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Speaker 1: A media.

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Speaker 2: Hi everyone, it's me James, and I'm coming at you

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Speaker 2: today with one of these little requests that I make

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Speaker 2: sometimes when there's something that we would like you to do,

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Speaker 2: when it's very important to do. So today I want

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Speaker 2: to talk to you about Syria, and specifically Northeast Syria.

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Speaker 2: So with the world's eyes fixed on Syria, many are

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Speaker 2: rightly celebrating as a brutal dictatorship of Bashara Lasad comes

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Speaker 2: to an end. But for Kurdish and other minority communities,

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Speaker 2: recent days have bought violent attacks, ethnic cleansing and occupation

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Speaker 2: by Turkish back to Jahadis groups in an attempt to

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Speaker 2: take advantage of the chaos by crushing the Rajava Revolution.

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Speaker 2: Turkey and its mercenaries are openly committing war crimes against

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Speaker 2: the regions autonomous communities. Many thousands have already been forced

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Speaker 2: to be displaced and thousands more are in danger. To

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Speaker 2: make matters worth this remains largely absent from the mainstream

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Speaker 2: media reporting on Syria. If you'd like to share your

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Speaker 2: solidarity with the people of northern and Eastern Syria, please

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Speaker 2: call on Congress to take urgent action by passing the

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Speaker 2: emergency Legislation to stop the violence, hold Turkey accountable, and

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Speaker 2: commit US support to the Syrian democratic forces and the

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Speaker 2: diverse communities under their protection. If you want to take

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Speaker 2: action today, you can go to Defendrojaba dot org. That's

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Speaker 2: d E F E N d R o ja va

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Speaker 2: dot org. If you are able to the most effective

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Speaker 2: action we can take right now is to call a

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Speaker 2: couple of representatives, one representative on one. Senator representative would

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Speaker 2: be Gregory Meeks. He's from New York. He's a Democrat.

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Speaker 2: He is a ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

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Speaker 2: His phone number is two zero two two two five

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Speaker 2: three four six one. Leevon will be Senator James Risch.

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Speaker 2: He's an Idaho Republican. He is a ranking member's Senate

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Speaker 2: Foreign Relations Committee. His phone number would be two zero

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Speaker 2: two two two four two seven five two. If you'd

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Speaker 2: like to have some talking points, you can find those

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Speaker 2: on Defendrojaba dot org. If you'd like to donate financially instead,

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Speaker 2: especially to this humanitarian aid effort for the tens of

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Speaker 2: thousands of people who have been displaced by the SNA's advances,

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Speaker 2: you can donate to two organizations that I would suggest.

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Speaker 2: The first we be Heavier store the Curtis Red Crescent.

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Speaker 2: That's h E Yva s O R dot com and

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Speaker 2: you want to go slash e n if you want

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Speaker 2: to see their website in English, you can donate there.

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Speaker 2: The other one will be the free Burmer Rangers who

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Speaker 2: are currently working in Raka. I was talking to my

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Speaker 2: friend Abat who works with them. You can donate to

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Speaker 2: them at www dot free fr e E Burma b

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Speaker 2: U r m A rangers dot com. We will put

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Speaker 2: all of this in the show notes or the URL,

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Speaker 2: so if you're driving you don't have to write them down.

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Speaker 2: Those are the concrete ways that we can help right

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Speaker 2: now and what is unfolding as a very terrible situation

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Speaker 2: in nor Syria. Thanks. I hope you enjoy the episode.

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Speaker 3: It's it could happen here the podcast that's afficing right now.

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Speaker 3: This is maybe the foremost of the Putting Things Back

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Speaker 3: Together episodes. I'm your host Mia Wong with me as

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Speaker 3: James Stout.

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Speaker 2: A guy who likes it to put things together.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know, on the subject of putting things

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Speaker 3: together over the last I don't even know three four weeks,

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Speaker 3: the question I have been asked the most by everyone

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Speaker 3: is how do I start organizing? And you know the

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Speaker 3: problem with how do I start organizing is that it's

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Speaker 3: not a question that has cleaner simple answers. Now, the

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Speaker 3: most common answer you get is just join an org.

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Speaker 3: And the problem is that most of the people who

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Speaker 3: you were hearing this from are already in an org

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Speaker 3: and want you to join their org.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Also, the problem is a lot of the orgs that

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Speaker 2: are currently dominating left to spaces in the in the

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Speaker 2: United States are trash, yeah, and bad for people. Bad

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Speaker 2: people in them, bad people who are not in them.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Here's a little test you can you can do, is

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Speaker 2: your org currently sad that Basha a Lasad is no

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Speaker 2: longer governing Syria? Because if that's the case, leave yep.

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Speaker 2: And that's that's a lot of orgs that that's not

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Speaker 2: for me. Yeah, it takes most of them right now.

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Speaker 2: We'll come back to orgs in a bit. But what

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Speaker 2: I'll say about orgs is that, Okay, if you know

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Speaker 2: an organization in your area that you like and you

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Speaker 2: think does good work and most importantly spends their time

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Speaker 2: actually doing work instead of either in fighting or talking

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Speaker 2: about doing work, you join them. It'll be good but

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Speaker 2: the important thing about organizations, and this is something we'll

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Speaker 2: come back to you later. The important thing about organizations

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Speaker 2: is they have a lot of people. Yeah, and the

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Speaker 2: thing that makes organizing work is people. It's not organizations.

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Speaker 2: It's not even necessarily at eological labels. It's there being

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Speaker 2: a bunch of people who you can use and who

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Speaker 2: want to do things. Yeah.

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Speaker 3: But something I realized that the more I had these conversations, right,

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Speaker 3: you know, I'm having them with friends, I'm having them

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Speaker 3: with strangers, I'm having them with other organizers. And the

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Speaker 3: more I had these conversations, the more I realize something

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Speaker 3: sort of startling you. The person listening to this almost

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Speaker 3: certainly already knows how to organize, but you don't know

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Speaker 3: that that's called organizing. Yeah, that's a very good point.

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Speaker 3: I have encountered some of the most stunning or I

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Speaker 3: mean organizing that like I can't discuss the specifics of

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Speaker 3: but like some of the best organizing I've ever encountered.

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Speaker 3: I have ran into in the last three weeks some

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Speaker 3: people who don't think that they're organizers and started talking

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Speaker 3: to me about their stuff. I was like, what, like,

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Speaker 3: people are winning victories that like the like hardcore committed

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Speaker 3: organizers haven't been able to do in like thirty years. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: and it's just by random people who don't think they

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Speaker 3: know how to do anything.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, can I tell a little organizing story? We do

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Speaker 2: have time, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, go for it. So

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Speaker 2: I remember, in like twenty eighteen, I am on a

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Speaker 2: trip with a friend. We're coming back and we see

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Speaker 2: the arrival of the migrant caravan. One of the migrant

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Speaker 2: caravan is the one that everyone decided to have a

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Speaker 2: fucking cow about right before the twenty eighteen mid terms.

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Speaker 2: And at that time, they were corraling the people of

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Speaker 2: the migrant caravan in a baseball stadium in Tijuana, and

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Speaker 2: like it was raining every day. So the baseball stadium

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Speaker 2: ends up looking like the Battle of the Psalm after

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Speaker 2: like a couple of days, right, you know, kids in needy,

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Speaker 2: mud and shit, and I particularly know what to do,

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Speaker 2: but evidently there were people there who were hungry and thirsty,

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Speaker 2: and so I get three of my free my friends.

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Speaker 2: At this time, I was still making about half my

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Speaker 2: money riding bicycles and the other half riding so my

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Speaker 2: friends and I was supposed to do a long bike

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Speaker 2: ride all of us are people who make a living

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Speaker 2: riding bikes, right, We're not like expert organizers. And I

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Speaker 2: was like, hey, guys, this is fucked. Which we do.

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Speaker 2: We called a friend who has a company who makes waffles,

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Speaker 2: where we obtained like as many waffles as we could

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Speaker 2: physically carry across the border. At that time, we weren't

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Speaker 2: able to get in. We found a way to get in.

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Speaker 2: We began distributing the waffles. After that, we put something online,

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Speaker 2: people sent us money, and we continued feeding people for months.

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Speaker 2: None of us, I think, had a particular plan or

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Speaker 2: a scheduled. Yeah, it was a bit chaotic at times,

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Speaker 2: but we were able to do that and with a

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Speaker 2: lot of other people. Clearly wasn't just us, right, but

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Speaker 2: we were able to process tenths of thousands of dollars

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Speaker 2: and feed thousands of people be everyone there. And I've

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Speaker 2: seen this countless times, especially working and organizing with well

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Speaker 2: with refugees. For the most part, people are so good

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Speaker 2: at organizing each other in themselves. Like when we got

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Speaker 2: there with bottles of water and food. There are a

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Speaker 2: thousand people there who have not had sometimes a drink

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Speaker 2: for days, let alone more than a thousand. I think

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Speaker 2: let alone something hot to eat. Right, everybody made sure

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Speaker 2: that the children and the sick people got what they

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Speaker 2: needed first. Organizing is something that is very inherent in

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Speaker 2: us as people. It just we don't call it that.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, And that's part of what I want to try

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Speaker 3: to the myth. I want to try to puncture with

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Speaker 3: this because I think particularly in the US, but this

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Speaker 3: is true in a lot of places. There's this way

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Speaker 3: in which the organizers sort of TM capital T capital O.

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Speaker 3: The organizer gets held up as this sort of I

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Speaker 3: guess even a particularly masculinist thing, which is it's this

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Speaker 3: guy with specialized knowledge. Yeah, and that's just not true.

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Speaker 4: This brings us.

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Speaker 3: Something that I think is actually really important, which is

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Speaker 3: what what even is organizing?

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Speaker 4: Right?

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Speaker 3: And the answer is that most organizing is you get

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Speaker 3: you get a group of people together, you get them

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Speaker 3: to show up to something, and then you do something right.

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Speaker 3: And the thing about this, right, that's something all of

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Speaker 3: you know how to do. If if you can organize

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Speaker 3: a dinner party, right, if you can get eight people

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Speaker 3: to show up to a place to eat dinner, you

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Speaker 3: can do this. It is it is largely the same

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Speaker 3: skill sets, and all of the skill sets that make

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Speaker 3: people good organizers are skill sets that you have to

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Speaker 3: develop to you know, work a job, right. You know,

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Speaker 3: Like one of the things that comes up a lot

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Speaker 3: in this which is less discussed and also kind of annoying,

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Speaker 3: but you know you have to manage it, is that

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Speaker 3: organizing is about people and sometimes you have to you know,

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Speaker 3: you have to do things like you have to manage

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Speaker 3: people's egos. But like, I don't know, almost all of

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Speaker 3: you work jobs or have work jobs, right, you have

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Speaker 3: had to like deal with your boss being on one right,

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Speaker 3: you have the skills to do this.

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Speaker 4: You know how to do.

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Speaker 3: The interpersonal relationship stuff. It's just that you don't think

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Speaker 3: about that as organizing, even though that's just what it is.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the core of it is getting people to

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Speaker 2: do stuff like you do it every day.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: And the way you do this is by building relationships

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Speaker 3: with people, right. And this isn't necessarily friendships, although that works.

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Speaker 3: And like one of the easiest ways to start organizing

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Speaker 3: is by getting all of your friends together because you're

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Speaker 3: already friends, you have pre existing relationships, and being like, okay, motherfuckers,

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Speaker 3: we gotta go do something. And actually I love that

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Speaker 3: the first thing that you brought up was an admittedly

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Speaker 3: sort of medium ish scale lift version of this. But

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Speaker 3: one of the very easiest things that you can do

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Speaker 3: is you can just get food of some kind. You

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Speaker 3: can either buy it or you can make it yourself,

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Speaker 3: and you and a group of like eight people, not

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Speaker 3: even eight people, you can do it with lower I

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Speaker 3: know people who've done this just solo. Is that you

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Speaker 3: can just go give food to people. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Literally it was this morning yesterday morning. I have some

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Speaker 2: man house neighbors, right and it was cold, and so

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Speaker 2: I went out and gave them some hot breakfast or

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Speaker 2: hot coffee. It's super easy to do. If you are

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Speaker 2: struggling socially wherever you are, maybe you're finding it hard

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Speaker 2: to make friends. I know that's the thing that people

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Speaker 2: often struggle, especially if you've moved to a new place

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Speaker 2: or post pandemic, or you're still concerned with liuved gatherings

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Speaker 2: or any of those things. Like, if you start doing that,

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Speaker 2: you will find other people who want to do it too,

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Speaker 2: Like so many of my friends I organize with are people.

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Speaker 2: Like when we had the end of Title forty two

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Speaker 2: and people were in between the fences that a lot

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Speaker 2: of the people who I organize with now or who

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Speaker 2: helped people with now, I didn't know. I just showed

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Speaker 2: up with a giant side of generator that I happened

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Speaker 2: to have and some stuff that we had a whip

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Speaker 2: around a call zone for and like, people who care

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Speaker 2: about the same things as you are generally cool and

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Speaker 2: it's a good way to make friends. And then you

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Speaker 2: can go on from there.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and there's a second compounding thing here too, which

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Speaker 3: is that you know, feeding people it's a way to

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Speaker 3: build relationships with people. And also it's a really good

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Speaker 3: way for people to get to know you in general

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Speaker 3: and know that you are someone who will help them

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Speaker 3: with things. Yeah, and from there, and this is a

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Speaker 3: very common exception. I mean this is I literally had

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Speaker 3: this conversation with one of my friends who's like an

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Speaker 3: old school Food Not Bombs organizer. Food Not Bombs is

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Speaker 3: a very very it's a cool organization. You can just

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Speaker 3: like found a food out Bobs chapter. They have like

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Speaker 3: a couple of principles, or you can just do your

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Speaker 3: own thing. And I'm pretty sure it's still like the

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Speaker 3: largest anarchist project in the world because all it takes

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Speaker 3: is you and like three other people and you just

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Speaker 3: go feed people. But the thing is from doing that, right,

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Speaker 3: if there's other things that you're concerned about, people will

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Speaker 3: bring you their problems and you can help them doing it.

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Speaker 3: And this is a very good way to get into

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Speaker 3: other kinds of organizing because suddenly, once you start building

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Speaker 3: these relationships, everything sort of cycles and cycles, and you know,

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Speaker 3: you get involved in more and more things. Yeah, and

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Speaker 3: that's kind of a that's kind of a late stage

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Speaker 3: thing that we're sort of jumping to a bit. But

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Speaker 3: I want to go back to the beginnings of how

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Speaker 3: so how do you get a group of people together

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Speaker 3: to do a thing? And the answer is you kind

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Speaker 3: of already know how to because you you presumably at

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Speaker 3: some point in your life, have like organized a group

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Speaker 3: of friends to go do something, right, Like I've gotten

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Speaker 3: a group of people together to go accomplish a task.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it could literally be anything, right like, yeah, if

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Speaker 2: you've got some people to go to a BA, you

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Speaker 2: have the skills.

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Speaker 3: One way I've been thinking about it recently and in

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Speaker 3: my project is putting is thinking about it as like

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Speaker 3: putting together a heist crew. And I, okay, I could

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Speaker 3: vouch for this right. The feeling of walking up to

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Speaker 3: eight people and telling them individually, I'm putting together a

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Speaker 3: team and I want you it is. It feels you

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Speaker 3: can just do it. There is nothing stopping you. Nothing

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Speaker 3: in the world can stop you from just walking up

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Speaker 3: to your friend and going I'm putting together a team.

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Speaker 3: And it feels exactly as good as you think it

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Speaker 3: with them Ice movie, it rules. It's so fun, amazing, Yeah,

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Speaker 3: and and and but this gets into also what kinds

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Speaker 3: of people you want to do right, because obviously you

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Speaker 3: know there's two vectors of this. There's on the one hand,

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Speaker 3: you have the aspect of okay, who do you know? Right,

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Speaker 3: And a lot of organizing is just about here is

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Speaker 3: a problem, and I know someone who has some sort

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Speaker 3: of skill or resource that can that can help deal

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Speaker 3: with it, and you put people in touch with each other,

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Speaker 3: and that's organizing. That's so much organizing is literally just hey,

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Speaker 3: like I have like a broken part of my car.

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Speaker 3: I know someone who's like a car mechanic, right, and

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Speaker 3: you put you put them in touch. And you have

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Speaker 3: successfully organized people, and you have built relationships, and you

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Speaker 3: have made all of the sort of social web that

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Speaker 3: creates organizing. You've made it stronger. It also just feels

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Speaker 3: good because you know, and that that's an auxiliary benefit

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Speaker 3: to all of this is that it's it's a great

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Speaker 3: it's a great way to sort of break break the

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Speaker 3: isolation we're all under.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the best solution for despair is I'm

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Speaker 2: thinking of a quotation here something the busy bee have

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Speaker 2: no time for despair. But the thing that makes me

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Speaker 2: feel better about the world is that I have seen

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Speaker 2: that people can fix massive problems with very few resources

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Speaker 2: by just showing up. And like, I think, organizing is

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Speaker 2: what gives me, what allows me to enter this period

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Speaker 2: of time that we're entering into with a great deal

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Speaker 2: more hope than I otherwise would have done.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, And do you know what else will help you

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Speaker 3: enter your situation?

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Speaker 2: Is it the products and services that support this podcast.

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Speaker 3: I don't know if I'm allowed to say this, but

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Speaker 3: we are not in control of the length of the ads.

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Speaker 4: They just do it. We're sorry, here's a really long

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Speaker 4: period of ads. I'm so sorry.

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Speaker 3: We are back. So I want to I want to

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Speaker 3: return to my my highst career. If I don't know

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Speaker 3: if you're a D and D person, the other way

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Speaker 3: you can think about this is you're putting together like

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Speaker 3: a Dungeons and Dragons party or like an RPG party.

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Speaker 3: And the way you need to think about this is, Okay,

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Speaker 3: so you've picked a thing that you want to do, right,

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Speaker 3: you see, you've seen something in the world that is

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Speaker 3: bad and you you figure it. You go, okay, I

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Speaker 3: can do this thing to solve it. And maybe and

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Speaker 3: maybe that's you know, it's literally something as simple as

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Speaker 3: feeding people. Maybe that's you know, I want to start.

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Speaker 3: I want to start doing tenets organizing. I want to

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Speaker 3: start because my rent is too high, right, people are

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Speaker 3: getting evicted. I want to start doing like immigration defense.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: And from there you make a list and that list

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Speaker 3: is you know what you're interested in doing, and you

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Speaker 3: try to match what things need to be done with

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Speaker 3: people you know who have those skills. Yeah, and this

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Speaker 3: is you know this, this is this is where you

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Speaker 3: really get into the hist things, right, because everyone has

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Speaker 3: their sort of like highst role. Now, obvious part of

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Speaker 3: this that you want is you want to create sort

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Speaker 3: of balanced teams. Right. You want people who have overlapping

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Speaker 3: strengths so you don't just have only one person who

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Speaker 3: can do a thing. And part of the way to

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Speaker 3: successful organization works over time, and I mean just how

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Speaker 3: successful organizing works is that eventually you are trying to

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Speaker 3: organize yourself out of a job, which is to say,

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Speaker 3: you want your organization to function such that if you're

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Speaker 3: not able to do it, you know, or just you're gone,

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Speaker 3: or you cycle onto a next thing, or you know,

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Speaker 3: any any number of things that can happen. You want

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Speaker 3: the organization to still be able to keep working without you,

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Speaker 3: and you want you want you're trying to get people

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Speaker 3: to be able to replace you as the person who's

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Speaker 3: like organizing the thing, right. Yeah, And at this point

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Speaker 3: we can start talking about the kinds of skills that

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Speaker 3: people need for organizing, and a lot of people and

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Speaker 3: this is unbelievably common when I talk to people, and

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Speaker 3: like especially women and especially like a lot of non

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Speaker 3: binary people and trans people particularly have this is that

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Speaker 3: people don't believe that they have any skills. Yeah, and

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Speaker 3: then you talk to them for five seconds and they're like, well,

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Speaker 3: I'm good at carrying heavy objects, right, I'm good with kids,

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Speaker 3: which is a huge one. We'll get to you in

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Speaker 3: a second, right, or like I don't know, I have

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Speaker 3: a car that's a huge skill. There are so many

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Speaker 3: different skills that are so useful for so many things.

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Speaker 3: I'm just gonna go over lots of things that are

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Speaker 3: actually really useful to get to get people a sense

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Speaker 3: of like the kinds of things that there are. There

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Speaker 3: are massive roles for so one of the most important ones,

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Speaker 3: and this is something you can you deliberately look for.

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Speaker 3: You know, this is this is one of the things

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Speaker 3: you do at the beginning of any union organizing campaign.

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Speaker 3: Someone who's good at talking to other people and making friends.

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Speaker 3: That is a staggeringly useful person because against most organizing

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Speaker 3: is just talking to people and building relationships. And you know,

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Speaker 3: one of the things you do when you when you're

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Speaker 3: doing you're sort of they call it power mapping. But

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Speaker 3: when when you when you're figuring out how you're going

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Speaker 3: to organize a workplace, is you find the person who

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Speaker 3: everyone likes and talks to and respects, and you talk

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Speaker 3: to that person. Yeah, because that person can you know,

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Speaker 3: can sort of like organize people down the chain because

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Speaker 3: they have they have their relationships already and also they're

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Speaker 3: good they'll be good at, you know, talking to new

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Speaker 3: people and and spreading your organization that way, and so

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Speaker 3: like you know, if you're just someone who's social or

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Speaker 3: and this is also very useful if you have a

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Speaker 3: friend who is very social, because I know a lot

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Speaker 3: of us are oporary social. But you probably have a

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Speaker 3: friend that you're thinking of right now who is very

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Speaker 3: good at conversations that is charming and is good at

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Speaker 3: making friendships. That person unbelievably useful, incredibly useful and compelling skill. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: there are also things like research people who are good

385
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Speaker 3: at and I think people are much better at research

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Speaker 3: than they think to take like a Tete's organizing example. Right,

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Speaker 3: one of the common things you have to do is

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Speaker 3: find out stuff about a landlord, right, Yeah, And there's

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Speaker 3: the higher difficulty version of that, which isn't that hard. Also,

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Speaker 3: want to I want to mention this, but like going

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Speaker 3: to a courthouse and finding records about who owns property

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Speaker 3: companies that it's not that hard. It's it's like you

393
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Speaker 3: could just do it, right, It's not as hard as

394
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Speaker 3: you think it is from someone saying it. But there's

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Speaker 3: also even just easy things in that, right that all

396
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Speaker 3: of you probably already know how to do, which is

397
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Speaker 3: just looking at someone's social media profiles, and finding out

398
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Speaker 3: information about them. Yeah, and this is very useful, yeah,

399
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Speaker 3: for like union campaigns, bosses.

400
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Speaker 2: If you've ever been a person who uses dating apps,

401
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Speaker 2: especially if you're a woman, Yeah, yeah, then you know

402
00:19:17,840 --> 00:19:21,320
Speaker 2: how to ocin. Actually maybe you don't credit yourself with

403
00:19:21,359 --> 00:19:24,040
Speaker 2: that skill, but one hundred percent that like you've developed

404
00:19:24,040 --> 00:19:26,879
Speaker 2: that skill to keep yourself safe and you can use

405
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Speaker 2: it for good.

406
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Speaker 3: Do you want to explain what ocenters and yes? How

407
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Speaker 3: that how that process works? Yeah?

408
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Speaker 2: Sure. So open source intelligence is it's an acream doesn't

409
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Speaker 2: really need to exist. It's gathering information of open sources,

410
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Speaker 2: things that are openly accessible, right, as opposed to like humint,

411
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Speaker 2: which is like being a spy, or singint, which is

412
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Speaker 2: capturing signals. Open source information is you're creeping someone's Instagram,

413
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Speaker 2: creeping their Facebook, looking at the weird fucking shit that

414
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Speaker 2: they put on good Reads.

