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Speaker 1: Whole Zone Media.

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Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome to Cool People Did Cool Stuff, the

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Speaker 2: only podcast I am currently recording. I tried multitasking this

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Speaker 2: and it turns out I can't, and I'm ashamed of myself,

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Speaker 2: but I'm not ashamed to have as my guest catbou Hi. Hey, Margaret,

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Speaker 2: how are you? Kataboo is known from the Internet. That's

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Speaker 2: what I currently have written down because everything is always

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Speaker 2: in transition.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I am known from the Internet. I would say

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Speaker 3: that I have a job, but as of today, I don't.

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Speaker 2: The streamer should appear behind you on zoom every time

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Speaker 2: you say that.

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Speaker 3: Just like confetti pops out everywhere. But I'm really you know,

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Speaker 3: it's a great time to hear about cool people who

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Speaker 3: did cool stuff?

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Speaker 2: Well are you in luck? But partly because our producer

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Speaker 2: is Sophie Hi. Sophie Hi.

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Speaker 1: It's me Sophie.

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Speaker 2: And our audio engineers Daniel.

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Speaker 3: Hi, Daniel Hi, Danel Hi, Danel Our.

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Speaker 2: Theme musical was written forced by unwoman. Okay, so I

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Speaker 2: just finished more than a month, like five weeks of episodes,

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Speaker 2: ten episodes about the fucking Russian Civil War. And don't worry,

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Speaker 2: this has nothing to do with that, because that one

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Speaker 2: ended really tragically, right, the bad people took over in

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Speaker 2: the end of that one.

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Speaker 4: And.

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Speaker 2: Doing all that research like kind of fucked me up.

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Speaker 2: It colored my daily interactions, having spent so long immersed

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Speaker 2: in that particular time and place in history, and I

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Speaker 2: wanted a break. I wanted to do something where people

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Speaker 2: win a little bit, uh or at least hold out

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Speaker 2: a little bit longer, because there's always it's always an

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Speaker 2: ebb and a flow between good guys in back. Obviously,

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Speaker 2: we shouldn't paint the world in blacka white morality, but

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Speaker 2: we do sometimes on this show. And I thought about

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Speaker 2: two things that have come up recently on this show.

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Speaker 2: At one point, well, Robert was a guest. We were

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Speaker 2: talking about how feeding people is generally speaking like just good.

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Speaker 2: Like if you're like, I don't know what else good

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Speaker 2: to do, you could probably just feed people. Although the

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Speaker 2: more you dig into any particular topic you'll find ways

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Speaker 2: people doing it badly but overall good. I like this

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Speaker 2: because you still have no idea what we're going to

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Speaker 2: be talking about. The Other thing is I usually like

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Speaker 2: match my I usually like look specifically at my guests interests,

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Speaker 2: and then I'm like pick something that vaguely ties into that.

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Speaker 2: I didn't do that this time. I just really wanted

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Speaker 2: to cover this particular topic. I'm like, let's do it. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: I think I think you'll like it. I think it

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Speaker 2: would take a person with no heart, like the Grinch.

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Speaker 1: Somebody we wouldn't book as a guest on this podcast.

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Speaker 2: That's true. Yeah, okay. So the other thing that led

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Speaker 2: me to what this topic is about or whatever. The

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Speaker 2: hero of one of our recent episodes was this anarchist

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Speaker 2: military commander woman named Maria Niki Farova. In the middle

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Speaker 2: of this pitched war, She's waiting to go on trial,

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Speaker 2: and she told a bunch of the other anarchists in

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Speaker 2: Russia basically like, Hey, what we should do is set

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Speaker 2: up a system of community gardens and just feed people,

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Speaker 2: and that's how we'll like defeat authoritarian propaganda. And I'm

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Speaker 2: going to talk about that. I'm not gonna talk about

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Speaker 2: in Russia much. I'm gonna talk about community gardens.

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Speaker 3: I love that. I'm so excited.

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Speaker 2: Hell yeah, I'm gonna talk about the hundreds that still

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Speaker 2: exist in New York City today. I'm gonna talk about

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Speaker 2: where they came from and what people have done to

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Speaker 2: defend them. I have to be clear, I have never

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Speaker 2: community gardened. I've only regularly gardened, and not very well.

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Speaker 2: But I'm wondering if this is a thing you experience

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Speaker 2: or not.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, Like I grew up, my mom has like the

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Speaker 3: greenest thumb, Like she has this cute little herb garden

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Speaker 3: on her balcony right now. She's always been like so

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Speaker 3: big on sustainable stuff and like local produce. Like I

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Speaker 3: don't know how to use a can opener because she

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Speaker 3: insisted on only fresh produce.

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Speaker 1: So to be fair, apparently all of us use a

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Speaker 1: can opener. Wrong. I saw some video on TikTok and

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Speaker 1: I was.

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Speaker 3: Like, oh, well, do you remember being dad. I felt

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Speaker 3: so bad for the little girl because I was like,

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Speaker 3: I am, you know, twenty five, and I'm not to

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Speaker 3: use a can opener.

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Speaker 1: Well, apparently nobody does.

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Speaker 3: So nobody does except that one person on TikTok.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, see, but before we started recording, I was

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Speaker 2: telling a story that involved me being technically a hobo

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Speaker 2: and that I was riding a freight train and there's

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Speaker 2: this style of can opener that hoboes have that no

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Speaker 2: one excepts soldiers and hoboes, and how to use called

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Speaker 2: a P thirty eight. It's the size of like two

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Speaker 2: thumbnails like not like icons, but it's like as big

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Speaker 2: as like it's it's the size of the top joint.

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Speaker 3: Of my okay, and it can open a can like

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Speaker 3: a penny.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, a penny and a half's how does it work?

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Speaker 2: It hinges out and there's a tiny little blade on it,

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Speaker 2: and then there's a tiny little notch cut into the

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Speaker 2: metal of the handle, which is like an inch and

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Speaker 2: a half long or something like that. And it weighs nothing,

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Speaker 2: it costs nothing. I put them in all the like

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Speaker 2: first aid kits and emergency kits that they give out

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Speaker 2: to people. But then people have no idea how to

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Speaker 2: use it. But you just put it on the can

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Speaker 2: and then slowly move it around and cut it open.

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Speaker 3: No, that makes sense.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so I probably am using the regular ones wrong.

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Speaker 3: I'd like to use that one. That sounds more fun. Actually,

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Speaker 3: the can openers were all thinking of they look difficult,

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Speaker 3: like there's nothing intuitive about them.

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Speaker 2: No, two weird spinny discs and then like three things

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Speaker 2: that spin over there and right, do.

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Speaker 3: You want me to slice a pizza with this?

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Speaker 1: Like?

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Speaker 3: What are you?

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Speaker 1: What are you doing? Yeah?

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Speaker 2: It does kind of look like a both a pizza

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Speaker 2: cutter and then also the stuff you use to cut

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Speaker 2: fabric when you do a lot of sewing, the full

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Speaker 2: circle cutters, you know, ye, yeah, I wouldn't want to

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Speaker 2: use a P thirty eight to cut fabric.

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Speaker 3: I'm actually working on a quilt that relates to community gardening.

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Speaker 2: Wait, really tell me about that.

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Speaker 3: I saw at the Union Square farmers Market in New

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Speaker 3: York like two weeks ago, there was this really cool graphic.

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Speaker 3: It was like a banner and it was their harvest

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Speaker 3: calendar and I'd like, you know, January and like all

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Speaker 3: the crops that they bring, And I was like, how

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Speaker 3: fun would that be to do that as a quilt.

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Speaker 3: I've never made a quilt, but I think it would

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Speaker 3: be a very fun quilt to have. But like all

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Speaker 3: of the crops that I like and all of the

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Speaker 3: produce that I like, and then embroider like the different

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Speaker 3: ones on different squares and cool have that. And so

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Speaker 3: that's my long term project.

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Speaker 2: Awesome, I love it. This is a combination of many

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Speaker 2: of my interests. I haven't started quil and yet I

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Speaker 2: see it like further down the line of where I'm going.

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Speaker 2: At one point, I got really into. When I first

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Speaker 2: started getting really into crafts, my friend was like, just

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Speaker 2: don't end up candle making. But I'm really oppositional. So

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Speaker 2: I started making candles like a month later.

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Speaker 1: Well, when you no longer have vands to fix, Magpie,

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Speaker 1: you can move on to quilting.

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Speaker 2: That's true. I started making the candles as soon as

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Speaker 2: I moved out of my van and was living in

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Speaker 2: a barn. And it was great because I could always

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Speaker 2: tell people I may not have been raised in a barn,

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Speaker 2: but I live in one. And then people were like,

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Speaker 2: why did we invite you? You keep making the same joke.

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Speaker 3: A barn must have smelled amazing, though it did.

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Speaker 2: I made many candles there and sold them on Etsy.

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Speaker 2: That was my job for a while. By pad weird anyway.

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Speaker 2: Community gardens yay, community gardens. At that barn, I was

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Speaker 2: by far the worst at growing things. I was like,

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Speaker 2: I'm gonna start growing mushrooms because I don't know how to

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Speaker 2: grow things in the ground. I have to do like

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Speaker 2: darkness farming. I didn't do a very good job of

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Speaker 2: that either, but now I have many buckets of potatoes

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Speaker 2: growing on my porch. So community gardens the first community gardens,

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Speaker 2: I would argue, were gardening before the state and private

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Speaker 2: properties stuck their fucking nose in our business. We've talked

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Speaker 2: about this a ton on our show. The way that

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Speaker 2: communities all over the world fed themselves was through something

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Speaker 2: that looks a lot like modern community garden. We've talked about,

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Speaker 2: for example, how across Ireland, folks used to use a

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Speaker 2: land occupation system called rundale, in which land was divided

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Speaker 2: so everyone had equal access to both good and bad land,

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Speaker 2: and so everyone had You didn't split the food at

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Speaker 2: the end, You split access to the land to grow

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Speaker 2: the food across the entire town or community. This system

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Speaker 2: was destroyed by colonization and by early capitalism. Peasants held

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Speaker 2: onto it for centuries throughout those incursions, often which meant

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Speaker 2: that often they would basically have a little bit of

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Speaker 2: land from the landlord, and then they would still all

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Speaker 2: get together and pull it and run dale it out.

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Speaker 2: People fought like hell to defend this system. In Ireland.

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Speaker 2: They formed secret societies where they threw on dresses and

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Speaker 2: killed landlords and shit. I think that was cool, So

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Speaker 2: I did a whole episode about that. Is this is

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Speaker 2: gonna be a little bit We're gonna start off with

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Speaker 2: like one of those you know when you watch Saved

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Speaker 2: by the Bell and it's the end of the season

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Speaker 2: and they don't feel like making anything new, so they

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Speaker 2: do the clips episodes. Yeah, this is not a clips episode,

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Speaker 2: but I'm going to go but this is a thing

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Speaker 2: that has come up a lot, and so I'm going

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Speaker 2: to use my own research's context. The most famous of

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Speaker 2: these groups of cross dressing landlord killers defending primitive communism,

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Speaker 2: which is an economic turn. I'm not trying to actually

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Speaker 2: call them primitive. It's some bullshit marks was on, but whatever.

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Speaker 2: The most famous of these groups is called the Molly

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Speaker 2: Maguires if you want to look them up. We also

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Speaker 2: talked about across Europe you had the common field system

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Speaker 2: or the open field system. This is the commons that

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Speaker 2: if you ever here people talk about the enclosure of

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Speaker 2: the commons. This is what they're talking about. And this

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Speaker 2: wasn't always people who lived super free. Often these communes

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Speaker 2: were people who lived as first serfs who were owned

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Speaker 2: and attached to the property right, and then later as

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Speaker 2: peasants on land that they still didn't owned by a landlord.

