Speaker 1: Welcome back to It Could Happen Here, the show about
Speaker 1: things not being great and maybe trying to make them better. UM.
Speaker 1: I'm Robert Evans. Uh. This week we got we have
Speaker 1: a special, little, little little episode for you. UM, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna sit down and talk with Lucas Herndon. Um. Lucas,
Speaker 1: you are from New or you live in New Mexico
Speaker 1: at least, um, and you wanted to talk to me
Speaker 1: a bit about some stuff that's going on in your
Speaker 1: school boards. We just did a two parter on fascist
Speaker 1: attempts to kind of take over and dominate school boards
Speaker 1: around the country, and you've got some personal experience with that,
Speaker 1: so I wanted to kind of just turn this over
Speaker 1: to you to start us off. Yeah, thanks for Robert,
Speaker 1: thanks for having me on the show. Um. Yeah, my
Speaker 1: name is Lucas and I live in mos Cruces, New Mexico,
Speaker 1: which is in the southern part of the state. Were
Speaker 1: close to the border for people that are interested. Um,
Speaker 1: and yeah, like you know that my experience had happened
Speaker 1: last week is sort of the quintessential It could happen
Speaker 1: here exactly. LUs LUs Cruses Um, politically speaking, is actually
Speaker 1: a very progressive little town I mean in general, New
Speaker 1: Mexico has been for what you know, however you consider
Speaker 1: the progressive or not is has been blue for quite
Speaker 1: a while. Is in terms of like voting like it's
Speaker 1: not it's not like Texas politically at least, right that's yeah, exactly, Yeah,
Speaker 1: we voted for we voted for Bush the first time,
Speaker 1: but have voted blue every election since two thousands four.
Speaker 1: Like federally, so in my little stretch of the of
Speaker 1: the state, our congressional district has been read. But the
Speaker 1: city of Los Cruces, which is the like where the
Speaker 1: biggest city in the southern part of the state, where
Speaker 1: the second biggest city in the state. UM, our city
Speaker 1: council has not only been democratic, but like progressively democratic.
Speaker 1: UM we have UM. As of this recent election. You know,
Speaker 1: from the beginning of November, we now have an all
Speaker 1: female city council. UM there is at least we have
Speaker 1: UM one one if not too trying to think. Sorry,
Speaker 1: Currently there are two UM folks on the city council
Speaker 1: have immigrated from Mexico in their life. UM one will
Speaker 1: still be on. One is now running for congress. UM
Speaker 1: we have UM. The school board that currently is sitting
Speaker 1: is generally progressive, and the one we just elected, we
Speaker 1: just elected our first openly queer person onto that school board. UM.
Speaker 1: Our little group of of legislators that go up to
Speaker 1: Santa Fe every year is very progressive. So again, just
Speaker 1: to kind of reiterate, like Las Cruces, New Mexico, pretty
Speaker 1: progressive little place, and yet at the school board meeting
Speaker 1: last week, UM, totally dominated by a public attendance of
Speaker 1: very far right extremists, UM, spouting all kinds of nonsense
Speaker 1: about all kinds of things. So yeah, it was pretty
Speaker 1: well yeah, and this, I mean, this has happened. This
Speaker 1: happened in Portland, Oregon too, which is also famously I
Speaker 1: don't know, I wouldn't call Portland politics progressive but solidly democratic.
Speaker 1: In the school board meeting gets taken over by by
Speaker 1: far right activists. This is a yeah. So when did
Speaker 1: you kind of first become aware of this? Well? So,
Speaker 1: UM it was it was a weird convergence of my
Speaker 1: personal and my and my private or I'm sorry, my
Speaker 1: personal and my professional life where I UM, I work
Speaker 1: for an organization called progress Now in Mexico. So it's
Speaker 1: like I do progressive politics for a living, but um,
Speaker 1: and a colleague who works for the a c LU
Speaker 1: here had asked if I would go and help lend
Speaker 1: support to this gender inclusion policy that the school board
Speaker 1: was going to be um commenting on. They weren't voting
Speaker 1: on it. That day. It was what's called the first reading,
Speaker 1: and she asked if I could go and if I could,
Speaker 1: you know, just speak, and I was like, yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: be happy too. So I was gonna go and and
Speaker 1: talk about this in a I'm sorry professional capacity. And
Speaker 1: then and that day, um, as like before I went
Speaker 1: to that, my daughter, who's in middle school, texted me
Speaker 1: a picture a bunch of kids had on Monday of
Speaker 1: of last week, which was like trans Awareness Week or
Speaker 1: Transvisibility Week. Some kids had shown up wearing trans flags
Speaker 1: and pride flags on that Monday. The following day, that Tuesday,
Speaker 1: some kids showed up wearing UM thin blue line flags
Speaker 1: in in response like indirect response um and in my daughter,
Speaker 1: and you know, my daughter is aware enough to know
Speaker 1: what that means. So she texted me and was like
Speaker 1: I can't believe this ship and I was like I know. UM,
Speaker 1: So then I'm like right, So then I'm like, okay, well,
Speaker 1: now I want to go speak about this gender inclusion
Speaker 1: bill or policy personally right like now like has impacted me. Um,
Speaker 1: So I show up at uh, you know, about an
Speaker 1: hour before the meeting is supposed to start. Because the
Speaker 1: third thing that kind of happened was that I, um,
Speaker 1: I am, I'm on like a bunch of ailing lists
Speaker 1: because of my job. And sure enough, the local gop um,
Speaker 1: who is not very active because again they kind of
Speaker 1: lose all the time, they sent out a like come
Speaker 1: show up at this thing, you know email. So I
Speaker 1: showed up early, thinking okay, well I want to see
Speaker 1: if there's going to be something. And at first I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, like I don't think they showed up.
Speaker 1: I don't think that they turned out that's good. But
Speaker 1: it turns out they were all like hiding in their
Speaker 1: cars so that they could like swarm the building at once.
Speaker 1: And so then like about half an hour before the meeting,
Speaker 1: they all walked in at once, and like I was
Speaker 1: already sitting inside the room and they all came in
Speaker 1: at once, and they took over all the chairs. They
Speaker 1: was standing room only. Um to the point where like
Speaker 1: the there was a bunch of f f A kids
Speaker 1: that were there that was supposed to be recognized for
Speaker 1: you know, f A something or other, and like they
Speaker 1: had to kick some people out so that they weren't
Speaker 1: violating the fire code. Um. But that's how many. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So anyway, that's kind of how it all. That's the
Speaker 1: setting for where this all happened. Um. It turns out
Speaker 1: that at the same meeting there was gonna be a
Speaker 1: policy discussion on a different policy that had to do
Speaker 1: with New Mexico's revision of Social studies standards. Um. And
Speaker 1: of course that got everybody hot and bothered about so
Speaker 1: called c RT, which isn't a thing. But so like
Speaker 1: they were there, but I mean, but the folks that
Speaker 1: showed up to speak, I mean, they were all over
Speaker 1: the place. They were talking about critical race theory. They
Speaker 1: were talking about the Gender Inclusion Bill, and like trans
Speaker 1: violent the myth of trans violence and um. But then
Speaker 1: of course like like COVID protocols and all kinds of
Speaker 1: I mean just again like way out their stuff. Um.
Speaker 1: And actually kind of funny. I was listening to Knowledge
Speaker 1: Fight this morning, and uh, Jordan and Dan really hit
Speaker 1: on it that like they have just figured out that
Speaker 1: these are places they can go and yell at like
Speaker 1: no one you know, like school board people aren't gonna
Speaker 1: like they're all just these are all just like teachers,
Speaker 1: like retired teachers who are on these school boards, and
Speaker 1: they're like they're not there to just you know, have
Speaker 1: the is like whatever discussions, so they're not gonna you know,
Speaker 1: they just like let these people yell and they did.
Speaker 1: So anyways, it got it got heated, uh pretty quickly
Speaker 1: because I mean again, these people just like go off
Speaker 1: and they get they riled themselves up and those lots
Speaker 1: of applause and anyway, that's kind of how it all started,
Speaker 1: I guess, or that's what it was. And I mean,
Speaker 1: has has there have you noticed kind of any sort
Speaker 1: of mobilization in the community now that this has happened,
Speaker 1: because it seems like the first ones of these, at
Speaker 1: least always take everybody by surprise. People are not used
Speaker 1: to still not really used to school board meetings being
Speaker 1: um shall I say interesting, um, certainly important, but like
Speaker 1: not a thing that you have to really be concerned
Speaker 1: about for the most part. And that's that's changing. Have
Speaker 1: you seen the community kind of start to adapt to that? Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, since so you know, I put some content
Speaker 1: out on my you know, local Twitter. Um and and
Speaker 1: and um got some traction there things to sort your retweet,
Speaker 1: I think. But um, but then the biggest thing was
Speaker 1: that kind of going back to what had happened at
Speaker 1: my daughter's school, that progress that got worse, if you will.
Speaker 1: The following day, the Wednesday of last week, some kids
Speaker 1: showed up in an actual Confederate stars and bars flag, um,
Speaker 1: which is yeah, that's nuts. Famed Confederate state New Mexico.
Speaker 1: You know Messia, New Mexico, which is right down the
Speaker 1: road was it was the capital of the Confederate territory.
Speaker 1: But yeah, but it wasn't a state at that point.
Speaker 1: It was not a state. And I'm not aware of
Speaker 1: with their battles in New Mexico. And I know we
Speaker 1: had some in like further south Texas than you would think,
Speaker 1: but I was not there any There's a couple there
Speaker 1: was one of famously up north called the Battle of Glorietta,
Speaker 1: and then um, and then there was one here where
Speaker 1: I live. Wasn't a battle. It was a bunch of
Speaker 1: Confederates got um stranded and super drunk, and then I
Speaker 1: couldn't cross the desert fast enough, so they got stranded
Speaker 1: up in the mountains that if they called Baylor Canyon
Speaker 1: and then they get to the top and like the
Speaker 1: North was just sitting there like waiting for them and
Speaker 1: was like, well, you're captured now, we'll see. That's clearly
Speaker 1: that's some history worth celebrating right there. I think that
Speaker 1: the biggest, like one of the scariest but biggest things
Speaker 1: is like and this goes towards the This is a
Speaker 1: slight tangent, but like the social studies revision, for instance,
Speaker 1: in the state of New Mexico. Uh, there are two
Speaker 1: paragraphs in our history book about the Gaston Purchase. Um
Speaker 1: like I live in the chunk that is the guest
Speaker 1: and Purchase, and um, like the guests and Purchase is
Speaker 1: like James Gaston was a notorious racist who left the
Speaker 1: South and took all of his railroad money, went to
Speaker 1: California and Mexico, lobbying hard, using his influence and money
Speaker 1: to try to create a slave state in Baja in Mexico.
Speaker 1: Like that's what he was trying to do, and like
Speaker 1: that part of that, part of the context of why
Speaker 1: the guests and Purchase even happened, is like totally left
Speaker 1: out of history books. And it's like if anywhere should
Speaker 1: be taught. It should be taught in the place that
Speaker 1: is called the guests and purchase when it comes to
Speaker 1: the United States. So anyway, just a little tangent there
Speaker 1: why it's important to have context in history. Um so
Speaker 1: sorry going back to my daughter's school and these kids
Speaker 1: wearing the stupid stars and bars so um that. So,
Speaker 1: like I went and spoke to the assistant principle and
Speaker 1: was like, so, I understand that your answer to this
Speaker 1: was to ban all flats and he was like and
Speaker 1: he was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, because they're causing a
Speaker 1: disruption to education. And I was like, yeah, but I
Speaker 1: you know, I think I feel like you're giving a
Speaker 1: false equivalency to like, you know, gender and and pride
Speaker 1: acknowledgment to verslag. Yeah, it's it's I mean, it's this constant.
Speaker 1: This has happened in a couple of places, including a
Speaker 1: town in Oregon, where it's like this is sort of
Speaker 1: the the centrist and kind of the right wing solution
Speaker 1: to this. It's just that like, well, if if kids
Speaker 1: can't wear racist hate flags, then gay kids can't wear
Speaker 1: a flag that says that their existence is valid. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, because those are the same thing. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's frustrating. It is frustrating. So that was not my
Speaker 1: favorite thing. Um. And so then the culmination of that
Speaker 1: this week was that my daughter's social studies teacher, who
Speaker 1: had allowed the kids in her class to make little
Speaker 1: paper flags after the real flags were banned, um, was
Speaker 1: fired Jesus Christ. And because it's a personnel matter, no
Speaker 1: one is willing to tell me more. I've I've called
Speaker 1: the president of the school school board, who actually, in
Speaker 1: all fairness, he doesn't actually probably have that much sway
Speaker 1: over these kinds of things. I would imagine that happened
Speaker 1: at a level, a level that was not his. But yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: but I mean, but I but I have anyway, so
Speaker 1: I did call him. I also called the school and
Speaker 1: got very little information from them, obviously, so you who knows.
Speaker 1: But again, like that's how it was perceived from the
Speaker 1: kids in her class, um. And that's so like what
Speaker 1: we know happened is that we know that after the
Speaker 1: flags got banned, she let kids make flags out of
Speaker 1: paper and hang them up, and by Friday she was gone.
Speaker 1: So like not a great response, no not not not ideal?
Speaker 1: Not ideal? Yea, yeah, So anyway, that's kind of where
Speaker 1: we left at. But I guess maybe what maybe what
Speaker 1: I should say to get back to your original question,
Speaker 1: which is to say, like, have we seen a mobilization
Speaker 1: that Yeah, Like so I learned the newspaper the reporter
Speaker 1: who that teacher like a couple of weeks ago, had
Speaker 1: actually been in the newspaper because she had also like um,
Speaker 1: she she spearheaded this like response like a support, like
Speaker 1: a girl who wore her job to school had been bullied,
Speaker 1: and like when news got around in the school, like
Speaker 1: the like the majority of the student body, and this
Speaker 1: team sure like went up and above out of their
Speaker 1: way to make her feel welcome and like walk her
Speaker 1: to her class, and like it we got kind of
Speaker 1: viral on local TikTok. So like this teacher got quoted
Speaker 1: in the newspaper. So I like called them. I called
Speaker 1: the rapport. I tweeted the newspaper and I was like, like,
Speaker 1: you guys know that the teacher who was in like
Speaker 1: startlet in your article is fired for allowing kids to
Speaker 1: waste their thoughts about these flags things, right, And they
Speaker 1: were like no, we didn't know, And I was like
Speaker 1: you should probably find so, so you know, I don't
Speaker 1: know where we're gonna be at now. The next reading
Speaker 1: for the gender Inclusion Policy is UM December, so we've
Speaker 1: got a couple of weeks before that next school board meeting. UM.
Speaker 1: I think that on my end, like there's gonna be
Speaker 1: some local organizing to try to get some better, more
Speaker 1: inclusive voices to be a part of things. UM. I
Speaker 1: don't you know, I don't know what the interim will
Speaker 1: hold UM, because it's like, you know, it's the holidays
Speaker 1: and there's a lot going on and Kyle written how
Speaker 1: else and build black better? I mean, there's like, you know,
Speaker 1: there's always a million things happening, so it'll you know,
Speaker 1: there will have to be some drum beating to like
Speaker 1: get people to show up to that. But on the
Speaker 1: other hand, I think with some of the momentum we
Speaker 1: have and I think people will show up in Mass
Speaker 1: for the fourteenth UM in support at least this is
Speaker 1: the kind of community that in general we have shown
Speaker 1: up and shown out to support, you know, these kinds
Speaker 1: of issues in the past. But I do think that
Speaker 1: up until now people felt for pretty asleep about it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, and hopefully you do see the kind of
Speaker 1: response you're expecting can you walk me through sort of
Speaker 1: how the kind of attempts like you talked about getting
Speaker 1: the local media aware of what had happened to that teacher. Um,
Speaker 1: how are people like what does the actual organizing effort
Speaker 1: look like on the ground, Like, how are you trying?
Speaker 1: How are you and others trying to get the word
Speaker 1: out so that you know there's a response to this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I think that, Um, the first thing is is
Speaker 1: that there was there was a problem with the way
Speaker 1: that the school board handled public comment that first time.
Speaker 1: In an attempt to help limit their own sort of
Speaker 1: exposure to some of the toxic stuff they knew was
Speaker 1: coming their way, they had they had instituted a limit
Speaker 1: on public comment. Um, you had to show up by
Speaker 1: a certain time and fill out these little pieces of
Speaker 1: paper saying that you were there to comment about something,
Speaker 1: and if you weren't there, then you couldn't sign up.
Speaker 1: And the problem was was that all these like old
Speaker 1: white male retirees who are sitting around listening to Alex
Speaker 1: Jones all day, they had nothing better to do than
Speaker 1: show up to this meeting at three o'clock in the afternoon,
Speaker 1: whereas a bunch of for instance, teachers students parents, Um,
Speaker 1: they were busy because they were in school or like
Speaker 1: picking their kids up from school. UM. So I think
Speaker 1: one of the things that we're going to try to
Speaker 1: do is get public comment ahead of time, and we're
Speaker 1: gonna try to like bombard the not bombard that's that's
Speaker 1: a violent word. But we're gonna try to like just
Speaker 1: make sure that UM voices from the community that hadn't
Speaker 1: been represented are represented and sent to the school board
Speaker 1: ahead of time. UM. I think we're gonna try to
Speaker 1: go and save physical space ahead of time for those
Speaker 1: of us that can write, for those of us that
Speaker 1: can will go and we'll try to save physical space.
Speaker 1: And we did learn that even if they keep that
Speaker 1: policy for the little forms, we can UM, we can
Speaker 1: actually give that time. We can fill out other people's names, right,
Speaker 1: So we're gonna try to like make sure that we
Speaker 1: have better voices. That was one of the things if
Speaker 1: you listen to the recording of what I said at
Speaker 1: that meeting, UM, I asked the school board president if
Speaker 1: it's possible for me to yield my time because it
Speaker 1: had literally been like a dozen white men out there
Speaker 1: spouting nonsense. And then I get up there and I'm like, yeah, hey, um,
Speaker 1: we've heard from enough white men. Can we have like
Speaker 1: a member of the trans community or one of the
Speaker 1: women of color who are here to talk about this, um,
Speaker 1: but couldn't get here in time and there they're legal
Speaker 1: team was like, oh no, like you didn't sign up
Speaker 1: in time or whatever. So um, but it turns out
Speaker 1: we could have put their names down ahead of time.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna try to organize that thing so that
Speaker 1: people can show up and save you know, physical space. Um.
Speaker 1: And then UM, I think the other thing too is
Speaker 1: to try to involve some other local elected officials from
Speaker 1: the county and city level, because again we have these
Speaker 1: really amazing progressive candidates who have come from all walks
Speaker 1: of life, including immigrants and members of you know, l
Speaker 1: g B, t q A community. UM. So having them
Speaker 1: come and speak in their official capacity UM, I think
Speaker 1: will carry a lot of weight um for the both
Speaker 1: for the school board but also just for the public
Speaker 1: to hear from those voices. Yeah, where are these like?
Speaker 1: Have you have you gotten any kind of research on
Speaker 1: where the people showing up are coming from? Are these
Speaker 1: like folks within your community or these people coming from
Speaker 1: kind of outlying areas um to swarm these meetings, Like
Speaker 1: is there is there kind of an active research contingent.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's part of what I do. It's part
Speaker 1: of part of my job with Progress now in Mexico.
Speaker 1: My my title is Energy Policy Director. I usually spend
Speaker 1: most of my day talking about oil and gas stuff. However,
Speaker 1: I've been doing this job long enough that before I
Speaker 1: became that person, I was actively researching and tracking a
Speaker 1: lot of white supremacy activity in the in the state,
Speaker 1: especially along the border, some of the border militia stuff
Speaker 1: a couple of years back. So in that regard, I knew,
Speaker 1: and I knew a number of these folks. A lot
Speaker 1: of them do live in the city, but so our
Speaker 1: our county is considered rural by the census, even though
Speaker 1: we're a city of a hundred thousand people. But we're
Speaker 1: a big county. So there's there's two people here, so um,
Speaker 1: so there's you know, it's it's hard to tell how
Speaker 1: many people may or may not have lived in, for instance,
Speaker 1: the public school district. But what I can tell you,
Speaker 1: like hands down, is that of those dozen folks that
Speaker 1: spoke before I did, like, there's no way that at
Speaker 1: least I mean, maybe one or two of them had
Speaker 1: kids that could have gone through the last CRUSES public
Speaker 1: school system, but like the majority of them far and away,
Speaker 1: like either aren't from here at all, or you know,
Speaker 1: they've lived here for a long time, but they are
Speaker 1: They are not active parents or even grandparents of kids
Speaker 1: that live and we'll go to school in this in
Speaker 1: this district. They're just they're just agitated right wingers. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's how does this all tie in? Because New
Speaker 1: Mexico has had I think it's kind of been on
Speaker 1: the back burner in terms of like national attention, But
Speaker 1: y'all have had some really significant dust stops, not just
Speaker 1: with you know, the border militias. For years there have
Speaker 1: been violent um acts and even murders as the result
Speaker 1: of that stuff going on. But like during last year's
Speaker 1: the protests over George Floyd's murder, y'all had some really
Speaker 1: ugly who shall be the dueling rallies were like right
Speaker 1: wingers shot at people um and some really some nasty situations.
Speaker 1: I'm wondering, are like those folks, like are you seeing
Speaker 1: that kind of organization being brought into the school board
Speaker 1: meeting or is this just kind of bubbling up as
Speaker 1: part of the same stew it is. Yeah, there, it's
Speaker 1: loosely affiliated for sure. UM. And and the crossover, the
Speaker 1: crossover is hard to tell. Depend I mean, what am
Speaker 1: I trying to say? There's there is crossover. It's hard
Speaker 1: to tell how on purpose it is or sort of
Speaker 1: the fact that this is like a small population community states, right.
Speaker 1: So what I what I mean by that is that
Speaker 1: some of the some of the physical white supremacists who
Speaker 1: showed up last year at one of our um BLM
Speaker 1: support you know, George Floyd related peaceful protests, who they
Speaker 1: showed up at a parking lot across the street, you know, armed,
Speaker 1: long guns, tech vests, all that kind of stuff. Who
Speaker 1: that those were the folks that when I when I
Speaker 1: went and filmed them and put them on blast to
Speaker 1: to try and sort of out them as best we
Speaker 1: possibly could or at least identify them. Um, they came
Speaker 1: back and ducked me. As And then when after a
Speaker 1: number of my colleagues up north in Albuquerque, that was
Speaker 1: about a week before there was the there was a
Speaker 1: shooting of a of a UM anti fascist protester in Albuquerque,
Speaker 1: and and it was during sort of all of that
Speaker 1: stuff that I was like trying to talk about all
Speaker 1: this out loud um and got tied into a few
Speaker 1: more other anti fascist voices in the state. So since
Speaker 1: then we've all been kind of working together. Um we
Speaker 1: found each other on Twitter, thankfully, and so so what
Speaker 1: it seems like is is that like the folks that
Speaker 1: showed up to the UH school board meeting were what
Speaker 1: I'll call usual suspects, like politically active old you know,
Speaker 1: right wingers that being had um in that room. There
Speaker 1: were a number of people that I've identified as showing
Speaker 1: up to anti vax rallies, a number of the Trump
Speaker 1: train rallies that happened last year before the election, and
Speaker 1: at least one person who I recognized as being I
Speaker 1: have never seen carry a firearm, but like has been
Speaker 1: at rallies where people were carrying firearms and that kind
Speaker 1: of thing um in response to these, you know, in
Speaker 1: response to like peaceful protests. So there is crossover for sure.
Speaker 1: Where do you see this going, like, because You've been
Speaker 1: kind of paying attention to this for a while, not
Speaker 1: just the school board stuff, but just kind of the
Speaker 1: general problem of right wing um organizing in your area. Like,
Speaker 1: where do you where do you see this heading within
Speaker 1: kind of the context of New Mexico. Well, I mean,
Speaker 1: so we haven't really talked about this, but like, so,
Speaker 1: while while here in Los Cruces, we did really well,
Speaker 1: UM during the November election in terms of our school
Speaker 1: board be re elected a really good progressive school board
Speaker 1: president and two new good progressive candidates, including, like I said,
Speaker 1: the first you know queer openly queer person. So that's amazing. However,
Speaker 1: up in Albuquerque, Uh, they lost seats to some of
Speaker 1: these far right wing UM candidates and UM, so the
Speaker 1: Albuquerque school board is um not UM not looking as
Speaker 1: good politically. So, I mean, so on the like, I
Speaker 1: guess what I'd say is on the soft end, what
Speaker 1: I expect is more continued pressure in sort of the
Speaker 1: UM the way these things are supposed to happen, which
Speaker 1: is to say, like continued presence of the right wing
Speaker 1: folks at meetings, yelling, taking up space, UM, slowing things down,
Speaker 1: running for office when the time comes, you know, those
Speaker 1: kinds of things I see. UM. I guess I wouldn't
Speaker 1: be surprised though if UM, if I if there were
Speaker 1: further escalation of things UM in a you know, in
Speaker 1: the way we've seen other places in terms of some
Speaker 1: sort of you know, an armed response or somebody showing up. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, in New Mexico's an open cary state, and
Speaker 1: so people can walk around with guns all the time. UM.
Speaker 1: And and you know, I mean that's the thing too,
Speaker 1: is like, well, I didn't see anybody with an open
Speaker 1: carried firearm at the school board meeting. There were guys
Speaker 1: wearing like, you know, Vortex Optics brand hats, thin blue
Speaker 1: line shirts, a guy with that like a Remingtons shirt,
Speaker 1: you know. And and like, I don't regret anybody from
Speaker 1: gun culture. I'm you know, I'm a lefty with a gun,
Speaker 1: So it's like I get gun culture. But like when
Speaker 1: you show up in those things and then those spaces
Speaker 1: with that kind of yeah you're making a point yep, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you're you're you're not Yeah, I get that. Um, have
Speaker 1: you is there some kind of have you seen, like
Speaker 1: any kind of budding left wing armed response? Like is
Speaker 1: there do you guys have like an organized group of
Speaker 1: folks who have been showing up, um when there are
Speaker 1: armed protests in the area. Um, I mean I always
Speaker 1: have my gear with me. UM. I mean I've got
Speaker 1: I've got a ceramic plate. I've got my you know,
Speaker 1: rifle and pistol. I I am a member of a
Speaker 1: number of different groups. I've been a member of the
Speaker 1: s R A UM, I've I've worked with some of
Speaker 1: the armed groups up in Albuquerque. So down here there
Speaker 1: hasn't been a ton But um, I've got a I've
Speaker 1: got what I'll call a luciffiliation with a number of
Speaker 1: folks that I would trust to be armed if need be.
Speaker 1: Thankfully that hasn't happened yet. Thankfully, the one big big
Speaker 1: protests that happened here in Las Cruces that I was
Speaker 1: sort of nervous about, and I did have my gear
Speaker 1: for remained peaceful and and we you know, we took
Speaker 1: over some streets since blocks traffic for a couple hours
Speaker 1: and there was never any violent response from anybody other
Speaker 1: than you, like one car at one point trying to
Speaker 1: push through and car got banged on and that was
Speaker 1: about it. But um so so, so to answer your question, like, yes,
Speaker 1: there are those of us that are left wing and armed,
Speaker 1: and there are those of us that have been able
Speaker 1: to show out if we needed to. Thankfully we haven't
Speaker 1: had to at this point. Yeah, Well, all right. I
Speaker 1: think that's everything. I had to ask. Is there anything
Speaker 1: else you wanted to to get to to make sure
Speaker 1: to talk about today? Well, I just I mean I
Speaker 1: would be I would be um not doing the best
Speaker 1: of my job if I didn't mention the fact that
Speaker 1: like one of the so one of the talking points
Speaker 1: of the right wing here and our school board is
Speaker 1: that New Mexico's education system is is fifty feet in
Speaker 1: the country. And I the the my assumption is that
Speaker 1: that has to do with DC's public schools being um.
Speaker 1: So it's not a great Yeah, that's not a great record. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not a it's not a great record. And um
Speaker 1: and and I and I you know, as a parent
Speaker 1: of a kid who's in the public schools, I uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I cannot ignore that, right. That's so that's
Speaker 1: a legitimate talking point. But the but the thing that
Speaker 1: they want to bring it about is that you know,
Speaker 1: there you know, it's because we're trying to be gender inclusive.
Speaker 1: It's because we're trying to like, you know, teach kids
Speaker 1: about like actual history that happened whatever. Um, And the
Speaker 1: reality is it's because our education system is, unlike most
Speaker 1: places funded by the oil and gas industry and not
Speaker 1: by like our communities. Um. And so like you know,
Speaker 1: eighteen months ago, oil prices crashed, right and the State
Speaker 1: of New Mexico had to have an emergency special session
Speaker 1: for a legislature to figure out how we were gonna
Speaker 1: like fund things like cops and schools and like whatever. Um.
Speaker 1: And then like now you know, oil and gas is
Speaker 1: like gangbusters and where you know, record prices and like
Speaker 1: the State of Mexico has this like surplus budget. But
Speaker 1: the thing is is that like that that extra money
Speaker 1: that we're gonna get this time doesn't make up for
Speaker 1: the like cyclical bad you know way that we fund
Speaker 1: our schools. So I just want to like tie in that,
Speaker 1: like like all of these things tie in together, right,
Speaker 1: Like we can't talk about education in New Mexico without
Speaker 1: talking about the oil and gas funding and so anyway,
Speaker 1: so like because that's my you know, that's part of
Speaker 1: the reason why I was going to go talk about
Speaker 1: this stuff at the on my professional level, is that
Speaker 1: like I get to talk about education as an as
Speaker 1: an energy expert in the State of New Mexico because
Speaker 1: energy and education are so intertwined here. Um. And like
Speaker 1: when you have literal like Koke Brothers founded UM and
Speaker 1: and UM like monetarily supplied think tanks in the state
Speaker 1: of New Mexico who are pushing out this kind of
Speaker 1: propaganda and encouraging people. So that there's a group called
Speaker 1: the Rio Grand Foundation and like another one called Power
Speaker 1: the Future uh PTE Power of the Future in New Mexico.
Speaker 1: Like both of those organizations are like tied to the
Speaker 1: Cooke Brothers because the Kope Brothers are tied to oil
Speaker 1: and they're pushing these right wing talking points UM and
Speaker 1: it's all part and parcel of just like you know,
Speaker 1: clouding the information space. That's what they want to do.
Speaker 1: They want to have, They want to have the new
Speaker 1: cycle dominated with things like CRT and gender inclusion studies
Speaker 1: to you know, to tie up things like school boards
Speaker 1: so that so that the electorate is busy talking about
Speaker 1: these things. Well meanwhile they're just raking in money, hand
Speaker 1: over fist um, you know, stealing our oil. So anyway,
Speaker 1: I just that's so important to me to like make
Speaker 1: those connections UM, especially in this state, and it's something
Speaker 1: that a lot of people don't consider and don't think about,
Speaker 1: and it's just really important to me that people understand that.
Speaker 1: So yeah, UM, all right, well, thank you so much, Lucas.
Speaker 1: This has been I'm not gonna say fun, but certainly
Speaker 1: enlightening and I think valuable A good a good dispatch
Speaker 1: from you know, a fight that we we continue to
Speaker 1: see is important here and that everybody should be paying
Speaker 1: attention to both wherever it happens, including in Los Cruses
Speaker 1: and around the country. UM, because they ain't given up, um,
Speaker 1: and they can't be ignored. Um. Yeah, and that's you've
Speaker 1: mentioned this many times over the years, but like that's
Speaker 1: the kind of thing is that we have to show up. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we can't just let them have these spaces and um.
Speaker 1: And I think that this this past school board meeting
Speaker 1: was a great example of why. Um. And and I'm
Speaker 1: I'm really counting on a lot of my my, my
Speaker 1: friends and close you know, the folks that I have
Speaker 1: come to love and support in this community, UM, to
Speaker 1: show up and show out for that, because that's you know,
Speaker 1: we've been there, right we, Like I said, you know,
Speaker 1: and if you look up Los Crusies politics over the
Speaker 1: years on the news cycle, like you'll see stories about
Speaker 1: our you know, progressive City Council and passing a living
Speaker 1: wage and you know, banding classic bags. I mean like
Speaker 1: all these like you know, we've we've tried, we've we've
Speaker 1: tried to be that kind of little community and and
Speaker 1: and yet you know, these folks are still there and
Speaker 1: they're still allowed and if we give them the space,
Speaker 1: they will take those spaces over. So yeah, yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: so thanks for having me on. Let me talk about this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it really means a lot, thank you for stepping up,
Speaker 1: because it is this is the thing that's a giant
Speaker 1: pain in the butt, Um, is that everybody's got a
Speaker 1: lot going on. Life is complicated. There's all sorts of
Speaker 1: shipped to do in the old world. Um, but every
Speaker 1: time these fascists and their their affiliates decide they're going
Speaker 1: to try to take over something, you know, as busy
Speaker 1: as people are, as exhausting as it is, you do
Speaker 1: have to like they can't just be able to have
Speaker 1: to do it. Like That's how they win, is they
Speaker 1: have they have unlimited energy for this ship and um,
Speaker 1: if they're not, like the thing that causes them to
Speaker 1: lose energy is actually um being outnumbered and shown to
Speaker 1: be like like like being kind of pushed out by communities. Um,
Speaker 1: you can do it. It takes it, but it requires
Speaker 1: people showing up. Yes, that's exactly right. So um, I
Speaker 1: appreciate the signal boost means a lot to me. Uh
Speaker 1: and this is there any local organs that people can support,
Speaker 1: so big shout out to a group called Cafe here
Speaker 1: in Las Cruces that works on all kinds of border
Speaker 1: issues immigrant rights but also like workers rights and um, immigrants,
Speaker 1: like student rights, migrant student rights. Um. They've been very
Speaker 1: active in this for a long time. Um. And so yeah,
Speaker 1: I definitely shout out Cafe uh here in here in
Speaker 1: I mean all of New Mexico, but specifically in southern
Speaker 1: New Mexico they're doing a lot of work. And then
Speaker 1: um uh Dreams in Action, which is part of a
Speaker 1: national network for dreamers. But um again here in New
Speaker 1: Mexico have done a lot of good work. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: thank you very much, Lucas. All right, um, and that
Speaker 1: is going to do it for us here. It could
Speaker 1: happen here until next time. Go uh, I don't know,
Speaker 1: hang out at a school board meeting. Go take up
Speaker 1: space from fascists. Yeah, go take up space from fascists
Speaker 1: in general. It could happen Here is a production of
Speaker 1: cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool Zone Media,
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Speaker 1: for It could happen here, updated monthly at cool zone
Speaker 1: Media dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.