Speaker 1: It's well it it is the podcast. It could happen here,
Speaker 1: but for once, it is not about the world falling apart.
Speaker 1: It is entirely about putting it back together again. Uh.
Speaker 1: And and joining me to talk about putting it back
Speaker 1: together again is zero of the other people who are
Speaker 1: normally on this podcast, But I'm joined by Shannon and
Speaker 1: John Horonymus, who are part of the team of Organized
Speaker 1: Is working on the Dual Power Gathering. Shannon, John, Welcome,
Speaker 1: Welcome to the show. Hi, thank you. Hey. So, I
Speaker 1: guess the first part of the Dual Power Gathering is
Speaker 1: dual power, and I think we should walk through what
Speaker 1: actually that is, in what our sort of visions for
Speaker 1: it look like, because man, I know we've talked about
Speaker 1: this on the show before, but that was a very
Speaker 1: very long time ago, but which I mean like probably
Speaker 1: only like seven months, but you know, feel it feels
Speaker 1: like ancient history. So yeah, I guess do you two
Speaker 1: want to talk about what dual power is and how
Speaker 1: how do you do? Yeah? Sure, I'm gonna stop trying
Speaker 1: to think about what happened seven months ago and I'm
Speaker 1: trying to Okay, you said that, I was just like,
Speaker 1: oh wow, Okay, no, never mind. Um, So dual power, John,
Speaker 1: how about I go ahead and share with our audience
Speaker 1: what is sort of the poetic language that we have
Speaker 1: up on the website from the organizers, and then we
Speaker 1: can kind of like break it down and talk about it. Um.
Speaker 1: That works for me, all right? So of the website
Speaker 1: texts such dual power is a way to imagine the
Speaker 1: moment just before our movements converge, as the possible becomes
Speaker 1: the actual, when the seeds of social transformation we have
Speaker 1: sown for generations bloom, when the old world begins to
Speaker 1: wither and new worlds can be born. Is a way
Speaker 1: of thinking about how we got to that moment and
Speaker 1: beyond it. Dual power is the project of building self determination,
Speaker 1: mutual aid, solidarity, and direct democracy in our communities by
Speaker 1: creating spaces that empower us all and from which you
Speaker 1: do in mansipatory institutions can emerge. It's a pretty yeah.
Speaker 1: So what does that mean? What does that mean? Um?
Speaker 1: First off, I want to say like a shout out
Speaker 1: to a lot of people have been working on this
Speaker 1: vision of what dual power is for years and years now,
Speaker 1: and that includes uh a lot of groups. Um, that
Speaker 1: we are either in conversation with or have been taking
Speaker 1: inspiration from UM. One of the biggest, I think most
Speaker 1: developed groups that's doing that work is cooperation Jackson Jackson
Speaker 1: Jacks Mississippi UM and UH. I think the goal is
Speaker 1: people went up. Oftentimes when people do like here dual power,
Speaker 1: if they don't have any other UM context for it,
Speaker 1: but they are maybe from the left. They've heard about
Speaker 1: this moment in the Russian Revolution when there were these
Speaker 1: two competing like uh, you know, basis of power in
Speaker 1: like Russian society while they're undergoing this revolutionary change, and
Speaker 1: uh Lenin wrote like a pamphlet about it, calling it
Speaker 1: the dual power, and looked at it as like a
Speaker 1: thing that needed to be like overcome by you know,
Speaker 1: workers in Russia UM too, like establish a workers state UM,
Speaker 1: which they kind of outlined in a book called State
Speaker 1: and Revolution. And but when we look at what they
Speaker 1: were describing, we kind of look at this as a
Speaker 1: thing that emerges in any time when there's a social
Speaker 1: revel kind of unfolding in a society where you have
Speaker 1: various classes who are like changing like social relations, workers, peasants, UM,
Speaker 1: different groups of people who like have like a class
Speaker 1: they have come together around a class interest and overthrowing
Speaker 1: their oppression, and they have to go through stages of
Speaker 1: building their collective power their collective identity there, and they're
Speaker 1: kind of like overall strategic movement in a particular direction, UM,
Speaker 1: and they create this tension between the existing state order
Speaker 1: and a newly emerging like uh like social revolution that's
Speaker 1: like overthrown, challenging UH and overthrowing that like UM power.
Speaker 1: So that being said, we want to ground that. We
Speaker 1: want to ground that a little bit in a like
Speaker 1: less historicized context or whatever. We could say, maybe that's
Speaker 1: the work that we're doing to build up the institutions
Speaker 1: and relational structures that we need to care for ourselves
Speaker 1: in each other UM as we moved through uh sort
Speaker 1: of like different states of like institutional organization in the society. Right.
Speaker 1: So when we're thinking about how do we meet our
Speaker 1: basic needs together in ways that are not dependent on
Speaker 1: the pressive institutions that we're trying to overthrow, we're talking
Speaker 1: about dual power. Yeah, it's like any time working class folks,
Speaker 1: And it's like in a broad definition communities people who
Speaker 1: aren't necessarily working but like depend on like taking care
Speaker 1: of each other or who do the work of reproducing
Speaker 1: every you know, society, UM basically build their own independent
Speaker 1: power like uh to chance, like to be able to
Speaker 1: fight back, to challenge the you know, the status quo.
Speaker 1: So like there's a lot of things they're kind of
Speaker 1: percolating that we've been like that have been happening in
Speaker 1: North America that takes inspiration from areas of the global South, UM,
Speaker 1: but also our homeown homegrown like traditions UM. So that
Speaker 1: could being anything from like your local mutual aid network
Speaker 1: to uh your local tenant union to like a rank
Speaker 1: and file UM union of like Amazon workers or teachers
Speaker 1: or care workers, UM. You know whose existence puts them
Speaker 1: in conflict with the state capital UM and like patriarchy,
Speaker 1: settler colonial relations um. You know, like indigenous water protectors UM,
Speaker 1: folks who are building up places where the more developed
Speaker 1: it becomes, the more it kind of built its own momentum.
Speaker 1: And you have spaces that are like autonomous fully like
Speaker 1: autonomous regions from like state power and to begin to
Speaker 1: like pick apart at capital and like reconfigure are like
Speaker 1: relations of like how we make things and do things
Speaker 1: and take care of each other in like fundamental ways,
Speaker 1: and we have lots of beautiful examples of this from
Speaker 1: the like organizing history not even that long ago, and
Speaker 1: people will be familiar with some of the Black Panther
Speaker 1: programs or some of the programs that were integrated into
Speaker 1: the farm workers movement, and some of the programs that
Speaker 1: were put together by the anarchi feminists who were trying
Speaker 1: to support women's bodily autonomy and secure abortion rights through
Speaker 1: things like mutual aid healthcare and and things like that.
Speaker 1: So we'll see there's like a lot of really beautiful
Speaker 1: examples of this work happening over time around successful organizing movements.
Speaker 1: And we're all really excited about what's going on now
Speaker 1: and we want to see that just to sort of
Speaker 1: come together and a flourish I think it's important to
Speaker 1: think about do a power or something that's like I
Speaker 1: don't know, like I I think there's a lot of
Speaker 1: people who look at it as sort of like dual
Speaker 1: power is planting a garden, and it's like, I mean
Speaker 1: sort of yes, but like there's you know, they're there.
Speaker 1: There's there's sort of two components of it right there.
Speaker 1: There's this sort of there's a defensive component and an
Speaker 1: offensive component. There's a component that's about taking care of
Speaker 1: each other, and there is a component that is attack. Right,
Speaker 1: there's there's there's a component that is the people who
Speaker 1: are preventing us from taking care of each other need
Speaker 1: to be stopped from doing that. And so yeah, I
Speaker 1: think I think it's important to, yeah, think about different
Speaker 1: kinds of like, different kinds of institutions that you would
Speaker 1: not normally think of as doing the same thing, as
Speaker 1: being part of the same struggle. And yeah, I guess
Speaker 1: that brings us to what YouTube and a lot of
Speaker 1: other people have been working on. For god, it's been
Speaker 1: this been in the work for a long time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which which which is the which is the this uh
Speaker 1: dual power gathering? And yeah, I guess you sul want
Speaker 1: to talk about what what that is because yeah, yeah, well,
Speaker 1: you know, we've all been sitting around the past couple
Speaker 1: of years dreaming about being together, and so I think
Speaker 1: this is kind of the fruit of that dream. Right
Speaker 1: coming up at the end of July, UH, we're inviting
Speaker 1: everyone out to the Indiana Dunes for a camping trip,
Speaker 1: uh and during that time, we're hoping to see a
Speaker 1: collaboratively produced event that incorporates everything that the participants can
Speaker 1: bring to it, which we know far exceeds the uh
Speaker 1: sort of even the scope vision of the organizing body.
Speaker 1: So we're really trying to um, just create a space
Speaker 1: for people to come together. We are interested in these
Speaker 1: ideas who have various levels of experience working with it
Speaker 1: that will be valuable to everybody, from people who are
Speaker 1: brand new to this stuff and just want to learn
Speaker 1: more about it too, people who have have been doing
Speaker 1: it for years, for decades even um And yeah, that's
Speaker 1: sort of the the underlying ambition of it is to
Speaker 1: get people together in space. You know, a lot of
Speaker 1: us have been to these kinds of events before and
Speaker 1: felt like the most important thing that we got out
Speaker 1: of that was the relationships that we were able to
Speaker 1: build and the people that we were able to meet
Speaker 1: that we could then carry on ongoing dialogues with, and
Speaker 1: that we could find inspiration uh in in those dialogues
Speaker 1: and in those connections that would birth new projects that
Speaker 1: you know, we don't yet know are even possible. And
Speaker 1: so this is kind of, at least for me, like
Speaker 1: that's the really important and exciting force of the of
Speaker 1: the plan. Yeah, yeah, I think that why they're the
Speaker 1: Some of the things about this I think are really
Speaker 1: like it's been like really a collaborative effort to come
Speaker 1: up with this thing, Like we had the discussions about
Speaker 1: this is a thing that needs that we thought need
Speaker 1: to happen, because at the end of like by the
Speaker 1: end of the middle of one, we're like, look, clearly,
Speaker 1: we've all been through so many different experiences over the
Speaker 1: last ten, fifteen, twenty years. At this point some of
Speaker 1: us are getting to be elders, and um, we uh
Speaker 1: and we need to like, um, it feels like it's
Speaker 1: now is an excellent a really great time to have
Speaker 1: like a actual conversation about where we where we're coming,
Speaker 1: where we are, where we're coming from, and where we're
Speaker 1: going and how do we translate these experiences into like
Speaker 1: networks of like trusting relationships and sharing u a sharing
Speaker 1: of all this knowledge. Is like we need to debrief
Speaker 1: like the like the past five years I think in particular,
Speaker 1: have been like it's like crammed. It feels like, you know,
Speaker 1: the whole saying like some some years nothing happens, and
Speaker 1: some you know, in some months decades happen paraphrasing or whatever,
Speaker 1: and it's like so much stuff has come. We've all
Speaker 1: gone through so many things and come to like, uh,
Speaker 1: and we're seeing people who didn't have like maybe a
Speaker 1: stance on various political things or are like seeing their
Speaker 1: communities torn apart by like the real lived experience of
Speaker 1: like climate change and wants to and need to do
Speaker 1: something about it. That sort of thing like bringing in
Speaker 1: people who have lots of experience with people who have
Speaker 1: maybe are just now figuring things out and really kind
Speaker 1: of like musing and taking this as an opportunity to
Speaker 1: maybe to generate new knowledge so that we're going to
Speaker 1: like kind of like clarifying what we've gone through and
Speaker 1: where we're heading, and um get people like in the
Speaker 1: same space who like might as a like I do
Speaker 1: a lot of union ship, So I'm always thinking about
Speaker 1: how do I get like rank and file union radicals
Speaker 1: in the same space as like a like a neighborhood
Speaker 1: abolitionist or a tenant union organizer or a community land
Speaker 1: trust and getting all these like different groups because together
Speaker 1: and then like thinking about how they overlap in support
Speaker 1: and build off of each other. Because we I think
Speaker 1: the operating theory of many of people who are involved
Speaker 1: in this is that every context is different where we're organizing,
Speaker 1: but many there are many kind of principles that can
Speaker 1: kind of translate across context, but the context will shape
Speaker 1: very like like the I was just talking with one
Speaker 1: of the organizers who's like twenty minutes away over in
Speaker 1: northwest Indiana and you're like in Gary, and you know
Speaker 1: those areas and their context for building something like a
Speaker 1: an ecosystem too. Power organizations is going to be very
Speaker 1: different from my context where I am like down the
Speaker 1: street from this big global center of capital that's like
Speaker 1: University of Chicago and like, and it's doing all in
Speaker 1: my neighborhoods being gentrified by two billion dollar corporations and
Speaker 1: I've got a big nurse union, whereas they're in the
Speaker 1: middle of like a neighbor community that's being actively divested
Speaker 1: and destroyed like just like eating away at by like
Speaker 1: because capital just pulling out and has been doing that
Speaker 1: for basically as long as you've all been. At the
Speaker 1: same time, y'all are dealing with the same like biosphere
Speaker 1: complications and climate change implications, and so yeah, we're thinking
Speaker 1: about the ways in which like the kinds of affiliations
Speaker 1: that makes sense for us to be successful in our
Speaker 1: projects are like, you know, they're not just They're not
Speaker 1: just local, they're not just national, they're not just continental.
Speaker 1: There's like a lot of different things that are going
Speaker 1: on there. And that's the only way for us to
Speaker 1: really like sort out who we need to be in
Speaker 1: coaligion with on any particular issue is to know everybody,
Speaker 1: uh and to try to understand better there They're specific
Speaker 1: contexts and their specific experiences. And I think there's like,
Speaker 1: you know, I think, you know, to John's point about,
Speaker 1: you know, how much has changed in the last two,
Speaker 1: you know, handful of years or whatever. I think one
Speaker 1: thing that we've all come away from the pace of
Speaker 1: change is pretty humbling, you know. Um, I think we
Speaker 1: definitely all we gotta we got We took in a
Speaker 1: bit of the humility around around that what is it
Speaker 1: that we actually need to do? We are definitely not
Speaker 1: prepared for it, you know. And it doesn't matter how
Speaker 1: many decades we've been doing this organizing work. We just
Speaker 1: are not ready for how quickly things are changing right now.
Speaker 1: And the only way for us to get ready is
Speaker 1: to make sure that we show up and strengthen the
Speaker 1: networks of people that we can rely on to produce
Speaker 1: kind of positive interdependence um as we move forward with
Speaker 1: the continued chaos that is the contemporary world. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: and then part of this is also like thinking about
Speaker 1: because the way this is structured, this isn't just like
Speaker 1: a series of panel discussions where we've like the organizers
Speaker 1: have curated like you you're gonna listen to you know, uh,
Speaker 1: so and so who's like, you know, a prominent tenant
Speaker 1: organizer so and so. It is like a prominent like
Speaker 1: uh like in like climate change direct action work. Like
Speaker 1: the goal is is that we like specifically chose a
Speaker 1: format and like officially it's called like like an unconference,
Speaker 1: but the way I think of it is it's like
Speaker 1: which which comes out of tech, which I find kind
Speaker 1: of irritating, But that doesn't But the core of the
Speaker 1: idea of the thing is is that we're coming into
Speaker 1: this space in generating new knowledge, not necessarily sitting there
Speaker 1: and receiving a bunch of knowledge from people who designate
Speaker 1: as like movement leaders or experts. That doesn't mean that
Speaker 1: people who don't have a lot of experience and a
Speaker 1: lot of like skills aren't going to be there. It
Speaker 1: just means that we're going to be because one of
Speaker 1: my things is popular education, coming from the tradition of
Speaker 1: like Palo Fair and like um, everybody learning together is
Speaker 1: like it's like taking those principles and kind of like
Speaker 1: doing them in parallel in various circles. Where there will
Speaker 1: be a circle here of like cooperative organizers or people
Speaker 1: who want to get coops off the ground. Will be
Speaker 1: a circle here of people doing land trust work, will
Speaker 1: be a circle here of like unionists. There will be
Speaker 1: a circle here of people doing like abolition work, and
Speaker 1: or interest are people who are interested in all those things,
Speaker 1: are getting those sorts of things off the ground. And
Speaker 1: as they work through like a like they present tell stories,
Speaker 1: share ideas, do debriefs on like the various things that
Speaker 1: we've all been going through over you know whatever, how
Speaker 1: far back our timeline is depending on how far which
Speaker 1: elders decided to attend UM. But then taking that knowledge
Speaker 1: with our facilitators and then being like, you know what,
Speaker 1: I think that these two conversations are happening kind of
Speaker 1: like in parallel would be better if they were merged
Speaker 1: together and beginning to kind of like build that sort
Speaker 1: of like and so the idea isn't necessarily come away
Speaker 1: with like a pre like we're not setting up like
Speaker 1: a like a predetermined set of conclusions for people we
Speaker 1: believe and based off of we've been having monthly community
Speaker 1: calls for people who are going to be attending. All
Speaker 1: the different groups of folks who will be coming to
Speaker 1: this is going to be I think, like the depth
Speaker 1: of experience is going to be really phenomenal. Um and
Speaker 1: people coming from We definitely have people confirmed who are
Speaker 1: coming from Canada, people who we may be having folks
Speaker 1: with experience the indigenous communities is uh in Mexico, we
Speaker 1: maybe have We're fairly confident we're gonna have people who
Speaker 1: are like just come from areas like northern Syria and
Speaker 1: iraq Um and taking all these different ideas and experiences
Speaker 1: and then generating next like coming to new conclusions, maybe
Speaker 1: unexpected conclusions or things that we didn't quite that we
Speaker 1: weren't anticipating, but maybe asking new questions right Like this
Speaker 1: is a kind of intended to be a pre figure
Speaker 1: of space for engaging with things where we don't know
Speaker 1: what the right answer is. And I think we all
Speaker 1: need to release sit with the fact that we do
Speaker 1: not have like a clearer right solution into the problems
Speaker 1: that we're facing right now. Like I've been kind of
Speaker 1: pulling on the slogan a little. It's like no gods,
Speaker 1: no masters, no right answers, you know, just like get
Speaker 1: used to it. We need to be more creative and
Speaker 1: we need to be more open to experimentation. And you know,
Speaker 1: there's just a lot of there's a lot of stuff
Speaker 1: that's going to be coming at us fast. And you know,
Speaker 1: this is a we we we hope this can be
Speaker 1: a space where we can kind of take some time
Speaker 1: to slowly get square with what it is we're going
Speaker 1: to have to be thinking about, even if we don't
Speaker 1: know what to do exactly yet. So I had I
Speaker 1: had a really good experience where I was listening to
Speaker 1: like one of the like a person who came out
Speaker 1: of act Up giving a talk in my neighborhood. And
Speaker 1: she was saying, because we had had questions, is this
Speaker 1: going to be about a lot of theory? Are we're
Speaker 1: gonna be talking about a lot of abstract stuff? And um,
Speaker 1: this organizer was like, you know, act Up had no theory,
Speaker 1: right they did, they took action and the theory followed afterwards,
Speaker 1: and so the idea that we're like necessarily having coming
Speaker 1: to this with like the right answers already figured out
Speaker 1: is just not like something that I think it's going
Speaker 1: to be a super generative discussion. The idea of coming
Speaker 1: up with like coming up with orientations and thinking about
Speaker 1: like where we are heading kind of in a general sense,
Speaker 1: and then seeing how that unfolds and builds is I
Speaker 1: think a big, key, key aspect of what we're trying
Speaker 1: to do when we come together. We'ch is not to
Speaker 1: say yeah, which is not to say that there won't
Speaker 1: be theory, because that's not up to us. That's up
Speaker 1: to y'all. So you know, um, I probably you know,
Speaker 1: like what I'm really interested in is having conversations about
Speaker 1: the community mental health care, you know, And like, for me,
Speaker 1: the theory is less interesting than you know, like talking
Speaker 1: about what we actually need in the spaces that we again,
Speaker 1: but that's you know, that's where I'm coming from, and
Speaker 1: everybody else is coming at this from their own perspective too,
Speaker 1: So I'm really excited to see what people bring to
Speaker 1: that space and what we can get out of it.
Speaker 1: Um by just thinking that we all are contributing something
Speaker 1: constructive to that conversation. Well, and then also there's gonna
Speaker 1: be a lot of discussions about like literal practical skills,
Speaker 1: like here's how you like, here's how you uh. This
Speaker 1: has always been the perennial thing. This is how you
Speaker 1: pick a lot, This is how you uh, this is
Speaker 1: how you organize comms at like at like a like
Speaker 1: on a picket line. This is how you pull together
Speaker 1: uh a demand letter for like a list for like tenants,
Speaker 1: like you know, these are the sorts of things that
Speaker 1: like we're gonna be talking. We're going to be doing
Speaker 1: concrete skill shares, plus these discussions about our experiences and
Speaker 1: sharing our stories and you know, hopefully we're going to
Speaker 1: come away from this. A big goal of it is
Speaker 1: to um come up with a lot of like different
Speaker 1: like um just like content. We're going to be recording
Speaker 1: videos and uh like audio and like also and then
Speaker 1: transcribing things and writing things up and we're hoping that
Speaker 1: once we're then we're gonna have a big report that
Speaker 1: we can share out with people who can't attend. Yeah,
Speaker 1: privacy concerns obviously considered, so yeah, for sure, Yeah, there
Speaker 1: is a very consent is a big is a big
Speaker 1: thing with us as organizers, I should help. So yeah,
Speaker 1: you would think, but you know, not everyone is down
Speaker 1: as you would imagine. Okay, So basically we're building a
Speaker 1: perfect little utopia for like four days and you all
Speaker 1: come out because we're going to fix the revolution. So
Speaker 1: kidding obviously, on on on a work on crete level, Like,
Speaker 1: what does like a day here look like? Like? What
Speaker 1: what are what? What are we doing? Oh? That's fun,
Speaker 1: that's a fun question. Uh, if I may, John, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: go for it. Um, what we're thinking right now basically,
Speaker 1: is it a day It looks like we get up
Speaker 1: in the morning, we drink coffee, we have breakfast, and
Speaker 1: we have a little assembly check in to see how
Speaker 1: things are going if we need to make any major adjustments,
Speaker 1: and we put up a uh sort of schedule for
Speaker 1: the afternoon's events that was populated from the conversation that
Speaker 1: was happening in the evening the night before and anything
Speaker 1: that anybody wants to bring up to that schedule that
Speaker 1: happened between yesterday and this morning. Uh, then we're gonna
Speaker 1: roll off into um basically what would be some of
Speaker 1: the kind of like things we already know for sure
Speaker 1: that we wanted to see happening that we could get
Speaker 1: on a on a sort of schedule ahead of time.
Speaker 1: So some of these skill shares we're planned that would
Speaker 1: require kind of like pre planning or maybe some discussions
Speaker 1: that people reached out ahead of time that they definitely
Speaker 1: wanted to have, so that stuff would be happening earlier
Speaker 1: in the day. Um, the you know, we're we're talking
Speaker 1: about having sort of just like sandwich bars and you know,
Speaker 1: make your own lunch kind of situations going on. There
Speaker 1: should be a lot of different things happening in different
Speaker 1: geographical locations on the site, so you kind of get
Speaker 1: get a choice of where you want to go. It's
Speaker 1: not like there's one big event. Um, we're going to
Speaker 1: try to group things that are sort of thematically similar
Speaker 1: in so that they're nearby each other in case you
Speaker 1: want to go around and see, um what the different
Speaker 1: kind of stuff is going to be. And then in
Speaker 1: the afternoon it's going to be like I mean you okay,
Speaker 1: of course, this is like how we're intending right now.
Speaker 1: The afternoon would be the discussions and skill shares and
Speaker 1: events and circles and spaces that um, we're generated out
Speaker 1: of the conversations that have been happening in space, so
Speaker 1: that people came and thought, you know, we had this
Speaker 1: conversation yesterday that really inspired me. Let's talk about this,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to make space for that. So we're
Speaker 1: gonna have big map where you figure out where you
Speaker 1: want to go, and you're gonna be able to wander
Speaker 1: around and meet people. We're trying to incorporate a lot
Speaker 1: of events that make it easier to meet other people
Speaker 1: that you don't know yet. Um. Where there's gonna be
Speaker 1: tables where you can do arts and crafts. There's gonna
Speaker 1: be game space for whatever kind of games you want
Speaker 1: to play. There's gonna be places for kids to hang out.
Speaker 1: There's gonna be a quiet tent where you can take
Speaker 1: some contemplation time. You know, at some point we want
Speaker 1: to do it like a kind of brief circle for
Speaker 1: people to deal with what they've been kind of going
Speaker 1: through in the world. And you know some uh you know,
Speaker 1: Utopia Envisioning Arts space, you know, these kinds of things
Speaker 1: like where, um, you know, somebody wants to teach someone
Speaker 1: else a dance, Like that's the kind of thing that
Speaker 1: we're really hoping can go on in the afternoon. Uh,
Speaker 1: then we would be feeding everybody dinner. And we kind
Speaker 1: of had this idea we've been playing with that we
Speaker 1: would have two campfires after dinner, and one campfire will
Speaker 1: have kind of an open forum where anybody can talk
Speaker 1: for like ten, fifteen, any minute, you know, whatever however
Speaker 1: long people need, who are they're depending on how popular
Speaker 1: that is, and just kind of air everything that's in
Speaker 1: their head. And we'll have a NoteTaker so we can
Speaker 1: try to incorporate what comes out of those discussions into
Speaker 1: the next days to agenda um. And so that's sort
Speaker 1: of like what we were what we were envisioning. And
Speaker 1: then for the other campfire because people who don't the
Speaker 1: other the other the other camp fire for people who
Speaker 1: are like done with talk, I need to just sit
Speaker 1: and stare at some flames for a little bit. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I imagine I'll be going back and forth between the fires.
Speaker 1: So you know, that's also an option. But the idea
Speaker 1: is to get kind of like somewhere between I think
Speaker 1: what we call it is like somewhere between a conference
Speaker 1: and a music festival, you know what I mean, Like
Speaker 1: there where you're able to sort of move around and
Speaker 1: you don't have to go and sit in one place
Speaker 1: and do like okay for this hour, this is where
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's it's meant to be a bit
Speaker 1: more informal, um and we're hoping that that makes a
Speaker 1: lot more space for people to sort of explore and
Speaker 1: people to meet other people that they don't already know.
Speaker 1: I don't know if that if that, if that sums
Speaker 1: up sort of like what I'm imagining, because that's like,
Speaker 1: you know, that's the spirit. So I think if that's
Speaker 1: the question, like what does the date look like, well,
Speaker 1: hopefully it's fun. You know, that's kind of the main
Speaker 1: the main thing we're thinking here, So make it sort
Speaker 1: of low stress and low stakes place that we can
Speaker 1: talk about some of the highest stress and highest stakes
Speaker 1: questions that we have to deal with. So yeah, and
Speaker 1: like that being said, like because we're modeling it this
Speaker 1: way specifically based on people's experience with like the Symbiosish
Speaker 1: Federations founding conference, that sort of thing where there were
Speaker 1: a lot of stakes and people were trying to kind
Speaker 1: of like funnel different discussions through different ways. And this
Speaker 1: is not a necessarily critique of how that all went down.
Speaker 1: It's just like based on our experience and our experiences
Speaker 1: with those sorts of things. The goal is too for
Speaker 1: this to be if it's successful, the first of many
Speaker 1: of these sorts of things, UM, many of these kind
Speaker 1: of gatherings and discussions, and to provide a model for
Speaker 1: how it could happen. But to keep UM, we deliberately
Speaker 1: decided that this we're not going to make like a bit.
Speaker 1: We're not going to have big points of unity debate
Speaker 1: and discussion in voting on assembly sort of thing. We
Speaker 1: will use assemblies for you know, certain things like setting
Speaker 1: up like our community agreements and that sort of stuff,
Speaker 1: and kind of like getting the days rolling and kind
Speaker 1: of getting the days closed. But the goal is, like
Speaker 1: to not is to bring people into conversation who haven't
Speaker 1: who maybe don't have the basis of trust for those
Speaker 1: bigger collective like discussions yet, but maybe they will later.
Speaker 1: But the goal is for now is we're getting we're
Speaker 1: building and expanding our networks. We're building expanding our trust
Speaker 1: with different people and building expanding our knowledge so that
Speaker 1: we can go out and do the kind of work
Speaker 1: that we think we need to do to I don't
Speaker 1: know survived as a species on this planet. So Um,
Speaker 1: that's one of the reasons why if there are some
Speaker 1: people are like, oh, I don't know, this seems really
Speaker 1: kind of wishy washy. It's very that was a very
Speaker 1: deliberate decision based on previous experience from organizers who have
Speaker 1: been to these sorts of things, and the goal is
Speaker 1: really too to have a place where we can have
Speaker 1: discussions about high stakes issues without being so invested in
Speaker 1: it that we feel like if our concept of how
Speaker 1: to solve that problem doesn't come out as the like solution,
Speaker 1: that we've somehow failed. So it's like, yeah, I was
Speaker 1: to say that I think one of the one of
Speaker 1: these things that you that you brought up there that's
Speaker 1: really important. It's like, not even just in these previous
Speaker 1: conferences or congresses or gatherings that we've been to have
Speaker 1: we seen to be a problem. But basically, at least
Speaker 1: I can speak for myself in a lot of organizings
Speaker 1: spaces that I've been in over the past, you know,
Speaker 1: like fifteen years that I've been pretty active in in
Speaker 1: the organizing universe. Um, basically that one of the main
Speaker 1: problems that we have with this kind of like space
Speaker 1: of trust that we definitely know that we need to
Speaker 1: be able to work together and moving forward. Is that
Speaker 1: we don't really have shared language a lot of the time,
Speaker 1: and we think we do because we use the same words,
Speaker 1: but we often use them to mean different things, or
Speaker 1: we often use different words to mean the same things
Speaker 1: as well, And that we come from kind of different
Speaker 1: organizing cultures and a lot of different places like that
Speaker 1: some are more, are less. We should say that maybe
Speaker 1: that there there are different places where you show solidarity
Speaker 1: in a different way, you show good faith, and you
Speaker 1: show that you're committed in a different way. What it
Speaker 1: means to be democratic in a space seems different depending
Speaker 1: on this on the tradition that you that you maybe
Speaker 1: come from. So what we're really hoping to do is
Speaker 1: kind of makes space to incorporate all of that. So
Speaker 1: we were was joking and it was a camping trip
Speaker 1: where many upping trips fit, you know that, like that
Speaker 1: there should be an opportunity for people to kind of
Speaker 1: like learn to talk past those those barriers that we
Speaker 1: might have to to understanding each other, and like that
Speaker 1: success would really look like people coming away believing in
Speaker 1: other people's commitment to get this done and with the
Speaker 1: kind of contacts that they need to support each other
Speaker 1: moving forward as things come up in different places, as
Speaker 1: opposed to just like here's a solution, like here's a
Speaker 1: blueprint for how to get this done. You know that
Speaker 1: relationship that you have with a person who's had that
Speaker 1: experience in the past is going to be way more
Speaker 1: valuable than any document they give you based on their experience,
Speaker 1: because you're gonna be able to say, well, ship, I
Speaker 1: wasn't expecting this to happen, Like what do we do?
Speaker 1: And then you can talk through that with them, and
Speaker 1: like that's really I think that's really the foundation of
Speaker 1: our being able to share this knowledge with each other
Speaker 1: is that we have the opportunity to kind of engage
Speaker 1: in these ways that are more focused on the kind
Speaker 1: of just sort of dynamism of the of the challenges
Speaker 1: that we're dealing with right now. So emergence is a
Speaker 1: big thing. Things are always gonna like things that are
Speaker 1: always going to be changing, Like, uh, we are we
Speaker 1: need to be prepared to deal with a world that's
Speaker 1: gonna be throwing challenges at us that like we haven't
Speaker 1: like we haven't had solutions for and like because we're
Speaker 1: going through this like really kind of like catastrophic like uh,
Speaker 1: the moments of like uh climate change and um, I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't know how else to say it, but like
Speaker 1: and and so it's it's like engendering the idea, the
Speaker 1: idea that we're constantly evaluating what's happening around us, both
Speaker 1: like at our local level and across the regions and globally,
Speaker 1: and then taking new knowledge in and coming up with
Speaker 1: new solutions um in a real like in like a
Speaker 1: truly experimental way, like thinking about things is like experiments,
Speaker 1: and how we're going to like come up with new
Speaker 1: solutions to these problems because it's just well, like as
Speaker 1: we kept telling people, because when we're out there trying
Speaker 1: to bring groups in, everyone is selling us our capacity.
Speaker 1: This sounds great, Our capacity is incredibly low. Uh. And
Speaker 1: that has just been across the entire spectrum of organizations,
Speaker 1: and that includes huge, big put together organizations like you know,
Speaker 1: unions versus little mutual a groups. Everybody is dealing with
Speaker 1: this like feeling of exhaustion and like capacity. Our goal
Speaker 1: is to get people together so that they can build
Speaker 1: capacity um through these discussions and be prepared for or
Speaker 1: think because capacity is always going to be an issue
Speaker 1: and our goal is to get people to this point
Speaker 1: where because they're um, their mindset is okay, new challenge.
Speaker 1: Let's think about it critically and come up with solutions
Speaker 1: that fit this moment as supposed to keep trying to
Speaker 1: force things into um preset like easy. I mean, I
Speaker 1: don't want to say easy, but like I think that
Speaker 1: sometimes like everyone's trying to mind history for the like
Speaker 1: the one weird trick to solve all these problems. And
Speaker 1: I think that the one weird trick is that human
Speaker 1: beings are creative, critical thinking machines. Like our our brain
Speaker 1: is like this thing for taking in information and generating
Speaker 1: new new thought and action. And we need to embrace that,
Speaker 1: um because if we don't, I don't think we're going
Speaker 1: to be very successful certainly. And the yeah, and these
Speaker 1: times of just increasing uncertainty, that kind of humility and
Speaker 1: flexibility and like continued building of comfort with that uncertainty
Speaker 1: is going to be super essential to our being able
Speaker 1: to maintain even sort of like the basic ability to
Speaker 1: take action. And I think so we're going to have
Speaker 1: to like continue to like to lean into that uncertainty
Speaker 1: and to sort of I think, you know, kind of
Speaker 1: historically the being comfortable with things changing and being comfortable
Speaker 1: with uncertainty is actually one of our great strengths, right
Speaker 1: because we can actually start to get moving while everybody
Speaker 1: else is still going, what the hell you know? And
Speaker 1: so I think, you know, that's going to definitely be
Speaker 1: something that's going to serve us. And yeah, anyway, I
Speaker 1: have I have one last question on an extremely practical level,
Speaker 1: which is like, what is the like facility situation here?
Speaker 1: Like how what what are what are people sleeping in? Uh? So,
Speaker 1: like right now where we like, we have camp space
Speaker 1: reserved for two people UM and so we understand the
Speaker 1: camping is not always super accessible, but we are very
Speaker 1: fortunate that like the National Lake Shore has specific accessible
Speaker 1: facilities UM for folks, and we do have disabled like
Speaker 1: UH comrades coming to this event, and we're working on
Speaker 1: making sure that those uh that their particular needs don't
Speaker 1: keep them from participating fully in the events. There's UM
Speaker 1: the discussions and circles themselves will be UM at like
Speaker 1: shelter space UM a bit away from where the camping
Speaker 1: is happening, So we're organizing transport between us to split
Speaker 1: those spaces UM for people who cannot camp. We are
Speaker 1: working organizing some hotel space for folks UM and then
Speaker 1: for people who can camp but don't have any equipment.
Speaker 1: Our goal is to we're going to um basically acquire
Speaker 1: like enough camping equipment for a sizeable chunk of folks
Speaker 1: to come. And uh it's like literally today walking through
Speaker 1: a Walmart with my daughter looking at their camp equipment
Speaker 1: in pricing out things like sleeping bags and camp like
Speaker 1: sleeping mattresses, intense that sort of thing. So yeah, if
Speaker 1: people have have stuff they want to donate to the
Speaker 1: cause to like, I think we should be able to
Speaker 1: take some of that in. I think we were just
Speaker 1: talking yesterday about the possibility of having like camp gear
Speaker 1: repair zone, so you have things that you find at
Speaker 1: the thrift store that like a tour intent or something
Speaker 1: like that will help you fix it. You know. We
Speaker 1: just want to make sure that everybody has these uh
Speaker 1: applies as well because they're they're broadly useful. I know
Speaker 1: I've used my camping gear in uh some politically motivated
Speaker 1: ways in the best I think that it's not bad
Speaker 1: for people to have it if you need it. Just also,
Speaker 1: you know, the camping aspect of it is also it's
Speaker 1: more of a feature than a bug, Like there's like
Speaker 1: a like so to so to speak, like the pandemic
Speaker 1: is not over yet, as we're like seeing right um
Speaker 1: in spite of everything that like a ruling class is
Speaker 1: desperately trying to get us to uh agree to and
Speaker 1: so having um the accommodations outside and doing the doing
Speaker 1: the actual events like out of doors where there's lots
Speaker 1: of ventilatation, we think it is like right now one
Speaker 1: of these events so that we're not going to get
Speaker 1: so the people aren't going to come away from this
Speaker 1: getting sick, which is really important m from I mean
Speaker 1: as a person who's recovering from COVID H COVID rounds
Speaker 1: two UM and as a healthcare worker. That was one
Speaker 1: of our big concerns because we when we started making
Speaker 1: these plans, we really weren't sure what was going to
Speaker 1: be happening in terms of the pandemic, and having it
Speaker 1: out of doors was just like a sure fireway that
Speaker 1: we knew that we could at the very least we
Speaker 1: can minimize the chances that people would be getting sick
Speaker 1: from just showing up and being the same space together. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: and we're definitely encouraging people who are coming together with
Speaker 1: friends and comrades and little groups to self organize their
Speaker 1: camps as much as they would like to do that UM,
Speaker 1: to sort of make plans together to limit the UM
Speaker 1: you know, the need for spaces. You know, we're sharing
Speaker 1: up tents and all this kind of stuff, which to
Speaker 1: the extent that people are comfortable with that that you
Speaker 1: know people well, if you need to get in touch
Speaker 1: with people from around you, if you don't know anybody,
Speaker 1: you can reach out to us. If we know anybody
Speaker 1: else who's looking for somebody to try to coordinate with,
Speaker 1: will definitely put you in touch to. Something we want
Speaker 1: to be able to do is like offer some of
Speaker 1: these connective services to help people UM to link up
Speaker 1: with people who are coming from from their areas or
Speaker 1: people who are interested in the same kinds of things UM.
Speaker 1: And so we're kind of thinking of ourselves in the
Speaker 1: organizing body is facilitators of those connections and trying to
Speaker 1: imagine how what we do will make those connections most
Speaker 1: likely to happen. UM. So in terms of the of
Speaker 1: the facilities as well, I think we we've talked about
Speaker 1: trying to get some camp stoves together for people who
Speaker 1: need to use sort of a kitchen space to try
Speaker 1: to limit the amount of things that people need to
Speaker 1: bring for that, but definitely feel free uh to bring
Speaker 1: bring your own stuff and and and set up whatever
Speaker 1: whatever you need and let us know if you need
Speaker 1: help from us, well we'll do our best to accommodate that.
Speaker 1: And people are getting fed arranged and that will be
Speaker 1: vegan and uh with the caveat that folks who want
Speaker 1: to have separate food can like do their own self
Speaker 1: organized like cooking with that other thing they that they're
Speaker 1: really committed to UM. And we're playing and having like
Speaker 1: all the necessities of like lots of water, make sure
Speaker 1: that like we've got first aid lined up. There's gonna
Speaker 1: be street medics who are participating in the work of
Speaker 1: organizing all that harm reduction UM and just generally, like
Speaker 1: like some of the other things that didn't really mentioned,
Speaker 1: like we know that we're bringing a bunch of people
Speaker 1: with a lot of big ideas and big personalities together
Speaker 1: and that means we're probably gonna have to deal with
Speaker 1: some conflict maybe I don't know, so having UM conflicts
Speaker 1: uh read like people who are good at mediating conflict.
Speaker 1: We're going to have a crew of people who do that.
Speaker 1: We're working on child watch training because this is gonna
Speaker 1: be like the family from space, making sure that we
Speaker 1: know how to take care of each other in case
Speaker 1: like shady people from outside trying to do something like whatever.
Speaker 1: Like our goal is to just make sure that like
Speaker 1: this is um as safe as it can be, bringing
Speaker 1: people together, as successful as it can be. Understanding implementations
Speaker 1: of who's gonna be We're gonna be outside, so there
Speaker 1: might be you know, all the some of the fun
Speaker 1: of having like a collective group of people all outside together,
Speaker 1: which can be a lot of fun, like I'm I'm
Speaker 1: waiting for karaoke and for um like our open mic
Speaker 1: and people bringing out like instruments and like just having
Speaker 1: like you know, we were people discussing like um, you
Speaker 1: know some soccer uh potentially being a thing, um determining
Speaker 1: like placing that song. Who's going to be more into
Speaker 1: soccer based on various ideological reviews and past experience and yeah,
Speaker 1: hit us up if you want to play some music,
Speaker 1: if you've got an idea for something fun that sounds
Speaker 1: cool to do. And just to come to circle back
Speaker 1: to this, I think like with the point about conflict mediation.
Speaker 1: I just want to make that, like super clear. Just
Speaker 1: because we're not going to spend half a day trying
Speaker 1: to come up with community with the points of unity
Speaker 1: does not mean we don't have expectations about how you
Speaker 1: act in the space. So our plan is basically to say, like,
Speaker 1: don't be an asshole, and then that means, you know,
Speaker 1: like in all the ways that we know, uh that
Speaker 1: those things can happen. And then if somebody accidentally is
Speaker 1: being an asshole, where somebody's are accidentally being an asshole
Speaker 1: like that, those are things we can we can manage
Speaker 1: because we all know what it is that we're doing here. Um.
Speaker 1: So it's definitely not a free for all, you know,
Speaker 1: it's a this is a space where the normal things
Speaker 1: we would expect in space are expected, you know, explicitly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well man, I'm excited. Yeah, I'm looking forward to people.
Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't actually know how widespread bonfires
Speaker 1: are in the US, but we do a lot in
Speaker 1: the Midwest, and bonfires are a great time. I'm excited
Speaker 1: people to experience that. It's it's good. Um. Yes, So
Speaker 1: I guess, um, do you if anything closing that you
Speaker 1: want to say, and also where can people find this
Speaker 1: and attempt to go to it? Also when is it happening,
Speaker 1: because that's that's another important It's going to be July
Speaker 1: uh twenty nine UM. And attendance is free, there's no
Speaker 1: there's no charge, but we are soliciting donations. So we're
Speaker 1: doing a fundraiser UM through Open Collective UM and we've
Speaker 1: spend very generously given UH an offer of matching donations
Speaker 1: from one of the organizers who got like I got
Speaker 1: a little bit of a chunk of change to kind
Speaker 1: of contribute to that sort of thing. We're very I'm
Speaker 1: excited about that. So if you go on too, you
Speaker 1: can follow us on Twitter and I believe that's at
Speaker 1: Dual Power uh to let me tell the chat. I
Speaker 1: think it's at Dual Power gathering is our Twitter and um.
Speaker 1: The website is Dual Dual Power dot org. Yes, yeh um. Yeah.
Speaker 1: If you go on the website, you'll find the links
Speaker 1: to everything you need to know. You can get in
Speaker 1: touch with us, you can like, you know, give us
Speaker 1: your your feedback if you love it, if you hate it,
Speaker 1: if you've you know, whatever, we're we're probably not going
Speaker 1: to change the whole thing right now, but show up
Speaker 1: and we can change it at the time. I'll also
Speaker 1: say we do have like an organizing discord and people
Speaker 1: who are like serious about like getting involved in want
Speaker 1: to have things like I want to come to this
Speaker 1: and with things that they have specific visions for now.
Speaker 1: It's like absolutely time to get engaged with that because
Speaker 1: we're like we're working towards making getting people into the
Speaker 1: like who are the participants to really own the event itself,
Speaker 1: So that'll be like that's something we have. I believe
Speaker 1: we're going to need probably two more community calls wanted
Speaker 1: June and one in July. Every one of those calls
Speaker 1: has been really amazing, lots of great people. UM, and
Speaker 1: during those calls are gonna be doing some training on
Speaker 1: because you've got to do some prep work when you're
Speaker 1: doing this kind of like generative discussion like popular education,
Speaker 1: like unconferdenced style UM events, like coming to them with
Speaker 1: a little bit of un understanding of what that looks
Speaker 1: like is really key to U being successful. So UM,
Speaker 1: we encourage people who want to come get signed up,
Speaker 1: and then we'll get into our mailing list, and our
Speaker 1: mailing lists is where we disseminate like when those calls
Speaker 1: are happening, and you can also hoping our discord u
Speaker 1: as long as you're cool and agree your community very
Speaker 1: men like bring you in and like get all sorts
Speaker 1: of shipped together. And we're very excited for people. I
Speaker 1: mean there's still a fair number of thoughts open for
Speaker 1: the events itself, were like almost half way full. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean definitely, we've we've been trying to think about
Speaker 1: this as an event that we would want to go to,
Speaker 1: and we wanted to be an event that you want
Speaker 1: to come to also, so help us make it. So yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's yeah, this is really exciting. I'd be going
Speaker 1: to it. Yeah. So yeah, thank thank thank you, thank
Speaker 1: you to you you both for joining us for talking about this.
Speaker 1: And I'm excited too. I'm excited to see lots of
Speaker 1: people there. Hey, I mean we've all been wanting to
Speaker 1: see each other. Are two and a half years, right,
Speaker 1: so I miss your missing your face with dimension. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm sick of your flat face real. Yeah, thanks so
Speaker 1: much for having us on to talk about it. Really
Speaker 1: looking forward to it. I mean we're getting closer and closer.
Speaker 1: It's just like it just gets more exciting and also
Speaker 1: a little nerve wracking. But thankfully a lot of people
Speaker 1: have been stepping up on a very I'm confident it's
Speaker 1: gonna be really like a really great thing. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: we will we we will have links to everything in
Speaker 1: the show notes. Um yeah, this has just make it
Speaker 1: happen here. You can find us in the usual places
Speaker 1: happened to your pod stuff? All right, goodbye, have fun.
Speaker 1: It could happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.
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Speaker 1: slash sources. Thanks for listening.