Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media book Club book Club book Club. Hello
Speaker 1: and welcome to coolels On Media book Club, the only
Speaker 1: book club where you don't have to do the reading
Speaker 1: because I do it for you. Normally, on here we
Speaker 1: read fiction, but we've been talking about doing some nonfiction,
Speaker 1: and so we're going to do it. We're going to
Speaker 1: do nonfiction. This story isn't made up. It's factual. I
Speaker 1: don't know if it's factual. I don't know if it's
Speaker 1: built out of facts. Whatever, it is my absolute honor
Speaker 1: and delight to bring you some excerpts from Dean spades
Speaker 1: book Mutual Aid. The whole book is absolutely worth reading.
Speaker 1: If you don't want to read a book called mutual
Speaker 1: Aid that's from nineteen hundred, you can read a book
Speaker 1: called mutual Aid that's from this very decade that we
Speaker 1: live in. It's a short, accessible, practical book full of
Speaker 1: really good advice for how to organize just about anything.
Speaker 1: Dean Spades Mutual Aid. And I know we're a little
Speaker 1: late for New Year's resolutions, but if your resolution this
Speaker 1: year was to get involved in an activist project, this
Speaker 1: book is a great guide. And we're not reading the
Speaker 1: whole thing. You still have to go out and get it,
Speaker 1: but we'll read useful parts of it. And it just
Speaker 1: so happened that the schedule landed this way. But it
Speaker 1: feels particularly poignant to do these episodes this week as
Speaker 1: we're watching people effectively fight off a full scale invasion
Speaker 1: of the Twin Cities at the hands of ice agents,
Speaker 1: like people are using underground networks of mutual aid to
Speaker 1: minimize the damage and fight back against this stuff. And
Speaker 1: so this reading that we're doing today speaks to you,
Speaker 1: and you haven't yet, you should check out our coverage
Speaker 1: of the rapid response of mutual aid networks that are
Speaker 1: coming out of Minneapolis, and Saint Paul me and James
Speaker 1: Stout went up there last week to cover those things,
Speaker 1: and so both it could happen here and cool people
Speaker 1: who did cool stuff have content about that. Today I
Speaker 1: will be reading some excerpts from part one of Dean
Speaker 1: Spadeses mutual Aid, which mostly covers what mutual aid is
Speaker 1: and some examples of how it has manifested within social movements.
Speaker 1: We'll do some excerpts from part two next week, which
Speaker 1: has more just general good advice for organizing, and obviously
Speaker 1: we can't read the whole book. Here by. You should
Speaker 1: go pick up a copy if you can. But also
Speaker 1: the PDF is up on the Anarchist Library, which is
Speaker 1: a free site full of more reading than you'll ever
Speaker 1: be able to do in your life, honestly, but it
Speaker 1: has Dean Spades's Mutual Aid without further ado. Excerpts from
Speaker 1: Mutual Aid by Dean Spade introduction. Crisis conditions require bold tactics.
Speaker 1: The contemporary political moment is defined by emergency acute crises
Speaker 1: like the COVID nineteen pandemic and climate change induced fires, floods,
Speaker 1: and storms, as well as the ongoing crises of racist criminalization,
Speaker 1: brutal immigration enforcement, endemic gender violence, and severe wealth in
Speaker 1: a quality threaten the survival of people around the globe.
Speaker 1: Government policies actively produce and exacerbate the harm, inadequately respond
Speaker 1: to crises, and ensure that certain populations bear the brunt
Speaker 1: of pollution, poverty, disease, and violence. In the face of this,
Speaker 1: more and more ordinary people are feeling called to respond
Speaker 1: in their communities, creating bold and innative ways to share
Speaker 1: resources and support vulnerable neighbors. This survival work when done
Speaker 1: in conjunction with social movements making transformative change is called
Speaker 1: mutual aid. Mutual aid has been part of all large,
Speaker 1: powerful social movements, and it has a particularly important role
Speaker 1: to play right now as we face unprecedented dangers and
Speaker 1: opportunities for mobilization. Mutual aid gives people a way to
Speaker 1: plug into movements based on their immediate concerns, and it
Speaker 1: produces social spaces where people grow new solidarities. At its best,
Speaker 1: mutual aid actually produces new ways of living where people
Speaker 1: get to create systems of care and generosity that address
Speaker 1: harm and foster well being. This book is about mutual aid.
