Speaker 1: I'm Jake Calbern, host of deep Cover. Our new season
Speaker 1: is about a lawyer who helped the mob run Chicago.
Speaker 1: He bribed judges and even helped a hit man walk
Speaker 1: free until one day when he started talking with the
Speaker 1: FBI and promised that he could take the mob down.
Speaker 1: I've spent the past year trying to figure out why
Speaker 1: he flipped and what he was really after. Listen to
Speaker 1: deep Cover on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts. What girls in the Forest,
Speaker 1: our imagination, and our family bonds. The forest is closer
Speaker 1: than you think. Find a forest near you and discover
Speaker 1: the Forest dot Org. Brought to you by the United
Speaker 1: States Forest Service and the AD Council. Hello, and welcome
Speaker 1: to our show. I'm Zoe de Channel and I'm so
Speaker 1: excited to be joined by my friends and cats Meats,
Speaker 1: Hannah Simone and Lamar and Morris to recap our hit
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Speaker 1: Welcome to Our Show podcast, where we'll share behind the
Speaker 1: scenes stories of your favorite New Girl episodes. Each week,
Speaker 1: we answer all your burnie questions like is there really
Speaker 1: a bear in every episode of New Girl? Plus you'll
Speaker 1: hear hilarious stories like this that was one of m
Speaker 1: yea all professional pasketball players. Yeah yeah. Listen to the
Speaker 1: Welcome to Our Show podcast on the I Heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, everybody,
Speaker 1: Robert Evans here and I wanted to let you know
Speaker 1: this is a compilation episode. So every episode of the
Speaker 1: week that just happened is here in one convenient and
Speaker 1: with somewhat less ads package for you to listen to
Speaker 1: in a long stretch if you want. If you've been
Speaker 1: listening to the episodes every day this week, there's gonna
Speaker 1: be nothing new here for you, but you can make
Speaker 1: your own decisions. God Area takeover. I asked for I'm grunting.
Speaker 1: That was like a word what okay, what it was?
Speaker 1: I know lots of they could have been here. And
Speaker 1: openings have become Bastard's openings now just kind of opening.
Speaker 1: Robert doesn't have more than one type of opening. There's two.
Speaker 1: There's there's grunting and then yelling something weird that is
Speaker 1: that's basically the same learning how to do your job
Speaker 1: is cuk shit. Also, to be honest, most of the time,
Speaker 1: doesn't know which podcast he's doing. What is this are
Speaker 1: we doing? Is this the daily sidegeist? Is this is
Speaker 1: my Jack O'Brien, this is this is it could happen here.
Speaker 1: So we're talking today about the different things that are
Speaker 1: it here being the States this time. UM, but we're
Speaker 1: talking about basically, over the course of the past few months,
Speaker 1: we have covered a few different topics on the show, UM,
Speaker 1: some of which have already kind of had some results
Speaker 1: of had up dates to what we've already covered. So
Speaker 1: we're I'm gonna I'm gonna go through a list of
Speaker 1: like a three different things we've covered and talk about
Speaker 1: kind of the updates in these stories. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: most of what we've covered around these topics have been
Speaker 1: like a mix of original reporting and interviews. So now
Speaker 1: there's been further further work down on this, and I
Speaker 1: just want to kind of update people. If you know,
Speaker 1: they're not as terminally online as us, maybe they have
Speaker 1: not heard that there's been changes to these stories. And
Speaker 1: I wanted to kind of put together a nice little
Speaker 1: concise thing talking about updates to all the things we've covered. UM.
Speaker 1: So the first thing that we're gonna be talking a
Speaker 1: bit about is the Cops City in Atlanta, and they
Speaker 1: defend the Atlanta Forest collision. So I think like a
Speaker 1: day after our episode dropped on that, UM, Atlantic City
Speaker 1: Council voted UH ten to four in favor of getting
Speaker 1: the militarized police training facility greenlit Um nicknamed Cops City.
Speaker 1: There was seventeen hours of public testimony. We're seven many
Speaker 1: percent of the callers bilk out against the facility. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that we had that happen in Portland. It
Speaker 1: doesn't Yeah, Yeah, it never matters. It doesn't matter what
Speaker 1: the vast majority, especially when there's especially when this money involved. Yeah,
Speaker 1: do not, do not ever be deceived into thinking that
Speaker 1: you live in a democracy and that what you actually
Speaker 1: want to matter is in any way, shape or form.
Speaker 1: This is just not This is empirically not true. Like
Speaker 1: like sixty percent of Texans periods support vaccine mandates in
Speaker 1: some instances, but the governor just made it illegal to
Speaker 1: do them. Ever, Um, Like it's it's it's that way
Speaker 1: across the board across the nation. UM. People ask sometimes
Speaker 1: because like you know, when you get into anarchists discussions
Speaker 1: of politics, there's a lot of criticism of democracy. I
Speaker 1: don't I think democracy is a lovely idea. I would
Speaker 1: like to try it something. It would be nice to
Speaker 1: get it ago. It would be nice to experience. So yeah,
Speaker 1: this Sin City Council voted to least the acres of
Speaker 1: city owned forest land to the Atlanta Police Foundation, UM,
Speaker 1: at least eighty five acres of which is going to
Speaker 1: be slated to become the police training facility. UM. The
Speaker 1: facility is going to cost around ninety million dollars. Jesus Christ,
Speaker 1: I could train cops much cheaper than that, although training
Speaker 1: is the wrong word. Yeah, that is the wrong word
Speaker 1: for that. UM. So yeah, no, nine million dollars. It's
Speaker 1: gonna include. It's gonna include a state of the art
Speaker 1: explosive testing facility, firing ranges, emergency vehicle operations course, a
Speaker 1: classroom space, UM, and an emergency and an emergency space
Speaker 1: will probably learn to read right. I'm sure it's for
Speaker 1: teaching people to do bad things. UM. There's going to
Speaker 1: be an emergency helicopter pad and an entire like mock town.
Speaker 1: It is good that they have the emergency helicopter pad
Speaker 1: because cops shoot each other with live ammunition all the time,
Speaker 1: and that does happen. Does happen a lot so yeah,
Speaker 1: the main backroupd for this project is the Atlanta Police Foundation,
Speaker 1: which is a political advocacy group that you know, has
Speaker 1: a lot of funding from corporations and they try to
Speaker 1: you know, sway the political power of the city and
Speaker 1: to giving more power to the police. Um uh huh.
Speaker 1: So the interesting thing about this though, is like the
Speaker 1: vote was supposed to happen in August, UM, but it
Speaker 1: was rescheduled for early September after there was a lot
Speaker 1: of public backlash around this proposal. Um. Then the vote
Speaker 1: that was supposed to happen on like thet got pushed
Speaker 1: back the whole day because there was too many callers
Speaker 1: saying that they didn't want the facility. So the vote
Speaker 1: got pushed back a day in September, but it stays
Speaker 1: still voted for it. Yeah, So thirty million dollars is
Speaker 1: going to be footed by taxpayers and the other sixty
Speaker 1: million is going to get paid for by the Police Foundation,
Speaker 1: which has a lot of different like corporate donors. So
Speaker 1: that's that's that's that's that um. And of course it's
Speaker 1: on you know, on this forest land, which is like
Speaker 1: some of the you know, biggest forest land in any
Speaker 1: major American city, so you know, they're tearing down all
Speaker 1: this forest to build this concrete city to train cops in.
Speaker 1: We also mentioned that at the end of her interview
Speaker 1: with some of the people resisting the they basically said, like,
Speaker 1: if the vote goes through, resists is going to continue,
Speaker 1: so we will continue. There's probably gonna be efforts to
Speaker 1: like actually try to physically prevent the construction of this.
Speaker 1: But the next thing we're gonna be talking about is
Speaker 1: stop line three um, which mean there was also you know,
Speaker 1: physical efforts to prevent that. But the type of efforts
Speaker 1: that people usually do in you know, modern green activism
Speaker 1: usually are a lot more performative or they're specifically to
Speaker 1: pressure to create scenes that will try to convince politicians
Speaker 1: to veto the process. So it's not you know, it's
Speaker 1: it's it's different from the nineties when it was easier
Speaker 1: to like actually physically stop the prevention of things. Now
Speaker 1: a lot of the people who you know are trying
Speaker 1: to do this, it is they're not convinced that, you know,
Speaker 1: doing a lock box is going to actually physically prevent it.
Speaker 1: What it's gonna do is create media coverage that truy
Speaker 1: that is going to hopefully convince politicians to be like, hey,
Speaker 1: maybe we shouldn't do this, and that's a hard bargain, right,
Speaker 1: that's not there's no saying that that's actually going to
Speaker 1: do the thing. Know, in the in the case of
Speaker 1: stop Line three that did not stop line three. Um.
Speaker 1: There was a really good uh um critique of the
Speaker 1: stop Line three protests posted in It's going down by
Speaker 1: an Indigenous anarchist who lives on that land who was
Speaker 1: like younger um, and they're you know, watching all of
Speaker 1: these you know, older indigenous anarchists, you know, keep on
Speaker 1: getting arrested and brutalized, Like, but we're not actually doing anything.
Speaker 1: And the methods that we're doing that, the methods that
Speaker 1: we're trying to like, you know, game public support, this
Speaker 1: isn't working in this specific context. Maybe we should reevaluate
Speaker 1: what we're actually doing. I know It's going down, and
Speaker 1: faced a bit of backlash for posting that critique, but
Speaker 1: I think that I think the critique is actually worth reading.
Speaker 1: Any other thoughts on the Atlanta thing before I move
Speaker 1: on to the stop line three stuff, um, No, no
Speaker 1: other than to note that I think the best brisket
Speaker 1: I've ever had came from Atlanta. Okay, well I'll probably
Speaker 1: I'll probably visiting Atlanta in the near future, maybe there
Speaker 1: with you, um, in which case I'll get some more
Speaker 1: motherfucking brisket. Yeah. It was actually the fun story. We
Speaker 1: were road tripping through town, me and another friend in
Speaker 1: another car and we were talking over radios and a
Speaker 1: trucker got on like the channel we were on because
Speaker 1: we were talking about where to get barbecue, and he
Speaker 1: told us where to go. Um. It was neat. It
Speaker 1: was like an actual nice, like like moment of CB
Speaker 1: radio connection. Like this guy was just scanning the waves
Speaker 1: and found us and I was like, oh, I can
Speaker 1: tell you where to go anyway, continue Garrison. That was
Speaker 1: completely unrelated to stopping Line three. So the next thing
Speaker 1: is earlier, I think in September maybe August. I forget,
Speaker 1: it's been a while. We we we posted two episodes
Speaker 1: about me visiting the top Line three protests and the
Speaker 1: Earth First camp, and a lot of stuff has happened
Speaker 1: since then. UM. So you know, the main you know
Speaker 1: thing is that the pipe planet has been finished now
Speaker 1: um and is basically getting is ready to be operated,
Speaker 1: or it probably already has some operation. It's unclear how
Speaker 1: much is being used right now, but it is done construction.
Speaker 1: It doubles the capacity of the original pipeline. It's going
Speaker 1: to be doing like a seven hundred and sixty thousand
Speaker 1: barrels of oil a day's so in the carves outland
Speaker 1: through through wet lands where people grow wild rice and
Speaker 1: do hunting. Um So, overall the past few months police
Speaker 1: arrested over nine people, and it's there's been a lot
Speaker 1: of like felony charges specifically for locking down, which is
Speaker 1: pretty new because they're using felony theft charges for people
Speaker 1: just locking down to equipment. Yeah, that is an unfortunate escalation. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Um So by the time we posted our top line
Speaker 1: three episodes, we kind of already figured this was going
Speaker 1: to be the result that That's kind of how he
Speaker 1: ended the episode saying, there's been all this resistance, but
Speaker 1: probably it's going to get built, and you know, there's
Speaker 1: other things that we can learn from this movement going
Speaker 1: on into the future. Um but the new developments that
Speaker 1: have happened. Um I. I did mention in the episodes
Speaker 1: how much Enbridge was directly paying cops. That was something
Speaker 1: we already knew. What was happening. But there was an
Speaker 1: article by the Guardian that really gave a lot of
Speaker 1: new information around how much police involvement there is with
Speaker 1: like with Enbridge, Like they are actually coordinating a lot.
Speaker 1: So overall, uh, Enbridge has reimbursed US police almost two
Speaker 1: and a half million dollars for arresting and surveying protesters. UM,
Speaker 1: also paying for like food, lodging gas. So like's they're
Speaker 1: not just not not not just paying wages, they're paying
Speaker 1: like for extra stuff as well. So at least at
Speaker 1: least two and a half million dollars that's been paid
Speaker 1: from the Canadian oil company um, you know, including that
Speaker 1: includes officer officer training, UH, police patrol routes, surveillance, all
Speaker 1: this kind of stuff. UM. The one one interesting thing
Speaker 1: that was noted in the article is that the company
Speaker 1: at Enbridge meets daily with police officers to discuss intelligence
Speaker 1: gathering and patrols um. And when and when Enbridge wants
Speaker 1: protesters removed, it directly calls or sends letters to police.
Speaker 1: So they they actually like coordinate when to actually get
Speaker 1: police involved during protests, and they have at least daily
Speaker 1: information meetings. The one other interesting thing besides just directly
Speaker 1: paying them for food for you know, a training equipment,
Speaker 1: and the coordination between en Bridge and people being on
Speaker 1: the ground is um how much that the Enbridge paid
Speaker 1: for uh, like proactive safety patrols and specific like specific
Speaker 1: officer surveillance following alleged activists like home. So they would
Speaker 1: like trail specific cars for a long time and try
Speaker 1: to like do like in person surveillance on specific people
Speaker 1: they thought were activists. And all of this time was
Speaker 1: paid for by Enbridge and was being coordinated with Enbridge.
Speaker 1: So it's not just you know, paying for training, it's
Speaker 1: not just for paying for equipment. It's specific surveillance of
Speaker 1: certain people. And that is I don't know, that's something
Speaker 1: that we weren't We did not really know the depths
Speaker 1: of that for sure, but it's pretty it's pretty messed up.
Speaker 1: I know. We we suspected some of this coordination before,
Speaker 1: Like when we talked about police showing up to the
Speaker 1: Stop Line three camp and blocking off access to the road. Uh,
Speaker 1: this was at the same day that drilling under the
Speaker 1: river was just being finished, and we so we suspected like, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's like Embridge obviously talking with police to prevent people
Speaker 1: from leaving so that they can they can finish up
Speaker 1: this specific drilling project that was that was pretty obvious
Speaker 1: to us at the scene. Um, and now we have,
Speaker 1: you know, extra confirmation that, yeah, they do like meet
Speaker 1: daily to coordinate these types of things. Um. So it's
Speaker 1: good to have that extra confirmation of the stuff we
Speaker 1: already like suspected and stuff we already kind of like
Speaker 1: put together through experience. But now we have like, you know,
Speaker 1: court documents and records showing the extent of the coordination.
Speaker 1: All right, well we'll talk about terrorism, but you know
Speaker 1: who else is a terrorist? Oh boy? The products and
Speaker 1: services that support this podcast are all right in a
Speaker 1: good way, you know, uh like um, you know, like
Speaker 1: uh like uh kind of alright, well, it's it's complicated,
Speaker 1: all right. Do ads just run ads stuff? Oh yeah?
Speaker 1: So if it will probably be funnier if you bleep
Speaker 1: out the name of the terrorist organization. This is how
Speaker 1: we get This is how we pick up from the
Speaker 1: ad brancast. Are you saying that? So? Um? Garrison, We
Speaker 1: got some some critiques that came in to the old
Speaker 1: news line, by which I mean people deemed me on Reddit,
Speaker 1: which yeah, I never respond, Um, I almost never respond,
Speaker 1: it's nothing against people. I just don't like being communicated with. Um.
Speaker 1: But too many, too many people ask me to send
Speaker 1: messages to you and like yeah, you're not my secretary's
Speaker 1: and welcome to the last three years of my life.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, anyway, yeah, I mean, but that's funny, Sophie. Ah,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Um, there were people who were like, hey,
Speaker 1: I don't know if you know this, but Earth First
Speaker 1: has a problematic history with like eco fascism and that
Speaker 1: sort of stuff. Um, just like that too. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: it's it's one of those things. They definitely are an
Speaker 1: organization that has said things in the past that I
Speaker 1: don't agree with. There's been specific people who do organizing
Speaker 1: with them that don't have great beliefs specifically around like
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of like in the old green
Speaker 1: movements has been you know, a lot of like transphobia,
Speaker 1: some like racism. Um, It's it's not because they're the
Speaker 1: green movements. Like all left spaces deal with versions and
Speaker 1: there of variety stuff, you know, not like respecting like
Speaker 1: indigenous people. Um, you know that that's been that's been
Speaker 1: a thing. Um. But the specific term eco fascism, I
Speaker 1: believe is incorrect, um, because they don't advocate for the
Speaker 1: genocide of a specific group, UM. And they don't have
Speaker 1: like far right populist policies. So like, you can have
Speaker 1: bad opinions and bad ideas and you can actually be
Speaker 1: a racist without actually being fascist, especially eco fascist. UM.
Speaker 1: So I feel like people throw that word around a
Speaker 1: lot and they don't actually know what it means. UM.
Speaker 1: But what were you specifically referring to, Robert Um. I'm
Speaker 1: trying to find the message here. But because I got
Speaker 1: a message saying that Earth First is bad because they're
Speaker 1: anti natalists, that means they're fascist, which isn't It isn't
Speaker 1: really got that yeah, which isn't. Actually like, I'm just
Speaker 1: going to disagree with that actause I don't think anti
Speaker 1: natalism quits fascism, especially anti natalism. For like, an anti
Speaker 1: natalism is basically saying, don't don't make people. Maybe we
Speaker 1: should maybe we should stop having more kids right now
Speaker 1: because we have a lot of problems to deal with
Speaker 1: and maybe we shouldn't be having like, you know, three kids,
Speaker 1: which is not it's not a take. I'm not an
Speaker 1: anti natalist. I don't actually disagree with that take though,
Speaker 1: But I think it's more in the line of, like,
Speaker 1: the most fundamental of all human desires for the majority
Speaker 1: of the population is to make more people, which is
Speaker 1: kind of why I like anti natalism, because it has
Speaker 1: that thing that's opposite to one of a lot of
Speaker 1: humans natural reaction, and like, no one's forcing anti natalists
Speaker 1: don't want to force you to be anti natalist. Bring
Speaker 1: up this as an idea, Yeah, and I think it's
Speaker 1: a valuable idea to discuss. And I don't think it's
Speaker 1: I don't think you're I don't think you're embracing like
Speaker 1: the massacre of human beings or genesis by saying like,
Speaker 1: I think it'd be best if we didn't make anymore.
Speaker 1: I'm not planning an arguable point, I'm not planning to
Speaker 1: have any kids because I don't see why it wou
Speaker 1: especially when there's so many like children that can be
Speaker 1: a doctor Garrison, we talked about you having kids so
Speaker 1: we could experiment with making them blue. This is a
Speaker 1: separate conversation that we're not talking about involving We are
Speaker 1: not talking about this on the plot. We'll just include
Speaker 1: that tantalizing hint. I also just think in general, when
Speaker 1: we talk about a group that's had a long history
Speaker 1: and a specific thing they're doing in the present. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this has happened in another situation where people like, well,
Speaker 1: you know, they did this or some one of them
Speaker 1: said this. And there's a couple of things I feel
Speaker 1: about that. For one thing, it's it's like it's entirely
Speaker 1: possible that the people doing the thing in the present
Speaker 1: day have nothing to do with the people twenty years ago. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like most of the people there were First Gathering Gathering
Speaker 1: were like in their twenties and around my age, Like
Speaker 1: they weren't in the they weren't in Earth for night.
Speaker 1: Like that's not like, so I feel like silly about
Speaker 1: kind of making them be held accountable for something somebody
Speaker 1: else said under a similar maner decades ago. And on
Speaker 1: the podcast, I talked about how like people on their
Speaker 1: Earth First Earth First Gathering like talked about this stuff
Speaker 1: like that. People talked about Earth First like history and
Speaker 1: how they haven't handled some issues very well. There was
Speaker 1: a lot there was a massive effort for this gathering
Speaker 1: to like um to like uplift and make sure everyone
Speaker 1: focuses on Indigenous voices, Like they invited over multiple indigenous
Speaker 1: groups to give talks on green resistance and like land
Speaker 1: back like that. That was a big focus of like
Speaker 1: making sure that this actually is something that has heard
Speaker 1: because people know like this is, yeah, this is something important,
Speaker 1: this is something that actually should be done, and there
Speaker 1: are I think in general, when we talk about like
Speaker 1: holding organizations and individuals accountable for their past, um, what
Speaker 1: matters is like a mix of what they did and
Speaker 1: what they're doing. So obviously, if Earth First had been
Speaker 1: saying twenty years ago, we need to wipe out all
Speaker 1: the Jews, I would be like I wouldn't care what
Speaker 1: they were saying now, you know, it would be like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you can't really come back from that. If you want
Speaker 1: to do a completely different thing, it needs to be
Speaker 1: a new organization. Don't. But they weren't. And I'm not
Speaker 1: saying that where I'm just making an example, but like,
Speaker 1: as a rule, I think we should embrace the fact
Speaker 1: that organizations and people can change throughout time and be
Speaker 1: better than they were in the past, um and and
Speaker 1: learn from mistakes and flaws. And I feel pretty unwilling
Speaker 1: to condemn individuals or organizations for the mistakes of their past,
Speaker 1: although that is dependent upon the kind of mistake and
Speaker 1: the harm that it cost. Yeah, and like and how
Speaker 1: they address it in the futures, like a lot of
Speaker 1: these Yeah, because like it wasn't like first as an
Speaker 1: overall organization of specific people they were affiliated with, like
Speaker 1: you know, specifically UM like um Edward Abbey has said
Speaker 1: some not great things around different different different social issues,
Speaker 1: and his books were extremely influential on the beginning of
Speaker 1: green resistance. But that's something people talk about now, Like
Speaker 1: that's something that is like discussed and debated. Um. And
Speaker 1: he was and he was like even in the eighties
Speaker 1: and nineties, he was like kicked out of our first
Speaker 1: gatherings for kind of being a loser, like for for
Speaker 1: having these bad views. Were like, yeah, we probably shouldn't
Speaker 1: have you here anymore. Leave go away. It's like that
Speaker 1: was something that was even talked about back like back
Speaker 1: then as well. That is that isn't just a modern thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think in general, Number there's a couple of things.
Speaker 1: Number One, whenever we talk about like an organization in
Speaker 1: a specific context they're doing this, that doesn't mean we're
Speaker 1: embracing everything they've done. And number two, whenever we talk
Speaker 1: about the history of of of of a movement or
Speaker 1: a group. I hope nobody ever takes that as like,
Speaker 1: here is the authoritative stance on the history of this thing,
Speaker 1: Like it's when we talked about the Black Panthers. There's
Speaker 1: a bunch of stuff we left out that's very important.
Speaker 1: Um My hope with those episodes, and I hope with
Speaker 1: anything we do, is that it like inspires people to
Speaker 1: want to learn more and read more, and we're giving
Speaker 1: them a basis of understanding that they can use to
Speaker 1: expand their knowledge on an important topic. So please, we
Speaker 1: are we are. There's like one thing, uh collectively that
Speaker 1: that Garrison and I have any kind of expertise on,
Speaker 1: and uh, outside of that, you should not take anything
Speaker 1: we say as like, here's the comprehensive history of of
Speaker 1: this because it's I I understand one thing, and it's
Speaker 1: it's how the internet makes people shitty. Yeah, so yeah,
Speaker 1: um yeah, I mean that that was something that this
Speaker 1: whole thing was. Something I thought about when writing these
Speaker 1: episodes is how much to include of this stuff. And
Speaker 1: I did not feel like it was super important to
Speaker 1: discuss this stuff because it wasn't relevant to the topic
Speaker 1: of stop line think such relevant to the topic of
Speaker 1: like the current ongoing green resistance. If we want to
Speaker 1: do like a history of green activism, then yes, this
Speaker 1: is something that that would be that. Yeah, and I
Speaker 1: think like at some point we probably should do absolutely
Speaker 1: about just like Mirror and like all of that ship.
Speaker 1: But like that, there's a kind of stuff we want
Speaker 1: to talk about that we haven't yet because it's a
Speaker 1: daily show and my God, give us some fucking time.
Speaker 1: People speaking of Edward Abbey, you know what, huh Cells
Speaker 1: Quality monkey wrenches. Okay, alright, that's fine. The maybe one
Speaker 1: of our sponsors, I hope, so Ace Hardware, it's hardware
Speaker 1: bas hardware sponsoring us. They do sell You can get
Speaker 1: some good monkey wrenches from Ace Hardware Quality for fixing
Speaker 1: your faucet, for fixing your faucet. So go get wrench
Speaker 1: pilled and then listen to the rest of the show.
Speaker 1: Well we're back. We just had a good discussion about
Speaker 1: what we're gonna talk about, and we realized that it
Speaker 1: wasn't after the ad break, so here we are. Um
Speaker 1: In in early September, we had an episodes about both
Speaker 1: California's climate and the ongoing recall election against Gavin Newsom.
Speaker 1: So a few days after our episodes dropped to think
Speaker 1: like the day the day of the second one dropped
Speaker 1: was was election day? Um we we we got the
Speaker 1: results in faster than what I was expecting. Um and
Speaker 1: Newsome did handily beat lay very Elder with like so
Speaker 1: people people voted sixty no and like yes, so he
Speaker 1: Knewsome did a decent job and pushing off Elder. Um.
Speaker 1: So this, this, this whole recall processed costed California taxpayers
Speaker 1: two hundred and seventy six million dollars. It's not like
Speaker 1: we needed the money for anything else. Garrison. Come on, yeah,
Speaker 1: so you know a few takeaways. We're going to spend
Speaker 1: it oners literally anything else. Water giving California needs water
Speaker 1: and firefighters. Garrison coming giving houses to people who need houses.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Um yeah, so takeaways from this, Uh,
Speaker 1: the recall process still should absolutely be invented. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: shouldn't require should require more than twelve signatures of the
Speaker 1: last voter turnout. Um and the government should be requiring
Speaker 1: to get to if you're if you're gonna be elected
Speaker 1: in the government, you should be red to get a
Speaker 1: majority of votes. Um. Not not not just a plurality
Speaker 1: of a specific you know, sect, So there's a whole
Speaker 1: we we we talked about the specific reasons why it
Speaker 1: was bad in those episodes. Those are still those are
Speaker 1: still like, those are still valid, those are still relevant
Speaker 1: because there's still the same issues. Yeah, and none of
Speaker 1: the fact that this turned out well had anything to
Speaker 1: do with the Democratic Party who very nearly bungled it
Speaker 1: and it and it doesn't it doesn't really impact. It
Speaker 1: doesn't impact, you know, the California's climate issues so much.
Speaker 1: And like just because new Sims in office doesn't mean
Speaker 1: they're going to get much better. You know, there's still
Speaker 1: things that it needs to be pushed on to to
Speaker 1: you know, make the climate a little bit more habitable.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, it it means that we will continue
Speaker 1: stumbling towards a cliff rather than speak sprinting. So generally
Speaker 1: what voting for Democrats means, I will say, it's interesting
Speaker 1: to me that it doesn't seem like you can get
Speaker 1: the vote was rigged thing to work unless the election
Speaker 1: is like kind of this is the next thing I
Speaker 1: was going to talk about. Um, Yeah, because because like
Speaker 1: in the week before the election, uh, the Fox News
Speaker 1: Republican Party and Larry Elder and even Trump, we're really
Speaker 1: starting to ramp up this idea that if Elder loses,
Speaker 1: that means the election was rigged. Uh. This was like
Speaker 1: they were really pushing this hard and you know, spreading it,
Speaker 1: like they were giving links to a website like before
Speaker 1: he lost, even be like, if you know, when I lose,
Speaker 1: use this website. I was like, Okay, that's okay, that's weird. Um.
Speaker 1: But on the night of the election, Elder seems to
Speaker 1: kind of claim climb down from the inflammatory like rhetoric
Speaker 1: around the election. In his concession speech, he told supporters,
Speaker 1: let's be gracious and defeat um. So he once the
Speaker 1: actual results were in, he really climbed that down. So
Speaker 1: we can read into that. The other thing I want
Speaker 1: us to read into here is that could this could
Speaker 1: this rhetoric around if we lose that means it was rigged?
Speaker 1: Could that disenfranchise republic Can voters from even showing up
Speaker 1: if they believe that all elections will be stolen from them?
Speaker 1: Will that being that they'll be less Republican turn out
Speaker 1: if there's just if they think that it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: So that's the other side of things, Like I'm not
Speaker 1: sure if if if the other side effects that this,
Speaker 1: that this rhetoric could have. Yeah, there's an interesting So
Speaker 1: during during the last election like national election cycle, there
Speaker 1: was a bunch of me to use people who weren't
Speaker 1: voting in Florida, And I thought it was really interesting
Speaker 1: because there were there were several people they talked to
Speaker 1: who were like, yeah, I don't vote because last time
Speaker 1: I voted was two thousands and they stole the election,
Speaker 1: which which literally which which yeah, And you know i'd
Speaker 1: say that, yeah, Like, I think it is slightly different
Speaker 1: when like two thousands, when the actually like like literally
Speaker 1: but there was there was the bricks like there there
Speaker 1: there Roger Stone, Yeah, Roger Stone led a riot to
Speaker 1: stop like the votes from being counted, like whatever, weird Bush.
Speaker 1: I think people people got like like a bunch of
Speaker 1: people with like vaguely black names got like their aims
Speaker 1: struck off the like the voting roles. Like there was
Speaker 1: a lot of yeah, but yeah, and and I don't
Speaker 1: I don't know if it'll if it if the effect
Speaker 1: can work that strongly when it's like completely bullshit, I
Speaker 1: think it's Yeah, I don't know, It's it's hard to
Speaker 1: say because it's it's it's unclear whether the voter turnout
Speaker 1: on the because, like you know, there were times where
Speaker 1: they were pulling like fifty fifty between between between Newsom
Speaker 1: and Elder, and it's unclear. I think definitely the big
Speaker 1: advertising push that corporate donors gave to Newsom in the
Speaker 1: month before the election did help get Democratic voter turnout,
Speaker 1: you know, like people voting for news getting people scared
Speaker 1: about fucking is the governor that not was not ineffective,
Speaker 1: that that very much works. That did increase turn out there,
Speaker 1: But I don't know because like with the whole election
Speaker 1: being stolen rhetoric that can both increase Republican voter turnout
Speaker 1: and then there's also the side effect now where maybe
Speaker 1: it could decrease it because they're just disenfranchised about this concept.
Speaker 1: But this is kind of just speculation at this point.
Speaker 1: I don't have actual data backing up this claim right now.
Speaker 1: This is just something that I thought about while running
Speaker 1: this right up, I'm like, huh, I wonder if this
Speaker 1: could be a contributing factor in the future. People really
Speaker 1: I feel like they're always gonna lose. Maybe they just
Speaker 1: not not even are gonna bother um. But it's hard
Speaker 1: to say. It's like, you know, the main reason why
Speaker 1: Elder lost wasn't due to newsom strength. That was because
Speaker 1: Elder is like, it's completely like he it was like
Speaker 1: it was the most yeah, well like wildly unqualified and
Speaker 1: like one of the more extreme candidates like running. And yes,
Speaker 1: he did get a lot of support among Republicans, but
Speaker 1: among moderates and people you know, left of center in
Speaker 1: terms of like an American spectrum. Uh, they're like, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: this is gonna be a disaster if he if he
Speaker 1: gets elected. And that's the main reason why he didn't. Um,
Speaker 1: it's not due to Newsom being great. But I mean
Speaker 1: Sophie did mention a few things that Newsom has done
Speaker 1: since then. Um, so we do do do do you
Speaker 1: want to say the specific details just so I don't
Speaker 1: have to look so if he's famously a big Newsome fan,
Speaker 1: so yeah, not come on. Uh so not to give
Speaker 1: news some credit because this is like an obvious right
Speaker 1: thing to do situation. But um. At the beginning of October,
Speaker 1: the Senate Bill seven was signed into law. It was
Speaker 1: an unanimous vote and Newsom signed off on it to
Speaker 1: give back Bruce's Beach, which was owned by a black family,
Speaker 1: Willa and Charles Bruce back in their land was illegally
Speaker 1: taken away from them. It's a beach front plot in
Speaker 1: Manhattan Beach, and I signed into LATA give it back. Yeah,
Speaker 1: more of that should be done. I mean that is
Speaker 1: kind of the basis of like, you know, that is
Speaker 1: one side of land back, is just giving land back
Speaker 1: to people who used to have it. Yeah, of course
Speaker 1: this is this isn't sally tied to like indigenous stuff.
Speaker 1: But you know, I've seen people make that same comparison
Speaker 1: for Yeah, we should just be doing this more in
Speaker 1: general to a lot of people. Yeah. Yeah, that's I'm
Speaker 1: glad that that was done. It's also now illegal to
Speaker 1: remove a condom without consett in California, which is wait,
Speaker 1: what You're going to have to change a lot of
Speaker 1: things about how you have sex with Californians. Yeah, during intercourse,
Speaker 1: that's the it's the first state to do that, first
Speaker 1: of all. Huh. Yeah, and it's wild because under any
Speaker 1: reasonable definition, that's rape. Yeah, yeah, it's just ra Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's absolutely rape. California also now requires menstal products in
Speaker 1: public schools, so that's bare minimum and that is good.
Speaker 1: I didn't realize that it happened. Yeah, And I want
Speaker 1: to be clear here, I'm not giving you some credit
Speaker 1: for this, but if he had lost the recallection, none
Speaker 1: of this would be happening. No, it's nice that he
Speaker 1: I'm sure some of this was him kind of providing
Speaker 1: a sop to the people who lined up to stop
Speaker 1: the recall. And those are good things that were done. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think I think that's sort of an important
Speaker 1: thing to understand about when politicians occasionally do good things.
Speaker 1: It's like they don't do good things because they want
Speaker 1: to do them. They they they do things that benefit
Speaker 1: from you because they're either in some way scared of you,
Speaker 1: or it's because they need to buy they buy you off,
Speaker 1: and and that that is, you know, that is that
Speaker 1: is a legitimate way that good things happen. But I've
Speaker 1: got a couple other Uh, there's been a lot signed
Speaker 1: in recently, So I got a couple of other ones
Speaker 1: that I that I think are relevant to our show.
Speaker 1: California will not streamline extend assisted death law. So that's
Speaker 1: that's good. That reduces the time until terminal patients can
Speaker 1: choose to be given fatal drugs, So good. Starting January one,
Speaker 1: the waiting period required time a patient makes separate oral
Speaker 1: request for medication were dropped to forty hours, down from
Speaker 1: the current minimum fifteen days. That is that is good,
Speaker 1: pretty rad Yeah, I mean there's just there's there's a
Speaker 1: I mean, we'll see if it's it's hard, a lot,
Speaker 1: there's a lot, it's it's hard, it's hard to be
Speaker 1: like worse than Larry Elder. Yeah, that's this one definitely
Speaker 1: would not get through for No, California California Acts a
Speaker 1: lot of strip badges from bad officers, like very vaguely written,
Speaker 1: is very vague. But yeah, well we'll see what happens
Speaker 1: to like, No, none of that stuff would have happened
Speaker 1: under a thing I am surprised at, Like I'm surprised
Speaker 1: that some of those things actually got through because I'm
Speaker 1: I'm surprised that Democratic politicians would actually vote for those
Speaker 1: things we put office. That's why I was like basically
Speaker 1: the condom, Yeah, yeah, absolutely, And I was not expecting
Speaker 1: that to go through some science legislation to extend to
Speaker 1: go cocktails. Wait, all right, that's sure, Okay, more where
Speaker 1: am I to go cocktail heads? Sorry? Alright, so at
Speaker 1: least Larry Al there's not in office. There's till a
Speaker 1: lot of climate issues, and maybe this rhetoric around stealing
Speaker 1: the elections not gonna work every single time they do it. Um,
Speaker 1: that's kind of the main that's the main things that
Speaker 1: I was going to talk about, and it is it is.
Speaker 1: I mean, one of the things that people are talking
Speaker 1: about in a lot of the spaces I generally agree
Speaker 1: with is like the foolishness of voting is harm reduction.
Speaker 1: And there's been a lot of if you want to
Speaker 1: believe that it isn't, there's been a lot of information
Speaker 1: coming up from the Biden administration that will support that belief. Um.
Speaker 1: But what we're seeing right now in California is that
Speaker 1: can be like the these are not none of this
Speaker 1: is going to fundamentally change the major problems that are
Speaker 1: confronting us. But but a bunch of those things are
Speaker 1: going to Like life's going to be easier for some
Speaker 1: little girls whose families don't have much money. You know,
Speaker 1: life got easier for that one family who got their
Speaker 1: land back. Um. You know, potentially it's going to be
Speaker 1: easier to get bad police officer, or to get particularly
Speaker 1: bad police officers off the Street, and that's not that's
Speaker 1: not nothing like when we say voting can be and
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that it usually is, but when we
Speaker 1: it can reduce harm, that's what it means. It means
Speaker 1: that like, oh, some bad things that that would be
Speaker 1: worse are not as bad because of this. Not that
Speaker 1: everything is better. A lot of stuff will be the
Speaker 1: same and is the same in California, Like ecologically, nothing
Speaker 1: sundically fundamentally changed, but some ship's a little easier for
Speaker 1: certain groups of people as a result of some stuff.
Speaker 1: And specific specifically, I think the getting getting more like
Speaker 1: contraceptive products menstrual products inside public schools is one of
Speaker 1: the literally the best things we can do, like like
Speaker 1: for the whole country. It is like something that if
Speaker 1: that was required in every public school, that would make
Speaker 1: so many people's lives better. That ridiculous degree significantly reduces
Speaker 1: harm in a specific way. And I think that just
Speaker 1: because like, yeah, I mean, it's not going to stop
Speaker 1: us all from burning up, um, but that doesn't mean
Speaker 1: it's not worthwhile. Yeah. So those those are the three
Speaker 1: stories that I wanted to give some updates for, um
Speaker 1: because I know, you know, there were changes happened you know,
Speaker 1: very soon after posting those episodes. UM, I still think
Speaker 1: the California ones are worth listening to because they do
Speaker 1: lay out a lot of stuff around around California's climate,
Speaker 1: um and the specific weird stuff that it has with
Speaker 1: its specific weird things that has with its election process. UM.
Speaker 1: I think the line three episodes are going to be
Speaker 1: pretty good to go back to as well. UM, And
Speaker 1: then uh, I at the specific Cop City thing in Atlanta,
Speaker 1: that is the stuff that I am. It's gonna be
Speaker 1: the most like ongoing thing stills because that's going to
Speaker 1: be an ongoing project. So I'm sure we'll come back
Speaker 1: to the Cops City at different points throughout the next
Speaker 1: few months. So that that that that that's the updates. UM.
Speaker 1: Any any any closing notes from either Christopher, Robert or Sophie, Yeah,
Speaker 1: just just I do well excuse me, Okay, sorry Sophie, Sorry,
Speaker 1: just I just just remind him we've said this earlier
Speaker 1: in the episode that like we're just giving you brief
Speaker 1: brief sniff. It's about this stuff. There's a lot there's
Speaker 1: a lot of really good articles online that go go
Speaker 1: deep into these things, and we'll post our sources on
Speaker 1: the website. Yep, yeah, yeah we we we we do.
Speaker 1: We do a good job, I think most of the time. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: but we're great. Yeah, we're we're the only heroes, that's
Speaker 1: fair to say. Absolutely, But do do not have a
Speaker 1: podcast be the only source of information? Absolutely not. Don't
Speaker 1: listen to if you think more of a of a
Speaker 1: left perspective that is that that goes in some directions,
Speaker 1: we don't. It's going down is a lovely place to
Speaker 1: check out. Margaret Killjoy's um uh live like the World
Speaker 1: is Dying. St Andrew's YouTube channel. Um he does some
Speaker 1: some really incredible stuff. Um, you know, there's all sorts
Speaker 1: of good people out there. And then also like history
Speaker 1: books more than anything like history books straight books for
Speaker 1: the thing that Yeah, if you want to read more
Speaker 1: about the new sub notable laws signed recently, the k
Speaker 1: c r A and Sacramento did a did a really
Speaker 1: good breakdown article. Oh sorry, so it's okay. And and
Speaker 1: as a note, we will be doing more episodes like
Speaker 1: this over time, as like stories that we cover have
Speaker 1: additional things happened to them. This is like we don't
Speaker 1: want to just be like dropping a story and then
Speaker 1: ignoring whatever happens next. Um. Sometimes they don't mean following
Speaker 1: up with people that we're talking to on the ground,
Speaker 1: but you know, we are trying to like keep you
Speaker 1: updated on the things that we think are important, you know,
Speaker 1: even when they end uh in a in a broadly
Speaker 1: positive sense or whatever. And Uh, lastly, what was the
Speaker 1: name of that brisket place in Atlantic, because I'm sure
Speaker 1: people are gonna ask about it. Oh, I don't remember.
Speaker 1: It was some shitty little place in the middle of
Speaker 1: South Atlanta. Um, and like a fucking strip mall that
Speaker 1: was really helpful. I don't remember. So if it was
Speaker 1: like eleven years ago, what do you I don't remember,
Speaker 1: the best brisket you've ever had? And it was but
Speaker 1: the best. Like if you know anything about good barbecue,
Speaker 1: the best barbecue you ever have is either cooked by
Speaker 1: like your uncle or is cooked in some shitty little
Speaker 1: place with a turn that wouldn't pass a code inspection.
Speaker 1: That is true that the more the more codes it violates,
Speaker 1: the better the bisket. Um. Anyway, if you see the
Speaker 1: chef actively ship on the grill, that means just going
Speaker 1: to be incredible. Jesus Christ, Twitter and Instagram, what happened here?
Speaker 1: Poticles media, subscribe to the feed and leave a five
Speaker 1: star of you. That's it. Don't don't don't shoot on
Speaker 1: your brisket, grill on everything. Alright, life, Here's to the
Speaker 1: great American settlers. The millions of you has settled for
Speaker 1: unsatisfying jobs because they paid the bills, and uh, you
Speaker 1: just kind of fell into it, and you know, it's
Speaker 1: like totally fine, just another few decades or so and
Speaker 1: then you can enjoy yourself. Of course, there is something
Speaker 1: else you could do. If you've got something to say.
Speaker 1: You could, I don't know, start up podcast with Spreaker
Speaker 1: from my heart and unleash your creative freedom and spend
Speaker 1: all day researching and talking about stuff you love and
Speaker 1: maybe even earn enough money to one day tell your
Speaker 1: irritating boss as you quit and walk off into the sunset, Hey,
Speaker 1: I'm no settler, I'm an explorer. Spreaker dot com. That's
Speaker 1: spr e a K e er hustle on over today.
Speaker 1: Raphie is the voice of some of the happiest songs
Speaker 1: of our generation, Baby Little So, who is the man
Speaker 1: behind Baby Bluga. Every human being wants to feel respected.
Speaker 1: When we start with, all good things can grow from there.
Speaker 1: I'm Chris Garcia, comedian, new Dad and host of Finding Raffie,
Speaker 1: a new podcast from my Heart Radio and Fatherly. Listen
Speaker 1: every Tuesday on the I Heart Radio app or wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts. This is Roxanne Gay, host of
Speaker 1: The Roxanne Gay Agenda, the Bad Frominast podcast of Your Dreams. Now,
Speaker 1: what is the Roxanne Gay Agenda, you might ask, Well,
Speaker 1: It's a podcast where I'm going to speak my mind
Speaker 1: about what's on my mind, and that could be anything.
Speaker 1: Every week, I will be in conversation with an interesting
Speaker 1: person who has something to say. We're going to talk
Speaker 1: about feminism, race, writing in books, and art, food, pop culture,
Speaker 1: and yes, politics. I started each show with a recommendation. Really,
Speaker 1: I'm just going to share with you a movie or
Speaker 1: a book, or maybe some new sick or a comedy set,
Speaker 1: something that I really want you to be aware of
Speaker 1: and maybe engage with as well. Listen to the Luminary
Speaker 1: original podcast, The Roxanay Agenda, The Bad Feminist Podcast of
Speaker 1: Your Dreams, every Tuesday on the I Heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast Garrison, Is
Speaker 1: that good? Is that? The show? No? Just keep going though? Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: it could happen. Here is the show that A tonal
Speaker 1: Noise is my introduction this week because I'm a hack
Speaker 1: in a fraud. Who isn't a hack in a fraud?
Speaker 1: Is is our guest this week. St Andrew. St Andrew,
Speaker 1: you are a solar punk anarchist from Trinidad. UM. You
Speaker 1: have a YouTube channel, UM where you talk about solar punk.
Speaker 1: UM you talked about stuff like seed bombing. Yeah. I'm
Speaker 1: just very excited to have you on the show because
Speaker 1: I'm a big fan of YouTube channel. Thank you, glad
Speaker 1: to be here, big fan of your work as well, Andrew.
Speaker 1: I kind of wanted to start with why this why
Speaker 1: solar punk is important? Because, UM, I think it's easy
Speaker 1: for folks who just kind of skim it to see it.
Speaker 1: It's just like, oh, it's an aesthetic. It's maybe an
Speaker 1: art style or a fiction style. UM. Maybe something that's neat,
Speaker 1: but not something that has like a lot of inherent
Speaker 1: value to people trying to change the world. And obviously
Speaker 1: you disagree with that. I disagree with it to UM.
Speaker 1: A quote I keep coming back to again and again
Speaker 1: is one from Werner Herzog in the nineteen seventies, and
Speaker 1: it was something along the lines of I think that
Speaker 1: without better myths, were destined to go the way of
Speaker 1: the dinosaurs. Um. Actually, of I forget his name right now.
Speaker 1: But there's this excellent, excellent book called The Truth About Stories,
Speaker 1: and I think what it really emphasizes throughout the book
Speaker 1: is the importance of stories on how stories impact how
Speaker 1: we navigate the woot, which is why I sort of
Speaker 1: embraced sua punk, you know, as a story that we
Speaker 1: can work with green forward. Yeah, I think, Um, I
Speaker 1: think it's incredibly important to have better stories, better myths
Speaker 1: because for one thing, I think where the Left falls
Speaker 1: down a lot is not having is accurately diagnosing the
Speaker 1: problems without providing a better look at at the at
Speaker 1: the future, you know. Um. And when the problems are
Speaker 1: when the people who do kind of propose solutions, it's
Speaker 1: often um not in a way people can feel. One
Speaker 1: of the benefits that that that the right has, that
Speaker 1: fascism has, is that they they're very good at providing
Speaker 1: people with myths and providing people with kind of a
Speaker 1: fictional look at at their idealized world that draws people in.
Speaker 1: You know, you can laugh at the right. You know,
Speaker 1: they have a lot of people that work on like
Speaker 1: meta narratives and that's very, very core to their ideology. Um, So,
Speaker 1: I guess where I'd like to start with you, Andrew,
Speaker 1: because this is kind of the first time I think
Speaker 1: we've really talked about solar punk on on this show,
Speaker 1: even though from the beginning before any of these episodes dropped,
Speaker 1: this was always a central part of our discussion about
Speaker 1: what the show was was going to be. Um, would
Speaker 1: you kind of provide an introduction to to what solar
Speaker 1: punk is for our listeners? Sure? Sure, So I would
Speaker 1: say that solar punk is the vision of the future
Speaker 1: that places emphasis on the existing world and how we
Speaker 1: get to that future from where we are now. So
Speaker 1: it emphasizes the need for environmental sustainability, for self governance,
Speaker 1: and for a toronomy and social justice. It emphasizes the
Speaker 1: need for you know, human and ecocentric ends to really
Speaker 1: be in sync, and it aims to really heal the
Speaker 1: current rift between humanity and Nietzsche. It also recognizes, of course,
Speaker 1: that there isn't this binary between climate change happens and
Speaker 1: climate change doesn't happen. Rather, it understands that how we
Speaker 1: navigate it, we uh have a variety of consequences and
Speaker 1: some of the positive, some of the negative, but it's
Speaker 1: up to us to really shape that. Yeah, and it's UM.
Speaker 1: I want to drill into a couple of facets of that.
Speaker 1: But I want to quickly plug one of your YouTube
Speaker 1: videos for folks who kind of want a more involved
Speaker 1: um explanation and background. You have a video called what
Speaker 1: is solar Punk on your channel Saint Andrewism like Andrew
Speaker 1: I s m UM that I think is a fantastic
Speaker 1: introduction not just to like the aesthetics of solar punk,
Speaker 1: but some of the practical some of the practical kind
Speaker 1: of expressions of it. And and two of the ones
Speaker 1: you list is like examples of here's here's what this
Speaker 1: is is like actual praxis, you know, and not just
Speaker 1: an aesthetic is seed bombing um. And then you talk
Speaker 1: about this this very interesting kind of like terra Cotta
Speaker 1: air conditioning, which I think is I think it's neat
Speaker 1: because it's it's one of the problems that I think
Speaker 1: with kind of some versions of of of particularly kind
Speaker 1: of on the more liberal end of of of solar
Speaker 1: punk imagining is just sort of like ways of replacing um,
Speaker 1: ways of gaining the same kind of consumptive benefits that exist,
Speaker 1: I guess not even not even like greenwashing, right washing, greenwashing,
Speaker 1: Like here, let's get the same consumptive benefits. We get scrapers, yes, skyscrapers,
Speaker 1: the same consumerism, same level of you know, destructive, extractive practices.
Speaker 1: But we have some flowers and some trees. So yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's not enough. But at the same time, there
Speaker 1: are things that aren't. Like air conditioning is contributes massively
Speaker 1: to climate change. It's also not a luxury. Like if
Speaker 1: you live in a place where it's a hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty degrees a lot of the summer, that's not a luxury. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is going from someone in a tropical country. Yeah,
Speaker 1: definitely a necessity. Yeah, So I wonder if you could
Speaker 1: talk about kind of those two, I mean, or if
Speaker 1: you have different ones you'd like to pick, but just
Speaker 1: kind of what you see is sort of the practice
Speaker 1: expressions of solar punk, sort of beyond the aesthetic, although
Speaker 1: we're going to drill into the aesthetics some too, because
Speaker 1: I also think that's important. Right, So, I think some
Speaker 1: of my favorite manifestations of the punk in a practical context,
Speaker 1: things like um gorilla gardening, really gardening is really the
Speaker 1: biggest one because it's one that someone could literally pick
Speaker 1: up and do today or tomorrow, you know, as soon
Speaker 1: as they hear about it, doing about it. Just get
Speaker 1: some clay, get some seeds, you know, and put those
Speaker 1: things together, and as you're walking home or walk into
Speaker 1: the store, just toss them wherever there some free dud um.
Speaker 1: So that's a fun one. There's also, of course things
Speaker 1: like litten one involved, like community gardening and particularly forest gardening,
Speaker 1: because that will provide a level of food autonomy and
Speaker 1: agency for people who have been healing it for a
Speaker 1: long time from the process of food production. UM. They're
Speaker 1: also practices like compassing or corpach ng and it's like
Speaker 1: a way to produce lumber without chopping down a whole
Speaker 1: set of trees, so you are able to get the
Speaker 1: wood from the trees, but the tree remains alive. UM.
Speaker 1: There's also things like, of course solar powered technology, whether
Speaker 1: it be algae based UM windows that you know, extract
Speaker 1: energy from the sun, or solar sales or solar ovens
Speaker 1: uh or like the terra Cotta their condition in which,
Speaker 1: by the way I learned recently contrary work in a
Speaker 1: human environment. Yeah, but yeah, there are a lot of
Speaker 1: difference opportunities there also there are things like you know,
Speaker 1: tool shares and make up spaces and seed libraries, all
Speaker 1: different ways to sort of bring it into fruition that is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I uh, I think a lot of that's really valuable. UM.
Speaker 1: I'm interested in in parts sort of your your attitude
Speaker 1: on UM what. Uh let me think about how the
Speaker 1: phrase this, UM, what do you think are kind of
Speaker 1: the things as we talk about sort of the things
Speaker 1: that can be at least potentially replaced UM with with
Speaker 1: less extract of less consumptive methods. Is sort of an
Speaker 1: example of solar punk practice is replacing those things. There's
Speaker 1: also things that we're not going to be able to
Speaker 1: have if we actually want to live in a more
Speaker 1: sustainable UM future that that doesn't contribute to some of
Speaker 1: the nightmares that we're all going to be increasingly facing.
Speaker 1: UM you're you know, And again I think it's it's
Speaker 1: telling that so much of kind of the future fantasies
Speaker 1: of that are written by people who come from you know,
Speaker 1: my part of the world. The United States focus on
Speaker 1: like kind of post scarcity methods of of guaranteeing the
Speaker 1: continuation of consumption just through in some cases like fantastic
Speaker 1: methods um you know, magical three D printers and the like. Um.
Speaker 1: You come from a very different part of the world,
Speaker 1: very different perspective, what do you see as the things
Speaker 1: that like we're going to have to give up Coming
Speaker 1: from a country that is actually reliant on oil and
Speaker 1: natural gas production, we have to get rid of cause
Speaker 1: we definitely absolutely have to get rid of cause um
Speaker 1: free to ships as well, and really the whole way
Speaker 1: that you know, global supply chains are structured right now.
Speaker 1: Not to say that they wouldn't be any sort of
Speaker 1: global um sharing of resources in the future, but the
Speaker 1: way that it's happening right now, it can't continue to
Speaker 1: go on. We can't continue to structure our cities, in
Speaker 1: our lives around cause you know, and other methods of
Speaker 1: gascuselin transportation because we're literally going to run out. And
Speaker 1: we've known this for a long time, but it's nearing.
Speaker 1: The day is nearing Clusia and cluso, and yeah, we
Speaker 1: we have to find a way to do without it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's it's I think tell like, there's a couple
Speaker 1: of things that are important. One of them is you
Speaker 1: can't just say we have to stop global trade because
Speaker 1: in global travel, because the people have have sought and
Speaker 1: done that for as long as there have been people
Speaker 1: in one former another. It's it's a fundamentally human thing.
Speaker 1: But there are aspects of it, like you know, expecting
Speaker 1: that every kind of fruit and vegetable will be available
Speaker 1: year round, which is certainly thing that we in the
Speaker 1: United States expect. Um. That doesn't that that's not part
Speaker 1: of a realistic future. Um. And if it's part of
Speaker 1: the future, then it's only going to be part of
Speaker 1: the future for an ever shrinking chunk of the country.
Speaker 1: And you can see that in sort of um or
Speaker 1: of the of the West, and you can see that
Speaker 1: in kind of um the like what we're dealing with
Speaker 1: right now with like the supply line shortages and failures,
Speaker 1: and like one of the I think the symbols of
Speaker 1: how far we have to go in my country is
Speaker 1: the degree to which people are freaking out by the
Speaker 1: fact that Christmas presents might be late. Um. Let alone
Speaker 1: being like, yeah, you might not be able to buy coffee,
Speaker 1: um um ever, or all the time, you know, you
Speaker 1: might not be able to get tomatoes in December um
Speaker 1: which UM. I think one benefits to grilla gattening. And
Speaker 1: that's what's a mindset is as you learn to so
Speaker 1: you also learn to reap. Right. So a lot of
Speaker 1: people who get into grilled gardening aliso end up getting
Speaker 1: into foraging, and they are absent stuff you could download
Speaker 1: that allow you to, you know, learn how to identify
Speaker 1: plants in your area. And we surprise the number of
Speaker 1: plants in your area that are you know, useful for
Speaker 1: teas or for salads or for whatever purposes that can
Speaker 1: be used as replacements. I'm not sure if they could
Speaker 1: replace coffee, but they could be beneficial, um in recognizing
Speaker 1: how we have to live with our local ecosystems. Basically, yeah,
Speaker 1: and a big you know, when you talk about living
Speaker 1: learning how to live with our ecosystem stuff like planting
Speaker 1: um forest gardens and the like or food forest, I
Speaker 1: think is the term UM. I think something that has
Speaker 1: to be discussed is the matter of indigenous sovereignty, especially
Speaker 1: when we're talking about you know, it's not just you know,
Speaker 1: North America, a lot of chunks of the globe Indigenous
Speaker 1: people had spent you know, in some cases thousands of
Speaker 1: generations setting forests up in order to sustainably produce food. Um.
Speaker 1: And when when colonialism arrived, that was often just seen
Speaker 1: as like, oh, this is this is these are wild
Speaker 1: places for us to for us to extract or tear
Speaker 1: down and replace with mono cultures, you know, single crops. Um.
Speaker 1: And so a big part of actually building back that capacity,
Speaker 1: the capacity of us to to survive off of the
Speaker 1: food that can sustainably grow where we live is looking
Speaker 1: back to those indigenous methods and and also um, you know,
Speaker 1: giving back land in a lot of cases, um And yeah,
Speaker 1: that's something you talk about in your videos that I
Speaker 1: think is really important to um to to to to
Speaker 1: explain to people. Yeah, I mean there's there's really is
Speaker 1: no way to separate the violance and oppressive institution of
Speaker 1: clunealism with the equosido Nietzsche of modern states. You know,
Speaker 1: those two are deeply intertwined, deeply married together. And so
Speaker 1: you can't fight climate change without addressing the issue of
Speaker 1: severnty of indigenous serenity and land back. Yeah. It's um,
Speaker 1: it's really interesting. I've been I've been up hunting on
Speaker 1: mountain Hood with a friend who is who went to
Speaker 1: school for like forestry management, And as we were driving
Speaker 1: way to drive through a chunk of the reservation in
Speaker 1: order to get to the BLM land where we're able
Speaker 1: to hunt, and he pointed it out, and once he did,
Speaker 1: it was immediately obvious just how different the land under
Speaker 1: indigenous control looked from the land, you know, just feed
Speaker 1: away that was being managed by the federal government in
Speaker 1: terms of like how much better the forest management was,
Speaker 1: how much how much smarter it was it was manage
Speaker 1: in order to reduce the chances of like a ladder
Speaker 1: fire that that actually kills you know, the trees and whatnot.
Speaker 1: There's this whole thing blowing up on Twitter right now
Speaker 1: where you've got a chunk of Marxists tour are trying
Speaker 1: to frame land back as uh, just like shifting ownership
Speaker 1: of resources, which I think is really missing the point.
Speaker 1: But I find interesting about Twitter is that the exact
Speaker 1: same discourses are repeated over and over and over again.
Speaker 1: So I remember this exact conversation happening around this time
Speaker 1: last year, around April last year, um earlier this year
Speaker 1: as well. It's just the same discourses get recycled over
Speaker 1: and over again, and it's reached a point for me
Speaker 1: when I realized that these people don't want to learn
Speaker 1: about land back or what it really means because they
Speaker 1: are invested in the structure as it exists and they
Speaker 1: don't want to have to interrogate that. So, Yeah, this
Speaker 1: will out to be an interesting thing I've known. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's UM, it's it's it's frustrating. UM. I guess
Speaker 1: that that acts as like a general uh description of
Speaker 1: Twitter discourse, but certainly does. Yeah. I think it's I
Speaker 1: think it's telling the degree to which people, even on
Speaker 1: the left treat it as a fantasy as opposed to
Speaker 1: doggedly pragmatic UM and and proven so like proven by
Speaker 1: like like you know, like you can read you in
Speaker 1: reports that will that will essentially say land back in
Speaker 1: the space of a five page you know, study on
Speaker 1: how indigenous land management functions a great deal better than
Speaker 1: UM than a lot of the stuff that's like centralized
Speaker 1: by the federal government, where we're like, our federal government
Speaker 1: is terrible at land management. UM. And it's part of
Speaker 1: the it's part of the problem. I think one of
Speaker 1: the things that that excites me about solar punk as
Speaker 1: an aesthetic and idea is getting back to this relationship
Speaker 1: with the land as opposed to talking about just preserving
Speaker 1: it um as talking about managing it. Because because none
Speaker 1: of our none of the land that people live on
Speaker 1: is like wild in the sense that people mean it
Speaker 1: as it's been cultivated. And that's that's the thing, right.
Speaker 1: The whole philosophy of you know, um land preservation as
Speaker 1: was taken up by the US government with the whole
Speaker 1: um you know, you can stop forest fires kind of
Speaker 1: thing ended up leading to more forest fires downline, because
Speaker 1: they we have a rule in the ecosystem not just
Speaker 1: there to stand back from a fire and to observe it.
Speaker 1: So we don't do our part to manage the underbrush
Speaker 1: and whatnots and clear away and exercise you know, controlled fires,
Speaker 1: but we end up in the situation we're in today,
Speaker 1: you know, cultivation not just sterile preservation. Now. One of
Speaker 1: the things that you talk about well because because one
Speaker 1: of the more frustrating discourses this is not just a
Speaker 1: Twitter thing, this has been going on for years, is
Speaker 1: the discourse around GMO crops. And usually I would say,
Speaker 1: like the two most commonly heard sides are GMOs are
Speaker 1: bad because you know, monsanto cancer whatever, or GMOs are good.
Speaker 1: Um end end thought. Um. And the thing that you
Speaker 1: point out, which is I think the accurate take is GMOs.
Speaker 1: The preponderance of evidence says that, like, there's nothing inherently
Speaker 1: dangerous about genetically modified crops, but the way in which
Speaker 1: they're often used in order to create these massive mono
Speaker 1: cultures is really toxic. So there's a lot of promise
Speaker 1: um for GMOs in terms of keeping our our existence
Speaker 1: on this planet sustainable. But what's not sustainable is the
Speaker 1: kind of industrialized agriculture where you have ten thousand acres
Speaker 1: of one thing which just doesn't happen in nature exactly exactly.
Speaker 1: And if you look at how genetic modification took at
Speaker 1: least at to you know, all advanced funds in genetic
Speaker 1: modification technology. UM, I'm not how many people are familiar
Speaker 1: with the dozens upon dozens, if not hundreds of varieties
Speaker 1: of just corn they were present in the America's prior
Speaker 1: to the colonization. A lot of those varieties were wiped
Speaker 1: out or were suppressed in fear of these mono cultures.
Speaker 1: But if we're able to cultivate the diversity of these
Speaker 1: crops and maybe bring some of them back through jestic modification,
Speaker 1: that would really help us with you know, food resilience
Speaker 1: in a world with an increasingly unpredictable climate. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that. I mean, I think you said it perfectly.
Speaker 1: I want to move back to kind of what I
Speaker 1: introduced the episode with, which is talking about the value
Speaker 1: of of fiction and myth making in a in a
Speaker 1: very pragmatic sense. I guess I'll start by saying, I
Speaker 1: think one of the clearest signs of the danger that
Speaker 1: we're in and how toxic our society has gotten. Um
Speaker 1: And I am speaking from a primarily US centric standpoint here,
Speaker 1: but I don't think it's unique to the United States.
Speaker 1: Is the extent to which trust me um as as
Speaker 1: the saying is when the US sneeze, So anytime there's
Speaker 1: some phenomenon happening in the US, there are the coffee cuts. Yea.
Speaker 1: And I do think this is pretty global. I mean
Speaker 1: you see it in like South Korean films and all over.
Speaker 1: I know what you're gonna say, Yeah, the obsession with
Speaker 1: apocalypse and when we when we go to the future,
Speaker 1: it's always a dystopia. Um, there's a degree to which
Speaker 1: we've almost forgotten how to imagine utopia or even not
Speaker 1: just utopia, just a way of living that is an
Speaker 1: improvement in a lot of ways of future that's better.
Speaker 1: We've forgotten to do both utopian fiction and any just
Speaker 1: kind of like positive fiction in a lot of ways,
Speaker 1: because yeah, it's understandable because the world is kind of
Speaker 1: terrible right now in a lot of in a lot
Speaker 1: of ways. But there's also there's been utopian fiction inside
Speaker 1: other terrible worlds as well. I think just the modern
Speaker 1: interconnected media sphere has really rewarded this type of like
Speaker 1: dystopian and collapse based apocalypse fiction. Yeah, and I'm sure
Speaker 1: that's that's worth interrogating why, but it is a problem
Speaker 1: that needs to be solved. Yeah, and it is, and
Speaker 1: and you're I think it's important. And it's not entirely
Speaker 1: based in how fucked up things are, because like when
Speaker 1: the first Star Trek came out, we were at like
Speaker 1: the height of the Cold War. Things were terrible. There
Speaker 1: was a lot of utopian fiction during World War Two.
Speaker 1: During World War two, UM, I will always be impressed
Speaker 1: by the fact that Gene Roddenberry saw it as incredibly
Speaker 1: important both to be like, okay, well in the future,
Speaker 1: like in the middle of the Civil rights movement. In
Speaker 1: the future we will have overcome like racism, but not
Speaker 1: just that, but like I'm gonna I'm gonna stick a
Speaker 1: Russian on the bridge too, because nations are going to
Speaker 1: end as a concept and like this stuff won't matter. Um,
Speaker 1: And that just that kind of utopian fiction, at least
Speaker 1: at this at the scale of popularity that you know,
Speaker 1: Star Trek wasn't its time just isn't present anymore. And
Speaker 1: I that's tremendously worrying to me. And I see a
Speaker 1: lot of hope in in Solar Punk for that, um.
Speaker 1: And I guess for starters, I'm interested in in your
Speaker 1: thoughts on this, and you're interested in Andrew, what you
Speaker 1: think is like the pragmatic value of of of positive
Speaker 1: a fiction that that that imagines a better world. Yes,
Speaker 1: so I've done probably I think I've done like two
Speaker 1: videos on Soula Punk soufar um, two major videos on
Speaker 1: Sila Punk, as well as a smaller video two other
Speaker 1: smaller videos. Um. And what I've seen in the comments
Speaker 1: and in the general social media reaction again and again
Speaker 1: is sol the Punk saved my life. You know, Sola
Speaker 1: Punk has given me hoop. You know, I was slipping
Speaker 1: into the spare. But this video really gave me a
Speaker 1: jump start to try something new and to start a
Speaker 1: fresh and to pursue action as opposed toggest lying down
Speaker 1: and taking whatever comes next. And that that is it
Speaker 1: for me. You know, I think the fact that Sulla
Speaker 1: punk offers like an energizing vision. It's not just a vision,
Speaker 1: it's an energizing vision because in every step of the way,
Speaker 1: it shows what you can do. You know when you
Speaker 1: show it. When you look at sula punk art or um,
Speaker 1: you look at the small but growing genre of sulla
Speaker 1: punk literary media, or you know, you look at but
Speaker 1: there's don't have many silpunk video games right now, but
Speaker 1: hopefully there will be in the future. When you look
Speaker 1: at the various forms of silapunk media that are coming
Speaker 1: out and people's responses to them, you see that it's
Speaker 1: not like as all mentioning like Star Trek, where it's
Speaker 1: all this far our technology that we can only aspire
Speaker 1: to for now. You know, sol the punk is something
Speaker 1: that you can literally put in your backyard or your
Speaker 1: balcony or your home, or your school or your community.
Speaker 1: You know, you could put these things in place like
Speaker 1: from now, you know, and you can incorporate it into
Speaker 1: your politics as you know, as they are, and they
Speaker 1: could also help to push your politics forward, you know,
Speaker 1: because through solar punk, we can open up discussions about Okay,
Speaker 1: so how do we ensure that people live comfortably within
Speaker 1: the parameters of you know, the Earth's carrying capacity? You know,
Speaker 1: you open up a discussions about indigenous soevereignty. You can
Speaker 1: discussions about, um, the relationship between the Goloble North and
Speaker 1: the global South, and responsibility with regard to our response
Speaker 1: to climate change. Well, you're en up a lot of
Speaker 1: different discussions through the realm of sulla punk. It energizes people,
Speaker 1: as I said, and yeah, I think that is its
Speaker 1: pargmatic purpose. It doesn't stand alone, of course, but it
Speaker 1: is a driving force. Yeah. Would you kind of give
Speaker 1: out a list of if people are you know, if
Speaker 1: this is someone's first introduction to the concept of solar punk,
Speaker 1: what is some reading you want to draw people towards.
Speaker 1: What are some fiction like I know you mentioned The
Speaker 1: Dispossessed by Laguin, right, um, which often gets cited. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm interested in kind of other other recommendations you might
Speaker 1: have for our listeners. Are that right? So? UM. I'm
Speaker 1: still getting into the genre myself, so I don't have
Speaker 1: too many UM recommendations. There are some UM decent short
Speaker 1: story collections UM like sun Vaults by a couple of
Speaker 1: different authors. There's also multi species Cities, so the punk
Speaker 1: urban futures UM. And the one I read most recently
Speaker 1: was Ecotopia, which is quite is much older than all
Speaker 1: the others. It's actually a book that was published in
Speaker 1: UM and not all aspects of its politics things I
Speaker 1: agree with, but I think for a first UM it
Speaker 1: was one of the really the first of its kind
Speaker 1: in that sort of equo utopian genre that really laid
Speaker 1: out what this society would look like. UM. The book
Speaker 1: is structured in a series of novel entries and notebook
Speaker 1: reports by a journalists from the United States who has
Speaker 1: gone to this country called Ecotopia, which is sort of
Speaker 1: where the Pacific Northwest States are, and he's basically breaking
Speaker 1: down He's going to different parts of the country and
Speaker 1: breaking down how they have lived and how they have
Speaker 1: decided structure their lives. UM. And even though not every
Speaker 1: aspect of it is one that I would want to
Speaker 1: see implemented, I still think that it really sparks the
Speaker 1: imagination really gets you thinking, well, maybe I wouldn't do
Speaker 1: it this week, but how else could this be done?
Speaker 1: And I think the capacity for stupunk stories suggest generate
Speaker 1: that thought and generate one's imagination is very useful in
Speaker 1: a world where we don't really get to use our
Speaker 1: imagination as much, not really since childhood, you know. And um, yeah,
Speaker 1: I I think it's often understated the degree to which
Speaker 1: using your imagination is a vitally necessary part of actual
Speaker 1: radical politics. Um. And I think there's a lot of
Speaker 1: people who consider themselves radicals, you know, some of these
Speaker 1: some of these not to you know, slam every Marxist
Speaker 1: Leninist on the planet, but certainly some of the ones
Speaker 1: who were coming up with these bad faith criticisms of
Speaker 1: land back. It's like, you're not a radical, You're a
Speaker 1: conservative who wants to go back to a different kind
Speaker 1: of problematic thing. Um. It's more the fact that the
Speaker 1: Soviet Union poisoned like the largest body of water in Europe.
Speaker 1: You know, all the different things that the Soviet Union
Speaker 1: did that were horrible for the environment and extractive. And
Speaker 1: it's interesting that, you know, are these people who call
Speaker 1: themselves radicals, but the very foost um. Encounter with a
Speaker 1: radical idea, the foost instinct is to shut down. The
Speaker 1: whost instinct is to just pushed back against it. Whereas
Speaker 1: not to my own corner or anything. But you know,
Speaker 1: when I see an idea that I haven't encountered before
Speaker 1: that may seem strange to me, that challenges my precontinutions,
Speaker 1: my first reaction is not to shout about how this
Speaker 1: goes against everything then, and said, you know, my first
Speaker 1: reaction is to investigate it and to open space for
Speaker 1: it in my mind, to really, you know, tune it
Speaker 1: around and imagine what it might look like and how
Speaker 1: it might fit with what I have learned about before. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: I mean I think that's that's that's great advice for
Speaker 1: radical politics. It's also just good life advice, Yeah, especially
Speaker 1: for engaging with ideas that you are less keen on
Speaker 1: at the moment or or or just unaware of. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, my whole thing is if I have like
Speaker 1: a strong gut reaction to something, it might be because
Speaker 1: it may be hitting a part of me that might
Speaker 1: be benefiting from that system, you know. I mean I
Speaker 1: don't benefit from the system in a lot of respects.
Speaker 1: You know, as a black guy from the Caribbean, but
Speaker 1: as a man, as in as a sit sis headman.
Speaker 1: You know, I do have privileges that I must be
Speaker 1: aware of and I can't just like be so quick
Speaker 1: to shut down you know, something that might even a
Speaker 1: bit uncomfortable, you know, Yeah, I think that's such a
Speaker 1: valuable thing to keep in mind, especially as a a
Speaker 1: more or less sis white guy like a you know,
Speaker 1: a significant number of people listening are if you're uncomfortable
Speaker 1: by a new idea? Is it? Is it because the
Speaker 1: idea is bad? Or is because it strikes at an
Speaker 1: area in which you may not even have like thought
Speaker 1: about being privileged, like I'm I'm uncomfortable I had even
Speaker 1: though there's no I have no intellectual argument against it
Speaker 1: with the idea of of ending, are you of cars
Speaker 1: as they exist? Because I love I love to drive.
Speaker 1: But that's also heavily rooted in in in tremendous privilege
Speaker 1: on my behalf um American culture and stuffy and um
Speaker 1: you know, we we we we did talk about that
Speaker 1: a bit and the opening episodes of season two, the
Speaker 1: idea that like a more you know, when we we
Speaker 1: kind of had our little utopian ending the idea that like,
Speaker 1: well maybe you'd have a car that's communally owned and
Speaker 1: used for certain tasks. But you know, the idea of
Speaker 1: of of car culture as the center of a city
Speaker 1: is um is death. It's just death. When we talked
Speaker 1: about getting past cars is not to say that like
Speaker 1: people will never use vehicles that move again, Like obviously
Speaker 1: we will. They're necessary for something and all. Going back
Speaker 1: to horse drawn buggies. I think one of the last
Speaker 1: things on like solar Punk and kind of tying into
Speaker 1: the whole kind of nature of the shows, I really
Speaker 1: liked enter your point on like how solar punk is
Speaker 1: like an energizing force, and I feel like we have
Speaker 1: very few of those on the left and especially on
Speaker 1: the anarchist left. Um, like i've i've, i've, i've I've
Speaker 1: had my decent stint of like anarcho nihilism. And the problem,
Speaker 1: like the problem with that is like it's very easy,
Speaker 1: Like anarch nihilism is one of the easiest ideologies to
Speaker 1: grasp onto because it vlidifies all of your bad feelings. Um.
Speaker 1: But it also it's most of the people who I
Speaker 1: know who are like real into anarchro nihilism, they're generally
Speaker 1: not very happy people because it's kind of it's kind
Speaker 1: of miserable all the time. Um, and sure they'll like
Speaker 1: scoff at like solar punk is like some like greenwashed
Speaker 1: yogurt commercial, like you know, like utopian thing, but also
Speaker 1: like it's actually lots of solar punk that we've talked about.
Speaker 1: It's like actually about doing specific things, Like it's actually
Speaker 1: like actually going to do something rather than just being
Speaker 1: an insurrecto kid um or just just you know, talking
Speaker 1: about nihilist znes and books on Twitter for all day.
Speaker 1: And I think one of one of your one of
Speaker 1: my favorite videos of yours is your video on the
Speaker 1: psychology of collapse UM, because I think that's one of
Speaker 1: my favorites as well. It's it's, it's, it's, it's it's
Speaker 1: really just like a masterpiece and how deep you get
Speaker 1: into every different type of collapse thinking, because it's not
Speaker 1: just on the rights, not not not not to the left.
Speaker 1: It's not just whether you're you know more you know, anarchist,
Speaker 1: more authoritarian. It's like you get into every specific type
Speaker 1: of thinking that plays into this idea around collapse. And
Speaker 1: I think if I recommend everyone check out your channel
Speaker 1: especially watching your Solar Point videos, but specifically on the
Speaker 1: topic of collapse. You know, part of our show we
Speaker 1: were trying to kind of be a little bit like
Speaker 1: anti collapse UM. And I think your your video really
Speaker 1: shows the depth of that topic UM and how to
Speaker 1: approach this, because collapse is a feeling, like it's a
Speaker 1: feeling we all have, and it needs to be interrogated.
Speaker 1: And I think your video is just a magnificent job
Speaker 1: interrogating that feeling, right, thank you. I can't overemphasize how
Speaker 1: important that is, because I I one of the major failings.
Speaker 1: There were a number of victories for kind of anarchist thought,
Speaker 1: particularly within the United States during the the insurrection last year,
Speaker 1: one of its tremendous defeats is that it has become
Speaker 1: characterized in a huge number of people's eyes as breaking
Speaker 1: windows and and starting fires um. And yeah, that's a
Speaker 1: lot of that is because the media is trash, um,
Speaker 1: and it's trash it reporting on on all of this stuff.
Speaker 1: But some of it is because a lot of people
Speaker 1: have let that be their primary praxis UM. And that again,
Speaker 1: I don't care about people breaking windows, I don't care
Speaker 1: about people lighting dumpster fires, but if that's what you're
Speaker 1: presenting to the world as your practice, that doesn't appeal
Speaker 1: to people. And you have to um, because yeah, anarchism
Speaker 1: is not just destructive, it is also constructive. The constructive
Speaker 1: part we need to be boosting more than And there
Speaker 1: were some, you know, from the context of Portland's some
Speaker 1: really strong examples of that last year. The incredible amount
Speaker 1: of mutual aid that was was put together aid of time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: during the fire relief was was incredible. UM. And the
Speaker 1: Red House, the the eviction defense occupation was a really
Speaker 1: good repost to you know, the disaster that was the
Speaker 1: Chaz in Seattle, that this was like, this was an
Speaker 1: area that was temporarily autonomous from the police, that did
Speaker 1: not collapse into violence, that succeeded in its goal, and
Speaker 1: that cleaned up after itself and presented an option for
Speaker 1: people like this is how it can look when we
Speaker 1: try to evict people. You know, this is what can happen. UM.
Speaker 1: So I think there I don't want to like be
Speaker 1: too negative, but I think that a lot of folks
Speaker 1: because of for a variety of reasons, you know, the
Speaker 1: there's been so much focus on kind of the insurrection,
Speaker 1: not even that because I think that building can be insurrectionist.
Speaker 1: I think that se guerilla gardening can be profoundly insurrectionists.
Speaker 1: It's like, destruction has an immediate result of making you
Speaker 1: feel better, right, it has an immediate of endorphins and hormones.
Speaker 1: It makes you happy when you do it. It's it,
Speaker 1: it is it is an exhilarating act, and you feel
Speaker 1: like you're accomplishing something. What's harder is to like have
Speaker 1: that same feeling by doing seed bobbing right by by
Speaker 1: actually like improving your community slowly through these types of
Speaker 1: like so the park ideas, they don't have the same
Speaker 1: immediate emotional reactions. So a lot of people like when
Speaker 1: they you know, think about what insurrection is, they can
Speaker 1: a default to this destructive pendency which destruction has its
Speaker 1: time and place. Um, But if that's your only practice,
Speaker 1: we're not gonna improve the world at all, Like, right,
Speaker 1: that's that's not gonna do anything. Helping through you know,
Speaker 1: giving out food, helping through giving out socks and clothes,
Speaker 1: helping through all of these solar punk ways. These are
Speaker 1: things that actually like are going to improve things on
Speaker 1: a tangible level. They and they're gonna make more people
Speaker 1: be like, oh, hey, what are the anarchists doing. That's
Speaker 1: actually interesting versus oh, what are these anarchists are doing?
Speaker 1: This is stupid? Ignore everything they say. Yeah, people have
Speaker 1: to remember as well that, um, you know, there's seeds
Speaker 1: I sort of funk in Kirp Potkins writ things, you know,
Speaker 1: from the Conquest of bread to mutual aid, and those
Speaker 1: are sort of things that should be just as emphasized
Speaker 1: as the destructive, exhigerating aspects of anis. Yeah, there's a
Speaker 1: line in a Frank Turner song, a couple of lines
Speaker 1: actually in a song called nineteen thirty three that I
Speaker 1: go back to a lot, but one of them is
Speaker 1: you can't fix the world of all you have is
Speaker 1: a hammer. And that's I guess what I see is
Speaker 1: like the primary practical benefit of solar punk, just as
Speaker 1: an aesthetic as a piece of fiction, is getting people
Speaker 1: to expand their toolbox. Yeah, get yourself a trowel, you know,
Speaker 1: some some screwdrivas, you know. Yeah, keep the hammer, you
Speaker 1: need that sometimes too, but let's grab some other tools.
Speaker 1: Expand the toolbox. Thing isn't really great metaphor this type
Speaker 1: of thing. Yeah, Yeah, Um, I think that's most of
Speaker 1: what we're going to get into today. Um, there's a
Speaker 1: couple of pieces of things I would want to read.
Speaker 1: One of them Isn't. This Isn't directly I think it
Speaker 1: predates the solar punk but it it I think feeds
Speaker 1: into some of what I think. It emotionally feeds into
Speaker 1: a lot of what we're talking about here. It's an
Speaker 1: essay from David Graber called The Shock of Victory UM,
Speaker 1: which I think is really useful to me. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: And I would also recommend um Corey doctor O's new
Speaker 1: fiction novel walk Away UM, which I think is a
Speaker 1: really wonderful piece. Was a wonderful, wonderful book. I should
Speaker 1: have included my recommendations. It was really great. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: read it recently and it made me, Um. It made
Speaker 1: me feel the way like as a fiction writer that
Speaker 1: a good piece of fiction should, which is like I
Speaker 1: felt bad. Uh. I felt bad about out some of
Speaker 1: the things that I had written, because there's there's there's
Speaker 1: such there's so much more courage because I wrote a
Speaker 1: piece of fiction that has some solar punk elements, has
Speaker 1: some quasi utopian elements in the dystopia, but I didn't
Speaker 1: have the courage to kind of go as far as
Speaker 1: as Corey did, and to imagine a kind of passivism
Speaker 1: that he he has the courage to kind of put
Speaker 1: into the into the hands of his his protagonists. Like I,
Speaker 1: I really respect that about the book. I mean, the
Speaker 1: book goes in some very interesting eye directions as well,
Speaker 1: but it's it's got some great ship um, and I
Speaker 1: always enjoy Corey's Corey's lef of burning man. Um of
Speaker 1: what it could be is kind of what the what
Speaker 1: what some of it's turned into? But yeah, um, Andrew,
Speaker 1: is there anything else you wanted to get into before
Speaker 1: we we close this out? I just want to remind
Speaker 1: people to check on your friends. M you know, Um,
Speaker 1: we're all going through various stages of collaps as I
Speaker 1: outlined in my video, and you know we shift between
Speaker 1: them from time to time, so try not to go
Speaker 1: through it alone. You know, there's no there's no eye
Speaker 1: in Sula Punk. Yeah yeah, um check out st Andrew
Speaker 1: on YouTube at st andrews Um. Um, Andrew, is there
Speaker 1: any anything else you wanted to kind of plug from
Speaker 1: your own your own personal work. Yeah? So, um, other
Speaker 1: than the you know, the Sula Punk videos and the
Speaker 1: collapse videos, I want to remind sorry, I rather I
Speaker 1: want to shout out my video on black anarchism. I
Speaker 1: think that is a pretty essential look into, uh the
Speaker 1: history of black anarchism in the United States and in
Speaker 1: the world. I also want to recommend um my video
Speaker 1: on the psychology of authoritarian his own. I know a
Speaker 1: lot of people have family members who are conservative or
Speaker 1: on the right to will maybe leading fascist, and I
Speaker 1: think I can to be helpful for you know, helping
Speaker 1: them to or rather helping you to understand the way
Speaker 1: they mindset side mm hm. And also, you know, check
Speaker 1: out my video on puma Let's Sing. I think that
Speaker 1: was a pretty fun one as well. It breaks down
Speaker 1: a lot of it break breaks down how you can
Speaker 1: go about implementing food forests or puma culture gardens wherever
Speaker 1: you find yourself. Awesome, Um, thank you very much for
Speaker 1: being on the show, Andrew, thank you all for listening.
Speaker 1: We'll be back tomorrow, or if this comes out Friday,
Speaker 1: we'll be back, you know, another day. We'll be back
Speaker 1: at some point. You know, you know how this works.
Speaker 1: You understand podcasts the art world, it is essentially a
Speaker 1: money laundering business. The best fakes are still hanging off
Speaker 1: people's walls. You know they don't even know or suspect
Speaker 1: that they're fakes. I'm like Baldwin and this is a
Speaker 1: podcast about deception, greed, and forgery in the art world.
Speaker 1: You knew that the painting was fake. Um. Listen to
Speaker 1: Art Fraud starting February one on the I Heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Evrodsky,
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Speaker 1: Moves podcast powered by green One on the I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio app or wherever you get your podcasts, and make
Speaker 1: sure you leave a review a podcast. All right, Chris,
Speaker 1: you go, so welcome, Welcome to it could happen here
Speaker 1: a podcast that I think, for the first time is
Speaker 1: just me and Robert h. This is this is the
Speaker 1: very first time that this is happening. You're You're all
Speaker 1: here at a moment of legendary significance and historic importance.
Speaker 1: So try to try to face it with the requisite
Speaker 1: all that's all I ask, yes. And another thing that, man,
Speaker 1: this is a terrible transition. Something else we're facing with
Speaker 1: requisite awe is weird shortages of goods and price increases.
Speaker 1: M So it's fucking rad. I was just at the
Speaker 1: Asian market today, um, and they did not have the
Speaker 1: snack chips that I most prefer now officially a calamity. Um,
Speaker 1: we've entered crisis of historic proportion. Yeah, I think I
Speaker 1: don't think we're going to live through this one. Nope,
Speaker 1: we're doing We can't look at that without the Asian
Speaker 1: snack chips, Like it's the ones that are like they're
Speaker 1: like pieces of seaweed but that have been fried and
Speaker 1: temper a batter's completely out tragic, absolutely tragifying. I think
Speaker 1: there's a couple of things. I mean, you've got a script,
Speaker 1: so I'll probably just let you do that in the
Speaker 1: not too distant future. But one of the things that's
Speaker 1: frustrating to me, although maybe it shouldn't be because I'm
Speaker 1: probably partly responsible for this, is that this is being um,
Speaker 1: this is often kind of being talked about with by
Speaker 1: people online, is like, oh, it's a sign that like
Speaker 1: society is crumbling. And what they mean by that is
Speaker 1: that like, oh, well, we just don't have stuff, like
Speaker 1: we're we're not able to like keep up with with
Speaker 1: demand and like the ability to produce these things is crumbling.
Speaker 1: And it's actually much more complex than that, and a
Speaker 1: lot less rooted in a lack of specific resources and
Speaker 1: more decisions made under capitalism about how the supply chain
Speaker 1: would work, and it's I don't know. I think it's
Speaker 1: important because it is you can say it still is
Speaker 1: like a situation where this is an example of the
Speaker 1: system falling apart, but it's not falling apart because we
Speaker 1: don't have the paper to make toilet paper with. It's
Speaker 1: falling apart because decisions were made in order to increase
Speaker 1: the stock prices of companies by reducing the amount of
Speaker 1: products that they kept on hand, and that's led to
Speaker 1: an incredibly fragile system that that did nothing well but
Speaker 1: maximize profits. And I think, well, okay, I think there's
Speaker 1: there's there's a couple of things with that that we
Speaker 1: should talk about. Yeah, because there's a lot of different
Speaker 1: explanations they're floating around for why is happening, and I
Speaker 1: think some of them are good, but I think a
Speaker 1: lot of them are missing part of the story. And
Speaker 1: I think it's important because so like, like my grandma
Speaker 1: like called me yesterday, like like called our family to
Speaker 1: like talk about the supply chain problem because someone had
Speaker 1: like she'd been like fed a conspiracy theory that like
Speaker 1: the shortages were because American dock workers like didn't want
Speaker 1: to open containers from China. Yeah, it's like yeah, like
Speaker 1: I mean, this is not that's not right. But it's
Speaker 1: not like if that had happened, it would be like, well, okay,
Speaker 1: that does scan like yeah, and I think yeah, and
Speaker 1: like I think this is this is a moment where yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, okay, think think things are not working how
Speaker 1: they're supposed to. And there's a lot of sort of
Speaker 1: competing stories about it, one which because on which are bad.
Speaker 1: And I think most of the conventional accounts and whereber
Speaker 1: It was talking about this, uh, you know, even the
Speaker 1: really good ones, they start with sort of the eighties
Speaker 1: Wall Street takeover of corporate America and the transformation of
Speaker 1: sort of all corporate management into an attempt to like
Speaker 1: raise short term stock prices. And you know, part of
Speaker 1: this is lead in production and this is true, and
Speaker 1: this is sort of true, but dismisses about half of
Speaker 1: the story. And and the part of the story that
Speaker 1: it misses that's really important, I think is the sort
Speaker 1: of it's it's the broader like frame in which all
Speaker 1: of this is happening in is essentially the story of
Speaker 1: how the working class essentially loses the class war. In
Speaker 1: the six season seventies and weirdly, it's also a story
Speaker 1: about the co's boomerang, which you have. Yeah, yes, long,
Speaker 1: throw in, throw in the music clip that we've all
Speaker 1: decided is going to be the one we put in
Speaker 1: whenever someone talks about foods boomerang, which is probably just
Speaker 1: going to be another time machine noise. So real quick
Speaker 1: Corse credit to Cody. Um, Okay, continue brief refresher on
Speaker 1: what that is. So basically the free cost boomerang is that. Okay,
Speaker 1: if if you if, if if a government does something
Speaker 1: like repressive like technology, repressive technique or passive technology like
Speaker 1: in a colony, like in a war somewhere, eventually it
Speaker 1: will come back and be used against like the citizens
Speaker 1: of that country. And yeah, a great example would be
Speaker 1: fingerprinting was invented for the British, like policing um insurgents
Speaker 1: in Malaysia, and is now has come back to every
Speaker 1: you know, colonizing nation now uses fingerprinting, which is also
Speaker 1: deeply flawed as a technology. But anyway, yeah, yeah, and
Speaker 1: you know, and I think most people tend to think
Speaker 1: about this as a armored personnel carriers. But we will
Speaker 1: eventually get to this. The boomerang technology here is actually
Speaker 1: shipping containers hell yeah, which have done like irreparable damage
Speaker 1: to the mankind. Alright, alright, I'm ready for this. I
Speaker 1: don't know much about this. Hit me, all right, bear
Speaker 1: with you with this, because we're we're we're we're gonna
Speaker 1: talk about two threads. They're going to seem like they
Speaker 1: have nothing to do with supply chains, and then they're
Speaker 1: all going to tie together. It turns out is literally
Speaker 1: all supply chains. So in the citties and seventies, you have,
Speaker 1: you know, in very very broad general strokes, you have
Speaker 1: two kinds of class war. The first kind is what
Speaker 1: I'm sort of very broadly calling the war and the factories.
Speaker 1: And this is this is an enormous series that sort
Speaker 1: of strikes outright uprisings a stretch from sort of Detroit
Speaker 1: to tur into Tokyo. And you know, the most famous
Speaker 1: of these is the student sort of worker uprising in
Speaker 1: May sixty eight in France. And they you know, they're
Speaker 1: they're they're close enough taking the country that like French
Speaker 1: presis at Charles de Gaul, like flees in a helicopter
Speaker 1: to in secret, and like flees to Germany in secret
Speaker 1: and you know and that that that that's like a
Speaker 1: big event, but it's sort of it sort of fades.
Speaker 1: What doesn't fade is May sixty eight in Italy, and
Speaker 1: you know that it doesn't fade there because Italy, Italy
Speaker 1: has been in the middle of a strike wave since
Speaker 1: two sixty four. It's the whole sixties that basically just
Speaker 1: strik waves there and you know, they have their own
Speaker 1: sixty and unlike in France where peters out, in Italy
Speaker 1: you get the just incredibly named hot Hot Autumn of
Speaker 1: sixty nine, which is a hot autumn. Yeah, it's it's great.
Speaker 1: And so basically what happens is you get hundreds of
Speaker 1: thousands of workers go on strike, they start seizing control
Speaker 1: their factories, um and most of most of this is
Speaker 1: playing out in in the Fiat factories. Yeah, it's giant
Speaker 1: car factories in Italy's industrial triangle. And you know, I
Speaker 1: mean they're there for like, they're there for a long time.
Speaker 1: They're into like seventy and eventually they lose. But you know,
Speaker 1: Italy is just sort of rocked by conflict and sort
Speaker 1: of class war stuff, and all of this reculminates in
Speaker 1: yet another enormous uprising in en seventies seven. This one
Speaker 1: driven like in large part by people who we're basically
Speaker 1: just like, funk this, I'm not working in the factory anymore.
Speaker 1: It's awful, which which I think is something that like,
Speaker 1: you know, if you're looking at the modern political landscape,
Speaker 1: you have a bunch of people who are going like,
Speaker 1: funk this, I'm not going to go like die in
Speaker 1: these factories anymore. And those people all have in a
Speaker 1: lot of cases, safer employing situations than many people today. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: Like it's starting to get worse then, which is why
Speaker 1: people are are frustrated. But like yeah, yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: And and this is sort of interesting because is there
Speaker 1: there's a kind of like Vicky Uster while I've had
Speaker 1: on here, it calls it, it calls it like the
Speaker 1: Monkeys Paul thing where it's like people in the seventies
Speaker 1: and Italy wanted like autonomy and like freedom from work,
Speaker 1: and so what what capitalism gave them was like, oh,
Speaker 1: we'll give you autonomy, We'll just make you all contract workers.
Speaker 1: And now like yeah, you don't you don't have to
Speaker 1: like wake up every morning and like go to a
Speaker 1: job in the factory and leave it five or whatever.
Speaker 1: But now you just you know, you're you're a contract worker,
Speaker 1: so you just have no stability whatsoever, and that that's
Speaker 1: your autonomy. But you know, this, this is this is
Speaker 1: really bad for the Italian ruling class. Like they almost
Speaker 1: lose control of Italy three times in ten years, and
Speaker 1: after a seventy seven they're just like fuck this, and they,
Speaker 1: i mean, they started to start doing mass arrest. They
Speaker 1: imprison like tens of thousands of people, the torture a
Speaker 1: bunch of people, and you know, but it becomes clear
Speaker 1: that like pure political repression is like not going to
Speaker 1: be enough to like just destroy the section of the
Speaker 1: working class movements that you know, God help you thinks
Speaker 1: that you should like run production for themselves. And so
Speaker 1: they start looking elsewhere for answers. And the place they
Speaker 1: find these answers, weirdly enough, is in the second set
Speaker 1: of wars that are going on in this period, which
Speaker 1: are the sort of national liberation wars. And you know,
Speaker 1: these are the national liberation wars. Are these these are
Speaker 1: full scale, like these aren't sort of class warm metaphors.
Speaker 1: These are you know, this is this is giddy be Saw,
Speaker 1: This is Algeria and you know, importantly for for our purposes,
Speaker 1: the US fights two of them, which is Korean Vietnam.
Speaker 1: Now Korean Vietnam are strategically really bad places for the
Speaker 1: US to fight wars, like they're on the other side
Speaker 1: of the world, which you know, it makes it more
Speaker 1: difficult to do war crimes because you know, if you're
Speaker 1: fire bombing of village, right, you have to be able
Speaker 1: to move fire bombs, jet fighters and like oil and
Speaker 1: rations to the other side of the world. And this
Speaker 1: is hard, as it carried about. It easier when they
Speaker 1: can commit war crimes. And like I don't know, duloof, Yeah, yeah, well,
Speaker 1: like even even like you know, you you got to
Speaker 1: commit a war crime in Mexico, it's like, okay, you
Speaker 1: just sign a bunch of people over the border. It
Speaker 1: would be so easy to commit war crimes in Mexico. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and really really up our war crime quoti. Well,
Speaker 1: I would say, we do do a lot of war
Speaker 1: crimes in Mexico. It's just that like they're done based
Speaker 1: on by proxies. That's true. But I mean we've filled
Speaker 1: like we've killed like a million people there in the
Speaker 1: last like twenty years, and the War on drugs. But yeah,
Speaker 1: you knows, so the US, you know, the U s okay,
Speaker 1: So it has this logistics problem. In logistics problem is
Speaker 1: that it can't do war crimes enough, and so it
Speaker 1: comes up with a couple of solutions to them. One
Speaker 1: of them is essentially they rebuild the whole Japanese economy
Speaker 1: in order to just use Japan's industrial base to fight
Speaker 1: the war in Korea, and then after the war in
Speaker 1: Korea ends, they rebuild the South Korean economy in order
Speaker 1: to you know, fight the war in Vietnam. And this works,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't solve the problem that you know, okay,
Speaker 1: even even even if you're you know, you're you have
Speaker 1: an industrial base in Japan, right, you still need to
Speaker 1: be able to efficiently move things by sea to Korea,
Speaker 1: and you know, you still need to still supplies you
Speaker 1: need to move from the US. And so the solution
Speaker 1: for this is containery shipping. And containery shipping. This is
Speaker 1: the pivot point upon which the entire history of the
Speaker 1: twentieth century and everything that's happening in the twenty one
Speaker 1: century hinges on like this, this is the pivot and
Speaker 1: you know, like I'm not even this isn't even really
Speaker 1: an exaggeration, because it turns out that like the ability
Speaker 1: to have uniform boxes that you can stack on top
Speaker 1: of each other like legos and put on a ship
Speaker 1: is like like it's like comparable to the nuclear bomb
Speaker 1: in terms of how important it is, which is really
Speaker 1: really used to the only way to get things from
Speaker 1: A to B was a big wooden ship filled with
Speaker 1: the bloons like pilet bags and stuff. Yeah. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't know, how did we like global commerce work before
Speaker 1: shipping containers? What did we what did we literally like
Speaker 1: you just like sometimes sometimes you would just like physically
Speaker 1: people would just pick up the items and put them
Speaker 1: on the ship, or they would like sometimes they put
Speaker 1: them in boxes or like you would like strap them
Speaker 1: to like the top of the ship. And so with
Speaker 1: the UH trains a lot, they would just like strap
Speaker 1: like machinery like onto a train car. And this was
Speaker 1: like not this is like really inefficient, it's really so yeah,
Speaker 1: and so the US in order to like do war
Speaker 1: crimes in Korea, and then you know it's just like, oh, hey,
Speaker 1: what if we just make metal boxes and then they
Speaker 1: get they progressively get better and better at it, because
Speaker 1: you know, they have to go do more war crimes
Speaker 1: in in Vietnam. And but by the time you're getting
Speaker 1: to the end, yeah, yeah, you know, look lots of
Speaker 1: war crimes that do you need? You need good logistics
Speaker 1: networks to do all of these war crimes. I mean,
Speaker 1: it makes sense that that's where we got shipping containers.
Speaker 1: But I didn't realize. I had just assumed it would
Speaker 1: have come out of the shipping industry as opposed to
Speaker 1: like we had to get more missiles over to these places. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well this is the interesting thing. We'll get to this
Speaker 1: in a bit. But basically, like a lot of the
Speaker 1: logistics revolution stuff either comes out of the military or
Speaker 1: is developed by X fascists and and and a lot
Speaker 1: of the reason for this is Okay, I mean this
Speaker 1: is you know, this is the seventies. They're still are
Speaker 1: indeed happening like this still actual research and developments. But
Speaker 1: the military is doing just an enormous amount of the
Speaker 1: research development for all of global capitalism. And you know,
Speaker 1: and and and the other thing, Yes, what's happening here?
Speaker 1: And you know this this is the sort of boomerang
Speaker 1: thing is that you know, so the container is shipping
Speaker 1: logistics stuff that had been used to just like obliterate
Speaker 1: the global South suddenly starts spreading into capital, like you know,
Speaker 1: just into like broader shipping because people look at this
Speaker 1: and they're like, oh, this is a fish. And then
Speaker 1: the contracting companies the US is using. This turns into
Speaker 1: the solution to both sort of the war and the
Speaker 1: factories are talking about in in in Europe and the
Speaker 1: US and in Japan itself, and then also to the
Speaker 1: solution of the national liberation movements and sort of like
Speaker 1: communism in East Asia because you know, Okay, so you
Speaker 1: have this question, right the US, like we kind of
Speaker 1: fight to a draw in Korea, like we kill a
Speaker 1: norm's number of people, but the North Korea, yeah, and
Speaker 1: like yeah, but we don't really win, right, like we
Speaker 1: we we can't actually defeat the Chinese army or yeah,
Speaker 1: and and you know, and we lose Vietnam. And so
Speaker 1: the question is, okay, so like how how are we
Speaker 1: going to stop communism? And the answer, it turns out,
Speaker 1: is to just integrate integrate the communist countries into the
Speaker 1: capitalist supply chain. And I mean there's a lot of
Speaker 1: examples of this, like market Thatcher, for example, is like
Speaker 1: very good buddies with Nikolai chessqu Ah. That's nice. They
Speaker 1: could be friends despite their the fact that they yeah,
Speaker 1: well I guess they weren't really that different as people, No,
Speaker 1: not really like ba. Basically the difference is that Ky
Speaker 1: lost and thus got like murdered on state television on
Speaker 1: a state funeral treatment. That's the official stance they should
Speaker 1: for stuff we will talk about in a bit. But yes,
Speaker 1: but you know, the archetypal example of this is actually China.
Speaker 1: And you know there's a lot of various sort of
Speaker 1: skilled diplomatic work by Kissinger and also the US like
Speaker 1: throughout the seventies just like they're just like sending entire
Speaker 1: factories to China, like like the like they'll they'll they'll
Speaker 1: take an entire factory, break it down, put it in
Speaker 1: boxes and then just like ship at the China great
Speaker 1: at the time. And yes, so yeah, they're they're they're
Speaker 1: just like sending technology of China. And the end result
Speaker 1: of this is that you know, China goes from like
Speaker 1: fighting American troops with like like do banit charges like
Speaker 1: three yeah yeah against the Yeah. I was just like
Speaker 1: yeah to to you know, being an American ally in
Speaker 1: like invading Vietnam as a way to like stick it
Speaker 1: to the Soviets basically, and so, you know, so the
Speaker 1: uses sensely just integrates China to the global supply chain,
Speaker 1: and they eventually do the same thing to Vietnam, which
Speaker 1: again is another country that they couldn't defeat militarily. But
Speaker 1: what they you know what they actually beat them with.
Speaker 1: It's a shipping container. And before the shipping container, this
Speaker 1: would have been impossible, right, like basically it was too
Speaker 1: inefficient and too expensive, like the cost of shipping was
Speaker 1: too high to have all of this production, you know,
Speaker 1: like some half your parts made in China, some of
Speaker 1: them made India's on them made in like Japan's one
Speaker 1: of the maiden Korean and then shipped them all around
Speaker 1: the world, which is how the modern system works. But
Speaker 1: with with container I shipping, suddenly shipping is really cheap
Speaker 1: and it becomes much cheaper to pay shipping costs it
Speaker 1: is to pay labor costs. And this is the solution
Speaker 1: to to the sort of war in the factories. Know,
Speaker 1: if if workers start making too much noise about pay
Speaker 1: or like again a god forbids start talking about like
Speaker 1: taking control of factories and running the democratically like some
Speaker 1: kind of anarchist monsters. Corporation can just move the factories overseas,
Speaker 1: and this becomes an incredibly effective way to just destroy
Speaker 1: the labor movement because anytime, you know, organized labor starts
Speaker 1: making demands, you can be like, well, okay, sorry, we're
Speaker 1: just gonna pack up and we're gonna you know, we're
Speaker 1: gonna go to China, We're gonna go to somewhere else.
Speaker 1: And this coincides with, you know, the thing, the thing
Speaker 1: that gets talked about a lot in the conventional accounts,
Speaker 1: which is the Wall Street sort of corporate takeover, well,
Speaker 1: the Wall Street takeover of corporate America, which is something
Speaker 1: I think that sounds really weird to us now, but
Speaker 1: you know, the whole the whole story here is really
Speaker 1: interesting and extremely long and if if you want to
Speaker 1: like have a very detailed account of how this all
Speaker 1: played out, The book Liquidated by Karen Hoe is just incredible,
Speaker 1: like ethnography and his stree of Wall Street. She like
Speaker 1: she's a karent hous'n athropologist, and she like went and
Speaker 1: worked on Wall Street and like did ethnography there for
Speaker 1: a bit and it's very interesting stuff. But it's kind
Speaker 1: of outside of our scope. So the very very very
Speaker 1: short version is that the Wall Street bankers basically figure
Speaker 1: out a way to just like buy out corporations to
Speaker 1: raise a bunch of money and just entirely buy out corporations.
Speaker 1: And then once they have the corporation, right, what what
Speaker 1: what what the you know? This is corporate rating. So
Speaker 1: they're they're they're they loot all the assets, they sell
Speaker 1: it off, and they try to sell off their stock
Speaker 1: at a higher price. The parcels of this is sort
Speaker 1: of complicated, but the net result of this is that
Speaker 1: Wall Street completely takes over the corporate world in the
Speaker 1: way they hadn't before. Like the Wall Streets, the Wall
Speaker 1: Street like finance people are now you know, they're there
Speaker 1: are people making off the decisions, and you know, and
Speaker 1: and they're they're only goal is to raise the stock price,
Speaker 1: like that's that's the only thing they care about. That
Speaker 1: they don't they don't even care about making money. Right
Speaker 1: if if you lose money and your stock price still rises,
Speaker 1: like you don't care. And those guys start looking at
Speaker 1: a lot of the things that had existed in corporations
Speaker 1: before that, things like pensions, uh particularly things like research
Speaker 1: and development. They look at it and go, Okay, why
Speaker 1: are we spending money on R and D? Like this,
Speaker 1: This doesn't this doesn't raise our stock price, This doesn't
Speaker 1: have any immediate shorter and value. So they cut it right,
Speaker 1: They start cutting pensions. They starts just destroying the unions.
Speaker 1: And you know, and and because because this is happening
Speaker 1: at the same time as corporations really like get the
Speaker 1: ability to outsource for the first time, you know, they
Speaker 1: lean into it and they start essentially we're just just
Speaker 1: slashing the aount of people who work for the company,
Speaker 1: right and so you know, and so and instead of
Speaker 1: having direct employees, they start working with contractors, and they
Speaker 1: start moving to the contractors overseas, and you know, and
Speaker 1: and this is this is where we get to sort
Speaker 1: of this whole outsourcing wave because you know, something I
Speaker 1: don't think I talked about enough withoutsourcing is why actually
Speaker 1: are the labor costs lower in the countries that these
Speaker 1: people are are moving their factories to. H And part
Speaker 1: of it is, you know, people talk about development like
Speaker 1: they're moving to undeveloped countries, and you know, part of
Speaker 1: part of part of development is just you know, how
Speaker 1: much technological capacity their manufacturing system has, right, and that
Speaker 1: you know. But but the other part of it is
Speaker 1: that if you move your production to say Columbia, right
Speaker 1: or like you know, you're investing in sort of like
Speaker 1: cocoa bean farming in Columbia and people try to do
Speaker 1: you need organizing, you can hire des squads to murder them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and yeah, yeah, it's like you can basically just sort
Speaker 1: of like you can you can outsource the violence, and
Speaker 1: you can you can you know, the corporate term for
Speaker 1: it is reducing labor costs, but really what you're doing
Speaker 1: is just like murdering people with death squads and terrorizing them,
Speaker 1: and you know that that does lower labor costs, right,
Speaker 1: But you know, and I think there's there's another example
Speaker 1: of this, Like this is a lot of what like
Speaker 1: the killing at Tienamen was really ab out it was
Speaker 1: you know, not so much in Tianna Square itself. I
Speaker 1: talked about the elseware, but like the workers that they
Speaker 1: kill outside of the square, like a lot of the
Speaker 1: reason they're doing very little about Tinament Square other than
Speaker 1: like protesters China government bad. The guy stands up the
Speaker 1: tank and then yeah, yeah, yeah, I've talked about this elsewhere.
Speaker 1: More like the very short version is, so there's a
Speaker 1: bunch of students in the square, right, and the students
Speaker 1: in the square itself like basically they kind of went
Speaker 1: democracy and mostly they want like market reforms to go faster.
Speaker 1: But then outside of the square, you know, fijings like
Speaker 1: whole working class shows up and there's these enormous demonstrations.
Speaker 1: They basically start like like barricading, like blocks and blocks
Speaker 1: and blocks and like this radius outside of the street.
Speaker 1: You get this sort of like mini commune thing. And
Speaker 1: those guys are like, you know, like they're they're they're
Speaker 1: advocating for democracy and the factory like they're you know,
Speaker 1: they're they're talking about things like like they're they're like that,
Speaker 1: you know, they they they they they have their like
Speaker 1: marks out and they're talking about how like they're they're
Speaker 1: they're calculating their rate of surplus value that's being extracted
Speaker 1: from them by the capitalists. And those are the people,
Speaker 1: like almost everyone who dies at Chanta man Is is
Speaker 1: from those guys, Like those are the people that they
Speaker 1: just get massacred. And you know, and and the reason
Speaker 1: that happens is that the CCP is looking at this
Speaker 1: and it's like, okay, this, this is this is like this,
Speaker 1: this is sort of this is the return of organized labor,
Speaker 1: and we need to destroy it before it like gets anywhere.
Speaker 1: And so they do, and organized labor and China just implode.
Speaker 1: I mean it was already pretty weak because you have
Speaker 1: a lot of state controlled unions, but I mean now
Speaker 1: it's just nothing. And you know, and and and there,
Speaker 1: I mean there have been attempts to labor organizing and
Speaker 1: China sort of recently, and like yeah, this needs to
Speaker 1: be just rest everyone, right, and so you know this,
Speaker 1: this this is how this is. This is the price
Speaker 1: of cheap labor, right, it's just incredible state repression. But
Speaker 1: this is also you know, and this is this is
Speaker 1: a sort of like macro scale thing of why the
Speaker 1: supply chains suck because everyone talks about like the efficiency
Speaker 1: of the supply change, but the supply chains aren't efficient.
Speaker 1: They make no sense, right if if if what you're
Speaker 1: trying to do is move something quickly from points A
Speaker 1: to point B, they make no sense because you know,
Speaker 1: the supply chaine are spread all over the world, like
Speaker 1: in individual parts are being made in six countries, right,
Speaker 1: you have like people will like for tax dodge purposes,
Speaker 1: Like they'll have one part of a component's built in
Speaker 1: one country, and then they'll move it from another country
Speaker 1: to have another part of it, and then they'll ship
Speaker 1: all of it to Mexico and they'll ship it across
Speaker 1: the border and they'll have the whole thing be assembled
Speaker 1: in the USC they can say it was made in
Speaker 1: the US. Like, there's all of these things that are
Speaker 1: just just nonsense right there. They're not they're not efficient
Speaker 1: at all. It's it's completely ridiculous. It's it's this just
Speaker 1: you know, it's just completely absurd web. And and the
Speaker 1: reason why it is designed like this is as as
Speaker 1: a giant sort of kind of unsurgency thing. Like the
Speaker 1: reason the reason the supply chains are are just bad
Speaker 1: is because there, you know, they they they're not designed
Speaker 1: to move things that they're designed as an instrument to
Speaker 1: just like solve the problem of of of of class
Speaker 1: power right there there there, they're designed destroy unions. Are
Speaker 1: designed to make sure that nobody ever sort of like
Speaker 1: gets any ideas about whidges, to make sure nobody gets
Speaker 1: any ideas about like taking anything. And so you know,
Speaker 1: but in this this this can work for a while.
Speaker 1: The problem is again, like they're not efficient. It's it's
Speaker 1: just it just it is not efficient to like move
Speaker 1: have everything made in like six countries and then you
Speaker 1: have to send them somewhere else. Yeah, and so you know,
Speaker 1: it's efficient in the sense that it efficiently maximizes the
Speaker 1: value of stock prices for like stock by backs and stuff.
Speaker 1: And that's generally what is meant by like efficiency in
Speaker 1: that sense is like what makes the seventy people who
Speaker 1: actually own this company the most money. That's the efficient thing.
Speaker 1: But it's it's horribly inefficient in every practical sense of
Speaker 1: the word. And and and that this is kind of
Speaker 1: an interesting change because I mean, you know this this
Speaker 1: isn't to say that like the supply chains that worked
Speaker 1: before this were like better, because they also sucked in
Speaker 1: a lot of their own ways. But all of the
Speaker 1: like efficiency stuff that we're about to talk about with
Speaker 1: just just in time production, etcetera, etcetera, Like you know
Speaker 1: what isn't produced just in time? Sorry, it isn't add
Speaker 1: right time. Yeah, they're they're they're they're not produced just
Speaker 1: in time anymore because the supply chains falling apart. It's
Speaker 1: that's what that is our promise about our sponsors is that, uh,
Speaker 1: they're they're not at all in time. Who knows when
Speaker 1: they'll get your products to you. There's no way to tell.
Speaker 1: It's impossible to know. We're back, Yeah, we're back to
Speaker 1: talk about how, you know, having having developed an entire
Speaker 1: network of extremely inefficient supply chains that just absolutely suck
Speaker 1: and don't make any sense. Uh, people tried to make
Speaker 1: them efficient. And this this is where we go back
Speaker 1: to Japan, because Japan, you know, I guess this is
Speaker 1: this is this is the other Forks boomerang, which is
Speaker 1: that you know, okay, so we we we industrialized Japan
Speaker 1: in order to like fighter colonial wars, right, but then
Speaker 1: you know, this turns into this huge like Pikachu face
Speaker 1: moment when Japan suddenly starts like industrializing more efficiently than
Speaker 1: the US does. It's very funny. And then and writes
Speaker 1: a bunch of books that are the premise of all
Speaker 1: of them. Is Japan scary? Yeah, it's very funny. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, like this is interesting. Is this is an
Speaker 1: interesting thing here, which is that like all of the
Speaker 1: panic around China, there was exactly the same panic like
Speaker 1: around Japan in the like the seventies, and it's exactly same,
Speaker 1: like right down to like a bunch of socialists going like, hey,
Speaker 1: look this this is a model for anti capitalism. Like
Speaker 1: people people said that about the Japanese model, and it's
Speaker 1: like it's it's all, it's all the same thing. It's
Speaker 1: just it's just happening again. But you know what, what
Speaker 1: what what What Japan did, and specifically, what Toyota does
Speaker 1: is create this thing called the Toyota production system, which
Speaker 1: eventually becomes known as just in time production. And this
Speaker 1: if you've read anything about sort of the modern supply
Speaker 1: chain problems, you've almost certainly heard of just in time
Speaker 1: production or or leading production, and just in time and
Speaker 1: lean production are technically difference, but the differences don't matter
Speaker 1: for us. So yeah, and and this this stuff is
Speaker 1: derived from what Toyota was sort of doing in the
Speaker 1: post war era. And basically the goal of it is
Speaker 1: you're you're never supposed to have any inventory that's just
Speaker 1: sitting there, so that the whole distant supposed to be
Speaker 1: constantly the whole system is supposed to be constantly in motion.
Speaker 1: So you have parts come in, they get put into
Speaker 1: their immediately get put into the production line and the
Speaker 1: finished products immediately shipped out to the stores. And you know,
Speaker 1: the theory is that the stores are only going to
Speaker 1: carry exactly enough product to meet demands. And it's supposed
Speaker 1: to be quote unquote flexible, which means that it can
Speaker 1: react to shifts in consumer taste and demand by like
Speaker 1: increasing or decreasing production, and it can't do this. This
Speaker 1: is what we've been seeing for the entirety of COVID,
Speaker 1: which is that you know that this is this is
Speaker 1: why every time there's a run of toilet paper, everyone
Speaker 1: runs out of toilet paper, because it turns out that
Speaker 1: these systems can't even a ten percent increase just completely
Speaker 1: obliterates this entire system and it just collapses and can't
Speaker 1: produce enough toilet paper. Yeah, and again just because it's
Speaker 1: expensive to store things. It's pricy. This is a big
Speaker 1: part of like why actually, the John Deer strike, which
Speaker 1: has the potential to disrupt the status quote movement more
Speaker 1: than any strike in recent history, um is so potent
Speaker 1: because John Deere tractors are kind of a necessary part
Speaker 1: of the agriculture industry, not just their ability to sell
Speaker 1: new tractors, but their ability to repair the extant tractors.
Speaker 1: Like if harvest season comes around and there's not spare
Speaker 1: parts to repair tractors that break, like food doesn't get harvested,
Speaker 1: it's a significant issue. John Deer. We'll talk more about
Speaker 1: this in another day. But like, not only did the
Speaker 1: most that they could do to squeeze their employees to
Speaker 1: suck out pensions, to cut you know, expenditures on wages,
Speaker 1: but they they set up their factories in such a
Speaker 1: way that there was no extra space, so they could
Speaker 1: not scale up any of these factories to increase demand
Speaker 1: when they needed to. So that now that John Deere's
Speaker 1: going on strike, if they lose a month of productivity,
Speaker 1: they can't ever catch up. It's impossible because they can't
Speaker 1: actually expand the productive capacity of their factories. And because
Speaker 1: the strike is hitting, they didn't have any extra spare
Speaker 1: parts lying around, So if ship gets broken, they can't
Speaker 1: manufacture the parts necessary to keep tractors functioning in a
Speaker 1: lot of American farms because they didn't store anything, because
Speaker 1: that was not the most efficient thing for the economic
Speaker 1: bottom line of the CEO who gets a hundred and
Speaker 1: sixty million dollars a year. And anyway, this is this
Speaker 1: is the funny part about this whole thing, which is
Speaker 1: that you know, okay, so this whole supply chain system
Speaker 1: was based around just like destroying destroying the organized working class, right,
Speaker 1: But it's like they were so successful at it that
Speaker 1: they've like turned around and fucked themselves with it because
Speaker 1: like you know, this this is this is the thing
Speaker 1: about about the John Deer strike. Right. It used to
Speaker 1: be you know, back back back if you look at
Speaker 1: like like how how the unions were broken in the eighties,
Speaker 1: or like if you look at like the giant like
Speaker 1: auto strikes you'd have in the seventies, right, and companies
Speaker 1: still do this to this day, but like there worst
Speaker 1: at it. The thing they would do is so okay,
Speaker 1: So you you you know, if you're a company, you
Speaker 1: know roughly when a strike is gonna happen, right. And
Speaker 1: the reason you know when a strike is gonna happen
Speaker 1: is because in the US, like the way labor law
Speaker 1: works is that like you can you can basically only
Speaker 1: strike like when a contract is up. I mean you
Speaker 1: can do wildcats, but it's illegal. But you know, okay,
Speaker 1: so they knew that the audio unions, for example, we're
Speaker 1: about to go we're going to go on strike. When
Speaker 1: when the contracts like was was coming up, and you know,
Speaker 1: they'd have spies, and you can get a sense of like,
Speaker 1: you know, okay, so are are how likely are they
Speaker 1: to do this strike? And you know so so that
Speaker 1: that that lets you do things like build up an
Speaker 1: enormous sort of inventorio spare parts. It lets you build
Speaker 1: up an inventory of supplies, and it lets you build
Speaker 1: up you know it basically, it lets you build up
Speaker 1: the capacity you need to outlast a strike. But the
Speaker 1: problem with just in times, they can't do that anymore
Speaker 1: because yeah, they they've they've you know, they've they've completely
Speaker 1: fucked themselves by by then the John Deer situation because
Speaker 1: they hadn't strike, the workers hadn't had gone on strikes
Speaker 1: since eighties six. They've been putting funds into their strike
Speaker 1: survival fund for years, but the company had nothing like
Speaker 1: has Um. It's rather and this is you know this,
Speaker 1: this is the other part of of of why everything
Speaker 1: like good that's happening right now is happening is that
Speaker 1: they they they you know, they everything has circled back
Speaker 1: around and suddenly all of these companies are you know,
Speaker 1: we are incredibly vulnerable to strikes again, because yeah, as
Speaker 1: you're talking about the just in time production thing, it
Speaker 1: all only works if if everything actually comes in on time, right,
Speaker 1: Like if if if any if any individual part is late,
Speaker 1: the whole system starts to fall apart. And then and
Speaker 1: then you can't repair it. And you know, and there's
Speaker 1: there's a lot of ways that that this this this
Speaker 1: can be very bad. Um. You know, we've talked about
Speaker 1: the John we talked about the labor stuff. The other
Speaker 1: big thing that's happening is COVID, which has happened and
Speaker 1: continues to happen and has killed off just enormous parts
Speaker 1: of the working class. I mean it's like four million
Speaker 1: dead worldwide or something. And again that that's also probably
Speaker 1: an undercount because that's just direct. Guess that's not like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's probably like twice that it's i mean, we're looking
Speaker 1: at a minimum of seven in the US, and again
Speaker 1: that's probably a million undercounted at least. Yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: a horror show, right, And and the people they killed
Speaker 1: with that, you know, like especially in the initial phases,
Speaker 1: like it was just it was just that they took
Speaker 1: a chained chainsaw to the working class. And those are
Speaker 1: a bunch of people who know that they're they're not replaceable.
Speaker 1: They're they're very highly skilled and they do a bunch
Speaker 1: of jobs that absolutely suck. And now you know, and
Speaker 1: one of one of the places that this this has
Speaker 1: caused a bunch of problems is in the ports because
Speaker 1: the other thing that this entire supply gamber relies on
Speaker 1: is being able to very quickly and cheaply moved parts
Speaker 1: from you know, China to the US, from China to Mexico,
Speaker 1: from like Bangladesh too. Like symbolia, you have, you have,
Speaker 1: you have, you have to be able to continuously like
Speaker 1: keep moving stuff around in in Yeah, you have to
Speaker 1: continuously keep moving ships around. And you also have to
Speaker 1: be able to load noneload them. And we you know,
Speaker 1: we we we saw like there there was the that
Speaker 1: when that ship got stuck in the Suez. There is
Speaker 1: that whole yeah that you know that that that was
Speaker 1: sex asses where where when people couldn't get sex asses
Speaker 1: because the world's supply of sex asses for months was
Speaker 1: on that one ship. Um, it was a real crisis
Speaker 1: for the sex ass community. Those are plastic ascis that
Speaker 1: you have sex with if you're curious. Yeah, it is.
Speaker 1: The world appears as an immense collection of commodities, some
Speaker 1: of which are sex asses. Yeah, most of which, in
Speaker 1: terms of the ones that matter, sex asses. Yes, sex
Speaker 1: ass industrial complex is really the lynchpin of global capital.
Speaker 1: But please continue. Yeah, well, you know, but the sex
Speaker 1: assi indictual complex falls apart. And you know, and it's
Speaker 1: not just the ship being stuck in the sis like
Speaker 1: made everything way worse, right, But it was very funny, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was. It was extremely funny, but it's extremely funny.
Speaker 1: The part of the thing that is like not very
Speaker 1: funny is that, like, okay, so in order to getting
Speaker 1: this to work right, you have to have a bunch
Speaker 1: of longshoremen. You have to unload all of the ship mhm.
Speaker 1: And you know, one of one of the problems that
Speaker 1: is that is happening in the sort of global supply
Speaker 1: chain right now is that the ships can't be unloaded
Speaker 1: fast enough. And part of this is like this job sucks,
Speaker 1: and people just a lot of people don't want to
Speaker 1: do it, and a lot of people died and in
Speaker 1: the and it's causing this huge problem and and there's
Speaker 1: and then there's there's another you know, if you want
Speaker 1: to take like the macrospective about this, it's that this
Speaker 1: whole system is relying on logistics workers and so it
Speaker 1: also needs you know, you need truck drivers. And we're
Speaker 1: coming back and you know in the US, is that
Speaker 1: there's yeah, you know, there's there's a sort of a
Speaker 1: truck drivers now because again their job sucks and they've
Speaker 1: been like just absolutely screwing these people over for decades
Speaker 1: and decades and decades now and turn into the subcontractors
Speaker 1: just not paying them, and you know, and and this
Speaker 1: and when you know, when the when the ports shut down,
Speaker 1: like not even shut down, like when when the ports
Speaker 1: are behind unloading stuff and when the trucks like that
Speaker 1: are supposed to be moving this stuff, they aren't off
Speaker 1: of them, and like the cost of that increases, it
Speaker 1: throws off the whole system. And that's that's another big
Speaker 1: part of like why this whole thing is is sort
Speaker 1: of imploding. And and it's interesting because I remember this.
Speaker 1: There was like a decade where like every other article
Speaker 1: we'll be talking about how they were going to like
Speaker 1: automate like truck driving. It was like the truck drivers
Speaker 1: are all going to go out of business because they're
Speaker 1: going to automated. It just never happened at all. And
Speaker 1: say the same thing with with there. You know, there's
Speaker 1: I mean, there's been some port automization, but like not
Speaker 1: on the scale that you know, actually does anything. And
Speaker 1: part of the reason for that is, you know, I
Speaker 1: was talking about people not investing in research developments. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so the biggest people who aren't doing that are the
Speaker 1: shipping companies. And that's a good time because the shipping
Speaker 1: cup basically like container shipping, has been taken over by
Speaker 1: was essentially just like a monopoly of two companies. And
Speaker 1: those two companies make just an indescribable amount of money.
Speaker 1: They have like a thousand percent profits and they just
Speaker 1: pay it all out as dividends. And so they're not
Speaker 1: you know, they're not investing in any port infrastructure, they're
Speaker 1: not investing automation. They're just pocketing the money. And that
Speaker 1: means that you know, we have all that and they're
Speaker 1: they're spending in in the case of John Deere, which
Speaker 1: keep going back to a bunch of money lobbying to
Speaker 1: make it illegal for farmers to repair uh their tractors. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: they're there. You know, they they figured they figured out
Speaker 1: that like the the easiest way to make money is
Speaker 1: just get the state to shake people down for you.
Speaker 1: It's like, fuck like investing in in making anything that
Speaker 1: we have better. Let's just you know, like let's just
Speaker 1: turn the state into a deck collector. And and it's
Speaker 1: interesting because so this, this is the part of of
Speaker 1: the supply chain crisis that like Biden has been focusing on.
Speaker 1: But Biden's plan, Biden's plans great. Biden's plan is literally
Speaker 1: make the longshoremen work harder. So his plan is here,
Speaker 1: we go, there, we go, there, we building back better. Baby. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're gonna we're gonna make We're gonna keep the ports
Speaker 1: open twenty four hours a day, seven days a week,
Speaker 1: and like make people work weekends now. And then he
Speaker 1: also got FedEx, Walmart and Ups to do twenty four
Speaker 1: hour or seven day a week shipping. So yeah, the
Speaker 1: sally is literally just like feed more workers into a
Speaker 1: grinder and make them work longer, which is which is
Speaker 1: great and and you know will not in any way backfire. No,
Speaker 1: it's fine. I don't even think we should be talking
Speaker 1: about it. No, it's great, it's gonna, it's it's yeah,
Speaker 1: it's you know but I get like this is the thing,
Speaker 1: Like this won't work and it can't and the reason
Speaker 1: it won't work is that, like part of the reason
Speaker 1: there's a shortage is that you know, it's it's not
Speaker 1: it's not just about the like the fact that people
Speaker 1: aren't paying enough. It's about the fact that these jobs
Speaker 1: are just awful. Like you have people, you have people
Speaker 1: working like twelve hours shifts that start at like six
Speaker 1: am and then they have to wake another twelve hour
Speaker 1: shift in hours later, and that these people have them
Speaker 1: can do this over and over and over again and
Speaker 1: it's well, and they don't like the way that these
Speaker 1: shifts are usually put on them is that, like you'll
Speaker 1: find out when you come in that instead of working
Speaker 1: six am to four pm or whatever, they're actually gonna
Speaker 1: need you to stay until eight and then they're gonna
Speaker 1: need you to come in. By the way, you're gonna
Speaker 1: need to come in like two hours early tomorrow. So
Speaker 1: you're realized that like in between your two shifts, you
Speaker 1: have a total of eight hours to get home and sleep.
Speaker 1: And if you say no, uh uh, well, the idea
Speaker 1: is that if you say no, like you won't have
Speaker 1: the job. It's required now, the reality is that most
Speaker 1: of these companies are also pretty desperate to have these workers,
Speaker 1: and a lot of these manufacturing and packing firms, it
Speaker 1: takes time to train people up and then they quit
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks in because the work is miserable
Speaker 1: and the schedule is fucking miserable. Um, and it's yeah,
Speaker 1: it's all, it's it's it's it's simultaneously like deeply inhuman,
Speaker 1: but also is leading to a situation. There's a reason
Speaker 1: why there's so many strikes on right now is that
Speaker 1: there is opportunity because in sort of the chasing of
Speaker 1: short term profits, a lot of these fucking oligarchs have
Speaker 1: exposed themselves in a in a pretty vulnerable position. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I think you know this, this is coming back
Speaker 1: to a sort of the other way that when when
Speaker 1: there was a crisis in in the seventies, the other
Speaker 1: way they saw this was just authoritarianism, right, it was
Speaker 1: you know, is this is the pinos a solution, right, like, oh,
Speaker 1: like workers are using control compromids, Okay, we'll just shoot them,
Speaker 1: right and yeah, and yeah, and this is you know,
Speaker 1: they're they're they're finally running into a point where you know,
Speaker 1: this is this is the solution they've been trying to
Speaker 1: do now with with with this crisis is you know,
Speaker 1: the the they're relying on the fact that just the
Speaker 1: workplace is just indescribably authoritarian. I mean, it's it's like
Speaker 1: it's it's it's a dictatorship on a scale that is
Speaker 1: like like even to like the most despotic absolute monarch
Speaker 1: is just like unimaginable, Like your boss gets to control
Speaker 1: like when you ship, like they get a control, when
Speaker 1: you eat, they get a control exactly what you're doing,
Speaker 1: like at all times, they get control when you do it,
Speaker 1: they get a control like when the next time you're
Speaker 1: going to do it is. They don't even have to
Speaker 1: tell you when it's going to be and tell like
Speaker 1: you show up and you know, for the this is
Speaker 1: this is this has been the gamble for for you know, capitalism,
Speaker 1: the tire existence, which is that like you just have
Speaker 1: to take this and eat ship or they get to
Speaker 1: take away your ability to eat, get medical care and
Speaker 1: have a place to leave to live. But that's not
Speaker 1: true anymore. Like you can just say no, you can
Speaker 1: tell them to funk off. You can you know you can,
Speaker 1: you can you can organize a union. You can just
Speaker 1: fucking just leave your job, like, just leave it, fucking
Speaker 1: walk out. And this is why we focus. I mean,
Speaker 1: this is number one why within the context of unions,
Speaker 1: strike funds are so important, but also why mutual aid
Speaker 1: is so important. Is it it potentially when organized well enough,
Speaker 1: provides people with the option to like, well, how are
Speaker 1: you going to feed yourself? Well, there's people in my
Speaker 1: community who want to make sure that I'm fed because
Speaker 1: they believe in what I'm striking for. Um, that's the
Speaker 1: promise of all of that. That's the practical behind the
Speaker 1: kind of high minded you know anarchists, uh, just you
Speaker 1: know whatever. Theorizing is the ability that like, well this
Speaker 1: actually is a weapon too. Yeah, and I think you
Speaker 1: know what else is a weapon? Chris are product. I
Speaker 1: hope we're not being sponsored some I hope we are. Chris. Look,
Speaker 1: I've I've said before for weapons, I'll read any ad
Speaker 1: for a weapons manufacturer as long as they send me
Speaker 1: some weapons. So come on, guys, get on it. You
Speaker 1: could uh, you could be you could be in the
Speaker 1: middle of this conversation raytheon, you know, send me a
Speaker 1: couple of missile guidance chips. Lockheed Martin. You know you
Speaker 1: want to give me an F thirty five, we'll we'll
Speaker 1: plug you. You know. That's what's that's that's the deal.
Speaker 1: That's how it works. Baby. All right, we're back. Hopefully,
Speaker 1: hopefully you have now heard the advertisement for knife missile
Speaker 1: to knife missile harder now with like five knives that
Speaker 1: I am not making. It actually exists. Yeah. People keep
Speaker 1: being surprised that the R nine X is a real thing.
Speaker 1: And yeah, but there's another one. There's there's one with
Speaker 1: more knives. They put more knives. We do you You're
Speaker 1: not gonna look again, you can't. It's like with Apple products, right,
Speaker 1: planned obsolescence is a critical You have to You can't
Speaker 1: just rest on your laurels. You're gonna run out of money.
Speaker 1: So you've gotta make another knife missile with a couple
Speaker 1: of more knives. Yeah, just keep keep adding knives. Nothing
Speaker 1: can ever go wrong. Do not ask any questions about
Speaker 1: why you're developing knife missiles. Send me one and like
Speaker 1: a drone or three. Swear to God, I'll use it
Speaker 1: for legal purposes. Yeah. So, I guess the last thing
Speaker 1: that I that's that's really interesting about this moment that
Speaker 1: doesn't usually happen is that you know, okay, so if
Speaker 1: if you, if you, if you, if you, you read
Speaker 1: your very basic marks, right. One of the things Mark
Speaker 1: talks about is that there's this thing called the reserve
Speaker 1: Army of labor, which is it's just like, you know,
Speaker 1: there's a bunch of people who are just always unemployed
Speaker 1: and they get along by doing sort of like odd jobs,
Speaker 1: like you know, like my, my, my quintessential person for
Speaker 1: this is like if you ever go on a subway,
Speaker 1: there's you know, it's it's the guy selling candy bars
Speaker 1: in the subway. Yeah, right, it's people who quasi legal
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes they just kind of like doing whatever,
Speaker 1: you know, we call them. In the West Coast, you
Speaker 1: have a lot of those, like yeah, people who tream
Speaker 1: marijuana for a couple of months and then just kind
Speaker 1: of like crashing you know, camp sites the rest of
Speaker 1: the year or whatever. Like yeah, there's a bunch of
Speaker 1: those folks for sure. Yeah. And you know, and like
Speaker 1: the the the number of these people who have been
Speaker 1: just like kicked out of like the formal labor system
Speaker 1: has been increasing for a long time. But what's interesting
Speaker 1: about this moment is that you know, every every strike
Speaker 1: you see, has a second strike behind it, and that
Speaker 1: strike is the informal general strike, which is just again
Speaker 1: people just quitting their jobs and leaving. And you have
Speaker 1: this weird moment where where normally the sort of reserve
Speaker 1: army of labor is this thing that like capitalism can
Speaker 1: always sort of rely on as a way to sort
Speaker 1: of solve its problems because it's like, oh, well, all right,
Speaker 1: if if you're not gonna do this job, we can
Speaker 1: bring another person. But you know this, this is a
Speaker 1: weird moment where like the reserve army of labor is
Speaker 1: like fighting on our side. Mm. And the fact that
Speaker 1: all of these people are just like, you know, they're
Speaker 1: seeing the just incredible authoritarianism of these workplaces that's just
Speaker 1: horrific abuse. The fact that you know they're they're being
Speaker 1: in a lot of cases just asked to show up
Speaker 1: and die and they're saying no is a really sort
Speaker 1: of is a really incredibly powerful thing. And when when
Speaker 1: when you add that to the fact that you know,
Speaker 1: all these companies have completely screwed themselves with how they
Speaker 1: designed the supply chains or it's it's all it's all
Speaker 1: come back around and suddenly all all the supply chain,
Speaker 1: stuff that they carefully laid out over decades and decades
Speaker 1: decades is a way to just like break the union
Speaker 1: movement and make sure nobody ever asked for more wages.
Speaker 1: You know. It's it's it's it's it's been revealed to
Speaker 1: be incredibly fragile and you know, week to our attack,
Speaker 1: and that leads us, I think to this other tension
Speaker 1: in Biden's plan to sort of like revive the economy,
Speaker 1: which is that so the US technically speaking has this
Speaker 1: like very large central planning capability, but it only has
Speaker 1: it to like build weapons. So you know, like the
Speaker 1: army has this incredible ability like that. There there's a
Speaker 1: lot of bullets, you know it despite the huge stress
Speaker 1: on the bullets supply chain, it really has scaled. You know,
Speaker 1: the prices have increased, but we're we're still still still
Speaker 1: getting bullets. America is great at making bullets. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: less great at keeping tractors working, but it'll be a problem. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Then you're like even if you remember at the beginning
Speaker 1: of the pandemic, it was like the US just couldn't
Speaker 1: produce masks, like we said, we we never we never
Speaker 1: like did that, right, Like that like the government never
Speaker 1: at any point was like we're just gonna make mass
Speaker 1: given the people. They just never did it. And so
Speaker 1: you know, our mass supply all those quy tions suck.
Speaker 1: And the only way that like the states can intervene
Speaker 1: and get the supply chains to work is by doing
Speaker 1: one of two things. It's by either doing a thing
Speaker 1: Biden was doing, which is just go to a bunch
Speaker 1: of companies and tell them to make all of their
Speaker 1: workers work harder, which is the thing that like, you know,
Speaker 1: totally won't backfire or explode in his face. And then
Speaker 1: the second thing is for Biden basically to like do
Speaker 1: all this saber rattling about how we have to have
Speaker 1: like medical supply chains in the US because national defense
Speaker 1: or something, and that's the second thing he's trying to do.
Speaker 1: But you know that just that just makes the problem worse,
Speaker 1: right because once you, once you lose the ability to outsource,
Speaker 1: you you lose the hammer even beating the unions with
Speaker 1: and so you know, all all of the sort of
Speaker 1: all of the tendencies that are you know, making things
Speaker 1: like bad and scary right now are also weirdly making
Speaker 1: this you know the fact that prices are rising right,
Speaker 1: the fact that there's all these shortages, it's it's it's
Speaker 1: making this like the best moment two you know, it's
Speaker 1: it's it's making this the best moment that and that
Speaker 1: anyone's had in ages to actually try to make something better. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and and the important thing is we're starting to
Speaker 1: see it happen. And yeah, and we're we're we're we're
Speaker 1: gonna talk more about St. October and sort of the
Speaker 1: strike wave and the coming you know, weeks and months.
Speaker 1: But yeah, we're gonna we're gonna be hitting this pretty hard,
Speaker 1: even just next week. Um, we have a lot of
Speaker 1: stuff in the pipeline. Kind of wish we've gotten to
Speaker 1: it earlier, but there's a lot of stuff to talk
Speaker 1: about in the world happening that that's within our milieu.
Speaker 1: It turns out when you're when you're specific focus is
Speaker 1: things falling apart, Uh, you're always behind uncovering all the
Speaker 1: things that are falling on the mark. But I think
Speaker 1: it is a good time to to drive this to
Speaker 1: a close, to drag this episode out behind the farm
Speaker 1: the barn, and and and shoot it and bury it
Speaker 1: in a shallow grave and and break its bones with
Speaker 1: the hammers that the police can't identify it. Chris, Um,
Speaker 1: thank you for putting this together. I got anything anything
Speaker 1: else to say? Uh, quit your job, you or you
Speaker 1: and or unionize your workplace and or take it over
Speaker 1: and run it yourselves, because Lord knows, the people who
Speaker 1: are telling you what to do just literally do not
Speaker 1: care if you die. Yeah, and I mean with with that, sorry, no, no,
Speaker 1: no no, I was just gonna Uh, I don't know
Speaker 1: what I was gonna do, Chris, I don't know what
Speaker 1: I was gonna do. Do do Go go do something.
Speaker 1: You know you're you're listening to things, Go do something. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and yeah, and if you want to listen to us,
Speaker 1: do more things. We are allegedly allegedly we we we
Speaker 1: are at cool zone media on the Twitter and and
Speaker 1: the You can't prove that in court, it's true. Good luck,
Speaker 1: good luck to them and trying to forgere if that
Speaker 1: we did this. Yeah, that's right. Motherfucker's all right. Uh
Speaker 1: uh I call the Union Hall as his amount of
Speaker 1: life and death. I think these people of planning to
Speaker 1: kill Dr King. On April four, Dr Martin Luther King
Speaker 1: was shot and killed in Memphis. A petty criminal named
Speaker 1: James Earl Ray was arrested. He pled guilty to the
Speaker 1: crime and spent the rest of his life in prison.
Speaker 1: Case closed right James hil Ray was upon for the
Speaker 1: official story. The authorities would parade all we found a
Speaker 1: gun the James L. Ray bought in Birmingham the killed
Speaker 1: Dr King, Except it wasn't the gun that killed Dr King.
Speaker 1: One of the problems that came out when I got
Speaker 1: the Ray case was that some of the evidence, as
Speaker 1: far as I was concerned, did not match the circumstances.
Speaker 1: This is the MLK tapes. The first episodes are available now.
Speaker 1: Listen on the I Heart radio app, Apple podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts. Give us over attention. We
Speaker 1: need everything you've got fast. Waiting on Reparations would be
Speaker 1: the podcast. Tune in every Thursday, politics and wordplay. We
Speaker 1: fight for the people because they got us in the
Speaker 1: worst way. From the Hill Cooper, the bomb bay Ton,
Speaker 1: from the left on Clay to what the neo kanse
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Speaker 1: to be more productive with the Before Breakfast podcast. In
Speaker 1: each bite sized daily episode, time management and productivity expert
Speaker 1: Laura vander Can teaches you how to make the most
Speaker 1: of your time both at work and at home. These
Speaker 1: are the practical suggestions you need to get more done
Speaker 1: with your day. Just as lifting weights keeps our body
Speaker 1: strong as we age, learning new skills is the mental
Speaker 1: equivalent of pumping iron. Listen to Before Breakfast wherever you
Speaker 1: get your podcasts. Excellent work, Chris, that's good. That's good.
Speaker 1: That's the kind of a tonal grunting that people have
Speaker 1: come to express respect from the introductions of my podcast.
Speaker 1: I was hoping it wouldn't be that, but then it
Speaker 1: was so bad that it was great thrill. That's our brand.
Speaker 1: Now it can't be anything else. We've We've established it. Look,
Speaker 1: nobody else is doing that. The Cometown guys, I assume
Speaker 1: aren't a totally grunting to start their podcast. I don't know, actually,
Speaker 1: but I assume not. What is the this podcast? I
Speaker 1: guess this is just how we start. It could happen.
Speaker 1: Here is a podcast you don't sound like you believe
Speaker 1: it enthusiastically, Chris with feeling. This is a podcast happening here.
Speaker 1: That yeah, excellent, that's how we do it. Okay, what
Speaker 1: are we talking about today? Well, one of the things
Speaker 1: that is happening here, as we have discussed briefly in
Speaker 1: previous episodes, is a bunch of strikes. And with us
Speaker 1: today to talk about one of these stripes, specifically the
Speaker 1: Collogue strike. Is Mel Buer, an independent researcher, educator, and
Speaker 1: freelance journalists based in Omaha, Nebraska, where this particular strike
Speaker 1: is taking place, who has done done a lot of
Speaker 1: journalism previously on the local Protestant uprising the street and
Speaker 1: is also researching and writing a book on alternative media. Hi. Hello,
Speaker 1: we welcome to the show Strikes Strikes apparently is what's up?
Speaker 1: It is? It is Strictober. We're doing strikes strike wave baby. Ye.
Speaker 1: So this this specific strike, Um, why don't can you
Speaker 1: can you walk us through a bit about how we
Speaker 1: got to the point where this Kellogg factory is on strike? Um? Well,
Speaker 1: first off, it's four plants. It's all for American Kellogg
Speaker 1: cereal plants have gone on strike. Um, the workers and
Speaker 1: these plants are represented by the bakery, confectionery tobacco workers
Speaker 1: in grain Miller's International Union. I do love that bakriyes
Speaker 1: and tobacco workers are in the same union. Yeah that's
Speaker 1: rat Yeah yeah. So UM their contract was up for
Speaker 1: renegotiation in actually UM and UM due to a series
Speaker 1: of weird things happening, they pushed the negotiations to UM.
Speaker 1: They renegotiate their contract every five years, UM and at
Speaker 1: stake this year UM was a sort of pushing back
Speaker 1: against a recently introduced to tier employment system that they
Speaker 1: company sort of strong armed the union into, which essentially,
Speaker 1: UH is not it's not a good deal for anyone. UM.
Speaker 1: In they pushed in this sort of two tier system
Speaker 1: where one tier is a lower transitional tier and one
Speaker 1: tier is a legacy or full time employee tier. UM.
Speaker 1: And what it is is that you know, it amounts
Speaker 1: to a difference of twelve bucks an hour and less benefits. Yes, yes, UM.
Speaker 1: Dan Osborne recently did an interview with Max Salvarez at
Speaker 1: Working People podcast and he really kind of talked about
Speaker 1: exactly what was going on there. UM. And you know,
Speaker 1: there's fourteen d people who work in four plants there
Speaker 1: is about four employees at the Omaha plant, which has
Speaker 1: been around for decades. And UM, Essentially, what this tier
Speaker 1: system does is it's capped at their union workforce, and
Speaker 1: the whole idea is as these full time employees retire
Speaker 1: or quit, then these transitional employees will sort of be
Speaker 1: funneled into the full time tier. Right over the last
Speaker 1: five years, that hasn't really happened really at all. Um.
Speaker 1: It was a bad deal from the start according to
Speaker 1: many of the workers who sort of felt like they,
Speaker 1: you know, they were backed into a wall because Kellogg's
Speaker 1: was threatening to close the Memphis plant if they didn't
Speaker 1: ratify this negotiated contract. So rather than experience you know,
Speaker 1: five layoffs in Memphis, they just agreed to it. So
Speaker 1: they knew going to the negotiating table in that they
Speaker 1: were going to try and sort of walk that back. Um.
Speaker 1: Because these workers all work in the same plant, same
Speaker 1: days for a second third shift. The transitional workers are
Speaker 1: working side by side with these full time employees, working
Speaker 1: the same hours, which can amount to seven days a week,
Speaker 1: twelve to sixteen hours a day on mandatory over time,
Speaker 1: and they are making twelve dollars an hour less and
Speaker 1: they are not getting the benefits that these full time
Speaker 1: employees are getting. So really, these full time employees are
Speaker 1: kind of going to bat for the transitional employees. Um
Speaker 1: Kelloggs wants to remove the cap which the union negotiated,
Speaker 1: which is att of their workforce. They wanted to do that,
Speaker 1: do a way with that so that they can continue
Speaker 1: hiring more transitional workers, and they want to funk with
Speaker 1: the insurance benefits. So, uh, the union tried to negotiate this.
Speaker 1: I think according to the local union president, Kellogg's negotiators
Speaker 1: were at the negotiating table for ten hours and they
Speaker 1: negotiated eight hours a day, five days a week for
Speaker 1: two weeks. Ten hours there at the table. So they
Speaker 1: weren't interested in negotiating a contract. They had laid out
Speaker 1: their their terms and they essentially told the union to
Speaker 1: go kick rocks. And so the union said, you know,
Speaker 1: we have we have until October five and then our
Speaker 1: contract is up, and if we haven't ratified a new contract,
Speaker 1: then we're going out on strike. And that's ultimately what happened.
Speaker 1: So they've been on strike for this will be their
Speaker 1: fourteenth day today. I think the fight against the two
Speaker 1: tier system. I think is an interesting part of this
Speaker 1: because that's been a huge part of a lot of
Speaker 1: the different strikes you've been seeing since John Deer strikes,
Speaker 1: is part of the Kaiser strikes. And Yeah, I'm wondering
Speaker 1: what you think specifically about the fact that this is like,
Speaker 1: this is the moment that people have decided to like
Speaker 1: push back against against two or even three tier systems
Speaker 1: they were introduced in the last really like ten or
Speaker 1: fifteen years for the most part. Well, I think it's
Speaker 1: you know, it's a divide and conquer strategy for Kellogg's
Speaker 1: or for these other companies. And ultimately, what it looks
Speaker 1: like is it uh destabilizes well established unions, especially at Kellogg's.
Speaker 1: UM and UM, it pits workers against each other, you know, UM,
Speaker 1: particularly at Kellogg's. If they're able to remove this cap
Speaker 1: on this tier system, UM, what they're essentially doing is
Speaker 1: they're creating a more precarious workplace for these workers. UM.
Speaker 1: The turnover rate and the lower tier at the Omaha
Speaker 1: plant is right around UM. And you know, prior to
Speaker 1: you didn't really see a whole lot of people leaving
Speaker 1: the Kellogg's plant. You know, these were these are workers
Speaker 1: who are spending their entire careers at this plant. Their
Speaker 1: parents work their their grandparents work there. You know. Um,
Speaker 1: they because they're all getting paid around the same amount
Speaker 1: of money. There isn't this tension on the line, so
Speaker 1: they're they're working with each other, they're helping each other, right, Um.
Speaker 1: And with this tier system, what they're doing is they're
Speaker 1: throwing these newer workers into uh pretty uh insane factory conditions,
Speaker 1: um and making it really difficult for them to uh,
Speaker 1: I feel like they have any reason to stay there. Right.
Speaker 1: A lot of these people will, you know put in
Speaker 1: some of these workers were transitional workers who weren't officially
Speaker 1: hired by the company. You know, there aren't full time employees.
Speaker 1: They aren't receiving benefits like the full time employees are
Speaker 1: for five years. They work this every day, seven days
Speaker 1: a week, three months on end. Right. Uh. They have
Speaker 1: this really you know punitive attendance based points system that
Speaker 1: discourages you calling in sick. There's injuries that happened in
Speaker 1: the factory all the time. You know. I went out
Speaker 1: to the line and wrote a piece for the Real
Speaker 1: News about this, and pretty much every person I talked
Speaker 1: to showed me scars from accidents that happened injuries in
Speaker 1: the plant. Um. The union president himself got his hand
Speaker 1: stuck in a um like a mill and broke all
Speaker 1: the fingers in his hand. He had to have ten
Speaker 1: surgeries on his hand. You know. Um, there was an
Speaker 1: accident at the plant two or three weeks ago where
Speaker 1: a transitional employee got both arms stuck in a conveyor belt.
Speaker 1: You know. Um. The thing is is these folks super
Speaker 1: proud of the work that they do, like absolutely take
Speaker 1: this work extremely seriously. You know, they're not even asking
Speaker 1: for changes to their overtime. They are not asking for
Speaker 1: you know anything that you know from me on the outside,
Speaker 1: I'd be fighting for more humane working conditions. But to them,
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's not like it's a point of pride,
Speaker 1: but they feel that they have put blood, sweat, tears, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, fractured relationships, time that they could be spending
Speaker 1: with their children in to this factory and Kelloggs is
Speaker 1: essentially fucking them over. Yeah. You know, they see, as
Speaker 1: we have sacrificed for this company for years and years
Speaker 1: and years, um, and we are asking for equal pay
Speaker 1: for all and for everyone to have the same health
Speaker 1: care so that we can do this job, you know,
Speaker 1: and Kelloggs is saying no, absolutely, you know. I think
Speaker 1: the union president said that some of the negotiators called
Speaker 1: those demands outlandish during negotiations, which I think is just incredible,
Speaker 1: you know, just corporate greed. Yeah. I think the other
Speaker 1: part of the story is that, like I mean, it's
Speaker 1: kind of a weird consequence of it, but like one
Speaker 1: of the things, one of those consequences is sort of
Speaker 1: like rising like staple commodity prices, staple grain prices and stuff.
Speaker 1: Is that Kelloggs like they're doing they have like record
Speaker 1: they have record profits right now and they're still just
Speaker 1: doing this ship because yeah, they made record profits during
Speaker 1: the pandemic. They gave their CEO, uh, pretty hefty raise bonus. UM,
Speaker 1: there was a stock buyback program that helped happened among
Speaker 1: the c suite folks last year. They made a lot
Speaker 1: of money, a lot of money. And um, you know,
Speaker 1: these workers worked every day through the pandemic, um continually understaffed,
Speaker 1: you know, UM, doing their best because again, they they
Speaker 1: take this job very seriously and they are proud that
Speaker 1: they are feeding the American people, you know, UM, and
Speaker 1: they are proud to work at Kellogg's and uh, they
Speaker 1: feel that this contract is just shit, it's just ship
Speaker 1: and you know the only sensible thing to do is
Speaker 1: to to walk out on strike because you know, they've
Speaker 1: been backed into a corner and negotiations have stagnated completely.
Speaker 1: You know. Um, and um, they don't want to They
Speaker 1: don't want to back down from this, you know. Um,
Speaker 1: they and I agree. I feel what they're what they're
Speaker 1: asking for is fair. It's very fair. I mean, I
Speaker 1: think it's I think asking for a lot more would
Speaker 1: be fair, but not my place to be doing. One
Speaker 1: of the things that strikes me about this you talk
Speaker 1: about this tier system that Kellogg's introduced, which I can't
Speaker 1: help but think of what happened that John Deere, where
Speaker 1: they I think in nineties six cut pensions by two
Speaker 1: thirds and then like last year eliminated them entirely. And
Speaker 1: this kind of bid to pit chunks of the workforced
Speaker 1: against each other. Um, where you have like you know,
Speaker 1: different groups making different amounts and sort of like, I
Speaker 1: don't know, it seems kind of like the strategy that
Speaker 1: you see in the broader economy, like written within within
Speaker 1: the space of a company, where you've got like some
Speaker 1: people who are getting pretty well taken care of in
Speaker 1: their jobs and other newer people who are who are
Speaker 1: getting more screwed over in kind of this this attempt
Speaker 1: to create division within the workforce so that this this
Speaker 1: kind of organizing doesn't happen. M M m M. I
Speaker 1: would agree. And you also have to think, you know,
Speaker 1: if they are able to remove this cap on the
Speaker 1: transitional tier, but that means that this is they'll be
Speaker 1: able to instead of say, say a full time employee retires,
Speaker 1: they leave that space empty, but they still need an
Speaker 1: extra space, an extra person, right, so they can just
Speaker 1: hire a transitional worker instead of funneling one of those
Speaker 1: transitional workers into that full time space. Ah, what ends
Speaker 1: up happening is suddenly you have instead of seventy full
Speaker 1: time to transitional. The it starts tipping, right, it becomes
Speaker 1: a more precarious workforce. Then say, for example, they do
Speaker 1: that in the next five years, you know, now they
Speaker 1: have seventy percent of these transitional workers who don't think
Speaker 1: the union is offering anything for them. They can essentially
Speaker 1: just offer a better deal to these transitional workers and
Speaker 1: kick the union out of the company at some point,
Speaker 1: you know, um, and these folks on the line understand
Speaker 1: that and know that that's kind of Kellogg's plan, right.
Speaker 1: They know that the Kelloggs, what Kelloggs is trying to
Speaker 1: do is essentially destabilize the power of the union inside
Speaker 1: the plants. And everyone on the line that I've spoken with,
Speaker 1: I know exactly what's happening, you know. And these full
Speaker 1: time employees are out there every day making sure that
Speaker 1: their transitional and you know, colleagues know that that's why
Speaker 1: they're out there because they want to not allow this
Speaker 1: to be something that divides their workforce. It remains to
Speaker 1: be seen what's going to happen, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: They've brought in scabs to get the plant up and
Speaker 1: running again, and most recently, uh, yesterday this morning. Yesterday,
Speaker 1: the Building and Construction Trades Council union met with the
Speaker 1: union president in Omaha because they have about a hundred
Speaker 1: third party iron workers, carpenters, atricians, and skilled trades people
Speaker 1: that are union trades people that have contracts at Kellogg's.
Speaker 1: And they came to what Dan Osborne, the union president,
Speaker 1: decided called was a tough decision that those union workers
Speaker 1: are going to cross the picket line to honor those contracts.
Speaker 1: So Kelloggs is forcing the unions in the city in
Speaker 1: like into a bind really because they're they're you know,
Speaker 1: uh going to lose their own contracts at Kellogg's. So
Speaker 1: that's kind of been like the most recent development here
Speaker 1: is that rather than just temps coming in, we have
Speaker 1: now skilled union trades people from various Omaha unions who
Speaker 1: are also crossing the picket line two honor their contracts
Speaker 1: at Kellogg's, you know, um past these striking workers. So
Speaker 1: it's a bit of a mess a little bit, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's so going on right now. I'm kind of wondering
Speaker 1: what you think are the because we've got a number
Speaker 1: of strikes kind of all coming to ahead at the
Speaker 1: same time, I'm wondering, specifically from the Kellogg strike, what
Speaker 1: do you think are kind of the lessons that should
Speaker 1: be taken from what's happened so far for the broader
Speaker 1: labor movement. UM. I think the biggest thing that's kind
Speaker 1: of impacted me as I've gone to the line. UM,
Speaker 1: I've stood on the picket line, I've covered these you know,
Speaker 1: this strike, I've talked to people, UM, is that when
Speaker 1: these types of actions happen. They really only can be
Speaker 1: sustained because the community comes together to support them. You know. Um,
Speaker 1: these strike funds that are going around and folks showing
Speaker 1: up to stand on the picket line who are not
Speaker 1: part of the union are really sort of become you know,
Speaker 1: they are helping support these workers who can only hold
Speaker 1: out so long with finite resources. Right. So the big
Speaker 1: thing to is that past these news cycles of excitement
Speaker 1: of striked ober of you know, these people just walked
Speaker 1: out today, Well they may be you know, they may
Speaker 1: be on the line for months and months on end,
Speaker 1: and the new cycle is going to move on, and
Speaker 1: these communities are still going to have to try and
Speaker 1: and and back up these labor actions, right Um. You
Speaker 1: really can't have true you know, you can't have a
Speaker 1: labor movement without you know, support, right um. And that's
Speaker 1: kind of been the biggest thing that has impacted me particularly.
Speaker 1: You know this Almaha used to be a really formidable
Speaker 1: union time. You know, back in the eighties, it was
Speaker 1: really really something to see that the business unions in
Speaker 1: in the various locals here really had some of these
Speaker 1: union leaders had more political power than the mayor, right Um,
Speaker 1: And that has gone downhill over the last forty years,
Speaker 1: and it's really cool to see, uh, the level of
Speaker 1: solidarity that's happening amongst community, you know, um in the
Speaker 1: ways in which people are kind of coming out to
Speaker 1: talk to and and be a part of this strike
Speaker 1: and to remind these Kellogg's workers that they're not operating
Speaker 1: in a bubble, you know, and that the rest of
Speaker 1: the community really hopes that the strike will end quickly
Speaker 1: and peacefully and with a really good resolution for these workers.
Speaker 1: You know. Whatever thing I wanted to ask about in
Speaker 1: in terms of sort of this this kind of research
Speaker 1: in to the union movements and in in in terms
Speaker 1: of sort of communities support is the level of violence
Speaker 1: that there's been against, like against the strikes. I've seen
Speaker 1: a lot of like stuff about people cann hit by
Speaker 1: buses and like, and I don't I don't know if
Speaker 1: I think I think I'm getting my strikes. I don't
Speaker 1: don't know if they've they've been direct car attacks on
Speaker 1: this specific picket line, but that's been I think that
Speaker 1: it's been happening a lot. And I was a couple
Speaker 1: of documented races. Yeah, yeah, and yeah, I was wondering
Speaker 1: what you think about that, and like what actually can
Speaker 1: be done about the fact that, like you know that
Speaker 1: you know, like this just the fact that we're just
Speaker 1: seeing auto attacks on picket lines regularly now, I mean
Speaker 1: that's you know, it's a it's a shitty development. You know. Um.
Speaker 1: I was out on the picket line last Thursday and UM,
Speaker 1: they were attempting to bring in busses at shift change
Speaker 1: past the the picketers who walk slowly. You know, they
Speaker 1: don't want to stop in front of the bus. It's
Speaker 1: illegal to stop and and you know make it, you know,
Speaker 1: so that they can't pass through the gates, but they
Speaker 1: slow them down for a little bit. And UM, one
Speaker 1: gentleman was trying, you know, was standing there and this
Speaker 1: bus just bumped right into them. You know, there's videos
Speaker 1: that have been shared through local news of buses knocking
Speaker 1: down workers as they're trying to cross the picket line. UM.
Speaker 1: And I you know, there are also the personal vehicles
Speaker 1: that go through and it could be the private security
Speaker 1: that's been hired, it could be managers. UM. But you know,
Speaker 1: they're running through these lines really quickly dangerously. It's unfortunate,
Speaker 1: and you know, I don't have an answer for what
Speaker 1: the best h solution for that is, you know, but
Speaker 1: vehicle tax have become sort of more Uh. I don't
Speaker 1: want to say commonplace, but you see them happening a
Speaker 1: lot both at protests last year, and you know, I
Speaker 1: think Warrior met Cole had some bosses running through the
Speaker 1: lines and being reckless with their vehicles. You know. Um,
Speaker 1: the problem is is on the on the back end.
Speaker 1: The police don't step in when they see these instances,
Speaker 1: you know. Um and in fact, last Thursday, when we
Speaker 1: have hundred plus motorcyclists from various mc s show up
Speaker 1: to support the strike, um, the police were the ones
Speaker 1: who protected the scabs and made sure that they made
Speaker 1: it through the picket line. So you know, UM, the
Speaker 1: answer to that, IM not sure. You know. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean that's a time honored police tradition. Yeah, they historically
Speaker 1: don't don't exist to protect laborers, with the notable exception
Speaker 1: of of the sheriff And what was that Mattawan and
Speaker 1: uh during the um the coal miner strike in West Virginia.
Speaker 1: M Well yeah they shot him so well yeah, but
Speaker 1: he shot some people first. Yeah, Um, Sid Hatfield that
Speaker 1: was the name. Yeah, I don't know, Um, I've gotten
Speaker 1: to know some of these folks on the line of
Speaker 1: the last two weeks, and they're just fantastic human beings,
Speaker 1: you know. Um, they are accommodating and hard working, and
Speaker 1: they come from all age brackets and they bring their
Speaker 1: families out and you know they're getting they're getting a
Speaker 1: raw deal from Kellogg's. And UM, so far, the community
Speaker 1: support has been overwhelmingly positive. UM, there hasn't really been
Speaker 1: like at the John Deer strike. They're not getting eggs
Speaker 1: thrown out them, you know. UM, they get a lot
Speaker 1: more honking and messages of support than they do people
Speaker 1: driving by to yell at them for uh, you know,
Speaker 1: being a strike. So that's been nice to see, you know. Um.
Speaker 1: And actually this weekend on Saturday, UM, there's gonna be
Speaker 1: a like cool vintage car show cruise around Kellogg's event
Speaker 1: that they've got planned. The fire departments bringing rigs and
Speaker 1: um teamsters yeah, yeah, and the teamsters are bringing cars
Speaker 1: and then there's a bunch of vintage car clubs that
Speaker 1: are gonna be coming out. So you know, those types
Speaker 1: of things I like really kind of like fired up
Speaker 1: these people to keep them out on the line as
Speaker 1: long as they need to be, you know. So communities
Speaker 1: there for him. One of the things I'm continuing to
Speaker 1: wonder about is what it takes to close the gap
Speaker 1: between understanding that you and your colleagues are getting screwed
Speaker 1: over by this system and understanding that you and all
Speaker 1: of the other people striking at the same time, and
Speaker 1: perhaps even a bunch of people not striking, are all
Speaker 1: kind of fighting the same fight. And then maybe there's
Speaker 1: grander things to achieve than the negotiation of a single contract,
Speaker 1: because that seems like the big leap that is going
Speaker 1: to be the real struggle to clear. Uh. Yeah, you know. Um.
Speaker 1: I will say that some of the workers are fully
Speaker 1: aware that this is not just about a single contract
Speaker 1: negotiation and is actually, you know, more about struggles of
Speaker 1: the working class against corporate greed and the ways in
Speaker 1: which the working class gets their asses handed to them
Speaker 1: all the time, um um. And they know that they
Speaker 1: know that at some point, perhaps at some point in
Speaker 1: the future, someone else is going to look at their
Speaker 1: example and be inspired by it. Right. Um. As far
Speaker 1: as like maybe I don't know, ideologically speaking or politically speaking,
Speaker 1: for these folks, it's uh doesn't fit into any sort
Speaker 1: of ideology leftist or conservative or whatever. Everyone's got their
Speaker 1: own personal politics, but they don't really talk about it
Speaker 1: on the line. What they talk about is working class
Speaker 1: versus ruling class. Um that you know, that's their sense.
Speaker 1: It's corporate greed, it's um. Asshole CEO is making eleven
Speaker 1: point six million dollars a year while they're struggling to
Speaker 1: pay their own bills, you know. UM. And and you
Speaker 1: know that conversation is more common than UM. Trying to
Speaker 1: fit this into a larger political movement or revolutionary movement,
Speaker 1: if that makes sense, you know, yeah, um. But I
Speaker 1: would say that the vast majority of the workers, regardless
Speaker 1: of their own personal politics, have a very clear sense
Speaker 1: of where they sit in terms of class consciousness and
Speaker 1: understand that this is one of one of the most
Speaker 1: effective tactics to try and force the hand of these assholes,
Speaker 1: you know, UM, is to withhold work and withhold their labor.
Speaker 1: So well, this has been great. I mean, that's everything
Speaker 1: I had to ask Chris. Anything else not that not
Speaker 1: that I have. So there is there a call to
Speaker 1: action we could have for our listeners or pages people
Speaker 1: should be following strike fund Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's a
Speaker 1: go fund me, and there's a PayPal set up for
Speaker 1: the Almaja strikers. I believe the b c t g
Speaker 1: M international page has like a page of each of
Speaker 1: the strike funds for each of the four plants, So
Speaker 1: that might be something that you might not want to
Speaker 1: share with your listeners. I can send you an email
Speaker 1: with that, UM, because it's probably going to be easier
Speaker 1: to do UM. But yeah, it's ours. I know. Bct
Speaker 1: g M isn't called for an official boycott of Kellogg's products, However,
Speaker 1: they wouldn't be mad if you just didn't buy any
Speaker 1: right now. There was some talk last week that some
Speaker 1: of the picketers might you know, be flying outside of
Speaker 1: grocery stores to try and educate the community on what's
Speaker 1: going on with this strike. But beyond that, they also
Speaker 1: are concerned about the quality of the food being produced
Speaker 1: by scabs. So it probably would be healthy for you
Speaker 1: to not by the food, you know, because I think
Speaker 1: it was in what two thousand eighteen during the works
Speaker 1: a lockout in Memphis, the same company that they brought
Speaker 1: in then that they're bringing in now uh piste in
Speaker 1: the cereal on the line, and they didn't release video
Speaker 1: of that for two years after the incident, So it
Speaker 1: ended up in someone's home, you know, GROSSI yikes. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's pretty fun right. Um. So yeah, you know, uh,
Speaker 1: support your local strike fund and if you are in
Speaker 1: a city where Kellogg's plant is striking, I'm sure those
Speaker 1: workers would love love to to hear from you fill
Speaker 1: your support. So where and where can our listeners follow you?
Speaker 1: I am on Twitter primarily at cold Brood Tool. I
Speaker 1: don't know why I picked that name, but yeah, yeah
Speaker 1: I got. I haven't changed that handle since I got
Speaker 1: into Twitter, so um, but yeah, that's usually where I'm at. Otherwise,
Speaker 1: you know, I teach locally and had to have a
Speaker 1: podcast that I'm developing and do a bunch of different projects.
Speaker 1: So Twitter is the best way to get a hold
Speaker 1: of me if you have questions. Awesome, all right, thanks
Speaker 1: for having me on folks. Apate, thanks for thanks for
Speaker 1: joining us. I'll be back at the picket line, you know,
Speaker 1: talking to these folks and and um, gonna do my
Speaker 1: best to keep this ship in the new cycles so
Speaker 1: that they aren't forgotten. So awesome. We've got a link
Speaker 1: to the strike fund and some other ways to help
Speaker 1: me in the description. So yeah, this has been it
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Speaker 1: your podcasts. Hey everybody, Robert Evans here your favorite podcast
Speaker 1: are also legally the only podcaster that that people are
Speaker 1: allowed to enjoy on the internet. Here to introduce a
Speaker 1: really exciting episode of it could happen here. So for
Speaker 1: the last bit of time, I've been in and out
Speaker 1: of touch with a number of members of the Puget
Speaker 1: Sound John Brown Club. They have provided armed self defense
Speaker 1: groups for a couple of different protests in the Washington
Speaker 1: area over the last year and change. Um and we
Speaker 1: wanted to sit down and talk to them about the
Speaker 1: ideas behind community self defense, how to do it responsibly,
Speaker 1: how to do it irresponsibly. We also had some discussions
Speaker 1: with them about the disasters that happened at the Chop
Speaker 1: Slash Chazz last year. They were not involved with that
Speaker 1: as an organization, UM, but they have some insights on
Speaker 1: the matter. UM. That's going to be coming at you
Speaker 1: in a separate episode or maybe even a couple of
Speaker 1: episodes in the near future. Today we're just kind of
Speaker 1: talking about concepts of armed community self defense. You know,
Speaker 1: what's responsible, what's irresponsible, how people should think about it.
Speaker 1: I think you'll enjoy the conversation here. It is a
Speaker 1: decent chunk of the folks listening, especially the Portlanders, will
Speaker 1: have experience with UH and that that Garrison and I
Speaker 1: have certainly had experienced with. It is people at protests
Speaker 1: declaring themselves security, sometimes even wearing shirts that say security,
Speaker 1: and picking up a variety of weapons off in paintball
Speaker 1: guns and mace and using them often irresponsibly on other protesters,
Speaker 1: on on bystanders in the name of of of keeping
Speaker 1: things safe and UM. I think we're pretty clear and
Speaker 1: I think most reasonable people can see that that's not
Speaker 1: community self defense. But often those people uh certainly claim
Speaker 1: that what they're doing is community self defense UM. And
Speaker 1: I'm specifically wanting to start by getting a kind of
Speaker 1: a range of definitions from folks. As you are all
Speaker 1: people who have engaged in community self defense UM, and
Speaker 1: particularly armed community self defense. What do you see as
Speaker 1: the actual role of community self defense and how should
Speaker 1: it look as opposed to, you know, a guy with
Speaker 1: a paintball gun yelling at kids for tagging a window.
Speaker 1: Ray You wanna you want to kick us off with
Speaker 1: an answer there, I do. Community defense should be part
Speaker 1: of the a broad health and safety infrastructure set up
Speaker 1: for a protest movement or a community. Being deliberately vague here,
Speaker 1: but specifically, armed community defense deals with mitigating lethal and
Speaker 1: egregious harm to members of a community. The goal is
Speaker 1: forced and foremost prevention, mitigation and control of those threats.
Speaker 1: In my mind, ideally community defense would involve no one
Speaker 1: doing anything, carrying around a bunch of really heavy ship
Speaker 1: and nothing happening, but deterring those from harming others. In
Speaker 1: the absolute worst case, it means you have to actually
Speaker 1: do something that can get messy pretty quickly. I want
Speaker 1: to circle back to a couple of things. Actually, I
Speaker 1: do have one one quick follow up question for you
Speaker 1: before we move on to the next people. Ray, When
Speaker 1: you say like carrying heavy things and whatnot, I'm wondering,
Speaker 1: what do you think? I'm interested in you, and I'll
Speaker 1: probably ask other people to follow up when it when
Speaker 1: it comes to carrying and bringing a firearm to either
Speaker 1: a protest situation some other community self defense situation, what
Speaker 1: it is going through your head when you determine what
Speaker 1: to bring? Because I've seen people carry a variety of
Speaker 1: different guns from like shotguns and in one case is
Speaker 1: of mos and negat to a r S or handguns. Um,
Speaker 1: what do you think is kind of the the logic
Speaker 1: train I guess that you would take, Like, what is
Speaker 1: the appropriate tool to bring like in this situation? So
Speaker 1: that depends entirely on what the anticipated threat is and
Speaker 1: how one plans to mitigate the anticipated threat. There's no
Speaker 1: correct answer for that. Sometimes the answer to mitigate lethal
Speaker 1: or regious bodily harm is not a firearm at all. Indeed,
Speaker 1: firearms are applicable in an extraordinarily narrow range of scenarios,
Speaker 1: but those range of scenarios are catastrophic and need extreme
Speaker 1: measures to be mitigated. So it depends on what If
Speaker 1: you are considering bringing firearm, what is the firearm good
Speaker 1: at And then you get into the minutia of what
Speaker 1: firearm is good for what thing, which depends on your
Speaker 1: legal context and particular threat. But I think one has
Speaker 1: to start with the question is is the thing I'm
Speaker 1: bringing able to mitigate the type of harm I might
Speaker 1: see happen to my community, And to get a little
Speaker 1: bit less vague, there are people who think that bringing
Speaker 1: a shotgun is a good way to stop a car
Speaker 1: speeding into a crowd when it clearly isn't right. So
Speaker 1: one has to make sure that the tool, whatever they
Speaker 1: have is you is appropriate for the task at hand
Speaker 1: and the threat you anticipate. That was great, Thank you,
Speaker 1: ray um Katie, you want to you want to give
Speaker 1: us your answer next. I agree with everything that Race said,
Speaker 1: and the only addition that I'd make is that, um,
Speaker 1: it's specifically in our in our cases generally doesn't mean
Speaker 1: standing between protesters and police, but more guiding protesters, you know,
Speaker 1: our activists or participants away from potential situations of harm.
Speaker 1: It's like we can't stand in front of police and
Speaker 1: stop cops from doing their job like that just gets
Speaker 1: you arrested and uh or worse or worse, and that's
Speaker 1: not what we're here for. So yeah, that's all I
Speaker 1: wanted to, could you, because I have chatted with a
Speaker 1: couple of your number about this, about um, kind of
Speaker 1: the role that that an armed contingent at a protest
Speaker 1: can play in kind of allowing an avenue of retreat,
Speaker 1: you know, especially during confrontations with non state actors. UM,
Speaker 1: I'm interested in kind of what you um, you know
Speaker 1: you're not You're not to kind of as you did,
Speaker 1: kind of kind of clarify this conception. You don't see
Speaker 1: your role as ending in front of the protesters between
Speaker 1: them and the cops and like presenting a threat to
Speaker 1: the cops. What is the utility and kind of an
Speaker 1: act of protest situation that you've seen of of of
Speaker 1: what y'all do. So that's a good question. And UM,
Speaker 1: if we're doing our job well, then most people think
Speaker 1: we don't do anything at all. UM. A lot of
Speaker 1: what we do is we're watching external potential threats who
Speaker 1: might try to come in. The most common factor these
Speaker 1: days is a car UM, but generally we're looking for
Speaker 1: folks that might cause trouble and finding ensuring that we're
Speaker 1: not putting ourselves in a position where we're gonna get
Speaker 1: cornered or trapped, and and really you know, just trying
Speaker 1: to help facilitate and work with the facilitators and organizers
Speaker 1: to keep things, you know, progressing in a safe way.
Speaker 1: So as far as what we're protecting against threat wise,
Speaker 1: that that ranges from everything from like angry people who
Speaker 1: are just angry and trying to go home and getting
Speaker 1: blocked by a protest, to people who are who are
Speaker 1: actively looking to do harm to a movement that happens
Speaker 1: to be involved in the protests, or you know, maybe
Speaker 1: it's something as as as specific as a person who's
Speaker 1: looking to specifically do harm to UH organizers. So most
Speaker 1: of the time it's we're focused outward and and just
Speaker 1: making sure that our exits are are covered and that
Speaker 1: we have ways to get people away from potential bad situations. Um,
Speaker 1: that was great, Thank you, Katie Shannon, you want to
Speaker 1: give your answer, it absolutely thanks. I would add there's
Speaker 1: a really critical element to community defense that begins and
Speaker 1: ends with the word community. Obviously, there's a big difference
Speaker 1: between proclaiming yourself security and showing up someplace and being
Speaker 1: there as an intentional community support where the community plays
Speaker 1: a role in you being there and also has some
Speaker 1: influence on that question what are you carrying and what
Speaker 1: is the response? I think it's just really important that
Speaker 1: you keep the community aspect at the forefront, and that's
Speaker 1: a huge part of our collective work is making sure
Speaker 1: that when we're providing community defense, we're aligning ourselves with
Speaker 1: the desires of the community group that has asked us
Speaker 1: to be there, also filtering it through our judgment as
Speaker 1: to what's safe and appropriate under the circumstances, using some
Speaker 1: of those filters that Ray mentioned when they were answering
Speaker 1: and what do you see as like like, this is
Speaker 1: something that I kind of gets to both what what
Speaker 1: is an issue with me? And kind of the folks
Speaker 1: who declare themselves a security, which is that they're often
Speaker 1: kind of separating themselves from the rest of the movement,
Speaker 1: specifically in a cop like way to say like, well,
Speaker 1: it's my job to keep you ad even though that
Speaker 1: means or it's my job to keep things order leaven
Speaker 1: if that means attacking some other people at this protest.
Speaker 1: One of the things that Scott Crowe in is uh
Speaker 1: in Setting Sights, which is a really good book on
Speaker 1: community self defense, does is set out that, um, a
Speaker 1: key aspect of community self defense, as you said, is
Speaker 1: that you're like a member of the community. And I think,
Speaker 1: I guess the question I have is because guns are
Speaker 1: what they are and have the kind of cultural weight
Speaker 1: that they have, it's you people are always people who
Speaker 1: accept being armed as an aspect of their personality are
Speaker 1: always going to be kind of fighting having that dominate
Speaker 1: their personality. And it wouldn't It's clearly something that a
Speaker 1: lot of people have an issue with. The thing that
Speaker 1: is important is to be a member of the community
Speaker 1: who happens to be armed, as opposed to an armed
Speaker 1: activist whose whose role is being armed. Right, Like I
Speaker 1: I mean, do you agree with what I'm saying? Are
Speaker 1: kind of like I'm wondering how you think about it,
Speaker 1: because this is something that I'm kind of going around
Speaker 1: in my head about as well, because it's it's it's
Speaker 1: clearly where a lot of the problems happen, right that
Speaker 1: the gun becomes central to the identity of the people
Speaker 1: who bring it, which is something that happens to the
Speaker 1: cops yes, and also the mentality of separating yourself from
Speaker 1: the community and not being part of the purpose of
Speaker 1: being there. And so I'll defer to my my comrades
Speaker 1: here to go a little bit further with it, but
Speaker 1: I would just say that there's a significant difference between
Speaker 1: armed community defense and having an intentional presence of armed
Speaker 1: community defense at an event or protest and being a
Speaker 1: person who shows up with a gun. Those are two
Speaker 1: really different things, and so I think that's the that's
Speaker 1: one of the benefits of being part of an organization
Speaker 1: that does this collectively, with accountability, with training, with a
Speaker 1: known role in the community, so that there is um
Speaker 1: consistency among what we do and why we do it,
Speaker 1: and a history of folks understanding that if we're present somewhere,
Speaker 1: it's because we've been asked to be there, and that
Speaker 1: what we're doing there is aligned with and approved of
Speaker 1: by the people who are organizing the event. And then
Speaker 1: I'll let somebody else who's more eloquent than I am
Speaker 1: uh answered that further if they feel like they can. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think Nova is up now. If you wanted to
Speaker 1: give your answer and kind of also comment on what
Speaker 1: we've been chatting about what Channon and I were just
Speaker 1: chatting about Nova. Hi, thank you so much. UM. I
Speaker 1: would say that folks like Ray and Katie and of
Speaker 1: course Shannon really put it very systemictly, very well together
Speaker 1: and answered a lot of the things that I was
Speaker 1: gonna already provided things that I was going to add
Speaker 1: to it. But um, the specifically the part about the
Speaker 1: gun becoming the driving factor in somebody's presence at the protest,
Speaker 1: or the gun being a part of the personality of
Speaker 1: somebody who is going to appoint themselves as a guardian
Speaker 1: towards a bunch of people, I would I would say
Speaker 1: that with any responsible community community defense role within a
Speaker 1: protest context, that the act of being a body in
Speaker 1: between a threat and your community has to come first,
Speaker 1: and that the that the firearm has to be secondary. Um. Uh.
Speaker 1: There there was an incident on the night of protest
Speaker 1: where uh many of us were at risk of being
Speaker 1: harmed by a vehicle attack, and uh, in retrospect, a
Speaker 1: firearm would not have mitigated that threat terribly well. But
Speaker 1: the idea of being in between a threat such as
Speaker 1: that and somebody else who is possibly more vulnerable than
Speaker 1: you are bore a lot more of a significance on that.
Speaker 1: So the firearm being there to respond to a threat
Speaker 1: and perhaps mitigate an active, ongoing deadly threat to your
Speaker 1: community is one thing, But I think the primary thing
Speaker 1: is going to be just putting yourself in harm's way
Speaker 1: so that you can spare that responsibility from somebody possibly
Speaker 1: more vulnerable than you. If that makes sense, that should
Speaker 1: be the primary responsibility. And um, how do you avoid
Speaker 1: letting that turn people doing that into feeling like a
Speaker 1: separate and even elevated chunk of the community. Because that again,
Speaker 1: that's what happens with police. You know, this idea that
Speaker 1: it starts as like, well, we're here to serve and
Speaker 1: protect um, and that that, through of variety of toxic alchemies,
Speaker 1: turns into this idea of the thin blue line. What
Speaker 1: is the way you push back on that? How do
Speaker 1: you actually stop it from going from I'm someone who
Speaker 1: is accepting personal responsibility for the well being of the
Speaker 1: people around me, UM and putting my body in between
Speaker 1: them on harm's way if necessary, uh, to I it's
Speaker 1: my job to protect people, to it's my job to
Speaker 1: you know, from turning that into kind of this idea
Speaker 1: of I think stewardship in some ways that like some
Speaker 1: people in law enforcement have where like you're there, they
Speaker 1: they get to tell you what to do because that's
Speaker 1: their responsibility to keep you safe. Like, how do you
Speaker 1: how do you stop that attitude from evolving? Because I've
Speaker 1: seen it happen to people fairly quickly when they put
Speaker 1: themselves in some of these situations sometimes and it's certainly
Speaker 1: not like most people, but it is. It doesn't take
Speaker 1: a long time for somebody to, like especially if they're vulnerable,
Speaker 1: to get in that position. So how do you, especially
Speaker 1: if you're approaching it from an organizational standpoint, right, you're
Speaker 1: an organization made up of people who come to do this,
Speaker 1: how do you fight back against that? Like? What is
Speaker 1: the active kind of counter programming? If you will? I'd
Speaker 1: say I don't have an easy answer for that question,
Speaker 1: to be completely honest with you, but I say that
Speaker 1: the closest thing, uh to an answer to that would
Speaker 1: be that and almost you know, monastic devotion to the
Speaker 1: task that was acts asked of you by the group
Speaker 1: that asked you there. Um So if somebody asked us
Speaker 1: to be a part of a march and to simply
Speaker 1: look outward for external threats and to be willing to
Speaker 1: respond to those threats of need, be again putting our
Speaker 1: bodies in harm's way, but also be willing to respond
Speaker 1: to lethal force and kind should the worst case scenario arise. UM.
Speaker 1: I'd say that the ult accountability rest with the people
Speaker 1: who asked you to be there. Uh. And there's no
Speaker 1: easy answer as to what that mechanism of accountability looks like.
Speaker 1: But you know, in several layers, that would start with
Speaker 1: your teammates, the people who are part of your organization
Speaker 1: that asked you to be that is asked to be there.
Speaker 1: So other members of of j B g C are
Speaker 1: you know, definitely going to try and keep each other accountable.
Speaker 1: But it's also the larger, the the the the the
Speaker 1: larger contingent of the action that you're a part of.
Speaker 1: UH to be ultimately willing to back down from whatever
Speaker 1: you're doing if a concern is voiced by that community.
Speaker 1: And I wish I had a better way to word that, uh,
Speaker 1: But just the the the the constant vigilance within oneself
Speaker 1: against overstepping the boundaries that were clearly set by people
Speaker 1: who invited you into a space. UM, that's really the
Speaker 1: best answer I can get for that at the moment
Speaker 1: without further percolating. Well, I mean, yeah, for for one thing,
Speaker 1: I think this is the reason we're having this conversation.
Speaker 1: And I'm getting ahead of us a little as because
Speaker 1: this is still very much a developing thing on the
Speaker 1: left and and I don't think anybody has all the
Speaker 1: answers on how to do it well, although I think
Speaker 1: an increasing number of folks except the necessity. UM. So
Speaker 1: I think that's part of the reason for the conversation.
Speaker 1: Is this like continuing exploration of how to actually do
Speaker 1: this responsibly. UM. But I do think you hit on
Speaker 1: something important there when you talked about the that you're
Speaker 1: there at the invitation of a community as opposed to
Speaker 1: you are there too to police or to maintain order.
Speaker 1: Like the idea of approaching it as if you were
Speaker 1: to guess strikes me as a really good idea, um,
Speaker 1: in order to keep yourself on a certain behavioral um standpoint,
Speaker 1: Like I'm I'm I'm here at the request of this
Speaker 1: community as their guest, as opposed to I am here
Speaker 1: to protect this community. You know, absolutely, that's a that's
Speaker 1: a that's a perfect way to summarize what I was
Speaker 1: trying to go for with that one. I think that
Speaker 1: the ultimately to be averse to being put in a
Speaker 1: position of power or authority is the best way to
Speaker 1: check against that UM and to simply be a servant
Speaker 1: to the community. That is again inviting you into that
Speaker 1: space and putting yourself in a m servile is not
Speaker 1: the right word. I'm looking for a different word for that,
Speaker 1: but a a position of service, a true position like
Speaker 1: like yes, what what what community and should be is
Speaker 1: ultimately a service and a burden rather than a reward
Speaker 1: of responsibility and power over your fellow community members. Okay, yeah, great,
Speaker 1: I think next was Ray again, Um, you had something
Speaker 1: to say there. Yeah, I'll just finish that thought in
Speaker 1: my notes under the section of what happens when things
Speaker 1: go right. I think one thing that can go right
Speaker 1: is normalizing that firearms are just a thing that can
Speaker 1: be around and they don't have to be your entire
Speaker 1: as personality, nor do they have to be a differentiating factor. Indeed,
Speaker 1: I think one of the successes they are not many,
Speaker 1: but of community defense in the chop was normalizing the
Speaker 1: idea that people can have firearms and they're not an
Speaker 1: inherent threat UM thinking of people who are armed often
Speaker 1: and we're pointed out routinely, and I was like, Nah,
Speaker 1: he's still he's He's a cool dude, you know, just
Speaker 1: a guy just like I think. It's like, you know,
Speaker 1: do you really think the black guy is going to
Speaker 1: shoot up the top? I don't know that. He's totally fine.
Speaker 1: I know him. His jokes are great. Um. Again, an
Speaker 1: overhearing of these kind of conversations, it helps, you know,
Speaker 1: firearms become like part of the tapestry of life, not
Speaker 1: this differentiating factor, not a beauty item, not something to
Speaker 1: write your personality around. It's just like they're there and
Speaker 1: that they can be good, bad, right, wrong, or in
Speaker 1: different And I think that normalizing effect is one of
Speaker 1: the successes community defense can have. And I'm happy to
Speaker 1: talk about other things that community defense can normalize, but
Speaker 1: I wanted to emphasize the you just have a firearm.
Speaker 1: You're not talking about it, you're not touching it, you're
Speaker 1: not thinking about it. You know people have that. It's
Speaker 1: just around and it became pretty chill, and there is
Speaker 1: kind of the chop. Specifically, there's an area where firearms
Speaker 1: just kind of were around and nothing happened really and
Speaker 1: that was kind of wonderful in my mind. So from
Speaker 1: my experience with with the club, Uh, it's basically like
Speaker 1: even though we are the John Brown Gun Club, the
Speaker 1: guns are like the last thing that we even consider. Like, Uh,
Speaker 1: it would technically if we were to actually rename the club,
Speaker 1: it would be the John Brown de Escalation Club. Um,
Speaker 1: we would like most of the time any um, any
Speaker 1: anything that's gone on. Even when I did visit the
Speaker 1: Chop and there was some weird stuff going on, like
Speaker 1: Brother Matthew being Brother Matthew, people were um using their
Speaker 1: skills to um to d escalate situation, to calm the
Speaker 1: calm out, calm down individuals, to make sure that that
Speaker 1: whatever hostility they have would be abated through just verbal
Speaker 1: verbal communications. Talk about that in a little more to
Speaker 1: tail because I don't know who I mean, I was
Speaker 1: at the Chazz briefly, but I don't know who Brother
Speaker 1: Matthew was or like what incident you're talking about. Something
Speaker 1: is a guy who shows up up here all around
Speaker 1: the Seattle area and also I think he's even up
Speaker 1: in Portland as well. Um, preacher guy gets in everybody's faces,
Speaker 1: usually not liked by everybody, super afraid of snakes, thanks Jerry. Um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, he like like he's he's a person who
Speaker 1: drives off a confrontation and uses the Bible as as
Speaker 1: his mode of of operation. But Um, I remember distinctly
Speaker 1: at at the chop Um he was getting it, getting
Speaker 1: into it with people. But everybody who was around tried
Speaker 1: to talk him down. They tried to chill make him
Speaker 1: chill out, even though he was continually screaming for attention
Speaker 1: and just being weird. But um, but in the end,
Speaker 1: UM like that's just like that happens more often with
Speaker 1: protests situations or marked situations or direct action situations where
Speaker 1: we're asked to be a part of it by the organizers.
Speaker 1: And and as um Ray had mentioned and Nova had mentioned, um,
Speaker 1: we like we're asked to be there and we're not
Speaker 1: just asking and then we suddenly show up, like we
Speaker 1: get involved with the people who are organizing, any of
Speaker 1: the partners that they that they of, that they get
Speaker 1: that they bring into it. We try to learn as
Speaker 1: much about what's going on with them, who are the threats, Where,
Speaker 1: where the event is, how the event is um going
Speaker 1: to be thought of? We ask a lot of questions
Speaker 1: about it, Like we plan and plan and plan and
Speaker 1: plan to make sure that everything is super safe or
Speaker 1: as safe as possible based on all known variables and UH,
Speaker 1: and then the stuff that's unknown, we do our best
Speaker 1: to mitigate that somehow. Yes we are armed, but that's
Speaker 1: like the last thing that we ever even think of,
Speaker 1: and that's even in our planning. Like we say, flat out,
Speaker 1: de escalate first. Um, if things start to ratch it up,
Speaker 1: respond in kind. So like if someone you know, like
Speaker 1: tries to like I don't know, like starts to fistfight,
Speaker 1: We're not going to pull out a gun on someone
Speaker 1: who wants to box somebody on the street. We're going
Speaker 1: to do our best to stop So stop them through
Speaker 1: other means, like whether if it's just to block a
Speaker 1: punch or whatever. But the first things and foremost is
Speaker 1: de escalation. Calm, calm that person down and tell them
Speaker 1: to go away or just to chill out or whatever
Speaker 1: the whatever is necessary. I mean de escalation. All of
Speaker 1: the best community self defense that I've personally watched has
Speaker 1: been de escalation. Um, you know, they're they're not the
Speaker 1: only situations I've seen. I've seen force used a couple
Speaker 1: of times in situations that were necessary but by far,
Speaker 1: de escalation is the thing I've seen, um actually protect
Speaker 1: people in dicey situations the most um and generally that
Speaker 1: that's going to be the case. Yeah, I know for myself,
Speaker 1: Like my attitude is we all go home. Everybody who
Speaker 1: shows up there goes home, not to the hospital, not
Speaker 1: to jail, or not to the morgue. We all go home. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's definitely seems like the best way to
Speaker 1: look at it. So into the specific question of how
Speaker 1: not to become a cop in this position and become
Speaker 1: the gun the only way I've been able to do
Speaker 1: anything in that regard has been to not have that
Speaker 1: be my primary thing that I fulfilled. I'm part of
Speaker 1: a community and I'm a mechanical person this community. I
Speaker 1: try to have my mission be not that other skill
Speaker 1: set or that other access to being of an aid
Speaker 1: to a community, be my actual purpose in the community.
Speaker 1: If that makes any sense. M Yeah, that makes complete sense. Um,
Speaker 1: And yeah, I think is the healthiest way to to
Speaker 1: deal with it. So something I've been wondering about as
Speaker 1: so I'm like not armed at all, So I guess
Speaker 1: I'm on like the other the other side of defence
Speaker 1: of the sort of community self defense think that people
Speaker 1: show up to protests, um. And so something I was
Speaker 1: wondering about is is the relationship between this stuff and
Speaker 1: you know, between the sort of cop mentality development and
Speaker 1: the difficulty of sort of integrating to the community of
Speaker 1: having organizations that are basically independent security groups and not
Speaker 1: for example, like taking like I don't know, take like
Speaker 1: an historical example, like there was a thing in China
Speaker 1: you'd see a lot in in like the nine hundreds,
Speaker 1: where you know, you'd have armed pickets, right, and so
Speaker 1: you you you have an armed force there, but the
Speaker 1: armed force is like you know, this is this is
Speaker 1: like a branch of the union, right, And that's that's
Speaker 1: how they sort of like like that that was their
Speaker 1: sort of solution to how do you stop cops syndrome?
Speaker 1: Is that you know they're they're they're basically like a
Speaker 1: part of another community organization. And so I'm curious what
Speaker 1: you all think about what the sort of I guess
Speaker 1: that the strengths and weaknesses of being an independent or
Speaker 1: having having sort of independent security organizations versus having I
Speaker 1: guess subsections of other organizations that are armed. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: feel like I can offer a unique perspective here as
Speaker 1: someone who's been privy to multiple angles of this, including
Speaker 1: separate organizations, ones integrated with others, and ones that are
Speaker 1: sort of just parts of the community, I don't think
Speaker 1: there's any like inherent, sort of best answer here. I
Speaker 1: do think being part of a separate organization makes it
Speaker 1: harder to be in the community versus of the community,
Speaker 1: meaning you came from the community, now you're sort of
Speaker 1: kind of separate but not really UM Like JB in particular,
Speaker 1: has a perpetual problem with people saying, oh, you know,
Speaker 1: John Brown will do X, and this is something that
Speaker 1: has been discussed, and often this is to people's immense fire.
Speaker 1: I don't want to speak for everyone here, but it
Speaker 1: does seem to be that so seldom does one wish
Speaker 1: to be said, oh hello. It's kind of like saying, oh,
Speaker 1: the Union will solve this, and it's like, turns out
Speaker 1: you're the Union buddy, um right, and never referred to
Speaker 1: be union in the first person. So I do think
Speaker 1: being embedded into other groups, or being sort of this loose,
Speaker 1: diffuse group can make it easier to be part of
Speaker 1: the community because of the structural forces that make that um.
Speaker 1: It is easier to get there. A separate organization can
Speaker 1: help focus and codify certain procedures training, you know, make
Speaker 1: sure that people have some sort of unified goals and
Speaker 1: values at the expense of making it a bit harder
Speaker 1: to integrate into one's community. I think given the era
Speaker 1: we're in, I'm not surprised we see many many approaches
Speaker 1: to community defense with varying effectiveness at different times, including
Speaker 1: JBS perspective. Yeah, and um, I guess I'm interested as
Speaker 1: we are as we move on here, and like, one
Speaker 1: of the one of the questions I see is how
Speaker 1: do you the difficulty and kind of you don't want
Speaker 1: to have a situation where there's absolutely no where the
Speaker 1: community self defense contention is anyone who shows up with
Speaker 1: a gun, because then anyone can show up with a gun,
Speaker 1: and you as someone else who's showing up with a
Speaker 1: weapinar potentially like if that person, uh makes a bad decision,
Speaker 1: that's going to I mean, as it as it has
Speaker 1: in the past, that has significant repercussions on everybody else.
Speaker 1: And I that is one of the thorny or points
Speaker 1: because I do one of the things I see is valuable.
Speaker 1: Someone mentioned earlier, like the nice thing about it, just
Speaker 1: in not being firearms being normalized, not as a like
Speaker 1: gun culture thing, but as this is just a thing
Speaker 1: that is present in the community. And I saw that
Speaker 1: a lot in Rojabo, right that everybody was armed, or
Speaker 1: at least the significant chunk of the populace had access
Speaker 1: to arms, but nobody was showing off with them. They
Speaker 1: were not like anybody's like like piece of identity. They
Speaker 1: were just one of the tools like a like a
Speaker 1: like a spade or a shovel that were present in
Speaker 1: the community. Um okay, I think I've skipped over a
Speaker 1: couple of people. I wanted to give Thud a chance
Speaker 1: to talk. M that's actually very much should have in
Speaker 1: line with But the point I was going to make,
Speaker 1: which is for me, a huge part of community defense,
Speaker 1: is making sure that the aspect that is defending the
Speaker 1: community is not alienated from the community because it isn't
Speaker 1: concentrated in just a few people. Because I think one
Speaker 1: of the other things that we emphasize the lots with
Speaker 1: outside of direct protest actions is you try to teach
Speaker 1: people how to safely operate firearms, but also to give
Speaker 1: firearms the respect that they deserve. That firearms are not
Speaker 1: there so that you are badass. Firearms are not there
Speaker 1: because you know you're going to get into a gunfight.
Speaker 1: And it's well, the first rule, I mean, one of
Speaker 1: the one of the things that we stress sort of
Speaker 1: beyond the basic four rules of gun safety is the
Speaker 1: first rule of gunpipe is don't get into a gunpipe.
Speaker 1: That it's you know, you want to exhaust every possible
Speaker 1: option that you have. And when the community at large
Speaker 1: is engaged, and like Pray was saying, that it's sort
Speaker 1: of it becomes normalized that oh, we're not relying on
Speaker 1: these several people to keep us safe, but that in fact,
Speaker 1: as an entire collective, we are keeping us safe. And
Speaker 1: that gives recognition the fact that some people it's not
Speaker 1: it's not the right choice for them to areagain for
Speaker 1: one reason or another. And the at the same time,
Speaker 1: the power that is present in that particular tool is
Speaker 1: dispersed to the point where it doesn't you know, you
Speaker 1: don't have people getting self aggrandizing thoughts because of the
Speaker 1: fact that they're possessing firearps. And I think that's something
Speaker 1: that we, you know, work really hard to instill in
Speaker 1: evil in a variety of context, and I think is
Speaker 1: really critical to this question. So the question trying to summarize, UM,
Speaker 1: what the question was earlier, What the strengths are weaknesses
Speaker 1: of having an organized armed response are UM. One of
Speaker 1: the things that that I wanted to bring up is
Speaker 1: the historical context of armed response, specifically community armed response
Speaker 1: in Seattle. UM. I did some digging and owned in
Speaker 1: a book called History of Seattle from the Earliest Settlement
Speaker 1: to the Present Time, Volume two, which I started pouring
Speaker 1: through and found that there was in eighteen seventy four
Speaker 1: there was a group called the Seattle Amateur Rifle Association
Speaker 1: which least land for a range on current present day
Speaker 1: Capitol Hill, UM, like right where the train station is
Speaker 1: if you're familiar with the area, so like right where
Speaker 1: protests always happened these days. Later on, there's record record
Speaker 1: in eighteen seventy seven of the Seattle Rifle Team organizing
Speaker 1: and shooting contests. And then later on in six which
Speaker 1: is a number that probably rings a bell, the Chinese riots,
Speaker 1: as they called them at the time, happened, which was
Speaker 1: sort of the start of the labor movement where everyone
Speaker 1: decided that Chinese immigrants were the cause of all of
Speaker 1: our woes that the low wages being paid to Chinese
Speaker 1: immigrants were because of Chinese immigrants and not racism. So
Speaker 1: they decided to run every person who looked Chinese out
Speaker 1: of town. Literally. They referred to this as the Tacoma method,
Speaker 1: and that's what they did in Takemma exactly. It started
Speaker 1: there and uh, there was a February seven, this massive,
Speaker 1: angry racist mob tried to push all of the Chinese
Speaker 1: folks out of Seattle or anyone they thought might look
Speaker 1: like Chinese, and they tried to push them onto a
Speaker 1: steamboat but there weren't There wasn't enough room for them
Speaker 1: all there. Um, cops got involved, a bunch of other
Speaker 1: stuff happens. They decided no, give them time in court.
Speaker 1: But in the process uh of making this decision, you know,
Speaker 1: the racist got a mob together and we're basically just
Speaker 1: going to try and put a stop to this before
Speaker 1: the legal proceedings could to go forward. So they reached
Speaker 1: out to local allies and arms had the Home Guards,
Speaker 1: which I'm not exactly sure exactly what the Home Guards were,
Speaker 1: but I assume there's something related to National Guard later on,
Speaker 1: or maybe just an extension of military. But the Home
Speaker 1: Guards and the Seattle Rifles as well as the University Cadets,
Speaker 1: which I'm assuming are of course soldiers in training, and
Speaker 1: pulled them all out and made a community self defense
Speaker 1: group out of them. They didn't put a rifle line
Speaker 1: and held the mob back and enabled those folks to
Speaker 1: get you know, safely, to have their day in court, um,
Speaker 1: and then to protect them for a while afterward. They
Speaker 1: actually organized a sort of a watch because they didn't
Speaker 1: have enough police to to manage the mob. They used
Speaker 1: books from the Seattle Rifles and these other groups to uh,
Speaker 1: to sort of bolster the police forces and keep peace
Speaker 1: in the town. So the sort of thing that we
Speaker 1: do is a long stand in historical presence, but I
Speaker 1: think there's a lot of things you can look at
Speaker 1: the history of and sort of take lessons from so
Speaker 1: um as As very mentioned, a unified response is of
Speaker 1: course a huge benefit of having a huge strength of
Speaker 1: having an organized armed group. UH. And it's it's literally
Speaker 1: if someone reaches out and says we need help, help
Speaker 1: is available. Um. But there are a lot of weaknesses.
Speaker 1: Businesses and clubs can be held liable legally, and this
Speaker 1: is an endemic problem within gun law as it stands
Speaker 1: the laws are written such that they effectively there that
Speaker 1: it comes down to situational context to determine how a
Speaker 1: gun law should be enforced. And the law will never
Speaker 1: be on the side of a group trying to abolish
Speaker 1: parts of the law. So you have to be very
Speaker 1: careful about how you how especially an organized or formally
Speaker 1: organized armed group has to be very careful about how
Speaker 1: they put their their work in play with that. In
Speaker 1: my Yeah, that was great, and I was unaware, actually
Speaker 1: I was aware of the of the riots. I was
Speaker 1: unaware of that part of the history, which is fascinating,
Speaker 1: um and I think very important. Yeah, right, did you
Speaker 1: want to explain the threat onion? Yeah, the integrated threat onion.
Speaker 1: So this is kind of a a well known meme
Speaker 1: in certain circles slash actual thing, and it's designed to
Speaker 1: help you understand how to like mitigate threat and sorry,
Speaker 1: integrated survivability onion mitigate threats. Right, So the tel deer is,
Speaker 1: you know, do you want to try to preserve life
Speaker 1: by having body armor and hoping a bullet hits you
Speaker 1: in the body armor or do you want to preserve
Speaker 1: life by I don't know, not showing the funk up
Speaker 1: to something where you might get shot. And the idea
Speaker 1: is it's it's a meme because so often, you know,
Speaker 1: people are like, oh, they want to get in there
Speaker 1: and get and get engaged with conflict and be the hero.
Speaker 1: And the answer is, you know, you could just like
Speaker 1: not go there, right, and it would probably be a
Speaker 1: lot easier to do that, But there's some real weight
Speaker 1: to the survivability onion, which is like, there are many
Speaker 1: many ways to mitigate threats to yourself in your community,
Speaker 1: and very often the most boring and mundane answer is
Speaker 1: probably the one that's going to actually result in the
Speaker 1: biggest impact. And the heroic answer is probably the absolute
Speaker 1: worst answer and only what you rely on if everything
Speaker 1: else has gone to hell. So that's someone I think
Speaker 1: it was thund spoken to alluded to the threat onion
Speaker 1: and ways to mitigate harm to oneself and one's community,
Speaker 1: and I had to repeat it because it's this this
Speaker 1: meme that's been coming up forever. Yeah, And it is
Speaker 1: like the basic idea of the threat onion is that
Speaker 1: you have like this again, you if you think of
Speaker 1: it in layers. That's why they call it an onion
Speaker 1: um of like things that protect you, and the things
Speaker 1: that provide the most protection are stuff like not being
Speaker 1: seen or present when somebody wants to hrn you, um
Speaker 1: not or being behind cover when somebody wants to harm you.
Speaker 1: And the thing that offers the least protection is having
Speaker 1: body armor. You know. It's this the idea that like um,
Speaker 1: the things that people buy and and focus on because
Speaker 1: they look cool um are all things that offer less
Speaker 1: protection than situational awareness and good judgment. UM is kind
Speaker 1: of the actual like lesson I think to take out
Speaker 1: of the threat onion. That would be my opinion on
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