that Misty
Speaker 1: had a problem with my documentation, which has been rough
Speaker 1: since they changed policy on me. She's in the Philippines,
Speaker 1: where most of the real work happens. Upper management is
Speaker 1: all in India. They only have us because they need
Speaker 1: Canadian accents on the phones and they get tax breaks
Speaker 1: bringing jobs to one of the more desolate parts of
Speaker 1: the country down when from Detroit Rampant West Nile and
Speaker 1: ninety percent of the province's heavy metals processed at the
Speaker 1: plant out by the ball. Seventy percent of the baby's
Speaker 1: born here or girls. Something to do with residual b P.
Speaker 1: A misty is on the other side of the Pacific
Speaker 1: in Lagazpi. But you think she was right here considering
Speaker 1: how aggressively she organizes us. Your ship at filling out
Speaker 1: forms mark the right up is going to kill your rank.
Speaker 1: We're stack ranked. Every shift it gets you points you
Speaker 1: can redeem. You can redeem, which honestly is worth it
Speaker 1: for the grocery store gift cards. Just tell me what
Speaker 1: I did wrong. Lagazpi, we were in the middle of
Speaker 1: a rough month. The flu hit everywhere at once, and
Speaker 1: no one could afford to lose the work, So we
Speaker 1: had a bunch of people come in sick coughs and
Speaker 1: juicy sneezes all over the floor, and half the time
Speaker 1: you got on the elevator and everyone was gray faced
Speaker 1: and weaving. I came in over the weekend to cover
Speaker 1: mobile because they lost half their staff, so i'd been
Speaker 1: on for eight days by Monday, when Jordy was manic
Speaker 1: trying to call people in so he wouldn't have to
Speaker 1: go on the phones. He always says when we're smoking outside,
Speaker 1: and he's pointedly not looking at the place where the
Speaker 1: jam building used to be. It's not the extra fifty
Speaker 1: cents and hour. It's the fact I don't have to
Speaker 1: deal with people. He hated taking calls. He offered me overtime,
Speaker 1: so I started coming in at six and leaving at ten,
Speaker 1: and I didn't even notice the weekend. I do remember
Speaker 1: going home those nights and thinking how hollow my room
Speaker 1: felt with my roommates playing Call of Duty in the
Speaker 1: living room, and how my body seemed to vibrate caffeine
Speaker 1: maybe your pseudophedan. I heard phantom time warnings and chimes,
Speaker 1: and when I closed my eyes I could see the
Speaker 1: screen and call after call flooding the queue. By Saturday,
Speaker 1: Western Morgan was a haunted house, but I still wasn't sick.
Speaker 1: That sounds frustrating. Let me see if I can help.
Speaker 1: I was dealing with this woman on Vancouver Islands who
Speaker 1: couldn't generate invoices. We've been at it for two hours
Speaker 1: and I could feel her getting upset when I told
Speaker 1: her to wipe the whole system and start again. I
Speaker 1: could help her with that, but she was like, no,
Speaker 1: we'll lose two weeks of work. There's nothing I can
Speaker 1: say to that, so we keep troubleshooting, even though it's pointless. Okay,
Speaker 1: I said it. You can go back to your root
Speaker 1: invoice and try. Oh, she said what, And that was it.
Speaker 1: I didn't hear anything but the line itself, which just
Speaker 1: went dead, that kind of absence you get when someone
Speaker 1: hangs up on you. Are you there, ma'am? I called back,
Speaker 1: but I got a reorder tone, not voice mail or
Speaker 1: an old fashioned busy signal, but the one that means
Speaker 1: the whole system is busier, blocked or down. I dropped
Speaker 1: out of the queue then, which you're not supposed to do, obviously,
Speaker 1: and went looking for Jordy, who was chatting with Kirsty
Speaker 1: about Western Morgan idol. I asked if they knew anything,
Speaker 1: but of course they didn't, And when I asked if
Speaker 1: I could at least grab my phone to see what
Speaker 1: was happening. Kirsty did a kind of elementary school teacher
Speaker 1: sigh documentation for three eight zero your overdue mark call
Speaker 1: you dropped. I saw that explanation happening across the board.
Speaker 1: Looks like the problems at their end. I didn't find
Speaker 1: out until Moe came back from Break Street. Wet in
Speaker 1: the way you are if you run out into that
Speaker 1: rain blowing in from Detroit because you don't want it
Speaker 1: to touch your skin, saying earthquake on the West coast?
Speaker 1: You know anyone out there? I thought about the woman
Speaker 1: trying to get the invoice together for a tiny order
Speaker 1: of sea salts from some equally tiny place on Vancouver Island.
Speaker 1: Her business so miniscule it's still fit into our cheapest subscription.
Speaker 1: In my unsubmitted documentation for Misty, I had written that
Speaker 1: her voice sounded like a hopeful but slightly overwhelmed great
Speaker 1: aunt trying to make the remote control work. No one,
Speaker 1: how bad like nine point six, the worst since forever,
Speaker 1: like for hundreds of years, Jesus, I said, Jesus, Jesus,
Speaker 1: I've had similar moments on calls when they're shooting. Happened
Speaker 1: in Montreal, not view Ma real, but the one where
Speaker 1: the kids ran downtown from McGill and the photographer caught
Speaker 1: the girl as the bullet tour at her right kneecap.
Speaker 1: I was on the line with this dick wad and
Speaker 1: a coworking place on Maisonneuve, who was talking, who was
Speaker 1: asking to talk to my supervisor. Then midwhile and he
Speaker 1: stopped talking like he suddenly didn't care about my attitude.
Speaker 1: I could hear his phone pinging, sir, are you there?
Speaker 1: Can you hear that it's happening on the street. I
Speaker 1: can see a faint popping voice raised and doors slammed.
Speaker 1: Then he cut the call. I kept in the queue,
Speaker 1: helped someone update. I did a subscription renewal. The next person, though,
Speaker 1: needed a backup and that took forever. So we chatted
Speaker 1: about hockey until she said, did you hear about Montreal? No, ma'am,
Speaker 1: I said, thinking about the sound I maybe heard before
Speaker 1: his phone cut. Firecrackers, backfires. Some guy shot up the
Speaker 1: whole downtown. I think it was terrorists, who knows FLQ
Speaker 1: or Muslims, maybe Red Power fifty dead, but it was
Speaker 1: going up every single time ever fresh the page. She
Speaker 1: kept going on like this while we did a backup,
Speaker 1: and then I made sure everything worked. And it had
Speaker 1: been like three hours at that point, and I kept
Speaker 1: thinking of the guy and his silence and what was
Speaker 1: going on in the streets while we talked about his
Speaker 1: log in and how unprofessional I was. I don't have
Speaker 1: any friends in Montreal. I there wants to drink when
Speaker 1: I was eighteen. But that's it. I just had that
Speaker 1: guy and the thump of footsteps fleeing the coworking space.
Speaker 1: When I took my break, the rain was falling again,
Speaker 1: the faintly gray kind that runs down the sidewalks and
Speaker 1: the gutters, and when it builds up enough you can
Speaker 1: see it's a little milky because it's full of ash.
Speaker 1: If you think too hard about what's running into your
Speaker 1: eyes as you stand outside smoking until your pack is empty,
Speaker 1: you go eat a twenty four box of tim Bits
Speaker 1: or six Big Max, or you stop for one beer
Speaker 1: on the way home and only leave when they push
Speaker 1: you out the door. Jordy was outside. I gave him
Speaker 1: a cigarette, even though he doesn't smoke either, and he said,
Speaker 1: it doesn't seem to be getting cleaner. Wasn't it supposed
Speaker 1: to get cleaner? He grew up in Detroit, though he
Speaker 1: was already over here when it burned last year. Maybe
Speaker 1: it's safer. The ham is worse. I thought the ham
Speaker 1: was supposed to go away. When they send in the
Speaker 1: cleanup cruise. We watched the warm, ash colored water run
Speaker 1: down the gutters until it was ankle deep. This city
Speaker 1: is a wetland, and there isn't far for water to go,
Speaker 1: so it ends up in people's basements. All that ashy,
Speaker 1: bony water running through foundations and drains, A constant trickle
Speaker 1: in the background, sort of like the faint pop you
Speaker 1: might hear while you're on the phone with a guy
Speaker 1: from Montreal wants to talk to your manager. Does it
Speaker 1: feel Jordy said, and lit another cigarette. What Jordy? I
Speaker 1: hate how often he doesn't finish his sentences. Does it
Speaker 1: feel like it's happening more now? The sort of thing.
Speaker 1: I dropped my smoke into the rain water and I shrugged.
Speaker 1: Then I said I wish I knew what to tell you,
Speaker 1: which wasn't a real answer, and I used my tech
Speaker 1: support voice when I said it, because I didn't want
Speaker 1: to have that conversation. On my first break after the earthquake,
Speaker 1: I smoked and watched the rain and videos on my phone.
Speaker 1: Someone live streaming the moment it hit bored talk about
Speaker 1: food or weather, than a strange look on their face,
Speaker 1: their eyes dart upward. Then the phone falls overhead footage
Speaker 1: from helicopters of downtown Vancouver, all those green towers swaying
Speaker 1: and falling, and the bridge swinging until the cable snap
Speaker 1: like rubber bands, the worst in recorded history, worse probably
Speaker 1: than the last mega thrust in seventeen hundred. I just
Speaker 1: kept thinking of that woman and the sort of quiet
Speaker 1: shock in her voice, her Oh is that? And then nothing,
Speaker 1: And I was standing out in the rain, still warm,
Speaker 1: when it occurred to me that I might have heard
Speaker 1: her last words. I kept thinking about the texture of
Speaker 1: the silence after the call dropped, and what had happened
Speaker 1: the moment after that, if that had been the worst
Speaker 1: of it, the shock of the whole world rumbling, or
Speaker 1: if it had been worse for her after that or
Speaker 1: right now or tomorrow. I only had ten minutes because
Speaker 1: call volume was increasing, My throat started to tickle. In
Speaker 1: the world just suddenly out of nowhere started to look glassy.
Speaker 1: The light thick from the ceiling squares, and my skin
Speaker 1: prickled when I ran my hands over my arms, which
Speaker 1: were covered with goose bumps. The floor was nearly empty
Speaker 1: except for Gjority running around super rising and not taking calls,
Speaker 1: and the cue was packed. My first call was round
Speaker 1: way north along the coast, Prince Rupert, a woman calling
Speaker 1: about a password reset. I want Mark, she said, he
Speaker 1: helped me before. Can I talk to Mark? While I
Speaker 1: was documenting, I thought, fuck it, I'm gonna tell Misty
Speaker 1: what the old woman told me while we were waiting
Speaker 1: for the password reset email about how when you're that
Speaker 1: far north you don't notice time passing, and you feel
Speaker 1: good in an unimaginable way in summer, luminous and hopeful,
Speaker 1: and how in winter all you want to do is
Speaker 1: die and drink yourself into a coma, so you know,
Speaker 1: it balances out. After that, I reopened three zero. An
Speaker 1: elderly woman I wrote on a phone trying to print
Speaker 1: invoices for locally produced sea salt, looks over at the
Speaker 1: rack of glass jars in which she keeps her stock
Speaker 1: because she hears a rattle, then another. Then she says, oh,
Speaker 1: is that and nothing else, because at that moment, the
Speaker 1: force of rashimas lit the Cascadius abduction zone on which
Speaker 1: Vancouver Island rest. It's like a cork in a bottle.
Speaker 1: Centuries of continental tension released. I type that, then I
Speaker 1: hit send. Then I added a secondary note on her file.
Speaker 1: At PST A nine point eight hit the Cascadia subduction zone,
Speaker 1: and Misty was right there on chad Hive, not telling
Speaker 1: me it was inappropriate. She wrote, rest their souls. And
Speaker 1: I was comforted by those temporary words, which surprised me.
Speaker 1: My grandparents were in MINDA now in the nine earthquake,
Speaker 1: you got anyone there? No? I heard the hum from Detroit.
Speaker 1: It was somehow a relief to know that. Across the world,
Speaker 1: Misty was in a similar room among people evaluating documentation
Speaker 1: for apps and I s p s and accounting software,
Speaker 1: people saying that must be frustrating. Let's see if I
Speaker 1: can help. Something occurred to me. Do you hear anything
Speaker 1: about tsunamis no word so far? Do you have your
Speaker 1: phone so you can get the alerts they let us
Speaker 1: know we're so bad. I'm taking calls so I won't
Speaker 1: be fixing your dog until tomorrow. I wondered if Kirsty
Speaker 1: would let us know or if she would dither about it,
Speaker 1: until all we could do was climbed to the top
Speaker 1: floor of the building and watch a way consume what
Speaker 1: was left of Detroit before it swamped us to five
Speaker 1: more calls, and I refilled my water bottle, the one
Speaker 1: with the slogan on it, fueling small Business with the
Speaker 1: tools to succeed that some now lost Western Morgan contract
Speaker 1: brought in. And I was looking at my skin reflected
Speaker 1: in the sink, which was the color of those pale,
Speaker 1: lumpy smokers you see outside the entrance, the color of
Speaker 1: a raw filet o fish. I felt adrenalized, like a
Speaker 1: moment before it'd been terrified, but I could not remember
Speaker 1: how or why. I wondered what it was doing to
Speaker 1: me inside all those cells now remade into virus factories,
Speaker 1: turning to goog and mah and sloughing off while the
Speaker 1: virus proliferated through my system, and I left traces of
Speaker 1: it on everything I touched. The water ran over the
Speaker 1: top of the bottle clear. So far, the ash hasn't
Speaker 1: worked its way in through the city's water system, or
Speaker 1: maybe it has, and it is invisible like the micro
Speaker 1: plastics in the lake so you're gonna judge it was Jordy,
Speaker 1: We're gonna do it next week. I was thinking, that's
Speaker 1: at a time limit, like five minutes, you and me
Speaker 1: and Kirsty judge it. I'll grab a fifty for the
Speaker 1: Jimmy's card too, man, I said. Georgie just stared at me.
Speaker 1: You're getting sick. You know what you need to do.
Speaker 1: He went on about ekenesia and flu effects, and I
Speaker 1: thought about the tsunami that was or was not traveling
Speaker 1: across the Pacific, or just hammer your system with antioxidants
Speaker 1: to take a double dose of night quell. Without thinking,
Speaker 1: I pulled my phone out of my pocket. You know
Speaker 1: you can't have that anywhere on the floor. I was
Speaker 1: already googling Pacific Tsunami Alert and it was rolling rainbows
Speaker 1: and I stared at it so hard that it seemed
Speaker 1: to take over the whole world. And then I shivered.
Speaker 1: But Jordy was still talking, don't make me write you up.
Speaker 1: I don't want to deal with it, okay, I said.
Speaker 1: It's about privacy for our users. They need to know
Speaker 1: that they can trust our integrity, our word, and our system.
Speaker 1: The poster on the far side of the break room,
Speaker 1: said integrity ward and system. I saw that the alert
Speaker 1: had been issued for Japan. That's when he took my phone.
Speaker 1: You fucked the dog. I have to write you up.
Speaker 1: I don't want to write you up Japan. In six hours,
Speaker 1: eight pm, i'd still be on. Then, while very far away,
Speaker 1: a wave crested on the sea coast, filling the river
Speaker 1: basins and the car parks. I know you don't have
Speaker 1: to surrender your phone, even if they can require you
Speaker 1: to leave it at home. I know they're not supposed
Speaker 1: to lock you in either, or let you smoke within
Speaker 1: three ms of the door, even when the ashes falling.
Speaker 1: They're not supposed to pay you in points. You can
Speaker 1: then exchange for grocery store gift cards, which you need
Speaker 1: because the new minimum wage wasn't even covering rent. But
Speaker 1: I needed a job. The next call I got was
Speaker 1: farther south, closer to the epicenter. The first thing I
Speaker 1: did was asked about the earthquake. Oh, we felt it,
Speaker 1: and there's a tsunami warning. But we're far enough inland
Speaker 1: it shouldn't be tsunami warning. So when I go try
Speaker 1: to log in tsunami, I keep getting the same error.
Speaker 1: It says, my accounts frozen. What does that mean? I
Speaker 1: need to do some invoices, And yeah, I just got
Speaker 1: the text like half an hour ago. Landfall is like
Speaker 1: an hour. The account was frozen due to misspayments. So
Speaker 1: I pointed that out and the guy insisted no. He
Speaker 1: set up an automated transfer, and he kept me on
Speaker 1: the line while he chatted with the banks tech support
Speaker 1: on another line to sort out the direct deposit, and
Speaker 1: then I reactivated his account. All this time, the tsunami
Speaker 1: traveling towards the coast or the shallower bottom would raise
Speaker 1: the waves height by narrowing its length. Because the last
Speaker 1: time I'd been outside, I'd looked at a gift on
Speaker 1: Wikipedia that demonstrated how tsunami's crest as they traveled through
Speaker 1: shallow waters. The last thing he said wasn't thanks, it
Speaker 1: was there. It is. The tide's going way out. I
Speaker 1: hope everyone's out of downtown. Then he was gone, and
Speaker 1: I can imagine it, the water running away from the
Speaker 1: shore like a huge exhalation, and then collecting into a
Speaker 1: rising wave that would destroy them all the tsunami warning
Speaker 1: I wrote in chat hive, hoping Misty was there. Kirsty
Speaker 1: responded instantly, that is not appropriate chat hive for important
Speaker 1: work stuff. We haven't heard anything, but we were swamps,
Speaker 1: so who knows what's going on outside. Chat Hi channel
Speaker 1: will only be used for appropriate business related business. Maybe
Speaker 1: you should get out chat hi channel will only be
Speaker 1: used for appropriate business related business. I've been there for
Speaker 1: sixteen hours, and I couldn't remember the last time I
Speaker 1: slept a full night at home when I hadn't been
Speaker 1: buzzed on cold pills and exhaustion and the sound of
Speaker 1: call of duty from the living room. That week when
Speaker 1: I did sleep, I kept saying, this is Mark from Magnicore,
Speaker 1: or this is Mark from wherever I am right now,
Speaker 1: and heard explosions and the way voices carry over for
Speaker 1: the river from Detroit, the screams and the crowds and
Speaker 1: the gunshots. Or maybe I was never actually asleep. Maybe
Speaker 1: I was just off my head. I shouldn't have washed
Speaker 1: the pills down with beer. But there's that thing that
Speaker 1: happens when you stop in for a beer after work,
Speaker 1: and the inertia of the whole thing, the job, the
Speaker 1: shitty beer, and the fact that a person brings you
Speaker 1: food even if you can't afford it it sticks you
Speaker 1: to your seat. It was bad last summer when we
Speaker 1: couldn't afford to run the A C. But the bar
Speaker 1: on the way home could and it was full of
Speaker 1: familiar guys, broke and lonely and trying to avoid looking
Speaker 1: at what was left of the Detroit skyline, or the
Speaker 1: gray green clouds boiling to the north, and the hail
Speaker 1: and the lightning storms every afternoon like clockwork. The summers
Speaker 1: are definitely hotter, and the mosquitoes are definitely worse. And
Speaker 1: the last summer I noticed that the birds don't sing anymore,
Speaker 1: all their whistles and like video game lasers. I stepped
Speaker 1: outside for another cigarette and realized the door had been locked.
Speaker 1: And I don't have a fall because I don't rate
Speaker 1: a fob. Jordy was there too, setting up his stupid
Speaker 1: Western Morgan idol piles a bright pink and green and
Speaker 1: blue post it not it's all over his desk. I
Speaker 1: need to go out. The doors are locked for the night.
Speaker 1: I need to go out. We lost another girl from online.
Speaker 1: You'll have to take over social media if we lose
Speaker 1: anyone else. Take your break here. I just kind of
Speaker 1: stared at him, and my skin prickled, like all the
Speaker 1: suit of a phedron I had taken had rushed to
Speaker 1: the surface and was blasting every single nerve ending in
Speaker 1: my body. I need to go outside. You can't, like
Speaker 1: you physically can't. I kind of stood there, and I'm
Speaker 1: ashamed to say I wanted to cry, like a little
Speaker 1: kid who isn't allowed to use the bathroom, who just
Speaker 1: wants to sit with his dad but keeps getting dragged
Speaker 1: away by unfamiliar relatives. The kind of crying you see
Speaker 1: on the bus at rush hour when some little kid
Speaker 1: coming back from the mall loses it and lies in
Speaker 1: the aisle wailing, cramming road salt in his mouth, and
Speaker 1: you just think you and me both. I didn't actually cry.
Speaker 1: I hate myself because I just said begging, can I
Speaker 1: please have my phone back? Please? Jordy looked at me
Speaker 1: like I was an idiot him in the middle of
Speaker 1: all the post it notes that read congratulations and You're
Speaker 1: a winner and Western Morgan idol. I didn't say anything.
Speaker 1: I left at first. I just sat in the lunch room,
Speaker 1: shivering and nauseated, staring at the plastic solo cup left
Speaker 1: over from the barbecues they used to give before the ash.
Speaker 1: There will be worst moments in my life, no doubt,
Speaker 1: more pain, more sadness, But I can't imagine anything so
Speaker 1: wide rangeing in its desolation as that moment. The only
Speaker 1: thing I could focus on was telling miss Ty to
Speaker 1: get her phone back and watch the horizon and be
Speaker 1: ready to escape. A girl from online staggered through, sweating
Speaker 1: and pale, and I knew that Jordy would be there
Speaker 1: in a minute to ask for another eight hours overnight
Speaker 1: answering stranger's questions so perfectly that they treat me like
Speaker 1: a shitty customer service AI built to serve. There aren't
Speaker 1: a lot of choices in life, are there. You can
Speaker 1: choose to have kids or not, to leave your hometown
Speaker 1: or not, or to stay in a terrible job you
Speaker 1: are for some reason, very good at. But other than that,
Speaker 1: what is there? Just a lot of compliance and non compliance.
