Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Cool People, Did Cool Stuff or
Speaker 1: c p W D C C AS by for short,
Speaker 1: and by short I mean long because it takes at
Speaker 1: least as long to say the acronym as does say
Speaker 1: the title of the show. And one of my least
Speaker 1: favorite things is people who try to correct me and
Speaker 1: say that acronyms are only acronyms when they are pronounceable
Speaker 1: as words. So I'm Mark kill j your host and
Speaker 1: with me. Today is the one and only Andrew T.
Speaker 1: Andrew Good just gave dog two kills. Yeah, everything's gone
Speaker 1: great on this day. That is definitely a different day
Speaker 1: from last time, because we definitely don't just record both
Speaker 1: episodes back to back most of the time. We've also
Speaker 1: got our producer, Sophie. How are you doing? Sophie? Still
Speaker 1: doing well? Was doing well all those days ago when
Speaker 1: we report recorded part one? Still well now? Yeah. The
Speaker 1: days just fly by between recording part one important by bye,
Speaker 1: they do. Sometimes it just feels like I get up
Speaker 1: and get a glass of water, yeah, and then that's it.
Speaker 1: We also have our editor Ian who's not on the calm,
Speaker 1: but later we'll be listening to everything we say, just
Speaker 1: to twist our words around and make it sound like
Speaker 1: we said are saying things that we're not saying. Like
Speaker 1: I actually got the acronym correct at the beginning of
Speaker 1: this episode and then um Ian switched it around to
Speaker 1: be wrong. And our theme music was written by a
Speaker 1: woman and you can check out the rest of her
Speaker 1: music if you would like. So today we're talking about
Speaker 1: food up bombs, and we're talking abou mutual aid. And
Speaker 1: if you didn't listen to the first half of this episode,
Speaker 1: you are missing out on us pontificating about Catholic theology
Speaker 1: for a moment, and also about why were or at
Speaker 1: least why I'm not excited about people dressing up as
Speaker 1: homeless people. Yeah, I mean, it's just so like a
Speaker 1: classic of the genre. But yeah, you know, so the
Speaker 1: street theater kind of always has that element to it,
Speaker 1: I guess, just like, yeah, yeah, it's not a it's
Speaker 1: not a high art form, and that is both its
Speaker 1: advantage and disadvantage, both artistically and politically. Exactly. Yeah, So,
Speaker 1: where we last left our heroes, they're feeding people every week.
Speaker 1: They're collecting donations from all over the city and delivering
Speaker 1: free groceries everywhere because they think that people might need
Speaker 1: free groceries, and then they're taking what's left over and
Speaker 1: making a ton of free food and feeding people in
Speaker 1: the park. And this is just a a good thing
Speaker 1: to do. No notes, the city is less convinced that
Speaker 1: it's a good thing to do, or at least they
Speaker 1: don't like the other stuff that these same activists are doing,
Speaker 1: um like sticking their noses into every protest and action
Speaker 1: that they possibly can, writing every good fight that they
Speaker 1: come across. So so Keith mckenry, one of the founders
Speaker 1: of food nut Bombs, the main person who's written all
Speaker 1: this history. He who's actually really cool most of the time. Um,
Speaker 1: he doesn't like that he's getting harassed by the city,
Speaker 1: Like he's getting harassed a lot by the city. Apparently
Speaker 1: is being kind of threatened by the city. Don't totally
Speaker 1: know what that. I don't know exactly. So he fucks off.
Speaker 1: He sucked off to San Francisco, and Food Up Bombs
Speaker 1: Boston keeps going without him. In seven he starts Food
Speaker 1: up Bombs San Francisco, and not long after, some people
Speaker 1: in Long Beach, which I don't know if you all
Speaker 1: knew this, but Long Beach is not actually the name
Speaker 1: of a beach in l A. It turns out apparently
Speaker 1: it's its own city. M yeah, yeah, Andrew, did you
Speaker 1: know that Los Angeles resident? Uh? I think, I mean,
Speaker 1: I assume it is also a beach though, right, I
Speaker 1: don't know is Los Angeles an actual city or is
Speaker 1: it just a Hollywood fabrication? So uh yeah, definitely both.
Speaker 1: Is A is a ridiculous city as far as that goes? Yeah,
Speaker 1: completely agree? Okay, just does cool Zone media have an
Speaker 1: official stance on whether or not it's chill for me
Speaker 1: to spread conspiracy theories like l A is a real
Speaker 1: place and not just a Hollywood fabrication, because that's the
Speaker 1: conspiracy for Los Angeles is a real place with stage
Speaker 1: wink at the audience that they can't see if I'm
Speaker 1: describing it, you can't see ship. Yeah all right. So
Speaker 1: some people in Long Beach, legally distinct from Los Angeles
Speaker 1: started food not bombs, and they were nervous about stealing
Speaker 1: the name food nut bombs, so they started calling it
Speaker 1: bread knot bombs. But then they got in touch with
Speaker 1: food nat bombs and tun bombs, like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: we don't care that rules used food not bombs. Um,
Speaker 1: so they become Food Nut Bombs, and food Nut Bombs
Speaker 1: writes up a little how to Get Started zine and
Speaker 1: they start passing it around. There's thirty chapters. They had
Speaker 1: a conference and decided on the three basic principles that
Speaker 1: I mentioned at the beginning of Monday's episode, free veggy
Speaker 1: based food, autonomous groups, non violence, and then they put
Speaker 1: out the first edition of a book called food Nut
Speaker 1: Bombs that explains the whole thing very direct titlers. I
Speaker 1: appreciate a good direct title. So the group explodes in
Speaker 1: popularity after this. Two years later, people attended international gathering
Speaker 1: in San Francisco and the representing the US, Canada, Mexico,
Speaker 1: and various countries in Europe. And okay, my my theory
Speaker 1: is that the only downside of the popularity Food Not
Speaker 1: Bombs is that we had to go through as activists
Speaker 1: the whole generation of slogans with names that are like
Speaker 1: bikes not bombs, home's not jails, food not lawn, solidarity
Speaker 1: not charity, the something not something. I really appreciate that
Speaker 1: y'alls is um something and something like. I feel like
Speaker 1: that's a really positive development. Um Yeah, I wasn't around
Speaker 1: for the genesis of it. I have no idea how
Speaker 1: any of that care to be. But yeah, that is
Speaker 1: actually a good point. Yeah, I we were we were
Speaker 1: at a protest recently, and I because I hadn't been
Speaker 1: involved in the early days of it when it was
Speaker 1: mostly protest support. UM for Solidarity snacks mentioned last episode,
Speaker 1: which people can financially support, Yes, we need or the
Speaker 1: fund is getting we we only have a couple more
Speaker 1: Saturdays left unless we get more funds, which hopefully will
Speaker 1: come in. Um. But I didn't realize that the like
Speaker 1: cart that my friend used initially to start the whole
Speaker 1: thing is like it was like well known amongst people.
Speaker 1: Really people were like, oh, it's the car, we know you.
Speaker 1: It's the car. That's pretty amazing. Yeah. Um so yeah,
Speaker 1: something and something that is my that is my endorsement society.
Speaker 1: It's a new a new wrinkle on the on the format.
Speaker 1: We've progressed past the need for things not the other
Speaker 1: thing that said, all of those things that I named
Speaker 1: like homes not jail's homes, that jail's rules, and I
Speaker 1: actually almost did a whole thing about them, but I
Speaker 1: ran out of time. They're like people who well they
Speaker 1: do kind of what they say. They they open up squads.
Speaker 1: The organizations are great, it's often just the like just
Speaker 1: another pass at the copy usually yeah, yeah, totally, exactly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the main issue. And so that's why I would
Speaker 1: like to propose a new something and something food and
Speaker 1: bombs for people who want to kill the Tsar of Russia.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you want to kill the Tsar of Russia,
Speaker 1: it has been proven empirically through trial and air, a
Speaker 1: lot of air, the most effective way to kill Tazar
Speaker 1: of Russia is with bombs. So just saying putting that
Speaker 1: out there, please don't actually do that and then say
Speaker 1: that I had anything to do with it, Okay, shut yeah,
Speaker 1: totally no fucking snitches and food and bombs, all right,
Speaker 1: So food not bombs. It's getting super popular with people
Speaker 1: who like to eat food. But there are people who
Speaker 1: hate fun and freedom and people having nice things like
Speaker 1: food who are waiting in the wings. And these people,
Speaker 1: of course, best known as the government and the cops.
Speaker 1: This conflict first arises in a serious way in in
Speaker 1: San Francisco. You've got this mayor. He's super progressive. His
Speaker 1: name's Art Agnos. He ran on how environmental and feminist
Speaker 1: and pro union and ship he was, Ah spoiler. Okay,
Speaker 1: So he comes in during an intense period of gentrification
Speaker 1: of San Francisco and it's starting to change it into
Speaker 1: the yuppie hell hole we all know and love today.
Speaker 1: He wants to solve the homelessness crisis, and he starts
Speaker 1: off with some decent ideas about how to solve the
Speaker 1: homelessness crisis. M He wants to build low income housing,
Speaker 1: which of course always gets complicated, but it's not inherently wrong. Um.
Speaker 1: He also makes sleeping bands, and then he revives a
Speaker 1: nineteenth century law against lying down in public place with
Speaker 1: camping gear. Because you know that the government is doing
Speaker 1: something good when they find a law that has not
Speaker 1: been enforced in a hundred years. Yeah, so you should
Speaker 1: look at the laws, the other laws from that year
Speaker 1: and just see what else totally like, if this is
Speaker 1: who you're in company with, yeah, it can't be. These
Speaker 1: were not good legislators at the time. Yeah. Like, and
Speaker 1: here's the law against the following racial oh wait yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, but that's not for a couple of years. Yeah. No,
Speaker 1: that's the sweet spot, that is the hey day of that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think San Francisco is like it started being all
Speaker 1: the like, um, like, Chinese folks don't come here in
Speaker 1: the late nineteenth century, I think, Yeah, and hooray America
Speaker 1: has a really cool history. Yeah, and present that's wild
Speaker 1: the other yeah go ahead, Oh no, they're just just
Speaker 1: recapping for my brain, all right. Yeah. The laws back, Yeah,
Speaker 1: the laws back, and he starts sending out cops to
Speaker 1: sweep parks full of homeless folks. Fuck art Agnos. Uh,
Speaker 1: he's not progressive, he claims it, and and everyone I
Speaker 1: think starts seeing him as basically like, oh, he's the
Speaker 1: classic democrat. He it's a bait and switch. He gets
Speaker 1: elected by progressives because of the elector the people who
Speaker 1: vote a manner progressives, and then he serves neoliberalism instead.
Speaker 1: Um and fount Bombs shows up on the scene around
Speaker 1: the time same time as art Agnos and food nut Bombs.
Speaker 1: At the beginning, they weren't even trying to be controversial.
Speaker 1: They actually applied for a permit and did all of
Speaker 1: the paperwork and all that stuff. But the local business
Speaker 1: owners were like, no, you can't have homeless people eating
Speaker 1: food in public. Um as if there's some other place
Speaker 1: for people who don't have houses to eat food uh,
Speaker 1: so they pressure the city, the city denies the permit,
Speaker 1: and food nut Bombs rolls over and accepts it and
Speaker 1: ends as an organization. And wait, no, they say fuck it,
Speaker 1: and they feed people food anyway, And they start to
Speaker 1: get arrested for it, like a lot, Like in the
Speaker 1: first few months, there's almost a hundred arrests. It becomes
Speaker 1: an assembly line. Someone lines up to get a free meal.
Speaker 1: Someone scoops food onto the plate of the person who's
Speaker 1: there for a free meal, and the cops arrests the
Speaker 1: person who serves the food. So the next server steps
Speaker 1: up and feeds the next person in line and gets arrested.
Speaker 1: And and they just do this right because they're not
Speaker 1: afraid of civilis obedience. There. They do what's right, not
Speaker 1: what's safe. You know. Yeah, it's also truly like you know, obviously,
Speaker 1: if you're fucking cop, you are the worst human being.
Speaker 1: But like it's hard to have it more like in
Speaker 1: your face, what a fun discussing piece of ship you
Speaker 1: are that day, I know. Yeah. And so the fight
Speaker 1: is about food, I guess kind of, but not really.
Speaker 1: It's it's about more than that. It's about who controls
Speaker 1: public space. Are the parks controlled by the government or
Speaker 1: are they controlled by the people who make use of
Speaker 1: the park. And the government, of course, tends to believe
Speaker 1: that they're the ones who get to control the park,
Speaker 1: but I would argue, if you've ever been to a park,
Speaker 1: you know that that's not the case. The politics of
Speaker 1: a park are remapped daily by the people who are there.
Speaker 1: Like there might not be a sign up that says
Speaker 1: don't skateboard on the basketball court, but like the basketball
Speaker 1: court most of the time is for basketball players and
Speaker 1: who have their own structures about who decides which courts
Speaker 1: are being used, and like, you know, it's it's I mean,
Speaker 1: parts are are beautiful because they are these informal organizational
Speaker 1: spots that happen daily all over the world. Um, I
Speaker 1: don't know, it's like one thing I miss about living
Speaker 1: in cities and yeah, or just like like the like
Speaker 1: the yeah, the politics of any like public place are
Speaker 1: like so interesting. Yeah, it's just like you can make
Speaker 1: all the rules you want, but those aren't the rules,
Speaker 1: yeah totally. And you know, and people who have no
Speaker 1: private space to return to, they're going to use public space,
Speaker 1: which makes sense, right, And I've never had to deal
Speaker 1: with homelessness. I used to be a traveling activist, but
Speaker 1: that was by by choice is very structurally different. But
Speaker 1: I remember at this one time I was taking a
Speaker 1: nap in a van and a parking lot and it
Speaker 1: was really hot, so I opened the doors and and
Speaker 1: I was just thinking about how like I could now
Speaker 1: get in trouble. It would be perfectly legal for me
Speaker 1: to park my van and get out of it and
Speaker 1: leave my van in this public space, but now that
Speaker 1: I'm sleeping in it, it's sketchy. But even more than that,
Speaker 1: it seems so weird to me that if I didn't
Speaker 1: have a car, I can't just set my stuff down
Speaker 1: in this public space that is meant for holding stuff, right,
Speaker 1: is a public spaceman for people to leave their car
Speaker 1: and walk away. And it just sort of like hits
Speaker 1: me the magic of a car used in a certain way. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And then even if you have a car, if you
Speaker 1: don't have a private space to then take it home
Speaker 1: too later, you're not usually not allowed to park it anywhere. Um,
Speaker 1: and it I don't know whatever. This isn't news to
Speaker 1: anyone probably that there's a lot of laws against homelessness
Speaker 1: that I wish I had the quote in front of me,
Speaker 1: but I don't. There's that quote about the law and
Speaker 1: it's it's it's awesome equality outlaws before and the rich
Speaker 1: from like pissing, Yeah, um law the laws like perfectly fair,
Speaker 1: like like no one is permitted to sleep under the
Speaker 1: bridge or something, Yeah exactly. Um. And and l A specifically,
Speaker 1: they've they've come out with all these like where they
Speaker 1: pretend like it's not trying to do that type laws
Speaker 1: where they're like like recently l A City council approved
Speaker 1: an ordinance where it's like bike repair on the street
Speaker 1: is now illegal, and and then they were like, well,
Speaker 1: what do you mean this has not this has nothing
Speaker 1: to do with you know, the un housed communities. Uh.
Speaker 1: And and you know anybody with that that reads it
Speaker 1: is like just be honest, Yeah, what are you? What
Speaker 1: do you what do you mean? And uh, you know,
Speaker 1: there's there's so many different things. It's like putting bolder
Speaker 1: or is under freeway under passes and things like that.
Speaker 1: They're like, oh no, it's to prevent and they make
Speaker 1: up some lights like yeah, I saw a bat there
Speaker 1: once and I don't want people to get rabies. So
Speaker 1: that's why there's a Boulder. It's like, just treat people
Speaker 1: with dignity, don't be so bastards. We'll just be gloves
Speaker 1: off and be like we want our clean city. Actually,
Speaker 1: don't do that either. Don't do That's always like like,
Speaker 1: oh I I prefer the open fascists like like sort
Speaker 1: of it's glib, but yeah, don't tempt them. Yeah, I know,
Speaker 1: I'm not looking forward to that stage. It's like always
Speaker 1: like like, oh, I just prefer what people are saying,
Speaker 1: what they really believe. It's like I promise you don't
Speaker 1: totally yeah, I know. I know. We were talking about
Speaker 1: like democrats that run with these liberal policies and it's like, oh, no,
Speaker 1: you're a Republican and like that sucks. But but having
Speaker 1: like the actual fascists run on fat like yeah, it's
Speaker 1: like like the like I prefer it at least I
Speaker 1: know where I stand. It's like knowledge of where you
Speaker 1: stand is like such a valueless thing. And also like right,
Speaker 1: like when everyone had to be quiet about slightly more
Speaker 1: quiet about the racism and ship, I think it made
Speaker 1: fewer young racists because if you can't pass it on
Speaker 1: is this continent, racism is a continuion. So like truly,
Speaker 1: it is like like that that is like the thing
Speaker 1: it's like for all like the you know, subconscious or
Speaker 1: or like quiet racism, Like it truly is better. It
Speaker 1: is just better better society where at least they have
Speaker 1: to experience some sort of shame or second guessing themselves. Um,
Speaker 1: I'm not saying it's good, but it's better than the alternative.
Speaker 1: It's certainly use that totally Okay. So yeah, so all
Speaker 1: these people are getting arrested because the city is real
Speaker 1: clear how they want to control space. They're like, we
Speaker 1: control the parks. There's actually all these quotes from different
Speaker 1: city council people that are like or you know, from
Speaker 1: the city government that's like and cops that are like,
Speaker 1: we control these parks, not these homeless people in these
Speaker 1: anarchists or like they're making a political statement. I mean
Speaker 1: it's like, yeah, of course, feeding people in a society
Speaker 1: where there's people going hungry and dying in the streets
Speaker 1: as a political statement like this shouldn't be happening is
Speaker 1: a political statement because the current political system isn't working. Um.
