WEBVTT - It Could Happen Here Weekly 33 0:00:00.240 --> 0:00:02.680 Hey, everybody, Robert Evans here, and I wanted to let 0:00:02.720 --> 0:00:06.400 you know this is a compiletion episode. So every episode 0:00:06.480 --> 0:00:09.600 of the week that just happened is here in one 0:00:09.680 --> 0:00:13.440 convenient and with somewhat less ads package for you to 0:00:13.480 --> 0:00:15.960 listen to in a long stretch if you want. If 0:00:16.000 --> 0:00:17.919 you've been listening to the episodes every day this week, 0:00:17.960 --> 0:00:20.159 there's gonna be nothing new here for you, but you 0:00:20.160 --> 0:00:27.240 can make your own decisions. Hi, you welcome to take 0:00:27.280 --> 0:00:30.040 it happened here the show where we just spent a 0:00:30.080 --> 0:00:32.800 few minutes not recording by accident and also trying to 0:00:32.800 --> 0:00:36.000 shoot my cataway so they would stop throwing uh old 0:00:36.040 --> 0:00:38.279 grenades off my desk. So that's the vibe that we're 0:00:38.320 --> 0:00:41.680 going for today. Okay, and oh do you know what 0:00:41.720 --> 0:00:45.720 today is? Today is May Day, famed famed one of 0:00:45.760 --> 0:00:49.480 the best holidays. Um so in the Mayday tradition. I'm 0:00:49.479 --> 0:00:52.040 not doing my job today, so we're not doing a 0:00:52.120 --> 0:00:55.920 real episode. But but don't don't worry. We still have 0:00:56.000 --> 0:00:59.000 other content for you to listen to. Uh speaking of 0:00:59.040 --> 0:01:02.279 content of the friend of the pod, Marcat Killjoy, Hi, 0:01:02.720 --> 0:01:05.920 do you have anything that we can listen to today? No? 0:01:06.240 --> 0:01:09.280 Was I supposed to prepare something. Oh oh wait, what 0:01:09.360 --> 0:01:11.800 if I released the very first episode of my new 0:01:11.840 --> 0:01:15.600 podcast today and what if it was a May Day 0:01:15.680 --> 0:01:19.720 themed episode? Would that sound good? That would sound, as 0:01:19.800 --> 0:01:22.600 the kids say, very based of you. That would be 0:01:22.720 --> 0:01:26.200 so cool because if if you like May Day and 0:01:26.280 --> 0:01:28.480 only working eight hours a week, which is still too 0:01:28.480 --> 0:01:30.880 many hours, but if you enjoy that as opposed to 0:01:30.920 --> 0:01:33.440 more hours, you should probably thank the anarchists. And you 0:01:33.480 --> 0:01:36.399 can learn more about those people at Margaret's new show, 0:01:36.480 --> 0:01:39.760 Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff here on cool Zone Media. 0:01:39.959 --> 0:01:43.840 Also featuring also featuring friend of the pod Robert Evans. Yes, 0:01:44.080 --> 0:01:46.240 Robert Evans is a guest all that episode, so if 0:01:46.280 --> 0:01:49.960 you're familiar with that guy, then you could also listen. 0:01:50.560 --> 0:01:55.400 So yeah, episodes dropping every Monday and Wednesday until the 0:01:55.480 --> 0:02:00.280 world burns. Yeah, so like three months? Three months? Well? 0:02:00.480 --> 0:02:03.480 Actually did they said like what like forties six weeks? 0:02:03.800 --> 0:02:06.520 Oh yeah, I math it out. It was nine. Um, 0:02:06.560 --> 0:02:09.040 it's nine months that the UN says we have to 0:02:09.080 --> 0:02:11.880 turn everything around. But as as my friend pointed out, 0:02:11.960 --> 0:02:13.799 we're gonna waste a month of that just trying to 0:02:13.840 --> 0:02:16.720 do the math of calculating the weeks in ten months 0:02:19.040 --> 0:02:22.960 I do love optimism. Well that does it for us today. 0:02:23.160 --> 0:02:25.800 Go enjoy your May Day by not working or at 0:02:25.880 --> 0:02:29.240 least just kind of sucking around. And that's what I'll 0:02:29.280 --> 0:02:32.240 be doing. And cool people who did Cool stuff is 0:02:32.320 --> 0:02:36.880 out now, so check it out wherever you get your podcast. 0:02:37.919 --> 0:02:41.040 Oh my god, I just realized I wasn't recording. Oh 0:02:41.080 --> 0:03:01.480 we are not doing this again. It'll be fine. It's 0:03:01.520 --> 0:03:05.119 like a bunch of different illustrations of dictators all done. 0:03:05.120 --> 0:03:08.120 It's like little anime chicks. So they're all hot, so 0:03:08.160 --> 0:03:11.959 like pol Pot's this like sexy girl and a throat 0:03:12.000 --> 0:03:14.760 of skulls. But Tito they made into a milf like 0:03:14.800 --> 0:03:16.840 she's got all of her kids around her. It's the 0:03:16.919 --> 0:03:19.399 only it's the only one with kids. Um. I don't 0:03:19.400 --> 0:03:21.280 know why they picked Tito for that, but it does 0:03:21.360 --> 0:03:23.560 kind of work. This is it could happen here a 0:03:23.639 --> 0:03:30.240 podcast about which anime war criminals are hottest. And it's idiomine. Actually, 0:03:30.639 --> 0:03:33.920 the idiomine in that book is pretty pretty pretty smoking 0:03:36.040 --> 0:03:40.720 as a like wearing black lingerie on a throne of skulls. Okay, nice, 0:03:40.920 --> 0:03:43.800 just kissing you make it in no no kissinger all 0:03:43.880 --> 0:03:48.760 all like like world leaders. Um, I would. I would 0:03:48.880 --> 0:03:50.960 argue that, but he does not make the book. No, 0:03:51.320 --> 0:03:55.400 it's sad tragic anyway, this is it could happen here podcast, 0:03:56.040 --> 0:03:59.360 Things Falling Apart and other stuff. I'm here again with 0:03:59.400 --> 0:04:03.240 my buddy Jay James James, Hi Hi hi one. Which 0:04:03.280 --> 0:04:07.080 dictator do you think would be hottest? They were like 0:04:07.200 --> 0:04:11.920 gender bit Yeah, yeah, I don't know. I'd have to 0:04:11.920 --> 0:04:14.600 go for like one of the old timey ones press 0:04:14.600 --> 0:04:16.720 one of the one of the one of the one 0:04:16.720 --> 0:04:20.400 of the os. Yeah. I think Kauzar Nikki had nothing 0:04:20.440 --> 0:04:22.680 to do but like look hot and he was a 0:04:22.720 --> 0:04:25.160 big workout guy. Yeah, big workout, got nice to rip, 0:04:25.240 --> 0:04:27.880 nice nice outfits, tight trousers. I think I'd probably go 0:04:27.920 --> 0:04:30.760 with him. Yeah, that that scans now which was hottest? 0:04:30.880 --> 0:04:33.640 As they were, like, which is the most fuckable war criminal? 0:04:34.920 --> 0:04:37.159 That's a tough one. I'd probably have to think about that, 0:04:39.040 --> 0:04:42.440 I know. Not a coming to mind. Actually, oddly that 0:04:42.560 --> 0:04:47.200 Stalin Pictures of Fake Yeah not not not nearly. Actually 0:04:47.240 --> 0:04:51.839 that's sexy. Um Joseph the Stallion, I gotta go. I 0:04:51.839 --> 0:04:54.560 gotta go with Saddam Hussein. Yeah, that's true. He has 0:04:54.800 --> 0:04:58.279 a sort of lustful mustache and it's good that mustache 0:04:58.320 --> 0:05:04.680 Fox James. We should probably talk about something that's not 0:05:04.720 --> 0:05:08.120 which dictators are most falcable. UM. Today we're going to 0:05:08.240 --> 0:05:13.360 chat about he fat courses uh, and about emergency UM 0:05:13.440 --> 0:05:17.320 and particularly like combat medicine, which is a more relevant 0:05:17.400 --> 0:05:18.960 topic for a lot of people. In the wake of 0:05:19.000 --> 0:05:22.400 a couple there's a mass shooting at a protest in Portland. Uh, 0:05:22.440 --> 0:05:27.160 There's been a whole lot of threats made against LGBT people. Uh. 0:05:27.279 --> 0:05:29.560 Jack poss O Biak launched a T shirt that was 0:05:29.600 --> 0:05:32.000 basically threatening a mass shooting at Disney World. All sorts 0:05:32.000 --> 0:05:34.680 of fun ship has been happening. Yeah, it does seem 0:05:34.720 --> 0:05:38.440 like we're aspiringing towards the end of times. Yeah, it 0:05:38.600 --> 0:05:41.360 certainly seems if you want to be less, you know, 0:05:42.560 --> 0:05:45.480 apocalyptic than that. It certainly seems credible to say that 0:05:46.360 --> 0:05:48.920 there's a pretty good chance people there are people listening 0:05:48.960 --> 0:05:50.960 to this who have not been present at a shooting, 0:05:50.960 --> 0:05:52.720 who will be present at a shooting at some point 0:05:52.760 --> 0:05:54.800 in their lives. Yeah, And I think given that, it 0:05:54.800 --> 0:05:56.680 doesn't make sense. So like I'm joking about the end 0:05:56.720 --> 0:05:58.480 of times, right, Like we shouldn't panic and things we 0:05:58.480 --> 0:06:00.279 should think about ways we can protect each other and 0:06:00.360 --> 0:06:02.640 keep each other safe. Yeah. So what is a he 0:06:02.760 --> 0:06:05.799 FAT course because you recently went through one. Yeah, so 0:06:06.240 --> 0:06:10.800 he FAT is an acronym right hostile environment first Aid training. Um, 0:06:10.839 --> 0:06:12.960 it's a British thing. I think that's the syllabus I 0:06:12.960 --> 0:06:15.720 believe is standardized by the government in the UK. So 0:06:15.720 --> 0:06:17.279 most of the courses you'll find are in the UK, 0:06:18.480 --> 0:06:22.280 clustered around Hereford for pretty obvious reasons, but that there 0:06:22.279 --> 0:06:23.880 are there are a couple in the United States, and 0:06:23.920 --> 0:06:27.159 there are some in other countries too, And it's for journalists, 0:06:27.400 --> 0:06:30.880 aid workers and GEO staff and anyone else who's working 0:06:30.920 --> 0:06:33.120 in an environment that would be considered like high risk 0:06:33.200 --> 0:06:37.159 or hostile. And to your point, that includes most of 0:06:37.160 --> 0:06:40.480 the United States at the minute, right. Yeah, Well, I 0:06:40.520 --> 0:06:43.080 mean we are in this funds place where literally any 0:06:43.120 --> 0:06:48.880 moment could turn into a situation with the intensity of 0:06:48.600 --> 0:06:51.240 a of a low density war zone. Yeah, I mean 0:06:51.279 --> 0:06:53.920 we have more weapons and than most war zones, and 0:06:54.560 --> 0:06:56.680 also people who think it's okay to kill other people 0:06:56.720 --> 0:07:00.080 because they like Mickey Mouse. So it does seem like 0:07:00.120 --> 0:07:01.960 you said, it is more likely that we will see 0:07:02.080 --> 0:07:06.800 more shootings, even bombings, and that kind of thing like 0:07:06.839 --> 0:07:09.520 we can't say for sure, but yeah, now you you 0:07:09.760 --> 0:07:12.000 have done some of the same kind of work that 0:07:12.000 --> 0:07:13.880 that I and some other colleagues of ours have done, 0:07:13.960 --> 0:07:17.520 you know, in in hostile environments, difficult places, prior to 0:07:18.320 --> 0:07:22.040 going through this course. Obviously, when we're talking about like 0:07:22.400 --> 0:07:25.120 what sort of first aid skill should people have, the 0:07:25.160 --> 0:07:28.280 most basic stuff is like how to apply a tourniquet, 0:07:28.280 --> 0:07:30.400 which we'll talk about a bit more later, how to 0:07:31.040 --> 0:07:34.000 um if it's not because tourniquets are really only for extremities, 0:07:34.040 --> 0:07:36.320 you know, you can't really turniquet a gut wound or whatever, 0:07:36.360 --> 0:07:39.280 and so for that it's more like packing it but outside. 0:07:39.400 --> 0:07:42.520 So I'm going to assume you had your more than 0:07:42.560 --> 0:07:44.720 your share of experience with that kind of stuff. What 0:07:44.800 --> 0:07:47.080 did you learn new going through this course? Like, what 0:07:47.120 --> 0:07:51.400 was the stuff that emphasized that's kind of beyond the basics? Yeah, so, um, 0:07:51.440 --> 0:07:53.680 the stuff I've done before has been some of that 0:07:53.680 --> 0:07:55.840 basic start the bleed stuff, and then a fair amount 0:07:55.840 --> 0:07:59.160 of wilderness medicine stuff. So some of the improvised stretches 0:07:59.200 --> 0:08:02.680 and stuff I was for Milliar with. I enjoyed some 0:08:02.720 --> 0:08:05.960 of the releases they did, like I'm not talking about 0:08:05.960 --> 0:08:09.000 like necessarily like a hand to hand combat or open 0:08:09.040 --> 0:08:11.160 hand combat, but like ways to release yourself in a 0:08:11.200 --> 0:08:15.480 non violent fashion. I thought that was very good. Ways 0:08:15.520 --> 0:08:18.920 to move through crowd I found that very interesting. And 0:08:19.360 --> 0:08:21.240 we did a lot around how to move under fire, 0:08:21.320 --> 0:08:24.520 how to react around explosives, how to react around indirect fire, 0:08:24.680 --> 0:08:26.600 and most of that had already covered, and then some 0:08:26.640 --> 0:08:30.440 of the stuff around hostage situations to include a simulated 0:08:30.480 --> 0:08:33.800 a hostage situation where you're blindfolded or hooded and sort 0:08:33.840 --> 0:08:37.320 of ask questions and poked with a blank firing weapon. 0:08:37.400 --> 0:08:39.920 As such, I think it's really good. You can't really 0:08:39.920 --> 0:08:42.200 have enough fix what you can have too much experience 0:08:42.200 --> 0:08:44.920 for that, but to simulate that and as realistic as 0:08:44.920 --> 0:08:48.920 setting as possible I found was super helpful. So I think, yeah, 0:08:48.920 --> 0:08:50.560 I think that was probably the most interesting thing for 0:08:50.600 --> 0:08:53.760 me now when it comes to what kind of training 0:08:53.760 --> 0:08:55.640 people can get, because the heath had courses a couple 0:08:55.640 --> 0:08:58.080 of thousand bucks, which is beyond I know we have 0:08:58.200 --> 0:09:00.439 some colleagues listening, and I think it's a good thing 0:09:00.440 --> 0:09:01.640 for people who are going to do this kind of 0:09:01.720 --> 0:09:04.040 journalism to consider, or if you're in you know, an 0:09:04.080 --> 0:09:06.040 aid worker or someth someone who is going to be 0:09:06.080 --> 0:09:09.560 going into these situations for a living. That's but for 0:09:09.679 --> 0:09:13.160 a normal person listening, it's probably more than you're likely 0:09:13.240 --> 0:09:16.360 to want to get UM or have the resources to 0:09:16.400 --> 0:09:20.480 get So what what people because, because especially in the 0:09:20.520 --> 0:09:22.640 wake of shooting is pretty much any time there's a 0:09:22.640 --> 0:09:25.360 mass shooting or violence at a protest, I will tweet 0:09:25.360 --> 0:09:27.200 about I FAX again. And an I FACT is an 0:09:27.200 --> 0:09:30.800 individual first aid kit. It's what like every soldier is 0:09:30.840 --> 0:09:33.600 supposed to have on their belt or on their plate carrier. 0:09:33.960 --> 0:09:36.640 And it generally consists of what are called and this 0:09:36.679 --> 0:09:38.440 is when people ask, like what should I get to 0:09:38.440 --> 0:09:41.599 be ready for a shooting UM. Generally it consists of 0:09:41.880 --> 0:09:45.040 consists of two chest seals. These are called eclusive dressings. 0:09:45.040 --> 0:09:48.719 They're basically like kind of sheets of adhesive plastic. I 0:09:48.760 --> 0:09:51.040 would say that you like put over if you get 0:09:51.080 --> 0:09:54.280 shot in like the lungs, you your lungs kind of 0:09:54.360 --> 0:09:58.880 depressure rise UM and that's bad. I'm not a I'm 0:09:58.880 --> 0:10:00.880 not a biology expert, but you're not supposed to have 0:10:00.880 --> 0:10:03.600 a whole three year lungs UM. And one of the 0:10:03.679 --> 0:10:06.480 things that you do to treat that immediately is you 0:10:06.520 --> 0:10:09.040 put this kind of addressing over it, which stops the 0:10:09.120 --> 0:10:12.719 lung from collapsing basically. Um, So that's one thing you'll 0:10:12.720 --> 0:10:14.600 find in an IFAC. You'll also find what's called a 0:10:14.640 --> 0:10:18.240 combat tourniquet. There's a bunch of kinds of tourniquets. Um. 0:10:18.280 --> 0:10:20.720 I was doing a stop the bleed course. We'll talk 0:10:20.760 --> 0:10:22.280 more about that in a bit, but that's the thing 0:10:22.320 --> 0:10:24.840 everyone should do, like in terms of you know, he 0:10:24.960 --> 0:10:27.199 fat is kind of more advanced and for people who 0:10:27.200 --> 0:10:31.320 are going to professionally put themselves in shitty situations. Um, 0:10:31.520 --> 0:10:33.560 stop the bleed is for everybody. And one of the 0:10:33.640 --> 0:10:35.840 things I was having a chat with people who were 0:10:35.880 --> 0:10:38.440 teaching them, we were doing a little meeting, um, and 0:10:38.480 --> 0:10:40.280 one of the things that was brought up people always 0:10:40.320 --> 0:10:42.000 talk about, well, I wear a belt in case I 0:10:42.000 --> 0:10:43.720 need to make a tourniquet or this or that, and 0:10:44.440 --> 0:10:48.840 virtually never works, like close to zero percent success, right, Um, 0:10:48.880 --> 0:10:52.360 even when it's someone who's trained and experienced providing tourniquets, 0:10:52.400 --> 0:10:55.800 like random ship does not make a good tourniquet. Tourniquets 0:10:55.800 --> 0:10:59.200 make good tourniquets. Yeah, They's more that easy to carry. 0:10:59.559 --> 0:11:03.440 They down't cheap, right, But on the same you shouldn't 0:11:03.520 --> 0:11:05.200 cheap out on them either, right, Like we've I know 0:11:05.200 --> 0:11:06.960 we've talked about this on Twitter, and I know like 0:11:07.920 --> 0:11:10.680 Amazon Sales M they force had a problem with selling 0:11:10.720 --> 0:11:15.040 fakes sor like North American Rescue. I think it's called 0:11:15.080 --> 0:11:19.480 emergency rescue. I'll give you something. Yeah, North American Rescue 0:11:19.559 --> 0:11:24.360 is really good one of the so, yeah, rescue essentials. 0:11:24.400 --> 0:11:26.640 So what a combat tourniquet is, because there's different. Some 0:11:26.679 --> 0:11:29.880 tourniquets are just like a plastic band almost almost like 0:11:29.920 --> 0:11:31.640 if you go to a gym, those things that people 0:11:31.760 --> 0:11:34.199 like wrap around their legs to do squats or something 0:11:34.280 --> 0:11:36.720 or lifts. It's kind of like it looks a little 0:11:36.760 --> 0:11:40.240 like that. Um and those Yeah, obviously like those can work, 0:11:40.320 --> 0:11:43.600 but they're not nearly A combat tourniquet is basically it's 0:11:43.640 --> 0:11:48.960 a little um like kind of Nyloni fabric belt thing 0:11:49.200 --> 0:11:52.720 that you strap around and you tighten it um and 0:11:52.840 --> 0:11:55.040 velcrow it tight and then there's something called a windless 0:11:55.160 --> 0:11:58.240 which is basically a metal or plastic stick that you 0:11:58.320 --> 0:12:02.240 then twist around. Uh, and that twisting action when you 0:12:02.280 --> 0:12:04.000 twist it, that's going to tighten it and that's going 0:12:04.040 --> 0:12:07.080 to stop the artery from bleeding. Um, and then you 0:12:07.160 --> 0:12:09.160 lock it into place. There's a little place to lock it. 0:12:09.200 --> 0:12:12.120 And so when you get a cheap tourniquet, it generally 0:12:12.160 --> 0:12:14.640 means the windlass is made out of something flimsy or 0:12:14.679 --> 0:12:17.200 the fabric at hearing the windlass to the belt thing 0:12:17.640 --> 0:12:20.720 is not very good and it will break when being tightened. Yeah, 0:12:20.760 --> 0:12:22.000 and you don't want What you don't want to do 0:12:22.040 --> 0:12:24.680 is not have enough pressure, have sort of weird pressure, 0:12:24.720 --> 0:12:26.880 because what you're going to do tomorrow, I'm not that 0:12:26.960 --> 0:12:29.839 kind of doctor. Right, is you can cut off the 0:12:29.960 --> 0:12:32.160 venus return and not the arterial flow, and that's what 0:12:32.280 --> 0:12:34.320 you can give yourself compartments in direct right. I just 0:12:34.320 --> 0:12:36.600 wanted to backtrack quickly. And we're talking about how expensive 0:12:36.640 --> 0:12:39.199 he facts are. If people are listening and they are 0:12:39.320 --> 0:12:42.680 in that kind of line of work. The International Women's 0:12:42.679 --> 0:12:45.520 Media Foundation is doing free he fat courses for women, 0:12:45.600 --> 0:12:48.760 gender nonconforming, non binary people, and I gotta I got 0:12:48.840 --> 0:12:51.040 a grant from the Rory Peck Trust to go and 0:12:51.080 --> 0:12:54.280 do mind so for journalists. Both those are really only 0:12:54.320 --> 0:12:58.120 for journalists and media. I would really encourage people to apply. Yeah, 0:12:58.360 --> 0:13:01.640 um and that's that's great information because if you can 0:13:01.960 --> 0:13:04.520 even if like your journalism has been sort of like 0:13:04.600 --> 0:13:07.000 citizen journalism where you're showing up at a protest and 0:13:07.520 --> 0:13:10.760 you know, taking pictures or whatever. UM, give it a shot, 0:13:10.960 --> 0:13:13.080 like if you like, the more people who have this 0:13:13.160 --> 0:13:18.040 kind of training. UM, as a general rule, the better. UM. 0:13:18.120 --> 0:13:20.480 When it comes to stop the bleed courses are generally 0:13:20.480 --> 0:13:22.640 going to be much more available. Some of them are 0:13:23.480 --> 0:13:25.640 operated as charities and we'll give out an I fac 0:13:25.760 --> 0:13:26.959 or something at the end. Some of them have a 0:13:27.000 --> 0:13:28.880 nominal fee. It kind of depends on where you are. 0:13:29.240 --> 0:13:31.360 I've seen both. Portland has a lot of stop the 0:13:31.360 --> 0:13:34.400 bleed courses, which is why when we had our most 0:13:34.480 --> 0:13:38.000 recent mass shooting at a protest, UM, more people didn't 0:13:38.000 --> 0:13:42.120 die because folks had equipment and we're ready. UM, you're 0:13:42.160 --> 0:13:44.720 you should expect to spend about thirty bucks generally on 0:13:44.760 --> 0:13:49.640 a combat tourniquet. UM, sometimes twenty, but like the good 0:13:49.640 --> 0:13:52.720 ones are all about thirty. UM. I would shoot for 0:13:52.840 --> 0:13:56.040 something with a metal windless that's generally assign. Again, there's 0:13:56.080 --> 0:14:00.720 like Rescue Essentials and a couple of other brands that 0:14:00.720 --> 0:14:05.360 are reliable. But it's called a Tactical Committee on Combat Care, 0:14:05.480 --> 0:14:07.320 which is the government finding thing. It's so like if 0:14:07.360 --> 0:14:09.080 you let them do the research so you don't have to. 0:14:09.440 --> 0:14:13.400 They provide a list of cornic tornic case torn cats. 0:14:13.720 --> 0:14:15.920 The one that most people have is that could cat 0:14:16.000 --> 0:14:19.680 right combat application tornic. If you get that, even if 0:14:19.720 --> 0:14:22.760 it's not the best one or the smallest lights or whatever, 0:14:22.760 --> 0:14:24.320 every that's the one most people train with they know 0:14:24.320 --> 0:14:26.960 how to use. And I think you've said this before, like, 0:14:27.040 --> 0:14:28.560 even if you don't know how to use it, if 0:14:28.560 --> 0:14:30.240 you are in a situation where it's needed and you 0:14:30.320 --> 0:14:32.360 just say I have this, have a tornic, that someone 0:14:32.440 --> 0:14:35.000 might take it and use it. So yeah, and it's 0:14:35.080 --> 0:14:38.600 it's like it's okay if you panic, as long as 0:14:38.640 --> 0:14:40.720 you get that into the hands of somebody who can 0:14:40.800 --> 0:14:42.920 use it. But it's also important if you're going to 0:14:43.040 --> 0:14:44.640 carry it to train with it. I heard when I 0:14:44.640 --> 0:14:47.200 posted about this recently, someone said that they and their 0:14:47.240 --> 0:14:49.960 friends have a game where when they're like hanging out, 0:14:50.400 --> 0:14:53.200 somebody will toss a tourniquet at someone else and say, like, 0:14:53.960 --> 0:14:56.760 you know, right arm or something like that, right arm 0:14:56.800 --> 0:14:59.200 above elbow or something like that, and they'll have to 0:14:59.240 --> 0:15:01.240 apply the turn, get and get it on as quickly 0:15:01.280 --> 0:15:04.080 as they can in that place, which is a good game. 0:15:04.120 --> 0:15:07.920 You're not going to like in twenty or thirty seconds, 0:15:08.040 --> 0:15:11.240 like you know, you don't have to like injure yourself 0:15:11.280 --> 0:15:12.960 doing it, but you can you can get it on 0:15:13.040 --> 0:15:15.080 and get familiar with the motions and build like a 0:15:15.120 --> 0:15:17.360 competence with it. Yeah, work out when you're going to 0:15:17.480 --> 0:15:18.920 lass through the limb and when you're gonna take it 0:15:18.920 --> 0:15:20.560 off and go all the way around. But I think 0:15:20.600 --> 0:15:23.280 standardizing one thing certainly among you and your affinity group 0:15:23.360 --> 0:15:27.160 or your friends is probably a good move. Yeah. Yeah, 0:15:27.400 --> 0:15:29.200 And it's it's one of those things the kind of 0:15:29.320 --> 0:15:34.360 injuries that tourniquets are most needed for our like arterial 0:15:34.400 --> 0:15:37.200 bleeding um, which is the kind of thing that if 0:15:37.200 --> 0:15:40.560 you don't get a TURNI get on that you're dead 0:15:41.040 --> 0:15:44.400 um very quickly. Like people will bleed out in seconds 0:15:44.480 --> 0:15:48.640 sometimes from like a femoral Yeah, you've seen an arterial bleed, 0:15:48.680 --> 0:15:51.240 and I'm sure that I know I have. I'm sure 0:15:51.280 --> 0:15:53.600 you have. You know that that person has an arterial 0:15:53.640 --> 0:15:56.320 bleed that is a pressurized gushing of blood. It's like 0:15:56.400 --> 0:15:59.440 bright the blood arterial bleeding. It comes out in spurts, 0:15:59.440 --> 0:16:01.280 and it is like right, it is not. It does 0:16:01.280 --> 0:16:03.280 not look like when you cut your finger the blood 0:16:03.280 --> 0:16:05.320 tends to unless you're really cutting the ship out of 0:16:05.320 --> 0:16:08.160 that figure. Yeah, yeah, you. And one of the things 0:16:08.160 --> 0:16:09.440 we did at this course, which is called at You 0:16:09.520 --> 0:16:11.680 is they had like a simulated arterial bleeds and a 0:16:11.720 --> 0:16:13.760 person was wearing it like a camelback, and then they 0:16:13.760 --> 0:16:16.480 had like a hose pipe and it was just gushing 0:16:16.520 --> 0:16:18.440 out and then you could actually cinch down on it 0:16:18.560 --> 0:16:21.240 right with the strap and that actually stopped. Now, I 0:16:21.280 --> 0:16:23.680 mean when it comes to like more advanced bleeding care, 0:16:23.680 --> 0:16:26.360 because there's some wounds where number one, if it's like, 0:16:26.720 --> 0:16:29.440 for example, too high up in your like crotch or something, 0:16:29.560 --> 0:16:31.480 you know, you're not necessarily going to be able to 0:16:31.480 --> 0:16:35.280 get a cat up there. Sometimes people will literally hold 0:16:35.360 --> 0:16:37.480 the artery closed like that is a thing that and 0:16:37.520 --> 0:16:41.560 that is more advanced certainly, um, but it is. It 0:16:41.640 --> 0:16:43.960 is also like the physics of this are very basic. 0:16:44.040 --> 0:16:45.880 If you can figure out where blood is coming from 0:16:45.920 --> 0:16:48.000 and close it, blood will stop coming out, right, Like 0:16:48.080 --> 0:16:51.280 that's the principle of all immediate wound care for that 0:16:51.360 --> 0:16:53.920 kind of thing. Yeah, there's an acronym that you use, 0:16:54.040 --> 0:16:58.920 right Dr March, which we can go over danger right, So, 0:16:59.560 --> 0:17:01.000 and I think this is the thing that often gets 0:17:01.040 --> 0:17:04.520 forgotten actually, especially if you're doing like somebody's start to bleed, 0:17:04.560 --> 0:17:06.800 which is focused on first aid rather than specifically in 0:17:06.880 --> 0:17:10.640 kind of combat carib If you get hurt, not only 0:17:10.680 --> 0:17:13.000 are you useless to that person, not only are you hurt. 0:17:13.640 --> 0:17:15.560 If someone comes to help, now they have to think 0:17:15.560 --> 0:17:17.280 about which person they're going to help. Right, It's how 0:17:17.320 --> 0:17:19.080 much harder to carry two people than one person? So 0:17:19.240 --> 0:17:24.119 don't do that? Uh? And then response right, so, Robert, 0:17:24.440 --> 0:17:26.720 I see you've been shot. Doesn't look great? You okay? 0:17:27.680 --> 0:17:33.359 And then massive bleed, air way respiration, check head to 0:17:33.400 --> 0:17:36.520 toe and then hypothermia. And you know one of the 0:17:36.560 --> 0:17:39.399 things that is so like a combat tourniquet, you just 0:17:39.440 --> 0:17:41.880 generally you can keep it in like a kit. It's 0:17:41.920 --> 0:17:43.840 also fine to keep it loose in your pocket. You 0:17:43.920 --> 0:17:47.160 are not worried about sterility when you are applying a tourniquet. 0:17:47.200 --> 0:17:49.199 It does not matter if you get shipped in the 0:17:49.240 --> 0:17:51.520 wound like, because they will die. They will be dead 0:17:51.520 --> 0:17:53.199 in a minute if you don't get the tourniquet on 0:17:53.880 --> 0:17:56.760 um anyway, right, Yeah, yeah, you're not putting it in 0:17:57.160 --> 0:18:01.600 or whatever like it. So yeah, so that's that's one kind. 0:18:01.640 --> 0:18:03.720 And that's again you're talking about extremities, right. You can't 0:18:03.720 --> 0:18:06.400 put a tourniquet on the neck because that would kill 0:18:06.480 --> 0:18:09.400 the person. Um. You would use an inclusive a lot 0:18:09.440 --> 0:18:11.520 of times on the neck, especially if like the airway 0:18:11.760 --> 0:18:13.960 gets Again. This is stuff that you would you would 0:18:13.960 --> 0:18:15.680 get in to stop the bleed. Course, and I recommend 0:18:15.720 --> 0:18:17.680 people for that. So we're not going to go over 0:18:17.800 --> 0:18:21.080 treatment outside of like these basics, but we'll talk about 0:18:21.119 --> 0:18:24.480 like you should have an inclusive dressing. Two is what 0:18:24.560 --> 0:18:27.480 most effects come with. People I know who have responded 0:18:27.520 --> 0:18:30.959 to shootings say you want more like four because they 0:18:30.960 --> 0:18:33.320 are a lot wind up getting used. Yeah, I think 0:18:33.320 --> 0:18:35.639 about I think those specty chest seals and something that 0:18:35.680 --> 0:18:37.399 I've been told by people with a lot more experience 0:18:37.440 --> 0:18:40.199 than me. It's like when you're dealing with a military setting, 0:18:40.560 --> 0:18:43.159 most people will have their chests covered with plates, right, 0:18:43.160 --> 0:18:45.400 and plate carries, and a civilian setting most people want 0:18:45.520 --> 0:18:47.720 so you're going to see a lot more of those 0:18:47.960 --> 0:18:52.160 like a sucking chest wods or penetration of the thoracic cavity. 0:18:52.280 --> 0:18:54.719 So yeah, and in that setting, and they are very small, right, 0:18:54.720 --> 0:18:56.240 you can put them into back pocket of your skin 0:18:56.400 --> 0:18:59.159 cheets and no one would notice. So another kind of 0:18:59.200 --> 0:19:01.439 thing that you'll find in an I fact that's useful 0:19:01.680 --> 0:19:04.439 is combat gauze. So there's two types of gauze that 0:19:04.480 --> 0:19:07.080 you'll get in kits. One is just gauze, which you 0:19:07.080 --> 0:19:10.080 know what gauzes um most wounds, if they are not 0:19:10.200 --> 0:19:14.040 life threatening, packing with gauze and wrapping is perfectly sufficient 0:19:14.560 --> 0:19:19.040 at least for immediate care. But combat gauze is impregnated 0:19:19.040 --> 0:19:22.320 with a thing called cell locks, which is our little granules. 0:19:22.320 --> 0:19:23.919 You can actually get them, just as the powder. You 0:19:23.920 --> 0:19:26.119 shouldn't because it's it's not going to be useful to 0:19:26.160 --> 0:19:28.639 you as a random person. Um, you should get it 0:19:28.680 --> 0:19:31.320 in gauze, like impregnated into gauze, but it's made from 0:19:31.359 --> 0:19:35.800 ground up crustacean shells and it basically makes blood clot 0:19:36.000 --> 0:19:41.440 very quickly. Um survivability of arterial wounds in combat, which 0:19:41.480 --> 0:19:45.320 was extremely low before cellos jumped to something like or 0:19:45.359 --> 0:19:48.320 so like. It's it's pretty remarkable the degree to which 0:19:48.359 --> 0:19:52.439 it's made certain particularly like fomoral bleeds survivable um, and 0:19:52.520 --> 0:19:54.560 it can be used if you've got, like it's a 0:19:54.640 --> 0:19:57.240 serious arterial bleed. It will often be used in conjunction 0:19:57.280 --> 0:19:59.800 if it's on an extremity with a tourniquet um. But 0:20:00.000 --> 0:20:02.359 you can just use it to pack a bleeding wound. 0:20:02.480 --> 0:20:05.040 And if you pack it and apply pressure, sometimes you'll 0:20:05.040 --> 0:20:07.320 pack the combat gulls into there and then add other 0:20:07.359 --> 0:20:11.760 gals outside of it. Like, but it's it's most wounds 0:20:12.040 --> 0:20:14.919 that are bleeding aren't going to require sell off scars. 0:20:15.000 --> 0:20:18.159 And it's pretty expensive, but it's another really useful thing 0:20:18.200 --> 0:20:20.960 to have if there is like an arterial bleed. Yeah, 0:20:21.080 --> 0:20:23.840 I think actually the where we first I think kalin 0:20:23.920 --> 0:20:25.439 might be what the stuff is called. I believe it 0:20:25.440 --> 0:20:28.800 comes from indigenous practices using it to stop bleeding. But yeah, 0:20:28.880 --> 0:20:31.679 it comes in a small package. Quicklot is the normal brand, 0:20:32.000 --> 0:20:35.160 and yeah, it's a lot of what we've learned about 0:20:35.280 --> 0:20:39.440 stopping arterial bleeds has come from twenty years of war, right, 0:20:39.680 --> 0:20:42.520 and they're obviously a lot of town site but yeah, 0:20:42.600 --> 0:20:44.280 learning about how to stop those things is one of 0:20:44.320 --> 0:20:45.760 the things that It's got a lot better in the 0:20:45.840 --> 0:20:48.080 last decade or so. That's another thing. And you can 0:20:48.080 --> 0:20:50.000 always buy these kids pre made. A lot of people 0:20:50.040 --> 0:20:53.480 make various premate kids. Yeah, you can google i FAC 0:20:53.600 --> 0:20:56.760 and make sure it's you know, rated, well dot do 0:20:56.840 --> 0:21:00.480 your research. We've mentioned some brands here, but like, it's 0:21:00.520 --> 0:21:03.440 not hard to find I Fax. They're they're made constantly 0:21:03.480 --> 0:21:05.000 And it's one of those things we talked on this 0:21:05.080 --> 0:21:08.600 show about being armed and whether or not people should 0:21:08.720 --> 0:21:12.280 should have firearms. And I'm broadly supportive of of particularly 0:21:12.320 --> 0:21:17.200 threatened people having guns. But there's downsides to having a gun. Um, 0:21:17.400 --> 0:21:18.840 a number of them. We don't need to get into 0:21:18.840 --> 0:21:21.080 the statistics, but there are a bunch of downsides to 0:21:21.160 --> 0:21:23.440 being armed. There's no downside to having an i FAC 0:21:23.520 --> 0:21:26.560 and keeping one in your car, keep one in your backpack, 0:21:26.880 --> 0:21:30.399 you know. Um, there's absolutely no way you will have 0:21:30.480 --> 0:21:32.600 a negative experience as a result of the fact that 0:21:32.600 --> 0:21:34.440 you keep an eye fact on you and it might 0:21:34.480 --> 0:21:37.159 save somebody's life. Yeah. I have a little ankle holster 0:21:37.760 --> 0:21:39.480 that I use when I'm working in places where we 0:21:39.560 --> 0:21:41.840 wouldn't look very you know, it would look off to 0:21:41.880 --> 0:21:43.640 have it on my belt, Uh, And I don't want 0:21:43.640 --> 0:21:46.000 to carry backpack. Maybe I needed to wrap around my 0:21:46.040 --> 0:21:48.639 ankle and it has a tiny combat dressing, which you 0:21:48.640 --> 0:21:52.880 haven't really talked about chess seal tornique and it doesn't 0:21:52.880 --> 0:21:54.639 have the quick clut. But then the combat dressing has 0:21:54.640 --> 0:21:57.159 its own goals. Yeah, we can talk about that in 0:21:57.200 --> 0:21:59.760 a second. But like I just have like I have 0:21:59.800 --> 0:22:02.080 a up effects but also just in all of my 0:22:02.200 --> 0:22:05.200 light jackets because you know Oregon, usually you can wear 0:22:05.240 --> 0:22:07.240 some sort of jacket. I just have a bunch of 0:22:07.320 --> 0:22:10.879 cats and quick clot gauze packets just kind of scattered around, 0:22:10.920 --> 0:22:13.480 like there's nearly always something just in my pocket or 0:22:13.520 --> 0:22:16.280 in the center console in my car um in addition 0:22:16.320 --> 0:22:20.080 to the actual packed I fax and yeah it's handy. Um, 0:22:20.119 --> 0:22:22.440 it's just good to have around. It never hurt to 0:22:22.520 --> 0:22:24.359 have more of that stuff. Or you have the means 0:22:24.600 --> 0:22:27.600 or you know, if you are in a situation where 0:22:27.640 --> 0:22:29.880 something horrible has happened, right like what happened in Portland, 0:22:30.480 --> 0:22:32.480 if you in your truck, have three or four of 0:22:32.520 --> 0:22:34.200 those and you can just be to go go goes. 0:22:34.200 --> 0:22:36.400 Anyone know how to use these? Use these if they're 0:22:36.400 --> 0:22:38.159 in your backpack when you're at a protest, like you 0:22:38.200 --> 0:22:41.679 could potentially save several lives. So if you have the means, 0:22:42.400 --> 0:22:45.280 said give them to strangers, like, it's not like it's 0:22:45.320 --> 0:22:47.399 not like a gun, right, Like you can't end your 0:22:47.440 --> 0:22:50.960 life with with quick cloth. Yeah, so yeah, I would. 0:22:51.200 --> 0:22:53.040 It's a thing that everyone should feel good about having. 0:22:53.880 --> 0:22:56.280 We should note again, you wouldn't want to use quick 0:22:56.280 --> 0:22:59.440 clot on a wound that was not serious because there's 0:22:59.440 --> 0:23:02.000 some concept like it burns, it's it's kind of nasty 0:23:02.040 --> 0:23:05.280 stuff in some ways. Um, it can cause some complications 0:23:05.400 --> 0:23:08.000 for for like when the e M T s get there, Um, 0:23:08.000 --> 0:23:10.320 it's often recommended that you keep the packaging and give 0:23:10.359 --> 0:23:13.160 it to them. But if it's if someone is clearly 0:23:13.200 --> 0:23:15.920 going to bleed to death like that, then that then 0:23:15.960 --> 0:23:18.160 that's when you use quick clot. And if you're questioning 0:23:18.160 --> 0:23:20.040 whether or not a wound is serious enough that someone 0:23:20.160 --> 0:23:22.600 might bleed to death from it, assume they will, right 0:23:23.119 --> 0:23:25.720 like air On the side of that, if you're wondering 0:23:25.800 --> 0:23:29.080 is that a deadly bleed, you're probably should probably treat 0:23:29.080 --> 0:23:31.359 it as if it is. Yeah, I mean, you're always 0:23:31.400 --> 0:23:34.320 better of keeping more blood inside the person, right Yeah, 0:23:34.480 --> 0:23:36.560 with that, Yeah, I've been told to take that to 0:23:36.640 --> 0:23:38.400 the person. And the same with the tonic gate, where 0:23:38.440 --> 0:23:40.960 we should say that there will be blood around, you 0:23:40.960 --> 0:23:43.119 can put a T on their forehead with the blood. 0:23:43.359 --> 0:23:46.359 It's pretty normal and that works in almost any language. 0:23:46.720 --> 0:23:48.159 And then you want to write the time it was 0:23:48.200 --> 0:23:50.560 applied to, and again you can do that with the blood. 0:23:50.600 --> 0:23:53.520 But I have a half sized sharp that often comes 0:23:53.520 --> 0:23:57.160 in those kids. Yea, yeah, And it's one of those 0:23:57.200 --> 0:24:00.359 things like assuming. It kind of is depending on your 0:24:00.359 --> 0:24:02.640 situation whether or not you'd likely to have the time 0:24:02.680 --> 0:24:04.680 to mark that before the E M T s arrive, 0:24:05.080 --> 0:24:06.680 But it is one of those things even if it's 0:24:06.720 --> 0:24:09.200 even if your first responding is a minute and a 0:24:09.240 --> 0:24:11.520 half or two minutes with a serious bleed, that can 0:24:11.560 --> 0:24:14.880 be the difference between life and death for somebody. Yes, absolutely, yeah, yeah, 0:24:14.880 --> 0:24:16.840 And it's different what you do when carry than coming 0:24:16.880 --> 0:24:18.560 to what you do when carries coming. But the first 0:24:18.600 --> 0:24:21.159 steps are not right stop the blood coming out of 0:24:21.160 --> 0:24:23.800 the person. So we should probably talk about combat dressings 0:24:23.800 --> 0:24:26.439 a little bit. Yeah, yeah, there are several types. The 0:24:26.440 --> 0:24:29.040 one I've had suggested that I prefer, I think, I 0:24:29.080 --> 0:24:31.000 don't know how it's pronounced. It's O L A Y 0:24:31.200 --> 0:24:33.800 Slays dressing and has a little eye cup in it 0:24:33.880 --> 0:24:36.879 as well, which you can use for eye injuries, Like 0:24:37.040 --> 0:24:38.879 find someone more of qualified than me to teach you 0:24:38.880 --> 0:24:41.359 how to do that. I don't need to get into that, 0:24:41.440 --> 0:24:44.240 but yeah, but it's it's a pad with gores in 0:24:44.320 --> 0:24:47.080 it and then a sort of ace bandage, right, And 0:24:47.080 --> 0:24:49.760 what it does is provides compression and obviously like an 0:24:49.760 --> 0:24:52.520 absorbent goals, you can also pull the goals out. A 0:24:52.560 --> 0:24:54.200 fun thing to do is to find an expired one 0:24:54.240 --> 0:24:56.320 and pull all that goals out and there is just 0:24:56.359 --> 0:24:59.560 an unfathomable amount of gores there. So you can use 0:24:59.600 --> 0:25:02.960 that like pack a wound, and practicing packing a wound 0:25:03.040 --> 0:25:05.920 is also something that you can do. They're like little 0:25:05.960 --> 0:25:09.560 little bottles. Yeah. The team I know who does stop 0:25:09.560 --> 0:25:12.240 the bleed courses will take phone rollers and cut holes 0:25:12.240 --> 0:25:15.119 in them and use that as like to so you 0:25:15.160 --> 0:25:16.879 can and you can do different sizes, right. You can 0:25:16.880 --> 0:25:19.800 actually just like get a knife and like jam at 0:25:19.800 --> 0:25:22.359 its stab at a bunch and like use those as 0:25:22.400 --> 0:25:25.040 different practice wounds. Yeah, it's a good idea. Can you 0:25:25.080 --> 0:25:27.160 pack with two fingers? You know more than that even 0:25:27.240 --> 0:25:29.400 one finger? People can pack with one finger. So like 0:25:29.760 --> 0:25:31.920 what this dressing does is opposite. It's sometimes they're called 0:25:31.960 --> 0:25:36.000 is rarely bandages, olas bandages. They often come in like 0:25:36.040 --> 0:25:39.800 a tan package, the Israeli ones. Yeah, yeah, that's right. Again, 0:25:39.960 --> 0:25:42.520 like I would buy that from a reputable source, and 0:25:42.560 --> 0:25:45.520 they come in various sizes. Emergency dressing is another name, 0:25:46.920 --> 0:25:49.560 and yeah, those are great for things where you don't 0:25:49.720 --> 0:25:53.280 need to use quick clot where you may not need yeah, 0:25:53.400 --> 0:25:57.159 significant bleeding, but not like immediately life threatening. Yeah, in 0:25:57.280 --> 0:26:00.280 some areas well, like sometimes in the forearm, right, Like 0:26:00.400 --> 0:26:02.399 it can be hard because of these bones structures to 0:26:02.440 --> 0:26:04.520 get the tornic a to work, so like you might 0:26:04.520 --> 0:26:06.080 be able to use that start the you might have 0:26:06.080 --> 0:26:08.560 to use quick club, right, but like having those options 0:26:08.800 --> 0:26:12.280 is important. And again they're pretty small, probably the cheapest 0:26:12.359 --> 0:26:15.320 of the things we've suggested so far as well. And 0:26:15.320 --> 0:26:18.639 again they didn't they make giant ones from abdominal wounds 0:26:18.640 --> 0:26:20.760 to um and so like, I actually have one of 0:26:20.800 --> 0:26:23.520 those in my truck, have a bunch of more stuff 0:26:23.520 --> 0:26:25.880 in my truck. I wrote a piece about a first 0:26:25.880 --> 0:26:27.440 aid kit for your vehicle, which might leave me look 0:26:27.440 --> 0:26:30.840 slightly different, right if you imagine again, Like, and we've 0:26:30.840 --> 0:26:35.120 talked about shootings, but uh, car accidents, that's that's when 0:26:35.119 --> 0:26:37.120 I the only time I've had to use those dressings. 0:26:37.119 --> 0:26:39.680 Have been car accidents that helped pull the fucking dude 0:26:39.680 --> 0:26:41.479 out of a truck that flipped on the way outside 0:26:41.480 --> 0:26:44.240 of Los Angeles during a rainstorm, and his like whole 0:26:44.240 --> 0:26:47.360 fucking like right here in his hand had been gouged 0:26:47.400 --> 0:26:50.640 open where like the it was quite a bit of blood. Um. 0:26:50.680 --> 0:26:52.640 But yeah, like that, that's a bit. It's not all 0:26:52.760 --> 0:26:55.960 just like action movie ship like. It's something you should 0:26:56.040 --> 0:26:58.400 keep on you because there's a wide variety of things 0:26:58.480 --> 0:27:02.000 that can cause people to bleed a lot, Yes, exactly, Yeah, yeah, 0:27:02.040 --> 0:27:04.760 and I think we are we always underestimated risk of 0:27:04.800 --> 0:27:06.959 these drivings by the most dangerous thing most people do. 0:27:07.640 --> 0:27:09.560 And yet having that in your car, you know, you 0:27:09.560 --> 0:27:11.040 don't have to worry so much about carrying it. It 0:27:11.080 --> 0:27:13.320 can just always be there. Don't leave it where it's 0:27:13.320 --> 0:27:14.800 going to bake in the sun if you're in a 0:27:14.800 --> 0:27:18.480 hot place. But yeah, again, the potential for you saving 0:27:18.520 --> 0:27:21.240 a stranger's life or a friend's ie, Yeah, it's high. Yeah, 0:27:21.320 --> 0:27:23.600 keep it in a center console, keep it in a trunk, 0:27:24.160 --> 0:27:26.360 you know, keep it in a trunk alongside a machete 0:27:26.400 --> 0:27:28.719 in a golf club. You know, you're always ready for anything. 0:27:28.720 --> 0:27:31.600 With that, I'm never ready for golf. But aside from that, 0:27:31.640 --> 0:27:35.560 i'd be Oh, I wasn't saying for golfing. Yeah, for 0:27:36.000 --> 0:27:39.520 exactly for crime. Medical actually make a read. Yes, they 0:27:39.520 --> 0:27:41.439 make a lovely vehicle first aid kit and the very 0:27:41.480 --> 0:27:44.240 nice people to so, yeah, that that's want to look into. 0:27:44.520 --> 0:27:47.719 And they also do the bags. I have a mystery 0:27:47.800 --> 0:27:51.440 runch bag that also clips onto it replaces the hood 0:27:51.480 --> 0:27:54.399 or my backpack, and I have that in my truck 0:27:54.440 --> 0:27:56.360 and then if I'm going out, especially when I'm going 0:27:56.359 --> 0:27:59.680 out climbing, I'll just click that on and have a 0:27:59.720 --> 0:28:02.040 slight different kit that I take just for climbing. But 0:28:02.320 --> 0:28:05.400 that's one of those scenarios where like, you could hurt 0:28:05.440 --> 0:28:08.240 yourself climbing and even if people are coming very quickly, 0:28:08.320 --> 0:28:10.679 it's going to take you a while, right and and 0:28:10.760 --> 0:28:13.280 thinking another thing, I would be prepared to self rescue. 0:28:13.320 --> 0:28:14.960 That's part of why you bring that kind of stuff. 0:28:14.960 --> 0:28:17.040 Self rescue a massive part of climbing, right, learn learning 0:28:17.080 --> 0:28:19.040 the lots sing the transfer of learning, the ways that 0:28:19.080 --> 0:28:20.480 you can get yourself off of one of you hurt 0:28:20.480 --> 0:28:23.760 yourself on the wall. And the American Alpine Club actually 0:28:23.800 --> 0:28:26.800 publishes a thing called accidents in North American climbing climb. 0:28:26.840 --> 0:28:28.960 This okay, this person sunked up by this, and they 0:28:29.000 --> 0:28:30.160 did this and this and this, and they were okay, 0:28:30.280 --> 0:28:32.520 they weren't okay. So I think that's a very good 0:28:32.560 --> 0:28:36.360 practice learning from other people. And with that, a big 0:28:36.400 --> 0:28:38.720 thing that you focus on a wilderness medicine is rather 0:28:38.760 --> 0:28:42.240 than what can I bring with me, what do I 0:28:42.320 --> 0:28:44.320 have to already have with me? And how can I 0:28:44.520 --> 0:28:47.920 use that? Right? So, for instance, you need to splin 0:28:47.960 --> 0:28:49.520 a leg, right you have a broken leg using a 0:28:49.640 --> 0:28:52.120 sleeping pad or something which already has those redid sleeves 0:28:52.120 --> 0:28:54.560 to do that. And that's something that like I don't 0:28:54.600 --> 0:28:56.480 want to obviously advise people too much. Yeah, I don't 0:28:56.480 --> 0:28:59.240 want to, like because again, so the difference this is useful. 0:28:59.280 --> 0:29:02.800 People should be thinking about this UM when it comes 0:29:02.840 --> 0:29:07.520 to emergency first aid, Like somebody was a broken leg. 0:29:07.840 --> 0:29:10.800 If you're not, like, there's no real response that you 0:29:10.800 --> 0:29:13.160 should like, that's not what stopped the bleed is for right, 0:29:13.200 --> 0:29:17.040 Like UM. One one of the nice things about emergency 0:29:17.120 --> 0:29:20.120 medicine like this, like when you're talking about someone is 0:29:20.120 --> 0:29:22.960 bleeding to death, is that one of the ways I 0:29:22.960 --> 0:29:25.960 guess that you can. You can you can separate the 0:29:26.320 --> 0:29:29.080 two kinds of like first responding, because there's the first 0:29:29.120 --> 0:29:31.160 responding where you can make it worse. And if you 0:29:31.240 --> 0:29:33.120 like somebody like breaks a bone or something and you 0:29:33.400 --> 0:29:37.880 can make that worse, yes, but if somebody has an 0:29:37.960 --> 0:29:40.880 arterial bleeding, you can't make that worse. There. It's the 0:29:40.920 --> 0:29:43.840 same thing with like um chest compressions. Right when you 0:29:43.880 --> 0:29:45.320 get trained as an e m T, one of the 0:29:45.320 --> 0:29:48.200 things they'll point out is that, like, you shouldn't use 0:29:48.640 --> 0:29:51.400 um an a E D on an infant, but you 0:29:51.520 --> 0:29:55.840 do because if they're needed, they're dead. And in that case, Yeah, 0:29:56.000 --> 0:29:57.520 I think it's important. Also in the thing that I 0:29:57.520 --> 0:29:59.360 didn't mention that I found very helpful about its course, 0:29:59.520 --> 0:30:02.520 some of this psychological aspects of this is to remember 0:30:02.520 --> 0:30:04.920 that if you do find yourself in this situation and 0:30:05.040 --> 0:30:08.520 you try and help and that person dies anyway, then 0:30:08.760 --> 0:30:12.600 you did your best right and that is of value. 0:30:12.800 --> 0:30:15.040 Like I've been in situations where I've tried to help 0:30:15.080 --> 0:30:18.720 someone and they've died anyway, and I think just remembering 0:30:18.720 --> 0:30:21.600 that like that person hadn't something terrible happened to them, 0:30:21.840 --> 0:30:24.360 and that your help didn't you know, like you tried 0:30:24.440 --> 0:30:28.040 your best to give that person at the chance it 0:30:28.200 --> 0:30:31.479 is not. If you are responding to somebody who has 0:30:31.520 --> 0:30:33.920 this kind of injury, there is a pretty good chance 0:30:34.000 --> 0:30:36.520 what you do won't matter. Like it's the same thing 0:30:36.560 --> 0:30:41.040 if you are giving someone chest compressions. That's very unlikely 0:30:41.080 --> 0:30:43.840 to save their life. Like a fraction of the time 0:30:43.880 --> 0:30:46.680 when that happens, does it save anybody, But it can't 0:30:46.760 --> 0:30:49.520 make it worse if they're not breathing. If they're not breathing, yeah, 0:30:49.520 --> 0:30:52.320 they're going to die. Yeah, yeah, And I think you know, 0:30:52.400 --> 0:30:55.000 it's not like the movies on television, and sometimes it 0:30:55.000 --> 0:30:56.920 doesn't work, but it's important to talk about that in 0:30:56.920 --> 0:30:59.680 the context. Yes, actually much probably much more likely the 0:30:59.720 --> 0:31:01.800 person survive if you're doing this stuff right, you're slapping 0:31:01.800 --> 0:31:03.160 on the torn again, you do it right, you will 0:31:03.160 --> 0:31:05.719 stop that person, yes, yes, and and but you know 0:31:05.760 --> 0:31:08.360 again it is a lot of times what you might 0:31:08.360 --> 0:31:10.720 be doing is keeping them alive long enough to get 0:31:10.760 --> 0:31:13.520 to the hospital, and you can't guarantee anything other than 0:31:13.560 --> 0:31:15.400 that they don't bleed out right there, right, and then 0:31:15.400 --> 0:31:16.880 maybe other injuries. You haven't seen this where we did 0:31:16.880 --> 0:31:19.280 the check head to toe, right, and stuff like that, 0:31:19.320 --> 0:31:21.640 Like especially in blast injuries, you might not notice injuries 0:31:21.680 --> 0:31:24.240 to the back. Yeah, shrapnel as a whole. I mean, 0:31:24.280 --> 0:31:26.280 but all you can do is like try to treat 0:31:26.320 --> 0:31:28.880 what you can see, yes, exactly, and make sure that 0:31:28.880 --> 0:31:31.240 you don't miss anything by going through that doctor March 0:31:31.320 --> 0:31:34.320 procedure right which you're learning the course, but yeah, you're 0:31:34.360 --> 0:31:37.280 having a procedure that you do where you make checks 0:31:37.440 --> 0:31:40.360 so that you don't miss something that you could have stopped, 0:31:40.440 --> 0:31:42.800 because then I imagine you will feel bad. Yeah, and 0:31:42.800 --> 0:31:44.800 none of what we've said we should probably bring this 0:31:44.840 --> 0:31:46.520 to a close should be seen as like the end 0:31:46.520 --> 0:31:49.480 all be all, or our attempt to give you comprehensive 0:31:49.720 --> 0:31:52.200 training on this is in no way training. This is 0:31:52.240 --> 0:31:56.040 advice on number one, the equipment that's necessary for stopping 0:31:56.120 --> 0:31:59.000 someone from bleeding to death, and number two the kinds 0:31:59.040 --> 0:32:00.880 of training you should get in order to use it, 0:32:00.880 --> 0:32:03.000 and you should seek training. You should find a stop 0:32:03.040 --> 0:32:06.160 the bleed course. You should take a wilderness medicine course 0:32:06.200 --> 0:32:08.000 if you can. If you if you are someone who 0:32:08.120 --> 0:32:10.600 is in a field that it's relevant for, you should 0:32:10.600 --> 0:32:13.920 try to get a HEA fat course. Um, don't don't 0:32:14.000 --> 0:32:16.720 just like be Okay, I listened to a thirty minute podcast. 0:32:16.960 --> 0:32:20.360 I'm ready to stop a bleed. Go go get some training. Um, 0:32:20.400 --> 0:32:23.240 but definitely get a tourniquet and practice with it. You 0:32:23.280 --> 0:32:27.280 can do some training yourself. You can find videos online 0:32:27.680 --> 0:32:31.920 by reputable people who are affiliated with different rescue organizations 0:32:32.360 --> 0:32:35.000 talking about and showing how to apply tourniquets, how to 0:32:35.040 --> 0:32:39.280 apply dressings, UM like that. That's available, and you can 0:32:39.560 --> 0:32:42.600 provide yourself with a useful amount of education and some 0:32:42.720 --> 0:32:45.880 of the basics that way. Yeah, I think just to 0:32:45.920 --> 0:32:47.440 give out some resources on how you can get the 0:32:47.560 --> 0:32:49.760 education right to stop the league to org should be 0:32:49.800 --> 0:32:52.080 free almost anywhere you are and you'd like to get 0:32:52.120 --> 0:32:55.520 more training. Most community colleges have an E M T 0:32:55.680 --> 0:32:59.480 course that is very affordable. Yeah, a heat fat course 0:32:59.520 --> 0:33:01.680 can run you a couple of grand if it's not subsidized. 0:33:01.720 --> 0:33:03.640 The last time when I took my impute training, it 0:33:03.680 --> 0:33:05.840 was a thousand dollars. Yeah, I think it's less than 0:33:05.880 --> 0:33:08.000 that now. I know people don't have many students who 0:33:08.000 --> 0:33:11.040 are going through empty training, and it's pretty affordable free 0:33:11.120 --> 0:33:15.520 often enduring California, it's often free. The other things you 0:33:15.560 --> 0:33:18.960 can do are wilderness medicine that is expensive. The American 0:33:19.000 --> 0:33:22.240 Alpine Club has grants, like more and more diverse group 0:33:22.280 --> 0:33:25.000 of people should apply because all of the outdoors could 0:33:25.080 --> 0:33:29.200 do with a lot more diversity, and encourage people to apply. Yes, 0:33:29.320 --> 0:33:31.880 so for all of these training there are grants, and 0:33:31.880 --> 0:33:35.000 I would encourage more people to apply to them. But you, yeah, 0:33:35.000 --> 0:33:38.200 you can learn a lot for free or online. You 0:33:38.280 --> 0:33:40.440 can and should try and educate your friends. Like we're 0:33:40.440 --> 0:33:42.600 saying is some of this stuff is hard to funk up. 0:33:42.640 --> 0:33:45.560 And even if you don't feel confident, confident using stuff 0:33:46.240 --> 0:33:49.320 rescue essential with North American Rescue, Chinnook Medical there's a 0:33:49.360 --> 0:33:51.320 places where you can buy a pre made I fact 0:33:51.360 --> 0:33:54.240 carry that around and someone else can use it. And 0:33:54.280 --> 0:33:56.960 again for talking about like the benefits of this versus 0:33:57.200 --> 0:34:00.760 the cool looking tactical gear and guns and stuff, it's 0:34:00.920 --> 0:34:04.920 entirely possible to have a bunch of military equipment that 0:34:05.080 --> 0:34:06.920 is worse than useless if you don't know how to 0:34:07.000 --> 0:34:09.560 use it, is actively a danger to other people. If 0:34:09.560 --> 0:34:11.359 you have a bunch of medical gear and you don't 0:34:11.360 --> 0:34:13.080 know how to use it, but you have it on you, 0:34:13.080 --> 0:34:15.960 you can always shout like I have a tourniquet, I 0:34:16.080 --> 0:34:19.200 have like a combat dressing or something like, does anyone 0:34:19.239 --> 0:34:20.920 know how to use it? No one is going to 0:34:20.960 --> 0:34:22.480 make fun of you in the mike of a mass 0:34:22.480 --> 0:34:24.560 shooting for trying to hand off your gear to someone 0:34:24.560 --> 0:34:26.759 who knows how to use it. Yeah, exactly. And like 0:34:27.000 --> 0:34:28.879 you don't have to carry around a little green multi 0:34:28.960 --> 0:34:30.719 camp out or something like. You can get a bum bag, 0:34:30.800 --> 0:34:33.080 put it in a fucking purse, like whatever, it doesn't matter. Yeah, 0:34:33.120 --> 0:34:34.560 it doesn't matter at all. They have a very small, 0:34:34.760 --> 0:34:38.320 very compact and like a bumbag or family pack is 0:34:38.400 --> 0:34:40.080 very handy because you can switch it from the back 0:34:40.120 --> 0:34:42.359 to the front get to all your stuff. So, yeah, 0:34:42.520 --> 0:34:45.720 you don't have to be all like tactical fucking Sammy savior. 0:34:45.880 --> 0:34:49.520 Just be sensible and safe. Yeah, even if you don't, 0:34:49.960 --> 0:34:52.200 even if you panic or whatever and can't be the 0:34:52.239 --> 0:34:54.320 one to use it, you can still help save somebody's 0:34:54.360 --> 0:34:57.720 life by fucking having the ship, because it's it's irreplaceable 0:34:57.719 --> 0:35:00.640 when it's not there. Yeah, I would just to encourage 0:35:00.680 --> 0:35:05.600 people to not use to the elastic cornicate. Yes, don't 0:35:05.600 --> 0:35:08.840 go and buy Nils up stuff because you know you 0:35:08.880 --> 0:35:10.560 can probably pay the same price to get on that's 0:35:10.600 --> 0:35:14.200 not expired and to yeah, just be conscious buying from 0:35:14.200 --> 0:35:17.600 those reputable people. They often have sales, especially around holidays. 0:35:17.640 --> 0:35:20.920 You can you can hold out and wait for those. Um. 0:35:20.960 --> 0:35:23.200 They were pretty good resources on Reddit as well. Actually 0:35:23.200 --> 0:35:25.759 there's a tactical medicine subreddit where people will sort of 0:35:25.760 --> 0:35:28.480 list their kits and often posted as a sale. So 0:35:28.640 --> 0:35:31.640 sometimes worth cruising that. If this is something, yeah, do 0:35:31.719 --> 0:35:35.200 some research. Um you may find right now, especially from 0:35:35.200 --> 0:35:37.880 places like Rescue Essentials. It is harder to get combat 0:35:37.920 --> 0:35:41.240 tourniquets because the war in Ukraine has caused a shortage 0:35:42.200 --> 0:35:45.239 of the good ones. But you can still find them. 0:35:45.239 --> 0:35:47.600 You just may need to search around a little bit. Yeah. 0:35:47.719 --> 0:35:50.480 What I found was that because you've posted about this 0:35:50.640 --> 0:35:52.520 after New York shooting, was that they were out of 0:35:52.640 --> 0:35:54.759 the straight tornic it, but they were not out. They 0:35:54.760 --> 0:35:56.960 wanted to go with the pouch. Pouch cost like six 0:35:57.040 --> 0:35:59.239 or eight dollars. I know that that that's more of 0:35:59.280 --> 0:36:01.320 an expense if you can. If you can afford that, 0:36:01.480 --> 0:36:03.480 then getting that's not a bad idea anyway, because you 0:36:03.480 --> 0:36:04.880 can put on your boat, put it and have one 0:36:04.880 --> 0:36:08.839 of my backpack hiking right, So that's definitely something that yeah, 0:36:10.200 --> 0:36:12.600 all right, well that's gonna do it for this episode. James, 0:36:12.680 --> 0:36:17.279 you want to plug anything um anarchism? Oh good, yes, absolutely, 0:36:17.560 --> 0:36:21.880 um yeah, go uh to find a hierarchy and like 0:36:22.080 --> 0:36:25.160 throw a rock at it. Yeah. Just look after other 0:36:25.160 --> 0:36:27.160 people and don't resort to the state to do it. 0:36:27.320 --> 0:36:32.440 Be kind to each other and uh get getting MP 0:36:32.600 --> 0:36:53.360 training if you can. Oh yeah, that's a beautiful sound. 0:36:53.480 --> 0:36:56.239 This is it could happen here a podcast about things 0:36:56.320 --> 0:36:59.920 falling apart and sometimes putting them back together. I'm Robert Evans. 0:37:00.200 --> 0:37:04.399 I'm here again with Dr James Stout. James say, hello, 0:37:05.239 --> 0:37:11.480 hi people. We are in an undisclosed location. Is that 0:37:11.520 --> 0:37:14.719 going to get you in trouble with your immigration stuff? Yes? Yeah, okay, 0:37:14.760 --> 0:37:16.239 well let's just bleep out the rest of that, but 0:37:16.320 --> 0:37:18.359 keep the thing with me asking if it's gonna get 0:37:18.440 --> 0:37:21.720 him in trouble with this immigration officer, that'll be fine. 0:37:22.040 --> 0:37:24.560 This is a podcast that all too often, as Garrison 0:37:24.560 --> 0:37:27.360 and I say, winds up us being like here's a problem, goodbye, 0:37:27.760 --> 0:37:30.040 um and telling people about problems is important, but it's 0:37:30.040 --> 0:37:32.920 also important to talk about solutions. Now there's been a 0:37:32.960 --> 0:37:35.239 discourse not just on the Twitter but on the subreddit 0:37:35.320 --> 0:37:38.520 for um. It could happen here repeatedly over the last 0:37:38.520 --> 0:37:41.359 few months of people talking about like how would anarchists 0:37:41.520 --> 0:37:44.359 handle things like large scale distribution of food, UM, an 0:37:44.360 --> 0:37:47.040 industrial base, you know, how how would anarchists? How would 0:37:47.000 --> 0:37:51.759 anarchist society handle infrastructure in any meaningful capacity? Um? And 0:37:51.760 --> 0:37:54.040 I think there's kind of a wide spread idea among 0:37:54.120 --> 0:37:57.000 some people that like, you have to have intense centralization 0:37:57.680 --> 0:38:00.719 UM to do that. UM. Now, James, you are I 0:38:00.760 --> 0:38:03.040 wasn't joking about the doctor thing. You do have a PhD. 0:38:03.120 --> 0:38:06.920 In Your specific area of specialty is the Spanish Civil War, 0:38:07.719 --> 0:38:11.560 that's right, Yeah, even more specific than that, actually, my 0:38:11.000 --> 0:38:16.040 h my very specific area of a specialty is the 0:38:16.080 --> 0:38:18.040 second republics of a period before the Civil War and 0:38:18.080 --> 0:38:20.879 really like the first week of the Spanish Civil War. 0:38:21.400 --> 0:38:27.200 But yes, Catalonia specifically, like revolutionary Catalonia. And I guess 0:38:27.320 --> 0:38:30.520 my thing is the anti fascist Popular Olympics in six 0:38:30.640 --> 0:38:34.239 but more broadly Catalonia and Catalonia before and in the 0:38:34.280 --> 0:38:37.080 Civil War. Yeah. And one of the things that's interesting 0:38:37.120 --> 0:38:39.799 about this period is you did have one of the 0:38:39.840 --> 0:38:42.680 fairly rare times in history where a significant number of 0:38:42.719 --> 0:38:48.320 people were living in an industrialized Ish nation UM with 0:38:48.320 --> 0:38:52.080 with anarchists under anarchist principles UM and a number of 0:38:52.080 --> 0:38:55.120 things were done in an anarchist fashion, including the production 0:38:55.120 --> 0:38:58.399 of armored vehicles, the maintenance of large amounts of agriculture, 0:38:58.600 --> 0:39:01.920 you know, power and whatnot. Um. So yeah, how how 0:39:02.040 --> 0:39:05.600 how do how do James? Yeah, how do anarchism? Let 0:39:05.600 --> 0:39:07.960 me tell you? UM? I should start by saying like, 0:39:08.040 --> 0:39:10.680 I'm not like a big, big theory guy and more 0:39:10.719 --> 0:39:14.399 of a sort of doing things guy, um. Person. But yeah, 0:39:14.520 --> 0:39:17.799 so if we look at what we had in Catalonia 0:39:17.920 --> 0:39:20.680 right in six, the Spanish Civil War, if you're not familiar, 0:39:20.719 --> 0:39:25.240 starts on the nineteenth d N six with a coup. Right, Um, 0:39:25.320 --> 0:39:27.040 some of this will sound familiar. Maybe you should listen 0:39:27.080 --> 0:39:29.640 to our podcast about Me and mar But we have 0:39:29.840 --> 0:39:34.560 a military uprising against a leftist democratic government that has 0:39:34.600 --> 0:39:39.040 just been elected in nineteen thirty six after two years 0:39:39.080 --> 0:39:41.320 of a right wing It's called the Biennio Negro, like 0:39:41.360 --> 0:39:44.359 the Black by any and the you know you've lived 0:39:44.400 --> 0:39:47.640 through the Trump Ship, you understand. Um. So we have 0:39:47.760 --> 0:39:52.920 this coup that happens and in cities across Spain, the 0:39:52.960 --> 0:39:57.200 coup is largely stopped the differentiating factors we talked about 0:39:57.239 --> 0:40:00.600 this in our podcast is where the people are armed, 0:40:01.320 --> 0:40:03.439 the coup is stopped. Where the people are not armed, 0:40:03.440 --> 0:40:05.279 where the government says, then we weren't released weapons to 0:40:05.280 --> 0:40:09.040 you the coup, the coup succeeds. Right now, in Barcelona, 0:40:09.120 --> 0:40:12.600 the coup is stopped almost entirely by the anarchists, with 0:40:12.640 --> 0:40:15.400 a little bit of help from the police. Actually, oddly right, Um, 0:40:16.400 --> 0:40:21.360 the one classic allies and the police fighting it together. 0:40:21.400 --> 0:40:23.799 I mean it is also a very different kind of 0:40:24.520 --> 0:40:28.680 situation with the I mean yeah, culturally, like how does 0:40:28.719 --> 0:40:31.160 that happen? How does that happen? Well, in Spain, you 0:40:31.200 --> 0:40:34.080 have various police forces, right, and some of them are 0:40:34.160 --> 0:40:38.080 created by the Second Republic, So they are police that 0:40:38.200 --> 0:40:42.680 exist really to protect the republic from things that would 0:40:42.719 --> 0:40:45.000 attack it. That does not mean that they do not 0:40:45.040 --> 0:40:47.239 attack for workers, right, the Republic was often called the 0:40:47.280 --> 0:40:50.080 Republic of order because they violently put down strikes and 0:40:50.080 --> 0:40:54.800 the anarchists killed them. But in this instance they remained 0:40:54.920 --> 0:40:59.520 loyal g the cops. Yeah, that's that's a pretty steady thing. 0:41:00.560 --> 0:41:04.239 But in this instance, the Republic was under attack from 0:41:04.239 --> 0:41:07.360 the right, right, from the military, and in some towns, 0:41:07.520 --> 0:41:11.719 the police split for the military, but in Barcelona they 0:41:11.840 --> 0:41:15.560 largely did not. Write. We have various police guards, police 0:41:15.560 --> 0:41:22.120 groups in Spain, federal and local, but the assault guards 0:41:22.400 --> 0:41:27.400 and the civil guards in Barcelona largely remained with the 0:41:27.480 --> 0:41:30.520 republic right. And it's important to maybe if we if 0:41:30.520 --> 0:41:32.279 we step back a second to explain the concept of 0:41:32.280 --> 0:41:34.799 a popular front, then we can understand them more easily, right, 0:41:35.360 --> 0:41:37.520 And we do for more detail on this. We talk 0:41:37.560 --> 0:41:39.440 about a decent amount of this in our Behind the 0:41:39.440 --> 0:41:42.520 Insurrections episodes on the Spanish Civil War and the popular fronts, 0:41:42.520 --> 0:41:45.000 which aren't just a Spanish thing. They exist in France, 0:41:45.000 --> 0:41:46.680 they exist in a number of other countries. It's the 0:41:46.680 --> 0:41:50.319 thing that gets tried on several occasions, often successfully, at 0:41:50.360 --> 0:41:53.759 least from an electoral standpoint. Yeah, yeah, it's very successful 0:41:53.760 --> 0:41:56.719 at this time, right. And it's important to understand that 0:41:56.760 --> 0:42:00.239 the r C, which translates his Catalan Republican left, had 0:42:00.280 --> 0:42:03.560 more or less been on popular front since nineteen thirty one, 0:42:03.680 --> 0:42:06.080 and a popular front is basically this thing we keep 0:42:06.080 --> 0:42:08.160 talking about, where what if everybody on the left could 0:42:08.200 --> 0:42:10.480 get on the same page about stopping fascism. That's the 0:42:10.480 --> 0:42:13.359 basic idea is like, you've got your libs, you've got 0:42:13.400 --> 0:42:16.080 your commies, you've got your anarchists, you've got other weird 0:42:16.160 --> 0:42:19.080 junks of the left, and everybody agrees, let's all work 0:42:19.120 --> 0:42:23.640 together to deal with this specific right wing threat right now. Yes, yeah, exactly, 0:42:23.640 --> 0:42:26.480 like we can put our differences aside and move forward. Um. 0:42:26.920 --> 0:42:29.400 So that's what you have in the Second Republic is 0:42:29.440 --> 0:42:32.560 explicitly called the Popular Front right, and so that is 0:42:32.600 --> 0:42:35.000 why the police in Barcelona split with the anarchists. Now, 0:42:35.000 --> 0:42:38.719 what happens in Barcelona is that the military march into 0:42:38.719 --> 0:42:41.759 town from outside of town and just pretty much get 0:42:42.000 --> 0:42:45.520 get they their ship pushed back in by the anarchist right. 0:42:46.320 --> 0:42:51.080 All around town, gunfights breakout. In one instance, um, the 0:42:51.160 --> 0:42:54.080 anarchists are able to persuade the soldiers manning a machine 0:42:54.120 --> 0:42:56.719 gun that their class solidarity is more important than their 0:42:56.719 --> 0:42:59.000 obedience to their offices, and then they turn the machine 0:42:59.000 --> 0:43:02.520 gun on their offices and or their officers instead. Unbelievably, 0:43:02.560 --> 0:43:07.359 this exceptionally fucking cool. Right. The Spantis Civil War has 0:43:07.400 --> 0:43:09.520 all these amazing stories like that, but that that's one 0:43:09.520 --> 0:43:12.640 of my favorites. Right, doesn't happen often. It's great when 0:43:12.680 --> 0:43:16.920 it does. So what we have by the end of 0:43:16.920 --> 0:43:20.000 the first week of the Spanish Civil War is a 0:43:20.120 --> 0:43:24.120 situation where in Catalonia the city is in the hands 0:43:24.120 --> 0:43:26.440 of the anarchists. As this meeting that happens between the 0:43:26.480 --> 0:43:28.960 President of Catalonia and the anarchists, it may or may 0:43:28.960 --> 0:43:32.280 not be apocryphal, or the exact words may not be apocypal, 0:43:32.280 --> 0:43:35.480 doesn't really matter. What happens is that the anarchists go 0:43:35.680 --> 0:43:40.879 to the President of Catalonia and they he says to them, 0:43:41.160 --> 0:43:43.560 you're in control of the city. The city's in your hands. 0:43:44.160 --> 0:43:46.200 I've been he actually the president. He was liberal, but 0:43:46.320 --> 0:43:48.239 he'd been a lawyer for the anarchist when they kept 0:43:48.239 --> 0:43:51.880 getting fired. Um, he said, if you want me to 0:43:51.920 --> 0:43:54.359 be another foot soldier in the fire, will quit my job. 0:43:54.600 --> 0:43:56.120 I'll just be another fight. But if I can be 0:43:56.200 --> 0:43:58.560 useful to you as a politician, I will as well. Right, 0:43:58.560 --> 0:44:01.360 So it's a submission, amission and from an elected Borgeo 0:44:01.480 --> 0:44:03.719 politician that like, the city belongs to you, now, to 0:44:03.840 --> 0:44:07.759 the people, and it's up to you what we do next. Right, 0:44:08.040 --> 0:44:10.120 what they did was they founded this. They didn't actually 0:44:10.160 --> 0:44:13.880 sort of go right, it's all anarchists right to salient 0:44:13.920 --> 0:44:17.680 anarchist groups of the CNT and the f AI, the 0:44:17.760 --> 0:44:22.080 Anarchist Federation of Iberia and the National Confederation of Labor. 0:44:23.320 --> 0:44:24.920 He didn't they didn't sort of be like, okay, you 0:44:24.960 --> 0:44:27.600 were on anarchist control. They found out the People's Committee 0:44:27.600 --> 0:44:30.440 of Anti Fascist Militias and they said, this is an 0:44:30.480 --> 0:44:37.000 anti fascist catalonia, right, And then they began to control 0:44:37.440 --> 0:44:41.960 the industries according to the principles of anarcho syndicalism, right, 0:44:41.960 --> 0:44:45.240 which is the idea that the way to move towards 0:44:45.239 --> 0:44:49.000 a more libertarian society under moving from industrial capitalism is 0:44:49.040 --> 0:44:53.200 through industrial unions, right. And they were extremely effective. I 0:44:53.239 --> 0:44:56.720 see this discourse a lot on Twitter or on Reddit 0:44:56.920 --> 0:45:01.680 or on places where where um, I don't want to 0:45:01.760 --> 0:45:04.560 just like dismiss people as tankies, but where we're because 0:45:04.640 --> 0:45:07.200 like you know, maybe there's people can can listen and 0:45:07.239 --> 0:45:08.840 we can talk and we can understand each other. But 0:45:09.080 --> 0:45:11.719 where people go on the Internet to talk about politics 0:45:11.760 --> 0:45:14.400 and say that like it's impossible for anarchists to do 0:45:14.560 --> 0:45:18.000 supply chain, it's impossible for anarchists to do logistics, right, 0:45:18.640 --> 0:45:20.839 And sometimes I think they think of anarchism as like 0:45:22.440 --> 0:45:25.320 like only able to work in groups of five people 0:45:25.400 --> 0:45:28.480 or something. There's this broad spread attitude in part because 0:45:28.520 --> 0:45:31.960 of like some social attitudes among a lot of American anarchists, 0:45:31.960 --> 0:45:35.399 certainly American anarchists who are very online that like anarchism 0:45:35.440 --> 0:45:37.040 is when you live on a farm with four of 0:45:37.040 --> 0:45:40.160 your friends, right, like that that it's very pastoral, it's 0:45:40.200 --> 0:45:43.480 anti industrial, and a decent amount of American anarchists are. 0:45:43.920 --> 0:45:46.120 It's not uncommon to find people who are like anarcho, 0:45:46.120 --> 0:45:48.920 primitivist or whatever, um. But it is important to note 0:45:48.960 --> 0:45:51.520 that there's a very long anarchist tradition as we're talking 0:45:51.520 --> 0:45:54.880 about now that's deeply industrial. Yes, and like the anarchist 0:45:54.960 --> 0:45:56.719 a right, the anarchist symbol that we all see that 0:45:56.800 --> 0:45:59.960 comes from America. Right. The industrial workers of the world 0:46:00.360 --> 0:46:03.320 come from the United States. The raised fist popular salute 0:46:03.600 --> 0:46:06.719 comes from the IWW goes to Spain. Right, we have 0:46:06.800 --> 0:46:08.320 this long tradition. But yeah, I think a lot of 0:46:08.360 --> 0:46:11.520 American anarchists because it's easier to live and work cooperatively 0:46:11.520 --> 0:46:14.200 in a small group somewhat detached. But what we have 0:46:14.239 --> 0:46:16.600 in Catalonia that we don't have here is the majority 0:46:16.640 --> 0:46:19.759 of the working class committed to an archo syndicalism. Right, 0:46:19.920 --> 0:46:22.759 so people return to work and work very effectively when 0:46:22.760 --> 0:46:26.000 they're not also volunteering also fighting in something like a 0:46:26.160 --> 0:46:29.719 Druti column. Right. Um, these anarchists malicious with which we 0:46:29.719 --> 0:46:32.759 can also talk about because I think they're very interesting. Um. 0:46:32.800 --> 0:46:34.840 So for instance, one example they like, the site is 0:46:34.880 --> 0:46:38.520 the Hispaniol Sweet factory right Spain, Swiss. It's just an 0:46:38.560 --> 0:46:43.440 automobile manufacturers like the GM factory within three days after 0:46:43.480 --> 0:46:45.319 the revolution. And bear in mind that most of them 0:46:45.320 --> 0:46:48.640 have been out shooting at soldiers for most of that time. Right. 0:46:49.480 --> 0:46:51.719 Big thing that they had to deal with was the 0:46:51.719 --> 0:46:54.480 soldiers often us of churches. They would burn the churches 0:46:55.320 --> 0:47:00.680 so like it was an extremely vicious urban battle. They were. 0:47:00.800 --> 0:47:06.799 They had converted their facility to go from producing automobiles 0:47:06.800 --> 0:47:09.080 for rich people at the time right now everyone had 0:47:09.080 --> 0:47:12.239 a car to producing technicals armored cars. Right. And you 0:47:12.280 --> 0:47:14.920 can see them if you google c Anti technicals the 0:47:14.960 --> 0:47:19.920 anti Arca because she's amazing like a Hodgepodge technicals that 0:47:20.000 --> 0:47:22.520 they had, well did these things on and they were 0:47:22.560 --> 0:47:26.160 able to turn those around and produce weapons for the front. 0:47:26.760 --> 0:47:29.360 Another good example to see as castle pistols right to 0:47:29.400 --> 0:47:33.239 us Castle is a famous anarchist leader. Um and Askasso 0:47:33.440 --> 0:47:36.160 was killed in the first day of the revolution when 0:47:36.200 --> 0:47:39.399 they were fighting the Coupe. There weren't there wasn't much 0:47:39.440 --> 0:47:42.799 weapons manufacturing in Catalonia, right, and we're very familiar with 0:47:42.840 --> 0:47:45.799 that from our work on Miamma. And what they did 0:47:45.840 --> 0:47:49.840 was they set up a factory in Tarrassa to make weapons. 0:47:50.760 --> 0:47:53.000 They made copies of ruby pistols actually, but then they 0:47:53.080 --> 0:47:55.359 named them after us Casso, so you can still buy them. 0:47:55.360 --> 0:47:58.560 I sure you can google them, you can find them, 0:47:58.600 --> 0:48:00.719 but these they set up a weapons actory, right, and 0:48:00.760 --> 0:48:03.920 then under anarcho syndicalist principles and the principles of sort 0:48:03.960 --> 0:48:07.520 of unions controlling this production system, unions controlling the supply 0:48:07.640 --> 0:48:11.239 chain system, which let's be honest, they do largely anyway, right, 0:48:11.280 --> 0:48:14.680 Like it's not Tim Apple who buys a circuit board 0:48:14.680 --> 0:48:18.080 for your phone, it's someone else. This is slightly more 0:48:18.080 --> 0:48:23.000 globalized system with with Apple phones. But um, the the 0:48:23.200 --> 0:48:26.359 unions were able to set up and change their production right, 0:48:26.400 --> 0:48:28.800 not just keep doing what they were doing, but also 0:48:29.120 --> 0:48:33.719 pivot without the need for people exercising authority over each other. 0:48:34.360 --> 0:48:37.600 This important understanding because you asked like, how how would 0:48:37.640 --> 0:48:41.120 anarchists contende industrial production? And it's like, well, have you 0:48:41.160 --> 0:48:43.239 ever had a job that it had you work in 0:48:43.280 --> 0:48:45.279 a factory on an assembly line or in some sort 0:48:45.320 --> 0:48:47.960 of other industrial way. Have you ever been a contractor 0:48:48.200 --> 0:48:50.879 and had a boss who sucked? Would it have worked 0:48:50.920 --> 0:48:53.120 better if that boss hadn't been there? That's the basic 0:48:53.239 --> 0:48:56.560 that's like the like, it's entirely possible for large groups 0:48:56.560 --> 0:48:58.640 of people to coordinate in a way that is not 0:48:58.680 --> 0:49:02.239 a capitalist system where you're accountable to a shareholder. Right, Like, 0:49:02.320 --> 0:49:04.160 there's there's a number of different ways to do that, 0:49:04.239 --> 0:49:06.600 but there's a long tradition and and in fact, some 0:49:06.680 --> 0:49:09.320 corporations that are still around today and quite large. You 0:49:09.360 --> 0:49:11.440 can look up the mon Dragon Corporation in Spain that 0:49:11.480 --> 0:49:14.640 have a lot of anarchist principles in their organizing. Um, 0:49:14.680 --> 0:49:17.200 not that like it's an anarchist company or whatever, but like, 0:49:17.200 --> 0:49:21.279 but there's significant, like significant amounts of anarchist theory and 0:49:21.480 --> 0:49:24.000 why that operates the way it does and has been 0:49:24.480 --> 0:49:28.400 significantly successful. Um. There's some other examples, and I think 0:49:28.440 --> 0:49:33.240 it's Brazil. Um there's a large like steel corporation and whatnot. Um, 0:49:33.280 --> 0:49:37.600 But yeah, like there's there's it's not. There's nothing about 0:49:37.640 --> 0:49:41.640 anarchism that means you can't have a factory producing armored cars. 0:49:41.719 --> 0:49:44.520 It just means you're not producing armored cars for the 0:49:44.560 --> 0:49:48.480 profit of the Lockheed Martin Corporation or whatever. Yeah, you're 0:49:48.520 --> 0:49:51.320 producing on the cause because you are fighting in a 0:49:51.400 --> 0:49:53.920 conflict that you hope will liberate other people, right, And 0:49:53.960 --> 0:49:58.040 that is agraby a more important motivation. And then wage labor, 0:49:58.040 --> 0:50:00.839 and certainly they in some cases increase activity, but they 0:50:00.840 --> 0:50:04.600 were able to sustain all the functions of an industrial society. 0:50:04.640 --> 0:50:07.160 And Catalonia was very industrialized, much more so than the 0:50:07.200 --> 0:50:10.239 rest of Spain, right, And that's perhaps why anarchism was 0:50:10.320 --> 0:50:13.960 so so important there. And and yeah, Verry, it doesn't 0:50:14.040 --> 0:50:17.280 require the arbitrary exercise of authority for that to happen. 0:50:17.320 --> 0:50:19.560 And like you said, there's plenty of examples of that. 0:50:19.680 --> 0:50:22.680 I think both of us really enjoyed David Grabe's book. 0:50:22.719 --> 0:50:26.200 But this idea that we move from one phase of 0:50:26.200 --> 0:50:28.840 society to another and that necessitates a different form of 0:50:28.840 --> 0:50:32.200 political organization just isn't borne out by the historical record. 0:50:32.360 --> 0:50:35.640 And I think Catalonia is a really good example of that. Yeah. 0:50:35.640 --> 0:50:37.960 And a further example of that is in a pretty 0:50:37.960 --> 0:50:42.000 similar time frame you're talking earlier, but not but maybe 0:50:42.040 --> 0:50:44.279 like less than twenty years earlier, you have an esther 0:50:44.400 --> 0:50:48.040 mack No and mack Nova in Ukraine, this kind of independent, 0:50:48.480 --> 0:50:53.120 autonomous anarchist society that is extremely successful in war that 0:50:53.160 --> 0:50:57.160 the Soviet Union does not exist without mock No fighting 0:50:57.200 --> 0:51:00.960 the whites. Um as as successful easy didn't stopping in 0:51:01.040 --> 0:51:05.040 advance on on Moscow. And that's a rural that were 0:51:05.080 --> 0:51:08.439 not industrialized, and in fact their anarchism was very much 0:51:08.480 --> 0:51:11.720 based in kind of the traditional methods of organized rural 0:51:11.760 --> 0:51:15.319 societies in Ukraine. UM. And you have that a lot 0:51:15.400 --> 0:51:17.040 in other like you have a lot there are a 0:51:17.040 --> 0:51:19.400 lot of areas in which anarchism is common in rural 0:51:19.719 --> 0:51:22.120 areas and it's more of like a state socialism in 0:51:22.120 --> 0:51:25.080 industrialized areas. But you can have you also have this 0:51:25.120 --> 0:51:29.720 deep history of industrialized anarchism and there's uh, it shows 0:51:29.760 --> 0:51:35.239 that there's a capability for anarchist principles to function with infrastructure. Yeah. 0:51:35.560 --> 0:51:37.080 And if you want to look for rural anarchism, and 0:51:37.120 --> 0:51:39.279 you can look in southern Spain, right is um If 0:51:39.320 --> 0:51:41.080 you want to look at a small case study of 0:51:41.080 --> 0:51:44.440 the anarchists of Casas Vias is a great example of that. Right, 0:51:44.480 --> 0:51:46.360 people can find I'm sure it's free online. Is a 0:51:46.400 --> 0:51:50.279 pdf now, um, But yes, it doesn't have to just 0:51:50.360 --> 0:51:53.319 exist in urban or rural society or between the two, right, 0:51:53.400 --> 0:51:58.799 like whether Druti column went south? Okay, the drug column 0:51:58.880 --> 0:52:01.319 is an anarchist column. There are a number of other 0:52:01.320 --> 0:52:04.600 anarchist columns, but this one is the sort of the 0:52:04.640 --> 0:52:07.200 pre eminent one, the one that was most successful because 0:52:07.239 --> 0:52:10.080 they tended not to get bogged down as much in 0:52:10.200 --> 0:52:13.320 fighting in rural environments where they were not skilled, but 0:52:13.360 --> 0:52:16.040 they were extremely skilled, much more so than the military, 0:52:16.080 --> 0:52:19.040 and fighting in urban environments, right, So they were very successful. 0:52:19.080 --> 0:52:23.160 They went to Zaragotha and then fought there. While they 0:52:23.160 --> 0:52:25.640 were there, they were collectivizing the farms, right, And I'm 0:52:25.680 --> 0:52:28.319 sure some of that collectivization was forced. I don't want 0:52:28.320 --> 0:52:31.960 to be like everything was rainbows and unicorns, but it's 0:52:31.960 --> 0:52:35.160 a war. There's no side in a war whose handstake lane, right, 0:52:35.239 --> 0:52:38.080 Like that's not minimizing or ignoring it, it's just stating that, 0:52:38.160 --> 0:52:40.399 Like you you have to sometimes talk about the broad 0:52:40.440 --> 0:52:43.520 strokes of what's going on with without pretending to whitewash 0:52:43.600 --> 0:52:46.000 the fact that I'm certain ugly things happened there as well. 0:52:46.320 --> 0:52:49.080 Yeah yeah, and like yeah, you say, ugly things happen 0:52:49.160 --> 0:52:51.000 in war, and I think if you if you want 0:52:51.000 --> 0:52:54.319 that not to happen. Maybe I don't know you live 0:52:54.360 --> 0:52:58.960 on the internet, but like, um, the dirt decorum then 0:52:59.000 --> 0:53:01.319 goes to it right in the seat at Madrid, which 0:53:01.400 --> 0:53:03.840 was the also the first conflict in the International Brigades, 0:53:03.840 --> 0:53:05.880 the first battle of the International Brigades fourteen. It was 0:53:05.920 --> 0:53:08.440 a very successful battle for the Republic. It was a 0:53:08.440 --> 0:53:10.840 bottle that allowed the republic. If we look at the 0:53:10.880 --> 0:53:15.000 two battles that allow the Republic to exist, right, it's 0:53:15.320 --> 0:53:18.279 conflict in Barcelona, the battle for Barcelona, the first days 0:53:18.280 --> 0:53:20.400 of the Civil War, and it's a battle in Madrid 0:53:20.640 --> 0:53:23.719 right now. Madrid is not as much of an anarchist city, 0:53:23.840 --> 0:53:26.320 is a city with anarchism, but it's also more salient 0:53:26.360 --> 0:53:31.279 other socialism. Um. So when the Drouty column arrives right 0:53:31.480 --> 0:53:33.880 and takes part in the combat there, because they have 0:53:33.960 --> 0:53:37.600 been successful, because they're very good urban warfare, and a 0:53:37.640 --> 0:53:39.959 lot of the people in the Druty column didn't want 0:53:40.080 --> 0:53:42.160 do Routy to go, but he decided it was important 0:53:42.160 --> 0:53:43.960 to go as part of this popular front, right to 0:53:44.000 --> 0:53:49.560 fight this this huge push of Spain's most professional soldiers. Right, 0:53:50.280 --> 0:53:53.360 and that's where Derouty. You can read. I know somebody's 0:53:53.400 --> 0:53:58.120 working on an unlike a graphic novel about him. Yeah, yeah, yeah, 0:53:58.160 --> 0:53:59.759 and you should give them your money if you have 0:53:59.800 --> 0:54:03.640 some but able path. His book about Druty is very good. 0:54:04.320 --> 0:54:06.080 It's an amazing book because you turn out the line 0:54:06.080 --> 0:54:07.560 of notes and he's like, oh, yeah, this book has 0:54:07.600 --> 0:54:09.680 taken me a long time to write because I was 0:54:09.719 --> 0:54:12.279 involved in a resistance against Franco and spent twenty five 0:54:12.360 --> 0:54:18.319 years in jail, solitary confinement. But what a chad. But 0:54:18.719 --> 0:54:21.000 so you can read about Druty there, and Druty dies 0:54:21.239 --> 0:54:24.120 in the Battle for Madrid. But it's also kind of 0:54:24.160 --> 0:54:28.640 important to look at Spain is effective anakast, Spain is 0:54:28.680 --> 0:54:33.400 effective in fighting fascism. Um, what stops it being effective? 0:54:34.160 --> 0:54:37.960 To my mind, it is not anarchist principles military organization. 0:54:38.400 --> 0:54:41.160 The other thing that was that was impressive about Druty 0:54:41.160 --> 0:54:44.000 Column was that they had embedded army loyal army officers 0:54:44.000 --> 0:54:46.000 and they listened to them and they learned from them 0:54:46.080 --> 0:54:48.920 and they said, Okay, we don't good at some stuff, 0:54:48.960 --> 0:54:51.200 not good other stuff. We will learn. Other anarchists didn't. 0:54:51.400 --> 0:54:53.839 It didn't tend to do as well. Yeah, this is 0:54:54.160 --> 0:54:58.600 a common misconception because the anarchists are very much against hierarchy, um, 0:54:59.120 --> 0:55:04.359 which doesn't mean being against professionalism or competence, right. Like, 0:55:04.400 --> 0:55:06.920 it's the idea that like the hierarchy, For example, that 0:55:07.040 --> 0:55:09.360 led several million young boys to get machine gun in 0:55:09.400 --> 0:55:11.399 World War One because the people who were in charge 0:55:11.440 --> 0:55:14.720 of them had not learned how machine guns functioned. Um, 0:55:14.960 --> 0:55:17.160 is was a problem. But if you've got someone who 0:55:17.200 --> 0:55:19.239 has been training their entire life as a soldier and 0:55:19.280 --> 0:55:23.680 understands very effectively how artillery functions and how machine guns function, 0:55:23.800 --> 0:55:27.840 and because they have professionalized in that, it's not against 0:55:27.920 --> 0:55:32.239 anarchist principles to listen to that person in a gunfight. Yeah, yeah, expertise, 0:55:32.280 --> 0:55:35.759 it's not a it's not Yeah, it's not incompatible with liberty, right, 0:55:36.280 --> 0:55:38.279 and so yeah, they were very willing to listen to that. 0:55:38.320 --> 0:55:40.759 And in the same way they would be in a like. Again, 0:55:40.760 --> 0:55:42.759 these people have worked in factories, right, they understand that 0:55:42.840 --> 0:55:44.759 you don't know how to use a lathe and you 0:55:45.239 --> 0:55:47.239 exert your liberty to use a lathe, and your hand's 0:55:47.239 --> 0:55:49.040 gonna end up in a lathe when I when I 0:55:49.080 --> 0:55:51.680 go to a doctor and say, I'm am, I have 0:55:52.080 --> 0:55:54.680 gotten this horrible infected wound. What do I do about it? 0:55:54.800 --> 0:55:57.640 I am not yielding to a hierarchy. I am. I 0:55:57.680 --> 0:56:01.319 am accepting their expertise, you know. Yeah, yeah, I think 0:56:01.360 --> 0:56:04.360 sometimes people. I think your listeners are much better informed 0:56:04.360 --> 0:56:06.960 than this Germany. But people confuse anarchism with a predilegtion 0:56:07.000 --> 0:56:09.080 for chaos and violence, and it isn't that right. It's 0:56:09.160 --> 0:56:12.239 just it's a desire to to be more free and 0:56:12.280 --> 0:56:13.799 to not be controlled. And I have a boo on 0:56:13.840 --> 0:56:16.600 your neck. And but to to wind up that thought, 0:56:16.680 --> 0:56:21.360 like the reason that Spain that the Republican Spain starts 0:56:21.360 --> 0:56:23.840 to lose is not because there are anarchists. And you 0:56:23.840 --> 0:56:26.200 will definitely see this discourse on the internet. Many people 0:56:26.200 --> 0:56:29.120 will tell me that I'm mistaken about it. It's my 0:56:29.200 --> 0:56:33.920 fucking degree, But um yeah, I would argue that it's 0:56:33.960 --> 0:56:37.000 because the whole Western world that did quote unquote democracy 0:56:37.040 --> 0:56:38.799 is at the end of them, right, Yeah, this is 0:56:38.840 --> 0:56:40.880 like there's there's this. We talked about this a bit 0:56:40.920 --> 0:56:42.879 in the episodes we did on it. But like there's 0:56:42.880 --> 0:56:44.839 this whole argument that I'm sure you'll get into more 0:56:44.880 --> 0:56:48.399 between like the socialists, the communists, you know, and the anarchists. 0:56:48.400 --> 0:56:51.799 But a huge part of it, probably most of it, 0:56:51.880 --> 0:56:55.640 is that, like the fascists are getting guns from other 0:56:55.719 --> 0:57:00.280 fascists and tanks and aircraft often flown by professional ash 0:57:00.280 --> 0:57:03.720 just pilots who are training for what's going to become 0:57:03.760 --> 0:57:07.160 World War two, whereas Republican Spain has some old bulk 0:57:07.280 --> 0:57:10.520 action rifles that got smuggled in through France. Yeah, and 0:57:10.600 --> 0:57:12.920 some mosens. It was sold by America to Russia, from 0:57:12.960 --> 0:57:15.480 Russia to Mexico and then from Mexico back to Spain. 0:57:15.680 --> 0:57:19.040 Right like um, and and yeah, these old mouses are 0:57:19.000 --> 0:57:20.919 all well talks about that are rusted and they can't 0:57:20.960 --> 0:57:22.960 open the bolt after they fired them and they reload 0:57:23.000 --> 0:57:26.400 their ammunition and it's ship. But yeah, and on the 0:57:26.400 --> 0:57:28.800 other side, right, like the coup doesn't work. How does 0:57:28.840 --> 0:57:31.120 the Army of Africa get from Africa to Spain. It 0:57:31.120 --> 0:57:34.640 doesn't swim, right, how do these generals get from Africa 0:57:34.680 --> 0:57:38.720 to Spain airlifted by other fascist nations? Right? We don't 0:57:38.800 --> 0:57:42.200 see that, right, Actually, France wanted to sell planes to 0:57:42.920 --> 0:57:45.440 the Republic and the early days of the war that 0:57:45.640 --> 0:57:48.800 Britain pretty much put the kibosh on it. And there's 0:57:48.800 --> 0:57:51.680 an interesting parallel with what you're seeing in Ukraine right now, 0:57:51.720 --> 0:57:55.200 because in Ukraine you have a republican government, um, in 0:57:55.200 --> 0:57:58.840 a military that has a fairly wide selection. Jake camerhanters 0:57:58.880 --> 0:58:01.160 posted like a vegan at streamist who's fighting on the 0:58:01.160 --> 0:58:02.760 front lines of the because it's like, yeah, there's a 0:58:02.800 --> 0:58:06.360 whole bunch of different ideological tendencies fighting on behalf of 0:58:06.400 --> 0:58:11.040 the broadly Ukrainian side. They're including some very nasty ones. Um, 0:58:11.080 --> 0:58:13.920 but you're kind of seeing what happens when a fascist 0:58:13.920 --> 0:58:17.720 power invades a country like that to stop a republic 0:58:18.160 --> 0:58:21.000 and democratic powers send them the most advanced weapons on 0:58:21.040 --> 0:58:24.560 the planet, right, which is all it would have taken 0:58:24.600 --> 0:58:27.040 to roll back fascism in Spain. And then perhaps you know, 0:58:27.040 --> 0:58:29.600 there were a lot of German Italian exiles fighting in Spain, 0:58:29.680 --> 0:58:33.080 right because the Second Republic had relatively liberal, silent policies 0:58:33.400 --> 0:58:35.400 and they knew the only way to stop fashion Italy 0:58:35.440 --> 0:58:37.000 in Germany was to roll a bank in Spain and 0:58:37.080 --> 0:58:39.640 keep going right. I often have this, and I've had 0:58:39.680 --> 0:58:41.280 this as we've reput it on me an more, this 0:58:41.360 --> 0:58:43.680 weird thought of like I'll be reading about the Spanish 0:58:43.720 --> 0:58:46.440 Civil War in my office and I'll look at my 0:58:46.440 --> 0:58:48.520 gun collection. Although if I took every if I had, 0:58:48.560 --> 0:58:50.160 if I could go back in time with everything I 0:58:50.240 --> 0:58:52.120 have in my house, all of the m O and guns, 0:58:52.440 --> 0:58:54.360 there are a couple of battles that might have been 0:58:54.400 --> 0:58:57.320 turned around by just that. Because while for one thing, 0:58:57.360 --> 0:59:00.160 because modern semi automatic arms are much more effective than 0:59:00.680 --> 0:59:03.280 bold action rifles. But just like the level of armament 0:59:03.320 --> 0:59:09.440 that those people had was um that there were eighteenth 0:59:09.440 --> 0:59:12.880 century armies better equipped for combat. Yeah, I mean you 0:59:12.920 --> 0:59:16.160 see people with muscle loaders and stuff in the Spanish 0:59:16.160 --> 0:59:18.960 Civil War, right, And then the only place they can 0:59:19.080 --> 0:59:21.120 term for arms is the Soviet Union. Right. And they 0:59:21.160 --> 0:59:23.760 don't just get arms, they also get these generals, right, 0:59:23.760 --> 0:59:26.560 who are quote unquoite advising. They're not, they're commanding units. 0:59:27.320 --> 0:59:30.160 There's a lot of Soviet politicking at play, right, and 0:59:30.920 --> 0:59:34.000 as much as anything. And you can read like um, 0:59:34.480 --> 0:59:38.640 like Peter Carroll's book on the Abraham Lincoln Brigades Brigade 0:59:39.080 --> 0:59:44.400 UH Battalion. Sorry, they want a brigade that will give 0:59:44.440 --> 0:59:48.320 you a better idea of like exactly how this strict 0:59:48.360 --> 0:59:53.160 authoritarian communist control really sacked the spirit out of the 0:59:53.240 --> 0:59:57.240 republic Um. And you can see this in May of seven, right, 0:59:57.240 --> 0:59:58.960 which is what which or Well writes about in his 0:59:59.000 --> 1:00:01.760 book Right the May Day. When we see a conflict 1:00:01.760 --> 1:00:05.840 between the non Stalinist communist they weren't Trotskyist to pum right, 1:00:06.400 --> 1:00:09.400 very often portrayed to trot to Trusky himself, like you 1:00:09.440 --> 1:00:11.320 can see the letters that he wrote to them where 1:00:11.320 --> 1:00:14.800 he had thrown disagreements with them if you care to look. Um. 1:00:14.920 --> 1:00:18.200 But we see this conflict, the shooting war right between 1:00:18.640 --> 1:00:22.040 the anarchists and the non Stalinist comunist Understanish communists. And 1:00:22.800 --> 1:00:25.360 what comes out of that is this idea among people 1:00:25.400 --> 1:00:28.800 on the libertarian left, its broad spectrum of libertarian leftism 1:00:28.800 --> 1:00:30.920 that we saw in Spain, but it's not really worth 1:00:31.000 --> 1:00:36.080 fighting for the republic or for the fascists, because either 1:00:36.120 --> 1:00:37.920 way we're just going to have the boot on our neck. Right. 1:00:37.920 --> 1:00:40.040 The secret police, I say, were like the secret police 1:00:40.040 --> 1:00:42.640 spent far, far, far more time going after anarchists in 1:00:42.680 --> 1:00:46.720 the Republican Army than they did after spies. Oh no, really, 1:00:47.880 --> 1:00:50.920 the authoritarian left spent more of their time fighting anarchists 1:00:50.960 --> 1:00:53.640 than the fat wild. Yeah, crazy is it? And it's 1:00:53.680 --> 1:00:55.600 never happened again. We learned from it. We moved on, 1:00:55.680 --> 1:00:58.840 we've become better people. Yeah, yeah, it's great, We're we're 1:00:58.840 --> 1:01:01.040 fine now, we've fixed it. For a lot of the 1:01:01.160 --> 1:01:03.520 people fighting for the republic, Right, what are you fighting for? 1:01:03.680 --> 1:01:07.560 And I think that's important that we remember that even 1:01:07.640 --> 1:01:09.280 in times when things are bad, right, you have to 1:01:09.280 --> 1:01:11.160 think about what things should be like you have to 1:01:11.200 --> 1:01:15.280 try and model that in what you're doing now on 1:01:15.320 --> 1:01:18.480 an economic level, when you're talking about like they come 1:01:18.480 --> 1:01:22.080 in they collectivize these farms. There's like anarchists, like the 1:01:22.080 --> 1:01:24.840 anarchists in large chunks and like in Catalonian in particular, 1:01:24.920 --> 1:01:27.240 are kind of running what at the time as a 1:01:27.240 --> 1:01:30.320 fairly modern industrial economy. How does that? How does that work? Like, 1:01:30.400 --> 1:01:32.960 do do you have any kind of like overall state, 1:01:33.120 --> 1:01:35.160 like during the period of time where you know they 1:01:35.200 --> 1:01:38.680 had reasonable control and also weren't completely overwhelmed with the fighting, 1:01:38.680 --> 1:01:41.320 How did it function? Yeah? You kind of have a state, right, 1:01:41.360 --> 1:01:44.080 you have this sort of people's committee anti factism, militious 1:01:44.120 --> 1:01:47.600 but Uh, not really, because things things are somewhat chaotic. 1:01:47.680 --> 1:01:49.640 Rights on the states, we would maybe understand it now. 1:01:49.840 --> 1:01:52.200 So what we have instead is is anarcho syndicalism. Right, 1:01:52.240 --> 1:01:56.320 these unions going to other unions and organizing among themselves. Right, 1:01:56.400 --> 1:02:00.800 Like you know, the steel workers need X from the miners, right, 1:02:00.880 --> 1:02:06.000 the miners, then the the tube makers need extra the 1:02:06.080 --> 1:02:09.040 steel workers and the gun company need X from the 1:02:09.240 --> 1:02:14.120 from the tube makers, right, And so organizing along industrial 1:02:14.280 --> 1:02:17.760 union levels allows things to continue. That allows the trains 1:02:17.760 --> 1:02:23.200 and trams to continue, allows them to continue manufacturing munitions. Right. 1:02:23.240 --> 1:02:26.680 So it's it's an archo syndicalism, it is. It's a 1:02:26.720 --> 1:02:30.720 type of libertarian leftism. And then we see these collective 1:02:30.960 --> 1:02:34.040 or sort of cooperative I should say, farming arrangements, right, 1:02:34.040 --> 1:02:37.080 where again people people are farming, people are sort of 1:02:37.320 --> 1:02:41.479 joining together their industrial small holdings and then delivering those, 1:02:41.520 --> 1:02:44.600 contributing those to the city to the war effort. And 1:02:44.960 --> 1:02:50.400 there's something, as you see in Ukraine right, relatively special 1:02:50.520 --> 1:02:53.200 that happens in these times of conflict where people are 1:02:53.280 --> 1:02:57.680 I think more willing to just step aside from the 1:02:58.160 --> 1:03:00.520 a and I think that's always been that was a 1:03:00.560 --> 1:03:02.400 thing for the Spanish working class for a long time. 1:03:02.400 --> 1:03:05.120 But to step aside from the accumulation of stuff, right 1:03:05.440 --> 1:03:07.840 from the accumulation of individual goods and wealth, and to 1:03:07.920 --> 1:03:09.760 say like, yeah, well, let's all get stuck in together. 1:03:09.760 --> 1:03:11.880 And I think that helped to allow that to happen, 1:03:12.320 --> 1:03:16.000 helped to allow it to continue. But yeah, these organizations 1:03:16.000 --> 1:03:19.400 between unions and collectives worked, right, they functioned. You can't 1:03:19.800 --> 1:03:22.200 argue that they didn't work. The Republican Army didn't starve 1:03:22.200 --> 1:03:25.400 in a week or ran out of fuel and things, right, 1:03:25.440 --> 1:03:28.760 These these anarchist columns were able to travel from Barcelona 1:03:28.840 --> 1:03:30.960 to the Agostina and from the Agossa back to Madrid 1:03:31.040 --> 1:03:33.200 like that. That that doesn't happen if if you're incapable 1:03:33.240 --> 1:03:36.800 of organizing. Right. So in the factories, these people had 1:03:36.840 --> 1:03:41.000 already been organizing together, right, They were on strike often 1:03:41.120 --> 1:03:43.600 right there. They knew how to. They had an existing 1:03:43.760 --> 1:03:47.640 system for organizing things because they already organized to pay 1:03:47.680 --> 1:03:50.320 strike funds. They already organized to look after other union 1:03:50.480 --> 1:03:52.200 other parts of the C and T when they were 1:03:52.200 --> 1:03:55.720 out right, they organized to have policy statements on various things. 1:03:55.720 --> 1:03:58.600 So they had these existing means to organize. They just 1:03:58.640 --> 1:04:02.000 didn't have or alretis told people what to do. They 1:04:02.080 --> 1:04:04.320 knew how to what to go to the side, what 1:04:04.400 --> 1:04:08.080 to do. Yeah, I had this beautiful moment during the 1:04:08.840 --> 1:04:13.320 uprisings where I was in a city, UM, and I 1:04:13.360 --> 1:04:16.960 was hanging out with members of a medical collective and 1:04:17.120 --> 1:04:20.400 the building that they were in there was a couple 1:04:20.400 --> 1:04:23.800 of thousand square feet of they were producing by assembly 1:04:23.920 --> 1:04:27.800 line kim wipe's for clearing mace out of your eyes. UM. 1:04:28.120 --> 1:04:31.480 They were producing like I fax medical kits. They had 1:04:31.640 --> 1:04:34.200 racks of body armor that had been donated or purchased 1:04:34.200 --> 1:04:37.000 with donated funds UM. And it was all it was 1:04:37.040 --> 1:04:41.200 a substantial amount of equipment that was being and and 1:04:41.240 --> 1:04:44.160 respirators and stuff that was being organized as symboled, put together, 1:04:44.760 --> 1:04:48.040 UM distributed, putting people's hands, put in the hands of 1:04:48.080 --> 1:04:50.040 people who were going out and utilizing it on a 1:04:50.040 --> 1:04:53.280 regular basis. UM. And it was being done like with 1:04:53.280 --> 1:04:55.680 within the principles of kind of like like a number 1:04:55.680 --> 1:04:58.240 of things can be organized that way. It's it is 1:04:58.320 --> 1:05:04.320 it is handling the collection, the distribution um of of 1:05:04.320 --> 1:05:08.640 of equipment and the collection disbursement of funds like for 1:05:08.880 --> 1:05:13.120 potentially like thousands and thousands of people. Um, that's perfectly 1:05:13.160 --> 1:05:17.200 doable under anarchist principles, and anarchists have done that kind 1:05:17.240 --> 1:05:19.360 of thing a number of times in the world. Yeah, 1:05:19.400 --> 1:05:21.280 Like if you look at the example of the soup 1:05:21.400 --> 1:05:24.920 kitchens right at proletarian dinas or restaurants they called them. Right, 1:05:24.960 --> 1:05:27.480 So in in Barcelona, a Madrid, they took over the 1:05:27.560 --> 1:05:33.000 writs right and and sourced food from rural anarchists to 1:05:33.000 --> 1:05:35.520 to feed people, right, rather than saying like, oh you 1:05:35.560 --> 1:05:37.280 know you have to buy feard, you have to buy food. 1:05:37.280 --> 1:05:38.840 You have to buy food. You come here and anyone 1:05:38.880 --> 1:05:40.919 can eat if you're hungry, right, and yeah, you see 1:05:40.920 --> 1:05:43.480 people doing that. Look at the unit that we we 1:05:43.520 --> 1:05:48.360 spoke about Miama, right, the Crenny generation c Army. They 1:05:48.480 --> 1:05:51.800 those guys they didn't have like you know, no one 1:05:51.880 --> 1:05:54.200 was wearing rank right now one was a general or 1:05:54.240 --> 1:05:57.240 a captain or or a sergeant. Right, they talked and 1:05:58.120 --> 1:06:00.920 to our point before by expertise, some people we found 1:06:00.920 --> 1:06:03.720 out are the person we were talking to, Zara who 1:06:03.800 --> 1:06:07.320 was who was killed. Um was seen as a commander 1:06:07.360 --> 1:06:10.080 by people because of what they wrote about him after 1:06:10.160 --> 1:06:12.280 he died, but he never talked about himself that way. No. 1:06:12.440 --> 1:06:14.439 In fact, he told us, right that if some people 1:06:14.520 --> 1:06:16.720 knew more, they've been in the fight for longer, they 1:06:16.760 --> 1:06:18.520 knew the terrain, and then we listen to them and 1:06:18.560 --> 1:06:20.400 they have a bit more way in that conversation. But 1:06:20.400 --> 1:06:22.960 we all just decide together what we what we want 1:06:23.040 --> 1:06:26.360 to do m and that that works, right, Like, because 1:06:26.640 --> 1:06:31.280 those guys were very well respected right among the the 1:06:31.720 --> 1:06:34.640 anti coup forces in Mihama because of their willingness to fight, 1:06:34.720 --> 1:06:37.400 their effectiveness, and those guys have a good battlefield record 1:06:37.440 --> 1:06:40.680 against the government troops. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, And like 1:06:40.720 --> 1:06:43.800 it wasn't just again, like it's not just five guys fighting, right, 1:06:43.800 --> 1:06:47.120 it's also they were able and and in Mihama we 1:06:47.160 --> 1:06:49.360 still see this with like the underground and they called 1:06:49.360 --> 1:06:52.320 the Development Committee LS and the people who are they 1:06:52.320 --> 1:06:54.440 were the people who did the shield walls and that 1:06:54.520 --> 1:06:56.960 kind of thing. And people will be familiar with the 1:06:57.000 --> 1:06:59.920 George Floyd uprising for them, they went underground of their 1:07:00.000 --> 1:07:02.480 developing ways to make weapons now, right, so they're the 1:07:02.520 --> 1:07:04.960 people you'll see making three D printed guns. So the 1:07:05.000 --> 1:07:09.920 people you'll see making improvised explosive devices, fertilized bombs, working 1:07:09.920 --> 1:07:12.520 out how to make handmade to two rifles we've seen 1:07:12.600 --> 1:07:15.800 right like and again they don't. They don't need someone 1:07:15.840 --> 1:07:19.160 in charge for that, right And in times of difficulty 1:07:19.320 --> 1:07:23.960 we revert to taking care of one another and getting 1:07:24.000 --> 1:07:26.800 things done. We we don't contrary to I think what 1:07:26.880 --> 1:07:29.360 what we're led to believe, sort of revert to we 1:07:29.400 --> 1:07:32.680 don't need like a strong leader, dear leader. We are 1:07:32.720 --> 1:07:35.520 capable of looking after one another outside of authority in 1:07:35.520 --> 1:07:39.200 the state. Yeah. And it also stands to the point 1:07:39.240 --> 1:07:41.880 that like accepting the authority of someone with expertise in 1:07:41.880 --> 1:07:45.560 certain situations, like the fundamental way in which effective military 1:07:45.600 --> 1:07:48.360 is organized tends to involve the existence of an n 1:07:48.360 --> 1:07:51.760 c O corps, right you, Every military that is good 1:07:51.760 --> 1:07:53.560 at fighting has it in c O core. Part of 1:07:53.560 --> 1:07:57.520 why Russia has acquitted itself so unbelievably poorly and the 1:07:57.560 --> 1:07:59.920 fighting in Ukraine is that that that does not functionally 1:08:00.000 --> 1:08:03.040 exist in the Russian military. Um. It is absolutely the 1:08:03.040 --> 1:08:04.840 basic idea of an n c O COREP is that 1:08:04.880 --> 1:08:08.680 with among fighting units, there should be dudes whose job 1:08:08.880 --> 1:08:10.960 and I say dudes in the non gendered sense, there 1:08:10.960 --> 1:08:14.400 should be people whose job is to make the functioning 1:08:14.440 --> 1:08:17.760 of that fighting unit be their whole life, and they 1:08:17.800 --> 1:08:20.200 stay at that job for a long time. They don't 1:08:20.240 --> 1:08:22.800 just like move up and ship. They're just they're there 1:08:22.840 --> 1:08:27.600 to keep that unit functioning. Um. And from the perspective 1:08:27.600 --> 1:08:30.000 of like someone who is an anarchist, I mean as 1:08:30.000 --> 1:08:32.080 an anarchist who's been shot at a number of times. 1:08:32.200 --> 1:08:34.320 When I'm hanging out and there's like some grizzled ass 1:08:34.360 --> 1:08:36.800 fucking veteran in the unit I'm embedded with, I'm gonna 1:08:36.840 --> 1:08:40.080 do whatever that fucker says, right absolutely, because you're crazy, 1:08:40.160 --> 1:08:43.160 not too, because that's just good sense. It's the same 1:08:43.200 --> 1:08:45.639 thing as like if you're in deep bush or whatever 1:08:45.680 --> 1:08:48.479 with somebody who knows wilderness survival and they tell you 1:08:48.520 --> 1:08:51.320 don't eat that plant, or they tell you know, this 1:08:51.400 --> 1:08:53.479 is a bad place to camp for this reason or whatever. 1:08:53.560 --> 1:08:56.559 You listen to them, like that's again, and you know, 1:08:56.640 --> 1:08:59.240 factories function the same way. Having been on building sites, 1:08:59.280 --> 1:09:01.320 they function this same way. Somebody tells you don't do 1:09:01.360 --> 1:09:03.960 that it's a bad idea, and they clearly have been 1:09:04.000 --> 1:09:05.800 doing it more than you. You listen to them. That's 1:09:05.840 --> 1:09:09.840 not accepting that you have a boss. That's accepting that 1:09:09.880 --> 1:09:13.000 you have people who are more experienced and competent in 1:09:13.040 --> 1:09:16.440 certain things. Yeah, And if you look at what ineffective 1:09:16.479 --> 1:09:18.680 armies sometimes have, it it's it's it's it's in the 1:09:18.680 --> 1:09:21.280 office of core. Right, it's people who are in charge 1:09:21.280 --> 1:09:23.000 but maybe you ought not to be, but it's because 1:09:23.000 --> 1:09:25.080 of their status with their wealth or something else. Right. 1:09:25.560 --> 1:09:29.840 And you see like very effective fighting in the anarchist units, right, 1:09:29.840 --> 1:09:33.439 with men and women, and actually people who would were 1:09:33.520 --> 1:09:35.439 non binary as well, or people who would call non 1:09:35.479 --> 1:09:39.240 binary didn't call themselves out then. Um, but um, we 1:09:39.560 --> 1:09:42.559 see that because they were willing to elect officers, right, 1:09:42.840 --> 1:09:45.320 but then listen to them. And it wasn't it was 1:09:45.400 --> 1:09:48.240 listened to not obey, right, But but that was an 1:09:48.240 --> 1:09:51.040 extremely effective way of doing things. Yeah. I was having 1:09:51.040 --> 1:09:52.720 a conversation with a body of mine who was a 1:09:52.760 --> 1:09:55.719 marine and saw some very heavy combat in Iraq years 1:09:55.720 --> 1:09:58.519 ago about like the way in which certain anarchist units 1:09:58.520 --> 1:10:00.360 had worked over time, and talked about the fact that 1:10:00.360 --> 1:10:02.519 they elected their leaders. And he was like, well, we 1:10:02.520 --> 1:10:05.120 didn't do that obviously, but there were people you knew 1:10:05.160 --> 1:10:07.080 you shouldn't listen to and people you did, and you 1:10:07.120 --> 1:10:11.080 understood who you wanted calling the shots when bullets were flying, right, like, 1:10:11.200 --> 1:10:14.519 regardless of what the actual hierarchy was. It's just like 1:10:14.560 --> 1:10:15.800 you know, in the U. S. Military, you have a 1:10:15.800 --> 1:10:18.639 platoon leader who was an officer who has been to college, 1:10:18.760 --> 1:10:21.519 and you have a platoon sergeant, and they do somewhat 1:10:21.520 --> 1:10:26.400 different things. But every reasonable person who has interfaced with 1:10:26.439 --> 1:10:30.040 those units will agree that like any good platoon leader, 1:10:30.200 --> 1:10:31.960 even though they're an officer and a higher rank, it 1:10:32.040 --> 1:10:33.880 is gonna listen to whatever the fucking platoon sergeant says 1:10:33.920 --> 1:10:36.240 because they've been doing that job a lot along. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, 1:10:36.280 --> 1:10:38.920 you're a fool and you're arrogant if you don't right, 1:10:39.000 --> 1:10:41.240 and the arrogance will find you out during it in 1:10:41.320 --> 1:10:44.000 a difficult situation pretty quickly. So yeah, I think it's 1:10:44.040 --> 1:10:46.960 important to look to look at those anarchists militaries, right. 1:10:47.000 --> 1:10:48.680 And then there are lots and lots of accounts of 1:10:48.760 --> 1:10:51.320 the of the anarchists and the Spanish Civil War. Julian 1:10:51.439 --> 1:10:53.760 Casanova's book is one of my favorites that people want 1:10:53.760 --> 1:10:56.680 to read one and married book Junichurse has written to 1:10:56.680 --> 1:11:00.240 the Spanish anarchists as well, so they're there are lot 1:11:00.479 --> 1:11:02.519 of books you can read about, and some of them 1:11:02.520 --> 1:11:04.479 micro case studies are really fun. Right, if you want 1:11:04.520 --> 1:11:06.120 to look at like what is it like to live 1:11:06.200 --> 1:11:11.600 on an anarchist farm in ninety six in rural Catalonian 1:11:11.680 --> 1:11:14.799 Yale or something like that, like, and I would encourage 1:11:14.800 --> 1:11:17.040 people to read them with an open mind, and I 1:11:17.120 --> 1:11:19.200 understand that like the world was different than than it 1:11:19.280 --> 1:11:22.840 is today, but to look at those historical examples and 1:11:22.880 --> 1:11:26.800 realize that, like, what people were doing them was fundamentally 1:11:26.840 --> 1:11:28.320 the same. Right, they were trying to take care of 1:11:28.360 --> 1:11:30.240 each other and make the world better for their children, 1:11:30.280 --> 1:11:32.439 and they didn't want the boot on their neck, and 1:11:32.439 --> 1:11:34.439 they were all prepared to work together to do that, 1:11:34.880 --> 1:11:38.080 and that that was an extremely functional way. And what 1:11:38.840 --> 1:11:43.200 didn't work for them was being controlled by people from 1:11:43.240 --> 1:11:45.639 the SO Union who maybe didn't understand their struggle because 1:11:45.640 --> 1:11:48.439 they often volt it wasn't worth fighting anymore. And that's 1:11:48.439 --> 1:11:50.439 true for communists to actually, right, Like if you look 1:11:50.479 --> 1:11:53.360 at the American communists who went and fought, and they 1:11:53.360 --> 1:11:56.920 were overwhelmingly Communists who went and fought for the for 1:11:56.960 --> 1:12:00.479 the International Brigades. The International Brigades were not the public's 1:12:00.520 --> 1:12:03.840 army per se. They were the comm Interns army. And 1:12:04.040 --> 1:12:06.320 if there is one group of people who was hated 1:12:06.360 --> 1:12:09.000 more than anyone else. It was commissars, right, these people 1:12:09.000 --> 1:12:10.840 who were sort of there to enforce this very strict 1:12:10.880 --> 1:12:16.080 interpretation of what they saw as Marxist Leninism. So even 1:12:16.080 --> 1:12:18.120 those people right who were communists might have had a 1:12:18.200 --> 1:12:21.720 more slightly more libertarian understanding, didn't really take that well 1:12:21.800 --> 1:12:24.720 to being bossed around and lost a lot of their 1:12:24.840 --> 1:12:27.720 wills what they were fighting for because of that. Right. 1:12:28.600 --> 1:12:31.400 Cecil Lbis book is another really good book about that. 1:12:31.439 --> 1:12:34.040 If you want to read that, well, I think that's 1:12:34.080 --> 1:12:36.880 going to bring us to an end here, James, you 1:12:36.920 --> 1:12:38.840 have a book about the Spanish Civil War that you 1:12:38.840 --> 1:12:41.559 should probably plug here. Yeah. Yeah, it's called The Popular 1:12:41.600 --> 1:12:45.600 Front and the Learner Olympics. It's about the anti for 1:12:45.720 --> 1:12:49.960 Olympics that were held as an alternative to the Barslona Olympic. 1:12:49.960 --> 1:12:53.920 Tics explains how the Popular Front used sport to build 1:12:53.960 --> 1:12:57.240 an anti fascist identity in Catalonia, and it used sport 1:12:57.320 --> 1:12:59.760 to bring together anti fascists from around the world. The 1:13:00.000 --> 1:13:03.120 Olympics actually happened on the nineteenth of July, which is 1:13:03.120 --> 1:13:05.040 the same data civil War startists, and they never they 1:13:05.120 --> 1:13:06.840 never occurred, but many of the people who went to 1:13:06.880 --> 1:13:10.240 take part in the Olympics, decided to stay and fight, 1:13:10.439 --> 1:13:13.679 and so that's what my books about. It's quite expensive 1:13:13.720 --> 1:13:15.680 and you can I understand that people can't afford it. 1:13:16.320 --> 1:13:19.160 That's fine. I keep saying I'm working on another book, 1:13:19.160 --> 1:13:22.240 but I'm not working very hard or very fast. Yeah. Yeah, 1:13:22.280 --> 1:13:24.880 look it up and someone's probably bootlegged it. Actually, the 1:13:25.080 --> 1:13:29.479 book is often free at universities and other libraries. So 1:13:29.600 --> 1:13:30.960 yet to go to your library and I'll see them 1:13:31.000 --> 1:13:33.920 to get it. And uh where else can people find you? 1:13:34.680 --> 1:13:39.320 On the internet? At James Stout on Twitter, same thing 1:13:39.320 --> 1:13:42.479 on Patreon. Those are my two main things. You can 1:13:42.479 --> 1:13:45.760 find my writing a muck rack to google my name. Yeah, 1:13:45.800 --> 1:13:50.120 and again help us, Daniel, please bleep that out for 1:13:50.160 --> 1:13:53.920 the sake of James immigration cases. And yeah, that's good. 1:13:54.240 --> 1:14:12.200 That's that's an episode. Yeah. Despite it being past midnight, 1:14:12.479 --> 1:14:16.000 you can still see through the dense forest. The moonlit 1:14:16.080 --> 1:14:19.439 sky combined with the urban light pollution, make traversing the 1:14:19.439 --> 1:14:22.680 messy woods easier than you thought. You relieve that you 1:14:22.680 --> 1:14:24.880 don't have to use your head lamp, which could have 1:14:24.960 --> 1:14:29.200 drawn unwanted attention. The company of a few of your 1:14:29.240 --> 1:14:33.120 queer friends makes the walk through the confusing woods less intimidating. 1:14:33.960 --> 1:14:36.679 Dressed in gray and camo, you make your way through 1:14:36.800 --> 1:14:40.920 overgrown trails and hop over a small creek. Save for 1:14:40.960 --> 1:14:43.799 the occasional train, all you can hear is the croaking 1:14:43.840 --> 1:14:48.680 of frogs and chirping of cicadas, crickets, and grasshoppers. The 1:14:48.800 --> 1:14:51.880 night air you breathe through your mask is noticeably cleaner 1:14:51.920 --> 1:14:55.160 than the air from downtown that you spent months riding 1:14:55.200 --> 1:14:59.120 in during not even counting the tear gas in the air. 1:15:00.720 --> 1:15:03.320 As you and your pals slowly trek through the forest, 1:15:03.479 --> 1:15:06.639 your feet squish into the grassy, wet ground. You avoid 1:15:06.680 --> 1:15:09.000 the area's caked and clay and stick to the cover 1:15:09.080 --> 1:15:13.040 of trees, brush and the soft wetland. After a short 1:15:13.080 --> 1:15:16.719 walk and with only a few wrong turns, you reach 1:15:16.840 --> 1:15:21.200 an artificial break in the embrace of the forest. You 1:15:21.240 --> 1:15:23.880 look at your masked up friends, and for a brief 1:15:23.920 --> 1:15:27.719 moment during the moonlight night, you can't quite tell who's who. 1:15:27.960 --> 1:15:32.040 Which is a good thing, you suppose. Everyone exchanges glances, 1:15:32.080 --> 1:15:35.439 but no one says anything. Everyone already knows what to do. 1:15:36.640 --> 1:15:39.320 As you approach the barren mound of dirt, you get 1:15:39.400 --> 1:15:43.400 angry a jarring crack in the beauty and mysterious allure 1:15:43.479 --> 1:15:47.080 of the forest. You're no longer in the woods. You're 1:15:47.120 --> 1:15:50.240 at the site of destruction, a clear cut that seeks 1:15:50.280 --> 1:15:54.120 to expand its radius. Without the tree coverage, you can 1:15:54.160 --> 1:15:57.840 see the harsh blue light of LEDs in the distance. 1:15:58.640 --> 1:16:02.040 There among the mounds of dirt and fallen trees are 1:16:02.120 --> 1:16:07.160 several unguarded machines of destruction. With no cell phones in sight. 1:16:07.479 --> 1:16:09.639 You and your friends get to live in the moment 1:16:10.360 --> 1:16:13.439 your agenda becomes the sound of shattering glass in the 1:16:13.560 --> 1:16:18.720 cold night. Hammers meet windows and serrated knives cut the 1:16:18.720 --> 1:16:22.680 inner tubing of bulldozers and excavators. The undoing of the 1:16:22.680 --> 1:16:26.800 mechanical monsters that have violated the forest has begun. No 1:16:27.000 --> 1:16:31.320 tool of the evil doers goes unharmed. Rattling cans of 1:16:31.360 --> 1:16:35.800 spray paint leave antagonistic and proclamatory messages with rebellious hiss 1:16:35.840 --> 1:16:39.799 for those who intend to continue destroying the forest. Defend 1:16:39.800 --> 1:16:45.120 the forest, no cops city, no Hollywood dystopia. In little time, 1:16:45.560 --> 1:16:49.599 the light, pollution, moonlight, and distant LEDs are accompanied by 1:16:49.640 --> 1:16:53.720 a bright orange blaze emanating from the machines, lighting up 1:16:53.760 --> 1:16:57.679 the area around the sad mound of dirt. A splash 1:16:57.720 --> 1:17:00.439 of gasoline acts as the extension of the blood that 1:17:00.479 --> 1:17:03.040 fuels the burning fire in your hearts that became a 1:17:03.120 --> 1:17:05.760 light with the rage felt at the sight of the 1:17:05.800 --> 1:17:09.920 decimated woods. By the time the fire department took notice, 1:17:10.200 --> 1:17:13.719 you've already disappeared into the night, like a specter, fading 1:17:13.800 --> 1:17:18.000 like the curling black smoke that drifted into the midnight sky. 1:17:18.680 --> 1:17:21.519 As you exit the forest, you go about as if 1:17:21.560 --> 1:17:25.040 what happened tonight never did. You never tell a soul, 1:17:25.439 --> 1:17:28.760 You never talk about it with your masked up queer friends, 1:17:28.800 --> 1:17:33.320 since they were never there either. Details fade in your 1:17:33.360 --> 1:17:36.559 memory like a dream, but deep down you still remember 1:17:36.600 --> 1:17:39.800 the feeling, the peak moment of true freedom. When the 1:17:39.880 --> 1:17:44.639 fire engulfed the machines. It was upon broken, uneasable machines 1:17:44.680 --> 1:17:48.880 that the fires were extinguished, laying incinerated the excavators and 1:17:48.920 --> 1:17:53.839 bulldozers who are rendered immobile worthless. Piles of trash. Fires 1:17:53.840 --> 1:17:56.839 are only temporary and can be undone. But the connection 1:17:56.880 --> 1:17:59.519 between those who live in a forest, who breathes air, 1:17:59.760 --> 1:18:02.920 and who drink its water filtered through its wetlands, is 1:18:02.960 --> 1:18:07.679 not so easily broken. Any further attempts that destroying the forest, 1:18:07.760 --> 1:18:10.840 we met with a similar response. The forest was here 1:18:10.920 --> 1:18:13.920 long before us, and we'll be here long after. You 1:18:13.960 --> 1:18:17.719 and your friends, among many other anonymous strangers will see 1:18:17.760 --> 1:18:21.439 to that. Welcome. Took it up in here a podcast 1:18:21.479 --> 1:18:24.439 about things falling apart and how we can put them 1:18:24.439 --> 1:18:28.720 back together, And today we'll be spending that entire spectrum. 1:18:28.760 --> 1:18:31.679 I'm Garrison Davison. The story I just read isn't merely 1:18:31.680 --> 1:18:34.559 a fictional one. It was inspired by over a year's 1:18:34.600 --> 1:18:37.479 worth of communicators and report backs coming out of the 1:18:37.479 --> 1:18:41.519 Defend the Forest movement in Atlanta, Georgia. So excuse the 1:18:41.520 --> 1:18:47.120 pretentious poetry of anarchists and speak. In early one, it 1:18:47.200 --> 1:18:50.080 was real to the public that mainly four entities, namely 1:18:50.120 --> 1:18:53.559 the City of Atlanta, the Atlanta Police Foundation, de Cab County, 1:18:53.840 --> 1:18:57.479 and Black Hall Studios, had dual plans to devastate two 1:18:57.560 --> 1:19:01.800 complementary sections of the South Atlanta for Rest. The City 1:19:01.800 --> 1:19:04.640 of Atlanta and Police Foundation plans are to turn the 1:19:04.680 --> 1:19:07.720 area of the forest known as the Old Atlanta Prison Farm, 1:19:07.760 --> 1:19:11.679 into the largest police training facility in the country, complete 1:19:11.720 --> 1:19:16.719 with a mock city helipad and bomb range. Meanwhile, Entrenchment 1:19:16.800 --> 1:19:19.639 Creek of a public forest land will be traded by 1:19:19.720 --> 1:19:23.120 de Cab County to Black Hall Movie Studios to clear 1:19:23.120 --> 1:19:25.480 cut the land on which they plan to build America's 1:19:25.560 --> 1:19:30.560 largest sound stage. This project lies at a horrific intersection 1:19:30.640 --> 1:19:35.960 of police militarization, gentrification, copaganda, and exasperating the local effects 1:19:35.960 --> 1:19:39.240 of worsening climate change by clear cutting hundreds of acres 1:19:39.280 --> 1:19:44.559 of forest. In the last year, activists, ghosts like saboteurs, 1:19:44.600 --> 1:19:48.920 and open source researchers have vultraals together into an anonymous 1:19:48.960 --> 1:19:51.680 and diverse movement that's brought the plan to destroy the 1:19:51.720 --> 1:19:55.720 forest out of the shadows of secretive, backdoor corporate deals 1:19:55.800 --> 1:19:59.400 and into the public spotlight, forming the Defend the Atlanta 1:19:59.479 --> 1:20:02.240 Forest move mint that's consistently been able to get ahead 1:20:02.280 --> 1:20:04.719 of police and media by breaking news about the forest 1:20:04.760 --> 1:20:07.960 destruction plans and setting the terms of engagement and what's 1:20:08.000 --> 1:20:11.559 deemed as acceptable direct action, all well being able to 1:20:11.560 --> 1:20:16.240 foster relationship with the woods that they are defending. I've 1:20:16.240 --> 1:20:18.400 been really interested in this project since I heard about 1:20:18.400 --> 1:20:21.840 it last summer. Along with the intersection of police militarization 1:20:21.880 --> 1:20:24.920 and climate change on the flip side. There's this unique 1:20:24.920 --> 1:20:29.080 intersection of urban city protest and classic forest echo defense. 1:20:29.640 --> 1:20:32.759 The mix of tactics have produced a movement unlike anything 1:20:32.760 --> 1:20:35.479 really seen before here in the States. Not to get 1:20:35.479 --> 1:20:37.560 ahead of myself, but ever since last fall when the 1:20:37.640 --> 1:20:41.000 Atlanta City Council approved the plan to build the largest 1:20:41.000 --> 1:20:44.000 police training facility in the country, dubbed cops City by 1:20:44.040 --> 1:20:47.120 activists due to the plans to build a mini version 1:20:47.160 --> 1:20:51.160 of Atlanta within the facility to practice urban combat. But 1:20:51.439 --> 1:20:54.839 I figured that I would eventually find myself inside the forest. 1:20:55.360 --> 1:20:58.160 So this last April, when an opportunity presented itself to 1:20:58.240 --> 1:21:00.960 travel to Atlanta, stay in the wood and talk with 1:21:01.000 --> 1:21:04.559 some forest defenders, I couldnot pass it up. I packed 1:21:04.600 --> 1:21:07.439 a tent, sleeping bag, and some microfilms and made my 1:21:07.520 --> 1:21:11.040 way to Georgia. The first thing I noticed upon arriving 1:21:11.040 --> 1:21:13.439 in Atlanta is that when they say Atlanta is a 1:21:13.520 --> 1:21:16.280 city in a forest, they really do mean it. The 1:21:16.320 --> 1:21:20.000 amount of continuous tree coverage throughout the city was astonishing, 1:21:20.360 --> 1:21:22.719 and that's coming from someone who lives in Portland, Oregon. 1:21:23.600 --> 1:21:25.960 As it turns out the city of Atlanta actually has 1:21:26.040 --> 1:21:28.920 the highest amount of tree canopy of any city in 1:21:28.960 --> 1:21:33.680 the United States. On top of the citywide tree coverage, 1:21:33.720 --> 1:21:36.160 there is the South River Forest, which makes up the 1:21:36.280 --> 1:21:39.920 largest continuous section of woods and serves as Atlanta's first 1:21:39.920 --> 1:21:43.040 line of defense in the face of rapidly accelerating climate change. 1:21:43.920 --> 1:21:46.479 The forest in southeast Atlanta is said to function as 1:21:46.479 --> 1:21:49.960 the lungs of the city. The canopy offers shade and 1:21:50.000 --> 1:21:53.160 traps carbon, with some of the more heavily forted areas 1:21:53.200 --> 1:21:56.479 acting as wetlands that filter rain water and prevent flooding 1:21:56.520 --> 1:22:00.320 by collecting runoff. It's Marsh is one of the last 1:22:00.360 --> 1:22:02.599 breeding grounds for a lot of amphibians in the region, 1:22:03.080 --> 1:22:06.200 as well as an important migration site for wading birds, 1:22:06.479 --> 1:22:09.200 and serves as a home to a lot of local wildlife. 1:22:10.880 --> 1:22:14.200 Nearly five acres of this forest is under threat by 1:22:14.240 --> 1:22:17.880 the Atlanta Police Foundation and Black Hall Studios. If plans 1:22:17.920 --> 1:22:20.519 succeed to develop this precious strip of forest into the 1:22:20.560 --> 1:22:24.120 massive police compound and adjacent movie sound stage, the entire 1:22:24.160 --> 1:22:27.160 metropolitan area will face much harsher effects of climate change, 1:22:27.200 --> 1:22:32.080 including worsening floods, higher temperatures, and less clean, tree filtered air, 1:22:33.360 --> 1:22:37.799 Not to mention the increased police militarization and gentrification. Speaking 1:22:37.840 --> 1:22:40.200 of the second thing I noticed once I arrived in 1:22:40.240 --> 1:22:44.880 Atlanta is how much gentrification is currently underway. The amount 1:22:44.920 --> 1:22:47.400 of hideous five of our one apartments that are being 1:22:47.400 --> 1:22:51.400 built was impossible to overlook. And as we'll see, the 1:22:51.439 --> 1:22:54.919 way police feed off gentrification, which feeds off the corporate 1:22:54.960 --> 1:22:58.440 and movie making sides of Atlanta, is not merely a coincidence. 1:22:59.240 --> 1:23:01.559 Last fall in of view to Jamal from the Atlanta 1:23:01.640 --> 1:23:04.919 chapter of the Community Movement Builders, a Black lad collective 1:23:04.960 --> 1:23:09.200 of community residents and activists serving poor, working class Black communities. 1:23:09.760 --> 1:23:14.240 They focus on responding to encroaching gentrification, displacement, and over policing. 1:23:14.800 --> 1:23:16.800 Here's what Jamal had to say on the intersection of 1:23:16.840 --> 1:23:20.519 issues owering around the Cops City and defend the Forest project. 1:23:21.439 --> 1:23:24.160 Just to piggyback off of that, I think it's extremely 1:23:24.200 --> 1:23:28.559 important for us to recognize the connections between all these things. Right, Like, 1:23:28.640 --> 1:23:33.839 Cops City is a perfect blend of UM environmental justice issues, 1:23:34.520 --> 1:23:39.320 uh just flat out racism, police brutality, and also gentrification. Right, 1:23:39.360 --> 1:23:41.280 it's not a it's not a mistake that they're building 1:23:41.280 --> 1:23:45.559 this Cops City right at this moment when UM Atlanta 1:23:45.640 --> 1:23:48.400 is also becoming the for the first time. And I 1:23:48.400 --> 1:23:52.040 don't know how many decades, um non no longer majority 1:23:52.040 --> 1:23:55.400 black city because neighborhoods like pittsburgher we're located out of 1:23:55.400 --> 1:23:58.679 and all across Southwest and West Atlanta have becoming more 1:23:58.840 --> 1:24:01.240 like the black people have been being displaced from me, 1:24:01.360 --> 1:24:04.600 from our communities, right UM. So a perfect example is 1:24:04.600 --> 1:24:08.080 that with my organization, Community Movement Builders, we UH purchased 1:24:08.160 --> 1:24:10.439 we've we've been doing work in the pittsburghighborhood for a while, 1:24:10.600 --> 1:24:14.200 but we purchased a community house in the neighborhood about 1:24:14.240 --> 1:24:17.320 six years ago. Right at that point, we purchased the 1:24:17.360 --> 1:24:21.439 house for fifty thou dollars, right UM. Pittsburgh has been 1:24:21.439 --> 1:24:25.680 historically uh poorn working class community. It was uh it 1:24:25.800 --> 1:24:28.240 was founded as a black community, which is different from 1:24:28.240 --> 1:24:30.240 a lot of other other neighbors in Atlanta. Was founded 1:24:30.280 --> 1:24:35.320 as a black community from UH freed Africans UM who 1:24:35.439 --> 1:24:38.000 were trying to escape some of the more rural areas 1:24:38.040 --> 1:24:40.880 of the South and found work in Haven in the 1:24:40.920 --> 1:24:43.320 Pittsburgh neighborhood of Atlanta. And it's been a poor and 1:24:43.360 --> 1:24:47.080 working class black community ever since. But now UM, because 1:24:47.320 --> 1:24:50.280 of the gentrification has been going on. How a house 1:24:50.360 --> 1:24:52.439 just sold, maybe about a month and a half ago 1:24:52.439 --> 1:24:55.320 for seven dred and fifty thousand dollars, So the person's 1:24:55.320 --> 1:24:57.880 house at fifty thousand dollars six years ago. A house 1:24:57.920 --> 1:25:01.040 just sold, um, just a few walks away from that 1:25:01.120 --> 1:25:04.559 house for seven fifty thousand dollars. Now, it's not every 1:25:04.600 --> 1:25:06.599 house is selling for that amount, but that just shows 1:25:06.600 --> 1:25:09.920 you the rate of gentrification that's happening. And then and 1:25:09.960 --> 1:25:13.519 we know that cops are on this necessary part of 1:25:13.560 --> 1:25:16.360 being able to defer to displace people from gentrifying communities. 1:25:16.400 --> 1:25:19.719 They play an integral role within gentrification. Yeah, I'm just wondering, 1:25:20.160 --> 1:25:22.200 does any of you have anything like even like anecdotal 1:25:22.200 --> 1:25:25.720 experience with like basically Marvel and Men, tons of other 1:25:25.760 --> 1:25:30.280 industries like invading Atlanta. How is that like affected specifically, 1:25:30.200 --> 1:25:33.040 Like you already talked about how how you know, increased 1:25:33.160 --> 1:25:34.880 the increase in the film industry and other things. Has 1:25:34.920 --> 1:25:36.880 you know, has made more gentrification? But like, how has 1:25:36.920 --> 1:25:39.400 that even affected just like like other types of stuff, 1:25:39.439 --> 1:25:42.000 including like policing, Like has has this type of like 1:25:42.240 --> 1:25:46.640 growth um affected people or people you know in in 1:25:46.680 --> 1:25:49.400 other ways? Yeah? Absolutely. So I think a lot of 1:25:49.439 --> 1:25:52.120 this kind of got I won't say it got started, 1:25:52.160 --> 1:25:54.720 but a lot of it went even uh you know, 1:25:54.920 --> 1:25:59.360 escalated when Tyler Perry Studio opened up in East Point. Um, 1:25:59.400 --> 1:26:01.800 and a lot of people, you know, we're praising. It's like, oh, 1:26:01.840 --> 1:26:05.000 look at this. Uh you know, it's a black man. 1:26:05.120 --> 1:26:06.920 I was able to move down and be able to 1:26:06.960 --> 1:26:09.720 start this thing within Hollywood. But no, it's all that 1:26:09.840 --> 1:26:12.280 is one of the things that also spurred the gentrification 1:26:12.640 --> 1:26:15.000 in East Point, which is you might not be familiar 1:26:15.000 --> 1:26:16.840 with Atlanta, but East Point is like literally right next 1:26:16.840 --> 1:26:20.559 to Atlanta, so it's a lot of it's it's really 1:26:20.560 --> 1:26:23.120 close proximity. And so that also spurs over to the 1:26:23.200 --> 1:26:26.719 gentrification here in the city as well. Um. Property values 1:26:26.760 --> 1:26:30.599 have gone up since that point, even more. Um. Even 1:26:31.080 --> 1:26:33.680 my tax bill has gone up a thousand dollars a 1:26:33.760 --> 1:26:38.880 year per a year um for the past like three years. Right. UM. 1:26:38.960 --> 1:26:41.840 So it's yeah, it's it's definitely we definitely see the 1:26:41.840 --> 1:26:45.439 effects and you know, and just talking to you know, 1:26:45.479 --> 1:26:48.800 we do we do do a lot of work around gentrification. UM. 1:26:48.920 --> 1:26:50.840 And I think this is in tandem with you know, 1:26:50.840 --> 1:26:53.920 because we have COVID nineteen out here now with the 1:26:53.960 --> 1:26:58.080 eviction moratorium which has now been you know, denied um 1:26:58.160 --> 1:27:01.000 with by the Supreme Court. Um. But even when there 1:27:01.040 --> 1:27:03.200 wasn't vision moratorium, there were still people that were getting 1:27:03.200 --> 1:27:06.160 invaded from their homes. And I think all of this 1:27:06.200 --> 1:27:08.720 in tandem when Atlanta specifically has already been going through 1:27:08.720 --> 1:27:13.679 a gentrification crisis and um with COVID nineteen where people 1:27:13.800 --> 1:27:15.760 have been losing jobs left and right, or not been 1:27:15.800 --> 1:27:18.200 able to go to their jobs that they've had um 1:27:18.280 --> 1:27:21.799 and loo and having us salaries cut. People have been hurting, 1:27:21.840 --> 1:27:23.840 and the response from the city has not too been 1:27:24.240 --> 1:27:27.240 that has not been to provide more resources to people. 1:27:27.360 --> 1:27:30.800 It's been too fund cops city to be able to 1:27:30.840 --> 1:27:33.160 get more police out who are the ones that execute 1:27:33.160 --> 1:27:36.720 the actual evictions themselves? And I think it all, it all, 1:27:36.800 --> 1:27:39.240 it all is connected in that in that type of way. 1:27:39.560 --> 1:27:42.400 I arrived in Atlanta a few days before the Muscogee Summit, 1:27:42.840 --> 1:27:45.680 a weekend event where the original indigenous people from the 1:27:45.720 --> 1:27:48.000 area of the South River or for the native name 1:27:48.040 --> 1:27:51.240 of the said land, the Ulandie Forest, traveled back to 1:27:51.280 --> 1:27:55.639 their ancestral homeland to discuss indigenous environmental philosophy what land 1:27:55.680 --> 1:27:59.559 back and rematreation means in theory and practice. Several Indigenous 1:27:59.560 --> 1:28:03.400 authors were present and led workshops, including Indigenous feminist, scholar 1:28:03.439 --> 1:28:06.640 and community planner Laura har Joe from the University of Oklahoma, 1:28:06.880 --> 1:28:10.480 author of Spiral to the Stars Muskogee Tools of Futurity, 1:28:11.000 --> 1:28:15.560 and Dr Daniel Wildcat of the Haskell Indian Nations University, 1:28:15.800 --> 1:28:18.320 who wrote the book Read Alert Saving the Planet with 1:28:18.360 --> 1:28:23.080 Indigenous Knowledge. In the less academic portions, there were forest walks, 1:28:23.160 --> 1:28:27.160 community meals, and singing of old Muscogee songs, including ones 1:28:27.240 --> 1:28:30.320 that are performed two centuries ago during the Trail of Tears. 1:28:31.160 --> 1:28:34.559 Muskogee Creek attendees also gathered around a sacred fire to 1:28:34.560 --> 1:28:37.960 perform a stomp dance, recreating rhythms heard and sensed in 1:28:37.960 --> 1:28:41.080 the forest long ago, to rekindle the relationship with the 1:28:41.120 --> 1:28:45.040 Earth and connect back to the ancestral presences. This was 1:28:45.080 --> 1:28:48.400 the second ancestral migration the Muskogee Creek title members have 1:28:48.560 --> 1:28:52.639 done since being forcibly removed two centuries ago and displaced 1:28:52.680 --> 1:28:56.600 to Oklahoma. The first one took place just this last November, 1:28:56.880 --> 1:28:59.200 and both times the particular section of land they gathered 1:28:59.200 --> 1:29:01.839 on in transparant Wee Park is one of the areas 1:29:01.920 --> 1:29:05.720 under threat of being ecologically destroyed and clear cut. Over 1:29:05.760 --> 1:29:08.160 the course of a few days during my week long stay, 1:29:08.200 --> 1:29:10.479 I sat down in the woods to record with two 1:29:10.520 --> 1:29:13.960 groups of forest offenders, one group sitting around a campfire 1:29:14.000 --> 1:29:17.200 at night next to a high security child prison and 1:29:17.360 --> 1:29:20.679 the other group during the sunny bird chirping day outside 1:29:20.720 --> 1:29:23.719 the Black Hole Studios movie plot. So if you hear 1:29:24.080 --> 1:29:27.880 campfires or bird sounds in the background, just embrace our 1:29:27.960 --> 1:29:31.200 forest punk aesthetic up front. I think it's really important 1:29:31.240 --> 1:29:33.320 to first talk about the history of the land that 1:29:33.439 --> 1:29:37.400 is under threat, because, on top of issues regarding gentrification 1:29:37.640 --> 1:29:40.160 and the plans of this police training facility as a 1:29:40.200 --> 1:29:43.800 response to the George Floyne Uprising and the false manufactured 1:29:43.880 --> 1:29:47.920 crime wave media narrative intended to rejusify American policing in 1:29:47.920 --> 1:29:50.320 the wake of the uprising, that the fact that the 1:29:50.320 --> 1:29:53.880 Atlanta Police Foundation shows this plot of land in particular 1:29:54.479 --> 1:29:58.040 is particularly gross. The history of this small section of 1:29:58.120 --> 1:30:01.120 land in the South River Watershed is deeply scarred and 1:30:01.160 --> 1:30:04.759 desperately needs time to heal. There are centuries of oppression 1:30:04.760 --> 1:30:07.200 and state violence tied to this particular spot of land, 1:30:07.680 --> 1:30:10.120 and now we're seeing that trying to be continued with 1:30:10.200 --> 1:30:13.599 this Cops city plan. Local tribes were expelled for millions 1:30:13.600 --> 1:30:16.160 of acres in the southwest region of what is now 1:30:16.200 --> 1:30:19.360 known as the United States during the early decades of 1:30:19.400 --> 1:30:22.840 the eighteen hundreds. Forced removal and displacement of the Muskogee 1:30:22.880 --> 1:30:25.920 Creek people began in the region in eighteen twenty one 1:30:26.280 --> 1:30:28.720 through a series of treaties, which then eventually led to 1:30:28.800 --> 1:30:33.680 a quote melee of removal. More on that from one 1:30:33.720 --> 1:30:36.120 of the force defenders I spoke to, and I'll note 1:30:36.120 --> 1:30:39.000 we'll be using a mix of voice distortion and voice 1:30:39.040 --> 1:30:43.200 actors combined with other audio distortion to help protect the 1:30:43.240 --> 1:30:47.000 identities of the forced defenders that I spoke to against 1:30:47.000 --> 1:30:51.759 possible state repression. So enjoy our our our cool voice 1:30:51.800 --> 1:30:57.120 distorted audio. Yeah. I think it's important because a lot 1:30:57.160 --> 1:31:01.720 of our comrades musk of the comments and extended relatives 1:31:01.720 --> 1:31:05.320 that are identified as Muscogee that we're pushed off as 1:31:05.560 --> 1:31:09.040 lands in the early eighteen hundreds. They a lot of 1:31:09.080 --> 1:31:10.800 them did not go quietly in the night. I think 1:31:10.840 --> 1:31:12.599 that's important to remember because I feel like a lot 1:31:12.640 --> 1:31:14.439 of people are just like the Trail of Twos or 1:31:14.479 --> 1:31:18.160 like they were pushed out, but they're they fought against 1:31:18.160 --> 1:31:20.320 being pushed out, and then when a lot of them 1:31:20.320 --> 1:31:22.320 were pushed out or killed off, then it was used 1:31:22.360 --> 1:31:27.320 to incur story and house mostly black people. So we're 1:31:27.360 --> 1:31:30.400 taking it back. That is most of the people that 1:31:30.400 --> 1:31:32.639 I have seen involved. It is a diverse group of people. 1:31:32.720 --> 1:31:35.439 It's not just like white anarchists in the woods. That 1:31:35.640 --> 1:31:39.080 is a misconception. There's all kinds of folks, which really 1:31:39.120 --> 1:31:41.800 I think is interesting and makes the struggle unique and important. 1:31:42.160 --> 1:31:45.080 But there is also a lot of like white anarchists 1:31:45.120 --> 1:31:48.000 that are using their privilege to help take the land 1:31:48.040 --> 1:31:50.519 back for our comrades that want to see it back, 1:31:50.560 --> 1:31:53.880 and it feels things feel like they're in a good way. Um, 1:31:53.920 --> 1:31:57.840 there's good relations that are existing between like the anarchists 1:31:57.840 --> 1:32:01.320 and indigenous alliance down here, where like obviously no one 1:32:01.320 --> 1:32:04.600 person speaks and represents any one group, but the alliances 1:32:04.680 --> 1:32:09.320 that we do have are very informed of the variety 1:32:09.320 --> 1:32:11.960 of activities that have happened down here, including the arsons 1:32:12.000 --> 1:32:16.839 of machinery, and we were positively told to quote unquote 1:32:17.040 --> 1:32:24.400 keep on going, so that feels empowering and it feels beautiful, 1:32:25.320 --> 1:32:28.720 and it feels important to note that some of the 1:32:28.760 --> 1:32:33.320 comrades that have ancestral ties to this area such a 1:32:33.479 --> 1:32:37.799 dark history and they're still here. Is something that they're mentioning, 1:32:38.320 --> 1:32:41.679 and they're excited the people that were close to obviously 1:32:41.760 --> 1:32:43.720 they're not close to all of them. They're excited that 1:32:43.800 --> 1:32:47.720 people are choosing to use their privilege to help make 1:32:47.720 --> 1:32:51.519 sure these facilities don't get built. Continuing with the scarred 1:32:51.600 --> 1:32:54.439 history of this land, shortly after the lands of the 1:32:54.439 --> 1:32:57.879 South River Forest were stolen from Muskegee Creek people, plots 1:32:57.880 --> 1:33:01.120 were distributed to white settlers in the Fourth Georgia Land 1:33:01.160 --> 1:33:04.559 Lottery of eighteen twenty one, which made available landlots of 1:33:04.600 --> 1:33:08.280 two hundred and two point five acres. Many of these 1:33:08.280 --> 1:33:12.200 white settlers established slave plantations on which cotton and other 1:33:12.240 --> 1:33:15.600 crops were produced through slave labor. Through archival records, we 1:33:15.680 --> 1:33:17.640 know of at least twelve plantations that were on this 1:33:17.720 --> 1:33:22.000 land that existed from the eighteen forties up until eighteen 1:33:22.080 --> 1:33:26.640 sixty five, and then in the early nineteen hundreds, the 1:33:26.760 --> 1:33:30.160 very same land started being used as a prison farm, 1:33:30.200 --> 1:33:33.599 now known as the Old Atlanta Prison Farm. The Old 1:33:33.640 --> 1:33:36.720 Atlanta prison Farm was originally bought in nineteen seventeen to 1:33:36.760 --> 1:33:40.040 incarce rate prisoners of war, but this plan was abandoned 1:33:40.080 --> 1:33:42.240 within two years and the land was converted into a 1:33:42.280 --> 1:33:46.519 prison farm where inmates including moonshiners, public drinkers, and just 1:33:46.680 --> 1:33:50.080 loiterers and really anybody were sent to and forced to 1:33:50.080 --> 1:33:54.960 perform unpaid agricultural labor. This shift from plantations to prison 1:33:55.000 --> 1:33:58.759 farm marks the rebranding of slavery into for profit prison labor. 1:33:59.200 --> 1:34:02.519 This labor in fluded washing cows and arsenic laden water, 1:34:02.800 --> 1:34:06.200 which led to the early deaths of countless prisoners. The 1:34:06.240 --> 1:34:10.559 facility ran up until in which it was shut down, 1:34:11.200 --> 1:34:14.280 and then two child prison facilities were put on the 1:34:14.320 --> 1:34:18.519 adjacent land, and the Atlanta Police Department already currently uses 1:34:18.520 --> 1:34:22.120 sections of this hollow ground as a firing range tear 1:34:22.160 --> 1:34:25.439 gas canisters and bullet casings from found throughout the forest. 1:34:26.840 --> 1:34:29.200 From where on that, here's some other parts that might 1:34:29.240 --> 1:34:31.960 sit down with the forest offenders. And then I guess 1:34:32.040 --> 1:34:37.960 like fast forwarding a little bit from this land where 1:34:37.960 --> 1:34:42.960 indigenous people lived to the prison farm um, and then 1:34:43.040 --> 1:34:46.240 how this has like a long incarstral history and history 1:34:46.280 --> 1:34:49.679 of being tied to policing, both with the child prison 1:34:49.720 --> 1:34:52.320 that's still here, the prison farm, and then now trying 1:34:52.320 --> 1:34:55.880 to build this militarized training facility that just like continuing 1:34:55.920 --> 1:35:00.200 on this legacy of state violence, which is like other 1:35:00.560 --> 1:35:02.639 massive aspect in terms of like they're trying to take 1:35:02.680 --> 1:35:06.000 this very like land that needs to heal from the 1:35:06.080 --> 1:35:09.599 centuries of violence and just tear it all down and 1:35:09.960 --> 1:35:14.720 build more of that. Um. I know, there's like there's 1:35:14.720 --> 1:35:17.559 the firing range that we've been hearing shots from. Uh, 1:35:18.040 --> 1:35:20.840 there's it's like just this never ending thing. It just 1:35:20.880 --> 1:35:24.560 like just keeps happening. It's a pretty weird, surreal experience. 1:35:24.680 --> 1:35:27.920 Makes me feel like we're all like an endangered species 1:35:28.000 --> 1:35:31.280 living in like the last part of the forest and 1:35:31.840 --> 1:35:34.880 fucking South Atlanta. I remember, and I was explaining to 1:35:34.920 --> 1:35:36.960 one of my relatives, are like I was reading the 1:35:37.000 --> 1:35:40.599 internet about the family Atlanta forest and not sure quite 1:35:40.640 --> 1:35:42.680 what's all going on, but sounds like you're living in 1:35:42.720 --> 1:35:45.880 hell there between two different chapters and Sons of High 1:35:45.880 --> 1:35:49.920 Security was as security, a large massive power land cut 1:35:50.880 --> 1:35:53.720 and old Prettison farm and two sides of the road 1:35:54.040 --> 1:35:56.599 at least three different police firing rangers and always wider 1:35:56.640 --> 1:35:59.920 treatment plant. The doubles as a firing range and super 1:36:00.000 --> 1:36:06.800 training facility for the police. Another interesting facet is this 1:36:06.920 --> 1:36:10.639 particular piece of land where they're trying to build uh 1:36:11.680 --> 1:36:16.120 Top City is like a really important turning point in 1:36:16.280 --> 1:36:21.280 history of slavery in the US. And like this is 1:36:21.360 --> 1:36:27.280 where a lot of things went from like shadow slavery 1:36:27.600 --> 1:36:33.280 um and transitioned into what we now have as prison slavery. 1:36:33.600 --> 1:36:38.559 And as we're sitting here on what was literally a 1:36:38.640 --> 1:36:44.160 prison farm, even people in pretile detention were here and 1:36:44.439 --> 1:36:49.200 used for unpaid labor, even people who had not been 1:36:49.240 --> 1:36:53.800 convicted of any time. And so it's kind of like 1:36:55.479 --> 1:37:00.800 it's like I like very like visible, like Dane on 1:37:01.360 --> 1:37:06.280 the like history of of like what you used racist policing, 1:37:06.400 --> 1:37:09.599 but it's harder to cover up and harder to like 1:37:09.720 --> 1:37:15.080 pink wash um and so like even as there is 1:37:15.360 --> 1:37:20.320 like a place where children are locked in cages over 1:37:21.520 --> 1:37:25.920 they're not yards from me, so too, is this a 1:37:26.080 --> 1:37:33.160 place where people were brought for being used as slaves 1:37:33.400 --> 1:37:39.640 and like died and were buried in unmarked graves? Yeah, Um, 1:37:39.960 --> 1:37:43.200 can I talk a little bit more about that? This 1:37:43.880 --> 1:37:48.680 was the transition, This is like the intermediitary intermediate transition 1:37:48.720 --> 1:37:53.519 between child slavery and mind by prison slavery. UM. And 1:37:53.920 --> 1:37:58.200 it was like especially horrific, Like there is two lakes 1:37:58.240 --> 1:38:01.160 on the property, but where at one point said to 1:38:01.160 --> 1:38:08.360 be filled with arsenic um where beyond slates were not 1:38:08.439 --> 1:38:12.559 only watching cattle um with the arsenic to remove them 1:38:12.680 --> 1:38:16.559 like bugs, but also in those in those lakes and 1:38:16.760 --> 1:38:22.560 like suffering horrible diseases and like dying from this. The 1:38:22.760 --> 1:38:25.280 reason they present, I'm actually that closed down was because 1:38:25.320 --> 1:38:27.479 of the amount of people going in and out of 1:38:27.920 --> 1:38:30.160 the reason why this city proached to close it down 1:38:30.280 --> 1:38:33.639 was because of the amount of UM people being sent 1:38:33.720 --> 1:38:37.760 to the hospital week after weekenday after day, like a fish, 1:38:37.920 --> 1:38:41.920 like actually overloading the medical system in the area. UM. 1:38:42.160 --> 1:38:46.800 That's like publicly recorded information. UM they closed down like 1:38:46.840 --> 1:38:53.560 the eighties or nineteen nineties UM. And like during the 1:38:54.520 --> 1:39:00.719 Civil War, escaped prisoners from here would be are sorry, 1:39:01.080 --> 1:39:06.040 escaped slaves are from here would be h like going 1:39:06.080 --> 1:39:09.320 across battle lines and feeding information to a Union side 1:39:09.439 --> 1:39:14.040 in order to like serve their informs of liberation. I 1:39:14.080 --> 1:39:17.479 mean we like this land also exists right next to 1:39:17.520 --> 1:39:21.280 a major or like major road that serves as a 1:39:21.320 --> 1:39:24.320 car serral center. Um. It has not both like the 1:39:24.400 --> 1:39:32.280 Metro h reentry Metro Reentry facility, the Metro Youth Detention Center, 1:39:33.000 --> 1:39:40.559 and like a couple other buildings. Um uh. And like 1:39:40.840 --> 1:39:44.240 it's not just like the eighty lands of a plan 1:39:44.360 --> 1:39:47.920 to clear cut here, it's also the like three hundred 1:39:47.960 --> 1:39:50.679 that they plan to continue with the car serial legacy 1:39:50.760 --> 1:39:55.799 of terror and horror. Um from going from like chattel 1:39:55.880 --> 1:40:06.720 slavery and indigenous displacement to um be inter intermediary UM 1:40:06.720 --> 1:40:09.960 poor that the prison firm was, to this new legacy 1:40:10.000 --> 1:40:17.920 of like cover up of it all and then and yeah, 1:40:19.120 --> 1:40:25.040 the continuation of this land being used by the state, 1:40:25.200 --> 1:40:31.000 by police, by um all these like oppressive groups to 1:40:31.320 --> 1:40:33.880 further their causes. A really interesting aspect of des and 1:40:34.160 --> 1:40:36.240 for going to prison farm and then police trying to 1:40:36.920 --> 1:40:41.519 now turn it into a militarized police training facility. UM yeah. Yeah. 1:40:41.760 --> 1:40:44.760 So first I think, um, you know, this is mimiscogy 1:40:44.880 --> 1:40:49.400 land and it's during the Scurgy summit. It's cool, you know, 1:40:49.680 --> 1:40:53.760 miscry people have any were displaced for the most part, 1:40:53.840 --> 1:40:57.640 and there trying to participate in this migration back. And 1:40:57.680 --> 1:41:00.599 so they're on the land right now, and it's been 1:41:00.720 --> 1:41:04.040 very special to have them UM here and to be 1:41:04.080 --> 1:41:07.120 able to express solidarity and like work together with them 1:41:07.120 --> 1:41:12.320 has been really amazing and learned a lot and it's 1:41:12.479 --> 1:41:15.240 yet it's cool to understand that. And you know what 1:41:15.280 --> 1:41:20.120 you're saying, that interaction of like UM settler colonialism displacing 1:41:20.160 --> 1:41:26.720 people UM, like early slavery, prison slavery, and this this 1:41:27.240 --> 1:41:31.680 specific land has always been UM a place that I 1:41:31.680 --> 1:41:35.439 feel like has been almost like the vanguard of how 1:41:36.240 --> 1:41:41.120 like policing has and like such a settler colonialism, UM 1:41:41.160 --> 1:41:45.759 has experimented with how to reproduce itself in sustainable ways 1:41:46.600 --> 1:41:50.679 UM with like just in general domestication of humans and 1:41:50.720 --> 1:41:54.599 the domestication animals. And that's like what APD is trying 1:41:54.680 --> 1:41:57.519 to do on this land. And it's a direct reaction 1:41:57.560 --> 1:42:00.280 to the George Floyd uprising, which caused a cry assist 1:42:00.360 --> 1:42:03.320 and policing is it actually been back with serious power, 1:42:03.840 --> 1:42:07.960 and so they're trying to figure out and experiment with 1:42:08.000 --> 1:42:11.960 ways of reproducing policing for the future in the exact 1:42:11.960 --> 1:42:17.559 same way that when slavery took a serious owl, they said, 1:42:17.600 --> 1:42:20.200 how can we recuperate and how can we reproduce this 1:42:20.280 --> 1:42:23.160 in a way that's sustainable, and that why we have 1:42:23.280 --> 1:42:27.559 a modern prison system that lives on to this day. 1:42:27.640 --> 1:42:32.400 And that's why they're realizing as Pepper gaining and threatening it. Oh, 1:42:32.439 --> 1:42:34.400 we have to do something good and this lamp has 1:42:34.439 --> 1:42:37.200 always been a site for doing that. If it's they're 1:42:37.240 --> 1:42:42.280 an keep tracking. Atlanta is a heavily corporate city. It's 1:42:42.280 --> 1:42:45.479 been dubbed the Silicon Valley of the South by people 1:42:45.560 --> 1:42:48.880 who surely must be insufferable to be around, but it 1:42:49.000 --> 1:42:52.799 is true that Atlanta and Georgia's economic policies have attached 1:42:52.840 --> 1:42:56.240 a swath of corporations to either start to grow or 1:42:56.360 --> 1:43:00.000 migrate to the city. It's home to Coca Cola, Delta Airline, 1:43:00.000 --> 1:43:05.440 Bans Ups, home Depot, Chick fil A, and multiple media conglomerates, 1:43:05.439 --> 1:43:08.400 as well as having headquarters for like Google and other 1:43:08.439 --> 1:43:11.320 tech companies. As well, the city serves as a massive 1:43:11.320 --> 1:43:15.040 transportation hub. In fact, Atlanta the city started off as 1:43:15.040 --> 1:43:18.560 a train hub, and now it boasts the world's busiest airport. 1:43:19.479 --> 1:43:22.240 Recent tax credits for the film industry have made Atlanta 1:43:22.360 --> 1:43:25.320 and Georgia the new hot place to shoot high budget 1:43:25.360 --> 1:43:29.360 Hollywood movies. There's a whole effort to make the city 1:43:29.400 --> 1:43:33.439 effectively the new Hollywood. But like all economic growth, uh, 1:43:33.560 --> 1:43:37.479 this comes with some heavy consequences, most often affecting those 1:43:37.520 --> 1:43:40.760 at the bottom. Atlanta is also the most surveilled city 1:43:40.800 --> 1:43:43.360 in the United States and the city with the most 1:43:43.479 --> 1:43:47.840 wealth and equality. All the corporations and film industry stuff 1:43:47.920 --> 1:43:51.320 moving to Atlanta has indeed created jobs, but many of 1:43:51.320 --> 1:43:54.639 those jobs go to workers from out of state. On average, 1:43:54.720 --> 1:43:57.120 less than one third of new film industry jobs have 1:43:57.160 --> 1:44:00.320 gone to people who were already living in Atlanta. The 1:44:00.360 --> 1:44:04.320 result of this out of state economic migration boosts cost 1:44:04.360 --> 1:44:07.040 of housing, cost of living at Bush's lower and middle 1:44:07.040 --> 1:44:10.840 class residents of Atlanta out of their neighborhoods, disproportionately pushing 1:44:10.840 --> 1:44:13.280 out to black people. And this is all while the 1:44:13.400 --> 1:44:18.000 increasing corporatization and gentrification is actually pitched as quote unquote 1:44:18.040 --> 1:44:22.080 providing opportunities to the city's black population, which is certainly something. 1:44:22.120 --> 1:44:25.760 Because the state of Georgia has the fourth largest incarceration 1:44:25.840 --> 1:44:28.680 rate in the entire world. If you put a U. 1:44:28.760 --> 1:44:31.639 S States on the same level as like every single 1:44:31.640 --> 1:44:35.680 other country, the other top three states or countries with 1:44:35.720 --> 1:44:41.120 the highest incarceration rates are Louisiana, Mississippi, and Oklahoma. So yeah, 1:44:41.160 --> 1:44:44.959 but Georgia's number four. Those in Atlanta's top income bracket 1:44:45.080 --> 1:44:49.920 make nearly twenty times those who are at the bottom. 1:44:49.960 --> 1:44:52.920 And if you map the wealth disparity onto the layout 1:44:52.920 --> 1:44:55.320 of the city, it's a one to one match for 1:44:55.360 --> 1:44:59.320 the city's old segregation lines. The entire city runs on 1:44:59.400 --> 1:45:03.479 these like reignite newliberal policies, but under this mask of 1:45:03.600 --> 1:45:07.040 woke identity politics. And who enforces that wealth and equality 1:45:07.080 --> 1:45:11.120 and gentrification. That's right, police, which leads us to the 1:45:11.120 --> 1:45:14.920 origin of this plan for so called cops City. I'm 1:45:14.920 --> 1:45:17.679 gonna quote a crime Thing article that came out last 1:45:17.680 --> 1:45:21.640 month called the City in the Forest, Reinventing Resistance for 1:45:21.760 --> 1:45:25.439 an age of climate crisis and police militarization, which recommend 1:45:25.439 --> 1:45:27.559 you guys read I'll I'll have it in the habit 1:45:27.560 --> 1:45:30.000 in the source notes. But yeah, here's the quote from 1:45:30.040 --> 1:45:33.320 Crime Thing quote. The government of Atlanta has developed a 1:45:33.320 --> 1:45:36.960 few tentative solutions to the dilemmas they face. To follow 1:45:37.000 --> 1:45:39.720 through on their commitments to their backers, city politicians need 1:45:39.760 --> 1:45:42.400 to continue sacrificing public assets on the altar of the 1:45:42.439 --> 1:45:45.439 economy in order to attract more major investors to the region, 1:45:45.880 --> 1:45:50.160 especially the film industry and technology companies. To maintain control 1:45:50.200 --> 1:45:52.920 in a period of rapid displacement and rising cost of living, 1:45:53.280 --> 1:45:55.920 with chronic tension between the conservative state government and the 1:45:55.960 --> 1:45:59.360 liberal city administration, they need to funnel more resources towards 1:45:59.400 --> 1:46:03.160 law enforcement throughout the region. Finally, to appease the increasingly 1:46:03.160 --> 1:46:06.800 rebellious lower classes, they to frame this process of restructuring 1:46:06.800 --> 1:46:10.080 and repression in the language of black empowerment, social justice, 1:46:10.120 --> 1:46:13.679 and progressivism. The bureaucrats are not in a good position 1:46:13.720 --> 1:46:16.600 to handle this. Decades of tax cuts and deregulation have 1:46:16.680 --> 1:46:21.280 created infrastructural failures and breakdowns of all kinds, among other concerns. 1:46:21.320 --> 1:46:24.679 Atlanta lost the bid for the second Amazon headquarters because 1:46:24.720 --> 1:46:26.600 the public transit one of the least funded in the 1:46:26.680 --> 1:46:29.120 United States. It was not even operable when the corporate 1:46:29.120 --> 1:46:32.120 scouts came to visit at the same time. It's precisely 1:46:32.160 --> 1:46:34.920 the low taxes and absence of regulation that attract capital 1:46:34.920 --> 1:46:37.880 to the state of Georgia, so cultivating a social democratic 1:46:37.960 --> 1:46:41.559 governing strategy may now be impossible without creating a flight 1:46:41.600 --> 1:46:44.400 of wealth to other parts of the country. It seems 1:46:44.439 --> 1:46:46.519 that the current plan is to give over as many 1:46:46.560 --> 1:46:50.000 public contracts and resources to private developers as possible, to 1:46:50.040 --> 1:46:53.120 allow them to incur the costs of social disintegration and anger, 1:46:53.439 --> 1:46:56.000 and to use police to control the blowback, and to 1:46:56.120 --> 1:46:58.519 use images of Martin Luther King Jr. To preempt any 1:46:58.520 --> 1:47:02.320 meaningful resistance. Thus, the plan to transform a wild space 1:47:02.360 --> 1:47:06.280 into a police training compound is dubbed the Institute for 1:47:06.439 --> 1:47:11.559 Social Justice. That's right, the plan to make the country's 1:47:11.560 --> 1:47:14.920 biggest militarized police training facility. They're planning to call it 1:47:15.040 --> 1:47:19.080 the Institute for Social Justice. Ignore the bomb range and 1:47:19.280 --> 1:47:24.160 uh urban combat mock city section anyway. Um here is 1:47:24.200 --> 1:47:28.280 Jamal again from the community movement builders. I think one 1:47:28.280 --> 1:47:34.160 thing that's also really significant is that so my city 1:47:34.160 --> 1:47:39.599 council person for his District twelve, Joyce Shepherd, um District 1:47:39.600 --> 1:47:43.719 twelve is where Pittsburgh is, where Summerhill is, where several 1:47:44.240 --> 1:47:49.640 of poor and black working class neighborhoods of Atlanta are located. 1:47:49.880 --> 1:47:53.360 There are also the areas where they're the most gentrifying 1:47:53.800 --> 1:47:57.679 areas of the city as well, and it's in and 1:47:57.880 --> 1:48:01.840 city Council District twelve. Joyce Shepherd she is the person 1:48:01.920 --> 1:48:05.600 who brought this proposal forward, right, she is over the 1:48:05.680 --> 1:48:08.639 quote unquote public safety. Um, you know they aren't keeping 1:48:08.680 --> 1:48:13.160 it safe quote unquote public safety. Um, you know, commission 1:48:14.040 --> 1:48:18.080 and Um, she brought this forward. And she has been 1:48:18.640 --> 1:48:25.280 since she's been in office, she has been a even uh, 1:48:25.520 --> 1:48:28.720 she's been a champion of gentrification. Right, she's been a 1:48:28.800 --> 1:48:32.000 champion of over policing as well. Um. And I think 1:48:32.080 --> 1:48:34.439 it's it's a tie between even our city council or 1:48:34.439 --> 1:48:37.719 even our representation has in their interests of being able 1:48:37.760 --> 1:48:39.920 of of gentrifying the city because that gives them more 1:48:39.960 --> 1:48:41.840 tax stars. It gives them a way to be able 1:48:41.880 --> 1:48:45.759 to say that they are decreasing their crime rates except 1:48:45.840 --> 1:48:47.720 and all those all these different types of things when 1:48:47.760 --> 1:48:50.680 it's really just dep deplacing poor folks. Um. And so 1:48:50.720 --> 1:48:53.760 I think that's an important about talking about how this 1:48:53.840 --> 1:48:56.240 kind of was established. That's an important topic to be 1:48:56.280 --> 1:48:58.439 able to address, is that even and she's a black woman, 1:48:58.560 --> 1:49:03.960 right so even um, you know, even how like when 1:49:03.960 --> 1:49:06.680 people when when people might you think they might be 1:49:06.720 --> 1:49:09.360 in representing your interests, when they get to be in 1:49:09.400 --> 1:49:11.439 these positions, we have to recognize that they are not 1:49:11.880 --> 1:49:15.080 necessarily for the people. In the aftermath of the George 1:49:15.080 --> 1:49:18.920 Floyd uprising against police violence, the city responded by striking 1:49:18.920 --> 1:49:22.519 down any police reform measures and restricting opportunities for republic input, 1:49:22.640 --> 1:49:26.559 while increasing the police budget and upping citizens surveillance. On 1:49:26.600 --> 1:49:29.920 a national level, a media manufacturing crime wave narrative has 1:49:29.960 --> 1:49:32.400 been used to rejuify American policing in the wake of 1:49:32.400 --> 1:49:35.680 the uprising, and the City of Atlanta is using that 1:49:35.760 --> 1:49:39.559 narrative while wrapping their increased militarization plans in a nice 1:49:39.680 --> 1:49:43.200 woke social justice package, i e. A militarized police training 1:49:43.240 --> 1:49:48.280 compound being dubbed the Institute for Social Justice. Heading up 1:49:48.280 --> 1:49:51.040 this effort is the Atlanta Police Foundation, which is a 1:49:51.240 --> 1:49:55.519 nonprofit police advocacy organization that claims to have quote united 1:49:55.560 --> 1:49:59.200 the business and philanthropic community with the Atlanta Police Department. 1:50:00.120 --> 1:50:02.840 It's a It's backed by an array of Atlanta area 1:50:02.920 --> 1:50:07.320 corporate donors, including Delta Airlines, Upstrick fil A, Cox Enterprizes, 1:50:07.479 --> 1:50:10.640 which owns the Atlanta Journal Constitution, which is like the 1:50:10.640 --> 1:50:14.960 city's biggest newspaper, and they were formally formally backed by 1:50:14.960 --> 1:50:18.040 Coca Cola. They Coca Cola dropped out this last November. 1:50:18.439 --> 1:50:22.160 A leak promo video for the Institute for Social Justice 1:50:22.800 --> 1:50:26.000 details some of the features of the Atlanta Police Foundations 1:50:26.280 --> 1:50:29.840 quote world class training campus. With an estimated cost of 1:50:29.960 --> 1:50:33.040 ninety million dollars. The space will provide a place for 1:50:33.200 --> 1:50:37.520 recruiting training, mid career education, and practice with new technology 1:50:37.520 --> 1:50:41.440 and equipment for police and fire department personnel. The renderings 1:50:41.479 --> 1:50:44.120 show the campus will house a quote mock city for 1:50:44.280 --> 1:50:48.720 real world training, a canine training center, and forty horse 1:50:48.760 --> 1:50:52.040 stalls for police horses. Twelve acres of forest land are 1:50:52.040 --> 1:50:55.799 slated to be converted into an emergency vehicle operations course, 1:50:56.720 --> 1:50:59.519 and the whole compound will be located across three hundred 1:50:59.600 --> 1:51:02.719 and the acres of the old Atlanta Prison Farm, which 1:51:02.720 --> 1:51:05.480 is a city owned but technically outside of city limits, 1:51:05.520 --> 1:51:09.120 located just east of the city in unincorporated Dekapp County. 1:51:09.880 --> 1:51:12.760 The Police Foundation has proposed funding the training center through 1:51:12.960 --> 1:51:16.479 a public private partnership, which will leave taxpayers to pay 1:51:16.479 --> 1:51:20.040 an estimated thirty million dollars for this out of city 1:51:20.040 --> 1:51:23.240 police training facility one, which is one third of the 1:51:23.240 --> 1:51:27.400 early estimated cost. According to the land Use Ordinance. The 1:51:27.479 --> 1:51:30.000 property will be leased to the Police Foundation by the 1:51:30.040 --> 1:51:35.200 city for ten dollars a year for fifty years. It's 1:51:35.240 --> 1:51:39.320 almost four acres of forest land for ten dollars a year. 1:51:40.000 --> 1:51:42.160 The grund lease will quote provide that the city will 1:51:42.200 --> 1:51:44.639 be able to have input or approval on the stages 1:51:44.640 --> 1:51:47.920 of construction along with the development of the property, and 1:51:48.160 --> 1:51:52.879 will allow waving of certain code requirements. Such a facility 1:51:52.920 --> 1:51:55.040 would be three times the size of the New York 1:51:55.040 --> 1:51:57.800 Plice Department's training facility and four times the size of 1:51:57.880 --> 1:52:00.880 the l a p d s and worth noting that 1:52:00.960 --> 1:52:04.120 the NYPD and l a p D are the two 1:52:04.520 --> 1:52:08.360 largest police departments in the country, while Atlanta is the 1:52:08.520 --> 1:52:12.360 only the nineteenth largest. Yet they'll have a facility that's 1:52:12.400 --> 1:52:15.960 like three times the size of New York's. According to 1:52:16.080 --> 1:52:19.240 the Mayor of Atlanta during the time of the facility's announcement, 1:52:19.600 --> 1:52:23.200 the massive training complex would quote raise morale among officers 1:52:23.520 --> 1:52:27.280 and hopefully bring more recruits to the department. And importantly, 1:52:27.439 --> 1:52:31.080 the whole project was initially supposed to be totally under wraps, 1:52:31.479 --> 1:52:38.520 approved through backdoor deal making the social justice something socialist 1:52:38.600 --> 1:52:42.920 justice I believe in the promo video specifically, which was 1:52:43.000 --> 1:52:46.040 not likely even a public release. And this is like 1:52:46.160 --> 1:52:50.160 very much designed to be under the table, pushed through 1:52:50.200 --> 1:52:53.160 as fast as possible of the public, whereas it really 1:52:53.200 --> 1:52:55.559 supposed to know about it. The videos that existed were 1:52:55.600 --> 1:53:00.920 only meant to be UM the Sponsors Boardnembers unders of 1:53:01.000 --> 1:53:07.559 the Atlantic Police Foundation UM and MIGHT. The Police Foundation, 1:53:07.640 --> 1:53:12.360 unlike most like police unions, is a foundation made to 1:53:13.080 --> 1:53:16.960 final corporate money into the handsOn police. The Cops City 1:53:17.040 --> 1:53:19.639 side of things is just one part of the Defend 1:53:19.680 --> 1:53:22.680 the Forest project. The other big aspect of this is 1:53:22.960 --> 1:53:26.120 pushing back on the movie studio Black Hall from being 1:53:26.160 --> 1:53:29.439 able to clear cut more forced to expand their sound stage. 1:53:30.120 --> 1:53:34.840 Projects shot on their current lot include A Godzillak of Monsters, Venom, 1:53:34.960 --> 1:53:39.000 der Van Hansen, HBO's Lovedcraft Country, and Amazon Primes The 1:53:39.080 --> 1:53:41.880 Tomorrow War. On the east side of the forested land, 1:53:42.160 --> 1:53:45.519 the part that's referred to as Entrenchment Creek Park was 1:53:45.560 --> 1:53:48.200 bought by Hondy Booko founder Arthur Blank and the early 1:53:48.280 --> 1:53:51.479 two thousands with a plan to combine UH that section 1:53:51.560 --> 1:53:53.840 of land with three acres at the Prison Farm to 1:53:53.840 --> 1:53:56.559 create a five hundred acre park, a project that never 1:53:56.640 --> 1:53:59.000 came to fruition. UH and now the park is currently 1:53:59.080 --> 1:54:01.519 under control of the Cat County. On top of the 1:54:01.520 --> 1:54:04.200 heat insulation and air filtering that the tree canopy provides, 1:54:04.560 --> 1:54:07.280 Entrenchment Creek plays a crucial role in maintaining the South 1:54:07.400 --> 1:54:11.400 River Watershed, being a partial wetland and marsh that mitigates 1:54:11.400 --> 1:54:15.280 flooding in South Atlanta. Quoting that crime thing article again, quote, 1:54:15.520 --> 1:54:17.640 the plundering of public assets from the benefit of a 1:54:17.680 --> 1:54:20.360 movie company and real estate mogul is described as an 1:54:20.400 --> 1:54:24.200 opportunity to create quote good jobs for local Atlanta's, not 1:54:24.439 --> 1:54:28.240 as a criminal expropriation of infrastructure. The clear cut that 1:54:28.240 --> 1:54:30.600 Blackall Studio has planned to trade in exchange for a 1:54:30.640 --> 1:54:35.440 section of forest is to be renamed Michelle Obama Park unquote. 1:54:36.120 --> 1:54:38.800 So yeah. That also clearly demonstrates the type of gentrification 1:54:38.840 --> 1:54:43.280 wrapped in this nice woke package by doing this really 1:54:43.320 --> 1:54:46.800 sketchy land swap and then building a park on it 1:54:47.040 --> 1:54:51.080 and calling at Michelle Obama Park cool stuff, guys. Black 1:54:51.120 --> 1:54:53.760 All Studios is currently a hundred and fifty acre complex 1:54:53.800 --> 1:54:56.440 about ten minutes south of downtown, and they seek to 1:54:56.480 --> 1:54:59.920 add over half a million square feet of sound stage 1:55:01.160 --> 1:55:05.200 two hundred thousands square feet of offices UH four hundred 1:55:05.280 --> 1:55:10.200 twenty thousand square feet for warehousing square feet of catering space, 1:55:10.240 --> 1:55:13.040 according to a filing made through the States Development of 1:55:13.120 --> 1:55:16.240 Regional Impact Program UH. The d r I s are 1:55:16.240 --> 1:55:19.120 filed when the projects size is large enough that it's 1:55:19.120 --> 1:55:23.040 likely to impact the infrastructure of neighboring communities. The De 1:55:23.120 --> 1:55:26.800 Cab County Board of Commissioners in October voted to approve 1:55:26.840 --> 1:55:28.800 the land swap deal with Blackhe Studios. As a part 1:55:28.840 --> 1:55:32.280 of the planned expansion, the county would give approximately forty 1:55:32.280 --> 1:55:35.960 acres mostly wooded land around the South River Forest, and 1:55:36.000 --> 1:55:38.640 then in turn, Black Studios would give the county around 1:55:38.680 --> 1:55:43.120 fifty acres of nearby land as well. The project has 1:55:43.120 --> 1:55:45.920 faced some legal and construction issues ever since then, and 1:55:45.960 --> 1:55:50.240 we'll discuss the details of those shortly. Also worth noting 1:55:50.320 --> 1:55:53.120 that Black Hall Studios was sold to a private equity 1:55:53.160 --> 1:55:56.560 firm in l A just last year, and this last 1:55:56.600 --> 1:56:00.840 February announced that they purchased another one thousand and five 1:56:00.880 --> 1:56:04.520 hundred acres in Newtown County, Georgia, which is about forty 1:56:04.560 --> 1:56:07.480 miles east of downtown Atlanta UH, and they plan to 1:56:07.480 --> 1:56:11.839 shoot productions there for an upcoming quote action oriented streaming 1:56:11.920 --> 1:56:19.240 service dubbed black Hall Americana, which sounds horrible. Um, here's 1:56:19.280 --> 1:56:22.960 a here, here's a quote from black Hole CEO Ryan 1:56:23.080 --> 1:56:26.840 millsap quote. This is the kind of space we need 1:56:26.880 --> 1:56:30.080 to fly in black Hawk helicopters and drive humpies at speed. 1:56:30.760 --> 1:56:34.280 We have lakes, we have swamps and rivers and forests 1:56:34.320 --> 1:56:37.840 and fields and hills and dales. That's the nice thing 1:56:37.880 --> 1:56:43.800 about one thousand and five hundred acres. Yep. So look 1:56:43.840 --> 1:56:47.800 forward to uh, black Hall Americana, the new hit streaming 1:56:47.960 --> 1:56:52.440 service coming out of Georgia. Um, destroying the forest for 1:56:53.160 --> 1:56:57.680 Black Hall Americana. Oh boy, but yeah, if if, if, 1:56:57.760 --> 1:57:00.200 if this project succeeds, it would cement Atlanta as the 1:57:00.200 --> 1:57:03.400 new Hollywood, along with like Tyler Perry Studios and all 1:57:03.440 --> 1:57:05.800 of the other movie studios moving to Atlanta, and it 1:57:05.840 --> 1:57:08.840 would continue the skyrocketing cost to living in Atlanta and 1:57:08.920 --> 1:57:14.680 accelerate gentrification at a even more horrifying right. So, Um, Actually, 1:57:14.680 --> 1:57:18.960 the black Hall side, but in as like being defended 1:57:19.000 --> 1:57:22.280 as well, is also in the Welining Forest, which is 1:57:22.400 --> 1:57:27.720 like what's been escaping name for the South Atlanta forests. Um, 1:57:27.760 --> 1:57:31.080 And it's actually right across the road from where we 1:57:31.160 --> 1:57:37.920 currently are. Um. So the and it's like I want 1:57:37.920 --> 1:57:41.680 to believe three or four acres by itself. Um, and 1:57:41.800 --> 1:57:45.320 that is actually under imminent threat as well. They're waiting 1:57:45.400 --> 1:57:48.240 on the land destruction permit to pass, and that can 1:57:48.280 --> 1:57:51.080 happen any day or any week on on what you 1:57:51.120 --> 1:57:55.400 were saying about the gentrification issue. Um, that's something that's 1:57:55.440 --> 1:57:58.800 been really noticeable to anyone that lives in Atlanta and 1:57:58.920 --> 1:58:03.480 has for any amount of time just looking around them, 1:58:03.520 --> 1:58:08.520 like the filming that is just regularly happening here and 1:58:09.040 --> 1:58:12.480 all all these kind of new companies popping up around it. 1:58:12.800 --> 1:58:16.640 Black Hall was sold maybe a little over a year 1:58:16.680 --> 1:58:19.520 ago now to a hedge fund out in California. They're 1:58:19.520 --> 1:58:24.560 getting funding for all of these projects. And the rent 1:58:24.680 --> 1:58:27.080 here in Atlanta, I'm sure across the country, I'm not 1:58:27.120 --> 1:58:30.960 sure what the trends are elsewhere, has been skyrocketing. Like 1:58:31.640 --> 1:58:35.040 you'll see homes that sold during the financial crisis for 1:58:35.160 --> 1:58:39.040 like eight thousand dollars two dollars selling for like half 1:58:39.080 --> 1:58:43.240 a million dollars today. And you know, I'm not like 1:58:43.280 --> 1:58:47.040 a fucking economist, but the way that the film industry 1:58:47.080 --> 1:58:50.200 has been exploding and other industries like Google and Microsoft 1:58:50.320 --> 1:58:54.040 have been building these massive, expensive new headquarters while people 1:58:54.120 --> 1:58:56.040 literally go out on the street because they can no 1:58:56.080 --> 1:58:59.440 longer afford to pay rent here, and people just get displaced. 1:59:00.320 --> 1:59:03.800 It's like the opposite of white flight back into the suburbs, 1:59:04.400 --> 1:59:06.880 when you know, folks are moving into the city for 1:59:07.120 --> 1:59:11.600 economic opportunities that only very wealthy people can get. I mean, 1:59:11.600 --> 1:59:15.720 it's it's difficult not to see Black Hall as ushering 1:59:15.840 --> 1:59:22.720 in just another huge wave of gentrification. Yeah, black making 1:59:22.760 --> 1:59:26.800 movies to support the American way of life, but Black 1:59:26.800 --> 1:59:29.800 Hall explicitly says they're making movies to support the American 1:59:29.800 --> 1:59:32.600 way of life. We hear gunshots from the police firing 1:59:32.720 --> 1:59:34.920 range all the time, and we hear almost as many 1:59:34.960 --> 1:59:39.400 gun shots from the Black Hall filming sides. Um. And Yeah, 1:59:39.400 --> 1:59:44.280 it's very much about creating propaganda that makes people think 1:59:44.520 --> 1:59:47.400 they need police. Um. And that's like a huge part 1:59:47.440 --> 1:59:49.920 of kind of what they're doing. A life of film 1:59:50.200 --> 1:59:52.320 and all the gentrification thing. Like even just driving to 1:59:52.440 --> 1:59:56.400 the city the past few days, I've noticed so many 1:59:56.440 --> 2:00:00.240 places that used to be wooded, uh, totally towards down 2:00:00.240 --> 2:00:03.360 and they're putting up these horrible quote unquote luxury condos 2:00:03.360 --> 2:00:06.720 which are like, you know, two thousand dollars rent from 2:00:06.720 --> 2:00:09.880 on for a tiny studio. UM. And I've even seen 2:00:10.320 --> 2:00:13.280 things that were used to be secretionated housing turned into 2:00:13.360 --> 2:00:18.080 luxury condos. Like it's it's been absurd driving through the 2:00:18.120 --> 2:00:20.120 city and watching so many places that used to be 2:00:20.160 --> 2:00:23.560 wooded just turned like so much like active construction sites 2:00:23.600 --> 2:00:27.640 building these exact same like these identical apartment complexes that 2:00:27.680 --> 2:00:29.640 are the most hideous things you've ever looked at, and 2:00:29.680 --> 2:00:33.400 completely unaffordable for any for anyone who's not like someone 2:00:33.440 --> 2:00:38.080 who's working for a tech company. Like they are like 2:00:38.160 --> 2:00:42.560 destroying a section of Atlanta called Park and it was 2:00:42.640 --> 2:00:47.560 like a large green space that was largely unmaged in Lakeland. 2:00:48.200 --> 2:00:52.200 UM and creating quote affordable housing, which is really just 2:00:52.720 --> 2:00:55.920 the legal term for they have a certain amount of 2:00:57.720 --> 2:01:01.000 available housing, like like like taking units in like a 2:01:01.520 --> 2:01:04.640 like one unit thing is affordable house. Like affordable just 2:01:04.720 --> 2:01:08.160 means market value or like like the medium market value. 2:01:08.200 --> 2:01:12.040 Low income is things that people that aren't like average 2:01:12.120 --> 2:01:14.320 money makers come for, right And I think one of 2:01:14.400 --> 2:01:16.880 the like I think it's has kind of kind of 2:01:16.880 --> 2:01:19.120 gotten lost about the struggle about the actual defending the 2:01:19.120 --> 2:01:22.440 Atlanta force struggles like not specific to just cops of 2:01:22.440 --> 2:01:26.640 your black hole is actually the entire forest as a city, UM. 2:01:26.720 --> 2:01:30.000 And that like part of the reason why it has 2:01:30.040 --> 2:01:32.480 been so focus is because of like how pressing these 2:01:32.840 --> 2:01:39.240 currents um things are and how like stretched thin people 2:01:39.960 --> 2:01:43.760 kind of a who are working on this um and 2:01:44.360 --> 2:01:46.920 that like yeah, Chosea Park is an example. There's also 2:01:46.960 --> 2:01:51.240 an area and that's like near Grant Park and like 2:01:51.360 --> 2:01:54.880 the Zone three old Zone three precinct, and there are 2:01:55.080 --> 2:01:57.240 like the zoo they were like actually in the same 2:01:57.240 --> 2:02:02.400 property area. UM. They kept the pigs near the zoo. UM. 2:02:02.480 --> 2:02:06.240 And like it was an entire forest land like absolutely 2:02:06.360 --> 2:02:10.720 mouth of every app every clear gardner doing disgusting condos 2:02:10.800 --> 2:02:15.960 all along the rod um. And it's it's a continuation 2:02:16.040 --> 2:02:20.800 again of a distinctive political pattern in Atlanta. Back when 2:02:21.000 --> 2:02:24.720 Mayor Jackson was elected as the mayor, he at first 2:02:24.880 --> 2:02:28.960 tried to build like affordable not affordable, like low income 2:02:29.040 --> 2:02:32.640 housing and do community projects and stuff. But the business 2:02:32.760 --> 2:02:37.400 end of Atlanta fought back against those efforts and that 2:02:37.560 --> 2:02:42.560 is what saw projects like the Olympic Games, which destroyed 2:02:42.680 --> 2:02:45.839 an entire community in Atlanta. You should look up people's 2:02:45.840 --> 2:02:50.040 down here in Atlanta was just in Summer Hill completely 2:02:50.200 --> 2:02:54.040 raised to build arenas and all of this ship And 2:02:54.080 --> 2:02:58.600 it feels like a continuation of the powern where politicians 2:02:58.640 --> 2:03:01.760 decide what is best for the city the Olympics, a 2:03:01.800 --> 2:03:06.920 new police training facility or whatever business measures on the 2:03:06.960 --> 2:03:10.680 table today, not to mention that like during the nineties 2:03:10.680 --> 2:03:15.080 six Olympics, they're like specifically built Atlantice City Detention Center 2:03:15.280 --> 2:03:20.440 for the for a place to put houseless people who 2:03:20.440 --> 2:03:23.400 have been sweeped up the streets and like criminalized them. 2:03:23.400 --> 2:03:27.280 And during the George forlid uprising in that was reused 2:03:27.320 --> 2:03:31.880 too as detainments and overnight states for protesters who are 2:03:32.000 --> 2:03:35.040 like going to get low bail justice a form of 2:03:35.080 --> 2:03:40.160 repression is regularly used. Again like that jails regularly used 2:03:40.200 --> 2:03:45.320 specifically against protesters and isn't used for anything else. Is 2:03:45.360 --> 2:03:49.720 a like absolutely still around the face of humanity and 2:03:49.920 --> 2:03:53.720 Artisha Lance Bottoms said during her turn that she was 2:03:53.760 --> 2:03:57.000 going to turn that into a social justice side or right, 2:03:57.080 --> 2:03:59.920 it's still a jail. It probably already it probably all 2:04:00.000 --> 2:04:03.640 ways will be until he fucking destroy it. Uh. And 2:04:04.320 --> 2:04:08.600 like now the Fulton County sheriff wants to take over 2:04:08.680 --> 2:04:11.760 the jail and use all of those beds because the 2:04:12.000 --> 2:04:16.720 jails here are so overcrowded with bullshit charges that they 2:04:16.760 --> 2:04:19.720 are just expanding and expanding, expanding, and there's no sign 2:04:19.760 --> 2:04:22.600 of stopping. For every one time that they promise that 2:04:22.680 --> 2:04:25.320 they're going to be closing jails, repurposing ship doing all 2:04:25.360 --> 2:04:30.120 this liberal reform bullshit, there's a new training facility, they're 2:04:30.160 --> 2:04:32.480 selling jails to people that are using them more. The 2:04:32.600 --> 2:04:35.640 system just continues to expand and expand and expand until 2:04:35.680 --> 2:04:42.880 we fight back and destroy it. Need black haw Yeah, 2:04:42.920 --> 2:04:45.400 police need Black Hall just as much as black hall 2:04:45.480 --> 2:04:48.880 needs the police, you know. And these are the symbiotic 2:04:48.960 --> 2:04:53.280 relationship between the two. Police are instrumental in gentrification and 2:04:53.480 --> 2:04:58.240 also police need gentrification to capture poor black and brown 2:04:58.360 --> 2:05:00.960 people and lock them in case. And so these are 2:05:01.000 --> 2:05:04.600 two things that that feed each other in a relationship. 2:05:04.720 --> 2:05:08.280 So it's very important to do our best to attack 2:05:08.400 --> 2:05:12.200 book is Atlanta. Was it the Atlanta police who have 2:05:12.280 --> 2:05:17.240 like the point system for rust? Yes, Atlanta Police. Yes, 2:05:17.320 --> 2:05:20.160 Atlanta Police has actually a point system where among the 2:05:20.600 --> 2:05:25.880 highest points is capturing a child. For capturing a child 2:05:26.000 --> 2:05:30.960 and arresting them are alongside felony charges, folony warrants and 2:05:31.880 --> 2:05:36.920 other things. Um longest point system. They use it as 2:05:36.960 --> 2:05:41.000 a rubric to measure how well an officers doing. Um 2:05:41.880 --> 2:05:47.200 yeah yeah, I mean in terms of like needing gentrification 2:05:47.280 --> 2:05:50.520 to continue your job. Yeah, that's that's the exact same 2:05:50.640 --> 2:05:52.600 thing is, let's have this point system so we can 2:05:52.640 --> 2:05:54.520 get races and it arrest all the people who are 2:05:54.560 --> 2:05:58.320 on the street. And it's uh a mask off moment, 2:05:58.400 --> 2:06:01.480 as they say. And I also think it's this funny thing, 2:06:01.760 --> 2:06:06.440 like I don't know, right, they're building this fake city 2:06:06.640 --> 2:06:10.880 to train in, and I wouldn't be surprised if Black 2:06:10.960 --> 2:06:12.960 hawns up renting it out from time to time to 2:06:13.000 --> 2:06:16.000 shoot films, right absolutely, But also at the end of 2:06:16.080 --> 2:06:18.400 the day, even if they don't, it's literally the same 2:06:18.480 --> 2:06:21.520 exact thing, right, one is training people to actually do 2:06:21.720 --> 2:06:24.320 it and the other is performing it too. People think 2:06:24.360 --> 2:06:28.440 it's cool exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So I just pulled up 2:06:28.480 --> 2:06:32.280 the actually my friend just pulled up there like chart 2:06:32.360 --> 2:06:35.520 which is it's a one to five scale. It's five scale. 2:06:35.600 --> 2:06:39.440 It's five for juvenile arrest, five points for felonies, four 2:06:39.560 --> 2:06:41.600 for a misdem or charge three for a city, charge 2:06:41.680 --> 2:06:46.320 for for deal wise and it goes on um and 2:06:46.560 --> 2:06:49.440 like the fact that juvenile rest is the top one 2:06:49.640 --> 2:06:55.000 is sucking monstrous. No I expected like they are the 2:06:55.080 --> 2:06:58.800 monster like that. Yeah, like if it's not, it's not shocking, 2:06:59.000 --> 2:07:05.360 but it shows the extent of like the the horrible 2:07:05.440 --> 2:07:08.480 nous of what of like what their job is like, 2:07:08.560 --> 2:07:13.160 that is their job, That's what that's what they do. 2:07:13.520 --> 2:07:17.320 That is the entire thing. One thing that's given the 2:07:17.400 --> 2:07:19.840 Atlanta Defend the Force movement and edge is being able 2:07:19.880 --> 2:07:22.640 to consistently set the terms of engagement and establish a 2:07:22.760 --> 2:07:25.640 media framework regarding the instruction of the forest and the 2:07:25.680 --> 2:07:28.360 development of Cops City to stay one step ahead of 2:07:28.400 --> 2:07:31.440 the enemy. Like we've mentioned, the Cops City of project 2:07:31.560 --> 2:07:34.240 was never actually initially announced by the city or the 2:07:34.280 --> 2:07:37.400 Police Foundation. It was brought to light by activists digging 2:07:37.440 --> 2:07:41.400 through open source data and public records in April one, 2:07:41.480 --> 2:07:44.000 when activists discovered the proposal to destroy the South of 2:07:44.160 --> 2:07:47.160 Our Forest. First, news spread via word of mouth for 2:07:47.240 --> 2:07:50.879 several weeks about a large information sharing session at Entrenchment 2:07:50.960 --> 2:07:54.760 Creek Park, one of the areas under threat. On May fifteen, 2:07:54.960 --> 2:07:57.560 over two hundred people gathered for a barbecue and info 2:07:57.720 --> 2:08:00.560 presentation night on the threat of the forest and the 2:08:00.640 --> 2:08:04.080 broader campaign to defend it. The city government had yet 2:08:04.120 --> 2:08:06.760 to announce its plans publicly, so the activists and Force 2:08:06.880 --> 2:08:10.320 defenders were able to craft the public narrative first and 2:08:10.480 --> 2:08:14.320 lay the media groundwork. At the information session, presenters were 2:08:14.360 --> 2:08:17.720 able to accurately contextualize the development within the cross section 2:08:17.800 --> 2:08:20.960 of racist and authoritarian backlash against the George Floyd protests, 2:08:21.480 --> 2:08:25.520 the increasing gentrification and urban displacement, and the devastating climate 2:08:25.520 --> 2:08:29.040 effects such a project will inflict upon the region. Having 2:08:29.120 --> 2:08:32.040 activists and Force defenders break the news such a development 2:08:32.440 --> 2:08:34.840 denies the city and the police the opportunity to introduce 2:08:34.880 --> 2:08:37.960 a development to the public with a distorted narrative, assuming 2:08:38.000 --> 2:08:39.960 that they were gonna announce their plans and make them 2:08:40.000 --> 2:08:43.600 public at all. And then, on May seventeenth, less than 2:08:43.680 --> 2:08:47.320 forty eight hours after the info sharing barbecue, seven unguarded 2:08:47.360 --> 2:08:50.760 machines at the forest destruction site, including excavators, tractors, and 2:08:50.760 --> 2:08:54.800 other pieces of heavy machinery, were targeted by sabotage, with 2:08:54.880 --> 2:08:58.480 smash windows and severed inner tubing scorched by fire. The 2:08:58.600 --> 2:09:03.600 destruction equipment was left inoperable. An anonymous statement appeared online 2:09:03.760 --> 2:09:07.880 detailing their motivations and methods of attack, while tying the 2:09:07.960 --> 2:09:12.320 actions to the struggling and colonialism, authoritarianism, and the history 2:09:12.360 --> 2:09:15.160 of this particular land as the site of horrific abuses, 2:09:16.120 --> 2:09:19.800 of the site of displacement, child slavery, and prison slavery. 2:09:20.200 --> 2:09:24.360 The communicate ended with quote to the developers, governments, contractors, 2:09:24.600 --> 2:09:29.680 corporations and politicians have perpetrated the heinous deforestation. Any further 2:09:29.720 --> 2:09:32.040 attempts at destroying the Atlanta Forest we met with a 2:09:32.120 --> 2:09:35.360 similar response, the forest was here long before us, and 2:09:35.400 --> 2:09:38.560 we'll be here long after. We'll see to that defend 2:09:38.680 --> 2:09:42.120 the Atlanta Forest. Today, no one has been arrested for 2:09:42.560 --> 2:09:47.160 these actions. The presence of such a targeted direct action 2:09:47.280 --> 2:09:50.400 campaign this early on in the movement is important for 2:09:50.520 --> 2:09:53.240 a few reasons, one of which being it's meant in 2:09:53.280 --> 2:09:55.920 sabotage as a part of this movement from the very beginning, 2:09:56.240 --> 2:09:59.240 like it was moven into the genetic fabric from the conception, 2:10:00.120 --> 2:10:02.920 so any debate around the validity of these tactics was 2:10:03.040 --> 2:10:06.560 virtually non existent because they were there from the beginning. 2:10:07.120 --> 2:10:10.040 That's what this movement is and that's been super interesting 2:10:10.080 --> 2:10:12.480 to watch because usually this type of sabotage or direct 2:10:12.520 --> 2:10:15.440 action happens later on in these movements, you escalate to 2:10:15.640 --> 2:10:18.160 that point, But in this case, it's been happening since 2:10:18.200 --> 2:10:20.680 the first week people knew that this thing is was existing. 2:10:21.920 --> 2:10:25.280 Over the following weeks, there was meetings, posters, and flyers 2:10:25.400 --> 2:10:28.800 that spread throughout the city. People organized public forest walks 2:10:28.920 --> 2:10:31.760 through areas of the woods that were under threat. Even 2:10:31.800 --> 2:10:34.240 a few candidates for city council adopted the struggle as 2:10:34.320 --> 2:10:38.840 a component of their electoral campaigns. The movement's consistent ability 2:10:38.920 --> 2:10:41.080 to break the news on the development and the destruction 2:10:41.120 --> 2:10:43.840 of the forest has been crucial in the efforts to 2:10:43.960 --> 2:10:46.600 gain public trust and setting the terms of engagement and 2:10:46.680 --> 2:10:49.840 the ground rules for the conflict. The type of public 2:10:49.880 --> 2:10:53.520 discourse regarding the forest was successfully established by anonymous activists, 2:10:53.720 --> 2:10:56.920 not by politicians, and not by police. Think something that's 2:10:56.920 --> 2:11:00.600 been really cool about this movement. From the early days 2:11:00.680 --> 2:11:03.920 of when this was going on, it was extremely radical, 2:11:04.080 --> 2:11:07.680 like it wasn't It wasn't three or four months after 2:11:07.760 --> 2:11:10.240 the first initial meeting, it was like a barbecue at 2:11:10.280 --> 2:11:13.560 the park where people were lighting bulldozers on fire to 2:11:13.720 --> 2:11:18.200 prevent construction from happening. The Atlanta Police Foundation has had 2:11:18.240 --> 2:11:23.600 its offices, its office windows smashed, like people are not 2:11:23.880 --> 2:11:29.000 afraid to fight back physically. And this was occurring at 2:11:29.040 --> 2:11:34.440 the same time as the more electoral tactics as how 2:11:34.440 --> 2:11:37.720 I'll phrase it, and I think that you know, we've 2:11:37.840 --> 2:11:42.720 seen neither of these being able to successfully stop the movement. 2:11:42.800 --> 2:11:46.120 But when it comes to like being able to measure 2:11:46.960 --> 2:11:52.640 that the police have and their allies have slowed down, 2:11:53.000 --> 2:11:56.320 the electoral tactics have been a complete utter failure. Um 2:11:56.720 --> 2:12:02.040 and physically harming that property of the police, end of 2:12:02.240 --> 2:12:05.520 the black Hall and all of the forces that would 2:12:05.520 --> 2:12:09.680 destroy the forest. That's been shown far away to be 2:12:09.800 --> 2:12:14.000 a tactic that's not only acceptable in this movement, but 2:12:14.080 --> 2:12:17.400 it's something that's seen as like one of the go 2:12:17.600 --> 2:12:20.080 to strategies. It's we haven't had to work our way 2:12:20.120 --> 2:12:23.000 to that. People were there from the getto. Yeah, it 2:12:23.080 --> 2:12:24.760 was like a day or two after the Young for 2:12:24.800 --> 2:12:27.680 a night, but the very first public facing event, but 2:12:27.800 --> 2:12:33.600 like bulldozers were set on fire in like Michelle Obamba Park, 2:12:33.680 --> 2:12:36.960 which is funny or enough of another like recuperation tactic 2:12:37.040 --> 2:12:40.280 of like destruction of the environment and like on Ding 2:12:40.360 --> 2:12:46.120 gentrification where that's actually Black Hall Studios old plan site 2:12:46.200 --> 2:12:51.480 for their um new studio. And the idea of the 2:12:51.560 --> 2:12:56.160 land swappers they take this shitty land where they destroyed 2:12:56.240 --> 2:13:00.520 forest type, replace it with an earth ground and in 2:13:01.520 --> 2:13:04.040 and as long as they turn into a park, they're 2:13:04.080 --> 2:13:11.080 allowed to UM build and construct on public forest land UM, 2:13:12.720 --> 2:13:14.880 which is like a Bunker's idea. Yeah, yeah, I know. 2:13:15.360 --> 2:13:18.360 It's actually like a new precedent right here back has 2:13:18.440 --> 2:13:21.280 not been done before. I think that like one of 2:13:21.320 --> 2:13:25.400 the other things, you know, along with the fiery start 2:13:25.600 --> 2:13:29.120 kind of kick off, is that the folks who you know, 2:13:29.200 --> 2:13:32.360 like in my experience, most like kind of big broader 2:13:32.600 --> 2:13:36.960 campaign type things that people who are doing jail support, 2:13:37.080 --> 2:13:40.560 the people who have abroad reach, the people who you know, 2:13:40.760 --> 2:13:44.200 have access to resources, etcetera. Kind of the like backbone 2:13:44.800 --> 2:13:47.760 life sustaining things of a movement tend to be folks 2:13:47.800 --> 2:13:54.600 who have really rigid moralizing ideas of like what is acceptable, etcetera. 2:13:55.520 --> 2:14:00.440 And you know, people in Atlanta have been there's a 2:14:00.520 --> 2:14:02.640 lot of credit due to folks who have been putting 2:14:02.640 --> 2:14:05.120 in a lot of work and are a little wiser 2:14:05.240 --> 2:14:08.080 than to have such a limited narrow view. So most 2:14:08.120 --> 2:14:11.160 of the folks that control and are not controlled. Most 2:14:11.200 --> 2:14:14.440 of the folks who like backline and are working really 2:14:14.480 --> 2:14:18.120 hard to do them more like reproductive things and jail 2:14:18.160 --> 2:14:20.720 support and get food and things like that, are also 2:14:20.800 --> 2:14:25.360 people who have a really like, um, creative and accepting 2:14:25.520 --> 2:14:29.760 view of you know, like what kind of things are 2:14:29.920 --> 2:14:34.160 okay and really don't want this movement to fail and 2:14:34.200 --> 2:14:37.280 aren't going to limit themselves based on abstract ideas. And 2:14:37.400 --> 2:14:42.160 so that's something that is really special and um, you know, 2:14:42.360 --> 2:14:45.680 one gets excluded for for doing things that are effective. 2:14:46.600 --> 2:14:48.640 When talking with the force defenders, the other thing that 2:14:48.760 --> 2:14:51.440 was really emphasized is that instead of waiting for distant 2:14:51.440 --> 2:14:54.080 politicians to say the environment, and instead of dedicating tons 2:14:54.120 --> 2:14:57.520 of effort into petitioning companies with moralized grehtoric to make 2:14:57.560 --> 2:14:59.960 them feel bad in hopes of them dropping of the 2:15:00.000 --> 2:15:03.400 the project, you can instead have immediate material attacks that 2:15:03.520 --> 2:15:05.920 hit them where it counts, and where it counts is 2:15:05.960 --> 2:15:09.200 their pockets. Because you can't expect companies to be swayed 2:15:09.240 --> 2:15:13.520 by moral decisions around harmful policing or the environment, but 2:15:13.680 --> 2:15:16.720 you can attack their physical and social capital if it's 2:15:16.760 --> 2:15:19.000 framed as, hey, this is something that is not a 2:15:19.040 --> 2:15:21.360 good look, fam, and uh, this is going to hurt 2:15:21.400 --> 2:15:24.560 your bank accounts. That is the type of general language 2:15:24.600 --> 2:15:28.000 that these corporations do understand. I feel like this is 2:15:28.080 --> 2:15:30.440 the most intersectional thing I've been a part of in 2:15:30.520 --> 2:15:33.560 a long time. There's just like so many different ways 2:15:33.640 --> 2:15:37.120 to oppose the facility, and there's so many different people involved. 2:15:37.320 --> 2:15:39.920 And I'm really grateful for all of the comrades, especially 2:15:39.960 --> 2:15:42.560 the anarchist comrades, who've been holding it down for years 2:15:42.920 --> 2:15:45.840 and helped push the struggle in a certain direction. I 2:15:45.920 --> 2:15:48.160 think other people are touching on this. We want to 2:15:48.280 --> 2:15:51.480 keep bringing it up because it's important, and other struggles 2:15:51.520 --> 2:15:53.520 we've been a part of, like the liberals control a 2:15:53.600 --> 2:15:55.960 lot of the money for jail support or bail funds 2:15:56.080 --> 2:15:58.960 or food distract and a lot of those mutual aid 2:15:59.000 --> 2:16:01.880 aspects of the struggle that help maintain an occupation which 2:16:01.920 --> 2:16:04.120 has really turned this place up are in the hands 2:16:04.160 --> 2:16:07.840 of mostly anarchist folks, and that has also really set 2:16:07.880 --> 2:16:09.840 the scene for what we're able to do and not 2:16:10.040 --> 2:16:12.480 able to do, Like no one's getting thrown under the 2:16:12.520 --> 2:16:14.800 bus for a leisured behavior like when I was reading 2:16:14.840 --> 2:16:17.240 about this before I came down here almost exactly a 2:16:17.320 --> 2:16:19.920 year ago, there were like machines are on fire, and 2:16:19.960 --> 2:16:23.560 I was like, holy shit, it's like usually that's like 2:16:24.000 --> 2:16:26.440 the way later in the struggle, and that was like 2:16:26.640 --> 2:16:29.640 right out the gate. People whoever they are, were attacking 2:16:29.720 --> 2:16:31.920 the machinery, and I think, to be honest with you, 2:16:32.160 --> 2:16:34.000 that was drawing a lot of people here because people 2:16:34.040 --> 2:16:36.000 are tired of the n v d A or non 2:16:36.120 --> 2:16:39.800 violent direct action. It's not about like let's criticize something 2:16:39.879 --> 2:16:42.160 to death that makes us feel bad. It's like people 2:16:42.200 --> 2:16:44.360 are tired because they're losing a lot of comrades to 2:16:44.520 --> 2:16:47.760 long prison sentences. They're getting three different felonies that are 2:16:47.800 --> 2:16:49.840 like the same amount of time or more than if 2:16:49.840 --> 2:16:52.720 you would allegedly arson something. So these are things that 2:16:52.800 --> 2:16:55.120 are coming up for people, and people are realizing that 2:16:55.240 --> 2:16:58.199 old tactics aren't working anymore. A lot of the comrades 2:16:58.240 --> 2:17:00.240 that were burned into a weird shape from the Green 2:17:00.320 --> 2:17:02.720 scare are aging out, or the things that they're afraid 2:17:02.800 --> 2:17:05.199 of are very valid, but we're living in two dire 2:17:05.240 --> 2:17:07.600 of a time to neglect those tactics or a larger 2:17:07.720 --> 2:17:10.680 level and people are just are seeing how terrible things are, 2:17:10.959 --> 2:17:12.920 and it seems like more people are down or just 2:17:13.000 --> 2:17:16.040 don't care anymore. Ever since the George Floyd uprisings, they've 2:17:16.120 --> 2:17:17.920 just seen an uptick in a lot of this behavior. 2:17:18.280 --> 2:17:20.760 There's a campaign that launched publicly that mentions all the 2:17:20.840 --> 2:17:23.960 subcontractors that Reaves Young, one of the construction companies on 2:17:24.000 --> 2:17:26.400 the project, has to employ to make the Atlanta Police 2:17:26.440 --> 2:17:29.880 Foundations project here possible, and a lot of that could 2:17:29.959 --> 2:17:32.800 be home visits, it could be going to where they 2:17:33.440 --> 2:17:35.480 I don't know what it is, obviously, but I'm just saying, 2:17:35.600 --> 2:17:38.200 long story short, everybody knows this, but you find where 2:17:38.200 --> 2:17:40.480 they store the evil equipment, that's the best way to 2:17:40.520 --> 2:17:43.360 stop the project. Long story short. They usually don't listen 2:17:43.400 --> 2:17:45.640 to what we have to say, but actions speak louder 2:17:45.680 --> 2:17:47.520 than words. And if you really want to hurt them, 2:17:47.600 --> 2:17:49.680 you hurt them in their pockets. And if you cost 2:17:49.760 --> 2:17:52.200 them enough money damage, they may pull out of the project. 2:17:52.400 --> 2:17:55.720 They shut down. And even if there is other subcontractors 2:17:55.800 --> 2:17:58.080 that they could get to write machinery from to cut trees, 2:17:58.240 --> 2:18:00.360 whatever the funkt is they're going to do, we want 2:18:00.400 --> 2:18:02.680 them to be afraid if you look at very romantously 2:18:02.760 --> 2:18:05.400 struggles that have largely been successful in their own ways 2:18:05.440 --> 2:18:07.320 throughout the world. I'm just going to mention a couple 2:18:07.360 --> 2:18:10.080 because people talk about them constantly, like the Zon in France, 2:18:10.200 --> 2:18:12.800 on a Hambach in Germany, or no Time in Italy. 2:18:13.200 --> 2:18:17.240 Blocker laws around property destruction and defending your area. Another 2:18:17.280 --> 2:18:19.440 strong point of the movement to Defend the Atlanta Forest 2:18:19.600 --> 2:18:23.439 is that it's not simply coalesced around a single coherent strategy, 2:18:23.840 --> 2:18:28.119 whether that be sabotage or above ground organizing. For over 2:18:28.200 --> 2:18:31.000 a year now, force defenders and movement participants have employed 2:18:31.120 --> 2:18:35.600 several parallel strategies in tandem. Strategies of one approach can 2:18:35.640 --> 2:18:38.520 fill in for the shortcomings of another. Often these differing 2:18:38.560 --> 2:18:43.320 strategies can be mutually beneficial. As sabotage was happening, opponents 2:18:43.400 --> 2:18:46.680 of Cops City also organized a continuous stream of educational 2:18:46.720 --> 2:18:49.600 events on the land, as well as pressure campaigns aimed 2:18:49.600 --> 2:18:53.240 at pushing city and county officials, investors, and contractors to 2:18:53.400 --> 2:18:57.360 drop out of the project. As summer began, more traditional 2:18:57.560 --> 2:19:02.760 political activist organizations like one connected to nationwide socialist organizations, 2:19:03.040 --> 2:19:07.800 abolitionist networks, and ecological advocacy groups began doing more direct 2:19:07.920 --> 2:19:11.320 community outrage by knocking on the doors talking with people 2:19:11.520 --> 2:19:13.840 in the neighborhoods next to where the forest was being 2:19:13.920 --> 2:19:17.480 slated for destruction. Forming connections and ally ships with the 2:19:17.560 --> 2:19:20.000 local community in the vicinity of the South River forest 2:19:20.320 --> 2:19:22.600 is crucial, especially since that they would be among the 2:19:22.680 --> 2:19:26.720 first of those impacted by deforestation and the close proximity 2:19:26.840 --> 2:19:30.760 to such a militarized police hub with you know, explosive 2:19:30.840 --> 2:19:34.800 testing and helicopter pads um plus you know, local community 2:19:34.800 --> 2:19:38.959 outreach is useful for learning what might help mobilize more 2:19:39.040 --> 2:19:43.800 regular folks. Other tactics and strategies emerging during early summer 2:19:44.280 --> 2:19:47.119 included getting those involved in the planning of Cops City 2:19:47.600 --> 2:19:50.200 to realize that they don't get to operate in some 2:19:50.600 --> 2:19:55.800 safe politics, only realm Their political decisions have real world 2:19:55.879 --> 2:19:59.320 consequences and real world effects for those people that they 2:19:59.360 --> 2:20:03.840 allegedly represent, so perhaps they too should be forced to 2:20:03.920 --> 2:20:08.440 feel real world consequences. On June six, there was a 2:20:08.560 --> 2:20:10.600 city council meeting which was supposed to voute on the 2:20:10.720 --> 2:20:15.920 Police Foundation's land lease ordinance, sponsored by then Councilwoman Joyce Shepherd. 2:20:16.959 --> 2:20:20.160 At this point. Back in, the meetings were all virtual 2:20:20.560 --> 2:20:23.320 due to the COVID nineteen pandemic, so the city council 2:20:23.360 --> 2:20:28.000 members hosted their conversations from inside their homes. With just 2:20:28.080 --> 2:20:30.960 a little bit of work, activists and researchers were able 2:20:31.000 --> 2:20:35.520 to locate the home address of Councilwoman Shepherd. A group 2:20:35.640 --> 2:20:38.200 went to her home and displayed a banner during the 2:20:38.280 --> 2:20:42.000 city council meeting. Most protesters just chanted from the public sidewalk, 2:20:42.320 --> 2:20:45.080 and one individual approached her house, knocked on the door 2:20:45.160 --> 2:20:49.920 and ring the doorbell before returning to the street. Turns out, 2:20:50.080 --> 2:20:52.880 council Woman Shepherd did not like this very much and 2:20:53.080 --> 2:20:59.080 went into a bit of a panic. So like kind 2:20:59.120 --> 2:21:02.160 of a recording terms of like city Council or other 2:21:02.680 --> 2:21:07.080 targets has been like whenever the first time they were 2:21:07.240 --> 2:21:12.440 going to vote on this uh like UM Institute for 2:21:12.560 --> 2:21:15.320 Social actually copsody UM. When they were going to vote 2:21:15.360 --> 2:21:22.199 on copsody UM, someone went up to Joyce Shepherd's house 2:21:22.840 --> 2:21:26.080 and knocked on her door. They're so painful of protesters 2:21:26.120 --> 2:21:28.000 outside and someone just knocked on her door and she 2:21:28.120 --> 2:21:31.879 went to her frenzy freaked out, called off the vote, 2:21:32.120 --> 2:21:36.560 left the meeting, ran to the precinct and comments during 2:21:36.600 --> 2:21:41.160 the bough the corn section, and then gave a like 2:21:41.800 --> 2:21:45.440 long speech to like a bunch of police and press, 2:21:45.840 --> 2:21:48.680 which like called out, which effectively called off the vote 2:21:48.680 --> 2:21:51.600 for another like three months or so, just because someone 2:21:51.879 --> 2:21:55.760 visited the house of a politician because they had names 2:21:55.800 --> 2:21:59.320 and addresses, and like that also happened with Ryan Mills. 2:21:59.360 --> 2:22:05.920 App that's happen with that's CEO and chairman of Reeves Young. 2:22:06.680 --> 2:22:09.880 There's this whole idea of politics as existing within this 2:22:10.560 --> 2:22:14.320 political astral space. Right, It's it's it's the same thing 2:22:14.360 --> 2:22:17.560 with like corporations. Right, everything exists in the corporate space 2:22:18.360 --> 2:22:22.320 that's removed from people's actual lives. Right, it's it's removed 2:22:22.440 --> 2:22:27.199 from actual personal consequences. People in positions of power assume 2:22:27.280 --> 2:22:30.959 that their actions occur in this political or corporate astral plane. 2:22:31.520 --> 2:22:35.120 That means that consequences of their decisions won't directly impact them. 2:22:35.879 --> 2:22:38.560 But we don't need to play by those rules. After 2:22:38.680 --> 2:22:41.920 a friendly knock on her door, Joyce Shepherd called off 2:22:42.000 --> 2:22:44.760 the vote and left the meeting early to call the police, 2:22:44.879 --> 2:22:49.240 who arrived after the protesters had already dispersed. Immediately after, 2:22:49.440 --> 2:22:52.720 Joyce Shepherd held a press conference from the newly constructed 2:22:52.920 --> 2:22:56.920 Zone three police precinct. Their Shepherd stood surrounded by police 2:22:56.959 --> 2:23:00.520 officers and news media and described in detail the aims 2:23:00.600 --> 2:23:02.879 of her land lease ordinance, the nature of the cop 2:23:02.959 --> 2:23:06.960 City project, as well as the efforts of protesters to stopper. 2:23:07.640 --> 2:23:10.280 By doing this short public statement, she catapulted the movement 2:23:10.400 --> 2:23:13.520 and the story into the mainstream, out of the political 2:23:13.600 --> 2:23:16.680 backdoors that it was existing in previously, and Atlanta to 2:23:16.680 --> 2:23:20.520 any councilwoman says protesters came onto her private property to 2:23:20.640 --> 2:23:24.040 speak out against a piece of legislation. Joyce Shapherd says, well, 2:23:24.120 --> 2:23:26.840 she supports the right to protest. This time it went 2:23:26.920 --> 2:23:29.800 too far. People have a right to come out and 2:23:29.879 --> 2:23:32.600 say whether they four or against it. I have no 2:23:32.760 --> 2:23:34.880 problem with that. I've been doing this for years and 2:23:34.959 --> 2:23:37.440 know that people have the right. But what they don't 2:23:37.440 --> 2:23:39.240 have a right to do is come up on my 2:23:39.400 --> 2:23:43.440 private property, knock on my doors, protests on my lawn, 2:23:43.879 --> 2:23:47.400 on my poech They don't have that right. So I'm 2:23:47.440 --> 2:23:52.080 fair tonight that I'm still supporting the academy. I'm not scared. However, 2:23:52.600 --> 2:23:54.280 there will be no right for people to come up 2:23:54.360 --> 2:23:57.800 my property and protests. The next day she made another 2:23:57.879 --> 2:24:00.640 statement which you just heard a little bit of, where 2:24:00.720 --> 2:24:03.160 she also claimed that she would be pushing through the 2:24:03.240 --> 2:24:06.120 ordinance no matter what the city residence that she sensibly 2:24:06.160 --> 2:24:09.440 represented had to say. And her and her fellow city 2:24:09.520 --> 2:24:13.720 officials took a stand against the protesters and rejected their tactics, 2:24:14.320 --> 2:24:18.440 falsely implying that the methods like going on a sidewalk 2:24:18.600 --> 2:24:22.080 were illegal. But by showing up outside a politician's house 2:24:22.080 --> 2:24:24.080 and knocking on her door, just a few people were 2:24:24.120 --> 2:24:26.720 able to achieve an early goal of the movement to 2:24:26.800 --> 2:24:29.879 transform the cop city and black Hall developments from back 2:24:29.920 --> 2:24:33.640 to agreements into big public scandals. It got out of 2:24:33.640 --> 2:24:36.640 the shadows and into the spotlight. As a bonus, the 2:24:36.720 --> 2:24:39.359 vote was delayed, buying more time to develop further strategies 2:24:39.400 --> 2:24:42.640 in defense of the forest. It was an effective demonstration 2:24:42.760 --> 2:24:46.240 of the potential of direct confrontation with people in power, 2:24:47.040 --> 2:24:49.360 and it led to the emergence of another strategy that's 2:24:49.400 --> 2:24:52.800 become a big part of the genetic fabric of this movement, 2:24:53.360 --> 2:24:56.720 pressuring decision makers directly and dissolving their notion of a 2:24:56.800 --> 2:25:00.920 safe political or corporate astral space. During this time of 2:25:01.160 --> 2:25:04.959 showing up at Politician stores, more sabotage and direct action 2:25:05.040 --> 2:25:09.000 were also taking place. Signs appeared in the forest warning 2:25:09.080 --> 2:25:11.160 that trees in the area had been spiked, making it 2:25:11.240 --> 2:25:14.200 possibly dangerous to attempt to cut down trees, with the 2:25:14.440 --> 2:25:17.879 risk of saws being damaged and possibly injuring unlucky workers. 2:25:18.440 --> 2:25:21.320 On June tenth, three more excavators were burned at the 2:25:21.440 --> 2:25:25.480 black Hole Studios the site. Neither action appeared much in 2:25:25.600 --> 2:25:29.320 the local news media, but anonymous communicates and photographs of 2:25:29.520 --> 2:25:35.080 the incidents and damage circulated online among the radical anarchist 2:25:35.240 --> 2:25:39.080 mill us. In late June there was the first planned 2:25:39.200 --> 2:25:42.760 Week of Action. There's been another one since then, and 2:25:42.840 --> 2:25:46.840 there's another one upcoming from May eight through May fifteenth. 2:25:47.400 --> 2:25:49.280 We'll talk more about the upcoming Week of Action in 2:25:49.360 --> 2:25:52.000 the next episode, but I strongly encourage people to travel 2:25:52.040 --> 2:25:53.920 to Atlanta as soon as possible if you can make 2:25:53.959 --> 2:25:56.920 it for any of this upcoming weeklung event again, that's 2:25:56.959 --> 2:26:00.560 from May eight through May. If you make it front 2:26:00.560 --> 2:26:03.160 of that, please go to Atlanta. It will be it 2:26:03.200 --> 2:26:06.480 will be fun, I assure you. The June Week of 2:26:06.520 --> 2:26:09.560 Action featured a guided walks through the forest by day 2:26:09.640 --> 2:26:15.599 and by moonlight discussion and conversations on ecology, abolitionism, colonialism, 2:26:15.760 --> 2:26:19.680 and queerness. There was a nightly bonfires and safe open 2:26:19.760 --> 2:26:22.920 sections of the woods at a nearby radical venue. There 2:26:23.040 --> 2:26:26.440 was a hardcore punk show during which hundreds of concert 2:26:26.520 --> 2:26:30.320 goers repelled the buzz kill police who are trying to 2:26:30.360 --> 2:26:33.080 shut it down. And there was a night rave deep 2:26:33.120 --> 2:26:36.040 into the woods where five hundred people were dancing with 2:26:36.120 --> 2:26:39.440 glow sticks late into the night and early into the morning. 2:26:40.200 --> 2:26:43.039 In all throughout the week of action, thousands of Atlanta's 2:26:43.200 --> 2:26:45.720 got to gather under the banner of Defend the Forest. 2:26:46.040 --> 2:26:47.880 They were able to learn about the project and get 2:26:47.920 --> 2:26:51.240 plugged into taking action. During the week, people under the 2:26:51.280 --> 2:26:53.720 cover of night visited the home of black Hole Studios 2:26:53.879 --> 2:26:58.480 CEO Ryan Millsap in the Atlanta suburb of Social Creek. UH. 2:26:58.560 --> 2:27:02.080 They also visited his second home in Tuxedo Park and 2:27:02.440 --> 2:27:06.760 the ups he frequents in Edgewood. According to an anonymous 2:27:06.879 --> 2:27:11.279 online statement, quote flyers were distributed to all his neighbors mailboxes, 2:27:11.320 --> 2:27:13.640 as well as plastered on his front gate and the 2:27:13.680 --> 2:27:17.480 streets that he frequents. The flyers let fellow concerned community 2:27:17.520 --> 2:27:20.160 members know about the harm he is responsible for, and 2:27:20.360 --> 2:27:22.800 ically provided the address to his one hundred acre farms 2:27:22.840 --> 2:27:26.199 and that grievances could be addressed there. The flyers placed 2:27:26.200 --> 2:27:29.160 all throughout his neighborhood and investment properties were also distributed 2:27:29.200 --> 2:27:31.880 in hopes that it would quote inspire others to research 2:27:32.000 --> 2:27:34.240 and take the fight to those directly responsible for the 2:27:34.240 --> 2:27:38.480 destruction of the forest. Two days later, on the final 2:27:38.640 --> 2:27:42.920 day of the week of action, around fifty protesters marched 2:27:43.000 --> 2:27:46.320 to the headquarters of the Atlanta Police Foundation, quoting crime 2:27:46.360 --> 2:27:49.480 Thing again quote. As the crowd emerged from the Five 2:27:49.560 --> 2:27:52.320 Points metro station, a small contition of officers attempted to 2:27:52.440 --> 2:27:55.120 arrest somebody. The crowd engaged hand to hand fighting with 2:27:55.160 --> 2:27:58.280 police and successfully repelled them. Advancing past the security, they 2:27:58.360 --> 2:28:01.440 marched straight to the Alant Police Foundations office and smashed 2:28:01.520 --> 2:28:04.680 the glass doors and windows before overturning tables in the 2:28:04.800 --> 2:28:09.000 towers lobby. According to police, on Friday, around four pm, 2:28:09.400 --> 2:28:13.160 multiple protesters stopped the flow of traffic on Peachtree Street 2:28:13.240 --> 2:28:17.000 and Andrew Young International Boulevard. Photos taken by a local 2:28:17.080 --> 2:28:21.840 freelance photographer showing a group called Defend Atlanta Forest shattering 2:28:21.920 --> 2:28:25.960 glass doors and also holding signs that say our woods, 2:28:26.080 --> 2:28:29.560 not Hollywood's. CBS forty six reached out to the group 2:28:29.800 --> 2:28:32.880 but have yet to hear back. Atlanta police believe the 2:28:32.959 --> 2:28:36.760 protesting ignited over the building of the new public safety 2:28:36.879 --> 2:28:41.680 training center. When officers arrived, protesters quickly fled the scene, 2:28:41.879 --> 2:28:45.040 but the damage still remains. At this time, we know 2:28:45.240 --> 2:28:49.160 no arrests have been made and the investigation continues. In 2:28:49.240 --> 2:28:54.320 Atlanta on Barbawayans CBS news momentum was growing throughout the summer, 2:28:54.640 --> 2:28:57.800 Police and corporate press had failed in crafting a counter 2:28:57.959 --> 2:29:01.520 media strategy. Meanwhile, the Offend the Forest project brought together 2:29:01.680 --> 2:29:06.000 police and prison abolitionist organizations, environmental justice and preservation organizations, 2:29:06.200 --> 2:29:10.240 civil and human rights nonprofits, and even neighborhood associations near 2:29:10.400 --> 2:29:13.880 the proposed site, including the East Atlantic Community Association, the 2:29:14.000 --> 2:29:18.160 Grant Park Neighborhood Association, South at Lantin's for Neighborhood Development, 2:29:18.520 --> 2:29:22.960 and the Kirkwood Neighbors Organization, each of which passed resolutions 2:29:23.000 --> 2:29:28.000 opposing the proposal. Grassroots organizations that mobilized against the proposal 2:29:28.160 --> 2:29:33.279 included Defend Atlanta Police Department, Refusal Communities, the Atlanta Sunrise movement, 2:29:33.400 --> 2:29:36.720 community movement builders, the South River Forest Coalition, A World 2:29:36.760 --> 2:29:39.920 Without Police, and the autonomous organizers working under the banner 2:29:40.040 --> 2:29:45.120 of Defend the Forest. Organizers spread informational flyers and online graphics, 2:29:45.400 --> 2:29:49.760 conducted interviews, knocked on doors, and organized phone in campaigns 2:29:49.840 --> 2:29:52.560 during subsequent city council meetings that were still held on 2:29:52.680 --> 2:29:57.280 zoom because of coronavirus related restrictions. Through in August and September, 2:29:57.480 --> 2:30:01.439 the Stop Cop City Coalition and others worked to introduce 2:30:01.520 --> 2:30:05.760 tension and clog up the city council process, digging cues 2:30:05.879 --> 2:30:08.240 from the protest outside the home of Joyce Shepherd, which 2:30:08.240 --> 2:30:10.880 resulted in the vote being delayed for over two months. 2:30:11.480 --> 2:30:14.640 Protesters gathered outside the homes of possible yes voters on 2:30:14.680 --> 2:30:16.640 the nights that the vote was related to take place, 2:30:17.080 --> 2:30:20.920 causing further delays in the entire process got pushed back 2:30:21.040 --> 2:30:25.640 from August into September, so again, another another delay. Briefly 2:30:25.720 --> 2:30:27.720 it seemed like there was a possibility that the Stop 2:30:27.800 --> 2:30:31.600 Cop City campaign might be victorious before the end of summer. 2:30:32.320 --> 2:30:34.880 Votes on the groundle sordidents were repeatedly delayed because of 2:30:34.959 --> 2:30:38.200 these objections and demonstrations at the homes of Atlanta Chief 2:30:38.320 --> 2:30:44.280 Operations Officer John Keene and City Councilwoman Madeline Archibond. Eventually, 2:30:44.360 --> 2:30:48.240 September seven was set as the final vote day. Seventeen 2:30:48.280 --> 2:30:51.520 hours of pre recorded comments from over one thousand Atlanta 2:30:51.560 --> 2:30:54.840 residents delayed the discussion. Due to the sheer number of 2:30:54.920 --> 2:30:57.879 public comments, the vote got pushed back another day as 2:30:58.040 --> 2:31:01.279 Sydney Council members spent most of Tuesday and Wednesday listening 2:31:01.360 --> 2:31:05.400 to the playback. After months of organizing, community outreach and 2:31:05.480 --> 2:31:09.359 public education efforts from these top Cops City organizers, approximately 2:31:10.160 --> 2:31:13.480 the collars fiercely opposed the proposal, explaining in great detail 2:31:13.520 --> 2:31:16.360 why they are quote unquote representatives should vote it down. 2:31:17.320 --> 2:31:21.039 The minority of callers who supported the Cops City project 2:31:21.200 --> 2:31:24.280 either self identified as residents of the disproportionately white and 2:31:24.360 --> 2:31:28.360 wealthy Buckhead and Northeast Atlanta area or we're just like 2:31:28.600 --> 2:31:31.880 actual cops. Uh. At least thirty officers called in to 2:31:32.000 --> 2:31:33.960 say that they support the instruction of the forest to 2:31:34.080 --> 2:31:38.280 end the building of Cops City. Big big shocker, the 2:31:38.360 --> 2:31:42.160 cops what Cops City pro Cops City collars invoked the 2:31:42.440 --> 2:31:46.080 false crime wave narrative propagated after the George Floyd uprising 2:31:46.640 --> 2:31:49.280 and used the language of so called white flight by 2:31:49.400 --> 2:31:52.200 threatening to leave the city if something wasn't done to 2:31:52.280 --> 2:31:57.520 stop the growing crime wave. Uh And Yet, when the 2:31:57.640 --> 2:32:01.800 seventeen hours of public comments ended and the council's discussion began, 2:32:02.200 --> 2:32:05.400 council members largely failed to acknowledge the hours of public 2:32:05.520 --> 2:32:07.840 comment that they had just spent two days listening to, 2:32:08.720 --> 2:32:12.080 much less acknowledged the far ranging movement that produced such 2:32:12.240 --> 2:32:16.840 overwhelming public discontent, quoting crime think again quote as those 2:32:16.879 --> 2:32:20.440 who study revolutionary movements, No, the police perform an essential 2:32:20.520 --> 2:32:24.480 function in class society, without which many other hierarchies and 2:32:24.640 --> 2:32:28.240 exportitive relations could not exist for very long. This is 2:32:28.280 --> 2:32:30.640 not simply an economic or civic issue that can be 2:32:30.760 --> 2:32:33.440 worked around with some clever ideas in a bit of 2:32:33.480 --> 2:32:37.800 pressure unquote. Despite the efforts of organizers, which culminated in 2:32:38.160 --> 2:32:42.800 seventeen hours of primarily oppositional public comment, the ordinance was 2:32:42.920 --> 2:32:46.880 passed on September eight, while the police arrested protesters outside 2:32:46.879 --> 2:32:51.000 the home of councilwoman Madaline Archibong about an hour before 2:32:51.040 --> 2:32:53.680 the final vote took place. During the Council's final session 2:32:53.760 --> 2:32:56.920 on September eight, the City Council voted by a margin 2:32:57.080 --> 2:32:58.800 of ten to four for the creation of the ninety 2:32:58.840 --> 2:33:02.240 million dollar facility, handing over almost four acres of for 2:33:02.360 --> 2:33:06.119 us to the Atlanta Police Foundation. Obviously, many folks were 2:33:06.640 --> 2:33:10.280 pretty disappointed and kind of demoralized about this. UH. Some 2:33:10.520 --> 2:33:14.199 turned their frustrated energy into the upcoming local elections, hoping 2:33:14.280 --> 2:33:17.160 that the city government may be stacked with abolitionist or 2:33:17.760 --> 2:33:21.480 progressive candidates that might strike down the project. Mayor Bottoms 2:33:21.480 --> 2:33:23.520 did not end up running for re election, and the 2:33:23.640 --> 2:33:27.360 former mayor of Mayor Read lost to the now current Mayor, 2:33:27.560 --> 2:33:30.680 Andre dickens Um. I do think it's really funny that 2:33:31.720 --> 2:33:33.960 the old mayor of Atlanta was Mayor Bottoms and the 2:33:34.000 --> 2:33:37.680 new and the new mayor is Mayor dickens Um. Anyway, UH, 2:33:37.840 --> 2:33:40.800 City Councilwoman Joyce Shepard, who introduced the Cops City Plan, 2:33:41.000 --> 2:33:44.000 also lost her campaign for re election. But since the 2:33:44.080 --> 2:33:47.840 elections in November, nothing has actually changed regarding the black 2:33:47.920 --> 2:33:50.680 Hole and Cops City developments are nothing has changed on 2:33:50.800 --> 2:33:55.040 the electoral front. There's there's no indication of electoral strategi 2:33:55.040 --> 2:33:59.160 as being impactful, and thankfully not everyone focused their efforts 2:33:59.200 --> 2:34:01.880 on electoral ref warm. I'll leave you today with this 2:34:01.959 --> 2:34:04.720 sentiment that I kept hearing during my stay in the forest. 2:34:05.760 --> 2:34:09.000 When you criminalize a non violent direct action, the end 2:34:09.080 --> 2:34:12.240 goes away. On the final day of the vote, people 2:34:12.320 --> 2:34:15.400 went and protested outside a city council member's house, and 2:34:15.480 --> 2:34:17.959 eleven of them got arrested, despite the fact that they 2:34:18.000 --> 2:34:21.560 were already dispersing and following orders. During the top line 2:34:21.640 --> 2:34:24.680 three movement, people were receiving felony theft charges for using 2:34:24.720 --> 2:34:28.200 lock boxes to attach themselves onto construction equipment um, which 2:34:28.280 --> 2:34:31.160 of recent hasn't even really been an effective strategy resulting 2:34:31.160 --> 2:34:34.080 in any material winds. But if they're going to arrest 2:34:34.120 --> 2:34:36.440 you for standing outside of a politician's house and give 2:34:36.480 --> 2:34:39.240 you charges, you may as well consider doing something a 2:34:39.280 --> 2:34:42.360 bit more spicy. If you're gonna get felonies for basic 2:34:42.480 --> 2:34:45.680 non violent direct action like locking yourself onto machinery, you 2:34:45.800 --> 2:34:48.440 may as well light that machinery on fire. When non 2:34:48.560 --> 2:34:51.560 violent direct action result in felony charges, if they're going 2:34:51.640 --> 2:34:54.120 to criminalize standing outside of a politician's house and holding 2:34:54.160 --> 2:34:56.640 a sign, then going into the forest and doing monkey 2:34:56.680 --> 2:35:00.920 wrenching suddenly becomes a very similar consequence level, and the 2:35:01.000 --> 2:35:03.360 action that can be done in secret turns out to 2:35:03.480 --> 2:35:06.760 be actually a bit easier to get away with. The 2:35:06.800 --> 2:35:08.959 funny thing is is that this is the state's fault, 2:35:09.040 --> 2:35:12.920 not anyone else's fault. When state repression against public non 2:35:13.000 --> 2:35:17.119 destructive tactics increases, then what happens is the less public 2:35:17.240 --> 2:35:20.720 and more fiery tactics, which in this movement we're already present. 2:35:21.320 --> 2:35:24.120 We'll just end up becoming more and more prominent and 2:35:24.200 --> 2:35:27.680 even more integral to keep the movement going. In the 2:35:27.840 --> 2:35:30.560 next episode, we'll hear about how the more radical folks 2:35:30.640 --> 2:35:33.640 continue to defend the forest after the vote, and you'll 2:35:33.680 --> 2:35:36.360 hear a lot more from the force defenders that I interviewed. 2:35:36.959 --> 2:35:39.800 And finally, if you can please head to Atlanta if 2:35:39.800 --> 2:35:42.039 you're able to, for the upcoming week of action from 2:35:42.120 --> 2:35:45.640 A eight through. More boots on the ground are crucial 2:35:45.800 --> 2:35:49.080 as the large scale destruction of the forest is becoming 2:35:49.200 --> 2:35:52.120 more and more imminent. You can go to Defend the 2:35:52.200 --> 2:35:55.959 Atlanta Forest dot com and scenes dot no blogs dot 2:35:56.080 --> 2:35:59.040 org for more information. See you on the other side. 2:36:13.000 --> 2:36:16.560 Welcome back to it could happen here. I'm Garrison Davis 2:36:16.720 --> 2:36:19.200 and this is part two of the two part mini 2:36:19.280 --> 2:36:22.560 series on the Defended the Forest Movement in Atlanta, Georgia. 2:36:23.520 --> 2:36:26.080 Last month, I traveled to Atlanta to stay a week 2:36:26.160 --> 2:36:28.560 in the woods and talk with some of the Forest offenders. 2:36:29.080 --> 2:36:31.480 In the previous episode, I covered the movement from its 2:36:31.520 --> 2:36:34.240 inception to where the city council approved the Cops City 2:36:34.320 --> 2:36:37.320 project near the end of last summer. I went over 2:36:37.440 --> 2:36:40.800 a lot of historical background between the land itself and 2:36:40.879 --> 2:36:45.440 the history there, the increasing gentrification of Atlanta, how the 2:36:45.520 --> 2:36:48.680 movement pulled the veil off the secretive plans for Cops 2:36:48.680 --> 2:36:51.560 City and pushed it into the public spotlight. We talked 2:36:51.560 --> 2:36:54.120 about the early days of sabotage and the targeting of 2:36:54.200 --> 2:36:57.720 individuals and positions of power. Basically, I did a lot 2:36:57.800 --> 2:37:00.760 of a lot of talking, maybe maybe too much talking. 2:37:01.480 --> 2:37:04.280 This episode will be more led by the discussions with 2:37:04.360 --> 2:37:07.720 Forest offenders that I had during my weeklong excursion to 2:37:07.959 --> 2:37:11.000 the woods. We'll learn about how the movement evolved in 2:37:11.080 --> 2:37:13.480 the wake of the city council vote up until the 2:37:13.640 --> 2:37:17.320 current state of affairs. One thing that makes to Defend 2:37:17.360 --> 2:37:21.160 the Atlanta Forest Movement very different from previous eco defense 2:37:21.200 --> 2:37:23.800 projects in recent memory is that it's right in the 2:37:23.840 --> 2:37:27.160 middle of a sprawling metropolitan area. Right outside the forest 2:37:27.360 --> 2:37:30.520 is an Amazon facility. Downtown Atlanta is just a ten 2:37:30.640 --> 2:37:33.840 minute drive away. We'll be talking tactics a bit later 2:37:33.959 --> 2:37:36.400 on in the episode, but just the simple nature of 2:37:36.480 --> 2:37:40.040 doing a forest equo defense project while still inside the 2:37:40.120 --> 2:37:44.240 city gives a lot of pretty interesting tactical opportunities. You 2:37:44.320 --> 2:37:47.119 have to selectively use some of the older, more rule 2:37:47.240 --> 2:37:50.520 equo defensive strategies while having the backing of a city 2:37:50.600 --> 2:37:54.560 based mutual aid network. There's the option of rapid response 2:37:54.640 --> 2:37:58.119 popular mobilization that city based protests can have but are 2:37:58.560 --> 2:38:01.920 more challenging for equatif and stuff that's like three hours 2:38:02.000 --> 2:38:04.960 into the middle of nowhere. For the people camping in 2:38:05.040 --> 2:38:07.800 the forest, they can easily get supplies or switch out 2:38:07.879 --> 2:38:10.240 who's staying in the woods and who's living in the city. 2:38:11.000 --> 2:38:15.240 The combination of forest and urban prompts and necessitates the 2:38:15.440 --> 2:38:19.240 crucial experimentation and innovation that's been badly needed in eco 2:38:19.280 --> 2:38:22.880 defense projects and protests for the past decade. There's a 2:38:22.959 --> 2:38:25.080 lot of trains to go by here. It's really pretty, 2:38:25.560 --> 2:38:28.440 so it's definitely the most urban forest defen I've ever 2:38:28.520 --> 2:38:31.880 been a partner. But it's really beautiful and unique to 2:38:32.000 --> 2:38:35.880 see a lot of urban the city be able to 2:38:35.959 --> 2:38:38.560 be involved and like urban tactics kind of mixing with 2:38:39.400 --> 2:38:43.640 yet more traditional, more earth firsty forest tactics. It's kind 2:38:43.680 --> 2:38:45.440 of like the rule book and a lot of people 2:38:45.480 --> 2:38:48.879 saying this like it's repeated, the quote unquote rule book 2:38:48.920 --> 2:38:52.760 for how to indeede with the multiple enemies in this 2:38:52.959 --> 2:38:56.240 area has been like chewed up, spit out, shadow and 2:38:56.400 --> 2:38:58.960 burnt over because it we're kind of doing something that 2:38:59.160 --> 2:39:02.400 doesn't really happened a lot. Something similar I can think 2:39:02.440 --> 2:39:05.400 of is the Sacred Old Grove that was being protected 2:39:06.160 --> 2:39:10.480 in Minneapolis in the late nineties maybe thousands, and that 2:39:10.760 --> 2:39:15.200 was another kind of anarchists alliance at the big earth 2:39:15.320 --> 2:39:18.000 first presence. But that's kind of one of the more 2:39:18.160 --> 2:39:21.800 urban in this part of Turtle Island struggles I can 2:39:21.879 --> 2:39:23.840 think of like this, but this is unlike anything I've 2:39:23.879 --> 2:39:28.240 ever I think. Another interesting part is like a lot 2:39:28.280 --> 2:39:31.680 of force defense stuff is focused on like old growth, 2:39:31.840 --> 2:39:35.400 being like we should defend it because it's old growth. Yeah, 2:39:35.480 --> 2:39:37.120 this is not an old growth. For this is like 2:39:37.200 --> 2:39:42.480 a messy, dirty um confusing. I've gotten lost so many times. 2:39:43.120 --> 2:39:46.680 It's yeah, I just did there's tires, there's barrels where 2:39:46.680 --> 2:39:48.200 it was built. On the prison farm, you'll find like 2:39:48.280 --> 2:39:50.640 old portions of the prison which is incredibly fucked up 2:39:50.640 --> 2:39:52.760 and haunted, right, Like in terms of like haunting is 2:39:52.800 --> 2:39:54.800 like there's the specter of what used to be there. 2:39:55.160 --> 2:39:57.160 Police are trying to build over it with their more 2:39:57.400 --> 2:39:59.800 like a bomb range, right, It's like that's very much 2:39:59.879 --> 2:40:04.040 like they're just building over the thing. Um. But it 2:40:04.120 --> 2:40:06.600 doesn't need to be old growth to be worth defending. 2:40:06.800 --> 2:40:09.560 And that's an idea that I think people need to 2:40:09.680 --> 2:40:12.720 understand more, is like it has value even if it's 2:40:12.879 --> 2:40:15.640 not like five hundred years old. Like it has value 2:40:15.720 --> 2:40:19.160 despite not despite being one hundred year old old forest, 2:40:19.200 --> 2:40:21.160 and it's about because it is in one forests. Like 2:40:21.160 --> 2:40:23.440 it has value because it is a forest in a city, 2:40:23.920 --> 2:40:28.199 and that's something that's worth like emphasizing. Yeah, I also 2:40:28.320 --> 2:40:30.119 think that's cool. And like people talk a lot about 2:40:30.120 --> 2:40:33.000 like invasive plants and there's like I think the Brandford 2:40:33.040 --> 2:40:35.320 pairs in this forest are a really interesting example. There 2:40:35.360 --> 2:40:37.360 are these trees that are like feral. They used to 2:40:37.440 --> 2:40:40.000 be part like planted here when it was a um 2:40:41.040 --> 2:40:44.840 the farm plantation or whatever, and um those trees are 2:40:44.879 --> 2:40:49.080 fucking spiky, fine trees. They're spiking ship. Well but you know, 2:40:49.160 --> 2:40:51.000 the good news is they're awful, and the bad news 2:40:51.080 --> 2:40:53.520 is they're awful. Like I know where there are when 2:40:53.560 --> 2:40:57.000 I halass in the forest, I usually don't get Bradford 2:40:57.000 --> 2:41:00.480 pair in my eye, but um, but some chasing the 2:41:00.840 --> 2:41:03.440 cap well yeah, and and so it's just it's cool 2:41:03.520 --> 2:41:05.600 to kind of interact with all these things and get 2:41:05.640 --> 2:41:07.920 to choose how you want to interact and like, yeah, 2:41:07.920 --> 2:41:11.959 it is a um you know, I think it's interesting. 2:41:12.080 --> 2:41:15.600 It's not yeah, like a traditional forest or like whatever 2:41:15.720 --> 2:41:19.080 forest that people would value in that way. Um, but 2:41:19.320 --> 2:41:22.960 for me, I connect to it, I think even more 2:41:23.080 --> 2:41:25.320 than that, because it's not this like held up is 2:41:25.400 --> 2:41:27.960 this thing of like purity, like they fucking buildoz and 2:41:28.080 --> 2:41:30.920 like a month later that ship was overgrown. You couldn't 2:41:30.920 --> 2:41:33.680 see it again. And that was all quote unquote invasive 2:41:33.800 --> 2:41:36.360 plants like whatever funk that means, which is often that's 2:41:36.360 --> 2:41:38.959 the whole thing. They're often racialized plants. You know. It's 2:41:39.400 --> 2:41:44.200 it's almost like a punk forest. It's like we're surrounded 2:41:44.240 --> 2:41:48.120 by enemies. And that is the problem is, um, they 2:41:48.200 --> 2:41:50.680 see this as a cess pool, and something I talked 2:41:50.680 --> 2:41:52.440 to a lot of liberals about, like when they're taught, 2:41:52.440 --> 2:41:54.240 we're talking them about defend the forest, like, oh, is 2:41:54.280 --> 2:41:58.240 it a pristine wilderness with large old growth trees, and like, 2:41:58.360 --> 2:42:01.080 you know what, that would be cool. The problem is 2:42:01.280 --> 2:42:03.800 this forest needs to be allowed to return to that 2:42:04.000 --> 2:42:06.920 because there's been so much abuse and part of like 2:42:07.000 --> 2:42:08.840 whether I don't know what it means to quote unquote 2:42:08.879 --> 2:42:10.960 win or lose, but there's a lot of little winds 2:42:11.040 --> 2:42:12.720 and losses all along the way, and we've had a 2:42:12.760 --> 2:42:15.000 lot of winds. There is some big cheese that are 2:42:15.040 --> 2:42:17.560 left in the forest. They're legally supposed to leave all 2:42:17.600 --> 2:42:23.760 the big trees by the creek, But from what historical um, president, 2:42:24.000 --> 2:42:27.080 do we trust the cops to quote unquote be accountable 2:42:27.120 --> 2:42:29.760 to anyone? I don't know where we're thinking that. I've 2:42:29.800 --> 2:42:31.240 I've had a lot of people be like, oh, some 2:42:31.320 --> 2:42:33.800 of these three houses are strategic. Then in the spots 2:42:33.840 --> 2:42:36.720 they can't cut, and I cannot. Friends. I've looked at 2:42:36.760 --> 2:42:38.680 the map and it looks like this whole motherfucking play 2:42:38.720 --> 2:42:42.160 is Society for clear Cutting. Exactly one month after the 2:42:42.200 --> 2:42:44.840 city council voted to approve the land Ley's ordinance for 2:42:44.959 --> 2:42:47.920 cops City that defend the force slogan was put to 2:42:48.040 --> 2:42:54.480 the test. On October, contractors and land survey workers showed 2:42:54.560 --> 2:42:57.040 up around the forest and appeared to be clearing land 2:42:57.160 --> 2:43:01.119 to take reference photos and collect soil sample. Two dozen 2:43:01.200 --> 2:43:04.000 force defenders emerged from the woods and confronted the workers. 2:43:04.560 --> 2:43:07.199 The people hired to destroy the forest fled the work site, 2:43:07.520 --> 2:43:10.720 and after they left, police surveillance tower in the area 2:43:10.920 --> 2:43:13.640 was toppled and the force defenders were able to disperse 2:43:13.959 --> 2:43:17.640 with no arrests. Ten days later, a similar turn of 2:43:17.680 --> 2:43:21.160 events took place. A group of survey workers and construction 2:43:21.200 --> 2:43:24.160 teams were on site. Again, a small group of rapid 2:43:24.200 --> 2:43:27.800 response Force defenders disrupted the surveying and ground clearing at 2:43:27.840 --> 2:43:31.120 the old Atlanta Prison Farm. Simply the mere threat of 2:43:31.280 --> 2:43:34.680 an on site protest shut down construction for the whole day. 2:43:35.280 --> 2:43:38.560 Key access points for machinery were blocked using available materials 2:43:38.680 --> 2:43:42.720 like piles of nearby tires, preventing vehicular machinery from moving 2:43:42.840 --> 2:43:47.120 freely through the destruction site. No construction occurred, despite the 2:43:47.200 --> 2:43:51.119 attempts of the Decab County Police and the Atlanta Police Department, 2:43:51.200 --> 2:43:54.520 who mobilized twenty vehicles in the vicinity of the forest 2:43:54.920 --> 2:43:58.280 in an effort to prevent the protest or punish the participants. 2:43:59.000 --> 2:44:00.680 By the end of the day, no was arrested, and 2:44:00.800 --> 2:44:04.840 yet again, select monitoring systems and police surveillance towers were 2:44:04.920 --> 2:44:09.760 toppled and dismantled. A statement released online from anonymous force 2:44:09.840 --> 2:44:13.640 defenders read quote, this war will be one, one battle 2:44:13.720 --> 2:44:16.720 at a time. Pressure must continue in a variety of 2:44:16.800 --> 2:44:20.760 ways to halt all construction. It became clear that for 2:44:20.920 --> 2:44:23.680 the next phase of the struggle to defend the force, 2:44:23.760 --> 2:44:27.119 people would have to directly target and oppose the contracting 2:44:27.160 --> 2:44:30.720 companies hired to decimate the woods and build the facilities. 2:44:31.680 --> 2:44:33.680 Today we know of at least three companies that have 2:44:33.760 --> 2:44:36.680 been contracted by the Atlanta Police Foundation to do work 2:44:36.800 --> 2:44:40.280 on the old prison farm land. Some of the surveying 2:44:40.320 --> 2:44:43.920 work appears to be done by Long Engineering, and two companies, 2:44:44.160 --> 2:44:47.480 Reeves Young Construction and brass Field and Gory, were hired 2:44:47.520 --> 2:44:50.400 to do grounds clearing and early construction. It is not 2:44:50.600 --> 2:44:53.360 yet clear who will be contracted to clear the land 2:44:53.440 --> 2:44:56.600 in Entrenchment Creek Park, where Black Hole Studios hopes to 2:44:56.680 --> 2:45:00.520 expand their sound stage again quoting the crime Think article 2:45:00.760 --> 2:45:03.400 the City in the Forest Reinventing Resistance for an age 2:45:03.440 --> 2:45:07.600 of climate crisis and police militarization quote. The information that 2:45:07.720 --> 2:45:10.480 is known to date was hard won by diligent activists 2:45:10.680 --> 2:45:14.240 on the ground. Shortly after the city council voted in September, 2:45:14.640 --> 2:45:18.040 surveyors and small work crews began entering the site near 2:45:18.160 --> 2:45:22.160 two key roads. The trucks and uniforms revealed the names 2:45:22.200 --> 2:45:25.200 of the contractors, which once again gave opponents of the 2:45:25.320 --> 2:45:28.160 Cops City project a chance to initiate a struggle on 2:45:28.280 --> 2:45:32.440 their own terms. Had the force defenders utilized only virtual 2:45:32.640 --> 2:45:35.840 or bureaucratic channels to collect information, they might not have 2:45:35.959 --> 2:45:38.040 learned that Reeves Young were being called in to do 2:45:38.120 --> 2:45:41.280 the actual destruction until it was publicly announced much later. 2:45:41.959 --> 2:45:44.040 The ability to break news to the public before the 2:45:44.080 --> 2:45:47.680 city government has been a consistent advantage in trying to 2:45:47.800 --> 2:45:50.320 keep the momentum of the movement going. Post the city 2:45:50.360 --> 2:45:53.560 council vote, a second week of action was planned for November, 2:45:53.840 --> 2:45:59.560 albeit with some new twists. From November tenth through, various 2:45:59.600 --> 2:46:04.000 groups organized a wide range of cultural events, info nits, bonfires, 2:46:04.120 --> 2:46:06.960 and meetings for this Week of Action. Many of these 2:46:07.000 --> 2:46:10.480 events occurred in or near a publicly advertised encampment on 2:46:10.600 --> 2:46:14.520 the Entrenchment Creek Park side of the forest. Days after 2:46:14.600 --> 2:46:17.560 the second Week of Action, thirty people converged on the 2:46:17.720 --> 2:46:21.800 Reeves Young Construction headquarters in sugar Hill, Georgia, forty miles 2:46:21.840 --> 2:46:25.880 outside of Atlanta, holding banners and demanding that the company 2:46:25.959 --> 2:46:29.120 severed their contract with the Atlanta Police Foundation. The group 2:46:29.200 --> 2:46:31.520 was able to walk right into the offices, disrupting a 2:46:31.600 --> 2:46:37.080 board meeting involving company president Dean Reeves and CEO Eric Young. Initially, 2:46:37.120 --> 2:46:40.200 the executives tried to keep their cool, but in short 2:46:40.280 --> 2:46:43.640 time the businessmen started getting more annoyed and eventually violence 2:46:43.680 --> 2:46:47.560 towards the protest. There was a protest that it was 2:46:47.720 --> 2:46:51.600 at the Reeves Young office. Went into the office, Disrand 2:46:51.959 --> 2:46:55.360 disrupted a board member meeting that happened to have a 2:46:55.560 --> 2:46:58.520 lot of the people who were like seers and chairman 2:46:58.640 --> 2:47:05.520 there and um, from what I gather as a brawl. Yeah, 2:47:05.879 --> 2:47:10.840 I know, there's reports of the Reeves CEO guy like 2:47:10.959 --> 2:47:15.800 punching punching protesters. There's a joke that a worker puts 2:47:15.840 --> 2:47:18.800 someone a guillotine, and I love the version of these 2:47:18.840 --> 2:47:29.680 workers doing ww referred to love We'll love from more 2:47:29.760 --> 2:47:32.200 cop fights fights with cops to just be w W 2:47:32.320 --> 2:47:45.720 E style match. Disrupting the board of meeting was another 2:47:45.800 --> 2:47:49.240 successful step in the goal of applying direct confrontational pressure 2:47:49.480 --> 2:47:54.600 to the Atlanta Police foundations contracted construction service providers. Days later, 2:47:54.920 --> 2:47:59.200 two more bulldozers were lit on fire entertaining about the 2:48:01.240 --> 2:48:10.600 road and sit. We got two construction vehicles all involved 2:48:10.879 --> 2:48:14.680 in the till Radio quid and simpedia my location as well. 2:48:15.280 --> 2:48:20.039 There this equipment was located on the land swap parcel 2:48:20.120 --> 2:48:23.600 by Black Hall Studios, the planned future location of quote 2:48:23.720 --> 2:48:28.760 Michelle Obama Park unquote. These were the eleventh and twelve 2:48:28.879 --> 2:48:32.280 pieces of heavy machinery to be sabotaged, and I think 2:48:32.400 --> 2:48:36.640 now we're at like around twenty five, which is a 2:48:36.720 --> 2:48:41.080 lot um. The anonymous communicate this time was short and 2:48:41.240 --> 2:48:44.400 to the point, quote we burnt two bulldozers in the 2:48:44.520 --> 2:48:48.240 South Atlanta forest. No coups city, no Hollywood dystopia, defend 2:48:48.280 --> 2:48:52.840 the Atlanta Forest on top of the more publicly advertised 2:48:52.959 --> 2:48:56.440 encampment at Entrenchmant Creek Park. Around the second week of action, 2:48:56.600 --> 2:48:59.920 a small cluster force defenders set up a secondary, more 2:49:00.160 --> 2:49:03.520 secretive encampment on a stretch of woods in the old 2:49:03.560 --> 2:49:07.880 Atlanta prison Farm. Again quoting the crimes article quote, a 2:49:07.959 --> 2:49:11.600 few dozen people pitched tents, erected harps and makeshift kitchens, 2:49:11.920 --> 2:49:16.119 hung banners, and constructed a bonafid protest camp in the woods. 2:49:17.040 --> 2:49:19.760 Establishing a semi permanent presence in the forest was a 2:49:19.800 --> 2:49:23.000 way to gather information on an ongoing basis and to 2:49:23.120 --> 2:49:29.920 provide an immediate deterrent to developers. So I was involved 2:49:29.959 --> 2:49:34.680 in the original occupation of the forest. There was a 2:49:34.800 --> 2:49:40.000 group of individuals who many of whom we're housing and secure, 2:49:40.280 --> 2:49:44.200 and we're like, we need fucking housing, and like there's 2:49:44.240 --> 2:49:46.560 this struggle and we believe in it and a fight 2:49:46.640 --> 2:49:49.400 in it, and so we moved to the fucking woods 2:49:49.760 --> 2:49:55.280 and we've lived in these woods. Official time is six 2:49:55.400 --> 2:49:58.520 weeks that we were in the woods, and we had 2:49:58.560 --> 2:50:01.720 a higher quality of life, been like many people who 2:50:02.440 --> 2:50:06.080 lived in houses and apartments. We had the nicest kitchen 2:50:06.280 --> 2:50:12.240 of anyone we knew we had. Yeah, we had armchairs 2:50:12.480 --> 2:50:16.240 and couches and fire pits and we you know, we 2:50:16.360 --> 2:50:18.440 had more food than we knew what to do with. 2:50:18.920 --> 2:50:23.720 And so we just started feeding people, and like we 2:50:23.879 --> 2:50:27.360 created a social space that allowed the movement to drow 2:50:28.160 --> 2:50:31.240 simply because we're like, well, we need these needs man 2:50:31.560 --> 2:50:34.040 in our lives. Don't we go do that? And that 2:50:34.240 --> 2:50:38.080 like evolved over time. A little over a month after 2:50:38.160 --> 2:50:41.800 the more secretive encampment was established, about a dozen protesters, 2:50:42.040 --> 2:50:44.960 some bearing witch hats, marched to the gate of Black 2:50:45.040 --> 2:50:48.800 Hole Studios on Constitution Road and blocked the main entrance. 2:50:49.560 --> 2:50:53.640 A communicate posted online read quote iconic spells for destruction 2:50:53.720 --> 2:50:57.080 were loudly chanted at black Halls general direction as the 2:50:57.160 --> 2:51:01.160 witch block held hands, cackled and skipped the sun wise direction, 2:51:01.560 --> 2:51:05.760 blocking Black Hole studios main entrance. Smoke torches were lit. 2:51:06.879 --> 2:51:10.959 Approximately one hour post which block antics, the Cab County 2:51:11.040 --> 2:51:13.840 Police responded to a call made by Black Hole Studios 2:51:14.240 --> 2:51:17.520 saying that they quote followed the protesters into the woods 2:51:17.760 --> 2:51:21.640 and deduced an encampment they came upon must belong to 2:51:21.760 --> 2:51:28.600 the apparent witches unquote, which is quite the sentence. Shortly after, 2:51:28.760 --> 2:51:32.200 a large contingent of police raided the forest, evicting the 2:51:32.320 --> 2:51:39.960 protest camp established there. There was at one point and 2:51:40.920 --> 2:51:49.000 help a demonstration outside of Black Holes outside of black 2:51:49.080 --> 2:52:00.480 Holes site and they express the discontent. Yeah, an entirely 2:52:00.560 --> 2:52:03.160 like peaceful protests at Black Hall Studios. That was like 2:52:03.840 --> 2:52:06.720 just kind of standing in like the front gate where 2:52:06.879 --> 2:52:10.840 employees leave and enter UM and generally doing stuff like 2:52:10.879 --> 2:52:14.720 bringing American flags, holding signs like um and just like 2:52:14.840 --> 2:52:18.160 taking up space and making the actual interns and leaving 2:52:18.240 --> 2:52:24.080 of the facility like less doable. And their response was 2:52:25.000 --> 2:52:27.880 for a Black Hall to lie and so like the 2:52:28.040 --> 2:52:31.800 camp and Cammon wasn't trespassing on their property which was 2:52:31.840 --> 2:52:34.640 actually in place in of like a public park, Um 2:52:34.879 --> 2:52:41.960 and orchestrated with the police to evict Um. And they 2:52:42.080 --> 2:52:46.160 orchestraed with the police to do like a pretty like 2:52:46.879 --> 2:52:51.400 intense eviction for like. But it was essentially we were, 2:52:51.560 --> 2:52:55.520 what a moment to a homeless camp living there, and 2:52:56.320 --> 2:53:01.240 they had two helicopters circling more police that I could count. 2:53:01.320 --> 2:53:04.040 They were throwing our ship into dump trucks and like 2:53:05.879 --> 2:53:09.760 actively like pursuing people through the woods. It was like 2:53:10.680 --> 2:53:15.360 an absolutely I mean it was like like very like 2:53:15.720 --> 2:53:19.360 visible show of force against us. Quoting the crime Thing 2:53:19.480 --> 2:53:22.320 article again quote at the urging of Black Hall, the 2:53:22.400 --> 2:53:25.920 cab County Police entered the forest on mass mobilizing police 2:53:25.959 --> 2:53:29.040 cruisers and the parking lot officers on foot, helicopters and 2:53:29.120 --> 2:53:33.359 drones overhead, and unmarked vehicles in the streets. The officers 2:53:33.400 --> 2:53:36.440 were likely intimidated by the low visibility to rain. In 2:53:36.640 --> 2:53:39.200 any event, all of the force defenders based in the 2:53:39.320 --> 2:53:43.080 encampment escaped without being detained. This was the first time 2:53:43.280 --> 2:53:46.119 a concerted effort was made by law enforcement to engage 2:53:46.160 --> 2:53:50.480 protesters in the South River Forest. And to be honest, 2:53:50.520 --> 2:53:52.520 it was a fucking pain in the ass and it 2:53:52.640 --> 2:53:57.000 was a traumatizing event. And that is all true. But 2:53:57.120 --> 2:54:01.160 it's also even we learned from and like we got 2:54:01.280 --> 2:54:05.120 a pretty good idea of like ap d s and 2:54:05.400 --> 2:54:09.800 like they have counties, uh like capabilities, and like how 2:54:10.000 --> 2:54:14.040 they are like surveilling things protests and how they're surveilling 2:54:14.160 --> 2:54:16.920 camps and like how they figured out where we were, 2:54:17.240 --> 2:54:20.320 and like what triggered them to act against us, and 2:54:20.440 --> 2:54:24.279 like that's allowed us to move in far more confident 2:54:24.360 --> 2:54:30.880 ways that are also far more subversive. It's really interesting 2:54:31.040 --> 2:54:35.440 that you know, just like when they make it, you know, 2:54:35.720 --> 2:54:41.000 illegal to do n v d AH, whenever they attack 2:54:41.320 --> 2:54:45.119 like that and do these really violent raids that put 2:54:45.200 --> 2:54:47.920 people in like awful positions and like traumatize the ship 2:54:47.920 --> 2:54:51.720 out of people. They are teaching us how to fight back. 2:54:51.840 --> 2:54:54.840 They are showing us their weaknesses, and in a really 2:54:55.040 --> 2:54:57.960 ironic way, the next time they come in and they 2:54:58.080 --> 2:55:00.440 suck it up because people know it to a spects, 2:55:00.800 --> 2:55:03.119 it will be a monster of their own making, because 2:55:03.200 --> 2:55:07.960 like for every one step of aggression that they take, 2:55:08.040 --> 2:55:11.120 that's two steps further we can take towards them with 2:55:11.280 --> 2:55:14.680 everything that we learned from the struggle. And obviously this 2:55:14.879 --> 2:55:17.800 forest is really beautiful and the more time I spend here, 2:55:17.879 --> 2:55:20.000 the more I feel connected to it and driven to 2:55:20.120 --> 2:55:23.400 like protect it. But also a big part of it 2:55:23.600 --> 2:55:26.959 for a lot of us is for me is like, um, 2:55:28.560 --> 2:55:31.360 you know, they are doing this for their own morale, 2:55:32.080 --> 2:55:35.920 and so my goal is to make sure they are unhappy. 2:55:36.560 --> 2:55:41.240 And so yeah, even if I uh yeah, even if 2:55:41.280 --> 2:55:44.320 they win, as long as we come back and you 2:55:44.520 --> 2:55:47.120 learn from that and we keep pushing back, you know, 2:55:47.280 --> 2:55:51.320 it is a way of attrition, and um, it is 2:55:51.360 --> 2:55:55.280 about their morale. And like, it doesn't matter if they 2:55:55.320 --> 2:55:58.640 build the police facility. What matters is that every single 2:55:58.840 --> 2:56:03.480 time that the police and moved to recuperate that their losses, 2:56:03.600 --> 2:56:06.279 which they just took a big one, they are faced 2:56:06.320 --> 2:56:10.440 with just unyielding hostility. Um And I think that, like 2:56:10.800 --> 2:56:13.359 that's something that's really important, is that we don't expect 2:56:13.560 --> 2:56:16.600 to not take a lot of owls. Like in the 2:56:16.680 --> 2:56:19.960 forest occupation. We understand the nature of this thing where 2:56:19.959 --> 2:56:25.000 an ecstatic position complice moving around us, but like it's 2:56:25.040 --> 2:56:27.440 a it's about making them fight for every inch the 2:56:27.480 --> 2:56:30.720 best we can. The encampment was just one part of 2:56:30.800 --> 2:56:34.680 a large ongoing fight. Over the course of those six weeks, 2:56:34.840 --> 2:56:37.640 hundreds of people were able to circulate through this camp, 2:56:38.160 --> 2:56:41.840 enjoying meals and performances, making arts together, and spending time 2:56:41.920 --> 2:56:45.680 around campfires, building and sharing a life in the woods. 2:56:46.560 --> 2:56:49.280 After the camp was attacked and structures were destroyed by 2:56:49.320 --> 2:56:53.320 the Cab County Police, land offenders and Atlanta residents mobilized 2:56:53.400 --> 2:56:57.000 quickly to recover camp supplies and belongings and continued on 2:56:57.160 --> 2:57:00.480 with efforts to defend the forest. A great thing about 2:57:00.560 --> 2:57:03.879 these types of free autonomous zones is that they can 2:57:04.000 --> 2:57:07.120 directly demonstrate to people what a free life outside the 2:57:07.200 --> 2:57:10.320 confines of regular society can look like and what it 2:57:10.400 --> 2:57:12.720 can feel like it's not just like we want to 2:57:12.760 --> 2:57:14.440 save the Words and we want to go back to 2:57:14.480 --> 2:57:16.879 our regular ass lives. A lot of us are realizing 2:57:17.000 --> 2:57:19.920 that we're living in the apocalypse and we're just gonna 2:57:20.040 --> 2:57:22.520 we want to keep living like this. It's not just 2:57:22.760 --> 2:57:26.040 this Words, it's not just this police facility, and we 2:57:26.120 --> 2:57:28.960 would want them to not have any more space or 2:57:29.040 --> 2:57:31.760 platform to organize this police, but we might. A lot 2:57:31.800 --> 2:57:33.600 of us want to be free, mean want other people 2:57:33.640 --> 2:57:36.280 that like during the idea of like whatever the funk 2:57:36.320 --> 2:57:39.040 it is, hitchhiking, train happening, living in the woods, the 2:57:39.160 --> 2:57:43.680 fact that it's a fucking crime or considered crazy to 2:57:43.840 --> 2:57:46.160 be the people living in the Words is insane. And 2:57:46.280 --> 2:57:48.440 that's kind of the vivally out from the moscogy for 2:57:48.480 --> 2:57:52.000 access today. They're like our whole world, like we're here 2:57:52.040 --> 2:57:53.880 trying to reclaim our culture because there's a lot of 2:57:53.920 --> 2:57:57.879 hope for saving the land from like an indigenous perspective, 2:57:58.080 --> 2:58:02.640 if people would effects them. And the whole point is 2:58:02.760 --> 2:58:05.920 the US government doesn't actually want them and doesn't actually 2:58:05.959 --> 2:58:09.760 respect them, and reservations are literally have prisoner of war 2:58:09.879 --> 2:58:12.480 numbers because they're hoping by blood quantum if they kill 2:58:12.520 --> 2:58:14.640 these people off, they can take their land back. So 2:58:14.760 --> 2:58:17.560 the whole land back idea of fucking freaks and not anyway. 2:58:18.240 --> 2:58:19.880 We want to save this forest, but it's not just 2:58:19.959 --> 2:58:22.520 about this forest. Were kind of endangered species. We've talked 2:58:22.520 --> 2:58:25.480 about ourselves feeling like deer Like how deer like they'll 2:58:25.480 --> 2:58:27.120 be chilling. They'll be like all around being a deer 2:58:27.160 --> 2:58:30.000 and mating food and they're like, I was on guard, 2:58:30.080 --> 2:58:33.600 you know, to do something else if there's an enemy around. 2:58:33.640 --> 2:58:35.039 It kind of feels that way. I like, it will 2:58:35.040 --> 2:58:37.800 be chilling. Nothing's going on. Also there's cops. But the 2:58:37.879 --> 2:58:40.480 whole point is if it can happen here, ha ha 2:58:40.720 --> 2:58:42.840 did it, it can happen somewhere else. And we help 2:58:42.920 --> 2:58:45.560 to spread the vibe that people not like occupied. What 2:58:45.640 --> 2:58:47.720 a horrible name for a movement, but it's cool that 2:58:47.800 --> 2:58:49.560 that happened at the time that we had made sense. 2:58:49.600 --> 2:58:51.440 We all have nobody knew any better. We know better now, 2:58:51.560 --> 2:58:56.000 that's good, But get the vibe. We're getting this vib 2:58:56.600 --> 2:58:58.680 to like continue this kind of stuff. And obviously there's 2:58:58.720 --> 2:59:01.000 people in all kinds of places, square buildings and do 2:59:01.959 --> 2:59:04.080 all sorts of ship. But the more territory that we 2:59:04.240 --> 2:59:08.120 occupy and control and can help remay trade back to 2:59:08.200 --> 2:59:13.359 indigenous grassroots comrades, not IRA and reorganization, active government sanctioned 2:59:14.200 --> 2:59:18.600 indigenous groups right if they can't not everyone's our ally. 2:59:18.720 --> 2:59:20.840 These have to be ally ships. That makes sense. The 2:59:20.920 --> 2:59:25.320 Muscogee commrades that we're close to, obviously not all of them. 2:59:25.440 --> 2:59:28.840 That some romanticized, generalized bullshit. They said the same ship 2:59:29.000 --> 2:59:30.520 that when we talk to them, they're like even our 2:59:30.560 --> 2:59:33.200 own people betrays sometimes because we're not all the same. 2:59:33.280 --> 2:59:36.280 It's some homogeneous bullshit, and I've seen that play out 2:59:36.320 --> 2:59:38.600 poorly in other places. And like would give the land 2:59:38.640 --> 2:59:43.200 back to the natives and like which natives like people 2:59:43.360 --> 2:59:46.440 were all on the spectrum of conversation and deconization, and 2:59:46.520 --> 2:59:48.560 sad least one of us are further along the lines 2:59:48.600 --> 2:59:53.160 and others. And it's very much on the colonizer's fault 2:59:53.240 --> 2:59:56.360 for doing that. But where we're at is the people, 2:59:58.840 --> 3:00:01.000 the people that feel the called the anarchy, the people 3:00:01.040 --> 3:00:04.879 that feel to call to some kind of radical left orientation. 3:00:05.000 --> 3:00:06.600 They can find it in their hearts and in their 3:00:06.600 --> 3:00:08.480 patients to tolerate each other. And we need to band 3:00:08.520 --> 3:00:12.080 together to come up with better plans because we're all 3:00:12.120 --> 3:00:15.200 we got and it doesn't get better, it's getting worse. 3:00:15.560 --> 3:00:17.840 So hopefully this can be an inspiration for people to 3:00:17.920 --> 3:00:20.560 do other ship. I'm inspired. I'm not from anyway freaking 3:00:20.600 --> 3:00:21.959 near here, but I've been here for a year now 3:00:22.000 --> 3:00:24.880 and i don't want to leave because I'm tired of 3:00:25.000 --> 3:00:27.680 the same old tactics. And I have been a part 3:00:27.760 --> 3:00:30.560 of stuff that has been successful before and I had 3:00:30.600 --> 3:00:33.000 nothing to do with non valid direct action, and I 3:00:33.080 --> 3:00:35.040 have to do time for it, and I know people 3:00:35.800 --> 3:00:38.960 would have done time for it also. And if there's 3:00:38.959 --> 3:00:41.160 any message I can give to the young generation is 3:00:41.240 --> 3:00:44.840 there's no future and it's worth it. And like if 3:00:44.920 --> 3:00:46.840 your future is just like working at nine to five 3:00:46.959 --> 3:00:50.640 and like watching the earth, so they're like shriveling to nothingness, 3:00:50.840 --> 3:00:53.720 I would argue, it's not really a life. Might as 3:00:53.760 --> 3:00:57.080 all well might as well be dead. So I'll hope 3:00:57.120 --> 3:00:59.480 you live. I hope you choose to live. I think 3:00:59.560 --> 3:01:04.360 it's a to the like interesting thing the psychological aspects 3:01:04.440 --> 3:01:09.400 of this, because the first time you do the way 3:01:09.440 --> 3:01:13.680 we're scurcialized in the society is to be obedient and fearful, 3:01:14.360 --> 3:01:18.039 and the first time you do something illegals. The first 3:01:18.120 --> 3:01:22.720 time you do something that you know is against the rope, 3:01:22.720 --> 3:01:25.240 the first time you steal some food, the first time 3:01:25.959 --> 3:01:27.920 you smash the window, the first time you do any 3:01:27.959 --> 3:01:31.880 of that, you're scared. But then you get away with it. 3:01:32.320 --> 3:01:35.040 You realize that this is a thing you can do, 3:01:35.560 --> 3:01:37.960 and I think that the state can't stop you from 3:01:38.040 --> 3:01:43.080 doing and you realize, oh, I can do so much more. 3:01:43.760 --> 3:01:46.560 And once you get over that initial fear, once you 3:01:46.760 --> 3:01:50.640 smashed that window, and you've gotten home and you're like, oh, 3:01:50.720 --> 3:01:53.080 I didn't go to jail for this. But when when 3:01:53.120 --> 3:01:55.440 you like get home and you're like, I have all 3:01:55.560 --> 3:01:58.240 this food now that I didn't have to pay for it, 3:01:58.360 --> 3:02:01.480 you start to realize maybe I don't need to work 3:02:01.520 --> 3:02:05.160 a job. Maybe I don't need to work nine to 3:02:05.240 --> 3:02:11.480 five or you know, five to midnight every day to 3:02:12.440 --> 3:02:16.040 get a job and payper You realize, wait, maybe I 3:02:16.120 --> 3:02:19.360 can just steal the food. Yeah. I've been wanting to 3:02:19.440 --> 3:02:22.760 talk about that for a while. For I want to 3:02:22.800 --> 3:02:27.000 make another Hyper Objects episode UM and talk about the 3:02:27.120 --> 3:02:31.080 anarchist properties of client bottles. UM and I described this 3:02:31.200 --> 3:02:33.400 type of freedom is like it's like how a client 3:02:33.440 --> 3:02:35.560 bottle works, or like a fourth dimensional object. It's like 3:02:35.600 --> 3:02:37.840 you need to in order for there's like this extra 3:02:37.959 --> 3:02:40.840 degree or extra dimension of movement that we usually don't 3:02:40.879 --> 3:02:43.320 think it's possible, but it is actually there if you 3:02:43.480 --> 3:02:46.880 know how to interact with it. UM. And Yeah, it's 3:02:46.920 --> 3:02:50.199 like we're domesticated in so many ways to view here's 3:02:50.200 --> 3:02:52.400 what's possible, here's what's impossible. I have to exist within 3:02:52.480 --> 3:02:54.960 this framework, UM and only doing these things which are 3:02:54.959 --> 3:02:58.600 seen as correct. And there's actually more degrees of freedom 3:02:58.640 --> 3:03:03.160 than that. We just don't often like acknowledge them. But 3:03:03.320 --> 3:03:05.640 you can totally phase through things and you can totally 3:03:05.720 --> 3:03:07.920 find that extra degree of freedom, and once you do, 3:03:08.120 --> 3:03:11.800 that's a super interesting feeling. UM. As opposed to like 3:03:12.160 --> 3:03:15.600 waiting for gay luxury space communism, you can instead do 3:03:15.680 --> 3:03:18.880 like fourth dimensional like hyper anarchism, which gives you so 3:03:19.000 --> 3:03:21.880 much more freedom right now instead of just waiting for 3:03:22.040 --> 3:03:27.120 the communism that will never come and the relationship you build. 3:03:27.959 --> 3:03:31.480 The relationships you build that are based on a trust 3:03:31.760 --> 3:03:35.040 that is, I trust you to have my back, I 3:03:35.160 --> 3:03:38.240 trust you to work with me and do this thing 3:03:39.120 --> 3:03:42.760 is so much deeper than the trust of I guess 3:03:42.800 --> 3:03:46.120 I trust my coworker. But like I really trust them 3:03:46.160 --> 3:03:49.959 not to snitch my boss. Like the trust that comes 3:03:50.000 --> 3:03:53.560 from a relationship where you're like, yeah, let's like we 3:03:53.640 --> 3:03:56.080 need food, that's going to steal it together. That kind 3:03:56.120 --> 3:04:01.120 of trust is not something that can be incuperated. And 3:04:01.240 --> 3:04:05.840 that kind of like relationship where it's like our relationship 3:04:06.000 --> 3:04:08.600 is built on the fundamental we will do that we 3:04:08.760 --> 3:04:12.960 have to to survive. It creates an intimacy that you 3:04:13.120 --> 3:04:23.000 can't find anywhere else, and a criminal intimacy. You might say, um, yeah, 3:04:23.600 --> 3:04:29.360 and that that was the point as somebody else think, yeah, yeah, 3:04:29.520 --> 3:04:31.920 just to double down not too like I think it's 3:04:32.360 --> 3:04:38.880 um it's cool too because uh, when you also come 3:04:38.959 --> 3:04:40.520 to a space like this, like you can live like 3:04:40.600 --> 3:04:42.560 that on your on your own or with your friends, 3:04:43.600 --> 3:04:47.000 but then there's something wild when you come to this space. Um, 3:04:48.040 --> 3:04:51.080 and then all of a sudden, it's like when you 3:04:51.520 --> 3:04:54.120 start attacking something that a lot of other people want 3:04:54.160 --> 3:04:57.040 to see attacked. All of a sudden, all you have 3:04:57.120 --> 3:04:59.760 to do is attack that thing and foods there. Yeah, 3:05:00.000 --> 3:05:03.200 and like you know like that and and like yeah, 3:05:03.280 --> 3:05:05.560 and like you have all these resources and you can 3:05:05.680 --> 3:05:08.800 focus on that and so like it's like yes, I'm 3:05:08.840 --> 3:05:11.600 like it's like a joke to some degree, but like 3:05:12.640 --> 3:05:14.720 if you want to be a lifestyle ran because like 3:05:14.760 --> 3:05:17.720 if you want to actually be an anarchist right now 3:05:18.240 --> 3:05:22.040 and do anarchist ship, you can come to Atlanta and 3:05:22.520 --> 3:05:26.480 do and like it's not easy. It's fucking scary, it's sketchy, 3:05:26.840 --> 3:05:32.360 it's hard, there's freaky as bugs, but like, yeah, you 3:05:32.440 --> 3:05:36.480 don't have to wait, and like, yeah, it I think 3:05:36.520 --> 3:05:38.880 that that's something that like, for me, is really magic. 3:05:39.080 --> 3:05:42.920 Is that like actually the more you attack and the 3:05:43.040 --> 3:05:46.680 more you like position yourself to be antagonistic towards the world, 3:05:47.160 --> 3:05:51.920 the more of it's like fourth dimensional like winning shoot 3:05:51.959 --> 3:05:54.560 on you know, like which I don't need really understand, 3:05:55.280 --> 3:05:59.560 like starts to kind of like self actualize and yeah, 3:05:59.560 --> 3:06:01.520 I think it's cool it And then like it freaks 3:06:01.560 --> 3:06:03.520 me out to think that there's not people who are 3:06:03.560 --> 3:06:07.720 probably probably pretty cool like waiting for some opportunity like waiting, 3:06:07.800 --> 3:06:10.560 just teachers waiting, and we don't have that much time. Yeah, 3:06:10.600 --> 3:06:12.600 you can live anarchy now. You don't need to wait 3:06:12.680 --> 3:06:17.120 for the collapse TM because turns out that party it's 3:06:17.120 --> 3:06:19.800 already happening, and that already happened. We're just waiting in 3:06:19.840 --> 3:06:22.760 the liminal space until the climate change catches up with 3:06:23.000 --> 3:06:25.280 the admissions are already there. We're already living in it. 3:06:25.400 --> 3:06:27.120 We just don't realize it yet, or some of us 3:06:27.120 --> 3:06:30.000 are in denial of it yet. But the collapses like now, 3:06:30.240 --> 3:06:32.720 we it's already the thing. We don't need to wait 3:06:32.760 --> 3:06:35.000 for the one big collapse, because that's a myth. But 3:06:35.240 --> 3:06:38.039 you can live anarchy and do stuff. You don't need 3:06:38.120 --> 3:06:41.800 to wait for the next communist president who's going to 3:06:41.879 --> 3:06:48.040 run and fail. There's no coming social there's no coming collapse. 3:06:48.160 --> 3:06:50.960 There's nothing to wait for to keep on waiting his 3:06:51.080 --> 3:06:57.200 madness aside. I think a really interesting aspect of this movement. 3:06:58.760 --> 3:07:01.960 We are attacking up popular target, and how like in 3:07:02.080 --> 3:07:06.040 attacking a popular target, we've built this like thing is 3:07:06.200 --> 3:07:13.480 we are. We're not just here and attacking this thing 3:07:13.680 --> 3:07:18.959 that doesn't exist in isolation. We're here and we've built 3:07:19.120 --> 3:07:25.680 a movement and we've built uh, we've through attack, we've 3:07:25.840 --> 3:07:34.160 built a built this like popular idea that like actually, 3:07:35.200 --> 3:07:38.720 you know, like if you want something to not be there, 3:07:39.000 --> 3:07:42.840 instead of like talking to a politician, you can send 3:07:42.879 --> 3:07:45.920 it on vote harder, vote harder, just just just just 3:07:46.040 --> 3:07:59.480 one more vote. I swear I'm sorry. Now I like 3:07:59.600 --> 3:08:03.039 to talk more about tactics. Since the City Council voute, 3:08:03.120 --> 3:08:05.760 on the ground tactics have gained a much more integral 3:08:05.920 --> 3:08:09.520 role and grown past the basic sabotage and house visits, 3:08:10.120 --> 3:08:13.520 although both of those still are crucial aspects in keeping 3:08:13.560 --> 3:08:17.840 the movement going. Different ways of preventing physical construction, surveying 3:08:17.920 --> 3:08:20.360 of land and destruction of the forest made up most 3:08:20.440 --> 3:08:23.560 of the on the ground direct action efforts inside the forest. 3:08:24.360 --> 3:08:28.280 I think a really interesting aspect of the struggle has 3:08:28.320 --> 3:08:34.240 happened here is that because it's so decentralized, there are 3:08:34.400 --> 3:08:39.039 people and no one really knows who. There are people 3:08:39.680 --> 3:08:44.600 who will just to show up and like, you know, 3:08:44.840 --> 3:08:47.760 it's like there were people who are like getting the 3:08:47.840 --> 3:08:50.760 crops called on them in the woods and ships, and 3:08:50.879 --> 3:08:54.360 then like a bunch of anonymous people have showed up 3:08:54.440 --> 3:08:58.039 and like propable the camera powers and people stopped getting 3:08:58.080 --> 3:09:00.160 the crops called on them in the woods for a 3:09:00.280 --> 3:09:06.359 long time, and like that kind of decentralized thing, especially 3:09:06.640 --> 3:09:11.840 where it's like, you know, regardless of even like if 3:09:11.920 --> 3:09:15.600 the people in the woods were like you know, like 3:09:17.840 --> 3:09:22.600 into doing ship, it's like it's really useful when people 3:09:22.720 --> 3:09:26.760 who have more skills and people have more knowledge and 3:09:26.840 --> 3:09:30.160 more ability to do things and more ability to take risks. 3:09:30.520 --> 3:09:33.760 It's really awesome when those kinds of people can come 3:09:33.840 --> 3:09:36.920 and make things safe for a larger mass of people. 3:09:37.360 --> 3:09:40.240 And I feel like that is like a strategy and 3:09:40.400 --> 3:09:43.960 like the interactionary space that can be truly like expanded on, 3:09:44.280 --> 3:09:48.160 where people who know their ship can make things safe 3:09:48.560 --> 3:09:53.040 for large groups of people. To generalize revolt, Yeah, I 3:09:53.520 --> 3:09:55.640 regret like a lot of that hard of struggle and 3:09:55.680 --> 3:10:01.160 struggle has been framed from the very beginning as like 3:10:01.600 --> 3:10:04.520 there was no call to action do x y Z. 3:10:05.120 --> 3:10:08.000 There was a bunch of people pursuing their own individual 3:10:08.080 --> 3:10:10.600 desires and what they saw as a forward facing like 3:10:10.720 --> 3:10:14.800 a reprojection of their own ideas into the future and 3:10:15.040 --> 3:10:18.240 made that happen. And it was underneath this framework where 3:10:18.320 --> 3:10:21.960 there was no limit, there were no boundaries um, and 3:10:22.080 --> 3:10:25.440 there was no idea of like us all having to 3:10:25.520 --> 3:10:28.840 be on the same page about that. Yeah, you don't 3:10:28.840 --> 3:10:32.760 need to like attend a march to be to like 3:10:32.959 --> 3:10:36.000 do effective things. In fact, it turns out doing things 3:10:36.160 --> 3:10:38.120 that are not attending a march can often be way 3:10:38.200 --> 3:10:41.840 more materially effective and to double down on that, Like, um, 3:10:41.959 --> 3:10:44.480 so many times there's just like a script that the 3:10:44.560 --> 3:10:46.760 people follow, this is how we do it. And then 3:10:46.840 --> 3:10:51.120 there's there's like this action that's applied to everything that 3:10:51.240 --> 3:10:55.600 people don't like, and holy ship, that's a crazy book. 3:10:56.240 --> 3:11:03.560 It was a wildfire. Um um think about that. But yeah, 3:11:03.600 --> 3:11:05.800 but there's these like things that applied to everything, and 3:11:05.920 --> 3:11:10.160 this struggle very much has no script, which is really exciting. 3:11:10.440 --> 3:11:13.520 And but but what's even cooler about that is that 3:11:14.280 --> 3:11:17.360 it's not it's also not reinventing the wheel. And so 3:11:17.720 --> 3:11:20.480 there's people who are taking from you know, like kind 3:11:20.520 --> 3:11:26.240 of like classic insurrectionary anarchists like approaches. There's people looking 3:11:26.440 --> 3:11:30.880 at ego defense stuff from all over the world thinking 3:11:30.920 --> 3:11:35.600 about um, there's people looking at some successful like non 3:11:35.720 --> 3:11:40.040 violent direct action. There's people looking at alf struggles and 3:11:40.240 --> 3:11:44.440 like how like those campaigns, target campaigns, secondary targeting, how 3:11:44.560 --> 3:11:48.960 things like that worth The contracting and subcontracting companies hired 3:11:48.959 --> 3:11:51.720 by the Atlanta Police Foundation made up the new targets 3:11:51.840 --> 3:11:55.680 of the pressure campaigns and direct confrontation methods that threatened 3:11:55.720 --> 3:11:59.480 physical and social capital bringing back the house mis It's 3:11:59.520 --> 3:12:03.640 mentioned the previous episode. In late December, banners that read 3:12:03.959 --> 3:12:07.200 Reeves Young out of the Atlanta Forest were hung in 3:12:07.360 --> 3:12:11.879 the backyard of the private residence of Dean Reeves in Suani, Georgia. 3:12:12.640 --> 3:12:15.400 Dean Raeves serves as the chairman of Reeves Young Construction 3:12:15.720 --> 3:12:18.360 and was among the board members present at the November action, 3:12:18.560 --> 3:12:25.440 and he personally allegedly shoved and assaulted protesters inside the brawl. 3:12:26.520 --> 3:12:30.960 After the backyard banners were hung, an anonymous online statement 3:12:31.040 --> 3:12:34.359 read quote, we hope this action gives but a miniscule 3:12:34.480 --> 3:12:36.720 dose of what the creatures in the South Atlanta forest 3:12:36.800 --> 3:12:40.080 you want to bulldoz might feel unsafe in the place 3:12:40.200 --> 3:12:45.240 they call home. A month later, on January, Reeves Young 3:12:45.280 --> 3:12:49.800 Construction and representatives of the Atlanta Police Foundation entered the 3:12:49.920 --> 3:12:53.840 forest with a bulldozer. They started knocking down trees to 3:12:53.959 --> 3:12:57.680 complete more surveying work and determine the construction supplies needed 3:12:57.760 --> 3:13:01.680 for a laying of building Foundation force. Destruction was halted 3:13:01.720 --> 3:13:05.360 when approximately a dozen protesters approached the workers in Atlanta 3:13:05.360 --> 3:13:09.520 Police Foundation representative Alan Williams and demanded that they leave. 3:13:10.440 --> 3:13:13.280 Workers were safely escorted out of the woods and the 3:13:13.360 --> 3:13:16.400 bulldozer was left at the scene and was subsequently taken 3:13:16.440 --> 3:13:20.480 out of commission. In my interviews with some force defenders, 3:13:20.560 --> 3:13:22.960 I believe one of them referred to this as the 3:13:23.560 --> 3:13:28.000 bulldozer tripping and falling, So that's fun. The day after 3:13:28.200 --> 3:13:31.760 autonomous groups of people finished construction of multiple well built 3:13:31.800 --> 3:13:34.320 treehouses up in the canopy near the site of the 3:13:34.440 --> 3:13:39.320 previous day's confrontation, people climbed up into treehouses and announced 3:13:39.360 --> 3:13:43.360 their intention to remain there in order to delay further construction, 3:13:43.720 --> 3:13:47.560 ripping off the old tree sit and bipod tactics. From 3:13:47.640 --> 3:13:50.920 October one to this point in the struggle, which just 3:13:51.040 --> 3:13:55.400 like mid January, work was consistently able to be stopped 3:13:55.440 --> 3:13:59.200 by small, dedicated groups of people without resorting to force. 3:14:00.040 --> 3:14:02.760 Throughout the next week, attempts at land surveying in the 3:14:02.879 --> 3:14:06.600 area of the old Atlanta Prison Farm continued, but now 3:14:06.720 --> 3:14:09.760 with workers being accompanied by the Atlanta Police Foundation, Atlanta 3:14:09.800 --> 3:14:13.720 Police officers, and a cab County police. With the backing 3:14:13.760 --> 3:14:16.760 of cops, workers were able to accomplish more of their tasks, 3:14:16.879 --> 3:14:21.080 including tree felling and soil boring per Crime Thing quote. 3:14:21.480 --> 3:14:24.640 In some instances, only handful of activists were on the 3:14:24.720 --> 3:14:30.360 scene behind makeshift barricades. Reinforcements cannot arrive rapidly enough to 3:14:30.440 --> 3:14:35.640 assist those on the ground. Unquote. Reportedly, undercover cops surrounded 3:14:35.760 --> 3:14:40.120 the forest, intimidating those who would park nearby. As such, 3:14:40.440 --> 3:14:45.400 some outside support did show up, but not in mass. Meanwhile, 3:14:45.520 --> 3:14:47.840 in the forest, it was a game of cat mouse 3:14:47.959 --> 3:14:52.000 between the workers, forest offenders, and cops. Police went so 3:14:52.120 --> 3:14:56.000 far as to start chasing people on forest trails while 3:14:56.080 --> 3:14:59.480 writing on a t v s. Barricades and the tactical 3:14:59.560 --> 3:15:03.160 removal of land survey markers did slow down work on 3:15:03.400 --> 3:15:07.200 some days, but ultimately efforts were unsuccessful in halting the 3:15:07.280 --> 3:15:11.960 destruction process entirely. This week of land destruction and caton 3:15:12.040 --> 3:15:17.080 mouse culminated on January. Around sixty people, the largest crowd 3:15:17.200 --> 3:15:19.840 in months, gathered to march into the south of a 3:15:19.959 --> 3:15:22.080 forest and on to the old Atlanta Prison farm to 3:15:22.160 --> 3:15:25.520 directly confront construction workers who were boring holes in the 3:15:25.600 --> 3:15:30.199 ground doing soil sample collection. The cab County police attacked 3:15:30.240 --> 3:15:34.360 the protesters, tackling multiple people and arresting four, the first 3:15:34.520 --> 3:15:38.039 arrests inside the forest within the context of the movement. 3:15:38.680 --> 3:15:42.359 Quoting crime thing again quote, police attacked the march, tackling 3:15:42.480 --> 3:15:46.240 several people. The other demonstrators did not mount a proportional 3:15:46.320 --> 3:15:50.840 response to this aggression, despite outnumbering the police. Perhaps some 3:15:50.920 --> 3:15:53.800 of the tactics popular during the rebellion, such as the 3:15:53.879 --> 3:15:56.880 mass use of umbrellas or makeshift shields, could have equipped 3:15:56.920 --> 3:16:00.840 the participants to feel more capable of decisive action. Ellen 3:16:00.879 --> 3:16:04.400 Williams of the Atlanta Police Foundation was filling protesters, looking 3:16:04.440 --> 3:16:08.000 a little anxious as he did so. A statement on 3:16:08.120 --> 3:16:11.240 the Defend the Forest scenes dot no blogs dot org 3:16:11.360 --> 3:16:16.039 site concluded their report back with this sentiment quote, at 3:16:16.080 --> 3:16:18.720 this point, we are in need of two main things. 3:16:19.320 --> 3:16:21.440 More people to help support tree sets and defend the 3:16:21.520 --> 3:16:26.680 force from destruction, and legal attempts to delay construction. Yeah. Always, 3:16:26.920 --> 3:16:28.640 you want more people to be on the ground in 3:16:28.720 --> 3:16:34.240 the woods, in the city. Cass We ned casts like 3:16:34.360 --> 3:16:39.680 the cast like that. You want to wear out the 3:16:39.840 --> 3:16:41.560 enemy and a lot of different ways. And the enemy 3:16:41.680 --> 3:16:43.880 is a lot of different people of the enemies, and 3:16:44.040 --> 3:16:47.360 enemies are subcontractors and enemy as a police enemy. Garge 3:16:47.440 --> 3:16:53.120 Parker Power owns quote unquote the power that divides both 3:16:53.240 --> 3:16:56.560 entrenchman Creek and sorry, there's a lot of different people. 3:16:56.640 --> 3:16:58.400 So if there's a lot of and we also have 3:16:58.440 --> 3:17:00.440 a lot of different people involved, a lot of different 3:17:00.440 --> 3:17:03.160 ways living in the words, people living in town, so 3:17:04.640 --> 3:17:07.400 people already knowing it's already happening. We should be visiting 3:17:07.480 --> 3:17:12.119 the offices, We should be visiting at the damn church, 3:17:12.840 --> 3:17:14.640 we should be visiting there in the forest, there should 3:17:14.640 --> 3:17:18.360 be there should be no peace. And I believe that's 3:17:18.360 --> 3:17:20.320 how we can win, because we need to make it 3:17:20.480 --> 3:17:25.440 unpopular and unsavory and hopefully next year impossible for them 3:17:25.560 --> 3:17:27.600 to make these choices. Even this as a small part 3:17:27.640 --> 3:17:29.800 of the forest, they're just going to continue on to 3:17:29.840 --> 3:17:32.280 the next thing. I want to briefly go into some 3:17:32.480 --> 3:17:35.920 details about a method of protests that combines pressure to 3:17:36.040 --> 3:17:39.240 both physical and social capital in hopes of resulting material 3:17:39.400 --> 3:17:43.920 changes from businesses, corporations, or people in power. It features 3:17:44.000 --> 3:17:47.040 many of the actual tactics we've in fact already discussed. 3:17:47.480 --> 3:17:50.279 Will refer to it as the Shack method for reasons 3:17:50.360 --> 3:17:55.760 that will be shortly explained. House visits, targeted vandalism, phone calls, 3:17:56.040 --> 3:17:59.400 and hanging banners and backyards all have a place in 3:17:59.480 --> 3:18:02.920 this method oology. It's a focused drive to dissolve that 3:18:03.240 --> 3:18:07.039 safe political or corporate astral space that I talked about 3:18:07.160 --> 3:18:11.280 in the last episode. The cred of the article contains 3:18:11.400 --> 3:18:13.959 a really good summary of the Shack method. So instead 3:18:14.000 --> 3:18:17.000 of just like regurgitating their explainer, I'm gonna I'm just 3:18:17.040 --> 3:18:20.280 gonna narrate certain sections of it because that will make 3:18:20.320 --> 3:18:23.080 my job easier and I'm I'm a hacking of fraud 3:18:23.080 --> 3:18:26.360 blah blah blah blah blah quote. The goal is to 3:18:26.440 --> 3:18:30.280 hold those responsible for these projects personally liable for their 3:18:30.360 --> 3:18:33.960 decisions and the decisions of the companies they own, because 3:18:34.000 --> 3:18:36.160 the entire system of rules and norms we live under 3:18:36.280 --> 3:18:40.200 dictates that exploiters, warlords, mass murderers, and those that destroy 3:18:40.240 --> 3:18:43.560 ecosystems must not face pressure at home as a consequence 3:18:43.600 --> 3:18:46.720 of the decisions that they make. It work, this strategy 3:18:46.879 --> 3:18:50.199 is bound to be controversial. It rejects the entire logic 3:18:50.240 --> 3:18:53.480 of limited liability that forms the basis of corporate rule 3:18:53.560 --> 3:18:57.400 in our society. At the beginning of the twenty first century, 3:18:57.760 --> 3:19:00.920 animal rights activists in the UK and the US set 3:19:00.959 --> 3:19:03.960 out to take down the biggest animal testing corporation on 3:19:04.120 --> 3:19:08.960 the planet, Huntington's Life Sciences. The campaign to stop Huntington's 3:19:08.959 --> 3:19:13.360 Life Sciences was called Stop Huntington's Animal Cruelty or SHACK. 3:19:13.840 --> 3:19:17.640 It formally disbanded, and it's best known for its period 3:19:17.720 --> 3:19:21.640 of ambitious international participation in the early two thousands. The 3:19:21.720 --> 3:19:26.440 methodology of this movement, which encompassed direct actions, symbolic protests, 3:19:26.879 --> 3:19:31.400 cultural events, sabotage pranks, and more, included many features that 3:19:31.520 --> 3:19:34.480 have been since used in a wide range of campaigns. 3:19:35.320 --> 3:19:38.880 The overall strategy of SHACK involved mobilizing a few hundred 3:19:38.959 --> 3:19:42.840 people to maximize their effectiveness against a major enterprise by 3:19:42.920 --> 3:19:47.440 focusing only on their ability to function economically. The SHACK 3:19:47.560 --> 3:19:52.560 model is centered around tertiary targeting I isolating service providers 3:19:52.640 --> 3:19:55.480 from third party contracts in order to limit their ability 3:19:55.520 --> 3:19:59.320 to provide services to the client, which is the actual target. 3:19:59.840 --> 3:20:02.400 A Right now, I'm just gonna pause here because if 3:20:02.480 --> 3:20:06.000 that sounds confusing, let me let me briefly provide an example. 3:20:06.879 --> 3:20:09.960 So the actual target here would be the Atlanta Police Foundation, 3:20:10.080 --> 3:20:12.800 since they're the ones with plans to build a cops city. 3:20:13.600 --> 3:20:18.280 The Police Foundation has contracted a few companies of Brassfield 3:20:18.280 --> 3:20:22.199 and Gory for one and Reeves Young. So these companies 3:20:22.240 --> 3:20:25.800 are the service provider. The shack model attempts to isolate 3:20:25.959 --> 3:20:29.360 the service provider, so reeves Young from all of their 3:20:29.600 --> 3:20:33.720 third party clients and contracts, which will in the end 3:20:33.760 --> 3:20:35.920 go back to hurt the actual target, which is the 3:20:35.959 --> 3:20:39.440 Atlanta Police Foundation back to crime think the service provider, 3:20:39.680 --> 3:20:42.600 so in this case, heves Young Uh. The service provider 3:20:42.879 --> 3:20:46.800 depends on many third parties. Third parties provide the service 3:20:46.840 --> 3:20:54.400 provider with insurance, materials, equipment, security, catering, cleaning, mail, service, data, maintenance, 3:20:54.560 --> 3:20:57.959 and more. All of those third parties can be pressured 3:20:58.080 --> 3:21:01.560 to drop the service provider. Furthermore, the service provider is 3:21:01.680 --> 3:21:04.760 likely a company with more than one client, and those 3:21:04.879 --> 3:21:07.760 other clients can also be pressured to drop the provider. 3:21:08.400 --> 3:21:11.960 Any company or contractor that is able to move their 3:21:12.000 --> 3:21:14.840 money away from the service provider because they have other 3:21:14.959 --> 3:21:19.440 economic opportunities can be pressured to do so. Essentially, this 3:21:19.480 --> 3:21:22.119 strategy does not directly challenge the bottom line of any 3:21:22.240 --> 3:21:26.240 of the third party companies. It only isolates and demoralizes 3:21:26.360 --> 3:21:30.680 the service provider and therefore the end target. Today, it 3:21:30.800 --> 3:21:33.400 still remains unclear who is the service provider for the 3:21:33.520 --> 3:21:36.480 Black Hall Studios development, although that information will come out 3:21:36.600 --> 3:21:40.000 sooner than later. In considering the limits of the shack 3:21:40.040 --> 3:21:43.520 strategy in actions outside of the forest, it might be 3:21:43.640 --> 3:21:47.080 more difficult for activists to maintain a sense of urgency. 3:21:47.680 --> 3:21:51.160 Targeting individuals at their offices and homes will chiefly bring 3:21:51.240 --> 3:21:54.800 out those who are excited about such confrontational methods, rather 3:21:54.920 --> 3:21:57.840 than those who prefer to maintain welcoming spaces of encounter, 3:21:58.360 --> 3:22:01.720 to build treehouses to or to clean campsites, to cook 3:22:01.760 --> 3:22:05.400 for others, to cultivate the kind of collective imagining that 3:22:05.560 --> 3:22:09.640 is needed to transform society. Also, if people fail to 3:22:09.680 --> 3:22:13.600 do proper research or mapping, activists could waste their time 3:22:13.760 --> 3:22:18.119 targeting minor institutions and companies that are unwilling or unable 3:22:18.200 --> 3:22:21.280 to drop their contracts. They could spend months facing down 3:22:21.360 --> 3:22:27.680 insignificant companies with many possible replacement subcontractors. Oh sorry, that 3:22:27.840 --> 3:22:30.240 was a lot. That was a big info dump, but 3:22:30.280 --> 3:22:33.039 I think it is useful information. So the goal isn't 3:22:33.160 --> 3:22:37.800 to sway companies with moralizing arguments, but to frame their 3:22:37.800 --> 3:22:42.360 association with militarized policing or ecological destruction as a bad 3:22:42.480 --> 3:22:45.400 look that could hurt their reputation and ability to secure 3:22:45.520 --> 3:22:50.520 future clients. Combined with economic consentives inflicted on the service 3:22:50.560 --> 3:22:55.000 provider like access sabotage, The resulting targeted campaign attacking physical 3:22:55.080 --> 3:22:58.400 and social capital can lead to pressure on third parties 3:22:58.480 --> 3:23:00.880 to influence the decision of this of its provider on 3:23:00.959 --> 3:23:04.320 whether or not to stay on the project. Methodologies can 3:23:04.400 --> 3:23:06.840 put to the test through practice and be judged by 3:23:06.879 --> 3:23:10.680 the outcome. The proposal to employ the shock strategy to 3:23:10.760 --> 3:23:13.440 defend the Forest is just built on the simple hypothesis 3:23:13.600 --> 3:23:15.959 that if Reeves Young is forced to drop the contract 3:23:16.000 --> 3:23:19.400 with Atlanta Police Foundation, the Atlanta Police Foundation investors will 3:23:19.400 --> 3:23:22.320 then lose the confidence that's required to find an adequate 3:23:22.360 --> 3:23:26.520 replacement and the project could stumble or fail. The same 3:23:26.600 --> 3:23:30.560 goes for the Black Hall project. If activists defeat Reeves 3:23:30.640 --> 3:23:33.920 Young by means of direct action and self organization, even 3:23:33.959 --> 3:23:37.320 if the project of finds a new contractor, sophistication and 3:23:37.480 --> 3:23:40.000 confidence in the movement will have developed in the process 3:23:40.280 --> 3:23:44.160 will likely help it evolve once again. Also, one thing 3:23:44.240 --> 3:23:47.440 that people have figured out because like for the first 3:23:47.560 --> 3:23:50.880 to after the first two arsons, you could literally just 3:23:51.040 --> 3:23:56.200 walk up to during daylight, up to the area of 3:23:56.320 --> 3:24:01.440 Michelle Opona Park and touch take pictures of like uh 3:24:01.800 --> 3:24:05.760 have sex around like make out with the construction equipment 3:24:05.840 --> 3:24:08.120 that I've been burned, and you could see the stickers 3:24:08.440 --> 3:24:12.640 of where they had rented these like construction equipment, UM 3:24:13.520 --> 3:24:18.279 destruction equipment, and like after the first one it changed, 3:24:18.879 --> 3:24:20.800 there was no longer rented from the same company, and 3:24:20.879 --> 3:24:25.040 after the second one it changed again. And there is 3:24:25.440 --> 3:24:29.400 reason to believe that with every arson or attack that 3:24:29.560 --> 3:24:35.000 they are changing construction equipment companies, because rental companies tend 3:24:35.040 --> 3:24:37.920 to not like it whenever their equipment is destroyed to 3:24:38.000 --> 3:24:40.959 cost them a lot of money, and oftentimes they cannot 3:24:41.000 --> 3:24:45.880 afford hundreds of thousands of dollars going down the drain 3:24:46.000 --> 3:24:49.120 be to support a pot project that is highly unpopular. 3:24:50.200 --> 3:24:52.360 And the other thing what we're talking about with the 3:24:52.440 --> 3:24:56.279 modified like a policing modifying itself as it's interesting because 3:24:56.959 --> 3:25:00.160 where at this point where policing is highly unpopular and 3:25:00.240 --> 3:25:02.920 so it's kind of hedging its bets, and it's doing 3:25:02.959 --> 3:25:05.680 two things. First, it's calling itself like the Social Peace 3:25:05.760 --> 3:25:09.960 and Justice cute Bunny Rabbits center for your racist if 3:25:10.000 --> 3:25:13.000 you don't like us or whatever. And then it's also 3:25:13.160 --> 3:25:16.960 just like mask off doubling down buying mad guns like 3:25:17.520 --> 3:25:22.240 like yet just becoming increasingly more militarized, increasingly more violent 3:25:22.360 --> 3:25:25.960 and like moving mask off like an occupying force. So 3:25:26.080 --> 3:25:30.520 there's this split where there's no and people are well 3:25:30.560 --> 3:25:35.760 aware of this. There's there's no like public chance of 3:25:36.280 --> 3:25:43.240 convincing UM a lot of companies that this is wrong. Right, 3:25:43.320 --> 3:25:46.280 there's it's it's it's well, it's very divided. So the 3:25:46.360 --> 3:25:49.560 people who are committed are very committed. There are fucking 3:25:49.720 --> 3:25:53.560 enemies and where their enemies and that's it. But then 3:25:53.600 --> 3:25:56.400 there's other people who are doing this for economic reasons 3:25:56.640 --> 3:26:00.720 and kind of understand that policing is not shoot right, 3:26:00.800 --> 3:26:03.680 and then it's at least unpopular, going out of fashion 3:26:04.560 --> 3:26:08.000 to some degree, and can make money in other ways. 3:26:08.680 --> 3:26:13.000 So yeah, it's this interesting thing where like being able 3:26:13.080 --> 3:26:17.840 to like fight battles for public opinion maybe doesn't super work, 3:26:17.959 --> 3:26:20.720 and all you have to do is um kind of 3:26:20.800 --> 3:26:24.280 trying to cut away the people who are supporting people 3:26:24.360 --> 3:26:29.520 who are ideologically committed to our destruction and we are, 3:26:29.879 --> 3:26:34.680 you know, feel reciprocal. If you look at the photos 3:26:35.160 --> 3:26:38.520 of what was happening with Michelle Obama Park the land 3:26:38.560 --> 3:26:41.200 swap site, they were trying to build on You can 3:26:41.320 --> 3:26:45.560 tell that heavy yellow Equipment LLC of Marietta, Georgia stopped 3:26:45.640 --> 3:26:49.039 providing them equipment after like the first or the second 3:26:49.080 --> 3:26:51.440 time that their machines got lit on fire. And now 3:26:51.520 --> 3:26:55.200 it's alf A l I f of I don't know 3:26:55.280 --> 3:26:59.240 where Georgia. So you know, these are photos that you 3:26:59.320 --> 3:27:03.240 can see, like you can look at these communicates and 3:27:03.400 --> 3:27:06.760 just tell like like like if there's a photo attached, 3:27:07.240 --> 3:27:10.920 like there is a traceable like trend of companies are 3:27:11.000 --> 3:27:14.160 dropping the funk out because they, for whatever reason, just 3:27:14.320 --> 3:27:20.360 cannot take the heat. On June twelve, while fully in 3:27:20.440 --> 3:27:23.400 the throes of nationwide revolts against police after the murder 3:27:23.440 --> 3:27:27.440 of George Floyd, two Atlanta police officers killed Ray Schard Brooks, 3:27:27.760 --> 3:27:29.680 a black man who had been sleeping in his car 3:27:29.840 --> 3:27:32.680 in the parking lot of a Wendy's. Not long after, 3:27:32.840 --> 3:27:35.840 the restaurant was burnt to the ground by determined crowds. 3:27:36.840 --> 3:27:39.800 In the time period between June to the end of 3:27:39.840 --> 3:27:43.000 the year, more than two hundred Atlanta police officers left 3:27:43.040 --> 3:27:46.880 their jobs, including the a chief of police, local sheriff's deputies, 3:27:47.240 --> 3:27:50.720 state patrolmen, and transit cops. Also resigned during the year 3:27:50.760 --> 3:27:55.160 of the uprising at a higher than average rate. As 3:27:55.200 --> 3:27:58.840 the entire system of policing and capitalism faced a crisis 3:27:58.879 --> 3:28:04.560 of legitimacy. Corporations, business owners, landlords, business associations, and international 3:28:04.600 --> 3:28:09.280 real estate companies demand a public pacification and a reassurance 3:28:09.400 --> 3:28:14.240 of a future with stable consumerism. Profit incentive and police 3:28:14.440 --> 3:28:18.480 need each other in a symbia like relationship. I'll do 3:28:18.600 --> 3:28:21.760 one of my last crime thing quotes here. Quote. Forces 3:28:21.879 --> 3:28:25.960 in local and federal government, business associations, police departments, and 3:28:26.040 --> 3:28:29.520 our militias have continuously worked to make sure a popular 3:28:29.640 --> 3:28:34.199 uprising does not reoccur. A large part of the institutional 3:28:34.280 --> 3:28:39.199 reaction to the popular uprising has focused on managing public perception. 3:28:39.800 --> 3:28:44.320 Industrial interests and private investment companies have conducted influence campaigns 3:28:44.520 --> 3:28:48.959 using local news outlets which are owned by Sinclair Broadcasting Group, 3:28:49.280 --> 3:28:54.800 a right wing news organization between Sinclair, Next Star, Gray, Tega, 3:28:55.040 --> 3:28:59.560 and Tribune. This coordinated reframing of events has damaged the 3:28:59.600 --> 3:29:03.000 way that many sectors of the television viewing public perceive 3:29:03.800 --> 3:29:08.320 revolt and its consequences. In the wake of the uprising, 3:29:08.480 --> 3:29:12.240 a false narrative circulated to the effect that police, while 3:29:12.360 --> 3:29:17.000 demoralized and underfunded, cannot control the crime waves currently sweeping 3:29:17.040 --> 3:29:21.120 the country. This orchestrated narrative has shaped the imaginations of 3:29:21.160 --> 3:29:25.720 suburban whites, small business owners, and many urban progressives. The 3:29:25.840 --> 3:29:29.080 crime wave framework implied that police departments around the country 3:29:29.320 --> 3:29:32.480 had in fact been defunded or had their powers curtailed, 3:29:32.840 --> 3:29:36.640 and were consequently unable to assure social peace or free enterprise. 3:29:37.320 --> 3:29:40.400 In reality, the vast majority of police departments received an 3:29:40.440 --> 3:29:44.199 annual increase in their budgets as they normally do. If anything, 3:29:44.360 --> 3:29:49.120 they accrued more power following the events of So it's 3:29:49.320 --> 3:29:52.600 no coincidence that the Atlanta Police Foundation and the Atlanta 3:29:52.600 --> 3:29:56.400 Police Department are pushing to build a militarized urban warfare 3:29:56.480 --> 3:29:59.880 training center in the wake of the uprisings. By lever 3:30:00.200 --> 3:30:03.520 ing that crime wave narrative and the fears of future 3:30:03.760 --> 3:30:06.959 social unrest, they want to have the tools to bring 3:30:07.080 --> 3:30:11.600 down the inevitable upcoming revolts for racial, environmental and economic justice, 3:30:12.160 --> 3:30:16.879 and now more than ever, including reproductive justice. Cops cities 3:30:17.000 --> 3:30:18.959 leading the charge is a part of a new effort 3:30:19.040 --> 3:30:22.400 to adapt American policing strategies to our new era of 3:30:22.520 --> 3:30:26.800 societal decay and the ever crumbling that will define this 3:30:26.959 --> 3:30:31.520 century as we face the escalating consequences of industrialization and 3:30:31.720 --> 3:30:37.680 climate change. I think another really important thing to look 3:30:37.760 --> 3:30:41.800 at this is like when you look at the Gurge 3:30:41.840 --> 3:30:45.200 Floyd uprising in the Crisis of Pride and policing and 3:30:45.320 --> 3:30:49.160 they realize that, oh, holy sh it, people are so 3:30:49.520 --> 3:30:52.160 angry about this that they will pose a threat to 3:30:52.240 --> 3:30:54.680 the sovereagety of the state, which is the first time 3:30:54.760 --> 3:30:58.360 that has happened in an extremely long time. When that 3:30:58.640 --> 3:31:04.840 finally happened, the state, the morale of police departments around 3:31:05.120 --> 3:31:11.520 the country was broken. Cops everywhere, we're like, it was 3:31:11.600 --> 3:31:15.160 a demoralizing thing. And when you think about cops as 3:31:15.360 --> 3:31:20.880 an occupying force, as an occupying military force, it thinking 3:31:20.920 --> 3:31:25.360 about the fact that we broke their morale is really important. 3:31:25.480 --> 3:31:29.600 And then thinking about this place as they intend to 3:31:29.800 --> 3:31:35.080 build a training facility to increase morale, which is a 3:31:35.240 --> 3:31:40.840 classic military tactic of create cool and interesting ways to 3:31:41.000 --> 3:31:45.240 train your soldiers to do a murder, is like, that 3:31:45.560 --> 3:31:48.720 is a classic military tactic. And when you think begin 3:31:48.840 --> 3:31:52.080 to think about this as social or when you begin 3:31:52.160 --> 3:31:55.440 to think about this as not just a struggle against 3:31:55.520 --> 3:32:01.600 cops city that like as a struggle for like disabling 3:32:02.160 --> 3:32:05.840 and destroying the police. When you think about this as 3:32:06.080 --> 3:32:11.480 a material struggle against the occupying forces that are the police, 3:32:12.240 --> 3:32:17.039 this becomes like way more contextual In fact, I feel 3:32:17.080 --> 3:32:20.080 like that is the best way to contextualize this movement. 3:32:21.879 --> 3:32:26.160 So one interesting thing is that after Rachard Brooks is 3:32:26.280 --> 3:32:30.800 murdered and the UM two cops involved were UM this 3:32:31.040 --> 3:32:35.760 substanquently charged UM what was it, six hundred tops went 3:32:35.800 --> 3:32:41.520 on seconut hundreds of hundreds UM, and their morale is broken. 3:32:41.680 --> 3:32:46.640 A land police has always been understaffed for like as 3:32:46.680 --> 3:32:50.600 long as I've known UM and not understaffed by any 3:32:50.680 --> 3:32:54.240 media propaganda spend standard there standards, but like every single 3:32:54.400 --> 3:32:58.480 day they're facing backlogs in every zone where they cannot 3:32:58.560 --> 3:33:01.680 answer calls. And it's a good thing. This is a 3:33:01.760 --> 3:33:07.080 war pattriction where their current training facilities have broken. Torrespneky 3:33:07.200 --> 3:33:16.360 pipes have have like have undeniably miserable conditions. Their cars 3:33:16.400 --> 3:33:20.840 are out, their cars are like continually on their last legs, 3:33:21.640 --> 3:33:25.280 and we that's that is a path to abolition, is 3:33:25.480 --> 3:33:27.840 making it so it is so undesirable to be a 3:33:27.959 --> 3:33:31.280 cop in this city or any city that no one 3:33:31.360 --> 3:33:34.600 would dare do it. It is crucial that police are 3:33:34.680 --> 3:33:37.240 not the only ones that seek to evolve their tactics 3:33:37.360 --> 3:33:40.640 for a new era and moving beyond the kind of 3:33:40.800 --> 3:33:44.160 non violent action that's become so common during protests during 3:33:44.160 --> 3:33:47.000 the Trump era and the post Green Scare, and even 3:33:47.040 --> 3:33:50.400 like post occupy, there is this looking for a new 3:33:50.560 --> 3:33:56.280 form of anarchist or radical resistance. Really emphasized the learning 3:33:56.400 --> 3:34:01.359 things here is that this struggle took all the different rulebooks, 3:34:01.480 --> 3:34:03.440 tore them up, set them on fire, and use the 3:34:03.520 --> 3:34:08.480 ashes for their shutter. Like everyone here is learning things. 3:34:08.600 --> 3:34:11.400 People who have been who have been doing things along 3:34:11.640 --> 3:34:17.080 fucking time are here and learning new things. We're we're 3:34:17.120 --> 3:34:21.320 not just like tearing up and like destroying the rule books. 3:34:21.840 --> 3:34:32.200 We're like we're like larges out of the were weird. Yeah, yeah, 3:34:33.600 --> 3:34:37.120 like put them like like tore all of them up 3:34:37.200 --> 3:34:40.640 and make allogious out of them, and is trying to 3:34:40.720 --> 3:34:44.400 create this like weird paper machee mesh of a experimental 3:34:45.040 --> 3:34:49.280 path into the future. And and like we wouldn't when 3:34:49.360 --> 3:34:53.920 we say we are experimenting with new forms of revolt, 3:34:54.080 --> 3:34:58.600 new new tactics, new strategies, we truly mean, there aren't 3:34:58.760 --> 3:35:02.840 existing models to do what we're doing. We are writing 3:35:03.280 --> 3:35:06.240 the book as we could do it, and yeah, we 3:35:06.400 --> 3:35:09.520 sunk up sometimes, but we've also got some really cool 3:35:09.680 --> 3:35:13.640 ship happening. Ship that hasn't happened in twenty years is happening, 3:35:13.879 --> 3:35:18.000 and ship that hasn't happened ever is happening here. And 3:35:18.080 --> 3:35:24.000 I think that's like a really it's a really important 3:35:24.120 --> 3:35:28.800 thing to touch on. Is that, like much of the 3:35:31.080 --> 3:35:34.520 you know, much of the like Eco defensship that's happened 3:35:34.560 --> 3:35:38.480 in North America that for quite a while has like 3:35:39.240 --> 3:35:43.840 not done, you know, or at least not released, communicates 3:35:43.879 --> 3:35:50.400 about like ship that happens here seemingly every couple of weeks. Now, 3:35:51.720 --> 3:35:59.280 like the ship here is crazy and wild under dreams. 3:35:59.720 --> 3:36:04.800 It's also scary and hard and dramatizing, and it's beautiful 3:36:05.000 --> 3:36:13.560 and terrifying and like, yeah, that sounds great, you should come. Yeah, 3:36:13.640 --> 3:36:16.959 this's is such a way from us actually evolving out 3:36:17.040 --> 3:36:19.480 of a I look at this as like a huge 3:36:19.520 --> 3:36:25.160 step in what land defense looks like after we have, 3:36:28.400 --> 3:36:31.240 after we have faced green Scare repression, and now we 3:36:31.320 --> 3:36:35.280 are moving past the post green Scare repression movements and 3:36:35.520 --> 3:36:39.400 figuring out how to move forward and regardless of it. 3:36:39.520 --> 3:36:43.800 For this like uh lands and are really repressive like 3:36:44.000 --> 3:36:48.800 boot sounded throats like situation. I don't think anyone should 3:36:48.840 --> 3:36:51.600 ever stop experimenting. I don't think people should go back 3:36:51.680 --> 3:36:54.000 to the old ways. I don't think that we should 3:36:54.000 --> 3:36:57.440 be resigned to not experiment. I think that everyone, like 3:36:57.560 --> 3:37:01.520 we are in a situation where there is nor future. 3:37:01.560 --> 3:37:05.680 They're like the collapses now, we're probably not going to 3:37:06.000 --> 3:37:09.000 avoid one point five degrees warming. Our police are only 3:37:09.120 --> 3:37:14.240 further mailitarizing, and the like reality of resistance is that 3:37:14.360 --> 3:37:19.880 we that we best, that we need experimentation. Yeah, if 3:37:19.920 --> 3:37:22.360 there was a winning strategy that was proven to be effective, 3:37:23.240 --> 3:37:26.080 then it would have it would have been effective in therapy, 3:37:26.160 --> 3:37:30.000 we would have a winning strategy. There's a popular name 3:37:30.040 --> 3:37:34.200 in the forest which is the arena instead of are you, 3:37:35.680 --> 3:37:40.240 are you experiencing the joy of attacks on um? And 3:37:40.320 --> 3:37:43.920 I think that is an important line the same way 3:37:44.000 --> 3:37:46.400 Cops City is a part of the new evolution of 3:37:46.440 --> 3:37:49.920 American policing. Defend the Atlanta Forest can be seen as 3:37:50.000 --> 3:37:53.920 kind of trailblazing for future movements, a look at how 3:37:54.000 --> 3:37:58.080 they might develop post the George Floyd protests for my 3:37:58.440 --> 3:38:03.960 last final cry think quote quote. This campaign represents a 3:38:04.040 --> 3:38:06.760 crucial effort to chart new paths forward in the wake 3:38:06.840 --> 3:38:09.920 of the George Floyd rebellion, linking the defense of the 3:38:10.000 --> 3:38:13.640 land that sustains us with the struggle against police. The 3:38:13.720 --> 3:38:17.400 movement opposed these developments, mobilizing around the watchwords defend the 3:38:17.480 --> 3:38:20.760 Forest and stop coops City, have passed through several phases 3:38:20.760 --> 3:38:24.360 of experimentation, using a wide array of tactics and strategies 3:38:24.440 --> 3:38:27.680 to keep pace with the current course of events. It 3:38:27.760 --> 3:38:32.279 represents an important effort to revitalize eco defense and police 3:38:32.320 --> 3:38:36.520 abolition strategies in the wake of the George Floyd rebellion. So, 3:38:36.800 --> 3:38:40.560 considering the possible wide ranging impacts of both the evolution 3:38:40.600 --> 3:38:44.320 of policing and the evolution of resistance tactics that defend 3:38:44.360 --> 3:38:47.120 the Atlanta Force movement is extremely relevant to all people 3:38:47.160 --> 3:38:49.560 who want to improve the world, whether or not they 3:38:49.640 --> 3:38:58.680 live in Atlanta. Atlanta as a testing ground floor new 3:38:58.800 --> 3:39:04.000 surveillance tech and like in like experimenting with new forms 3:39:04.080 --> 3:39:09.840 of struggle. Here in Atlanta, there are things that not 3:39:10.000 --> 3:39:13.000 only are we in many ways on the front lines 3:39:13.080 --> 3:39:17.560 of experimenting with new tactics and integrating new strategies and 3:39:17.680 --> 3:39:20.520 how they work. But we're also on the front lines 3:39:20.720 --> 3:39:26.039 of like different kinds of both like like in person 3:39:26.240 --> 3:39:30.560 and digital forms of oppression that don't have to be 3:39:30.640 --> 3:39:35.800 worried about other places, and like it also provides approving 3:39:35.920 --> 3:39:40.760 ground for ways to struggle specifically against those forms of 3:39:40.879 --> 3:39:48.040 surveillance and understanding the different ways that sometimes the most 3:39:48.640 --> 3:39:53.880 effective thing in protecting yourself from oppression isn't some super 3:39:54.000 --> 3:39:58.280 high tech ship. It's a ski mask of paragloves and 3:39:58.360 --> 3:40:02.240 not bringing your phone, and like people don't seem to 3:40:02.520 --> 3:40:07.480 like think about that that I don't need to. But yeah, um, 3:40:07.959 --> 3:40:12.520 so speaking of surveillance, we actually have like not we 3:40:12.959 --> 3:40:16.000 I don't claim that, um, the police here and the 3:40:16.080 --> 3:40:18.920 state here has like the video Video Integration System, which 3:40:18.959 --> 3:40:21.520 I believe is like one of our re integrations video 3:40:21.560 --> 3:40:26.440 integration center where they take where businesses and homeowners of 3:40:26.520 --> 3:40:29.600 like ring cameras can volunteer their video surveillance equipment to 3:40:29.680 --> 3:40:33.640 be plugged into a network UM that can be monitored 3:40:33.680 --> 3:40:36.400 and pulled up at any time by the police UM 3:40:36.640 --> 3:40:44.800 in a downtown location and they and that is like 3:40:44.879 --> 3:40:48.520 one of the largest surveillance network systems in the world, 3:40:48.600 --> 3:40:52.360 I believe, um and it is actually reading the charge 3:40:52.480 --> 3:40:54.760 in like new forms of surveillance, and other cities are 3:40:54.920 --> 3:40:58.680 looking at this as a model of how to sure 3:40:58.879 --> 3:41:03.520 how to better surveillan own cities, which obviously makes one 3:41:03.560 --> 3:41:06.640 police defination trying to create their own little mini city 3:41:06.680 --> 3:41:09.360 a very interesting prospect in terms of like establishing new 3:41:09.680 --> 3:41:11.320 you know this this is mentioned before, which was like 3:41:11.400 --> 3:41:14.280 establishing new ideas and how to take policing forward into 3:41:15.800 --> 3:41:18.880 thirties after we've had these wave of social justice like 3:41:18.959 --> 3:41:22.560 uprising and uprisings for Black Lives Matter, um with you know. 3:41:22.680 --> 3:41:26.000 I mean not many places actually got defunded, but the 3:41:26.080 --> 3:41:29.040 propaganda has to be different, and like the way the 3:41:29.040 --> 3:41:32.360 police optics work definitely needs to be changed from their 3:41:32.400 --> 3:41:35.280 perspective or they're trying to have them be changed. One 3:41:35.320 --> 3:41:37.880 of the strongest things I feel like came out of 3:41:37.920 --> 3:41:42.200 this movement really pass ahead was our ability to have 3:41:42.320 --> 3:41:44.720 their game on, like the narrative and then never being 3:41:44.760 --> 3:41:48.120 able to recuperate that narrative because their plan was this 3:41:48.360 --> 3:41:51.359 answerstude for centual justice. There's a new way of training 3:41:51.440 --> 3:41:56.160 police to quote be better or like not murder people 3:41:56.240 --> 3:42:03.080 as much and like more refined. Um, And I don't 3:42:03.120 --> 3:42:08.240 want more refined like police that like murder quote the 3:42:08.400 --> 3:42:12.360 right people, or the right people, or cage the right people. 3:42:13.520 --> 3:42:18.240 That's not my desire. I went into police, and yeah, 3:42:18.240 --> 3:42:20.200 I think that there's a lot of projects happening in 3:42:20.240 --> 3:42:23.160 the forest. And you know, I also just want to emphasize, 3:42:23.200 --> 3:42:26.040 like I'm not from Atlanta, but I feel like it's 3:42:26.080 --> 3:42:28.560 really important for me to be here. You know, I 3:42:28.640 --> 3:42:30.720 think a lot of people who felt inspired by the 3:42:30.760 --> 3:42:35.080 George Floyd uprising, like, um, this is an attempt to recuperate. 3:42:35.160 --> 3:42:36.600 Like I've said this a million times, it's a time 3:42:36.680 --> 3:42:38.520 for the police to recuperate from that. I'm trying to 3:42:38.560 --> 3:42:41.200 finish what we started. I also think that we need 3:42:41.280 --> 3:42:44.040 to understand that this isn't just about Atlanta. Like one 3:42:44.080 --> 3:42:46.840 of the buildings that they're trying to build, and like 3:42:46.959 --> 3:42:49.240 one of the points of this training facility is that 3:42:49.400 --> 3:42:51.640 it is like a hub in the same way Atlanta 3:42:52.240 --> 3:42:54.080 with a with a movie theater, the same way they're 3:42:54.080 --> 3:42:57.040 trying to make Atlanta this hub. Right, It's there's an 3:42:57.080 --> 3:42:59.640 infrastructure for being a hub from shipping and stuff like that, 3:43:00.080 --> 3:43:01.600 and so now they're trying to make it this this 3:43:01.800 --> 3:43:05.200 economic habital or white collar way, and so they're trying 3:43:05.240 --> 3:43:07.680 to make it a hub for police in Atlanta, but 3:43:07.800 --> 3:43:10.720 also to train police to do fucked ship and to 3:43:10.879 --> 3:43:14.880 mutate like nationally. And I know that the police from 3:43:14.920 --> 3:43:18.160 the you know, whatever city I live in are probably 3:43:18.200 --> 3:43:20.840 going to come here and go back and funk that up. 3:43:20.840 --> 3:43:23.520 So I'm trying to make sure that they can't come here, 3:43:23.600 --> 3:43:26.960 and that you know, police are demoralized in every city 3:43:27.560 --> 3:43:29.959 and they're having trouble on every city. And this isn't 3:43:30.000 --> 3:43:32.080 just about the A p D. If you live pretty 3:43:32.160 --> 3:43:34.800 much anywhere on the East Coast, there's a high chance 3:43:35.080 --> 3:43:36.959 that your police are going to come here and then 3:43:37.080 --> 3:43:39.600 go back to your house and funk you up. So 3:43:39.800 --> 3:43:42.640 come here and make sure they can't. And the other 3:43:42.720 --> 3:43:45.680 thing I want to say is like, um, yeah, they 3:43:45.720 --> 3:43:49.040 want to make this a training facility for police right now, 3:43:49.360 --> 3:43:52.920 it is a training facility for anarchists. If you come here, 3:43:53.400 --> 3:43:56.600 I promise you you will leave with more courage and 3:43:56.720 --> 3:44:00.280 with more skills and knowing a lot of fucking people 3:44:00.400 --> 3:44:04.480 who are really fucking down all over the country. Um, 3:44:04.879 --> 3:44:09.440 and I think it's worth I wanted to jump in 3:44:09.560 --> 3:44:14.320 and say, like, this is about you. Um. An hour 3:44:14.720 --> 3:44:16.600 or two hours south of here is the School of 3:44:16.640 --> 3:44:18.800 the America's you might have heard of it. It's here 3:44:18.920 --> 3:44:24.240 in Georgia. It's where a lot of awful fucking dictators 3:44:24.280 --> 3:44:26.800 and their henchmen learned how to do really awful ship 3:44:26.879 --> 3:44:29.760 a bunch of war crimes. And here in the city 3:44:29.800 --> 3:44:35.320 of Atlanta, a local school, the largest, the largest university 3:44:35.440 --> 3:44:38.000 in the state, Georgia State University, hears something called the 3:44:38.080 --> 3:44:42.160 Georgia International Law Enforcement Exchange or GILLY, which is where 3:44:42.280 --> 3:44:46.080 they and the i DF get together to train local 3:44:46.240 --> 3:44:49.160 police forces here in Atlanta and around the country. And 3:44:49.240 --> 3:44:52.360 if you don't think that Cops City is going to 3:44:52.480 --> 3:44:55.960 play a huge role in your police department learning from 3:44:56.000 --> 3:44:59.000 the i d F how to beat you up, you 3:44:59.080 --> 3:45:01.880 have another thing coming. You should come here to Atlanta. 3:45:02.640 --> 3:45:05.640 What's going on because this is about everyone here, like 3:45:05.879 --> 3:45:09.880 it's about the whole country. They're coming to Atlanta to 3:45:10.200 --> 3:45:14.080 learn how to brutalize people, and it's going to stop it. 3:45:15.040 --> 3:45:17.520 A funny thing about this project is that there's these 3:45:17.680 --> 3:45:22.840 sort of dual intersections and dual microcosms. On one side, 3:45:22.959 --> 3:45:28.119 there is the intersection of policing, gentrification, racism, ecological destruction, 3:45:28.280 --> 3:45:30.800 and climate change. And on the other side there's the 3:45:30.840 --> 3:45:34.800 intersection between the tactics of urban city protest and rule 3:45:34.920 --> 3:45:39.400 eco defense. But there's also this dual microcosm. On the 3:45:39.440 --> 3:45:41.800 side of the state, they're trying to construct this police 3:45:41.840 --> 3:45:45.560 facility with a mock city to train in microcosm for 3:45:45.840 --> 3:45:49.760 protest suppression and practice urban combat against people who live 3:45:49.840 --> 3:45:53.280 in American cities. And on the people's side, there's this 3:45:53.360 --> 3:45:56.680 microcosm not only for how resistance movements can evolve post 3:45:57.879 --> 3:46:00.680 but more importantly for the people involve been the struggle, 3:46:01.160 --> 3:46:04.160 a microcosm for how you can live a life free 3:46:04.200 --> 3:46:07.480 of the oppressive societal mechanisms that we claim to oppose. 3:46:08.440 --> 3:46:12.120 I think another really interesting thing about this being like 3:46:12.280 --> 3:46:17.440 such an ungovernable space is that because it's ungefinitable, because 3:46:17.480 --> 3:46:21.120 it's impossible to control, it allows us to create these 3:46:21.600 --> 3:46:24.880 new ways of relating to the trouble there that can't 3:46:24.959 --> 3:46:29.119 happen in other places. Like where else are like people 3:46:29.320 --> 3:46:32.280 and their everyday lives just gonna be able to walk 3:46:32.320 --> 3:46:37.400 around as gender funded as they want, and like it's fine, 3:46:37.800 --> 3:46:41.480 Like you know, if they're a clear basher comes into 3:46:41.520 --> 3:46:44.680 these fucking woods, like, it's gonna be a bad time 3:46:44.720 --> 3:46:50.959 because literally everyone here is queer, like we don't. That's 3:46:51.040 --> 3:46:54.320 the thing is like, when we exist in these spaces 3:46:55.000 --> 3:47:00.400 in this ungovernable way, we like our like create many 3:47:00.560 --> 3:47:04.440 versions of Yeah, this thing I want to talk to about, 3:47:04.520 --> 3:47:05.880 something I wanted to talk about in terms of like 3:47:05.959 --> 3:47:10.960 the microcos the macrocosm idea of after uprising, looking for 3:47:11.080 --> 3:47:14.640 new paths forward, the depending on a forest thing can 3:47:14.720 --> 3:47:18.800 be viewed as this microcost, like this micro causum of 3:47:18.959 --> 3:47:22.640 how we can approach different struggles going into going into 3:47:22.680 --> 3:47:25.960 twenties and stuff um, because yeah, like it is like 3:47:26.040 --> 3:47:28.840 this small version of what we want. There's also the 3:47:28.879 --> 3:47:32.240 whole idea of like what I've seen here in the 3:47:32.360 --> 3:47:36.360 forest more closely resembles like an actual temporary autonomous zone 3:47:36.360 --> 3:47:38.520 than like the chads ever did in terms of like 3:47:38.600 --> 3:47:42.560 people actually like actually living free, actually living like not 3:47:42.879 --> 3:47:46.400 relying on like city water, like not like not living 3:47:46.440 --> 3:47:49.480 in like the downtown metro area. It's like it's an 3:47:49.520 --> 3:47:53.760 actual free space where people can be queer and be 3:47:53.959 --> 3:47:57.400 all of the things and climb trees and talk with 3:47:57.560 --> 3:48:00.960 the deer and like that's people are actually allowed to 3:48:01.040 --> 3:48:02.920 do that, Like there's there's not all of the stigma 3:48:03.000 --> 3:48:06.840 that even I think like Chazz had like so many problems, 3:48:07.000 --> 3:48:11.920 right like extremely extremely hashtag problematic in terms of how 3:48:12.000 --> 3:48:15.720 that resulted. Um, And yeah, this is such a microcosm 3:48:15.760 --> 3:48:18.880 of like like an autonomous area where people are able 3:48:18.920 --> 3:48:21.880 to do those things. I also kind of want to 3:48:21.920 --> 3:48:24.800 talk about like the like idea our ideas of safety 3:48:24.840 --> 3:48:30.280 and security don't reside and like the ideas of say 3:48:30.440 --> 3:48:33.960 a safety or security for us, it doesn't really resides 3:48:34.000 --> 3:48:36.320 in our trust in ourselves and each other. It resides 3:48:36.360 --> 3:48:39.760 and like we actually keep each other safe. We have 3:48:40.000 --> 3:48:44.640 each other's backs, we will fight for each other, and 3:48:45.360 --> 3:48:48.959 any threat to any one of us is like taken seriously. 3:48:50.120 --> 3:48:56.119 We have this like intimacy, criminal intimacy like allows us 3:48:56.360 --> 3:49:02.240 to build more chin win relationships with high highs and 3:49:02.520 --> 3:49:06.360 low lows than anything ever could. And like the deadening 3:49:06.520 --> 3:49:14.040 that society puts on us, this like chemically induced regulated 3:49:14.280 --> 3:49:20.520 median of gray and terrible is that's not what we live. Yes, 3:49:20.720 --> 3:49:24.200 some days here it sucks to wake up and everything 3:49:24.280 --> 3:49:27.080 you own use wet and you gotta go ship in 3:49:27.160 --> 3:49:31.760 a hole that it's flitted. But also some days things 3:49:31.880 --> 3:49:35.360 here are fucking awesome, and I get to wake up 3:49:35.480 --> 3:49:38.720 to the birds calling and go like have a party 3:49:38.800 --> 3:49:42.320 with my friends. I don't like exist here in a 3:49:42.440 --> 3:49:47.800 way that is like comprehensible or legible to like a 3:49:48.000 --> 3:49:51.240 wider like society. I don't exist in a way that 3:49:51.400 --> 3:49:54.480 people look at this and be like, ah, that's what 3:49:54.640 --> 3:49:58.320 you need. But I have never been happier than when 3:49:58.360 --> 3:50:01.040 I've been in the woods with people I trust and 3:50:01.200 --> 3:50:06.840 care about and don't have my back. People people don't 3:50:06.880 --> 3:50:09.360 have to worry about working to pay their water bill 3:50:09.440 --> 3:50:12.400 because you can go just get the things you need 3:50:12.560 --> 3:50:15.080 from places you don't have to pay for it, And 3:50:15.240 --> 3:50:18.720 like you don't have to worry about all of these things, 3:50:18.840 --> 3:50:22.320 all of these societal pressures. There's not this constant threat 3:50:22.400 --> 3:50:25.720 of oh I lose my job. Oh all those things, 3:50:25.800 --> 3:50:29.360 all those things, all these mental constructs that control us 3:50:29.920 --> 3:50:34.600 aren't there anymore. Because we've built a world it doesn't 3:50:35.480 --> 3:50:38.760 it doesn't rely on that in the slightest, And I 3:50:38.840 --> 3:50:44.520 think that's like a really powerful thing that like we've 3:50:44.760 --> 3:50:48.120 already met our own needs and so we can fight 3:50:48.240 --> 3:50:54.600 back in these beautiful and fiery ways. Pun intended that 3:50:54.800 --> 3:50:59.800 like allow us to just experience things that like have 3:51:00.120 --> 3:51:05.440 been stolen from us generations. Yeah, I was going to say, 3:51:05.480 --> 3:51:07.680 we're not safe, but we're free. And I think that 3:51:07.800 --> 3:51:10.800 anyone who makes that decision is an active decision to 3:51:10.960 --> 3:51:13.520 not be safe, but to be free. I may not light, 3:51:13.680 --> 3:51:17.680 but by definition ILL ride for them. Because we're now 3:51:17.920 --> 3:51:20.480 nearing the end of the episode, but before I finish, 3:51:20.560 --> 3:51:22.800 I need to go back to talking about tactics for 3:51:22.920 --> 3:51:26.920 a bit and end with some actual good news. From 3:51:27.000 --> 3:51:31.400 January to present time of recording, there's been an increase 3:51:31.440 --> 3:51:35.240 in solidarity attacks in cities across the country, some targeting 3:51:35.320 --> 3:51:39.040 Reeves Young and Long engineering equipment in other states a 3:51:39.160 --> 3:51:43.840 third party service providers of contracted construction companies or locations 3:51:43.880 --> 3:51:46.880 and offices of corporate sponsors of the Atlanta Police Foundation. 3:51:47.720 --> 3:51:51.760 This past March, six machines owned by Reeves Young, including 3:51:51.800 --> 3:51:56.440 two large excavators and a bulldozer, were destroyed in Flowery Branch, Georgia. 3:51:57.080 --> 3:52:01.000 The online communicate reads, quote, so long as you continue 3:52:01.040 --> 3:52:03.880 to contract with the Atlanta Police Foundation for the destruction 3:52:04.000 --> 3:52:07.000 of the South Atlanta Forest and the construction of a 3:52:07.080 --> 3:52:10.280 Cops City in its place. Know that your equipment is 3:52:10.320 --> 3:52:13.760 not safe, your offices are not safe, your homes are 3:52:13.840 --> 3:52:16.800 not safe. Unless your company chooses to pull out of 3:52:16.840 --> 3:52:19.880 the Atlanta Police Foundation's Cop City project of its own volition, 3:52:20.440 --> 3:52:23.600 we will undermine your profits so severely that you'll have 3:52:23.720 --> 3:52:28.560 no choice but to drop the contract unquote. Subsequent solidarity 3:52:28.600 --> 3:52:33.880 attacks have happened in Portland, San Francisco, Salt Lake City, Minneapolis, 3:52:34.080 --> 3:52:37.320 and Highland, Michigan, to name a few. Many of these 3:52:37.320 --> 3:52:41.400 attacks were targeted at Atlas Technical consultants, who own many 3:52:41.480 --> 3:52:44.480 smaller companies such as Long Engineering, which has done work 3:52:44.600 --> 3:52:47.120 with Reeves Young and brass Field and Gory for the 3:52:47.200 --> 3:52:50.920 Cops City project. In the vein of shack style methods. 3:52:51.360 --> 3:52:55.120 This past April, on the ninth, a website called stop 3:52:55.240 --> 3:53:00.520 Reeves Young dot Com launched onto the interwebs. The listed 3:53:00.600 --> 3:53:04.440 some of the various third party clients and subcontractors under 3:53:04.480 --> 3:53:08.000 Reeves Young Construction and ways to contact them to voice 3:53:08.040 --> 3:53:12.000 concern about their relation to the deforestation and this urban 3:53:12.200 --> 3:53:15.840 warfare construction project, as well as including the names and 3:53:15.840 --> 3:53:19.240 addresses of executives within Reeves Young and some of their 3:53:19.280 --> 3:53:22.640 affiliates on the day I was set to leave Atlanta 3:53:22.840 --> 3:53:24.840 and say goodbye to the forest for the time being, 3:53:25.440 --> 3:53:28.800 activists got word that Reeves Young Construction might be dropping 3:53:28.880 --> 3:53:32.680 out of the project. This would obviously be a big, 3:53:32.760 --> 3:53:36.320 big win and an indication of the possible effectiveness of 3:53:36.480 --> 3:53:40.960 the shack method combined with sabotage and the forest encampment tactics. 3:53:42.240 --> 3:53:45.200 At a stakeholders meeting for the Copsity of project the 3:53:45.320 --> 3:53:48.760 next day, it was publicly confirmed that Reeves Young will 3:53:48.840 --> 3:53:52.800 not continue work on the new police training center. In 3:53:52.920 --> 3:53:56.880 the public statement addressing Reeves Young's lack of future involvement, 3:53:57.360 --> 3:54:00.240 the Atlanta Police Foundation tried to frame the situation as 3:54:00.360 --> 3:54:04.360 Reeves Young simply have quote finished their role in the project. 3:54:05.120 --> 3:54:08.120 This is a laughable deception, as Reeves Young is one 3:54:08.160 --> 3:54:11.320 of Atlanta's major construction firms and has even built massive 3:54:11.400 --> 3:54:15.320 quote unquote public safety facilities in the past. They do 3:54:15.440 --> 3:54:19.280 not merely do preliminary sub contracting survey work. They work 3:54:19.320 --> 3:54:22.520 on projects from start to finish, taking lead contracting roles. 3:54:23.280 --> 3:54:26.320 It was speculated that Reeves Young itself may have been 3:54:26.400 --> 3:54:29.600 the main subcontractor hired to do complete construction of Cops 3:54:29.640 --> 3:54:32.960 City by brass Field and Gory, who have more established 3:54:33.040 --> 3:54:36.840 ties to the Atlanta Police Foundation. Quoting from the Stop 3:54:36.960 --> 3:54:40.680 for Reeves Young website quote, the Atlanta Police Foundation would 3:54:40.680 --> 3:54:43.200 have us believe that Reeves Young was contracted to do 3:54:43.360 --> 3:54:47.600 nothing more than hire a bulldozer and walk alongside long 3:54:47.680 --> 3:54:51.000 engineering work crews as they planted a few surveying stakes 3:54:51.080 --> 3:54:54.760 and did some soil testing. Police and their corporate backers 3:54:54.960 --> 3:54:57.160 don't want to let it be known that a focused 3:54:57.200 --> 3:55:00.400 group of activists have delivered a devastating blow to the 3:55:00.520 --> 3:55:04.320 Cops City construction, while the Atlanta Police Foundation tries to 3:55:04.400 --> 3:55:07.840 say face, we are celebrating a major victory pressuring a 3:55:07.960 --> 3:55:11.440 main contractor out of the project. We are pleased that 3:55:11.520 --> 3:55:13.920 the movement has built up so much momentum and that 3:55:14.000 --> 3:55:17.280 the Cops City development continues to face setbacks because of 3:55:17.320 --> 3:55:21.520 the intelligent actions of regular people. However, the struggle continues. 3:55:21.960 --> 3:55:25.560 Brass Field and Gory, another large general contractor, remains with 3:55:25.800 --> 3:55:30.600 the project. A Georgia Open records request from April confirmed 3:55:30.720 --> 3:55:33.360 via Paper Trail that the Atlanta Police Foundation has been 3:55:33.400 --> 3:55:36.280 working on the Cop City project with brass Field and Gory, 3:55:36.760 --> 3:55:39.720 another major general contractor in the Southeast region of the 3:55:39.840 --> 3:55:43.320 United States. Brass Field and Gory is an LLC and 3:55:43.400 --> 3:55:47.680 a multibillion dollar general contractor, ranked as a top contractor 3:55:47.760 --> 3:55:52.080 in the Southeast by Engineering News Record. Based on recent 3:55:52.160 --> 3:55:55.360 Atlanta Police Foundation emails required through public records, we can 3:55:55.400 --> 3:55:58.000 now assume that brass Field and Gory act as the 3:55:58.120 --> 3:56:02.560 soul contractor for Cops Said, quoting again from the Stop 3:56:02.600 --> 3:56:06.200 Reeves Young website quote, Brassfield and Gory are dependent on 3:56:06.320 --> 3:56:10.360 subcontractors to complete their projects. Now they must hire a 3:56:10.440 --> 3:56:13.320 new entire set of subcontractors in order to build a 3:56:13.360 --> 3:56:16.440 Cops City. We believe it is in their best interests 3:56:16.560 --> 3:56:18.520 for brass Field and Gory to follow the lead of 3:56:18.640 --> 3:56:22.040 Reeves Young and drop Atlanta Police Foundation as a client, 3:56:22.680 --> 3:56:25.680 rather than remaining complicit in the destruction of the forest. 3:56:26.400 --> 3:56:28.280 It is up to all of us to make that 3:56:28.480 --> 3:56:31.640 clear to them. We can pressure brass Field and Gory 3:56:31.760 --> 3:56:35.000 out of Cops City by complicating their ability to do business. 3:56:35.720 --> 3:56:37.520 This does not have to be limited to the Cops 3:56:37.560 --> 3:56:41.200 City project. Their various construction projects and third party service 3:56:41.240 --> 3:56:44.840 providers are numerous. If brass Field and Gory begin to 3:56:44.920 --> 3:56:47.680 feel like they must choose between all of their contracts 3:56:48.120 --> 3:56:51.080 and their Cops City contract. We are confident that they 3:56:51.120 --> 3:56:54.920 will choose the former. By working to convince the subcontractors, 3:56:55.080 --> 3:56:59.960 consulting firms, surveyors, architects, etcetera around the country that brass 3:57:00.040 --> 3:57:02.520 Field and Gory are not a good business investment, we 3:57:02.600 --> 3:57:04.640 can make it easier for the construction company to do 3:57:04.720 --> 3:57:07.720 the right thing and dump the Atlanta Police Foundation for good. 3:57:09.200 --> 3:57:12.000 This has been an incredible period of momentum and research, 3:57:12.120 --> 3:57:15.000 but nothing is over yet. Now that we have made 3:57:15.040 --> 3:57:18.120 a decisive victory, it is important to remain more focused 3:57:18.160 --> 3:57:20.520 than ever. In the coming weeks and months, we will 3:57:20.560 --> 3:57:23.400 need to continue pressuring all of the contractors associated with 3:57:23.440 --> 3:57:26.640 the project to create economic consentives for them to simply 3:57:26.840 --> 3:57:30.720 move their time and resources to other endeavors. The Stop 3:57:30.840 --> 3:57:33.480 Reeves Young website will continue to serve as an educational 3:57:33.600 --> 3:57:37.920 hub for this ongoing campaign. End quote. On top of 3:57:38.040 --> 3:57:40.600 confirming that Reeves Young was dropping out of the project, 3:57:41.000 --> 3:57:44.120 a few other interesting pieces of information came out at 3:57:44.160 --> 3:57:49.800 the recent stakeholders meeting held on April. Allegedly, there will 3:57:49.840 --> 3:57:54.720 be a bid for the next contractors or subcontractors UH 3:57:54.800 --> 3:57:57.640 in the coming weeks, and that will be publicly announced. 3:57:58.160 --> 3:58:00.400 It was also announced during the meeting that the cops 3:58:00.400 --> 3:58:05.640 city planners will keep construction timelines secret and may surround 3:58:05.680 --> 3:58:09.280 the construction site and future facility with an unwanted fence. 3:58:09.760 --> 3:58:14.520 In response to the quote law breaking protesters, Atlanta Assistant 3:58:14.560 --> 3:58:18.560 Police Chief and Site Security Chief Darren sheer Bomb said quote, 3:58:18.960 --> 3:58:21.480 we are working with decav County to address any criminal 3:58:21.520 --> 3:58:25.720 acts related to trespassing and vandalism unquote. He also stated 3:58:25.760 --> 3:58:29.160 that police were also concerned with protesters targeting those who 3:58:29.280 --> 3:58:32.960 work on the project at other locations. Here's an interesting 3:58:33.040 --> 3:58:35.760 note from our force defender pals on how the Atlanta 3:58:35.760 --> 3:58:39.600 Police Department function and are allowed to operate while inside 3:58:39.640 --> 3:58:43.200 the old Atlanta prison farm and Entrenchment Creek Park. This 3:58:43.400 --> 3:58:48.040 is something that's true police departments in Channel. But as 3:58:48.120 --> 3:58:54.760 soon as the copies out of streets and things like that, 3:58:55.000 --> 3:58:59.920 that cop is uncomfortable. And like, cops here are carrying 3:59:00.040 --> 3:59:03.880 in twenty pounds of gear on them at all times, 3:59:04.360 --> 3:59:07.120 and not only are they hearing that much gear, but 3:59:08.400 --> 3:59:11.800 they spend most all day sitting running around and sitting 3:59:11.800 --> 3:59:15.920 in a car, and like you know, that cop not 3:59:16.080 --> 3:59:20.360 only doesn't want to chase you through the woods, but 3:59:20.440 --> 3:59:24.560 they have so probably aren't capable of it. And aside 3:59:24.680 --> 3:59:29.560 from the hobbyists, like you know, their infrastructure issues then 3:59:29.600 --> 3:59:31.840 being away from their cars, not being on the streets 3:59:31.880 --> 3:59:34.280 having all of their gear. We're also not in the 3:59:34.440 --> 3:59:37.760 City of Atlanta in this forest. We're an unincorporated the 3:59:37.800 --> 3:59:41.240 Cab County, which means Atlanta Police Department doesn't have legal 3:59:41.400 --> 3:59:45.960 jurisdiction as police here. They only have legal jurisdiction as 3:59:46.120 --> 3:59:49.280 agents of the City of Atlanta because the City of 3:59:49.280 --> 3:59:52.280 Atlanta owns this property which is outside of the city. 3:59:52.680 --> 3:59:55.720 So in any time when they're conducting and arrest they 3:59:55.800 --> 3:59:59.040 have to have the Cab County Police Department officers present 3:59:59.120 --> 4:00:02.320 with them. There. There can be an Atlanta Police Department 4:00:02.360 --> 4:00:05.400 and has been major like one of their huge like 4:00:05.600 --> 4:00:08.960 high ranks who has no legal authority here except to 4:00:09.040 --> 4:00:14.520 represent the city. And that relationship is kind of like 4:00:14.760 --> 4:00:17.920 tenuous at best. They hate each pals. They hate each 4:00:17.920 --> 4:00:21.080 other and you know, so if you're if you're headed 4:00:21.120 --> 4:00:24.360 in the town, like bear in minds, that is a 4:00:24.800 --> 4:00:28.000 huge place to drive a wedge because they fucking hate 4:00:28.000 --> 4:00:31.520 each other. Yeah, I know, there's like, um, there's like 4:00:31.800 --> 4:00:34.920 one thing one time where like a Lamp police officers 4:00:34.960 --> 4:00:38.960 were inside the forest um with like a specific goal 4:00:39.040 --> 4:00:42.080 in mind in the Cab County Police cruisers. Not only 4:00:42.120 --> 4:00:44.840 did the Cab police not want to gather cruisers and 4:00:44.960 --> 4:00:47.480 go into the forest because they have they didn't care, 4:00:47.880 --> 4:00:52.880 they didn't want to do this. So the Atlanta Police, Uh, 4:00:53.240 --> 4:00:57.840 We're screaming into their radio saying, get this person. They're 4:00:57.880 --> 4:00:59.720 walking out of the forest. Get this person they're walking 4:00:59.760 --> 4:01:02.200 out there. It would just be like five or ten 4:01:02.280 --> 4:01:05.400 minutes before the Cab Police like cruisers to just roll 4:01:05.880 --> 4:01:09.320 down the road and like you know, they're like people 4:01:09.320 --> 4:01:12.640 who like ran into the woods and like ran from 4:01:12.680 --> 4:01:15.680 the riche Cat police. Like like, I'm not going in 4:01:15.800 --> 4:01:18.400 this word these words, and I'm also not calling to 4:01:18.600 --> 4:01:22.120 let the Lamp police to let them know that this 4:01:22.280 --> 4:01:25.400 person just ran from me into the woods, because then 4:01:25.440 --> 4:01:29.560 they'll have to actually go in after them. Also, during 4:01:29.600 --> 4:01:33.920 the April stakeholder meeting, Security Chief shear Bomb announced that 4:01:34.040 --> 4:01:37.320 the FBI and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation agreed to 4:01:37.360 --> 4:01:40.560 an assistance request in mid April from Atlanta Police Chief 4:01:40.720 --> 4:01:44.600 Rodney Bryant and will be assigned to the site while 4:01:44.600 --> 4:01:48.560 attempting to work with neighborhood watch groups. He noted that quote, 4:01:48.800 --> 4:01:51.280 we look forward to working with those agencies to ensure 4:01:51.320 --> 4:01:53.360 that this is a safe project that is occurring here 4:01:53.720 --> 4:01:56.400 and addressing any criminal acts that may be occurring on 4:01:56.560 --> 4:01:59.760 site to try to stop the project from proceeding unquote. 4:02:00.840 --> 4:02:04.560 The co chair of the Stakeholder Advisory Committee, Sharon Williams, 4:02:04.840 --> 4:02:09.920 invoked the term echo terrorism as relating to the forced defense, 4:02:10.560 --> 4:02:12.880 marking the first time that word has been used by 4:02:12.880 --> 4:02:16.160 the government officials to refer to this batch of protests. 4:02:16.960 --> 4:02:20.839 She also thanked the cop City planners for quote transparency 4:02:21.320 --> 4:02:25.320 in explaining why they cannot be transparent on the construction timeline. 4:02:25.920 --> 4:02:28.640 Emails between the Atlanta Police Foundation and the City of Atlanta, 4:02:29.000 --> 4:02:33.040 obtained via public records requests do give a possible look 4:02:33.120 --> 4:02:37.640 into the future of the development. In a January two email, 4:02:37.680 --> 4:02:41.400 Police Foundation representative Allen Williams said that we quote plan 4:02:41.560 --> 4:02:46.560 on enabling work possibly in the May and June time frame. 4:02:47.000 --> 4:02:51.040 Our project will last until the last quarter, and our 4:02:51.160 --> 4:02:54.760 contractors are currently working on an overall site logistics and 4:02:54.840 --> 4:03:00.120 safety plan unquote. Although at the time their contractors all 4:03:00.160 --> 4:03:03.280 included Reeves Young so there's no telling how accurate that 4:03:03.400 --> 4:03:08.600 timeline is. Now. Other emails detailed plans for Homeland Security 4:03:08.680 --> 4:03:13.240 to obtain ring camera subscriptions to monitor quote criminal activity 4:03:13.320 --> 4:03:17.280 at the New Academy footprint unquote. In general, when involved 4:03:17.320 --> 4:03:20.560 in any level of protest, no matter of the alleged legality, 4:03:21.120 --> 4:03:25.520 security culture considerations should always be among people's top priorities, 4:03:26.000 --> 4:03:28.600 especially with more eyes being directed to the defend the 4:03:28.640 --> 4:03:33.320 Atlanta Forced Project. Each person should be responsible for themselves, 4:03:33.400 --> 4:03:36.680 and I think that that type of action you're interested 4:03:36.720 --> 4:03:41.280 in taking should severely inform the type of personal security 4:03:41.320 --> 4:03:46.760 precautions that that you're taking. Um. I think that's that's 4:03:46.800 --> 4:03:51.680 been a recurring theme as the movement builds. There are 4:03:51.760 --> 4:03:55.560 folks that come in movement not having heard the term 4:03:55.640 --> 4:03:59.400 security culture or whatever you want to follow, and so 4:03:59.680 --> 4:04:02.680 that be really jarring for folks that are just first 4:04:02.840 --> 4:04:06.280 trying to get involved, But people pick it up surprisingly 4:04:06.400 --> 4:04:10.280 quick once you have built as a community like norms 4:04:10.560 --> 4:04:14.960 and customs around is they say phones on our phones 4:04:15.000 --> 4:04:18.880 off meeting? Are we talking about this on signal? Is 4:04:18.920 --> 4:04:21.320 the call for this action going out on social media? 4:04:21.400 --> 4:04:24.600 Are we just sharing this amongst friends? Where that hadn't 4:04:25.000 --> 4:04:27.600 really been a thing, and where frankly, a lot of 4:04:27.760 --> 4:04:31.880 people face significant repression here in Atlanta during the uprisings 4:04:32.360 --> 4:04:36.480 because of security culture decisions that were made. I think 4:04:36.560 --> 4:04:42.280 that a security culture is being built here that where 4:04:42.320 --> 4:04:46.640 it didn't really exist before, or at least wasn't widespread before. 4:04:47.120 --> 4:04:52.320 He is going to survive long past this movement, I think. 4:04:53.280 --> 4:04:56.480 I think one of the biggest aspects of these things 4:04:56.760 --> 4:05:01.240 is like the social aspects of it, and like like 4:05:01.480 --> 4:05:06.360 the generalizing of the norm of if someone answers you 4:05:06.520 --> 4:05:12.360 vaguely and seems uninterested in to meet and continuing the conversation, 4:05:13.280 --> 4:05:16.920 she's understanding that they have your best interests in heart 4:05:17.040 --> 4:05:21.760 when they don't want you to know, And like, quite frankly, 4:05:21.840 --> 4:05:25.920 you just can't accidentally share information you don't have. And 4:05:26.080 --> 4:05:30.920 so like, you know, when we sit here in these 4:05:31.040 --> 4:05:34.960 woods and people say, you know, like you say, like, 4:05:35.480 --> 4:05:38.960 so you know you're where have you been? Blah blah blah, 4:05:38.960 --> 4:05:41.760 and I'm just like, oh, you know our places or 4:05:41.840 --> 4:05:45.200 something like that. I just don't ask questions. And I 4:05:45.360 --> 4:05:48.600 understand that I don't just not only do I not 4:05:48.800 --> 4:05:50.920 need to know, but I probably don't want to know. 4:05:51.880 --> 4:05:54.920 And like you know, when it comes to like more 4:05:55.320 --> 4:06:02.040 like material technical things, those are important, but like the 4:06:02.240 --> 4:06:07.840 social aspects of security culture are so so much more 4:06:08.080 --> 4:06:15.200 important than the technical aspects. It's like I don't know 4:06:15.440 --> 4:06:19.440 as everybody talks about security culture as like take your 4:06:19.480 --> 4:06:24.480 phone out of the room, but like, you know, if 4:06:24.520 --> 4:06:26.920 you take the phone out of the room and talk 4:06:27.000 --> 4:06:31.400 about doing crazy ship with complete strangers, you don't you 4:06:31.520 --> 4:06:34.320 know and have a reason to trust them, And like 4:06:35.840 --> 4:06:39.440 coming here to Atlanta, like if you want to do 4:06:39.680 --> 4:06:45.840 crazy shit, don't you know if you want to do 4:06:46.080 --> 4:06:50.120 if you're coming to Atlanta, let me rephrase that you're 4:06:50.240 --> 4:06:51.840 If you're coming to Atlanta and you want to do 4:06:51.920 --> 4:06:56.240 crazy ship, like you to think about like how to 4:06:56.400 --> 4:07:00.600 do that in a safe way or in safely possible, 4:07:00.800 --> 4:07:07.680 you know, don't don't come to us and be like, hey, 4:07:08.520 --> 4:07:11.040 I haven't met you before, but like do you want 4:07:11.080 --> 4:07:14.560 to go do some federal felonies? Because no, I don't, 4:07:14.880 --> 4:07:16.800 And I don't want to know that you're doing that either, 4:07:17.960 --> 4:07:23.240 Like we have do you want to do crazy ship? 4:07:23.800 --> 4:07:26.720 That's cool, just like I don't want to know you 4:07:26.920 --> 4:07:30.120 did it, And like if you're like coming here with 4:07:30.200 --> 4:07:35.040 the intention of creating like with the intention of like 4:07:35.520 --> 4:07:39.280 doing ship because it's like cool and fun. If you're 4:07:39.360 --> 4:07:42.960 coming here with the intention of, like, I want to 4:07:43.040 --> 4:07:47.800 gain social capital because I did crazy things, Like maybe 4:07:47.800 --> 4:07:53.360 you rethink that like if you if you want to 4:07:53.480 --> 4:07:56.680 do crazy ship and you do want to come here, 4:07:57.280 --> 4:07:59.960 find your closest friends playing a road trip and don't 4:08:00.080 --> 4:08:05.200 help anyone. In a recent interview, Atlanta Police Foundation President 4:08:05.360 --> 4:08:09.080 and CEO Dave Wilkinson estimates that defend the forest quote 4:08:09.120 --> 4:08:12.880 unquote group members have done hundreds of thousands of dollars 4:08:13.000 --> 4:08:16.480 of damage to utility equipment and has brought up plans 4:08:16.520 --> 4:08:18.720 to add defense around the entirety of the site as 4:08:18.840 --> 4:08:22.880 construction begins, saying, and anyone on the site will be arrested, 4:08:22.960 --> 4:08:25.800 and as we move forward, the enforcement will become stricter 4:08:25.960 --> 4:08:30.480 and stricter unquote. Also stated in an interview is that quote. 4:08:30.800 --> 4:08:34.280 The Police Foundation also hopes to build separate museums on 4:08:34.440 --> 4:08:38.400 site dedicated to police officers and the labor prison that 4:08:38.520 --> 4:08:43.160 was once located there. So that's that's what the kids 4:08:43.240 --> 4:08:48.240 call maskoff moment of building a dedicated museum two cops 4:08:48.520 --> 4:08:53.640 and the labor prison a k A. Slave labor prison. Anyway, 4:08:55.040 --> 4:08:58.160 the first phase of the project had the initial ninety 4:08:58.200 --> 4:09:01.000 million price tag attached, with expair is being forced to 4:09:01.080 --> 4:09:03.880 pay thirty million dollars of that, and it's still unclear 4:09:04.000 --> 4:09:06.360 what the final cost of the facility is slated to be, 4:09:06.920 --> 4:09:09.720 or what the estimated operating costs are, or really how 4:09:09.800 --> 4:09:13.960 many phases of construction they really plan on doing. The 4:09:14.000 --> 4:09:16.200 past few weeks, the site of Cops in the Woods 4:09:16.280 --> 4:09:20.720 has become a more and more common occurrence, whether to 4:09:20.800 --> 4:09:25.920 do scouting or just apparently detonating explosives for funzies at 4:09:25.960 --> 4:09:28.320 their current makeshift shooting range, like they did a few 4:09:28.360 --> 4:09:31.360 days ago. One morning when I was there, I woke 4:09:31.440 --> 4:09:34.360 up to people yelling Cops in the Woods, which by 4:09:34.400 --> 4:09:37.440 the way, is a very effective substitute for caffeine in 4:09:37.640 --> 4:09:40.560 terms of making you very awake and alert quite early 4:09:40.600 --> 4:09:43.480 in the morning. Um. And then while running through the forest, 4:09:43.600 --> 4:09:46.280 I saw a beautiful deer and a hopping rabbit. So 4:09:47.200 --> 4:09:52.760 nice clash of of feelings and sensations there. In terms 4:09:52.840 --> 4:09:56.920 of closing sentiments based on conversations and observations I had 4:09:57.080 --> 4:10:00.720 from my brief time in the woods, it's this play 4:10:00.800 --> 4:10:05.200 to your strengths, don't play by the enemy's rules, utilize 4:10:05.240 --> 4:10:09.320 the intersection of urban city based tactics and resources, while 4:10:09.400 --> 4:10:14.280 taking inspiration from classic forest based eco defense. Attacking from 4:10:14.280 --> 4:10:16.400 the cover of the woods and ensuring that the terrain 4:10:16.600 --> 4:10:20.080 is as unwelcoming as possible to vehicular machinery can help 4:10:20.160 --> 4:10:24.200 by time for rapid response popular mobilization from people living 4:10:24.240 --> 4:10:31.000 in the city, if and when that time comes, I'll 4:10:31.040 --> 4:10:33.800 be careful coming down a key road. They throwing bottles 4:10:33.840 --> 4:10:36.960 at the police, and the bottles at smoke ball, so 4:10:37.160 --> 4:10:40.560 be careful. They in the woods um throwing at the 4:10:40.760 --> 4:10:46.680 police cars and stuff like that, so appreciate it. Yeah, 4:10:46.680 --> 4:10:50.880 And despite the defensive nature of defending the forest, there 4:10:51.000 --> 4:10:53.480 still is a large amount of making sure that as 4:10:53.560 --> 4:10:56.600 often as possible you can do the prep work to 4:10:56.720 --> 4:11:00.080 set the terms of engagement so that they're fighting on 4:11:00.280 --> 4:11:04.040 your terms. You're not always complying to theirs, which is 4:11:04.360 --> 4:11:07.280 can be useful for defensive stuff. Obviously, the whole aspect 4:11:07.840 --> 4:11:11.760 of defending a forest like this that you I think 4:11:14.240 --> 4:11:17.720 the offenders can have this almost like spectral quality of 4:11:17.880 --> 4:11:23.800 like cops don't know where people are, what they've built, 4:11:23.960 --> 4:11:26.840 what's in the forest, what's in the woods, and it's 4:11:26.880 --> 4:11:30.280 like spooky, like you like you don't know who's who's 4:11:30.320 --> 4:11:32.800 up in a treehouse, you don't know who's behind what's tree, 4:11:33.120 --> 4:11:35.440 you don't know what things are in the woods, And 4:11:35.560 --> 4:11:38.480 that spectral quality of the forest offense is a really 4:11:38.960 --> 4:11:42.520 interesting aspect of it that you don't see. And you 4:11:42.520 --> 4:11:44.440 don't see that. And then like pipeline protests as much, 4:11:44.440 --> 4:11:46.840 you don't really see that for like Protestant a city, um, 4:11:46.920 --> 4:11:48.520 because the city very much as like a more of 4:11:48.560 --> 4:11:51.200 like a cops terrain, UM. So I really do like 4:11:51.320 --> 4:11:54.280 that aspect of like cops are kind of scared to 4:11:54.320 --> 4:11:59.880 go in the woods because they're spooky. They have open 4:12:00.000 --> 4:12:04.320 They testified like in court testimony that said that when 4:12:04.400 --> 4:12:08.240 this forest defender was arrested, the police officer that gave 4:12:08.400 --> 4:12:14.680 his statement to the judge was shaking, physically shaking because 4:12:14.720 --> 4:12:16.840 he was so afraid from being yelled at, Like that 4:12:16.960 --> 4:12:18.880 was all that had happened, is a bunch of protesters 4:12:18.960 --> 4:12:21.480 were yelling at them and he was shaking. The police 4:12:21.480 --> 4:12:24.760 are really dependent on their infrastructure. They are dependent on 4:12:24.920 --> 4:12:27.000 all of that kid that they carry around. They are 4:12:27.160 --> 4:12:29.960 not mobile. They are meant to be attached to that 4:12:30.080 --> 4:12:33.520 squad car, and every further step they take away from that, 4:12:34.240 --> 4:12:37.440 they are more and more uncomfortable. And when they look 4:12:37.520 --> 4:12:39.040 around they realized they were in the middle of the 4:12:39.120 --> 4:12:43.560 fucking woods. That's terrifying for them and that needs to 4:12:43.640 --> 4:12:46.760 be like taking advantage of. And it is wo'ds that 4:12:47.240 --> 4:12:50.160 like they that their drones and their police helicopters have 4:12:50.400 --> 4:12:53.440 problem even with their thermal tracking of seeing through the 4:12:53.520 --> 4:12:56.920 canopy woods that like, and I want to say, like, 4:12:57.480 --> 4:13:00.160 it was really funny to me that in that it 4:13:00.320 --> 4:13:03.240 was said bad the purposes were screaming, we know where 4:13:03.280 --> 4:13:06.680 you live, we know where you live. We're coming, We're coming, 4:13:07.880 --> 4:13:10.440 which is the whole, the whole post thing um, because 4:13:10.480 --> 4:13:12.280 I mean, I mean in terms of in terms of 4:13:12.280 --> 4:13:14.480 thermal stuff. I brought a thermal camera of mine here, 4:13:14.880 --> 4:13:16.560 and the woods are very hard to see through With 4:13:16.600 --> 4:13:18.840 my thermal camera. I cannot see more than twenty ft away. 4:13:18.880 --> 4:13:21.360 I've I've tested it on people. It's that's the super 4:13:21.440 --> 4:13:25.480 interesting aspect. And yeah, like it's the whole like Fern Gully, 4:13:25.520 --> 4:13:29.200 Princess Princess Mononoke thing of like when people come out 4:13:29.200 --> 4:13:32.880 of the woods wearing ski basks Like that's freaking like 4:13:33.240 --> 4:13:35.800 it's like we are you, Like you can be the 4:13:35.920 --> 4:13:38.040 thing that goes boo in the night like that, Actually 4:13:38.240 --> 4:13:41.240 that is you, um, and that's something that should be 4:13:41.320 --> 4:13:44.600 taken advantage of when there's people invading the forest and 4:13:44.720 --> 4:13:50.600 trying to destroy it. I think this is really for 4:13:50.720 --> 4:13:57.480 a lot of us, like us have been like the 4:13:57.600 --> 4:14:00.640 dark and the night and the woods as this verything. 4:14:02.000 --> 4:14:05.760 This is where I feel the most safe. This is 4:14:07.160 --> 4:14:10.200 if you give me a bunch of camel and like 4:14:10.360 --> 4:14:14.960 send me off into the woods, There's nowhere I'm going 4:14:15.120 --> 4:14:19.920 to feel more safe and more capable both of safety 4:14:20.120 --> 4:14:23.720 and attack. When I'm out here, I feel like I 4:14:23.840 --> 4:14:26.960 can do anything. You give me a bunch of woods, 4:14:27.000 --> 4:14:32.120 a bunch of hills, Like, there's so much we can 4:14:32.240 --> 4:14:37.200 do because we're not in this position of you know, 4:14:37.640 --> 4:14:42.680 entering hostile territory to you know, do things. This is 4:14:43.760 --> 4:14:47.520 territory that we control, and this is territory that we 4:14:47.760 --> 4:14:51.320 are using to fight back. And we're weaponizing not just 4:14:52.280 --> 4:14:57.160 you know, the cops fear, but we're weaponizing the terrain itself. 4:14:57.280 --> 4:15:01.240 Were weaponizing the trees, were weaponized in the hills. We're 4:15:01.280 --> 4:15:06.240 recognizing the ruins, and we're recognizing everything here has like 4:15:09.080 --> 4:15:13.320 literally a thing to use to attack the state. If 4:15:13.360 --> 4:15:16.480 you give me a ridgeline, I can hide from the 4:15:16.560 --> 4:15:20.560 cops better than any fucking you know, high tech thermal 4:15:20.640 --> 4:15:23.280 scattering tilly suit is ever gonna give me. You know, 4:15:24.440 --> 4:15:27.280 out here, you don't need a bunch of fancy ship 4:15:27.560 --> 4:15:30.920 to like engage in conflict with the state. You don't 4:15:31.040 --> 4:15:36.200 need thermal cameras and all that. You can walk into 4:15:36.240 --> 4:15:41.200 a military surplus store and buy, you know, for fifty bucks. 4:15:41.240 --> 4:15:45.480 You can buy everything you need to like do just 4:15:45.680 --> 4:15:50.760 about whatever you want out here. And that's like, that's 4:15:50.840 --> 4:15:54.040 like a really important and beautiful thing. Is It's not 4:15:55.320 --> 4:15:59.680 it's not hard to do what we're doing. You just 4:16:00.000 --> 4:16:05.920 have to break down the mental barriers and do it. Um. Yeah, 4:16:06.000 --> 4:16:07.920 we we do our best to protect the trees, and 4:16:07.960 --> 4:16:13.280 the trees protected us too. And it's it's cool living here. 4:16:13.920 --> 4:16:17.000 And it's like obviously something ever on most people probably 4:16:17.160 --> 4:16:20.160 think about is yet how important wild spaces are. But 4:16:20.400 --> 4:16:23.920 it's cool to really fucking feel it, and it's like like, yeah, 4:16:24.040 --> 4:16:26.720 this this place is super important because of how it 4:16:26.800 --> 4:16:29.240 interacts with the ecosystem and how it filters the water 4:16:29.480 --> 4:16:31.040 and that it's a safe haven for a lot of 4:16:31.280 --> 4:16:34.400 really beautiful animals and plants. But also this place is 4:16:34.480 --> 4:16:38.360 important because wild spaces are sucking uncontrollable, and I want 4:16:38.400 --> 4:16:41.560 to live in an uncontrollable way, and like you need 4:16:41.680 --> 4:16:46.920 those things, and um, it is it's really cool if 4:16:47.120 --> 4:16:49.480 this is a wild space, it's also a forest in 4:16:49.600 --> 4:16:54.440 a city, which is cool. It's fucking weird, Like there's 4:16:54.680 --> 4:16:57.480 there's city people who come here who are fucking weird 4:16:57.600 --> 4:17:00.800 and do weird ship and it's sick. Um and like 4:17:01.600 --> 4:17:05.200 it is an uncontrolled space and like sometimes that means 4:17:05.240 --> 4:17:08.280 that there's like fucking ship chemicals that are like fucking 4:17:08.360 --> 4:17:11.920 plants up. But also sometimes that means there's people who 4:17:12.040 --> 4:17:15.360 like are doing things that are free and doing things 4:17:15.440 --> 4:17:19.200 they couldn't do in the city. And um, and it 4:17:19.280 --> 4:17:23.120 doesn't matter if I like it or not. It makes me, Yeah, 4:17:23.120 --> 4:17:25.000 it makes me happy. They just know that those people 4:17:25.040 --> 4:17:28.400 can act on their desires. Um. And yeah, it's not 4:17:28.480 --> 4:17:31.320 always fucking convenient or good. And sometimes I intend to 4:17:31.400 --> 4:17:34.520 antagonistic relationships with that because it conflicts with my desire. 4:17:34.640 --> 4:17:38.040 But there's no mediation, and there's there's there's no one 4:17:38.120 --> 4:17:42.320 getting in between. And yeah, it's just it's really important. 4:17:42.480 --> 4:17:47.560 And I think like the the slogan that people say 4:17:47.640 --> 4:17:49.600 of not what is there, not one tree, not one 4:17:49.640 --> 4:17:52.360 blade of grass, like is like an inspirational thing, but 4:17:52.400 --> 4:17:56.280 it's also like a strategy, Like it's like a tactical 4:17:56.880 --> 4:18:00.840 assertion that is important for us. Like, yeah, like this 4:18:01.720 --> 4:18:05.480 forest and these wild spaces are essential, not just for 4:18:05.680 --> 4:18:09.320 us to physically stop the police, but like essential to 4:18:09.720 --> 4:18:13.000 be an anarchist. Like if there are not wild spaces, 4:18:13.080 --> 4:18:17.680 spaces that they can't put security cameras up here because 4:18:18.320 --> 4:18:21.240 they there's no electricity and the trees are two dens 4:18:21.280 --> 4:18:25.000 for solar panels and they get smashed anyway, you know, 4:18:25.160 --> 4:18:27.920 Like it's important to have those things. If there's not 4:18:28.080 --> 4:18:30.960 places like that, there's not places where you you know, 4:18:31.120 --> 4:18:34.640 like and and so that for itself is cool. And 4:18:34.760 --> 4:18:38.560 the other thing is just living here with the fucking animals, Like, um, 4:18:39.560 --> 4:18:41.880 it's cool the deer. If you want to find a 4:18:41.920 --> 4:18:44.680 get hiding spot in the forest, pay attention to where 4:18:44.680 --> 4:18:47.720 the fucking deer sleep. They sleep in different places most nights. 4:18:47.760 --> 4:18:49.400 You won't suck them up as long as you don't 4:18:49.400 --> 4:18:51.960 pick the exact same when they're sleeping and they're really 4:18:52.000 --> 4:18:54.680 fucking hard to find. Same thing with the coyotes, Like, 4:18:54.840 --> 4:18:57.040 same thing with the snakes, and like it's just very 4:18:57.120 --> 4:19:02.160 cool to get to observe and live with all these animals. Know, 4:19:03.400 --> 4:19:09.520 there's an owl screaming five o'clock. It's like a nice 4:19:09.560 --> 4:19:12.680 little marker, and that's that's better than you know, looking 4:19:12.720 --> 4:19:15.960 at my watch. That's pretty cool. This leads us up 4:19:16.040 --> 4:19:18.960 to our present day and the upcoming Week of Action 4:19:19.200 --> 4:19:23.440 in Atlanta, Georgia, happening from Sunday, May eight to Sunday 4:19:23.640 --> 4:19:27.560 May If you are anywhere near the Atlanta area, you 4:19:27.640 --> 4:19:29.880 have no reason to not check it out. It's a 4:19:29.920 --> 4:19:32.680 week's worth of events spanning from early in the morning 4:19:32.800 --> 4:19:35.720 too late into the evening every day for seven days. 4:19:36.040 --> 4:19:38.760 You can find the calendar of events on Defend the 4:19:38.800 --> 4:19:42.280 Atlanta Force dot com. And if you are not near Atlanta, 4:19:42.400 --> 4:19:44.760 I would still recommend you make your way there post 4:19:44.840 --> 4:19:48.080 taste if you are able to, whether that's during the 4:19:48.200 --> 4:19:51.440 Week of Action or later on down the line. More 4:19:51.480 --> 4:19:54.640 boots on the ground is almost always a plus. Here's 4:19:54.680 --> 4:19:56.840 the more info on the upcoming Week of Action from 4:19:56.960 --> 4:20:01.040 May eight through May fift so generally the past the 4:20:01.040 --> 4:20:03.720 past few week of actions have been like really above ground, 4:20:03.800 --> 4:20:07.880 really like giving people comfortable forest, getting people into a forest, 4:20:08.000 --> 4:20:12.040 like the community events are like UM and just like 4:20:12.200 --> 4:20:18.000 public gatherings, inform nights, UH skill shares, other stuff like that. 4:20:18.400 --> 4:20:20.960 And I believe that this one, like well, like we 4:20:21.080 --> 4:20:23.200 had a lot about those events. But I also believe that, 4:20:23.320 --> 4:20:25.680 like due to the nature of what's going on UM, 4:20:26.560 --> 4:20:30.600 that it's much more urgent that people UH come and 4:20:31.800 --> 4:20:34.400 create their doing, their own ideas, being known in science, 4:20:34.480 --> 4:20:38.320 their own desires. And yeah, we can imagine it's odd. 4:20:38.320 --> 4:20:41.960 It's gonna be weird, it's gonna be crazy, it's gonna 4:20:41.960 --> 4:20:43.880 be odd of things. I think there's gonna be family 4:20:43.960 --> 4:20:47.120 family where black hacking trees kind of ship, and I'm 4:20:47.160 --> 4:20:49.000 excited for that. And I think there's gonna do something 4:20:49.040 --> 4:20:52.280 like what the fund is going on in the woods 4:20:52.480 --> 4:20:54.760 kind of shares a bunch of cops kind of ship. 4:20:55.120 --> 4:20:57.080 Obviously we don't know what's really going to happen, but 4:20:57.240 --> 4:21:00.200 anyone that has been reading stuff like, oh man, don't 4:21:00.200 --> 4:21:01.920 want to go throw down with the crazies, you should 4:21:01.960 --> 4:21:04.320 come and do that. And we have some stuff to 4:21:04.400 --> 4:21:08.120 share and hopefully there will be so many people here 4:21:08.160 --> 4:21:09.840 that don't know how to deal with it. The problem 4:21:09.920 --> 4:21:13.720 going here is the Atlanta Police Force. Um, they there 4:21:13.840 --> 4:21:16.200 is a lot of them, but honestly they're also they're 4:21:16.240 --> 4:21:22.680 stressed out and they are run um what's that run dry? Respect? 4:21:22.720 --> 4:21:25.960 Then they really they don't know how to deal with 4:21:26.080 --> 4:21:27.880 all this wood ship from ship that we've heard them 4:21:27.880 --> 4:21:30.280 talking about. They don't know what to do. They're not 4:21:30.400 --> 4:21:33.520 totally prepared. I think it's gonna be a really fun 4:21:33.760 --> 4:21:35.720 and crazy ship show and we want you all to 4:21:35.760 --> 4:21:37.920 come to our ship show in a good way. And 4:21:38.680 --> 4:21:40.680 they know you shouldn't use those words, but in reality, 4:21:40.840 --> 4:21:43.600 nobody actually knows what's going to happen. We know what 4:21:43.680 --> 4:21:46.800 we're gonna do. We have plans that people can plug into, 4:21:47.320 --> 4:21:48.960 some stuff you can bring your kids to, and some 4:21:49.120 --> 4:21:51.320 stuff you should not bring your kids to, and there 4:21:51.360 --> 4:21:53.440 will be more. To be honest with, you really got 4:21:53.560 --> 4:21:55.160 to just be there in person because there's something You 4:21:55.200 --> 4:21:57.480 can't put everything on Instagram by doing your best to 4:21:57.560 --> 4:22:01.000 like communicate to folks what's going on, there's just some 4:22:01.360 --> 4:22:09.720 things you gotta cam two whatever the weekend action. But 4:22:09.840 --> 4:22:12.720 this is like we're helping people get returned out for 4:22:12.920 --> 4:22:15.040 this weekend. Actually, and maybe we all just become a 4:22:15.240 --> 4:22:19.360 roving nomadic war machine together. That would be the dream. 4:22:19.680 --> 4:22:23.600 So you have a thing in your hometown, in your territory, 4:22:24.120 --> 4:22:27.400 and we nomadic war machine over years back, and we 4:22:27.600 --> 4:22:32.120 just keep doing that. A few resources that some of 4:22:32.240 --> 4:22:35.880 the force defenders wanted people to know about is first, obviously, 4:22:36.080 --> 4:22:39.040 Defend the Atlanta Forest dot com, which has the Week 4:22:39.120 --> 4:22:42.440 of Action calendar to keep up on news regarding the movement. 4:22:42.520 --> 4:22:45.680 You can follow them on Twitter and Instagram at Defend 4:22:45.760 --> 4:22:49.840 the Atlanta Forest or Defend a t L Forest. There 4:22:49.960 --> 4:22:54.080 is the Forest Justice Defense Fund at Open Collective dot 4:22:54.160 --> 4:23:00.400 com slash Forest Hyphen Justice Hyphened Defense hyphen Fund, where 4:23:00.560 --> 4:23:03.520 people can donate to support the work of the broad 4:23:03.600 --> 4:23:07.200 Coalition dedicated to saving the forest. There's of course stop 4:23:07.360 --> 4:23:10.840 Reeves Young dot com, which has information on subcontractors and 4:23:10.960 --> 4:23:14.840 third party service providers relating to the cops city construction. 4:23:15.720 --> 4:23:19.560 Very useful even just for simple calling campaigns. The website 4:23:19.760 --> 4:23:23.480 scenes dot no blogs dot org hosts other news relating 4:23:23.520 --> 4:23:27.000 to the movement, anonymous community case and stuff like maps 4:23:27.080 --> 4:23:31.840 of the area and random other useful information resources for 4:23:32.040 --> 4:23:35.680 info and guides relating to direct action. There's a website 4:23:35.760 --> 4:23:39.280 titled warrior up dot no blogs dot org and people 4:23:39.320 --> 4:23:41.200 can go there or to a warrior up dot no 4:23:41.320 --> 4:23:47.320 blogs dot org slash guides for various interesting information. I'll say, um, 4:23:47.440 --> 4:23:50.600 and that last one is really best viewed on tour 4:23:51.360 --> 4:23:53.760 with via the tour browser just as a heads up. 4:23:54.120 --> 4:23:57.360 Also probably with like a VPN. And I don't know anyway, 4:23:57.480 --> 4:24:00.640 be be careful with that last one. But all of these, 4:24:00.760 --> 4:24:03.440 all of these sites will be linked in the show notes. 4:24:04.200 --> 4:24:07.760 The future lies in your hands. You have more freedom 4:24:07.800 --> 4:24:11.320 than you know if you can find the unconventional ways 4:24:11.440 --> 4:24:14.640 of expressing it. See you on the other side. And 4:24:15.040 --> 4:24:18.320 I'll end with a word from our forced defender friend, 4:24:19.000 --> 4:24:25.760 there's no future. That's nomadic war machine as well. Right, Yeah, 4:24:25.840 --> 4:24:28.600 hopefully we're gonna stop the police training facility. I think 4:24:28.880 --> 4:24:31.680 we really are looking forward to people, hopefully some people 4:24:31.720 --> 4:24:34.600 sticking around there for the week of action, because we're 4:24:34.680 --> 4:24:39.240 hoping that it doesn't die down too much to the 4:24:39.360 --> 4:24:44.160 point where a smaller and achieve them that was here 4:24:44.200 --> 4:24:46.440 for a week of action gets attacked. We love it, 4:24:46.560 --> 4:24:50.560 and some of valid stay stay around exactly that if 4:24:50.600 --> 4:24:54.600 it can happen here, I wasn't thinking abouts, it can 4:24:54.680 --> 4:24:56.880 happen where you live. And maybe we can just keep 4:24:57.720 --> 4:24:59.960 the idea. As we're sharing of skills we make ourselves. 4:25:00.000 --> 4:25:02.320 Absolutely no one should be integral enough to the movement 4:25:02.440 --> 4:25:05.240 that you can't die off a leave and it can't continue. 4:25:05.840 --> 4:25:10.400 People should be reading manuals, sharing skills, telling stories, howling 4:25:10.480 --> 4:25:14.040 at the moons. We're doing all this stuff to make 4:25:14.120 --> 4:25:17.440 each other just a weird of the different things that 4:25:17.520 --> 4:25:19.840 are possible for us to run because maybe we don't 4:25:21.520 --> 4:25:23.920 have all the you know, the guns and the steel 4:25:23.960 --> 4:25:26.520 and the gold, but if we have enough people like 4:25:26.640 --> 4:25:29.080 being creative and doing some guerrilla ship, we can get 4:25:29.080 --> 4:25:32.080 a lot done. And at the end of the day, 4:25:32.200 --> 4:25:34.760 if you you can do you have to be careful 4:25:34.760 --> 4:25:36.480 about how many hats to ring. If you don't know 4:25:36.520 --> 4:25:38.880 about the r n C eight that's a long time ago. 4:25:38.960 --> 4:25:41.000 Now look that up. They're wearing. They are really great 4:25:41.040 --> 4:25:44.040 community organizers, but they were wearing too many hats. It 4:25:44.240 --> 4:25:47.720 was the first time that Patriot Act kind of new 4:25:47.840 --> 4:25:50.200 laws after not eleven was like you lized on people 4:25:50.240 --> 4:25:53.080 and a lot of it didn't stick. But if you 4:25:53.920 --> 4:25:57.000 what we really need is more faceless saboteurs, because honestly, 4:25:57.200 --> 4:26:00.400 if they that's what we need, we need to be 4:26:01.520 --> 4:26:04.720 There's just in reality, there's not enough people willing to 4:26:04.800 --> 4:26:08.800 do nightwhere that looks like there's up behavior, which is great, 4:26:09.560 --> 4:26:15.000 be safe, be smart at the actors a little, and 4:26:15.120 --> 4:26:17.720 that's that's what we need, more than saying there's a 4:26:17.720 --> 4:26:21.280 lot of people that um are willing to do above 4:26:21.320 --> 4:26:23.360 ground staff. There's a lot of people that want to 4:26:23.440 --> 4:26:27.560 be known, and that's great, but we have enough for that. 4:26:28.000 --> 4:26:34.720 We need something else. It Could Happen Here is a 4:26:34.760 --> 4:26:37.600 production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool 4:26:37.680 --> 4:26:40.280 Zone Media, visit our website cool zone media dot com 4:26:40.440 --> 4:26:42.200 or check us out on the I Heart Radio app, 4:26:42.200 --> 4:26:45.560 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can 4:26:45.600 --> 4:26:48.280 find sources for It Could Happen Here, updated monthly at 4:26:48.320 --> 4:26:52.960 cool zone Media dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening. Hey, 4:26:53.120 --> 4:26:56.200 We'll be back Monday with more episodes every week from 4:26:56.240 --> 4:26:57.920 now until the heat Death of the Universe.