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Speaker 2: The origin of that term is very literal in English,

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Speaker 2: usually this is royalty to the church amongst themselves. They

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Speaker 2: split the land into strips so everyone had access to

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Speaker 2: different shit like you had a and then a lot

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Speaker 2: of the woods and pastures were the commons that no

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Speaker 2: one had any ownership at all over except the landlords

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Speaker 2: who owned it all. But this was famously enclosed in

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Speaker 2: what's called the enclosure of the commons, where fences and

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Speaker 2: hedges and shit were put up so it couldn't be

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Speaker 2: used for the common good. I more or less trace

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Speaker 2: the origin of capitalism to the enclosure of the commons

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Speaker 2: in England and the resistance that grew up out of it,

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Speaker 2: as the first anti capitalist like resistance movements. Whole ass

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Speaker 2: peasant wars were fought over this stuff, and it is

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Speaker 2: related to the origin of the labor movement as well.

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Speaker 2: Most famously, this enclosure was fought by a group called

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Speaker 2: the Diggers, who were like, yeah, what if we just

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Speaker 2: illegally plant food anyway? And they're really fun. They actually

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Speaker 2: if you've ever been part of a squatted garden or

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Speaker 2: a community garden and you actually get any food out

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Speaker 2: of the ground, you have succeeded better than the famous

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Speaker 2: Diggers of history because they they got their asses kicked

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Speaker 2: before they pulled this so much as a single potato

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Speaker 2: out of the ground. You also have various indigenous groups,

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Speaker 2: and specifically the ones that I've covered on this show

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Speaker 2: is how you have in both Siberia and North America

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Speaker 2: you have different groups who are practicing communal agriculture, who

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Speaker 2: inspired a bunch of different later socialists and things like that.

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Speaker 2: I am sure they have been practiced elsewhere around the world.

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Speaker 2: Those are just the ones that have come up in

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Speaker 2: my own research for this show. I get really like

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Speaker 2: I started writing it out in the script where I

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Speaker 2: was like, look, this is pretty much what humans evolved

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Speaker 2: to do. But I hate writing that because whenever people

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Speaker 2: say that, they're lying or they're like picking some specific

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Speaker 2: version of humans in order to say, like, you know,

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Speaker 2: whenever like people are like, oh, humans just fight and

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Speaker 2: war and that's all humans do, or the opposite where

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Speaker 2: people are like humans just all get along. I don't

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Speaker 2: like when people do that. I think that humans are

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Speaker 2: capable of doing a lot of different things.

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Speaker 3: It feel it's kind of like there are multiple things

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Speaker 3: that humans are capable of doing to each other and

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Speaker 3: thinking of weird, maybe that's a bit small. That's small minded, you.

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Speaker 2: Know, yeah, no I And that's that's it. That is

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Speaker 2: the like. But among all of the different systems of

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Speaker 2: economy and land use and things like that that people

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Speaker 2: have tried, an awful lot of them were not capitalism,

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Speaker 2: and we're something closer to what it's called primitive communism,

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Speaker 2: the idea that people share things without Mars having told

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Speaker 2: them how to do it to begin with. But it's

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Speaker 2: not community gardening this stuff because I'm going to argue

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Speaker 2: that community gardening is something that exists in opposition to

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Speaker 2: food and land scarcity put upon us by economic and

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Speaker 2: governmental systems. Because when we try to then like get

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Speaker 2: this stuff back, we are creating something that is like

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Speaker 2: more oppositional. Like you didn't have to be in opposition

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Speaker 2: anything to have a Rundale system because no one was

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Speaker 2: telling you couldn't. I'm going to compare it to squatting,

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Speaker 2: another thing we've covered a lot on this show. Squatting

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Speaker 2: is when people take on used property and then use

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Speaker 2: it regardless of the property owners wishes. Squatting is an

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Speaker 2: affront to the very foundation of capitalist society, in which

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Speaker 2: property rights trump human rights, and that is why squatting

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Speaker 2: is so cool and you can also see like really easily.

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Speaker 2: And we're gonna get into this later with community gardens.

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Speaker 2: How there's this tension, like squatters in the US are

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Speaker 2: largely presented as people who show up like vermin and

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Speaker 2: destroy things. You know, that is the like, and so

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Speaker 2: it is like cleaning out a homeless encampment is like

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Speaker 2: seen as this like cleaning this like improvement. I'm totally

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Speaker 2: off script. I'm just really angry when I think about that.

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Speaker 3: After months of listening to Fox talk about this, that's

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Speaker 3: like one of their favorite issues for twenty twenty four

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Speaker 3: is not even like discussing why squatting is happening, but

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Speaker 3: also pretending that it's people coming into your apartment that

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Speaker 3: you rent and staying there and there's now an epidemic.

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Speaker 3: This is happening all the time. Everyone knows about how

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Speaker 3: you know, people are coming into your apartment and saying

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Speaker 3: that you know they're going to vote for Joe Biden

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Speaker 3: and they're going to make you do it too, And

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Speaker 3: it's like, wow, you're just sick words so you can

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Speaker 3: just say things now, that's that's crazy.

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Speaker 2: I think that would be called house piracy. I love

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Speaker 2: that and I'm not sure I'm opposed to it. I

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Speaker 2: probably am opposed to it.

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Speaker 3: I mean, like the way I say it is like

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Speaker 3: you know, Jesse water is his favorite thing, and he's

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Speaker 3: said this not once but twice several years apart, is

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Speaker 3: that if there is a squatter in your house, you

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Speaker 3: should just set the house on fire and burn them

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Speaker 3: alive and then get the insurance money and blame the

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Speaker 3: fire on the squatter.

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Speaker 2: Oh my god.

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Speaker 3: And you know my position is, you know, even if

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Speaker 3: you own the place, don't burn people alive, like for

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Speaker 3: any reason.

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Speaker 2: That's a bold take.

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Speaker 3: I know, I know I'm really brave for saying that.

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Speaker 3: But second, I don't think this situation it's like, you know,

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Speaker 3: these conservative men that dream about like being able to

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Speaker 3: shoot an intruder, It's just not happening that much.

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Speaker 2: Sorry.

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Speaker 3: I've had to hear a lot about squatting through my

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Speaker 3: job that I you know, no, no, don't have to

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Speaker 3: hear about it as much.

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Speaker 2: It makes sense to me because it's like overall, where

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Speaker 2: squatting is a little bit more legalized and protected, where

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Speaker 2: the like private property rights don't trump the human rights

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Speaker 2: or whatever, squatting often has a very different vibe where

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Speaker 2: like you know, squatting in the Netherlands, like no matter

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Speaker 2: how short a time we were there, there was a

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Speaker 2: lot of pride taken in, like we will improve the

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Speaker 2: spaces that we're in.

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Speaker 3: You know, correct me if I'm wrong. A lot of

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Speaker 3: times they're like vacant, like it's not going into Yeah,

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Speaker 3: it's not to be an piracy like you said.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, no it is. I have never in my life,

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Speaker 2: and I spend a lot of time squatting in my

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Speaker 2: younger life. I've never in my life like seen someone

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Speaker 2: try to live in a place that someone already lives.

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Speaker 2: You know, it is absolutely about unused space, and often

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Speaker 2: it is a space where like people don't even know

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Speaker 2: who owns it. Because that's the sweet spot of squatting

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Speaker 2: is you find the thing where like they can't kick

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Speaker 2: you out because no one knows who's supposed to kick

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Speaker 2: you out, because no one knows who building it is.

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Speaker 2: Because the actual thing that causes urban decay is not squatters,

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Speaker 2: it's real estate prospecting and people leaving properties vacant and

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Speaker 2: then preventing people from making use of the property. I'm

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Speaker 2: getting ahead of myself. This is what we're going to

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Speaker 2: talk about today, and when we talk about it for housing,

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Speaker 2: people like, no, it's bad, Like squatting's bad when you

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Speaker 2: want to live somewhere, when you want to sleep somewhere, right,

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Speaker 2: when you do it for food and like growing food

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Speaker 2: and gardens and flowers and trees and things, people have

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Speaker 2: a much harder time demonizing you. And plenty of societies,

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Speaker 2: even capitalist societies, have realized that overall squatting is a

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Speaker 2: social good. We've talked extensively on the show before about

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Speaker 2: squatters in the Netherlands who righte revitalized city centers because

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Speaker 2: squatters kept property owners from leaving places vacant. Because once

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Speaker 2: squatting was legalized, if you left your place empty for

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Speaker 2: a year, someone could move in. And we actually had

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Speaker 2: like we had moments. I think I can tell the story,

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Speaker 2: like at one point the squatters moved in. We people

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Speaker 2: were trying to get into a building that they were

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Speaker 2: convinced was vacant. They would do a lot of work

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Speaker 2: to try and figure out if spaces were vacant. You

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Speaker 2: do like you'd put like a toothpick in the door,

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Speaker 2: and then you'd come back a week later and see

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Speaker 2: if the toothpick is still in the door, because if

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Speaker 2: it isn't, then it's fallen out because someone's opened the door.

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Speaker 2: And you spent a lot of time in the in

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Speaker 2: city hall looking at property records and things. At one point,

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Speaker 2: some squatters a long time ago broke into a building

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Speaker 2: and there was like an apartment and there was just

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Speaker 2: like a couple watching TV, and they were like, oh sorry,

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Speaker 2: and then they all ran away. And then the next

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Speaker 2: day a lot of these squatters are like locksmiths and things,

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Speaker 2: right because there's a synchronicity of interests. And so then

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Speaker 2: they showed back up and like we're like, I have

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Speaker 2: no idea why your door's broken. I'm just here to

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Speaker 2: fix your door. I have no relationship to anyone who

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Speaker 2: has committed a crime. And the squatters like came back

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Speaker 2: and cleaned up their mess, which is still like, look,

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Speaker 2: don't break into people's houses while they're there. I get it,

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Speaker 2: But like if you do, come back the next day

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Speaker 2: and clean up the.

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Speaker 3: Door, you know this is the future the left wants.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. And so the community garden, i would argue,

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Speaker 2: is fundamentally a pro social squatting of vacant land, generally

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Speaker 2: in city centers. It's lineage I would argue has far

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Speaker 2: more to do with the diggers or even the molly

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Speaker 2: maguires than it does like suburban fake homesteading or whatever,

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Speaker 2: which is how it gets spun a lot. Now, at

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Speaker 2: the very end we'll talk about some of them ways

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Speaker 2: in which tech millionaires get to exploit all of this.

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Speaker 2: But in the US, it is easier for us to

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Speaker 2: imagine that people have a right to grow food on

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Speaker 2: vacant and unimproved land than it is for us to

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Speaker 2: imagine that people have a right to sleep there. So

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Speaker 2: vacant lot gardening is generally smiled upon, while squatting and

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Speaker 2: homeless encampments are generally frowned upon. I'm actually curious in

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Speaker 2: all of their stuff, watching all this stuff about s squatting,

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Speaker 2: do they ever do a thing where they're like good

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Speaker 2: homeless encampment, bad homeless encampment, or like these people tried

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Speaker 2: to build a garden and so they're good or anything

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Speaker 2: like that.

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Speaker 3: So that's really interesting that you ask that, because, like,

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Speaker 3: you know, Tucker when he was on the air, he

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Speaker 3: you know, hates homeless people, not as much as Jesse.

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Speaker 3: Jesse was like deep Jesse Waters the most aggressive person

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Speaker 3: on Fox about that, like I could, there's probably over

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Speaker 3: ten hours of just like quotes like that. But like

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Speaker 3: the amount of work that goes into demonizing encampments is

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Speaker 3: like fucking nuts. You would have cameramen go in and

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Speaker 3: like no one's doing anything. I mean even like not

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Speaker 3: in terms of squatting bl Like even like the you

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Speaker 3: know GW encampment down here in DC, you had like

402
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Speaker 3: cameramen all over and it's like you know, college kids

403
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Speaker 3: being like do you need any sunscreen? Like, you know,

404
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Speaker 3: here's some food if you need it, Take whatever you need.

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Speaker 3: And so that's what they'd that's what they always do.

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Speaker 3: There's never really any they don't even try to be

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Speaker 3: like in some cases and then like show I don't know,

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Speaker 3: like some white homeless person and then compare it to like,

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Speaker 3: you know, a migrant, right. Yeah, it's the effort that

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Speaker 3: goes into it is honestly astonishing.

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Speaker 2: They need to do a lot of work to try

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Speaker 2: and convince us to forget our class interests and like

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Speaker 2: side with the billionaires. But you know what is in

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Speaker 2: your class interest is being advertised to buy goods and services.

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Speaker 3: I've heard the class interests of that.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, here's dad's and we're back. Hopefully you just press

417
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Speaker 2: the forward fifteen seconds button until you heard the bumper

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Speaker 2: music again. So many many modern societies have access to

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Speaker 2: land for people and cities as part of their social structure,

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Speaker 2: where people don't even have to squat land in order

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Speaker 2: to grow food. Around Europe, for example, with the UK

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Speaker 2: being the example that I've run across the most, I'm

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Speaker 2: going to focus on it, you've got what's called the

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Speaker 2: allotments system. It's this little scrap of freedom that's left

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Speaker 2: over from the enclosure of the commons. And it started

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Speaker 2: in eighteen forty five with the General Enclosure Act, which

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Speaker 2: was like, look, we've enclosed almost everything, but here's a

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Speaker 2: little crumb for the pores. I guess. Even then, it

429
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Speaker 2: wasn't too much of anything until at the end of

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Speaker 2: World War One, when returning soldiers were given allotments and

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Speaker 2: the laws were solidified to protect the allotment system. And

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Speaker 2: basically what this is is like you're like, if you

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Speaker 2: enter a waiting list and you get chosen by the

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Speaker 2: allotment lottery or whatever, you get to go pay a

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Speaker 2: small amount of rent to a different landlord, but a

436
00:22:55,400 --> 00:22:57,560
Speaker 2: small amount of rent, and you get access to a

437
00:22:57,600 --> 00:23:01,879
Speaker 2: community garden, basically a little plot of land that you

438
00:23:01,880 --> 00:23:05,879
Speaker 2: can grow some vegetables in, which it turns out that

439
00:23:05,920 --> 00:23:09,320
Speaker 2: they can do in the UK. So I'm not I

440
00:23:09,359 --> 00:23:11,840
Speaker 2: always assume that they left their country to invade everywhere

441
00:23:11,880 --> 00:23:13,960
Speaker 2: because there was no sun there and so they had

442
00:23:13,960 --> 00:23:16,400
Speaker 2: to invade other places for food. But it turns out

443
00:23:16,400 --> 00:23:18,880
Speaker 2: you can grow food there, So I'm not sure why

444
00:23:19,800 --> 00:23:21,760
Speaker 2: they invented colonization.

445
00:23:22,440 --> 00:23:24,720
Speaker 3: I mean, I really like how they were like, Wow,

446
00:23:25,160 --> 00:23:29,280
Speaker 3: this one thing, this potato, so amazing. We're gonna build

447
00:23:29,280 --> 00:23:34,040
Speaker 3: our entire culture about that and other cultures around that,

448
00:23:34,240 --> 00:23:35,560
Speaker 3: and then pretend we invented it.

449
00:23:36,000 --> 00:23:36,200
Speaker 4: I know.

450
00:23:36,720 --> 00:23:40,960
Speaker 2: I it's really fun to imagine Europe before the discovery

451
00:23:41,000 --> 00:23:44,439
Speaker 2: of like the New World and potatoes and tomatoes.

452
00:23:44,520 --> 00:23:44,720
Speaker 1: You know.

453
00:23:45,640 --> 00:23:49,119
Speaker 3: I constantly think about like the indigenous like scientists who

454
00:23:49,800 --> 00:23:52,920
Speaker 3: created all like crossbread, all of these different types of

455
00:23:53,359 --> 00:23:56,560
Speaker 3: you know, fruits and vegetables and you know shit like

456
00:23:56,600 --> 00:24:01,320
Speaker 3: that that like we're just claimed and no one ever

457
00:24:01,320 --> 00:24:03,800
Speaker 3: gives them credit. I mean I saw something a couple

458
00:24:03,840 --> 00:24:05,440
Speaker 3: of weeks ago that was like you don't see any

459
00:24:05,480 --> 00:24:09,919
Speaker 3: Michelin star you know, tribal restaurants.

460
00:24:10,280 --> 00:24:12,280
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then you're like and I would love to

461
00:24:12,280 --> 00:24:14,960
Speaker 2: see that, which is interesting correct because they probably mean

462
00:24:14,960 --> 00:24:18,199
Speaker 2: it as like, oh, there's no indigenous food culture. They

463
00:24:18,200 --> 00:24:21,160
Speaker 2: probably mean it as like a these people.

464
00:24:21,200 --> 00:24:23,600
Speaker 3: So it was like it was an Indo person saying, like,

465
00:24:23,960 --> 00:24:26,000
Speaker 3: you know, we provided all this food and we have

466
00:24:26,119 --> 00:24:28,800
Speaker 3: all these cultures and like you know, every food that

467
00:24:28,840 --> 00:24:32,359
Speaker 3: you love or like, you know, ninety percent of them

468
00:24:32,359 --> 00:24:36,960
Speaker 3: at least in America, like come from here, and yet

469
00:24:37,000 --> 00:24:39,600
Speaker 3: you have no idea how they were originally treated.

470
00:24:40,080 --> 00:24:43,800
Speaker 2: Yeah you know, Okay, I see. I thought you were

471
00:24:43,800 --> 00:24:45,720
Speaker 2: doing the like because there's that thing where right wing

472
00:24:45,760 --> 00:24:48,720
Speaker 2: people are Zionist or whatever, will be like Palestinians never

473
00:24:48,720 --> 00:24:53,080
Speaker 2: invented anything or whatever, which is another incorrect statement that

474
00:24:53,119 --> 00:24:53,760
Speaker 2: people can make.

475
00:24:54,240 --> 00:24:56,040
Speaker 3: No way, it's nuts.

476
00:24:56,359 --> 00:24:57,280
Speaker 2: You haven't seen that one.

477
00:24:57,480 --> 00:25:00,119
Speaker 3: No, I've seen that. Oh okay, I'm just shocked that

478
00:25:00,160 --> 00:25:01,520
Speaker 3: Palestinians are.

479
00:25:01,400 --> 00:25:04,920
Speaker 2: People, yeah, and never invented anything actually, which is also

480
00:25:05,440 --> 00:25:09,760
Speaker 2: how you judge people's access to life. And also it's

481
00:25:09,800 --> 00:25:11,840
Speaker 2: just wrong on every level. It's like turtles all the

482
00:25:11,840 --> 00:25:13,960
Speaker 2: way down, but it's wrong anyway.

483
00:25:14,640 --> 00:25:20,639
Speaker 3: Yeahstly, No, it's just I love like the amount of

484
00:25:20,680 --> 00:25:23,240
Speaker 3: assumptions that people have about Palestinians, and I see a

485
00:25:23,280 --> 00:25:26,200
Speaker 3: lot like, yeah, yeah, they're dirty, blah blah blah. And

486
00:25:26,240 --> 00:25:28,159
Speaker 3: then someone was like, they can't have blue eyes. But

487
00:25:28,240 --> 00:25:32,040
Speaker 3: I literally just was like, I I have blue eyes.

488
00:25:32,280 --> 00:25:32,600
Speaker 2: Yeah.

489
00:25:33,119 --> 00:25:35,159
Speaker 3: There are literally so many.

490
00:25:35,720 --> 00:25:37,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like they.

491
00:25:37,280 --> 00:25:40,680
Speaker 3: Can't invent anything, they don't have blue eyes, they can't

492
00:25:40,720 --> 00:25:43,239
Speaker 3: look at a Jew without killing them. That's These are

493
00:25:43,280 --> 00:25:45,160
Speaker 3: all things that we all know about Palestinians.

494
00:25:46,080 --> 00:25:48,359
Speaker 2: In the USSR and other Soviet Bloc countries, there was

495
00:25:48,400 --> 00:25:51,760
Speaker 2: also something comparable in pre Soviet times, like with tzars

496
00:25:51,800 --> 00:25:55,800
Speaker 2: and shit. Nobles were given datchas, basically little country homes

497
00:25:55,920 --> 00:25:57,680
Speaker 2: just outside the city with like a cottage and a

498
00:25:57,720 --> 00:26:00,920
Speaker 2: place to garden, and so in the us ARE you'd

499
00:26:00,920 --> 00:26:03,120
Speaker 2: think they'd be like, oh, now they've all been communized

500
00:26:03,160 --> 00:26:05,600
Speaker 2: and everyone gets access to them. No, they went to

501
00:26:05,640 --> 00:26:09,760
Speaker 2: the new nobles, the Bolshevik party members. They got the dachas.

502
00:26:10,920 --> 00:26:13,880
Speaker 2: But in some of them, like every now and then,

503
00:26:13,880 --> 00:26:16,399
Speaker 2: some of them are given to some regular workers or whatever,

504
00:26:16,840 --> 00:26:20,040
Speaker 2: but an awful lot of them were left more or

505
00:26:20,119 --> 00:26:24,199
Speaker 2: less unused, and so squatters in the USSR just started

506
00:26:24,200 --> 00:26:27,159
Speaker 2: taking them over. And I think this was less like

507
00:26:27,200 --> 00:26:29,000
Speaker 2: people came out and lived in them, although I think

508
00:26:29,040 --> 00:26:30,880
Speaker 2: that happened a little bit too, and it was more

509
00:26:30,960 --> 00:26:33,879
Speaker 2: like people who lived in the city just started coming

510
00:26:33,880 --> 00:26:37,399
Speaker 2: out and using them and growing vegetables because this was

511
00:26:37,440 --> 00:26:40,920
Speaker 2: the only way that you could eat vegetables. Because this

512
00:26:40,960 --> 00:26:43,920
Speaker 2: one isn't the Bolshevik's fault. World War II was a fuck,

513
00:26:44,760 --> 00:26:47,560
Speaker 2: and people didn't have any vegetables, and so they were like,

514
00:26:47,680 --> 00:26:49,560
Speaker 2: we want to not die, so they went out and

515
00:26:49,600 --> 00:26:53,679
Speaker 2: squatted the dachas. In a pattern we see over and

516
00:26:53,720 --> 00:26:56,119
Speaker 2: over again, the people rushed to do something, and the

517
00:26:56,160 --> 00:26:58,399
Speaker 2: government had to rush to keep up once it realized

518
00:26:58,400 --> 00:27:00,680
Speaker 2: it wasn't able to stop people from doing the thing.

519
00:27:01,400 --> 00:27:04,560
Speaker 2: By nineteen fifty five, the USSR legalized what people were

520
00:27:04,560 --> 00:27:08,160
Speaker 2: already doing. Soon datches were all the rage, and modern

521
00:27:08,200 --> 00:27:10,680
Speaker 2: Russia apparently has the largest percentage of people who own

522
00:27:10,720 --> 00:27:13,680
Speaker 2: a summer home of anywhere in the world. The US,

523
00:27:13,680 --> 00:27:17,160
Speaker 2: of course, doesn't like giving people things for free, unless,

524
00:27:17,200 --> 00:27:20,000
Speaker 2: of course, you're a rich farmer or another capitalist who's

525
00:27:20,080 --> 00:27:23,840
Speaker 2: entitled to privatize public property. So we tend not to

526
00:27:23,880 --> 00:27:26,200
Speaker 2: have a system by which city dwellers can access land

527
00:27:26,200 --> 00:27:30,760
Speaker 2: to grow food, So people tend to do it anyway.

528
00:27:31,320 --> 00:27:34,400
Speaker 2: Community gardens EBB and flow. War or recession will drive

529
00:27:34,440 --> 00:27:37,560
Speaker 2: everyone to organize them. Then basically waves of gentrification will

530
00:27:37,600 --> 00:27:41,280
Speaker 2: shut them down. And I'm going to run through their

531
00:27:41,280 --> 00:27:44,000
Speaker 2: history in the US. This took a different turn than

532
00:27:44,000 --> 00:27:47,639
Speaker 2: I expected it to, not like a wild turn, but

533
00:27:47,880 --> 00:27:51,119
Speaker 2: like there's a politician who's a Republican who I like.

534
00:27:51,160 --> 00:27:54,399
Speaker 2: Now I know that republican meant the opposite thing in

535
00:27:54,440 --> 00:27:58,480
Speaker 2: the nineteen hundreds, eighteen hundreds, whatever, nineteenth century. I still

536
00:27:58,560 --> 00:27:59,520
Speaker 2: was kind of surprised by this.

537
00:28:00,160 --> 00:28:02,159
Speaker 3: Sophia, have you read the script? Like do you know

538
00:28:02,200 --> 00:28:02,760
Speaker 3: what's happening?

539
00:28:03,800 --> 00:28:04,080
Speaker 2: Okay?

540
00:28:04,080 --> 00:28:06,720
Speaker 3: Because I was like, I think it'd be fun to have,

541
00:28:07,160 --> 00:28:09,680
Speaker 3: you know, establish our thoughts on community gardens ahead of time.

542
00:28:09,680 --> 00:28:12,120
Speaker 3: But I'm the only one that's out of it, out

543
00:28:12,119 --> 00:28:13,920
Speaker 3: of the loop, and I don't want to sound dumb

544
00:28:13,920 --> 00:28:16,360
Speaker 3: when my assumptions are wrong.

545
00:28:16,720 --> 00:28:18,520
Speaker 2: Well, what's your something now? And you could do it?

546
00:28:18,960 --> 00:28:21,479
Speaker 3: I mean, I just I'm really interested to see like

547
00:28:21,560 --> 00:28:24,800
Speaker 3: where this started and now this started. And I think personally,

548
00:28:24,840 --> 00:28:30,160
Speaker 3: like I've heard the argument that like, you know, gentrified

549
00:28:30,200 --> 00:28:32,760
Speaker 3: community gardens are like a bad thing and you know,

550
00:28:33,000 --> 00:28:35,399
Speaker 3: none of us. But also I think that having access

551
00:28:35,440 --> 00:28:39,080
Speaker 3: to produce in anywhere is a good thing, and so

552
00:28:40,760 --> 00:28:43,800
Speaker 3: I'm really interested for that notion specifically to see if

553
00:28:43,800 --> 00:28:47,480
Speaker 3: that will be a thing that I am wrong about,

554
00:28:47,480 --> 00:28:49,040
Speaker 3: which I am about many things.

555
00:28:49,560 --> 00:28:52,560
Speaker 2: I think that overall we're going to talk about a

556
00:28:52,600 --> 00:28:56,920
Speaker 2: little bit later about how but gentrification is the death

557
00:28:56,960 --> 00:29:00,520
Speaker 2: of community gardens over and over again, and in some

558
00:29:00,560 --> 00:29:04,280
Speaker 2: ways they are creating their own death right because they

559
00:29:04,400 --> 00:29:06,640
Speaker 2: improve an area and then people want to move in

560
00:29:06,720 --> 00:29:11,440
Speaker 2: and live there. But they are not started by gentrifying forces.

561
00:29:12,160 --> 00:29:16,200
Speaker 2: Again and again, they are started by people who want

562
00:29:16,200 --> 00:29:20,200
Speaker 2: decent standards of living, who want to beautify the areas

563
00:29:20,240 --> 00:29:22,680
Speaker 2: that they live in. And it is complicated, but that

564
00:29:23,120 --> 00:29:26,040
Speaker 2: the thing that gentrifies the neighborhood is not people wanting

565
00:29:26,080 --> 00:29:30,480
Speaker 2: to grow food. It is the landlords who come up

566
00:29:30,520 --> 00:29:32,040
Speaker 2: and buy property and raise rents.

567
00:29:32,280 --> 00:29:32,520
Speaker 1: See.

568
00:29:32,560 --> 00:29:34,719
Speaker 3: I was thinking of like after the fact, like especially

569
00:29:34,760 --> 00:29:37,160
Speaker 3: during COVID, where it was kind of trendy to like

570
00:29:38,400 --> 00:29:41,479
Speaker 3: start apply or like grow a bunch of herbs. And

571
00:29:41,520 --> 00:29:44,680
Speaker 3: then like I know so many buildings in like DC

572
00:29:45,520 --> 00:29:47,760
Speaker 3: where like here's some dirt, everyone can be a part

573
00:29:47,760 --> 00:29:49,800
Speaker 3: of it. And then everyone was like doing Instagram picture

574
00:29:50,000 --> 00:29:52,960
Speaker 3: and planting and stuff like that, and then everyone just

575
00:29:53,040 --> 00:29:54,640
Speaker 3: kind of forgot and there were a bunch of like

576
00:29:54,760 --> 00:29:59,040
Speaker 3: un harvested crops. But at the same time, some people

577
00:29:59,120 --> 00:30:01,120
Speaker 3: came in and just took even if they weren't theirs,

578
00:30:01,120 --> 00:30:05,000
Speaker 3: and net good, I guess. But now it's just concept dirt.

579
00:30:05,520 --> 00:30:05,760
Speaker 1: Yeah.

580
00:30:05,880 --> 00:30:08,240
Speaker 2: No, it's it's this thing where like some of the

581
00:30:08,280 --> 00:30:10,440
Speaker 2: stuff that rich people like is like nice stuff that

582
00:30:10,480 --> 00:30:14,840
Speaker 2: we should all get to have, you know. So I'm

583
00:30:14,840 --> 00:30:18,440
Speaker 2: going to start this story in Detroit. There's a city.

584
00:30:18,480 --> 00:30:20,840
Speaker 2: It's called Detroit. It's in Michigan. It's most famous for

585
00:30:20,920 --> 00:30:21,920
Speaker 2: being pretty abandoned.

586
00:30:23,120 --> 00:30:25,640
Speaker 1: It's most famous for being the homeland of my parents.

587
00:30:26,680 --> 00:30:27,680
Speaker 2: Oh well that too.

588
00:30:28,600 --> 00:30:29,960
Speaker 3: It's up for were you born in Detroit?

589
00:30:30,320 --> 00:30:30,400
Speaker 1: No?

590
00:30:30,640 --> 00:30:38,720
Speaker 4: Born in la Oh yeah, like an American superstar story.

591
00:30:39,200 --> 00:30:41,520
Speaker 4: One of the few people actually born and raised in

592
00:30:41,560 --> 00:30:42,600
Speaker 4: Los Angeles.

593
00:30:43,520 --> 00:30:45,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, so my parents are from the d.

594
00:30:47,040 --> 00:30:50,760
Speaker 2: It is the city that is most interesting to me too.

595
00:30:50,800 --> 00:30:52,400
Speaker 2: In North America or in the US.

596
00:30:52,600 --> 00:30:53,680
Speaker 5: It's really cool now.

597
00:30:53,960 --> 00:30:57,000
Speaker 2: The only one I know it is like when I

598
00:30:57,040 --> 00:31:00,640
Speaker 2: was Ye, I've been to all fifty of the states. No, sorry,

599
00:31:00,640 --> 00:31:02,360
Speaker 2: I haven't been to all forty of the forty eight

600
00:31:02,400 --> 00:31:05,760
Speaker 2: of the lower States, And I've been to every city

601
00:31:05,760 --> 00:31:07,480
Speaker 2: that interests me back when I was like a full

602
00:31:07,520 --> 00:31:09,600
Speaker 2: time traveler except Detroit.

603
00:31:09,720 --> 00:31:12,200
Speaker 1: Have you never been to Michigan? Where'd you go?

604
00:31:12,440 --> 00:31:16,920
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah? I spent a month living in the bushes

605
00:31:17,120 --> 00:31:21,320
Speaker 2: outside of college and Lansing, Michigan, while waiting for my

606
00:31:21,440 --> 00:31:25,400
Speaker 2: friend to get out of jail and trying to organize

607
00:31:25,600 --> 00:31:29,440
Speaker 2: with activisty people to go to some demonstrations in DC.

608
00:31:30,240 --> 00:31:32,080
Speaker 2: And then I left to go hop freight trains to

609
00:31:32,080 --> 00:31:34,200
Speaker 2: get to the West coast, got my heartbroken and turned

610
00:31:34,200 --> 00:31:36,560
Speaker 2: around and drove to DC and then got mass arrested

611
00:31:36,880 --> 00:31:40,600
Speaker 2: the IMF demonstrations in two thousand and two or three,

612
00:31:42,280 --> 00:31:44,440
Speaker 2: So I spent I spent a while in Lansing, and

613
00:31:44,440 --> 00:31:46,959
Speaker 2: then I have like memories of getting yelled at by

614
00:31:47,000 --> 00:31:51,480
Speaker 2: cops in Battle Creek, Michigan, appropriately named I know.

615
00:31:52,560 --> 00:31:55,360
Speaker 3: I love how everything you say it's like a person's

616
00:31:55,520 --> 00:31:58,120
Speaker 3: entire lifetime, but it's like a new one every time

617
00:31:58,160 --> 00:32:01,800
Speaker 3: you open your mouth, and it's aletely different person that's

618
00:32:01,840 --> 00:32:05,440
Speaker 3: had like a completely different path. Yeah, but they're all you. Margaret.

619
00:32:06,000 --> 00:32:08,200
Speaker 1: Margaret's every character in a TV show.

620
00:32:09,160 --> 00:32:14,880
Speaker 3: It's amazing. She is fifty pulp novels in one person.

621
00:32:16,440 --> 00:32:22,440
Speaker 2: Thanks. I think yeah, yeah, no, I I yeah, I

622
00:32:23,080 --> 00:32:25,440
Speaker 2: have enjoyed my life and I am glad to.

623
00:32:25,360 --> 00:32:27,400
Speaker 1: Continue to a're you gonna tell me something good or

624
00:32:27,400 --> 00:32:28,600
Speaker 1: about it happened in Michigan.

625
00:32:29,040 --> 00:32:31,440
Speaker 2: Good, this is a good story about Detroit.

626
00:32:32,280 --> 00:32:32,760
Speaker 5: We love that.

627
00:32:33,800 --> 00:32:37,280
Speaker 2: So Detroit was founded by French colonists in seventeen oh

628
00:32:37,360 --> 00:32:41,120
Speaker 2: one on hodnah Land, sometimes called the Iroquois Federation.

629
00:32:41,200 --> 00:32:47,760
Speaker 1: I'll tell you something good starts off bad, She's like, yeah.

630
00:32:47,840 --> 00:32:51,720
Speaker 2: The ended up being a major inspiration for Western democratic

631
00:32:51,760 --> 00:32:54,440
Speaker 2: practices and also heavily influenced a bunch of communists thought.

632
00:32:54,920 --> 00:32:57,920
Speaker 2: But Detroit started off as a fort actually to drive

633
00:32:57,920 --> 00:33:02,520
Speaker 2: out the British colonists. The Americans eventually stole it or

634
00:33:02,680 --> 00:33:05,160
Speaker 2: conquered it or whatever, and it became one of the

635
00:33:05,200 --> 00:33:08,239
Speaker 2: more important Western cities. It was the Paris of the

636
00:33:08,280 --> 00:33:10,360
Speaker 2: West for a little while. This is even before the

637
00:33:10,400 --> 00:33:13,400
Speaker 2: auto industry kicks in. Later, the auto industry is going

638
00:33:13,480 --> 00:33:15,200
Speaker 2: to make it this huge thing, and it's going to

639
00:33:15,240 --> 00:33:17,360
Speaker 2: be one of the biggest industrial centers in the country.

640
00:33:17,720 --> 00:33:19,440
Speaker 2: But we're going to start this garden story before it.

641
00:33:19,600 --> 00:33:23,240
Speaker 1: Very excited to go see my relatives who are still met,

642
00:33:23,360 --> 00:33:27,960
Speaker 1: going to go, you know, Detroit used to be the

643
00:33:28,000 --> 00:33:32,520
Speaker 1: Paris of the West. You know, yeah, it still is, baby,

644
00:33:32,640 --> 00:33:35,920
Speaker 1: and then they'll be like, oh geez, yeah, and then

645
00:33:35,960 --> 00:33:36,800
Speaker 1: they offer you.

646
00:33:38,560 --> 00:33:43,520
Speaker 2: Yogurt and jello. I don't know anything about Midwest culture anymore,

647
00:33:43,600 --> 00:33:45,760
Speaker 2: especially because also Destroit it's like different from the rest

648
00:33:45,800 --> 00:33:50,520
Speaker 2: of Midwest culture. There's food cheese that's Wisconsin. Okay. So

649
00:33:51,920 --> 00:33:53,960
Speaker 2: the eighteen seventies and the eighteen eighties were like the

650
00:33:54,040 --> 00:33:57,080
Speaker 2: Gilded Age in America, which is important for people to

651
00:33:57,080 --> 00:34:00,000
Speaker 2: wrap their heads around because we're basically in another one

652
00:34:00,160 --> 00:34:02,400
Speaker 2: right now. The Gilded Age was when you had a

653
00:34:02,440 --> 00:34:05,560
Speaker 2: booming economy that only helps the rich and you've got

654
00:34:05,560 --> 00:34:08,840
Speaker 2: big materialistic and also, okay, to be fair, the eighteen

655
00:34:08,840 --> 00:34:11,360
Speaker 2: seventies also helped some of the middle class workers. It

656
00:34:11,440 --> 00:34:14,279
Speaker 2: kind of created the American middle class. And you've got

657
00:34:14,280 --> 00:34:17,200
Speaker 2: big materialistic excesses. People are like run around and they're

658
00:34:17,600 --> 00:34:20,040
Speaker 2: I was gonna say Rolls Royces, but we're fifty years

659
00:34:20,040 --> 00:34:22,800
Speaker 2: too early for that. It's a time of political corruption

660
00:34:22,920 --> 00:34:25,840
Speaker 2: and rich assholes. Basically, it's the rich got richer and

661
00:34:25,840 --> 00:34:29,120
Speaker 2: the poor got poorer. Period. Westward expansion and immigration are

662
00:34:29,160 --> 00:34:33,239
Speaker 2: fueling the whole thing, with like access to land and

663
00:34:33,280 --> 00:34:37,879
Speaker 2: then also access to cheap labor, exploitable labor. People start

664
00:34:37,920 --> 00:34:40,160
Speaker 2: getting mad about that and they start doing stuff about it,

665
00:34:40,200 --> 00:34:43,560
Speaker 2: and we've covered that a lot on this show. By

666
00:34:43,600 --> 00:34:47,439
Speaker 2: the eighteen nineties, a bunch of things are happening. First

667
00:34:47,480 --> 00:34:50,000
Speaker 2: of all, the labor movement is kicking some ass, and

668
00:34:50,120 --> 00:34:53,799
Speaker 2: both major parties are now seen as pretty boring and conservative.

669
00:34:54,040 --> 00:34:57,719
Speaker 2: Totally no reflection to the modern era is happening right now.

670
00:34:58,560 --> 00:35:01,000
Speaker 2: And so you've got what's called the People's Party or

671
00:35:01,040 --> 00:35:03,720
Speaker 2: sometimes it's called the Populist Party, and it was formed

672
00:35:03,719 --> 00:35:08,440
Speaker 2: in eighteen ninety two. These are the populists. They wanted

673
00:35:08,480 --> 00:35:12,520
Speaker 2: some basic progressive shit. They wanted workers' rights to collective bargaining,

674
00:35:12,600 --> 00:35:15,760
Speaker 2: they wanted federal regulation of capitalism. They wanted a shorter

675
00:35:15,840 --> 00:35:19,880
Speaker 2: work week. They also wanted something I didn't realize we

676
00:35:19,920 --> 00:35:23,280
Speaker 2: didn't already have back then. Did you know that until

677
00:35:23,440 --> 00:35:26,840
Speaker 2: nineteen thirteen, people who lived in a state didn't vote

678
00:35:26,840 --> 00:35:31,480
Speaker 2: in their senators in DC. Were they like appointed, They

679
00:35:31,480 --> 00:35:35,520
Speaker 2: were elected by the state legislature instead. Oh, so it's

680
00:35:35,600 --> 00:35:37,880
Speaker 2: like how Donald Trump tried to overthrow the election.

681
00:35:39,440 --> 00:35:42,080
Speaker 3: Yeah, kind of probably because it's like you have like this,

682
00:35:42,239 --> 00:35:45,600
Speaker 3: they can technically just ignore everything in a point whoever.

683
00:35:45,600 --> 00:35:51,719
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And so that's how those state senators were decided.

684
00:35:52,080 --> 00:35:55,080
Speaker 2: And the Populist Party was like, we don't like that.

685
00:35:55,200 --> 00:35:59,280
Speaker 2: We prefer democracy. And it wasn't until the Seventeenth Amendment

686
00:35:59,320 --> 00:36:03,280
Speaker 2: in nineteen thirty that people started voting for their senators.

687
00:36:04,680 --> 00:36:07,960
Speaker 2: The Populist Party did not win any major elections, but

688
00:36:08,000 --> 00:36:12,279
Speaker 2: they were popular enough. Get it, They're popular because they're populists.

689
00:36:12,440 --> 00:36:15,359
Speaker 2: Thank you, I appreciate it. Forced the Republican Party, which

690
00:36:15,400 --> 00:36:17,359
Speaker 2: was the vaguely left of the two parties at the time,

691
00:36:17,440 --> 00:36:21,560
Speaker 2: the modern the equivalent of the modern Democrats. It forced

692
00:36:21,600 --> 00:36:24,000
Speaker 2: them to shift further to the left in order to

693
00:36:24,080 --> 00:36:27,680
Speaker 2: keep up because the Populist Party was doing really well

694
00:36:27,760 --> 00:36:29,319
Speaker 2: and they were like, fuck, we want some of that

695
00:36:29,760 --> 00:36:35,600
Speaker 2: good old fashioned votes. One of these progressive Republicans was

696
00:36:35,640 --> 00:36:38,799
Speaker 2: a man named Hazen Pingree, and he was the mayor

697
00:36:38,880 --> 00:36:42,600
Speaker 2: of Detroit. Later he becomes Michigan's mayor. I thought I

698
00:36:42,719 --> 00:36:45,839
Speaker 2: was gonna hate him. When you read a like one,

699
00:36:46,200 --> 00:36:48,360
Speaker 2: I just hate politicians. I'm an asshole and an anarchist.

700
00:36:48,760 --> 00:36:51,920
Speaker 2: When you read like a one sentence version of the

701
00:36:51,960 --> 00:36:54,319
Speaker 2: history of community gardens they were like, and then they

702
00:36:54,320 --> 00:36:57,960
Speaker 2: were invented by this Republican named Hazen Pingree, who was

703
00:36:58,000 --> 00:37:01,360
Speaker 2: the mayor of Detroit. And I'm like, the fuck he did.

704
00:37:01,520 --> 00:37:03,839
Speaker 2: He probably just was mayor while some other people did

705
00:37:03,880 --> 00:37:08,719
Speaker 2: some shit, because that's almost always how it goes. This

706
00:37:09,440 --> 00:37:14,239
Speaker 2: guy seems legit until I find other evidence. He was

707
00:37:15,800 --> 00:37:19,080
Speaker 2: a businessman whose political life was spent trying to stop

708
00:37:19,120 --> 00:37:23,000
Speaker 2: monopolies and increase public ownership of utilities and railroads and shit.

709
00:37:24,080 --> 00:37:27,320
Speaker 2: He was also self made. He grew up a worker,

710
00:37:27,440 --> 00:37:30,000
Speaker 2: like he started at fourteen in a cotton factory, I

711
00:37:30,000 --> 00:37:32,759
Speaker 2: think in Maine, and he worked for years as a

712
00:37:32,800 --> 00:37:36,839
Speaker 2: cutter in the shoe factory. Then when the Civil War

713
00:37:36,880 --> 00:37:39,120
Speaker 2: broke out, he fought on the front lines of the

714
00:37:39,120 --> 00:37:42,840
Speaker 2: Civil War. He got captured, taken prisoner by the Confederates,

715
00:37:43,480 --> 00:37:46,799
Speaker 2: so he broke out. And how to be clear, when

716
00:37:46,800 --> 00:37:49,240
Speaker 2: I imagined me being like, I'm a good noble fighting

717
00:37:49,280 --> 00:37:52,759
Speaker 2: against slavery. Once I've broken out of prison, I could

718
00:37:52,840 --> 00:37:54,960
Speaker 2: kind of see myself being like, I have done my

719
00:37:55,200 --> 00:37:56,840
Speaker 2: work here, I'm going to go home.

720
00:37:57,239 --> 00:37:57,279
Speaker 4: No.

721
00:37:57,560 --> 00:38:00,480
Speaker 2: He he broke out of prison, rejoined his redgment, and

722
00:38:00,520 --> 00:38:06,680
Speaker 2: fought in even more battles. He then started a shoe business.

723
00:38:07,200 --> 00:38:09,200
Speaker 2: He moved to Detroit because heard it was a good

724
00:38:09,200 --> 00:38:13,120
Speaker 2: place to go booming. And he starts just as like

725
00:38:13,160 --> 00:38:15,800
Speaker 2: a shoe guy and a factory. And then the shoe

726
00:38:15,840 --> 00:38:20,160
Speaker 2: guy factory that was like shoe guy guy, Yeah, it

727
00:38:20,160 --> 00:38:21,879
Speaker 2: goes out of business, and so him and his friend

728
00:38:21,920 --> 00:38:25,240
Speaker 2: pull up their money and buy the machinery and start

729
00:38:25,280 --> 00:38:29,280
Speaker 2: their own shoe business and it becomes the second biggest

730
00:38:29,320 --> 00:38:33,440
Speaker 2: shoe business in the country. He becomes the mayor. He

731
00:38:33,520 --> 00:38:36,920
Speaker 2: takes the city from the right leaning Democrats, and he

732
00:38:36,920 --> 00:38:39,879
Speaker 2: gets into fights with all the other businessmen, including all

733
00:38:39,920 --> 00:38:43,520
Speaker 2: of the other Republicans, because he wants to keep street

734
00:38:43,520 --> 00:38:47,080
Speaker 2: car fares accessible in shit and like forces like fair

735
00:38:47,160 --> 00:38:48,239
Speaker 2: hikes to not go up.

736
00:38:48,719 --> 00:38:52,880
Speaker 3: Is this eighteen seventies, Jesse Ventura.

737
00:38:51,719 --> 00:38:54,719
Speaker 2: I know more about eighteen nineties. Is we're in the

738
00:38:54,719 --> 00:38:55,480
Speaker 2: eighteen nineties now.

739
00:38:55,560 --> 00:38:57,360
Speaker 3: But ohey, no, no, it's okay.

740
00:38:57,560 --> 00:39:00,839
Speaker 2: I know more about the eighteen nineties in the modern era.

741
00:39:01,080 --> 00:39:02,960
Speaker 5: You're spot on, kat you thank you.

742
00:39:02,960 --> 00:39:05,120
Speaker 2: Here we go. Yeah, I'm here to translate.

743
00:39:05,120 --> 00:39:05,960
Speaker 1: I'm here to translate.

744
00:39:06,239 --> 00:39:09,200
Speaker 2: No, I appreciate it. No, I live in history books

745
00:39:09,280 --> 00:39:11,040
Speaker 2: right now. This is the very end of my life

746
00:39:11,040 --> 00:39:13,399
Speaker 2: where I know only the things that happened hundred years so.

747
00:39:13,280 --> 00:39:14,799
Speaker 3: The parallels are like incredible.

748
00:39:15,000 --> 00:39:16,680
Speaker 5: One of my favorite.

749
00:39:16,200 --> 00:39:19,520
Speaker 1: Things to do is to tell both you and Sarah

750
00:39:19,560 --> 00:39:21,879
Speaker 1: Marshall things that are happening in real time, because both

751
00:39:21,880 --> 00:39:24,279
Speaker 1: of your historians, and then I get to tell you

752
00:39:24,360 --> 00:39:30,400
Speaker 1: things and then you're like whow and sometimes you have

753
00:39:30,440 --> 00:39:33,160
Speaker 1: the exact same reaction, and it's beautiful. It's very beautiful

754
00:39:33,160 --> 00:39:33,360
Speaker 1: to me.

755
00:39:33,680 --> 00:39:38,279
Speaker 2: Hell yeah. And so he fought corruption, He fought his

756
00:39:38,320 --> 00:39:41,400
Speaker 2: own political party. He wrote a book in eighteen ninety

757
00:39:41,440 --> 00:39:45,400
Speaker 2: five about how people suffer under monopoly and corruption. And now, like,

758
00:39:45,480 --> 00:39:48,279
Speaker 2: the one thing he's not a radical, right his book

759
00:39:48,320 --> 00:39:51,279
Speaker 2: about like people suffering is like, but don't go and

760
00:39:51,320 --> 00:39:54,399
Speaker 2: do anything violent or destructive. That's bad and it makes

761
00:39:54,480 --> 00:39:57,600
Speaker 2: us look bad. Right, But he took his His eighteen

762
00:39:57,680 --> 00:40:00,320
Speaker 2: ninety five book is dedicated to the people of Detroit,

763
00:40:00,560 --> 00:40:03,880
Speaker 2: and the dedication is like handwritten on a photo of

764
00:40:03,920 --> 00:40:07,680
Speaker 2: a potato or like an it's a weird image.

765
00:40:08,040 --> 00:40:09,480
Speaker 3: That's how we should do every dedication.

766
00:40:09,600 --> 00:40:13,440
Speaker 2: Now I agree, Otherwise you got one upped by a

767
00:40:13,480 --> 00:40:17,000
Speaker 2: Republican in eighteen ninety five. Is that really what you

768
00:40:17,040 --> 00:40:20,120
Speaker 2: want to go down being remembered as he tried to

769
00:40:20,280 --> 00:40:23,800
Speaker 2: unify urban workers and farmers. His book had like political

770
00:40:23,840 --> 00:40:26,920
Speaker 2: cartoons showing them in the same boat rowing against monopoly.

771
00:40:28,200 --> 00:40:31,960
Speaker 2: If there is a nineteenth century rich asshole politician who

772
00:40:31,960 --> 00:40:35,000
Speaker 2: I don't hate, it's this guy Pingree. When he dies

773
00:40:35,040 --> 00:40:38,480
Speaker 2: at sixty, the Detroit News wrote about him. Other men

774
00:40:38,560 --> 00:40:40,920
Speaker 2: had opinions, He had convictions.

775
00:40:41,360 --> 00:40:42,680
Speaker 3: That's a good way to be remembered.

776
00:40:42,680 --> 00:40:47,200
Speaker 2: Holy shit, right. He was in charge of Detroit when

777
00:40:47,200 --> 00:40:50,439
Speaker 2: the Panic of eighteen ninety three hit. It is never

778
00:40:50,600 --> 00:40:52,279
Speaker 2: a good time to live through a year that is

779
00:40:52,320 --> 00:40:57,280
Speaker 2: remembered as the Panic of Basically, this was yet again

780
00:40:57,360 --> 00:41:00,759
Speaker 2: a great depression. Before the Great Depression, a bunch of

781
00:41:00,800 --> 00:41:03,920
Speaker 2: complicated economic stuff happened where the rich assholes created a bubble,

782
00:41:03,960 --> 00:41:06,560
Speaker 2: and then the bubble burst. People ran on the banks.

783
00:41:06,680 --> 00:41:09,760
Speaker 2: Five hundred banks closed. Michigan had a forty three percent

784
00:41:09,840 --> 00:41:14,200
Speaker 2: unemployment rate at this time. Everyone is starving and out

785
00:41:14,200 --> 00:41:16,600
Speaker 2: of work, and they wanted to grow their own food,

786
00:41:17,320 --> 00:41:22,239
Speaker 2: and they wanted potatoes. The sponsor of today's show the

787
00:41:22,320 --> 00:41:23,520
Speaker 2: concept of the potato.

788
00:41:23,880 --> 00:41:26,080
Speaker 5: Oh we're back, baby, I love this.

789
00:41:27,280 --> 00:41:30,080
Speaker 2: If any other ads sneak in, they are a mistake.

790
00:41:30,600 --> 00:41:31,000
Speaker 5: Hahaha.

791
00:41:31,320 --> 00:41:35,080
Speaker 1: Potatoes for everyone unless you're allergic than I'm so sorry.

792
00:41:35,680 --> 00:41:37,520
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, can you potatoes?

793
00:41:37,760 --> 00:41:40,520
Speaker 1: You can. And it's one of the common things on

794
00:41:40,800 --> 00:41:42,920
Speaker 1: like a like an hour and like a food HOLLURGI

795
00:41:42,920 --> 00:41:45,640
Speaker 1: just test someone try and you know, take this with

796
00:41:45,680 --> 00:41:48,279
Speaker 1: a grit salt. But one time I tested positive for

797
00:41:48,800 --> 00:41:53,279
Speaker 1: a potato allergy and I was like, I'm irish as

798
00:41:53,280 --> 00:41:58,720
Speaker 1: fuck and no I'm not, and then they like readid

799
00:41:58,719 --> 00:42:04,480
Speaker 1: it three times? And I was like total, told you, I.

800
00:42:04,400 --> 00:42:07,640
Speaker 3: Mean, look at your face. Com on, I know.

801
00:42:08,920 --> 00:42:13,439
Speaker 5: You're absolutely correct, like really really.

802
00:42:14,320 --> 00:42:16,680
Speaker 3: Like I don't know how to describe Sophie's face except

803
00:42:16,760 --> 00:42:20,920
Speaker 3: like irish yeaeah, not allergic to potatoes.

804
00:42:21,000 --> 00:42:33,319
Speaker 5: Not allergic potatoes, and we're back.

805
00:42:34,880 --> 00:42:37,920
Speaker 2: People wanted their potatoes, and Pingree wanted to give them potatoes,

806
00:42:38,000 --> 00:42:39,839
Speaker 2: or rather, he wanted to help them grow their own

807
00:42:39,880 --> 00:42:44,160
Speaker 2: potatoes because he's a potato guy. Panic kits and he

808
00:42:44,280 --> 00:42:48,080
Speaker 2: starts I love an alliteration. Ping Gree's potato patch plan.

809
00:42:49,880 --> 00:42:50,719
Speaker 3: That's a whimsical.

810
00:42:51,160 --> 00:42:54,360
Speaker 2: I know. Four hundred and thirty three acres of vacant

811
00:42:54,360 --> 00:42:56,560
Speaker 2: city land were set aside for people to grow food

812
00:42:57,000 --> 00:43:01,040
Speaker 2: as part of funding it. He sold his favorite horse, and.

813
00:43:01,239 --> 00:43:02,200
Speaker 3: We know the horses name.

814
00:43:02,520 --> 00:43:05,399
Speaker 2: I don't. I don't. I read a fair amount about

815
00:43:05,440 --> 00:43:07,080
Speaker 2: this man, but not as much as there could be

816
00:43:07,160 --> 00:43:10,879
Speaker 2: known about him. I think I saw a photo of it, though,

817
00:43:11,000 --> 00:43:12,719
Speaker 2: but he was like, I mean, he's still a politician, right,

818
00:43:12,760 --> 00:43:14,480
Speaker 2: so he's like posing. I saw a lot of photos

819
00:43:14,480 --> 00:43:16,239
Speaker 2: of him like posing with Like here I am at

820
00:43:16,280 --> 00:43:18,800
Speaker 2: the plow and he's like pushing the plow. That's following

821
00:43:19,440 --> 00:43:23,000
Speaker 2: ping Grea's Potato patch plan or whatever. I would totally

822
00:43:23,040 --> 00:43:24,960
Speaker 2: watch a movie about this man. And there's not a

823
00:43:24,960 --> 00:43:30,279
Speaker 2: lot of elected officials. I always say that about instructions

824
00:43:30,280 --> 00:43:33,240
Speaker 2: for gardening were printed up in three languages my guess

825
00:43:33,280 --> 00:43:35,880
Speaker 2: is English, Polish, and German. Based on the immigrant makeup

826
00:43:35,880 --> 00:43:38,920
Speaker 2: of the city at the time. People were given lots

827
00:43:39,080 --> 00:43:45,840
Speaker 2: seeds and tools and basically helped to feed themselves. This

828
00:43:46,560 --> 00:43:49,120
Speaker 2: which was called Pingrea's Potato patch Plan, but it was

829
00:43:49,120 --> 00:43:51,400
Speaker 2: also called the Detroit Plan by people who hate fun

830
00:43:51,960 --> 00:43:57,880
Speaker 2: a sorry, yeah, thank you. It's spread around the country. Boston,

831
00:43:57,960 --> 00:44:02,240
Speaker 2: San Francisco, and Philly started similar pro probably more places

832
00:44:02,280 --> 00:44:03,720
Speaker 2: than that, but those are the ones that I found

833
00:44:03,880 --> 00:44:07,319
Speaker 2: specifically named. The depression was over by the turn of

834
00:44:07,320 --> 00:44:10,160
Speaker 2: the twentieth century, and for the most part, the gardens stopped.

835
00:44:10,200 --> 00:44:12,400
Speaker 2: It's kind of like what you're saying about the COVID gardens.

836
00:44:12,400 --> 00:44:15,160
Speaker 2: Everyone ran out and COVID gardened, and then they were like,

837
00:44:15,360 --> 00:44:17,160
Speaker 2: just kidding, I can go to the store. Fuck that,

838
00:44:17,840 --> 00:44:23,759
Speaker 2: you know, fuck my tomato plant. Philly's Vacant Lots Cultivation

839
00:44:23,880 --> 00:44:29,799
Speaker 2: Association the fun named PVLCA. It kept going until the

840
00:44:29,840 --> 00:44:33,520
Speaker 2: nineteen twenties. At the turn of the twentieth century, social

841
00:44:33,520 --> 00:44:37,040
Speaker 2: reformers started pushing for school gardens, especially in schools for

842
00:44:37,080 --> 00:44:40,560
Speaker 2: working class and immigrant kids. A social reformer named Fanny

843
00:44:40,680 --> 00:44:43,160
Speaker 2: Parsons was a big part of this in New York City.

844
00:44:43,560 --> 00:44:46,440
Speaker 2: And so these are the first New York City gardens

845
00:44:46,520 --> 00:44:48,799
Speaker 2: that I read about. I'm sure there was more, but

846
00:44:49,120 --> 00:44:52,000
Speaker 2: you know, whatever the ones I read about. She worked

847
00:44:52,000 --> 00:44:56,040
Speaker 2: with the National Plant, Flower and Fruit Guild, which I

848
00:44:56,160 --> 00:45:00,160
Speaker 2: hope was Venture Brothers themed, and they all were just

849
00:45:00,280 --> 00:45:04,799
Speaker 2: weird villains dressed as tomatoes. In nineteen oh two, she

850
00:45:04,920 --> 00:45:08,080
Speaker 2: founded the Children's School Farm in Hell's Kitchen in New York.

851
00:45:08,760 --> 00:45:11,600
Speaker 2: They converted a trashed lot into four hundred and fifty

852
00:45:11,600 --> 00:45:14,520
Speaker 2: plots that three thousand different kids ended up like using

853
00:45:15,480 --> 00:45:18,520
Speaker 2: in proper social reformer style. It was all very like,

854
00:45:19,560 --> 00:45:21,439
Speaker 2: I'm not doing this so kids have food. I'm doing

855
00:45:21,440 --> 00:45:24,200
Speaker 2: it so kids can be good and regimented and disciplined,

856
00:45:24,239 --> 00:45:28,480
Speaker 2: because like in the country kids are naturally good, and

857
00:45:28,600 --> 00:45:31,839
Speaker 2: the cities they're like sketchy and bad because they'd not

858
00:45:31,960 --> 00:45:33,480
Speaker 2: in touch with nature or whatever.

859
00:45:33,920 --> 00:45:36,640
Speaker 3: We all know that this is true. It's like real America,

860
00:45:36,920 --> 00:45:39,759
Speaker 3: real children. They're fake children in the same.

861
00:45:39,280 --> 00:45:42,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. And she wanted to help the fake children

862
00:45:42,360 --> 00:45:44,440
Speaker 2: become real children like Pinocchio.

863
00:45:44,480 --> 00:45:45,200
Speaker 3: Oh, Pinocchio.

864
00:45:45,520 --> 00:45:48,200
Speaker 2: Yeah. She said that she didn't do it so kids

865
00:45:48,239 --> 00:45:50,399
Speaker 2: could grow some veggies, but instead that the garden could

866
00:45:50,400 --> 00:45:53,480
Speaker 2: be quote used as a means to show how willing

867
00:45:53,520 --> 00:45:56,080
Speaker 2: and anxious children are to work, and to teach them

868
00:45:56,080 --> 00:45:59,680
Speaker 2: in their work some necessary civic virtues, private care of public,

869
00:45:59,719 --> 00:46:06,600
Speaker 2: proper economy, honesty, application, concentration, self government, civic pride, justice,

870
00:46:06,840 --> 00:46:09,279
Speaker 2: the dignity of labor, and the love of nature. By

871
00:46:09,320 --> 00:46:11,719
Speaker 2: opening to their minds, the little we know of her

872
00:46:11,760 --> 00:46:17,280
Speaker 2: mysteries more wonderful than any fairy tale. So the kids

873
00:46:17,360 --> 00:46:20,480
Speaker 2: long for work. I like, don't hate everything in that,

874
00:46:20,920 --> 00:46:22,880
Speaker 2: but it's just so fucking Protestant.

875
00:46:23,360 --> 00:46:26,080
Speaker 3: My god, it's the most Protestant thing I've ever heard.

876
00:46:26,360 --> 00:46:30,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, the dignity of labor. This idea spread and by

877
00:46:30,480 --> 00:46:34,240
Speaker 2: nineteen oh six there were seven five hundred school farms

878
00:46:34,280 --> 00:46:38,919
Speaker 2: across the country. Hers lasted until nineteen thirty one. US

879
00:46:39,040 --> 00:46:41,239
Speaker 2: interesting gardening kept on the up and up for the

880
00:46:41,280 --> 00:46:44,680
Speaker 2: next several decades. First, because of World War One, Europe

881
00:46:44,800 --> 00:46:48,440
Speaker 2: was for some weird reason not exporting much food, and

882
00:46:48,440 --> 00:46:50,440
Speaker 2: by the time the US got involved in nineteen seventeen,

883
00:46:50,480 --> 00:46:53,760
Speaker 2: there was a campaign to recruit soldiers of the soil

884
00:46:54,200 --> 00:46:57,640
Speaker 2: and planned liberty gardens, which were also called patriotic gardens

885
00:46:57,680 --> 00:47:00,640
Speaker 2: and war gardens. Victory gardens comes later World War Two.

886
00:47:00,840 --> 00:47:03,040
Speaker 1: I immediately when he said soldiers of the soil, I

887
00:47:03,080 --> 00:47:05,040
Speaker 1: went earthworms.

888
00:47:06,560 --> 00:47:08,319
Speaker 3: When you said soldiers of the soil, I thought it

889
00:47:08,360 --> 00:47:10,120
Speaker 3: was like a Nazi group. For like a second, because

890
00:47:10,160 --> 00:47:14,319
Speaker 3: my brain is just soup and I like Sophie's way better.

891
00:47:14,480 --> 00:47:17,680
Speaker 1: I was like, either way, worms, you know, I would

892
00:47:17,719 --> 00:47:18,640
Speaker 1: I would love.

893
00:47:19,520 --> 00:47:21,080
Speaker 3: Don't insult earthworms like that.

894
00:47:21,080 --> 00:47:21,719
Speaker 5: Holy shit.

895
00:47:22,040 --> 00:47:27,320
Speaker 2: Sorry, I like earthworms as the real soldiers of the soil,

896
00:47:27,400 --> 00:47:30,680
Speaker 2: and they will eventually eat all of the dead Nazis.

897
00:47:31,360 --> 00:47:36,239
Speaker 2: So this is true, they're anti fascist. Three point five

898
00:47:36,360 --> 00:47:40,160
Speaker 2: million gardens produced three hundred and fifty million pounds of

899
00:47:40,160 --> 00:47:44,240
Speaker 2: crops during World War One. After the war, black folks

900
00:47:44,320 --> 00:47:46,640
Speaker 2: kept the garden movement going as a way to beautify

901
00:47:46,680 --> 00:47:48,879
Speaker 2: parts of the city that the government was neglecting because

902
00:47:48,880 --> 00:47:51,200
Speaker 2: of racism. And I want to find out more about

903
00:47:51,200 --> 00:47:53,680
Speaker 2: this part of history, but I wasn't able to yet,

904
00:47:53,760 --> 00:47:58,840
Speaker 2: and I'm annoyed. Then you've got another big old oppression,

905
00:47:59,360 --> 00:48:02,919
Speaker 2: the the Great one. I think that each time. It's

906
00:48:02,920 --> 00:48:04,600
Speaker 2: like when World War one hit comes, they didn't call

907
00:48:04,640 --> 00:48:05,920
Speaker 2: it World War One, it was the Great War, and

908
00:48:05,920 --> 00:48:07,440
Speaker 2: then World War two is like, yeah, fuck you.

909
00:48:08,200 --> 00:48:10,799
Speaker 3: It's like one of my favorite like historical sketch bits

910
00:48:11,040 --> 00:48:14,120
Speaker 3: is like people in World War One say in world

911
00:48:14,160 --> 00:48:16,879
Speaker 3: War one, and then I wait, what do you mean,

912
00:48:17,320 --> 00:48:19,160
Speaker 3: Like I never get sick of that joke.

913
00:48:19,480 --> 00:48:23,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I mean too honestly. So then you have

914
00:48:23,840 --> 00:48:27,239
Speaker 2: a big old depression. And these subsistence gardens, which were

915
00:48:27,280 --> 00:48:30,520
Speaker 2: called thrift gardens, were created in partnership between local governments

916
00:48:30,560 --> 00:48:33,880
Speaker 2: and community organizations. And the thrift gardens were like a

917
00:48:33,960 --> 00:48:37,000
Speaker 2: highly planned for efficiency and maximum yield. There's all these

918
00:48:37,000 --> 00:48:39,240
Speaker 2: like charts that they would hand out about like exactly,

919
00:48:39,960 --> 00:48:43,560
Speaker 2: plant three of this at such and such date and whatever.

920
00:48:44,960 --> 00:48:48,640
Speaker 2: World War two, you've got victory gardens. And actually, at

921
00:48:48,680 --> 00:48:52,120
Speaker 2: first the US government didn't want to do it. They

922
00:48:52,120 --> 00:48:54,480
Speaker 2: were like, no, we're going to centralize all food production

923
00:48:54,600 --> 00:48:57,680
Speaker 2: and highly regimen it. Fuck all this decentralization shit. This

924
00:48:57,760 --> 00:49:00,520
Speaker 2: is like the period of you know, how how efficient

925
00:49:00,520 --> 00:49:03,880
Speaker 2: can we fucking be? And then they realized that the

926
00:49:04,080 --> 00:49:07,040
Speaker 2: like I'm doing my part vibe was really good for

927
00:49:07,080 --> 00:49:09,600
Speaker 2: the overall morale of the country during a time in

928
00:49:09,640 --> 00:49:13,080
Speaker 2: which Americans were being drafted to go die overseas. To

929
00:49:13,080 --> 00:49:15,919
Speaker 2: be clear, one of the only good things that US

930
00:49:15,920 --> 00:49:19,399
Speaker 2: has ever done, despite the Nazis. But I see why

931
00:49:19,440 --> 00:49:21,840
Speaker 2: it was. They had to work to make it popular.

932
00:49:24,320 --> 00:49:28,800
Speaker 2: Eighteen to twenty million families with victory gardens produced forty

933
00:49:28,840 --> 00:49:32,360
Speaker 2: percent of the US vegetables in nineteen forty four. Wow,

934
00:49:33,040 --> 00:49:38,960
Speaker 2: I know, but hear me out. I love vegetables. But

935
00:49:39,000 --> 00:49:43,319
Speaker 2: the thing that's worth understanding about all these gardens, Americans

936
00:49:43,400 --> 00:49:47,440
Speaker 2: don't get their caloric needs from gardens, and we get

937
00:49:47,480 --> 00:49:50,240
Speaker 2: our caloric needs from grain or for the meat eaters,

938
00:49:50,520 --> 00:49:53,440
Speaker 2: grain that's fed to livestock and an environmentally expensive and

939
00:49:53,480 --> 00:49:56,520
Speaker 2: inefficient transfer. I remember once I asked a friend of

940
00:49:56,560 --> 00:49:59,440
Speaker 2: mine who's environmental land use engineer who specializes in the

941
00:49:59,480 --> 00:50:03,440
Speaker 2: embedded goological impact of various methods of feeding populations. I

942
00:50:03,480 --> 00:50:06,440
Speaker 2: asked her story to write. This is like post apocalypse books.

943
00:50:06,560 --> 00:50:08,640
Speaker 2: Post apocalypse books at New York City is a long

944
00:50:08,680 --> 00:50:11,840
Speaker 2: time ago. I was like, how much land for gardens

945
00:50:11,840 --> 00:50:13,879
Speaker 2: would you need to feed all of New York City?

946
00:50:15,320 --> 00:50:18,200
Speaker 2: And she gave me an answer with like spreadsheets and shit,

947
00:50:19,440 --> 00:50:23,160
Speaker 2: and the answer was if you gardened basically every rooftop

948
00:50:23,200 --> 00:50:26,320
Speaker 2: and then turned the entire bronx into fields of grain,

949
00:50:26,440 --> 00:50:29,959
Speaker 2: and then expanded it north of the bronx, you might

950
00:50:30,040 --> 00:50:34,400
Speaker 2: have a chance. Look, I love urban gardening and vertical

951
00:50:34,440 --> 00:50:37,640
Speaker 2: farming and all that shit as much as the next

952
00:50:37,920 --> 00:50:42,800
Speaker 2: weird eco person. It is not how people feed themselves currently,

953
00:50:42,920 --> 00:50:46,000
Speaker 2: and we would have to change the American diet dramatically

954
00:50:46,360 --> 00:50:50,680
Speaker 2: to accommodate a different way of living. So Victory Gardens

955
00:50:51,040 --> 00:50:53,439
Speaker 2: produced forty percent of yous vegetables in nineteen forty four.

956
00:50:54,120 --> 00:50:56,440
Speaker 2: That is not forty percent of the food needs. It

957
00:50:56,520 --> 00:50:59,680
Speaker 2: is way way less than that. Still cool, it's still

958
00:51:00,000 --> 00:51:04,480
Speaker 2: impressive thing for people to do, and diet variety is

959
00:51:04,560 --> 00:51:08,319
Speaker 2: good and I am very pro garden. There's this whole

960
00:51:08,320 --> 00:51:11,000
Speaker 2: thing where people are like, oh, I'm just going to

961
00:51:11,080 --> 00:51:14,600
Speaker 2: homestead and then I'll meet all of my needs in

962
00:51:14,680 --> 00:51:18,440
Speaker 2: my homestead. And it's just like, honey, that is not

963
00:51:18,680 --> 00:51:21,000
Speaker 2: I hate. I hate the like how humans evolved is

964
00:51:21,040 --> 00:51:25,759
Speaker 2: not how humans involved. We we like complex societies. They

965
00:51:25,760 --> 00:51:27,759
Speaker 2: don't have to be centralized. They can be weird as shit,

966
00:51:27,800 --> 00:51:29,719
Speaker 2: they can be all kinds of different things. But we

967
00:51:29,880 --> 00:51:33,160
Speaker 2: like aren't going to homestead or a way out of

968
00:51:33,920 --> 00:51:35,000
Speaker 2: any particular problem.

969
00:51:35,760 --> 00:51:40,640
Speaker 3: And I mean, like it's you know, it's just there

970
00:51:40,640 --> 00:51:41,880
Speaker 3: are a lot of things that people don't want to

971
00:51:41,920 --> 00:51:45,520
Speaker 3: give up, or if they do, they pretend that they

972
00:51:46,560 --> 00:51:49,520
Speaker 3: I'm thinking of a lot of like these fucking Republicans

973
00:51:49,520 --> 00:51:52,360
Speaker 3: that or conservatives that act like they live off the

974
00:51:52,440 --> 00:51:54,239
Speaker 3: land and it's their wife doing all the work and

975
00:51:54,239 --> 00:51:57,440
Speaker 3: then actually they're buying all their mrs online.

976
00:51:57,719 --> 00:52:03,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally no it. And then like, eating meat is

977
00:52:03,239 --> 00:52:06,759
Speaker 2: a ridiculously complicated endeavor in the United States. If you

978
00:52:06,840 --> 00:52:10,200
Speaker 2: like hunt, it's a completely different thing. But we cannot

979
00:52:10,239 --> 00:52:13,000
Speaker 2: sustain anything anywhere close to the population that we have

980
00:52:13,080 --> 00:52:18,440
Speaker 2: through hunting. But yeah, no, it one day, Oh, I

981
00:52:18,480 --> 00:52:20,200
Speaker 2: do a podcast about good people. I was like, one day,

982
00:52:20,200 --> 00:52:23,200
Speaker 2: I'll do a whole thing about how and agriculture is

983
00:52:23,200 --> 00:52:25,600
Speaker 2: a trap. But on the other hand, one of the

984
00:52:25,640 --> 00:52:26,840
Speaker 2: things that I would have to give up if I

985
00:52:26,840 --> 00:52:28,960
Speaker 2: wanted to homesteads, I probably have to give a veganism.

986
00:52:29,160 --> 00:52:31,200
Speaker 2: Like if I wanted to meet all my caloric needs

987
00:52:31,200 --> 00:52:33,000
Speaker 2: where I live, I would be keeping chickens and eating

988
00:52:33,000 --> 00:52:41,040
Speaker 2: their eggs, you know, and like because whatever, okay, anyway,

989
00:52:42,000 --> 00:52:43,880
Speaker 2: in Britain, now I'm gonna have a whole bunch of

990
00:52:44,080 --> 00:52:46,680
Speaker 2: omnivores and vegans mad at me, and I'm really excited

991
00:52:46,680 --> 00:52:47,080
Speaker 2: about that.

992
00:52:48,480 --> 00:52:51,399
Speaker 3: So weird, reality is more complicated than you would think.

993
00:52:51,440 --> 00:52:55,160
Speaker 2: Who I know who. I always wanted to get a

994
00:52:55,200 --> 00:52:58,320
Speaker 2: little pin that said I don't care your opinions about veganism,

995
00:52:58,440 --> 00:52:59,960
Speaker 2: and it was like just as much to the v

996
00:53:00,000 --> 00:53:01,680
Speaker 2: bigans as the non vegans. I was like, no, I

997
00:53:01,719 --> 00:53:05,920
Speaker 2: just don't want to So anyhow, in Britain they had

998
00:53:06,000 --> 00:53:08,880
Speaker 2: dig for Victory, which is a very It's the British

999
00:53:08,920 --> 00:53:10,920
Speaker 2: way of saying victory gardens and I like it, in

1000
00:53:10,920 --> 00:53:13,840
Speaker 2: which people use the allotment system to grow one point

1001
00:53:13,840 --> 00:53:17,400
Speaker 2: three million tons of food which is even more tons

1002
00:53:17,440 --> 00:53:20,520
Speaker 2: there than it is here because their tons has more

1003
00:53:20,600 --> 00:53:22,360
Speaker 2: letters in it and is bigger.

1004
00:53:23,200 --> 00:53:24,720
Speaker 3: Wait how much bigger are their tons?

1005
00:53:25,480 --> 00:53:28,160
Speaker 2: American ton I think is two thousand pounds and a

1006
00:53:28,239 --> 00:53:31,640
Speaker 2: British ton is like twenty two It's like twenty two

1007
00:53:31,680 --> 00:53:33,000
Speaker 2: hundred something pounds.

1008
00:53:33,360 --> 00:53:36,320
Speaker 3: Look, I know I need like metric is obviously more efficient,

1009
00:53:36,360 --> 00:53:38,560
Speaker 3: but like, come on.

1010
00:53:38,560 --> 00:53:43,160
Speaker 1: British ton is forty pounds.

1011
00:53:43,480 --> 00:53:44,719
Speaker 2: Yeah.

1012
00:53:45,680 --> 00:53:45,919
Speaker 1: Cool.

1013
00:53:47,200 --> 00:53:50,000
Speaker 2: After the war, all the middle class white people were like, man,

1014
00:53:50,040 --> 00:53:52,760
Speaker 2: fuck gardening anyhow, and they all moved to the suburbs

1015
00:53:52,800 --> 00:53:56,440
Speaker 2: and started growing the truly decentralized crop that defines America.

1016
00:53:56,800 --> 00:54:01,480
Speaker 2: The manicured lawn and commune gardening. Seem to have disappeared

1017
00:54:01,480 --> 00:54:04,040
Speaker 2: for a while, but it will come back and be

1018
00:54:04,080 --> 00:54:09,160
Speaker 2: even cooler on Wednesday or in the nineteen seventies, one

1019
00:54:09,200 --> 00:54:09,560
Speaker 2: or the other.

1020
00:54:10,640 --> 00:54:10,920
Speaker 1: Yay.

1021
00:54:11,280 --> 00:54:14,120
Speaker 2: But before we go to break, do you have anything

1022
00:54:14,160 --> 00:54:17,239
Speaker 2: that you want to tell people about you and the

1023
00:54:17,280 --> 00:54:19,680
Speaker 2: things that you do and where people can see like

1024
00:54:19,920 --> 00:54:22,600
Speaker 2: your YouTube video? Well, I guess people YouTube would be

1025
00:54:22,640 --> 00:54:25,960
Speaker 2: the place to see YouTube videos, but you any clucks?

1026
00:54:26,280 --> 00:54:29,280
Speaker 3: Yeah, I have a YouTube channel and a TikTok account.

1027
00:54:29,280 --> 00:54:31,960
Speaker 3: They're both kat and a boo. I have all the

1028
00:54:32,000 --> 00:54:34,640
Speaker 3: other social accounts because there are way too many now

1029
00:54:34,760 --> 00:54:36,920
Speaker 3: you can just look me up my link trees on

1030
00:54:36,960 --> 00:54:42,280
Speaker 3: all of them. I do long form videos and short

1031
00:54:42,320 --> 00:54:46,200
Speaker 3: form about conservative media. I was recently laid off, so

1032
00:54:46,400 --> 00:54:48,919
Speaker 3: I'm working on getting my resources together to be able

1033
00:54:48,920 --> 00:54:53,600
Speaker 3: to continue that. Yeah, and follow me and stay in

1034
00:54:53,640 --> 00:54:53,959
Speaker 3: the loop.

1035
00:54:54,239 --> 00:54:57,440
Speaker 1: And not just you, but a bunch of your colleagues

1036
00:54:57,480 --> 00:55:00,439
Speaker 1: will also let go from recently. Is there a way

1037
00:55:00,480 --> 00:55:04,200
Speaker 1: that people can see how to support them? Is there

1038
00:55:04,239 --> 00:55:05,520
Speaker 1: anything that you can direct people to.

1039
00:55:06,560 --> 00:55:10,160
Speaker 3: Yeah, So a bunch of my other media matters colleagues

1040
00:55:10,200 --> 00:55:13,600
Speaker 3: were laid off today as well. I have a running

1041
00:55:13,640 --> 00:55:16,799
Speaker 3: thread that's continually updated, especially if there are any more

1042
00:55:16,880 --> 00:55:23,360
Speaker 3: layoffs on Twitter or x. It's unfortunate that we have

1043
00:55:23,480 --> 00:55:25,839
Speaker 3: to use that, but you know, that's where a lot

1044
00:55:25,840 --> 00:55:30,319
Speaker 3: of job offers will be. If we come up with

1045
00:55:30,320 --> 00:55:33,040
Speaker 3: a fund or anything, I will absolutely advertise that on there.

1046
00:55:33,680 --> 00:55:38,239
Speaker 2: Awesome, awesome, All right, Well, we will see you all

1047
00:55:38,400 --> 00:55:41,720
Speaker 2: Wednesday when we talk more about community gardens and people

1048
00:55:41,719 --> 00:55:45,239
Speaker 2: are going to start stealing stuff from the government. But

1049
00:55:45,280 --> 00:55:47,920
Speaker 2: it's good, well, it's usually a good way unless it's whatever.

1050
00:55:48,560 --> 00:55:50,160
Speaker 2: Wait till Wednesday. I'll tell you about it.

1051
00:55:56,080 --> 00:55:58,600
Speaker 1: Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff is a production of

1052
00:55:58,640 --> 00:56:02,120
Speaker 1: cool Zone Media. More podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit

1053
00:56:02,160 --> 00:56:05,279
Speaker 1: our website coolzonmedia dot com, or check us out on

1054
00:56:05,440 --> 00:56:09,440
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.