Speaker 1: Also like pathetic that that is the like, yeah, you're
Speaker 1: scared of political statements? Yeah, yeah, totally, So the civil
Speaker 1: disobedience works, and after a few months, the city sits
Speaker 1: down to negotiate with them and gives them a temporary permit.
Speaker 1: They have to like move a couple blocks over to
Speaker 1: like get out of Um I think they're in Golden
Speaker 1: Gate Park at this point. They have to go a
Speaker 1: few blocks away, so they're like less public eye. But
Speaker 1: they drop all the charges against all the orestes and
Speaker 1: and things are a little better. But these radical homeless people.
Speaker 1: The next year they set up an encampment outside of
Speaker 1: city Hall and they have the coolest slogan ever for
Speaker 1: this exact thing, which is, we're tired, we're hungry, we
Speaker 1: don't like the government. Um, just say what you fucking mean.
Speaker 1: I want our side to say what they fucking mean.
Speaker 1: You know, that's significantly better. Yeah, well, the problem is
Speaker 1: most of our side quote unquote our side, uh doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that. That's true. Yep, that's that's the dark side
Speaker 1: of things. Uh. Well, fudnut Bombs decides to go support
Speaker 1: that just to avoid lingering on that dark thought. Turn
Speaker 1: up Bombs. They decided to go support this, this homeless
Speaker 1: lead initiative. And I believe at this point a decent
Speaker 1: nu chunk of the Food Up Bombs organizers are homeless
Speaker 1: folks themselves. I'm not entirely certain about how all that works,
Speaker 1: but it's yeah, more complicated than people might initially think. Um,
Speaker 1: And they set up a twenty four hour super kitchen
Speaker 1: to feed the protest camp. And this and the fact
Speaker 1: that some of the organizers non violently occupy the mayor's office,
Speaker 1: gets the whole encampment swept by the ostensibly progressive mayor
Speaker 1: and Funup Bombs permit is revoked, and so Found up
Speaker 1: Bombs is like, all right, fuck it, And they go
Speaker 1: back to the park no longer a couple of blocks away,
Speaker 1: and they just, um, they're not gonna be swept out
Speaker 1: from public eye, and they're just gonna feed people. And
Speaker 1: over the next seven years, this this fight goes on
Speaker 1: for seven years, over two administrations. Over a thousand activists
Speaker 1: get sighted and or arrested for feeding people in the park.
Speaker 1: Nuns and priests joined them. At one point, my favorite
Speaker 1: was that lawyers of the National Lawyers Guild showed up.
Speaker 1: Shout out to the National Lawyers Guild, They're great. They
Speaker 1: decided to serve food and get arrested. The cops are like,
Speaker 1: now we're good. I just don't arrest the National Lawyers
Speaker 1: Guild because that's who there sleep, right of. I mean
Speaker 1: they used to be. I I was at the UM
Speaker 1: just for a part of it. I wasn't able to
Speaker 1: be around for like the most violent parts of the
Speaker 1: uh disgusting hopefully soon to be gone. City Council member
Speaker 1: Mitchell Ferrell ordered the LAPD to sweep Echo Park like
Speaker 1: um here and truly, I mean it was one of
Speaker 1: those like right like this this felt like a new thing.
Speaker 1: I'm not super experienced with stuff, but like the l
Speaker 1: A p D like first of all, like you know,
Speaker 1: performing acts of violence now with like everything recorded, but
Speaker 1: like actively going after journalists and the like the green
Speaker 1: hat National folks, targeting them in some truly fascist ship
Speaker 1: and then setting up a uh literal concentration camp at
Speaker 1: Echo Park. They fence it off and you could not
Speaker 1: You didn't. You weren't free to leave or enter. They're
Speaker 1: just going to concentrate all the people into one place
Speaker 1: so that they can be handled. It was concentration, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was, it was. It was you know, it was
Speaker 1: so fucking disgusting. Yeah, it's unforgettable. Major media wouldn't even
Speaker 1: like really cover it because their cowards. But it's like
Speaker 1: it was being live streamed on Twitter and you're seeing
Speaker 1: it and you're like, yeah, this this is a concentration
Speaker 1: camp in the middle of Los Angeles being run by
Speaker 1: our by the l A p d by and by
Speaker 1: actual fascist MITCHO Ferrell. Yeah, if you're listening to this
Speaker 1: and you're an l A voter and there's or if
Speaker 1: you're not, actually there's any way to to contribute to
Speaker 1: the Ugo Soto Martinez campaign in any way to unsee
Speaker 1: open fascist MITCHO Ferrell. Please do that please. One of
Speaker 1: the things that I keep running when I was researching this.
Speaker 1: At one point I got really frustrated about halfway through
Speaker 1: writing all this, where I was like, it's also quaint.
Speaker 1: I know that they were fighting for really hard things
Speaker 1: and it was really hard, but I'm just like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, Like, just even what you're saying about, you know,
Speaker 1: the National Lawyers Guild actually gets arrested now right in
Speaker 1: the exact same situation, and just like, yeah, I'm really
Speaker 1: not trying to downplay the incredible amount of work that
Speaker 1: Punat bombs well, that still does and does now in
Speaker 1: this new context. So I'm really not trying to knock it, um,
Speaker 1: but it is it's it's hard to see how far
Speaker 1: we've not come in terms of the move towards it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I think it. It is also like like
Speaker 1: probably the at least some version of this activism. The
Speaker 1: stuff that I felt like I saw a lot in
Speaker 1: the nineties was a lot of people insulated by their
Speaker 1: whiteness from some of the worst things. And but that
Speaker 1: is like part of you know, it goes both ways too,
Speaker 1: because it is like of civil disobedience is like civil
Speaker 1: disobedience only works if you're oppressors have any kind of conscience,
Speaker 1: and like, yeah, it's just like cops have more of
Speaker 1: a conscience for like white teens than you know, your
Speaker 1: average on house person, your average black person, etcetera. Like
Speaker 1: so there is some version of that, but then that
Speaker 1: becomes like sort of this white savior re vibe that
Speaker 1: can go the wrong way. It could turn into people
Speaker 1: encouraging street theater where you dressed up like the homeless
Speaker 1: because you don't think about what that means. Um, I
Speaker 1: don't know, sorry, I'm just like on that little tangent.
Speaker 1: It's like scary. Now think that's to me, Like like
Speaker 1: during the George Floyd uprising, it was just like, oh,
Speaker 1: the l a p D is like beating middle class
Speaker 1: white women in broad daylight now, which feels like an escalation, Like,
Speaker 1: you know, at least typically under they in the past,
Speaker 1: it feels like they would at least wait till sun
Speaker 1: down to do that. They were like actively kettling people
Speaker 1: at like on on a on a Tuesday at like
Speaker 1: one pm and then like and then like beating them
Speaker 1: on camera. Yeah. It was like pretty remarkable, honestly. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And you know what else is remarkable? Oh my god, Margaret,
Speaker 1: I was like, are you going to do that? Because
Speaker 1: it's that time. The concept of dogs dogs And oh,
Speaker 1: we have a new advertiser that I'm very excited about
Speaker 1: that we'll be running, and it would actually be the
Speaker 1: first host voiced ad that we'll be running on this network.
Speaker 1: And that is the concept of shut the funk up,
Speaker 1: Shut the fuck up. Yeah, shut the funk up, don't
Speaker 1: talk to cops. That is the concept. Oh smart, Yeah, No, sorry,
Speaker 1: I wasn't on you all to shut the funk up
Speaker 1: saying that when you get arrested, shut the funk up.
Speaker 1: Oh there's that too, But some of y'all do need
Speaker 1: to also shut the funk up. Here's some ads it Hi,
Speaker 1: Margaret Killjoy here boy, the world sure is a mess
Speaker 1: right now? Huh. Seems like every day there are more
Speaker 1: and more reasons to get out into this recent protest.
Speaker 1: That's why when I get arrested, there's only one strategy.
Speaker 1: I trust, I shut the funk up. I say, I
Speaker 1: would like to remain silent, I would like to talk
Speaker 1: to my lawyer, and then I shut the funk up.
Speaker 1: In the United States of America, it's constitutionally protected and
Speaker 1: recommended by the National Lawyers Guild. That's s h U
Speaker 1: t t h E f U c k u P.
