WEBVTT - CZM Rewind: You Already Know How to Organize 0:00:01.720 --> 0:00:05.400 All media. Hi everyone, It's me James, and I'm coming 0:00:05.400 --> 0:00:07.360 at you today with one of these little requests that 0:00:07.520 --> 0:00:10.280 I make sometimes when there's something that we would likely 0:00:10.400 --> 0:00:13.880 to do when it's very important to do so today 0:00:14.200 --> 0:00:16.680 I want to talk to you about Syria, and specifically 0:00:16.840 --> 0:00:19.720 Northeast Syria. So with the world's eyes fixed on Syria, 0:00:19.760 --> 0:00:22.599 many are rightly celebrating as a brutal dictatorship of Bashara 0:00:22.680 --> 0:00:25.440 Lasad comes to an end. But for Kurdish and other 0:00:25.520 --> 0:00:29.560 minority communities, recent days have bought violent attacks, ethnic cleansing, 0:00:29.880 --> 0:00:33.400 and occupation by Turkish back Jahaddis groups in an attempt 0:00:33.440 --> 0:00:36.280 to take advantage of the chaos by crushing the Rajava Revolution. 0:00:36.880 --> 0:00:39.560 Turkey and its mercenaries are openly committing war crimes against 0:00:39.600 --> 0:00:43.560 the region's autonomous communities. Many thousands have already been forced 0:00:43.560 --> 0:00:46.599 to be displaced, and thousands of borrowing danger to make 0:00:46.640 --> 0:00:50.600 matters worth this remains largely absent from the mainstream media 0:00:50.640 --> 0:00:53.880 reporting on Syria. If you'd like to share your solidarity 0:00:53.920 --> 0:00:56.120 with the people of northern and Eastern Syria, please call 0:00:56.200 --> 0:00:58.720 on Congress to take urgent action by passing the Emergency 0:00:58.800 --> 0:01:02.520 legislation to stop the violentce, hold Turkey accountable, and commit 0:01:02.640 --> 0:01:05.440 US support to the Syrian democratic forces and the diverse 0:01:05.440 --> 0:01:08.959 communities under their protection. If you want to take action today, 0:01:09.000 --> 0:01:12.160 you can go to Defendrojaba dot org. That's d E 0:01:12.319 --> 0:01:15.360 F E N d R o ja va dot org. 0:01:16.120 --> 0:01:19.280 If you are able to the most effective action we 0:01:19.319 --> 0:01:22.280 can take right now is to call a couple of representatives. 0:01:22.360 --> 0:01:26.319 One representative and one senator. Representative would be Gregory Meeks. 0:01:26.360 --> 0:01:28.360 He's from New York. He's a Democrat. He is a 0:01:28.440 --> 0:01:31.160 ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. His phone 0:01:31.200 --> 0:01:34.360 number is two zero two two two five three four 0:01:34.520 --> 0:01:38.080 six one. Leathon will be Senator James Rish He's an 0:01:38.120 --> 0:01:42.120 Idaho Republican. He is a ranking member's Senate Foreign Relations Committee. 0:01:42.160 --> 0:01:45.080 His phone number would be two zero two two two 0:01:45.120 --> 0:01:49.520 four two seven five two. If you'd like to have 0:01:49.560 --> 0:01:52.600 some talking points, you can find those on Defendrojaba dot org. 0:01:53.480 --> 0:01:56.680 If you'd like to donate financially instead, especially to this 0:01:56.760 --> 0:01:59.640 humanitarian aid effort for the tens of thousands of people 0:01:59.640 --> 0:02:03.680 who have been displaced by the SNA's advances, you can 0:02:03.760 --> 0:02:06.520 donate to two organizations that I would suggest to. First, 0:02:06.520 --> 0:02:10.200 we be heavier store, the Curtis Red Crescent. That's h 0:02:10.480 --> 0:02:15.040 E Yva s O R dot com and you want 0:02:15.040 --> 0:02:16.520 to go slash e n if you want to see 0:02:16.520 --> 0:02:18.920 their website in English, you can donate there. The other 0:02:18.960 --> 0:02:21.560 one will be the free Burmer Rangers who are currently 0:02:21.600 --> 0:02:24.520 working in Raka. I was talking to my friend Habat 0:02:24.560 --> 0:02:27.239 who works with them. You can donate to them at 0:02:27.440 --> 0:02:32.120 www dot free fr e E Burma b U r 0:02:32.320 --> 0:02:35.840 m A rangers dot com. We will put all of 0:02:35.840 --> 0:02:38.200 this in the show notes or the URL, so if 0:02:38.200 --> 0:02:40.280 you're driving, you do have to write them down. Those 0:02:40.320 --> 0:02:42.359 are the concrete ways that we can help right now 0:02:42.360 --> 0:02:45.120 and what is unfolding as a very terrible situation in 0:02:45.160 --> 0:02:48.080 nor Syria. Thanks. I hope you do the episode. 0:02:49.280 --> 0:02:52.600 It's it could happen here the podcast that's hafftic right now. 0:02:53.280 --> 0:02:55.840 This is maybe the foremost of the Putting Things Back 0:02:55.880 --> 0:02:59.000 Together episodes of I'm Your Host Mia Wong with me. 0:02:58.960 --> 0:03:01.480 As James Stout, a guy who likes it to put 0:03:01.520 --> 0:03:02.080 things together. 0:03:02.639 --> 0:03:05.640 Yeah, and you know, on the subject of putting things 0:03:05.639 --> 0:03:09.680 together over the last I don't even know three four weeks, 0:03:09.800 --> 0:03:12.920 the question I have been asked the most by everyone 0:03:13.320 --> 0:03:18.040 is how do I start organizing? And you know, the 0:03:18.280 --> 0:03:20.320 problem with how does we're organizing is that it's not 0:03:20.680 --> 0:03:24.680 a question that has cleaner simple answers. Now, the most 0:03:24.680 --> 0:03:27.240 common answer you get is just join an org. And 0:03:27.280 --> 0:03:28.920 the problem is that most of the people who you 0:03:28.960 --> 0:03:31.200 were hearing this from are already in an org and 0:03:31.240 --> 0:03:32.680 want you to join their org. 0:03:33.360 --> 0:03:36.200 Yeah. Also, the problem is a lot of the orgs 0:03:36.200 --> 0:03:39.200 that are currently dominating left to spaces in the in 0:03:39.240 --> 0:03:43.840 the United States are trash, yeah, and bad for people. 0:03:44.000 --> 0:03:46.320 Bad people in them, bad people who are not in them. Yeah. 0:03:46.480 --> 0:03:48.720 Here's a little test you can you can do, is 0:03:48.760 --> 0:03:52.200 your org currently sad that Basha a Lasad is no 0:03:52.240 --> 0:03:56.800 longer governing Syria? Because if that's the case, leave yep. 0:03:57.120 --> 0:03:59.880 And that's that's a lot of orgs that that's a lot, Yeah, 0:04:00.040 --> 0:04:02.280 take the most of them right now. We'll come back 0:04:02.280 --> 0:04:05.520 to orgs in a bit. But what I'll say about 0:04:05.600 --> 0:04:09.280 orgs is that, Okay, if you know an organization in 0:04:09.360 --> 0:04:11.640 your area that you like and you think does good 0:04:11.680 --> 0:04:14.560 work and most importantly spends their time actually doing work 0:04:14.640 --> 0:04:17.320 instead of either in fighting or talking about doing work, 0:04:17.800 --> 0:04:18.400 you join them. 0:04:18.440 --> 0:04:19.040 It'll be good. 0:04:19.080 --> 0:04:21.600 But the important thing about organizations is something we'll come 0:04:21.640 --> 0:04:24.279 back to you later. The important thing about organizations is 0:04:24.320 --> 0:04:26.840 they have a lot of people. And the thing that 0:04:26.839 --> 0:04:29.960 makes organizing work is people. It's not organizations. It's not 0:04:30.080 --> 0:04:32.839 even necessarily ideological labels. It's there being a bunch of 0:04:32.839 --> 0:04:36.480 people who you can use and who want to do things. Yeah, 0:04:36.720 --> 0:04:40.760 but something I realized that the more I had these conversations, right, 0:04:41.279 --> 0:04:43.000 you know, I'm having them with friends, I'm having them 0:04:43.000 --> 0:04:46.720 with strangers, I'm having them with other organizers. And the 0:04:46.760 --> 0:04:49.320 more I had these conversations, the more I realize something 0:04:49.360 --> 0:04:52.960 sort of startling you. The person listening to this almost 0:04:53.000 --> 0:04:56.000 certainly already knows how to organize, but you don't know 0:04:56.240 --> 0:04:57.720 that that's called organizing. 0:04:58.000 --> 0:04:59.799 Yeah, that's a very good point. 0:05:00.600 --> 0:05:03.280 I have encountered some of the most stunning or I 0:05:03.279 --> 0:05:06.400 mean organizing that like I can't discuss the specifics of, 0:05:06.440 --> 0:05:08.640 but like, some of the best organizing I've ever encountered. 0:05:08.720 --> 0:05:10.880 I have ran into in the last three weeks from 0:05:10.920 --> 0:05:13.719 people who don't think that they're organizers and started talking 0:05:13.720 --> 0:05:17.240 to me about their stuff. I was like, what, like, 0:05:18.200 --> 0:05:21.080 people are winning victories that like the like hardcore committed 0:05:21.120 --> 0:05:24.160 organizers haven't been able to do in like thirty years. Yeah, 0:05:24.200 --> 0:05:26.200 and it's just by random people who don't think they 0:05:26.200 --> 0:05:27.000 know how to do anything. 0:05:27.320 --> 0:05:29.840 Yeah, can I tell a little organizing story? We do 0:05:29.960 --> 0:05:31.919 have time, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, go for it. So 0:05:31.920 --> 0:05:34.479 I remember, in like twenty eighteen, I am on a 0:05:34.520 --> 0:05:37.039 trip with a friend with coming back and we see 0:05:37.080 --> 0:05:39.919 the arrival of the migrant caravan. One of the migrant 0:05:39.960 --> 0:05:41.919 caravan is the one that everyone decided to have a 0:05:41.960 --> 0:05:44.559 fucking cow about right before the twenty eighteen mid terms. 0:05:45.320 --> 0:05:47.680 And at that time, they were corraling the people of 0:05:47.720 --> 0:05:52.040 the migrant caravan in a baseball stadium in Tijuana, and 0:05:52.160 --> 0:05:54.520 like it was raining every day. So the baseball stadium 0:05:54.600 --> 0:05:56.400 ends up looking like the Battle of the Psalm after 0:05:56.480 --> 0:05:58.679 like a couple of days, right, you know, kids in needy, 0:05:58.839 --> 0:06:02.440 mud and shit, and I particularly know what to do, 0:06:02.560 --> 0:06:04.960 but evidently there were people there who were hungry and thirsty, 0:06:05.080 --> 0:06:07.680 and so I get three of my friends. At this time, 0:06:07.839 --> 0:06:11.919 I was still making about half my money riding bicycles 0:06:12.040 --> 0:06:14.520 and the other half riding so my friends and I 0:06:14.560 --> 0:06:16.800 was supposed to do a long bike ride. All of 0:06:16.880 --> 0:06:18.960 us are people who make a living riding bikes. Right, 0:06:19.160 --> 0:06:22.159 We're not like expert organizers. And I was like, hey, guys, 0:06:22.200 --> 0:06:24.279 this is fucked. Which we do. We called a friend 0:06:24.320 --> 0:06:27.640 who has a company who makes waffles, where we obtained 0:06:28.320 --> 0:06:31.680 like as many waffles as we could physically carry across 0:06:31.680 --> 0:06:34.159 the border. At that time, we weren't able to get in. 0:06:34.680 --> 0:06:37.320 We found a way to get in. We began distributing 0:06:37.360 --> 0:06:40.600 the waffles. After that, we put something online, people sent 0:06:40.680 --> 0:06:43.360 us money, and we continued feeding people for months. None 0:06:43.400 --> 0:06:46.920 of us, I think, had a particular plan or a scheduled. Yeah, 0:06:46.920 --> 0:06:50.200 it was a bit chaotic at times, but we were 0:06:50.240 --> 0:06:52.320 able to do that and with a lot of other people. 0:06:52.360 --> 0:06:54.400 Clearly it wasn't just us, right, but we were able 0:06:54.400 --> 0:06:56.920 to process tenth of thousands of dollars and feed thousands 0:06:56.920 --> 0:07:01.520 of people. Be everyone there. And I've seen this countless times, 0:07:01.600 --> 0:07:04.960 especially working and organizing with well with refugees. For the 0:07:05.040 --> 0:07:07.840 most part, people are so good at organizing each other 0:07:07.920 --> 0:07:10.960 in themselves. Like when we got there with bottles of 0:07:11.000 --> 0:07:13.760 water and food. There are a thousand people there who 0:07:13.800 --> 0:07:16.840 have not had sometimes a drink for days, let alone 0:07:17.240 --> 0:07:19.480 more than a thousand, I think, let alone something hot 0:07:19.520 --> 0:07:22.480 to eat, right, everybody made sure that the children and 0:07:22.480 --> 0:07:25.120 the sick people got what they needed first. Organizing is 0:07:25.120 --> 0:07:27.840 something that is very inherent in us as people. It 0:07:28.240 --> 0:07:32.120 just we don't call it that. Yeah, And that's part 0:07:32.160 --> 0:07:33.600 of what I want to try to the myth. 0:07:33.600 --> 0:07:35.440 I want to try to puncture with this because I 0:07:35.440 --> 0:07:38.400 think particularly in the US, but this is true in 0:07:38.440 --> 0:07:40.360 a lot of places. There's this way in which the 0:07:40.520 --> 0:07:44.200 organizers sort of TM capital T capital O. The organizer 0:07:44.240 --> 0:07:47.440 gets held up as this sort of I guess even 0:07:47.520 --> 0:07:51.880 a particularly masculinist thing, which is it's this guy with 0:07:51.960 --> 0:07:53.000 specialized knowledge. 0:07:53.320 --> 0:07:56.120 Yeah, and that's just not true. 0:07:56.560 --> 0:07:59.000 This brings us something that I think is actually really important, 0:07:59.280 --> 0:08:01.480 which is what what even is organizing? 0:08:01.920 --> 0:08:02.120 Right? 0:08:02.720 --> 0:08:05.320 And the answer is that most organizing is you get 0:08:05.480 --> 0:08:08.400 you get a group of people together, you get them 0:08:08.400 --> 0:08:10.920 to show up to something, and then you do something right. 0:08:11.120 --> 0:08:14.920 And the thing about this, right, that's something all of 0:08:14.960 --> 0:08:17.720 you know how to do. If if you can organize 0:08:17.720 --> 0:08:21.000 a dinner party, right, if you can get eight people 0:08:21.040 --> 0:08:23.520 to show up to a place to eat dinner, you 0:08:23.560 --> 0:08:26.880 can do this. It is it is largely the same 0:08:26.920 --> 0:08:29.480 skill sets, and all of the skill sets that make 0:08:29.520 --> 0:08:32.960 people good organizers are skill sets that you have to 0:08:33.200 --> 0:08:36.200 develop to you know, work a job, right. You know, 0:08:36.280 --> 0:08:37.600 like one of the things that comes up a lot 0:08:37.640 --> 0:08:40.880 in this which is less discussed and also kind of annoying, 0:08:40.920 --> 0:08:42.240 but you know you have to manage it is that 0:08:42.360 --> 0:08:44.920 organizing is about people and sometimes you have to you know, 0:08:44.960 --> 0:08:46.160 you have to do things like you have to manage 0:08:46.160 --> 0:08:48.360 people's egos. But like, I don't know, almost all of 0:08:48.400 --> 0:08:51.120 you work jobs or have work jobs, right, you have 0:08:51.240 --> 0:08:54.640 had to like deal with your boss being on one right, 0:08:55.240 --> 0:08:57.920 you have the skills to do this. You know how 0:08:57.920 --> 0:09:02.800 to do the interpersonal relationship stuff. It's just that you 0:09:02.840 --> 0:09:06.640 don't think about that as organizing, even though that's that's 0:09:06.760 --> 0:09:07.720 just what it is. 0:09:08.559 --> 0:09:10.840 Yeah, that's the core of it is getting people to 0:09:10.880 --> 0:09:13.760 do stuff like you do it every day. 0:09:14.640 --> 0:09:17.400 Yeah, And the way you do this is by building 0:09:17.440 --> 0:09:20.439 relationships with people, right. And this isn't necessarily friendships, although 0:09:20.480 --> 0:09:23.040 that works. And like one of the easiest ways to 0:09:23.080 --> 0:09:25.920 start organizing is by getting all of your friends together 0:09:26.000 --> 0:09:28.320 because you are already friends, you have pre existing relationships 0:09:28.320 --> 0:09:32.120 and being like, okay, motherfuckers, we gotta go do something. 0:09:32.760 --> 0:09:33.880 And actually I love that. 0:09:33.920 --> 0:09:36.360 The first thing that you brought up was an admittedly 0:09:36.400 --> 0:09:40.400 sort of medium ish scale lift version of this. But 0:09:40.520 --> 0:09:42.240 one of the very easiest things that you can do 0:09:42.400 --> 0:09:44.640 is you can just get food of some kind. You 0:09:44.640 --> 0:09:46.680 can either buy it or you can make it yourself, 0:09:47.200 --> 0:09:49.920 and you and a group of like eight people, not 0:09:49.960 --> 0:09:51.439 even eight people, you can do it with lower I 0:09:51.679 --> 0:09:53.640 know people who've done this just solo. 0:09:54.320 --> 0:09:57.080 Is that you can just go give food to people. Yeah. Literally, 0:09:57.760 --> 0:10:01.520 it was this morning yesterday morning. I have some man 0:10:01.600 --> 0:10:03.480 house neighbors right and it was cold, and so I 0:10:03.480 --> 0:10:06.599 went out and gave them some hot breakfast or hot coffee. 0:10:07.080 --> 0:10:10.520 It's super easy to do. If you are struggling socially 0:10:10.559 --> 0:10:12.839 wherever you are, maybe you're finding it hard to make friends. 0:10:12.880 --> 0:10:15.520 I know that's the thing that people often struggle, especially 0:10:15.520 --> 0:10:17.520 if you've moved to a new place or post pandemic, 0:10:17.679 --> 0:10:20.520 or you're still concerned with cloud gatherings or any of 0:10:20.520 --> 0:10:23.200 those things. Like, if you start doing that, you will 0:10:23.200 --> 0:10:25.800 find other people who want to do it too. Like 0:10:25.880 --> 0:10:28.000 so many of my friends I organize with are people 0:10:29.080 --> 0:10:31.040 like when we had the end of Title forty two 0:10:31.040 --> 0:10:34.000 and people were in between the fences that a lot 0:10:34.040 --> 0:10:36.199 of the people who I organize with now or who 0:10:36.400 --> 0:10:39.080 helped people with Now I didn't know. I just showed 0:10:39.160 --> 0:10:41.840 up with a giant siler generator that I happened to 0:10:41.840 --> 0:10:43.880 have and some stuff that we had a whip around 0:10:43.880 --> 0:10:46.640 a call zone for and like, people who care about 0:10:46.640 --> 0:10:49.520 the same things as you are generally cool and it's 0:10:49.559 --> 0:10:51.520 a good way to make friends. And then you can 0:10:51.559 --> 0:10:52.720 go on from there. 0:10:53.880 --> 0:10:57.160 Yeah, and there's a second compounding thing here too, which 0:10:57.240 --> 0:11:00.880 is that you know, feeding people it's a way to 0:11:00.880 --> 0:11:04.040 build relationships with people, and also it's a really good 0:11:04.080 --> 0:11:07.440 way for people to get to know you in general 0:11:07.480 --> 0:11:09.360 and know that you are someone who will help them 0:11:09.360 --> 0:11:11.400 with things. Yeah, and from there, and this is a 0:11:11.480 --> 0:11:13.439 very common exception. I mean this is I literally had 0:11:13.440 --> 0:11:16.160 this conversation with one of my friends who's like an 0:11:16.160 --> 0:11:19.240 old school food not Bombs organizer. Food nut Bombs is 0:11:19.280 --> 0:11:22.200 a very very it's a cool organization. You can just 0:11:22.320 --> 0:11:25.440 like found a food nut Bobs chapter. They have like 0:11:25.800 --> 0:11:28.679 a couple of principles, or you can just do your 0:11:28.679 --> 0:11:30.319 own thing. And I'm pretty sure it's still like the 0:11:30.400 --> 0:11:33.319 largest anarchist project in the world because all it takes 0:11:33.360 --> 0:11:35.880 is you and like three other people and you just 0:11:35.920 --> 0:11:38.800 go feed people. But the thing is from doing that, right. 0:11:38.840 --> 0:11:41.200 If there's other things that you're concerned about, people will 0:11:41.240 --> 0:11:43.839 bring you their problems and you can help them doing it. 0:11:43.880 --> 0:11:45.679 And this is a very good way to get into 0:11:45.760 --> 0:11:48.960 other kinds of organizing because suddenly, once you start building 0:11:48.960 --> 0:11:52.120 these relationships, everything sort of cycles and cycles, and you know, 0:11:52.160 --> 0:11:54.640 you get involved in more and more things. Yeah, and 0:11:54.920 --> 0:11:56.760 that's kind of a that's kind of a late stage 0:11:57.080 --> 0:11:59.320 thing that we're sort of jumping to a bit. But 0:11:59.679 --> 0:12:01.760 I want to go back to the beginnings of how so, 0:12:01.800 --> 0:12:04.480 how do you get a group of people together to 0:12:04.520 --> 0:12:08.160 do a thing? And the answer is you kind of 0:12:08.240 --> 0:12:11.680 already know how to because you you presumably at some 0:12:11.720 --> 0:12:14.800 point in your life, have like organized a group of 0:12:14.800 --> 0:12:18.800 friends to go do something right, Like you've gotten a 0:12:18.800 --> 0:12:21.440 group of people together to go accomplish a task. 0:12:21.760 --> 0:12:24.280 Yeah, and it could literally be anything, right, like, yeah, 0:12:24.360 --> 0:12:26.200 if you've got some people to go to a bar, 0:12:27.080 --> 0:12:28.000 you have the skills. 0:12:28.400 --> 0:12:30.480 One way I've been thinking about it recently and in 0:12:30.520 --> 0:12:32.840 my project is putting is thinking about it as like 0:12:32.960 --> 0:12:39.000 putting together a heist crew. And so, okay, I could 0:12:39.120 --> 0:12:42.880 vouch for this, right, the feeling of walking up to 0:12:43.000 --> 0:12:47.240 eight people and telling them individually, I'm putting together a team, and. 0:12:47.160 --> 0:12:48.800 I want you it is. 0:12:49.000 --> 0:12:51.400 It feels you could just do it. There is nothing 0:12:51.440 --> 0:12:54.320 stopping you. Nothing in the world can stop you from 0:12:54.320 --> 0:12:56.199 just walking up to your friend and going, I'm putting 0:12:56.200 --> 0:13:00.480 together a team. And it feels exactly as good as 0:13:00.520 --> 0:13:02.040 you think it put from the Ice movie. 0:13:02.200 --> 0:13:05.840 It rules. It's so fun amazing. 0:13:06.280 --> 0:13:08.800 Yeah, and and and but this gets into also what 0:13:08.920 --> 0:13:13.000 kinds of people you want to do right, because obviously 0:13:13.080 --> 0:13:16.160 you know there's two vectors of this. There's on the 0:13:16.160 --> 0:13:18.440 one hand, you have the aspect of okay, who do 0:13:18.480 --> 0:13:21.280 you know? Right, And a lot of organizing is just 0:13:21.400 --> 0:13:25.079 about here's a problem, and I know someone who has 0:13:25.240 --> 0:13:27.520 some sort of skill or resource that can that can 0:13:27.559 --> 0:13:29.520 help deal with it, and you put people in touch 0:13:29.520 --> 0:13:33.120 with each other. And that's organizing. That's so much organizing 0:13:33.240 --> 0:13:36.640 is literally just hey, like I have like a broken 0:13:36.679 --> 0:13:39.160 part of my car. I know someone who's like a 0:13:39.200 --> 0:13:42.000 car mechanic, right, and you put you put them in touch, 0:13:42.040 --> 0:13:44.920 and you have successfully organized people, and you have built relationships, 0:13:44.960 --> 0:13:47.480 and you have made all of the sort of social 0:13:47.600 --> 0:13:51.080 web that creates organizing, You've made it stronger. Yeah, it 0:13:51.120 --> 0:13:53.679 also just feels good because you know, and that that's 0:13:53.679 --> 0:13:55.480 an auxiliary benefit to all of this is that it's 0:13:55.559 --> 0:13:57.040 it's a great it's a great way to sort of 0:13:57.160 --> 0:14:00.200 break break the isolation we're all under. 0:14:00.400 --> 0:14:04.920 Yeah, I think the best solution for despair is I'm 0:14:04.960 --> 0:14:08.320 thinking of a quotation here something that the busy bee 0:14:08.320 --> 0:14:11.080 have no time for despair. But the thing that makes 0:14:11.120 --> 0:14:13.120 me feel better about the world is that I have 0:14:13.320 --> 0:14:17.840 seen that people can fix massive problems with very few 0:14:17.880 --> 0:14:23.680 resources by just showing up. And like, I think, organizing 0:14:23.800 --> 0:14:25.880 is what gives me, what allows me to enter this 0:14:25.920 --> 0:14:28.480 period of time that we're entering into with a great 0:14:28.480 --> 0:14:31.240 deal more hope than I otherwise would have done. Yeah, 0:14:31.280 --> 0:14:32.920 And do you know what else will help you enter 0:14:32.920 --> 0:14:38.040 your situation? Is it the products and services that support 0:14:38.080 --> 0:14:38.880 this podcast. 0:14:39.040 --> 0:14:40.560 I don't know if I'm allowed to say this, but 0:14:40.840 --> 0:14:43.720 we are not in control of the length of the ads. 0:14:45.040 --> 0:14:49.600 They just do it. We're sorry, here's a really long 0:14:49.640 --> 0:14:50.400 period of ads. 0:14:50.480 --> 0:15:03.480 I'm so sorry we are back. 0:15:03.600 --> 0:15:06.000 So I want to I want to return to my 0:15:06.000 --> 0:15:07.600 my hight career. If I don't know if if you're 0:15:07.640 --> 0:15:09.120 a D and D person, the other way you can 0:15:09.160 --> 0:15:11.120 think about this is you're putting together like a Dungeons 0:15:11.120 --> 0:15:14.080 and Dragons party or like an RPG party. And the 0:15:14.120 --> 0:15:16.720 way you need to think about this is, Okay, so 0:15:16.760 --> 0:15:19.480 you've picked a thing that you want to do, right. 0:15:19.640 --> 0:15:21.560 You see, you've seen something in the world that is 0:15:21.600 --> 0:15:23.720 bad and you you figure it. You go, okay, I 0:15:23.760 --> 0:15:25.480 can do this thing to solve it. And maybe and 0:15:25.520 --> 0:15:27.800 maybe that's you know, it's literally something as simple as 0:15:27.840 --> 0:15:30.600 feeding people. Maybe that's you know, I want to start. 0:15:30.760 --> 0:15:32.640 I want to start doing tenants organizing. I want to 0:15:32.640 --> 0:15:34.680 start because my rent is too high, right, or people 0:15:34.680 --> 0:15:37.520 are getting evicted. I want to start doing like immigration defense. 0:15:38.160 --> 0:15:38.600 Yeah. 0:15:38.640 --> 0:15:42.440 And from there you make a list and that list 0:15:42.920 --> 0:15:45.120 is you know what you're interested in doing, and you 0:15:45.560 --> 0:15:49.280 try to match what things need to be done with 0:15:49.480 --> 0:15:53.160 people you know who have those skills. Yeah, and this 0:15:53.240 --> 0:15:54.840 is you know, this, this is is where you release 0:15:55.280 --> 0:15:57.400 get into the heist things, right, because everyone has their 0:15:57.440 --> 0:16:01.000 sort of like hight role. Now, obvious part of this 0:16:01.080 --> 0:16:02.640 that you want is you want to create sort of 0:16:02.640 --> 0:16:03.440 balanced teams. 0:16:03.600 --> 0:16:03.800 Right. 0:16:03.880 --> 0:16:06.800 You want people who have overlapping strengths so you don't 0:16:06.840 --> 0:16:08.800 just have only one person who can do a thing. 0:16:09.720 --> 0:16:13.440 And part of the way the successful organization works over time, 0:16:13.560 --> 0:16:16.360 and I mean just how successful organizing works is that 0:16:16.440 --> 0:16:19.360 eventually you are trying to organize yourself out of a job, 0:16:19.880 --> 0:16:22.640 which is to say, you want your organization to function 0:16:22.760 --> 0:16:24.800 such that if you're not able to do it, you know, 0:16:25.200 --> 0:16:27.440 or just you're gone, or you cycle onto a next thing, 0:16:27.760 --> 0:16:29.800 or you know, any any number of things that can happen. 0:16:30.160 --> 0:16:32.120 You want the organization to still be able to keep 0:16:32.120 --> 0:16:33.880 working without you, and you want you want your you're 0:16:33.920 --> 0:16:35.880 trying to get people to be able to replace you 0:16:35.960 --> 0:16:38.920 as the person who's like organizing the thing, right. Yeah, 0:16:38.960 --> 0:16:41.760 And at this point we can start talking about the 0:16:41.960 --> 0:16:46.120 kinds of skills that people need for organizing, and a 0:16:46.120 --> 0:16:48.920 lot of people and this is unbelievably common when I 0:16:49.040 --> 0:16:52.200 talk to people, and like especially women and especially like 0:16:52.240 --> 0:16:55.800 a lot of binary people and trans people particularly have 0:16:55.920 --> 0:16:59.640 this is that people don't believe that they have any skills. 0:17:01.080 --> 0:17:02.800 And then you talk to them for five seconds and 0:17:02.840 --> 0:17:05.199 they're like, well, I'm good at carrying heavy objects, right, 0:17:05.240 --> 0:17:07.280 I'm good with kids, which is a huge one. We'll 0:17:07.280 --> 0:17:09.439 get you in a second, right, Or like I don't know, 0:17:09.480 --> 0:17:12.160 I have a car, that's a huge skill. There are 0:17:12.440 --> 0:17:14.919 so many different skills that are so useful for so 0:17:15.000 --> 0:17:17.359 many things, and I'm just gonna go over loss of 0:17:17.400 --> 0:17:19.239 things that are actually really useful to get to get 0:17:19.280 --> 0:17:22.560 people a sense of like the kinds of things that 0:17:22.600 --> 0:17:25.920 there are. There are massive roles for so one of 0:17:26.000 --> 0:17:27.840 the most important ones, and this is something you can 0:17:28.000 --> 0:17:30.119 you deliberately look for. You know, this is this is 0:17:30.119 --> 0:17:31.680 one of the things you do at the beginning of 0:17:31.720 --> 0:17:35.199 any union organizing campaign. Someone who's good at talking to 0:17:35.280 --> 0:17:39.200 other people and making friends. That is a staggeringly useful 0:17:39.240 --> 0:17:42.040 person because again, most most organizing is just talking to 0:17:42.080 --> 0:17:44.280 people and building relationships. And you know, one of the 0:17:44.280 --> 0:17:45.960 things you do when you're when you're doing you're sort 0:17:46.000 --> 0:17:47.919 of they call it power mapping. But when when you 0:17:47.960 --> 0:17:50.840 when you're figuring out how you're going to organize a workplace, 0:17:50.920 --> 0:17:53.840 is you find the person who everyone likes and talks 0:17:53.880 --> 0:17:56.360 to and respects, and you talk to that person. Yeah, 0:17:56.400 --> 0:17:58.720 because that person can you know, can sort of like 0:17:58.840 --> 0:18:00.960 organize people down the chain because they have they have 0:18:01.040 --> 0:18:03.800 their relationships already and also they're good they'll be good at, 0:18:04.040 --> 0:18:06.680 you know, talking to new people and spreading your organization 0:18:06.760 --> 0:18:09.520 that way. And so like you know if you're just 0:18:09.640 --> 0:18:12.600 someone who's social or and this is also very useful 0:18:12.760 --> 0:18:15.320 if you have a friend who is very social, because 0:18:15.359 --> 0:18:17.159 I know a lot of us on operary social but 0:18:17.359 --> 0:18:19.480 you probably have a friend that you're thinking of right 0:18:19.520 --> 0:18:22.439 now who is very good at conversations that is charming 0:18:22.440 --> 0:18:26.119 and is good at making friendships. That person unbelievably useful, 0:18:26.280 --> 0:18:28.080 incredibly useful and compelling skill. 0:18:28.600 --> 0:18:29.040 Yeah. 0:18:29.080 --> 0:18:31.440 There are also things like research people who are good 0:18:31.480 --> 0:18:33.399 at and I think people are much better at research 0:18:33.480 --> 0:18:36.440 than they think to take like a Tenet's organizing example. Right, 0:18:36.520 --> 0:18:38.520 one of the common things you have to do is 0:18:38.960 --> 0:18:42.240 find out stuff about a landlord, right, Yeah, And there's 0:18:42.280 --> 0:18:44.720 the higher difficulty version of that, which isn't that hard. 0:18:44.880 --> 0:18:47.119 Also want to I want to mention this, but like 0:18:47.200 --> 0:18:50.399 going to a courthouse and finding records about who owns 0:18:50.720 --> 0:18:53.960 property companies that it's not that hard. It's like you 0:18:53.960 --> 0:18:56.280 could just do it, right, It's not as hard as 0:18:56.320 --> 0:18:59.080 you think it is from someone saying it. But there's 0:18:59.119 --> 0:19:01.159 also even just easy things in that, right that all 0:19:01.200 --> 0:19:02.840 of you probably already know how to do, which is 0:19:03.280 --> 0:19:06.199 just looking at someone's social media profiles and finding out 0:19:06.240 --> 0:19:09.160