Speaker 1: It explains why it is so important, what it looks like,
Speaker 1: and how to do it. It provides a grassroot theory
Speaker 1: of mutual aid, as well as concrete tools for addressing
Speaker 1: some of the most difficult questions facing mutual aid groups,
Speaker 1: such as how to work in groups and make decisions together,
Speaker 1: how to prevent and address conflict, and how to deal
Speaker 1: with burnout so that we can build a lasting mobilization
Speaker 1: that can win Liberation. Movements have two big jobs right now. First,
Speaker 1: we need to organize to help people survive the devastating
Speaker 1: conditions unfolding every day. Second, we need to mobilize hundreds
Speaker 1: of millions of people for resistance so we can tackle
Speaker 1: the underlying causes of these crises. In this pivotal moment,
Speaker 1: movements can strengthen mobilizing new people to fight back against cops, immigration, enforcement,
Speaker 1: welfare authorities, landlords, budget cuts, polluters, the defence industry, prison profiteers,
Speaker 1: and right wing groups. The way to tackle these two
Speaker 1: big tasks, meeting people's needs and mobilizing them for resistance
Speaker 1: is to create mutual aid projects and get lots of
Speaker 1: people to participate in them. Social movements that have built
Speaker 1: power and one major change have all included mutual aid,
Speaker 1: yet it is often a part of movement work that
Speaker 1: is less visible and less valued. In this moment, our
Speaker 1: ability to build mutual aid will determine whether we win
Speaker 1: the world we long for or dive further into crisis.
Speaker 1: We can imagine what is possible when we come together
Speaker 1: in this way by examining the response of Hong Kong's
Speaker 1: protest movement to COVID nineteen. In twenty nineteen, a massive
Speaker 1: anti government mobilization swept Hong Kong, with people opposing police
Speaker 1: and seeking greater control over their lives. By the time
Speaker 1: the COVID nineteen pandemic emerged, Hong Kong's chief executive, Carrie Lamb,
Speaker 1: had an eighty percent disapproval rating. Hong Kong's protest movement
Speaker 1: had escalated significantly, with protesters coordinating sophisticated mass mobilizations, including
Speaker 1: the use of bold tactics like fighting police with poles, projectiles,
Speaker 1: laser pointers, and petrol bombs. Lamb was remarkably non responsive
Speaker 1: to the pandemic, despite the vulnerable position of Hong Kong,
Speaker 1: a densely packed city with a history of epidemics and
Speaker 1: a high speed railway connection to Wuhan, where the COVID
Speaker 1: nineteen pandemics started. Hong Kong residents criticized Lamb for her
Speaker 1: delay in closing the city's borders and her order barring
Speaker 1: city workers from wearing masks. But despite the government's failures,
Speaker 1: the people of Hong Kong, mobilized by the protest movement,
Speaker 1: launched a response that suppressed the original wave of COVID
Speaker 1: nineteen and mitigated its resurgence. On the day the first
Speaker 1: over A nineteen case in Hong Kong was confirmed, people
Speaker 1: from the protest movement created a website that tracked cases,
Speaker 1: monitored hot spots, reported hospital wait times and warned about
Speaker 1: places selling fake personal protective equipment PPE. The protesters defied
Speaker 1: the government's ban on masks and countered misinformation from the
Speaker 1: World Health Organization discouraging their use. They set up brigades
Speaker 1: that made and distributed masks, especially making sure they reached
Speaker 1: poor people and old people. They created a system of
Speaker 1: volunteers to set up hand sanitizer stations throughout crowded tenement
Speaker 1: housing and maintain the supply of sanitizer at the stations.
Speaker 1: They also created digital maps to identify the station sites.
Speaker 1: This essential mutual aid work was complemented by boulder strategies.
Speaker 1: When the government refused to close the border with China,
Speaker 1: seven thousand medical workers as part of labor unions that
Speaker 1: had been formed during the protest movement, went on strike,
Speaker 1: demanding ppe in that the border be closed. Members of
Speaker 1: the protest movement threatened the government with stronger action if
Speaker 1: steps were not taken to address the epidemic and explosives
Speaker 1: were found at the border with China, possibly for this purpose,
Speaker 1: The Hong Kong government then created quarantine centers and dense neighbourhoods,
Speaker 1: but never consulted the people in those neighborhoods, and the
Speaker 1: protest movement responded by throwing explosives into the quarantine centers
Speaker 1: before they were used, causing the government to change the
Speaker 1: location of the facilities to less densely populated holiday villages.
Speaker 1: As a result of these efforts by a mobilized and
Speaker 1: coordinated movement and no thanks to the government, Hong Kong
Speaker 1: had an immensely successful response to the first wave of
Speaker 1: COVID nineteen. Through the combination of mutual aid and direct
Speaker 1: action to force concessions, the protesters did what the government
Speaker 1: would not do on its own, saving untold numbers of lives.
