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Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media, Hello, and welcome to Cool People Who

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Speaker 1: Did Cool Stuff, your weekly podcast that doesn't always devolve

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Speaker 1: into laughing about the strange news, because usually.

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Speaker 2: It has nothing to do with news. But as I

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Speaker 2: mentioned before, we're recording this on the day that Trump

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Speaker 2: got convicted.

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Speaker 3: I'm already cynical.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, we're already over it.

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Speaker 3: I was excited because it happened four seconds before we

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Speaker 3: recorded part one, and by the time we got to

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Speaker 3: recording part two, I was like.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, the reality sets in that.

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Speaker 2: Hear me out. Here's the reason I find interesting because

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Speaker 2: it's not boring. Like I don't think it's like good

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Speaker 2: or bad or is going to save anything or make

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Speaker 2: anything worse. It just it's not boring. It is making

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Speaker 2: this the plot of this book we're trapped in more interesting.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: I'm already just like, well, that was fun for five minutes.

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Speaker 4: It was a sugar rush. Was definitely a sugar rush.

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Speaker 3: I was like, I got I got my I got

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Speaker 3: my flashy tweets out and immediately regret all of them.

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Speaker 2: And Twitter's regret machine.

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Speaker 3: I normally don't tweet right after something happened, but it

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Speaker 3: was so funny watching his little speech after he got

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Speaker 3: he got a convicted of thirty four felony counts that I, uh,

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Speaker 3: thirty four felony counts, sorry a Shaquille O'Neill amount of

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Speaker 3: felony accounts.

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Speaker 4: That the number makes it funny.

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Speaker 3: The shack daddy counts. Yeah, but now I'm like, you

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Speaker 3: know what, that thirty four shack daddy a felony counts

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Speaker 3: is probably gonna get elected because are gonna.

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Speaker 4: Be and is going to earn him votes.

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Speaker 3: It's and I already and I was, I was telling

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Speaker 3: prop and Magpie was like I already got like a

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Speaker 3: like a donate I am a I am a political prisoner,

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Speaker 3: donate to my to my campaign and absolutely not, sir,

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Speaker 3: but please keep just targeting me your your obvious target audience.

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Speaker 5: It's just so unhinged and it's like photos amazing, it's

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Speaker 5: so funny.

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Speaker 4: I think, I think that's what it is to me.

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Speaker 5: It's like, you're right, yeah, I wish I could see it.

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Speaker 5: The photos have served out here looking like you know,

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Speaker 5: Leonard Peltier, like come on, like it's just so that's

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Speaker 5: to be.

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Speaker 4: It's it. It's just funny, like.

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Speaker 2: This is exactly it's funny.

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Speaker 5: You know, Yeah, and just completely unhinged, absolute nasty work.

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Speaker 5: Just it don't matter, Like, yeah, nothing matters.

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Speaker 2: This is the fact that it doesn't matter is what's

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Speaker 2: so interesting. And I think it's gonna have knock on

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Speaker 2: effects that someone listening to the same Someone's gonna be

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Speaker 2: listening to this like four years from now because they

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Speaker 2: have love searched podcast about Argentinian Uprising two thousand and one,

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Speaker 2: and they're gonna be like, what the fuck that's the

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Speaker 2: thing that started World War three?

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Speaker 4: Like why are they laughing about it? Yeah? Yeah, totally.

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Speaker 2: Well, the other voices on this call is prop the

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Speaker 2: host of Good Politics of Propy, Sophie, the producer of

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Speaker 2: every show, all other shows, yeah, pretty much podcasts in general,

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Speaker 2: all things. Sophie is in charge of podcasts. I was

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Speaker 2: thinking about how like in Catholic church, like you have

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Speaker 2: the saint of everything, you know, like there's like the

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Speaker 2: Saint of political prisoners, who's also the saint of amateur radio. Ye, Sophie,

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Speaker 2: you're the saint of podcasting.

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Speaker 3: See see. I can't be the producer of everything because

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Speaker 3: I would have canceled so many shows, so many shows.

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Speaker 4: But that's part of your that would be part of

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Speaker 4: your duty. As a saint.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, canceled, Saint.

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Speaker 4: Man, you canceled this Saint of canceled podcast.

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Speaker 3: We found it calan after I was like, you're gone,

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Speaker 3: You're gone, You're gone, You're gone doing this for the world.

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Speaker 3: Seventeen more history podcasts.

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Speaker 2: Would you say that it would be they all must go? Yeah,

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Speaker 2: where we last left our heroes. Yes, the working in

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Speaker 2: middle classes of Argentina. They just ousted a whole ass government.

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Speaker 2: Sounds fun, and I know, I know I would. I'd

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Speaker 2: be riding that high for a long time. Like it's

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Speaker 2: like one of those things where it's like, yeah, Argentina

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Speaker 2: not run by popular assemblies, the existing cooperatives forced to

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Speaker 2: compete in the capitalist marketplace. I still be riding that

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Speaker 2: fucking high.

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Speaker 4: I really.

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Speaker 5: I like as you file that under the like wait, wait,

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Speaker 5: that's an option we could just we could just get

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Speaker 5: rid of the like we could do that, we could just.

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Speaker 2: Get's like the burning of the precinct. Yeah, yeah, it's

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Speaker 2: that the Overton window has shifted for what counts. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 2: the act that was more popular than either presidential candidate

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Speaker 2: or whatever. Yes, the burning of that fucking precinct. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: so they've aused a whole ask government. Thousands of people

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Speaker 2: are organized in neighborhood assemblies and they're reopening medical facilities themselves,

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Speaker 2: are occupying their factories. And I don't want to talk

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Speaker 2: about how they did it because it's actually interestingly like legal,

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Speaker 2: the way they did it. I just assumed they were like,

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Speaker 2: we stormed it and it's ours and fuck you, and

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Speaker 2: there's a part of that, but they also they found

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Speaker 2: a loophole. Squatting gets a bad rap. Like I've talked

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Speaker 2: about a ton on this show. It's almost never I'm

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Speaker 2: going to run into this house that people are living

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Speaker 2: in and start living there instead of them. Instead, it's

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Speaker 2: shit like this. The factory owners abandoned factories by the

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Speaker 2: hundreds or thousands because the factories were no longer profitable

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Speaker 2: due to shifting economics. They would abandon them overnights, sometimes

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Speaker 2: often owing millions of pesos to their employees. And whenever

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Speaker 2: I say paeso in this particular episode, I'm basically saying

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Speaker 2: dollar because for most of this period the peso was

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Speaker 2: tied to the dollar, and actually the fact that it

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Speaker 2: got distied is part of how it all fell apart,

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Speaker 2: And honestly, that's the level of economics that goes above

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Speaker 2: my head. Yeah, But whenever I read about like nineteenth

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Speaker 2: century American politics and we're like the gold standard, the

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Speaker 2: silver standard, the papers that I'm like, I don't know.

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Speaker 2: I've read so many books about this fucking period in

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Speaker 2: history and I still don't fucking know. That's how I

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Speaker 2: feel about all that.

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Speaker 5: I taught high school history, and you have to pass

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Speaker 5: in California. Part of the credentialing program is you have

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Speaker 5: to do like a three part government like you have

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Speaker 5: to do world history, US history, California history. Then you

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Speaker 5: have to do like civics, geography, and economics. I flew

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Speaker 5: through five of the six of those.

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Speaker 3: Yea.

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Speaker 5: When it got to economics, I was like, I don't

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Speaker 5: understand kind of what you're asking, yeah, because I'm like

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Speaker 5: the premise doesn't make sense. I'm like, so a dollar

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Speaker 5: is worth gold because but I'm like, that's a rock.

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Speaker 5: It just come out the ground. Why does why is

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Speaker 5: the gold worth that?

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Speaker 1: Like?

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Speaker 5: Is it the amount of effort it took to get out?

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Speaker 5: But the thing is that takes the same amount of

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Speaker 5: effort to get that out as every other rock, Like

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Speaker 5: why is this one? Just all of it? And then like,

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Speaker 5: it seems pretty simple to me. You don't spend money,

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Speaker 5: you don't have make more, Yeah, make more than you

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Speaker 5: spend much. No, but that's not even Yeah, and I'm

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Speaker 5: just like I don't necessarily yeah this is chart me

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Speaker 5: like yeah, yeah, yeah, you're the same. I'm like, I

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Speaker 5: can explain it to you, but I don't mean I

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Speaker 5: understand it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, And honestly, that's a lot of what's happening

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Speaker 2: is that they rely on people. They're like, neoliberalism works,

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Speaker 2: and they pull out these charts and people are like,

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Speaker 2: we don't understand. I guess it does work, and then

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Speaker 2: it doesn't work, and then they were like, I guess

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Speaker 2: we were wrong, and like.

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Speaker 5: And you're like, so I kind of felt like y'all

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Speaker 5: was bullshit in us, but I wasn't smart enough, which

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Speaker 5: is it. Look, I love this because that's the central

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Speaker 5: premise of her politics, and like, in my brain, I

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Speaker 5: feel like what you're saying is bullshit. But you present

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Speaker 5: yourself like you're smarter than me. So maybe and prop

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Speaker 5: comes in and say, no, they're not smarter than you.

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Speaker 5: You're right, Yeah that's that's what they're saying.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, they're they make up a premise, and then

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Speaker 2: they're like, we're going to sell you on this premise.

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Speaker 2: And yeah, sometimes they know what they're talking about, and

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Speaker 2: sometimes they don't. And and so in this case, you know,

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Speaker 2: they just hoodwinked everyone. Oh God, that probably is a

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Speaker 2: terrible origin, doesn't it. No, probably not good. Winked, Yeah,

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Speaker 2: not bad when that comes from I don't know, I don't.

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Speaker 4: Know right now.

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Speaker 5: In my brain it goes to Malcolm X, you've been hoodwinked, bamboozled,

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Speaker 5: run a muck.

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Speaker 2: I love how people use to say bamboozled.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, shit's so good, so great.

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Speaker 2: So Argentina have been bamboozled. Yeah, and the factory owners

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Speaker 2: abandon these factories and abandoning their debts, it means they've

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Speaker 2: robbed their workers. See the aforementioned chart. Unpaid wages are

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Speaker 2: the largest theft, at least in America. They've extracted all

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Speaker 2: the wealth that has been produced by these people and

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Speaker 2: then they cut and run and never pay. God damn it.

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Speaker 2: I'm trying not to bring up Trump, but that's the

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Speaker 2: other thing he fucking does famously.

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Speaker 4: He's so good at it.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, I know, which, in a very indirect way, is

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Speaker 5: part of why he was convicted okay because like nobody

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Speaker 5: none of them was tripping like this is I mean,

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Speaker 5: we're way off the rails. But like the National acquired

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Speaker 5: Nan Pecker and then was like listen, I'm not buying

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Speaker 5: no more stories until you pay us back for the

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Speaker 5: last other ones. Yeah, and it was like that why

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Speaker 5: that's why uh Cohen had to pay the thing anyway,

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Speaker 5: because this nigga wouldn't pay.

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Speaker 4: I'm like, that's what you do, bro, anyway, I'm sorry, No,

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Speaker 4: this is this.

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Speaker 2: Is literally why I listened to your podcast to explain

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Speaker 2: this kind of thing too. Okay, you are the person

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Speaker 2: I listened to explain this kind of thing about modern politics.

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Speaker 4: Yeah. Oh man, it feels like a heavyweight on my shoulders.

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Speaker 4: I like that.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, you better get it right now, better get right

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Speaker 2: Like yeah, I'm like, So these factories are built with

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Speaker 2: public dollars buy and large And this is one of

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Speaker 2: the things that people don't tell you when they talk

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Speaker 2: about capitalism. Yeah, capitalism is often a system by which

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Speaker 2: public money goes to private enterprise. So it's not like

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Speaker 2: your tax dollars go to these giant corporations directly. So

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Speaker 2: these factories were built on public land with public subsidies.

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Speaker 2: A factory owner will have built a subsidized factory, extracted

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Speaker 2: the value of hundreds of employees, not bothered to pay them,

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Speaker 2: and then split as soon as it's financially advisable to

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Speaker 2: do so. And we know that the factory could have

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Speaker 2: continued to be productive and profitable because as soon as

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Speaker 2: the workers take it over it is because it was Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 2: this put the factories into bankruptcy since there's just abandoned, right,

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Speaker 2: and by law, this should be sold off to pay

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Speaker 2: the company's debts, including the debts to the workers. But illegally,

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Speaker 2: factory owners were liquidating their assets ahead of time, selling

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Speaker 2: all the assets out of the factory on the side.

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Speaker 2: So of course the cops stopped them. I'm just kid,

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Speaker 2: The cops didn't stop them. Yeah, I was like what

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Speaker 2: and yeah, no, no, the cops stopped the people, stopping

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Speaker 2: the people breaking the law. Instead, factory workers were able

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Speaker 2: to prove that liquidation was happening. They had a case

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Speaker 2: in court that they should just be given the factory

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Speaker 2: in lieu of the debts that are owed to them.

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Speaker 2: So hundreds of factories did exactly that. But like all

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Speaker 2: legal systems I've ever run across. This legal system was

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Speaker 2: built to support the rich, so it is an uphill

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Speaker 2: battle for them in court. And so while they're fighting

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Speaker 2: in court, the cops would come and try and evict them,

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Speaker 2: and they'd have to physically fight off the police. They

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Speaker 2: would break into their own workplace and occupy it, saying

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Speaker 2: this should legally be ours. We are owed money by

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Speaker 2: the person who abandoned this. They formed a federation to

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Speaker 2: coordinate all these what they were called Recovered Factories, the

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Speaker 2: National Movement of Recovered.

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Speaker 4: Factories, Burst of Creativity.

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Speaker 2: Their slogan was occupy, resist, produce.

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Speaker 4: Oh that's better.

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Speaker 5: I was like at first, I was like, in a

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Speaker 5: burst of creativity, but then that one's actually creative.

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Speaker 2: Their urgentities are fucking good at slogan aaring is what

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Speaker 2: I'm learning.