Speaker 1: Once again, that's s h U T th h E
Speaker 1: f U c k u P. Because you can't talk
Speaker 1: yourself out of custody, but you can talk yourself into
Speaker 1: a conviction. Providing identification to law enforcement required in some
Speaker 1: states and situations, giving name an addressed expedient. In most circumstances,
Speaker 1: never discuss the events leading to arrest with anyone except
Speaker 1: your lawyer, doctor, or therapist. Posting pictures of protests and
Speaker 1: actions on social media may lead to complications if you
Speaker 1: have already talked to cops or experienced confuse and about
Speaker 1: talking to cops, call your attorney immediately, as these maybe
Speaker 1: signs of more serious legal problems. The concept of not
Speaker 1: talking to cops does not provide legal advice, and the
Speaker 1: foregoing statements are for informational purposes only if you have
Speaker 1: specific legal questions. Consultant attorney and we are back, um,
Speaker 1: and we are thinking about the escalation. And also yeah,
Speaker 1: how like people who actually are are more heavily marginalized
Speaker 1: by society have been dealing with this ship and it
Speaker 1: wasn't as like quaint even back you know. So that
Speaker 1: is a really good point. I mean it's it's tough. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it just goes always like it's like, yes, they're absolutely
Speaker 1: doing you know, a good thing on the balance, and
Speaker 1: like certainly there are the allies, but yeah, it's just
Speaker 1: it is weird, like the the using essentially you're on
Speaker 1: privilege to advance goals, but sort of still you have
Speaker 1: that privilege and you can not extend that privilege, which
Speaker 1: is always the precarious thing too. Yeah, and I mean
Speaker 1: I think that that has a lot to do with
Speaker 1: like where you're taking direction from right, Like, um, you know,
Speaker 1: if I'm going to be protesting in a context in
Speaker 1: which I'm attempting to use my white privilege, uh, it
Speaker 1: usually ideally would be in the context of like listening
Speaker 1: to um, you know, the direction and the overall strategy
Speaker 1: that is being proposed by the the group that I'm
Speaker 1: attempting to be in solidary with, you know, UM, and
Speaker 1: which is of course also really complicated because people are,
Speaker 1: like people of color or not, the monoliths even among
Speaker 1: individual you know, like identities, and so you know, you
Speaker 1: people choosing who they listen to. It. Well, this is
Speaker 1: why I don't run a politics podcasts. This ship gets messy.
Speaker 1: I just talk about history. No exactly. I mean I
Speaker 1: think that's like it's both messy and like ugly and
Speaker 1: and you know, the reality is there is no like right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that that. And that's one of the things
Speaker 1: I love about movements that are so um like like
Speaker 1: diverse in terms of ideologies, in terms of ideas, in
Speaker 1: terms of strategies tactics, Like when we can work to
Speaker 1: coordinate different strategies and tactics together and different people coming
Speaker 1: from different positions, I feel like that's where we are
Speaker 1: our strongest personally. UM, so the next mayor San Francisco,
Speaker 1: speaking of people getting a little more um glove off.
Speaker 1: The next pair of San Francisco was the chief of
Speaker 1: police who orchestrated the crackdown on fodnut pomps. All right,
Speaker 1: and a runs an anti homeless camp on he runs
Speaker 1: onto anti homeless platform and things just heat up for
Speaker 1: food nut bombs. But of course also everywhere in the
Speaker 1: city with this guy. And over the course of the fight,
Speaker 1: the city removes all the benches from the park, so
Speaker 1: the folks have to eat sitting on the ground, which
Speaker 1: didn't stop anyone from eating food. You'll be shocked to know.
Speaker 1: Then they put up signs everywhere that said serving food
Speaker 1: without a permit is a crime. Um, these were probably
Speaker 1: roughly as effective escape warding is a crime science. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And and it's like it really is like, what, like
Speaker 1: what society are you in? You know that that that
Speaker 1: is your like priority. Let's say that means taxpayers spend
Speaker 1: money on this. It's like, is this really who you
Speaker 1: fucking are? It? Like it's gross to think about, like
Speaker 1: or to be that person. And the other thing they
Speaker 1: spent taxpayer money on was to remove the fountain from
Speaker 1: the park. Because I guess that would you know, all right,
Speaker 1: well they're gonna eat, they better not be somewhere with
Speaker 1: like pretty things. They better not enjoy it, you know,
Speaker 1: have access to a water feature anyway. Um, So food
Speaker 1: not Bomb starts getting it comes up with different tactics
Speaker 1: to deal with all this harassment. Right, people get sick
Speaker 1: of people of the cops stealing their food, so they
Speaker 1: start having decoy food buckets where they put a third
Speaker 1: of the food in the bucket and they go up
Speaker 1: and they set up, and the cops steal the bucket
Speaker 1: and then they're like, oh, shut you stole our food,
Speaker 1: and the cops leaves. So then they bring out the
Speaker 1: next third of a bucket and they serve some people,
Speaker 1: and then the cops steal the food, and then they
Speaker 1: bring out a final third in a third bucket, and
Speaker 1: the flyer that they distribute all over the world being
Speaker 1: like here's how to deal with it if the cops
Speaker 1: are stealing your food is like cops are too embarrassed
Speaker 1: to come back the third time to steal the food.
Speaker 1: And I don't know whether it's they're too embarrassed that
Speaker 1: they got like looney Tunes tricked, or if they're just
Speaker 1: embarrassed about the fact that it really hits home about
Speaker 1: the fact that they are like just stealing food. That's
Speaker 1: what their job is, is steal food from the mouths
Speaker 1: of hungry people. And Keith mckennry, the founder guy that
Speaker 1: you know I have the most information about, he was
Speaker 1: arrested ninety four times between which is more than once
Speaker 1: a month for seven years straight. As he puts it,
Speaker 1: he was framed up on three other felonies during that time.
Speaker 1: It was facing twenty five years in prison. UM. I
Speaker 1: have no counter argument to this. And during that same
Speaker 1: time period, for example, the FBI had just covered up
Speaker 1: the car bombing of two environmentalists, Judy Barry and Darryl Churney,
Speaker 1: and they the FEDS might have even done the car bombing,
Speaker 1: but the thing that's been proven in court is that
Speaker 1: they at least covered it up, right. So this is
Speaker 1: the so here I am being like ha ha at
Speaker 1: different times, like, actually, no people are getting car bombed
Speaker 1: by the FEDS. Um. Probably, but yeah, yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: it's it's just like it probably is. I mean they
Speaker 1: are the same people. They're worse than they have the
Speaker 1: internet now, but like they're the same people that have
Speaker 1: always been doing this ship. So yeah, it is different.
Speaker 1: There was more innocent and less innocent. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: in different ways different yea, yeah, yeah, it's just different,
Speaker 1: is honestly the Yeah. Yeah, they're not any less murderous
Speaker 1: in service of right, you know, of their their little society. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just their tactics changed in different situations. Yeah. He spends
Speaker 1: a total of Keith mckennry spends a total of five
Speaker 1: hundred days in jail during this seven year time just
Speaker 1: with all of these minor arrests for serving food. Um,
Speaker 1: and the harassment started gaining so bad that Amnesty International
Speaker 1: was wrote a letter to San Francisco saying that they
Speaker 1: were considering designating food up bombs activists as prisoners of conscience,
Speaker 1: basically saying like, if you, if you don't start harassing
Speaker 1: people based on their political beliefs, that we're going to
Speaker 1: adopt them as prisoners of conscious, you will be breaking
Speaker 1: international law and we will fight for their unconditional release.
Speaker 1: And eventually, two mayors later, food nut bombs just kind
Speaker 1: of wins by default because the city stops at war
Speaker 1: against them and they keep serving food. And thirty years
Speaker 1: after all this stuff they're still serving food, and they
Speaker 1: still serve food all over the world. The current best
Speaker 1: guests there's no official registry of food up bombs. The
Speaker 1: best guess is that there's around five hundred cities in
Speaker 1: the US with chapters and about five more cities around
Speaker 1: the world, and fun bombs of active US have been
Speaker 1: spied on by the FEDS and arrested by cops time
Speaker 1: and time again. Literally, while I was researching this, I
Speaker 1: messaged Sophia since I figured this out. I ran across
Speaker 1: a memo from the FBI about how they were spying
Speaker 1: on Denver Food Not Bombs in two thousand four, which
Speaker 1: is um when I was in Denver coun bombs, and
Speaker 1: it stuck out to me because they're describing how they
Speaker 1: were trying to get information out of my neighbors, like
Speaker 1: our house ran one day of cooking, and different houses
Speaker 1: across the city ran different days of it, and some
Speaker 1: punks like some it's like punks did it some days,
Speaker 1: students did it other days, whatever, and and so. The
Speaker 1: the document points out that while they arrested eight activists
Speaker 1: at the Food Not Bombs house, none of them nor
Speaker 1: any of the other people at the residents that the
Speaker 1: FBI was trying to question gave any information to the investigation,
Speaker 1: which rules and is what how you all should handle
Speaker 1: interactions with the federal police. You tell them that you
Speaker 1: have representation and that UM ask for their card and
Speaker 1: does the only information you give them. You don't lie
Speaker 1: to them and you don't tell them anything anyway. So
Speaker 1: after the fall of the Soviet Union, let's just jump
Speaker 1: gears really quick, run up. Bombs springs up all over
Speaker 1: Russia and the former Communist block Poland, Ukraine, Serbia, Croatia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria,
Speaker 1: and Russia all have or had chapters, and the stakes
Speaker 1: there are a bit higher than they've been for a
Speaker 1: lot of the U S chapters. In November two thousand five,
Speaker 1: a food nut bombser in St. Petersburg Team or cache Vera,
Speaker 1: was hanging out at a cafe a few hours after
Speaker 1: serving food in the park. A crew of bone heads,
Speaker 1: which are Nazi skinheads, swarmed him, chanting and this will
Speaker 1: be a familiar chance to Americans that they were chanting
Speaker 1: anti Antifa Nazis restrained teamer while another another Nazi who
Speaker 1: was only fourteen years old, stabbed him to death five
Speaker 1: times in the neck and teamer was it was an
Speaker 1: anarchist and a philosophy student. He was twenty is old
Speaker 1: and he played in a punk band called Sandinista. Two
Speaker 1: years later, Bone had swarmed food not bombs in St.
