WEBVTT - It Could Happen Here Weekly 97 0:00:00.280 --> 0:00:02.680 Hey, everybody, Robert Evans here and I wanted to let 0:00:02.759 --> 0:00:06.400 you know this is a compilation episode. So every episode 0:00:06.519 --> 0:00:09.440 of the week that just happened is here in one 0:00:09.520 --> 0:00:13.280 convenient and with somewhat less ads package for you to 0:00:13.320 --> 0:00:15.800 listen to in a long stretch if you want. If 0:00:15.800 --> 0:00:17.720 you've been listening to the episodes every day this week, 0:00:17.760 --> 0:00:19.479 there's got to be nothing new here for you, but 0:00:19.880 --> 0:00:21.239 you can make your own decisions. 0:00:26.200 --> 0:00:31.520 Wonderful good podcast introduction Boys of West part of the podcast. 0:00:32.960 --> 0:00:36.559 Maybe that could be Harry Jo, Hi May, how are you? 0:00:36.760 --> 0:00:37.680 We're doing a podcast. 0:00:38.960 --> 0:00:43.680 I've been feed a The chess world has decided that 0:00:43.760 --> 0:00:46.280 my chess powers are too strong, and. 0:00:47.120 --> 0:00:51.279 I'm now being discriminated against. It's a good time, very excited. 0:00:51.720 --> 0:00:56.320 Yeah, having a great time with my biological advantage at chess. 0:00:56.800 --> 0:00:58.760 Yeah that's right. Well, you know you've got to reach 0:00:58.840 --> 0:01:03.680 those chess pieces somehow, and it's all to do with 0:01:03.720 --> 0:01:04.760 your hip angle. 0:01:06.080 --> 0:01:11.440 From transvestigators. My wrists are too powerful. This allows me 0:01:11.520 --> 0:01:14.240 to write down my moves faster than my opponent, thus 0:01:14.280 --> 0:01:17.679 giving me an advantage on the clock. I can also 0:01:17.800 --> 0:01:21.600 reach the clock faster. Incredible stuff happening in the world 0:01:21.600 --> 0:01:23.360 of chess, not. 0:01:23.360 --> 0:01:27.240 Just chess sadly, but the fact the Turfs have got 0:01:27.280 --> 0:01:32.360 their clause I guess, into many sports, which is what 0:01:32.480 --> 0:01:37.080 we are talking about today. Specifically, I thought we could 0:01:37.080 --> 0:01:40.360 talk about how the Turf's ruin cycling, because that is 0:01:40.360 --> 0:01:42.280 the thing they have been trying to do for some time. 0:01:42.880 --> 0:01:46.520 It's a thing I've written about before and hopefully a 0:01:46.560 --> 0:01:48.720 thing I will be able to write about again. And 0:01:49.080 --> 0:01:52.200 unless the cycling press just kind of gives itself over 0:01:52.280 --> 0:01:53.880 to the Turfs, which doesn't seem to have done, to 0:01:53.880 --> 0:01:57.720 be fair, generally generally dicycling press, I think it's fair 0:01:57.720 --> 0:02:01.280 to say it's lacked an intersexual analysis of anything. But 0:02:01.840 --> 0:02:06.200 they've been better on this than I had expected, especially 0:02:06.240 --> 0:02:09.079 the outlets which are not run by white sis head 0:02:09.160 --> 0:02:11.840 dudes in Boulder, which, to be fair, is a minority. 0:02:13.440 --> 0:02:18.040 Yeah strange, that odd? How odd? But yeah, shouting in 0:02:18.120 --> 0:02:20.720 particular to Outside for including a gear guide to the 0:02:20.760 --> 0:02:25.560 gear the cops used at the twenty sixteen RNC, which 0:02:25.840 --> 0:02:28.520 could perhaps be included as the most tone deaf article 0:02:28.680 --> 0:02:34.640 ever written. Yeah, yeah, incredibly, and then to leave it 0:02:34.720 --> 0:02:37.280 up in twenty twenty to not like cover your tracks. 0:02:37.480 --> 0:02:39.399 You know this is one of those. 0:02:39.440 --> 0:02:41.560 This is one of those, like when the workers take 0:02:41.680 --> 0:02:44.359 Boulder like no biker will go hungry moments. 0:02:47.400 --> 0:02:50.440 Ah yeah, Boulder, Colorado is a special place for bad things. 0:02:50.600 --> 0:02:52.160 I won't say bad things to happen because they had 0:02:52.160 --> 0:02:58.760 not a format shooting. But like social yeah, intersexual analysis 0:02:58.760 --> 0:03:03.120 has not made it to bolder savvy. Great, great shame. 0:03:03.280 --> 0:03:05.840 But we're not talking about bout it today. We're starting 0:03:05.919 --> 0:03:09.919 out with a little discussion of cyclo cross. So cycle across. 0:03:09.919 --> 0:03:11.280 Are you familiar with cycling across? 0:03:11.400 --> 0:03:11.600 Mire? 0:03:12.720 --> 0:03:12.960 No? 0:03:13.560 --> 0:03:17.120 Okay, So it's a fundamentally silly sport in which I've competed, 0:03:17.160 --> 0:03:22.320 of course. It's it's when competitors race skinny, tired drop 0:03:22.360 --> 0:03:29.080 bar bikes on off ro course. Yeah, I would please google, 0:03:29.320 --> 0:03:33.239 uh perhaps, Okay, I'm going to send you one one 0:03:33.360 --> 0:03:38.000 cyclo cross video. It is iconic for people who are 0:03:38.040 --> 0:03:40.960 who are at home. The videos called is joey. Okay, 0:03:41.480 --> 0:03:43.400 we can we can have mere reacting live. 0:03:45.400 --> 0:03:49.960 The first picture that I saw when when I googled 0:03:49.960 --> 0:03:52.560 this is two people not riding on their two people 0:03:52.720 --> 0:03:53.920 carrying their bikes. 0:03:54.000 --> 0:03:55.960 Yes, so this is a thing, right, you get really 0:03:55.960 --> 0:03:59.080 good at cyclic you train your entire life and then 0:04:00.400 --> 0:04:02.200 and then in psychelocross, there are parts where you have 0:04:02.240 --> 0:04:04.440 to get off. Unless you're very talented, you can't hop 0:04:04.480 --> 0:04:10.640 the barriers. I've tried that with mixed success. You can 0:04:10.680 --> 0:04:13.720 also you can ride the stairs, but you do have 0:04:13.800 --> 0:04:15.680 to be a bit of a boss. So there are 0:04:15.720 --> 0:04:18.680 barriers and challenges which you have to get off. It's 0:04:18.720 --> 0:04:23.760 called field riding in Dutch, which is about riding. Have 0:04:23.839 --> 0:04:32.479 you watched the video? Will include a link in the 0:04:32.520 --> 0:04:36.520 note to everyone else of it. Did you watch it 0:04:36.560 --> 0:04:39.960 with the sound on? Yeah? 0:04:40.000 --> 0:04:43.000 Okay, I'm trying to figure out how to describe this effectively. 0:04:43.040 --> 0:04:44.840 What has happened is this guy Okay, so these guy's 0:04:44.880 --> 0:04:47.960 like going at full speed and then while the bike 0:04:48.080 --> 0:04:50.559 is still moving, he's attempting to get off the bike 0:04:50.640 --> 0:04:55.440 before he gets to this barrier, and he like, he 0:04:55.560 --> 0:04:57.600 just goes. He does not get off in time. The 0:04:57.600 --> 0:05:00.760 bike's going too fast and he like she is she's 0:05:00.839 --> 0:05:04.520 like sprawling. But in mid arees he's flying off his 0:05:04.680 --> 0:05:06.560 bike over the sparricaane thing. 0:05:06.760 --> 0:05:13.520 It is incredible. Yeah. All the time people are shouting 0:05:13.520 --> 0:05:16.280 his name, And that's what you're supposed to do. You're 0:05:16.279 --> 0:05:19.520 supposed to dismount and just carry the speed you kind 0:05:19.520 --> 0:05:21.000 of you can either thwing your leg through or throwing 0:05:21.000 --> 0:05:23.239 your leg to the outside and then carry a speed 0:05:23.240 --> 0:05:25.120 and jump and then hop back on. It's a very 0:05:25.120 --> 0:05:28.400 strange sport, right, And a big part of cyclo cross 0:05:28.480 --> 0:05:33.719 is heckling. So the crowd will heckle you, right, they will. 0:05:34.480 --> 0:05:36.599 They'll do all kinds of things, like often the crowd. 0:05:36.680 --> 0:05:38.560 Hand ups are a big thing in cycle across. So, 0:05:38.680 --> 0:05:44.960 like I've been handed dollar bills beer. What is happening 0:05:45.040 --> 0:05:48.440 in the sport? Oh yeah, it's very funny. And the 0:05:48.520 --> 0:05:51.120 moment you're not competitive if you're just grabbing shit off 0:05:51.160 --> 0:05:54.640 the spectators. So like, like I remember racing in Las 0:05:54.760 --> 0:05:56.680 Vegas at night. There was a race in Las Vegas 0:05:56.680 --> 0:06:00.320 at night, and I ain't gonna win right like then, 0:06:00.400 --> 0:06:03.240 so I'm just grabbing dollar bills and shoving them down 0:06:03.279 --> 0:06:05.719 my like like. 0:06:07.279 --> 0:06:07.680 It's like. 0:06:09.720 --> 0:06:12.760 People will hand you like drinks. I've had beer hand ups, 0:06:12.800 --> 0:06:17.080 donut spake, and one notable occasion a cookie that was 0:06:17.120 --> 0:06:20.240 not just a normal cookie, which you should fucking disclose 0:06:20.279 --> 0:06:23.680 to someone before you get to Yeah, that was a 0:06:23.720 --> 0:06:27.200 bad day. I also had a pretty rough traumatic brain 0:06:27.240 --> 0:06:31.000 injury that day. Oh no, yeah, I'd already sustained the 0:06:31.040 --> 0:06:34.640 brain injury that hit the cookie. I thought my blood 0:06:34.680 --> 0:06:36.039 sugar was low, so I was like, yeah, I'm gonna 0:06:36.080 --> 0:06:37.480 got that cookie and it's going to be great. It 0:06:37.560 --> 0:06:39.760 was not. It wasn't the blood sugar. It was affected 0:06:39.800 --> 0:06:44.640 my cognition. So cyclograss is fun and silly, and heckling 0:06:44.800 --> 0:06:47.599 is part of it. But like heckling occurs within a 0:06:47.640 --> 0:06:52.320 certain certain bounds, right, Like you're not supposed to be mean, 0:06:52.720 --> 0:06:55.640 it's just supposed to be funny, Like everyone's supposed to laugh. 0:06:55.720 --> 0:06:58.280 So I think in twenty twenty one everyone was rather 0:06:58.839 --> 0:07:02.000 it's funny signed part of it too, right, But in 0:07:02.040 --> 0:07:04.040 twenty twenty one we saw some shit that was distinctly 0:07:04.120 --> 0:07:07.200 not funny when a group called Save Women's Sport posted 0:07:07.279 --> 0:07:11.920 up at the race and held what were, as you 0:07:11.920 --> 0:07:15.679 can probably guess by the name, transphobic science throughout the race. 0:07:16.840 --> 0:07:19.480 So a lot of people were upset by this, and 0:07:19.520 --> 0:07:23.239 by their own admission, nobody wanted them there. One woman 0:07:23.320 --> 0:07:27.480 told the protesters your ship feminism isn't welcome here, which 0:07:27.560 --> 0:07:31.360 I think would be a great T shirt. If she's listening, 0:07:31.440 --> 0:07:33.520 please will license your. 0:07:33.200 --> 0:07:33.760 T shirt. 0:07:35.520 --> 0:07:38.360 And they were pretty rarely rejected by most of the community, 0:07:38.400 --> 0:07:42.280 which is great, But the bigotry they bought really wasn't 0:07:42.320 --> 0:07:44.640 a surprise to anyone who'd been paying attention to online 0:07:44.640 --> 0:07:49.520 discourse for a while, especially with respect to cycling. The 0:07:49.600 --> 0:07:53.560 harassment of trans cyclists has been escalating for years. For 0:07:53.560 --> 0:07:57.240 at least five or six years now. The governing body 0:07:57.320 --> 0:07:59.600 USA Cycling has known about this and chosen to have done 0:07:59.600 --> 0:08:02.560 nothing to stop it. Right, So, this particular focus on 0:08:02.600 --> 0:08:06.600 cycling came about in twenty eighteen when anti transcadras began 0:08:07.160 --> 0:08:09.280 to focus on the sport because of the success of 0:08:09.320 --> 0:08:13.240 a woman named Veronica Ivy and that she wasn't called 0:08:13.320 --> 0:08:15.440 Veronica Ivy at the time, and she was using she 0:08:15.440 --> 0:08:17.600 had a different name then, but that's her name now, 0:08:17.640 --> 0:08:19.160 so I'm going to use that name out of respect 0:08:19.200 --> 0:08:24.400 for her choice for that to be her name. She 0:08:24.400 --> 0:08:27.120 she won a world championship in the women's thirty five 0:08:27.200 --> 0:08:31.280 to forty four spring category. Now, like, I have no 0:08:31.480 --> 0:08:33.280 disrespect at all for masters athletes. 0:08:33.280 --> 0:08:33.640 It's great. 0:08:33.640 --> 0:08:35.720 I'm glad people are out there exercising. This is not 0:08:35.840 --> 0:08:39.760 the same as an Olympic gold medal, right, Like the 0:08:40.280 --> 0:08:43.640 big I would I mean, people may disagree. The biggest 0:08:43.640 --> 0:08:46.520 determinant of your ability to win a master's track cycling 0:08:46.840 --> 0:08:48.680 gold medal is the amount of free time you have 0:08:48.720 --> 0:08:50.320 to exercise and the amount of money you have to 0:08:50.320 --> 0:08:54.480 buy fast gear and get to the event. Right, what 0:08:54.600 --> 0:08:58.960 is like the difference between masters is it's competitions for 0:08:59.040 --> 0:09:04.319 older people. So it's so in cycling you have juniors 0:09:04.320 --> 0:09:06.080 and there are various you know, obviously the eight year 0:09:06.080 --> 0:09:07.840 olds don't compete with eighteen year olds, but up to 0:09:07.880 --> 0:09:12.760 eighteen as juniors espoires is eighteen to twenty three. We 0:09:12.880 --> 0:09:14.319 use a French name because you know, you want to 0:09:14.320 --> 0:09:20.320 be call what is what's what? Jesus Christ? Yeah, yeah, 0:09:20.400 --> 0:09:23.839 this French name under twenty three, right, you can call 0:09:23.880 --> 0:09:25.280 it if you want it to be an angler phile. 0:09:26.400 --> 0:09:29.760 And then from there you go into the elite competition. 0:09:30.440 --> 0:09:35.000 Elite competition is it's actually eighteen and like an eighteen 0:09:35.040 --> 0:09:38.240 year old could compete in an elite competition, so could 0:09:38.240 --> 0:09:40.320 a fifty year old, right, but it's the highest level 0:09:40.320 --> 0:09:44.360 of competition. And then you get protected age categories again 0:09:44.440 --> 0:09:46.880 once you get to thirty five, So so thirty five 0:09:46.960 --> 0:09:50.120 to forty four forty five to fifty four going ten 0:09:50.200 --> 0:09:55.320 year blocks, right, and that's for people who are only 0:09:55.360 --> 0:09:57.400 of that age. Now, it's the older you get, the 0:09:57.480 --> 0:10:00.440 less competitive it gets, just because more people will people 0:10:00.480 --> 0:10:04.440 will be racing, right, But thirty five plus masters sometimes 0:10:04.480 --> 0:10:05.959 they call it baby masters, is. 0:10:07.400 --> 0:10:07.480 Not. 0:10:08.280 --> 0:10:10.920 You don't have a significant decrease in your endurance performance 0:10:10.920 --> 0:10:12.679 at thirty five, So like some of these people are 0:10:12.679 --> 0:10:15.920 still very good, and that's why they call it baby masters, 0:10:15.920 --> 0:10:18.160 I guess. But like track cycling is not a big 0:10:18.160 --> 0:10:19.920 sport to begin with, right, that's going around in circles 0:10:19.960 --> 0:10:23.439 on an indoor velodrome. Masters track cycling, it's a smaller 0:10:23.480 --> 0:10:27.560 sport and the amount I know some excellent masters track 0:10:27.600 --> 0:10:29.679 cyclists who just don't care to go to worlds, right, 0:10:29.840 --> 0:10:33.120 they've been professional cyclists, are very high level amateur cyclists, 0:10:33.120 --> 0:10:36.320 and once you reach your mid forties, some people don't 0:10:36.360 --> 0:10:38.959 care to travel and spend that money and do that competition. Right. 0:10:40.200 --> 0:10:43.600 San Diego has a really great track scene. Some people 0:10:43.679 --> 0:10:46.720 who I know very well have recently won multiple world 0:10:46.800 --> 0:10:49.360 championships on the track. Like, we have a very thriving scene, 0:10:49.400 --> 0:10:51.040 but not all of those people even care to go 0:10:51.080 --> 0:10:54.520 to La to race worlds like let alone travel across 0:10:54.520 --> 0:10:58.199 the world. Right, So it doesn't necessarily truly mean the 0:10:58.240 --> 0:11:00.160 people who win Masters are the best athletes in the 0:11:00.160 --> 0:11:04.000 world for the age group, And certainly I wouldn't say. 0:11:04.000 --> 0:11:06.360 There are lots of things that make this competition unfair. 0:11:06.400 --> 0:11:08.240 One of them is how much track bikes cost, how 0:11:08.320 --> 0:11:10.480 much track time costs, and how much travel costs to 0:11:10.480 --> 0:11:12.960 get to the event. But of course it didn't matter 0:11:13.000 --> 0:11:15.520 to these people, right. What mattered is that a trans 0:11:15.600 --> 0:11:19.400 woman had won, and she became the center of the 0:11:19.440 --> 0:11:23.680 cultural war. And this was really, at least the first 0:11:23.679 --> 0:11:26.520 one that I was aware of, the sort of instance 0:11:26.760 --> 0:11:31.880 of someone a trans person winning a very a notable 0:11:31.960 --> 0:11:38.120 event in cycling. And maybe trans people have been competing 0:11:38.240 --> 0:11:41.400 in elite races in cycling for forty years, like Wally 0:11:41.480 --> 0:11:44.720 Cameron was the first trans woman to race in a 0:11:44.760 --> 0:11:48.480 World Cup, and Money's been racing for a while, and 0:11:48.480 --> 0:11:51.120 no one said shit, no one cared, right, But around 0:11:51.120 --> 0:11:56.520 twenty eighteen, the culture war around trans people was becoming heightened, 0:11:56.600 --> 0:11:59.960 and so people got mad about her wing the race. 0:12:00.480 --> 0:12:03.120 And since then there's been this steady increase in transphobic 0:12:03.160 --> 0:12:07.800 sentiment towards by crisis. It's really the sort of leading 0:12:07.920 --> 0:12:11.320 voice in this has been former probike grace at Inger Thompson. 0:12:11.920 --> 0:12:14.880 She's been joined by a few amateur women in various 0:12:14.880 --> 0:12:17.559 fields voicing their feelings about the participation of trans women. 0:12:18.320 --> 0:12:21.760 And Thompson has made a lot of statements, some of 0:12:21.800 --> 0:12:24.160 which you know, choose not to share with you. You 0:12:24.160 --> 0:12:26.920 can google them if you want, but most of them 0:12:27.040 --> 0:12:29.960 will be like she missgenderous people all the time, right, 0:12:30.000 --> 0:12:32.440 that that's what you can find her on Twitter, misgendering people. 0:12:32.520 --> 0:12:37.120 And I think that that is kind of the giveaway 0:12:37.160 --> 0:12:40.240 that this isn't necessarily about sport, right, And I think 0:12:41.120 --> 0:12:45.560 that it's really important that people, regardless of where you 0:12:45.640 --> 0:12:48.720 stand on sport, understand that this is a wedge, and 0:12:48.760 --> 0:12:52.800 it's a wedge that's designed to push trans people out 0:12:52.240 --> 0:12:55.720 and away from femininity in a way, from inclusion. 0:12:56.480 --> 0:12:56.680 Yeah. 0:12:57.000 --> 0:12:59.880 I think one of the reasons why it's important is 0:13:00.440 --> 0:13:05.920 it it's a way of focusing the discourse like on 0:13:06.040 --> 0:13:14.120 trans people, on like really really weird interpretations of physical characteristics. Yeah, 0:13:14.120 --> 0:13:17.160 and then this is something that you can use to 0:13:17.240 --> 0:13:20.280 sort of like, you know, this, this is the wedge 0:13:20.280 --> 0:13:21.800 that you can use to sort of like tear this 0:13:21.880 --> 0:13:24.000 sort of issue open. It's been really really effective at 0:13:24.000 --> 0:13:27.280 this and it's also been like you know, it's something 0:13:27.320 --> 0:13:30.240 that's sort of like vaguely plausible, plausibly deniable, and it 0:13:30.280 --> 0:13:35.160 also plays on a really kind of effective branding strategy 0:13:35.200 --> 0:13:38.800 that these people had, which is that like you know, 0:13:38.840 --> 0:13:41.840 if people remember what feminism was like in like the 0:13:41.920 --> 0:13:46.720 twenty tens, it was almost entirely about you know, not 0:13:46.760 --> 0:13:48.240 just in the twenty tens, like you even sort of 0:13:48.240 --> 0:13:53.199 previous to this, right, Like the notion that like women 0:13:53.240 --> 0:13:56.280 are weaker than men was something that was like like 0:13:56.400 --> 0:13:59.080 broadly considered to be sexist, Like that was not a 0:13:59.120 --> 0:14:03.280 feminist thing that was like like women are weaker than men. 0:14:03.400 --> 0:14:05.040 And then you know what you're getre You're getting into 0:14:05.040 --> 0:14:07.920 people complaining about like like trans women like being on 0:14:08.040 --> 0:14:10.160 Jeopardy or like this ship that's happening in Chester that 0:14:10.160 --> 0:14:12.360 we're going to talk about later. It's like, okay, like 0:14:13.080 --> 0:14:15.120 if you go back in time to before sort of 0:14:15.120 --> 0:14:19.320 trans arrangement syndrome set in, like and you told someone 0:14:19.560 --> 0:14:21.880 that in the future, this person is going to be 0:14:22.000 --> 0:14:27.160 arguing that like like like trans women have a biological 0:14:27.200 --> 0:14:32.240 advantage in jeopardy because men are smarter than women. They'd 0:14:32.280 --> 0:14:34.160 be like, what the fuck are you talking about, Like 0:14:34.360 --> 0:14:36.160 this person is like a neo Nazi. 0:14:37.280 --> 0:14:39.360 Yeah, it's oh that women are only defined by their 0:14:39.400 --> 0:14:42.400 ability to bear children, right, and and then that is 0:14:42.400 --> 0:14:45.960 your sole characteristic and value as a woman, Like yeah, and. 0:14:45.880 --> 0:14:47.280 Like like this is and this is something that you know, 0:14:47.280 --> 0:14:50.000 if you go back to like Simon before God, I 0:14:50.320 --> 0:14:53.280 hate French. It's really a true it's a truly terrible language. 0:14:54.600 --> 0:14:58.160 That is the official stance of this podcast, Anti French action. 0:14:58.520 --> 0:14:58.680 Yeah. 0:14:58.720 --> 0:15:01.800 Yeah, but like you know, I mean always has you know, 0:15:01.880 --> 0:15:03.480 like you actually read. 0:15:03.240 --> 0:15:05.520 The Second Sex and like in the Second Sex is 0:15:05.560 --> 0:15:07.920 talking about you know, we literally were like her famous 0:15:07.920 --> 0:15:10.200 line is like women like no one is born a woman, 0:15:10.360 --> 0:15:12.960 like women is made right because it's it's it's it's 0:15:13.040 --> 0:15:15.480 it's it's a social process, not a biological one. And 0:15:15.520 --> 0:15:18.920 then you know, and and but because there was like 0:15:19.400 --> 0:15:22.640 a kind of cultural victory for feminism where it suddenly 0:15:22.680 --> 0:15:25.720 became really really difficult to be a mainstream person and 0:15:25.760 --> 0:15:29.760 like call yourself, uh, like call yourself an anti feminist, 0:15:30.080 --> 0:15:32.120 like all of these people who believe all of the 0:15:32.160 --> 0:15:34.960 same ship that like Phylishchlaffley did like have to relabel 0:15:35.000 --> 0:15:38.560 themselves feminists, and you know, and sports is the sports 0:15:38.560 --> 0:15:40.320 the thing they picked to do that because sports is 0:15:41.160 --> 0:15:44.080 the like it's the area they can pick where they can, 0:15:44.600 --> 0:15:49.200 like with some plausible deniability, start doing all of this 0:15:49.360 --> 0:15:51.480 like oh, women are inherently weaker than men and have 0:15:51.520 --> 0:15:53.920 to be protected from men, like shit again. 0:15:54.440 --> 0:15:57.920 Yeah, yeah, and it's yes, it's very much like i'm 0:15:58.040 --> 0:16:00.480 recontstractive stuff that we would have seen it not feminist 0:16:01.400 --> 0:16:05.280 twenty years ago. Now sadly it's being advanced by people 0:16:05.480 --> 0:16:10.120 laying claimed to feminism. I guess. Yeah. So, in the 0:16:10.120 --> 0:16:13.760 most recent sight of Rouss Nationals, trans athlete Austin Killips 0:16:14.280 --> 0:16:17.600 finished third at the event, local John Brown gun Club 0:16:17.640 --> 0:16:21.000 members had attended to step in and protect trans athletes 0:16:21.040 --> 0:16:23.280 where the sports governing body wouldn't, And it was actually 0:16:23.320 --> 0:16:26.000 a really I mean, what you saw was a lot 0:16:26.040 --> 0:16:30.840 of discourse online about Austin quote unquote blocking and a 0:16:31.240 --> 0:16:36.160 SIS woman athlete, and then you saw like a lot 0:16:36.200 --> 0:16:39.120 of people sort of saying that and like SIS women 0:16:39.200 --> 0:16:42.960 had been I guess, like you know that Austin's inherent 0:16:43.000 --> 0:16:45.960 biological advantage. I'm using heavy scare quotes here had allowed 0:16:45.960 --> 0:16:48.680 her to come third. She got beaten by two sis girls, Right, 0:16:50.280 --> 0:16:51.680 this is always the thing like that. 0:16:51.680 --> 0:16:54.280 There was one of these in skateboarding, where like this 0:16:54.440 --> 0:16:57.120 turf skateboarder was like yelling about how she'd been beaten 0:16:57.160 --> 0:16:59.000 by a trans woman, and you look at the results. 0:17:00.680 --> 0:17:03.680 She lost to an eight year old. 0:17:03.720 --> 0:17:06.080 She was outplaced by an eight year old, Like, shut 0:17:06.080 --> 0:17:10.760 the fuck up. It's this bullshit like and a lot 0:17:10.760 --> 0:17:13.560 of the discourse about like Austin quote unquote blocking someone 0:17:13.680 --> 0:17:18.000 like I don't know, but to me, it very clearly 0:17:18.040 --> 0:17:20.200 seemed to come for people who hadn't watched many other 0:17:20.240 --> 0:17:23.760 bicycle competitions, right, like that's what we do. You push 0:17:23.800 --> 0:17:25.720 on each other, you lean on each other. Like if 0:17:25.720 --> 0:17:27.400 you didn't do that, people would fallo over a whole 0:17:27.480 --> 0:17:29.800 lot more. It's a race, you're trying to get to 0:17:29.800 --> 0:17:32.359 the finish line first. But she didn't do anything that 0:17:32.400 --> 0:17:35.800 anyone else wouldn't have done. And at the time Turfs 0:17:35.880 --> 0:17:37.520 kind of tried to make this a big deal but 0:17:37.520 --> 0:17:43.280 were unsuccessful. And it was not really until Austin won 0:17:43.320 --> 0:17:45.639 a race in New Mexico, a big race tour of 0:17:45.640 --> 0:17:50.400 the Healer that it became again, like like it wasn't 0:17:50.440 --> 0:17:55.359 twenty eighteen a very big deal? Right? So one of 0:17:55.400 --> 0:17:58.240 the key leaders, as I said, is Inga Thompson. Inga 0:17:58.320 --> 0:18:00.600 is a very accomplished cyclist. There's no doubt about that, right. 0:18:00.680 --> 0:18:04.080 She's a Bicycle Hall of Fame inductee, five time national champion, 0:18:04.200 --> 0:18:07.640 three time Olympic team member, a Tour de France firm, 0:18:07.640 --> 0:18:10.919 and a podium finisher, a three time silver medallist at 0:18:10.920 --> 0:18:13.880 the US World Championships. But I think she's arguably more 0:18:13.920 --> 0:18:19.159 famous now for her anti trans bigotry and she's a 0:18:19.280 --> 0:18:22.960 paid She tried to encourage cyclists to take a knee 0:18:23.359 --> 0:18:26.800 in protest at the UCI's transgender inclusion yeah, which like. 0:18:28.560 --> 0:18:32.840 Fox News finally finds something that they're for. 0:18:34.680 --> 0:18:40.560 Yeah, they've finally. She was actually removed from her role 0:18:41.480 --> 0:18:44.119 on the board of a France based American protein for 0:18:44.160 --> 0:18:48.240 her statements there. I thought that their statements kind of interesting. 0:18:48.280 --> 0:18:50.919 They said shared in the absence of politics, her knowledge 0:18:50.960 --> 0:18:54.199 and experience would benefit many in advanced cycling for everyone. However, 0:18:54.280 --> 0:18:56.720 she has decided to dedicate her time to excluding people 0:18:56.720 --> 0:19:00.199 that otherwise currently eligible to compete in UCI events. She 0:19:00.280 --> 0:19:02.280 is also tempted to use our team as a platform 0:19:02.320 --> 0:19:07.840 for political activity, which like is a very neutral stance, 0:19:07.880 --> 0:19:10.640 but it's also it's also like it's fine, right, like 0:19:10.640 --> 0:19:14.040 like our cycling team isn't here to hate trans people. 0:19:14.119 --> 0:19:16.000 If you're going to use it for hating trans people, 0:19:16.560 --> 0:19:19.240 please go somewhere else like it. It doesn't. You don't 0:19:19.280 --> 0:19:21.840 have to, like I do take a hugely radical stance 0:19:21.880 --> 0:19:23.800 to be like that this isn't a hate platform for 0:19:23.840 --> 0:19:29.479 hate speech, like like go away and uh that they 0:19:29.520 --> 0:19:32.480 added to be clear, Miss miss Thompson is entitled to 0:19:32.480 --> 0:19:35.080 her opinions an advocacy, but her methods and personal attacks 0:19:35.080 --> 0:19:38.280 are inconsistent with siniska's mission to advanced opportunities for women. 0:19:38.880 --> 0:19:42.040 These methods, well documented on Miss Thompson's social media presence, 0:19:42.080 --> 0:19:46.480 include dehumanization of transgender people, spreading misinformation, demagoguery, and personal 0:19:46.520 --> 0:19:49.520 attacks on anyone who opposes her views spellow alert that 0:19:49.520 --> 0:19:53.000 includes me. She doesn't like me it all, I don't 0:19:53.040 --> 0:19:56.880 don't be mean to trans people, uh don't missgender my friends. 0:19:57.440 --> 0:19:59.439 So I did think it was very funny that like 0:19:59.560 --> 0:20:02.560 this team isn't like the like I don't note like 0:20:02.640 --> 0:20:05.399 the woke team for woke people. They're just trying to 0:20:05.400 --> 0:20:07.359 get along with helping women's cycle and they can't do 0:20:07.480 --> 0:20:09.840 that if they're one of their board members. Is so 0:20:10.000 --> 0:20:13.399 consumed by hate that no one wants to have anything 0:20:13.440 --> 0:20:18.440 to do with it. So in the wake of this protest, 0:20:18.880 --> 0:20:23.400 the twenty twenty one Save Women's Sport protest Fliletted they're 0:20:23.400 --> 0:20:26.520 an official with USA Cycling, published an open letter calling 0:20:26.960 --> 0:20:32.200 for the resignation of the organization's CEO and the Safe 0:20:32.200 --> 0:20:35.200 Sport Coordinator, kelsy Erickson, who's responsible for preventing hate speech 0:20:35.200 --> 0:20:38.840 and bullying. They gather one hundred and five signatures from 0:20:38.920 --> 0:20:41.720 racists and other cyclists in support of their demands, and 0:20:41.760 --> 0:20:43.840 a day after they sent the letter to Martini announced 0:20:43.880 --> 0:20:47.320 he was stepping down. So he has a bit of 0:20:47.359 --> 0:20:50.880 a failure of just like there's a statement he made 0:20:50.920 --> 0:20:52.959 an interview where he said it would be different if 0:20:53.000 --> 0:20:55.320 our athletes were going to be affected. When he was 0:20:55.359 --> 0:21:00.760 talking about bands for trans athletes in interscholastic sports, he said, 0:21:00.800 --> 0:21:05.760 we don't believe they will be which like in technical 0:21:05.800 --> 0:21:08.480 and in technical sense because cyclists can bete for clubs, 0:21:08.520 --> 0:21:10.800 not schools. They might not have done. But if you 0:21:10.840 --> 0:21:13.480 think that a ban on trans kids playing at school 0:21:13.600 --> 0:21:16.080 isn't going to affect participation in trans athletes in all 0:21:16.119 --> 0:21:21.680 sports everywhere. You just either completely myopic or you're burying 0:21:21.800 --> 0:21:25.960 your bigotry. He claimed he was quoted out of context, 0:21:26.400 --> 0:21:28.120 but it was part of a pretty big block quote. 0:21:28.240 --> 0:21:30.320 I don't see how that can be taken out of context. 0:21:31.600 --> 0:21:33.199 They did say at that time that they're against any 0:21:33.280 --> 0:21:37.240 legislation limit trans inclusion. It's worth pointing out that cycling 0:21:37.400 --> 0:21:40.480 has a body as to all Olympic sports. It should 0:21:40.480 --> 0:21:43.040 prevent hate, beach, bigotry, and bullying, right, And that's called 0:21:43.200 --> 0:21:48.240 safe Sport set up in twenty seventeen, and that was 0:21:48.280 --> 0:21:52.359 following what happened at USA Gymnastics, right, which was widespread 0:21:52.400 --> 0:21:56.120 sexual abuse of athletes. People I'm sure will remember that 0:21:56.880 --> 0:21:59.639 Safe Sport, I feel fairly confident in saying has completely 0:21:59.680 --> 0:22:05.040 failed in preventing abuse, preventing harassment, preventing bullying. What it 0:22:05.040 --> 0:22:08.960 has done is is perhaps given a legal shield to 0:22:09.040 --> 0:22:12.840 governing bodies, so has prevented them getting sued. But it's 0:22:12.920 --> 0:22:16.560 done nothing to prevent this kind of bullying, which is 0:22:16.640 --> 0:22:20.320 why athletes and the community you've had to taken it 0:22:20.359 --> 0:22:22.840 upon themselves to do that, right, Like, if there's one 0:22:22.840 --> 0:22:25.160 thing you should expect a governing body to do, it's 0:22:25.160 --> 0:22:28.800 to make sure everyone feels safe at races. But people 0:22:28.840 --> 0:22:31.240 were legitimately worried about racing in areas where they knew 0:22:31.280 --> 0:22:34.840 there were a lot of not just turfs, but like 0:22:35.240 --> 0:22:37.440 groups like the prowd boys, right, who have kind of 0:22:37.520 --> 0:22:39.960 hung their hat on transphobia. I know people who didn't 0:22:39.960 --> 0:22:42.359 go to races in areas where they were worried about that. 0:22:43.400 --> 0:22:47.120 I know people who, like you know it, went out 0:22:47.119 --> 0:22:48.920 of went to an effort every day to drive a 0:22:48.960 --> 0:22:52.080 different way back to their hotel at races because they're 0:22:52.080 --> 0:22:55.439 worried about Like, people genuinely felt unsafe doing something that 0:22:55.480 --> 0:23:00.560 no one should feel unsafe doing, which is playing. So 0:23:03.359 --> 0:23:08.440 as I said, you know who won't make you feel unsafe? 0:23:10.440 --> 0:23:14.720 I I'm going to say the products and services, and 0:23:14.760 --> 0:23:15.679 then I'm gonna. 0:23:16.840 --> 0:23:19.480 They will wrap you up in a cocoon like blanket 0:23:19.800 --> 0:23:23.840 of gold and coins and meal kits. How can do 0:23:23.880 --> 0:23:28.080 you not feel so safe when you're surrounded by Reagan coins? 0:23:29.080 --> 0:23:30.159 No one fact checked. 0:23:30.200 --> 0:23:32.560 This is a fact check free zone. 0:23:33.000 --> 0:23:37.399 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The following and preceding thirty seconds 0:23:37.440 --> 0:23:40.520 have not been fact checked. All right, please enjoy these adverts, 0:23:41.520 --> 0:23:44.440 and we are back and we're still talking about turfs. 0:23:44.640 --> 0:23:48.120 So Saves Women's Sports, which is this organization that put 0:23:48.160 --> 0:23:50.600 on the protests, presents itself as an organic reaction to 0:23:50.640 --> 0:23:54.520 the participation of trans women, who it repeatedly misgenders in 0:23:54.560 --> 0:23:57.560 women's categories. It claimed that several races in the cycle 0:23:57.600 --> 0:24:02.080 across national championships privately did the organization to express concerns, 0:24:02.240 --> 0:24:05.760 but only one, Ev Edwards, competed under the SWS team banner. 0:24:06.760 --> 0:24:09.520 SWS at the time was not a nonprofit, so it 0:24:09.560 --> 0:24:12.960 was relatively hard to find out what exactly their financial 0:24:13.000 --> 0:24:16.440 ties to various other transphobic and right wing groups were. 0:24:17.119 --> 0:24:20.000 It's registered in Minnesota as a business, but it appears 0:24:20.040 --> 0:24:22.199 to be a sault. At the time, again, it was 0:24:22.240 --> 0:24:27.600 a sole prop run by someone called best Steltzer. The 0:24:28.240 --> 0:24:31.399 both Ev Edwards and SWS used the race to aggressively 0:24:31.440 --> 0:24:34.760 fundraise for their campaign. Steltzer, for instance, at the time, 0:24:34.920 --> 0:24:36.760 was making three hundred and eighty five bucks per month 0:24:36.800 --> 0:24:41.919 on Patreon by quote creating awareness of males Invading female Spaces. 0:24:43.200 --> 0:24:46.400 Page has been taken down since then. She turfed too 0:24:46.400 --> 0:24:50.760 close to the sun. She also received donations on her 0:24:50.840 --> 0:24:53.240 venmo page, which is very funny because I don't think 0:24:53.280 --> 0:24:55.560 she realized hervenmo page was public checked it out in 0:24:55.680 --> 0:25:00.760 the judgment. Yeah, that there is no there there was 0:25:00.760 --> 0:25:04.720 no distinction made between advocacy spending and personal spending on 0:25:04.760 --> 0:25:06.800 that account, I will say. And she was taking a 0:25:07.359 --> 0:25:13.800 donations and you know, making emoji purchases on her Venmo 0:25:13.920 --> 0:25:16.119 at the time. I think maybe since has made it private. 0:25:16.119 --> 0:25:19.360 But this is something that like if you ever want 0:25:19.359 --> 0:25:21.959 to just like I don't know, if someone just like 0:25:22.080 --> 0:25:25.560 appears in the news and they suck, like, go try 0:25:25.560 --> 0:25:28.560 to find them on venmo because people just don't realize 0:25:28.880 --> 0:25:32.000 that stuff. And oh yeah, you know, people like people 0:25:32.040 --> 0:25:35.920 recently caught like I think we talked about Clarence tom 0:25:35.960 --> 0:25:39.800 I think it was Clarence Thomas amazing paying his staffers 0:25:39.800 --> 0:25:43.600 on venmo. Like you can find a bunch of very 0:25:43.640 --> 0:25:47.040 funny stuff because people people are bad at doing crime. 0:25:47.080 --> 0:25:52.040 Now, Yeah, I cannot tell you how many people literally 0:25:52.720 --> 0:25:56.840 had things on their Venmo like travel to DC and 0:25:57.920 --> 0:26:02.560 like on January sixth, right like ven bowing each other 0:26:04.160 --> 0:26:08.159 for like revolution tacos after they'd evaded the capital smart 0:26:08.160 --> 0:26:12.560 stuff and no, no, please keep doing that if you're 0:26:12.560 --> 0:26:17.440 planning transphobia or coups. So much of this awareness that 0:26:17.680 --> 0:26:20.080 that save women's sports awareness. Like, I think if you're 0:26:20.119 --> 0:26:23.119 ever donating to someone who's promoting quote unquote awareness of anything, 0:26:23.119 --> 0:26:26.360 there should be a large red flag. It's an extremely 0:26:26.400 --> 0:26:28.719 nebulous concept that very ready does anything to help anyone. 0:26:29.000 --> 0:26:31.359 But much of this awareness seem to be tied to 0:26:31.720 --> 0:26:35.439 pre standard right wing anti trans talking points and not 0:26:36.040 --> 0:26:39.160 the many dozens, maybe hundreds of instances or transist women 0:26:39.480 --> 0:26:42.000 happily compete alongside each other, have a nice time, do exercise, 0:26:42.080 --> 0:26:46.760 go home, and don't engage in any bigotry. In the past, 0:26:46.840 --> 0:26:49.320 WUS has worked with far right organizations like the Heritage 0:26:49.359 --> 0:26:52.280 Foundation and the Family Research Council to prepare a guide 0:26:52.320 --> 0:26:56.199 to quote help parents understand the transgender issue. Again, if 0:26:56.200 --> 0:26:59.159 you're framing the existence of other people as an issue, 0:26:59.720 --> 0:27:01.359 you know that far from flaming it as a question, 0:27:01.480 --> 0:27:07.320 are you? Yeah? Like, I'm impressed the self awareness avoided 0:27:07.359 --> 0:27:12.119 the transgender question, but like, only by you know, using 0:27:12.119 --> 0:27:14.359 the thesaurus to reframe it as an issue. I guess 0:27:14.840 --> 0:27:18.919 the guide refers to the transgender trend quote unquote and 0:27:18.960 --> 0:27:24.200 repeatedly caused trans women men. They of course. Also you 0:27:24.240 --> 0:27:27.000 know Steltzer in particular, it appears anti abortion rallies, anti 0:27:27.000 --> 0:27:30.120 marriage equality rallies, things like that. Right, this is part 0:27:30.119 --> 0:27:32.320 of a wider space of painting bigotry. It's not just 0:27:32.400 --> 0:27:37.840 about support. Cyclists are taken it upon themselves to protect 0:27:37.880 --> 0:27:42.000 trans riders, so access of solidarity, of range for blocking 0:27:42.040 --> 0:27:46.760 SWS protesters and national Championships announces refusing to allegedly refusing 0:27:46.760 --> 0:27:50.880 to mention races on the team. That's pretty funny, Yeah, 0:27:50.920 --> 0:27:53.960 it is pretty funny. Also this Mney Cameron has this 0:27:54.040 --> 0:28:00.160 organization called Ride, which is let trans kids ride and 0:28:00.680 --> 0:28:02.960 money mate sees wristband which like a trans flag, the 0:28:03.040 --> 0:28:06.600 transpride flag, and like one of my friends won the 0:28:06.600 --> 0:28:10.280 biggest race in the US. It's cis guy with his 0:28:10.359 --> 0:28:13.480 Transpride ristband on, which is you know a little thing. 0:28:13.960 --> 0:28:16.679 But also like it's it's nice to see people show up, 0:28:16.720 --> 0:28:20.160 Like yeah, it's nice to see and like it's rare 0:28:20.200 --> 0:28:21.879 that you'll go to a race when people won't be 0:28:22.040 --> 0:28:24.040 you won't see a few people wearing that, like in 0:28:24.400 --> 0:28:29.080 pro men pro women, both like it's there are overwhelmingly 0:28:30.160 --> 0:28:32.800 people don't give a fuck. They're just happy if you're 0:28:32.840 --> 0:28:34.959 enjoying riding bikes. It's not like it's a big sport. 0:28:35.720 --> 0:28:35.919 You know. 0:28:35.920 --> 0:28:38.120 The real threat cycling is all of us getting killed 0:28:38.120 --> 0:28:42.720 by people in tesla's playing pong, Like it's not it's 0:28:42.760 --> 0:28:47.720 not trans women. But unfortunately the solidarity hasn't extended to 0:28:47.720 --> 0:28:52.680 the governing body. So two years after this initial protest, right, 0:28:52.680 --> 0:28:56.560 the UCI effectively banned all trans women from participating in 0:28:57.000 --> 0:29:00.640 elite level cycling. This happened just a few weeks before 0:29:00.680 --> 0:29:02.720 the World Championships. Like, I have friends who had to 0:29:02.760 --> 0:29:09.479 cancel their flights. Yeah, it was the most bungled, fucked 0:29:09.600 --> 0:29:15.160 up pseudoscience kind of half fast, Like it was just 0:29:15.200 --> 0:29:17.400 a mess. The whole thing was a fucking mess. They 0:29:17.440 --> 0:29:21.120 had an extraordinary meeting in August, just a few weeks 0:29:21.160 --> 0:29:24.960 before the World Championships, and like people previously had to 0:29:24.680 --> 0:29:28.240 have a submit blood numbers to show a testosterone level 0:29:28.280 --> 0:29:30.840 to compete, right, which is a thing lots of governing 0:29:30.840 --> 0:29:34.440 bodies have been doing for a while now. They had 0:29:34.480 --> 0:29:36.960 certified people, like weeks before this, they'd be like, yeah, 0:29:37.000 --> 0:29:40.320 you're good to go for another year and then psych no, 0:29:40.400 --> 0:29:42.640 you're not. You can't compete ever again. And like, this 0:29:42.760 --> 0:29:45.520 is people's jobs, right, this is their livelihood, it's how 0:29:45.560 --> 0:29:49.400 they pay rents. It's also like being an elite cyclist 0:29:49.440 --> 0:29:52.080 is hard. It is most of your life, right, Like 0:29:52.360 --> 0:29:54.320 you're you've got to sleep or you got to eat, right, 0:29:54.440 --> 0:29:56.560 You've got to train all the fucking time. You can't 0:29:56.600 --> 0:29:59.720 go out, you're going to be resting when you're not training. 0:30:00.480 --> 0:30:02.280 To take all that away from someone with a click 0:30:02.280 --> 0:30:05.560 of the fingers and bringing no consultation for them, it's 0:30:05.680 --> 0:30:11.720 incredibly cruel. And the I'll just read their statement because 0:30:11.720 --> 0:30:13.000 I think there's a couple of things in it we 0:30:13.000 --> 0:30:15.720 should pick apart. Obviously, you can't take Woying for it 0:30:15.760 --> 0:30:19.120 being inherently transphobic. From now on, female transgender athletes who 0:30:19.280 --> 0:30:23.280 have transitioned after quote male puberty will be prohibited from 0:30:23.320 --> 0:30:27.120 participating women's events on the UCI International Calendar in all 0:30:27.160 --> 0:30:30.800 categories in the various disciplines. Notably, they also said it's 0:30:30.800 --> 0:30:34.000 also impossible to rule out the possibility that biomechanical factors 0:30:34.000 --> 0:30:35.880 such as the shape and arrangement of the bones in 0:30:35.920 --> 0:30:42.720 their limbs may constitute a lasting advantage for female transgender athletes. Yeah, 0:30:43.120 --> 0:30:47.000 it's yea, there's a lot going on there, right, Like 0:30:47.840 --> 0:30:51.200 they use female where where most people would use woman. 0:30:51.560 --> 0:30:54.920 The barrier they set is to rule out any possibility 0:30:54.920 --> 0:30:57.280 of an advantage, right, which is a very high barrier. 0:30:57.320 --> 0:31:00.000 That's like a kind of guilty, and to improve it 0:31:00.000 --> 0:31:03.360 innocent situation. Right, Like I'd also like the arrangement of 0:31:03.400 --> 0:31:05.840 the bones in my limbs changed significantly when I was 0:31:05.960 --> 0:31:09.360 racing bikes because I broke them all the fucking time. Like, 0:31:09.760 --> 0:31:13.680 such such a strange category to choose. Also, the requirement 0:31:13.720 --> 0:31:16.080 that you transition before puberty. That's not the same as 0:31:16.080 --> 0:31:19.680 taking puberty blockers, right, They're requiring that you're taking the 0:31:19.680 --> 0:31:23.600 hormones before puberty, like like eleven or twelve, yeah. 0:31:23.400 --> 0:31:26.160 Which which is just also now illegal in an enormous 0:31:26.200 --> 0:31:27.680 number of states, like. 0:31:27.880 --> 0:31:31.680 Yeah, and even most from what I understand, most gender 0:31:31.680 --> 0:31:34.960 affirming care takes the approach of taking puberty blockers rather 0:31:35.000 --> 0:31:36.520 than yeah. 0:31:36.000 --> 0:31:39.719 Well this is this is sort of like, I mean, 0:31:39.720 --> 0:31:41.760 this is sort of the disaster that's been happening in 0:31:41.800 --> 0:31:44.440 the last like four or five years on this, which 0:31:44.440 --> 0:31:49.600 is that like like taking puberty blockers was the compromise position, yes, 0:31:49.800 --> 0:31:53.240 like that was the position that was taken because people 0:31:53.240 --> 0:31:56.160 thought it was too dangerous to like let kids do hot, 0:31:56.320 --> 0:31:58.040 which it's not like it's completely fine. 0:31:58.040 --> 0:32:00.440 In fact, it's actually like you. 0:32:00.360 --> 0:32:04.280 Know, you're you're going to go through puberty anyways, right, 0:32:04.760 --> 0:32:07.120 You're like like if if you are in a human body, 0:32:07.120 --> 0:32:10.160 you are doing uncontrolled puberty, and that is less safe 0:32:10.280 --> 0:32:12.720 than doing a controlled puberty, which is what you know, 0:32:12.840 --> 0:32:16.800 doing like doing it turgy when you're a child is yeah, 0:32:16.840 --> 0:32:18.719 but yeah, the young vice position was like, oh well 0:32:18.720 --> 0:32:20.760 we're not we're gonna do those will do puberty blockers, 0:32:20.760 --> 0:32:24.600 and then like everyone went insane about puberty blockers. And 0:32:24.600 --> 0:32:27.120 now like even the compromised position has been sort of 0:32:27.200 --> 0:32:30.520 like you know, I mean like when we're away that 0:32:30.600 --> 0:32:33.240 and it's like okay, like you know, but and then 0:32:33.240 --> 0:32:35.160 and then like and then you know, like now and 0:32:35.200 --> 0:32:37.080 then having done this right and it's like, oh well, 0:32:37.120 --> 0:32:39.080 now you can set up all of these rules that 0:32:39.120 --> 0:32:41.440 are like require you to have done a thing you've 0:32:41.480 --> 0:32:45.080 now made illegal. It's like this is great, yeah, exactly right. 0:32:45.520 --> 0:32:48.640 You now have a rule that basically bans almost anyone 0:32:48.800 --> 0:32:53.600 from participation, like you have to begin transitioning at eleven. 0:32:55.040 --> 0:32:58.040 It's also very nebulous, like male puberty, Like like what 0:32:58.080 --> 0:33:00.400 does that mean? What what point are you to finding 0:33:00.440 --> 0:33:02.280 you have been through male puberty? Like are we going 0:33:02.320 --> 0:33:04.920 to aftereople to submit their fucking testosterone numbers from when 0:33:04.920 --> 0:33:11.840 they were eight? Like yeah, Like it's it's just a man, 0:33:11.920 --> 0:33:13.800 It's what it is, right, Like it it's a you 0:33:13.840 --> 0:33:17.120 can't ever transition satisfactorily enough. 0:33:17.240 --> 0:33:18.960 Yeah, or like, for example, I don't know, so like 0:33:19.000 --> 0:33:22.560 let's say you you you are on Like let's say 0:33:22.560 --> 0:33:24.880 you don't start hormones until you're like twenty four, but 0:33:24.880 --> 0:33:27.360 but you rearrange the bones in your body. 0:33:28.320 --> 0:33:32.480 It this allows you? Did you now have feminine bone arrangement? 0:33:32.640 --> 0:33:36.960 Does this now allows you to cycle gender affirming orthopedic surgery? 0:33:39.560 --> 0:33:39.800 Yeah? 0:33:40.000 --> 0:33:45.800 And like and also this, And I want to get 0:33:45.840 --> 0:33:51.280 into this a little bit because it completely obfuscates or 0:33:51.400 --> 0:33:54.160 ignores I guess what we know to be true that 0:33:54.240 --> 0:33:57.280 there is not a binary puberty process, because there is not. 0:33:57.680 --> 0:34:01.760 Humans don't exist in a binary sex nor egisted binary genders. Right, 0:34:01.840 --> 0:34:04.680 So I think probably the best example of this would 0:34:04.720 --> 0:34:09.719 be Malie Jose Martinez Patigno. If people aren't familiar with her. Obviously, 0:34:10.120 --> 0:34:14.720 Google is right there for you. But she was dismissed 0:34:14.719 --> 0:34:16.799 from a Spanish Olympic team in nineteen eighty six for 0:34:16.840 --> 0:34:20.719 failing the gender test. She's publicly shamed for being like 0:34:20.760 --> 0:34:24.400 a secret male. She loses her fiancee, she loses her funding, 0:34:24.960 --> 0:34:28.839 she loses almost everything. She fought and won a successful 0:34:28.920 --> 0:34:32.880 court battle, illustrating the fallacy of this binary gender approach. 0:34:33.000 --> 0:34:34.640 But she's not a trans woman, to be clear. She's 0:34:34.640 --> 0:34:39.560 an intersexual woman who has androgen insensitivity syndrome. But she 0:34:40.040 --> 0:34:42.680 was able to They were using chromosome typing, right, Like 0:34:43.120 --> 0:34:45.080 you'll often this is a thing that you'll still see 0:34:45.120 --> 0:34:47.439 turf trotting out right, something that was outdated in nineteen 0:34:47.480 --> 0:34:53.000 eighty six, that like xx or x Y, that is 0:34:52.719 --> 0:34:55.520 that is not a binary that fits the entirety of 0:34:55.520 --> 0:34:56.320 the human species. 0:34:56.400 --> 0:34:58.080 Yeah, there's like a lot of people for a lot 0:34:58.080 --> 0:34:59.040 of other different kinds. 0:35:00.040 --> 0:35:04.560 It's like it's again, like I get it, you didn't. 0:35:05.200 --> 0:35:07.399 You're not a biologist. That's fine, It's okay to shut 0:35:07.440 --> 0:35:08.960 the fuck up if you don't understand something. 0:35:09.840 --> 0:35:11.480 Yeah, but this this is one of those things that 0:35:11.560 --> 0:35:13.759 sucks because it's like like I wish these people had 0:35:13.760 --> 0:35:17.200 decided to like try to build airplanes based off of 0:35:17.239 --> 0:35:20.239 like pre Deutornian or something work, because it's like there's 0:35:20.280 --> 0:35:23.880 no consequence for them for not understanding biology. But it's 0:35:23.920 --> 0:35:25.120 like I don't know, like it like if if you, 0:35:25.200 --> 0:35:27.480 if you, if you're trying to argue that like general 0:35:27.520 --> 0:35:30.920 relativity doesn't exist, like you're you're like your satellite is 0:35:30.920 --> 0:35:33.479 gonna fall on you. But this, this is the one 0:35:33.560 --> 0:35:36.719 thing where you can just like you can say ship that. 0:35:36.760 --> 0:35:38.640 It's not even like like people people make the joke 0:35:38.680 --> 0:35:40.560 it's like high school biology. It's like it's not it's 0:35:40.600 --> 0:35:44.680 just like elementary school biology. And it's not right, like 0:35:44.680 --> 0:35:46.080 like YouTube biology, isn't it. 0:35:46.120 --> 0:35:50.080 That's what it is? Yeah, yeah, yes, exactly. 0:35:50.120 --> 0:35:50.279 Yeah. 0:35:50.320 --> 0:35:54.960 But unfortunately the consequences of people who are not them, Yeah, 0:35:55.000 --> 0:35:58.200 and that's hugely unfortunate, right, Like even we see like 0:35:58.239 --> 0:36:01.239 Cassa Semnia when a cult case this month or last month, 0:36:01.280 --> 0:36:05.360 like allowing her to compete again, we found time and 0:36:05.440 --> 0:36:09.000 again that this notion of a binary sex is as 0:36:09.120 --> 0:36:11.200 nonsense to call as a motion of a binary gender. 0:36:11.640 --> 0:36:15.200 And yet we continue to try and force people into 0:36:15.239 --> 0:36:18.080 these different competitions. I just want to read a statement 0:36:18.120 --> 0:36:22.880 that Austin made and like, it's very hard not to 0:36:22.880 --> 0:36:25.919 see this as them, specifically seeing Austin winning a big 0:36:25.960 --> 0:36:28.080 stage race in New Mexico and going like, right, we 0:36:28.120 --> 0:36:31.000 can't fucking have that, Like as soon as trans women 0:36:31.080 --> 0:36:33.200 win stuff, right, It's fine if they come and then 0:36:33.200 --> 0:36:35.879 don't win, but as soon as they win stuff. And again, 0:36:35.880 --> 0:36:38.359 if she had this inherent, massive biological advantage, she would 0:36:38.360 --> 0:36:43.200 have won everything, which hasn't happened, she said. I'm devastated 0:36:43.200 --> 0:36:45.400 by the UCI decision to renege on the policy and 0:36:45.400 --> 0:36:48.279 framework it previously set out for inclusion. My journey in 0:36:48.280 --> 0:36:50.720 professional racing has allowed me to see the world, build 0:36:50.760 --> 0:36:54.600 lifelong friendships, and most importantly, if my absolutely or something 0:36:54.640 --> 0:36:57.000 I find deeply fulfilling, no one should be denied the 0:36:57.040 --> 0:36:59.920 opportunity to chase that same joy that I and others 0:37:00.120 --> 0:37:03.160 found through racing, which I think is great, and I 0:37:03.160 --> 0:37:07.880 think it's important to lift up her voice in this 0:37:07.960 --> 0:37:11.480 and other transathlete voices. In theory, there is what's called 0:37:11.520 --> 0:37:16.800 an open category, which is the men's category. The problem 0:37:16.840 --> 0:37:21.480 is that there are no open races, and that this category, 0:37:21.760 --> 0:37:23.880 like if you line up as a trans woman in 0:37:23.920 --> 0:37:28.280 the fucking open category. You're being very clearly othered, right, Yeah, 0:37:28.280 --> 0:37:33.160 you're being like you're Some of them also will have 0:37:33.160 --> 0:37:36.080 women's licenses, like it's not clear what men's category they 0:37:36.080 --> 0:37:41.000 can race in. But more importantly, I think, as Chris 0:37:41.040 --> 0:37:43.279 Mosia pointed out, people will be familiar as Chris as 0:37:43.280 --> 0:37:46.400 the first trans athlete tend Olympic trials in the US. 0:37:47.160 --> 0:37:50.560 The open category contradicts both International Olympic committeeuidelines on fairness 0:37:50.560 --> 0:37:53.440 and inclusion and extensive research of states trans women do 0:37:53.520 --> 0:37:55.759 not have an inherent advantage in sport. Chris is a 0:37:55.800 --> 0:38:01.879 good follow on Twitter. It's to the Chris Mosia. 0:37:59.360 --> 0:37:59.440 But. 0:38:00.920 --> 0:38:05.719 It contradicts even like the IOC. Again, not like on 0:38:05.800 --> 0:38:09.560 the bastions of wokeness, people who sent the Olympics to 0:38:09.600 --> 0:38:13.960 the Nazis have a better policy than this. And yet 0:38:14.440 --> 0:38:16.640 cycling has chosen to go above and beyond, and in 0:38:16.800 --> 0:38:21.040 large part I can't not see that as because of 0:38:21.080 --> 0:38:23.120 the attention paid to this by people who do not 0:38:23.200 --> 0:38:26.520 give a fuck about cycling, because they've found a wedge, 0:38:27.840 --> 0:38:31.400 because our community has generally been inclusive. Like even after 0:38:31.440 --> 0:38:34.520 this at the World Championships, there were people with trans 0:38:34.560 --> 0:38:37.919 flags course, you know, like world championship or which trans 0:38:37.960 --> 0:38:41.759 women could not compete advocating for inclusion. Right, it was 0:38:41.760 --> 0:38:46.520 in Glasgow, and as a rule, the sport I think 0:38:47.160 --> 0:38:50.839 has been accepting Like I've never cycled, not known there 0:38:50.840 --> 0:38:54.239 being trans people in cycling, and I've cycled a lot, 0:38:54.560 --> 0:38:57.719 but this has allowed trans people to thrive. And when 0:38:57.719 --> 0:39:00.560 trans people started describing these fucking bigots to make this 0:39:00.640 --> 0:39:03.960 a wedge issue and that's why it's happening here. But 0:39:04.000 --> 0:39:06.680 it's also fucking happening in chess. So do you want 0:39:06.719 --> 0:39:08.480 to do you want to talk about chess? 0:39:08.560 --> 0:39:08.719 Man? 0:39:08.840 --> 0:39:10.840 This is this is insane, Okay. 0:39:11.160 --> 0:39:12.759 The weird part about the chess one is like I 0:39:12.920 --> 0:39:16.680 I don't know, I had. This is not something that 0:39:16.960 --> 0:39:21.560 anyone in chess was like talking about. Like chess has 0:39:21.640 --> 0:39:24.959 like a lot of incredibly weird and bizarre political stuff 0:39:25.000 --> 0:39:29.040 going on, but like they're I had, I don't know. 0:39:29.600 --> 0:39:31.360 Maybe I just missed it, or maybe it was just 0:39:31.400 --> 0:39:34.200 like a part of the chess discourse I wasn't following, 0:39:34.239 --> 0:39:39.000 But like I I don't know, really truly weirdly, just 0:39:39.000 --> 0:39:40.360 seemingly out of nowhere. 0:39:40.560 --> 0:39:43.560 I don't know what is going on with this seemingly out. 0:39:43.440 --> 0:39:45.799 Of nowhere fee Day, which is like the International Chess 0:39:45.800 --> 0:39:52.920 Federation released the statement, released this like policy that says 0:39:53.000 --> 0:39:56.320 that like it has a lot of weird stuff and 0:39:56.360 --> 0:39:59.239 effectively sets up fee Day as like what I can 0:39:59.239 --> 0:40:02.640 only describe as an gender council, where like, if you 0:40:02.680 --> 0:40:04.600 want to like change your gender, you have to like 0:40:04.640 --> 0:40:07.000 submit it to fe DA and then fee DA gets 0:40:07.000 --> 0:40:10.839 to decide what gender you are. So great, great things 0:40:10.880 --> 0:40:18.640 happening here. And then also for some reason, Okay, so 0:40:19.120 --> 0:40:22.160 chess has had this thing for a while where chess 0:40:22.200 --> 0:40:26.480 has like there are like women's sections for stuff, and 0:40:26.719 --> 0:40:28.960 there's a lot of some weird stuff going on here. 0:40:29.000 --> 0:40:32.799 So like there's the regular title like Grandmaster, there's also 0:40:32.920 --> 0:40:35.920 like a women's Grandmaster thing which has different qualification, is 0:40:35.920 --> 0:40:38.840 slightly different, and this was this was set up basically 0:40:38.880 --> 0:40:43.120 because like the guys who play chess are insane, Like 0:40:43.200 --> 0:40:45.680 I've talked about this some of the Bobby Fisher episodes right, 0:40:45.760 --> 0:40:49.480 like they're like most of the most famous chess players 0:40:49.480 --> 0:40:54.560 in history are like utterly deranged Neo Nazis or like 0:40:54.560 --> 0:40:57.600 like people who are even weirder than Neo Nazis, like 0:40:57.600 --> 0:41:03.839 like like unreconstructed like nineteen seventeen czarists like people like that, 0:41:03.920 --> 0:41:08.840 like just people with with like truly truly deeply weird 0:41:09.000 --> 0:41:14.520 political ideologies that are like unbelievably right wing, and you know, 0:41:14.800 --> 0:41:17.600 and like part of part of what like happens here 0:41:17.719 --> 0:41:22.479 is that like just chess in general is like unfathomably sexist, 0:41:22.640 --> 0:41:28.080 Like it's it's really really bad, and you know, like 0:41:28.160 --> 0:41:32.920 their solution to this effectively was like to create this 0:41:33.120 --> 0:41:39.040 like kind of parallel like women's infrastructure, which kind of 0:41:39.120 --> 0:41:42.839 works and kind of hasn't in a lot of ways. 0:41:42.840 --> 0:41:44.279 And you know, like part of what's going on is 0:41:44.320 --> 0:41:49.239 just like, okay, so a lot of girls, like young 0:41:49.320 --> 0:41:53.200 girls play chess, but there's this bottleneck that happens around 0:41:53.239 --> 0:41:56.080 when you're like thirteen or fourteen, while this is twelve 0:41:56.160 --> 0:41:58.880 to thirteen, So there's fourteen where like the number of 0:41:58.880 --> 0:42:02.920 girls playing chess just like collapses, right, And the reason 0:42:02.960 --> 0:42:05.040 that happens is because boys are fucking dog. 0:42:04.840 --> 0:42:06.440 Shit Like this is this. 0:42:06.800 --> 0:42:09.960 Is like literally what's happening, right, is like you have 0:42:10.000 --> 0:42:12.160 a bunch of sexist, like really sex as boys. And 0:42:12.200 --> 0:42:14.120 then the product of this is that because there's so 0:42:14.239 --> 0:42:17.160 many fewer like women who play chess and there are 0:42:17.160 --> 0:42:19.400 men you play chess, Like there's just like the example, 0:42:19.440 --> 0:42:22.680 like there's way less like women who are like really 0:42:22.719 --> 0:42:25.520 high rated chess players. And that's because there's just like 0:42:25.520 --> 0:42:29.040 like the barrier of institutional sexism to like become a 0:42:29.040 --> 0:42:32.319 woman who's really good at chess is so high. And 0:42:32.360 --> 0:42:34.200 then yeah, okay, so so this this is the sort 0:42:34.200 --> 0:42:36.839 of background, So like there are these separate like women's 0:42:36.880 --> 0:42:42.799 like tournaments and stuff like that, and so fee DA, 0:42:42.960 --> 0:42:49.320 which is the Chess Federation, released this thing where Okay, 0:42:49.520 --> 0:42:57.800 so they say a few things. One is that, okay, 0:42:57.840 --> 0:43:02.880 the the the big one is that if you like, 0:43:03.000 --> 0:43:07.799 if you are a trans woman, you cannot play in 0:43:07.880 --> 0:43:11.960 official feed day events or women until fee Day does something. 0:43:12.040 --> 0:43:14.000 And it's not entirely clear what that is. 0:43:14.520 --> 0:43:17.320 So is it like a testosterone level you have to submit? 0:43:17.760 --> 0:43:21.839 Wait, literally, I'm just gonna read this sentence because it's 0:43:21.880 --> 0:43:26.120 it's utterly unclear what is going on here. In the 0:43:26.200 --> 0:43:28.960 event that the gender was changed from male to female, 0:43:29.040 --> 0:43:31.520 the player has no right to participate in official fee 0:43:31.560 --> 0:43:33.919 day events or women until free Day's decision is made. 0:43:35.400 --> 0:43:38.880 Such decision should be based on further analysis and should 0:43:39.200 --> 0:43:41.960 and shall be taken by the fee Day Council at 0:43:41.960 --> 0:43:44.560 the earliest possible time, but no longer than within a 0:43:44.600 --> 0:43:45.600 two year period. 0:43:47.440 --> 0:43:50.319 So it's you can be out for two years. Well 0:43:50.400 --> 0:43:55.479 yeah wait wait why what the fuck? Like what what what? What? 0:43:55.640 --> 0:43:55.759 Like? 0:43:55.920 --> 0:43:59.560 What what are they possibly like analyzing here? 0:43:59.760 --> 0:44:00.000 Right? 0:44:00.200 --> 0:44:02.600 Like I I is it? 0:44:02.640 --> 0:44:02.879 Is it? 0:44:02.960 --> 0:44:04.600 Like like what what? What? What? 0:44:04.600 --> 0:44:04.880 What it? 0:44:04.960 --> 0:44:07.839 What is supposed to be the thing that differentiates like 0:44:08.040 --> 0:44:10.640 the genders that like lets you that makes you not 0:44:10.760 --> 0:44:12.920 be able to compete in the women's category? Like is 0:44:12.960 --> 0:44:15.239 it like like is it like if you played you 0:44:15.320 --> 0:44:16.600 aggressively or some ship? 0:44:16.640 --> 0:44:17.239 Like what? What? 0:44:17.600 --> 0:44:17.839 Yeah? 0:44:18.000 --> 0:44:23.000 Well it's baffling. Yeah, that is a bizarre decision like 0:44:24.080 --> 0:44:25.960 and yeah, like you said, it's just completely It's not 0:44:25.960 --> 0:44:29.680 even that they're not it's not an Olympic sport, right, 0:44:29.960 --> 0:44:33.160 It's not like they have to conform to any IOC guidelines. 0:44:33.200 --> 0:44:37.160 It's yeah is the chess cartel right, like they can 0:44:37.239 --> 0:44:40.440 do whatever they want, you know, I mean, like I know, 0:44:40.600 --> 0:44:44.160 expecting FIDE to do stuff that isn't insane is like, 0:44:46.000 --> 0:44:51.840 look like this is the organization that after uh that, 0:44:52.000 --> 0:44:55.440 after Bobbie Fisher went on the radio in the Philippines 0:44:55.480 --> 0:44:57.720 and said that he hopes that the government like rounds 0:44:57.760 --> 0:45:00.359 up all Jewish people and kills them, like they let 0:45:00.440 --> 0:45:03.920 him back into feed A after that. So, like, you know, 0:45:04.080 --> 0:45:08.440 a great organization run by amazing people here. Yeah, but 0:45:08.560 --> 0:45:11.320 this is I don't know, it's it's incredibly deeply weird. 0:45:11.840 --> 0:45:19.319 Like the thing I keep thinking about is I don't know, 0:45:19.320 --> 0:45:23.280 this is kind of a weird, kind of silly story 0:45:23.280 --> 0:45:25.200 in some ways. But like so, like the first trans 0:45:25.280 --> 0:45:28.839 person that I was like aware of it was a 0:45:28.880 --> 0:45:34.520 trans StarCraft two player named Scarlett, and she's great, She's awesome, 0:45:34.520 --> 0:45:39.600 Scarlet rules she actually she she she's she's one of 0:45:39.719 --> 0:45:43.479 three non Korean players ever to win a tournament in Korea, which, 0:45:43.600 --> 0:45:46.280 like I I don't know how to express how difficult 0:45:46.320 --> 0:45:49.239 it is to win a StarCraft tournament Korea. Like it 0:45:49.280 --> 0:45:52.160 would be like if a football team from like Siberia 0:45:52.520 --> 0:45:54.759 showed up to the US was somehow allowed to play 0:45:54.800 --> 0:45:56.640 in the NFL and then like won the Super Bowl. 0:45:57.000 --> 0:45:58.880 Like that, That's about the level of difficulty it is 0:45:58.880 --> 0:46:01.000 to win a StarCraft tournament in Korea. 0:46:01.320 --> 0:46:03.760 Yeah. Yeah, Jamaica bove safe team moment. 0:46:04.480 --> 0:46:06.799 Yeah yeah, But like like yeah, so, like you know, 0:46:06.960 --> 0:46:10.520 it's it's one of those sort of like really wild things. 0:46:10.520 --> 0:46:12.200 But like one of the things I remember about that 0:46:12.239 --> 0:46:14.759 was like she was always, as best I could tell, 0:46:14.800 --> 0:46:17.240 like always allowed like StarCraft also had a women's division 0:46:17.320 --> 0:46:20.319 because you know, very very similar like probably even more 0:46:20.320 --> 0:46:24.200 intense sort of sexis going yeah, yeah, being pretty toxic 0:46:24.600 --> 0:46:26.480 you know, and like like yeah, like it was actually 0:46:26.840 --> 0:46:29.040 you know, over the arc of like the like the 0:46:29.120 --> 0:46:31.040 like over a decade she's been playing, like you know, 0:46:31.120 --> 0:46:33.640 like I've seen the scene get less transphobic. But like, 0:46:33.680 --> 0:46:35.520 as much as I could tell, there was never like 0:46:35.560 --> 0:46:38.080 a thing in the women's tournament. There always just like yeah, sure, hey, 0:46:38.080 --> 0:46:40.000 look a girl wants to play StarCraft like this rips 0:46:41.080 --> 0:46:45.360 and yeah yeah yeah, well more of us like yeah yeah, 0:46:45.400 --> 0:46:46.960 like you know, and she's also like and she's like 0:46:47.200 --> 0:46:48.759 again really really good at the game. 0:46:49.440 --> 0:46:51.080 But like you know, but like like this is the 0:46:51.080 --> 0:46:52.719 thing that like historically. 0:46:53.800 --> 0:46:57.360 Hasn't I don't know, like like Jenny Wiley like in 0:46:57.360 --> 0:46:59.920 in games like this that are like not well, okay, 0:47:00.160 --> 0:47:05.120 StarCraft is enormously more athletic than Chess, but like yeah, 0:47:05.160 --> 0:47:06.600 like you know, like this has been a thing where 0:47:06.640 --> 0:47:13.279 people Like there's if you're in one of these like 0:47:13.320 --> 0:47:17.800 incredibly sexist environments, there's like a real like really obvious 0:47:17.880 --> 0:47:19.680 like both trans women and since women like we're all 0:47:19.760 --> 0:47:22.440 in this together thing because you get to look at 0:47:22.480 --> 0:47:27.080 like the fucking ravening hordes of like absolutely deranged psychos 0:47:27.120 --> 0:47:29.799 in like the twitch chat and be like, oh god, 0:47:29.880 --> 0:47:32.880 they hate both of us. Yeah, yeah, which is also 0:47:32.960 --> 0:47:35.759 like I think the other thing about this is like 0:47:35.960 --> 0:47:41.560 it's unclear like who at feet day like decided this, 0:47:42.800 --> 0:47:47.000 Like this doc just like appeared, and so there's like 0:47:47.000 --> 0:47:49.359 a non zero chance this decision is being made by men, 0:47:49.600 --> 0:47:52.120 Like pretty high that this is just like a decision 0:47:52.120 --> 0:47:56.040 made by a bunch of men because fuck them, and 0:47:56.080 --> 0:48:01.640 they've just decided that, like you know, just like literally 0:48:01.680 --> 0:48:04.000 not giving a shit about women's jess for like the 0:48:04.160 --> 0:48:08.440 entirety of its existence. They've finally decided to do something, 0:48:08.440 --> 0:48:11.319 and they do something is make me not be able 0:48:11.360 --> 0:48:13.319 to play women's tournaments. 0:48:13.360 --> 0:48:15.840 Like right, yeah, you didn't take action when body Bobby 0:48:15.840 --> 0:48:17.880 Fisher went full Nazi, but you decided to. 0:48:18.280 --> 0:48:21.040 Yeah, It's like okay, this is great, great, great things 0:48:21.040 --> 0:48:21.600 are happening. 0:48:21.600 --> 0:48:25.440 I don't know, Yeah, talking of Nazis. There was a 0:48:25.760 --> 0:48:31.600 it was I think actually a a again a nonbine 0:48:32.000 --> 0:48:34.760 or like an intersex woman who competed for the Nazis 0:48:34.760 --> 0:48:40.239 in nineteen thirty six at the Olympics. Yeah, with I'm 0:48:40.239 --> 0:48:47.480 not entirely sure of her, like like external external sex presentation, 0:48:47.560 --> 0:48:51.160 I guess, but later definitely served as a man in 0:48:51.200 --> 0:48:53.319 the German Armed Forces. But that could have been a 0:48:53.320 --> 0:48:57.839 forced social transition. But yeah, there's a long history of 0:48:57.920 --> 0:49:01.360 us trying to work out gender ship through sport, and 0:49:01.400 --> 0:49:05.040 I guess I just want to finish by, like, if 0:49:05.080 --> 0:49:07.080 you don't give a shit about sport, you have to 0:49:07.160 --> 0:49:11.960 understand this is still important because like sport's always about 0:49:11.960 --> 0:49:14.000 like who's on our team and who's not right. That's 0:49:14.000 --> 0:49:16.000 why we didn't let black people play baseball in this 0:49:16.080 --> 0:49:21.600 fucking country. It's why they took like Olympic medals away 0:49:21.640 --> 0:49:25.319 from indigenous people for violating stupid amateurism rules because they 0:49:25.320 --> 0:49:28.960 were designed to only let people have a certain class pay. 0:49:29.200 --> 0:49:33.520 It's why Colin Kafmack doesn't have a job, right, Yeah, 0:49:33.920 --> 0:49:35.799 it's why people didn't want to go to the Nazi 0:49:35.800 --> 0:49:37.800 Olympics and went to one in Barcelona, and it was bigger. 0:49:38.160 --> 0:49:41.840 Like sports not just about being the best to exercise, 0:49:42.320 --> 0:49:46.280 it's it's a social tool to include or exclude people. 0:49:46.360 --> 0:49:50.000 And if you care about including people, then I think 0:49:50.160 --> 0:49:53.640 you have to care about sport right now, because that 0:49:53.800 --> 0:49:56.920 is a wedge that transfers are using to exclude people. 0:49:59.239 --> 0:50:00.880 So yeah, that's that's what I have for you. 0:50:00.920 --> 0:50:01.279 I don't know. 0:50:02.040 --> 0:50:03.960 If you have money, you can give it to Molly 0:50:04.600 --> 0:50:07.080 Molly Cameron, you can. You can find her online. She 0:50:07.239 --> 0:50:11.759 will help more trans kids ride or yeah, yeah, go 0:50:11.760 --> 0:50:12.839 go ride a bike. It's fun. 0:50:12.960 --> 0:50:15.040 And uh, if, if, if, if, if you are one 0:50:15.080 --> 0:50:16.919 of the seven people in the world who still thinks 0:50:16.920 --> 0:50:19.320 that Colin Kaepernick doesn't have a job because he's not 0:50:19.360 --> 0:50:21.360 good enough of football, come find Come find me in 0:50:21.400 --> 0:50:23.480 the Bear's parking lot. I will force you to watch 0:50:23.520 --> 0:50:26.680 an entire season of the Chicago Bears, like, like, watch 0:50:26.719 --> 0:50:29.160 every quarterback we've ever fucking had in my lifetime, and 0:50:29.200 --> 0:50:31.719 then I will beat you. You will you will you 0:50:31.760 --> 0:50:33.239 will you will you you will be you will be 0:50:33.280 --> 0:50:35.160 in a catatonic state after that. 0:50:37.280 --> 0:50:43.520 I just found proven right. Money's website is ridegroup dot. 0:50:43.520 --> 0:50:45.959 People want to check that out? Oh oh yeah, find 0:50:46.000 --> 0:50:48.560 find Connin Kaepernick on the internet watch videos. 0:51:07.600 --> 0:51:09.640 Okay, that was that was That was slightly longer of 0:51:09.680 --> 0:51:11.960 an a total shriek. Now is it's back, And Robert 0:51:11.960 --> 0:51:13.879 has been coming after me for not doing a total 0:51:13.920 --> 0:51:17.000 shrieks to start the podcast enough so that that's how 0:51:17.000 --> 0:51:21.400 we're starting this episode. It could happen here the podcast 0:51:21.600 --> 0:51:25.680 where we taken into nowhere's victory lap because yeah, so 0:51:25.880 --> 0:51:29.759 if you've been following the discourse about inflation over the 0:51:29.760 --> 0:51:34.280 past about two two and a half years, and especially 0:51:34.320 --> 0:51:40.040 in the last like maybe year or so, so very 0:51:40.080 --> 0:51:42.200 interesting stuff has been happening, and the stuff that we've 0:51:42.200 --> 0:51:44.759 talked about on this show, and then also stuff that's 0:51:44.800 --> 0:51:48.000 been sort of moving around in the sort of broader 0:51:48.040 --> 0:51:51.400 discourse and has now reached like the IMF. And the 0:51:51.440 --> 0:51:55.400 thing that's been happening is that the theory of inflation 0:51:55.600 --> 0:51:57.480 that I've we've been pushing on this show, and that 0:51:57.600 --> 0:52:01.839 also very importantly I that has been being developed by 0:52:01.840 --> 0:52:05.680 Strange Matters has been like incredibly vindicated to the point 0:52:05.800 --> 0:52:09.440 of everyone else adopting it and then claiming that they 0:52:09.440 --> 0:52:13.000 invented it. So yeah, we're this is this is this 0:52:13.040 --> 0:52:15.560 is the this is the inflation Victory Lab episode and 0:52:15.640 --> 0:52:19.319 to talk about the fact that these two people and 0:52:19.440 --> 0:52:23.320 their colleagues were right about inflation and a bunch of 0:52:23.400 --> 0:52:26.719 other stuff too. Is John Michael Kolan and Steve Mann, 0:52:26.719 --> 0:52:29.320 who are both co editors of the magazine Strange Matters, 0:52:29.320 --> 0:52:30.160 And yeah, both. 0:52:30.000 --> 0:52:31.040 FIJU, welcome to the show. 0:52:31.239 --> 0:52:32.880 Thanks so much for having USA. 0:52:32.960 --> 0:52:36.560 Yeah, and I'm excited about this because I've been wanting 0:52:36.600 --> 0:52:39.359 to do this episode for like ever since. So the 0:52:39.360 --> 0:52:45.239 the IMF tweeted out a graph that was arguing that like, 0:52:45.360 --> 0:52:47.840 I think it's like like fifty percent of inflation and 0:52:47.920 --> 0:52:50.920 the EU was based on corporate profits, which was like 0:52:51.400 --> 0:52:53.960 them basically, and this is this is them, and like 0:52:54.000 --> 0:52:57.720 all the mainstream economists are finally like having to admit 0:52:57.760 --> 0:52:59.360 that we were fucking right about inflation. 0:53:00.120 --> 0:53:02.320 Yeah, so I guess before we get into. 0:53:02.320 --> 0:53:05.800 What you two were arguing and what your colleagues are arguing, 0:53:05.840 --> 0:53:08.759 we should talk a bit about, like I guess who 0:53:08.760 --> 0:53:10.959 you two are, and also like talk about Strange Matters again, 0:53:11.000 --> 0:53:13.279 because I think it's been a bit since y'all have 0:53:13.320 --> 0:53:13.640 been on. 0:53:14.800 --> 0:53:19.319 Yeah. Absolutely, so Strange Matters is a this is our 0:53:19.400 --> 0:53:23.920 kind of boiler plate, a magazine of new and unconventional 0:53:23.960 --> 0:53:27.520 thinking in economics, politics, and culture. And we have a 0:53:27.560 --> 0:53:32.360 political bent, so we are broadly speaking all some flavor 0:53:32.560 --> 0:53:35.160 of libertarian. Socialist is kind of the umbrella term that 0:53:35.160 --> 0:53:38.680 we've used for ourselves, but that varies depending on the 0:53:38.680 --> 0:53:41.160 individual kind of members of the team. So we've got 0:53:41.160 --> 0:53:44.320 people who are anarchists, We've got people who are inspired 0:53:44.320 --> 0:53:47.399 by like democratic and federalism. We've got like people who 0:53:47.440 --> 0:53:49.200 don't like a lot of those labels but are really 0:53:49.239 --> 0:53:51.440 into like direct democracy stuff. But like you know, the 0:53:51.680 --> 0:53:57.719 the four of us basically converge on the direct democracy, 0:53:58.760 --> 0:54:03.319 you know, socialism is putting people in charge of the 0:54:03.360 --> 0:54:06.920 decisions that affect them kind of school of things. So 0:54:08.080 --> 0:54:11.840 in terms of our economics pages, however, we've for the 0:54:11.880 --> 0:54:17.640 last couple of years been really dedicated to publishing heterodox economists, 0:54:17.680 --> 0:54:21.239 economists who don't correspond to the usually quite right wing 0:54:21.320 --> 0:54:25.560 mainstream of the economics discipline, but challenging in fundamental ways. 0:54:25.680 --> 0:54:28.880 And there's a bunch of different schools of heterodox economics, 0:54:28.960 --> 0:54:31.879 like you know, everyone knows about like Marxists, but there's 0:54:31.920 --> 0:54:37.440 also post Kinesians and ecological economics and feminist economics, and 0:54:37.440 --> 0:54:39.840 a whole bunch of different schools. We've been dedicated to 0:54:39.920 --> 0:54:43.600 publishing people from all those different schools and trying to 0:54:43.640 --> 0:54:45.120 kind of get them to write in a style that's 0:54:45.120 --> 0:54:47.600 more accessible for ordinary people, so that some of those 0:54:47.600 --> 0:54:50.480 ideas actually start not just reaching the public, but actually 0:54:50.560 --> 0:54:52.799 reaching each other because they don't really talk to each 0:54:52.800 --> 0:54:53.440 other very much. 0:54:53.800 --> 0:54:54.880 This is this is one of this is one of 0:54:54.920 --> 0:54:57.400 the big problems is like, I mean, even just inside 0:54:57.400 --> 0:55:00.560 of Marxism, like if you get six Marxists same we 0:55:00.600 --> 0:55:02.480 all have nine different positions and they'll all be like 0:55:02.520 --> 0:55:05.839 ready to murder each other over it. And that's that's 0:55:06.000 --> 0:55:08.400 just the Marxists, and then you expand out to all 0:55:08.400 --> 0:55:10.360 the rest of the other heterodoxicontaoust people, and there's a 0:55:10.360 --> 0:55:14.160 lot of weird and sort of pointless rivalries going on 0:55:14.600 --> 0:55:17.480 that prevents people from like fusing really useful theories together. 0:55:17.840 --> 0:55:18.080 Yeah. 0:55:18.080 --> 0:55:19.080 Absolutely, Yeah. 0:55:19.120 --> 0:55:22.759 We tried to be a platform for diverging opinions to 0:55:22.840 --> 0:55:26.480 actually be put into dialogue with each other. And we've 0:55:26.640 --> 0:55:30.359 definitely I don't think there's been a single piece that 0:55:30.520 --> 0:55:34.080 all of us have been in lockstep agreement on theoretically, 0:55:34.600 --> 0:55:37.600 and I think that's a real strength. Actually, yeah, like 0:55:37.680 --> 0:55:40.239 there's there's quite a there's quite a few pieces that 0:55:40.600 --> 0:55:43.719 at least one of us is like, I still don't 0:55:43.880 --> 0:55:47.160 really know about this thesis, but I've been there have 0:55:47.200 --> 0:55:49.479 been times in which I've been down on a piece, 0:55:49.520 --> 0:55:51.560 but it does amazing, so let's go with it. 0:55:52.800 --> 0:55:55.640 And also, you know, part of the reasoning for that 0:55:55.840 --> 0:55:58.080 is not just to kind of like Lucy Goosey, let's 0:55:58.080 --> 0:56:01.520 all get along and sing around a camp, but it's 0:56:01.560 --> 0:56:04.200 actually a very principled thing because part of the story 0:56:04.200 --> 0:56:06.080 that we're telling with the magazine is how we have 0:56:06.120 --> 0:56:10.759 these enormous problems, you know, climate change, the whole crisis 0:56:10.800 --> 0:56:12.880 that the democracies have been going through since the two 0:56:12.920 --> 0:56:15.880 thousand and eight crisis, the whole and since like the 0:56:15.920 --> 0:56:19.799 rise of global fascism in the twenty tens, like the 0:56:19.960 --> 0:56:22.200 what are we going to do about like the Internet 0:56:22.280 --> 0:56:24.640 and its future? What are we going to do about 0:56:24.760 --> 0:56:29.600 these these horrible culture war type issues that like, you know, 0:56:29.640 --> 0:56:31.400 people talk about it as the culture of war, but 0:56:31.440 --> 0:56:34.040 actually it's these massive reconfigurations that we have to do 0:56:34.400 --> 0:56:39.520 of our consciousness in order to think about you know, gender, 0:56:39.760 --> 0:56:42.000 national identity, and ethnic identity and all these other things 0:56:42.000 --> 0:56:44.680 in different in new ways that are actually like freeing 0:56:44.719 --> 0:56:48.400 and emancipating and stuff like. Like all of these problems 0:56:48.440 --> 0:56:52.759 are vast and nobody actually knows what the answer is, 0:56:52.800 --> 0:56:55.359 and that includes leftists. Like there's a lot of these 0:56:55.360 --> 0:56:59.480 problems that are either like too technical or too complex 0:56:59.520 --> 0:57:01.759 for any one person to have the solution. So there 0:57:01.800 --> 0:57:03.279 needs to be a space where we kind of come 0:57:03.320 --> 0:57:06.000 together people who are kind of like of good faith 0:57:06.080 --> 0:57:08.080 and who like are trying to kind of do the 0:57:08.120 --> 0:57:11.400 whole democracy and egalitarianism thing, and we actually butt our 0:57:11.440 --> 0:57:13.480 heads together across lines of difference and are like, Okay, 0:57:13.560 --> 0:57:15.120 what are we going to do about this, and what 0:57:15.160 --> 0:57:18.080 are our different perspectives and what's the what's the common ground, 0:57:18.160 --> 0:57:20.680 and what are some little bits and pieces of things 0:57:20.720 --> 0:57:22.120 that people have figured out that we can kind of 0:57:22.120 --> 0:57:24.400 stitch together into something that will let us not just 0:57:24.480 --> 0:57:29.960 get steamrolled by the fascists. And that that's the kind 0:57:30.000 --> 0:57:31.960 of space that we're trying to be, and that's why 0:57:32.160 --> 0:57:35.040 we try to accommodate these different perspectives, even though we 0:57:35.080 --> 0:57:38.400 ourselves tend to come from rather strong perspectives both individually 0:57:38.440 --> 0:57:39.080 and as a group. 0:57:39.680 --> 0:57:41.280 Yeah, well, and and I think we. 0:57:41.240 --> 0:57:45.760 Can like this inflation sort of argument that's been playing 0:57:45.800 --> 0:57:48.320 over the past few years, I think is a really 0:57:49.440 --> 0:57:51.440 like it's a really good indication of how well this 0:57:51.480 --> 0:57:53.880 stuff can work. If it's if it's like, you. 0:57:53.800 --> 0:57:54.240 Know, like. 0:57:56.800 --> 0:57:59.760 The fact that y'all have basically had the inflation theory 0:57:59.800 --> 0:58:02.360 that like a bunch of mainstream economists we're going to 0:58:02.360 --> 0:58:06.800 stumble over in the last like eight months, had effectively 0:58:07.200 --> 0:58:10.080 written we're discussing and we're writing it like two years ago. 0:58:10.760 --> 0:58:13.360 Is a is a sign that something is going right? 0:58:13.920 --> 0:58:15.280 Yeah, we feel really vindicated. 0:58:15.440 --> 0:58:18.640 Yeah, it's it's been very, very very funny to watch. 0:58:19.800 --> 0:58:22.120 So I guess we should move into a bit about 0:58:22.160 --> 0:58:22.600 what this. 0:58:22.520 --> 0:58:23.400 Theory actually is. 0:58:23.600 --> 0:58:26.480 And the very very short version of it is that 0:58:26.520 --> 0:58:29.520 it's a supply chain theory of inflation. It's a theory 0:58:29.520 --> 0:58:33.880 of inflation that tracks, you know, tracks price increases based 0:58:33.960 --> 0:58:38.840 on like like price movement based on stuff happening like 0:58:39.000 --> 0:58:42.880 backwards in the supply chain. And yeah, that turns out 0:58:42.880 --> 0:58:46.080 to have been a really useful both predictive thing and 0:58:46.200 --> 0:58:48.320 explanatory thing once the inflation actually started. 0:58:49.200 --> 0:58:50.520 Yeah, I just. 0:58:50.400 --> 0:58:53.040 Really wanted to highlight that it's Steve who wrote the 0:58:53.040 --> 0:58:56.080 initial essay where we first put those pieces together. It's 0:58:56.960 --> 0:58:59.640 it's Steve's supply chain theory of inflation, foren' anybody else 0:58:59.680 --> 0:59:02.320 is So I definitely I defer to you in terms of, 0:59:02.680 --> 0:59:04.200 you know, laying the groundwork for it. 0:59:04.560 --> 0:59:08.080 Well. I wrote a piece called Notes toward e Theory Inflation, 0:59:08.720 --> 0:59:11.280 and it was kind of born partly out of frustration 0:59:11.400 --> 0:59:15.320 over the fuzzy language in which economists will try to 0:59:15.320 --> 0:59:18.120 speak about inflation. And when I was a grad student, 0:59:18.200 --> 0:59:22.480 I would like encounter it not just from any particular school, 0:59:22.520 --> 0:59:26.919 but from broadly speaking, most of the schools of economics. 0:59:26.960 --> 0:59:33.320 And like it's been prior to this inflationary episode and history, 0:59:33.400 --> 0:59:36.520 it's been almost forty years since we've experienced anything like this. 0:59:37.480 --> 0:59:40.960 And you know, in the in the last period of 0:59:41.280 --> 0:59:45.160 like runaway inflation in the eighties, people were having a 0:59:45.160 --> 0:59:49.200 similar reckoning, although they didn't quite coalesce around supply gene 0:59:50.040 --> 0:59:52.880 and cost puss related theories of inflation like they are 0:59:52.880 --> 0:59:57.440 at this time. But like the theory like in a nutshell, 0:59:58.240 --> 1:00:01.120 the supply chain theory of inflation is essentially saying that 1:00:01.760 --> 1:00:07.800 along there are groups of businesses called supply chains who 1:00:08.120 --> 1:00:11.520 buy inputs from each other in order to produce products 1:00:11.600 --> 1:00:13.680 and sell them to either the next person in the 1:00:13.720 --> 1:00:17.800 chain or to outside consumers that the end user and 1:00:18.520 --> 1:00:23.920 over time, given stressful enough biophysical conditions that they all 1:00:23.960 --> 1:00:27.920 find themselves in even if they don't want to raise prices. 1:00:28.120 --> 1:00:32.040 And broadly speaking, we know from empirical studies that most 1:00:32.040 --> 1:00:35.240 businesses most of the time are very biased towards not 1:00:35.400 --> 1:00:39.680 raising prices. If the situation gets dire enough and they've 1:00:39.720 --> 1:00:43.200 run they've exhausted all of their non price based mechanisms 1:00:43.240 --> 1:00:47.000 for dealing with bottlenecks what are called bottlenecks in the 1:00:47.000 --> 1:00:49.440 supply chain, Like they just don't have enough of the 1:00:49.440 --> 1:00:51.560 inputs that they need in or to sell enough stuff 1:00:52.000 --> 1:00:54.480 at assert at their normal price in order to make 1:00:54.600 --> 1:00:58.320 enough revenue to socially reproduce themselves and their supply chain. 1:00:58.840 --> 1:01:01.960 Eventually they will exhaust all options and there will be 1:01:02.000 --> 1:01:05.480 one person who's kind of like the progenitor price increaser. 1:01:06.600 --> 1:01:09.400 And because like every single and like, what is inflation, really, 1:01:09.440 --> 1:01:13.360 it's a general rise in prices. What are prices? Prices 1:01:13.360 --> 1:01:17.120 are things that people themselves inside of firms, it's their 1:01:17.200 --> 1:01:20.840 job to set and so any theory of inflation needs 1:01:20.840 --> 1:01:25.640 to start with a theory of price essentially. And like, 1:01:25.840 --> 1:01:28.560 so these managers whose job it is to set prices, 1:01:29.200 --> 1:01:32.480 when they change prices, why did they do it? Well, 1:01:32.600 --> 1:01:36.200 we have answers going back many decades, almost a century 1:01:36.920 --> 1:01:40.240 of the surveys of economists who have gone out and 1:01:40.280 --> 1:01:45.280 actually conducted surveys asking under what conditions would you raise prices? 1:01:45.880 --> 1:01:49.760 And at no time did anyone say, oh, I raise 1:01:49.800 --> 1:01:52.400 prices because I looked at monetary aggregates and I saw 1:01:52.440 --> 1:01:54.640 that there was too much money, so I raised prices 1:01:54.960 --> 1:01:58.520 that and so like that was kind of a starting 1:01:58.560 --> 1:02:01.040 point for me when I when I read those these 1:02:01.040 --> 1:02:05.160 surveys conducted by Gardner Means, who is an economists and 1:02:05.600 --> 1:02:07.680 doing this work in the twenties and thirties long. If 1:02:07.720 --> 1:02:13.120 I don't burrow, I got really excited because I'm like, oh, 1:02:13.200 --> 1:02:16.600 of course, well, of course it's inflation. There's so much 1:02:17.040 --> 1:02:20.080 mysticism about like piles of money building up, and then 1:02:20.120 --> 1:02:23.960 it's like demand pull and cost push, and like what 1:02:24.000 --> 1:02:27.200 does this all mean? Right? Well, at the bottom of it, 1:02:27.200 --> 1:02:29.800 it's what are pricing managers doing when they make that 1:02:29.840 --> 1:02:34.480 fateful decision to be the first guy to raise prices, 1:02:34.760 --> 1:02:37.800 because there is one. It has to start with someone, 1:02:38.000 --> 1:02:41.520 and it's usually, like I was saying, they've exhausted all 1:02:41.560 --> 1:02:44.480 of their other methods of dealing with this, such as 1:02:44.600 --> 1:02:50.640 rationing inputs or economizing like increasing their efficiency and their production, 1:02:50.960 --> 1:02:54.520 or diversifying their product lines and all this stuff in 1:02:54.600 --> 1:02:59.600 order to maintain customer goodwill throughout a period of biophysical 1:02:59.640 --> 1:03:02.360 stress to the supply chain. And they're just going to 1:03:02.440 --> 1:03:04.080 raise prices because they have to get a certain amount 1:03:04.120 --> 1:03:06.040 of revenue in order to make it as a business. 1:03:07.240 --> 1:03:10.200 So that's essentially what the supply chain theory is is 1:03:10.200 --> 1:03:14.160 that when that happens, it propagates along supply chains first 1:03:14.480 --> 1:03:19.240 and then because nowadays our economy is so extremely integrated, 1:03:20.280 --> 1:03:23.080 it's not just one supply line. It's an entire supply 1:03:23.160 --> 1:03:26.640 chain network nowadays, and it's global in scope, so even 1:03:26.680 --> 1:03:31.280 if it can't it's it's increasingly less constrained to just 1:03:31.440 --> 1:03:34.080 like one industry or even one country these days. 1:03:36.360 --> 1:03:39.560 That was a that was a beautiful explanation. That's that's 1:03:39.600 --> 1:03:43.480 probably the most concise that we've that we've accomplished yet 1:03:43.520 --> 1:03:46.560 at boiling it down. I'll just because this is the 1:03:46.560 --> 1:03:48.400 problem is that we could go on for like thirty 1:03:48.440 --> 1:03:52.240 minutes about this. Yeah, just this, I guess I have 1:03:52.280 --> 1:03:54.720 a couple of things to add that are just like 1:03:55.160 --> 1:03:57.640 digging out a couple of nuances that I think are 1:03:57.760 --> 1:04:03.520 important for listeners to understand. What Steve said about inflation 1:04:04.000 --> 1:04:09.240 being about a continuous general increase in prices is really 1:04:09.280 --> 1:04:11.960 really profound. I think the first person to articulate that 1:04:12.080 --> 1:04:14.200 I'm aware of was John K. Galbraith in an essay 1:04:14.200 --> 1:04:17.400 that he wrote about that, but in like the fifties. 1:04:17.600 --> 1:04:21.959 But like, that's honestly not the way that we usually 1:04:22.000 --> 1:04:24.480 think of it, right, Like, usually we think that inflation 1:04:25.040 --> 1:04:28.720 is when money, the value of money goes down value 1:04:29.320 --> 1:04:32.240 money buys you less than it usually does. And that 1:04:32.400 --> 1:04:34.160 is not just because that's how we experience it in 1:04:34.160 --> 1:04:36.840 our pocketbooks. Everything else is just scott more expensive. It 1:04:36.880 --> 1:04:38.640 also has to do with the kind of history of 1:04:38.680 --> 1:04:44.000 theories of inflation, because back in the day, the first 1:04:44.040 --> 1:04:47.480 and og theory of inflation, which people still some of 1:04:47.520 --> 1:04:50.400 them believe in, is the quantity theory of money, and 1:04:50.440 --> 1:04:54.400 it basically envisions like the entire economic universe as a 1:04:54.400 --> 1:04:57.440 bunch of like atomized individual agents. And by the way, 1:04:57.440 --> 1:05:00.640 there's no like distinction between companies and how households or 1:05:00.640 --> 1:05:01.400 anything like that here. 1:05:01.720 --> 1:05:03.040 Everyone's kind of like funny. 1:05:03.520 --> 1:05:06.600 It's just everyone's an individual agent. And there's a bunch 1:05:06.640 --> 1:05:08.920 of stuff that already exists out there in the economy. 1:05:09.000 --> 1:05:11.240 How it was produced, I mean, you deal with that 1:05:11.280 --> 1:05:13.240 in a production function. Other than that, like you don't 1:05:13.240 --> 1:05:15.680 talk about it. So there's a bunch of existing stuff 1:05:16.120 --> 1:05:19.040 out there in the economy and it's scarce, right, so 1:05:19.480 --> 1:05:21.680 like how is it going to be distributed? Well, we're 1:05:21.680 --> 1:05:24.880 trading the stuff that we have for the stuff that 1:05:24.880 --> 1:05:28.000 we need. And when things are more scarce, they're more valuable. 1:05:28.520 --> 1:05:32.840 When things are more abundant, they're less valuable. And when 1:05:33.560 --> 1:05:37.720 we want them more they're more valuable, we want them less, 1:05:37.800 --> 1:05:40.400 they're less valuable. So that's kind of like like the 1:05:41.000 --> 1:05:44.400 very basic universe that they're kind of like operating in. 1:05:44.680 --> 1:05:50.040 And money was just seen to be one one good 1:05:50.280 --> 1:05:53.080 being traded like any other. It just so happens to 1:05:53.080 --> 1:05:55.000 be the one that we trade in exchange for everything else. 1:05:55.000 --> 1:05:59.640 So rather than doing barter like like of everything, you know, 1:06:00.120 --> 1:06:04.720 many chickens for this amount of haircut, you know, like instead, 1:06:04.760 --> 1:06:08.680 it's like, you know, we choose one thing to be 1:06:08.720 --> 1:06:12.160 exchangeable for everything else, but it still has a value, 1:06:12.320 --> 1:06:16.080 which is basically determined, according to this theory, by how 1:06:16.160 --> 1:06:18.480 much of it there is. So if you increase the 1:06:18.480 --> 1:06:22.360 money supply, money gets less valuable, which is why you know, 1:06:22.440 --> 1:06:27.520 everything becomes more expensive, prices go up. Whereas if the 1:06:27.520 --> 1:06:31.680 money supply shrinks, you know, then the value of money 1:06:31.760 --> 1:06:33.960 is higher relative to the goods that it buys, so 1:06:34.000 --> 1:06:37.120 therefore prices will go down. This was the theory that 1:06:37.280 --> 1:06:39.560 was developed in like the sixteen and seventeen hundreds to 1:06:39.560 --> 1:06:42.720 try to explain a massive global inflation that happened then 1:06:43.480 --> 1:06:46.560 in the so called price revolution of the seventeenth century. 1:06:48.120 --> 1:06:51.800 And frankly everyone by the twentieth century knows that there's 1:06:51.920 --> 1:06:54.720 huge issues with this, so they start trying to evolve 1:06:55.280 --> 1:06:57.960 away from it, away from the quantity theory of money, 1:06:57.960 --> 1:07:01.160 because it has no real empure goal basis. I mean, 1:07:01.400 --> 1:07:04.040 some people tried to kind of like, you know, juke 1:07:04.120 --> 1:07:06.600 the stats to make it look like there was but like, really, 1:07:06.880 --> 1:07:09.120 our best estimates of the money supply have no real 1:07:09.160 --> 1:07:11.720 good correspondence to prices in the economy. It's not it 1:07:11.720 --> 1:07:12.760 doesn't really work that way. 1:07:13.080 --> 1:07:15.800 So yeah, this is this is the sort of modern 1:07:15.880 --> 1:07:19.400 version of this is called monetarism, which is like that's real. Yeah, 1:07:19.440 --> 1:07:23.439 And this is like, this is maybe the only thing 1:07:23.520 --> 1:07:27.320 I have ever seen even like most neoclassical economists drop 1:07:27.360 --> 1:07:30.800 because it's empirically wrong, like it's stunning, Like you do 1:07:30.840 --> 1:07:33.479 you know how wrong something has to be for neo 1:07:33.560 --> 1:07:37.400 classical economists to go, wait, hold on, maybe this isn't right, 1:07:37.840 --> 1:07:40.280 Like it's it's incredible. 1:07:41.240 --> 1:07:44.200 But the problem is that they retreated into theories that 1:07:44.760 --> 1:07:49.439 are not necessarily right either. Yeah, perhaps perhaps groping their 1:07:49.440 --> 1:07:54.040 way clumsily towards the truth, but not really that right. 1:07:54.160 --> 1:07:56.360 So this is this is where all that pull and 1:07:56.440 --> 1:07:58.560 push stuff comes in, and it's it's it's a little 1:07:58.600 --> 1:08:01.680 too technical to get into. Steve Essay has like the 1:08:02.160 --> 1:08:05.479 full version of it, but basically they started evolving away 1:08:05.480 --> 1:08:08.280 from a theory where the absolute amount of money in 1:08:08.320 --> 1:08:11.920 the economy is what matters most, and towards theories where, 1:08:12.000 --> 1:08:15.080 for example, it's the amount of money relative to the 1:08:15.080 --> 1:08:17.519 goods that can be bought by it. So if you 1:08:17.600 --> 1:08:20.479 have a bunch of people spending money to buy stuff, 1:08:20.840 --> 1:08:24.360 but there's not enough stuff to meet that demand, then 1:08:25.439 --> 1:08:28.240 that will basically mean that there's like scarcity and shortages 1:08:28.320 --> 1:08:30.160 and things like that, and that will cost prices to 1:08:30.200 --> 1:08:36.120 go up. Although why they do, like the underlying microeconomics 1:08:36.120 --> 1:08:38.400 of why prices go up when they're shortages and stuff, 1:08:38.760 --> 1:08:41.200 this theory doesn't really address because it's a macro theory 1:08:41.240 --> 1:08:43.640 and it'll kind of like fall back on supply and 1:08:43.680 --> 1:08:47.040 demand stuff or various kind of weird hydraulic metaphors about 1:08:47.040 --> 1:08:55.080 like well, god, yeah, yeah, you know, it's really like like, 1:08:55.280 --> 1:08:57.920 you know, different people will have different versions of this 1:08:58.040 --> 1:09:00.800 that have totally different explanations of why it's happening, but 1:09:00.800 --> 1:09:02.880 they'll generally say, if you look at the economy as 1:09:02.920 --> 1:09:06.000 a whole, if the stuff that's being made is less 1:09:06.120 --> 1:09:09.080 than the orders being put in for it, then that 1:09:09.120 --> 1:09:12.080 costs inflation because you're just not producing enough stuff. And 1:09:12.120 --> 1:09:15.880 they call that demand pull because the poll of basically 1:09:15.960 --> 1:09:19.280 it's like demand pulling, you know, for stuff that isn't 1:09:19.280 --> 1:09:22.639 being produced, so it's like okay, well that that causes 1:09:22.640 --> 1:09:26.040 price rises. There was a parallel development where they're trying 1:09:26.080 --> 1:09:28.200 to get away from the QTM another way, where some 1:09:28.240 --> 1:09:31.880 people were like, well, what's the most important single cost 1:09:32.200 --> 1:09:36.240 for businesses across the economy And they say labor obviously, right, 1:09:36.280 --> 1:09:39.720 like everyone needs to pay somebody to do wages to 1:09:39.960 --> 1:09:42.679 keep the business going. So they just said, okay, well, 1:09:42.760 --> 1:09:46.040 if the cost of labor goes up across the economy, 1:09:46.560 --> 1:09:49.320 then that will cause prices to go up. So that's 1:09:49.320 --> 1:09:52.760 called cost push, which now theoretically this could be true 1:09:52.800 --> 1:09:54.479 of any cost. And this is kind of like where 1:09:54.840 --> 1:09:56.960 you know Steve's theory comes in is because it actually 1:09:57.000 --> 1:09:59.719 like starts talking realistically about what the cost of businesses are. 1:10:00.000 --> 1:10:03.040 But originally this was again a macro theory, so they 1:10:03.320 --> 1:10:05.120 picked the one cost that's common to all the things 1:10:05.160 --> 1:10:07.800 in the economy and they said that basically, inflation is 1:10:07.840 --> 1:10:11.360 the cost of workers agitating for higher pages, which leads 1:10:11.400 --> 1:10:15.600 wages to go up, which causes cost push inflation. The 1:10:15.640 --> 1:10:18.320 cost go up, so that pushes puts pressure down the 1:10:18.360 --> 1:10:21.280 supply chain because it's a it's a cost for everybody 1:10:21.680 --> 1:10:25.559 downstream of it, so then it causes it to the 1:10:25.600 --> 1:10:27.799 prices to go up. Now, the problem with these theories 1:10:27.840 --> 1:10:30.800 is that like they're very like rigid. It's like it 1:10:30.840 --> 1:10:34.439 has one cause and it's also like, you know, and 1:10:34.760 --> 1:10:36.880 it's this one thing and it has to operate across 1:10:36.880 --> 1:10:39.680 the entire economy, right, But that's not actually how our 1:10:39.720 --> 1:10:42.120 economy is put together. Because our economy is not this 1:10:42.240 --> 1:10:45.160 general equilibrium produced by the trading of individual agents who 1:10:45.200 --> 1:10:47.240 are buying cheap and selling deer to each other. That 1:10:47.320 --> 1:10:51.879 whole universe doesn't really exist. The universe that we actually 1:10:51.880 --> 1:10:56.160 live in is one where businesses are not isolated. They're interdependent. 1:10:56.600 --> 1:11:03.240 Right Like the the you know, the people who collect sands, 1:11:03.560 --> 1:11:07.240 you know, from the earth and other minerals, feed into 1:11:07.640 --> 1:11:11.080 the factories that turn it into glass, which feeds into 1:11:11.160 --> 1:11:15.680 the construction industry that puts those glass well actually, no, 1:11:15.760 --> 1:11:18.240 sorry I missed a step there. You know, it feeds 1:11:18.240 --> 1:11:20.960 into the factories that turn that glass into windows, which 1:11:21.000 --> 1:11:23.240 then feeds into the construction industry, which puts them into 1:11:23.280 --> 1:11:27.800 buildings that then feeds into like real estate conglomerates that 1:11:27.840 --> 1:11:31.120 rent it, which then feeds into businesses and households that 1:11:31.200 --> 1:11:35.160 live there. Right Like, that's the entire supply chain, and 1:11:35.240 --> 1:11:37.400 all those businesses depend upon each other because they're each 1:11:37.400 --> 1:11:40.840 other's customers. So how much glass do they make in 1:11:41.040 --> 1:11:43.320 the in the glass factory. It depends on how much 1:11:43.800 --> 1:11:47.080 how many windows the window factories that are all their 1:11:47.120 --> 1:11:49.920 customers order. That's what determines how much they're going to make. 1:11:51.280 --> 1:11:54.000 You know, this whole picture of the world as supply 1:11:54.120 --> 1:11:56.599 chains is common sense to anybody who actually like works 1:11:56.640 --> 1:11:59.599 a job, especially if they're like in a management position 1:11:59.600 --> 1:12:01.240 where they have to maybe be dealing with some of 1:12:01.240 --> 1:12:07.120 the supplier relations stuff or customer relations stuff. Economists just 1:12:07.160 --> 1:12:09.639 don't talk about it. It's not really in their models 1:12:09.640 --> 1:12:12.000 because their models are developed from the ground up from 1:12:12.080 --> 1:12:15.560 this kind of like everybody's just trading as individuals perspective. 1:12:15.920 --> 1:12:18.919 And that's a great deal of the reason why Steve's 1:12:18.920 --> 1:12:23.080 theory is so powerful. Now, a lot of this supply 1:12:23.200 --> 1:12:26.920 chain picture that I'm painting, besides coming from the real world, 1:12:27.000 --> 1:12:29.400 it also came from a particular heterodox economist that I 1:12:29.439 --> 1:12:32.439 wrote a very long profile of, called Frederick S. Lee. 1:12:33.240 --> 1:12:35.600 Before we get into Lee, we unfortunately do need to 1:12:35.640 --> 1:12:40.519 take an ad break because capitalism. But do you know 1:12:40.560 --> 1:12:43.160 what Frederick Lee would have hated? And it's this ad 1:12:43.200 --> 1:12:47.600 break we're about to do right now, all right, and 1:12:47.600 --> 1:12:49.679 we're back to talk about Frederick Lee, who was very 1:12:49.680 --> 1:12:52.880 cool and I'm very excited about Yeah. 1:12:52.880 --> 1:12:55.720 Well, unfortunately started a little wait, we're not going to 1:12:55.800 --> 1:12:58.840 talk a ton about him. The only really important thing 1:12:58.960 --> 1:13:01.000 so he was. He was a great guy. He was 1:13:01.360 --> 1:13:04.240 an anarcho syndicalist. He was a lifelong member of the IWW. 1:13:04.400 --> 1:13:07.759 He actually helped recover Joe Hill's ashes from the federal 1:13:07.760 --> 1:13:12.120 government and properly bury them. That's not in Part one 1:13:12.160 --> 1:13:14.080 of my profile, which is published. It's in part two, 1:13:14.080 --> 1:13:17.439 which is coming up. But in addition to that, he 1:13:17.560 --> 1:13:20.760 was also a great economic theorist, and part of what 1:13:20.800 --> 1:13:22.720 he did is that he put together the bits and 1:13:22.800 --> 1:13:26.639 pieces of this alternative picture of the economy, where, for example, 1:13:26.760 --> 1:13:30.280 prices are not this thing that allocates resources automatically through 1:13:30.320 --> 1:13:34.160 supply and demand, and their price changes are telling us 1:13:34.160 --> 1:13:36.240 what to how much to produce and how much to consume, 1:13:36.479 --> 1:13:39.519 which is the kind of like mainstream neoclassical picture. But 1:13:39.720 --> 1:13:44.160 rather prices are a markup that businesses like set themselves. 1:13:44.240 --> 1:13:46.920 They're not receiving it from the market. They set a 1:13:47.000 --> 1:13:51.479 price markup over their total costs of production in order 1:13:51.520 --> 1:13:52.960 to get the money that they need to keep the 1:13:53.040 --> 1:13:55.639 lights on and stay in business. This all sounds very trivial, 1:13:55.680 --> 1:13:57.519 I know, but believe it or not, in economics, this 1:13:57.600 --> 1:14:02.439 is like a revolutionary idea. So well then it's like, okay, well, 1:14:02.960 --> 1:14:05.760 if that's the way that an individual company is, how 1:14:05.760 --> 1:14:08.880 are the companies linked together? He basically comes to he 1:14:08.920 --> 1:14:11.200 doesn't call it this, but to a supply chain view 1:14:11.200 --> 1:14:13.599 of the economy, especially in his last textbook, which tries 1:14:13.640 --> 1:14:15.240 to create a model of the economy as a whole, 1:14:15.520 --> 1:14:18.000 and he says that the entire economy is basically just 1:14:18.120 --> 1:14:20.840 a circuit of supply chains. It's all the businesses sort 1:14:20.880 --> 1:14:23.439 of linked up together, forming a closed circuit that loops 1:14:23.479 --> 1:14:27.000 back on itself. And that is the economy that we 1:14:27.120 --> 1:14:29.880 use to produce the goods and services that just keep 1:14:29.960 --> 1:14:33.000 society going day to day, week to week, year to year. 1:14:34.040 --> 1:14:37.720 So he Lee basically had all of that and that 1:14:37.840 --> 1:14:40.640 was the main ingredient that we used. But it was 1:14:40.720 --> 1:14:44.320 Steve who then took that framework and used it to 1:14:44.400 --> 1:14:47.000 create a new theory of inflation, because if you have 1:14:47.560 --> 1:14:52.400 a world of the supply chains, then it becomes very 1:14:52.400 --> 1:14:55.160 obvious that if prices are going to rise all across 1:14:55.160 --> 1:14:57.560 the economy, it's going to be because people's cost go 1:14:57.760 --> 1:15:00.759 up so then the question becomes why how do people's 1:15:00.760 --> 1:15:03.240 costs go up? And the answer is almost always what 1:15:03.320 --> 1:15:06.880 Steve called his progenitor price increase. This this first guy 1:15:06.920 --> 1:15:10.519 who chooses to raise his prices if and only if 1:15:10.960 --> 1:15:17.840 that person is even only if that person is in 1:15:17.960 --> 1:15:21.679 the uh you know, in a position in the supply chamber, 1:15:21.800 --> 1:15:25.000 a bunch of people are downstream of them. And that 1:15:25.120 --> 1:15:28.840 tends to happen when, for example, an input that goes 1:15:28.840 --> 1:15:31.439 into the entire economy, like energy, suddenly goes up in 1:15:31.520 --> 1:15:35.040 price or becomes scarce, or it happens when a natural 1:15:35.080 --> 1:15:39.400 disaster causes disruptions in a couple of businesses that everybody 1:15:39.400 --> 1:15:42.200 else depends upon, or when there's an adverse shift in 1:15:42.240 --> 1:15:45.599 the balance of payments, you know, the the Let's say 1:15:45.600 --> 1:15:51.960 that the peso you know starts becoming you know, versus 1:15:51.960 --> 1:15:54.400 the dollar. You know, the dollar becomes much more expensive, 1:15:54.600 --> 1:15:57.720 So imports become much more expensive. So any business that 1:15:57.760 --> 1:16:02.280 depends upon imports, you know, will suddenly will suddenly have 1:16:02.400 --> 1:16:04.920 their costs go up. These are the kinds of events 1:16:04.920 --> 1:16:07.640 that are like an external shock that leads to a 1:16:07.800 --> 1:16:10.800 rise in prices, and key nodes in the supply chain 1:16:10.840 --> 1:16:14.240 that because so many people are connected to them as customers, 1:16:14.520 --> 1:16:18.519 their costs become more expensive, and that's these costs increase 1:16:18.720 --> 1:16:21.839 travel across particular supply chain. So you have to actually 1:16:21.880 --> 1:16:24.880 know how all the businesses are linked together so that 1:16:24.920 --> 1:16:27.680 you can identify what the origin of the stress was 1:16:28.120 --> 1:16:31.680 and see which particular supply chain is traveling down. It's 1:16:31.720 --> 1:16:34.400 not this like this thing that has to do with 1:16:34.439 --> 1:16:37.720 a single factor across the whole economy or this or 1:16:37.880 --> 1:16:40.200 much less the amount of money that's being printed. The 1:16:40.240 --> 1:16:43.439 amount of money is almost like irrelevant in this situation basically. 1:16:43.640 --> 1:16:48.200 I mean, it maybe has relevance inasmuch as, like you know, 1:16:48.280 --> 1:16:50.920 if people have the amount of money in their pockets 1:16:50.920 --> 1:16:54.880 that they have, usually they might start purchasing more things 1:16:54.880 --> 1:16:58.200 than can be produced at this moment. But that's usually 1:16:58.280 --> 1:17:01.439 like like usually it balances out normal situations. The only 1:17:01.439 --> 1:17:02.960 reason why that would be true is because there was 1:17:02.960 --> 1:17:06.040 some kind of disruption upstream, so that what's normally produced 1:17:06.400 --> 1:17:09.240 isn't being produced, And so you always have to look 1:17:09.240 --> 1:17:11.400 at the particular supply chains and the kinds of stress 1:17:11.439 --> 1:17:14.479 that they might have. Did I did I communicate that roughly? 1:17:14.560 --> 1:17:14.720 Right? 1:17:15.280 --> 1:17:15.679 Yeah? 1:17:16.120 --> 1:17:20.720 Yeah, that was a fantastic summary. I have like a 1:17:20.800 --> 1:17:24.559 few small notes just to add to it in the 1:17:24.720 --> 1:17:27.959 in the sort of survey of existing theories of inflation 1:17:28.400 --> 1:17:30.400 that I did in the paper of the JMC, like 1:17:30.880 --> 1:17:34.920 very ably summaries for us, like specifically for the cost 1:17:35.040 --> 1:17:40.400 push guys. They I think they have a tendency to 1:17:40.439 --> 1:17:45.679 focus on like macrodynamic forces at work in the lens 1:17:45.680 --> 1:17:51.640 of cost push, like partly because it is like it 1:17:51.680 --> 1:17:55.280 really it relies on high profile fights between labor unions 1:17:55.400 --> 1:17:59.640 and companies that the audience already kind of understands, and 1:17:59.680 --> 1:18:01.519 it makes a lot of sense that you would go 1:18:01.600 --> 1:18:05.479 to union fights in particular since they're like one of 1:18:05.560 --> 1:18:08.920 the big items that they typically fight over is cost 1:18:08.960 --> 1:18:12.479 of living adjustments built into their wage increases. And so 1:18:12.600 --> 1:18:15.760 that's like an obvious like, Okay, if there is ever 1:18:15.880 --> 1:18:19.479 a time in which macrodemic forces would convene in to 1:18:19.640 --> 1:18:23.800 specifically to raise inflation, it would probably be fought over 1:18:24.040 --> 1:18:28.760 like the cola adjustments, cost living adjustments, and like the 1:18:28.840 --> 1:18:32.519 that leaves so much of the story untold. Focusing on 1:18:32.640 --> 1:18:35.479 cola adjustments in these union fights leaves so much of 1:18:35.479 --> 1:18:39.960 the story untold because it's it's putting like, what's really 1:18:40.040 --> 1:18:45.960 this incredibly interdependent, micro based phenomenon onto the backs of 1:18:46.120 --> 1:18:52.840 like one union against one company fighting over one contract, 1:18:53.439 --> 1:18:55.720 and the way they make it work in like a 1:18:55.720 --> 1:18:58.320 lot a lot of the modern interpretations of cost push 1:18:58.360 --> 1:19:02.160 in this macrodynamic sense, the way they square, the way 1:19:02.160 --> 1:19:04.719 they square how it gets from that fight to become 1:19:04.760 --> 1:19:08.160 a generalized inflationary episode, which is what people want to 1:19:08.200 --> 1:19:11.599 know about, Like they don't want to know about one well, 1:19:11.600 --> 1:19:14.479 they want to know about politically about a union fight, 1:19:14.680 --> 1:19:16.880 but in terms of the economics, they want to know 1:19:16.920 --> 1:19:19.880 about the inflationary episode. The way they square that is 1:19:19.920 --> 1:19:23.480 that there's typically like in what they call an information 1:19:23.680 --> 1:19:28.320 diffusional component to this, it's where and that's a fancy 1:19:28.360 --> 1:19:30.840 way of saying people learn about the outcome of the 1:19:30.880 --> 1:19:32.760 fight and then replicate. 1:19:32.280 --> 1:19:34.000 It monkey see monkey doo. 1:19:34.800 --> 1:19:38.439 Yeah, So one union fight or one or one company 1:19:38.479 --> 1:19:41.959 backclash against a union fight, word gets out, it spreads, 1:19:42.520 --> 1:19:46.960 and it's all over the place. And that's really like 1:19:47.000 --> 1:19:52.160 when you look at the economic history of the data 1:19:52.320 --> 1:19:56.200 of inflationary episodes, although there are union fights going on, 1:19:56.800 --> 1:20:00.280 inflation is not springing up specifically from those fights in 1:20:00.280 --> 1:20:01.400 the way that they're describing. 1:20:01.800 --> 1:20:03.200 Yeah, and I mean, one of the things you can 1:20:03.240 --> 1:20:05.439 tell this is obviously wrong is that they're just they're like, 1:20:05.760 --> 1:20:08.360 at no point in the US's history has there ever 1:20:08.400 --> 1:20:10.760 been enough percentage of the US population who are in 1:20:10.880 --> 1:20:13.800 unions for this to mix, this to actually work, Like, 1:20:13.920 --> 1:20:17.240 at no point even if you were to be really 1:20:17.280 --> 1:20:20.720 generous to them and only look at union density and 1:20:20.840 --> 1:20:22.880 like steel production union density and stuff that are like 1:20:23.080 --> 1:20:25.120 like an important part to the supply chain, Like, it's 1:20:25.160 --> 1:20:28.360 just not enough people, Like it can't it literally cannot 1:20:28.360 --> 1:20:31.400 be true that it is purely like a union cost 1:20:31.479 --> 1:20:33.759 testment thing because they're just not enough people. 1:20:34.720 --> 1:20:37.599 Yeah, So in these models, one of the important tasks 1:20:37.680 --> 1:20:41.000 that they've given themselves is to estimate the coefficient of 1:20:41.080 --> 1:20:46.240 information diffusional content from these union fights and like, so 1:20:46.320 --> 1:20:50.280 they will try to estimate that coefficient and thereby out 1:20:50.400 --> 1:20:53.280 build a model that outputs what price increase we can 1:20:53.320 --> 1:20:56.679 expect from like labor militancy if you're on the right wing, 1:20:57.120 --> 1:20:59.960 or company price gouging if you're on the left. 1:21:00.040 --> 1:21:02.920 Between Yeah, and this is this is really just like 1:21:03.439 --> 1:21:06.280 a perfect example. I think that Steve could have possibly 1:21:06.320 --> 1:21:09.960 put it better of the way that certain things that 1:21:10.080 --> 1:21:13.920 sound super sophisticated and intelligent, because you know, you can 1:21:14.000 --> 1:21:17.840 have like, you know, rather rather pink economists using this framework, right, 1:21:17.880 --> 1:21:21.000 like you know, social democratic ones, you know. But the 1:21:21.040 --> 1:21:24.080 thing is that, like it sounds really fancy to be 1:21:24.120 --> 1:21:27.200 talking about like the district what was it, the informational 1:21:27.560 --> 1:21:31.000 informational communication coefficient or whatever like that sounds that sounds 1:21:31.000 --> 1:21:34.840 incredibly sophisticated, right, but like, actually what it is is 1:21:34.840 --> 1:21:38.479 that it's this kind of like Nutsoe story about how 1:21:38.600 --> 1:21:40.880 the reason why price rises happen across the economy is 1:21:40.880 --> 1:21:45.880 because people are picking union fights when like empirically and 1:21:46.200 --> 1:21:48.240 labor economists often do this, like you know, the ones 1:21:48.240 --> 1:21:50.320 who work for unions and stuff. It's like it is 1:21:50.400 --> 1:21:56.519 almost always the case that wages lagh cost of living, 1:21:56.840 --> 1:21:59.360 you know, like significantly, so cost of living goes up, 1:21:59.680 --> 1:22:02.719 and that that's why people at some point, usually years later, 1:22:02.920 --> 1:22:06.120 will try to, if they're organized, agitate for for for 1:22:06.280 --> 1:22:08.479 higher wages to catch up with costs of living. So 1:22:08.840 --> 1:22:12.080 like the causality of it of cost push, you know, 1:22:12.280 --> 1:22:16.400 probably is not labor action. Like that's a sort of 1:22:16.479 --> 1:22:21.720 macro brain superstition. But funnily enough, this is kind of 1:22:21.800 --> 1:22:24.360 like like the devil is in the details. Because cost 1:22:24.400 --> 1:22:27.920 push as a general framework ought to probably be the 1:22:28.000 --> 1:22:32.120 basis for any reasonable theory of inflation, because the idea 1:22:32.240 --> 1:22:36.640 that it's costs going up, that then whatever prices now 1:22:36.720 --> 1:22:40.400 stream of those costs also go up, that is probably true. 1:22:40.479 --> 1:22:42.519 It's just that you have to look at particular supply 1:22:42.640 --> 1:22:45.880 chains and their costs and not just like their labor costs, 1:22:45.920 --> 1:22:48.320 but all the costs that they have and what cost 1:22:48.360 --> 1:22:51.920 in particular went up that affects those particular supply chains. 1:22:52.120 --> 1:22:54.560 Like that's but that's a different story, and it's a 1:22:54.600 --> 1:22:57.320 story that looks more like Steve's and also a story 1:22:57.320 --> 1:22:58.800 that looks more like what's been going on in the 1:22:58.800 --> 1:23:00.000 world since twenty two. 1:23:00.120 --> 1:23:04.000 Yeah, some of the critics when my paper and subsequent 1:23:04.040 --> 1:23:07.960 papers that we're we're on the same vein as this 1:23:08.000 --> 1:23:11.160 came out, is saying that we're just conflate, Like how 1:23:11.160 --> 1:23:14.599 are you guys really different than the cost push guys 1:23:14.640 --> 1:23:18.280 that you're critiquing for part of your paper, And it's 1:23:18.320 --> 1:23:21.040 really comes down to this kind of macro brain mecrodynamic 1:23:21.080 --> 1:23:25.240 interpretation based on just wages or just like one union 1:23:25.280 --> 1:23:27.040 fight and then some like people see it and just 1:23:27.080 --> 1:23:29.800 copy it or something, and it's just a least so 1:23:29.840 --> 1:23:32.080 much of a story, I'm told, Yeah. 1:23:31.920 --> 1:23:33.640 I mean, like I think, I think this is like 1:23:33.680 --> 1:23:35.439 the strength of looking at it through a supplush and 1:23:35.479 --> 1:23:39.200 it's like you can have it, you know, it has 1:23:39.240 --> 1:23:43.040 the what like for what for a normal person is 1:23:43.040 --> 1:23:45.240 a really simple idea, but for an economist is like 1:23:46.960 --> 1:23:51.519 unbelievably galaxy brain absolutely impossible to comprehend idea that something 1:23:51.520 --> 1:23:55.880 can have multiple causes at the same time and those 1:23:56.000 --> 1:24:02.479 multiple like you can't literally just reduce an entire like 1:24:03.680 --> 1:24:09.800 thing that's happening to exactly one driver, which you know, 1:24:09.960 --> 1:24:13.320 you would think would be a pretty like not that 1:24:13.520 --> 1:24:17.759 controversial thing. But then economists can't tell the difference between 1:24:17.760 --> 1:24:20.760 a theory in which you can have multiple different things 1:24:20.760 --> 1:24:22.360 that are working on a supply chain and a theory 1:24:22.400 --> 1:24:23.920 where you can have like a thing. 1:24:25.160 --> 1:24:26.479 Yeah, yeah exactly. 1:24:26.600 --> 1:24:26.800 Yeah. 1:24:26.880 --> 1:24:31.400 So like in in the COVID inflation that was that 1:24:32.200 --> 1:24:37.000 transpired just after the first of these pieces of ours 1:24:37.080 --> 1:24:40.439 came out, like it wasn't into full swing anyway in 1:24:40.520 --> 1:24:44.240 terms of in terms of being like a national phenomenon 1:24:44.600 --> 1:24:48.320 until just after like there, yes, there there there's a 1:24:48.360 --> 1:24:52.960 beginning of the labor militancy upsurge happily, but does like 1:24:53.200 --> 1:24:56.200 some people tried to light like the the people who 1:24:56.680 --> 1:24:59.000 were predicting no inflation, but then we started to see 1:24:59.000 --> 1:25:01.599 a little bit of it, started to attribute it to 1:25:01.840 --> 1:25:06.599 this like macrodynamic cost push story eventually of like well, 1:25:06.680 --> 1:25:09.519 either like but you can you can tell that they 1:25:09.760 --> 1:25:12.840 are kind of hedging because there will be there's like 1:25:12.880 --> 1:25:16.120 a bifurcation of interpretations of it, like one is the 1:25:17.360 --> 1:25:20.840 like it really is, just you can tell it's not 1:25:20.880 --> 1:25:23.640 that strong of a theory because there are two like 1:25:23.800 --> 1:25:29.240 diametrically opposed interpretations saying that like, oh, you'res this corporate 1:25:29.280 --> 1:25:36.080 price gouging or it's workers uh causing inflation themselves, which 1:25:36.160 --> 1:25:40.240 like if like James was saying, there's a lag typically 1:25:40.320 --> 1:25:42.680 associated that workers are just trying to catch up with 1:25:42.720 --> 1:25:45.559 the prices that were being raised by firms in order 1:25:45.600 --> 1:25:47.360 to keep up with inflation they generate. 1:25:49.560 --> 1:25:54.000 Yeah, if actually, if we could talk more, I was 1:25:54.040 --> 1:25:56.840 I was hoping that I could actually get into the 1:25:56.880 --> 1:25:59.320 COVID inflation and it's caused us a little bit. If 1:25:59.360 --> 1:26:03.120 that's okay with books, because not only because it's important 1:26:03.120 --> 1:26:05.120 in itself, but because I think this was actually one 1:26:05.160 --> 1:26:08.160 of our first successes as a magazine. So we launched 1:26:08.200 --> 1:26:11.360 as a magazine in April I think it was of 1:26:11.360 --> 1:26:14.960 twenty twenty two, but we've been working on the magazine 1:26:15.000 --> 1:26:20.720 from like twenty twenty on, so like there was twenty two, 1:26:21.800 --> 1:26:25.000 it was March of twenty twenty two. The that's right, 1:26:25.360 --> 1:26:30.080 but we'd been working on the magazine all through like 1:26:30.120 --> 1:26:35.600 twenty twenty and twenty twenty one and twenty And the 1:26:35.640 --> 1:26:41.559 thing is that Steve's Peace was kind of like taking shape, 1:26:41.880 --> 1:26:44.960 and you know, we as editors but then also as 1:26:44.960 --> 1:26:47.200 people who are like helping with the research and talking 1:26:47.200 --> 1:26:50.000 things out internally and talking with other people outside the collective, 1:26:50.280 --> 1:26:52.840 we're all kind of like sort of imbibing it and 1:26:53.240 --> 1:26:57.160 thinking about it. When COVID hit right and one of 1:26:57.200 --> 1:26:59.439 the things that was rather magical, And there is written 1:26:59.479 --> 1:27:02.479 evidence of this, funnily enough, not as an article because 1:27:02.479 --> 1:27:04.599 the magazine didn't exist yet, but as a Twitter thread 1:27:04.680 --> 1:27:09.880 that I made actually on March third of twenty twenty one. 1:27:10.240 --> 1:27:12.040 And the reason I'm being so specific about dates is 1:27:12.080 --> 1:27:15.360 because of what happened where we and I was just 1:27:15.360 --> 1:27:18.280 summarizing basically conversations that we had been having inside the 1:27:18.320 --> 1:27:23.479 magazine internally. You know, that was when some of the 1:27:23.520 --> 1:27:27.840 news stories were starting to come out about shortages that 1:27:27.880 --> 1:27:31.160 were being caused by COVID. So most famously the chips 1:27:31.240 --> 1:27:34.760 shortage were semiconductors, which take like a year to make, 1:27:34.840 --> 1:27:36.840 like from the moment that the order is put in 1:27:37.160 --> 1:27:39.559 to the moment when the thing is actually shipped, it's 1:27:39.600 --> 1:27:42.000 like a year. And if that process is disrupted, you 1:27:42.040 --> 1:27:44.120 have to start from the beginning. So the shutdowns in 1:27:44.200 --> 1:27:48.280 China shut down semiconductor production, and actually I say China, 1:27:48.280 --> 1:27:51.760 but it was really China and Taiwan because both of 1:27:51.760 --> 1:27:59.960 those places have major chips companies, and that basically screwed 1:28:00.120 --> 1:28:03.960 up ships production for like as long as the shutdown happened, 1:28:03.960 --> 1:28:05.720 and then after that at a lag of like a 1:28:05.800 --> 1:28:09.680 year at least, and then that in turn caused a 1:28:09.680 --> 1:28:12.519 bunch of other shortages. The fact that we were all 1:28:12.520 --> 1:28:16.759 inside meant that like there was a huge problem in food, 1:28:17.040 --> 1:28:21.720 both in agriculture itself and in food processing factories, you know, 1:28:21.760 --> 1:28:23.920 where the raw products that we take out of the 1:28:23.960 --> 1:28:27.519 earth are turned into the packaged you know, bits and 1:28:27.560 --> 1:28:30.880 bobs that you know, go to restaurants or to you know, 1:28:30.920 --> 1:28:34.320 food product factories and things like that, Like you couldn't 1:28:34.320 --> 1:28:37.160 get people to work there, or if they did, you know, 1:28:37.360 --> 1:28:39.200 and you tried to like pay them measure or whatever, 1:28:39.200 --> 1:28:41.760 they would get sick so they would stop production. So 1:28:42.080 --> 1:28:45.639 there was a labor shortage in agriculture as well. Then 1:28:45.680 --> 1:28:50.200 there was a container shortage right in in shipping, where 1:28:50.200 --> 1:28:53.120 we weren't producing enough containers to actually ship stuff around 1:28:53.160 --> 1:28:56.120 the world. And if you can't do that, well, everything 1:28:56.200 --> 1:28:58.680 is made. Everything that somebody needs to make something is 1:28:58.720 --> 1:29:00.760 often now made in another kind of or at least 1:29:00.760 --> 1:29:03.360 another part of a country, you know, that's connected by trucks. 1:29:03.479 --> 1:29:06.360 So if there's no containers, how do you get stuff 1:29:06.360 --> 1:29:07.680 from one place to the other? And the answers that 1:29:07.720 --> 1:29:09.760 you don't So they were just piling up like mountains 1:29:09.800 --> 1:29:14.120 in the in the docks of various countries, including here 1:29:14.160 --> 1:29:17.160 on the West Coast and the East coast. So all 1:29:17.200 --> 1:29:21.400 of these shortages caused by the pandemic. Basically we're hitting 1:29:21.560 --> 1:29:26.000 key sectors of the economy, right that everybody depends upon. 1:29:26.080 --> 1:29:30.920 So transportation, everybody needs it, you know, semiconductors, a whole 1:29:30.960 --> 1:29:33.880 bunch of manufacturing needs it. So that's that's why cars 1:29:33.920 --> 1:29:36.800 suddenly got super expensive, is because the chips in the 1:29:36.840 --> 1:29:39.679 machines that make the cars got more expensive and scarce, 1:29:39.720 --> 1:29:42.040 and not just expensive, it's scarce, like you just couldn't 1:29:42.080 --> 1:29:46.559 get them. And then food everybody depends on, and you know, 1:29:46.720 --> 1:29:50.320 like everybody buys groceries. Restaurants need it, so restaurant prices 1:29:50.320 --> 1:29:54.439 went up. So you can see how specific sectors having 1:29:54.479 --> 1:29:58.000 these problems traveled down specific supply chains to produce the 1:29:58.040 --> 1:30:00.960 cost increases that we all start and seeing. But here's 1:30:00.960 --> 1:30:04.360 the thing. All that stuff was happening from twenty twenty on. 1:30:05.280 --> 1:30:10.320 I did this thread on March third of twenty twenty one. 1:30:11.120 --> 1:30:12.720 But the thing is that at that point there was 1:30:12.720 --> 1:30:17.400 not yet inflation. We predicted that there was going to 1:30:17.400 --> 1:30:20.240 be inflation, and there was a lot of people, like 1:30:20.439 --> 1:30:23.439 including left wingers, including heterodox economists, who got really angry 1:30:23.479 --> 1:30:27.640 about this because for them, inflation fear mongering. You know, 1:30:27.880 --> 1:30:29.720 this was in the context of the government printing out 1:30:29.760 --> 1:30:32.760 all the stimmy checks, right, so inflation fear mongering for 1:30:32.800 --> 1:30:35.719 them is kind of like something that a right winger 1:30:35.760 --> 1:30:38.000 would do, you know, by saying the government's printing too 1:30:38.080 --> 1:30:39.960 much money, so there's going to be inflation, you know, 1:30:40.040 --> 1:30:43.439 quantity theory of money stuff, Milton Friedman stuff, the stuff 1:30:43.439 --> 1:30:45.800 that they had experienced in the turn to neoliberalism from 1:30:45.800 --> 1:30:49.000 the seventies to the eighties. Right. I understand that fear. 1:30:49.479 --> 1:30:53.080 But the thing is, this wasn't fear mongering. These shortages 1:30:54.080 --> 1:30:56.720 for very clear reasons that were clear if you had 1:30:56.720 --> 1:31:00.280 the supply chain theory of inflation framework, which unfortunately we 1:31:00.320 --> 1:31:02.800 did because we hadn't published it yet. Like you know, 1:31:03.160 --> 1:31:05.080 it was very clear that these shortages were going to 1:31:05.200 --> 1:31:10.240 cause cost increases in very well linked together, you know, 1:31:10.360 --> 1:31:12.479 nodes within supply chains that we're going to travel down 1:31:12.520 --> 1:31:17.559 those supply chains and basically be economy wide. So I 1:31:17.600 --> 1:31:20.200 said so because I had a hunch that it was 1:31:20.240 --> 1:31:21.680 going to be true, and that it would be a 1:31:21.680 --> 1:31:24.760 big deal if it was true, for you know, validating 1:31:24.760 --> 1:31:27.519 these discussions that we were having internally. So I said, 1:31:27.800 --> 1:31:30.840 some predictions. One, there's going to be inflation in the 1:31:30.880 --> 1:31:33.880 next year or two, potentially lots. Two it will be 1:31:33.920 --> 1:31:36.599 caused by cost increases due to the chips shortage and 1:31:36.680 --> 1:31:40.599 COVID induced bottlenecks, and agriculture and manufacturing. Three, they'll try 1:31:40.600 --> 1:31:44.840 to blame the stimmy checks and attempt to implement austerity. Now, 1:31:45.120 --> 1:31:47.559 at the time of that first tweet, inflation was at 1:31:47.560 --> 1:31:52.200 two point six percent, which is like within normal bounds, 1:31:52.200 --> 1:31:55.559 although slightly higher than have been before. By the end 1:31:55.640 --> 1:31:58.080 of that year, even actually, I think just a few 1:31:58.080 --> 1:32:01.680 months later, it was at four point seven percent, and 1:32:01.760 --> 1:32:04.400 in twenty twenty two it would peak at eight point 1:32:04.439 --> 1:32:07.200 seventy three percent, which was like the most inflation that 1:32:07.200 --> 1:32:10.320 we've seen since the Crisis of the seventies fifty years ago. Like, 1:32:10.720 --> 1:32:15.680 so we you know, the first success that we had 1:32:15.720 --> 1:32:18.280 as the magazine, before we even came out as a magazine, 1:32:18.439 --> 1:32:23.160 is that we successfully predicted the biggest inflationary crisis since 1:32:23.680 --> 1:32:25.960 the Crisis of the seventies, and not only predicted it, 1:32:26.000 --> 1:32:30.960 but predicted its specific causes. Because as the thread kind 1:32:30.960 --> 1:32:33.680 of was continually updated over over the course of that 1:32:33.760 --> 1:32:37.120 next year, like you know, people started looking digging in 1:32:37.520 --> 1:32:40.960 and actually, like a lot of journalism was uncovering that 1:32:41.040 --> 1:32:44.640 precisely those bottlenecks were leading to cost increases, you know, 1:32:44.720 --> 1:32:48.160 the and there were other ones that were kind of 1:32:48.160 --> 1:32:50.360 added to it. So when the Ukraine War started in 1:32:50.360 --> 1:32:54.559 twenty twenty two. That increased global inflation because Ukraine is 1:32:54.600 --> 1:32:57.559 the world's single biggest and by a lot, supplier of wheat, 1:32:57.760 --> 1:33:00.559 which is a key staple in diets across the planet. 1:33:00.840 --> 1:33:04.240 So the shortages that were created by the Ukraine War, 1:33:04.240 --> 1:33:07.280 by Russia's blockades and also just by bombing and you know, 1:33:07.320 --> 1:33:09.360 the war disrupting the labor market over there and all 1:33:09.360 --> 1:33:11.640 these other kinds of things that meant that there was 1:33:11.680 --> 1:33:15.479 less wheat being exported, which created bottlenecks in those supply chains, 1:33:15.479 --> 1:33:18.400 which led to the global increase in the price of wheat, 1:33:18.479 --> 1:33:22.120 which led to the global increase anything that uses wheat, bread, 1:33:23.200 --> 1:33:31.960 you know, and other food products. So beer, actually, well 1:33:32.120 --> 1:33:33.960 does I'm not wrong about that? 1:33:34.080 --> 1:33:34.240 Right? 1:33:34.280 --> 1:33:38.640 Beer uses wheat? I should actually know that, Yeah, I 1:33:38.640 --> 1:33:42.639 think I think so. I had to do a double 1:33:42.680 --> 1:33:45.360 take there. So anyway, the point is that this was 1:33:45.400 --> 1:33:48.439 like a really big deal because like there were a 1:33:48.439 --> 1:33:52.599 lot of people, including like in the Biden administration, who 1:33:52.680 --> 1:33:56.280 were denying that inflation was happening even as it was happening. 1:33:57.840 --> 1:34:01.280 And eventually the kind of shifted to a story where 1:34:01.320 --> 1:34:04.759 it was like, well, it'll be transitional because only demand 1:34:04.800 --> 1:34:07.400 pull inflation is real, right, this is clearly a cost 1:34:07.439 --> 1:34:11.320 push thing created by these shortages. But like demand pull is, 1:34:11.360 --> 1:34:13.920 the real form of inflation is when there's like too 1:34:14.000 --> 1:34:16.639 much money in people's pockets. And that's not what's happening clearly, 1:34:16.960 --> 1:34:19.519 so we'll be fine. You just have to wait, right, 1:34:19.720 --> 1:34:22.200 which is not Actually the attitude that you have to take. 1:34:22.360 --> 1:34:26.840 Inflation is inflation and like you know, the the if 1:34:26.840 --> 1:34:29.960 the causes or these disruptions and supply chains. You actually, 1:34:30.000 --> 1:34:32.280 i mean, this is like the really edgy take. You 1:34:32.360 --> 1:34:36.919 actually have to spend more money in order to unplug 1:34:36.960 --> 1:34:39.760 these bottlenecks. You know, It's far from inflation being a 1:34:39.760 --> 1:34:41.719 product of there being too much money in the economy. 1:34:41.800 --> 1:34:45.479 You might actually need to do government spending too, for example, 1:34:45.600 --> 1:34:49.280 hire people you know, and and take extra steps for 1:34:49.360 --> 1:34:53.440 precaution for their safety to unplug bottlenecks created by labor shortages. 1:34:53.720 --> 1:34:57.080 Or you might have to like you know, rapidly invest 1:34:57.439 --> 1:34:59.639 you know, on a large scale, almost as if you're 1:34:59.640 --> 1:35:01.559 in a war are in order to create a new 1:35:01.560 --> 1:35:05.640 industry to like, you know, to to replace something like 1:35:05.680 --> 1:35:09.559 containers that that that you would normally import, you know, 1:35:09.880 --> 1:35:12.080 or something like that so like like these are these 1:35:12.120 --> 1:35:15.160 are the kinds of actions that a more muscular approach 1:35:15.200 --> 1:35:18.439 to the inflation would have would have been. But instead 1:35:18.439 --> 1:35:20.919 they basically just waited for the supply chains to fix themselves, 1:35:21.120 --> 1:35:24.240 even when multinational corporations and their boards of directors were 1:35:24.280 --> 1:35:28.639 begging the government to actually intervene more. Uh, which is 1:35:28.680 --> 1:35:31.759 insane with economic planning. You know, you would never expect 1:35:31.760 --> 1:35:34.800 to hear something like that, but it was in the 1:35:34.880 --> 1:35:36.560 things like the pages of the Financial. 1:35:36.160 --> 1:35:38.519 Times, speaking of the Financial Times, we do we do 1:35:38.560 --> 1:35:42.760 need to take another ad break unfortunately. Yeah, do you 1:35:42.840 --> 1:35:46.759 know what the Financial Times will not be doing buying 1:35:46.800 --> 1:35:49.439 ads on this show hasn't happened yet. Could happen, would 1:35:49.479 --> 1:35:53.640 be very funny, but it has not happened yet. All right, 1:35:53.680 --> 1:35:57.599 we're we are now back from ads. Yeah, I endeavored 1:35:57.640 --> 1:36:01.280 to have better ad pivots, but you know, you get 1:36:01.280 --> 1:36:01.840 what you get. 1:36:02.360 --> 1:36:05.240 Speaking of like what they could have done differently, like 1:36:05.320 --> 1:36:08.880 they there's a whole World War two playbook essentially that 1:36:08.920 --> 1:36:12.760 they just didn't chose, they're ignorant of or chose to 1:36:12.760 --> 1:36:17.320 ignore of, like a system of price controls, rationing and 1:36:17.560 --> 1:36:22.600 rapid redeployment of resources, to unstuck the bottlenecks along and 1:36:22.640 --> 1:36:27.120 across supply chains on the domestic side to support the warfront. 1:36:27.439 --> 1:36:30.040 There's no war going on for us directly right now, 1:36:30.080 --> 1:36:32.840 but it could it could have easily been replicated. 1:36:33.840 --> 1:36:37.240 Yeah, and that's something I think is really interesting because eventually, 1:36:37.960 --> 1:36:41.120 like as the inflationary crisis sort of went on, like 1:36:41.960 --> 1:36:44.360 you did see a little bit of people trying stuff 1:36:44.400 --> 1:36:47.160 like this, like you saw Germany, if I remembering by 1:36:47.200 --> 1:36:51.719 Germany did these price controls on uh on, like natural 1:36:51.760 --> 1:36:55.559 gas prices and stuff. But that that that gets into 1:36:55.600 --> 1:37:00.640 another interesting thing is which is that So Yeah, I 1:37:00.640 --> 1:37:02.240 think we should get into a bit of this sort. 1:37:02.120 --> 1:37:02.599 Of like. 1:37:04.280 --> 1:37:08.080 The I don't know how you describe it, the. 1:37:09.120 --> 1:37:14.640 Mainstream adoption of like a version of y'all's theory that 1:37:14.680 --> 1:37:17.240 eventually started happening, that eventually started to push like some 1:37:17.360 --> 1:37:22.679 of this stuff, which, yeah, I guess we should introduce 1:37:22.720 --> 1:37:28.520 another person who I don't know the relationship between exactly 1:37:28.640 --> 1:37:31.040 what of your stuff she read is sort of unclear. 1:37:31.920 --> 1:37:33.599 But one of the things that happens in this sort 1:37:33.600 --> 1:37:38.439 of period is this this German economist named Isabella Weber 1:37:38.520 --> 1:37:46.520 who wrote a like fine like mostly reasonable book about 1:37:47.680 --> 1:37:50.800 like the economists behind the like the reform period in 1:37:50.840 --> 1:37:57.880 the eighties and China like started pushing well, actually, this 1:37:57.920 --> 1:37:59.880 is the thing where I'm sort of unclear at the timeline. 1:37:59.640 --> 1:38:03.400 I started pushing the greedflation thing, although she had a 1:38:03.400 --> 1:38:07.559 different name for it. Yeah, I wasn't really talking about 1:38:07.560 --> 1:38:10.320 that sort of whole thing, because that was really interesting, 1:38:10.360 --> 1:38:14.960 sort of like turn in the whole inflationary discourse inflation. 1:38:15.160 --> 1:38:20.360 Yeah, I think the prior so like prior to Waber's 1:38:20.400 --> 1:38:25.880 peace coming out in the earliest phases of COVID in 1:38:25.960 --> 1:38:29.519 twenty twenty and twenty twenty one, before there was any inflation, 1:38:30.400 --> 1:38:33.759 there was a group of left wing like a fairly 1:38:33.840 --> 1:38:38.280 large swath of like left wing academics, progressives and liberals, 1:38:38.760 --> 1:38:42.799 and also Biden, the Biden administration itself, saying that inflation 1:38:42.840 --> 1:38:48.599 would be transitory and that we should it will if anything, 1:38:48.640 --> 1:38:51.120 it would be moderates, but would come right back down 1:38:51.800 --> 1:38:54.080 because like, supply chings are so much more nimble now 1:38:55.000 --> 1:38:57.240 than they were in like the seventies and eighties, and 1:38:57.280 --> 1:39:00.240 like liquidity sources are so much more plentiful, they have 1:39:00.280 --> 1:39:03.439 so many Like I'm probably giving them too much credit. Actually, 1:39:03.520 --> 1:39:05.880 I think they literally just were like. 1:39:06.560 --> 1:39:09.120 Yeah, there was no because that I remember, like that would. 1:39:08.960 --> 1:39:11.320 Be basically have it because actually I'm filling the in 1:39:11.400 --> 1:39:14.160 the blanks for them as I go. I think they 1:39:14.160 --> 1:39:16.400 were just saying it's going to be transitory because it 1:39:16.439 --> 1:39:22.280 hasn't happened. Yeah, and like when it obviously in late 1:39:22.800 --> 1:39:26.400 twenty twenty two to to through the middle of twenty 1:39:26.439 --> 1:39:29.120 twenty three, when there's obvious evidence that that wasn't the case, 1:39:29.240 --> 1:39:33.280 then they like really didn't, like they went like hard 1:39:33.280 --> 1:39:36.880 to starboard and said, like, Okay, the inflation that we see, 1:39:37.000 --> 1:39:40.200 it's because of corporate greed and it just reduces to 1:39:40.240 --> 1:39:45.000 that now. Yeah, and so it's like a purely opportunistic 1:39:45.080 --> 1:39:47.800 thing between of like the largest corporations. And then you know, 1:39:47.840 --> 1:39:50.600 maybe later people saw that and did monkey see monkey do, 1:39:50.840 --> 1:39:52.000 but it's it's because of. 1:39:51.960 --> 1:39:57.160 Them, And to be fair, like the tricky thing here 1:39:57.280 --> 1:39:59.720 is that, like so I'll preface this by saying that, like, 1:40:00.400 --> 1:40:02.240 you know, and I think this is true Steve too, 1:40:02.280 --> 1:40:04.840 Like I really respect us of Bella Vapor's work when 1:40:04.880 --> 1:40:07.000 it's good, you know, and which is often you know, 1:40:07.120 --> 1:40:09.800 Like I think that that she's a very solid headerdox 1:40:10.640 --> 1:40:15.240 economist who has some really important refutations of mainstream ideas, 1:40:16.920 --> 1:40:19.879 and as an example of the good stuff. For example, 1:40:20.040 --> 1:40:22.880 she actually uh one of her one of the underrated 1:40:22.920 --> 1:40:26.960 aspects of a paper that kind of pushes what is 1:40:27.000 --> 1:40:30.240 popularly known as the greenflation thing. The better part of 1:40:30.280 --> 1:40:33.160 that paper is that it actually creates a map of 1:40:33.240 --> 1:40:37.960 the current to today's supply chains in the US, like 1:40:38.080 --> 1:40:41.800 you know, and and identifies the keynodes you know. And 1:40:41.840 --> 1:40:45.679 she's a method called input output input output tables, which 1:40:45.800 --> 1:40:47.400 Steve and I have written about and we're gonna write 1:40:47.400 --> 1:40:49.160 about it more on the magazine. This is like the 1:40:49.200 --> 1:40:52.200 main tool that you can use to do real economic planning. 1:40:52.520 --> 1:40:54.840 JMC has been setting the input output tables for like 1:40:55.200 --> 1:40:56.240 seven years now. 1:40:58.520 --> 1:41:00.120 Yeah, I just scream about it. 1:41:01.400 --> 1:41:04.320 Yeah, I should make it clear. It's like the iotable 1:41:04.360 --> 1:41:06.479 stuff is amazing, and I think I think people just 1:41:06.560 --> 1:41:10.479 latched onto kind of really not like hardly the most 1:41:10.560 --> 1:41:12.880 important part of your piece. 1:41:13.760 --> 1:41:16.000 Yeah, and that that, by the way, I mean, I 1:41:16.040 --> 1:41:19.519 don't know if she read Steve's Peace or not, but 1:41:19.600 --> 1:41:22.280 it is a huge vindication of Steve's piece, which came 1:41:22.320 --> 1:41:25.120 out like a year and a half before you know 1:41:25.160 --> 1:41:28.280 because because it's basically mapping the supply chains that Steve 1:41:28.320 --> 1:41:31.720 talks about using io tables and saying, Okay, these are 1:41:31.760 --> 1:41:35.760 the nodes. If prices go up here, everything downstream of 1:41:35.800 --> 1:41:39.680 them will go up, and those the and and that 1:41:39.720 --> 1:41:43.719 basically hits most sectors of the economy, like and knowing 1:41:43.760 --> 1:41:46.400 what those nodes are is like super important because then 1:41:46.400 --> 1:41:48.400 you can figure out how to protect them, you know, 1:41:48.880 --> 1:41:51.400 like that's that's actually like one of the key things 1:41:51.439 --> 1:41:54.759 that you know, one wishes that that that that governments 1:41:54.760 --> 1:41:56.200 were doing, it would be one of the few useful 1:41:56.200 --> 1:41:58.720 things that they could do in a situation like this, right, 1:42:00.080 --> 1:42:04.920 But unfortunately there's another aspect of her work which is 1:42:05.600 --> 1:42:08.960 more and this also comes from heterodox theory, but it's 1:42:09.000 --> 1:42:11.960 just not good theory in my opinion. And it's this 1:42:12.000 --> 1:42:16.360 whole deal with like, okay, inflation, with prices going up. 1:42:16.400 --> 1:42:20.160 So why are the prices going up? Well, a lot 1:42:20.240 --> 1:42:24.600 of them are going up because corporate management sees that 1:42:24.680 --> 1:42:28.360 everybody's talking about inflation. Now, maybe their costs. They're not 1:42:28.479 --> 1:42:31.559 in one of these sectors where upstream their suppliers are 1:42:31.600 --> 1:42:34.519 raising prices. They're actually getting the same prices for their 1:42:34.640 --> 1:42:39.920 ingredients as always. But because everybody's talking about inflation, they're 1:42:39.960 --> 1:42:43.160 expecting prices to go up, right, so why not just 1:42:43.560 --> 1:42:50.320 raise prices, you know, like like the and so like. 1:42:50.640 --> 1:42:56.920 That basically ended up that basically ended up being a 1:42:56.960 --> 1:42:59.840 theory of like, well, a lot of the price rises 1:42:59.840 --> 1:43:02.800 that going up is because of corporate greed, and corporations 1:43:02.800 --> 1:43:05.240 are always greedy. But a situation where people are talking 1:43:05.240 --> 1:43:09.559 about inflation means that they can that they can basically 1:43:12.240 --> 1:43:14.320 do a price get away with a price rise that 1:43:14.320 --> 1:43:17.160 they wouldn't be able to get away with normally. Now, 1:43:17.240 --> 1:43:20.080 there might be situations like this. I'm not even denying 1:43:20.160 --> 1:43:23.760 that that's the case. Like there are clearly, you know, 1:43:23.800 --> 1:43:27.200 based on a couple of journalistic exposees some companies whose 1:43:27.240 --> 1:43:29.680 costs have not really gone up, but they're raising the 1:43:29.680 --> 1:43:32.040 prices opportunistically so that they can do higher payoffs for 1:43:32.040 --> 1:43:37.520 the shareholders and upper management. However, as a primary explanation 1:43:37.800 --> 1:43:42.160 for why the inflation happened, as an argument for the 1:43:42.200 --> 1:43:45.519 main cause of the inflation, and therefore for what the 1:43:45.560 --> 1:43:48.280 main solution should be, which is slapping on price controls 1:43:48.320 --> 1:43:52.280 and saying no, you can't do this, I don't think 1:43:52.320 --> 1:43:56.640 that that's tenable because there are clearly biophysical stressors in 1:43:56.720 --> 1:43:59.160 at least the places that are experiencing them, that are 1:43:59.200 --> 1:44:01.960 traveling down supply where if you slap price controls down, 1:44:02.160 --> 1:44:04.680 that's not going to get you more chips that at 1:44:04.800 --> 1:44:07.320 least not by itself, and in itself, price control should 1:44:07.320 --> 1:44:09.920 be part of the picture, but that's not, especially in 1:44:09.960 --> 1:44:13.240 situations where there is corporate greed sort of driven price rises. 1:44:13.400 --> 1:44:16.360 But that's just not an explanation for everything. And some 1:44:16.400 --> 1:44:20.040 of Weber's followers, not not necessarily her, but some of 1:44:20.120 --> 1:44:23.120 the people who are like promoting this perspective are doing 1:44:23.200 --> 1:44:27.599 so again partly in order to avoid conversation, in my opinion, 1:44:27.680 --> 1:44:32.000 about these kinds of biophysical bottlenecks and how they might 1:44:32.040 --> 1:44:35.000 be they might be undone, and it's and it's a 1:44:35.080 --> 1:44:39.040 huge issue. One thing to kind of like conclude is 1:44:39.040 --> 1:44:42.880 that like in you know, this, this whole thing that 1:44:42.920 --> 1:44:47.920 we've been saying about the supply chain as disruptions to 1:44:47.960 --> 1:44:51.360 the supply chain as the cause of a progenitor and 1:44:51.600 --> 1:44:55.559 price increased by people in the affected sectors, which in turn, 1:44:55.680 --> 1:44:58.320 through their connections to a bunch of customers, leads to 1:44:58.400 --> 1:45:01.639 price rises across at least second of the economy. That 1:45:01.720 --> 1:45:04.120 whole story allowed us to kind of see all this. 1:45:04.760 --> 1:45:07.920 A lot of the inflation that's happened in the world 1:45:08.000 --> 1:45:10.200 since twenty twenty, we saw it coming, and we saw 1:45:10.320 --> 1:45:15.439 specific causes coming. And now no less a capitalist institution 1:45:15.520 --> 1:45:20.640 than the imf right has kind of been forced reluctantly, 1:45:20.800 --> 1:45:24.240 I would say, in some ways to admit that, as 1:45:24.960 --> 1:45:31.240 Christine Legard said recently, you know, energy played a significant role, 1:45:31.960 --> 1:45:35.320 then food kicked in, and energy is now fading. You know. 1:45:36.360 --> 1:45:38.240 Now they still want to make it about wages, right, 1:45:38.280 --> 1:45:40.360 I mean, that's the thing that ends up happening in 1:45:40.400 --> 1:45:42.680 a crisis like this, is that they do want to 1:45:42.680 --> 1:45:49.400 blame wage increases. But it is quite clear that even 1:45:49.520 --> 1:45:53.760 the authorities have needed to kind of admit that these specific, 1:45:54.439 --> 1:46:00.479 measurable biophysical crises have been the source, the main source 1:46:00.479 --> 1:46:03.000 of the inflation. And then a great deal of the 1:46:03.160 --> 1:46:08.000 of the battle has been over who's going to kind 1:46:08.000 --> 1:46:11.160 of like who who's going to have to narrow their 1:46:11.200 --> 1:46:14.400 ambitions for their goals as a result of it, capital 1:46:14.520 --> 1:46:16.760 or labor. And this is where I think VAPOR is 1:46:16.800 --> 1:46:20.360 on firmer ground, not as an explanation for the inflation. 1:46:20.479 --> 1:46:23.760 But afterwards, and then after inflation is already kicked in, 1:46:24.520 --> 1:46:26.639 who ends up having to quote unquote foot the bill, 1:46:27.080 --> 1:46:31.600 right is there's now like less money coming in in 1:46:31.640 --> 1:46:36.280 these companies. So do you give it to workers so 1:46:36.320 --> 1:46:39.160 that they can, you know, since their money buys them less, 1:46:39.280 --> 1:46:42.240 you know, compared to rising costs of living, you give 1:46:42.280 --> 1:46:44.240 them a little bit more so that they can like 1:46:44.320 --> 1:46:46.720 kind of like balance it out. Or do you give 1:46:46.760 --> 1:46:50.559 it to management? You know, Now, obviously if it's management 1:46:50.600 --> 1:46:52.960 making the decision about what to do with the company surplus, 1:46:52.960 --> 1:46:55.120 because we live in a capitalist economy, that's a dictatorship 1:46:55.120 --> 1:46:58.120 with the big owners, guess what they're gonna say, you know, 1:46:58.600 --> 1:47:02.599 and now and now you have a therefore a class struggle, 1:47:03.000 --> 1:47:06.240 the distributional conflict that some of the kind of traditional 1:47:06.280 --> 1:47:09.759 cost push theories always talk about between capital and labor 1:47:09.920 --> 1:47:14.599 over what to do with these rising markups in firms. Now, 1:47:15.960 --> 1:47:18.960 they would say that's why the inflation happened. I think 1:47:19.040 --> 1:47:20.439 I would say, and I think Steve would be in 1:47:20.479 --> 1:47:24.640 agreement with this, that it's what happens after inflation, an 1:47:24.640 --> 1:47:28.000 inflationary crisis kicks in, and then there's a battle between 1:47:28.040 --> 1:47:31.519 capital and labor over who gets screwed as a result. 1:47:31.640 --> 1:47:32.960 I think that that's kind of the way that we 1:47:32.960 --> 1:47:34.720 should think about a lot of the labor struggles that 1:47:34.760 --> 1:47:37.320 have taken place since COVID. 1:47:37.880 --> 1:47:40.880 Yeah, I also like to add that there's kind of 1:47:40.920 --> 1:47:44.880 like a distinction that needs to be drawn between companies, 1:47:45.120 --> 1:47:49.080 typically small and medium sized ones within who exist within 1:47:49.240 --> 1:47:52.320 larger supply chains, who are sort of like doing what 1:47:52.400 --> 1:48:01.800 they must, versus large corporations, often multinational who there's documented 1:48:01.840 --> 1:48:07.280 evidence that yes, there's some opportunistic price price increases that 1:48:07.320 --> 1:48:11.400 they are administering at the same time. So there's a mixture, 1:48:12.840 --> 1:48:16.280 i would say, bias towards the former group, those who 1:48:16.640 --> 1:48:18.840 have to do what they have to do in order 1:48:18.880 --> 1:48:21.839 to socially provision themselves. But there's a mixture of them, 1:48:22.040 --> 1:48:24.920 And so you have to look at like that, who 1:48:24.920 --> 1:48:29.479 are the price leaders and are they opportunistically raising prices 1:48:29.520 --> 1:48:34.320 and are people copying that? Yes? Sometimes, but as far 1:48:34.320 --> 1:48:37.719 as like the progenitor price increase that we keep talking about, 1:48:37.880 --> 1:48:41.880 you know, in our pieces like that, very often like 1:48:42.160 --> 1:48:44.920 and this is born out in the surveys, like when 1:48:44.920 --> 1:48:48.960 they're asked like for their reasoning as to why they 1:48:49.040 --> 1:48:55.040 raise prices. It was typically like for the for reasons 1:48:55.160 --> 1:48:59.160 like that are quote unquote socially acceptable at least to say, 1:48:59.200 --> 1:49:02.479 And for the most part, they were just defending their margins, 1:49:03.200 --> 1:49:07.880 like they they were at risk of going under right, Yeah, 1:49:07.920 --> 1:49:09.960 and so you have to you have to weigh there's 1:49:10.000 --> 1:49:13.760 a dynamic, there's an interplay between those that group and 1:49:13.800 --> 1:49:17.080 then the opportunistic group, and so it really doesn't like 1:49:17.200 --> 1:49:21.040 reduce neatly into the greed inflation sort of like vestardization 1:49:21.479 --> 1:49:26.040 of vapors. Otherwise, really excellent piece that goes through some 1:49:26.080 --> 1:49:27.960 like interesting and out but analysis. 1:49:29.200 --> 1:49:31.519 Yeah, and I think that like this is a really 1:49:31.560 --> 1:49:33.680 important thing for listeners because I think a lot of 1:49:33.760 --> 1:49:38.000 left wing listeners they if they ask what's inflation and 1:49:38.040 --> 1:49:40.840 a left wing economist tells them because of corporate greed, 1:49:41.200 --> 1:49:45.479 they'll be like yeah, but and and and they might 1:49:45.520 --> 1:49:48.000 listen to us and be like, well, it looks like 1:49:48.200 --> 1:49:52.200 it sounds like you're defending corporations, And I would argue, no, 1:49:52.479 --> 1:49:57.320 we're not. We're trying to understand the actual causes for things, 1:49:58.560 --> 1:50:02.599 and we think that actually help you because, for example, 1:50:03.680 --> 1:50:07.120 if a company, let's say that you're in a company 1:50:07.160 --> 1:50:10.240 that is part of this wave of unionizations where you know, 1:50:10.280 --> 1:50:12.240 let's say you're a Starbucks worker and people want to 1:50:12.240 --> 1:50:14.679 start up a Starbucks union. Maybe one of the ways 1:50:14.680 --> 1:50:17.880 that management is trying to kind of like screw over 1:50:17.920 --> 1:50:22.320 your union is to tell people who are on the fence, well, like, 1:50:22.479 --> 1:50:25.200 the reason why there's so much inflation is because of 1:50:25.240 --> 1:50:28.519 these unions, like we we have to all stick together, 1:50:28.880 --> 1:50:31.280 and you know, the company's got your best interests at heart, 1:50:31.680 --> 1:50:34.320 so you like, don't join this union that's going to 1:50:34.360 --> 1:50:36.680 be pushing for for wages that are ultimately just going 1:50:36.680 --> 1:50:38.880 to get eaten up by inflation. Like like, let let 1:50:39.080 --> 1:50:42.960 let management figure out what'll what's best, because otherwise you'll 1:50:42.960 --> 1:50:46.280 just end up screwing up the whole economy. And which 1:50:46.320 --> 1:50:49.040 is not unheard of. You know, it might be something 1:50:49.080 --> 1:50:52.040 they'll fall back on the negotiations and their anti union 1:50:52.040 --> 1:50:54.760 propaganda if you know that the actual cause of the 1:50:54.760 --> 1:50:58.240 inflation has to do with disrupted supply chains and that 1:50:58.439 --> 1:51:01.000 really the question is who's going to be screwed over 1:51:01.040 --> 1:51:04.639 and who's not. Within the company, you can go back 1:51:04.640 --> 1:51:08.360 and say, hey, wages are always chasing. Cost of living increases, 1:51:08.400 --> 1:51:11.160 the cost of living increases happened before the big unionization 1:51:11.240 --> 1:51:13.559 wave kicked off, and we can tell that it's specific 1:51:13.640 --> 1:51:17.479 causes in logistics, and its specific causes in chips, and 1:51:17.600 --> 1:51:20.360 specific causes in agriculture that are causing the price of this, 1:51:20.479 --> 1:51:22.120 that and the other thing. You can even map out 1:51:22.160 --> 1:51:24.920 your company's supply chain and maybe point out certain cost 1:51:24.960 --> 1:51:27.320 increases that caused it, and you can say, okay, so 1:51:27.320 --> 1:51:29.000 we're going to have to raise our prices. But where's 1:51:29.000 --> 1:51:30.840 that money going to go? Not all of us should 1:51:30.840 --> 1:51:32.519 go to management. Some of this should go to us. 1:51:32.920 --> 1:51:35.840 So this is what a materialist understanding of how the 1:51:35.880 --> 1:51:39.040 actual causes of the thing worked out can help you 1:51:39.760 --> 1:51:42.640 in organizing your workplace and in pushing back against the 1:51:42.720 --> 1:51:44.479 kinds of things that your boss might try to tell you. 1:51:45.240 --> 1:51:48.240 So that's what I would say to somebody who's like, oh, well, 1:51:48.280 --> 1:51:52.599 you're just defending corporations. No, I'm absolutely not. But I 1:51:52.640 --> 1:51:55.479 don't think that we can actually have power, we can 1:51:55.560 --> 1:51:58.280 actually kind of like take direct actions that really matter 1:51:58.520 --> 1:52:00.559 because they're actually going to make life better for us 1:52:00.560 --> 1:52:03.559 and our friends and our loved ones. Like, I don't 1:52:03.600 --> 1:52:05.240 think that we can actually do that unless we understand 1:52:05.240 --> 1:52:07.880 how the world works, and sometimes the world works in 1:52:07.880 --> 1:52:10.679 a way that doesn't necessarily look like we would most 1:52:10.720 --> 1:52:14.800 expect it to or most wish it to. But nevertheless, 1:52:14.840 --> 1:52:16.439 you have to kind of see how it works so 1:52:16.439 --> 1:52:18.280 that you can then figure out what's the best intervention 1:52:18.640 --> 1:52:21.400 that I can make into it, given where I'm at, 1:52:21.439 --> 1:52:24.920 the institutions that I work through, the coalitions that I 1:52:24.920 --> 1:52:26.639 can put together, and that kind of thing. 1:52:27.840 --> 1:52:29.599 Yeah, and I think this is this is a kind 1:52:29.640 --> 1:52:33.280 of like left field, like take on this too, but 1:52:33.360 --> 1:52:36.000 like there are lots of sort of you know, if 1:52:36.240 --> 1:52:40.640 you go through like an economic price history or like 1:52:40.680 --> 1:52:43.800 an economic history of like the socialist period in China, right, 1:52:43.920 --> 1:52:46.840 like you will find them having to deal with like 1:52:46.880 --> 1:52:49.280 basically exactly the same ship where they have these like 1:52:49.320 --> 1:52:53.320 massive inflationary spikes that have to do with like basically 1:52:53.360 --> 1:52:56.400 these I mean for them, it was less supply chain 1:52:56.439 --> 1:52:58.920 bottle like supply chain breakdowns is like you know, they'd 1:52:58.920 --> 1:53:00.719 get the supply chain bottle now because they just didn't 1:53:00.720 --> 1:53:03.280 have way through them, and like people fucking that up, 1:53:03.400 --> 1:53:07.519 Like there was a like there is a decent argument 1:53:07.640 --> 1:53:09.680 that like that's part of what caused the Great Leap 1:53:09.720 --> 1:53:13.120 Forward was people not fucking understanding that, like not quite 1:53:13.160 --> 1:53:15.880 understanding how to deal with their supply chain stuff and 1:53:16.640 --> 1:53:20.880 seeing this kind of like inflation like issue kicking in 1:53:21.000 --> 1:53:23.880 and being like fuck it were to do something that's 1:53:23.920 --> 1:53:28.439 completely nuts, and you know, that went like about as 1:53:28.479 --> 1:53:31.720 badly as like any attempt anyone has ever tried to do, 1:53:32.400 --> 1:53:35.800 like to fix any problem has ever gone. And the 1:53:35.880 --> 1:53:38.160 larger the number of people who actually understand how this 1:53:38.200 --> 1:53:41.000 stuff works, even in sort of like you know, even 1:53:41.040 --> 1:53:43.360 even on a kind of like not enormously grandeur level, 1:53:43.439 --> 1:53:46.519 the more likely you are to have someone who's in 1:53:46.960 --> 1:53:50.120 and it has the ability to make a decision where 1:53:50.120 --> 1:53:55.280 this stuff matters and you know it and like yeah, 1:53:55.280 --> 1:53:56.960 you could be like, oh well, like the odds that 1:53:56.960 --> 1:53:58.360 we're ever gonna be in a place for this matters 1:53:58.439 --> 1:54:00.800 is like direct, you're gonna be the one making the 1:54:00.800 --> 1:54:01.519 decisons pretty low. 1:54:01.560 --> 1:54:02.639 But like, you know, it's not zero. 1:54:02.760 --> 1:54:05.840 It's happened to people before, and them not knowing about 1:54:05.840 --> 1:54:09.559 it was like a really apocable disaster, and we can 1:54:09.760 --> 1:54:14.160 you know, avoid doing stuff like that by having a 1:54:14.160 --> 1:54:17.000 better understanding of like how our supply chains function and 1:54:17.000 --> 1:54:19.439 what effect that has on sort of economic distribution and 1:54:19.479 --> 1:54:23.640 stuff like that. So yeah, that's that's one of my 1:54:23.680 --> 1:54:26.200 two pitches, And my other pitch on this is, I 1:54:26.400 --> 1:54:35.160 I don't know how. It's hard to actually gauge the 1:54:35.240 --> 1:54:38.640 influence of discourse on policy makers, especially when they're as 1:54:38.640 --> 1:54:41.960 opaque as like the chairman of the Federal Reserve, but 1:54:42.120 --> 1:54:45.920 it is worth noting that we didn't get a like 1:54:46.200 --> 1:54:51.920 Vulgar style fifteen percent like interest rate increase, And I 1:54:52.240 --> 1:54:54.560 think there's a non zero argument the fact that there 1:54:54.560 --> 1:54:58.120 were other alternative explanations to inflation like around and that 1:54:58.240 --> 1:55:00.720 enough people were pushing them, like is a reason why 1:55:00.760 --> 1:55:03.960 we didn't get one of these, like a Vulcar style thing, 1:55:03.960 --> 1:55:06.200 which would have pushed employment to like unemployment to like 1:55:06.200 --> 1:55:10.160 twenty five percent, destroy the entire global economy. And that, 1:55:10.400 --> 1:55:12.120 you know, like we could count that as a fucking 1:55:12.280 --> 1:55:15.560 w because as as bad as things are right now, 1:55:15.960 --> 1:55:19.120 like the world, the world where Jerome Powell pulls the 1:55:19.160 --> 1:55:24.000 trigger and hits the like hey, I'm now a monitorist, 1:55:24.080 --> 1:55:26.640 like I'm gonna I'm gonna decrease the money supply button 1:55:26.720 --> 1:55:28.840 and Jack's the interest wrapped like a dew percent, Like 1:55:28.840 --> 1:55:32.520 that world is so much worse than this one. It 1:55:32.600 --> 1:55:35.200 is it is difficult to imagine. 1:55:37.280 --> 1:55:39.640 Yeah, I think we dodged a bullet of like twelve 1:55:39.680 --> 1:55:43.600 percent federal funds rate this time. Yeah, we've surpassed Monashers 1:55:43.640 --> 1:55:46.440 and to an extent anyway, there's they're still doing some 1:55:46.560 --> 1:55:53.000 quantitative tightening. Yeah, they but uh, I don't know, at 1:55:53.080 --> 1:55:55.440 least as like a mortgage industry professional. I'm kind of 1:55:55.440 --> 1:56:00.240 hoping he keeps it under six for the federal funds, right. 1:56:02.080 --> 1:56:03.320 Yeah, we'll see what happens there. 1:56:03.320 --> 1:56:06.080 But it hasn't been We haven't gotten the apocalyptic reaction 1:56:06.160 --> 1:56:10.400 that we very very easily could have, like to the 1:56:10.400 --> 1:56:13.640 extent that, like, I'm pretty sure if this, if this 1:56:13.640 --> 1:56:16.839 had happened under Obama, we'd be in like a recession 1:56:16.880 --> 1:56:18.400 that would have made two thousand and eight look like 1:56:18.400 --> 1:56:19.320 a joke right now. 1:56:19.960 --> 1:56:23.200 So yeah, okay, I. 1:56:24.200 --> 1:56:27.800 I think that there's a lot more to discuss about 1:56:27.840 --> 1:56:30.680 it because and it seems like we're gonna probably have 1:56:30.720 --> 1:56:32.520 a part two to this at some point. Yeah, So 1:56:32.840 --> 1:56:35.760 we can probably get into it there because we have 1:56:35.880 --> 1:56:38.120 actually an essay that we published about interest rates which 1:56:38.120 --> 1:56:41.800 hadn't even bigger influence than this, Yeah, than these early 1:56:41.920 --> 1:56:45.520 essays that we're talking about. But but you know, like 1:56:46.200 --> 1:56:49.360 at the end of the day, I think that what's important, 1:56:49.840 --> 1:56:52.400 what's most important about what we've discussed, is this for me, 1:56:53.360 --> 1:56:59.919 like having this model which we developed, you know obviously, 1:57:00.080 --> 1:57:05.040 like steve've developed it out of as an expansion of 1:57:05.120 --> 1:57:07.680 the logic of Fred Lee's work. And fred Lee was 1:57:07.720 --> 1:57:11.960 not actually particularly original. He just synthesized a whole bunch 1:57:12.000 --> 1:57:14.440 of stuff that existed previously, like these pricing studies by 1:57:14.480 --> 1:57:17.280 Gardner Means in the thirties and pricing studies over the 1:57:17.320 --> 1:57:21.080 next hundred years from all sorts of different people, you know, 1:57:21.120 --> 1:57:23.720 into his post Kanteene price theory and stuff like that, 1:57:24.160 --> 1:57:30.960 the cost plus markup stuff. But like like having a 1:57:31.000 --> 1:57:34.440 theory that's developed by looking at the world and building 1:57:34.440 --> 1:57:37.160 your abstractions up out of things that you can see, 1:57:37.480 --> 1:57:41.000 particularly in a field like economics that's so complex that 1:57:41.040 --> 1:57:43.880 you have to kind of start with like observable relations 1:57:43.880 --> 1:57:48.520 between actual institutions that exist in the world that empowered us, 1:57:49.280 --> 1:57:52.080 you know, that allowed us who really were just like 1:57:52.160 --> 1:57:58.600 four weirdos started a magazine right like four anarchistish weirdos, But. 1:57:58.480 --> 1:58:01.720 That allowed us to see earlier than like most people, 1:58:01.760 --> 1:58:04.360 including a lot of like credential professionals, what was going 1:58:04.440 --> 1:58:07.680 to happen in the future, at least the near future, 1:58:07.960 --> 1:58:10.280 like you know, the next like like like two to 1:58:10.360 --> 1:58:12.680 five years from that vantage point, which was like twenty 1:58:12.760 --> 1:58:17.920 twenty one. That is really incredible, And I'm not saying 1:58:17.960 --> 1:58:21.640 that to brag, like, although it is certainly something that 1:58:21.640 --> 1:58:24.600 I that I take a sick pleasure in. It's also 1:58:25.200 --> 1:58:28.760 informative because think about all the things about which we 1:58:28.960 --> 1:58:33.840 don't have that concrete material picture. The question of how 1:58:33.840 --> 1:58:36.800 we're going to get fossil fuels out of agricultural production 1:58:37.400 --> 1:58:42.640 without causing famines, right, the question of what do you 1:58:42.680 --> 1:58:45.240 do now that we have the Internet, Like how do 1:58:45.280 --> 1:58:45.920 you govern that? 1:58:45.960 --> 1:58:49.320 Because it's clearly not working under these giant vertically integrated 1:58:49.360 --> 1:58:51.960 media Oligo believes with the platforms, but it's also not 1:58:52.000 --> 1:58:53.520 going to work if we put it under the government, 1:58:53.600 --> 1:58:55.640 So what the hell do we do about it? You know? 1:58:55.880 --> 1:58:59.200 It's it's like there's all these key questions that we 1:58:59.320 --> 1:59:02.160 just don't have have even like working models like of 1:59:02.160 --> 1:59:04.800 like what the world is even like right now, much 1:59:04.880 --> 1:59:09.800 less like you know, what could plausibly be done with it? 1:59:09.920 --> 1:59:13.640 Right to make it a better place. And obviously, like 1:59:13.720 --> 1:59:15.680 you know, some of this sounds like stuff that the 1:59:15.760 --> 1:59:17.440 government should do, but a lot of this is actually 1:59:17.440 --> 1:59:19.840 stuff that social movements need. If you think the rent 1:59:19.880 --> 1:59:22.040 is too damn high in your city, and you organize 1:59:22.040 --> 1:59:24.720 a tenancy union that has real political muscle and you 1:59:24.760 --> 1:59:27.440 actually like have the ability to do stoppages or other 1:59:27.520 --> 1:59:31.280 actions that can really like bully the local city government. Okay, 1:59:31.600 --> 1:59:34.240 but what do you ask for, what do you demand 1:59:34.680 --> 1:59:36.680 or what do you try to put into place yourself 1:59:36.760 --> 1:59:39.880 using your own money? Like, what do you do if 1:59:39.880 --> 1:59:41.360 the rent is too damn high? How do you get 1:59:41.360 --> 1:59:43.360 it lower? And it's like, oh, well, there shouldn't be rent, 1:59:43.360 --> 1:59:45.840 we should abolish it, Okay, how do you do that? 1:59:46.400 --> 1:59:49.800 You know, you need models of the world, and that's 1:59:49.800 --> 1:59:52.160 what we've been trying to kind of build in the 1:59:52.200 --> 1:59:55.680 magazine more than anything else, especially in our ECON coverage. 1:59:56.760 --> 2:00:00.200 So there's a lot more that happened after this. We'll 2:00:00.200 --> 2:00:02.960 probably have a part two, but I just to wrap 2:00:03.040 --> 2:00:04.880 up the story up to then. So we did launch 2:00:04.880 --> 2:00:07.800 the magazine, we did put out Steve's essay, but then 2:00:08.440 --> 2:00:11.000 a really remarkable thing happened, which is that we started getting, 2:00:11.040 --> 2:00:13.160 like all magazines do, people who came in into the 2:00:13.200 --> 2:00:17.760 slush pile who were inspired by Steve's work, and we're like, 2:00:18.040 --> 2:00:21.280 this makes the most sense of anything that I've heard, 2:00:21.520 --> 2:00:24.160 and I want to build on it too. So we 2:00:24.160 --> 2:00:26.920 started publishing other essays that we're kind of building on 2:00:26.960 --> 2:00:29.880 the research program that Steve kind of got us started on. 2:00:30.280 --> 2:00:34.640 And although our sort of influence was difficult to calculate 2:00:34.720 --> 2:00:37.040 in terms of, like, you know, how much we influenced 2:00:37.040 --> 2:00:39.600 the discussion, you know, in these early stages before the 2:00:39.600 --> 2:00:43.800 magazine was even up and running. Afterwards, after we kind 2:00:43.800 --> 2:00:46.280 of publish the people that I'm talking about, some of 2:00:46.280 --> 2:00:49.560 those pieces have actually definitely influenced the conversation in really 2:00:49.560 --> 2:00:51.160 exciting ways, and I think that we can talk about 2:00:51.200 --> 2:00:52.080 some of that next time. 2:00:52.400 --> 2:00:55.760 Yeah, so that will be at some point in the future. 2:00:55.760 --> 2:00:57.520 I don't all I'm going up put down a definitive 2:00:58.360 --> 2:01:01.320 date when it happens, because I don't know the world 2:01:01.400 --> 2:01:06.839 is chaos and this. Yeah, but however, Comma, this story 2:01:06.880 --> 2:01:10.840 will continue in part two dot dot dot dot dot Yeah, 2:01:10.920 --> 2:01:14.360 So Steve Jamc, thank you both so much for joining me. 2:01:14.680 --> 2:01:18.600 And yeah, do you have where where can people go 2:01:18.680 --> 2:01:20.880 to find the magazine and you two if they want 2:01:20.920 --> 2:01:21.360 to find you. 2:01:22.600 --> 2:01:26.840 Oh, you can go to Strangemagers dot coop. That's our 2:01:26.920 --> 2:01:30.560 main website. If you want to subscribe, we have digital 2:01:30.600 --> 2:01:34.840 subscriptions starting at five dollars and Prince monthly is seven 2:01:34.960 --> 2:01:37.480 ninety nine. There are also annual subscriptions too. 2:01:37.880 --> 2:01:41.840 Yeah, and please do consider subscribing or donating. You can 2:01:41.880 --> 2:01:44.640 actually donate any amount of money to us. We're not 2:01:44.680 --> 2:01:47.240 a nonprofit, so it's not tax deductible, but it would 2:01:47.280 --> 2:01:51.200 be a really helpful donation because any dollar that we 2:01:51.280 --> 2:01:54.080 get that doesn't go to our capitalist overlords, you know, 2:01:54.200 --> 2:01:55.800 for the services that we have to use to keep 2:01:55.840 --> 2:01:58.520 the magazine going, all of that goes right now to 2:01:58.520 --> 2:02:01.080 our writers. And we try to pay writers above market 2:02:01.160 --> 2:02:05.560 rate for magazines of our size, and you know, to 2:02:05.600 --> 2:02:08.600 do that is very difficult, you know, we need we 2:02:08.680 --> 2:02:11.800 need to So if you want to support worker controlled 2:02:11.840 --> 2:02:16.520 media production that's financially independent. We don't have any big foundations, 2:02:17.200 --> 2:02:20.080 you know, like telling us what to write or things 2:02:20.080 --> 2:02:23.360 like that. It's all like basically small donations and subscriptions, 2:02:23.720 --> 2:02:25.680 like you know, if you want to keep that kind 2:02:25.720 --> 2:02:28.400 of media alive and keep this kind of economic analysis 2:02:28.400 --> 2:02:33.640 alive along with our cultural philosophy, philosophical, historical, anthropological, literary stuff. 2:02:35.120 --> 2:02:38.640 Then then please consider it because we could really use 2:02:38.680 --> 2:02:39.200 the support. 2:02:39.760 --> 2:02:44.320 Yeah, so go do that. Yeah, and go read some 2:02:44.400 --> 2:02:46.360 of the some of the work that you all have 2:02:46.400 --> 2:02:50.360 done on inflation, because it's really good. And yeah, this 2:02:50.680 --> 2:02:51.360 is prediculate apple. 2:02:51.440 --> 2:02:51.680 Here. 2:02:51.840 --> 2:02:56.440 You can find us in the usual places. And yes, 2:02:56.560 --> 2:02:59.440 go go, go into the world and cause mischief. 2:03:16.440 --> 2:03:19.320 This summer has been a critical junction in the fight 2:03:19.400 --> 2:03:23.400 against Copp City, the Atlanta Police Foundation's massive proposed training 2:03:23.400 --> 2:03:27.440 facility Indicab County, which is slated to begin construction later 2:03:27.560 --> 2:03:31.440 this very month. The last week of action in March 2:03:31.520 --> 2:03:34.720 of twenty twenty three drew in over a thousand people 2:03:34.760 --> 2:03:38.400 against Copp City and saw hundreds of force defenders attack 2:03:38.520 --> 2:03:42.360 in mass the construction equipment and police infrastructure stored on 2:03:42.400 --> 2:03:46.560 the site in a pretty successful action. The police repression 2:03:46.640 --> 2:03:49.919 came down hard, but the militancy of the force defenders 2:03:50.000 --> 2:03:53.760 left a pretty impressionable mark. Later that month, to Cab 2:03:53.840 --> 2:03:58.839 County closed and barricaded in Trenchment Creek Park citing public 2:03:58.880 --> 2:04:03.480 safety concerns, and allegedly found booby traps police did an 2:04:03.520 --> 2:04:07.280 exhaustive sweep of the forest and established a relatively firm 2:04:07.360 --> 2:04:11.240 control of the territory. After a year and a half 2:04:11.280 --> 2:04:14.280 of there being a nearly continuous presence in the Mulani 2:04:14.600 --> 2:04:18.680 by forest defenders, now the police began a forest occupation 2:04:18.880 --> 2:04:22.360 of their own. During the month that followed, the Atlanta 2:04:22.360 --> 2:04:26.480 Police Foundation, or the APF, rushed to clear cut around 2:04:26.600 --> 2:04:30.280 ninety acres of the Mulani Forest, seemingly in a ploy 2:04:30.400 --> 2:04:33.480 to show investors and the city that they are committed 2:04:33.520 --> 2:04:36.480 to the project and to crush the spirits of those 2:04:36.520 --> 2:04:40.440 who spent years opposing the facility and defending the forest. 2:04:41.560 --> 2:04:44.760 People then set their sights on the Atlanta's City Council, 2:04:45.000 --> 2:04:48.280 who in early June was to vote on whether or 2:04:48.360 --> 2:04:53.000 not to provide taxpayer funding for the APF's project. Over 2:04:53.120 --> 2:04:57.200 twenty three hours of public comment across multiple days, almost 2:04:57.280 --> 2:05:01.880 universally against copp City, culminated at the June fifth City 2:05:01.880 --> 2:05:04.840 Council meeting, which lasted into the early hours of the 2:05:04.880 --> 2:05:09.160 next morning. Despite the record breaking turnout opposing the facility, 2:05:09.640 --> 2:05:12.760 in the early morning of Tuesday, June sixth, the Atlanta 2:05:12.840 --> 2:05:16.560 City Council voted eleven to four in favor of the 2:05:16.600 --> 2:05:20.480 sixty seven million dollar funding package to build cop City. 2:05:21.280 --> 2:05:24.160 The next day, a group of community organizers announced a 2:05:24.200 --> 2:05:28.120 referendum campaign to collect tens of thousands of petition signatures 2:05:28.280 --> 2:05:31.880 from Atlanta voters to put the cop City land lease 2:05:32.000 --> 2:05:36.200 on the upcoming ballot. City council approving public funds for 2:05:36.320 --> 2:05:41.600 cop City was certainly disappointing, but not quite unexpected, because 2:05:41.720 --> 2:05:44.600 another Week of action to stop cop City was already 2:05:44.600 --> 2:05:49.240 planned for later that same month. This is it could 2:05:49.280 --> 2:05:53.640 happen here. I'm Garrison Davis. In this three part series, 2:05:53.680 --> 2:05:56.320 I'll be talking about what's been happening in Atlanta this 2:05:56.440 --> 2:05:59.600 summer to stop cop City. If you want to hear 2:05:59.640 --> 2:06:02.600 more about the background of this movement. In the month 2:06:02.640 --> 2:06:04.960 of May, we put out a five part series on 2:06:05.000 --> 2:06:08.000 the Week of Action from that spring, along with the 2:06:08.160 --> 2:06:10.920 few other previous Defend the Forest and Stop Cup City 2:06:10.960 --> 2:06:13.720 mini series published over the course of the last year 2:06:13.720 --> 2:06:17.160 and a half. With much of the forest already destroyed 2:06:17.240 --> 2:06:21.080 and no easy access to Entrenchment Creek Park, this Week 2:06:21.080 --> 2:06:24.200 of Action in June was set to be very unlike 2:06:24.280 --> 2:06:27.640 any that had come before. The kickoff rally was to 2:06:27.680 --> 2:06:31.080 begin on Saturday, June twenty fourth, at Brownwood Park in 2:06:31.200 --> 2:06:34.120 East Atlanta. I made my way there and met up 2:06:34.160 --> 2:06:37.800 with Matt from the Atlantic Community Press Collective. My first 2:06:37.800 --> 2:06:40.200 feeling walking in is like it felt very society of 2:06:40.200 --> 2:06:43.640 the spectacle in terms of like the ratio of cameras 2:06:43.680 --> 2:06:46.200 to participants was the most extreme that I've really ever 2:06:46.400 --> 2:06:48.320 ever seen for like, you know, a week of action, 2:06:48.880 --> 2:06:50.320 like there was there was an outside of like a 2:06:50.360 --> 2:06:53.560 press conference, yeah, and like it felt like there was 2:06:53.600 --> 2:06:58.120 so many just cameras looming around, and it's like there's 2:06:58.160 --> 2:07:00.120 so many people trying to make a similar from the 2:07:00.120 --> 2:07:02.600 movements to sell back to other people at this point 2:07:02.640 --> 2:07:07.000 in time, and like there's just a very like that's 2:07:07.080 --> 2:07:09.520 just a very large, pervasive feeling, and that combined with 2:07:09.520 --> 2:07:12.440 the more kind of the more liberalization of certain of 2:07:12.480 --> 2:07:15.000 certain aspects, again compared to the last week of Action, 2:07:15.080 --> 2:07:18.120 which felt there was a strong militant continuent. 2:07:18.080 --> 2:07:20.920 And like the liberal continued was still there. 2:07:21.720 --> 2:07:23.240 If you build it, we will burn it. 2:07:23.560 --> 2:07:27.760 And that's not the vibe here. That's not the vibe here. 2:07:27.960 --> 2:07:30.080 There's definitely a big separation in terms of what types 2:07:30.120 --> 2:07:31.560 of people are at what side of the park. 2:07:31.640 --> 2:07:32.000 Right now. 2:07:32.560 --> 2:07:34.680 There's a more like more like forested section of the 2:07:34.680 --> 2:07:36.520 park with a creek on the south side, which is 2:07:36.560 --> 2:07:39.120 where people are setting up. Some camping sites have of 2:07:39.160 --> 2:07:41.800 a kitchen that's where the well content is. And then 2:07:41.800 --> 2:07:44.000 there's the other side of the park that has like 2:07:44.080 --> 2:07:46.120 the rec center and the playground, which seems more like 2:07:46.160 --> 2:07:47.080 family friendly stuff. 2:07:47.120 --> 2:07:49.440 Yeah, there are kids there, there's the popcorn setup. 2:07:49.600 --> 2:07:51.600 It's more like house so there is a bouncy house, 2:07:51.600 --> 2:07:53.800 which is great return. 2:07:54.800 --> 2:07:58.840 They couldn't, they couldn't keep this moving down. I won't. 2:07:59.000 --> 2:08:05.120 I won't rest until destroyed until the contrastory Everybounty Castle 2:08:05.320 --> 2:08:10.400 in Atlanta, till every bouncy castle is deflated. 2:08:11.440 --> 2:08:13.240 That is, that is the new movement's so good. 2:08:13.680 --> 2:08:16.920 In contrast to the last kickoff rally at Gresham Park, 2:08:17.000 --> 2:08:20.760 which felt very unified, this time there was a noticeable 2:08:20.840 --> 2:08:23.880 separation in terms of what types of people are on 2:08:23.920 --> 2:08:27.560 the two sides of the park. People wearing camouflage and 2:08:27.680 --> 2:08:30.280 masks were more situated on the south side of the 2:08:30.320 --> 2:08:33.600 park where tents were being set up, versus people by 2:08:33.640 --> 2:08:36.080 the playground who were going around with the referendum sign 2:08:36.160 --> 2:08:38.840 up sheet and where all the food was being handed out. 2:08:39.040 --> 2:08:44.040 It's so separated the game, the two groups. 2:08:43.840 --> 2:08:48.280 Cannot cannot, cannot counsel each other, and even like people 2:08:48.280 --> 2:08:53.640 like turnout seemed to be a bit lower than some 2:08:53.680 --> 2:08:57.240 people expected, and it was definitely much lower compared to 2:08:57.320 --> 2:09:00.880 the previous few weeks of action, and overall the rally 2:09:01.000 --> 2:09:05.120 was very muted and lacked a sense of energy or focus, 2:09:05.480 --> 2:09:07.680 Like the rallies start at eleven, which kind of kind 2:09:07.680 --> 2:09:10.560 of like nothing happened, like it just it felt very directionless, 2:09:10.920 --> 2:09:13.640 felt like people did not quite know why they were 2:09:13.680 --> 2:09:14.600 there at this point in. 2:09:14.560 --> 2:09:19.480 Times, almost Nune before anyone really spoke on the bullhorn, 2:09:19.960 --> 2:09:24.480 and the music didn't start until noon and then what 2:09:24.560 --> 2:09:26.880 was it like a half hour ago, so like twelve 2:09:26.960 --> 2:09:31.320 thirty probably when when the first like speaker said anything 2:09:31.640 --> 2:09:33.360 from the Faith Coalition, I don't know. 2:09:33.440 --> 2:09:36.000 So far, the rally kind of feels like a microcosmum 2:09:36.480 --> 2:09:38.880 of the entire movement at this point, just not quite 2:09:38.880 --> 2:09:40.440 sure where to direct the energy to. 2:09:41.000 --> 2:09:43.480 There's a feeling that like people should do something, but 2:09:44.320 --> 2:09:45.600 they don't quite know how to. 2:09:46.040 --> 2:09:48.120 They haven't decided how that should be directed yet, and 2:09:48.120 --> 2:09:50.440 so like there's some people showing up, but it's just 2:09:50.480 --> 2:09:52.320 like it feels kind of stagnant and like there's this 2:09:52.480 --> 2:09:54.480 there's this need to evolve right now. 2:09:54.960 --> 2:09:58.040 And I don't know. 2:09:58.040 --> 2:10:00.400 I think maybe people got burnt out from this council 2:10:00.440 --> 2:10:02.320 things that there's a lot of energy being pumped into that. 2:10:02.640 --> 2:10:04.400 Yeah, and then I guess some people that. 2:10:04.680 --> 2:10:07.960 Was like three weeks of pushing energy and that and 2:10:08.000 --> 2:10:09.600 that was only like two weeks ago, like that that's 2:10:09.600 --> 2:10:12.920 still very recently. Three weeks now, it still feels it 2:10:12.960 --> 2:10:15.960 still feels very raw. Walking down the pathway on the 2:10:16.000 --> 2:10:19.000 south side of Brownwood you can see people setting up tents, 2:10:19.240 --> 2:10:20.840 carrying camping supplies and. 2:10:20.800 --> 2:10:21.800 Big jugs of water. 2:10:22.480 --> 2:10:25.800 Other people were assembling a makeshift kitchen in the tree line, 2:10:26.120 --> 2:10:29.200 and all of that was physically reminiscent of the last 2:10:29.200 --> 2:10:32.400 week of action. But being four miles away from the 2:10:32.400 --> 2:10:36.400 forest at Brownwood Park instead of the wallani impacted the 2:10:36.480 --> 2:10:39.320 feeling on the ground. We're both we're so far away 2:10:39.320 --> 2:10:41.520 from the forest. But if there's like that separation of space, 2:10:42.920 --> 2:10:44.440 like it feels so distant. 2:10:44.080 --> 2:10:48.440 And distant, even more than than Gresham Park, even with 2:10:48.560 --> 2:10:50.520 the Gresham Like if this were happening in Gresham Park, 2:10:50.520 --> 2:10:55.320 I think that might even be a different feeling, yeah, 2:10:55.440 --> 2:11:00.840 because at least you're attached to your Luilani. 2:11:01.240 --> 2:11:04.640 There was more determination on like the south side of 2:11:04.640 --> 2:11:06.920 of the park and you could feel like the people 2:11:06.960 --> 2:11:08.800 want at least people want to do something physically, and 2:11:08.800 --> 2:11:11.160 they were. But it's even still unclear how it's going 2:11:11.200 --> 2:11:13.839 to get directed towards, like like what is this doing. 2:11:13.680 --> 2:11:15.480 To stop prop city right now? Like that is that's 2:11:15.480 --> 2:11:16.280 the big thing. 2:11:16.200 --> 2:11:18.600 Is like people are trying to figure that out and 2:11:18.600 --> 2:11:22.640 there's people here, but like what are what are people 2:11:22.680 --> 2:11:23.640 actually going to be doing? 2:11:23.840 --> 2:11:29.360 Like I that's that's the question that is You're going 2:11:29.400 --> 2:11:30.880 to be un answered at least today. 2:11:31.080 --> 2:11:34.000 I would say the last week of action in March 2:11:34.240 --> 2:11:37.320 was very important in terms of setting the stage for 2:11:37.440 --> 2:11:41.000 what the next few months would look like. The direct 2:11:41.080 --> 2:11:44.560 action that happened on Sunday during the music festival was 2:11:44.920 --> 2:11:49.440 very important and successful, but also carried large ramifications for 2:11:49.480 --> 2:11:51.840 how the rest of the movement would be shaped in 2:11:51.960 --> 2:11:55.640 terms of the police repression and increase police presence in 2:11:55.720 --> 2:11:59.959 the forest. The weeks of action definitely have this ability 2:12:00.120 --> 2:12:03.320 to affect how the movement as a whole evolves in 2:12:03.400 --> 2:12:07.320 the subsequent months. On Saturday, there were worries that if 2:12:07.360 --> 2:12:10.000 things were simply going to continue to be like this 2:12:10.080 --> 2:12:13.760 kickoff rally, that wouldn't be a positive direction and would 2:12:13.800 --> 2:12:17.160 be a bad sign. It's just so I mean, it's 2:12:17.200 --> 2:12:18.880 hard not to convey this to the to the last 2:12:18.880 --> 2:12:21.680 Week of Action kickoff rally at Gresham, which just felt 2:12:21.720 --> 2:12:24.680 so different like that, there was like almost ten times 2:12:24.680 --> 2:12:27.600 as many people. There was like a feeling of like motion. 2:12:27.720 --> 2:12:29.280 There was a feeling of like we can, we have 2:12:29.400 --> 2:12:30.880 we have to go do a thing, and we're gonna 2:12:30.880 --> 2:12:33.120 do it no matter what, Like we don't know it's 2:12:33.160 --> 2:12:34.560 gonna be on the other side of the tunnel, but 2:12:34.600 --> 2:12:36.480 we're going there to do it anyway. 2:12:36.520 --> 2:12:37.680 We're gonna find it out together. 2:12:37.880 --> 2:12:40.280 And there was that was a lot of determination, and 2:12:40.320 --> 2:12:41.120 then there was a lot. 2:12:40.960 --> 2:12:43.080 Of like there was like a pointed nes like they 2:12:43.160 --> 2:12:46.080 knew where they were going, and this does not It 2:12:46.400 --> 2:12:50.320 lacks that pointedness. It feels like people aren't quite sure 2:12:50.560 --> 2:12:52.320 why they're here or what to do at this point 2:12:52.320 --> 2:12:55.200 in time. And if the movement wants to be able 2:12:55.200 --> 2:12:57.400 to continue in its goals, it has to find some 2:12:57.400 --> 2:12:59.480 way to evolve in the next two months, as construction 2:12:59.600 --> 2:13:01.000 is gonna about and. 2:13:03.040 --> 2:13:04.600 I guess this was weak, kind. 2:13:04.480 --> 2:13:07.880 Of wild the bell weather either well, either a bell 2:13:07.920 --> 2:13:11.960 weather or a learning experience. Yeah, it might not be 2:13:12.240 --> 2:13:15.760 any sort of death now, but it will have to 2:13:15.760 --> 2:13:18.040 be a learning experience probably. Yeah. 2:13:18.240 --> 2:13:20.200 That's that's kind of most of most of my thoughts 2:13:20.240 --> 2:13:22.920 so far based on walking through both places. 2:13:24.480 --> 2:13:26.640 There's just not much else talkulaks and how much is happening? 2:13:26.720 --> 2:13:26.880 Like it? 2:13:27.560 --> 2:13:31.080 Soon enough, however, other things did start happening thanks to 2:13:31.160 --> 2:13:35.800 the Atlanta Police Department, but throughout that afternoon things remained 2:13:35.800 --> 2:13:38.480 mostly low key, and as the day went on, the 2:13:38.520 --> 2:13:41.840 gathering at Brownwood Park turned into a community barbecue and 2:13:41.920 --> 2:13:44.800 people started to get a much more clear idea of 2:13:44.840 --> 2:13:48.800 what the expectations for that day were. As people settled 2:13:48.800 --> 2:13:51.720 into the park, there seemed to be any big anticipation 2:13:51.960 --> 2:13:55.080 for what everyone was going to be doing that first day. 2:13:55.400 --> 2:13:57.680 There wasn't supposed to be a vigil for Tortighita in 2:13:57.720 --> 2:14:01.320 the park that evening, which was in terrupted by Atlanta 2:14:01.360 --> 2:14:04.120 Police officers who swept through the park issuing a quote 2:14:04.160 --> 2:14:08.680 unquote friendly reminder that the park closed at eleven pm. 2:14:08.880 --> 2:14:11.600 All right, it's around eight thirty, about forty police officers 2:14:11.680 --> 2:14:14.560 just walked through Brownwood Park telling people that are gathered 2:14:14.560 --> 2:14:17.320 here that the park closes at eleven and everyone's basically 2:14:17.320 --> 2:14:19.440 anticipating that police are going to try to sweep the 2:14:19.520 --> 2:14:21.840 entirety of the park, including the sections where people are 2:14:21.840 --> 2:14:25.440 trying to camp out. Around eleven PM, the cops were 2:14:25.560 --> 2:14:28.880 walking south through the park as the crowd was walking 2:14:28.960 --> 2:14:32.920 and chanting along the way as well. Cops left under 2:14:32.960 --> 2:14:38.080 the heels of like maybe seventy five to two hundred 2:14:38.120 --> 2:14:41.320 people who were chanting along the south side of Brownwood. 2:14:41.600 --> 2:14:45.240 They've been staging around Brownwood Park and Portland Avenue for 2:14:45.280 --> 2:14:49.520 the past hour or so. They had like twenty thirty cars, 2:14:49.800 --> 2:14:53.520 it's around forty fifty officers. People decided they did not 2:14:53.600 --> 2:14:56.000 wish to stand their ground and fight off a possible 2:14:56.040 --> 2:14:59.160 police raid at Brownwood Park, so they spent the next 2:14:59.160 --> 2:15:01.440 few hours packing up all the supplies and equipment that 2:15:01.480 --> 2:15:04.920 they just spent all day setting up, and then evacuated 2:15:04.960 --> 2:15:10.040 from the area. Okay, it is eleven ten PM. It 2:15:10.120 --> 2:15:12.800 seems like the cops essentially just did what I'm referring 2:15:12.840 --> 2:15:16.880 to as advanced bluffing. So they walk through it on 2:15:16.960 --> 2:15:19.480 eight thirty warning people hey, park closes at eleven, which 2:15:19.560 --> 2:15:21.320 very much, very much indicating that, hey, we're. 2:15:21.160 --> 2:15:22.600 Going to sweep through and fuck with your shit if 2:15:22.640 --> 2:15:23.160 you're still here. 2:15:23.600 --> 2:15:26.240 So the next few hours people spent time you know, 2:15:26.320 --> 2:15:30.280 packing up, breaking down the tents, of leaving, heading to 2:15:30.440 --> 2:15:32.880 other locations. And then at eleven, we kind of just 2:15:32.960 --> 2:15:35.240 expected police to do a standard sweep through, you know, 2:15:35.320 --> 2:15:37.840 destroy anything they find. If they find people, tell them 2:15:37.880 --> 2:15:41.080 to leave or else get arrested. Standard stuff. At this point, 2:15:41.120 --> 2:15:44.160 there's about seven or eight police cruisers staged around the 2:15:44.240 --> 2:15:47.720 south side of the park, but they're not actually sweeping 2:15:47.800 --> 2:15:50.240 through because it's pretty clear that there's like no one 2:15:50.280 --> 2:15:52.600 actually in the park at this point. It's just very 2:15:52.600 --> 2:15:56.600 clearly like empty and quiet, So I don't even I 2:15:56.600 --> 2:15:58.400 don't even think cops are going to sweep through. It's 2:15:58.400 --> 2:16:00.200 it's been already like ten to fifteen minutes, so we 2:16:00.200 --> 2:16:02.280 expected them to kind of sweep on the hour, but 2:16:02.480 --> 2:16:04.440 they just like don't need to because it's very clear 2:16:04.440 --> 2:16:06.440 that no one's in the park, so they just kind 2:16:06.440 --> 2:16:10.240 of like successfully bluffed themselves into getting everyone to leave. 2:16:11.120 --> 2:16:13.960 I mean, if there were people still here in visible capacity, 2:16:13.960 --> 2:16:17.200 I'm sure police would sweep through, but there's really there's 2:16:17.240 --> 2:16:18.920 no one visible in the park from many of like 2:16:18.960 --> 2:16:21.880 the perimeters around, so they're not even gonna bother sweeping through. 2:16:22.280 --> 2:16:24.040 But yeah, it looks like this is the end of 2:16:24.400 --> 2:16:29.080 Brownwood Day one and the very kind of low key 2:16:29.160 --> 2:16:32.120 kickoff rally. Still, the week definitely is lacking a sense 2:16:32.120 --> 2:16:36.720 of direction. There's been a cab swat doing perimeter sweeps 2:16:36.800 --> 2:16:40.360 around the Wailani Forest and the round Grressian Park where 2:16:40.360 --> 2:16:43.400 there's some future events planned. We will see how that 2:16:43.440 --> 2:16:46.560 plays out in these next few days. It certainly seems 2:16:46.640 --> 2:16:49.959 like police wanted to make some show of force early 2:16:50.040 --> 2:16:52.360 on in the week to stifle the week of action. 2:16:53.080 --> 2:16:56.440 The threat of array the very first tonight was indeed 2:16:56.600 --> 2:17:00.160 disruptive to the logistics for the week, but ultimately peopeople 2:17:00.200 --> 2:17:02.240 were able to band together to keep each other safe 2:17:02.240 --> 2:17:07.760 and cared for. During this current general sense of directionlessness, 2:17:08.080 --> 2:17:10.279 there were a lot of questions on how the movement 2:17:10.280 --> 2:17:13.959 will change during this turning point. With little in the 2:17:13.959 --> 2:17:18.240 way of obvious answers or new paths of resistance, The 2:17:18.280 --> 2:17:21.240 following Sunday and Monday of the week continued to be 2:17:21.440 --> 2:17:25.360 mostly low key. People used those days to facilitate workshops 2:17:25.360 --> 2:17:28.680 and discussions to work through the shift the movement was 2:17:28.720 --> 2:17:31.440 going through. At the end of the week, I sat 2:17:31.520 --> 2:17:34.720 down with Matt in East Atlanta Village to talk about 2:17:34.760 --> 2:17:37.920 the week as a whole and compare notes. Here's a 2:17:37.920 --> 2:17:40.960 bit of our conversation talking about the discussions that started 2:17:40.959 --> 2:17:45.040 happening during those first few days. This was a week 2:17:45.080 --> 2:17:48.080 of discussions, like it was, it really was. There was 2:17:48.080 --> 2:17:50.039 a lot of meetings, There was a lot of discussions happening, 2:17:50.040 --> 2:17:52.600 people figuring out what do we do, Like if we 2:17:52.640 --> 2:17:54.440 actually want to stop cop City and it's going to 2:17:54.480 --> 2:17:57.920 get built in these next few months, like now. 2:17:57.840 --> 2:17:59.800 Is the time to figure out what the fuck to 2:17:59.840 --> 2:18:00.520 do next. 2:18:00.879 --> 2:18:03.000 So people have been having those discussions this week, and 2:18:03.080 --> 2:18:05.040 if anything, the Week of Action has been useful in 2:18:05.120 --> 2:18:06.680 this in this sense that it's brought a lot of 2:18:06.680 --> 2:18:10.600 people together so they can have these generative conversations. And 2:18:10.720 --> 2:18:13.200 there was a lot more conversations during this week than 2:18:13.280 --> 2:18:15.360 last week. There was one on like what the state 2:18:15.440 --> 2:18:18.120 of the movement is now, especially with the referendum taking 2:18:18.160 --> 2:18:21.080 up more visibility, how are like radical is going to 2:18:21.200 --> 2:18:25.680 navigate this space and this movement with a lot of 2:18:25.720 --> 2:18:27.480 things in flux, and I think that that was definitely 2:18:27.520 --> 2:18:29.920 my first read. Even even on the Cookoff rally, I 2:18:29.920 --> 2:18:31.640 felt like there's a lot of people like not sure 2:18:31.640 --> 2:18:33.520 what to do, as very directionless. People were asking a 2:18:33.520 --> 2:18:35.800 lot of questions, and more questions were being asked all 2:18:35.800 --> 2:18:37.360 throughout the week. There's a lot of discussions, a lot 2:18:37.360 --> 2:18:40.160 of meetings about like what do we do now, Like 2:18:40.280 --> 2:18:42.320 if construction is going to start in the next two months, 2:18:42.320 --> 2:18:44.360 like what is this movement going to do? Like that 2:18:44.800 --> 2:18:47.200 people can chant if you build it, we will burn it. 2:18:47.400 --> 2:18:51.400 But chanting it and doing it two different things. And 2:18:51.600 --> 2:18:53.880 the movement is it's going to go through a period 2:18:53.879 --> 2:18:56.600 of evolution and then in these next few months, and 2:18:57.320 --> 2:18:59.200 with all of those questions being asked, I feel like 2:18:59.240 --> 2:19:01.840 the answer to those questions is going to be the 2:19:01.920 --> 2:19:04.280 actions people do take in these next few months. In 2:19:04.320 --> 2:19:07.240 the aftermath of the clear cutting, it felt like in 2:19:07.280 --> 2:19:10.280 some ways that the window of possibility for this movement 2:19:10.520 --> 2:19:14.600 was closing as options seemed to be getting smaller. More 2:19:14.640 --> 2:19:17.480 people started pursuing the referendum as a potential means of 2:19:17.480 --> 2:19:21.840 stopping Copcity, but those in the more militant anarchist wing 2:19:21.840 --> 2:19:25.200 of the movement were left questioning, after two years of 2:19:25.200 --> 2:19:28.160 employing a diversity of tactics largely led by direct action, 2:19:28.640 --> 2:19:30.800 if it's the right and move to switch to an 2:19:30.840 --> 2:19:34.480 electoral strategy now when the situation is approaching its most 2:19:34.640 --> 2:19:37.720 dire but since it is happening whether they like it 2:19:37.800 --> 2:19:40.920 or not, anarchists were wondering, what can people do so 2:19:40.959 --> 2:19:44.160 that the referendum doesn't completely dominate the narrative of the 2:19:44.200 --> 2:19:49.280 movement or disincentivize other evolutions of the struggle. Now, obviously, 2:19:49.280 --> 2:19:52.240 a group of people pursuing a referendum does not prohibit 2:19:52.360 --> 2:19:55.760 other people from engaging in direct action, but there still 2:19:55.760 --> 2:19:58.240 were worries that the referendum could become a sort of 2:19:58.440 --> 2:20:02.040 release mechanism for the move both in terms of new 2:20:02.040 --> 2:20:06.520 people's involvement being pushed toward this more liberalized electoral strategy 2:20:06.560 --> 2:20:09.840 instead of radical action, or if the petition or even 2:20:09.879 --> 2:20:13.640 potential ballot vote fails, then that being used as an 2:20:13.680 --> 2:20:18.360 indicator that most people in the city actually do want copcity. 2:20:18.680 --> 2:20:21.400 But through all this, what anarchists can do, and what 2:20:21.440 --> 2:20:25.680 they typically do, is to encourage radical autonomy and self determination, 2:20:26.160 --> 2:20:30.560 regardless of electoral strategies or outcomes, whether or not a 2:20:30.560 --> 2:20:34.560 petition gets sixty some thousand signatures does not affect a 2:20:34.600 --> 2:20:39.720 burning construction vehicle. Just as these sort of discussions were happening. 2:20:40.120 --> 2:20:42.920 It's kind of fitting that on Monday, June twenty sixth, 2:20:43.160 --> 2:20:46.600 we saw the first communication in months claiming responsibility for 2:20:46.760 --> 2:20:51.080 equipment sabotage. After the last week of Action in March 2:20:51.120 --> 2:20:54.680 and subsequent police raids on the forest, increased security, the 2:20:54.760 --> 2:20:57.840 rapid clear cutting and big push for city council public 2:20:57.879 --> 2:21:00.800 comment followed by the start of the referendum. Throughout that 2:21:00.959 --> 2:21:03.560 series of events, there really hadn't been much in the 2:21:03.600 --> 2:21:07.760 way of nocturnal direct action sabotage happening in Atlanta or 2:21:08.040 --> 2:21:12.039 across the country. In solidarity once a core component of 2:21:12.080 --> 2:21:15.360 this movement was seriously lacking in the months leading up 2:21:15.400 --> 2:21:18.840 to this summer, and then suddenly, after the June Week 2:21:18.879 --> 2:21:22.600 of Action's mostly uneventful start, a post went up on 2:21:22.680 --> 2:21:25.320 the sketchu web site scene stott no blogs dot org 2:21:25.640 --> 2:21:28.840 claiming that a group of anonymous individuals snuck into a 2:21:28.879 --> 2:21:33.240 subcontractor's machine storage lot and poured hydrochloric acid into the 2:21:33.280 --> 2:21:38.080 oil tanks of three vehicles. The target was Brent Scarborough, company, 2:21:38.200 --> 2:21:41.360 a Georgia based subcontractor who was hired to clear cut 2:21:41.400 --> 2:21:45.200 the Wallani forest and was currently engaged in mass land 2:21:45.240 --> 2:21:50.000 grading on the site. I drove by the site on 2:21:50.080 --> 2:21:56.119 Monday and I saw like over twenty machines like actively 2:21:56.320 --> 2:21:57.200 working on the land. 2:21:57.800 --> 2:21:59.440 Very avatar was. 2:22:00.320 --> 2:22:06.720 Yes, y or Fer and Gully the superior film, but no, 2:22:06.800 --> 2:22:09.240 like it's like the site's being very actively worked on. 2:22:09.280 --> 2:22:11.320 Like I've never seen that many machines doing active work, 2:22:12.320 --> 2:22:14.920 like all moving at the same time. Early Monday morning, 2:22:15.080 --> 2:22:18.039 the Stop Cop City referendum put out a strong statement 2:22:18.080 --> 2:22:21.440 of solidarity with quote all tactics on the road to 2:22:21.520 --> 2:22:25.760 collective liberation unquote and openly rejected the state's framing of 2:22:25.800 --> 2:22:30.160 quote unquote violent and nonviolent resistance. To briefly quote a 2:22:30.200 --> 2:22:32.879 few of the last sentences of the statement, quote, the 2:22:32.959 --> 2:22:36.240 cop City vote referendum campaign is grounded in the values 2:22:36.280 --> 2:22:41.000 of abolitionist organizing and racial and environmental justice. We also 2:22:41.040 --> 2:22:44.080 recognize our chosen tactic is a single intervention in a 2:22:44.080 --> 2:22:47.720 wide rainbow of fighting state repression. We seek to use 2:22:47.760 --> 2:22:51.720 the Cop City referendum to leverage local power, educate and 2:22:51.800 --> 2:22:55.200 activate our communities, and build networks that can strengthen our 2:22:55.240 --> 2:22:59.480 city and future mobilizations. The referendum is one piece of 2:22:59.520 --> 2:23:04.480 a vibrant, into multifaceted movement, one that defies respectable categorization 2:23:04.920 --> 2:23:08.199 as well as its state violence and repression. The Cop 2:23:08.240 --> 2:23:12.160 City Vote Referendum Coalition stands in solidarity and full support 2:23:12.440 --> 2:23:15.040 of the Stop Cop City Week of Action, the larger 2:23:15.080 --> 2:23:19.080 movement and abolitionist organizers and activists across this city. 2:23:20.440 --> 2:23:24.080 Unintentionally, these two things coincided. There was the release of 2:23:24.120 --> 2:23:27.199 the scenes like the first sabotage in months, and then 2:23:27.480 --> 2:23:31.840 the referendum released that same day, the solidarity statement for 2:23:31.959 --> 2:23:35.520 all Yes actions taken to stock Coop City. No, just 2:23:35.600 --> 2:23:38.279 think that needs the statement itself needs to be highlighted, 2:23:38.480 --> 2:23:42.120 and yeah, I think it seems like they're going to 2:23:42.120 --> 2:23:42.560 stick to that. 2:23:42.760 --> 2:23:46.080 The solidarity statement was widely applauded and seen as a 2:23:46.120 --> 2:23:49.360 good sign regarding the referendum's place in the larger fight 2:23:49.440 --> 2:23:52.680 against Cop City and how it was not intending to 2:23:52.720 --> 2:23:57.000 take space away from other aspects of the movement. Tuesday morning, 2:23:57.080 --> 2:24:00.760 there was a small protest outside the Cab County Commissioner's 2:24:00.760 --> 2:24:04.520 Building to call for the reopening of entrenchment Creek Park. 2:24:05.400 --> 2:24:08.039 The park was a common gathering spot for the movement 2:24:08.360 --> 2:24:11.119 at where many people camped during previous weeks of action. 2:24:11.840 --> 2:24:15.840 An executive order from DECAB CEO Michael Thurmond closed the 2:24:15.879 --> 2:24:19.160 park late last March as the police geared up to 2:24:19.240 --> 2:24:22.480 fortify Bolauni and speed run all of the tree felling. 2:24:22.800 --> 2:24:25.160 So I sat in the Board of Commissioners meeting and 2:24:25.200 --> 2:24:28.120 it's different than a city council meeting, where like anybody 2:24:28.120 --> 2:24:30.320 who signs up to do public comment can do public comment. 2:24:30.360 --> 2:24:32.600 They only a lot thirty minutes of public comment, so 2:24:33.120 --> 2:24:38.120 about that amounts to ten speakers, and I think about 2:24:38.160 --> 2:24:40.640 six of them were actually there for, you know, to 2:24:40.680 --> 2:24:43.200 talk about opening the park. And then the rally, I 2:24:43.240 --> 2:24:46.120 think it was something like thirty thirty people. It was 2:24:46.160 --> 2:24:50.480 a student organized rally, and they did a couple speakers 2:24:50.720 --> 2:24:56.720 and then that was that was it. Not much from 2:24:56.760 --> 2:24:59.480 the cab, Like the cab only came out to make 2:24:59.480 --> 2:25:02.480 sure that they were blocking a pathway okay, And it 2:25:02.520 --> 2:25:04.440 was kind of hands off. I did get a parking ticket, 2:25:04.760 --> 2:25:06.840 that was my fault, you did. Yeah, I let my 2:25:06.879 --> 2:25:12.160 parking expire for twelve minutes. A legalist mascot at the ACPC. Wow. 2:25:13.280 --> 2:25:15.680 Uh and yeah, the minute I do something illegal, I 2:25:15.760 --> 2:25:17.359 get a traving ticket. 2:25:17.400 --> 2:25:21.240 Previously in June that a CAB CEO proposed a one 2:25:21.280 --> 2:25:25.320 point eight million dollar construction plan necessary to reopen the park, 2:25:25.720 --> 2:25:28.920 but no clear date on when that would happen. One 2:25:28.959 --> 2:25:32.240 County commissioner has been trying to fast track reopening the park, 2:25:32.520 --> 2:25:36.000 but their resolution has repeatedly been deferred by the county Board. 2:25:36.600 --> 2:25:40.439 The soonest it will be reconsidered is October tenth. Meanwhile, 2:25:40.520 --> 2:25:45.400 the park will remain indefinitely closed. Throughout the first few 2:25:45.480 --> 2:25:48.040 days of the Week of action, there was something kind 2:25:48.080 --> 2:25:51.959 of looming over everyone's heads. There was a march planned 2:25:52.040 --> 2:25:54.880 from Gresham Park towards Bolani that was to take place 2:25:54.920 --> 2:25:58.600 on the evening of Wednesday, June twenty eighth. The police 2:25:58.640 --> 2:26:01.040 response to this action was prime to be the most 2:26:01.080 --> 2:26:04.560 intense out of the week. The path to Entrenchment Creek 2:26:04.600 --> 2:26:07.480 Park is a pretty closed in bike path with a 2:26:07.520 --> 2:26:10.760 tunnel going under an overpass where police have been staging 2:26:10.800 --> 2:26:13.200 to prevent people from entering the forest. 2:26:13.560 --> 2:26:13.640 No. 2:26:13.720 --> 2:26:15.960 I definitely felt like on Monday and Tuesday everyone was 2:26:16.160 --> 2:26:18.720 everyone was still like thinking about what would happen on Wednesday, 2:26:18.720 --> 2:26:21.680 what would happen on the march from Gresham Park. 2:26:22.560 --> 2:26:24.320 That was that was the big unknown, That was the 2:26:24.360 --> 2:26:25.400 big danger. 2:26:25.360 --> 2:26:29.960 Like very palpable. Yeah, concern about how that was going 2:26:30.000 --> 2:26:33.400 to play out. Yeah, that probably, I mean all the 2:26:33.400 --> 2:26:37.640 way back to Saturday. That was probably like playing through 2:26:38.120 --> 2:26:41.480 people's minds and causing some of that like uncertainty. 2:26:41.959 --> 2:26:44.280 Police were setting up perimeters around the forest in an 2:26:44.360 --> 2:26:47.920 increased capacity than the usual detail. Pretty early on in 2:26:47.959 --> 2:26:50.640 the day, there was a Dacab County SWAT mobile command 2:26:50.760 --> 2:26:53.920 center posted up in a school parking lot next to 2:26:53.959 --> 2:26:57.280 the tunnel and bike path leading from Gresham to Wolani. 2:26:57.959 --> 2:27:01.039 Kind of as expected, this entire section of South Atlanta 2:27:01.360 --> 2:27:05.879 was crawling with police before people even gathered at Gresham Park. 2:27:06.320 --> 2:27:09.560 The day began with an unfortunately rocky start and the 2:27:09.600 --> 2:27:13.439 first arrest of the week outside Cadence Bank in Midtown. 2:27:14.440 --> 2:27:16.800 The protest was calling on the bank to cancel their 2:27:16.840 --> 2:27:20.320 twenty million dollar construction loan given to the Atlanta Police Foundation. 2:27:20.920 --> 2:27:24.320 So there was this action at Cadence Bank that they 2:27:24.600 --> 2:27:30.560 specifically didn't want media and so none of us were there. Yeah, 2:27:30.600 --> 2:27:33.240 and that was early in the morning. I don't I 2:27:33.320 --> 2:27:36.119 think We found out about it after renoon or something, 2:27:37.160 --> 2:27:40.480 so after I woke up. Yeah, I think it was 2:27:40.520 --> 2:27:43.240 like they said, thirty people, kind of like we saw 2:27:44.120 --> 2:27:47.200 the other day Friday, Yeah, on Friday. But as they 2:27:47.200 --> 2:27:50.640 were walking away, somebody gets well multiple they try to 2:27:50.680 --> 2:27:51.400 arrest multiple p. 2:27:51.440 --> 2:27:52.520 Please start chasing people. 2:27:53.680 --> 2:27:57.360 Someone gets grabbed and arrested, another person gets detained and 2:27:57.400 --> 2:27:57.920 then let go. 2:27:59.480 --> 2:28:01.200 Seemed like a pretty chaotic scene. 2:28:01.840 --> 2:28:04.039 That's not a great way to start off the day 2:28:04.040 --> 2:28:06.680 where you have your most stressful action plan for later. 2:28:07.480 --> 2:28:09.119 You wake up, you get chased by cops, and you're 2:28:09.120 --> 2:28:11.480 expecting to go do a march in a few hours. Yeah, 2:28:12.320 --> 2:28:14.760 in the most heavily police area of Atlanta right now. 2:28:15.360 --> 2:28:17.320 The march was to take place on the same bike 2:28:17.400 --> 2:28:20.640 path from Gresham Park to Intrenchment Creek Park that people 2:28:20.680 --> 2:28:23.440 took during the kickoff rally at the last week of Action, 2:28:24.200 --> 2:28:27.720 but much has changed on the ground since then. As 2:28:27.720 --> 2:28:30.320 people started to gather at Gresham Park on Wednesday evening, 2:28:30.800 --> 2:28:34.400 the numbers were quite small. As I progressed, around one 2:28:34.520 --> 2:28:37.400 hundred and fifty people eventually amassed, but it was still 2:28:37.440 --> 2:28:39.760 a small fraction of the number of people at the 2:28:39.800 --> 2:28:44.440 previous Gresham Park March and with a much greater police presence. 2:28:45.440 --> 2:28:48.640 The exact plan for the night was heavily dependent on 2:28:48.760 --> 2:28:52.000 a lot of factors that it was impossible to explicitly 2:28:52.080 --> 2:28:55.320 know beforehand, like how many people would show up and 2:28:55.400 --> 2:28:58.600 what they would feel comfortable doing based on the police response. 2:28:59.840 --> 2:29:00.400 Right, this is. 2:29:00.360 --> 2:29:05.080 Wednesday, June twenty eighth. Me and Matt from the Community 2:29:05.080 --> 2:29:09.360 Press Collective are gathered at Gresham Park. Overhead you can 2:29:09.400 --> 2:29:14.040 hear the Dacab helicopter circle at favorite sound, our favorite sound. Yes, 2:29:15.080 --> 2:29:17.920 there's about I don't know, maybe seventy five or more, 2:29:18.520 --> 2:29:21.800 close to one hundred, close to one hundred people gathered 2:29:22.440 --> 2:29:25.279 here in Gresham Park and people have plans to march 2:29:25.959 --> 2:29:29.160 towards Wolani or at least to the tunnel. And then 2:29:29.200 --> 2:29:33.720 what happens after that's kind of a big mystery. Definitely 2:29:33.800 --> 2:29:36.200 very different than the last time we were gathered in 2:29:36.240 --> 2:29:37.760 Gresham Park with a crowd of people. 2:29:38.160 --> 2:29:41.640 We're missing the music, we're missing the duwali like paint clouds, 2:29:41.680 --> 2:29:47.200 we're missing the kids. We're missing maybe the vibes just 2:29:47.240 --> 2:29:47.720 in general. 2:29:47.760 --> 2:29:50.880 Another eight hundred people or so, but I mean people 2:29:50.879 --> 2:29:55.080 are setting out science and some banners. Police have a 2:29:55.160 --> 2:29:59.959 decent presence around the around like the tunnel, or like 2:30:00.040 --> 2:30:02.359 the overpass over the tunnel, and around Wilani. 2:30:02.480 --> 2:30:05.400 Right now, all around the Wi Lanni triangle there's there 2:30:05.640 --> 2:30:11.199 APD and the cab County police just hanging out more 2:30:11.200 --> 2:30:15.119 than usual. And at the fire station there was more 2:30:15.160 --> 2:30:19.400 cops than I've seen since March fifth, since the last 2:30:19.480 --> 2:30:20.080 week of action. 2:30:21.840 --> 2:30:25.840 Yeah, earlier this morning I saw a d KEB County 2:30:25.959 --> 2:30:29.440 swat nobile command unit at the school next to the 2:30:29.480 --> 2:30:32.360 tunnel overpass, but I do not know where that is now. 2:30:32.520 --> 2:30:34.440 It was It was not parked there last time we 2:30:34.520 --> 2:30:37.000 drove by about half an hour ago. So yeah, just 2:30:37.440 --> 2:30:40.680 that is. That is the update as of as of 2:30:40.760 --> 2:30:43.880 six thirty. So I'm guessing this crowd will start moving 2:30:43.920 --> 2:30:45.879 the next thirty minutes to forty minutes. 2:30:45.680 --> 2:30:47.920 Probably have hour. Yeah all right. 2:30:48.240 --> 2:30:50.760 Right, as the crowd was about to set off, someone 2:30:50.800 --> 2:30:53.920 made an announcement that due to small numbers and large 2:30:53.959 --> 2:30:57.279 police presence, there was to be a change of plans. 2:30:57.720 --> 2:31:00.320 Instead of going all the way to Entrenchment Creek Park 2:31:00.400 --> 2:31:02.640 or even the tunnel, they were going to march one 2:31:02.720 --> 2:31:05.119 third of the way and stop on the bike path. 2:31:05.400 --> 2:31:09.440 All right, it's around seven to twenty pm, About one 2:31:09.520 --> 2:31:12.360 hundred and fifty people are leaving Gresham Park and they 2:31:12.360 --> 2:31:15.120 announce they're going to be going to hold a small 2:31:15.200 --> 2:31:19.120 vigil near one of one of the felled trees on 2:31:19.200 --> 2:31:23.280 the bike path. For a little while, the march was 2:31:23.320 --> 2:31:27.040 getting along fine, there was music and chanting, when suddenly 2:31:27.400 --> 2:31:31.480 police made an early appearance. Okay, so it's what seven 2:31:31.720 --> 2:31:37.720 seven fifty seven forty one on Wednesday, June twenty eighth. 2:31:38.080 --> 2:31:41.360 We are walking on the bike path and staged. 2:31:40.959 --> 2:31:42.959 Twenty five minutes into the walk and here we come 2:31:43.160 --> 2:31:48.040 on our first police presence of the day along our path. 2:31:48.240 --> 2:31:51.040 So too, thinking to Cab County. Yeah, two Decab County 2:31:51.600 --> 2:31:55.920 SuDS part side by side along the path, but they 2:31:56.000 --> 2:31:57.320 are not out of their vehicles. 2:31:57.480 --> 2:32:02.959 No oh, I think the crowd spears order. 2:32:03.520 --> 2:32:05.080 They might try to give you a sporsal order because 2:32:05.080 --> 2:32:05.880 there's too many people. 2:32:06.000 --> 2:32:06.240 Yeah. 2:32:07.920 --> 2:32:09.280 I didn't think they would try to fuck with it 2:32:09.320 --> 2:32:11.720 this soon. I thought they would wait to the tunnel. 2:32:12.680 --> 2:32:15.360 A small number of police were posted up right before 2:32:15.440 --> 2:32:18.879 the first bridge on the bike path, roughly about halfway 2:32:18.920 --> 2:32:21.880 to the tunnel. If they wanted to the crowd could 2:32:21.920 --> 2:32:24.400 have marched past the police as they were not blocking 2:32:24.440 --> 2:32:27.879 the path. The two cop cars couldn't even follow behind 2:32:28.000 --> 2:32:31.199 because there was big metal bulgards preventing vehicles from going 2:32:31.200 --> 2:32:34.600 on the Wooden bridge. But the visible police caused the 2:32:34.600 --> 2:32:35.480 group to pause. 2:32:35.959 --> 2:32:38.240 There was that one speech that we need to touch 2:32:38.280 --> 2:32:41.520 on from that night, and that was the speaker said, 2:32:41.920 --> 2:32:44.280 in order to win, we have to let go of 2:32:44.320 --> 2:32:48.520 the idea of losing while looking good. Yeah, And that 2:32:48.720 --> 2:32:51.520 I think is going to inform whatever the direct action 2:32:51.720 --> 2:32:54.840 side of things are for the next this next phase 2:32:55.240 --> 2:32:55.960 of the movement. 2:32:56.920 --> 2:33:00.360 While paused in front of the police cruisers, the crowd 2:33:00.400 --> 2:33:02.800 deliberated on what they wanted to do and what they 2:33:02.800 --> 2:33:06.320 thought they could accomplish. After a few minutes of discussion, 2:33:06.720 --> 2:33:11.160 they decided that they were not prepared to unnecessarily sacrifice themselves. 2:33:11.959 --> 2:33:14.400 One of the people from the crowd spoke briefly not 2:33:14.440 --> 2:33:17.640 only on this decision, but also how it fits into 2:33:17.680 --> 2:33:21.119 the difficult situation the movement has found itself in. Right now, 2:33:21.760 --> 2:33:23.879 I'm going to quote a little bit from this impromptu 2:33:23.920 --> 2:33:28.279 speech quote. We shouldn't come away from this feeling demoralized. 2:33:28.480 --> 2:33:31.360 We should feel clarity because we believe we set out 2:33:31.400 --> 2:33:35.039 to participate in a movement to obstruct the construction of 2:33:35.080 --> 2:33:38.840 a police militarization site, but that is not being allowed 2:33:38.879 --> 2:33:42.240 to happen. The people we're fighting against believe we are 2:33:42.280 --> 2:33:46.560 a domestic insurgency. They are treating us like an insurgency. 2:33:46.640 --> 2:33:51.440 The state is using militaristic language like denying anarchists operating space. 2:33:52.080 --> 2:33:55.160 And so we're going to great lengths to be safe, 2:33:55.200 --> 2:33:57.280 to play it safe, and to go slow, and to 2:33:57.360 --> 2:34:01.280 proceed rationally and defend one another. But we're coming under 2:34:01.400 --> 2:34:06.560 constant attack everything we do. We're under attack unquote. Just 2:34:06.720 --> 2:34:09.160 earlier that morning, people were attacked by the state and 2:34:09.240 --> 2:34:12.400 arrested as they stood on the sidewalk outside of a bank. 2:34:12.959 --> 2:34:16.320 Those who work to bail activists out of jail are attacked. 2:34:16.760 --> 2:34:19.680 People doing on the ground jail support are physically attacked 2:34:19.720 --> 2:34:21.120 and face police intimidation. 2:34:21.760 --> 2:34:22.200 Quote. 2:34:22.560 --> 2:34:25.119 We don't want to be engaged in a failing struggle. 2:34:25.480 --> 2:34:28.720 Our enemy is treating us like terrorists. That's what they're 2:34:28.720 --> 2:34:31.480 calling us, and that's what they believe we are. It's 2:34:31.520 --> 2:34:35.160 not just a rhetorical trick. That's how they're treating the movement. 2:34:35.760 --> 2:34:37.960 And so we have to figure out how we're gonna win, 2:34:38.080 --> 2:34:41.600 because we intend to win, but you can't just only 2:34:41.680 --> 2:34:44.959 defend yourself. The safest thing for us to do is 2:34:45.000 --> 2:34:47.320 to never go to a protest about this movement. Again, 2:34:47.720 --> 2:34:51.279 if our top priority is safety, everyone who's not currently 2:34:51.360 --> 2:34:54.120 facing charges should move away, should not go to events 2:34:54.200 --> 2:34:57.840 or actions. But if we have a higher priority than 2:34:57.879 --> 2:35:00.800 safety alone, we're gonna have to figure out what we're 2:35:00.840 --> 2:35:03.520 going to do to achieve that, which is going to 2:35:03.560 --> 2:35:06.400 require going on the offense when we're able and how 2:35:06.400 --> 2:35:10.280 we're able. This movement has been very creative, and we're 2:35:10.320 --> 2:35:13.039 going to have to continue to be more and more creative, 2:35:13.480 --> 2:35:15.320 and we're going to have to continue to deploy all 2:35:15.320 --> 2:35:19.640 available means in order to have this kind of offensive, victorious, 2:35:19.800 --> 2:35:23.400 and strong movement that we all deserve when we fight, 2:35:23.720 --> 2:35:27.040 when we attack the enemy, when we have our offensive actions, 2:35:27.280 --> 2:35:29.720 we have to follow through with them. We have to 2:35:29.800 --> 2:35:32.200 go all the way with them. We have to be 2:35:32.240 --> 2:35:35.280 willing to believe in ourselves to believe that we can win. 2:35:35.920 --> 2:35:38.080 And so I believe that we are going to win 2:35:38.120 --> 2:35:40.800 this movement, and I think you guys believe that we're 2:35:40.800 --> 2:35:43.480 going to win this movement. But that's going to require 2:35:43.560 --> 2:35:46.720 us to abandon the idea of looking good while losing. 2:35:47.280 --> 2:35:50.760 We can't look good losing. So are we going to 2:35:50.959 --> 2:35:53.560 look good losing or are we going to win? 2:35:54.160 --> 2:35:54.720 Unquote? 2:35:55.040 --> 2:35:56.160 All right, it is eight o'clock. 2:35:56.240 --> 2:35:59.400 The crowd sat in the middle of the trail behind 2:35:59.760 --> 2:36:03.760 the first bridge, where two decap County vehicles are parked. 2:36:04.320 --> 2:36:06.440 They deliberated for a little bit, and then a few 2:36:06.440 --> 2:36:09.400 people spoke, and now the crowd has turned around at 2:36:09.400 --> 2:36:11.760 a marching back to Greshiam Park, marching back. 2:36:11.640 --> 2:36:15.200 No arrests. We do have two helicopters now hanging out 2:36:15.360 --> 2:36:16.840 over us. That's my favorite thing. 2:36:16.720 --> 2:36:17.200 In the world. 2:36:18.040 --> 2:36:20.440 And a lot of other decav on the ground and 2:36:20.520 --> 2:36:22.960 other parts of the bike path in the trails. 2:36:23.680 --> 2:36:26.800 Yeah, they would have walked directly into what looked like 2:36:26.800 --> 2:36:31.560 a full swat team above the bridge. So they made 2:36:31.600 --> 2:36:34.080 the right choice, is what it seems like to me. 2:36:35.240 --> 2:36:38.359 Yeah, And they talked about their intentionality of the decision, 2:36:38.360 --> 2:36:43.199 and it's how it's important to not just keep losing 2:36:43.200 --> 2:36:45.840 while trying to look cool and throw yourself out a 2:36:45.879 --> 2:36:47.200 line of police. 2:36:48.120 --> 2:36:51.880 Yeah, and that hopefully, I mean, what does that look 2:36:51.959 --> 2:36:54.760 like in practice? I guess we'll see you over the 2:36:54.760 --> 2:36:55.920 next few months. 2:36:55.920 --> 2:36:59.560 Three days, three days to two months, Yeah. 2:36:58.879 --> 2:37:01.680 Three days, It several months. But it does sound like 2:37:01.800 --> 2:37:07.920 there's some attempt now at directionality. That wasn't I wasn't 2:37:07.959 --> 2:37:09.640 sing yeah until. 2:37:10.400 --> 2:37:12.400 This is the exact same March people tried to do 2:37:13.120 --> 2:37:15.800 back in March, and they did it, and they're trying 2:37:15.800 --> 2:37:16.840 to do it here again in June. 2:37:17.200 --> 2:37:18.360 And it doesn't work. 2:37:18.400 --> 2:37:18.760 It didn't. 2:37:18.840 --> 2:37:20.400 It doesn't work the first time. 2:37:20.440 --> 2:37:20.880 It doesn't work. 2:37:21.000 --> 2:37:22.440 It worked the first time, it does mean the second time. 2:37:22.440 --> 2:37:23.560 So now it's time to change something. 2:37:25.560 --> 2:37:26.240 Yeah. 2:37:26.280 --> 2:37:28.560 On the walk back to Gresham Park, we got clear 2:37:28.600 --> 2:37:31.600 photos of the amount of riot police waiting for us 2:37:31.640 --> 2:37:34.400 at the tunnel, and it was a great many. 2:37:34.680 --> 2:37:35.480 Oh yeah, there is a lot. 2:37:35.760 --> 2:37:38.680 That's a lot of a lot of a lot of riot. 2:37:39.040 --> 2:37:39.240 Yeah. 2:37:39.240 --> 2:37:41.359 And that was when of the vans posted above the tunnel. 2:37:41.440 --> 2:37:45.600 Yeah. So that trailer, Yeah, that's what they bring all 2:37:45.600 --> 2:37:46.360 their riots shields in. 2:37:46.680 --> 2:37:46.800 OK. 2:37:48.400 --> 2:37:49.720 Yeah, that that would have sucked. 2:37:50.280 --> 2:37:51.560 That would not have been fun. 2:37:51.680 --> 2:37:53.039 No, that would have gone very poorly. 2:37:53.160 --> 2:37:55.879 Would have been tear gas though, and I do miss 2:37:55.920 --> 2:37:56.720 being tear gas. 2:37:56.760 --> 2:37:58.600 I can like spray with pepper spray. 2:37:58.440 --> 2:38:00.879 If you want. It's not the same as tears I guess. 2:38:00.760 --> 2:38:01.760 Pretty right now if you want. 2:38:02.280 --> 2:38:06.240 Matt ultimately declined to be pepper sprayed. Tortia Guita's mother, 2:38:06.360 --> 2:38:10.280 Belquise Tearran, came to Gresham Park to also join the march. 2:38:10.959 --> 2:38:12.760 So what we had was one hundred and fifty people 2:38:13.480 --> 2:38:17.480 in Belquist turn and I think that that, yeah, plays 2:38:17.520 --> 2:38:19.840 a role in how this goes on. 2:38:19.920 --> 2:38:22.119 No having belle Keise. 2:38:23.400 --> 2:38:26.200 Very like visibly present, like walking up to everybody there 2:38:26.200 --> 2:38:29.280 and greeting them. Just having her presence there affects what 2:38:29.320 --> 2:38:32.480 people want to do, and it reminds you of what's 2:38:32.560 --> 2:38:36.760 actually like the actual stakes at hand, so you're caring 2:38:36.760 --> 2:38:40.920 for everyone around you in a much more like conscious capacity. 2:38:41.240 --> 2:38:45.000 Belcise spoke, a few other people spoke, and then they 2:38:45.040 --> 2:38:47.400 turned around and headed back to Gresham and that was 2:38:47.600 --> 2:38:49.000 the decision that was. 2:38:48.920 --> 2:38:52.240 Made, and no one was hurt, no one was arrested. 2:38:52.560 --> 2:38:55.800 People got back to Gresham Park, some people had ice cream. 2:38:57.080 --> 2:38:59.080 Two people in particular had ice cream, and they were 2:38:59.160 --> 2:39:02.400 very happy about it. It definitely wasn't maybe it was us. 2:39:03.480 --> 2:39:04.720 Other people also had ice cream. 2:39:04.760 --> 2:39:06.320 Other people did have ice cream. I don't think they 2:39:06.440 --> 2:39:07.720 were quite as excited. 2:39:09.280 --> 2:39:11.640 Throughout the week, you could tell that people were really 2:39:11.680 --> 2:39:14.840 wanting to be back in the forest and Willani People's Park. 2:39:15.440 --> 2:39:19.040 People made do gathering at Brownwood Park, but it wasn't 2:39:19.080 --> 2:39:22.440 the same. There was an undeniable distance between where people 2:39:22.440 --> 2:39:25.080 were gathered this week of action and the sight of 2:39:25.120 --> 2:39:28.880 all the previous battles in the Wilani. The fact that 2:39:28.920 --> 2:39:31.560 so much of the forest had already been destroyed loomed 2:39:31.600 --> 2:39:34.640 heavily over the week, and that's something that people are 2:39:34.720 --> 2:39:38.320 still processing and are still comprehending. Another big aspect of 2:39:38.320 --> 2:39:39.959 the week, like this is this is the first week 2:39:40.000 --> 2:39:41.800 of action where people haven't gone in the gone in 2:39:41.879 --> 2:39:42.879 the Wilani, Like. 2:39:43.640 --> 2:39:46.840 Yeah, there's no action, which feels weird, well, we should 2:39:46.840 --> 2:39:52.720 say in the triangle because you know, but like the site. 2:39:52.520 --> 2:39:55.320 Like this is the first time that people haven't been 2:39:55.560 --> 2:39:59.840 like in the forest, and that's a new thing to navigate, 2:39:59.840 --> 2:40:02.760 that a new feeling to navigate, Like there's there's a 2:40:02.800 --> 2:40:04.240 different there's a different. 2:40:03.959 --> 2:40:05.280 Sense multiple chances. 2:40:05.360 --> 2:40:07.680 There's multiple chance being like not one lead, don't cut 2:40:07.720 --> 2:40:10.160 down the trees and like the trees are gone, like 2:40:10.200 --> 2:40:13.520 it's the site's been cleared, and I think people are 2:40:13.560 --> 2:40:16.080 still catching up to that and like relight, Like it's 2:40:16.120 --> 2:40:19.480 still something that people are processing and they're gonna have 2:40:19.480 --> 2:40:21.280 to process that if they want to like continue, like 2:40:21.320 --> 2:40:23.120 they have to like look at the situation being like 2:40:23.800 --> 2:40:26.280 this is we have to accept what has happened. Then 2:40:26.280 --> 2:40:28.920 we can choose what's to do, because you can't. 2:40:28.680 --> 2:40:30.920 Act as can't deny what the reality is. 2:40:31.080 --> 2:40:32.879 No, and you can't act as if the trees are 2:40:32.920 --> 2:40:35.320 still there, because that's going to change the type of 2:40:35.360 --> 2:40:37.119 the types of like actions you do, Like. 2:40:37.520 --> 2:40:39.760 You can't tree set in the trees. 2:40:40.400 --> 2:40:43.040 It's it's changing the actual actions people are going to 2:40:43.120 --> 2:40:45.440 take to try to stop copsitting. Yeah, I think the 2:40:45.640 --> 2:40:50.160 Wednesday action almost needed to happen. So many people still 2:40:50.240 --> 2:40:53.720 dream about what if we could reoccupy Wallawi. People are 2:40:53.920 --> 2:40:57.000 still caught in that headspace because they got so used 2:40:57.000 --> 2:40:59.360 to that over the course of almost two years. So 2:40:59.640 --> 2:41:01.800 it never there was going to be an attempt where 2:41:01.800 --> 2:41:04.920 a few hundred people try to re enter Wilani People's Park. 2:41:05.840 --> 2:41:09.199 They're almost needed to be an attempt just to see 2:41:09.320 --> 2:41:12.600 what would happen. And we saw what would happen, and 2:41:12.680 --> 2:41:16.160 now people can use that action as reference when making 2:41:16.240 --> 2:41:20.400 future plans and decisions about actions, because you can point 2:41:20.480 --> 2:41:23.320 back to this and demonstrate what the police response will 2:41:23.400 --> 2:41:27.240 be when people march to Wolani. Massive amounts of SWAT 2:41:27.560 --> 2:41:30.760 riot police waiting for you, SWAT mobile command centers, heavily 2:41:30.879 --> 2:41:34.600 armed police estanged on roads, overpasses, entrances, and all around 2:41:34.640 --> 2:41:37.440 the forest specifically waiting for people to try to cross 2:41:37.480 --> 2:41:41.440 over or through the tunnel. So now people know what 2:41:41.520 --> 2:41:44.200 will happen if they try and do the same thing again. 2:41:45.160 --> 2:41:47.640 In some ways, it kind of needed to not just 2:41:47.800 --> 2:41:51.960 be theoretical speculation, but actually happen so that people can 2:41:52.080 --> 2:41:55.480 now truly allow themselves to evolve, so that you don't 2:41:55.520 --> 2:41:58.480 have this question in the back of your head, because 2:41:58.640 --> 2:42:01.120 now that question has been answered, you would be throwing 2:42:01.160 --> 2:42:04.000 yourself at a wall of swat and riot gear. And 2:42:04.200 --> 2:42:07.520 now everyone can let themselves evolve and start figuring out 2:42:07.879 --> 2:42:12.720 what new things can be fostered and imagined. We'll hear 2:42:12.800 --> 2:42:16.040 more about those evolutions and conclude my coverage of the 2:42:16.080 --> 2:42:16.800 week of action. 2:42:17.080 --> 2:42:18.359 In the next episode. 2:42:19.000 --> 2:42:32.240 See you on the other side, Welcome back to it 2:42:32.280 --> 2:42:35.240 could happen here. I'm Garrison Davis. This is part two 2:42:35.360 --> 2:42:38.000 of my mini series about what's been happening this summer 2:42:38.320 --> 2:42:42.040 in Atlanta to stop cop City. Last episode, we left 2:42:42.080 --> 2:42:45.320 off with the attempted march from Gresham Park to Entrenchman 2:42:45.360 --> 2:42:48.760 Creek Park, which some might say was a disappointment, but 2:42:49.000 --> 2:42:52.160 it also gave everyone more clarity about the current state 2:42:52.320 --> 2:42:55.360 of these types of direct action marches in Atlanta and 2:42:55.480 --> 2:42:59.680 the necessity for evolution. The main event on Thursday, June 2:42:59.720 --> 2:43:02.960 twenty ninth was a protest outside the Home Depot in 2:43:03.080 --> 2:43:07.200 the upscale retail district off of Ponce de Leon Avenue. 2:43:07.840 --> 2:43:11.240 Home Depot is one of the Atlanta Police Foundation's financial backers. 2:43:11.720 --> 2:43:13.680 There had been a rumor that Home Depot was was 2:43:13.720 --> 2:43:16.280 gonna be close earlier in the day. I got there 2:43:16.360 --> 2:43:19.320 four thirty. It wasn't closed, so I didn't see any signage. 2:43:19.840 --> 2:43:22.280 So I went and parked my car and came back 2:43:23.480 --> 2:43:26.400 and like, I think I got there for fifty and 2:43:26.959 --> 2:43:29.400 people were starting to line up along the road, like, uh, 2:43:29.560 --> 2:43:32.640 there's a Starbucks. And they were lining up along Ponce 2:43:32.760 --> 2:43:36.240 next to the Starbucks, and you know, I'm I'm talking 2:43:36.280 --> 2:43:39.760 to them watching this. They're chanting, they're they're pulling out banners, 2:43:39.840 --> 2:43:44.040 and we get a call that they are arresting Lorraine Fontana. So, 2:43:44.200 --> 2:43:47.400 Lorraine Fontana is a seventy six year old activist in Atlanta, 2:43:48.160 --> 2:43:52.040 and she's great like she she pops up everywhere. She's 2:43:52.240 --> 2:43:56.400 beloved by everyone. And so we get this call that 2:43:56.560 --> 2:44:02.680 Lorraine Fontana is being arrested, and uh, I bolts as 2:44:03.080 --> 2:44:04.640 far as my little legs will take me in. Then 2:44:04.680 --> 2:44:06.240 I have to stop and catch my breath, like right 2:44:06.280 --> 2:44:09.199 before I get there. But Lorraine and one other person 2:44:09.280 --> 2:44:13.160 were arrested in the parking lot right outside the home depot. 2:44:13.400 --> 2:44:15.119 It's a store called. 2:44:14.879 --> 2:44:17.440 Me called four Prays here, and they did not want 2:44:17.600 --> 2:44:20.640 anybody protests in the store. When they start reading out 2:44:20.800 --> 2:44:23.600 the layer, I asked them to boy handed and said 2:44:23.640 --> 2:44:26.480 the practices at that time. I'll also usually the look 2:44:26.520 --> 2:44:29.360 from a trust past warning telling them their how people 2:44:29.520 --> 2:44:32.160 cannot want their faces or inside the store. 2:44:32.840 --> 2:44:36.119 After protesters left the store, they stood by a corner 2:44:36.240 --> 2:44:39.120 in the parking lot to holding signs, where they were 2:44:39.200 --> 2:44:42.880 then approached by APD officers who then arrested two people 2:44:43.000 --> 2:44:43.760 without warning. 2:44:44.280 --> 2:44:49.200 It does kind of just show APD like basically doing 2:44:49.320 --> 2:44:51.800 exactly what they would with anyone, except in this case 2:44:51.840 --> 2:44:55.879 it's the seventy six year old woman who's like five 2:44:56.600 --> 2:44:58.200 or four eleven or something like that. 2:44:58.560 --> 2:45:02.040 Yeah, yeah, no, I mean it was a lot of 2:45:02.040 --> 2:45:06.440 people were like surprised that this happened, Like how could. 2:45:06.240 --> 2:45:06.840 The police do this? 2:45:07.000 --> 2:45:09.760 I think others were like not as surprised, be like, no, 2:45:09.840 --> 2:45:13.080 it's the APD. They like it was a good demonstration 2:45:13.400 --> 2:45:16.240 for people being like showing that they do not care. 2:45:16.879 --> 2:45:17.879 They don't really care if you're a. 2:45:17.840 --> 2:45:21.160 Seventy seven year old woman or if you're a nineteen 2:45:21.240 --> 2:45:24.320 year old eco terrorist, they're gonna treat you roughly the same. 2:45:24.680 --> 2:45:24.880 Yeah. 2:45:25.520 --> 2:45:29.080 After Lorraine's arrest, more and more people began showing up 2:45:29.120 --> 2:45:32.600 across the street from home Depot calling for their divestment 2:45:32.760 --> 2:45:34.400 from the Atlanta Police Foundation. 2:45:35.120 --> 2:45:38.360 It got up to like thirty maybe forty people mostly 2:45:38.440 --> 2:45:41.360 just like chanting on the sidewalks sidewalk, but then they 2:45:41.400 --> 2:45:44.800 started to like walk back and forth when the crosswalk 2:45:45.040 --> 2:45:48.680 was like there, yeah, and they were pushing the limit, 2:45:48.920 --> 2:45:51.560 like seeing what they could get. But there was also 2:45:51.720 --> 2:45:54.600 my favorite part was the APD officer who was sitting 2:45:54.680 --> 2:46:00.880 in his I'm sorry. My favorite part was, fuck, I 2:46:00.959 --> 2:46:03.240 gotta do this about breaking down in the middle. 2:46:04.959 --> 2:46:07.280 I did hear a little bit about this, all right? 2:46:07.320 --> 2:46:10.480 Take three, Take three? Uh, there was the APD officer 2:46:10.560 --> 2:46:13.120 that was sitting in his Ford Explorer on Ponts and 2:46:13.920 --> 2:46:16.120 at one point he calls out on his you know, 2:46:16.400 --> 2:46:19.240 loud speaker, I'm not an idiot. I swear I'm not 2:46:19.360 --> 2:46:22.480 an idiot. While he's backing up on Ponts with his 2:46:22.680 --> 2:46:24.959 lights on, just like what are you doing? 2:46:30.680 --> 2:46:32.000 People are asking a lot of questions. 2:46:32.000 --> 2:46:35.560 They are already answered, I'm on an idiots shirt. 2:46:36.480 --> 2:46:40.280 Oh it was great. So I caught like the briefest 2:46:40.400 --> 2:46:43.400 snippet of that audio, thankfully. That's funny. 2:46:44.160 --> 2:46:47.520 On Thursday night, after the Home Depot rally, there was 2:46:47.560 --> 2:46:50.960 a jail vigil around ten pm for Lorraine at the 2:46:51.160 --> 2:46:53.119 Rice Street Fulton County Jail. 2:46:53.600 --> 2:46:57.360 So there are two jails. There's Adventas City Detention Center 2:46:57.600 --> 2:47:00.240 and then there's Fulton County Jail, which we just Rice 2:47:00.240 --> 2:47:04.879 Street because it's off off Rice Street. Okay, so when 2:47:04.920 --> 2:47:08.400 you get charged with criminal trespassed, it's like a misdemeanor charge, 2:47:08.560 --> 2:47:11.200 and typically you would go to Atlantic City Detention Center, 2:47:11.280 --> 2:47:15.160 which still a jail is still terrible, but relatively like better. Okay, 2:47:15.640 --> 2:47:20.480 Fulton County Jail is you know atrocious it is, you 2:47:20.560 --> 2:47:24.560 know Leshawan Thompson. Of course that the guy who was 2:47:24.600 --> 2:47:28.160 eaten alive in his in his cell by bugs because 2:47:28.200 --> 2:47:30.960 of neglect. That is Rice Street Jail. That's the Fulton 2:47:31.000 --> 2:47:34.200 County Jail. That's the Fulton County Jail. So we get 2:47:34.240 --> 2:47:37.760 worried that Lorraine is at Fulton County Jail and not ACDC, 2:47:38.000 --> 2:47:43.720 which is pretty striking. So everybody goes down to do 2:47:43.840 --> 2:47:46.760 a jail vigil and noise demo for context. 2:47:47.280 --> 2:47:50.800 Last September, Lashawan Thompson, a thirty five year old man, 2:47:51.040 --> 2:47:54.200 was found dead after spending three months in an infested 2:47:54.320 --> 2:47:58.040 Fulton County Jail psychiatric cell. His body was covered in 2:47:58.200 --> 2:48:02.360 a thousand bug bites and were found in his mouth, ears, nose, 2:48:02.520 --> 2:48:06.440 and all across his body. Such inhumane incidents are not 2:48:06.600 --> 2:48:10.400 in irregularity in Fulton County Jail. Just earlier this month, 2:48:10.480 --> 2:48:13.080 a thirty five year old named Christopher Smith died in 2:48:13.160 --> 2:48:16.440 Fulton County Jail. He had been held in custody since 2:48:16.520 --> 2:48:21.680 October sixth, twenty nineteen, without bond on several unspecified felony 2:48:21.800 --> 2:48:25.800 and misdemeanor charges. According to the County Sheriff's Office, last month, 2:48:25.840 --> 2:48:28.560 a nineteen year old girl died in Fulton County custody 2:48:28.720 --> 2:48:32.680 after being arrested on a minor misdemeanor charge. This past 2:48:32.800 --> 2:48:35.920 year alone, six people have died in the Fulton County 2:48:36.000 --> 2:48:40.359 jail system. People in Atlanta have been doing jail vigils 2:48:40.400 --> 2:48:42.760 and noise demos for years and it's never really been 2:48:42.800 --> 2:48:45.640 a problem. Cops might tell people to move off to 2:48:45.680 --> 2:48:47.840 the side if the crowd gets to a certain size, 2:48:48.400 --> 2:48:51.320 but they have typically gone on without issue. But this 2:48:51.480 --> 2:48:54.680 time Fulton County deputies came out and declared that people 2:48:54.760 --> 2:48:58.039 are not allowed to protest outside the jail and ordered 2:48:58.080 --> 2:49:01.120 everyone to completely leave the parking and go all the 2:49:01.160 --> 2:49:03.720 way to the other side of this big hill off 2:49:03.800 --> 2:49:07.359 of Rice Street to jail property in order to continue protesting, 2:49:08.200 --> 2:49:11.880 which no one was really keen on doing, so this 2:49:12.160 --> 2:49:13.640 kind of game of chicken began. 2:49:14.600 --> 2:49:18.320 They eventually they pull on a bunch more sheriff's deputies 2:49:18.520 --> 2:49:21.160 and threatened arrest. So people start making their way up 2:49:21.200 --> 2:49:25.520 the hill linking arms, and they get to the top 2:49:25.560 --> 2:49:27.480 of the hill and they're met with another group of 2:49:27.520 --> 2:49:31.080 protesters who had tried to come down, but they were 2:49:31.080 --> 2:49:32.440 stopped by police at the top of the hill. So 2:49:32.560 --> 2:49:36.000 now the crowd size like essentially doubled. Yeah, and the 2:49:36.320 --> 2:49:39.160 energy just goes through the roof. You know, both sides 2:49:39.200 --> 2:49:44.240 are just going back and forth. This This deputy is 2:49:44.320 --> 2:49:48.520 like completely overmatched, doesn't really They didn't seem like Fulton 2:49:48.560 --> 2:49:51.840 County had a plan. You know, usually APD or the 2:49:51.920 --> 2:49:54.800 cat they have some sort of protest planned. Fulton was 2:49:54.879 --> 2:49:57.560 flying by the seat of their pants. And so all 2:49:57.600 --> 2:50:00.400 of our cars were down at the bottom with the hill. 2:50:00.440 --> 2:50:02.880 They were back in the Rice Street parking lot. And 2:50:02.959 --> 2:50:06.400 this this becomes like an issue because some of the 2:50:06.440 --> 2:50:09.520 protesters cars are there, all of the media cars are there, 2:50:09.800 --> 2:50:14.320 like down at the bottom of this hill, and they're 2:50:14.400 --> 2:50:17.480 not letting anyone go down there. And this woman shows 2:50:17.560 --> 2:50:19.959 up to like put I think money on her son's 2:50:20.000 --> 2:50:22.480 commissary car and they don't let her. Now she's like 2:50:22.560 --> 2:50:27.200 they're just shutting down jail rage aloud, Yeah exactly. So 2:50:29.720 --> 2:50:32.040 they finally first they're like we're gonna let you go 2:50:32.120 --> 2:50:35.120 down one by one, and everyone's like hell no, like 2:50:35.600 --> 2:50:37.240 we are not trusting you. 2:50:37.440 --> 2:50:39.880 Yeah, sure, sure, sure, buddy, let's go. 2:50:40.200 --> 2:50:46.160 Let's isolate, isolated move through this police fortress in an isolated. 2:50:48.480 --> 2:50:50.240 Uh So then they're like, okay, you can go as 2:50:50.240 --> 2:50:52.280 a group. Yeah, okay, as long as you have your 2:50:52.360 --> 2:50:53.640 vehicles down there, you can go as a group. So 2:50:53.720 --> 2:50:55.480 they slowly start to make their way down. 2:50:55.760 --> 2:50:59.000 They do not see in the next five minutes we 2:50:59.080 --> 2:50:59.360 want to. 2:50:59.320 --> 2:51:02.520 Start up to do They get all the way to 2:51:02.520 --> 2:51:04.800 the bottom hill. They're in the parking lot and just 2:51:04.920 --> 2:51:06.800 like on the edge of where the cars are, and 2:51:06.879 --> 2:51:10.720 they kind of stop moving and the Shaff's deputy is like, yeah, 2:51:10.760 --> 2:51:13.000 I gotta keep moving, and so they start moving again 2:51:13.160 --> 2:51:16.880 and then stop again, and then the shriffs deputy says, 2:51:16.920 --> 2:51:21.000 all right, get them, and so then the deputy start 2:51:21.080 --> 2:51:23.960 moving in to make a rest and quickly, you know this, 2:51:24.240 --> 2:51:27.480 this march kind of becomes this backward moving thing. Yeah 2:51:28.080 --> 2:51:30.879 I can't see that. I'm moving my hands to Showcarrison, 2:51:31.040 --> 2:51:34.600 but it becomes this backward moving thing up up the hill. 2:51:35.320 --> 2:51:36.200 That's the bottom line. 2:51:36.440 --> 2:51:40.120 You in the street and we will be taking in fush, 2:51:40.560 --> 2:51:42.160 Get out the street, Get. 2:51:42.040 --> 2:51:42.520 Out the street. 2:51:44.720 --> 2:51:47.640 The crowd was able to leave before anyone was detained, 2:51:48.000 --> 2:51:51.480 but it was a quite tense situation. The sort of 2:51:51.560 --> 2:51:54.119 dynamic we saw at the jail vigil and home Depot 2:51:54.200 --> 2:51:57.840 protest led directly into the next event on Friday morning, 2:51:58.280 --> 2:52:01.879 a previously announced second pro test outside of Cadence Bank 2:52:02.000 --> 2:52:05.360 in Midtown calling on Cadence Bank to cancel the Atlanta 2:52:05.400 --> 2:52:09.160 Police Foundation's twenty million dollar construction loan. All right, people 2:52:09.280 --> 2:52:12.760 had a protest on Friday morning at Cadence Bank in 2:52:12.840 --> 2:52:13.800 Midtown Atlanta. 2:52:14.520 --> 2:52:15.440 There's maybe like. 2:52:17.320 --> 2:52:22.680 Around a dozen people here, uh, canting outside of the building. 2:52:23.200 --> 2:52:27.600 Also about a dozen APD officers walking walking down from 2:52:27.680 --> 2:52:31.880 up the street, preparing to meet the crowd. They're moving 2:52:31.920 --> 2:52:36.120 in closer that they're walking in again. People still, I 2:52:36.160 --> 2:52:39.959 don't think anyone's even touched touched the class door. Most 2:52:39.959 --> 2:52:41.880 of the people are just standing here on the sidewalk. 2:52:42.600 --> 2:52:44.600 You know that game you play with your cats where 2:52:45.480 --> 2:52:48.360 they come at you, but they stop when you're watching them. Yeah, 2:52:48.520 --> 2:52:49.240 that's the game we're playing. 2:52:49.720 --> 2:52:52.320 Yeah, yeah, yea yeah yeah, we turn away. The cops advanced. 2:52:52.360 --> 2:52:54.560 We like this is also like half of like the 2:52:54.600 --> 2:52:58.360 lo Ney tunes gags is they're doing a Michelin frog 2:52:58.879 --> 2:53:01.360 all right, and they're they're now on the King's Bank property. 2:53:03.280 --> 2:53:07.160 They're starting to advance. Police were yelling at people that 2:53:07.360 --> 2:53:10.360 they couldn't touch any of the steps leading up to 2:53:10.480 --> 2:53:13.680 the bank entrance, and that you weren't allowed to lean 2:53:13.800 --> 2:53:18.160 against any hand rails because the metal poll was bank property. 2:53:19.080 --> 2:53:21.640 So once again we got this little game of back 2:53:21.720 --> 2:53:24.640 and forth, except one side has guns and the power 2:53:24.760 --> 2:53:25.440 to arrest you. 2:53:29.320 --> 2:53:50.119 Propera this coup said in the crowds trying to incite 2:53:50.120 --> 2:53:50.560 a riot. 2:53:51.120 --> 2:53:53.160 It feels very much like what you saw I guess 2:53:53.200 --> 2:53:56.440 in Portland. Obviously I wasn't there. There's an object that 2:53:56.520 --> 2:53:58.080 becomes this sacred goal. 2:53:58.080 --> 2:54:01.520 And then you're you're battling over the thing because the 2:54:01.680 --> 2:54:02.680 thing is now been. 2:54:03.440 --> 2:54:07.200 Given something like me actual physical like presence, and that 2:54:07.400 --> 2:54:08.720 is the thing that you are now fighting for. 2:54:08.800 --> 2:54:08.840 It. 2:54:09.360 --> 2:54:11.560 It becomes a symbolic in front of a building. 2:54:11.760 --> 2:54:14.000 It don't matter, but the police gave it significent. 2:54:14.080 --> 2:54:16.760 Because the police turn it into this like symbolic thing, 2:54:16.879 --> 2:54:19.120 it now means more than it just just being stepped. 2:54:19.200 --> 2:54:22.039 So there was this camera guy who like kept kind 2:54:22.080 --> 2:54:24.400 of stepping up and like pushing the envelope. 2:54:24.080 --> 2:54:27.640 And eventually more activists put one foot on the steps, 2:54:27.720 --> 2:54:29.480 being like okay, if you're gonna come after us for 2:54:29.600 --> 2:54:32.959 putting a foot on the bank steps, fine, come at us, 2:54:33.080 --> 2:54:34.600 like call call the bluff. 2:54:34.720 --> 2:54:34.920 Yeah. 2:54:35.000 --> 2:54:37.080 So there was like people yelling at the CoP's face 2:54:37.160 --> 2:54:40.240 for like forty five minutes, maybe maybe longer. 2:54:40.640 --> 2:54:42.520 Time always stretches during these sorts of things. 2:54:42.680 --> 2:54:44.040 It's hard to it's hard to keep it. 2:54:44.400 --> 2:54:46.800 It's hard to keep a sense of like temporal stability, 2:54:47.320 --> 2:54:49.520 even just during during weeks of action in general, it's 2:54:49.520 --> 2:54:51.560 always hard to keep a sense of temporal stability. That's 2:54:51.640 --> 2:54:54.640 the sense of time warps around. Days blend into each other. 2:54:55.040 --> 2:54:56.600 A day feels like a week, a week feels like 2:54:56.680 --> 2:55:00.560 a day. It's it's very it gets very fuzzy, it gets. 2:55:00.560 --> 2:55:03.920 Incredibly trippy, and you're like yeah, and the exhaustion right, 2:55:04.040 --> 2:55:06.560 like just no, there's a lot of things. 2:55:06.360 --> 2:55:07.400 That feed into it. 2:55:07.760 --> 2:55:10.520 Despite about a dozen people putting their foot on the 2:55:10.640 --> 2:55:14.480 sacred steps, the police did not decide to arrest anyone 2:55:14.640 --> 2:55:18.199 at this protest, and after about an hour of disruption, 2:55:18.760 --> 2:55:22.320 the crowd departed. The week of action ended much like 2:55:22.360 --> 2:55:25.320 the last one, with the final rally being the youth 2:55:25.440 --> 2:55:29.600 march back at Brownwood Park. Lorraine just got out on 2:55:29.720 --> 2:55:32.320 bail and spoke about the jail conditions to the crowd 2:55:32.400 --> 2:55:34.600 of one hundred or so people gathered in the park 2:55:34.680 --> 2:55:36.240 on the morning of July first. 2:55:37.000 --> 2:55:40.640 And I don't want people to forget that our movement 2:55:40.760 --> 2:55:43.480 is connected with lots of other stone, one of which 2:55:43.600 --> 2:55:45.080 is prison abolition. 2:55:45.600 --> 2:55:49.480 Yeah, the idea that are. 2:55:50.120 --> 2:55:54.200 So quote criminal justice system is such that people get 2:55:54.400 --> 2:55:57.000 just shoved behind bars. We don't want to see them. 2:55:57.080 --> 2:55:58.520 We don't care what happens to them. 2:55:59.160 --> 2:56:00.240 And even if they're not. 2:56:00.560 --> 2:56:02.920 Hadn't gone to trial yet, and they're in a jail 2:56:03.400 --> 2:56:07.039 awaiting hearing or awaiting a trial, they're treated like. 2:56:07.120 --> 2:56:10.480 They're already on the people with at they're a criminal. See, 2:56:10.920 --> 2:56:13.000 we don't have to care as much about them. 2:56:13.320 --> 2:56:16.760 They're kind of the other the bad people in Lorraine 2:56:16.840 --> 2:56:19.280 said that she was in a crowded holding cell with 2:56:19.400 --> 2:56:22.720 twenty two other women and just a few metal benches, 2:56:23.040 --> 2:56:26.400 nothing else. This is where nearly two dozen people had 2:56:26.440 --> 2:56:29.320 to sleep, had to eat, use the bathroom, all in 2:56:29.440 --> 2:56:33.160 one place for days on end. Women were trying to 2:56:33.480 --> 2:56:36.360 sit or sleep on either of the hard benches or 2:56:36.440 --> 2:56:40.240 the floor. Some were attempting to use menstrul pads in 2:56:40.360 --> 2:56:43.440 place of a mattress. If they were lucky enough to 2:56:43.480 --> 2:56:46.200 be asleep, they were woken up at two am for 2:56:46.320 --> 2:56:49.560 breakfast and then again at four am for head counting. 2:56:49.879 --> 2:56:52.440 They were so full they didn't have room for the 2:56:52.520 --> 2:56:56.640 people that were arrested, so they were in this holding sale. 2:56:57.879 --> 2:56:59.320 Some of them been there three days. 2:56:59.560 --> 2:57:03.880 It was eighteen feet by six feet across. The last 2:57:03.920 --> 2:57:07.279 six feet were behind a divider. 2:57:07.360 --> 2:57:09.800 The had of toylets toys, so with. 2:57:09.920 --> 2:57:13.760 Even less room, the prison system is every day doing 2:57:13.879 --> 2:57:16.760 these kind of being union treatments to people that get 2:57:16.840 --> 2:57:18.720 arrested or not yet guilty of anything. 2:57:19.440 --> 2:57:23.480 Student organizers and parents also briefly spoke on why people 2:57:23.560 --> 2:57:25.240 are fighting against copp City. 2:57:25.840 --> 2:57:27.280 I don't want to live in a city. 2:57:27.360 --> 2:57:28.880 I don't want to live in a country in a 2:57:28.959 --> 2:57:33.120 world that prioritizes the protection of private property through murder 2:57:33.280 --> 2:57:37.640 and state violence over the fundamental building blocks of life. Okay, 2:57:38.040 --> 2:57:40.840 I think we need to be focusing on giving people 2:57:40.879 --> 2:57:44.400 places to live, giving people food to eat, water to drink, 2:57:45.200 --> 2:57:48.119 not on giving the police playgrounds where they can blow. 2:57:48.000 --> 2:57:49.360 Up bombs and shoot their guns. 2:57:50.480 --> 2:57:53.160 And that's why all of us together here need to 2:57:53.240 --> 2:57:57.440 come together, be as one here in beautiful community, with children, 2:57:57.760 --> 2:58:01.480 with elders, everything in between, doing this amazing community. 2:58:01.520 --> 2:58:02.800 Beldor I love being out here with y'all. 2:58:02.800 --> 2:58:04.760 It's so much fun to just like be working the 2:58:04.840 --> 2:58:06.040 popcorn machines and all that. 2:58:07.640 --> 2:58:09.920 And that's why we're all here together, because we know 2:58:10.040 --> 2:58:12.920 that community is the key for us to stop cop city. 2:58:13.320 --> 2:58:14.360 Stop cop city. 2:58:16.240 --> 2:58:18.240 And so as we fight to stop cop City, we 2:58:18.320 --> 2:58:20.760 are fighting for investment in the things that make families 2:58:20.800 --> 2:58:21.600 thrive in this city. 2:58:24.080 --> 2:58:25.320 We tell them's right, chickens. 2:58:25.400 --> 2:58:27.560 We tell the little police foundations, and we demand that 2:58:27.640 --> 2:58:29.200 money be reinvested. 2:58:29.600 --> 2:58:33.000 And they're housing for the people, shall care for. 2:58:33.080 --> 2:58:36.600 The people, education for the people, health care for the people. 2:58:36.840 --> 2:58:39.520 But those are the things that make our communities truly safe. 2:58:42.160 --> 2:58:43.800 And if they won't give it to us, we're gonna 2:58:43.800 --> 2:58:47.840 build those networks of care in our communities ourselves. That 2:58:48.000 --> 2:58:50.879 is what makes days like today so beautiful, the fact. 2:58:50.720 --> 2:58:52.560 That the people have the capacity to feel and feed 2:58:52.640 --> 2:58:52.959 the people. 2:58:53.360 --> 2:58:55.280 The people have the capacity to make sure that people say, 2:58:55.360 --> 2:58:57.760 hy drating, people have the capacity to give each other 2:58:57.840 --> 2:59:00.800 medical care. And as we build out those networks of care, 2:59:01.040 --> 2:59:03.279 we make the government irrelevance. 2:59:05.120 --> 2:59:07.119 You kind of tellup for the new all day long. 2:59:08.560 --> 2:59:11.440 But if we continue to build people's power, well they 2:59:11.480 --> 2:59:14.720 have to say don't even matter, So are you ready 2:59:14.720 --> 2:59:15.279 to build. 2:59:15.080 --> 2:59:15.680 That kind of world? 2:59:17.080 --> 2:59:20.200 As people got ready to depart, the energy was noticeably 2:59:20.400 --> 2:59:24.560 higher than most other events that week. All right, it 2:59:24.720 --> 2:59:28.280 is Saturday morning on July first. This is the last 2:59:28.440 --> 2:59:32.320 day of the sixth week of action of the Youth Rally. 2:59:32.480 --> 2:59:35.560 Just left Brownwood Park and is now marching through East 2:59:35.600 --> 2:59:40.440 Atlanta Village. Shortly before the Youth Rally, news started to 2:59:40.520 --> 2:59:45.320 circulate that early early that morning, just after midnight, several 2:59:45.440 --> 2:59:51.240 Atlanta police motorcycles and cop cars suffered mysterious damages, which 2:59:51.440 --> 2:59:55.119 possibly could have contributed to the more bolsterous energy among 2:59:55.280 --> 3:00:02.800 some of the radical attendees. People are driving by and 3:00:02.920 --> 3:00:06.920 honking in support. As about seventy five people, maybe one 3:00:07.000 --> 3:00:13.760 hundred are marked as about seventy five or one hundred 3:00:13.760 --> 3:00:17.800 people are marching next to Metropolitan Avenue. 3:00:19.480 --> 3:00:22.480 Take a fire truck would pull their air horn. 3:00:24.240 --> 3:00:26.080 The fire trucks were kind of busy last night. 3:00:26.200 --> 3:00:29.280 Actually, I'm not sure the fire trucks were busy doing 3:00:29.320 --> 3:00:33.000 what There's well, it seems like a lot of police 3:00:33.040 --> 3:00:35.040 motorcycles were found to be set on fire at the 3:00:35.120 --> 3:00:36.959 sight of the old Police Trading Academy. 3:00:37.120 --> 3:00:40.080 Sounded like some police suck cruisers were wrecked somewhere else 3:00:40.120 --> 3:00:40.640 in the city too. 3:00:40.760 --> 3:00:43.640 On Memorial Drive Southeast, it sounded like three cop cars 3:00:43.720 --> 3:00:44.680 were also smashed up. 3:00:44.920 --> 3:00:46.160 Is you think there's something going around? 3:00:46.280 --> 3:00:47.000 Is it contagious? 3:00:49.360 --> 3:00:52.600 So, Yeah, the fire crews were a little bit busy 3:00:52.680 --> 3:00:53.039 last night. 3:00:53.240 --> 3:00:55.560 Spontaneous vehicle vandalism. 3:00:55.879 --> 3:01:00.640 Yeah, that's certainly one way to end this week of action. 3:01:06.360 --> 3:01:09.840 This definitely feels like the most positive part of the 3:01:09.920 --> 3:01:13.640 Week of action so far. Yeah, people have been marching 3:01:13.680 --> 3:01:16.960 for about twenty minutes now. The march is now turned 3:01:17.160 --> 3:01:24.600 down Glenwood and is heading back towards Brownwood Park. No 3:01:24.840 --> 3:01:28.240 police presence at all so far. There was just complete 3:01:28.280 --> 3:01:29.960 I've not seen a single cop car in this in 3:01:30.040 --> 3:01:33.560 this section of town. There's also three less cop cars 3:01:33.640 --> 3:01:36.120 in Atlanta than there usually is, so that that might 3:01:36.200 --> 3:01:37.040 have something to do with it. 3:01:38.520 --> 3:01:41.840 It was from this zone too, that the second one 3:01:41.879 --> 3:01:44.080 where the cop cars are it was like a mile 3:01:44.080 --> 3:01:47.440 and a half away. Yeah, it's very very close, but yeah, 3:01:47.600 --> 3:01:51.640 very different than what we saw on last Saturday. Yes, 3:01:51.840 --> 3:01:54.039 where I like, even on my way in, I saw 3:01:54.120 --> 3:01:57.960 apd here every you know, twenty feet Yeah, and do 3:01:58.120 --> 3:02:03.119 not see a single no, a beauty vehicle is notable. 3:02:04.440 --> 3:02:06.920 The youth rally that closed the last week of action 3:02:07.080 --> 3:02:10.120 in March kind of felt like the end of an era. 3:02:11.240 --> 3:02:14.680 This one on July first felt very different, much more 3:02:14.760 --> 3:02:18.080 like a beginning of a new era. After a very 3:02:18.280 --> 3:02:21.320 scattered week, the movement finally started to feel like it 3:02:21.400 --> 3:02:24.800 had multiple directions to grow. This week definitely started on 3:02:25.040 --> 3:02:28.880 I would say, a muted note, and it's ended with 3:02:29.200 --> 3:02:32.000 a bit more directionality for the future and a bit 3:02:32.080 --> 3:02:32.840 more positivity. 3:02:32.879 --> 3:02:33.160 I think. 3:02:33.320 --> 3:02:35.880 I think people were able to think of ways that 3:02:36.000 --> 3:02:39.680 the movement can evolve and grow from here and recognize 3:02:39.720 --> 3:02:42.680 the necessity for that and now change and yet recognized 3:02:42.680 --> 3:02:45.440 the necessity for change, and people are ready to continue 3:02:45.840 --> 3:02:48.240 and evolve as the situation on the ground is also changing. 3:02:50.720 --> 3:02:53.600 And I mean adaptability was a part of the movement 3:02:53.760 --> 3:02:56.240 from the get go. Yes, just I think we got 3:02:56.760 --> 3:02:59.960 the movement got very tied to certain modes of operation 3:03:00.400 --> 3:03:01.879 that are not available anymore. 3:03:02.080 --> 3:03:02.280 Yep. 3:03:03.520 --> 3:03:06.840 You know, for the past like a few months, people 3:03:06.879 --> 3:03:08.880 have been it felt like people have been playing on 3:03:09.280 --> 3:03:12.560 the police's like board like they've been they've been following 3:03:12.640 --> 3:03:16.920 that and both both of the action last night and 3:03:17.320 --> 3:03:19.040 the sort of talks that are happening throughout the city. 3:03:19.400 --> 3:03:21.400 I think that is probably going to change. 3:03:22.400 --> 3:03:22.720 All right. 3:03:22.720 --> 3:03:25.160 We are about a block away from Brownwood Park on 3:03:25.400 --> 3:03:27.920 Portland Avenue and Gresham Avenue. 3:03:29.320 --> 3:03:32.080 Where there is pizza and water waiting. 3:03:33.360 --> 3:03:35.960 That is, that is I'm excited for water. I don't 3:03:35.959 --> 3:03:38.160 think I can have hot pizza right now. I think 3:03:38.240 --> 3:03:42.480 I would just faint. But cold water is certainly, certainly enticeing. 3:03:42.520 --> 3:03:48.320 Certain Yeah, and there's music back here in Brownwood. Tables 3:03:48.360 --> 3:03:52.640 set up giving out literature, giving out food, water, lots 3:03:52.680 --> 3:03:56.680 of bubbles. Earlier, earlier, at the earlier, at the rally 3:03:56.680 --> 3:03:59.400 before the march, there was a water balloon fight which 3:03:59.480 --> 3:04:00.720 was very interest. 3:04:00.879 --> 3:04:02.840 Yeah, I left it. I don't know why you've stayed around. 3:04:02.840 --> 3:04:03.440 The water moved. 3:04:04.560 --> 3:04:05.840 I took my laptop and left. 3:04:05.879 --> 3:04:07.560 There was there was there was a few very close 3:04:07.600 --> 3:04:08.119 moments there. 3:04:09.240 --> 3:04:10.520 But yeah, no, there's food. 3:04:10.760 --> 3:04:15.240 There's lots of signs, banners, what a lot of Little 3:04:15.280 --> 3:04:18.720 Caesar's pizza. There was much more energy here compared to 3:04:18.840 --> 3:04:21.280 the kickoff rally, which happened in the very same park 3:04:21.400 --> 3:04:25.760 exactly a week beforehand, which felt sort of reversed from 3:04:25.800 --> 3:04:29.040 the previous week of action this past March, which is 3:04:29.080 --> 3:04:31.440 interesting because like last week of action, you know, the 3:04:32.280 --> 3:04:34.400 kickoff rally was like the biggest thing, was the biggest 3:04:34.600 --> 3:04:37.000 energy point, and the youth rally was kind of the 3:04:37.080 --> 3:04:40.640 more like muted clothes And this has kind of been inversed. 3:04:40.959 --> 3:04:44.080 Which honestly for when you're looking at like what has 3:04:44.160 --> 3:04:47.600 happened over the last few months, maybe reading leading beating 3:04:47.680 --> 3:04:50.480 out with a high note is yeah, is the idea. 3:04:51.000 --> 3:04:53.320 I like, we're also ending with the bouncy castle, which 3:04:53.360 --> 3:04:54.359 is very very important. 3:04:54.800 --> 3:04:58.360 Yeah, for the full flip, we have to end with 3:04:58.440 --> 3:04:59.280 the bouncy castle. 3:04:59.360 --> 3:05:04.000 Yes, We've although we should move the bouncy castle to 3:05:04.680 --> 3:05:06.680 eight to ninety Memorial Drive south east. 3:05:06.480 --> 3:05:07.640 Oh my god. Stop. 3:05:11.200 --> 3:05:13.800 After the youth rally, Matt and I got some coffee 3:05:14.160 --> 3:05:17.400 in East Atlanta Village and talked about the broad strokes 3:05:17.440 --> 3:05:19.800 of the week and the general state of the movement. 3:05:20.160 --> 3:05:22.200 But like I said, I think this week started with 3:05:22.240 --> 3:05:25.720 a lot of questions being had, and it's ended with 3:05:25.879 --> 3:05:28.920 some of those questions being being answered and people figuring 3:05:28.959 --> 3:05:31.400 out that to answer some of some of those other questions, 3:05:32.160 --> 3:05:35.359 the answer will will will take the form of actions 3:05:35.400 --> 3:05:37.879 that happened in these next few months, and I feel 3:05:37.879 --> 3:05:41.200 like there's it's it's it's ended with a bit more 3:05:41.320 --> 3:05:43.960 directionality than what it began, which is interesting for a 3:05:44.000 --> 3:05:47.360 week of action. Yeah, it was needed, though it was 3:05:47.480 --> 3:05:51.360 absolutely needed. Like at like the first rally just felt 3:05:51.440 --> 3:05:54.160 so weird that for the first kickoff rally that the 3:05:54.200 --> 3:05:56.720 first day, that the first few days felt just very 3:05:57.800 --> 3:06:00.960 very like very scattered. It was unclear how what was 3:06:01.000 --> 3:06:03.400 happening was related to stop in Cop City. And in 3:06:03.520 --> 3:06:06.720 some ways, this week of Action feels like the reverse 3:06:06.879 --> 3:06:09.440 of the last week of Action, where like the last 3:06:09.440 --> 3:06:12.240 week of Action, it started with a point of directionality, 3:06:12.360 --> 3:06:14.400 like we are going to retake Kolani and they did. 3:06:14.840 --> 3:06:16.200 And then they're like, we are. 3:06:16.160 --> 3:06:18.920 Going to do an action to physically stop the construction 3:06:18.959 --> 3:06:20.760 of Cop City, and they did, Like they was doing 3:06:20.840 --> 3:06:23.520 all these things. And I think that week ended with 3:06:23.640 --> 3:06:28.560 more questions and what it started with because the police 3:06:28.720 --> 3:06:30.200 did the rate of the forest, there was a lot 3:06:30.240 --> 3:06:32.280 of there was more uncertainty by the end of the 3:06:32.320 --> 3:06:33.879 week because there was so much over policing. 3:06:33.959 --> 3:06:36.280 There was a lot of changes throughout throughout that week. 3:06:37.600 --> 3:06:39.440 And I think this week started in like an inverse 3:06:39.560 --> 3:06:42.360 is people started this week with a directionless of sense, 3:06:42.360 --> 3:06:44.920 and they had a lot of questions going into this week, 3:06:45.360 --> 3:06:48.080 and I feel like some people have started to kind 3:06:48.080 --> 3:06:51.359 of figure out how the movement will evolve. 3:06:51.080 --> 3:06:54.000 In these next few months, and it feels like people 3:06:54.360 --> 3:06:54.600 have a. 3:06:54.640 --> 3:06:56.800 Better idea of where, of like how they're going to 3:06:56.879 --> 3:07:01.200 move forward in these next three months six months, and 3:07:01.360 --> 3:07:04.320 like the month and a half when construction is slated 3:07:04.400 --> 3:07:05.480 to begin in August. 3:07:05.240 --> 3:07:07.560 Wait to begin. And you know, this referendum is looking 3:07:07.680 --> 3:07:11.680 like it's doing pretty well, so hopefully that that does delay. 3:07:11.760 --> 3:07:14.960 But yeah, of course we also ended with bouncy castle. 3:07:15.520 --> 3:07:19.800 We can't do it so acknowledging the importance of bouncy 3:07:19.840 --> 3:07:22.880 castles to this movement, or at least to Garrison, and 3:07:23.000 --> 3:07:23.480 I yes. 3:07:25.360 --> 3:07:27.360 I think the other thing that makes it interesting in 3:07:27.440 --> 3:07:30.200 terms of this week being an inverse of the last 3:07:30.240 --> 3:07:33.320 week is that, you know, on the last week, day two, 3:07:33.520 --> 3:07:38.840 there was this very fiery action with vehicles being smashed. 3:07:39.280 --> 3:07:43.000 And then on the second to last day, which is 3:07:43.120 --> 3:07:45.880 like late last night, either like late Friday night or 3:07:45.879 --> 3:07:48.959 early Saturday morning, at like one am, two am, there 3:07:49.160 --> 3:07:52.920 was three Atlanta police cars smashed by Reynoldstown. 3:07:52.920 --> 3:07:53.240 I believe. 3:07:53.360 --> 3:07:55.160 Yeah, just right, like a mile and a half away 3:07:55.200 --> 3:07:56.640 from from Brownwood Park, yep. 3:07:56.680 --> 3:08:01.040 And close to the airport at the old Police Trade Academy, 3:08:01.560 --> 3:08:04.520 there was a it looks like a good fleet of 3:08:04.560 --> 3:08:06.120 Atlanta police motorcycles. 3:08:06.240 --> 3:08:09.199 Yeah, that's where the motorcycle Like, that's where the motors 3:08:09.400 --> 3:08:10.279 the quarters. 3:08:10.360 --> 3:08:13.720 Ye is one outside and those motorcycles are going to 3:08:13.760 --> 3:08:15.840 be no longer functioning. Yes, they are all charged to 3:08:15.879 --> 3:08:19.320 a crisp with like incendiary devices found there. 3:08:19.480 --> 3:08:19.680 Yeah. 3:08:20.040 --> 3:08:22.520 One of the most noticeable differences about this week of 3:08:22.560 --> 3:08:26.640 action compared to the previous one was the turnout out 3:08:26.680 --> 3:08:29.200 of state support did not show up in similar numbers 3:08:29.240 --> 3:08:31.800 as to the last week of action in March. There's 3:08:31.800 --> 3:08:33.879 a lot of potential reasons for this. This week may 3:08:33.920 --> 3:08:37.279 have simply happened too soon, It coincided with other events 3:08:37.280 --> 3:08:40.760 across the country. Its messaging may not have reflected an 3:08:40.879 --> 3:08:45.240 adequate level of planning. There was probably some demoralization from 3:08:45.280 --> 3:08:48.520 the ninety acres of trees cut down and with Entrenchment 3:08:48.600 --> 3:08:52.600 Creek Park closed and under police occupation. Launching options in 3:08:52.640 --> 3:08:55.640 Atlanta was more of a mystery for those coming from 3:08:55.680 --> 3:08:59.000 outside the city. More time away from the death of 3:08:59.080 --> 3:09:03.280 Tortigita is probably also a factor. People in Atlanta may 3:09:03.400 --> 3:09:06.440 have to reconcile that the movement may not have as 3:09:06.560 --> 3:09:10.280 much widespread national support and all the ground numbers as 3:09:10.360 --> 3:09:11.440 it did last March. 3:09:12.080 --> 3:09:14.280 This is the smallest week of action we've had in 3:09:15.760 --> 3:09:17.280 over a year in recent memory. 3:09:17.360 --> 3:09:19.080 This is the smallest one I've reported on. 3:09:19.280 --> 3:09:21.640 Right, Yeah, you know, I think it might have even 3:09:21.680 --> 3:09:24.320 been comparable to the first week of Action, like it 3:09:24.480 --> 3:09:27.039 was around there, but it also felt more local. 3:09:27.400 --> 3:09:28.720 It did feel way more local. 3:09:29.040 --> 3:09:31.600 Once you go from like something so big as the 3:09:31.680 --> 3:09:36.280 last week of action to something more constrained, that is 3:09:37.200 --> 3:09:40.680 that sets a like a vibe shift that I think 3:09:40.920 --> 3:09:42.600 you've got to kind of come to terms with. And 3:09:43.440 --> 3:09:45.520 it's one of those moments where you're like, Okay, we 3:09:45.640 --> 3:09:47.640 are in a different paradigm. 3:09:47.840 --> 3:09:51.600 Yeah, fewer numbers is not necessarily a bad thing. A 3:09:51.680 --> 3:09:55.000 group of five to ten people can sometimes be much 3:09:55.160 --> 3:09:57.680 more effective at doing certain things than a crowd of 3:09:57.720 --> 3:10:01.000 two hundred or even a thousand. You just have to 3:10:01.080 --> 3:10:03.600 specifically prepare for the numbers that you know that you'll 3:10:03.720 --> 3:10:08.040 have for such a long time. I felt like this 3:10:08.280 --> 3:10:11.120 was this movement was extremely effective in delay and construction 3:10:11.440 --> 3:10:15.280 like that was like extremely effective. Deadline year and a half, 3:10:15.360 --> 3:10:17.880 deadlines kept getting pushed back every single thing. Like the 3:10:17.920 --> 3:10:21.520 occupation was very good at doing what it attempted to do, 3:10:23.160 --> 3:10:25.960 and at a certain point that became no longer viable 3:10:26.040 --> 3:10:29.840 and things are now changing gears. Yeah, and you have 3:10:29.959 --> 3:10:32.600 to allow yourself that evolution, Like it has to the 3:10:32.680 --> 3:10:35.800 same way people started occupying the forest in October after 3:10:36.000 --> 3:10:39.000 the city council stuff in September twenty twenty one. 3:10:39.000 --> 3:10:41.520 Like as the things changed, you have to change your 3:10:41.560 --> 3:10:42.080 tactics with it. 3:10:42.280 --> 3:10:45.520 And as I mean, as revolutionary strategy goes, that's just 3:10:45.879 --> 3:10:48.520 that should be a baseline, yea. And adapting to what 3:10:48.720 --> 3:10:51.520 the situation is and not what the situation what you 3:10:51.640 --> 3:10:52.200 want it to be. 3:10:52.600 --> 3:10:56.080 Yeah, And I think more people are talking about that 3:10:56.200 --> 3:10:59.560 this week and realizing that, like maybe even another week 3:10:59.600 --> 3:11:02.080 of Action does not make sense for this new paradigm 3:11:02.120 --> 3:11:05.320 that we're existing in Atlanta. I've talked about the possibility 3:11:05.360 --> 3:11:08.720 of changing the week of Action structure before in previous episodes, 3:11:09.360 --> 3:11:11.560 and I really only brought that up because that's what 3:11:11.640 --> 3:11:14.480 people were conveying to me at the time. And this 3:11:14.640 --> 3:11:17.360 has continued to be a topic of debate both during 3:11:17.560 --> 3:11:20.039 and since June, what do you. 3:11:20.040 --> 3:11:21.640 Do with the Week of Action format? And I know 3:11:21.800 --> 3:11:24.119 that we kind of talked about this during the last 3:11:24.400 --> 3:11:29.400 YEP recap episode where you brought up that that might 3:11:29.440 --> 3:11:32.000 have been the last Week of Action, but it wasn't. 3:11:32.080 --> 3:11:34.120 It wasn't because as I was making as episodes this 3:11:34.240 --> 3:11:38.760 Week of Action what was announced, I've heard more people 3:11:38.840 --> 3:11:41.000 say that they don't think the Week of Action format 3:11:41.080 --> 3:11:41.680 is applicable. 3:11:41.680 --> 3:11:41.880 Aim. 3:11:42.959 --> 3:11:45.440 I've heard more people say that than I did last week. 3:11:45.560 --> 3:11:48.800 What if Atlanta has kind of outgrown this format? This 3:11:48.879 --> 3:11:51.920 format's proved to be very useful in these past few years. 3:11:52.240 --> 3:11:54.360 It's been very positive parts, it's been very negative parts. 3:11:54.840 --> 3:11:56.600 And what if there's time for what if it's time 3:11:56.640 --> 3:12:00.400 for something like completely new, something that the police don't. 3:12:00.200 --> 3:12:02.040 Know how to respond to, because something that matches the 3:12:02.120 --> 3:12:02.720 new paradigm. 3:12:02.920 --> 3:12:04.640 Yeah, because that's That's the other thing is like people 3:12:04.680 --> 3:12:06.680 have been doing this for like two years now, Like 3:12:07.600 --> 3:12:10.440 not only have people gotten used to a pattern, but 3:12:10.560 --> 3:12:12.800 like police have gotten used to a pattern. Like police 3:12:12.800 --> 3:12:15.760 have gotten very good at repressing the Week of Action 3:12:16.000 --> 3:12:18.320 like they have they have had two years to practice, 3:12:18.320 --> 3:12:20.880 they have they know how to do this now? So 3:12:21.160 --> 3:12:24.520 why why keep playing on their battlefield? Like why why 3:12:24.680 --> 3:12:26.160 keep doing what APD. 3:12:25.879 --> 3:12:26.680 Is expecting you to do. 3:12:27.360 --> 3:12:30.240 That's part of what's you know, interesting about this resurgence 3:12:30.280 --> 3:12:34.000 of these nocturnal hit and run sabotages that are unannounced. 3:12:35.840 --> 3:12:37.960 That we saw the ones earlier in this week with 3:12:38.080 --> 3:12:40.440 the with the Brent scarboroughs machines, when we saw the 3:12:40.480 --> 3:12:44.040 APD vehicles get hit last night, So perhaps there there 3:12:44.040 --> 3:12:46.000 will be more of that. Perhaps they'll be just new 3:12:46.040 --> 3:12:48.440 things that we can't even predict, like there's so many 3:12:48.520 --> 3:12:52.119 other avenues that things could that things could go. Even 3:12:52.200 --> 3:12:54.600 during the use March, Matt and I were wondering if 3:12:54.680 --> 3:12:58.120 this new spike in sabotage actions would break the spell 3:12:58.240 --> 3:13:01.560 and we'd see a return this type of action happening 3:13:01.680 --> 3:13:02.440 more frequently. 3:13:03.080 --> 3:13:03.280 You know. 3:13:03.640 --> 3:13:07.360 It's the sort of direct action that has really been 3:13:07.440 --> 3:13:09.000 missing over the last several months. 3:13:09.240 --> 3:13:12.240 Yeah, and no, we've been talking about a lot this 3:13:12.320 --> 3:13:12.680 past week. 3:13:12.720 --> 3:13:15.200 We're talking about how there's been a lack of these 3:13:15.240 --> 3:13:18.760 sorts of like nocturnal hit and run direct actions, and 3:13:19.600 --> 3:13:22.480 late last night it seems like there was a resurgence. 3:13:22.640 --> 3:13:26.400 So we'll see how that continues, you know, after the 3:13:26.440 --> 3:13:29.280 Week of Action, if it continues or if it was 3:13:29.320 --> 3:13:32.200 a Week of Action inspired element. But I have a 3:13:32.280 --> 3:13:35.360 feeling we'll see some of those continue to crop up. 3:13:35.840 --> 3:13:39.440 Absolutely and this did indeed turn out to be the case. 3:13:41.120 --> 3:13:41.440 All right. 3:13:41.560 --> 3:13:43.600 I will do my best to go over a short 3:13:43.680 --> 3:13:47.240 list of the claimed attacks against contractors building cop City 3:13:47.600 --> 3:13:51.119 and corporations that fund the Atlanta Police Foundation from after 3:13:51.320 --> 3:13:54.520 this week of action. On a July first, over half 3:13:54.560 --> 3:13:57.039 a dozen Bank of America buildings in the Bay Area 3:13:57.160 --> 3:14:00.000 were vandalized and a dozen or so ATMs were smashed. 3:14:00.800 --> 3:14:04.000 In late June to early July, a group of friends 3:14:04.160 --> 3:14:09.520 visited the home of copp City architect Anthony Kenny in Norcross, Georgia, 3:14:09.959 --> 3:14:12.880 while another group paid a visit to ambush Basil Walla, 3:14:13.320 --> 3:14:16.160 a member of the boarder trustees for the Atlanta Police Foundation. 3:14:16.920 --> 3:14:20.640 People painted messages around their homes and tires were slashed. 3:14:21.640 --> 3:14:24.960 On the night of July second, Keith Johnson, the Eastern 3:14:25.040 --> 3:14:28.720 regional president for Brassfield and Gory, the contracting firm who 3:14:28.760 --> 3:14:32.000 broadly oversaw the destruction of the forest and who has 3:14:32.120 --> 3:14:36.240 decided to physically build cop City, also received a mysterious visit. 3:14:37.280 --> 3:14:40.360 Late in the night, an unknown number of people evaded 3:14:40.400 --> 3:14:44.080 security guards and spread blood red paint around his pool 3:14:44.520 --> 3:14:47.840 and left a message reading cop City will never be built. 3:14:48.160 --> 3:14:52.959 Drop the contract and you can't hide. According to an 3:14:53.040 --> 3:14:57.320 online communicate, rotten fish and dirty motor oil were left 3:14:57.440 --> 3:15:01.520 hidden somewhere on the property. Part of the communicat addressed 3:15:01.560 --> 3:15:04.920 to Keith reads, quote, we know things haven't been feeling 3:15:05.000 --> 3:15:09.360 great in the office. You're losing money. Subcontractors are upset. 3:15:09.640 --> 3:15:12.840 There are fractures everywhere in the cop City project, and 3:15:13.000 --> 3:15:16.480 all of that weight and procarity is on your fragile shoulders. 3:15:17.360 --> 3:15:19.720 Each time you think of us or see the reminders 3:15:19.800 --> 3:15:23.400 we left you, remember this is your own doing. You 3:15:23.520 --> 3:15:26.760 can make all of this stop by dropping the Copcity 3:15:26.879 --> 3:15:32.600 contract unquote. On July fourth, in lieu of fireworks, people 3:15:32.720 --> 3:15:36.160 claimed to have set two Brent Scarborough machines on fire 3:15:36.360 --> 3:15:40.320 in broad daylight due to the lack of security during daytime. 3:15:41.200 --> 3:15:44.879 Scarborough is the subcontractor who physically leveled the ninety sum 3:15:45.000 --> 3:15:49.000 acres of forest in the Wallani The same day, in Michigan, 3:15:49.400 --> 3:15:52.640 Chase Bank ATMs were sabotaged with glue and the bank 3:15:52.760 --> 3:15:56.360 was vandalized with messages of resistance. Chase Bank's head of 3:15:56.480 --> 3:15:59.480 Regional Investment Banking serves on the board of the Atlanta 3:15:59.480 --> 3:16:03.520 Police found and on July eighth, a Bank of America 3:16:03.680 --> 3:16:07.320 in Berkeley was vandalized with stopcop city slogans and three 3:16:07.520 --> 3:16:11.520 ATMs were smashed. During the start of this little wave 3:16:11.600 --> 3:16:16.480 of actions, the Mayor's office and APD were none too happy, 3:16:17.120 --> 3:16:20.800 so on July fifth, Mayor Andre Dickens and Atlanta Police 3:16:20.879 --> 3:16:24.240 Chief Darren Shecherbaum put on a press conference with the ATS, 3:16:24.480 --> 3:16:28.720 Georgia Bureau of Investigation and FBI to discuss the recent 3:16:28.879 --> 3:16:30.320 surge of direct actions. 3:16:30.959 --> 3:16:34.600 Our public safety facilities and property were the target of 3:16:34.640 --> 3:16:39.600 an extremely violent and dangerous attack on Saturday, July first, 3:16:40.080 --> 3:16:44.160 and there were several other destructive acts of extreme vandalism 3:16:44.520 --> 3:16:49.040 on public and private property property that occurred that we 3:16:49.200 --> 3:16:52.160 have reason to believe are related to the construction of 3:16:52.200 --> 3:16:56.280 the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center in Decab County. The 3:16:56.560 --> 3:17:00.800 current Atlanta Police Training Center at W one eighty south 3:17:00.879 --> 3:17:05.279 Side Industrial Parkway was set ablaze in the early morning 3:17:05.520 --> 3:17:11.680 hours of Saturday, July first. The targeted attack utilized extremely 3:17:11.840 --> 3:17:17.520 dangerous homemade incendiary devices to set a fire to the 3:17:17.560 --> 3:17:24.440 building and completely destroyed eight police motorcycle motorcycles. As shocking 3:17:24.520 --> 3:17:29.400 as this is, this was not an isolated incident of violence. 3:17:30.400 --> 3:17:33.280 This group actually took credit for these incidents and they 3:17:33.360 --> 3:17:37.720 stated it as I quote, we are vengeful wing nuts 3:17:37.920 --> 3:17:39.600 with nothing left to lose. 3:17:40.360 --> 3:17:42.440 Prior to that, about one hour prior to the event 3:17:42.520 --> 3:17:44.119 that one of the South Side industrial we had another 3:17:44.160 --> 3:17:46.400 precinct that was targeted in the city. This is our 3:17:46.440 --> 3:17:49.240 Path Force precinct Memorial Drive and the eight hundred block 3:17:49.240 --> 3:17:51.800 of Memorial. These officers control the belt line which many 3:17:51.800 --> 3:17:54.480 of you all visit frequently. At that location, we had 3:17:54.600 --> 3:17:58.280 multiple windows broken on police vehicles. We believe the intent 3:17:58.440 --> 3:18:00.840 was to set those vehicles on fires. Well, there's a 3:18:00.879 --> 3:18:03.440 burgraff and fire off of the red fuse on the 3:18:03.520 --> 3:18:05.720 ground that has been used by this group in the 3:18:05.800 --> 3:18:09.200 past to set police vehicles on fire that was dropped 3:18:09.240 --> 3:18:12.840 when a citizen observed the criminal actions progress and actually 3:18:12.879 --> 3:18:15.680 interrupted the crimes that were occurring there. So we believe 3:18:15.760 --> 3:18:18.560 that the fire attack that was planned on Memorial Drive 3:18:18.800 --> 3:18:22.400 was thwarted by an observant citizen. A short time later, 3:18:22.400 --> 3:18:24.800 about an hour, we had the fire at our facility 3:18:24.920 --> 3:18:28.200 on South Side Industrial. Our training center has housed there 3:18:28.520 --> 3:18:31.720 most recently, and then our special operations precinct is there. 3:18:32.280 --> 3:18:34.840 The intent was for all forty to be destroyed, and 3:18:34.959 --> 3:18:37.760 had all those forty vehicles caught on fire, that police 3:18:37.800 --> 3:18:40.720 facility would have been gravely damaged, if not destroyed in 3:18:40.800 --> 3:18:43.160 the fire. And we are thankful for a police officer 3:18:43.240 --> 3:18:46.680 that saw this unfolding and likely interrupted that plan for 3:18:46.760 --> 3:18:47.279 being able. 3:18:47.200 --> 3:18:48.359 To play out in its fullness. 3:18:48.680 --> 3:18:51.440 There's an indication that this was likely committed by the 3:18:51.480 --> 3:18:52.520 exact same individuals. 3:18:52.640 --> 3:18:54.119 We will let and see where the fact takets. 3:18:54.720 --> 3:18:58.440 According to Chief Sheerbaum and Mayor Dickens, the actions against 3:18:58.520 --> 3:19:01.400 Atlanta Police on July first, over the course of just 3:19:01.440 --> 3:19:07.800 a few hours, equalled over three hundred thousand dollars in Damages's. 3:19:06.640 --> 3:19:09.120 Way around thirty five thousand. And they want you outfit 3:19:09.200 --> 3:19:10.720 us a little bit more. So do that times eight? 3:19:11.040 --> 3:19:12.359 That's going to put you in the ballpark. 3:19:13.000 --> 3:19:16.440 Yeah, and that's not even including the rest of the 3:19:16.760 --> 3:19:20.400 smoke and damage and other things and the broken windows 3:19:20.520 --> 3:19:21.760 on the police car, etc. 3:19:22.720 --> 3:19:25.439 So the group that struck this weekend is a dedicated 3:19:25.480 --> 3:19:27.680 group of professional anarchists, and I know that may seem 3:19:27.680 --> 3:19:29.880 a contradiction in terms. So this is a group of 3:19:29.920 --> 3:19:32.760 individuals that don't pray, play by any rules, and we'll 3:19:32.760 --> 3:19:34.440 go to any links they need to to carry out 3:19:34.440 --> 3:19:37.120 and this is their words. We will wage a campaign 3:19:37.520 --> 3:19:39.640 of violence and destruction, and so what we saw this 3:19:39.760 --> 3:19:41.000 weekend was part of that campaign. 3:19:41.480 --> 3:19:45.120 It's always funny when police make anarchists sound very cool 3:19:45.200 --> 3:19:49.400 and scary. But Chief Shecherbam also pretty clearly explained the 3:19:49.560 --> 3:19:54.720 reasoned methodology behind the pressure campaigns targeting contractors and APF 3:19:54.879 --> 3:19:55.959 financial sponsors. 3:19:56.480 --> 3:19:59.240 We know from the postings of this group their intent 3:19:59.400 --> 3:20:02.400 to stop the Public Safety Training Center has left the 3:20:02.600 --> 3:20:06.680 democratic process of the city Council and is now moving 3:20:06.760 --> 3:20:10.680 to intimidate and force out contractors that are committed to 3:20:10.760 --> 3:20:14.000 building the public Safety Training Center. This weekend, during the 3:20:14.080 --> 3:20:19.160 week of action, three different locations private residences were targeted. 3:20:20.640 --> 3:20:23.520 Tires were flattened on a contractors home, a home of 3:20:23.600 --> 3:20:27.800 an executive for Brassalgory was significantly vanalyzed in another jurisdiction, 3:20:28.680 --> 3:20:31.160 and then we had another location where graffiti was used 3:20:31.200 --> 3:20:35.240 to intimidate. And then yesterday morning, slightly after seven o'clock 3:20:35.240 --> 3:20:38.279 in the morning. A location at four eighteen McDonough Boulevard 3:20:38.320 --> 3:20:41.720 belonging into Brent Scarborough's company, which is a key provider 3:20:41.800 --> 3:20:44.280 of work and this training centers was also targeted and 3:20:44.400 --> 3:20:47.560 attacked and equipment was set on fire at that location. 3:20:48.840 --> 3:20:52.240 These acts are of a small, determined group. These are 3:20:52.320 --> 3:20:55.320 small individuals from across the country that are using violence 3:20:55.680 --> 3:20:59.680 and fear and intimidation to stop a public safety training center. 3:21:00.000 --> 3:21:02.480 And this group cannot hide behind the dark of night 3:21:02.920 --> 3:21:04.960 or the home address and feel that they are not 3:21:05.040 --> 3:21:07.080 going to be held accountable. I have standing at this 3:21:07.160 --> 3:21:10.520 podium with me today representings from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, 3:21:11.080 --> 3:21:13.400 the ATF, and we are also partner with the Georgia 3:21:13.440 --> 3:21:17.280 Bureau of Investigation. These agencies are working together to determine 3:21:17.280 --> 3:21:20.160 where federal laws violated this weekend and ensure that the 3:21:20.360 --> 3:21:23.760 full expertise of American law enforcement is present right here 3:21:23.800 --> 3:21:26.920 in Atlanta to stop this group, stop this group across 3:21:26.920 --> 3:21:29.920 the region, stop their ability to impact the public safety 3:21:29.959 --> 3:21:32.080 network of Atlanta, and hold them accountable. 3:21:32.320 --> 3:21:36.320 Despite continued threats from law enforcement, the only arrests that 3:21:36.440 --> 3:21:39.680 have happened so far in relation to this movement are 3:21:39.760 --> 3:21:45.760 from daytime protests, forest raids, and bail fund organizers. We've 3:21:45.840 --> 3:21:49.920 yet to see anyone arrested in Atlanta for doing like 3:21:50.000 --> 3:21:53.640 a specific one of these nocturnal night sabotage actions that 3:21:53.720 --> 3:21:57.440 has not happened. Yeah, I mean, the scariest indictments everyone's 3:21:57.440 --> 3:21:59.360 expecting are going to come in these next few years, 3:21:59.400 --> 3:22:02.720 after you give the FBI two three, four years to investigate, 3:22:02.760 --> 3:22:04.560 after you interview more people who've been arrested, see if 3:22:04.600 --> 3:22:09.360 anyone stitches, see if anyone turns state's witness. But so far, 3:22:09.879 --> 3:22:13.040 it's been safer to do nocturnal sabotage actions than it 3:22:13.120 --> 3:22:17.040 has been to attend a public protest. And that is 3:22:17.040 --> 3:22:19.160 an interesting paradigm as well, is that no one's actually 3:22:19.160 --> 3:22:23.440 got arrested for lighting like cop cars and fire in 3:22:23.480 --> 3:22:26.000 the middle of the night. No one's been arrested for 3:22:26.120 --> 3:22:28.920 sabotaging equipment in the middle of the night. All of 3:22:29.000 --> 3:22:31.560 the arrests that are you know, are being tied to 3:22:31.840 --> 3:22:35.800 like violent crime, are from like daytime protests, which is 3:22:35.920 --> 3:22:39.440 an interesting factor about this movement. Direct action in the 3:22:39.560 --> 3:22:43.360 most surveiled city in America can be tricky and even 3:22:43.560 --> 3:22:46.400 just managing cell phones and Internet search data is a 3:22:46.520 --> 3:22:50.360 huge factor, but as much real security there is out 3:22:50.440 --> 3:22:53.640 in the world, the amount of security theater is arguably 3:22:53.720 --> 3:22:56.680 a stronger aspect in getting people to not go out 3:22:56.760 --> 3:23:00.480 and do direct action. The implicit threat of the opticon 3:23:00.920 --> 3:23:05.280 is often enough to stifle people's potential action, but these 3:23:05.400 --> 3:23:08.760 things are beatable. Guides for how to do it exist 3:23:08.879 --> 3:23:12.160 either at your local anarchist book fair or online as 3:23:12.200 --> 3:23:14.520 long as the computer is running tour browser and a 3:23:14.600 --> 3:23:15.600 reputable VPN. 3:23:16.480 --> 3:23:16.959 The Internet. 3:23:17.080 --> 3:23:21.480 The internet's a fun place. That's there is a lot 3:23:21.520 --> 3:23:24.600 of no blogs and sites and the zines that tell 3:23:24.600 --> 3:23:26.080 you how to do that. I don't know, I mean 3:23:26.120 --> 3:23:29.720 they people always make mistakes, people get caught, sometimes make mistakes. 3:23:29.840 --> 3:23:32.440 It's risky, and there are cameras everywhere in the city. 3:23:33.040 --> 3:23:34.960 You have to Yeah, some of them, don't worry. But 3:23:35.640 --> 3:23:38.080 it's like, do you really want to play Russian Roulette? 3:23:38.160 --> 3:23:40.200 No, That's a part of that's a part of when 3:23:40.240 --> 3:23:43.280 people like plan these nocturnal actions is like just because 3:23:43.320 --> 3:23:45.920 it's nighttime doesn't mean you're not sick getting watched or 3:23:45.920 --> 3:23:47.720 you're not Like it's there's a lot of things that 3:23:47.840 --> 3:23:50.720 go into that. There's a lot of ways to get 3:23:50.800 --> 3:23:53.800 got whether you're like buying supplies and you keep a 3:23:53.879 --> 3:23:56.800 receipt and people please find a receipt, They track back, 3:23:56.800 --> 3:23:59.120 they find security acount of you'll be purchasing things and 3:23:59.280 --> 3:24:01.000 then they're like, oh, this bottle is bought at this 3:24:01.080 --> 3:24:02.440 place because you have this receipt in your house and 3:24:02.480 --> 3:24:04.240 blah blah, bah blah blah. Like there's there's lots of 3:24:04.320 --> 3:24:07.480 ways that that stuff happens. So like I'm not going 3:24:07.560 --> 3:24:09.080 to give a guide on how to do it right now, 3:24:11.000 --> 3:24:13.440 but like this anarchists have been. 3:24:13.400 --> 3:24:14.959 Doing this for a long time. 3:24:15.320 --> 3:24:18.000 After you do that crime, you've never done that crime, 3:24:18.120 --> 3:24:20.080 Like it's it's not something that you do as a person, 3:24:20.200 --> 3:24:23.120 Like you cease to become a person, you become like. 3:24:23.560 --> 3:24:27.160 You are that action. It issued the action, and then 3:24:27.440 --> 3:24:30.760 and then you never talked about it ever again it's 3:24:30.800 --> 3:24:34.400 gone or else you end up going to prison yep, 3:24:34.720 --> 3:24:38.040 and risking like not just your safety, the safety everyone's 3:24:38.040 --> 3:24:41.360 safety just by remembering that you did it. 3:24:41.480 --> 3:24:44.720 No, you know, like these become standards and anarchist communities, 3:24:44.760 --> 3:24:47.960 like you never brag about something, you never allude to anything, 3:24:48.120 --> 3:24:50.920 like it's it's it's not it's it's not a game, 3:24:51.240 --> 3:24:54.280 like you're it's not a game, you're it is your 3:24:54.560 --> 3:24:57.280 your life and other people's lives on the line. When 3:24:57.400 --> 3:25:00.440 when when you're doing stuff like this and it's yeah, 3:25:00.480 --> 3:25:04.200 you never do it to like be cool. You never 3:25:04.320 --> 3:25:06.320 do it to brag about it like that. That's just 3:25:06.520 --> 3:25:10.600 not how this works, which is why there's like kind 3:25:10.600 --> 3:25:12.800 of a much more like kind of insular culture around 3:25:12.959 --> 3:25:17.120 some anarchists, especially anarchists to identify as like illegalists or 3:25:17.240 --> 3:25:19.959 like the types of like like green nihilists or green anarchists. 3:25:19.959 --> 3:25:23.520 That kind of pioneered the militancy of this movement, both 3:25:23.920 --> 3:25:27.200 slightly even slightly before the first city council vote and 3:25:27.200 --> 3:25:29.440 then definitely after the first city council vote where we 3:25:29.520 --> 3:25:33.039 saw a massive explosion no pun intended in the number 3:25:33.760 --> 3:25:37.240 of type of sabotages happening in the Wlani Forest. Yeah, 3:25:37.800 --> 3:25:39.840 which I think that drew a lot of anarchists do 3:25:39.920 --> 3:25:43.240 come to Atlanta because it was like, oh, they're doing a. 3:25:43.280 --> 3:25:45.160 Thing that's been the thing since the end of the 3:25:45.240 --> 3:25:45.720 Green Scare. 3:25:45.879 --> 3:25:46.080 Yeah. 3:25:46.120 --> 3:25:48.200 No, this is like the thing that I believe in 3:25:48.280 --> 3:25:50.360 that this is like this is my politics. Now there's 3:25:50.360 --> 3:25:54.120 a spot where I can do my politics and still 3:25:54.280 --> 3:25:57.400 no one's been caught for that. And I think that 3:25:57.480 --> 3:25:59.080 that was a big part of why Atlanta got so 3:25:59.200 --> 3:26:01.440 big last year, is that people have the ability to 3:26:01.600 --> 3:26:04.600 like live free in the forest and then do crazy 3:26:04.640 --> 3:26:06.800 shit at night. Like you can you live in this 3:26:07.000 --> 3:26:11.360 like autonomous zone during the day, you're able, whether you're 3:26:11.520 --> 3:26:14.960 you have housing instability, whether you just want like an 3:26:15.160 --> 3:26:20.240 escape from like horrible police state living like where in whatever, 3:26:20.280 --> 3:26:22.200 wherever the city you're in, you can go live in 3:26:22.240 --> 3:26:24.320 the Wilane Forest. You can live in a tent, you 3:26:24.360 --> 3:26:27.600 can have friends, you can defend this force during the day, 3:26:27.640 --> 3:26:29.800 and then you can do crazy, crazy shit at night. 3:26:30.120 --> 3:26:32.480 And that drew a lot of people to Atlanta, and 3:26:32.560 --> 3:26:34.360 now with the forest not being there, that that also 3:26:34.480 --> 3:26:36.240 changes that that changes the type of people who are 3:26:36.280 --> 3:26:37.880 come who are who want to come to the city 3:26:38.280 --> 3:26:40.840 because that that was a big draw for people and 3:26:40.920 --> 3:26:42.880 now that that's no longer an option, you can't really 3:26:42.879 --> 3:26:45.920 sleep in the Wilani Forest as easily anymore. Yeah, that 3:26:46.080 --> 3:26:47.880 changes the types of people who want to come to 3:26:47.959 --> 3:26:51.000 Atlanta and who are gonna like do crazy shit because 3:26:51.800 --> 3:26:54.040 that's just how and further own safety they're not here. 3:26:54.240 --> 3:26:55.279 Yeah, No, absolutely. 3:26:55.920 --> 3:26:59.039 As the referendum is hoping to stop cop City by 3:26:59.160 --> 3:27:02.440 having Atlantas voute on whether to cancel the land lease. 3:27:03.160 --> 3:27:06.280 Others in the Diverse movement have continued their efforts to 3:27:06.360 --> 3:27:09.960 pressure contractors and funders to drop out of the cop 3:27:10.080 --> 3:27:14.480 City project. This tactic has already demonstrated its ability to succeed, 3:27:14.720 --> 3:27:17.160 with Reeve's Young Construction dropping out of the project in 3:27:17.240 --> 3:27:20.760 April of twenty twenty two, and some material suppliers have 3:27:20.920 --> 3:27:24.640 since cut ties with cop City. This is something that 3:27:24.879 --> 3:27:28.720 APD Chief Darren Sheerbaum certainly seems worried about. 3:27:29.440 --> 3:27:32.200 This effort of fear was not going to succeed, and 3:27:32.440 --> 3:27:35.840 the coalition of law enforcement from the GBI to the FBI, 3:27:35.959 --> 3:27:38.520 to the ATF, Atlanta Police Department, and a slew of 3:27:38.600 --> 3:27:42.200 regional agencies is going to stop that campaign so it 3:27:42.320 --> 3:27:44.199 doesn't happen and individuals. 3:27:43.840 --> 3:27:44.800 Do not leave the project. 3:27:45.400 --> 3:27:49.440 On July second, protesters in Minnesota visited the homes of 3:27:49.640 --> 3:27:54.880 Atlas Technical Consultants employees during daylight. People marched around the 3:27:54.920 --> 3:27:59.279 neighborhoods with instruments and banners, knocked on doors, talked with neighbors, 3:27:59.600 --> 3:28:02.439 and lets a letter of demands to drop the contract 3:28:02.560 --> 3:28:06.240 and cut ties with the Atlanta Police Foundation. The project 3:28:06.320 --> 3:28:10.000 manager for Atlas Technical Consultants engaged with protesters in the 3:28:10.040 --> 3:28:14.440 street and told them that Atlas had indeed already dropped 3:28:14.480 --> 3:28:16.720 out of the project due to mounting pressure. 3:28:17.760 --> 3:28:21.680 Then we want Atlas is no longer involved. 3:28:23.640 --> 3:28:25.520 Why did they decide to get out of it? 3:28:26.920 --> 3:28:28.120 We stopped doing that. 3:28:28.520 --> 3:28:33.360 Why because you guys are fucking nightmares and you broke 3:28:33.440 --> 3:28:38.000 all our fucking windows. So I don't care what you 3:28:38.080 --> 3:28:43.960 want to say to my house and knock on my 3:28:44.080 --> 3:28:48.160 door and do this ship. My company is not involved 3:28:48.160 --> 3:28:51.160 in this, So get the fuck away from me, Okay. 3:28:51.160 --> 3:28:51.800 I'm glad. 3:28:53.080 --> 3:28:58.560 Get A few days later, Atlas and Long Engineering released 3:28:58.680 --> 3:29:01.560 an official statement saying that they would no longer be 3:29:01.720 --> 3:29:05.640 working on the cop City project. Anarchists and those on 3:29:05.720 --> 3:29:08.360 the left in general seem to have a hard time 3:29:08.600 --> 3:29:11.960 calling wins, but I'm not sure if it gets any 3:29:12.080 --> 3:29:15.320 more definitive than that audio clip in showing that this 3:29:15.560 --> 3:29:18.600 type of direct action can absolutely work in getting businesses 3:29:18.760 --> 3:29:22.640 to leave the project. In the next episode, we'll talk 3:29:22.760 --> 3:29:25.760 more about the referendum, the city's attempts to divide the 3:29:25.840 --> 3:29:28.920 movement and the growing pr battle over the fate of 3:29:29.040 --> 3:29:43.240 Cop City. See you on the other side, Welcome back 3:29:43.320 --> 3:29:46.280 to it could happen here. I'm Garrison Davis, and this 3:29:46.480 --> 3:29:49.520 is the last episode in my trilogy covering what's been 3:29:49.640 --> 3:29:54.000 happening this summer in Atlanta to stop Cop City. Last 3:29:54.040 --> 3:29:56.360 episode we covered the end of the Week of Action, 3:29:56.680 --> 3:30:00.680 the resurgence of nighttime sabotage, and at Las long Engineering 3:30:00.879 --> 3:30:05.000 dropping out of the Cop City project. A relatively new, 3:30:05.280 --> 3:30:08.040 big aspect of the movement that I've really only mentioned 3:30:08.080 --> 3:30:13.160 peripherally is the Cop City vote referendum. The goal of 3:30:13.200 --> 3:30:15.800 the referendum is to let the people of Atlanta vote 3:30:15.879 --> 3:30:19.320 on whether to repeal an ordinance authorizing the land lease 3:30:19.720 --> 3:30:22.119 of three hundred and eighty one acres of forest into 3:30:22.160 --> 3:30:24.800 Cab County that was given to the Atlanta Police Foundation 3:30:25.080 --> 3:30:27.840 in twenty twenty one to use the land for the 3:30:27.920 --> 3:30:31.560 construction of Cop City. In order to get the referendum 3:30:31.640 --> 3:30:34.360 on an upcoming ballot, the petition had to gather sixty 3:30:34.440 --> 3:30:38.959 thousand signatures in sixty days. Every signature must be from 3:30:39.120 --> 3:30:41.600 an Atlanta resident who was registered to vote in twenty 3:30:41.640 --> 3:30:44.920 twenty one, and initially those who gathered signatures had to 3:30:45.040 --> 3:30:49.160 also be Atlanta residents. Sixty thousand signatures in sixty days 3:30:49.440 --> 3:30:52.800 was a lofty goal, but volunteers around the city were 3:30:52.879 --> 3:30:56.560 being increasingly mobilized during and after the week of action. 3:30:57.640 --> 3:30:59.680 For the first few weeks of the referendum, the city 3:31:00.000 --> 3:31:03.880 stayed mostly quiet, but then on the July fifth APD 3:31:04.000 --> 3:31:07.720 press conference, Mayor Andre Dickens addressed the referendum. 3:31:08.640 --> 3:31:11.840 Man, are some of these protesters and posts of the 3:31:11.879 --> 3:31:14.320 training center have bigger collecting signatures in the hope of 3:31:14.480 --> 3:31:17.520 having a referendum putting the November boundary. What's your reaction 3:31:17.600 --> 3:31:17.760 to that? 3:31:17.840 --> 3:31:18.720 What's your comment on that? 3:31:19.360 --> 3:31:21.920 Will you allow them to do what they're doing right 3:31:21.959 --> 3:31:24.440 now and constantly have the referendum? 3:31:25.000 --> 3:31:28.440 Absolutely, the referendum process is one that's legally documented. It's 3:31:28.520 --> 3:31:31.760 in the city code, and anybody can attempt to get 3:31:31.800 --> 3:31:35.680 the petition going and get the necessary signatures. We asked 3:31:35.680 --> 3:31:38.440 that they do so with honesty and truth, collect the 3:31:38.480 --> 3:31:42.280 signatures from real people, with sharing the truth about what 3:31:42.480 --> 3:31:47.160 they are looking to do. And so I don't personally 3:31:47.200 --> 3:31:49.880 believe they're going to be successful. I believe that based 3:31:49.920 --> 3:31:52.080 on what we know about the citizens of Atlanta. They 3:31:52.080 --> 3:31:54.400 are a supportive of the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center. 3:31:54.640 --> 3:31:57.000 We know that this is going to be unsuccessful if 3:31:57.080 --> 3:32:01.440 it's done honestly, and so we're making sure that we 3:32:01.560 --> 3:32:02.920 continue to monitor the process. 3:32:03.320 --> 3:32:07.280 This statement by the Democrat mayor of Atlanta, I don't 3:32:07.320 --> 3:32:11.040 think has been highlighted enough. The mayor is trying to 3:32:11.160 --> 3:32:16.440 frame a successful referendum as a fraudulent one. Dickens is 3:32:16.520 --> 3:32:20.360 priming propaganda channels and testing the waters for blatant election 3:32:20.520 --> 3:32:24.480 fraud style messaging in the future by very clearly insinuating 3:32:24.560 --> 3:32:27.480 that if you win this, that means you're cheating. 3:32:27.920 --> 3:32:31.000 The referendum kept popping up like throughout the Week of 3:32:31.080 --> 3:32:33.520 Action without it was ling up space. 3:32:33.600 --> 3:32:34.959 It was never it was never, never the focus. 3:32:35.080 --> 3:32:36.560 It was always just like on the sideline. 3:32:36.640 --> 3:32:39.320 Yeah, but it was everywhere, Like every I think every 3:32:39.400 --> 3:32:41.840 event the referendum was in some way, shape or form. 3:32:42.200 --> 3:32:46.120 You know, they're like the Home Depot rally and people 3:32:46.160 --> 3:32:49.480 walking by they were talking about the referendum and talking 3:32:49.520 --> 3:32:51.200 about the Week of Action collecting signatures. 3:32:51.480 --> 3:32:53.039 It did not feel like it was taking space away 3:32:53.040 --> 3:32:56.680 from any of the other aspects of the movement. I'm 3:32:56.680 --> 3:32:58.880 trying to I think some people were definitely worried about that, 3:32:58.959 --> 3:33:01.600 Like people worried that the referendum might act as like 3:33:01.640 --> 3:33:05.320 a release sylve for both the movement and like the 3:33:05.360 --> 3:33:06.880 people who are like out of the movement and still 3:33:06.920 --> 3:33:08.840 like looking at cop City being like, how can you 3:33:08.879 --> 3:33:09.680 get involved. 3:33:09.360 --> 3:33:09.720 In this thing? 3:33:09.800 --> 3:33:12.880 And you see this like very like above for electoral 3:33:12.959 --> 3:33:15.520 strategy of planning stuff like what if people's efforts just 3:33:15.560 --> 3:33:17.800 get funneled into that and they missed that on the 3:33:17.879 --> 3:33:19.840 other much more expansive aspects. 3:33:19.480 --> 3:33:19.959 Of the movement. 3:33:20.520 --> 3:33:23.760 One of the few more referendum focused events during the 3:33:23.800 --> 3:33:27.480 Week of Action was a community town hall discussion put 3:33:27.520 --> 3:33:30.480 on by the Hip Hop Caucus at the Gathering Spot 3:33:30.959 --> 3:33:35.760 on the evening of Friday, June thirtieth. Before the panel discussion, 3:33:36.040 --> 3:33:39.880 myself and Matt from the Atlantic Community Press Collective talked 3:33:39.920 --> 3:33:42.160 with two members of the Hip Hop Caucus about the 3:33:42.240 --> 3:33:46.840 event and their hopes for the referendum. This is Brandy Williams, 3:33:47.160 --> 3:33:48.879 an organizer with the Hip Hop Caucus. 3:33:49.400 --> 3:33:52.080 So the Hip Hop Coccus is a national nonpart is 3:33:52.120 --> 3:33:55.879 a nonprofit organization that uses hip hop culture to connect 3:33:56.000 --> 3:33:59.640 people to the civic and political process and essentially we 3:33:59.720 --> 3:34:02.080 do that in four areas. We do that with I 3:34:02.120 --> 3:34:05.800 think one hundred percent climbate and environmental justice work. We 3:34:05.959 --> 3:34:09.520 were founded as a voting and democracy organization out of 3:34:09.560 --> 3:34:12.640 the Voter Die movement, so we still do that work 3:34:12.720 --> 3:34:15.640 under our respect My Vote platform. We also have our 3:34:15.680 --> 3:34:18.760 Good Trouble civil and human rights work. It's our multi 3:34:18.840 --> 3:34:21.440 isssue platform and we look at it as the justice 3:34:21.440 --> 3:34:23.840 department for hip hop, so we do it. We work 3:34:23.879 --> 3:34:28.280 on everything from police reform to education and healthcare, and 3:34:28.400 --> 3:34:30.640 then our Justice Paid in Full, which is our economic 3:34:30.840 --> 3:34:35.280 justice platform, So how do we achieve economic justice. We 3:34:35.600 --> 3:34:39.480 actually started our activation like on the groundwork in LA 3:34:39.600 --> 3:34:42.360 last week during bet weekend, so we did a similar 3:34:42.440 --> 3:34:45.160 event in LA. We're doing this one here and we're 3:34:45.200 --> 3:34:48.200 planning to be here in Atlanta and through the referendum 3:34:48.320 --> 3:34:49.400 and through the election. 3:34:50.120 --> 3:34:53.280 We also talked with Theondajaha Lone Wolf and Atlanta resident 3:34:53.600 --> 3:34:57.000 and national community organizer. Recently she had been working de 3:34:57.080 --> 3:34:59.760 spread awareness across the country about what's been going on 3:35:00.040 --> 3:35:00.640 in Atlanta. 3:35:01.200 --> 3:35:05.279 Myself, hip Hop Quark is movement for Black Lives until Freedom, 3:35:06.200 --> 3:35:09.119 community movement builders. We all came up with this idea 3:35:09.280 --> 3:35:14.760 to to create this photo shoot campaign similar to voter 3:35:15.000 --> 3:35:17.560 Die or in anything, you know, with these where you 3:35:17.680 --> 3:35:19.800 have a nice shirt or a sticker and you're taking 3:35:20.240 --> 3:35:23.440 and just being there in solidarity. So we s did 3:35:23.480 --> 3:35:27.320 it during La BT Awards weekend last weekend. We had 3:35:27.360 --> 3:35:29.720 a nice turnout of folks that came. I was in 3:35:29.879 --> 3:35:32.200 LA for the Hollywood Climate Summit. I spoke on the 3:35:32.280 --> 3:35:34.640 panel with Jane Fonda, so there was a lot of 3:35:34.720 --> 3:35:37.120 people from Hollywood that came and said, oh my god, 3:35:37.200 --> 3:35:40.600 that's what's happening in in Georgia. We have to be 3:35:40.840 --> 3:35:44.360 if we cannot sign for on the referendum, but we 3:35:44.480 --> 3:35:47.720 w we stand with you all because what we are 3:35:47.879 --> 3:35:51.280 also educating people at is that if Cop City is built, 3:35:51.959 --> 3:35:56.560 they already having contracts with police nationally to come here. 3:35:56.879 --> 3:36:00.600 This would be the largest farm police training facility in 3:36:00.680 --> 3:36:06.000 the United States. I went to Universal Studios, Hollywood, Universal Studios. 3:36:06.200 --> 3:36:11.600 Roller Coaster's huge, just nice. It's four hundred acres. That's 3:36:12.000 --> 3:36:15.840 fifty acres less will be Cop City then, you know, 3:36:16.000 --> 3:36:20.840 and I'm like, that's an amusement park of nothing but real, 3:36:21.600 --> 3:36:26.600 real gunfire, real bombs, real real everything. It's not gonna 3:36:26.600 --> 3:36:29.680 be fake. It's not amusement park in that way, but 3:36:30.080 --> 3:36:31.560 this is their call of duty. 3:36:31.360 --> 3:36:33.520 In real life, and it's in the middle of a 3:36:33.560 --> 3:36:34.560 residential neighborhood. 3:36:34.600 --> 3:36:37.680 They're not here to protect and serve. They're here to 3:36:37.959 --> 3:36:40.680 shoot to kill. And so police from all across this 3:36:40.840 --> 3:36:44.359 nation will be coming here to Georgia for this militarized 3:36:44.400 --> 3:36:49.080 police training and that's a problem for me. And the 3:36:49.240 --> 3:36:52.560 turnout in California showed that that's a problem for them too. 3:36:53.080 --> 3:36:54.920 So we had a lot of people that came for that, 3:36:55.080 --> 3:36:57.320 and today we're doing the same thing and we're having 3:36:57.360 --> 3:37:00.680 a community town hall discussion because I think there's a 3:37:00.680 --> 3:37:04.080 lot of people that don't understand why is cop city 3:37:04.480 --> 3:37:07.840 because the mayor. I want to meet the mayor's publicists 3:37:08.320 --> 3:37:11.440 because the way that this whole thing has been spinned 3:37:11.959 --> 3:37:14.080 on his side that no, it would be great for 3:37:14.200 --> 3:37:18.360 the EMT and the firefighters, and and they're pushing EMT 3:37:18.520 --> 3:37:21.959 firefighters more than the police part, but the police part 3:37:22.080 --> 3:37:24.880 is a huge part. I think these type of conversations 3:37:24.959 --> 3:37:26.880 need to be talked about, and so that's what this 3:37:27.000 --> 3:37:29.560 community town hall is all about as well. For those 3:37:29.640 --> 3:37:32.800 that are kind of wavering neutral, maybe don't know, maybe 3:37:32.840 --> 3:37:35.080 they know it a lot, you know, because the number 3:37:35.080 --> 3:37:37.000 one thing that we've been seeing, like I was on 3:37:37.120 --> 3:37:39.640 V one oh three yesterday on the radio station, and 3:37:40.840 --> 3:37:43.400 I also have been doing a couple of other media 3:37:43.520 --> 3:37:46.560 and call ins, and a lot of people don't understand, 3:37:47.480 --> 3:37:50.039 like they a lot of people don't understand, like why 3:37:50.200 --> 3:37:52.600 is this a bad thing? You know, you can move 3:37:52.640 --> 3:37:56.000 it somewhere else, they say. But even if it's moved 3:37:56.040 --> 3:37:58.960 somewhere else, I'm still gonna fight against cop city, you know, 3:37:59.320 --> 3:38:02.640 just because I have this hits home for me too. 3:38:02.720 --> 3:38:04.840 Many of my friends and family have been murdered by 3:38:04.879 --> 3:38:10.400 the hands of radical power hungry, gun happy, trigger happy 3:38:10.560 --> 3:38:13.680 police officers. And I feel that there is and then 3:38:13.720 --> 3:38:18.320 also another thing too, there is answers, you know, in 3:38:18.480 --> 3:38:22.640 regards to we don't need more police, we need resources. 3:38:22.879 --> 3:38:27.040 They shut down our hospital, they shut down the shelters. 3:38:27.200 --> 3:38:29.920 It's not like they don't know, right, Like we tell them, 3:38:30.560 --> 3:38:34.560 we need more jobs, not just any job, good quality jobs. 3:38:34.680 --> 3:38:38.200 We need pristine health care, not just affordable healthcare. And 3:38:38.280 --> 3:38:43.040 then most importantly, it just are unsheltered friends to see 3:38:43.080 --> 3:38:47.920 that they put bulldozers. They this administration, this city continues 3:38:48.040 --> 3:38:54.520 to ignore, ignore, the people. We have the hugest, the 3:38:54.640 --> 3:38:58.680 biggest wealth gap in the nation. They and they call 3:38:58.800 --> 3:39:03.400 it Wakanda, the blackest city. But if this is how 3:39:03.480 --> 3:39:08.080 you treat us, our people, our people need resources. That's 3:39:08.160 --> 3:39:10.920 where this sixty seven million dollars should be going. It 3:39:10.959 --> 3:39:14.120 should not be going towards a more police. We don't 3:39:14.160 --> 3:39:16.720 need more police because when you go to Cobb County, 3:39:17.480 --> 3:39:20.280 when you go over to Alpharetta, they don't have a 3:39:20.320 --> 3:39:23.080 lot of police. They don't have a lot of Why 3:39:23.120 --> 3:39:25.520 would they mean a lot of police because they already 3:39:25.600 --> 3:39:26.599 got the resources. 3:39:27.240 --> 3:39:30.200 On top of the community town hall discussion, there were 3:39:30.280 --> 3:39:31.960 a few other things to do at the event that 3:39:32.040 --> 3:39:33.199 Euanajaha talked about. 3:39:33.600 --> 3:39:36.840 Stop cop City photo campaign, So everyone you come and 3:39:36.920 --> 3:39:40.360 take your photo and just showing that you stand in solidarity, 3:39:40.520 --> 3:39:43.199 and then most importantly is to get some signatures as. 3:39:43.120 --> 3:39:47.480 Well throughout the referendum process. It's been interesting how many people, 3:39:47.680 --> 3:39:51.240 even in Atlanta are just now learning about cop City. 3:39:52.440 --> 3:39:53.920 When did you first hear about cop City? 3:39:55.480 --> 3:40:02.000 Honestly earlier this year, And and like a lot of 3:40:02.080 --> 3:40:06.960 the people that I am talking to now, I was 3:40:07.080 --> 3:40:12.760 also kind of confused about the issue. I wasn't really 3:40:13.040 --> 3:40:17.960 sure why you know, they were so opposed until I 3:40:18.040 --> 3:40:21.680 started learning a little more about what actually was going 3:40:21.760 --> 3:40:26.160 to happen at this training facility. So, the idea of 3:40:26.320 --> 3:40:30.360 building a mini city with the helicopter landing pad with 3:40:30.680 --> 3:40:35.240 a shooting range or a firing range military grade in 3:40:35.600 --> 3:40:38.400 a community. So this is not on the outskirts. This 3:40:38.560 --> 3:40:41.360 is in a community and in a community of color, 3:40:41.760 --> 3:40:44.760 and you're bringing police from around the country in to 3:40:45.040 --> 3:40:50.480 learn military tactics, tactics that we use in foreign countries 3:40:50.560 --> 3:40:55.200 to protect citizens. We should not be thinking about our citizens, 3:40:55.280 --> 3:41:00.320 our residents as people who need to be protect did 3:41:00.959 --> 3:41:03.600 from them sales, if I'm making sense, you know what 3:41:03.640 --> 3:41:03.920 I mean. 3:41:04.040 --> 3:41:07.160 So it's sort of like enemy combatants in your own 3:41:07.520 --> 3:41:08.000 and you're. 3:41:07.879 --> 3:41:11.640 All backyard, but you're training them up in a black community. 3:41:11.720 --> 3:41:14.600 So I can only imagine that some of that many 3:41:14.640 --> 3:41:17.400 cities going to spill over into the communities. Then you're 3:41:17.440 --> 3:41:20.960 bringing police officers from around the country here, so they're 3:41:21.040 --> 3:41:21.920 taking that back. 3:41:22.640 --> 3:41:25.879 The specific community where the Atlanta Police Foundation is trying 3:41:25.879 --> 3:41:29.000 to build cop City has already been traumatized by the 3:41:29.080 --> 3:41:30.160 violence of the state. 3:41:30.040 --> 3:41:31.280 For hundreds of years. 3:41:31.360 --> 3:41:31.480 Now. 3:41:32.440 --> 3:41:37.000 This whole area was violently stolen from Muskogee Creek. Then 3:41:37.160 --> 3:41:39.880 it became a slave plantation, and then part of it 3:41:40.000 --> 3:41:42.000 was sold to the city of Atlanta, and then it 3:41:42.040 --> 3:41:45.600 became a prison farm. Since then, the land has been 3:41:45.640 --> 3:41:50.040 home to two landfills and three detention facilities. This is 3:41:50.120 --> 3:41:53.039 the history of just this neighborhood for the last few 3:41:53.160 --> 3:41:56.720 hundred years. Now the car sort of violence inflicted on 3:41:56.800 --> 3:42:00.040 this land is attempting to be exported as police the 3:42:00.040 --> 3:42:02.920 Beast will soon come from around the country and even 3:42:02.959 --> 3:42:05.320 the world to train at copp City. 3:42:05.800 --> 3:42:07.720 No one wants it in their community, but you're going 3:42:07.760 --> 3:42:12.040 to continue to burden this particular community with the same 3:42:12.200 --> 3:42:15.680 thing over and over and over again. The people of 3:42:15.800 --> 3:42:19.560 that community for generations have experienced all kinds of harm 3:42:20.200 --> 3:42:23.920 at the hands of the people that they supposedly are 3:42:24.120 --> 3:42:27.879 electing to represent and protect them from these types of things, 3:42:28.120 --> 3:42:30.360 and they're actually the ones doing it to them. You 3:42:30.480 --> 3:42:33.840 were elected by people to represent them, and they've told 3:42:33.920 --> 3:42:36.120 you for two years, we don't want this, and you 3:42:36.280 --> 3:42:37.400 are ignoring their voice. 3:42:38.160 --> 3:42:41.039 On the day of the Hip Hopcoccus panel and their 3:42:41.160 --> 3:42:44.720 quality alert was issued due to incoming smoke from wildfires 3:42:44.840 --> 3:42:48.800 up north in Atlanta. The AQI reached one hundred and 3:42:48.920 --> 3:42:50.520 fifty the ocean. 3:42:50.680 --> 3:42:54.200 These fish, these birds, they're screaming at us right now. 3:42:54.800 --> 3:42:57.880 What we are doing to Mother Earth right now is 3:42:58.120 --> 3:43:03.560 we are from cutting down the trees, fossil fuels, everything, 3:43:04.360 --> 3:43:07.360 this is, this is, and especially this being the lungs 3:43:07.879 --> 3:43:11.680 of Atlanta today, I'm wearing my mask because on my 3:43:11.840 --> 3:43:15.440 weather advisory it said it said the air quality is 3:43:15.560 --> 3:43:20.480 not good today for sensitive people. And that is just 3:43:20.840 --> 3:43:25.360 with the trees, and they keep on cutting down these trees. 3:43:25.720 --> 3:43:28.200 I moved here because of the trees. I'm from Arizona, 3:43:28.320 --> 3:43:31.240 so I needed trees. That was nothing but desert. But 3:43:31.320 --> 3:43:34.119 I moved here because of these trees, because I love 3:43:34.240 --> 3:43:37.320 the life force that trees give us. Even when we 3:43:37.400 --> 3:43:41.240 see a tree, the earth is talking back to us, saying, 3:43:41.680 --> 3:43:46.680 stop doing what you're doing. The dolphins, the orcas, the wells, 3:43:46.800 --> 3:43:50.760 they're all migrant. They're like, you're the ocean is hot 3:43:50.920 --> 3:43:54.920 right now, so they are they're yelling at us. And 3:43:54.959 --> 3:43:59.320 when not listening. And as a native in my native way, 3:44:00.000 --> 3:44:03.200 our elders, our chiefs have said that we plan for 3:44:03.360 --> 3:44:06.959 seven generations from now. I am a mother of two 3:44:07.080 --> 3:44:11.680 sons and what this administration is doing and what these 3:44:11.720 --> 3:44:15.240 corporations are doing. They're not looking at seven generations from now. 3:44:15.720 --> 3:44:17.920 They're not looking at how this is going to affect 3:44:18.040 --> 3:44:20.920 us on the long run. And I love the fact 3:44:21.000 --> 3:44:24.720 of everyone that is standing firm and saying stop cop 3:44:24.840 --> 3:44:28.120 City because we see the vision. We know what this 3:44:28.720 --> 3:44:31.040 Uchi Marka, this mother Earth is going to look like 3:44:31.640 --> 3:44:34.840 seven generations from now. And we're fighting to our death 3:44:35.600 --> 3:44:37.959 because of the fact that we want to make sure 3:44:38.360 --> 3:44:42.240 that our children's children's children's children could still live here 3:44:42.600 --> 3:44:45.879 and be in a peaceful, safe place and environment to live. 3:44:46.800 --> 3:44:50.840 Since being elected as the Progressive candidate in twenty twenty one, 3:44:51.440 --> 3:44:55.320 there's been an ever growing animosity towards Mayor Dickens from 3:44:55.440 --> 3:45:00.160 all of his unfulfilled promises. When talking with Nashaha, she 3:45:00.400 --> 3:45:03.840 expressed that she felt disappointed that herself and this big 3:45:04.080 --> 3:45:08.480 block of people helped Andre get elected and now Mayor 3:45:08.600 --> 3:45:12.160 Dickens is fully committed to the cop City project and 3:45:12.480 --> 3:45:14.960 is even having conversations with other black leaders in the 3:45:15.040 --> 3:45:17.680 city to bring them on board and prevent them from 3:45:17.720 --> 3:45:18.959 opposing Cop City. 3:45:19.520 --> 3:45:23.080 The mayor is in his position because of the blood, 3:45:23.520 --> 3:45:27.120 sweat and tears and arrest and beat ups that we 3:45:27.360 --> 3:45:31.840 got during freedom summer twenty twenty. He used the social 3:45:32.200 --> 3:45:36.840 justice the civil rights organizations and activists and voices to 3:45:36.959 --> 3:45:39.360 get him in the position that he used them and say, 3:45:39.480 --> 3:45:41.879 y'all help me. I'm going to be there for you all, 3:45:42.800 --> 3:45:45.840 And it's all a slap in the face. So I 3:45:45.920 --> 3:45:50.560 don't like hypocrisy. And I see hypocrites all throughout this 3:45:51.040 --> 3:45:55.200 and on this administration side, from the governor all the 3:45:55.240 --> 3:45:58.600 way down, even when we try to help our unsheltered friends. 3:45:59.160 --> 3:46:02.960 In December, when it was so cold out here, I 3:46:03.080 --> 3:46:05.920 went on social media. I raised five thousand dollars in 3:46:06.000 --> 3:46:09.480 two hours. I went and went, Me and my friends 3:46:09.600 --> 3:46:15.480 went and got them all tents, tents, sleeping bags, everything. 3:46:16.320 --> 3:46:19.480 The mayor called my comrade. Mayor Andre called my comrade 3:46:19.520 --> 3:46:21.480 and was all like, why are you saying that they 3:46:21.560 --> 3:46:24.280 don't have no heating stations? And I set up a 3:46:24.360 --> 3:46:27.960 heating station. Not everyone wants to go there, because so 3:46:28.280 --> 3:46:32.200 is there. Where is your mental health services? Where's the 3:46:32.320 --> 3:46:35.840 transitioning team that you should have on the ground to 3:46:36.000 --> 3:46:40.480 help transition them. Don't just open up a temporary heating shelter. 3:46:40.959 --> 3:46:43.160 Where's the transition team to go and talk to the 3:46:43.200 --> 3:46:45.680 people of saying, hey, let me walk you in to 3:46:45.800 --> 3:46:48.200 go get heated. There was none of that. You're just 3:46:48.320 --> 3:46:50.680 expecting people to just go in there or they knew. 3:46:50.480 --> 3:46:51.080 Where it was at. 3:46:51.320 --> 3:46:53.800 So we went to the cab. We went to the 3:46:53.879 --> 3:46:56.760 cab and we also went down to Atlanta. We gave 3:46:56.800 --> 3:46:59.800 them tents. The police went down there. The Atlanta PD 3:47:00.320 --> 3:47:03.040 went down there and put holes all in their tents. 3:47:03.400 --> 3:47:07.080 They slight, They used a knife and put and slice 3:47:07.120 --> 3:47:09.360 their tents open so it wouldn't they couldn't even stay 3:47:09.400 --> 3:47:14.320 in it. Yes, yes, while it was still below freezing. 3:47:15.760 --> 3:47:20.760 This is all under the administration of Mayor Andre. So no, 3:47:20.879 --> 3:47:22.840 we can't trust We can't trust them. 3:47:22.920 --> 3:47:25.000 Do you feel betrayed by Andre? Yes? 3:47:25.000 --> 3:47:28.280 Because I voted for him. I voted for him. I 3:47:28.440 --> 3:47:30.520 voted for him because I think I voted for him 3:47:30.680 --> 3:47:35.000 like every other person voted for vote for someone. Is 3:47:35.080 --> 3:47:41.000 that their charismatic They talk an amazing game, and on 3:47:41.160 --> 3:47:45.000 top of it, my friends that were close with him 3:47:45.080 --> 3:47:48.640 vote for him. My friends in the movement after this, 3:47:49.520 --> 3:47:53.480 people that I look up to from as mentorship, they said, man, Andre, 3:47:53.959 --> 3:47:57.040 he's gonna he's gonna have fund a lot of the 3:47:57.120 --> 3:47:58.000 things that we're doing. 3:47:58.400 --> 3:48:01.800 Leonaja Haw spoke about how many Dickens works to build 3:48:01.959 --> 3:48:06.080 mutually beneficial relationships between the city and non governmental quote 3:48:06.160 --> 3:48:11.520 unquote progressive organizations. So while some NGOs have received money 3:48:11.600 --> 3:48:14.680 from the city, now many of these big quote unquote 3:48:14.720 --> 3:48:18.920 civil rights orgs are scared of jeopardizing potential funding and 3:48:19.040 --> 3:48:22.720 are now currently refusing to speak out against cop City. 3:48:23.080 --> 3:48:24.760 Yeah. When I talked so, the same people that have 3:48:24.879 --> 3:48:28.640 spoken to Andre are the same people. I'm like, why 3:48:28.680 --> 3:48:34.120 don't you involved, you know, and they're just like, I 3:48:34.200 --> 3:48:36.959 think it's going to be built, and at least I'm 3:48:36.959 --> 3:48:39.000 at the table. A lot of them think that way. 3:48:39.120 --> 3:48:40.920 They was like, I was there at the beginning fighting, 3:48:41.240 --> 3:48:43.360 I had to sit down with the mayor. I believe 3:48:43.400 --> 3:48:44.800 this is going to be built. So since this is 3:48:44.840 --> 3:48:46.800 going to be built, let me figure out at least 3:48:46.840 --> 3:48:49.920 I'm at the table in the community and there's community engagement. 3:48:49.920 --> 3:48:53.199 At least there's some type of ridging happening. That's their angle. 3:48:53.800 --> 3:48:57.840 Anyone that said Black Lives Matter was on the front 3:48:57.879 --> 3:49:01.400 line with us in twenty twenty, that that was horrified 3:49:01.920 --> 3:49:05.400 by the videos that they saw this we are at 3:49:05.520 --> 3:49:11.320 prime time. This is the epicenter of police terrorism being built. 3:49:12.760 --> 3:49:15.760 This is it, this is this is it. 3:49:16.280 --> 3:49:17.680 This is not each individual. 3:49:17.800 --> 3:49:21.200 We're trying to prevent more families, because if they build this, 3:49:21.400 --> 3:49:24.480 it's gonna be a lot more families that's gonna be 3:49:24.560 --> 3:49:28.360 crying and saying, they killed my baby. So we're out 3:49:28.440 --> 3:49:32.000 the epicenter of a cop city and you are silent. 3:49:33.160 --> 3:49:37.400 You're silent, But you was there for these families. You 3:49:37.600 --> 3:49:41.320 was there posting black lives matter. You was there saying 3:49:41.400 --> 3:49:46.080 stop police terrorism. But they're building a they're building a 3:49:46.280 --> 3:49:51.120 terrorist headquarters, and you don't have nothing to say. You're 3:49:51.160 --> 3:49:55.400 a hypocrite. You're a hypocrite, period, point blank. 3:49:55.880 --> 3:49:59.440 Brandy also talked about the hypocrisy of pushing forward cop 3:49:59.520 --> 3:50:02.880 city after the George Floyd uprising in twenty twenty. 3:50:03.400 --> 3:50:06.840 You know, three years ago, just in May, all these 3:50:06.920 --> 3:50:09.520 companies were sending out these emails saying that black lives matter. 3:50:09.600 --> 3:50:12.840 After George Floyd. They were pouring money into the community 3:50:12.960 --> 3:50:15.600 to show their support for black lives. But some of 3:50:15.680 --> 3:50:23.120 those same communities Home Depot, Coca Cola, Delta Airlines, waffle House. 3:50:23.240 --> 3:50:26.760 You guys, are I'm sure sent those emails out, and 3:50:26.840 --> 3:50:30.000 now you're putting money into something that does not respect 3:50:30.080 --> 3:50:33.400 black lives. So I think there's just this huge contradiction 3:50:34.240 --> 3:50:38.320 in who these companies say they are how they're showing up. 3:50:38.880 --> 3:50:42.600 Part of the growing propaganda battle over cop City is 3:50:42.640 --> 3:50:45.800 an attempt to frame this state of the arched militarized 3:50:45.840 --> 3:50:49.960 police training facility as a quote unquote public safety training center, 3:50:50.480 --> 3:50:54.200 embodying the call for police reform that liberals protested for 3:50:54.400 --> 3:50:58.240 in twenty twenty. Not only does this erase the abolitionist 3:50:58.360 --> 3:51:01.880 core of the twenty twenty uprising, but it also obfuscates 3:51:01.960 --> 3:51:05.040 the fact that cop City is indeed a direct response 3:51:05.120 --> 3:51:07.880 to twenty twenty, not in terms of police reform, but 3:51:08.400 --> 3:51:11.320 in the aftermath of the neoliberal police state being under 3:51:11.480 --> 3:51:15.760 genuine threat. Corporate America and police have made this pact 3:51:15.920 --> 3:51:20.480 to maintain each other's legitimacy, as one cannot survive without 3:51:20.520 --> 3:51:24.520 the other. Cop City is to ensure that what happened 3:51:24.520 --> 3:51:29.360 in twenty twenty will never happen again. After the clear 3:51:29.440 --> 3:51:33.080 cutting of around eighty acres in the Wallani Forest, there's 3:51:33.160 --> 3:51:35.600 been more of a focus on the stop Coop City 3:51:35.640 --> 3:51:39.360 wing of the movement than defend the forest. Sure, there 3:51:39.400 --> 3:51:42.360 are still three hundred acres to defend and eighty acres 3:51:42.400 --> 3:51:45.960 to restore, but as construction is getting more imminent, the 3:51:46.040 --> 3:51:50.120 specific cop city focus has taken center stage in messaging. 3:51:50.560 --> 3:51:54.520 When it was initially talked about, it was all about 3:51:54.520 --> 3:51:59.880 the environment. They're tearing down the forest and as marginalized 3:52:00.120 --> 3:52:04.600 poor people. If I am hearing that, I'm not seeing 3:52:04.680 --> 3:52:06.800 it as important. I'm trying to figure ou how much 3:52:06.800 --> 3:52:09.560 pay my rent, how muchy my kids, how I'm i 3:52:09.680 --> 3:52:11.680 pay my bills, how I'm getting to and from work, 3:52:12.760 --> 3:52:16.960 and so those things I think made it difficult to 3:52:17.160 --> 3:52:21.160 break into the households of people who really need to 3:52:21.200 --> 3:52:23.640 be paying attention. And I would dare to say even 3:52:23.680 --> 3:52:25.680 the people in the community. I watched some of the 3:52:25.760 --> 3:52:29.400 testimony from the city council meeting several weeks ago. 3:52:29.600 --> 3:52:29.920 In the. 3:52:32.080 --> 3:52:36.080 State representative that spoke first talked about how the church 3:52:36.320 --> 3:52:40.280 right next door to the facility didn't even know what 3:52:40.600 --> 3:52:44.000 was happening next door to them. So for the City 3:52:44.040 --> 3:52:46.840 of Atlanta to say, oh, we've done outreach people in 3:52:46.880 --> 3:52:49.920 the community, No, that's not true, right. But part of 3:52:50.000 --> 3:52:54.000 that is the way that the narrative has started, and 3:52:54.120 --> 3:52:56.080 I think they were like, Okay, that ain't got nothing 3:52:56.080 --> 3:52:58.200 to do with me. And then also the fact that 3:52:58.520 --> 3:53:01.640 the faces that they saw on t it was they're 3:53:01.640 --> 3:53:04.920 thinking this is a white lead, white organization, white problem. 3:53:04.960 --> 3:53:07.480 It's not our problem. So they haven't engaged. So I 3:53:07.520 --> 3:53:09.760 think those are all things that we have to consider 3:53:10.560 --> 3:53:12.640 that and let people know this is a diverse problem. 3:53:12.760 --> 3:53:15.680 It impacts everybody. It's going to impact people of color 3:53:16.040 --> 3:53:20.320 and poor and marginalized communities more than anybody else, just 3:53:20.440 --> 3:53:22.200 because of the nature of how policing is done in 3:53:22.240 --> 3:53:24.960 America and so and the and the problems that we 3:53:25.040 --> 3:53:28.880 still have with that. So our program is from Red 3:53:28.960 --> 3:53:32.520 Dogs to cop City, the Dirty South history of over 3:53:32.600 --> 3:53:36.800 policing Atlanta. So helping them understand how this is just 3:53:37.240 --> 3:53:41.800 a new iteration of what's been happening. So the Red 3:53:41.840 --> 3:53:45.880 Dog Unit was at some call it a gang within 3:53:45.960 --> 3:53:50.320 Atlanta PD for many years. It was disbanded in twenty eleven, 3:53:50.400 --> 3:53:54.720 but they were terrorizing low poor communities of color, and 3:53:56.000 --> 3:53:59.360 so cop City in the way that they're thinking about 3:53:59.440 --> 3:54:02.920 training these officers would be just a new iteration of that. 3:54:03.360 --> 3:54:08.880 So helping them understand that just because we have come 3:54:09.600 --> 3:54:12.640 far with the civil rights, with our civil rights, and 3:54:12.880 --> 3:54:16.120 I'm not even talking specifically about the sixties movement, but 3:54:16.320 --> 3:54:22.040 civil rights for people of color, women, LGBTQI plus communities. 3:54:22.520 --> 3:54:24.720 Just because we've come far doesn't mean it can't go back. 3:54:25.240 --> 3:54:29.160 Atlanta's Red Dogs inspired the Scorpion Unit in Memphis that 3:54:29.360 --> 3:54:34.040 killed Tyree Nichols this past January, and the current iteration 3:54:34.160 --> 3:54:37.280 of the Red Dogs in Atlanta is the Apex Unit, 3:54:37.640 --> 3:54:41.640 who have been very active in suppressing stop Cop City protests. 3:54:42.600 --> 3:54:45.560 I'm going to play three brief clips from the panel discussion. 3:54:46.160 --> 3:54:49.400 The first is from Mariah Parker, a local activist and 3:54:49.600 --> 3:54:51.320 former Georgia County commissioner. 3:54:51.760 --> 3:54:54.160 This is a war on the uprise in twenty twenty. 3:54:55.040 --> 3:54:56.680 Okay, this is. 3:54:58.400 --> 3:55:01.320 Of the law of suprise in North America. 3:55:02.520 --> 3:55:07.840 The Atlanta Police Foundation, who is the main driver and 3:55:07.960 --> 3:55:09.400 living funder and actually the. 3:55:09.440 --> 3:55:11.600 Owner of prop City. I keep forgetting the fact that 3:55:11.680 --> 3:55:13.200 this is not actually going to go busy. 3:55:14.160 --> 3:55:17.600 The old Police Foundation trying to reassert their control over 3:55:18.400 --> 3:55:21.200 black communities at a time when people are starting to 3:55:21.360 --> 3:55:24.640 understand that communities are made safe for by afordable housing 3:55:25.080 --> 3:55:30.120 and healthcare and childcare and education, and where They're supremacy 3:55:31.160 --> 3:55:36.560 in the public safety apparatus has been challenged, their dominance 3:55:36.600 --> 3:55:43.320 has been challenged, and so in response to that uprising, 3:55:44.440 --> 3:55:48.400 they seized hold of the narrative that more police training, 3:55:49.240 --> 3:55:55.000 more diversity in our officers would be the magic key 3:55:56.320 --> 3:55:58.760 to heal all the wounds in our communities and to 3:55:58.920 --> 3:56:00.000 actually deliver. 3:56:01.360 --> 3:56:03.320 A style of policing that serves some people. 3:56:05.400 --> 3:56:07.680 And so with that they were able to make arguments 3:56:07.880 --> 3:56:12.560 that cop city would be the answer to right. 3:56:12.520 --> 3:56:15.200 Allegedly rising crime rates. 3:56:16.320 --> 3:56:19.200 He always divides, et cetera, et cetera, when at the 3:56:19.320 --> 3:56:22.760 end of the day, they it's like it's a form 3:56:22.840 --> 3:56:26.000 of counter insurgency. The people rose up, and so this 3:56:26.120 --> 3:56:29.440 is the police rising up in response to reassert their dominance. 3:56:30.240 --> 3:56:34.040 Next is kJ Henson, an Atlanta local and organizer with 3:56:34.200 --> 3:56:37.040 Black Men Build and Blackmail Initiative Georgia. 3:56:38.040 --> 3:56:40.960 Where's clear that the police are not our protectors. 3:56:42.040 --> 3:56:43.800 Right, we. 3:56:45.560 --> 3:56:48.920 Suffered at the hands of the system on a daily basis. 3:56:49.400 --> 3:56:52.440 Right, the system was built upon our backs literally. 3:56:54.480 --> 3:56:59.560 So we see that we've been discarded, we've been abused 3:57:00.440 --> 3:57:01.080 by the system. 3:57:01.160 --> 3:57:04.040 And that's the point. It's not that we're disengaged because 3:57:04.080 --> 3:57:08.320 we don't care. We're disengaged because we do care. Right, 3:57:08.520 --> 3:57:12.480 every election cycle, it's black voters to the rescue. We're 3:57:12.520 --> 3:57:13.760 the folks that are most. 3:57:13.560 --> 3:57:17.520 Impacted by the decisions of the same elected officials that 3:57:17.680 --> 3:57:19.240 beg us to put them in position. 3:57:20.760 --> 3:57:24.360 We suffer because these people come to us and beg 3:57:24.520 --> 3:57:29.440 for votes, for canvassers, for money, and they turn around 3:57:29.520 --> 3:57:31.880 and they sell us out the first chance they need. 3:57:33.200 --> 3:57:36.880 So we're disengaged of a. 3:57:36.920 --> 3:57:37.360 Matter of. 3:57:38.880 --> 3:57:41.200 I can't get what I need from these people that 3:57:41.320 --> 3:57:44.720 say that they're for me. Right, the very means of 3:57:44.800 --> 3:57:46.080 the people are at risk. 3:57:46.240 --> 3:57:49.000 Cop city threatenings are very right to protest. 3:57:49.680 --> 3:57:51.280 Right, cop city threatens the. 3:57:51.360 --> 3:57:54.120 Right for us to stand in the street and use 3:57:54.200 --> 3:57:59.600 our voice as a means of building collective power as a. 3:57:59.720 --> 3:58:02.080 Viata cool for making societal change. 3:58:02.360 --> 3:58:04.880 You become a domestic terrorist, you get. 3:58:04.880 --> 3:58:07.520 Jailed without bail, without bond, you won't have a court date. 3:58:07.560 --> 3:58:09.880 I've been there myself, not for proestic terrorism. 3:58:09.600 --> 3:58:10.400 But just beco recording. 3:58:12.800 --> 3:58:17.240 So we're seeing the rise of fascism in a very 3:58:17.400 --> 3:58:17.920 real way. 3:58:19.480 --> 3:58:21.000 Like in the realistic ways. 3:58:21.080 --> 3:58:23.360 Comp City, like you said, is ground and zero for 3:58:23.480 --> 3:58:26.880 what would become a very popular trend, not just in 3:58:27.000 --> 3:58:29.640 America but across the world right. 3:58:29.760 --> 3:58:32.080 So it's on us to make sure that we do 3:58:32.320 --> 3:58:33.280 everything that's in our. 3:58:33.240 --> 3:58:35.800 Power to make sure that this day is stopped. Cop 3:58:35.920 --> 3:58:36.560 City is. 3:58:38.600 --> 3:58:44.640 Giving police the training and the ability to have urban 3:58:44.800 --> 3:58:48.160 warfare and suppression tactics at their will to. 3:58:48.240 --> 3:58:52.320 Be used against the people. Urban warfare and suppression not 3:58:52.600 --> 3:58:54.240 like thinking, not unlike what we. 3:58:54.320 --> 3:58:58.960 See in other countries, in other cities with organized resistance. 3:58:59.600 --> 3:59:04.560 Every Lastly, we have Reverend Keana Jones, member of the 3:59:04.680 --> 3:59:07.800 Faith Coalition Do Stop Cop City, whom we've heard from 3:59:07.960 --> 3:59:08.960 on this show before. 3:59:09.640 --> 3:59:12.160 I want every Black Atlanta to think about what you 3:59:12.320 --> 3:59:12.720 don't have. 3:59:13.400 --> 3:59:16.280 If you don't have affordable housing, it's because they putting 3:59:16.320 --> 3:59:16.880 the money. 3:59:16.640 --> 3:59:17.280 In the cop CI. 3:59:17.800 --> 3:59:20.080 If you can't pay your life bill, it's because that 3:59:20.200 --> 3:59:23.480 assistance got given back to the federal government, but they 3:59:23.600 --> 3:59:24.440 paying for cop C. 3:59:25.000 --> 3:59:28.880 If there are no policing alternatives and no urgent initiatives 3:59:29.120 --> 3:59:31.720 getting your communities, if they've given the money to cop sick, 3:59:32.040 --> 3:59:36.400 If you fell into that pop hoole on Posilion, it's 3:59:36.440 --> 3:59:39.320 because they give it the money to top C. If 3:59:39.520 --> 3:59:42.360 you can't walk out of your door and breath clean 3:59:42.520 --> 3:59:44.680 airs because they rather get it to top C. 3:59:45.280 --> 3:59:49.800 So Andre Diickins does not care about black people. I'm 3:59:49.800 --> 3:59:52.080 gonna do a Kanye West right now, but. 3:59:52.200 --> 3:59:55.800 I'm saying, I'm Murray Gigons don't care about black people. 3:59:55.840 --> 3:59:58.680 And Andre Nickens ain't no different than nobody else and 3:59:58.800 --> 4:00:01.240 some of those other so people out there who have. 4:00:01.400 --> 4:00:05.080 Those soul called names ain't doing nothing but black people. 4:00:05.320 --> 4:00:07.760 So once the game, what is Andre Diga is doing 4:00:07.840 --> 4:00:08.040 for you? 4:00:08.360 --> 4:00:11.600 If he is willing to say police and make sure 4:00:11.640 --> 4:00:14.560 that they got slot takes to roll around they walking 4:00:14.600 --> 4:00:18.200 around the ars in your neighborhood, your children walking out 4:00:18.280 --> 4:00:21.640 the house to hearing good shots constantly, What the Andre 4:00:21.760 --> 4:00:22.760 giggets care about you? 4:00:23.080 --> 4:00:24.240 Does his children hear that? 4:00:25.440 --> 4:00:25.800 Okay? 4:00:26.480 --> 4:00:26.680 God? 4:00:30.760 --> 4:00:33.240 It is important to mention the venue that that this 4:00:33.520 --> 4:00:35.640 was that this panel took place in, because this is 4:00:35.720 --> 4:00:38.600 like a very much like a it feels it feels 4:00:38.640 --> 4:00:42.360 like a black excellent type of like space, like that 4:00:42.840 --> 4:00:43.520 is the space. 4:00:43.320 --> 4:00:43.640 That it is. 4:00:43.720 --> 4:00:47.280 It's it is, it is a private club. It holds 4:00:47.360 --> 4:00:48.679 like an amount. 4:00:48.400 --> 4:00:51.320 Of like respect there cultural significance. 4:00:51.400 --> 4:00:55.000 And on this panel at at the gathering spot, the 4:00:55.280 --> 4:00:59.080 panelists were we're talking about how why Why is the 4:00:59.120 --> 4:01:01.840 mayor who meant many these people helped get elected because 4:01:01.840 --> 4:01:04.160 he had promises about, you know, helping out the community, 4:01:04.360 --> 4:01:07.960 giving millions of dollars to affordable housing. Why is he 4:01:08.160 --> 4:01:10.960 using now like sixty seventy million dollars that could go 4:01:11.080 --> 4:01:13.680 to affordable housing, that could go towards supporting black people 4:01:13.720 --> 4:01:17.120 in Atlanta. This is funneling all of that money into 4:01:17.400 --> 4:01:20.960 the police and into not even like the police department, 4:01:21.200 --> 4:01:25.600 a private police foundation, like funding the APFS. 4:01:25.160 --> 4:01:26.560 Project, not a city project. 4:01:26.960 --> 4:01:29.320 I think it was Keana who said that Andre Dickens 4:01:29.360 --> 4:01:32.000 does not care about black people. Yeah, and having that 4:01:32.120 --> 4:01:33.800 be said at the gathering spot, I think actually is 4:01:33.880 --> 4:01:38.480 very important and is worth worth talking about. As the 4:01:38.560 --> 4:01:42.000 referendum was progressing and people from across all sides of 4:01:42.040 --> 4:01:44.320 the movement, we're working in conjunction to spread awareness of 4:01:44.360 --> 4:01:48.480 Copcity and engage in action, the mayor was making attempts 4:01:48.520 --> 4:01:49.760 to divide the movement. 4:01:50.520 --> 4:01:55.640 Criminals are hiding in the middle of peaceful protests and 4:01:55.880 --> 4:01:59.760 sometimes they are doing their own separate acts of violence. 4:02:00.440 --> 4:02:04.680 Some of them are career arsonists and vandals from across 4:02:04.880 --> 4:02:10.440 the nation. Local activists have been alerted to this numerous times. 4:02:10.960 --> 4:02:16.200 These are the actions of blatantly outrageous, dangerous, and violent criminals. 4:02:16.680 --> 4:02:23.520 How are arsonists, vandals, violent actors able to be alongside 4:02:24.320 --> 4:02:30.320 peaceful protesters. You have individuals that will burn up construction equipment, 4:02:30.720 --> 4:02:34.520 light a fire to police vehicles, and then have a 4:02:34.640 --> 4:02:40.000 bouncy house party the next day with peaceful protesters at 4:02:40.440 --> 4:02:43.040 a park. So they will go to a park by day, 4:02:43.240 --> 4:02:46.760 and then by night they're burning up police equipment or 4:02:47.080 --> 4:02:50.840 setting fires or trying to destroy construction equipment. So these 4:02:50.920 --> 4:02:55.400 individuals are trying to use the guys of peaceful protests 4:02:55.880 --> 4:02:58.760 that maybe some local Atlantans may actually be engaged in 4:02:59.360 --> 4:03:03.400 desired conversation about their views on public safety. But these 4:03:03.480 --> 4:03:07.560 individuals have different views than those folks. These individuals are anarchists. 4:03:07.600 --> 4:03:13.000 They want to destroy. So these individuals are alongside these arsonists, 4:03:13.080 --> 4:03:18.880 these criminals are alongside peaceful protesters, and sometimes the peaceful 4:03:18.920 --> 4:03:22.240 protesters are aware of it, and sometimes they are not. 4:03:22.600 --> 4:03:25.560 We have made it clear to local activists that we 4:03:25.760 --> 4:03:29.160 know and individuals that tend to be peaceful, We're letting 4:03:29.200 --> 4:03:31.920 them know that we are aware that there are individuals 4:03:31.960 --> 4:03:34.520 that are in our city that have committed crimes across 4:03:34.560 --> 4:03:37.640 the nation, and that they are on your social media 4:03:37.720 --> 4:03:40.200 or in your network saying they're coming to your event 4:03:40.280 --> 4:03:40.960 to do the same. 4:03:41.680 --> 4:03:45.080 Mayor Dickens went further and essentially threatened that if you 4:03:45.200 --> 4:03:48.520 are a so called activist and you don't snitch, then 4:03:48.600 --> 4:03:52.000 the APD will treat you the same as a violent criminal. 4:03:52.320 --> 4:03:54.240 So when we give you that heads up as a 4:03:54.320 --> 4:03:57.120 local organizer, you should take that heads up and also 4:03:57.520 --> 4:04:00.120 see something, say something as we're asking any other the 4:04:00.160 --> 4:04:04.480 citizen to do. When peaceful protesters, when organizers are not 4:04:06.440 --> 4:04:09.760 utilizing their best judgment, then bad things can happen with 4:04:10.000 --> 4:04:12.520 them being alongside them, and it makes it real tough 4:04:12.560 --> 4:04:15.880 for APD to know who was the one with the 4:04:15.920 --> 4:04:18.400 dirty hands, so to speak. And so that's what the 4:04:18.480 --> 4:04:20.320 message that we want to get out to the public 4:04:20.440 --> 4:04:23.240 is that these individuals mean harm and you don't want 4:04:23.240 --> 4:04:25.640 to be around them or associated with them. When you are, 4:04:25.880 --> 4:04:27.520 it makes it difficult to tell who's who. 4:04:28.120 --> 4:04:31.000 The city wants the various wings of the fight to 4:04:31.080 --> 4:04:34.200 stop cop City to turn on each other, to resent 4:04:34.320 --> 4:04:38.480 each other, to so distrust and undermine any collective power. 4:04:39.480 --> 4:04:44.640 That's why the referendum's statement of solidarity explicitly rejecting respectability 4:04:44.720 --> 4:04:48.880 politics and the framing of violent and nonviolent resistance was 4:04:49.160 --> 4:04:54.200 so important, and online communicate claiming responsibility for torching police 4:04:54.280 --> 4:04:56.400 motorcycles on the last day of the Week of action 4:04:57.080 --> 4:05:02.240 addressed this dynamic quote. We took action after non combative 4:05:02.280 --> 4:05:06.480 demonstrations at Cadence Bank and Home Depot. The police attacked 4:05:06.600 --> 4:05:10.480 those demonstrations with no cause, as they do wherever and 4:05:10.640 --> 4:05:15.080 however the movement gathers. There can be no separation of 4:05:15.240 --> 4:05:18.720 time and space for tactics when police have turned society 4:05:18.840 --> 4:05:22.960 into a war zone. Despite this, we dispersed our activity 4:05:23.200 --> 4:05:27.200 as much as possible across their area of control. We 4:05:27.440 --> 4:05:30.680 encourage those who are pursuing a strategy of referendum to 4:05:30.880 --> 4:05:36.080 continue supporting all methods to stop cop City. If you 4:05:36.360 --> 4:05:40.520 defy the state's unilateral authority in any way, you will 4:05:40.560 --> 4:05:44.600 be seen as a valid target. As demonstrated throughout the 4:05:44.720 --> 4:05:47.760 history of this movement, including during this last Week of action, 4:05:48.560 --> 4:05:51.520 police will treat you like a violent criminal, whether you're 4:05:51.720 --> 4:05:54.920 holding a sign in a parking lot, bailing activists out 4:05:54.920 --> 4:06:00.800 of jail, or smashing a cop car. Only a group 4:06:00.840 --> 4:06:05.240 of activists in unincorporated Decab County, near the potential site 4:06:05.280 --> 4:06:08.200 of cop City, filed a lawsuit against the City of 4:06:08.200 --> 4:06:11.200 Atlanta and the State of Georgia, claiming the requirement that 4:06:11.400 --> 4:06:15.680 signature gatherers must themselves be Atlanta residents violated their First 4:06:15.720 --> 4:06:19.800 Amendment right to free speech and petition the government. Due 4:06:19.800 --> 4:06:24.160 to the potential constitutional violation, the lawsuit also requested the 4:06:24.240 --> 4:06:28.040 court reset the sixty day clock for gathering signatures while 4:06:28.200 --> 4:06:30.920 still counting the signatures that were already gathered. 4:06:32.080 --> 4:06:33.200 In mid July, the. 4:06:33.280 --> 4:06:36.800 City of Atlanta filed a reply in federal court arguing 4:06:36.880 --> 4:06:41.200 that the cop City referendum was wholly invalid since it 4:06:41.280 --> 4:06:44.520 seeks to revoke a land lease that has already been signed. 4:06:45.480 --> 4:06:49.000 The filing reads, in part, quote, repeal of a year's 4:06:49.040 --> 4:06:52.600 old ordinance cannot retroactively revoke authorization to do something that 4:06:52.680 --> 4:06:56.120 has already been done. But if the referendum could claim 4:06:56.200 --> 4:06:59.440 to result in a revocation or cancelation of the lease, 4:07:00.000 --> 4:07:02.040 they would still be invalid because it would amount to 4:07:02.080 --> 4:07:07.200 an impermissible impairment of that contract unquote. The city also 4:07:07.360 --> 4:07:10.760 argued that if the court does deem the Atlanta residency 4:07:10.880 --> 4:07:15.880 requirement for gathering signatures unconstitutional, then the entire referendum should 4:07:15.880 --> 4:07:20.160 be deemed unlawful. A rebuttal by the plaintiffs said that 4:07:20.360 --> 4:07:23.160 the city did not provide factual or legal evidence for 4:07:23.280 --> 4:07:28.000 its claims and misread the cited precedence. According to the plaintiffs, 4:07:28.200 --> 4:07:32.200 the land lease contract is ongoing, not an irreversible quote 4:07:32.280 --> 4:07:37.000 unquote one time event, and since the city authorized and 4:07:37.200 --> 4:07:40.600 issued the petition form, they skipped their chance to argue 4:07:40.680 --> 4:07:45.120 that the referendum is somehow invalid by already approving the 4:07:45.200 --> 4:07:48.040 language of the petition and letting the referendum process begin. 4:07:49.480 --> 4:07:53.040 Near the end of July, US District Court Judge Mark 4:07:53.160 --> 4:07:57.520 Cohen ruled in favor of the cop city referendum, allowing 4:07:57.800 --> 4:08:01.760 non Atlanta residents to collect signature and reset the sixty 4:08:01.840 --> 4:08:05.000 day clock to collect the roughly sixty thousand signatures needed 4:08:05.280 --> 4:08:09.040 to put the land lease on the ballot. In his ruling, 4:08:09.160 --> 4:08:12.640 Judge Mark Cohen said, quote requiring signature gatherers to be 4:08:12.720 --> 4:08:15.840 residents of the city imposes a severe burden on core 4:08:15.920 --> 4:08:19.080 political speech and does little to protect the city's interest 4:08:19.200 --> 4:08:23.160 in self governance unquote. Mary hooks. The tactical lead of 4:08:23.200 --> 4:08:27.080 the referendum coalition reacted to the ruling, saying quote, we 4:08:27.200 --> 4:08:30.520 are thrilled by Judge Cohen's ruling and the expansion of 4:08:30.560 --> 4:08:34.120 democracy to include our cab neighbors and level the playing 4:08:34.200 --> 4:08:38.360 field for our coalition unquote. The city quickly filed for 4:08:38.520 --> 4:08:42.240 an appeal, which was subsequently denied on August fourteenth, with 4:08:42.480 --> 4:08:45.960 the judge stating quote, the city's real concern may be 4:08:46.120 --> 4:08:48.720 that now that non residents have the ability to gather 4:08:48.800 --> 4:08:51.280 signatures on the petition for the entire time that they 4:08:51.280 --> 4:08:53.560 would have been permitted to do so had their initial 4:08:53.600 --> 4:08:57.000 request been granted, there is an increased possibility that a 4:08:57.040 --> 4:09:02.040 sufficient number of valid signatures could be obtained. As liberals 4:09:02.160 --> 4:09:05.560 cheered on the Fulton County District Attorney in Atlanta for 4:09:06.080 --> 4:09:10.480 indicting Trump and co conspirators for election tampering under rico charges, 4:09:11.040 --> 4:09:13.800 the same exact sort of charges that this office has 4:09:13.920 --> 4:09:17.200 used against young black rappers and have been wielded against 4:09:17.200 --> 4:09:20.400 the Stop Cop City movement, the City of Atlanta's own 4:09:20.520 --> 4:09:25.400 election interference by repressing the referendum has been largely ignored. 4:09:26.920 --> 4:09:30.320 Fulton County Court set Trump's bond for two hundred thousand 4:09:30.320 --> 4:09:33.840 dollars for attempting to overthrow a federal election. The same 4:09:33.960 --> 4:09:37.520 court set bond at three hundred and fifty five thousand 4:09:37.560 --> 4:09:42.080 dollars each for multiple protesters arrested for being merely present 4:09:42.240 --> 4:09:46.160 at a protest. After Georgia State Patrol killed force defender 4:09:46.240 --> 4:09:50.680 Torteguita in January of this year, during all of the 4:09:51.000 --> 4:09:54.520 glowing press for District Attorney Fanny Willis and the City 4:09:54.560 --> 4:09:58.480 of Atlanta, it was revealed that on August eleventh, the 4:09:58.560 --> 4:10:02.000 Atlanta Police Department killed a sixty two year old, unarmed 4:10:02.040 --> 4:10:06.120 black man named Johnny Holman while responding to a minor 4:10:06.200 --> 4:10:11.320 traffic accident. Both Holman and the unnamed second driver called 4:10:11.440 --> 4:10:14.440 nine one one after the accident. Holman told nine one 4:10:14.440 --> 4:10:19.400 one operators, quote, somebody ran into my truck unquote. After 4:10:19.520 --> 4:10:22.640 waiting for over an hour for police to arrive, twenty 4:10:22.720 --> 4:10:26.160 three year old officer Kiaran Kimbro responded to the scene. 4:10:26.920 --> 4:10:29.920 Kimbro joined APD in March of twenty twenty one and 4:10:30.200 --> 4:10:34.400 currently has an open complaint for quote sexual misconduct non 4:10:34.520 --> 4:10:38.400 criminal unquote. Johnny Holman, who served as a deacon in 4:10:38.480 --> 4:10:41.360 his church, called his kids to listen to how the 4:10:41.520 --> 4:10:46.240 officer was escalating the situation, and then an unknown witness 4:10:46.560 --> 4:10:50.240 helped this APD officer wrestle sixty two year old Johnny 4:10:50.280 --> 4:10:53.320 Holman to the ground and put him in handcuffs as 4:10:53.440 --> 4:10:57.600 the officer used his taser. To quote the Atlantic Community 4:10:57.600 --> 4:11:01.680 Press Collective quote, the children listen for seventeen minutes as 4:11:01.760 --> 4:11:04.680 they drove to the scene of the accident, hearing their 4:11:04.800 --> 4:11:08.800 father call for help after officer kimbro tased him. When 4:11:08.840 --> 4:11:12.400 they arrived on scene, they found officers giving chest compressions 4:11:12.440 --> 4:11:13.000 to their father. 4:11:13.520 --> 4:11:13.960 Unquote. 4:11:14.760 --> 4:11:19.600 Johnny Holman was then pronounced dead at Grady Hospital. A 4:11:19.680 --> 4:11:24.760 week after APD killed Holman, Another person incarcerated at Fulton 4:11:24.800 --> 4:11:28.480 County Jail died while being held on five thousand dollars 4:11:28.600 --> 4:11:32.520 bond after being denied seing the trebond for shoplifting less 4:11:32.560 --> 4:11:36.720 than five hundred dollars of goods. The City of Atlanta's 4:11:36.840 --> 4:11:41.400 own alleged voter suppression has continued. Initially, the cop city 4:11:41.480 --> 4:11:44.080 vote referendum hoped to not have to use the extra 4:11:44.200 --> 4:11:47.040 day is granted by the judge and submit the collected 4:11:47.040 --> 4:11:50.440 signatures on August twenty first, with the intention of getting 4:11:50.480 --> 4:11:53.520 them verified in time. To put the cop city vote 4:11:53.640 --> 4:11:58.440 on the upcoming November ballot come Monday, August twenty first, 4:11:58.920 --> 4:12:01.720 the referendum of put out statement that, despite collecting over 4:12:01.800 --> 4:12:05.320 one hundred thousand signatures, that they are delaying submitting the 4:12:05.360 --> 4:12:07.680 petition due to concerns that the city was going to 4:12:07.720 --> 4:12:13.440 employ voter suppression tactics during the validation process. The statement reads, 4:12:13.480 --> 4:12:16.480 in part quote, In recent days, we began to hear 4:12:16.680 --> 4:12:20.240 from reporters and sources inside city Hall that the City 4:12:20.240 --> 4:12:23.120 of Atlanta is planning to argue for a higher than 4:12:23.160 --> 4:12:27.400 previously reported legal minimum signature count for ballot access. More 4:12:27.440 --> 4:12:31.400 concerning were reports that they also planned to utilize signature 4:12:31.560 --> 4:12:36.440 match in their verification process, an archaic and widely abandoned 4:12:36.520 --> 4:12:39.760 tool of voter suppression that has been widely condemned across 4:12:39.800 --> 4:12:44.120 the political spectrum, including by the Republican controlled Georgia State legislature. 4:12:45.880 --> 4:12:49.320 Signature matching is a subjective form of a vote validation, 4:12:49.760 --> 4:12:53.200 which uses election workers to visually match signatures on a 4:12:53.280 --> 4:12:56.320 ballot or in this case of petition, to a previous 4:12:56.400 --> 4:13:01.360 signature on their driver's license or voter registration card. Hours 4:13:01.440 --> 4:13:05.520 after the referendum's statement, the city of Atlanta officially announced 4:13:05.560 --> 4:13:08.320 their intention to use his signature matching for the cop 4:13:08.440 --> 4:13:12.960 city vote referendum. Back in twenty eighteen, a federal judge 4:13:13.000 --> 4:13:16.240 in Georgia ruled that signature matching did not serve any 4:13:16.320 --> 4:13:21.560 legitimate interest and disenfranchised black and brown voters disproportionately. For years, 4:13:21.640 --> 4:13:25.320 the ACLU has advocated against and won multiple court cases 4:13:25.800 --> 4:13:32.400 against discriminatory signature matching processes. Fair Fight Action, a Georgia 4:13:32.440 --> 4:13:36.280 based voting rights organization founded by Stacy Abrams, responded to 4:13:36.400 --> 4:13:38.960 the news Atlanta would be using signature matching with a 4:13:39.040 --> 4:13:42.560 statement saying, quote, signature matching is a tool of voter 4:13:42.640 --> 4:13:46.080 suppression that litigated extensively in Georgia and removed from the 4:13:46.160 --> 4:13:49.120 mail in ballot process because of its harm to voters 4:13:49.600 --> 4:13:55.440 resulting in mass disenfranchisement. Using the discredited process of signature 4:13:55.480 --> 4:14:00.680 matching is unacceptable and risks unfairly rejecting thousands of valid petitions. 4:14:01.560 --> 4:14:06.600 Signature of verification is notoriously subjective, disproportionately impacts voters of color, 4:14:06.880 --> 4:14:11.000 and as biased against disabled and elderly voters. There is 4:14:11.200 --> 4:14:14.840 extensive precedent in Georgia showing the harms of this process, 4:14:15.480 --> 4:14:19.000 it must be relegated to the past. Fair Fight calls 4:14:19.040 --> 4:14:21.600 on the City of Atlanta to rescind their intent to 4:14:21.800 --> 4:14:25.360 use this process and to enact steps that fairly evaluate 4:14:25.480 --> 4:14:30.640 these petitions unquote. Facing the City of Atlanta's quote open 4:14:30.800 --> 4:14:34.880 and ongoing hostility to the cop city vote referendum, the 4:14:35.000 --> 4:14:38.880 coalition has decided to use the time extension granted by 4:14:38.920 --> 4:14:42.680 federal Judge Mark Cohen to continue collecting signatures to quote 4:14:43.000 --> 4:14:46.560 leave no doubt as to the will of Atlantic voters unquote. 4:14:47.160 --> 4:14:51.400 They now plan to submit petition signatures on September twenty third. 4:14:52.720 --> 4:14:55.560 The City Council will then have fifty days to validate 4:14:55.600 --> 4:14:58.800 the signatures, which means that, if successful, and assuming the 4:14:58.840 --> 4:15:02.360 city doesn't further interf the referendum would get put on 4:15:02.480 --> 4:15:06.240 the ballot during the March primary election in twenty twenty four. 4:15:07.480 --> 4:15:11.240 The vote being pushed into March adds a few complications. 4:15:11.960 --> 4:15:15.160 Turnout may skew more Republican as it's unlikely there will 4:15:15.200 --> 4:15:19.040 be a Democratic presidential primary, and the vote being seven 4:15:19.120 --> 4:15:22.080 months away disrupts the momentum that the campaign has been 4:15:22.120 --> 4:15:25.720 gaining over the past couple of months. People who sign 4:15:25.800 --> 4:15:28.480 the petition back in June would have to wait almost 4:15:28.520 --> 4:15:31.760 a whole year to vote on the ballot. The few 4:15:31.840 --> 4:15:34.960 extra months does give more time to educate the public 4:15:35.040 --> 4:15:37.040 about Cop City during a lead up to the election, 4:15:37.680 --> 4:15:41.640 but that goes both ways, which means that after two 4:15:41.800 --> 4:15:44.640 years of this movement mostly taking form as a ground 4:15:44.760 --> 4:15:48.880 war over territory, now for the time being, much of 4:15:48.960 --> 4:15:51.720 the fight to stop Cop City will change into a 4:15:51.840 --> 4:15:56.160 pr war in the public sphere. This shift from a 4:15:56.320 --> 4:16:00.360 physical offense to a metaphysical offense was something that I 4:16:00.440 --> 4:16:03.440 already felt coming back during the Week of action in 4:16:03.560 --> 4:16:06.600 terms of like cameras and spectacle the other The big 4:16:06.720 --> 4:16:10.000 feeling I had on the Saturday kickoff rally was like 4:16:10.720 --> 4:16:12.920 this just feels like society of the spectacle, Like. 4:16:12.960 --> 4:16:14.640 There's such a performance. 4:16:14.760 --> 4:16:17.680 It was very performative, but it was like almost like 4:16:18.200 --> 4:16:21.280 with all of the cameras looking at everything all the time, 4:16:21.760 --> 4:16:23.720 it was like are people trying to make a proximily 4:16:23.840 --> 4:16:27.120 of this movement for the cameras? Like is that has 4:16:27.200 --> 4:16:30.320 become almost more important? 4:16:30.480 --> 4:16:31.720 Or like it felt that way. 4:16:32.160 --> 4:16:34.720 This is a conversation that people have, like is it 4:16:34.920 --> 4:16:39.960 worth creating moments where we expect the police to lash 4:16:40.000 --> 4:16:42.760 out violently, Like, is that effective as a propaganda tactic? 4:16:42.880 --> 4:16:47.480 Yeah, and that if comes with losing while looking good, 4:16:48.760 --> 4:16:48.960 it does. 4:16:49.120 --> 4:16:51.360 Yeah, that is like, that is losing while looking good. 4:16:51.400 --> 4:16:54.240 But also I don't think that's nearly as effective as 4:16:54.280 --> 4:16:56.720 people think it is. I think after twenty twenty, I 4:16:56.760 --> 4:17:00.480 think people are kind of desensitized to a lot of 4:17:00.560 --> 4:17:05.160 police violence at protests. The visual the visuals of police 4:17:05.400 --> 4:17:07.920 hurting protesters, I don't think is nearly as impactful as 4:17:07.960 --> 4:17:11.560 it was even three years ago. So I think people 4:17:11.640 --> 4:17:15.600 are also realizing that and realizing that, hey, the sacrifice 4:17:15.640 --> 4:17:18.200 inherent in setting up actions where you know that you're 4:17:18.240 --> 4:17:20.760 probably going to get fucked up by police, that's not 4:17:20.960 --> 4:17:24.240 worth it. That one, it treats people as like tools. 4:17:24.240 --> 4:17:27.640 It treats people as disposable, which is, you know, that's 4:17:27.760 --> 4:17:29.880 not great if you want to build a long lasting movement, 4:17:32.280 --> 4:17:35.800 And that's not even very effective. As the public relations 4:17:35.880 --> 4:17:38.560 battle over the fate of cop City intensifies in the 4:17:38.680 --> 4:17:41.080 lead up to the vote, with the City of Atlanta 4:17:41.240 --> 4:17:46.400 undoubtedly ready to run a full election propaganda campaign, strategies 4:17:46.440 --> 4:17:50.600 of resistance cannot overlook the physical construction of the facility. 4:17:51.320 --> 4:17:54.680 Pre construction has been active and ongoing for a few 4:17:54.720 --> 4:17:57.920 months now, mostly in the form of tree clearing and 4:17:58.200 --> 4:18:01.680 land grading. Just a few days ago, the Atlanta Police 4:18:01.720 --> 4:18:05.600 Foundation updated their construction timeline, saying that they had just 4:18:05.720 --> 4:18:09.160 began installing a stone base for the main roadway, that 4:18:09.480 --> 4:18:13.200 irrigation and site lighting is now underway, and full lawn 4:18:13.320 --> 4:18:16.760 construction is set to quote begin in the next week 4:18:16.880 --> 4:18:20.800 or so. Unquote That now may be out of date, 4:18:21.160 --> 4:18:23.520 but based on the progress being made on the site, 4:18:24.080 --> 4:18:28.160 it's clear that construction is now imminent, and with the 4:18:28.240 --> 4:18:31.080 threat of the referendum, the APF will try to get 4:18:31.120 --> 4:18:33.880 as much built as quickly as possible to help with 4:18:33.960 --> 4:18:38.240 the pro cop city side of election messaging. One of 4:18:38.280 --> 4:18:40.480 the original goals of the referendum was to try to 4:18:40.520 --> 4:18:44.160 place an injunction on further construction until the ballot vote, 4:18:44.680 --> 4:18:48.880 but it's unknown if or when that would happen. In 4:18:48.960 --> 4:18:51.640 the meantime, activists may take a queue from Earth First 4:18:51.800 --> 4:18:54.920 and instead of trying to occupy the site, instead they 4:18:55.000 --> 4:18:58.040 might find creative ways to make the construction site hard 4:18:58.160 --> 4:19:02.360 to work on with the increased element of spectacle, placing 4:19:02.360 --> 4:19:05.600 a lot of extra eyes on pre announced public demonstrations, 4:19:06.280 --> 4:19:10.200 more secretive actions may start becoming more common. There's other 4:19:10.440 --> 4:19:12.880 actions that can happen more covertly, like if you're doing 4:19:12.920 --> 4:19:15.600 sabotage where you don't need to invite a camera crew 4:19:15.640 --> 4:19:16.240 to film. 4:19:16.040 --> 4:19:19.880 You do crimes. Why is move Why is? 4:19:21.360 --> 4:19:23.920 But no, it's also like as a rule, like why 4:19:24.480 --> 4:19:26.720 That's the other thing is like so many of these 4:19:26.760 --> 4:19:28.960 events during during these weeks of action are pre planned. 4:19:29.000 --> 4:19:32.120 That not only gives media heads up on like we're 4:19:32.160 --> 4:19:34.000 gonna film this, and this is also gonna that's gonna 4:19:34.040 --> 4:19:36.480 change the actions that happened while this is happening because 4:19:36.480 --> 4:19:39.200 everyone knows they're being launched, it also gives police heads. 4:19:39.080 --> 4:19:39.280 Up to. 4:19:40.760 --> 4:19:43.240 Shut down the paths your intrudgment career. 4:19:43.800 --> 4:19:45.440 So that I think that comes with the Week of 4:19:45.480 --> 4:19:47.600 Action format because if people coming in from out of town, 4:19:47.840 --> 4:19:50.440 they don't know where to go, if they're not already 4:19:50.480 --> 4:19:52.280 tied in with the movement, they don't know what what 4:19:52.760 --> 4:19:55.080 what exactly to do. So that's that's another thing that 4:19:55.160 --> 4:19:58.760 thinks could change during future actions that may not be. 4:19:58.840 --> 4:20:01.160 Part of the Week of Action is more covert. 4:20:01.640 --> 4:20:05.080 Let's pre planned, pre announced actions that are maybe a 4:20:05.120 --> 4:20:09.520 little bit more mischievous. In their recent statement on voter suppression, 4:20:09.800 --> 4:20:13.520 the referendum also announced, quote the coalition will consider using 4:20:13.720 --> 4:20:17.440 upcoming opportunities for non violent direct actions to direct the 4:20:17.520 --> 4:20:20.920 people's frustration with the city council's obstruction of the democratic 4:20:21.000 --> 4:20:25.920 process unquote. Camal Franklin of Community Movement Builders added quote, 4:20:26.320 --> 4:20:28.720 if the city needs to see a demonstration of the 4:20:28.720 --> 4:20:32.000 people's commitment to the issue, we're happy to provide one. 4:20:32.360 --> 4:20:32.800 Unquote. 4:20:33.920 --> 4:20:38.360 Police intentionally denying anarchists operating space by occupying the Wolani 4:20:38.440 --> 4:20:42.320 themselves may shift the more liberal side of the movement 4:20:42.480 --> 4:20:46.040 to now focus on rallies and events around the construction site, 4:20:46.520 --> 4:20:51.200 which could also inadvertently draw eyeballs away and open up 4:20:51.280 --> 4:20:55.000 other territory across the city that might be more vulnerable 4:20:55.120 --> 4:20:58.920 to attack by small groups to quote the direct action 4:20:59.000 --> 4:21:02.360 communicate claiming respont onsibility for torching the police motorcade on 4:21:02.440 --> 4:21:06.720 July first. Quote, while signatures are collected, the police are 4:21:06.840 --> 4:21:11.760 still killing. We cannot wait. If the referendum fails, actions 4:21:11.920 --> 4:21:16.320 like ours and Boulder will be the only means available unquote. 4:21:17.600 --> 4:21:22.080 With construction imminent, subcontractor tensions increasing and the City of 4:21:22.080 --> 4:21:26.520 Atlanta gambling with voter suppression. Right now, the movement really 4:21:26.560 --> 4:21:30.400 cannot afford to alienate the green anarchists that pioneered the 4:21:30.560 --> 4:21:34.560 early legitimacy of this movement with bold direct action. The 4:21:34.600 --> 4:21:37.360 Atlanta Police Foundation is trying to snatch a victory from 4:21:37.400 --> 4:21:40.640 the jaws of defeat. What happens in the next few 4:21:40.680 --> 4:21:45.040 months may push Atlanta to a dangerous tipping point. No 4:21:45.200 --> 4:21:49.520 matter the endpoint of this particular struggle, victory or defeat 4:21:49.640 --> 4:21:54.200 cannot be imagined as the end. The fight against Coppcity 4:21:54.600 --> 4:21:58.080 is one large battle in an ongoing war, a war 4:21:58.160 --> 4:22:02.880 of police militarization, racism, environmental justice, and against the incestuous 4:22:03.040 --> 4:22:07.880 neoliberal police state in its leviathan like formation. Based on 4:22:07.960 --> 4:22:12.000 what happens here in Atlanta, similar police project proposals will 4:22:12.040 --> 4:22:16.520 be recalibrated. As the South goes, so goes the nation. 4:22:17.640 --> 4:22:20.760 Capitalist realism posits that history is over, that it's a 4:22:20.920 --> 4:22:24.240 literal thing of the past, But it turns out you're 4:22:24.280 --> 4:22:27.280 living through it right now, so what will you do 4:22:27.480 --> 4:22:31.440 to create it? You can read more about the fights 4:22:31.480 --> 4:22:35.920 to stop Coopcity at Atlpresscollective dot com and donate to 4:22:35.960 --> 4:22:39.640 the Atlanta Solidarity Fund at atlsolidarity dot org. 4:22:40.320 --> 4:22:41.720 See you on the other side. 4:22:43.240 --> 4:22:46.360 Hey, we'll be back Monday with more episodes every week 4:22:46.480 --> 4:22:49.000 from now until the heat death of the universe. It 4:22:49.080 --> 4:22:51.320 Could Happen Here as a production of cool Zone Media. 4:22:51.560 --> 4:22:54.200 For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website 4:22:54.280 --> 4:22:57.360 coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, 4:22:57.400 --> 4:23:00.560 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can 4:23:00.600 --> 4:23:03.240 find sources for It Could Happen Here, updated monthly at 4:23:03.320 --> 4:23:06.560 coolzonemedia dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.