WEBVTT - Part Two: The Common Ground Collective: The DIY Collective That Built Modern Mutual Aid

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<v Speaker 1>Whole Zone Media.

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<v Speaker 2>Hello and welcome to Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff,

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<v Speaker 2>your weekly podcast about cool people who did cool stuff.

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<v Speaker 2>And sometimes we talk about t shirts like the really

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<v Speaker 2>good shirt that our guest Andrew is wearing that We're

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<v Speaker 2>not going to tell you what it is because you

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<v Speaker 2>have to go to the first episode.

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<v Speaker 1>Listen to the first episode. Also, this is this is

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<v Speaker 1>I've been having more tech issues than I should considering.

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

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<v Speaker 1>We've already rehearsed this like a time, I know, like

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<v Speaker 1>the dress rehearsal went.

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<v Speaker 3>Okay, we're doing this.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, because we have a really hard job podcasting. I mean,

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

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<v Speaker 1>You put quite a lot into this. Yeah, there are

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<v Speaker 1>ways to do this less fatiguingly.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, okay, that's fair. But one of the reasons that

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<v Speaker 2>this job is doable at all is because of my

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<v Speaker 2>amazing producer, Sophie Hey. Sophie Hey, And another reason is

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<v Speaker 2>the audio engineer Daniel Hi. Daniel good job, danel Hi,

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<v Speaker 2>sweet sweet?

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<v Speaker 1>Does he ever splice himself in responding to any of

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<v Speaker 1>these highs? Well, think about it should out there just

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<v Speaker 1>turn out there.

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<v Speaker 2>Ian did that I think once. Yeah, Ian and Anmial

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<v Speaker 2>switch switch shows, so they both still were Yeah, so

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<v Speaker 2>so Vide and you said it the show and he

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<v Speaker 2>did that once and it was funny. It was good. Daniel.

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<v Speaker 2>You have to if you do it, you should do

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<v Speaker 2>it as like the voice of God. You know, I

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<v Speaker 2>had a lot of effects on your voice.

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<v Speaker 4>Hello friends, it is I DJ Daniel. Your gratitude falls

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<v Speaker 4>on my ears like a lullaby, soothing and sweet. May

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<v Speaker 4>your episode be informative, researched and full of context. Goodbye now,

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<v Speaker 4>but no I am with you always. Goodbye.

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<v Speaker 2>Our theme music was written for us by unwoman. And

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<v Speaker 2>this is part two and a two parter on the

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<v Speaker 2>common Ground Collective in New Orleans, and we spent the

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<v Speaker 2>whole We didn't even introduce the collective yet. The collective

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

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<v Speaker 2>A lot of mutual aid has already happened, and you

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<v Speaker 2>should go listen to part one.

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<v Speaker 3>By necessity.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, Now we're going to talk about one of

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<v Speaker 2>the other people that we've already mentioned who also chose

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<v Speaker 2>to write out the storm, Robert King. Robert King, I

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<v Speaker 2>decided to write out the storm. He'd written out the

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<v Speaker 2>storms as a kid, and he figured it would be fine.

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<v Speaker 2>He told his friends as much. Also, I have a

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<v Speaker 2>feeling that once you spend twenty nine years in a box,

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

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<v Speaker 2>like literally, what could a storm do? Some storm? It's

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<v Speaker 2>not worse, right, you know, there's very few things that

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<v Speaker 2>are worse. An awful lot of people have declared solitary

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<v Speaker 2>confinement to be torture, and those people.

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<v Speaker 3>Are right, yeah, Jesus.

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<v Speaker 2>But then the storm hit and the levees broke and

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<v Speaker 2>the phones went dark, and his friends weren't so sure

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<v Speaker 2>that he was safe. But he spent that time sitting

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<v Speaker 2>on his front porch, hanging out with his dog, and basically,

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<v Speaker 2>rescuers would come by on boats every now and then

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<v Speaker 2>and be like, hey, you want to get out of here,

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

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

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<v Speaker 2>he's a prepper, King, oh, his last name is King,

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<v Speaker 2>he had filled his bathtub with water, which is what

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<v Speaker 2>you should do if you don't have stored water, or

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<v Speaker 2>even if you do have stored water, and you know

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<v Speaker 2>that there's a good chance your water supply is going

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<v Speaker 2>to be disrupted. He had already filled his bathtub up

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<v Speaker 2>with water, and he had a little bit of food,

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<v Speaker 2>and basically he made sure that his dog ate better

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<v Speaker 2>than him and he just hung out and waited for

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<v Speaker 2>a week awn. His friends were worried about him. They

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

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<v Speaker 2>been a political prisoner for a long time, so he

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<v Speaker 2>had friends all over who had helped him get out

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<v Speaker 2>and then helped him after he got out. Right. He

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<v Speaker 2>A big part of doing political prisoner or any prisoner

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<v Speaker 2>support work is that you also take care of people

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<v Speaker 2>as they transition out into the world. Three of his

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<v Speaker 2>friends were these white anarchists living in Austin, Texas. Anne Harkness,

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<v Speaker 2>her partner, Scott Crow, and this other guy, Brandon Darby.

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<v Speaker 2>Don't get too attached to Brandon Darby. He's going to

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<v Speaker 2>turn out to be a real piece of shit. I

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

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<v Speaker 2>Anne had made connections with Robert King, so she's an

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<v Speaker 2>important part of it in that sense, but she's not

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<v Speaker 2>a big part of the rest of the story. Wrote

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<v Speaker 2>an awful lot about common Ground and is one of

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<v Speaker 2>the founders of common Ground, so we're gonna include him

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<v Speaker 2>a lot in this story. And he is definitely cool.

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<v Speaker 2>People did cool stuff like Malik and Robert and Sharon.

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<v Speaker 2>Who will you know the other organizer who was there,

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<v Speaker 2>Brandon Darby starts off the story a misogynist and then

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<v Speaker 2>at the end of the story is an FBI and

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<v Speaker 2>informant who put several people in prison.

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

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

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<v Speaker 2>in the story that I've met just from being in

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<v Speaker 2>the movement together. And then also his record label put

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<v Speaker 2>out a single of mine a few years back. Ironically,

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<v Speaker 2>the single was called the Flood Came Over Me. I

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<v Speaker 2>don't I don't know whether he picked the song because

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<v Speaker 2>of that or not. Anyway, we'll talk about Scott. Scott

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<v Speaker 2>was raised poor by a single mother, living literally on

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<v Speaker 2>the wrong side of the tracks in Dallas, and he

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<v Speaker 2>was one of the white kids in a neighborhood that

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<v Speaker 2>was mostly black and Chicano. But it was the seventies

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<v Speaker 2>and so we got to go to a free preschool

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<v Speaker 2>that was run by former members of the Black Panther Party,

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<v Speaker 2>the Brown Berets, and the Young Patriots, which is to say,

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<v Speaker 2>militant leftists representing black, brown, and poor white social movements.

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<v Speaker 2>He didn't know that at the time because it wasn't

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<v Speaker 2>like he didn't go and there weren't just like pictures

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<v Speaker 2>of AK forty seven's and like now's little Red Book

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<v Speaker 2>on the wall or whatever. It was the free preschool

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<v Speaker 2>that activists ran. He had what you might call a

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<v Speaker 2>troubled youth. He got arrested and did drugs and shit

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<v Speaker 2>like that throughout the eighties, and then music turned in political.

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

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<v Speaker 2>these other ways are great. Usually when someone gets political

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<v Speaker 2>through music, it's hip hop or punk, right right, this

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<v Speaker 2>was industrial and goth. Scott Crowe read an essay by

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<v Speaker 2>al Jorgensen, the guy from Ministry, talking about the working class,

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<v Speaker 2>and he was in. He was drawn originally towards socialism

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<v Speaker 2>and communis, but he was wary of replicating problems with

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

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<v Speaker 2>apartheid marches and he's like playing in industrial bands that

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<v Speaker 2>tour with Skinny Puppy and nine inch nails and all

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<v Speaker 2>that shit, and he's helping raise his partner's kid and

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<v Speaker 2>starting a co op antiques business. Once from now into

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

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<v Speaker 2>he gets into anarchism in the nineties through just to

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<v Speaker 2>check it off on your Free Space on cool Zone

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<v Speaker 2>and sure an IWW organizer from the Industrial Workers of

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<v Speaker 2>the World who had gotten out of prison, and an

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<v Speaker 2>awful lot of this anarchist stuff clicks with Scott. Then

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<v Speaker 2>in two thousand and one, Robert H. King gets out

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<v Speaker 2>of prison Scott's partner and was soon friends with him,

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<v Speaker 2>and they're all close as hell, and they refer to

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<v Speaker 2>each other as family. So they're like not going to

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<v Speaker 2>fucking let bad things happen to each other, right, because

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

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<v Speaker 2>It's four years later, it's Katrina, and no one has

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<v Speaker 2>heard from Robert is the night of the twenty ninth,

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<v Speaker 2>about twelve hours after the storm it hit, So Brandon

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<v Speaker 2>Darby calls Scott Crow and it's like, hey, we should

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<v Speaker 2>get a boat and go find our friend, and so

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<v Speaker 2>they called the Red Cross, and the Red Cross is like, yes,

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<v Speaker 2>please come with a boat. We need people helping. And

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<v Speaker 2>the two of them pack up supplies and a handgun

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<v Speaker 2>and take off towards the unknown. As soon as they

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<v Speaker 2>got into Baton Rouge, they realized the government operation was

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<v Speaker 2>in shambles. It was arguing about who had jurisdiction. It

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<v Speaker 2>was turning away hundreds of boat owners ready to do

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<v Speaker 2>search and rescue, and so the pair were like, oh, okay,

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<v Speaker 2>we're not allowed to do it. So they went home

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<v Speaker 2>just kidding. The pair were like, all right, well fuck

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<v Speaker 2>you too, and they drove around to approach the city

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<v Speaker 2>from another angle. What they saw was a fucking apocalypse.

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<v Speaker 2>There is thirty foot tall mud drifts, there's cars smashed

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<v Speaker 2>into buildings, there's trash everywhere. There's natural gas leaking everywhere

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<v Speaker 2>right next to like down power lines that are sparking.

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

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<v Speaker 2>they're not even inside the city yet when they see

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

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<v Speaker 2>They helped where they could, and eventually they found a

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<v Speaker 2>father with his adult son who had their own boat

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<v Speaker 2>who were about to like go around into the Gulf

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<v Speaker 2>of Mexico and then up into the city in order

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<v Speaker 2>to get to their warehouse because they weren't you know,

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<v Speaker 2>there's the only way they could figure out to get

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<v Speaker 2>in there. And so they were like, yeah, all right,

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<v Speaker 2>you all have a boat, you can follow us. We'll

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<v Speaker 2>guide you through the city. And so they take off

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<v Speaker 2>into a stormy nightmare and a flat bottomed motor boat

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

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<v Speaker 2>that's like a video game.

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<v Speaker 3>Honestly, it's like, I know, terrifying.

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<v Speaker 2>I know, everywhere they went as they went into the

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<v Speaker 2>city there was dead people and animals in the water.

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<v Speaker 3>Yeah.

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<v Speaker 2>Some of those people were dead with bullet holes in them.

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<v Speaker 2>It's an apocalypse.

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<v Speaker 3>Yeah.

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<v Speaker 2>They passed rescue boat after rescue boat leaving the city

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

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

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<v Speaker 2>and that is a dangerous thing that is overblown. But

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<v Speaker 2>in this first person memoir, Scott talks about, for example,

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<v Speaker 2>how one would be rescuer with a boat would show

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

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<v Speaker 2>and the rescue boat would be like, oh, we're doing

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<v Speaker 2>women and children first, and young men with guns would say,

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<v Speaker 2>fuck you, I'm going to shoot you unless you let

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<v Speaker 2>me into the boat. And so the rescuers were like

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<v Speaker 2>shooting the people that they're supposed to be rescuing. And

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<v Speaker 2>eventually a lot of these rescuers were fleeing empty handed

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<v Speaker 2>away from the violence that they were facing Jesus or

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

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<v Speaker 2>to kill anyone suspected of looting. Is this whole thing

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<v Speaker 2>I read about a while ago when I was like

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<v Speaker 2>first time I was researching all this stuff I was

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<v Speaker 2>getting into like disaster studies that now I'm off script.

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<v Speaker 2>Sophie loves when they go off script. There's this thing

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<v Speaker 2>thinking that the government talks about its priority is COG

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<v Speaker 2>continuance of governance, and this is more important than law

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<v Speaker 2>and order. It is more important that the cops are

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<v Speaker 2>in charge.

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<v Speaker 1>Right, whoever it was in charge, stays in charge, as

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<v Speaker 1>opposed to like people be safe.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, exactly, Oh, and I fundamentally disagree with that approach. Yeah,

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<v Speaker 2>helicopters full of guns are whizzing overhead quite noticeably, there

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<v Speaker 2>to shoot people and not rescue people. But they made

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<v Speaker 2>their way through the city and eventually they made it

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<v Speaker 2>to this warehouse, the Guide's warehouse. They spend the night there,

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<v Speaker 2>like taking turns, keeping watch with the one gun that

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<v Speaker 2>they have between the two of them, and the next

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<v Speaker 2>day they realize that they can't do this. As two

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<v Speaker 2>white people with a gun and a boat. They are

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<v Speaker 2>not going to make the situation any better. They are

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<v Speaker 2>not going to rescue their friend. They are going to

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<v Speaker 2>make some problems worse. Yeah, which has got to be

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<v Speaker 2>an interesting decision to have to reach, you know.

0:12:00.600 --> 0:12:01.360
<v Speaker 3>Yeah.

0:12:01.400 --> 0:12:04.520
<v Speaker 1>Well it's also like a shadow of doubt is always there,

0:12:04.559 --> 0:12:07.760
<v Speaker 1>and you're like, but maybe we're different, but maybe we're

0:12:07.760 --> 0:12:08.800
<v Speaker 1>not different.

0:12:08.600 --> 0:12:12.800
<v Speaker 2>Right, yeah totally, and will people perceive us as different? Right?

0:12:12.880 --> 0:12:13.040
<v Speaker 3>Yeah?

0:12:13.400 --> 0:12:16.040
<v Speaker 2>Oh, like, don't worry, I'm an anti racist white person

0:12:16.080 --> 0:12:17.720
<v Speaker 2>in the middle of something that is starting to look

0:12:17.760 --> 0:12:19.280
<v Speaker 2>like a race war caused by white people.

0:12:19.800 --> 0:12:20.160
<v Speaker 3>Yeah.

0:12:20.200 --> 0:12:22.520
<v Speaker 2>You know, yeah, I've had to deal with like really

0:12:22.559 --> 0:12:24.360
<v Speaker 2>minor versions of that tension, but I've never had to

0:12:24.360 --> 0:12:26.560
<v Speaker 2>deal with anything like this that they can't even really

0:12:26.600 --> 0:12:31.040
<v Speaker 2>wrap my head around, you know. So they spent hours

0:12:31.120 --> 0:12:33.480
<v Speaker 2>boating their way back out of the city, like clinging

0:12:33.520 --> 0:12:35.640
<v Speaker 2>to their gun as they pass under bridges, waiting for

0:12:35.679 --> 0:12:38.439
<v Speaker 2>people to like ambush them to take their boat. They

0:12:38.440 --> 0:12:40.320
<v Speaker 2>make it back to their truck and they drive back

0:12:40.360 --> 0:12:43.480
<v Speaker 2>to Austin in Texas, which I'm sure takes a long

0:12:43.640 --> 0:12:44.280
<v Speaker 2>fucking time.

0:12:44.559 --> 0:12:45.760
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, ok.

0:12:47.440 --> 0:12:49.840
<v Speaker 2>And they're fucking dejected, you know. They're like, oh, we

0:12:49.920 --> 0:12:53.280
<v Speaker 2>went to go do this noble thing and we can't

0:12:53.679 --> 0:12:58.000
<v Speaker 2>didn't work, you know. And meanwhile, during all this, King

0:12:58.040 --> 0:13:00.520
<v Speaker 2>is hanging out on his front porch and you know,

0:13:00.840 --> 0:13:04.240
<v Speaker 2>feeding his dog. But his friends didn't know how he

0:13:04.280 --> 0:13:06.439
<v Speaker 2>was doing. He's doing okay, He's not I'm sure he's

0:13:06.440 --> 0:13:11.640
<v Speaker 2>not great, right, He's doing okay. And then on September fifth,

0:13:11.760 --> 0:13:14.720
<v Speaker 2>less than a week after the storm, the Texas Anarchists

0:13:14.720 --> 0:13:17.240
<v Speaker 2>get a call from New Orleans from Malik. This time

0:13:18.040 --> 0:13:21.880
<v Speaker 2>his phone line still works kind of it's kind of staticky, right,

0:13:22.920 --> 0:13:26.040
<v Speaker 2>and he's like, hey, I heard you tried to reach King.

0:13:26.679 --> 0:13:29.599
<v Speaker 2>We could really use outside support. We need supplies and

0:13:29.640 --> 0:13:33.720
<v Speaker 2>we need volunteers over in Algiers, you know. Yeah, And

0:13:33.760 --> 0:13:35.600
<v Speaker 2>so Scott goes and he's in Austin. He gives a

0:13:35.600 --> 0:13:39.040
<v Speaker 2>talk to like you know, sixty anarchists or radicals or whatever,

0:13:39.120 --> 0:13:40.680
<v Speaker 2>and he's like, hey, everyone, we gotta go do this

0:13:40.760 --> 0:13:44.319
<v Speaker 2>dangerous shit in New Orleans. Who's with us? And the

0:13:44.360 --> 0:13:46.080
<v Speaker 2>answer is a resounding nobody.

0:13:46.559 --> 0:13:47.000
<v Speaker 3>Yeah.

0:13:47.480 --> 0:13:49.440
<v Speaker 1>I mean I think at the time too, it's like

0:13:49.520 --> 0:13:52.280
<v Speaker 1>heading into New Orleans would have sounded like the most

0:13:52.640 --> 0:13:55.200
<v Speaker 1>like crazy thing you could do, basically.

0:13:55.720 --> 0:13:56.559
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, totally.

0:13:56.760 --> 0:13:57.200
<v Speaker 3>Yeah.

0:13:57.280 --> 0:14:00.640
<v Speaker 2>I mean Scott Crow actually compares go up into the

0:14:00.640 --> 0:14:03.880
<v Speaker 2>city and the boat to feeling like reliving The Heart

0:14:03.880 --> 0:14:08.320
<v Speaker 2>of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, you know, which is like, oh,

0:14:08.360 --> 0:14:13.680
<v Speaker 2>that's complicated, Yeah, because that is a lot. I don't

0:14:13.720 --> 0:14:16.319
<v Speaker 2>have really positive race feelings about Joseph Conrad in the

0:14:16.320 --> 0:14:18.400
<v Speaker 2>book Heart of Darkness, you know.

0:14:18.640 --> 0:14:21.720
<v Speaker 3>I yeah, I think it's just become a different thing.

0:14:21.880 --> 0:14:25.120
<v Speaker 1>But yeah, yeah, like when you say it like that,

0:14:25.760 --> 0:14:27.400
<v Speaker 1>there's so many things that you can need.

0:14:28.160 --> 0:14:29.400
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, no, absolutely.

0:14:29.880 --> 0:14:31.280
<v Speaker 1>I think for a lot of people it's just like

0:14:32.240 --> 0:14:35.040
<v Speaker 1>that book just means took a boat to a violent place.

0:14:35.800 --> 0:14:39.920
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, totally. I used to feel very strongly that Joseph

0:14:39.920 --> 0:14:42.240
<v Speaker 2>Conrad is piece of shit racist because he like has

0:14:42.280 --> 0:14:45.240
<v Speaker 2>this quote from when he's younger about seeing a black

0:14:45.240 --> 0:14:47.720
<v Speaker 2>person for the first time and being like terrified, and

0:14:48.000 --> 0:14:50.280
<v Speaker 2>like that image stayed in his mind as like an

0:14:50.280 --> 0:14:55.080
<v Speaker 2>object of terror for years or whatever. I've like since

0:14:55.680 --> 0:14:59.480
<v Speaker 2>I don't even remember the details. I've since complicated that

0:14:59.680 --> 0:15:02.560
<v Speaker 2>view of just corn red, but not in a way

0:15:02.560 --> 0:15:04.720
<v Speaker 2>where I'm like, what a good guy, but that is

0:15:04.800 --> 0:15:09.360
<v Speaker 2>not yeah, yeah, but is a really scary place. And

0:15:09.400 --> 0:15:10.840
<v Speaker 2>I understand why a bunch of people didn't want to

0:15:10.880 --> 0:15:16.200
<v Speaker 2>go show up with guns, you know. Yeah, Scott and

0:15:16.200 --> 0:15:21.320
<v Speaker 2>Brandon load up with supplies, including some rifles. This time

0:15:21.840 --> 0:15:23.880
<v Speaker 2>they forge a bunch of documents they forged. I think

0:15:24.000 --> 0:15:26.120
<v Speaker 2>it must be like press passes or something that they're like,

0:15:28.000 --> 0:15:31.080
<v Speaker 2>you know, in order to get through checkpoints. And they

0:15:31.160 --> 0:15:36.440
<v Speaker 2>drive to Algiers and along the way they stopped to

0:15:36.520 --> 0:15:46.960
<v Speaker 2>take advantage of sweet deals, just amazing products and services interwoven.

0:15:45.920 --> 0:15:53.280
<v Speaker 1>Rat It's all unpleasant every time. It just not unpleasant.

0:15:53.280 --> 0:15:57.600
<v Speaker 1>But it gets me every time. I'm like, oh, never,

0:15:57.800 --> 0:16:00.240
<v Speaker 1>never once have I not been like, God, damn it,

0:16:00.360 --> 0:16:01.240
<v Speaker 1>you got me again.

0:16:02.080 --> 0:16:07.120
<v Speaker 2>This is my one joy in life is cynically introducing

0:16:07.200 --> 0:16:12.080
<v Speaker 2>the interjections of capitalism into my anti capitalist podcast. Gotcha,

0:16:12.760 --> 0:16:26.200
<v Speaker 2>here they are and we're back. And so they've made

0:16:26.400 --> 0:16:29.480
<v Speaker 2>their way through the gauntlet of government checkpoints and advertisers

0:16:29.800 --> 0:16:34.200
<v Speaker 2>and which weren't there, but the government checkpoints were. And

0:16:34.240 --> 0:16:37.040
<v Speaker 2>they made it to Malik's house, which was the center

0:16:37.080 --> 0:16:40.080
<v Speaker 2>of local organizing, right, And this is a shotgun house

0:16:40.080 --> 0:16:43.120
<v Speaker 2>built in the nineteen thirties in the New Orleans style,

0:16:43.840 --> 0:16:47.200
<v Speaker 2>And there's food and supplies being distributed and plans were

0:16:47.200 --> 0:16:49.680
<v Speaker 2>being made. But the most pressing concern as soon as

0:16:49.680 --> 0:16:52.040
<v Speaker 2>they get there, after you know, handing out the supplies

0:16:52.040 --> 0:16:56.880
<v Speaker 2>they brought, is above food water first aid is the

0:16:56.880 --> 0:17:00.440
<v Speaker 2>fact that a white militia threatening to kill Malik, right, right,

0:17:00.560 --> 0:17:00.920
<v Speaker 2>that is.

0:17:01.560 --> 0:17:03.400
<v Speaker 1>A problem pretty serious.

0:17:03.520 --> 0:17:03.800
<v Speaker 3>Yeah.

0:17:03.880 --> 0:17:08.480
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, So Brandon Scott and three locals set armed on

0:17:08.520 --> 0:17:12.240
<v Speaker 2>Malik's front porch Jesus and the militia came by in

0:17:12.280 --> 0:17:14.320
<v Speaker 2>a pickup truck, you know, like a couple guys in

0:17:14.320 --> 0:17:15.560
<v Speaker 2>the back with rifles or whatever.

0:17:15.960 --> 0:17:18.119
<v Speaker 3>Fuck. This is like so real.

0:17:18.240 --> 0:17:20.840
<v Speaker 1>I also just like, I don't know why my YouTube

0:17:20.880 --> 0:17:25.200
<v Speaker 1>algorithm has been suggesting clips from gameplay of the Last

0:17:25.240 --> 0:17:26.159
<v Speaker 1>of Us, So.

0:17:26.040 --> 0:17:27.240
<v Speaker 3>It's very cool.

0:17:28.280 --> 0:17:32.160
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, basically, yeah, that's that shit. Yeah, well, and that's

0:17:32.200 --> 0:17:35.719
<v Speaker 2>like this is how we counterpoint that, you know, like

0:17:35.760 --> 0:17:38.960
<v Speaker 2>I do a whole podcast with preparedness and this is

0:17:39.040 --> 0:17:44.159
<v Speaker 2>how we counter it is we present organizing models that,

0:17:44.280 --> 0:17:48.359
<v Speaker 2>instead of rely on get guns and shoot everyone who's different, say,

0:17:49.119 --> 0:17:52.040
<v Speaker 2>distribute things and probably get guns to defend yourself from

0:17:52.040 --> 0:17:54.280
<v Speaker 2>the people trying to shoot everyone who's different, you know.

0:17:55.040 --> 0:17:55.760
<v Speaker 3>Yeah.

0:17:55.840 --> 0:17:58.080
<v Speaker 2>So the militia showed up and they were like, oh shit,

0:17:58.320 --> 0:17:59.880
<v Speaker 2>I thought I was playing the video game one easy.

0:18:01.480 --> 0:18:04.399
<v Speaker 2>Now I'm not anymore because the other side is suddenly armed.

0:18:05.880 --> 0:18:08.639
<v Speaker 2>They realized they were outnumbered, they realized they were out gunned,

0:18:08.800 --> 0:18:10.800
<v Speaker 2>and they realized that the people facing them down were

0:18:10.840 --> 0:18:15.359
<v Speaker 2>both white and black. And the folks on the porch said, basically,

0:18:15.760 --> 0:18:20.160
<v Speaker 2>you won't be harassing people in this neighborhood anymore. Yeah,

0:18:20.240 --> 0:18:23.120
<v Speaker 2>And this last part, the fact that they're white and

0:18:23.160 --> 0:18:27.760
<v Speaker 2>black winds up mattering quite a lot in what happens

0:18:27.840 --> 0:18:31.520
<v Speaker 2>in New Orleans and Algiers in particular, in the near future,

0:18:32.400 --> 0:18:34.439
<v Speaker 2>there was a lot of racial tension in the city.

0:18:34.640 --> 0:18:37.919
<v Speaker 2>Scott writes about it very explicitly that it it felt

0:18:37.920 --> 0:18:40.159
<v Speaker 2>like it could have fallen into race war, right, or

0:18:41.280 --> 0:18:43.000
<v Speaker 2>I mean, in some ways it is race war, right,

0:18:43.040 --> 0:18:45.400
<v Speaker 2>the whole American project is race war.

0:18:45.440 --> 0:18:49.600
<v Speaker 1>But however you want to describe, yeah, escalating that yeah,

0:18:49.680 --> 0:18:53.240
<v Speaker 1>I guess it's like like race cold war into race hot.

0:18:53.040 --> 0:18:58.760
<v Speaker 2>War totally, or like race war war the other side

0:18:58.760 --> 0:19:03.880
<v Speaker 2>shooting too. Yeah, well right, yeah, so whatever that is.

0:19:04.160 --> 0:19:06.960
<v Speaker 2>The usual goal is to not have it turn into

0:19:07.440 --> 0:19:07.960
<v Speaker 2>race war.

0:19:08.200 --> 0:19:09.879
<v Speaker 1>That's the yeah for now.

0:19:10.080 --> 0:19:18.000
<v Speaker 2>Yeah is that Tony Hawk meme? Anyway, So it mattered

0:19:18.040 --> 0:19:20.720
<v Speaker 2>a lot that some white folks from Texas had shown

0:19:20.760 --> 0:19:24.560
<v Speaker 2>up with guns to protect black residents, and that helped

0:19:24.560 --> 0:19:29.280
<v Speaker 2>defuse certain tensions that were happening. So they started patrols

0:19:29.320 --> 0:19:32.920
<v Speaker 2>to keep militias out of the neighborhood. Armed patrols, And

0:19:33.800 --> 0:19:36.439
<v Speaker 2>this is one of the first instances of community defense

0:19:36.480 --> 0:19:38.159
<v Speaker 2>from the left in the twenty first century in the

0:19:38.280 --> 0:19:42.600
<v Speaker 2>US that I'm I'm aware of because community defense. Armed

0:19:42.640 --> 0:19:46.280
<v Speaker 2>community defense had largely gone out of style for decades,

0:19:46.280 --> 0:19:49.160
<v Speaker 2>with moments of there's exceptions, right, but it had largely

0:19:49.160 --> 0:19:52.960
<v Speaker 2>gone out of style for decades because we had a

0:19:52.960 --> 0:19:55.919
<v Speaker 2>lot of like non violence and stuff in the eighties

0:19:55.960 --> 0:19:58.960
<v Speaker 2>and nineties in terms of activism in the United States,

0:20:00.200 --> 0:20:03.480
<v Speaker 2>was not in style when this happened in two thousand

0:20:03.520 --> 0:20:06.200
<v Speaker 2>and five, I barely knew anyone who owned a gun.

0:20:07.720 --> 0:20:12.320
<v Speaker 2>It's twenty twenty four and for very similar reasons. White

0:20:12.359 --> 0:20:16.080
<v Speaker 2>militias directly and personally threatening my life. I'm armed, and

0:20:16.160 --> 0:20:20.520
<v Speaker 2>many people I know are Yeah, but yeah, not the style.

0:20:21.280 --> 0:20:24.159
<v Speaker 2>They're doing it anyway, because it needs doing so the

0:20:24.160 --> 0:20:28.160
<v Speaker 2>most pressing issue was being addressed, right. They had started

0:20:28.160 --> 0:20:31.240
<v Speaker 2>to stand up to the militias. And so then three

0:20:31.280 --> 0:20:35.160
<v Speaker 2>of them, Scott, Sharon, and Malik, sat around Malik's kitchen

0:20:35.200 --> 0:20:38.400
<v Speaker 2>table and hashed out how they would build a revolutionary

0:20:38.440 --> 0:20:43.240
<v Speaker 2>aid organization. They prioritize security, first aid, and food distribution,

0:20:44.640 --> 0:20:47.720
<v Speaker 2>and they built what would soon become the common Ground

0:20:47.720 --> 0:20:52.680
<v Speaker 2>collective all around them. The state was failing, the Red

0:20:52.720 --> 0:20:55.320
<v Speaker 2>Cross was raising billions of dollars but not helping. So

0:20:55.359 --> 0:20:57.640
<v Speaker 2>they were going to do something different. To quote Scott Crow,

0:20:58.600 --> 0:21:01.840
<v Speaker 2>we would begin relief work without reliance on or interference

0:21:01.880 --> 0:21:05.240
<v Speaker 2>from the state or professional aid agencies. We would prefigure

0:21:05.280 --> 0:21:07.680
<v Speaker 2>the civil society we would like to see in the future.

0:21:08.720 --> 0:21:11.200
<v Speaker 2>And they decided to build this organization. They would build

0:21:11.240 --> 0:21:13.880
<v Speaker 2>on what everyone knew. Malik, of course, had done direct

0:21:13.880 --> 0:21:17.040
<v Speaker 2>community aid and organizing with the Panthers and beyond, and

0:21:17.080 --> 0:21:20.080
<v Speaker 2>Scott was a veteran of the alter globalization movement. The

0:21:20.119 --> 0:21:23.520
<v Speaker 2>turn of the Millennium Right, which was the big protest

0:21:23.560 --> 0:21:26.800
<v Speaker 2>movement in the late nineties and early odds, Right, which

0:21:26.840 --> 0:21:31.360
<v Speaker 2>had taught how to build grassroots infrastructure everywhere. It went

0:21:31.480 --> 0:21:34.080
<v Speaker 2>a very like dynamic and responsive thing. At all these

0:21:34.119 --> 0:21:36.520
<v Speaker 2>street medics, you had all of these you know, direct

0:21:36.560 --> 0:21:39.600
<v Speaker 2>action participants, you had all these organizers who were good

0:21:39.640 --> 0:21:46.280
<v Speaker 2>at going places. Brandon Darby wasn't part of this initial

0:21:47.080 --> 0:21:50.480
<v Speaker 2>thing because and he's still i mean, he's doing good

0:21:50.480 --> 0:21:53.040
<v Speaker 2>things during this stage of it, right, But yeah, yeah,

0:21:53.160 --> 0:21:55.480
<v Speaker 2>he had gone off into the floodwaters to find Robert

0:21:55.600 --> 0:21:59.679
<v Speaker 2>King because they still hadn't found him, right, right, And

0:21:59.760 --> 0:22:01.399
<v Speaker 2>so he like drives as far as he can, and

0:22:01.400 --> 0:22:03.040
<v Speaker 2>then he parks his truck and he gets out and

0:22:03.080 --> 0:22:05.000
<v Speaker 2>he's just like fuck it, and he starts wading into

0:22:05.040 --> 0:22:10.520
<v Speaker 2>the dark flood waters. FEMA surrounds him while he's wading

0:22:10.600 --> 0:22:13.960
<v Speaker 2>waists deep through storm water, and eventually he persuades them.

0:22:13.960 --> 0:22:17.000
<v Speaker 2>He's like, look, let me go check on the following person,

0:22:17.080 --> 0:22:20.560
<v Speaker 2>the following address, and it was nearby, and so they

0:22:20.560 --> 0:22:22.879
<v Speaker 2>found King and his dog Kenya on the front porch

0:22:23.760 --> 0:22:26.960
<v Speaker 2>and basically, through sheer force of will or whatever, they

0:22:26.960 --> 0:22:29.840
<v Speaker 2>were like, King is coming and the dog is coming.

0:22:30.080 --> 0:22:34.000
<v Speaker 1>Right, that's fucking good at least Jesus and that one

0:22:34.480 --> 0:22:37.480
<v Speaker 1>silver well, no, it's it is silver linings. I get that.

0:22:37.520 --> 0:22:40.879
<v Speaker 2>But yea, it's funny. It's like this whole this episode

0:22:41.000 --> 0:22:44.639
<v Speaker 2>is about the silver lining to this storm cloud. You know, yeah,

0:22:45.359 --> 0:22:48.840
<v Speaker 2>we have to get through the cloud. And King said simply,

0:22:49.320 --> 0:22:52.920
<v Speaker 2>I knew y'all would come, which is fucking cool.

0:22:53.640 --> 0:22:54.120
<v Speaker 1>That's fair.

0:22:54.240 --> 0:22:56.640
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, gotta have a line ready.

0:22:59.600 --> 0:23:00.400
<v Speaker 1>When they came here.

0:23:00.560 --> 0:23:05.520
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, day four he's like, fuck, he's a going back

0:23:05.520 --> 0:23:07.160
<v Speaker 2>and forth between took y'all long enough?

0:23:07.480 --> 0:23:09.600
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, yeah, it's like okay, okay, all right, all right,

0:23:09.720 --> 0:23:12.240
<v Speaker 1>just trying it out on the dog totally.

0:23:15.640 --> 0:23:19.080
<v Speaker 2>And it was King who named the organization, or it

0:23:19.119 --> 0:23:23.080
<v Speaker 2>was someone paraphrasing King. I've sort of read both. The

0:23:23.119 --> 0:23:25.399
<v Speaker 2>whole point of this organization was to come together to

0:23:25.440 --> 0:23:28.520
<v Speaker 2>help each other. So King said, the only thing we

0:23:28.600 --> 0:23:33.600
<v Speaker 2>need to find is common ground, and you know right,

0:23:33.800 --> 0:23:34.720
<v Speaker 2>they were like, yeah.

0:23:36.000 --> 0:23:39.280
<v Speaker 3>That's good, nafe good knife yeah.

0:23:38.600 --> 0:23:41.719
<v Speaker 2>No notes. And then I think it was Malik who

0:23:41.720 --> 0:23:45.160
<v Speaker 2>added a collective because wanted to indicate what that meant.

0:23:45.240 --> 0:23:46.959
<v Speaker 2>And it was interesting because it was actually a class,

0:23:47.000 --> 0:23:52.080
<v Speaker 2>not a clash, emerging of two ideological positions, where Malik

0:23:52.200 --> 0:23:54.879
<v Speaker 2>is coming more out of a hierarchical organizing model and

0:23:54.920 --> 0:23:58.239
<v Speaker 2>Scott Crow's coming out of a much more decentralized and

0:23:58.520 --> 0:24:04.560
<v Speaker 2>horizontal organizing model. But they started the way that all

0:24:04.600 --> 0:24:08.440
<v Speaker 2>smart organizations like this do. They don't decide what needs

0:24:08.520 --> 0:24:11.280
<v Speaker 2>doing and go around and like just do it for people.

0:24:11.680 --> 0:24:15.320
<v Speaker 2>They go around and they fucking canvas. They ask. They're like, right, hey,

0:24:15.480 --> 0:24:19.800
<v Speaker 2>but what yeah, what do you need? One woman was like,

0:24:20.440 --> 0:24:23.800
<v Speaker 2>the trash on the street, that is the problem. And

0:24:24.760 --> 0:24:26.639
<v Speaker 2>this is exactly how the Young Lords started. We did

0:24:26.680 --> 0:24:29.240
<v Speaker 2>a four parter about them. They were amazing Puerto Rican

0:24:29.760 --> 0:24:33.120
<v Speaker 2>radicals in New York City and Chicago. The Young Lord

0:24:33.240 --> 0:24:36.360
<v Speaker 2>started with a trash pickup, So they started doing trash

0:24:36.400 --> 0:24:39.119
<v Speaker 2>pickup and they're soon joined by a deacon named Reverend Powell.

0:24:39.960 --> 0:24:45.080
<v Speaker 2>Not the Young Lords the common Ground. Pretty soon thereafter

0:24:45.240 --> 0:24:47.560
<v Speaker 2>they evacuate King from the city because the state is

0:24:47.600 --> 0:24:50.439
<v Speaker 2>just like, the state does not like this man, you know,

0:24:50.720 --> 0:24:53.520
<v Speaker 2>right right right, and he's like this, this is not

0:24:53.600 --> 0:24:56.280
<v Speaker 2>the place for me. And Brandon Darby, the later informant,

0:24:56.400 --> 0:24:58.480
<v Speaker 2>he also leaves at this point. He's not around for

0:24:58.520 --> 0:25:01.399
<v Speaker 2>the setting up of the organization. Besides, this initial moment

0:25:02.640 --> 0:25:05.080
<v Speaker 2>basically says I don't like organizing anyhow.

0:25:06.960 --> 0:25:08.119
<v Speaker 3>Which I guess is true.

0:25:08.440 --> 0:25:12.240
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, fair enough, Yeah, yeah, it's much more destroying these organizations.

0:25:12.840 --> 0:25:14.719
<v Speaker 2>And so then they just organized their asses off. They

0:25:14.760 --> 0:25:18.120
<v Speaker 2>relied on decades of experience in networking. Someone from Greenpeace

0:25:18.200 --> 0:25:20.720
<v Speaker 2>sent the first two way radios, not green Peace, the organization.

0:25:20.880 --> 0:25:25.119
<v Speaker 2>Someone from Greenpeace sent their first two way radios, and

0:25:25.160 --> 0:25:27.479
<v Speaker 2>then a whole ass food not Bombs chapter made its

0:25:27.520 --> 0:25:30.320
<v Speaker 2>way down from Hartford, Connecticut, just like they're like, all right, oh,

0:25:31.160 --> 0:25:34.840
<v Speaker 2>well more than Hartford does, right now. You know, I

0:25:34.880 --> 0:25:36.520
<v Speaker 2>actually almost went down during this, but then I got

0:25:36.520 --> 0:25:37.840
<v Speaker 2>into an argument with the person I was going to

0:25:37.880 --> 0:25:39.200
<v Speaker 2>go with, and so they went and then I didn't.

0:25:39.960 --> 0:25:40.680
<v Speaker 1>Pretty classic.

0:25:40.720 --> 0:25:44.560
<v Speaker 2>Also, I know, exactly, like God, the.

0:25:44.560 --> 0:25:46.360
<v Speaker 3>Thing that happens, it's understandable.

0:25:46.520 --> 0:25:49.800
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and the powers that be were trying hard to

0:25:49.880 --> 0:25:52.119
<v Speaker 2>keep AID out of the city.

0:25:52.480 --> 0:25:55.439
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, if it wasn't, I mean, good, it's such like

0:25:55.480 --> 0:26:00.439
<v Speaker 1>a common tale. But I was just like, I just

0:26:00.600 --> 0:26:03.639
<v Speaker 1>I'm sort of curious, not I guess that curious, like

0:26:03.680 --> 0:26:06.639
<v Speaker 1>what these people actually tell themselves at night, Like the

0:26:06.680 --> 0:26:07.719
<v Speaker 1>fuck is wrong with you?

0:26:08.600 --> 0:26:11.000
<v Speaker 2>I know, I think that they're like, well, what's interesting

0:26:11.119 --> 0:26:13.240
<v Speaker 2>later in this story, a lot of the powers that

0:26:13.280 --> 0:26:15.520
<v Speaker 2>be who work for all these organizations are just going

0:26:15.600 --> 0:26:18.120
<v Speaker 2>to start giving stuff to common Ground against their own

0:26:18.280 --> 0:26:19.080
<v Speaker 2>like guidelines.

0:26:19.480 --> 0:26:20.560
<v Speaker 3>Yeah.

0:26:20.400 --> 0:26:22.960
<v Speaker 2>That was actually the story that like I kind of

0:26:23.000 --> 0:26:26.320
<v Speaker 2>heard first about Common Ground was like, oh, the National

0:26:26.320 --> 0:26:29.000
<v Speaker 2>Guard is like, hey, y'all are better distributing this stuff

0:26:29.040 --> 0:26:32.440
<v Speaker 2>than us. Here you go, yeah, you know, yeah, but yeah,

0:26:32.760 --> 0:26:34.400
<v Speaker 2>at the start of it, they're like, oh, we got

0:26:34.400 --> 0:26:36.359
<v Speaker 2>to keep everyone safe by making sure these people don't

0:26:36.359 --> 0:26:40.000
<v Speaker 2>go into the city, and so people had to smuggle

0:26:40.160 --> 0:26:43.240
<v Speaker 2>supplies in with like media and then also official aid

0:26:43.320 --> 0:26:47.840
<v Speaker 2>personnel would help them smuggle through the official aid boundary.

0:26:47.880 --> 0:26:50.240
<v Speaker 1>Right, you can at least like write, even if your

0:26:50.359 --> 0:26:53.679
<v Speaker 1>fucking organization is to whatever, we can at least like

0:26:53.720 --> 0:26:54.959
<v Speaker 1>slap a badge on something.

0:26:55.160 --> 0:26:58.800
<v Speaker 2>Totally. But the first doctor they tried to get through

0:26:59.480 --> 0:27:03.280
<v Speaker 2>was black and he got denied at every checkpoint, and

0:27:03.680 --> 0:27:07.680
<v Speaker 2>white volunteers were just like slipping through, no problem. Yeah,

0:27:07.800 --> 0:27:11.960
<v Speaker 2>which is probably a coincidence. Right, Racism has been gone

0:27:12.000 --> 0:27:14.680
<v Speaker 2>for decades at this point, you.

0:27:14.640 --> 0:27:20.480
<v Speaker 1>Know, Oh man, it really yeah, it's so fucking it's

0:27:20.600 --> 0:27:24.080
<v Speaker 1>so like depressing, how like frequently it just that, you know,

0:27:24.400 --> 0:27:28.000
<v Speaker 1>there's no situation where that shit doesn't just crop up. Yeah,

0:27:28.280 --> 0:27:29.879
<v Speaker 1>totally fuck.

0:27:30.400 --> 0:27:33.600
<v Speaker 2>An anarchist collective of street medics from DC called may

0:27:33.640 --> 0:27:35.639
<v Speaker 2>Day d C showed up in an old van and

0:27:35.640 --> 0:27:37.720
<v Speaker 2>then they worked to set up the first first aid station,

0:27:37.760 --> 0:27:41.720
<v Speaker 2>which was at Malik's mosque, and it was first staff

0:27:41.760 --> 0:27:44.199
<v Speaker 2>by these street medics, and soon doctors coming from as

0:27:44.240 --> 0:27:48.320
<v Speaker 2>far away as California. A bike shop in Austin donated

0:27:48.320 --> 0:27:52.120
<v Speaker 2>two hundred bicycles, and once the bikes get in, medics

0:27:52.119 --> 0:27:54.960
<v Speaker 2>go door to door by bike to check in on everyone. Right,

0:27:55.000 --> 0:27:57.720
<v Speaker 2>they're just like, oh, damn, yeah, how's everyone in the

0:27:57.720 --> 0:28:01.000
<v Speaker 2>neighborhood doing? You know which I mean considering the number

0:28:01.000 --> 0:28:03.200
<v Speaker 2>of like dead bodies that they're finding, right that, yeah,

0:28:03.480 --> 0:28:06.800
<v Speaker 2>must have been an interesting job. Yeah, Jesus Malik's house

0:28:06.840 --> 0:28:09.679
<v Speaker 2>is soon a distro center and a tent city of

0:28:09.680 --> 0:28:11.480
<v Speaker 2>people sleeping in the yards sets up. I think this

0:28:11.520 --> 0:28:14.720
<v Speaker 2>is mostly the volunteers. It takes neighbors a minute to

0:28:14.720 --> 0:28:16.679
<v Speaker 2>trust all the white folks are suddenly in their neighborhood.

0:28:16.720 --> 0:28:18.640
<v Speaker 2>Most of the volunteers who are now pouring in from

0:28:18.680 --> 0:28:21.359
<v Speaker 2>outside or white but not all right. But once they

0:28:21.400 --> 0:28:23.480
<v Speaker 2>realize that they've been invited and that a lot of

0:28:23.520 --> 0:28:25.880
<v Speaker 2>the core organizing is coming from black people who live

0:28:25.880 --> 0:28:28.000
<v Speaker 2>in the neighborhood and grew up there, you know. And

0:28:28.000 --> 0:28:29.760
<v Speaker 2>they're also like, okay, and you're not the Red Cross

0:28:29.760 --> 0:28:33.280
<v Speaker 2>and you're not vigilantes. Yeah, and so they start building trust.

0:28:33.960 --> 0:28:37.240
<v Speaker 2>Veterans for Peace started coordinating supply drops. And there's this

0:28:37.320 --> 0:28:42.320
<v Speaker 2>French organization Secur Popular Francis that starts helping out too.

0:28:42.440 --> 0:28:44.840
<v Speaker 2>Because the Red Cross and FEMA told them to kick rocks.

0:28:44.840 --> 0:28:47.600
<v Speaker 2>They're like, right, oh, you don't pronounce enough of the

0:28:47.680 --> 0:28:51.920
<v Speaker 2>letters in your words, you can't help, or like we

0:28:52.040 --> 0:28:57.680
<v Speaker 2>remember the yeah French Indians, but no, yeah, I know, right,

0:28:59.000 --> 0:29:01.440
<v Speaker 2>And so they had fiftyvolunteers like pretty soon then goes

0:29:01.520 --> 0:29:03.960
<v Speaker 2>up to like seventy and a couple hundred and stuff,

0:29:03.960 --> 0:29:07.240
<v Speaker 2>you know, And they have fifty volunteers of patrolling to

0:29:07.320 --> 0:29:10.080
<v Speaker 2>keep out militias. They're running a medical clinic and a distro,

0:29:11.120 --> 0:29:13.120
<v Speaker 2>and they're heading out in a rescue boat and they're

0:29:13.120 --> 0:29:16.400
<v Speaker 2>heading out just to check on everyone and pass out

0:29:16.440 --> 0:29:19.920
<v Speaker 2>what needs passing out. They get generators and extension cords

0:29:19.960 --> 0:29:22.080
<v Speaker 2>that are snaking through the neighborhood. This is the only

0:29:22.120 --> 0:29:25.600
<v Speaker 2>power in this neighborhood for months, or gas power generators

0:29:25.600 --> 0:29:29.960
<v Speaker 2>that they're bringing in, right, tech and media collectives. This

0:29:30.040 --> 0:29:33.120
<v Speaker 2>is like the same era that like there's this whole

0:29:33.120 --> 0:29:35.800
<v Speaker 2>weird one day, I'll probably cover this. Do you know

0:29:35.840 --> 0:29:38.680
<v Speaker 2>that there's like a weird anarchist connection to social media

0:29:38.680 --> 0:29:39.800
<v Speaker 2>and Twitter and all that shit.

0:29:41.080 --> 0:29:45.160
<v Speaker 1>I mean, just I mean, I guess I think of

0:29:45.200 --> 0:29:48.880
<v Speaker 1>it more of just the general Internet, like the you know,

0:29:49.080 --> 0:29:54.280
<v Speaker 1>the kind of like hippies, no no tech hippies, like

0:29:54.360 --> 0:29:57.760
<v Speaker 1>no no borders, no boundaries kind of hacker people.

0:29:58.000 --> 0:30:00.400
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and you have a lot of it, a lot

0:30:00.440 --> 0:30:02.960
<v Speaker 2>of the infrastructure that they learned how to build during

0:30:03.640 --> 0:30:07.479
<v Speaker 2>these anti globalization ault globalization protests. Oh sure, we're like,

0:30:08.440 --> 0:30:10.560
<v Speaker 2>and they would set up these like indie media nodes

0:30:10.600 --> 0:30:13.880
<v Speaker 2>where like it's like everyone's a journalist, which prefigures both

0:30:13.880 --> 0:30:15.880
<v Speaker 2>the good things and the bad things about the monitoring that.

0:30:17.400 --> 0:30:19.120
<v Speaker 2>And so it's like all of those people start coming

0:30:19.200 --> 0:30:21.720
<v Speaker 2>to right, these tech and media collectives show up and

0:30:21.760 --> 0:30:24.440
<v Speaker 2>they do weird tech stuff involving vans and radios to

0:30:24.440 --> 0:30:29.080
<v Speaker 2>get phone and internet service going through all the Sure. Yeah,

0:30:29.160 --> 0:30:32.000
<v Speaker 2>and they set up a pirate radio station just fucking cool.

0:30:32.840 --> 0:30:35.400
<v Speaker 2>Like pirate radio is like always cool, but especially in

0:30:35.400 --> 0:30:35.960
<v Speaker 2>this situation.

0:30:37.560 --> 0:30:37.760
<v Speaker 3>Yeah.

0:30:37.800 --> 0:30:41.080
<v Speaker 1>Well it's also like more useful than usual.

0:30:40.800 --> 0:30:44.440
<v Speaker 2>Too, Yeah exactly, Like usually, yeah it's cool because it's

0:30:44.520 --> 0:30:47.400
<v Speaker 2>pirate radio. In this case, it's like, yeah, we need this.

0:30:47.600 --> 0:30:52.240
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, we need to like yeah, coordinate and inform people.

0:30:52.440 --> 0:30:56.120
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, And Malik starts leaving for you weeks at a

0:30:56.160 --> 0:30:58.440
<v Speaker 2>time to go across the country to raise awareness and

0:30:58.480 --> 0:31:02.120
<v Speaker 2>funds and bring in volunteers to bring people to help

0:31:02.640 --> 0:31:07.479
<v Speaker 2>rebuild New Orleans from the bottom up. Common Ground starts

0:31:07.480 --> 0:31:09.840
<v Speaker 2>crossing the river in order to help it out in

0:31:09.880 --> 0:31:12.680
<v Speaker 2>the flooded seventh and ninth wards. They start with hot

0:31:12.720 --> 0:31:17.200
<v Speaker 2>food served by food not bombs. There's other groups doing this, right.

0:31:18.240 --> 0:31:20.360
<v Speaker 2>They hook up with a group called Soul Patrol, which

0:31:20.360 --> 0:31:22.240
<v Speaker 2>is a mutual aid group started by a woman named

0:31:22.280 --> 0:31:25.680
<v Speaker 2>Mama Dee who is fighting Homeland security that was trying

0:31:25.680 --> 0:31:28.560
<v Speaker 2>to force everyone out of their homes because the whole time,

0:31:28.600 --> 0:31:30.880
<v Speaker 2>it's like no one's really supposed to be in New Orleans,

0:31:30.880 --> 0:31:33.400
<v Speaker 2>but you like kind of can't round everyone up and

0:31:33.480 --> 0:31:34.800
<v Speaker 2>kick them out, but you can kind of.

0:31:34.720 --> 0:31:37.840
<v Speaker 3>Try, right, or you just harassed people who are there.

0:31:38.120 --> 0:31:43.880
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, Yeah, exactly. And so the Soul Patrol is fighting

0:31:43.880 --> 0:31:46.880
<v Speaker 2>against Homeland Security all the while trying to you know,

0:31:46.960 --> 0:31:50.600
<v Speaker 2>get generators going and stuff like that. Common ground gets

0:31:50.680 --> 0:31:54.680
<v Speaker 2>them to generators and other supplies. Eventually, the National Guard

0:31:54.720 --> 0:31:58.720
<v Speaker 2>shows up in Algiers, and they kind of didn't do much.

0:31:59.400 --> 0:32:01.880
<v Speaker 2>They around in hum v's and they were like, Hey,

0:32:01.920 --> 0:32:04.000
<v Speaker 2>we're gonna like and they would like announce from loud speakers,

0:32:04.080 --> 0:32:06.360
<v Speaker 2>be like two days from now we're going to tarp houses.

0:32:06.600 --> 0:32:09.280
<v Speaker 2>Everyone tell us if we need your house tarped, like

0:32:09.480 --> 0:32:12.520
<v Speaker 2>they'd go put tarps over roofs in order to you know,

0:32:12.840 --> 0:32:16.320
<v Speaker 2>keep the rain water from In the end, they spent

0:32:16.440 --> 0:32:19.640
<v Speaker 2>after like announcing this for days, they spent a couple

0:32:19.760 --> 0:32:22.720
<v Speaker 2>hours putting tarps on about five houses out of one

0:32:22.800 --> 0:32:24.880
<v Speaker 2>hundred plus people who requested it.

0:32:25.880 --> 0:32:26.880
<v Speaker 3>That feels about right.

0:32:28.080 --> 0:32:32.640
<v Speaker 2>But so the organization itself, the National Guard, noth looking great, right,

0:32:33.200 --> 0:32:38.200
<v Speaker 2>But individuals kind of shine even, you know, people do

0:32:38.280 --> 0:32:41.520
<v Speaker 2>what needs doing a lot of times, so units that

0:32:41.560 --> 0:32:44.000
<v Speaker 2>were like leaving, they were like, oh, we're cycling out

0:32:44.040 --> 0:32:46.880
<v Speaker 2>or whatever. We'd be like, whoops, we're totally just going

0:32:46.960 --> 0:32:50.480
<v Speaker 2>to leave these supplies here right with you. And so

0:32:51.040 --> 0:32:52.920
<v Speaker 2>with the people are supposed to get them, you know.

0:32:53.280 --> 0:32:55.600
<v Speaker 3>To the extent that there is much help on any

0:32:55.640 --> 0:32:56.240
<v Speaker 3>of this stuff.

0:32:56.280 --> 0:33:01.800
<v Speaker 1>It is like, ultimately it's still human beings, you know,

0:33:01.920 --> 0:33:05.920
<v Speaker 1>running these organized you know, like National Guard units and whatever,

0:33:06.080 --> 0:33:11.520
<v Speaker 1>and like we'll see, but hopefully some of them sometimes

0:33:11.760 --> 0:33:12.400
<v Speaker 1>can do good.

0:33:12.680 --> 0:33:17.920
<v Speaker 2>Yeah exactly. Pastors for Peace soon starts donating, and soon

0:33:17.920 --> 0:33:20.680
<v Speaker 2>there's also a common Ground clinic at a church as

0:33:20.720 --> 0:33:22.920
<v Speaker 2>well as the one at the mosque. It's a church

0:33:22.960 --> 0:33:26.600
<v Speaker 2>called Saint Mary's. Rather, what happened was that the National

0:33:26.600 --> 0:33:29.080
<v Speaker 2>Guard was running one there for two hours a day,

0:33:29.120 --> 0:33:33.080
<v Speaker 2>two days a week, and then basically was like y'all

0:33:33.080 --> 0:33:35.080
<v Speaker 2>want to do this, you'll do it better and common

0:33:35.080 --> 0:33:39.600
<v Speaker 2>Grounds yeah we do and we will, you know. And

0:33:40.680 --> 0:33:44.080
<v Speaker 2>so at this point that means you have Marxist anarchists, Muslims,

0:33:44.080 --> 0:33:47.520
<v Speaker 2>and Christians all working together with the help from sympathetic

0:33:47.640 --> 0:33:51.080
<v Speaker 2>National guardsmen who are sneaking them supplies. At one point

0:33:51.120 --> 0:33:53.360
<v Speaker 2>you have a truck from Islamic Relief showing up with

0:33:53.360 --> 0:33:57.760
<v Speaker 2>supplies from Mormon and Catholic charities. Like fuck yeah, common Ground,

0:33:58.080 --> 0:34:01.360
<v Speaker 2>you know, like literally the name fine common guy.

0:34:01.440 --> 0:34:02.920
<v Speaker 3>Yeah.

0:34:03.000 --> 0:34:05.360
<v Speaker 2>It was all organized horizontally, and it was organized on

0:34:05.360 --> 0:34:09.520
<v Speaker 2>anarchist principles. It wasn't an anarchist organization, but anarchist principles

0:34:09.800 --> 0:34:12.959
<v Speaker 2>work really well for different groups of different ideologies working

0:34:13.040 --> 0:34:16.080
<v Speaker 2>together because the principles say that everyone is equal, so

0:34:16.200 --> 0:34:19.839
<v Speaker 2>one position can't dominate the group. You know, it can't

0:34:19.920 --> 0:34:23.719
<v Speaker 2>become a Christian organization or a Muslim organization or even

0:34:23.880 --> 0:34:27.000
<v Speaker 2>an anarchist organization. They had a big meeting every morning

0:34:27.040 --> 0:34:29.319
<v Speaker 2>at seven am. They they just worked their asses off

0:34:29.320 --> 0:34:32.480
<v Speaker 2>and burned themselves out. But we'll get to that. Yeah,

0:34:32.520 --> 0:34:34.600
<v Speaker 2>every morning seven am they did check ins and help

0:34:34.640 --> 0:34:36.799
<v Speaker 2>people figure out what needed doing on that day. And

0:34:36.800 --> 0:34:39.120
<v Speaker 2>they use a spokes council model, so like someone would

0:34:39.120 --> 0:34:40.879
<v Speaker 2>speak up for like one of the clinics, and someone

0:34:40.920 --> 0:34:43.520
<v Speaker 2>would be like, oh, trash Duty says this, and you know,

0:34:43.760 --> 0:34:46.000
<v Speaker 2>food nott bums, and then seventh Ward says they need

0:34:46.040 --> 0:34:49.120
<v Speaker 2>this and stuff like that. Then they would work all

0:34:49.160 --> 0:34:50.719
<v Speaker 2>fucking day and then they would meet again in the

0:34:50.760 --> 0:34:52.640
<v Speaker 2>evening and then they would sleep for like three hours

0:34:52.760 --> 0:34:53.080
<v Speaker 2>or whatever.

0:34:53.360 --> 0:34:55.560
<v Speaker 1>You know, God.

0:34:55.640 --> 0:35:02.600
<v Speaker 2>Totally sustainable, but Jesus, sometimes sometimes people should try not

0:35:02.640 --> 0:35:04.640
<v Speaker 2>to burn themselves out and find ways to be sustainable.

0:35:04.640 --> 0:35:08.239
<v Speaker 2>But like you know what, sometimes there's a crisis.

0:35:08.840 --> 0:35:11.520
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and sometimes the energy or the necessity and the

0:35:11.640 --> 0:35:13.960
<v Speaker 1>energy just have to find themselves.

0:35:14.160 --> 0:35:18.760
<v Speaker 2>Like yeah. At one point, the ISO, the International Socialist Organization,

0:35:19.200 --> 0:35:22.920
<v Speaker 2>they tried their usual tactic called entryism, which is where

0:35:23.040 --> 0:35:27.319
<v Speaker 2>they join a group that is not ideologically committed to

0:35:27.440 --> 0:35:32.240
<v Speaker 2>their Marxist whatever and then take it over. Right, it's

0:35:32.360 --> 0:35:34.959
<v Speaker 2>enough of a tactic that they have a name for it. Right,

0:35:35.239 --> 0:35:37.960
<v Speaker 2>this didn't work. People were like, you know, you can

0:35:38.040 --> 0:35:41.560
<v Speaker 2>stay and participate in the democratic process, or you can go.

0:35:41.920 --> 0:35:43.719
<v Speaker 2>And they were like where we don't want to go.

0:35:43.800 --> 0:35:47.239
<v Speaker 2>And then they're like, we have these guns, you gotta lead,

0:35:50.239 --> 0:35:56.520
<v Speaker 2>and you know, fuck yeah. The cops we're not excited

0:35:56.560 --> 0:35:59.360
<v Speaker 2>about common Ground. You know, the National Guard and all

0:35:59.400 --> 0:36:01.280
<v Speaker 2>these places are so treating them like kind of neutral.

0:36:01.320 --> 0:36:02.600
<v Speaker 2>You know, we'll talk about that in a second. But

0:36:03.120 --> 0:36:05.840
<v Speaker 2>the cops they treat it like there's an insurgency in

0:36:05.840 --> 0:36:11.479
<v Speaker 2>their neighborhood called common Ground. Cops are pulling guns on volunteers. Soon,

0:36:11.640 --> 0:36:14.400
<v Speaker 2>no one is traveling alone or at night, because cops

0:36:14.480 --> 0:36:17.440
<v Speaker 2>kept saying shit like well, we could drop you right now,

0:36:17.800 --> 0:36:20.680
<v Speaker 2>or I'm gonna throw your body in the river, right

0:36:21.160 --> 0:36:25.120
<v Speaker 2>and you'll be absolutely shocked. Andrew to know that this

0:36:25.239 --> 0:36:28.799
<v Speaker 2>happened more often and more intensely to black volunteers than

0:36:28.800 --> 0:36:29.320
<v Speaker 2>white ones.

0:36:30.719 --> 0:36:34.319
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, that's obviously, like the tricky bit of this whole

0:36:34.320 --> 0:36:36.920
<v Speaker 1>thing is like it's just like sometimes the white folks

0:36:37.000 --> 0:36:40.440
<v Speaker 1>like have a real purpose in those situations.

0:36:39.880 --> 0:36:44.840
<v Speaker 2>Totally, totally, you know. And so white organizers still end

0:36:44.960 --> 0:36:47.080
<v Speaker 2>up with guns in their faces often enough, but it's

0:36:47.160 --> 0:36:52.280
<v Speaker 2>like not as often. Eventually the cops raid the place

0:36:52.360 --> 0:36:55.719
<v Speaker 2>with hum v's and rifles and they show up, and

0:36:55.760 --> 0:36:58.319
<v Speaker 2>the volunteers form a human chain and like tell them

0:36:58.320 --> 0:37:00.520
<v Speaker 2>that they have no right to be there, and like

0:37:00.760 --> 0:37:03.400
<v Speaker 2>the cops kind of pushed through, and there's all this stuff,

0:37:03.440 --> 0:37:08.080
<v Speaker 2>and slowly the police end up retreating. It easily could

0:37:08.120 --> 0:37:12.160
<v Speaker 2>have turned into a gunfight both sides. Like common Ground

0:37:12.239 --> 0:37:16.120
<v Speaker 2>was armed and ready in case if the cops started

0:37:16.120 --> 0:37:23.440
<v Speaker 2>shooting it. I'm glad they didn't. Yeah, But the military

0:37:23.560 --> 0:37:26.640
<v Speaker 2>once they arrived, was more neutral and generally had kind

0:37:26.640 --> 0:37:28.480
<v Speaker 2>of a sort of a truce with Common Ground and

0:37:28.520 --> 0:37:30.680
<v Speaker 2>actually prevented the police from doing the worst of their

0:37:30.800 --> 0:37:34.440
<v Speaker 2>racism because there was like dads around, you know.

0:37:35.040 --> 0:37:39.160
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, God, And so once again it's also like, yeah,

0:37:39.200 --> 0:37:43.040
<v Speaker 1>sometimes like the fucking National Guard. I guess it's like

0:37:44.000 --> 0:37:45.640
<v Speaker 1>the lesser of several evils.

0:37:45.880 --> 0:37:50.960
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, absolutely, which is not a natural transition into advertising.

0:37:51.280 --> 0:37:55.200
<v Speaker 2>But yet here we are, there's still a transition to ads.

0:37:55.239 --> 0:38:12.600
<v Speaker 2>That's happening. It's happening, right, No, and we're back. Yes,

0:38:13.560 --> 0:38:18.760
<v Speaker 2>we survived, We did, Sophie, did you survive? Mm hmm, excellent.

0:38:20.440 --> 0:38:20.760
<v Speaker 3>Fair.

0:38:21.040 --> 0:38:25.280
<v Speaker 2>So a second fucking hurricane hit the Gulf Coast, Hurricane Rita.

0:38:26.160 --> 0:38:29.640
<v Speaker 2>Oh yeah, that asshole the like Yeah.

0:38:29.640 --> 0:38:32.120
<v Speaker 1>Also, yeah, completely forgot the double tap.

0:38:32.920 --> 0:38:35.560
<v Speaker 2>It didn't hit New Orleans as directly as Katrina had,

0:38:35.680 --> 0:38:37.319
<v Speaker 2>but it was bad and the place is a hit.

0:38:37.640 --> 0:38:41.040
<v Speaker 2>It's bad for those places too, you know. Yeah, most

0:38:41.040 --> 0:38:44.840
<v Speaker 2>of Common Ground evacuated. A skeleton crew stayed on and

0:38:44.920 --> 0:38:47.720
<v Speaker 2>kept the clinics open and shit. One of the first

0:38:47.800 --> 0:38:49.960
<v Speaker 2>rules of disaster relief, and this is okay, you asked

0:38:50.000 --> 0:38:52.359
<v Speaker 2>how earlier, how like the people could sleep at night?

0:38:52.480 --> 0:38:52.640
<v Speaker 1>Right?

0:38:53.640 --> 0:38:53.920
<v Speaker 3>Right?

0:38:54.080 --> 0:38:57.200
<v Speaker 2>One of the primary rules of disaster relief is that

0:38:57.239 --> 0:39:00.839
<v Speaker 2>you can't make yourself another person who needs help. Yes,

0:39:00.960 --> 0:39:04.279
<v Speaker 2>so you should not go into a disaster zone if

0:39:04.320 --> 0:39:08.200
<v Speaker 2>you yourself are going to need rescuing, right, that makes

0:39:08.239 --> 0:39:12.120
<v Speaker 2>everything worse, and so one it made sense for common

0:39:12.120 --> 0:39:16.200
<v Speaker 2>Ground to evacuate. And two that's probably how those people,

0:39:16.280 --> 0:39:18.600
<v Speaker 2>the gatekeepers in this case, sleep at night. Now, the

0:39:18.640 --> 0:39:21.880
<v Speaker 2>ones who only let in white doctors not black doctors,

0:39:22.920 --> 0:39:26.319
<v Speaker 2>should walk into the pick up a really large rock

0:39:26.360 --> 0:39:30.560
<v Speaker 2>and walk into the Gulf of Mexico. Hold on, prove

0:39:30.600 --> 0:39:32.760
<v Speaker 2>your tenacity, right.

0:39:32.960 --> 0:39:33.520
<v Speaker 3>You can do it?

0:39:33.600 --> 0:39:37.520
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, believe this. Yeah yeah. Anyone who doesn't, As cooked

0:39:40.280 --> 0:39:42.640
<v Speaker 2>Biden tells you not to pick up a big rock

0:39:42.680 --> 0:39:45.560
<v Speaker 2>and walk into the ocean, you're wrong, yeah, yeah, buster.

0:39:45.760 --> 0:39:45.920
<v Speaker 1>Yeah.

0:39:45.960 --> 0:39:48.160
<v Speaker 2>The trans agenda is that I want all the conservatives

0:39:48.239 --> 0:39:51.080
<v Speaker 2>to stay on the land and not pick up large

0:39:51.120 --> 0:39:53.600
<v Speaker 2>rocks and walk into the Yeah.

0:39:53.800 --> 0:39:58.000
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, keep the rocks. No, no rock walking. That's what

0:39:58.040 --> 0:39:58.439
<v Speaker 1>we think.

0:39:58.520 --> 0:40:02.200
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it's right. Yeah, you're not strong enough too.

0:40:04.280 --> 0:40:06.960
<v Speaker 3>We don't want you to hurt yourself. Yeah yeah, we're.

0:40:06.800 --> 0:40:12.920
<v Speaker 2>Just worried about you anyway. So they come back, and

0:40:12.960 --> 0:40:16.400
<v Speaker 2>then common Ground stretches itself even further because they started

0:40:16.400 --> 0:40:19.480
<v Speaker 2>working with the areas that were hit by RITA, and

0:40:19.520 --> 0:40:22.560
<v Speaker 2>in particular, they start working with indigenous groups and churches

0:40:22.600 --> 0:40:26.080
<v Speaker 2>in the areas outside the city that were affected. But

0:40:26.120 --> 0:40:28.080
<v Speaker 2>since they weren't there to like save the day or

0:40:28.120 --> 0:40:30.320
<v Speaker 2>take charge they were there to coordinate with people on

0:40:30.360 --> 0:40:33.680
<v Speaker 2>the ground and figure out what help should be offered.

0:40:33.800 --> 0:40:33.960
<v Speaker 1>Right.

0:40:35.520 --> 0:40:38.520
<v Speaker 2>So soon the Four Directions Network split off from common

0:40:38.560 --> 0:40:42.000
<v Speaker 2>Ground to make sure that the regional autonomy like stayed

0:40:42.000 --> 0:40:51.080
<v Speaker 2>real regional autonomy. Yes autonomys yeah yeah that big Yeah.

0:40:51.200 --> 0:40:54.480
<v Speaker 2>Common Ground keeps going in Algiers. When the Red Cross

0:40:54.520 --> 0:40:57.280
<v Speaker 2>finally shows up in Algiers like a month after Katrina,

0:40:58.520 --> 0:41:00.680
<v Speaker 2>because they were like, oh, whatever, I don't care about

0:41:00.680 --> 0:41:04.000
<v Speaker 2>those starving people because they're currently underwater or whatever.

0:41:04.120 --> 0:41:04.279
<v Speaker 1>You know.

0:41:05.280 --> 0:41:07.399
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, the Red Cross shows up with three huge box

0:41:07.440 --> 0:41:10.480
<v Speaker 2>trucks full of supplies and they're like, everyone's like, yeah, finally,

0:41:10.600 --> 0:41:12.239
<v Speaker 2>like some get some fucking good food and shit. And

0:41:12.239 --> 0:41:14.840
<v Speaker 2>they gather around, you know, and the volunteers open up

0:41:14.880 --> 0:41:18.799
<v Speaker 2>one box truck. It is entirely full of plastic utensils.

0:41:20.600 --> 0:41:24.000
<v Speaker 2>So they open up the next box truck, all napkins,

0:41:25.680 --> 0:41:27.920
<v Speaker 2>third box truck handy wipes.

0:41:28.560 --> 0:41:31.719
<v Speaker 1>Oh my god, I guess that's at least they're not.

0:41:32.200 --> 0:41:35.960
<v Speaker 1>I mean they are, but they're not actively doing anything

0:41:36.520 --> 0:41:37.359
<v Speaker 1>I do. Like.

0:41:37.680 --> 0:41:39.399
<v Speaker 2>It's funny. Is then there's all this whole I didn't

0:41:39.440 --> 0:41:42.399
<v Speaker 2>end up concluding it, but there's this whole thing where

0:41:42.440 --> 0:41:44.200
<v Speaker 2>the handy wipes. They're like, fine, we'll take the fucking

0:41:44.200 --> 0:41:46.440
<v Speaker 2>handy wipes and will distribute them. But then the cops

0:41:46.480 --> 0:41:49.040
<v Speaker 2>later are like, you stole those from the Red Cross.

0:41:49.120 --> 0:41:52.600
<v Speaker 2>You stole the handy wipes and you're selling them. And

0:41:52.600 --> 0:41:55.760
<v Speaker 2>they're like and they're like holding people at gunpoint accusing

0:41:55.760 --> 0:41:57.840
<v Speaker 2>them of selling handy wipes from the Red Cross.

0:41:58.200 --> 0:41:59.000
<v Speaker 3>Oh my god.

0:42:00.000 --> 0:42:03.319
<v Speaker 2>So and FEMA shows up. They basically just end up

0:42:03.320 --> 0:42:05.839
<v Speaker 2>a referral service for common Ground because the people show

0:42:05.880 --> 0:42:07.080
<v Speaker 2>up and are like, what do we do and they're like,

0:42:07.080 --> 0:42:08.480
<v Speaker 2>I don't know. I go to common Ground. They know

0:42:08.480 --> 0:42:13.640
<v Speaker 2>what they're doing, right, And the regional head of FEMA,

0:42:13.719 --> 0:42:17.200
<v Speaker 2>at some point she needs medical attention and she doesn't

0:42:17.239 --> 0:42:20.480
<v Speaker 2>go to like the official government clinics. She goes to

0:42:21.120 --> 0:42:25.799
<v Speaker 2>one of the common Ground clinics. She shows up and

0:42:25.840 --> 0:42:27.719
<v Speaker 2>there's a sign on the door that says basically like

0:42:27.760 --> 0:42:31.680
<v Speaker 2>no firearms allowed, no exceptions, and her guards have to

0:42:31.719 --> 0:42:34.600
<v Speaker 2>stay outside, and like are really confused by the whole thing,

0:42:36.320 --> 0:42:39.879
<v Speaker 2>but yeah, So common Ground just does amazing and hard

0:42:39.880 --> 0:42:43.279
<v Speaker 2>work for months. As the floodwaters received In the weeks

0:42:43.320 --> 0:42:46.759
<v Speaker 2>and months after the storm, New Orleans was transformed by

0:42:46.800 --> 0:42:50.520
<v Speaker 2>gentrification right, and we don't. We're not going to go

0:42:50.520 --> 0:42:54.520
<v Speaker 2>into all of the many ills that face New Orleans

0:42:54.760 --> 0:42:57.560
<v Speaker 2>still presently because of this, all the displacement that happened.

0:42:58.600 --> 0:43:02.040
<v Speaker 2>But Landlord check to b Rens speculation ruled the day

0:43:02.840 --> 0:43:05.799
<v Speaker 2>landlard Search just illegally evicting people. Will talk more in

0:43:05.840 --> 0:43:08.840
<v Speaker 2>a second, and then one of the things that we

0:43:08.920 --> 0:43:11.040
<v Speaker 2>have to address is that Common Ground did some of

0:43:11.080 --> 0:43:15.600
<v Speaker 2>that gentrification, right because Common Ground brought a fucking lot

0:43:15.600 --> 0:43:19.120
<v Speaker 2>of white people to New Orleans, right, right, right. I

0:43:19.160 --> 0:43:23.360
<v Speaker 2>want to quote Scott Crow again. Our missives were bringing

0:43:23.400 --> 0:43:26.279
<v Speaker 2>masses of volunteers into New Orleans with words spreading like

0:43:26.320 --> 0:43:30.920
<v Speaker 2>wildfire across white radical subcultures. From train hopping hoboes, street

0:43:30.960 --> 0:43:36.040
<v Speaker 2>and circus performers, DIY punks to squatters, burners and forest hippies.

0:43:36.760 --> 0:43:39.440
<v Speaker 2>Most joined the efforts to relieve and rebuild the city,

0:43:39.680 --> 0:43:42.360
<v Speaker 2>offering music and other creative endeavors as well as labor.

0:43:42.840 --> 0:43:46.359
<v Speaker 2>But disconcertingly, some within these subcultures came to live out

0:43:46.360 --> 0:43:49.640
<v Speaker 2>a fantasy of living in a burned out, post apocalyptic city.

0:43:50.280 --> 0:43:52.839
<v Speaker 2>They gave little credence to the tragedies of the people

0:43:52.840 --> 0:43:56.160
<v Speaker 2>who lived there or to the ongoing relief work. Some

0:43:56.239 --> 0:43:59.560
<v Speaker 2>of them were self described anarchists, but they acted like assholes,

0:43:59.560 --> 0:44:02.680
<v Speaker 2>giving an anarchism and radical subculture a bad name. They

0:44:02.680 --> 0:44:05.640
<v Speaker 2>were narcissists whose personal liberty meant more to them than

0:44:05.719 --> 0:44:09.000
<v Speaker 2>being respectful or alleviating the suffering around them.

0:44:09.320 --> 0:44:12.480
<v Speaker 3>Right, it's sort of a common byproduct.

0:44:12.480 --> 0:44:20.359
<v Speaker 2>I feel like, yeah, totally, uh one day. Yeah, one

0:44:20.360 --> 0:44:22.520
<v Speaker 2>of the hardest conversations that it would have. We would

0:44:22.560 --> 0:44:24.840
<v Speaker 2>have a lot, right, Like I remember like squatting a

0:44:24.840 --> 0:44:27.680
<v Speaker 2>building in the South Bronx, like being like, yeah, is

0:44:27.719 --> 0:44:30.920
<v Speaker 2>this gentrification and like not not.

0:44:31.440 --> 0:44:32.560
<v Speaker 3>I mean it's something I.

0:44:32.560 --> 0:44:36.959
<v Speaker 2>Think landlords raising the rents or the you know, it's

0:44:37.560 --> 0:44:42.560
<v Speaker 2>not uncomplicated. Yeah, Soon there was a broader network that

0:44:42.640 --> 0:44:45.000
<v Speaker 2>common Ground became part of, which is cool, like a

0:44:45.040 --> 0:44:49.360
<v Speaker 2>citywide network called the People's Hurricane Relief Fund, and they

0:44:49.440 --> 0:44:51.640
<v Speaker 2>started working on these long term issues like the right

0:44:51.719 --> 0:44:53.960
<v Speaker 2>to return. The government was keeping residents out of the city,

0:44:53.960 --> 0:44:55.520
<v Speaker 2>which is like, of course helps all the real estate

0:44:55.560 --> 0:44:59.360
<v Speaker 2>speculators and all the like, right fuckers, The most gentrifying

0:44:59.400 --> 0:45:02.120
<v Speaker 2>thing was to red things out and fuck over whatever

0:45:02.160 --> 0:45:05.560
<v Speaker 2>it evict everyone and shit, you know, right, and the

0:45:05.600 --> 0:45:09.320
<v Speaker 2>immediate crisis is waning. At this point, the white militias

0:45:09.320 --> 0:45:12.839
<v Speaker 2>were no longer out in force, a few stores are reopening,

0:45:13.000 --> 0:45:16.440
<v Speaker 2>water has begun to recede, but the larger problems remain.

0:45:17.320 --> 0:45:19.439
<v Speaker 2>Common Ground did a lot of behind the scenes work

0:45:19.480 --> 0:45:22.480
<v Speaker 2>for PHRF rather than taking any kind of directing role.

0:45:23.360 --> 0:45:28.000
<v Speaker 2>But overall PHRF and Common Ground kept on. They started

0:45:28.040 --> 0:45:31.719
<v Speaker 2>work remediating houses and doing like mold clean up as

0:45:31.719 --> 0:45:35.120
<v Speaker 2>well as soil remediation. So they would like come up

0:45:35.160 --> 0:45:37.759
<v Speaker 2>with all of these kind of new and interesting ideas

0:45:37.880 --> 0:45:40.120
<v Speaker 2>that were starting to come up in disaster relief around

0:45:40.120 --> 0:45:43.720
<v Speaker 2>this time, of like using weird microbes to fight mold

0:45:43.800 --> 0:45:48.239
<v Speaker 2>and houses, and like growing certain plants in order to

0:45:48.239 --> 0:45:50.840
<v Speaker 2>pull the toxins from the floodwater out of the soil

0:45:50.920 --> 0:45:53.880
<v Speaker 2>and all this stuff, you know, right, oh cool, Yeah,

0:45:54.440 --> 0:45:55.280
<v Speaker 2>this is cool stuff.

0:45:55.400 --> 0:45:56.960
<v Speaker 3>Yeah.

0:45:57.000 --> 0:46:00.840
<v Speaker 2>They also, alongside PHRF started fighting the legal evictions that

0:46:00.880 --> 0:46:04.080
<v Speaker 2>are happening throughout the city, and sometimes they would unevict people,

0:46:04.719 --> 0:46:07.440
<v Speaker 2>like people would get evicted illegally, and so then like

0:46:07.520 --> 0:46:09.719
<v Speaker 2>PHRF and Common Ground would just like show up and

0:46:09.719 --> 0:46:12.880
<v Speaker 2>put everyone's furniture back into their houses. And then like

0:46:13.160 --> 0:46:15.319
<v Speaker 2>and the landlords don't live in the fucking city, so

0:46:15.320 --> 0:46:17.279
<v Speaker 2>they don't like notice for a long ass time, so

0:46:17.320 --> 0:46:20.600
<v Speaker 2>people get like months extra. You know, they did what

0:46:20.640 --> 0:46:25.400
<v Speaker 2>needed to be done. Slowly, they became less necessary, or

0:46:25.480 --> 0:46:29.600
<v Speaker 2>rather it was less about direct intervention and crisis that

0:46:29.640 --> 0:46:34.520
<v Speaker 2>became lessness. That is what became less necessary, right common ground.

0:46:34.680 --> 0:46:37.920
<v Speaker 2>It continued for years. It morphed into and split off

0:46:37.920 --> 0:46:39.960
<v Speaker 2>into a lot of different groups who did an awful

0:46:40.000 --> 0:46:42.360
<v Speaker 2>lot of good. By two thousand and eight it was

0:46:42.360 --> 0:46:46.239
<v Speaker 2>a traditional nonprofit which with all of the upsides and

0:46:46.320 --> 0:46:50.759
<v Speaker 2>downsides that that has to offer. And I want to

0:46:50.840 --> 0:46:53.160
<v Speaker 2>quote Scott Crow one more time about what they accomplished.

0:46:54.600 --> 0:46:58.040
<v Speaker 2>We had established the largest functioning organization based on anarchist

0:46:58.080 --> 0:47:01.080
<v Speaker 2>ideals in the United States since the IWT. We were

0:47:01.160 --> 0:47:04.360
<v Speaker 2>participating in direct democracy at every turn with local residents,

0:47:04.400 --> 0:47:08.800
<v Speaker 2>community leaders, and volunteers. Everyone was in the streets. Community

0:47:08.880 --> 0:47:11.560
<v Speaker 2>organized revolution was in the air, not a seizure of

0:47:11.600 --> 0:47:14.319
<v Speaker 2>state power, but a revolution of a different kind, the

0:47:14.360 --> 0:47:17.879
<v Speaker 2>revolution of exercising grassroots power to make changes we all

0:47:17.920 --> 0:47:22.200
<v Speaker 2>wanted to see. Our revolution challenged the standard pessimism about

0:47:22.239 --> 0:47:25.960
<v Speaker 2>people's limited agency in their own lives. He also said

0:47:26.719 --> 0:47:29.640
<v Speaker 2>we had created a crack in history. We had revealed

0:47:29.680 --> 0:47:33.160
<v Speaker 2>the lies, corruption and failures of the state, and without hesitating,

0:47:33.520 --> 0:47:34.759
<v Speaker 2>we had done something about it.

0:47:35.560 --> 0:47:36.040
<v Speaker 3>Yeah.

0:47:36.400 --> 0:47:40.640
<v Speaker 1>It's as someone who approaches the small amount of things

0:47:40.680 --> 0:47:44.279
<v Speaker 1>that I do from almost like a fear defensive standpoint,

0:47:45.040 --> 0:47:47.239
<v Speaker 1>I do appreciate being able to call on the show

0:47:47.280 --> 0:47:49.480
<v Speaker 1>and just be like, right, yeah, you can also do

0:47:49.520 --> 0:47:55.759
<v Speaker 1>this optimistically, yeah, totally, yeah, okay, okay.

0:47:55.600 --> 0:48:01.080
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, And it's like, I mean, do they win, like no, Like,

0:48:01.200 --> 0:48:04.440
<v Speaker 2>New Orleans is not run by the people of New

0:48:04.520 --> 0:48:08.440
<v Speaker 2>Orleans in a direct democratic way, right, Mutual aid is

0:48:08.480 --> 0:48:12.040
<v Speaker 2>not the primary economic method by which people meet their needs.

0:48:12.719 --> 0:48:16.280
<v Speaker 2>They showed the failure of the state, and they showed

0:48:16.360 --> 0:48:20.080
<v Speaker 2>that people can have agency and they did amazing fucking work.

0:48:20.120 --> 0:48:22.680
<v Speaker 2>And then also just like literally directly saved lots of

0:48:22.719 --> 0:48:27.759
<v Speaker 2>people's lives, you know, and like. And so Scott goes

0:48:27.800 --> 0:48:30.160
<v Speaker 2>back to Austin. He starts a co op thrift historical

0:48:30.280 --> 0:48:33.200
<v Speaker 2>treasure city thrift where a few years later, my boyfriend

0:48:33.239 --> 0:48:35.520
<v Speaker 2>pressured me into buying some leather pants for five dollars.

0:48:36.040 --> 0:48:39.480
<v Speaker 2>I did look good in them, Okay, hell yeah. Brandon

0:48:39.560 --> 0:48:42.480
<v Speaker 2>Darby went on to go do some stuff while he

0:48:42.560 --> 0:48:44.520
<v Speaker 2>was in New Orleans. He became friends with the cops

0:48:44.640 --> 0:48:47.360
<v Speaker 2>who introduced him to the FBI, and by two thousand

0:48:47.400 --> 0:48:49.799
<v Speaker 2>and six he was a paid informant. He was kicked

0:48:49.800 --> 0:48:52.200
<v Speaker 2>out of common Ground around that time for his misogyny

0:48:52.239 --> 0:48:55.160
<v Speaker 2>and overall flakiness he had, Like he left during the

0:48:55.200 --> 0:48:57.080
<v Speaker 2>origin of it, but then he came back later at

0:48:57.080 --> 0:48:58.719
<v Speaker 2>the end of the year, once everything was all set up,

0:48:58.719 --> 0:49:00.840
<v Speaker 2>you know, and then he just used it to be

0:49:00.880 --> 0:49:03.719
<v Speaker 2>a sexual predator and a piece of shit. So he

0:49:03.800 --> 0:49:06.880
<v Speaker 2>was kicked out. He came back a year later and

0:49:06.920 --> 0:49:09.239
<v Speaker 2>he became interim director. He basically was able to like

0:49:09.320 --> 0:49:11.279
<v Speaker 2>leverage the social capital of having been there at the

0:49:11.280 --> 0:49:14.160
<v Speaker 2>beginning and all that shit, you know, right, and then

0:49:14.200 --> 0:49:17.040
<v Speaker 2>he fucked the thing up. He like fucked up common Ground.

0:49:17.080 --> 0:49:22.360
<v Speaker 2>He probably on purpose that is not provable, but it

0:49:22.680 --> 0:49:25.120
<v Speaker 2>sure meet was provable. He was working for the FBI

0:49:25.160 --> 0:49:26.960
<v Speaker 2>at this point, and it sure meets what they do.

0:49:27.440 --> 0:49:31.840
<v Speaker 2>He like, let funds get on accounted for. He started

0:49:31.840 --> 0:49:34.600
<v Speaker 2>introducing a lot more authoritarians into the organization. He started

0:49:34.600 --> 0:49:37.040
<v Speaker 2>firing everyone, like kicking everyone out who disagreed with him

0:49:37.080 --> 0:49:40.680
<v Speaker 2>and shit, you know. And then eventually he lasts like

0:49:40.719 --> 0:49:43.239
<v Speaker 2>three months before finally like the common Ground like shakes

0:49:43.320 --> 0:49:44.600
<v Speaker 2>him off right, kicks him.

0:49:44.480 --> 0:49:44.839
<v Speaker 3>Out for good.

0:49:44.960 --> 0:49:45.760
<v Speaker 1>Yeah.

0:49:45.880 --> 0:49:48.360
<v Speaker 2>He then spent years trying to talk people into arson

0:49:48.400 --> 0:49:52.200
<v Speaker 2>and violence, finally succeeding at setting two young anarchists to

0:49:52.200 --> 0:49:54.600
<v Speaker 2>go to prison for Molotov cocktails in two thousand and eight.

0:49:55.640 --> 0:49:58.480
<v Speaker 2>There's an essay worth reading about him. You actually you

0:49:58.600 --> 0:50:01.319
<v Speaker 2>hinted at the title of this earlier. The essay is

0:50:01.360 --> 0:50:04.120
<v Speaker 2>called why Misogynists make Great Informants.

0:50:05.239 --> 0:50:06.880
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, and.

0:50:08.360 --> 0:50:10.880
<v Speaker 2>After putting some people in prison, his cover was blown

0:50:11.160 --> 0:50:13.120
<v Speaker 2>and he kind of just became a right wing grifter.

0:50:13.280 --> 0:50:15.719
<v Speaker 2>He was like very like, we all miss Bush. This

0:50:15.840 --> 0:50:18.759
<v Speaker 2>is you know, it's a while ago now, right, Yeah,

0:50:18.840 --> 0:50:21.320
<v Speaker 2>there's not a lot of information available about him currently.

0:50:21.600 --> 0:50:22.799
<v Speaker 2>I hope it's because he's dead.

0:50:24.000 --> 0:50:24.520
<v Speaker 3>Yeah.

0:50:24.600 --> 0:50:28.040
<v Speaker 1>It's a depressing I will say, it's not the culture,

0:50:28.160 --> 0:50:31.160
<v Speaker 1>but it is the like, I don't know what it

0:50:31.200 --> 0:50:35.640
<v Speaker 1>is about these like white dudes, mostly in this area

0:50:35.719 --> 0:50:38.960
<v Speaker 1>where it's just I guess it's just like punk can

0:50:39.040 --> 0:50:44.799
<v Speaker 1>really go either way totally, and I guess that is

0:50:44.840 --> 0:50:47.879
<v Speaker 1>basically the heart of the vibe. It's just like absolutely

0:50:49.200 --> 0:50:52.759
<v Speaker 1>your anti authority and what you view as authority is

0:50:53.120 --> 0:50:55.520
<v Speaker 1>very very malleable. Totally.

0:50:56.280 --> 0:50:58.279
<v Speaker 2>All my friends telling me what to do, like, don't

0:50:58.320 --> 0:51:04.560
<v Speaker 2>work with the FBI. Yeah, bluck Man, Yeah, no, absolutely, like.

0:51:06.000 --> 0:51:08.560
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, Paul Ryan tells himself he's a punk.

0:51:08.880 --> 0:51:15.640
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. Oh god yeah. Watching the Republican Party rebrand itself

0:51:15.640 --> 0:51:19.840
<v Speaker 2>as anti anti establishment has just been it's.

0:51:19.840 --> 0:51:24.120
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it's pathetic, but it is probably more effective than

0:51:25.280 --> 0:51:26.440
<v Speaker 1>we want to want to think about.

0:51:26.520 --> 0:51:26.719
<v Speaker 3>Yep.

0:51:27.040 --> 0:51:31.640
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, And so of the other founders. Sharon worked with

0:51:31.640 --> 0:51:35.879
<v Speaker 2>Common Ground until twenty ten. Malik does environmental work now

0:51:36.040 --> 0:51:39.400
<v Speaker 2>around coastal land cleanup. Robert King moved to Austin and

0:51:39.440 --> 0:51:44.080
<v Speaker 2>does organizing work around political prisoners. Common Ground Collective has

0:51:44.160 --> 0:51:48.280
<v Speaker 2>direct successors like common Ground Relief, which works to restore

0:51:48.320 --> 0:51:50.360
<v Speaker 2>the coastal wetlands as well as provide free food to

0:51:50.360 --> 0:51:55.160
<v Speaker 2>about two hundred families in New Orleans. And Common Ground

0:51:55.280 --> 0:51:58.800
<v Speaker 2>also led to the proliferation of mutual aid organizations around

0:51:58.840 --> 0:52:02.279
<v Speaker 2>the mid twenty tens, culminating in the truly amazing number

0:52:02.280 --> 0:52:04.600
<v Speaker 2>of groups as the government failed to addequately respond to

0:52:04.640 --> 0:52:07.600
<v Speaker 2>the COVID crisis in twenty twenty. That is the legacy

0:52:07.680 --> 0:52:10.560
<v Speaker 2>of Common Ground, not just these organizations with specific names

0:52:10.600 --> 0:52:16.319
<v Speaker 2>that are in New Orleans that but the like if

0:52:16.320 --> 0:52:19.560
<v Speaker 2>there's a problem we can come together. I mean, obviously

0:52:19.560 --> 0:52:21.719
<v Speaker 2>it's a natural human instinct, but like the way in

0:52:21.760 --> 0:52:24.600
<v Speaker 2>which people do it and talk about it is is there.

0:52:24.480 --> 0:52:27.880
<v Speaker 1>Like a framework and you just got to like and

0:52:27.880 --> 0:52:30.240
<v Speaker 1>that's so it's like, fuck, all right, well someone's got.

0:52:30.120 --> 0:52:30.920
<v Speaker 3>To do it. Just do it.

0:52:31.040 --> 0:52:32.120
<v Speaker 2>Yeah totally.

0:52:32.360 --> 0:52:34.960
<v Speaker 1>It's also like, at the end of the day, you know,

0:52:35.080 --> 0:52:39.640
<v Speaker 1>there are obviously significant logistics and you know, cooperation and

0:52:39.680 --> 0:52:43.680
<v Speaker 1>teamwork and all that, but it also the other way

0:52:43.680 --> 0:52:46.239
<v Speaker 1>to think about it is it's just getting stuff that

0:52:46.400 --> 0:52:48.919
<v Speaker 1>people have or the stuff that exists, to the people

0:52:48.920 --> 0:52:51.960
<v Speaker 1>who need it. And like there's like complicated ways to

0:52:52.040 --> 0:52:54.040
<v Speaker 1>do that and simple ways to do that, and like.

0:52:55.520 --> 0:52:55.799
<v Speaker 3>Do it.

0:52:55.920 --> 0:52:59.320
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, no, totally, yeah, I really like that. At the

0:52:59.400 --> 0:53:00.919
<v Speaker 2>end of the day, that's what it is. You find

0:53:00.920 --> 0:53:02.880
<v Speaker 2>the people who have the stuff and the people who

0:53:02.960 --> 0:53:05.719
<v Speaker 2>need the stuff, and you're like, all right, yeah, let's

0:53:05.719 --> 0:53:07.920
<v Speaker 2>move the stuff from one person or another.

0:53:08.800 --> 0:53:11.040
<v Speaker 1>Sometimes it's hard, sometimes it's easy, but it's not like

0:53:11.640 --> 0:53:13.600
<v Speaker 1>a difficult concept totally.

0:53:14.680 --> 0:53:15.359
<v Speaker 3>Yeah.

0:53:15.400 --> 0:53:18.440
<v Speaker 2>And so if there's a spiritual successor to common Ground,

0:53:18.840 --> 0:53:21.760
<v Speaker 2>I would guess it's a group called Mutual Aid Disaster

0:53:21.880 --> 0:53:26.600
<v Speaker 2>relief who work to coordinate is going to shock you

0:53:27.040 --> 0:53:30.839
<v Speaker 2>disaster relief in in a mutual aid format. Yeah, they're

0:53:30.840 --> 0:53:34.720
<v Speaker 2>pretty literal namers. And I just like that. The modern

0:53:34.760 --> 0:53:37.239
<v Speaker 2>mutual aid movement in the US got its start because

0:53:37.280 --> 0:53:40.640
<v Speaker 2>panthers and anarchists, Muslims and Christians, black and white people

0:53:40.760 --> 0:53:44.640
<v Speaker 2>just got together to just fucking make it happen. Yeah,

0:53:44.680 --> 0:53:47.520
<v Speaker 2>because all here's my catchy ending, because all we need

0:53:47.560 --> 0:53:49.560
<v Speaker 2>to do is find our common ground.

0:53:50.440 --> 0:53:54.839
<v Speaker 3>Yes, yes, you got there? Hell yeah?

0:53:54.920 --> 0:54:00.360
<v Speaker 2>Hell yeah thanks now that Yeah, that's that's the story.

0:54:00.840 --> 0:54:02.759
<v Speaker 2>You got anything that you want to plug here at

0:54:02.760 --> 0:54:03.799
<v Speaker 2>the end, I don't know.

0:54:04.160 --> 0:54:06.360
<v Speaker 3>Just yoss racist. That's my podcast.

0:54:07.560 --> 0:54:10.480
<v Speaker 2>Who's your co host? And would we recognize her from

0:54:10.760 --> 0:54:12.880
<v Speaker 2>Margaret's current favorite show, Lower Decks.

0:54:14.120 --> 0:54:17.400
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, my co host is Toddy Dows. She's the She

0:54:17.400 --> 0:54:21.440
<v Speaker 1>plays Mariner on Lower X and a wonderful show. I

0:54:21.440 --> 0:54:26.800
<v Speaker 1>guess watch Lower X two now that we're past strike times.

0:54:27.160 --> 0:54:30.759
<v Speaker 1>Watch watch TV that you'd like, and I guess don't

0:54:30.760 --> 0:54:32.880
<v Speaker 1>watch TV that you don't like. But whatever.

0:54:33.280 --> 0:54:37.480
<v Speaker 2>Also whatever, Well I want to plug. I want to

0:54:37.480 --> 0:54:40.960
<v Speaker 2>plug mutual a disaster relief. They're great people, yeah, and

0:54:41.440 --> 0:54:45.680
<v Speaker 2>they do really amazing work and you can probably support

0:54:45.719 --> 0:54:48.040
<v Speaker 2>them somehow. I didn't ask or look how people can

0:54:48.040 --> 0:54:51.480
<v Speaker 2>support them, but if you look it up, usually pretty straightforward.

0:54:51.560 --> 0:54:51.719
<v Speaker 1>Yeah.

0:54:51.719 --> 0:54:53.759
<v Speaker 2>I feel like they've been around long enough that they

0:54:53.840 --> 0:54:57.200
<v Speaker 2>probably know how to have on the website somewhere says

0:54:57.200 --> 0:55:00.760
<v Speaker 2>how to help them, and I I want to plug

0:55:02.239 --> 0:55:07.720
<v Speaker 2>the don't become misogynist and then an FBI agent.

0:55:08.640 --> 0:55:11.600
<v Speaker 3>Yeah. And if you're one of those things, you can

0:55:11.719 --> 0:55:12.480
<v Speaker 3>you can stop.

0:55:12.760 --> 0:55:17.320
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, you have two choices. Stop or take the Margaret

0:55:17.440 --> 0:55:20.320
<v Speaker 2>rock challenge, in which you pick up a really heavy

0:55:20.400 --> 0:55:22.759
<v Speaker 2>rock and you walk into the nearest large body of

0:55:22.760 --> 0:55:27.160
<v Speaker 2>water and don't just see Yeah, just see how long

0:55:27.160 --> 0:55:30.560
<v Speaker 2>you can make If you can't hold the rock underwater

0:55:31.480 --> 0:55:33.120
<v Speaker 2>long enough, Yeah, you're weak.

0:55:33.239 --> 0:55:34.839
<v Speaker 3>You're weak. That's right.

0:55:35.440 --> 0:55:40.640
<v Speaker 2>Sophie guiding Plug at cool Zone Media.

0:55:40.920 --> 0:55:44.000
<v Speaker 1>On the social medes, look out for our newest show,

0:55:44.080 --> 0:55:45.160
<v Speaker 1>Better Offline.

0:55:45.800 --> 0:55:48.359
<v Speaker 3>Whoo ya all right?

0:55:48.800 --> 0:55:51.319
<v Speaker 2>Speaking of offline, That's where I'm going to be now.

0:55:51.680 --> 0:55:56.680
<v Speaker 3>That's cool.

0:55:56.719 --> 0:55:59.200
<v Speaker 2>People who did Cool Stop is a production of cool

0:55:59.239 --> 0:55:59.880
<v Speaker 2>Zone Media.

0:56:00.239 --> 0:56:03.040
<v Speaker 1>For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website

0:56:03.200 --> 0:56:06.879
<v Speaker 1>coolzonmedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,

0:56:06.920 --> 0:56:09.759
<v Speaker 1>Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.