Speaker 1: Petersburg again, and if I'm reading the various articles correctly,
Speaker 1: they swarmed the actual feeding itself. This time they attacked
Speaker 1: and another food nut bombs are Ivan yelling. He survives,
Speaker 1: but he got stabbed twenty times for serving food in
Speaker 1: the park. And while he was recovering in the hospital,
Speaker 1: dozens of his friends showed up to donate blood at
Speaker 1: the hospital. Some came from as far away as Moscow,
Speaker 1: which is like an eight hour train ride. Basically people
Speaker 1: coming in solidarity too to offer their blood. I'm sure
Speaker 1: they had plenty of blood. I hope that people showed
Speaker 1: up then gave blood to other people in the hospital,
Speaker 1: which is an interesting escalation of mutual aid. And then
Speaker 1: on the flourth of February two thousand seven, Nazis went
Speaker 1: for the ultimate irony and they bombed the food nut bombs.
Speaker 1: No one gets killed, Uh, they just want to like
Speaker 1: say that up front so there's less tension around that
Speaker 1: they hid a bomb in the flower stall, and it's
Speaker 1: I hate to laugh at this. It's to go off
Speaker 1: at the time of the feeding, but the jokes on
Speaker 1: the Nazis because feeding was run by punks and so
Speaker 1: they were late. So the bomb goes off before anyone arrives,
Speaker 1: and no one was hurt. And they've had people as
Speaker 1: usual on the day that Nazis tried to bomb them.
Speaker 1: I said at the very beginning where I was like,
Speaker 1: in this time, no one gets killed by Nazis, and
Speaker 1: actually one person gets killed by And I didn't. I didn't.
Speaker 1: I should have probably known where I was going. I was.
Speaker 1: I was more chuckling at the you know, we're anti
Speaker 1: anti five Yeah, yeah, you're just fascist. It's fine, yeah,
Speaker 1: your regulars Yeah yeah, no, I no, totally. Um yeah.
Speaker 1: And I remember when this happened. It hit us all
Speaker 1: kind of hard, and it was like kind of sobering, right, um,
Speaker 1: because we would get harassed for serving food nut bombs
Speaker 1: and like a couple of times I've served food, not bombs,
Speaker 1: are eating it with like riot police all around and
Speaker 1: helicopters overhead and all that ship. But fucking Russia, they're
Speaker 1: getting bombed for it. And and the attacks were focused.
Speaker 1: It's the same focus in the U. S. It's it's
Speaker 1: about who controls spaces. Right in the US, it is
Speaker 1: the government is like, we control the parks. And in
Speaker 1: Russia at the time, the Nazis were like, no, we
Speaker 1: control the parks, and so it was they were attacking
Speaker 1: the the St. Petersburg d i y leftist n anarchist
Speaker 1: punk scene which organized against the fascists under the name Antifa,
Speaker 1: and so the regular are not fans of Antifa, and
Speaker 1: so you know, no, it's but it's just like it's
Speaker 1: like again, if you're murdering people for like handing out food,
Speaker 1: it's it's I mean, but that's like such a like
Speaker 1: fascist through line, and it's just like and that is
Speaker 1: a little you know, we talked, I talked about it.
Speaker 1: It's like me not understanding, you know. I was sort
Speaker 1: of like, I guess I was still also just like
Speaker 1: not not not clear, but like when I was talking
Speaker 1: about just the small amount of mutual aid stuff I've
Speaker 1: been doing over the last couple of years, and like
Speaker 1: the like relative paranoia I feel that you know, these
Speaker 1: these you know of patriots like have and I think
Speaker 1: that the thing that is it's like because in my
Speaker 1: in my mind, it's like, what are they gonna do
Speaker 1: kill us for handing out you know, granola bars? And
Speaker 1: the answer is yes, depends on how far things but yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: but the answer is yes. Like so so that's like
Speaker 1: hard to internalize. And I think that is. It's like
Speaker 1: because often you like come to this sort of thing
Speaker 1: with like the energy of this is like a social thing,
Speaker 1: or at least it's part of it, and it's like
Speaker 1: very hard to not you know, to realize that like yes,
Speaker 1: like we are like doing something, but it's like we're
Speaker 1: actually there is an element of parel to this that
Speaker 1: is hard to like kind of like really realized sometimes. Right,
Speaker 1: the ship is like real and like even though it
Speaker 1: shouldn't be. It's literally just handing out fucking snacks and
Speaker 1: like hand sanity and almost every single food not bombs
Speaker 1: feeding that happens worldwide is pleasant with good mediocre to
Speaker 1: good food depending on the cooks, and a good environment
Speaker 1: and safe, you know and like and I definitely wouldn't
Speaker 1: discourage people. You know, um, if you're in Moscow right now,
Speaker 1: it's a lot more complicated, right um, but you know,
Speaker 1: and and things will get more complicated here as things happen.
Speaker 1: But but that's going to be true. It's yeah, but
Speaker 1: it is also like yeah, like elements of like there's
Speaker 1: always something you can do. M So it's like, you know,
Speaker 1: if you get to the point where it feels perilous
Speaker 1: to be there and person, there's things you can do,
Speaker 1: and it feels perilous to like be with a collective
Speaker 1: group of people cooking or organizing or whatever, there's things
Speaker 1: you can do. Yeah, something, there's always more. You can
Speaker 1: always be doing more than you've been doing, and like,
Speaker 1: and it can always be something that plays to your strength,
Speaker 1: and it doesn't have to be something that is like
Speaker 1: you can think about what you are willing to risk
Speaker 1: and then think about how you can go about meeting
Speaker 1: your own needs and still engage, you know, and like
Speaker 1: just being the person to call like food co ops
Speaker 1: or big chain organic stores or regular stores and be like, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm working with you know food nut bombs or if
Speaker 1: if they're burned on that make up some other I
Speaker 1: don't know legality what I'm saying, um, find ways to
Speaker 1: get donations of food and like I think, I think, yeah,
Speaker 1: you probably can just not name the yeah, yeah, place,
Speaker 1: I suppose but yeah, yeah, yeah, there's always something. I
Speaker 1: mean I think that I was doing UM. Also during
Speaker 1: the George Floyd uprising, was like trying to help out
Speaker 1: with UM just listening to the police scanner, which was
Speaker 1: also illuminating in that I was like, oh, these people
Speaker 1: are both like it was whild listening to cops be
Speaker 1: legitimately sound afraid. I mean, they're fucking you know, fascist cowards,
Speaker 1: but it really was. I was like, Oh, you're scared
Speaker 1: of like I know who's in that crowd, Like you're
Speaker 1: looking scared of them. You feel towards like you have guns,
Speaker 1: you're the violent one. And that's I mean because fascism
Speaker 1: is the cowards ideology, Like it's that's why they only
Speaker 1: attack when they're in big groups. That's why, you know,
Speaker 1: like yeah, um, and when there's a fair fight, they
Speaker 1: backed down. It seems like not universally, but it um
Speaker 1: and a lot of what I mean not even not
Speaker 1: even a fair fight. Yeah, but I mean you see
Speaker 1: it like in Portland and like all like if you
Speaker 1: just like can stand up and be organized, the fucking
Speaker 1: proud boy type folks just like they're too stupid and
Speaker 1: weak and scared, and I mean it is the difference
Speaker 1: in the ideologies. It's like they don't have each other's backs.
Speaker 1: So so the reason they need like the swarm is
Speaker 1: because it's they're they're so brittle, because they are so cowardly. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's it's literally just I'm afraid of the other.
Speaker 1: That is the it seems to me, is the core
Speaker 1: of fascism, you know. And yeah, so speaking of people
Speaker 1: standing up to fascism, this isn't an ad break. This
Speaker 1: is just mere talking more about some of these Russian
Speaker 1: food numbers. But it could be dogs stand up the fascists.
Speaker 1: Some of them, some of them, I don't know. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's a hard one. Favorite famously a bunch of them
Speaker 1: love fascists. Yeah, okay, um, well probably a lot of
Speaker 1: a lot of our most famous dogs are pro fascism,
Speaker 1: you know. Alright, alright, fine, regrettably, I'm just saying, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: no more dogs. More dogs are cops and are not coughs.
Speaker 1: More dogs are not cops, but more famous dogs are cops. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but there's riot dogs all over Greece and various countries
Speaker 1: in South America and Central America. Who who hate cops?