415
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Speaker 4: Right.

416
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Speaker 2: All the data that is out there, largely on the Internet,

417
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Speaker 2: about us. A lot of people put a lot of

418
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Speaker 2: information on the and it's very easy. And I would

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Speaker 2: imagine if you're under fifty and maybe if you're over

420
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Speaker 2: fifty two, like you just know how to do this

421
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Speaker 2: because it's what you do anyway, you want to find

422
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Speaker 2: out about someone. And especially if you are a person

423
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Speaker 2: who goes on dates with people who you haven't met

424
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Speaker 2: before and haven't been introduced to by a mutual friend,

425
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Speaker 2: but you meet on the internet, you probably already do

426
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Speaker 2: this to keep yourself safe.

427
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Speaker 3: Yeah, and this is something that's very useful for I mean,

428
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Speaker 3: there's so many use cases for this, right there's you know,

429
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Speaker 3: there's the very obvious ones where you're dealing with the

430
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Speaker 3: local Nazi and you're trying to organize around like running

431
00:20:33,720 --> 00:20:35,720
Speaker 3: them out people say from them, and you can find

432
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Speaker 3: information about them. But I mean, it's useful for cops

433
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Speaker 3: who are beating people, is useful for like politicians particularly,

434
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Speaker 3: It can be very useful for It's useful for landlords.

435
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Speaker 3: This happens all the time. It can be very very

436
00:20:48,200 --> 00:20:52,639
Speaker 3: useful for bosses in union campaigns. Unions have like teams

437
00:20:52,680 --> 00:20:55,560
Speaker 3: of researchers usually to like do this kind of stuff.

438
00:20:55,600 --> 00:20:57,480
Speaker 3: But the thing is also and this is something I

439
00:20:57,480 --> 00:21:00,280
Speaker 3: don't think people understand. Those guys, like the people they're

440
00:21:00,359 --> 00:21:03,000
Speaker 3: hiring difer researchers are just you, but they got a

441
00:21:03,080 --> 00:21:05,359
Speaker 3: job being a researcher for a union. Like they have

442
00:21:05,480 --> 00:21:07,199
Speaker 3: the same skills as you They know how to like

443
00:21:07,359 --> 00:21:09,880
Speaker 3: Google stuff, and they know how to look through people's

444
00:21:09,920 --> 00:21:13,400
Speaker 3: like dating profiles and like look through their their facebooks

445
00:21:13,440 --> 00:21:16,600
Speaker 3: and their Instagrams and like a big one, a big

446
00:21:16,640 --> 00:21:20,440
Speaker 3: one that that the rich people especially do not think about,

447
00:21:20,840 --> 00:21:22,720
Speaker 3: is like cash app and venmo.

448
00:21:22,680 --> 00:21:26,360
Speaker 2: Oh venmos app because yeah, yeah, because.

449
00:21:26,119 --> 00:21:28,760
Speaker 3: Because people's peoples trying. People just leave public transactions out

450
00:21:28,800 --> 00:21:30,720
Speaker 3: there like that. That's how they got what's his name,

451
00:21:30,840 --> 00:21:35,120
Speaker 3: the congressional Gates. Can I legally call him the congressional pedophile?

452
00:21:35,280 --> 00:21:37,359
Speaker 3: I guess they call him the accused pedophile?

453
00:21:38,040 --> 00:21:40,919
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, the man credibly accused of sleeping with an

454
00:21:41,000 --> 00:21:43,320
Speaker 2: underage woman lots of times, you know.

455
00:21:43,359 --> 00:21:45,119
Speaker 3: And one of the ways they found that was that

456
00:21:45,280 --> 00:21:48,600
Speaker 3: and also like paying paying for that, right yes, which

457
00:21:48,640 --> 00:21:50,000
Speaker 3: is which is rape. By the way, I want to

458
00:21:50,000 --> 00:21:52,600
Speaker 3: be very clear about that, Like, yeah, having sex with

459
00:21:52,600 --> 00:21:55,080
Speaker 3: someone who is underage is rape. It is always rape,

460
00:21:55,359 --> 00:21:56,879
Speaker 3: you know. And the way people found that was that

461
00:21:56,920 --> 00:21:59,359
Speaker 3: they just looked through like his cash app history and

462
00:21:59,400 --> 00:22:02,280
Speaker 3: they found all of these money transfers to people. You know,

463
00:22:03,119 --> 00:22:05,920
Speaker 3: this is all very very simple stuff. That's that's very

464
00:22:06,040 --> 00:22:09,760
Speaker 3: very useful organizing wise, that you already know how to do.

465
00:22:10,520 --> 00:22:14,040
Speaker 2: Yeah. Pinterest is another absolute bad people. Yeah, so much

466
00:22:15,080 --> 00:22:18,239
Speaker 2: people that they be pinning you know if if if

467
00:22:18,240 --> 00:22:21,040
Speaker 2: you're hearing some of these things and and you think

468
00:22:21,160 --> 00:22:23,560
Speaker 2: that you can figure out how to do this. That's

469
00:22:23,760 --> 00:22:26,840
Speaker 2: also a huge skill. Finding people who are willing to

470
00:22:26,960 --> 00:22:30,159
Speaker 2: learn things and willing to learn new skills is a

471
00:22:30,320 --> 00:22:33,800
Speaker 2: huge benefit to to organizers because you know this, this

472
00:22:33,880 --> 00:22:36,280
Speaker 2: gives you, like, this gives you a flexible person, right,

473
00:22:36,520 --> 00:22:38,280
Speaker 2: it gives it gives you someone you can like flex

474
00:22:38,359 --> 00:22:40,360
Speaker 2: into into any of a bunch of roles that you need.

475
00:22:40,400 --> 00:22:43,639
Speaker 2: And also can you know, pick up skills to learn things.

476
00:22:44,320 --> 00:22:46,600
Speaker 2: Having a car and being able to drive, and I

477
00:22:46,640 --> 00:22:48,000
Speaker 2: know a lot of you don't do this, but if

478
00:22:48,000 --> 00:22:50,560
Speaker 2: you do do this, this is you immediately, even if

479
00:22:50,560 --> 00:22:53,640
Speaker 2: you literally cannot contribute anything else to a project, being

480
00:22:53,680 --> 00:22:56,520
Speaker 2: able to just drive a bunch of water to a place,

481
00:22:56,800 --> 00:23:00,399
Speaker 2: oh yeah, huge, staggeringly useful. The amount of things people

482
00:23:00,440 --> 00:23:04,680
Speaker 2: can't access because they can't get there, it's vast, Especially

483
00:23:04,680 --> 00:23:07,840
Speaker 2: when I talk to migrants right have recently arrived in

484
00:23:07,880 --> 00:23:09,760
Speaker 2: the US. They don't have a US cell phone, they

485
00:23:09,760 --> 00:23:13,920
Speaker 2: can't uber Oftentimes nowadays you can't even pay for mass

486
00:23:13,920 --> 00:23:16,160
Speaker 2: transit with cash, you have to have a special card

487
00:23:16,800 --> 00:23:18,280
Speaker 2: and you have to get to the place to get

488
00:23:18,320 --> 00:23:20,880
Speaker 2: the card. Right, The problems you can solve by being

489
00:23:20,920 --> 00:23:25,199
Speaker 2: able to drive someone five miles are enormous, especially in

490
00:23:25,200 --> 00:23:28,480
Speaker 2: the US where everything is designed around everyone owning a

491
00:23:28,520 --> 00:23:29,600
Speaker 2: motor car at all times.

492
00:23:29,800 --> 00:23:34,840
Speaker 3: Yep. Yeah, And like transport based skills are also very useful.

493
00:23:35,080 --> 00:23:37,360
Speaker 3: I mean, if you hike a lot, that's a very

494
00:23:37,520 --> 00:23:40,320
Speaker 3: very useful skill. There's a lot of sort of mutual

495
00:23:40,320 --> 00:23:41,959
Speaker 3: aid projects. There's a lot of you know, I mean

496
00:23:42,040 --> 00:23:44,280
Speaker 3: even things like setting up summer camps is the thing

497
00:23:44,280 --> 00:23:47,040
Speaker 3: that like leftist groups do right, and being able to

498
00:23:47,119 --> 00:23:48,720
Speaker 3: hike very good for that. It's good for things like

499
00:23:48,720 --> 00:23:50,760
Speaker 3: wilden just rescue. There's a lot of you know, the jams,

500
00:23:50,800 --> 00:23:52,320
Speaker 3: like the work you do that has to do with

501
00:23:52,920 --> 00:23:55,840
Speaker 3: like going in helping migrants. Like being able to hike

502
00:23:56,080 --> 00:23:58,520
Speaker 3: is staggeringly useful skill.

503
00:23:59,080 --> 00:24:02,760
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's very like, it's useful. It's important. It's

504
00:24:02,760 --> 00:24:05,320
Speaker 2: okay if that's not something you can physically do or

505
00:24:05,440 --> 00:24:07,040
Speaker 2: you know that that works for the way you like

506
00:24:07,080 --> 00:24:09,399
Speaker 2: to live your life. Like another thing I was thinking

507
00:24:09,440 --> 00:24:12,440
Speaker 2: of which can be massively important and people don't realize

508
00:24:12,600 --> 00:24:14,960
Speaker 2: is if you know how to take off a tail

509
00:24:15,040 --> 00:24:18,480
Speaker 2: light and replace the bulb in it. Yes, like we're

510
00:24:18,640 --> 00:24:21,640
Speaker 2: entering a time when people with darker, people with TPS,

511
00:24:21,680 --> 00:24:24,800
Speaker 2: people who are undocumented, people are on temporary migration statuses

512
00:24:24,840 --> 00:24:27,159
Speaker 2: are going to be definitely afraid of any interaction with

513
00:24:27,240 --> 00:24:32,320
Speaker 2: law enforcement. If you can change the bulb on someone's

514
00:24:32,359 --> 00:24:35,159
Speaker 2: tail light or their turn signal indicator as of us

515
00:24:35,200 --> 00:24:39,080
Speaker 2: in the UK, then you can meaningfully protect that person

516
00:24:39,119 --> 00:24:41,960
Speaker 2: in a really important way. And it can literally take

517
00:24:42,000 --> 00:24:42,560
Speaker 2: ten minutes.

518
00:24:42,840 --> 00:24:45,400
Speaker 3: And this is something that you know, can scale up

519
00:24:45,440 --> 00:24:48,280
Speaker 3: depending on how much skill you have. Right, there's even

520
00:24:48,359 --> 00:24:51,359
Speaker 3: just very basic auto maintenance stuff is very useful for

521
00:24:51,400 --> 00:24:54,960
Speaker 3: stuff like this. But you know, like if you're a carpenter, right,

522
00:24:55,040 --> 00:24:58,320
Speaker 3: if you're an electrician, you do some kind of trade work, right,

523
00:24:58,320 --> 00:25:00,560
Speaker 3: you do plumbing, right, That is the thing that is

524
00:25:00,640 --> 00:25:04,440
Speaker 3: massively useful to a lot of people. There's a lot

525
00:25:04,480 --> 00:25:07,040
Speaker 3: of other kind of just skills that you have from

526
00:25:07,080 --> 00:25:09,560
Speaker 3: your job that can be very useful. I mean, having

527
00:25:09,560 --> 00:25:14,359
Speaker 3: someone to manage a spreadsheet, oh yeah, yeah, is staggeringly useful.

528
00:25:14,400 --> 00:25:17,199
Speaker 3: And another one that I think people don't understand that

529
00:25:17,240 --> 00:25:20,199
Speaker 3: they really have. But like being able to set up

530
00:25:20,240 --> 00:25:24,919
Speaker 3: a meeting and like having a thing that lets you

531
00:25:25,440 --> 00:25:28,960
Speaker 3: be like, Okay, here's when everyone is free, Like you

532
00:25:29,000 --> 00:25:31,879
Speaker 3: probably have to do this for your job or just

533
00:25:31,880 --> 00:25:33,920
Speaker 3: for you know, trying to get your friends to go

534
00:25:34,520 --> 00:25:37,320
Speaker 3: even just like be on a call together or like

535
00:25:37,560 --> 00:25:42,520
Speaker 3: go have food or like just do anything. That is

536
00:25:42,920 --> 00:25:45,520
Speaker 3: what literally, genuinely one of the most important skills you

537
00:25:45,520 --> 00:25:47,679
Speaker 3: can possibly have as an organizer is the ability to

538
00:25:47,760 --> 00:25:50,040
Speaker 3: just sort of like go talk to people and be like, hey,

539
00:25:50,080 --> 00:25:51,520
Speaker 3: can you show up to this thing here?

540
00:25:52,359 --> 00:25:52,800
Speaker 4: Yeah?

541
00:25:52,960 --> 00:25:54,520
Speaker 3: And that is that is so much of just what

542
00:25:54,680 --> 00:25:57,919
Speaker 3: organizing is. Can you be here at this time? And

543
00:25:57,960 --> 00:25:59,240
Speaker 3: then trying to figure out a time.

544
00:25:59,720 --> 00:26:00,280
Speaker 4: Yeah.

545
00:26:00,320 --> 00:26:02,080
Speaker 3: So we're going to close out this sort of skill

546
00:26:02,160 --> 00:26:04,280
Speaker 3: section with some I think just sort of like domestic

547
00:26:04,320 --> 00:26:07,399
Speaker 3: these skills that I don't think people realize are super useful.

548
00:26:08,080 --> 00:26:10,199
Speaker 3: If you have a button maker, you are instantly the

549
00:26:10,240 --> 00:26:13,960
Speaker 3: single most useful person in any organization. I love that. Yeah, well,

550
00:26:14,000 --> 00:26:17,280
Speaker 3: you can obtain a button maker. They're very easy to use.

551
00:26:17,440 --> 00:26:20,680
Speaker 3: But if you have one or you know the person

552
00:26:20,680 --> 00:26:22,480
Speaker 3: who has the button maker, and suddenly you can just

553
00:26:22,520 --> 00:26:25,840
Speaker 3: crank out buttons for every single event, they rule. Everyone

554
00:26:25,880 --> 00:26:29,680
Speaker 3: loves them. It helps. It helps enormously. It's awesome.

555
00:26:30,160 --> 00:26:35,159
Speaker 2: That's a badge for those in the Commonwealth. Also, if

556
00:26:35,160 --> 00:26:37,240
Speaker 2: you have a sewing machine, yeah, I was about to

557
00:26:37,280 --> 00:26:38,840
Speaker 2: mention that, Yeah, yeah, you're a hero.

558
00:26:39,080 --> 00:26:39,280
Speaker 4: Yeah.

559
00:26:39,440 --> 00:26:41,480
Speaker 2: One of my friends recently made me a little patch

560
00:26:42,320 --> 00:26:44,879
Speaker 2: and it's really cool and I like it, but not

561
00:26:44,920 --> 00:26:48,040
Speaker 2: all my stuff. But if you can sew, like, that's

562
00:26:48,080 --> 00:26:51,680
Speaker 2: a skill that I do not have. It's so great

563
00:26:51,760 --> 00:26:55,919
Speaker 2: when people can fix stuff for someone or you know,

564
00:26:55,920 --> 00:26:58,359
Speaker 2: make stuff fit someone. You know, if you're a person

565
00:26:58,359 --> 00:27:00,240
Speaker 2: who finds it hard to get closed that you like

566
00:27:00,280 --> 00:27:03,120
Speaker 2: to wear that make you feel good and someone one

567
00:27:03,119 --> 00:27:05,720
Speaker 2: of my friends could do that. And one of my

568
00:27:05,720 --> 00:27:11,240
Speaker 2: friends was making clothes for another friend for like a

569
00:27:11,280 --> 00:27:14,000
Speaker 2: Renaissance fair, and like it was the nicest thing I've

570
00:27:14,000 --> 00:27:16,200
Speaker 2: seen someone do for someone else in a very long time.

571
00:27:16,400 --> 00:27:21,240
Speaker 2: It really made her like, yeah, feel like nice and

572
00:27:21,560 --> 00:27:23,919
Speaker 2: cared for. And like you might think that like this

573
00:27:24,000 --> 00:27:25,159
Speaker 2: is just a weird little thing that you like to

574
00:27:25,160 --> 00:27:27,960
Speaker 2: do with your sewing machine, but you can meaningfully really

575
00:27:27,960 --> 00:27:29,639
Speaker 2: make someone feel cared for using that.

576
00:27:30,240 --> 00:27:33,200
Speaker 3: Yeah, And that's a huge part of what organizing is right,

577
00:27:33,760 --> 00:27:35,680
Speaker 3: and that that goes into one of the things that

578
00:27:36,040 --> 00:27:39,399
Speaker 3: is also an appreciable skill that's very useful. Is I

579
00:27:39,440 --> 00:27:42,399
Speaker 3: mean just like being nice to people, being kind to people,

580
00:27:42,480 --> 00:27:45,719
Speaker 3: and having people around who are good at like keeping

581
00:27:45,760 --> 00:27:49,679
Speaker 3: groups together. Yeah, that's its own distinct kind of person

582
00:27:49,840 --> 00:27:52,159
Speaker 3: is someone who can you know, keep all of the

583
00:27:52,200 --> 00:27:55,760
Speaker 3: people who are involved in a thing enjoying being around

584
00:27:55,760 --> 00:27:58,920
Speaker 3: each other. That's that's the kind of person who's very valuable.

585
00:27:58,960 --> 00:28:01,000
Speaker 3: And it's something that you can and look for, you know.

586
00:28:01,000 --> 00:28:02,840
Speaker 3: And if that's not you, like you can there's something

587
00:28:02,840 --> 00:28:04,840
Speaker 3: you can you know, find in your friends. You can

588
00:28:04,840 --> 00:28:08,080
Speaker 3: find in this sort of the people around you. Yeah, definitely,

589
00:28:08,680 --> 00:28:11,520
Speaker 3: there's also something that I think you can tell when

590
00:28:11,560 --> 00:28:14,480
Speaker 3: an organization is collapsing because this is like the first

591
00:28:14,480 --> 00:28:17,959
Speaker 3: thing with the quality drops drawing and graphic design are

592
00:28:18,080 --> 00:28:20,399
Speaker 3: very very useful because a big part of what you

593
00:28:20,440 --> 00:28:23,159
Speaker 3: do organizing is like you make a flyer and you

594
00:28:23,200 --> 00:28:25,119
Speaker 3: put a flyer on a bunch of telephone poles to

595
00:28:25,160 --> 00:28:29,200
Speaker 3: tell people that there's a thing happening. Yeah, and yeah,

596
00:28:29,400 --> 00:28:31,359
Speaker 3: you know, and this is also something you know later

597
00:28:31,440 --> 00:28:33,560
Speaker 3: on you might be making a social media presence, but

598
00:28:33,680 --> 00:28:37,320
Speaker 3: just having good artists and having good graphic design people

599
00:28:37,440 --> 00:28:41,760
Speaker 3: is enormously useful for this kind of stuff. Yeah, and

600
00:28:41,880 --> 00:28:44,560
Speaker 3: al along this line, these things like making music, and

601
00:28:44,640 --> 00:28:46,360
Speaker 3: there's a bunch of different ways this can go. This

602
00:28:46,400 --> 00:28:48,400
Speaker 3: can be an immediate thing where you know, like you

603
00:28:48,400 --> 00:28:50,560
Speaker 3: have people on a picket line, right and everyone's singing

604
00:28:50,600 --> 00:28:53,200
Speaker 3: songs and this is great. We love this. Yeah. Also,

605
00:28:53,320 --> 00:28:55,080
Speaker 3: and this is another thing that you can be thinking

606
00:28:55,080 --> 00:28:56,920
Speaker 3: about in terms of what skills you have and what

607
00:28:56,960 --> 00:29:00,320
Speaker 3: things you can create. Benefit shows. Yes, this has been

608
00:29:00,320 --> 00:29:01,960
Speaker 3: a huge part of a lot of how some of

609
00:29:02,000 --> 00:29:04,160
Speaker 3: the unions off up here has been getting funded is

610
00:29:04,200 --> 00:29:07,360
Speaker 3: by just having like punk benefit shows. And if that's

611
00:29:07,360 --> 00:29:09,080
Speaker 3: the thing that you can do, or you know, people

612
00:29:09,120 --> 00:29:10,920
Speaker 3: in bands, you know, people who make music, you know,

613
00:29:10,960 --> 00:29:13,720
Speaker 3: people who just make stuff who are willing to contribute

614
00:29:13,760 --> 00:29:16,440
Speaker 3: it to the cause, that's great.

615
00:29:17,040 --> 00:29:20,040
Speaker 2: I remember one of we had one night last September,

616
00:29:20,320 --> 00:29:22,080
Speaker 2: so cold. We were in the desert and they're like

617
00:29:22,560 --> 00:29:25,360
Speaker 2: a thousand people, right, and we were at that point

618
00:29:25,400 --> 00:29:27,400
Speaker 2: we were really struggling to feed everyone, even you know,

619
00:29:27,400 --> 00:29:29,240
Speaker 2: because there was so few of us. But my friend

620
00:29:29,240 --> 00:29:32,240
Speaker 2: bought out like their guitar and some bongo drums they had,

621
00:29:32,280 --> 00:29:34,040
Speaker 2: and I think I had my harmonica in my truck

622
00:29:34,800 --> 00:29:38,200
Speaker 2: and like we were sitting around with these We had

623
00:29:38,200 --> 00:29:41,600
Speaker 2: some Sikh guys, had some Weiga folks come from China,

624
00:29:41,800 --> 00:29:43,720
Speaker 2: and then some Kourdish people and they were all displaying

625
00:29:43,760 --> 00:29:48,120
Speaker 2: their different music and it was so nice like that,

626
00:29:48,560 --> 00:29:50,920
Speaker 2: taking people out of a shitty situation for a moment

627
00:29:50,960 --> 00:29:53,800
Speaker 2: with music. Again, like, don't underestimate how important that it.

628
00:29:53,840 --> 00:29:55,520
Speaker 2: Don't feel like if you have that skill, it's not

629
00:29:55,560 --> 00:29:56,360
Speaker 2: a useful one.

630
00:29:56,920 --> 00:29:58,840
Speaker 3: No, And this is something I've I've been starting to

631
00:29:58,880 --> 00:30:01,520
Speaker 3: say more and more. If you need a theory brained

632
00:30:01,640 --> 00:30:04,880
Speaker 3: way to say this to someone who like is is

633
00:30:05,280 --> 00:30:10,320
Speaker 3: like a curmudgety Marxist who hates fun. Morale is a

634
00:30:10,400 --> 00:30:13,040
Speaker 3: terrain of struggle that this is. There's a reason why

635
00:30:13,320 --> 00:30:16,840
Speaker 3: morale is one of the most important factors of military campaigns.

636
00:30:16,920 --> 00:30:19,080
Speaker 3: You can't get people to do things if they're too

637
00:30:19,080 --> 00:30:21,680
Speaker 3: depressed to do it. Yeah, and being able to raise

638
00:30:21,720 --> 00:30:25,640
Speaker 3: people's morale, it's it's this massive If you want again,

639
00:30:25,680 --> 00:30:27,520
Speaker 3: want to go into technical language, is a massive force

640
00:30:27,600 --> 00:30:31,040
Speaker 3: multiplayer right, It makes everyone you have enormously more effective.

641
00:30:31,040 --> 00:30:32,880
Speaker 3: The better they feel about themselves and the better they

642
00:30:32,880 --> 00:30:36,560
Speaker 3: feel about the situation they're in. And things like music,

643
00:30:36,680 --> 00:30:40,720
Speaker 3: things like art. I mean things like pulling pranks. This

644
00:30:40,800 --> 00:30:43,080
Speaker 3: is a yeah, if you were, if you were a

645
00:30:43,120 --> 00:30:47,600
Speaker 3: good practical jokester, this is a staggeringly useful skill both

646
00:30:47,720 --> 00:30:49,560
Speaker 3: like in terms of you know, you need to be

647
00:30:49,600 --> 00:30:52,160
Speaker 3: careful about whether you're you're playing your pranks on like

648
00:30:52,240 --> 00:30:54,959
Speaker 3: other people in the org, but like you know, if

649
00:30:55,000 --> 00:30:57,000
Speaker 3: you know how to just like pull pranks, this is

650
00:30:57,080 --> 00:31:01,680
Speaker 3: a really really useful thing. In like Union cap Tenant's organizing.

651
00:31:01,720 --> 00:31:03,880
Speaker 3: There are a lot of people who you can pray

652
00:31:04,360 --> 00:31:07,040
Speaker 3: and it's very funny and it lowers their morale and

653
00:31:07,120 --> 00:31:08,280
Speaker 3: it raises your morale.

654
00:31:09,040 --> 00:31:11,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I going back to your music as all, like,

655
00:31:11,560 --> 00:31:13,640
Speaker 2: like morale is a terrain of struggle. Like the other

656
00:31:13,680 --> 00:31:17,720
Speaker 2: memory I have last year of playing guitars is in Rajava,

657
00:31:18,320 --> 00:31:21,720
Speaker 2: being inside at night because everyone was getting drone struck

658
00:31:21,760 --> 00:31:24,640
Speaker 2: all the time and it was dangerous to be driving around,

659
00:31:24,640 --> 00:31:28,480
Speaker 2: sitting around with some ZD friends and like we spent

660
00:31:28,560 --> 00:31:31,840
Speaker 2: all night playing the ood, which is like a it's

661
00:31:31,880 --> 00:31:33,720
Speaker 2: like a guitar with a gord on the bottom, and

662
00:31:34,240 --> 00:31:36,520
Speaker 2: to describe it like it's a string instrument. It's a

663
00:31:36,520 --> 00:31:40,200
Speaker 2: string instrument, is what it is. And like that made

664
00:31:40,240 --> 00:31:43,600
Speaker 2: everyone so happy we had such a nice evening. Everyone

665
00:31:43,680 --> 00:31:47,479
Speaker 2: was able to like get through. It's a relatively difficult thing. Like,

666
00:31:47,960 --> 00:31:50,080
Speaker 2: you know, it sucks that people are being killed and

667
00:31:51,000 --> 00:31:53,320
Speaker 2: just for driving around are existing, and they're bombing all

668
00:31:53,320 --> 00:31:55,680
Speaker 2: this city and infrastructure and the power keeps going out

669
00:31:55,720 --> 00:31:58,800
Speaker 2: and all these things, right, like, but there's a reason

670
00:31:59,120 --> 00:32:03,600
Speaker 2: that those people have ooed around after fifteen thirteen years

671
00:32:03,640 --> 00:32:06,240
Speaker 2: of war, and it's because it is important, and so

672
00:32:06,360 --> 00:32:07,160
Speaker 2: don't overlook that.

673
00:32:07,800 --> 00:32:11,120
Speaker 3: And you know, and resisting fear is another huge aspect

674
00:32:11,160 --> 00:32:13,719
Speaker 3: of this, right, A lot of the ways that people

675
00:32:14,560 --> 00:32:16,720
Speaker 3: like a lot of the ways that you demobilize people

676
00:32:16,840 --> 00:32:19,400
Speaker 3: this is, this is why regimes like this spend a

677
00:32:19,440 --> 00:32:21,960
Speaker 3: lot of effort trying to make people afraid. He is

678
00:32:21,960 --> 00:32:24,239
Speaker 3: that it makes it harder for you to act. And

679
00:32:24,320 --> 00:32:27,000
Speaker 3: things that you know, the things that make you less afraid,

680
00:32:27,440 --> 00:32:31,360
Speaker 3: even if they sort of seem silly, are very very important.

681
00:32:31,560 --> 00:32:33,480
Speaker 3: And you know, on sort of this note, one of

682
00:32:33,480 --> 00:32:35,680
Speaker 3: the things that you know, as you've assembled your group

683
00:32:35,720 --> 00:32:38,800
Speaker 3: of people, right, one of the things that that's important

684
00:32:38,800 --> 00:32:41,400
Speaker 3: to be able to sort of have a grasp on

685
00:32:41,560 --> 00:32:45,440
Speaker 3: is that you can't just do organizing by having it

686
00:32:45,640 --> 00:32:50,640
Speaker 3: only be the capital the serious thing, the captalty organizing

687
00:32:50,720 --> 00:32:52,840
Speaker 3: thing all the time. Your organization will not hold together.

688
00:32:53,280 --> 00:32:57,520
Speaker 3: There has to be actual, like bonds formed between you

689
00:32:57,560 --> 00:32:59,440
Speaker 3: and the people you're organizing with and the people you're

690
00:32:59,440 --> 00:32:59,920
Speaker 3: trying to help.

691
00:33:00,240 --> 00:33:02,320
Speaker 2: Hm hmmm. I don't want to call out any organization

692
00:33:02,360 --> 00:33:05,880
Speaker 2: in particular, there is an organization that perceives organizing to

693
00:33:05,960 --> 00:33:08,040
Speaker 2: exist solely in the realm of wearing a high vias

694
00:33:08,160 --> 00:33:11,000
Speaker 2: vest and carrying a clipboard and getting people to write

695
00:33:11,000 --> 00:33:14,880
Speaker 2: their email addresses down and then telling them to attend things.

696
00:33:15,400 --> 00:33:17,960
Speaker 2: And like maybe there are several organizations like that. I

697
00:33:18,000 --> 00:33:20,600
Speaker 2: don't know, I've just I've perceived one locally. If you

698
00:33:20,640 --> 00:33:25,600
Speaker 2: don't have those bonds that, like those interpersonal relationships like

699
00:33:26,520 --> 00:33:30,680
Speaker 2: these things won't hang together. Like yeah, So many of

700
00:33:30,680 --> 00:33:34,240
Speaker 2: my happiest organizing memories, like again going down James's memory lane,

701
00:33:34,240 --> 00:33:37,000
Speaker 2: I guess I have a memory of like Christmas Eve

702
00:33:37,600 --> 00:33:40,520
Speaker 2: last year, twenty twenty three, me and my friends have

703
00:33:40,600 --> 00:33:42,600
Speaker 2: been out I know some of them listen. Some of

704
00:33:42,600 --> 00:33:44,360
Speaker 2: them have come across from different states to help us

705
00:33:44,600 --> 00:33:46,080
Speaker 2: at Christmas Holidays, which is nice.

706
00:33:46,080 --> 00:33:46,520
Speaker 4: And it was.

707
00:33:46,640 --> 00:33:50,440
Speaker 2: Cold and we had been feeding people all day and

708
00:33:50,480 --> 00:33:52,640
Speaker 2: then we'd heard some people in another location that we've

709
00:33:52,640 --> 00:33:54,800
Speaker 2: gone to find. And then we got to the end

710
00:33:54,840 --> 00:33:57,040
Speaker 2: of the day and like, rather than just going home,

711
00:33:57,280 --> 00:33:59,880
Speaker 2: I had a bunch of we had some MRIs left

712
00:34:00,200 --> 00:34:02,800
Speaker 2: refugeemor is sort of vegan. Lots of us a vegan,

713
00:34:02,880 --> 00:34:04,480
Speaker 2: so we were like, we're not going to find any

714
00:34:04,560 --> 00:34:06,400
Speaker 2: other vegan food in the middle of nowhere out here,

715
00:34:06,440 --> 00:34:09,759
Speaker 2: so we'll set around eating little vegan MREs and like

716
00:34:10,160 --> 00:34:13,680
Speaker 2: just talking and like sharing some thoughts and things we

717
00:34:14,239 --> 00:34:17,000
Speaker 2: experienced over the last months of doing this, and like,

718
00:34:17,560 --> 00:34:21,759
Speaker 2: it's those moments that make you're organizing groups so much stronger.

719
00:34:22,120 --> 00:34:24,839
Speaker 2: No one's telling anyone to do anything, you know, those

720
00:34:24,880 --> 00:34:27,520
Speaker 2: genuine bonds and that the love and friendship we build

721
00:34:27,600 --> 00:34:29,680
Speaker 2: up between each other doing things that are very important.

722
00:34:30,320 --> 00:34:35,080
Speaker 2: Don't overlook the value of those because it's extremely valuable.

723
00:34:35,239 --> 00:34:37,960
Speaker 3: And this is something that I think you can understand

724
00:34:38,200 --> 00:34:41,799
Speaker 3: in your own life pretty easily, where Okay, if a

725
00:34:41,880 --> 00:34:44,400
Speaker 3: random person on the street walks up to you and

726
00:34:44,480 --> 00:34:46,480
Speaker 3: tells you to go do something, are you going to

727
00:34:46,480 --> 00:34:49,759
Speaker 3: do it? It's like no, why No? Probably not, Like

728
00:34:50,040 --> 00:34:54,200
Speaker 3: I don't know, maybe it's something like really sort of hey,

729
00:34:54,239 --> 00:34:56,120
Speaker 3: there's children in a burning building. We're going to run

730
00:34:56,160 --> 00:34:58,759
Speaker 3: in and grab them. But like the odds are no,

731
00:34:58,920 --> 00:35:01,759
Speaker 3: you're going to ignore them. But if your friend goes

732
00:35:01,800 --> 00:35:04,160
Speaker 3: and tells you to do the same thing, and you

733
00:35:04,200 --> 00:35:06,520
Speaker 3: know you've been friends with them for a long time

734
00:35:06,560 --> 00:35:08,400
Speaker 3: and you really care about them, the odds of you

735
00:35:08,520 --> 00:35:11,600
Speaker 3: doing it are much much higher. And that's that's all

736
00:35:11,719 --> 00:35:14,960
Speaker 3: organizing is. It's finding ways to You have a thing

737
00:35:15,000 --> 00:35:17,080
Speaker 3: to do, and you go talk to people and you

738
00:35:17,120 --> 00:35:19,759
Speaker 3: ask if they want to help you do it, And

739
00:35:19,880 --> 00:35:22,279
Speaker 3: the stronger your relationships are, the more likely it is

740
00:35:22,320 --> 00:35:24,440
Speaker 3: to happen. And that's why it's very important to do

741
00:35:24,480 --> 00:35:28,040
Speaker 3: things like you know, just like having potlucks, like bringing

742
00:35:28,040 --> 00:35:30,600
Speaker 3: snacks to meetings. Oh yeah, and like you know, even

743
00:35:30,640 --> 00:35:32,560
Speaker 3: if you're doing a potlucks, it's good to you know,

744
00:35:32,600 --> 00:35:36,440
Speaker 3: you do like one capital capital T organizing thing, right,

745
00:35:36,480 --> 00:35:38,239
Speaker 3: You get like a little bit of work done, but

746
00:35:38,280 --> 00:35:41,720
Speaker 3: mostly everyone's just sort of relaxing and eating chili or whatever.

747
00:35:41,960 --> 00:35:45,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you're a baker, you know, you can base people.

748
00:35:45,640 --> 00:35:47,239
Speaker 2: It's a wonderful thing to shot God.

749
00:35:47,760 --> 00:35:50,520
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, and just knowing how to cook. I realized

750
00:35:50,640 --> 00:35:52,360
Speaker 3: I forgot to mention this one. Knowing how to cook

751
00:35:52,560 --> 00:35:55,960
Speaker 3: is a staggeringly useful skill. And it's useful in literally

752
00:35:56,040 --> 00:35:59,360
Speaker 3: every literally, any kind of organizing you could possibly be.

753
00:35:59,400 --> 00:36:00,359
Speaker 4: And it is the thing.

754
00:36:00,600 --> 00:36:02,440
Speaker 3: It is a skill that is useful in like it's

755
00:36:02,480 --> 00:36:06,240
Speaker 3: useful in war zones. It's useful like literally no matter

756
00:36:06,360 --> 00:36:09,200
Speaker 3: what organization you're in, if you can cook for people,

757
00:36:09,440 --> 00:36:11,279
Speaker 3: oh yeah, and you don't even and you don't have

758
00:36:11,280 --> 00:36:12,759
Speaker 3: to be like a good cook. It's just like you

759
00:36:12,760 --> 00:36:15,239
Speaker 3: can show up with food that you have made. You

760
00:36:15,600 --> 00:36:18,120
Speaker 3: have instantly made this whole thing more successful.

761
00:36:18,760 --> 00:36:21,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely, Like I've had some wonderful meals in war

762
00:36:22,040 --> 00:36:25,040
Speaker 2: zone and I've deeply appreciated those people. More broadly though,

763
00:36:25,120 --> 00:36:29,040
Speaker 2: those ties like the way we organize without the state.

764
00:36:29,280 --> 00:36:32,560
Speaker 2: The reason I believe that that is the way we

765
00:36:32,600 --> 00:36:34,800
Speaker 2: should organize and the way we will continue to organize

766
00:36:34,800 --> 00:36:36,520
Speaker 2: in a way that we can make the state irrelevant

767
00:36:37,000 --> 00:36:40,680
Speaker 2: is because we understand each other as people and care

768
00:36:40,719 --> 00:36:43,640
Speaker 2: about each other as people, and then we approach our

769
00:36:43,760 --> 00:36:47,320
Speaker 2: organizing holistically, right with everyone in it, knowing this person

770
00:36:47,400 --> 00:36:49,879
Speaker 2: is good at this, but they're struggling with this right now,

771
00:36:49,960 --> 00:36:51,400
Speaker 2: and I care about them, so I'm not going to

772
00:36:51,440 --> 00:36:54,359
Speaker 2: make them do that right now. That is how we

773
00:36:54,400 --> 00:36:57,680
Speaker 2: can build sustainable communities in a way that state cannot

774
00:36:57,719 --> 00:37:01,480
Speaker 2: and in a way that capitalism cannot. Right, because fucking

775
00:37:01,600 --> 00:37:07,080
Speaker 2: hurts rent Car doesn't care or know about its employees

776
00:37:07,120 --> 00:37:09,520
Speaker 2: in a way that we who organize with people and

777
00:37:09,600 --> 00:37:13,680
Speaker 2: care and love one another do, And like that's why

778
00:37:13,760 --> 00:37:17,680
Speaker 2: our organizations will always be stronger than those created by

779
00:37:17,680 --> 00:37:18,680
Speaker 2: capitalism or the state.

780
00:37:19,000 --> 00:37:21,719
Speaker 3: Yeah, unfortunately, speaking of capitalism of the state, we're taking

781
00:37:21,719 --> 00:37:23,120
Speaker 3: our last ad break where.

782
00:37:22,960 --> 00:37:25,840
Speaker 2: You yeah, hopefully it's Hurts Renticr.

783
00:37:36,360 --> 00:37:37,040
Speaker 4: We are back.

784
00:37:37,320 --> 00:37:40,080
Speaker 3: So I want to wrap things up by doing a

785
00:37:40,120 --> 00:37:42,879
Speaker 3: couple of doing a few things. I want to talk

786
00:37:42,920 --> 00:37:46,000
Speaker 3: about some kind of basic organizing things that you're going

787
00:37:46,040 --> 00:37:47,960
Speaker 3: to have to do that are not very difficult but

788
00:37:48,040 --> 00:37:50,560
Speaker 3: are extremely important. And second, I want to talk a

789
00:37:50,560 --> 00:37:53,480
Speaker 3: bit about how we did the first organizing project that

790
00:37:53,520 --> 00:37:57,120
Speaker 3: I ever was involved in, which was tenants organizing, Because

791
00:37:57,280 --> 00:38:01,319
Speaker 3: it's really not that hard, right, you just go do

792
00:38:01,480 --> 00:38:04,800
Speaker 3: the thing, it will happen. Yeah, and suddenly it ceases

793
00:38:04,840 --> 00:38:07,720
Speaker 3: to be this like, oh, this domain of expert knowledge,

794
00:38:07,719 --> 00:38:09,440
Speaker 3: and there's like, oh, this is a really difficult thing.

795
00:38:09,480 --> 00:38:11,279
Speaker 3: If you just I don't know, you go give food

796
00:38:11,320 --> 00:38:14,400
Speaker 3: to someone and suddenly you've done that and it's happened.

797
00:38:16,239 --> 00:38:20,360
Speaker 3: So there are things that are important to like basic

798
00:38:20,480 --> 00:38:24,840
Speaker 3: organizing stuff. Knowing how to book rooms from like churches,

799
00:38:24,920 --> 00:38:29,480
Speaker 3: from libraries, from whatever meeting spaces, and also knowing how

800
00:38:29,520 --> 00:38:33,880
Speaker 3: to book rooms in places that like accommodate disabilities is

801
00:38:33,920 --> 00:38:36,880
Speaker 3: a huge thing because a lot of people book meetings

802
00:38:36,880 --> 00:38:40,160
Speaker 3: in places are a wheelchair accessible and it's a fucking fiasco.

803
00:38:40,840 --> 00:38:43,279
Speaker 3: And you can avoid that very easily, but you have

804
00:38:43,360 --> 00:38:46,240
Speaker 3: to put a little tiny bit of work into it. Yeah.

805
00:38:46,280 --> 00:38:48,279
Speaker 2: Literally, I reached out to a friend to book a

806
00:38:48,360 --> 00:38:51,080
Speaker 2: room last night because I knew they would get at

807
00:38:51,120 --> 00:38:51,560
Speaker 2: that stuff.

808
00:38:51,880 --> 00:38:54,520
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, there's arranging people's schedules, getting people show

809
00:38:54,560 --> 00:38:56,480
Speaker 3: up for stuff, things you can do to prepare if

810
00:38:56,480 --> 00:38:59,600
Speaker 3: what you're doing is basically all the things we've been describing, right,

811
00:38:59,640 --> 00:39:01,680
Speaker 3: getting together a bunch of people to do a thing

812
00:39:02,200 --> 00:39:05,760
Speaker 3: that is technically forming an organization. Yeah, Now, how formal

813
00:39:05,840 --> 00:39:07,520
Speaker 3: or informat you want it to be, or just you know,

814
00:39:07,560 --> 00:39:10,279
Speaker 3: maybe it's just your organizing project or whatever. There's things

815
00:39:10,320 --> 00:39:12,480
Speaker 3: you usually want. You want some kind of email so

816
00:39:12,480 --> 00:39:15,560
Speaker 3: people can contact you in tandem with the email. Something

817
00:39:15,600 --> 00:39:17,920
Speaker 3: that's very helpful that I think younger people tend not

818
00:39:17,960 --> 00:39:21,120
Speaker 3: to think about. Is getting Google Voice. Yes, when Google

819
00:39:21,200 --> 00:39:23,759
Speaker 3: Voice lets you set up a voicemail account so people

820
00:39:23,800 --> 00:39:26,440
Speaker 3: can call you and leave phone messages. I mean, everyone

821
00:39:26,480 --> 00:39:28,600
Speaker 3: should just do this because this is the way that

822
00:39:28,640 --> 00:39:30,400
Speaker 3: a lot of older people communicate.

823
00:39:30,480 --> 00:39:30,560
Speaker 2: Right.

824
00:39:30,560 --> 00:39:32,080
Speaker 3: They won't send you an email, but they will leave

825
00:39:32,120 --> 00:39:34,440
Speaker 3: you a voice message. And it's very, very useful for this.

826
00:39:35,560 --> 00:39:38,480
Speaker 3: Childcare is something that's important. I did, I mean a

827
00:39:38,480 --> 00:39:40,279
Speaker 3: lot is probably too strong of a word, but like

828
00:39:40,360 --> 00:39:43,760
Speaker 3: I did childcare when I was organizing, and it wound

829
00:39:43,840 --> 00:39:45,640
Speaker 3: up being really helpful because there's a lot of people

830
00:39:45,680 --> 00:39:48,040
Speaker 3: with kids, and so you know, there's a couple of

831
00:39:48,040 --> 00:39:49,759
Speaker 3: ways that this could work. One is that you know,

832
00:39:49,800 --> 00:39:51,560
Speaker 3: you have everyone bring their kids. You have like a

833
00:39:51,560 --> 00:39:53,799
Speaker 3: little space, you bring them like coloring stuff, you bring

834
00:39:53,840 --> 00:39:55,759
Speaker 3: them toys, you bring them games, and you just sort

835
00:39:55,760 --> 00:39:59,239
Speaker 3: of watch everyone for a while. And as an organizing thing, again,

836
00:39:59,280 --> 00:40:02,800
Speaker 3: if you're good with kid that's very useful staggering or

837
00:40:02,880 --> 00:40:06,440
Speaker 3: useful organizing skill. Yeah. Another way this stuff happens is

838
00:40:06,600 --> 00:40:09,439
Speaker 3: you know, everyone pulls together ten bucks and you hire

839
00:40:09,440 --> 00:40:12,080
Speaker 3: a babysitter, yeah, for a bunch of kids. And that's

840
00:40:12,080 --> 00:40:14,200
Speaker 3: a very useful organizing a thing.

841
00:40:14,560 --> 00:40:18,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, I organize with people who have kids. I remember

842
00:40:19,120 --> 00:40:22,560
Speaker 2: four years ago, fuck me twenty twenty, a long time ago,

843
00:40:22,640 --> 00:40:26,280
Speaker 2: and also yesterday, but like we were organizing to feed

844
00:40:26,520 --> 00:40:29,160
Speaker 2: and house people and we were having a big Thanksgiving dinner,

845
00:40:29,480 --> 00:40:31,720
Speaker 2: and like some of my friends have very young children

846
00:40:31,719 --> 00:40:34,799
Speaker 2: and they bought them and I think it's actually really

847
00:40:34,840 --> 00:40:39,120
Speaker 2: cool to do that. A like for those kids, it

848
00:40:39,239 --> 00:40:43,480
Speaker 2: is normal that, like we look after people in our community.

849
00:40:43,520 --> 00:40:45,560
Speaker 2: This is what we do, and ever since I've been little,

850
00:40:45,600 --> 00:40:48,319
Speaker 2: this is what we did. And like it's also very

851
00:40:48,440 --> 00:40:51,040
Speaker 2: nice for people. Like a lot of my friends also

852
00:40:51,120 --> 00:40:53,880
Speaker 2: brought their children down to the border, especially last year

853
00:40:53,920 --> 00:40:56,440
Speaker 2: when we had because there were children there anyway, right, Yeah,

854
00:40:56,719 --> 00:40:59,239
Speaker 2: some of my friends who bring their children down and

855
00:40:59,280 --> 00:41:01,200
Speaker 2: their kids would play with the other kids, and like

856
00:41:01,520 --> 00:41:03,800
Speaker 2: it doesn't matter that some of the kids are Kourdition

857
00:41:03,960 --> 00:41:05,440
Speaker 2: and some of the kids are from China and some

858
00:41:05,480 --> 00:41:07,359
Speaker 2: of them are from Columbia or whatever. They'll get along

859
00:41:07,440 --> 00:41:09,560
Speaker 2: just fine. When they're four or five years old, they

860
00:41:09,560 --> 00:41:11,600
Speaker 2: don't care. They just want to kick a ball or

861
00:41:11,640 --> 00:41:14,160
Speaker 2: see a Teddy Bear or something. And I think it's

862
00:41:14,200 --> 00:41:16,960
Speaker 2: really good for your children to you know, you're bringing

863
00:41:17,000 --> 00:41:21,520
Speaker 2: them into a world which is cruel and at times unequal,

864
00:41:21,640 --> 00:41:24,440
Speaker 2: and like your kids seeing that, like we can make

865
00:41:24,440 --> 00:41:27,279
Speaker 2: a difference and we can do this. I think it's

866
00:41:27,320 --> 00:41:29,280
Speaker 2: one of the best educations you can give your children.

867
00:41:29,560 --> 00:41:33,160
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's something that's good for everyone involved.

868
00:41:33,440 --> 00:41:36,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. And it's also very I think one of

869
00:41:36,120 --> 00:41:37,960
Speaker 2: the things I see a lot and people are organizing

870
00:41:38,000 --> 00:41:40,600
Speaker 2: thing with refugees of the en housed, is like they're

871
00:41:40,680 --> 00:41:43,200
Speaker 2: just people, Like you don't need to be afraid of them,

872
00:41:43,400 --> 00:41:47,359
Speaker 2: Like they don't want to hurt your children. And having

873
00:41:47,360 --> 00:41:50,279
Speaker 2: your children around shows that, like you have grasped they're

874
00:41:50,360 --> 00:41:52,400
Speaker 2: just people, and that you feel safe and your children

875
00:41:52,400 --> 00:41:54,680
Speaker 2: are safe around them. And I think that that's valuable too.

876
00:41:54,719 --> 00:41:57,760
Speaker 2: You're giving both parties some dignity in that moment.

877
00:41:58,120 --> 00:42:01,279
Speaker 3: Yeah, there are some other very basic things that I

878
00:42:01,320 --> 00:42:03,680
Speaker 3: think are very important. If you've never done this before,

879
00:42:04,400 --> 00:42:06,040
Speaker 3: I'm going to talk a little bit about how you

880
00:42:06,120 --> 00:42:08,839
Speaker 3: run a meeting. Yeah, and you would think that this

881
00:42:08,880 --> 00:42:11,960
Speaker 3: doesn't matter, and until you watch a group of one

882
00:42:12,000 --> 00:42:14,040
Speaker 3: hundred people who don't know how to do this attempt

883
00:42:14,080 --> 00:42:16,560
Speaker 3: to get anything done and they it just is a fiasco.

884
00:42:16,640 --> 00:42:19,360
Speaker 3: And this is even true sort of smaller groups. Yeah,

885
00:42:19,440 --> 00:42:20,880
Speaker 3: so I'm going to give you how to run a

886
00:42:20,920 --> 00:42:24,719
Speaker 3: meeting one oh one, Okay. A very common way to

887
00:42:24,840 --> 00:42:27,200
Speaker 3: organize meetings that people use all over the world and

888
00:42:27,239 --> 00:42:29,319
Speaker 3: it's very effective is you have two things. You have

889
00:42:29,360 --> 00:42:31,839
Speaker 3: an agenda and you have a stack, and those are

890
00:42:31,880 --> 00:42:34,359
Speaker 3: like the technical terms for them. The agenda, I mean,

891
00:42:34,520 --> 00:42:36,359
Speaker 3: is an agenda, right, you know what an agenda is.

892
00:42:36,440 --> 00:42:38,040
Speaker 3: You put the things that you need to do on it.

893
00:42:38,640 --> 00:42:41,040
Speaker 3: And another thing that's very helpful with these is you

894
00:42:41,040 --> 00:42:43,280
Speaker 3: know you're going to be operating at our time constraints

895
00:42:43,320 --> 00:42:45,800
Speaker 3: because people don't have forty five hours to be in meetings,

896
00:42:45,800 --> 00:42:47,200
Speaker 3: and my god, you don't want to be in a

897
00:42:47,200 --> 00:42:50,560
Speaker 3: meeting for that long. Yeah, you know, knowing how long

898
00:42:50,680 --> 00:42:53,319
Speaker 3: roughly you want to talk about these things is very

899
00:42:53,440 --> 00:42:56,120
Speaker 3: very useful and making sure that you're sort of moving

900
00:42:56,200 --> 00:42:58,880
Speaker 3: the conversation through the stuff on the agenda because you

901
00:42:58,880 --> 00:43:01,400
Speaker 3: have more stuff you need to talk about. All of

902
00:43:01,440 --> 00:43:04,440
Speaker 3: this again, like this all sounds very obvious, and again

903
00:43:04,480 --> 00:43:06,879
Speaker 3: you know how to do it, but until you've been

904
00:43:06,880 --> 00:43:09,839
Speaker 3: in a room where people have not realized they need

905
00:43:09,920 --> 00:43:12,040
Speaker 3: to do this, you don't understand how I put on.

906
00:43:12,080 --> 00:43:15,040
Speaker 2: This stuff gets the pain of it not happening.

907
00:43:15,120 --> 00:43:17,920
Speaker 3: God, I have watched rooms full of like sciet these

908
00:43:17,960 --> 00:43:19,480
Speaker 3: are like professional scientists.

909
00:43:19,520 --> 00:43:19,600
Speaker 4: Right.

910
00:43:19,800 --> 00:43:21,320
Speaker 3: This is an entire room of one hundred feet of

911
00:43:21,320 --> 00:43:23,560
Speaker 3: people with physics PhDs who don't know how to run

912
00:43:23,560 --> 00:43:26,160
Speaker 3: a meeting, and it's a shit show. And all of

913
00:43:26,160 --> 00:43:28,359
Speaker 3: this stuff could have been avoided with some very very

914
00:43:28,360 --> 00:43:31,759
Speaker 3: simple things. Yes, the other thing, and this is genuinely

915
00:43:31,800 --> 00:43:34,920
Speaker 3: a piece of social technology, right, it is the stack.

916
00:43:35,040 --> 00:43:37,239
Speaker 3: It is very simple, right. You have one person who

917
00:43:37,280 --> 00:43:39,640
Speaker 3: is the stack keeper, and whatsone wants to talk? You

918
00:43:39,680 --> 00:43:41,680
Speaker 3: have one person talking at a time, and what someone

919
00:43:41,719 --> 00:43:43,799
Speaker 3: wants to talk, they raise their hand, they make some

920
00:43:43,880 --> 00:43:45,920
Speaker 3: kind of signal to the stack keeper, and that person

921
00:43:45,960 --> 00:43:48,640
Speaker 3: writes their name down. And so you now have a

922
00:43:48,680 --> 00:43:51,200
Speaker 3: list of who gets to talk in what order. And

923
00:43:51,239 --> 00:43:52,960
Speaker 3: so you go down the list and people get the

924
00:43:52,960 --> 00:43:57,160
Speaker 3: say things, and again you know how to do this.

925
00:43:57,160 --> 00:43:59,680
Speaker 3: This is not like a complicated thing. But again I

926
00:43:59,719 --> 00:44:03,440
Speaker 3: have one watch people who collectively have like more PhDs

927
00:44:03,840 --> 00:44:07,920
Speaker 3: than like I earn money in a week, like who know?

928
00:44:08,360 --> 00:44:10,919
Speaker 3: I cannot be able to pick this out, and you do.

929
00:44:11,200 --> 00:44:11,920
Speaker 3: I believe in you.

930
00:44:12,120 --> 00:44:14,640
Speaker 4: I believe in you, dear listener. That you could do this.

931
00:44:14,840 --> 00:44:17,800
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a very common Sometimes this is one person

932
00:44:17,800 --> 00:44:20,440
Speaker 3: and sometimes this is two people. A very common way

933
00:44:20,480 --> 00:44:21,840
Speaker 3: to do it is to have a stack taker and

934
00:44:21,880 --> 00:44:24,680
Speaker 3: then have someone who's the facilitator. And the facilitator's job

935
00:44:24,840 --> 00:44:27,560
Speaker 3: is to like call on the people and to try

936
00:44:27,560 --> 00:44:30,359
Speaker 3: to like move the conversation forwards and get and make

937
00:44:30,400 --> 00:44:32,879
Speaker 3: sure make sure everyone's involved. And also another important part

938
00:44:32,880 --> 00:44:34,640
Speaker 3: of this, and this is again something you'll you'll know

939
00:44:34,680 --> 00:44:37,440
Speaker 3: from your stupid work meetings, is you have to get

940
00:44:37,440 --> 00:44:40,200
Speaker 3: people like me to shut up. Your meetings can't just

941
00:44:40,200 --> 00:44:42,879
Speaker 3: be one person giving a speech. You have to cut

942
00:44:42,920 --> 00:44:44,799
Speaker 3: them the fuck off and you have to get to

943
00:44:44,800 --> 00:44:45,600
Speaker 3: the next person.

944
00:44:46,600 --> 00:44:49,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, and doing that courteously is a skill.

945
00:44:49,320 --> 00:44:52,560
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, And finally, on this note, there's a lot

946
00:44:52,560 --> 00:44:54,160
Speaker 3: of if you want to go into the like more

947
00:44:54,200 --> 00:44:57,680
Speaker 3: technical stuff. Part of the things that facilitators use and

948
00:44:57,760 --> 00:45:01,680
Speaker 3: part of you know, the formal name for this is

949
00:45:01,680 --> 00:45:04,279
Speaker 3: like the progressive stack, but it's just a thing that's

950
00:45:04,360 --> 00:45:06,319
Speaker 3: very useful in organizing is you want to make sure

951
00:45:06,400 --> 00:45:09,920
Speaker 3: everyone in a room is engaged and talking and that

952
00:45:10,000 --> 00:45:12,839
Speaker 3: it's not just three people who talk all the time.

953
00:45:13,719 --> 00:45:16,040
Speaker 3: And you know, and so the idea of the progressive stack, right,

954
00:45:16,120 --> 00:45:18,360
Speaker 3: is you're trying to find the most marginalized people in degrees,

955
00:45:18,400 --> 00:45:20,600
Speaker 3: people who are least likely to speak, and you're trying

956
00:45:20,640 --> 00:45:23,360
Speaker 3: to get them in first. And sometimes this is literally

957
00:45:23,440 --> 00:45:25,439
Speaker 3: just like, hey, someone hasn't been talking in a meeting

958
00:45:25,520 --> 00:45:26,920
Speaker 3: this whole time, and you can like ask them what

959
00:45:26,920 --> 00:45:28,680
Speaker 3: they think about something, or asked if they have anything

960
00:45:28,680 --> 00:45:31,319
Speaker 3: to say, and a lot of times they will, but

961
00:45:31,360 --> 00:45:33,319
Speaker 3: they just don't feel confident enough to say it. And

962
00:45:33,360 --> 00:45:36,319
Speaker 3: this is a very very important skill for a facilitator

963
00:45:36,400 --> 00:45:37,840
Speaker 3: or just even you could just do this in a

964
00:45:37,880 --> 00:45:40,960
Speaker 3: meeting too, right, Like you can be the person who

965
00:45:41,000 --> 00:45:42,640
Speaker 3: goes like, hey, do you have this this person have

966
00:45:42,640 --> 00:45:46,280
Speaker 3: anything to contribute? And that is an enormous thing. Sometimes

967
00:45:46,360 --> 00:45:47,920
Speaker 3: it can be you know, sometimes it can be a

968
00:45:47,920 --> 00:45:50,680
Speaker 3: little bit awkward, but it's a very important thing because

969
00:45:50,719 --> 00:45:54,239
Speaker 3: you're just losing out on people who have really really

970
00:45:54,320 --> 00:45:58,880
Speaker 3: valuable ideas and contributions and plans. And if you just

971
00:45:59,120 --> 00:46:04,080
Speaker 3: let the same three people give speeches, you can't get

972
00:46:04,120 --> 00:46:05,520
Speaker 3: to the stuff that's actually useful.

973
00:46:06,040 --> 00:46:09,439
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely, if you've been a teacher or in any

974
00:46:09,480 --> 00:46:11,759
Speaker 2: way what you know, you probably have had you have

975
00:46:11,880 --> 00:46:14,440
Speaker 2: this skill. You might not consider it a skill, but

976
00:46:14,600 --> 00:46:16,600
Speaker 2: even if you've been a TA in grad school something

977
00:46:16,640 --> 00:46:18,080
Speaker 2: like that, you probably know how to do this.

978
00:46:18,680 --> 00:46:22,080
Speaker 3: Yeah. So I'm gonna put all of this together one briefly,

979
00:46:22,120 --> 00:46:25,080
Speaker 3: and I'm going to run through basically how we started

980
00:46:25,080 --> 00:46:27,040
Speaker 3: the first organizing project I ever day, which was a

981
00:46:27,040 --> 00:46:30,400
Speaker 3: tenants union in Chicago. Okay, so this is based on

982
00:46:30,440 --> 00:46:32,520
Speaker 3: my memory. It's been a long time since I did this,

983
00:46:32,719 --> 00:46:36,040
Speaker 3: but my basic memory of what we did was. Okay,

984
00:46:36,080 --> 00:46:38,400
Speaker 3: so one of my friends is an experienced organizer. I

985
00:46:38,560 --> 00:46:40,960
Speaker 3: was like a tiny baby, right this this was my

986
00:46:41,040 --> 00:46:43,799
Speaker 3: first offline organizing project ever. Right, I had no idea

987
00:46:43,840 --> 00:46:45,960
Speaker 3: what was doing. I thought I was a guy, which

988
00:46:46,480 --> 00:46:48,879
Speaker 3: like that, that's how much of a fiasco, Like little

989
00:46:48,960 --> 00:46:52,200
Speaker 3: tidy baby bea who doesn't know anything? This was, you know.

990
00:46:52,280 --> 00:46:54,759
Speaker 3: And so my friend talked to some people that he knew,

991
00:46:54,920 --> 00:46:56,760
Speaker 3: and he knew that I, you know, I was interested

992
00:46:56,760 --> 00:46:59,080
Speaker 3: in getting involved in tennis organizing, and we we like

993
00:46:59,160 --> 00:47:02,480
Speaker 3: went to a cafe and we sat down and we

994
00:47:02,680 --> 00:47:05,200
Speaker 3: ate and we just talked about what we wanted to do,

995
00:47:05,320 --> 00:47:07,480
Speaker 3: what our plans were, what things we needed to do

996
00:47:08,120 --> 00:47:11,239
Speaker 3: to get this organization set up. We talked about ideological

997
00:47:11,239 --> 00:47:13,640
Speaker 3: stuff and that's actually is something that's important too. Is

998
00:47:13,719 --> 00:47:16,640
Speaker 3: part of organizing is getting people to think intentionally about

999
00:47:16,680 --> 00:47:21,440
Speaker 3: their actions and think politically about their actions. Yeah, and

1000
00:47:21,760 --> 00:47:23,440
Speaker 3: that's something that's very useful. You also have to make

1001
00:47:23,440 --> 00:47:25,520
Speaker 3: sure that you're not forming a book club, Like book

1002
00:47:25,520 --> 00:47:27,920
Speaker 3: clubs are fine, but you need to make sure you're

1003
00:47:28,000 --> 00:47:29,960
Speaker 3: organizing group. If you try to do a thing, has

1004
00:47:29,960 --> 00:47:32,360
Speaker 3: it just become a book club. But that's you know

1005
00:47:32,400 --> 00:47:34,239
Speaker 3: that that was something that was very useful to us.

1006
00:47:34,320 --> 00:47:36,520
Speaker 3: And you know, we started making a plan. And our

1007
00:47:36,520 --> 00:47:39,000
Speaker 3: plan was, Okay, we made a bunch of flyers and

1008
00:47:39,000 --> 00:47:40,400
Speaker 3: then we went out and I did this and I

1009
00:47:40,400 --> 00:47:42,279
Speaker 3: walked around through a bunch of streets and put them

1010
00:47:42,280 --> 00:47:44,040
Speaker 3: a light post or whatever, and then we put them

1011
00:47:44,560 --> 00:47:46,960
Speaker 3: like we hung them up in the buildings of tenants,

1012
00:47:46,960 --> 00:47:48,319
Speaker 3: you know, because you can just like walk up the

1013
00:47:48,320 --> 00:47:49,840
Speaker 3: stairs right and need to put them on the walls.

1014
00:47:49,840 --> 00:47:52,800
Speaker 3: And you know, we had this flyer, this firehead information.

1015
00:47:52,840 --> 00:47:55,200
Speaker 3: This flyer said, Okay, we're starting a tenant's union. If

1016
00:47:55,239 --> 00:47:57,480
Speaker 3: you have tenant, if you have issues with your landlord,

1017
00:47:57,640 --> 00:47:59,520
Speaker 3: or you want to talk about tenants stuff like, come

1018
00:47:59,560 --> 00:48:02,520
Speaker 3: here at this time. We had an email you can

1019
00:48:02,600 --> 00:48:04,120
Speaker 3: send us stuff. We had a phone number that you

1020
00:48:04,120 --> 00:48:06,560
Speaker 3: could call. Yeah, you know, and so okay, and so

1021
00:48:06,640 --> 00:48:09,400
Speaker 3: parallel to this, we like, I forget if it was

1022
00:48:09,440 --> 00:48:13,760
Speaker 3: a church or if it was some building, some center

1023
00:48:13,880 --> 00:48:17,239
Speaker 3: or something. We booked a room. We were kind of

1024
00:48:17,320 --> 00:48:20,520
Speaker 3: lucky in that we had like local press people nice

1025
00:48:20,560 --> 00:48:22,520
Speaker 3: who we sort of knew. And this is another useful

1026
00:48:22,560 --> 00:48:24,799
Speaker 3: like if knowing a journalist can be a very useful skill,

1027
00:48:24,840 --> 00:48:26,479
Speaker 3: because one way to get a project off the ground,

1028
00:48:26,480 --> 00:48:27,960
Speaker 3: if you're trying to get to a bunch of people,

1029
00:48:28,000 --> 00:48:30,880
Speaker 3: is by finding a journalist who is willing to cover it.

1030
00:48:30,920 --> 00:48:32,719
Speaker 3: Because you know, we're we're finding founding like the first

1031
00:48:32,719 --> 00:48:35,520
Speaker 3: tenants union in this place, right yeah, and you know,

1032
00:48:35,560 --> 00:48:37,360
Speaker 3: so we had media coverage and we got kind of

1033
00:48:37,360 --> 00:48:40,000
Speaker 3: screwed when this event eventually came together because there was

1034
00:48:40,000 --> 00:48:42,600
Speaker 3: like three feet of snow that night, but people still came,

1035
00:48:42,920 --> 00:48:45,200
Speaker 3: like people still came in the blizzard, Like a lot

1036
00:48:45,239 --> 00:48:47,319
Speaker 3: of people showed up for this. What are things that

1037
00:48:47,320 --> 00:48:49,160
Speaker 3: we do? We also, like, you know, we just we

1038
00:48:49,280 --> 00:48:51,319
Speaker 3: just started talking to people, right, We started talking to

1039
00:48:51,360 --> 00:48:54,040
Speaker 3: tenets about their problems. We just you know, we talked

1040
00:48:54,080 --> 00:48:56,200
Speaker 3: to our friends. We talked to the people they knew.

1041
00:48:56,320 --> 00:48:58,120
Speaker 3: We ended up talking to someone you know, And this

1042
00:48:58,160 --> 00:48:59,799
Speaker 3: is the thing that just happens as a spreads by

1043
00:48:59,800 --> 00:49:02,440
Speaker 3: word of mouth, right, people start contacting you. We ran

1044
00:49:02,480 --> 00:49:06,280
Speaker 3: into a really long time tenants organizer in the city

1045
00:49:06,320 --> 00:49:09,080
Speaker 3: who had a bunch of incredible stories about how our

1046
00:49:09,120 --> 00:49:13,080
Speaker 3: corrupt politicians got their jobs by portraying the old tenants organizers, right.

1047
00:49:13,320 --> 00:49:15,040
Speaker 3: And like I said, the thing is, you know, another

1048
00:49:15,040 --> 00:49:17,080
Speaker 3: thing that happens in projects is you'll you'll sometimes you'll

1049
00:49:17,120 --> 00:49:19,520
Speaker 3: just you'll just pick up someone who's you know, has

1050
00:49:19,520 --> 00:49:21,920
Speaker 3: been doing this since like the sixties. Yeah, and it

1051
00:49:22,080 --> 00:49:24,400
Speaker 3: rules because they have a wealth of experience and they

1052
00:49:25,000 --> 00:49:27,839
Speaker 3: want to do stuff. We plotted out what we were

1053
00:49:27,840 --> 00:49:29,279
Speaker 3: going to do at our meeting. You know, we were

1054
00:49:29,280 --> 00:49:30,920
Speaker 3: going to do some political education. We were gonna have

1055
00:49:30,960 --> 00:49:32,760
Speaker 3: a bunch of time for people to talk about stuff,

1056
00:49:32,760 --> 00:49:35,319
Speaker 3: and we were gonna, you know, get get people to

1057
00:49:35,360 --> 00:49:38,200
Speaker 3: understand what we were doing, how they could start organizing.

1058
00:49:38,880 --> 00:49:42,080
Speaker 3: And then we did it, and I unfortunately don't remember

1059
00:49:42,160 --> 00:49:43,719
Speaker 3: much of what we talked about because I was off

1060
00:49:43,719 --> 00:49:45,719
Speaker 3: in another room taking care of a bunch of people's kids,

1061
00:49:46,120 --> 00:49:48,400
Speaker 3: which was very nice, but I don't remember what we

1062
00:49:48,440 --> 00:49:50,400
Speaker 3: talked about. But like that, you know, but like you

1063
00:49:50,760 --> 00:49:53,000
Speaker 3: all of those things, right, all of those steps from

1064
00:49:53,040 --> 00:49:55,719
Speaker 3: the start of you get five of your friends to

1065
00:49:55,760 --> 00:49:58,040
Speaker 3: go eat dinner and you talk about what you want

1066
00:49:58,040 --> 00:50:02,680
Speaker 3: to do through someone makes a flyer in like Microsoft

1067
00:50:02,800 --> 00:50:06,040
Speaker 3: or whatever you make it in like PowerPoint, and that's publisher.

1068
00:50:06,080 --> 00:50:08,040
Speaker 3: What's what's what's the one I'm blinking, I haven't used

1069
00:50:08,040 --> 00:50:11,160
Speaker 3: it in so long? The one you make greeting cards

1070
00:50:11,200 --> 00:50:17,960
Speaker 3: in I really program and I've forgotten it is you

1071
00:50:18,000 --> 00:50:20,239
Speaker 3: see this to make Christmas cards? But like, you know, okay,

1072
00:50:20,239 --> 00:50:22,240
Speaker 3: so we made a flyer and then we walked around

1073
00:50:22,280 --> 00:50:24,040
Speaker 3: and put the flyers up and we made it. We

1074
00:50:24,080 --> 00:50:26,640
Speaker 3: made an email, you know, we got a space together,

1075
00:50:26,719 --> 00:50:29,160
Speaker 3: we figured out what we wanted to do, and then

1076
00:50:29,160 --> 00:50:31,239
Speaker 3: we did it, and you know, and there's a bunch

1077
00:50:31,239 --> 00:50:33,960
Speaker 3: of organizing from there, right, But like we had started

1078
00:50:33,960 --> 00:50:36,319
Speaker 3: a thing, and you can do every single one of

1079
00:50:36,320 --> 00:50:38,480
Speaker 3: those steps. And if you can't personally do one of

1080
00:50:38,480 --> 00:50:41,440
Speaker 3: those steps, you can think of a person who you know,

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Speaker 3: who you can bring in to help you do these things.

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Speaker 3: Because organizing you already fucking know how to do it. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: you just have to go out there and do it.

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Speaker 2: Yep, you can have faith.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and this has been It can happen here? Go organize.

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Speaker 1: It could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media.

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Speaker 1: For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website

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Speaker 1: coolzonmedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,

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Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can

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Speaker 1: now find sources for it could Happen here listed directly

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Speaker 1: in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening.