Speaker 1: Call Zone Media.
Speaker 2: It's it could Happen here, the podcast about things falling
Speaker 2: apart and how to put them back together again.
Speaker 1: I'm your host vo Long.
Speaker 2: So for people who listened to yesterday's episode, which I'm
Speaker 2: hoping is like most of you, Yeah, So yesterday it
Speaker 2: was a very kind of downer episode on hurricane misinformation
Speaker 2: and the way that these sort of people construct these
Speaker 2: reality tunnels and you know, have become active participants in
Speaker 2: their own sort of propagandizement. And I think we kind
Speaker 2: of we left on a kind of note of of
Speaker 2: what you can do for sort of individual people, right,
Speaker 2: which is the same mechanisms you usually get someone out
Speaker 2: of a cult, which is you you stay with them,
Speaker 2: you maintain enough personal connection that you can pull them
Speaker 2: out if they ever want.
Speaker 1: To come out. But that's also not a large scale
Speaker 1: solution to this problem.
Speaker 2: And in order to talk about a large scale solution
Speaker 2: to both our present social crisis and the ecolog logical
Speaker 2: crisis that this social crisis is being aimed to sort
Speaker 2: of cover up. Right now, I'm talking to Rosewater, who's
Speaker 2: the hub coordinator for the Sunrise Movement's DC Hub and
Speaker 2: delegate to Sunrise's Delicate Body and also a solo punk
Speaker 2: organized at Rosewater.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having
Speaker 1: me on.
Speaker 3: Yeah, hi everybody, my name is Rosewater and yeah, longtime
Speaker 3: fan of cool Zone Media. Y'all were my introduction to
Speaker 3: my current democratic confederalist politics.
Speaker 1: Oh that's awesome. So it feels like.
Speaker 3: A really fun, like full circle moment to have a
Speaker 3: chance to be on the pod.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I'm excited to talk to you. So specific
Speaker 2: thing where we're talking about is in terms of there
Speaker 2: being an actual plan for what people are doing like
Speaker 2: past the next three weeks, like after the election. The
Speaker 2: biggest thing that has been happening is it's just something
Speaker 2: we've talked about a little bit on this show, is
Speaker 2: the proposed twenty twenty eight general strike. Do you want
Speaker 2: to talk a little bit about what that is before
Speaker 2: we get into Sunrises involvements and yeah, the sort of
Speaker 2: broader story.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I feel like most people who follow leftist
Speaker 3: politics were following the UAW strike against the Big three
Speaker 3: automaker's last fall, and people found that they found their
Speaker 3: strike really inspiring and they had like really strong gains
Speaker 3: that were the sort of straightforward like increase pay like
Speaker 3: better benefits type stuff, and people were celebrating that. But
Speaker 3: I would say the two actual most important changes were
Speaker 3: not reported on nearly as much. One was they eroded
Speaker 3: their labor piece clause and they made it possible to
Speaker 3: go on strike if any of their facilities were closed,
Speaker 3: which labor Piece has in my opinion, been sort of
Speaker 3: strangling the US left for eighty years.
Speaker 1: Yeah, can you explain what that is for people?
Speaker 2: I think we've usually were broadly talked about as no
Speaker 2: strike clauses, But yeah, can you explain what that is?
Speaker 3: Yeah, So, labor Piece is essentially a truce that was
Speaker 3: established between the labor movement, capitalists, and the US government
Speaker 3: where the labor movement gets generalized rights and the US
Speaker 3: government is like a quote fair mediator between capitalists and
Speaker 3: the labor movement, and capitalists get a consistent workforce and
Speaker 3: peace like peace from disruptions. And this essentially was established
Speaker 3: between the beginning of World War Two and the end
Speaker 3: of the Red Scare, when all of the socialists and
Speaker 3: markets and communists were expelled from the labor movement, and
Speaker 3: it felt like a good deal to a lot of
Speaker 3: liberals at the time, and a lot of normal rank
Speaker 3: and file workers at the time, but on reflection, it
Speaker 3: has really strangled the US labor movement. And so the
Speaker 3: fact that the UAW eroded they're no strike clause at
Speaker 3: all is a huge precedent, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And this is something I mean, I mean, I
Speaker 2: remember I don't remember if this actually got into the
Speaker 2: Labor Does episode that I did, but I remember at
Speaker 2: Labor Notes, so I was listening to people talk about this,
Speaker 2: and this is stuff that I think the global impact
Speaker 2: of it has also been really underplayed. Like I mean,
Speaker 2: obviously there was a lot of times you paid this
Speaker 2: in Mexico, right, because there's a lot of like, you know,
Speaker 2: the structure of the of the auto industry is such that.
Speaker 1: It's so obvious to me. I didn't even think about
Speaker 1: that until just now. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So one of the things that NAFTA did is that
Speaker 2: sort of right across the border, right, a whole sort
Speaker 2: of range of factories that are right across the border
Speaker 2: that operate off Mexican labor, that do some of the
Speaker 2: auto industry stuff. And so there's always been sort of
Speaker 2: connections between the more independent unions there and sort of
Speaker 2: American unions. But like you know, but this is also
Speaker 2: struck as being watched really, really heavily in China, Yeah,
Speaker 2: which is interesting because like Chenese state unions are a
Speaker 2: fucking joke, basically not real unions at all. And the
Speaker 2: extent to which you know, the China's version of the
Speaker 2: labor piece was also the deal was less like you
Speaker 2: get rights and we get like labor piece and more
Speaker 2: like we're going to just stamp out all working class organization. Yeah, completely,
Speaker 2: and in a way that like was more even more
Speaker 2: thorough than what happened here where most of it got
Speaker 2: wiped out. I think like the breaking of the labor
Speaker 2: piece and the demonstration that there is another way is
Speaker 2: something that has reverberated massively across a lot of different
Speaker 2: places that I don't think both the people organizing the
Speaker 2: strike or the sort of like press coverage of it
Speaker 2: has really gotten into sort of how wide the reverberations
Speaker 2: of this have been.
Speaker 3: Right. I think if it were just eroding that clause alone,
Speaker 3: it wouldn't be such a signal.
Speaker 1: But yeah, definitely. The real thing.
Speaker 3: That caught my attention at for was immediately afterwards they
Speaker 3: changed the end of their contract date to International Workers
Speaker 3: Day twenty twenty eight and they called on every union
Speaker 3: in the country and later every union in the world
Speaker 3: to align with that contract and go on strike with
Speaker 3: them on May first, twenty twenty eight, and that was
Speaker 3: the first time, Like, correct me if I'm wrong, that
Speaker 3: was the first time that a major labor union in
Speaker 3: America has called for a planned general strike since nineteen
Speaker 3: forty eight.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think that's true, and I think there being an
Speaker 2: actual plan and they're being a way to do it
Speaker 2: that's legal is a big deal because part of the
Speaker 2: problem with this is that there's you know, unlike unlike
Speaker 2: a country like France, American labor law is specifically designed
Speaker 2: so that you don't have this happen. There's a bunch
Speaker 2: of legal mechanisms for this, but it's very very specifically
Speaker 2: designed to make sure that people are not alledged to
Speaker 2: solidarity strikes. People are not allowed to coordinate the entire
Speaker 2: power of their action. Yeah, and this is a pretty
Speaker 2: promising way around that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this may be better for later in the episode.
Speaker 3: But one of the things that we're doing is where
Speaker 3: in collaboration with the Institute for Social Ecology, doing a
Speaker 3: teach in on labor peace and the history of general
Speaker 3: strikes in the US about a week after the election
Speaker 3: in order to orient ourselves in whatever new political contexts
Speaker 3: exists there.
Speaker 2: But yeah, so yeah, I think that's a jumping off
Speaker 2: point to get into. I think Sunriise is kind of
Speaker 2: an unlikely organization that people would think to be getting
Speaker 2: excited and trying to get involved in a labor struggle.
Speaker 2: But yeah, let's talk about how Summery's got involved. And
Speaker 2: I guess first, also, I don't know how many people
Speaker 2: listening to this know what Sunrise is. And if you
Speaker 2: do know what Sunrise is, that might also make you
Speaker 2: war surprise you're getting involved in labor.
Speaker 1: But yeah, let's about that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so Sunrise is a youth climate movement that has
Speaker 3: been one of the main advocates for the idea of
Speaker 3: a Green New Deal. When AOC first came into office
Speaker 3: and she did that like sit in at Nancy Pelosi's office,
Speaker 3: like that was a Sunrise action, And we historically have
Speaker 3: been an org that sort of like tries to bridge
Speaker 3: the divide between people who are sort of a politically
Speaker 3: liberal and more radical politics, which is a hard place
Speaker 3: to be.