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Speaker 4: Pretty good slogan. It is something to be said about how.

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Speaker 5: When I was when I was going through like this,

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Speaker 5: uh sitting on the board if it's nonprofit. We was

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Speaker 5: trying to figure out like how to like cut ties

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Speaker 5: with the founder and all that stuff like, and one

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Speaker 5: of the one of the people we brought in was like,

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Speaker 5: usually the simple and most elegant is probably the best

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Speaker 5: and it's probably the best way. Like it's simple and elegant.

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Speaker 5: We'll get to it. And so when I think of

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Speaker 5: like you just explained that, like really the easiest thing

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Speaker 5: is to say how much y'all owe these workers? Oh word, okay,

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Speaker 5: how much is that factory worth?

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Speaker 4: Cool? It's a wash easy. Next, Like how easy that

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Speaker 4: would be?

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Speaker 5: Like you owed him that money anyway, and they already there,

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Speaker 5: so you're gonna sell stuff to pay them back about

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Speaker 5: the thing that they actually make him profitable? Just give

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Speaker 5: them the what do we Why are y'all wasting my time?

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Speaker 5: It's just it's such an easy solution, but it doesn't

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Speaker 5: benefit the rich.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and there were judges who made those decisions, and

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Speaker 2: a lot of people won in court, but a lot

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Speaker 2: of it was also super uphill because there were you know,

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Speaker 2: when I'm like, oh, the system is rigged against the poor,

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Speaker 2: it is, But that doesn't mean that every individual within

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Speaker 2: that system, within the system is like trying to fuck

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Speaker 2: over the poor. A lot of people are specifically trying

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Speaker 2: to help them. The Brookman factory, those seam sources. This

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Speaker 2: is one of the first factories that did this. Another one,

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Speaker 2: which is another one of the most famous ones used

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Speaker 2: to be called zenon ceramics, it's still around two. Now

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Speaker 2: it's called fasten pot for fabricus and patronas or factory

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Speaker 2: without bosses. Yeah yeah, yeah, scene, yeah yeah.

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Speaker 4: I'm not correcting your Spanish. I'm sorry.

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Speaker 2: Oh no, no, no, it's okay. My Spanish is bad,

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Speaker 2: so I like, you're probably right. I think I've said

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Speaker 2: before on the show. The main use that my Spanish

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Speaker 2: ever gets is what I'm in countries that were more

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Speaker 2: people have Spanish as a second language. I get by

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Speaker 2: with my Spanish. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, like France

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Speaker 2: and Italy, I get by with spac.

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Speaker 4: Your Spanish is great, yeah, Spain Spanish is not very

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Speaker 4: so much.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean in your defense, in your defense, my

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Speaker 5: Spanish isn't good in Spain either.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, you don't wanna you don't wanna lisp all your take? Yeah,

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Speaker 2: and I and what's funny? And then there they're like,

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Speaker 2: we don't even fucking speak Spanish. Fuck you this if

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Speaker 2: we speak Catalonian basically, and uh, I'm like fuck, I've

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Speaker 2: like trying to learn him anyway. Whatever. Yeah, yeah, I

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Speaker 2: can't win. I mean, I'm proud and glad that they

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Speaker 2: are trying to resist Spain whatever. So Zanan was founded

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Speaker 2: on public land with public funding in the nineteen eighties.

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Speaker 2: The ceramics factory, its owner, Luigi Zanon, was friends with

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Speaker 2: that neoliberal asshole men I personally. But it's workers were unionized,

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Speaker 2: so they were like, oh cool, we'll totally be able

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Speaker 2: to do this now. They was a problem earlier when

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Speaker 2: that manifesto was listing out all the people that they

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Speaker 2: didn't care about, one of them was union leaders. And

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Speaker 2: you're like, well, why, Well before the workers could get

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Speaker 2: around to fighting their boss, they had to fight their union.

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Speaker 4: What.

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Speaker 2: Okay, I am. I'm totally pro union. Whenever you create

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Speaker 2: power structures, you create spaces where corruption can sometimes slip into. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: the union at Zanon had been taken over by organized

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Speaker 2: crime that was coordinating with the owners.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, and this is.

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Speaker 2: Actually kind I mean it, I don't know if it

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Speaker 2: reached the same level. But in the US there's this

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Speaker 2: you know, you've got this golden age era of unionism

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Speaker 2: up until like nineteen twenties and nineteen thirties, and then

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Speaker 2: you've got this era that like like my dad grew

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Speaker 2: up working class and he was like he didn't grow

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Speaker 2: up super pro union because he was like.

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Speaker 5: No, they're just corrupt ran by mobs. Yeah, yeah, no,

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Speaker 5: that's true. That's real, like that reality. Like you said,

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Speaker 5: like you just you inevitably find you create a crevice

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Speaker 5: for a hustle to happen. And one thing that like

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Speaker 5: organized crime is and like street level stuff is, is

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Speaker 5: it's finding the hustle. And it's like once we found it,

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Speaker 5: it's like, dude, this is an easy leg you know.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, and then why would you leave?

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Speaker 5: Yeah, it's simple, you know, clean, It's like it's already laundry.

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Speaker 5: It's like it launders itself, the union hustle. Like from

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Speaker 5: a from a street like gang life perspective, it was

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Speaker 5: the that and like getting the getting the contra the

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Speaker 5: construction contracts. Yeah, from a pure economic perspective, brilliant.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. And again yeah, most unions, even the even the

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Speaker 2: more corrupt ones in the US, you're still better off

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Speaker 2: at a union drive You're still better off, like.

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Speaker 4: And they can make that argument. It's like, dude, you're

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Speaker 4: better with us anyway. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, I've got to work for the organized

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Speaker 2: crime than the other organized.

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Speaker 4: Care basically the state organized crime.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so the workers, this is a non retook their union,

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Speaker 2: and I only found like the one sentence version of that,

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Speaker 2: And I'm annoyed because I would watch a whole ass

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Speaker 2: movie about Argentinan factory workers fighting a corrupt mafia union.

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Speaker 2: Absolutely damn After they won that, the boss is suddenly

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Speaker 2: didn't like the union anymore, so they started firing union organizers.

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Speaker 2: And then when that didn't work, because you know, everyone

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Speaker 2: is a potential union organizer. Yeah, in autumn two thousand

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Speaker 2: and one, so before all the pots and Pans riots,

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Speaker 2: the owners went for what's called a lockout, which is

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Speaker 2: like a reverse strike where you're like, fine, we'll lock

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Speaker 2: up the factory, so no jobs for anyone. Fuck you.

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Speaker 2: Until you break the union, you can't come back to work,

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Speaker 2: which is you know, a strike is until you accept

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Speaker 2: the union, we won't go back to work. On October second,

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Speaker 2: two thousand and one, the workers voted to occupy the factory.

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Speaker 2: I think against this lockout, and I think the only

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Speaker 2: reason that they're not called one of the first occupied

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Speaker 2: factories is because it wasn't until March second, two thousand

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Speaker 2: and two, after they've been occupying it for months, that

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Speaker 2: they were able to get the place back to work.

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Speaker 2: I think the owner abandoned the place kind of. In

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Speaker 2: the meantime, soon enough, they turned the place profitable. It

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Speaker 2: turns out it's sometimes easy to be profitable when you

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Speaker 2: don't have an ownership class life off the extra money backs.

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Speaker 2: And people talk all the time about democracy as like

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Speaker 2: a compromise, like in order to have liberty, we have

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Speaker 2: to give up efficiency, like the Mussolini thing, the trains

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Speaker 2: ran on time. Yeah, I want to shit talk that

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Speaker 2: for a second. Okay, study after study shows that workplace

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Speaker 2: democracy aka worker ownership is more productive and more efficient.

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Speaker 2: And as for the Mussolini and the trains thing, I've

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Speaker 2: heard a few versions of that about that from Italian friends,

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Speaker 2: and none of them are that, yes, the trains ran

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Speaker 2: on time because of fascism, you know, because people will

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Speaker 2: be like, well, I don't want I don't care if

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Speaker 2: the trains run on time. I don't want fascism. That

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Speaker 2: is a good position to have, even if the trains

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Speaker 2: ran on time because of fascism. Fuck fascism. Yeah, but

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Speaker 2: it's not even true.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: The two versions of the story I've heard, One was

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Speaker 2: that the train industry was heavily unionized under anarchist unions

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Speaker 2: before Mussolini's takeover, and so it was a decentralized organized

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Speaker 2: labor union that got the trains running on time.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: The second version I've heard from a different Italian friend.

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Speaker 2: So the trains did not run on time, and Mussolini

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Speaker 2: just had the trains run on time while foreign journalists

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Speaker 2: were there. Wow, wow, any of those three reasons. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: still fuck Mussolini, Yeah.

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Speaker 4: Fucking Sini.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, But to your point, it's like, if we have

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Speaker 5: a shared invested interest and a mutual benefit, we're all

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Speaker 5: taken care of, we're all fulfilled, we're all satisfied, and

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Speaker 5: we all feel ownership on this project. It's gonna work,

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Speaker 5: Like I just I don't it's gonna work. Like whether

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Speaker 5: it's care for each other or just simple pragmatism, it's

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Speaker 5: gonna work if we're all invested. If I know, it's

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Speaker 5: just it just seems so like I know, it's not

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Speaker 5: that simple. Obviously, it's obviously not that simple, but it's

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Speaker 5: also pretty simple.

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Speaker 4: Like that's why it works.

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Speaker 2: It is one of those things, yeah, where it's both

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Speaker 2: simple and not simple, Like, yeah, when I worked at

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Speaker 2: I'll talk a little bit more about it at the end.

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Speaker 2: To see commons in the place that I worked, But

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00:20:01,240 --> 00:20:03,440
Speaker 2: you know, we ran during the pandemic, and a lot

401
00:20:03,480 --> 00:20:07,280
Speaker 2: of the co ops in the US are like restaurants, right,

402
00:20:07,600 --> 00:20:10,000
Speaker 2: And for some weird reason, restaurants didn't do very well

403
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Speaker 2: during twenty twenty. Can't quite put my finger on the

404
00:20:13,040 --> 00:20:17,080
Speaker 2: wife that none of the co ops that we've supported

405
00:20:17,480 --> 00:20:21,119
Speaker 2: closed their doors for good in twenty twenty. And for

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00:20:21,200 --> 00:20:23,359
Speaker 2: the restaurant industry, that was like unheard of that we

407
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Speaker 2: had one hundred percent success rate of all of these restaurants.

408
00:20:26,720 --> 00:20:31,119
Speaker 2: And it's because the worker owners were able to be like, Okay,

409
00:20:31,160 --> 00:20:34,240
Speaker 2: bad things are happening, and they were very nimble because

410
00:20:34,240 --> 00:20:36,359
Speaker 2: they could pivot, which is the jargon that we had

411
00:20:36,359 --> 00:20:38,880
Speaker 2: to use constantly. It annoyed me. It's nonprofit world still

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00:20:38,920 --> 00:20:42,159
Speaker 2: has all the same jargon as everywhere else. Yeah. But

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Speaker 2: then even like when it came to like layoffs, they

414
00:20:44,600 --> 00:20:49,280
Speaker 2: made those decisions together. They were like, who here can

415
00:20:49,400 --> 00:20:50,920
Speaker 2: survive not working.

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Speaker 4: For the niceties?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and like they survived, you know. Yeah. So

418
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Speaker 2: there's a reason that the most part powerful informational organizational

419
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Speaker 2: system in human history, the Internet, is a decentralized network

420
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Speaker 2: that shares protocols, but not central control. You know. Yeah,

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00:21:09,480 --> 00:21:12,840
Speaker 2: Xenon is up and running soon enough, and Xenon and

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00:21:12,880 --> 00:21:15,720
Speaker 2: Brookman are sort of the flagship of the flagships of

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Speaker 2: the occupied Factories movement. Zenon immediately goes out of the

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00:21:20,240 --> 00:21:22,400
Speaker 2: way to prove that they care about the community, and

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Speaker 2: vice versa. The community goes out of its way to

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Speaker 2: prove that it cares about it. So it's not just

427
00:21:26,840 --> 00:21:29,920
Speaker 2: like capitalism, but more efficient and more democratic. They're donating

428
00:21:29,960 --> 00:21:33,800
Speaker 2: tiles to community centers and hospitals, they're organizing cultural events.

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Speaker 2: And then for two decades in this poor community that

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00:21:38,280 --> 00:21:41,200
Speaker 2: they're near, or maybe in I'm not sure, people have

431
00:21:41,280 --> 00:21:43,359
Speaker 2: been like, we wish we had a fucking community health clinic,

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Speaker 2: and for two decades, activists, we're trying to get one.

433
00:21:46,760 --> 00:21:52,400
Speaker 2: So the workers that Xenon just built it in three months, sesh,

434
00:21:52,440 --> 00:21:55,640
Speaker 2: they're like ceramics workers. But they're like, all right, we'll

435
00:21:55,640 --> 00:21:58,160
Speaker 2: make a medical center, we'll organize it, we'll make it happen.

436
00:21:58,800 --> 00:21:59,040
Speaker 3: Damn.

437
00:21:59,720 --> 00:22:02,840
Speaker 2: As an another aside, because it's a good chance to

438
00:22:02,920 --> 00:22:05,720
Speaker 2: use one of my favorite quotes. During the Spanish Civil War,

439
00:22:05,800 --> 00:22:09,000
Speaker 2: this anarchist general named General Derudi, and he's asked by

440
00:22:09,000 --> 00:22:11,120
Speaker 2: a journalist. They say, well, even if you win, you'll

441
00:22:11,160 --> 00:22:15,159
Speaker 2: be sitting on a pile of ruins. And De Rudy says,

442
00:22:16,320 --> 00:22:18,920
Speaker 2: we have always lived in slums and holes in the wall.

443
00:22:19,520 --> 00:22:21,879
Speaker 2: We will know how to accommodate ourselves for a time.