Speaker 1: This moment didn't feel like a choice. I said to
Speaker 1: the girl, we need to get out of here, and
Speaker 1: she nodded. Then we headed down to the lobby. The
Speaker 1: doors were locked and no one caring a key was
Speaker 1: in the building, and the girl just looked bad. But
Speaker 1: when I went to the fire escape she still said no, no,
Speaker 1: we're not supposed to. We need to get out. They'll
Speaker 1: fire us. And I could hear of the fear in
Speaker 1: her voice, and I wondered how badly she needed this job,
Speaker 1: that she was here in the middle of the night,
Speaker 1: so sick she could hardly stand. Tell them I did it,
Speaker 1: I said, and hit the bar, only it didn't move
Speaker 1: because the fire escape was locked too. The next thing
Speaker 1: I did was stupid, but I don't know what else
Speaker 1: I could have done. I walked back to the lobby
Speaker 1: and picked up a garbage can and began slamming it
Speaker 1: into the glass door behind me. She was coughing and
Speaker 1: coughing and said maybe stop, stop, but so faintly I
Speaker 1: could ignore it. Then we were out, and she was
Speaker 1: staggering towards the emergency room on wilette and I was
Speaker 1: alone in the rain water the same temperature as my blood.
Speaker 1: Then I went looking for a pay phone, because the
Speaker 1: only way to sort this out was to call in,
Speaker 1: but I couldn't remember which of Western Morgan's departments Misty
Speaker 1: was assigned to. So when I finally found the city's
Speaker 1: last pay phone in the bus depot, I called them all.
Speaker 1: All the sad voices of men and women here and
Speaker 1: on the other side of the world. Welcome to Caiphus
Speaker 1: Business Systems. Jane speaking, Can I help you? Welcome to
Speaker 1: Tesla Mobility. Can I help you? Welcome to Roscommon Account Services.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Lighthouse Mobility. I'm looking for Misty, she helped
Speaker 1: me before. I'm sure I can help you. What's your
Speaker 1: user number, Misty, Misty knows, I said, my voice, queer
Speaker 1: less and elderly. Put on Misty. I could hear the
Speaker 1: exhaustion in his silence than the compliance. One moment, I'll
Speaker 1: transfer you. Hey, Misty, I said, Misty, Misty, you need
Speaker 1: to get to high ground. What who is this? Just promise, kay,
Speaker 1: there's no tsunami warning. It's on its way. It's passing
Speaker 1: Japan and Hawaii. It hit the Allusians California. I hope
Speaker 1: she didn't mistake me for what I felt like right then,
Speaker 1: a crazy old man, mad with loneliness, longing to hear
Speaker 1: a voice in the void, even if it was only
Speaker 1: to harangue them for the weakness of their service and
Speaker 1: the terrible nature of their product. Mark another six hours
Speaker 1: to landfall. I know you'll still be on shift. Promise.
Speaker 1: I waited for her to disconnect, which was okay because
Speaker 1: at least I told her then. I think maybe she
Speaker 1: said thank you, Mark, or maybe it was just the
Speaker 1: noise in my head. I held the line another moment
Speaker 1: that hung up. I felt okay because I got through,
Speaker 1: because I wasn't in a cubicle anymore, because I could
Speaker 1: walk home and enjoy the silence before call of duty,
Speaker 1: marathons in the living room, enjoy the ashy rain falling
Speaker 1: across my slowly cooking skin. I walked home, Misty. I
Speaker 1: walked home, hoping. Misty said thank you Mark. It felt
Speaker 1: like I was slipping through a gap in the world
Speaker 1: between noises, kind of silent passage, the way kids slip
Speaker 1: along the abandoned rail easements in town below grade, the
Speaker 1: corridors of grass and rats and squirrels and birds. Between
Speaker 1: the noise of the phones and call of duty, between heartbeats,
Speaker 1: between crusting waves, The silence you hang on too for
Speaker 1: just a moment when someone hangs up before you go
Speaker 1: on to the next call, because there is temporarily a
Speaker 1: respect from the tyranny of the queue. The silence after
Speaker 1: a bullet connects or a wave hits on the other
Speaker 1: side of the world. I just hope harder and harder
Speaker 1: and harder that Misty would insist they unlocked the doors
Speaker 1: and break the windows, and they would escape before the
Speaker 1: wave arrived to wash the rest of us away. I
Speaker 1: don't know how to add a clapping sound effect without
Speaker 1: it just sounding horrible in the audio. Airhorns, you know what,
Speaker 1: danial Um already straight seconds of air horns or or
Speaker 1: or not? Um. I think the air horns are good.
Speaker 1: I was beautiful. Yeah, that was wonderful. It's really incredible,
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, and particularly relevant now. Yeah yeah unfortunately,
Speaker 1: yeah yeah, it with what happened Yeah, yeah, that is
Speaker 1: extra extra thou the whole time, what happened in the
Speaker 1: past week. Yeah yeah, that is a It sucks hm.
Speaker 1: If people want to find more of your work, or
Speaker 1: if there's anything you'd like to plug, now is the time, okay. UM.
Speaker 1: I have a website. It's called where is here dot
Speaker 1: c a UM, and I have jeez links to a
Speaker 1: bunch of my different short stories there. I have a
Speaker 1: novella coming out next year. A few years ago I
Speaker 1: post relished a novel. Um. But if you're interested in
Speaker 1: the climate change stuff, there's probably one I'd recommend called
Speaker 1: um an Important Failure that was in Clark's World. It's
Speaker 1: available to read online. It's been translated into Polish. It's
Speaker 1: in a couple of different collections. Um And, if I'm
Speaker 1: allowed to brag, which it won the the the Sturgeon
Speaker 1: Award last year, which is a science fiction award handed
Speaker 1: out by UM, an academic organization in the US. So,
Speaker 1: and it's about it's about climate change. It's all set
Speaker 1: on Vancouver Island, in Vancouver. I've heard you. I've heard
Speaker 1: you also have stories about ghosts. Yes, I have a
Speaker 1: genre I'm trying to establish that I call obstetrical horror
Speaker 1: that I started writing when I was pregnant. Yeah, giving
Speaker 1: birth is just such body horror. So ghosts, childbirth, all
Speaker 1: that stuff. Yeah, I read a lot about ghosts as well.
Speaker 1: You can find, like I say, a lot of that
Speaker 1: stuff on my website and links to anything that's available
Speaker 1: for free online. So yeah, where is here? Dot c
Speaker 1: A And I'm on Twitter a um at Canadianist, but
Speaker 1: I don't really use it that much. So I am
Speaker 1: excited for the combination of climate change fiction with horror fiction.
Speaker 1: Um And. By excited, it's like half half actually excited,
Speaker 1: half dreading because a lot of it's gonna probably be
Speaker 1: horrible in terms of people being like, you know, what's
Speaker 1: scary climates change, and you're like, okay, but yeah, but
Speaker 1: oh sorry, go on. I don't know, but I think
Speaker 1: there definitely is a good way to combine the the
Speaker 1: essential elements of both of those things to something that
Speaker 1: actually is really impactful that plays on human fears and
Speaker 1: emotions and how we can get over those fears and
Speaker 1: move towards something useful. Yeah, and it's also that horror
Speaker 1: going back for well however long you want to, we've
Speaker 1: been telling stories has given us a series of structures
Speaker 1: to kind of process that. UM. And I think that's
Speaker 1: really valuable that their patterns we can use to work through.
Speaker 1: And I mean writing climate change fiction. For me, I
Speaker 1: just finished another novella UM that's specifically about like near
Speaker 1: future stuff and about the wildfires a lot um. But
Speaker 1: you know, having a story to tell about it as
Speaker 1: a way of processing all the research I was doing,
Speaker 1: UM was really valuable. It's it's super useful. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: just um, I mean, you can call it therapeutic if
Speaker 1: you want, but I don't think it's that. I think
Speaker 1: it's organizing information in your head that is just simply
Speaker 1: too large for you to actually grasp. I mean I
Speaker 1: can't actually grasp this stuff, but no you can't. It's
Speaker 1: it's too bad. Yeah, exactly, exactly trying to mean, Yeah,
Speaker 1: horror does that probably better than almost any other genre. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean look what it horror does with adolescent anxieties
Speaker 1: or um, you know, all sorts of different the fear
Speaker 1: of dying, the fear of aging, if your illness, and
Speaker 1: stuff like that. So yeah, I think we have structures
Speaker 1: in place with horror fiction, um, and with sort of
Speaker 1: science fiction horror that kind of are gonna let us
Speaker 1: start to process things that are otherwise just too intellectual
Speaker 1: or not intellectual. But to abstract it's too it's too Yeah,
Speaker 1: abstractors I think is the right term, because I mean, like,
Speaker 1: I guess my fear of that is that, like climate change,
Speaker 1: fiction is just gonna resort to like the disaster story
Speaker 1: and it has very like glamorized weird versions of like
Speaker 1: apocalypses and disasters and like collapse and very like big
Speaker 1: ways that impact everything around you, when in actuality, the
Speaker 1: effects that they have are very localized and small and
Speaker 1: are still horrifying, but the way that they're framed is
Speaker 1: always frustrating in films, and you look at like, you know,
Speaker 1: a typical like you know, like apocalypse themed movie, I
Speaker 1: think is I'm afraid that the bigger you know, if
Speaker 1: you turn turn talking about like big movies, how it's
Speaker 1: going to frame in that way instead of these more
Speaker 1: kind of personal stories of like the horror of being
Speaker 1: trapped inside a warehouse as a tornado comes and you're
Speaker 1: not allowed to leave, which is a way more horrifying
Speaker 1: than oh, look, all of New York City is crumbling
Speaker 1: because of this pseudami, which is so big and like possible,
Speaker 1: I guess, but like that's so big you can't feel that.
Speaker 1: And what's more like gonna happen is people getting trapped
Speaker 1: in buildings and not being allowed to leave. And that's
Speaker 1: that's that's like, that's actual horner. Yeah. And it's intimate too,
Speaker 1: write like it's not it's not in distant idea, it's intimate.
Speaker 1: It's the particular consequence of something for a community, for
Speaker 1: an individual, for relationships, And if I can go on
Speaker 1: on this um there's an entire genre of apocalyptic fiction
Speaker 1: that kind of comes out of the early Cold War,
Speaker 1: and they're always these weirdly cozy apocalypse is where one
Speaker 1: white guy survives and in the new world he builds
Speaker 1: this kind of feudal fantasy. So I've actually this one
Speaker 1: filled The Last Babylon, where a character says, of these
Speaker 1: two spinster ladies that were miserable before the nuclear war.
Speaker 1: After the nuclear war, they're really happy because their lives
Speaker 1: have meaning now. And it's this, it's those are the
Speaker 1: apocalyptic stories that we've had. We need a new kind
Speaker 1: of story, a new kind of horror that I think,
Speaker 1: um that does exactly what you're talking about, that doesn't
Speaker 1: default to that weird heroism and one surviving kind of thing.
Speaker 1: There's a wonderful Corey doctor short story that that I
Speaker 1: think pivots off that idea nicely. Um in his his book, Uh,
Speaker 1: What is Unauthorized Toast? I think Bread an Authorized Bread
Speaker 1: is one of the stories in it, but the book
Speaker 1: is has a different it's a collection of his short stories.
Speaker 1: But there's um a post apocalyptic story that kind of
Speaker 1: follows a bunch of tech bros trying to do the
Speaker 1: traditional like survive the the apocalypse makes everything, you know
Speaker 1: better for me. I get to be a cool warlord
Speaker 1: thing and it's it's good. It doesn't end well for them.
Speaker 1: Um yeah, I I think the I think the thing
Speaker 1: that is important to do is like focus on the
Speaker 1: horror of the little things, like the little things on
Speaker 1: like a global scale. Like, like, the thing that is
Speaker 1: so frightening about climate change is that all of these
Speaker 1: the terrible things it's bringing are going to hit the
Speaker 1: same way mass shootings do, where it is a calamity
Speaker 1: for a community and people fifty miles away try to
Speaker 1: pretend it didn't happen and get to doing like their
Speaker 1: their daily stuff, Like that's what's that's what's so scary
Speaker 1: about it. It's not like you said, it's not the
Speaker 1: buildings in New York collapsing from a tidal wave. It's
Speaker 1: the birds stop singing and you still have to go
Speaker 1: to work. I'm I'm I'm writing a script right now
Speaker 1: for probably the show about how climate change is hard
Speaker 1: to think about because because how how big it is.
Speaker 1: And one of like the models that I'm trying to
Speaker 1: draw a comparison from is like it's almost like climate
Speaker 1: changes is like a type is like a type of
Speaker 1: Cathulhu in terms of the way it affects you, but
Speaker 1: you'll probably get by it's it can affect your neighbors,
Speaker 1: and you can watch it and you can watch it
Speaker 1: have other people, But like, it doesn't mean that your
Speaker 1: life is going to end this way because it's so
Speaker 1: it's so big and uncaring. It can attack so many
Speaker 1: places at once, but you don't know how like how
Speaker 1: big this effects are and how and what what what
Speaker 1: what the scale of them will be on your local area.
Speaker 1: So it's like this, it's this thing that is way
Speaker 1: more existential than anything else because it it does not
Speaker 1: it does not care, it has it has no morality.
Speaker 1: It's it's not it's not out to get you specifically.
Speaker 1: It's this weird, this weird thing that's just getting imposed
Speaker 1: upon us now. And that type of horror in fiction,
Speaker 1: I think is something that at least I want to
Speaker 1: explore in my next few years of writing. And I'm
Speaker 1: excited to read other people's work who kind of covered
Speaker 1: that similar side of horror and combining with like climate
Speaker 1: change and the small ways it's going to start affecting
Speaker 1: us in places around the world. I think, um that
Speaker 1: what you said and isn't isn't there someone you talks
Speaker 1: about the Catholic scene, I don't know. Yeah, that's Donna Harroway,
Speaker 1: Donna Harroway, that's it. Yeah. Um. But but also just
Speaker 1: how weak some of our previous narratives like you can't
Speaker 1: you can't bring in you new Judeo Christian apocalypse is
Speaker 1: to this kind of thing because we can't. There's not
Speaker 1: you can't. We can't have that kind of moralizing in
Speaker 1: it um that we need. And that's honestly, Catholo is
Speaker 1: really handy for that cosmic horror because it forces you to,
Speaker 1: as you say, face something on an existential level, um,
Speaker 1: that how you feel and who you are and your
Speaker 1: individual experience does not matter. So it's like a lot
Speaker 1: of people, like you know us, we're watching what's happening
Speaker 1: in Kansas right now, and like I'm not in Kansas.
Speaker 1: I don't know anyone in Kansas. I'm looking at this
Speaker 1: calamity and it's so distant from me, but yet it's
Speaker 1: also very close. And that's a weird feeling to deal with. UM.
Speaker 1: And I can see, oh yeah, corporations are contributing to
Speaker 1: this specifically like climate change as in general, but like
Speaker 1: Amazon trapping people inside inside inside these warehouses. It's like,
Speaker 1: I can there's way used to fight extensions of this,
Speaker 1: but you can't fight it. You can only fight its extensions.
Speaker 1: And that's and yeah, it's it's it's a super it's
Speaker 1: a super interesting thing that I'm gonna I think, Yeah,
Speaker 1: we are going to see you know this, this idea
Speaker 1: get dealt with more and more as these things start
Speaker 1: happening more and more. Um, and yeah, I mean climate change,
Speaker 1: cosmic corps, maybe maybe the way to go. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's I think that's a good line to
Speaker 1: end on, or at least a good thought to end on. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you so much, Rebecca for coming on and sharing
Speaker 1: your story. Would you mind plugging your website one last
Speaker 1: time since we extra like fifteen minutes? No, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: that's that's that's good. People may not have noted it
Speaker 1: last time before the conversation. We should give them another chance. Okay,
Speaker 1: So the website is where is here? Dot c A.
Speaker 1: It's O w h E R I s H E
Speaker 1: r E dot c A. Excellent. All right, Well, thank
Speaker 1: you very much, Rebecca. Um, until next time, everybody lose
Speaker 1: your mind with the cosmic horror, something something, anything, any
Speaker 1: kind of cosmic harror that consus you to to your
Speaker 1: your mind to scramble and you to begin worshiping in
Speaker 1: the dark corners of the world. Any anything that does
Speaker 1: that is good. So well, thank you so much for
Speaker 1: having me. It's an absolute pleasure, very very happy to
Speaker 1: have you. It could happen here to welcome the Evans
Speaker 1: Robert podcast. End of the World and beginning of news. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think we did it right. Evans, Evans Robert. Who's
Speaker 1: here with us? That would be killed Joy, Margaret and
Speaker 1: Victorman Sophie. I like this m keeping Victim Comma Sophie,
Speaker 1: kill Joy Comma Margaret, Um Margaret common as I could
Speaker 1: also attorney's general you kill Joy's Margaret. One of my
Speaker 1: hobbies is anytime I pluralize something, attorneys generally it Um, Margaret.
Speaker 1: How are you? How are you doing on this beautiful
Speaker 1: December day. I'm good. I just got my booster shot
Speaker 1: and the negative effects haven't kicked in yet. That's good. Um.
Speaker 1: How does it feel to have, like as your internet
Speaker 1: sped up now that I have a boost? Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: making the same fight that everybody makes because it's easier
Speaker 1: than thinking about the fact that, oh, Macron looks like
Speaker 1: it's going to be a real, real, right mare, and
Speaker 1: the world's never going to go back to you know,
Speaker 1: it's not going back to normal. I miss It's it's
Speaker 1: being able to walk into a bar and not worry
Speaker 1: that I was going to catch a new variant of
Speaker 1: a plague. Yeah, yeah, that's a yeah. Yeah, how are
Speaker 1: you doing with the plague? I live completely alone and isolated,
Speaker 1: so which I you know, I'm not sure this is
Speaker 1: how I would have built my life if I hadn't
Speaker 1: done it during a plague. Yeah, I mean, well, I
Speaker 1: dream about interacting with humans. Yeah, just like hugging a
Speaker 1: person that that you don't know all that well and
Speaker 1: it not being like involving both of you risking your life.
Speaker 1: It's like a blood pact. Yes, we're going, Doug, and
Speaker 1: if we wind up in how we'll scream at Satan together. Um,
Speaker 1: come hug. You have written another story. I mean you
Speaker 1: wrote this a while ago, as you did with the
Speaker 1: last one. But we're doing We decided we one of
Speaker 1: the things we wanted to do to close this year
Speaker 1: out was a little bit more fiction, because fiction I
Speaker 1: think plays an underappreciated role in revolutionary practice in kind
Speaker 1: of every aspect of being someone who envisions the different world.
Speaker 1: Um so we we've always I mean, it could happen here.
Speaker 1: From the beginning, there was always a strong kind of
Speaker 1: um uh focus on fiction. Um and I'm really happy
Speaker 1: to be presenting another one of your stories today. Thanks.
Speaker 1: You want to introduced this piece, sure. This piece is
Speaker 1: called The Free Yorks of Cascadia. It was first published
Speaker 1: in Fantasy and Science Fiction, which is the name of
Speaker 1: a magazine. And this one was also really important to
Speaker 1: me because Fantasy and Science Fiction F and s F
Speaker 1: was one of the magazines that my my dad had
Speaker 1: a subscription to. Yeah, they go this a while. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this was a very um uh and it was a
Speaker 1: very important piece for me that it got published there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's awesome. Um well, let's uh, let's let's let's take
Speaker 1: a take a hop in a publicly funded bus and
Speaker 1: roll down to Storytown. Speaking of taking one's life in
Speaker 1: one's hands. The story is called The Free Orcs of Cascadia.
Speaker 1: You all know the first part of the story, the
Speaker 1: song ended in blood. It was two years ago in
Speaker 1: the summer. Rick Green, the singer of Goblin Forest crooned
Speaker 1: in his osbornesque voice to fifteen thousand Goblin metal fans.
Speaker 1: A short man wearing green body paint and brown leather
Speaker 1: stepped out from backstage, drew a sword and cut the
Speaker 1: singer down from behind. The last lyrics, Green Ever sang
Speaker 1: where take me back, take me back, take me back
Speaker 1: to the Misty Mountains. The man with the sword, of course,
Speaker 1: was Golf and Bull, the rhythm guitarist for Crumpatool. The
Speaker 1: been an act. He and his bandmates escaped in the
Speaker 1: ensuing chaos and remain at large to this day. Neither
Speaker 1: band has released a song or played a show Since
Speaker 1: the rest of Goblin Forest decided to call it quits.
Speaker 1: Without Green and crimp Atool, no one knew what happened
Speaker 1: to Crimpatool. Fans deserted the genre in droves, and overnight
Speaker 1: Goblin Medal went from stadium rock fad to a niche
Speaker 1: interest of the obscure Canadian orc cults were originated. It
Speaker 1: was no longer hip to be Green. If Golf and
Speaker 1: Bull had been trying to take the Goblin Medal throne,
Speaker 1: as it were, he failed spectacularly. Rumors have flown about
Speaker 1: motives and locations, but there have been no arrests and
Speaker 1: no public statement from the band. All we've had to
Speaker 1: work with were rumors until now. Earlier this month, Orc
Speaker 1: folk act uls Ereth listed Golf and Bull as the
Speaker 1: harpist in their liner notes of the single The Gray
Speaker 1: Fog of a Ruined Forest. Lsyth was as obscure as
Speaker 1: Crimpatool was infamous. The band had never done an interview,
Speaker 1: not even a photos shoot. Like everyone else these days
Speaker 1: in countercultural music, their videos featured only masked performers. I've
Speaker 1: been casually obsessed with post civilization culture ever since the
Speaker 1: Communicate from the Junkyard Rats of the Rust Belt, and
Speaker 1: I've been covering music of pretty much every secessionist movement
Speaker 1: and subculture I could sink my teeth into since after
Speaker 1: I saw those liner notes, I put out feelers to
Speaker 1: friends and friends of friends, and I waited, and last
Speaker 1: week I was invited to go to an Orc village
Speaker 1: hidden away in the burned forests of Cascadia. I was
Speaker 1: invited to be the first person to tell Golf and
Speaker 1: Bull's story hell Fire Harriet Exclusive. Usually I post full
Speaker 1: interviews for everyone, but reserve my travel diary for the
Speaker 1: patrons of my blog. This time, though, I'm foregoing that
Speaker 1: this story is too important, so I've interspersed to the
Speaker 1: two below. All I knew before I went with what
Speaker 1: everyone else knew. Three years ago, a bunch of metal
Speaker 1: heads and hippies and burners and nerds all decided to
Speaker 1: dress up like orcs and goblins, and some of them
Speaker 1: took it too far and decided to distance themselves from
Speaker 1: the rest of society. They got really famous one summer,
Speaker 1: then that fame died in a single bloody act, and
Speaker 1: who knows what kind of weird ship they're up to. Now,
Speaker 1: Before you get worried, no, I will never offer a
Speaker 1: platform to a fascist. Fascist. Fascism, as it turns out,
Speaker 1: is the furthest thing from golf and Ball's mind. What
Speaker 1: he's into is a lot weirder than that. Still, it's
Speaker 1: sort of lucky that I survived to write this story.
Speaker 1: So you killed a guy, Yeah, I killed a guy.
Speaker 1: We stared in silence at one another for a while.
Speaker 1: He wore rawhide and fur, and not much of either.
Speaker 1: He wasn't painted up, but his skin was sort of
Speaker 1: natural olive. His lower teeth were filed down to fangs
Speaker 1: like any serious works. There was still something unassuming about
Speaker 1: him that I have a hard time describing. You're waiting
Speaker 1: for me to tell you about it, aren't you. The
Speaker 1: interview was not off to a good start. Are you
Speaker 1: worried about how your words will sound in court? I
Speaker 1: killed Rick Green on stage with a sword in front
Speaker 1: of thousands of witnesses. Talking to the media isn't going
Speaker 1: to make anything worse for me at this point, and
Speaker 1: I don't respect the authority of the US government to
Speaker 1: hold me accountable for my actions. I will not go
Speaker 1: to court. So why do you do it? The old
Speaker 1: world is dying My world, the Free Orcs of Cascadia.
Speaker 1: We're not going to replace the old world, but we
Speaker 1: will be part of its replacement. In order to do that,
Speaker 1: we have to take ourselves seriously. An element of that
Speaker 1: struggle is the struggle to create meaning, to create a
Speaker 1: new sacred. I killed Rick Green because he was defiling
Speaker 1: something meant to be sacred. How so we share an aesthetic,
Speaker 1: but he didn't understand what it meant to be an orc.
Speaker 1: You killed him because he was a poser. I guess
Speaker 1: you could put it like that. So the lesson here is,
Speaker 1: don't be a poser. Don't be a poser. You heard
Speaker 1: it here first. Kids, don't be opposer, or golf and
Speaker 1: ball will literally murder you. They picked me up in
Speaker 1: the parking lot of girl This re outlet in northeast Portland.
Speaker 1: That's a mundane detail, I suppose, but perhaps the single
Speaker 1: most remarkable thing about my trip was the ever present
Speaker 1: contrast between mandanity and the bizarre. I bought a case
Speaker 1: of coconut water while we waited. Works might like coconut water.
Speaker 1: Who doesn't like coconut water? They showed up in a
Speaker 1: mid teens Honda Civic Sedan, and I've been hoping for
Speaker 1: something out of Mad Max. The two women who got out,
Speaker 1: one cis one trans, both white, were dressed in clean
Speaker 1: gray tank tops and leggings like half the women who
Speaker 1: live in Portland. To be honest, I only noticed them
Speaker 1: in the parking lot at all because the trans woman
Speaker 1: was cute. Hell Fire this this woman asked. She was
Speaker 1: tall and severe, with the fierce but almost trustworthy look
Speaker 1: of a loan shark, or, as it turned out, an
Speaker 1: Orchis enforcer. That's me, I said, Fenrik. This this woman
Speaker 1: offered her name, but no handshake. Fist bump or hug.
Speaker 1: I nodded. Norinda, the trans woman said, like a lot
Speaker 1: of trans women these days, she didn't bother to feminize
Speaker 1: her voice. Her name sounded familiar, but I couldn't place it.
Speaker 1: How is this going to work? I asked. We're going
Speaker 1: to drive around back where no one can see us.
Speaker 1: Fenric said, We're going to take your phone and laptop
Speaker 1: and any electronics and put them in a fara day
Speaker 1: in the car. Then we're going to put you in
Speaker 1: the trunk and drive out to the forest. Will provide
Speaker 1: you with a recorder and notebook when we arrive. You'll
Speaker 1: get your stuff back when we leave. I nodded, I'd
Speaker 1: pretty much expected this. Do you need to use the bathroom?
Speaker 1: Nor Into asked, have any medical conditions we should know about? No,
Speaker 1: and no, I said, either of you want a coconut water?
Speaker 1: Goblin Forests sang in English, but Crimptool's lyrics were all
Speaker 1: in Tolkien's Black Speech. Dark speech. Are lyrics were in
Speaker 1: dark Speech. Tolkien referred to the language as black speech.
Speaker 1: Token meant well, but he was about the most influential
Speaker 1: unconsciously racist author of the twentieth century. All his villains
Speaker 1: were either Green or Middle Eastern. When you engage with
Speaker 1: the work of historical authors, especially when you make derivative
Speaker 1: works a century later, you have to adapt to one's
Speaker 1: own social context. Calling the language black speech today is
Speaker 1: at best wildly misleading. Its name is a translation anyway,
Speaker 1: It's possible that dark speech is just as accurate. Besides,
Speaker 1: Token didn't write the language. He only wrote like sixteen
Speaker 1: words or something. We wrote the rest. Most of us
Speaker 1: prefer to translate the name of it as dark speech,
Speaker 1: since where murderers PC, my status as a person who
Speaker 1: has ended the life of another person carries no implications
Speaker 1: about my personal ethics other than that I clearly believe
Speaker 1: there are circumstances under which it's okay to kill someone.
Speaker 1: Imagine being at the Renaissance Fair when the apocalypse hits
Speaker 1: and you're stuck trying to recreate society, surrounded by swords
Speaker 1: and minstrels and these and thous. You know how that
Speaker 1: sounds like either heaven or held, depending on who you
Speaker 1: are and also who you're stuck there with. That was
Speaker 1: my first impression of the village of Graymorrow. The fires
Speaker 1: out west have burned forest after forest and small town
Speaker 1: after small town. And no one tries to deny that
Speaker 1: pretty much every bioregion on the planet is going through
Speaker 1: transformation right now. It's in the worst spots, these dead ecologies,
Speaker 1: that the post civilization movement has found its roots, like
Speaker 1: wild flowers growing up between paving stones or rat's hiding
Speaker 1: in the walls. I guess, depending on who you ask,
Speaker 1: Gray Morrow sits in the scorched graveyard of a Douglas
Speaker 1: Fir forest, halfway up a mountain, occupying the remains of
Speaker 1: an evacuated town. Slab foundations are all that remain of
Speaker 1: the original structures. A seasonal creek runs through what was
Speaker 1: recently a river bed at the edge of the village,
Speaker 1: and long abandoned train tracks skirt the ridge above town.
Speaker 1: Even armed with all of that information, you'd still have
Speaker 1: at least seventy or eighty possible spots to search. Satellite
Speaker 1: imagery would help, of course, I can't imagine that the
Speaker 1: Big Six texts or the U. S Government don't know
Speaker 1: where Gray Morrow is. The residents of Gray Morrow in general,
Speaker 1: and Golf and Bole in particular, had an awful lot
Speaker 1: to lose by letting me write this report. Nourenda let
Speaker 1: me out of the trunk, and she smiled when she
Speaker 1: saw me. Her bottom teeth were filed. That should have
Speaker 1: been unnerving, but I've always been a sucker for face
Speaker 1: tattoos or anything that really shows someone is going for broke.
Speaker 1: Fenric just stared at me severe. Being severe was pretty
Speaker 1: much her thing, as far as I could tell. She
Speaker 1: took a sip from her coconut water. Three other cars
Speaker 1: filled a makeshift parking lot. The village itself was surrounded
Speaker 1: by a wall built from black and logs, set upright
Speaker 1: and buried in the ruins of the road. My escorts
Speaker 1: had changed clothes and route. Fenric looked like a bandit
Speaker 1: out of Skyrim, complete with iron pauldron on one shoulder
Speaker 1: and a hand axe strapped to her belt. I won't
Speaker 1: lie it was a good look. I'm no fashion reporter,
Speaker 1: but I figured half the magazines in New York would
Speaker 1: love to get someone out here and take pictures of
Speaker 1: orcs like her. Nornda wore a simple, modest dress of
Speaker 1: undyed wool. Imagine a Viking kindergarten teacher who also wears
Speaker 1: a rather large dagger horizontally on her belt at the
Speaker 1: small of her back. My crushing on her intensified. She
Speaker 1: handed me a spiral notebook and an old fashioned digital recorder,
Speaker 1: and we walked into the village. A lot of people
Speaker 1: say that you killed Rick Green because you're jealous of
Speaker 1: Goblin Forest's success. That the orci Is Code insisted that
Speaker 1: if you wanted the throne, you had to kill the
Speaker 1: reigning monarch. Golf and Bull stopped fidgeting and stared directly
Speaker 1: at me, his dark brown eyes boring into me. That's bullshit.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, it's like three layers deep of bullshit. He
Speaker 1: was still staring at me. I was starting to regret
Speaker 1: this line of questioning. Okay, to start, there are pretty
Speaker 1: much two ways to interpret the Orcis Code of Honor.
Speaker 1: It's not written down anywhere, but there's some strong central themes,
Speaker 1: like an interdependence between individual sovereignty and collective identity. We
Speaker 1: value strength, but the idea is that everyone develops their
Speaker 1: own strengths, whatever they may be, for the benefit of all.
Speaker 1: One should be as self reliant as one is able
Speaker 1: to be, both for one's own sake and again for
Speaker 1: the community's sake. I cared deeply about this. That same
Speaker 1: basic idea, though, can be interpreted two different ways. So
Speaker 1: there's a split in the arc community. Damn right, there's
Speaker 1: a split. The free Orcs are matriarchal and the or
Speaker 1: Seene are patriarchal. Golfin Bill produced a cigarette from god
Speaker 1: knows where, considering how little he was wearing, and lit
Speaker 1: it with a lighter from the same mysterious origin. It
Speaker 1: wasn't tobacco, it wasn't weed. Maybe mugwart. The matriarchal way
Speaker 1: of interpreting those tenants is roughly anarchist. It's anti authoritarian,
Speaker 1: an anti nationalist. At the very least. We respect the
Speaker 1: wisdom of elders, children and women self identifying women. But
Speaker 1: the hierarchy is anything but rigid, and the guidelines are
Speaker 1: anything but laws. Most importantly, our sense of community or
Speaker 1: tribe is fluid. Gray Morrow is a free Orc village.
Speaker 1: Go fifteen miles southeast and you'll find a larger village
Speaker 1: lonely mountain there or seen. The patriarchal way of interpreting
Speaker 1: Orchish tenants is roughly fascistic. Authority is absolute. Rank within
Speaker 1: the hierarchy effects every aspect of one's own life. It's
Speaker 1: not racialized, but it's nationalistic. There are very specific considerations
Speaker 1: of who is isn't a part of any given social grouping,
Speaker 1: and definitions of strength tend to skew toward boring ship
Speaker 1: like physical size and power. So you tell any doubters
Speaker 1: that you weren't trying to claim the goblin throne because
Speaker 1: your faction of Orcs doesn't work that way. No orci
Speaker 1: Is culture works that way. Even those fascistic ships don't
Speaker 1: work that way. Among the or Seen. If you kill
Speaker 1: your superior, people aren't going to just suddenly start kissing
Speaker 1: your ass. They will literally flee you and turn your
Speaker 1: skin into a battle flag. You advance and rank by
Speaker 1: demonstrating your capacity to lead. This isn't some fucking Hollywood bullshit.
Speaker 1: Evil is a lot more banal than that. I didn't
Speaker 1: have the heart or maybe the courage to tell him
Speaker 1: that to me too, pretty much, any outsider Hollywood bullshit
Speaker 1: is exactly what the whole place looked like. When you
Speaker 1: say battle flag, what do you mean? Who do they do?
Speaker 1: Battle with? Us? The free Orcs? Are you at war
Speaker 1: for the very soul of our culture? How did that start?
Speaker 1: When I cut down Rick Green, the Mountain King? You
Speaker 1: killed him because he was the leader of a rival faction.
Speaker 1: Then not because he was a poser. They weren't a
Speaker 1: rival faction until I killed him, but sure he was
Speaker 1: a poser though all fascists opposers. Did you go on
Speaker 1: tour with Goblin Forest specifically to murder him? Yeah? Probably?
Speaker 1: What do you mean probably? That's a very specific question
Speaker 1: about a very specific intention. I mean, I guess I
Speaker 1: had been thinking about killing him for a while. It
Speaker 1: was premeditated, and it wasn't you know, No, I don't know,
Speaker 1: because I've never killed anyone. So it's like I've known
Speaker 1: Rick Green almost five years. He and I and maybe
Speaker 1: thirty other people. We started this whole thing, Goblin Metal
Speaker 1: of the Orcs, all of that. Rick Green has always
Speaker 1: been a fucking bastard. I figured I'd probably kill him
Speaker 1: one day for being kind of a Nazi or whatever.
Speaker 1: Then we go on tour together and I tell myself, Hey,
Speaker 1: if this goes badly, I can always just kill him
Speaker 1: on stage. You've got to understand Orcus culture wasn't even
Speaker 1: a year old at that point. We weren't split into
Speaker 1: the Free Orcs and the oar Seene yet. There were
Speaker 1: only maybe five villages total. We were just starting to
Speaker 1: explore what it meant to be ourselves, what kind of
Speaker 1: culture we could build. Then, while we were on tour,
Speaker 1: I hear he's got himself crowned the mountain king. And
Speaker 1: this isn't a game. I don't know how to get
Speaker 1: that through to you or your readers. This is our life.
Speaker 1: It's one thing to put on a silly hat and
Speaker 1: pretend to tell people what to do in some larp somewhere.
Speaker 1: But Rick Green had gotten himself corornated for real dictator
Speaker 1: over actual people. So I killed him. The Free York
Speaker 1: split off the oar seen closed ranks, and we've been
Speaker 1: at war ever since. Am I safe here? He didn't
Speaker 1: answer me at least he didn't stare me down again.
Speaker 1: He just looked off into the distance, maybe towards lonely mountain.
Speaker 1: I've been to LARPs before, where when you show up,
Speaker 1: they make you put on garb. That is to say,
Speaker 1: they make you wear period appropriate clothes, or whatever weird
Speaker 1: interpretation of period appropriate that particular group of Larbers had
Speaker 1: come up with. As I met the denizens of the village,
Speaker 1: they all came out to the parking lot to introduce themselves.
Speaker 1: I realized they didn't insist on anything like that because
Speaker 1: they weren't LARPing. Pretty much every one of them was
Speaker 1: dressed like either a Viking reenactor or fantasy game villain,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't an act. About thirty adults and eight
Speaker 1: kids lived there, running the age gamut from six months
Speaker 1: to seventy eight years. They told me their names and pronouns.
Speaker 1: About a third told me she a third he in
Speaker 1: the third day. Many of them were white or past
Speaker 1: as such, but a significant minority were black. Nourenda told
Speaker 1: me later their Orc villages with substantially higher proportions of
Speaker 1: people of color. That might be true, but I got
Speaker 1: the impression she said it to convince herself or me
Speaker 1: that the free Orcs aren't a specifically white phenomenon. No One,
Speaker 1: no one decent, likes looking around their community or scene
Speaker 1: and seeing only white faces smiling back. After everyone introduced themselves,
Speaker 1: immediately forgot all their names. There are only so many
Speaker 1: fantasy names like Lazarre and Demolin that you can hear
Speaker 1: before they all just sound the same. Nourenda and Fenrik
Speaker 1: flanked me as we walked through a gate in the
Speaker 1: wall into village. It's strange to say village in America.
Speaker 1: We don't really have villages here, but in some ways
Speaker 1: Graymorrow isn't the United States. And to be certain, it
Speaker 1: was a village, maybe ten or fifteen houses crowded together
Speaker 1: along either side of a single potholed street. Two architectural
Speaker 1: styles reigned, junkyard shacks built out of railroad cars in
Speaker 1: regular cars, and traditional American log cabins, many of them
Speaker 1: were adorned with solar panels. At the end of the street,
Speaker 1: near the black Palisade, the beginnings of a stone tower
Speaker 1: stood fifteen feet high. I wasn't sure if I was
Speaker 1: impressed or not. On one hand, the village couldn't have
Speaker 1: been around longer than three or four years, and they
Speaker 1: had already done so much. On the other hand, it
Speaker 1: was filthy. Everyone was filthy. I'm kind of obsessed with
Speaker 1: the post civilization movement, so I wish I could tell
Speaker 1: you everyone looked well fed and happy. They didn't people
Speaker 1: looked proud, and they didn't look miserable. But there was
Speaker 1: an intensity in everyone's eyes you simply could not mistake
Speaker 1: for happiness. A trash pile needed attending near the front gate,
Speaker 1: and some of the animal hides stretched tanning had begun
Speaker 1: to rot. Everything looked like it was about to fall apart,
Speaker 1: both physically and metaphorically. What now, I asked, when we
Speaker 1: reached the central square, a stone cobbled chunk of what
Speaker 1: had been once an intersection, now decorated with poorly tended
Speaker 1: gardens and rustic benches of dubious quality. You're here to
Speaker 1: interview golfen Ball or you're not, Fendrick asked, I am
Speaker 1: golf Ball doesn't live here. I waited for her to elaborate.
Speaker 1: Golfing Bull lives in the forest with the rest of
Speaker 1: his band. He's on his way. You'll meet him a
Speaker 1: bit outside of town. I'll take you to him when
Speaker 1: he gets there. Someone near the gates shouted, and both
Speaker 1: of my escorts flinched bodily and turned to look. It
Speaker 1: was just a kid chasing another kid with a wooden sword.
Speaker 1: Fenrick and Narindo were on edge. Something was about to happen.
Speaker 1: Tell me about your new band, Ulcerreth. What does the
Speaker 1: name mean? Alsrith is the dark speech word for the
Speaker 1: phase of the moon on the last night before the
Speaker 1: new moon, the last sliver of light. Ulsareth is a
Speaker 1: whole le day, a day of self reflection. Our band's
Speaker 1: music attempts to capture that spirit of self reflection. On Alcareth,
Speaker 1: we listen to our naysayer and think about ourselves and
Speaker 1: our community your naysayer. Free Orchish villages don't have leaders,
Speaker 1: We have naysayers. Two years ago we tried rotating leadership.
Speaker 1: It was ineffectual. We didn't need leaders. We stuck with
Speaker 1: it anyway, because we felt like we had to, because
Speaker 1: those were the rules we had come up with. Then
Speaker 1: one person said, basically, this is bullshit. We don't need
Speaker 1: someone to tell us what to do. We need someone
Speaker 1: to tell us what to stop doing. We need someone
Speaker 1: to tell us what we're doing wrong. Every new moon,
Speaker 1: every village picks a new naysayer. That person spends the
Speaker 1: month picking up heart group structures, observing what's happening, being critical.
Speaker 1: On Alsaret, we fast and listen to the naysayer. They
Speaker 1: don't offer solutions necessarily, but instead bring our problems to light.
Speaker 1: Does that work surprisingly well, except about a third of
Speaker 1: the naysayers end up leaving after their month. Some go
Speaker 1: to other villages, some good to live in the forest,
Speaker 1: like Narinda Alsyreth singer did, but most leave the woods.
Speaker 1: As we put it, most go back to civilization. That's
Speaker 1: why Noriinda's name sound of familiar when she didn't she
Speaker 1: introduced herself. To be honest, I saw your name list
Speaker 1: in the liner notes and didn't pay much attention to
Speaker 1: the rest. That's an argument for me to take my
Speaker 1: name off our next release. If there is one, why
Speaker 1: did you put it there in the first place, Why
Speaker 1: did you agree to this interview? And what do you
Speaker 1: mean if there is one? I told you we're at war. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're losing that war. He took a deep breath, trying
Speaker 1: to keep himself calm. He didn't strike me as a
Speaker 1: man who was afraid to cry, but he was clearly
Speaker 1: trying to keep his composure. There's no way that Gray
Speaker 1: Morrow would have let you talk to me here if
Speaker 1: any of us thought that Gray Morrow had a future.
Speaker 1: There's no way I would have talked to you at
Speaker 1: all if I thought I was going to be alive
Speaker 1: to see another alterra. Why are you losing? Why are
Speaker 1: you going to die? It's not a question of military efficacy,
Speaker 1: or of bravery or strength or any of that ship.
Speaker 1: It's just a question of numbers or seen society. As
Speaker 1: a military society, every member fights as far as we
Speaker 1: can tell, they've got fiftundred warriors. We've got five hundred,
Speaker 1: so use guerrilla tactics. Golf and bull shook his head.
Speaker 1: Striking Rick Green down from behind was a cowardly action.
Speaker 1: I can justify it almost by the fact that Green
Speaker 1: had declared himself my monarch. But the or Seen warriors
Speaker 1: are my peers. They would not stalk me in the night.
Speaker 1: I will not stalk them. That sounds, I know how
Speaker 1: it sounds. So this interview I want to be remembered.
Speaker 1: I want the free Orcs of Cascadia to be remembered.
Speaker 1: I put my name on the liner notes so that
Speaker 1: someone like you, an anti fascist music blogger, would talk
Speaker 1: to me. I leveraged my own infamy to draw attention
Speaker 1: to what we're doing, what we've done. I fucking hate
Speaker 1: the tragic utopian trope. What like seriously like fuck you? Okay,
Speaker 1: I know I'm here as a journalist, but I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna write your fucking obituary. I don't think I've ever
Speaker 1: turned on an interview subject like that before. I get it.
Speaker 1: Hopeless causes are beautiful, but as I understand it, the
Speaker 1: whole goddamn point of holding onto your honor more firmly
Speaker 1: than your life is because the world is a better
Speaker 1: place for everyone if more people did that, right, Okay,
Speaker 1: the world isn't a goddamn better place if you let
Speaker 1: your subculture. And I'm sorry, I know it's very serious
Speaker 1: and I'm not trying to downplay it, but that's what
Speaker 1: this is, A musical subculture be taken over by fucking Nazis.
Speaker 1: And I respect that you're going to fight them for it.
Speaker 1: That's cool. But if you consider buying some guns, maybe
Speaker 1: a few drones. They'll come in here with spears, right,
Speaker 1: and you'll fight them off with other spears. It's man,
Speaker 1: there are fucking Nazis everywhere. If you don't give a
Speaker 1: shit about going to jail or dying, then fucking shoot
Speaker 1: the Nazis. We're trying to kill you. You You don't understand,
Speaker 1: You're fucking right, I don't, if I'm being honest. Most
Speaker 1: of the time I was waiting, I spent flirting with
Speaker 1: Norenda and avoiding talking to Fenrich Horenda asked me to
Speaker 1: keep our conversation off the wreck heard. We didn't talk
Speaker 1: about Gray Morrow or the orc thing much anyway. Everything
Speaker 1: I learned about the village and its culture, I learned
Speaker 1: by observation. Only an elderly man came by and offered
Speaker 1: us cold tea and wooden mugs steeped BlackBerry leaves sweetened
Speaker 1: with juice from the berries. He said, no caffeine, no
Speaker 1: other particularly strong medicinal effects. The three of us took
Speaker 1: cups from his bladder, and he continued down the street
Speaker 1: passing out drinks. No one else approached us. I watched
Speaker 1: people go about their lives, though the tension in the
Speaker 1: air was thick. I saw a few people look at
Speaker 1: cell phones and spent a not inconsiderable amount of time
Speaker 1: trying to decide if that was hypocritical and or bad
Speaker 1: ops SEC. Eventually I gave up because frankly, it wasn't
Speaker 1: my business, and one of the most interesting things about
Speaker 1: all the post civilization groups is all the bits and
Speaker 1: pieces they choose to carry over from mainstream culture. Finally,
Speaker 1: after an hour, Fenric stood up come with me. I
Speaker 1: followed her to the other side of town and through
Speaker 1: a smaller gait. On the other side, a box truck
Speaker 1: that had seen better days sat on a road that
Speaker 1: had to We skirted around the truck and up into
Speaker 1: the black forest. The scorched hills looked more like meadows
Speaker 1: than forests, with green grass and undergrowth broken only by
Speaker 1: black spikes of burned trees. We followed the path this
Speaker 1: way and that, and soon I was lost. Soon after
Speaker 1: fog set in, I was further through the looking glass
Speaker 1: than I had realized. I imagined us lost a mile
Speaker 1: from a town full of people who gave a double
Speaker 1: meaning to the word stranger, and probably at least an
Speaker 1: hour's drive from civilization. My guard hadn't shown me much
Speaker 1: in the way of kindness, and I was on my
Speaker 1: way to meet someone I knew to be a murderer.
Speaker 1: It's the kind of shift I live for. If I'm
Speaker 1: being honest, I love my stupid, fucking weird job in
Speaker 1: the stupid fucking weird world we live in. Thank you,
Speaker 1: my readers, for making that possible for me. Be sure
Speaker 1: to check out my Patreon page if this is the
Speaker 1: first thing you've read by me. Lots of members only
Speaker 1: content over there, including a few snippets of orc song
Speaker 1: from Narinda. The only thing I saw in the distance
Speaker 1: was a single black spire, thicker than the dead snags
Speaker 1: around me. As we approached it came into focus as
Speaker 1: a boulder jutting up into the sky like an angry finger.
Speaker 1: Sitting at the base of it was a short man
Speaker 1: with a sword across his lap, golfing bull. I'll leave
Speaker 1: you to to it, Fenrick said. She left me alone
Speaker 1: with an armed murderer. I sat down across from him,
Speaker 1: took out the notebook and recorder, and asked him questions.
Speaker 1: All right, convince me we can't fight them dishonorably, because
Speaker 1: you can't protect an idea by defiling that idea. We
Speaker 1: don't want them to destroy our way of life, but
Speaker 1: we don't want to destroy our way of life ourselves either.
Speaker 1: The basic problem with your scene is that they're interpreting
Speaker 1: your code of honor to mean might makes right. Yeah. Yes.
Speaker 1: By facing them an open battle and nobly dying or
Speaker 1: whatever your goddamn planet is, you're just letting them make
Speaker 1: m right. You're letting their superior numbers dictate what your
Speaker 1: cultures to look like. It's like majority voting, but even
Speaker 1: dumber because more people die. I expected him to double
Speaker 1: down on his position. Most men would. What do you
Speaker 1: suggest instead, Fuck? I don't know. Don't be here when attack,
Speaker 1: go somewhere else. Stay on the move, build your strength.
Speaker 1: Oh ship, That's what Rick Green was doing, wasn't it.
Speaker 1: Huh Goblin Forest singing in English, a stupid name like
Speaker 1: Rick Green. All that ship was designed to make Goblin
Speaker 1: metal more palatable to the masses, to get fans, to
Speaker 1: get recruits for his stupid, fucking fashy goals. Yep, do that.
Speaker 1: I mean, don't become fascists or change your name or
Speaker 1: make your music worse. Everyone knows Goblin Forest and have
Speaker 1: shipped on Crimpot School. Just don't be obscure for the
Speaker 1: sake of being obscure. Fucking advertise you have a decent
Speaker 1: thing going here. People are abandoning mainstream society left and right,
Speaker 1: no political pun intended. Make it easier for them to
Speaker 1: get here. Make it so that when you fight the
Speaker 1: fashion your epics swords and spears Viking deathmatch, you win
Speaker 1: better Yet, make it so they don't even want to
Speaker 1: funk with you because they know they'll lose. I don't
Speaker 1: know whether that would work, Yeah, but dying doesn't work either.
Speaker 1: The Eark way of life isn't meant to be some revolution.
Speaker 1: It's not meant to supply it the mainstream. It will
Speaker 1: never appeal to the mainstream, not without losing its soul.
Speaker 1: Would you live like this? Would you want to? You're right,
Speaker 1: I'm obsessed with you weird subcultures, but I wouldn't want
Speaker 1: to live like you. We both stared at each other
Speaker 1: in silence. It wasn't an uncomfortable silence. We're both just thinking, okay,
Speaker 1: scrap that. You're never going to get big numbers. You
Speaker 1: don't need big numbers. You don't want big numbers. You
Speaker 1: don't need recruits, you need allies. What would that look like? God,
Speaker 1: damn dude, all orchishmn note, actually listen to women's ideas.
Speaker 1: I'm used to guys just talking over me or shutting
Speaker 1: down completely. If I get mad free orci ish men,
Speaker 1: I would hope know how to listen. Guns break the
Speaker 1: spell and the spill you're casting here. It's powerful, it's good.
Speaker 1: So no guns. Other people have guns, though, Let those
Speaker 1: people stand guard or make their arm presence. Note outside
Speaker 1: or seen camps, other people have access to, say, dock scene,
Speaker 1: how many recruits are the or scene going to get?
Speaker 1: If every time some want to be forced Nazi dude
Speaker 1: joins someone to as his mother what they're about for
Speaker 1: access to the media. How many recruits are going to
Speaker 1: join if everyone knows the or sene or poser is
Speaker 1: putting out substandard water and down goblin metal just to
Speaker 1: try and lure an impressionable military aged men to fight
Speaker 1: their holy war. You'll write those stories. I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: write you any propaganda, but sure I'll tell the truth.
Speaker 1: How do we get allies? But at another single, maybe
Speaker 1: a full length? The gray Fog of a Ruined Forest
Speaker 1: was the best ship of hurtin years. You're redefining folk music,
Speaker 1: just like you redefined metal without ship like that, and
Speaker 1: I'll cover it. Talk to more press, maybe someone other
Speaker 1: than you. Not everyone's going to be sympathetic to what
Speaker 1: you did, even if that fucking guy was a fucking
Speaker 1: tree Nazi hunting horn cut through the fog and through
Speaker 1: our conversation, and my subject's face fell into despair for
Speaker 1: a half second before determination took over. What's that? Interviews
Speaker 1: over and I thought there would be more time another day.
Speaker 1: At least we have to get you out of here.
Speaker 1: Turns out Fenrik had taken us on a purposefully circatuitous
Speaker 1: route into the woods. It wasn't a quarter of a
Speaker 1: mile straight downhill before golf and Bull and I reached
Speaker 1: the box truck at the back entrance to Graymorrow, Norinda
Speaker 1: and Fenric stood there talking with a kid, maybe fifteen,
Speaker 1: who was out of breath. She was dressed in scraps
Speaker 1: of fur and leather and cloth, like you might imagine
Speaker 1: a medieval beggar. It wasn't until I noticed all the
Speaker 1: twigs and sticks and moss tangled up in the fabrics
Speaker 1: I recognized it as camouflage. I saw about thirty the scout,
Speaker 1: for that's what she was said about. Fenrick asked, exactly
Speaker 1: thirty ten with pikes, ten with tower, shields and swords,
Speaker 1: five archers, two scouts to command, one non combatant. I'd
Speaker 1: guess a surgeon, but I couldn't promise how far away
Speaker 1: I asked. Fenrick glared at me for interrupting. Five miles
Speaker 1: Norenda said probably three and a half by now downhill.
Speaker 1: We have time to get you out with the children
Speaker 1: and the elders. The scout had just run five miles
Speaker 1: uphill because she was too stubborn to use a walkie
Speaker 1: talkie or a cell phone. We should evacuate everyone. Golfen
Speaker 1: Bull said what Fenrick asked. We've got walls and almost
Speaker 1: even numbers. Fuck them, this is our home. I wanted
Speaker 1: to shout at her. I wanted to shake her, to
Speaker 1: tell her this wasn't a fucking game, that it wasn't
Speaker 1: the twelfth century, and that killing people or dying over
Speaker 1: some squatted chunk of nowhere was somewhere between stupid and reprehensible.
Speaker 1: It didn't, though I'm a good journalist, This isn't the
Speaker 1: place for us to debate this, Nerenda said, and all
Speaker 1: four of them walked through the gate and left me
Speaker 1: standing by the truck. That was why the gardens were untended,
Speaker 1: and with the trash was piled up and the hides
Speaker 1: were left to rot. They were expecting this. They'd lost
Speaker 1: their will to pretend like their lives were going to
Speaker 1: continue to progress forward. I'm not the first to suggest
Speaker 1: that nihilism is the dominant effect of society today, with
Speaker 1: climate change destroying communities and bioregions all over the map,
Speaker 1: with the economic crisis deepening and the wealth gap widening,
Speaker 1: I think all of us are guilty of forgetting to
Speaker 1: tend our gardens. All of us have a hard time
Speaker 1: figuring out why it matters whether or not we deal
Speaker 1: with our trash. All of us have proverbial or literal
Speaker 1: Nazis marching on us. The Nazis the free orcs A
Speaker 1: Cascady are dealing with are the literal variety. Some cosplain
Speaker 1: fascist was about to stick a sword between Norinda's ribs
Speaker 1: by ale rose in my throat. I don't know. I
Speaker 1: believe in love at first sight or any of that ship,
Speaker 1: but I just couldn't handle the idea. I fucking hate honor.
Speaker 1: I will never be an orc. I got lost running
Speaker 1: through solutions to the problem of hypothetical arrows and swords
Speaker 1: that were going to interfere with Nourinda's continued existence. Most
Speaker 1: of those solutions involved AsSalt rifles, which I didn't have
Speaker 1: access to. Cars, though were available. What's thirty warriors of
Speaker 1: medieval armor versus one station wagon driven by an angry
Speaker 1: woman with a lead foot. I put the odds in
Speaker 1: my favor. I wasn't going to do it, though. Instead
Speaker 1: I waited to evacuate. I don't think that speaks well
Speaker 1: of me. Individually and in groups, people came out through
Speaker 1: the gate and loaded bags and baskets onto the back
Speaker 1: of the truck. Noarinda returned with a simple backpack sewn
Speaker 1: from raw hide. Most of her belongings were probably wherever
Speaker 1: she engulf Am Bull and the rest of Alstreth lived.
Speaker 1: She handed me my phone. I didn't have service. I
Speaker 1: wondered whether or not she engulfing Bullward dating It wasn't
Speaker 1: relevant to the present moment exactly, but my mind always
Speaker 1: is a way of thinking about bullshit to avoid thinking
Speaker 1: about impending doom. Another important effect of our generation distract
Speaker 1: ourselves with disaster with petty things like love and jealousy.
Speaker 1: I don't know what you said to Golf and Bullner
Speaker 1: and said, but whatever it was worked. He just convinced
Speaker 1: everyone to evacuate everyone, I asked, shocked, everyone except him
Speaker 1: and Fenrik and Gorn. Which one's Gorn, the man who
Speaker 1: brought us tea? Do you remember him? He's old as ship, though,
Speaker 1: I said, because I have no fucking manners or common sense. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's old as ship. He's a linguist by training. His
Speaker 1: main hobby is writing morbid poetry and dark speech, and
Speaker 1: when he can't figure out how to say something, he
Speaker 1: just makes up new words. He developed about a third
Speaker 1: of the language. Did all that ship before orc culture
Speaker 1: was even around he's also a widower three times over.
Speaker 1: He doesn't give a shit about dying. His last chat
Speaker 1: book was called Soon I will return to the earth. Oh,
Speaker 1: Gorn is going to die today. Golf and Bull and
Speaker 1: Fenric they're going to hold the wall as long as
Speaker 1: they can and then fall back to the woods. And you,
Speaker 1: I asked, I'm driving us out of here to another village.
Speaker 1: Then I'll take you home after that. I don't know, girl,
Speaker 1: I don't know. If I signed up for this, I
Speaker 1: might leave the woods go back to being a vet tech.
Speaker 1: I just nodded. I was too biased to offer objective
Speaker 1: life advice. Oh, and Golf and Bull said to give
Speaker 1: you this, he said, it's in case he dies. He says,
Speaker 1: you're right. You shouldn't have to write his obituary. So
Speaker 1: we wrote his own. She handed me a piece of paper.
Speaker 1: I piled into the back of the box truck with
Speaker 1: forty other people, many of them in tears, many of
Speaker 1: them in shock, and we drove away from Graymorrow. None
Speaker 1: of the three free Orc survived the battle. Gorn died
Speaker 1: and paled on a spear while holding the gate. Fedric
Speaker 1: was killed by an arrow that struck her in the back.
Speaker 1: Of the neck as she and golfing Bull ran golf
Speaker 1: and Bull Fenric's lover turned and stood his ground over
Speaker 1: her body. I didn't know any of that yet. I
Speaker 1: found out when Norinda found out two days later. Maybe
Speaker 1: all three of them would have survived if I hadn't
Speaker 1: interfered and they'd all fought with equal numbers, Maybe more
Speaker 1: of them would have died. Maybe I can forgive myself.
Speaker 1: Maybe there's nothing to forgive. In the back of the truck,
Speaker 1: by the light coming in through a crack in the
Speaker 1: steel wall, I read golf and Bull's note all my life.
Speaker 1: I didn't give a shit about anything. I liked weed
Speaker 1: and metal in whatever counterculture trend was big in a
Speaker 1: given year, but my heart wasn't in it. I just
Speaker 1: went through the motions until I became an orc, saying
Speaker 1: I'm an orc and meaning it. Isn't like a trans
Speaker 1: man saying he's a man and meaning it. Gender is
Speaker 1: a social construct that goes back as far as I understand,
Speaker 1: to the beginning of humanity. There has always been gender,
Speaker 1: and there have always been people who transgress the roles
Speaker 1: assigned to them at birth. An orc is a social
Speaker 1: construct that we just fucking made up. I mean, I
Speaker 1: guess the Orc is an archetype too, but it's a
Speaker 1: fantasy archetype. We know what to make believe. Make believe.
Speaker 1: Eve is what gave my life meaning. I promise you
Speaker 1: that for me. The day we decided we were works
Speaker 1: was the first day that the sun shone benevolence upon
Speaker 1: the world. It was the first day that color radiated
Speaker 1: from everything I saw. It was the first day that
Speaker 1: the rain on my roof tapped out codes of meaning.
Speaker 1: It was the first day of my life, my real life,
Speaker 1: my first Also, I fell in love with the world.
Speaker 1: Everyone finds meaning in different ways. I found meaning by
Speaker 1: believing in some ship we made up and letting that
Speaker 1: be real. I was born Jason Sanchez. I died gulfing bull.
Speaker 1: I'm not sorry. That was great that I mean, not
Speaker 1: my narration, the story. The story, not my narration. H
Speaker 1: the second way finished. We all just got that little
Speaker 1: smirk on our face, like that was delightful. Yeah, Margret,
Speaker 1: you're the best. Yeah, I mean, if I were going
Speaker 1: to be an Orc, there would be rifles but its
Speaker 1: own problems. Yeah, this is absolutely this is like a
Speaker 1: really good example of what I mean that when I
Speaker 1: write utopian fiction or like fiction about other societies. I'm
Speaker 1: not saying, hey, everyone go do this, or like this
Speaker 1: is what people should do. No, I mean I liked that.
Speaker 1: I like I like that I've had that experience in
Speaker 1: other cultures, you know, places like slab City and different
Speaker 1: kind of encampments and whatnot that I've spent a lot
Speaker 1: of time and as a journalist where it's like I'm
Speaker 1: fascinated by and I respect aspects of this, but like,
Speaker 1: I also think some of these things are that you're
Speaker 1: doing or dumb or I don't understand why you do it,
Speaker 1: or this isn't like you know, but you don't your
Speaker 1: notes don't matter. You know, that's not your job, although
Speaker 1: actually having an impact in that way is is kind
Speaker 1: of Yeah, I don't know. Somebody go somebody go make
Speaker 1: an work village. Yeah, yeah, I'll go out there, I'll
Speaker 1: report on it. We'll go. It'll be fine. Don't take
Speaker 1: the banda all sort of though I already stole that.
Speaker 1: There's a number of dope band names in here. All right,
Speaker 1: people should make orc folk. I'd be really excited to
Speaker 1: hear make orc folk abandon civilization to live as fantasy. Creatures, um,
Speaker 1: fight fascists, all that good stuff. Yeah, Margaret, is there
Speaker 1: anything you'd like to plug? Well? I do have a
Speaker 1: new book out, or a reprint of an older book
Speaker 1: called A Country Ghost that is a more directly utopian book.
Speaker 1: It's out from a K Press, came out last month,
Speaker 1: and um, I think that's it. That's the main thing. Oh,
Speaker 1: you can support me on Patreon, although it's no longer
Speaker 1: supporting me on Patreon. It's supporting a publishing thing that
Speaker 1: I'm starting back up with people called Strangers and a
Speaker 1: Tangled Wilderness. And it will publish fiction and memoir and
Speaker 1: like the kind of like more culture side of radical
Speaker 1: politics and less the like theory and stuff. What's the
Speaker 1: patreon Patreon dot com slash Strangers in the Tangled Wilderness
Speaker 1: because why would I pick short names for things? Don't
Speaker 1: do that? Yeah, and we have we have a live
Speaker 1: show coming up right, Robert, uh that doesn't sound like us.
Speaker 1: It's a virtual live show of for Behind the Bastards
Speaker 1: put our Friend prop that's on Thursday February. Allegedly moment
Speaker 1: House dot com slash Behind the Bastards. I can't confirm
Speaker 1: or deny that. Okay, you're getting a lawyer on here
Speaker 1: before you can. Sure, Yeah, let's get Moira on the
Speaker 1: horn and where come on the horn and tell us
Speaker 1: if we're actually doing this thing? That? Yeah? Are we also?
Speaker 1: Are we alive? That's another question? How I texture that
Speaker 1: most days? Um? All right, well, thank you Margaret, and
Speaker 1: thank you all for tuning in in the first year.
Speaker 1: Of the rest of the next year. Ya hey, we'll
Speaker 1: be back Monday with more episodes every week from now
Speaker 1: until the heat death of the Universe. It Could Happen
Speaker 1: Here is a production of cool Zone Media. For more
Speaker 1: podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool zone
Speaker 1: media dot com, or check us out on the I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Speaker 1: You can find sources for It Could Happen Here, updated
Speaker 1: monthly at cool zone Media dot com slash sources. Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening.