Speaker 1: Good morning, peeps, and welcome to wikay f Daily with
Speaker 1: Meet your Girl Danielle Moody, recording from the Home Bunker, Folks,
Speaker 1: I am very excited to bring to you my very
Speaker 1: last interview of twenty twenty two. I've been doing a
Speaker 1: lot of reflecting, as I know that many of you
Speaker 1: have been, as we wind down this year, and one
Speaker 1: of the areas that I have been thinking a lot
Speaker 1: about has been work and labor and the way that
Speaker 1: work and labor has been transformed or is in the
Speaker 1: midst of a big upheaval and transformation, and it was
Speaker 1: brought on in large part by the pandemic, where those
Speaker 1: that were privileged and able to stay at home and
Speaker 1: stay safe had a lot of time to be able
Speaker 1: to think about the ways that we wanted to engage
Speaker 1: with work for those that were laid off but then
Speaker 1: were cared for by our government by giving us our
Speaker 1: tax dollars back in terms of being able to have
Speaker 1: breathing room as we were given the opportunity to transition
Speaker 1: into something else. Then, of course, there are those the
Speaker 1: quote unquote essential workers that are so essential we don't
Speaker 1: pay them a living fucking wage, who kept the world
Speaker 1: going while the rest of us were able to take
Speaker 1: a respite from it. I've been thinking a lot about
Speaker 1: the ways in which our lives are controlled by capitalism,
Speaker 1: are driven by other people's greed, and is about extraction
Speaker 1: more so than it is about investment. I think about
Speaker 1: the relationship that we have to rest and the relationship
Speaker 1: that we have to work, and how there is this
Speaker 1: sense of guilt that comes over at least I will
Speaker 1: speak for myself, that comes over me when I am
Speaker 1: not consistently producing, consistently creating content, consistently putting out into
Speaker 1: the world, which means I am taking from myself in
Speaker 1: order to give. And I think about those people who
Speaker 1: are extracted from and are given very little in return.
Speaker 1: And so it makes sense then that my last interview
Speaker 1: for twenty twenty two would be with organizer and freelance
Speaker 1: writer and author Kim Kelly. If you listen to my
Speaker 1: other podcast, Democracy, Ish was Jahat and I had her
Speaker 1: on several months ago to talk about her book, told
Speaker 1: story of American labor fight Like How. And in this
Speaker 1: conversation with Kim, you know, I get to do a
Speaker 1: bit more of a deep dive and a bit more
Speaker 1: of what I hope to make the theme of twenty
Speaker 1: twenty three, which is I don't want to have us
Speaker 1: be brought down, beleaguered with the minutia of the thing.
Speaker 1: I want us to work towards being an existing, even
Speaker 1: for a little bit in a dreamscape. What does it
Speaker 1: mean to think bigger and better outside of the reality
Speaker 1: of the current moment, so that we can create the
Speaker 1: future that is equitable, the multiracial democracy that we need,
Speaker 1: That we should have the equitable workforce that should be
Speaker 1: human centered and not centered on how much can be extracted.
Speaker 1: And the value of your humanness is measured by how
Speaker 1: much you can produce when you start to think about it, folks,
Speaker 1: as many of you will. And again, this is for
Speaker 1: the privileged few who are actually able to work themselves
Speaker 1: to death to get to the end of the year,
Speaker 1: to be able to claim that seven glorious days of
Speaker 1: being so exhausted, so worn down that you probably don't
Speaker 1: do all of the things that you imagine that you
Speaker 1: would have yourself do on your winter break because you
Speaker 1: were so exhausted depleted that you end up sleeping the
Speaker 1: entire break. And look, I'm not saying that you should
Speaker 1: feel bad about that. I'm saying, think about how hard
Speaker 1: it is that we all labor in our different industry
Speaker 1: reason spaces to just get to claim seven days of respite.
Speaker 1: I've been saying this for the past couple of weeks
Speaker 1: that I have been I don't know, with the three
Speaker 1: podcasts that I now have recording at least five interviews
Speaker 1: a day in order to be able to take one
Speaker 1: week off right. The other shows will have outside of
Speaker 1: woke AF, will have new content that comes out woke AF.
Speaker 1: I'm giving myself as well as my producer Andrew, a
Speaker 1: break from needing to put out content every day for
Speaker 1: a week. And you know, I have been thinking a
Speaker 1: lot about my personal relationship to work and to worthiness,
Speaker 1: as well as the mentality, the American mentality in our
Speaker 1: culture of capitalism and greed that drives it and makes
Speaker 1: us even believe that when we are when we do
Speaker 1: have the ability and the privilege to take a respite,
Speaker 1: to have some downtime, that it's saddled with guilt, or
Speaker 1: that we've been working ourselves to the bone so much
Speaker 1: that we don't even get to enjoy it fully because
Speaker 1: we spend most of it unconscious. That shouldn't be the
Speaker 1: way it really shouldn't be. I want to end the
Speaker 1: year feeling refreshed and recharged, not depleted and exhausted and miserable. Frankly,
Speaker 1: and I'm not, you know, I am admitting this as
Speaker 1: much to myself as I am to all of you,
Speaker 1: that my challenge and my intention for twenty twenty three
Speaker 1: is to think about the ways in which I want
Speaker 1: to engage with work, and the way is I want
Speaker 1: to engage with rest, and that rest is not a
Speaker 1: gift that I'm giving to myself. It's not something that
Speaker 1: I am earning by virtue of Oh, Danielle, you've put
Speaker 1: out so much content, you get to take a nap.
Speaker 1: It's the only way that I get to continue doing
Speaker 1: the work that I do is because I'm a human
Speaker 1: being who requires rest and rest from guilt, and rest
Speaker 1: from shame, and rest from oppression, and rest from racism,
Speaker 1: and rest from all of these fucking things that pick
Speaker 1: at us all day, every single day. So for those
Speaker 1: of you who do and will take holiday break and
Speaker 1: have the ability to think, I want us all you know,
Speaker 1: as you listen to this episode and this interview with
Speaker 1: Kim Kelly to think about your own relationship to work
Speaker 1: your own relationship to labor and what are some of
Speaker 1: the ways and maybe write them down. What are some
Speaker 1: of the ways that you want to challenge yourself to
Speaker 1: think better and be better to yourself to yourself this
Speaker 1: coming year. What are some intentions that you want to
Speaker 1: inseet and some boundaries you want to create so that
Speaker 1: you can show up better for yourself daily. Coming up
Speaker 1: next my interview with author, freelance writer and labor organizer
Speaker 1: Kim Kelly Folks. I am very happy to welcome back
Speaker 1: to woke f Daily Kim Kelly, author of the book
Speaker 1: The Untold Story of American Labor Fight Like Hell. Freelance
Speaker 1: writer and organizer Kim, You know, it has been a
Speaker 1: really interesting year for workers in America. I think that
Speaker 1: more people, regardless of whether it is an office job,
Speaker 1: whether it is a delivery job, a rail job, teachers
Speaker 1: that how we have been thinking about work, how we
Speaker 1: have been engaging with work has changed and fundamentally changed
Speaker 1: because of the global health pandemic that had those of
Speaker 1: us who were privileged and not quote unquote essential workers
Speaker 1: the opportunity to slow down or forcefully be fired and
Speaker 1: laid off, but to think about how we value our humanism, right,
Speaker 1: our ability to have rest, to have breaks with the
Speaker 1: relentlessness of capitalism and the requirement of production, and can
Speaker 1: constant and unrelenting production to show our value. And I
Speaker 1: wanted to get a sense before we into kind of
Speaker 1: the nitty greedy, just how you have been thinking about
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two and how conversations around labor and work
Speaker 1: have shifted differently in this year than they have in
Speaker 1: years prior. Yeah, I mean, I think you're exactly right
Speaker 1: by mentioning the pandemic which we're still living through those
Speaker 1: of us who are lucky enough to survive it, right,
Speaker 1: even though where there's this sort of perception being pushed
Speaker 1: on us that it's it's over, it's fine, go by
Speaker 1: Christmas presents. But like you're saying, these past god two
Speaker 1: three years, people I guess people I guess who got
Speaker 1: to stay inside and kind of think a little bit more,
Speaker 1: and workers who had to go out and keep the
Speaker 1: world running. I think there's been this this kind of
Speaker 1: mass shifting consciousness around the value of our lives and
Speaker 1: with that the value of our labor, and a lot
Speaker 1: of people have been taking action and and just acting
Speaker 1: upon those new realizations by organizing, by striking, by protesting,
Speaker 1: by standing up against their bosses, no matter how rich
Speaker 1: or fancy or scary they may be, and saying this
Speaker 1: is enough. You know, you can't make the profit, you
Speaker 1: can't enjoy the luxuries, you cannot bask in the unearned
Speaker 1: social capital that you have without us, without our blood,
Speaker 1: sweat and tears. And we're coinciding with this the very
Speaker 1: least compared to the previous administration, pro labor administration, that
Speaker 1: has opened up some wiggle room, that has empowered the NLRB,
Speaker 1: even if it hasn't funded it properly. That is, at
Speaker 1: the very least been making pro union statements, which I
Speaker 1: know it's all hot air, but it helps for some
Speaker 1: people to see, okay, like the people in charge, the president,
Speaker 1: he cares about us. He thinks she used her a
Speaker 1: good thing. At the very least for some people that matters,
Speaker 1: and that's fine. And for everyone who is not necessarily
Speaker 1: interested in that propaganda spectacle, it's opens up some wingle room.
Speaker 1: And we've seen so much more organizing happening with younger people.
Speaker 1: I guess, gen Z, I hate acknowledging that there's a
Speaker 1: generation younger than me, But it happens with us all eventually,
Speaker 1: everyone but this younger generation. And you know, we've seen
Speaker 1: all of these, especially headlines around graduate student work and
Speaker 1: Amazon workers and Starbucks workers, workers in retail that are
Speaker 1: leading this kind of new organizing charge. So many of
Speaker 1: them are young, So many of them are black and
Speaker 1: brown specifically, so many of them are queer and trans.
Speaker 1: The face of labor as it's understood in the sort
Speaker 1: of mainstream level, you know, the white guy in a
Speaker 1: hard hat. That's changing too, and that is showing that
Speaker 1: there is so much more space for so many other
Speaker 1: kinds of workers and kinds of identities and kinds of backgrounds.
Speaker 1: Like that's what my whole book is about, right, And
Speaker 1: that's what we're seeing play out. We have an entire
Speaker 1: generation who have come of age post recession, post Bernie
Speaker 1: the first time, post you know, the rise of these
Speaker 1: tech oligarchs that somehow are able to control our entire lives.
Speaker 1: This generation is not as it seems like, they're maybe
Speaker 1: not quite as beaten down as ours was. And they're like, Okay,
Speaker 1: we got to get out there and do some more
Speaker 1: about this. The world's on fire. We have zero options.
Speaker 1: Maybe we can unionize and do something about it. So
Speaker 1: there's all these different things happening at the same time,
Speaker 1: and we have this moment in labor where it seems
Speaker 1: like we're actually, you know, pushing forward a little bit
Speaker 1: instead of being stuck on our back foot like we've
Speaker 1: happen for so long. You know, I want to talk
Speaker 1: about Generation Z for a minute, because I think that, right,
Speaker 1: like every every generation has its moment in the sun,
Speaker 1: meaning that there is something or some things that occur
Speaker 1: that are defining moments, right and for Generation Z, I
Speaker 1: think that, you know, and again they are referred to
Speaker 1: in allotted hood from ways and TikTok, generation Generation Z, right,
Speaker 1: the the meme generation, all of these things. But the
Speaker 1: reality is is that they are the first generation, as
Speaker 1: economists have said, that will actually be doing worse than
Speaker 1: their parents and caregivers, right, that actually will most likely
Speaker 1: not be buying a home, not be buying a car
Speaker 1: that don't have the ability, which personally, you know, and
Speaker 1: this is coming from a privileged middle class space that,
Speaker 1: like your twenties, are supposed to be about finding out
Speaker 1: who you are and what the fuck you want to do,
Speaker 1: as opposed to clinging on for dear life. So what
Speaker 1: is it you know that that you see or that
Speaker 1: you hear and you read and you write about this
Speaker 1: generation as to what is sparking them in terms of unionizing,
Speaker 1: in terms of pushing back that didn't happen for millennials
Speaker 1: or jen As right, that is unique, I guess to
Speaker 1: this generation. I think the fact that this almost this
Speaker 1: entire generation are so digitally native, like they grew up
Speaker 1: with the Internet and with that social media and with
Speaker 1: that access to sharing information among their peers and taking
Speaker 1: in new sources that aren't just MSNBC or Fox News
Speaker 1: or where others they had. When I was a kid,
Speaker 1: I grew up in the middle of Wes. We've barely
Speaker 1: had the Internet like at all, and now you have
Speaker 1: an entire world on your phone if you have one.
Speaker 1: I think just the ease with which communication is fostered
Speaker 1: between younger folks and information is shared and spread and
Speaker 1: grievances are aired, and the fact that these digital spaces
Speaker 1: are places for people to organize and come together. I
Speaker 1: think that it's had such a big shift because I
Speaker 1: mean for millennials, yeah, we had the Internet, we had
Speaker 1: some technology, but it's not like what this younger generation
Speaker 1: has and they're so fluent in that. And I think
Speaker 1: of this organizer in Alabama saying he's twenty one, he's
Speaker 1: part of the effort to organize an Amazon warehouse and
Speaker 1: bestomer and I asked him about all this, so I
Speaker 1: saw him. I saw him down there recently. It's like, look,
Speaker 1: I grew up watching my parents struggle and work over time,
Speaker 1: and I never saw them. And there were millennials, and
Speaker 1: I knew that I didn't want that for myself. Like
Speaker 1: my generation, we know that the politicians don't care about us,
Speaker 1: they just want our votes. We know that all of
Speaker 1: these power structures that you know we're supposed to rely
Speaker 1: on aren't there for us. We're born into this burning planet,
Speaker 1: like it seems like everything stacked up against us. So
Speaker 1: why wouldn't we organize and try and fight back and
Speaker 1: do something about it? Because we have some of these tools,
Speaker 1: We have the energy, we have the motivation, and we
Speaker 1: don't really have any other choice. Right It's either stand
Speaker 1: there and let the world happen to you, or get
Speaker 1: out there and try and make it a little bit
Speaker 1: better at least tolerable while you're there. You know, I
Speaker 1: think that that is so right. Just there's so much
Speaker 1: philosophy and what you just said, either stand there and
Speaker 1: let the world happen to you, or you know, or
Speaker 1: do something or organize, you know, around it. And I
Speaker 1: think that we have had such a and such a
Speaker 1: disturbing relationship with capitalism, right, it is it is this
Speaker 1: burden sum necessary evil. But I didn't feel that way, Kim,
Speaker 1: when I was coming out of college, when I was
Speaker 1: entering into into the workforce in a real way for
Speaker 1: the first time, I felt like, and you know, maybe
Speaker 1: it's because the the the dust of you know, the
Speaker 1: gas lighting and the lies that have been told about
Speaker 1: You're only as worth worthy as you are fruitful, right,
Speaker 1: fruitful in your production. You're only as worthy as you
Speaker 1: are fruitful. So if you have nothing, right, it is
Speaker 1: because you have invested nothing, you have worked for nothing, right,
Speaker 1: it is it's the way that we have built this
Speaker 1: belief that if you are in poverty, it's because you
Speaker 1: just don't work hard enough. Right. And then we have
Speaker 1: idolized and deitized these ultrawealthy, right, saying that if they
Speaker 1: bless you, if they have so much wealth, right, if
Speaker 1: they are multibillionaires, it's because they are geniuses. It's because
Speaker 1: they work so hard, right, and then there's there's the
Speaker 1: shrinking rest that fall in the middle, but are still
Speaker 1: a paycheck away from that struggle. So what do you
Speaker 1: think has happened over the course of I guess you know,
Speaker 1: thirty years right in this country that has shifted the
Speaker 1: way that we talk Because when folks used to talk
Speaker 1: about capitalism, you were thought about on the fringe of
Speaker 1: the fringe, right when you talked about it was kind
Speaker 1: of this conspiracy theory of all these people are puppeteering
Speaker 1: us in all of these things. Now it's part of
Speaker 1: mainstream discourse. So what do you think has happened over
Speaker 1: the last thirty years that has us in the place
Speaker 1: that we're in right now when we discuss capitalism, worthiness, labor,
Speaker 1: laziness versus genius. Man. So I'm thirty four, so basically
Speaker 1: this has been my whole life just living through this shift, right.
Speaker 1: And I remember, like you said, growing up, my parents,
Speaker 1: like we're a blue collar construction worker family, and like
Speaker 1: my dad loved Ronald Reagan and had terrible opinions, And
Speaker 1: I was like, you gotta work hard because no one's
Speaker 1: going to hand anything to you. People that people this unwellfare,
Speaker 1: people that like the message that was drilled into my
Speaker 1: head I was like, you have to work harder, you
Speaker 1: ain't gonna have nothing. And I was like, okay, and
Speaker 1: I took that to heart. So I worked hard. But
Speaker 1: I ended up in like this this non traditional space.
Speaker 1: Like I worked in the music business, was a roadie
Speaker 1: in a music journalist before I started cover R Labor,
Speaker 1: So I never really thought I would have access to
Speaker 1: that path anyway. But that was a choice obviously, like
Speaker 1: I was going to do something different, almost famous it,
Speaker 1: but like and it just throughout that experience of getting
Speaker 1: to know people in like different backgrounds and reading books
Speaker 1: and finding marks and finding anarchists and finding all the
Speaker 1: things that that some people are able to come across
Speaker 1: when they go digging, Like that helps shape my political
Speaker 1: perspective perspective in the way that I kind of moved
Speaker 1: in the world. But but the generation who like were
Speaker 1: coming up after me, they didn't have to, like, you know,
Speaker 1: dig around in the university library and try and find
Speaker 1: a copy of Capital, Like they could look to Occupy
Speaker 1: Wall Street. They could follow Bernie Sanders or AOC on Twitter,
Speaker 1: and of course, yeah, they're politicians. That's not necessarily like
Speaker 1: I'm not a here, you know, I'm just saying that
Speaker 1: is a place where some people can come across these
Speaker 1: ideas in a way they can translate and use in
Speaker 1: their own political development, right, Like I think these ideas
Speaker 1: post I mean, I think we can't undersell the importance
Speaker 1: of Occupy High. We can't undersell the importance of the
Speaker 1: Bernie Sanders presidential campaign, like just in terms of shining
Speaker 1: a light and really publicizing this idea of the one
Speaker 1: percent of these class divisions, of this rampant inequality that's
Speaker 1: to find our lives. I think those were big moments
Speaker 1: for people that maybe weren't necessarily hanging out with food
Speaker 1: not bombs, or like didn't have cool radical parents. Like
Speaker 1: that was an entryway and you kind of can't put
Speaker 1: that genie back in the bottle. Those conversations opened up,
Speaker 1: and now there's been so much more development and so
Speaker 1: many more people chiming in as so many other movements have,
Speaker 1: you know, have opened up that space even further, whether
Speaker 1: it's talking about the movement for Black Lives or me Too,
Speaker 1: or gender justice and trans rights, like there's it's all
Speaker 1: just out there in the open now because it's been
Speaker 1: cracked open and people have access to social media, there's
Speaker 1: a younger generation of journalists and content creators who are
Speaker 1: getting these messages out there and sharing these ideas. Is
Speaker 1: like it's not and you know, podcasting happened in the
Speaker 1: past thirty Yeah, Like there's I think there's just so
Speaker 1: much more access to information that you could stumble upon
Speaker 1: if you don't have to know what you're looking for.
Speaker 1: You can be sixteen and go on TikTok and see
Speaker 1: someone doing a video about how their boss sucks or
Speaker 1: how they're unionizing, or how capitalism isn't cool, and like
Speaker 1: that could start an entire lifetime of political inquiry. Like,
Speaker 1: there's just so much more that's more accessible for everyone,
Speaker 1: not just people that go to college, not just people
Speaker 1: who come from these various traditions. Anybody who can get
Speaker 1: access to a phone or to a computer in the
Speaker 1: library can come across these ideas and decide how they
Speaker 1: feel about them, and digest them and apply them to
Speaker 1: their own lives, you know. And I think that that's right.
Speaker 1: And on the flip side of that, as you're talking
Speaker 1: and I'm thinking about what the original nature and desire
Speaker 1: was for social media and social mediators was for us
Speaker 1: to be able to come together, to communicate in different ways,
Speaker 1: to globalize in a way right outside of the body
Speaker 1: politic of what it meant to understand what was happening
Speaker 1: in other countries that are not covered in mainstream news
Speaker 1: is what's happening outside of your own community. Then you
Speaker 1: mentioned something earlier too about tech oligarchs, and now I'm
Speaker 1: starting to think about Elon Musk and the thing that
Speaker 1: I've been saying, as people have said, you know, he's
Speaker 1: such a genius, he's such this, that and the other thing, like, Oh,
Speaker 1: I can't believe he's fucking up Twitter in this way.
Speaker 1: And I'm just like, why do you guys think that
Speaker 1: this is an accident? Because for all of the things
Speaker 1: that you just offered about this generation, about Generation Z,
Speaker 1: about why things have come to pass in the way
Speaker 1: that they have over the last thirty years, it is
Speaker 1: because of social media. It is because of the advent
Speaker 1: of the internet. It is because of our access to information.
Speaker 1: But when you start to commodify information, right, when you
Speaker 1: privatize information, then what happens. What happens is what we
Speaker 1: are seeing unfold with Twitter right the world Square is
Speaker 1: now held up by one court gesture, right by one court,
Speaker 1: you know, because I won't call him a king, right
Speaker 1: by one court jesture, that then is able to destroy
Speaker 1: it at will because he wants to, because that's going
Speaker 1: to be his personal entertainment. Fuck the rest, right, And
Speaker 1: so I wonder in the schism of that right where
Speaker 1: at one time technology has allowed us to communicate, to understand,
Speaker 1: to connect to organizing ways that we were never able
Speaker 1: to before. Then on the other side of that is
Speaker 1: the commodification of said platforms and the ability to do that,
Speaker 1: And we all exist at the whim of the billionaires
Speaker 1: and the venture capitalists that have created said entities. Where
Speaker 1: do you see us going, Kim? Where do you see like?
Speaker 1: And I know that it's a big it's a big,
Speaker 1: big question, but we're in a big, big space, like
Speaker 1: where do you see this going? Because on one hand,
Speaker 1: I'm like, are we in the Hunger Games? Is this
Speaker 1: black mirror? Like? You know? And on and on the
Speaker 1: other side, I'm just like, you know, are these tools
Speaker 1: that we're using to organize they're also being used for
Speaker 1: our demise, right, They're also being used to organize against workers.
Speaker 1: Right to you know, to push back against this this uprising.
Speaker 1: So where do you see you know, what do you
Speaker 1: see forthcoming? I'm asking you to look into the magic
Speaker 1: eight ball, you know, as we change the calendar year. Gosh.
Speaker 1: I mean, honestly, I'm going to be following the sex
Speaker 1: workers because those folks are always the canary in the
Speaker 1: coal mine when it comes to online repression and criminalization.
Speaker 1: Right They've been barred from so many platforms way before
Speaker 1: other people. Their labor is criminalized across many parts of
Speaker 1: that industry. They're not allowed on so many social media
Speaker 1: platforms already. They with Passage, Sesta Foster, they lost in
Speaker 1: critical digital infrastructure that they needed to keep themselves safe
Speaker 1: and continue their business. And I think the way that
Speaker 1: sex workers have been treated online is something that a
Speaker 1: lot of like sex worker thinkers that I follow, they,
Speaker 1: I mean, they're very very vocal about this. Like what
Speaker 1: they do to us first, they will do to you
Speaker 1: later or soon. It's the same the thing with trans communities,
Speaker 1: communities of color, folks that are able somehow to scrape
Speaker 1: out bits of meeting, a connection, and even sometimes livelihood
Speaker 1: from these digital spaces in spite of all the structural
Speaker 1: barriers and the fact that evil, rich white dudes are
Speaker 1: running the whole thing. Those folks are always the first
Speaker 1: ones to get kicked off, to get silenced, to get booted.
Speaker 1: I mean, like Twitter, look at the kind of people
Speaker 1: that Elon Musk kicks off this journalists and transactivists. It's
Speaker 1: not Jeff Bezos, right, And just thinking about the way
Speaker 1: that this has been happening and the way it's going
Speaker 1: to continue happening, it scares me because, you know, it's
Speaker 1: in a personal sense because I'm a freelancer and like
Speaker 1: a lot of my friends live on the computer, you know,
Speaker 1: and a lot of like I get a lot of
Speaker 1: work that way. But that's just me. But like outside
Speaker 1: of just my little personal fears and worries, it's like,
Speaker 1: like you said, the idea of having this open space
Speaker 1: for information to flow and for people to connect and
Speaker 1: debate and find things out about places far away from
Speaker 1: where they are, Like, that's so important, especially if you're
Speaker 1: living somewhere where you're isolated, or you feel isolated because
Speaker 1: of who you are, or you're made to feel that
Speaker 1: way because of who you are. They're incredibly vital connections
Speaker 1: made on these platforms, and I don't think they're going
Speaker 1: to go away. I think maybe they'll start looking different,
Speaker 1: maybe the Internet. And there's a I read a lot
Speaker 1: called Ryan Broader who's written about this idea of the
Speaker 1: Internet sort of pulling apart into what it used to be,
Speaker 1: like smaller specific spaces for people. Like I said, you
Speaker 1: see it on mastadon, when people can choose their experience
Speaker 1: in a way even though it's already issues there or
Speaker 1: discord communities or YouTube communities, like, I think people are
Speaker 1: going to look at the available options and look at
Speaker 1: what's happening to the major platforms and decide for themselves
Speaker 1: how much they want to give and how much of
Speaker 1: that nonsense they want to take and sort of crash
Speaker 1: their own experiences online. And I think it would be
Speaker 1: a real shame if we lost those big like Twitter
Speaker 1: type platforms where you can see what everyone's up to.
Speaker 1: But I mean the way that Twitter has been and
Speaker 1: is has heard a lot of people too, So you know,
Speaker 1: what's the You don't need everyone know in your business,
Speaker 1: but sometimes you really need to share and you need
Speaker 1: to get messages out there. So I'm not sure what
Speaker 1: the best thing is really. I just I would encourage
Speaker 1: people who are concerned to pay attention to down top
Speaker 1: of it, but also talk to your neighbors and get
Speaker 1: to know people in your community and maybe build up
Speaker 1: some I don't want to say real world, some physical
Speaker 1: connections too, because if Twitter goes out tomorrow, who are
Speaker 1: you going to talk to? Hopefully you have some other
Speaker 1: people out there. You can go organize those food out
Speaker 1: bombs in your neighborhood, or talk to other people in
Speaker 1: your block, or do something. Because we can't let them
Speaker 1: dictate the way that we communicate with one another, right
Speaker 1: if they can pull it all away to minutes, so
Speaker 1: we have to forge things that they can't touch. Yeah,
Speaker 1: last question for you can because I want to end.
Speaker 1: I want to do something that I normally don't do,
Speaker 1: which is try and end on a hopeful place. I
Speaker 1: want to go into like a dreamscape for a minute,
Speaker 1: around work and around labor. Because if we were to design,
Speaker 1: if you were to design or provide what you believe
Speaker 1: the feelings are behind a human centered work life positioning,
Speaker 1: what does that actually look like? Right? Like? What you know?
Speaker 1: What are some of the elements and maybe not all
Speaker 1: of them, but some of the elements that that balanced
Speaker 1: equitable space would provide well, if we're gonna dream a
Speaker 1: little bit. I mean, that's why I'm an anarchist, right
Speaker 1: like that, just that very idea of doing away with hierarchy,
Speaker 1: doing away with top down someone's better than anybody else,
Speaker 1: thinking and organizing society around cooperation and mutual aid and
Speaker 1: care and compassion from one another, organizing horizontally, making sure
Speaker 1: that everyone's voice and everyone's life matters and is valued
Speaker 1: in their labors, appreciated. I mean, since that's the way
Speaker 1: things are set up right now, it makes it difficult
Speaker 1: to even dream of a world like that. But that
Speaker 1: shouldn't stop us, and it shouldn't stop us from trying. Okay,
Speaker 1: we might not reach it to the full, you know,
Speaker 1: anarchist future I would love to live in while I'm
Speaker 1: still alive. But we can unionize our workplaces and talk
Speaker 1: to our neighbors and build up mutual aid networks. We
Speaker 1: can make changes, even if the people in charge really
Speaker 1: don't want us to. You know, I think there is
Speaker 1: so much potential for growth and for building and for
Speaker 1: connection just as humans and as workers, especially as more
Speaker 1: people are embracing this consciousness of like, you know, it's
Speaker 1: us against them there's a lot of us and they've
Speaker 1: been getting away with this shit for way too long.
Speaker 1: Let's try and do something about it. Like throughout history,
Speaker 1: throughout labor history and human history, the only reason anything
Speaker 1: has ever changed or gotten better is because a bunch
Speaker 1: of people, usually poor folks, usually exploit of folks that
Speaker 1: come together and said enough. So I'm just waiting for
Speaker 1: this current moment to continue to bear fruit. I mean,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two big for labor, twenty twenty three, let's
Speaker 1: make it big for labor. Let's see that ups strike.
Speaker 1: You know, it's kicking off with a strike across prisons
Speaker 1: in Pennsylvania on January six, and cars raty to workers
Speaker 1: across the straight are going to go on strike, and
Speaker 1: that's going to be the first big one of the year.
Speaker 1: And seeing our most vulnerable fellow workers taking that step
Speaker 1: and publicly standing up and say we deserve better. If
Speaker 1: someone who is forced into a cage and has no
Speaker 1: other options is able to take that step and organize
Speaker 1: with their fellow humans and actually do something, there's nothing
Speaker 1: stopping any of the rest of us who aren't stuck
Speaker 1: in that situation, you know, like there is always something
Speaker 1: you can do and I hope people really take that
Speaker 1: to heart and just move with it, you know, like
Speaker 1: keep pushing forward, because we can't go any further back
Speaker 1: than we already have. There's no other option. Absolutely and
Speaker 1: so true. Kim Kelly, this was the most perfect last
Speaker 1: interview for me of twenty twenty two. Um. I always
Speaker 1: appreciate your your your voice, because it's just like it's
Speaker 1: like I it's like talking to a poet. I feel
Speaker 1: like when I when I when I talk to you, Um, folks,
Speaker 1: the book is the untold story of American labor fight.
Speaker 1: Like hell um, I encourage everyone to pick it up. Kim,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for winding us down in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two, and I hope that we have bigger conversations
Speaker 1: around the power of people in twenty twenty three. I
Speaker 1: appreciate you. Hell yeah, thank you so much. I'm excited
Speaker 1: to save a kind of good trouble we get into
Speaker 1: this year. Yes, that is it for me today, dear friends,
Speaker 1: with this last interview of twenty twenty two, I wish
Speaker 1: you all an extraordinary, RESTful, rejuvenative holiday break, and I
Speaker 1: will see you back here in the new year. As always,
Speaker 1: Power to the people and to all the people power,
Speaker 1: get woke and stay woke as fuck.