WEBVTT - It Could Happen Here Weekly 129 0:00:01.760 --> 0:00:03.200 A zone media. 0:00:03.400 --> 0:00:05.800 Hey everybody, Robert Evans here and I wanted to let 0:00:05.880 --> 0:00:09.480 you know this is a compilation episode. So every episode 0:00:09.640 --> 0:00:12.559 of the week that just happened is here in one 0:00:12.640 --> 0:00:16.400 convenient and with somewhat less ads package for you to 0:00:16.440 --> 0:00:18.920 listen to in a long stretch if you want. If 0:00:18.920 --> 0:00:20.840 you've been listening to the episodes every day this week, 0:00:20.880 --> 0:00:22.639 there's going to be nothing new here for you, but 0:00:23.000 --> 0:00:24.600 you can make your own decisions. 0:00:26.200 --> 0:00:28.640 Today, Shreen and I are talking to our friends at 0:00:28.680 --> 0:00:33.040 PK Gaza our Meednabdullah. You might remember them from an 0:00:33.040 --> 0:00:35.760 episode we did last October, and I've interviewed them before 0:00:35.760 --> 0:00:39.120 for Men's Health magazine in the UK. PK Gazer is 0:00:39.159 --> 0:00:41.760 a group that teaches parkour and free running to young 0:00:41.800 --> 0:00:44.600 people in the Gaza strip. They've been doing this for 0:00:44.640 --> 0:00:46.559 a long time and have some great videos you can 0:00:46.600 --> 0:00:50.199 find all over social media and YouTube. Both our D 0:00:50.280 --> 0:00:53.560 n Abdullah have the opportunity to leave Gaza. Our Ed 0:00:53.600 --> 0:00:57.080 now lives in Sweden. Abdullah lives in Italy. We spoke 0:00:57.120 --> 0:00:58.960 a couple of weeks ago, but very little has changed 0:00:58.960 --> 0:01:01.360 since then, and I just wanted to note that Abdalla's 0:01:01.360 --> 0:01:03.800 audio is a little bit rough, but we thought what 0:01:03.880 --> 0:01:06.000 he had to say was really important, so we hope 0:01:06.000 --> 0:01:07.440 that you'll take the time to listen to it. 0:01:08.160 --> 0:01:10.720 My name is Ahmed Matar. I am at twenty eight 0:01:10.800 --> 0:01:15.640 years old at the moment. I'm Palestinian from Gaza. Currently. 0:01:15.760 --> 0:01:19.880 I live in Sweden since eight years ago. And yeah, 0:01:20.000 --> 0:01:24.240 I live in Sweden. I worked with Parkour and I 0:01:24.319 --> 0:01:27.839 left from Parkour and that's what I do here. And 0:01:28.160 --> 0:01:32.240 the last summer was my first time visiting Gaza since 0:01:32.840 --> 0:01:39.640 eight years and yeah, but I'm back in Sweden. I 0:01:39.760 --> 0:01:43.319 was back in Sweden one month before the war started again. 0:01:44.120 --> 0:01:49.480 And yeah, a lot of a lot of things to say, 0:01:50.000 --> 0:01:55.080 a lot of things to express, and but yeah, that's me, 0:01:55.320 --> 0:01:59.960 Ahmed Matar, twenty years old from Gaza. 0:02:00.080 --> 0:02:02.920 I've a nice to meet you all. I'm a Puga 0:02:02.920 --> 0:02:07.680 stop and I'm twenty seven years old. I'm also Palestinian. 0:02:07.800 --> 0:02:10.639 I'm proud of that. I think the city originally and 0:02:10.919 --> 0:02:15.040 you live in Italy right now. For the most three years. 0:02:14.919 --> 0:02:17.120 We wanted to talk to them about how it feels 0:02:17.160 --> 0:02:19.840 to be outside of Gaza and wake up every day 0:02:20.200 --> 0:02:22.480 wondering if a bomb has killed your family or if 0:02:22.520 --> 0:02:24.720 your family is getting enough to eat? 0:02:25.560 --> 0:02:29.320 How have you been coping with, like dealing with It's 0:02:29.360 --> 0:02:31.440 bad enough for those of us who don't have family, 0:02:31.440 --> 0:02:33.560 watching the horrible things that happen every day, and like 0:02:33.639 --> 0:02:36.000 every morning you look on your phone and it's something worse. 0:02:36.639 --> 0:02:38.760 How has it been for you, guys? Just to give 0:02:38.760 --> 0:02:40.680 people an insight into how you're coping. 0:02:41.800 --> 0:02:46.360 From my side, I can say, yeah, life is a 0:02:46.400 --> 0:02:51.480 stop since the day that the war started. Six months 0:02:51.639 --> 0:02:56.080 since this war, and every day just watching the news. 0:02:56.639 --> 0:02:59.040 I go to work and then I come back while 0:02:59.240 --> 0:03:01.919 while I'm at war, I'm just watching the news. I'm 0:03:02.000 --> 0:03:08.120 lessening to the news, and that was my life since 0:03:09.080 --> 0:03:13.720 six months at the moment, and I don't feel to 0:03:13.760 --> 0:03:16.560 do anything else. I cannot feel like to train, and 0:03:16.600 --> 0:03:20.840 I cannot feel like to enjoy or to forget what's 0:03:20.880 --> 0:03:23.960 going on there because it's my family there, my friends, 0:03:24.600 --> 0:03:27.560 my people. If I feel like I want to forget 0:03:27.639 --> 0:03:33.639 about it, it feel like I'm I'm like betraying my people, 0:03:33.800 --> 0:03:38.680 my family. So I prefer to just watch the news, 0:03:39.960 --> 0:03:44.760 feel the same as them, and just do my best 0:03:44.880 --> 0:03:49.000 to help them with what I can. But it's actually 0:03:49.040 --> 0:03:55.960 like I just feel helpless at the moment that I 0:03:56.000 --> 0:03:58.840 cannot do anything to them in that situation like this, 0:03:59.840 --> 0:04:00.360 the moment. 0:04:01.160 --> 0:04:03.840 Oh Dulla said that when he chose to leave Gaza, 0:04:04.080 --> 0:04:06.320 it was one of the most difficult moments of his 0:04:06.480 --> 0:04:09.800 entire life. He knew that if he stayed, there wasn't 0:04:09.880 --> 0:04:11.839 much hope for his future, and he'd have to give 0:04:11.920 --> 0:04:14.360 up on so many of his dreams that would be 0:04:14.400 --> 0:04:17.600 achievable if he hadn't been born in an open air prison. 0:04:18.560 --> 0:04:21.200 Now that he's left, he can pursue his dreams in Italy, 0:04:21.760 --> 0:04:24.200 but he struggles to express how difficult he has been 0:04:24.240 --> 0:04:28.159 finding being so isolated and distant from his friends and family. 0:04:29.000 --> 0:04:30.960 I mean, one of the most important things in all 0:04:31.000 --> 0:04:33.400 life is it's not really the most important in his family 0:04:33.839 --> 0:04:37.520 since I really lived Italy. It was not really easy 0:04:37.520 --> 0:04:39.400 for me because he knew that I would be alone 0:04:39.440 --> 0:04:41.359 and I would be away from my family. But I 0:04:41.400 --> 0:04:44.760 took that decision because they knew that somehow I had to, 0:04:45.000 --> 0:04:49.760 let's say, somehow to sacrifice, and because you know, I 0:04:49.880 --> 0:04:53.480 was focusing somehow on my future, my goals, which was 0:04:53.520 --> 0:04:57.160 not really almost impossible. It's impossible to do it where 0:04:57.240 --> 0:04:58.320 I was, which is going to. 0:04:58.360 --> 0:05:02.320 See it was the hardest decision of made ever in 0:05:02.360 --> 0:05:06.559 my life, that even before anything really started, I'm going 0:05:06.600 --> 0:05:10.320 to explain how I feel since months back. 0:05:10.839 --> 0:05:14.240 I'm sure that everybody knows right now if he's going 0:05:14.320 --> 0:05:17.240 to put himself in my place, that he wouldn't have 0:05:17.760 --> 0:05:21.599 the right words to express his feelings. And I'm sure 0:05:21.680 --> 0:05:24.560 and I'm someone right now who doesn't really have the 0:05:24.680 --> 0:05:26.760 right words to suppress it them to tell you what 0:05:26.880 --> 0:05:30.359 I feel and how I feel, because it's it's not 0:05:30.520 --> 0:05:34.640 something that's easy for anyone to experience in his life. 0:05:35.520 --> 0:05:36.800 So that's how I feel. 0:05:37.600 --> 0:05:39.560 We wanted to ask him how they were able to 0:05:39.640 --> 0:05:43.240 keep in touch with their families. I remember I was 0:05:43.279 --> 0:05:47.080 talking to Upmed in October and like we were talking 0:05:47.080 --> 0:05:49.120 about how hard it was just to find out if 0:05:49.120 --> 0:05:51.520 your families were okay every day, right, like just to 0:05:51.560 --> 0:05:54.600 contact them and check is that still the case? Like 0:05:54.760 --> 0:05:57.400 how has it been just trying to contact your families 0:05:57.839 --> 0:05:59.120 over the last six months? 0:05:59.680 --> 0:06:01.839 It is actually still the same that they have to 0:06:02.760 --> 0:06:05.440 try calling and calling and calling the whole day until 0:06:05.520 --> 0:06:10.560 they catch up, like the connection is cut off or 0:06:10.600 --> 0:06:15.400 it's almost like impossible to get connected with them. So 0:06:15.480 --> 0:06:18.560 I have to try the whole day until like I 0:06:18.720 --> 0:06:22.240 get someone answering me because it's like I guess it's 0:06:22.279 --> 0:06:24.479 because it's a small place where they are, like in 0:06:24.600 --> 0:06:27.480 Rapa and there's more than one and a half million 0:06:27.960 --> 0:06:34.080 people and everyone is trying to call to Gaza and 0:06:34.560 --> 0:06:37.480 to check with everybody in there, so it's make it 0:06:38.000 --> 0:06:42.839 hard to get connected easily with them. So I try 0:06:42.920 --> 0:06:48.200 like every day. For sure, I in the end, it's 0:06:48.320 --> 0:06:51.720 better than before. At the moment when they were in Canyonits, 0:06:51.839 --> 0:06:56.080 it was like that I had to ask my friends 0:06:56.360 --> 0:06:58.839 who levey close to my area and then they tell 0:06:58.880 --> 0:07:02.760 me if my family are or not. And sometimes I 0:07:02.760 --> 0:07:06.080 I'm having no information about them for a whole week 0:07:06.200 --> 0:07:10.920 and just worry to if everything is okay with them. 0:07:11.240 --> 0:07:14.720 At the moment, I just wish for the best. That's 0:07:14.760 --> 0:07:18.520 what I am at home, wishing everything is okay with them, 0:07:18.560 --> 0:07:24.640 but without knowing if it's them or another family who 0:07:24.640 --> 0:07:28.840 got boned, because the TV is not showing a name 0:07:29.240 --> 0:07:32.480 or a family anymore, because it's you know, you're talking 0:07:32.520 --> 0:07:37.240 about more than thirty five thousand people getting killed, and 0:07:37.720 --> 0:07:42.040 to mention the names of every person getting killed, it's 0:07:42.080 --> 0:07:45.480 something impossible in the media. I guess I. 0:07:45.440 --> 0:07:49.640 Just want to mention, how does it feel for anyone 0:07:49.720 --> 0:07:52.360 who's really listening right now? How does it feel if 0:07:52.360 --> 0:07:55.239 you know that you know someone who's really the most 0:07:55.280 --> 0:07:58.360 important in your life, and you know the team in 0:07:58.600 --> 0:08:02.720 danger somehow, and you're trying to call one day to 0:08:02.960 --> 0:08:06.520 day through three days or even four weeks. Sometimes sometimes 0:08:06.520 --> 0:08:09.000 they even it happened two weeks and a few weeks, 0:08:09.200 --> 0:08:12.640 and you know that people they are dying every day, 0:08:12.680 --> 0:08:17.560 and it might be someone from your family that you know, 0:08:18.600 --> 0:08:22.920 like something you know happen and you cannot reach them 0:08:23.440 --> 0:08:26.400 because of the signal, because of the collection of good 0:08:26.800 --> 0:08:30.360 whatever it is, How would you feel A. 0:08:30.480 --> 0:08:33.000 Had said he hadn't actually seen his family for nearly 0:08:33.040 --> 0:08:35.360 a month because they hadn't had good enough signal for 0:08:35.400 --> 0:08:39.120 a call. Abdullah, on the other hand, hasn't even seen 0:08:39.160 --> 0:08:41.520 a picture of his family's its bombs begin to fall 0:08:41.559 --> 0:08:43.400 on the place where he grew up six months ago, 0:08:44.320 --> 0:08:44.920 like I have not. 0:08:45.040 --> 0:08:47.840 Seen my family like face to face on a camera 0:08:48.080 --> 0:08:53.000 or for more than three weeks at the moment the 0:08:53.040 --> 0:08:55.280 moment I saw them, And they have to go somewhere 0:08:55.280 --> 0:09:01.120 really high building too, so they can have internet. If 0:09:01.200 --> 0:09:04.240 they get this internet, and in the same time it's 0:09:04.360 --> 0:09:06.880 very dangerous for them to go on a high buildings. 0:09:08.480 --> 0:09:12.520 So yeah, you know, sometimes when my father sent me 0:09:12.559 --> 0:09:16.800 a picture of him on messenger more than a month ago, 0:09:17.280 --> 0:09:19.640 and then I was like just choked, how to see 0:09:20.600 --> 0:09:25.839 his white hair, like oh, gray hair everywhere, and he 0:09:26.080 --> 0:09:29.760 just changed in these six months totally, like I would 0:09:29.840 --> 0:09:34.840 not recognize the same person like he was before the war, 0:09:34.880 --> 0:09:38.760 because I was there seven months ago in Gaza and 0:09:38.840 --> 0:09:44.040 he was totally young, like you know, he's just fifty 0:09:44.120 --> 0:09:48.000 years but it's not that he had gray hair everywhere 0:09:48.040 --> 0:09:50.360 like how I saw in his picture. And then I 0:09:50.400 --> 0:09:56.000 see how suffering they are facing, how tough life they 0:09:56.000 --> 0:10:00.400 are having at the moment, just through his face, his yeah, 0:10:00.440 --> 0:10:03.400 his picture that he sent to me, which is really 0:10:03.640 --> 0:10:08.800 just for sure heir to see that, how how they 0:10:08.800 --> 0:10:15.840 are growing too fast because of this genocide we only come. 0:10:17.160 --> 0:10:21.480 I just want to add that I'm happy that you 0:10:21.600 --> 0:10:25.240 Ahmed to be the chance to to see your father. 0:10:26.080 --> 0:10:29.840 I still for the last six months I didn't see 0:10:30.000 --> 0:10:34.000 a picture or didn't want to pull my father. 0:10:35.040 --> 0:10:41.880 Just understand, I they really risk their life to go 0:10:42.000 --> 0:10:46.400 and talk to me. And then I always I also 0:10:46.679 --> 0:10:49.520 tell them to not do that. When I when I 0:10:49.600 --> 0:10:54.760 see them going to that building or where they go 0:10:55.000 --> 0:10:59.120 to get the internet, I was just telling them go home, 0:11:00.240 --> 0:11:03.480 be at a safer area. But still like they tell 0:11:03.559 --> 0:11:06.600 me there's no safe area. There is no safe area, 0:11:06.679 --> 0:11:09.160 and there is. It's the same anywhere, but then it's 0:11:09.160 --> 0:11:14.320 still like, yeah, it's a It gives more fear that 0:11:14.440 --> 0:11:17.720 when you are on a high building, any high building 0:11:17.840 --> 0:11:38.760 getting targeted in Gaza. 0:11:39.720 --> 0:11:42.720 I have been having an extremely hard time looking at 0:11:42.760 --> 0:11:46.240 what's happening through my phone, witnessing the suffering of people 0:11:46.280 --> 0:11:49.360 who might as well be my family. They all look 0:11:49.480 --> 0:11:53.000 and sound like my cousins, my aunts, my uncles, my parents, 0:11:53.240 --> 0:11:57.280 my siblings. I can't even imagine experiencing this if it 0:11:57.360 --> 0:12:00.840 was my actual family. I genuinely don't know how I 0:12:00.880 --> 0:12:04.000 could cope with not being able to reach them for months, 0:12:04.400 --> 0:12:07.320 or not even knowing if they're okay. I wanted to 0:12:07.360 --> 0:12:10.080 know if Ahmad Dinner Bellah have found ways to cope, 0:12:10.280 --> 0:12:13.160 or at least ways to get through each day. Do 0:12:13.240 --> 0:12:15.400 you guys have a community that you can reach out to. 0:12:15.440 --> 0:12:17.280 Do you guys talk to each other a lot? How 0:12:18.000 --> 0:12:21.040 How do you guys stay sane, like, how do you 0:12:21.160 --> 0:12:24.000 not lose your mind? Just as everyone else goes about 0:12:24.000 --> 0:12:24.439 their life. 0:12:25.080 --> 0:12:27.960 We talk to each other, mean abdollah, almost every day 0:12:28.000 --> 0:12:31.160 in the evening, we spend like more than four hours 0:12:31.200 --> 0:12:35.439 at least in a call. And besides that, yeah, while 0:12:35.440 --> 0:12:38.480 we are sitting calling each other, we are watching the news, 0:12:38.559 --> 0:12:43.640 and yeah, we have to be informed about everything is happening. 0:12:43.760 --> 0:12:46.959 That's how it make us feel better at least to 0:12:47.600 --> 0:12:51.480 know what's going on and to follow the news. Thing 0:12:51.559 --> 0:12:55.000 else can help it. I think I would not feel 0:12:55.000 --> 0:12:58.600 happy to go and enjoy while my family is not enjoying. 0:12:58.840 --> 0:13:02.480 And yeah, I don't feel good about it. It's not 0:13:02.600 --> 0:13:11.680 that I I should enjoy, it's I feel like I'm 0:13:11.679 --> 0:13:14.920 not gonna enjoy until my family is safe. Until my 0:13:15.000 --> 0:13:20.720 family is enjoying, and this is gonna take years, I guess. 0:13:21.880 --> 0:13:22.080 You know. 0:13:22.160 --> 0:13:28.960 The aroma troma is that affected them from this genocide 0:13:29.080 --> 0:13:33.840 is gonna take a while to hear to recover. They 0:13:33.920 --> 0:13:38.680 will take long time to recover from this. And I 0:13:38.679 --> 0:13:40.679 don't know if I am affected by it or not. 0:13:40.760 --> 0:13:43.160 But you know, my life, as I told you, has 0:13:43.240 --> 0:13:47.400 been just watching news for six months and nothing else. 0:13:47.520 --> 0:13:49.959 I don't know how is that affecting me in the 0:13:50.040 --> 0:13:56.920 long run, like after the war ends. But for me, 0:13:57.080 --> 0:14:00.840 Parker has always been a way to to recover, and 0:14:01.000 --> 0:14:03.000 I'm sure Parker will help me later. 0:14:03.720 --> 0:14:07.920 I'm always trying to say to talk to myself because 0:14:07.960 --> 0:14:11.480 I guess it's really important. Everybody has to talk to himself, 0:14:11.640 --> 0:14:15.520 because it's the most important thing that Yeah, I'm your 0:14:15.559 --> 0:14:19.000 positive people's believe I'm not to lose your mind, tries 0:14:19.120 --> 0:14:23.120 just to be normal because of the end anyway, you 0:14:23.160 --> 0:14:25.000 don't have anything that you can do in your hand. 0:14:25.120 --> 0:14:25.320 You know. 0:14:26.960 --> 0:14:29.960 That you cannot change something like I already have fen 0:14:30.040 --> 0:14:33.080 of mind. I really told that I'm really proud of 0:14:33.200 --> 0:14:39.560 myself that at least I'm trying to stay normal. I'm 0:14:39.680 --> 0:14:44.760 trying to keep myself and act as a normal person. 0:14:45.720 --> 0:14:48.880 But the main question is I don't know will I 0:14:48.920 --> 0:14:53.120 would be able to. I'm afraid that once it's going 0:14:53.200 --> 0:14:55.080 to happen, that I'm going to lose everything and I'm 0:14:55.080 --> 0:14:57.680 going to destroy everything. And of course, you know, sometimes 0:14:57.720 --> 0:15:02.400 I'm trying to do out. I'm not trying to be alone, 0:15:02.720 --> 0:15:06.560 just trying to keep my mind and my life a 0:15:06.640 --> 0:15:08.600 little bit more busy as much seek. 0:15:09.280 --> 0:15:11.880 I've known Abdullah and I've made and several other members 0:15:11.920 --> 0:15:15.080 of PK Gaza since twenty twenty. I worked on a 0:15:15.120 --> 0:15:17.680 story about him in twenty twenty one, which was about 0:15:17.680 --> 0:15:20.280 the last time I could sell stories on gadz because 0:15:20.280 --> 0:15:22.360 for the most part, you only get to write about 0:15:22.360 --> 0:15:25.680 people in Gaza when they're dying. I asked them about 0:15:25.680 --> 0:15:27.240 the well being of some of the other members of 0:15:27.280 --> 0:15:27.640 the team. 0:15:28.640 --> 0:15:32.960 Side, Yeah, he's in our thoughts all the time and 0:15:34.360 --> 0:15:37.080 we will never forget. And for sure for Side was 0:15:37.280 --> 0:15:40.720 like the last person I saw in Gaza when I 0:15:40.800 --> 0:15:41.640 left Gaza, and. 0:15:44.840 --> 0:15:45.640 He was with me. 0:15:47.760 --> 0:15:50.840 Helping me with everything, like so I can live from 0:15:50.920 --> 0:15:54.760 Gaza to Egypt. So he was helping me with all 0:15:54.880 --> 0:15:57.720 the process I need in the crossing area because it's 0:15:58.640 --> 0:16:01.880 very busy and you need to know people in the 0:16:01.960 --> 0:16:06.120 crossing area so they can fix you and help you 0:16:06.320 --> 0:16:10.280 and carry my stuff with me. And I no say it. 0:16:10.520 --> 0:16:14.840 Since I was born, I can say Said's father and 0:16:14.960 --> 0:16:21.520 my father are very close friends. And since I grew up, 0:16:21.880 --> 0:16:26.200 like since I started to be aware on this life. 0:16:26.760 --> 0:16:31.520 I met Said and we were friends, neighbors. We were 0:16:32.440 --> 0:16:37.360 always playing together, and then we decided to go for 0:16:37.520 --> 0:16:40.600 a kung fu club and we started to train kung 0:16:40.680 --> 0:16:44.400 fu and martial arts together. And at the age of 0:16:44.520 --> 0:16:51.080 nine years me and Said also met Abdullah and met 0:16:51.280 --> 0:16:54.840 the other guys who does also martial arts, so we 0:16:55.040 --> 0:16:59.120 started to do martial arts together. And then we met 0:16:59.160 --> 0:17:02.720 a Barker guy Mohammed Jakhbir and Abdo lan Chassi, which 0:17:03.160 --> 0:17:08.560 made us turn into Barkour after and everything I was 0:17:08.600 --> 0:17:12.680 doing in like in my sports life and outside of 0:17:12.760 --> 0:17:16.399 my sports life, I was always meeting Side as a friend, 0:17:16.640 --> 0:17:20.000 as a brother and we were at each other's houses 0:17:20.320 --> 0:17:27.879 and eating together. And yeah, Side was really meaning a 0:17:27.920 --> 0:17:31.960 lot to me because I have always known him as 0:17:32.040 --> 0:17:34.879 the good guy who help everyone who need help. 0:17:34.800 --> 0:17:35.359 And the. 0:17:36.920 --> 0:17:41.680 Lately say it was like the manager of the Barker 0:17:41.760 --> 0:17:44.560 Academy that we created there and he was taking care 0:17:44.640 --> 0:17:49.680 and teaching kids for free and volunteering and putting from 0:17:49.720 --> 0:17:53.320 his time so more kids can go there and learn 0:17:53.480 --> 0:17:56.639 Barkour and my brother was one of them and he 0:17:56.840 --> 0:18:01.320 was helping him. And during this war, Side was the 0:18:01.480 --> 0:18:06.040 only one that informs me about my family in about 0:18:06.080 --> 0:18:08.040 how they are because he was the only one. He 0:18:08.240 --> 0:18:12.800 was connected to the internet at that time. So I 0:18:13.000 --> 0:18:17.199 was going through him about my family, and we were 0:18:17.280 --> 0:18:18.960 talking every day during. 0:18:18.800 --> 0:18:19.480 This war, and. 0:18:21.359 --> 0:18:27.600 Suddenly I just saw new it is about. That he 0:18:27.760 --> 0:18:33.000 got killed together with his brothers while trying to rescue 0:18:33.240 --> 0:18:37.520 some people from under the rabbit and then another rocket 0:18:38.320 --> 0:18:43.320 upon them and killed them all. I could not understand 0:18:43.400 --> 0:18:48.120 it and still cannot believe that Side is gone. It's 0:18:48.240 --> 0:18:51.320 something that I would not believe that they go to 0:18:51.440 --> 0:18:53.600 gas and say it is not there. I cannot imagine 0:18:53.640 --> 0:18:56.000 how it feels to his father, to his mother, and 0:18:56.760 --> 0:19:00.240 that they lost the three of their sons at once. Yeah. 0:19:02.960 --> 0:19:03.359 Yeah, but. 0:19:04.840 --> 0:19:07.879 Side will always be in our memory, in our heart 0:19:08.000 --> 0:19:10.800 that we will never forget Palestinias. 0:19:10.800 --> 0:19:13.399 They are really different than anybody else. When the bonds 0:19:13.440 --> 0:19:16.880 really happening, everybody just trying to scale. Everybody's just trying 0:19:16.920 --> 0:19:20.679 to run away. What Side and his brothers did. They 0:19:20.840 --> 0:19:24.640 just went after that building was bombed. They just went 0:19:25.119 --> 0:19:29.000 to help others, to take others from Aldo Drepol, you know, 0:19:29.160 --> 0:19:32.119 to help them to see if they are injuries. If 0:19:32.160 --> 0:19:34.720 they are you know, they can't help others. And that 0:19:35.080 --> 0:19:38.200 was their fault that they were trying just to help 0:19:38.280 --> 0:19:42.600 others and then they could pomp three of them. That's 0:19:42.760 --> 0:19:46.840 that's what happened with them, and that's what most of 0:19:46.880 --> 0:19:53.000 the plastina durns. But they were really prayed, and yeah, 0:19:53.359 --> 0:19:58.760 it's it's it's such a ross that nobody can can imagine. 0:19:58.760 --> 0:20:01.960 It's hard enough for you a friend, so suddenly it's 0:20:02.000 --> 0:20:04.000 even harder when you have been able to see them 0:20:04.040 --> 0:20:07.440 for months and never got to say goodbye. We asked 0:20:07.480 --> 0:20:09.280 about the last time they spoke to their friend, and 0:20:09.520 --> 0:20:11.320 we asked him to share some of their memories of him. 0:20:12.040 --> 0:20:16.240 So he was aside, was telling me, listen to this sound, 0:20:17.760 --> 0:20:20.440 and then while listening, I was just hearing shooting. And 0:20:20.520 --> 0:20:23.080 then he was telling me, this is a quad Captor. 0:20:24.000 --> 0:20:27.200 The quad chapter is like a drone that is developed 0:20:27.320 --> 0:20:29.480 to shoot at the same time so it can film 0:20:29.560 --> 0:20:32.240 and see everything moving and shooting it at the same time, 0:20:32.800 --> 0:20:36.920 so it can kill people which is moving. And he 0:20:37.080 --> 0:20:40.080 tells me that everything is moving in this area, everything 0:20:40.240 --> 0:20:44.080 is moving around us, is getting shot. And he was 0:20:44.160 --> 0:20:48.680 at his home and together with his family, and I 0:20:48.840 --> 0:20:53.040 was telling him, just saying, leave the area. Go somewhere 0:20:53.240 --> 0:20:57.760 that is better, safer or something that you don't have 0:20:58.040 --> 0:21:02.600 to hear this sound. You maybe can get killed inside 0:21:02.640 --> 0:21:04.960 your home because you know this squad captures is a 0:21:05.080 --> 0:21:09.119 drone that can go inside windows, anything that it can 0:21:09.240 --> 0:21:14.600 go from the roof and enter your home. Yeah, that's 0:21:15.800 --> 0:21:18.240 what he told me. What he told me was like, yeah, 0:21:18.359 --> 0:21:22.040 but if I live home, I will get killed. And 0:21:22.280 --> 0:21:26.320 if I if I leave another place, I will also 0:21:26.400 --> 0:21:29.120 get killed because it's not safe anywhere. It's the same. 0:21:29.359 --> 0:21:33.560 So if I die at our home or outside our home, 0:21:33.640 --> 0:21:38.240 it's the same. And in the end, I go to 0:21:38.320 --> 0:21:40.880 the heaven. It's directly it's better for me. And that's 0:21:40.960 --> 0:21:44.600 what he was saying, and that's what he received. He 0:21:44.760 --> 0:21:50.479 wanted the heaven, I guess. And but we we wanted 0:21:50.560 --> 0:21:52.919 him back in our life. We did not want him 0:21:53.000 --> 0:21:59.800 to go. But yeah, that's life. Take the good people 0:21:59.840 --> 0:22:00.919 for us always. 0:22:02.480 --> 0:22:04.280 That's the end of part one, but we'll be back tomorrow. 0:22:04.320 --> 0:22:06.359 It was the second part of our interview with Avemed 0:22:06.440 --> 0:22:08.120 and Abdullah Gaza Pakur. 0:22:18.000 --> 0:22:22.040 Since October seventh, Israel has killed tens of thousands of 0:22:22.119 --> 0:22:26.359 Palestinian civilians, many of them children. All over the world, 0:22:26.520 --> 0:22:28.679 people have taken to the streets to call for an 0:22:28.840 --> 0:22:31.560 end to the killing, to show solidarity with the people 0:22:31.600 --> 0:22:35.960 of Palestine amidst their genocide. This is an unprecedented act 0:22:36.000 --> 0:22:38.879 of solidarity, but it's also been a long time coming, 0:22:39.320 --> 0:22:41.560 and we wanted to know how it made Ahmed and 0:22:41.680 --> 0:22:42.480 Abdullah feel. 0:22:43.480 --> 0:22:46.080 I walk in the straights here in Sweden and they 0:22:46.119 --> 0:22:49.160 see the people wearing the koffe Yah, the Palestinian Kofeya, 0:22:50.320 --> 0:22:55.080 and it's something that made me feel for sure happy 0:22:55.280 --> 0:22:58.240 and to see that the people start to be aware 0:22:58.320 --> 0:23:01.320 of what's going on in Palestine in us, start to 0:23:01.520 --> 0:23:07.720 understand that we have occupation, that we that finally you 0:23:07.880 --> 0:23:11.520 need to look in our cause and solve it. This 0:23:11.720 --> 0:23:15.200 is Ballistine, this is Palestinians that they need their freedom, 0:23:15.320 --> 0:23:19.560 they need to live as any other person or on 0:23:19.720 --> 0:23:23.840 this earth. And to see this support of the people, 0:23:24.280 --> 0:23:30.000 it's the most important for us to to live. It 0:23:30.119 --> 0:23:33.280 gives us a sense of freedom while we are not 0:23:33.440 --> 0:23:41.359 free yet, just make us give us hope that something 0:23:41.400 --> 0:23:46.080 will happen in the future. It's because it's a story 0:23:46.359 --> 0:23:51.200 of obbressed people who have been suffering, suffering for years, 0:23:51.400 --> 0:23:59.080 and I guess these people need attention, need the more 0:23:59.160 --> 0:24:02.000 effort of the so they can get their freedom as 0:24:03.320 --> 0:24:06.720 as they have when they have done about the black 0:24:06.800 --> 0:24:11.280 lives matters. And it's also it should it should come 0:24:11.320 --> 0:24:14.080 from the people. That's how the world get affected. If 0:24:14.119 --> 0:24:19.840 the people go against their governments, against the the decisions 0:24:19.880 --> 0:24:25.120 of their leaders, that's what gonna change the public opinion, 0:24:25.240 --> 0:24:26.880 the leader's opinion. 0:24:27.000 --> 0:24:30.119 Also, I wanted to ask about, like people want to 0:24:30.280 --> 0:24:32.840 help now more than I think they ever have in 0:24:32.920 --> 0:24:36.000 this country. People are aware, people who weren't aware before, 0:24:36.520 --> 0:24:41.480 People who couldn't have told you, like where like Palestine 0:24:41.680 --> 0:24:44.560 was in relation to the map, Maybe now want to help. 0:24:44.600 --> 0:24:45.560 And that's cool, that's great. 0:24:45.800 --> 0:24:48.520 Like I think obviously people have a lot of learning 0:24:48.640 --> 0:24:51.679 to do, because this isn't an issue that's been very 0:24:51.680 --> 0:24:54.919 well covered by the media in the US for decades. Right, 0:24:55.000 --> 0:24:57.320 the media in this country has also dedicated itself to 0:24:57.400 --> 0:25:03.440 dehumanizing Muslim people for a very long time, but extensively 0:25:03.480 --> 0:25:06.920 over the last twenty years. So, like two things that 0:25:07.000 --> 0:25:09.359 come out of that. I want to ask, like, if 0:25:09.400 --> 0:25:13.280 people want to help and they have money, that tend 0:25:13.320 --> 0:25:15.840 to be the easiest way to make a difference, Right, 0:25:16.359 --> 0:25:18.920 But you've told me before, a lot of the angios, 0:25:19.359 --> 0:25:21.800 your parents, your families end up buying the food that 0:25:21.920 --> 0:25:25.840 gets donated, So is there an engio that's better? And 0:25:25.960 --> 0:25:29.120 then like what can people do to learn? I guess 0:25:29.320 --> 0:25:32.240 like to learn more. I mean either from you guys, 0:25:32.400 --> 0:25:34.960 or things or books or films that you think are good. 0:25:36.800 --> 0:25:41.440 I mean the all the companies or the organizations that 0:25:41.640 --> 0:25:45.359 works in as are Yeah, for sure, they're trying their best. 0:25:45.560 --> 0:25:48.320 But yeah, as you have seen that most of the 0:25:48.440 --> 0:25:52.159 trucks are standing outside Rapa crossing and they are just 0:25:52.320 --> 0:25:56.280 allowing two hundred trucks a day for two million people 0:25:56.440 --> 0:26:03.440 who are hungry are suffering. So yeah, for sure, like 0:26:04.400 --> 0:26:07.879 the food is not enough, and when someone wants to 0:26:08.000 --> 0:26:11.399 get this food, he have to or he or she 0:26:12.160 --> 0:26:15.399 they have to buy the food and it's more than 0:26:15.520 --> 0:26:20.200 tin times more expensive than what it was before, and 0:26:20.440 --> 0:26:24.640 sometimes it reaches even more and even the vegetables, it's 0:26:24.760 --> 0:26:27.320 like higher than the price is here in Europe. Imagine 0:26:27.400 --> 0:26:30.840 like a country under a war, no work, no jobs, 0:26:31.119 --> 0:26:34.480 everything is stopped and the prices are going higher and 0:26:34.560 --> 0:26:40.400 higher because the stuff is very limited and the food 0:26:40.520 --> 0:26:44.960 is limited and everything is limited. So for sure, like 0:26:46.119 --> 0:26:49.960 people want to sell the stuff that they have so 0:26:50.119 --> 0:26:52.399 they can ear money so they can buy another stuff. 0:26:52.440 --> 0:26:55.159 And that's how the people are doing in Gaza. So 0:26:55.280 --> 0:26:58.520 if they get something maybe for free, which is very 0:26:58.720 --> 0:27:04.960 rare that it happened because it's too many people. For example, 0:27:05.040 --> 0:27:09.399 my family are buying the food, and I know how 0:27:09.480 --> 0:27:13.119 it is for them that it is hard for them 0:27:13.160 --> 0:27:17.360 to get the stuff that they even need because all 0:27:17.480 --> 0:27:20.240 what they have is food that is backed in cans, 0:27:20.720 --> 0:27:26.240 beans mostly beans actually, and that's what they have everything. 0:27:26.440 --> 0:27:30.240 They tell me we have been eating beans or a 0:27:30.320 --> 0:27:35.040 lot of these and pasta and they buy this stuff. 0:27:35.040 --> 0:27:38.840 It's not that it's for free sometimes every other month, 0:27:39.040 --> 0:27:41.400 every other two months to get a bag of flours 0:27:41.440 --> 0:27:42.440 so they can make bread. 0:27:43.240 --> 0:27:45.600 And it's not just food aid that can be hard 0:27:45.680 --> 0:27:48.760 to get your hands on in Gaza. Even sending money 0:27:49.040 --> 0:27:49.640 is difficult. 0:27:50.400 --> 0:27:55.800 Yeah, it is starvation for the people. People are really 0:27:56.000 --> 0:28:00.520 like suffering from that and cannot imagine And how is 0:28:00.640 --> 0:28:03.440 my family living that situation, because I really find it 0:28:03.600 --> 0:28:08.320 hard these times they even send my family money because 0:28:08.359 --> 0:28:11.600 of how like most of the offices are closed that 0:28:12.480 --> 0:28:17.720 can that can receive money from outside Gaza. So it's 0:28:20.160 --> 0:28:24.320 most of the offices are very busy that they have 0:28:24.480 --> 0:28:27.480 to stand in a queue for more than ten hours 0:28:27.600 --> 0:28:30.960 five hours sometimes and in the end they tell them, oh, 0:28:31.320 --> 0:28:37.200 we're sorry, we are out of cash, and that's what happens. Yeah, 0:28:37.280 --> 0:28:40.440 and I imagine like the same money going and coming back. 0:28:40.880 --> 0:28:44.520 So it's sometimes there is nothing in the banks, there 0:28:44.600 --> 0:28:49.880 is nothing in the offices that is exchanging and receiving 0:28:51.240 --> 0:28:55.160 money from outside. Like Western Union is not working anymore, 0:28:55.280 --> 0:28:57.320 money Gram is not working, and now the people are 0:28:57.440 --> 0:29:03.520 using something like a crepit coin like USDT, and and 0:29:03.680 --> 0:29:06.400 you know, to send one hundred dollars for example, they 0:29:06.480 --> 0:29:10.720 take like more than fifteen percent of that, and then 0:29:10.800 --> 0:29:13.720 in the same time you also have to pay another 0:29:13.880 --> 0:29:17.760 ten percent or five percent for sending because the USDT 0:29:18.840 --> 0:29:22.080 is not equal with the USD because in the corrective 0:29:22.160 --> 0:29:25.800 coin it's more expensive, so you need to pay more 0:29:25.920 --> 0:29:30.000 dollars to get USDT and then there they receive it 0:29:30.120 --> 0:29:38.280 as a dollar. So yeah, to support, I suggest if 0:29:38.360 --> 0:29:43.000 anyone wants to support or have the money that wants 0:29:43.040 --> 0:29:47.480 support a family or peopulling as the only thing is 0:29:47.600 --> 0:29:53.880 to actually contact the family that they want to support directly, 0:29:54.000 --> 0:30:00.880 because yeah, the all the support that goes through the organizations, 0:30:01.040 --> 0:30:06.360 the international organizations takes very long time and in the 0:30:06.480 --> 0:30:10.360 end it triches Gaza and the it's not enough for 0:30:10.480 --> 0:30:12.400 the people, and then the Bible have to buy it. 0:30:13.160 --> 0:30:15.120 It's not that Ghaza for free. 0:30:33.400 --> 0:30:35.800 Although millions of people are trapped in Gaza right now, 0:30:36.080 --> 0:30:38.680 we also know that some Gazans have been able to leave. 0:30:39.200 --> 0:30:41.800 We've seen fundraisers pop up for people trying to get 0:30:41.840 --> 0:30:45.160 themselves or their families out of Gaza. We asked Ahmed 0:30:45.200 --> 0:30:47.480 and Andola if they had an idea how much it 0:30:47.480 --> 0:30:49.280 would cost to leave Gaza right now. 0:30:50.000 --> 0:30:55.000 But then imagine Egyptians government are charging five thousand dollars 0:30:55.080 --> 0:30:59.440 for each truck entering Gaza, and they're charging every person 0:30:59.520 --> 0:31:03.840 five thousand dollars to leave from Gaza. So it's something 0:31:03.880 --> 0:31:06.040 else to help with. If you want to help someone 0:31:06.880 --> 0:31:12.080 to live from Gaza, is also help our families or 0:31:12.160 --> 0:31:12.800 something like that. 0:31:13.080 --> 0:31:13.680 I can say. 0:31:14.040 --> 0:31:16.960 I mean, I'm trying to get my family out of 0:31:17.080 --> 0:31:21.920 there because I don't see any better future in Gaza 0:31:21.920 --> 0:31:24.520 at the moment. Imagine like this, what happened to Gaza 0:31:24.600 --> 0:31:29.680 will need at least more than ten years to recover. 0:31:30.040 --> 0:31:33.960 All the schools are destroyed, all the houses, our home 0:31:34.080 --> 0:31:36.880 is bombed, you know, to rebuild a home, it's not 0:31:37.080 --> 0:31:38.360 just about rebuilding a home. 0:31:38.960 --> 0:31:43.040 Even if the bombing stopped today, the crisis woulden't. Almost 0:31:43.120 --> 0:31:47.000 all of Gaza's infrastructure, it's hospitals, universities, schools, and streets 0:31:47.400 --> 0:31:51.320 has been destroyed. There's nothing left in Gaza. There's nowhere 0:31:51.320 --> 0:31:53.320 to go if you're sick. There's nowhere to buy food 0:31:53.440 --> 0:31:55.680 or clothes for your children. There's no where to buy 0:31:55.680 --> 0:31:59.640 the materials to fix your bombed house. Given all of this, 0:32:00.080 --> 0:32:01.920 it's hard to see a future for people there, which 0:32:01.960 --> 0:32:06.120 isn't very difficult. So we asked Abdollah, not made about rebuilding. 0:32:06.720 --> 0:32:10.800 You need to rebuild everything. You know, where will the 0:32:10.880 --> 0:32:13.920 water go, Where will the water come from? The electricity? 0:32:14.000 --> 0:32:15.960 Everything is bombed. You know, you need to build a 0:32:16.200 --> 0:32:20.600 whole new city, which will take at least at least 0:32:20.760 --> 0:32:23.240 at least at least ten years. It's much much more. 0:32:23.320 --> 0:32:28.920 And the affection of it on the Bible themselves also, 0:32:29.240 --> 0:32:34.600 what they have suffered, what they have, you know, it's 0:32:34.640 --> 0:32:38.080 going to take them a long time to heal. So 0:32:38.480 --> 0:32:42.200 I think I did not want to take a step 0:32:42.480 --> 0:32:44.520 a step like this, but I will ask in the 0:32:44.640 --> 0:32:48.080 end my people who follow me to if they want 0:32:48.120 --> 0:32:51.960 to support the people and if they want to support 0:32:53.960 --> 0:32:56.920 any member of my family to get out of Gaza, 0:32:57.600 --> 0:32:59.840 because I don't see it any better and I'm not 0:33:00.120 --> 0:33:06.800 ready to lose any of my family. And yeah, I imagine, 0:33:06.840 --> 0:33:11.480 like I have a brother who's twelve years old at 0:33:11.520 --> 0:33:16.280 the moment, and I have a sister which turned sixteen, 0:33:17.360 --> 0:33:20.840 and another sister which has two kids, and one of 0:33:20.960 --> 0:33:24.760 them was born in the war, like four months old 0:33:24.840 --> 0:33:28.560 at the moment, And what about these kids, what will 0:33:28.640 --> 0:33:32.200 they do if they stay in Gaza. And you can 0:33:32.280 --> 0:33:37.040 apply that on the rest of Gaza people. Abdalla's family 0:33:37.280 --> 0:33:46.040 and his brother's sons, his brother's kids. So yeah, that's 0:33:46.160 --> 0:33:48.800 the best is I don't know, but most many, many 0:33:48.840 --> 0:33:52.160 people want to really get out of there at the 0:33:52.240 --> 0:33:55.480 moment because they think about what happened to Gaza. It 0:33:55.600 --> 0:34:02.680 will take years, and it's my family's future, and they 0:34:02.720 --> 0:34:06.240 don't know for how long it will take to fix 0:34:06.400 --> 0:34:08.759 this future if they stay in Gaza and if they 0:34:08.840 --> 0:34:14.480 still stay alive, because if they inter Gazza. At the moment, 0:34:14.920 --> 0:34:20.200 my family is in Rafa and close to the borders 0:34:20.280 --> 0:34:25.359 area with Egypt, and that's the only place where are 0:34:25.800 --> 0:34:29.279 most of the people at the moment. Like more than 0:34:29.360 --> 0:34:31.600 one and a half million are staying in a very 0:34:31.640 --> 0:34:39.480 small area and Israel inter Rafa. That will be just yeah, 0:34:40.680 --> 0:34:45.560 the huge is disaster that could ever happen on earth. 0:34:45.800 --> 0:34:53.880 That imagine thirty six thousand people killed, and that's the 0:34:53.960 --> 0:34:57.080 one that is confirmed on the list that they found, 0:34:57.800 --> 0:35:01.800 but you know, thousands and thousands are like they cannot confirm, 0:35:02.120 --> 0:35:06.120 like they already unknown, they don't know who they are. 0:35:06.360 --> 0:35:09.960 And there's thousands under the rabble that they cannot get 0:35:10.040 --> 0:35:15.319 out and many missings, so it can be it could 0:35:15.440 --> 0:35:19.680 reach to one hundred thousand together with the injured people. 0:35:20.040 --> 0:35:24.320 And that's not a small number. And imagine if the 0:35:24.640 --> 0:35:29.759 enter to a place like Trafa, that will be just 0:35:30.000 --> 0:35:37.320 like double what have happened at least I hope that 0:35:37.440 --> 0:35:41.480 with not having but I see that Israelis are very 0:35:41.560 --> 0:35:44.520 decided that they want to do that even if no 0:35:44.640 --> 0:35:46.840 one would be able to stop them, they say, and 0:35:48.880 --> 0:35:52.400 they would do it even without the support of anyone, 0:35:52.640 --> 0:35:57.360 without the support of the USA or without and that 0:35:57.560 --> 0:36:02.839 shows how criminals they are. I can say that they 0:36:02.920 --> 0:36:07.160 want just to slaughter all the people in Gaza. They 0:36:07.239 --> 0:36:09.719 don't care about civilian or not civilian. 0:36:10.840 --> 0:36:11.600 Yeah, I. 0:36:13.320 --> 0:36:15.719 Want to do my best to help my family, and 0:36:16.080 --> 0:36:16.840 they see. 0:36:18.840 --> 0:36:19.319 I have to. 0:36:21.440 --> 0:36:24.239 To take them to a several place and I don't 0:36:24.280 --> 0:36:28.120 know if it's possible of this day in Gaza. 0:36:29.080 --> 0:36:31.759 Like anyone else, Armed and Abdullah want their families to 0:36:31.800 --> 0:36:34.880 be safe. But because they were born in Palestine, they 0:36:34.880 --> 0:36:37.479 don't have the privilege of not having to constantly worry 0:36:37.520 --> 0:36:40.440 about their families safety. They also don't get to be 0:36:40.560 --> 0:36:44.719 the ones making choices to impact their safety. Instead, these 0:36:44.800 --> 0:36:47.840 choices are made by other people. Those people don't know 0:36:47.960 --> 0:36:50.680 are mad n Abdullah or their families. They might be 0:36:50.760 --> 0:36:54.840 IDF Terir own operators or US diplomats. To those people, 0:36:55.080 --> 0:36:58.080 their families are just numbers, but are made and Abdullah, 0:36:58.200 --> 0:36:59.479 their families are their whole world. 0:37:00.480 --> 0:37:02.759 How it works to get people out of Gaza is 0:37:02.960 --> 0:37:05.239 like you have to send someone in Egypt to pay 0:37:05.480 --> 0:37:09.040 for the government in Egypt. So they put their names 0:37:09.160 --> 0:37:12.240 in the last of Rapha borders so they can travel. 0:37:13.040 --> 0:37:15.680 That's how it works. So and they charge every person 0:37:15.719 --> 0:37:18.960 at least five thousand. You pay more than you are 0:37:19.040 --> 0:37:22.080 able to leave earlier. If you don't pay, or you 0:37:22.160 --> 0:37:25.200 pay five thousand, you stay and wait in the queue. 0:37:25.880 --> 0:37:31.040 If you don't pay you die in Gaza. Yeah, you're 0:37:31.160 --> 0:37:35.080 worth nothing. That's how it is. I don't know how 0:37:35.160 --> 0:37:38.279 it is for Abdullah. How does he feel about the 0:37:38.400 --> 0:37:41.680 future of Gaza at the moment? How do you feel 0:37:41.760 --> 0:37:45.440 like for the next ten years watching your family? I 0:37:45.520 --> 0:37:48.120 cannot imagine. That's the thing. That's why it lead me 0:37:48.280 --> 0:37:51.320 to steps like that, because I always never wanted to 0:37:53.120 --> 0:37:57.720 My family are very you know, loving to the country 0:37:57.840 --> 0:38:01.120 that they don't want to leave Gaza. My mother was like, no, 0:38:01.360 --> 0:38:06.160 we build home first, and I was telling trying to 0:38:06.280 --> 0:38:10.520 convince her by just explaining the situation and the next 0:38:10.719 --> 0:38:15.960 ten years from now, which is another disaster after the war, 0:38:17.280 --> 0:38:22.200 which is make her understand more of the effort so 0:38:22.440 --> 0:38:28.040 true to think about her children future and yeah, but 0:38:28.200 --> 0:38:32.120 in the same time, I understand the love for the country. 0:38:32.400 --> 0:38:36.360 I always love Gaza and they even have Gaza and 0:38:36.480 --> 0:38:39.640 everything in my life, I have it in my name 0:38:39.800 --> 0:38:42.040 even like I always if I say my name, I 0:38:42.120 --> 0:38:45.360 say I'm Mather Gaza as as my name. You know, 0:38:45.440 --> 0:38:48.040 I don't say I'm a'm at mother in my social 0:38:48.120 --> 0:38:52.399 media even it says Mather Gaza since always not during 0:38:52.480 --> 0:38:55.839 the war, and it's because I'm proud to be from 0:38:55.920 --> 0:39:00.480 there because it's the place that taught me the strength. 0:39:00.640 --> 0:39:04.160 It gave me, the bower it gave me like it 0:39:04.280 --> 0:39:06.680 taught me a lot of values that I use in 0:39:06.800 --> 0:39:11.759 my life at the moment. That made me patient, made 0:39:11.840 --> 0:39:17.279 me strong, and that's what is Gaza. It made me 0:39:17.440 --> 0:39:20.680 the person I am that I always hope and I 0:39:20.840 --> 0:39:25.160 always dream. I always have an x to dream because 0:39:25.200 --> 0:39:27.920 we always dream. As a bit of beeble from Gaza. 0:39:28.480 --> 0:39:31.480 Al Billa told us that his family is similar to Ahmed's, 0:39:31.719 --> 0:39:34.120 not wanting to leave Gaza because of their love of 0:39:34.239 --> 0:39:38.120 the land. Their priorities are to help their families. He 0:39:38.239 --> 0:39:40.640 said that when people ask him how can I help, 0:39:41.280 --> 0:39:44.160 his view is that everyone has their own way of supporting. 0:39:44.920 --> 0:39:47.759 It does not necessarily have to mean financial help if 0:39:47.800 --> 0:39:50.680 that is not a possibility for someone. He stressed the 0:39:50.760 --> 0:39:54.280 importance of posting on social media to continue spreading awareness 0:39:54.640 --> 0:39:57.800 and how the Palestinian struggle is a struggle that concerns 0:39:57.880 --> 0:39:58.800 all of humanity. 0:39:59.520 --> 0:40:02.120 You know, the beginning I was, I was thinking like 0:40:03.320 --> 0:40:05.920 I want to go to Gas directly after this or 0:40:06.160 --> 0:40:10.160 during the war. But the wars I see it, the 0:40:10.719 --> 0:40:14.360 harder it make it like that even if I go, 0:40:14.560 --> 0:40:19.600 what will it help with my family? Like home is destroyed. 0:40:19.880 --> 0:40:24.680 Everything is destroyed, not just our home, our whole area, 0:40:24.920 --> 0:40:31.359 like our neighbors, everything or our hood is destroyed, which 0:40:31.440 --> 0:40:36.000 is as we said, would take long time to fix. 0:40:37.239 --> 0:40:40.919 So going to Gas, yeah, for sure it can help. 0:40:42.280 --> 0:40:44.520 But in the same time, in the long run, it's 0:40:44.840 --> 0:40:50.000 not the the thing will that will make a change 0:40:50.960 --> 0:40:55.920 for my family's safety and future. And that's why I 0:40:57.360 --> 0:41:00.160 don't know. I am stuck in between two things, like 0:41:00.880 --> 0:41:04.920 going to the place where I grow, where I learned 0:41:05.160 --> 0:41:10.320 all of these values to be strong, and but in 0:41:10.400 --> 0:41:15.040 the same time living life where everything is destroyed, where 0:41:15.080 --> 0:41:20.120 you don't have a future, or decide to be in 0:41:20.239 --> 0:41:24.680 a severe place where you may be fix the future, 0:41:24.840 --> 0:41:29.120 but away from your country, from your heart, because you know, 0:41:29.560 --> 0:41:33.000 for us, Gaza is our heart. We really love Gaza. 0:41:33.080 --> 0:41:38.279 We care about everything in Gaza. But that's where I 0:41:38.360 --> 0:41:45.760 am stuck between safety and future and the heart Gaza, 0:41:46.400 --> 0:41:47.719 the place where we love. 0:41:48.480 --> 0:41:50.719 We really appreciate you, both of you guys, sharing your 0:41:51.880 --> 0:41:54.880 your feelings and your stories. And I think I'll make 0:41:54.920 --> 0:41:59.920 a great point about how even if you can't support financially, 0:42:00.080 --> 0:42:03.799 there's a huge benefit of continuing to share posts about 0:42:03.800 --> 0:42:06.880 Palestine and continue to talk about it and not letting 0:42:06.920 --> 0:42:09.719 life just go as usual and making people remember what's 0:42:09.719 --> 0:42:12.920 happening and not letting them forget. So I think that's 0:42:12.920 --> 0:42:14.799 the part you remember for all the listeners, just if 0:42:14.840 --> 0:42:17.279 you're able, Like, the least we can do is talk 0:42:17.320 --> 0:42:20.680 about Palestine. That's the very least, very least you can do. 0:42:21.120 --> 0:42:21.400 Thank you. 0:42:21.560 --> 0:42:23.759 It was a bleacher, a blisure to talk to you 0:42:23.920 --> 0:42:27.440 and share the story with you, for sure, and to 0:42:27.680 --> 0:42:34.520 tell you the situation of every person who's living outside Gaza, 0:42:34.560 --> 0:42:38.920 away from their families. That's I guess, not just me, 0:42:39.239 --> 0:42:43.279 not just up the lights, every Palestinian from Gaza who's 0:42:43.360 --> 0:42:44.800 living away from their family. 0:42:44.920 --> 0:42:46.080 They are really. 0:42:47.360 --> 0:42:51.400 Suffering, I can say, because we are not living normal 0:42:51.560 --> 0:42:56.480 since this unicide started in Gaza, and we hope it 0:42:56.560 --> 0:43:03.799 will end soon so we can see our families. And yeah, 0:43:04.040 --> 0:43:09.560 stop the killing of this people from this children, because 0:43:09.640 --> 0:43:14.120 it has been a war, a genocide on the children, 0:43:14.440 --> 0:43:19.520 women innocent. More than fifteen thousand children have been killed 0:43:20.719 --> 0:43:27.719 and much more disappearing. And yeah women and so it's 0:43:27.800 --> 0:43:31.440 more than seventy percent of the people who being killed 0:43:31.560 --> 0:43:36.759 are women. And children and also prest Is el three 0:43:36.960 --> 0:43:39.600 and men teenagers. 0:43:40.320 --> 0:43:42.240 Guys, Where can people if they want to follow along, 0:43:42.480 --> 0:43:45.120 like to hear more from you guys, just to see 0:43:45.160 --> 0:43:47.720 your stories? Where can they find you a on social 0:43:47.800 --> 0:43:48.800 media online? 0:43:50.000 --> 0:43:54.880 You can find me on my Instagram at Arghaza or. 0:43:54.880 --> 0:44:00.839 THEO this week that's my accounting Instagram. Ahmad was saying, 0:44:00.880 --> 0:44:03.400 I mean we really appreciate everything and we are I 0:44:03.480 --> 0:44:05.920 mean we are here because also what we want as 0:44:06.080 --> 0:44:09.120 much as people to know about it and just to 0:44:09.239 --> 0:44:13.040 think and to know that in urgasman super expinions, they 0:44:13.080 --> 0:44:16.320 are not really numbers. They are people. There are people 0:44:16.480 --> 0:44:20.839 that everybody has really hot and it's beating all the time, 0:44:21.680 --> 0:44:26.360 and we have feelings. We we we have everything that 0:44:26.600 --> 0:44:31.200 any human thinking in this has and this world as 0:44:31.200 --> 0:44:33.680 same as everybody is really listening right now, when we 0:44:33.760 --> 0:44:37.440 are all equal, there's nobody is better than another one. 0:44:38.080 --> 0:44:42.239 At the end, we are all the same. So it's 0:44:42.880 --> 0:44:45.239 we are not numbers. Just I would I would like 0:44:45.320 --> 0:44:49.839 to everybody remember this. There's so many and so much 0:44:50.040 --> 0:44:55.439 really bigger stories behind every every want, everyone that will 0:44:55.520 --> 0:45:00.239 really killed. Everyone has a family, and you have to think, 0:45:01.640 --> 0:45:06.120 what if there's just you know a person that he 0:45:06.239 --> 0:45:09.600 lost either one from his family. That's one story. The 0:45:09.680 --> 0:45:12.720 other person that he lost his kid, that's another story. 0:45:12.800 --> 0:45:15.360 The other person lost his mom, that's another story. The 0:45:15.400 --> 0:45:19.880 other persons his dad, that's another to the story. So 0:45:20.600 --> 0:45:23.480 everybody has his own story. That's why I'm just trying 0:45:23.600 --> 0:45:26.959 to show that we are not just an numbers. There's 0:45:27.320 --> 0:45:31.360 so many other things that we haven't we would feel 0:45:31.719 --> 0:45:35.760 often so even though the people they are still alive, 0:45:36.160 --> 0:45:41.160 and they are alive, they are dead. They're not alive 0:45:41.560 --> 0:45:47.160 because literally they have nothing, even whether they lost someone 0:45:47.280 --> 0:45:53.480 from the family or whether they can die even from hunger. 0:45:55.600 --> 0:45:56.480 Thank you guys so much. 0:45:57.239 --> 0:45:58.759 Yeah, thank you man, Thank you boy. 0:45:59.000 --> 0:45:59.759 We really appreciate it. 0:46:00.840 --> 0:46:01.160 Thank you. 0:46:02.000 --> 0:46:06.240 Hey everyone, it's me Games. I hope you found those enlightening. 0:46:06.320 --> 0:46:07.920 I know they're difficult to listen to, but I think 0:46:07.920 --> 0:46:10.440 they're important as well. I just wanted to update the 0:46:10.520 --> 0:46:12.320 end of the episode to let you know that Ahmed 0:46:12.440 --> 0:46:15.880 has made a fundraising page. He's raising funds for his 0:46:16.000 --> 0:46:18.440 family who are still trapped in Gaza. If you'd like 0:46:18.560 --> 0:46:20.600 to donate to that, we will include the link in 0:46:20.680 --> 0:46:22.520 the show notes. But I'm also going to read it 0:46:22.600 --> 0:46:25.239 here just so you can remember it you're driving or 0:46:25.239 --> 0:46:25.600 what have you. 0:46:26.120 --> 0:46:29.960 Hey, everybody, the URL has been updated. Actually it is 0:46:30.200 --> 0:46:34.239 now go fund me, g o f und dot m E, 0:46:34.640 --> 0:46:38.440 go fund me, dot me forward slash F six B 0:46:39.080 --> 0:46:44.400 one F seven b E. So go to that go 0:46:44.520 --> 0:46:46.839 fund me and please donate what you can. It will 0:46:46.880 --> 0:46:49.680 also be in the description of this episode. 0:46:50.160 --> 0:47:02.520 Thanks welcome a special May Day episode of vicd Appen Here. 0:47:03.560 --> 0:47:08.279 I'm your host, Mia Wong. It wasn't too long ago 0:47:08.719 --> 0:47:12.960 that unions were finished. The percentage of American workers in 0:47:13.120 --> 0:47:17.239 unions plunged towards the single digits. The unions that survived, 0:47:17.960 --> 0:47:21.000 battered and broken shells of the mighty behemists that shook 0:47:21.000 --> 0:47:25.280 the world for one hundred years, embraced so called business unionism, 0:47:26.080 --> 0:47:28.160 which set out not to conquer the world in the 0:47:28.280 --> 0:47:31.640 name of labor like its great predecessors, or even really 0:47:31.960 --> 0:47:35.480 to bargain for higher wages, but to make companies profitable 0:47:35.600 --> 0:47:38.640 in order to keep their jobs. They took pay cuts 0:47:38.640 --> 0:47:42.000 and job losses without a fight, forcing their membership into 0:47:42.080 --> 0:47:46.280 line and effortlessly crushing the endless slates of reform caucuses 0:47:46.360 --> 0:47:48.840 that sought to put the fight back into the working class. 0:47:51.160 --> 0:47:53.759 Even the cutting edge of Marxist theory health the time 0:47:53.840 --> 0:47:58.520 of unions was over. Workers were too anomized, too divided 0:47:59.360 --> 0:48:03.319 to fall or from the immediate processes of production, from 0:48:03.360 --> 0:48:06.680 the discipline of the factory, and from the massification of 0:48:06.760 --> 0:48:09.399 the city to assemble the working class in its old 0:48:09.520 --> 0:48:16.720 fighting form. There would be riots, to be sure, barricades, blockades, occupations, 0:48:17.800 --> 0:48:22.320 but not strikes. Whatever the working class did next, the 0:48:22.440 --> 0:48:26.440 age of the union was over. For much of the 0:48:26.520 --> 0:48:31.400 twenty tens. That prediction was a smart bet. The bold 0:48:31.520 --> 0:48:35.919 proclamation of Wisconsin trade unionists that organized labor would turn 0:48:36.040 --> 0:48:38.920 back the tide of the Tea Party failed to ruin 0:48:39.239 --> 0:48:42.240 under the failure of their attempt to recall Wisconsin's hated 0:48:42.360 --> 0:48:48.000 union busting Governor Scott Walker. The Tea Party's march continued unimpeded, 0:48:48.800 --> 0:48:51.920 radicalizing even further in the wake of the twenty fourteen 0:48:52.000 --> 0:48:56.320 twenty fifteen uprisings in Ferguson and Baltimore to produce not 0:48:56.440 --> 0:49:01.040 the victory of the working class but Donald Trump. Even 0:49:01.120 --> 0:49:04.560 success stories like the rejuvenation of the mighty Chicago Teachers 0:49:04.680 --> 0:49:09.120 Union AFT Local one by a bold reform caucus called 0:49:09.160 --> 0:49:12.640 the caucus of rank and file educators or corps who 0:49:12.719 --> 0:49:17.920 waged a pair of unexpectedly, wildly popular strikes, was tainted 0:49:17.960 --> 0:49:21.000 by the reality of limited wins and labor conditions in 0:49:21.080 --> 0:49:25.720 Chicago schools that remained appalling. Even as the left returned 0:49:25.760 --> 0:49:29.040 in the wake of Occupy Ferguson and the election of Trump, 0:49:29.920 --> 0:49:34.240 union membership continued to plunge, and capitalists and Marxist alike 0:49:34.719 --> 0:49:42.480 continued to herald the union's demise. They were wrong. History, 0:49:42.600 --> 0:49:46.800 it seems, delights in irony. It was the dead enders, 0:49:46.880 --> 0:49:50.759 fighting hopeless battles and reform caucuses, losing union election after 0:49:50.920 --> 0:49:54.759 union election. It was the wobblies fighting losing campaign after 0:49:54.840 --> 0:49:59.680 losing campaign, desperately trying to organize the unorganizable fast food 0:49:59.719 --> 0:50:03.600 and Rea tail workers. It was rank and file Marxist 0:50:03.600 --> 0:50:07.840 trade unionists waiting sixty long years, their comrades dead and gone, 0:50:08.400 --> 0:50:12.440 for somebody, anybody, to hear their plans for shutting down 0:50:12.520 --> 0:50:17.719 Capitol's logistics networks. It was labor notes, sixteen staffers compiling 0:50:17.880 --> 0:50:21.400 endless analyzes of labor struggles for a crowd that couldn't 0:50:21.400 --> 0:50:22.680 have filled a baseball stadium. 0:50:23.200 --> 0:50:23.839 Who was right? 0:50:25.440 --> 0:50:30.040 Unions are back, while still small compared to the height 0:50:30.120 --> 0:50:33.560 of union power in the nineteen fifties, twenty twenty three 0:50:33.680 --> 0:50:37.640 saw a wave of massively popular strikes waged by unions 0:50:37.719 --> 0:50:41.040 from the massive behemoths like the UAW in the Writers 0:50:41.120 --> 0:50:45.320 Guild to tiny independent coffee unions whose members Larger existing 0:50:45.440 --> 0:50:47.799 unions are rather spin on than spend a single cent 0:50:47.840 --> 0:50:52.560 attempting to organize. Only the director intervention of the President 0:50:53.160 --> 0:50:55.479 to break a rail workers strike before it could start, 0:50:56.040 --> 0:50:59.080 and the last second portrayal of Teamster's leadership stopped twenty 0:50:59.160 --> 0:51:02.040 twenty three. This largest strike wave of the modern era, 0:51:03.600 --> 0:51:07.680 basking in his triumphs and conspiring to win more, was 0:51:07.800 --> 0:51:13.040 Labor Notes. Labor Notes is a curious beast. It is 0:51:13.080 --> 0:51:16.800 simultaneously a journal that publishes news about labor struggles, a 0:51:16.960 --> 0:51:20.480 network that brings together a group of disparate rank and 0:51:20.560 --> 0:51:24.920 file union reform movements, largely but not exclusively from the US, 0:51:25.760 --> 0:51:29.000 maintaining a strong emphasis on solidarity and organizing with workers 0:51:29.080 --> 0:51:33.320 in Mexico, and a labor conference that runs every two years. 0:51:35.440 --> 0:51:38.760 It is a relic of another time, whose time, it seems, 0:51:39.520 --> 0:51:43.640 has come again. Labor Notes was founded in nineteen seventy 0:51:43.760 --> 0:51:46.440 nine as a way to coordinate and expand the inter 0:51:46.680 --> 0:51:49.960 union connections formed to the United Mine Workers of America's 0:51:50.040 --> 0:51:54.560 nineteen seventy nine bituminous coal strike. It's one of the 0:51:54.680 --> 0:51:57.760 last direct connections to the era where labor was strong 0:51:59.440 --> 0:52:02.839 unwinningly task of keeping the flame of labor alive during 0:52:02.880 --> 0:52:07.800 the neoliberal downpour. Two weeks ago, they held their largest 0:52:07.800 --> 0:52:12.320 conference ever. Four five hundred people crammed into the Wyatt 0:52:12.400 --> 0:52:17.920 Regency next to Chicago's O'Hare International Airport. At least a 0:52:18.000 --> 0:52:21.560 thousand people who tried to register were turned down. I 0:52:21.719 --> 0:52:25.680 personally watched interested workers turned away at the door because 0:52:25.719 --> 0:52:28.800 the venue's conference halls had already reached the mass capacity 0:52:28.880 --> 0:52:34.120 for fire safety. Labor we can safely say is back. 0:52:35.840 --> 0:52:39.120 It is returning to the South the great Rock unions 0:52:39.120 --> 0:52:42.160 have shattered upon for one hundred years. It's moving in 0:52:42.239 --> 0:52:47.400 new directions towards service workers previously thought impossible to organize. 0:52:48.320 --> 0:52:51.440 Most of all, it's moving towards something we'd almost forgotten 0:52:51.600 --> 0:52:57.880 was possible. It's moving towards victory. The first thing you 0:52:58.040 --> 0:53:03.240 noticed about Labor Notes is it's staggered diversity, Young punks 0:53:03.280 --> 0:53:05.960 and battle jackets sat on benches next to old anti 0:53:06.000 --> 0:53:10.960 war protesters from the sixties. Independent trade unionists and feminist 0:53:11.040 --> 0:53:15.400 activists in Mexico rubbed shoulders with battle hearted American union nurses. 0:53:16.719 --> 0:53:19.520 White middle aged longshore men and women plotted with young, 0:53:19.640 --> 0:53:23.440 queer Amazon warehouse workers to maximize the power of logistics strikes. 0:53:24.800 --> 0:53:28.120 You saw old industrial organizers from the sixties passing down 0:53:28.239 --> 0:53:31.680 lessons and tactics and stories of strikes that otherwise would 0:53:31.719 --> 0:53:36.080 have vanished into the mists of history. Media workers fighting 0:53:36.160 --> 0:53:40.320 for their first contract, the lowliest rank and file workers 0:53:40.440 --> 0:53:45.040 chatting in breakout groups with union presidents. For all the 0:53:45.120 --> 0:53:47.319 talk I've done in this show about how many union 0:53:47.440 --> 0:53:50.719 organizers are trans, even I didn't expect to see this 0:53:50.840 --> 0:53:55.520 many trans people. It's a cross section of the American 0:53:55.600 --> 0:54:00.440 working class come to fight, and that, above all, is 0:54:00.520 --> 0:54:05.000 what this Labor Notes conference was about fighting. The most 0:54:05.040 --> 0:54:07.600 direct conflict came on the first day of the conference, 0:54:07.680 --> 0:54:11.239 when Palestinian union activists called for a pro Palestine demonstration 0:54:11.360 --> 0:54:15.719 outside the hotel. The cops arrested three people in an 0:54:15.719 --> 0:54:20.600 attempt to clear the street. This, rather predictably was a 0:54:20.760 --> 0:54:25.200 terrible idea. Instead of backing down The crowd of several 0:54:25.320 --> 0:54:28.800 hundred union activists almost immediately surrounded the lone car and 0:54:28.880 --> 0:54:33.080 demanded they let their prisoner go. What happened next, to 0:54:33.239 --> 0:54:37.120 use a technical term, fucking ripped. A bunch of kids 0:54:37.160 --> 0:54:40.440 had a rave to the changing police sirens. A fifty 0:54:40.520 --> 0:54:43.000 year old white duty from the electrical worker stood next 0:54:43.040 --> 0:54:46.600 to me. A Chinese transzoman from a podcast union, A 0:54:46.680 --> 0:54:50.800 bunch of longshore men, teamsters, staffers from unions. You wouldn't 0:54:50.840 --> 0:54:55.040 believe even if I told you Palestinian trade union activists, nurses, 0:54:55.520 --> 0:54:57.959 punks from independent unions. No one else in the crowd 0:54:58.040 --> 0:55:02.440 could have named. An entire mass of unionists stood their 0:55:02.480 --> 0:55:05.680 ground and refused to let the cops take one of ours. 0:55:06.960 --> 0:55:09.840 A tradeswoman with drums marched around the police car and 0:55:09.920 --> 0:55:14.080 we're all saying which side are you on? After two hours, 0:55:14.360 --> 0:55:17.520 the police gave up to a crowd screaming Union power 0:55:17.640 --> 0:55:21.000 at the top of our lungs. It was an incredible 0:55:21.080 --> 0:55:23.799 display of solidarity that set the tone for the rest 0:55:23.840 --> 0:55:27.000 of the event. We were going to fight the bosses 0:55:27.040 --> 0:55:30.880 together and fuck them if they came for us. This 0:55:32.480 --> 0:55:36.239 is not to say there weren't divisions. A group of 0:55:36.320 --> 0:55:39.000 protesters broke away from the cop car to demand that 0:55:39.120 --> 0:55:43.239 Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, the darling of the Chicago Teachers' Union, 0:55:43.880 --> 0:55:47.600 come tell the cops to let our people go. Now 0:55:48.680 --> 0:55:51.640 whether or not this would have worked is up to 0:55:51.760 --> 0:55:55.040 some debates. These cops were not Chicago police departments. They 0:55:55.080 --> 0:55:58.200 were the cops of Rosemont, which is technically a separate 0:55:58.320 --> 0:56:02.840 entity from the city of Chicago. However, Labor notes staffers 0:56:02.880 --> 0:56:06.560 and securities tried to stop the protesters from reaching Brandon 0:56:06.640 --> 0:56:10.359 Johnson and ended up throwing punches at the protesters. As 0:56:10.880 --> 0:56:15.840 to quote one observer, union brother fought union brother. This 0:56:16.040 --> 0:56:19.160 fight reveals one of the important tensions in the movement. 0:56:20.000 --> 0:56:23.840 Should unions continue to back imperfect center left politicians in 0:56:23.920 --> 0:56:28.000 exchange for some political benefits, or should they take a 0:56:28.120 --> 0:56:31.880 hard line against politicians who betray their fundamental political principles. 0:56:32.840 --> 0:56:36.880 Brandon Johnson is a microcosm of the debate. On the 0:56:36.920 --> 0:56:40.600 one hand, he was elected with enormous resource expenditure from 0:56:40.600 --> 0:56:44.200 the Chicago Teachers' unions. On the other hand, he's been 0:56:44.239 --> 0:56:47.720 locking immigrants into berculosis ridden camps as the city lurches 0:56:47.760 --> 0:56:52.759 from crisis to crisis. Even many of Chicago's other unionists 0:56:52.800 --> 0:56:55.440 were never happy with him in the first place, as 0:56:55.480 --> 0:56:57.719 he failed to use his previous position to come to 0:56:57.800 --> 0:57:00.960 the aid of striking nurses. When the two points of 0:57:01.040 --> 0:57:06.440 view collide, there's a fight. On a national level. The 0:57:06.560 --> 0:57:10.960 conflict is the question of Joe Biden in Palestine. At 0:57:11.040 --> 0:57:16.280 Labor Notes itself, there's strong support for Palestine. Palestinian solidarity. 0:57:16.320 --> 0:57:18.960 Panels were packed to the rafters with workers from every 0:57:19.040 --> 0:57:21.240 sector imaginable and activists from. 0:57:21.080 --> 0:57:21.880 Across the world. 0:57:22.720 --> 0:57:26.560 I saw UAW workers deeply unhappy with their union leadership's 0:57:26.560 --> 0:57:30.280 decision to endorse Biden, a decision made by maybe five 0:57:30.400 --> 0:57:32.600 members of an executive committee, with how a vote from 0:57:32.640 --> 0:57:37.959 the union therein lies the issue. As much as Labor 0:57:38.000 --> 0:57:41.760 Notes represents the bleeding edge of the labor movements. UAW 0:57:42.080 --> 0:57:46.080 president Sean Fein, fresh off the uaw's astounding seventy three 0:57:46.160 --> 0:57:50.320 percent victory at a Volkswagen factory in Chattanooga, gave the 0:57:50.360 --> 0:57:55.600 conference's closing address. There remains massive bastions of conservatism in 0:57:55.680 --> 0:57:58.960 the labor movements, who have actively fought against even statements 0:57:59.000 --> 0:58:05.640 on Palestine, much less concrete actions. Unions are still weak 0:58:06.040 --> 0:58:09.040 and the positions of activists within them are still tenuous. 0:58:10.960 --> 0:58:14.200 Even more favorable shops have yet to turn broader popular 0:58:14.280 --> 0:58:19.240 support among rank and file workers for Palestine into substantive 0:58:19.280 --> 0:58:22.960 strike actions, and it's deeply unclear to me if any 0:58:23.000 --> 0:58:37.400 such action is possible at all. My pessimism on labour's 0:58:37.400 --> 0:58:41.160 willingness and ability to stop the genocide and Palestine, a 0:58:41.240 --> 0:58:45.200 pessimism reinforced by watching the rapid spread of student campus 0:58:45.240 --> 0:58:51.040 occupations while labor remains silent or perhaps more precisely dormant, 0:58:52.200 --> 0:58:56.200 is broadly intension with my optimism and effectively everything else 0:58:56.240 --> 0:58:59.720 that I saw there. There is incredible organizing going on 0:58:59.760 --> 0:59:03.880 at labor notes. People are coordinating rank and file links 0:59:03.880 --> 0:59:07.600 between unions whose staffers and leaderships hate each other for 0:59:07.760 --> 0:59:10.720 grudges whose origins have passed into the mists of time. 0:59:11.920 --> 0:59:15.920 There was quite serious talk about plans to line up 0:59:16.040 --> 0:59:20.280 contracts to expire in twenty twenty eight to effectively create 0:59:20.400 --> 0:59:25.120 a miniature general strike, or perhaps more precisely, to create 0:59:25.200 --> 0:59:27.880 a version of what's called the Spring offensive in Japan. 0:59:28.880 --> 0:59:32.360 Spring and offensive are the same word in Japanese, and 0:59:32.480 --> 0:59:35.240 so labor unions decided to have their contracts expire in 0:59:35.320 --> 0:59:39.320 the spring, thus maximizing the power of their strikes. This 0:59:39.480 --> 0:59:42.040 effort to have contracts aligned in twenty twenty eight is 0:59:42.920 --> 0:59:46.960 broadly speaking, a larger version of the Spring offensive. We 0:59:47.400 --> 0:59:50.000 will cover this more in a later episode. For now, 0:59:50.240 --> 0:59:54.680 I think it's enough to say that discussions and organization 0:59:54.920 --> 0:59:59.080 were quite serious, and there was significant enthusiasm as well 0:59:59.160 --> 1:00:03.280 as discussions of the potential difficulties of getting people's contracts 1:00:03.320 --> 1:00:06.960 to actually align. People are organizing to bring their unions 1:00:07.000 --> 1:00:11.600 together on a sectoral base to share resources, coordinate, set 1:00:11.640 --> 1:00:16.240 standards for contracts, and generally help each other more effectively 1:00:16.320 --> 1:00:20.760 oppose the bosses and unions that rule them all. Labor 1:00:20.840 --> 1:00:24.640 Notes has also from the beginning been an incubator for 1:00:24.760 --> 1:00:28.440 reform movements inside of unions, attempting to wrest control from 1:00:28.480 --> 1:00:34.640 corporate administrative caucuses. These reform movements almost always lose. The 1:00:34.760 --> 1:00:38.320 last fifty years is littered with defeats in union election 1:00:38.480 --> 1:00:42.680 after union election with sub ten percent turnout, and yet 1:00:43.120 --> 1:00:48.840 little by little these groups are starting to win. We 1:00:49.000 --> 1:00:51.520 heard from a number of smaller rank and file efforts 1:00:51.560 --> 1:00:55.160 that had successfully taken control of their unions. The first 1:00:55.320 --> 1:00:58.760 major victory was a rank and file slate taking over 1:00:58.840 --> 1:01:04.280 the management of the notoriously corrupt and clickish Teamsters. Now 1:01:05.640 --> 1:01:10.440 I have my issues with the new Teamsters leadership too. 1:01:11.240 --> 1:01:14.280 There are something like two entire hours of this show 1:01:14.840 --> 1:01:17.919 dedicated to how angry rank and file Teamsters were over 1:01:18.000 --> 1:01:20.880 the fact that UPS workers didn't go on strike last 1:01:20.960 --> 1:01:24.280 year due to their leadership cutting a deal with management. 1:01:25.880 --> 1:01:29.200 But on a broader level, the victory of the Teamsters 1:01:29.280 --> 1:01:32.280 reformed slates and the defeat of one of the oldest 1:01:32.360 --> 1:01:38.600 union I don't know if administrative caucus is really a 1:01:39.960 --> 1:01:43.120 that's a bit of a euphemism for the UPS sort 1:01:43.160 --> 1:01:48.400 of corrupt leadership dictatorship, but their victory on a broader 1:01:48.520 --> 1:01:53.360 level was a sea change in American unionism. Their victory 1:01:53.520 --> 1:01:56.400 was followed by the victory of Seawan Fain in the UAW, 1:01:58.120 --> 1:02:01.400 a man who, as much as he angered members by 1:02:01.520 --> 1:02:05.440 endorsing Joe Biden, walked into Labor notes and gave a 1:02:05.520 --> 1:02:09.520 speech about the class war and the authoritarianism of corporate greed. 1:02:11.040 --> 1:02:14.880 Certainly there was much to annoy trade activists concerned with Palestine, 1:02:14.960 --> 1:02:18.520 in the sense that his central metaphor labor was the 1:02:18.640 --> 1:02:22.000 arsenal of democracy was in bad taste as he described 1:02:22.000 --> 1:02:27.000 the unions that he leads as the successors of Liberator 1:02:27.080 --> 1:02:31.720 B fifty two bombers, which not, you know, not precisely 1:02:31.800 --> 1:02:35.320 the metaphor id shoes, as your own members are protesting 1:02:36.200 --> 1:02:39.640 the bombs falling over Gaza. But on the other hand, 1:02:40.600 --> 1:02:43.080 if a giant speech about the class war and the 1:02:43.200 --> 1:02:47.560 need to organize across borders is now the conservative wing 1:02:47.840 --> 1:02:54.120 of progressive trade unionism, the future is bright. The kind 1:02:54.160 --> 1:02:56.960 of militant union actions we've seen over the past year 1:02:57.760 --> 1:03:00.600 have coalesced into a sort of strategy of fight as 1:03:00.640 --> 1:03:05.640 you build. It is based on a very basic strategy 1:03:06.000 --> 1:03:10.880 that you would think unions would have already been doing. However, Comma, 1:03:11.720 --> 1:03:16.120 see everything I've ever said about administration, administrative caucuses, and 1:03:16.200 --> 1:03:21.280 business unionism and corporate unionism. The strategy is, if you 1:03:21.360 --> 1:03:24.840 win things for people, more of them will join unions. 1:03:26.600 --> 1:03:30.120 This strategy is already bearing fruit in Chattanooga and has 1:03:30.200 --> 1:03:35.480 international implications as well. We heard from organizers that workers 1:03:35.560 --> 1:03:39.520 in Mexico and China were keenly watching the UAW strikes, 1:03:40.920 --> 1:03:44.960 and for good reason, these strikes are ultimately their fight too, 1:03:45.760 --> 1:03:49.920 and slowly but surely workers across the world are starting 1:03:50.000 --> 1:03:55.120 to realize it. The degree of internationalism at this Labrynes 1:03:55.200 --> 1:03:58.840 was remarkable. I came into an early China panel fully 1:03:58.920 --> 1:04:01.800 expecting the same kinds of praise for the CCP that 1:04:01.880 --> 1:04:05.080 I've seen in other leftist events held in the city 1:04:05.120 --> 1:04:09.320 of Chicago, most recently the sort of fiasco China panel 1:04:09.400 --> 1:04:14.479 held at Socialism Conference that degraded into an argument about 1:04:14.480 --> 1:04:19.480 whether or not Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa socialist. 1:04:20.560 --> 1:04:24.960 Here there was none of that. For sure, there were 1:04:25.080 --> 1:04:29.160 some slightly weird German maoist defending the Cultural Revolution, but 1:04:29.560 --> 1:04:31.880 on the other hand, there wasn't any defense of Chinese 1:04:31.960 --> 1:04:36.920 capitalism or their failed, bankrupt model of corporate unionism. On 1:04:37.080 --> 1:04:42.520 top of cross border organizing, sectorially, the conference has a 1:04:42.640 --> 1:04:46.480 deep and ingrained pro immigrant position. Sean Fayn is probably 1:04:46.520 --> 1:04:49.840 the most high profile political figure I've seen actually discussing 1:04:49.880 --> 1:04:52.240 the horrific treatment of migrants at the border right now 1:04:53.160 --> 1:04:56.120 and taking time to remind everyone that immigrants are just 1:04:56.240 --> 1:05:00.640 workers trying to find a better life. This, however, makes 1:05:00.680 --> 1:05:04.760 his support for Joe Biden, the Butcher of Yakumba, even 1:05:04.840 --> 1:05:11.240 more questionable. Still, you can see the wheels of history turning. 1:05:12.560 --> 1:05:15.320 You can see it there in the muffled buzz of 1:05:15.400 --> 1:05:20.120 conversations drifting through hallways, in the roar of the cheering crowd, 1:05:21.240 --> 1:05:24.560 in the bright laughs of co conspirators who moments before 1:05:24.680 --> 1:05:28.800 were strangers, and the drowsy chatter of abortion workers who 1:05:28.880 --> 1:05:31.280 let a transwoman sleep on their floor to hide from 1:05:31.320 --> 1:05:35.040 the police. In the chance of a hundred workers refusing 1:05:35.080 --> 1:05:38.160 to let the cops take one of their own. You 1:05:38.240 --> 1:05:41.400 can see the outline of the great Leviathan, the ruling 1:05:41.480 --> 1:05:45.640 class thought buried stone dead in the nineteen eighties. You 1:05:45.720 --> 1:05:48.720 can see the working class waking from its day's slumber, 1:05:49.640 --> 1:05:52.000 shaking the sleep from its eyes and the dirt from 1:05:52.040 --> 1:05:55.880 its back. You can, for the first time in decades, 1:05:56.680 --> 1:05:59.440 hear the clatter and the roar as it tests its chains. 1:06:00.480 --> 1:06:05.480 The great behemoth is beginning, just beginning, to assemble the 1:06:05.560 --> 1:06:09.000 iron will and terrible power necessary to turn its dreams 1:06:09.040 --> 1:06:12.840 into reality, to break its chains and shatter its cage, 1:06:12.880 --> 1:06:15.920 and reclaim the world it built with its blood and 1:06:16.040 --> 1:06:22.640 sweat and tears. That day is not today, it's not tomorrow, 1:06:23.760 --> 1:06:26.600 But for the first time in my life, it could 1:06:26.640 --> 1:06:29.680 be the day after that this has been it could 1:06:29.720 --> 1:06:32.160 happen here, Happy Mayda everyone. 1:06:42.320 --> 1:06:45.280 Hey everyone, Robert Evans here and it could happen here. 1:06:45.440 --> 1:06:48.680 A podcast about things falling apart and sometimes putting them 1:06:48.800 --> 1:06:53.120 back together. I'm writing this after flying back from Texas 1:06:53.320 --> 1:06:57.640 where my tad died, to Portland, waking up and basically 1:06:57.800 --> 1:07:02.400 immediately interviewing a group of testers in Arcada, California, at 1:07:02.440 --> 1:07:06.880 the cal Poly occupation in Humboldt, and then driving to 1:07:07.000 --> 1:07:11.240 Portland State University in Portland, Oregon, where there has also 1:07:11.280 --> 1:07:15.160 been a campus occupation, And both of these occupations have 1:07:15.320 --> 1:07:17.760 some stuff in common, and I wanted to talk about 1:07:17.840 --> 1:07:20.480 what was happening with both of them because I think 1:07:20.520 --> 1:07:23.200 it's relevant, and obviously it's relevant to what is currently 1:07:23.480 --> 1:07:26.200 one of the larger stories going on in the country 1:07:26.320 --> 1:07:30.480 right now, which is that a series of occupations on 1:07:30.640 --> 1:07:34.400 campuses protesting the Israeli genocide and Gaza have spread to 1:07:34.560 --> 1:07:37.440 more than one hundred schools in the United States. You 1:07:37.520 --> 1:07:39.680 will have heard of this now. We have covered some 1:07:39.840 --> 1:07:42.600 of this in recent episodes, particularly what was going on 1:07:42.800 --> 1:07:45.360 in Colombia at least at the initial stages of that, 1:07:46.160 --> 1:07:49.120 and today again I'm here to talk about two occupations. 1:07:49.840 --> 1:07:53.040 One of them is at cal Poly Humboldt in Arcada, California, 1:07:53.200 --> 1:07:57.120 and an other is at Portland State University in Portland, Oregon. 1:07:57.640 --> 1:07:59.640 As an out of side, I have lived in both 1:07:59.680 --> 1:08:03.040 of these cities, which is peculiar. It doesn't really mean anything, 1:08:03.160 --> 1:08:05.800 but I thought it was weird, and obviously I still 1:08:05.880 --> 1:08:10.520 live in Portland. Protests started in Arcada first. On October 1:08:10.600 --> 1:08:13.480 twenty second, twenty twenty four, students on the cow Poly 1:08:13.640 --> 1:08:18.920 Humboldt also called CPH Campus occupied Seamen's Hall. These students 1:08:19.040 --> 1:08:21.519 were not members of any specific group, but we're all 1:08:21.600 --> 1:08:24.840 acting in solidarity with GAZA, and we're inspired at least 1:08:24.880 --> 1:08:29.839 partly by the solidarity encampment at Columbia University. It started 1:08:29.920 --> 1:08:32.600 with a small number of people, about forty five or so. 1:08:33.080 --> 1:08:35.920 These are a mix of students, some alumni, and a 1:08:35.960 --> 1:08:41.040 few random Arcadens. Arcada is a pretty progressive town. You 1:08:41.160 --> 1:08:43.880 might call it Hippi. That's generally the reputation that it has. 1:08:44.560 --> 1:08:47.840 Campus police showed up. There was a series of negotiations, 1:08:47.960 --> 1:08:51.120 which here means they told everybody to leave, and at 1:08:51.160 --> 1:08:55.080 that point the police began escalating things. Because the Arcada 1:08:55.120 --> 1:08:58.080 Police Force is pretty small. Cops were called in from 1:08:58.120 --> 1:09:02.200 the surrounding area, quite a few of them. There were helicopters. 1:09:02.720 --> 1:09:05.320 It's much more of it to do than this fairly 1:09:05.400 --> 1:09:09.040 sleepy community in the Redwoods is used to having. Community 1:09:09.280 --> 1:09:11.799 members started to show up as well because hey, something 1:09:11.960 --> 1:09:15.160 was happening. A ride up from Crime Thinks website describes 1:09:15.200 --> 1:09:18.840 what happened next quote, Police from every department in the 1:09:18.920 --> 1:09:21.720 county showed up, including a helicopter, canine units, and off 1:09:21.800 --> 1:09:25.599 duty police. Students responded by swarming them. The cops initial 1:09:25.680 --> 1:09:27.960 plan to carry out a mass arrest was thwarted by 1:09:28.000 --> 1:09:30.960 a series of clashes both inside and outside of the building. 1:09:31.479 --> 1:09:35.479 The occupiers beat back police advances despite facing brutality unlike 1:09:35.479 --> 1:09:37.839 anything we have seen over the last decade of struggle 1:09:37.880 --> 1:09:41.920 in Humboldt County. Again, it's a pretty sleepy place. There 1:09:42.000 --> 1:09:45.000 were two arrests and a number of injuries. The arrests 1:09:45.000 --> 1:09:48.719 were apparently quite ugly, but police were unable to clear 1:09:48.760 --> 1:09:52.519 out the occupation. Barricades were thrown into place as the 1:09:52.560 --> 1:09:55.400 fighting continued off and on, until a crowd of people 1:09:55.439 --> 1:09:59.599 from the surrounding community, including other students and faculty, showed 1:09:59.680 --> 1:10:03.679 up out side and effectively surrounded the police. After six hours, 1:10:03.800 --> 1:10:07.120 the police retreated, The university declared a lockdown, and the 1:10:07.200 --> 1:10:09.919 students were able to spend the next few days extending 1:10:09.960 --> 1:10:13.400 their defenses as well upsetting, as well as setting up infrastructure, 1:10:13.520 --> 1:10:16.840 including a kitchen. Early on the morning of the twenty ninth, 1:10:16.920 --> 1:10:18.960 a team from It Could Happen Here sat down with 1:10:19.080 --> 1:10:21.200 two of these students to discuss the occupation. 1:10:21.920 --> 1:10:27.200 I go by Stinger online and I have been part 1:10:27.320 --> 1:10:32.760 of the occupation since I think the morning of day two. 1:10:33.680 --> 1:10:38.120 I think it's been night after the pops tried to 1:10:39.240 --> 1:10:43.439 enter the barricaded building and got pushed back. I think 1:10:43.479 --> 1:10:46.800 I've been here since the morning after that. 1:10:48.240 --> 1:10:50.640 Yeah, Blue, And what's been your history with this? 1:10:51.560 --> 1:10:55.560 I came here on Tuesday morning. I just attended a 1:10:55.640 --> 1:11:00.320 meeting with everyone, and I've just been here how at 1:11:00.360 --> 1:11:02.559 the MAC, mainly because I feel like that's where I'm 1:11:02.600 --> 1:11:03.400 the most useful. 1:11:04.560 --> 1:11:05.360 What's the MAC? 1:11:06.040 --> 1:11:09.599 The MAC is the Mutual Aid Kitchen. God, we've been 1:11:09.840 --> 1:11:14.320 handing out food and I've just been helping prepare food 1:11:14.760 --> 1:11:20.600 for people and trying to let other people involved do 1:11:20.880 --> 1:11:24.920 more things because I know I'm the most useful in 1:11:25.000 --> 1:11:29.479 the mac personally rather than being anywhere else doing anything else. 1:11:30.439 --> 1:11:32.760 By the time we talked to them, the rumor mill 1:11:32.840 --> 1:11:35.639 widely expected the police to carry out a major attempt 1:11:35.720 --> 1:11:38.519 to clear the occupation that night. As I write this 1:11:38.800 --> 1:11:42.320 ten thirteen pm PST on the twenty ninth of April, 1:11:42.520 --> 1:11:45.639 local police have just given Siemens Hall a dispersal order. 1:11:45.880 --> 1:11:48.960 So we'll see how that goes. Hey, everyone, Robert here, 1:11:49.080 --> 1:11:51.439 we saw how it goes. Police cracked down, arrested a 1:11:51.439 --> 1:11:54.360 bunch of people and ended the occupation. We will talk 1:11:54.439 --> 1:11:56.720 more about that a little at the end of the episode. 1:11:57.320 --> 1:12:00.599 But because their initial efforts to clear out the occupation failed, 1:12:00.720 --> 1:12:03.080 police have had to spend nearly a week watching and 1:12:03.160 --> 1:12:04.720 waiting as students dig in. 1:12:05.960 --> 1:12:09.320 Yeah, police have not tried to like actively push us 1:12:09.400 --> 1:12:12.639 out like we've seen on other campuses, where like they've 1:12:12.680 --> 1:12:15.559 totally like raided and like worn down tents and everything. 1:12:16.120 --> 1:12:19.320 And I think we also, I think a big part 1:12:19.360 --> 1:12:23.439 of it is like logistically, we're in a small city 1:12:24.000 --> 1:12:29.040 and we don't really have the police force necessary, Yeah, 1:12:30.400 --> 1:12:34.200 which is why they've been trying to call you know, unfortunately, 1:12:34.320 --> 1:12:39.559 then trying to call officers from other places because especially 1:12:39.800 --> 1:12:42.160 like I feel like in the evenings especially, we have 1:12:42.280 --> 1:12:46.080 a lot of people both from the community and students 1:12:46.120 --> 1:12:51.680 on campus who have been occupying the quad. But what's 1:12:51.720 --> 1:12:54.519 so funny is that our main intention was not Like 1:12:54.920 --> 1:12:58.200 the original intention was not to barricade that building. It 1:12:58.320 --> 1:13:01.920 was just going to be occupied, not arricaded. But because 1:13:02.040 --> 1:13:04.960 of police actions, I feel like we've actually stepped up 1:13:05.040 --> 1:13:07.000 more so. They kind of shot themselves on the foot 1:13:07.040 --> 1:13:07.639 with that one. 1:13:08.520 --> 1:13:10.360 This is a pattern we've seen a few times in 1:13:10.479 --> 1:13:14.320 recent years. In late twenty twenty, Garrison and I reported 1:13:14.360 --> 1:13:17.280 from an eviction defense at the famous Red House in Portland. 1:13:17.880 --> 1:13:20.640 The basic idea is that local protesters were trying to 1:13:20.680 --> 1:13:23.640 stop police from serving an eviction during the pandemic. There 1:13:23.720 --> 1:13:26.280 was a clash outside the house and some arrests, but 1:13:26.400 --> 1:13:28.840 police pulled back when protesters were still on the ground 1:13:28.920 --> 1:13:32.360 and in numbers. Said protesters began to fortify the area 1:13:32.520 --> 1:13:35.400 around the house and eventually the entire neighborhood. By the 1:13:35.439 --> 1:13:37.760 time the police realized what was going on, they had 1:13:37.800 --> 1:13:40.240 a nightmare on their hands, an occupation that would have 1:13:40.280 --> 1:13:44.439 been impossible to clear without significant violence. The end result 1:13:44.520 --> 1:13:47.880 of the situation was that the city government essentially negotiated 1:13:47.920 --> 1:13:50.360 an end to what was happening rather than just sending 1:13:50.400 --> 1:13:54.000 the police back into evict residence. There is much more 1:13:54.040 --> 1:13:56.439 to the whole situation than that. This is something people 1:13:56.479 --> 1:13:59.120 still get angry about because the patriarch of the family 1:13:59.160 --> 1:14:01.640 at Red House was a weirdo sovereign citizen type. But 1:14:02.200 --> 1:14:04.639 the goal at the time was to stop evictions during 1:14:04.720 --> 1:14:07.760 the pandemic, and the tactics of the day worked. The 1:14:07.840 --> 1:14:10.759 cops backed off, the city came to the negotiating table. 1:14:11.280 --> 1:14:14.200 It was a successful action, whatever you think about the 1:14:14.320 --> 1:14:18.200 individuals involved in it. After the call that Garrison Mia 1:14:18.240 --> 1:14:20.760 and myself had with those Humboldt students and we will 1:14:20.840 --> 1:14:23.000 hear more from them later, I got a message from 1:14:23.000 --> 1:14:25.519 a source that an occupation was also brewing on the 1:14:25.640 --> 1:14:29.439 Portland State University campus, or rather that it was going on, 1:14:29.760 --> 1:14:33.160 and folks were worried things were about to escalate. But 1:14:33.360 --> 1:14:37.920 don't you escalate until you've listened to these ads. 1:14:38.280 --> 1:14:50.559 Anyway, here they are, We're back. 1:14:51.520 --> 1:14:55.320 Actions at Portland State University started on Thursday, the twenty fifth, 1:14:55.520 --> 1:14:58.160 and it was initially pretty simple. One tent and one 1:14:58.240 --> 1:15:01.519 banner strung between trees in front of the Branford Price 1:15:01.640 --> 1:15:05.519 Miller Library steps. Social media did its thing. Once this 1:15:05.600 --> 1:15:08.240 first tent was up, and the encampment slowly grew to 1:15:08.360 --> 1:15:11.720 maybe half a dozen tents by midnight. At around one 1:15:11.840 --> 1:15:15.320 twenty am, the police swept the encampment. Only a few 1:15:15.400 --> 1:15:18.120 people were awake and less than twenty people were present 1:15:18.479 --> 1:15:22.960 against maybe forty riot officers. The police pushed people out 1:15:22.960 --> 1:15:25.400 of the encampment. They went straight for the supply tent 1:15:25.479 --> 1:15:29.120 and took everything, loading medical equipment, food, etc. Into City 1:15:29.160 --> 1:15:32.000 of Portland trucks and hauling it away. It was a 1:15:32.120 --> 1:15:34.240 bad night for a lot of people. But what I 1:15:34.360 --> 1:15:36.800 gleaned from interviewing some of those folks was that they 1:15:36.840 --> 1:15:40.879 had learned one crucial lesson, which was that Portland police 1:15:41.000 --> 1:15:43.760 weren't willing to fuck with people or property that was 1:15:43.840 --> 1:15:48.840 sitting on the PSU steps. This is probably a jurisdictional thing. 1:15:49.240 --> 1:15:54.599 School properties the responsibility of the PSU Campus Police PPB 1:15:54.760 --> 1:15:57.880 could police the park outside, but either couldn't or just 1:15:58.000 --> 1:16:00.760 didn't want to be arsd in dealing with the complications 1:16:00.800 --> 1:16:03.880 that might be caused by going into school property themselves. 1:16:04.560 --> 1:16:07.400 So the school had to deal with the unenviable complication 1:16:07.680 --> 1:16:10.360 of the fact that these were their students protesting at 1:16:10.400 --> 1:16:14.080 a famously progressive school and having their cops cleared them out, 1:16:14.160 --> 1:16:17.120 especially if it caused violence or somebody got seriously hurt, 1:16:17.520 --> 1:16:21.439 would be a real pr headache. The administration at Humboldt 1:16:21.520 --> 1:16:25.559 University and famously progressive ARCATA ran into a similar problem. 1:16:26.080 --> 1:16:28.240 In the days after the police backed away from their 1:16:28.280 --> 1:16:32.400 initial confrontation, students developed a list of demands by consensus. 1:16:33.120 --> 1:16:35.880 Here's one of our sources from the Humboldt occupation again 1:16:36.120 --> 1:16:39.240 and their description of the demands have been cut together 1:16:39.320 --> 1:16:42.320 from a longer interview. Some crosstalk has been edited out 1:16:42.360 --> 1:16:45.800 to make things flow a bit more clearly. Anyway, here's 1:16:45.800 --> 1:16:46.479 those demands. 1:16:47.080 --> 1:16:51.960 Okay, So students, with the mediation of faculty, have reached 1:16:51.960 --> 1:16:56.880 out to administration in hopes of re engaging negotiations. So 1:16:57.160 --> 1:17:00.679 we would like administration to agree to the following through demands. 1:17:01.240 --> 1:17:05.240 One de escalated. We demand the immediate removal of police 1:17:05.280 --> 1:17:09.759 from university campus. We also demand the immediate re enrollment 1:17:09.840 --> 1:17:12.439 of students who have been suspended. And it problem is 1:17:12.520 --> 1:17:17.240 to not suspend, resuspend, or expel any student protesters as 1:17:17.280 --> 1:17:22.280 a result of these accusations because they were claiming, you know, 1:17:22.439 --> 1:17:26.599 that we had committed property damage and trespassing and things 1:17:26.680 --> 1:17:28.519 like that, and that was a lot of the reasons 1:17:28.560 --> 1:17:32.599 that they gave for suspending us, Like in the email 1:17:32.680 --> 1:17:37.280 we received about interim suspension. Two was divest We demand 1:17:37.320 --> 1:17:40.600 that the Kalipoly Humboldt Foundation commits to an audit and 1:17:40.760 --> 1:17:45.240 subsequent divestment from any funds related to Israel, Israeli products, 1:17:45.400 --> 1:17:48.959 or Israeli companies, and this includes those that own factories 1:17:49.120 --> 1:17:52.879 on stolen Palestinian land in Israel. There are four specific 1:17:52.960 --> 1:17:56.920 funds that at the minimum, we demand the divestment from 1:17:57.320 --> 1:17:58.599 within the next six months. 1:17:59.360 --> 1:18:11.600 These were til c X, DFSTX, fe up X, and DOODFX. 1:18:12.520 --> 1:18:17.880 And we did research into these holdings that these funds 1:18:18.120 --> 1:18:21.639 have and how the companies that they may have holdings 1:18:21.680 --> 1:18:26.840 in are connected to Israel. So for example, ti LCx, 1:18:27.200 --> 1:18:31.280 their top three holdings are in Qualcomm, Wells Fargo, and Chubb. 1:18:31.760 --> 1:18:35.640 Qualcomm is an information technology company that does the majority 1:18:35.760 --> 1:18:39.160 of its technology development in Israel, so they have like 1:18:39.320 --> 1:18:45.280 factories there and that's kind of where they develop their 1:18:45.560 --> 1:18:48.960 smartphone chips and tracking intelligence, which is kind of like 1:18:49.040 --> 1:18:51.760 two of the main things that they work on and sell. 1:18:52.400 --> 1:18:56.439 And then Wells Fargo was part of a five hundred 1:18:56.479 --> 1:18:59.920 million dollar loan deal with multiple other lenders that support 1:19:00.520 --> 1:19:04.640 that was supporting Elbert Systems, which is an Israeli military 1:19:04.720 --> 1:19:08.960 weapons manufacturer. So those are like two of the big 1:19:09.040 --> 1:19:12.479 ones just from the first fund that we had looked into. 1:19:13.680 --> 1:19:18.520 And our third demand was declare in solidarity with universities 1:19:18.600 --> 1:19:21.800 across the globe and for all Palestinian people, including their 1:19:21.880 --> 1:19:25.599 martyrs and refugees. We demand a ceasefire statement from KLi 1:19:25.680 --> 1:19:29.680 Pally Humble calling for an immediate and permanent Ceaspire in Palestine, 1:19:30.120 --> 1:19:34.480 and we encourage all other California State universities and universities 1:19:34.520 --> 1:19:38.640 of California to do the same. As we were writing this, 1:19:38.960 --> 1:19:45.720 it was we found out that the faculty administration had 1:19:45.840 --> 1:19:50.760 released a Ceaspire statement, I believe, but the actual university 1:19:51.080 --> 1:19:54.439 like admin had it, like the whole university admin, but 1:19:54.560 --> 1:19:59.200 like the faculty had released a CESPIRE statement. Faculty specifically, 1:19:59.360 --> 1:20:03.120 I know there's there's definitely faculty that have There's some 1:20:03.240 --> 1:20:05.760 faculty who have been with us since day one, like 1:20:05.960 --> 1:20:09.360 CA camping out with everyone since day one. And it's 1:20:09.520 --> 1:20:13.439 like a lot of the faculty, we like, we are 1:20:13.600 --> 1:20:16.879 totally comfortable putting our trust in like some of these faculty, 1:20:17.080 --> 1:20:19.679 Like if there was an emergency, like I would call them, 1:20:20.320 --> 1:20:22.519 you know, like if there was an emergency on campus 1:20:22.640 --> 1:20:25.080 where like I was about to be arrested, I'm like, yeah, 1:20:25.080 --> 1:20:28.360 I'm going to call up this professor. But they have 1:20:28.520 --> 1:20:31.360 been and they have been like trying to, you know, 1:20:31.560 --> 1:20:35.240 update us with whatever they hear from Admin. But just 1:20:35.360 --> 1:20:38.280 in like the past few days, we've actually kind of 1:20:38.439 --> 1:20:42.160 discerned that upper admin has sort of cut off contact 1:20:42.240 --> 1:20:45.360 with lower admin and faculty. And this is something that 1:20:45.439 --> 1:20:49.160 we talked about with faculty members as well. Because of 1:20:49.320 --> 1:20:53.560 the significant faculty support that we've been receiving, Administration is 1:20:53.640 --> 1:20:56.960 literally just not telling faculty anything anymore. 1:20:57.400 --> 1:20:59.280 Yeah, it really seems like it's turned into just this 1:20:59.560 --> 1:21:03.639 pure conflict between everyone who is part of the process 1:21:03.840 --> 1:21:06.800 of an education fighting against the admin who are not 1:21:06.920 --> 1:21:08.960 part of that process, who are trying to stop everyone 1:21:09.040 --> 1:21:09.519 with cops. 1:21:10.200 --> 1:21:14.040 Back in Portland, that first failed encampment brought more people 1:21:14.120 --> 1:21:17.400 out the next day, Friday, the twenty sixth, and by noon, 1:21:17.560 --> 1:21:19.680 more tents than a few banners had been set up, 1:21:19.960 --> 1:21:24.040 student organizations had put together lists of demands. Now these 1:21:24.160 --> 1:21:27.120 demands have varied and have been edited a few times 1:21:27.160 --> 1:21:31.920 after long democratic consensus sessions by people present. The list 1:21:32.120 --> 1:21:34.519 I was presented with when I showed up on Monday 1:21:34.720 --> 1:21:38.799 included three demands. Number one, PSU should release a statement 1:21:38.880 --> 1:21:42.120 condemning the genocide of Palestinian people with weapons provided by 1:21:42.160 --> 1:21:45.639 the US. Number two, the university should end the sale 1:21:45.680 --> 1:21:48.719 of Israeli products on campus and any programs that would 1:21:48.720 --> 1:21:52.920 involve sending students, employees, or faculty to Israel. And number three, 1:21:53.240 --> 1:21:56.519 the board of trustees should terminate all relationships with Boeing 1:21:56.600 --> 1:22:00.360 and other companies complicit in the ongoing genocide. Their list 1:22:00.439 --> 1:22:04.040 included Leopold, an Oregon based company who makes rifle scopes, 1:22:04.360 --> 1:22:08.560 but also companies like Intel and Hewlett Packard. Boeing was 1:22:08.600 --> 1:22:12.639 the company I heard reference most by protesters. The aerospace company, 1:22:12.760 --> 1:22:15.439 which is involved in the manufacture and design of just 1:22:16.000 --> 1:22:19.640 so many weapons, has a partnership with Portland State University. 1:22:20.400 --> 1:22:22.800 Later on Friday, the same day that these lists of 1:22:22.840 --> 1:22:26.719 demands started coming together, the school president and cut announced 1:22:26.760 --> 1:22:30.599 a pause to the school's relationship with Boeing to address 1:22:30.640 --> 1:22:31.879 these protester demands. 1:22:32.560 --> 1:22:33.160 Precisely. 1:22:33.439 --> 1:22:37.760 What pausing this relationship means is unclear, and a lot 1:22:37.840 --> 1:22:39.880 of the people I talked to felt like it essentially 1:22:40.000 --> 1:22:43.720 meant nothing but cut wrote quote. PSU will host a 1:22:43.880 --> 1:22:47.280 forum at which these concerns can be carefully framed and debated. 1:22:47.680 --> 1:22:50.599 We will organize a two hour moderated debate in May 1:22:50.720 --> 1:22:56.240 to include faculty and student voices, so you know whatever 1:22:56.320 --> 1:22:59.360 that means. By late in the day Friday, media had 1:22:59.360 --> 1:23:02.240 started showing up in numbers to report on the occupation, 1:23:02.400 --> 1:23:04.799 which was still quite small, but bigger ones were happening 1:23:04.840 --> 1:23:07.640 all over the country, and if your local news you 1:23:07.720 --> 1:23:09.559 want to do anything you can to tie your area 1:23:09.680 --> 1:23:12.560 into whatever the big story is nationwide, so you know, 1:23:12.840 --> 1:23:15.839 good excuse to show up. There was also some conflict 1:23:15.880 --> 1:23:19.639 between local student groups at this point and unaffiliated groups 1:23:19.720 --> 1:23:23.400 of activists, some of whom were also students, over whether 1:23:23.520 --> 1:23:26.840 or not to keep occupying over the weekend and keep 1:23:26.920 --> 1:23:31.160 attempting to you know, keep an occupation in place despite 1:23:31.280 --> 1:23:34.720 police crackdowns, or to save their strength for a new 1:23:34.800 --> 1:23:38.880 concerted push on Monday. At any rate, some people stayed 1:23:39.040 --> 1:23:42.360 and by seven pm that night Friday night, the Portland 1:23:42.360 --> 1:23:45.800 Police Bureau showed back up in full riot gear. Park 1:23:45.880 --> 1:23:48.880 rangers told protesters to exit the park area, and a 1:23:49.000 --> 1:23:53.439 standoff ensued. While some protesters confronted police head on. A 1:23:53.479 --> 1:23:56.240 smaller group of activists used this as a distraction to 1:23:56.320 --> 1:23:59.479 move a number of tents onto the library steps, having 1:23:59.560 --> 1:24:02.160 noticed that PPB didn't seem to be willing to go 1:24:02.280 --> 1:24:05.840 directly onto campus property. Once this was done, the folks 1:24:05.920 --> 1:24:09.240 confronting the riot line gradually pulled back to the steps. 1:24:09.960 --> 1:24:12.240 The police seemed confused or at least. 1:24:12.120 --> 1:24:12.760 Put out by this. 1:24:13.160 --> 1:24:15.680 They left for a while, then returned briefly to cut 1:24:15.760 --> 1:24:18.880 down the banners hung on the trees. I was told 1:24:18.880 --> 1:24:21.000 a number of people mentioned this kind of laughingly when 1:24:21.040 --> 1:24:23.000 I was around that the way in which the police 1:24:23.160 --> 1:24:26.679 justified this was that a recent anti camping public camping 1:24:26.760 --> 1:24:31.000 measure meant to target the homeless specified that the kind 1:24:31.080 --> 1:24:33.680 of thing that a banner like. Basically, the fact that 1:24:33.720 --> 1:24:36.800 the banner touched trees in two different areas, or like 1:24:36.880 --> 1:24:39.560 touch two different trees meant that it would count it 1:24:39.600 --> 1:24:41.599 as a tent, and so they were allowed to take 1:24:41.640 --> 1:24:44.560 it down. It all sounded pretty silly to me, but 1:24:44.840 --> 1:24:47.960 students and others on campus property in the library were 1:24:48.040 --> 1:24:51.080 left to barricade the area around the library at will. 1:24:51.880 --> 1:24:55.320 They started with pallets brought by an anonymous benefactor. Both 1:24:55.400 --> 1:24:58.479 sides of the staircases into the library were initially blocked. 1:24:59.120 --> 1:25:02.759 This only lasted until Saturday morning, when an cud president 1:25:02.840 --> 1:25:05.920 of the university since August of twenty twenty three, visited 1:25:05.960 --> 1:25:09.840 the encampment. Different protesters I have talked to related this 1:25:09.960 --> 1:25:13.679 event in different ways. Some described her visit as essentially chill. 1:25:14.120 --> 1:25:17.479 Others described Ann as quite angry and even threatening them. 1:25:18.120 --> 1:25:19.080 I was not there. 1:25:19.600 --> 1:25:23.280 The end result was an agreement, though, if protesters allowed 1:25:23.320 --> 1:25:26.559 students to continue to have access to the doorway into 1:25:26.600 --> 1:25:30.040 the library so students could still use the library, PSU 1:25:30.080 --> 1:25:32.360 wouldn't send in their cops or call in the city 1:25:32.439 --> 1:25:35.920 cops to clear out the occupation. After what one source 1:25:36.000 --> 1:25:41.320 described as much heated discussion, protesters agreed to this arrangement. Now, 1:25:41.600 --> 1:25:44.920 variations of stuff like this are common in occupations at 1:25:44.960 --> 1:25:49.240 schools that get this far. School faculty are often sympathetic 1:25:49.360 --> 1:25:51.880 to student actions, or at least to the students taking 1:25:52.000 --> 1:25:55.320 part in them, and supporting crackdowns is dicey for the 1:25:55.400 --> 1:26:00.120 administration at Humboldt State University. The administration attempted to de 1:26:00.360 --> 1:26:03.839 escalate and eventually euthanized the movement by trying to provide 1:26:03.880 --> 1:26:06.519 a safety valve, a way for students who'd had enough 1:26:06.600 --> 1:26:10.080 to leave, along with the suggestion but not the actual 1:26:10.200 --> 1:26:13.760 legally binding promise that they wouldn't be punished if they did. 1:26:14.240 --> 1:26:17.120 And here's another clip from that interview. I understand that 1:26:17.200 --> 1:26:19.439 the school even set up basically a booth where you 1:26:19.479 --> 1:26:23.120 could come and officially like de register yourself from the 1:26:23.200 --> 1:26:26.720 protests in order to not get expelled or something like that. 1:26:27.040 --> 1:26:31.759 Is that a like I think you're It was unclear 1:26:31.840 --> 1:26:34.200 to me from what I read, like exactly how that 1:26:34.479 --> 1:26:37.400 system was supposed to function, but it seemed kind of shady, 1:26:38.520 --> 1:26:39.040 so they. 1:26:39.080 --> 1:26:41.360 Wanted us to So they set up a table by 1:26:41.400 --> 1:26:43.439 one of the exits, and they wanted us to like 1:26:44.400 --> 1:26:49.800 give them like our information, and they were like, if 1:26:49.840 --> 1:26:53.439 you do this, you won't get immediately arrested. But keep 1:26:53.479 --> 1:26:57.679 in mind they said not immediately arrested, And they even 1:26:57.840 --> 1:27:01.240 clarified like in their alert about they were like, by 1:27:01.320 --> 1:27:04.160 the way, this doesn't protect you from any future consequences. 1:27:04.640 --> 1:27:06.360 So it was like, why would we do that? Then? 1:27:06.640 --> 1:27:08.320 What is that a doing for any of us? 1:27:08.560 --> 1:27:11.840 I don't think a single person took that opportunity back 1:27:11.920 --> 1:27:12.439 in Portland. 1:27:12.680 --> 1:27:16.400 After the detunt with the school administration, things continued awkwardly 1:27:16.520 --> 1:27:17.160 but smoothly. 1:27:17.240 --> 1:27:18.320 For the next day or so. 1:27:19.040 --> 1:27:22.960 Protesters continued to fortify the library defenses while students entered 1:27:23.000 --> 1:27:25.599 and exited and used it at will, although the school 1:27:25.640 --> 1:27:29.000 did shut it down early on Monday. In the meantime, 1:27:29.320 --> 1:27:32.320 protesters used the small space available to them to set 1:27:32.400 --> 1:27:36.120 up minimal infrastructure as an humble, small kitchen tent was 1:27:36.160 --> 1:27:38.880 put up, along with a larger medical tent, a designated 1:27:39.000 --> 1:27:41.760 smoking area tent, and an art station for people to 1:27:41.800 --> 1:27:45.599 make signs to hang from the barricades. Donations began coming 1:27:45.680 --> 1:27:48.600 in on Saturday night and flooded in on Sunday, the 1:27:48.720 --> 1:27:52.360 point that by Monday protesters had stopped accepting donations of 1:27:52.800 --> 1:27:54.760 a lot of stuff like food and water, but also 1:27:54.840 --> 1:27:57.560 things like batteries and generators because they just didn't have 1:27:57.680 --> 1:28:00.840 room to take any more of them. During these weekend 1:28:00.960 --> 1:28:04.519 days and nights, those of the encampment discussed demands, their plans, 1:28:04.600 --> 1:28:08.160 and strategy for the future. One topic of discussion involved 1:28:08.160 --> 1:28:11.560 the houseless. Would local houseless people be welcome inside the 1:28:11.680 --> 1:28:13.760 encampment and would they be welcomed to some of the 1:28:13.880 --> 1:28:17.479 donated resources. The ultimate decision, and I hear that this 1:28:17.640 --> 1:28:20.679 was not a particularly controversial one, was yes. 1:28:21.240 --> 1:28:21.400 Now. 1:28:21.760 --> 1:28:24.000 I should also note here that the Humboldt students we 1:28:24.120 --> 1:28:28.679 talked with claimed that their school's treatment of houseless residents earlier, 1:28:28.840 --> 1:28:30.920 like a couple of years ago, was one of the 1:28:31.040 --> 1:28:35.080 inciting incidents of this occupation. Obviously, the genocide in Gaza 1:28:35.240 --> 1:28:38.200 was the spark and purpose for why the occupation at 1:28:38.240 --> 1:28:41.439 Humboldt happened and why this occupation at PSU happened. But 1:28:41.560 --> 1:28:44.120 nothing happens in a vacuum. And I wanted to include 1:28:44.160 --> 1:28:47.120 this bit from the interview because I think it's interesting. 1:28:47.400 --> 1:28:50.439 We're joking about this is life the third strike for 1:28:50.640 --> 1:28:55.120 administration because in twenty twenty two, the La Times released 1:28:55.160 --> 1:29:00.160 an article about how administration was kicking homeless students off 1:29:00.200 --> 1:29:05.360 campus for living in their vehicles. Jesus and I believe 1:29:05.680 --> 1:29:08.320 our university, out of all the cal States, has the 1:29:08.439 --> 1:29:14.280 highest rate of homeless students. Yeah, and so this kind 1:29:14.320 --> 1:29:18.000 of this outrage a lot of people, including people on campus. 1:29:18.120 --> 1:29:21.240 We actually had a few days encampment on campus for 1:29:21.320 --> 1:29:24.400 that too, I believe, and I feel like that never 1:29:24.479 --> 1:29:29.439 really got it got partially resolved, but Admin was like 1:29:29.960 --> 1:29:35.200 really fighting against all the possible options because there was 1:29:35.360 --> 1:29:39.559 like a couple of people arguing that, like we keep 1:29:39.600 --> 1:29:41.639 in mind, I don't even think these people were from campus, 1:29:41.880 --> 1:29:45.000 but apparently the two people like filed complaints about how 1:29:45.120 --> 1:29:48.920 the people living in their cars were like messy or something, 1:29:50.920 --> 1:29:54.000 and so one of our requests was like, Okay, maybe 1:29:54.160 --> 1:29:57.400 like we could get a few more gumpsters or trash 1:29:57.479 --> 1:30:00.840 cans in the area where people are living. Yeah, And 1:30:01.240 --> 1:30:05.080 I'm just totally fought back against that, and so that 1:30:05.320 --> 1:30:08.280 was like what we're jokingly calling, like, oh, that was 1:30:08.400 --> 1:30:12.040 like strike one and then strike two. We were saying, 1:30:12.200 --> 1:30:15.600 is the faculty strike that happened earlier, I think this 1:30:15.760 --> 1:30:18.640 semester that was I think all over the state, But 1:30:18.720 --> 1:30:22.400 it really only lasted like one day, despite the momentum 1:30:22.800 --> 1:30:27.360 for possibly lasting longer than that. And Admin wanted like 1:30:27.520 --> 1:30:30.479 sent out an email saying like if your faculty isn't 1:30:30.479 --> 1:30:35.720 holding classes, put their names here, geesh, and obviously all 1:30:35.720 --> 1:30:38.240 of us were like, what are you talking like you 1:30:38.320 --> 1:30:41.280 want us to like you're asking us to snitch on 1:30:41.360 --> 1:30:45.120 our like professors and faculty right now. So that's what 1:30:45.200 --> 1:30:48.120 we're joking, is like strike two because we're like, we're 1:30:48.120 --> 1:30:50.719 not doing that. And then this is what we're calling 1:30:50.840 --> 1:30:53.280 strike three. And I was like joking earlier wh to everyone, 1:30:53.320 --> 1:30:56.120 I was like, strike three and we're out. Strike three 1:30:56.200 --> 1:30:59.040 and they're out, and everyone was like, yeah, I freaking hope. 1:30:58.920 --> 1:31:03.200 So can't be. Occupations like this are always complex things, 1:31:03.600 --> 1:31:06.120 not just in the different motivating factors that come together 1:31:06.200 --> 1:31:09.120 to make situations like this possible, but in the ways 1:31:09.240 --> 1:31:13.320 in which extant student groups and organizations that arise spontaneously 1:31:13.560 --> 1:31:16.600 due to the pressures of the moment, interface and interact. 1:31:17.280 --> 1:31:19.759 When I arrived at the encampment at about one PM, 1:31:19.920 --> 1:31:23.240 I was introduced to several media liaisons for the occupation. 1:31:23.920 --> 1:31:27.080 They were extremely careful with what they said. A lot 1:31:27.160 --> 1:31:28.920 of it was just kind of repeating the list of 1:31:28.960 --> 1:31:31.640 agreed upon demands that the protesters had come up with. 1:31:31.920 --> 1:31:34.000 I did ask about a few other things. I wanted 1:31:34.040 --> 1:31:36.439 to know how protests in twenty twenty in protests on 1:31:36.520 --> 1:31:40.240 other campuses had impacted the tactics being seen here. The 1:31:40.320 --> 1:31:43.680 most common response I got to my questions where variations 1:31:43.720 --> 1:31:46.680 of that's not something we'd like to talk about. But 1:31:46.880 --> 1:31:48.880 they did go into detail in a couple of things, 1:31:48.960 --> 1:31:51.240 and one of those was what it would take to 1:31:51.360 --> 1:31:56.720 actually conclude this occupation. They noted that if representatives of 1:31:56.880 --> 1:31:59.760 the campus administration, including the president, were to come to 1:31:59.800 --> 1:32:03.040 them and make concrete steps to divest from Boeing and 1:32:03.360 --> 1:32:07.880 other military contractors that the school currently has a direct 1:32:07.960 --> 1:32:11.240 financial relationship with, that that could be the basis for 1:32:11.760 --> 1:32:14.759 moving forward in some way to start reducing the extent 1:32:14.840 --> 1:32:18.040 of the encampment. Possibly, so that seemed to be kind 1:32:18.040 --> 1:32:20.839 of their line, if we actually see some real evidence 1:32:20.920 --> 1:32:24.680 that the school is divesting from these military investments that 1:32:24.760 --> 1:32:29.240 they have, will be willing to negotiate further. But what 1:32:29.400 --> 1:32:31.680 the school has done thus far, basically just announcing a 1:32:31.760 --> 1:32:34.000 pause and saying we'll meet about the Boeing thing later, 1:32:34.479 --> 1:32:39.000 that's not enough. The liaisons I talked to also made 1:32:39.040 --> 1:32:41.519 it clear that they found the wide wave of campus 1:32:41.600 --> 1:32:44.280 actions around the country inspiring and that that had had 1:32:44.280 --> 1:32:47.400 an impact on how things were being carried out at PSU. 1:32:48.240 --> 1:32:51.000 I was pretty impressed by their message discipline to be honest. 1:32:51.200 --> 1:32:53.200 As a journalist, you want people to talk to you, 1:32:53.360 --> 1:32:55.880 but actions like this are dangerous, and cops aren't the 1:32:55.960 --> 1:32:59.439 only danger. Anytime your movement gets pressed the attention that 1:32:59.520 --> 1:33:03.479 it acts will also attract grifters, particularly of the right 1:33:03.520 --> 1:33:06.680 wing variety, people who want to find someone they can 1:33:06.800 --> 1:33:09.679 catch saying something aggressive or dumb, or that just sounds 1:33:09.760 --> 1:33:14.200 bad out of context. You, as organizers and activists, want 1:33:14.240 --> 1:33:17.040 to keep attention on your goals and message and away 1:33:17.120 --> 1:33:20.120 from that kind of bullshit. I should also note that 1:33:20.200 --> 1:33:23.320 there were some mentions of their desire that the campus 1:33:24.479 --> 1:33:27.200 essentially carry out an amnesty policy for people who had 1:33:27.240 --> 1:33:30.200 already been involved in the occupation, so that nobody would 1:33:30.240 --> 1:33:32.479 get kicked out of the school as a result of 1:33:32.920 --> 1:33:36.360 their participation in this movement. I've heard similar things from 1:33:36.400 --> 1:33:40.120 the protesters and Humboldt. Yeah, it was an interesting conversation, 1:33:40.400 --> 1:33:55.160 and what's also interesting are these ads and we're back 1:33:56.000 --> 1:33:58.280 as my time at the protest on Monday, war On, 1:33:58.640 --> 1:34:01.840 Individuals from the occupation would occasionally march through the crowd 1:34:01.920 --> 1:34:04.640 and around the encampment, which grew at its height of 1:34:04.720 --> 1:34:06.880 the day to around five hundred or so people. In 1:34:06.960 --> 1:34:10.360 the late afternoon. This was a mix of protesters, including 1:34:10.439 --> 1:34:13.120 people from a march that had formed elsewhere and ended 1:34:13.240 --> 1:34:16.920 up at PSU, and some bystanders, a lot of whom 1:34:16.960 --> 1:34:20.760 were students sitting nearby dorms. People who were members of 1:34:20.800 --> 1:34:24.320 the occupation would ask passers by and media not to 1:34:24.400 --> 1:34:27.519 film protesters and encourage folks to get involved and help 1:34:27.560 --> 1:34:30.840 with the occupation. Pamphlets on their goals were handed out, 1:34:31.280 --> 1:34:35.080 and pamphlets on radical political action were passed around. There 1:34:35.080 --> 1:34:38.439 were also some people tabling for different causes. There was 1:34:38.720 --> 1:34:41.439 one group of people who were taking down folks information 1:34:42.320 --> 1:34:45.000 in order to support essentially a ballot measure that would 1:34:45.040 --> 1:34:48.000 increase the tax on corporations worth more than twenty five 1:34:48.080 --> 1:34:50.240 million dollars that were based in the city of Portland, 1:34:50.320 --> 1:34:53.640 which sounded nice to me. And in addition to that, 1:34:54.240 --> 1:34:58.000 there were people who were working to organize a you know, 1:34:58.280 --> 1:35:01.240 one of those Sorry his very late, but essentially how 1:35:01.320 --> 1:35:03.960 people are a lot of people are attempting to get 1:35:04.000 --> 1:35:09.120 people to organize to like register is unaffiliated and the primaries, 1:35:09.200 --> 1:35:11.960 especially in order to like, you know, make a statement 1:35:12.160 --> 1:35:15.000 to the Biden administration about their support of Israel. There 1:35:15.040 --> 1:35:18.639 were folks who were trying to raise and get people 1:35:18.880 --> 1:35:21.200 involved in that as well. So again, you know, it 1:35:21.360 --> 1:35:24.000 was like many protests of this size involved a lot 1:35:24.040 --> 1:35:27.680 of people. Sometimes in the past, especially in Portland, I 1:35:27.760 --> 1:35:32.439 have seen kind of more extreme and yeah, let's say 1:35:32.520 --> 1:35:36.519 extreme activists get angry at stuff like this, particularly when 1:35:36.560 --> 1:35:40.040 it's asking folks to like fill out or sign petitions. 1:35:40.520 --> 1:35:44.240 There's some concern obviously that like that could effectively docs 1:35:44.320 --> 1:35:47.000 people who are there. I've always found that concern a 1:35:47.040 --> 1:35:49.439 little silly. I think people can be trusted to kind 1:35:49.479 --> 1:35:51.760 of measure their own threat matrix and decide am I 1:35:51.800 --> 1:35:53.880 going to be doing anything at this protest? That means 1:35:53.920 --> 1:35:56.040 I shouldn't, you know, put down on a piece of 1:35:56.080 --> 1:35:59.080 paper that I was around here that issue. I didn't 1:35:59.160 --> 1:36:03.760 notice at this Everyone seemed pretty copasetic, and as a 1:36:03.840 --> 1:36:07.479 general rule, it was quite peaceful. Folks seemed more or 1:36:07.560 --> 1:36:11.400 less on the same page. The mostly masked protesters that 1:36:11.520 --> 1:36:14.360 I met were a pretty diverse lot, and this included 1:36:14.360 --> 1:36:16.599 a number of Muslim students, at least one of whom 1:36:16.720 --> 1:36:19.840 I watched prey before taking their place on the barricade. 1:36:20.479 --> 1:36:23.120 I also noticed numbers of students in his jobs watching 1:36:23.200 --> 1:36:26.160 from nearby windows, and eventually from the park out in 1:36:26.240 --> 1:36:29.759 front of the occupation. From conversations I had on the ground, 1:36:29.880 --> 1:36:32.800 I became aware of the fact that several student organizations 1:36:32.840 --> 1:36:36.960 were hesitant to support, particularly the weekend occupations, as they 1:36:37.000 --> 1:36:40.040 had had concerns for the safety of their Palestinian members. 1:36:40.720 --> 1:36:44.800 One particularly salient fear was that fordn students who participated 1:36:44.840 --> 1:36:48.160 and were arrested might risk not just their academic status 1:36:48.320 --> 1:36:51.400 but their ability to stay in country. And I know 1:36:51.479 --> 1:36:53.960 that a number of the protesters I met there who 1:36:54.080 --> 1:36:57.960 were particularly you know, white folks, felt like one reason 1:36:58.040 --> 1:37:02.240 they needed to participate was that they could participate without 1:37:02.479 --> 1:37:05.880 taking that kind of risk. On for the largest portion 1:37:05.960 --> 1:37:09.000 of the day Monday, I watched his activists reinforce the 1:37:09.040 --> 1:37:11.599 barricades on one side of the library, and the crowd 1:37:12.000 --> 1:37:15.320 grew quite large in the park. Some signs I saw 1:37:15.400 --> 1:37:18.439 among the crowd and on the barricade included mass college 1:37:18.520 --> 1:37:21.280 protests are always on the right side of history, and 1:37:21.880 --> 1:37:26.200 fuck your homework. People are dying. There were speeches, but 1:37:26.360 --> 1:37:28.880 not much in the way of action until very late 1:37:28.920 --> 1:37:30.640 in the day, when all but maybe one hundred and 1:37:30.720 --> 1:37:33.800 fifty or so of the crowd had filtered away. My 1:37:33.960 --> 1:37:36.600 notes at the time say the big change happened at 1:37:36.600 --> 1:37:40.400 around six fifty five pm. By this point in the 1:37:41.080 --> 1:37:44.280 early evening, I had seen very little of the police. 1:37:44.600 --> 1:37:47.040 Every now and then, a few PSU cruisers would come 1:37:47.120 --> 1:37:50.080 by circling the area, and small groups of four or 1:37:50.120 --> 1:37:53.320 five hecklers carrying makeshift fishing poles with donuts on them 1:37:53.560 --> 1:37:56.240 would run beside the squad cars, basically trying to like 1:37:56.479 --> 1:37:59.479 tempt the police officers to go grab the donuts. This 1:37:59.600 --> 1:38:03.000 seemed to demoralize the campus officers enough that they mostly 1:38:03.160 --> 1:38:06.960 stayed away. I believe that at this point the city's 1:38:07.040 --> 1:38:11.120 plan and the administration's plan was to avoid doing anything 1:38:11.240 --> 1:38:13.759 fucked up and violent in front of such a large crowd, 1:38:13.880 --> 1:38:16.760 because that would be to risk restarting the whole twenty 1:38:16.880 --> 1:38:18.559 twenty Portland protest cycle. 1:38:18.640 --> 1:38:20.960 Again. Remember, it's not just as simple as can we 1:38:21.040 --> 1:38:21.960 crush this protest? 1:38:22.040 --> 1:38:24.479 But if we go kick all these people out now 1:38:24.640 --> 1:38:27.679 and a bunch of them get seen in broad daylight 1:38:27.720 --> 1:38:30.000 getting beaten and gassed, does that mean we have to 1:38:30.040 --> 1:38:33.920 deal with thousands of people in the street tomorrow. Honestly, 1:38:34.160 --> 1:38:37.360 staying away was the smart play on behalf of the police, 1:38:37.520 --> 1:38:39.639 and as a result of them making the smart play, 1:38:39.920 --> 1:38:43.559 protesters in the encampment were themselves confronted with a choice. 1:38:44.320 --> 1:38:46.719 The space that they had been allowed by the school 1:38:46.800 --> 1:38:50.120 to occupy in the sort of weird Dayton situation had 1:38:50.200 --> 1:38:52.960 been filled both with donations and just the number of 1:38:53.040 --> 1:38:56.240 people who were inside the occupation. There was no room 1:38:56.400 --> 1:38:59.479 to make it any bigger. So their next options were 1:38:59.600 --> 1:39:04.000 either number one, expand the occupation to the park and 1:39:04.080 --> 1:39:07.879 the Portland Police Bureau has the ability to legal ability 1:39:08.160 --> 1:39:11.559 and obviously the gear to clear out the park. In addition, 1:39:11.760 --> 1:39:15.240 just from a tactical level, it's difficult to defend an 1:39:15.400 --> 1:39:17.720 encampment in that park the way that it's set up. 1:39:17.880 --> 1:39:20.919 You really don't have you know, you're kind of surrounded 1:39:20.920 --> 1:39:23.640 on all sides. The police can really mess with you. 1:39:23.840 --> 1:39:26.120 I've been gassed in that park a few times, I'm 1:39:26.160 --> 1:39:29.200 quite aware. The other option they had was take the 1:39:29.439 --> 1:39:33.200 entire library building and force a response from both PSU 1:39:33.640 --> 1:39:36.519 and the city government. This would obviously give them warm 1:39:36.640 --> 1:39:39.280 room to maneuver, give them more room to take in 1:39:39.439 --> 1:39:43.720 more people, and it would force an escalation with the 1:39:43.840 --> 1:39:46.080 city government and with the school, which is you know, 1:39:46.240 --> 1:39:48.759 what they were looking for. Again, this is overall about 1:39:49.200 --> 1:39:53.040 particularly their school, not divesting from companies that they see 1:39:53.120 --> 1:39:57.240 is complicit in the genocide in Gaza, and about you know, 1:39:57.560 --> 1:40:01.680 wanting to force a response from that's school's leadership. You know, 1:40:01.840 --> 1:40:04.400 There's a lot more to it than that, but that's 1:40:04.479 --> 1:40:06.280 what they were trying to do, and that's what they 1:40:06.400 --> 1:40:09.200 chose to do. A little before seven pm, someone on 1:40:09.280 --> 1:40:11.720 a bullhorn came out and began asking all of the 1:40:11.800 --> 1:40:14.679 people who were still there who was willing to engage 1:40:14.720 --> 1:40:17.360 in real militant action, and for those people to come 1:40:17.439 --> 1:40:21.120 help occupy the library. Those who were less willing to 1:40:21.320 --> 1:40:24.000 risk charges but still down for the cause should form 1:40:24.120 --> 1:40:26.280 ranks out in front of the property. There were people 1:40:26.360 --> 1:40:29.560 with shields, etc. They looked like little bitty pealanxes. 1:40:29.680 --> 1:40:29.840 You know. 1:40:30.040 --> 1:40:33.640 People had a mix of umbrellas and shields and you know, 1:40:33.800 --> 1:40:37.400 usually two lines thick or so of people linking arms. 1:40:37.479 --> 1:40:39.360 And I thought at first they were just kind of 1:40:39.400 --> 1:40:41.360 getting ready for the police to come in to sort 1:40:41.400 --> 1:40:44.919 of resist the charge if they occupied more of the library, 1:40:45.000 --> 1:40:47.679 But that's not what happened. For a few minutes, different 1:40:47.840 --> 1:40:50.200 organizers kind of put these groups of people together and 1:40:50.840 --> 1:40:53.800 drilled them, walk them through basic tactics, talked about what 1:40:54.000 --> 1:40:57.040 they should expect, and not long after this, two different 1:40:57.160 --> 1:41:01.519 PSU police cruisers began to coach from two different streets 1:41:02.240 --> 1:41:05.240 both of these different groups of people. These little platoons 1:41:05.439 --> 1:41:08.959 split up and one would confront each vehicle. The officers 1:41:09.000 --> 1:41:11.880 were badly outnumbered in both cases, and they pulled back 1:41:12.320 --> 1:41:18.160 and essentially left the library without anyone really watching over it. 1:41:18.680 --> 1:41:21.200 The activists who were inside the library used this as 1:41:21.240 --> 1:41:24.240 an excuse to occupy the rest of the building. Once 1:41:24.280 --> 1:41:27.320 the police cruisers had been forced back, the protesters from 1:41:27.360 --> 1:41:30.719 these platoons started grabbing heavy objects that were just around 1:41:30.800 --> 1:41:33.320 them on the campus and dragging them back to fortify 1:41:33.400 --> 1:41:36.320 the entrances and exits to the structure. Much of this 1:41:36.439 --> 1:41:38.840 took the form of black clad activists swarming onto a 1:41:38.920 --> 1:41:42.559 sports field behind the library and grabbing soccer goals, football 1:41:42.640 --> 1:41:45.160 training sleds, and other heavy pieces of equipment and using 1:41:45.240 --> 1:41:47.800 them to wall off exits and entrances to the ground 1:41:47.840 --> 1:41:48.719 floor of the building. 1:41:49.240 --> 1:41:50.360 I watched one group. 1:41:50.200 --> 1:41:53.200 Of protesters cut through locks to liberate a pair of dumpsters, 1:41:53.320 --> 1:41:55.640 which quickly found their way into the barricades in the 1:41:55.680 --> 1:41:58.679 front of the structure. I did not into the library, 1:41:59.000 --> 1:42:01.479 fairly certain that would been illegal, but I did see 1:42:01.560 --> 1:42:04.759 numerous people running around on floors above ground level setting 1:42:04.840 --> 1:42:07.760 up the space for a proper occupation. I was told 1:42:07.840 --> 1:42:10.559 by at least one person that activists were purposely keeping 1:42:10.600 --> 1:42:13.479 the interior space accessible to those with wheelchairs, and there 1:42:13.520 --> 1:42:15.720 were a number of folks with wheelchairs who I saw 1:42:15.840 --> 1:42:19.360 outside at the occupation. I did not see any specific 1:42:19.439 --> 1:42:23.200 people inside. I left after nine pm, having been on 1:42:23.280 --> 1:42:26.160 the ground and wearing my armor for about eight hours 1:42:26.240 --> 1:42:29.000 the day after landing back in Portland. That was all 1:42:29.040 --> 1:42:31.040 I had in me, but quite a few people were 1:42:31.040 --> 1:42:34.080 still present, both outside and inside the library when I left. 1:42:34.720 --> 1:42:37.080 Roughly an hour after I got home and started writing 1:42:37.160 --> 1:42:40.640 this episode at about eleven pm PST, a series of 1:42:40.720 --> 1:42:44.280 frantic late night phone calls resulted in the president of PSU, 1:42:44.560 --> 1:42:47.479 Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler, the Chief of Police for Portland 1:42:47.800 --> 1:42:51.160 and the City DA Mike Schmidt, holding an emergency press conference. 1:42:51.800 --> 1:42:55.639 Local KTU reporter tan vy Varma summarized the conference message 1:42:56.000 --> 1:42:57.000 this way on Twitter. 1:42:57.360 --> 1:42:57.679 Quote. 1:42:58.080 --> 1:43:01.400 PSU president said, the protesters damage property and I've broken 1:43:01.439 --> 1:43:04.240 into the library. She says she cannot entertain property damage 1:43:04.320 --> 1:43:06.519 or breaking an entering. She asked them to choose to 1:43:06.600 --> 1:43:09.320 engage civilly. She says they'll be asking PPB to remove 1:43:09.360 --> 1:43:12.720 the trespassers from the library. PPB Police chief says he'd 1:43:12.840 --> 1:43:15.720 like to resolve this with no force or arrests. He 1:43:15.800 --> 1:43:17.479 has asked those who are breaking the law in the 1:43:17.520 --> 1:43:21.760 protest to stop. It's unclear to me at present how 1:43:21.800 --> 1:43:23.680 many of this is going to shake out. As I 1:43:23.800 --> 1:43:26.679 type this, the occupation at Humboldt is under heavy attack 1:43:26.800 --> 1:43:28.880 and it sounds like it's going to be quite ugly. 1:43:29.400 --> 1:43:33.240 Hey everyone, so you know, again this is a little 1:43:33.280 --> 1:43:35.519 messy because I wrote this late last night. I woke 1:43:35.600 --> 1:43:37.519 up in the morning to listen to the edit of 1:43:37.560 --> 1:43:40.320 it and some things that happened in the early hours 1:43:40.360 --> 1:43:43.920 of Tuesday morning. About twenty five people were arrested after 1:43:44.040 --> 1:43:46.840 more than a hundred riot officers arrived at the cow 1:43:46.960 --> 1:43:51.360 Poly Humboldt campus and cracked down on the Gaza protest occupation. 1:43:51.720 --> 1:43:56.040 Riot police arrived around two thirty am. Legal observers say, 1:43:56.360 --> 1:43:59.160 no injuries. It's kind of really unclear to me how 1:43:59.240 --> 1:44:03.240 bad it was what actually happened, but you know, quite 1:44:03.240 --> 1:44:05.960 a few people have been arrested, and at this point 1:44:06.160 --> 1:44:08.479 it looks like they're being charged with some pretty narly 1:44:08.560 --> 1:44:13.400 crimes conspiracy, I think, assault on a police officer. So 1:44:14.000 --> 1:44:15.519 this is one of those things that's going to be 1:44:15.640 --> 1:44:20.200 an ongoing story. The university accused the occupiers of doing 1:44:20.240 --> 1:44:23.800 more than a million dollars worth of damage to university property. 1:44:24.520 --> 1:44:26.840 I'll actually just read a quote here from an MSN article. 1:44:27.000 --> 1:44:30.160 Those arrested faced a range of different charges depending on 1:44:30.280 --> 1:44:35.719 individual circumstances, including unlawful assembly, vandalism, conspiracy, assault of police officers, 1:44:35.800 --> 1:44:39.720 and others. In addition, students could face discipline for conduct violations, 1:44:39.840 --> 1:44:44.080 while any university employees arrested could face disciplinary action. That's 1:44:44.120 --> 1:44:48.080 them quoting a university news release. So that's kind of 1:44:48.160 --> 1:44:51.360 where we are with cal Poly Humboldt. I wanted to 1:44:51.479 --> 1:44:55.280 note that the folks that we talk to, who I 1:44:55.439 --> 1:44:58.400 hope are doing well, had requested that we send people 1:44:58.439 --> 1:44:59.920 to donate to a bail fund, if at all poss 1:45:00.320 --> 1:45:03.240 If you want to find that and support the Humboldt protesters, 1:45:03.320 --> 1:45:07.360 you can go to rally dot org slash arc Bailfund. 1:45:07.520 --> 1:45:12.519 That's rally dot org slash AARC bail fund, so that 1:45:12.560 --> 1:45:15.479 would help out with those folks who currently need it. 1:45:15.880 --> 1:45:19.720 There has also been a request to call the university 1:45:19.960 --> 1:45:24.200 and request the release of Humboldt protesters for Palestine. The 1:45:24.320 --> 1:45:27.680 CPH University police phone number is seven oh seven eight 1:45:27.720 --> 1:45:31.320 two six five five five five. There is a suggested 1:45:31.400 --> 1:45:34.200 script which I'm going to read here. Hi, my name 1:45:34.320 --> 1:45:36.320 is blank, and I demand the immediate release of the 1:45:36.479 --> 1:45:40.639 arrested Humboldt student and faculty protesters for Palestine. They should 1:45:40.640 --> 1:45:43.120 not be charged, let alone rated an attack for being 1:45:43.160 --> 1:45:45.559 on the right side of history. They include, but are 1:45:45.640 --> 1:45:50.520 not only, Fern McBride, Olivia Fox, Jared Cruz, Ruhala Agacella, 1:45:51.000 --> 1:45:55.840 Lana Word, Alison Merten, Isaiah Morales, and Adelmi Ruiz. So 1:45:56.800 --> 1:46:00.240 that's where things are with Humboldt University, I thought are 1:46:00.280 --> 1:46:03.200 with the people who are arrested, the people who were 1:46:03.400 --> 1:46:06.439 forced out of the occupation. As of the recording and 1:46:06.520 --> 1:46:10.519 airing of this episode, the occupation at the PSU library 1:46:11.240 --> 1:46:14.760 is still in progress, and what will happen there is 1:46:14.960 --> 1:46:19.920 less clear. Throughout today Tuesday, the police and city government 1:46:19.960 --> 1:46:24.120 have made some pretty aggressive statements about clearing out the occupation. 1:46:24.320 --> 1:46:27.960 About criminal behavior there being unacceptable about their suspicion that 1:46:28.000 --> 1:46:32.840 there's been significant damage done to university property. For their part, 1:46:32.960 --> 1:46:35.759 protesters have promised that they will not damage any books. 1:46:36.400 --> 1:46:40.240 You know, We're going to see what's going to actually happen. 1:46:40.760 --> 1:46:42.479 What is clear to me at this point is that 1:46:42.640 --> 1:46:45.040 in the last day or so, the situation has gone 1:46:45.080 --> 1:46:47.720 from managed something where the police were every now and 1:46:47.800 --> 1:46:51.120 then clearing out tents and it was relatively under control, 1:46:51.360 --> 1:46:54.040 to something so out of control that it necessitated a 1:46:54.200 --> 1:46:57.760 late night press conference by the whole city government. So 1:46:58.200 --> 1:47:02.480 we will see where everything canludes with the PSU occupation, 1:47:03.080 --> 1:47:04.800 if the police come in and carry out a raid 1:47:04.840 --> 1:47:08.480 as was done an Humboldt, or if the university administration 1:47:08.840 --> 1:47:11.920 is willing to actually come to the table and make 1:47:12.000 --> 1:47:15.559 some of these solid steps towards divesting the university from 1:47:15.640 --> 1:47:18.639 companies like Boeing, which is what the protesters are demanding. 1:47:19.200 --> 1:47:23.280 All really unclear, but yeah, we will continue to cover 1:47:23.400 --> 1:47:28.080 this and you all continue to you know, be angry 1:47:28.240 --> 1:47:32.320 about bad things, and yeah, I don't know, I'm still 1:47:32.479 --> 1:47:34.960 very tired. Good luck to everybody who is out there 1:47:35.000 --> 1:47:38.200 in the streets. Robert Evans here and I wanted to 1:47:38.240 --> 1:47:42.280 give an update on Wednesday night. I'm I'm recording this 1:47:42.360 --> 1:47:45.880 around four forty pm on Wednesday, But a day after 1:47:46.160 --> 1:47:48.960 I recorded the original ending to this, some more stuff 1:47:49.040 --> 1:47:53.639 has happened. The occupation has continued. You know, on Monday night, 1:47:53.760 --> 1:47:55.800 only a small number of people stayed behind. I think 1:47:55.840 --> 1:47:57.679 there may be something like a dozen I was told 1:47:58.520 --> 1:48:00.800 who actually slept in the library that night. There was 1:48:00.880 --> 1:48:02.800 kind of an anticipation that the cops could come at 1:48:02.800 --> 1:48:06.720 any minute. The next day, word spread about the occupation 1:48:06.880 --> 1:48:09.280 and there were a lot more people in the library 1:48:09.439 --> 1:48:13.240 on Tuesday night, and as a result, it seems as 1:48:13.439 --> 1:48:16.719 if plans that had initially been down for the police 1:48:16.760 --> 1:48:20.280 to rate on Tuesday night were canceled. The Government of 1:48:20.360 --> 1:48:24.320 Portland published an article today and I'm going to quote 1:48:24.320 --> 1:48:27.200 from it here. The Portland Police Bureau places an emphasis 1:48:27.240 --> 1:48:29.719 on de escalation and time is a key de escalation 1:48:29.880 --> 1:48:32.400 tactic that we use whenever possible. That has not been 1:48:32.439 --> 1:48:35.240 my experience with them. If police action can be delayed 1:48:35.240 --> 1:48:37.439 to a time when conditions are safer, we will do so. 1:48:37.600 --> 1:48:40.080 An example of this occurred Tuesday evening. A plan was 1:48:40.120 --> 1:48:43.559 in place to resolve the library incident. However, conditions changed 1:48:43.600 --> 1:48:45.720 and the incident commander made the decision to delay for 1:48:45.800 --> 1:48:48.400 the well being of all concerned. My guess is that 1:48:48.479 --> 1:48:51.200 the conditions that changed largely were how many people were 1:48:51.240 --> 1:48:53.400 on the ground, as well as the fact that they 1:48:53.439 --> 1:48:56.519 didn't feel comfortable with their understanding of how much access 1:48:56.560 --> 1:48:58.840 students had gotten. You know, they didn't have a full 1:48:58.880 --> 1:49:03.360 operational plan involved. The police publication notes that there was 1:49:03.400 --> 1:49:06.519 a rumor circulated that the planned operation was scheduled due 1:49:06.560 --> 1:49:09.560 to a decision made by the DA's office. This is 1:49:09.600 --> 1:49:13.560 because the current District Attorney, Mike Schmidt, is considered a progressive. 1:49:14.240 --> 1:49:16.880 He made a decision not to prosecute all of the 1:49:17.200 --> 1:49:20.000 acts that he could have prosecuted in twenty twenty and 1:49:20.080 --> 1:49:22.840 has been kind of consistently attacked by the police and 1:49:22.960 --> 1:49:25.639 by conservatives in the city for this decision ever since. 1:49:26.320 --> 1:49:29.200 Schmidt did prosecute quite a few people in twenty twenty 1:49:29.320 --> 1:49:31.640 and beyond, and from the beginning of all of this 1:49:31.880 --> 1:49:35.519 said that his office will prosecute students and anyone else 1:49:35.600 --> 1:49:38.479 involved with the occupation. I think this is just election 1:49:38.600 --> 1:49:41.320 you're messaging by the police going after Schmidt because they 1:49:41.400 --> 1:49:45.080 want more of a hardliner in In either case, nothing 1:49:45.200 --> 1:49:50.240 was done Tuesday. The occupation continued to spread on Tuesday night. 1:49:50.640 --> 1:49:54.679 Students had a movie night. On Wednesday night. As I basically, 1:49:54.760 --> 1:49:58.040 as I record this, there's a barbecue and a lot 1:49:58.080 --> 1:50:00.639 of this is occurring kind of outside of the library 1:50:00.760 --> 1:50:03.120 and like the law and area around it, the idea 1:50:03.200 --> 1:50:05.600 basically being to keep numbers up in and around the 1:50:05.680 --> 1:50:09.360 library occupation to make it more politically costly and just 1:50:09.520 --> 1:50:12.880 harder for the police to actually force everyone out. While 1:50:12.960 --> 1:50:17.560 all this has been going on, faculty and student organizers 1:50:17.600 --> 1:50:21.839 have been meeting with the president of the university. Students 1:50:21.960 --> 1:50:24.680 refused initially to come to a negotiating table unless the 1:50:24.760 --> 1:50:28.320 demand their demands for full amnesty were guaranteed for students 1:50:28.360 --> 1:50:30.880 and non students who were taking part in the occupation. 1:50:31.920 --> 1:50:34.280 This is something When I talked to folks on Monday night, 1:50:34.880 --> 1:50:37.920 the focus was on There was some talk of amnesty, 1:50:37.960 --> 1:50:39.680 but a lot of the primary thing I was told 1:50:39.720 --> 1:50:41.880 about was that the school needed to divest from Boeing 1:50:41.960 --> 1:50:45.960 and other arms manufacturers. The demand for amnesty has grown 1:50:46.200 --> 1:50:48.720 as the occupation has become more of a real thing, 1:50:48.760 --> 1:50:50.320 which it had started to be by the end of 1:50:50.400 --> 1:50:53.439 my time there. On Monday, there was some initial talk 1:50:53.920 --> 1:50:56.760 from the university president that she was willing to not 1:50:56.880 --> 1:50:59.920 press charges. If you know, the students who were involved 1:51:00.120 --> 1:51:02.640 agreed not to violate the student Code of Conduct for 1:51:02.720 --> 1:51:05.360 the rest of their time at the university and basically 1:51:05.479 --> 1:51:08.439 handed all of their names over to the university. That 1:51:08.640 --> 1:51:11.439 was not an agreement that wound up coming through, very 1:51:11.479 --> 1:51:14.080 similar to what we saw at Humboldt. Right where you've 1:51:14.160 --> 1:51:16.519 got this the school being like, well, we'll offer some 1:51:16.760 --> 1:51:19.280 sort of amnesty, even though we can't really promise full 1:51:19.320 --> 1:51:22.439 amnesty because the DA can choose to prosecute people still, 1:51:23.320 --> 1:51:25.040 but if you sign your name up on this list 1:51:25.120 --> 1:51:27.519 that you were here in committing crimes, we'll kind of 1:51:27.560 --> 1:51:30.320 try to do something that did not wind up de 1:51:30.560 --> 1:51:34.560 escalating the situation. And as I record this, the library 1:51:34.760 --> 1:51:38.840 at PSU is still occupied by students. We'll see how 1:51:38.880 --> 1:51:41.439 all of this goes. You know, I've heard a number 1:51:41.479 --> 1:51:45.840 of things from inside the occupation. It's kind of one 1:51:45.880 --> 1:51:48.080 of those things where the full details of what's happening 1:51:48.120 --> 1:51:51.120 will shake out. It's been, as these things always are 1:51:51.200 --> 1:51:53.360 a little bit messy. The first night I was there 1:51:53.400 --> 1:51:56.439 and up through you know, a sizable chunk of Tuesday. 1:51:56.520 --> 1:51:59.080 You can find articles from media who showed up saying 1:51:59.120 --> 1:52:01.960 that protesters let them in and then at some point 1:52:02.080 --> 1:52:04.680 the people at the gates so to speak, changed and 1:52:05.120 --> 1:52:07.559 a number of press got in and took some pictures 1:52:07.600 --> 1:52:10.120 of the occupation. You can find those online. There's a 1:52:10.160 --> 1:52:14.000 lot of local reporters koyn and whatnot who have published 1:52:14.560 --> 1:52:17.800 different things about the occupation. It's been interesting to see 1:52:17.880 --> 1:52:20.679 like the reactions of different reporters because they change based 1:52:20.720 --> 1:52:24.479 on like the kind the reporter who's there, and kind 1:52:24.479 --> 1:52:26.560 of I think, how personable they are with people and 1:52:26.760 --> 1:52:29.000 the folks that they wind up meeting. So you'll you'll 1:52:29.040 --> 1:52:31.880 find some local reporters being like everyone was really nice, 1:52:31.920 --> 1:52:33.280 and some local reporters being. 1:52:33.200 --> 1:52:34.720 Like everybody was really mean. 1:52:34.840 --> 1:52:37.200 They wouldn't let me in, And it's you know, these 1:52:37.240 --> 1:52:41.920 are not uncommon things to encounter when you're seeing press 1:52:42.160 --> 1:52:44.400 interact with a protest like this. One of the things 1:52:44.439 --> 1:52:47.160 I do find interesting that has been emphasized to me 1:52:47.280 --> 1:52:50.400 by some of the older protesters who have been taking 1:52:50.479 --> 1:52:54.439 part in aspects of this occupation, is that the student 1:52:54.520 --> 1:52:57.040 protesters who are organizing and leading this, who are of 1:52:57.040 --> 1:52:59.360 course younger and we're too young to have generally been 1:52:59.439 --> 1:53:03.560 involved twenty twenty stuff. Are really open minded, you know, 1:53:03.720 --> 1:53:07.320 despite kind of political disagreements that may exist between people, 1:53:07.360 --> 1:53:10.519 there's this understanding that like folks are a lot less 1:53:10.600 --> 1:53:14.760 ossified and their beliefs about what constitutes valid action and 1:53:14.840 --> 1:53:18.160 what constitutes, you know, how people should proceed with things 1:53:19.000 --> 1:53:20.920 like generally, that has been impressed upon me by some 1:53:21.000 --> 1:53:24.480 of the older activists is that these younger student organizers 1:53:24.520 --> 1:53:28.840 seem much more open minded and optimistic about accomplishing things 1:53:28.960 --> 1:53:32.360 and trying new things. And this is definitely a different 1:53:32.479 --> 1:53:35.479 kind of occupation Portland has seen. I noticed some of 1:53:35.560 --> 1:53:37.360 that on the first night earlier in their courting. I 1:53:37.439 --> 1:53:40.360 made that comment about how I noticed that people were 1:53:40.400 --> 1:53:43.880 out kind of taking petitions and whatnot for different bills, 1:53:44.400 --> 1:53:46.120 taking advantage of the fact that there was a crowd 1:53:46.160 --> 1:53:47.880 who had gathered for the protest, and that in the 1:53:48.000 --> 1:53:51.720 past I had seen folks like that have issue with 1:53:52.160 --> 1:53:54.400 members of the crowd, and I didn't really notice that 1:53:54.520 --> 1:53:57.120 this time. And I guess maybe that comes down to 1:53:57.600 --> 1:53:59.720 some of what some of these older activists have told me, 1:53:59.720 --> 1:54:02.400 which is that a lot of the student organizers here 1:54:02.520 --> 1:54:03.120 are kind. 1:54:02.960 --> 1:54:06.240 Of less set in some of their ways. 1:54:06.600 --> 1:54:06.800 You know. 1:54:07.320 --> 1:54:10.200 We we'll see as this all continues to develop. There's 1:54:10.200 --> 1:54:11.760 a very good chance that by the time you hear 1:54:11.800 --> 1:54:16.200 this episode by Thursday morning, the police will have raided. 1:54:16.520 --> 1:54:18.960 That's definitely been happening all around the country. You know, 1:54:19.200 --> 1:54:22.280 as we have researched and recorded these episodes, there have 1:54:22.320 --> 1:54:27.240 been police crackdowns at Columbia University, at UC San Diego, 1:54:27.360 --> 1:54:30.719 at UCLA. We've seen, you know, a lot of pretty 1:54:30.760 --> 1:54:34.760 hideous things on the news in regards to these student occupations. 1:54:34.800 --> 1:54:37.640 And there's a very good chance that Portland will have 1:54:37.760 --> 1:54:40.840 joined that parade of ugly videos by the time this 1:54:41.000 --> 1:54:43.760 comes up. But as I record this, there's a barbecue 1:54:43.840 --> 1:54:46.440 going on, and I hope that will be the case 1:54:46.560 --> 1:54:47.320 tomorrow as well. 1:54:48.080 --> 1:55:02.640 Bye, this is it could happen here. I'm Garrison Davis, 1:55:03.160 --> 1:55:06.120 And once again, it does continue to be happening here 1:55:06.400 --> 1:55:09.000 as a massive wave of police repression is levied against 1:55:09.040 --> 1:55:13.560 students protesting the ongoing Palestinian genocide. Since it's been so 1:55:13.880 --> 1:55:16.680 busy and hectic, I thought to end this week on 1:55:16.800 --> 1:55:19.760 a bit of a lighter note. Last week I did 1:55:19.800 --> 1:55:23.040 an episode on a new movie titled The People's Joker, 1:55:23.560 --> 1:55:26.760 an unauthorized Batman parody through the lens of a surprisingly 1:55:26.840 --> 1:55:30.800 genuine queer coming of age story by transgender filmmaker Vera Drew. 1:55:31.400 --> 1:55:33.400 If you want to hear me geek out about that 1:55:33.600 --> 1:55:36.160 movie in gay Batman Stuff, you can listen to that 1:55:36.200 --> 1:55:39.080 episode from last week. But this episode is going to 1:55:39.160 --> 1:55:42.680 delve more into the diy nature of this movie, some 1:55:42.880 --> 1:55:45.760 behind the scenes and how you go from an idea 1:55:46.160 --> 1:55:48.680 to a piece of wacky queer art playing in a 1:55:48.840 --> 1:55:52.840 movie theater or a TV show on your local cable 1:55:52.920 --> 1:55:56.920 access TV station. So I talked to two trans women 1:55:56.920 --> 1:56:01.120 who are currently making independent queer media, mentioned Vera Drew 1:56:01.560 --> 1:56:04.440 as well as Ella Yeerman, host of the late night 1:56:04.520 --> 1:56:09.360 comedy show Late Stage Live, transgender and a comedian, the 1:56:09.440 --> 1:56:14.160 two most persecuted classes. So I've been keeping up with 1:56:14.480 --> 1:56:18.320 Ella's indie transgender gen Z comedy project since it first 1:56:18.360 --> 1:56:21.080 got announced earlier this year. I have kind of a 1:56:21.680 --> 1:56:25.839 love hate relationship with the late night comedy news format, 1:56:26.320 --> 1:56:29.200 and I myself have thrown around the idea of playing 1:56:29.280 --> 1:56:32.520 with that format. So when I first heard about Ella's 1:56:32.560 --> 1:56:36.360 new show, Late Stage Live, my first thought was damn it, 1:56:36.480 --> 1:56:39.080 That's such a good title for a show, and now 1:56:39.160 --> 1:56:42.400 I can't use it. Just this immense sense of jealousy 1:56:42.600 --> 1:56:45.280 washed over me, and I've had to watch everything she's 1:56:45.360 --> 1:56:46.200 put out since then. 1:56:47.120 --> 1:56:47.240 Hi. 1:56:47.440 --> 1:56:51.480 I'm Ella Yeerman. My pronouns are she Her. I am 1:56:51.560 --> 1:56:56.240 a comedian, journalist, writer living in Brooklyn. I host Late 1:56:56.320 --> 1:56:59.840 Stage Live, which is a queer gen Z public access 1:57:00.200 --> 1:57:03.840 night show on Brooklyn Public Access and YouTube. And I 1:57:03.920 --> 1:57:07.440 also host T for T Comedy, which is Brooklyn's premiere 1:57:07.640 --> 1:57:10.480 all trans stand up comedy show. We film in a 1:57:10.760 --> 1:57:14.720 Brooklyn Public Access studio called brick Bric in front of 1:57:14.760 --> 1:57:20.080 a live studio audience. And the vaguest pitch I give 1:57:20.200 --> 1:57:21.720 to people who have no idea what the show is 1:57:21.840 --> 1:57:23.680 is that it's what if The Daily Show was hosted 1:57:23.720 --> 1:57:26.440 by a transgender woman. And we draw a lot of 1:57:26.480 --> 1:57:28.640 comparisons to the Daily Show by virtue of sort of 1:57:29.040 --> 1:57:32.800 similar formats, But myself and my writers are really interested 1:57:32.880 --> 1:57:36.080 in sort of, for lack of a better term, queering 1:57:36.240 --> 1:57:39.960 the late night format and sort of exploring what late 1:57:40.080 --> 1:57:44.760 night can do for a younger, more radical political audience. 1:57:45.320 --> 1:57:48.600 The Daily Show was like a really big radicalizing force 1:57:48.680 --> 1:57:51.320 I think for a certain generation people really John Stewart 1:57:51.400 --> 1:57:54.600 took that show and turned it into a really powerful 1:57:54.680 --> 1:57:57.520 tool for getting people engaged and aware of things that 1:57:57.600 --> 1:58:00.240 they might not have otherwise been aware of. But the 1:58:00.280 --> 1:58:03.440 culture has really shifted in terms of politics, in terms 1:58:03.440 --> 1:58:06.560 of media consumption since John started the Daily Show in 1:58:06.800 --> 1:58:10.440 the nineties. We have shows like Last Week Tonight with 1:58:10.520 --> 1:58:14.800 John Oliver, we have shows like My Coworkers and Bosses 1:58:14.880 --> 1:58:17.440 at Some More News and when we have like all 1:58:17.520 --> 1:58:21.200 of the alternative media sphere, ranging from like Tucker Carlson 1:58:21.240 --> 1:58:24.160 and Alex Jones to the Young Turks to everybody and 1:58:24.240 --> 1:58:25.320 their mom on YouTube. 1:58:25.960 --> 1:58:30.280 Now, kids these days don't really watch the news. I 1:58:30.360 --> 1:58:34.120 don't know anyone my age who's tuning into MSNBC. A 1:58:34.240 --> 1:58:37.920 twenty twenty two statistica survey of gen Z reported sixty 1:58:38.000 --> 1:58:42.320 percent of respondents never go to local or national papers 1:58:42.760 --> 1:58:46.280 for news, and only a respect of five percent checked 1:58:46.320 --> 1:58:49.520 their local or national papers for news daily, weekly, or 1:58:49.680 --> 1:58:53.520 once a month. But fifty percent of gen Z check 1:58:53.600 --> 1:58:57.400 social media daily for news, with seventy five percent reporting 1:58:57.480 --> 1:59:01.800 they check at least once a week. TikTok reigns supreme 1:59:01.960 --> 1:59:05.600 for information dissemination. Over one third of adults under the 1:59:05.640 --> 1:59:09.040 age of thirty regularly scroll the app for news, often 1:59:09.120 --> 1:59:12.000 treating it like a search engine, with the rest of 1:59:12.040 --> 1:59:14.880 the youths and young adults going to YouTube as well 1:59:14.920 --> 1:59:18.720 as other social media apps to fill in the information gaps, 1:59:19.160 --> 1:59:20.920 as well as podcasts such as this. 1:59:21.640 --> 1:59:23.560 My writers and I especially read Pope. 1:59:23.640 --> 1:59:25.640 My head writer and I talk a lot about just 1:59:25.760 --> 1:59:29.040 like where our generation is getting its information from and 1:59:29.200 --> 1:59:33.800 where it's consuming media, and how ideas and political ideas 1:59:33.800 --> 1:59:37.120 are being disseminated, especially in the age of short form 1:59:37.240 --> 1:59:42.200 content with TikTok and the democratization of information. We did 1:59:42.240 --> 1:59:45.640 a whole episode about sort of misinformation and the democratization 1:59:45.720 --> 1:59:48.800 of information a few months ago, where there's like, obviously 1:59:48.840 --> 1:59:52.240 all of these benefits to the lack of centralization of 1:59:52.400 --> 1:59:54.600 media consumption. We're seeing a lot of that with the 1:59:54.640 --> 1:59:57.200 Palatine stuff right now. People don't have to rely on 1:59:57.200 --> 1:59:58.800 the New York Times, people don't have to rely on 1:59:58.880 --> 2:00:03.440 these big media insitutions with their obvious biases to get information. 2:00:04.280 --> 2:00:07.200 But it also sort of engenders this I think, this 2:00:07.480 --> 2:00:12.000 very specific attitude towards intellectually. 2:00:11.520 --> 2:00:12.480 Engaging with information. 2:00:12.960 --> 2:00:16.720 The platforms and the systems that we use really encourage 2:00:17.160 --> 2:00:20.280 very quick opinions and fast reactions and picking up your 2:00:20.320 --> 2:00:24.879 phone and talking immediately about something as quickly as possible, 2:00:25.240 --> 2:00:29.000 hot take political environments, and we were really interested in 2:00:29.120 --> 2:00:31.720 looking at a format that has historically been more about 2:00:32.680 --> 2:00:35.440 a team of people with multiple perspectives coming together to 2:00:35.520 --> 2:00:39.840 create one piece of analysis and taking longer to look 2:00:39.840 --> 2:00:43.320 at those pieces of analysis and being able to really 2:00:43.560 --> 2:00:47.400 dig into data, and then what putting that into a 2:00:47.480 --> 2:00:50.640 late night format means. We have a live audience, which 2:00:50.680 --> 2:00:53.240 a lot of stuff on YouTube doesn't have, and we 2:00:53.680 --> 2:00:56.760 have a lot of the trappings of like og late night. 2:00:56.960 --> 2:01:00.440 We have like sketches, and we have correspondence, and we 2:01:00.520 --> 2:01:02.560 have a theme song, and a lot of that has 2:01:02.600 --> 2:01:04.640 sort of gone away as we've moved more into like 2:01:04.680 --> 2:01:08.000 a YouTube media sphere. So it's been exciting to both 2:01:08.400 --> 2:01:10.720 bring that back for like esthetic and nostalgia's sake, and 2:01:10.760 --> 2:01:13.800 then also to sort of see what and I think 2:01:13.880 --> 2:01:16.320 the show's in early stages, so I am excited to 2:01:16.600 --> 2:01:19.040 keep playing with this but finding out like what exactly 2:01:19.560 --> 2:01:23.000 the package does for the content. We talk a lot 2:01:23.000 --> 2:01:26.800 about like form follows function and vice versa. But I 2:01:26.920 --> 2:01:30.120 think there's like intentionality behind presenting it as a late 2:01:30.200 --> 2:01:32.400 night show. It's not just like for aesthetic value. 2:01:33.040 --> 2:01:37.760 Speaking of late night televised comedy, The People's Joker follows 2:01:37.840 --> 2:01:41.760 an aspiring comedian who goes by Joker the Harlequin as 2:01:41.800 --> 2:01:44.640 she attempts to host a Lauren Michael's TV show, legally 2:01:44.680 --> 2:01:48.080 distinct from snl Oh, and on her way, she transits 2:01:48.080 --> 2:01:51.320 her gender and fights Batman. The project started a few 2:01:51.360 --> 2:01:54.400 years ago because a friend of filmmaker Vera Drew jokingly 2:01:54.480 --> 2:01:57.320 commissioned her for twelve dollars to make a re edit 2:01:57.480 --> 2:02:01.080 of Todd Phillips's Joker movie. Phillips had been in the 2:02:01.120 --> 2:02:05.440 news cycle complaining that quote unquote woke culture was making 2:02:05.480 --> 2:02:08.720 it too hard to make comedy, which is interesting coming 2:02:08.800 --> 2:02:11.240 from a guy who's continually made some of the most 2:02:11.280 --> 2:02:14.440 successful comedies in the past twenty years. But I digress. 2:02:15.240 --> 2:02:19.120 Here's Vera Drew talking about how The People's Joker ballooned 2:02:19.200 --> 2:02:22.040 from an ironic re edit of the in Cell Joker 2:02:22.120 --> 2:02:24.839 movie into a whole new piece of queer cinema. 2:02:25.320 --> 2:02:28.520 Yeah, I started doing it like in earnest I started 2:02:28.560 --> 2:02:33.600 like actually re editing the movie, and I had worked 2:02:33.640 --> 2:02:37.040 at Absolutely Productions for years as an editor and had 2:02:37.120 --> 2:02:39.720 kind of come up as an alternative comedy editor, so 2:02:40.800 --> 2:02:42.600 you know, at that point it was probably just going 2:02:42.680 --> 2:02:45.440 to be like a lot of art sound effects and 2:02:45.480 --> 2:02:51.320 woosh noises and slips and slide whistles. But as I 2:02:51.400 --> 2:02:53.880 was working on it and kind of just making this 2:02:54.040 --> 2:02:58.080 like big piece of like bound footage video art, like 2:02:58.160 --> 2:03:00.320 a narrative kind of just like fell into play and 2:03:02.280 --> 2:03:03.960 it kind of just came in an instant and I 2:03:04.120 --> 2:03:07.240 was just like, oh, Okay, I think I actually want 2:03:07.280 --> 2:03:10.200 to make like a coming of age film, but I 2:03:10.240 --> 2:03:13.440 want to make like a parody of The Joker, like 2:03:13.600 --> 2:03:17.200 in that process and kind of just like tell like 2:03:17.320 --> 2:03:22.080 a really earnest and super personal autobiographical story about my 2:03:22.240 --> 2:03:25.200 life and growing up in the Midwest and coming out 2:03:26.040 --> 2:03:29.280 as trans and comedy and you know, my relationship with 2:03:29.400 --> 2:03:32.040 my mom and toxic relationship I was in and stuff, 2:03:32.360 --> 2:03:38.160 but kind of process and mythologize all of that through 2:03:38.240 --> 2:03:43.080 Batman characters. So that's kind of the origin of the movie. 2:03:43.640 --> 2:03:44.080 I guess. 2:03:45.480 --> 2:03:48.200 I had also kind of been kicking around an idea 2:03:48.400 --> 2:03:51.680 for like a body horror, like a trans Body horror 2:03:51.760 --> 2:03:57.200 movie before that that was basically like about a drag 2:03:57.320 --> 2:04:01.080 queen who was physically addicted to irony and like couldn't 2:04:01.400 --> 2:04:03.800 like survive without it. But it was also like destroying 2:04:03.840 --> 2:04:07.600 her from the inside out, and the two ideas kind 2:04:07.600 --> 2:04:11.160 of like merged together into this sort of I guess, 2:04:12.000 --> 2:04:15.160 like ver Drew, I watched a lot of Batman growing up, 2:04:15.920 --> 2:04:19.400 but from a weirdly young age, I was also always 2:04:19.600 --> 2:04:24.120 weirdly fascinated by late night TV. My parents never watched 2:04:24.200 --> 2:04:26.800 the news, but they watched late night. They got their 2:04:26.880 --> 2:04:29.200 news from Stephen Colbert. They got their news from, at 2:04:29.240 --> 2:04:31.680 least at a certain point, Jimmy Fallon, although that fell 2:04:31.720 --> 2:04:36.040 off quite quickly. But I've just always been incredibly fascinated 2:04:36.120 --> 2:04:39.440 by the whole late night format as a cultural source 2:04:39.520 --> 2:04:43.400 for news. At a certain point, around twenty seventeen, YouTube 2:04:43.440 --> 2:04:46.640 started pushing late night clips into everyone's feeds, and everyone 2:04:46.760 --> 2:04:50.160 just got so inundated with this style of political comedy. 2:04:50.720 --> 2:04:53.240 I also grew up on The Daily Show and Colbert. 2:04:53.440 --> 2:04:56.680 My parents are both journalists, so I probably am a 2:04:56.680 --> 2:04:59.000 little biased towards being someone who did read the paper 2:04:59.040 --> 2:05:02.840 growing up, who did like watch CNN growing up, but 2:05:03.000 --> 2:05:07.280 I recognized there's this huge chunk of America who gets 2:05:07.320 --> 2:05:10.680 their news from yeah, Colbert's monologue, from Letterman's monologue, from 2:05:11.840 --> 2:05:14.760 the Colbert Report, which is such a crazy. 2:05:14.640 --> 2:05:15.600 Very very scary. 2:05:17.160 --> 2:05:20.000 I had so many like conservative family members who did 2:05:20.080 --> 2:05:24.080 not realize the Colbert Rapport was satire, took it as 2:05:24.120 --> 2:05:25.360 a legitimate news source. 2:05:26.360 --> 2:05:28.480 Well, I mean when Trevor Noah took over The Daily Show, 2:05:28.560 --> 2:05:31.160 they tried to do like their version of the Colbert 2:05:31.200 --> 2:05:34.440 Report with Jordan Klepper's The Opposition, And I think there 2:05:34.520 --> 2:05:36.360 are a number of reasons that didn't work out, but 2:05:36.480 --> 2:05:39.480 one of them being that the like the Colbert Rapport 2:05:39.600 --> 2:05:43.440 was partying the other Fox News guy. Yeah, I was 2:05:43.480 --> 2:05:47.080 parting that whole realm of people, and the Opposition was 2:05:47.120 --> 2:05:51.240 partying info Wars, which is almost an unparitable thing. So 2:05:51.400 --> 2:05:55.320 like the like the right wing media ecosystem has shifted 2:05:55.400 --> 2:05:57.240 so far that that you can't really get a Colbert 2:05:57.280 --> 2:06:00.200 Report now, it just doesn't work. But yeah, like there's 2:06:00.200 --> 2:06:02.160 so many people who get their information directly from that. 2:06:02.560 --> 2:06:05.960 And I think a lot about like the creator responsibility, 2:06:06.160 --> 2:06:07.480 like which is a word that gets start or a 2:06:07.480 --> 2:06:10.680 lot around in social media spaces. But it's interesting to 2:06:10.800 --> 2:06:15.320 think that Colbert now and Stuart and even like Seth 2:06:15.400 --> 2:06:18.839 Meyers have this responsibility as like informants to their audience, 2:06:19.320 --> 2:06:21.360 in some sorts of the sole source of news for 2:06:21.440 --> 2:06:23.840 those people. When we were writing our misinformation piece, we 2:06:23.880 --> 2:06:25.440 did talk about how in twenty fifteen, there was a 2:06:25.480 --> 2:06:28.080 poll that came out that said that like the majority 2:06:28.080 --> 2:06:30.360 of liberals, like the highest percentage of rules got their 2:06:30.400 --> 2:06:32.880 news from The Daily Show with John Stewart. And I 2:06:32.920 --> 2:06:35.160 think a lot about the excuse John used to give 2:06:35.240 --> 2:06:38.560 to conservatives at the time who would criticize him for 2:06:38.960 --> 2:06:41.840 not doing his due diligence on any given subject. He 2:06:41.880 --> 2:06:44.440 would often say, well, we're a comedy show. The show 2:06:44.480 --> 2:06:47.840 that comes on after us is puppets making prank phone calls. 2:06:47.920 --> 2:06:51.640 And he would sort of like deflect that responsibility by saying, 2:06:51.680 --> 2:06:54.120 I'm an entertainer first. And I think that one of 2:06:54.160 --> 2:06:57.120 the big things that has changed in the last twenty 2:06:57.200 --> 2:06:59.920 years or however long, is that the line between enter 2:07:00.000 --> 2:07:03.640 retainer and journalist has totally blurred. With like the rise 2:07:03.720 --> 2:07:07.200 of like video essays on YouTube, and just like again 2:07:07.400 --> 2:07:12.000 like the democratization of information and content creation, everyone is 2:07:12.080 --> 2:07:14.160 sort of an entertainer. Everyone is sort of a journalist. 2:07:14.600 --> 2:07:17.800 There is like a responsibility that comes with having a platform, 2:07:18.520 --> 2:07:21.720 and so obviously, like our show, takes a great deal 2:07:21.760 --> 2:07:23.640 of care to make sure that the information we're presenting 2:07:23.760 --> 2:07:26.840 is it's accurate and correct, and that the analysis we're 2:07:26.840 --> 2:07:29.560 doing is as empathetic and thoughtful as we can. 2:07:30.320 --> 2:07:32.800 I do think there is real value in going after 2:07:32.920 --> 2:07:37.000 late night as a specific culturally impactful mode that isn't 2:07:37.160 --> 2:07:39.920 just comedy, isn'to just to the news, and in its 2:07:40.000 --> 2:07:42.080 quest to be a little bit of both, it becomes 2:07:42.200 --> 2:07:45.600 its own thing. I've always been interested to see what 2:07:45.720 --> 2:07:48.440 a late night show with my politics would look like, 2:07:49.000 --> 2:07:50.400 and I think to some degree, you can look at 2:07:50.480 --> 2:07:52.920 John Stewart in the two thousands, and I've been watching 2:07:53.240 --> 2:07:56.440 Stuart's new stuff on The Daily Show every Monday, mostly 2:07:56.600 --> 2:07:58.720 just to see how he's going to handle this landscape, 2:07:58.760 --> 2:08:02.320 which is very different from one he left in twenty fifteen. Nowadays, 2:08:02.320 --> 2:08:04.640 I think you can look to John Oliver as being 2:08:04.880 --> 2:08:09.680 probably slightly more radical, but even still there's a decent gap. 2:08:10.320 --> 2:08:13.120 Certainly some YouTube shows try to fill in that gap, 2:08:13.560 --> 2:08:16.440 but I've really enjoyed watching the Late Stage team apply 2:08:16.680 --> 2:08:20.280 classic late night stylings to a more radical queer form 2:08:20.320 --> 2:08:25.080 of politics, including like Ella mentioned correspondence segments as well 2:08:25.120 --> 2:08:28.960 as actual reporting. Late Stage Live did a recent piece 2:08:29.080 --> 2:08:32.040 on the effects of Libs of TikTok. It was a 2:08:32.120 --> 2:08:35.080 really good look at something that I oddly hadn't seen 2:08:35.200 --> 2:08:39.520 anyone else really interrogate before, actually looking at the people 2:08:39.640 --> 2:08:42.840 that Libs of TikTok has targeted and how that has 2:08:43.000 --> 2:08:44.480 literally affected their lives. 2:08:45.120 --> 2:08:47.680 Obviously, we are still like growing and trying new things. 2:08:47.760 --> 2:08:49.840 I was really proud of the Libs of TikTok piece. 2:08:49.880 --> 2:08:52.320 It was the first time we'd done like firsthand reporting 2:08:52.440 --> 2:08:54.000 on the show, and it's stuff like the thing I 2:08:54.040 --> 2:08:56.320 want to keep exploring. One of my favorite parts of 2:08:56.400 --> 2:08:59.920 the Daily Show is the more serious, like field pieces 2:09:00.080 --> 2:09:02.560 they end up doing that obviously also have comedic games 2:09:02.640 --> 2:09:05.840 applied to them, but also are like real journalism that 2:09:06.040 --> 2:09:10.160 maybe mainstream news institutions don't cover, and that's really exciting 2:09:10.200 --> 2:09:13.240 and obviously coming from like a specifically queer perspective. There's 2:09:13.280 --> 2:09:16.920 not a ton of specifically queer news. There's a few magazines, 2:09:17.000 --> 2:09:18.360 but there's nothing huge. 2:09:19.360 --> 2:09:32.800 It could happen here will return after these messages we 2:09:32.960 --> 2:09:36.520 now returned to it could happen here. Something I noticed 2:09:36.560 --> 2:09:39.280 about both Late Stage Lives and The People's Joker is 2:09:39.320 --> 2:09:42.720 that they're not just made by queer people, but the 2:09:42.920 --> 2:09:47.440 work itself feels queer. I think part of the reason 2:09:47.480 --> 2:09:51.760 why is that both carry this spirit of patchwork and collaboration, 2:09:52.280 --> 2:09:56.200 proudly featuring a sense of punkish outside noess that's uninterested 2:09:56.280 --> 2:10:00.240 in being tamed for a sis straight audience. The end 2:10:00.280 --> 2:10:03.320 result is one holy reflective of the community that has 2:10:03.360 --> 2:10:07.200 fostered the arts creation. To extrapolate on this, let's return 2:10:07.280 --> 2:10:09.840 to my interview with Vera Drew. I know, for for 2:10:09.960 --> 2:10:13.080 a while you were getting people to send in to 2:10:13.320 --> 2:10:15.960 like send in stuff to get put in the film. 2:10:16.280 --> 2:10:17.920 There was kind of it was like a very collaborative 2:10:18.480 --> 2:10:20.800 start to this project, and I am I am interested 2:10:20.960 --> 2:10:23.840 in that aspect of like how this is like both 2:10:23.960 --> 2:10:27.040 like a collage multimedia piece, but also it's not like 2:10:27.160 --> 2:10:29.680 the work of like one singular artist. It's like a 2:10:29.840 --> 2:10:33.760 very like queer community made thing. And it definitely feels 2:10:33.800 --> 2:10:35.880 that way, especially with all of like all like the sets, 2:10:35.920 --> 2:10:38.280 all of like the art. It's so many different styles 2:10:38.360 --> 2:10:41.920 mashed together. Into like this beautiful mosaic, and I'm interested 2:10:41.960 --> 2:10:44.400 in like your decision to have it be that collaborative 2:10:44.440 --> 2:10:45.840 thing and how that kind of came together. 2:10:46.560 --> 2:10:48.680 Thank you for asking, because yeah, I don't I don't 2:10:48.720 --> 2:10:51.240 really get to talk about that that much. And it's 2:10:51.360 --> 2:10:53.280 it's definitely like a part of this that really, I 2:10:53.400 --> 2:10:58.040 think is why the movie just feels inherently queer. You know, 2:10:58.160 --> 2:11:02.240 we had just this incredible team of people working on 2:11:02.400 --> 2:11:04.360 it because you know, like I said, like I did 2:11:04.480 --> 2:11:07.040 cash in like every favor I had, you know, to 2:11:07.160 --> 2:11:09.960 cash in. But you know, the movie started as this 2:11:10.200 --> 2:11:15.000 like video remix thing, and then I think as we 2:11:15.120 --> 2:11:18.120 were writing the script and it became more narrative driven. 2:11:18.240 --> 2:11:20.120 It was just like we were always writing this script 2:11:20.160 --> 2:11:23.880 that was very impossible to film, uh you know, just 2:11:23.960 --> 2:11:26.800 a very like there's Batmobile and like yeah, you know, 2:11:27.280 --> 2:11:29.400 fuck are you gonna do that? But we weren't really 2:11:29.520 --> 2:11:31.440 thinking about that as much. We were just like, let's 2:11:31.480 --> 2:11:33.440 just write this movie, and let's just write it as 2:11:33.520 --> 2:11:35.760 like a comic book movie, like let's have the tropes 2:11:35.800 --> 2:11:37.520 of a comic book movie and a queer coming of 2:11:37.560 --> 2:11:41.960 age film and and just fully execute those and you know, 2:11:42.200 --> 2:11:45.320 I think the idea of it becoming sort of this 2:11:45.520 --> 2:11:48.600 mixed media piece was was very gradual. I think like 2:11:48.680 --> 2:11:50.720 it was one of the many things about this This 2:11:50.880 --> 2:11:54.440 movie was made very intuitively, like I never had a budget. Really, 2:11:55.200 --> 2:11:57.160 I never make a movie like this again. It was 2:11:57.280 --> 2:11:59.840 it was very like kind of figuring it out as 2:11:59.880 --> 2:12:02.280 you go in a lot of ways, especially just on 2:12:02.400 --> 2:12:04.080 the like business side of things. 2:12:04.400 --> 2:12:07.800 Yeah, it has that kind of Inland Empire uncanniness a 2:12:07.840 --> 2:12:08.960 little bit totally. 2:12:09.600 --> 2:12:14.680 There's definitely that. It's definitely I'm working backwards this. This 2:12:14.840 --> 2:12:17.960 is my Inland Empire, and you know, like twenty years 2:12:18.040 --> 2:12:22.720 I'll have my eraser Head finally. Yes, yes, But it 2:12:22.840 --> 2:12:25.880 really just kind of followed that like sort of intuitive path, 2:12:26.000 --> 2:12:29.120 and I kind of announced what I was doing and 2:12:29.600 --> 2:12:31.120 I said, you know, my friend and I are making 2:12:31.200 --> 2:12:36.720 this Queer Joker parody, and anybody who wants to help us, like, 2:12:37.200 --> 2:12:39.080 you know, right here, and I kind of at that 2:12:39.200 --> 2:12:41.080 point it still was in this kind of like loose 2:12:41.160 --> 2:12:43.800 space of what is this really? But just so many 2:12:43.960 --> 2:12:48.640 artists came forward, and most of them artists who had 2:12:48.720 --> 2:12:53.080 never worked on film or TV before. So it was 2:12:53.120 --> 2:12:55.280 a lot of just like fine, artists and painters and 2:12:55.400 --> 2:12:57.880 illustrators and visual artists, and then like a lot of 2:12:58.040 --> 2:13:01.440 people too, just that I had seen for years on 2:13:01.640 --> 2:13:05.560 trans Twitter or like like featured in like very like 2:13:05.760 --> 2:13:09.160 fringe like zines and shit like that. So it's just like, 2:13:09.520 --> 2:13:12.360 holy shit, like we could really make this movie that 2:13:12.480 --> 2:13:16.160 looks like nothing you've ever seen before, and we can 2:13:16.280 --> 2:13:18.400 do it too in a way that like we're creating 2:13:18.600 --> 2:13:21.720 original art. You know, like all the art in it 2:13:21.880 --> 2:13:24.600 is original. I mean like we recreate a lot of 2:13:24.720 --> 2:13:28.200 sets and stuff from famous comic book movies, but like 2:13:28.840 --> 2:13:32.480 it was painstakingly created and every character had its own 2:13:32.600 --> 2:13:36.839 character design, you know, original character design. Like we couldn't 2:13:37.000 --> 2:13:39.920 just take mister mixuplick and put them in the movie, 2:13:40.040 --> 2:13:42.000 Like we had to go, okay, like how can we 2:13:42.200 --> 2:13:44.240 clear mister mix OLEPLI, Like, Okay, We'll make a mix 2:13:44.320 --> 2:13:48.920 mixy and they'll be like a weird like floating like 2:13:49.080 --> 2:13:53.080 Hanna barbera cartoon type. It's kind of more hr puff 2:13:53.120 --> 2:13:56.120 and stuff. Was the vibe we went for there, very 2:13:56.240 --> 2:13:57.200 sit in Marty Kroft. 2:13:57.800 --> 2:14:00.720 Even with a community of queer artists, how does one 2:14:00.840 --> 2:14:04.400 go from the idea stage of say, hey, let's make 2:14:04.440 --> 2:14:07.280 a more queer and radically oriented late night comedy show 2:14:07.800 --> 2:14:11.720 to having it actually be filmed and then broadcast. So 2:14:11.960 --> 2:14:14.520 I asked Ella what allowed her to get this project 2:14:14.640 --> 2:14:17.160 off the ground and what her process was like going 2:14:17.200 --> 2:14:19.640 from an idea to something that's now on air. 2:14:20.160 --> 2:14:21.440 So, like I said, I've been writing for some More 2:14:21.520 --> 2:14:23.640 News for three years and I love that job and 2:14:23.720 --> 2:14:26.600 I love my coworkers there, but they are doing one thing, 2:14:26.720 --> 2:14:29.840 and I, over the last year or so sort of 2:14:29.880 --> 2:14:31.480 started to realize that I also wanted to be doing 2:14:31.520 --> 2:14:33.400 this other thing. I wanted the live studio audience. I 2:14:33.480 --> 2:14:36.440 wanted a very queer focused show. I wanted an in 2:14:36.560 --> 2:14:38.920 person writer's room ultimately or like a local writer's room, 2:14:38.920 --> 2:14:40.840 because everyone else at some more News is LA based 2:14:40.840 --> 2:14:42.560 as far as I'm aware, and I'm the only East 2:14:42.600 --> 2:14:45.760 Coaster out here, and I just wanted the whole bunch 2:14:45.760 --> 2:14:48.640 of things that Somewere News wasn't doing. So I was like, Okay, 2:14:48.760 --> 2:14:50.320 I guess I have to do that myself because there's 2:14:50.320 --> 2:14:52.400 no one else doing it that will hire me. But 2:14:52.520 --> 2:14:54.680 I'm grateful that I had my experience with some More 2:14:54.720 --> 2:14:56.680 News and continue to have my experience with them. Because 2:14:57.320 --> 2:15:00.120 I structure our writer's room very similarly to them, and 2:15:00.240 --> 2:15:02.839 I took a lot of inspiration from their early stages 2:15:03.000 --> 2:15:06.480 in terms of like the creative side of things, and 2:15:06.600 --> 2:15:09.720 then in terms of like finding people and making it happen. 2:15:11.040 --> 2:15:13.600 Something I've learned my whole life as a creative is 2:15:13.640 --> 2:15:15.120 that you just sort of have to fucking do it. 2:15:15.920 --> 2:15:17.600 I've been like self producing work. 2:15:17.480 --> 2:15:21.240 Since I was eighteen. When I was eighteen, my community. 2:15:20.840 --> 2:15:23.560 Theater in my hometown had a big all hands meeting 2:15:23.600 --> 2:15:25.080 where they were like, Hey, we're out of money. 2:15:25.120 --> 2:15:25.520 What do we do? 2:15:25.720 --> 2:15:27.520 And I said, you should do a Shakespeare play because 2:15:27.520 --> 2:15:28.880 you don't have to pay for the royalties for that. 2:15:29.400 --> 2:15:30.920 And they were like, well, we don't have anyone who 2:15:30.920 --> 2:15:32.840 wants to direct a Shakespeare play. And I said, okay, 2:15:32.960 --> 2:15:35.200 then I'll do it. And they were like, okay, then 2:15:35.240 --> 2:15:36.920 you do it. And I sort of had to just 2:15:37.480 --> 2:15:39.400 do it. And I did it and it was messy 2:15:39.480 --> 2:15:41.840 and pretty amateurish, and then I did it again the 2:15:41.840 --> 2:15:43.000 next year, and I got better, and I did it 2:15:43.040 --> 2:15:45.280 again the next year. It got better after that, and 2:15:45.320 --> 2:15:47.800 then after I graduated college, I started doing stand up again. 2:15:47.920 --> 2:15:49.680 I just stand up a little bit pre transition and 2:15:49.800 --> 2:15:52.120 it was terrible, and so I stopped to become a 2:15:52.200 --> 2:15:54.200 girl and I started doing stand up again, and I 2:15:54.240 --> 2:15:56.400 realized there wasn't a ton of spaces in the stand 2:15:56.480 --> 2:15:58.960 up scene for trans people, and I said. 2:16:00.160 --> 2:16:02.000 Okay, so let's host a trans show. 2:16:02.240 --> 2:16:04.440 And I found a bar and I got in touch 2:16:04.480 --> 2:16:06.960 with the bar, and then I just started dming comics 2:16:07.000 --> 2:16:08.480 and I said, hey, I don't really know any of 2:16:08.520 --> 2:16:10.720 you because I'm not really integrated into this comedy scene, 2:16:11.320 --> 2:16:14.280 but please, and the show solely grew and I started 2:16:14.320 --> 2:16:16.880 to meet more people, and then by the time I 2:16:17.080 --> 2:16:19.000 had the idea to do late stage, I had been 2:16:19.320 --> 2:16:20.800 doing my show for about a year and a half 2:16:21.000 --> 2:16:24.320 and I was pretty integrated into the comedy scene, so 2:16:24.480 --> 2:16:28.280 I was never worried about finding writers in terms of quantity. 2:16:28.760 --> 2:16:32.240 I reached out to my headwriter, Read Pope last April 2:16:33.400 --> 2:16:37.320 after seeing a similarly live show by my friend Kay 2:16:37.360 --> 2:16:39.800 Loggins called Knight Live that she does every so often, 2:16:40.080 --> 2:16:41.720 and I helped her with the production day on that 2:16:41.760 --> 2:16:44.280 and it was a thirteen hour production day, and I 2:16:44.440 --> 2:16:47.039 just remember having so much fun realizing that you could 2:16:47.680 --> 2:16:50.400 find people in the artistic community like enough, people who 2:16:50.440 --> 2:16:51.160 were willing to do it. 2:16:51.959 --> 2:16:52.280 So Yeah. 2:16:52.320 --> 2:16:54.160 I reached out to Read in April and I said, hey, 2:16:54.240 --> 2:16:57.400 I have this idea, and they said, cool, here's a 2:16:57.480 --> 2:17:00.320 list of people I think would be fun to work with. 2:17:00.480 --> 2:17:02.360 And we reached out to a small handful of writers 2:17:02.400 --> 2:17:03.520 and some of them got back to us and some 2:17:03.600 --> 2:17:05.760 of them didn't, and we slowly found our team of 2:17:05.760 --> 2:17:08.240 people who were able to commit to at first monthly 2:17:08.280 --> 2:17:09.440 and now weekly writers meeting. 2:17:10.080 --> 2:17:12.240 After the writing team was assembled, they still needed to 2:17:12.280 --> 2:17:14.960 find a place to record the show. The director and 2:17:15.120 --> 2:17:19.080 executive producer Octavia helped find the public access station in 2:17:19.120 --> 2:17:22.160 Brooklyn that Late Stage now shoots at, which is open 2:17:22.200 --> 2:17:22.760 to the public. 2:17:23.200 --> 2:17:25.200 Do you have to take a five week course there 2:17:25.200 --> 2:17:27.480 where you get certified in all of the equipment and 2:17:27.560 --> 2:17:29.880 then you just get to sort of reserve their space 2:17:30.040 --> 2:17:30.840 and do whatever. 2:17:30.680 --> 2:17:31.119 You want there. 2:17:31.920 --> 2:17:34.320 And over the course of those five weeks, Read, Octavia 2:17:34.320 --> 2:17:37.280 and I would take this like bi weekly class and 2:17:37.320 --> 2:17:39.520 afterwards we've got and get food and we would just 2:17:39.879 --> 2:17:41.600 talk about what the show needed and where it was. 2:17:41.959 --> 2:17:43.880 Every time a roll popped up in discussion that we 2:17:43.920 --> 2:17:45.920 didn't have yet, Octavia or Read or I would say, oh, 2:17:45.959 --> 2:17:47.280 I know someone and we'd pick up the phone and 2:17:47.320 --> 2:17:50.359 call them immediately. And so it was a very organic 2:17:50.520 --> 2:17:53.560 growth in terms of production team at first. And that 2:17:53.760 --> 2:17:55.920 just comes from like working within your own community and 2:17:56.000 --> 2:17:57.960 like finding an artistic community. I don't think I could 2:17:57.959 --> 2:18:00.760 be doing this two years ago, Like I'm really grateful 2:18:00.760 --> 2:18:02.560 for having hosted a stand up show for many years 2:18:02.640 --> 2:18:05.240 first to integrate myself into that community and knowing a 2:18:05.320 --> 2:18:08.119 lot of like hardworking, multifaceted artists. 2:18:09.040 --> 2:18:12.160 Once again, the ability to make friends, both in your 2:18:12.240 --> 2:18:15.560 local community and even online remains one of the best 2:18:15.640 --> 2:18:19.680 ways to get shit done. The collaborative multi media collage 2:18:19.800 --> 2:18:22.560 aspect not only impuse a project with a sense of 2:18:22.800 --> 2:18:26.880 DIY queerness, it also makes tackling a project as gargantuan 2:18:26.920 --> 2:18:29.320 as The People's Joker a bit more feasible. 2:18:29.920 --> 2:18:33.080 We'd have these like artists with like you know, like 2:18:33.200 --> 2:18:36.800 Maddy Forrest makes beautiful puppets and just beautiful art, so 2:18:36.840 --> 2:18:39.240 it's like, okay, like obviously we're an ad Maddie asked 2:18:39.280 --> 2:18:41.920 Maddie to make the mixele Plick puppet, and like it'll 2:18:41.959 --> 2:18:44.400 be like a Sid Mardi Kroft puppet, and like one 2:18:44.440 --> 2:18:47.600 of the other artists that came through was Salem Hughes, 2:18:47.800 --> 2:18:52.240 who makes these like three D like low poly three 2:18:52.360 --> 2:18:55.640 D models, and at that point it was like, okay, well, 2:18:55.680 --> 2:18:57.800 that obviously has to be like our bat cave, like 2:18:57.879 --> 2:19:00.080 we'll make it look like a like a Doom like 2:19:00.240 --> 2:19:03.520 N sixty four video game or something, and the batmobile too. 2:19:04.240 --> 2:19:06.320 So it's just kind of like figure like breaking up 2:19:06.640 --> 2:19:10.240 everybody's role into these individual pieces and like kind of 2:19:10.320 --> 2:19:15.040 going by like both physical locations, like reserving one artist 2:19:15.200 --> 2:19:18.560 for each physical location that we'd see pop up and things, 2:19:19.240 --> 2:19:21.920 you know, like Paul McBride did all of the Joker 2:19:22.240 --> 2:19:26.320 apartment shots and we recreated Woking Phoenix's Joker apartment, but 2:19:26.440 --> 2:19:28.560 you know, change the color and the wallpaper and blah 2:19:28.560 --> 2:19:31.960 blah blah. And Paul again like another person who just 2:19:32.640 --> 2:19:35.279 like Paul just makes three D models just to like relax, 2:19:35.480 --> 2:19:39.360 I guess, like he just makes these beautiful interiors. And 2:19:39.400 --> 2:19:41.240 it was like, okay, cool, we'll make like a beautiful, 2:19:41.360 --> 2:19:47.720 like hyper realistic interior. I never really forced my aesthetic 2:19:47.840 --> 2:19:50.360 on anybody. I really just allowed people to just kind 2:19:50.400 --> 2:19:54.080 of like lean into their aesthetic and just do what 2:19:54.240 --> 2:19:57.320 they wanted and kind of like just run wild and 2:19:57.440 --> 2:20:00.280 be like okay, so you make low polyart, like we'll 2:20:00.320 --> 2:20:03.680 do just do that in this case. And our amusement 2:20:03.720 --> 2:20:05.880 park set was made by this artist at GRAT and 2:20:06.120 --> 2:20:10.200 he just makes beautiful DMT like psychedelic imagery. So it 2:20:10.280 --> 2:20:13.880 was like we got this you know, hyper crazy, like 2:20:14.240 --> 2:20:17.240 weird perspective amusement park from him, and we turned that 2:20:17.440 --> 2:20:20.160 into a three D model, you know, rather than going 2:20:20.240 --> 2:20:21.760 like how are we going to make this work? You know, 2:20:21.959 --> 2:20:24.360 like this is a this is a flat painting, you know, 2:20:24.520 --> 2:20:26.840 like it's a location we keep seeing in the movie, 2:20:27.920 --> 2:20:29.200 like how are we going to make it work? But 2:20:29.280 --> 2:20:31.440 it was just like just kind of saying yes and 2:20:31.840 --> 2:20:35.280 to everything and really allowing everybody to just play to 2:20:35.360 --> 2:20:38.480 their best strengths. And I knew that, like my voice 2:20:38.520 --> 2:20:40.320 and my vision were always going to be there, like 2:20:40.400 --> 2:20:42.039 my face was going to be on screen for most 2:20:42.080 --> 2:20:44.880 of the movie, and like it's my story, Like I 2:20:45.000 --> 2:20:48.520 was never really worried about losing myself or disappearing in 2:20:48.600 --> 2:20:51.840 the art at all, and instinctually I just kind of 2:20:51.920 --> 2:20:56.160 knew it would make the movie feel very clear. And 2:20:57.080 --> 2:20:58.640 that's really just what it was. 2:20:58.760 --> 2:20:58.800 Like. 2:20:58.920 --> 2:21:02.560 It was really just this big kind of DIY community 2:21:02.760 --> 2:21:06.400 art project, and it was a big task for me 2:21:06.520 --> 2:21:09.760 to kind of like find the unified aesthetic. But thankfully, 2:21:09.879 --> 2:21:11.800 you know, like I've done VFX, I had a lot 2:21:11.840 --> 2:21:15.040 of other VFX artists helping me work on the film, 2:21:15.120 --> 2:21:17.400 and we were able to kind of find a through 2:21:17.480 --> 2:21:20.200 line in the way like all filmmakers have to. You know, 2:21:20.320 --> 2:21:22.320 you just stick to a color scheme, you stick to 2:21:22.400 --> 2:21:25.080 a very certain type of pacing, and you know, and 2:21:25.240 --> 2:21:28.440 musically too, like I think we really like were able 2:21:28.520 --> 2:21:30.680 to like bridge a lot of the things together just 2:21:30.760 --> 2:21:34.000 by like having constant music playing. And you know, I 2:21:34.040 --> 2:21:36.920 think I was really influenced by Natural Born Killers and 2:21:37.080 --> 2:21:39.720 Pink Floyd's of the Wall and also Headwig in The 2:21:39.760 --> 2:21:42.040 Angry Inch. I think we're like kind of the Big Three, 2:21:42.240 --> 2:21:44.320 and also returned to Oz those are the Big four, 2:21:45.000 --> 2:21:47.440 and just to round it out to five, then Batman 2:21:47.520 --> 2:21:51.520 Forever of course. But I think like a movie's never 2:21:51.720 --> 2:21:54.480 really been made. I think plenty of movies are made 2:21:54.560 --> 2:21:56.240 like this all the time, like where these like little 2:21:56.280 --> 2:21:59.640 communities of people get together, but like this was like 2:22:00.160 --> 2:22:04.600 an intercontinental kind of community project, and it was beautiful, 2:22:04.680 --> 2:22:06.400 Like I'm so glad we did it, and it was 2:22:06.600 --> 2:22:10.200 it was an opportunity to really hopefully, like get a 2:22:10.280 --> 2:22:14.560 lot of artists visibility in spaces that they normally wouldn't 2:22:14.640 --> 2:22:18.200 be visible, and an opportunity too to like work with 2:22:18.280 --> 2:22:20.640 a lot of really talented people and allow them and 2:22:20.720 --> 2:22:21.920 make them feel valued. 2:22:22.000 --> 2:22:22.160 You know. 2:22:22.280 --> 2:22:24.040 I just worked on so many things where it's like 2:22:24.480 --> 2:22:26.560 you get art back from somebody and then you're like, 2:22:27.160 --> 2:22:29.160 we got to send this back or you're fired or 2:22:29.240 --> 2:22:31.680 you know whatever, and this is like I never wanted 2:22:31.760 --> 2:22:33.320 to be that. It was very much like this is 2:22:33.400 --> 2:22:35.600 kind of all of our movie in a way. And 2:22:35.680 --> 2:22:37.600 now that the movie's out there too, I really think 2:22:37.640 --> 2:22:40.119 of it. It's like it's just it's got its own life, 2:22:40.280 --> 2:22:42.600 Like it's kind of no longer mine, and it kind 2:22:42.640 --> 2:22:45.040 of never really was. It was always like ours. It 2:22:45.160 --> 2:22:48.080 was always mine and my friends and you know, all 2:22:48.120 --> 2:22:50.200 the people that worked on it with me. And I 2:22:50.280 --> 2:22:53.600 think that is just really cool, and thanks for giving 2:22:53.600 --> 2:22:55.240 me the opportunity to talk about it, because I think 2:22:55.280 --> 2:22:57.640 it's one of the things that kind of gets lost 2:22:57.640 --> 2:22:59.879 about this project a lot, just because of how personal 2:23:00.200 --> 2:23:02.080 is and because of like our legal stuff. But like 2:23:02.879 --> 2:23:04.440 I would have never been able to make this. If 2:23:04.480 --> 2:23:06.960 it wasn't for the team, we will return to, it 2:23:07.040 --> 2:23:22.160 could happen here. After these messages we now return to. 2:23:22.320 --> 2:23:23.200 It could happen here. 2:23:24.520 --> 2:23:27.279 What I find most inspiring about projects like The People's 2:23:27.360 --> 2:23:30.480 Joker and some of the other indie no budget transfilms 2:23:30.720 --> 2:23:34.720 by filmmakers like Alice Mayo, Mackay and Mia Moore, as 2:23:34.760 --> 2:23:37.760 well as projects like Late Stage Live, is that they 2:23:37.800 --> 2:23:40.720 demonstrate that we don't need to rely on big studios 2:23:40.840 --> 2:23:43.000 or big production companies to green light things in order 2:23:43.080 --> 2:23:44.160 to make our own stuff. 2:23:44.680 --> 2:23:45.920 You can just make it. 2:23:46.320 --> 2:23:48.400 Which is not to say that it's easy, but the 2:23:48.440 --> 2:23:51.960 biggest drive to getting something done is literally just getting 2:23:52.000 --> 2:23:52.360 it done. 2:23:52.520 --> 2:23:53.200 Is just doing it. 2:23:53.840 --> 2:23:57.480 And if people see you doing a cool thing, oddly enough, 2:23:57.760 --> 2:23:59.280 some of them will want to help you, which is 2:23:59.360 --> 2:24:02.400 kind of a bizarre, but it does end up being true. 2:24:02.840 --> 2:24:07.640 The core thing I've learned about producing work over the 2:24:07.760 --> 2:24:11.879 last many years is people are willing to do stuff 2:24:12.040 --> 2:24:15.040 if you do it first. If you prove to them 2:24:15.080 --> 2:24:17.520 that you're committed to something and have a cool idea, 2:24:18.000 --> 2:24:20.879 people will jump on board. Yeah, And I think that's 2:24:20.920 --> 2:24:22.800 been proven by how excited our audience has been for 2:24:22.840 --> 2:24:25.920 the show. How willing people have been to jump on, 2:24:26.280 --> 2:24:29.480 and our entire crew and writing stuff is volunteer. Right now, 2:24:29.640 --> 2:24:31.240 We're making a little bit of money on Patreon, but 2:24:31.280 --> 2:24:34.840 certainly not enough to pay the twenty plus person team 2:24:34.920 --> 2:24:37.080 that ends up working with us every month, although that 2:24:37.200 --> 2:24:39.520 is the goal down the line. But yeah, people are 2:24:39.560 --> 2:24:41.560 willing to do a cool thing and volunteer their time. 2:24:41.720 --> 2:24:44.040 Artists want to be making stuff, and so it's just 2:24:44.120 --> 2:24:47.800 about doing it and then just doing it again. When 2:24:47.840 --> 2:24:49.880 I first started hosting my stay up show, we did 2:24:49.879 --> 2:24:51.480 it the first time, and I spent months like thinking 2:24:51.480 --> 2:24:54.480 about it, and after the first month, I was like, 2:24:54.560 --> 2:24:56.280 oh my god, that was so hard. How am I 2:24:56.280 --> 2:24:58.000 going to find enough transcomics to you at a second time? 2:24:58.000 --> 2:24:59.120 How am I going to have the energy to do 2:24:59.120 --> 2:25:01.199 a second time? And my boyfriend at the time said, 2:25:02.160 --> 2:25:03.400 if you want it to be a monthly show, you 2:25:03.480 --> 2:25:05.280 just have to do it every month for a while, 2:25:05.560 --> 2:25:08.280 even if it sucks, and then eventually it will suck less. 2:25:08.560 --> 2:25:11.600 And he's right. He's still right, and I'm still doing 2:25:11.680 --> 2:25:12.560 that show two years later. 2:25:12.879 --> 2:25:15.240 And we did late stage the first time, and it 2:25:15.360 --> 2:25:18.120 was several months push to get the first script out 2:25:18.160 --> 2:25:19.600 and we got the first episode out and we were like, 2:25:19.600 --> 2:25:22.120 oh my god, Okay, let's do this again in one month, 2:25:22.200 --> 2:25:24.000 can we do it? And we did it a second 2:25:24.040 --> 2:25:27.640 time and it was also fun and good, and then 2:25:27.720 --> 2:25:29.199 you just like figure out how to make it easier 2:25:29.400 --> 2:25:31.960 each time. And I will not deny that it is 2:25:32.400 --> 2:25:36.000 hard work. We are all slowly killing ourselves to make 2:25:36.040 --> 2:25:39.480 this show. I work a forty hour food service day 2:25:39.600 --> 2:25:42.320 job that I came directly from to do this interview. 2:25:43.040 --> 2:25:46.120 Everyone else on my show is either working full time 2:25:46.160 --> 2:25:48.800 on top of the show, or unemployed and slowly losing 2:25:48.879 --> 2:25:52.199 money at various stages. People would like to fire queer people. 2:25:52.320 --> 2:25:55.720 So every few weeks someone comes into a writer's meeting 2:25:55.800 --> 2:25:56.960 is like, guys, I lost my job. 2:25:57.080 --> 2:25:57.360 Haha. 2:25:58.320 --> 2:26:00.240 So I will not deny that it's hard, and I 2:26:00.480 --> 2:26:02.600 don't want to. I don't ever want someone to think 2:26:02.600 --> 2:26:04.480 of me saying just do it. Is like it's easy 2:26:04.560 --> 2:26:06.840 because it's a lot of work, and all of my 2:26:07.760 --> 2:26:10.320 team is like incredibly talented and has years of experience 2:26:10.640 --> 2:26:14.600 doing things. Everyone in the comedy scene in Brooklyn talks 2:26:14.600 --> 2:26:16.800 about like wanting to get staffed on a late night show, 2:26:17.360 --> 2:26:19.320 which is awesome, And I would love to get staffed 2:26:19.320 --> 2:26:21.400 on a late age like that's the coveted job at 2:26:21.440 --> 2:26:23.879 the end of the line for the stand up community, 2:26:24.600 --> 2:26:26.040 but like, you don't have to wait for that. You 2:26:26.160 --> 2:26:27.760 can just make the work you're doing. And I've had 2:26:27.800 --> 2:26:29.520 conversations with my writers where they've all been like, this 2:26:29.560 --> 2:26:31.280 has been a really cool opportunity because at the very 2:26:31.400 --> 2:26:34.039 least I've sort of found out if I would actually 2:26:34.080 --> 2:26:36.440 want to write on a late night show. We talk 2:26:36.480 --> 2:26:38.400 about that as a coveted job, but maybe I don't 2:26:38.400 --> 2:26:40.560 want to do that. It's a very different skill than 2:26:40.800 --> 2:26:42.440 stand up and that's been a fun learning curve as 2:26:42.480 --> 2:26:44.640 well as hiring a bunch of stand ups. To write 2:26:44.680 --> 2:26:47.720 long form political analysis, you sort of have to herd 2:26:47.840 --> 2:26:48.879 cats to some degree. 2:26:49.560 --> 2:26:53.039 Even with a supportive community, the work can be really grueling, 2:26:53.480 --> 2:26:55.880 and the road from a finished movie to being on 2:26:55.959 --> 2:26:59.840 the big screen can be a monumental challenge. The People's 2:27:00.360 --> 2:27:02.879 is slightly unique in this way because of its peculiar 2:27:03.040 --> 2:27:06.880 copyright status of being a fair use superhero parody using 2:27:06.920 --> 2:27:09.720 some of our culture's most recognizable iconography to tell a 2:27:09.840 --> 2:27:12.880 very personal story. Right before the movie was set to 2:27:12.920 --> 2:27:15.600 premiere at tiff the Toronto International Film Festival back in 2:27:15.680 --> 2:27:19.360 twenty twenty two, Warner Brothers sent a vaguely worded but 2:27:19.520 --> 2:27:22.600 threatening letter which resulted in the People's Joker of being 2:27:22.640 --> 2:27:25.800 pulled from the festival save for one late night screening. 2:27:26.480 --> 2:27:29.800 Yet throughout the legal chaos, Vera Drew remained to steadfast 2:27:29.959 --> 2:27:32.480 to ensure the movie would be released the right way 2:27:32.920 --> 2:27:36.080 on the big screen where it belongs. This film has 2:27:36.320 --> 2:27:39.600 had like a I guess, a troubled history, some some 2:27:39.840 --> 2:27:42.400 might say, and how are you able to like stick 2:27:42.440 --> 2:27:45.720 with this project after encountering like hurdles and problems, like 2:27:45.879 --> 2:27:48.480 because like a certain point, it's like, is this like 2:27:48.520 --> 2:27:51.360 a some cost fallacy or something like how did you 2:27:51.480 --> 2:27:54.160 decide to like actually stick with this and like really 2:27:54.240 --> 2:27:55.960 fight for this as a as a piece of like 2:27:56.040 --> 2:27:56.720 expressive art. 2:27:58.040 --> 2:28:00.200 Gosh, you know, I mean I think I feel like 2:28:00.720 --> 2:28:03.040 I just didn't have like a choice, really, like I 2:28:03.120 --> 2:28:08.880 think with the movie done and with how well just 2:28:09.000 --> 2:28:12.760 our first screening at TIFF went like it was just 2:28:13.000 --> 2:28:15.760 like I was kind of at a point where I 2:28:15.959 --> 2:28:19.760 could shelve it, like cause that was really the other option, 2:28:20.800 --> 2:28:24.720 you know, put it just away for a few years 2:28:24.840 --> 2:28:28.560 and come back and maybe like you know, when public 2:28:28.680 --> 2:28:32.039 domain is a little bit more, you know, it falls 2:28:32.120 --> 2:28:35.280 under public domain because it will and like I mean, 2:28:35.320 --> 2:28:38.320 at least U Joker and Batman will be in public 2:28:38.360 --> 2:28:41.400 domain in ten or fifteen years. So like that was 2:28:41.480 --> 2:28:43.720 like an idea. I guess that was floated to me 2:28:43.760 --> 2:28:45.600 a few times. Bro, It's just like I don't I 2:28:45.640 --> 2:28:47.600 didn't want to wait that long, and I had just 2:28:47.920 --> 2:28:50.240 I really put all I had into this movie, you know, 2:28:50.400 --> 2:28:53.840 like I cashed in every favor I had ever accumulated 2:28:54.400 --> 2:28:57.959 in Hollywood financially, Like I took out a huge loan 2:28:58.120 --> 2:29:02.920 to finish it, and it was just this big, deeply 2:29:03.080 --> 2:29:05.960 personal thing that I had made that originally really was 2:29:06.200 --> 2:29:07.960 just for me and my friends. Like it was just 2:29:08.080 --> 2:29:11.040 kind of a thing that I had just made. You know, 2:29:11.320 --> 2:29:13.480 maybe I would have shown it to like my Patreon 2:29:13.680 --> 2:29:17.320 or something, but like after a certain point, like it, 2:29:17.680 --> 2:29:19.920 you know, once we had that like premiere, it was 2:29:20.040 --> 2:29:22.480 just like like I can't just post this to YouTube. 2:29:22.520 --> 2:29:26.039 I can't like just dump it somewhere or like shelve 2:29:26.160 --> 2:29:28.160 it all my agents and stuff. I have way too 2:29:28.200 --> 2:29:31.560 many agents now, and they all were like telling me 2:29:31.680 --> 2:29:35.440 to that basically, like it's it's it's okay that it's 2:29:35.520 --> 2:29:37.480 not coming out. We can basically just use this to 2:29:37.560 --> 2:29:40.240 get the next project going. But I mean I quickly 2:29:40.320 --> 2:29:43.400 realized in that process, like this movie is like a 2:29:43.520 --> 2:29:46.640 fucking like you don't show this movie to a studio 2:29:46.720 --> 2:29:51.000 executive and then they immediately are like, yeah, let's let's 2:29:51.080 --> 2:29:54.039 hire this person. They just want to like have lunch 2:29:54.160 --> 2:29:57.320 with this crazy bitch who made the Joker movie, you know. 2:29:57.480 --> 2:29:59.960 Like so it was like it just quickly became clear 2:30:00.320 --> 2:30:04.200 like where like kind of just the people around me 2:30:04.280 --> 2:30:06.560 who had the best interest of the movie at heart, 2:30:06.680 --> 2:30:10.560 and also like just what felt bad and what felt 2:30:10.640 --> 2:30:13.760 right and what felt right. Really was like taking the 2:30:13.800 --> 2:30:16.520 movie out just to festivals and kind of doing like 2:30:16.560 --> 2:30:18.760 a secret screening tour, which is what we did, and 2:30:19.600 --> 2:30:21.959 that was really exciting and kind of like a jokerfied 2:30:22.320 --> 2:30:24.920 way of sort of getting this movie out there. And 2:30:25.920 --> 2:30:28.840 that was really just on an emotional and like personal level, 2:30:28.959 --> 2:30:32.120 really what carried me through. I was lucky enough to 2:30:32.200 --> 2:30:35.160 be in attendance at one of the secret festival screenings 2:30:35.160 --> 2:30:37.720 a few years back, and I was delighted to hear 2:30:37.840 --> 2:30:40.199 that nearly two years after it initially premiered at Tiff 2:30:40.520 --> 2:30:43.000 The People's Joker was able to secure a distribution partner 2:30:43.080 --> 2:30:46.480 to put the movie in theaters nationwide, So once again 2:30:46.560 --> 2:30:49.280 I was fortunate enough to rewatch a piece of queer 2:30:49.400 --> 2:30:52.480 Batman art that otherwise would have never been made under 2:30:52.600 --> 2:30:55.400 Warner Brothers Thumb, and I think this is also the 2:30:55.520 --> 2:30:57.720 case with Late Stage Live and many of these new 2:30:57.800 --> 2:31:01.720 independent queer projects. They most likely would not be produced 2:31:01.760 --> 2:31:05.200 by one of the massive media conglomerates that controls almost everything. 2:31:05.240 --> 2:31:05.640 You see. 2:31:06.560 --> 2:31:09.760 The small, independent nature of these productions actually gives them 2:31:09.800 --> 2:31:13.520 an opportunity to be much more queer and politically radical 2:31:13.800 --> 2:31:16.840 than what would be allowed under Disney, Universal, Sony, Paramount, 2:31:16.840 --> 2:31:18.120 Warner Media Incorporated. 2:31:18.600 --> 2:31:21.120 We're like obviously far more radical politically than any other 2:31:21.600 --> 2:31:23.800 late night show on the air right now. And it's 2:31:23.840 --> 2:31:25.560 something we've been thinking about as we attempt to scale 2:31:25.640 --> 2:31:28.280 and try to find people who are going to fund us, 2:31:28.760 --> 2:31:30.959 is that there are certainly people who could give us 2:31:31.000 --> 2:31:32.960 a lot of money who would also then really want 2:31:33.000 --> 2:31:35.760 to like limit the kind of speech we can make 2:31:35.920 --> 2:31:38.320 and the kind of opinions we can have. And so 2:31:38.400 --> 2:31:41.880 there's obviously a balance as we look for funding and 2:31:42.400 --> 2:31:47.040 growth opportunities. But Brick the Public Access network is their 2:31:47.120 --> 2:31:50.000 whole thing is free speech, and so part of working 2:31:50.040 --> 2:31:53.840 with them is their commitment to free speech and radical programming. 2:31:54.480 --> 2:31:58.280 I'm really interested in the choice to have it also 2:31:58.400 --> 2:32:02.120 be on cable access. I find that to be oddly 2:32:02.240 --> 2:32:06.160 compelling in an interesting way, and I wonder, like, what 2:32:06.400 --> 2:32:07.320 led you to that decision. 2:32:07.760 --> 2:32:10.240 So part of that is like rules and regulations at 2:32:10.320 --> 2:32:13.039 Brick the studio. So you take one hundred dollars five 2:32:13.040 --> 2:32:15.119 week class with them to learn how to use their stuff, 2:32:15.280 --> 2:32:16.720 and they offer a lot of other classes too. You 2:32:16.800 --> 2:32:19.240 can take a podcasting class to use their podcasting studio, 2:32:19.440 --> 2:32:21.560 or a field class to be able to rent out 2:32:21.560 --> 2:32:23.200 equipment and go do stuff in the field. A lot 2:32:23.240 --> 2:32:25.320 of people make documentaries with their equipment. It's a very 2:32:25.320 --> 2:32:27.720 cool team. If you're in Brooklyn, you should go work 2:32:27.720 --> 2:32:28.040 with Brick. 2:32:28.120 --> 2:32:28.600 They're awesome. 2:32:29.040 --> 2:32:31.520 But on one of the contingencies of working in their 2:32:31.600 --> 2:32:34.960 space is that when you film something with them, you 2:32:35.040 --> 2:32:37.640 do eventually owe them a product that they air on 2:32:37.720 --> 2:32:40.000 their network, and that for us is the show. We're 2:32:40.040 --> 2:32:42.400 not doing a ton of other stuff right now, although 2:32:42.520 --> 2:32:44.440 you know, with infinite money and time, we would love 2:32:44.480 --> 2:32:47.320 to be doing many other things, but Brick is awesome 2:32:47.440 --> 2:32:50.600 and really values like free speech and creator freedom, and 2:32:50.760 --> 2:32:52.720 so even though we owe them a product, we get 2:32:52.760 --> 2:32:55.880 retain full ownership of our stuff. And so the way 2:32:55.920 --> 2:32:59.640 it is in this zany Internet landscape is that YouTube 2:32:59.680 --> 2:33:01.560 is the pls to get eyes on a project. Like 2:33:01.640 --> 2:33:04.760 if I thought that public access TV was going to 2:33:04.800 --> 2:33:08.760 be the place to to like blow up, I maybe 2:33:08.840 --> 2:33:12.120 would be like focusing much harder on promoting that end 2:33:12.200 --> 2:33:15.480 of distribution. But I think for what we're making and 2:33:15.600 --> 2:33:19.280 what we're doing, YouTube and the Internet is like how 2:33:19.360 --> 2:33:22.280 to build an audience. But it's it's it does lend 2:33:22.360 --> 2:33:25.119 it like an interesting credibility to be on public access 2:33:25.360 --> 2:33:27.400 and esthetically we really like leaning into sort of like 2:33:27.440 --> 2:33:30.200 the nineties public access vibes. Part of that is the 2:33:30.240 --> 2:33:32.680 equipment we're using. Our cameras are not the most modern, 2:33:32.959 --> 2:33:34.959 so you get a slightly grainy vibe. 2:33:35.000 --> 2:33:35.240 You get. 2:33:35.320 --> 2:33:39.000 The backdrop is like string and papers frum together. We're 2:33:39.040 --> 2:33:42.880 filming in four to three, which is a really strong decision. Well, 2:33:42.879 --> 2:33:44.640 actually we film in sixty nine, we expert in four 2:33:44.680 --> 2:33:48.360 three whatever, but it gives us a very distinct visual look. 2:33:48.440 --> 2:33:51.680 I think next episode we'll talk more about how so 2:33:51.879 --> 2:33:54.680 much queer video art feels like it's forced to be 2:33:54.760 --> 2:33:57.160 on YouTube and attempts to break out of that bubble. 2:33:57.800 --> 2:34:00.200 When The People's Joker was stuck in legal limbo, there 2:34:00.280 --> 2:34:01.879 was a lot of pressure just to put the film 2:34:02.000 --> 2:34:05.600 up online for free, and as much as Patients is painful, 2:34:06.040 --> 2:34:08.600 resisting that urge and waiting for the right distribution partner 2:34:08.720 --> 2:34:11.360 to come along really paid off in the long run. 2:34:11.840 --> 2:34:14.959 I was just surrounded by other filmmakers in the genre community, 2:34:15.080 --> 2:34:17.880 and you know who would see the movie at this 2:34:17.959 --> 2:34:20.440 festival and be like, you need to just wait, Like 2:34:20.600 --> 2:34:22.280 the person who's going to help you is gonna come. 2:34:22.600 --> 2:34:25.000 And if that doesn't happen, like you can self distribute, 2:34:25.000 --> 2:34:26.600 which I did not want to do. Like at a 2:34:26.640 --> 2:34:28.920 certain point it was just like I had spent so 2:34:29.040 --> 2:34:32.040 much money finishing it. I just I would have ruined 2:34:32.360 --> 2:34:35.000 my life. I think if I self distributed it, like 2:34:35.240 --> 2:34:37.320 I just couldn't. I didn't have the bandwidth. And I 2:34:37.400 --> 2:34:39.560 want to make films, I don't want to distribute them 2:34:39.640 --> 2:34:42.680 at this point, like maybe someday, but like right now, 2:34:42.800 --> 2:34:45.480 I just like want to tell as many stories as 2:34:45.520 --> 2:34:47.840 I can I had a lot of support around me, 2:34:48.120 --> 2:34:51.120 and there was just so much enthusiasm from you know, 2:34:51.240 --> 2:34:53.920 people like you who saw it at festivals last year, 2:34:54.160 --> 2:34:59.320 who like were basically like holy shit, and just all 2:34:59.400 --> 2:35:01.880 the kind of responses we're seeing now to it. Like 2:35:01.959 --> 2:35:04.920 it was, I got little like micronoses of that last year, 2:35:05.840 --> 2:35:09.720 which literally was I mean, I it's probably fucking tacky 2:35:09.760 --> 2:35:11.240 to say, but it was just the darkest year of 2:35:11.280 --> 2:35:15.360 my life. I was really just an anxious mess the 2:35:15.560 --> 2:35:18.960 entire time. But I really did make this movie to 2:35:19.120 --> 2:35:23.840 like not only understand myself and sort of mythologize my 2:35:23.959 --> 2:35:26.440 life and my friends' lives and stuff like that, but 2:35:26.560 --> 2:35:28.560 like I made it to like get better, Like I 2:35:28.680 --> 2:35:31.680 made it to kind of heal not only my relationship 2:35:31.760 --> 2:35:35.480 with like my gender, but my family and my art 2:35:35.600 --> 2:35:38.560 and like how I want to make stuff. And I think, 2:35:38.640 --> 2:35:41.680 what's really beautiful what happened in that like dark period 2:35:41.840 --> 2:35:44.560 and up up until now and even right now, this 2:35:44.760 --> 2:35:48.119 movie does really require me to take care of myself 2:35:48.520 --> 2:35:52.959 emotionally and mentally in ways that are what I've always needed. 2:35:53.240 --> 2:35:56.160 So it's it's been it's been a cool kind of 2:35:56.320 --> 2:36:00.480 just like really expensive therapy. Ultimately, even though a lot 2:36:00.520 --> 2:36:01.959 of it's been really grueling. 2:36:02.600 --> 2:36:04.760 That does it for this week at It Could Happen Here. 2:36:05.160 --> 2:36:07.800 In the next episode after the weekend, I'll conclude my 2:36:07.879 --> 2:36:11.040 conversation with Vera Drew and Ella Yerman talking about the 2:36:11.240 --> 2:36:15.240 pitfalls of representation, moving beyond the YouTube bubble, and the 2:36:15.360 --> 2:36:19.000 future of queer filmmaking. You can go to the Peoplesjoker 2:36:19.040 --> 2:36:22.080 dot com for information on tickets and showtimes, and you 2:36:22.120 --> 2:36:25.280 can find Late Stage Live by that name on all platforms, 2:36:25.480 --> 2:36:27.280 and to support the show, you can get behind the 2:36:27.360 --> 2:36:32.360 scenes content on Patreon at Latestage Live. Solidarity to everyone 2:36:32.400 --> 2:36:34.760 out there this week, see you on the other side. 2:36:36.680 --> 2:36:39.840 Hey, We'll be back Monday with more episodes every week 2:36:39.920 --> 2:36:41.800 from now until the heat death of the Universe. 2:36:42.440 --> 2:36:44.760 It Could Happen Here as a production of cool Zone Media. 2:36:45.040 --> 2:36:47.680 For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website 2:36:47.720 --> 2:36:50.840 coolzonemedia dot com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, 2:36:50.840 --> 2:36:54.040 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can 2:36:54.080 --> 2:36:56.760 find sources for It Could Happen Here, updated monthly at 2:36:56.800 --> 2:36:59.920 coolzonemedia dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening,