Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, Robert Evans here, and I wanted to let
Speaker 1: you know this is a compiletion episode. So every episode
Speaker 1: of the week that just happened is here in one
Speaker 1: convenient and with somewhat less ads package for you to
Speaker 1: listen to in a long stretch if you want. If
Speaker 1: you've been listening to the episodes every day this week,
Speaker 1: there's gonna be nothing new here for you, but you
Speaker 1: can make your own decisions. Hi, you welcome to take
Speaker 1: it happened here the show where we just spent a
Speaker 1: few minutes not recording by accident and also trying to
Speaker 1: shoot my cataway so they would stop throwing uh old
Speaker 1: grenades off my desk. So that's the vibe that we're
Speaker 1: going for today. Okay, and oh do you know what
Speaker 1: today is? Today is May Day, famed famed one of
Speaker 1: the best holidays. Um so in the Mayday tradition. I'm
Speaker 1: not doing my job today, so we're not doing a
Speaker 1: real episode. But but don't don't worry. We still have
Speaker 1: other content for you to listen to. Uh speaking of
Speaker 1: content of the friend of the pod, Marcat Killjoy, Hi,
Speaker 1: do you have anything that we can listen to today? No?
Speaker 1: Was I supposed to prepare something. Oh oh wait, what
Speaker 1: if I released the very first episode of my new
Speaker 1: podcast today and what if it was a May Day
Speaker 1: themed episode? Would that sound good? That would sound, as
Speaker 1: the kids say, very based of you. That would be
Speaker 1: so cool because if if you like May Day and
Speaker 1: only working eight hours a week, which is still too
Speaker 1: many hours, but if you enjoy that as opposed to
Speaker 1: more hours, you should probably thank the anarchists. And you
Speaker 1: can learn more about those people at Margaret's new show,
Speaker 1: Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff here on cool Zone Media.
Speaker 1: Also featuring also featuring friend of the pod Robert Evans. Yes,
Speaker 1: Robert Evans is a guest all that episode, so if
Speaker 1: you're familiar with that guy, then you could also listen.
Speaker 1: So yeah, episodes dropping every Monday and Wednesday until the
Speaker 1: world burns. Yeah, so like three months? Three months? Well?
Speaker 1: Actually did they said like what like forties six weeks?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I math it out. It was nine. Um,
Speaker 1: it's nine months that the UN says we have to
Speaker 1: turn everything around. But as as my friend pointed out,
Speaker 1: we're gonna waste a month of that just trying to
Speaker 1: do the math of calculating the weeks in ten months
Speaker 1: I do love optimism. Well that does it for us today.
Speaker 1: Go enjoy your May Day by not working or at
Speaker 1: least just kind of sucking around. And that's what I'll
Speaker 1: be doing. And cool people who did Cool stuff is
Speaker 1: out now, so check it out wherever you get your podcast.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I just realized I wasn't recording. Oh
Speaker 1: we are not doing this again. It'll be fine. It's
Speaker 1: like a bunch of different illustrations of dictators all done.
Speaker 1: It's like little anime chicks. So they're all hot, so
Speaker 1: like pol Pot's this like sexy girl and a throat
Speaker 1: of skulls. But Tito they made into a milf like
Speaker 1: she's got all of her kids around her. It's the
Speaker 1: only it's the only one with kids. Um. I don't
Speaker 1: know why they picked Tito for that, but it does
Speaker 1: kind of work. This is it could happen here a
Speaker 1: podcast about which anime war criminals are hottest. And it's idiomine. Actually,
Speaker 1: the idiomine in that book is pretty pretty pretty smoking
Speaker 1: as a like wearing black lingerie on a throne of skulls. Okay, nice,
Speaker 1: just kissing you make it in no no kissinger all
Speaker 1: all like like world leaders. Um, I would. I would
Speaker 1: argue that, but he does not make the book. No,
Speaker 1: it's sad tragic anyway, this is it could happen here podcast,
Speaker 1: Things Falling Apart and other stuff. I'm here again with
Speaker 1: my buddy Jay James James, Hi Hi hi one. Which
Speaker 1: dictator do you think would be hottest? They were like
Speaker 1: gender bit Yeah, yeah, I don't know. I'd have to
Speaker 1: go for like one of the old timey ones press
Speaker 1: one of the one of the one of the one
Speaker 1: of the os. Yeah. I think Kauzar Nikki had nothing
Speaker 1: to do but like look hot and he was a
Speaker 1: big workout guy. Yeah, big workout, got nice to rip,
Speaker 1: nice nice outfits, tight trousers. I think I'd probably go
Speaker 1: with him. Yeah, that that scans now which was hottest?
Speaker 1: As they were, like, which is the most fuckable war criminal?
Speaker 1: That's a tough one. I'd probably have to think about that,
Speaker 1: I know. Not a coming to mind. Actually, oddly that
Speaker 1: Stalin Pictures of Fake Yeah not not not nearly. Actually
Speaker 1: that's sexy. Um Joseph the Stallion, I gotta go. I
Speaker 1: gotta go with Saddam Hussein. Yeah, that's true. He has
Speaker 1: a sort of lustful mustache and it's good that mustache
Speaker 1: Fox James. We should probably talk about something that's not
Speaker 1: which dictators are most falcable. UM. Today we're going to
Speaker 1: chat about he fat courses uh, and about emergency UM
Speaker 1: and particularly like combat medicine, which is a more relevant
Speaker 1: topic for a lot of people. In the wake of
Speaker 1: a couple there's a mass shooting at a protest in Portland. Uh,
Speaker 1: There's been a whole lot of threats made against LGBT people. Uh.
Speaker 1: Jack poss O Biak launched a T shirt that was
Speaker 1: basically threatening a mass shooting at Disney World. All sorts
Speaker 1: of fun ship has been happening. Yeah, it does seem
Speaker 1: like we're aspiringing towards the end of times. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: certainly seems if you want to be less, you know,
Speaker 1: apocalyptic than that. It certainly seems credible to say that
Speaker 1: there's a pretty good chance people there are people listening
Speaker 1: to this who have not been present at a shooting,
Speaker 1: who will be present at a shooting at some point
Speaker 1: in their lives. Yeah, And I think given that, it
Speaker 1: doesn't make sense. So like I'm joking about the end
Speaker 1: of times, right, Like we shouldn't panic and things we
Speaker 1: should think about ways we can protect each other and
Speaker 1: keep each other safe. Yeah. So what is a he
Speaker 1: FAT course because you recently went through one. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: he FAT is an acronym right hostile environment first Aid training. Um,
Speaker 1: it's a British thing. I think that's the syllabus I
Speaker 1: believe is standardized by the government in the UK. So
Speaker 1: most of the courses you'll find are in the UK,
Speaker 1: clustered around Hereford for pretty obvious reasons, but that there
Speaker 1: are there are a couple in the United States, and
Speaker 1: there are some in other countries too, And it's for journalists,
Speaker 1: aid workers and GEO staff and anyone else who's working
Speaker 1: in an environment that would be considered like high risk
Speaker 1: or hostile. And to your point, that includes most of
Speaker 1: the United States at the minute, right. Yeah, Well, I
Speaker 1: mean we are in this funds place where literally any
Speaker 1: moment could turn into a situation with the intensity of
Speaker 1: a of a low density war zone. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: we have more weapons and than most war zones, and
Speaker 1: also people who think it's okay to kill other people
Speaker 1: because they like Mickey Mouse. So it does seem like
Speaker 1: you said, it is more likely that we will see
Speaker 1: more shootings, even bombings, and that kind of thing like
Speaker 1: we can't say for sure, but yeah, now you you
Speaker 1: have done some of the same kind of work that
Speaker 1: that I and some other colleagues of ours have done,
Speaker 1: you know, in in hostile environments, difficult places, prior to
Speaker 1: going through this course. Obviously, when we're talking about like
Speaker 1: what sort of first aid skill should people have, the
Speaker 1: most basic stuff is like how to apply a tourniquet,
Speaker 1: which we'll talk about a bit more later, how to
Speaker 1: um if it's not because tourniquets are really only for extremities,
Speaker 1: you know, you can't really turniquet a gut wound or whatever,
Speaker 1: and so for that it's more like packing it but outside.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to assume you had your more than
Speaker 1: your share of experience with that kind of stuff. What
Speaker 1: did you learn new going through this course? Like, what
Speaker 1: was the stuff that emphasized that's kind of beyond the basics? Yeah, so, um,
Speaker 1: the stuff I've done before has been some of that
Speaker 1: basic start the bleed stuff, and then a fair amount
Speaker 1: of wilderness medicine stuff. So some of the improvised stretches
Speaker 1: and stuff I was for Milliar with. I enjoyed some
Speaker 1: of the releases they did, like I'm not talking about
Speaker 1: like necessarily like a hand to hand combat or open
Speaker 1: hand combat, but like ways to release yourself in a
Speaker 1: non violent fashion. I thought that was very good. Ways
Speaker 1: to move through crowd I found that very interesting. And
Speaker 1: we did a lot around how to move under fire,
Speaker 1: how to react around explosives, how to react around indirect fire,
Speaker 1: and most of that had already covered, and then some
Speaker 1: of the stuff around hostage situations to include a simulated
Speaker 1: a hostage situation where you're blindfolded or hooded and sort
Speaker 1: of ask questions and poked with a blank firing weapon.
Speaker 1: As such, I think it's really good. You can't really
Speaker 1: have enough fix what you can have too much experience
Speaker 1: for that, but to simulate that and as realistic as
Speaker 1: setting as possible I found was super helpful. So I think, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that was probably the most interesting thing for
Speaker 1: me now when it comes to what kind of training
Speaker 1: people can get, because the heath had courses a couple
Speaker 1: of thousand bucks, which is beyond I know we have
Speaker 1: some colleagues listening, and I think it's a good thing
Speaker 1: for people who are going to do this kind of
Speaker 1: journalism to consider, or if you're in you know, an
Speaker 1: aid worker or someth someone who is going to be
Speaker 1: going into these situations for a living. That's but for
Speaker 1: a normal person listening, it's probably more than you're likely
Speaker 1: to want to get UM or have the resources to
Speaker 1: get So what what people because, because especially in the
Speaker 1: wake of shooting is pretty much any time there's a
Speaker 1: mass shooting or violence at a protest, I will tweet
Speaker 1: about I FAX again. And an I FACT is an
Speaker 1: individual first aid kit. It's what like every soldier is
Speaker 1: supposed to have on their belt or on their plate carrier.
Speaker 1: And it generally consists of what are called and this
Speaker 1: is when people ask, like what should I get to
Speaker 1: be ready for a shooting UM. Generally it consists of
Speaker 1: consists of two chest seals. These are called eclusive dressings.
Speaker 1: They're basically like kind of sheets of adhesive plastic. I
Speaker 1: would say that you like put over if you get
Speaker 1: shot in like the lungs, you your lungs kind of
Speaker 1: depressure rise UM and that's bad. I'm not a I'm
Speaker 1: not a biology expert, but you're not supposed to have
Speaker 1: a whole three year lungs UM. And one of the
Speaker 1: things that you do to treat that immediately is you
Speaker 1: put this kind of addressing over it, which stops the
Speaker 1: lung from collapsing basically. Um, So that's one thing you'll
Speaker 1: find in an IFAC. You'll also find what's called a
Speaker 1: combat tourniquet. There's a bunch of kinds of tourniquets. Um.
Speaker 1: I was doing a stop the bleed course. We'll talk
Speaker 1: more about that in a bit, but that's the thing
Speaker 1: everyone should do, like in terms of you know, he
Speaker 1: fat is kind of more advanced and for people who
Speaker 1: are going to professionally put themselves in shitty situations. Um,
Speaker 1: stop the bleed is for everybody. And one of the
Speaker 1: things I was having a chat with people who were
Speaker 1: teaching them, we were doing a little meeting, um, and
Speaker 1: one of the things that was brought up people always
Speaker 1: talk about, well, I wear a belt in case I
Speaker 1: need to make a tourniquet or this or that, and
Speaker 1: virtually never works, like close to zero percent success, right, Um,
Speaker 1: even when it's someone who's trained and experienced providing tourniquets,
Speaker 1: like random ship does not make a good tourniquet. Tourniquets
Speaker 1: make good tourniquets. Yeah, They's more that easy to carry.
Speaker 1: They down't cheap, right, But on the same you shouldn't
Speaker 1: cheap out on them either, right, Like we've I know
Speaker 1: we've talked about this on Twitter, and I know like
Speaker 1: Amazon Sales M they force had a problem with selling
Speaker 1: fakes sor like North American Rescue. I think it's called
Speaker 1: emergency rescue. I'll give you something. Yeah, North American Rescue
Speaker 1: is really good one of the so, yeah, rescue essentials.
Speaker 1: So what a combat tourniquet is, because there's different. Some
Speaker 1: tourniquets are just like a plastic band almost almost like
Speaker 1: if you go to a gym, those things that people
Speaker 1: like wrap around their legs to do squats or something
Speaker 1: or lifts. It's kind of like it looks a little
Speaker 1: like that. Um and those Yeah, obviously like those can work,
Speaker 1: but they're not nearly A combat tourniquet is basically it's
Speaker 1: a little um like kind of Nyloni fabric belt thing
Speaker 1: that you strap around and you tighten it um and
Speaker 1: velcrow it tight and then there's something called a windless
Speaker 1: which is basically a metal or plastic stick that you
Speaker 1: then twist around. Uh, and that twisting action when you
Speaker 1: twist it, that's going to tighten it and that's going
Speaker 1: to stop the artery from bleeding. Um, and then you
Speaker 1: lock it into place. There's a little place to lock it.
Speaker 1: And so when you get a cheap tourniquet, it generally
Speaker 1: means the windlass is made out of something flimsy or
Speaker 1: the fabric at hearing the windlass to the belt thing
Speaker 1: is not very good and it will break when being tightened. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you don't want What you don't want to do
Speaker 1: is not have enough pressure, have sort of weird pressure,
Speaker 1: because what you're going to do tomorrow, I'm not that
Speaker 1: kind of doctor. Right, is you can cut off the
Speaker 1: venus return and not the arterial flow, and that's what
Speaker 1: you can give yourself compartments in direct right. I just
Speaker 1: wanted to backtrack quickly. And we're talking about how expensive
Speaker 1: he facts are. If people are listening and they are
Speaker 1: in that kind of line of work. The International Women's
Speaker 1: Media Foundation is doing free he fat courses for women,
Speaker 1: gender nonconforming, non binary people, and I gotta I got
Speaker 1: a grant from the Rory Peck Trust to go and
Speaker 1: do mind so for journalists. Both those are really only
Speaker 1: for journalists and media. I would really encourage people to apply. Yeah,
Speaker 1: um and that's that's great information because if you can
Speaker 1: even if like your journalism has been sort of like
Speaker 1: citizen journalism where you're showing up at a protest and
Speaker 1: you know, taking pictures or whatever. UM, give it a shot,
Speaker 1: like if you like, the more people who have this
Speaker 1: kind of training. UM, as a general rule, the better. UM.
Speaker 1: When it comes to stop the bleed courses are generally
Speaker 1: going to be much more available. Some of them are
Speaker 1: operated as charities and we'll give out an I fac
Speaker 1: or something at the end. Some of them have a
Speaker 1: nominal fee. It kind of depends on where you are.
Speaker 1: I've seen both. Portland has a lot of stop the
Speaker 1: bleed courses, which is why when we had our most
Speaker 1: recent mass shooting at a protest, UM, more people didn't
Speaker 1: die because folks had equipment and we're ready. UM, you're
Speaker 1: you should expect to spend about thirty bucks generally on
Speaker 1: a combat tourniquet. UM, sometimes twenty, but like the good
Speaker 1: ones are all about thirty. UM. I would shoot for
Speaker 1: something with a metal windless that's generally assign. Again, there's
Speaker 1: like Rescue Essentials and a couple of other brands that
Speaker 1: are reliable. But it's called a Tactical Committee on Combat Care,
Speaker 1: which is the government finding thing. It's so like if
Speaker 1: you let them do the research so you don't have to.
Speaker 1: They provide a list of cornic tornic case torn cats.
Speaker 1: The one that most people have is that could cat
Speaker 1: right combat application tornic. If you get that, even if
Speaker 1: it's not the best one or the smallest lights or whatever,
Speaker 1: every that's the one most people train with they know
Speaker 1: how to use. And I think you've said this before, like,
Speaker 1: even if you don't know how to use it, if
Speaker 1: you are in a situation where it's needed and you
Speaker 1: just say I have this, have a tornic, that someone
Speaker 1: might take it and use it. So yeah, and it's
Speaker 1: it's like it's okay if you panic, as long as
Speaker 1: you get that into the hands of somebody who can
Speaker 1: use it. But it's also important if you're going to
Speaker 1: carry it to train with it. I heard when I
Speaker 1: posted about this recently, someone said that they and their
Speaker 1: friends have a game where when they're like hanging out,
Speaker 1: somebody will toss a tourniquet at someone else and say, like,
Speaker 1: you know, right arm or something like that, right arm
Speaker 1: above elbow or something like that, and they'll have to
Speaker 1: apply the turn, get and get it on as quickly
Speaker 1: as they can in that place, which is a good game.
Speaker 1: You're not going to like in twenty or thirty seconds,
Speaker 1: like you know, you don't have to like injure yourself
Speaker 1: doing it, but you can you can get it on
Speaker 1: and get familiar with the motions and build like a
Speaker 1: competence with it. Yeah, work out when you're going to
Speaker 1: lass through the limb and when you're gonna take it
Speaker 1: off and go all the way around. But I think
Speaker 1: standardizing one thing certainly among you and your affinity group
Speaker 1: or your friends is probably a good move. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And it's it's one of those things the kind of
Speaker 1: injuries that tourniquets are most needed for our like arterial
Speaker 1: bleeding um, which is the kind of thing that if
Speaker 1: you don't get a TURNI get on that you're dead
Speaker 1: um very quickly. Like people will bleed out in seconds
Speaker 1: sometimes from like a femoral Yeah, you've seen an arterial bleed,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure that I know I have. I'm sure
Speaker 1: you have. You know that that person has an arterial
Speaker 1: bleed that is a pressurized gushing of blood. It's like
Speaker 1: bright the blood arterial bleeding. It comes out in spurts,
Speaker 1: and it is like right, it is not. It does
Speaker 1: not look like when you cut your finger the blood
Speaker 1: tends to unless you're really cutting the ship out of
Speaker 1: that figure. Yeah, yeah, you. And one of the things
Speaker 1: we did at this course, which is called at You
Speaker 1: is they had like a simulated arterial bleeds and a
Speaker 1: person was wearing it like a camelback, and then they
Speaker 1: had like a hose pipe and it was just gushing
Speaker 1: out and then you could actually cinch down on it
Speaker 1: right with the strap and that actually stopped. Now, I
Speaker 1: mean when it comes to like more advanced bleeding care,
Speaker 1: because there's some wounds where number one, if it's like,
Speaker 1: for example, too high up in your like crotch or something,
Speaker 1: you know, you're not necessarily going to be able to
Speaker 1: get a cat up there. Sometimes people will literally hold
Speaker 1: the artery closed like that is a thing that and
Speaker 1: that is more advanced certainly, um, but it is. It
Speaker 1: is also like the physics of this are very basic.
Speaker 1: If you can figure out where blood is coming from
Speaker 1: and close it, blood will stop coming out, right, Like
Speaker 1: that's the principle of all immediate wound care for that
Speaker 1: kind of thing. Yeah, there's an acronym that you use,
Speaker 1: right Dr March, which we can go over danger right, So,
Speaker 1: and I think this is the thing that often gets
Speaker 1: forgotten actually, especially if you're doing like somebody's start to bleed,
Speaker 1: which is focused on first aid rather than specifically in
Speaker 1: kind of combat carib If you get hurt, not only
Speaker 1: are you useless to that person, not only are you hurt.
Speaker 1: If someone comes to help, now they have to think
Speaker 1: about which person they're going to help. Right, It's how
Speaker 1: much harder to carry two people than one person? So
Speaker 1: don't do that? Uh? And then response right, so, Robert,
Speaker 1: I see you've been shot. Doesn't look great? You okay?
Speaker 1: And then massive bleed, air way respiration, check head to
Speaker 1: toe and then hypothermia. And you know one of the
Speaker 1: things that is so like a combat tourniquet, you just
Speaker 1: generally you can keep it in like a kit. It's
Speaker 1: also fine to keep it loose in your pocket. You
Speaker 1: are not worried about sterility when you are applying a tourniquet.
Speaker 1: It does not matter if you get shipped in the
Speaker 1: wound like, because they will die. They will be dead
Speaker 1: in a minute if you don't get the tourniquet on
Speaker 1: um anyway, right, Yeah, yeah, you're not putting it in
Speaker 1: or whatever like it. So yeah, so that's that's one kind.
Speaker 1: And that's again you're talking about extremities, right. You can't
Speaker 1: put a tourniquet on the neck because that would kill
Speaker 1: the person. Um. You would use an inclusive a lot
Speaker 1: of times on the neck, especially if like the airway
Speaker 1: gets Again. This is stuff that you would you would
Speaker 1: get in to stop the bleed. Course, and I recommend
Speaker 1: people for that. So we're not going to go over
Speaker 1: treatment outside of like these basics, but we'll talk about
Speaker 1: like you should have an inclusive dressing. Two is what
Speaker 1: most effects come with. People I know who have responded
Speaker 1: to shootings say you want more like four because they
Speaker 1: are a lot wind up getting used. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: about I think those specty chest seals and something that
Speaker 1: I've been told by people with a lot more experience
Speaker 1: than me. It's like when you're dealing with a military setting,
Speaker 1: most people will have their chests covered with plates, right,
Speaker 1: and plate carries, and a civilian setting most people want
Speaker 1: so you're going to see a lot more of those
Speaker 1: like a sucking chest wods or penetration of the thoracic cavity.
Speaker 1: So yeah, and in that setting, and they are very small, right,
Speaker 1: you can put them into back pocket of your skin
Speaker 1: cheets and no one would notice. So another kind of
Speaker 1: thing that you'll find in an I fact that's useful
Speaker 1: is combat gauze. So there's two types of gauze that
Speaker 1: you'll get in kits. One is just gauze, which you
Speaker 1: know what gauzes um most wounds, if they are not
Speaker 1: life threatening, packing with gauze and wrapping is perfectly sufficient
Speaker 1: at least for immediate care. But combat gauze is impregnated
Speaker 1: with a thing called cell locks, which is our little granules.
Speaker 1: You can actually get them, just as the powder. You
Speaker 1: shouldn't because it's it's not going to be useful to
Speaker 1: you as a random person. Um, you should get it
Speaker 1: in gauze, like impregnated into gauze, but it's made from
Speaker 1: ground up crustacean shells and it basically makes blood clot
Speaker 1: very quickly. Um survivability of arterial wounds in combat, which
Speaker 1: was extremely low before cellos jumped to something like or
Speaker 1: so like. It's it's pretty remarkable the degree to which
Speaker 1: it's made certain particularly like fomoral bleeds survivable um, and
Speaker 1: it can be used if you've got, like it's a
Speaker 1: serious arterial bleed. It will often be used in conjunction
Speaker 1: if it's on an extremity with a tourniquet um. But
Speaker 1: you can just use it to pack a bleeding wound.
Speaker 1: And if you pack it and apply pressure, sometimes you'll
Speaker 1: pack the combat gulls into there and then add other
Speaker 1: gals outside of it. Like, but it's it's most wounds
Speaker 1: that are bleeding aren't going to require sell off scars.
Speaker 1: And it's pretty expensive, but it's another really useful thing
Speaker 1: to have if there is like an arterial bleed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think actually the where we first I think kalin
Speaker 1: might be what the stuff is called. I believe it
Speaker 1: comes from indigenous practices using it to stop bleeding. But yeah,
Speaker 1: it comes in a small package. Quicklot is the normal brand,
Speaker 1: and yeah, it's a lot of what we've learned about
Speaker 1: stopping arterial bleeds has come from twenty years of war, right,
Speaker 1: and they're obviously a lot of town site but yeah,
Speaker 1: learning about how to stop those things is one of
Speaker 1: the things that It's got a lot better in the
Speaker 1: last decade or so. That's another thing. And you can
Speaker 1: always buy these kids pre made. A lot of people
Speaker 1: make various premate kids. Yeah, you can google i FAC
Speaker 1: and make sure it's you know, rated, well dot do
Speaker 1: your research. We've mentioned some brands here, but like, it's
Speaker 1: not hard to find I Fax. They're they're made constantly
Speaker 1: And it's one of those things we talked on this
Speaker 1: show about being armed and whether or not people should
Speaker 1: should have firearms. And I'm broadly supportive of of particularly
Speaker 1: threatened people having guns. But there's downsides to having a gun. Um,
Speaker 1: a number of them. We don't need to get into
Speaker 1: the statistics, but there are a bunch of downsides to
Speaker 1: being armed. There's no downside to having an i FAC
Speaker 1: and keeping one in your car, keep one in your backpack,
Speaker 1: you know. Um, there's absolutely no way you will have
Speaker 1: a negative experience as a result of the fact that
Speaker 1: you keep an eye fact on you and it might
Speaker 1: save somebody's life. Yeah. I have a little ankle holster
Speaker 1: that I use when I'm working in places where we
Speaker 1: wouldn't look very you know, it would look off to
Speaker 1: have it on my belt, Uh, And I don't want
Speaker 1: to carry backpack. Maybe I needed to wrap around my
Speaker 1: ankle and it has a tiny combat dressing, which you
Speaker 1: haven't really talked about chess seal tornique and it doesn't
Speaker 1: have the quick clut. But then the combat dressing has
Speaker 1: its own goals. Yeah, we can talk about that in
Speaker 1: a second. But like I just have like I have
Speaker 1: a up effects but also just in all of my
Speaker 1: light jackets because you know Oregon, usually you can wear
Speaker 1: some sort of jacket. I just have a bunch of
Speaker 1: cats and quick clot gauze packets just kind of scattered around,
Speaker 1: like there's nearly always something just in my pocket or
Speaker 1: in the center console in my car um in addition
Speaker 1: to the actual packed I fax and yeah it's handy. Um,
Speaker 1: it's just good to have around. It never hurt to
Speaker 1: have more of that stuff. Or you have the means
Speaker 1: or you know, if you are in a situation where
Speaker 1: something horrible has happened, right like what happened in Portland,
Speaker 1: if you in your truck, have three or four of
Speaker 1: those and you can just be to go go goes.
Speaker 1: Anyone know how to use these? Use these if they're
Speaker 1: in your backpack when you're at a protest, like you
Speaker 1: could potentially save several lives. So if you have the means,
Speaker 1: said give them to strangers, like, it's not like it's
Speaker 1: not like a gun, right, Like you can't end your
Speaker 1: life with with quick cloth. Yeah, so yeah, I would.
Speaker 1: It's a thing that everyone should feel good about having.
Speaker 1: We should note again, you wouldn't want to use quick
Speaker 1: clot on a wound that was not serious because there's
Speaker 1: some concept like it burns, it's it's kind of nasty
Speaker 1: stuff in some ways. Um, it can cause some complications
Speaker 1: for for like when the e M T s get there, Um,
Speaker 1: it's often recommended that you keep the packaging and give
Speaker 1: it to them. But if it's if someone is clearly
Speaker 1: going to bleed to death like that, then that then
Speaker 1: that's when you use quick clot. And if you're questioning
Speaker 1: whether or not a wound is serious enough that someone
Speaker 1: might bleed to death from it, assume they will, right
Speaker 1: like air On the side of that, if you're wondering
Speaker 1: is that a deadly bleed, you're probably should probably treat
Speaker 1: it as if it is. Yeah, I mean, you're always
Speaker 1: better of keeping more blood inside the person, right Yeah,
Speaker 1: with that, Yeah, I've been told to take that to
Speaker 1: the person. And the same with the tonic gate, where
Speaker 1: we should say that there will be blood around, you
Speaker 1: can put a T on their forehead with the blood.
Speaker 1: It's pretty normal and that works in almost any language.
Speaker 1: And then you want to write the time it was
Speaker 1: applied to, and again you can do that with the blood.
Speaker 1: But I have a half sized sharp that often comes
Speaker 1: in those kids. Yea, yeah, And it's one of those
Speaker 1: things like assuming. It kind of is depending on your
Speaker 1: situation whether or not you'd likely to have the time
Speaker 1: to mark that before the E M T s arrive,
Speaker 1: But it is one of those things even if it's
Speaker 1: even if your first responding is a minute and a
Speaker 1: half or two minutes with a serious bleed, that can
Speaker 1: be the difference between life and death for somebody. Yes, absolutely, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: And it's different what you do when carry than coming
Speaker 1: to what you do when carries coming. But the first
Speaker 1: steps are not right stop the blood coming out of
Speaker 1: the person. So we should probably talk about combat dressings
Speaker 1: a little bit. Yeah, yeah, there are several types. The
Speaker 1: one I've had suggested that I prefer, I think, I
Speaker 1: don't know how it's pronounced. It's O L A Y
Speaker 1: Slays dressing and has a little eye cup in it
Speaker 1: as well, which you can use for eye injuries, Like
Speaker 1: find someone more of qualified than me to teach you
Speaker 1: how to do that. I don't need to get into that,
Speaker 1: but yeah, but it's it's a pad with gores in
Speaker 1: it and then a sort of ace bandage, right, And
Speaker 1: what it does is provides compression and obviously like an
Speaker 1: absorbent goals, you can also pull the goals out. A
Speaker 1: fun thing to do is to find an expired one
Speaker 1: and pull all that goals out and there is just
Speaker 1: an unfathomable amount of gores there. So you can use
Speaker 1: that like pack a wound, and practicing packing a wound
Speaker 1: is also something that you can do. They're like little
Speaker 1: little bottles. Yeah. The team I know who does stop
Speaker 1: the bleed courses will take phone rollers and cut holes
Speaker 1: in them and use that as like to so you
Speaker 1: can and you can do different sizes, right. You can
Speaker 1: actually just like get a knife and like jam at
Speaker 1: its stab at a bunch and like use those as
Speaker 1: different practice wounds. Yeah, it's a good idea. Can you
Speaker 1: pack with two fingers? You know more than that even
Speaker 1: one finger? People can pack with one finger. So like
Speaker 1: what this dressing does is opposite. It's sometimes they're called
Speaker 1: is rarely bandages, olas bandages. They often come in like
Speaker 1: a tan package, the Israeli ones. Yeah, yeah, that's right. Again,
Speaker 1: like I would buy that from a reputable source, and
Speaker 1: they come in various sizes. Emergency dressing is another name,
Speaker 1: and yeah, those are great for things where you don't
Speaker 1: need to use quick clot where you may not need yeah,
Speaker 1: significant bleeding, but not like immediately life threatening. Yeah, in
Speaker 1: some areas well, like sometimes in the forearm, right, Like
Speaker 1: it can be hard because of these bones structures to
Speaker 1: get the tornic a to work, so like you might
Speaker 1: be able to use that start the you might have
Speaker 1: to use quick club, right, but like having those options
Speaker 1: is important. And again they're pretty small, probably the cheapest
Speaker 1: of the things we've suggested so far as well. And
Speaker 1: again they didn't they make giant ones from abdominal wounds
Speaker 1: to um and so like, I actually have one of
Speaker 1: those in my truck, have a bunch of more stuff
Speaker 1: in my truck. I wrote a piece about a first
Speaker 1: aid kit for your vehicle, which might leave me look
Speaker 1: slightly different, right if you imagine again, Like, and we've
Speaker 1: talked about shootings, but uh, car accidents, that's that's when
Speaker 1: I the only time I've had to use those dressings.
Speaker 1: Have been car accidents that helped pull the fucking dude
Speaker 1: out of a truck that flipped on the way outside
Speaker 1: of Los Angeles during a rainstorm, and his like whole
Speaker 1: fucking like right here in his hand had been gouged
Speaker 1: open where like the it was quite a bit of blood. Um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, like that, that's a bit. It's not all
Speaker 1: just like action movie ship like. It's something you should
Speaker 1: keep on you because there's a wide variety of things
Speaker 1: that can cause people to bleed a lot, Yes, exactly, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and I think we are we always underestimated risk of
Speaker 1: these drivings by the most dangerous thing most people do.
Speaker 1: And yet having that in your car, you know, you
Speaker 1: don't have to worry so much about carrying it. It
Speaker 1: can just always be there. Don't leave it where it's
Speaker 1: going to bake in the sun if you're in a
Speaker 1: hot place. But yeah, again, the potential for you saving
Speaker 1: a stranger's life or a friend's ie, Yeah, it's high. Yeah,
Speaker 1: keep it in a center console, keep it in a trunk,
Speaker 1: you know, keep it in a trunk alongside a machete
Speaker 1: in a golf club. You know, you're always ready for anything.
Speaker 1: With that, I'm never ready for golf. But aside from that,
Speaker 1: i'd be Oh, I wasn't saying for golfing. Yeah, for
Speaker 1: exactly for crime. Medical actually make a read. Yes, they
Speaker 1: make a lovely vehicle first aid kit and the very
Speaker 1: nice people to so, yeah, that that's want to look into.
Speaker 1: And they also do the bags. I have a mystery
Speaker 1: runch bag that also clips onto it replaces the hood
Speaker 1: or my backpack, and I have that in my truck
Speaker 1: and then if I'm going out, especially when I'm going
Speaker 1: out climbing, I'll just click that on and have a
Speaker 1: slight different kit that I take just for climbing. But
Speaker 1: that's one of those scenarios where like, you could hurt
Speaker 1: yourself climbing and even if people are coming very quickly,
Speaker 1: it's going to take you a while, right and and
Speaker 1: thinking another thing, I would be prepared to self rescue.
Speaker 1: That's part of why you bring that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: Self rescue a massive part of climbing, right, learn learning
Speaker 1: the lots sing the transfer of learning, the ways that
Speaker 1: you can get yourself off of one of you hurt
Speaker 1: yourself on the wall. And the American Alpine Club actually
Speaker 1: publishes a thing called accidents in North American climbing climb.
Speaker 1: This okay, this person sunked up by this, and they
Speaker 1: did this and this and this, and they were okay,
Speaker 1: they weren't okay. So I think that's a very good
Speaker 1: practice learning from other people. And with that, a big
Speaker 1: thing that you focus on a wilderness medicine is rather
Speaker 1: than what can I bring with me, what do I
Speaker 1: have to already have with me? And how can I
Speaker 1: use that? Right? So, for instance, you need to splin
Speaker 1: a leg, right you have a broken leg using a
Speaker 1: sleeping pad or something which already has those redid sleeves
Speaker 1: to do that. And that's something that like I don't
Speaker 1: want to obviously advise people too much. Yeah, I don't
Speaker 1: want to, like because again, so the difference this is useful.
Speaker 1: People should be thinking about this UM when it comes
Speaker 1: to emergency first aid, Like somebody was a broken leg.
Speaker 1: If you're not, like, there's no real response that you
Speaker 1: should like, that's not what stopped the bleed is for right,
Speaker 1: Like UM. One one of the nice things about emergency
Speaker 1: medicine like this, like when you're talking about someone is
Speaker 1: bleeding to death, is that one of the ways I
Speaker 1: guess that you can. You can you can separate the
Speaker 1: two kinds of like first responding, because there's the first
Speaker 1: responding where you can make it worse. And if you
Speaker 1: like somebody like breaks a bone or something and you
Speaker 1: can make that worse, yes, but if somebody has an
Speaker 1: arterial bleeding, you can't make that worse. There. It's the
Speaker 1: same thing with like um chest compressions. Right when you
Speaker 1: get trained as an e m T, one of the
Speaker 1: things they'll point out is that, like, you shouldn't use
Speaker 1: um an a E D on an infant, but you
Speaker 1: do because if they're needed, they're dead. And in that case, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it's important. Also in the thing that I
Speaker 1: didn't mention that I found very helpful about its course,
Speaker 1: some of this psychological aspects of this is to remember
Speaker 1: that if you do find yourself in this situation and
Speaker 1: you try and help and that person dies anyway, then
Speaker 1: you did your best right and that is of value.
Speaker 1: Like I've been in situations where I've tried to help
Speaker 1: someone and they've died anyway, and I think just remembering
Speaker 1: that like that person hadn't something terrible happened to them,
Speaker 1: and that your help didn't you know, like you tried
Speaker 1: your best to give that person at the chance it
Speaker 1: is not. If you are responding to somebody who has
Speaker 1: this kind of injury, there is a pretty good chance
Speaker 1: what you do won't matter. Like it's the same thing
Speaker 1: if you are giving someone chest compressions. That's very unlikely
Speaker 1: to save their life. Like a fraction of the time
Speaker 1: when that happens, does it save anybody, But it can't
Speaker 1: make it worse if they're not breathing. If they're not breathing, yeah,
Speaker 1: they're going to die. Yeah, yeah, And I think you know,
Speaker 1: it's not like the movies on television, and sometimes it
Speaker 1: doesn't work, but it's important to talk about that in
Speaker 1: the context. Yes, actually much probably much more likely the
Speaker 1: person survive if you're doing this stuff right, you're slapping
Speaker 1: on the torn again, you do it right, you will
Speaker 1: stop that person, yes, yes, and and but you know
Speaker 1: again it is a lot of times what you might
Speaker 1: be doing is keeping them alive long enough to get
Speaker 1: to the hospital, and you can't guarantee anything other than
Speaker 1: that they don't bleed out right there, right, and then
Speaker 1: maybe other injuries. You haven't seen this where we did
Speaker 1: the check head to toe, right, and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: Like especially in blast injuries, you might not notice injuries
Speaker 1: to the back. Yeah, shrapnel as a whole. I mean,
Speaker 1: but all you can do is like try to treat
Speaker 1: what you can see, yes, exactly, and make sure that
Speaker 1: you don't miss anything by going through that doctor March
Speaker 1: procedure right which you're learning the course, but yeah, you're
Speaker 1: having a procedure that you do where you make checks
Speaker 1: so that you don't miss something that you could have stopped,
Speaker 1: because then I imagine you will feel bad. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: none of what we've said we should probably bring this
Speaker 1: to a close should be seen as like the end
Speaker 1: all be all, or our attempt to give you comprehensive
Speaker 1: training on this is in no way training. This is
Speaker 1: advice on number one, the equipment that's necessary for stopping
Speaker 1: someone from bleeding to death, and number two the kinds
Speaker 1: of training you should get in order to use it,
Speaker 1: and you should seek training. You should find a stop
Speaker 1: the bleed course. You should take a wilderness medicine course
Speaker 1: if you can. If you if you are someone who
Speaker 1: is in a field that it's relevant for, you should
Speaker 1: try to get a HEA fat course. Um, don't don't
Speaker 1: just like be Okay, I listened to a thirty minute podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm ready to stop a bleed. Go go get some training. Um,
Speaker 1: but definitely get a tourniquet and practice with it. You
Speaker 1: can do some training yourself. You can find videos online
Speaker 1: by reputable people who are affiliated with different rescue organizations
Speaker 1: talking about and showing how to apply tourniquets, how to
Speaker 1: apply dressings, UM like that. That's available, and you can
Speaker 1: provide yourself with a useful amount of education and some
Speaker 1: of the basics that way. Yeah, I think just to
Speaker 1: give out some resources on how you can get the
Speaker 1: education right to stop the league to org should be
Speaker 1: free almost anywhere you are and you'd like to get
Speaker 1: more training. Most community colleges have an E M T
Speaker 1: course that is very affordable. Yeah, a heat fat course
Speaker 1: can run you a couple of grand if it's not subsidized.
Speaker 1: The last time when I took my impute training, it
Speaker 1: was a thousand dollars. Yeah, I think it's less than
Speaker 1: that now. I know people don't have many students who
Speaker 1: are going through empty training, and it's pretty affordable free
Speaker 1: often enduring California, it's often free. The other things you
Speaker 1: can do are wilderness medicine that is expensive. The American
Speaker 1: Alpine Club has grants, like more and more diverse group
Speaker 1: of people should apply because all of the outdoors could
Speaker 1: do with a lot more diversity, and encourage people to apply. Yes,
Speaker 1: so for all of these training there are grants, and
Speaker 1: I would encourage more people to apply to them. But you, yeah,
Speaker 1: you can learn a lot for free or online. You
Speaker 1: can and should try and educate your friends. Like we're
Speaker 1: saying is some of this stuff is hard to funk up.
Speaker 1: And even if you don't feel confident, confident using stuff
Speaker 1: rescue essential with North American Rescue, Chinnook Medical there's a
Speaker 1: places where you can buy a pre made I fact
Speaker 1: carry that around and someone else can use it. And
Speaker 1: again for talking about like the benefits of this versus
Speaker 1: the cool looking tactical gear and guns and stuff, it's
Speaker 1: entirely possible to have a bunch of military equipment that
Speaker 1: is worse than useless if you don't know how to
Speaker 1: use it, is actively a danger to other people. If
Speaker 1: you have a bunch of medical gear and you don't
Speaker 1: know how to use it, but you have it on you,
Speaker 1: you can always shout like I have a tourniquet, I
Speaker 1: have like a combat dressing or something like, does anyone
Speaker 1: know how to use it? No one is going to
Speaker 1: make fun of you in the mike of a mass
Speaker 1: shooting for trying to hand off your gear to someone
Speaker 1: who knows how to use it. Yeah, exactly. And like
Speaker 1: you don't have to carry around a little green multi
Speaker 1: camp out or something like. You can get a bum bag,
Speaker 1: put it in a fucking purse, like whatever, it doesn't matter. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter at all. They have a very small,
Speaker 1: very compact and like a bumbag or family pack is
Speaker 1: very handy because you can switch it from the back
Speaker 1: to the front get to all your stuff. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: you don't have to be all like tactical fucking Sammy savior.
Speaker 1: Just be sensible and safe. Yeah, even if you don't,
Speaker 1: even if you panic or whatever and can't be the
Speaker 1: one to use it, you can still help save somebody's
Speaker 1: life by fucking having the ship, because it's it's irreplaceable
Speaker 1: when it's not there. Yeah, I would just to encourage
Speaker 1: people to not use to the elastic cornicate. Yes, don't
Speaker 1: go and buy Nils up stuff because you know you
Speaker 1: can probably pay the same price to get on that's
Speaker 1: not expired and to yeah, just be conscious buying from
Speaker 1: those reputable people. They often have sales, especially around holidays.
Speaker 1: You can you can hold out and wait for those. Um.
Speaker 1: They were pretty good resources on Reddit as well. Actually
Speaker 1: there's a tactical medicine subreddit where people will sort of
Speaker 1: list their kits and often posted as a sale. So
Speaker 1: sometimes worth cruising that. If this is something, yeah, do
Speaker 1: some research. Um you may find right now, especially from
Speaker 1: places like Rescue Essentials. It is harder to get combat
Speaker 1: tourniquets because the war in Ukraine has caused a shortage
Speaker 1: of the good ones. But you can still find them.
Speaker 1: You just may need to search around a little bit. Yeah.
Speaker 1: What I found was that because you've posted about this
Speaker 1: after New York shooting, was that they were out of
Speaker 1: the straight tornic it, but they were not out. They
Speaker 1: wanted to go with the pouch. Pouch cost like six
Speaker 1: or eight dollars. I know that that that's more of
Speaker 1: an expense if you can. If you can afford that,
Speaker 1: then getting that's not a bad idea anyway, because you
Speaker 1: can put on your boat, put it and have one
Speaker 1: of my backpack hiking right, So that's definitely something that yeah,
Speaker 1: all right, well that's gonna do it for this episode. James,
Speaker 1: you want to plug anything um anarchism? Oh good, yes, absolutely,
Speaker 1: um yeah, go uh to find a hierarchy and like
Speaker 1: throw a rock at it. Yeah. Just look after other
Speaker 1: people and don't resort to the state to do it.
Speaker 1: Be kind to each other and uh get getting MP
Speaker 1: training if you can. Oh yeah, that's a beautiful sound.
Speaker 1: This is it could happen here a podcast about things
Speaker 1: falling apart and sometimes putting them back together. I'm Robert Evans.
Speaker 1: I'm here again with Dr James Stout. James say, hello,
Speaker 1: hi people. We are in an undisclosed location. Is that
Speaker 1: going to get you in trouble with your immigration stuff? Yes? Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: well let's just bleep out the rest of that, but
Speaker 1: keep the thing with me asking if it's gonna get
Speaker 1: him in trouble with this immigration officer, that'll be fine.
Speaker 1: This is a podcast that all too often, as Garrison
Speaker 1: and I say, winds up us being like here's a problem, goodbye,
Speaker 1: um and telling people about problems is important, but it's
Speaker 1: also important to talk about solutions. Now there's been a
Speaker 1: discourse not just on the Twitter but on the subreddit
Speaker 1: for um. It could happen here repeatedly over the last
Speaker 1: few months of people talking about like how would anarchists
Speaker 1: handle things like large scale distribution of food, UM, an
Speaker 1: industrial base, you know, how how would anarchists? How would
Speaker 1: anarchist society handle infrastructure in any meaningful capacity? Um? And
Speaker 1: I think there's kind of a wide spread idea among
Speaker 1: some people that like, you have to have intense centralization
Speaker 1: UM to do that. UM. Now, James, you are I
Speaker 1: wasn't joking about the doctor thing. You do have a PhD.
Speaker 1: In Your specific area of specialty is the Spanish Civil War,
Speaker 1: that's right, Yeah, even more specific than that, actually, my
Speaker 1: h my very specific area of a specialty is the
Speaker 1: second republics of a period before the Civil War and
Speaker 1: really like the first week of the Spanish Civil War.
Speaker 1: But yes, Catalonia specifically, like revolutionary Catalonia. And I guess
Speaker 1: my thing is the anti fascist Popular Olympics in six
Speaker 1: but more broadly Catalonia and Catalonia before and in the
Speaker 1: Civil War. Yeah. And one of the things that's interesting
Speaker 1: about this period is you did have one of the
Speaker 1: fairly rare times in history where a significant number of
Speaker 1: people were living in an industrialized Ish nation UM with
Speaker 1: with anarchists under anarchist principles UM and a number of
Speaker 1: things were done in an anarchist fashion, including the production
Speaker 1: of armored vehicles, the maintenance of large amounts of agriculture,
Speaker 1: you know, power and whatnot. Um. So yeah, how how
Speaker 1: how do how do James? Yeah, how do anarchism? Let
Speaker 1: me tell you? UM? I should start by saying like,
Speaker 1: I'm not like a big, big theory guy and more
Speaker 1: of a sort of doing things guy, um. Person. But yeah,
Speaker 1: so if we look at what we had in Catalonia
Speaker 1: right in six, the Spanish Civil War, if you're not familiar,
Speaker 1: starts on the nineteenth d N six with a coup. Right, Um,
Speaker 1: some of this will sound familiar. Maybe you should listen
Speaker 1: to our podcast about Me and mar But we have
Speaker 1: a military uprising against a leftist democratic government that has
Speaker 1: just been elected in nineteen thirty six after two years
Speaker 1: of a right wing It's called the Biennio Negro, like
Speaker 1: the Black by any and the you know you've lived
Speaker 1: through the Trump Ship, you understand. Um. So we have
Speaker 1: this coup that happens and in cities across Spain, the
Speaker 1: coup is largely stopped the differentiating factors we talked about
Speaker 1: this in our podcast is where the people are armed,
Speaker 1: the coup is stopped. Where the people are not armed,
Speaker 1: where the government says, then we weren't released weapons to
Speaker 1: you the coup, the coup succeeds. Right now, in Barcelona,
Speaker 1: the coup is stopped almost entirely by the anarchists, with
Speaker 1: a little bit of help from the police. Actually, oddly right, Um,
Speaker 1: the one classic allies and the police fighting it together.
Speaker 1: I mean it is also a very different kind of
Speaker 1: situation with the I mean yeah, culturally, like how does
Speaker 1: that happen? How does that happen? Well, in Spain, you
Speaker 1: have various police forces, right, and some of them are
Speaker 1: created by the Second Republic, So they are police that
Speaker 1: exist really to protect the republic from things that would
Speaker 1: attack it. That does not mean that they do not
Speaker 1: attack for workers, right, the Republic was often called the
Speaker 1: Republic of order because they violently put down strikes and
Speaker 1: the anarchists killed them. But in this instance they remained
Speaker 1: loyal g the cops. Yeah, that's that's a pretty steady thing.
Speaker 1: But in this instance, the Republic was under attack from
Speaker 1: the right, right, from the military, and in some towns,
Speaker 1: the police split for the military, but in Barcelona they
Speaker 1: largely did not. Write. We have various police guards, police
Speaker 1: groups in Spain, federal and local, but the assault guards
Speaker 1: and the civil guards in Barcelona largely remained with the
Speaker 1: republic right. And it's important to maybe if we if
Speaker 1: we step back a second to explain the concept of
Speaker 1: a popular front, then we can understand them more easily, right,
Speaker 1: And we do for more detail on this. We talk
Speaker 1: about a decent amount of this in our Behind the
Speaker 1: Insurrections episodes on the Spanish Civil War and the popular fronts,
Speaker 1: which aren't just a Spanish thing. They exist in France,
Speaker 1: they exist in a number of other countries. It's the
Speaker 1: thing that gets tried on several occasions, often successfully, at
Speaker 1: least from an electoral standpoint. Yeah, yeah, it's very successful
Speaker 1: at this time, right. And it's important to understand that
Speaker 1: the r C, which translates his Catalan Republican left, had
Speaker 1: more or less been on popular front since nineteen thirty one,
Speaker 1: and a popular front is basically this thing we keep
Speaker 1: talking about, where what if everybody on the left could
Speaker 1: get on the same page about stopping fascism. That's the
Speaker 1: basic idea is like, you've got your libs, you've got
Speaker 1: your commies, you've got your anarchists, you've got other weird
Speaker 1: junks of the left, and everybody agrees, let's all work
Speaker 1: together to deal with this specific right wing threat right now. Yes, yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: like we can put our differences aside and move forward. Um.
Speaker 1: So that's what you have in the Second Republic is
Speaker 1: explicitly called the Popular Front right, and so that is
Speaker 1: why the police in Barcelona split with the anarchists. Now,
Speaker 1: what happens in Barcelona is that the military march into
Speaker 1: town from outside of town and just pretty much get
Speaker 1: get they their ship pushed back in by the anarchist right.
Speaker 1: All around town, gunfights breakout. In one instance, um, the
Speaker 1: anarchists are able to persuade the soldiers manning a machine
Speaker 1: gun that their class solidarity is more important than their
Speaker 1: obedience to their offices, and then they turn the machine
Speaker 1: gun on their offices and or their officers instead. Unbelievably,
Speaker 1: this exceptionally fucking cool. Right. The Spantis Civil War has
Speaker 1: all these amazing stories like that, but that that's one
Speaker 1: of my favorites. Right, doesn't happen often. It's great when
Speaker 1: it does. So what we have by the end of
Speaker 1: the first week of the Spanish Civil War is a
Speaker 1: situation where in Catalonia the city is in the hands
Speaker 1: of the anarchists. As this meeting that happens between the
Speaker 1: President of Catalonia and the anarchists, it may or may
Speaker 1: not be apocryphal, or the exact words may not be apocypal,
Speaker 1: doesn't really matter. What happens is that the anarchists go
Speaker 1: to the President of Catalonia and they he says to them,
Speaker 1: you're in control of the city. The city's in your hands.
Speaker 1: I've been he actually the president. He was liberal, but
Speaker 1: he'd been a lawyer for the anarchist when they kept
Speaker 1: getting fired. Um, he said, if you want me to
Speaker 1: be another foot soldier in the fire, will quit my job.
Speaker 1: I'll just be another fight. But if I can be
Speaker 1: useful to you as a politician, I will as well. Right,
Speaker 1: So it's a submission, amission and from an elected Borgeo
Speaker 1: politician that like, the city belongs to you, now, to
Speaker 1: the people, and it's up to you what we do next. Right,
Speaker 1: what they did was they founded this. They didn't actually
Speaker 1: sort of go right, it's all anarchists right to salient
Speaker 1: anarchist groups of the CNT and the f AI, the
Speaker 1: Anarchist Federation of Iberia and the National Confederation of Labor.
Speaker 1: He didn't they didn't sort of be like, okay, you
Speaker 1: were on anarchist control. They found out the People's Committee
Speaker 1: of Anti Fascist Militias and they said, this is an
Speaker 1: anti fascist catalonia, right, And then they began to control
Speaker 1: the industries according to the principles of anarcho syndicalism, right,
Speaker 1: which is the idea that the way to move towards
Speaker 1: a more libertarian society under moving from industrial capitalism is
Speaker 1: through industrial unions, right. And they were extremely effective. I
Speaker 1: see this discourse a lot on Twitter or on Reddit
Speaker 1: or on places where where um, I don't want to
Speaker 1: just like dismiss people as tankies, but where we're because
Speaker 1: like you know, maybe there's people can can listen and
Speaker 1: we can talk and we can understand each other. But
Speaker 1: where people go on the Internet to talk about politics
Speaker 1: and say that like it's impossible for anarchists to do
Speaker 1: supply chain, it's impossible for anarchists to do logistics, right,
Speaker 1: And sometimes I think they think of anarchism as like
Speaker 1: like only able to work in groups of five people
Speaker 1: or something. There's this broad spread attitude in part because
Speaker 1: of like some social attitudes among a lot of American anarchists,
Speaker 1: certainly American anarchists who are very online that like anarchism
Speaker 1: is when you live on a farm with four of
Speaker 1: your friends, right, like that that it's very pastoral, it's
Speaker 1: anti industrial, and a decent amount of American anarchists are.
Speaker 1: It's not uncommon to find people who are like anarcho,
Speaker 1: primitivist or whatever, um. But it is important to note
Speaker 1: that there's a very long anarchist tradition as we're talking
Speaker 1: about now that's deeply industrial. Yes, and like the anarchist
Speaker 1: a right, the anarchist symbol that we all see that
Speaker 1: comes from America. Right. The industrial workers of the world
Speaker 1: come from the United States. The raised fist popular salute
Speaker 1: comes from the IWW goes to Spain. Right, we have
Speaker 1: this long tradition. But yeah, I think a lot of
Speaker 1: American anarchists because it's easier to live and work cooperatively
Speaker 1: in a small group somewhat detached. But what we have
Speaker 1: in Catalonia that we don't have here is the majority
Speaker 1: of the working class committed to an archo syndicalism. Right,
Speaker 1: so people return to work and work very effectively when
Speaker 1: they're not also volunteering also fighting in something like a
Speaker 1: Druti column. Right. Um, these anarchists malicious with which we
Speaker 1: can also talk about because I think they're very interesting. Um.
Speaker 1: So for instance, one example they like, the site is
Speaker 1: the Hispaniol Sweet factory right Spain, Swiss. It's just an
Speaker 1: automobile manufacturers like the GM factory within three days after
Speaker 1: the revolution. And bear in mind that most of them
Speaker 1: have been out shooting at soldiers for most of that time. Right.
Speaker 1: Big thing that they had to deal with was the
Speaker 1: soldiers often us of churches. They would burn the churches
Speaker 1: so like it was an extremely vicious urban battle. They were.
Speaker 1: They had converted their facility to go from producing automobiles
Speaker 1: for rich people at the time right now everyone had
Speaker 1: a car to producing technicals armored cars. Right. And you
Speaker 1: can see them if you google c Anti technicals the
Speaker 1: anti Arca because she's amazing like a Hodgepodge technicals that
Speaker 1: they had, well did these things on and they were
Speaker 1: able to turn those around and produce weapons for the front.
Speaker 1: Another good example to see as castle pistols right to
Speaker 1: us Castle is a famous anarchist leader. Um and Askasso
Speaker 1: was killed in the first day of the revolution when
Speaker 1: they were fighting the Coupe. There weren't there wasn't much
Speaker 1: weapons manufacturing in Catalonia, right, and we're very familiar with
Speaker 1: that from our work on Miamma. And what they did
Speaker 1: was they set up a factory in Tarrassa to make weapons.
Speaker 1: They made copies of ruby pistols actually, but then they
Speaker 1: named them after us Casso, so you can still buy them.
Speaker 1: I sure you can google them, you can find them,
Speaker 1: but these they set up a weapons actory, right, and
Speaker 1: then under anarcho syndicalist principles and the principles of sort
Speaker 1: of unions controlling this production system, unions controlling the supply
Speaker 1: chain system, which let's be honest, they do largely anyway, right,
Speaker 1: Like it's not Tim Apple who buys a circuit board
Speaker 1: for your phone, it's someone else. This is slightly more
Speaker 1: globalized system with with Apple phones. But um, the the
Speaker 1: unions were able to set up and change their production right,
Speaker 1: not just keep doing what they were doing, but also
Speaker 1: pivot without the need for people exercising authority over each other.
Speaker 1: This important understanding because you asked like, how how would
Speaker 1: anarchists contende industrial production? And it's like, well, have you
Speaker 1: ever had a job that it had you work in
Speaker 1: a factory on an assembly line or in some sort
Speaker 1: of other industrial way. Have you ever been a contractor
Speaker 1: and had a boss who sucked? Would it have worked
Speaker 1: better if that boss hadn't been there? That's the basic
Speaker 1: that's like the like, it's entirely possible for large groups
Speaker 1: of people to coordinate in a way that is not
Speaker 1: a capitalist system where you're accountable to a shareholder. Right, Like,
Speaker 1: there's there's a number of different ways to do that,
Speaker 1: but there's a long tradition and and in fact, some
Speaker 1: corporations that are still around today and quite large. You
Speaker 1: can look up the mon Dragon Corporation in Spain that
Speaker 1: have a lot of anarchist principles in their organizing. Um,
Speaker 1: not that like it's an anarchist company or whatever, but like,
Speaker 1: but there's significant, like significant amounts of anarchist theory and
Speaker 1: why that operates the way it does and has been
Speaker 1: significantly successful. Um. There's some other examples, and I think
Speaker 1: it's Brazil. Um there's a large like steel corporation and whatnot. Um,
Speaker 1: But yeah, like there's there's it's not. There's nothing about
Speaker 1: anarchism that means you can't have a factory producing armored cars.
Speaker 1: It just means you're not producing armored cars for the
Speaker 1: profit of the Lockheed Martin Corporation or whatever. Yeah, you're
Speaker 1: producing on the cause because you are fighting in a
Speaker 1: conflict that you hope will liberate other people, right, And
Speaker 1: that is agraby a more important motivation. And then wage labor,
Speaker 1: and certainly they in some cases increase activity, but they
Speaker 1: were able to sustain all the functions of an industrial society.
Speaker 1: And Catalonia was very industrialized, much more so than the
Speaker 1: rest of Spain, right, And that's perhaps why anarchism was
Speaker 1: so so important there. And and yeah, Verry, it doesn't
Speaker 1: require the arbitrary exercise of authority for that to happen.
Speaker 1: And like you said, there's plenty of examples of that.
Speaker 1: I think both of us really enjoyed David Grabe's book.
Speaker 1: But this idea that we move from one phase of
Speaker 1: society to another and that necessitates a different form of
Speaker 1: political organization just isn't borne out by the historical record.
Speaker 1: And I think Catalonia is a really good example of that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And a further example of that is in a pretty
Speaker 1: similar time frame you're talking earlier, but not but maybe
Speaker 1: like less than twenty years earlier, you have an esther
Speaker 1: mack No and mack Nova in Ukraine, this kind of independent,
Speaker 1: autonomous anarchist society that is extremely successful in war that
Speaker 1: the Soviet Union does not exist without mock No fighting
Speaker 1: the whites. Um as as successful easy didn't stopping in
Speaker 1: advance on on Moscow. And that's a rural that were
Speaker 1: not industrialized, and in fact their anarchism was very much
Speaker 1: based in kind of the traditional methods of organized rural
Speaker 1: societies in Ukraine. UM. And you have that a lot
Speaker 1: in other like you have a lot there are a
Speaker 1: lot of areas in which anarchism is common in rural
Speaker 1: areas and it's more of like a state socialism in
Speaker 1: industrialized areas. But you can have you also have this
Speaker 1: deep history of industrialized anarchism and there's uh, it shows
Speaker 1: that there's a capability for anarchist principles to function with infrastructure. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And if you want to look for rural anarchism, and
Speaker 1: you can look in southern Spain, right is um If
Speaker 1: you want to look at a small case study of
Speaker 1: the anarchists of Casas Vias is a great example of that. Right,
Speaker 1: people can find I'm sure it's free online. Is a
Speaker 1: pdf now, um, But yes, it doesn't have to just
Speaker 1: exist in urban or rural society or between the two, right,
Speaker 1: like whether Druti column went south? Okay, the drug column
Speaker 1: is an anarchist column. There are a number of other
Speaker 1: anarchist columns, but this one is the sort of the
Speaker 1: pre eminent one, the one that was most successful because
Speaker 1: they tended not to get bogged down as much in
Speaker 1: fighting in rural environments where they were not skilled, but
Speaker 1: they were extremely skilled, much more so than the military,
Speaker 1: and fighting in urban environments, right, So they were very successful.
Speaker 1: They went to Zaragotha and then fought there. While they
Speaker 1: were there, they were collectivizing the farms, right, And I'm
Speaker 1: sure some of that collectivization was forced. I don't want
Speaker 1: to be like everything was rainbows and unicorns, but it's
Speaker 1: a war. There's no side in a war whose handstake lane, right,
Speaker 1: Like that's not minimizing or ignoring it, it's just stating that,
Speaker 1: Like you you have to sometimes talk about the broad
Speaker 1: strokes of what's going on with without pretending to whitewash
Speaker 1: the fact that I'm certain ugly things happened there as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, and like yeah, you say, ugly things happen
Speaker 1: in war, and I think if you if you want
Speaker 1: that not to happen. Maybe I don't know you live
Speaker 1: on the internet, but like, um, the dirt decorum then
Speaker 1: goes to it right in the seat at Madrid, which
Speaker 1: was the also the first conflict in the International Brigades,
Speaker 1: the first battle of the International Brigades fourteen. It was
Speaker 1: a very successful battle for the Republic. It was a
Speaker 1: bottle that allowed the republic. If we look at the
Speaker 1: two battles that allow the Republic to exist, right, it's
Speaker 1: conflict in Barcelona, the battle for Barcelona, the first days
Speaker 1: of the Civil War, and it's a battle in Madrid
Speaker 1: right now. Madrid is not as much of an anarchist city,
Speaker 1: is a city with anarchism, but it's also more salient
Speaker 1: other socialism. Um. So when the Drouty column arrives right
Speaker 1: and takes part in the combat there, because they have
Speaker 1: been successful, because they're very good urban warfare, and a
Speaker 1: lot of the people in the Druty column didn't want
Speaker 1: do Routy to go, but he decided it was important
Speaker 1: to go as part of this popular front, right to
Speaker 1: fight this this huge push of Spain's most professional soldiers. Right,
Speaker 1: and that's where Derouty. You can read. I know somebody's
Speaker 1: working on an unlike a graphic novel about him. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and you should give them your money if you have
Speaker 1: some but able path. His book about Druty is very good.
Speaker 1: It's an amazing book because you turn out the line
Speaker 1: of notes and he's like, oh, yeah, this book has
Speaker 1: taken me a long time to write because I was
Speaker 1: involved in a resistance against Franco and spent twenty five
Speaker 1: years in jail, solitary confinement. But what a chad. But
Speaker 1: so you can read about Druty there, and Druty dies
Speaker 1: in the Battle for Madrid. But it's also kind of
Speaker 1: important to look at Spain is effective anakast, Spain is
Speaker 1: effective in fighting fascism. Um, what stops it being effective?
Speaker 1: To my mind, it is not anarchist principles military organization.
Speaker 1: The other thing that was that was impressive about Druty
Speaker 1: Column was that they had embedded army loyal army officers
Speaker 1: and they listened to them and they learned from them
Speaker 1: and they said, Okay, we don't good at some stuff,
Speaker 1: not good other stuff. We will learn. Other anarchists didn't.
Speaker 1: It didn't tend to do as well. Yeah, this is
Speaker 1: a common misconception because the anarchists are very much against hierarchy, um,
Speaker 1: which doesn't mean being against professionalism or competence, right. Like,
Speaker 1: it's the idea that like the hierarchy, For example, that
Speaker 1: led several million young boys to get machine gun in
Speaker 1: World War One because the people who were in charge
Speaker 1: of them had not learned how machine guns functioned. Um,
Speaker 1: is was a problem. But if you've got someone who
Speaker 1: has been training their entire life as a soldier and
Speaker 1: understands very effectively how artillery functions and how machine guns function,
Speaker 1: and because they have professionalized in that, it's not against
Speaker 1: anarchist principles to listen to that person in a gunfight. Yeah, yeah, expertise,
Speaker 1: it's not a it's not Yeah, it's not incompatible with liberty, right,
Speaker 1: and so yeah, they were very willing to listen to that.
Speaker 1: And in the same way they would be in a like. Again,
Speaker 1: these people have worked in factories, right, they understand that
Speaker 1: you don't know how to use a lathe and you
Speaker 1: exert your liberty to use a lathe, and your hand's
Speaker 1: gonna end up in a lathe when I when I
Speaker 1: go to a doctor and say, I'm am, I have
Speaker 1: gotten this horrible infected wound. What do I do about it?
Speaker 1: I am not yielding to a hierarchy. I am. I
Speaker 1: am accepting their expertise, you know. Yeah, yeah, I think
Speaker 1: sometimes people. I think your listeners are much better informed
Speaker 1: than this Germany. But people confuse anarchism with a predilegtion
Speaker 1: for chaos and violence, and it isn't that right. It's
Speaker 1: just it's a desire to to be more free and
Speaker 1: to not be controlled. And I have a boo on
Speaker 1: your neck. And but to to wind up that thought,
Speaker 1: like the reason that Spain that the Republican Spain starts
Speaker 1: to lose is not because there are anarchists. And you
Speaker 1: will definitely see this discourse on the internet. Many people
Speaker 1: will tell me that I'm mistaken about it. It's my
Speaker 1: fucking degree, But um yeah, I would argue that it's
Speaker 1: because the whole Western world that did quote unquote democracy
Speaker 1: is at the end of them, right, Yeah, this is
Speaker 1: like there's there's this. We talked about this a bit
Speaker 1: in the episodes we did on it. But like there's
Speaker 1: this whole argument that I'm sure you'll get into more
Speaker 1: between like the socialists, the communists, you know, and the anarchists.
Speaker 1: But a huge part of it, probably most of it,
Speaker 1: is that, like the fascists are getting guns from other
Speaker 1: fascists and tanks and aircraft often flown by professional ash
Speaker 1: just pilots who are training for what's going to become
Speaker 1: World War two, whereas Republican Spain has some old bulk
Speaker 1: action rifles that got smuggled in through France. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: some mosens. It was sold by America to Russia, from
Speaker 1: Russia to Mexico and then from Mexico back to Spain.
Speaker 1: Right like um, and and yeah, these old mouses are
Speaker 1: all well talks about that are rusted and they can't
Speaker 1: open the bolt after they fired them and they reload
Speaker 1: their ammunition and it's ship. But yeah, and on the
Speaker 1: other side, right, like the coup doesn't work. How does
Speaker 1: the Army of Africa get from Africa to Spain. It
Speaker 1: doesn't swim, right, how do these generals get from Africa
Speaker 1: to Spain airlifted by other fascist nations? Right? We don't
Speaker 1: see that, right, Actually, France wanted to sell planes to
Speaker 1: the Republic and the early days of the war that
Speaker 1: Britain pretty much put the kibosh on it. And there's
Speaker 1: an interesting parallel with what you're seeing in Ukraine right now,
Speaker 1: because in Ukraine you have a republican government, um, in
Speaker 1: a military that has a fairly wide selection. Jake camerhanters
Speaker 1: posted like a vegan at streamist who's fighting on the
Speaker 1: front lines of the because it's like, yeah, there's a
Speaker 1: whole bunch of different ideological tendencies fighting on behalf of
Speaker 1: the broadly Ukrainian side. They're including some very nasty ones. Um,
Speaker 1: but you're kind of seeing what happens when a fascist
Speaker 1: power invades a country like that to stop a republic
Speaker 1: and democratic powers send them the most advanced weapons on
Speaker 1: the planet, right, which is all it would have taken
Speaker 1: to roll back fascism in Spain. And then perhaps you know,
Speaker 1: there were a lot of German Italian exiles fighting in Spain,
Speaker 1: right because the Second Republic had relatively liberal, silent policies
Speaker 1: and they knew the only way to stop fashion Italy
Speaker 1: in Germany was to roll a bank in Spain and
Speaker 1: keep going right. I often have this, and I've had
Speaker 1: this as we've reput it on me an more, this
Speaker 1: weird thought of like I'll be reading about the Spanish
Speaker 1: Civil War in my office and I'll look at my
Speaker 1: gun collection. Although if I took every if I had,
Speaker 1: if I could go back in time with everything I
Speaker 1: have in my house, all of the m O and guns,
Speaker 1: there are a couple of battles that might have been
Speaker 1: turned around by just that. Because while for one thing,
Speaker 1: because modern semi automatic arms are much more effective than
Speaker 1: bold action rifles. But just like the level of armament
Speaker 1: that those people had was um that there were eighteenth
Speaker 1: century armies better equipped for combat. Yeah, I mean you
Speaker 1: see people with muscle loaders and stuff in the Spanish
Speaker 1: Civil War, right, And then the only place they can
Speaker 1: term for arms is the Soviet Union. Right. And they
Speaker 1: don't just get arms, they also get these generals, right,
Speaker 1: who are quote unquoite advising. They're not, they're commanding units.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of Soviet politicking at play, right, and
Speaker 1: as much as anything. And you can read like um,
Speaker 1: like Peter Carroll's book on the Abraham Lincoln Brigades Brigade
Speaker 1: UH Battalion. Sorry, they want a brigade that will give
Speaker 1: you a better idea of like exactly how this strict
Speaker 1: authoritarian communist control really sacked the spirit out of the
Speaker 1: republic Um. And you can see this in May of seven, right,
Speaker 1: which is what which or Well writes about in his
Speaker 1: book Right the May Day. When we see a conflict
Speaker 1: between the non Stalinist communist they weren't Trotskyist to pum right,
Speaker 1: very often portrayed to trot to Trusky himself, like you
Speaker 1: can see the letters that he wrote to them where
Speaker 1: he had thrown disagreements with them if you care to look. Um.
Speaker 1: But we see this conflict, the shooting war right between
Speaker 1: the anarchists and the non Stalinist comunist Understanish communists. And
Speaker 1: what comes out of that is this idea among people
Speaker 1: on the libertarian left, its broad spectrum of libertarian leftism
Speaker 1: that we saw in Spain, but it's not really worth
Speaker 1: fighting for the republic or for the fascists, because either
Speaker 1: way we're just going to have the boot on our neck. Right.
Speaker 1: The secret police, I say, were like the secret police
Speaker 1: spent far, far, far more time going after anarchists in
Speaker 1: the Republican Army than they did after spies. Oh no, really,
Speaker 1: the authoritarian left spent more of their time fighting anarchists
Speaker 1: than the fat wild. Yeah, crazy is it? And it's
Speaker 1: never happened again. We learned from it. We moved on,
Speaker 1: we've become better people. Yeah, yeah, it's great, We're we're
Speaker 1: fine now, we've fixed it. For a lot of the
Speaker 1: people fighting for the republic, Right, what are you fighting for?
Speaker 1: And I think that's important that we remember that even
Speaker 1: in times when things are bad, right, you have to
Speaker 1: think about what things should be like you have to
Speaker 1: try and model that in what you're doing now on
Speaker 1: an economic level, when you're talking about like they come
Speaker 1: in they collectivize these farms. There's like anarchists, like the
Speaker 1: anarchists in large chunks and like in Catalonian in particular,
Speaker 1: are kind of running what at the time as a
Speaker 1: fairly modern industrial economy. How does that? How does that work? Like,
Speaker 1: do do you have any kind of like overall state,
Speaker 1: like during the period of time where you know they
Speaker 1: had reasonable control and also weren't completely overwhelmed with the fighting,
Speaker 1: How did it function? Yeah? You kind of have a state, right,
Speaker 1: you have this sort of people's committee anti factism, militious
Speaker 1: but Uh, not really, because things things are somewhat chaotic.
Speaker 1: Rights on the states, we would maybe understand it now.
Speaker 1: So what we have instead is is anarcho syndicalism. Right,
Speaker 1: these unions going to other unions and organizing among themselves. Right,
Speaker 1: Like you know, the steel workers need X from the miners, right,
Speaker 1: the miners, then the the tube makers need extra the
Speaker 1: steel workers and the gun company need X from the
Speaker 1: from the tube makers, right, And so organizing along industrial
Speaker 1: union levels allows things to continue. That allows the trains
Speaker 1: and trams to continue, allows them to continue manufacturing munitions. Right.
Speaker 1: So it's it's an archo syndicalism, it is. It's a
Speaker 1: type of libertarian leftism. And then we see these collective
Speaker 1: or sort of cooperative I should say, farming arrangements, right,
Speaker 1: where again people people are farming, people are sort of
Speaker 1: joining together their industrial small holdings and then delivering those,
Speaker 1: contributing those to the city to the war effort. And
Speaker 1: there's something, as you see in Ukraine right, relatively special
Speaker 1: that happens in these times of conflict where people are
Speaker 1: I think more willing to just step aside from the
Speaker 1: a and I think that's always been that was a
Speaker 1: thing for the Spanish working class for a long time.
Speaker 1: But to step aside from the accumulation of stuff, right
Speaker 1: from the accumulation of individual goods and wealth, and to
Speaker 1: say like, yeah, well, let's all get stuck in together.
Speaker 1: And I think that helped to allow that to happen,
Speaker 1: helped to allow it to continue. But yeah, these organizations
Speaker 1: between unions and collectives worked, right, they functioned. You can't
Speaker 1: argue that they didn't work. The Republican Army didn't starve
Speaker 1: in a week or ran out of fuel and things, right,
Speaker 1: These these anarchist columns were able to travel from Barcelona
Speaker 1: to the Agostina and from the Agossa back to Madrid
Speaker 1: like that. That that doesn't happen if if you're incapable
Speaker 1: of organizing. Right. So in the factories, these people had
Speaker 1: already been organizing together, right, They were on strike often
Speaker 1: right there. They knew how to. They had an existing
Speaker 1: system for organizing things because they already organized to pay
Speaker 1: strike funds. They already organized to look after other union
Speaker 1: other parts of the C and T when they were
Speaker 1: out right, they organized to have policy statements on various things.
Speaker 1: So they had these existing means to organize. They just
Speaker 1: didn't have or alretis told people what to do. They
Speaker 1: knew how to what to go to the side, what
Speaker 1: to do. Yeah, I had this beautiful moment during the
Speaker 1: uprisings where I was in a city, UM, and I
Speaker 1: was hanging out with members of a medical collective and
Speaker 1: the building that they were in there was a couple
Speaker 1: of thousand square feet of they were producing by assembly
Speaker 1: line kim wipe's for clearing mace out of your eyes. UM.
Speaker 1: They were producing like I fax medical kits. They had
Speaker 1: racks of body armor that had been donated or purchased
Speaker 1: with donated funds UM. And it was all it was
Speaker 1: a substantial amount of equipment that was being and and
Speaker 1: respirators and stuff that was being organized as symboled, put together,
Speaker 1: UM distributed, putting people's hands, put in the hands of
Speaker 1: people who were going out and utilizing it on a
Speaker 1: regular basis. UM. And it was being done like with
Speaker 1: within the principles of kind of like like a number
Speaker 1: of things can be organized that way. It's it is
Speaker 1: it is handling the collection, the distribution um of of
Speaker 1: of equipment and the collection disbursement of funds like for
Speaker 1: potentially like thousands and thousands of people. Um, that's perfectly
Speaker 1: doable under anarchist principles, and anarchists have done that kind
Speaker 1: of thing a number of times in the world. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like if you look at the example of the soup
Speaker 1: kitchens right at proletarian dinas or restaurants they called them. Right,
Speaker 1: So in in Barcelona, a Madrid, they took over the
Speaker 1: writs right and and sourced food from rural anarchists to
Speaker 1: to feed people, right, rather than saying like, oh you
Speaker 1: know you have to buy feard, you have to buy food.
Speaker 1: You have to buy food. You come here and anyone
Speaker 1: can eat if you're hungry, right, and yeah, you see
Speaker 1: people doing that. Look at the unit that we we
Speaker 1: spoke about Miama, right, the Crenny generation c Army. They
Speaker 1: those guys they didn't have like you know, no one
Speaker 1: was wearing rank right now one was a general or
Speaker 1: a captain or or a sergeant. Right, they talked and
Speaker 1: to our point before by expertise, some people we found
Speaker 1: out are the person we were talking to, Zara who
Speaker 1: was who was killed. Um was seen as a commander
Speaker 1: by people because of what they wrote about him after
Speaker 1: he died, but he never talked about himself that way. No.
Speaker 1: In fact, he told us, right that if some people
Speaker 1: knew more, they've been in the fight for longer, they
Speaker 1: knew the terrain, and then we listen to them and
Speaker 1: they have a bit more way in that conversation. But
Speaker 1: we all just decide together what we what we want
Speaker 1: to do m and that that works, right, Like, because
Speaker 1: those guys were very well respected right among the the
Speaker 1: anti coup forces in Mihama because of their willingness to fight,
Speaker 1: their effectiveness, and those guys have a good battlefield record
Speaker 1: against the government troops. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, And like
Speaker 1: it wasn't just again, like it's not just five guys fighting, right,
Speaker 1: it's also they were able and and in Mihama we
Speaker 1: still see this with like the underground and they called
Speaker 1: the Development Committee LS and the people who are they
Speaker 1: were the people who did the shield walls and that
Speaker 1: kind of thing. And people will be familiar with the
Speaker 1: George Floyd uprising for them, they went underground of their
Speaker 1: developing ways to make weapons now, right, so they're the
Speaker 1: people you'll see making three D printed guns. So the
Speaker 1: people you'll see making improvised explosive devices, fertilized bombs, working
Speaker 1: out how to make handmade to two rifles we've seen
Speaker 1: right like and again they don't. They don't need someone
Speaker 1: in charge for that, right And in times of difficulty
Speaker 1: we revert to taking care of one another and getting
Speaker 1: things done. We we don't contrary to I think what
Speaker 1: what we're led to believe, sort of revert to we
Speaker 1: don't need like a strong leader, dear leader. We are
Speaker 1: capable of looking after one another outside of authority in
Speaker 1: the state. Yeah. And it also stands to the point
Speaker 1: that like accepting the authority of someone with expertise in
Speaker 1: certain situations, like the fundamental way in which effective military
Speaker 1: is organized tends to involve the existence of an n
Speaker 1: c O corps, right you, Every military that is good
Speaker 1: at fighting has it in c O core. Part of
Speaker 1: why Russia has acquitted itself so unbelievably poorly and the
Speaker 1: fighting in Ukraine is that that that does not functionally
Speaker 1: exist in the Russian military. Um. It is absolutely the
Speaker 1: basic idea of an n c O COREP is that
Speaker 1: with among fighting units, there should be dudes whose job
Speaker 1: and I say dudes in the non gendered sense, there
Speaker 1: should be people whose job is to make the functioning
Speaker 1: of that fighting unit be their whole life, and they
Speaker 1: stay at that job for a long time. They don't
Speaker 1: just like move up and ship. They're just they're there
Speaker 1: to keep that unit functioning. Um. And from the perspective
Speaker 1: of like someone who is an anarchist, I mean as
Speaker 1: an anarchist who's been shot at a number of times.
Speaker 1: When I'm hanging out and there's like some grizzled ass
Speaker 1: fucking veteran in the unit I'm embedded with, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: do whatever that fucker says, right absolutely, because you're crazy,
Speaker 1: not too, because that's just good sense. It's the same
Speaker 1: thing as like if you're in deep bush or whatever
Speaker 1: with somebody who knows wilderness survival and they tell you
Speaker 1: don't eat that plant, or they tell you know, this
Speaker 1: is a bad place to camp for this reason or whatever.
Speaker 1: You listen to them, like that's again, and you know,
Speaker 1: factories function the same way. Having been on building sites,
Speaker 1: they function this same way. Somebody tells you don't do
Speaker 1: that it's a bad idea, and they clearly have been
Speaker 1: doing it more than you. You listen to them. That's
Speaker 1: not accepting that you have a boss. That's accepting that
Speaker 1: you have people who are more experienced and competent in
Speaker 1: certain things. Yeah, And if you look at what ineffective
Speaker 1: armies sometimes have, it it's it's it's it's in the
Speaker 1: office of core. Right, it's people who are in charge
Speaker 1: but maybe you ought not to be, but it's because
Speaker 1: of their status with their wealth or something else. Right.
Speaker 1: And you see like very effective fighting in the anarchist units, right,
Speaker 1: with men and women, and actually people who would were
Speaker 1: non binary as well, or people who would call non
Speaker 1: binary didn't call themselves out then. Um, but um, we
Speaker 1: see that because they were willing to elect officers, right,
Speaker 1: but then listen to them. And it wasn't it was
Speaker 1: listened to not obey, right, But but that was an
Speaker 1: extremely effective way of doing things. Yeah. I was having
Speaker 1: a conversation with a body of mine who was a
Speaker 1: marine and saw some very heavy combat in Iraq years
Speaker 1: ago about like the way in which certain anarchist units
Speaker 1: had worked over time, and talked about the fact that
Speaker 1: they elected their leaders. And he was like, well, we
Speaker 1: didn't do that obviously, but there were people you knew
Speaker 1: you shouldn't listen to and people you did, and you
Speaker 1: understood who you wanted calling the shots when bullets were flying, right, like,
Speaker 1: regardless of what the actual hierarchy was. It's just like
Speaker 1: you know, in the U. S. Military, you have a
Speaker 1: platoon leader who was an officer who has been to college,
Speaker 1: and you have a platoon sergeant, and they do somewhat
Speaker 1: different things. But every reasonable person who has interfaced with
Speaker 1: those units will agree that like any good platoon leader,
Speaker 1: even though they're an officer and a higher rank, it
Speaker 1: is gonna listen to whatever the fucking platoon sergeant says
Speaker 1: because they've been doing that job a lot along. Yeah. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you're a fool and you're arrogant if you don't right,
Speaker 1: and the arrogance will find you out during it in
Speaker 1: a difficult situation pretty quickly. So yeah, I think it's
Speaker 1: important to look to look at those anarchists militaries, right.
Speaker 1: And then there are lots and lots of accounts of
Speaker 1: the of the anarchists and the Spanish Civil War. Julian
Speaker 1: Casanova's book is one of my favorites that people want
Speaker 1: to read one and married book Junichurse has written to
Speaker 1: the Spanish anarchists as well, so they're there are lot
Speaker 1: of books you can read about, and some of them
Speaker 1: micro case studies are really fun. Right, if you want
Speaker 1: to look at like what is it like to live
Speaker 1: on an anarchist farm in ninety six in rural Catalonian
Speaker 1: Yale or something like that, like, and I would encourage
Speaker 1: people to read them with an open mind, and I
Speaker 1: understand that like the world was different than than it
Speaker 1: is today, but to look at those historical examples and
Speaker 1: realize that, like, what people were doing them was fundamentally
Speaker 1: the same. Right, they were trying to take care of
Speaker 1: each other and make the world better for their children,
Speaker 1: and they didn't want the boot on their neck, and
Speaker 1: they were all prepared to work together to do that,
Speaker 1: and that that was an extremely functional way. And what
Speaker 1: didn't work for them was being controlled by people from
Speaker 1: the SO Union who maybe didn't understand their struggle because
Speaker 1: they often volt it wasn't worth fighting anymore. And that's
Speaker 1: true for communists to actually, right, Like if you look
Speaker 1: at the American communists who went and fought, and they
Speaker 1: were overwhelmingly Communists who went and fought for the for
Speaker 1: the International Brigades. The International Brigades were not the public's
Speaker 1: army per se. They were the comm Interns army. And
Speaker 1: if there is one group of people who was hated
Speaker 1: more than anyone else. It was commissars, right, these people
Speaker 1: who were sort of there to enforce this very strict
Speaker 1: interpretation of what they saw as Marxist Leninism. So even
Speaker 1: those people right who were communists might have had a
Speaker 1: more slightly more libertarian understanding, didn't really take that well
Speaker 1: to being bossed around and lost a lot of their
Speaker 1: wills what they were fighting for because of that. Right.
Speaker 1: Cecil Lbis book is another really good book about that.
Speaker 1: If you want to read that, well, I think that's
Speaker 1: going to bring us to an end here, James, you
Speaker 1: have a book about the Spanish Civil War that you
Speaker 1: should probably plug here. Yeah. Yeah, it's called The Popular
Speaker 1: Front and the Learner Olympics. It's about the anti for
Speaker 1: Olympics that were held as an alternative to the Barslona Olympic.
Speaker 1: Tics explains how the Popular Front used sport to build
Speaker 1: an anti fascist identity in Catalonia, and it used sport
Speaker 1: to bring together anti fascists from around the world. The
Speaker 1: Olympics actually happened on the nineteenth of July, which is
Speaker 1: the same data civil War startists, and they never they
Speaker 1: never occurred, but many of the people who went to
Speaker 1: take part in the Olympics, decided to stay and fight,
Speaker 1: and so that's what my books about. It's quite expensive
Speaker 1: and you can I understand that people can't afford it.
Speaker 1: That's fine. I keep saying I'm working on another book,
Speaker 1: but I'm not working very hard or very fast. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: look it up and someone's probably bootlegged it. Actually, the
Speaker 1: book is often free at universities and other libraries. So
Speaker 1: yet to go to your library and I'll see them
Speaker 1: to get it. And uh where else can people find you?
Speaker 1: On the internet? At James Stout on Twitter, same thing
Speaker 1: on Patreon. Those are my two main things. You can
Speaker 1: find my writing a muck rack to google my name. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and again help us, Daniel, please bleep that out for
Speaker 1: the sake of James immigration cases. And yeah, that's good.
Speaker 1: That's that's an episode. Yeah. Despite it being past midnight,
Speaker 1: you can still see through the dense forest. The moonlit
Speaker 1: sky combined with the urban light pollution, make traversing the
Speaker 1: messy woods easier than you thought. You relieve that you
Speaker 1: don't have to use your head lamp, which could have
Speaker 1: drawn unwanted attention. The company of a few of your
Speaker 1: queer friends makes the walk through the confusing woods less intimidating.
Speaker 1: Dressed in gray and camo, you make your way through
Speaker 1: overgrown trails and hop over a small creek. Save for
Speaker 1: the occasional train, all you can hear is the croaking
Speaker 1: of frogs and chirping of cicadas, crickets, and grasshoppers. The
Speaker 1: night air you breathe through your mask is noticeably cleaner
Speaker 1: than the air from downtown that you spent months riding
Speaker 1: in during not even counting the tear gas in the air.
Speaker 1: As you and your pals slowly trek through the forest,
Speaker 1: your feet squish into the grassy, wet ground. You avoid
Speaker 1: the area's caked and clay and stick to the cover
Speaker 1: of trees, brush and the soft wetland. After a short
Speaker 1: walk and with only a few wrong turns, you reach
Speaker 1: an artificial break in the embrace of the forest. You
Speaker 1: look at your masked up friends, and for a brief
Speaker 1: moment during the moonlight night, you can't quite tell who's who.
Speaker 1: Which is a good thing, you suppose. Everyone exchanges glances,
Speaker 1: but no one says anything. Everyone already knows what to do.
Speaker 1: As you approach the barren mound of dirt, you get
Speaker 1: angry a jarring crack in the beauty and mysterious allure
Speaker 1: of the forest. You're no longer in the woods. You're
Speaker 1: at the site of destruction, a clear cut that seeks
Speaker 1: to expand its radius. Without the tree coverage, you can
Speaker 1: see the harsh blue light of LEDs in the distance.
Speaker 1: There among the mounds of dirt and fallen trees are
Speaker 1: several unguarded machines of destruction. With no cell phones in sight.
Speaker 1: You and your friends get to live in the moment
Speaker 1: your agenda becomes the sound of shattering glass in the
Speaker 1: cold night. Hammers meet windows and serrated knives cut the
Speaker 1: inner tubing of bulldozers and excavators. The undoing of the
Speaker 1: mechanical monsters that have violated the forest has begun. No
Speaker 1: tool of the evil doers goes unharmed. Rattling cans of
Speaker 1: spray paint leave antagonistic and proclamatory messages with rebellious hiss
Speaker 1: for those who intend to continue destroying the forest. Defend
Speaker 1: the forest, no cops city, no Hollywood dystopia. In little time,
Speaker 1: the light, pollution, moonlight, and distant LEDs are accompanied by
Speaker 1: a bright orange blaze emanating from the machines, lighting up
Speaker 1: the area around the sad mound of dirt. A splash
Speaker 1: of gasoline acts as the extension of the blood that
Speaker 1: fuels the burning fire in your hearts that became a
Speaker 1: light with the rage felt at the sight of the
Speaker 1: decimated woods. By the time the fire department took notice,
Speaker 1: you've already disappeared into the night, like a specter, fading
Speaker 1: like the curling black smoke that drifted into the midnight sky.
Speaker 1: As you exit the forest, you go about as if
Speaker 1: what happened tonight never did. You never tell a soul,
Speaker 1: You never talk about it with your masked up queer friends,
Speaker 1: since they were never there either. Details fade in your
Speaker 1: memory like a dream, but deep down you still remember
Speaker 1: the feeling, the peak moment of true freedom. When the
Speaker 1: fire engulfed the machines. It was upon broken, uneasable machines
Speaker 1: that the fires were extinguished, laying incinerated the excavators and
Speaker 1: bulldozers who are rendered immobile worthless. Piles of trash. Fires
Speaker 1: are only temporary and can be undone. But the connection
Speaker 1: between those who live in a forest, who breathes air,
Speaker 1: and who drink its water filtered through its wetlands, is
Speaker 1: not so easily broken. Any further attempts that destroying the forest,
Speaker 1: we met with a similar response. The forest was here
Speaker 1: long before us, and we'll be here long after. You
Speaker 1: and your friends, among many other anonymous strangers will see
Speaker 1: to that. Welcome. Took it up in here a podcast
Speaker 1: about things falling apart and how we can put them
Speaker 1: back together, And today we'll be spending that entire spectrum.
Speaker 1: I'm Garrison Davison. The story I just read isn't merely
Speaker 1: a fictional one. It was inspired by over a year's
Speaker 1: worth of communicators and report backs coming out of the
Speaker 1: Defend the Forest movement in Atlanta, Georgia. So excuse the
Speaker 1: pretentious poetry of anarchists and speak. In early one, it
Speaker 1: was real to the public that mainly four entities, namely
Speaker 1: the City of Atlanta, the Atlanta Police Foundation, de Cab County,
Speaker 1: and Black Hall Studios, had dual plans to devastate two
Speaker 1: complementary sections of the South Atlanta for Rest. The City
Speaker 1: of Atlanta and Police Foundation plans are to turn the
Speaker 1: area of the forest known as the Old Atlanta Prison Farm,
Speaker 1: into the largest police training facility in the country, complete
Speaker 1: with a mock city helipad and bomb range. Meanwhile, Entrenchment
Speaker 1: Creek of a public forest land will be traded by
Speaker 1: de Cab County to Black Hall Movie Studios to clear
Speaker 1: cut the land on which they plan to build America's
Speaker 1: largest sound stage. This project lies at a horrific intersection
Speaker 1: of police militarization, gentrification, copaganda, and exasperating the local effects
Speaker 1: of worsening climate change by clear cutting hundreds of acres
Speaker 1: of forest. In the last year, activists, ghosts like saboteurs,
Speaker 1: and open source researchers have vultraals together into an anonymous
Speaker 1: and diverse movement that's brought the plan to destroy the
Speaker 1: forest out of the shadows of secretive, backdoor corporate deals
Speaker 1: and into the public spotlight, forming the Defend the Atlanta
Speaker 1: Forest move mint that's consistently been able to get ahead
Speaker 1: of police and media by breaking news about the forest
Speaker 1: destruction plans and setting the terms of engagement and what's
Speaker 1: deemed as acceptable direct action, all well being able to
Speaker 1: foster relationship with the woods that they are defending. I've
Speaker 1: been really interested in this project since I heard about
Speaker 1: it last summer. Along with the intersection of police militarization
Speaker 1: and climate change on the flip side. There's this unique
Speaker 1: intersection of urban city protest and classic forest echo defense.
Speaker 1: The mix of tactics have produced a movement unlike anything
Speaker 1: really seen before here in the States. Not to get
Speaker 1: ahead of myself, but ever since last fall when the
Speaker 1: Atlanta City Council approved the plan to build the largest
Speaker 1: police training facility in the country, dubbed cops City by
Speaker 1: activists due to the plans to build a mini version
Speaker 1: of Atlanta within the facility to practice urban combat. But
Speaker 1: I figured that I would eventually find myself inside the forest.
Speaker 1: So this last April, when an opportunity presented itself to
Speaker 1: travel to Atlanta, stay in the wood and talk with
Speaker 1: some forest defenders, I couldnot pass it up. I packed
Speaker 1: a tent, sleeping bag, and some microfilms and made my
Speaker 1: way to Georgia. The first thing I noticed upon arriving
Speaker 1: in Atlanta is that when they say Atlanta is a
Speaker 1: city in a forest, they really do mean it. The
Speaker 1: amount of continuous tree coverage throughout the city was astonishing,
Speaker 1: and that's coming from someone who lives in Portland, Oregon.
Speaker 1: As it turns out the city of Atlanta actually has
Speaker 1: the highest amount of tree canopy of any city in
Speaker 1: the United States. On top of the citywide tree coverage,
Speaker 1: there is the South River Forest, which makes up the
Speaker 1: largest continuous section of woods and serves as Atlanta's first
Speaker 1: line of defense in the face of rapidly accelerating climate change.
Speaker 1: The forest in southeast Atlanta is said to function as
Speaker 1: the lungs of the city. The canopy offers shade and
Speaker 1: traps carbon, with some of the more heavily forted areas
Speaker 1: acting as wetlands that filter rain water and prevent flooding
Speaker 1: by collecting runoff. It's Marsh is one of the last
Speaker 1: breeding grounds for a lot of amphibians in the region,
Speaker 1: as well as an important migration site for wading birds,
Speaker 1: and serves as a home to a lot of local wildlife.
Speaker 1: Nearly five acres of this forest is under threat by
Speaker 1: the Atlanta Police Foundation and Black Hall Studios. If plans
Speaker 1: succeed to develop this precious strip of forest into the
Speaker 1: massive police compound and adjacent movie sound stage, the entire
Speaker 1: metropolitan area will face much harsher effects of climate change,
Speaker 1: including worsening floods, higher temperatures, and less clean, tree filtered air,
Speaker 1: Not to mention the increased police militarization and gentrification. Speaking
Speaker 1: of the second thing I noticed once I arrived in
Speaker 1: Atlanta is how much gentrification is currently underway. The amount
Speaker 1: of hideous five of our one apartments that are being
Speaker 1: built was impossible to overlook. And as we'll see, the
Speaker 1: way police feed off gentrification, which feeds off the corporate
Speaker 1: and movie making sides of Atlanta, is not merely a coincidence.
Speaker 1: Last fall in of view to Jamal from the Atlanta
Speaker 1: chapter of the Community Movement Builders, a Black lad collective
Speaker 1: of community residents and activists serving poor, working class Black communities.
Speaker 1: They focus on responding to encroaching gentrification, displacement, and over policing.
Speaker 1: Here's what Jamal had to say on the intersection of
Speaker 1: issues owering around the Cops City and defend the Forest project.
Speaker 1: Just to piggyback off of that, I think it's extremely
Speaker 1: important for us to recognize the connections between all these things. Right, Like,
Speaker 1: Cops City is a perfect blend of UM environmental justice issues,
Speaker 1: uh just flat out racism, police brutality, and also gentrification. Right,
Speaker 1: it's not a it's not a mistake that they're building
Speaker 1: this Cops City right at this moment when UM Atlanta
Speaker 1: is also becoming the for the first time. And I
Speaker 1: don't know how many decades, um non no longer majority
Speaker 1: black city because neighborhoods like pittsburgher we're located out of
Speaker 1: and all across Southwest and West Atlanta have becoming more
Speaker 1: like the black people have been being displaced from me,
Speaker 1: from our communities, right UM. So a perfect example is
Speaker 1: that with my organization, Community Movement Builders, we UH purchased
Speaker 1: we've we've been doing work in the pittsburghighborhood for a while,
Speaker 1: but we purchased a community house in the neighborhood about
Speaker 1: six years ago. Right at that point, we purchased the
Speaker 1: house for fifty thou dollars, right UM. Pittsburgh has been
Speaker 1: historically uh poorn working class community. It was uh it
Speaker 1: was founded as a black community, which is different from
Speaker 1: a lot of other other neighbors in Atlanta. Was founded
Speaker 1: as a black community from UH freed Africans UM who
Speaker 1: were trying to escape some of the more rural areas
Speaker 1: of the South and found work in Haven in the
Speaker 1: Pittsburgh neighborhood of Atlanta. And it's been a poor and
Speaker 1: working class black community ever since. But now UM, because
Speaker 1: of the gentrification has been going on. How a house
Speaker 1: just sold, maybe about a month and a half ago
Speaker 1: for seven dred and fifty thousand dollars, So the person's
Speaker 1: house at fifty thousand dollars six years ago. A house
Speaker 1: just sold, um, just a few walks away from that
Speaker 1: house for seven fifty thousand dollars. Now, it's not every
Speaker 1: house is selling for that amount, but that just shows
Speaker 1: you the rate of gentrification that's happening. And then and
Speaker 1: we know that cops are on this necessary part of
Speaker 1: being able to defer to displace people from gentrifying communities.
Speaker 1: They play an integral role within gentrification. Yeah, I'm just wondering,
Speaker 1: does any of you have anything like even like anecdotal
Speaker 1: experience with like basically Marvel and Men, tons of other
Speaker 1: industries like invading Atlanta. How is that like affected specifically,
Speaker 1: Like you already talked about how how you know, increased
Speaker 1: the increase in the film industry and other things. Has
Speaker 1: you know, has made more gentrification? But like, how has
Speaker 1: that even affected just like like other types of stuff,
Speaker 1: including like policing, Like has has this type of like
Speaker 1: growth um affected people or people you know in in
Speaker 1: other ways? Yeah? Absolutely. So I think a lot of
Speaker 1: this kind of got I won't say it got started,
Speaker 1: but a lot of it went even uh you know,
Speaker 1: escalated when Tyler Perry Studio opened up in East Point. Um,
Speaker 1: and a lot of people, you know, we're praising. It's like, oh,
Speaker 1: look at this. Uh you know, it's a black man.
Speaker 1: I was able to move down and be able to
Speaker 1: start this thing within Hollywood. But no, it's all that
Speaker 1: is one of the things that also spurred the gentrification
Speaker 1: in East Point, which is you might not be familiar
Speaker 1: with Atlanta, but East Point is like literally right next
Speaker 1: to Atlanta, so it's a lot of it's it's really
Speaker 1: close proximity. And so that also spurs over to the
Speaker 1: gentrification here in the city as well. Um. Property values
Speaker 1: have gone up since that point, even more. Um. Even
Speaker 1: my tax bill has gone up a thousand dollars a
Speaker 1: year per a year um for the past like three years. Right. UM.
Speaker 1: So it's yeah, it's it's definitely we definitely see the
Speaker 1: effects and you know, and just talking to you know,
Speaker 1: we do we do do a lot of work around gentrification. UM.
Speaker 1: And I think this is in tandem with you know,
Speaker 1: because we have COVID nineteen out here now with the
Speaker 1: eviction moratorium which has now been you know, denied um
Speaker 1: with by the Supreme Court. Um. But even when there
Speaker 1: wasn't vision moratorium, there were still people that were getting
Speaker 1: invaded from their homes. And I think all of this
Speaker 1: in tandem when Atlanta specifically has already been going through
Speaker 1: a gentrification crisis and um with COVID nineteen where people
Speaker 1: have been losing jobs left and right, or not been
Speaker 1: able to go to their jobs that they've had um
Speaker 1: and loo and having us salaries cut. People have been hurting,
Speaker 1: and the response from the city has not too been
Speaker 1: that has not been to provide more resources to people.
Speaker 1: It's been too fund cops city to be able to
Speaker 1: get more police out who are the ones that execute
Speaker 1: the actual evictions themselves? And I think it all, it all,
Speaker 1: it all is connected in that in that type of way.
Speaker 1: I arrived in Atlanta a few days before the Muscogee Summit,
Speaker 1: a weekend event where the original indigenous people from the
Speaker 1: area of the South River or for the native name
Speaker 1: of the said land, the Ulandie Forest, traveled back to
Speaker 1: their ancestral homeland to discuss indigenous environmental philosophy what land
Speaker 1: back and rematreation means in theory and practice. Several Indigenous
Speaker 1: authors were present and led workshops, including Indigenous feminist, scholar
Speaker 1: and community planner Laura har Joe from the University of Oklahoma,
Speaker 1: author of Spiral to the Stars Muskogee Tools of Futurity,
Speaker 1: and Dr Daniel Wildcat of the Haskell Indian Nations University,
Speaker 1: who wrote the book Read Alert Saving the Planet with
Speaker 1: Indigenous Knowledge. In the less academic portions, there were forest walks,
Speaker 1: community meals, and singing of old Muscogee songs, including ones
Speaker 1: that are performed two centuries ago during the Trail of Tears.
Speaker 1: Muskogee Creek attendees also gathered around a sacred fire to
Speaker 1: perform a stomp dance, recreating rhythms heard and sensed in
Speaker 1: the forest long ago, to rekindle the relationship with the
Speaker 1: Earth and connect back to the ancestral presences. This was
Speaker 1: the second ancestral migration the Muskogee Creek title members have
Speaker 1: done since being forcibly removed two centuries ago and displaced
Speaker 1: to Oklahoma. The first one took place just this last November,
Speaker 1: and both times the particular section of land they gathered
Speaker 1: on in transparant Wee Park is one of the areas
Speaker 1: under threat of being ecologically destroyed and clear cut. Over
Speaker 1: the course of a few days during my week long stay,
Speaker 1: I sat down in the woods to record with two
Speaker 1: groups of forest offenders, one group sitting around a campfire
Speaker 1: at night next to a high security child prison and
Speaker 1: the other group during the sunny bird chirping day outside
Speaker 1: the Black Hole Studios movie plot. So if you hear
Speaker 1: campfires or bird sounds in the background, just embrace our
Speaker 1: forest punk aesthetic up front. I think it's really important
Speaker 1: to first talk about the history of the land that
Speaker 1: is under threat, because, on top of issues regarding gentrification
Speaker 1: and the plans of this police training facility as a
Speaker 1: response to the George Floyne Uprising and the false manufactured
Speaker 1: crime wave media narrative intended to rejusify American policing in
Speaker 1: the wake of the uprising, that the fact that the
Speaker 1: Atlanta Police Foundation shows this plot of land in particular
Speaker 1: is particularly gross. The history of this small section of
Speaker 1: land in the South River Watershed is deeply scarred and
Speaker 1: desperately needs time to heal. There are centuries of oppression
Speaker 1: and state violence tied to this particular spot of land,
Speaker 1: and now we're seeing that trying to be continued with
Speaker 1: this Cops city plan. Local tribes were expelled for millions
Speaker 1: of acres in the southwest region of what is now
Speaker 1: known as the United States during the early decades of
Speaker 1: the eighteen hundreds. Forced removal and displacement of the Muskogee
Speaker 1: Creek people began in the region in eighteen twenty one
Speaker 1: through a series of treaties, which then eventually led to
Speaker 1: a quote melee of removal. More on that from one
Speaker 1: of the force defenders I spoke to, and I'll note
Speaker 1: we'll be using a mix of voice distortion and voice
Speaker 1: actors combined with other audio distortion to help protect the
Speaker 1: identities of the forced defenders that I spoke to against
Speaker 1: possible state repression. So enjoy our our our cool voice
Speaker 1: distorted audio. Yeah. I think it's important because a lot
Speaker 1: of our comrades musk of the comments and extended relatives
Speaker 1: that are identified as Muscogee that we're pushed off as
Speaker 1: lands in the early eighteen hundreds. They a lot of
Speaker 1: them did not go quietly in the night. I think
Speaker 1: that's important to remember because I feel like a lot
Speaker 1: of people are just like the Trail of Twos or
Speaker 1: like they were pushed out, but they're they fought against
Speaker 1: being pushed out, and then when a lot of them
Speaker 1: were pushed out or killed off, then it was used
Speaker 1: to incur story and house mostly black people. So we're
Speaker 1: taking it back. That is most of the people that
Speaker 1: I have seen involved. It is a diverse group of people.
Speaker 1: It's not just like white anarchists in the woods. That
Speaker 1: is a misconception. There's all kinds of folks, which really
Speaker 1: I think is interesting and makes the struggle unique and important.
Speaker 1: But there is also a lot of like white anarchists
Speaker 1: that are using their privilege to help take the land
Speaker 1: back for our comrades that want to see it back,
Speaker 1: and it feels things feel like they're in a good way. Um,
Speaker 1: there's good relations that are existing between like the anarchists
Speaker 1: and indigenous alliance down here, where like obviously no one
Speaker 1: person speaks and represents any one group, but the alliances
Speaker 1: that we do have are very informed of the variety
Speaker 1: of activities that have happened down here, including the arsons
Speaker 1: of machinery, and we were positively told to quote unquote
Speaker 1: keep on going, so that feels empowering and it feels beautiful,
Speaker 1: and it feels important to note that some of the
Speaker 1: comrades that have ancestral ties to this area such a
Speaker 1: dark history and they're still here. Is something that they're mentioning,
Speaker 1: and they're excited the people that were close to obviously
Speaker 1: they're not close to all of them. They're excited that
Speaker 1: people are choosing to use their privilege to help make
Speaker 1: sure these facilities don't get built. Continuing with the scarred
Speaker 1: history of this land, shortly after the lands of the
Speaker 1: South River Forest were stolen from Muskegee Creek people, plots
Speaker 1: were distributed to white settlers in the Fourth Georgia Land
Speaker 1: Lottery of eighteen twenty one, which made available landlots of
Speaker 1: two hundred and two point five acres. Many of these
Speaker 1: white settlers established slave plantations on which cotton and other
Speaker 1: crops were produced through slave labor. Through archival records, we
Speaker 1: know of at least twelve plantations that were on this
Speaker 1: land that existed from the eighteen forties up until eighteen
Speaker 1: sixty five, and then in the early nineteen hundreds, the
Speaker 1: very same land started being used as a prison farm,
Speaker 1: now known as the Old Atlanta Prison Farm. The Old
Speaker 1: Atlanta prison Farm was originally bought in nineteen seventeen to
Speaker 1: incarce rate prisoners of war, but this plan was abandoned
Speaker 1: within two years and the land was converted into a
Speaker 1: prison farm where inmates including moonshiners, public drinkers, and just
Speaker 1: loiterers and really anybody were sent to and forced to
Speaker 1: perform unpaid agricultural labor. This shift from plantations to prison
Speaker 1: farm marks the rebranding of slavery into for profit prison labor.
Speaker 1: This labor in fluded washing cows and arsenic laden water,
Speaker 1: which led to the early deaths of countless prisoners. The
Speaker 1: facility ran up until in which it was shut down,
Speaker 1: and then two child prison facilities were put on the
Speaker 1: adjacent land, and the Atlanta Police Department already currently uses
Speaker 1: sections of this hollow ground as a firing range tear
Speaker 1: gas canisters and bullet casings from found throughout the forest.
Speaker 1: From where on that, here's some other parts that might
Speaker 1: sit down with the forest offenders. And then I guess
Speaker 1: like fast forwarding a little bit from this land where
Speaker 1: indigenous people lived to the prison farm um, and then
Speaker 1: how this has like a long incarstral history and history
Speaker 1: of being tied to policing, both with the child prison
Speaker 1: that's still here, the prison farm, and then now trying
Speaker 1: to build this militarized training facility that just like continuing
Speaker 1: on this legacy of state violence, which is like other
Speaker 1: massive aspect in terms of like they're trying to take
Speaker 1: this very like land that needs to heal from the
Speaker 1: centuries of violence and just tear it all down and
Speaker 1: build more of that. Um. I know, there's like there's
Speaker 1: the firing range that we've been hearing shots from. Uh,
Speaker 1: there's it's like just this never ending thing. It just
Speaker 1: like just keeps happening. It's a pretty weird, surreal experience.
Speaker 1: Makes me feel like we're all like an endangered species
Speaker 1: living in like the last part of the forest and
Speaker 1: fucking South Atlanta. I remember, and I was explaining to
Speaker 1: one of my relatives, are like I was reading the
Speaker 1: internet about the family Atlanta forest and not sure quite
Speaker 1: what's all going on, but sounds like you're living in
Speaker 1: hell there between two different chapters and Sons of High
Speaker 1: Security was as security, a large massive power land cut
Speaker 1: and old Prettison farm and two sides of the road
Speaker 1: at least three different police firing rangers and always wider
Speaker 1: treatment plant. The doubles as a firing range and super
Speaker 1: training facility for the police. Another interesting facet is this
Speaker 1: particular piece of land where they're trying to build uh
Speaker 1: Top City is like a really important turning point in
Speaker 1: history of slavery in the US. And like this is
Speaker 1: where a lot of things went from like shadow slavery
Speaker 1: um and transitioned into what we now have as prison slavery.
Speaker 1: And as we're sitting here on what was literally a
Speaker 1: prison farm, even people in pretile detention were here and
Speaker 1: used for unpaid labor, even people who had not been
Speaker 1: convicted of any time. And so it's kind of like
Speaker 1: it's like I like very like visible, like Dane on
Speaker 1: the like history of of like what you used racist policing,
Speaker 1: but it's harder to cover up and harder to like
Speaker 1: pink wash um and so like even as there is
Speaker 1: like a place where children are locked in cages over
Speaker 1: they're not yards from me, so too, is this a
Speaker 1: place where people were brought for being used as slaves
Speaker 1: and like died and were buried in unmarked graves? Yeah, Um,
Speaker 1: can I talk a little bit more about that? This
Speaker 1: was the transition, This is like the intermediitary intermediate transition
Speaker 1: between child slavery and mind by prison slavery. UM. And
Speaker 1: it was like especially horrific, Like there is two lakes
Speaker 1: on the property, but where at one point said to
Speaker 1: be filled with arsenic um where beyond slates were not
Speaker 1: only watching cattle um with the arsenic to remove them
Speaker 1: like bugs, but also in those in those lakes and
Speaker 1: like suffering horrible diseases and like dying from this. The
Speaker 1: reason they present, I'm actually that closed down was because
Speaker 1: of the amount of people going in and out of
Speaker 1: the reason why this city proached to close it down
Speaker 1: was because of the amount of UM people being sent
Speaker 1: to the hospital week after weekenday after day, like a fish,
Speaker 1: like actually overloading the medical system in the area. UM.
Speaker 1: That's like publicly recorded information. UM they closed down like
Speaker 1: the eighties or nineteen nineties UM. And like during the
Speaker 1: Civil War, escaped prisoners from here would be are sorry,
Speaker 1: escaped slaves are from here would be h like going
Speaker 1: across battle lines and feeding information to a Union side
Speaker 1: in order to like serve their informs of liberation. I
Speaker 1: mean we like this land also exists right next to
Speaker 1: a major or like major road that serves as a
Speaker 1: car serral center. Um. It has not both like the
Speaker 1: Metro h reentry Metro Reentry facility, the Metro Youth Detention Center,
Speaker 1: and like a couple other buildings. Um uh. And like
Speaker 1: it's not just like the eighty lands of a plan
Speaker 1: to clear cut here, it's also the like three hundred
Speaker 1: that they plan to continue with the car serial legacy
Speaker 1: of terror and horror. Um from going from like chattel
Speaker 1: slavery and indigenous displacement to um be inter intermediary UM
Speaker 1: poor that the prison firm was, to this new legacy
Speaker 1: of like cover up of it all and then and yeah,
Speaker 1: the continuation of this land being used by the state,
Speaker 1: by police, by um all these like oppressive groups to
Speaker 1: further their causes. A really interesting aspect of des and
Speaker 1: for going to prison farm and then police trying to
Speaker 1: now turn it into a militarized police training facility. UM yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So first I think, um, you know, this is mimiscogy
Speaker 1: land and it's during the Scurgy summit. It's cool, you know,
Speaker 1: miscry people have any were displaced for the most part,
Speaker 1: and there trying to participate in this migration back. And
Speaker 1: so they're on the land right now, and it's been
Speaker 1: very special to have them UM here and to be
Speaker 1: able to express solidarity and like work together with them
Speaker 1: has been really amazing and learned a lot and it's
Speaker 1: yet it's cool to understand that. And you know what
Speaker 1: you're saying, that interaction of like UM settler colonialism displacing
Speaker 1: people UM, like early slavery, prison slavery, and this this
Speaker 1: specific land has always been UM a place that I
Speaker 1: feel like has been almost like the vanguard of how
Speaker 1: like policing has and like such a settler colonialism, UM
Speaker 1: has experimented with how to reproduce itself in sustainable ways
Speaker 1: UM with like just in general domestication of humans and
Speaker 1: the domestication animals. And that's like what APD is trying
Speaker 1: to do on this land. And it's a direct reaction
Speaker 1: to the George Floyd uprising, which caused a cry assist
Speaker 1: and policing is it actually been back with serious power,
Speaker 1: and so they're trying to figure out and experiment with
Speaker 1: ways of reproducing policing for the future in the exact
Speaker 1: same way that when slavery took a serious owl, they said,
Speaker 1: how can we recuperate and how can we reproduce this
Speaker 1: in a way that's sustainable, and that why we have
Speaker 1: a modern prison system that lives on to this day.
Speaker 1: And that's why they're realizing as Pepper gaining and threatening it. Oh,
Speaker 1: we have to do something good and this lamp has
Speaker 1: always been a site for doing that. If it's they're
Speaker 1: an keep tracking. Atlanta is a heavily corporate city. It's
Speaker 1: been dubbed the Silicon Valley of the South by people
Speaker 1: who surely must be insufferable to be around, but it
Speaker 1: is true that Atlanta and Georgia's economic policies have attached
Speaker 1: a swath of corporations to either start to grow or
Speaker 1: migrate to the city. It's home to Coca Cola, Delta Airline,
Speaker 1: Bans Ups, home Depot, Chick fil A, and multiple media conglomerates,
Speaker 1: as well as having headquarters for like Google and other
Speaker 1: tech companies. As well, the city serves as a massive
Speaker 1: transportation hub. In fact, Atlanta the city started off as
Speaker 1: a train hub, and now it boasts the world's busiest airport.
Speaker 1: Recent tax credits for the film industry have made Atlanta
Speaker 1: and Georgia the new hot place to shoot high budget
Speaker 1: Hollywood movies. There's a whole effort to make the city
Speaker 1: effectively the new Hollywood. But like all economic growth, uh,
Speaker 1: this comes with some heavy consequences, most often affecting those
Speaker 1: at the bottom. Atlanta is also the most surveilled city
Speaker 1: in the United States and the city with the most
Speaker 1: wealth and equality. All the corporations and film industry stuff
Speaker 1: moving to Atlanta has indeed created jobs, but many of
Speaker 1: those jobs go to workers from out of state. On average,
Speaker 1: less than one third of new film industry jobs have
Speaker 1: gone to people who were already living in Atlanta. The
Speaker 1: result of this out of state economic migration boosts cost
Speaker 1: of housing, cost of living at Bush's lower and middle
Speaker 1: class residents of Atlanta out of their neighborhoods, disproportionately pushing
Speaker 1: out to black people. And this is all while the
Speaker 1: increasing corporatization and gentrification is actually pitched as quote unquote
Speaker 1: providing opportunities to the city's black population, which is certainly something.
Speaker 1: Because the state of Georgia has the fourth largest incarceration
Speaker 1: rate in the entire world. If you put a U.
Speaker 1: S States on the same level as like every single
Speaker 1: other country, the other top three states or countries with
Speaker 1: the highest incarceration rates are Louisiana, Mississippi, and Oklahoma. So yeah,
Speaker 1: but Georgia's number four. Those in Atlanta's top income bracket
Speaker 1: make nearly twenty times those who are at the bottom.
Speaker 1: And if you map the wealth disparity onto the layout
Speaker 1: of the city, it's a one to one match for
Speaker 1: the city's old segregation lines. The entire city runs on
Speaker 1: these like reignite newliberal policies, but under this mask of
Speaker 1: woke identity politics. And who enforces that wealth and equality
Speaker 1: and gentrification. That's right, police, which leads us to the
Speaker 1: origin of this plan for so called cops City. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna quote a crime Thing article that came out last
Speaker 1: month called the City in the Forest, Reinventing Resistance for
Speaker 1: an age of climate crisis and police militarization, which recommend
Speaker 1: you guys read I'll I'll have it in the habit
Speaker 1: in the source notes. But yeah, here's the quote from
Speaker 1: Crime Thing quote. The government of Atlanta has developed a
Speaker 1: few tentative solutions to the dilemmas they face. To follow
Speaker 1: through on their commitments to their backers, city politicians need
Speaker 1: to continue sacrificing public assets on the altar of the
Speaker 1: economy in order to attract more major investors to the region,
Speaker 1: especially the film industry and technology companies. To maintain control
Speaker 1: in a period of rapid displacement and rising cost of living,
Speaker 1: with chronic tension between the conservative state government and the
Speaker 1: liberal city administration, they need to funnel more resources towards
Speaker 1: law enforcement throughout the region. Finally, to appease the increasingly
Speaker 1: rebellious lower classes, they to frame this process of restructuring
Speaker 1: and repression in the language of black empowerment, social justice,
Speaker 1: and progressivism. The bureaucrats are not in a good position
Speaker 1: to handle this. Decades of tax cuts and deregulation have
Speaker 1: created infrastructural failures and breakdowns of all kinds, among other concerns.
Speaker 1: Atlanta lost the bid for the second Amazon headquarters because
Speaker 1: the public transit one of the least funded in the
Speaker 1: United States. It was not even operable when the corporate
Speaker 1: scouts came to visit at the same time. It's precisely
Speaker 1: the low taxes and absence of regulation that attract capital
Speaker 1: to the state of Georgia, so cultivating a social democratic
Speaker 1: governing strategy may now be impossible without creating a flight
Speaker 1: of wealth to other parts of the country. It seems
Speaker 1: that the current plan is to give over as many
Speaker 1: public contracts and resources to private developers as possible, to
Speaker 1: allow them to incur the costs of social disintegration and anger,
Speaker 1: and to use police to control the blowback, and to
Speaker 1: use images of Martin Luther King Jr. To preempt any
Speaker 1: meaningful resistance. Thus, the plan to transform a wild space
Speaker 1: into a police training compound is dubbed the Institute for
Speaker 1: Social Justice. That's right, the plan to make the country's
Speaker 1: biggest militarized police training facility. They're planning to call it
Speaker 1: the Institute for Social Justice. Ignore the bomb range and
Speaker 1: uh urban combat mock city section anyway. Um here is
Speaker 1: Jamal again from the community movement builders. I think one
Speaker 1: thing that's also really significant is that so my city
Speaker 1: council person for his District twelve, Joyce Shepherd, um District
Speaker 1: twelve is where Pittsburgh is, where Summerhill is, where several
Speaker 1: of poor and black working class neighborhoods of Atlanta are located.
Speaker 1: There are also the areas where they're the most gentrifying
Speaker 1: areas of the city as well, and it's in and
Speaker 1: city Council District twelve. Joyce Shepherd she is the person
Speaker 1: who brought this proposal forward, right, she is over the
Speaker 1: quote unquote public safety. Um, you know they aren't keeping
Speaker 1: it safe quote unquote public safety. Um, you know, commission
Speaker 1: and Um, she brought this forward. And she has been
Speaker 1: since she's been in office, she has been a even uh,
Speaker 1: she's been a champion of gentrification. Right, she's been a
Speaker 1: champion of over policing as well. Um. And I think
Speaker 1: it's it's a tie between even our city council or
Speaker 1: even our representation has in their interests of being able
Speaker 1: of of gentrifying the city because that gives them more
Speaker 1: tax stars. It gives them a way to be able
Speaker 1: to say that they are decreasing their crime rates except
Speaker 1: and all those all these different types of things when
Speaker 1: it's really just dep deplacing poor folks. Um. And so
Speaker 1: I think that's an important about talking about how this
Speaker 1: kind of was established. That's an important topic to be
Speaker 1: able to address, is that even and she's a black woman,
Speaker 1: right so even um, you know, even how like when
Speaker 1: people when when people might you think they might be
Speaker 1: in representing your interests, when they get to be in
Speaker 1: these positions, we have to recognize that they are not
Speaker 1: necessarily for the people. In the aftermath of the George
Speaker 1: Floyd uprising against police violence, the city responded by striking
Speaker 1: down any police reform measures and restricting opportunities for republic input,
Speaker 1: while increasing the police budget and upping citizens surveillance. On
Speaker 1: a national level, a media manufacturing crime wave narrative has
Speaker 1: been used to rejuify American policing in the wake of
Speaker 1: the uprising, and the City of Atlanta is using that
Speaker 1: narrative while wrapping their increased militarization plans in a nice
Speaker 1: woke social justice package, i e. A militarized police training
Speaker 1: compound being dubbed the Institute for Social Justice. Heading up
Speaker 1: this effort is the Atlanta Police Foundation, which is a
Speaker 1: nonprofit police advocacy organization that claims to have quote united
Speaker 1: the business and philanthropic community with the Atlanta Police Department.
Speaker 1: It's a It's backed by an array of Atlanta area
Speaker 1: corporate donors, including Delta Airlines, Upstrick fil A, Cox Enterprizes,
Speaker 1: which owns the Atlanta Journal Constitution, which is like the
Speaker 1: city's biggest newspaper, and they were formally formally backed by
Speaker 1: Coca Cola. They Coca Cola dropped out this last November.
Speaker 1: A leak promo video for the Institute for Social Justice
Speaker 1: details some of the features of the Atlanta Police Foundations
Speaker 1: quote world class training campus. With an estimated cost of
Speaker 1: ninety million dollars. The space will provide a place for
Speaker 1: recruiting training, mid career education, and practice with new technology
Speaker 1: and equipment for police and fire department personnel. The renderings
Speaker 1: show the campus will house a quote mock city for
Speaker 1: real world training, a canine training center, and forty horse
Speaker 1: stalls for police horses. Twelve acres of forest land are
Speaker 1: slated to be converted into an emergency vehicle operations course,
Speaker 1: and the whole compound will be located across three hundred
Speaker 1: and the acres of the old Atlanta Prison Farm, which
Speaker 1: is a city owned but technically outside of city limits,
Speaker 1: located just east of the city in unincorporated Dekapp County.
Speaker 1: The Police Foundation has proposed funding the training center through
Speaker 1: a public private partnership, which will leave taxpayers to pay
Speaker 1: an estimated thirty million dollars for this out of city
Speaker 1: police training facility one, which is one third of the
Speaker 1: early estimated cost. According to the land Use Ordinance. The
Speaker 1: property will be leased to the Police Foundation by the
Speaker 1: city for ten dollars a year for fifty years. It's
Speaker 1: almost four acres of forest land for ten dollars a year.
Speaker 1: The grund lease will quote provide that the city will
Speaker 1: be able to have input or approval on the stages
Speaker 1: of construction along with the development of the property, and
Speaker 1: will allow waving of certain code requirements. Such a facility
Speaker 1: would be three times the size of the New York
Speaker 1: Plice Department's training facility and four times the size of
Speaker 1: the l a p d s and worth noting that
Speaker 1: the NYPD and l a p D are the two
Speaker 1: largest police departments in the country, while Atlanta is the
Speaker 1: only the nineteenth largest. Yet they'll have a facility that's
Speaker 1: like three times the size of New York's. According to
Speaker 1: the Mayor of Atlanta during the time of the facility's announcement,
Speaker 1: the massive training complex would quote raise morale among officers
Speaker 1: and hopefully bring more recruits to the department. And importantly,
Speaker 1: the whole project was initially supposed to be totally under wraps,
Speaker 1: approved through backdoor deal making the social justice something socialist
Speaker 1: justice I believe in the promo video specifically, which was
Speaker 1: not likely even a public release. And this is like
Speaker 1: very much designed to be under the table, pushed through
Speaker 1: as fast as possible of the public, whereas it really
Speaker 1: supposed to know about it. The videos that existed were
Speaker 1: only meant to be UM the Sponsors Boardnembers unders of
Speaker 1: the Atlantic Police Foundation UM and MIGHT. The Police Foundation,
Speaker 1: unlike most like police unions, is a foundation made to
Speaker 1: final corporate money into the handsOn police. The Cops City
Speaker 1: side of things is just one part of the Defend
Speaker 1: the Forest project. The other big aspect of this is
Speaker 1: pushing back on the movie studio Black Hall from being
Speaker 1: able to clear cut more forced to expand their sound stage.
Speaker 1: Projects shot on their current lot include A Godzillak of Monsters, Venom,
Speaker 1: der Van Hansen, HBO's Lovedcraft Country, and Amazon Primes The
Speaker 1: Tomorrow War. On the east side of the forested land,
Speaker 1: the part that's referred to as Entrenchment Creek Park was
Speaker 1: bought by Hondy Booko founder Arthur Blank and the early
Speaker 1: two thousands with a plan to combine UH that section
Speaker 1: of land with three acres at the Prison Farm to
Speaker 1: create a five hundred acre park, a project that never
Speaker 1: came to fruition. UH and now the park is currently
Speaker 1: under control of the Cat County. On top of the
Speaker 1: heat insulation and air filtering that the tree canopy provides,
Speaker 1: Entrenchment Creek plays a crucial role in maintaining the South
Speaker 1: River Watershed, being a partial wetland and marsh that mitigates
Speaker 1: flooding in South Atlanta. Quoting that crime thing article again, quote,
Speaker 1: the plundering of public assets from the benefit of a
Speaker 1: movie company and real estate mogul is described as an
Speaker 1: opportunity to create quote good jobs for local Atlanta's, not
Speaker 1: as a criminal expropriation of infrastructure. The clear cut that
Speaker 1: Blackall Studio has planned to trade in exchange for a
Speaker 1: section of forest is to be renamed Michelle Obama Park unquote.
Speaker 1: So yeah. That also clearly demonstrates the type of gentrification
Speaker 1: wrapped in this nice woke package by doing this really
Speaker 1: sketchy land swap and then building a park on it
Speaker 1: and calling at Michelle Obama Park cool stuff, guys. Black
Speaker 1: All Studios is currently a hundred and fifty acre complex
Speaker 1: about ten minutes south of downtown, and they seek to
Speaker 1: add over half a million square feet of sound stage
Speaker 1: two hundred thousands square feet of offices UH four hundred
Speaker 1: twenty thousand square feet for warehousing square feet of catering space,
Speaker 1: according to a filing made through the States Development of
Speaker 1: Regional Impact Program UH. The d r I s are
Speaker 1: filed when the projects size is large enough that it's
Speaker 1: likely to impact the infrastructure of neighboring communities. The De
Speaker 1: Cab County Board of Commissioners in October voted to approve
Speaker 1: the land swap deal with Blackhe Studios. As a part
Speaker 1: of the planned expansion, the county would give approximately forty
Speaker 1: acres mostly wooded land around the South River Forest, and
Speaker 1: then in turn, Black Studios would give the county around
Speaker 1: fifty acres of nearby land as well. The project has
Speaker 1: faced some legal and construction issues ever since then, and
Speaker 1: we'll discuss the details of those shortly. Also worth noting
Speaker 1: that Black Hall Studios was sold to a private equity
Speaker 1: firm in l A just last year, and this last
Speaker 1: February announced that they purchased another one thousand and five
Speaker 1: hundred acres in Newtown County, Georgia, which is about forty
Speaker 1: miles east of downtown Atlanta UH, and they plan to
Speaker 1: shoot productions there for an upcoming quote action oriented streaming
Speaker 1: service dubbed black Hall Americana, which sounds horrible. Um, here's
Speaker 1: a here, here's a quote from black Hole CEO Ryan
Speaker 1: millsap quote. This is the kind of space we need
Speaker 1: to fly in black Hawk helicopters and drive humpies at speed.
Speaker 1: We have lakes, we have swamps and rivers and forests
Speaker 1: and fields and hills and dales. That's the nice thing
Speaker 1: about one thousand and five hundred acres. Yep. So look
Speaker 1: forward to uh, black Hall Americana, the new hit streaming
Speaker 1: service coming out of Georgia. Um, destroying the forest for
Speaker 1: Black Hall Americana. Oh boy, but yeah, if if, if,
Speaker 1: if this project succeeds, it would cement Atlanta as the
Speaker 1: new Hollywood, along with like Tyler Perry Studios and all
Speaker 1: of the other movie studios moving to Atlanta, and it
Speaker 1: would continue the skyrocketing cost to living in Atlanta and
Speaker 1: accelerate gentrification at a even more horrifying right. So, Um, Actually,
Speaker 1: the black Hall side, but in as like being defended
Speaker 1: as well, is also in the Welining Forest, which is
Speaker 1: like what's been escaping name for the South Atlanta forests. Um,
Speaker 1: And it's actually right across the road from where we
Speaker 1: currently are. Um. So the and it's like I want
Speaker 1: to believe three or four acres by itself. Um, and
Speaker 1: that is actually under imminent threat as well. They're waiting
Speaker 1: on the land destruction permit to pass, and that can
Speaker 1: happen any day or any week on on what you
Speaker 1: were saying about the gentrification issue. Um, that's something that's
Speaker 1: been really noticeable to anyone that lives in Atlanta and
Speaker 1: has for any amount of time just looking around them,
Speaker 1: like the filming that is just regularly happening here and
Speaker 1: all all these kind of new companies popping up around it.
Speaker 1: Black Hall was sold maybe a little over a year
Speaker 1: ago now to a hedge fund out in California. They're
Speaker 1: getting funding for all of these projects. And the rent
Speaker 1: here in Atlanta, I'm sure across the country, I'm not
Speaker 1: sure what the trends are elsewhere, has been skyrocketing. Like
Speaker 1: you'll see homes that sold during the financial crisis for
Speaker 1: like eight thousand dollars two dollars selling for like half
Speaker 1: a million dollars today. And you know, I'm not like
Speaker 1: a fucking economist, but the way that the film industry
Speaker 1: has been exploding and other industries like Google and Microsoft
Speaker 1: have been building these massive, expensive new headquarters while people
Speaker 1: literally go out on the street because they can no
Speaker 1: longer afford to pay rent here, and people just get displaced.
Speaker 1: It's like the opposite of white flight back into the suburbs,
Speaker 1: when you know, folks are moving into the city for
Speaker 1: economic opportunities that only very wealthy people can get. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's difficult not to see Black Hall as ushering
Speaker 1: in just another huge wave of gentrification. Yeah, black making
Speaker 1: movies to support the American way of life, but Black
Speaker 1: Hall explicitly says they're making movies to support the American
Speaker 1: way of life. We hear gunshots from the police firing
Speaker 1: range all the time, and we hear almost as many
Speaker 1: gun shots from the Black Hall filming sides. Um. And Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's very much about creating propaganda that makes people think
Speaker 1: they need police. Um. And that's like a huge part
Speaker 1: of kind of what they're doing. A life of film
Speaker 1: and all the gentrification thing. Like even just driving to
Speaker 1: the city the past few days, I've noticed so many
Speaker 1: places that used to be wooded, uh, totally towards down
Speaker 1: and they're putting up these horrible quote unquote luxury condos
Speaker 1: which are like, you know, two thousand dollars rent from
Speaker 1: on for a tiny studio. UM. And I've even seen
Speaker 1: things that were used to be secretionated housing turned into
Speaker 1: luxury condos. Like it's it's been absurd driving through the
Speaker 1: city and watching so many places that used to be
Speaker 1: wooded just turned like so much like active construction sites
Speaker 1: building these exact same like these identical apartment complexes that
Speaker 1: are the most hideous things you've ever looked at, and
Speaker 1: completely unaffordable for any for anyone who's not like someone
Speaker 1: who's working for a tech company. Like they are like
Speaker 1: destroying a section of Atlanta called Park and it was
Speaker 1: like a large green space that was largely unmaged in Lakeland.
Speaker 1: UM and creating quote affordable housing, which is really just
Speaker 1: the legal term for they have a certain amount of
Speaker 1: available housing, like like like taking units in like a
Speaker 1: like one unit thing is affordable house. Like affordable just
Speaker 1: means market value or like like the medium market value.
Speaker 1: Low income is things that people that aren't like average
Speaker 1: money makers come for, right And I think one of
Speaker 1: the like I think it's has kind of kind of
Speaker 1: gotten lost about the struggle about the actual defending the
Speaker 1: Atlanta force struggles like not specific to just cops of
Speaker 1: your black hole is actually the entire forest as a city, UM.
Speaker 1: And that like part of the reason why it has
Speaker 1: been so focus is because of like how pressing these
Speaker 1: currents um things are and how like stretched thin people
Speaker 1: kind of a who are working on this um and
Speaker 1: that like yeah, Chosea Park is an example. There's also
Speaker 1: an area and that's like near Grant Park and like
Speaker 1: the Zone three old Zone three precinct, and there are
Speaker 1: like the zoo they were like actually in the same
Speaker 1: property area. UM. They kept the pigs near the zoo. UM.
Speaker 1: And like it was an entire forest land like absolutely
Speaker 1: mouth of every app every clear gardner doing disgusting condos
Speaker 1: all along the rod um. And it's it's a continuation
Speaker 1: again of a distinctive political pattern in Atlanta. Back when
Speaker 1: Mayor Jackson was elected as the mayor, he at first
Speaker 1: tried to build like affordable not affordable, like low income
Speaker 1: housing and do community projects and stuff. But the business
Speaker 1: end of Atlanta fought back against those efforts and that
Speaker 1: is what saw projects like the Olympic Games, which destroyed
Speaker 1: an entire community in Atlanta. You should look up people's
Speaker 1: down here in Atlanta was just in Summer Hill completely
Speaker 1: raised to build arenas and all of this ship And
Speaker 1: it feels like a continuation of the powern where politicians
Speaker 1: decide what is best for the city the Olympics, a
Speaker 1: new police training facility or whatever business measures on the
Speaker 1: table today, not to mention that like during the nineties
Speaker 1: six Olympics, they're like specifically built Atlantice City Detention Center
Speaker 1: for the for a place to put houseless people who
Speaker 1: have been sweeped up the streets and like criminalized them.
Speaker 1: And during the George forlid uprising in that was reused
Speaker 1: too as detainments and overnight states for protesters who are
Speaker 1: like going to get low bail justice a form of
Speaker 1: repression is regularly used. Again like that jails regularly used
Speaker 1: specifically against protesters and isn't used for anything else. Is
Speaker 1: a like absolutely still around the face of humanity and
Speaker 1: Artisha Lance Bottoms said during her turn that she was
Speaker 1: going to turn that into a social justice side or right,
Speaker 1: it's still a jail. It probably already it probably all
Speaker 1: ways will be until he fucking destroy it. Uh. And
Speaker 1: like now the Fulton County sheriff wants to take over
Speaker 1: the jail and use all of those beds because the
Speaker 1: jails here are so overcrowded with bullshit charges that they
Speaker 1: are just expanding and expanding, expanding, and there's no sign
Speaker 1: of stopping. For every one time that they promise that
Speaker 1: they're going to be closing jails, repurposing ship doing all
Speaker 1: this liberal reform bullshit, there's a new training facility, they're
Speaker 1: selling jails to people that are using them more. The
Speaker 1: system just continues to expand and expand and expand until
Speaker 1: we fight back and destroy it. Need black haw Yeah,
Speaker 1: police need Black Hall just as much as black hall
Speaker 1: needs the police, you know. And these are the symbiotic
Speaker 1: relationship between the two. Police are instrumental in gentrification and
Speaker 1: also police need gentrification to capture poor black and brown
Speaker 1: people and lock them in case. And so these are
Speaker 1: two things that that feed each other in a relationship.
Speaker 1: So it's very important to do our best to attack
Speaker 1: book is Atlanta. Was it the Atlanta police who have
Speaker 1: like the point system for rust? Yes, Atlanta Police. Yes,
Speaker 1: Atlanta Police has actually a point system where among the
Speaker 1: highest points is capturing a child. For capturing a child
Speaker 1: and arresting them are alongside felony charges, folony warrants and
Speaker 1: other things. Um longest point system. They use it as
Speaker 1: a rubric to measure how well an officers doing. Um
Speaker 1: yeah yeah, I mean in terms of like needing gentrification
Speaker 1: to continue your job. Yeah, that's that's the exact same
Speaker 1: thing is, let's have this point system so we can
Speaker 1: get races and it arrest all the people who are
Speaker 1: on the street. And it's uh a mask off moment,
Speaker 1: as they say. And I also think it's this funny thing,
Speaker 1: like I don't know, right, they're building this fake city
Speaker 1: to train in, and I wouldn't be surprised if Black
Speaker 1: hawns up renting it out from time to time to
Speaker 1: shoot films, right absolutely, But also at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, even if they don't, it's literally the same
Speaker 1: exact thing, right, one is training people to actually do
Speaker 1: it and the other is performing it too. People think
Speaker 1: it's cool exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So I just pulled up
Speaker 1: the actually my friend just pulled up there like chart
Speaker 1: which is it's a one to five scale. It's five scale.
Speaker 1: It's five for juvenile arrest, five points for felonies, four
Speaker 1: for a misdem or charge three for a city, charge
Speaker 1: for for deal wise and it goes on um and
Speaker 1: like the fact that juvenile rest is the top one
Speaker 1: is sucking monstrous. No I expected like they are the
Speaker 1: monster like that. Yeah, like if it's not, it's not shocking,
Speaker 1: but it shows the extent of like the the horrible
Speaker 1: nous of what of like what their job is like,
Speaker 1: that is their job, That's what that's what they do.
Speaker 1: That is the entire thing. One thing that's given the
Speaker 1: Atlanta Defend the Force movement and edge is being able
Speaker 1: to consistently set the terms of engagement and establish a
Speaker 1: media framework regarding the instruction of the forest and the
Speaker 1: development of Cops City to stay one step ahead of
Speaker 1: the enemy. Like we've mentioned, the Cops City of project
Speaker 1: was never actually initially announced by the city or the
Speaker 1: Police Foundation. It was brought to light by activists digging
Speaker 1: through open source data and public records in April one,
Speaker 1: when activists discovered the proposal to destroy the South of
Speaker 1: Our Forest. First, news spread via word of mouth for
Speaker 1: several weeks about a large information sharing session at Entrenchment
Speaker 1: Creek Park, one of the areas under threat. On May fifteen,
Speaker 1: over two hundred people gathered for a barbecue and info
Speaker 1: presentation night on the threat of the forest and the
Speaker 1: broader campaign to defend it. The city government had yet
Speaker 1: to announce its plans publicly, so the activists and Force
Speaker 1: defenders were able to craft the public narrative first and
Speaker 1: lay the media groundwork. At the information session, presenters were
Speaker 1: able to accurately contextualize the development within the cross section
Speaker 1: of racist and authoritarian backlash against the George Floyd protests,
Speaker 1: the increasing gentrification and urban displacement, and the devastating climate
Speaker 1: effects such a project will inflict upon the region. Having
Speaker 1: activists and Force defenders break the news such a development
Speaker 1: denies the city and the police the opportunity to introduce
Speaker 1: a development to the public with a distorted narrative, assuming
Speaker 1: that they were gonna announce their plans and make them
Speaker 1: public at all. And then, on May seventeenth, less than
Speaker 1: forty eight hours after the info sharing barbecue, seven unguarded
Speaker 1: machines at the forest destruction site, including excavators, tractors, and
Speaker 1: other pieces of heavy machinery, were targeted by sabotage, with
Speaker 1: smash windows and severed inner tubing scorched by fire. The
Speaker 1: destruction equipment was left inoperable. An anonymous statement appeared online
Speaker 1: detailing their motivations and methods of attack, while tying the
Speaker 1: actions to the struggling and colonialism, authoritarianism, and the history
Speaker 1: of this particular land as the site of horrific abuses,
Speaker 1: of the site of displacement, child slavery, and prison slavery.
Speaker 1: The communicate ended with quote to the developers, governments, contractors,
Speaker 1: corporations and politicians have perpetrated the heinous deforestation. Any further
Speaker 1: attempts at destroying the Atlanta Forest we met with a
Speaker 1: similar response, the forest was here long before us, and
Speaker 1: we'll be here long after. We'll see to that defend
Speaker 1: the Atlanta Forest. Today, no one has been arrested for
Speaker 1: these actions. The presence of such a targeted direct action
Speaker 1: campaign this early on in the movement is important for
Speaker 1: a few reasons, one of which being it's meant in
Speaker 1: sabotage as a part of this movement from the very beginning,
Speaker 1: like it was moven into the genetic fabric from the conception,
Speaker 1: so any debate around the validity of these tactics was
Speaker 1: virtually non existent because they were there from the beginning.
Speaker 1: That's what this movement is and that's been super interesting
Speaker 1: to watch because usually this type of sabotage or direct
Speaker 1: action happens later on in these movements, you escalate to
Speaker 1: that point, But in this case, it's been happening since
Speaker 1: the first week people knew that this thing is was existing.
Speaker 1: Over the following weeks, there was meetings, posters, and flyers
Speaker 1: that spread throughout the city. People organized public forest walks
Speaker 1: through areas of the woods that were under threat. Even
Speaker 1: a few candidates for city council adopted the struggle as
Speaker 1: a component of their electoral campaigns. The movement's consistent ability
Speaker 1: to break the news on the development and the destruction
Speaker 1: of the forest has been crucial in the efforts to
Speaker 1: gain public trust and setting the terms of engagement and
Speaker 1: the ground rules for the conflict. The type of public
Speaker 1: discourse regarding the forest was successfully established by anonymous activists,
Speaker 1: not by politicians, and not by police. Think something that's
Speaker 1: been really cool about this movement. From the early days
Speaker 1: of when this was going on, it was extremely radical,
Speaker 1: like it wasn't It wasn't three or four months after
Speaker 1: the first initial meeting, it was like a barbecue at
Speaker 1: the park where people were lighting bulldozers on fire to
Speaker 1: prevent construction from happening. The Atlanta Police Foundation has had
Speaker 1: its offices, its office windows smashed, like people are not
Speaker 1: afraid to fight back physically. And this was occurring at
Speaker 1: the same time as the more electoral tactics as how
Speaker 1: I'll phrase it, and I think that you know, we've
Speaker 1: seen neither of these being able to successfully stop the movement.
Speaker 1: But when it comes to like being able to measure
Speaker 1: that the police have and their allies have slowed down,
Speaker 1: the electoral tactics have been a complete utter failure. Um
Speaker 1: and physically harming that property of the police, end of
Speaker 1: the black Hall and all of the forces that would
Speaker 1: destroy the forest. That's been shown far away to be
Speaker 1: a tactic that's not only acceptable in this movement, but
Speaker 1: it's something that's seen as like one of the go
Speaker 1: to strategies. It's we haven't had to work our way
Speaker 1: to that. People were there from the getto. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was like a day or two after the Young for
Speaker 1: a night, but the very first public facing event, but
Speaker 1: like bulldozers were set on fire in like Michelle Obamba Park,
Speaker 1: which is funny or enough of another like recuperation tactic
Speaker 1: of like destruction of the environment and like on Ding
Speaker 1: gentrification where that's actually Black Hall Studios old plan site
Speaker 1: for their um new studio. And the idea of the
Speaker 1: land swappers they take this shitty land where they destroyed
Speaker 1: forest type, replace it with an earth ground and in
Speaker 1: and as long as they turn into a park, they're
Speaker 1: allowed to UM build and construct on public forest land UM,
Speaker 1: which is like a Bunker's idea. Yeah, yeah, I know.
Speaker 1: It's actually like a new precedent right here back has
Speaker 1: not been done before. I think that like one of
Speaker 1: the other things, you know, along with the fiery start
Speaker 1: kind of kick off, is that the folks who you know,
Speaker 1: like in my experience, most like kind of big broader
Speaker 1: campaign type things that people who are doing jail support,
Speaker 1: the people who have abroad reach, the people who you know,
Speaker 1: have access to resources, etcetera. Kind of the like backbone
Speaker 1: life sustaining things of a movement tend to be folks
Speaker 1: who have really rigid moralizing ideas of like what is acceptable, etcetera.
Speaker 1: And you know, people in Atlanta have been there's a
Speaker 1: lot of credit due to folks who have been putting
Speaker 1: in a lot of work and are a little wiser
Speaker 1: than to have such a limited narrow view. So most
Speaker 1: of the folks that control and are not controlled. Most
Speaker 1: of the folks who like backline and are working really
Speaker 1: hard to do them more like reproductive things and jail
Speaker 1: support and get food and things like that, are also
Speaker 1: people who have a really like, um, creative and accepting
Speaker 1: view of you know, like what kind of things are
Speaker 1: okay and really don't want this movement to fail and
Speaker 1: aren't going to limit themselves based on abstract ideas. And
Speaker 1: so that's something that is really special and um, you know,
Speaker 1: one gets excluded for for doing things that are effective.
Speaker 1: When talking with the force defenders, the other thing that
Speaker 1: was really emphasized is that instead of waiting for distant
Speaker 1: politicians to say the environment, and instead of dedicating tons
Speaker 1: of effort into petitioning companies with moralized grehtoric to make
Speaker 1: them feel bad in hopes of them dropping of the
Speaker 1: the project, you can instead have immediate material attacks that
Speaker 1: hit them where it counts, and where it counts is
Speaker 1: their pockets. Because you can't expect companies to be swayed
Speaker 1: by moral decisions around harmful policing or the environment, but
Speaker 1: you can attack their physical and social capital if it's
Speaker 1: framed as, hey, this is something that is not a
Speaker 1: good look, fam, and uh, this is going to hurt
Speaker 1: your bank accounts. That is the type of general language
Speaker 1: that these corporations do understand. I feel like this is
Speaker 1: the most intersectional thing I've been a part of in
Speaker 1: a long time. There's just like so many different ways
Speaker 1: to oppose the facility, and there's so many different people involved.
Speaker 1: And I'm really grateful for all of the comrades, especially
Speaker 1: the anarchist comrades, who've been holding it down for years
Speaker 1: and helped push the struggle in a certain direction. I
Speaker 1: think other people are touching on this. We want to
Speaker 1: keep bringing it up because it's important, and other struggles
Speaker 1: we've been a part of, like the liberals control a
Speaker 1: lot of the money for jail support or bail funds
Speaker 1: or food distract and a lot of those mutual aid
Speaker 1: aspects of the struggle that help maintain an occupation which
Speaker 1: has really turned this place up are in the hands
Speaker 1: of mostly anarchist folks, and that has also really set
Speaker 1: the scene for what we're able to do and not
Speaker 1: able to do, Like no one's getting thrown under the
Speaker 1: bus for a leisured behavior like when I was reading
Speaker 1: about this before I came down here almost exactly a
Speaker 1: year ago, there were like machines are on fire, and
Speaker 1: I was like, holy shit, it's like usually that's like
Speaker 1: the way later in the struggle, and that was like
Speaker 1: right out the gate. People whoever they are, were attacking
Speaker 1: the machinery, and I think, to be honest with you,
Speaker 1: that was drawing a lot of people here because people
Speaker 1: are tired of the n v d A or non
Speaker 1: violent direct action. It's not about like let's criticize something
Speaker 1: to death that makes us feel bad. It's like people
Speaker 1: are tired because they're losing a lot of comrades to
Speaker 1: long prison sentences. They're getting three different felonies that are
Speaker 1: like the same amount of time or more than if
Speaker 1: you would allegedly arson something. So these are things that
Speaker 1: are coming up for people, and people are realizing that
Speaker 1: old tactics aren't working anymore. A lot of the comrades
Speaker 1: that were burned into a weird shape from the Green
Speaker 1: scare are aging out, or the things that they're afraid
Speaker 1: of are very valid, but we're living in two dire
Speaker 1: of a time to neglect those tactics or a larger
Speaker 1: level and people are just are seeing how terrible things are,
Speaker 1: and it seems like more people are down or just
Speaker 1: don't care anymore. Ever since the George Floyd uprisings, they've
Speaker 1: just seen an uptick in a lot of this behavior.
Speaker 1: There's a campaign that launched publicly that mentions all the
Speaker 1: subcontractors that Reaves Young, one of the construction companies on
Speaker 1: the project, has to employ to make the Atlanta Police
Speaker 1: Foundations project here possible, and a lot of that could
Speaker 1: be home visits, it could be going to where they
Speaker 1: I don't know what it is, obviously, but I'm just saying,
Speaker 1: long story short, everybody knows this, but you find where
Speaker 1: they store the evil equipment, that's the best way to
Speaker 1: stop the project. Long story short. They usually don't listen
Speaker 1: to what we have to say, but actions speak louder
Speaker 1: than words. And if you really want to hurt them,
Speaker 1: you hurt them in their pockets. And if you cost
Speaker 1: them enough money damage, they may pull out of the project.
Speaker 1: They shut down. And even if there is other subcontractors
Speaker 1: that they could get to write machinery from to cut trees,
Speaker 1: whatever the funkt is they're going to do, we want
Speaker 1: them to be afraid if you look at very romantously
Speaker 1: struggles that have largely been successful in their own ways
Speaker 1: throughout the world. I'm just going to mention a couple
Speaker 1: because people talk about them constantly, like the Zon in France,
Speaker 1: on a Hambach in Germany, or no Time in Italy.
Speaker 1: Blocker laws around property destruction and defending your area. Another
Speaker 1: strong point of the movement to Defend the Atlanta Forest
Speaker 1: is that it's not simply coalesced around a single coherent strategy,
Speaker 1: whether that be sabotage or above ground organizing. For over
Speaker 1: a year now, force defenders and movement participants have employed
Speaker 1: several parallel strategies in tandem. Strategies of one approach can
Speaker 1: fill in for the shortcomings of another. Often these differing
Speaker 1: strategies can be mutually beneficial. As sabotage was happening, opponents
Speaker 1: of Cops City also organized a continuous stream of educational
Speaker 1: events on the land, as well as pressure campaigns aimed
Speaker 1: at pushing city and county officials, investors, and contractors to
Speaker 1: drop out of the project. As summer began, more traditional
Speaker 1: political activist organizations like one connected to nationwide socialist organizations,
Speaker 1: abolitionist networks, and ecological advocacy groups began doing more direct
Speaker 1: community outrage by knocking on the doors talking with people
Speaker 1: in the neighborhoods next to where the forest was being
Speaker 1: slated for destruction. Forming connections and ally ships with the
Speaker 1: local community in the vicinity of the South River forest
Speaker 1: is crucial, especially since that they would be among the
Speaker 1: first of those impacted by deforestation and the close proximity
Speaker 1: to such a militarized police hub with you know, explosive
Speaker 1: testing and helicopter pads um plus you know, local community
Speaker 1: outreach is useful for learning what might help mobilize more
Speaker 1: regular folks. Other tactics and strategies emerging during early summer
Speaker 1: included getting those involved in the planning of Cops City
Speaker 1: to realize that they don't get to operate in some
Speaker 1: safe politics, only realm Their political decisions have real world
Speaker 1: consequences and real world effects for those people that they
Speaker 1: allegedly represent, so perhaps they too should be forced to
Speaker 1: feel real world consequences. On June six, there was a
Speaker 1: city council meeting which was supposed to voute on the
Speaker 1: Police Foundation's land lease ordinance, sponsored by then Councilwoman Joyce Shepherd.
Speaker 1: At this point. Back in, the meetings were all virtual
Speaker 1: due to the COVID nineteen pandemic, so the city council
Speaker 1: members hosted their conversations from inside their homes. With just
Speaker 1: a little bit of work, activists and researchers were able
Speaker 1: to locate the home address of Councilwoman Shepherd. A group
Speaker 1: went to her home and displayed a banner during the
Speaker 1: city council meeting. Most protesters just chanted from the public sidewalk,
Speaker 1: and one individual approached her house, knocked on the door
Speaker 1: and ring the doorbell before returning to the street. Turns out,
Speaker 1: council Woman Shepherd did not like this very much and
Speaker 1: went into a bit of a panic. So like kind
Speaker 1: of a recording terms of like city Council or other
Speaker 1: targets has been like whenever the first time they were
Speaker 1: going to vote on this uh like UM Institute for
Speaker 1: Social actually copsody UM. When they were going to vote
Speaker 1: on copsody UM, someone went up to Joyce Shepherd's house
Speaker 1: and knocked on her door. They're so painful of protesters
Speaker 1: outside and someone just knocked on her door and she
Speaker 1: went to her frenzy freaked out, called off the vote,
Speaker 1: left the meeting, ran to the precinct and comments during
Speaker 1: the bough the corn section, and then gave a like
Speaker 1: long speech to like a bunch of police and press,
Speaker 1: which like called out, which effectively called off the vote
Speaker 1: for another like three months or so, just because someone
Speaker 1: visited the house of a politician because they had names
Speaker 1: and addresses, and like that also happened with Ryan Mills.
Speaker 1: App that's happen with that's CEO and chairman of Reeves Young.
Speaker 1: There's this whole idea of politics as existing within this
Speaker 1: political astral space. Right, It's it's it's the same thing
Speaker 1: with like corporations. Right, everything exists in the corporate space
Speaker 1: that's removed from people's actual lives. Right, it's it's removed
Speaker 1: from actual personal consequences. People in positions of power assume
Speaker 1: that their actions occur in this political or corporate astral plane.
Speaker 1: That means that consequences of their decisions won't directly impact them.
Speaker 1: But we don't need to play by those rules. After
Speaker 1: a friendly knock on her door, Joyce Shepherd called off
Speaker 1: the vote and left the meeting early to call the police,
Speaker 1: who arrived after the protesters had already dispersed. Immediately after,
Speaker 1: Joyce Shepherd held a press conference from the newly constructed
Speaker 1: Zone three police precinct. Their Shepherd stood surrounded by police
Speaker 1: officers and news media and described in detail the aims
Speaker 1: of her land lease ordinance, the nature of the cop
Speaker 1: City project, as well as the efforts of protesters to stopper.
Speaker 1: By doing this short public statement, she catapulted the movement
Speaker 1: and the story into the mainstream, out of the political
Speaker 1: backdoors that it was existing in previously, and Atlanta to
Speaker 1: any councilwoman says protesters came onto her private property to
Speaker 1: speak out against a piece of legislation. Joyce Shapherd says, well,
Speaker 1: she supports the right to protest. This time it went
Speaker 1: too far. People have a right to come out and
Speaker 1: say whether they four or against it. I have no
Speaker 1: problem with that. I've been doing this for years and
Speaker 1: know that people have the right. But what they don't
Speaker 1: have a right to do is come up on my
Speaker 1: private property, knock on my doors, protests on my lawn,
Speaker 1: on my poech They don't have that right. So I'm
Speaker 1: fair tonight that I'm still supporting the academy. I'm not scared. However,
Speaker 1: there will be no right for people to come up
Speaker 1: my property and protests. The next day she made another
Speaker 1: statement which you just heard a little bit of, where
Speaker 1: she also claimed that she would be pushing through the
Speaker 1: ordinance no matter what the city residence that she sensibly
Speaker 1: represented had to say. And her and her fellow city
Speaker 1: officials took a stand against the protesters and rejected their tactics,
Speaker 1: falsely implying that the methods like going on a sidewalk
Speaker 1: were illegal. But by showing up outside a politician's house
Speaker 1: and knocking on her door, just a few people were
Speaker 1: able to achieve an early goal of the movement to
Speaker 1: transform the cop city and black Hall developments from back
Speaker 1: to agreements into big public scandals. It got out of
Speaker 1: the shadows and into the spotlight. As a bonus, the
Speaker 1: vote was delayed, buying more time to develop further strategies
Speaker 1: in defense of the forest. It was an effective demonstration
Speaker 1: of the potential of direct confrontation with people in power,
Speaker 1: and it led to the emergence of another strategy that's
Speaker 1: become a big part of the genetic fabric of this movement,
Speaker 1: pressuring decision makers directly and dissolving their notion of a
Speaker 1: safe political or corporate astral space. During this time of
Speaker 1: showing up at Politician stores, more sabotage and direct action
Speaker 1: were also taking place. Signs appeared in the forest warning
Speaker 1: that trees in the area had been spiked, making it
Speaker 1: possibly dangerous to attempt to cut down trees, with the
Speaker 1: risk of saws being damaged and possibly injuring unlucky workers.
Speaker 1: On June tenth, three more excavators were burned at the
Speaker 1: black Hole Studios the site. Neither action appeared much in
Speaker 1: the local news media, but anonymous communicates and photographs of
Speaker 1: the incidents and damage circulated online among the radical anarchist
Speaker 1: mill us. In late June there was the first planned
Speaker 1: Week of Action. There's been another one since then, and
Speaker 1: there's another one upcoming from May eight through May fifteenth.
Speaker 1: We'll talk more about the upcoming Week of Action in
Speaker 1: the next episode, but I strongly encourage people to travel
Speaker 1: to Atlanta as soon as possible if you can make
Speaker 1: it for any of this upcoming weeklung event again, that's
Speaker 1: from May eight through May. If you make it front
Speaker 1: of that, please go to Atlanta. It will be it
Speaker 1: will be fun, I assure you. The June Week of
Speaker 1: Action featured a guided walks through the forest by day
Speaker 1: and by moonlight discussion and conversations on ecology, abolitionism, colonialism,
Speaker 1: and queerness. There was a nightly bonfires and safe open
Speaker 1: sections of the woods at a nearby radical venue. There
Speaker 1: was a hardcore punk show during which hundreds of concert
Speaker 1: goers repelled the buzz kill police who are trying to
Speaker 1: shut it down. And there was a night rave deep
Speaker 1: into the woods where five hundred people were dancing with
Speaker 1: glow sticks late into the night and early into the morning.
Speaker 1: In all throughout the week of action, thousands of Atlanta's
Speaker 1: got to gather under the banner of Defend the Forest.
Speaker 1: They were able to learn about the project and get
Speaker 1: plugged into taking action. During the week, people under the
Speaker 1: cover of night visited the home of black Hole Studios
Speaker 1: CEO Ryan Millsap in the Atlanta suburb of Social Creek. UH.
Speaker 1: They also visited his second home in Tuxedo Park and
Speaker 1: the ups he frequents in Edgewood. According to an anonymous
Speaker 1: online statement, quote flyers were distributed to all his neighbors mailboxes,
Speaker 1: as well as plastered on his front gate and the
Speaker 1: streets that he frequents. The flyers let fellow concerned community
Speaker 1: members know about the harm he is responsible for, and
Speaker 1: ically provided the address to his one hundred acre farms
Speaker 1: and that grievances could be addressed there. The flyers placed
Speaker 1: all throughout his neighborhood and investment properties were also distributed
Speaker 1: in hopes that it would quote inspire others to research
Speaker 1: and take the fight to those directly responsible for the
Speaker 1: destruction of the forest. Two days later, on the final
Speaker 1: day of the week of action, around fifty protesters marched
Speaker 1: to the headquarters of the Atlanta Police Foundation, quoting crime
Speaker 1: Thing again quote. As the crowd emerged from the Five
Speaker 1: Points metro station, a small contition of officers attempted to
Speaker 1: arrest somebody. The crowd engaged hand to hand fighting with
Speaker 1: police and successfully repelled them. Advancing past the security, they
Speaker 1: marched straight to the Alant Police Foundations office and smashed
Speaker 1: the glass doors and windows before overturning tables in the
Speaker 1: towers lobby. According to police, on Friday, around four pm,
Speaker 1: multiple protesters stopped the flow of traffic on Peachtree Street
Speaker 1: and Andrew Young International Boulevard. Photos taken by a local
Speaker 1: freelance photographer showing a group called Defend Atlanta Forest shattering
Speaker 1: glass doors and also holding signs that say our woods,
Speaker 1: not Hollywood's. CBS forty six reached out to the group
Speaker 1: but have yet to hear back. Atlanta police believe the
Speaker 1: protesting ignited over the building of the new public safety
Speaker 1: training center. When officers arrived, protesters quickly fled the scene,
Speaker 1: but the damage still remains. At this time, we know
Speaker 1: no arrests have been made and the investigation continues. In
Speaker 1: Atlanta on Barbawayans CBS news momentum was growing throughout the summer,
Speaker 1: Police and corporate press had failed in crafting a counter
Speaker 1: media strategy. Meanwhile, the Offend the Forest project brought together
Speaker 1: police and prison abolitionist organizations, environmental justice and preservation organizations,
Speaker 1: civil and human rights nonprofits, and even neighborhood associations near
Speaker 1: the proposed site, including the East Atlantic Community Association, the
Speaker 1: Grant Park Neighborhood Association, South at Lantin's for Neighborhood Development,
Speaker 1: and the Kirkwood Neighbors Organization, each of which passed resolutions
Speaker 1: opposing the proposal. Grassroots organizations that mobilized against the proposal
Speaker 1: included Defend Atlanta Police Department, Refusal Communities, the Atlanta Sunrise movement,
Speaker 1: community movement builders, the South River Forest Coalition, A World
Speaker 1: Without Police, and the autonomous organizers working under the banner
Speaker 1: of Defend the Forest. Organizers spread informational flyers and online graphics,
Speaker 1: conducted interviews, knocked on doors, and organized phone in campaigns
Speaker 1: during subsequent city council meetings that were still held on
Speaker 1: zoom because of coronavirus related restrictions. Through in August and September,
Speaker 1: the Stop Cop City Coalition and others worked to introduce
Speaker 1: tension and clog up the city council process, digging cues
Speaker 1: from the protest outside the home of Joyce Shepherd, which
Speaker 1: resulted in the vote being delayed for over two months.
Speaker 1: Protesters gathered outside the homes of possible yes voters on
Speaker 1: the nights that the vote was related to take place,
Speaker 1: causing further delays in the entire process got pushed back
Speaker 1: from August into September, so again, another another delay. Briefly
Speaker 1: it seemed like there was a possibility that the Stop
Speaker 1: Cop City campaign might be victorious before the end of summer.
Speaker 1: Votes on the groundle sordidents were repeatedly delayed because of
Speaker 1: these objections and demonstrations at the homes of Atlanta Chief
Speaker 1: Operations Officer John Keene and City Councilwoman Madeline Archibond. Eventually,
Speaker 1: September seven was set as the final vote day. Seventeen
Speaker 1: hours of pre recorded comments from over one thousand Atlanta
Speaker 1: residents delayed the discussion. Due to the sheer number of
Speaker 1: public comments, the vote got pushed back another day as
Speaker 1: Sydney Council members spent most of Tuesday and Wednesday listening
Speaker 1: to the playback. After months of organizing, community outreach and
Speaker 1: public education efforts from these top Cops City organizers, approximately
Speaker 1: the collars fiercely opposed the proposal, explaining in great detail
Speaker 1: why they are quote unquote representatives should vote it down.
Speaker 1: The minority of callers who supported the Cops City project
Speaker 1: either self identified as residents of the disproportionately white and
Speaker 1: wealthy Buckhead and Northeast Atlanta area or we're just like
Speaker 1: actual cops. Uh. At least thirty officers called in to
Speaker 1: say that they support the instruction of the forest to
Speaker 1: end the building of Cops City. Big big shocker, the
Speaker 1: cops what Cops City pro Cops City collars invoked the
Speaker 1: false crime wave narrative propagated after the George Floyd uprising
Speaker 1: and used the language of so called white flight by
Speaker 1: threatening to leave the city if something wasn't done to
Speaker 1: stop the growing crime wave. Uh And Yet, when the
Speaker 1: seventeen hours of public comments ended and the council's discussion began,
Speaker 1: council members largely failed to acknowledge the hours of public
Speaker 1: comment that they had just spent two days listening to,
Speaker 1: much less acknowledged the far ranging movement that produced such
Speaker 1: overwhelming public discontent, quoting crime think again quote as those
Speaker 1: who study revolutionary movements, No, the police perform an essential
Speaker 1: function in class society, without which many other hierarchies and
Speaker 1: exportitive relations could not exist for very long. This is
Speaker 1: not simply an economic or civic issue that can be
Speaker 1: worked around with some clever ideas in a bit of
Speaker 1: pressure unquote. Despite the efforts of organizers, which culminated in
Speaker 1: seventeen hours of primarily oppositional public comment, the ordinance was
Speaker 1: passed on September eight, while the police arrested protesters outside
Speaker 1: the home of councilwoman Madaline Archibong about an hour before
Speaker 1: the final vote took place. During the Council's final session
Speaker 1: on September eight, the City Council voted by a margin
Speaker 1: of ten to four for the creation of the ninety
Speaker 1: million dollar facility, handing over almost four acres of for
Speaker 1: us to the Atlanta Police Foundation. Obviously, many folks were
Speaker 1: pretty disappointed and kind of demoralized about this. UH. Some
Speaker 1: turned their frustrated energy into the upcoming local elections, hoping
Speaker 1: that the city government may be stacked with abolitionist or
Speaker 1: progressive candidates that might strike down the project. Mayor Bottoms
Speaker 1: did not end up running for re election, and the
Speaker 1: former mayor of Mayor Read lost to the now current Mayor,
Speaker 1: Andre dickens Um. I do think it's really funny that
Speaker 1: the old mayor of Atlanta was Mayor Bottoms and the
Speaker 1: new and the new mayor is Mayor dickens Um. Anyway, UH,
Speaker 1: City Councilwoman Joyce Shepard, who introduced the Cops City Plan,
Speaker 1: also lost her campaign for re election. But since the
Speaker 1: elections in November, nothing has actually changed regarding the black
Speaker 1: Hole and Cops City developments are nothing has changed on
Speaker 1: the electoral front. There's there's no indication of electoral strategi
Speaker 1: as being impactful, and thankfully not everyone focused their efforts
Speaker 1: on electoral ref warm. I'll leave you today with this
Speaker 1: sentiment that I kept hearing during my stay in the forest.
Speaker 1: When you criminalize a non violent direct action, the end
Speaker 1: goes away. On the final day of the vote, people
Speaker 1: went and protested outside a city council member's house, and
Speaker 1: eleven of them got arrested, despite the fact that they
Speaker 1: were already dispersing and following orders. During the top line
Speaker 1: three movement, people were receiving felony theft charges for using
Speaker 1: lock boxes to attach themselves onto construction equipment um, which
Speaker 1: of recent hasn't even really been an effective strategy resulting
Speaker 1: in any material winds. But if they're going to arrest
Speaker 1: you for standing outside of a politician's house and give
Speaker 1: you charges, you may as well consider doing something a
Speaker 1: bit more spicy. If you're gonna get felonies for basic
Speaker 1: non violent direct action like locking yourself onto machinery, you
Speaker 1: may as well light that machinery on fire. When non
Speaker 1: violent direct action result in felony charges, if they're going
Speaker 1: to criminalize standing outside of a politician's house and holding
Speaker 1: a sign, then going into the forest and doing monkey
Speaker 1: wrenching suddenly becomes a very similar consequence level, and the
Speaker 1: action that can be done in secret turns out to
Speaker 1: be actually a bit easier to get away with. The
Speaker 1: funny thing is is that this is the state's fault,
Speaker 1: not anyone else's fault. When state repression against public non
Speaker 1: destructive tactics increases, then what happens is the less public
Speaker 1: and more fiery tactics, which in this movement we're already present.
Speaker 1: We'll just end up becoming more and more prominent and
Speaker 1: even more integral to keep the movement going. In the
Speaker 1: next episode, we'll hear about how the more radical folks
Speaker 1: continue to defend the forest after the vote, and you'll
Speaker 1: hear a lot more from the force defenders that I interviewed.
Speaker 1: And finally, if you can please head to Atlanta if
Speaker 1: you're able to, for the upcoming week of action from
Speaker 1: A eight through. More boots on the ground are crucial
Speaker 1: as the large scale destruction of the forest is becoming
Speaker 1: more and more imminent. You can go to Defend the
Speaker 1: Atlanta Forest dot com and scenes dot no blogs dot
Speaker 1: org for more information. See you on the other side.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to it could happen here. I'm Garrison Davis
Speaker 1: and this is part two of the two part mini
Speaker 1: series on the Defended the Forest Movement in Atlanta, Georgia.
Speaker 1: Last month, I traveled to Atlanta to stay a week
Speaker 1: in the woods and talk with some of the Forest offenders.
Speaker 1: In the previous episode, I covered the movement from its
Speaker 1: inception to where the city council approved the Cops City
Speaker 1: project near the end of last summer. I went over
Speaker 1: a lot of historical background between the land itself and
Speaker 1: the history there, the increasing gentrification of Atlanta, how the
Speaker 1: movement pulled the veil off the secretive plans for Cops
Speaker 1: City and pushed it into the public spotlight. We talked
Speaker 1: about the early days of sabotage and the targeting of
Speaker 1: individuals and positions of power. Basically, I did a lot
Speaker 1: of a lot of talking, maybe maybe too much talking.
Speaker 1: This episode will be more led by the discussions with
Speaker 1: Forest offenders that I had during my weeklong excursion to
Speaker 1: the woods. We'll learn about how the movement evolved in
Speaker 1: the wake of the city council vote up until the
Speaker 1: current state of affairs. One thing that makes to Defend
Speaker 1: the Atlanta Forest Movement very different from previous eco defense
Speaker 1: projects in recent memory is that it's right in the
Speaker 1: middle of a sprawling metropolitan area. Right outside the forest
Speaker 1: is an Amazon facility. Downtown Atlanta is just a ten
Speaker 1: minute drive away. We'll be talking tactics a bit later
Speaker 1: on in the episode, but just the simple nature of
Speaker 1: doing a forest equo defense project while still inside the
Speaker 1: city gives a lot of pretty interesting tactical opportunities. You
Speaker 1: have to selectively use some of the older, more rule
Speaker 1: equo defensive strategies while having the backing of a city
Speaker 1: based mutual aid network. There's the option of rapid response
Speaker 1: popular mobilization that city based protests can have but are
Speaker 1: more challenging for equatif and stuff that's like three hours
Speaker 1: into the middle of nowhere. For the people camping in
Speaker 1: the forest, they can easily get supplies or switch out
Speaker 1: who's staying in the woods and who's living in the city.
Speaker 1: The combination of forest and urban prompts and necessitates the
Speaker 1: crucial experimentation and innovation that's been badly needed in eco
Speaker 1: defense projects and protests for the past decade. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of trains to go by here. It's really pretty,
Speaker 1: so it's definitely the most urban forest defen I've ever
Speaker 1: been a partner. But it's really beautiful and unique to
Speaker 1: see a lot of urban the city be able to
Speaker 1: be involved and like urban tactics kind of mixing with
Speaker 1: yet more traditional, more earth firsty forest tactics. It's kind
Speaker 1: of like the rule book and a lot of people
Speaker 1: saying this like it's repeated, the quote unquote rule book
Speaker 1: for how to indeede with the multiple enemies in this
Speaker 1: area has been like chewed up, spit out, shadow and
Speaker 1: burnt over because it we're kind of doing something that
Speaker 1: doesn't really happened a lot. Something similar I can think
Speaker 1: of is the Sacred Old Grove that was being protected
Speaker 1: in Minneapolis in the late nineties maybe thousands, and that
Speaker 1: was another kind of anarchists alliance at the big earth
Speaker 1: first presence. But that's kind of one of the more
Speaker 1: urban in this part of Turtle Island struggles I can
Speaker 1: think of like this, but this is unlike anything I've
Speaker 1: ever I think. Another interesting part is like a lot
Speaker 1: of force defense stuff is focused on like old growth,
Speaker 1: being like we should defend it because it's old growth. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is not an old growth. For this is like
Speaker 1: a messy, dirty um confusing. I've gotten lost so many times.
Speaker 1: It's yeah, I just did there's tires, there's barrels where
Speaker 1: it was built. On the prison farm, you'll find like
Speaker 1: old portions of the prison which is incredibly fucked up
Speaker 1: and haunted, right, Like in terms of like haunting is
Speaker 1: like there's the specter of what used to be there.
Speaker 1: Police are trying to build over it with their more
Speaker 1: like a bomb range, right, It's like that's very much
Speaker 1: like they're just building over the thing. Um. But it
Speaker 1: doesn't need to be old growth to be worth defending.
Speaker 1: And that's an idea that I think people need to
Speaker 1: understand more, is like it has value even if it's
Speaker 1: not like five hundred years old. Like it has value
Speaker 1: despite not despite being one hundred year old old forest,
Speaker 1: and it's about because it is in one forests. Like
Speaker 1: it has value because it is a forest in a city,
Speaker 1: and that's something that's worth like emphasizing. Yeah, I also
Speaker 1: think that's cool. And like people talk a lot about
Speaker 1: like invasive plants and there's like I think the Brandford
Speaker 1: pairs in this forest are a really interesting example. There
Speaker 1: are these trees that are like feral. They used to
Speaker 1: be part like planted here when it was a um
Speaker 1: the farm plantation or whatever, and um those trees are
Speaker 1: fucking spiky, fine trees. They're spiking ship. Well but you know,
Speaker 1: the good news is they're awful, and the bad news
Speaker 1: is they're awful. Like I know where there are when
Speaker 1: I halass in the forest, I usually don't get Bradford
Speaker 1: pair in my eye, but um, but some chasing the
Speaker 1: cap well yeah, and and so it's just it's cool
Speaker 1: to kind of interact with all these things and get
Speaker 1: to choose how you want to interact and like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it is a um you know, I think it's interesting.
Speaker 1: It's not yeah, like a traditional forest or like whatever
Speaker 1: forest that people would value in that way. Um, but
Speaker 1: for me, I connect to it, I think even more
Speaker 1: than that, because it's not this like held up is
Speaker 1: this thing of like purity, like they fucking buildoz and
Speaker 1: like a month later that ship was overgrown. You couldn't
Speaker 1: see it again. And that was all quote unquote invasive
Speaker 1: plants like whatever funk that means, which is often that's
Speaker 1: the whole thing. They're often racialized plants. You know. It's
Speaker 1: it's almost like a punk forest. It's like we're surrounded
Speaker 1: by enemies. And that is the problem is, um, they
Speaker 1: see this as a cess pool, and something I talked
Speaker 1: to a lot of liberals about, like when they're taught,
Speaker 1: we're talking them about defend the forest, like, oh, is
Speaker 1: it a pristine wilderness with large old growth trees, and like,
Speaker 1: you know what, that would be cool. The problem is
Speaker 1: this forest needs to be allowed to return to that
Speaker 1: because there's been so much abuse and part of like
Speaker 1: whether I don't know what it means to quote unquote
Speaker 1: win or lose, but there's a lot of little winds
Speaker 1: and losses all along the way, and we've had a
Speaker 1: lot of winds. There is some big cheese that are
Speaker 1: left in the forest. They're legally supposed to leave all
Speaker 1: the big trees by the creek, But from what historical um, president,
Speaker 1: do we trust the cops to quote unquote be accountable
Speaker 1: to anyone? I don't know where we're thinking that. I've
Speaker 1: I've had a lot of people be like, oh, some
Speaker 1: of these three houses are strategic. Then in the spots
Speaker 1: they can't cut, and I cannot. Friends. I've looked at
Speaker 1: the map and it looks like this whole motherfucking play
Speaker 1: is Society for clear Cutting. Exactly one month after the
Speaker 1: city council voted to approve the land Ley's ordinance for
Speaker 1: cops City that defend the force slogan was put to
Speaker 1: the test. On October, contractors and land survey workers showed
Speaker 1: up around the forest and appeared to be clearing land
Speaker 1: to take reference photos and collect soil sample. Two dozen
Speaker 1: force defenders emerged from the woods and confronted the workers.
Speaker 1: The people hired to destroy the forest fled the work site,
Speaker 1: and after they left, police surveillance tower in the area
Speaker 1: was toppled and the force defenders were able to disperse
Speaker 1: with no arrests. Ten days later, a similar turn of
Speaker 1: events took place. A group of survey workers and construction
Speaker 1: teams were on site. Again, a small group of rapid
Speaker 1: response Force defenders disrupted the surveying and ground clearing at
Speaker 1: the old Atlanta Prison Farm. Simply the mere threat of
Speaker 1: an on site protest shut down construction for the whole day.
Speaker 1: Key access points for machinery were blocked using available materials
Speaker 1: like piles of nearby tires, preventing vehicular machinery from moving
Speaker 1: freely through the destruction site. No construction occurred, despite the
Speaker 1: attempts of the Decab County Police and the Atlanta Police Department,
Speaker 1: who mobilized twenty vehicles in the vicinity of the forest
Speaker 1: in an effort to prevent the protest or punish the participants.
Speaker 1: By the end of the day, no was arrested, and
Speaker 1: yet again, select monitoring systems and police surveillance towers were
Speaker 1: toppled and dismantled. A statement released online from anonymous force
Speaker 1: defenders read quote, this war will be one, one battle
Speaker 1: at a time. Pressure must continue in a variety of
Speaker 1: ways to halt all construction. It became clear that for
Speaker 1: the next phase of the struggle to defend the force,
Speaker 1: people would have to directly target and oppose the contracting
Speaker 1: companies hired to decimate the woods and build the facilities.
Speaker 1: Today we know of at least three companies that have
Speaker 1: been contracted by the Atlanta Police Foundation to do work
Speaker 1: on the old prison farm land. Some of the surveying
Speaker 1: work appears to be done by Long Engineering, and two companies,
Speaker 1: Reeves Young Construction and brass Field and Gory, were hired
Speaker 1: to do grounds clearing and early construction. It is not
Speaker 1: yet clear who will be contracted to clear the land
Speaker 1: in Entrenchment Creek Park, where Black Hole Studios hopes to
Speaker 1: expand their sound stage again quoting the crime Think article
Speaker 1: the City in the Forest Reinventing Resistance for an age
Speaker 1: of climate crisis and police militarization quote. The information that
Speaker 1: is known to date was hard won by diligent activists
Speaker 1: on the ground. Shortly after the city council voted in September,
Speaker 1: surveyors and small work crews began entering the site near
Speaker 1: two key roads. The trucks and uniforms revealed the names
Speaker 1: of the contractors, which once again gave opponents of the
Speaker 1: Cops City project a chance to initiate a struggle on
Speaker 1: their own terms. Had the force defenders utilized only virtual
Speaker 1: or bureaucratic channels to collect information, they might not have
Speaker 1: learned that Reeves Young were being called in to do
Speaker 1: the actual destruction until it was publicly announced much later.
Speaker 1: The ability to break news to the public before the
Speaker 1: city government has been a consistent advantage in trying to
Speaker 1: keep the momentum of the movement going. Post the city
Speaker 1: council vote, a second week of action was planned for November,
Speaker 1: albeit with some new twists. From November tenth through, various
Speaker 1: groups organized a wide range of cultural events, info nits, bonfires,
Speaker 1: and meetings for this Week of Action. Many of these
Speaker 1: events occurred in or near a publicly advertised encampment on
Speaker 1: the Entrenchment Creek Park side of the forest. Days after
Speaker 1: the second Week of Action, thirty people converged on the
Speaker 1: Reeves Young Construction headquarters in sugar Hill, Georgia, forty miles
Speaker 1: outside of Atlanta, holding banners and demanding that the company
Speaker 1: severed their contract with the Atlanta Police Foundation. The group
Speaker 1: was able to walk right into the offices, disrupting a
Speaker 1: board meeting involving company president Dean Reeves and CEO Eric Young. Initially,
Speaker 1: the executives tried to keep their cool, but in short
Speaker 1: time the businessmen started getting more annoyed and eventually violence
Speaker 1: towards the protest. There was a protest that it was
Speaker 1: at the Reeves Young office. Went into the office, Disrand
Speaker 1: disrupted a board member meeting that happened to have a
Speaker 1: lot of the people who were like seers and chairman
Speaker 1: there and um, from what I gather as a brawl. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know, there's reports of the Reeves CEO guy like
Speaker 1: punching punching protesters. There's a joke that a worker puts
Speaker 1: someone a guillotine, and I love the version of these
Speaker 1: workers doing ww referred to love We'll love from more
Speaker 1: cop fights fights with cops to just be w W
Speaker 1: E style match. Disrupting the board of meeting was another
Speaker 1: successful step in the goal of applying direct confrontational pressure
Speaker 1: to the Atlanta Police foundations contracted construction service providers. Days later,
Speaker 1: two more bulldozers were lit on fire entertaining about the
Speaker 1: road and sit. We got two construction vehicles all involved
Speaker 1: in the till Radio quid and simpedia my location as well.
Speaker 1: There this equipment was located on the land swap parcel
Speaker 1: by Black Hall Studios, the planned future location of quote
Speaker 1: Michelle Obama Park unquote. These were the eleventh and twelve
Speaker 1: pieces of heavy machinery to be sabotaged, and I think
Speaker 1: now we're at like around twenty five, which is a
Speaker 1: lot um. The anonymous communicate this time was short and
Speaker 1: to the point, quote we burnt two bulldozers in the
Speaker 1: South Atlanta forest. No coups city, no Hollywood dystopia, defend
Speaker 1: the Atlanta Forest on top of the more publicly advertised
Speaker 1: encampment at Entrenchmant Creek Park. Around the second week of action,
Speaker 1: a small cluster force defenders set up a secondary, more
Speaker 1: secretive encampment on a stretch of woods in the old
Speaker 1: Atlanta prison Farm. Again quoting the crimes article quote, a
Speaker 1: few dozen people pitched tents, erected harps and makeshift kitchens,
Speaker 1: hung banners, and constructed a bonafid protest camp in the woods.
Speaker 1: Establishing a semi permanent presence in the forest was a
Speaker 1: way to gather information on an ongoing basis and to
Speaker 1: provide an immediate deterrent to developers. So I was involved
Speaker 1: in the original occupation of the forest. There was a
Speaker 1: group of individuals who many of whom we're housing and secure,
Speaker 1: and we're like, we need fucking housing, and like there's
Speaker 1: this struggle and we believe in it and a fight
Speaker 1: in it, and so we moved to the fucking woods
Speaker 1: and we've lived in these woods. Official time is six
Speaker 1: weeks that we were in the woods, and we had
Speaker 1: a higher quality of life, been like many people who
Speaker 1: lived in houses and apartments. We had the nicest kitchen
Speaker 1: of anyone we knew we had. Yeah, we had armchairs
Speaker 1: and couches and fire pits and we you know, we
Speaker 1: had more food than we knew what to do with.
Speaker 1: And so we just started feeding people, and like we
Speaker 1: created a social space that allowed the movement to drow
Speaker 1: simply because we're like, well, we need these needs man
Speaker 1: in our lives. Don't we go do that? And that
Speaker 1: like evolved over time. A little over a month after
Speaker 1: the more secretive encampment was established, about a dozen protesters,
Speaker 1: some bearing witch hats, marched to the gate of Black
Speaker 1: Hole Studios on Constitution Road and blocked the main entrance.
Speaker 1: A communicate posted online read quote iconic spells for destruction
Speaker 1: were loudly chanted at black Halls general direction as the
Speaker 1: witch block held hands, cackled and skipped the sun wise direction,
Speaker 1: blocking Black Hole studios main entrance. Smoke torches were lit.
Speaker 1: Approximately one hour post which block antics, the Cab County
Speaker 1: Police responded to a call made by Black Hole Studios
Speaker 1: saying that they quote followed the protesters into the woods
Speaker 1: and deduced an encampment they came upon must belong to
Speaker 1: the apparent witches unquote, which is quite the sentence. Shortly after,
Speaker 1: a large contingent of police raided the forest, evicting the
Speaker 1: protest camp established there. There was at one point and
Speaker 1: help a demonstration outside of Black Holes outside of black
Speaker 1: Holes site and they express the discontent. Yeah, an entirely
Speaker 1: like peaceful protests at Black Hall Studios. That was like
Speaker 1: just kind of standing in like the front gate where
Speaker 1: employees leave and enter UM and generally doing stuff like
Speaker 1: bringing American flags, holding signs like um and just like
Speaker 1: taking up space and making the actual interns and leaving
Speaker 1: of the facility like less doable. And their response was
Speaker 1: for a Black Hall to lie and so like the
Speaker 1: camp and Cammon wasn't trespassing on their property which was
Speaker 1: actually in place in of like a public park, Um
Speaker 1: and orchestrated with the police to evict Um. And they
Speaker 1: orchestraed with the police to do like a pretty like
Speaker 1: intense eviction for like. But it was essentially we were,
Speaker 1: what a moment to a homeless camp living there, and
Speaker 1: they had two helicopters circling more police that I could count.
Speaker 1: They were throwing our ship into dump trucks and like
Speaker 1: actively like pursuing people through the woods. It was like
Speaker 1: an absolutely I mean it was like like very like
Speaker 1: visible show of force against us. Quoting the crime Thing
Speaker 1: article again quote at the urging of Black Hall, the
Speaker 1: cab County Police entered the forest on mass mobilizing police
Speaker 1: cruisers and the parking lot officers on foot, helicopters and
Speaker 1: drones overhead, and unmarked vehicles in the streets. The officers
Speaker 1: were likely intimidated by the low visibility to rain. In
Speaker 1: any event, all of the force defenders based in the
Speaker 1: encampment escaped without being detained. This was the first time
Speaker 1: a concerted effort was made by law enforcement to engage
Speaker 1: protesters in the South River Forest. And to be honest,
Speaker 1: it was a fucking pain in the ass and it
Speaker 1: was a traumatizing event. And that is all true. But
Speaker 1: it's also even we learned from and like we got
Speaker 1: a pretty good idea of like ap d s and
Speaker 1: like they have counties, uh like capabilities, and like how
Speaker 1: they are like surveilling things protests and how they're surveilling
Speaker 1: camps and like how they figured out where we were,
Speaker 1: and like what triggered them to act against us, and
Speaker 1: like that's allowed us to move in far more confident
Speaker 1: ways that are also far more subversive. It's really interesting
Speaker 1: that you know, just like when they make it, you know,
Speaker 1: illegal to do n v d AH, whenever they attack
Speaker 1: like that and do these really violent raids that put
Speaker 1: people in like awful positions and like traumatize the ship
Speaker 1: out of people. They are teaching us how to fight back.
Speaker 1: They are showing us their weaknesses, and in a really
Speaker 1: ironic way, the next time they come in and they
Speaker 1: suck it up because people know it to a spects,
Speaker 1: it will be a monster of their own making, because
Speaker 1: like for every one step of aggression that they take,
Speaker 1: that's two steps further we can take towards them with
Speaker 1: everything that we learned from the struggle. And obviously this
Speaker 1: forest is really beautiful and the more time I spend here,
Speaker 1: the more I feel connected to it and driven to
Speaker 1: like protect it. But also a big part of it
Speaker 1: for a lot of us is for me is like, um,
Speaker 1: you know, they are doing this for their own morale,
Speaker 1: and so my goal is to make sure they are unhappy.
Speaker 1: And so yeah, even if I uh yeah, even if
Speaker 1: they win, as long as we come back and you
Speaker 1: learn from that and we keep pushing back, you know,
Speaker 1: it is a way of attrition, and um, it is
Speaker 1: about their morale. And like, it doesn't matter if they
Speaker 1: build the police facility. What matters is that every single
Speaker 1: time that the police and moved to recuperate that their losses,
Speaker 1: which they just took a big one, they are faced
Speaker 1: with just unyielding hostility. Um And I think that, like
Speaker 1: that's something that's really important, is that we don't expect
Speaker 1: to not take a lot of owls. Like in the
Speaker 1: forest occupation. We understand the nature of this thing where
Speaker 1: an ecstatic position complice moving around us, but like it's
Speaker 1: a it's about making them fight for every inch the
Speaker 1: best we can. The encampment was just one part of
Speaker 1: a large ongoing fight. Over the course of those six weeks,
Speaker 1: hundreds of people were able to circulate through this camp,
Speaker 1: enjoying meals and performances, making arts together, and spending time
Speaker 1: around campfires, building and sharing a life in the woods.
Speaker 1: After the camp was attacked and structures were destroyed by
Speaker 1: the Cab County Police, land offenders and Atlanta residents mobilized
Speaker 1: quickly to recover camp supplies and belongings and continued on
Speaker 1: with efforts to defend the forest. A great thing about
Speaker 1: these types of free autonomous zones is that they can
Speaker 1: directly demonstrate to people what a free life outside the
Speaker 1: confines of regular society can look like and what it
Speaker 1: can feel like it's not just like we want to
Speaker 1: save the Words and we want to go back to
Speaker 1: our regular ass lives. A lot of us are realizing
Speaker 1: that we're living in the apocalypse and we're just gonna
Speaker 1: we want to keep living like this. It's not just
Speaker 1: this Words, it's not just this police facility, and we
Speaker 1: would want them to not have any more space or
Speaker 1: platform to organize this police, but we might. A lot
Speaker 1: of us want to be free, mean want other people
Speaker 1: that like during the idea of like whatever the funk
Speaker 1: it is, hitchhiking, train happening, living in the woods, the
Speaker 1: fact that it's a fucking crime or considered crazy to
Speaker 1: be the people living in the Words is insane. And
Speaker 1: that's kind of the vivally out from the moscogy for
Speaker 1: access today. They're like our whole world, like we're here
Speaker 1: trying to reclaim our culture because there's a lot of
Speaker 1: hope for saving the land from like an indigenous perspective,
Speaker 1: if people would effects them. And the whole point is
Speaker 1: the US government doesn't actually want them and doesn't actually
Speaker 1: respect them, and reservations are literally have prisoner of war
Speaker 1: numbers because they're hoping by blood quantum if they kill
Speaker 1: these people off, they can take their land back. So
Speaker 1: the whole land back idea of fucking freaks and not anyway.
Speaker 1: We want to save this forest, but it's not just
Speaker 1: about this forest. Were kind of endangered species. We've talked
Speaker 1: about ourselves feeling like deer Like how deer like they'll
Speaker 1: be chilling. They'll be like all around being a deer
Speaker 1: and mating food and they're like, I was on guard,
Speaker 1: you know, to do something else if there's an enemy around.
Speaker 1: It kind of feels that way. I like, it will
Speaker 1: be chilling. Nothing's going on. Also there's cops. But the
Speaker 1: whole point is if it can happen here, ha ha
Speaker 1: did it, it can happen somewhere else. And we help
Speaker 1: to spread the vibe that people not like occupied. What
Speaker 1: a horrible name for a movement, but it's cool that
Speaker 1: that happened at the time that we had made sense.
Speaker 1: We all have nobody knew any better. We know better now,
Speaker 1: that's good, But get the vibe. We're getting this vib
Speaker 1: to like continue this kind of stuff. And obviously there's
Speaker 1: people in all kinds of places, square buildings and do
Speaker 1: all sorts of ship. But the more territory that we
Speaker 1: occupy and control and can help remay trade back to
Speaker 1: indigenous grassroots comrades, not IRA and reorganization, active government sanctioned
Speaker 1: indigenous groups right if they can't not everyone's our ally.
Speaker 1: These have to be ally ships. That makes sense. The
Speaker 1: Muscogee commrades that we're close to, obviously not all of them.
Speaker 1: That some romanticized, generalized bullshit. They said the same ship
Speaker 1: that when we talk to them, they're like even our
Speaker 1: own people betrays sometimes because we're not all the same.
Speaker 1: It's some homogeneous bullshit, and I've seen that play out
Speaker 1: poorly in other places. And like would give the land
Speaker 1: back to the natives and like which natives like people
Speaker 1: were all on the spectrum of conversation and deconization, and
Speaker 1: sad least one of us are further along the lines
Speaker 1: and others. And it's very much on the colonizer's fault
Speaker 1: for doing that. But where we're at is the people,
Speaker 1: the people that feel the called the anarchy, the people
Speaker 1: that feel to call to some kind of radical left orientation.
Speaker 1: They can find it in their hearts and in their
Speaker 1: patients to tolerate each other. And we need to band
Speaker 1: together to come up with better plans because we're all
Speaker 1: we got and it doesn't get better, it's getting worse.
Speaker 1: So hopefully this can be an inspiration for people to
Speaker 1: do other ship. I'm inspired. I'm not from anyway freaking
Speaker 1: near here, but I've been here for a year now
Speaker 1: and i don't want to leave because I'm tired of
Speaker 1: the same old tactics. And I have been a part
Speaker 1: of stuff that has been successful before and I had
Speaker 1: nothing to do with non valid direct action, and I
Speaker 1: have to do time for it, and I know people
Speaker 1: would have done time for it also. And if there's
Speaker 1: any message I can give to the young generation is
Speaker 1: there's no future and it's worth it. And like if
Speaker 1: your future is just like working at nine to five
Speaker 1: and like watching the earth, so they're like shriveling to nothingness,
Speaker 1: I would argue, it's not really a life. Might as
Speaker 1: all well might as well be dead. So I'll hope
Speaker 1: you live. I hope you choose to live. I think
Speaker 1: it's a to the like interesting thing the psychological aspects
Speaker 1: of this, because the first time you do the way
Speaker 1: we're scurcialized in the society is to be obedient and fearful,
Speaker 1: and the first time you do something illegals. The first
Speaker 1: time you do something that you know is against the rope,
Speaker 1: the first time you steal some food, the first time
Speaker 1: you smash the window, the first time you do any
Speaker 1: of that, you're scared. But then you get away with it.
Speaker 1: You realize that this is a thing you can do,
Speaker 1: and I think that the state can't stop you from
Speaker 1: doing and you realize, oh, I can do so much more.
Speaker 1: And once you get over that initial fear, once you
Speaker 1: smashed that window, and you've gotten home and you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: I didn't go to jail for this. But when when
Speaker 1: you like get home and you're like, I have all
Speaker 1: this food now that I didn't have to pay for it,
Speaker 1: you start to realize maybe I don't need to work
Speaker 1: a job. Maybe I don't need to work nine to
Speaker 1: five or you know, five to midnight every day to
Speaker 1: get a job and payper You realize, wait, maybe I
Speaker 1: can just steal the food. Yeah. I've been wanting to
Speaker 1: talk about that for a while. For I want to
Speaker 1: make another Hyper Objects episode UM and talk about the
Speaker 1: anarchist properties of client bottles. UM and I described this
Speaker 1: type of freedom is like it's like how a client
Speaker 1: bottle works, or like a fourth dimensional object. It's like
Speaker 1: you need to in order for there's like this extra
Speaker 1: degree or extra dimension of movement that we usually don't
Speaker 1: think it's possible, but it is actually there if you
Speaker 1: know how to interact with it. UM. And Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: like we're domesticated in so many ways to view here's
Speaker 1: what's possible, here's what's impossible. I have to exist within
Speaker 1: this framework, UM and only doing these things which are
Speaker 1: seen as correct. And there's actually more degrees of freedom
Speaker 1: than that. We just don't often like acknowledge them. But
Speaker 1: you can totally phase through things and you can totally
Speaker 1: find that extra degree of freedom, and once you do,
Speaker 1: that's a super interesting feeling. UM. As opposed to like
Speaker 1: waiting for gay luxury space communism, you can instead do
Speaker 1: like fourth dimensional like hyper anarchism, which gives you so
Speaker 1: much more freedom right now instead of just waiting for
Speaker 1: the communism that will never come and the relationship you build.
Speaker 1: The relationships you build that are based on a trust
Speaker 1: that is, I trust you to have my back, I
Speaker 1: trust you to work with me and do this thing
Speaker 1: is so much deeper than the trust of I guess
Speaker 1: I trust my coworker. But like I really trust them
Speaker 1: not to snitch my boss. Like the trust that comes
Speaker 1: from a relationship where you're like, yeah, let's like we
Speaker 1: need food, that's going to steal it together. That kind
Speaker 1: of trust is not something that can be incuperated. And
Speaker 1: that kind of like relationship where it's like our relationship
Speaker 1: is built on the fundamental we will do that we
Speaker 1: have to to survive. It creates an intimacy that you
Speaker 1: can't find anywhere else, and a criminal intimacy. You might say, um, yeah,
Speaker 1: and that that was the point as somebody else think, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: just to double down not too like I think it's
Speaker 1: um it's cool too because uh, when you also come
Speaker 1: to a space like this, like you can live like
Speaker 1: that on your on your own or with your friends,
Speaker 1: but then there's something wild when you come to this space. Um,
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden, it's like when you
Speaker 1: start attacking something that a lot of other people want
Speaker 1: to see attacked. All of a sudden, all you have
Speaker 1: to do is attack that thing and foods there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and like you know like that and and like yeah,
Speaker 1: and like you have all these resources and you can
Speaker 1: focus on that and so like it's like yes, I'm
Speaker 1: like it's like a joke to some degree, but like
Speaker 1: if you want to be a lifestyle ran because like
Speaker 1: if you want to actually be an anarchist right now
Speaker 1: and do anarchist ship, you can come to Atlanta and
Speaker 1: do and like it's not easy. It's fucking scary, it's sketchy,
Speaker 1: it's hard, there's freaky as bugs, but like, yeah, you
Speaker 1: don't have to wait, and like, yeah, it I think
Speaker 1: that that's something that like, for me, is really magic.
Speaker 1: Is that like actually the more you attack and the
Speaker 1: more you like position yourself to be antagonistic towards the world,
Speaker 1: the more of it's like fourth dimensional like winning shoot
Speaker 1: on you know, like which I don't need really understand,
Speaker 1: like starts to kind of like self actualize and yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it's cool it And then like it freaks
Speaker 1: me out to think that there's not people who are
Speaker 1: probably probably pretty cool like waiting for some opportunity like waiting,
Speaker 1: just teachers waiting, and we don't have that much time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you can live anarchy now. You don't need to wait
Speaker 1: for the collapse TM because turns out that party it's
Speaker 1: already happening, and that already happened. We're just waiting in
Speaker 1: the liminal space until the climate change catches up with
Speaker 1: the admissions are already there. We're already living in it.
Speaker 1: We just don't realize it yet, or some of us
Speaker 1: are in denial of it yet. But the collapses like now,
Speaker 1: we it's already the thing. We don't need to wait
Speaker 1: for the one big collapse, because that's a myth. But
Speaker 1: you can live anarchy and do stuff. You don't need
Speaker 1: to wait for the next communist president who's going to
Speaker 1: run and fail. There's no coming social there's no coming collapse.
Speaker 1: There's nothing to wait for to keep on waiting his
Speaker 1: madness aside. I think a really interesting aspect of this movement.
Speaker 1: We are attacking up popular target, and how like in
Speaker 1: attacking a popular target, we've built this like thing is
Speaker 1: we are. We're not just here and attacking this thing
Speaker 1: that doesn't exist in isolation. We're here and we've built
Speaker 1: a movement and we've built uh, we've through attack, we've
Speaker 1: built a built this like popular idea that like actually,
Speaker 1: you know, like if you want something to not be there,
Speaker 1: instead of like talking to a politician, you can send
Speaker 1: it on vote harder, vote harder, just just just just
Speaker 1: one more vote. I swear I'm sorry. Now I like
Speaker 1: to talk more about tactics. Since the City Council voute,
Speaker 1: on the ground tactics have gained a much more integral
Speaker 1: role and grown past the basic sabotage and house visits,
Speaker 1: although both of those still are crucial aspects in keeping
Speaker 1: the movement going. Different ways of preventing physical construction, surveying
Speaker 1: of land and destruction of the forest made up most
Speaker 1: of the on the ground direct action efforts inside the forest.
Speaker 1: I think a really interesting aspect of the struggle has
Speaker 1: happened here is that because it's so decentralized, there are
Speaker 1: people and no one really knows who. There are people
Speaker 1: who will just to show up and like, you know,
Speaker 1: it's like there were people who are like getting the
Speaker 1: crops called on them in the woods and ships, and
Speaker 1: then like a bunch of anonymous people have showed up
Speaker 1: and like propable the camera powers and people stopped getting
Speaker 1: the crops called on them in the woods for a
Speaker 1: long time, and like that kind of decentralized thing, especially
Speaker 1: where it's like, you know, regardless of even like if
Speaker 1: the people in the woods were like you know, like
Speaker 1: into doing ship, it's like it's really useful when people
Speaker 1: who have more skills and people have more knowledge and
Speaker 1: more ability to do things and more ability to take risks.
Speaker 1: It's really awesome when those kinds of people can come
Speaker 1: and make things safe for a larger mass of people.
Speaker 1: And I feel like that is like a strategy and
Speaker 1: like the interactionary space that can be truly like expanded on,
Speaker 1: where people who know their ship can make things safe
Speaker 1: for large groups of people. To generalize revolt, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: regret like a lot of that hard of struggle and
Speaker 1: struggle has been framed from the very beginning as like
Speaker 1: there was no call to action do x y Z.
Speaker 1: There was a bunch of people pursuing their own individual
Speaker 1: desires and what they saw as a forward facing like
Speaker 1: a reprojection of their own ideas into the future and
Speaker 1: made that happen. And it was underneath this framework where
Speaker 1: there was no limit, there were no boundaries um, and
Speaker 1: there was no idea of like us all having to
Speaker 1: be on the same page about that. Yeah, you don't
Speaker 1: need to like attend a march to be to like
Speaker 1: do effective things. In fact, it turns out doing things
Speaker 1: that are not attending a march can often be way
Speaker 1: more materially effective and to double down on that, Like, um,
Speaker 1: so many times there's just like a script that the
Speaker 1: people follow, this is how we do it. And then
Speaker 1: there's there's like this action that's applied to everything that
Speaker 1: people don't like, and holy ship, that's a crazy book.
Speaker 1: It was a wildfire. Um um think about that. But yeah,
Speaker 1: but there's these like things that applied to everything, and
Speaker 1: this struggle very much has no script, which is really exciting.
Speaker 1: And but but what's even cooler about that is that
Speaker 1: it's not it's also not reinventing the wheel. And so
Speaker 1: there's people who are taking from you know, like kind
Speaker 1: of like classic insurrectionary anarchists like approaches. There's people looking
Speaker 1: at ego defense stuff from all over the world thinking
Speaker 1: about um, there's people looking at some successful like non
Speaker 1: violent direct action. There's people looking at alf struggles and
Speaker 1: like how like those campaigns, target campaigns, secondary targeting, how
Speaker 1: things like that worth The contracting and subcontracting companies hired
Speaker 1: by the Atlanta Police Foundation made up the new targets
Speaker 1: of the pressure campaigns and direct confrontation methods that threatened
Speaker 1: physical and social capital bringing back the house mis It's
Speaker 1: mentioned the previous episode. In late December, banners that read
Speaker 1: Reeves Young out of the Atlanta Forest were hung in
Speaker 1: the backyard of the private residence of Dean Reeves in Suani, Georgia.
Speaker 1: Dean Raeves serves as the chairman of Reeves Young Construction
Speaker 1: and was among the board members present at the November action,
Speaker 1: and he personally allegedly shoved and assaulted protesters inside the brawl.
Speaker 1: After the backyard banners were hung, an anonymous online statement
Speaker 1: read quote, we hope this action gives but a miniscule
Speaker 1: dose of what the creatures in the South Atlanta forest
Speaker 1: you want to bulldoz might feel unsafe in the place
Speaker 1: they call home. A month later, on January, Reeves Young
Speaker 1: Construction and representatives of the Atlanta Police Foundation entered the
Speaker 1: forest with a bulldozer. They started knocking down trees to
Speaker 1: complete more surveying work and determine the construction supplies needed
Speaker 1: for a laying of building Foundation force. Destruction was halted
Speaker 1: when approximately a dozen protesters approached the workers in Atlanta
Speaker 1: Police Foundation representative Alan Williams and demanded that they leave.
Speaker 1: Workers were safely escorted out of the woods and the
Speaker 1: bulldozer was left at the scene and was subsequently taken
Speaker 1: out of commission. In my interviews with some force defenders,
Speaker 1: I believe one of them referred to this as the
Speaker 1: bulldozer tripping and falling, So that's fun. The day after
Speaker 1: autonomous groups of people finished construction of multiple well built
Speaker 1: treehouses up in the canopy near the site of the
Speaker 1: previous day's confrontation, people climbed up into treehouses and announced
Speaker 1: their intention to remain there in order to delay further construction,
Speaker 1: ripping off the old tree sit and bipod tactics. From
Speaker 1: October one to this point in the struggle, which just
Speaker 1: like mid January, work was consistently able to be stopped
Speaker 1: by small, dedicated groups of people without resorting to force.
Speaker 1: Throughout the next week, attempts at land surveying in the
Speaker 1: area of the old Atlanta Prison Farm continued, but now
Speaker 1: with workers being accompanied by the Atlanta Police Foundation, Atlanta
Speaker 1: Police officers, and a cab County police. With the backing
Speaker 1: of cops, workers were able to accomplish more of their tasks,
Speaker 1: including tree felling and soil boring per Crime Thing quote.
Speaker 1: In some instances, only handful of activists were on the
Speaker 1: scene behind makeshift barricades. Reinforcements cannot arrive rapidly enough to
Speaker 1: assist those on the ground. Unquote. Reportedly, undercover cops surrounded
Speaker 1: the forest, intimidating those who would park nearby. As such,
Speaker 1: some outside support did show up, but not in mass. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: in the forest, it was a game of cat mouse
Speaker 1: between the workers, forest offenders, and cops. Police went so
Speaker 1: far as to start chasing people on forest trails while
Speaker 1: writing on a t v s. Barricades and the tactical
Speaker 1: removal of land survey markers did slow down work on
Speaker 1: some days, but ultimately efforts were unsuccessful in halting the
Speaker 1: destruction process entirely. This week of land destruction and caton
Speaker 1: mouse culminated on January. Around sixty people, the largest crowd
Speaker 1: in months, gathered to march into the south of a
Speaker 1: forest and on to the old Atlanta Prison farm to
Speaker 1: directly confront construction workers who were boring holes in the
Speaker 1: ground doing soil sample collection. The cab County police attacked
Speaker 1: the protesters, tackling multiple people and arresting four, the first
Speaker 1: arrests inside the forest within the context of the movement.
Speaker 1: Quoting crime thing again quote, police attacked the march, tackling
Speaker 1: several people. The other demonstrators did not mount a proportional
Speaker 1: response to this aggression, despite outnumbering the police. Perhaps some
Speaker 1: of the tactics popular during the rebellion, such as the
Speaker 1: mass use of umbrellas or makeshift shields, could have equipped
Speaker 1: the participants to feel more capable of decisive action. Ellen
Speaker 1: Williams of the Atlanta Police Foundation was filling protesters, looking
Speaker 1: a little anxious as he did so. A statement on
Speaker 1: the Defend the Forest scenes dot no blogs dot org
Speaker 1: site concluded their report back with this sentiment quote, at
Speaker 1: this point, we are in need of two main things.
Speaker 1: More people to help support tree sets and defend the
Speaker 1: force from destruction, and legal attempts to delay construction. Yeah. Always,
Speaker 1: you want more people to be on the ground in
Speaker 1: the woods, in the city. Cass We ned casts like
Speaker 1: the cast like that. You want to wear out the
Speaker 1: enemy and a lot of different ways. And the enemy
Speaker 1: is a lot of different people of the enemies, and
Speaker 1: enemies are subcontractors and enemy as a police enemy. Garge
Speaker 1: Parker Power owns quote unquote the power that divides both
Speaker 1: entrenchman Creek and sorry, there's a lot of different people.
Speaker 1: So if there's a lot of and we also have
Speaker 1: a lot of different people involved, a lot of different
Speaker 1: ways living in the words, people living in town, so
Speaker 1: people already knowing it's already happening. We should be visiting
Speaker 1: the offices, We should be visiting at the damn church,
Speaker 1: we should be visiting there in the forest, there should
Speaker 1: be there should be no peace. And I believe that's
Speaker 1: how we can win, because we need to make it
Speaker 1: unpopular and unsavory and hopefully next year impossible for them
Speaker 1: to make these choices. Even this as a small part
Speaker 1: of the forest, they're just going to continue on to
Speaker 1: the next thing. I want to briefly go into some
Speaker 1: details about a method of protests that combines pressure to
Speaker 1: both physical and social capital in hopes of resulting material
Speaker 1: changes from businesses, corporations, or people in power. It features
Speaker 1: many of the actual tactics we've in fact already discussed.
Speaker 1: Will refer to it as the Shack method for reasons
Speaker 1: that will be shortly explained. House visits, targeted vandalism, phone calls,
Speaker 1: and hanging banners and backyards all have a place in
Speaker 1: this method oology. It's a focused drive to dissolve that
Speaker 1: safe political or corporate astral space that I talked about
Speaker 1: in the last episode. The cred of the article contains
Speaker 1: a really good summary of the Shack method. So instead
Speaker 1: of just like regurgitating their explainer, I'm gonna I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna narrate certain sections of it because that will make
Speaker 1: my job easier and I'm I'm a hacking of fraud
Speaker 1: blah blah blah blah blah quote. The goal is to
Speaker 1: hold those responsible for these projects personally liable for their
Speaker 1: decisions and the decisions of the companies they own, because
Speaker 1: the entire system of rules and norms we live under
Speaker 1: dictates that exploiters, warlords, mass murderers, and those that destroy
Speaker 1: ecosystems must not face pressure at home as a consequence
Speaker 1: of the decisions that they make. It work, this strategy
Speaker 1: is bound to be controversial. It rejects the entire logic
Speaker 1: of limited liability that forms the basis of corporate rule
Speaker 1: in our society. At the beginning of the twenty first century,
Speaker 1: animal rights activists in the UK and the US set
Speaker 1: out to take down the biggest animal testing corporation on
Speaker 1: the planet, Huntington's Life Sciences. The campaign to stop Huntington's
Speaker 1: Life Sciences was called Stop Huntington's Animal Cruelty or SHACK.
Speaker 1: It formally disbanded, and it's best known for its period
Speaker 1: of ambitious international participation in the early two thousands. The
Speaker 1: methodology of this movement, which encompassed direct actions, symbolic protests,
Speaker 1: cultural events, sabotage pranks, and more, included many features that
Speaker 1: have been since used in a wide range of campaigns.
Speaker 1: The overall strategy of SHACK involved mobilizing a few hundred
Speaker 1: people to maximize their effectiveness against a major enterprise by
Speaker 1: focusing only on their ability to function economically. The SHACK
Speaker 1: model is centered around tertiary targeting I isolating service providers
Speaker 1: from third party contracts in order to limit their ability
Speaker 1: to provide services to the client, which is the actual target.
Speaker 1: A Right now, I'm just gonna pause here because if
Speaker 1: that sounds confusing, let me let me briefly provide an example.
Speaker 1: So the actual target here would be the Atlanta Police Foundation,
Speaker 1: since they're the ones with plans to build a cops city.
Speaker 1: The Police Foundation has contracted a few companies of Brassfield
Speaker 1: and Gory for one and Reeves Young. So these companies
Speaker 1: are the service provider. The shack model attempts to isolate
Speaker 1: the service provider, so reeves Young from all of their
Speaker 1: third party clients and contracts, which will in the end
Speaker 1: go back to hurt the actual target, which is the
Speaker 1: Atlanta Police Foundation back to crime think the service provider,
Speaker 1: so in this case, heves Young Uh. The service provider
Speaker 1: depends on many third parties. Third parties provide the service
Speaker 1: provider with insurance, materials, equipment, security, catering, cleaning, mail, service, data, maintenance,
Speaker 1: and more. All of those third parties can be pressured
Speaker 1: to drop the service provider. Furthermore, the service provider is
Speaker 1: likely a company with more than one client, and those
Speaker 1: other clients can also be pressured to drop the provider.
Speaker 1: Any company or contractor that is able to move their
Speaker 1: money away from the service provider because they have other
Speaker 1: economic opportunities can be pressured to do so. Essentially, this
Speaker 1: strategy does not directly challenge the bottom line of any
Speaker 1: of the third party companies. It only isolates and demoralizes
Speaker 1: the service provider and therefore the end target. Today, it
Speaker 1: still remains unclear who is the service provider for the
Speaker 1: Black Hall Studios development, although that information will come out
Speaker 1: sooner than later. In considering the limits of the shack
Speaker 1: strategy in actions outside of the forest, it might be
Speaker 1: more difficult for activists to maintain a sense of urgency.
Speaker 1: Targeting individuals at their offices and homes will chiefly bring
Speaker 1: out those who are excited about such confrontational methods, rather
Speaker 1: than those who prefer to maintain welcoming spaces of encounter,
Speaker 1: to build treehouses to or to clean campsites, to cook
Speaker 1: for others, to cultivate the kind of collective imagining that
Speaker 1: is needed to transform society. Also, if people fail to
Speaker 1: do proper research or mapping, activists could waste their time
Speaker 1: targeting minor institutions and companies that are unwilling or unable
Speaker 1: to drop their contracts. They could spend months facing down
Speaker 1: insignificant companies with many possible replacement subcontractors. Oh sorry, that
Speaker 1: was a lot. That was a big info dump, but
Speaker 1: I think it is useful information. So the goal isn't
Speaker 1: to sway companies with moralizing arguments, but to frame their
Speaker 1: association with militarized policing or ecological destruction as a bad
Speaker 1: look that could hurt their reputation and ability to secure
Speaker 1: future clients. Combined with economic consentives inflicted on the service
Speaker 1: provider like access sabotage, The resulting targeted campaign attacking physical
Speaker 1: and social capital can lead to pressure on third parties
Speaker 1: to influence the decision of this of its provider on
Speaker 1: whether or not to stay on the project. Methodologies can
Speaker 1: put to the test through practice and be judged by
Speaker 1: the outcome. The proposal to employ the shock strategy to
Speaker 1: defend the Forest is just built on the simple hypothesis
Speaker 1: that if Reeves Young is forced to drop the contract
Speaker 1: with Atlanta Police Foundation, the Atlanta Police Foundation investors will
Speaker 1: then lose the confidence that's required to find an adequate
Speaker 1: replacement and the project could stumble or fail. The same
Speaker 1: goes for the Black Hall project. If activists defeat Reeves
Speaker 1: Young by means of direct action and self organization, even
Speaker 1: if the project of finds a new contractor, sophistication and
Speaker 1: confidence in the movement will have developed in the process
Speaker 1: will likely help it evolve once again. Also, one thing
Speaker 1: that people have figured out because like for the first
Speaker 1: to after the first two arsons, you could literally just
Speaker 1: walk up to during daylight, up to the area of
Speaker 1: Michelle Opona Park and touch take pictures of like uh
Speaker 1: have sex around like make out with the construction equipment
Speaker 1: that I've been burned, and you could see the stickers
Speaker 1: of where they had rented these like construction equipment, UM
Speaker 1: destruction equipment, and like after the first one it changed,
Speaker 1: there was no longer rented from the same company, and
Speaker 1: after the second one it changed again. And there is
Speaker 1: reason to believe that with every arson or attack that
Speaker 1: they are changing construction equipment companies, because rental companies tend
Speaker 1: to not like it whenever their equipment is destroyed to
Speaker 1: cost them a lot of money, and oftentimes they cannot
Speaker 1: afford hundreds of thousands of dollars going down the drain
Speaker 1: be to support a pot project that is highly unpopular.
Speaker 1: And the other thing what we're talking about with the
Speaker 1: modified like a policing modifying itself as it's interesting because
Speaker 1: where at this point where policing is highly unpopular and
Speaker 1: so it's kind of hedging its bets, and it's doing
Speaker 1: two things. First, it's calling itself like the Social Peace
Speaker 1: and Justice cute Bunny Rabbits center for your racist if
Speaker 1: you don't like us or whatever. And then it's also
Speaker 1: just like mask off doubling down buying mad guns like
Speaker 1: like yet just becoming increasingly more militarized, increasingly more violent
Speaker 1: and like moving mask off like an occupying force. So
Speaker 1: there's this split where there's no and people are well
Speaker 1: aware of this. There's there's no like public chance of
Speaker 1: convincing UM a lot of companies that this is wrong. Right,
Speaker 1: there's it's it's it's well, it's very divided. So the
Speaker 1: people who are committed are very committed. There are fucking
Speaker 1: enemies and where their enemies and that's it. But then
Speaker 1: there's other people who are doing this for economic reasons
Speaker 1: and kind of understand that policing is not shoot right,
Speaker 1: and then it's at least unpopular, going out of fashion
Speaker 1: to some degree, and can make money in other ways.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's this interesting thing where like being able
Speaker 1: to like fight battles for public opinion maybe doesn't super work,
Speaker 1: and all you have to do is um kind of
Speaker 1: trying to cut away the people who are supporting people
Speaker 1: who are ideologically committed to our destruction and we are,
Speaker 1: you know, feel reciprocal. If you look at the photos
Speaker 1: of what was happening with Michelle Obama Park the land
Speaker 1: swap site, they were trying to build on You can
Speaker 1: tell that heavy yellow Equipment LLC of Marietta, Georgia stopped
Speaker 1: providing them equipment after like the first or the second
Speaker 1: time that their machines got lit on fire. And now
Speaker 1: it's alf A l I f of I don't know
Speaker 1: where Georgia. So you know, these are photos that you
Speaker 1: can see, like you can look at these communicates and
Speaker 1: just tell like like like if there's a photo attached,
Speaker 1: like there is a traceable like trend of companies are
Speaker 1: dropping the funk out because they, for whatever reason, just
Speaker 1: cannot take the heat. On June twelve, while fully in
Speaker 1: the throes of nationwide revolts against police after the murder
Speaker 1: of George Floyd, two Atlanta police officers killed Ray Schard Brooks,
Speaker 1: a black man who had been sleeping in his car
Speaker 1: in the parking lot of a Wendy's. Not long after,
Speaker 1: the restaurant was burnt to the ground by determined crowds.
Speaker 1: In the time period between June to the end of
Speaker 1: the year, more than two hundred Atlanta police officers left
Speaker 1: their jobs, including the a chief of police, local sheriff's deputies,
Speaker 1: state patrolmen, and transit cops. Also resigned during the year
Speaker 1: of the uprising at a higher than average rate. As
Speaker 1: the entire system of policing and capitalism faced a crisis
Speaker 1: of legitimacy. Corporations, business owners, landlords, business associations, and international
Speaker 1: real estate companies demand a public pacification and a reassurance
Speaker 1: of a future with stable consumerism. Profit incentive and police
Speaker 1: need each other in a symbia like relationship. I'll do
Speaker 1: one of my last crime thing quotes here. Quote. Forces
Speaker 1: in local and federal government, business associations, police departments, and
Speaker 1: our militias have continuously worked to make sure a popular
Speaker 1: uprising does not reoccur. A large part of the institutional
Speaker 1: reaction to the popular uprising has focused on managing public perception.
Speaker 1: Industrial interests and private investment companies have conducted influence campaigns
Speaker 1: using local news outlets which are owned by Sinclair Broadcasting Group,
Speaker 1: a right wing news organization between Sinclair, Next Star, Gray, Tega,
Speaker 1: and Tribune. This coordinated reframing of events has damaged the
Speaker 1: way that many sectors of the television viewing public perceive
Speaker 1: revolt and its consequences. In the wake of the uprising,
Speaker 1: a false narrative circulated to the effect that police, while
Speaker 1: demoralized and underfunded, cannot control the crime waves currently sweeping
Speaker 1: the country. This orchestrated narrative has shaped the imaginations of
Speaker 1: suburban whites, small business owners, and many urban progressives. The
Speaker 1: crime wave framework implied that police departments around the country
Speaker 1: had in fact been defunded or had their powers curtailed,
Speaker 1: and were consequently unable to assure social peace or free enterprise.
Speaker 1: In reality, the vast majority of police departments received an
Speaker 1: annual increase in their budgets as they normally do. If anything,
Speaker 1: they accrued more power following the events of So it's
Speaker 1: no coincidence that the Atlanta Police Foundation and the Atlanta
Speaker 1: Police Department are pushing to build a militarized urban warfare
Speaker 1: training center in the wake of the uprisings. By lever
Speaker 1: ing that crime wave narrative and the fears of future
Speaker 1: social unrest, they want to have the tools to bring
Speaker 1: down the inevitable upcoming revolts for racial, environmental and economic justice,
Speaker 1: and now more than ever, including reproductive justice. Cops cities
Speaker 1: leading the charge is a part of a new effort
Speaker 1: to adapt American policing strategies to our new era of
Speaker 1: societal decay and the ever crumbling that will define this
Speaker 1: century as we face the escalating consequences of industrialization and
Speaker 1: climate change. I think another really important thing to look
Speaker 1: at this is like when you look at the Gurge
Speaker 1: Floyd uprising in the Crisis of Pride and policing and
Speaker 1: they realize that, oh, holy sh it, people are so
Speaker 1: angry about this that they will pose a threat to
Speaker 1: the sovereagety of the state, which is the first time
Speaker 1: that has happened in an extremely long time. When that
Speaker 1: finally happened, the state, the morale of police departments around
Speaker 1: the country was broken. Cops everywhere, we're like, it was
Speaker 1: a demoralizing thing. And when you think about cops as
Speaker 1: an occupying force, as an occupying military force, it thinking
Speaker 1: about the fact that we broke their morale is really important.
Speaker 1: And then thinking about this place as they intend to
Speaker 1: build a training facility to increase morale, which is a
Speaker 1: classic military tactic of create cool and interesting ways to
Speaker 1: train your soldiers to do a murder, is like, that
Speaker 1: is a classic military tactic. And when you think begin
Speaker 1: to think about this as social or when you begin
Speaker 1: to think about this as not just a struggle against
Speaker 1: cops city that like as a struggle for like disabling
Speaker 1: and destroying the police. When you think about this as
Speaker 1: a material struggle against the occupying forces that are the police,
Speaker 1: this becomes like way more contextual In fact, I feel
Speaker 1: like that is the best way to contextualize this movement.
Speaker 1: So one interesting thing is that after Rachard Brooks is
Speaker 1: murdered and the UM two cops involved were UM this
Speaker 1: substanquently charged UM what was it, six hundred tops went
Speaker 1: on seconut hundreds of hundreds UM, and their morale is broken.
Speaker 1: A land police has always been understaffed for like as
Speaker 1: long as I've known UM and not understaffed by any
Speaker 1: media propaganda spend standard there standards, but like every single
Speaker 1: day they're facing backlogs in every zone where they cannot
Speaker 1: answer calls. And it's a good thing. This is a
Speaker 1: war pattriction where their current training facilities have broken. Torrespneky
Speaker 1: pipes have have like have undeniably miserable conditions. Their cars
Speaker 1: are out, their cars are like continually on their last legs,
Speaker 1: and we that's that is a path to abolition, is
Speaker 1: making it so it is so undesirable to be a
Speaker 1: cop in this city or any city that no one
Speaker 1: would dare do it. It is crucial that police are
Speaker 1: not the only ones that seek to evolve their tactics
Speaker 1: for a new era and moving beyond the kind of
Speaker 1: non violent action that's become so common during protests during
Speaker 1: the Trump era and the post Green Scare, and even
Speaker 1: like post occupy, there is this looking for a new
Speaker 1: form of anarchist or radical resistance. Really emphasized the learning
Speaker 1: things here is that this struggle took all the different rulebooks,
Speaker 1: tore them up, set them on fire, and use the
Speaker 1: ashes for their shutter. Like everyone here is learning things.
Speaker 1: People who have been who have been doing things along
Speaker 1: fucking time are here and learning new things. We're we're
Speaker 1: not just like tearing up and like destroying the rule books.
Speaker 1: We're like we're like larges out of the were weird. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: like put them like like tore all of them up
Speaker 1: and make allogious out of them, and is trying to
Speaker 1: create this like weird paper machee mesh of a experimental
Speaker 1: path into the future. And and like we wouldn't when
Speaker 1: we say we are experimenting with new forms of revolt,
Speaker 1: new new tactics, new strategies, we truly mean, there aren't
Speaker 1: existing models to do what we're doing. We are writing
Speaker 1: the book as we could do it, and yeah, we
Speaker 1: sunk up sometimes, but we've also got some really cool
Speaker 1: ship happening. Ship that hasn't happened in twenty years is happening,
Speaker 1: and ship that hasn't happened ever is happening here. And
Speaker 1: I think that's like a really it's a really important
Speaker 1: thing to touch on. Is that, like much of the
Speaker 1: you know, much of the like Eco defensship that's happened
Speaker 1: in North America that for quite a while has like
Speaker 1: not done, you know, or at least not released, communicates
Speaker 1: about like ship that happens here seemingly every couple of weeks. Now,
Speaker 1: like the ship here is crazy and wild under dreams.
Speaker 1: It's also scary and hard and dramatizing, and it's beautiful
Speaker 1: and terrifying and like, yeah, that sounds great, you should come. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this's is such a way from us actually evolving out
Speaker 1: of a I look at this as like a huge
Speaker 1: step in what land defense looks like after we have,
Speaker 1: after we have faced green Scare repression, and now we
Speaker 1: are moving past the post green Scare repression movements and
Speaker 1: figuring out how to move forward and regardless of it.
Speaker 1: For this like uh lands and are really repressive like
Speaker 1: boot sounded throats like situation. I don't think anyone should
Speaker 1: ever stop experimenting. I don't think people should go back
Speaker 1: to the old ways. I don't think that we should
Speaker 1: be resigned to not experiment. I think that everyone, like
Speaker 1: we are in a situation where there is nor future.
Speaker 1: They're like the collapses now, we're probably not going to
Speaker 1: avoid one point five degrees warming. Our police are only
Speaker 1: further mailitarizing, and the like reality of resistance is that
Speaker 1: we that we best, that we need experimentation. Yeah, if
Speaker 1: there was a winning strategy that was proven to be effective,
Speaker 1: then it would have it would have been effective in therapy,
Speaker 1: we would have a winning strategy. There's a popular name
Speaker 1: in the forest which is the arena instead of are you,
Speaker 1: are you experiencing the joy of attacks on um? And
Speaker 1: I think that is an important line the same way
Speaker 1: Cops City is a part of the new evolution of
Speaker 1: American policing. Defend the Atlanta Forest can be seen as
Speaker 1: kind of trailblazing for future movements, a look at how
Speaker 1: they might develop post the George Floyd protests for my
Speaker 1: last final cry think quote quote. This campaign represents a
Speaker 1: crucial effort to chart new paths forward in the wake
Speaker 1: of the George Floyd rebellion, linking the defense of the
Speaker 1: land that sustains us with the struggle against police. The
Speaker 1: movement opposed these developments, mobilizing around the watchwords defend the
Speaker 1: Forest and stop coops City, have passed through several phases
Speaker 1: of experimentation, using a wide array of tactics and strategies
Speaker 1: to keep pace with the current course of events. It
Speaker 1: represents an important effort to revitalize eco defense and police
Speaker 1: abolition strategies in the wake of the George Floyd rebellion. So,
Speaker 1: considering the possible wide ranging impacts of both the evolution
Speaker 1: of policing and the evolution of resistance tactics that defend
Speaker 1: the Atlanta Force movement is extremely relevant to all people
Speaker 1: who want to improve the world, whether or not they
Speaker 1: live in Atlanta. Atlanta as a testing ground floor new
Speaker 1: surveillance tech and like in like experimenting with new forms
Speaker 1: of struggle. Here in Atlanta, there are things that not
Speaker 1: only are we in many ways on the front lines
Speaker 1: of experimenting with new tactics and integrating new strategies and
Speaker 1: how they work. But we're also on the front lines
Speaker 1: of like different kinds of both like like in person
Speaker 1: and digital forms of oppression that don't have to be
Speaker 1: worried about other places, and like it also provides approving
Speaker 1: ground for ways to struggle specifically against those forms of
Speaker 1: surveillance and understanding the different ways that sometimes the most
Speaker 1: effective thing in protecting yourself from oppression isn't some super
Speaker 1: high tech ship. It's a ski mask of paragloves and
Speaker 1: not bringing your phone, and like people don't seem to
Speaker 1: like think about that that I don't need to. But yeah, um,
Speaker 1: so speaking of surveillance, we actually have like not we
Speaker 1: I don't claim that, um, the police here and the
Speaker 1: state here has like the video Video Integration System, which
Speaker 1: I believe is like one of our re integrations video
Speaker 1: integration center where they take where businesses and homeowners of
Speaker 1: like ring cameras can volunteer their video surveillance equipment to
Speaker 1: be plugged into a network UM that can be monitored
Speaker 1: and pulled up at any time by the police UM
Speaker 1: in a downtown location and they and that is like
Speaker 1: one of the largest surveillance network systems in the world,
Speaker 1: I believe, um and it is actually reading the charge
Speaker 1: in like new forms of surveillance, and other cities are
Speaker 1: looking at this as a model of how to sure
Speaker 1: how to better surveillan own cities, which obviously makes one
Speaker 1: police defination trying to create their own little mini city
Speaker 1: a very interesting prospect in terms of like establishing new
Speaker 1: you know this this is mentioned before, which was like
Speaker 1: establishing new ideas and how to take policing forward into
Speaker 1: thirties after we've had these wave of social justice like
Speaker 1: uprising and uprisings for Black Lives Matter, um with you know.
Speaker 1: I mean not many places actually got defunded, but the
Speaker 1: propaganda has to be different, and like the way the
Speaker 1: police optics work definitely needs to be changed from their
Speaker 1: perspective or they're trying to have them be changed. One
Speaker 1: of the strongest things I feel like came out of
Speaker 1: this movement really pass ahead was our ability to have
Speaker 1: their game on, like the narrative and then never being
Speaker 1: able to recuperate that narrative because their plan was this
Speaker 1: answerstude for centual justice. There's a new way of training
Speaker 1: police to quote be better or like not murder people
Speaker 1: as much and like more refined. Um, And I don't
Speaker 1: want more refined like police that like murder quote the
Speaker 1: right people, or the right people, or cage the right people.
Speaker 1: That's not my desire. I went into police, and yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that there's a lot of projects happening in
Speaker 1: the forest. And you know, I also just want to emphasize,
Speaker 1: like I'm not from Atlanta, but I feel like it's
Speaker 1: really important for me to be here. You know, I
Speaker 1: think a lot of people who felt inspired by the
Speaker 1: George Floyd uprising, like, um, this is an attempt to recuperate.
Speaker 1: Like I've said this a million times, it's a time
Speaker 1: for the police to recuperate from that. I'm trying to
Speaker 1: finish what we started. I also think that we need
Speaker 1: to understand that this isn't just about Atlanta. Like one
Speaker 1: of the buildings that they're trying to build, and like
Speaker 1: one of the points of this training facility is that
Speaker 1: it is like a hub in the same way Atlanta
Speaker 1: with a with a movie theater, the same way they're
Speaker 1: trying to make Atlanta this hub. Right, It's there's an
Speaker 1: infrastructure for being a hub from shipping and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: and so now they're trying to make it this this
Speaker 1: economic habital or white collar way, and so they're trying
Speaker 1: to make it a hub for police in Atlanta, but
Speaker 1: also to train police to do fucked ship and to
Speaker 1: mutate like nationally. And I know that the police from
Speaker 1: the you know, whatever city I live in are probably
Speaker 1: going to come here and go back and funk that up.
Speaker 1: So I'm trying to make sure that they can't come here,
Speaker 1: and that you know, police are demoralized in every city
Speaker 1: and they're having trouble on every city. And this isn't
Speaker 1: just about the A p D. If you live pretty
Speaker 1: much anywhere on the East Coast, there's a high chance
Speaker 1: that your police are going to come here and then
Speaker 1: go back to your house and funk you up. So
Speaker 1: come here and make sure they can't. And the other
Speaker 1: thing I want to say is like, um, yeah, they
Speaker 1: want to make this a training facility for police right now,
Speaker 1: it is a training facility for anarchists. If you come here,
Speaker 1: I promise you you will leave with more courage and
Speaker 1: with more skills and knowing a lot of fucking people
Speaker 1: who are really fucking down all over the country. Um,
Speaker 1: and I think it's worth I wanted to jump in
Speaker 1: and say, like, this is about you. Um. An hour
Speaker 1: or two hours south of here is the School of
Speaker 1: the America's you might have heard of it. It's here
Speaker 1: in Georgia. It's where a lot of awful fucking dictators
Speaker 1: and their henchmen learned how to do really awful ship
Speaker 1: a bunch of war crimes. And here in the city
Speaker 1: of Atlanta, a local school, the largest, the largest university
Speaker 1: in the state, Georgia State University, hears something called the
Speaker 1: Georgia International Law Enforcement Exchange or GILLY, which is where
Speaker 1: they and the i DF get together to train local
Speaker 1: police forces here in Atlanta and around the country. And
Speaker 1: if you don't think that Cops City is going to
Speaker 1: play a huge role in your police department learning from
Speaker 1: the i d F how to beat you up, you
Speaker 1: have another thing coming. You should come here to Atlanta.
Speaker 1: What's going on because this is about everyone here, like
Speaker 1: it's about the whole country. They're coming to Atlanta to
Speaker 1: learn how to brutalize people, and it's going to stop it.
Speaker 1: A funny thing about this project is that there's these
Speaker 1: sort of dual intersections and dual microcosms. On one side,
Speaker 1: there is the intersection of policing, gentrification, racism, ecological destruction,
Speaker 1: and climate change. And on the other side there's the
Speaker 1: intersection between the tactics of urban city protest and rule
Speaker 1: eco defense. But there's also this dual microcosm. On the
Speaker 1: side of the state, they're trying to construct this police
Speaker 1: facility with a mock city to train in microcosm for
Speaker 1: protest suppression and practice urban combat against people who live
Speaker 1: in American cities. And on the people's side, there's this
Speaker 1: microcosm not only for how resistance movements can evolve post
Speaker 1: but more importantly for the people involve been the struggle,
Speaker 1: a microcosm for how you can live a life free
Speaker 1: of the oppressive societal mechanisms that we claim to oppose.
Speaker 1: I think another really interesting thing about this being like
Speaker 1: such an ungovernable space is that because it's ungefinitable, because
Speaker 1: it's impossible to control, it allows us to create these
Speaker 1: new ways of relating to the trouble there that can't
Speaker 1: happen in other places. Like where else are like people
Speaker 1: and their everyday lives just gonna be able to walk
Speaker 1: around as gender funded as they want, and like it's fine,
Speaker 1: Like you know, if they're a clear basher comes into
Speaker 1: these fucking woods, like, it's gonna be a bad time
Speaker 1: because literally everyone here is queer, like we don't. That's
Speaker 1: the thing is like, when we exist in these spaces
Speaker 1: in this ungovernable way, we like our like create many
Speaker 1: versions of Yeah, this thing I want to talk to about,
Speaker 1: something I wanted to talk about in terms of like
Speaker 1: the microcos the macrocosm idea of after uprising, looking for
Speaker 1: new paths forward, the depending on a forest thing can
Speaker 1: be viewed as this microcost, like this micro causum of
Speaker 1: how we can approach different struggles going into going into
Speaker 1: twenties and stuff um, because yeah, like it is like
Speaker 1: this small version of what we want. There's also the
Speaker 1: whole idea of like what I've seen here in the
Speaker 1: forest more closely resembles like an actual temporary autonomous zone
Speaker 1: than like the chads ever did in terms of like
Speaker 1: people actually like actually living free, actually living like not
Speaker 1: relying on like city water, like not like not living
Speaker 1: in like the downtown metro area. It's like it's an
Speaker 1: actual free space where people can be queer and be
Speaker 1: all of the things and climb trees and talk with
Speaker 1: the deer and like that's people are actually allowed to
Speaker 1: do that, Like there's there's not all of the stigma
Speaker 1: that even I think like Chazz had like so many problems,
Speaker 1: right like extremely extremely hashtag problematic in terms of how
Speaker 1: that resulted. Um, And yeah, this is such a microcosm
Speaker 1: of like like an autonomous area where people are able
Speaker 1: to do those things. I also kind of want to
Speaker 1: talk about like the like idea our ideas of safety
Speaker 1: and security don't reside and like the ideas of say
Speaker 1: a safety or security for us, it doesn't really resides
Speaker 1: in our trust in ourselves and each other. It resides
Speaker 1: and like we actually keep each other safe. We have
Speaker 1: each other's backs, we will fight for each other, and
Speaker 1: any threat to any one of us is like taken seriously.
Speaker 1: We have this like intimacy, criminal intimacy like allows us
Speaker 1: to build more chin win relationships with high highs and
Speaker 1: low lows than anything ever could. And like the deadening
Speaker 1: that society puts on us, this like chemically induced regulated
Speaker 1: median of gray and terrible is that's not what we live. Yes,
Speaker 1: some days here it sucks to wake up and everything
Speaker 1: you own use wet and you gotta go ship in
Speaker 1: a hole that it's flitted. But also some days things
Speaker 1: here are fucking awesome, and I get to wake up
Speaker 1: to the birds calling and go like have a party
Speaker 1: with my friends. I don't like exist here in a
Speaker 1: way that is like comprehensible or legible to like a
Speaker 1: wider like society. I don't exist in a way that
Speaker 1: people look at this and be like, ah, that's what
Speaker 1: you need. But I have never been happier than when
Speaker 1: I've been in the woods with people I trust and
Speaker 1: care about and don't have my back. People people don't
Speaker 1: have to worry about working to pay their water bill
Speaker 1: because you can go just get the things you need
Speaker 1: from places you don't have to pay for it, And
Speaker 1: like you don't have to worry about all of these things,
Speaker 1: all of these societal pressures. There's not this constant threat
Speaker 1: of oh I lose my job. Oh all those things,
Speaker 1: all those things, all these mental constructs that control us
Speaker 1: aren't there anymore. Because we've built a world it doesn't
Speaker 1: it doesn't rely on that in the slightest, And I
Speaker 1: think that's like a really powerful thing that like we've
Speaker 1: already met our own needs and so we can fight
Speaker 1: back in these beautiful and fiery ways. Pun intended that
Speaker 1: like allow us to just experience things that like have
Speaker 1: been stolen from us generations. Yeah, I was going to say,
Speaker 1: we're not safe, but we're free. And I think that
Speaker 1: anyone who makes that decision is an active decision to
Speaker 1: not be safe, but to be free. I may not light,
Speaker 1: but by definition ILL ride for them. Because we're now
Speaker 1: nearing the end of the episode, but before I finish,
Speaker 1: I need to go back to talking about tactics for
Speaker 1: a bit and end with some actual good news. From
Speaker 1: January to present time of recording, there's been an increase
Speaker 1: in solidarity attacks in cities across the country, some targeting
Speaker 1: Reeves Young and Long engineering equipment in other states a
Speaker 1: third party service providers of contracted construction companies or locations
Speaker 1: and offices of corporate sponsors of the Atlanta Police Foundation.
Speaker 1: This past March, six machines owned by Reeves Young, including
Speaker 1: two large excavators and a bulldozer, were destroyed in Flowery Branch, Georgia.
Speaker 1: The online communicate reads, quote, so long as you continue
Speaker 1: to contract with the Atlanta Police Foundation for the destruction
Speaker 1: of the South Atlanta Forest and the construction of a
Speaker 1: Cops City in its place. Know that your equipment is
Speaker 1: not safe, your offices are not safe, your homes are
Speaker 1: not safe. Unless your company chooses to pull out of
Speaker 1: the Atlanta Police Foundation's Cop City project of its own volition,
Speaker 1: we will undermine your profits so severely that you'll have
Speaker 1: no choice but to drop the contract unquote. Subsequent solidarity
Speaker 1: attacks have happened in Portland, San Francisco, Salt Lake City, Minneapolis,
Speaker 1: and Highland, Michigan, to name a few. Many of these
Speaker 1: attacks were targeted at Atlas Technical consultants, who own many
Speaker 1: smaller companies such as Long Engineering, which has done work
Speaker 1: with Reeves Young and brass Field and Gory for the
Speaker 1: Cops City project. In the vein of shack style methods.
Speaker 1: This past April, on the ninth, a website called stop
Speaker 1: Reeves Young dot Com launched onto the interwebs. The listed
Speaker 1: some of the various third party clients and subcontractors under
Speaker 1: Reeves Young Construction and ways to contact them to voice
Speaker 1: concern about their relation to the deforestation and this urban
Speaker 1: warfare construction project, as well as including the names and
Speaker 1: addresses of executives within Reeves Young and some of their
Speaker 1: affiliates on the day I was set to leave Atlanta
Speaker 1: and say goodbye to the forest for the time being,
Speaker 1: activists got word that Reeves Young Construction might be dropping
Speaker 1: out of the project. This would obviously be a big,
Speaker 1: big win and an indication of the possible effectiveness of
Speaker 1: the shack method combined with sabotage and the forest encampment tactics.
Speaker 1: At a stakeholders meeting for the Copsity of project the
Speaker 1: next day, it was publicly confirmed that Reeves Young will
Speaker 1: not continue work on the new police training center. In
Speaker 1: the public statement addressing Reeves Young's lack of future involvement,
Speaker 1: the Atlanta Police Foundation tried to frame the situation as
Speaker 1: Reeves Young simply have quote finished their role in the project.
Speaker 1: This is a laughable deception, as Reeves Young is one
Speaker 1: of Atlanta's major construction firms and has even built massive
Speaker 1: quote unquote public safety facilities in the past. They do
Speaker 1: not merely do preliminary sub contracting survey work. They work
Speaker 1: on projects from start to finish, taking lead contracting roles.
Speaker 1: It was speculated that Reeves Young itself may have been
Speaker 1: the main subcontractor hired to do complete construction of Cops
Speaker 1: City by brass Field and Gory, who have more established
Speaker 1: ties to the Atlanta Police Foundation. Quoting from the Stop
Speaker 1: for Reeves Young website quote, the Atlanta Police Foundation would
Speaker 1: have us believe that Reeves Young was contracted to do
Speaker 1: nothing more than hire a bulldozer and walk alongside long
Speaker 1: engineering work crews as they planted a few surveying stakes
Speaker 1: and did some soil testing. Police and their corporate backers
Speaker 1: don't want to let it be known that a focused
Speaker 1: group of activists have delivered a devastating blow to the
Speaker 1: Cops City construction, while the Atlanta Police Foundation tries to
Speaker 1: say face, we are celebrating a major victory pressuring a
Speaker 1: main contractor out of the project. We are pleased that
Speaker 1: the movement has built up so much momentum and that
Speaker 1: the Cops City development continues to face setbacks because of
Speaker 1: the intelligent actions of regular people. However, the struggle continues.
Speaker 1: Brass Field and Gory, another large general contractor, remains with
Speaker 1: the project. A Georgia Open records request from April confirmed
Speaker 1: via Paper Trail that the Atlanta Police Foundation has been
Speaker 1: working on the Cop City project with brass Field and Gory,
Speaker 1: another major general contractor in the Southeast region of the
Speaker 1: United States. Brass Field and Gory is an LLC and
Speaker 1: a multibillion dollar general contractor, ranked as a top contractor
Speaker 1: in the Southeast by Engineering News Record. Based on recent
Speaker 1: Atlanta Police Foundation emails required through public records, we can
Speaker 1: now assume that brass Field and Gory act as the
Speaker 1: soul contractor for Cops Said, quoting again from the Stop
Speaker 1: Reeves Young website quote, Brassfield and Gory are dependent on
Speaker 1: subcontractors to complete their projects. Now they must hire a
Speaker 1: new entire set of subcontractors in order to build a
Speaker 1: Cops City. We believe it is in their best interests
Speaker 1: for brass Field and Gory to follow the lead of
Speaker 1: Reeves Young and drop Atlanta Police Foundation as a client,
Speaker 1: rather than remaining complicit in the destruction of the forest.
Speaker 1: It is up to all of us to make that
Speaker 1: clear to them. We can pressure brass Field and Gory
Speaker 1: out of Cops City by complicating their ability to do business.
Speaker 1: This does not have to be limited to the Cops
Speaker 1: City project. Their various construction projects and third party service
Speaker 1: providers are numerous. If brass Field and Gory begin to
Speaker 1: feel like they must choose between all of their contracts
Speaker 1: and their Cops City contract. We are confident that they
Speaker 1: will choose the former. By working to convince the subcontractors,
Speaker 1: consulting firms, surveyors, architects, etcetera around the country that brass
Speaker 1: Field and Gory are not a good business investment, we
Speaker 1: can make it easier for the construction company to do
Speaker 1: the right thing and dump the Atlanta Police Foundation for good.
Speaker 1: This has been an incredible period of momentum and research,
Speaker 1: but nothing is over yet. Now that we have made
Speaker 1: a decisive victory, it is important to remain more focused
Speaker 1: than ever. In the coming weeks and months, we will
Speaker 1: need to continue pressuring all of the contractors associated with
Speaker 1: the project to create economic consentives for them to simply
Speaker 1: move their time and resources to other endeavors. The Stop
Speaker 1: Reeves Young website will continue to serve as an educational
Speaker 1: hub for this ongoing campaign. End quote. On top of
Speaker 1: confirming that Reeves Young was dropping out of the project,
Speaker 1: a few other interesting pieces of information came out at
Speaker 1: the recent stakeholders meeting held on April. Allegedly, there will
Speaker 1: be a bid for the next contractors or subcontractors UH
Speaker 1: in the coming weeks, and that will be publicly announced.
Speaker 1: It was also announced during the meeting that the cops
Speaker 1: city planners will keep construction timelines secret and may surround
Speaker 1: the construction site and future facility with an unwanted fence.
Speaker 1: In response to the quote law breaking protesters, Atlanta Assistant
Speaker 1: Police Chief and Site Security Chief Darren sheer Bomb said quote,
Speaker 1: we are working with decav County to address any criminal
Speaker 1: acts related to trespassing and vandalism unquote. He also stated
Speaker 1: that police were also concerned with protesters targeting those who
Speaker 1: work on the project at other locations. Here's an interesting
Speaker 1: note from our force defender pals on how the Atlanta
Speaker 1: Police Department function and are allowed to operate while inside
Speaker 1: the old Atlanta prison farm and Entrenchment Creek Park. This
Speaker 1: is something that's true police departments in Channel. But as
Speaker 1: soon as the copies out of streets and things like that,
Speaker 1: that cop is uncomfortable. And like, cops here are carrying
Speaker 1: in twenty pounds of gear on them at all times,
Speaker 1: and not only are they hearing that much gear, but
Speaker 1: they spend most all day sitting running around and sitting
Speaker 1: in a car, and like you know, that cop not
Speaker 1: only doesn't want to chase you through the woods, but
Speaker 1: they have so probably aren't capable of it. And aside
Speaker 1: from the hobbyists, like you know, their infrastructure issues then
Speaker 1: being away from their cars, not being on the streets
Speaker 1: having all of their gear. We're also not in the
Speaker 1: City of Atlanta in this forest. We're an unincorporated the
Speaker 1: Cab County, which means Atlanta Police Department doesn't have legal
Speaker 1: jurisdiction as police here. They only have legal jurisdiction as
Speaker 1: agents of the City of Atlanta because the City of
Speaker 1: Atlanta owns this property which is outside of the city.
Speaker 1: So in any time when they're conducting and arrest they
Speaker 1: have to have the Cab County Police Department officers present
Speaker 1: with them. There. There can be an Atlanta Police Department
Speaker 1: and has been major like one of their huge like
Speaker 1: high ranks who has no legal authority here except to
Speaker 1: represent the city. And that relationship is kind of like
Speaker 1: tenuous at best. They hate each pals. They hate each
Speaker 1: other and you know, so if you're if you're headed
Speaker 1: in the town, like bear in minds, that is a
Speaker 1: huge place to drive a wedge because they fucking hate
Speaker 1: each other. Yeah, I know, there's like, um, there's like
Speaker 1: one thing one time where like a Lamp police officers
Speaker 1: were inside the forest um with like a specific goal
Speaker 1: in mind in the Cab County Police cruisers. Not only
Speaker 1: did the Cab police not want to gather cruisers and
Speaker 1: go into the forest because they have they didn't care,
Speaker 1: they didn't want to do this. So the Atlanta Police, Uh,
Speaker 1: We're screaming into their radio saying, get this person. They're
Speaker 1: walking out of the forest. Get this person they're walking
Speaker 1: out there. It would just be like five or ten
Speaker 1: minutes before the Cab Police like cruisers to just roll
Speaker 1: down the road and like you know, they're like people
Speaker 1: who like ran into the woods and like ran from
Speaker 1: the riche Cat police. Like like, I'm not going in
Speaker 1: this word these words, and I'm also not calling to
Speaker 1: let the Lamp police to let them know that this
Speaker 1: person just ran from me into the woods, because then
Speaker 1: they'll have to actually go in after them. Also, during
Speaker 1: the April stakeholder meeting, Security Chief shear Bomb announced that
Speaker 1: the FBI and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation agreed to
Speaker 1: an assistance request in mid April from Atlanta Police Chief
Speaker 1: Rodney Bryant and will be assigned to the site while
Speaker 1: attempting to work with neighborhood watch groups. He noted that quote,
Speaker 1: we look forward to working with those agencies to ensure
Speaker 1: that this is a safe project that is occurring here
Speaker 1: and addressing any criminal acts that may be occurring on
Speaker 1: site to try to stop the project from proceeding unquote.
Speaker 1: The co chair of the Stakeholder Advisory Committee, Sharon Williams,
Speaker 1: invoked the term echo terrorism as relating to the forced defense,
Speaker 1: marking the first time that word has been used by
Speaker 1: the government officials to refer to this batch of protests.
Speaker 1: She also thanked the cop City planners for quote transparency
Speaker 1: in explaining why they cannot be transparent on the construction timeline.
Speaker 1: Emails between the Atlanta Police Foundation and the City of Atlanta,
Speaker 1: obtained via public records requests do give a possible look
Speaker 1: into the future of the development. In a January two email,
Speaker 1: Police Foundation representative Allen Williams said that we quote plan
Speaker 1: on enabling work possibly in the May and June time frame.
Speaker 1: Our project will last until the last quarter, and our
Speaker 1: contractors are currently working on an overall site logistics and
Speaker 1: safety plan unquote. Although at the time their contractors all
Speaker 1: included Reeves Young so there's no telling how accurate that
Speaker 1: timeline is. Now. Other emails detailed plans for Homeland Security
Speaker 1: to obtain ring camera subscriptions to monitor quote criminal activity
Speaker 1: at the New Academy footprint unquote. In general, when involved
Speaker 1: in any level of protest, no matter of the alleged legality,
Speaker 1: security culture considerations should always be among people's top priorities,
Speaker 1: especially with more eyes being directed to the defend the
Speaker 1: Atlanta Forced Project. Each person should be responsible for themselves,
Speaker 1: and I think that that type of action you're interested
Speaker 1: in taking should severely inform the type of personal security
Speaker 1: precautions that that you're taking. Um. I think that's that's
Speaker 1: been a recurring theme as the movement builds. There are
Speaker 1: folks that come in movement not having heard the term
Speaker 1: security culture or whatever you want to follow, and so
Speaker 1: that be really jarring for folks that are just first
Speaker 1: trying to get involved, But people pick it up surprisingly
Speaker 1: quick once you have built as a community like norms
Speaker 1: and customs around is they say phones on our phones
Speaker 1: off meeting? Are we talking about this on signal? Is
Speaker 1: the call for this action going out on social media?
Speaker 1: Are we just sharing this amongst friends? Where that hadn't
Speaker 1: really been a thing, and where frankly, a lot of
Speaker 1: people face significant repression here in Atlanta during the uprisings
Speaker 1: because of security culture decisions that were made. I think
Speaker 1: that a security culture is being built here that where
Speaker 1: it didn't really exist before, or at least wasn't widespread before.
Speaker 1: He is going to survive long past this movement, I think.
Speaker 1: I think one of the biggest aspects of these things
Speaker 1: is like the social aspects of it, and like like
Speaker 1: the generalizing of the norm of if someone answers you
Speaker 1: vaguely and seems uninterested in to meet and continuing the conversation,
Speaker 1: she's understanding that they have your best interests in heart
Speaker 1: when they don't want you to know, And like, quite frankly,
Speaker 1: you just can't accidentally share information you don't have. And
Speaker 1: so like, you know, when we sit here in these
Speaker 1: woods and people say, you know, like you say, like,
Speaker 1: so you know you're where have you been? Blah blah blah,
Speaker 1: and I'm just like, oh, you know our places or
Speaker 1: something like that. I just don't ask questions. And I
Speaker 1: understand that I don't just not only do I not
Speaker 1: need to know, but I probably don't want to know.
Speaker 1: And like you know, when it comes to like more
Speaker 1: like material technical things, those are important, but like the
Speaker 1: social aspects of security culture are so so much more
Speaker 1: important than the technical aspects. It's like I don't know
Speaker 1: as everybody talks about security culture as like take your
Speaker 1: phone out of the room, but like, you know, if
Speaker 1: you take the phone out of the room and talk
Speaker 1: about doing crazy ship with complete strangers, you don't you
Speaker 1: know and have a reason to trust them, And like
Speaker 1: coming here to Atlanta, like if you want to do
Speaker 1: crazy shit, don't you know if you want to do
Speaker 1: if you're coming to Atlanta, let me rephrase that you're
Speaker 1: If you're coming to Atlanta and you want to do
Speaker 1: crazy ship, like you to think about like how to
Speaker 1: do that in a safe way or in safely possible,
Speaker 1: you know, don't don't come to us and be like, hey,
Speaker 1: I haven't met you before, but like do you want
Speaker 1: to go do some federal felonies? Because no, I don't,
Speaker 1: And I don't want to know that you're doing that either,
Speaker 1: Like we have do you want to do crazy ship?
Speaker 1: That's cool, just like I don't want to know you
Speaker 1: did it, And like if you're like coming here with
Speaker 1: the intention of creating like with the intention of like
Speaker 1: doing ship because it's like cool and fun. If you're
Speaker 1: coming here with the intention of, like, I want to
Speaker 1: gain social capital because I did crazy things, Like maybe
Speaker 1: you rethink that like if you if you want to
Speaker 1: do crazy ship and you do want to come here,
Speaker 1: find your closest friends playing a road trip and don't
Speaker 1: help anyone. In a recent interview, Atlanta Police Foundation President
Speaker 1: and CEO Dave Wilkinson estimates that defend the forest quote
Speaker 1: unquote group members have done hundreds of thousands of dollars
Speaker 1: of damage to utility equipment and has brought up plans
Speaker 1: to add defense around the entirety of the site as
Speaker 1: construction begins, saying, and anyone on the site will be arrested,
Speaker 1: and as we move forward, the enforcement will become stricter
Speaker 1: and stricter unquote. Also stated in an interview is that quote.
Speaker 1: The Police Foundation also hopes to build separate museums on
Speaker 1: site dedicated to police officers and the labor prison that
Speaker 1: was once located there. So that's that's what the kids
Speaker 1: call maskoff moment of building a dedicated museum two cops
Speaker 1: and the labor prison a k A. Slave labor prison. Anyway,
Speaker 1: the first phase of the project had the initial ninety
Speaker 1: million price tag attached, with expair is being forced to
Speaker 1: pay thirty million dollars of that, and it's still unclear
Speaker 1: what the final cost of the facility is slated to be,
Speaker 1: or what the estimated operating costs are, or really how
Speaker 1: many phases of construction they really plan on doing. The
Speaker 1: past few weeks, the site of Cops in the Woods
Speaker 1: has become a more and more common occurrence, whether to
Speaker 1: do scouting or just apparently detonating explosives for funzies at
Speaker 1: their current makeshift shooting range, like they did a few
Speaker 1: days ago. One morning when I was there, I woke
Speaker 1: up to people yelling Cops in the Woods, which by
Speaker 1: the way, is a very effective substitute for caffeine in
Speaker 1: terms of making you very awake and alert quite early
Speaker 1: in the morning. Um. And then while running through the forest,
Speaker 1: I saw a beautiful deer and a hopping rabbit. So
Speaker 1: nice clash of of feelings and sensations there. In terms
Speaker 1: of closing sentiments based on conversations and observations I had
Speaker 1: from my brief time in the woods, it's this play
Speaker 1: to your strengths, don't play by the enemy's rules, utilize
Speaker 1: the intersection of urban city based tactics and resources, while
Speaker 1: taking inspiration from classic forest based eco defense. Attacking from
Speaker 1: the cover of the woods and ensuring that the terrain
Speaker 1: is as unwelcoming as possible to vehicular machinery can help
Speaker 1: by time for rapid response popular mobilization from people living
Speaker 1: in the city, if and when that time comes, I'll
Speaker 1: be careful coming down a key road. They throwing bottles
Speaker 1: at the police, and the bottles at smoke ball, so
Speaker 1: be careful. They in the woods um throwing at the
Speaker 1: police cars and stuff like that, so appreciate it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And despite the defensive nature of defending the forest, there
Speaker 1: still is a large amount of making sure that as
Speaker 1: often as possible you can do the prep work to
Speaker 1: set the terms of engagement so that they're fighting on
Speaker 1: your terms. You're not always complying to theirs, which is
Speaker 1: can be useful for defensive stuff. Obviously, the whole aspect
Speaker 1: of defending a forest like this that you I think
Speaker 1: the offenders can have this almost like spectral quality of
Speaker 1: like cops don't know where people are, what they've built,
Speaker 1: what's in the forest, what's in the woods, and it's
Speaker 1: like spooky, like you like you don't know who's who's
Speaker 1: up in a treehouse, you don't know who's behind what's tree,
Speaker 1: you don't know what things are in the woods, And
Speaker 1: that spectral quality of the forest offense is a really
Speaker 1: interesting aspect of it that you don't see. And you
Speaker 1: don't see that. And then like pipeline protests as much,
Speaker 1: you don't really see that for like Protestant a city, um,
Speaker 1: because the city very much as like a more of
Speaker 1: like a cops terrain, UM. So I really do like
Speaker 1: that aspect of like cops are kind of scared to
Speaker 1: go in the woods because they're spooky. They have open
Speaker 1: They testified like in court testimony that said that when
Speaker 1: this forest defender was arrested, the police officer that gave
Speaker 1: his statement to the judge was shaking, physically shaking because
Speaker 1: he was so afraid from being yelled at, Like that
Speaker 1: was all that had happened, is a bunch of protesters
Speaker 1: were yelling at them and he was shaking. The police
Speaker 1: are really dependent on their infrastructure. They are dependent on
Speaker 1: all of that kid that they carry around. They are
Speaker 1: not mobile. They are meant to be attached to that
Speaker 1: squad car, and every further step they take away from that,
Speaker 1: they are more and more uncomfortable. And when they look
Speaker 1: around they realized they were in the middle of the
Speaker 1: fucking woods. That's terrifying for them and that needs to
Speaker 1: be like taking advantage of. And it is wo'ds that
Speaker 1: like they that their drones and their police helicopters have
Speaker 1: problem even with their thermal tracking of seeing through the
Speaker 1: canopy woods that like, and I want to say, like,
Speaker 1: it was really funny to me that in that it
Speaker 1: was said bad the purposes were screaming, we know where
Speaker 1: you live, we know where you live. We're coming, We're coming,
Speaker 1: which is the whole, the whole post thing um, because
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean in terms of in terms of
Speaker 1: thermal stuff. I brought a thermal camera of mine here,
Speaker 1: and the woods are very hard to see through With
Speaker 1: my thermal camera. I cannot see more than twenty ft away.
Speaker 1: I've I've tested it on people. It's that's the super
Speaker 1: interesting aspect. And yeah, like it's the whole like Fern Gully,
Speaker 1: Princess Princess Mononoke thing of like when people come out
Speaker 1: of the woods wearing ski basks Like that's freaking like
Speaker 1: it's like we are you, Like you can be the
Speaker 1: thing that goes boo in the night like that, Actually
Speaker 1: that is you, um, and that's something that should be
Speaker 1: taken advantage of when there's people invading the forest and
Speaker 1: trying to destroy it. I think this is really for
Speaker 1: a lot of us, like us have been like the
Speaker 1: dark and the night and the woods as this verything.
Speaker 1: This is where I feel the most safe. This is
Speaker 1: if you give me a bunch of camel and like
Speaker 1: send me off into the woods, There's nowhere I'm going
Speaker 1: to feel more safe and more capable both of safety
Speaker 1: and attack. When I'm out here, I feel like I
Speaker 1: can do anything. You give me a bunch of woods,
Speaker 1: a bunch of hills, Like, there's so much we can
Speaker 1: do because we're not in this position of you know,
Speaker 1: entering hostile territory to you know, do things. This is
Speaker 1: territory that we control, and this is territory that we
Speaker 1: are using to fight back. And we're weaponizing not just
Speaker 1: you know, the cops fear, but we're weaponizing the terrain itself.
Speaker 1: Were weaponizing the trees, were weaponized in the hills. We're
Speaker 1: recognizing the ruins, and we're recognizing everything here has like
Speaker 1: literally a thing to use to attack the state. If
Speaker 1: you give me a ridgeline, I can hide from the
Speaker 1: cops better than any fucking you know, high tech thermal
Speaker 1: scattering tilly suit is ever gonna give me. You know,
Speaker 1: out here, you don't need a bunch of fancy ship
Speaker 1: to like engage in conflict with the state. You don't
Speaker 1: need thermal cameras and all that. You can walk into
Speaker 1: a military surplus store and buy, you know, for fifty bucks.
Speaker 1: You can buy everything you need to like do just
Speaker 1: about whatever you want out here. And that's like, that's
Speaker 1: like a really important and beautiful thing. Is It's not
Speaker 1: it's not hard to do what we're doing. You just
Speaker 1: have to break down the mental barriers and do it. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we we do our best to protect the trees, and
Speaker 1: the trees protected us too. And it's it's cool living here.
Speaker 1: And it's like obviously something ever on most people probably
Speaker 1: think about is yet how important wild spaces are. But
Speaker 1: it's cool to really fucking feel it, and it's like like, yeah,
Speaker 1: this this place is super important because of how it
Speaker 1: interacts with the ecosystem and how it filters the water
Speaker 1: and that it's a safe haven for a lot of
Speaker 1: really beautiful animals and plants. But also this place is
Speaker 1: important because wild spaces are sucking uncontrollable, and I want
Speaker 1: to live in an uncontrollable way, and like you need
Speaker 1: those things, and um, it is it's really cool if
Speaker 1: this is a wild space, it's also a forest in
Speaker 1: a city, which is cool. It's fucking weird, Like there's
Speaker 1: there's city people who come here who are fucking weird
Speaker 1: and do weird ship and it's sick. Um and like
Speaker 1: it is an uncontrolled space and like sometimes that means
Speaker 1: that there's like fucking ship chemicals that are like fucking
Speaker 1: plants up. But also sometimes that means there's people who
Speaker 1: like are doing things that are free and doing things
Speaker 1: they couldn't do in the city. And um, and it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter if I like it or not. It makes me, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it makes me happy. They just know that those people
Speaker 1: can act on their desires. Um. And yeah, it's not
Speaker 1: always fucking convenient or good. And sometimes I intend to
Speaker 1: antagonistic relationships with that because it conflicts with my desire.
Speaker 1: But there's no mediation, and there's there's there's no one
Speaker 1: getting in between. And yeah, it's just it's really important.
Speaker 1: And I think like the the slogan that people say
Speaker 1: of not what is there, not one tree, not one
Speaker 1: blade of grass, like is like an inspirational thing, but
Speaker 1: it's also like a strategy, Like it's like a tactical
Speaker 1: assertion that is important for us. Like, yeah, like this
Speaker 1: forest and these wild spaces are essential, not just for
Speaker 1: us to physically stop the police, but like essential to
Speaker 1: be an anarchist. Like if there are not wild spaces,
Speaker 1: spaces that they can't put security cameras up here because
Speaker 1: they there's no electricity and the trees are two dens
Speaker 1: for solar panels and they get smashed anyway, you know,
Speaker 1: Like it's important to have those things. If there's not
Speaker 1: places like that, there's not places where you you know,
Speaker 1: like and and so that for itself is cool. And
Speaker 1: the other thing is just living here with the fucking animals, Like, um,
Speaker 1: it's cool the deer. If you want to find a
Speaker 1: get hiding spot in the forest, pay attention to where
Speaker 1: the fucking deer sleep. They sleep in different places most nights.
Speaker 1: You won't suck them up as long as you don't
Speaker 1: pick the exact same when they're sleeping and they're really
Speaker 1: fucking hard to find. Same thing with the coyotes, Like,
Speaker 1: same thing with the snakes, and like it's just very
Speaker 1: cool to get to observe and live with all these animals. Know,
Speaker 1: there's an owl screaming five o'clock. It's like a nice
Speaker 1: little marker, and that's that's better than you know, looking
Speaker 1: at my watch. That's pretty cool. This leads us up
Speaker 1: to our present day and the upcoming Week of Action
Speaker 1: in Atlanta, Georgia, happening from Sunday, May eight to Sunday
Speaker 1: May If you are anywhere near the Atlanta area, you
Speaker 1: have no reason to not check it out. It's a
Speaker 1: week's worth of events spanning from early in the morning
Speaker 1: too late into the evening every day for seven days.
Speaker 1: You can find the calendar of events on Defend the
Speaker 1: Atlanta Force dot com. And if you are not near Atlanta,
Speaker 1: I would still recommend you make your way there post
Speaker 1: taste if you are able to, whether that's during the
Speaker 1: Week of Action or later on down the line. More
Speaker 1: boots on the ground is almost always a plus. Here's
Speaker 1: the more info on the upcoming Week of Action from
Speaker 1: May eight through May fift so generally the past the
Speaker 1: past few week of actions have been like really above ground,
Speaker 1: really like giving people comfortable forest, getting people into a forest,
Speaker 1: like the community events are like UM and just like
Speaker 1: public gatherings, inform nights, UH skill shares, other stuff like that.
Speaker 1: And I believe that this one, like well, like we
Speaker 1: had a lot about those events. But I also believe that,
Speaker 1: like due to the nature of what's going on UM,
Speaker 1: that it's much more urgent that people UH come and
Speaker 1: create their doing, their own ideas, being known in science,
Speaker 1: their own desires. And yeah, we can imagine it's odd.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be weird, it's gonna be crazy, it's gonna
Speaker 1: be odd of things. I think there's gonna be family
Speaker 1: family where black hacking trees kind of ship, and I'm
Speaker 1: excited for that. And I think there's gonna do something
Speaker 1: like what the fund is going on in the woods
Speaker 1: kind of shares a bunch of cops kind of ship.
Speaker 1: Obviously we don't know what's really going to happen, but
Speaker 1: anyone that has been reading stuff like, oh man, don't
Speaker 1: want to go throw down with the crazies, you should
Speaker 1: come and do that. And we have some stuff to
Speaker 1: share and hopefully there will be so many people here
Speaker 1: that don't know how to deal with it. The problem
Speaker 1: going here is the Atlanta Police Force. Um, they there
Speaker 1: is a lot of them, but honestly they're also they're
Speaker 1: stressed out and they are run um what's that run dry? Respect?
Speaker 1: Then they really they don't know how to deal with
Speaker 1: all this wood ship from ship that we've heard them
Speaker 1: talking about. They don't know what to do. They're not
Speaker 1: totally prepared. I think it's gonna be a really fun
Speaker 1: and crazy ship show and we want you all to
Speaker 1: come to our ship show in a good way. And
Speaker 1: they know you shouldn't use those words, but in reality,
Speaker 1: nobody actually knows what's going to happen. We know what
Speaker 1: we're gonna do. We have plans that people can plug into,
Speaker 1: some stuff you can bring your kids to, and some
Speaker 1: stuff you should not bring your kids to, and there
Speaker 1: will be more. To be honest with, you really got
Speaker 1: to just be there in person because there's something You
Speaker 1: can't put everything on Instagram by doing your best to
Speaker 1: like communicate to folks what's going on, there's just some
Speaker 1: things you gotta cam two whatever the weekend action. But
Speaker 1: this is like we're helping people get returned out for
Speaker 1: this weekend. Actually, and maybe we all just become a
Speaker 1: roving nomadic war machine together. That would be the dream.
Speaker 1: So you have a thing in your hometown, in your territory,
Speaker 1: and we nomadic war machine over years back, and we
Speaker 1: just keep doing that. A few resources that some of
Speaker 1: the force defenders wanted people to know about is first, obviously,
Speaker 1: Defend the Atlanta Forest dot com, which has the Week
Speaker 1: of Action calendar to keep up on news regarding the movement.
Speaker 1: You can follow them on Twitter and Instagram at Defend
Speaker 1: the Atlanta Forest or Defend a t L Forest. There
Speaker 1: is the Forest Justice Defense Fund at Open Collective dot
Speaker 1: com slash Forest Hyphen Justice Hyphened Defense hyphen Fund, where
Speaker 1: people can donate to support the work of the broad
Speaker 1: Coalition dedicated to saving the forest. There's of course stop
Speaker 1: Reeves Young dot com, which has information on subcontractors and
Speaker 1: third party service providers relating to the cops city construction.
Speaker 1: Very useful even just for simple calling campaigns. The website
Speaker 1: scenes dot no blogs dot org hosts other news relating
Speaker 1: to the movement, anonymous community case and stuff like maps
Speaker 1: of the area and random other useful information resources for
Speaker 1: info and guides relating to direct action. There's a website
Speaker 1: titled warrior up dot no blogs dot org and people
Speaker 1: can go there or to a warrior up dot no
Speaker 1: blogs dot org slash guides for various interesting information. I'll say, um,
Speaker 1: and that last one is really best viewed on tour
Speaker 1: with via the tour browser just as a heads up.
Speaker 1: Also probably with like a VPN. And I don't know anyway,
Speaker 1: be be careful with that last one. But all of these,
Speaker 1: all of these sites will be linked in the show notes.
Speaker 1: The future lies in your hands. You have more freedom
Speaker 1: than you know if you can find the unconventional ways
Speaker 1: of expressing it. See you on the other side. And
Speaker 1: I'll end with a word from our forced defender friend,
Speaker 1: there's no future. That's nomadic war machine as well. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: hopefully we're gonna stop the police training facility. I think
Speaker 1: we really are looking forward to people, hopefully some people
Speaker 1: sticking around there for the week of action, because we're
Speaker 1: hoping that it doesn't die down too much to the
Speaker 1: point where a smaller and achieve them that was here
Speaker 1: for a week of action gets attacked. We love it,
Speaker 1: and some of valid stay stay around exactly that if
Speaker 1: it can happen here, I wasn't thinking abouts, it can
Speaker 1: happen where you live. And maybe we can just keep
Speaker 1: the idea. As we're sharing of skills we make ourselves.
Speaker 1: Absolutely no one should be integral enough to the movement
Speaker 1: that you can't die off a leave and it can't continue.
Speaker 1: People should be reading manuals, sharing skills, telling stories, howling
Speaker 1: at the moons. We're doing all this stuff to make
Speaker 1: each other just a weird of the different things that
Speaker 1: are possible for us to run because maybe we don't
Speaker 1: have all the you know, the guns and the steel
Speaker 1: and the gold, but if we have enough people like
Speaker 1: being creative and doing some guerrilla ship, we can get
Speaker 1: a lot done. And at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: if you you can do you have to be careful
Speaker 1: about how many hats to ring. If you don't know
Speaker 1: about the r n C eight that's a long time ago.
Speaker 1: Now look that up. They're wearing. They are really great
Speaker 1: community organizers, but they were wearing too many hats. It
Speaker 1: was the first time that Patriot Act kind of new
Speaker 1: laws after not eleven was like you lized on people
Speaker 1: and a lot of it didn't stick. But if you
Speaker 1: what we really need is more faceless saboteurs, because honestly,
Speaker 1: if they that's what we need, we need to be
Speaker 1: There's just in reality, there's not enough people willing to
Speaker 1: do nightwhere that looks like there's up behavior, which is great,
Speaker 1: be safe, be smart at the actors a little, and
Speaker 1: that's that's what we need, more than saying there's a
Speaker 1: lot of people that um are willing to do above
Speaker 1: ground staff. There's a lot of people that want to
Speaker 1: be known, and that's great, but we have enough for that.
Speaker 1: We need something else. It Could Happen Here is a
Speaker 1: production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool
Speaker 1: Zone Media, visit our website cool zone media dot com
Speaker 1: or check us out on the I Heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can
Speaker 1: find sources for It Could Happen Here, updated monthly at
Speaker 1: cool zone Media dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening. Hey,
Speaker 1: We'll be back Monday with more episodes every week from
Speaker 1: now until the heat Death of the Universe.