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Speaker 1: Whole Zone Media.

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

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Speaker 2: your weekly podcast about cool people who did cool stuff.

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Speaker 2: And sometimes we talk about t shirts like the really

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Speaker 2: good shirt that our guest Andrew is wearing that We're

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Speaker 2: not going to tell you what it is because you

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Speaker 2: have to go to the first episode.

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Speaker 1: Listen to the first episode. Also, this is this is

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Speaker 1: I've been having more tech issues than I should considering.

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Speaker 1: This is not that hard, so we're at maximum efficiency.

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Speaker 1: We've already rehearsed this like a time, I know, like

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Speaker 1: the dress rehearsal went.

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Speaker 3: Okay, we're doing this.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, because we have a really hard job podcasting. I mean,

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Speaker 2: it's actually kind of exhausting, but that's because I don't sleep.

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Speaker 1: You put quite a lot into this. Yeah, there are

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Speaker 1: ways to do this less fatiguingly.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, that's fair. But one of the reasons that

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Speaker 2: this job is doable at all is because of my

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Speaker 2: amazing producer, Sophie Hey. Sophie Hey, And another reason is

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Speaker 2: the audio engineer Daniel Hi. Daniel good job, danel Hi,

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Speaker 2: sweet sweet?

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Speaker 1: Does he ever splice himself in responding to any of

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Speaker 1: these highs? Well, think about it should out there just

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Speaker 1: turn out there.

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Speaker 2: Ian did that I think once. Yeah, Ian and Anmial

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Speaker 2: switch switch shows, so they both still were Yeah, so

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Speaker 2: so Vide and you said it the show and he

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Speaker 2: did that once and it was funny. It was good. Daniel.

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Speaker 2: You have to if you do it, you should do

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Speaker 2: it as like the voice of God. You know, I

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Speaker 2: had a lot of effects on your voice.

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Speaker 4: Hello friends, it is I DJ Daniel. Your gratitude falls

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Speaker 4: on my ears like a lullaby, soothing and sweet. May

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Speaker 4: your episode be informative, researched and full of context. Goodbye now,

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Speaker 4: but no I am with you always. Goodbye.

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Speaker 2: Our theme music was written for us by unwoman. And

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Speaker 2: this is part two and a two parter on the

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Speaker 2: common Ground Collective in New Orleans, and we spent the

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Speaker 2: whole We didn't even introduce the collective yet. The collective

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Speaker 2: hasn't even started yet, although some people are doing collective types.

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Speaker 2: A lot of mutual aid has already happened, and you

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Speaker 2: should go listen to part one.

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Speaker 3: By necessity.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, Now we're going to talk about one of

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Speaker 2: the other people that we've already mentioned who also chose

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Speaker 2: to write out the storm, Robert King. Robert King, I

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Speaker 2: decided to write out the storm. He'd written out the

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Speaker 2: storms as a kid, and he figured it would be fine.

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Speaker 2: He told his friends as much. Also, I have a

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Speaker 2: feeling that once you spend twenty nine years in a box,

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Speaker 2: shit doesn't phase you. That's just my assumption, right, yeah,

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Speaker 2: like literally, what could a storm do? Some storm? It's

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Speaker 2: not worse, right, you know, there's very few things that

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Speaker 2: are worse. An awful lot of people have declared solitary

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Speaker 2: confinement to be torture, and those people.

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Speaker 3: Are right, yeah, Jesus.

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Speaker 2: But then the storm hit and the levees broke and

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Speaker 2: the phones went dark, and his friends weren't so sure

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Speaker 2: that he was safe. But he spent that time sitting

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Speaker 2: on his front porch, hanging out with his dog, and basically,

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Speaker 2: rescuers would come by on boats every now and then

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Speaker 2: and be like, hey, you want to get out of here,

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Speaker 2: and he'd say, can I bring my dog? And they'd say, oh, right, no,

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Speaker 2: and so he'd say then no, I'm good. And because

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Speaker 2: he's a prepper, King, oh, his last name is King,

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Speaker 2: he had filled his bathtub with water, which is what

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Speaker 2: you should do if you don't have stored water, or

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Speaker 2: even if you do have stored water, and you know

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Speaker 2: that there's a good chance your water supply is going

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Speaker 2: to be disrupted. He had already filled his bathtub up

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Speaker 2: with water, and he had a little bit of food,

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Speaker 2: and basically he made sure that his dog ate better

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Speaker 2: than him and he just hung out and waited for

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Speaker 2: a week awn. His friends were worried about him. They

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Speaker 2: couldn't reach him. There's no phones working. You know. He'd

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Speaker 2: been a political prisoner for a long time, so he

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Speaker 2: had friends all over who had helped him get out

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Speaker 2: and then helped him after he got out. Right. He

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Speaker 2: A big part of doing political prisoner or any prisoner

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Speaker 2: support work is that you also take care of people

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Speaker 2: as they transition out into the world. Three of his

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Speaker 2: friends were these white anarchists living in Austin, Texas. Anne Harkness,

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Speaker 2: her partner, Scott Crow, and this other guy, Brandon Darby.

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Speaker 2: Don't get too attached to Brandon Darby. He's going to

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Speaker 2: turn out to be a real piece of shit. I

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Speaker 2: don't say that lightly, but it's a cutt and dry here. Basically,

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Speaker 2: Anne had made connections with Robert King, so she's an

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Speaker 2: important part of it in that sense, but she's not

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Speaker 2: a big part of the rest of the story. Wrote

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Speaker 2: an awful lot about common Ground and is one of

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Speaker 2: the founders of common Ground, so we're gonna include him

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Speaker 2: a lot in this story. And he is definitely cool.

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Speaker 2: People did cool stuff like Malik and Robert and Sharon.

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Speaker 2: Who will you know the other organizer who was there,

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Speaker 2: Brandon Darby starts off the story a misogynist and then

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Speaker 2: at the end of the story is an FBI and

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Speaker 2: informant who put several people in prison.

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Speaker 1: Right, it's probably that's the typical arc for those fuckers.

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Speaker 2: It kind of is. Yeah, Scott, he's the only person

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Speaker 2: in the story that I've met just from being in

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Speaker 2: the movement together. And then also his record label put

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Speaker 2: out a single of mine a few years back. Ironically,

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Speaker 2: the single was called the Flood Came Over Me. I

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Speaker 2: don't I don't know whether he picked the song because

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Speaker 2: of that or not. Anyway, we'll talk about Scott. Scott

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Speaker 2: was raised poor by a single mother, living literally on

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Speaker 2: the wrong side of the tracks in Dallas, and he

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Speaker 2: was one of the white kids in a neighborhood that

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Speaker 2: was mostly black and Chicano. But it was the seventies

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Speaker 2: and so we got to go to a free preschool

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Speaker 2: that was run by former members of the Black Panther Party,

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Speaker 2: the Brown Berets, and the Young Patriots, which is to say,

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Speaker 2: militant leftists representing black, brown, and poor white social movements.

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Speaker 2: He didn't know that at the time because it wasn't

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Speaker 2: like he didn't go and there weren't just like pictures

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Speaker 2: of AK forty seven's and like now's little Red Book

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Speaker 2: on the wall or whatever. It was the free preschool

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Speaker 2: that activists ran. He had what you might call a

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Speaker 2: troubled youth. He got arrested and did drugs and shit

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Speaker 2: like that throughout the eighties, and then music turned in political.

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Speaker 2: But I'm really excited about this part. It wasn't. I mean,

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Speaker 2: these other ways are great. Usually when someone gets political

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Speaker 2: through music, it's hip hop or punk, right right, this

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Speaker 2: was industrial and goth. Scott Crowe read an essay by

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Speaker 2: al Jorgensen, the guy from Ministry, talking about the working class,

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Speaker 2: and he was in. He was drawn originally towards socialism

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Speaker 2: and communis, but he was wary of replicating problems with

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Speaker 2: the USSR. Soon as a teenager, he's marching in anti

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Speaker 2: apartheid marches and he's like playing in industrial bands that

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Speaker 2: tour with Skinny Puppy and nine inch nails and all

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Speaker 2: that shit, and he's helping raise his partner's kid and

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Speaker 2: starting a co op antiques business. Once from now into

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Speaker 2: the nineties, right, he's an adult at this point. Eventually

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Speaker 2: he gets into anarchism in the nineties through just to

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Speaker 2: check it off on your Free Space on cool Zone

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Speaker 2: and sure an IWW organizer from the Industrial Workers of

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Speaker 2: the World who had gotten out of prison, and an

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Speaker 2: awful lot of this anarchist stuff clicks with Scott. Then

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Speaker 2: in two thousand and one, Robert H. King gets out

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Speaker 2: of prison Scott's partner and was soon friends with him,

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Speaker 2: and they're all close as hell, and they refer to

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Speaker 2: each other as family. So they're like not going to

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Speaker 2: fucking let bad things happen to each other, right, because

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Speaker 2: the Texas Anarchists, we're doing support work for this released panther.

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Speaker 2: It's four years later, it's Katrina, and no one has

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Speaker 2: heard from Robert is the night of the twenty ninth,

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Speaker 2: about twelve hours after the storm it hit, So Brandon

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Speaker 2: Darby calls Scott Crow and it's like, hey, we should

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Speaker 2: get a boat and go find our friend, and so

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Speaker 2: they called the Red Cross, and the Red Cross is like, yes,

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Speaker 2: please come with a boat. We need people helping. And

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Speaker 2: the two of them pack up supplies and a handgun

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Speaker 2: and take off towards the unknown. As soon as they

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Speaker 2: got into Baton Rouge, they realized the government operation was

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Speaker 2: in shambles. It was arguing about who had jurisdiction. It

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Speaker 2: was turning away hundreds of boat owners ready to do

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Speaker 2: search and rescue, and so the pair were like, oh, okay,

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Speaker 2: we're not allowed to do it. So they went home

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Speaker 2: just kidding. The pair were like, all right, well fuck

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Speaker 2: you too, and they drove around to approach the city

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Speaker 2: from another angle. What they saw was a fucking apocalypse.

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Speaker 2: There is thirty foot tall mud drifts, there's cars smashed

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Speaker 2: into buildings, there's trash everywhere. There's natural gas leaking everywhere

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Speaker 2: right next to like down power lines that are sparking.

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Speaker 2: So everyone's just waiting for everything to explode. You know,

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Speaker 2: they're not even inside the city yet when they see

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Speaker 2: this stuff. They're not inside the flooded parts yet, right.

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Speaker 2: They helped where they could, and eventually they found a

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Speaker 2: father with his adult son who had their own boat

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Speaker 2: who were about to like go around into the Gulf

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Speaker 2: of Mexico and then up into the city in order

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Speaker 2: to get to their warehouse because they weren't you know,

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Speaker 2: there's the only way they could figure out to get

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Speaker 2: in there. And so they were like, yeah, all right,

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Speaker 2: you all have a boat, you can follow us. We'll

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Speaker 2: guide you through the city. And so they take off

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Speaker 2: into a stormy nightmare and a flat bottomed motor boat

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Speaker 2: designed for like lakes and shit. Oh god, yeah, that's so,

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Speaker 2: that's like a video game.

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Speaker 3: Honestly, it's like, I know, terrifying.

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Speaker 2: I know, everywhere they went as they went into the

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Speaker 2: city there was dead people and animals in the water.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Some of those people were dead with bullet holes in them.

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Speaker 2: It's an apocalypse.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: They passed rescue boat after rescue boat leaving the city

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Speaker 2: and heard stories about gun battles. The media narrative around like, oh,

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Speaker 2: everyone's just running around shooting each other is absolutely overblown, right,

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Speaker 2: and that is a dangerous thing that is overblown. But

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Speaker 2: in this first person memoir, Scott talks about, for example,

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Speaker 2: how one would be rescuer with a boat would show

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Speaker 2: up and there'd be a bunch of people who need rescue,

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Speaker 2: and the rescue boat would be like, oh, we're doing

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Speaker 2: women and children first, and young men with guns would say,

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Speaker 2: fuck you, I'm going to shoot you unless you let

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Speaker 2: me into the boat. And so the rescuers were like

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Speaker 2: shooting the people that they're supposed to be rescuing. And

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Speaker 2: eventually a lot of these rescuers were fleeing empty handed

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Speaker 2: away from the violence that they were facing Jesus or

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Speaker 2: empty boated. Maybe, Yeah, law enforcement isn't helping. They're shooting

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Speaker 2: to kill anyone suspected of looting. Is this whole thing

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Speaker 2: I read about a while ago when I was like

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Speaker 2: first time I was researching all this stuff I was

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Speaker 2: getting into like disaster studies that now I'm off script.

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Speaker 2: Sophie loves when they go off script. There's this thing

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Speaker 2: thinking that the government talks about its priority is COG

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Speaker 2: continuance of governance, and this is more important than law

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Speaker 2: and order. It is more important that the cops are

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Speaker 2: in charge.

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Speaker 1: Right, whoever it was in charge, stays in charge, as

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Speaker 1: opposed to like people be safe.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, Oh, and I fundamentally disagree with that approach. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: helicopters full of guns are whizzing overhead quite noticeably, there

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Speaker 2: to shoot people and not rescue people. But they made

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Speaker 2: their way through the city and eventually they made it

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Speaker 2: to this warehouse, the Guide's warehouse. They spend the night there,

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Speaker 2: like taking turns, keeping watch with the one gun that

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Speaker 2: they have between the two of them, and the next

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Speaker 2: day they realize that they can't do this. As two

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Speaker 2: white people with a gun and a boat. They are

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Speaker 2: not going to make the situation any better. They are

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Speaker 2: not going to rescue their friend. They are going to

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Speaker 2: make some problems worse. Yeah, which has got to be

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Speaker 2: an interesting decision to have to reach, you know.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Well it's also like a shadow of doubt is always there,

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Speaker 1: and you're like, but maybe we're different, but maybe we're

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Speaker 1: not different.

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Speaker 2: Right, yeah totally, and will people perceive us as different? Right?

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Speaker 3: Yeah?

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Speaker 2: Oh, like, don't worry, I'm an anti racist white person

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Speaker 2: in the middle of something that is starting to look

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Speaker 2: like a race war caused by white people.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: You know, yeah, I've had to deal with like really

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Speaker 2: minor versions of that tension, but I've never had to

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Speaker 2: deal with anything like this that they can't even really

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Speaker 2: wrap my head around, you know. So they spent hours

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Speaker 2: boating their way back out of the city, like clinging

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Speaker 2: to their gun as they pass under bridges, waiting for

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Speaker 2: people to like ambush them to take their boat. They

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Speaker 2: make it back to their truck and they drive back

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Speaker 2: to Austin in Texas, which I'm sure takes a long

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Speaker 2: fucking time.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, ok.

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Speaker 2: And they're fucking dejected, you know. They're like, oh, we

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Speaker 2: went to go do this noble thing and we can't

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Speaker 2: didn't work, you know. And meanwhile, during all this, King

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Speaker 2: is hanging out on his front porch and you know,

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Speaker 2: feeding his dog. But his friends didn't know how he

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Speaker 2: was doing. He's doing okay, He's not I'm sure he's

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Speaker 2: not great, right, He's doing okay. And then on September fifth,

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Speaker 2: less than a week after the storm, the Texas Anarchists

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Speaker 2: get a call from New Orleans from Malik. This time

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Speaker 2: his phone line still works kind of it's kind of staticky, right,

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Speaker 2: and he's like, hey, I heard you tried to reach King.

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Speaker 2: We could really use outside support. We need supplies and

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Speaker 2: we need volunteers over in Algiers, you know. Yeah, And

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Speaker 2: so Scott goes and he's in Austin. He gives a

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Speaker 2: talk to like you know, sixty anarchists or radicals or whatever,

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Speaker 2: and he's like, hey, everyone, we gotta go do this

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Speaker 2: dangerous shit in New Orleans. Who's with us? And the

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Speaker 2: answer is a resounding nobody.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I mean I think at the time too, it's like

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Speaker 1: heading into New Orleans would have sounded like the most

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Speaker 1: like crazy thing you could do, basically.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, totally.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: I mean Scott Crow actually compares go up into the

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Speaker 2: city and the boat to feeling like reliving The Heart

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Speaker 2: of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, you know, which is like, oh,

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Speaker 2: that's complicated, Yeah, because that is a lot. I don't

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Speaker 2: have really positive race feelings about Joseph Conrad in the

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Speaker 2: book Heart of Darkness, you know.

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Speaker 3: I yeah, I think it's just become a different thing.

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Speaker 1: But yeah, yeah, like when you say it like that,

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Speaker 1: there's so many things that you can need.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, no, absolutely.

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Speaker 1: I think for a lot of people it's just like

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Speaker 1: that book just means took a boat to a violent place.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, totally. I used to feel very strongly that Joseph

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Speaker 2: Conrad is piece of shit racist because he like has

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Speaker 2: this quote from when he's younger about seeing a black

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Speaker 2: person for the first time and being like terrified, and

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Speaker 2: like that image stayed in his mind as like an

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Speaker 2: object of terror for years or whatever. I've like since

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Speaker 2: I don't even remember the details. I've since complicated that

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Speaker 2: view of just corn red, but not in a way

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Speaker 2: where I'm like, what a good guy, but that is

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Speaker 2: not yeah, yeah, but is a really scary place. And

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Speaker 2: I understand why a bunch of people didn't want to

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Speaker 2: go show up with guns, you know. Yeah, Scott and

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Speaker 2: Brandon load up with supplies, including some rifles. This time

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Speaker 2: they forge a bunch of documents they forged. I think

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Speaker 2: it must be like press passes or something that they're like,

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Speaker 2: you know, in order to get through checkpoints. And they

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Speaker 2: drive to Algiers and along the way they stopped to

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Speaker 2: take advantage of sweet deals, just amazing products and services interwoven.

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Speaker 1: Rat It's all unpleasant every time. It just not unpleasant.

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Speaker 1: But it gets me every time. I'm like, oh, never,

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Speaker 1: never once have I not been like, God, damn it,

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Speaker 1: you got me again.

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Speaker 2: This is my one joy in life is cynically introducing

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Speaker 2: the interjections of capitalism into my anti capitalist podcast. Gotcha,

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Speaker 2: here they are and we're back. And so they've made

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Speaker 2: their way through the gauntlet of government checkpoints and advertisers

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Speaker 2: and which weren't there, but the government checkpoints were. And

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Speaker 2: they made it to Malik's house, which was the center

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Speaker 2: of local organizing, right, And this is a shotgun house

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Speaker 2: built in the nineteen thirties in the New Orleans style,

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Speaker 2: And there's food and supplies being distributed and plans were

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Speaker 2: being made. But the most pressing concern as soon as

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Speaker 2: they get there, after you know, handing out the supplies

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Speaker 2: they brought, is above food water first aid is the

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Speaker 2: fact that a white militia threatening to kill Malik, right, right,

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Speaker 2: that is.

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Speaker 1: A problem pretty serious.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, So Brandon Scott and three locals set armed on

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Speaker 2: Malik's front porch Jesus and the militia came by in

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Speaker 2: a pickup truck, you know, like a couple guys in

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Speaker 2: the back with rifles or whatever.

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Speaker 3: Fuck. This is like so real.

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Speaker 1: I also just like, I don't know why my YouTube

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Speaker 1: algorithm has been suggesting clips from gameplay of the Last

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Speaker 1: of Us, So.

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Speaker 3: It's very cool.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, basically, yeah, that's that shit. Yeah, well, and that's

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Speaker 2: like this is how we counterpoint that, you know, like

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Speaker 2: I do a whole podcast with preparedness and this is

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Speaker 2: how we counter it is we present organizing models that,

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Speaker 2: instead of rely on get guns and shoot everyone who's different, say,

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Speaker 2: distribute things and probably get guns to defend yourself from

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Speaker 2: the people trying to shoot everyone who's different, you know.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: So the militia showed up and they were like, oh shit,

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Speaker 2: I thought I was playing the video game one easy.

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Speaker 2: Now I'm not anymore because the other side is suddenly armed.

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Speaker 2: They realized they were outnumbered, they realized they were out gunned,

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Speaker 2: and they realized that the people facing them down were

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Speaker 2: both white and black. And the folks on the porch said, basically,

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Speaker 2: you won't be harassing people in this neighborhood anymore. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: And this last part, the fact that they're white and

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Speaker 2: black winds up mattering quite a lot in what happens

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Speaker 2: in New Orleans and Algiers in particular, in the near future,

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Speaker 2: there was a lot of racial tension in the city.

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Speaker 2: Scott writes about it very explicitly that it it felt

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Speaker 2: like it could have fallen into race war, right, or

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Speaker 2: I mean, in some ways it is race war, right,

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Speaker 2: the whole American project is race war.

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Speaker 1: But however you want to describe, yeah, escalating that yeah,

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Speaker 1: I guess it's like like race cold war into race hot.

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Speaker 2: War totally, or like race war war the other side

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Speaker 2: shooting too. Yeah, well right, yeah, so whatever that is.

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Speaker 2: The usual goal is to not have it turn into

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Speaker 2: race war.

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Speaker 1: That's the yeah for now.

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Speaker 2: Yeah is that Tony Hawk meme? Anyway, So it mattered

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Speaker 2: a lot that some white folks from Texas had shown

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Speaker 2: up with guns to protect black residents, and that helped

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Speaker 2: defuse certain tensions that were happening. So they started patrols

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Speaker 2: to keep militias out of the neighborhood. Armed patrols, And

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Speaker 2: this is one of the first instances of community defense

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Speaker 2: from the left in the twenty first century in the

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Speaker 2: US that I'm I'm aware of because community defense. Armed

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Speaker 2: community defense had largely gone out of style for decades,

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Speaker 2: with moments of there's exceptions, right, but it had largely

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Speaker 2: gone out of style for decades because we had a

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Speaker 2: lot of like non violence and stuff in the eighties

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Speaker 2: and nineties in terms of activism in the United States,

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Speaker 2: was not in style when this happened in two thousand

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Speaker 2: and five, I barely knew anyone who owned a gun.

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Speaker 2: It's twenty twenty four and for very similar reasons. White

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Speaker 2: militias directly and personally threatening my life. I'm armed, and

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Speaker 2: many people I know are Yeah, but yeah, not the style.

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Speaker 2: They're doing it anyway, because it needs doing so the

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00:20:24,160 --> 00:20:28,160
Speaker 2: most pressing issue was being addressed, right. They had started

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Speaker 2: to stand up to the militias. And so then three

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Speaker 2: of them, Scott, Sharon, and Malik, sat around Malik's kitchen

383
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Speaker 2: table and hashed out how they would build a revolutionary

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Speaker 2: aid organization. They prioritize security, first aid, and food distribution,

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Speaker 2: and they built what would soon become the common Ground

386
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Speaker 2: collective all around them. The state was failing, the Red

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Speaker 2: Cross was raising billions of dollars but not helping. So

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Speaker 2: they were going to do something different. To quote Scott Crow,

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Speaker 2: we would begin relief work without reliance on or interference

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Speaker 2: from the state or professional aid agencies. We would prefigure

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Speaker 2: the civil society we would like to see in the future.

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Speaker 2: And they decided to build this organization. They would build

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Speaker 2: on what everyone knew. Malik, of course, had done direct

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Speaker 2: community aid and organizing with the Panthers and beyond, and

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Speaker 2: Scott was a veteran of the alter globalization movement. The

396
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Speaker 2: turn of the Millennium Right, which was the big protest

397
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Speaker 2: movement in the late nineties and early odds, Right, which

398
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Speaker 2: had taught how to build grassroots infrastructure everywhere. It went

399
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Speaker 2: a very like dynamic and responsive thing. At all these

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Speaker 2: street medics, you had all of these you know, direct

401
00:21:36,560 --> 00:21:39,600
Speaker 2: action participants, you had all these organizers who were good

402
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Speaker 2: at going places. Brandon Darby wasn't part of this initial

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Speaker 2: thing because and he's still i mean, he's doing good

404
00:21:50,480 --> 00:21:53,040
Speaker 2: things during this stage of it, right, But yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 2: he had gone off into the floodwaters to find Robert

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Speaker 2: King because they still hadn't found him, right, right, And

407
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Speaker 2: so he like drives as far as he can, and

408
00:22:01,400 --> 00:22:03,040
Speaker 2: then he parks his truck and he gets out and

409
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Speaker 2: he's just like fuck it, and he starts wading into

410
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Speaker 2: the dark flood waters. FEMA surrounds him while he's wading

411
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Speaker 2: waists deep through storm water, and eventually he persuades them.

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Speaker 2: He's like, look, let me go check on the following person,

413
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Speaker 2: the following address, and it was nearby, and so they

414
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Speaker 2: found King and his dog Kenya on the front porch

415
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Speaker 2: and basically, through sheer force of will or whatever, they

416
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Speaker 2: were like, King is coming and the dog is coming.

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Speaker 1: Right, that's fucking good at least Jesus and that one

418
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Speaker 1: silver well, no, it's it is silver linings. I get that.

419
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Speaker 2: But yea, it's funny. It's like this whole this episode

420
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Speaker 2: is about the silver lining to this storm cloud. You know, yeah,

421
00:22:45,359 --> 00:22:48,840
Speaker 2: we have to get through the cloud. And King said simply,

422
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Speaker 2: I knew y'all would come, which is fucking cool.

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Speaker 1: That's fair.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, gotta have a line ready.

425
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Speaker 1: When they came here.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, day four he's like, fuck, he's a going back

427
00:23:05,520 --> 00:23:07,160
Speaker 2: and forth between took y'all long enough?

428
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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's like okay, okay, all right, all right,

429
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Speaker 1: just trying it out on the dog totally.

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Speaker 2: And it was King who named the organization, or it

431
00:23:19,119 --> 00:23:23,080
Speaker 2: was someone paraphrasing King. I've sort of read both. The

432
00:23:23,119 --> 00:23:25,399
Speaker 2: whole point of this organization was to come together to

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Speaker 2: help each other. So King said, the only thing we

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Speaker 2: need to find is common ground, and you know right,

435
00:23:33,800 --> 00:23:34,720
Speaker 2: they were like, yeah.

436
00:23:36,000 --> 00:23:39,280
Speaker 3: That's good, nafe good knife yeah.

437
00:23:38,600 --> 00:23:41,719
Speaker 2: No notes. And then I think it was Malik who

438
00:23:41,720 --> 00:23:45,160
Speaker 2: added a collective because wanted to indicate what that meant.

439
00:23:45,240 --> 00:23:46,959
Speaker 2: And it was interesting because it was actually a class,

440
00:23:47,000 --> 00:23:52,080
Speaker 2: not a clash, emerging of two ideological positions, where Malik

441
00:23:52,200 --> 00:23:54,879
Speaker 2: is coming more out of a hierarchical organizing model and

442
00:23:54,920 --> 00:23:58,239
Speaker 2: Scott Crow's coming out of a much more decentralized and

443
00:23:58,520 --> 00:24:04,560
Speaker 2: horizontal organizing model. But they started the way that all

444
00:24:04,600 --> 00:24:08,440
Speaker 2: smart organizations like this do. They don't decide what needs

445
00:24:08,520 --> 00:24:11,280
Speaker 2: doing and go around and like just do it for people.

446
00:24:11,680 --> 00:24:15,320
Speaker 2: They go around and they fucking canvas. They ask. They're like, right, hey,

447
00:24:15,480 --> 00:24:19,800
Speaker 2: but what yeah, what do you need? One woman was like,

448
00:24:20,440 --> 00:24:23,800
Speaker 2: the trash on the street, that is the problem. And

449
00:24:24,760 --> 00:24:26,639
Speaker 2: this is exactly how the Young Lords started. We did

450
00:24:26,680 --> 00:24:29,240
Speaker 2: a four parter about them. They were amazing Puerto Rican

451
00:24:29,760 --> 00:24:33,120
Speaker 2: radicals in New York City and Chicago. The Young Lord

452
00:24:33,240 --> 00:24:36,360
Speaker 2: started with a trash pickup, So they started doing trash

453
00:24:36,400 --> 00:24:39,119
Speaker 2: pickup and they're soon joined by a deacon named Reverend Powell.

454
00:24:39,960 --> 00:24:45,080
Speaker 2: Not the Young Lords the common Ground. Pretty soon thereafter

455
00:24:45,240 --> 00:24:47,560
Speaker 2: they evacuate King from the city because the state is

456
00:24:47,600 --> 00:24:50,439
Speaker 2: just like, the state does not like this man, you know,

457
00:24:50,720 --> 00:24:53,520
Speaker 2: right right right, and he's like this, this is not

458
00:24:53,600 --> 00:24:56,280
Speaker 2: the place for me. And Brandon Darby, the later informant,

459
00:24:56,400 --> 00:24:58,480
Speaker 2: he also leaves at this point. He's not around for

460
00:24:58,520 --> 00:25:01,399
Speaker 2: the setting up of the organization. Besides, this initial moment

461
00:25:02,640 --> 00:25:05,080
Speaker 2: basically says I don't like organizing anyhow.

462
00:25:06,960 --> 00:25:08,119
Speaker 3: Which I guess is true.

463
00:25:08,440 --> 00:25:12,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, fair enough, Yeah, yeah, it's much more destroying these organizations.

464
00:25:12,840 --> 00:25:14,719
Speaker 2: And so then they just organized their asses off. They

465
00:25:14,760 --> 00:25:18,120
Speaker 2: relied on decades of experience in networking. Someone from Greenpeace

466
00:25:18,200 --> 00:25:20,720
Speaker 2: sent the first two way radios, not green Peace, the organization.

467
00:25:20,880 --> 00:25:25,119
Speaker 2: Someone from Greenpeace sent their first two way radios, and

468
00:25:25,160 --> 00:25:27,479
Speaker 2: then a whole ass food not Bombs chapter made its

469
00:25:27,520 --> 00:25:30,320
Speaker 2: way down from Hartford, Connecticut, just like they're like, all right, oh,

470
00:25:31,160 --> 00:25:34,840
Speaker 2: well more than Hartford does, right now. You know, I

471
00:25:34,880 --> 00:25:36,520
Speaker 2: actually almost went down during this, but then I got

472
00:25:36,520 --> 00:25:37,840
Speaker 2: into an argument with the person I was going to

473
00:25:37,880 --> 00:25:39,200
Speaker 2: go with, and so they went and then I didn't.

474
00:25:39,960 --> 00:25:40,680
Speaker 1: Pretty classic.

475
00:25:40,720 --> 00:25:44,560
Speaker 2: Also, I know, exactly, like God, the.

476
00:25:44,560 --> 00:25:46,360
Speaker 3: Thing that happens, it's understandable.

477
00:25:46,520 --> 00:25:49,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, and the powers that be were trying hard to

478
00:25:49,880 --> 00:25:52,119
Speaker 2: keep AID out of the city.

479
00:25:52,480 --> 00:25:55,439
Speaker 1: Yeah, if it wasn't, I mean, good, it's such like

480
00:25:55,480 --> 00:26:00,439
Speaker 1: a common tale. But I was just like, I just

481
00:26:00,600 --> 00:26:03,639
Speaker 1: I'm sort of curious, not I guess that curious, like

482
00:26:03,680 --> 00:26:06,639
Speaker 1: what these people actually tell themselves at night, Like the

483
00:26:06,680 --> 00:26:07,719
Speaker 1: fuck is wrong with you?

484
00:26:08,600 --> 00:26:11,000
Speaker 2: I know, I think that they're like, well, what's interesting

485
00:26:11,119 --> 00:26:13,240
Speaker 2: later in this story, a lot of the powers that

486
00:26:13,280 --> 00:26:15,520
Speaker 2: be who work for all these organizations are just going

487
00:26:15,600 --> 00:26:18,120
Speaker 2: to start giving stuff to common Ground against their own

488
00:26:18,280 --> 00:26:19,080
Speaker 2: like guidelines.

489
00:26:19,480 --> 00:26:20,560
Speaker 3: Yeah.

490
00:26:20,400 --> 00:26:22,960
Speaker 2: That was actually the story that like I kind of

491
00:26:23,000 --> 00:26:26,320
Speaker 2: heard first about Common Ground was like, oh, the National

492
00:26:26,320 --> 00:26:29,000
Speaker 2: Guard is like, hey, y'all are better distributing this stuff

493
00:26:29,040 --> 00:26:32,440
Speaker 2: than us. Here you go, yeah, you know, yeah, but yeah,

494
00:26:32,760 --> 00:26:34,400
Speaker 2: at the start of it, they're like, oh, we got

495
00:26:34,400 --> 00:26:36,359
Speaker 2: to keep everyone safe by making sure these people don't

496
00:26:36,359 --> 00:26:40,000
Speaker 2: go into the city, and so people had to smuggle

497
00:26:40,160 --> 00:26:43,240
Speaker 2: supplies in with like media and then also official aid

498
00:26:43,320 --> 00:26:47,840
Speaker 2: personnel would help them smuggle through the official aid boundary.

499
00:26:47,880 --> 00:26:50,240
Speaker 1: Right, you can at least like write, even if your

500
00:26:50,359 --> 00:26:53,679
Speaker 1: fucking organization is to whatever, we can at least like

501
00:26:53,720 --> 00:26:54,959
Speaker 1: slap a badge on something.

502
00:26:55,160 --> 00:26:58,800
Speaker 2: Totally. But the first doctor they tried to get through

503
00:26:59,480 --> 00:27:03,280
Speaker 2: was black and he got denied at every checkpoint, and

504
00:27:03,680 --> 00:27:07,680
Speaker 2: white volunteers were just like slipping through, no problem. Yeah,

505
00:27:07,800 --> 00:27:11,960
Speaker 2: which is probably a coincidence. Right, Racism has been gone

506
00:27:12,000 --> 00:27:14,680
Speaker 2: for decades at this point, you.

507
00:27:14,640 --> 00:27:20,480
Speaker 1: Know, Oh man, it really yeah, it's so fucking it's

508
00:27:20,600 --> 00:27:24,080
Speaker 1: so like depressing, how like frequently it just that, you know,

509
00:27:24,400 --> 00:27:28,000
Speaker 1: there's no situation where that shit doesn't just crop up. Yeah,

510
00:27:28,280 --> 00:27:29,879
Speaker 1: totally fuck.

511
00:27:30,400 --> 00:27:33,600
Speaker 2: An anarchist collective of street medics from DC called may

512
00:27:33,640 --> 00:27:35,639
Speaker 2: Day d C showed up in an old van and

513
00:27:35,640 --> 00:27:37,720
Speaker 2: then they worked to set up the first first aid station,

514
00:27:37,760 --> 00:27:41,720
Speaker 2: which was at Malik's mosque, and it was first staff

515
00:27:41,760 --> 00:27:44,199
Speaker 2: by these street medics, and soon doctors coming from as

516
00:27:44,240 --> 00:27:48,320
Speaker 2: far away as California. A bike shop in Austin donated

517
00:27:48,320 --> 00:27:52,120
Speaker 2: two hundred bicycles, and once the bikes get in, medics

518
00:27:52,119 --> 00:27:54,960
Speaker 2: go door to door by bike to check in on everyone. Right,

519
00:27:55,000 --> 00:27:57,720
Speaker 2: they're just like, oh, damn, yeah, how's everyone in the

520
00:27:57,720 --> 00:28:01,000
Speaker 2: neighborhood doing? You know which I mean considering the number

521
00:28:01,000 --> 00:28:03,200
Speaker 2: of like dead bodies that they're finding, right that, yeah,

522
00:28:03,480 --> 00:28:06,800
Speaker 2: must have been an interesting job. Yeah, Jesus Malik's house

523
00:28:06,840 --> 00:28:09,679
Speaker 2: is soon a distro center and a tent city of

524
00:28:09,680 --> 00:28:11,480
Speaker 2: people sleeping in the yards sets up. I think this

525
00:28:11,520 --> 00:28:14,720
Speaker 2: is mostly the volunteers. It takes neighbors a minute to

526
00:28:14,720 --> 00:28:16,679
Speaker 2: trust all the white folks are suddenly in their neighborhood.

527
00:28:16,720 --> 00:28:18,640
Speaker 2: Most of the volunteers who are now pouring in from

528
00:28:18,680 --> 00:28:21,359
Speaker 2: outside or white but not all right. But once they

529
00:28:21,400 --> 00:28:23,480
Speaker 2: realize that they've been invited and that a lot of

530
00:28:23,520 --> 00:28:25,880
Speaker 2: the core organizing is coming from black people who live

531
00:28:25,880 --> 00:28:28,000
Speaker 2: in the neighborhood and grew up there, you know. And

532
00:28:28,000 --> 00:28:29,760
Speaker 2: they're also like, okay, and you're not the Red Cross

533
00:28:29,760 --> 00:28:33,280
Speaker 2: and you're not vigilantes. Yeah, and so they start building trust.

534
00:28:33,960 --> 00:28:37,240
Speaker 2: Veterans for Peace started coordinating supply drops. And there's this

535
00:28:37,320 --> 00:28:42,320
Speaker 2: French organization Secur Popular Francis that starts helping out too.

536
00:28:42,440 --> 00:28:44,840
Speaker 2: Because the Red Cross and FEMA told them to kick rocks.

537
00:28:44,840 --> 00:28:47,600
Speaker 2: They're like, right, oh, you don't pronounce enough of the

538
00:28:47,680 --> 00:28:51,920
Speaker 2: letters in your words, you can't help, or like we

539
00:28:52,040 --> 00:28:57,680
Speaker 2: remember the yeah French Indians, but no, yeah, I know, right,

540
00:28:59,000 --> 00:29:01,440
Speaker 2: And so they had fiftyvolunteers like pretty soon then goes

541
00:29:01,520 --> 00:29:03,960
Speaker 2: up to like seventy and a couple hundred and stuff,

542
00:29:03,960 --> 00:29:07,240
Speaker 2: you know, And they have fifty volunteers of patrolling to

543
00:29:07,320 --> 00:29:10,080
Speaker 2: keep out militias. They're running a medical clinic and a distro,

544
00:29:11,120 --> 00:29:13,120
Speaker 2: and they're heading out in a rescue boat and they're

545
00:29:13,120 --> 00:29:16,400
Speaker 2: heading out just to check on everyone and pass out

546
00:29:16,440 --> 00:29:19,920
Speaker 2: what needs passing out. They get generators and extension cords

547
00:29:19,960 --> 00:29:22,080
Speaker 2: that are snaking through the neighborhood. This is the only

548
00:29:22,120 --> 00:29:25,600
Speaker 2: power in this neighborhood for months, or gas power generators

549
00:29:25,600 --> 00:29:29,960
Speaker 2: that they're bringing in, right, tech and media collectives. This

550
00:29:30,040 --> 00:29:33,120
Speaker 2: is like the same era that like there's this whole

551
00:29:33,120 --> 00:29:35,800
Speaker 2: weird one day, I'll probably cover this. Do you know

552
00:29:35,840 --> 00:29:38,680
Speaker 2: that there's like a weird anarchist connection to social media

553
00:29:38,680 --> 00:29:39,800
Speaker 2: and Twitter and all that shit.

554
00:29:41,080 --> 00:29:45,160
Speaker 1: I mean, just I mean, I guess I think of

555
00:29:45,200 --> 00:29:48,880
Speaker 1: it more of just the general Internet, like the you know,

556
00:29:49,080 --> 00:29:54,280
Speaker 1: the kind of like hippies, no no tech hippies, like

557
00:29:54,360 --> 00:29:57,760
Speaker 1: no no borders, no boundaries kind of hacker people.

558
00:29:58,000 --> 00:30:00,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you have a lot of it, a lot

559
00:30:00,440 --> 00:30:02,960
Speaker 2: of the infrastructure that they learned how to build during

560
00:30:03,640 --> 00:30:07,479
Speaker 2: these anti globalization ault globalization protests. Oh sure, we're like,

561
00:30:08,440 --> 00:30:10,560
Speaker 2: and they would set up these like indie media nodes

562
00:30:10,600 --> 00:30:13,880
Speaker 2: where like it's like everyone's a journalist, which prefigures both

563
00:30:13,880 --> 00:30:15,880
Speaker 2: the good things and the bad things about the monitoring that.

564
00:30:17,400 --> 00:30:19,120
Speaker 2: And so it's like all of those people start coming

565
00:30:19,200 --> 00:30:21,720
Speaker 2: to right, these tech and media collectives show up and

566
00:30:21,760 --> 00:30:24,440
Speaker 2: they do weird tech stuff involving vans and radios to

567
00:30:24,440 --> 00:30:29,080
Speaker 2: get phone and internet service going through all the Sure. Yeah,

568
00:30:29,160 --> 00:30:32,000
Speaker 2: and they set up a pirate radio station just fucking cool.

569
00:30:32,840 --> 00:30:35,400
Speaker 2: Like pirate radio is like always cool, but especially in

570
00:30:35,400 --> 00:30:35,960
Speaker 2: this situation.

571
00:30:37,560 --> 00:30:37,760
Speaker 3: Yeah.

572
00:30:37,800 --> 00:30:41,080
Speaker 1: Well it's also like more useful than usual.

573
00:30:40,800 --> 00:30:44,440
Speaker 2: Too, Yeah exactly, Like usually, yeah it's cool because it's

574
00:30:44,520 --> 00:30:47,400
Speaker 2: pirate radio. In this case, it's like, yeah, we need this.

575
00:30:47,600 --> 00:30:52,240
Speaker 1: Yeah, we need to like yeah, coordinate and inform people.

576
00:30:52,440 --> 00:30:56,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, And Malik starts leaving for you weeks at a

577
00:30:56,160 --> 00:30:58,440
Speaker 2: time to go across the country to raise awareness and

578
00:30:58,480 --> 00:31:02,120
Speaker 2: funds and bring in volunteers to bring people to help

579
00:31:02,640 --> 00:31:07,479
Speaker 2: rebuild New Orleans from the bottom up. Common Ground starts

580
00:31:07,480 --> 00:31:09,840
Speaker 2: crossing the river in order to help it out in

581
00:31:09,880 --> 00:31:12,680
Speaker 2: the flooded seventh and ninth wards. They start with hot

582
00:31:12,720 --> 00:31:17,200
Speaker 2: food served by food not bombs. There's other groups doing this, right.

583
00:31:18,240 --> 00:31:20,360
Speaker 2: They hook up with a group called Soul Patrol, which

584
00:31:20,360 --> 00:31:22,240
Speaker 2: is a mutual aid group started by a woman named

585
00:31:22,280 --> 00:31:25,680
Speaker 2: Mama Dee who is fighting Homeland security that was trying

586
00:31:25,680 --> 00:31:28,560
Speaker 2: to force everyone out of their homes because the whole time,

587
00:31:28,600 --> 00:31:30,880
Speaker 2: it's like no one's really supposed to be in New Orleans,

588
00:31:30,880 --> 00:31:33,400
Speaker 2: but you like kind of can't round everyone up and

589
00:31:33,480 --> 00:31:34,800
Speaker 2: kick them out, but you can kind of.

590
00:31:34,720 --> 00:31:37,840
Speaker 3: Try, right, or you just harassed people who are there.

591
00:31:38,120 --> 00:31:43,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, exactly. And so the Soul Patrol is fighting

592
00:31:43,880 --> 00:31:46,880
Speaker 2: against Homeland Security all the while trying to you know,

593
00:31:46,960 --> 00:31:50,600
Speaker 2: get generators going and stuff like that. Common ground gets

594
00:31:50,680 --> 00:31:54,680
Speaker 2: them to generators and other supplies. Eventually, the National Guard

595
00:31:54,720 --> 00:31:58,720
Speaker 2: shows up in Algiers, and they kind of didn't do much.

596
00:31:59,400 --> 00:32:01,880
Speaker 2: They around in hum v's and they were like, Hey,

597
00:32:01,920 --> 00:32:04,000
Speaker 2: we're gonna like and they would like announce from loud speakers,

598
00:32:04,080 --> 00:32:06,360
Speaker 2: be like two days from now we're going to tarp houses.

599
00:32:06,600 --> 00:32:09,280
Speaker 2: Everyone tell us if we need your house tarped, like

600
00:32:09,480 --> 00:32:12,520
Speaker 2: they'd go put tarps over roofs in order to you know,

601
00:32:12,840 --> 00:32:16,320
Speaker 2: keep the rain water from In the end, they spent

602
00:32:16,440 --> 00:32:19,640
Speaker 2: after like announcing this for days, they spent a couple

603
00:32:19,760 --> 00:32:22,720
Speaker 2: hours putting tarps on about five houses out of one

604
00:32:22,800 --> 00:32:24,880
Speaker 2: hundred plus people who requested it.

605
00:32:25,880 --> 00:32:26,880
Speaker 3: That feels about right.

606
00:32:28,080 --> 00:32:32,640
Speaker 2: But so the organization itself, the National Guard, noth looking great, right,

607
00:32:33,200 --> 00:32:38,200
Speaker 2: But individuals kind of shine even, you know, people do

608
00:32:38,280 --> 00:32:41,520
Speaker 2: what needs doing a lot of times, so units that

609
00:32:41,560 --> 00:32:44,000
Speaker 2: were like leaving, they were like, oh, we're cycling out

610
00:32:44,040 --> 00:32:46,880
Speaker 2: or whatever. We'd be like, whoops, we're totally just going

611
00:32:46,960 --> 00:32:50,480
Speaker 2: to leave these supplies here right with you. And so

612
00:32:51,040 --> 00:32:52,920
Speaker 2: with the people are supposed to get them, you know.

613
00:32:53,280 --> 00:32:55,600
Speaker 3: To the extent that there is much help on any

614
00:32:55,640 --> 00:32:56,240
Speaker 3: of this stuff.

615
00:32:56,280 --> 00:33:01,800
Speaker 1: It is like, ultimately it's still human beings, you know,

616
00:33:01,920 --> 00:33:05,920
Speaker 1: running these organized you know, like National Guard units and whatever,

617
00:33:06,080 --> 00:33:11,520
Speaker 1: and like we'll see, but hopefully some of them sometimes

618
00:33:11,760 --> 00:33:12,400
Speaker 1: can do good.

619
00:33:12,680 --> 00:33:17,920
Speaker 2: Yeah exactly. Pastors for Peace soon starts donating, and soon

620
00:33:17,920 --> 00:33:20,680
Speaker 2: there's also a common Ground clinic at a church as

621
00:33:20,720 --> 00:33:22,920
Speaker 2: well as the one at the mosque. It's a church

622
00:33:22,960 --> 00:33:26,600
Speaker 2: called Saint Mary's. Rather, what happened was that the National

623
00:33:26,600 --> 00:33:29,080
Speaker 2: Guard was running one there for two hours a day,

624
00:33:29,120 --> 00:33:33,080
Speaker 2: two days a week, and then basically was like y'all

625
00:33:33,080 --> 00:33:35,080
Speaker 2: want to do this, you'll do it better and common

626
00:33:35,080 --> 00:33:39,600
Speaker 2: Grounds yeah we do and we will, you know. And

627
00:33:40,680 --> 00:33:44,080
Speaker 2: so at this point that means you have Marxist anarchists, Muslims,

628
00:33:44,080 --> 00:33:47,520
Speaker 2: and Christians all working together with the help from sympathetic

629
00:33:47,640 --> 00:33:51,080
Speaker 2: National guardsmen who are sneaking them supplies. At one point

630
00:33:51,120 --> 00:33:53,360
Speaker 2: you have a truck from Islamic Relief showing up with

631
00:33:53,360 --> 00:33:57,760
Speaker 2: supplies from Mormon and Catholic charities. Like fuck yeah, common Ground,

632
00:33:58,080 --> 00:34:01,360
Speaker 2: you know, like literally the name fine common guy.

633
00:34:01,440 --> 00:34:02,920
Speaker 3: Yeah.

634
00:34:03,000 --> 00:34:05,360
Speaker 2: It was all organized horizontally, and it was organized on

635
00:34:05,360 --> 00:34:09,520
Speaker 2: anarchist principles. It wasn't an anarchist organization, but anarchist principles

636
00:34:09,800 --> 00:34:12,959
Speaker 2: work really well for different groups of different ideologies working

637
00:34:13,040 --> 00:34:16,080
Speaker 2: together because the principles say that everyone is equal, so

638
00:34:16,200 --> 00:34:19,839
Speaker 2: one position can't dominate the group. You know, it can't

639
00:34:19,920 --> 00:34:23,719
Speaker 2: become a Christian organization or a Muslim organization or even

640
00:34:23,880 --> 00:34:27,000
Speaker 2: an anarchist organization. They had a big meeting every morning

641
00:34:27,040 --> 00:34:29,319
Speaker 2: at seven am. They they just worked their asses off

642
00:34:29,320 --> 00:34:32,480
Speaker 2: and burned themselves out. But we'll get to that. Yeah,

643
00:34:32,520 --> 00:34:34,600
Speaker 2: every morning seven am they did check ins and help

644
00:34:34,640 --> 00:34:36,799
Speaker 2: people figure out what needed doing on that day. And

645
00:34:36,800 --> 00:34:39,120
Speaker 2: they use a spokes council model, so like someone would

646
00:34:39,120 --> 00:34:40,879
Speaker 2: speak up for like one of the clinics, and someone

647
00:34:40,920 --> 00:34:43,520
Speaker 2: would be like, oh, trash Duty says this, and you know,

648
00:34:43,760 --> 00:34:46,000
Speaker 2: food nott bums, and then seventh Ward says they need

649
00:34:46,040 --> 00:34:49,120
Speaker 2: this and stuff like that. Then they would work all

650
00:34:49,160 --> 00:34:50,719
Speaker 2: fucking day and then they would meet again in the

651
00:34:50,760 --> 00:34:52,640
Speaker 2: evening and then they would sleep for like three hours

652
00:34:52,760 --> 00:34:53,080
Speaker 2: or whatever.

653
00:34:53,360 --> 00:34:55,560
Speaker 1: You know, God.

654
00:34:55,640 --> 00:35:02,600
Speaker 2: Totally sustainable, but Jesus, sometimes sometimes people should try not

655
00:35:02,640 --> 00:35:04,640
Speaker 2: to burn themselves out and find ways to be sustainable.

656
00:35:04,640 --> 00:35:08,239
Speaker 2: But like you know what, sometimes there's a crisis.

657
00:35:08,840 --> 00:35:11,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, and sometimes the energy or the necessity and the

658
00:35:11,640 --> 00:35:13,960
Speaker 1: energy just have to find themselves.

659
00:35:14,160 --> 00:35:18,760
Speaker 2: Like yeah. At one point, the ISO, the International Socialist Organization,

660
00:35:19,200 --> 00:35:22,920
Speaker 2: they tried their usual tactic called entryism, which is where

661
00:35:23,040 --> 00:35:27,319
Speaker 2: they join a group that is not ideologically committed to

662
00:35:27,440 --> 00:35:32,240
Speaker 2: their Marxist whatever and then take it over. Right, it's

663
00:35:32,360 --> 00:35:34,959
Speaker 2: enough of a tactic that they have a name for it. Right,

664
00:35:35,239 --> 00:35:37,960
Speaker 2: this didn't work. People were like, you know, you can

665
00:35:38,040 --> 00:35:41,560
Speaker 2: stay and participate in the democratic process, or you can go.

666
00:35:41,920 --> 00:35:43,719
Speaker 2: And they were like where we don't want to go.

667
00:35:43,800 --> 00:35:47,239
Speaker 2: And then they're like, we have these guns, you gotta lead,

668
00:35:50,239 --> 00:35:56,520
Speaker 2: and you know, fuck yeah. The cops we're not excited

669
00:35:56,560 --> 00:35:59,360
Speaker 2: about common Ground. You know, the National Guard and all

670
00:35:59,400 --> 00:36:01,280
Speaker 2: these places are so treating them like kind of neutral.

671
00:36:01,320 --> 00:36:02,600
Speaker 2: You know, we'll talk about that in a second. But

672
00:36:03,120 --> 00:36:05,840
Speaker 2: the cops they treat it like there's an insurgency in

673
00:36:05,840 --> 00:36:11,479
Speaker 2: their neighborhood called common Ground. Cops are pulling guns on volunteers. Soon,

674
00:36:11,640 --> 00:36:14,400
Speaker 2: no one is traveling alone or at night, because cops

675
00:36:14,480 --> 00:36:17,440
Speaker 2: kept saying shit like well, we could drop you right now,

676
00:36:17,800 --> 00:36:20,680
Speaker 2: or I'm gonna throw your body in the river, right

677
00:36:21,160 --> 00:36:25,120
Speaker 2: and you'll be absolutely shocked. Andrew to know that this

678
00:36:25,239 --> 00:36:28,799
Speaker 2: happened more often and more intensely to black volunteers than

679
00:36:28,800 --> 00:36:29,320
Speaker 2: white ones.

680
00:36:30,719 --> 00:36:34,319
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's obviously, like the tricky bit of this whole

681
00:36:34,320 --> 00:36:36,920
Speaker 1: thing is like it's just like sometimes the white folks

682
00:36:37,000 --> 00:36:40,440
Speaker 1: like have a real purpose in those situations.

683
00:36:39,880 --> 00:36:44,840
Speaker 2: Totally, totally, you know. And so white organizers still end

684
00:36:44,960 --> 00:36:47,080
Speaker 2: up with guns in their faces often enough, but it's

685
00:36:47,160 --> 00:36:52,280
Speaker 2: like not as often. Eventually the cops raid the place

686
00:36:52,360 --> 00:36:55,719
Speaker 2: with hum v's and rifles and they show up, and

687
00:36:55,760 --> 00:36:58,319
Speaker 2: the volunteers form a human chain and like tell them

688
00:36:58,320 --> 00:37:00,520
Speaker 2: that they have no right to be there, and like

689
00:37:00,760 --> 00:37:03,400
Speaker 2: the cops kind of pushed through, and there's all this stuff,

690
00:37:03,440 --> 00:37:08,080
Speaker 2: and slowly the police end up retreating. It easily could

691
00:37:08,120 --> 00:37:12,160
Speaker 2: have turned into a gunfight both sides. Like common Ground

692
00:37:12,239 --> 00:37:16,120
Speaker 2: was armed and ready in case if the cops started

693
00:37:16,120 --> 00:37:23,440
Speaker 2: shooting it. I'm glad they didn't. Yeah, But the military

694
00:37:23,560 --> 00:37:26,640
Speaker 2: once they arrived, was more neutral and generally had kind

695
00:37:26,640 --> 00:37:28,480
Speaker 2: of a sort of a truce with Common Ground and

696
00:37:28,520 --> 00:37:30,680
Speaker 2: actually prevented the police from doing the worst of their

697
00:37:30,800 --> 00:37:34,440
Speaker 2: racism because there was like dads around, you know.

698
00:37:35,040 --> 00:37:39,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, God, And so once again it's also like, yeah,

699
00:37:39,200 --> 00:37:43,040
Speaker 1: sometimes like the fucking National Guard. I guess it's like

700
00:37:44,000 --> 00:37:45,640
Speaker 1: the lesser of several evils.

701
00:37:45,880 --> 00:37:50,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, which is not a natural transition into advertising.

702
00:37:51,280 --> 00:37:55,200
Speaker 2: But yet here we are, there's still a transition to ads.

703
00:37:55,239 --> 00:38:12,600
Speaker 2: That's happening. It's happening, right, No, and we're back. Yes,

704
00:38:13,560 --> 00:38:18,760
Speaker 2: we survived, We did, Sophie, did you survive? Mm hmm, excellent.

705
00:38:20,440 --> 00:38:20,760
Speaker 3: Fair.

706
00:38:21,040 --> 00:38:25,280
Speaker 2: So a second fucking hurricane hit the Gulf Coast, Hurricane Rita.

707
00:38:26,160 --> 00:38:29,640
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that asshole the like Yeah.

708
00:38:29,640 --> 00:38:32,120
Speaker 1: Also, yeah, completely forgot the double tap.

709
00:38:32,920 --> 00:38:35,560
Speaker 2: It didn't hit New Orleans as directly as Katrina had,

710
00:38:35,680 --> 00:38:37,319
Speaker 2: but it was bad and the place is a hit.

711
00:38:37,640 --> 00:38:41,040
Speaker 2: It's bad for those places too, you know. Yeah, most

712
00:38:41,040 --> 00:38:44,840
Speaker 2: of Common Ground evacuated. A skeleton crew stayed on and

713
00:38:44,920 --> 00:38:47,720
Speaker 2: kept the clinics open and shit. One of the first

714
00:38:47,800 --> 00:38:49,960
Speaker 2: rules of disaster relief, and this is okay, you asked

715
00:38:50,000 --> 00:38:52,359
Speaker 2: how earlier, how like the people could sleep at night?

716
00:38:52,480 --> 00:38:52,640
Speaker 1: Right?

717
00:38:53,640 --> 00:38:53,920
Speaker 3: Right?

718
00:38:54,080 --> 00:38:57,200
Speaker 2: One of the primary rules of disaster relief is that

719
00:38:57,239 --> 00:39:00,839
Speaker 2: you can't make yourself another person who needs help. Yes,

720
00:39:00,960 --> 00:39:04,279
Speaker 2: so you should not go into a disaster zone if

721
00:39:04,320 --> 00:39:08,200
Speaker 2: you yourself are going to need rescuing, right, that makes

722
00:39:08,239 --> 00:39:12,120
Speaker 2: everything worse, and so one it made sense for common

723
00:39:12,120 --> 00:39:16,200
Speaker 2: Ground to evacuate. And two that's probably how those people,

724
00:39:16,280 --> 00:39:18,600
Speaker 2: the gatekeepers in this case, sleep at night. Now, the

725
00:39:18,640 --> 00:39:21,880
Speaker 2: ones who only let in white doctors not black doctors,

726
00:39:22,920 --> 00:39:26,319
Speaker 2: should walk into the pick up a really large rock

727
00:39:26,360 --> 00:39:30,560
Speaker 2: and walk into the Gulf of Mexico. Hold on, prove

728
00:39:30,600 --> 00:39:32,760
Speaker 2: your tenacity, right.

729
00:39:32,960 --> 00:39:33,520
Speaker 3: You can do it?

730
00:39:33,600 --> 00:39:37,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, believe this. Yeah yeah. Anyone who doesn't, As cooked

731
00:39:40,280 --> 00:39:42,640
Speaker 2: Biden tells you not to pick up a big rock

732
00:39:42,680 --> 00:39:45,560
Speaker 2: and walk into the ocean, you're wrong, yeah, yeah, buster.

733
00:39:45,760 --> 00:39:45,920
Speaker 1: Yeah.

734
00:39:45,960 --> 00:39:48,160
Speaker 2: The trans agenda is that I want all the conservatives

735
00:39:48,239 --> 00:39:51,080
Speaker 2: to stay on the land and not pick up large

736
00:39:51,120 --> 00:39:53,600
Speaker 2: rocks and walk into the Yeah.

737
00:39:53,800 --> 00:39:58,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, keep the rocks. No, no rock walking. That's what

738
00:39:58,040 --> 00:39:58,439
Speaker 1: we think.

739
00:39:58,520 --> 00:40:02,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's right. Yeah, you're not strong enough too.

740
00:40:04,280 --> 00:40:06,960
Speaker 3: We don't want you to hurt yourself. Yeah yeah, we're.

741
00:40:06,800 --> 00:40:12,920
Speaker 2: Just worried about you anyway. So they come back, and

742
00:40:12,960 --> 00:40:16,400
Speaker 2: then common Ground stretches itself even further because they started

743
00:40:16,400 --> 00:40:19,480
Speaker 2: working with the areas that were hit by RITA, and

744
00:40:19,520 --> 00:40:22,560
Speaker 2: in particular, they start working with indigenous groups and churches

745
00:40:22,600 --> 00:40:26,080
Speaker 2: in the areas outside the city that were affected. But

746
00:40:26,120 --> 00:40:28,080
Speaker 2: since they weren't there to like save the day or

747
00:40:28,120 --> 00:40:30,320
Speaker 2: take charge they were there to coordinate with people on

748
00:40:30,360 --> 00:40:33,680
Speaker 2: the ground and figure out what help should be offered.

749
00:40:33,800 --> 00:40:33,960
Speaker 1: Right.

750
00:40:35,520 --> 00:40:38,520
Speaker 2: So soon the Four Directions Network split off from common

751
00:40:38,560 --> 00:40:42,000
Speaker 2: Ground to make sure that the regional autonomy like stayed

752
00:40:42,000 --> 00:40:51,080
Speaker 2: real regional autonomy. Yes autonomys yeah yeah that big Yeah.

753
00:40:51,200 --> 00:40:54,480
Speaker 2: Common Ground keeps going in Algiers. When the Red Cross

754
00:40:54,520 --> 00:40:57,280
Speaker 2: finally shows up in Algiers like a month after Katrina,

755
00:40:58,520 --> 00:41:00,680
Speaker 2: because they were like, oh, whatever, I don't care about

756
00:41:00,680 --> 00:41:04,000
Speaker 2: those starving people because they're currently underwater or whatever.

757
00:41:04,120 --> 00:41:04,279
Speaker 1: You know.

758
00:41:05,280 --> 00:41:07,399
Speaker 2: Yeah, the Red Cross shows up with three huge box

759
00:41:07,440 --> 00:41:10,480
Speaker 2: trucks full of supplies and they're like, everyone's like, yeah, finally,

760
00:41:10,600 --> 00:41:12,239
Speaker 2: like some get some fucking good food and shit. And

761
00:41:12,239 --> 00:41:14,840
Speaker 2: they gather around, you know, and the volunteers open up

762
00:41:14,880 --> 00:41:18,799
Speaker 2: one box truck. It is entirely full of plastic utensils.

763
00:41:20,600 --> 00:41:24,000
Speaker 2: So they open up the next box truck, all napkins,

764
00:41:25,680 --> 00:41:27,920
Speaker 2: third box truck handy wipes.

765
00:41:28,560 --> 00:41:31,719
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I guess that's at least they're not.

766
00:41:32,200 --> 00:41:35,960
Speaker 1: I mean they are, but they're not actively doing anything

767
00:41:36,520 --> 00:41:37,359
Speaker 1: I do. Like.

768
00:41:37,680 --> 00:41:39,399
Speaker 2: It's funny. Is then there's all this whole I didn't

769
00:41:39,440 --> 00:41:42,399
Speaker 2: end up concluding it, but there's this whole thing where

770
00:41:42,440 --> 00:41:44,200
Speaker 2: the handy wipes. They're like, fine, we'll take the fucking

771
00:41:44,200 --> 00:41:46,440
Speaker 2: handy wipes and will distribute them. But then the cops

772
00:41:46,480 --> 00:41:49,040
Speaker 2: later are like, you stole those from the Red Cross.

773
00:41:49,120 --> 00:41:52,600
Speaker 2: You stole the handy wipes and you're selling them. And

774
00:41:52,600 --> 00:41:55,760
Speaker 2: they're like and they're like holding people at gunpoint accusing

775
00:41:55,760 --> 00:41:57,840
Speaker 2: them of selling handy wipes from the Red Cross.

776
00:41:58,200 --> 00:41:59,000
Speaker 3: Oh my god.

777
00:42:00,000 --> 00:42:03,319
Speaker 2: So and FEMA shows up. They basically just end up

778
00:42:03,320 --> 00:42:05,839
Speaker 2: a referral service for common Ground because the people show

779
00:42:05,880 --> 00:42:07,080
Speaker 2: up and are like, what do we do and they're like,

780
00:42:07,080 --> 00:42:08,480
Speaker 2: I don't know. I go to common Ground. They know

781
00:42:08,480 --> 00:42:13,640
Speaker 2: what they're doing, right, And the regional head of FEMA,

782
00:42:13,719 --> 00:42:17,200
Speaker 2: at some point she needs medical attention and she doesn't

783
00:42:17,239 --> 00:42:20,480
Speaker 2: go to like the official government clinics. She goes to

784
00:42:21,120 --> 00:42:25,799
Speaker 2: one of the common Ground clinics. She shows up and

785
00:42:25,840 --> 00:42:27,719
Speaker 2: there's a sign on the door that says basically like

786
00:42:27,760 --> 00:42:31,680
Speaker 2: no firearms allowed, no exceptions, and her guards have to

787
00:42:31,719 --> 00:42:34,600
Speaker 2: stay outside, and like are really confused by the whole thing,

788
00:42:36,320 --> 00:42:39,879
Speaker 2: but yeah, So common Ground just does amazing and hard

789
00:42:39,880 --> 00:42:43,279
Speaker 2: work for months. As the floodwaters received In the weeks

790
00:42:43,320 --> 00:42:46,759
Speaker 2: and months after the storm, New Orleans was transformed by

791
00:42:46,800 --> 00:42:50,520
Speaker 2: gentrification right, and we don't. We're not going to go

792
00:42:50,520 --> 00:42:54,520
Speaker 2: into all of the many ills that face New Orleans

793
00:42:54,760 --> 00:42:57,560
Speaker 2: still presently because of this, all the displacement that happened.

794
00:42:58,600 --> 00:43:02,040
Speaker 2: But Landlord check to b Rens speculation ruled the day

795
00:43:02,840 --> 00:43:05,799
Speaker 2: landlard Search just illegally evicting people. Will talk more in

796
00:43:05,840 --> 00:43:08,840
Speaker 2: a second, and then one of the things that we

797
00:43:08,920 --> 00:43:11,040
Speaker 2: have to address is that Common Ground did some of

798
00:43:11,080 --> 00:43:15,600
Speaker 2: that gentrification, right because Common Ground brought a fucking lot

799
00:43:15,600 --> 00:43:19,120
Speaker 2: of white people to New Orleans, right, right, right. I

800
00:43:19,160 --> 00:43:23,360
Speaker 2: want to quote Scott Crow again. Our missives were bringing

801
00:43:23,400 --> 00:43:26,279
Speaker 2: masses of volunteers into New Orleans with words spreading like

802
00:43:26,320 --> 00:43:30,920
Speaker 2: wildfire across white radical subcultures. From train hopping hoboes, street

803
00:43:30,960 --> 00:43:36,040
Speaker 2: and circus performers, DIY punks to squatters, burners and forest hippies.

804
00:43:36,760 --> 00:43:39,440
Speaker 2: Most joined the efforts to relieve and rebuild the city,

805
00:43:39,680 --> 00:43:42,360
Speaker 2: offering music and other creative endeavors as well as labor.

806
00:43:42,840 --> 00:43:46,359
Speaker 2: But disconcertingly, some within these subcultures came to live out

807
00:43:46,360 --> 00:43:49,640
Speaker 2: a fantasy of living in a burned out, post apocalyptic city.

808
00:43:50,280 --> 00:43:52,839
Speaker 2: They gave little credence to the tragedies of the people

809
00:43:52,840 --> 00:43:56,160
Speaker 2: who lived there or to the ongoing relief work. Some

810
00:43:56,239 --> 00:43:59,560
Speaker 2: of them were self described anarchists, but they acted like assholes,

811
00:43:59,560 --> 00:44:02,680
Speaker 2: giving an anarchism and radical subculture a bad name. They

812
00:44:02,680 --> 00:44:05,640
Speaker 2: were narcissists whose personal liberty meant more to them than

813
00:44:05,719 --> 00:44:09,000
Speaker 2: being respectful or alleviating the suffering around them.

814
00:44:09,320 --> 00:44:12,480
Speaker 3: Right, it's sort of a common byproduct.

815
00:44:12,480 --> 00:44:20,359
Speaker 2: I feel like, yeah, totally, uh one day. Yeah, one

816
00:44:20,360 --> 00:44:22,520
Speaker 2: of the hardest conversations that it would have. We would

817
00:44:22,560 --> 00:44:24,840
Speaker 2: have a lot, right, Like I remember like squatting a

818
00:44:24,840 --> 00:44:27,680
Speaker 2: building in the South Bronx, like being like, yeah, is

819
00:44:27,719 --> 00:44:30,920
Speaker 2: this gentrification and like not not.

820
00:44:31,440 --> 00:44:32,560
Speaker 3: I mean it's something I.

821
00:44:32,560 --> 00:44:36,959
Speaker 2: Think landlords raising the rents or the you know, it's

822
00:44:37,560 --> 00:44:42,560
Speaker 2: not uncomplicated. Yeah, Soon there was a broader network that

823
00:44:42,640 --> 00:44:45,000
Speaker 2: common Ground became part of, which is cool, like a

824
00:44:45,040 --> 00:44:49,360
Speaker 2: citywide network called the People's Hurricane Relief Fund, and they

825
00:44:49,440 --> 00:44:51,640
Speaker 2: started working on these long term issues like the right

826
00:44:51,719 --> 00:44:53,960
Speaker 2: to return. The government was keeping residents out of the city,

827
00:44:53,960 --> 00:44:55,520
Speaker 2: which is like, of course helps all the real estate

828
00:44:55,560 --> 00:44:59,360
Speaker 2: speculators and all the like, right fuckers, The most gentrifying

829
00:44:59,400 --> 00:45:02,120
Speaker 2: thing was to red things out and fuck over whatever

830
00:45:02,160 --> 00:45:05,560
Speaker 2: it evict everyone and shit, you know, right, and the

831
00:45:05,600 --> 00:45:09,320
Speaker 2: immediate crisis is waning. At this point, the white militias

832
00:45:09,320 --> 00:45:12,839
Speaker 2: were no longer out in force, a few stores are reopening,

833
00:45:13,000 --> 00:45:16,440
Speaker 2: water has begun to recede, but the larger problems remain.

834
00:45:17,320 --> 00:45:19,439
Speaker 2: Common Ground did a lot of behind the scenes work

835
00:45:19,480 --> 00:45:22,480
Speaker 2: for PHRF rather than taking any kind of directing role.

836
00:45:23,360 --> 00:45:28,000
Speaker 2: But overall PHRF and Common Ground kept on. They started

837
00:45:28,040 --> 00:45:31,719
Speaker 2: work remediating houses and doing like mold clean up as

838
00:45:31,719 --> 00:45:35,120
Speaker 2: well as soil remediation. So they would like come up

839
00:45:35,160 --> 00:45:37,759
Speaker 2: with all of these kind of new and interesting ideas

840
00:45:37,880 --> 00:45:40,120
Speaker 2: that were starting to come up in disaster relief around

841
00:45:40,120 --> 00:45:43,720
Speaker 2: this time, of like using weird microbes to fight mold

842
00:45:43,800 --> 00:45:48,239
Speaker 2: and houses, and like growing certain plants in order to

843
00:45:48,239 --> 00:45:50,840
Speaker 2: pull the toxins from the floodwater out of the soil

844
00:45:50,920 --> 00:45:53,880
Speaker 2: and all this stuff, you know, right, oh cool, Yeah,

845
00:45:54,440 --> 00:45:55,280
Speaker 2: this is cool stuff.

846
00:45:55,400 --> 00:45:56,960
Speaker 3: Yeah.

847
00:45:57,000 --> 00:46:00,840
Speaker 2: They also, alongside PHRF started fighting the legal evictions that

848
00:46:00,880 --> 00:46:04,080
Speaker 2: are happening throughout the city, and sometimes they would unevict people,

849
00:46:04,719 --> 00:46:07,440
Speaker 2: like people would get evicted illegally, and so then like

850
00:46:07,520 --> 00:46:09,719
Speaker 2: PHRF and Common Ground would just like show up and

851
00:46:09,719 --> 00:46:12,880
Speaker 2: put everyone's furniture back into their houses. And then like

852
00:46:13,160 --> 00:46:15,319
Speaker 2: and the landlords don't live in the fucking city, so

853
00:46:15,320 --> 00:46:17,279
Speaker 2: they don't like notice for a long ass time, so

854
00:46:17,320 --> 00:46:20,600
Speaker 2: people get like months extra. You know, they did what

855
00:46:20,640 --> 00:46:25,400
Speaker 2: needed to be done. Slowly, they became less necessary, or

856
00:46:25,480 --> 00:46:29,600
Speaker 2: rather it was less about direct intervention and crisis that

857
00:46:29,640 --> 00:46:34,520
Speaker 2: became lessness. That is what became less necessary, right common ground.

858
00:46:34,680 --> 00:46:37,920
Speaker 2: It continued for years. It morphed into and split off

859
00:46:37,920 --> 00:46:39,960
Speaker 2: into a lot of different groups who did an awful

860
00:46:40,000 --> 00:46:42,360
Speaker 2: lot of good. By two thousand and eight it was

861
00:46:42,360 --> 00:46:46,239
Speaker 2: a traditional nonprofit which with all of the upsides and

862
00:46:46,320 --> 00:46:50,759
Speaker 2: downsides that that has to offer. And I want to

863
00:46:50,840 --> 00:46:53,160
Speaker 2: quote Scott Crow one more time about what they accomplished.

864
00:46:54,600 --> 00:46:58,040
Speaker 2: We had established the largest functioning organization based on anarchist

865
00:46:58,080 --> 00:47:01,080
Speaker 2: ideals in the United States since the IWT. We were

866
00:47:01,160 --> 00:47:04,360
Speaker 2: participating in direct democracy at every turn with local residents,

867
00:47:04,400 --> 00:47:08,800
Speaker 2: community leaders, and volunteers. Everyone was in the streets. Community

868
00:47:08,880 --> 00:47:11,560
Speaker 2: organized revolution was in the air, not a seizure of

869
00:47:11,600 --> 00:47:14,319
Speaker 2: state power, but a revolution of a different kind, the

870
00:47:14,360 --> 00:47:17,879
Speaker 2: revolution of exercising grassroots power to make changes we all

871
00:47:17,920 --> 00:47:22,200
Speaker 2: wanted to see. Our revolution challenged the standard pessimism about

872
00:47:22,239 --> 00:47:25,960
Speaker 2: people's limited agency in their own lives. He also said

873
00:47:26,719 --> 00:47:29,640
Speaker 2: we had created a crack in history. We had revealed

874
00:47:29,680 --> 00:47:33,160
Speaker 2: the lies, corruption and failures of the state, and without hesitating,

875
00:47:33,520 --> 00:47:34,759
Speaker 2: we had done something about it.

876
00:47:35,560 --> 00:47:36,040
Speaker 3: Yeah.

877
00:47:36,400 --> 00:47:40,640
Speaker 1: It's as someone who approaches the small amount of things

878
00:47:40,680 --> 00:47:44,279
Speaker 1: that I do from almost like a fear defensive standpoint,

879
00:47:45,040 --> 00:47:47,239
Speaker 1: I do appreciate being able to call on the show

880
00:47:47,280 --> 00:47:49,480
Speaker 1: and just be like, right, yeah, you can also do

881
00:47:49,520 --> 00:47:55,759
Speaker 1: this optimistically, yeah, totally, yeah, okay, okay.

882
00:47:55,600 --> 00:48:01,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's like, I mean, do they win, like no, Like,

883
00:48:01,200 --> 00:48:04,440
Speaker 2: New Orleans is not run by the people of New

884
00:48:04,520 --> 00:48:08,440
Speaker 2: Orleans in a direct democratic way, right, Mutual aid is

885
00:48:08,480 --> 00:48:12,040
Speaker 2: not the primary economic method by which people meet their needs.

886
00:48:12,719 --> 00:48:16,280
Speaker 2: They showed the failure of the state, and they showed

887
00:48:16,360 --> 00:48:20,080
Speaker 2: that people can have agency and they did amazing fucking work.

888
00:48:20,120 --> 00:48:22,680
Speaker 2: And then also just like literally directly saved lots of

889
00:48:22,719 --> 00:48:27,759
Speaker 2: people's lives, you know, and like. And so Scott goes

890
00:48:27,800 --> 00:48:30,160
Speaker 2: back to Austin. He starts a co op thrift historical

891
00:48:30,280 --> 00:48:33,200
Speaker 2: treasure city thrift where a few years later, my boyfriend

892
00:48:33,239 --> 00:48:35,520
Speaker 2: pressured me into buying some leather pants for five dollars.

893
00:48:36,040 --> 00:48:39,480
Speaker 2: I did look good in them, Okay, hell yeah. Brandon

894
00:48:39,560 --> 00:48:42,480
Speaker 2: Darby went on to go do some stuff while he

895
00:48:42,560 --> 00:48:44,520
Speaker 2: was in New Orleans. He became friends with the cops

896
00:48:44,640 --> 00:48:47,360
Speaker 2: who introduced him to the FBI, and by two thousand

897
00:48:47,400 --> 00:48:49,799
Speaker 2: and six he was a paid informant. He was kicked

898
00:48:49,800 --> 00:48:52,200
Speaker 2: out of common Ground around that time for his misogyny

899
00:48:52,239 --> 00:48:55,160
Speaker 2: and overall flakiness he had, Like he left during the

900
00:48:55,200 --> 00:48:57,080
Speaker 2: origin of it, but then he came back later at

901
00:48:57,080 --> 00:48:58,719
Speaker 2: the end of the year, once everything was all set up,

902
00:48:58,719 --> 00:49:00,840
Speaker 2: you know, and then he just used it to be

903
00:49:00,880 --> 00:49:03,719
Speaker 2: a sexual predator and a piece of shit. So he

904
00:49:03,800 --> 00:49:06,880
Speaker 2: was kicked out. He came back a year later and

905
00:49:06,920 --> 00:49:09,239
Speaker 2: he became interim director. He basically was able to like

906
00:49:09,320 --> 00:49:11,279
Speaker 2: leverage the social capital of having been there at the

907
00:49:11,280 --> 00:49:14,160
Speaker 2: beginning and all that shit, you know, right, and then

908
00:49:14,200 --> 00:49:17,040
Speaker 2: he fucked the thing up. He like fucked up common Ground.

909
00:49:17,080 --> 00:49:22,360
Speaker 2: He probably on purpose that is not provable, but it

910
00:49:22,680 --> 00:49:25,120
Speaker 2: sure meet was provable. He was working for the FBI

911
00:49:25,160 --> 00:49:26,960
Speaker 2: at this point, and it sure meets what they do.

912
00:49:27,440 --> 00:49:31,840
Speaker 2: He like, let funds get on accounted for. He started

913
00:49:31,840 --> 00:49:34,600
Speaker 2: introducing a lot more authoritarians into the organization. He started

914
00:49:34,600 --> 00:49:37,040
Speaker 2: firing everyone, like kicking everyone out who disagreed with him

915
00:49:37,080 --> 00:49:40,680
Speaker 2: and shit, you know. And then eventually he lasts like

916
00:49:40,719 --> 00:49:43,239
Speaker 2: three months before finally like the common Ground like shakes

917
00:49:43,320 --> 00:49:44,600
Speaker 2: him off right, kicks him.

918
00:49:44,480 --> 00:49:44,839
Speaker 3: Out for good.

919
00:49:44,960 --> 00:49:45,760
Speaker 1: Yeah.

920
00:49:45,880 --> 00:49:48,360
Speaker 2: He then spent years trying to talk people into arson

921
00:49:48,400 --> 00:49:52,200
Speaker 2: and violence, finally succeeding at setting two young anarchists to

922
00:49:52,200 --> 00:49:54,600
Speaker 2: go to prison for Molotov cocktails in two thousand and eight.

923
00:49:55,640 --> 00:49:58,480
Speaker 2: There's an essay worth reading about him. You actually you

924
00:49:58,600 --> 00:50:01,319
Speaker 2: hinted at the title of this earlier. The essay is

925
00:50:01,360 --> 00:50:04,120
Speaker 2: called why Misogynists make Great Informants.

926
00:50:05,239 --> 00:50:06,880
Speaker 3: Yeah, and.

927
00:50:08,360 --> 00:50:10,880
Speaker 2: After putting some people in prison, his cover was blown

928
00:50:11,160 --> 00:50:13,120
Speaker 2: and he kind of just became a right wing grifter.

929
00:50:13,280 --> 00:50:15,719
Speaker 2: He was like very like, we all miss Bush. This

930
00:50:15,840 --> 00:50:18,759
Speaker 2: is you know, it's a while ago now, right, Yeah,

931
00:50:18,840 --> 00:50:21,320
Speaker 2: there's not a lot of information available about him currently.

932
00:50:21,600 --> 00:50:22,799
Speaker 2: I hope it's because he's dead.

933
00:50:24,000 --> 00:50:24,520
Speaker 3: Yeah.

934
00:50:24,600 --> 00:50:28,040
Speaker 1: It's a depressing I will say, it's not the culture,

935
00:50:28,160 --> 00:50:31,160
Speaker 1: but it is the like, I don't know what it

936
00:50:31,200 --> 00:50:35,640
Speaker 1: is about these like white dudes, mostly in this area

937
00:50:35,719 --> 00:50:38,960
Speaker 1: where it's just I guess it's just like punk can

938
00:50:39,040 --> 00:50:44,799
Speaker 1: really go either way totally, and I guess that is

939
00:50:44,840 --> 00:50:47,879
Speaker 1: basically the heart of the vibe. It's just like absolutely

940
00:50:49,200 --> 00:50:52,759
Speaker 1: your anti authority and what you view as authority is

941
00:50:53,120 --> 00:50:55,520
Speaker 1: very very malleable. Totally.

942
00:50:56,280 --> 00:50:58,279
Speaker 2: All my friends telling me what to do, like, don't

943
00:50:58,320 --> 00:51:04,560
Speaker 2: work with the FBI. Yeah, bluck Man, Yeah, no, absolutely, like.

944
00:51:06,000 --> 00:51:08,560
Speaker 3: Yeah, Paul Ryan tells himself he's a punk.

945
00:51:08,880 --> 00:51:15,640
Speaker 2: Yeah. Oh god yeah. Watching the Republican Party rebrand itself

946
00:51:15,640 --> 00:51:19,840
Speaker 2: as anti anti establishment has just been it's.

947
00:51:19,840 --> 00:51:24,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's pathetic, but it is probably more effective than

948
00:51:25,280 --> 00:51:26,440
Speaker 1: we want to want to think about.

949
00:51:26,520 --> 00:51:26,719
Speaker 3: Yep.

950
00:51:27,040 --> 00:51:31,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so of the other founders. Sharon worked with

951
00:51:31,640 --> 00:51:35,879
Speaker 2: Common Ground until twenty ten. Malik does environmental work now

952
00:51:36,040 --> 00:51:39,400
Speaker 2: around coastal land cleanup. Robert King moved to Austin and

953
00:51:39,440 --> 00:51:44,080
Speaker 2: does organizing work around political prisoners. Common Ground Collective has

954
00:51:44,160 --> 00:51:48,280
Speaker 2: direct successors like common Ground Relief, which works to restore

955
00:51:48,320 --> 00:51:50,360
Speaker 2: the coastal wetlands as well as provide free food to

956
00:51:50,360 --> 00:51:55,160
Speaker 2: about two hundred families in New Orleans. And Common Ground

957
00:51:55,280 --> 00:51:58,800
Speaker 2: also led to the proliferation of mutual aid organizations around

958
00:51:58,840 --> 00:52:02,279
Speaker 2: the mid twenty tens, culminating in the truly amazing number

959
00:52:02,280 --> 00:52:04,600
Speaker 2: of groups as the government failed to addequately respond to

960
00:52:04,640 --> 00:52:07,600
Speaker 2: the COVID crisis in twenty twenty. That is the legacy

961
00:52:07,680 --> 00:52:10,560
Speaker 2: of Common Ground, not just these organizations with specific names

962
00:52:10,600 --> 00:52:16,319
Speaker 2: that are in New Orleans that but the like if

963
00:52:16,320 --> 00:52:19,560
Speaker 2: there's a problem we can come together. I mean, obviously

964
00:52:19,560 --> 00:52:21,719
Speaker 2: it's a natural human instinct, but like the way in

965
00:52:21,760 --> 00:52:24,600
Speaker 2: which people do it and talk about it is is there.

966
00:52:24,480 --> 00:52:27,880
Speaker 1: Like a framework and you just got to like and

967
00:52:27,880 --> 00:52:30,240
Speaker 1: that's so it's like, fuck, all right, well someone's got.

968
00:52:30,120 --> 00:52:30,920
Speaker 3: To do it. Just do it.

969
00:52:31,040 --> 00:52:32,120
Speaker 2: Yeah totally.

970
00:52:32,360 --> 00:52:34,960
Speaker 1: It's also like, at the end of the day, you know,

971
00:52:35,080 --> 00:52:39,640
Speaker 1: there are obviously significant logistics and you know, cooperation and

972
00:52:39,680 --> 00:52:43,680
Speaker 1: teamwork and all that, but it also the other way

973
00:52:43,680 --> 00:52:46,239
Speaker 1: to think about it is it's just getting stuff that

974
00:52:46,400 --> 00:52:48,919
Speaker 1: people have or the stuff that exists, to the people

975
00:52:48,920 --> 00:52:51,960
Speaker 1: who need it. And like there's like complicated ways to

976
00:52:52,040 --> 00:52:54,040
Speaker 1: do that and simple ways to do that, and like.

977
00:52:55,520 --> 00:52:55,799
Speaker 3: Do it.

978
00:52:55,920 --> 00:52:59,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, totally, yeah, I really like that. At the

979
00:52:59,400 --> 00:53:00,919
Speaker 2: end of the day, that's what it is. You find

980
00:53:00,920 --> 00:53:02,880
Speaker 2: the people who have the stuff and the people who

981
00:53:02,960 --> 00:53:05,719
Speaker 2: need the stuff, and you're like, all right, yeah, let's

982
00:53:05,719 --> 00:53:07,920
Speaker 2: move the stuff from one person or another.

983
00:53:08,800 --> 00:53:11,040
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's hard, sometimes it's easy, but it's not like

984
00:53:11,640 --> 00:53:13,600
Speaker 1: a difficult concept totally.

985
00:53:14,680 --> 00:53:15,359
Speaker 3: Yeah.

986
00:53:15,400 --> 00:53:18,440
Speaker 2: And so if there's a spiritual successor to common Ground,

987
00:53:18,840 --> 00:53:21,760
Speaker 2: I would guess it's a group called Mutual Aid Disaster

988
00:53:21,880 --> 00:53:26,600
Speaker 2: relief who work to coordinate is going to shock you

989
00:53:27,040 --> 00:53:30,839
Speaker 2: disaster relief in in a mutual aid format. Yeah, they're

990
00:53:30,840 --> 00:53:34,720
Speaker 2: pretty literal namers. And I just like that. The modern

991
00:53:34,760 --> 00:53:37,239
Speaker 2: mutual aid movement in the US got its start because

992
00:53:37,280 --> 00:53:40,640
Speaker 2: panthers and anarchists, Muslims and Christians, black and white people

993
00:53:40,760 --> 00:53:44,640
Speaker 2: just got together to just fucking make it happen. Yeah,

994
00:53:44,680 --> 00:53:47,520
Speaker 2: because all here's my catchy ending, because all we need

995
00:53:47,560 --> 00:53:49,560
Speaker 2: to do is find our common ground.

996
00:53:50,440 --> 00:53:54,839
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, you got there? Hell yeah?

997
00:53:54,920 --> 00:54:00,360
Speaker 2: Hell yeah thanks now that Yeah, that's that's the story.

998
00:54:00,840 --> 00:54:02,759
Speaker 2: You got anything that you want to plug here at

999
00:54:02,760 --> 00:54:03,799
Speaker 2: the end, I don't know.

1000
00:54:04,160 --> 00:54:06,360
Speaker 3: Just yoss racist. That's my podcast.

1001
00:54:07,560 --> 00:54:10,480
Speaker 2: Who's your co host? And would we recognize her from

1002
00:54:10,760 --> 00:54:12,880
Speaker 2: Margaret's current favorite show, Lower Decks.

1003
00:54:14,120 --> 00:54:17,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, my co host is Toddy Dows. She's the She

1004
00:54:17,400 --> 00:54:21,440
Speaker 1: plays Mariner on Lower X and a wonderful show. I

1005
00:54:21,440 --> 00:54:26,800
Speaker 1: guess watch Lower X two now that we're past strike times.

1006
00:54:27,160 --> 00:54:30,759
Speaker 1: Watch watch TV that you'd like, and I guess don't

1007
00:54:30,760 --> 00:54:32,880
Speaker 1: watch TV that you don't like. But whatever.

1008
00:54:33,280 --> 00:54:37,480
Speaker 2: Also whatever, Well I want to plug. I want to

1009
00:54:37,480 --> 00:54:40,960
Speaker 2: plug mutual a disaster relief. They're great people, yeah, and

1010
00:54:41,440 --> 00:54:45,680
Speaker 2: they do really amazing work and you can probably support

1011
00:54:45,719 --> 00:54:48,040
Speaker 2: them somehow. I didn't ask or look how people can

1012
00:54:48,040 --> 00:54:51,480
Speaker 2: support them, but if you look it up, usually pretty straightforward.

1013
00:54:51,560 --> 00:54:51,719
Speaker 1: Yeah.

1014
00:54:51,719 --> 00:54:53,759
Speaker 2: I feel like they've been around long enough that they

1015
00:54:53,840 --> 00:54:57,200
Speaker 2: probably know how to have on the website somewhere says

1016
00:54:57,200 --> 00:55:00,760
Speaker 2: how to help them, and I I want to plug

1017
00:55:02,239 --> 00:55:07,720
Speaker 2: the don't become misogynist and then an FBI agent.

1018
00:55:08,640 --> 00:55:11,600
Speaker 3: Yeah. And if you're one of those things, you can

1019
00:55:11,719 --> 00:55:12,480
Speaker 3: you can stop.

1020
00:55:12,760 --> 00:55:17,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, you have two choices. Stop or take the Margaret

1021
00:55:17,440 --> 00:55:20,320
Speaker 2: rock challenge, in which you pick up a really heavy

1022
00:55:20,400 --> 00:55:22,759
Speaker 2: rock and you walk into the nearest large body of

1023
00:55:22,760 --> 00:55:27,160
Speaker 2: water and don't just see Yeah, just see how long

1024
00:55:27,160 --> 00:55:30,560
Speaker 2: you can make If you can't hold the rock underwater

1025
00:55:31,480 --> 00:55:33,120
Speaker 2: long enough, Yeah, you're weak.

1026
00:55:33,239 --> 00:55:34,839
Speaker 3: You're weak. That's right.

1027
00:55:35,440 --> 00:55:40,640
Speaker 2: Sophie guiding Plug at cool Zone Media.

1028
00:55:40,920 --> 00:55:44,000
Speaker 1: On the social medes, look out for our newest show,

1029
00:55:44,080 --> 00:55:45,160
Speaker 1: Better Offline.

1030
00:55:45,800 --> 00:55:48,359
Speaker 3: Whoo ya all right?

1031
00:55:48,800 --> 00:55:51,319
Speaker 2: Speaking of offline, That's where I'm going to be now.

1032
00:55:51,680 --> 00:55:56,680
Speaker 3: That's cool.

1033
00:55:56,719 --> 00:55:59,200
Speaker 2: People who did Cool Stop is a production of cool

1034
00:55:59,239 --> 00:55:59,880
Speaker 2: Zone Media.

1035
00:56:00,239 --> 00:56:03,040
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website

1036
00:56:03,200 --> 00:56:06,879
Speaker 1: coolzonmedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,

1037
00:56:06,920 --> 00:56:09,759
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.