Speaker 1: This book provides a concrete guide for building mutual aid
Speaker 1: groups and networks. Part one explores what mutual aid is,
Speaker 1: why it is different than charity, and how it relates
Speaker 1: to other social movement tactics. Part two dives into the
Speaker 1: nitty gritty of how to work together in mutual aid
Speaker 1: groups and how to handle the challenges of group decision making, conflict,
Speaker 1: and burnout. It includes charts and lists that can be
Speaker 1: brought to group meetings to stimulate conversation and build shared
Speaker 1: analysis and group practices. Ultimately, I hope this book helps
Speaker 1: readers imagine how we can coordinate to collectively take care
Speaker 1: of ourselves even in the face of disaster, and mobilize
Speaker 1: hundreds of millions of people to make deep and lasting change.
Speaker 1: Part one. What is mutual aid. Mutual aid is collective
Speaker 1: coordination to meet each other's needs, usually from an awareness
Speaker 1: that the systems we have in place are not going
Speaker 1: to meet them. Those systems, in fact, have often created
Speaker 1: the crisis or are making things worse. We see examples
Speaker 1: of mutual aid in every single social movement, whether it's
Speaker 1: people raising money for workers on strike, setting up a
Speaker 1: ride sharing system during the Montgomery bus boycott, putting drinking
Speaker 1: water in the desert for migrants crossing the border, training
Speaker 1: each other in emergency medicine because ambulance responds time in
Speaker 1: poor neighborhoods is too slow, raising money to pay for
Speaker 1: abortions for those who can't afford them, or coordinating letter
Speaker 1: writing to prisoners. These are mutual aid projects. They directly
Speaker 1: meet people's survival needs and are based on a shared
Speaker 1: understanding that the conditions in which we are made to
Speaker 1: live are unjust. There is nothing new about mutual aid.
Speaker 1: People have worked together to survive for all of human history,
Speaker 1: but capitalism and colonialism created structures that have disrupted how
Speaker 1: people have historically connected with each other and shared everything
Speaker 1: they needed to survive. As people were forced into systems
Speaker 1: of wage labor and private property and wealth became increasingly concentrated,
Speaker 1: our ways of caring for each other have become more
Speaker 1: and more tenuous. Today, many of us live in the
Speaker 1: most adomized societies in human history, which makes our lives
Speaker 1: less secure and undermines our ability to organize together to
Speaker 1: change unjust conditions. On a large scale, we are put
Speaker 1: in competition with each other for survival, and we are
Speaker 1: forced to rely on hostile systems like health care systems
Speaker 1: designed around profit, not keeping people healthy, or food or
Speaker 1: transportation systems that pollute the earth and poison people for
Speaker 1: the things we need. More and more people report that
Speaker 1: they have no one they can confide in when they
Speaker 1: are in trouble. This means many of us do not
Speaker 1: get help with mental health, drug use, family violence, or
Speaker 1: abuse until the police or courts are involved, which tends
Speaker 1: to escalate rather than resolve harm. In this context of
Speaker 1: social isolation and forced dependency on hostile systems, mutual aid,
Speaker 1: where we choose to help each other out, share things,
Speaker 1: and put time and resources into caring for the most
Speaker 1: vulnerable is a radical act, and we can see again
Speaker 1: an again how mutual aid is a primary on ramp
Speaker 1: for people into resistance movements. Mutual aid tables and tents
Speaker 1: at protests and occupations of public space are the places
Speaker 1: where new people out in the streets for the first
Speaker 1: time seeking to join with others often make their first contact.
Speaker 1: People in crisis who find support through a mutual aid
Speaker 1: project break through the isolation and stigma to connect with
Speaker 1: others who imagine that collective action is the solution. As
Speaker 1: more and more people become outraged by the compounding disasters,
Speaker 1: we need millions of entry points into resistance movements, and
Speaker 1: mutual aid is so frequently where people build those initial
Speaker 1: relationships and find a connection to the work. And nothing,
Speaker 1: by the way, connects me to the work, like these
Speaker 1: goods and services, that's right, they just bring you right
Speaker 1: in to Now that's not true, Well, they're here anyway.
Speaker 1: Here's Ads and Rebecca Chapter one. Three key elements of
Speaker 1: mutual aid One. Mutual aid projects work to meet survival
Speaker 1: needs and build shared understanding about why people do not
Speaker 1: have what they need. Mutual aid projects expose the reality
Speaker 1: that people do not have what they need and propose
Speaker 1: that we can address this injustice together. The most famous
Speaker 1: example in the United States is the Black Panther Party's
Speaker 1: Survival programs, which ran throughout the nineteen sixties and nineteen seventies,
Speaker 1: including a free breakfast program, free ambulance program, free medical clinics,
Speaker 1: a service offering rides to elderly people doing errands, and
Speaker 1: a school aimed at providing a rigorous liberation curriculum to children.
Speaker 1: The Black Panther programs welcome people into the liberation strung
Speaker 1: by creating spaces and build a shared analysis about the
Speaker 1: conditions they were facing. Instead of feeling ashamed about not
Speaker 1: being able to feed their kids in a culture that
Speaker 1: blames poor people, especially poor Black people, for their poverty,
Speaker 1: people attending the Panther's Free Breakfast program got food and
Speaker 1: a chance to build shared analysis about black poverty. It
Speaker 1: broke stigma and isolation, met material needs, and got people
Speaker 1: fired up to work together for change. Recognizing the program's
Speaker 1: early success, FBI director j Edgar Hoover famously wrote in
Speaker 1: a nineteen sixty nine memo sent to all field offices
Speaker 1: that quote. The BCP Breakfast for Children program represents the
Speaker 1: best and most influential activity going for the BPP Black
Speaker 1: Panther Party, and as such is potentially the greatest threat
Speaker 1: to efforts by authorities to neutralize the BPP and destroy
Speaker 1: what it stands for. The night before the Chicago program
Speaker 1: was supposed to open, police broke into the church that
Speaker 1: was hosting it and urinated on all the food. The
Speaker 1: government's attacks on the Black Panther Party are evidence of
Speaker 1: mutual aid's power, as is the government's co optation of
Speaker 1: the program. In the early nineteen seventies, the US Department
Speaker 1: of Agriculture expanded its federal free breakfast program, built on
Speaker 1: a charity not liberation model that still feeds millions of
Speaker 1: children today. The Black Panthers provided a striking vision of liberation,
Speaker 1: asserting that black people had to defend themselves against a
Speaker 1: violent and racist government, and that they could organize to
Speaker 1: give each other what a racist society withheld. During the
Speaker 1: same period, the Young Lord's Party undertook similar and related
Speaker 1: mutual aid projects in their work towards Puerto Rican liberation.
Speaker 1: The Young Lords brought people into the movement by starting
Speaker 1: with the Everyday needs of Puerto Ricans and impoverished communities.
Speaker 1: They protested the lack of garbage pickups in Puerto Rican neighborhoods,
Speaker 1: hijacked a city mobile X ray truck to bring greater
Speaker 1: tuberculosis tests in to Puerto Rican communities, took over part
Speaker 1: of a hospital to provide healthcare, and provided food and
Speaker 1: youth programs for Puerto Rican communities. Their vision for decolonizing
Speaker 1: Puerto Rico and liberating Puerto Ricans in the United States
Speaker 1: from racism, poverty, and police terror was put into practice
Speaker 1: through mutual aid. Throughout the nineteen sixties and seventies, many
Speaker 1: overlapping movements undertook mutual aid efforts, such as feminist health
Speaker 1: clinics and activist run abortion providers, emerging volunteer run gay
Speaker 1: health clinics, childcare collectives, tenants, unions, and community food projects.
Speaker 1: Although this moment is an important reference point for the
Speaker 1: contemporary left, mutual aid didn't start in the sixties, but
Speaker 1: is an ongoing feature of movements seeking transformative change. Klebanali,
Speaker 1: project coordinator and Indigenous Media Action argues that mutual aid
Speaker 1: is an unbroken tradition among Indigenous people across many cycles
Speaker 1: of colonialism maintained through the traditional teachings that contemporary Indigenous
Speaker 1: mutual aid projects are working to restore and amplify. Settlers
Speaker 1: have long work to undermine Indigenous people's self sustaining practices
Speaker 1: by first destroying food systems and then forcing dependency on
Speaker 1: rations given at forts and missions and now by sedtler nonprofits.
Speaker 1: Indigenous mutual aid efforts are both a matter of survival
Speaker 1: and a powerful form of resistance to the force dependence
Speaker 1: on settler systems. The long tradition of mutual aid societies
Speaker 1: and other forms of quote self help and black communities,
Speaker 1: which as early as the seventeen eighties sought to pool
Speaker 1: resources to provide health and life insurance, care for the sick,
Speaker 1: aid for burials, support for widows and orphans, and public
Speaker 1: education efforts is another important example. These efforts have addressed
Speaker 1: black exclusion from white infrastructures by creating black alternatives. Long
Speaker 1: traditions of mutual aid are also visible in working class
Speaker 1: communities that have long supported workers on strike so that
Speaker 1: they could pay rent and buy food while confronting their bosses.
Speaker 1: Perhaps most of all, the pervasive presence of mutual aid
Speaker 1: during sudden disasters of all kinds, storms, floods, fires, and earthquakes.
Speaker 1: Demonstrates how people come together to care for each other
Speaker 1: and share resources when inevitably the government is not there
Speaker 1: to help, offers relief that does not reach the most
Speaker 1: vulnerable people, and deploys law enforcement against displaced disaster survivors.
Speaker 1: Mutual aid is a powerful force. Two Mutual aid projects
Speaker 1: mobilize people, expand solidarity, and build movements. Mutual aid is
Speaker 1: essential to building social movements. People often come to social
Speaker 1: movement groups because they need something eviction defense, childcare, social connection,
Speaker 1: health care, or help in a fight with a government
Speaker 1: about something like welfare benefits, disability services, immigration status, or
Speaker 1: custody of their children. Being able to get help in
Speaker 1: a crisis is often a condition for being politically active,
Speaker 1: because it's very difficult to organize when you are also
Speaker 1: struggling to survive. Getting support through a mutual aid project
Speaker 1: that has a political analysis of the conditions that produce
Speaker 1: your crisis also helps break stigma, shame, and isolation. Under capitalism,
Speaker 1: social problems resulting from exploitation in the maldistribution of resources
Speaker 1: are understood as individual moral failings, not systemic problems. Getting
Speaker 1: support at a place that sees the systems, not the
Speaker 1: people suffering in them, as the problem can help people
Speaker 1: move from shame to anger and defiance. Mutual aid exposes
Speaker 1: the failures of the current system and shows an alternative.
Speaker 1: This work is based in a belief that those on
Speaker 1: the front lines of a crisis have the best wisdom
Speaker 1: to solve the problems, and that collective act is the
Speaker 1: way forward. Mutual aid projects also build solidarity. I have
Speaker 1: seen this at the Silvia Rivera Law Project SRLP, a
Speaker 1: law collective that provides free legal help to trans and
Speaker 1: gender non conforming people who are low income and or
Speaker 1: people of color. I worked with the group from two
Speaker 1: thousand and two to twenty nineteen. Again and again I
Speaker 1: saw people come to SRLP for help because something bad
Speaker 1: had happened to them in a shelter, in prison, or
Speaker 1: in interaction with cops, immigration authorities, the foster care system, or
Speaker 1: public schools. People seeking legal services for these problems would
Speaker 1: be invited to participate in organizing and become part of SRLP,
Speaker 1: working on changing the conditions that had brought them to
Speaker 1: the group. As people joined, things were often bumpy. Members
Speaker 1: may have had some things in common, being trans or
Speaker 1: gender non conforming, for example, but also differed from one
Speaker 1: another in terms of race, immigration status, ability, HIV status, age, housing, access,
Speaker 1: sexual orientation, language, and more. By working together and participating
Speaker 1: in shared political education programs, members could learn about experiences
Speaker 1: different from theirs and build solidarity across those differences. This
Speaker 1: changed and continues to change, not only the individuals in
Speaker 1: the group, but the kind of politics the group practices.
Speaker 1: Solidarity is what builds and connects large scale movements. In
Speaker 1: the context of professionalized nonprofit organizations, groups are urged to
Speaker 1: be single issue oriented, framing their message around quote deserving
Speaker 1: people within the population they serve, and using tactics palatable
Speaker 1: to elites. Prison oriented groups are supposed to fight for
Speaker 1: only the quote innocent or the quote non violent, for example,
Speaker 1: and do their work by lobbying politicians about how some people,
Speaker 1: not all people, don't belong in prison. This is the
Speaker 1: opposite of solidarity because it means the most vulnerable people
Speaker 1: are left behind, those who are upcharged by cops and prosecutors,
Speaker 1: those who do not have the means to prove their innocence,
Speaker 1: those who do not match cultural tropes of innocence and deservedness.
Speaker 1: This narrow focus actually strengthens the system's legitimacy by advocating
Speaker 1: that the targeting of those more stigmatized people is okay.
Speaker 1: This pattern of anti solidarity incentives and practices has been
Speaker 1: devastating for movements. As in the next chapter, solidarity across
Speaker 1: issues and populations is what makes movements big and powerful.
Speaker 1: Without that connection, we end up with disconnected groups working
Speaker 1: in their issue silos, undermining each other, competing for attention
Speaker 1: and funding, not backing each other up, and not building power.
Speaker 1: Mutual aid projects, by creating spaces where people come together
Speaker 1: on the basis of some shared need or concern in
Speaker 1: spite of their different lived experience, cultivate solidarity. Groups doing
Speaker 1: mutual aid to directly address real problems and real people's
Speaker 1: lives tend to develop a multie and solidarity based approach
Speaker 1: because their members' lives are cross cut by many different
Speaker 1: experiences of vulnerability. Sometimes, even groups that start out with
Speaker 1: a narrow goal adopt a wider horizon of solidarity and
Speaker 1: a wider vision of political possibility if they use the
Speaker 1: mutual aid model. An initial goal of serving people impacted
Speaker 1: by homelessness quickly reveals that racism, colonialism, immigration, enforcement, ableism,
Speaker 1: police violence, the foster care system, the healthcare system, transphobia,
Speaker 1: and more are all causes of homelessness or causes of
Speaker 1: further harm to homeless people. Solidarity in an ever expanding
Speaker 1: commitment to justice emerge from contact with the complex realities
Speaker 1: of injustice. This is exactly how movements are built, as
Speaker 1: people become connected to each other and as one urgent
Speaker 1: issue unspools into a broader vision of social transformation. But
Speaker 1: do you know how podcasts are built? Dear listeners? Do
Speaker 1: you know that some of them, including the very podcast
Speaker 1: you are listening to now, are built on the dollars
Speaker 1: of advertisers? For better and for worse? And here they
Speaker 1: are and we're back. Three. Mutual aid projects are participatory,
Speaker 1: solving problems through collective action rather than waiting for saviors.
Speaker 1: Mutual aid projects help people develop skills for collaboration, participation,
Speaker 1: and decision making. For example, people engaged in a project
Speaker 1: to help one another through housing court proceedings will learn
Speaker 1: the details of how the system harms people and how
Speaker 1: to fight it. But they will also learn about meeting facilitation,
Speaker 1: working across differences, retaining volunteers, addressing conflict, giving and receiving feedback,
Speaker 1: following through and coordinating schedules and transportation. They may also
Speaker 1: learn that it is not just lawyers who can do
Speaker 1: this kind of work, and that many people, including themselves,
Speaker 1: have something to offer. This departs from expertise based social
Speaker 1: services that tell us we need to have a social worker,
Speaker 1: licensed therapist, lawyer, or some other person with an advanced
Speaker 1: degree to get things done. Mutual Aid projects always include
Speaker 1: an invitation to participate in any offer of support. People
Speaker 1: are invited to take a tent or water or food,
Speaker 1: but also to become part of the project. Getting material
Speaker 1: support from the Mutual Aid group isn't conditional on participating.
Speaker 1: You can have what we're giving out whether or not
Speaker 1: you come to our next meeting and join our protest
Speaker 1: at the Landlord's office on Tuesday. But because mutual Aid
Speaker 1: is based on an understanding that we won't solve the
Speaker 1: crises we are facing through just giving things to each other,
Speaker 1: we must organize as many people as possible to care
Speaker 1: for each other and fight back. Any aide shared includes
Speaker 1: an invitation to become part of the world work. Every
Speaker 1: person in crisis or need is also a person who
Speaker 1: can be part of transforming the conditions with others. Mutual
Speaker 1: Aid is inherently anti authoritarian, demonstrating how we can do
Speaker 1: things together in ways we were told not to imagine,
Speaker 1: and that we can organize human activity without coercion. Most
Speaker 1: people have never been to a meeting where there is
Speaker 1: not a boss or an authority figure with decision making power.
Speaker 1: Most people work or go to school inside hierarchies where
Speaker 1: disobedience leads to punishment or exclusion. We bring our learned
Speaker 1: practices of hierarchy with us even when no paycheck or
Speaker 1: punishment enforces our participation, or even in volunteer groups where
Speaker 1: we often find ourselves in conflicts stemming from learned dominance behaviors.
Speaker 1: But collective spaces like mutual Aid organizing can give us
Speaker 1: opportunities to unlearned conditioning and build new skills and capacities.
Speaker 1: By participating in groups and new ways, and practicing new
Speaker 1: ways of being together, we are both building the world
Speaker 1: we want and becoming the kind of people who could
Speaker 1: live in such a world together. For example, in the
Speaker 1: occupy encampments that emerged in twenty eleven to protest economic inequality,
Speaker 1: people shared ideas about how to resolve conflict without calling
Speaker 1: the police. Occupying brought out many people who had never
Speaker 1: participated in political resistance before, introducing them to practices like
Speaker 1: consensus decision making, occupying public space, distributing free food, and
Speaker 1: engaging in free political education workshops. Many who joined occupy
Speaker 1: did not yet have a developed critique of policing. Participants
Speaker 1: committed to police abolition and anti racism cultivated conversations about
Speaker 1: why activists should not call the police on each other.
Speaker 1: This process was inconsistent and imperfect, but it introduced many
Speaker 1: people to new skills and ideas that they took with
Speaker 1: them long after occupying encampments were dismantled by the police.
Speaker 1: Mutual aid can also generate boldness and a willingness to
Speaker 1: defy illegit jitimate authority. Taking risks with a group for
Speaker 1: a shared purpose can be a reparative experience when we
Speaker 1: have been trained to follow rules. Organizers from mutual a
Speaker 1: disaster relief MADR share the following story in their twenty
Speaker 1: eighteen workshop facilitation guide to illustrate their argument that quote
Speaker 1: audacity is our capacity quote. When a crew of MADR
Speaker 1: organizers after Hurricane Maria traveled to Puerto Rico, some visiting
Speaker 1: their families others bringing medical skills. They found out about
Speaker 1: a government warehouse that was neglecting to distribute huge stockpiles
Speaker 1: of supplies. They showed their MADR badges to the guards
Speaker 1: and said, we are here for the eight am pickup.
Speaker 1: When guards replied that their names were not on the list,
Speaker 1: they just insisted again, we are here for the eight
Speaker 1: am pickup. They were eventually allowed in told to take
Speaker 1: whatever they needed after being led in. Once aid workers
Speaker 1: were able to return, Repeatedly they made more badges for
Speaker 1: local organizers and this source continued to benefit local communities
Speaker 1: for months. MADR asserts that by taking bold actions together quote,
Speaker 1: we can imagine new ways of interacting with the world.
Speaker 1: When dominant ways of living have been suspended, people discover
Speaker 1: that they can break norms and even laws that enable individualism, passivity,
Speaker 1: and respect for private property. Madr asserts that quote saving lives, homes,
Speaker 1: and communities in the event and aftermath of disaster may
Speaker 1: require taking bold action without waiting for permission from authorities.
Speaker 1: Disaster survivors themselves are the most important authority ONUS action.
Speaker 1: Mutual aid projects providing relief to survivors of storms, floods,
Speaker 1: earthquakes and fires, as well as those developed to support
Speaker 1: people living through the crises caused by poverty, racism, criminalization,
Speaker 1: gender violence, and other quote ordinary conditions produce new systems
Speaker 1: that can prevent harm and improve preparedness for the coming disasters.
Speaker 1: When Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico in twenty seventeen, it
Speaker 1: was the existence of food justice efforts that made it
Speaker 1: possible for many people to eat when the corporate food system,
Speaker 1: which brings ninety percent of the island's food from off
Speaker 1: island sources, was halted by the storm. Similarly, it was
Speaker 1: local solar panels that allowed people to charge medical devices
Speaker 1: when the electrical grid went down. By looking at what
Speaker 1: still works in the face of disaster, we can learn
Speaker 1: what we want to build to prepare for the next
Speaker 1: storm or fire. In the Battle for Paradise, Naomi Klein
Speaker 1: authors that locally controlled microgrids are more desirable for delivering
Speaker 1: sustainable energy given the failures of energy monopolies that currently
Speaker 1: dominate energy delivery. In the wake of the devastating twenty
Speaker 1: eighteen California fires, the public learned that the fires were
Speaker 1: caused by Pacific gas and electric companies mismanagement, and then
Speaker 1: watched as California's government immediately offered the company, meanwhile failing
Speaker 1: to support people displaced by the disaster. Klein describes how
Speaker 1: large energy companies work to prevent local and sustainable energy efforts,
Speaker 1: and argues that in energy, as in other areas of survival,
Speaker 1: we should be working toward locally controlled, participatory, transparent structures
Speaker 1: that replace our crumbling and harmful infrastructure. Doing so helps
Speaker 1: us imagine getting rid of the undemocratic infrastructure of our lives,
Speaker 1: the extractive and unjust energy, food, healthcare, and transportation systems,
Speaker 1: and replacing it with people's infrastructure for social movements working
Speaker 1: to imagine and build a transition from quote dig burn
Speaker 1: dump economies to sustainable, regenerative ways of living. Mutual aid
Speaker 1: offers a way forward, and that's chapter one. The author
Speaker 1: Dean Spaede continues in chapter two, which is called Solidarity
Speaker 1: not Charity, and contrasts the ways that mutual aid is
Speaker 1: different to charity work. Actually, it's not called solidarity not charity.
Speaker 1: It's called solidarity not charity because there's an exclamation mark
Speaker 1: in the chapter I'm sorry for Ivan misread that. I'm
Speaker 1: terribly sorry quote This is me reading from the book
Speaker 1: for a quote, because yeah, we're only doing excerpts, but
Speaker 1: we're doing excerpts from part one today, and we're going
Speaker 1: to do excerpts from part two next week anyway. From
Speaker 1: chapter two, quote, mutual aid projects in many ways are
Speaker 1: defined in opposition to the charity model and its current
Speaker 1: iteration in the nonprofit sector. Mutual aid projects mobilize lots
Speaker 1: of people rather than a few experts, resist the use
Speaker 1: of eligibility criteria that cut out more stigmatized people, are
Speaker 1: an integrated part of our lives rather than a pet cause,
Speaker 1: and cultivate a shared analysis of the root causes of
Speaker 1: the problem, and connect people to social movements that can
Speaker 1: address these causes. And then in chapter three, we're all
Speaker 1: We've got where all we need. There's no exclamation mark there,
Speaker 1: but there could be. You could imagine one. This chapter three,
Speaker 1: it's about a lot of different things, but mostly different
Speaker 1: examples demonstrating that the state isn't going to save us,
Speaker 1: and we need to be brave enough to rely on
Speaker 1: each other if we want to make it through the
Speaker 1: many crises at hand. Quote. Mutual aid is only one
Speaker 1: tactic in the social movement ecosystem. It operates alongside direct action,
Speaker 1: political education, and many other tactics, but it is the
Speaker 1: one that most successfully helps us grow our movements and
Speaker 1: build our people power because it brings people into coordinated
Speaker 1: action to change things Right now. As mutual Aid expands
Speaker 1: in the context of the COVID nineteen crisis, in climate change,
Speaker 1: cause disaster zones, and during economic crises, we have a
Speaker 1: chance to cultivate millions of new resistance fighters, to teach
Speaker 1: ourselves to work together in long term ways, and to
Speaker 1: develop our ability to practice solidarity based co stewardship in
Speaker 1: all areas of collective life. Yeah, and so next week
Speaker 1: we'll get into part two and Dean Spade's advice for
Speaker 1: organizing on your own, whether that's a Mutual Aid project
Speaker 1: or something else. And I want to end on this
Speaker 1: last quote though, because it's just one of many beautifully
Speaker 1: succinct and motivational tidbits in this book. Quote. What we
Speaker 1: build now and whether we can sustain it will determine
Speaker 1: how prepared we are for the next pandemic, the climate
Speaker 1: induced disasters to come, the ongoing disasters of white supremacy
Speaker 1: and capitalism, and the beautifully disruptive rebellions that will transform them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and Dean Spade's bio. Dean Spade is an organizer, writer,
Speaker 1: and teacher. He has been working to build queer and
Speaker 1: transliberation based in racial and economic justice for the past
Speaker 1: two decades. He is a professor at the Seattle University
Speaker 1: School of Law. He's the author of Love in a
Speaker 1: Fucked Up World. Well, actually it's in an f asterisk
Speaker 1: cked Upworld, but I think it's pronounced fucked another book
Speaker 1: called Normal Life, and this book Mutual Aid, which is
Speaker 1: getting an updated reissue from Versa with new chapters, updated
Speaker 1: k studies, and retooled writing for a new political context.
Speaker 1: Dean is also the host of the Love and a
Speaker 1: Fucked Up World podcast. You can keep up with his
Speaker 1: projects online at Deanspade dot net, d E A n
Speaker 1: SPA d e dot net, or by following him on
Speaker 1: Instagram at Spade dot Dean or Blue Sky at Dean Spade.
Speaker 1: If you like this reading, let me know that you
Speaker 1: want more like it, because you know we mostly do fiction.
Speaker 1: You can find me Margaret on Blue Sky at Margaret.
Speaker 1: Because I got Margaret because I was an early adopter,
Speaker 1: I didn't actually use it for a very long time,
Speaker 1: but I got Margaret dot b Sky dot app or
Speaker 1: whatever the fuck it is. You can find this book
Speaker 1: club on the feeds for it could Happen here and
Speaker 1: cool people who did cool stuff, or you can find
Speaker 1: it on its own feed with its own art if
Speaker 1: you like Dean. I did an interview with him on
Speaker 1: mutual aid and disaster preparedness on another podcast that I
Speaker 1: work on called Live Like the World Is Dying, which
Speaker 1: you should also listen to. Hazel helps me with the
Speaker 1: scripts and research. Eva does our audio editing, and that's
Speaker 1: it for us tonight. There's so much I want to
Speaker 1: say about this, but the episode is already running along
Speaker 1: because I wanted to get as much of Dean Spades
Speaker 1: writing in. Honestly, mostly I want to just like underline
Speaker 1: things and say like, yes, but stay safe, stay dangerous.
Speaker 1: Fuck Ice, I love you some of you maybe probably Bye.
Speaker 1: It could happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
Speaker 1: cool Zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Speaker 1: You can find sources where it could happen here, updated
Speaker 1: monthly at coolzonemedia dot com, Slash sources, Thanks for listening.