Speaker 1: Yeah, someone's got to do it, But we've.
Speaker 3: Really focused on trying to like connect environmentalism with labor. Actually,
Speaker 3: our main slogans, the main intervention that we've succeeded at
Speaker 3: has been associating the idea of environmental action with jobs,
Speaker 3: like green jobs and stuff like that. The problem with
Speaker 3: that has been one it has been primarily rhetorical, especially
Speaker 3: after Burnley's loss in twenty twenty. Yeah, and stories matter,
Speaker 3: but material conditions matter more. And the reason that we
Speaker 3: didn't we weren't more materially involved in connecting labor and environmentalism,
Speaker 3: and by that I mean like connected with the unions,
Speaker 3: is that unions leadership was often very far to our right,
Speaker 3: you know, especially in the United States, so it didn't
Speaker 3: feel like it made sense. But as a result, the
Speaker 3: sort of Biden years have been a time where there's
Speaker 3: been a lot of internal discussion about like who we are.
Speaker 3: Are we a radical movement that sort of positions itself
Speaker 3: rhetorically as more normy in order to bring in like
Speaker 3: young people who whose parents won't let them, you know,
Speaker 3: join a fight to end all unjust hierarchies, or like
Speaker 3: sees the means of production, etc. Like are we a
Speaker 3: radical movement that poses normy or are we a like
Speaker 3: liberal progressive movement that sometimes asks for radical things, and
Speaker 3: that's been a really big conflict within the ORG these
Speaker 3: last few years, because the path to any climate action,
Speaker 3: the only path that a lot of people have seen,
Speaker 3: has been electoral stuff, pushing politicians and things like that.
Speaker 3: In a lot of ways, the Inflation Production Act was
Speaker 3: a direct result of Sunrise's organizing and our work to
Speaker 3: try and force through the Build Back Better program, but
Speaker 3: it aligned us with Biden, and from the point of
Speaker 3: view of a lot of our organizers, like even if
Speaker 3: it was a victory, it didn't feel like one, and
Speaker 3: it's certainly not nearly large enough to actually handle the
Speaker 3: scale of the crisis. And so essentially the more radical
Speaker 3: wing of the movement has been winning that fight over
Speaker 3: the last year two fights, a strong word, has been
Speaker 3: winning that debate over the last year or two, and
Speaker 3: specifically this last summer when the American Federation of Teachers
Speaker 3: joined the general strike, which almost no one has heard about,
Speaker 3: but the AFT and their one point seven million members
Speaker 3: have already decided that they're going to try and join
Speaker 3: the twenty twenty eight general strike.
Speaker 1: So it's not just the UAW anymore.
Speaker 2: Yeah, But unfortunately we need to take an ad break
Speaker 2: and we come back. You're going to get to that
Speaker 2: because that I think will be looked back as one
Speaker 2: of the pivotal moments of this whole thing that everyone
Speaker 2: kind of just missed when it happened.
Speaker 1: I completely agree, it's going to be amazing. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: as unfortunately, and then we'll do it by Gold. We're back.
Speaker 1: I don't fight Gold.
Speaker 2: At some point I'm going to write the dope by
Speaker 2: Gold episode.
Speaker 1: Do you think this is a joke.
Speaker 2: There is a dope by Gold app I it's big
Speaker 2: worked on in the in the Meal laboratory that the
Speaker 2: goldscamera add thing. Okay, back back back to the presence
Speaker 2: or I guess back to the future. I don't know time.
Speaker 2: Time is falling apart here. But let's talk about the AFT.
Speaker 2: The American Federation of Teachers, right, and I don't know
Speaker 2: what they've announced in terms.
Speaker 1: Of this, right.
Speaker 3: So, the American Federation of Teachers, sort of led by
Speaker 3: the Chicago Teachers Union, the Baltimore Teachers Union, and to
Speaker 3: a smaller extent, the DC Teachers Union, managed to get
Speaker 3: through a resolution at their convention that when you read
Speaker 3: the title, it's very boring.
Speaker 1: It's like on aligning with the UAW.
Speaker 3: But when you actually click on the document and you
Speaker 3: read it, it is like class struggle fire. Like reading
Speaker 3: it from beginning to end, I felt exhilaration, Like I
Speaker 3: felt like a fire explode in my heart.
Speaker 1: It was so amazing.
Speaker 3: And I heard about this the same weekend that we
Speaker 3: were actually having a climate disaster training in DC. Right,
Speaker 3: we had about one hundred leaders from across our movement,
Speaker 3: about half of our staff there. And at the beginning,
Speaker 3: people were really excited for climate disaster actions responding to
Speaker 3: moments like this. Actually, but when we talked about victory,
Speaker 3: when we talked about and we're going to have like
Speaker 3: mass mobilization against the climate crisis where the whole of
Speaker 3: our society like pitches in to do this, the federal
Speaker 3: government like does a World War two style mobilization against
Speaker 3: this destruction, and stuff like that, you could tell that
Speaker 3: people didn't see a path. You could tell.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And so like this news dropping that the teachers were
Speaker 3: joining a general strike, we're joining mass disruption in some
Speaker 3: meaningful way. It hit us like a bomb. It was
Speaker 3: the perfect moment for it to hit us, because it
Speaker 3: was like, yeah, if the auto workers are going on strike,
Speaker 3: and the academic workers are going on strike and the
Speaker 3: teachers are going on strike, then why can't the students
Speaker 3: go on strike? And not only why can't they, but like,
Speaker 3: the students must go on strike. And that was sort
Speaker 3: of the moment that really got our movement from yes,
Speaker 3: we would like to figure out some sort of different
Speaker 3: way to get to the mass disruption needed in order
Speaker 3: to win serious action on the climate crisis to like, oh,
Speaker 3: there's a path. Yeah, like we see, we see a path.
Speaker 3: It's it's core memory, like if you know, like inside out,
Speaker 3: like core memory formed that weekend.
Speaker 1: It was it was beautiful. Yeah, And I think, what's
Speaker 1: you know?
Speaker 2: I mean, there's a couple of things that are important here, right,
Speaker 2: but I think it's being underplayed exactly how important it
Speaker 2: is to have teachers unions being into this because the
Speaker 2: thing about teachers unions is that they're an extremely important
Speaker 2: lever on labor movement because the way the capitalist society
Speaker 2: is structured, right, is such that most childcare is just
Speaker 2: sort of like all of that labor is basically has
Speaker 2: been pushed on the teachers, right. And the moment that
Speaker 2: childcare collapses, right, a bunch of people suddenly also who
Speaker 2: are not normally on strike suddenly are not able to
Speaker 2: do their drags because they have they have to find
Speaker 2: some way to take care of their kids. And so
Speaker 2: this is this is sort of a massive leverage point
Speaker 2: and in the same way that like sort of dock
Speaker 2: worker strikes, or I mean not in the same way,
Speaker 2: but like in a sense that a strike by these
Speaker 2: people can shut down way way more labor than just
Speaker 2: theirs directly, right, this is something that's very important.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I never really thought about that.
Speaker 3: I've thought about them in the context of like their
Speaker 3: sort of community pillars, so like when teachers go on strike,
Speaker 3: they often bring way more community support.
Speaker 1: With them than other types of workers.
Speaker 3: But yeah, you're totally right, like outside of like the
Speaker 3: community going with them. Also, that is the primary form
Speaker 3: of childcare that exists in this country.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and there's something that like teachers organizers, like she's
Speaker 2: just you, organizers are very big onsot emphasizing because they
Speaker 2: have an enormous amount of social power and it's kind of,
Speaker 2: to a large extent, hasn't been tapped for for the
Speaker 2: kinds of sort of mass political action that we're seeing here.
Speaker 2: Like it's one of those things It's one of those
Speaker 2: sort of leverage points that's always existed, but there hasn't
Speaker 2: really been the kind of like political will or momentum
Speaker 2: more sort of organizing capacity to fully mobilize it. And yeah,
Speaker 2: so I guess I want to move from Peter talking
Speaker 2: about Sunrise's involvement in the strike, because I think this
Speaker 2: part is really interesting both in terms of there being
Speaker 2: like both of the times of strike support and student strikes.
Speaker 2: You can you talk, I guess about the sort of
Speaker 2: politics of student strikes and how you see this fitting
Speaker 2: into the broader thing that's happening.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, so the climate movement sort of had the
Speaker 1: height of its power in twenty nineteen. I would say,
Speaker 1: when you had Fridays for Future and like Gretitenberg, climate strikes.
Speaker 3: All across Europe and America. But I would use the
Speaker 3: word strike in quotes because sometimes you had full walkouts,
Speaker 3: sometimes you had like those sorts of huge things, but
Speaker 3: most of the time it was students asking permission from
Speaker 3: authority figures to participate in a rally and things like that,
Speaker 3: Whereas in a class struggle context, like a strike is
Speaker 3: people going to the authority figure and saying this is
Speaker 3: not occurring because we're not going to be here, you know,
Speaker 3: Like this has been a critique that's existed inside of
Speaker 3: Sunrise like from that period for years now, which was
Speaker 3: one of the reasons why we haven't focused on those
Speaker 3: sort of tactics as much. But with this sort of moment,
Speaker 3: especially if we can bring the teachers along, right, being
Speaker 3: able to have students see their authority figures doing this
Speaker 3: sort of thing, especially in more conservative areas, while also.
Speaker 1: Teaching them how to do it, because in.
Speaker 3: Really meaningful ways, schools are.
Speaker 1: Practice work yep.
Speaker 3: Like they were directly modeled after factories in the eighteen hundreds,
Speaker 3: so schools are modeled after work. So if schools are
Speaker 3: practice work, then student strikes can be practice labor organizing, Yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean, and turning schools from sort of laboratories for
Speaker 3: the reproduction of the class system into laboratories for learning
Speaker 3: class struggle.
Speaker 2: It's something that's very very important, both in the immediate
Speaker 2: term and in the longer term. Yeah, we've talked a
Speaker 2: bit about this on other episodes, but like there hasn't
Speaker 2: been the kind of like generational passed down of organizing
Speaker 2: skills that we've seen in sort of previous generations and
Speaker 2: the way honestly, we've talked this, we talk about the
Speaker 2: center sort of EUAW staff union episode, right that the
Speaker 2: way that a lot of these unions are running their
Speaker 2: staff systems also aren't designed to build up like continuous
Speaker 2: momentum for people who learn how to organizing and keep
Speaker 2: doing it. And this is a way because it restart
Speaker 2: that treadmill to create a generation of organizers both in
Speaker 2: this and for the future.
Speaker 1: Yes, exactly.
Speaker 3: And I have had many critiques of my organization, many
Speaker 3: critiques of my movement, but the thing that has always
Speaker 3: made me want to like stick around has been seeing
Speaker 3: the young organizers who like find themselves here. Like the
Speaker 3: primary person who does our press stuff in the movement
Speaker 3: is turning eighteen in like three days.
Speaker 1: Wow, they're one of the best organizers. I know. It's
Speaker 1: it's wow, it's inspiring.
Speaker 3: But it's something that we I want our movement to
Speaker 3: do at scale as opposed to like having something like
Speaker 3: that every once in a while, Like you said, the
Speaker 3: idea of creating an entire generation, and I'd love to
Speaker 3: talk about a sort of thought process and plan around that.
Speaker 1: After the ad break, woo.
Speaker 2: Here's some ads when we come back will do things
Speaker 2: that aren't ads question mark ooh we are back, Say
Speaker 2: what better add transitions?
Speaker 1: They should raise my salary, Davin back. Awesome.
Speaker 3: So one of the things that I think is really
Speaker 3: in terms of a like for us, a stable niche
Speaker 3: in the movement ecology, is to be sort of a
Speaker 3: feeder for radical labor in a sort of way, like
Speaker 3: because one of the things is even if you are
Speaker 3: radical and you go into the labor movement, oftentimes you
Speaker 3: are going to be taught practices that rely.
Speaker 1: On labor piece in meaningful ways.
Speaker 3: Yeah, practices that are going to be going to be
Speaker 3: really disrupted if labor law weren't a thing and stuff
Speaker 3: like that, and it's something that holds back our ability
Speaker 3: to create a strongly organized working class.
Speaker 1: But in the context of schools, right, there is no
Speaker 1: labor law. There is no labor piece in a high school.
Speaker 3: Right, So as a place to practice the sort of
Speaker 3: radical class struggle organizing that we're talking about, it's sort
Speaker 3: of the perfect place because it's a simplified version of
Speaker 3: the workplace of like adult reality. There are obviously many
Speaker 3: other like blockages, like students and like young people. Miners
Speaker 3: have far far less power and far fewer rights than
Speaker 3: you do once you become an adult, and their family
Speaker 3: has far more power over them. There are huge barriers.
Speaker 3: But in terms of like grounding people in class struggle
Speaker 3: labor organizing tactics, I'm thinking of things that you can
Speaker 3: learn about in Jane mclavy's book No Shortcuts and stuff
Speaker 3: like that. They can learn how to use structure.
Speaker 1: Tests and.
Speaker 3: Use hard organizing conversations in order to build their power
Speaker 3: in a specific context and things like that, and whether
Speaker 3: or not they actually managed the strike. Right at the
Speaker 3: end of it, you have an eighteen year old entering
Speaker 3: the workforce who is a skilled, trained class struggle organizer
Speaker 3: who has gained their politics completely outside of the context
Speaker 3: of labor peace.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think that that's one of the important
Speaker 2: aspects of this. And I think that the second one
Speaker 2: is something you were talking about earlier, which is sort
Speaker 2: of bridging the sort of labor ecological divide. And I
Speaker 2: think that's been happening more, which is encouraging because there's
Speaker 2: been an enormous effort to make sure this doesn't happen.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think we've talked about this on this
Speaker 1: show at some point.
Speaker 2: I know Margarets talked about it on Copleeople this cool stuff.
Speaker 2: But I mean one of the most famous science people
Speaker 2: tried to do this is a IWWT organized a name
Speaker 2: Jody Berry, and she so legally speaking, we don't know
Speaker 2: who killed her. What I will say is that she
Speaker 2: was killed by a car bomb that was virtually identical
Speaker 2: to a car bomb that was built by the FBI
Speaker 2: that was edated by the FBI in their bomb like
Speaker 2: training things like a couple of weeks before. So right,
Speaker 2: we Gennie widely don't know who killed her. However, Kamba
Speaker 2: someone someone built a car bomb and blew her up
Speaker 2: in order to stop this from happening. So it is
Speaker 2: something that is right, very very obviously seen by the
Speaker 2: powers that be.
Speaker 1: Is extremely dangerous.
Speaker 3: Yeah, in the same way that we know exactly the
Speaker 3: singular one person who on his own completely killed Martin
Speaker 3: Luther King with no support from.
Speaker 1: The US government.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, And like you know, I think this is
Speaker 2: this is an important moment to strip do this because
Speaker 2: one of the things that the right is trying to
Speaker 2: do to like capture this sort of like moments of
Speaker 2: radical labor has been like oh yeah, all the problems
Speaker 2: to the u adow are because the government wasn't fortunate
Speaker 2: to make electric cars. It's like, didn't you know there's
Speaker 2: very much like an anti ecological angle to definitely to
Speaker 2: the way that sort of like Republican co option is happening.
Speaker 2: It's another thing that we can use a simultaneous tactic
Speaker 2: for our side and help defea a co option attempt.
Speaker 3: In addition to this being a way to like take
Speaker 3: on the climate crisis in meaningful ways, the climate crisis
Speaker 3: is also a way where we can make more radical demands.
Speaker 3: This is one of the reasons that I really love
Speaker 3: Sunrise and ecological like ecosocialist movements in general, because if
Speaker 3: you ask someone to seriously consider how do we address
Speaker 3: the climate crisis, and you're not paying them to have
Speaker 3: a specific answer, which is nonprofit industrial complex things like,
Speaker 3: if you ask someone to seriously consider what do we
Speaker 3: need to do in order to address the climate crisis
Speaker 3: in six months, you have a radical no matter what.
Speaker 3: In my experience, no one who I've ever or like
Speaker 3: talk to who has thought about that question seriously for
Speaker 3: six months and not avoided it has not come out
Speaker 3: the other end being like, oh, we need a general strike,
Speaker 3: We need a revolution, you know. Yeah, And so like
Speaker 3: being able to bring that exact that exact analysis into
Speaker 3: the labor movement I think is one of the things.
Speaker 1: That can bring back radical labor.
Speaker 3: You talk to labor leaders who might feel comfortable with
Speaker 3: labor peace and they're like, we can do this, we
Speaker 3: have time, and you're like, how much time exactly do
Speaker 3: we have? Like really think about it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And this is something that we've seen. I think
Speaker 2: this is sort of a good place to wrap up.
Speaker 2: This is something that we've also seen in the way
Speaker 2: that immediate short term disaster response is happening, where yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, all of these sort of you have like
Speaker 2: millions of people who are like would not show up
Speaker 2: to a mutual aid thing are suddenly like out there
Speaker 2: doing mutual aid and have at least temporarily completely restructured
Speaker 2: the way this is society works because they're confronted with
Speaker 2: the sort of immediacy of crisis and also the immediacy
Speaker 2: of the fact that the way that we have been
Speaker 2: doing things simply is not actually a functional way to
Speaker 2: for example, respond to a hurricane.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think there's a bridge.
Speaker 2: There between the sort of immediacy of this like mutual
Speaker 2: laid disaster response politics and the sort of long term
Speaker 2: goal of trying to actually like have sustained sensative action
Speaker 2: against the sort of climate devistation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I completely agree.
Speaker 3: And this is quite a tangent from the specific topic
Speaker 3: that we're thinking about. But when I think about democratic
Speaker 3: confederalist politics, like Roseava was able to take power and
Speaker 3: have its revolution because the state retreated, and ideally, we
Speaker 3: don't have a civil war that causes the state to retreat.
Speaker 1: Ideally, Yeah, one thing we do know will.
Speaker 3: Happen and is happening right now, is that the state
Speaker 3: retreats during disasters. The state retreats during climate disasters. And
Speaker 3: so if we're prepared to take that temporary mutual aid
Speaker 3: structures and jump on them in order to create systems
Speaker 3: like what they have in Rosheva and create like build
Speaker 3: our labor movements, build our neighborhood power, build our direct
Speaker 3: democracy capabilities, and be able to be like, no, we
Speaker 3: want to keep these whenever the police come back, whenever
Speaker 3: da da da da da. Yeah, Like, there's going to
Speaker 3: be devastation, but there's also a lot of opportunities for
Speaker 3: creating really really beautiful things.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I want to close on there's not a
Speaker 2: whole argument as to whether or not whether or not
Speaker 2: Buina venture A Derrudi, who is one of this very.
Speaker 1: Prominent organizers in the Spanish Revolution.
Speaker 2: Ever actually said this, but there was a quote attributed
Speaker 2: to him that goes roughly, we're not in the least
Speaker 2: afraid of ruins, Like we are the people who built
Speaker 2: this world and we'll fucking do it again.
Speaker 1: Wow. That's beautiful. Yeah, And I.
Speaker 2: Think that's in some sense the attitude that we have
Speaker 2: to be going into this here right of you know,
Speaker 2: like the path that we are on now. And this
Speaker 2: is true even if a movement takes power that is
Speaker 2: dedicated to actually sort of dealing with the climate crisis, right,
Speaker 2: the stuff that we have now is normal. This is
Speaker 2: just what the future is going to be. There's going
Speaker 2: to be disaster, there's going to be storm, it's going
Speaker 2: to be destruction. But again, fundamentally, like we are the
Speaker 2: people who build this world, and we can build it again.
Speaker 2: We're going to have to build it again and we're
Speaker 2: going to build it better.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Actually that makes me think of this one song that
Speaker 3: we sing a lot in Sunrise, Like we have a
Speaker 3: really big cultural focus on movement song.
Speaker 1: I would really love it if that could be the outro.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there are more waters rising, the ie I know
Speaker 3: the sign I know there are more waters rising the
Speaker 3: side I know. It is a song called More Waters
Speaker 3: Rising by Sorrow Lynch, who is a movement musician actually
Speaker 3: from Asheville, North Carolina. It's not fully clear to me
Speaker 3: right now if they are safe, but we've been singing
Speaker 3: this song for many years.
Speaker 1: There are more fires burning the signe I know there
Speaker 1: are more fires burning. They will find it.
Speaker 3: It is a song that I think really resonates with
Speaker 3: the thing that me and Mia just finished talking about
Speaker 3: knowing what's on the horizon, knowing the ruin that we
Speaker 3: may face, but also knowing that we're not afraid of
Speaker 3: that and that we can get through it.
Speaker 1: I will rebuild the mountains the sign I know. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So I hope that you all find the strength with
Speaker 3: this song and with these plans to rebuild the mountains.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Wade through the waters when they find their
Speaker 1: way to me. I will wade through the waters.
Speaker 3: The sign o the sign you know, I will wade
Speaker 3: through the waters.
Speaker 1: The sign No, it could happen. Here is a production
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Speaker 1: to podcasts.
Speaker 2: You can now find sources for it could happen here,
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Speaker 1: Thanks for listening.