Speaker 1: All right? Well then here's some unrelated advertisements. Because we
Speaker 1: live in a capitalistic hell world. Yes, and we are
Speaker 1: back and we are talking about unat bombs in Russia
Speaker 1: and Fudna bombs continues in Russia, I believe to this day.
Speaker 1: During the invasion, well at the beginning of the current
Speaker 1: invasion of the Russian invasion of Ukraine Moscow, Funat Bombs
Speaker 1: put out a hasty translation of a statement which is
Speaker 1: in order to keep an increase the benefits in their hands.
Speaker 1: The government declares wars who will collect their intestines with
Speaker 1: their hands, who will have their arms and legs torn
Speaker 1: off by explosions, whose families will bury their children. Of course,
Speaker 1: all of this does not apply to the ruling minority.
Speaker 1: We must resist the militaristic regime and the war it
Speaker 1: is waging with all of our might. Spread information among
Speaker 1: your comrades, fight as best you can and uh. And
Speaker 1: then they've been doing that. The A bunch of food
Speaker 1: nut bombs activists were arrested in February and anti war demonstration.
Speaker 1: You can see the video. It's literally just some people
Speaker 1: walking down the street with a banner and cops grabbing
Speaker 1: them off the street and arresting them. And then in
Speaker 1: March at a Food Not Bombs feeding unknown assailants. They
Speaker 1: might have been cops, they might have been just piece
Speaker 1: of ship. Warmongers, kidnapped four people out of Food nat Bombs,
Speaker 1: threw them into a car, drove them out in the forest,
Speaker 1: said they were going to make them dig their own graves,
Speaker 1: dropped them off one by one and beat the ship
Speaker 1: out of them with police batons and seriously wounded several
Speaker 1: of them. I believe all of them, but I'm not sure. Um.
Speaker 1: Belarus Food Not Bombs has been going since two thousands six,
Speaker 1: but they had to suspend operations in January two because
Speaker 1: of the repression there of the anarchist movement because Belarus
Speaker 1: is boot looking for Putin and end that things have
Speaker 1: been going real hard for them there. Um, But that
Speaker 1: was a terrible bummer note for me to end this
Speaker 1: part about Food nat Bombs on There's actually one more
Speaker 1: story that's related to mutual Aid than I want to say.
Speaker 1: But if you have a way to quickly turn this
Speaker 1: around on a positive note about Food not Bombs, I'm
Speaker 1: I'm looking at how I wrote the script and I'm
Speaker 1: not proud. Well, I mean, I think the thing that
Speaker 1: is like it's the scary part, but it is the
Speaker 1: like real part, which is like again, I came to
Speaker 1: mutual aid mainly because you know, the world, but also
Speaker 1: like it was like honestly just for my own mental health,
Speaker 1: like such a like important thing. It wind up being
Speaker 1: to like do something and it's like there's a social
Speaker 1: element to it, but like not that it's good that
Speaker 1: this is this is a political action that is like
Speaker 1: violently repressed by literal fascists. But I think it's the
Speaker 1: extent that there's a silver lining for like an American
Speaker 1: audience is like this is like you are part of
Speaker 1: something actually powerful when you do things like this. Um
Speaker 1: that Again, it's it's that like you know, you look
Speaker 1: around and like for me, I'm like, god, everyone see
Speaker 1: here seems really fucking paranoid, and it's like they're not,
Speaker 1: but they're not bad. You know. It's still like like
Speaker 1: at least there's that power there of realizing that you
Speaker 1: are like really doing something. Um can be helpful, but yeah,
Speaker 1: it's sucking hard obviously, Now that makes sense. I mean,
Speaker 1: like we live in a society that tries to deny
Speaker 1: us agency, right, that's like one of its main structural
Speaker 1: ideas um and and here's just a a really good,
Speaker 1: almost always very safe way to claim agency. And also this, uh,
Speaker 1: the society we're living in right now is trying to
Speaker 1: live in the society at large, but trunks of it
Speaker 1: are trying to disappear people and more and more people
Speaker 1: are trying are starting to fall through the cracks. And
Speaker 1: it's not a coincidence from my point of view that
Speaker 1: this is happening as other things in the world are
Speaker 1: getting worse. And and here's a way that you can
Speaker 1: help stop that. You know that there's that there's that
Speaker 1: fucking poem about the you know, first they came for
Speaker 1: and then they came for and like great, like give
Speaker 1: people give stuff to people who are homeless, Like that's good.
Speaker 1: That is part of that. That is part of stopping
Speaker 1: that chain of events that does lead to you and
Speaker 1: I you know, like, um, you know the other like
Speaker 1: purely selfish way, if if you want to look at
Speaker 1: it this way, it's like like we're talking about like
Speaker 1: sort of like in vaguely like militaristic terms. But the
Speaker 1: thing is it's like again, I am passed probably my
Speaker 1: brick throwing days, but like why do you keep winking
Speaker 1: when you say that though, Oh sorry anyway, Uh no,
Speaker 1: I really am even even even like very funny though
Speaker 1: carrying carrying a folding table. The other day, I was like, god, damn,
Speaker 1: I'm like I just can't yeah like you. Here's why
Speaker 1: not because I'm like, it's it's I'm just like you.
Speaker 1: You don't want me. I'm not. I'm not best used
Speaker 1: on brick throwing duty on either side of things. It's
Speaker 1: just like not, it's not good for anyone. However, it
Speaker 1: was a thing where I was like during like some
Speaker 1: of the darkest and the like perpetual upcoming darkest moments,
Speaker 1: like the darkest moments that come is that like these
Speaker 1: motherfucker's who are like the paranoid people who are just
Speaker 1: like you know, in my eyes, paranoid people who are
Speaker 1: like handing out cranola bars, etcetera. Like when if and
Speaker 1: when like shit really goes bad, like this is the network,
Speaker 1: this is the thing that becomes a resistance or whatever
Speaker 1: or like if not these people, then something like it
Speaker 1: or something adjacent to it or like and you know
Speaker 1: it's real because these people have been out on the
Speaker 1: street doing ship spending their own like energy and money
Speaker 1: and like time, Like if they were knarcs, it would
Speaker 1: be you know, they deserve it because I think they
Speaker 1: put in years this ship. So it's like, yeah, fine,
Speaker 1: send me to jail. It's great. Yeah, there's this old
Speaker 1: earth first thing where Earth firsts would be like, Okay,
Speaker 1: once you figure out who the cop is in the group,
Speaker 1: you don't you don't kick them out. You just have
Speaker 1: them take all the notes. You just like make sure
Speaker 1: that they pay for everything. I am not recommending this
Speaker 1: as a strategy. I am not trying to opine about
Speaker 1: how groups should deal with infiltration. I am merely relaying
Speaker 1: a thing that has happened in the past. U No, truly,
Speaker 1: because well but yeah, but it's it's like just the
Speaker 1: element of like, you know, yeah, just again on a
Speaker 1: purely selfish level, it was like, these are the folks
Speaker 1: that I having demonstrated having their back, they're going to
Speaker 1: have my back. Um, and and the people you meet,
Speaker 1: I don't know. It's like, I mean, you know, if
Speaker 1: that's another way to look at it, it's like you're
Speaker 1: just building the structures that hopefully we will never need
Speaker 1: in a real way, but what we already use them
Speaker 1: in a real way. And I've always been about you know,
Speaker 1: I think that this dichotomy between the self interest in
Speaker 1: the community interest is a false dichotomy because being part
Speaker 1: of a healthy community that takes care of people rules
Speaker 1: for me as an individual, Like I love food not
Speaker 1: bombs because I ate it us so much, and it
Speaker 1: let me not have a job and just run around
Speaker 1: and hop freight trains badly and mostly failed at that
Speaker 1: and hitchhike around and like live the life I wanted
Speaker 1: to lead in my twenties, right, and and also, yeah,
Speaker 1: building these networks is like one of the only ways
Speaker 1: that I can, like, I mean, I'm not doing the
Speaker 1: work of building these networks now. I just run a
Speaker 1: podcast and read history books also rules, but I don't know,
Speaker 1: I mean part knowing these networks exist is part of
Speaker 1: literally how I sleep as well as I do as
Speaker 1: a trans woman in the current environment, you know. So yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like it's like at least you kind of have
Speaker 1: a sense that, look, you you have a chance, and
Speaker 1: you have people who are like organized and doing something,
Speaker 1: and look, yeah, not not everything thing is going to succeed.
Speaker 1: Mostly it doesn't success, but yeah, you know it's something. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: well that does not actually naturally lead to. But I
Speaker 1: want to pivot to talk about the final final part
Speaker 1: of this whole thing, which is I bet you're wondering.
Speaker 1: I know a lot of people at home are wondering,
Speaker 1: what do gay birds have to do with mutual aid?
Speaker 1: And and I am an answer for you, because this
Speaker 1: is going to be a story that talks about the
Speaker 1: origins of mutual aid as a as a term at least,
Speaker 1: and it brings us back to Russia, where the land
Speaker 1: where the government says there are no gay people. Um,
Speaker 1: I don't know whether they say or not there's any
Speaker 1: gay birds. But so I can't remember the name of
Speaker 1: the magazine, and I'm so annoyed. I spent so long
Speaker 1: trying to find this magazine. But I read this magazine
Speaker 1: in two thousand four. It was about gay birds and
Speaker 1: mutual aid. And I wish I had a time machine
Speaker 1: so I'd go back and tell younger me that, like
Speaker 1: one day, all of these things that I read that
Speaker 1: give me my ideas, I'll actually have to decite them
Speaker 1: and source them. I would not have believed you. And
Speaker 1: I find this magazine in a trash can, and it's
Speaker 1: about science. It's a science magazine I don't remember the
Speaker 1: name of it, and as an article, and it's talking
Speaker 1: about scientists are finally starting to talk about gay animals
Speaker 1: in the early the turn of the millennia, the early
Speaker 1: auts and um, and they're trying to figure out what
Speaker 1: the funk it means for evolutionary science. So so this
Speaker 1: brings us to Darwin, and I promise we'll come back
Speaker 1: to the birds. You might have heard of this guy,
Speaker 1: this guy named Charles Darwin. H soph he's nodding, so
Speaker 1: if he's heard of this guy and um, he's this
Speaker 1: rich white British science dude who was like, whoa evolution?
Speaker 1: And then more than that, he was like, whoa natural
Speaker 1: selection is? What drives evolution? And he wrote a book
Speaker 1: about it. And the book is called whoa Natural Selection?
Speaker 1: The Origin of the Species or something like that, and
Speaker 1: he wrote a direct quotes, Yeah, damn darge. And he
Speaker 1: was actually way cooler than most of the people who
Speaker 1: came after him, who invoke his name, and way cooler
Speaker 1: than I expected him to be when I started researching
Speaker 1: this part of the story. Among other things that have
Speaker 1: nothing to do with today's story, he he and other
Speaker 1: scientists helped intervene on behalf of a French geographer, Ali Raclu,
Speaker 1: who fought the Paris Commune and was like going to
Speaker 1: be executed for trying to overthrow France basically, and all
Speaker 1: these scientists were like, no, you can't execute him. He's
Speaker 1: our guy, he's like a scientist. Darwin was also an abolitionist. Um.
Speaker 1: He pushed back against race science that invoked his name,
Speaker 1: and he argued against any kind of like social planning
Speaker 1: that led to eugenics um and he believed that people
Speaker 1: needed to be free to reproduce as they wanted, which
Speaker 1: is again since most eugenics is sort of based in
Speaker 1: calling itself darwinistic. I feel like it's a big deal,
Speaker 1: and specifically it's kind of interesting to me because he
Speaker 1: didn't deny this like concept of like, I guess you
Speaker 1: could change how humans work by selective breeding. But what
Speaker 1: he says is, and this is a paraphrase, not a quote, Okay,
Speaker 1: some traits are genetic, but if you control who reproduces,
Speaker 1: you will get rid of the single best trait in humanity,
Speaker 1: which is our capacity for empathy. And so he's just like, no,
Speaker 1: I would never work. And I kind of like that.
Speaker 1: That's like a science approach to being like you can't
Speaker 1: do this racist thing because of this like science, you
Speaker 1: know well, but also too, it's like because that isn't
Speaker 1: how it works. It's like you need variance and randomness
Speaker 1: and like trying to direct it is not going to work. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just wrong on some fucking levels. Uh, what wasn't wrong?
Speaker 1: Where his iconic mutton shops, which later became an epic
Speaker 1: wizard beard. That almost makes me sad. I got laser
Speaker 1: hair removal. It's such a good bed. I don't know why.
Speaker 1: It's everyone has wizard beards back in the day, but
Speaker 1: Darwin is particularly good. Now that I don't hate him,
Speaker 1: I kind of always assumed he was. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean I think, like all learned people of the time,
Speaker 1: you're still grating on a curve. It's true. He um, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get to some of that. Um sorry, no, no, okay.
Speaker 1: So he was like, whoa, look how species differentiate, and
Speaker 1: other people were like, yes, this justifies imperialism and the
Speaker 1: abuse of the poor. The strong survived the meek parish
Speaker 1: and he had to like waste his time being like,
Speaker 1: maybe you shouldn't base policy on what made one animal
Speaker 1: into another animal. Yeah, And he does spend a while
Speaker 1: trying to figure out colonialism is comparable to evolutionary natural selection.
Speaker 1: And he also believes that men naturally dominate over women
Speaker 1: because of genetics or whatever. Um yeah, well, I mean
Speaker 1: I think it's like just so hard to like any scientists.
Speaker 1: It's like I think as humans clearly were like wired
Speaker 1: to believe like it's if it happens, yeah, it's good. Yeah, totally.
Speaker 1: It's like, yeah, it definitely happens. But like one of
Speaker 1: the trademarks of being human is realizing that things that
Speaker 1: happen aren't good just because they happen totally. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: like wild, like yes, yes, absolutely, you know, survival of
Speaker 1: the fittest occurs, but is it good? Yeah, and there
Speaker 1: are other options and that's what other scientists. But first
Speaker 1: I'm to talk about scientists who took it the wrong way.
Speaker 1: So oh, and that's the final note about Darwin total
Speaker 1: aience nerd uh. The year before he dies, he's like
Speaker 1: seventy something and which in the nineteenth century means you're
Speaker 1: kicking as because the life expectancy is forty for men
Speaker 1: in England at the time that he's alive. Um, there's
Speaker 1: almost doubled that. And the year before he dies he
Speaker 1: publishes his last work. And his last work is called
Speaker 1: The Formation of Vegetable Mole through the Action of Worms,
Speaker 1: and I just, yeah, I love it. He's a science guy.
Speaker 1: He never stopped. Um. And so there's two ways you
Speaker 1: can take all of the stuff he says. And there's
Speaker 1: the reasonable way and the way that doesn't make any
Speaker 1: fucking sense. And the guy who took it the most
Speaker 1: the way it doesn't make any fucking sense, is best
Speaker 1: exemplified at least by this guy named Herbert Spencer. There's
Speaker 1: another white British dude. He also has iconic mutton shops.
Speaker 1: Herbert Spencer should have been cool. His parents were Quakers,
Speaker 1: he grew up anti authoritarian and socialist and militantly feminist.
Speaker 1: As someone who is all of those things, I like that. Um.
Speaker 1: Then he took a turn to the hard right libertarian thing,
Speaker 1: and he started opposing women's suffering and saying that all
Speaker 1: socialism is slavery and that at sure is good that
Speaker 1: all the inferior races are being wiped off the face
Speaker 1: of the earth. And he spent time complaining about race
Speaker 1: mixing deluding the white race. He doesn't sound anything like
Speaker 1: people who are around today. He's the one who coined
Speaker 1: the term survival of the fittest, and he laid the
Speaker 1: philosophical groundwork for what later became right wing libertarianism and
Speaker 1: the economics of I've got Mine, Fuck you. Um, survival
Speaker 1: fit is truly is yeah, like just a tiny sliver
Speaker 1: of the theory is like yeah, no exactly. And for
Speaker 1: some odd reason, this guy died alone and lonely. I'm
Speaker 1: not it's hard to imagine why. Um. He also might
Speaker 1: have invented the paper clip. There's a lot of people
Speaker 1: who claim to have invented the paper clip. He is
Speaker 1: a month. So that's like the social Darwinism side, all
Speaker 1: about competition. The thing is, although that Darwin didn't only
Speaker 1: write about competition. He also wrote about co operation. And
Speaker 1: this brings me back to the gay animals, because all
Speaker 1: these Darwinists, they're not the social Darmans particularly a problem.
Speaker 1: If every animal is just trying to fucking pass on
Speaker 1: their genes as widely as possible, then why are some
Speaker 1: of them gay? Which for a long time people just
Speaker 1: ignored the fact that dogs are animals were gay. But
Speaker 1: have you met a dog like, I don't know. I
Speaker 1: only have one dog, and my dog is gay as fuck.
Speaker 1: My dog gay as fuck. Yeah, I'm pretty sure my
Speaker 1: dog's pan, but I haven't like proven this, partly because
Speaker 1: I am removed his capacity to yeah. Yeah. But so
Speaker 1: some animals are gay. Uh. For a while in the
Speaker 1: twentie century, reactionaries used to be like, gayness isn't natural.
Speaker 1: If it was natural, then animals would be gay, and
Speaker 1: there's no gay animals. And then finally someone was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's so many gay animals, and so now reactionaries instead
Speaker 1: have to be like, we are better than those gay animals.
Speaker 1: That's what makes us human, you know. Um. And but
Speaker 1: then around the beginning century, basically people were like, okay,
Speaker 1: we have to address the fact that animals are gay.
Speaker 1: And people were like, but why how does this work
Speaker 1: with if all we believe is survival of the fittest?