444
00:22:22,359 --> 00:22:25,080
Speaker 2: For you must not forget. We can also build. It

445
00:22:25,119 --> 00:22:27,800
Speaker 2: is we the workers who built the palaces and cities

446
00:22:27,840 --> 00:22:31,480
Speaker 2: here in Spain and in America and everywhere. We the workers,

447
00:22:31,520 --> 00:22:34,439
Speaker 2: can build others to take their place and better ones.

448
00:22:34,800 --> 00:22:37,480
Speaker 2: We are not in the least afraid of ruins. We

449
00:22:37,560 --> 00:22:39,639
Speaker 2: are going to inherit the earth. There is not the

450
00:22:39,720 --> 00:22:43,359
Speaker 2: slightest doubt about that. The bourgeois may blast and ruin

451
00:22:43,440 --> 00:22:46,160
Speaker 2: its own world before it leaves this stage of history.

452
00:22:46,520 --> 00:22:49,320
Speaker 2: We carry a new world here in our hearts. That

453
00:22:49,400 --> 00:22:52,440
Speaker 2: world is growing this minute. And the reason I give

454
00:22:52,440 --> 00:22:57,160
Speaker 2: this quote it's not unrelated culturally. The quote the slogan

455
00:22:57,280 --> 00:23:00,199
Speaker 2: a new world in our hearts from De Rudy, and

456
00:23:00,320 --> 00:23:03,400
Speaker 2: they all must go from the Argentinian uprising or two

457
00:23:03,440 --> 00:23:06,040
Speaker 2: of the most common slogans of the anti globalization era,

458
00:23:06,359 --> 00:23:09,840
Speaker 2: like hey, we can do this. Yeah, oh yeah, that's

459
00:23:09,840 --> 00:23:14,720
Speaker 2: another one, that's a yeah, I guess we can yeah,

460
00:23:14,760 --> 00:23:16,960
Speaker 2: and then the other slogan from the time from the

461
00:23:17,040 --> 00:23:19,639
Speaker 2: Zapatistas was that we were fighting for a world in

462
00:23:19,680 --> 00:23:21,040
Speaker 2: which many worlds are possible.

463
00:23:22,440 --> 00:23:22,960
Speaker 4: Beautiful.

464
00:23:23,400 --> 00:23:25,800
Speaker 2: So these workers they know how to build shit and

465
00:23:25,840 --> 00:23:29,119
Speaker 2: they inspired solidarity from across the country. One of the

466
00:23:29,119 --> 00:23:31,040
Speaker 2: most iconic moves that they did that like just like

467
00:23:31,080 --> 00:23:34,040
Speaker 2: put a fire under a ton of people. They all

468
00:23:34,040 --> 00:23:36,359
Speaker 2: got these slingshots right to fight the cops. They just

469
00:23:36,359 --> 00:23:41,159
Speaker 2: like made slingshots and just like cheap kids, Dennis the

470
00:23:41,200 --> 00:23:44,760
Speaker 2: Menace slingshots And I was like trying to figure out

471
00:23:44,800 --> 00:23:51,359
Speaker 2: exactly why. It's because they're seramesists. They made their own marbles, brilliant.

472
00:23:52,080 --> 00:23:56,280
Speaker 2: There's like footage of just like crates of marbles, like

473
00:23:56,400 --> 00:23:57,520
Speaker 2: white mar beautiful.

474
00:23:58,480 --> 00:24:01,080
Speaker 4: Yeah, amazing.

475
00:24:02,760 --> 00:24:05,560
Speaker 2: They fought off six eviction orders by two thousand and four.

476
00:24:05,880 --> 00:24:07,880
Speaker 2: Every time that the police would come to evict them,

477
00:24:08,000 --> 00:24:10,440
Speaker 2: thousands of people would show up from the nearby community

478
00:24:10,480 --> 00:24:14,440
Speaker 2: and drive back the police every single time. As soon

479
00:24:14,480 --> 00:24:17,520
Speaker 2: as the place was profitable the owner wanted it back

480
00:24:18,280 --> 00:24:18,720
Speaker 2: of course.

481
00:24:18,840 --> 00:24:18,959
Speaker 6: There.

482
00:24:19,600 --> 00:24:22,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, there are these smug interviews with him from the

483
00:24:22,560 --> 00:24:26,160
Speaker 2: documentary of the Take where he's like, well, it's because

484
00:24:26,400 --> 00:24:29,000
Speaker 2: all the slogans are like Xenon is a Zenon belongs

485
00:24:29,000 --> 00:24:31,720
Speaker 2: to the people, and Zanon himself he's a guy, so

486
00:24:31,760 --> 00:24:35,439
Speaker 2: he's like, no, that's my factory, it's not the people's yea.

487
00:24:35,880 --> 00:24:37,959
Speaker 2: The interviewer is like, well, how are you gonna how

488
00:24:37,960 --> 00:24:39,680
Speaker 2: are you gonna get it? And he's like, well, government's

489
00:24:39,720 --> 00:24:40,359
Speaker 2: gonna give it to me.

490
00:24:44,040 --> 00:24:48,520
Speaker 5: I'm like, I like, it's like, you know, cut to

491
00:24:48,960 --> 00:24:51,240
Speaker 5: the government actually giving it to him, and you're like.

492
00:24:51,680 --> 00:24:55,800
Speaker 2: But they didn't. Oh, word, Okay, that's the thing. Xenon

493
00:24:55,960 --> 00:25:00,800
Speaker 2: still exists as a cooperative. That's amazing that they want. Yeah.

494
00:25:00,800 --> 00:25:03,960
Speaker 4: They were like, they were like, sir, you walked away

495
00:25:03,960 --> 00:25:04,320
Speaker 4: from it.

496
00:25:04,840 --> 00:25:07,800
Speaker 2: Yeah. And I mean, you know, a couple times the

497
00:25:08,000 --> 00:25:09,480
Speaker 2: five or six times or whatever that they had to

498
00:25:09,480 --> 00:25:12,240
Speaker 2: fight off of diction orders, the government was trying to

499
00:25:12,320 --> 00:25:15,760
Speaker 2: clear out the occupiers, you know, while the but in

500
00:25:15,840 --> 00:25:17,800
Speaker 2: the end, I think it's two thousand and nine or

501
00:25:17,800 --> 00:25:19,399
Speaker 2: something that they finally won in court. I think it

502
00:25:19,440 --> 00:25:24,040
Speaker 2: might be later in the script. The local government fucking

503
00:25:24,200 --> 00:25:28,879
Speaker 2: hates this cooperative and still does. And they're like, like,

504
00:25:29,280 --> 00:25:31,760
Speaker 2: they ship tiles all over Argentina and like the one

505
00:25:31,760 --> 00:25:34,080
Speaker 2: place that doesn't buy from them is the local government

506
00:25:34,720 --> 00:25:38,520
Speaker 2: of course, in two thousand and five, one of the

507
00:25:38,560 --> 00:25:40,920
Speaker 2: workers or a wife of one of the workers, either way,

508
00:25:40,960 --> 00:25:43,200
Speaker 2: a woman who's associated with this place, I've read both,

509
00:25:44,720 --> 00:25:48,600
Speaker 2: was kidnapped and tortured, like she was disappeared into a

510
00:25:48,640 --> 00:25:51,439
Speaker 2: green Falcon We might be fell Colantum, not sure the

511
00:25:51,520 --> 00:25:54,800
Speaker 2: kind of car that was specifically and intentionally emblematic of

512
00:25:54,880 --> 00:25:59,440
Speaker 2: dictatorship era, like this is the car that the dictators

513
00:25:59,440 --> 00:26:03,360
Speaker 2: of the seventy would disappear leftist in two tonver, like.

514
00:26:03,359 --> 00:26:05,520
Speaker 4: The like the black van, white van.

515
00:26:05,600 --> 00:26:08,639
Speaker 2: Yeah, white van, yeah, like the black suv or what

516
00:26:08,800 --> 00:26:12,320
Speaker 2: black yeah? Okay yeah. And so they get one of

517
00:26:12,359 --> 00:26:16,280
Speaker 2: these and four people, three men and a woman, kidnap her,

518
00:26:16,560 --> 00:26:21,040
Speaker 2: take her into the car, h cut her and leave

519
00:26:21,040 --> 00:26:24,080
Speaker 2: her bleeding and say like, if you all don't stop,

520
00:26:24,160 --> 00:26:27,400
Speaker 2: this is going to happen to following leaders of your

521
00:26:27,440 --> 00:26:31,960
Speaker 2: movement or whatever. They she gets out, they call the cops.

522
00:26:32,600 --> 00:26:35,800
Speaker 2: The cops come and protect her house. Then that night

523
00:26:36,280 --> 00:26:38,879
Speaker 2: all the cops leave but one, and then the people

524
00:26:38,920 --> 00:26:41,040
Speaker 2: break back in. She survives, and I try not to

525
00:26:41,080 --> 00:26:43,879
Speaker 2: go into detail about abuse and stuff on the show.

526
00:26:44,160 --> 00:26:46,280
Speaker 2: They break back in and they hurt her again, and

527
00:26:46,320 --> 00:26:48,600
Speaker 2: the one cop on guard was like, oh and see

528
00:26:48,600 --> 00:26:49,440
Speaker 2: her here anything.

529
00:26:49,920 --> 00:26:50,320
Speaker 4: Wow.

530
00:26:50,560 --> 00:26:54,240
Speaker 2: So no one knows who did this. Everyone suspects it

531
00:26:54,320 --> 00:26:58,280
Speaker 2: seems like open secret that the local government did this. Yeah,

532
00:26:58,320 --> 00:27:01,119
Speaker 2: and that the cop was in on it. But you

533
00:27:01,200 --> 00:27:05,359
Speaker 2: know what the local government isn't in on is these deals.

534
00:27:05,400 --> 00:27:07,879
Speaker 2: They're only for AKP.

535
00:27:09,080 --> 00:27:09,280
Speaker 3: Wow.

536
00:27:09,359 --> 00:27:09,760
Speaker 2: Wow.

537
00:27:10,520 --> 00:27:13,880
Speaker 4: Yeah, all right, well we're doing deals.

538
00:27:15,000 --> 00:27:20,200
Speaker 3: Someone emailed emailed us. So we've been running a we've

539
00:27:20,200 --> 00:27:23,000
Speaker 3: been running like promo to help get donations for the

540
00:27:23,080 --> 00:27:24,040
Speaker 3: Portland Diaper Bank.

541
00:27:24,440 --> 00:27:24,640
Speaker 4: Yeah.

542
00:27:24,720 --> 00:27:27,920
Speaker 3: His diapers are so unreasonably expensive with some behind the bastards.

543
00:27:27,920 --> 00:27:31,040
Speaker 3: And the next ad after we said that was for Huggies.

544
00:27:32,480 --> 00:27:34,240
Speaker 4: Oh my god, it's amazing.

545
00:27:34,520 --> 00:27:37,880
Speaker 3: And like obviously we have no idea what what ads are.

546
00:27:38,040 --> 00:27:39,000
Speaker 4: Yeah, we can never know.

547
00:27:39,400 --> 00:27:40,040
Speaker 2: We never know.

548
00:27:41,200 --> 00:27:46,240
Speaker 3: But anytime it lines up that perfectly, I'm like, yeah,

549
00:27:46,840 --> 00:27:48,400
Speaker 3: you know what, I'm.

550
00:27:48,320 --> 00:27:50,040
Speaker 4: Getting a lot of chumb of casinos.

551
00:27:50,160 --> 00:27:54,399
Speaker 3: I was like, Don Draper would be like, you did it, kid.

552
00:27:54,880 --> 00:27:55,880
Speaker 3: I appreciate that.

553
00:27:56,680 --> 00:27:58,920
Speaker 2: I like back when it was go to the forest,

554
00:27:59,119 --> 00:27:59,760
Speaker 2: do you remember those?

555
00:28:00,040 --> 00:28:02,480
Speaker 4: It was like a local were dope too.

556
00:28:02,840 --> 00:28:06,720
Speaker 2: Yeah. So even if they aren't a paid sponsor, go

557
00:28:06,800 --> 00:28:09,280
Speaker 2: to a forest, to go to a forest, touch ground,

558
00:28:09,280 --> 00:28:09,800
Speaker 2: don't get.

559
00:28:09,680 --> 00:28:20,240
Speaker 6: Lost and we're back.

560
00:28:21,320 --> 00:28:24,640
Speaker 2: People all over Argentina supported Xenon, not just the three.

561
00:28:24,720 --> 00:28:26,159
Speaker 2: The thousands of people would show up every time that

562
00:28:26,160 --> 00:28:28,400
Speaker 2: they were being evicted. But there's like huge rock concerts,

563
00:28:28,440 --> 00:28:31,000
Speaker 2: like the biggest rock bands in Argentina at stadium shows

564
00:28:31,000 --> 00:28:34,080
Speaker 2: and shit have like banners saying like Zenon belongs to

565
00:28:34,119 --> 00:28:38,640
Speaker 2: the people. In two thousand and nine, I wonder if

566
00:28:38,640 --> 00:28:40,240
Speaker 2: there was like a supporter like the like the people

567
00:28:40,240 --> 00:28:42,920
Speaker 2: who get mad about rage against the machine, you know,

568
00:28:43,360 --> 00:28:48,800
Speaker 2: oh yeah, the right wing people are like wait what yeah.

569
00:28:48,840 --> 00:28:50,760
Speaker 2: In two thousand and nine, they finally won in court

570
00:28:50,760 --> 00:28:53,280
Speaker 2: and it was expropriated legally to the workers and the

571
00:28:53,320 --> 00:28:56,520
Speaker 2: state paid off the loans from when Luigi Zanon was

572
00:28:56,560 --> 00:28:58,720
Speaker 2: in charge. The workers were actually mad about the state

573
00:28:58,760 --> 00:29:01,400
Speaker 2: paying off the loans. They wanted Uigi imselfd have to

574
00:29:01,400 --> 00:29:07,120
Speaker 2: pay them. But so it goes. And the most important

575
00:29:07,120 --> 00:29:09,040
Speaker 2: way that people showed up to support them, though, was

576
00:29:09,080 --> 00:29:12,080
Speaker 2: to just join the movement themselves. More and more places

577
00:29:12,080 --> 00:29:15,160
Speaker 2: were taken over and cooperativized. At least one private health

578
00:29:15,160 --> 00:29:17,320
Speaker 2: clinic was abandoned by its owners and so it was

579
00:29:17,360 --> 00:29:21,280
Speaker 2: staffed by its own workers. Two hundred and fifty doctors

580
00:29:21,440 --> 00:29:25,560
Speaker 2: offering healthcare at this place, which when I hear medical clinic,

581
00:29:25,600 --> 00:29:31,920
Speaker 2: I don't think two hundred and fifty doctors, no hospital. Yeah,

582
00:29:32,240 --> 00:29:35,160
Speaker 2: the court battles were not as dramatic as the physical

583
00:29:35,200 --> 00:29:37,200
Speaker 2: defense of the space, but they were important and they

584
00:29:37,200 --> 00:29:41,120
Speaker 2: were harrowing. Take a four Husts and Martin. It's a

585
00:29:41,160 --> 00:29:43,920
Speaker 2: foundry and they make gears and shit for like tractors.

586
00:29:44,720 --> 00:29:47,120
Speaker 2: Their story is sort of typical. It's the one that

587
00:29:47,160 --> 00:29:50,160
Speaker 2: the documentary The Take focuses on the factory.

588
00:29:50,200 --> 00:29:50,440
Speaker 3: Es Owe.

589
00:29:50,520 --> 00:29:53,160
Speaker 2: Factory owners started laying everyone off for a few years,

590
00:29:53,360 --> 00:29:55,320
Speaker 2: and then one day they up and abandoned the place.

591
00:29:56,040 --> 00:29:58,280
Speaker 2: By March two thousand and three, the workers went back

592
00:29:58,280 --> 00:30:00,480
Speaker 2: in and started inventorying in the place. They had to

593
00:30:00,560 --> 00:30:03,640
Speaker 2: prove exactly what had been stolen and liquidated by the owner.

594
00:30:04,200 --> 00:30:10,160
Speaker 2: The raw materials had been sold off, which later they

595
00:30:10,280 --> 00:30:13,520
Speaker 2: just not the government. The company just denied that. They

596
00:30:13,560 --> 00:30:14,840
Speaker 2: were like, no, it was just over there in the

597
00:30:14,840 --> 00:30:17,440
Speaker 2: first place, and that's like how they lost at their

598
00:30:17,600 --> 00:30:19,920
Speaker 2: lower level court things, as the judge believed the person

599
00:30:19,960 --> 00:30:24,360
Speaker 2: who was like, what, no, it's just nothing there. But

600
00:30:24,600 --> 00:30:27,720
Speaker 2: the legal justification for their occupation was basically we're going

601
00:30:27,800 --> 00:30:30,000
Speaker 2: to sleep here and guard the place from whatever thieves

602
00:30:30,120 --> 00:30:32,360
Speaker 2: are stealing all these raw materials. This is how they

603
00:30:32,360 --> 00:30:35,280
Speaker 2: can legally break in and stay there. Is that they're like, well,

604
00:30:35,320 --> 00:30:37,480
Speaker 2: someone's stealing the raw materials, so we have to stop them.

605
00:30:39,040 --> 00:30:42,200
Speaker 2: And so for months they occupy the factory and they

606
00:30:42,200 --> 00:30:44,680
Speaker 2: clean the place up and preparation for opening it again,

607
00:30:45,120 --> 00:30:47,640
Speaker 2: but they can't run it apparently until the court's okay it.

608
00:30:47,880 --> 00:30:49,800
Speaker 2: I don't really understand the ins and outs of this

609
00:30:49,840 --> 00:30:53,360
Speaker 2: particular part. So they're working there and living there unpaid.

610
00:30:53,520 --> 00:30:56,280
Speaker 2: They're all organizing all the while their families are living

611
00:30:56,320 --> 00:30:59,240
Speaker 2: off of mutual aid, trying not to starve. As far

612
00:30:59,280 --> 00:31:01,960
Speaker 2: as I can tell, prior to the downturn of the economy,

613
00:31:02,000 --> 00:31:06,880
Speaker 2: being a factory worker was skilled labor, and it was

614
00:31:07,000 --> 00:31:09,400
Speaker 2: essentially a middle class income, or at least it was

615
00:31:09,400 --> 00:31:12,280
Speaker 2: a working class income that provided like dignity savings and

616
00:31:12,360 --> 00:31:17,240
Speaker 2: vacation time and shit like that. So they're gambling everything

617
00:31:17,280 --> 00:31:19,320
Speaker 2: on getting the place running instead of going out and

618
00:31:19,320 --> 00:31:22,120
Speaker 2: looking for other work. It helps that there's not really

619
00:31:22,120 --> 00:31:25,640
Speaker 2: other work for them. But and they're not political types.

620
00:31:26,160 --> 00:31:28,160
Speaker 2: They're folks trying to feed their families and keep it

621
00:31:28,200 --> 00:31:31,440
Speaker 2: the skilled labor that they know. They're across the political

622
00:31:31,440 --> 00:31:35,120
Speaker 2: spectrum in their ranks, including MENEM supporters. The more I

623
00:31:35,160 --> 00:31:37,240
Speaker 2: read history, the more I understand that these radical social

624
00:31:37,320 --> 00:31:39,320
Speaker 2: movements are often fought for and organized by people who

625
00:31:39,400 --> 00:31:41,560
Speaker 2: just aren't political, Like that shopkeeper guy we were talking

626
00:31:41,600 --> 00:31:45,840
Speaker 2: about earlier. So they're occupying the factory. They cleaned the

627
00:31:45,880 --> 00:31:50,400
Speaker 2: place out, they paint Fabrica occupata and co op on

628
00:31:50,440 --> 00:31:53,080
Speaker 2: the gate to the property and they start fighting in court.

629
00:31:53,280 --> 00:31:55,880
Speaker 2: Starts off badly. The judge is like at the bankruptcy

630
00:31:55,880 --> 00:31:58,560
Speaker 2: court is basically like, look, you're getting in the way.

631
00:31:59,080 --> 00:32:01,600
Speaker 2: You want to get paid. We want to pay you leave,

632
00:32:01,720 --> 00:32:03,680
Speaker 2: We'll sell off the place and give you some money.

633
00:32:04,520 --> 00:32:06,880
Speaker 2: But they refuse to budge, and it takes months, but

634
00:32:06,920 --> 00:32:09,680
Speaker 2: eventually they won in legislature and the factory was legally

635
00:32:09,720 --> 00:32:13,560
Speaker 2: expropriated to its workers and the gate went from occupied

636
00:32:13,600 --> 00:32:18,720
Speaker 2: factory to cooperative. So meanwhile, the seamstresses over at Brookman,

637
00:32:18,840 --> 00:32:24,000
Speaker 2: the seamstress factory, the sewing factory, they keep getting evicted

638
00:32:24,040 --> 00:32:25,680
Speaker 2: in ship by the federal police because they haven't won

639
00:32:25,680 --> 00:32:28,720
Speaker 2: in court yet. On April eighteenth, two thousand and three,

640
00:32:28,800 --> 00:32:31,120
Speaker 2: three hundred federal cops evicted the workers in the middle

641
00:32:31,160 --> 00:32:33,240
Speaker 2: of the night. They show up with like machine guns

642
00:32:33,280 --> 00:32:35,360
Speaker 2: and attack dogs. I think machine guns. I think that

643
00:32:35,400 --> 00:32:38,080
Speaker 2: they just mean like assault rifles or whatever, not like yeah, yeah,

644
00:32:38,160 --> 00:32:42,080
Speaker 2: it tanks with whatever. It's still not nice. They fence

645
00:32:42,120 --> 00:32:46,680
Speaker 2: off the entire block with tall black riot fences, and

646
00:32:46,720 --> 00:32:49,560
Speaker 2: they like weld the doors shut to the fucking factory.

647
00:32:50,080 --> 00:32:52,880
Speaker 2: Although I've read that, but then I've also seen footage

648
00:32:52,880 --> 00:32:55,320
Speaker 2: where it's like, you lock some shit, I don't know whatever,

649
00:32:56,040 --> 00:32:59,760
Speaker 2: They locked the place down. Yeah, before dawn. This happens

650
00:32:59,760 --> 00:33:02,360
Speaker 2: a mil. The night before dawn, three thousand people show

651
00:33:02,440 --> 00:33:05,720
Speaker 2: up to gather these workers. Protesters start camping out in

652
00:33:05,720 --> 00:33:08,560
Speaker 2: front of the place. The city government was like, all right,

653
00:33:08,600 --> 00:33:11,800
Speaker 2: we can't let you in until we've contacted the Ministry

654
00:33:11,800 --> 00:33:14,040
Speaker 2: of Labor, and we're waiting for that meeting to conclude,

655
00:33:14,320 --> 00:33:16,440
Speaker 2: and then we'll decide what to do. We'll decide whether

656
00:33:16,480 --> 00:33:18,680
Speaker 2: or not you get to go back in. And there's

657
00:33:18,720 --> 00:33:21,160
Speaker 2: like middle aged woman on the megaphone. It's like, all right,

658
00:33:21,200 --> 00:33:23,240
Speaker 2: for now, we're waiting, but when the moment is right,

659
00:33:23,440 --> 00:33:24,520
Speaker 2: we're fucking going in.

660
00:33:25,680 --> 00:33:26,080
Speaker 4: Period.

661
00:33:26,720 --> 00:33:30,040
Speaker 2: By April nineteenth, the's a non ceramics factory blockaded a

662
00:33:30,120 --> 00:33:33,440
Speaker 2: road in solidarity on April twenty first, so like day

663
00:33:33,480 --> 00:33:38,320
Speaker 2: three to quote Naomi Klein quote. Unable to get into

664
00:33:38,320 --> 00:33:41,280
Speaker 2: the factory and complete an outstanding order for three thousand

665
00:33:41,320 --> 00:33:44,960
Speaker 2: pairs of dressed trousers, the workers gathered a huge crowd

666
00:33:45,000 --> 00:33:46,880
Speaker 2: of supporters and announced that it was time to go

667
00:33:46,960 --> 00:33:51,080
Speaker 2: back to work. At five pm, fifty middle aged seamstresses

668
00:33:51,120 --> 00:33:54,880
Speaker 2: and no nonsense haircuts, sensible shoes and blue work smocks

669
00:33:55,240 --> 00:33:58,760
Speaker 2: walked up to the black police fence. Someone pushed, the

670
00:33:58,840 --> 00:34:02,680
Speaker 2: fence fell, and the Brookman women, unarmed and arm in arm,

671
00:34:03,080 --> 00:34:07,520
Speaker 2: slowly walked through, and then the police attacked.

672
00:34:08,400 --> 00:34:12,080
Speaker 5: Oh damn, he said, with sensible haircuts. Such a such

673
00:34:12,080 --> 00:34:17,080
Speaker 5: an interesting note of specificity, I know.

674
00:34:17,200 --> 00:34:20,680
Speaker 2: And it's like I think it's like this like very painting,

675
00:34:20,760 --> 00:34:23,000
Speaker 2: Like look, these aren't the wild eyed protesters, you know.

676
00:34:23,200 --> 00:34:25,040
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I love that.

677
00:34:25,120 --> 00:34:27,600
Speaker 2: It's like we are fighting the cops because we owe

678
00:34:27,880 --> 00:34:30,840
Speaker 2: a client three thousand pairs of pants.

679
00:34:31,560 --> 00:34:35,319
Speaker 5: You know, it just seems again simple and elegant, where

680
00:34:35,320 --> 00:34:38,000
Speaker 5: it's like we just have a we just have orders

681
00:34:38,000 --> 00:34:38,520
Speaker 5: to fulfill.

682
00:34:38,680 --> 00:34:41,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're trying to do like normal ass life here.

683
00:34:42,080 --> 00:34:47,400
Speaker 5: This is normal shit, Like, look the owners left, Yeah,

684
00:34:47,840 --> 00:34:51,640
Speaker 5: we're continuing the business. I don't see what the problem is.

685
00:34:51,760 --> 00:34:54,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, we like living in an economy. Do you like

686
00:34:54,080 --> 00:34:55,200
Speaker 2: living in an economy?

687
00:34:56,040 --> 00:34:57,400
Speaker 5: You remember when you went to the bank and they

688
00:34:57,440 --> 00:34:59,160
Speaker 5: wouldn't open and you couldn't get your money out?

689
00:34:59,280 --> 00:34:59,480
Speaker 2: Yeah?

690
00:35:00,000 --> 00:35:00,400
Speaker 4: Remember that.

691
00:35:00,480 --> 00:35:02,560
Speaker 2: Imagine if we went to the store you couldn't buy pants,

692
00:35:03,120 --> 00:35:03,560
Speaker 2: remember that?

693
00:35:03,880 --> 00:35:04,360
Speaker 6: Yeah?

694
00:35:04,600 --> 00:35:07,719
Speaker 4: Yeah, I bet you I sold dimp pts you wear it?

695
00:35:07,800 --> 00:35:08,040
Speaker 5: Yeah?

696
00:35:08,200 --> 00:35:12,360
Speaker 2: Fuck yeah. And so the police attacked the demonstrators with

697
00:35:12,400 --> 00:35:15,280
Speaker 2: water cannons, tear gas, rubber bullets, and I think eventually

698
00:35:15,320 --> 00:35:19,200
Speaker 2: live ammunition. Twenty people were wounded and one hundred people

699
00:35:19,239 --> 00:35:24,280
Speaker 2: were arrested. And meanwhile, during all this shit, like April

700
00:35:24,520 --> 00:35:28,080
Speaker 2: two thousand and three, there's a presidential election going on,

701
00:35:29,120 --> 00:35:31,759
Speaker 2: and this is like the we swear it'll stick this

702
00:35:31,800 --> 00:35:32,560
Speaker 2: time election.

703
00:35:32,640 --> 00:35:34,520
Speaker 4: I think, yeah, yeah, yeah, I was like, there's forty

704
00:35:34,560 --> 00:35:35,200
Speaker 4: fifth election.

705
00:35:35,440 --> 00:35:38,520
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think a lot of those previous presidents were selected,

706
00:35:38,560 --> 00:35:41,640
Speaker 2: not elected. I think when you have five presidents in

707
00:35:41,680 --> 00:35:42,480
Speaker 2: three weeks.

708
00:35:42,280 --> 00:35:44,840
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, no somebody, yeah I chose The.

709
00:35:45,520 --> 00:35:48,680
Speaker 2: Four erunners of this presidential election is carlos Menhim, the

710
00:35:48,680 --> 00:35:51,000
Speaker 2: guy who sold the country out in the first place.

711
00:35:51,400 --> 00:35:55,120
Speaker 2: And this guy named Nestra Kirscher, who he's sort of

712
00:35:55,120 --> 00:35:58,840
Speaker 2: a He's a lackluster center left guy who promises change

713
00:35:58,840 --> 00:36:02,800
Speaker 2: but is making deals with the eye, so it's unfamiliar

714
00:36:02,880 --> 00:36:03,720
Speaker 2: to the American Aunty.

715
00:36:04,880 --> 00:36:06,920
Speaker 4: He is a large cheese pizza.

716
00:36:07,040 --> 00:36:12,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, he probably likes ice cream. Yeah in malarkey, yeah

717
00:36:13,400 --> 00:36:17,760
Speaker 2: may Yeah, No one's gonna be bamboozled on his watch. Nope,

718
00:36:19,080 --> 00:36:24,000
Speaker 2: Menim starts winning initially, After all, the country was stronger

719
00:36:24,080 --> 00:36:26,320
Speaker 2: under him than it was currently, even though he's the

720
00:36:26,360 --> 00:36:28,080
Speaker 2: one who made it fall apart. But there's still like

721
00:36:28,440 --> 00:36:29,719
Speaker 2: this golden shine too.

722
00:36:30,600 --> 00:36:31,400
Speaker 4: Yeah.

723
00:36:31,440 --> 00:36:34,399
Speaker 2: This man, God, the comparisons are going to keep going.

724
00:36:34,640 --> 00:36:39,360
Speaker 2: Compared himself to Jesus openly during his campaigning Lord and

725
00:36:39,440 --> 00:36:41,959
Speaker 2: his billboards are like, I will bring back the rule

726
00:36:42,000 --> 00:36:47,800
Speaker 2: of law. During the first round of elections with candidates

727
00:36:47,840 --> 00:36:51,680
Speaker 2: from every party, he actually wins, but it goes to

728
00:36:51,719 --> 00:36:54,240
Speaker 2: a second round with only the top two candidates because

729
00:36:54,280 --> 00:36:56,239
Speaker 2: every other country in the world has figured out a

730
00:36:56,239 --> 00:36:57,960
Speaker 2: better way to do democracy than the US.

731
00:36:58,520 --> 00:37:02,840
Speaker 5: Everyone. Yeah, we were like the iPhone one. Yeah, democracies

732
00:37:02,920 --> 00:37:05,239
Speaker 5: and we never upgraded. We swear we still have the

733
00:37:05,239 --> 00:37:05,840
Speaker 5: best version.

734
00:37:06,040 --> 00:37:09,560
Speaker 2: No, totally because yeah, like the modern the modern republics

735
00:37:09,640 --> 00:37:11,920
Speaker 2: around the world like mostly modeled themselves after US, but

736
00:37:11,960 --> 00:37:13,239
Speaker 2: figured out a better way to do it.

737
00:37:13,440 --> 00:37:14,440
Speaker 4: Yeah, they all upgraded.

738
00:37:14,680 --> 00:37:17,799
Speaker 2: Yeah, like a multi party system that then goes to

739
00:37:17,880 --> 00:37:23,160
Speaker 2: run off. Yeah, and you know, and so menhim. He

740
00:37:23,280 --> 00:37:26,080
Speaker 2: looks at the odds of the second election and he's

741
00:37:26,160 --> 00:37:29,680
Speaker 2: chicken shit. He just fucking drops out. He's like, I

742
00:37:29,719 --> 00:37:32,040
Speaker 2: don't want to lose. That be embarrassing or whatever. The fuck.

743
00:37:32,080 --> 00:37:34,319
Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't know his motivation. Yeah, so

744
00:37:34,640 --> 00:37:37,480
Speaker 2: just like Jesus. He no, no, he really has nothing

745
00:37:37,480 --> 00:37:40,279
Speaker 2: to like Jesus at all. He compared himself to Jesus

746
00:37:40,320 --> 00:37:41,399
Speaker 2: earlier and I'm pointing out these.

747
00:37:41,760 --> 00:37:45,239
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, I don't know, brother Jesus actually got up

748
00:37:45,239 --> 00:37:46,480
Speaker 5: on that cross fam Yeah.

749
00:37:46,560 --> 00:37:49,799
Speaker 2: Yeah, like that's a that's a love the band, hate

750
00:37:49,840 --> 00:37:53,240
Speaker 2: the fans kind of thing for me. Yeah. Absolutely, yeah,

751
00:37:53,800 --> 00:37:57,920
Speaker 2: and not here I hate the band and the fans

752
00:37:58,320 --> 00:38:00,000
Speaker 2: with many this is different.

753
00:38:00,320 --> 00:38:00,840
Speaker 6: Yeah.

754
00:38:00,880 --> 00:38:04,239
Speaker 2: So Kertcher wins and he like doesn't make things way worse,

755
00:38:04,280 --> 00:38:06,680
Speaker 2: and he doesn't make things way better. He's he's the

756
00:38:06,719 --> 00:38:09,840
Speaker 2: fucking ratchet mechanism of representative democracy. The right pulls to

757
00:38:09,880 --> 00:38:12,080
Speaker 2: the right and then the center keeps it from going

758
00:38:12,120 --> 00:38:18,120
Speaker 2: to the left. He's fine whatever, Yeah, But soon enough

759
00:38:18,840 --> 00:38:23,640
Speaker 2: Brookman won in court and its workers were given the factory. Rather,

760
00:38:24,239 --> 00:38:26,400
Speaker 2: they were given the equipment of the factory, but the

761
00:38:26,440 --> 00:38:30,160
Speaker 2: building itself remained in state hands as of twenty ten,

762
00:38:30,239 --> 00:38:34,000
Speaker 2: as the last article I found specifically on the Brookman factory, okay,

763
00:38:34,440 --> 00:38:36,560
Speaker 2: leaving them at least at that point of some percrity,

764
00:38:36,760 --> 00:38:39,359
Speaker 2: but they are still there, is there?

765
00:38:39,400 --> 00:38:40,040
Speaker 4: So okay?

766
00:38:40,880 --> 00:38:42,840
Speaker 2: Even more than most topics of what I've covered on

767
00:38:42,880 --> 00:38:45,800
Speaker 2: this show, most of the books and documentaries and articles

768
00:38:45,840 --> 00:38:47,920
Speaker 2: about all this were written like during the moment, and

769
00:38:48,000 --> 00:38:50,680
Speaker 2: the retrospective pieces are much less in depth. So like

770
00:38:50,680 --> 00:38:52,319
Speaker 2: when you read the book about this, it came out

771
00:38:52,320 --> 00:38:53,759
Speaker 2: in two thousand and four, with an update in two

772
00:38:53,760 --> 00:38:54,359
Speaker 2: thousand and eight.

773
00:38:54,520 --> 00:38:56,279
Speaker 4: You know word Soday was there.

774
00:38:56,520 --> 00:38:59,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, Actually that's that's who was writing the books.

775
00:38:59,760 --> 00:39:02,839
Speaker 2: Is the you who were there. And if you want

776
00:39:02,840 --> 00:39:09,160
Speaker 2: to be there, you can be at wherever the next

777
00:39:09,200 --> 00:39:23,080
Speaker 2: ad tells you to go, and we're back. So after

778
00:39:23,120 --> 00:39:26,160
Speaker 2: the crisis of two thousand and one, most of the

779
00:39:26,200 --> 00:39:29,080
Speaker 2: forms of social organizing, the street protests and the assemblies,

780
00:39:29,560 --> 00:39:32,600
Speaker 2: most of them fade away or absorbed into existing structures.

781
00:39:32,600 --> 00:39:37,120
Speaker 2: They existed because everything was in chaos and crisis. The

782
00:39:37,160 --> 00:39:43,480
Speaker 2: co ops, however, overall, remain but without the larger social

783
00:39:43,480 --> 00:39:46,399
Speaker 2: movement for them to tie into. Look, I think they're

784
00:39:46,440 --> 00:39:49,200
Speaker 2: fucking amazing and I want them to continue to exist,

785
00:39:49,400 --> 00:39:52,239
Speaker 2: but they no longer represent a break from the old

786
00:39:52,360 --> 00:39:55,799
Speaker 2: order so completely. This is a common It's this thing

787
00:39:55,840 --> 00:39:57,600
Speaker 2: that comes up in like when people talk about co ops,

788
00:39:57,600 --> 00:39:59,040
Speaker 2: We're like, co ops are the answer, and you're like,

789
00:39:59,080 --> 00:40:03,279
Speaker 2: co ops are part of the answer. Yeah, but if

790
00:40:03,520 --> 00:40:06,200
Speaker 2: when co ops are tied into a larger struggle, they're

791
00:40:06,239 --> 00:40:09,440
Speaker 2: an amazing source of power or counterpower, if you want

792
00:40:09,440 --> 00:40:12,359
Speaker 2: to use jargon that I have to understand. When they're

793
00:40:12,360 --> 00:40:16,520
Speaker 2: not tied into these larger movements, they they exist within capitalism,

794
00:40:16,719 --> 00:40:19,560
Speaker 2: they compete within They're doing what they can.

795
00:40:19,600 --> 00:40:23,279
Speaker 4: It's just one of many options inside of the same system.

796
00:40:23,360 --> 00:40:26,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, which is I mean familiar to all of us

797
00:40:26,520 --> 00:40:28,520
Speaker 2: who run small businesses, And I mean I'm actually I

798
00:40:28,560 --> 00:40:30,720
Speaker 2: actually do both. I'm part of a worker cooperative publisher,

799
00:40:30,719 --> 00:40:32,600
Speaker 2: but I also, like, for years and years ran my

800
00:40:32,640 --> 00:40:35,799
Speaker 2: own small business, making and selling bullshit on Etsy and

801
00:40:35,840 --> 00:40:39,000
Speaker 2: things like that. It's like I don't want to have

802
00:40:39,000 --> 00:40:40,040
Speaker 2: a boss, and I want to survive.

803
00:40:41,040 --> 00:40:44,960
Speaker 5: That's listen, it's a salt water ocean, man. Yeah, you

804
00:40:45,120 --> 00:40:45,960
Speaker 5: just gotta swim.

805
00:40:46,040 --> 00:40:47,920
Speaker 4: Yeah.

806
00:40:48,160 --> 00:40:52,160
Speaker 2: But viewed correctly, even when they're not currently tied into

807
00:40:52,160 --> 00:40:55,920
Speaker 2: a larger struggle, they can be seeds beneath the snow,

808
00:40:56,120 --> 00:40:58,760
Speaker 2: waiting to germinate the next time that the spring comes around.

809
00:40:58,960 --> 00:41:01,879
Speaker 2: That's what I hope for them and see in them,

810
00:41:02,280 --> 00:41:06,200
Speaker 2: you know, very poetic. Well, I got the idea of

811
00:41:06,200 --> 00:41:11,640
Speaker 2: them being seeds partly from seed comments. The idea of

812
00:41:11,719 --> 00:41:15,600
Speaker 2: cooperativism spread. The idea of cooperatism has been around forever.

813
00:41:15,680 --> 00:41:18,040
Speaker 2: It's like stronger in every country that except the US.

814
00:41:18,600 --> 00:41:21,040
Speaker 2: You wanted to do a like complicated dive. Mandragon is

815
00:41:21,080 --> 00:41:23,759
Speaker 2: the largest cooperative corporation in the world, and it's in

816
00:41:23,800 --> 00:41:26,880
Speaker 2: the Bosque region of Spain, and it like is a

817
00:41:27,000 --> 00:41:30,400
Speaker 2: huge trunk of the Bosque economy. But it also like

818
00:41:31,200 --> 00:41:34,080
Speaker 2: started making more compromises during the neoliberal era. And like,

819
00:41:34,360 --> 00:41:36,239
Speaker 2: of course, you know, like like a lot of these

820
00:41:36,239 --> 00:41:39,000
Speaker 2: co ops, even in even these occupied factories, a lot

821
00:41:39,000 --> 00:41:40,680
Speaker 2: of them do like a one to one pay thing

822
00:41:40,719 --> 00:41:43,000
Speaker 2: where everyone gets the exact same pay, and then other

823
00:41:43,040 --> 00:41:44,960
Speaker 2: ones that I actually think are still just as radical.

824
00:41:45,120 --> 00:41:49,000
Speaker 2: Well sometimes have like some pay discrepancy, like hey, yeah,

825
00:41:49,080 --> 00:41:50,799
Speaker 2: your first year, you don't make as much money as

826
00:41:50,840 --> 00:41:54,360
Speaker 2: the person who's been your twenty years, like whatever, you know, yeah,

827
00:41:54,400 --> 00:41:57,279
Speaker 2: and then you get to like I think Mandragon has

828
00:41:57,320 --> 00:42:00,480
Speaker 2: like a six to one ratio, and there's like interviews

829
00:42:00,520 --> 00:42:03,520
Speaker 2: with the workers who are like, when they find out

830
00:42:03,600 --> 00:42:05,480
Speaker 2: how bad it is everywhere else, they were like, man,

831
00:42:05,520 --> 00:42:07,359
Speaker 2: I thought six to one was kind of fucked up.

832
00:42:07,719 --> 00:42:11,920
Speaker 2: But in the like I think the average CEO to

833
00:42:12,200 --> 00:42:14,880
Speaker 2: median salary of an employee, not lowest salary of a

834
00:42:15,080 --> 00:42:17,480
Speaker 2: employee in the US, it's like two hundred and seventy

835
00:42:17,520 --> 00:42:20,680
Speaker 2: to one or something like that. Good God, Like.

836
00:42:22,200 --> 00:42:24,680
Speaker 4: I don't think he always says, man America, America is

837
00:42:24,719 --> 00:42:25,600
Speaker 4: a scam, y'all.

838
00:42:25,960 --> 00:42:30,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it really is. It really founded by grifters.

839
00:42:31,760 --> 00:42:32,640
Speaker 4: What a hustle?

840
00:42:33,080 --> 00:42:39,319
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, But cooperativism is spreading. Some folks went down

841
00:42:39,360 --> 00:42:42,400
Speaker 2: to learn in what was going on in Argentina, and

842
00:42:42,440 --> 00:42:44,080
Speaker 2: they came back to the US and they started an

843
00:42:44,160 --> 00:42:48,719
Speaker 2: organization called the Working World, and it started to put

844
00:42:48,760 --> 00:42:53,000
Speaker 2: investment capital non extractively into the hands of these recovered businesses.

845
00:42:53,000 --> 00:42:55,759
Speaker 2: In Argentina is what it first started to do. It's

846
00:42:55,760 --> 00:42:59,239
Speaker 2: sort of a reverse of the globalization process. You get

847
00:42:59,280 --> 00:43:02,240
Speaker 2: money from the well far country into the less wealthy

848
00:43:02,239 --> 00:43:05,560
Speaker 2: country and reverse the extractive process. But in this way

849
00:43:05,600 --> 00:43:10,600
Speaker 2: that like encourages growth instead of I mean, don't get

850
00:43:10,640 --> 00:43:13,560
Speaker 2: me wrong, I think that like the US pain reparations

851
00:43:13,560 --> 00:43:15,799
Speaker 2: still the part countries of the world that it's fucked over.

852
00:43:15,800 --> 00:43:19,480
Speaker 2: It makes total sense to me. But this way that

853
00:43:19,560 --> 00:43:24,560
Speaker 2: like helps grow an economy, you know, very specifically indirectly.

854
00:43:25,239 --> 00:43:27,759
Speaker 5: So when you say non extractively, meaning like they're not

855
00:43:27,840 --> 00:43:30,359
Speaker 5: going to get no return on that investment, Like.

856
00:43:30,320 --> 00:43:33,360
Speaker 2: Okay, so here's it's kind of interesting. There is a

857
00:43:33,400 --> 00:43:36,880
Speaker 2: return on this investment, but the return on investment that

858
00:43:36,920 --> 00:43:40,680
Speaker 2: they ask for only can come from the profits generated

859
00:43:40,760 --> 00:43:44,120
Speaker 2: from the capital put in. So it's like if you

860
00:43:44,239 --> 00:43:46,279
Speaker 2: come to see Commons and you get alone because see

861
00:43:46,280 --> 00:43:48,799
Speaker 2: Common is now the larger US version of this, right, yeah,

862
00:43:49,000 --> 00:43:50,799
Speaker 2: or is not larger, but it's the version of the US.

863
00:43:51,280 --> 00:43:54,279
Speaker 2: You come to see comments for a loan, you don't

864
00:43:54,280 --> 00:43:58,000
Speaker 2: put your house up at all. Yeah, if see Commons

865
00:43:58,080 --> 00:44:01,680
Speaker 2: buys your restaurant equipment, the worst thing that can happen

866
00:44:01,719 --> 00:44:04,080
Speaker 2: and I think hasn't happened in the history of c commons,

867
00:44:04,120 --> 00:44:08,719
Speaker 2: but I'm not sure. Is that that restaurant equipment is

868
00:44:08,760 --> 00:44:12,640
Speaker 2: sold as the collateral for the loan. So no individual

869
00:44:12,680 --> 00:44:16,880
Speaker 2: person loses any money through this process. You cannot end

870
00:44:16,960 --> 00:44:19,799
Speaker 2: up worse off than you started financially by working with

871
00:44:19,800 --> 00:44:23,120
Speaker 2: a non extractive loan. They also don't look at your

872
00:44:23,600 --> 00:44:28,320
Speaker 2: credit record or any of that. Instead, they're locally embedded,

873
00:44:28,680 --> 00:44:30,799
Speaker 2: so they know who's a good loan because they know

874
00:44:30,840 --> 00:44:34,560
Speaker 2: that that person's part of a community. Right yeah, And

875
00:44:34,640 --> 00:44:38,799
Speaker 2: so they centralize getting the money and decentralize spreading the

876
00:44:38,840 --> 00:44:40,960
Speaker 2: money out. It's really interesting. And then the money that

877
00:44:40,960 --> 00:44:46,080
Speaker 2: people pay back goes then into the commons to then

878
00:44:46,160 --> 00:44:49,880
Speaker 2: spread out to other places, so like real people. So

879
00:44:49,920 --> 00:44:52,400
Speaker 2: it's instead of and so sometimes companies will be a

880
00:44:52,400 --> 00:44:54,080
Speaker 2: little bit confused. They'd be like, well, I want a grant,

881
00:44:54,120 --> 00:44:56,480
Speaker 2: and we'd be like, well, we don't do grants, you know,

882
00:44:56,640 --> 00:45:00,239
Speaker 2: we do loans. When you pay back your loan, the

883
00:45:00,800 --> 00:45:03,960
Speaker 2: money the interest on that loan, which is like negotiated

884
00:45:04,000 --> 00:45:07,759
Speaker 2: with everyone all along, pays for the ability to then

885
00:45:08,080 --> 00:45:10,239
Speaker 2: go around and turn and do do it for someone else.

886
00:45:10,680 --> 00:45:12,920
Speaker 2: And so see Commas does all this shit, like like

887
00:45:12,960 --> 00:45:15,600
Speaker 2: one of their groups is called Poda Emma, just power Emma.

888
00:45:15,680 --> 00:45:18,000
Speaker 2: Emma's a neighborhood in Ashville, North Carolina, which is one

889
00:45:18,040 --> 00:45:20,040
Speaker 2: of the fastest gentrifying cities in the country.

890
00:45:20,600 --> 00:45:21,040
Speaker 4: Bonkers.

891
00:45:21,160 --> 00:45:25,120
Speaker 2: Yeah and yeah, and the LATINX community that lives there

892
00:45:25,160 --> 00:45:29,520
Speaker 2: is pretty fucking fucked by this gentrification. So Poter Emma

893
00:45:29,600 --> 00:45:34,520
Speaker 2: is is you know, run by them and buys trailer

894
00:45:34,560 --> 00:45:39,280
Speaker 2: parks and puts them into cooperative ownership so that everyone

895
00:45:39,280 --> 00:45:41,719
Speaker 2: who lives there now is part of a housing cooperative

896
00:45:41,960 --> 00:45:47,680
Speaker 2: and can't lose their land, you know, can't be gentrified out. Yeah,

897
00:45:47,760 --> 00:45:49,640
Speaker 2: I went totally off script here. Actually, what I did

898
00:45:49,680 --> 00:45:51,399
Speaker 2: is I went onto a different script. I went onto

899
00:45:51,400 --> 00:45:53,040
Speaker 2: the script that was my job for two years, which

900
00:45:53,080 --> 00:45:54,800
Speaker 2: is explained comments to people.

901
00:45:55,080 --> 00:45:59,000
Speaker 5: Yeah, but no, that's that's important because like it's it's

902
00:45:59,480 --> 00:46:03,040
Speaker 5: it's brings the history you're talking about too now, and

903
00:46:03,120 --> 00:46:06,680
Speaker 5: like that if you drill down, if you have the

904
00:46:06,719 --> 00:46:10,359
Speaker 5: will and the desire to make something work, you can.

905
00:46:10,719 --> 00:46:14,960
Speaker 4: Yeah. And that's to me one the beauty of your

906
00:46:14,960 --> 00:46:15,520
Speaker 4: whole show.

907
00:46:15,640 --> 00:46:18,439
Speaker 5: And to like what you're explaining is like and even

908
00:46:18,440 --> 00:46:20,920
Speaker 5: this episode, it's like dude, if you got the will, yeah,

909
00:46:21,080 --> 00:46:26,799
Speaker 5: you can make it work. And like, newsflash, you could

910
00:46:26,920 --> 00:46:27,480
Speaker 5: make money.

911
00:46:27,960 --> 00:46:28,360
Speaker 2: Yeah.

912
00:46:28,400 --> 00:46:31,120
Speaker 5: Like that's and that's what I like. I'm hoping, Yeah,

913
00:46:31,120 --> 00:46:33,840
Speaker 5: I'm hoping listeners is hearing that these factories are profitable.

914
00:46:34,080 --> 00:46:36,799
Speaker 4: They're making they are making money. What do you like

915
00:46:37,960 --> 00:46:39,520
Speaker 4: they making money y'all? Yeah.

916
00:46:40,080 --> 00:46:42,680
Speaker 2: One of the like, one of the people that I

917
00:46:42,719 --> 00:46:46,879
Speaker 2: worked with, this guy, Ed Whitfield, who like there's a

918
00:46:46,880 --> 00:46:49,439
Speaker 2: photo of him from nineteen sixty nine as an armed

919
00:46:49,480 --> 00:46:51,640
Speaker 2: black man coming out of a Stanford building that he

920
00:46:51,680 --> 00:46:54,000
Speaker 2: had just occupied, you know, as part of a student

921
00:46:54,000 --> 00:46:57,759
Speaker 2: occupation in the sixties or whatever. Changed my thinking about

922
00:46:57,760 --> 00:47:02,359
Speaker 2: economics more than anyone else that I've ever met. When,

923
00:47:02,560 --> 00:47:05,279
Speaker 2: through his work with the Southern Reparations Loan Fund, which

924
00:47:05,280 --> 00:47:07,960
Speaker 2: is now part of the Commons Network, he talks about

925
00:47:08,000 --> 00:47:12,359
Speaker 2: how he's like, no, we we want as a as

926
00:47:12,360 --> 00:47:14,520
Speaker 2: a leftist, I don't know exactly what ideology he would

927
00:47:14,520 --> 00:47:19,200
Speaker 2: identify with as a leftist, we want profitable businesses in

928
00:47:19,239 --> 00:47:22,480
Speaker 2: these black communities that are not. This is how we

929
00:47:22,520 --> 00:47:26,200
Speaker 2: reverse the extractive process that white capitalism has done to us,

930
00:47:26,560 --> 00:47:30,120
Speaker 2: is by like, because we make money and then they

931
00:47:30,160 --> 00:47:31,040
Speaker 2: take it from us.

932
00:47:31,360 --> 00:47:32,240
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's what happens.

933
00:47:32,320 --> 00:47:34,879
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we just don't let them take it from us,

934
00:47:35,280 --> 00:47:39,920
Speaker 2: you know, And it's just like it really it really

935
00:47:39,960 --> 00:47:42,080
Speaker 2: blew my mind. Anyone who wants you should He has

936
00:47:42,120 --> 00:47:43,680
Speaker 2: a couple of videos up on YouTube, but he's on

937
00:47:43,680 --> 00:47:45,359
Speaker 2: Panels or something talking about this shit, and he's just

938
00:47:45,360 --> 00:47:50,759
Speaker 2: this like fucking brilliant economic thinker. Anyway, and if you're

939
00:47:50,800 --> 00:47:54,239
Speaker 2: listening and misworking with you. Sometimes I don't know if

940
00:47:54,239 --> 00:47:56,520
Speaker 2: anyone from my old job is going to listen to this.

941
00:47:56,520 --> 00:48:00,400
Speaker 5: This is a big talk around like killing Mike and

942
00:48:00,480 --> 00:48:04,600
Speaker 5: jay Z them being like very much capitalists, you know

943
00:48:04,640 --> 00:48:07,759
Speaker 5: what I'm saying in a lot of ways, but you know,

944
00:48:08,680 --> 00:48:13,120
Speaker 5: black capitalism and like even the argument that like for

945
00:48:13,200 --> 00:48:16,719
Speaker 5: a time drug money was our VC, Like you know

946
00:48:16,760 --> 00:48:18,839
Speaker 5: what I'm saying, And it's like this is this is

947
00:48:19,000 --> 00:48:22,080
Speaker 5: generated by us. And now, of course obviously that's nothing

948
00:48:22,080 --> 00:48:22,960
Speaker 5: to be proud.

949
00:48:22,680 --> 00:48:23,439
Speaker 4: Of, Yo'm saying.

950
00:48:23,520 --> 00:48:27,160
Speaker 5: But for the example of what you're saying is like, no,

951
00:48:27,200 --> 00:48:32,920
Speaker 5: we generated funds right invested in ourselves that way, like

952
00:48:32,960 --> 00:48:35,080
Speaker 5: you said, we don't owe to white people like we

953
00:48:35,160 --> 00:48:38,200
Speaker 5: did this ourselves. The money stays here and a lot

954
00:48:38,280 --> 00:48:41,600
Speaker 5: of those guys think to themselves, Well, we clean our

955
00:48:41,840 --> 00:48:46,480
Speaker 5: conscious for how we raise the VC by investing in

956
00:48:46,800 --> 00:48:50,680
Speaker 5: neighborhoods and communities and businesses within our neighborhood, even though

957
00:48:50,719 --> 00:48:53,400
Speaker 5: it was built off drug anyway, all that to say

958
00:48:54,440 --> 00:48:56,640
Speaker 5: that is one of their things about black banks and

959
00:48:56,640 --> 00:49:00,480
Speaker 5: black businesses and then and that's being critique because it's like, yeah,

960
00:49:00,520 --> 00:49:04,279
Speaker 5: mean still you know, but to your point, Yeah, I

961
00:49:04,360 --> 00:49:08,120
Speaker 5: mean I I kind of tend to fall in the

962
00:49:08,120 --> 00:49:11,319
Speaker 5: position that you you articulated, which is like yeah, like

963
00:49:11,360 --> 00:49:14,640
Speaker 5: you I mean, I'm on, I'm on this spinning rock.

964
00:49:14,760 --> 00:49:16,960
Speaker 5: You know what I'm saying, Like it's you can't. You

965
00:49:17,000 --> 00:49:20,600
Speaker 5: can't unplug, Like it's like it's not possible, so you can't.

966
00:49:20,640 --> 00:49:24,000
Speaker 5: I have to try to do this in the less

967
00:49:24,080 --> 00:49:25,720
Speaker 5: extractive way as possible.

968
00:49:26,040 --> 00:49:30,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so this model, like it's so interesting to

969
00:49:30,239 --> 00:49:32,320
Speaker 2: me because this model, to me in the US seems

970
00:49:32,320 --> 00:49:35,480
Speaker 2: to be like a synchronization of coming from these occupied

971
00:49:35,480 --> 00:49:38,160
Speaker 2: factories in Argentina and the methods that they developed a

972
00:49:38,280 --> 00:49:41,120
Speaker 2: financing and then a lot of stuff specifically coming out

973
00:49:41,120 --> 00:49:43,600
Speaker 2: of like a Southern reparation loan fund and like other

974
00:49:44,440 --> 00:49:49,279
Speaker 2: black anti capitalist market ways of thinking. And I'm using

975
00:49:49,320 --> 00:49:52,000
Speaker 2: words that I'm not entirely certain that everyone involved would

976
00:49:52,080 --> 00:49:56,839
Speaker 2: use I want to describe it this way, but it's

977
00:49:57,120 --> 00:49:59,239
Speaker 2: it's real fucking interesting to me about how people are

978
00:49:59,239 --> 00:50:03,719
Speaker 2: trying to work about. And they started in the US. Well,

979
00:50:03,719 --> 00:50:05,600
Speaker 2: they started in Argentina, and then they moved to Nicaragua,

980
00:50:05,760 --> 00:50:08,320
Speaker 2: and then they came to the US and they started

981
00:50:08,960 --> 00:50:11,120
Speaker 2: with a factory that had been abandoned by its owner.

982
00:50:11,160 --> 00:50:13,640
Speaker 2: So this exact thing that has happened in Argentina has

983
00:50:13,680 --> 00:50:17,400
Speaker 2: happened in the US in the same way. Republic Windows

984
00:50:17,400 --> 00:50:19,719
Speaker 2: and Doors in Chicago shut down in two thousand and

985
00:50:19,719 --> 00:50:23,840
Speaker 2: eight during our collapse of our economy. Everyone was fired

986
00:50:23,840 --> 00:50:27,080
Speaker 2: without being paid the money they were owed, both backpayan severance.

987
00:50:27,960 --> 00:50:31,600
Speaker 2: So the workers occupied the factory and they won in courts,

988
00:50:31,640 --> 00:50:33,440
Speaker 2: big social movement around it, and they won what they

989
00:50:33,440 --> 00:50:35,480
Speaker 2: were owed. They didn't get the factory, but they won

990
00:50:35,520 --> 00:50:38,399
Speaker 2: what they were owed. But then the people who bought

991
00:50:38,440 --> 00:50:41,080
Speaker 2: the factory had like a shit business plan and it

992
00:50:41,120 --> 00:50:44,240
Speaker 2: didn't work out. So the workers of the factory teamed

993
00:50:44,320 --> 00:50:47,120
Speaker 2: up with the United Electrical Workers Union, the Working World

994
00:50:47,160 --> 00:50:49,680
Speaker 2: the organization was just talking about, and the Center for

995
00:50:49,719 --> 00:50:53,760
Speaker 2: Workplace Democracy, and they bought the factory from its owners.

996
00:50:54,239 --> 00:50:58,480
Speaker 2: It's now called New Era Windows Cooperative. It is financially successful.

997
00:50:58,760 --> 00:51:01,680
Speaker 2: It grows and expands every year. I know this intimately

998
00:51:01,760 --> 00:51:04,440
Speaker 2: because I my last job was to write grants that

999
00:51:04,600 --> 00:51:07,279
Speaker 2: included spreadsheets and graphs of all the successes of all

1000
00:51:07,280 --> 00:51:11,719
Speaker 2: the worker cooperatives. Wow. And I've been pondering more and

1001
00:51:11,760 --> 00:51:13,440
Speaker 2: more about how to make sure the stories they tell

1002
00:51:13,440 --> 00:51:15,239
Speaker 2: in the show tie into things that are happening now

1003
00:51:15,280 --> 00:51:16,879
Speaker 2: so people don't see it as like, oh, it's history,

1004
00:51:16,880 --> 00:51:19,160
Speaker 2: it's dead and gone or whatever. And this one's easy

1005
00:51:19,200 --> 00:51:22,440
Speaker 2: because the through line's so direct. The working world realizing

1006
00:51:22,480 --> 00:51:26,720
Speaker 2: that non extractive finance should be locally directed, decided instead

1007
00:51:26,760 --> 00:51:29,759
Speaker 2: of like growing to conquer the world, it federated into

1008
00:51:29,760 --> 00:51:33,319
Speaker 2: a decentralized cooperative of these non extractive loan funds. They're

1009
00:51:33,320 --> 00:51:36,480
Speaker 2: about thirty five of them currently around the country, and

1010
00:51:36,520 --> 00:51:39,120
Speaker 2: they work together under the name Seed Commons. But they

1011
00:51:39,160 --> 00:51:42,439
Speaker 2: all have their own total unique identities and things like that,

1012
00:51:42,480 --> 00:51:46,120
Speaker 2: like Poe Deer Emma is not the same as Yeah

1013
00:51:46,840 --> 00:51:50,799
Speaker 2: Cooperation New Orleans or anything like that idea, And the

1014
00:51:50,880 --> 00:51:53,600
Speaker 2: leadership comes from the actual communities. The money is going

1015
00:51:53,640 --> 00:51:57,880
Speaker 2: into reversing the extractive process. So it's not just helping

1016
00:51:57,920 --> 00:52:03,200
Speaker 2: communities enrich themselves. It's literally just coordinating between various communities

1017
00:52:03,200 --> 00:52:04,680
Speaker 2: that are all enriching themselves.

1018
00:52:05,440 --> 00:52:05,760
Speaker 4: Wow.

1019
00:52:06,080 --> 00:52:09,240
Speaker 2: And I quit my job with Seed Comments to focus

1020
00:52:09,239 --> 00:52:11,080
Speaker 2: on cool people who did cool stuff, and so I

1021
00:52:11,120 --> 00:52:14,520
Speaker 2: constantly challenged myself to do as much good with the

1022
00:52:14,560 --> 00:52:16,879
Speaker 2: show as I was able to writing grants for this.

1023
00:52:17,000 --> 00:52:20,240
Speaker 2: That's dope because I consider See Comments to be genuinely

1024
00:52:20,280 --> 00:52:23,560
Speaker 2: one of the most transformative projects, uh in the current

1025
00:52:23,800 --> 00:52:25,000
Speaker 2: modern economic world.

1026
00:52:25,440 --> 00:52:31,960
Speaker 5: So it's really encouraging to hear someone gush about a

1027
00:52:32,040 --> 00:52:34,719
Speaker 5: financial institution, you.

1028
00:52:34,719 --> 00:52:38,120
Speaker 4: Know, like when when the last time you heard that?

1029
00:52:38,200 --> 00:52:44,400
Speaker 5: Like yeah, and Magpias, like I I have the exact.

1030
00:52:44,040 --> 00:52:47,240
Speaker 4: Opposite feeling I have at the end of a Bastard's episode.

1031
00:52:47,800 --> 00:52:49,880
Speaker 2: It's all great succeeding.

1032
00:52:50,640 --> 00:52:54,160
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's the show. We did it, We did the concept.

1033
00:52:55,120 --> 00:52:59,880
Speaker 5: Yeah, yes, exactly, Yeah, you know, mission mission accomplished. And

1034
00:53:00,200 --> 00:53:03,319
Speaker 5: what I love about this one is that it's not

1035
00:53:03,480 --> 00:53:08,839
Speaker 5: about a cool person. Yeah you know what I mean,

1036
00:53:09,040 --> 00:53:13,920
Speaker 5: like this hero character. This is about a bunch of

1037
00:53:13,960 --> 00:53:19,440
Speaker 5: people who don't need their names on T shirts that

1038
00:53:19,480 --> 00:53:24,040
Speaker 5: are like, we got bigger stuff to do. Total, that's

1039
00:53:24,719 --> 00:53:31,399
Speaker 5: another thing America could learn. Yeah, wow, how.

1040
00:53:31,320 --> 00:53:33,359
Speaker 4: Many of those factories are still owned? None of them?

1041
00:53:33,400 --> 00:53:33,840
Speaker 4: You said?

1042
00:53:34,400 --> 00:53:36,120
Speaker 2: No, So a lot of them are still cooperative, A

1043
00:53:36,120 --> 00:53:38,560
Speaker 2: lot of them still I think hundreds of them. But

1044
00:53:38,600 --> 00:53:41,879
Speaker 2: I'm not sure. I like, I really struggled. Like even

1045
00:53:41,880 --> 00:53:43,600
Speaker 2: the piece that I found, like following up on the

1046
00:53:43,640 --> 00:53:46,920
Speaker 2: old cooperatives was like from like twenty ten, you know,

1047
00:53:47,280 --> 00:53:50,880
Speaker 2: because the media cycle sucks and it's like recent enough

1048
00:53:50,960 --> 00:53:53,239
Speaker 2: that it's like most of the stuff I cover, I'm

1049
00:53:53,239 --> 00:53:56,000
Speaker 2: reading history books about where is this case, I'm reading

1050
00:53:57,200 --> 00:54:00,239
Speaker 2: current event books from twenty years ago about you know.

1051
00:54:00,440 --> 00:54:02,200
Speaker 4: Yeah.

1052
00:54:01,800 --> 00:54:05,080
Speaker 5: And then the window company because I am also a

1053
00:54:05,080 --> 00:54:07,240
Speaker 5: homeowner and I'm like, so if I'm gonna upgrade my windows,

1054
00:54:07,280 --> 00:54:08,480
Speaker 5: I need to order from them, right.

1055
00:54:08,840 --> 00:54:11,319
Speaker 2: I think that they might be Chicago market only, but

1056
00:54:11,360 --> 00:54:11,960
Speaker 2: I'm not sure.

1057
00:54:12,360 --> 00:54:13,759
Speaker 4: But uh, it makes sense, you know.

1058
00:54:14,160 --> 00:54:18,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, but there is let's see, in LA, there's a

1059
00:54:18,360 --> 00:54:21,759
Speaker 2: network of cooperatives. I'm not sure whether they're doing much

1060
00:54:21,800 --> 00:54:24,319
Speaker 2: industrial stuff. I can't remember what the LA cooperatives are

1061
00:54:24,400 --> 00:54:25,680
Speaker 2: up to off the top of my head. I used

1062
00:54:25,680 --> 00:54:26,879
Speaker 2: to know this stuff inside and out.

1063
00:54:27,480 --> 00:54:29,279
Speaker 4: That's fine, I'll go, I'll look them up. Yeah.

1064
00:54:29,520 --> 00:54:32,680
Speaker 2: Oh, but there was also like Downtown Crenshaw Rising. Did

1065
00:54:32,719 --> 00:54:37,000
Speaker 2: you catch that? Yeah, yeah, yeah, that was tied into

1066
00:54:37,040 --> 00:54:39,200
Speaker 2: all of this, But I think that one didn't I

1067
00:54:39,200 --> 00:54:42,240
Speaker 2: think we didn't win that one. There was a mall

1068
00:54:42,400 --> 00:54:45,400
Speaker 2: that went out of business and was abandoned is in

1069
00:54:45,440 --> 00:54:48,680
Speaker 2: a primarily black neighborhood, and some people were like, oh,

1070
00:54:48,760 --> 00:54:51,279
Speaker 2: let's gentrify the shit out of it. And then a

1071
00:54:51,280 --> 00:54:53,240
Speaker 2: whole bunch of people were like, what if you didn't,

1072
00:54:53,320 --> 00:54:56,720
Speaker 2: What if we built a giant, beautiful cooperative community center instead?

1073
00:54:57,239 --> 00:55:00,160
Speaker 2: And they raised funck tons like hundreds of millions of

1074
00:55:00,200 --> 00:55:05,400
Speaker 2: dollars to buy this building. And now I am not

1075
00:55:05,560 --> 00:55:08,600
Speaker 2: speaking for my former employer here, this is Margaret's opinion time.

1076
00:55:08,920 --> 00:55:09,840
Speaker 4: Yeah.

1077
00:55:10,080 --> 00:55:12,680
Speaker 2: I think the company that sold it for the company

1078
00:55:12,680 --> 00:55:15,000
Speaker 2: that bought it didn't bid as high as the community.

1079
00:55:15,800 --> 00:55:18,040
Speaker 2: I think the community bid higher and was like, we

1080
00:55:18,120 --> 00:55:19,960
Speaker 2: will pay more for this, And I thought we lived

1081
00:55:19,960 --> 00:55:22,319
Speaker 2: in fucking capitalism wherever pays the most wins the bid.

1082
00:55:22,360 --> 00:55:23,920
Speaker 4: That's what I thought, But in.

1083
00:55:23,880 --> 00:55:26,520
Speaker 2: This case they were like, but we don't want it

1084
00:55:26,560 --> 00:55:29,239
Speaker 2: to turn into like, yeah, a black community center, and

1085
00:55:29,400 --> 00:55:31,960
Speaker 2: this most important cooperatiation we.

1086
00:55:31,960 --> 00:55:37,160
Speaker 4: Have been holding on Nick Crenshaw. I mean it's been

1087
00:55:37,200 --> 00:55:38,080
Speaker 4: at least a century.

1088
00:55:38,200 --> 00:55:42,919
Speaker 5: Like, yeah, I've been holding Crenshaw Is like Black Renaissance

1089
00:55:43,880 --> 00:55:47,080
Speaker 5: for so long and fought them off for so long

1090
00:55:47,320 --> 00:55:50,120
Speaker 5: that like I could see them just being like, no,

1091
00:55:50,560 --> 00:55:53,520
Speaker 5: we don't even want your money because it's so central,

1092
00:55:53,719 --> 00:55:55,880
Speaker 5: like the location of Crenshaw is perfect.

1093
00:55:56,120 --> 00:55:59,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, well I haven't. I haven't kept up with it

1094
00:55:59,200 --> 00:56:01,080
Speaker 2: in the PASTA is about two years ago that this

1095
00:56:01,160 --> 00:56:02,839
Speaker 2: last time I have an update for it.

1096
00:56:02,880 --> 00:56:04,960
Speaker 4: But what a beautiful story, Margaret.

1097
00:56:05,280 --> 00:56:08,719
Speaker 2: Thank you. And if people want to hear more current

1098
00:56:08,760 --> 00:56:11,719
Speaker 2: events and other stuff, where can they do that?

1099
00:56:12,440 --> 00:56:14,200
Speaker 4: Yeah, hit me at her politics will prop.

1100
00:56:14,200 --> 00:56:17,760
Speaker 5: I'm gonna help you navigate all kinds of things going

1101
00:56:17,800 --> 00:56:23,880
Speaker 5: on in this unbelievably odd timeline that we're in, with

1102
00:56:23,960 --> 00:56:28,800
Speaker 5: a few glimpses of joy, like you know, bleach blonde,

1103
00:56:29,200 --> 00:56:33,920
Speaker 5: butch built, bad body, Like just just a great moment.

1104
00:56:36,360 --> 00:56:37,279
Speaker 5: Y'all know what I'm talking about?

1105
00:56:37,360 --> 00:56:37,880
Speaker 3: Right, I.

1106
00:56:39,760 --> 00:56:42,640
Speaker 2: Never know anything. I haven't heard that episode yet.

1107
00:56:43,280 --> 00:56:46,520
Speaker 4: No, that's not Senator.

1108
00:56:47,160 --> 00:56:51,920
Speaker 5: Our congress Woman Jasmine Crockett just absolutely eviscerated Margie Taylor Green.

1109
00:56:52,040 --> 00:56:54,479
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, it was great.

1110
00:56:54,520 --> 00:56:57,720
Speaker 3: Anyway, she photoshopped that photo because the sun the Sun's

1111
00:56:57,760 --> 00:57:00,640
Speaker 3: not that shape.

1112
00:57:00,960 --> 00:57:03,160
Speaker 2: I like prop that. This means that your podcast sometimes

1113
00:57:03,160 --> 00:57:06,640
Speaker 2: reaches kind of the opposite of your necessarily intended market,

1114
00:57:06,640 --> 00:57:08,839
Speaker 2: where if you live in the hills and you only

1115
00:57:08,880 --> 00:57:12,439
Speaker 2: read history books, yeah and hang out with your dog

1116
00:57:12,719 --> 00:57:14,879
Speaker 2: with politics is prop is a great way to learn

1117
00:57:14,880 --> 00:57:16,280
Speaker 2: about what's going on. It's a great way.

1118
00:57:16,320 --> 00:57:18,680
Speaker 5: It's I never knew, man. I assumed I was talking

1119
00:57:18,680 --> 00:57:22,400
Speaker 5: to my city. But apparently keep it y'all up, you know, yeah,

1120
00:57:22,440 --> 00:57:23,080
Speaker 5: which is great.

1121
00:57:23,600 --> 00:57:25,040
Speaker 2: He's part of the holler listens to.

1122
00:57:27,560 --> 00:57:29,800
Speaker 4: Yeah, but yeah, Hill of Politics with prop please.

1123
00:57:29,920 --> 00:57:32,120
Speaker 5: You know, we're doing Hill of Politics for eyeballs too,

1124
00:57:32,200 --> 00:57:36,040
Speaker 5: where it's you know, I remove all the things that

1125
00:57:36,120 --> 00:57:39,080
Speaker 5: need to be bleeped and they're a little shorter and

1126
00:57:39,120 --> 00:57:42,680
Speaker 5: they're for eyeballs, you know, so you can show your classrooms.

1127
00:57:43,280 --> 00:57:46,680
Speaker 2: Hell I am. There's a new cool Zone media podcast

1128
00:57:46,760 --> 00:57:50,720
Speaker 2: called sixteenth Minute of Fame. I made that pause because

1129
00:57:50,720 --> 00:57:53,920
Speaker 2: there's a parenthesis there. Thank you. It's by Jamie Loftus.

1130
00:57:54,400 --> 00:57:57,160
Speaker 2: Today I listened to Jamie Loftis talk about a cop

1131
00:57:57,200 --> 00:58:00,640
Speaker 2: falling down a slide and it was hilarious, so so

1132
00:58:00,720 --> 00:58:05,520
Speaker 2: much joy I know. And I have a book that's

1133
00:58:05,560 --> 00:58:08,160
Speaker 2: coming out in September. It's called The Sapling Cage. It's

1134
00:58:08,760 --> 00:58:11,440
Speaker 2: it's a crossover book, which means it's a young adult

1135
00:58:11,440 --> 00:58:13,240
Speaker 2: book that knows that's mostly adults who are going to

1136
00:58:13,240 --> 00:58:16,560
Speaker 2: read it. And it's about a young trans girl who

1137
00:58:16,560 --> 00:58:21,160
Speaker 2: becomes a witch. And it is being kickstarted probably next week.

1138
00:58:21,200 --> 00:58:22,919
Speaker 2: If you're listening to this episode when it comes out

1139
00:58:22,960 --> 00:58:26,680
Speaker 2: it starts. I think June tenth is the kickstarter and

1140
00:58:26,920 --> 00:58:30,520
Speaker 2: you should read it. And that's it. We'll talk to

1141
00:58:30,560 --> 00:58:36,800
Speaker 2: you all next week. Hi, this is a special message

1142
00:58:36,920 --> 00:58:41,960
Speaker 2: from me, Margaret. It's not an ad message. It's just

1143
00:58:42,240 --> 00:58:44,800
Speaker 2: not related to what we're going to talk about today

1144
00:58:44,840 --> 00:58:47,800
Speaker 2: on the podcast. And I'm recording this separately. I'm recording

1145
00:58:47,800 --> 00:58:51,600
Speaker 2: this separately because on June tenth, twenty twenty four, Leonard

1146
00:58:51,600 --> 00:58:54,760
Speaker 2: Peltier is going to have a parole hearing and I

1147
00:58:54,800 --> 00:58:58,080
Speaker 2: want to talk about that. One of the guests that

1148
00:58:58,120 --> 00:59:01,720
Speaker 2: we have a lot on this podcast, but also just

1149
00:59:01,720 --> 00:59:04,640
Speaker 2: like Cool Zone Media podcasts in general, is my friend

1150
00:59:04,760 --> 00:59:08,400
Speaker 2: Moira Meltzer Cohen, who is a lawyer, a defense lawyer

1151
00:59:08,440 --> 00:59:14,560
Speaker 2: who is on Leonard Peltier's court case. And Moira asked

1152
00:59:14,640 --> 00:59:17,720
Speaker 2: us to read this statement and I just want to

1153
00:59:17,760 --> 00:59:20,160
Speaker 2: say I co signed this statement. I've done a lot

1154
00:59:20,200 --> 00:59:25,600
Speaker 2: of research about Leonard Peltier for this podcast and also

1155
00:59:25,760 --> 00:59:28,080
Speaker 2: on my own as an activist. Some of the first

1156
00:59:28,840 --> 00:59:32,840
Speaker 2: protests I ever went to were related to free Lanard Peltier,

1157
00:59:33,720 --> 00:59:37,200
Speaker 2: and so this is the statement. On June tenth, twenty

1158
00:59:37,240 --> 00:59:40,680
Speaker 2: twenty four, Leonard Peltier, enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain

1159
00:59:40,720 --> 00:59:44,240
Speaker 2: Band of Chippewa of Lakota and Ajibwa Ancestry and the

1160
00:59:44,320 --> 00:59:47,440
Speaker 2: longest serving political prisoner in the United States, will be

1161
00:59:47,480 --> 00:59:50,120
Speaker 2: appearing before the US Parole Commission for the first time

1162
00:59:50,160 --> 00:59:53,560
Speaker 2: since two thousand and nine. He faces staunch opposition from

1163
00:59:53,600 --> 00:59:57,120
Speaker 2: the FBI and other law enforcement due to having allegedly

1164
00:59:57,200 --> 01:00:00,640
Speaker 2: killed two FBI agents and a firefight on June twenty six,

1165
01:00:00,800 --> 01:00:04,720
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy five, after the agents appeared on reservation land

1166
01:00:04,920 --> 01:00:09,800
Speaker 2: to execute a pretextual warrant. The initial firefight occurred during

1167
01:00:09,800 --> 01:00:12,480
Speaker 2: the quote reign of Terror on Pine Ridge in the

1168
01:00:12,480 --> 01:00:15,080
Speaker 2: wake of the occupation of Wounded Knee, a time of

1169
01:00:15,120 --> 01:00:18,920
Speaker 2: extreme violence when federal law enforcement installed a puppet tribal

1170
01:00:19,000 --> 01:00:24,200
Speaker 2: chair and was arming vigilantes who targeted Indigenous traditionalists. Everything

1171
01:00:24,280 --> 01:00:26,600
Speaker 2: leading up to these events, as well as the subsequent

1172
01:00:26,640 --> 01:00:31,840
Speaker 2: investigation and mister Peltier's extradition, trial, conviction, and sentencing were

1173
01:00:31,920 --> 01:00:35,520
Speaker 2: characterized by gross misconduct on the part of law enforcement,

1174
01:00:35,600 --> 01:00:39,960
Speaker 2: the prosecution, and the courts. Mister Peltier's co defendants were

1175
01:00:40,000 --> 01:00:43,920
Speaker 2: separately tried and acquitted on grounds of self defense. Mister

1176
01:00:43,960 --> 01:00:47,080
Speaker 2: Peltier was railroaded, and his case is tainted by discrimination

1177
01:00:47,200 --> 01:00:50,680
Speaker 2: at every level, ranging from the withholding of exculpatory evidence

1178
01:00:51,000 --> 01:00:54,000
Speaker 2: to the torture and coercion of extradition and trial witnesses,

1179
01:00:54,520 --> 01:00:57,200
Speaker 2: and from the refusal of the trial judge to dismiss

1180
01:00:57,240 --> 01:01:01,160
Speaker 2: in avowedly racist juror to the apologetic gymnastics of courts

1181
01:01:01,160 --> 01:01:05,440
Speaker 2: affirming his conviction in the face of meritorious legal challenges

1182
01:01:05,480 --> 01:01:09,960
Speaker 2: and admitted evidence of outrageous government misdeeds. Mister Peltier has

1183
01:01:10,000 --> 01:01:12,320
Speaker 2: been in prison for more than forty eight years and

1184
01:01:12,400 --> 01:01:15,400
Speaker 2: is almost eighty years old. He suffers from chronic and

1185
01:01:15,440 --> 01:01:19,960
Speaker 2: potentially lethal conditions for which he receives insufficient and substandard

1186
01:01:20,000 --> 01:01:22,880
Speaker 2: medical care. If you want to take action to free

1187
01:01:22,960 --> 01:01:26,440
Speaker 2: Leonard Peltier, you can call the US Parole Commission at

1188
01:01:26,440 --> 01:01:30,880
Speaker 2: two zero, two three, four six seven thousand. Again, that's

1189
01:01:31,120 --> 01:01:36,320
Speaker 2: two zero, two three, four six seven thousand. Or you

1190
01:01:36,360 --> 01:01:39,520
Speaker 2: can sign the petition and this is a string of

1191
01:01:40,240 --> 01:01:41,800
Speaker 2: This is a URL, so I'm going to read it

1192
01:01:41,800 --> 01:01:50,800
Speaker 2: out nd NCO dot c c slash us PC dash

1193
01:01:51,080 --> 01:01:57,440
Speaker 2: free Leonard Peltier. Again, that's NDNC dot c c slash

1194
01:01:57,760 --> 01:02:02,480
Speaker 2: us PC dash free Leonard Peltier. Leonard Peltier is spelled

1195
01:02:03,000 --> 01:02:06,680
Speaker 2: l e O n A R d p e l

1196
01:02:06,920 --> 01:02:11,200
Speaker 2: t i e R. Or you can follow Indian Collective

1197
01:02:11,280 --> 01:02:14,840
Speaker 2: on social media, which is n d N Collective for

1198
01:02:14,960 --> 01:02:18,480
Speaker 2: more information on Leonard Peltier. Listen to Margaret's podcast on

1199
01:02:18,640 --> 01:02:22,160
Speaker 2: the Low Coda Nation. Oh thanks Maira, and read In

1200
01:02:22,240 --> 01:02:26,360
Speaker 2: the Spirit of Crazy Horse by Peter Matheson. And again,

1201
01:02:26,800 --> 01:02:29,600
Speaker 2: just want to reiterate, I co sign all of this.

1202
01:02:29,800 --> 01:02:31,920
Speaker 2: I've done a lot of my own research into this.

1203
01:02:32,280 --> 01:02:36,200
Speaker 2: You can and should too, and free Leonard Peltier.

1204
01:02:37,360 --> 01:02:39,840
Speaker 3: Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff is a production of

1205
01:02:39,920 --> 01:02:43,000
Speaker 3: cool Zone Media. For more podcasts on cool Zone Media,

1206
01:02:43,160 --> 01:02:46,200
Speaker 3: visit our website cool Zonemedia dot com, or check us

1207
01:02:46,200 --> 01:02:49,640
Speaker 3: out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you

1208
01:02:49,680 --> 01:02:50,760
Speaker 3: get your podcasts.