Speaker 1: And the answer is something that evolutionary biologs just have
Speaker 1: been talking about for a hundred god damn fucking years,
Speaker 1: And basically they realized a couple of things hundred goddamn
Speaker 1: years ago. One, sometimes animals do things just because things
Speaker 1: are fun. Um, we're not actually robots, Animals try to
Speaker 1: aren't just trying to maximize the reproduction or whatever. Birds
Speaker 1: fly around and flocks because like, holy sh it, we
Speaker 1: can fucking fly the rules, you know, and fucking is
Speaker 1: also fun unless you're unlucky enough to be like sucking
Speaker 1: a right wing dude who buys into the Ben Shapiro thing,
Speaker 1: which case you're not necessarily having a good time all
Speaker 1: of them, or you know, have other drama that whatever. Anyway, anyway,
Speaker 1: but also, gay animals are good for community, and this
Speaker 1: is the main thing that was in this article that
Speaker 1: I read that like have I had my mind explode
Speaker 1: moment or whatever about this um. Gay animals foster kids,
Speaker 1: and they also allow for relationships like within the animal
Speaker 1: communities that aren't just like one boy ostrich one and
Speaker 1: making this animal up for an example, and one girl
Speaker 1: ostrich or whatever. As you have a greater capacity for
Speaker 1: love within the community, and it turns out that that
Speaker 1: makes everyone happier, live longer, and everything is good. So
Speaker 1: this is a confirmation of this fight that had been
Speaker 1: going on a hundred years ago competition versus cooperation, which
Speaker 1: wasn't actually competition versus cooperation. It was one side saying
Speaker 1: competition is the only thing that happens, and the other
Speaker 1: side saying it's both. It's always been both, it will
Speaker 1: always be both. Yeah. Well, that's also like cooperation is.
Speaker 1: Typically it's cooperation within a sphere that helps a larger
Speaker 1: group possibly compete with you know, different groups or societies
Speaker 1: or whatever. Yeah. The champion of this other school of
Speaker 1: evolutionary biology was not other than a friend of the podcast,
Speaker 1: Peter Kropotkin, who was this Russian prince. He's another rich
Speaker 1: white guy, let's be honest, and he renounces his royalty
Speaker 1: to declare war on Czarist Russia and all states. Uh.
Speaker 1: He dedicates his life to the twin goals of science
Speaker 1: and anarchism. He breaks out of the most impossible to
Speaker 1: break out of prison in Russia in the nineteenth century
Speaker 1: to circumnavigate the world to foster revolution of let's take
Speaker 1: care of each other like I watched some animals do
Speaker 1: while I was a biologist. And so he's the anti Spencer,
Speaker 1: the survival of the fittest guy, and he writes a
Speaker 1: book about it, and his book about it is called
Speaker 1: mutual Aid, A Factor and Revolution. Because he's also a
Speaker 1: very literal title guy and this is where the phrase
Speaker 1: mutual aid in the modern context comes from. Is this
Speaker 1: book mutual aid? As far as I can tell, Um,
Speaker 1: I don't believe this is this is absolutely not the
Speaker 1: origin of the idea of mutual aid. In fact, since
Speaker 1: Kropotkin is a scientist, it's like he's like, no, I've
Speaker 1: observed this, this exists, um, but I don't know. And
Speaker 1: then he got into all these like arguments about it
Speaker 1: at the time. But basically people like sort of forgot
Speaker 1: about all of these arguments, and it was all of
Speaker 1: the Russian scientists all not just the leftists, were like no, no, no,
Speaker 1: it's cooperation, it's both you know. Um, but the sort
Speaker 1: of further West idea kind of one over for a
Speaker 1: long time. Yeah, it's so yeah, so id I mean,
Speaker 1: I I learned most of the bog biological side of
Speaker 1: this from now right wing lunatic Richard Dawkins's books. Um,
Speaker 1: but his like books on you know, on genetics, correct, Okay,
Speaker 1: it's his ideas of how to apply them to women
Speaker 1: Muslims that, yeah, which Darwin would have had a fucking
Speaker 1: fist fight with him over. Yeah. Well, I think I mean, look,
Speaker 1: this might be just me liking an older thing. But
Speaker 1: I would have thought that the older version of Richard
Speaker 1: or the younger version of Richard Dawkins would also feel
Speaker 1: the same way. But truly, what do I know? Yeah,
Speaker 1: we we can reckon it either way and just declare
Speaker 1: that young Richard Dawkins would absolutely fistfight, would be the
Speaker 1: champion four Darwin in the fight to death. Maybe even
Speaker 1: as you say it out loud, that sounds crazy, all right.
Speaker 1: My idea about the younger Richard Duckin sounds you know,
Speaker 1: just not the fighting part, the being a good person part. Yeah, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: who knows, Well, that's that's kind of So that's like
Speaker 1: the phenomenon, right, they went observed this phenomenon, and it's
Speaker 1: a phenomenon that food not bombs, and literally countless other
Speaker 1: individuals and organizations such as Solidarity and Snacks not Solidarity
Speaker 1: not Snacks, which was the precursor or popular Um, has
Speaker 1: been using this phenomenon all over the world and it
Speaker 1: is a phenomenon that rules. And that is my my
Speaker 1: story of food not bombs and mutual aid. That's oh
Speaker 1: my god, thank you for having it for this has
Speaker 1: been like lovely and educational, but also I think like
Speaker 1: it is. It is this like double edge thing of
Speaker 1: like the history is interesting, but one of the important
Speaker 1: parts of the I think the rules you talked about
Speaker 1: last week is like the most important part is like
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, but also these these people weren't gods
Speaker 1: that founded this thing. You know, It's like they made mistakes. Um,
Speaker 1: and it's fine, but the basic bedrock is fine and
Speaker 1: usable and adjustable. Yeah, totally. Yeah, but again, careful when
Speaker 1: you're serving that meat because it's a real pain in
Speaker 1: the g s on the streets. Totally. Andrew, do you
Speaker 1: have any thing you'd like to plug at the end
Speaker 1: here for us? Oh? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, well yeah,
Speaker 1: if you've enjoyed listening to me talk, Um, I'm going
Speaker 1: to be on tour with a couple more dates, not
Speaker 1: really tours or a mini tour with my podcasts This
Speaker 1: Racist I co hosted with Tony News So um, we're
Speaker 1: going to be in Austin on August and Brooklyn on
Speaker 1: September time. So possibly the single least profitable way to
Speaker 1: put together a tour humanly possible, but it's fun and
Speaker 1: it's you know, just a nice chance to see everyone. Awesome,
Speaker 1: And Margaret, you have a book coming out, correct I do.
Speaker 1: It's called we Won't Be Here Tomorrow, and I didn't
Speaker 1: have a pun prepared about the fact that the title
Speaker 1: reference okay anyway, And you can get it from a
Speaker 1: k Press or you can get it from different independent
Speaker 1: bookstores and if you preorder it, you get an art
Speaker 1: print and it comes out September twenty and it's full
Speaker 1: of all of my short stories about uh, I don't know.
Speaker 1: There's like a trans woman who feeds men too. She
Speaker 1: robs men and then feeds them to her mermaid lover
Speaker 1: and then it's like, you know, a whole parable imagine that.
Speaker 1: And there's another one about someone who uses drones to
Speaker 1: troll CEOs into quitting. And there's another one about the
Speaker 1: dead from Valhalla back and fight in the civil war
Speaker 1: against Nazis because there's no Nazis in Valhalla. Um, if
Speaker 1: you like that kind of thing, yeah, I know, it's
Speaker 1: kind of a it's a little bit of Apama, you know.
Speaker 1: Uh So you can you can buy that and also
Speaker 1: you can, um listen to my podcasts. I have a
Speaker 1: podcast called Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff, which is
Speaker 1: on cool Zone Media and you can't do it every
Speaker 1: Monday and Wednesday, I have another podcast called Lived Like
Speaker 1: the World is Dying and it is about individual and
Speaker 1: community preparedness and you can listen to it also on
Speaker 1: wherever you find podcasts. Um, but Sophie's not on it,
Speaker 1: so it's not and we all be sad about that
Speaker 1: for a moment, a moment of silence. Where can people
Speaker 1: find you on the Internet? Uh? You can? You can?
Speaker 1: You can. You can find me on Twitter and Instagram.
Speaker 1: You can just search my name, I pop up, uh,
Speaker 1: and then you can follow out cool Zone Media also
Speaker 1: on Twitter and Instagram. And if you look on the
Speaker 1: Internet archive, you can find Sophie Lichtman's my Space page.
Speaker 1: Please don't put, please put, please don't, please don't. It's
Speaker 1: really it's really not not it baby. If you can
Speaker 1: find my profile, find my space, don't find mine. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna tell you the name of the band I was
Speaker 1: in in two thousand five as on my Space. It's terrible.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh. Yeah, So everyone get researching you have
Speaker 1: a vague sense of your assignment. Yeah yeah, And we'll
Speaker 1: be back on Monday with another story of cool people
Speaker 1: who did Cool Stuff. Yeah. By Cool People who Did
Speaker 1: Cool Stuff is a production of cool zone Media or
Speaker 1: more podcasts on cool zone Media, Visit our website cool
Speaker 1: zone media dot com, or check us out on the
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
Speaker 1: your podcasts.